A Friend

As the last of the flames flickered away into the wind, I could feel my magic ebbing away. Double checking, I reached into my shirt and pulled out the crystal of Manalite, seeing that it was now completely dull. Yeah, about what I expected. Then, letting go of the necklace, I glanced backwards at Martha. About that…

“I hate to admit it to you, but… thanks for showing up. I can’t imagine beating those guys without your canister of Spiritsbane,” I shrugged, picking up the canister that had fallen onto the cracked floor. “I guess your naïve impulsiveness can come in handy every once in a while.”

Martha frowned. “Can you figure out a way to phrase that like an actual compliment?”

“Oh, thank you for gracing me with your service!” I threw my arms in the air. “Without your divine foresight, I am lost.”

“God, why do I even bother? I risk my life, and this is what I get.” She shouldered her bag of goods and her purse. “I’ll let you off the hook for now, since somehow my groceries didn’t get destroyed for once.”

Well, I really was thankful for her saving me back there, but it already felt kind of weird giving praise to someone other than myself, so I just let it be. Staring at the ravaged plaza, I exhaled. “Yeesh. I’d patch this place up, but I don’t have the magic nor generosity for that.”

Martha was already on her way out of the plaza. “The media’ll probably find some ridiculous way to cover it up. Though, I hate to think that this is where our taxpayer dollars are going to end up…”

“Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t really expecting those spirits to put up such a fight,” I sighed. And those were lesser spirits, too. If Karsis was really bent on killing me… My thoughts drifted off as a gust of wind blew away a wave of dirt from the floor, uncovering a little glowing orange spot.

What’s this thing? As I leaned down to get a closer look, the small glowing orb turned around.

“Yo. Long time no see.” A disembodied Kin grinned sheepishly at me.

“The hell? You’re still alive?” Thrusting out my arm, I aimed the half-empty can of spray right at the foxfire spirit’s forehead.

“Woah, woah, calm yourself!” The orb of flame zipped back as well, raising his two floating paws. If a spirit of fire could sweat nervously, Kin was definitely doing so now. “I’m not going to hurt you! Actually, I can’t hurt you, even if I wanted to.”

Well, I don’t doubt that. I frowned at the spirit’s awkward newfound form. It was like a ball of fire with a fox’s snout poking out of it, around the size of my closed fist. Surrounding it were two tiny paws made up of flame, hovering in the air next to the main body.

I tightened my grip on the can. “But why should I spare you? You were trying to blast me to pieces a few seconds ago!”

“Yeah, but things were different back then!”

“Different how? Because now you’re the defenseless one?”

“No, that’s not…” The orb floated in the air for a moment, before drooping down. “Yeah.”

“I knew it.” Placing my finger on the trigger, I prepared to release.

“Wait, wait, wait! Hold on!” Kin bowed his head. “I’ll be your guard, ‘kay? I’ll protect you!”

“How do you expect to do anything in that form?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“My power’ll return to me in a bit. It’ll be a while, since that Spiritsbane is some potent stuff, but it’ll return for sure.” Kin desperately bargained, waving his paws in the air.

“Then how can I expect you not to betray us once you’ve gained your power?”

“Because spirits stay loyal to their masters! Look at me! Does it look like I’m lying?” He clasped his fiery hands together. “If you spare me now, I’ll be eternally grateful.”

“Stay loyal to your master?” Maybe it was the way I was raised, but I just couldn’t bring myself to trust an enemy so quickly. “Doesn’t look like you’re staying loyal to Karsis at all.”

“Karsis wasn’t my master. He was my captor.” He brushed his paws in front of his body. “Besides, look at me! You think that guy would spare me if I showed up like this?”

Fair enough. I folded my arms, and stood up.

“Don, what’re you doing?” I heard Martha’s voice call from a distance away. “Come on! We’ve got to get away before anyone blames all this destruction on us!”

“What do you mean, what am I doing? I’m negotiating!” I yelled back.

