Forged Legacy

Despite the persistent dawn, the family arrived at the church building just as the rest of the neighborhood would be sitting down for dinner. The building was empty other than two angels keeping watch, and both nodded at Cash as he led them to the Loom.

“I’ll go first,” Steve offered.

“What was that, Dad? I didn’t hear you. Oh no, I tripped!” Tyler mocked as he pushed past his father and dove for the orb. The second his hands reached the glass, rainbow light burst out to form an orb that gently pushed away everyone else.

“Tyler!” Cassandra complained.

“He can’t hear you,” Cash and Harvey replied in unison, both struggling to stifle a laugh.

“Reckless,” Steve smiled.

Harvey watched his brother’s face light up as he surveyed the empty haze around him. He knew his brother was seeing countless visions and memories from his life, but those wouldn’t become visible to the outside until he added them to his budding Class. He was happy to see him taking his time now that he’d successfully cut to the front of the line.

“What Ty doing?” Max asked.

“He’s picking his magic powers,” Harvey explained.

“Magic!” Max gasped, his green eyes going wide. Ripping free of his mother’s grasp, he charged towards the Loom. Both Cash and Harvey were easily fast enough to stop him, but neither made a move as Max bounced off the bubble like a toddler running into a closed sliding glass door.

“Oh my gosh, Max!” his mother gasped.

Lying dazed on the ground, Max groggily rolled himself over before leaping to his feet and doing his best impression of a baseball umpire. “Safe!”

Harvey, Eleanor, and their father all burst out laughing while Cassandra shot them an angry glare. Cash didn’t understand the reference, but even he found the whole thing amusing. It was too bad Tyler couldn’t see outside the bubble. He was the one who taught Max to treat every fall like a slide into first base back when he was a toddler.

“Ok, really, what is Tyler doing? They haven’t really covered the specifics in school yet,” Eleanor asked.

Harvey pointed to the two memories looping in the space between the Loom and the orb, “You see those? When you connect with the Loom, thousands of memories appear all around you. Thinking of specific people or events will filter to the most relevant ones, and you can piece them together into a Class.”

“The whole reason we designed the curriculum for you is that almost nobody in a newly integrated world has experience fighting monsters or creating weapons. The System does a pretty good job of twisting whatever ingredients you give it to make sure your G-Grade Class and Profession aren’t useless, but your odds of anything other than a Common Class without guidance or relevant experience are basically zero,” Cash explained.

“Is there a way to tell what the rarity will be before you commit?” Steve asked.

“Before entering the Loom? No. But how bright the glow behind your assembled memories is a pretty good indicator,” Cash answered.

Tyler had gathered most of his ingredients, but was taking the time to test a few last-minute combinations before feeding them all to the Loom. Of the four memories they could see, two showed Tyler sitting in a classroom where a burly angel with a high and tight haircut and muscles poking out from his robes taught the path of the Templar. Harvey didn’t know much about the various heritages of heaven, only knowing that the Templars were some form of holy knights that acted as frontline combatants. Where the Sentinels spent 80% of their effort on defense, the Templars were mainly focused on cutting down their enemies, relying on heavy armor like Harvey’s to protect them while their swords searched for throats.

The other two were memories of his time playing baseball. Tyler had played and practiced almost every day since his first at-bat playing tee ball at 4 years old. He was on the path to Division 1 College ball, and his trainers thought he had a real shot of making it to the big leagues. Harvey expected his brother to include his highlights. Hoisting the state championship trophy with his high school team or winning one of his travel ball tournaments. Instead, he saw a batting cage where his brother worked with the trainer he’d had since middle school. The trainer was throwing three colored ping pong balls, calling out a specific color for Tyler to hit. Harvey had seen the drill before and knew how much focus and body control it took to pick out the right ball consistently. Over and over again, his brother adjusted his swing, somehow managing to continue hitting the right one even when Harvey could see the exhaustion making that bat feel like an anchor.

[Kid works hard. I always hated that drill.]

You played baseball?

[In High School, but I wasn’t as into it as your brother.]

The second memory showed Tyler sweating bullets on the mound, nodding away pitches until the catcher called for the ball he was looking for.

“Oh, I remember that tournament,” Cassandra sighed. “Four days in the middle of the summer. I thought I was gonna die of heat stroke, and I wasn’t even playing.”

Harvey could see how tired his brother was, but that didn’t stop him from throwing an 85-mile-an-hour fastball through the top inside corner of the strike zone.

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“They won that tournament, right?” Steve asked.

“Yep. I think that was the pitch that sealed it,” Cassandra answered.

One memory after another got added to the four, only for Tyler to shake his head and remove it. Finally, he added a fifth that caused an audible groan from their mother.

“Not that!”

The vision showed Tyler facing the biggest high schooler Harvey had ever seen. He’d heard this story before and knew the batter would eventually end up in the hospital. The opposing team had made it to the championship game off the back of two walk off homeruns from this hitter, so Tyler’s coach told him to intentionally walk him every time he got up to the plate. This at-bat was towards the end of the game, and Tyler was getting tired, so instead of throwing four pitches wide, he chose to put a lazy pitch right on the batter’s shoulder. He was already angry about not getting a real chance to hit, and getting hit was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Instead of taking his base, he charged the mound and sent a haymaker right at Tyler’s head. His brother, being the athlete that he is, easily ducked the punch and swept his legs out from under him. The batter collapsed to the ground, breaking his wrist trying to arrest the momentum.

