Five days later . . .

Eventually, my younger brother is going to kick my ass. Painful as that realization was for me, it almost made me happy. My brother had become Johnny’s new best friend the instant Johnny cracked a joke in my direction and Andy kicked him through a wall. From that moment on they were best friends. The broken and sometimes shattered trees bore testament to burgeoning friendship as they sparred, pitting esoteric martial arts skills against bitterly earned Centauri battlewizard arts.

Andy had adapted fairly well to having a baby computer in his brain, especially since it did all the hard work of analyzing and predicting movements just as well as it was able to break down and compile spellforms. Every night so far for my brother had ended with a big meaty meal and three hours of communing with his own brain, expanding the A.I. and adding the stolen knowledge piece by piece to his compendium. We didn’t really talk about the rest of the family, it simply motivated us to work even harder.

[You should tell him.]

I sighed even though I knew Kraken was right. I had probably overstepped my bounds on this one but damnit, it was for his own good.

[Still should tell’em.]

In exchange for Sybella dropping the fact that I had completely and utterly humiliated her by restraining her without breaking a sweat, I had given her a personalized mana battery, but that wasn’t the end of it. Our little mental conversation included a few more relevant pieces of information that would be life-changing, for more than just Andy. I wanted Andy to learn magic, real badass wizardry but I was not the teacher he needed. I am a sorcerer and our methods of magic are inherently incompatible when it comes to learning. Mine is based off of instinct and affinity while his is grounded in understanding and the learned application thereof.

My bargain was for a bastardized version of a foreign exchange program. Sybella had agreed to take Andy in and teach him everything she and her clan could and then pay for him to go to the oldest magical center of learning. In exchange, she would send me one of her best students, someone that wanted a fresh start. It was weird though, when Sybella and I talked, I could feel her emotions during our conversation. She still thought that she was getting the better end of the deal, that the mana battery was still worth more than my brother’s arcane education and the loss of a student.

[Duh, you just gave her exactly what she needed to become the head of her clan, her coven. That bitch could fight off a dragon with one hand tied behind her back with that.]

Ignoring the running commentary, I kept pondering what I had done, working the issue over to better understand the pros and cons. To me, it made so much sense to do this. It’s not like I’ll be sending Andy off into the unknown completely unprepared. By the time Sybella’s protege would be ready, Andy would be too. His A.I. would have a complete and organized log of all of the compiled magical knowledge that I could provide, which was a fuckton considering all of the shit I’d stolen from a dragon’s brain, a minotaur shaman, a couple dwarves, and the Centauri themselves. Not to mention, I was planning on completely pimping out his gear between now and the day he was headed out, and his A.I. combined with his mini flesh golem would be able to make some epic runic tattoos anytime he wanted. Damn, I’m an awesome big brother, well, if you ignore the fact that I’m still making his decisions for him. Meh, it can wait.

Still ignoring Kraken at this point, I got busy making anything and everything I could think of for Andy and his eventual departure. I had him training with no gear under the guise of ‘intense training’ sessions so I could take apart his stuff and put it back together without questions. The first thing I worked on was his gun and after an hour of frustrating banging my head against the wall, I scrapped it and just made him one like mine, complete with ammo conjuration and a revolving barrel to fire energized particles, shotgun electro taser bolts, a kinetic blast, and even long range crystal magitech rounds.

The Centauri tower shield was reworked to have a blackened outer layer of platinum mixed with iridium to shrug off pretty much any kind of direct magical attack but the iridium was there to help divert what couldn’t be absorbed. The back side of the shield was outfitted with overflow mana batteries covered with the platinum/iridium mix as well.

The suit of armor I crafted was actually made from scratch. Since Andy’s Centauri genetic enhancements gave him ridiculous strength, I went the rugged platemail approach. The idea was to have his usual nanite armor underneath but the plated armor would make him a walking tank. Each piece of armor was made up of layers, the outer being the platinum/iridium mix that I was so fond of with a thin layer of runed quartz forming the bridge to the inner layer of steel. The middle layer would divert the magical or kinetic energy that the upper layer wouldn’t immediately shed and the steel layer was completely devoted to diverting what the other two layers couldn’t. All in all, I basically crafted a suit of armor that I would not stand a chance against.

The helmet had the same layers as the rest of it but with one addition. A small diamond circlet was set in the layer of steel complete with runes to enhance brain power as well as provide an extra layer of protection against mental attacks or unwanted intrusions. If I did it right, it would also function as an antenna or extra processing power for Andy’s A.I. if necessary.

