Chapter 79: Interlude Amy
There were many, many benefits to increasing one’s stats that weren’t immediately apparent. For example, not having any cramps after a three-hour car ride with no breaks and being able to watch a movie during said ride without getting carsick. Sure, there were plenty of people who’d been able to do that before, but it was such a visceral change from before that sometimes, it was truly shocking.
As for the movie itself, it had been an old BBC documentary that Karl had picked out. Well, it was sort of a documentary that followed a team of scientist who travelled through time on a yacht, visiting the seven most dangerous seas in the Earth’s history, one of which belonged to the Pleistocene Era, which was when the Carcharodon Megalodon originally prowled the seas.
It had been interesting and been surprisingly helpful with the situation at hand. Patrick had actually had his nose buried in Google Scholar and kept up a running commentary on the scientific accuracy of everything, but also how some of the information that it contained might help. Overall, while it might have been produced with your average TV viewer in mind, rather than a scientist, it had given them several ideas they might end up trying out.
They’d driven to the lake in one of those ‘soccer mom picks up multiple kids and there’s a TV in there so she doesn’t have to keep them entertained’ minivans, with Karl following behind in a large truck that held the equipment.
Bailey had originally referred to the minivan as a bus, but apparently, he hadn’t seen it before they’d started loading it and he’d been misinformed as well.
And now, they were here, walking alongside the harbor. It was an artificial harbor, with large concrete walls wrapping around it, protecting it from waves, should there be a storm. The harbor was pretty deep, deep enough for the shark to get in, though even it wouldn’t be dumb enough to try. There might be enough space in terms of depth, but not enough for it to turn. If it got in here, it would get stuck.
This particular creature was a ram-ventilator, meaning it needed to keep moving if it wanted to keep breathing. Therefore, going into the harbor would have been a death sentence for it. Good.
The harbor smelled like surprisingly bad, the stench of algae and stale water making her crinkle her nose at it hit her.
Across the lake, the Alps rose, a beautiful mountain range inviting her to go running up them once this was done. But looking out across the vast expanse of water, nothing was more eye-catching than the orange lights, flashing discordantly at intervals of less than a second. It was very out of place on the otherwise surprisingly natural looking lakeshore.
“What are those?” she asked Sturm, the older Professor grimly looking out across the lake, mouth set in a thin line.
“Warning lights. Normally they get turned on when the weather forecast expects strong winds, 40 flashes per minute tell people it might get a little rough out on the water, 90 say you’d be risking your life if you leave the harbor. They’ve been blinking constantly since they first saw the shark. Come on now, Ms. Shaw, let’s make sure they can turn those off again. The ferry bureau is over here.”
“Ferry bureau?”
“We’re bolting a bunch of equipment to the ferry that normally carries cars over to Switzerland and then taking that out. It’s the biggest vessel here and one of the largest on the entire lake and the hope is that it’ll be too big for the shark to easily sink.” Sturm explained.
“And we’re allowed to use a civilian ship, to take it into a situation that could very well end with it at the bottom of the lake?” she asked, surprised.
“It’s not so much a ‘let’ kind of situation.” Sturm replied ominously “But you’ll learn about that soon.”
And wasn’t that the truth. She could hear the orders being barked in that unmistakable ‘I give orders and I’m used to them being obeyed’ and people scurrying around from the parking lot, she just hadn’t known that was their destination.
As they headed over there, telekinetic [Skills] levitating along boxes and crates, she felt a sensory [Aura] brush against her arm. She rolled her eyes, shoot Patrick a dark look, and smashed it away.
They had three sensory [Auras], sort of. Bailey had one that let him tell when people around him were injured, but that one was functionally impossible to notice and didn’t bother anyone. It also had a secondary ability that only came into effect when he charged it with a significantly greater amount of mana, reducing its range in the process, namely, it could heal.
Isaac had a relatively calm sensory [Aura], with just a hint of franticness as befitting the man’s ‘living life a mile a minute’ personality, and he had the good sense of keeping that well clear of people because it would get on their nerves. Of course, he’d promptly undermined that point by suggesting that it might be possible to sense the presence of people without hitting them with the [Aura] directly by checking for environmental factors such as radiated body heat.
... something that Patrick had promptly decided he just had to figure out so he could have his [Aura of the Hungry Mind] active at all times, which would have been bad even if that particular [Aura] hadn’t been the single most obnoxious and intrusive sensory [Aura] anyone had so much as heard about.
Therefore, she first smacked his [Aura] back all the way to him and then used her own [Aura] to condense all the water vapor in her range back into a liquid right above his head. He shot her a brief glare, but he knew what that had been for.
As Amy retracted her own [Aura] to the point where it wasn’t felt by everyone nearby and continued walking.
