Chapter 19

“I’m sorry, what?” Henry stared at Jon, not quite sure he was following. Jon looked human. Well, minus you know, the random energy crackling around him. Henry was pretty sure Jon was the one who had zapped the Vet earlier. But…that didn’t make sense. Then again, Emelia had mentioned in ancient times people channeled the power of the D.E.D. through themselves and other objects. Was that what was going on here? Henry was pretty sure she’d said that method wasn’t used anymore.

“I said, hit me with your best shot.” He smiled as the energy continued to crackle around him. There was so much flowing around him that all the hairs on his body, as well as Henry’s seemed to be standing on edge. The very room was practically charged with energy.

“Alright?” It was a partial agreement, partial question. Henry wasn’t sure what was going on, but he figured the guy emitting a disturbing amount of electrical power from himself would be fine. At the very least, Henry’s Evil Eye was a level 2 support D.E.D., he wasn’t even sure the Evil Eye could hurt him normally.

“Air burst, I guess?” Henry said to his Evil Eye. It had all of three moves. Wind Shield was a support type move, he got that much. And tackling a man that was crackling with electrical power seemed unwise. Which meant, launching an Air Burst seemed like the best option here.

As you wish, Awakened One. The Evil Eye began to glow, and a moment later a blast of visible air flew from the Evil Eye with rapid speed. Henry winced as it neared the instructor, figuring even if it wouldn’t be lethal, getting hit by a burst of air like that had to be unpleasant.

A moment later, as the air burst dissipated against a layer of electrical power, Henry no longer felt sorry for the situation. It was indeed as the instructor said, they were using powers that surpassed anything the initiates had.

“A quick, straight forward, magical attack.” Jon said, nodding towards Henry. “I assume you figured a physical move would not end well against my electrical barrier?”

“Correct.” Henry had played enough games to know that much. General rule of thumb, don’t touch the electrical barriers. You also usually wanted to avoid fire, or extreme cold, or poison, and so on. In those cases, magic was the best bet.

“I like it. Means you actually think before acting.” He chuckled as his energy field began to dissipate. “You’d be surprised how many times initiates have launched their D.E.D. into my shield. It is so hard to hold back enough that I don’t kill the poor things.” His eyes flashed, “now then, what would you do if I say, decided to do this?”

Jon pointed a finger towards Henry’s Evil Eye, and at the tip of his finger a glowing mass of energy began to form.

“Wind Shield, and try to avoid the attack.” Henry said to his Evil Eye. The creature sent him a mental nod in compliance, and acted as commanded. Jon smiled and released a ball of electrical energy flying towards the Evil Eye, much faster than Henry expected.

Luckily, his Evil Eye wasn’t dumb enough to stay in the path of it, and the magical wind field flowing around it seemed to push away any of the stray tendrils of energy that erupted from the ball of lightning. Henry, at the same time, had moved away from the attack. He figured he didn’t want to get zapped like the Vet did, and didn’t trust Jon enough to not ‘accidently’ include him in the crossfire.

“Good, good.” Jon nodded in approval. “Very good.” He grinned and started walking towards Henry, the energy around him completely fading away. “You’ve passed the mock battle.”

“That was it?” Henry was skeptical. They’d done two moves. It felt like the poor excuse of an intro battle in one of the old Pokémon games.

“Well, I’m not going to insult your potential. You obviously actually looked over your D.E.D. enough to know its skills, as well as have a basic understanding of battles such as these.” He held a hand out to Henry. “The mock battle is really just to judge the basic competence of the initiate, before we head out into the field to find a rift. That’s when the real fun begins, and it would be a waste if I made you drain all your Evil Eye’s mana before then.” He looked at the floating eyeball. “After all, it’ll be hard enough for you to snag a new D.E.D. when your current one is a rather weak support type.”

“Oh, alright.” Henry shook Jon’s hand, and glanced at his Evil Eye. Apparently, everyone looked down on the poor things. Why’d Loki give him such a basic D.E.D.? After all, all the other initiates seemed to have interesting looking D.E.D. At the very least, combat related ones. Minus the bunny with the demon horns…Henry wasn’t sure what that poor little kid was going to do with that thing.

“Do we have to wait for the others? Or are we just going now?” Henry glanced in the direction the others had left. He didn’t really care about any of them, though, maybe the teenager could use some help? He was also slightly curious to see what their D.E.D. could do.

“You’re with me. The others will be taken into the field by their instructors, and given some OJT, or On the Job training as they’re out there.”

“Gotcha.” Henry looked at Jon. He couldn’t help but wonder if the guy intended to go out in public dressed as he was. Like, Henry got it, people would just assume they were cosplaying from the game…but it was a bit intense. Kind of the opposite of keeping a low profile for a secret society.

“Mind if we take your car?” Jon said after a long pause. “I’ll guide you to the perfect spot, but it’s easier if I can scan while you drive.”

That was unexpected. Henry had really expected the instructor to be the one handling all these things. For how powerful Jon seemed, and considering the fact he was the Strike Team leader apparently for Henry, this…had suddenly gotten a lot less formal than he’d anticipated.

“Uh, sure.” Thinking back, Henry realized he was also almost out of gas. Which meant they would have to fill up before they went anywhere. Shit.

“Awesome. And while we are underway, I’ll give you some quick lessons regarding D.E.D. battles that may come in handy.” He grinned at Henry and held up a finger, “but know you’re going to be a long ways away from being able to do what I just did.”

“Fair,” Henry had to wonder just how strong Jon was. When he’d met Emelia, she hadn’t had a visible D.E.D. but he had gotten a faint, momentary glimpse of one around her. Jon, on the other hand, was obviously channeling a D.E.D.’s power, but Henry saw no sign of it. Which had him more than a little intrigued. It seemed when it came to the D.E.D. and everything involved with this secret world, there was a lot that Henry was going to have to learn, and a lot that he wasn’t going to learn right away, sadly.

“Alright. So, which entrance did you use?”

Henry looked down at his shoes, immediately reminded of his soggy shoes and socks. “Uh, the snake pit?” Was that what they called it as well? The entrances didn’t have names labeled on them in the app, so he figured they just had known nicknames within the organization. But, considering he’d just joined, he had no idea what they actually called them.

“Really?” Jon’s tone was filled with disgust. “Why would you use that one? Literally no one uses that one anymore.” He shook his head and let out a sigh. “We’re making a quick stop before we leave then. No way am I wearing my good shoes through that thing.”