New System, Who Dis?

Monday, April 1st, 2069

Steel chairs bolted to the floor weren’t comfortable. Even worse when they were directly in front of a matching steel table that confined my personal space. The officers had at least taken off the cuffs they’d reapplied for the jaunt between the car and the station, which allowed me to stand up and pace in the room whenever I grew too claustrophobic, which—given the accommodations, was often.

Somehow, I felt fully in control of myself again—no that wasn’t completely true. Oddly, I felt better than I had even before… I left that thought unfinished. Surely, I’d know if my gift had been drained and broken, right? If I had been Husked?

I figured that my newly found emotional control was probably a good thing. Sure, I still felt victimized by the Shop’s attempted robbery, but no longer was I embarrassed. Instead, I felt angry and exhilarated. I’d been here for over an hour, or at least that’s what it felt like. I was strangely confident in my time-keeping, given that I’d ‘lost the show’ after the… incident when time had become more of what I imagine Doctor What meant when he called it ‘wibbly-wobbly’. At first, I thought perhaps I was still running high on Adrenaline, the hormone masking my Skill-less situation,, but surely this feeling was lasting too long for bio-chemics to be the answer.

Forcing myself to sit down, I examined the feeling. It felt familiar, almost like when that—creep connected a conduit to my Mana Pool. Like I was filled with energy from a source outside myself. Was I just proud that I had stood up for myself? Doped up on endorphins that I’d won a fight with a man with a gun? All those things were certainly true, but I didn’t feel any wavering in my seemingly unending energy levels as I picked up and examined my actions.

That was enough sitting, I decided and stood up to pace again. Just as I spun on my heel to change directions at the first wall, I heard the handle of the door rattle.

The first person in the door was my mother, Clara. I could tell that she wasn’t supposed to be the first person to come in by the sounds of protest from the people behind her.

She rushed over and gave me a hug anyway.

It felt good but highlighted, at least for me, that my body was vibrating. She held on for a long moment before pushing me to arm’s length to look at me. Tears openly flowed down her cheeks, but she didn’t sob. She wore an expression of such depth of emotion that I couldn’t even try to unravel it. Her eyes lingered on the orange pants that the officers had changed me into, and another emotion I couldn’t recognize crossed her face, joining the others.

By the time I managed to look away my father was closing in, which turned my mother’s scrutiny into a family hug. I closed my eyes and tried to sink into the love they had always provided. I failed as that energy deep inside my body hummed—no, growled? Either way, it felt like I physically vibrated. Thankfully, a polite cough forced Gary and Clara to let go before I felt compelled to push them away.

“How are you feeling, Brodie?” a man in a suit asked. I didn’t recognize him at a casual glance. Nor did I recognize the smaller Spanish man who was sitting down with a folder in front of him. He was in a suit as well, and the two almost matched. They must have sensed my hesitation because the first taller man added, “I’m Detective Flair, and this is Detective Volt. We were in charge of the crime scene and we’ve been speaking to your parents outside.”

“I’m feeling better,” I responded hesitantly as my parents subtly guided me back to the bank of metal chairs. They sat me between them protectively.

“That’s fantastic news. Let’s ask you again, since you seem responsive now, can we get you anything? Coffee, water, something to eat?” Detective Volt asked as Flair stayed standing. I twitched in my chair from the exhilarating energy and shook my head in response. The last thing I needed was more energy.

“On second thought,” I said as I saw my parents glance concernedly at each other. “I could go for some water.”

Surely water would help, right?

Flair moved back out of the door and was back before the silence became awkward. The door didn’t even fully shut, which made me think they had a table of refreshments just outside the room. I looked around, trying to decide for the fifth time if this was an interrogation room, or just a space meant for casual discussions.

Sure, it looked a lot like many Hollywood depictions of interrogation rooms, but it had two clear windows. One beside the door with its blinds mostly pulled and one on the left wall, which seemed to show a hallway. Still the bolted furniture—

“This isn’t an interrogation,” Flair said, as he placed a plastic water bottle in front of me,, before taking his seat. “We just need to have a quick chat with you surrounding the circumstances of the altercation tonight.”

“Okay,” I responded dumbly. I wasn’t exactly keen on rehashing the moment ‘The Shop’ found me and guided me into that alley. However, with my current nearly bouncing-out-of-my-seat energy, I was willing to blaze through a retelling.

