Hybridization

Chapter 163 – Magically, Not Magnetically

Chapter 163 – Magically, Not Magnetically  

“I just don’t get it. If they can make a magic bow, an enchanted sword or blessed armor, then why can’t I have a magical glock? Seriously, did we just get to guns and say ‘Fuck it, good enough’? No, I don’t know how that stuff works or how much it costs but someone must make it.” – Phone conversation intercepted and flagged for review by Homeland Security.

A few days after touring the farm, and the Den below it, Rindi wandered through the woods at the edge of Kurt’s property. She had made herself scarce when he told her about the vampire coming to do some business with him, not wanting to be around for it.

She didn’t have any particular aversion to the race, other than the natural fear of something half dead. Instead, she wanted to not get involved with another of Kurt’s projects in favor of having some quiet time. So, she found the courage to declare she was going for a walk. Neither Kurt nor the others had an issue with it and only expressed their support for the idea.

It was something that she hadn’t done in years, just wandering. Her previous masters had normally kept her on a tight leash, literally in one case, and didn’t allow her to explore. This was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a lovely early summer’s day.

Rindi had been longing to go explore the woods around Kurt’s home since he had brought her there. The way the trees and rolling hills stretched for miles, only broken in a few places by clearings and farm fields, was very enticing. Even more so when she found a map on Val’s tablet that showed her most of his new territory was wilderness.

She eventually stumbled upon a larger oak tree at the edge of a field that overlooked a small ravine with a creek leading to one of the streams on the property. Thinking it was as good a place as any, Rindi clambered her way up, the claws on the tiger half of her body making the task trivial.

Finding a nice wide branch halfway up the tree, Rindi settled in, lounging in a fork of the large limb. She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling a light breeze on her face and the mottled sunlight coming through the branches warming small parts of her. She spent a few minutes enjoying the quiet privacy.

Rindi didn’t lack privacy in her new home, other than the time Val came into the bathroom while she was showering. Still, she felt the physical distance was good to help her sort her thoughts, like the fresh air helped clear her mind.

“What do I want?” She muttered to herself.

She had spent a rather restless night tossing and turning in the bed after talking with Kurt, her mind unable to settle. Him telling her exactly what he expected of her was both relieving and terrifying. What if it was just a ruse so when he finally did free her, he could abandon her with a clear conscience? What if he was grooming her for something else?

No. She didn’t think that he would do that. As much as she would like him to groom her. Or anyone, for that matter. She didn’t even have a good brush for that but still remembered the way her mother had brushed her fur when she was young. Back before she disappeared in the middle of the night, that is.

Rindi shook her head, clearing the errant thoughts that barely connected. The next thing she began to consider was the other two people living in the house. She considered how she felt about them.

They were two very different personalities, at least in Rindi’s opinion. Val was a force of nature, mischievous will manifested into a twin-tailed hellion with a kind heart. She easily found herself drawn to the expressive and fun kitsune. In the couple weeks of living with them, she had grown very fond of Kurt’s first mate.

Still, for all that Val was playful and friendly, she was also very talented. Her accomplishments as an illusionist were only overshadowed by her instinctual mastery of the shadowy dimension that they could both enter. Rindi had been shocked to find out that her encounter with Val in that realm was the first time the fox had ever tried to enter it.

Kristi was a completely different being, however. Where Val was boisterous, Kristi was much steadier and levelheaded. She radiated a gentle yet stern aura, like someone who was showing the new hire the ropes. She had a definite ‘been there, done that’ mentality.

Rindi felt like Val was the inclusive one and Kristi was more supportive. It seemed like she came from a place of understanding and was showing her the instructions. The dragoness had been very kind, if authoritarian, in how she talked with her. Somehow it was always for Rindi’s benefit.  She never felt left behind because Kristi was always there behind her, pushing her forward.

Personalities aside, there was also their relationship both with and without Kurt. She had seen them being romantic with each other and hadn’t considered that sort of relationship. She of course knew about it, but being in proximity to it constantly was different. Maybe if there was room she could… No, that was too much. Was it?

