“Woo! We have a plan and I am manic as fucking hell, let's do this thing!” Greg whooped as he dragged Travis through the portal. “Triskaidekaphobia, we need all the… fire? Yes, all the fire mages we can get! Chop chop!”

Indresta and the other aliens looked between each other, confused. “Who are you talking to?”

“You! Come on, fire mages, on the double, stat, asap, right fucking now!” Greg urged them on with a clap.

Other Greg sighed. “Sorry, we're still processing the fact that Tessa might die, and we aren't doing very well with it.”

“Fuck you, I'm doing perfectly!” Greg retorted.

“Fuck you, I am you!” Other Greg countered.

“Would one of you please explain what you want before I throw you in a holding cell for disrupting the chain of command!” Indresta growled.

Greg nodded. “Right, so, this dude here can make use of the mana in his environment, no idea how it works, but if he has a shit ton of people with the same type of mana around, he can use it to… do something which will probably help? I don't know, but any port in a storm, am I right? So, get me those fire mages!”

Indestra stared at him for a moment, before pulling up her network device, and a few seconds later a few hundred people appeared behind them. “They're all yours.”

Greg grinned, turning to the nervous crowd that was still trying to process why their surroundings had just changed. “Alright, people! As you know, the ship is under attack, and it's… not going as well as we'd hope. But! There's something y'all can do to help!” He paused. “But I don't know what that is. Ted?” He waited for a moment, then turned to Travis, giving him a nudge. “Come on, buddy, this is your thing.”

“What- my name is Travis!” Travis snapped.

Greg sighed. “Not the point, Tom! Come on, we've got Technos to kill!”

“You- fuck!” Travis cursed, turning to the crowd. “Just- release your fucking mana towards me! Don't attack me, just the mana!”

The crowd looked confused, until Greg clapped. “Come on people, send your mana at the dude with no intention to actually make fire! It isn't that hard! Now!”

The crowd shifted nervously, but slowly people began to send mana over to Travis. There were a few spurts of flame as some people took a bit to figure out the trick of releasing their mana without actually doing anything with it. Travis took a deep breath and began to gather the released mana, condensing it inside him, grimacing as the pressure began to build and holding it all became harder and harder. He gritted his teeth, pushing himself to his limit before letting out a savage roar as a ball of energy burst out of him, arcing over the battlements.

Greg cocked his head. “That's it? Not very- fuck!” Greg cursed as the ball of energy exploded, causing a pressure wave that shook the battlements! “Woo! That had to have done some work!” Greg cackled, patting Travis on the back, only for him to hack out a bloody cough. “Oh, right, you're dying, shit.” Greg muttered as he quickly got to work fixing all the damage caused by whatever Travis had done, struggling against the forces still actively trying to tear Travis's body apart, or at least warp it into something unrecognizable.

“Can he do that again!?!” Indresta demanded, rushing over to them.

Greg glanced down at Travis, who was currently curled up in a ball muttering incoherently to himself. “Maybe? Depends on how long it takes him to stabilize from the backlash. Give me a minute, then we'll see where we're at?”

Indresta nodded. “I can give you ten. Just get him up!”

Greg sighed. “I'll do my best.”

“Greg, what the hell is going on?!?” Casey asked, pushing out of the crowd.

“Casey?” Greg blinked. “Oh, right, fire… Well, Travis here can use other people's mana to make devastating attacks, apparently, and I figured fire would be a good option, so… here you are.”

“You- used my name.” Travis muttered.

“What was that, Timmy? I couldn't hear you.” Greg grinned as Travis shot him a weak scowl.

“You're an ass.” Travis grumbled.

Greg chuckled. “How are you feeling?”

“Like something chewed me up and spit me out.” Travis groaned.

“Well, seeing as I don't think you were capable of even stringing a thought together a few moments ago, I'm going to call that progress.” Greg shrugged.

Travis grunted. “Did it work?”

“Oh, yeah, you blew those Technos to smithereens!” Greg replied excitedly, giving him a thumbs up. “Presumably… I haven't actually checked, but Indresta wants you to do it again in another… nine minutes? Something like that, so it must have been pretty effective.”

Travis grimaced. “Again?!? Just one almost killed me!”

“Ah, but it didn't, and look at you! You're practically glowing!” Greg retorted. “Actually, you are glowing… let me fix that.”

Travis scowled. “That's because the impurities are still running wild through my body, and now you want me to add more! I'm going to need a week to flush all this crap out!”

“Would you rather be dead?” Greg asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Travis froze, then let out a frustrated groan. “God damn it. Fine. Just- ugh, I need some time to prepare myself.”

“Of course.” Greg agreed with a slight smirk. “You have eight minutes.”

Travis glared at him. “I hate you. So much.”

*

“Ready? Brace!” Indresta yelled as Travis shot another fireball over the battlements, the aliens hunkering down as it exploded in the midst of the Technos, sending them flying, the aliens popping back up to finish them off and prepare for the reinforcements.

