Millennial Mage

Tala hammered herself against Verity, seemingly holding nothing back as Flow in ending-glaive form tore the very air with every sweeping strike, sealing existence behind itself and generating an oddly resonant, high-pitched, buzzing sound as it zipped back and forth.

She felt surprisingly rational despite the endingblade-magics, her soul more stable, anchored, and locked down than ever before.

The contact with the automaton’s weapon was punctuated by a deadening of that sound, but not a full removal of it. Whether the blades clashed or simply deflected off one another, the rise and fall of the intensity of the oddity created a strange cadence.

When she deflected his blade with the coherence-enforced shaft, it sounded more like two pillows thwacking one another than two weapons of war clashing.

The unusual sounds lent a feeling of unreality to the fight that Tala suspected they were both working to overcome, if in different manners.

In truth, their battle was only physical in the loosest sense of the word, the aura of the two powerhouses tracking with the weapon strikes to maintain their power despite the close press of the other’s area of influence, while also striking separately and clashing on a purely authoritative level.

The combatants were differently skilled, differently empowered, and oddly disparate for all their similarities, but seemingly of roughly equivalent capacity when all was taken into account.

Tala believed she had the edge even as she worked in the background, but only time would tell. Master Jevin’s little present would likely be the decisive turn when the time was right as well, but that was not now.

Then, Terry called for her aid.

Tala cursed, thinking fast and finding only one potential solution to gain a window in which to help.

She’d not wanted to use this yet, but if Terry called, it was important.

No other combatant could easily take her place in this clash, and those who might have were already fully engaged with other foes.

She dove forward unexpectedly, not with Flow but with an open hand, the lack of overt danger from the action causing Verity to ignore it in favor of keeping the endingblade at bay.

Tala momentarily grabbed onto Verity, and the automata shifted his stance, ready to fight any attempt to toss him to the ground or knock him back.

She grinned within her helmet and twisted starward, her manifold being providing force in a direction physical creatures were not meant to traverse.

Verity was far more than superficial, but he was of reality, and as such, the dimensions of magic were a tool to be used, not a world to be traversed.

He didn’t have the capacity to resist her—even if she suspected he could and would develop such after this one surprise—and after she overcame the coefficient of static force which locked real things to the superficial, she was able to hurl him starward, into the slowing time, upon the extremes of which the Archive depended.

Verity wouldn’t approach anywhere close to that lofty distance, but she just needed a short delay.

The same forces that had resisted her tossing him along the dimensions of magic were already slowing his movement, and would bring him back all too soon, even if he couldn’t manage to do so himself.

She had minutes at best, and she doubted this would work a second time—truthfully, she was surprised it had worked even the once—and so, she needed to make the most of this.

Tala turned and lunged upward, hitting an elk-kin from below and blowing straight through it, the startled arch-beast breaking in half even as Terry snapped up the backend, avoiding the antlers which seemed to contain the most hostile portion of the power at the Forest Spirit’s offsprings’ disposal.

Even the bifurcation likely wouldn’t be the end of the creature, but it would be costly to recover from, no matter what ended up paying that cost.

Tala took another moment to ensure her assessment of the situation was accurate.

Anatalis, Botulf, and Conri were circling the Forest Spirit, striking and nipping with spells and teeth while the elk fended them off with magics, authority, and sharpened antlers.

In one sense, it was a slow circling, methodical and careful, but it was being done at such unbelievable speeds that no mundane would have been able to track it at all.

The four beasts roamed through the sky—above even the breached canopy—seeking advantage, the footing clearly in the Forest Spirit’s favor, even with Walden undercutting it with every passing moment and Tala’s authority helping to anchor the wolves on their hunt.

Around and below those figures, the Pack and Herd strove, Terry flickering between momentarily isolated groups in a powerful attempt to keep the balance tipped toward the Pack.

Unfortunately, there were simply more of the Herd than the Pack, and so, ironically, the normally pack-focused wolves were being isolated and having to fight as individuals against many foes, turning their experience against them.

