The Unified States of Mana

Back on Earth, I can’t say that I had much of a relationship with my teachers. In school it was always a rather bilateral indifference, to the point where if I met them on the streets, I might offer a passing nod or smile to acknowledge them before I move on.

Well, life is different here, and it seems that this teacher has taken a little more notice of me and my friends. Which of course is going to end in someone’s death.

“I’d suggest that you all sit down, and accept your collars peacefully.” Saren says, her eyes flicking between us as if looking for one of us that might abandon the cause. “You should know that you won’t be treated too harshly. That you belong here.”

“No thanks.” Leai says cheerily, lowering herself and stirring her mana in readiness for a spell. “I prefer life outside. With these girls who accept me for who I am.”

Saren remains still, her mana unshifting as of yet as she continues to observe us. Red standing by her side like a loyal dog, ordered to come to heel. Though, I’m sure there’s no actual loyalty here, she is not the sort to bend so easily. She is no obedient slave, no matter how the collar contorts her flesh.

Red’s eyes glow with a power that comes not from mana or from magic, but from the pure rage that burns inside her. Something that surpasses the limits of magic in so many ways. Smiling in the face of her expression, I stroke at the ball of rage that I’ve left to slowly settle in my time as a student.

Orsa certainly reignited that burning passion within me and killing her has only made it impossible to ignore the changes that have taken place within me. Changes that make me into someone far more capable evil than I ever was before.

It all truly started when I watched Red send those helpless students to battle to the death before us, and now I feel the same frustration raging inside me as she is sent out to fight us. I knew back then that she was a product of her environment. That she can be so much better if given the chance.

I still believe it, and I’m going to give her that chance.

“Red, restrain them.” Saren orders quite simply. I’m sure that there are countless other orders at play, orders that she’s given and never yet rescinded, binding Red into a gordian knot with a thousand unbreakable words.

She steps closer to us, as I race to try and figure out some way to knock her out, or failing that, how to get close enough for long enough to pull out her collar forcefully. The pain might just be enough to give me a chance for that to work.

“I’ll hold her back.” Korgan says, either bravely or stupidly standing up to her. I’ve seen them both fighting, and I am quite certain that he can’t compare to her, not even with all the restraints that currently hold her back.

“No, go support the others in the back” I say, taking his place and standing in Red’s way, by the side of the twins. “I’ll flip her to our side.”

There isn’t much room in this thin hallway, which clearly wasn’t designed to make for an easy group battle. Rather it feels like it’s meant to make it easier for the strong to hold out against massive numbers. A perfect chokehold, but with countless side rooms from which you can strike out at invaders.

For us, this means that we stand shoulder to shoulder, something that’s strongly discouraged in battles of magic and mana. Fights this close are almost assured to be fast and bloody, leaving no space for error, but at the same time giving no chance to think things through.

I send out a few messages to make clear my plans, so that the others are ready.

 

Kyra- I need Red to hold me down without knocking me out. I’ll be pull her collar out the moment I can but if she gets too rough, I need you to distract her or something.

Eshya- I’ll try my best, but my sword can’t cut her skin.

Nel- I’ll have the knockout potion ready, be careful and don’t get caught for real.

Vii- Distractions? I’ll try, but with Red…

 

I send one more message to Red, hoping that she can manipulate her orders at least a little for this coming battle.

 

Kyra- Red, I won’t resist if you hold me down. Understand? Just hold me down for a few seconds, and we can end this.

Red- …~

 

A slow smile rises on her lips, and not the cheerful happy sort, but the kind that matches too perfectly with her glowing, raging eyes. The only thing that could make her look even more ready for a fight would be blood splatter over her face.

This is probably the first smile that she’s really had since coming here, else I’m sure Saren would of found a reason to Order her against that too.

“Times on her side.” I say to the twins before me, feeling the weight of the clock that’s ticking unerringly in the background. How long before someone comes to our teachers aid? How long before we’re surrounded by enemies that we can’t escape?

We charge, taking the initiative.

In most situations I’d be advised to take to the well defended rear of the formation, but today the fight isn’t going to be normal. Not by any definition.

I’m somewhat gambling on the idea that Red is going to intentionally give herself over to me, and what with her orders to restrain, not kill, I’m sure this will work.

The twins explode with bright light as they cast their pressure magic. Spells that I’m still not familiar with, boost the force behind their kicks as they fly up towards the roof, sliding just over and past Red as she walks below.

I barely notice the flying chunks flesh before they blast open like grenades, splattering us all in chunks of oily flesh. As the awful, charred scent of corrupted, rotting flesh fills the room and stains all of us on these front lines, the battle finally begins.

The twins burst into attacks so fast that my eyes simply can’t keep track. Limbs and tentacles fly with such speed and force that I can feel the air pressure blowing through the hall, stirred by their movements.

