Chapter 5: Wonder and Horror
The sun was shining, the air was warm, a soft breeze blew and small clouds dotted the blue sky. All in all, it was about as close to the ideal summer day as I could have imagined. But this wasn’t the main reason for my good mood. No, it was something else that had me grinning like a loon.
Namely, magic was AWESOME!
I was hovering ten feet off the ground, fire licking about my left hand in a circle while my right was extended to a medium-sized tree trunk that was floating in the air before me, dirt clumps still falling from its roots. I wasn’t too sure just how much the tree weighed, but I was willing to bet that it was at least as much as a small car! And I was lifting it with just my magic!
It had been about a week since I’d got my halo working, and it had been one hell of a week, as far as my magic and powers went.
Once I regained consciousness, and taken some time to recover, I got a crash course on how most angels had some sort of elemental alignment that was natural to them. Hadriel was tuned into lightning while Joan, even in her mortal form, was attuned to light. And since Joan had been mortal she was in charge of my training.
As it turned out she didn’t really have to do all that much. Joan’s first lesson had been to teach me how to connect with my magic and bring it out of my body to affect the world around me. That had been the difficult part, as the magical energy hadn’t wanted to move away from me. We weren’t too sure why, but it seemed that mana and other ambient magic didn’t flow away from me as they normally would with a mortal mage, instead, it seemed to prefer to stay close, or even drift towards me. It had thrown her off a bit, but in the end, all it needed was a bit more effort from me to get the magic to go where I wanted, something that became second nature fairly quickly.
After I got the trick down she started to teach me how to bring out my elemental affinity, and that was where things got interesting.
The way she described it I should be able to ‘reach into’ the magic I was releasing and ‘pull out’ my affinity. She said that the nature of the affinity within the magic was variable between users, but the most common manifestation was as a stream of colour that I could lock onto. She warned me that simply grasping my affinity was the easy part, actually using it was going to be trickier. So, I followed her instructions and reached into my magic, only to find something that I thought was awesome. When I mentally reached out to the magic it was easy to send my will into it and find something to latch onto, but I didn’t find just one colour in there . . .
I found all of them!
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, violet, the whole rainbow! Not just that though there were other colours in there too, black, brown, white, grey, every shade and hue that could be imagined was in there, and it was all connected to my magic!
When I told Joan she was impressed, but not surprised, which made me curious. She told me she’d been expecting something like that due to all the elemental forces that seemed to manifest at random around me when I got my halo.
Those first few days were fun, loads of fun! I found I was good at manipulating raw magic, the energy responded to my will easily. It was when I tried to use that energy to manipulate elements that things got challenging. So far, I hadn’t found any element I couldn’t connect to, but my wide affinity came at a cost in strength. I could use the elements, but so far I was very limited in the raw power I could put behind that manipulation. Joan told me not to worry about that though, as the rest of my powers grew so would my magic, and for the time being I should focus on the utility of so many options, and concern myself with raw power later.
As things stood, I could cause small arcs of electricity to play around my hands, it wasn’t lightning, but I was pretty sure it would make for an effective touch taser if I ever needed it to. The same was true of my use of ice. For the time being, it was limited to my hands, where I could gather the magic after pulling out the ‘ice blue’, as I thought of it. My hands would get covered in this blue/white aura that made the air around them icy and froze the things I touched. I wasn’t too sure how effective it would be in combat, but I could freeze a whole bucket of water in only a few seconds.
It was like that with all the other elements as well, even if they weren’t things that I would have normally defined as an ‘element’ in and of themselves. With plants, I could accelerate their growth and ensure that they grew large and healthy. With the weather, I could make it lightly drizzle at my command and then disperse just as easily. My abilities with air were able to produce strong gusts of wind able to knock someone over by waving a hand or blowing air from my mouth. They were all at a level that was useful if I used them smartly.
Of course, not all of my elements were so limited, several of them were a bit more ‘front-loaded’ and could be used offensively to start with.
Fire for example. So far, I could generate small flames on each of my fingers, or igniting such flames at a distance. But once there was fire in existence I could mentally move and shape it with ease. Even better, the fire I took control of seemed to be self-sustaining, not needing any fuel but my magic to keep burning.
Earth and water were also useful elements, even though I couldn’t produce any with my magic, only use what was already there.
Still, for all the minor inconveniences that accompanied them each of the elements had interesting combat uses. Earth I couldn’t move around in any great amount, only a few hundred pounds at most, but what I could move I could move with surprising force, hurling rocks around like controlled cannonballs. Water was less forceful but more responsive. As with earth, I could only move a limited amount, something like a large barrelful. But what I could move I could move with finesse. In terms of pure force, it could hit like a riot hose, but the scary part was that I could encircle someone’s head in water and drown them on dry land if I wanted
Also, I’d found that attuning myself to all those elements gave me other benefits. I was now fire-resistant and I also wasn’t as bothered by the cold as much. I noticed an instinctive knowledge of what the weather would be like over the next few days, a sense of the electricity running through the wires in the walls, being able to see much clearer in the dark, and not being blinded by staring at the sun. It was thrilling to discover even such minor advantages, and I was sure there would be more to come.
However, it wasn’t the elements that had proven to be my favourite form of magic. It was what I thought of as ‘colourless’ magic, power without any elemental affinity at all.
According to Joan this form of magic was one of the most common in the world and was known by many names. Basically it was highly processed mana that had been infused with just my willpower. As a result, it was arguably the ‘purest’ form of magic, raw mana directed by the mind and as a result was highly flexible.
This form of magic manifested in many different ways, such as mind reading, mind over matter, protective auras, clairvoyance, stuff normally associated with psychic powers. There was a lot of crossover, with the use elemental magic. But arcana, which was one of the names for it and the one I liked the most as it was shorthand for ‘arcane mana’, was generally far broader in its utility.
Case in point, I was using it to levitate a tree that I’d just ripped out of the earth, and it was awesome!
Telekinesis, or TK as I thought of it for short, was fun to use! So far it was my best power, responsive, controlled, and pretty strong. It had quickly become my go-to magic, being both useful and powerful.
