Case and John waved to Jen as she rounded the corner. John noticed flecks of blood on his hands and started. He looked down at his clothes and grimaced. Blood from the medical tent had soaked his clothes. Acknowledging the mess drew attention to his magical senses. The bizarre magical feedback from the slowly coagulating blood illustrated how thoroughly he’d been soaked with nauseating fidelity.
“Shit,” John swore softly. He swallowed hard and forced his gorge down.
Case turned to face him, “What is i- oh, hell. We’ll get you a change of clothes, ok?”
John shook his head, “Nah, these are some of my favorite jeans. Cameron gave them to me last Christmas. Not gonna pitch em now.”
Case winced, “Have you seen anyone doing laundry around here? Doesn’t seem like they’re making it a priority,” Case waved his hand to indicate the militaristic surroundings, “I don’t want to be mean, but I don’t think there’s a ton of good options.”
John grunted, “You’re right. I think I might have a workaround.”
On a whim, John felt around the pool of mana in his abdomen. Just a little left…
John closed his eyes and focused on the god-awful sensation he got from his magical senses. The blood soaking his clothes’ fibers felt different than the vitae coursing inside his friends and the passersby. It was still, wan, and slowly clotting. John knew it would rot soon enough, attract flies, and begin to stink. The feeling triggered a visceral repulsion, like he’d smelled an overripe garbage can in the peak of summer.
When John formed the mysterious connection between his mana and the blood and willed it to leave his body, his mana complied eagerly. A significant fraction of the tiny pool that had regenerated behind his navel evaporated, and the blood soaking his clothes sloughed away.
“Yikes!” Case exclaimed as mana spilled from his hand.
A rectangular shield spared Case and Jen’s shoes from the spatter. John hopped carefully over the moat he’d formed.
“Alright. We ready to get going?”
“That was gross, but you bet!” Jen nodded, “You feel any better?”
John shrugged, “I wouldn’t say I’m exactly better, but I’ll deal. I’m excited to hear what the plan is, come on!”
Jen explained as they walked, “Ok, the broad strokes are that the little convoy for transporting patients needs an escort. We knew that already. They’re sending the convoy out with a team of riflemen and mages. The hope is that the mages will scare off the magical riffraff with their auras. Anyone who can’t feel mages will get scared by the trucks full of men with guns. If any mages do show up, the plan is to just shoot them before they can hurt anyone. They’re hoping to only need us for problem solving, like using Case to fill in holes or something.”
John nodded, “Seems straightforward. What’s the route?”
“According to the messenger who came for us, it’s a straight shot down 273, the exit goes directly into the hospital’s lot.”
Case fiddled on his phone to bring up a map, “Are we going to stick around to guard the hospital?”
Jen shook her head, “I don’t think so. Sounds like it’s going to be a national guard gig. They’re want to keep us right here where they can sit on us.”
“Well, they have mages, right?” John asked, “Shouldn’t be a huge issue if they pull us minors back here. I don’t think anyone’s comfortable with adolescents fighting like we’ve been, even if we’ve been successful so far.”
Case nodded, “That scans. I want to go meet the other mages we’re working with.”
“I agree, but John has something to tell us first. We’ve got to figure out how to monitor the situation inside our bodies. His magic almost killed him. I don’t want to keel over because my superpower’s a lemon. No offense.”
John laughed, “It’s ok, that was a good one. Y’know, I haven’t actually tried to go back to investigate. Can you carry me with your vines?”
Jen’s eyebrow quirked up, “Why?”
“In case I can’t move my body and peek around at the internals at the same time. You wouldn’t check the oil while you’re driving a car, right?”
Jen chuckled, “Alright, I’ll try something. Hold still.”
They stopped walking. Case watched curiously. A mass of vines sprang out of jen’s back and moved to wrap around john.
“Hey, can’t you make like a wicker chair or something?” John complained.
“Hush, I’ll do basket weaving later.”
The vines gripped John tightly but shifted around so that he’d be upright. Jen turned around around and the vines lifted John up into the air. Jen immediately fell backwards. The vines dissipated into mana and dropped John. John landed in an awkward crouch, while Jen adeptly rolled back to her feet.
“Damnit!” Jen cursed.
“What happened?” John demanded
“I forgot about physics is what happened. The vines are more than strong enough to move you, but then my body has to carry the weight. If you’re on a five foot stick attached to my upper back, there’s no way I can keep steady, let alone move.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Case nodded, “I get it. Can you do what you did earlier? Make vines sprout out of the ground and have them pass John down the line?”
“Yeah, it’d look silly, but it would still keep us moving,” John agreed.
“I could, but vines originating outside my body cost lots more mana than the ones that come out of my skin. No clue why.”
“Well, shit,” John sighed, “we can’t be exhausted for the expedition. I’m running on empty as it is.”
Jen frowned, “You’re right. Maybe we can take some time after the briefing?”
John shook his head, “I think it’d be best to bring it up at the briefing. If this is a problem for us three it’s a problem for everyone else. If using your mana damages your organs or something, people could keel over in the middle of a fight. It’d be a real problem.”
Jen and Case looked down at their torsos and grimaced.
“My first order of business once we get there is checking myself out,” Case declared.
Jen agreed, “Same here.”
John assented, “Ok. We’ll go somewhere out of the way and look into it. Jen, what time is the briefing set to start?”
She checked her watch, “Around 6:00, we’ve got time. Figure out how to do it then present to the crowd.”
John had a realization, “Hold on a minute, shouldn’t the Groupmind have figured this out by now?”
Case shrugged, “Maybe? If they have, they would have shared it by now.”
“Couldn’t we just ask Corporal Gunn?” Jen suggested.