While I could easily be entranced by their assault and Saren’s ability to hold the pair at bay, there is no time for it. Red is already upon me.

Unlike the times when we trained together, today she’s seriously, completely unable to take it easy on me. She’s slowed only by a moment as she smacks aside a blade of wind from Vii, and catches a bullet that Nel shoots at her, letting it explode in her closed fist. She didn’t move at any ridiculous speeds, simply seeing the pistol predicting where it would hit and moving her hand to intercept the bullet.

Without wasting any energy, she steps into my range, grabs my arm as I try to hit her and folds me over her knee. The hit takes a chunk of mana out of me, but I don’t end up feeling much force from the blow, coming to an easy stop as I land on her knee with a loud smack.

Eshya dives towards her with a swinging sword in the moment it takes Red to recover, but as easily as brushing aside a falling leaf, she lifts her hand and guides the sword away.

While she’s certainly making an interesting show of her superiority, she’s also given me the perfect chance to end things.

Even through my armour, I’m touching Red and this close it’s impossible to miss the brightly shining silver inside of her. I activate my Skill while carefully directing it to ensure that I grab as many of the loose threads as I can before finally tugging at them.

With all of her dense mana, it’s no surprise that her collar resists me, but this is hardly the first time. I would actually consider Bessy’s collar to have been more trouble than this.

Red shudders, seeming as if she’s going to stand back up for a moment, before her eyes roll back, and she falls right onto me. My reactive enchantments siphon out a few dozen mana just from catching her, her weight amplified many times over by her dense mana, could’ve easily crushed me if I wasn’t prepared to take the hit.

I check over her as I continue to pull at the mana weaving through the silver veins running through her body and soul. Her eyes are rolled into the back of her head, and her facial expression is as relaxed as it can get, drool sliding from the corner of her lips as her head rests upon my chest.

While continuing my operation through Skill alone, I check the surrounds for threats.

The beasts around us are watching with considerable interest, but without means or want to join the battle raging on. The teacher is being pressed back by the twins’ continuous assault, hands, tentacles, and legs swinging with increasing momentum the longer the fight drags on.

While I can’t say I understand the mana flowing around them, it’s clear that they’re making quite liberal use of their mana in hopes of defeating the teacher quickly. I’ll have to be ready to throw some mana their way as soon as this is over, as it looks like it’ll end shortly.

Saren is somehow able to defend against their fast moving attacks, moving around some, blocking some, and just ignoring yet others. Yet, every time she tries to take the offensive, she’s brutally shut down by a series of attacks that she simply can’t face.

I feel her flicker towards me, and Red who’s still unconscious atop me. Technically, she did still succeed in restraining me, so in my opinion the teacher has no right to complain about it.

“All who can hear me, come and assist in subduing these wild beasts.” Saren shouts the moment she sees that she’s lost. Her loud voice carries through the halls as she doubles her efforts against the twins, taking a few hits that she’d otherwise avoid just to land a few attacks of her own.

Magic stirs around her, giving less than a heartbeats notice before she hits Leai in the chest with an open palm. The strike somehow hard enough to send our vanguard flying back until she hits a doorframe and falls to the ground.

Saren’s hand is covered in a slight shimmering layer of water that hadn’t been there before. It glimmers brightly with the dense mana that she’s channelling through it, and it grows a little larger as she turns to Seia who retreats a step to try and defend her sister.

Saren doesn’t hesitate or care, stirring a new wave of dense mana as she casts a spell on the fallen Leai. The magic that she casts settles into the fallen girls body, before drawing out blood from her wrists and ankles. The blood flows out around her limbs, taking the shape of thick shackles. I’m sure they wouldn’t last forever, but I’m also sure that they’ll last long enough to see us ended.

Korgan charges in beside Seia to try and fill the gap, while I rush to finish with Red.

Unfortunately, in the moments this has taken, the other beasts around us have heard Saren’s call. Eshya, Nel, and Vii intercept the beasts, both humanoid and not, while Bessy spares a few limbs to throw some aside.

Eshya’s sword cuts through a large rat, before she stabs a large plant-like figure through the many bulbs of his chest. He moves to wrap our elf up in his limbs to try and hold her down, but before he can manage it, his head is blasted back by a blade of wind. The strike is enough to send him flailing to the ground.

Nel is firing her pistol and throwing her knives as quickly as she can, focusing on the beasts that come from the hall behind us. Bessy fights with what limbs she can spare while ushering our unconscious collection of ‘beasts’ into an empty side room to get out of the fighting.

As I pull the last strings of silver from Red I watch as Korgan and Seia are easily overwhelmed by our teacher who is no longer holding back.

She uses the same technique as against Leai on the rest of our vanguard, leaving them to struggle in shackles of their own blood. After they’ve been knocked to the ground.