With the defense and offense taken care of, the only thing left was utility. I crafted two slender wands for him out of my own weapon Gungnir. Kraken required me to channel absolutely stupid amounts of mana into my staff to allow the perfect wands to grow out of it, which meant I had to take a trip to Sunstone Castle to get the required power. The explanation from my familiar was a bit lacking, something about, ‘Artifacts don’t grow on trees, and they sure as shit don’t grow more! Does it look like a plant to you?’. Not caring for the rest of his argument which I studiously ignored, I did as he asked and channeled weeks worth of power gathered from the desert sun into Gungnir, coaxing two fledgling wands to pop out complete with star iron tips.

It almost felt like giving a child away when I put the wands down on my table in the Lab. Andy’s new set of plate armor, his reworked shield, and his brand spankin’ new rifle were laid out and the wands were placed gently next to everything. I had even managed to work in a slot in his armor for the little flesh golem to sit comfortably. Several of my most dense and efficient mana batteries were here as well, fully charged and slotted into the armor in and around the chest and thighs.

[Not that this isn’t interesting, but it does seem like you’re avoiding him. Shit, you’ve been avoiding me!]

[Is it me, Kraken? Or do you sound more and more like a human every time you talk?]

My question sparked a feeling of smugness mixed with a hint of shame that crept down our link from Kraken to me. [Being bonded to a human is odd. Your nature is so malleable and short-lived that we spirits cannot help but be changed. All we are is thought and power and soul but we have no agency. You are the will, the very spark that allows us to exist corporeally. This is what the Scions of Order desire, knowledge in all its forms, which includes what you humans call ‘emotions’ or ‘feelings’.]

[I liked it better when you were silent,] I grumbled, putting the last but most important item next to the ensemble. I had created, with Kraken’s help, a memory crystal with several ‘builds’ for my brother. Each one was a schematic for a different pattern of runes, one for everyday preparedness and several more for any kind of situation like long term wilderness survival or stealthy missions. My favorite was what I called the ‘Dense Defense’, and yes, you kinda have to be dense to come up with it. It’s the last ditch defense to channel a mammoth amount of power from anywhere and everywhere to summon a crystal exoskeleton capable of withstanding pretty much anything I can think of, and because of my abilities, making volcanoes is not outside of the realm of possibility. The beauty of the dense druid is that it places the body in an enhanced stasis that still allows your brain to work and the exoskeleton will last for as long as some kind of power can be drawn from to make it, which does include ambient mana from a hypothetical blast of raw power.

Taking a quick page out of my own book, I quickly reworked my own runic tattoos to include all of these schematics but I left key connecting channels disconnected so they wouldn’t accidentally activate.

Off to the left, I had an oversized chest comprised of multiple layers which I had dubbed my ‘Forbidden Artifacts’ chest. It was more an exercise of curiosity and experimentation that I realized maybe would not be so good in the wrong hands. The most dangerous experiment was the Dagger of Rending. The point of that experiment was to test and see if I could put ‘seeds’ of my own sorcery into tools and make them epic, and the problem was that I actually succeeded beyond my wildest dreams but revealed a key weakness. Doing so, creating a ‘seed’ of sorcery from my own soul, weakened my own abilities, but not in a cataclysmic kind of way. In making a seed, it was like plucking a fruit, creating the potential for someone or something else to grow in power but it did make me less. The other side of that potentially dangerous avenue to power is that due to the unique nature of my soul tree, my power could actually ‘grow’ back to where it was.

But back to the Dagger. This little experiment was a small dagger made of conjured diamond that I shaped to fit snug inside of a handle of cold iron. The core of the dagger though was a braided wire thread made up of three parts: gold, silver, Yggdrasil wood. The braided tip of the wire came up to the dagger’s tip and protruded just enough so that it would be the first part to make contact if the user made a stabbing motion. When I implanted the ‘seed’ of sorcery, I acted on some unknown instinct and chose flesh sorcery. Even Kraken couldn’t guess what it did until I cut the tip of my finger with it and the dagger began ravenously devouring my blood and life force, channeling it down the core of the blade and into the handle where it poured right back into me. That little fucker was basically a handy arrow for any Achilles comin’ my way.

And because I’m a sucker for punishment, I had to try other crazy shit with my sorceries. The ‘Granite Gauntlets’ had a seed of earth sorcery that I split in two, and if the gloves grabbed anything at the same time, that object became covered in stone. The worst part was that if I held onto that object, it actually became stone as if Medusa herself was glaring at it.

‘Poseidon’s Trident’ was my version of a joke that actually turned out to be incredibly effective. The trident itself was made from conjured bone and grown coral that my water elementals were more than happy to bring me. With the blades of the trident carved from steel from sunken ships and the bone/coral shaft covered in shaped mangrove wood, I stuck the seed of sorcery in it and massaged it so that its influence permeated the entire weapon. Reeanth played with it for a bit, dancing and walking across the Rappahannock as if it were dry land before I took it back to work on the other project.

