August Intruder - Chapter 30 - Chemical Exchange (Patreon)

Eroms was a Gifted?

Well, it kind of made sense in a way. Hindsight being what it was, Melmarc could see the possibility. It was very clear now. The constant eating and being offered food. The question now was how long had it been going on, and why hadn’t he and Delano connected the dots.

A small breeze ruffled his hair. It shook him from his daze and he looked up to find Vlad grabbing another spear of blood.

He was fully returned to the present.

He was in a house under the very present threat of death.

Vlad took a step down the stairs and batted aside another spear of blood. In actuality, the way Joshua—Melmarc just couldn’t bring himself to think of him as Turin—used it, it was of a blood whip than a spear of blood.

“I see you’re getting your sail back, Vlad.” Joshua moved both hands and another canteen opened up.

He had two whips of blood at his disposal. His focus was on Vlad, and the host didn’t seem to mind. His steps were slow, but his hands moved with enough speed to outpace the whips.

He said nothing as he climbed down the stairs, slapping aside whips of blood with the back of his hands.

Melmarc ignored the message and returned to applying pressure on Eroms’ injury. His hands were bloody and his friend felt squishy.

Delano was right beside him, pressing on his hands with as much force as he could.

“You can’t die on me, E,” he was saying to Eroms, tears in his eyes. “You’ve still got a lot of things you have to bully me for. You haven’t gotten me back for that time I hid your food and convinced you that you’d already eaten it.”

Above Delano’s head his name and indicator were green.

[Delano Nettor]

There was no class indicator or rank. There had been a part of Melmarc that had expected to see ‘human’ in bracket or something.

He was really curious about it, but his curiosity took a far back seat in the face of his panic and fear.

Was he really going to lose a friend here, just because he’d thought someone was messing with his friend’s mind for the wrong reasons?

There had to be a way to save Eroms. He had people around him. The good guy was a Necromancer. Vlad’s name and indicator were green so that had to mean something, right?

What did he know about Necromancers? Apart from the fact that they muddled about with the dead and the dying.

Did they have healing skills?

He rummaged through his mind and found nothing. Necromancer was a class that got stronger with dying and death. Some of them got strength boosts from how many they killed. Some simply had skills that were closely related with dying or death.

The truth was Necromancer wasn’t a famous class, and people did their best to avoid it. There were rumors that it wasn’t as hated in some countries, but America wasn’t one of such countries.

So not very much was known of Necromancer.

What of a Blood Master?

The thought came to him almost immediately. At the bottom of the stairs Vlad had begun engaging Joshua in battle. It was nothing like what Melmarc would’ve expected from a fight between Gifted, but to say it wasn’t a powerful battle would be a lie.

Just the sounds of the blood whips making contact with Vlad as he batted them aside was loud enough to make a difference.

Wait, why am I even thinking about them?

Melmarc took his mind off the fight and reached into his pocket with a bloody hand. He brought out his phone and ended his still ongoing call with the others back home.

He wanted to tell them he’d call back, but he was worried it was too soon to speak. The last thing he wanted was to draw Joshua’s attention. It was unreasonable to think a B-rank would have the time to pay them when engaging an A-rank, but Vlad didn’t look very dependable right now.

“We’ve got to move him,” Melmarc told Delano in a whisper. “We need to get him back up.”

Delano was still crying, hands pressed against Eroms wound. “We can’t move him. What if he gets worse?”

Melmarc didn’t really have an answer to that. He didn’t even know how they were going to move Eroms. The boy weighed a lot. And while he’d just become a Gifted, he hadn’t gotten any Strength stat boost, so he was fairly certain he wasn’t much stronger now than he had been, then.

But there was the overall stat boost that came from Bless Your Kindness. The question was if it was enough to move Eroms.

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and it began buzzing. Ark was likely trying to call him back already.

Melmarc really wanted to pick the call and assure them that he was fine, but now wasn’t the time. Priorities put them in second place. First place was Eroms’ and their survival.

For that, they had to move.

“Help me pull him, D.” He already had Delano by one of his arms and was pulling.