Her [Aura of Mystic Union] could combine things within it, something she mainly used for fusing spells under battlefield conditions, giving her a new and unparalleled flexibility, but it had a lot of other uses. Instantaneously dissolving sugar cubes in her coffee, dousing annoying colleagues in water without needing flashy magic ... or just affixing someone’s shoes to the floor. Really, it was incredibly versatile, she just needed to get a little creative with it.
On Raul’s shoulder, Brisa, his pet Microraptor suddenly squawked loudly and took flight, settling on the roof of the building and looking down. A few weeks ago, she hadn’t been able to do that, her ‘flight’ limited to something akin to what a sugar glider could achieve, including having to climb to a high place to get started, but not anymore. Not since she’d eaten an Aspect of the Lesser Air Elemental.
Pets and familiars didn’t absorb Aspects the same way people did, spending XP and gaining a single [Skill] with varying degrees of flexibility and power. Instead, they ate them and became a hybrid of the monster that had dropped the Aspect and their original species, and then decide how much they wanted to change, but they were always at least 50% their initial species.
So now, the little microraptor was capable of true flight, and two Aspects from a Specter and Lesser Hydra providing survivability.
She squawked again and took off across the lake, even her vastly improved eyesight quickly losing track of it.
“Where’s she going?” Amy asked.
“To look for the shark. I know it’s a long shot, but I figured it was worth trying.” Raul shrugged and reached up, patting his pet solar dragon’s head. Aurelian had grown to the size of a Golden Retriever, but as a dragon, he also had size-changing powers and spent most of his time in Raul’s breast pocket, the lazy bugger. He was cute in that form, though.
They entered the small, squat office building next to the ferry terminal and came face to face with a scene of absolute chaos.
A woman in a navy blue uniform, wearing a white hat Amy assumed to be a captain’s on her head was arguing with someone in a regular civilian suit. She looked incensed and frustrated, the man looked supremely annoyed and a little scared.
On her shoulder, there was a military rank insignia Amy didn’t recognize, but that was what Wikipedia was for. She stuck her hand in her jacket pocket and cast [Scry], looking at the screen without making it obvious. As it turned out, she was a ‘Kapitänin zur See’, a rank just below the lowest kind of admiral. A quick [Absolute Inspect] revealed that this was also the name of her [Class].
“Look, Mrs., you can’t just take one of our ferries out on a lake that is inhabited by a monster. You’re literally a navy officer, can’t you take a ship that’s actually meant for fighting? Or a helicopter?”
“First of all, we’re not taking the ship, the Marine is borrowing it and will pay for any necessary repairs or even a replacement, should one be necessary.
“Secondly, what ‘ships actually meant for fighting’? This is a lake over six hundred kilometers from the ocean, and there hasn’t been a naval engagement here since before the founding of this nation. Your ferries are the largest vessels on the lake and their size makes them the ones most likely to survive the initial attack. Most vessels here will get chomped in half with a single bite.
“Now, I am sorry about interfering in your business, but let’s not kid ourselves here, you don’t have a business so long as the lake is effectively a deathtrap.”
“A deathtrap?” the owner’s voice was suddenly a full octave higher “Why would you be safe on a ship that is otherwise not allowed outside the harbor? And why can’t you just use a helicopter or something?”
“We have [Skills] that make this considerably safer than it would be without them. And now, if you’ll excuse me, the people who’ll be helping fix this mess have just arrived.”
The woman turned to face them and introduced herself.
“I’m [Kapitänin zur See] Caroline Meier, from the Marine. I’ve been dispatched here to act as a liaison between the university and everyone that whose help might be needed, as well as help keep everyone safe using my [Skills].”
As she said the word ‘[Skills]’, a faint hint of distaste appeared in her voice. Which was somewhat understandable, if she thought about it for a couple of seconds. Meier was surprisingly young for someone of her rank, something she’d almost certainly worked her ass off to achieve. She was also incredibly fit and, given her rank, highly trained. And then, the [System] had come along and flipped the bloody table.
“We’ve commandeered one of the ferries here with the expectation that its size will provide some degree of protection against the shark. Unfortunately, other than the ferries, there were no big boats available, meaning it was our only choice unless we want to go out there in a small yacht or sailboat. I trust you have all the equipment you’ll need and know what you’re doing here?”
Her tone was a little grating, but Amy could tell where she was going with this. Meier’s Level 19 put her well below Professor Bailey’s team in terms of power, though, meaning she had very little idea what someone like them was capable off. Also, a [System Researcher’s] [Privacy] upgrade, [Information Blackout], meant there was literally, absolutely, no way for Meier to have analyzed her, Patrick or Raul. Bailey and Karl had different [Classes], but theirs were also epic rarity research-[Classes] and had similarly powerful information defenses.
“Sure, we brough everything we need, including a handful of drones, periscopes, and all the other gear used when observing normal sized shark. Everything except the bait, that is, but given this creature’s aggressivity and the fact that we’re going to be the only vessel out on the lake, we’re not going to need it.” Sturm explained.
