ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 129 Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum (Patreon)

Chapter 129

Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

Silence.

No one spoke, for a minute everyone just watched and waited as their minds tried to process what was happening, what had happened. The unthinkable, yes they had been in combat, yes Alexa knew that eventually it might come to this, but she had been blindsided by the act. An act of cowardice, one she thought would have been beneath the elves and their lofty sense of dignity. Yet, here she was standing over the corpse of her father.

Alexa had been arrogant, had she moved quicker, had she read the box faster, had she not spent so long trying to understand the bomb and how it worked, had she not been so attracted to the Void. Had any of these conditions not happened, then she would have been able to help, to Heal. Yet, she could not change the past, at least she didn’t think such a form of magic existed. She thought about the idea of Time magic for just a moment, but then dropped it as an ultimately foolish endeavor.

The truth was, she had been set up, they all had. They had been lulled into thinking that the elves would play by the same set of rules as they always had, that they would usher in the integration with the same set of rules that they had always seemingly followed contentedly. Only now did she realize the truth; how naïve she had been this whole time.

For years she had wished that she could feel something, anything while in her normal state of mind, and over the past few months she had felt that she was making some efforts in that direction, she had friends, or at least people who seemed to appreciate her. She had her brother who finally stopped seeing her as some valuable flower needing to be protected, and above it all, she had her parents, Warder and Judge. The two largest and more powerful Supers in the Tri-State area as her parents.

Shuffle.

Over her right shoulder Alexa heard the approach of footsteps, as someone came up from behind. It was the Captain, a quick glance showed that she had dropped off the last unused bomb. While Alexa was fairly certain she had disabled the ignition runes on that box at least, she chalked yet one more failure up, the inability to disable more runes quicker. Of course, she had just seen the runes and then tried to interpret them, and their function, only to be confused by what she saw, well not what she saw, but rather what she felt. Then she felt the Void, it was cold and comforting in a way she never knew possible. It was like falling into a thick patch of freshly fallen snow, it formed to her in ways she never felt possible. Worse, it seemed that her class seemed to be perfectly made for it, especially with the last message she received. A message that was glowing brightly and all but refusing to let her handle what was happening in front of her.

Absorber Class Material Found: Would you like to absorb essence of Void Energy?

Seeing the system message, Alexa inwardly intoned yes. Then she felt the fusion go to her in such a way that she didn’t realize was possible.

New School of Magic Unlocked: Void magic. Void magic is now at Tier II.

Seeing the Tier rating, Alexa wondered why it was set at Tier II, was it because she absorbed two balls of the matter? Also, now that this new power was in her, she did still feel some mild discomfort from the odd form of magic that was currently coursing through her body and causing even more issues to form with her use of other forms of magic. Of course, she only felt the discomfort now that she had time to stop and reflect on what was happening around her, to focus on the possible changes that happened within herself. Idly she wondered, for a second, if not having the Void magic within her would have made it so she could have avoided the ramifications of what happened, but that was quickly dismissed. She still had control over the other forms of magic, it just that the Void magic had an odd painful numbing sensation to it, something that was similar to sitting in an awkward position for too long and losing all circulation in a limb. But rather than being in just one limb, this numb sensation seemed to go everywhere all at once. Still this was easily able to be overcome, so long as she focused her mind on a particular task it was nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

Of course, this was before the system gave her another more urgent message, one that required her to detract from her current thoughts and immediately fix the issue that was flashing before her senses.

Warning: you are currently unable to wield the Void magic within your body properly. Class Upgrade options available: Void Manipulation (Psychic), Void Resistance (2)(Psychic, will merge with aspects of current synergistic power Void Resistance), or Void Creation (Psychic).

Seeing the powers that were now available to her, she realized that the way to wield Void magic was on a completely different scale than the other forms of magic that were currently available to her. As usual there was no description of what she would gain from the stolen powers. Also, Alexa found it odd that this spectrum of magic seemed to be entirely manipulated through the use of psychic powers. She had known that there were differences between psychic and magic powers, but she had thought that this distinction was solely due to scale and effect. Though it seemed that the use of Void magic might need to purposefully be scaled back, thus the reason for only being able to manipulate it with psychic powers.

The first thing she did was select Void Resistance (2).

Note: Synergistic effect noted. Innate Power Void Resistance has been fused with new psychic power. Void Resistance (2) has been altered.

New Psychic Power Gained: Enhanced Void Resistance: Void magic resistance (50%).