As he’d thought, it was almost impossible, which also made it deadly. But what else could they do? Stay here and hope Joshua doesn’t win?

Melmarc dropped Eroms’ arm. They needed a way.

Think.

His mind was running wild while Joshua’s whips of blood marked the entire hall.

Maybe if I can just get to one of them, he thought, staring at the bubbles of blood. Anais and Tepes were struggling less now, and it felt like they’d be out soon.

Tepes was a Basher, and Bashers were known for their strength. He would have enough strength to lift Eroms like a piece of cloth.

Melmarc took one step down and discarded the idea. A blood whip ripped through the ground with enough force to dig a line in it. The smoke that came out of it was enough to let Melmarc know that he wouldn’t survive an accidental blow from the skill.

He stepped back up.

Eroms coughed up blood and Delano started murmuring sweet nonsense to him. Melmarc ignored Delano’s words. If Eroms was coughing up blood, then it was a good and bad sign.

The bad was that he was still dying. The good was that he was still dying, so he wasn’t dead yet.

Another thought came to Melmarc and he brought up his notifications.

Status buffs affected the Gifted, made them better somehow. And he had six to choose from. With [Bless Your Kindness] still in effect, he knew all the buffs he had access to. He also knew the one he wanted.

[Crushing Blow](Mastery 0.00%)

The Gifted punches with eight times their overall power.

[Chemical Exchange](Mastery 0.00%)

The Gifted increases a bodily attribute at the cost of another.

[Video](Mastery 100.00%)

The Human picks up a camera and records a video.

…

[Would you like to select a Buff?]

[Yes/No.]

[Remaining time: 00:00:23.]

He would’ve loved to get down the stairs and help Vlad defeat the bad guy, but this wasn’t that kind of story. He wasn’t delusional.

Joshua looked like he knew what he was doing, and so did Vlad.

A sixteen-year-old just Gifted, didn’t join in such a fight and expect to make a difference. That would be stupid. He had no skill and no training to prepare him for such an encounter.

He had his mind set elsewhere.

He made his choice and a new notification came up.

[Would you like to use Chemical Exchange? You will not be able to renege on this decision?]

[Yes/No.]

“Yes.”

[You have selected Chemical Exchange.]

Chemical Exchange (Mastery 0.00%)

The Gifted increases a bodily attribute at the cost of another.

More information flooded him, but it was subtle. It was as if he’d always known about the skill and how it worked. He could raise his ability to do one physical thing in exchange for his ability to do another.

For instance, he could increase the distance and precision of his eyesight in exchange for his ability to walk. But once the skill ended, he would have to pay it back.

He could either do so intentionally, or hold off until his body forced him. Which meant he could be reading and suddenly realize he really, really needed glasses. Or, depending on how much the exchange was, he could simply go blind.

It wasn’t necessarily so damning. It wasn’t like the blindness would last forever, just for a while, until his body comes to an agreement that the exchange was acceptable.

Now he just needed to activate the skill and make the exchange he needed.

Delano looked up from Eroms. “What are you doing?”

“Helping.” Melmarc’s hands were moving, fingers interlacing, making alien signs.

When he completed a series of signs he knew nothing about but somehow knew what the effects would be, a new notification popped up.

[Skill Chemical Exchange is in effect.]

[Strength will increase by +1 every second in exchange for Proprioception for five minutes.]

[Time remaining: 00:04:59.]

Melmarc had no idea what proprioception was. Actually, he did, he just couldn’t remember the specifics right now. All he knew was that he was suddenly stronger than he used to be, and it was all he needed.

“D, go up the stairs,” he said, moving around Eroms and grabbing him from under the arms. “I’m right behind you.”

Delano hesitated, then started moving when Melmarc succeeded in lifting Eroms off the stairs.

It’s like he weighs a ton.

With Delano out of harm’s way, Melmarc focused his entire attention on pulling Eroms up the stairs. With each step he took, Eroms let out a pained groan.

He noticed not much of his friend’s blood was flowing anymore and panicked. If Eroms was running out of blood, it wasn’t a good sign.

He needed to hurry. He refused to go through all this just to still end up losing him. His phone vibrated in his pocket again and he ignored it.

