The day off they had in the city was really fun and they even poached a new team member. But today they needed to go back to the Imperial Academy. Veronica stayed behind to organize their book collection and perform other tasks. She would join Amanda at the Academy as her personal maid after a month of training.
Proudly wearing their uniforms, Amanda and Robert left Pittersville on a conventional bus. Robert felt bad for not testing if he could safely transport living things through the true void. He just hadn't found a good test subject. This time, Freddy went along without his talent active.
Robert tried to recline his seat but the lever broke, causing the whole seat to swivel violently. He kicked the seat in front of him, knocking the entertainment system and causing a small explosion as the Ether in the device overloaded. Then the bus' main drive shaft broke, leaving everyone stranded on the side of the road.
"What rotten luck is that?" Amanda ranted. Robert looked conflicted. She latched on to that. "Do you know anything about that?"
"Later," Robert replied curtly, looking around at the other bus passengers.
People were moving around, angry and complaining about their fate. They were out of reach of any transmission crystal. While Amanda probably had a way to contact Samson, it was for emergencies only. They would need to wait until a vehicle came to get them.
"I think we should go ahead and ditch the bus," Robert said.
"How?" Amanda asked, skeptical. "I'm not walking all the way."
He tapped one of his fingers for dramatic effect, then conjured an E-bike. It was a bicycle that had an Ethertech motor to assist with movement. it had a backseat and a front basket big enough to fit Freddy. The person who sold it to him back at the mall said that the tires were almost indestructible.
"Hop aboard," He said as he picked Freddy up and set him inside the basket.
She laughed. "When did you buy this?"
"You had to visit the ladies' room, I was right next to a sports shop. It was fast."
"Fair enough."
Amanda sat sideways and wrapped an arm around Robert. And off they went, with some passengers cursing at them. Cotton and Coal slipped out of Robert's jacket and floated around, following the bicycle. Freddy had his tongue out, enjoying the wind and the mixed smells of the road. The speedometer reached fifty miles per hour (80km/h) and Robert decided to leave it at that. He could go faster but why would he?
Instead, they enjoyed the ride.
"What happened with the bus? You had 'guilty' stamped all over your face!" Amanda asked after a while.
"I discovered a Fairy tempering technique," Robert said. "I named it Serendipity. It was supposed to grant me good luck."
Amanda laughed. "Let me guess. Since you are still tempering it, instead it causes bad luck."
"Yes, and it is not that I can control when it happens," Robert said.
"So, the tram accident, the glass slipping, almost everything weird that's happening around you is because of that tempering technique?"
"Most likely."
"How far did you manage to crystallize it?"
"Twenty-seven percent, after the bus incident. This technique is weird. I first must feed it essence, a lot of it, and nothing happens. Then, over time, bad luck stuff fires off at the worst times. Only then does the shell crystalize."
Amanda didn't reply for a while. Her response surprised Robert. "Then you need to hurry up and get it ready for the tournament. You shouldn't go with a half-baked tempering and if the bad luck is that powerful, I want to see what the good luck stuff will be."
"Do you mean it?"
"Yes. Ethereal Mercy won't let the bad luck kill you but the good luck might save your life. If you gotta temper it, then just do it."
"Says the girl who spent almost a year before doing her tempering."
"Hey, past me was dumb, okay? Present me is very smart, you should listen to her."
"Okay. Then I'm going to dump all my essence into the technique. If the bicycle blows up, it's on you."
"The bicycle will be fine, now that we are aware of what may happen to her. Just do it."
Robert did as asked. He cycled his Essence, feeding it to the Serendipity shell. The ether bands started to glow.
*
*
Nothing happened for the next hundred miles.
"Where's your bad luck now?" Amanda teased.
"It won't happen if we are expecting it to happen. It needs to be spontaneous," Robert replied.
"Nah. I bet it's going to happen anytime now..."
*
*
Fifty miles later, Amanda's smile faltered. Robert was working hard on the pedals, they were going uphill. They would be able to see the Academy campus after reaching the top of this ridge.
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At the top of the ridge, they heard thunder. Robert felt a wave of spatial Ether wash over the hills. The sounds of heavy rain, thunder, and water gurgling as a veritable river started to flow out. Flashes of lightning rang from the river source.
Robert recalled the puffblooms and braked hard. "Passage break!"
"What the fucking hell?" Amanda cursed. "A passage break, now of all times?"
"Guagagababity!" Some unnatural screech came from the passage to that stormy realm.
"Gdludludludludlud!" The monsters shouted.
Small fish-men the height of eight-year-old children poured out of the passage in droves. Dozens crossed over every few seconds, a never-ending stream of scaled bodies in shades of lime, blue, yellow, red, and green.
Robert started to spam essence drain. "Cotton! Coal! Attack!"
The puffblooms sent blades of wind toward the monsters. Each blade would cut two or three monsters, but there were too many. Those who fell were quickly replaced by more. Cotton would occasionally fire a beam of light that vaporized monster flesh wherever it touched them. Coal could spit a blob of black goo that covered the fish monsters and melted their skin and muscles, leaving only bones behind.
Amanda filled her hand with seeds and tossed them. Green energy swirled around these seeds as they started to sprout mid-air. The roots shot down and impaled some monsters, growing into that crown of thorns barrier that worked so well with the monkeys. She directed the bushes' growth to spread in a circle and tried to contain the passage. The monsters who touched the thorns started to convulse and foam from the mouth, poisoned. The others quickly learned to avoid the thorny bushes. Shouts proved them capable of communication.
