Benny was understandably excited about creating a Path. This had been gnawing at him for a while, based on how relieved he seemed to be. My best friend had his own pride and liked to play things close to the vest at the oddest times. He hadn’t wanted me to know that he was just as worried about things as I was, even when he was pissed at me.

I wanted to help him study some techniques for his new Path, but unfortunately, we ran into a problem pretty quickly. Or rather, a few problems. Firstly, Benny’s Fantasy was five hundred and fifty six. Amusingly, his new Path should actually help with that once he could use it properly, that had been part of the calculation of making a more fantastical Path rather than something tech based, but for now, he was VERY low on the important stat.

Fantasy, from what I can tell, substituted for a Domain when it came to using a path, allowing you to create molds for techniques without your own world to use them through. This was entirely based on my own conjecture, not something I was told, but it seemed to fit.

The second big problem was that while I seemed to be a natural genius at technique formation, and Callie was able to piggy back off that through the bond (not to mention she had a pretty high Fantasy stat), Benny didn’t have any such advantage. We had no supernatural connection I could use to beam him thoughts and impressions, and without it I had zero clue how to teach him.

He ended up going to find my mom to ask for her help, and once he left, I decided I should start work on helping Felicity.

My first attempt to help her came in the obvious form. I called Jessie over, and I asked my incredibly overpowered healer friend to try to repair some of the damage with her ability. I was ninety percent sure it would fail, this wasn’t a bodily injury, but it wasn’t like it could hurt anything to try.

When she arrived, we headed over to see Felicity. She was sitting in the library at the inn, reading a book in front of the fire. Her face, as usual, was completely empty, and her eyes were blank as they scanned the words, like she was a computer processing the text.

“Felicity.” I said as we entered. “I was wondering if we could talk?”

She smiled her mechanical smile. “Of course, Shane. I am your guardian now, you can speak to me about anything. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, I think there’s something I can help you with.” I responded bluntly. “I believe you’ve been injured, and I want to help fix you. Would you mind if Jessie takes a look at you? Her ability is very powerful, and if you’re injured she may be able to help.”

She cocked her head in confusion. “But I do not feel injured. I suppose I sometimes overlook things like that. My father says I am very clumsy, because I often do not notice when I am in pain.” The fact that Craygen blamed his daughter for being a broken shell of a person after he sandpapered her fucking soul was both unsurprising and infuriating, but I just pushed that down.

“I understand.” I said reassuringly. “It might be nothing, but as my guardian I need to make sure you’re at the top of your game. Otherwise I’m putting myself in danger, right?”

She nodded in understanding. “Of course. If my performance is suboptimal it must be corrected. I apologize, I was unaware I had failed you in such a short time. My transgressions were unacceptable and will not happen again.”

I wanted to tell her that was stupid and she hadn’t done anything, but if she was going to let us treat her, I figured that particular conversation could wait until she had the emotional depth to understand it. I gestured to Jessie, who nodded stiffly, stepping forward to place her hands on Felicity’s shoulders.

Jessie was moving jerkily and her jaw was tight. It was easy to see she was furious, clearly as outraged by what had been done to Felicity as I was. I saw her hands glow as she started funneling her energy into the other girl, looking for something to heal.

She didn’t have a scanning ability, but her power was partly based on first aid, which was partly diagnostic. She’d also gotten a lot of practice back on Stratholme, treating different injuries and learning more about how healing worked. Jessie had been slowly increasing her Skills for quite a while now, and she used them to their fullest extent to try to fix the C-ranker.

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Sadly, when she removed her hands, her expression was downcast. “I’m sorry.” She told me sadly. “I tried. I thought I might be able to do something, maybe there could have been brain damage or something, but I can’t find anything wrong with her.”

I nodded. “I get it. Not your fault. We figured that would be the case. This was a long shot to begin with. I’ll take it from here. I have an idea that might work.”

Nodding sadly, she stepped back, letting me take her place. “Felicity, you haven’t taken any physical damage, but I think I might be able to treat you with another method. Do you mind if I try accessing your soul?”

“I do not mind.” She said blankly. “If I am damaged, I must be repaired. I cannot be of use otherwise.”

I was DEEPLY disturbed listening to her talk like that. It was creepy to the extent that my skin was almost physically crawling. The fact that one person could do this to another was an abomination, and that wasn’t even taking into account that he was her fucking father. I briefly entertained the idea of trying to have him killed, but that wasn’t my place. Felicity was the one who had been hurt. Once she was fixed, she could decide how to handle her father.

