Heroine Creation: All My Summons Are Custom Made

Clevus held Lancet’s hand between both of his and grinned at the worry he thought he saw on his face.

The crowd kept moving around them, students filling the aisle and pressing toward the exits, but Clevus’s fingers remained tight around Lancet’s hand. His biggest fish!

”You’re scared, aren’t you?” he asked.

Lancet looked down at their joined hands.

Clevus laughed, louder now that he believed the silence meant fear. ”You should be. Your powers are mine at last.”

A few students slowed nearby. Others turned as they passed, drawn by Clevus’s voice and the sight of him clutching Lancet like he had just won a prize.

”Now, I can summon Legends too,” Clevus continued. ”I can finally see what you’re hiding. Every ability. Every secret. Everything you’re capable of.”

Lancet raised his eyes to him. ”Look, Senior. I don’t think you’re going to be doing much of anything.”

Clevus’s smile disappeared for a minute. Then he scowled. ”Still acting tough? Even now? Even when I finally got you?” He jerked Lancet’s hand closer and bared his teeth. ”I hate you, kid.”

Lancet looked at him blankly. ”I tried to stop you,” he said with a sigh.

Clevus had already activated his Class-stealing Skill and Lancet’s power started to move.

A thin current slipped from Clevus’s palm and entered Lancet’s hand. It did not feel like Grace. Grace was warm and clean, even when sharpened into a weapon. This crawled.

The stealing energy spread beneath Lancet’s skin in narrow threads, searching through his channels like it had done this many times before. It reached for the light inside him and closed around it.

Clevus’s eyes widened.

The current found the Class.

Yes! Yes!

For one instant, the glow beneath Lancet’s skin brightened. Gold ran from his wrist into his palm, gathered beneath Clevus’s fingers and pulled back toward the thief.

Clevus inhaled sharply.

”There,” he whispered. ”Come to daddy. Astensia, Thor, even that hot villainess. They’re all going to be my playthings.”

Lancet gave him a pitiful eyebrow raise.

The light crossed the space between their hands. But then it abruptly stopped.

Clevus’s arm jerked as though he had pulled against a chain fixed to a mountain.

His grin disappeared.

The stolen light pressed against the entrance to his Grace channels, but the connection would not open. Something inside him strained to receive it, widened, then buckled. The power gathered at his palm and swelled until veins of gold showed through the back of his hand.

Clevus stared at it. ”What?”

The stealing current tightened around Lancet’s Class and yanked harder.

Lancet felt the pull run through his arm, but he knew it wouldn’t go through. It was like pushing a football through a straw.

Clevus’s magic forced it in again and this time, the force bent his wrist backward.

His mouth opened. No sound came out at first.

The energy tried to enter him, but there was too much of it. And it wasn’t just the raw power alone.

It was layers folded inside layers. A Class carrying modules, systems, rosters, bonds and rules that did not fit inside the hollow Clevus had used to store everything else.

His stealing ability did not understand refusal.

It stupidly pulled again.

Clevus screamed. ”Ahhhhhhhh!!!!”

The gold at his palm flashed white.

His Grace channels lit beneath his skin from his fingers to his shoulder, then darkened one after another as the backlash raced through them.

His whole arm convulsed. His grip broke, but Lancet caught his wrist before he could fall and held him in place while the stolen energy tore back through the path it had entered.

”Don’t worry. Just stay still. Let it happen.”

Clevus’s knees struck the floor.

The scream kept coming.

Students scattered away from them. Someone shouted for an Instructor. Another person dropped a stack of books and did not bend to pick them up.

Clevus clutched his arm to his chest. Smoke curled from his fingertips.

”What did you do?” he cried.

Lancet released him.

Clevus collapsed onto one hip and dragged himself backward across the floor. ”What did you do to me?”

”Me?” Lancet pointed to himself. ”I just stood here.”

”My hand.”

Clevus stared at it.

The skin looked normal apart from the red marks where the channels beneath had burned, but Clevus kept flexing his fingers as though they belonged to someone else. He pressed his thumb into his palm, waited, then struck it with his other hand.

Nothing answered.

His face emptied. ”No.”

He reached inward.

Lancet watched the panic move through him.

Clevus had stolen Classes for years. They had piled inside him, each one stored behind the next, powers taken from people who had probably never known.

Now he searched for them and found silence.

He tried again. Still nothing.

”No, no, no.”

The numbness spread past his wrist.

Clevus grabbed his forearm and squeezed until his nails dug into the skin. ”I can’t feel them.”

Students formed a rough circle around him, careful not to stand too close. Some recognized Clevus. Others only saw a senior crying on the floor while Lancet stood over him.

”My Classes,” Clevus said. ”I can’t feel any of them.”

He shut his eyes and reached deeper. Then a hitched breath of fear escaped him. ”They’re gone.”

Lancet said nothing.

Clevus lifted his head. Tears had gathered beneath his eyes, though rage still fought to keep them there.

”You destroyed them.”

”Hey. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

”You did something!”

”You’re the one who grabbed me.”

Clevus looked at the dead hand again. He scraped his nails over his palm, then pressed two fingers against a passing student’s shoe before the boy kicked him away.