Was it too much to want that kind of companionship? Rindi would freely admit, at least to herself, that she had become more interested than she had been before. She wondered if that was because she was in a more loving and safer environment. She had seen previous masters enacting in such behavior, but this was the first time that she felt any compassion directed at her, let alone the care and affection being shown to her.

Did they like her like that? The thought drifted into her mind before she grabbed hold of it. It was very confusing for her since she was on the outside looking in at a three-way relationship. While Kurt was the main attraction, the other two… had she ever seen a 4-way relationship?

Rindi had seen a couple of harems but not close enough to get to know them. They seemed happy but the structure was centered around one person rather than mutually romantic. Is what Kurt had better? Did he like her like that? Did Kristi and Val? Did she like them like that? Maybe she did like them, at least a little. But was it something she could try and back out if she didn’t? Maybe it like when she had tried video games but gotten a headache and had to stop…

“AAAhhhh, fuck.” Rindi groaned into the crook of her arm as she slumped against the upward bend in the branch. “What do I waaaaant?” Her thoughts had run away again.

She at least knew what she had liked thus far. The past few weeks had been the best in her adult life, and she didn’t want to let that go. It had everything she could hope for with adventure, exploration, growth and… friends? They were friends, right? Could they be more? Her mind began circling back on her previous train of thought.

At this point Rindi wasn’t sure if she could handle more. She barely knew these people and if it wasn’t for her mother’s bloodline, she probably wouldn’t feel the pull toward them that she did. She knew the instinct well enough at this point to recognize its influence. Once again, she found her thoughts drifting off on a tangent.

After being around so many other halfbre-hybrids, she mentally corrected herself, she was beginning to wonder if her father was ‘just’ a felitaur. Afterall, shapeshifting wasn’t a normal ability of either of her supposed heritages. Other than the Valkyrie being able to summon their mantle, they looked like basic humans.

“Maybe one day I will get some answers.” She sighed before climbing to an open spot and dropping to the ground. The thirty-foot drop was negligible to her and she landed with all the grace of a… well, a cat.

Rindi began making her way back to the house, feeling the pull of her contract with Kurt and taking a looping route that followed the terrain. She would enjoy the quiet stroll for a little while longer before returning to the house. Afternoons were usually pretty quiet with Kurt just tinkering in his shop. If she was lucky, she could catch a little nap in the living room that afternoon.

*****

“TESTING!” Kurt yelled before pulling the rope in his hand. He didn’t need to yell but it felt right.

Bap. The barrel and receiver mounted to a board fired, sounding like a paintball gun. Kurt then poked his head out from around the corner of the house, followed quickly by Val, Kristi, James and Rindi.

“Looks intact.” Muttered James Cavins, the vampire gun smith. “I’ll start the slow-mo playback if you want to go check the testbed.”

Kurt nodded and went over to the stripped-down single shot 20-gauge shotgun set on a weighed down folding table. He popped the release and allowed the receiver to fall down while the barrel stayed where it was bolted to the backboard with metal band clamps. The breach face with its engravings was completely unharmed while even the barrel and extractor looked pristine. Most importantly, the sandbags set to catch the round were now leaking their contents.

“Hell yes, we got it!” Cavins called from the other folding table where his computer was set up behind the high-speed camera. “Come check it out.”

The team quickly hustled over to the screen and crowded around to watch as Cavins replayed the footage. It showed the usual, string tightening and hammer falling but it got strange after that. Where a normal gun would have a cloud of smoke erupt from the barrel along with a projectile, this one only has a small cylinder.

While Kurt would have preferred one of the light rifles from Verdant or even some of their less precise plasma-based guns, this was the best they could manage for now. Light wouldn’t collate enough in this layer of the universe to from a hardened object, so the light rifles were out. Then, exciting ions enough to form a useful plasma was so energy hungry that the smaller plasma guns were also useless. Both weapon types, which would punch a hole in the best ceramic armor Earth could make, only left mild burns on completely exposed skin at very close ranges.

