Chapter 13: Behold The Titan

  “You can kill those things?” both girls interrupted halfway through Erik’s story.

  Erik asked them to hold their questions until the end of the story and despite their frowns, they did as asked. Ending his story when he arrived at Leicester, the two had no lack of questions to ask him.

  Before that, though, Jessie ordered her sister to buy some beer while she made dinner for them. Making dinner, in this case, meant throwing some frozen food into the oven for half an hour, but that didn’t make it less appetising in the end.

  “So you’ve killed Hellbeasts?” Jessie asked before her first forkful of lasagna.

  “Five, I think,” Erik said, thinking back before nodding in confirmation. “It seems the only thing they’re vulnerable against is magic.”

  “They’re unkillable by other means, or so I’ve heard,” Jessie said.

  “Yeah. That means you’ll probably be able to witch them to death too, you know.”

  “What if I can’t, though? I mean, we can’t be sure, right?”

  “That’s part of the reason I’m here. Stuff happened and I got some help from the military stationed between Sweden and Denmark, as well as some new friends that are at the nearby air base right now. They want me to help them win the war, but I kind of need your help. If you can give it, of course,” Erik said, looking at Sophie at the end. “I understand your family needs you-”

  “I’ll do it, obviously. The moment I got back and learned of the invasion, I was heartbroken. If I can help, even just a little, I have to,” Jessie explained, also looking at her sister.

  “Of course she’s helping!” was all her sister said in response to their stares.

  “That reminds me… what can you do?” Jessie asked, her mouth full of pasta and tomato sauce.

  “Err… stuff? I mean, it’s just a bunch of weird stuff. What’s your power?”

  “Oh! It’s really cool!” Sophie exclaimed, her eyes practically glowing with pride.

  “Oh?” Erik said, looking at Jessie.

  “It’s multiple things, like you. It’s called Call of Nature and it lets me cast a spell for each natural element. One for fire, one for water, an earth spell and a wind spell. Like Nana guessed, some are offensive and some are defensive.”

  Nana, who was a fount of knowledge for awakened and resurrected Remnants, had guessed that based on Jessie’s Crest. On her chest were two birds’ wings, one pointed upwards with sharp feathers, the other with thicker plumage pointing downwards. The left one looked like a predatory bird’s wing, like that of a falcon or eagle and the other resembled that of an owl.

  The Core was right in the middle and each wing had one row of circles along the bones, and another along the edge of the feathers. She also had one extra line of circles straight down from the Core, between both wings.

  Like on Erik’s Crest, the first circle in each row was larger than the rest. With the additional row, Jessie had one more row for absorbing powers and one more major power than he did. Sometimes, the Crests could be used to tell what kind of abilities the Remnant was suited to and Nana guessed that Jessie’s would either be a mix of both offensive and defensive based on the two different wings.

  That didn’t mean that was Nana’s only guess, as it could also mean something like hard and soft or even up and down considering the directions they were pointing. Erik’s swirl was harder to pinpoint, as it was uniform. That could mean that there either wouldn’t be that much variation in his powers, or that the differences weren’t easily quantified.

  “Can I see yours?” Sophie creaked with enthusiasm.

  After dinner, and with a lot of embarrassing cat calling, Erik removed his shirt, letting Sophie see his Crest from up close. As he channelled his magic, she touched his dimly glowing red core with her index finger, following the swirls from the centre and to one of the ends.

  “Why are your thingies hexagonal?” she asked.

  This had been discussed in Afterlife as well, but the consensus was reasons. It didn’t seem to matter at all, but it was always geometrical shapes.

  “It’s pretty dim, isn’t it?” Jessie asked as she observed it. Her own Crest flashed a brighter red, visible even through the thick fabric of her hoodie.

  “I was kind of in the middle of saving a kid’s life, so it was a bit of a rushed job,” Erik defended his light.

  “That’s dumb,” Jessie argued without mercy. “Do it now. If we’re going to fight, we’ll need to be at our strongest.”

  “When you say ‘fight’, you mean fight Hellbeasts, right?” Erik asked with a bit of a smile.

  “That, too,” Jessie grinned fully.

  “Fine,” Erik said as he sat back down.

  Sophie stepped back and stared at him along with her sister.

  How was he supposed to just do it, with the rest of them just watching him? It was weird, right? Still, he had to try. There was no way Jessie was letting it go otherwise.

  Immediately after settling down, the massive sea that was his magic hovered in front of him. Everything else was pitch-black around him. There was already a connection formed between him and his magic, and Erik touched the spherical pool of power with just the tip of his finger.

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  It was both warm and cold, wet and dry. It made him unsure whether the black was the sea, not the other way around, but he couldn’t be sure. The sea stirred as it mingled with him, reaching out further up his arm of its own volition. It was oddly familiar, though it wasn’t from the previous time he’d done this. Being able to take the time now, he recognised esoteric parts of himself within the sphere.

  Then there was something else. Someone else. From the pool of magic approached a figure without form, except that of a wavy presence. It seemed humanoid based on what little Erik could make out, though it was red streaked with black.

  “Behold the Titan,” the figure said, growing ever more clear, yet still giving off no real details.

  It undulated as it spoke, but stilled again when observing Erik from right in front of him.