Watching her, I can’t help but realize how much she’s holding back. She’s manipulating the blood in our very bodies, and we’re all too weak to stop her. This fight was never on equal terms, our only chance the fact that she’s holding herself back.

“Nel!” I shout, sending a message alongside as I realize she mightn’t hear me. She spins around, ready to throw the wake-up potion towards me as I’m still trapped under Red, trying to pry my pistol free.

Saren sees this, and steps between us faster than I’ve yet seen her move. She catches the bottle and shoves Nel down in one swift motion. Adlers water cutter is caught in an extended hand, as the teacher presses her boot down onto Nel, forcing her to stay down.

Eshya and Vii race to intercede, but they’re pushed back with a wave of the hand, slamming into the wall behind them as they’re struck with small globs of water. The beasts that we can no longer hold back, now fill the hall and force us down.

Adler panics as a beast pushes her to the ground, the insect creature using its many limbs to its advantage as it holds her down firmly with the support of others around it.

I never thought that Saren would be this powerful.

We never stood a chance against her.

I summon a small blast of flame in Red’s face to try and shock her awake, but it doesn’t seem to work.

“I don’t know why you chose to come here and do this to us.” Saren says waving her hands at the corpses of the beasts that have died in the fighting. “I hope that soon you will learn why you should regret this. Learn to mourn the dead, and to care for the living. There are consequences to your actions and burdens that you force on others because of your choices.”

As she makes a little speech, about morals or some such nonsense, she drops a silver collar onto Nel. It sinks into her skin and disappears from sight, acting the same as I’ve seen once before.

“Don’t attack.” Saren orders as she lifts her foot off of Nels chest.

“I’ll give you a moment.” I send the message to her as I pry my pistol up and into position. Because of how Red has fallen onto me, they’ve simply assumed that I’m restrained, a mistake they won’t have a chance to regret.

“You think that toy makes you strong?” Saren says, turning to face me.

“Nope.” I shoot, pressing a few hundred mana into the shot while hoping that it doesn’t cause any collateral damage. Saren lifts her hand to catch the bullet the same as Red did at the beginning of this fight, but her eyes widen as she sees just how much mana I’ve loaded into the attack.

She catches the bullet, even brings it to a stop in her hand for a heartbeat before it explodes, bursting her hand and sending a few fried fingers scattering around the room. For all the mana I spent, it feels almost underwhelming, but it’s still enough.

Nel spits out the silver of the collar, proving in practice the effect our updated Chips have on the collars. Without hesitation, and without looking, she pulls out a potion and throws it blindly my way.

I don’t have a moment to spare for hesitation.

I catch it, pop the top, and force it into Red’s mouth, even though it takes some effort to pry open her mana dense lips.

Saren screams in pain, reacting worse than I expected. For someone so well practiced in fighting, I’d thought that she’d be fast in recovering.

 The collared beasts around us, still following the old orders move in to subdue Nel and I, now that we’ve made it clear that we’re still threats.

Then, Red’s eyes flicker open.

It’s our victory.

As she lifts herself off of me, a new pressure fills the room. A weight that threatens to steal my breath away, but can’t manage to bring down the smile rising on my lips as I tear away the collars of the beasts that come to subdue me.

“You may smell like shit, but I swear I could kiss you right about now.” Red says, her language fluid and foul. Guttural, the sounds coming from deep in her chest, as she sneers at our wounded teacher, who now notices that something is wrong.

“You though…”

Saren looks up at Red in confusion, but she’s given not a moment’s pause to think.

Red moves fast.

Not blindingly fast as some superpowered hero. It’s not teleportation, or breaking the sound barrier, but she does blur as she slams into Saren. Her hands glowing with the same red light that I once saw her use on her daggers.

With three swift movements, the teacher is split into parts. The head split in two vertically, her torso cut open to spill her guts, and her arms and legs detached entirely.

Red doesn’t even take a moment to enjoy her victory, instantly leaping upon the next enemy in line. There are still more collared beasts around, all with orders to restrain those of us who are ‘wild beasts’.

“Don’t kill them!” I shout at Red, as I throw aside a few of my own attackers. “You’re killing our recruits damnit! Knock them out, and then throw them here!”

Red looks at me in confusion, her hand deep inside the chest of a large hairy creature the size of a bear.

Nel throws a glob of silver at her, and I repeat the request again. This time she nods, throwing a few unconscious bodies my way as I struggle against the weight of the crowd. It seems Red is happy enough to work with us for now, I just have to hope that those good relations continue.

Eshya and Vii soon return to the fight as they’re freed by Red and I. With their added help we manage to push against the tide to reveal Korgan and the twins. The blood chains that bound them are now but stains on the ground, the magic that had bound them worn away now that Saren can no longer support it.