“If we see him, sure. I think he’s been glued to the commissioner and colonel for a while now,” Case replied.
John shook his head, “I bet they’ll be at the briefing. Let’s go find a corner and try this out.”
After some searching, the trio found a quiet corner in the building slated to host the briefing. John sank down into a cross-legged pose.
“What’re you doing that for?” Case asked.
John looked up and shrugged, “I figure all those folks who try and ‘find their center’ or whatever for meditation might have something right. I’m trying to literally look inside myself, right?”
Jen made a face, “Gross phrasing, but yeah. Good luck.”
John laughed and closed his eyes. His attention focused on the small ball of mana shifting behind his navel. He took deep breaths and tried to shut out the noise coming from other areas of the building. He imagined himself sinking down into his body, hoping to return to the strange place he’d occupied previously. Shit, no dice.
John tried visualizing the way the space looked when he’d left it the last time. He pictured his heart hanging above and to the left of his meagre orb of mana, the disparate specks that marked the path to his extremities, and the invisible border that delineated the extent of his body. Once again, nothing happened. John was looking at the inside of his eyelids, and that was it.
John sighed, but he was determined to soldier on. He varied his breathing, tried all sorts of different visualizations, and had Case and Jen look up meditation how-tos with their sparse internet access. With five minutes left, he considered using his magic to stop his heart again.
“Fuck no!” Jen shut his idea down.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing what happened,” Case said earning a glare from Jen.
John shrugged, “Y’all, I’m out of ideas. There’s what, ten minutes left till we have to report to the briefing room?”
Jen nodded, “Yeah, just about.”
Case tapped his chin thoughtfully, “Wait a minute. When you manipulate blood, what do you do?”
“I focus on it with my magical senses. Eventually a connection forms. I can sort of push mana through that connection, and the blood on the other side does what I want,” John explained.
Case nodded, “Good. Just like I do it. Do your normal senses fade to the background when you do it?”
John started, “Yeah, they do!”
“Uh huh. And didn’t you say you couldn’t feel your body when you had your heart attack?”
Jen gasped as she put the pieces together.
John nodded frantically. “That’s right!”
Case’s eyes gleamed, “Try connecting with your own mana! Quick, quick, so Jen and I can try!”
John laughed, “All right, all right. Be patient.”
John closed his eyes again. This time, he focused on the sense of warmth that came from his own body. He knew he was really feeling blood, but while it was moving, John’s senses registered warmth more than anything else.
If John’s legs and arms felt like gentle fireplaces, the ball of mana in his abdomen felt like a bonfire. He zeroed in on the absolute hottest portion. His heart gave off heat like a campfire, but the miniscule ball of mana behind his navel was an order of magnitude more intense. John tried to establish the connection by pushing mana through, the same way he would if he wanted to control someone’s bloodstream. It was a distinctly odd sensation, like he was trying to move a liquid through some fourth-dimensional pipe that looped back on itself. Despite the disorienting sensation, John pushed on. All of a sudden, his mana shuddered, and John’s perspective rapidly shifted.
Case and Jen saw John’s eyes momentarily glow red before he tipped over. They both swore and leapt to take care of him.
“God dammit John, we told you not to stop your heart again. Shit, shit, shit,” Jen swore as she prepared vines to drag John out the door.
Case felt around John’s neck, checking for a pulse. He heaved a sigh of relief.
“Jen, chill. He’s still got a pulse. It’s ok,” Case assured her.
“Does that mean it worked?” Jen asked.
“Who knows? I think we just have to sit here and watch him.”
John’s friends settled in to wait.
John, oblivious to events outside his body, was running a victory lap around his torso. His point of view circled his heart joyously. He watched as tiny motes of mana drifted up from the pool in his abdomen and drifted into his heart.
John admitted to himself that seeing his own heartbeat was remarkably disturbing. He’d seen it beat once when he’d fixed the heart attack, but sitting next to it was an entirely different affair. John mentally shrugged before he settled back to watch the motes of mana arrive. They slid into the side of his heart, but John couldn’t see where they went. He could tell the pericardial fluid surrounding his heart was soaking up some mana, but the rest of it seemed to vanish. A mystery for another time. He had to share the discovery with Case and Jen!
Thankfully, John found the method to return faster than the way in. All he had to do was “retract” his magical sense, and he found himself back in the physical world.
John opened his eyes and exclaimed, “Huh! Why am I laying down? Case, get off me.”
Case scuttled back to give John his space, “Sorry buddy, I was monitoring your pulse. Your eyes flashed red like you were controlling someone’s blood, then you fell over. We thought you’d stopped your heart or something.”
John sat up, “Oh! Well, I have good news. It worked! Before you run off and try it, the way out is just retracting your magical sense. Y’all got it.”
They looked positively giddy. John was happy they’d get to experience this phenomenon without a near-death experience.
Case laid down then looked over at John, “Can you keep an eye on us?”
John nodded, “Of course dude. Don’t spend too long looking around, we don’t have a ton of time.”
Jen shrugged, “Making sure this works for everyone is worth being a little late.”
She laid down a few feet from Case. They both closed their eyes. John saw Jen’s eyes glow a gentle green before she went limp, hands falling to her sides. A beat later, Case’s eyes shone blue and his body went slack too.
John settled in for the wait. He set a minute timer on his phone and paid attention to how much his mana supply recovered. The result wasn’t great. His recovery had slowed dramatically since that morning. It didn’t make much sense. He was unspeakably hungry, maybe that was part of it? Did mana come from food? It’d be kind of a lame explanation, but it was easy enough to fix. John doubted it would be that simple. He checked his watch. They had four minutes left to get to the briefing room. Come on, guys. Hurry up!
