Counterstrike

Aeolia dove down, a tempest swirling along her glaive. She shrunk to her natural size and flew towards John. When she was level with Bill’s chest, she let out a loud cry, and lashed out with a sweeping wave of wind.

The bulky man was knocked off John and thrown back a great distance. Aeolia shifted to her full height and offered a hand to John.

“What, no heroic one-liner?” John joked as Aeolia hauled him up.

“Not really the time,” the winged woman said, then quickly captured his lips.

“But there is for that, huh?” John asked, wanting to embrace her. He resisted that impulse and quickly took stock of the fight. Behind them, Senka was holding off the four vine hounds, a Black Thorn in her right hand and the rarely seen Shadow Veil over her left. While the meter long construct was a poor weapon to fight such agile enemies, she wielded it well, scoring several light wounds upon the plant made beasts.

Sensing John’s attention, Senka thought towards him, ‘I can handle these well enough. Focus on the summoner. End him and they should fade. And if not, then we can sweep them away.’

“Senka’s got our backs,” John reported. “She wants us to focus on him.”

When John’s eyes drifted from their recovering enemy to his bound mother, his will faltered. Aeolia noticed the shift in his expression and followed his gaze to Brenda. She hefted her glaive onto her shoulder and said, “Get your mom free. I’ve got him.”

Before she could go to attack the recovering Bill, John grabbed her arm.

“Be careful,” he cautioned, summoning Bill’s info sheet. “He’s got something weird with his mana. It showed up red on his Observe.”

Aeolia’s battle hardened expression softened slightly and she smiled at John as she nodded. “I will be. Not eager to come in to save you and need saving myself. Don’t think Beth would let me live it down if she had to rescue me when she and Vi get here.”

“You flew off here ahead of them, then?” John asked as she took to the air.

“Yeah, they’re on their way,” Aeolia answered. “And they might have been able to get Teri and the goblins to help too. Mason and Cammie were going out of town, so I’m not sure if they called them too, but we’ve got back up coming.”

She turned her focus towards Bill, the hunter’s eyes gleaming with a mix of rage and twisted glee, three new vine hounds sprouting out of the ground around him. Aeolia dashed off, ready to face one of the people responsible for the **** of her brother and guild.

With the pressure off, John was able to take stock of his situation as he moved towards his mother.

‘Health down to ‘29’, mana at ‘22’, not good,’ he thought, finally opening his inventory to pull out the Mana Cell Battery and draw its reserve back into him. ‘Back to ‘93’, great. Now how do I get these vines off Mom?’

His mind went to Hex, but recalled how it only negated their ability to constrict.

‘Can I cut them off Mom in the eighteen seconds Hex will give me?’ he wondered, switching out the greatwood sword for Senka’s vessel. ‘I can use Hex at least twice without it really hurting my mana.’

“Mom,” John said as he reached her. She looked at him with wet eyes not filled with fear but concern, those blue orbs flicking up from his tattered and bloodstained shirt. “I’m ok and I’m going to cut you out of here. I can only do it in small bursts so there’s going to be some starts and stops, OK?”

Brenda let out a muffled sound and nodded as best she could and John brought the knife close to one of the vines wrapped around her chest, the tip a scant centimeter from the strangling vine. He took a breath and cast Hex.

The vines shuddered as it reacted to his mana for a second before the effect took hold and they returned to their stilled state. John began to saw at the plant as the sounds of battle echoed around him. He managed to cut through two of the vines before his count hit eighteen and he pulled the blade away.

‘That was harder than I thought it would be,’ he thought sourly. ‘I don’t have enough mana to keep throwing Hex at it.’

He glanced down at the knife, thinking. ‘Dark mana won’t help. There’s no effect here that can help me cut through it. But what about fire?’

It was a gamble, using a new element without knowing how it affected Hex, but the longer he was stuck trying to free Brenda, the longer he was out of the fight, and the greater the chance that Aeolia or Senka could lose ground or get hurt.

