Forty-one minutes, that was the estimate I had come up with. Given how quickly I was watching the surrounding landscape blaze by, I could roughly judge that Brenden and I were moving at an average speed of about 120 miles per hour.
Which, given any other circumstance…would be fast as fuck; however, with the looming threat of the Runic inscription activating at any given minute, it still felt slow, in my opinion.
’Are we going to make it in time?’ Hearing my response to our father, Brenden, who was keeping pace with me as we navigated through the inclined terrain of suburbia, asked with apparent concern in his voice.
’I don’t know; I wasn’t kidding when I said everything is conjecture, but I will not take chances and play games when it comes to a fucking lunatic like Draven.’ Reaching into my inventory, I withdrew both camel packs, putting one around my shoulders like a backpack, and handed over the second to my brother.
’Yeah, I know that, but this is you we are talking about here; you have to have some thoughts on what’s going to happen; even jumping to the conclusion that Draven is trying to summon an Instance would be a massive leap for anyone else, but when it comes to you, big leaps like that are pretty routine…and then there’s how you looked at the time of your announcement.’
’How I looked? What’s wrong with how I look?’ Resisting the urge to retrieve a mirror and examine myself, I took a sip of water and continued supplying my augmentation skill with particles.
’ When you came into the Gym, you….well, you looked like shit.’
’Pale-faced, bloodied nose, mouth, and ears, if I didn’t know that even I couldn’t put you in such a position, I would have believed you got jumped…what happened to you?’ Strapping on the camel pack and taking a few sips of particle water from the tube, Brenden inquired, causing me to take out a couple of wet wipes to clean myself up.
’I…well, I overclocked my processor.’
’Normal people terms.’
’I thought realllllly hard with my noggin.’
’you what now?’
This content is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.
’I said what I said.’
’So…you expect me to believe that you thought so hard, that you ended up bleeding out of every hole on your head.’
’Yep.’
’uh-huh, tell me something, do you believe me to be a fucking child?’
’Well….TECHNICALLY.’
’I AM BEING SERIOUS HERE TAYLOR!’
’Fine, fine, so I’ve told you before about how I compartmentalize every ounce of data in my head, right? Images, smells, sounds, I, unfortunately, have the amazing skill of Memorizing every single thing subconsciously, and all I did was access all that information in a single moment, and well…the results speak for themselves.’
’Freak.’
’Indeed I am, but that’s also why I was able to pick up on the small details that brought me to the conclusion that I did. All the signs are present, minus actually seeing the Script itself, or well, formula…’ Looking over at Brenden, I realized he was checking out, so I broke it down further for him.
’Draven made a big ass magic circle and is trying to activate it. Due to how big it is, I won’t be able to read or even see it unless I am super high in the air, and even then, the odds of me seeing anything before he powers it up are basically 0.’
’And since you have no clue about what it does, you put yourself in his situation and came up with the most likely scenario.’
’Yep…’
’I see…’
’It is how it is,’
’Only you would go full nuclear for no reason.’ Brenden said as he adjusted the two freeloaders on his shoulders to get in a more comfortable position while running.
’Hardly, I always have a REASON; it’s just that sometimes they can only be justified with my own twisted logic.’
’And what happens if he doesn’t summon an instance? What if the spell fails, or like does something completely different.’
’It won’t; it’ll be what I think it is, even you have to admit, VERY seldom am I ever incorrect, especially when it comes to instances like this.’
’A bit overconfident, aren’t you?’
’When am I not? Look, all summoning rituals, no matter the system or foundation, require one of two things, Blood or Soul Sacrifice; now tell me, if someone suddenly kills off thousands of people in a very short timeframe, and said person has a history of doing batshit crazy off the wall things, what does that tell you?’
’That they are a mass murderer hell-bent on destruction.’
’ANNNND, that’s why I’m the one who makes all our plans,’ using the most condescending tone I could, I shook my head and narrowly avoided slamming face-first into a concrete overpass, thanks to a well-timed shove from my little brother.
’Listen, Brenden, when it comes to Draven, I am the most viable resource in the arsenal. No one thinks as I do, and the fact that Draven is a close second is not only a bad thing but also viable, considering how I can counter his plans just as easily as he does mine. Basically, hes the Moriarty to my Sherlock, the Master to my Doctor…the Palpatine to my Anakin…
’FOR FUCK SAKE, TAYLOR, I GET IT, HES YOUR COUNTER BALANCE; Jesus, sometimes I forget how damn nerdy you are; also, you wanna take a second to realize you just considered yourself the good guy in all those analogies.’
’Did I? Because I’m pretty fucking sure every single one of them, ESPECIALLY Anakin and the Doctor, have HUGE body counts of their own; I mean, the Doctor literally wiped out entire civilizations at one poi….’
’NEEEEEERRRD!’
’Fuck you,’
For the next 38 minutes, I mixed up bantering with my brother and trickle-feeding him information about what was going to happen; sure, I was convinced that I was correct, but since the minutes were fading by, and nothing had happened yet, apart from Dad checking in on our location, Brenden was becoming more and more skeptical as time went on.
That is until all of a sudden, a bright flash of sickly green light lit up the sky, and a massive storm cloud blotted out the sun; it was at that moment, when we were only a few minutes away from the border, that the empowerment stage began.