Upon opening her eyes, Kastra mentally let out a sigh.
'Still stuck.'
She tried poking at the Human she was curled up laying on, but he wouldn't budge. Neither would the oversized birds surrounding him.
She could use mana to wake everyone violently but didn't want to ruin the boy's good first impression of her. She'd been working extra hard not to annoy him or get in his way while he trained and as a reward, she'd been able to watch that gorgeous light display. It was more impressive than anything she'd ever seen a Human do, though since she lived in a lake pretty much her whole life that wasn't saying much.
Kastra liked the boy. He had a very... confident air to him at first which had put her off, but when he'd started performing she'd found it enchanting. Then, when he had told her stories of his youth and had broken down, she'd found him refreshingly emotional and not at all untouchable like he'd pretended to be.
Humans were always a welcome distraction for her. They rarely received visitors up here, let alone any that were kind to the Fae, so having one who sang music they'd never heard and willingly showed them beautiful magic was irreplaceable.
Unlike the vast majority of her kind, Kastra was unique in the sense that she found enjoyment in manners other than annoying people endlessly. She loved music like the rest of them, but also enjoyed watching Humans do other activities not involving entertainment. Practicing mana manipulation, running, casual conversation... it all appealed to her.
Their language was so unique.
While saying that, it had to be noted that Kastra could speak but chose not to. Most of her kind believed her a mute, but some of the older ones knew she wasn't. She had to talk to accept her position as a representative for her cluster, after all.
The only reason she chose not to speak predominantly was that her people hardly ever had anything interesting to say. They were mostly content to act the way they did so there was no point in attempting to converse with them.
Thus, Kastra had become something akin to voiceless and a bit of an outsider. The Fae always chose their most serious to be the representative for other races though so she was a perfect fit.
She didn't mind being stuck in here with the four mortals particularly, but as the representative for her cluster it wouldn't do for her to be away for so long. She was supposed to report back in after observing the Humans but had gotten caught up in the beauty and stayed overnight. She wasn't in trouble, but an explanation would have to be made, one that wouldn't be understood particularly well by Tia.
Her kind hardly ever understood her reasoning for doing the things she did. It was vexing, but at the same time, it just made her that much more suited to her role in their eyes, so she didn't mind too much.
Another few minutes went by before Kastra finally decided enough was enough.
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Damien woke up to the feeling of something heavy on his chest. Upon opening his eyes and looking down, he noticed a... confusing sight.
There on his chest lay a twenty-something year old girl. Normal tan-colored skin, silver freckles, silver eyes, and the same bright green hair he remembered, yet now she was definitely about his height while proportionally still twenty. She was also staring directly into his eyes while looking... impatient?
He didn't move for a few moments as he got used to her new skin color and eventually, the girl before him pointed skyward. Damien definitely had questions but understood her want to get out. He lifted a hand and scratched at the wings around them. They did not open up.
'Vanessa,' he thought.
It wasn't Alexa this time, it was Vanessa. That's why it felt so spacious.
He turned to the left to see Alexa had been grabbed as well, while turning to the right showed him his mother. He assumed Vanessa was further to the right, but he didn't want to risk waking them, so he didn't check.
Damien made eye contact with the Fae again and shrugged his shoulders. Maybe if he closed his eyes, she'd go back to normal. Hopefully.
It didn't work. In fact, the second he shrugged she had looked miffed, and when he closed his eyes, she'd poked his cheek. He ignored it and soon felt another poke in the same spot.
He pretended to be asleep.
Slowly, the weight on his chest began to increase again. Damien kept his eyes firmly shut as he felt something brush against his forehead. Eventually, the weight stopped increasing and a sigh sounded out above him.
That caused him to open his eyes. This particular Fae hadn't spoken or made any sounds no matter what since they'd met. But now, she had.
There she was, still laying on top of him, larger this time and staring directly into his eyes with her hair draped across his face and an annoyed expression. And she was close. Too close.
Instantly, his face was aflame.
She was beautiful in the way only a young adult could be. Sharp features that framed her face, a stern look in her dark green eyes, a slightly pointed nose, medium length eyelashes, not too thick yet not too thin pink lips... all so close to his face. He was lovestruck and absolutely enchanted. She looked perfect up this close to him. He was in his thirties and whether or not he had urges yet as a boy on this planet, the proximity of her lips, the sweet scent she let off, and her hair hanging down, blocking out the rest of the world, drove him to do something he'd come to regret immensely in little to no time.