“I expected that to be tougher. Goes to show how valuable a proper plan can be, doesn’t it?”
“You know, I think we might have been asking the wrong question earlier.” the same one of Sturm’s assistants who’d first noticed the shark threw in “It isn’t ‘who’d be stupid enough to summon one of these things in a lake this large, it should have been ...”
“There’s two more!” Patrick snapped. The aquatic researcher might have had been specialized in seeing through water and detecting aquatic life, but Patrick had the best senses overall, allowing him to detect the incoming threat almost as quickly.
He pointed “There and there, they’ll be here in maybe ten seconds.
That ... wasn’t good. In fact, it was really fucking bad. They’d been able to kick the ass of the first one pretty easily, but it had been just one shark and the ‘the entire fucking ship dodges’ [Skill] was now on cooldown.
Meier’s grumbling, which she hadn’t realized that they could quite clearly hear, about how a bunch of civilians should not be hunting monsters with bloody superpowers suddenly hit a lot closer to home. Maybe if they’d been practicing fighting against surprise attacks or how to properly coordinate against a monster when you had only a few seconds to do so, like the military undoubtedly did, they’d have been able to make a proper plan on how to deal with this thing. As it was, though, things ever so slightly went to shit.
Patrick gathered his [Aura] and slammed it into the leading shark as a massive column of power. He’d sacrificed almost all the volume for range, but the intense focus and, quite frankly, violating level of scrutiny was not appreciated by the shark he’d targeted. It veered away, diving deeper into the water so it could attack from below, rather than coming in from the side, attacking at an angle and aiming to slam into the ship’s side.
The second one, however, only caught the periphery of the auric blast and seemed to have taken this as a challenge and aimed straight at him. Patrick raised a magical shield in front of himself, but then Bailey intervened, clearly assuming that a 50 ton shark would be too much for the shield to survive. He pushed the student backwards at full force, sending him sliding backwards all the way to the stern of the boat ... but the hand was still outstretched when the shark leaped out of the water, jaws snapping shut right where Patrick had been staying.
It kept going, Professor Bailey’s hand still clamped in the monster’s jaws ... and then the newly evolved [Biological Savant’s] arm stretched as if it were made from rubber ... for a mere fraction of a second, then the arm reached its maximum extension.
The area around Bailey, maybe three meters from where his feet touched the deck and where his other hand rested on the railing, bent, warped and twisted, crumpling and being pulled towards the shark, the entire bloody boat rocking from the forces exerted upon it, but whatever Bailey had done to anchor himself, it had worked.
Also, his arm somehow held up to strain, and the arm twanged back like a rubber band from hell, pulling the shark towards Bailey. Except they’d been standing near the side walls of the car deck, and the shark’s momentum had carried it two thirds of the way across the deck, so when it was yanked backwards, it ended up unwillingly kissing the superstructure supporting the bridge and sunroof.
Of course, that part of the superstructure was also part of the frame for the large window that lined the wall, which promptly exploded into shards of what was, thankfully, safety glass.
In the next second, though, it became starkly illustrated which one of the people present was either a [Mage] or was able to create magical shields. Why? Because they were the only ones who were still clean. And mind you, these weren’t a few droplets of blood here or there which, while damn near impossible to get out of clothing without specialized magic, weren’t much of a problem. Instead a literal flood of crimson splashed over the people by the railing, utterly drenching those without appropriate defenses.
Well, almost everyone. Bailey ended up messy, but the blood disappeared mere seconds after striking him.
“Oi, Jürgen, we have a Megalodon for you take apart down here.” He called out to Sturm “But let’s wait till we’re done, shall we?”
As he said that, he began to shift, gills opening up at the side of his neck as he began to bulk up, skin changing and growing hundreds of tiny tooth-like structures. Sharkskin, basically.
His feet grew, shoes being torn to shreds in the process, while webbed skin appeared between his fingers and toes. Clearly, he was preparing to leap overboard and deal with the shark mano a mano.
Then, the boat rocked as something heavy smacked into the bottom hull, followed by something exploding and another violent movement underfoot, hurling one of the ‘lifeboats’ overboard.
“That was one of the engines.”Karl called out from the bridge “We’re taking on water, but not much and I’ll fix it. You guys make sure that doesn’t happen again, we only have one more engine and I can’t fix that.”
Then, there was a weird slurping sound and not even his footsteps or breathing were audible anymore. Clearly, he’d used his new [Skill] to dive into solid materials and reform them from the inside while his [Aura of the Limitless Engineer] flowed through the material around him, reshaping it and fusing it where necessary. The screeches of metal being twisted back into place vibrated through the hull, but Amy knew it was a good thing.