“How did you know—” Volt checked the folder’s first page, “—Morgan Hallsbrad?”

“Who?” I asked, looking first at both Detectives, for a clue and then my parents.

“He may have had a few other aliases,” Flair hurriedly added. “What were they again, Volt?”

“Let me see here,” Volt answered the other detective as he scanned through pages in the folder.

I tried to get a look inside and read them, but it was upside down and on sheets that were clearly streamlined for the purposes of people who understood them. I did see multiple pictures though. They all seemed to be of a building, but the front of it kept changing.

First it was a ‘Comic Stop,’ and then a ‘Comic Library.’ The more Volt flipped, the more names the building took on. I hadn’t bothered to count at first but knew that the building had at least twenty different names by the time it reached one that made my skin prickle with goosebumps despite the heat of the room.

“The Shop.”

The backs of my knees collided with the metal chair, painfully, as I stood up. The feeling of energy morphed inside of me, and I recognized it finally. It was a muted feeling of when that Greed Pig began using my Mana. My parents both stood beside me and placed a hand on my shoulders, even as the detectives looked first at me and then at the folder.

Volt reached the conclusion first. “I think that was the name of a Business Account on Swiftgram. Can you confirm he was using it? Do you recognize it?”

I closed my eyes and swallowed a lump that was forming in my throat. With my parents' support, I returned from my crouching stand back into my seat before nodding.

“Someone with that name contacted me on SwiftGram almost a week ago. I reported him, blocked, and banned him from my page.”

“You had no other interactions with ‘the Shop’?” Detective Flair asked. I made a face which clearly told the answer they already knew.

“I also had a disagreement with him in the comments of a post on Mana Banks a day or two before that.”

They both nodded, confirming that they already knew.

“That’s the only contact you’ve had with Morgan Hallsbrad?” Flair asked as he noted something down on a small ringed notepad. This note I could read since it was just two letters, ‘SG.’

“Well, umm, assuming that you mean Morgan Hallsbrad is ‘The Shop’, then… yeah?” I answered. I’d made that same connection in the alley, so figured it fit. Then in the silence that followed, I felt the urgent desire to explain the situation to my mother and father as they squeezed my shoulders in support. “He sent me a message asking about getting the price of a one-time Mana Connection—” my mother gasped and I looked at her, hurrying on. “—I didn’t even respond. I just reported him on the spot!”

I glanced at my father on my other side as my mother’s mouth firmed into a hard line.

“I swear dad, I didn’t respond until he started insulting me, and then, yeah, I sort of told him to screw off. It seems like he didn’t appreciate me standing up for myself.”

My dad’s eyes widened even as he squeezed my shoulder again. A hand on the other side grabbed mine and threaded smaller fingers into my own. Since I’d already started I finished telling the story, even admitting the fact that ‘The Shop’ knew my actual name.

I didn’t go into the events of today. I told myself it was because the Detectives didn’t ask for that. However, the moment of silence after I finished my admission made me question my own reasoning. Was I still scared of the man?

“Would you mind if we took a look through your phone, and saw those messages?” Volt asked. At my nod of approval, Flair stood up and exited the room. “We have a suspicion that Morgan used a third-party app to gain access to some of your personal information after you responded to him on Swift.”

Uncomfortable silence followed this statement, and for some reason I couldn’t meet the eyes of anyone present. I should’ve told someone about the interaction. This was all my fault.

The only thing that stopped me from wallowing in that thought was the energy humming in my Mana Pool. It was heady—a feeling I didn’t know I was missing my whole life. I studied that feeling as my parents squeezed my hand and shoulder. I wasn’t even sure myself what had happened in that alleyway. What had those orbs of light been?

Flair came back in with my phone. He slid it across the table, and I unlocked it, before going to SwiftGram and pulling up the deleted messages from the trash bin. ‘The Shop’s’ messages would have likely removed themselves in about a day more if I understood the social media’s protocols on deleted messages correctly.

“May I?” Volt requested and I passed him the phone. He read it quickly and then passed it to Flair before looking at me. “Can we take a screen capture of the conversation?” I nodded and watched as Flair held two buttons down. He then clearly sent a text, email or e-dropped the picture to himself.

“Thank you,” he said before turning to the second detective. “Make a note of every app he has on there. We’ll want to see if any of them have any suspicious connections with e-crimes later.