Travis paused, not feeling any worse than he did before. “Huh… I'm fine?”

“All the changes seem to have stopped too…” Greg commented. “Why would- oh, duh, you hit your mana investment limit!”

Travis blinked. “What?”

“You’re taking in mana, right? So everything warping your body is mana related, which means there has to be a limit to the amount of changes it can make, right?” Greg pointed out. “It made a lot of changes though… Are impurities more effective than pure mana?”

Travis frowned. “Should I keep going or not?”

“Do I need to remind you about the whole dying thing again?” Greg rolled his eyes. “If anything, you should start pumping out as many fireballs as you can! Who cares if it takes you months to recover, at least you'll be alive.”

Travis grimaced. “Right. Okay, let's do this.”

“Hold on, let's check with Indresta first.” Greg held up a hand to stop him as he waved her down. “Hey, so, it turns out Travis doesn't need to recover, so when do you want the next fireball?”

Indresta paused. “I- see… Wait for my signal.”

“Will do.” Greg agreed, giving her a thumbs up.

Indresta returned to the battlements, signaling them to fire every few minutes, beating back the Technos and giving the aliens a moment to recover and switch off with each other. It was… honestly kinda boring, but at least they were actually helping now. And then… “Fire! Fire now!” Indresta suddenly yelled in an almost panicked tone. Travis condensed another fireball as quickly as he could, throwing it over the battlements, just as a Techno in the largest power armor Greg had seen so far vaulted over the battlements. “RUN!” Indresta roared as the Techno raised their rifle towards Travis, literally throwing herself at them, only to get batted away with a dismissive wave of the Techno's arm.

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Travis went pale as the rifle glowed, feeling his life flash before his eyes, when a wall of steel appeared between them, a small, red dot the only sign that the attack had taken place. “What-”

“Everyone in the fucking portal!” Greg roared, transforming into Bianca as he opened a portal back to where he'd found Travis, thickening the steel wall between them and the Techno. He got about half the people out before the Techno literally jumped through his wall, phasing through it like it wasn't even there, and… ignored them, charging deeper into the ship. “Oh, that's not good.” Greg grimaced, dropping the wall and pulling the smoke after him, charging after the Techno, shifting into Gigi as he did to try and keep up.

He sprinted past a few more sets of battlements before arriving at the core of the ship, a circular room surrounding a giant, glowing crystal. There was a forcefield blocking the crystal off with the Archmage sitting inside with her hand on it, the Techno already firing their rifle at the forcefield in a sustained beam to try and take it down as he arrived. And so, Greg did the only thing he could think of and started surrounding the forcefield in steel, transforming back into himself and pushing his mana pool to the limit to produce as much smoke as he could to cover the forcefield as thoroughly as possible.

The Techno whirled on Greg, putting a blast through his chest, and Greg chuckled as he coughed up blood. “That's not gonna help. That steel isn't going anywhere. Though I guess you can just phase through it…” The Techno cocked their head at him, then put another bolt through his head. Greg sighed as he reformed. “Damn it, you killed my other self. That thing took me three weeks to make!” A few more bolts pounded into him. “Shouldn't you be focusing on the forcefield?” A wall of energy blasted into him. “I'll take that as a no, I guess.”

Suddenly the ship shuddered and everything went dark for a moment before a dull glow returned to their surroundings. The Techno whirled towards the dome of steel and charged, no longer caring about it now that the forcefield was down. Greg cursed, turning the steel back to smoke and filling the space between the Techno and the Archmage with it, ready to turn it back to steel the moment the Techn went to fire anything at her. The Techno phased back into reality and raised their weapon towards the Archmage, Greg immediately turning his smoke to steel, and…

“Where'd they go?” Greg asked tentatively, expecting the Techno to erupt out of the steel at any moment. He slowly turned the steel back to smoke until… A naked alien woman dropped out of the steel, taking in a gasping, coughing breath, a large power supply dropping out next to her. “Huh… how'd I do that?” Greg muttered, scratching his head.

“Thank mana you did.” The Archmage let out a sigh of relief. “I wouldn't be able to face someone in tier two armor at the moment. Not if I wanted to survive the encounter, at least.” She groaned, taking a meditative pose as her force clones began to form around her and rush off. “Watch her. I must deal with the rest of our infestation, and I won't have the mental leeway to attend to her as well.”

“Will do.” Greg agreed, making himself a chair and sitting down, putting some clothes on the Techno as he did before building a cage around her. “So… you speak English?” The Techno just stared at him. “Guess not… not that you'd want to talk to me anyway, considering we were just trying to kill each other. Not exactly a great foundation for communication, that. Admittedly, the fact that you just went from wrecking my shit to utterly powerless does make me feel a bit more chatty. Though I'm not sure what we'd actually talk about… I mean, what's there to say? You want to end magic, so you want all of us dead. Not sure why you want to end magic though… I mean, I guess it'd fuck with your technology, but then you'd be able to do magic! Not a bad tradeoff in my opinion.”

