Forged Legacy

Chapter 129 - Shell-Shocked

Harvey woke up with a start. His vision swam, and he tried and failed to rub the crust away from his eyes when his armor got in the way. Plumes of black smoke filled the air as a wracking cough drove it out of his lungs. Everything burned, and he could hear something sizzling as his armor slowly cooled. There was something soft underneath him, but his mind was too frazzled to figure out what it was.

Outside?

[Nope. That’s a ceiling fan.]

Sitting up, Harvey wrenched the helmet off his head and stowed both it and his gauntlets inside the spatial ring. Finally rubbing his eyes, he realized the reason he could see the daybreak sky and a ceiling fan at the same time was that he’d torn a hole through the roof of someone’s bedroom. By some miracle, he’d landed in a heap on someone’s bed.

I was kind of right, Harvey chuckled until he saw a terrified young girl in the doorway.

[Here it comes…]

“MOM!!!” she sprinted down the hallway, and the whole house came to life. Only now did he realize the alarms outside had finally stopped. Families all over heaven were leaving their basement bunkers, and this one was in for a surprise.

“Brenna! What’s wrong, honey? OH MY GOD!” a tall, heavyset woman with black hair screamed when she appeared in the doorway. Adrenaline flooded his System, and for a moment, he didn’t know whether he should try to explain or fly back out of the hole he came in from.

[You didn’t do anything wrong! Just try and calm everyone down so we can explain.]

“My teddy bear!” Brenna wailed, and Harvey turned to see a charred stuffed animal that must have been pinned under him. One of its beady eyes melted into the fur. The other was missing completely, probably stuck to his back.

“I can explain!” Harvey began, but before he could get another word out, the father burst into the room with an aluminum baseball bat in hand.

“What are you doing in my daughter’s room! Think you could sneak in when you’re supposed to be sheltered in place!” He swung over and over, but Harvey could barely feel the strikes as the metal began to warp around him. The man was just like his own family, without a Class and at most 20 points in Strength. The Profession everyone received did nothing for that stat, making Harvey practically invincible despite his aching weave.

“Hold on! Hey! Can you stop swinging at me?” he pleaded, snatching the bat from the man’s hand and tossing it away. Now lacking a weapon, he chose to start punching. Sadly, whoever this overprotective father was, he’d obviously never been in a fight. Instead of aiming for Harvey’s exposed head, he threw a jab at his chest.

Crack.

“Ow!!” he yelped, staggering backwards.

Harvey scoffed while Julius couldn’t stop laughing.

[He broke his own hand!]

Stabbing pain finally cut through the madness, giving him a moment to explain. They apologized profusely when he explained he was a soldier who got launched here fighting a dragon. He, in turn, did his best to clear the rubble from the little girl’s bedroom with her dad after feeding him a health potion.

“Do you know if there’s someone I can call to fix this?” the father asked.

“Umm… the church? I’m sure one of the angels can point you in the right direction. Again, I’m sorry about all this.”

“No, I’m sorry for going straight to the baseball bat.”

“It’s all good! Anyone would do the same to protect their family,” Harvey assured.

“Just a misunderstanding.”

10 minutes later, Harvey walked out the front door with a plate of chocolate chip cookies in hand. It was impossible to tell where he was since all the neighborhoods looked the same, so he walked toward the black smoke towering in the distance.

“Harvey! Is that you?” his dad called when he entered the main road. Cash was still with them, and the three ran over when he waved. Even that hurt, and he opened his Weave screen to check if he’d crippled himself again. Luckily, nothing had changed, but that was likely only thanks to cutting the connection from Soul Forge in time.

“What happened? And why do you have cookies?” Tyler asked.

“Well, I blacked out after the dragon roasted me and woke up in a little girl’s bedroom. She screamed, her dad broke his hand trying to beat me up, and her mom gave me cookies.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

They all stared, clearly waiting for more details that never arrived.

“Well, the important thing is you’re ok. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you conjure that sword,” Steven marvelled.

Harvey massaged his ribs. “Didn’t seem to help much. Did the others finish the job?”

“The angels finished it off. It had a much harder time evading our attacks after you crippled one of its wings,” Cash confirmed.

“Good, because I don’t know if I can keep fighting without breaking my weave again,” Harvey sighed.

“Again? You’ve damaged it before?” Cash asked.

“Yep. Lost 30% in every stat after killing my first F-Grade elemental.”

“It’s a miracle you survived. Damaging your weave to the point you can’t channel essence is normally a death sentence in an integration trial,” Cash said.

“I just holed up in the smithy until I healed. Probably going to do the same now unless you guys still need my help.”

“You’ve done more than enough for today. Tomorrow is the sabbath, so there won’t be another attack until Monday,” Cash explained.

“Plenty of time!” Harvey chuckled. “How about you guys? Are you ok? Your first battle ended up being a bit more chaotic than I expected.”