“What? Negotiating?” Martha’s faraway form bent down a little. “Don’t tell me. Have you finally lost it?”

I grit my teeth, waving my fist in the air. “Hey, you’d better –”

“Don’t blame her.” Kin rest his head on his floating front paws. “Your Spiritsbane completely destroyed my physical form. That girl isn’t a magic user, right? She can’t see me.”

I blinked. Oh, that’s right. Since Kin technically didn’t exist in the physical plane anymore, your eyes would have to be able to use magic in order to see him.

“Yeah, I’m still here! I’m just invisible to you!” Kin yelled in Martha’s direction.

“Huh? Is that the creepy fox guy?”

“Creepy fox –” Kin broke off midway, sulking. “Yeah, the fox spirit! I’m discussing some things with your friend here.”

“I don’t remember discussing anything.” I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket. “I’ve just been trying my damn best not to kill you, for now. That’s it.”

“And I respect your decision.” Kin saluted with one flaming paw.

“Well, if he’s still around, just let him be,” Martha spoke. “He didn’t seem all that bad.”

“Where does that compassion come from?” I scowled. “The thing literally tried to blast holes in me.”

“I don’t really understand, but he was just being forced to follow orders, right?” Martha lifted her index finger. “Look, he even tried to stop that other guy from attacking me!”

“See? She gets it.” Kin gave a grin.

I let out a deep, exasperated sigh. “You know what, fine. Fine. I don’t care what happens to you. But I don’t want any part of that ‘master’ stuff you talked about earlier.”

“Really?” Kin tried to bow to me midair, but as his entire body was just a blob of fire, he kind of just bobbed. “Thank you so much, my blue-haired fellow!”

“Yeah, yeah.” I attempted to shoo him away with my hand. “Just get lost.”

“I’ll see you around!” Kin’s glowing body rose into the air, and he suddenly popped out of sight, like a candle being blown out.

“I doubt it.” I crossed my brows, glowering scornfully at where the fiery orb was just hovering. But as my body relaxed slowly, the effects of the work energy waned away, and suddenly all the pent-up exhaustion and pain from overloading my body dropped onto me like an anvil from the sky. My knees buckled, and I slammed onto the tiled ground like a sack of old potatoes.

“Don? Oh crap, Don!” Martha quickly hurried over to where I was sprawled on the group. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“Yeah, just…” I struggled to prop myself up with my one good arm. “Just give me a minute. Repercussions of work energy are just kicking in.” As I accidentally put a little force on my left arm, I winced.

“Let me see that.” Unzipping my jacket and gently rolling up my left sleeve, Martha ran her fingers softly across my arm. As she reached the midway point, I flinched away. “Yeah, that’s broken for sure.”

“That earth golem gave me a real beating,” I breathed, trying to maintain composure. After the work energy had exited, the dull pain in my arm had swelled into something raw and full, and I could feel the damage in other parts of my body as well. “Maybe paying a visit to that doctor of yours wouldn’t be that bad of an idea.”

Martha considered this. “Well, that’s fine and all, but Dr. Owens’ clinic is farther off than the distance to my house, so it might be harder on you. Besides, I wouldn’t want to stress her old soul that much, after just visiting her less than two days ago.”

I pushed myself back up into a standing position, with a little trouble. “So? What do you propose?”

“I’ve seen how fast your wounds can heal, so I don’t think a doctor’s visit is really necessary in this case. You can heal yourself with magic, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, but I’m completely out of magic for today. It would have to be tomorrow before I’d be able to do it.”

“Then, do you think you could hold out until then?” Martha clasped her hands together. “I just think seeing you again in such a short timeframe would be too much for Dr. Owens.”

“Are you just scared that she’ll actually charge you this time?”

“What? No, that’s…” Martha averted her gaze. “A secondary concern.”

“Well, whatever. My arm will heal naturally in the next few hours, so it won’t hurt as much.” I shrugged on my jacket, finding that standing on two feet was getting easier, and began heading towards the park exit.

