Bad Beat - Chapter 43 - Stupor (Patreon)

Gabriel couldn’t tell how long he sat there, simply staring at the card. It contained a multitude of possibilities, especially when fused with a few other things. He carefully placed the card face up on the table before standing and walking over to the kitchen.

He searched through the drawers until he found a slightly battered lighter, halfway empty but somehow still working. It probably belonged to the previous tenant, since Gabriel didn’t smoke. He flicked it open, conjuring an almost invisible flame as the faint smell of escaping gas filled his nose.

With his other hand, he reached for an empty card and held it into the flame. Naturally, the fire did not affect the card.

Gabriel then focused on absorbing the flame.

He stopped a few seconds later when the cheap lighter grew too hot. Shaking his hand slightly, still holding the warm lighter, he turned around and beheld the new card with an orange border, now containing the image of a single flame.

1 x Fire (Weak)

Smiling faintly, he fiddled with the lighter, propping it so he didn’t have to hold the ignition down, letting it burn until it ran out of fuel. Every few seconds, he used his cards to capture the fire being produced, steadily creating more Fire (Weak) cards.

Barely a minute later, the lighter was empty, and the plastic top was slightly warped from the sustained heat. He carefully dropped it into a bowl of water, then refocused on the cards. One by one, he began fusing the Fire (Weak) cards until he held a few labeled Fire (Strong), mirroring the Cold (Strong) card.

He placed both cards down next to the Tectonic Energy card.

The three cards sat in a neat row while Gabriel studied them in silence.

There were many things he could do with them, but he finally wanted to give himself some kind of power. The whole encounter with Bombshell dragging him off the street, was still vivid in his mind.

He knew he had no chance of escaping Bombshell, and that weakness still needled at him.

He had the power of infinity in his hands.

Yet he couldn’t even survive a determined grade schooler.

‘Eh, probably a grade schooler,’ he thought with a slight smile. ‘But not a high schooler…’

He had access to something that could make things interesting, but he wanted to build something impactful. Maybe something that even allowed him to resist Bombshell.

Picking up the deck, he riffled through the cards until he arrived at the Pills of Everlasting Life. He pulled the card out, took one of the pills, and absorbed it into a new card, placing it next to the others on the table.

“That’s one…” he muttered.

Then he turned toward Sparky, holding one of his cards up to the ceiling light as he absorbed it.

“So, any other news that could interest me?” he asked, filling the silence with something while he waited for his power to work.

[Nothing currently.]

[Unless parental unit is interested in the sexual lives of Seagullgirl and Alligatorman.]

Gabriel blinked.

“Thank you. I’m good.”

[This unit thought so.]

[However, this unit has a question.]

“Shoot.”

The drone controlled by Sparky hovered in front of Gabriel, a small barrel-like extension forming from its frame, aimed directly at him.

Gabriel exhaled slowly and gave the drone a flat look.

“You know what I meant…”

[Tehe~]

The extension instantly retracted, the drone returning to its usual shape.

[This unit was joking.]

[Definitely.]

“What was your question?” he asked.

[This unit’s question is very important.]

[Is the parental unit ready?]

“Not really, but I can’t really stop you, can I?”

[Parental unit is mean.]

[Aaanyway~]

[Question: What are you doing?]

Gabriel let out a quiet sigh. “Trying to put together some kind of power for myself. That meeting was a pretty big wake-up call.” He didn’t see the need to hide it from the AI. She was the closest thing he had to a family, and if he couldn’t trust her, he couldn’t trust anyone.

[Oh.]

[Would you like a list of most common and popular powers?]

[Or a list of commonly cited missing powers?]

[Hint: it’s healing.]

“It’s always healing…” he muttered, but then settled back in the chair and nodded. “Sure. Lay it on me…”

**

They spent some time going over the lists Sparky had found on the internet, including odd powers like Candyman, who could extrude candyfloss from his fingers, and other miscellaneous examples that ranged from oddly specific to outright absurd, while Gabriel quietly assembled another Nothingness card.

It joined the others on the table.

Then he took out the Optimized Power Booster (Version 1) and added it to the growing collection on the table.

He stared down at everything for a moment and scratched his cheek. “What else do I need?”

Looking around the room, his eyes drifted toward the kitchen. He got up again, ambled over, and opened the ‘everything’ drawer, rummaging through it in search of inspiration.

After a minute, his fingers closed around a spent battery.