"Freddy, misdirect them!"
More bushes appeared out of nowhere. They formed a hedge maze that almost reached eye level for the monsters. Schooled by the real bushes, they avoided these, moving along the maze.
Monsters died left and right as their shriveled bodies just fell down, their essence and souls robbed by Robert's spells. He kept casting, generating more essence than he was spending. The excess became shield voidlings that popped up next to the passage but to the sides, trying to stem and guide the tide. It wouldn't do to leave the monsters spread out but they seem very keen on killing the two humans that were fighting back.
The river water went down the side and reached the road they took to get to the top of the ridge. Dead bodies and the occasional monster were washed down. While they didn't pose much of a threat individually, these stray creatures could do great damage to wildlife and mortal humans who didn't have how to defend themselves. Robert made sure to cast essence drain on each of these monsters that were going down the river. He could tell which ones were alive through sense life.
Amanda was growing some prickly pear guns. Things seemed to be under control and their damage output was keeping on par with the stream of monsters coming out. But when the lightning flashed inside the stormy realm once more, Robert saw the silhouettes of more humanoid fish monsters, these ten or fifteen feet tall.
The first giant fish monster that made it out of the passage got a void lance to the head, opening a hole three inches in diameter in its head.
The prickly pear plants started to fire their spine grenades. "Save your essence, Amanda. I think we will need to hold the tide for way longer. The same for all of you too."
Since Robert had ways to recover essence during combat, he could keep casting for longer.
Another giant humanoid fish came out. Robert's danger sense flared. He placed a shield voidling in front of them as he dove to tackle Amanda and push her out of the path of a trident wreathed in lightning that flew straight at her.
Some monsters found out that Freddy's illusions didn't kill them and crossed the maze hedge. Others decided that the real bushes could be fake too and died. They weren't very smart.
Robert put drain essence on all the big monsters that came out. They were jumping over the thorn bushes. He could tell some of these were two-star monsters.
The shield voidling would ignore Robert but not his allies. He took his boar spear and prepared to engage in melee.
"Amanda, get out of here. Freddy, protect Amanda. Cotton, Coal, follow her and kill any monsters that come close."
"But!"
"Your safety comes first, Miss Samson! Just go! And see if you can call for help!"
Amanda didn't complain or retort. She took off and rode the bicycle down the road, toward the Academy. Freddy went along with her, vanishing as he used his talent. The two puffblooms circled around Amanda, ten feet off the ground, firing wind blades at the monsters that broke off to chase the female.
Robert dropped two shield voidlings to cover her retreat. The black tentacles killed the monsters with a blow each. Bodies started to pile around their area of effect but at least they didn't attack dead bodies. That would be a waste of essence.
The first fish monster reached Robert. The shield voidling next to him lashed out but the monster parried with its serrated greatsword. The tentacle instead chipped the bone-like material, disintegrating part of the weapon's blade.
Robert lunged and stabbed. The monster, occupied with the tentacle, didn't parry and won five inches of blade inside its stomach for his troubles. Robert pulled out to the side, cutting it open and spilling fetid blood. He couldn't kill the monster so fast because each second it remained alive meant more essence for Robert.
The monster moved away, leaving another to take its place. This one was blue, with rubbery skin reminding him of a shark. It also had a trident wrapped in lightning. When Robert looked at its glassy eyes, he saw sparks inside of it.
It was a deviant. These were always dangerous. It pulled its trident back, to toss it. Robert's danger sense told him he would have a hard time dodging that one. Parrying or blocking would be almost as bad as getting hit. That lightning would lock his muscles in all of the futures he saw. Without his mobility, the monsters would crowd around him and then he'd be dead.
Robert engaged his talent. The monsters' scales lost color along with the world. He moved away and around, moving across the shield voidlings that were defending Amanda's path of retreat. Their big eyes stared at Robert as these Ether constructs bridged into the liminal void and existed in both realities at once. They still had about half of their Essence reserves. And since he had time, he checked Serendipity's crystallization rate. It had jumped up by ten percent.
Damn. He refused to think his tempering technique would trigger a passage break. No. The passage break would happen anyway. What his serendipity did, if it did anything, was to time their arrival with the opening of the passage. Whether this was good luck or bad luck remained to be seen.
Robert checked his artifice timepiece, and dove into his mental palace to read books until it was time to return to reality. When that time came, he positioned himself where he'd get the most kills with a single two-star void lance. He also shifted into his fairy form and put on some clothes.
Invisible, he emerged. The Zoltraak void lance fired with a wide and flat beam that struck dozens of the small fish monsters along with the legs of the big ones. It unfortunately also caught one of Amanda's bushes.
The trident flew where he was before. It flew off into the distance, trailing white sparks of lightning.
Robert darted between the big monsters, striking the nape of their necks with his void punch. It was more efficient damage-per-essence than the void lance. The monsters tried to react but he was too fast for them. Not to mention he had three degrees of movement. He could evade up, down, left, right, front, or back. After half a dozen void punches, Robert figured out that the monsters didn't have a spine. It was useless to hit the nape of their necks, a place that would be fatal to a human.
He kept pacing his essence expenditure. He kept several spells going on, replacing them as needed. One shield voidling over the river flowing down the south side of the ridge to catch any live monsters that were dragged down that way, then another to keep any monsters from following Amanda. Drain essence on as many monsters as possible, wary that they needed to survive until they at least paid back the spell's cost.
Now he only needed to hold the monster tide until help arrived.