Kurt sighed and returned his focus to the first test of the ‘magically accelerated’ projectiles that they had been working on. Kurt had been going back and forth with the gunsmith for several weeks on what would and wouldn’t work before this first real test fire.

The way this particular gun fired was by using attuned enchantments based on Kristi’s force magic and its repulsive effects. When the hammer dropped, it actually hit a transfer plate that was hooked to a magical battery. That then activated a ‘push’ enchantment to start the process of moving the projectile forward.

After the initial travel, almost instantly, the next enchantment in line would take effect. An ‘accelerating’ node, part of a longer string of an ‘accelerate’ chain, would then speed the projectile along the barrel. Each node would push it faster and faster until it eventually reached the end of the line and left the barrel. The engraving was on the outside of the barrel with holes drilled along the length to allow for the connecting nodes to be inserted.

This particular version only had the push enchantment and the first two of the accelerate enchantments with the porting for more in the rest of the barrel. Kurt’s main fear was how much energy would be consumed and if the nodes would withstand the pressure but thankfully, there seemed to be none.

“See, not even a blip coming from those extra ports and the check gauge on port three registered practically nothing.” James said, having been of the opinion that pressure wouldn’t be a problem.

“Alright, you win.” Kurt sighed and handed him a storage ring. “I know the bet was for ten bucks but how about this instead?” He then explained what the ring did and watched in satisfaction as James’ eyes bulged

The vampire’s face quickly went from shock to anger a moment later. “That rat bastard. You gave one of these to Alec, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Cause he was doing ‘magic tricks’ at work and I couldn’t figure out how he was making the tennis ball disappear. I thought he actually learned magic somehow.” James groused. “Well, thanks for the ring. I guess I will pay-“

Kurt held up his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Consider this as a way to keep our project under wraps.”

“If you say so.” He said with a shrug. “Now back to the test.”

Kurt nodded and went back to the test bed. He checked the small mana battery with his inspection lens and then the chronograph they had set up. “Velocity was 287 FPS and we used two units of mana from the battery.” He called over. They had to arbitrarily assign units to the mana battery since they didn’t have any calibrated measuring devices and only the inspection lense.

“Half ounce slug, right?” James asked while typing into his second laptop.

“Yeah. Want me to try the quarter ounce one?”

“Sure. Load it up and we can do it again from this side.”

They quickly reset the test with the lighter load and then once more with a heavier projectile. This covered a wide range of weights and allowed them to stress test the enchantments. The results, while not impressive, were at least promising.

“So, this is great.” James began after the last test and logging all the data. “But what is the end result here? Like operating systems, calibers and so on.”

Kurt shook his head. “I have no idea how to make it cycle without pressure, we would probably be better off designing something from scratch at that point.”

“Right. Manual actions only then.”

“Yeah, and I also bet that rifling will cut down on the velocity too.” Kurt added after some thought.

“Want to test that?” James asked with a smile as he fished out a nearly identical barrel to the first one except without the enchantments added yet. This one had the tell-tale grooves showing in its wide muzzle.

Kurt laughed. “Of course, you thought of that.”

They reset and ran the tests with the second barrel after Kurt engraved and enchanted it. He left it exactly the same as last time to make sure they got a base line but also extended the first one, filling in another eight of the ports while the CNC ran on the rifled barrel. Cavins then ran a tool down the bore to clean up the rifling before Kurt set the enchantments, making the thing much too durable to alter.

As expected, the rifled barrel produced slightly lower muzzle velocity, but the camera confirmed that they had a stable projectile. The smooth bore one was a completely different animal once the extra nodes had been installed, however.

“So, the one-ounce slug got up to eleven hundred feet per second?” Kurt confirmed, regretting not wearing ear protection with the now supersonic testing. “With twenty inches and ten nodes enchanted.”

“Yes.” James replied while doing some more notation on the testing. “Now we need to make a decision on where to go from here.”

When Kurt didn’t say anything, the gunsmith continued. “Since we are only going to do manual actions, I figure you want some revolvers, lever actions and shotguns? I can get started on modifications to them if you want.”