Right now what he needed was to get behind cover.

Eroms’ groans were reducing the higher up the stairs they went. He was also beginning to weigh less. Melmarc attributed the latter to the effects of [Chemical Exchange]. For the former, he had no idea.

He just hoped it wasn’t a terrible sign.

It took him a while but he finally pulled Eroms to safety.

Melmarc dragged Eroms behind a wall and released him gently, then fell back on his butt. He would’ve liked to say he was tired but he wasn’t. The action had been growing easier the higher they went up the stairs.

Delano rushed over to Eroms. He took off his shirt, bundled it up, and shoved it against the injury. There was less blood now, but he still applied pressure, praying and begging.

Eroms was less pale now, but Melmarc still worried. Now that they were safe, he could risk the second part.

He pulled out his phone, went to his dial pad, and his phone started ringing again. It displayed Ark’s name in full effect with a picture of Ark holding up Spitfire in their living room.

His brother had changed his contact picture for what he called dramatic effect.

Melmarc answered immediately. “I’ll call you back. Yes, I’m fine.”

The words tumbled out of his lips and he cut the call before Ark or anyone else could respond.

He dialed 911 and his screen cracked on the third number. His strength was still rising, and now he didn’t know his own strength.

Luckily, the crack was superficial. It halted none of the phone’s functions.

When he tapped the call sign, he did so gently.

Then he placed his phone to his ear.

Delano looked up from Eroms. “What are you doing?”

“Calling 911.”

Delano paused. “Oh.”

He effectively went back to applying pressure, and Melmarc noticed color returning to Eroms’ face.

At the bottom of the stairs, evidently out of sight, he could still hear Joshua taunting Vlad as they exchanged blows. Each crack of his blood whip through the air was loud, louder when it made contact with Vlad.

How the hell is nobody hearing this upstairs?

On the phone, Melmarc was on call with an automated voice. It was feminine, prerecorded by a lady with a nice voice.

[…If you’d like to report an incident of a violent nature, please press 1. If you’d like to request an ambulance for a medical emergency, please press 2. If you would like to report a Gifted related incident, please press 3…]

Melmarc knew he didn’t have to wait for the voice to give him all the options. If he knew what option he was looking for, all he needed to do was dial the number.

But that was where the problem was. He’d never had to dial 911 in his life. With the options called out so far he didn’t know if he needed an ambulance or needed help with a Gifted related incident.

Priorities, he thought as he carefully chose number 2.

The line connected almost immediately, and he let out a sigh of relief. He’d heard stories of how he could end up waiting a while before getting a representative.

“Hi, my name is Nancy. How can I help you?”

Nancy had one of those lovely customer service voices that made you feel bad if you walked into the building intending on being aggressive because you were angry. It was a little soothing.

In this situation, it didn’t soothe Melmarc in anyway.

“Hi, my name is Melmarc Lockwood and we need an ambulance to the Vlad mansion, at number 12 Davenport street,” he said in a hurry. “My friends and I were just attacked by a Gifted that can use blood as a whip and my friend is bleeding out. He’s sixteen, six foot three and weighs…”

He looked at Delano.

“Two hundred and twenty pounds,” Delano supplied.

“He weighs two hundred and twenty pounds,” Melmarc finished. “He was stabbed in the chest four minutes ago and I think he’s losing blood, please hurry.”

He wasn’t sure how much of the information was useful. In fact, he was sure most of the information was useless. But it was better they have too much information than not enough information.

Also… had he just dragged over two hundred pounds up a flight of stairs. Just how much strength did he have now?

“An ambulance has been dispatched to you,” Nancy said over the phone. “The police have also been contacted, and Gifted agents have been dispatched to your location. Do you know what rank this Gifted is?”

That was a weird question to be asking since a lot of people wouldn’t have the answer, but Melmarc understood it. The lady was trying to get as much information as she could.

“He’s a B-rank Blood Master.”

It made sense that she wanted to know. Maybe they were rationing their manpower. Not many Gifted went into law enforcement, so there was a limited number of Gifted in the police department.