“Appreciate it,” Martha smiled. “In the meantime, why don’t I patch you up?”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “You?”

Martha puffed her cheeks. “Jeez, is there really any need for you to look that skeptical? Yes, me! I took a basic course on first aid when I was in school. I’m no Dr. Owens, but it should last you until you can heal yourself.”

“Well…” I lifted my head up slowly. “If you say so.”

But I began to regret that decision as I sat there, huddled in the bottom of Martha’s cold little bathtub. She had set up a little stool as a table on the side of it, with various medical items piled up on it.

Martha returned into the bathroom, carrying a small box with a red cross on it, while I just sat there uncomfortably. Humming, she pulled out a roll of bandages and unwrapped them, as I stared with some amount of anxiety at some of the more lethal-looking tools in the kit, like the gleaming set of metallic scissors.

“Hey, are you sure this is safe?” I piped up.

“Put some faith in me, will you?” Martha spoke, tying her hair back. “Besides, if I mess up, you’ll heal naturally and I can start over, right?”

“That wasn’t funny!”

“Kidding, kidding,” Martha laughed. I opted not to laugh along, since I still wasn’t sure if she was actually kidding. Somehow, I don’t feel like that was meant as a joke.

Looking satisfied at the array of materials she had out, Martha nodded. “Alright, now take off your clothes.”

“What, all of them?”

“No, because that would be problematic for obvious reasons.” Martha gestured at my shorts. “Leave those on. I’d rather have you get them wet than, you know, have to look at you not wearing them.”

“Mm.” I slipped my right arm into my shirt, and found that I couldn’t lift my shirt off without moving my left arm. “Help me with this.”

Pulling down on my sleeve, Martha managed to slide my left arm through the hole in the shirt and helped pull the it off, tossing it into a corner.

“Nice muscles,” Martha noted, letting out a whistle. “You’re in better shape than I expected. What, you work out in your old world or something?”

“I’d rather you not stare at my body like that.” I muttered. “It’s damn creepy.”

Martha waved the scissors in front of my face menacingly. “Hey, you want me to patch you up without looking at you instead?”

“No, no, I retract that statement. Please don’t do that,” I quickly answered, before Martha could get any ideas that would put me in further harm.

“That’s what I thought.” She leaned in for a closer look, and recoiled a bit. “Ooh. Your injuries look worse up close and in the light.”

“The longer it takes for you to heal me, the more I suffer.” I clapped my hands. “So, chop-chop. You don’t have time to waste.”

“How can you still maintain that confidence when you look like a human punching bag?” Martha sighed in exasperation, turning the handle next to the bath. A stream of water flowed out steadily from the tip of the shower head, and she turned to me. “I’m gonna wash up your wounds a bit. Don’t want them to get infected or anything.”

As the water hit my bare skin, I cringed back with a large motion, forcing Martha to slam the shower head down on the side of the tub. “Man, what’s with you?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s with me’?” I jabbed a finger over at the shower head, water spilling out from under it. “It’s cold as hell!”

“First off, that’s a contradictory sentence. Second, I can’t afford to get a fancy heating system.” She dropped the shower head into the bath, and let it run. “Just give it a second. The heat’ll show up in a bit.”

And so, all I could do was sit there surrounded by icy water, somehow even more uncomfortable than before. Once the water turned from ice-cold to just irritatingly cool, Martha resumed the cleaning.

“Hey. Go gentler on my left arm,” I muttered, as her hands ran over the broken spot.

“What do you want? I’m already being gentle.”

My brow twitched. If this is your gentle, I’d hate to see what rough is.

Then, all of a sudden, Martha laughed lightly to herself. Tilting my head, I faced her. “What is it now?”

“Well, I just find it kind of funny,” she chuckled. “I’ve known those guys at the Oasis for such a long time, and I’ve never so much as invited them over to my house. Then there’s you, who I’ve known for less than three days, and yet…” Martha waved an arm towards me. “Here I am. Or, rather, here you are.”

“And?” I raised an eyebrow. “That supposed to mean something?”

