This suited him just fine. He spent all morning looking through the classroom window in a daze. He usually paid attention during French lessons, but not this time. His dream adventure continued to gnaw at him even in the waking world.
It wasn’t just his memories that were riddled with holes as far as he could tell; other paths in his Sentimental World led to gaping black pits that likely used to be imaginary locations. A good chunk of himself was simply inaccessible.
Matthew’s Key encompassed the very concept of ‘hole’, so memory holes should easily fall under its purview. Those came from his power, he was sure of it, but how and why did they appear? Was his subconscious guiding his Key to play tricks on himself?
Could he… could he have done it to himself?
“Matthew?” Kari’s voice pierced through the reverie. “Earth to Matt?”
“Ugh?” Matthew’s head snapped in his friend’s direction only to find the classroom deserted. “W-what is it?”
“It’s lunchtime and you’ve zoned out. Plus, Amélia looks like she’s waiting for you outside.” Kari gave her friend a look of concern. “Is something the matter, Matt? You’ve been looking pale all morning.”
Did it show that much? “Has your power ever acted on its own, Kari?”
“My power? You mean my Key?” Kari scratched her cheek as she pondered his question. “It’s always active for me, so no, never.”
Neither did Matthew remember his power opening holes without conscious input, but he had no memories of saddling his own brain with them either… unless he dropped that memory into a hole too.
Why would he want to forget about forgetting? The more Matthew pondered that, the more uneasy he grew.
“What’s on your mind, Matt?” Kari asked more softly than before. “Did your dream spell go wrong?”
Dammit, now she really sounded worried for him. “I’m not sure yet,” Matthew replied before reassuring her. “It’s okay, I’ll figure something out over lunch.”
“I see.” Kari clearly didn’t believe him, but didn’t push the matter. “You know you can tell me anything whenever you need to.”
“Anything and everything?” Matthew teased her. “That’s a dangerous bargain.”
“Within reason,” Kari said with a light chuckle as they exited the classroom. True to her prediction, they found Amélia waiting on the threshold outside alongside Sasha. “Sorry to keep you waiting, girls.”
“No prob,” Sasha replied with a hand on her waist. “I was offering Amélia to join us for lunch.”
Amélia herself looked torn between immediately accepting and remaining silent out of anxiety. “That’s… very kind…” she found the courage to blurt out. “I’d hoped Matthew could help me practice with my power first though.”
“And I will,” Matthew promised. Discussing somebody else’s abilities ought to help him clear his mind. “How about we go have lunch in the park away from others’ gazes? No Disbelief to get in the way!”
“That’s a good idea,” Kari said after checking her phone. “John said he’ll be busy calling his mom, so we can practice without criticism!”
Come to think of it, Matthew had never heard John mention his father. He always made calling his mother his top priority whenever he had to—she was very sick from what little Matt managed to overhear—but never said anything about his dad. Matthew had the gut feeling something ugly had happened in that family. Walking across a minefield would have been safer than asking John for details though, so he never pushed the subject.
In any case, the four of them quickly grabbed food at the cafeteria and then settled in a corner of the school park to practice. Most students were busy eating inside so they could afford to use their Keys without Disbelief getting in the way.
As it turned out, Sasha practiced a bit with her b-friend after the Crawler meeting. From what she told them, Petro managed to materialize bullets out of thin air within his palm; gunpowder, primer, and all. He and John would get along wonderfully.
As for Sasha, she quickly demonstrated why Violets were all overpowered. She ripped two fist-sized purple tears in reality right above the grass, dropped her lunch in one, and caused it to emerge from the other.
“You can create portals?” Kari gasped, her face beaming with excitement. “That’s awesome!”
“I can do that too!” Matthew protested. “Sure, I have to set the first hole ahead of time, but I can totally do the same!”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Oh really?” Sasha smiled and then opened a second set of rifts, the showoff. “‘Cause I can make as many as I want.”
“And they don’t run out?” Kari asked while Matthew grumbled under his breath.
“If they do, I can’t tell yet,” Sasha replied. “The set I opened yesterday is still up, and it’s five meters wide.”
“Can you open them anywhere?” Kari pushed. “Even to places you haven’t visited yet?”
“I…” Sasha played with her hair. “I haven’t tested it out.”
“Let’s try it right now then!” Kari rubbed her hands. “I have many exercises in mind we can check!”
Leaving Sasha to her soul-crushing homework session, Matthew moved to check on his new kohai. Amélia had plucked a flower and stared at it with immense intensity. He could see her Flux flow through the plant without taking shape.
“No pressure,” Matthew said. He could recognize a mental block when he saw one. “Just go with the flow. Give birth to your idea, don’t keep it stuck in your head.”
Amélia blushed at his wording. “But that’s… It’s going to look weird.”
“Weird is good, normal is boring,” Matthew reassured her. “Your Key is part of yourself. Don’t deny it, embrace it.”
Amélia hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath. Her Flux immediately morphed the flower’s petals into fingers.
Wriggling human fingers.
Amélia and Matthew exchanged a quick glance, quickly broken by the latter.
“Can you give it a mouth?” he asked, and then an even better idea crossed his mind. “Can you make it talk?”
Suddenly inspired, Amélia transformed the flower’s pistil into a reptilian maw with teeth to match. It began to growl and hiss with the moaning voice of an agonizing animal.
