Chương 44: Personality

"We've got a problem." Enzo sighed.

"Sit down." Matt took the chair across from the workbench. His eyes kept drifting to the glowing stones, but he didn't ask.

"A few days ago, Val and I talked about setting up a scouting team," Matt said.

"People who could keep tabs on the Riders and the surrounding area without drawing attention." Enzo nodded. He knew about it. Val and Kenzo had brought the proposal to him before it went ahead. Matt had been doing the same thing for the bikers, and with tensions growing between the two groups, it made sense to have eyes beyond the barricades. He'd signed off without much discussion. He still maintained he wasn't in charge of the settlement their neighborhood was rapidly becoming.

The others had stopped arguing the point and settled for a compromise instead. They checked in with him on anything significant, and in return they handled the day-to-day without asking permission. It was getting complicated. The Watch. The Hunters. The Gardening Club. Matt's scouts. The admin team tracking rations, water, work assignments, and every other detail that kept a hundred people fed and functioning. At some point they'd need a proper council just to make sure all the groups were talking to each other.

He didn't say any of that to Matt.

"One of my team spotted something," Matt continued.

"Riders rolling a shipping container on a flatbed. She thought they were hauling supplies in from outside town, but they stored it in the garage of an empty house instead." Enzo frowned.

"She was careful," Matt added quickly.

"Waited until they left, then got close enough to check." He paused.

"She heard Eaters inside."

"She's sure?" Matt nodded.

"I sent another scout to confirm. It's not an isolated thing, Enzo. They've moved at least three more since the first one. The containers have symbols painted on the outside. Big ones, covering most of the walls. Looks kinda cultish." Enzo's frown deepened. Symbols could mean a lot of things. Or one very specific thing.

"Most of them are being positioned toward the group across the highway," Matt said.

"But the first one we found is close. Really close. Summit Ave, just one street over from one of the remaining holdout groups that refused to join the Riders." He shook his head.

"An elderly couple. They're both mages. They've been protecting their block since the beginning." The room was quiet for a moment.

"You have no idea what they're doing with the Eaters?" Enzo asked.

"No. The obvious answer is they're planning to unleash them, but I don't see the point. A few Eaters in a box aren't going to overwhelm a pair of mages." Matt leaned back in the chair.

"It's the effort that bothers me. Capturing the Eaters and moving shipping containers takes planning, manpower, and enough people on standby if anything goes wrong during transport. That's a lot of risk for something that shouldn't work." Enzo looked at the workbench. At the row of glowing stones. At the enchantments he'd spent days building, each one designed to gather and convert and store. He had an idea about the symbols. And he didn't like it at all. Enzo stood up.

"Have Kenzo and Val meet me outside with the bikes. I want to see this container." Matt pushed off the chair.

"Want me to send anyone else with you?"

"No. If the symbols are what I think they are, I don't want anyone without magic near them." He turned to Matt.

"This couple you mentioned. Think they'd join us?" Matt shrugged.

"They said no to the Riders. But maybe you'd have better luck." He grinned.

"Then again, they might also recognize you and Kenzo and tell you to shove off." Enzo laughed.

"We weren't that bad." Matt walked over to the door and pulled it open. He paused, looking back over his shoulder.

"There's a reason the local paper called us the Terrors, Enzo. And it wasn't because of me and Claire." Enzo shook his head as Matt disappeared through the doorway. He grabbed his cane and considered how best to handle his new mana batteries. He stepped over to the closet and pulled out an old, long, black coat. The weather had finally turned cool enough, and it had a lot of pockets. Including one big enough inside for his spellbook. Val and Kenzo were waiting at the end of the street with the bikes.

Enzo whistled, and Murph appeared from between two houses, tongue out, tail wagging. He'd promised her she'd come along from now on. She'd held him to it by waiting at the door every time he reached for his cane. They set off east, Murph loping alongside them, keeping near Kenzo, who was also on foot.

"Matt's scouts found something," Enzo said as they rode.

"The Riders have been capturing Eaters and sealing them inside shipping containers. They've painted what sound like enchantments on the outside, and they're moving the containers to specific locations around town." Val's grip tightened on her handlebars.

"Where?"