“Nothing in particular,” she said, smiling in my direction. “I guess something about you just makes me trust you.”

What? I sat motionless. “Uh, well. If you say so…”

A couple quiet seconds passed, filled only by the gentle jet of water streaming from the shower head, and Martha’s muted humming. Then, I grit my teeth. Dammit, why’d you have to say that? Now I’ll have to say something or else I’ll feel bad.

After a few more seconds, I peered up slowly. “Hey, Martha?”

She looked up, halfway done with putting my left arm in a splint. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“For, uh, back there… thanks.” That was all I managed to say, before immediately averting my eyes back down at the cold bathwater. “You… didn’t need to do that. You know, come to help me, and stuff.”

“Well, it was only natural.” Raising her scissors up, Martha cut the long end of the bandage on my arm, and wrapped it around tight. “Because that’s what friends are supposed to do, right? Save each other before they’re squashed by giant rock men.”

I froze where I sat. “Friends?”

“Yep.” She smirked. “You looked out for me every time some weirdo tried to attack us, and I saved your butt back there. If that doesn’t constitute friendship, then educate me, because I don’t know what else does.”

I could only stare.

“What’re you looking at me like that for?” Martha’s laugh carried a hint of resignation, like she didn’t know what to do with me. She got up from her stool, and pointed to my body. “I’m already done. Most of the notable injuries have been covered up, and I’ve put your arm in a splint. Is that okay with you?”

Nodding dumbly, I sat there surrounded by stagnant water, trying to process what I had just heard. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but in that moment, I knew that I had felt something that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. It was such a laughably mundane sentence, and yet…

With a snap, Martha closed the clasp on the medical kit. “I’m gonna go put this away. If you want to keep sitting there like an idiotic statue, then help yourself. Just know that I’m not going to be the one draining the tub.”

I just responded with another small nod. “… Yeah.”

###

The night passed without much trouble. As I awoke on Martha’s couch, I peeled off a bandage that Martha had stuck onto one of my bruises. As expected, it had almost fully healed in the course of a single night. I tried rolling my left shoulder next, and a jarring pain almost instantly spiked up it. I glanced at it, and sighed. Guess I’ve got no choice…

Holding my right palm above the injured area, I spoke. “Minor Revert Wound!”

A wave of relief swept through my body as a green light started emitting from my palm, and I could feel the magic’s effect taking place, reconnecting the snapped bone and repairing torn muscle. As the light faded, I flexed my arm, and found that it felt close to normal. Martha entered the living room, her toothbrush in her mouth.

“Morning,” she mumbled, but seemed to instantly gain energy as she saw me peeling off the simple splint on my arm. “Oh, did you heal yourself already?”

“Yes indeed.” I rotated my arm left and right, checking for anything unusual. “How do I look?”

“Nothing too out of the ordinary, just a few small scratches here and there. I wouldn’t be able to guess that you’d been slapped around by some magic spirits,” she said with a smile. “Maybe something more banal, like you fell down the stairs. I wouldn’t find that too hard to believe.”

“Oh, shut up.”

After a quick breakfast, we made our way back to the Oasis. Apparently in this world’s sense of time, two days of the week were reserved as break days, and the rest were technically supposed to be for work. The Oasis allowed its staff both of these break days off, as well as one additional day if business was slow. Though today was one of the designated break days, Martha had called it ‘Sunday’, we decided that the Oasis would still be the best place to head since we had nowhere else to go. Besides, enemies that were searching for me wouldn’t be likely to enter such a secluded place, as they probably would start like Karsis did: looking in crowded public areas.

As Martha pushed open the staff doors in the back of the Oasis, instead of heading to the kitchen, she opened a second door on the side.

“Where are we going?” I asked. I would have expected her head to the kitchen, since that was where I figured other bored staff members would be.