I’d started using arcana after I finished getting a basic handle on my elemental powers, and at first, I’d thought it to be kind of a needless extra. I mean, why would I want to use telekinesis to move around stones or liquid when I could do the job with earth or water magic? When I moved around stones, pebbles, or even sand, with earth magic I was in control of every single piece, my magic somehow letting me make a whole of the pieces even as I was able to control those pieces. Water magic let me not only move the water under my control, but also shape it, divide it, or remerge it as I saw fit with absurd ease.
By contrast, arcana telekinesis was all external manipulation, colder, almost machine-like, and not as potent or precise as a direct elemental connection. If I had to describe it then I’d have said that arcana was more akin to being able to reach out and pick something up with phantom limbs, while elemental control was turning the thing I wished to manipulate into a new limb.
So, at first, I thought arcana was nothing but a poor substitute, but I soon found a difference, arcana telekinesis possessed much greater reach and could lift more weight and volume. Fine control was possible, but it was when it came to exerting force and moving the big stuff about that it really shone! Well, that and personal defences.
I’d learnt that mainly by accident, but it was a pleasant surprise. By focusing my arcana in front of me I could use the same force that let me move things about to make a repelling force against attacks. These shields were pretty tough, enough that it took a near to full-force blow from Hadriel to break them. And I’d seen a similar blow turn a tree trunk more than a foot thick into sawdust in an instant.
Offensively arcana-based telekinesis had a considerable number of options to choose from.
For starters, there was telekinetically throwing stuff at an enemy. Given that I was pretty sure I could throw something like a car with a similar ease to throwing a tennis ball that translated to me being able to put a lot of ‘oomph’ behind the things I used. I’d experimented with the various stuff around the farmstead, such as rocks, logs, and even a few leftover bits of equipment. I might not be able to match the accuracy and force of earth magic when using stones, but when it came to a broken fridge or a rusting tractor the results were satisfying.
I could also attack was with blasts of pure force. Those were a bit tricky to control since the force of the attack spread out as soon as I launched it, dissipating quickly. That was only iuseful at short-range, so I’d worked trying to see if I could fix it. In the end, I managed to contain the energy attack within a thin shell about the size of a football that I could then launch once ready. There were still kinks, since it took me a few seconds to construct it and charge it up, and it was a bit slow when compared to the energy attacks that I’d seen Hadriel and Joan use.
Theirs were almost literally lightning quick, while my TK ball was only about as swift as an arrow. Still, it did have a couple of advantages. I could control its path even after I launched it, so I could make it home in on targets that had dodged it, or even avoid attacks that tried to intercept it. Another plus was that, at least according to Hadriel, when it did hit it hit like a demon berserker.
The fact that when I charged and launched it the most comfortable pose bore a strong resemblance to certain iconic Japanese streetfighter was pure coincidence.
I swear!
Though if I were to, by complete chance of course, shout ‘Hadouken’ when I launched it . . . well, I’m sure nobody could really blame me.
Another option was using telekinesis directly on a living target, and this turned out to be the most unreliable method. When it came to hitting an enemy with something I’d lifted or just raw force then it was a match between whatever power I was using and their defences, nice and straightforward. But trying to use arcana directly upon a living being was when things got a bit more complicated. Living things, things with their own ‘power’, resisted it, instinctively repelled it with the aura of their own life force. This made it harder to get a grip on them, and the stronger the lifeform I was trying it on the harder it became.
Using it on plants was pretty easy, though they had life in them it wasn’t empowered by any sort of will, so there wasn’t too much resistance. If picking up a normal rock was as easy as picking up a spoon then picking up a plant of the same weight was like picking up a slightly greasy spoon. It wasn’t heavier, but it was just a little bit more difficult, my ‘grip’ having just a bit less traction to it. I’d also tried it on a few animals, just birds and squirrels that I’d spotted at a distance, the results with them were pretty much the same, though the ‘greasiness’ of their auras was more pronounced.
Trying to get a grip on either Joan or Hadriel had been an . . . experience. Rather than just being hard to get a grip on, their auras had been actively fighting against me, and that was when they were just passively standing there. As soon as they used their powers, or moved to actively resist, then it was as though their auras began to tear into my energies, shredding them to pieces. I could make it more difficult for them if I concentrated and used more power to bolster my telekinesis, but that only meant it took them a full second to shred it as opposed to half of one. According to Hadriel it was a simple result of having power and was a property that all immortals and beings of power possessed.
Ultimately, it meant that there was a good chance I could do a decent Darth Vader Force Choke against any regular people and even some magic users, not that I would, it was just an option.. But against anyone with any real power, I was better off trying to beat them through the more traditional methods, such a bludgeoning them with large objects until they stopped moving.
In all truth, I hadn’t expected the last few days to have been as exhilarating as they had turned out to be. When I’d agreed to come here with Joan it had been a decision mainly motivated by fear. She’d told me I was going to get power, and I’d been swamped by thoughts of what the worst that could happen could be. Then there’d been the whole thing about this being a mission from God, as in the capital ‘G’! Joan had managed to keep me from imploding while I got a handle on things, but I’d still been feeling more than a bit frayed around the edges.
That was why finally getting some power, real power, felt so good. It let me feel as though I wasn’t helpless, as though I could build myself up into someone who could survive and maybe even thrive. So it was hardly a surprise I’d thrown myself into practising as hard as I could with my new magic.
All of that led to my current exciting experiment.
The flames around my left hand grew, lengthening until they formed a cylinder around my arm, reaching from the back of my wrist down to just above my elbow. I could feel the heat on my bare skin since I was shirtless again, but it didn’t burn me. I’d learnt to take care though, as long as I didn’t push it too hard while it was too close then I could handle it. Small flames were constantly emerging from my fingertips, feeding the cylinder and letting it slowly grow, all the while keeping it spinning. My goal was to increase both the spin and the size until I had a large hoop of flames rotating around my hand.
And as I was doing this I kept up my use of arcana telekinesis on the tree, levitating the trunk several feet off the ground while stripping the branches off one by one until only the trunk was left. It wasn’t easy, using two different types of magic at once, but it was something that I was determined to crack.
