20. Confluence

The great irony of being a fear mage, I think, is that we’re always at our strongest when we know we’re going to lose.

Rarely, very rarely, this gives us the strength we need to pull through in a situation thought hopeless. But the problem with that surge of strength is that we know we’ll get it. We know, in the back of our minds, we are at our best when things are at our worst. So the truest, deepest fear never arrives. As things get worse, as threats get bigger, we know exactly how much we can rise to face them. And if we can, they aren’t as scary. The fullness of our power never arrives until we know with certainty that it isn’t enough.

Fearful Sage Doomed Amalthea rises up off the rooftops, floating like a feather blown by an updraft of power, and I feel as powerful as I ever have. She raises her staff into the air.

“F-Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Tʜᴜɴᴅᴇʀ!” I shriek, launching a bolt of lightning in her direction. Amalthea contemptuously swings her staff downwards, and my attack twists ninety degrees in the air to crash straight into the ground rather than strike her.

“I hope you’re ready, Luna,” Amalthea says. Luna? Who’s Luna? The pages of her book start to flip like they’ve been thrust into the wind, and she returns her staff up to point at the sky.

“Lɪɢʜᴛᴡᴇɪɢʜᴛ. Aᴍᴘʟɪғʏ Mᴏᴍᴇɴᴛᴜᴍ. Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ. Sᴜᴘᴇʀɪᴏʀ Fʀᴇᴇᴅᴏᴍ. Iᴍᴘᴀᴄᴛ Rᴇᴘᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ. Assᴀᴜʟᴛ Aʀᴍᴏʀ.”

Magic surges out from Amalthea, gathering around the humanoid artifact in a swirling aura of green.

“Dɪᴠɪɴᴇ Bʀᴇᴀᴋᴇʀ!” Amaterasu roars, leaping directly at Amalthea while her body is enveloped in a giant spear of light.

“Pʜᴏᴛᴏɴ Bᴀʀʀɪᴇʀ,” Amalthea retorts, bringing up a glimmering shield in front of Amaterasu that halts her in place. Amaterasu presses against it, the light surrounding her body glowing brighter and brighter as she starts to crack through the shield, but in the same breath as before Amalthea continues casting.

“Oᴠᴇʀᴄʜᴀʀɢᴇ. Eᴄʜᴏ Sᴘᴇʟʟ. Iɴᴇʀᴛɪᴀʟ Bʀᴇᴀᴋᴇʀ. Mᴀɢɴɪғɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ Wᴀʀᴅ. Fᴏʀᴄᴇ Cᴀᴘᴀᴄɪᴛᴏʀ. Qᴜᴀᴅ Sᴇᴇᴋᴇʀ Sᴡᴀʀᴍ.”

The last spell in that rapidly incanted flurry of magic summons four futuristic constructs, little more than flying laser cannons, that surround Amaterasu on all sides, preparing to fire.

“Girls!” I shout an order, aiming a shot at two of the cannons to blast them out of the sky. Veritas leaps up into the air, blocking one of the other shots with her shield as Aurora directs one of her orbs to knock the final shot off course.

“Fᴜʟᴍɪɴᴀɴᴛ Tʜᴜɴᴅᴇʀ!”

My shot flies true, allowing Amaterasu to continue her attack, fractures splintering out from where her attack presses into Amathea’s shield. The wolf girl roars a battle cry, the magical energy she burns for thrust blazing ever brighter for a split second before the shield shatters, and all that power rushes directly towards Amalthea’s face.

I have no idea what happens next. It feels as though the intervening moments were skipped. The seconds that should have passed between the artifact jumping up from the ground and it reaching Amaterasu did not occur. The multiple crashes that should have rung out as Amaterasu was launched through half a dozen walls all hit our ears as a single thunderous boom. The motion of the artifact’s fist connecting with Amaterasu’s jaw should have had a moment of windup, an arc to its swing, but all I see is the aftermath. The mechanical weapon’s form hangs in the air in a pose like it had already followed through. As if there was a punch, and not merely an instant transition to its consequences.

