Mistwoven Healer

We stand before the aperture, staring into the swirling dark portal as the world breaks apart around us. The entire incursion zone is breaking down now, from the massive trees to the huts of the destroyed village and even the various plants that make up the underbrush. Everything is dissolving away into moats of dark mana that drift through the air and make my tension all the worse. The whole place looks like a nightmare in the process of unraveling, and I swear that I could feel things watching us from the holes in space.

But, even as reality fractures, our attention is absolutely locked on the portal before us and the goal that lies beyond. The only way out is through.

"Only a few minutes now," Baylee says. Her voice is as hard and firm as ever, but I can hear the undercurrent of fear hiding beneath her confidant façade. It's something I'm certain we're all feeling at the moment. Beyond that aperture, a team of corrupted sentinels and who knows how many soldiers wait to capture or kill us. As with so many others, this is a fight we can't afford to lose.

Akari stands beside me, clutching my arm in a vise grip as if determined never to let go. We've already discussed the upcoming fight, and Akari more or less ordered me not to leave her side. If we get captured, we'll be captured together, and if we get killed… well, we'll do that together, too. Still, my… girlfriend, I guess, is determined that whatever fate befalls one of us, the other will suffer the same, and I can only agree with the sentiment.

Silence rules as we stand in the broken reality of the incursion zone, waiting for our time to be up. We don't want to wait for the incursion zone to force us out, of course, but we do need to leave enough time for us to be as recovered as possible. Getting caught off guard when this incursion zone suddenly forces us out into reality and being disoriented to start the fight outside would be an awful idea, so we intend to wait until near the last moments of the zone and then rush out of the aperture ourselves.

"We should go over the plan again," Baylee says after a moment, the silence apparently becoming too much to bear.

"We already know it," Claire snaps back, her voice unusually focused. "Our best chances are to break their lines and escape after we defeat the dark sentinels or to hold out until backup arrives. We know."

Baylee's lips turn down just slightly, but she just nods. "Fine, then let me say this. A few of us have killed humans before, but most of us haven't. I'll tell you all right now; if you hesitate, we're done. When we go out there, we are going to be the strongest players on the field, and we need to attack with the wrath of a god. No hesitation, no pause. These are our enemies, and we will show them that standing against us means only death."

I swallow uncomfortably. Even though I logically know that Baylee is correct, the idea of indiscriminate killing still pushes against something fundamental within me.

"You're sure we can't try talking to them?" I ask, leaning into Akari for support. "I know you shot it down before, but-"

Baylee shakes her head, "We are as certain as we can be that this whole thing was orchestrated by the Reavers. I have no idea how they still have so many supporters in the Shinara region, but I have to imagine that they've mobilized nearly all of their remaining forces for this. If I had to guess, they've heard the rumors that our team is somehow special, and they want to capture us and make us into the same kind of dark sentinels they're using here."

My eyes fall, "That still doesn't feel possible, but… I suppose you're right."

"We have no choice but to kill them, Serena," Akari says quietly from beside me. "I know you have sympathy for those using Stygian Mana, and if it was just that, then maybe I could too. But the Reavers are evil; they are as bad or worse than the Volcora themselves."

Finally, I nod. "Right… I'll just… turn off my heart for this, I guess."

"I hate to ask you to do that," Baylee says. "But I fear we have no choice. Today, we need to be ruthless, for if we're going to stand victorious, it will be upon the bodies of all those we've slain."

The idea of walking out of that portal and just opening fire makes me sick just to think about. Sure, we killed the soldiers in the incursion zone, but they attacked us first. Even in a situation like this, premeditating the deaths of dozens upon dozens of living, breathing people just feels wrong. However, I do my best to start suppressing those thoughts to try and achieve the state of mind I'll need to get out of here.

Slowly, I allow my thoughts to grow darker and my anger to build. My hands clench, and I narrow my eyes at the portal. These people tried to kill Nash; they tried to kill me. They stole the lives of dozens of centurions trapped in soul gems who should have been going to be partnered to a sentinel. They experimented on innocents, on children. They kidnapped teenagers off the street and made them into monsters. Now… they are all going to die for it.