One thing that I’d learnt was that using multiple types of magic at the same time was hard! Arcana was my best option so far, given how potent and responsive it was, but the versatility of the sheer number of elements I could work with was too great to ignore. At first, I’d simply used one at a time as I tried to get a better grip on just what I could do with them But after a bit, I began to wonder about what combining them could do to overcome their limitations.
It wasn’t so easy though. My first attempt was to try to combine wind with ice. I could only generate cold around my hands, but I could also create gusts of wind from them. It made sense that combining the two would overcome the weaknesses of each. Ice was strong but limited in reach, while the wind had reach but was lacking in power. But if you could put them together . . . well, I was having visions of arctic winds that froze my foes in place from a distance.
I had other ideas too, earth and fire to make lava, weather and lightning to make cataclysmic thunderstorms. Maybe even earth and wind to make the sort of sandstorms that were the stuff of nightmares. So many ideas.
I ended up being too ambitious.
I learnt that the hard way when the mixture of air and ice mana I’d been holding exploded and more or less flash-froze the top layer of my skin over both my hands and forearms. As Joan explained it to me later, when she was helping me regrow the ruined skin, merging elements was possible. However, for someone like me, who had only just started to manipulate them, it was like trying to play a piano concerto after having just learnt to play ‘Three Blind Mice’. It was just too much.
So, elemental combination wasn’t really an option any time soon, and the majority of my elemental powers were of limited use on their own until they grew stronger. At that point it seemed that arcana was the best path I could follow, so I started honing my telekinesis as much as I could, and using the elements to supplement it. But that had its own problems.
You see, arcana and elemental magic didn’t get on so well. Fortunately, I had a little helper floating over my head, one that made balancing the conflicting magics a whole lot easier. When I’d asked Hadriel about it she’d told me that while using two different elements at the same time was like wielding two similar weapons at once, using elemental magic and arcana simultaneously was more akin to drawing a picture with each hand at the same time, and they were pretty different pictures too. My halo let me cheat some, but even so, it was not easy, hence my current efforts.
Fire was one of the elements I found easier to control while using arcana, possibly due to them both being more or less pure energy manipulation. What I was doing, trying to form a ring of fire, was normally easy enough to do. I just fed fire into the cylinder and then pushed and condensed it until it formed the ring. From there I could just keep it spinning around my wrist until I was ready to release the stored flames in a single attack. Granted, it wasn’t the powerful long-range fireball I would have preferred, but even as limited to short-range as it was it was still fairly effective.
While using arcana though, it wasn’t so easy to handle, and that was what I was working on.
Bit by bit I continued to feed the fire, keeping up the condensation and the rotation as I used my TK to continue to strip off the branches from the tree trunk. There were only a few more left, all I had to do was clean off the last ones at the top and then-
FFFSSSSHHHH!
With a sound not unlike pressurized gas escaping an air tank a long gout of fire shot out of the side of the cylinder as a jet of fire shot out of the side as my concentration slipped. It was a small thing, just my focusing on one particularly stubborn branch that didn’t want to come off cleanly, but it was enough. The jet of released fire was directed away from me, but that was small comfort as I watched my efforts collapse. Like a balloon that had sprung a leak, the cylinder of flames seemed to almost deflate, dissolving into wildly flickering flames dancing about my arm.
Damn it!
In frustration, I reached out with my arcana and snapped the trunk in two as though it were a twig. That wasn’t too hard, I just had to apply force at two points in the right direction and keep it up until the wood couldn’t resist any more. The explosive crack, as the trunk broke in a spray of splinters, was actually kind of satisfying. Splitting my focus, I repeated the process upon the two halves of the trunk, breaking it into four, then again on the quarters remaining, breaking it into eight sections.
This . . . this wasn’t a problem, I could easily divide my attention between the parts being manipulated by my magic as easily as I could ride a bike! Letting out a hiss of frustration I lowered myself to the ground, the broken remains of the tree piling themselves up into a neat little pile, the broken-off branches and foliage moving themselves into a second heap nearby. Maybe later I could use them for a bonfire. And I think I’d seen a packet of marshmallows in one of the cupboards in the kitchen . . .
Then I remembered that I couldn’t taste anything anymore.
Damn it!
“Come now, Adam, surely it cannot be so bad!”
Joan’s voice sounded from behind me, and I felt a wry smile touch my lips as I turned to face her. Her presence might not be able to completely dispel the dark mood I felt trying to settle on me, but it did manage to lighten it some.
“Maybe not,” I replied. “But it’s . . . frustrating, you know? I’m trying to get this down and I can’t seem to get it to work!”
She stepped forward, her armour-clad hand resting on my shoulder. She went about in her armour more often than not, and it was no longer as intimidating as it had been when we first met.
“Adam, you have already achieved in days what even gifted mortals would struggle for years to learn. It is good that you are not merely content with the power that you have. It is good that you are willing to push your limits and strive for more. But at the same time, you should not be unrealistic with yourself. Your halo is a great aid, but what you seek is one of the highest skills to achieve. Mastery of both elemental and arcane magic will not come easily to you, but do not doubt that it will come in time!”
She paused, stepping back and letting a smile spread across her face.
“Now, I know that your mastery of your arcane magic has been progressing well. What say you to a sparring match? There shall be no restriction upon our use of magic, nor shall there be a restraint upon our movements or weapons. Let us see how far you have come, shall we?”
That took me by surprise. There hadn’t been any sparring over the last week, not since I’d managed to finally get a grip on my magic. The closest we’d come had been my aerial games of tag with Hadriel, and that had only been because she’d wanted me to try to use my TK while in full flight. It had been a good practice opportunity, but all she’d been doing was trying to evade me, there’d been no attempt on her part to fight back.
“Are you sure that’s okay?” I asked. “I haven’t tried to use this in a fight yet, you could get hurt.”
But, it seemed that Joan wasn’t quite as concerned as I was, because she let out a small chuckle as she drew one of the wooden swords that I’d come to know and loath over the last few weeks.
