I thought about the mages that had gotten crushed by the battering ram. Were they alive? Would they recover? I certainly knew what it was like to try and recover from lots of physical damage.
This magical world was a lot like the dark ages. Life was cheap, and obviously you could and would get hurt. Being strong in this world meant being safer. It also seemed to mean that you could use those weaker than yourself.
Isobel had used her crew to try and get the charms in the park. Rather than fighting John and Sandy directly, she’d come after me, the weakest of the bunch.
In this battle she had sent in hundreds of supernaturals to take down our House. They had fought for her and gotten hurt for her goals and ambition. She had only showed up when the shields were weakest. When her magic acid hadn’t worked, she’d been quick to retreat and stay out of harm’s way.
It was a smart but ruthless way to fight.
I’d seen violence before, but not like this. I’d gotten into fights when I was a kid and some of the poker games had ended up in a brawl. You can’t take someone’s money without them getting ticked off. Add in some alcohol and sometimes it turned into a fight.
Those were simple scuffles, though, with a few punches thrown. Starting with my death experience, the new fights I was in now were for life and death. People got hurt. They got hurt badly.
I’d seen two alley cats fight once. It had been short, vicious, intense. They had wanted to kill each other. There was nothing nice about it. There was only one winner and even the winner left with scars. These new fights were a lot like that.
I needed to get tougher.
I needed to be stronger.
I needed to recover quickly and find out how to defend myself.
With that final thought, I fell asleep.
20 Penny Is Back
I woke up to the sound of Bermuda crying. I rubbed his head with my one good hand and gave him a quick scan.
He seemed to be doing ok. He was twinkling all over now, not just at the site of the breaks. I zoomed in to check them out. His ribs were completely healed and his front leg was most of the way there. His back leg was the worst, only about half healed.
It was amazing how fast he was improving. If only I could recover that quickly.
I don’t think he was crying from pain. I think he was crying because he wanted to get up and move around. Unfortunately for him, the cast was keeping him from going anywhere. That was a good thing as his bones weren’t completely ready for him yet. I didn’t want him to rebreak something while he was moving around.
Sandy tried to give him some more pain medication but he didn’t want it. He must have been interesting, though, because both Snowy and Biscuit came into the room. They hopped up on my bed and then sat there looking at him.
They were like, ‘Dude, what are you doing in that shell?’
And he was like ‘I don’t know. Some stupid human put me in here. Get me out of this!’
Snowy was like, ‘Humans. Who knows why they do the stuff they do?’
Biscuit was all like ‘Preach that. Sandy is nice but she cray sometimes.’
Bermuda was like, ‘Help! This sucks!’
Snowy was like ‘Your suffering amuses me. I would help, but, you know, effort.’
Biscuit was like ‘Look at my freedom.’ and began his tongue bath.
This went on for a while. I couldn’t do much to console Bermuda and he was seriously not happy. Sandy sat him on her lap for a while and just talked to him. He finally wore himself out and went back to sleep.
Biscuit finished his bath and then napped too. Now that she wasn’t being entertained any more, Snowy decided it would be fun to get in Bermuda’s box and root around.
Since Bermuda was ok, or at least as ok as he could get right now, I switched my focus to the magic matrix. It was still there, still looking as bright as before. I was afraid it would have drifted apart by now, but it still looked as tight as ever.
It had been affecting my magic a lot while I’d been sleeping. The mist magic near it had been transformed into lots of the larger balls of magic. They weren’t in any order yet, but they were there ready for me to start working.
I checked out my ribs. The first one I’d worked on was now completely healed. The break site was still shining with awakened cells. It even looked like the whole awakening process was still happening. It was very slow, but cells next to the awakened ones were coming to life. Was it possible that my entire rib would eventually wake up? Would my whole body?
That would be pretty amazing if my whole body was awake! When I got injured it would start healing itself automatically. It wouldn’t be anywhere near a Wolverine ability, but it would certainly be a lot faster than I was currently able to do!
I checked out the second rib. It had just started its twinkle lightning when I stopped and got caught up in making the matrix. I don’t know how long I had been sleeping, but it should have only been healed a little bit. Instead, it was more than half finished. It was the closest to the new matrix, and it was definitely benefiting from the condensed magic. I zoomed in for a closer look. There was a lot of twinkling going on. Each twinkle was a new awakened cell, closing the gap of the break.
I had one more broken rib on my right side, so I decided to start working on that. If I could get it to the twinkle stage, then it could be healing while I was working on the matrix or sleeping.
The third broken rib wasn’t a full break. It was cracked, and part of it still held together. I zoomed in, found a good spot, and started awakening cells. I’d done this so much it felt easy now. This was still close to the matrix, so when I pulled magic, I got some clouds, but I got a lot more of the fully formed magic balls. These were the loose ones floating around, not the matrix ones. Working with them was a joy.
I found I could awaken five or six cells at once with one magic sphere. The work went so quickly. It seemed like I’d just gotten started when the first twinkle lightning happened. I grew the awakened area a bit more to make sure it was good, then I decided to check out the two ribs on the left.