Gabriel’s eyes lit up immediately. He slammed the drawer shut and hurried back into his bedroom, where he kept a fresh pack of batteries just in case. There were eight in total, quickly converted through the deck into a single card.

1 x Advanced Battery

Nothing spectacular, but better than nothing. Then, while holding it, another idea struck him.

It took some finagling and a bit of technical guidance from Sparky, but after a while he held another bronze-bordered card.

1 x Electricity (Strong)

Those also went to the table, while Gabriel stood there wondering if there was anything he could potentially add to the mix.

“Well… if I have electricity and fire, what about the rest of the elemental wheel?”

In short order, he had another card that contained the rest of the elements.

1 x Air (Pure)

1 x Premium-Quality Water

He deliberately stopped the fusion process before anything touched spirituality. He suspected that would throw the elemental balance off in ways he did not want to deal with yet.

Just to be thorough, he made another pair of Light and Darkness, leaving them unfused for now. Earth took a little more effort. The last tenant had left a few sad plants by the window, and from the soil beneath their dead roots, he was able to form the final card.

1 x Earth (Pure)

“Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Electricity, Light, Darkness, and Nothingness,” he said aloud. “That should be the whole thing. Right?”

[This unit is not well versed in the esoteric, but according to many sites: yes.]

“Good,” he replied, gathering the eight cards. Then his eyes lingered on the Nothingness card. He frowned slightly, set it back down on the desk, and tapped the table once. “There’s nothing to balance it out. Plus seven is a way more magical number…”

[This unit likes 5318008.]

[Hehe~]

“I’m not even going to comment on that,” Gabriel said, rolling his eyes.

Before Sparky could continue with another joke, he began the fusion process. The seven cards merged quickly until he held a gold-bordered card. The card looked the same as always from the outside, but somehow, as Gabriel held it in his hand, it had a weight.

A multicolored wheel filled the face of the card, its segments glowing in red, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, and black, all held in perfect balance. The energy it radiated felt restrained only by its containment, as if summoning it in this room would have consequences far beyond anything manageable.

1 x Elemental Wheel (Balanced)

A deceptively simple name, but an accurate one. Gabriel placed it carefully on the table and exhaled, only now noticing that his hands were slightly unsteady.

He closed his eyes for a moment, steadying himself, then opened them again and looked back down at the table.

He picked up Fire (Strong) and Cold (Strong) and fused them without hesitation. The result was a silver-bordered card labeled with an interesting name: 1 x Thermodynamics.

With that, he was back to seven cards again.

Gently, he took the Elemental Wheel (Balanced) and fused it with Thermodynamics. Then came the Tectonic Energy card, followed by the Advanced Battery, and finally the Optimized Power Booster (Version 1), leaving only Nothingness and the Pill of Everlasting Life.

He did not look at the final result yet. Instead, he drew a slow breath, picked up Nothingness, and brought it toward the evolving card. He hesitated for only a moment before completing the fusion.

Then he finished the process with the Pill of Everlasting Life while holding his breath in anticipation.

The card in his hand did not visibly change beyond gaining a subtle, almost metaphysical weight that pressed faintly at the edges of his perception. It felt profoundly wrong in a way that was difficult to articulate.

Slowly, he turned it over while the drone controlled by Sparky hovered near his shoulder, watching in silence.

The border was rainbow-colored.

That was a ‘color’ he had only ever seen before when creating the Drop of Life Force card.

The image on the card was deceptively simple: an Erlenmeyer flask with a white label marked by a black X, filled with a cheerful blue liquid, drawn in a cartoonish style that clashed with the power it radiated and the metaphysical aura it seemed to project into his mind.

The name was also interesting.

1 x Bespoke Power in a Bottle

Sadly, the name itself told him nothing. So, without waiting any longer, he summoned it onto the table.

The flask appeared, made of glass and filled with a blue liquid that looked slightly thicker than anything ordinary, almost syrup-like in its slow movement. Otherwise, it had no smell and made no sound. It wasn’t radiating heat or cold, yet every time Gabriel looked at it, he could feel the metaphysical weight pressing against the back of his mind.

That strange sensation made one thing unmistakably clear: this ‘thing’ he had created was IMPORTANT, with capital letters. It felt like the universe was telling him this.

And now he had a choice to make.

Drink it.

Or not.

“What do you think, Sparky?” he asked, carefully picking up the flask and rolling it between his fingers.

The drone circled Gabriel’s hand, its sensors clearly locked onto the liquid.

[Results of scan: This item doesn’t exist.]