He'd leaned up and kissed her.
Seconds passed upon which he noticed foreign mana trying to enter his brain. He quickly squashed it with his own mana without a second thought or paying any real attention to it, at which point he realized the situation he was in and finally pulled away in a panic.
Kissing a Fae was akin to a death sentence on Earth. The man would become enchanted, no longer willing to return home. He didn't know what would happen here, but he still felt like he was himself.
He could stay away from her, though it would be an utter shame with how...
The Fae seemed frozen in time, staring down at him while his mind wandered. Not blushing like he was, not confused, just calculating. Eventually, her cheeks tinged slightly pink and she moved her face back a bit before dropping it toward him.
He'd opened his mouth slightly to apologize, but received a headful of hair before he could speak as her forehead smashed into his nose with a sickening crunch.
"Son of a shit stain, that kills, woman!" Damien complained loudly.
All their movement had begun to wake the others but if they weren't fully alert yet, his statement had done the trick.
The Fae opened her six wings and burst through the slight opening that had been created in Vanessa's wings. Damien stayed put.
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A snapping sound echoed over the lake.
"JESUS FLIPPIN HELL! God! I think you made it worse!" Damien screamed.
Alexa was trying to set his nose so he could heal it but she was doing a terrible job.
"Well hold still and I'll try again," she said, lifting her hands back up to his bleeding nose.
"Oh, hell no. Don't you touch me, I'll do it myself. Go away," he said back in a nasally voice.
She wanted to laugh, but that would give her away, so she just shrugged and walked away.
Serves him right.
The commotion he'd made woke them all up upon which questions about how she'd ended up in Vanessa's wings were asked, along with a forced retelling of the events that led to him receiving a broken nose from a Fae.
"You kissed her?" Emily had asked.
"She was beautiful and inches from my face! I... I don't know, looking back I should have noticed how annoyed she looked and that it was cramped so she had to be that close... but I mean come on!" was his defense.
Guilty was their verdict.
"Why would you kiss her though? She is the furthest from family you could get!" Alexa had yelled.
"She was beautiful..." he'd mumbled. "I just got drawn in..."
Alexa had at that point taken a threatening step forward, ready to add a broken arm to his injury list, when Emily had spoken.
"Sweetheart, people outside of Family kiss too but usually only when they want to make you their family. Men and women-"
"OH AND YOU WANTED TO MAKE HER YOUR FAMILY BUT YOU WON'T KISS ME? OK!" Alexa had shouted, storming off.
After that, she'd decided to go help him with his nose when he seemed to be having trouble with it, leading to this.
Alexa snickered evilly as she walked away. She was looking forward to kicking his ass in sparring in a few days. It always made her feel better when her chest felt like this, physically exerting herself while having an excuse to roughhouse with him.
Maybe she'd get revenge for all the poor bunnies they'd been making her eat lately too.
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Damien launched his body to the left as another blunt spike of earth impaled where he had just been. It was supposed to be a spar, yet she was treating it like a death sentence.
He understood why this time at least.
It had been a few days since they'd begun their training and for the most part, they'd been allowed to go at it however they'd wanted. Emily and Vanessa would give them tips or answer any questions they had, but mana manipulation was about doing, not being told, so they'd been given time to practice whatever they'd wanted.
As he dove to the left, he reached into the ground with his hand and forced the sand to launch at Alexa with speed, yet she effortlessly lifted her hand up and created a wall.
The sand pelted it harmlessly.
'At least that bought a few se-'
Damien's thoughts were interrupted as he once again rolled backward, coating his body in a barrier of sand, this time with a thin layer of created solid rock on the outside. Alexa had immediately kicked out the wall she'd made to block his last attack and it had shattered, sending pieces of earth in his direction.
Shards penetrated his hastily crafted defense and cut into him yet again.
He could do more fancy and detailed things with his mana than she could with some elements, but he wasn't a rock expert. He knew about as much about rocks, sand, earth, dirt, and metals as anybody else on this planet.
The same went with fire, water, nature, and many of the other elements. Sure he knew some nice tidbits that could give him a slight edge, but most extra things he knew about those types of magics could be learnt by the people of this world. Alexa was pretty good with what equated to the 'earth', water, ice, and fire elements, so he hadn't really had an advantage at all.
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'Earth magic? Eleria magic? Ground? Meh, I'll go with Earth.'