“We do not care about our technology.” The Techno spat. “We care about all the people who will die as mana spreads!”

“Hey, you do speak English!” Greg grinned. “But how though?”

The Techno grunted. “Our implants have decoded your language from the conversations we picked up during our assault.”

“Huh… that's kinda neat, actually.” Greg muttered. “So, people die from mana?”

“Yes.” The Techno growled. “The filth your kind spreads causes nothing but chaos! Every society it touches collapses! Not even a tenth of the population of any species it touches survives, and that's with the help of an established galactic civilization helping them! Without that help, not even a tenth of the species survive at all! How could anyone possibly consider it a good thing?!?”

Greg paused. “Not gonna lie, that's a pretty good point. Then again, if your response to people dying is to kill the survivors, you don't exactly have the moral high ground either.”

The Techno sniffed. “If you would simply remain in your sector, we would have no problem with you, but you insist on spreading yourselves across the galaxy! You are an invasive species we must eradicate at all costs before you consume us all!”

The Archmage snorted. “Mana spreads itself and your futile attempts to stop it only creates more death and destruction. We are forced to spread to save those we can, and your continued insistence on stopping us only makes things worse!”

“Mana didn't even exist until your people brought it into our reality!” The Techno retorted.

“How is that even relevant?!?” The Archmage countered. “Just because we started it, doesn't mean we're perpetuating it!”

“But you aren't doing anything to stop it either!” The Techno growled. “We've proven you can contain mana, and you refuse to help us do so!”

“Because mana is good for the universe! It propagates itself infinitely! It breathes life into dying systems! While all your technology does is consume!” The Archmage snarled back.

“At least our technology doesn't kill ninety percent of our people!” The Techno snapped.

“No, it will just kill all of them when your precious resources finally run out.” The Archmage sneered.

“That will take billions of years!” The Techno exclaimed. “If that! We could learn how to reverse entropy by then!”

“We're already reversing entropy! With magic!” The Archmage retorted.

“You know, as someone who will probably end up being billions of years old, I kinda like the idea of things still being around then.” Greg muttered. “It'd kinda suck to end up spending an eternity floating in a dark void. That sounds super boring. Of course, whoever the traveler ends up being might be able to fix that… Oh, shit, I can just get them to make Tessa immortal! Why didn't I think of that earlier?”

Both the Archmage and the Techno turned to stare at him. “Greg… what is a traveler?” The Archmage asked tentatively.

Greg paused. “Well… I didn't really want to tell you this, but it's the immortal ruler of a reality. Apparently. I mean, it could be a lie, I suppose…”

The Archmage blinked. “And you know about this because…?”

“Oh, someone on the ship supposedly is one, though not of ours.” Greg waved dismissively. “And before you ask, I'm not telling you who it is. Not that you probably can't figure it out on your own, but I've dropped the ball on this one enough already.”

The Archmage shook her head. “You are lucky I have larger concerns at the moment, but we are revisiting this subject in the future.”

“Yeah, that's fair.” Greg sighed. “So, what are we doing with her? Execution? Interrogation? Imprisonment? All three? Not in that order, of course.”

The Archmage paused. “I'm not sure… I've never been in a conflict with the Technocracy that didn't end in either the escape or the complete eradication of the other side. Any Technocracy soldier that even comes close to being captured triggers the destruction of their armor, denying us any potential information from either the individual or their armor. A situation like this is… unprecedented.”

The Techno snorted. “Just kill me. I would rather die than be corrupted by mana!”

The Archmage nodded. “That does seem like the most prudent option, particularly given our situation.”

“What is our situation?” Greg asked.

“We are now stuck on the planet your species will eventually tame, with no access to the rest of the Republic, and only the most basic functions of the ship.” The Archmage sighed. “We have to survive on our own until the rest of the preservation fleet arrives, without any support, and a barely trained population with little to no access to mana pills. I can't provide a quarter million population with enough mana pills on my own.”

Greg frowned. “You know a quarter million is two hundred and fifty thousand, right? We only have fifty thousand people, don't we?”

“No, we have two hundred and fifty thousand. The ship has ten sections, each with twenty-five thousand people.” The Archmage explained wearily.

Greg paused. “Huh… I mean, at that point, what's one more person?”

The Archmage rolled her eyes. “It isn't about having to take care of one more person, the problem is that we can't afford anything that distracts us from our survival. And this is a woman who would gladly see us all dead. Keeping her alive and giving her the opportunity to sabotage us is a risk I don't think we can afford to take.”

“Hm. Fair.” Greg agreed. “Just seems wrong to kill someone who can't fight back, you know?”

“Hm.” The Archmage grunted noncommittally. “Do you have any way to keep her under control?”

Greg blinked, trying to catch up with the conversation after the sudden trip he'd just had, three figures forming around him. “I think I just might.” He grinned. “Let me introduce you to Chris.”