Putting my hands up in front of her face, I triggered Zagan. My hair blazed up into green flame, and I closed my eyes, focusing on the space between my palms as I started to condense a Life Nova.

Much like Cosmic Collapse, Life Nova was a scaling attack (if one could call it that). I could slowly build up the power, packing it tighter and tighter. Which I did. I focused, shifting the image in my head as I tweaked the technique on the fly.

I built myself a new narrative, a story about a life giving sun that shone its healing light on a broken world. The sun let the power of rejuvenation fall upon the cracked and broken planet, and it slowly began to heal. Not just the plants or animals, but the world itself, the society. At high enough concentrations, anything could be healed.

Unfortunately, I hit a wall about twenty minutes in. I didn’t have enough Fantasy to structure something this complex, and even my Solid Path couldn’t support it solo. Without even having to ask, I felt a flood of Fantasy as Callie opened the bond to let me tap into her power, and then let her own Path support mine, giving it strength.

Paradoxically, I almost lost control of the technique when that happened. It had changed too much, shifted too far from the form I was trying to use. I had to backstop it, coming up with a story about Zagan, the life giving demon prince that traded in the fates of others to gain influence.

My head was on fire, I’d had to use about six different parallels with Piece of Mind to balance all the conflicting concepts and stories and influences. This was going to knock me flat on my ass when I finished, but I powered through.

Denser and denser, I layered the Life Nova, staring deeply into the roiling verdant shine, watching the flickers of silver fire in its depths. Felicity sat unperturbed, watching the soothing green light, and then when I couldn’t hold on another second. When I couldn’t take any more power, I opened my Eye of Revelation and flicked the Life Nova gently with my middle fingers.

Felicity let out an oh of surprise, and as she opened her mouth, the green light exploded towards her, driving through her mouth, eyes, and nose as it burrowed inside and her whole body was lit up by the energy.

Zagan’s flame was a mixture of Jessie’s power, Chelsea’s purification, and my own Afterburner, mixed with Consecration of Flame. It did a lot of things. Purify, heal, and strengthen (Consecration of Flame not only strengthened on its own but its holy undertones synergized well with the purification flame).

The Life Nova did all that times a hundred, and I’d done my best to aim it at exactly the issue we were dealing with, not that I was sure it would work. My eyes were fixed on Felicity as the flames exploded within her, the Life Nova detonating inside the soul in a way that vindicated my theory about soul repair, even if it was at a VERY low level.

Felicity’s eyes, formerly blank and empty, flickered slightly with green and silver. She blinked a few times, brow wrinkling slightly before smoothing out. “That was an unusual feeling.” She said dully. “I don’t believe I’ve experienced such a thing before. Did you manage to repair the damage?”

I clutched my head, feeling Callie try her best to pull the pain away as she absorbed some of the damage. My parallels had collapsed as soon as I detonated the Life Nova, and the backlash was excruciating. My soul wasn’t damaged too badly, since Callie had been helping, but it had been a close thing.

Felicity didn’t seem to mind my distracted state, and she simply sat and waited as I recovered. “No.” I ground out. “Not completely. But I did improve your condition. We’ll need to keep at this. I’ll get better at it as we go, but we’re on the right track.”

Despite the pain, I was triumphant. Like I told her, I couldn’t fix her right away. In fact, I was BARELY able to help. Felicity was a C-ranker with both shackles broken. Her soul and Impact were both beyond mine. My Life Nova had, at best, scratched the surface of the repairs she needed.

But they HAD scratched the surface. Even a tiny chip at the damage was something, because it meant that I could keep chipping away and eventually fix it. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it meant there was hope, and that was a huge relief.

Felicity smiled, and it might have been my imagination, but it seemed just a little less stiff and forced than usual. Still unsettling, but more human than most of her expressions. “That is good to hear. I am hopeful that I will be back to proper fighting form before a threat presents itself.”

I smiled at her wanly, standing and nearly falling over as I lost my balance. Jessie caught me, flooding my body with life energy that only barely helped. She escorted me to the door, and when it opened, my fiancee’s worried face was the first thing I saw. She thanked Jessie, then put one of my arms over her shoulders and escorted me away.

“You’re not going to yell at me?” I rasped. “That must have hurt you a lot.”

She leaned up to peck me on the cheek. “Some things are worth a little pain. I’m not mad. I’m proud of you. And I’ll help however I can until the job is done.” We lapsed into silence after that. We didn’t need words. She could feel how much that meant to me. She helped me to our room and into bed, and then climbed in after me, and we passed out, drifting into a healing sleep.