The hate now swirling in my heart feels unnatural to me, and even Akari is giving me a confused look. But the Stygian Mana around me… it loves the feeling, swirling in closer to brush against my skin. I could take it into me right now, be stronger than I've ever been before. I felt certain of that now, some instinctive sense of my magic that begged for me to just let it in.

Akari releases my arm, looking at me with wide eyes. "Serena?" she asks, a touch of fear entering her voice. Fear… of me.

The swirling rage within me breaks, and the Stygian Mana disperses away back into the incursion zone. Still, it's close… so incredibly close in this place that I can practically taste it on my tongue. Power, there for the taking.

I blink, looking at Akari and then down at my own hands in confusion. I've clenched my fists so hard that my fingernails dug bloody crescents into my palm. What was that? I've never felt anything like that rage before, but even now, I can feel it waiting under the surface, wanting to be set free. A part of me that I've always suppressed... the reason I fight against monsters like the Volcora and the Reavers instead of just working to heal people without any violence at all.

"It's time," Baylee says, moving toward the aperture.

"Wait," Akari says quickly. "Serena, what was that? Are you okay?"

I nod hesitantly. "Yeah, I… I'm okay."

"We don't have time to wait," Baylee snaps. "Let's go!" With that, she and Haruto stride into the swirling aperture, followed closely by Claire and Hayley.

Akari and I only linger in the incursion zone for a moment, just watching each other. Then, Akari snatches my hand in hers, and we step through the aperture together… We step into chaos.

The sky is dark when we step back into the real world, but the grassland around us is as bright as day, being lit by several massive floodlights. Behind those floodlights, dozens upon dozens of dark figures wait with rifles raised and flashing with bullets that spark against Haruto's shield, which he immediately raised to allow us all safely into the battle.

With the combination of the floodlights and the thundering weapons fire, it's nearly impossible to see or hear anything beyond vague impressions. All the light and noise practically assault my senses, making picking out anything in specific nearly impossible. Even still, I manage to hear Haruto yelling over the cacophony. "Shield dropping in five, four-"

I don't wait for him to finish his countdown, spreading my hands out wide and letting mist explode out of me in a white tide infused with blue and golden energy. As soon as Haruto drops his shield, I'll need to use Zephyr's Edict to protect us from bullets. I obviously won't be able to push away every single one in this hailstorm, but I got some decent practice from fighting the soldiers earlier. As long as Akari protects me, I'll be able to stop our assault state shields from getting destroyed instantly by all the soldiers.

Sadly, this means that when the dark sentinels come for us, I'll already be more or less out of the fight. I'll have no choice but to trust Akari to watch over me if I'm going to micromanage so many bullets at once. Even with Celeste using her willpower alongside mine, handling so many bullets at once is going to be a nightmare. It's time to see if I can truly do what the ability description claims and make this battlefield my own.

The moment Haruto's shield falls, the mental assault of dozens of bullets per second slams into me, making me fall to my knees with my eyes closed as I try to keep up. The bullets are so fast that I only have time to affect each with a flicker of my attention as they pass into my mist. Luckily, I guess not all of these Reavers have whatever was allowing the soldiers inside the incursion zone to see through the mist, as a lot of the shots are wide. That still leaves a lot of them on target, though, and for the most part, I nudge the bullets' trajectories up or down so they will fly off into the sky or slam into the grass harmlessly.

I can feel it when the dark sentinels enter the mist, charging in with high-quality magical weapons raised. There are four of them, each feeling like a sun of Stygian Mana walking through my mist. Claire, Baylee, and Hayley engage the group as they move toward us while Haruto and Akari hover over me protectively.

As soon as I feel the dark sentinels enter my area of influence, an idea strikes me. I'm not just limited to pushing bullets away from my friends… I can also push them toward my enemies.

"Celeste!" I call mentally, already starting to manipulate the nearby bullets to curve closer to the enemy sentinels.