“Your concern is appreciated, Adam, but do not forget to whom you speak. I have been training with battle-hardened angels for centuries, you shall not find me to be easy prey. And even if you were to succeed in striking me, do not think I shall be fragile. One forged in the warrior schools of the High Heavens does not emerge from them intact unless they are . . . durable.”
It could have sounded arrogant, but coming from Joan it was just earnest. She was stating the facts so that I had nothing to worry about. What could I do in the face of that other than agree?
“Excellent!” Joan beamed as she settled into a loose combat stance. “I shall attack you with moderate force so that you can take some time to adjust, then I shall increase the amount of force and skill I shall bring to bear until we have a better idea of where your limitations and strengths are.”
I nodded in agreement, then frowned as a thought occurred to me.
“Hey, Joan, you’re going to be using that sword, right?” I gestured to the wooden weapon she held, then continued when she nodded. “So . . . don’t I get one?”
The smile that touched her lips then was not the friendly one that I’d seen before, rather it was something with considerably more edge to it, a predatory smile.
“Oh, most certainly.”
I paused for a moment, then looked around.
“So . . . where is it?”
“Just over there.”
Her head tilted indicating one of the large boulders that dotted the field between the house and the woods in the near distance. There it was, the wooden sword I was now familiar with, leaning against the large rock, quite a distance away.
“Errr . . . can I go get it?”
Her smile grew, just a touch.
“No.”
Ah, I was starting to see where this was going, and I can’t say I was too happy about it.
“Okay . . . so just how are we going to- Ohboytooclose!”
My query was cut off, almost literally, as Joan suddenly charged forward, her wooden blade sweeping in to hit my side. She wasn’t moving as fast as I knew she could, but it was still all I could do to push myself backwards with flight to dodge the swing. She could have kept coming, closing the distance between us, but instead, she deliberately paused, her head tilting and her eyebrows raising slightly.
“Does that answer your question?”
That was all the reprieve I got as she came at me again, but this time I was a bit more prepared. My left arm came up as though bracing an invisible shield between us, my arcana condensing and flattening out. Colourless energy formed a blurred outline of a rounded shield, and for a moment I did a passable impression of Captain America as my defence intercepted Joan’s weapon and bounced it off. I knew she could have recovered if she’d wanted to, but she stumbled back slightly, the rebounding force of her blow being stopped so suddenly.
That was all I needed. My right hand reached out, and the wooden sword leaning far away against the boulder was suddenly outlined in a thin aura of the same colourless energy as my shield. The next moment it was moving, shooting towards me as though it had been fired by some enormous bow. Her eyes flicked over to it, then back to me, her smile growing softer, almost approving, as she gave a single small nod, then she drew back her sword to swing again.
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Then her eyes suddenly widened as she spun in place. The blow that was meant to come at me instead swinging around to block the sword hurtling at her!
She’d thought I was summoning the wooden weapon to my hand, but I knew that was a futile move, so I’d aimed it at her head instead. Even if she was holding back Joan outclassed me by such a wide margin when it came to arms fighting that it wasn’t even funny. There was no point in trying to go head-to-head with her. Which film was it where the hero said something like ‘If you can’t win the game then change the rules’?
The second she turned I lashed out with my wings, the cutting feathers tucked in, so the edges were ‘sheathed’, but the blunted sides still hitting with the sort of force normally reserved for things like sledgehammers. My wings were quick, the muscles in them coiling and releasing like steel springs, but even so, it wasn’t enough. Joan was already moving, even before her sword had finished slapping my weapon out of the air she was already twisting in a way that should have been impossible while wearing armour like that. Even as my wings tried to hit her she slipped between them, turning her dodge into a spin as she lashed out at me again, a blow that I couldn’t avoid this time.
My shield defended me, but given that this time it was me that got sent flying back, I knew that Joan was no longer holding back quite as much as she had been. Part of me felt a little pride at that, knowing she felt she needed to escalate to keep things even. But she was closing in on me, even as I tried to open a bit more room between us. The next swing came in, and my shield finally shattered!
Two thoughts managed to occupy my mind at more or less at once in the split second it took for her to pull back her arm. The first was how unfair it was that she could use her magic to reinforce the wooden sword to the point it could stand up against my defences.
My second thought was something along the lines of ‘ohmygodsword!’ as she recovered and came at me again.
White covered my vision as instincts that were still new to me took over and my wings folded in to shield me. I felt the impact of the wooden sword on the other feathers and felt at least one of them crack slightly under the force, not break, but definitely crack. I wasn’t too worried about that, I knew that the feathers healed quickly, even regrew if they were plucked. No, what was of greater concern was that I’d lost sight of my enemy, and that was never a good thing.
The French saint came in low, almost as though she intended to sweep my legs out from under me, but made no such attempt since it would have been pointless due to my flight. Instead, her sword came up in a thrust, the tip catching me under my left armpit and digging in painfully as it knocked me to the side! My flight once again proved its worth, but it wasn’t fast enough as I was only just able to bring my arms up to block a swing aimed at my face.
That one stung like crazy! I was tougher, but even so, I was pretty sure that even my bones were going to get bruised from that hit. In retaliation, I released a burst of telekinetic arcana, no focus, just pure force, but all it did was send her stumbling back a few steps. She quickly regained her footing and raised her sword into a ready stance, then paused.
“Come on Adam, you know you cannot defeat me in a battle at close quarters, this is something you know! So, what are your options?”
Always taking the chance to be the teacher was one of her more endearing qualities. So, what might her lesson be this time? She was right that I couldn’t beat her in a close fight while she had the sword, so what could I . . .
I restrained the impulse to smack myself over the head as the dots finally connected and I was left feeling like an idiot! This was what I’d been training at for days before I learned how to use my halo, and as soon as something new and shiny came along I completely forgot about it? Idiot! Flight! Flight was my advantage on her, at least as long as she didn’t transform into her angel state. If she was sticking to her base form then I just needed to get high enough to get out of reach!
I felt the magic inside me respond to my will and I was once again pushing backwards, opening space, but this time I wasn’t just going along the ground, I was also gaining height. I supposed this was meant to be a lesson, not a real fight, just something to show me that I had to spend some time putting everything I had together into a working whole, not get lost and focus on just one aspect.