It would be a disadvantage to them if they dispatched a C-rank detective to a scene where there was a B-rank criminal. All it would do was dwindle their current number of employed Gifted. And sending a B-rank to a scene with a D-rank criminal could be seen as a waste of manpower.

The B-rank might be needed somewhere else.

“This is noted,” Nancy said. “Help is on the way. Would you like me to stay on the line with you until they get there?”

Melmarc didn’t know.

He didn’t think there was anything she could do for him if she remained on the line. So he assumed it was an offer more for emotional support.

He appreciated it, and would probably need it, especially if help didn’t get here in time for Eroms. But he wasn’t that selfish, there could be other people trying to dial 911 right now, and they would need all the free lines they could get.

“How long before the ambulance and police get here?” he asked instead.

There was a moment of silence.

Then she answered. “ETA is five minutes.”

Melmarc opened his mouth to thank her when she spoke again.

“My apologies. Estimated time of arrival is five minutes.”

“Thank you. And… you don’t have to stay on the line. I can’t keep you that long.”

There was another moment of silence. It felt hesitant. Then Nancy spoke again.

“Just hang in there, Melmarc. You’ve got this.”

Melmarc wasn’t sure what to say to that. It was reassuring, but he still didn’t know how to respond. And the line still hadn’t gone dead.

Maybe she doesn’t want to end the call. Or maybe they are not allowed to be the ones to end the call.

He didn’t know which one it was. For all he knew it could be both. But he couldn’t keep her here, so he did what he hoped normal people did.

“Thank you,” he said, then ended the call.

“How long?” Delano asked.

Melmarc was dialing a new number. “Five minutes.”

He could feel his strength still rising so he needed to be careful not to break his phone.

Delano didn’t look assured by his answer. “Five minutes is too long.”

A normal person would think he was complaining, but Melmarc had known Delano long enough to know he wasn’t complaining. He was panicking.

“Five minutes will be over before you know it. And they are meant to give you numbers on the high side, so five minutes is really just like three minutes.”

Melmarc was fairly certain he was wrong. After all, he’d just made it up on the spot. His mind was elsewhere, however. He was thinking of how to stop his strength from constantly growing.

But he knew all there was to know about the skill [Chemical Exchange] at its current mastery level. There was no stopping the exchange until the time period ran out. It hadn’t been long but he could already pull someone as large as Eroms up a flight of stairs. Just how much would he be able to do by the time the timer ran out.

And how weak will I be when it’s time for the exchange?

His phone slipped from his grasp suddenly. It wasn’t because of the blood he’d gotten on it. It had simply fallen.

It seemed he’d lost a lot in the exchange. But he was glad it had taken this long before it happened. He couldn’t imagine dropping Eroms while he was pulling him up the stairs.

Joshua let out a guttural roar from downstairs. It was more pain than anger, and Melmarc picked Eroms from under the arms and pulled him some more.

There was no harm in getting as much space between them as he could.

“Do you think the others have escaped?” Delano asked, following Melmarc.

Melmarc dropped Eroms again after a while and Delano went back to applying pressure to their friend’s injury.

At first, Melmarc thought Delano was talking about their classmates, which was odd since their classmates weren’t yet aware of what was happening. Then he realized who he was talking about.

“I hope so.” He placed his phone on the ground and dialed the remaining digits of who he wanted to call. “I’m sure Vlad can win if they escape. And Joshua did say they could escape at any time.”

While Delano kept his hands over Eroms’ wound, Melmarc noticed they hadn’t left a trail of blood behind them.

Color had returned fully to Eroms’ face and he wasn’t bleeding anymore.

“Eroms,” Melmarc called.

Delano shot him a frown. “Don’t make him talk. He needs to save up his strength.”

“I don’t know about that.” Melmarc paused before he hit the dial button on his phone. “He’s not bleeding anymore. And he’s not pale.”

Delano paused as well. He lifted his hands from the injury and looked at it.

He looked back at Melmarc. “There’s no injury.”

Melmarc let out a sigh. He’d suspected one of the buffs was from Eroms but hadn’t been sure of which one it could be. He hadn’t wanted to hope too much.

