Chris Huisjen
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Stormblade 2 C47: Pack Bonding (7)
🕑 Added 2025-09-05 13:01:31 +0000 UTC47 - Pack Bonding (7)
One hour wasn’t much time.
Ellen and I went after Jeff first. He was still searching the rows of people, trying to track down anyone who might know his old friends—but it wasn’t going well.
“I don’t remember their last names,” he said when we finally found him. “There’s only, what, 500 people here?”
“Less,” I said.
“Four hundred,” Ellen said.
“Right. Four hundred people. It shouldn’t be this hard to find them. But without a last name…I’m…I can’t.” Jeff stared at the floor. “I came so far. I sacrificed so much. And I’m here. Why isn’t this enough?”
“It will be,” Yasmin said. She put a hand on his shoulder. “It will be. We’ve got to keep trying, though. Just because you haven’t gotten a lead doesn’t mean there’s no lead. Maybe it’ll be the next person you talk to?”
“Maybe,” Jeff said.
“Listen, we’ve got an hour, then we’re moving out to try to regroup with the convoy. Carrol’s a fighter—A-Rank, the only one in Carlsbad as far as he knows. He’s going to go with us. It’ll give us a full team and a lot of firepower. Why don’t you take half an hour to search, then rest?” I said.
“Rest sounds good,” Yasmin added.
It took a minute for Jeff to come around. Eventually, he nodded, shoulders sagging. “I’ll keep trying. See you in an hour.”
And then he and Yasmin were gone, disappearing into the crowd. Sophia looked over her shoulder at us. “I’ll do my best to make him slow down,” she said helplessly. Then she followed Jeff, too.
And that left Ellen and me.
I closed my eyes. What I had to do was the last thing I wanted to do. If anything, my core was more unstable than it had been after my C-Rank trial. I’d been trying to leave it alone, and to meditate when I could, but…
But.
The reality was that I wasn’t strong enough. I’d acted confident in front of Carrol, but I also hadn’t tried to sugarcoat anything about my strength. Ellen had done that for me, though. And I couldn’t push higher right now. I pulled up my status.
User: Kade Noelstra
C-Rank
Stamina: 365/370 (+20), Mana: 272/470 (+10)
Skills:
1. Stormsteel Core (C-02 to C-05, Unique, Merged, God-Touched)
2. Thunderbolt Forms (C-03 to C-05, Altered, Merged)
3. Mistwalk Forms (C-02 to C-04, Altered, Merged)
4. Cyclone Forms (C-02 to C-04, Altered, Merged)
5. Stormlight Bond (C-01 to C-02, Altered, Merged)
6. Shadowstorm Battery (E-01 to E-06, Altered, Merged, Dual)
Open Skill Slots: 1
Path: Stormsteel Path
Laws: First Law of the Stormcore, Law of the Shadowed Storm
Core Instability Alert
No. No, I couldn’t push harder. Not to B-Rank. Even without my core’s problems, my skills weren’t ready for B-Rank—and with the instability, B-Rank was hopeless.
That left me with only one option if I wanted to get stronger. I’d been avoiding it because of my core’s condition. But learning new spells—and ripping the old ones away—would be less destructive than any other option. And there was one other possible advantage.
“Ellen, can you teach me shadow magic?” I asked.
Ellen smiled widely. “I thought you’d never ask.”
◄▼►
I had four spells.
Ariette’s Zephyr was at E-Rank. It summoned up to five darts made out of air, which I could throw at enemies. It was my bread and butter, go-to spell for triggering Cyclone Forms’ Charge effects. Cheap, decently powerful, and very easy to spam. As I examined my core, back to back with Ellen, it took up less than an eighth of the space.
Then there was Thunder Wave. An all-in nuke. It reminded me of Stormbreak. A single, big hit that targeted everything near me. It was also E-Rank, and it was hard to use with a team, but hit a full rank harder than it should if I was alone and against a single enemy. It occupied a similar amount of space.
Slicing Bolt was a D-Rank hybrid between wind and lightning magic. A more powerful ranged hit, with fewer restrictions than Thunder Wave, it took up a good sixth of my soul.
And finally, Ariette’s Razor. The D-Rank version of Ariette’s Zephyr gave me an off-hand weapon that was very hard to block and also throwable. Like Slicing Bolt, it took up a sixth of my soul.
That gave me over half of my core to work with. But that wasn’t enough. Not for C-Rank spells.