“There’s a small open area out back, where most of the staff usually hang out if they’re here on break days,” she explained. As we exited into the area, I had to shield my eyes from the sunlight. The area was a roughly rectangular patch of land, surrounded by corrugated metal fences on each side except for the right, where a semi-operational metal gate stood locked. Through the small gaps in the gate, I could tell that it would lead to the main roads if it were open. The right half of the ground was unevenly paved with little tiles, while the left was covered by surprisingly lush green grass. Over to the far left, a little rusted shed was built behind the grass, which seemed locked as well. But what stood out most right now was the large car parked right on top of the tiled half, propped up by an array of foreign-looking tools.

“What’s that doing here?” I felt like it looked out of place, such a large vehicle parked in an already cramped space.

“Probably Chris’ doing.” Martha cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Chris?”

“Yeah?” A voice seemingly responded from nowhere.

“What?” I looked left and right. “Where did –”

At that moment, Chris’ grease-stained head poked out from underneath the car. “Hey, Martha. Hey, Don. You guys need something?”

“Not really, just checking if you were here.” Martha raised a finger at the car for me to see. “That truck is probably Chris’ latest side project. He brings his friends’ faulty cars here to fix them, more often than you would expect.”

“Exactly.” Pulling himself out from under the car… no, truck, Chris’ sweaty body towered up in front of us, grinning. “I’m a bit of mechanics buff, so I like to do stuff like this in my spare time. Not a bad way to earn some quick cash, too.”

“That’s great and all, but… distance, please.” Martha screwed up her face. “You do not smell human right now.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Chris backed up, but advanced again just as quickly as he seemed to remember something. “Good timing, though. There’s something up front I need to screw in place, but I have to hold on to another part or else it’ll fall apart. It’s too far for me to reach both on my own, so could you lend a hand?”

“Don’t think I’m cut out for manual labor, sorry,” Martha responded. “Don?”

“Well, I guess.” I stepped towards the side of the truck. “What do you want me to do?”

Chris slid out a long metallic tool from under the truck. “There’s a loose knob under the hood. Mind securing it?”

I grabbed the tool off the ground, and found it covered in grease. Gingerly clasping it between my fingers, I searched around the opened hood and located the loose knob. There seemed to be an indent in the tool just the shape of the knob, so I secured the tool in place, and glanced down.

“I’m all set here,” I heard Chris’ voice reverberate from below. “Ready whenever you are.”

Here goes, then. Using both arms, I twisted hard to the right. Abruptly, there was a loud popping noise, and sparks burned in the air. The shock stung my hand, and I quickly drew it back, dropping the metal tool.

“Ah, sorry!” Chris exclaimed. “You alright? This truck’s not the newest, so even I can’t tell when these kinds of things will happen.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” I pressed my shocked hand to my chest, waiting for the pain to fade. But as my hand neared my chest, a soft ruby glow pulsed from within my shirt. I frowned, and dug out the hanging Manalite crystal. And then it happened.

If I’m being honest, it was so small that any other person would probably have missed it. But my paranoia ran deep, and for a split second as I grasped the crystal in my fingers, it seemed like the tiny red line in the middle rose just the slightest bit, then immediately fell back down. Several different thoughts were swirling around in my head at that exact moment, but my mind found a way to weed out the one important question:

Does… electricity increase the amount of Manalite that I can use?

Pulling the crystal off my neck, I frantically tried poking it around the inside of the truck, trying to trigger the same shock as before but to no avail.

“There’s an awful lot of banging up there,” Chris said, poking his head out from underneath the truck. “You have it under control?”

“Uh, yeah.” As I quickly pulled my arm back to tuck the crystal inside my shirt, a smaller residual shock snapped from within the hood, jolting my fingers again. This time, armed with knowledge, I pulled the crystal in front of my face as fast as possible, and saw the line rise by a hair’s breadth, before sinking back down. But there was no denying it this time. Even if just by a microscopic amount, the line had definitely grown.