My fingers itched to get the phone back, but the detective continued before I had a chance to ask for it. “If you think you’re up for it, can you describe the events from tonight?”

It took what felt like hours but with some prodding and a great deal of support from my parents I got the story out. In the end the two Detectives pulled my parents outside and spoke to them in view of the window while I waited in my chair. The energy that helped sustain me through this ‘not-interrogation’ was slowly drying up, and I wondered if I would ever feel my Mana Pool again.

The thought struck me as strange. Surely I wouldn’t want to go through something like this ever again and yet, the thought came unbidden. I wanted this powerful feeling to not—no, to never stop…

Flair handed my phone to Gary, and then Volt stuck his head in the door. “Your parents are going to take you home, okay?”

I nodded and practically jumped up from the metal seat.

The drive to the house was eerily silent. I kept debating about asking my dad for my phone but then chickening out at the last instance. He was driving and I shouldn’t distract him, right? My mom kept looking at me and attempting a smile that looked hollow. Was she disappointed in me?

When we made it home, she finally broke the silence. “Want me to order your favorite?”

I shook my head, my stomach too knotted to think of eating. “I think I just want to go to bed.”

Without my phone, I couldn’t check the time, but it certainly felt well past midnight.

“You’ve got to eat—” my mom began before my father cut her off with a hand on her shoulder. He shook his head ever so slightly.

“Do you want us to come check on you at all? Maybe order something for you if you wake up hungry?” he asked in her place.

I felt a sob try to escape my throat as I nodded my head. For the first time I saw my parents bumping head-first into a problem without answers, and it hurt. It broke something deep inside of me. I rushed up the stairs instead of voicing my reply.

I practically dove onto my bed and under the covers. It took about thirty seconds before I realized I wasn’t going to be able to just fall asleep. I grabbed my pillow and screamed into it.

The husk happened today?

Surely, I would wake up in a moment to realize it was a dream. Surely.

The clarity of my thoughts dissuaded me of that delusion. I was sweating thanks to my Mana Pool still seeming to ‘supply’ me with a trickle of something.

I needed a shower.

I stripped out of the orange pants that made me look like a criminal and glimpsed myself in the mirror. Despite the events of the day, I still looked pretty put together, thanks in large part to how much work I’d done in the morning to style my hair and choose an outfit.

I felt completely disgusted with myself in that moment. Was my attempt to be useful as a Mana Bank the cause of all of this? I just hadn’t wanted to be a nobody. At least that’s what I had told myself, but I had an F-ranked Mana Pool and at that thought I knew I was just trying to foist myself onto some Hunter.

My highest goal was to become a charity case, thinking it was something I could be proud of.

My family circumstances screamed at me to stay a nobody, but I reached for more. I tried to use my looks and social media to find a good-hearted partner talented enough to raise my station. To maybe even awaken another Skill…

What the husk was I thinking?

I turned the water on and stepped under the stream while it was still bitterly cold. The sensation was soothing against my skin—against my mood of hot rage.

Just as the water warmed, and then became hot my steady stream of energy seemed to completely vanish. My legs wobbled and my knees grew soft. I could have steadied them but instead I allowed myself to semi-collapse onto the old-tiled floor of the standing shower. I fell out of the hot stream in doing so, and quickly slid myself back until I was under it again.

I let the water flow over me as I studied the patterns the drips made as they fell from my gelled hair. I watched them join the stream and circle the drain. As I looked on, the water first wet and then puddled atop the aged grout of the tiles. I might have imagined it but I swore I could see greasy oil mixed with the water swirls. The image made me shiver.

I considered berating myself some more for my fault in all this, but held it off.

Was the situation that bad? I thought to myself. Tomorrow I could go back to school and pretend none of this had happened. What really had happened?

“A piece of shit attacked me, and I kicked his ass,” I said to myself, my voice a low growl. “I defended myself against a man—no, a Multi-Skilled Awakened with a gun. That’s a husking good thing!”

I was staring at the shower tiles and allowing water to fall down the sides of my face. I jerked involuntarily when my vision went a vivid blue—similar to the color of the chalkboards earlier that night as they shifted to video.

A blink later and the sudden shift in my vision returned to the dark gray and black tiles. I swallowed hard, against that resurgence of my earlier fear but felt my saliva catch in my throat as it happened again.

