Jean Tavera

“Aren’t we a bit away from the enemy’s base?” asked Wesley as we continued to break RTS after RTS and drudge after drudge.

“We are, because we are the decoy,” explained Louella before pausing and continuing, “But with you and your housemates helping out, we might be able to legitimately push on them.”

“Haha! It’s finally time to go all out,” I laughed before sending out another wave of shaped mana. Sighing in frustration at my enthusiasm, Micah followed up,

“I’ll fall back then to help support the others. You guys should meet up with Yokum and Julien to wreck shit.”

“That would be a good idea, I have managed to flush the infection out of your system but you still need to recuperate,” agreed Wesley’s nurse housemate as she started to directly heal me and Louella with her fancy kit’s tools while her spongey other selves continued their own work. A quick exchange of directions later, Micah headed off to meet up with Wesley’s housemates while we started to make our way to Yokum and Julien.

The first to jump out after Micah ducked off to retreat was Wesley, attracting a volley of beam shots as his skin flared with a pawsitively absurd amount of beige-steel mana circulating through him. Oh my mask, he is a bonafide tank now! I thought to myself with glee as I watched him rush a pair of RTSes between us and our way to the others. Watching him keep his stride as he KO’d a RTS with a single push to the face made me almost wish I was also enrolled at a School instead of the Guild, they were really hardcore about getting their sudents focusing on nuances to shape their style of spellcraft from the get go.

“Nice one,” I commented before passing up the alt-rhi and knocking out the other RTS with a shaped burst of my own beige-steel mana so the others could follow us. It didn’t matter how many of these ceramic soldiers that Carbon Pharma threw at us, as long as I had access to the Halo System and my wereraccoon nature via my power-link for Mana of the Greater Raccoon, I would crush them. Hehehe I can’t wait to make it so Custardman can be here too! I continued to laugh as we pushed forward. It would probably take a few facsimiles and mandalas to get the extra system slots needed but hey, that’s just the cost of being a great system caster.

It wasn’t until we arrived at where Julien and Yokum were fighting that I had to snap out of that train of thought as I suddenly watched Yokum being sent flying and slamming into the side of a building! As he peeled himself out of the newfound crater while Julien was also sent flying and quickly caught by Lucy, my housemate muttered,

“Ouch, that’s smarts.” Oof, that is smarts, at least his brute profession classes are being put to the test. 

“Smarts is an understatement,” replied Julien before spitting out a bit of blood and glaring at the two secret worlders they were fighting and obviously losing too: one with oversized mechanical arms and another with an incredibly long and thick mechanical tail, both in the Carbon Pharma’s sort of tachy ceramic armour that looked extra plasticky. 

“You guys seriously didn’t expect for there to be actual guards?” laughed the tailed secret worlder, his extra mechanical appedanage slapping against the ground and suddenly propelling grenades our way from the divets on its sides. As I started to backpedal and circulate mana into the best of a spell shield that I could make under the hybrid system’s influence, Wesley jumped in and created a barrier of beige-steel mana. The sound of ringing explosions hit my ears as smoke blanketed the sweet tooth.

“Wesley! You okay?” called out Louella, quick to send out a cascading bolt of elemental advanced lightning to clear out the smoke from the grenades. As it streaked past Wesley, the secret worlder twisted his tail around to send out a series of small iron rods that attracted the lightning away from him.

“I’m fine,” replied Welsey before coughing as the rest of the smoke cleared and the electrified rods hit the pavement. “Let’s just focus on these two.”

“Two against six? I like those odds,” laughed the other secret worlder as he cracked his oversized mechanical.  

“I call the fist guy,” I commented before rushing forward with Yokum, Julien, and Lucy in tow. I trusted Louella and the others to deal with the tail guy. Pushing mana into my hand claws like how Binny usually did it, I swiped at the secret worlder with mechanical arms: sparks of mana and metal flew everywhere as he blocked it.

“Stop calling dibs the second you see something interesting, that’s my job,” quipped Julien as he maneuvered around me to take a swing with his katana; Lucy doing the same from the other side. More sparks as two sickly greenish phantom arms appeared and blocked both of them. “Damnit, those arms keep getting in the way.”

“But not this time!” shouted Yokum, lunging over me and slamming his tiger arms down only to get blocked by a second set of phantom arms. “What the-” A pulse of energy and the four of us were forced back a few inches. “He wasn’t doing that a second ago!”

“Yeah, cause you idiots are trying to gang up on me,” laughed the secret worlder as he cracked his mechanical knuckles. “Don’t mess with the Counter Arms.”

“Custardman, you think you can come help?” I telepathically asked my superhero of a deviled humpty dumpty as I skidded to a stop.

“I can’t! The second I enter a pocket dimension I get all sleepy and lose contact with Binny. I’d have to use one of my faux-system slots to even attempt to get a shot,” replied Custardman over our connection with a bunch of static. The Hybrid System of Warring Cores was really oppressive! 

“Okay I’ll just have to do it the old fashioned way!” I replied before cutting the link cause there was no reason to accidentally convince Custardman to use one of his limited faux-system slots on this, especially since he already used one for Sins of the SteelStar and another for the Flasaporium Hub.

Keeping an eye on the secret worlder while Louella and the others continued to fight their own, I pulled on my kit of Halo System Caster to activate one of my tertiary spirit halos from Alihi’a’Pounga: sandals of swiftness. Feeling it catch as mana wrapped around my feet, I lunged forward with a burst of speed and took another swipe with mana-coated claws. 

