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The Fusionist Book 7 -- Chapter 19
🕑 Added 2024-09-18 20:22:59 +0000 UTCChapter 19
Setting The Hopper down in the field outside of the walls, Larek was relieved to see that Thanesh appeared relatively normal – and not like they were recovering from a sudden attack by the Gergasi. The flow of Transport traffic going in and out of the designated field for it was extremely busy, as were the gates with all the crowds moving through them in both directions, but he was beginning to see that this was “normal” for the city. What he thought was wild was the fact that they had large groups of Volunteers moving through the region and reestablishing smaller abandoned towns to help with handling the former Calamity area, and yet there seemed to be even more people living in the city than before he left. Then again, he hadn’t really been paying attention to much and had been focused on what he was wanting to learn from an Aperture at the time, so it might have been this busy and he hadn’t noticed.
When they exited The Hopper, Larek jumped down and was immediately stopped by a Volunteer with a clipboard and a put-upon expression on her face. He didn’t recognize the woman who came from the Kingdom – at least based on her appearance – and he was immediately sure that she didn’t recognize him. He could feel that she had only had the Fusion in her head that helped prevent her from being controlled by bugs or by Dominion magic, but there wasn’t the newer Gradual Aetheric Purification Array in her chest that would unlock her potential. Based on that, he could only assume that she was a new arrival and had likely never seen him before; with how many tens of thousands of people that were now part of the organization, it wouldn’t surprise him to learn that no more than a quarter of them even knew who he was – with those that had seem him personally being even fewer in number.
“Excuse me, where do you think you’re parking that Transport?” she demanded, looking between her clipboard and The Hopper, before focusing on him. “This spot is reserved for leadership only, which means that you’ll have to move it immediately. In addition, I don’t see a designation icon on the outside of the Transport, something that should’ve been installed during construction, so you need to check with the Transport Supervisor to get that problem resolved. Also,” she continued, completely oblivious to who she was talking to as she looked at the others climbing down the side of The Hopper, “I don’t see any of you wearing the new security badges that you should’ve been issued as soon as you were in contact with the Volunteers, as they denote that you’ve obtained at least the Fusion to eliminate the mind-controlling bugs.”
Looking back to Larek, who was staring at her in a mixture of amusement and confusion over some of the things she was saying about designation icons and security badges, she seemed exasperated when he didn’t respond. “You do know what a Fusion is, right? You should’ve had one of them installed in your head when you were rescued.”
Grumbling to herself for a moment, he thought he heard her say something like, “Seriously, what are they telling these people nowadays?” before she continued in a lecturing voice. “From now on, you must wear your security badges at all times as a precaution; we don’t want anyone from the SIC or the hostile nearby Factions to easily infiltrate our city, after all.”
Before the Fusionist or anyone else – including Nedira, who had walked up next to him –could say anything, she looked at them all suspiciously. “In fact, this entire thing,” she said, pointing to him and the others, “is very suspect. Where did you say you came from? Actually, first, can you show me your security badges? I need to report this incident to my supervisor, as this is all completely against regulations.”
“I’m sorry, we don’t have any of these security badges,” Nedira abruptly spoke up when Larek was still trying to figure out how to respond. He nearly created another Pattern box construct so he could fly everyone to the city, as this was all too much for him and he had other things on his mind, but his betrothed put her hand on his arm as if she could tell he was about to do just that. “The last time we were here, which was just yesterday morning, I hadn’t heard about any security badges.”
“That’s unlikely, as they started to be implemented a few days ago. In fact, that sounds exactly like what an infiltrator would say if they were hadn’t heard about our precautions, so I’m going to have to report you immediately.” She lifted an object tied to a string around her neck and blew into it, and it quickly became obvious that it was some kind of whistle as a loud, piercing note reverberated through the field. “SECURITY TO LOT 1!” she then shouted in a surprisingly loud voice.
Sighing, he looked down at Nedira, who he could tell was trying to hide a smile. “Do we need to stay here for this? Let’s just go already and be done with it. We can talk to Kimble later.” Glancing behind him, he saw Penelope and Vivienne looking both wary and amused at all the ruckus. “Besides, they’re embarrassing us in front of our friends.”
She giggled lightly at that and pat his arm again. “Have a little patience, if you would. I’d actually like to see what all this is about, as this was all likely implemented because of what the SIC and the Factions have been doing. It would be nice to see if they’re taking all the reasonable precautions that they can.”