Skill Copy Canceled…

Full Skill Acquisition Requirements Met

Low A-Rank Mental Fortitude Skill Transferred

Mid C-Rank Recovery Skill Transferred

Ex-Demonic Vault Skill Transferred

Error Insufficient Contribution for acquisition of Demonic Vault Rank

Downgrading…

What in the hell was going on? The screen flickered and changed colors going from vibrant blue to an amber tone.

Checking current Operating System

OS-6.1.4 Corrupted.

Downgrading

OS-5.0.18 Corrupted.

Downgrading

OS-4.3.4 Corrupted.

Downgrading

OS-3.2 Corrupted.

Downgrading

OS-2.0.0.1 Corrupted.

Downgrading

OS-1 Default (Downloadable)

Downloading…

This time the screen changed tone with each line from amber through various tones of orange before arriving at red. I watched in fascination as the three dots after downloading continuously reset to zero before growing to three and starting over. It probably only took, at most, ten seconds, because I held my breath through the entire scrolling message until a new red screen popped up. Was I somehow Awakening new Skills?

And not just one!

Skills transferring…

Low A-Rank Mental Fortitude,

Mid C-Rank Recovery,

High E-Rank Demonic Vault,

Transferred.

I felt a weight settle onto my chest and then spread out from there, making my body go cold and lethargic despite the heat of the shower. When my eyelids suddenly felt like they each were holding up a twenty-pound weight I knew I needed to get into bed or fall asleep right there in the shower.

“Why are you wet, and sitting on the stone floor naked?” A screechy voice asked, and I realized how tired I must be if my internal voice suddenly didn’t even sound like my own.

I got to my feet and stumbled my way out of the standing shower. I didn’t bother with a towel and managed a few more steps before aiming my inevitable fall at my unmade bed. I felt my face collide with the comforter before the battle with my twenty pound eyelids was lost.

* * *

Greb-shak blinked from a spot above the strange naked human that was half sprawled but mostly collapsed onto a soft massive cushion, covered by more such soft garb. He didn’t understand how he had arrived here. As far as he knew, he should still be training on Crendalar Five to become the guide of the second Demonic Vault Skill his Sect was making.

He looked down on himself, having known that he wouldn’t come across the Divide in his Felguard-esque body, but not having expected to arrive as a full-fledged skin-sagging imp. He wanted to bite and claw at something but had enough training to know that he wasn’t truly in this plane and thus couldn’t interact with it.

He scratched behind his own pointed, saggy ears, hating his current appearance. How weak was this child to have Summoned him into this stupid body? Even as a ‘weak’ researcher, he was twelve feet tall, muscled, and capable of fighting all but the strongest entities on his planet.

Still, none of that answered why he was here, wherever here was. The System had jammed some information into his head. Like the name of this planet; Earth, and the race of the pale weak looking creature—Greb-Shak amended that thought slightly. Right now the Human was larger and stronger looking than he.

His question of where here was—meant on this planet in general. It certainly didn’t feel like he had appeared in a stronghold. Not with these flimsy, almost cardboard walls.

He moved about, traveling through walls and checking out the building he had appeared in. Two other inhabitants were in another pillow-like bed on the top floor like the naked boy, but they weren’t asleep and instead laid there talking about someone they called ‘Brodie’. It was an easy assumption to arrive at; Brodie was the naked boy. Greb-shak flew on trying to find something of value in the domicile.

After a scan of each room, he decided he would try moving outside. He did so but barely made it past the next house before he felt a strange tug and somehow popped back into the room with the naked, sprawled child. He remembered then that he had a tether to his Summoner, one that wouldn’t let him move further than a hundred yards, if he recalled correctly.

After a few moments, he remembered his notifications and checked on them. He read the last three lines.

Your Master, Morgan Hallsbrad has died.

You will be returned to Crendalar Five.

ERROR: Compatible Tether recognized. Transferring your Mastery to Brodie Flacarada.

“Huh?” Greb-shak said. “But, I haven’t had a master before?”

However, his notifications claimed he had, and if there was one thing he was sure about, it was that the System—the same System that had conquered his entire planet—no, all five of their planets—couldn’t lie.

Was this naked child his new Summoner then? Had he truly come that close to destruction? He swallowed. The creation of the first Demonic Vault Skill had cost his Sect almost everything—and despite him and the other researchers cutting corners and costs, if the Skill was destroyed upon death—then they could lose all that wealth and sacrifice just as fast!

Greb-shak needed to be careful.