[Got it!] Celeste cries, and I feel her willpower join with mine as we take control of the battlefield.

Zephyr's Edict, when combined with my mist, blankets the battlefield like the will of a benevolent goddess. Arrows and bolts of magic from our side of the fight curve through the air to find homes in the bodies of our enemies, while any projectiles they fire are redirected away or into their own allies.

Even with my eyes closed, I can see the entire battle at once as I manipulate things in our favor. Occasionally, I even find opportunities to infuse my other abilities into the mist for just a moment to capitalize on an attack by one of my team members or use Astral Viel's new effect to briefly phase someone into the mist.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

It's only in that moment, as I sit protected by my team members, that I realize just how heavily I've been underutilizing my abilities. When I was E Rank, I didn't have the mana or the raw power to pull off something like what I'm doing now; all I could do was fight like I was a weaker pink sentinel. It's only now that I'm able to express the full power of what a proper blue sentinel can do, making my mist into a safe haven for my allies and a cloud of death for my enemies.

The only downside of this strategy is just how vulnerable it leaves me. There's absolutely no way I could keep up this level of concentration on manipulating my magic while also running around and shooting my bow. As of now, I'm more or less completely dependent on my teammates to keep me safe because the moment I'm forced to act to save myself, all the battlefield manipulation I'm doing will fall apart.

Even with the frankly unfair advantage of standing in my mist, my teammates are still in a bit of a rough spot. Our assault state barriers are strong, but even my help can't stop all the bullets from finding their targets. As such, their barriers are slowly being worn down as they're also forced to stand against the surprisingly strong, dark sentinel team.

It's hard for me to focus on the dark sentinels more than as distant ideas as Celeste and I work our magic like mad in order to keep our friends safe. Even still, I'm surprised by the amount of raw power they're able to display in their fight against Akari, Baylee, and the others. I suppose, though, that I shouldn't be. By the nature of Stygian Mana, these sentinels will be able to overdraw their power so long as they pay it back later, so theoretically, they can become as powerful as they need to be in order to win in the short term.

In practice, though, things don't appear to actually work that way. The dark sentinels are displaying levels of power that would seem extremely out of place for an E Rank, throwing massive gouts of fire at Baylee and being able to match Claire in strength, but even still, they're E Rank and suffered the limitations of that fact. Put simply, they can overdraft their power to push beyond their limits, but their pushing beyond simply puts them equal to where we already are by default. Our bodies are just better optimized toward magic due to our increased rank, and that advantage still holds true.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the soldiers, we wouldn't have had anything to worry about with this particular fight. But with them… it's a struggle. The sheer overpowering might of nearly eighty men and women pouring bullets in our direction is staggering, and I'm bleeding mana like I've sprung a leak just to stave off disaster. One lapse in concentration, one moment where my teammates are neither protected by Haruto's shield nor my manipulation, and their assault state shields will break in moments.

This is the core reason I can't participate in the fight more directly, as I'm perhaps the only one who even has a chance to stave off the constant gunfire for long enough to make a difference. Long enough for Hayley to shoot texts to Audrey, Kayne, and even Nightsong, anyone who might be able to help. And, failing that, long enough for Claire, Akari, Baylee, and Haruto to prove themselves the superior sentinels and free us up to break free of the cordon of spotlights and gunfire to flee into the night.

Still, despite all the odds against us, I feel the battle turning in our favor. The dark sentinels are starting to slow down, unable to stand tall against the unstoppable onslaught brought on by Claire, Baylee, and Akari. Slowly but surely, the dark sentinels will start making mistakes, and as soon as they slip up, it will only take a moment for their assault state shields to shatter and their lives to end.

Other than the aid of my mist, the real hero of this story is Claire, who fights like an absolute demon. With her red armor and massive sword, she moves in bursts of violent red lightning that tears into the dark sentinels' assault state shields and forces their strongest frontliner to block her attacks or risk his allies being cleaved in two by the overwhelming might of her strikes. All of this freed up Baylee and Haylee to let loose with their most powerful spells while Haruto and Akari focused on keeping everyone safe.

