72: Deadly Beauty

I never thought I’d actually see the real version of the phrase, circling the wagons, and yet the obrec did just that. As soon as I confirmed that there were people out there, they were moving to get ready.

Nervous fear clutched at my stomach as I took my place behind the front line fighters, all obrec warriors. They wore heavy armour and carried mostly blunt weapons, maces and the like. Stuff that was designed to deal with other obrec also wearing the same type of armour. It was pretty stuff, heavy plate with swirling celtic-like knots and embellishments. They were definitely an imposing lot.

Mer was with them, I think she’d gotten an armour upgrade because now it was slightly more ornate, with beautiful silver accents around the edges of the plates. Her helmet had an extra set of horns in addition to her real antlers that poked through the specially designed holes. Obrec helmets were imposing, the way they almost came apart to allow those foot long horns of theirs.

By contrast, their back line was decked out in leather armour, bows at the ready. They had the same intriguing patterns across them as their plate armoured brethren and all up they made an impressive force to behold.

Arrayed around me were Grace, Troy, Adam and Otho. Otho had the same leather armour as the archers, but instead of a bow he wielded an elegant megitech rifle. A gift from Claih who hid with her two understudies in the wagons with a far more terrifying contraption.

They had brought along some magitech thing that looked for all the world like an old anti-tank gun. She told me it was anti-personnel though, so I guess it was more like an MG emplacement or something. I don’t know. The thing was half as tall as me and ten times as heavy, made of ugly black metal and glowing doodads that meant nothing to me. I might be a mage, but the art of a magitecht was beyond me.

My three Order of Eleos friends had their pistols at hand, and shortswords at their hips. It had been interesting to watch them train, especially Troy who had skills with knife fighting but not with longer blades. I wasn’t so sure they would be all that much help against the mages I was going to be fighting though.

I had my hand in the dirt again, communing with the grass, if you could call it that. It took the entire visible field of plants working together in order to figure out how to speak simple sentences. I felt a little bad at first, raising them to the intelligence of dogs for a few moments, but they seemed almost relieved to slip back into the fog they were used to. Plants were strange, far more alien than any of the “aliens” I’d seen so far on the ring.

“They’ve realised we stopped,” I told the people around me, standing up and shaking the dirt off my hand. “Can’t tell how many exactly, but more than us, that’s for sure.”

“Can you tell how many mages?” Otho asked worriedly.

I shook my head. “One, maybe two? No sure way to tell though.”

“We’re going to find out either way, and sooner rather than later,” Grace said, pointing up the slight slope of what counted for a hill out here.

I gulped. Shit… I was probably going to have to kill people here. My stomach squirmed at the idea and my thoughts were transported instantly back to the battle with the Steel One outside that nameless village.

Those poor people had all died, and now I was going to take on the role of monster. Sure, they were probably out to kill us, but they were still thinking and feeling people. The others had dealt with bandits early on in their journey, as well as defending Avonside when it had been attacked… but me?

I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together. Our enemies had started this. They were the aggressors, they were the ones forcing this situation, where one side had to win and one side had to die.

Except, maybe if I could take on the mages and kill them first, maybe that would force their random henchmen to surrender? I’d have to be quick and brutal though, I’d have to use my massive reserves of power and beat their mages into the ground with the sheer force of it. Fear was my objective. Obliterate the few, so the many might flee or surrender in terror and so preserve my friends as well.

The idea of destroying two of what were probably Fennimore’s mages was slightly more palatable than mass murder of, well... frankly quite helpless soldiers. They couldn’t hurt me, never in a million years.

I guess that was the heart of the matter with mages in general wasn’t it? The average person was completely powerless against one of my kind. We could do literally anything we wanted to those around us, especially at the level of power that I had achieved.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I opened my eyes just as the first few of those helpless lambs trotted over the hill. Sure enough, all sixty or so wore Fennimore’s red. The mage wasn’t hard to pick out. He carried no weapons and wore no armour. Instead his arrogance was draped across his shoulders like a cloak, cocky stride and assured smile. That was in addition to his real cloak of course, a flashy thing with gold embroidery and tassels at the bottom.

Behind him was another mage, younger and just as foppish as his elder. I made a quick guess that I was facing a master and apprentice combination, and I winced as I realised who my first target was.

“Don’t try and chase me or anything guys,” I said to everyone. “I think this is going to get dicey for anyone who isn’t a mage. Lots of teleporting and stuff. Real anime shit.”

Grace gave me a worried look, and the rest just blinked in confusion. Damnit, Kit would have gotten the joke.

“Are you sure I can’t help? I’m a warlock and stuff right, so I can… I don’t know,” she sighed, her eyes begging.

“I’m sorry… probably not,” I shook my head apologetically. “We haven’t really practiced fighting together, but I know what I’m meant to do if I’m operating on my own. Even duelled with Esra a few times, which sucked. She’s a bit brutal as a teacher.”

“You need to live through this, okay?” she told me seriously, worry etched in lines across her gorgeous face.