Tyler shuffled nervously, grabbing his arm like he was trying to make himself smaller. A hard feat considering his tall, muscular physique that combined above-average genetics with years of baseball.

“We’re ok,” his dad assured. “A little shell-shocked, but that was the idea, wasn't it?”

“What? No…” Harvey wavered when he saw something in his father’s eyes that he’d never seen before.

Fear.

His entire life, Steven Thorne had been the rock Harvey always knew he could rely on. The man with the answer to any problem. That answer might not be correct, but he said it with the kind of confidence that let his kids know they weren’t flying blind through life’s troubles.

“I wasn’t trying to scare you. I just wanted to show you what we’re up against.”

“Well. Now that I’ve seen for myself, I have no idea what to do next,” his father admitted.

Harvey paused, worried that his actions might have paralyzed them instead of motivating them. Even Tyler, who had been begging to get out of the classroom and into combat from the moment Harvey arrived, was far more subdued than he intended.

“You guys both helped kill a few monsters. Did you get any levels?”

“They don’t have their Class yet, so they wouldn’t have gotten any. Killing has nothing to do with their professions,” Cash explained.

“Well… shit,” Harvey blurted.

“Hey! Language,” his dad chastised.

“Oh come on,” Harvey complained.

“Don’t swear in front of an angel!”

“We actually don’t really care much about swearing as long as you’re not taking the lord’s name in vain. Your planet took that commandment farther than most,” Cash said. “You might not have gotten any levels, but at least you have some first-hand experience to give to the Loom. Sitting in lecture halls can get you an Uncommon one at best, but now you might be able to push for a Rare.”

“Perfect. Let’s head for the Loom then,” Harvey said.

“I don’t know if we’re ready for that yet,” Steve rejected. “We need some time to digest everything.”

“Plus, I don’t think the angels will even let us,” Tyler said, turning to Cash.

“Nobody’s stopping you. We might imply that you have to follow our curriculum, but it’s not like we’d punish anyone for blazing their own trail. The only real problem is that going your own way makes it hard to find a spot for you down the line.”

“Seriously? Sister Liliana has been riding my ass for weeks for falling asleep in class one time, and you’re saying I could’ve just walked out?” Tyler complained.

“LANGUAGE!” Steve complained.

“What? Cash doesn’t care.”

“That doesn’t change our family rules! You better be careful, or your mother’s gonna wash that mouth out with soap.”

“As long as you’re not breaking any commandments, you’re free to do as you please. That will change if you decide to join the army, but right now you’re basically refugees hoping we find a way to win this war,” Cash laughed.

“A war that you’re losing,” Harvey said.

Cash winced before nodding. “Until we kill another lieutenant and even the odds, Hell is going to keep overwhelming us. They’re not even sending any demons lately, just letting their superior army bleed us out.”

“It can’t be that bad, right? If the demons aren’t joining the fight, they aren’t levelling like you guys,” Tyler asked.

“Most of us were already Level 75 when we entered the trial. The System restricted our level so you humans might have a chance if fights broke out, but that doesn’t matter much in a trial like this.”

“Wait, the demon I killed was Level 60?” Harvey interjected.

“That’s the current limit. He was definitely Level 75, but you only got essence and merit relative to his reduced strength.”

“So you can’t even ascend to E-Grade? We’re just losing a few angels a day until Hell decides to finish the job?” Harvey asked.

Cash nodded, his wings pulling a little closer to his body. “Basically. Unless something changes, that’s where we’re headed.”

“How many died today?”

“I won’t know until tonight, but a lot. Sending a dragon was never meant to break our walls. They wanted to overwhelm a section so we’d be forced to step in.”

Nobody said anything as they stared at the smoke in the distance. Entire blocks of destroyed neighborhoods they’d passed on their way out of the city were burning, adding insult to injury.

“Something’s gotta change, and I think that starts with us,” Harvey said. “I’m sorry you guys got thrown into the deep end, but you’ll get stronger. Eventually, we’ll be the dragons tearing up the battlefield.”

He tried to sound inspiring, but Tyler wouldn’t even look at him. Despite his aching weave, he bathed them in his aura filled with the Tempered Heart, hoping his own experience overcoming weakness might help them do the same.

“Son… Just give us some time. Please,” his father said. “I’m not deciding anything without talking to your mother first. For now, let’s go home.”

“Fine,” he scoffed. “Cash. I need to make some new armor, and I’m interested in building myself a gun. Any advice on what materials are best for fighting demons? Is there a workshop or something where I can go learn gunsmithing?”

“If you’ve got the merit, I can get some F-Grade holy silver for you. The resonances help suppress the infernal skills and arrays most demons use. As for a gun, why don’t you just buy one?” Cash asked.

“Most of my skills only work with things I make. If I’m going to be fighting more dragons, I think I’m better off shooting than stabbing.”