“What? He stood up for himself?” Steve asked.

“He got in a fight!” Cassandra shrieked.

“He’s about to get in a lot more,” Cash admitted as all five visions sank into the Loom. Spools of Silver, Gold, and White thread spun to life, streaks of light cascading down before shooting towards his brother like hungry snakes. They effortlessly dug into his body, writhing just beneath the skin as they infused his nascent Weave with his new Class. Tyler’s face was frozen in a mix of elation and horror, but he didn’t rise into the air like when Harvey, Hannah, and Julian evolved to F-Grade. The process was over almost as quickly as it began, and the rainbow haze quickly retreated back into the orb.

“Ahh! Are you ok?” his mother screamed, running to catch her son.

“What a rush! This feels amazing!” Tyler exclaimed.

Harvey just smiled, remembering how calm his G Grade Profession had been compared to evolving it to F Grade. “Congrats! Show us what you got!”

Class | Templar Slugger | G Grade | Rare

While others protect the faith, you crush its enemies with a bat and body molded by years of training to better unleash your righteous fury. Divinity drives your momentum, impact, and precision to greater heights as you beat back the forces of evil. As long as your follow-through never falters, neither will you.

Stats Per Level: +3 Vitality, +1 Endurance, +4 Strength, +2 Dexterity, +2 Willpower

“Hell yes!” Tyler celebrated before catching himself. “I mean… hooray!”

“We’ll have to make you a new bat,” Harvey said, picking up the aluminum one Tyler had brought with them. “One that won’t dent every time you swing it now that you’re getting 4 Strength per level.”

They all rejoiced for a few more minutes before it was time for their Dad to follow suit.

“Good luck, honey!” Cassandra beamed.

Steve didn’t say anything, just smiling at his wife before moving up to the Loom. He moved swiftly now that he’d seen the process up close and personal a few times. Like his son, half the memories he plucked were lessons taught here in heaven. There was nothing overly special about the memories, but they contained the framework that the angels wanted the faithful to follow. Steve also added his Mark of the Devout, further cementing his commitment to the faith-based heritage most of Heaven followed.

Harvey didn’t know how he felt about that. He had nothing against religion, especially now that he knew it was real. Even if he didn’t fully understand what the echoes of an S-Grade’s Legacy meant, it proved that his family was following in the footsteps of one of the multiverse’s peak existences. His concern was that his family would become cogs in some heavenly machine. Earth had its issues, but he didn’t exactly think living in what seemed like a communist heaven where everyone was under constant surveillance by angels and stone gargoyles perched atop bell towers was really that much better. There was something endearing about having the freedom to get things wrong sometimes. It was the only way you’d ever find anything new.

In any case, it was too late to change his dad’s mind now, and Harvey knew trying to do so would be a losing battle.

Steve added three more visions to the mix. One showed a much younger version of their family, back when Harvey was in High School, and Max was still a baby. It was a scene Harvey knew well since it happened almost every night. The whole family was gathered in the living room, reading scriptures together before kneeling for a family prayer.

“Aw,” Cassandra wavered as they all reminisced. It was a simpler time. One that made him smile, but also one he wasn’t sure would do much to help his Class.

Next, he added something Harvey didn’t recognize. His childhood home was completely dark, and his father was walking down the stairs with the handgun he kept in his nightstand. Harvey couldn’t hear anything through the rainbow haze, but he saw his father yell at a blob of darkness in the kitchen. His hands were steady as a rock as he pointed at the stunned intruder, but he never fired. Instead, he let the man flee into the darkness, running out of their back door.

“We got robbed?” Eleanor asked.

“Almost. You kids were young, and we thought it was better not to tell you since we didn’t want to scare you guys,” Cassandra confirmed.

“Did you ever figure out who it was?” Harvey asked.

“Nope. Your father never even saw his face, just told him he had a gun and would pull the trigger if they did anything other than walk straight out that door,” she explained.

Finally, Steve added a memory Harvey immediately recognized. Not because he’d been there himself, but because his parents had shown them all countless pictures over the years.

“Your wedding day?” Tyler gasped. “How is that going to help him kill demons?”

“A Sentinel is there to protect the things that matter most,” Cash replied with a satisfied smile. “For most of us angels, that is our faith. For your father…”

“It’s us,” Cassandra smiled, tears streaming down her face. Memories sank into the Loom, causing more Gold and Silver thread to snake its way into their father. When the shroud receded, a teary-eyed man caught his wife in a hug. His children followed one by one, everyone struggling to keep it together. Cash stood awkwardly to the side, arms folded as he shifted his weight back and forth.

“Get in here, Cash,” Steve laughed. Reluctantly, the angel joined the ball of Thorne’s tangled in a family hug.

“I love you guys,” Steve exclaimed.

“You’re a good man,” Cassandra beamed.

“Come on, Dad! Show us your Class!” Tyler grinned when they finally pulled away. Steve stared off into space, then blushed, clearly reading the description himself before deciding to show it to his family.

Class | Devout Father | G Grade | Rare

Most spend so much time focusing on the many paths to power that they forget the reason they strove to ascend in the first place. You remember that Faith and Family are life’s most sacred joys, and have chosen to do whatever it takes to protect them from the evil constantly working to do them harm. Through your conviction and devotion, you will become the shield that protects all of the Lord’s children.

Stats per level: +4 Vitality +2 Endurance, +3 Strength, +3 Willpower