Seeing the message and warning caused a bit of a surprise to her. She had never seen the effects of synergistic powers merging before. Also, she assumed that their activation in such a way was somehow multiplicative, versus additive. That merging two unique, but similar powers could have a monumental effect on the body. Mentally she equated this to the multiplicative nature of weaving multiple schools of magic together could have a cascading effect on the scope and capability of a particular spell. Now she figured that such a multiplicative effect would happen from blending together two different but functionally similar forms of resistance. The first was the innate species resistance to the Void that she had stolen from the Void Rats. Then this new psychic power took that previous resistance and merged it into a whole new spectrum of power.

With the psychic power she realized how amazing the jump in resistance was, as the cold aching numbness that had been burning away at her insides finally seemed to be relenting. With that, she began to feel slightly better, her mind and body still ached, but they were quickly being soothed away by her natural Regeneration that was seemingly able to interact better with her body now that the Void magic no longer seemed to be hindering her.

That was it, idly Alexa could still feel the two pieces of Void magic nearby, but that was it, she could just sense them, the ability to interact with such an odd power was not possible for her now.

Shuffle, crunch.

The TSI Captain had been moving closer to her, in a second Alexa realized that the whole interaction with the system, her choice, and reflection on the choice had taken seconds. In fact, she realized that her perception of time seemed to be enhanced by an astounding factor. Perhaps it was an instinctual part of her mind letting her know that danger was nearby, or maybe it was her mind’s automatic response to being exposed to Void essence. The odd power seemed to call to her, to beckon her in a way that she didn’t expect. Oddly enough, if her emotional side was to wield and use regular Magic, then her normal rational mind was the one that found the idea of the Void so enticing. For better or worse, the Void was a part of her now, as it was forever a part of her. While she didn’t feel that she could use it, at least not in the way she could almost instinctively use the other forms of magic, there was part of her that was certain she could wield the magic, despite not having the psychic abilities to manipulate and create the magical effects she wanted directly. Of course, this did beg the question, were psychic powers just minor extensions, mental crutches of true magic, or were they themselves something wholly unique? In the past Alexa had felt that they were the latter, but now that she had seen the way Void powers had their direct psychic equivalent to work with, she wondered if this was a mistake on her part. While the idea of having psychic resistances to magic were nothing new, the idea that she would need, or at the very least could use psychic powers to manipulate a school of magic directly was disconcerting. Or at the very least, the idea posed seemed to challenge her preconceived notion of how psychic powers worked. This wasn’t bad, but rather just showed that there was still a lot about the system that she didn’t know. Not that she spent too much time delving into the reason why there was such a distinction between Psychic and Magical powers, but now she felt that this was something that she should devote more time and attention to, of course, that would be after she was done enacting her revenge against the elves for their attack.

“How do you feel?” Rayne Johnston asked, her small frame barely standing over Alexa’s long form that was still standing over her father’s corpse.

Everything was happening so quickly, that while her mind was more than able to process everything, there was still a disconnect between what she could comprehend, what she was doing, and what she knew she should be doing. Hearing the question, Alexa’s ears perked up, and she turned to the Captain and looked at her, truly taking her measure. It had long been her understanding, that when someone immediately asked how you felt, those were the people that truly had your best interest at heart. Hearing the comment, and seeing her sincerity about the question, Alexa felt compelled to stand up and look the Captain in the eye. Of course, this was slightly different than on might expect, as the excessively tall Alexa staring down at the diminutive Captain Johnston might have had most people think something was about to happen. That Alexa was about to lash out in rage at the first person who appeared before her, the first person who seemingly offered condolences. The Captain for her part had expected this, in fact she prepared herself for a violent outburst. Instead, she was met with something that caught her completely off guard.

“I feel hollow.” Alexa said, her melodic voice belying the sincerity she spoke of in her words. Then in an act that caught everyone off guard, she bowed in respect. The act was so sudden and unexpected, that Rayne Johnston found her body moving in a defensive posture, before she realized that it was just Alexa performing a bow.

Then just as quickly as the act was done, Alexa spun about and turned her way to the other two bodies. There she grabbed the now much larger, but less potent orbs of black magic.

Everyone watched, well everyone but Judy who only pounded her fists against the body of her dead husband. Alexa had managed to heal the wound, but magic can only do so much, it is not the miracle cure all that people seem to think. Yes, magic can do many amazing things like grow the flesh back on a corpse, but barring the darker magics of the universe, there is nothing that can bring a soul back to inhabit the body it once vacated.

Woosh.

The sound of ambient mana being drawn in from the surrounding area could be heard whipping past everyone, right at the heart of Stonehenge, right there at the heart of where the portal to hell, or wherever the Minotaurs and Void Rats came from, that was now scabbing over with a dungeon. In a way, Alexa felt this to be a perfect response, for part of her realized that as long as the dungeons were there, then the portals that lead to the lands where magics like Void, Death, and Necromancy flourish were cut off. That by this dungeon now coming into existence, they were safe, at least for the moment from another dimensional rift to the nether being opened. Seeing it, she mentally nodded to herself, as she now had her way to leave here, in a place where she could grieve in peace. The only true place where she felt she would be able to truly be herself, a place that would help her grieve. Of course, she still had something she needed to do before she could leave.