“Good, as you are I cannot reach you by conventional means. But do not make the mistake of thinking yourself untouchable, the foes you may face will certainly have some unconventional options at their disposal.”
That wasn’t good. Cupping my hands as though holding an invisible ball over my stomach I started to charge up a TK blast while moving around the resurrected soul as fast as I could. It wasn’t a proper evasion, Hadriel had taught me those, and this was too straightforward, too predictable. However, busy as I was with building up my attack, I didn’t have the attention to spare to do anything more complicated. So, I was trusting speed rather than unpredictability, if only for a few seconds.
Joan must still have been holding back, because the blast of light that she released didn’t hit me, though it was close. Any faster and it would have swatted me out of the air like a sparrow struck by a ball.
I’d seen her mastery over light before. Shortly after I’d managed to get a better handle on my magic I’d become curious about what Hadriel and Joan could do. So I’d asked them for a proper demonstration, a full-out match rather than the sparring that they’d shown me.
And I got my demonstration. Oh boy did I get it!
There was now a large chunk of the open plain between the farmhouse and the woods that looked as though a giant burning blender had descended upon it as a result of my request for a demonstration.
Joan possessed an elemental affinity for light, and I supposed it was to be expected, given her mortal life. Back then she’d shone so brightly, brightly enough to inspire a defeated nation to rise up and drive out their invaders. Brightly enough to succeed through sheer determination and charisma in a task that should have been nigh impossible. Bright enough to be remembered through history as one of the strongest female leaders ever. Now, that brightness wasn’t metaphorical!
Joan could do many things with her light, such as sudden bursts of brilliance that could dazzle, or create hologram-like illusions. But it was when she used her light as either a weapon or construct that she really showed her strength. That was something that I was being reminded of as a series of glowing spheres the size of beachballs flew through the space I had just occupied. They were fast, easily strong enough to really hurt me if I let my guard down. I knew this wasn’t a real fight, but in the moment it felt horribly real. The fact that it was more blunt attacks being used against me was a serious relief, but one that only went so far.
I had to break some of my concentration to put on a burst of speed as one of the spheres came right at me, struggling to keep focus as I did so. I almost lost the attack I was building, but I was able to keep it stable rather than letting it dissipate into the air. Seeing another sphere coming at me I had no choice. A loud ‘Kyah’ escaped my lips as I launched the charged orb of arcana energy straight at the oncoming globe of golden light. There was an impact, and then I felt my blast punch through the sphere, the light construct bursting apart like a pricked balloon, before shooting towards the French saint. She made no effort to dodge though, instead, she raised her free arm and manifested a large kite shield made of light.
This construct was unquestionably stronger than the globes she’d been firing at me, the edges more defined, small details clearer than I would have expected. Everything about it suggested that it was something she was familiar with, something she had taken time to strengthen and grow accustomed to. The TK blast hit it full on, then splashed upon it as though it had been nothing more than a water bomb. Her arm did tremble slightly under the pressure of the impact, but that was all.
That was . . . discouraging, to say the least. Sure, that hadn’t been a fully charged attack, so it wasn’t the strongest I could manage. It had been further weakened by having to punch through the sphere of light, but even so, it had still been strong enough to smash rock. I’d known that she was strong, but seeing it like this, that was giving it a whole other dimension of clarity.
“Come now, Adam, I know you can do better than that.”
Joan’s comment came only a split second before I felt something wrap around my right wing, then tighten as it dragged me down. I only had time for a single startled yelp before I hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of me. Still, I didn’t let it paralyse me, instead, I forced myself to move, my flight magic pushing me away, along the ground forcefully enough that my feathers dug grooves into the soil as they were pulled along, resisting the grip that coiled about my caught wing.
“Good! You have learnt that lesson well!”
Her words were accompanied by the sound of some great weight hitting the earth, and I looked over to see that an enormous hammerhead of light had smashed down on the spot where I’d just been lying! That . . . would have hurt. I found myself wondering if she had forgotten that this was just meant to be a sparring match.
“Maintain your focus!”
I listened to her, my captured wing snapping out, its strength greater than the tendril of light, and severed the construct that wrapped about it. The construct was strong, but it seemed to have sacrificed durability for speed and flexibility since the sharpened feathers tore through it as though it was made of wood. Freed of its grip I immediately changed my trajectory, angling upwards and to the side once more.
More spheres of light came at me, but this time I had an easier time dodging them since I wasn’t trying to charge up an attack. For the moment things were a stalemate, I couldn’t come at her, but I could dodge all of Joan’s attacks as long as I remained airborne. Of course, this only held for as long as Joan kept to this level of power. I knew she was capable of more, both in terms of the strength and size of her constructs, and the rate of fire at which she was shooting them at me. If I let things drag on then she was most likely going to start ‘upping the difficulty’ to keep things interesting.
What I needed was a way to break her momentum, her attack rhythm. All I needed was an opening, a moment when I didn’t have to devote most of my concentration to evasion. And as soon as the problem presented itself a thought rose up in my mind that could well be a solution! It might not work, but it was an option at least, and right now that was all I wanted.
My halo was already out, though I hadn’t really noticed when I’d manifested it. Reaching through it I kept dodging as I tried to bring my magic into focus. Splitting my attention was hard, but this didn’t need the same concentration that charging the TK bolt did. I think that was because while the arcana is directed solely by my mind and will, the elements already had energy of their own, energy I was simply directing and empowering.
“A better effort, but you shall need to do more than simply do-”
Joan’s words were cut off as the soil beneath her right foot suddenly shifted from firm to loose, shifting about to leave her standing on empty air as a foot-deep hole abruptly formed beneath her. She let out a yelp as she tipped sideways, but almost immediately bent her left leg to compensate and regain her balance. That was fine, though I would have liked to have made her fall over completely, her sudden adjustment had forced Joan to break off her stream of attacks.
I focused again, and earth flowed back into the hole that had opened up, sand and soil filling it, then fusing and hardening into something like stone. I knew that it wouldn’t hold her for long, not given her strength and her light constructs, but it would buy me some time to work with.
“Good, now you are starting to grasp it!”