"Stop! Ok! I'm done, I can't hit her!" Damien shouted, rolling out of his ball and breaking the pieces of rock stuck in his skin down, allowing him to heal.
This was how it had been going so far. Fire, water, ice, earth... she'd won every time.
She destroyed him in water almost instantly, creating what looked like a fist that struck his chest straight on when he'd dodged the bullets she'd shot to his sides. The same went with ice and fire, shooting him from afar while he did his best to defend and get shots of his own in. Hitting her wasn't easy through the extra thick layer of mana, but he'd gotten one or two clean hits in. They were tiny in comparison to the amount she'd injured him so far, but still something.
It made it glaringly obvious he didn't have much experience with elements other than lightning and air, though. He'd have to rectify that. The amount of control she displayed was staggering while he was wasting mana with even the smallest attacks.
Alexa was insanely good at the creation of her elements, mostly due to her Celestial body, though. Her body could handle a lot more of the stress pulling mana through it to create caused, so she could conjure whatever she'd wanted during their fights while he had to try to work with what was available. It was how she had pulled up a solid wall out of sand while he had to defend with what was all around him.
She stood about twenty feet from him while adorning a haughty expression, basking in his defeat.
This next fight would be different, though. He'd wipe the smirk off her face. Equality was a huge thing in this world, he'd noticed, and being caught going easy on an opponent during training was similar to telling them you didn't care about their ability to defend themselves.
He'd be sure to show Alexa how much he cared.
Damien stood up, refusing to heal the cuts and bruises she'd given him. He'd found she went easier on him when she was upset if he looked visibly damaged, so while he had patched them up slightly to cause less pain and not restrict his movements, he'd left them still visible on the exterior.
He'd fixed his nose already though, prompting Vanessa to ask how he'd healed it so quickly on his own. Damien didn't really understand how to explain it so he'd just shrugged at her question.
"Alright, air now," Emily called out, standing between them while holding her hands up. "Fight on three. One, two, three!"
At three, Emily's hands dropped down, she disappeared, and Damien shot forward. Alexa shouldn't be able to do anything substantial with air, so he'd most likely have a large advantage in this fight.
He was one hundred percent completely right, too.
The moment Emily had declared the fight would be done using air, Alexa had lost the confidence on her face and tried to create anything to hit him with, but had only managed a small gust of wind that pushed at him from the front to slow down his charge. It failed miserably, and she decided to set into a stance to punch him.
This was going to be sweet, sweet payback.
He did nothing fancy, only using the wind to help move him forward at first. Once he'd closed the gap by halfway, he created a small gale with winds at his back, throwing him forward.
Alexa let loose a punch directed at his upper chest which he effortlessly ducked under before driving the top of his head directly into her stomach, creating a small pocket of air between their bodies right beforehand which exploded into her midsection. The force launched her up into the air and backward, upon which he directed his gale to increase in force and continue onward without him, pushing her further into the air with concentrated bursts. Once she'd gotten out of the range he could keep the wind strong enough to lift her, he hit her body with one last horizontal burst and she began to fall from fifty feet up directly into the lake.
'Revenge is truly sweet,' he thought, watching her fall almost one hundred feet from shore.
He was glad Emily had inserted the no flight rule.
The Fae laughed hard and swam or floated around Alexa, dropping small balls of water on her head as she tried to swim back. Eventually, she grew tired and annoyed, deciding to will the water around her to carry her in while looking like a queen riding atop a wave. She reached the sand and gathered the water in her clothes, and dropped it to the ground, instantly drying her body.
His pocket of air had shredded her light clothing on her stomach, exposing her midriff and a nasty bruise that had begun to form.
Seeing that, Damien began to feel like an asshole.
"Well, at least he has some strengths and isn't just weak and pathetic," Alexa said, clearly bitter.
He felt a lot less cruel now.
They moved through more elements they had some practice with and avoided others altogether if they didn't. Darkness, light, and nature were among those that were skipped. No point sparring in something they already knew they were both weak in when trying to decide their strengths and weaknesses.
Finally, the last match was upon them and it was time for lightning. Damien smiled at this.
Emily began to make the announcement and Damien had already charged his body with both positive and negative energies, intermixing them in some places and separating them in others throughout himself. Typically, when someone of this world created lightning magic around themselves, he noticed it was heavily negative in its composition. Whether or not they even knew about the existence of a positive charge was doubtful, so defending against another person using electricity was as simple as creating a negative charge to defend against theirs.