Hey. Breathe.

What?

We need to breathe!

I suck in a ragged gasp of air, and somehow survive doing so. Amalthea, unharmed by the attack that never reached her, extends her staff and places the tip on the artifact’s shoulder as if she were knighting it.

“Gʀᴇᴀᴛᴇʀ Gɪғᴛ ᴏғ Tᴇʀʀᴏʀ.”

The artifact simply floats in the air between us, its thrusters keeping it aloft with strangely gentle flames.

“How,” I ask softly, before I can think better of it.

Amalthea seems surprised, but neither she nor her artifact take advantage of my lack of focus to attack.

“How what?” Amalthea asks.

“How are you this strong?” I blurt. “How? What could someone as powerful as you have to be afraid of?”

The look she gives me is full of many things. Anger, disgust, pity. But not fear. And yet…

“You really are just a child,” Amalthea says. “Is death the only thing you have to fear? Yours? Theirs?”

She motions her staff vaguely in Aurora’s and Veritas’ direction, and indeed my terror spikes. She clearly feels it.

“You can’t assemble a foundation of power on a fear that transient,” she says. “Do you know what I’m afraid of? I’m afraid that the last six years I’ve lived in a lonely castle will be all I have for the rest of my life. I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to so much as walk in the sunlight again without being attacked by people like you. Let alone make another friend, or do any of the things that make me happy. I’m afraid that you mindless, indoctrinated children will keep destroying the only chances we have to find out what happened to the Antipathy until it’s too late to stop it from happening again! I’m afraid that I will have to have this conversation and fight this battle every single time I ever want to leave my house and I can’t live a life like that! I don’t want to fight anymore! Just leave me alone!”

“Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Hᴏᴡʟɪɴɢ Sᴜɴʀɪsᴇ.”

Light. The ever-cloying darkness of the liminal space, a perpetual part of my life for the last decade, is banished. On the other side of multiple shattered buildings, Amaterasu rises from the crater her body made on impact with the earth, and with her, the sun. A brilliant ball of fire and light ascends above her head as she stands, rising above us all and turning night into day. Wounds scour off of her skin as the light hits them, hissing and smoking as if broken bones and torn flesh could be burned away like diseased wood.

“Of course,” Amalthea says, sounding halfway between annoyed and miserable. “Deal with her.”

The artifact rockets towards Amaterasu again, and Amalthea raises her staff to aim at the artificial sun.

Stop her!

I… how?

Who the fuck cares!? Quit freezing up and do something!

We’re too far outclassed! Veritas and Aurora can’t handle an enemy like this, we have to retreat!

You seriously think they’re the problem? They might be weak but at least they’re fucking fighting.

What? Oh, no. How did I miss this? Veritas got knocked away after blocking that shot head-on, but her shield took all the real force and she’s about to leap back into the action. And both of Aurora’s orbs are converging on Amalthea as I stand here gaping like an idiot. But what can I do? I’m not strong enough, I’m not fast enough. I’m not even afraid enough. How am I supposed to fear the future if I can’t even imagine one that I might have?

If you aren’t scared enough, get angry.

Amalthea twists in the air, avoiding the first pass of Aurora’s weapons as blue energy engulfs Veritas’ lance. Her straightforward thrust is going to miss by a mile, but as the magic emits outward from the tip of her weapon, increasing its effective length, she adjusts the grip on her lance and swings it towards Amalthea like a club.

That’s what we’ve been doing wrong. It’s the color of our damn stone. Castalia told us ages ago. Just green or just red isn’t enough. We have to use both.

Except I can’t. How am I supposed to be angry? What am I supposed to be angry at? All I can feel is the terror, the certainty of our loss, the children about to die at my hands. I can’t be angry in this situation. I don’t know how.

I do.

But that doesn’t… how could that…?

