“Did you really forget my name so easily, boy?” The dragon woman teased.

Gordon, struggling to even kneel, gritted his teeth. Standing on one knee, he crumpled another paper for use as a catalyst, gripping it vigorously. He was the last thing able to protect the kids at this point, acting on pure instinct.

“Dear. Thank you for bringing such wonderful fuses. I’m sure they’ll burn brightly.” The woman clapped her hands, and several different shapes and sizes of mana circuits poured in from the smoke. They flew with the wind, almost as if traced on translucent slips of paper.

Gordon didn’t hesitate. He poured his mana into the paper ball, threw it at the kids’ feet, and screamed the same spell right before impact. The same distorted light barrier set in around them.

The woman tisked in disgust. “I thought that you’d be more… understanding, Gordon.” Several circuits broke off from the bunch and hovered around him like guns at gunpoint. Gordon may have protected the kids, but not himself.

She grasped something in the air, and a black handle materialized. It looked like a standard handgun. In place of the barrel, a hole was bored straight through to the other end. Several light, almost invisible strings were fed through the chassis, both connecting to airborne circuits, making the firearm resemble a weaponized cable car arm.

“Cut off mana to the barrier. Or else.” she demanded dryly.

“Who the hell are you!?” Gordon raged, clutching his arm. This woman felt familiar, but his recollection was clouded in haze.

“You— You…” the woman stuttered, taking her sweet time to find the words she wanted. Several visceral insults visibly tried to escape her mouth. Gordon, refusing to drop his guard, used the time to chant a few, one-word protection spells.

“You cheap roadside whore!!” The rage that had disappeared earlier exploded once more. In Gordon’s Shock, a circuit managed to slip his defenses and paste itself to his hip. “I spent 5 years working on my legacy with you. How fucking dare you forget the name Beindois!!!” She pulled the trigger.

The circuit pressed against Gordon’s skin activated, using his own mana as fuel for a moderate yet potent explosion. The force of it sent him reeling to the side, knocking him clean out and removing him from the dragon’s path to the kids. Without new mana from Gordon to keep it alive, the light-bending barrier dissipated.

She turned her gaze to the young’uns all bunched up. “Now… are we going to have any trouble?” Her tone and gaze were sickeningly maternal and loving, as if she had just cast off all the sins she’d committed and traded them for a new life.

The kids hesitated to say anything. There were a few glances exchanged. The courage among them drained. The younger ones cowered behind Ke’er & their elders.

The woman dissipated her gun-like apparition to motes of light. A single point of her finger was enough to send one of the circuits in to test the waters. It narrowed in on one of the younger kids, sweeping down to stick itself onto them. It was different. Instead of being like a thin sheet of paper floating through the wind, this one moved more like it was projected by a light source.

“OH NO YOU DON’T! GO TO HELL!!!” Bently —the troll kid who mase sparks from snapping— screamed, jumped out into the circuit’s path. He wrapped his mana around his hands, like makeshift boxing gloves.

The kids had a mutual understanding between themselves. If they made it out of primary school, and learned to control mana, the respect that that brought would outweigh a cuss or two from time to time. The blind eye turned was especially true for kids that came from more northern states, like Bently. There, minor cusses are frequently used to give pause, or as a part of life, like “Uhm”, never used directly at people. They also had a strange habit of ending their questions with “Eh?”, but I digress.

In spite of his language, Bently was one of the kinder-hearted and hardy kids of the bunch, being everyone’s elder at 17. Even though he cussed just about as much as Eva. That didn’t matter though, as even the loosest-mouthed tattletales agreed to keep quiet for this one.

Right before Bently hit the circuit, the mana around his hands condensed, so concentrated that it glowed orange before activation. Upon impact, the spell was released, sending an impact of several more times mana than he used. The circuit didn’t care. It brushed off the damage and continued forwards. Realizing how it hadn’t worked, Bently rushed to cover and protect his chest. Just like Gordon, it used his own mana to trigger an explosion. The force sent him backwards and down unconscious.

