System Change

“Are you ready?” Derek asked while holding a dagger. Jace was standing—leaning against a wall in one of the training rooms within David Brandt’s estate.

“Are you sure we need to do this?” Jace asked. “Look at me…” he motioned to his ghoulish state, which included sickly red skin, protruding bones, and an overall look of being emaciated. “I don’t think anything else is needed for it to be believable.”

“What? Are you scared of dying?” Derek asked.

“In general? No,” Jace replied. “But for something like this… while not in an actual fight… the death would be a joke.”

“Don’t worry,” Derek said. “I won’t hit any vital areas that will instantly kill you or anything… probably.”

“Probably?” Jace rolled his eyes. “You know that my health pool is already limited because of the backlash from the skill, right? The same is true for all my stats. Which means that both my endurance and vitality are lower than normal… which means that my regeneration is shit…”

“Just meditate,” Derek said. “It will be fine.”

Jace let out a few mutters, then closed his eyes and began breathing slowly. “That’s more like it,” Derek said. Then he slowly sliced the dagger through the air and activated Spatial Rend. A small portion of space rippled and opened up in front of Jace, slicing from his left shoulder all the way down to the right side of his abdomen.

Jace winced, then opened his eyes and looked down. “Oh… is that all?” he asked.

“You’ve been healing for a few days already, remember?” Derek said. “It wouldn’t be believable if the wound was still too deep—even with the properties of the skill.”

Indeed, the wound really wasn’t deep. It was maybe only a few centimeters deep, actually. It was enough to draw blood and cause bleeding, but not enough that his natural—albeit limited—regeneration couldn’t replenish. But what truly sold the wound was the unnatural darkness moving around on the edges. Derek had made sure to make the wound a little wider than necessary just to make the darkness more noticeable.

“Creepy,” Jace said. “And it’s not even trying to close.”

“Which goes to show just how good your healing truly is when you have enough of that Battlelust built up in your system.” Derek walked closer, then took some bandages out of his storage space. “Stay still,” he said. After that, he began wrapping the wound. The white bandages absorbed the blood instantly, and it made for a perfect sight.

A few minutes later, David walked inside. “That bandage makes it look really bad,” he said as he examined Jace.

“It looks much worse without it, actually,” Derek replied. “Just wait. You’ll see soon enough.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” David said with a bit of a cheeky grin.

“Is it ready?” Derek asked.

“It is,” David answered. “I came here to tell you.”

“Great,” Derek replied, then looked back at Jace. “Are you ready to show everyone your acting chops? Do you think you can play a pissed-off asshole that just got the shit kicked out of him?”

“I was born for it… except for getting the shit kicked out of me… that’s new,” Jace replied. He then slowly pushed himself back off the wall and got to his feet. He took a single step, then stumbled. Derek quickly moved to catch him.

With Jace’s arm slung over his shoulder and neck, Derek helped his friend move out of the room. A few minutes later, the duo—with David trailing behind them—made it to the private courtyard behind the main manor. There waited Marrick, David’s granddaughter, and a few other people. They were all standing in front of what looked to be a fairly large wooden shack.

Derek couldn’t help but chuckle when he saw the sight. He couldn’t actually believe they were going through the trouble—albeit a small amount—just to satisfy him and Jace’s whims. Who knows whether any of their antics will make Darvin accept what Jace says—or if they would even actually need to do any of it. Still… it can’t hurt.

Soon enough, Derek opened the door to the small building and looked inside. There was a plain bed tucked away in the corner and a small desk with a very uncomfortable-looking wooden chair slid underneath it. There was also one window on the side beside the desk that let a small amount of light inside. The window was placed where not much of the outside—specifically the massive, elegant manor—could be seen.

“What do you think?” Marrick asked.

“It looks perfect,” Derek replied. “Maybe needs a layer of dust, but it’s definitely something you’d find in one of the lesser villages.”

Marrick snapped his fingers, and an extremely light layer of dust formed on some of the areas. He was so precise that he even made it so there was much less dust in the areas that would normally be used more than the others.

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“Oh… now it’s absolutely perfect.” Derek then looked beside him at Jace and said, “Are you ready?”

“Of course,” Jace said.

“Now remember, I used that skill on Kelvin before. They need to think that I really took it easy when I hit him with it.”

“Got it…”

After that, Derek brought Jace into the room and placed him on the bed. They made sure to mess up the blanket and pillow to make it look like they had been used for a while. Jace also smeared a bit of the blood from his bandage around to really give it an authentic look. Derek walked back to the door and then closed it. Finally, only he and Jace were left inside.

“Now we wait,” Derek said.

“Yes… now we…” Jace started, then his bracelet began buzzing again. “Well… that didn’t take long.” His bracelet had been going off constantly, but in the recent hours, the calls had become less and less frequent. It felt like if they didn’t receive an answer soon, they were eventually going to stop.

Derek made to go into the corner opposite the window, but Jace stopped him. “Wait,” he said.

“What?”

“Come punch me,” Jace said.

“What?”

“In the face… the cheek,” Jace replied. “Punch me.”

Derek shrugged and walked back over. Then he drew his fist back and struck Jace. Jace smiled and looked up at Derek—showing him his now bloody teeth. “That…”

“I know what I’m doing,” Jace said. Derek shrugged and walked back to his corner.

Jace took a few deep breaths, laughed a couple of times, then got serious. He went slightly limp, which wasn’t hard for him to do in his current shape, then picked up his wrist and answered the call with video.