As long as they can keep the dark sentinels off of me and I can keep them safe from the bullets, then we'll soon have our opportunity to either break from the cordon of Reavers or pull a Nightsong and take these forces off the board forever. And, even as I think it, I watch Claire's lightning tear apart the last little bit of the enemy defender's assault state shield. Once she finishes him, the fight will be…

"What?" I murmur as my supernatural view of the fight just… vanishes. Suddenly, I find myself kneeling on the ground in a cloud of fading mist. Haruto shouts something I can't hear, and is forced to throw personal shields around our scattered team to protect us from the gunfire.

Finding myself surrounded by a bubble of green force, I look down at my hands in shock to find that I'm not even in my assault state. I will myself to shift, but the blue light within me quickly sputters out.

"What is happening?" I think to Celeste in shock, looking around Haruto's protective bubble for her. She was hiding near me to help me control the mist; she should be here too, but… nothing.

[Serena!] Celeste's voice cries out in my mind. [The overlord… the one we saw in the city! It's here, it has to be!]

Looking down at my bare hand, my arm only covered by the thin sweatshirt I wore into the GDF this morning, I try to summon my Living Mists. For the first time since I became a sentinel… nothing happens. I try again and again. I can feel the mana within me, but it refuses to answer my call.

"My powers," I whisper. "They're… they're gone."

Not even my bow is in the bubble with me, but of course it isn't. My bow is in my inventory as I haven't needed it for the fight yet. I would have brought it out when we moved to break the cordon, according to Baylee's plan, but now I can't even summon it from my inventory. I can't do anything but press my hands against the barrier and peer out in terror.

Sitting trapped helplessly in the bubble of force, I watch the fight turn on its head. The Reavers surrounding us stopped firing at some point and are instead rushing toward my team and me with weapons like oddly shaped pistols drawn.

As I watch, things go from bad to worse. In mid-swing of her massive broad sword, Claire turns from an unstoppable armored warrior to a teenage girl attempting to swing a sword far too big for her. Her swing goes wide, and she's nearly thrown from her feet by her sudden lack of strength. Moments later, the Reavers are rushing in around her, and I see one fire that strange pistol straight into her at near point-blank range. With horror, I watch Claire tumble to the ground with what looks like a tranquilizer dart in her neck.

My eyes go wide as I realize what's happening. It's the reason the Reavers went through with this plot at all. The only reason the soldiers in the incursion zone died is because they were sloppy, but if the plan occurred perfectly… There was never a chance for us to win because we aren't the sentinels in this story; we're the Volcora, and the dark sentinels are using us as training to get stronger. They've been waiting for the overlord to pull them out of the fire all this time, just like how Audrey or Kayne might watch over us.

Sure, they clearly made mistakes in the incursion zone — the dead sentinel can attest to that — but it's impossible to grow as a sentinel without some genuine risk. And these dark sentinels are using us to provide it. Now that we have, though, they're getting serious about trying to capture us… and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.

Each second feels like an eternity as I watch Baylee's magic flicker and die on her wand's tip and Haruto's shields all around the battlefield crack and fail in one instant — depositing me on the ground. Even Hayley quickly finds herself lacking the strength to draw back her bow as she looks franticly at the soldiers rushing her.

One by one, my teammates fall to needles in their necks, their powers stripped away as Reavers drag them off to who knows where. One by one, until finally, only Akari and I are left standing.

Akari lost her assault state as well, of course, but her sword is still light enough to hold without her enhanced strength. I climb to my feet beside her, but she quickly moves to hide me behind her back. Without my bow or any of my powers… well, I can do little but take shelter behind her as the Reavers rush in.

I've always been fine with being small — at this point, it's basically part of my personality. But in that moment, being able to do nothing but cower behind Akari as the massive forms of the Reavers rush over, I decide that I could maybe stand to be a little taller, a little stronger. Anything to help stave off the powerlessness I feel now. Once again, I've been reduced to a scared teenage girl, helpless to defend myself against the overwhelming odds arrayed against us.