[Paradox Safety Defenses engaged.]

[This unit is profoundly confused.]

“You good?” Gabriel asked, a flicker of concern cutting through his curiosity.

[This unit has excellent defenses.]

[This unit is still confused.]

[But this unit also thinks the parental unit should drink it.]

[Option A: It gives the parental unit some kind of useful power.]

[Option B: The parental unit suffers uncomfortable consequences.]

[This unit has a camera ready.]

To emphasize the point, the top of the drone reconfigured into a proper camera lens and microphone boom, both aimed directly at Gabriel.

“We really need to talk about your obsession with seeing me suffer…” he said dryly. “I don’t usually kink-shame, but this is getting a bit uncomfortable.”

[It’s not a kink. It’s a business opportunity.]

“You know what? I don’t want to know.”

Before he could talk himself out of it, he downed the syrupy liquid in one motion.

It tasted like cold medicine, and yet somehow like nothing at all.

[GASP!]

He saw the last message of Sparky, but the moment the liquid hit his stomach, the world vanished, swallowed by darkness.

He couldn’t even cry out.

His body was locked in place, completely unresponsive.

He could feel the liquid spreading through him, impossibly cold and impossibly hot at the same time, as if every nerve in his body had been set alight and submerged in ice all at once. His neurons fired without restraint, every signal amplified until his senses became noise, until even the air in his lungs felt like it was being pulled away faster than he could replace it.

Panic began to set in.

He couldn’t see.

He couldn’t move.

His senses were on fire.

His nerves burned.

His body refused to obey him.

Then a change.

The fire that had consumed him softened into warmth, like sinking into a bath at the end of a long winter day. The cold no longer screamed of a freezing Arctic but of standing in front of a fan during peak summer heat. His neurons still fired, but no longer chaotically; instead, they began to align, converging toward something specific.

Something he couldn’t name.

His muscles and nerves twitched, slowly syncing into a rhythm.

The rhythm of his breathing aligned with all of that.

His body felt weightless.

Then, just as he began to calm down, everything flipped again.

The burning fire and freezing cold returned in a violent surge, crashing through him in alternating waves that gave his body no time to settle. Air was forced out of his lungs as his awareness fractured under the pressure of it all, leaving his mind struggling to keep hold of a single coherent thought.

At the edge of perception, something was happening to his body.

He didn’t know how long he had been like that.

Caught in a roaring current of endless elemental cycles, fire burning through him, water drowning him, air stripping breath from his lungs, lightning tearing through every nerve, and earth pressing in like a suffocating weight from all sides.

Then, just as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped.

He was back in control of his body.

Gabriel sucked in a sharp breath as he found himself sitting on the couch, drenched in a cold sweat, lungs working hard to catch up with reality.

Ignoring the worriedly hovering drone, he looked down and began patting himself down.

But aside from the sweat and a faint soreness, he couldn’t find anything.

No new appendages, no mysterious force he could sense, nothing.

Then, just as he was about to despair over having wasted so many valuable components, something in his mind clicked.

There were already three ‘switches’ in his mental interface for the deck: Fuse, Absorb, and Destroy. But now, two more had been added.

Devour.

Unleash.

Blinking slowly, he reached inward and gently flicked the first switch.

Nothing happened.

Then the second.

This time his body gave a gentle jolt, as if it had tried to do something, only to reach for something that wasn’t there. The action stalled mid-process, like an engine stalling when trying to start with an empty tank.

“Weird…” he said in a hoarse voice.

Once again, he didn’t really receive a manual, but he was genre-savvy enough to suspect what those words meant.

“Give me a jolt, Sparky…” he said, focusing inward while holding out his hand, palm facing the drone.

The drone complied immediately, its front reconfiguring into a small spike that crackled with electricity. It drifted forward until it hovered just within touching distance of Gabriel’s hand.

[Is the parental unit sure?]

“Yes.”

[Setting set to minimally perceivable power.]

[Firing…]

A thin arc of electricity snapped across the gap and struck his palm.

Gabriel didn’t recoil.

Instead, the electricity was simply absorbed, while Gabriel could feel his empty internal ‘tank’ being filled by an almost meaningless fraction, like a reservoir accepting a single drop of rain after a long drought.

“Neat…”

A/N: So I debated for a while what kind of power to give him, but this seemed on theme, and not really too powerful. Granted as long as MC is smart with it, it could become powerful. Granted, the MC is not really the smartest. Anyway, what's your guys' and gals' opinion?