"Near the holdout groups. And toward the people across the highway." Kenzo jogged in silence for a few seconds.

"They're weaponizing the Eaters."

"Yeah." Val looked straight ahead.

"We're going to have to deal with them. Soon." Kenzo was quiet for a while. Then he nodded.

"She's right." Enzo didn't respond. They turned down another street, riding past houses that still looked like houses but felt less like homes with every passing week. Overgrown lawns. Dark windows. Cars sitting dead.

"Why isn't Signe coming?" Val asked.

"She's still working on replicating our combat spells. It's not as simple as copying the design." He slowed for a turn.

"She threads mana differently. It's closer to musical notation than geometry. Beats and rhythms instead of shapes and angles." The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Val frowned.

"So she can't use your spell forms?"

"Not the way we build them. She tried copying Sumi's Heal and it fell apart. When she rebuilt something similar using her own system, it worked, though she's terrible with body mana." He glanced back.

"Same thing happened in reverse. Sumi tried copying Signe's Disorient spell and couldn't figure it out at all." Kenzo looked at Val and grinned.

"See? I told you. That's why Reinforce didn't work when I tried it your way. It's not because I wasn't trying hard enough."

"You weren't trying hard enough."

"It's literally different, Val."

"It's a circulation technique. You circulate. It should work." Enzo cut in before it escalated.

"She's partially right. Sumi and I share a lot of overlap. We can borrow each other's designs for most things. I used Sumi's concept of looping for Telekinesis. But when she tried to copy my Analyze design, she couldn't make it work until she replaced half of it with her own approach." Kenzo shrugged.

"Sounds complicated."

"And what about you two? Have you figured out anything other than exploding?"

"Bro, exploding is so much fun, though." Kenzo laughed.

"You should try it!" Enzo rolled his eyes. He was definitely going to try it.

"He's looking down on us," Val said. She turned to Kenzo with a grin.

"You should show him." Kenzo's eyebrows shot up.

"What? Right now? I thought we were gonna surprise them?"

"Show me what?" Enzo asked, glancing between them. Val ignored him.

"It's still a surprise. Go on." Kenzo grinned. Then he stopped jogging, planted his back foot, and fired a Burst from both feet. The pavement cracked beneath him as he launched forward, covering twenty feet in a second. Dust and gravel sprayed behind him. Enzo sighed.

"I've already seen—" Kenzo took another step. And rose. Not much. An inch, maybe two. But his foot didn't come back down to where it left. The next step was the same. And the next. Each one accompanied by a sharp crack of energy beneath his sole, a controlled micro-burst that gave him just enough lift to stay airborne. Enzo slowed to a stop. Murph did the same, head cocked, watching Kenzo as intensely as Enzo was. Val pulled up beside him, arms crossed over her handlebars, grinning.

Kenzo was two feet off the ground now, still moving forward, each step a visible effort of focus and timing. Then he launched. A full Burst, angled upward and to the right. He hit the peak of the arc and fired again, reversing direction, bouncing left. Then right. Then left again. Each burst propelled him higher, and from the ground it looked like he was ricocheting between invisible walls, climbing an empty staircase that only existed for the fraction of a second his mana touched the air. Twenty feet up.

Twenty-five. Enzo could see the concentration on his face even from the ground. Then Kenzo's rhythm broke. A burst fired late, or at the wrong angle, and his body twisted instead of launching. His arms pinwheeled. The climbing pattern collapsed, and he started to fall.

"Reinforce!" Kenzo's skin erupted with earth mana, taking on a pattern of hardened dirt and rock. Enzo reached out instinctively to cast Telekinesis.

"He's fine," Val said. Kenzo tucked his knees, extended both hands, and shouted, "Shockwave!" Mana exploded from his palms. A rippling wave that tore through the air beneath him. His descent slowed violently. Then his feet hit the pavement, earth mana smashing against the ground on impact. Cracks spiderwebbed from the point of contact. He landed on one knee, one hand on the asphalt. Wobbled. Then straightened up and turned around, breathing hard.

"Still working on the dismount," he said. Enzo stared.

"How? The physics makes no sense. Burst works when you run because it's propelling mana from your feet, pushing against the ground. But the air offers almost no resistance." Val nodded.