***

The Captain and Bullford both watched as Alexa went out, in the exact opposite direction of the newly spawned dungeon, as she began collecting the black orbs as if they were nothing more than decorative seashells to help remember her vacation to England. Then they both watched in complete fascination as the two orbs slowly disappeared from view. It was clear that even in that short period of time, Alexa’s power had grown as she could now easily stand within the radius of the glowing black orbs and be perfectly fine.

Finally, after she was done, she went over and grabbed the box that Rayne had placed a few hundred meters away, well outside the initial blast radius. Then grabbing the box, Alexa slowly made her way forward. And then handed the box to Rayne.

Rayne not knowing what to do, held out her hand took the box. Upon holding it, she was surprised to realize that the box was somehow lighter than she remembered. Seeing her obvious confusion, Alexa answered the unspoken question.

“I defused it, but the note still says everything.” Alexa said.

Pausing for a second, Rayne looked at the tag and only after a second realized that the strange border that could have been mistaken for a decorative background was in fact elven script.

“What does it say?”

“May you die a thousand deaths.” Alexa responded.

Silence.

Then seeing that there were no other questions coming, Alexa nodded and turned to walk away, this time her direction and intent were clear, she was heading straight towards the newly spawned dungeon entrance.

“Wait, what are you going to do?” Rayne asked, hoping that the powerful girl was not about to go on a killing spree, or worse.

“I’m going to prepare for peace.” Alexa said, as she continued walking towards the dungeon entrance.

Seeing her leave, Rayne began jogging quickly to catch up to her, to be by her side, then she asked. “How are you going to do that?”

“Si vis pacem, para bellum.” With that Alexa responded.

At the words, Rayne Johnston paused in her tracks as she tried to interpret the statement. Then after a moment, she turned and asked, “what?”

With the question asked, it was Bullford who answered, “if you want peace, then prepare for war.”

At that, Rayne turned to Bullford and almost in an exasperated tone just stared at him with incomprehension. “I know what it means, I just don’t know what she means by it.”

“Oh.” Bullford said, then turning his attention from the captain he looked up to see that Alexa was gone. The only sign of her passing was the rippling wave of a recently disturbed dungeon entrance.

The two paused as they realized she was gone. It was clear that the girl had some form of deep connection to dungeons, as she seemed to be aware of this one even before it had seemed to fully manifest. How was that possible? What did that mean? These were all questions they still had for the girl, but for now she was gone.

“Where do you think she will go?” Bullford asked, filling the awkward silence with his question.

“I don’t know, all I do know is that somehow she will likely end up at Dawning Light Academy.” Rayne said.

“How is that possible?” Bullford asked, still staring at the dungeon entrance himself as he tried to fathom how dungeons could be used in such a way.

“How is half the stuff she does possible.” Rayne said as she shrugged her shoulders and then shaking her head turned back to look at Judy.

When they looked back it was clear that Judy was  still at a loss, as she cradled the dead body of her husband in her arms.

“What do we do with her?” Bullford asked.

“I don’t know, just try to help out as best we can, I guess. I’ll work on arrangements with getting a coffin and flight out.” Rayne said.

“Right, I’ll go console her then.” Bullford said.

Rayne was about to let that happen, then just imagined the big lummox saying something that would set the already volatile Super off. “Wait, flip that. I’ll console, while you work on the flights and arrangements.”

***

Judy held the body of her husband, the man who she went from hating to loving to now missing with all of her being. She felt hollow, as if part of her was now and forever missing. Jim’s body was whole, but his spirit was gone, the glazed and smokey look in his eyes a clear sign that his spirit, was gone. His smile that would simultaneously annoy her and set her heart aflutter was gone. Everything was gone.

Alexa, gods bless her, she had done everything she could to save him, but she had quit. Everyone else had quit, they had accepted this, as if it was something that couldn’t be helped. But Judy knew there was something, there had to be something, then just for a moment her mind touched upon evil thoughts, for a moment she wondered what if?

Then just as if thinking about such a thought was enough to beckon its arrival, a voice came to her.

“I can help.”

The voice sent chills down her spine, as she realized it had somehow spoken directly into her mind. Just as Judy was about to respond back, a voice called out to her.

“Hey there girly, how ya feelin’?”

Then just like that, the voice that had been there, vanished, perhaps knowing that Judy didn’t want to talk to it now, but she felt it. As if somehow leaving a calling card behind in her mind, she knew, that if she truly wanted to, she could speak to this person, this entity, again, if she just wanted to.