He crossed his arms across his chest, slightly exasperated, but giving in just the same. In reality, he was lightly curious about what exactly the Volunteers were doing with all this security business, but not quite curious enough to want to go through with it. But he would, if only for Nedira’s sake.
It didn’t take long before he could feel nearly 300 Volunteers with their potential fully unlocked speeding toward their location, melee weapons and VREP staves in hand. More than half of them moved fast enough that within seconds Larek’s small group was surrounded, the hostile faces of the security bunch staring at them behind staves pointed in their direction. He thought that it was interesting to see that each of these Volunteers had on dark grey pants and shirts, covered by a similarly colored chestpiece of leather, with an interesting badge emblazoned across the front in white. It looked a large “V” in shape, which he figured stood for Volunteers, and one side of the “V” appeared to be a wooden staff with the other a sword. It was actually fairly creative, he thought, though his mind was more on the fact these people were surrounding them threateningly.
Just in case someone had the foolish idea of actually attacking him, he reached out with his Pattern Manipulation Skill, where he was ready to alter every Fusion on the staves pointing at them to make them stop working. He didn’t think it would come to that, but he wasn’t going to take the chance that those in his care would be harmed.
“Hands up! Drop any weapons you possess, because we’re taking you in for questioning! Make any sudden moves and we won’t hesitate to kill you!” a young man that seemed to be in charge of the others shouted unnecessarily loudly, as if he wasn’t 15 feet away from Larek and the others and was instead a few hundred.
The Fusionist glanced down at Nedira, who was watching the events unfold with a slightly pleased but also worried expression. He cleared his throat, taking over the conversation. “No, we won’t do that,” he stated clearly and loudly, still with his arms crossed. He wanted Nedira to be happy with what she desired to see about this security response, but he wasn’t willing to put everyone else into danger. When the large security force tensed up at his declaration, he continued. “Look, just bring Kimble here and we can get all of this cleared up quickly. He can vouch for me and the others.”
The leader of the security force sniggered as if Larek had said something funny. “Yeah, like we’re going to disturb someone that important. I don’t think you understand how much trouble you’re in if you don’t comply with our orders. Now, DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
The shout was louder this time and he felt a slight use of Stama being used by the security force leader. When he looked closer, he saw that the man had somehow figured out how to infuse his lungs and vocal cords with Stama like a Battle Art, which seemed to increase his volume and added a hint of something else. The closest thing he could think to equate it to was a sense of “authority”. It wasn’t anything like Dominion magic, which made someone follow orders whether they wanted to or not; it was more like an extra bit of persuasion in the tone that would try to convince someone that they should follow orders.
Huh… fascinating. I wonder how he developed that?
Because he saw it happen in real-time, he unexpectedly picked up the new Battle Art.
New Battle Art learned!
Command Shout
Effect: Increases voice volume and infuses a thread of authority into the tone, increasing the likelihood of orders being followed
Duration: 5 seconds
Base Stama Cost: 30
Ah, looks like I was right.
Unfortunately for the security force leader, even this “authority”-type effect was largely negated by the Illuminated Free Will Fusions that he’d created, so it wasn’t more than be a loud order shouted at them. To those without the Fusion, it would probably be a little more effective.
Even as he was thinking about how he might be able to incorporate this new Battle Art into combat, there was a rustle amongst the security force when no one near Larek moved to obey the order. He could feel the rising tension throughout the crowd surrounding them as if it was a physical force, and he thought that he would have to end up breaking all their staves, after all.
“Ah, looks like our fun is over,” Nedira said softly, her eyes tracking something coming from the city gates. Larek immediately caught on to what she was eluding to, and he couldn’t help but slump in relief. It was about time.
“Last chance! Lay down your weapons and come peacefully, or we’ll be forced to kill—”
“Barty! I was told you were alive, but I barely believed it,” the Fusionist heard from behind him as Penelope spotted Bartholomew pushing his way through the assembled security force. Even he was wearing a similar outfit, but his “V” was created in silver rather than white.
“And I thought I told you that the name is Bartholomew, Penny,” Larek’s old bodyguard and apparently influential person within the security ranks to merit a fancier “V” replied, humor in his voice. That humor disappeared as he walked up to stand next to the individual that had been threatening them. “What seems to be the problem here, Donal?”