Despite her position, Joan honestly sounded pleased with my actions, but I wasn’t going to let that distract me!
Trapping her like that had bought some small amount of time, and I was going to have to do the best I could with it. I briefly considered trying to charge up another TK bolt, but I didn’t have the time for that, and the resurrected saint was sure to notice what I was up to. Instead, I went with my second impulse, to telekinetically grab everything that I could and start using it as a weapon.
All around the field stones and rocks began to lift themselves up into the air. They were quickly joined by leftover wood such as the broken remains of the tree trunk I’d been using before. Even some of the rusted and broken remnants of the farming equipment that had littered the field rose up at my command. They all hung there hovering about us, each of them outlined in the colourless energy of arcana. I made a pushing gesture, and the entire mass converged upon Joan, just as she managed to pull her leg free.
Had it been any normal human that had found themselves facing such an attack, then there would have been no doubt as to what their fate would have been. Some of the things being thrown around weighed as much as small cars. All of them were travelling as fast as if they’d been launched from a well-made catapult. If even one of them had hit a normal person then the best they could have hoped for would have been some broken bones.
Joan was unfazed though, the wooden sword she had been holding was cast aside in an instant, replaced with a new blade forged of solidified light. Her glowing shield returned, and in that moment she looked like nothing so much as a mighty paladin right out of some fantasy novel. She didn’t move from where she was caught, instead, she went down on her left knee to regain her balance with her trapped leg, and then began to defend against everything I could throw at her!
It should have been impossible, immobile as she was, she shouldn’t have been able to defend herself against such an onslaught! But somehow, she was doing it anyway!
Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite so inconceivable, given the nature of the attack she was facing. I might have been telekinetically moving dozens of objects, but it wasn’t as though I was controlling each of them individually. My telekinesis treated them all as a sort of single object that was spread out, meaning that I couldn’t just move each part of it as I wanted. Instead, I had to think of it all as one thing, something I could change the shape of, or expand or contract. I’d found I could split my attention enough to take one or two items out of the mass and control them individually, but that was my limit for the time being.
What I was doing was essentially choosing a single point, then throwing the whole mass of objects I was manipulating at it. It wasn’t the most sophisticated use of my power, but against a lesser foe that wouldn’t have been an issue.
Joan though . . . I honestly wasn’t sure just how much she was holding back, but by the looks of things it either wasn’t all that much or I was just more predictable than I thought. I had to change my approach, otherwise, she was going to be on me in a matter of moments!
The last of my missiles were deflected by the glowing shield, but even as Joan jammed her sword into the ground to free herself I was making my next move. The earth around her turned into sand once more, but this time the sand wasn’t a small patch under her foot, rather it was the entire area around her. It wasn’t easy to pull off, not from this distance away, and not for such a large area. I could feel my internal magic weakening as I poured it into my effort. That was fine though, I still had plenty, and I knew that I’d recover. Right at that moment my chief concern was not giving the resurrected soul the chance to retake the offensive.
This time I didn’t simply make the sand appear, instead I deliberately made it loose, my power letting the grains slide against each other with almost no resistance. It was a trick I’d stumbled across early in my practice. It didn’t need much in the way of focus or concentration, all it took was saturating the sand with ‘active’ mana and then just holding it there so that the sand could use it.
Sand that had been solid suddenly became fluid as water, and with a surprised exclamation, Joan slipped into it. My sand trap was just deep enough to leave her more than a foot under the surface of the shifting sands, though I could still see her hands reaching out of it. If she were someone normal then I might have been a bit more hesitant to use such a tactic. With the sand flowing as it was, it would be all too easy for the victim to accidentally take a breath of it, filling their lungs as though it were water. However, when they did so their own mana would cut off the sand inside them from the very magic that was making it flow so smoothly, meaning that the sand in their lungs would suddenly become heavy, course, and thick, in a word; deadly. Joan though . . . I had total faith that it would take far more than just this to kill her.
And that faith was rewarded as a column of light suddenly burst up from the sand trap, its edges driving back the tiny granules to reveal the French saint at the bottom of the hole that had been formed. In the next instant she was bounding out of the depression, her strength carrying her in a leap that would have made the most gifted athlete green with envy. Still, that was fine, I hadn’t been expecting the sand trap to do much to stop her, it was just the setup for the next step of my, admittedly desperate, plan.
“A good attempt, but still not enough! Tell me, what do you pla-”
She might have been about to say more, but I wasn’t going to wait to hear what it was. Instead, I concentrated on the sand that had been scattered, drawing it back to a single point, exactly where Joan was standing now.
Again, it wasn’t so much difficult as it was costly. The sand that had been scattered was soaked in my magic, and it remained so stained even when my teacher’s escape had sent it flying, so sensing it and reaching out to it wasn’t the hard part. Rather it was the act of pulling it in that was the problem. My power over the earth was best when I limited it to a relatively small area. The cost in magic for spreading that area grew at an almost exponential level as the size increased. Doing this was a calculated move, sacrificing efficiency for pure speed since I couldn’t use arcana telekinesis to replicate it fast enough to be of any good.
Joan was again caught by surprise as the sand flew back at her, and instinctively raised her arm and forged a shield construct upon it to block the incoming granules. But this time she wasn’t being attacked by large solid objects, rather it was by sand that was slipping around her defences like water. The grains clung to her, then clumped together with other grains, swelling and hardening as more and more sand joined them, slipping past her attempts to hold it back and solidifying into sandstone that grasped at her. Already her left arm was covered in the stuff, the sand forming a sort of cast of stone reaching from her wrist to just below her shoulder, and it was growing. More was forming around her legs, trying to catch them too. It wasn’t the strongest stone, but it was heavy, and if she wasn’t careful then it would rob her of the sort of leverage she needed to break it as easily as she could normally manage.
“Splendid! An excellent attempt, but still not enough!”
At the saint’s declaration, her light once again burst forth from her body, expanding outwards and shattering the stone that had been clinging to her. But I didn’t let the stone just fall away, instead, I forced it to press against her shield, trying to break through. It couldn’t, of course, Joan’s light magic was stronger than my power over earth, so there was no way I could muster up the raw force needed to break through, but that wasn’t what I wanted, so it was fine.