  “Who are you?” Erik asked.

  He ran through several other questions, but none of them made more sense to ask at this moment.

  “Behold the Titan. Carry the Cross,” it responded.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Erik tried reaching out to the figure, but despite its apparent closeness, he couldn’t reach it at all.

  “Carry the Cross. The Titan is reborn.”

  The form faded, all signs of it gone in a second. Erik woke from his meditative state shortly after, having familiarised himself with and absorbed the sea of magic within him.

  “That was odd,” he mumbled more to himself than those around him.

  “How did it go?” Jessie asked.

  “Swell.”

  “Um, so I got this book today…” Sophie started, fumbling inside her bag to withdraw a black notebook with dark purple bubbles on its cover. “I thought maybe you could write down your powers? It would be easier to keep each other informed later, right? And when you get more of them-”

  “That’s a great idea,” Erik beamed. “Do you mind?”

  He reached towards the girl with the notebook, who handed it over without hesitation.

  Erik:

  Core Ability

  Name: Unexpected Arsenal

  Tier: Iron | Rank: 0

  Type: N/A

  Cost: Variable

  Effect - Iron:

  Manifest spiritual power in objects around you. Items used can have varying effects. Applicable items limited by mass, volume, density, quality of materials, spiritual bond, spiritual power and more.

  “That’s pretty generic,” Jessie complained, having snatched the book right out of his hands as he finished.

  “This is what my knowledge, no, my instincts? It’s just how the power is internalised.” Erik was hoping that the explanation was good enough.

  “I get it,” Jessie said.

  “Now you write yours down,” he said, gesturing to the book.

  “But I want to show off first,”

  “Jessie!” countered the Witch’s sister.

  “Fine!”

  Jessie:

  Core Ability

  Name: Call of Nature

  Tier: Iron | Rank: 0

  Type: Spell, Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Channelled

  Cost: Variable

  Effect - Iron:

  Elemental Call:

  Scorch (Fire): Set fire to target. Medium cost.

  Restore (Water): Restore the physical body of the target to its natural state. Middling cost over time. Channelled.

  Replenish (Wind): Replenishes stamina of target. Middling cost over time. Channelled.

  Spike (Earth): Forces the earth beneath target into a jagged spear. Will explode after a short time. Moderate cost.

  “This is epic! Now I’m a bit disappointed in my own power,” Erik said as he read it over.

  “Yes, I’m pretty much the best.”

  “Relative to my own, this is pretty specific again. What’s with that?” Erik then asked.

  “You said you could do a bunch of things. Like what?” Sophie asked.

  “I get a sense of what certain stuff can do when I touch it. When I infuse magic into the thing, I can activate it and it does that thing. I have a plastic frisbee that hovers in mid-air and extends an invisible shield a few metres to the side. I have screws that turn into lightning bombs,” Erik started. “Then there’s the acid ball, the oddly gooey sap-shot thing from sticks and some kind of stun effect from throwing pebbles.”

  “Cool!” Sophie exclaimed.

  “That does sound cool,” Jessie agreed. “But you’re right, that’ll just be a handful to write down. I’m sure as hell not reading all that every time.”

  A little later into the evening, Erik told Jessie his plans for getting stronger, including how the military and his new friends, Angela, and Emma, could hopefully help. The details would be gone over later that night at the air base, but he was planning to get a good supply of gemstones to expand his repertoire quite early on.

  Nana especially recommended to at least get his major powers down first, as they would be the base of his power set. If he first filled out an entire row of one major and two minor powers, it would then skew the rest of his major powers to fit with the minor powers instead of his core and major powers. That wasn’t bad, per se, but could force him into a path of development he wasn’t suited for.

  As his powers went up in tiers, they would develop based on his usage of them and how he meditated on how to improve them. It was easier to make all of his powers go in one direction if they all started at base, rather than skewed towards a certain thing.

  One example Nana gave was if he had a spell-based major power and two fire-elemental minor powers from the get-go, his second major power gained could be skewed towards either a spell-based or a fire-based power, rather than mobility or strength-based powers.

  That wasn’t bad, but it limited his growth to that direction, making him a mage-type Remnant. If he started with the spell-based major power only, his second major power could just as well become a strength-based one, giving him a better chance at developing into a swing-and-fling archetype.

  His bloodline, and even the type of gemstone used, could both impact this. In the case of the first, it almost always did. Jessie was a prime example already; Witches had an increased affinity for elemental magic, according to Nana.

  Erik found all this easier to consider if he thought of it in RPG-terms and he thought he understood it well. He could still get all his major powers as spell-based powers out of the gate, but he was assured his personality and soul had at least some part in what powers he got. The idea of gaining evil powers frightened him. What would that say about him?

  Jessie wanted to join him to the air base later that evening and Sophie gave them no choice whether to bring her. She was going. Erik didn’t mind either way. In fact, he enjoyed Sophie’s company. She had a bubbly personality he felt like he needed right now, all things considered.

  He was becoming his normal self again after the difficulty traversing the ruins of the Empire, grief-stricken as he had been. Now back with his best friend, he was also reminded that it had been three entire months since his family died and that he had moved on during that time. The emotional switch that was Afterlife just sent it all rushing back, but now, he could look ahead with hope.