Power swirled around her as her [Aura] unfurled and she cast spells into it, a full sized [Wall of Flame] compressing into a single orb the size of a marble, which was then wrapped in a basic [Thermal Shield]. It was a rather basic utility spell that prevented the transfer of thermal energy, intended to prevent a room from losing heat in the winter or from heating up in the summer, but right now, it was intended to do something else, namely, prevent the orb from detonating the instant it hit the water.
And then, two more orbs appeared, all three swirling around each other, ready to be flung at the shark the moment it entered his field of view.
Patrick had chosen to become a [Magical System Researcher], focusing more on the research aspect of his former [System Researcher] [Class], while Amy had evolved hers into a [System Magus], choosing to focus on magic.
The first orb rocketed away, plopping into the water like a rock and going deeper ... until she removed the [Thermal Shield], and it reacted with the surrounding water. Violently. The water was superheated, turning into steam after mere microseconds, expanding and erupting into an immense shockwave that buffeted both the boat and shark.
The monster lurched away, skin blistering as it swam through the boiling liquid, one eye popped like a goddamn water balloon, leaking gross liquid was made no less disgusting by the fact that she could identify precisely what it was.
The shark circled back around, leaping out of the water and aiming straight at only other concentration of humans on the boat, the bridge. It also, wisely, decided to attack from the opposite side of where they were.
Suddenly, the floor below the bridge tore away, dropping everyone in it several meters to the lower deck amidst a shower of equipment that was probably rather expensive.
Mere moments later, the shark flew by overhead, ripping what remained of it away and into the water. The people who’d ended up falling to the lower deck hadn’t really enjoyed the experience, but Karl had almost certainly saved their lives with that stunt. And so long as they were alive, Bailey could heal them.
And then there was nothing between the shark and the pair of Patrick and Amy. Also, fun fact, altering one’s trajectory midair required certain kinds of magic, wings, something to push off of, or a jetpack, none of which the shark had. Therefore, it was utterly screwed.
It seemed to hang there in the air, travelling overhead on a fixed trajectory, as they bombarded it with spells. Both of her orbs of fire slammed against its side, detonating and tearing its guts open while Patrick unleashed a series of airblades and Starflame bolts.
By the time the shark hit the water, it was in pieces.
“That was weird.” Patrick commented “I could buy someone being stupid enough to summon one shark, but three? What’s that saying about once being an accident, but three times being enemy action? It’s an English one, does anyone know it? You know, I think it might be something from Sun Tzu or some other kind of military saying.”
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” Meier commented, standing up and brushing herself of “But that isn’t some profound piece of military wisdom, that’s from an old James Bond movie.
“That being said, it’s now become alarmingly clear that this wasn’t some kind of accident, this was deliberate. There are now hopefully no more sharks in the lake, but there might be more and we have to assume that even if there aren’t, the person or person’s responsible will likely summon more.
“Therefore, we’ll be heading back to shore, and making sure the appropriate authorities are aware of the situation at hand.”
She held out her hand, used a [Skill], and suddenly, the boat’s one remaining engine roared to life. The remains of the bridge, including all the controls, might have ended up at the bottom of the lake, but the captain of a warship was clearly prepared to deal with the loss of her ship’s helm. Then, she turned her head to face them and flashed them a smile.
“Oh, and by the way, nice job. That was a truly impressive thing you just pulled off.”
And then she returned her attention to her driving.
It had taken them half an hour to get out here, but it took them almost two hours to get back to their port of origin. Karl took that time to fix whatever damage he could, his powers allowing him to simply ‘buff out’ massive structural damage, but the ship still looked like hell as they pulled into the port.
A good third of the broken window, as well as large chunks of the bridge and a large part of the upper deck had ended up overboard, and the electrical work wasn’t something he was confident in being able to fix. He’d said he’d fix the electrical systems in case of an emergency, but if he did, it would be a quick and dirty patch, which would likely have to be fixed once more before this ship would be ready to sail the lake once again. It was a damn good thing the navy would be paying for the repairs, because all of this would be damn expensive.
After handing the ship back to a very upset ferry director, Meier headed to the small local military base to give a report while Bailey dropped by the closest police precinct to tell them what was going on.
Then, once that was done, they headed over to their hotel and turned in for the night. Today had been ... interesting. Also fucking terrifying, but there was something about the mess had been oddly ... thrilling.
Amy sighed as she headed into the shower to clean off all the grime that had accumulated during the day, her [Aura] slamming into place against the walls, ensuring that no one could peek in. Not that she thought someone would, mind you, but it was a clear sign that playing around with any [Aura] near this room would result in a swift kick up the ass, no matter how much of an accident it had been and how little had actually been seen.
Tomorrow ... tomorrow could go any number of ways, some good, some bad, some interesting and some utterly terrifying, depending on how their as of yet unknown adversary reacted.