“More effective, but also more expensive. Though I do wish people would stop interrupting my trials…” The madwoman sighed & mumbled, before breaking back in to a disturbing smile. “No matter. I have a large stock of paper spells. I shouldn’t exhaust my mana for this.” She snapped her fingers.

The circuits doubled, then quadrupled, then octupled. Time seemed to slow down. The woman cackled meniacly. With a single “bang” motion of a finger gun, they closed in.

Time seemed to slow down for Ke’er. The other teenagers did the same as bently, ready to protect the younger kids. Ke’er, stuck in the middle of the two groups, couldn’t protect the younger ones, nor was she completely helpless. Even with her mind going 1000km a minute, she couldn’t come to a decision. A few of them managed to repell the circuits. One of the teens even found a spell that could properly repel them, and those who couldn’t fend them off with their mana quickly followed their lead.

One was hit. Then two. Two teens had broken into groups and were trying to recreate Gordon’s barrier spell, to no success. The brawns of the operation let his guard slip for just a second, which was enough to let a circuit stick to him. Three down.

Ke’er watched in silent horror. When the third kid went down, time seemed to freeze for her. The fear, the paralysis she felt slowly turned into anger, hatred, fueling her resolve. The rest of her emotions, packed together like brown noise, had no method of escape other than a coarse scream.

Time started flow for her again. The helplessness she felt was replaced with a means, her hands finally grasping something solid from the void. From the perspective of the other kids, pink-ish mana enveloped Ke’er in a round lump. Within, a foreign feeling similar to vigor welled up within her. Ke’er grasped a metaphorical valve and kept pumping it with more and more of this newfound strength. The valve burst. Mana poured out of Ke’er with the force of a waterfall. Ke’er couldn’t restrict its output, but she could instinctively control its flow.

The mana suffocating the air was cut off briefly before spanning the floor, enveloping the whole group. From its extremities, a deep raspberry coloured barrier formed, riddled with imperfections in its thickness, colour grade, and stability. One of the teens bumped into a thinner area, only for them to be shot back as if it was made of rubber. However shotty the barrier was, the circuits couldn’t penetrate it.

The woman and the circuits shifted their attention to the imperfections, and the teens followed. Those who could form their mana on contact reinforced the thinnest parts of the barrier with all the mana they could gather, those who could form it at a distance split their attention to any other vulnerable spots. The barrier absorbed it, integrating their mana into its structure.

At the center of barrier, Ke’er shattered the cocoon-like lump, fueling the barrier by pouring mana at the ground. She wasn’t maintaining this barrier without a heavy toll though. She pushed through the dizziness and exhaustion for the sake of her newfound family. Certain extremities of hers were glowing golden.

On the downed kids, the char marks that the circuits left had what seemed to be thin strings snap, cut off by the barrier. They tried to draw even more mana from their hosts, but didn’t find enough, and quickly fell to a kind of ash. The only person who wasn’t safe from this was Gordon. The circuit on him found enough mana to complete itself and ripped the entirety of his mana, released as a searing flash of heat and charring them both. The whole affair caught the interest of the mad dragon, stopping her briefly.

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“Early awakened meat… such wonderful mana reserves… Such wonderful fuel…” She drooled, quickly snapping out of it. The kid awakening to her own mana, now being able to fight back was a pain in the ass. “Come here little one. I won’t hurt you… I just need a little help with something…” Her tone shifted maternally once more.

“None of us are going to be your lab rats!” Ke’er proclaimed, voice shaking from anger and desire to protect.

The woman tisked, breaking character for a moment, “Little one, I need your help—”

“Can it!” Ke’er shouted, only becoming more enraged. The woman smiled sadistically, her on-rails gun forming again in her hand.

“It seems that someone is being naughty.” Her motherly tone mixed with sadism did not do anything to placate them. “Goodbye, little one.” She pulled the trigger, and several circuits started flashing moderately, the time in between the flashes growing shorter with each repetition. Several begun swooping down to the raspberry barrier, pelting it with force.

The explosions took their toll on Ke’er, the barrier began to falter. The teens poured every ounce of their strength to keeping it up.

