Chapter 24: Past the Storm

Rick woke up, groggy and disoriented, and for a moment was convinced that he'd been kidnapped and taken to some remote location. That would fit with how his life usually went.

Then his mind reengaged and he remembered that after some arguing, he'd slept on the floor the previous night. There were rumpled blankets on the couch from where Lisa had slept, though it seemed that she was already awake. Not in the living room with him, which meant that there weren't really very many options for where the other two could be.

When he got up, however, he found that neither of them were in the bedroom. Just when he started to worry, the two of them emerged from the bathroom.

Rick blinked at them a few times. "Did the two of you go to the bathroom together in the same house?"

"There's only one and we both had to get ready." Melissa stuck her tongue out at him, then turned to Lisa. "You wanna stay for breakfast? I'm pretty sure your only options are expired cereal and also expired cereal, but you can mix the two if you want a really crazy time."

Lisa smiled but shook her head. "Sorry, but I need to run to work."

"Oh, sorry, did we mess up your schedule?"

"No worries, I'm actually closer than I would be normally. I just had a lot of appointments scheduled for today." Lisa stepped up to Rick and stood awkwardly - for a moment it looked like she might shake his hand, which would have been incredibly uncomfortable, but she settled for just smiling at him. "I'm glad I could help the two of you, Rick... I really am. I'll see you at the gym, alright?"

He nodded. "Sure, see you next time."

With that she headed out of the apartment. After lingering on the walkway for a moment, glancing back, she stepped over the railing and lifted into the air. Instead of watching her go, Rick walked back inside and locked the door slowly, knowing what he was going to face when he turned around but delaying it while he could.

"I like her a lot." When he turned, Melissa snapped her fingers into double finger guns. "If you know what I mean."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of standing between the two of you."

"Haha, you'd better not be dreaming of it, ya perv." Abruptly his sister's smirk dissolved into a softer smile. "Rick, for the first time in so long... I feel like I can beat this. I always thought I'd just need to take what I could from life before... well, the inevitable. But now..."

Melissa shook her head slowly and moved forward to embrace him. Rick wrapped his arms around her and held her for a while, like they hadn't since they'd been much younger. They'd spent a lot of time sitting side by side, but after making it through such an experience, they needed the connection.

When the moment had passed and she started to pull away, though, he couldn't resist. "It's still inevitable, you know. We're never going to be rich enough to become immortal, so medical condition or not, we're gonna die."

She grinned and punched him in the stomach ineffectually. "Way to ruin the moment, bro."

"Sorry, I guess that's your job."

"Seriously not messing around for a second, I do think Lisa is into you. She doesn't have as many social circles as she used to and her clients tend to view her as just a contractor. Plus she has creepy types, given her job. I'm not going to push, since it's your life, but I'm sure she thinks of you as a friend instead of just somebody she pays to beat up."

"Wait... did you get all of that from the very first time the two of you met? I guess that's the connection between women..."

Melissa rolled her eyes. "Or, you know, she spent several hours helping to save my life - that tends to break the ice a bit. I was nervous and so she started talking to calm me down, and we had a lot of time to talk."

"You don't have a lot of time right now, though - you need to go to school." When Melissa groaned he just kept talking over it. "I know that it seems ridiculous, but they were already pretty upset about yesterday. But it's just half a year now, then you'll graduate."

"Yeah, I know. Just a huge letdown after everything else." She went to get her things, but kept glancing back at him as she got ready. "There's something I wanted to ask you about before I go, just something odd with the solution we found. I considered asking Lisa, but I did just meet her. Besides, this feels..."

He stepped closer, concern on his face. "Are you alright?"

"I think I am, but that's why I wanted to check. See, you suggested that I was supposed to push the lucrim away from the fire where my soul should be."

"It's not that you don't have a soul, it's that the form isn't what you'd commonly expect. The exact terminology of 'soul' is a bit of a misnomer bec-"

"Aw, shut up, let me pretend to be a soulless abomination." Her smile faded quickly and she stopped gathering her books, focused on him. "The problem was that I couldn't push the lucrim. I saw what you wanted me to do, but it was just too difficult."

"Creating a lucrim shell with an empty space inside it is both complex and counter-intuitive, so I'm not surprised. But when I sense you... it feels like you created a shell anyway. What happened?"

"Well... I kept trying, which made me think a lot about the flame. I'd always held back since it was called a void, thinking that I'd fall into it, or that focusing on it would make things worse. But when I started focusing on the flame, it didn't feel so... so wrong. When I touched it, for a moment it didn't burn me... it got bigger."

Rick listened in silence, trying to keep his face neutral. He hadn't seen Melissa this serious in a long time, and her eyes wandered, never quite meeting his.

