Nickel awoke to searing light, and his skin burning. The clothes he was wearing lit his skin aflame, the feeling maddening.
His wrists and ankles were bound.
Where was he?
He could hear so much, too much, a deafening cacophony of indecipherable noise.
He couldn't think, couldn't begin to understand.
He began to struggle against his bindings, his rational mind slipping away, becoming frenzied.
Finding himself unable to break them, he tried to shift into hybrid form, but found that he couldn't. His panic worsened.
Completely losing himself to the pain, raging at his inability to escape it, a new instinct kicked in.
A silvery-black energy flooded out from Nickel, coiling and flowing around him.
Where this energy touched, it devoured.
First were the straps binding him down, leaving not even ash.
Next, the bed he lay on dissolved, the energy feeding on it.
Nickel dropped to the ground on his back, quickly twisting to his hands and knees.
A sound, louder than the overwhelming noise, drew his attention. Looking over, he hazily recognized Will and Liz through the mental overload.
But beside them was an unknown individual, and in it's confusion and delirium, Nickel's mind labeled them a threat.
Nickel opened his mouth wide, pulling on his dragonforce. But instead of his silver flames, the silver-black energy shot out.
It closed in on the unknown person in an instant.
They raised their hand and slammed down, dispersing the beam. The next second, they blurred and disappeared.
Before Nickel could seek them out, there was a brief, incredible pain. Then his mind fell into darkness.
—
"...Urgh…"
Nickel awoke again. The light did not blind him. The clothes he wore did not burn his skin.
He still felt like shit though.
Blinking to clear his eyes, he tried to remember what had happened. Once the memory returned, his eyes shot open.
The first thing he noticed was Liz.
She sat in a chair to his right. Mostly. She was currently slumped over onto his bed, asleep.
Nickel relaxed his body and looked around the room.
A window to his right shed moonlight down onto Liz. There was another chair that sat empty.
That must be Will's. To his left was a monitor turned away from him, an IV drip beside it .
He was in the hospital.
He took a deep breath. Time to see if it had worked. Nickel pulled up his status.
[STATUS]
[User: Nicholas Silver]
[Age: 16]
[Pathfinder Rank: 6]
[Affinity]
[Fire: S+]
[Water: S-]
[Earth: S]
[Wind: S]
[Light: S+]
[Darkness: S+]
What the Fuck?
Why had his Affinities increased? That wasn't supposed to happen. That didn't happen. The only way Affinities increased on awakening was if… if a person awakened an element based Aspect.
But he couldn't have! Silvers always awakened the Blood of Gula. Always! It shouldn't have been possible for Nickel to awaken a different one.
He quickly changed over to his Aspect tab, seeking answers. And what he saw left him speechless.
[Paths]
[Aspect of the Destroyer: Blood of Gula]
[Aspect Ability]: [Devour]
[Aspect Attributes]: [Gluttony][Voracious Vessel][???]
[Aspect of the Saint: Blood of Luxuria]
[Aspect Ability]: [Loyalty of the Sword]
[Aspect Attributes]: [Elemental World][World's Beloved][???]
What the Fuck?
What the Fuck?
What the FUCK?
Ignoring the fact he awakened a second aspect before even being unsealed… how could it possibly be an Aspect of the Saint.
That went way beyond being confusing and straight into being impossible.
There had never been a child born between a Saint and a Destroyer. Not even because it was physically impossible.
There was just so much bad blood between the two groups of families that most of them would rather die than consider the possibility!
And yet…
It obviously couldn't be his father. Joseph had been born a Silver. But Nickel had never known, never even considered his mother being from a saint family.
But the more he thought about it, the more it made a certain sort of sense.
Nickel knew nothing about his mother's extended family. Nothing. No grandparents, no aunts or uncles, no nothing.
He'd given up asking, honestly. Any attempt to learn about his mother's family was met with one of two responses.
"Maybe when you're older", or, "the Coin Purse is my family".
'Guess it doesn't matter now.' Nickel thought. He had this Aspect. Might as well learn what it did for him. And what the system said the Blood of Gula did for him, as well.
Blood of Gula first.
[Aspect of the Destroyer: the Blood of Gula]
[Devour: All things are devoured, and become Strength]
[Gluttony: Devour life, and gain strength]
[Voracious Vessel: The bearer's Vessel is insatiable]
Well, that was helpful.
It was a good thing the family had thousands of years of research records to rely upon.
'Hopefully the other Aspect will be more explanatory.'
[Aspect of the Saint: the Blood of Luxuria]
[Loyalty of the Sword: The elements given form, the blades heed their master's call]
[Elemental World: Elemental wells form within the Internal World. Feed them, and gain Their Loyalty]
[World's Beloved: You are beloved by the World. It comes when you call, and moves as you Will]
That was… a little more helpful.
Nickel suspected that [World's Beloved] was responsible for the increase to his affinities. That would explain why his mother had such grand command of the elements.
It seemed like [Elemental World] let him store additional mana within his internal world. The elements were mana given form, after all.
And if his guess was right, he could likely use that mana to… do something with [Loyalty of the Sword].
"Create swords, presumably…"
At Nickel's words, Liz stirred from where she lay on the bed. She sat up groggily, squinting her eyes at Nickel.
Nickel smirked at her. "Sleep well?"
Liz's eyes widened, tears beginning to form in them. She quickly wrapped her arms around him, holding Nickel close.
Elizabeth quietly sobbed while she held him in her embrace.
As Nickel rubbed her back, trying to calm her down, he noticed that, for the first time since Liz had awakened…
'I'm not being crushed…