“Sister Ke’er..?” The young dragon girl that frequently fell behind the group called to her. Miriel was indeed the one who had been speaking to Gordon earlier. She jumped on Ke’er, hugging her tightly to appease her fears and concerns about her elder. “Please stay strong sister Ke’er!”

Ke’er regained her grip on herself, willing herself through all the excruciating side effects of mana depletion and continuing to pour more into the barrier. The younger kids had gathered around their fainted elders, poking at them and doing their best to care for them. They were all spooked by something, but Ke’er couldn’t see what. It seemed that Bently and another of the hardier passed out kids had regained some form of consciousness.

Head still spinning and against the wishes of the younger kids, Bently pulled himself and the other semi-recovered kid up, and put himself to work, picking up what he must do on the fly.

The bombardment didn’t let up, only getting more severe over time.

“Oi! Frankenstein! Pick on someone your own size!” Just as they all agreed it couldn’t ogoing to get any better, a different voice was heard from outside the clearing. The voice dropped something into the clearing, clanging against its surroundings on the way down. Bently saw it, and was filled with shrill horror.

“Get down!” Bently screamed. The group instantly followed his command. The madwoman was not so lucky. A bright flash of blinding light emerged from the canister, blinding her and a few kids who didn’t close their eyes. Bently breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t what he’d expected. The bombardment of circuits stopped, instead standing on alert like guide dogs.

Following the wicked bitch’s opening, the man jumped down, running around everywhere attaching several things to her clothes without her noticing. They too started flashing. By the time the woman’s vision recovered, she couldn’t do anything. The small balls popped open, coating her person in a layer of goo that acted similar to contact cement, restricting her movement.

“Why you…” She easily broke through the cement, but it did bind her clothes & belongings together and stuck to her skin. “Do you know how expensive these clothes are? I’ll kill you!!” Her on brand mad tone returned.

Despite all her murderous intent, the woman had a pang of sluggishness overtake her. No matter what she tried to do, her body was lagging behind her intent. The figure finally revealed himself, strolling casually into the clearing. “You.” She turned to the figure and demanded, “What did you do to me??”

“What? You don’t like mana exhaustion?” He chuckled. “For such a caring individual, you sure don’t like it when your kindness comes back to you.”

“What did you do to me!?” She repeated.

“Did you like those fast drying mana-cement bombs?” He smiled deviously. “Perfectly harmless, aside from sluggishness and exhaustion. Made ‘em myself.”

The madwoman swung her claw-like nails at him. Even while suffering from exhaustion, she still had plenty of strength left.

“Zach! Move it!” A woman shouted. Her figure dropped down shortly after, running directly to the dragon-woman and blocking her swipe with a sword.

“Aaand to what do I owe this honor, Eva?” Zach exaggerated his movements and speech in a grandiose manner.

“The rest of the group is coming. I got here on foot since the main roads were closed.” Eva panted. The jewel and ornamental metal keeping her hair up in a ponytail melted, leaving only the bare hairclip. The metal found itself drawn to her sword, coating it, completely changing its appearance to that of a heavy claymore, made completely out of 4-pointed concave stars.

“Bah. You’re no fun, you know that?” Zach sighed.

“Not the time Zach, not the time.” Eva dug her heels into the ground, parrying the woman to throw her off balance. Out of the corner of her eye, Eva saw a circuit barreling towards Zach. In fact, several. All of the dragon’s attention was now on the two of them. The clearing in the sandstorm also filled in after the circuits sustaining it moved.

She threw Zach out of the way, grabbing the circle with her bare hand. The mana in the circuit shortly turned grey and was sucked into her. Judging by her updated mana reserves, there was only 1 pi of mana in these circuits. Just barely enough for them to activate.

“These circuits…" Being in co.m.p.sci, something struck her as odd. they should not be able to sustain their current behavior with only 1 pi. Another few flew down, and Eva dispatched them as well.