Still nothing.

The magiclessness had reached his elbow now. He could feel it moving through his shoulder like cold water, putting out every stolen light it touched.

Clevus pushed himself upright. ”I’ll kill you one day, Lancet. But I never want to see your face again!”

He swayed once. Then he ran.

He shoved through the students around him, nearly fell at the first step and caught himself against the wall. His damaged arm hung close to his body while the other cleared a path through anyone too slow to move.

”Out of my way!”

The crowd broke for him.

Clevus disappeared, his sobs following him long after his footsteps had faded.

Lancet looked at the space where he had gone. ”He had it coming.”

No one nearby answered.

Lancet adjusted the Radiant Guillotine at his side and continued toward the exit.

*****

Inside the Year Five Student Lounge, Oden Fyrebloom sat near the long windows with one leg stretched out and the other bent beneath his chair.

His upper uniform had been changed, but a fresh bandage still crossed the shoulder Vernon Heavenblum had burned during their match. A shallow bowl of dark liquid rested on the table beside him, cooling the poison in his channels and drawing heat from the torn muscles beneath the skin.

It had not improved his mood.

Oden gripped a metal cup in one hand and stared at the wall as though Vernon’s face had been carved into it.

Espel sat beside him with her legs crossed.

She did not touch him. She did not ask whether the pain had eased. Oden had refused help twice already, and she saw no reason to offer a third time. Instead, she watched the thin green vapor rise from the medicine and disappear near his shoulder.

Across the room, Noctis stood before a large crystal display.

Reon Godgraham leaned against the table beside him, one hand supporting his chin while the other adjusted the narrow glasses resting low on his nose. Several other Serpents occupied the room without speaking.

None sat close to Oden. Even though he wasn’t the leader, everyone was scared of the Poison Berserker. He had a way of acting out, especially in moments like this.

Dr. Mundy was the image on the screen.

The scientist looked worse than the last time Espel had seen him. His silver hair had fallen loose above one eye, and red light from the laboratory painted deep shadows beneath his cheekbones.

Behind him, bodies shifted inside glass tubes while technicians moved between monitors.

”The latest procedure failed,” Mundy said.

Noctis’s expression did not change. ”Define failed.”

”Six subjects died during the drainage phase. Three more survived it but rejected the Gloom once infusion began. Their channels collapsed inward.”

Reon removed his glasses and cleaned one lens with the end of his sleeve. ”And the remaining subjects?”

”Alive.”

”That was not the question.”

Mundy paused.

”None achieved full compatibility.”

Oden’s fingers tightened around the cup.

The metal bent with a faint groan.

Noctis glanced at it once, then returned his attention to the display. ”You told us draining Grace would force the body to accept Gloom.”

”I said it might encourage adaptation.”

”You said the body would choose survival.”

”It did,” Mundy replied. ”The problem is that survival does not always mean integration. Some bodies close their channels entirely. Others rupture them before the Gloom settles.”

Reon put his glasses back on. ”Then alter the rate.”

”We already have.”

”Alter it again.”

Mundy rubbed at his temple. ”There are limits to what can be done with weak material.”

Noctis took one step closer to the crystal.

The room quieted around him.

”You have bodies. You have equipment. You have funding and protection. Do not speak to me about limitations.”

Mundy looked away from the screen.

”We will try again with the incoming test subjects,” he said. ”The Terrible Three, as you call them. Their records suggest stronger channels, higher resistance and younger cores. The results should be better.”

”When do they arrive?” Reon asked.

”Our Extractors are already on their way to get them.”

Noctis folded his arms. ”Should be better is not enough.”

Mundy’s jaw moved before he answered. ”They are Radiant-ranked. Their bodies have endured more strain than the current batch. If the Grace drainage succeeds, they may hold the Gloom long enough for the channels to adapt.”

”May,” Reon repeated.

”We are working with an incompatibility no one has solved before.”

”That is why you are being paid as much as you are,” Reon said. ”If it were already solved, we would not need you.”

Mundy’s mouth tightened.

Noctis stepped into the space between the table and the display. ”We need humans who can control Gloom.”

”I understand.”

”No,” Noctis said. ”You understand the experiment. I am speaking about the result.”

He placed one hand on the table.

”We are not trying to create another corpse that leaks dark energy for three minutes before its organs fail. We are not trying to produce a convulsing animal. We need Awakeners who can draw Gloom, shape it and remain human long enough to follow an order.”

Mundy nodded once.

Reon watched him through the screen. ”And they must keep their Classes.”

”That is making the process far more difficult.”

”They must keep them,” Reon repeated. ”A mindless Gloom vessel is no more useful than a Demon. The entire point is to join human discipline with demonic power.”

Dr. Mundy looked over his shoulder when one of the tubes behind him began shaking. A technician hurried toward it, checked the monitor and reached for a valve.

The body inside struck the glass with both hands.

Mundy did not turn back until the movement stopped.

”We will have updated results once the new subjects arrive.”

”You will have success,” Noctis said.

The scientist lowered his head. ”Yes, Lord Cobra.”

The crystal went dark.