The Pack needed something to tip the balance back, and that’s why Tala had been called.

Tala was a force of nature, crashing into the battlefield, but across so many disparate fights, she couldn’t just blanketly crush foes, even if they were two steps below her.

She had undeniable power, but Paragon-level beings were not easily overcome, even by her.

As such, she didn’t attempt to truly obliterate any—the first elk being an exception of course, one borne by opportunity, and even that hadn’t resulted in an enduring kill, the thing’s body already pulling back together in her wake.

Instead, she concentrated.

All around her, magics blazed to life—carved into existence—harnessed, refined, and pressurized with power beyond any she was used to wielding.

The existence blade was one thing, a creation of her soulbound weapon, and stable by its very nature—stable to the point that it had unseated her with past uses—other workings, things of only magic, had to be handled a bit more carefully.

Or, they would have, if this weren’t her earliest inscription, the base of her power, her fundamental understanding.

Everything in existence attracts all else.

She reached out to every member of the Forest Spirit’s herd—the great elk excepted—and targeted them. She didn’t even leave the does alone, despite a powerful compulsion to do so, obviously stemming from the Forest Spirit’s domain.

This required the driving of her aura into each of them at the critical moment of activation, and she formed her will and power into a nail, reading the hammer of her authority as Eskau of War.

These arch-beasts had allied with the Black Legion, they were sheltering factories producing the automata, and fighting to make their goals a reality.

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They were as much a foe in this war as the Black Legion, and it was Tala’s duty to bring them down.

But that was just her role, and that wouldn’t be enough on its own.

She was the Iron Matriarch, and these fighting at her side were under her auspices, under her protection.

She was Maternal Iron, the Ravenous, Jealous Devourer, and she would not allow others to take what was hers.

Mine.

Existence resonated in a sonorous hum that somehow mirrored the twisted spell-lines manifesting as echoes in reality around her.

An entire chorus of power issued forth in a terrible instant and her aura drove forward, managing marginal influence across the herd.

It was little, but it was enough.

She amplified the coefficient of gravity for every elk-kin, increasing their pull toward the ground in a burst.

It wasn’t enough to crush them. It wasn’t even enough to yank them from the sky to where they might be overwhelmed by those engaged in the lower conflict, but it increased the burden of staying aloft and dragged at their every action.

In the grand scheme of things, it was like a strong breeze blowing against an advancing army, truly hardly noticeable, but it was enough to slow the turning of the fight in the Forest Spirit’s favor.

She needed to do more before things were back on a good course, and Verity was already nearly at a stop in his starward flight. Soon, he’d be heading back with a vengeance.

Her threefold perception picked up a threat, and she knew she couldn’t address it. The Talons were momentarily focused more broadly, and she didn’t have time to divert their attention. Her will was bent in other directions, and she could feel the opposition building against her interference even before she tried.

She wouldn’t be in time.

In a fraction of a second, Tala swept the battlefield, looking for anyone who could and… the sireling?

The youngest of the Pack was not engaged, maintaining a safe distance from all the conflicts, only striking when it was most advantageous, and otherwise keeping himself mobile.

Tala’s voice came to him in a rush, but he heard through her aura and intent before the first syllable had fully formed. “Rane!”

The sireling head snapped around, and he growled acknowledgment, already springing into action.

* * *

Lea watched the ongoing battle from within the sanctum, fuming at her own lack of importance.

No… that’s not fair.

She was too important to her parents to be allowed on the battlefield, even had she been strong enough to participate.

Her mother had died because one of the prime commanders had targeted her with a conceptual working that would have removed her existence.

The fact that it had turned out for the best was hardly an excuse. She remembered Mistress Vanga telling her a story of a man with a magical malady in his brain, one that both hid from those who might help him and kept him from realizing that he could and should get help.