He let out a relieved sigh. “He’s okay. He’s okay.”

He didn’t know just how much tension he’d been carrying from the fear of losing his friend. It surprised him now to know it was most of it, far more than the fear of being killed by Joshua.

Eroms drew in a slow breath.

Delano and Melmarc turned to him.

His mouth moved tiredly, trying to say something.

Delano leaned in. “What’s it, E? Do you need something? Does it hurt?”

“I…”

Eroms smacked his lips and tried again.

Melmarc wasn’t sure where he was mentally, but there was a part of him that suspected he’d lose his mind if Eroms said he was hungry.

“I…”

“We’re here,” Delano assured him, hope in his voice.

“I weigh two hundred and eighteen pounds.”

The backdrop of another painful cry was the only sound present in the silence that settled between the three of them, then another crack of a whip through the air.

Melmarc wasn’t sure what the appropriate response to Eroms was. But he was satisfied with his relief.

Delano wasn’t as speechless as him.

“Dude,” he chuckled and sobbed at the same time. “You weigh two, twenty-eight. I was just being nice.”

“Two, eighteen,” Eroms croaked out.

“Yea, right.” Delano raised his hand to pat him, then stopped. “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

Then he hugged him gently.

“It’s good to have you back.”

They remained like that for a moment, Delano hugging Eroms while he remained lying on the ground. Then Delano released him a bit awkwardly and turned to Melmarc.

“Is there a reason we didn’t drag him all the way back to the room?”

There was, but it sounded stupid to say it. So Melmarc kept it to himself.

Delano’s jaw dropped in realization. “You didn’t want to go far in case there was something you could do to help? That makes no sense.”

Melmarc thought it made a little sense. With [Chemical Exchange] he could help somehow. He didn’t know how, but he just felt like something could come up.

With his lack of proprioception, it wouldn’t be much. But it could be something.

Rather than defend himself or explain, he looked down at the number on his phone and clicked the call button gently.

The call didn’t even get the chance to ring before it was picked.

Ark’s voice came through almost immediately.

“Mel! Mel! Are you alright?”

…………….

Joshua panted, staring at the opponents in front of him.

Vlad stood straight, even if pale. On both sides of him Anais and Tepes stood ready. Tepes looked ever the part of a butler despite how torn his suit was. And Anais just looked like something picked off the street.

Vlad could dress her up all he wanted, but it wouldn’t make her any more refined.

“It wasn’t supposed to go this way,” he muttered.

Anais had the gall to snort.

“You thought you’d just walk in and walk out?” she asked. “Does your new skill affect the mind?”

It wasn’t a new skill. He’d had it for two years now. It was how he’d evaded Vlad all these years. But he wasn’t going to correct her. The powerful did not explain to the inferior.

He looked to Tepes and hoped.

He’d held out in his fight against Vlad. And while Tepes and Anais had pushed him a little, it hadn’t been anything serious. But [Blood Prison] had taken more mana to hold them than he’d thought.

Another factor to his defeat—another miscalculation—had been Vlad’s intervention.

He’d known his cousin since they were small. They had played together, grown together. Gotten their Classes together.

They had remained close despite the differences in their ranks. Even when the government employed Vlad as a Delver, and almost every company had rejected Joshua based on one psych evaluation or the other, they had still remained close.

Vlad would never hurt him.

That was then, though. Vlad was different now. He should’ve know he wasn’t the only that could change.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you don’t de—”

“Not you, bitch!” he spat, cutting the maid off. He looked Vlad in the eye. “You were powerful. You swore.”

Vlad’s eyes were a hollow grey. “I did.”

“Then what happened? What changed?”

He didn’t like how pathetic he sounded. He’d come here expecting to walk out alive. He’d come here expecting to win.

To kill his own cousin and walk out alive.

He didn’t think he was in the right. And he wasn’t coming to some sudden realization that he had come to do the wrong thing.

Defeat was just playing tricks on him. When Vlad had stepped in to defend the boy—Melmarc—he had simply assumed Vlad was playing hero. He’d done it a lot in Romania. Jumping at the slightest sign of a Gifted criminal.

He was protecting the weak.