“What kind of modifications?” Kurt wasn’t sure if he meant the milling for the enchanted inserts or if he was talking about something more.

“Well, you solved one problem and made another.” James pulled out a pump action shotgun and pointed to the feed port on the bottom. “Essentially you have made a caseless cartridge, which is great, but now we have to resolve problems that we had when first making self-contained ammunition.

“These guns are all designed to feed, fire and extract things with a casing. Without that, we have several issues. Firstly, unloading is going to be nearly impossible since the extractors won’t have anything to grab onto without a case rim.” He then held up a 12ga shell and pointed to the large rim.

“Ah, so if we need to unload to clear it.” Kurt saw where that was going. Safely clearing a firearm was very important. “I can probably make an enchantment that will handle that. Open the action and have an enchant that pushes the round out. It might be slow, but I can swing it. What else?”

“Indexing and loading will be the next problem.” James then pointed to the length of the shotshell. “These guns are designed for a certain length cartridge. When you shorten the length, feeding can be problematic to say the least. I will have to adapt lifter arms and chambers to the shorter length.”

Kurt frowned as he thought about it. He hadn’t expected that to be a problem at all but would trust the smith since he had the decades of experience. “Is this fixable?”

James waved a hand. “Of course it is. It’s just going to take some time. I will get rolling on some designs if you will approve the cost…” He led Kurt to the next issue, letting his words trail off.

“How about a check for… I don’t know, twenty grand?” Kurt had to think about how much this would set him back but had no idea where to start other than his other projects that he had commissioned for strange guns.

“Call it twenty-five and I will have some things your way in a couple weeks.”

Kurt countered again. “Lets call it thirty thousand and I want premium quality stuff. Nice mix of capacity and caliber for these too.”

“Deal!” James held out a hand and Kurt shook it before summoning his check book and filling out a slip of paper.

“Alright, let me know if you need more or if I need to swing by for input. You can always come here too if it’s easier. You have my phone nu-“ Kurt was interrupted by Anna stumbling through the portal to the Order, Penny and Bont hot on her heels. “Anna? What’s wrong?”

Penny was the one to answer as the small fey seemed to be sleepwalking on her way to the house. “She needs to borrow your workshop. Something about an inspiration and stim packs? I really couldn’t get much out of her, but Bont said to get her here and she will handle it.”

Kurt just sighed and waived them to the house before his mind caught up with what Penny had said. “Ohkaaa- wait, Bont said what? He can talk?”

*****

Mateo sighed after stepping out of his rented car. He was glad to be back in what he would call the civilized world. Not that Egypt wasn’t civilized, but he was not a fan of the different culture. He was too jaded to enjoy the experience of travel any longer. While New York wasn’t exactly his home country, it was culturally closer than where he had been.

He walked across the parking lot to the front entrance of the hotel he had rented a room in. He quickly checked in and immediately went to his room, a small two bed affair with basic amenities. It was only for a couple nights since he had a feeling he would be moving to another location relatively soon.

He was also looking forward to finally getting rid of the problem that was Kurt Rosk. That man and the organization he belonged to had done more to set them back in the last year than all the other counter cultist agencies combined.

First, they had easily dealt with the patsies sent directly after them before figuring out a way to obscure themselves. Then they had slipped the governmental pressure they applied through their plants in the FBI. They even managed to somehow ruin the kidnapping attempt in Seattle with the Crusaders Brotherhood disguising themselves as Templars.

After all that, they had even managed to take out Felix, the only person geographically near him with any decent info when he tried to bait them into a trap. It was a good plan too, a way to not only take out Rosk but also turn locals against paranormals and create chaos again. Still, he somehow took out an off world hit squad and get away with capturing or killing Felix.  

He had only just sat down when his phone rang. After digging it out of his pocket and seeing it was X, Mateo immediately answered. “Yes, sir?”

“Have you arrived?” Mr. X asked.

“I checked into my hotel room a few minutes ago.” Mateo confirmed.