“Your core…” Ellen said from behind me. She reached out and ‘touched’ it. The whole structure shook and wavered under the brush of her mental finger. Stormsteel and cyclone fought inside, unstable and ready to erupt. “You shouldn’t be doing this, Kade.”
“I know, Ellen,” I said. I reached behind me and wrapped my real fingers around hers. “But I don’t have a choice right now. If we want to survive this, I need to be stronger.”
“Okay. I can’t teach you anything, though. Not in an hour. What I can do is use our connection and shove spells into you. It’ll hurt, though. And it won’t be good for your core. Do you have enough space?”
“I do. Give me a C-Rank spell.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. This is Shade Scythe. I learned it to try to fill a gap in my build—close-range damage—but it’s not…when I’m fighting with you and Jeff, monsters don’t usually get to me. You’ll be better off with it than I will.”
A moment later, the pain hit me. It was unbelievable. Like my whole body was being dipped into fire. No amount of Stamina in the world could have fixed it, even if I’d had the presence of mind to try. I forced myself to grit my teeth and groan instead of screaming.
Ellen didn’t scream either. But she did whimper and whine like a kicked dog. When I finally got my mind under control, I examined her core first.
She’d ripped the spell free from her own core and shared it with me.
“We’re not doing that again,” I said firmly.
She twitched behind me. A pain reaction? Then her hand tightened until her short nails dug into the back of my hand. It hurt. Not as much as my core, but it hurt. “Yes, we are, Kade. You need one more.”
I tried to pull away. To stop her. But before I could, another wave of agony washed over me. This time, it wasn’t as bad. I could still see during it, although I couldn’t turn my head. And while Ellen shook and shivered behind me, she managed to keep her sounds of pain to herself.
Part of me was impressed. But the rest of me was just trying to gut out my own pain as spells wrote themselves onto my fragile core. And the worst was yet to come.
“Thank you,” I said after the pain subsided.
“No…no problem, Kade. That’s Darkness. No damage, but it cuts off vision around you. Nothing that relies on eyes can track you down. D-Rank. You won’t be able to see, either, but…”
“But if I use Flashstep or Mistform, I’ll be able to reposition safely anyway, or if I use something that doesn’t need to be aimed,” I finished. Darkness was a tactical spell, not a damaging one. “Thank you, Ellen.”
“Of course. Dual Skill Progression gives us a connection. It’s almost like our cores are one core. Not quite—thank God. Your core’s not something I’d want to be fully bonded with right now. No offense.”
“None taken.” I squeezed Ellen’s hand, and I didn’t let go. She didn’t pull away, either. “I’m going to need you for this next part, too—but not for Dual Skill Progression or anything. Just…don’t leave.”
“Sure,” Ellen said. “You’re stuck with me for the long haul.”
I snorted. Then I checked my core. It was shaking and pulsing, and it wouldn’t stop even when I focused on it. But I wasn’t done. “Okay. Time for the hard part,” I said.
Then I buckled down and pulled on Slicing Bolt.
My core wasn’t big enough. Even at C-Rank, I needed more space. The spellbook I’d stolen from the library was in my lap and open to the C-Rank pages. I knew what I wanted. And I knew that I’d need more space to make it happen.
Thunder Wave and Ariette’s Razor had to go.
Shockingly, removing them didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as what Ellen had done to me. Not to say it wasn’t painful—it was—but the process of removing a spell didn’t seem to stab at my soul like I’d expected. It did take almost fifteen minutes to carefully unstitch the spells from my core, though, piece by piece. And with how fragile it felt, I didn’t want to push the pace at all.
That left me with enough time to—hopefully—learn the spell I wanted.
Lightning Chain.
A C-Rank spell out of Ariette’s Grimoire. A combination of crowd control, close-range damage, and gap closer. It summoned a single bolt of electricity—but unlike the ones I’d been using, this one acted like a solid, physical object. A chain, linking me to the target. Or more specifically, linking my off-hand to wherever on the target I hit. I could flail around with it like a madman, but that wasn’t how I wanted to fight. I wasn’t a berserker.
But Lightning Chain’s real advantage wasn’t the damage. Against an enemy weaker than me, I could prevent it from escaping or attacking our back line, and control where on the battlefield it went. In combination with my lightning trap Bindings, or with teammates, that’d let me play chess with the battlefield a little more.
And against something bigger?