More sand crawled in along the ground and whisped through the air, reaching up to try to get at the agent of the High Heavens, but was unable to penetrate through her shield. Joan had pulled it in close now, surrounding herself in a simple bubble of force that kept my sand away. From past experience, I knew that despite the simple form of the defence it was a sturdy one that she could maintain for ages if she chose to. My attempts to break through were only a minor drain on her reserves, but they were a constant one. By reducing the size of the field until it only just covered her, she also reduced how much it taxed her.
Sand was crawling across the bubble shield now, trying to find a way in but being held back. Inside Joan looked more irritated than concerned, but her concentration was clear on her face. This was what I’d been betting on, a theory I’d come up with during our initial training and the first demonstration of her magic. The resurrected soul had trained in the use of her magic extensively, but mostly in the ways that would support her role as a fighter. She was adept at using the light she controlled as a weapon and as a shield, but I was gambling that she hadn’t spent as much time on the more indirect uses of it. The bubble that she was using wasn’t something she used often, in the past when she wanted to defend she always used flat or slightly curved shields, though the size did vary. More than that, I’d never seen her use more than two at a time, that was what had led me to my idea.
Joan was great at fighting, but what she wasn’t so great at was dividing her attention. For all her training in magic and combat, she didn’t seem to be that inclined to . . . spread out her influence. I knew that it wasn’t as though she suffered from tunnel vision. During the attack on my Awakening ceremony, she’d been fighting dozens of foes at a time without being overwhelmed. The only reason that the golem had been able to blindside her was that it had used its entry through a portal to catch her by surprise. But when it came to attacking or defending she seemed to become focused on her hands as aids to her magic, using them to wield or direct it.
What I was doing, forcing her to defend from more than a dozen directions at once. I was forcing her to turtle up and devote her focus to maintaining her defences. Sure, she could redo her earlier move, flaring it out to swat my sand away like she had when she burst out of the sand trap, but this time it wasn’t so easy. Instead of just loose sand pressing in on her this time I was using my power to make and press her with sandstone, something much tougher to deal with. It probably was within her capacity, but it would cost her in terms of magical energy, enough to make her hesitate.
And that was what I was counting on!
Don’t lose track of your enemy, that was a lesson that she and Hadriel had made sure I learnt, and it was the one I was going to try to exploit. Up until this point I’d been doing my best to keep as much distance between me and Joan as I reasonably could since I knew damned well that if she got in close then I might as well hand her the win. The problem was that if I kept on playing Keep-away then she’d just up the ante and I’d end up getting swatted from the sky in the end regardless. If I wanted to even get a chance at winning then I had to do something to change the odds, hence my crazy plan.
The sand covered the top half of the bubble now, with tendrils reaching down to the earth to anchor it in place. From where I was hovering it looked somewhat odd, like some strange, tan, goo-like monster was trying to swallow the spherical shield whole. A thought occurred, and I concentrated, pushing the sandstone to change form, extending short spikes out towards the bubble in an attempt to break through. It was another distraction of course, and I didn’t doubt that the shield would hold, but as long as it made Joan’s task a bit more focus-intensive then that was fine.
I rose, gaining height until I could feel the edges of my vertigo starting to pull at me, and then I dove, propelling myself downwards as fast as my magic could manage!
My plan was simple, mainly because I really hadn’t had the time to cook up anything more complex. The sand was meant to hold Joan in place and cut off her view of me, hopefully enough to let me catch her by surprise.
I crashed into her as hard as I could, the blades on my wings tearing into her shield with a sound like breaking glass mixed with the spark of arcing electricity. I felt a tight smile cross my lips as I felt the barrier collapse. I knew that it couldn’t have been at full strength, not if it went down this easily. My earlier efforts must have weakened it somewhat, and putting all my weight behind my wings was enough to bring it down.
I confess, the sight of Joan’s surprised face, as I crashed through her defences, gave me a nice warm feeling in the pit of my stomach, and for a brief instant, I wondered if that made me a bad person. Then all such thoughts left my head as the whole world suddenly seemed to spin madly around me, the earth and sky exchanging places half a dozen times before my back crashed into the dirt hard enough to drive me several inches into it, not to mention driving the breath out of my body and the senses from my head. For a few moments, all I could see was a swimming mess of colours as the world drifted in and out of focus, then I felt a twinge, and things snapped back into clarity.
That was when I became aware of the edge of a wooden sword pressing against my throat, and the situation became clear to me.
I’d lost. It had been a decent attempt, but somehow Joan had taken control of my charge, redirected my momentum, and left me flat on my back, half buried, and wide open for her to slit my throat, had this been a real fight. That I understood. What was baffling me more was just how I’d gone from ‘about to hit’ her to ‘doing a bad impression of a tent peg’. There’d been that spinning, but I had no idea of just what had happened, and it was annoying me.
“It was a good effort, Adam, and you should not feel discouraged that it failed.”
She helped me up, her voice was warm as ever, and that soothed the my bruised ego.
“I’d take that a bit more to heart if I hadn’t had your sword pressed against my throat”
As I replied I brushed off the dirt clinging to my skin, absently noting that despite having hit the ground as hard as if I’d come out of a speeding car I still didn’t hurt at all. Behind me my wings fluffed out for a moment, their muscles causing the feathers to stretch apart and then shiver sharply as they shook off the dirt that had clung to them.
“Adam, you cannot expect to defeat me after only a few days of becoming used to your new power. You have not yet begun to reach the full heights of that power, nor are you yet as skilled as you will become in time. This will come to you with experience, but until then you must tailor your methods of fighting to suit the resources that you have. This match between us has given me a better idea of what you can do, and what direction we should focus your future training.”
I nodded, having expected something of this nature.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense! What do you think?”
“It is clear that for the time being your greatest advantages are your versatility and your abilities to not only attack but also to affect the battlefield itself.”
She gestured to where the sand I’d been controlling had fallen to the ground, then pointed towards the debris and other materials that I’d been throwing around with my Arcana.