The Reavers could have shot Akari and me with their tranquilizer darts as they rushed in, but oddly, they don't. Instead, they simply surround us, weapons raised. My heart pounds with fear as I stand, blinded by the light of the floodlights and surrounded by enemies. Feelings of helplessness I haven't felt in a long time quickly start to resurface. Reminders of the times when I was just a normal girl, looking at pictures of sentinels on restaurant signs and wondering what it would be like to be able to do something to help.

The reason why the Reavers didn't immediately open fire becomes apparent as a refined-looking man in a suit strides up with an easy confidence to his gait. I don't recognize the man, but from the way Akari tenses up, I can guess who it is.

"Quite the show you put on tonight, niece," Akari's uncle says as he walks onto the scene. His features are handsome and refined, with perfectly trimmed black hair and a slight beard that makes him look like an old-school Japanese mobster.

Akari doesn't answer in words but in a lightning-fast swipe of her sword toward the man. Well… it should have been lightning-fast. Akari's uncle has just enough time to step back, and one of the Reavers surrounding us kicks at Akari's knee, making her cry out and fall to the ground. Eyes wide, I dash in front of her, holding my hands out in a desperate plea for them to stop.

"Leave her alone!" I yell, proud of how my voice doesn't waver. My powers may be gone, but the confidence I gained over my time as a sentinel hasn't fled me yet.

In response, Akari's uncle just scoffs and waves to one of his men. Then, my world momentarily goes black before I find myself on the ground, my head splitting with pain. I… I didn't even see the blow coming. Without the enhancement of my powers, the tattoos of even the basic Reavers give an overwhelming advantage.

Akari is standing over me, having climbed back to her feet. "-leave her out of it!" she's shouting at her uncle when I come to.

Her uncle just laughs. "So, this is your little girlfriend, niece? What a pretty little thing. We'll make sure she's the first to receive the doctor's… ministrations. I wonder how pretty she'll be then."

Head still splitting with pain from where I'm fairly sure I was struck in the temple, I start trying to climb to my feet, only to be struck by a wave of intense vertigo and fall back to my knees. My head aches something fierce, and my balance is completely thrown off. In addition, without access to my inventory, I can't produce any of the mana-infused medicines I'd normally use to circumvent my ban on self-healing.

Above me, I can see tears streaming off Akari's face as she glares at her uncle. Her sword was taken away from her at some point, and now she stands protectively before me with only fists raised.

"Uncle," she says, her voice broken in a way it hasn't been since we spoke in the ally. "Just take me… leave Serena and the others alone. I'll do what you want; I won't fight the Stygian Mana treatments. I'll be a thousand times the warrior your pathetic daughters are. Just… leave her alone. If you don't hurt her, I'll do whatever you want."

"A-Akari," I cough roughly and try to gather my still-spinning thoughts. I… I think I might have a concussion. "D-don't…" is all I can manage after that before falling back to my hands. Stars, when did the world start spinning like that?

"That's my deal, uncle," Akari says, standing tall, though I can see the knee where she was struck trembling. "Leave Serena and my teammates alone."

Her uncle gives a smile that would look more at home on the face of a demon. "No…" he says, his voice soft. "No, I don't think I'll give you what you want."

He looks down at me, "You see, Akari, you know pain. You're used to it. But her… I can hurt you so much worse by hurting her instead. What will you say when I make her into my puppet? What will you say when I've stripped her personality and everything else you love away from her?"

I shudder and try to rise, to join Akari in standing on my feet to face this threat like we've faced so many others. Once again, though, my balance fails me, and I crash back to the ground in a heap. I taste dirt and blood in my mouth, and the humiliation of my helplessness is overwhelming. Even still, I can't let this horrible man use me as leverage against Akari; I won't.

Akari kneels beside me, placing a hand on my back. "I will kill you, uncle. I swear on the stars that I will find a way to kill you."

Her uncle just laughs again. "Take them."