They’re largely uninjured, a few scrapes and bruises that are yet to form. After a slapping them about for a few seconds they’re all awaken, ready to join the fight again.

Bessy, who I soon realize was hiding under the many bodies that she was carrying, dives right back into her task, picking up the unconscious, but still living beasts that we’ve scattered around the halls. She also selects a few of the dead creatures that she forces into her layers of puff as she works.

I certainly won’t begrudge her a little snacking here and there.

Our lack of discrimination is going to be trouble later, but there’s no point leaving anyone behind when their collars have already been melted. I’ll separate the meat from the minions when we’re somewhere passably safe.

“We need to retreat. She mentioned calling for help!” Nel sends over a group chat while the battle continues, new beasts joining the fight as they just get here. Saren’s voice apparently echoed pretty far.

A blue blob leaps for my face, and I catch Slimey before he can wrap around my head. I pull the collar from him nice and easily, before chucking his wobbly jelly body back towards Bessy.

“Just a second.” I send back, “The last few tags are coming for us. We’ll catch them first, then run.”

Livi and Shy, the blue crystal and the stealth expert, come charging senselessly down the hallway towards us.

“I can’t stop myself!” Livi shouts, practically crying as she leaps towards Eshya who’s keeping the forwards line up. Our elf, lowers her blade and grabs Livi’s hand before throwing her at me.

“Potion.” I cry to Nel, who forces a sleeping potion down the girl’s crystal throat. She falls in a moment, and I pull her collar out in one more, feeling increasingly confident in my ability to do so.

Shy is a little more challenging, but Leai manages to catch her and hold her down long enough to force the potion on her. Not something that we’re bothering with for everyone, but I can spare the effort this once.

With Shy rolled up in Bessy’s eldritch grasp, we’re ready to go.

“What’s going on here? Saren?” The vaguely familiar voice calls out as we finish with the last of the collared beasts.

I turn my gaze to our newest enemy.

It’s another teacher.

Tera, the one who was teaching us how to cut up the bodies of the beasts we kill.

Her steely grey eyes widen as she tries take in the scene before us, thankfully terribly slow to react. She looks between us and I can see recognition floating over her expression as she meets my eyes. Our hoods have fallen during the fighting, and I’m sure that our cloaks give us a properly villainous look.

Though the corpses at our feet may be more to blame for that image.

“Saren?” She asks again, blinking as she tries to look for the teacher, who’s currently scattered on the ground at our feet. Apparently she can’t recognise her acquaintance any longer, but I suppose where’s Wally/Waldo, would be ever much more difficult if he too was slit into parts and spread out over the pages.

“Mine.” Red says before leaping down the hall and hitting the fleeing teacher in the head, knocking her out without any wasted motions. She drags the short teacher back towards us, and I quickly pull out her chip before throwing her, too at Bessy.

A problem for tomorrows Kyra.

“Let’s run.” I say, catching up with Nel, who’s already eager to run us out of here.

“Warning.” Vii says, deadly serious as she turns to Red, “It stinks, even worse up ahead.”

“Thanks for the warning?” Red replies with a smile, “I trained you girls up right, didn’t I?”

“You?” I scoff, “We worked hard to get this far. Your insane attempts to train us was only good for traumatising us.”

“Ah, but would you have grown so much if it weren’t for that trauma?” Red says, while laughing.

“You really are a shithead, Red.” I say, shaking my head and laughing.

For a few minutes we jog through empty halls, watching as Bessy manages to stretch her body out into a long train of tentacles that hold aloft the unconscious forms of dozens of people.

I really have to find out what sort of stuff she likes so I can bribe her to stick around. I need her more than the resistance does, and I’ll treat her much more nicely.

We open the door that separates the cells from the ruins and rush on into the stench of the slowly rotting beast that still lies there, untouched by the beasts. I’d really rather not meet any creature that finds this appetising, I’d have to kill it on principal alone.

We pause for a moment as Nel pours a few bottles worth of wasted silver over the flesh and we rush away.

“Can you hit it from here?” Nel asks, pointing towards the rotting flesh, now coated in silver.

“Yep.” I reply simply, loading my pistol with a good chunk of mana before firing at the corpse and scattering the charred flesh around.

“Think this will convince anyone that we’re all dead?” Vii asks, looking back worriedly.

“We can hope.” Adler replies, “I mean… some welfare officers are rather lazy and stupid.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Skills & Stats

 

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 790 units

~Mana distribution:

Skin: 5/28%

Muscle: 33/33%

Mind: 20/65%

Cardiovascular: 11/11%

Misc.: 10/10%

Efficiency: 79/79%

 

~Favourited Skills:

-Chip Shredder

-Multi-mind

-Tag

-Mana surge movement

-Mana surge punch

-Reactive mana skin

-Infused delayed Casting

-Fire burst punch

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

//Author Note

More chapters available

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