The last one I worked on was a bit on the scary side. I called it ‘Yggdrasil’s Wrath’. It was a mace grown from the root of my offshoot of Yggdrasil and that was it, but with the seed of sorcery it became something more. This test happened about forty miles to the east where a nest of goblins had gotten a bit too comfortable for my taste. Remembering my own run in with the nasty bastards, I sent Johnny and Andy to test it out on them as I held back and observed. Honestly, it was kind of sickening. Every swing of the mace pulverized flesh as if a tree had literally fallen on them, and when the messed up body hit the ground, every bit of plant life ate it. It was as if Mother Nature herself was angry at the target. Weeds would grab at ankles, trees would suddenly swing their branches and roots would spear from below. It was so gory that I almost threw up, watching the monsters get ripped apart from every swing as every bit of flora became the predator for once.

The results of my experiments were so outside of my expectations that I actually held off on making more with the rest of the sorceries that I hadn’t used, my mana and consciousness. Anything made from those two would be a bit too powerful, in fact, I wouldn’t even trust myself. Visions of me making a mind control helmet or a mana-antimatter bomb, or even some kind of mind melting mana transmitter. Storing those away for later, just in case the world did get a bit too dark, I popped outside to see my dysfunctional family.

Reeanth was currently in the process of whooping my brother while Johnny was in the gravity training device I made for him a while ago. Fuzzy and Spot were conked out just past the edge of the clearing, both using each other as a pillow and somehow managing to sleep through the intermittent explosions.

“That was the weakest fireball I’ve ever seen!” Reeanth screamed as she swatted aside a particularly weak golf ball sized flame. Her eyes blazed, firing a flash of mana at Andy as he dodged to the side, scooping up a rock and hurling at her head even before he reached the ground. I could see the problem here. Wizardry takes time to work, time to gather the required spell forms or components, time to concentrate and organize them together, time to channel the mana to alter reality, too much time to be effective for combat.

Apparently, that didn’t seem to apply to Reeanth who simply waved her hand as if lightly back-handing a fly. A fireball the size of a basketball appeared, blazing into existence and launching at my brother. Instinct made me react, honest. A compressed blast of water intercepted the fireball even before I realized that I was the one who shot it. The steam explosion tossed Andy to the side even as I stormed over to Reeanth, preparing to tear her a new one.

Seeing the danger of big brother on the warpath, Andy screamed out. “WAIT! WAIT!” Turning towards him and seeing him unharmed allowed the red tint to leave my eyes. “We’re warded against fire right now, it’s safe! Sheesh.”

My face turning red due to not grasping the obvious nature of the situation, I said a quick apology and stood there awkwardly. “My lord?” Reeanth asked, looking at me with a question on her face.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s just that no one picks on my brother but me.”

“That was a long time ago,” Andy cut in. “I’m pretty much twice your size now and if you weren’t so fancy with your magic I’d kick your butt.” He was teasing, I could tell that from his smirk but something about the way he said told me that he meant at least part of it. He honestly thought he’d kick my ass.

“You know what?” I said, slowly shucking my armor. “Now’s as good a time as any. I got some news that you may or may not like, but I need you to do it. If I win, you do it without a fuss, and if you don’t, I’ll find a way to get you out of it.”

Andy froze in his tracks like a cat caught stalking a bird. “What did you do?” he growled, every oversized muscle of his tensing as he spat the words.

“Well,” I said, nonchalantly continuing to take off my gear. “You have the potential to be great, powerful even, probably more powerful than me given time. The problem is that you have no training, no education, and here, this place is not the most advantageous setting for you to learn what you need to know.”

“Get to the point.” Great. Even Reeanth was looking at me curiously now. I figured Kraken would have clued her in by now.

“I got you a full-ride scholarship to the Poly-Arcane Institute, and a crash course of Interstellar Culture with Sybella’s clan before you go.” His knuckles clenched as if he were imagining that it was my throat between his fingers even as I finished putting all of my gear off to the side. “You need an actual education and since I’m rich as fuck by the standards of the multi-verse, then you’re gonna get one. I’ll be sending you off with a kit that any wizard, sorcerer, mage, or warlock would literally sacrifice their child for but I need you to do this, please.”

The problem with little brothers is that they tend not to think about the long-term, the scope of what could be. We big brothers have to look out for them, not because they aren’t intelligent, but because they simply tend to not look down the road when they’re having fun. And I mean that literally; I remember yanking his happy ass out of the road when he was little. A freaking Ford F250 had almost flattened him when he was riding his bike not paying attention and thanks to me he wasn’t a human pancake.