Then he’d cornered him, defending only. Until he’d struck him. Maybe he should’ve seen his defeat then, but Joshua wasn’t one to quit.

He was B-rank now. If he pushed himself, he could’ve been a threat. Vlad was weak from losing too much blood to divining. Joshua was supposed to stand a chance now.

“…So why?”

It was Tepes who answered.

“Because you harmed the children, Master Joshua.”

Joshua looked up at Tepes from where he was kneeling in a puddle of blood spilled from his canteens. He didn’t have the mana left to even make the pool tremble.

Vlad had run him into mana exhaustion. Was this the gap between the ranks? Did a B-rank stand no chance against an A-rank?

“You did this because of the children?” Joshua was confused. “You broke a vow to your cousin and your mother because of strangers?”

Vlad opened his mouth to speak, but Tepes spoke before him.

“If I may, Master Vlad,” he said, ever respectful. “The moment you went after the children, Master Joshua, you stopped being the cousin he swore to. Master Vlad always said despite your flaws, you never went after children. And even when you went rogue, you only went after Gifted, each of equal rank as yourself. Master Vlad assumed you only went after those who were not completely defenseless against you. In his own way, he saw that as a sign that you could still be redeemed.”

Joshua stared at Tepes in disbelief.

He and Vlad had hired the man together when Vlad had started working for the government. Vlad hadn’t wanted a butler. They’d come from a simple life and he’d wanted to live a simple life.

But Joshua didn’t want simple. He wanted the perks that came with power. In the end, he’d done Tepes’ interview himself, and employed him to his role.

It was odd to see him standing beside Vlad instead of him.

Joshua sighed and let his exhaustion take him.

“Tell me this, Tepes,” he said. “Vlad continues to call me Turin, but you’ve been calling me Joshua since I said it was my name. Why?”

“I am your butler, sir.” Tepes didn’t even hesitate. “It is my duty to obey my master.”

“I see. And if I told you to get me out of here, how would that work?”

“It would not, sir.”

Tepes chuckled lightly. “At least it was worth the try.”

“Yes, it was, sir.”

Joshua eased himself to the ground, and laid down. Mana exhaustion was a terrible thing. It didn’t even allow him the grace of losing on his feet.

“At least I’m not going to die today,” he said, more to himself.

“The jury’s still out on that,” Anais said, taking a step forward.

Vlad stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “My cousin does not die today.”

Tepes would have laughed at the look on the maid’s face if he had the strength to. But Mana exhaustion wasn’t something to be trifled with. It left even S-ranks at the mercy of the weakest of men.

To his surprise, he was assuaged by the sound of blaring sirens. His cousin might have worked with the government at one time, but he’d never trusted anything to them or their authority. It was the reason he’d done his best to rise to the ranks of a council member in Romania.

I guess people do change.

A moment after Vlad came to kneel beside him. His eyes remained hollow and grey, tired.

“Why?”

It was a single word but Vlad said it with so much depth. Too much emotion.

Joshua looked his cousin in the eye, the only family that had held out hope for him since he became a prisoner. He couldn’t see that hope anymore. It hurt more than he thought it would, more than it had hurt when the hope had been there.

The least he could do was give him the truth.

“You’re the only A-rank I know who won’t hurt me,” he said. “A member of the council let it slip that with my skill, if I could have your blood while it is still alive, I could advance to A-rank.”

Vlad shook his head. “You came for my life over a rumor?”

“Not a rumor, Vlad. I know for a fact that this council member advanced to A-rank in the same way.”

He saw the moment Vlad started sieving through his brain for who the person could possibly be.

It was unfortunate since he wasn’t going to tell. He knew a lot about the council, but not that much.

“Visit me in prison, cousin?” he asked, hoping.

Vlad got back up to his feet and turned away.

He made his way to the stairs, sluggish, as the sirens grew closer. “I promise.”

Those were enough words to rest him.

He closed his eyes to them. But unfortunately, life wasn’t so nice as to let him rest with those words.

A moment later the maid spoke with her annoying voice.

“That’s far more mercy than he deserves.”

He’d kick her in the teeth if he could. But he could not.