Most would have likely been creeped out by the sight, but Matthew himself observed it with fascination. Whereas Florence’s Green Key allowed her to heal people, even to the point of regrowing body parts, Amélia’s power outright mutated the flower by transforming vegetal parts into animalistic ones. Matthew couldn’t recall any Green spell with that much sway over someone’s anatomy.
“Oh, oh, I’ve got an idea!” Matthew snapped his fingers as inspiration struck him. “What if we put it in somebody’s bag! They’ll hear the whispers and get scared, but when they open it, bam! Disbelief transforms it back into a normal flower! It’ll drive them mad!”
“Like Darby?” His suggestion inspired Amélia to conspire with him. “He’s a dick, I hate him.”
“Yeah, Darby sucks!” It would serve that ass right for calling Matthew a cyclops behind his back. “How about we put new mouths inside the mouth?”
“That would be so creepy,” Amélia replied with a smirk. She once again channeled her Key through the flower and twisted the stem into a tower of whispering mini-mouths all gargling with slightly different voices. “Is this better?”
“He’s totally going to freak out,” Matthew rejoiced.
He sensed the weight of a judgmental gaze upon his back and turned to face Kari and Sasha. Both of them stared at Amélia’s masterpiece with a mix of horror and shock. The poor flesh artist’s smile immediately faded away.
“It’s modern art,” Matthew said dismissively. No way he wouldn’t defend his protégée from critics! “You dirty plebeians aren’t aesthetically equipped to understand its brilliance!”
Kari choked in outrage. “Plebeians?"
“I’m an artist too!” Sasha protested. “I’ve written stuff!”
“Like what, romance movie fanfics?” Matthew replied, only for Sasha’s face to confirm his suspicions. “Ohoh, you actually did!”
“I’ll be a novelist one day, Maruki,” Sasha said with a threatening glare. “And then I’ll kill you off in one of my books.”
“Whatever, I’m sure I’ll be the fan favorite.” Matthew blew her off and then turned back to his protégée. “You’ve got an awesome Key.”
“You think so?” Amélia replied shyly.
“Oh yes, and you’re just scratching the surface.” Matthew rubbed his hands together. “Let’s give that flower an ass next.”
The flower ended up dying with one ass made of two noses put together, five tongues, ten mouths, and two eyes. As it turned out, stacking so many body parts without functional organs to sustain them might not create a viable organism.
Nonetheless, Amélia had a lot of fun and promised to show Matthew some of her fleshcrafting works tomorrow—and maybe trade a few mangas while at it. The patrol would unfortunately take all his time today.
“You’re a bad influence on Amélia,” Kari complained for the tenth time during the trip. “I hope you understand that, Matthew.”
“A bad influence? For letting her embrace her imagination?” Matthew smirked ear to ear. “Sounds like someone will end up with a mutant in their bag one day.”
“Try that, and I swear to God, I’ll…” Kari had such a kind heart that it took her a few seconds to come up with a suitable punishment. “I’ll throw you in detention!”
“See how she abuses her presidential authority?” Matthew told John. “We should impeach her!”
“Are you two done bickering?” John grumbled as he checked his GPS. “We’re done with the next stop.”
“All I hear is bucket time,” Matthew rejoiced. He stepped out of the bus first in his excitement. “Onwards, soldiers!”
Losing the Doc’s car had forced the three of them to take the Blue Bus Line traveling across Temple Alley and check each individual stop. They had checked each one for a Flux signature and found none besides the Dungeons they had already identified earlier. The Doc had taken care to seal off the university one, Crypto said she would arrange for the abandoned mansion to be condemned, and the lighthouse would starve itself out on its own. All in all, Temple Alley appeared relatively safe compared to other districts.
Matthew would have loved a little exercise before dinner, but he would live with it. He would need all of his strength to visit Maggie afterwards.
Besides, how could he not feel energized at the sight of the Major Chicken restaurant? The proud two-floor fast food eatery stood boldly in front of its Burger Queen rival under the afternoon sun, its walls wrapped in deep crimson paint. The iconic portrait of Major Chicken himself loomed over the entrance with a pair of sunglasses on his beak and a beret on his feathers. Who could not feel awe at its sharp industrial design, at its beautiful drive-thru lane to paradise, at its queue of clients who had never heard of the quinoa safe word?
He was about to take a step towards this all-meat heaven when he sensed it; that oh-so-familiar scent of sorcery in the air. He immediately activated his Flux Sight, his blood freezing in his veins when he identified its source.
They wouldn’t… Dungeons wouldn’t dare!
“Guys,” he said with a low, growling voice. “This is an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Kari activated her Flux Sight and gasped in horror. “Seriously?”
“Is this a joke?” John asked upon picking up the Dungeon scent too, his voice heavy with exasperation. “Are you kidding me?”
The Major Chicken restaurant reeked of Flux.
The fast food place had turned into a Dungeon!
Perfect Run game's demo (a few days late)! I wish to thank everyone who participated in the previous one!
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There will be bugs; we were sure to remove all the gamebreaking/softlocking ones, but the battle against bugs is never-ending and this is a beta demo with plenty of new features, so errors are bound to show up. If you find any, we'd be happy if you could report them in the doc.
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only selectable options for now are difficulty, so you cannot adjust brightness or audio (even at the start).
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