Donal, the spokesperson for the security force, turned to Bartholomew and pounded his fist against his leather chestpiece right where the “V” was located. “Sir! We were just about to take these infiltrators into custody until we could determine who they are. They have no security badges and wouldn’t comply with our orders, which is against regulations. Furthermore—”
Sighing as the man spoke, Bartholomew shook his head and closed his eyes momentarily before cutting him off. “And did you not, even for a moment, wonder why someone without a security badge arrived here in a Transport, and then parked it in a spot reserved for Volunteer leadership and important couriers? Did you even ask who he was? Or any of these people?”
“No, sir! We were called here by Sweeley, so I can only assume she had determined these things before we arrived.”
Hanging his head in disappointment, Bartholomew looked at Larek. “Sorry about all this,” he apologized. “We’ve had to make some dramatic changes to security after some Faction members snuck in and killed a half-dozen people yesterday, which only compounded the problems we’ve had with the new regulations and security badges that we’ve been rolling out. We would’ve gone over it with you once you got back, but I guess something slipped through the cracks.” Larek just shrugged, glad he could be done with all this.
Turning back to Donal and Sweeley, the woman with the clipboard, he sighed again. “We’re going to have a bit more training on proper procedures and protocol coming up soon, but for now, try to be a bit more inquisitive when investigating potential infiltrators. I fault myself for not updating the list of approved persons without badges in a timely manner, as well as not telling those on that list that they were approved. But, this reaction to a clearly non-hostile group controlling a Transport, which is reserved for those with the knowledge and authority, was blown way out of proportion. I won’t have this type of thing happen again, do you understand?”
“No, I don’t understand, sir; who are they?” Donal spoke up, appearing slightly demoralized at being reprimanded in front of everyone, but also confused about why.
Bartholomew paused for a moment, before gesturing toward Larek. “This is The Fusionist and his betrothed, Nedira. If that name doesn’t mean anything to you, just know that he’s the one that created all of the Fusions you have in your head, chest, and staves, and is my boss.” Waving toward Larek, inviting him to follow, he added to the now pale-faced Donal, “Oh, and just so you know, he could’ve killed all of you within seconds and there would’ve been nothing you could do about it. Just be glad that he’s not one to do that for a slight such as this; he'd have been more likely to simply take off and leave you behind than hurt you, and there wouldn’t have been anything you could do to prevent him from doing that. Thankfully, I got here before we had any serious incidents, as the last thing we need to do is fight amongst ourselves, especially from something as stupid as ignorance.”
This statement caused everyone to stare at Larek as he followed after Bartholomew, some with a bit of fear, but most with what he unfortunately recognized as respectful worship. He did his best to smile and wave at those that seemed fearful, as he was strangely happy to see that they weren’t afraid of him because of his height and who he may or may not be related to, but because of what Bartholomew had said about being able to kill everyone there.
That thought soured his mood from happy to get all the nonsense done with so he could get to work on more important things, to one where he was pretty sure that his old bodyguard wasn’t exaggerating. It only took a second of thought to realize that he could kill every single person that was part of the security force in a matter of a few minutes or less, and not because he could deactivate all of their Fusions. He was simply much stronger, faster, and had an unparallelled ability to cause destruction with his own Fusions and Pattern Cohesion that none of them could match. Even his friends, who were varying degrees much stronger than most of the other Volunteers, wouldn’t be able to stand up to him for long.
It wasn’t that he was ever contemplating attacking them, but he couldn’t help but compare himself to even a single Gergasi. If one of them decided to attack the city and kill everyone inside, it was doubtful that any of them would be able to survive if he wasn’t there to defend them. There was simply too large of a gulf in between them that they couldn’t cross.
At least, not yet.
What they lacked in Levels, stats, Skills, and experience using their abilities they made up with sheer numbers, but that would only get them so far. Fusions would help to make them stronger and give them weapons to fight with, but that could only get them so far. What they needed was the opportunity to continue growing, developing their Skills, and becoming relatively powerful in their own right. In short, they needed time.
Unfortunately, everything lately seemed to be in need of a solution immediately, and there had barely been enough time to get it done. His friends had done wonders with helping to build up the Volunteers, which even led to the closing of the Calamity, but against the Gergasi? They weren’t ready to face them.
When it comes down to it, I’m not ready to face them, either.
But he and the Volunteers would be ready – he’d make sure of that. But to ensure they had enough time to get there, Larek had work hard to keep everyone else off their backs.
First, the nearby Factions needed to be handled, and then he would take out the SIC. Once they were all under control, they would have plenty of time to train and develop themselves to take on the Gergasi…
…and for Larek to finally free his family.