‘If things go bad, I can Hex the fire Hex,’ John reasoned as he equipped his glove. Deciding to not worry Brenda by remarking on the experimental nature of this attempt, he simply said, “Going to try again with a different effect.”

John began to convert his mana, spending fifteen to generate ten fire mana. Then he funneled that mana and nine more of his own into casting Hex, a prayer to Gaia on his lips.

Hex hit the vines like before, but unlike the previous uses with no outward sign of the skill’s use, this time the vines appeared to wither slightly, as if they were suffering a drought. John didn’t waste any time and resumed cutting the vines. They were far easier to cut now and John quickly tore through them as he counted down towards the end of Hex. Right before his count hit zero, John cut a critical vine and the whole thing fell off Brenda.

He barely had a chance to stow Senka before she threw herself at him, arms tightly pulling him into her bosom. She shook as tears flowed from her eyes, wetting his neck as they fell upon him.

“Mom,” John said softly, hating that he was the root cause of her anguish and that he couldn’t fix it. “It’s going to be OK.”

“You got hurt,” Brenda managed to say through her tears.

“I heal quick,” John remarked, not quite lying about how his body worked now. “One of the perks of getting magic. At least for me.”

He pushed back against her gently and softly said, “I’ve got to go and fight, Mom.”

For a moment, her hold increased, her **** to let him back into the fray apparent. “I can’t lose you too,” she choked out. Ice shot through John’s heart at her words and his throat grew tight, his mind flashing back to that night they got the call that Dad had been in an accident. That he’d died on the scene.

John worked his arms around Brenda and held her tight. “I’m not going to die, Mom.”

“You don't know that,” she cried.

“No, I don’t,” John replied, his voice choked by emotion. “But this is something I have to do. And I’m not doing it alone. And when we get out of this, I’ll tell you everything.”

John took a step back and Brenda reluctantly let him go. He then pulled his coat and the Staff of Invigoration from his inventory and handed the staff to his mother.

“The coat’s like armor,” he quickly explained as he slipped it over her shoulders. “And the staff’s just in case something gets close. But I’m not going to let anything get close to you again.”

Brenda nodded somewhat numbly, her face red from crying out her fears. John turned from her and swept his gaze over the battlefield. Senka was still fending off the four hounds without much issue, the occasional flash of damage notifications crossing his vision.

‘Senka has things under control enough for now,’ John thought. Before he could look at Aeolia’s fight, she flew back towards him, lightly panting.

“Bastard’s regenerating the hounds faster than I can hurt them,” she reported as she landed. “Think you can do what you did on Monday and negate it?”

The hounds and their master were already advancing on them, from further away than John had last noted. Evidently Aeolia’s attack had driven him further back than he had known.

“Hitting all of them at once isn’t something I think I can do,” John answered. “And even if I had the mana to negate all three, he’d probably just stop casting.”

“How about we burn them?” she suggested, her eyes glancing down at his glove. “You throw a fireball and I feed the flames.”

“And cause a forest fire?” John incredulously asked. “Actually, that might get him to cancel the barrier.”

It was a risky move, but an overwhelming attack might be their best shot. John nodded, “Alright, let’s do it.”

He held open his left hand and activated Fiery Pursuit, the fireball manifesting over his palm. Before he let it fly, a thought came to him and he remainfested the wind spirit.

“I’m going to try to use the wind spirit to control the flame,” he explained. “Might be able to direct the blast right at them.”

“I-is that going to be safe?” Brenda asked. She had pulled John’s coat around her like a shield and grasped the staff tightly.

“It’s either that or letting them get close,” Aeolia said, wind beginning to swirl around her glaive. She glanced back at Brenda. “But we’re not going to let any blow back happen.”

“We’re not going to let anything happen, Mom,” John said, a firm conviction in his voice. He directed the wind spirit to the fireball, feeling the currents flutter past the flames. Then it felt as if the spirit merged with the fire and it began to swirl like a tempest.

Skill Level Up: Thaumaturgy Lv. 4. Skill Modifier Unity unlocked.