It works! I grinned, but my smile faded as I thought about it more. Well, I’ve confirmed my theory at this point, but I highly doubt any amount of electricity this truck can muster will have any significant effect on my magic usage at all. Certainly not enough to fill the gap between what I have now and a Tier 6 spell like Spatial Reposition. I thought of another possibility, so I turned my back so that Chris wouldn’t be able to see, and held the Manalite crystal up between my index finger and my thumb. “Minor Shock.”

A few tendrils of lighting crackled from my fingers through the crystal, before dissipating into the air. But this time around, the crystal stayed completely dull, and the line showed no movement whatsoever. Yeah, makes sense. There’s no way electricity procured from magic would produce more magic.

I stared gloomily at the crystal, the light from the midday sun reflecting off its scratched surface. So that option’s out the window. What now? I can’t keep doing these magic experiments, either. I’ve already used up one Tier 2 spell to heal myself and a Tier 1 just now, so that’s already 15 of the 30 magic points I can use today. I need to be more frugal in case of an emergency.

“Hey, you look unusually thoughtful,” Martha said, strolling over. “Did you manage to reach an epiphany from screwing a bolt in?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” I rapped the knuckle of my index finger against the crystal hanging around my neck. “From that shock just now, I estimate that there’s a pretty decent chance I can increase the potency of this Manalite through electricity.”

“What, really?” Her eyes widened. “Hey, that’s big!”

“All I need is a sufficient amount of electricity to jump-start the Manalite in here, and I’ll be on my way back home.” I scratched my chin. “All the electricity around here must come from somewhere, right? Why don’t we just hook the crystal up to that?”

Martha crossed her arms. “Don, I’m not gonna let you wreck the local power grid to power your little magic gem.”

“Why? Is it illegal?”

“Yes, and the way you make breaking the law sound like not a big deal is concerning.”

“Law’s never stopped me before.”

“And look where you are now. Asking a restaurant waitress to commit felonies,” Martha retorted. “For the last time, no criminal acts.”

“I bet this is why people don’t visit your house more often. Because you’re no fun.” I exhaled. “Do you have any better ideas?”

“You gave one idea, and that idea was crime. I think I can do better. You just need something that gives off a whole lot of electricity at a time, right?” Martha asked. “It’s just an idea, but how about a lightning rod?”

“A lightning rod?”

“Yeah, like a pole that catches lightning in a storm. A lot of houses here have them. I’m not entirely sure on the intricacies, but most of the time the lightning basically enters the pole, and through the path of least resistance or whatever, scatters into the ground.” Martha zigzagged her index finger down her arm to show me. “But there’s probably some way that you can get the electricity to redirect into the crystal. Though, lightning storms don’t occur all too often here, so it might take a bit of waiting.”

I considered this for a moment. “Actually, that might work.”

“I know, right?” Martha smirked. “Feel free to praise me.”

“Don’t get too cocky,” I snorted. “I mean, where are we even going to get the materials?”

“You should know by now that I’m not much of a planner,” she said with a shrug. “Though, we’ve got a starting point, right? As long as we know where to begin, we can just improvise from there.”

So, in the end I’m still the one who has to do all the work, I scowled inwardly. But something occurred to me, and I glanced up. Still, that charlatan fortune teller said that I would end up accomplishing my ultimate goal if I survive these spirits, didn’t he? Of course, it’s not like I should believe anything someone like him says. But if for some reason I did decide to trust him… well, here I am, not dead. What would that mean, then?

Giving up on my dirty look, I crossed my arms. Is my return assured, no matter what I do? Then, I guess I should make the best out of the time I have here. I mean, this isn’t a bad world, per se.

Sneaking a quick glance at Martha, I saw that she was currently discussing something I couldn’t hear with Chris. I could probably afford to relax a little. Of course, I’m not here solely to have fun, but… maybe a little bit improvisation won’t be such a bad idea after all.

“Hey, Don?” Chris’ voice cut out from a distance. “Sorry, but could you lend a hand again?”

As I grabbed the tool off the cool grass, I felt the chill of the metal bite into the palm of my hand. Then I straightened back up, before walking back over to the shell of a truck. “Yeah. I’m coming.”