“Fine,” he snarled, kicking off and launching himself at me. With a small kick of my own, I tapped the earth, sending a column of stone to punch him in the gut. As he stumbled back, I kept talking.

“And to keep it fair, you can use any magic you want and I’ll only be allowed to use one kind, any kind you specify too. No magical weapons and the usual tap out rules.”

“Ten bucks on the little bro!” Johnny yelled, sprinting over from his training, sweat dripping everywhere.

“Money doesn’t exist here anymore dumbass!” Andy said, his eyes never leaving me.

“Lame,” Johnny complained, sitting down and chugging some water.

“And who exactly is the ‘little bro’?” my brother said. “I may be younger but I’m definitely ‘bigger.”

“That’s what he said!”

Another flex of magic from me pushed the ground Johnny was sitting on away from us in a less than gentle manner. “Fine, fine, I get it. Shut up Johnny.”

Pointing a finger at me, Andy spoke. “Healing magic. You can only use healing magic.”

“Too easy,” I laughed, making the ‘come on’ motion with my hand. “I thought you at least wanted half a chance.” Taking my own interpretation of ‘healing’ magic, I sped up my reaction time to match Andy’s and then got in a boxing stance, but instead of holding my fists up, I had the pointer and middle finger extended out slightly curved. Focusing a bit, I pushed my flesh sorcery to compact targeted ‘healing’ energy at the tips of my fingers.

Andy strode forward and ripped the stone column I had hit him with from the ground and wielded it like a bat, swinging for the hills. Each swing missed with centimeters to spare even though he wielded it as if it were as light as a wiffleball bat. Swinging horizontally forced me to back up, giving him time to mutter, setting the last foot of the bat on fire. As I took another step back, Andy held the bat in one arm and conjured a fireball in his other hand only this time it was about the size of a tennis ball.

“Fuck,” I cursed. Either of those would hurt with the limitations I was currently working with which meant the only option was to stick to the dodgeball philosophy. Andy closed faster than I expected, using the fireball as a melee weapon instead of chucking it at me like I expected. Each swing of the fireball and burning bat left me with second degree burns which made me almost instinctively use conjured water to freaking put it out.

Finally using his brain, Andy kicked the dirt up at my face which I blocked with an arm which also ended up momentarily blocking my vision. Tossing the fireball at my feet, the explosion knocked me up into the air where Andy met me, bringing the stone column down mercilessly with both hands.

That split second before the bat hit me, I felt a hint of genuine fear. The split second after the bat hit me, I felt a tsunami of pain and then nothing. My flesh sorcery cut off the pain and instantly began stitching my organ and spine back to the way they were. Laying there on the ground, I saw Andy’s face go from outright horror to outrage as he saw the condition I was in rapidly going away thanks to my healing capabilities. Bring the column up for another swing, I grabbed the earth, pushing off with my right hand while yanking on the grass with the other, moving me awkwardly out of the way.

The stone column blew a crater in the clearing where my midsection used to be. Overpowering my arms again with ‘healing’, I army crawled faster than any army dude ever could as my body pulled itself back together. I could hear Reeanth’s muffled shouts as she freaked out, which I was fine with as long as she didn’t interfere.

“Finally!” I yelled as I felt the last of my nerves connect and my bones realign from their shattered fragments. “Fuck you!” The anger was from the pain but the joy was from his face. Rolling on my back and springing at Andy as he was bringing the column back for the swing, I stabbed my fingers at his joints, each poke blasting ‘healing’ energy into the natural hinges of his body. His bones began to grow with each poke, slowing him down and eventually locking his body up so that he couldn’t move. His kneecaps fused his tibia to his femur and his shoulder joint was essentially welded to his humerus.

“That’s not healing!” he yelled as he keeled over, unable to catch himself.

“Technically it is,” I said, kneeling down in front of him, his overgrown bones creaking as his muscles strained against them. “I ‘healed’ or ‘encouraged’ your bones to grow just a bit more, to, get a bit closer to their neighbors.”

“Friggin’ cheater.”

“Hey, if you ain’t cheatin-,” I said with a smirk.

Andy finished with a defeated smile. “Then you ain’t competin’.”

Taking the time to numb him from the neck down, I quickly and carefully banished the extra bone mass so he would have normal range of movement. Scanning his body, I injected an overall shot of healing mana just to make sure that he didn’t have any lasting injuries. Reaching out a hand, I helped him get his heavy ass off the ground.

“So,” Andy said. “This college of yours, think maybe they got any weed?”