Well, against something bigger, it’d be a gap closer. A way to close in against a massive target—or climb them like a building. It probably wouldn’t work against someone like Tathrix, although I wasn’t sure how smart chaining myself to an A-Rank monster was in the first place. But against the larger enemies, it’d open up a lot of tactical possibilities.
So, the moment Ariette’s Razor and Thunder Wave were gone, I started inscribing Lightning Chain onto my core. The double-helix lightning looped back and forth, weaving between Ariette’s Zephyr, Wind Bolt, and Ellen’s two shadow spells and seeming to bind my core together. I knew it wasn’t helping. If anything, it was only adding pressure. But it felt like it was making things better somehow.
And then it was done.
I pulled up my spell list. It was usually so short I didn’t check it, but with all the new changes, I wanted to know what I had.
Spells: Ariette’s Zephyr, Slicing Bolt, Shade Scythe, Darkness, Lightning Chain
I was specializing. Slicing Bolt was probably the next spell to go, and then Ariette’s Zephyr. Neither of them hit hard enough for what I was increasingly having to fight. But for now, Shade Scythe and Lightning Chain gave me two powerful spells at close range—one high-damage nuke and one more sustained damage and crowd control-oriented.
“So, what was Darkness for? I’ve never seen you cast it,” I asked Ellen as we sat there, recovering. She was covered in sweat and shaking.
It took her a minute to respond. “Sorry. Uh, it wasn’t for fighting. I need to be able to see to make all my spells work. It was more for, uh…”
“Bob?” I asked after a second of awkward silence.
She nodded. “Yeah. Most of the time, he only cares where I am when he needs something from me. Like, he’s known I was going to do this for a while, so he hasn’t planned too many dinners or receptions where I’m expected to look pretty and smile politely at idiotic jokes. But sometimes, if I don’t respond, he sends someone to get me. Darkness helped confuse them and let me get to Deimos. Once I’m behind the wheel, they can’t catch me—even if they know where I am. I can just run.”
“But you’re not going to run anymore?” I asked.
“Kade, I’m C-Rank. I need to…” she trailed off, swallowed, and continued. “I need to be more…to put my foot down. To be more like you. You told all the guilds ‘no,’ and then you stuck with it. That’s so…I’m not like that, and I want to be.”
I swallowed. The Portal Tyrant was proof that that wasn’t exactly true. “We all have prices,” I said.
“We do. And I know you’d do anything to help someone you cared about. That’s probably your price.”
Ellen was getting close. Too close. I opened my mouth to respond.
“Are you finished?” Jeff asked.
Ellen jumped a little next to me, and her hand untwined from mine.
“Yeah,” I said, relaxing a little at the interruption. “I’m ready.”
◄▼►
Carrol’s armor put Jeff’s to shame.
Even as a fighter, he had almost as much magic as I did.
I doubted he could take Deborah Callahan, but he was by far the strongest person in the bunker below Carlsbad Fortress. He’d restrained his aura; even so, it shot out occasionally, shoving against me. I couldn’t wait to have a weaponized aura of my own; those developed at B-Rank, typically.
For now, all I could do was resist Tathrix’s and try to ignore Carrol’s as he pointed at the map.
“Our plan is to break out to the south-southeast, toward Loving. If you’re right, the convoy will be near that gate. We’ll link up with them, the Spark of Life will fix all the rad poisoning, and their firepower will let us take out the portal world’s boss and break the siege,” he said. “We’re not trying to pick fights. If we run across one or two B-Rank enemies, or a solo A-Rank, we take them out. Otherwise, we move quick, move quiet, and try to make contact as fast as possible.”
Jeff coughed. “And survivors?”
“We warn them about danger behind us, give them a path here, and keep moving,” Carrol said. “We don’t have time to escort them back here, and they can’t come with us. The Light of Dawn’s power is too goddamn indiscriminate to risk low-rankers or unawakened humans out there.”
Jeff’s fist balled, and I raised an eyebrow. He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “Right. I don’t like that plan, but we’ll make it work.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Carrol said. He strode through the crowded bunker toward the door, and as he went, the crowd parted in front of him.
I followed. In a way, it was a relief not to have to make decisions—and to let someone else take charge.
But in another, I couldn’t help but feel exposed. We weren’t Carrol’s team, and he wasn’t our teammate. The last time we’d fought with someone we didn’t know had been the Eldritch City portal world. It hadn’t gone well then. And this time, the stakes were just as high—for Jeff, and for everyone in the fortress.
Comments
Finn
Thank you!!
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter! :-)