You’re the one who said we don’t have time to worry about how crazy we are. You hear my thoughts, so you can feel my emotions. You know I’m pissed. I’m pissed at her for being better than me. I’m pissed at them for being reckless little shits who don’t know how to value their own lives. Most of all, I’m pissed at you for being a goddamn coward. So burn it, asshole.

Feel it. Burn it. The emotions don’t feel like mine, but they’re still bubbling inside of me, the anger and the fear in tandem. The two tend to be considered opposing emotions, one usually overriding the other. Easily swapped between, but difficult to hold at once. At least, difficult for a single person.

Amalthea seems caught off guard by Veritas’ wild swing, but still manages to avoid it by dropping altitude, her staff crackling with power as it prepares to end Amaterasu’s abreaction.

“Dɪsʀᴜᴘᴛᴏʀ Cᴀɴɴᴏɴ!”

Go.

“Tʜᴜɴᴅᴇʀ Sᴛᴇᴘ!” I cast, teleporting to Amalthea’s side in a flash of lightning and kicking her in the arm with a burst of magic. Amalthea’s spell erupts from her weapon and crashes wildly into a building off to the side, completely off course.

Lightning and thunder!

“Fʟᴀsʜʙᴀɴɢ!”

The moment Amalthea turns to face me, her senses are overloaded in a crash of light and sound, an attack both cowardly and spiteful. Red and green flow through my fingertips, overlapping circles of color letting magic pour through my stone like a stream. It feels like stretching my shoulders after a month of not realizing they were stiff.

Amalthea screams and reels back, my teammates taking the chance to throw more attacks her way. She’s powerful as hell, but her magic is support-focused. If Amaterasu keeps the artifact busy, she has no one else to buff. A thousand different things could still go wrong, of course. All this power is intoxicating, invigorating, but that’s all the more reason to be afraid. Arrogance has killed many. What if I overestimate myself? What if Amaterasu fails? What if this is the only time I’ll ever taste this power, and the rest of my life will be spent chasing it again? The fear churns, the fear grows.

I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out. It’s bullshit that I have to be some unique special case flailing around to try and determine how her own powers work while every other girl my age just did one thing and became strong enough to punch a skyscraper in half. I’m furious that Uma’tama doesn’t trust me enough to handle this on my own, that they went out of their way to call in some weirdo from Japan to pick up my shit for me. I’m even more furious that they were right. I can’t handle this on my own. Apparently, I don’t even get to have a brain to myself. The anger churns, the anger grows.

The power is mine to shape, mine to control. I want something that defends, that protects my team from anything that might harm them.

The power is mine to shape, mine to control. I want something that attacks, that destroys anything that dares to threaten me and mine.

“Cᴀᴛʜᴀʀsɪs: Cᴏɴғʟᴜᴇɴᴛ Sᴜᴘᴇʀsᴛᴏʀᴍ!”

Our magic roars, and the world roars with it.

– – –

The wolf girl’s knife scrapes the edges of my shielding, magic sparking against magic as I barely dodge another thrust. I’m halfway tempted to take it head-on, but in my current circumstances there’s a fine line between being efficient and being wasteful.

My power reserves are currently at 29%. My temporary power reserves have been reduced to 54%, dropping by approximately 1.24% per second before extraneous use.

Layers and layers of active spells crackle across the surface of my frame, carefully and expertly bound together so that they do not interfere with me or each other. Two of them are little more than enormous clumps of green magic, feeding themselves into my systems already refined and prepared for use. The magic almost eagerly leaps into my shielding systems, Thea’s fear over my safety directly acting to protect me in any way it can.

A dozen different subroutines click away in the back of my mind, measuring how long each enhancement Thea gave me has until it runs out. My body is lighter than my mass should allow, faster than my motors should be capable of, stronger than my systems have power. When my blows connect, they strike with a force far in excess of what physics would decree, and hit multiple times from what should be a single attack. I can fly, my thrusters no longer straining against my body’s inertia with each change in direction. And yet after only a few seconds of fighting this way, all my predictive algorithms have updated themselves accurately, taking in every scrap of data about every error and returning the solutions in moments. My empowered combat information suite sings with brutal precision, the only downside to it all being the speed at which it devours my body’s energy to run my mind fast enough to keep up.