They were both bad breaks. One was a diagonal fracture like the first rib I’d started on, but the other was shattered at its break point. It had five pieces of bone, from little chips to a larger fragment.
I decided to start on the diagonal fracture. Since I was on the other side of my body from the matrix, I expected the magic I pulled to be mostly clouds. I was pleasantly surprised that almost half of what I pulled was the magic spheres. I used up all the spheres first and then started working with the clouds. Pulling magic down from the giant cloud dust bunnies was certainly a lot more time consuming, but I felt like I was close. Turns out I was right. The magic started fusing with the cells on its own, and the twinkles started. They weren’t firing that fast, but at least the healing had started.
I zoomed out to full body view again and pulled in as much magic as I could hold. I held it for a moment, and then pulled in even more. I went back to the second rib on my left side, the one that was shattered. I picked a small chip of bone and awakened the whole thing. It took a while, but I figured if the awakened part of me had a good foothold, it would just keep healing and eventually fix itself.
I’d now been working for hours, but I wanted to grow the matrix too. I topped off my magic and zoomed down to the matrix. It was surprising how many of the spheres had snapped into the right place. I cleaned up all the capsules of magic floating around, turning them into larger balls and then adding them to the matrix. Then I started working on really growing the matrix. It had already converted all of the stray clouds to capsules or spheres, so it was easy to grab the spheres and put them in their place.
It was simple work and I lost myself in the process. I kept running out of magic for the spheres and I’d have to zoom out and pull more from Penny. I was building the matrix in a giant cube, until one side of the matrix hit the edge of my body. When that happened, I zoomed out to evaluate my progress.
I’d started out wit
h a cube about three inches square. Now I was about six inches square. I decided to continue building the matrix but in one direction, across my body. That way it would be close to the ribs of my left side and give them all the support it could.
I worked on that for hours more. I didn’t have any idea of the time involved. I wasn’t eating and I couldn’t see, so any of the normal clues of daytime or nighttime weren’t there for me. My sitters switched out as they needed to, but I didn’t know what sort of schedule they were on.
I could feel when Annabeth was with me. She would hum to me and the world seemed like a better place. I could also feel when Tyler was there. He would work on my remnants. Whoever was with me would take care of Bermuda. He was healing fast and sleeping a lot.
I built my matrix almost all the way to my left ribs when I realized I just couldn’t work anymore. I relaxed, went to my place of power, and slept.
When I woke up Bermuda was snuggled up against my good hand, sleeping. His body cast was nowhere in sight. I rubbed him and he started purring. The vet had shaved a bunch of his hair, so he felt a bit strange, but I loved having him with me.
I had no idea how he had gotten out of his body cast, but he seemed to be ok. I dipped in for a look and found his bones had healed completely!
His healing flashes were still happening, though. I zoomed in as far as I could. I wasn’t certain but it looked like his cells were still awakening. The ones that hadn’t been injured were still transforming and becoming magic cells. Would that happen to me also? It seemed like it should.
His magic seemed a bit low, so I pushed some more magic into him. All the cell transformation and healing were using up the magic I’d given him. His magic was still thick and in the matrix form that had inspired my own work. It just seemed a bit less than before. I wasn’t sure what would happen if he used up most of the magic, but I didn’t want to find out.
He didn’t grab me and pull the magic like before. Instead, he just ignored it. He seemed much more interested in getting a good rub and spending some quality time.
Feeling better for my kitten time, I dove into my own body to check my progress. I was very happy to note all the ribs on my right side were healed! It felt wonderful. I hadn’t realized just how much it had bothered me until the pain on that side was gone. Now I just needed to finish up the left side. The first rib on the left side was doing well, about half healed. The second rib, the one that was shattered, had done something unexpected.
All the bone fragments were now lined up. Before they had been a bit scattered and I wasn’t sure how the healing would happen. Would it grow between the fragments and leave a strange looking rib? Would I now have a big bump on my side?
It looks like that would NOT happen. Instead, all the bone fragments were lined up perfectly, ready to be healed. The one fragment I had awakened had bonded with two others and was transforming them too. I zoomed down and awakened both sides of the main break. It was so easy with all the magic spheres floating around. Now the matrix was closer, it had transformed all my dust bunnies to their compact magic form. When I called magic, there were no more clouds in the sky. Instead it looked like the sky was filled with balloons.
I zoomed out for an overall look. Most of the magic in the central part of my body had been converted to spheres. The power of the matrix was much stronger now that it was bigger. It had already pulled many of the spheres into position and there were even some free-floating mini matrixes started.
It was much easier to grow the matrix now. I cleaned up the natural growth and snapped some of the mini matrices into place with the larger one. Before long the matrix had grown from one side of my body to the other and completely filled it from the front to the back. I now had a solid six inches of compact magic in the middle of my body.
With that much influence, the matrix started growing on its own. All I really needed to do was pull in more magic from Penny and clean up any stray capsules. I wasn’t sure how much magic Penny had. It had been enough to shut her down and she still hadn’t really woken up yet. I could hear her, but it was distant. She didn’t seem to be aware of what had happened to me and I didn’t tell her. It was like she could sort of hear me, but not much else.