“Good. Tomorrow you will make contact with two other Keepers. After that, you all will travel to meet us.” Mr. X’s tone didn’t broker any dissent but Mateo was still curious. He had only been told where to go up until his current hotel and no additional details of the plan.

“Where will we be meeting you?”

There was a moment of silence on the line, like X was trying to come to terms with one of his subordinates questioning him. “The city of Detroit. We will rally, organize then move out once we have everyone.” There was a pause before he spoke again. “Details to follow in the dead drop.”

Immediately after that, the line went dead. Mateo sighed and tossed the phone to the bed where he stared at the black screen with a frown. He didn’t know who X was referring to by ‘we’, but it couldn’t be many people. Their entire organization only had a handful of inner members and a couple dozen outer ones they used to actually contact people.

Still, Mateo had the feeling that he was being led by the nose. After all the years he had put in as a Keeper, he never truly got a good read on X. The man was not just distant and overbearing but had a certain air about him. Like everything he ordered was perfectly reasonable despite Mateo’s thoughts on the matter after leaving his side.

He had a gut feeling that this operation was not going to go his way or… no. Mateo shook his head, trying to clear the seditious thought that were creeping in. He knew better than to listen to them now. Mateo once again resolved to follow X. He had proven time and again that it was the path to power and great reward.

Raising his hand, Mateo relaxed himself and let the mana flow into his hand, cupping it with his palm up. He watched as the energy coalesced there, a roiling ball of black with multicolored whisps wafting off it like fog. He wanted to compare the manifestation to an oil slick but couldn’t bring himself to do it, too caught up in the majesty of power he felt.

Mateo stared at the summoned orb, feeling his gaze pulled into it. He felt like if he concentrated, he could hear a voice. But not just any voice. One that carried the truths of eons past. One that promised endless power and reward if he only just…

His cell phone rang and Mateo lost control of the little condensed mana projection. It dissipated with a whispering cry of sweet promises if only he held it longer.

Pulling the second phone from his jacket pocket, Mateo sighed before answering. “Director Hanson. I was just about to call you and report an update.”

“Blackwell, your passport was pinged at JFK. Why are you stateside?” Came the terse reply, cutting straight to business.

“Because the cell had me moved here.” Mateo answered quickly.

“Why?”

Mateo wanted to swear, he was hoping his handler wouldn’t press for info. “I think to replace the loss I told you about in my last update. After he was knocked off by that Rosk guy.” He was being purposefully vague, hoping to muddy the waters and make his handler go digging through old reports.

The line was silent for a couple heartbeats before Hanson responded. “This is highly unusual behavior, a move like this itself is unusual and you didn’t report it at any of the dead drops.” He paused for a moment again. “You are to stand down. The Agency does not have jurisdiction to operate stateside. I am handing this case off to Homeland. Do not leave the state. Do not leave your current location. Do not contact anyone. A recovery team is on route to you for debrief.”

“Understood.” Mateo said, keeping his voice as level as possible until Hanson hung up.

“Mother fucker.” He cursed. He didn’t think his handler would be watching so closely. He quickly threw all his things back in his bag but then thought better of it.

His mind running in overdrive, Mateo thought of a plan, once again reaffirming his commitment to his path to power. He changed into a different set of clothes, putting on a hooded sweater and sunglasses. Then he quickly tossed his room, making it look like a struggle had ensued and generally obscuring his trail.

He then put all his necessities in his backpack and opened the sliding door to the patio, leaving it open as he left. He cast a minor spell and used his bag to make drag marks to the parking lot while covered by the anti-surveillance spell. As he made it to the edge of the parking lot, he crushed the phone the CIA had given him and left the pieces on the curb before running to the other side of the street.

Mateo walked along the road to find a bus stop where he could get away quickly and anonymously. He would meet up with the other Keepers and move out from there. If he was lucky, they wouldn’t question his sudden change in location and just tally it up to the tension and paranoia they were all probably feeling.

“I don’t think any of them will have to know about my real job either… yeah. Nope, just Mateo the Investment trader, not the CIA informant.” His half-crazed mutterings continued, making him unknowingly blend in with the cities’ already half-crazed homeless population.