The main problem with this was that when fighting in this manner, the person with more mana would always win. They'd both create the electricity and it would continue to ground itself out until someone ran out of energy, ultimately collapsing in a twitchy mess. But if you could keep the energy from grounding...
Alexa simply walked towards him. She knew he was practicing lightning, but didn't know the full extent of his prior knowledge of the element, so she'd probably assumed she could just overpower him. She would easily be able to if he weren't himself.
Damien watched as she got closer but did nothing, smiling on the inside. He already knew how he wanted to win this one. She'd been so accommodating to his body earlier, he wanted to repay the favor more. Plus, she'd already healed herself and he thought she needed more practice.
The girl smirked as Damien didn't move and eventually reached him, extending her hand and grabbing his shoulder. He was careful to remove his charges from that shoulder and waited. When he sensed her using her magic, he moved a negative charge to the area to deflect it.
It worked like a charm. She stood there wasting her energy as it all grounded when she'd made it, and he remained unhurt.
After a few seconds of this Alexa's face stopped smiling. She was probably wondering how he could keep creating tons of electricity at this moment. He had let it trickle and dance along his shoulder, making it look like he was fighting to hold out as long as he possibly could before he'd have to give in. Little did she know he hadn't even needed to make a drop since the start and he'd never run out.
Finally, Alexa stopped, exhausted and sweating, and tried to take her hand back.
"How di-"
Damien grabbed her hand and sent energy into her body, causing her to slump to her knees. Her body was held in place by his hand over hers as she clenched her teeth. Her hand seemed to have been burnt a little from the contact so he dialed back the voltage and amperage he was sending into her. Once it didn't look painful anymore, he leveled it off, leaving her not in too much pain, yet still enough energy to be incapacitated.
After about ten seconds of feeding her just enough energy to keep her locked, he cut it off and her hand slipped off his shoulder as she sat back on her knees.
She gasped for air and began coughing, water around her eyes. Instantly, Damien felt regret well up inside him. Payback looked sad this time, not sweet. He'd gone too far.
'Maybe this will make up for it.'
Damien stepped forward while drawing the electricity out of his body, circling it up and down his arms like an electrical coil. He slowly brought it away from his body, coalescing it into a large sphere of crackling, deadly, energy with him at the center, lightning bolts constantly striking his core.
"Damien, that's far enough," he heard Emily say, seeing her take an unconscious step backward in his peripheral.
Damien ignored her and took a step forward, making a pushing motion with his arms and throwing it all at Alexa as Emily screamed.
"STOP!"
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"STOP!"
Alexa looked up from the ground as Damien took a step toward her and threw the sphere of death he'd seemingly conjured out of nothing. Time seemed to slow down as Vanessa grabbed onto Emily while she hesitated, keeping her from sacrificing herself to try and save her.
It made sense, Emily might die or be seriously injured as well.
'I went too far,' she thought to herself, feeling regret.
Damien had already explained why he acted the way he did mostly and she'd been mean to him again today, taking out her mixed up emotions on him. Perhaps this is what she deserved for all of it. She was being childish, caused him pain, and it finally set him off.
Really caused him pain, too. She didn't know if she'd have been able to get up after their first duel, let alone the fourth. He'd even taken to not healing himself in favor of saving energy for creation, most likely hoping to have something left over for the later matches to protect himself. He had to live with the hurt instead of fixing it only to get hurt more and more as it went on.
'Easier for him to be done with me than have to deal with my rapid personality changes,' she mused in a moment of self-reflection.
Still, it was phenomenal. She'd never seen something so breathtakingly beautiful and terrifying before. He looked like a god at the center of it all, his dark grey eyes becoming the clouds that created the lightning all around him. With a power like this she wouldn't have to worry about him in the future for even if he wanted her dead, she still loved him and wanted his safety.
Alexa didn't feel regret for going hard on him today though. She wanted him to be strong, and just seeing him rationing his mana to be most efficient made her proud of him, even if it didn't ease up the pain from his earlier slight.
No, she felt regret that he didn't understand that even though she was angry with him, she'd never once stopped caring about him. It was her own fault he didn't know however, and she knew it. She'd asked him to be more upfront with his feelings and yet when was she ever honest in return. Like him a few months prior, she thought he knew how much she loved him.
She was wrong, apparently.
Refocusing, she noticed his eyebrows were clenched in concentration as the ball of death floated ever closer. A stinging pain assaulted the back of her throat and stomach when she saw his smile. Unusually soft, even for him. Not a smile of a crazed, angry man, but one of a person doing something that he knew would bring him happiness.