“It is unusual for a demigod to possess an aptitude in more than one or two elements, and it is unheard of for one to possess as many as you seem to have. Thus far I have yet to see any that do not fall under your influence, so you have a vast array of options available to you that are denied to most others, even gods and angels.”
“For the time being I believe we should focus upon that, your ability to not only select from a multitude of different attack options, but also your ability to warp and alter the battlefield to your advantage. As things stand you do not possess the raw power in any one area that would normally be attributed to a demigod, even one as newly Awakened as you. But I believe it is within your capability to overcome this by taking advantage of weaknesses in your foes and altering the field to provide you with aid.”
“So . . . you think I should go with being a wizard type fighter?”
Honestly, I wasn’t too sure how I felt about that. I could see the logic in it, as she said, I had the options, not using them wouldn’t just be wasteful, it would be foolish. However, I didn’t like the idea of just hanging back and attacking from a distance. I could see the logic, but I still preferred things a bit closer in. When Joan had been teaching me to use a sword, I’d liked that! This whole thing of hanging back and laying down the firepower . . . well, it wasn’t like I wouldn’t use it if I had to, but it wasn’t how I wanted to do all my fighting!
“No, you may have advantages in the use of magic due to your halo, but it is not your only option. Your body has been blessed in virtually all ways by your divinity, so your strength, speed, and endurance are all at levels beyond normal mortals. In time these advantages will also grow as your divine power does, but until they do it is best that we focus on building upon the advantages you already possess.”
I nodded, liking the sound of that a bit more. Maybe if I got tougher in the future I’d be able to afford more close-range fighting.
“Does that mean we’ll be starting up the sword practice again?”
If we were, then I’d be curious to see what I could do. I knew that I was stronger now, as well as faster and tougher. Joan still outclassed me, but maybe I’d be able to do a bit better now.
“I am uncertain if such lessons would serve you well in the future.” She paused, then continued as she must have seen something of my disappointment on my face. “Adam, I do not mean that you are in any way deficient, merely that I no longer feel a sword is the best weapon for you."
She gestured to my wings, more specifically, at the sword-like feathers on them.
“A sword is too close range a weapon for you to comfortably use,” She explained. “Any foe that draws close enough for it to be effective will already be within the reach of your wings, making a normal sword largely superfluous. There are types of swords that are abnormally long and would grant you sufficient reach to make it a practical weapon, but even then the presence of your wings would make wielding it difficult at best.”
I might not like it, but I could understand. I wasn’t living in a comic book, where I could have massive wings that would be conveniently out of the way whenever I wanted to do something they might interfere with. Nor was this a film, where special effects would take care of such an issue. This was my reality now, and the large pinions attached to my back weren’t just going to go away when inconvenient.
“So . . . what do you think would be a better option?”
She looked at me for a moment, her expression considering.
“Are you so set upon wielding a weapon? Might not some sort of armoured gauntlets be a better means to take advantage of your growing strength?”
I paused to consider that for a moment, then shook my head.
“No, I get where you’re coming from, but I think bare hands should be a last resort, you know? I’d rather have a weapon I can use to back up my wings, one I can just drop if things get in too close.”
Honestly, I wasn’t too sure why I felt so strongly on this subject, but I did.
“Very well, if you so wish.” Joan paused, then gestured to my wings while stepping back to give me room. “Swing your swings as you would if you were attacked. Do not worry about grace or accuracy, simply show me the basic elements of how you would move.”
I began to move my wings in every offensive and protective move that I could think of. Stabbing with the sword-like feathers, slashing, swinging the flats of the wings like huge open palms, then shielding myself with those same wings, in front, to the sides, from above, even from behind. After a minute or two the resurrected saint nodded and held up a palm for me to stop.
“Yes, I believe that shall be enough, Adam. I feel I have sufficient knowledge of how your wings move.” She slowly began to move across in front of me, gesturing at my new appendages as she did so. “To my eyes, there are two routes that you can take regarding what weapons you may wish to wield.
“The first path is to take up some manner of spear or polearm. Your wings already give you excellent reach in close combat, but having such a weapon will allow you to add another vector of attack at the same distance. In addition, you would be able to use it to enhance such charging attacks as the one that you used to break my shield at the end of our sparring match. Your wings are strong, but the bladed feathers upon them are unsuitable for such a tactic. It would be better to wrap yourself in your wings and use your body as a battering ram if you wish to employ such an approach. Wielding a lance or spear would let you focus the strength of your charge in a more deadly manner.”
I could see that. Yes, my wings were dangerous, but their structure made them more suitable for slashing attacks, rather than stabbing. They were strong, but the muscles and bones were based on those of a bird, so they weren’t meant to brace against an impact from that direction. A polearm of some sort would be more suitable.
“The second path is to take to opposite choice, instead of a large weapon you should learn to use smaller and lighter melee arms. These would enable you to comfortably battle any foes that manage to bypass your wings.”
“What, you mean like short swords?”
“More in the vein of large daggers,” She explained. “Swords have the disadvantage of being encumbered by your wings, spears and polearms are likewise limited, but overcome this in the advantages they grant. Daggers and knives of various sorts are largely able to ignore the issues your wings might provide and will grant you a needed edge, should matters grow too close.”
Heh, ‘edge’ I wondered if she knew she’d made an unintentional pun. Well, regardless of her unintended joke, Joan was making some good points.
“Which do you think is better?” I asked, wanting her opinion as an experienced warrior before I thought about making up my mind.
“Truthfully, it is too soon to tell,” She picked up her wooden sword from its spot on the grass and dropped into a fighting stance. “As you develop you may gain sufficient strength to overcome the normal weaknesses of certain weapons, there is little certainty as matters stand.”
She made a few passes with her sword, swinging at an unseen foe, even as her eyes remained focused on my wings.
“I feel that perhaps a smaller weapon would be the best choice, but it is an uncertain thing. For now, I believe it would be best if we continue to focus upon your mastery of your magic. We shall not allow you more physical abilities to fall behind, but your halo grants you an advantage that we must make the most of.”
“Okay, how about I go take a shower, then get back to my split focus exercise?”
Okay then, back to practice.