The secret worlder responded by blocking my blow with his arms again, but this time around I managed to damage it, leaving long gashes on it before he repelled me with a huge pulse of energy that sent me tumbling. Haha! I did it! I laughed as I exited the tumble and looked at the secret worlder scowling at his now damaged arm. From behind me Yokum shouted,

“Seriously Jean?! We were wailing on him for like five minutes and could barely dent those arms!”

“Haha, that’s what you two get for not understanding how strong power-linking between system slots can be!” 

“Leave it to another system caster with a budget stratum 3 multi-system slot to damage my Counter Arms,” offhandedly commented the secret worlder as we slowly circled around him. Looked like he had a sensory kit or something cause he was able to tell I had Raccoon Stance: Flower-Halo-Egg, but I couldn’t tell what else he had. Probably some connections to other systems with his own one but I couldn’t get a good read on that even if I tried.

Grinning, I went into another blow as Yokum along with Julien and Lucy, this getting three spectral arms blocking me as Julien’s demon familiar managed to get a shallow cut in on his back as he tried to spin around to dodge it. Readying myself, I forced myself back before the secret worlder could fire off another pulse and watched as Yokum, Julien, and Lucy were knocked back again.

“Julien, it’s getting harder to stay summoned,” commented the demon familiar after landing short of colliding into a nearby building. “He’s even stronger now that Jean is helping us…”

“No kidding,” shouted Julien before having to jump out of the way of a sudden pressurized burst of noxious looking gas from the secret worlder. So he did have some disease stuff like other Carbon Pharma members. I wonder if he has RTSes also… I mused before kiting around to strike at the guy from a blind spot, only to have my arm get caught from a sudden phantom limb.

“Oops,” I muttered as more phantom arms wrapped around my own, noxious gas fuming off the secret worlder as he twisted to stare at me. 

“Oh no you don’t!” called out Yokum, conjuring up a large needle-covered rifle and firing off a volley of needles and piercing the phantom limbs. Taking the chance, I forcibly activated my sandals of swiftness tertiary spirit halo again and kicked the secret worlder square in the chest to escape.

“Oh my mask that was close,” I half-joked as I felt the healing presence of Wesley’s nurse housemate’s other selves flush the infection the best it could from a safe distance.

“Seriously Yokum? You had a freaking gun and didn’t use it until now?” yelled Julien in frustration as he took the chance to close and take a swing at the distracted enemy, only managing to get a single blow in before being shot backward with a pulse of energy.

“What? I don’t like using guns that much, and I thought the Spine Piercer was a melee kit!” retorted Yokum, reloading his rifle and aiming it at the secret worlder.

“Seriously, who the hell are you guys? Three on ones are supposed to be my specialty,” commented the secret worlder before rushing down Yokum, all his arms facing forward and readying a noxious gas-filled pulse. Flinging a wave of shaped mana at me from behind and caughting him off guard, I told him,

“We’re the Goltinium Spellman Nine!”

“And you’re dead,” followed up Julien as he shot forward, his katana overflowing with eclipse mana as the secret worlder struggled to reposition himself. With a flash, my housemate beheaded the guy before watching his katana shatter. “Damnit, so that’s why it’s a one use ability.”

“We’ll have to repair it when we get the chance so you can have it ready for the next fight,” commented Lucy, handing Julien her own katana and looking down at the corpse of the secret worlder as it started to look and smell less fleshy and more fake.

“Seriously? He was using a proxy body this entire time?” shouted Wesley from his side of the street. Looking over I saw him standing over a charred corpse that was still crackling from Louella’s lightning.

“This one too!” I shouted back, waving my hands to catch their attention.

“They definitely were using budget stratum 3 multi-system slots, although I don’t think all their connections were toward the Hybrid System of Warring Cores,” mused Louella aloud as she inspected the slowly crumbling proxy body of her enemy as it also became more fake and fragmented, “Traces of advanced class specialties.” Well I could have told you that!

“Well, at least we have a clear shot to the base now,” noted Wesley as he looked at the base in the distance, only to watch a pulse of mana flow out of it and harmlessly pass over us as a dinging sound ringed in my head: the base was captured, we won! “Not like it matters.” 

“Looks like the strike teams managed to succeed,” agreed Louella while I quickly went to see who were the MVPs of the fight only to find that Wesley, D-John, and myself were the ones that got the title. Which meant I got a quest reward! Laughing with a huge grin on my face, I told them,

“And oh my mask, I got a quest reward! So did Wesley! We got a two-for-one special.” Opening up my account menu I was greeted by a triple whammy of rewards: a system slot’s connection with the reality-rifted tag for the Hybrid System of Warring Cores, Kit of Cooperation; an artificial system slot’s connection to one of the hybrid system’s derivative system, the H-D System of Warring Cores’ Staches; and then a stratum 3 multi-system slot called Raccoon Stance: Kit-Egg-Digi that artificial-tuned the artificial system slot and power-linked both Raccoon Stance: Flower-Halo-Egg and Over-Spirit-Surge (Raccoon)!

“Holy shit dude, seriously?” asked Yokum as dispelled his rifle and tried to stare over my shoulder.

“Yup!” I continued to laugh as I accepted the reward and felt a handful of my free system slots mutate into the stratum 3 multi-system slot and accept the inscriptions and connections. With this I was close to running out of free system slots with connections open even with my three facsimiles and five extra slot mandalas dedicated to giving me more. Looks like I’m going to have to buy some more extra system slot expansion set mandalas, I told myself as I felt Custardman get access to the Hybrid System of Warring Cores through me. Hehe, and test out my quest rewards.

“This is going to be wonderful! I can spread my heroism to new lands!” laughed Custardman on our telepathic connection, flexing his new power.

“Haha yeah! Custardman version 2.0 is now on the menu!”