The ball had almost touched her skin and she closed her eyes, gritting her teeth to wait for the pain that would come like it had before.
It never came, though.
A second went by, then another. She would have opened her eyes if it weren't for the crackling she kept hearing, scaring her.
Suddenly, she felt a slight tingling across her skin body. No pain, no burning, no seizing of her muscles... just a strange... tingling sensation.
She opened her eyes.
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I laugh out loud as Alexa's eyes open and immediately shut again as a few stray bolts tag them. That was probably uncomfortable.
"I'll keep them away from your eyes and face, sorry. You can open them again."
She shook her head in the negative.
"It'll be ok, I promise. Open them."
Her still not complying, I take a step forward and wrap her in a hug, healing her burnt hand so I'd stop beating myself up about it. My performance had been a little excessive too though, she was probably a little nervous. Maybe I should have shown them what I'd accomplished in a different way...
Bah, they'll get over it.
At my touch, Alexa tenses up even more than she had been earlier, finally relaxing entirely as she hugs me back, eyes closed and shaking slightly.
"It's ok, Alexa. I would never, ever hurt you no matter how mean you are," I say, hoping to make her take some of the guilt. "You should know that by now. You can open your eyes. I'm sorry I went so far with my display," I say, rubbing her head and wings.
I definitely went to far.
A few moments of silence pass by and finally, I hear a gasp from my shoulder. The cooing must have worked, but I think it was mostly the scratching on her wings that did it.
"H-how are you doing this?" she asks quietly.
I stop hugging her and take a step back, seeing her look around with wonder. My guilt fades more and more as her trepidation does and I start swirling the electricity around us like a spinning globe.
When I start allowing a small amount of it ground into her body, she yelps and I barely contain my laughter.
"The devil is in the details, my dear. No matter, no matter. It's pretty huh?" I say, getting a weird look from her causing me to stop being able to contain my mirth.
I can't help it! I've been wanting to show them all this for days now and the reaction she is showing is exactly what I wanted to see!
"I can control the amount of, er... How do I put this... Strength that the elec- *cough* lightning has, I suppose. Usually, you'd never get to see lightning that is this weak but with mana, I can dilute or increase the power based on how much I use to create it with. And since I can pull it out of my body, I can give you a physical representation of what it looks like even while it's too weak to arc outward on its own! Lightning this weak can't actually hurt you at all and acts a lot less violent than it normally should though."
Alexa nodded her head, clearly not understanding my explanation but accepting it. She reached out with her hand and began trying to touch the bolts that crackled and swam above her in the air as her hair began to float upward.
"Hell, Damien, don't scare us like that," Vanessa chides from the side.
I give her and Emily an apologetic smile as they walk into the sphere. They immediately yelp when they get zapped lightly in their eyes and shut them, just like Alexa had.
I sigh and start focusing more to keep the mass from striking their heads, now becoming a lot harder when it was just Alexa. I wish they were more like the Fae and me.
Now that I thought about it though, it was kind of weird that the Fae girl hadn't minded the energy striking her eyes. She had forgiven me after the incident it seemed and had stuck to me like glue lately whenever I practiced manipulation, always watching intently and always silent, but never closing her eyes even when I did this with stronger voltages.
Maybe she's a masochist.
"So it isn't dangerous at all?" Emily asks, pausing my thoughts as she reopens her eyes and lifts an arm up.
In response, I zap her finger with a more powerful bolt and she yelps.
"It's not that it's not dangerous, I just pull the venom out of the snake. I can easily put it back in, but it makes it more difficult to manage if I try to split my mana too much between intensities. Right now, this isn't all that hard though. The weak lightning you are all experiencing takes hardly any effort to create and is very easy to manipulate. The more powerful I make it the more volatile it gets and the harder it becomes to control."
She nods and continues exploring the air like the other two.
A few minutes go by and finally, I began to slow down the number of strikes on their skin, eventually stopping them altogether. It may be easier to create that low of a voltage in the energy, but that didn't mean it was cost-free and every strike that grounded itself on them dissipated my energy.
I call all the remaining electricity back into my body and put it back to its natural state, holding the electricity further inward from my skin so no one gets shocked.
I look at Alexa and smirk.
"You should have seen your face."
The back of my head meets the sand an instant later with a Celestial hugging me as I groan out in pain.
I really need to heal my wounds.