I thought back to the night of the first golem. There had been thousands and thousands of the miners and ass blasters. I didn’t know how much magic that would be. I’m sure it took a lot to animate a seven-foot tall creature of stone. It occurred to me that one golem had seriously injured me, but another golem was providing the magic needed for my healing. Life is funny like that.
I spent a long time growing the matrix. It was the key to my transformation. With this density of magic, I could heal so much faster. Toward the end I was just pulling magic as fast as I could, I’d clean it all up later. Finally, I’d had enough and I headed to my throne room.
It seemed harder to get there this time. Seeing the matrix grow like this was exciting and it was hard to just relax and let it all go. Finally, I accepted that the matrix was growing, and I was healing. I was going to be ok. I felt strange accepting good things, but that did the trick. I finally relaxed, entered my throne room, curled up on the cot, and went to sleep.
Bermuda wasn’t there when I awoke, but he’d left me a present. There was a metal pin that used to be in his leg lying on the bed by my hand. It seemed clean, like it was brand new, but it was still kinda gross. I pushed it off the bed and it fell to the floor with a clatter.
Sandy was there and we squeeze chatted for a while. She’d been monitoring my progress and she was so excited I was doing better. It felt good to get excited with someone about how I was doing, even if it was through hand squeezes. She said she could see my magic change with her scans and she was eager to hear all about it when I could talk.
She also said Bermuda was doing great now. He was eating and using the restroom on his own. They had no idea how he had gotten out of his body cast, but he obviously didn’t need it anymore. They had found another one of his bone pins lying around. They’d give him a really good check up, but there wasn’t any indication of how it had come out. The skin wasn’t broken and a scan showed the bone was fine. He didn’t need it anymore either so I guess better out than in.
Feeling better after my squeeze chat with Sandy, I dove back into my body to check out progress. One rib on the left side was healed. The shattered one still needed more time, but was almost there.
What should I do next? Starting more bones healing seemed like the best way to go. I just had to get them started and they were fixing themselves.
I checked out my face and just lost my nerve. It was crushed. I didn’t want to look too deep, but it was just shattered. I wasn’t ready to tackle it yet. I’d finish the matrix first.
There was one other place that needed help, my arm. Both of the bones in my left forearm were shattered. I guess I’d been trying to protect myself and one of her kicks had snapped it apart.
Once again I zoomed in, found a good spot, and started waking up my cells. When I called for magic, only magic spheres responded, so the awakening went quickly. I kept working until I ran out of spheres.
I’d done a lot, though. I’d awakened two places on one bone and three on the other one.
I zoomed out to check out my overall matrix. While I’d slept, it had formed all the way to the top of my head and down to my legs. My arms and legs still needed work.
There was nothing to do but get started. I pulled magic and let the matrix do its thing. I finished up the left arm first as that needed the most healing. Then I finished up the right arm and started on my legs.
I hadn’t realized how swollen they were. That sudden stop had really done a number on me. I’d been so focused on my bones I hadn’t considered what else was wrong with me. It took hours, but eventually the matrix covered my whole body. I didn’t stop. There was still so much cleanup to do.
Even more hours later, I did a final head-to-toe scan and found a last pocket of resistance. I fixed the matrix an
d suddenly a wave of pure energy flowed through me.
I had felt something like it before. When I took the magic capsules and stacked them together, there had been a point where they transformed into something new. This felt like that.
The magic spheres were still there. The matrix was still there. It was just that now it felt right. It felt solid.
I realized I wasn’t shining magic any more. Before I’d been glowing magic into the room. Now it was all self contained. It was brighter. Stronger. But all inside me.
This was like what had happened to Bermuda. There had been a moment of rightness. There had been a wave of energy, and then he stopped shining outward.
I paused to just take it all in. My face was still a wreck and it still hurt. However, my ribs no longer bothered me. I could finally breathe without pain. I wasn’t holding myself as tightly any more. Once my arm was healed, I’d actually be able to move around a bit.
I was getting better.
I didn’t want to go to sleep yet. Waking up to extra healing was a real treat, and I wanted to plant some more seeds of transformation. Avoiding my face, I did a body scan to find my other pain areas.
It was mainly muscles and tendons. I picked a muscle in my leg and zoomed in. Again it was a strange world that greeted me. I was used to bones and the cells around that. This was spongier. Hopefully my awakening technique would be useful here too.
A break was easy to see, but muscles tears weren’t so simple. I wasn’t sure what was normal and what wasn’t. In the end I just went with my gut and awakened a few spots until the magic twinkles showed up. I touched up the upper and lower parts of my leg and started in my back before I decided I’d had enough.
Sleep was such a luxury. I’d never take it for granted again.
This time, when I arrived in my throne room, there was a noticeable difference. It looked clean! Before it had looked like it had been abandoned for hundreds of years. Now it looked like Mr. Clean had showed up and gone to work. Lots of the damage had been repaired too. The ceiling wasn’t falling down any more and the floor looked good. There were still some cracked tiles, but overall it looked nice. My throne was fixed too. It was now one solid smooth piece of rock. It didn’t have any padding yet, but it wasn’t chipped either.
Misfit Mage Page 26