He’d found a long, thin magical sword, placed the tip in his eye and fallen on it, seeking to end his life and his own suffering.

When he was found and healed, the malady was already gone, dead, slain by the sword as the metal passed through his head.

The point of the story, of course, was that just because something worked out in the end, did not make it a good choice or a good model for choices in the future.

But she was distracting herself from what the large slates hanging before her were displaying as she sat on her chair beside the empty thrones of her parents.

Talax sat in a wooden chair near at hand, giving her the space that she obviously needed, and not showing how much he wanted to be fighting as well.

He would have been allowed.

He could have been beside his comrades, facing this existential threat to all that they knew and loved, but instead? He’d been asked to remain here with her.

A pacifier for a child.

It was insulting.

It was worse, because it was working.

She could feel how much he wanted to be fighting, but she could also feel with calm certainty that he wouldn’t leave her here alone.

They both understood that her presence on the field would be a detriment to the clash, and they both knew her well enough that there was no doubt. If she were left alone, she’d find a way to convince herself that she needed to intervene in one way or another, to go against what she knew was right.

He wasn’t there to force her to stay. He couldn’t. Her sway within the sanctum was unquestionable while her parents were otherwise occupied. The fact that he was three tiers more advanced than she was would prove of absolutely no consequence, if they were at odds.

He was a talisman, a reminder of the cost.

She would not waste that. She would not make his payment in vain.

And so, she turned her attention back to the clash before her, suppressing every ‘what if I…?’ before it could even begin to build.

* * *

Verity fell in darkness, his perception unable to pierce the obscurities of the dimensions of magic.

He was not afraid.

This silly trick of magic was nothing to him.

He felt the truth and knew what he would return to and how soon.

His form was powerful beyond what this world should hold, more real than the cobbled together egg-shell that Zeme truly was.

Verity found himself angered not by his circumstances but that the Eskau of War had somehow been able to make a show of strengthening reality despite those she fought beside.

Had her efforts been exerted in ages past, he would have been unnecessary, he would be superfluous, but the taint was too deep, and stitching together a corpse—no matter how flawless the result—did not revive the body.

But thinking of the failings of the abominations—and the heresy of those fighting for and beside them—would profit him nothing.

Instead, he took the time to check in on his primes. Every moment of battle was expanding their knowledge and building out their incoming victory.

Veridicus was gone. His loss remained a painful ache within Verity, one that made it harder for him to express what he knew to be true, but it would not change the truth, not at its core.

Logos was slowly flattening the distortion of multi-level dimensionality that had been imposed upon this section of the world, despite its apparent integrity. He was also striving to fight the odd, armored elf that was never where she should be. Her magics somehow afflicted her opponents even without needing to touch them directly.

Aletheon was working to pull back the curtain on what the enemy was attempting, his power and purpose thrumming through their unified field, and Verity trusted that he’d have a better picture of the whole situation soon enough. That prime also fought the elf, and his power would show how she operated sooner rather than later.

Axiom was a more straightforward prime, and he was clashing with the slippery being of darkness, his whole being devoted to that clash, and not distracted by other purposes. It seemed a bad match up on initial consideration, but the harshest of light had ever been a favored counter to slippery darkness.

Finally, Verax bent his will to fight the dark along with Axiom, and the force of his weight on reality rendered almost all of the shadows into little more than annoyances even as they scraped against him.

He knew the truth of which the rest of the primes were aware.

This clash had only one real end.

Pretend could be useful in the right times and places, and flights of fancy could even strengthen a mind to face the true trials of reality, but in the end, all that would be set aside, and all that would remain was the hard truth of that reality.

Verity felt himself reach the zenith of his short outward trip.

Reality would not leave him adrift. He was the supreme commander of the Black Legion.

He had to return to the battle.

There was no other way that this could go.

A contented smile grew across his features.

Reality was so close.

He had his part to play.

This, this would be done, and then, he could rest.

His doubts about his own fate had no place within him.

He would be done soon.