“The hell do you want?” he asked. Then, he broke out in a coughing fit. He covered his face with the back of his free hand, and when he took it away, a small amount of blood could be seen on and around his wrist. He made sure the person on the other end was able to get a quick glance at the blood, then moved it away. “What do you want?” he asked again.

“What… happened?” When the video feed first connected, Darvin had appeared with an angry look on his face, but that look had turned into confusion as soon as he saw Jace.

“What happened?” Jace rolled his eyes. “What the hell does it look like happened?” he spat angrily. “Those bastards…” he muttered.

“Who?” Darvin asked. “Which bastards? The monarch? Goblin? Brandt?”

“All three of them!” Jace huffed, then winced.

“You’re alive, though,” the Malaxi said.

“Because he didn’t chase me when I tried to leave. He just let me go,” Jace said. Then, in a voice that could barely be picked up over the feed, he muttered, “We’ll see if I do the same for him. Gonna beat his ass until the system takes him away.” Derek silently snickered in the corner.

“Who let you live?”

“Who do you think?” Jace said. “Derek…”

“So it really is him.” Darvin nodded his head, unsurprised. “We’ve had reports. Tell me… what happened? Don’t leave any details out.”

“And why the hell would I do that?” Jace coughed and let some more blood fall from his mouth.

“You’re still injured?” Darvin asked with furrowed brows—only just now putting it together. “It’s been days.”

“Had to… use my trump card to survive and run,” Jace said. “Backlash…”

“I see…” Darvin said, and just as he did, Jace saw a large red woman appear in the background and frowned.

He saw her whisper into Darvin’s ear, then the man told her what Jace had said up until that point in the conversation.

“Right…” Darvin said. “Weren’t the two of you friends?” he asked.

Jace snorted. “Like you said, I’m alive,” he said, as if that cleared everything up.

“From the looks of it,” Amelia said. “Barely.”

“He could have killed me if he wanted,” Jace said. “He’s pretty strong. Would give you a run for your money. No, he’d beat you, and if all three of them were there, you wouldn’t even have a chance. You’d be even worse off than I am. And that is if he allowed you to live.” Jace breathed in deep, then winced again. There was nothing fake about the wince, though. He still felt a very sharp pain when he breathed in too deeply, and the new wound didn’t help matters. “Then again, you Champions and Guardians have that cowardly retreat you can do.”

“Did you have to kill Wri?” After a moment of silence, Amelia finally asked. “We could have used him if they are as strong as you say.”

“That was his fault,” Jace said. “He insisted that I go back to that damn Stronghold. I didn’t want to. Then he got handsy.”

“Just like Holcom said…” Darvin muttered.

“Are you finished?” Jace asked. “I need rest. All this calling is screwing with my recovery.” Then, without another word, he hung up.

“Seems to be going well,” Derek said with a smile.

Jace held his wrist up, then a grin appeared on his face, too. “That seems to be the case.” He wiped the grin off his face, then gritted his teeth before answering again. “What!? I’m tired. Leave me alone… and stop calling!”

“Wait!” Darvin said. “We need to know what happened.”

“Then will you leave me alone?” Jace asked. “This constant buzzing keeps waking me up. I need to get better so I can go back for round two.”

“You want to go fight again?” Amelia asked with wide eyes.

“Of course!” Jace let a small grin appear on his face. “That was the best fight I’ve ever had. If not for this backlash and this…” he tilted the feed to show the bandages on his chest, then said, “I’d already have gone back.”

“What… that wound…” Amelia said. “Is that from your skill, too?”

“This?” Jace scoffed. “Of course not. Derek has some weird shit that makes it hard to heal. Even with my regeneration in my battle state, it still doesn’t heal fast.” Jace grunted as he sat up straighter in the bed, then pulled the bandage to the side—showing the darkness surrounding the wound. “It won’t stop bleeding. And it’s only a fraction of the size it was a few days ago. So at least it is healing.”

Amelia and Darvin looked at each other in shock and worry. “Just what kind of power is that?” Amelia muttered.

“Kelvin had some kind of nagging wound on his back for a while after he fought the man. He didn’t talk much about it, but it could have been the same,” Darvin said. “Is it that? Was it void?”

“Space… I think… not void,” Jace answered, even though they weren’t actually asking. “And if that bastard survived this.” He motioned to the wound. “Then Derek really must have held back.” Jace shook his head. “That assassin I killed at the Stronghold had something like it, but it just made blood not clot. It didn’t really affect the ability of the wound to close, but this is different.”

“Vendra? The Guardian?”

“Sure…” Jace shrugged.

“Jace,” Amelia said, then reached forward and grabbed Darvin’s arm that his bracelet was on, and the feed went black. After some shuffling sounds, the feed reappeared, and a wider view was shown. Amelia was now sitting in the center with Darvin floating to her right. To her left, Trischa was standing, and a very sullen and wounded Briya was beside her. Behind all of them, the black-scaled, four-armed massive figure of Cuthos stood.

All that’s missing are Kelvin, Holcom, and Xephos. And holy shit… Briya looks worse off than I do, Jace thought. Then he frowned.

“Jace…” Amelia said again.

“What?”

“If you tell us everything you can about Derek Hunt and the other Guardians, we’ll help do all we can to get you ready to fight again,” the woman said. “And… where exactly are you right now?”