Zach also dispatched a few himself too. He had a baseball bat, doused in a bright red coating of some kind. Once his bat hit them, the circuits were drained of mana. A small plant then emerged. With only that laughably little amount of mana, the plant withered away on its own terms.

This was one of the many tricks he came up with to keep pace with the rest of the group. Being a homena, Zach didn’t have much mana of his own, instead supplementing it with alchemy and pranks. The liquid corrupted the mana inside of spells and objects—telling it to fulfill a useless purpose—instead of draining and stocking it like Eva did. Even with all these precautions, they rebuilt themselves after.

“The mana they’re using to explode doesn’t exist?” Zach filled in. He too—tinkering with spells and tools for so long—noticed the discrepancy. Mana, being energy, also had a law of equivalent exchange. For more to be discharged, those pi had to come from somewhere.

“They must still be connected to her somehow. The flowers couldn’t survive, so it’s not taking ambient mana.”

They continued defending against the mad dragon’s offense, the circuits not giving them an opening to apprehend her. It was such a bombardment, that a circuit slipped by glued itself to Zach’s leg, and they couldn’t spare any active thought to it.

The mad dragon caught her breath. Feeling around her firearm, she felt a pleasant surprise communicated to her through the strings running through the barrel, now glowing visibly for all to see. She smiled gleefully.

Zach and Eva, glancing at each other, nodded. They tried to sever as many strings as they humanly could before the madwoman made her move.

The woman, panicking, sent in a bombardment from above. She used two of her circuits as middlemen, pulling their paths directly up and over where the circuits were, forming a makeshift crane-like structure. The circuits themselves also raised, all in an attempt to stop their strings from being cut. She ordered a bombardment of her circuits from above to prevent further damage, and managed to drive the two partners apart with it. Another few good hits, and Zach was immobilized.

“Don’t. Move. Unless you want this Homena to bite the dust.” She pointed the firearm at Zach. The circuit on his ankle shone bright orange, clearly visible—even through his dark-grey shop jumpsuit & guild jacket.

The pulsing glow caused Eva to falter. As soon as she took a step forwards, a hidden circuit detonated in close proximity. It sent her to the ground and split her from her sword, the liquid brooch quickly returning to her hairpin.

“I said; …Don’t move.” The madwoman fingered the trigger. Eva thought twice about engaging her. “I expected to only find small fry on this supply trip… Our patriarch has blessed us today…!”

The word ‘patriarch’ sent a jolt through Eva’s mind. All the present day countries were matriarchal in one form or another. Those which no longer have royalty have become democratic republics, egging on the other Queens/Leaders to switch to an elected-parliamentary system. Even the Homena, with their horribly lopsided distribution of state power, ‘elect’ their leader.

Eva put the idea on the backburner for now. In the slight time she took to process that thought, the madwoman had surrounded both her and Zach with circuits as she did for the children, making two small clearings in the dust storm. Now with comparatively more time to think, Eva weighed her options. Surveying the terrain, she noticed Gordon lying there with the char mark on him. Even with his absurd control over his mana, Gordon was knocked out cold. There was no way Zach could survive this.

All of her options were covered. Dismantling the circuits around before the woman could fire? Too far away. Kick up wind and throw off the madwoman’s aim? The circuits would take care of them both. Stay still? She’d burn that large circuit—the same one etched onto Gordon—into them both.

“Miss Eva!” A distinct young voice called out to her. Eva finally saw Ke’er—the kid she saved a few weeks ago—through the crowd, calling to her from within the sea of kids. She was sustaining an unhealthy output of mana to protect others. Her eyes showed over exhaustion and even started to turn a pale blue, yet still retained hope in her savior. That call took the last of her strength out of the poor girl, causing her to faint and the barrier to flicker. It was still partially kept up thanks to the contributions of others’ mana, but it’s pink glow and rock-solid stability vanished.

When Eva thought all her options were exhausted earlier, that was a lie. She still had Bloodkin mana she could use, but doing so would cause her appearance to change in public. Pausing to take a deep breath, she mulled it over as quickly as she could. It was a gamble, but probably the only option that could get her out of here, if she could pull it off.