John didn’t have the time to explore this upgrade and instead gave Aeolia a curt nod and fired his attack. As it flew, John felt as if he had far greater control over it than usual, and augmented it into a crescent shape. He didn’t get much time to experiment as Bill and his hunting dogs approached.

One of the hounds jumped ahead of its master and packmates, obviously sent to tank the attack. Motes of dull purple swirled around it, the regeneration spell ready to counter them.

“Think a little fire’s a problem?” Bill taunted. “Was the first thing I learned how to deal with. People always try to fight plants with fire!”

“How about a fire storm?” Aeolia snarled and let loose a wave of wind. The tempest flew in a crescent shape and hit John’s fire right as he detonated it. The roar was deafening as a cone of flames washed over Bill and his hounds, the flash of light blinding John to everything but he could feel the waves of fire washing over their enemies.

A pulse of queasiness twisted in John’s gut as he felt the flames cascade off Bill, the burly man’s arm raised over his face, his skin flaking away from the heat. He stopped funneling mana into the wind spirit and the sensations vanished as he doubled over, hands on his knees to keep from collapsing to the ground.

“John!” Brenda cried and darted to him.

“I’m ok,” he managed to say as she reached him, a gentle hand on his back. He caught Aeolia looking at him with understanding eyes and he gave her a weary smile. Then he realized he hadn’t received any notification for a defeated enemy.

John **** himself back upright as the fire petered out, revealing Bill and his three hounds standing upright, wisps of purple flying around them, regenerating their bodies from the burns.

“Like I said,” Bill’s voice was far harsher than it had been though it was hard to tell whether it was because of the heat or the anger he felt at getting burned, “fire’s not a big deal.”

Contrary to his words, his skin was slow to heal; red blistered skin remained despite the passing of the healing magic. The hounds took the healing far better, their burned bodies regrowing with little issue.

John focused on Bill, letting Arcane Sense activate. His eyes nearly bugged out when he felt the deep blackness that seemed to emanate from him, like staring out into a forest at night, knowing there were dangerous things about but unable to see them.

“It’s like he has endless mana,” he couldn’t help but to say aloud his observation.

“Yeah, but it looks like he’s not so good at healing himself,” Aeolia said. “If we can get a good hit on him, we can knock him out of the fight. Then bye bye dogs.”

“One more is doable, but then I’m close to being tapped out,” John reported. “Unless I tap into the mana in Senka’s vessel.

He summoned the knife, his mind shifting back what dark mana did for Fiery Pursuit.

‘If I target Bill, it’ll stop him from casting the regen, but the hounds will be fine,’ he quickly thought. ‘No good there. But what if I used dark mana to fuel my wind spirit? Can’t hurt and saves me a bit of mana.’

John nodded at Aeolia and they launched their combined attack again, this time with John powering the wind spirit with mana from Senka’s vessel. The spirit infused fireball dimmed in color, as if smoke was blocking out the light and John felt like ash was brushing against his face when he detonated it.

He didn’t get much time to muse on it, as Aeolia’s wind fueled the blast once more, the fire still retaining the dimmed color. This time, as the flames passed over the hounds, John could feel something stick to the charred material left behind.

When the flames died down, instead of regenerating hounds they found the three beasts very burnt, motes of purple light fruitlessly trying to regrow the charred vines. Behind them, Bill shakily brought his blistered arms down, his breathing ragged. His torso, exposed as his shirt had been ruined by the fires, was similarly damaged. Only his face remained relatively unscathed, only redded from the heat.

He glared at them with hate filled eyes and John switched to his sword. Bill let out a raging scream and blood red energy poured from his bleeding skin before swirling around him. Despite the fright, John reactivated Arcane Sense and felt Bill’s danger filled aura get overshadowed by something else.

Something darker, like an actual predator instead of just the uncertainty of shadowed woods.

Then the blade in his hand and the Tree-Sage’s Ring around his finger burned hot, a cry of pain echoed from the trees beyond them, that seamlessly fluctuated between a woman’s and a man’s, and John’s vision went dark.

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