“I promise.”

Then I was off, teleporting away, out into the field to the side of the battle lines. I watched as the two mages instantly freaked out, twisting and turning to try and figure out where I’d gone. I didn’t wait for them to find me, lifting my hand up with terrible purpose.

Flowers of fire twisted in glowing patterns just under the skin of my arm, snaking up in a flash as they got to work. The beam of white hot fire was sickeningly bright as it lanced out, punching straight through the apprentice’s shield as though it had never existed. Several soldiers found their clothes lit aflame, the raw heat of the beam briefly heating the air beyond the ignition temperature of cloth. Chaos broke out amongst their ranks as they tried to put out the fires and figure out what had just happened.

The apprentice was dead instantly, his lifeless and charred corpse flopping uselessly to the ground. Dead. Fuck. I couldn’t dwell on it. I teleported again, short hops that took me up onto the low hill alongside them. The mage spotted me and cried out in anger, blinking out of existence as he came for me.

Crackling lightning wreathed his fist for just a moment before it lashed out, slamming into my shield with significant force. Not significant enough however, because my shield held and not by a slim margin. It had barely felt it, and I could see the other guy realise how little damage he’d done with widening eyes.

He disappeared from view again, and the next thing I knew fireballs were peppering me from five different directions. He was moving fast, never staying on one place for more than a second and I had a hard time keeping up. How was he hitting me from so many places?

Shit, I just wasn’t used to fighting like this, wasn’t used to using my magical senses at hyper speed to figure out where he was and what spells he was using. Esra hadn’t gotten to this part of my training yet!

I lashed out with sparks of magenta lightning wherever I thought he was, but I only got glimpses before he was out of my field of vision again. At least there was nothing to hide behind in this rolling sea of grass.

Breathing rapidly, I began to panic when I realised he was whittling my shield down and there was nothing I could do about it. He was too fast, too smart in the way he moved, always staying out of my field of vision. The grass had caught fire now too, fireballs missing their mark and landing among the dry stalks, adding to the confusion with filthy smoke that hung in the air and obscured my vision further.

“Crap! Shit, shit, shit, where the fuck are you?” I coughed, voice rough as the smoke stung my lungs.

Whirling, I searched in vain for my enemy with futile twists and turns, only ever able to catch him a microsecond before he vanished again. My shield was failing, and I couldn’t see anything. Tears ran down my cheeks from my stinging eyes and it was all I could do to keep teleporting blindly through the growing fire.

No, no, no… I was better than this. I was Rynadria of Avonside, I was supposed to be some sort of big shot wizard chick. So think, if you're so great. Wait… if I used the void flower spell I’d been messing around with… but like, a lot of them. Yes! I had it! I had a plan!

First, I cast my tracking spell to identify where my friends were, and likely the battlefield. With the discovery that my adversary and I had travelled quite a ways from the main fight, I knew I had the space I needed. Briefly, a scene from the first Iron Man movie flickered through my thoughts, where Tony Stark is showing off some of his missiles or something. It was time to do that.

With my shields falling lower and lower, I began to sow seeds of destruction about the battlefield. Fist sized orbs of magenta energy flying from my hands like an old school aristocrat throwing coin to the people in an effort to stave off his own beheading.

It didn’t take long before I was forced to run however, I didn’t want to get caught in my own spell after all. I rushed to clear the area, flickering through space with as much speed as I could muster. I needed to be long gone and back at the battle before my plan went off. Plus, I needed to intimidate the enemy, and what better way to do that than pulling off the ol’ cool girls don’t look at explosions thing.

Left behind in the smoke and fire, Fennimore’s bootlicker took a second to figure out I’d just legged it, but it was too late. I landed on the road in time to see the battle in full swing, red soldiers lying dead across the road, a few heavily armoured obrec having also met sad, grisly ends. So many dead already, more falling every second as mace or bullet met soft flesh.

Then the entire short hill behind me erupted.

Large flowers of my own dark magenta colouring bloomed, their glow filling the smoke with a terrifying eerie light before they detonated into swirling ribbons of magic one after another. Dirt and grass showered the battlefield, bringing a stop to the whole thing as they all stared out at the deadly beautiful display of magic.

Briefly, through all the carnage behind me, my magical senses alerted me to the mage’s shield as it failed. He was shredded into tiny chunks of meat less than a second later, my violent flowers doing their work with even more cruel efficiency than I had thought possible. Jesus christ… he had to be spread across half of that mulched hillside now. I fought the urge to throw up.

I didn’t have time to stop and dwell on his death though and certainly not to throw up, I still had a job to do. I summoned another spell, one to wreath myself in the same magenta glow as the flowers behind me. It was a simple illusion spell, but it was impressive nevertheless. My eyes would be glowing flat and bright, my hair would be shining like a nebula, floating about my head as though shucking the grip of gravity.

I fixed Fennimore’s troops with as evil a stare as I could muster. “Surrender!” I shouted, my voice amplified to an almost painful volume. “Or be destroyed.”