"So I... worked with that. I made the flame burn really hot for a while and just... burned the inside of the sphere until I'd hollowed out the entire thing. It did backfire when I went too far, and I'd have been in trouble if you hadn't come to help me. But..." She finally looked at him, playfulness gone to reveal vulnerability. "That wasn't wrong, was it? I didn't... break myself somehow?"

"No, I don't think so." He pulled her into another quick hug. "I'm not an expert, but what you've built feels stable. Just keep an eye on it and don't worry unless something changes drastically."

"Oh, that's good. Everyone was so happy and I was just sitting there, wondering if it was all ruined somehow. I mean, I'd prefer to know for sure, but just hearing you say that helps me feel better."

"Actually, I think I can do better than that." Rick pulled out his phone and navigated to the medical app. "If there's anything seriously wrong, this should give us an alert."

[Melissa Hunter

Lucrim Generation: 6514

Current Lucrim: 426

Ether Void: -100]

It was odd that the ether void value sat at exactly -100, but he decided not to focus on that to avoid making her nervous. Instead, he flipped to the in-depth tab that showed the value over time. "See? Last night when things stabilized, the void value jumped up - or down, I guess - to negative 100 and it's stayed there ever since."

"And that's good? You actually look at that app a lot more than I do."

"Yes, it's good. Normally even when you were doing fine there were constant little fluctuations. Earlier I spent a lot of time looking at them, seeing if there was any kind of pattern that we could use to predict when a fit would occur."

"Aww, you did? You never mentioned that!" Melissa smiled at him, some of her nervousness fading. He brushed aside the sentiment, now very focused on the numbers.

"It never did any good, but I can promise you we haven't seen stability like this before. Now, it's weird that it's at negative 100 instead of 0, but I think you don't have any reason to be nervous."

"That's a relief, it really is."

"But beyond that, your numbers are way different. Here, let me access your lucrima portfolio..."

[Name: Melissa Hunter

Ether Tier: N/A (minor)

Ether Score: N/A (minor)

Lucrim Generation: 6514

Current Lucrim: 426]

[Melissa Hunter's Lucrima Portfolio

Foundation: 1950 (Lv I)

Lucore Mass: 3464 (N/A)

Steel Lucore: 1100 (Lv I)

Total Lucrim: 6514]

He'd seen it before, but hadn't quite believed it until he saw her full portfolio. It was natural that his sister would have increased her generation rate given the high quality philosopher's elixir she'd been drinking, but this was explosive growth. That could only mean one thing.

"You've developed a mature lucrima soul, sis. You're not a minor anymore."

"Uh, it explicitly says I'm a minor."

"The ratings agencies always take time to update and they consider a whole bunch of things. Including age, so it might not change officially for a while. What matters is that your numbers went way up, which is the real sign." Rick frowned as he considered them. "Your foundation percentage is pretty good, actually - better than mine. Make sure not to lose that. If you don't pay attention, spare lucrim will go toward your foundation inefficiently."

"Oh, god, am I gonna become a numbers-obsessed guy now?" Melissa gave a mock groan, but he saw happiness underneath the act. "Are you gonna start making me come in to the gym and learn the Cosmic Fist? What if I don't want my life to be just going around Cosmic Fisting people?"

"Uh, please don't say it that way." Rick smiled and put his phone away. "You don't need to worry about it for now, and you do need to get to school. But since this is your health at stake, you need to pay attention to these things."

"Yeah, I'm just playing with you." Melissa had her own phone out, checking her numbers. "This 'Lucore Mass' bit is lucrim I have, but haven't invested toward anything, right?"

"That's right. Even if you're not interested in anything else, it'd be worth your while to put it toward improving your health or a bit of defense for safety."

"But what's this Steel Lucore? I mean, I guess it has to be the shell, but what does that mean?"

"Can't tell you for sure." A year ago he would have been clueless, but the mess with the Golden Lucore left him with a bit of information for her. "I don't know if the names are purely random or if they're descriptive, but it'd feel pointless to use adjectives if they were meaningless. So maybe we should be encouraged that it used 'Steel' for your shell."

"I choose to take it that way!" Melissa put her phone away and swung her backpack up onto one shoulder. Before she left, she leaned up beside him and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for everything. I'll see you after school."

With that, she was off. Rick looked after her for a while, concerned out of habit, but maybe the difficulties were finally over. It was a relief to know that she was stable, but he was also left to consider his own growth as he hadn't for some time.

He was surprised at how damaged his foundation felt. It wasn't as if he'd been pushing himself especially hard, certainly not in combat, but maybe all his work had cost him. Then again, what remained felt dense and fire-hardened, not weak. It would take some work to rebuild it for use in combat, but perhaps it would be a step forward in the end.

A notification popped up on his phone. When Rick saw that it was a request from Granny Whitney to attend another match, he didn't even blink. Compared to what he'd just been through, he could handle this.