"We're blending mana." Enzo turned to her.

"Huh?" Kenzo walked back, dusting his hands off.

"Val figured out how, but I'm better at it."

"Beginner's luck," Val muttered.

"He's using wind mana for propulsion and arcane for resistance." Enzo frowned.

"And when were you going to tell me about this 'blending'?" Kenzo pointed at Val.

"It was her idea." Val gave Kenzo a dirty look. Then turned to Enzo.

"You were busy, and Sumi already confirmed wizards and their knitting can't merge two threads into one. We were going to surprise you when you finally left your room for more than five minutes." Enzo narrowed his eyes at his sister.

"Mhmm." He started riding again. Murph and Kenzo fell into step beside him, and the conversation moved on to other things, but Enzo's mind stayed on the blending. Sumi was right. Wizard threads couldn't merge. He didn't need to test it to know. Two threads were two threads. They could run parallel, intertwine, layer on top of each other, even touch at points, but they remained distinct. That was fundamental to how spell forms worked. Every thread carried its own concept, its own purpose, and its own type.

But cultivators weren't threading. They were circulating. The mana mixed inside the body before being expelled, the way you'd alloy two metals in a crucible before pouring the result. And he could do both. Which meant, theoretically, he could blend mana types internally the way Kenzo did, then thread the blended result externally the way a wizard would. He filed that away for later. It was either going to be revolutionary or it was going to blow his hands off.

Either way, it deserved more thought than a bike ride allowed. Kenzo pointed.

"That it?" Enzo looked up. A shipping container sat wedged into a double garage at the end of a quiet residential street. It had been shoved in at a slight angle, the doors facing inward, the back end jutting past the garage opening by a foot or two. The garage door had been forced down as far as it would go, which wasn't far enough to hide anything. On the exposed side of the container, a symbol had been painted in broad red strokes.

A rough circle, maybe three feet across, with three jagged lines slashing through it and extending well beyond the edges at each end. They intersected at random angles, nothing symmetrical, nothing precise. And in the center, a large letter G. It didn't look like any enchantment Enzo had ever built. It looked more like graffiti. But scattered across the paint, catching the morning light in sharp purple glints, was something that could only be one thing. Mana crystal dust.

Ground fine and mixed into the paint itself. And he didn't need to see the mana to feel it flowing toward the container. Murph growled. Low, quiet, barely audible. She didn't race ahead. Just planted herself beside Enzo's bike and stared at the container, ears flat. Val and Kenzo both noticed.

"Eaters?" Val asked.

"Stay here," Enzo said. He climbed off the bike and leaned it against a fence post.

"I need to get closer." Kenzo stepped in front of him, arms crossed.

"Bro." Val moved up beside him. Murph planted herself between them both, tongue lolling. Enzo glanced between the three of them.

"They're stuck in a shipping container."

"You're not going near the all-you-can-Eater trap without us," Val said. Enzo blinked.

"That wasn't half bad." He looked at the wall of muscle, stubbornness, and fur blocking his path, then threw up his hands.

"Fine. Let's go." He grabbed his cane and led them across the street. As they got closer, the symbol grew uglier. The paint had been applied fast, thick in some places and thin in others, with drips that had dried in long streaks down the corrugated metal. The crystal dust caught the light in irregular patches where it had clumped instead of spreading evenly. Whoever had painted it hadn't cared about consistency. They'd cared about coverage. From inside the container, Enzo could hear them. Eaters.

But the sound was wrong. Muffled. Kenzo leaned closer, head tilted.

"Bro... do you think they gagged them?" Enzo didn't answer. He was staring at the symbol. No insight came to him. He had his suspicions, but the design told him nothing. He reached into his coat and pulled out his spellbook, flicking to the page that held his notes on Analyze. Including changes that might improve upon the original design now that he could access more mana types. Ideas he was now certain would work, because mana wasn't just typed.

It was conceptual in itself, and capable of carrying a mage's intent and concepts that fit its… Personality. That was the word, as crazy as it sounded even in his own head. Enzo pressed his journal against an unpainted section of the container and slid the pen free. He jammed the cap between his teeth and popped it off.

"I need a few minutes," he mumbled.

"Keep an eye out."