That, and fighting this way is almost fun, which makes it a little hard to feel sad.

For once, I’m not even fighting a child. This crazy wolf girl looks closer to my age than not, and she has repeatedly attacked Thea despite multiple attempts to deescalate so she kind of has it coming! What the heck is up with the wolf ears and tail, anyway? They aren’t part of her outfit, they’re definitely part of her body. I thought Dark World corruption was the only way to get monster parts, so what’s her deal? I guess I could just be wrong. I really don’t know much of anything about how magical girl transformations work.

She thrusts a dagger at me again, and I see the trajectory of the strike, all the movements I could take that would place me in an advantageous position. I knock the blow aside with a backhand to the flat of the blade, stepping in and landing a punch to her stomach with my other hand. The Earth Guardian crumples around my fist, vomiting on my front plating but managing to keep the presence of mind to try and pull away. I’ve already anticipated that she might, though. Vibrating my body to dislodge the puke, I speak in the only way I currently can.

“[M ᴇ ɢ ᴀ B ᴜ s ᴛ ᴇ ʀ]”

Her eyes go wide as I pull out a spell, shooting her directly where my fist just connected to turn her lower rib area into one giant bruise. The blazing magical sun starts burning her injuries away, but the advantage is still mine. I know how quickly she can regenerate, and can predict how much more of it she has in her based on the magical readings from her spell. I’ll beat her before my assistance from Thea runs out, with time to spare.

But of course, then the storm starts.

My opponent and I are far from the rest of the battle. My initial strike, glutted with gifts of power, knocked the Earth Guardian quite a ways away and I’ve been harrying her to keep her separated from Thea ever since. This girl fights with incredible speed at extremely close range—an obvious counter to Thea, whose spells focus on supporting from the back and attacking at range. I, meanwhile, can easily keep up with her speed when supported by Thea, and my hand-to-hand combat skills are borderline unfair. I’m sure Thea can handle three children on her own.

And yet. A warm front of anger collides with a cold front of fear, swirling and thrashing around Minerva, growing larger, spreading farther. Clouds form above and around us as the winds pick up, trapping us inside a spiraling black cylinder of rain and wind and lightning. The world around us is still bright from the Earth Guardian’s artificial sun, making the hurricane crashing around us look quite incongruous, part of me thinking this couldn’t possibly be the middle of a storm. But as I try to kick my target, a burst of wind traveling hundreds of miles per hour blasts me off course, leaving my enemy untouched.

That would be a problem all by itself, but then I get struck by lightning. Three times.

My power reserves are currently at 30%. My temporary power reserves have been reduced to 34%, dropping by approximately 1.24% per second before extraneous use. Such as absorbing lightning bolts with my shields. Ow.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Suge! Nice, nice, Minerva!” my opponent cheers, immediately turning tail and rushing directly for Thea. “Fʟᴀsʜ Dᴀɴᴄᴇ!”

I try to cut her off, but another thrust of air keeps me on the ground as the wolf girl seems to turn into a thin beam of light, almost instantaneously halving the distance between herself and Thea before briefly materializing her full body and then doing it again. Thea snaps her giant tome shut, using it like a shield to block the first stab of the wolf girl’s dagger, but the Flash Dance kicks in again, letting the magical girl move right through Thea and attack from the opposite side.

My mind churns with magical calculations, trying to form or copy a movement spell that could let me intercept, but Thea just swings her staff like a club, the crystal at the tip smashing into the Earth Guardian’s cheek the moment she reappears. I can see the bones break from here, but the wounds immediately start knitting themselves back together. Okay, new plan. I turn and aim at the artificial sun, charging glowing blue energy into my palm.

“[M ᴇ ɢ ᴀ B ᴜ s ᴛ ᴇ ʀ]”

The wind batters me again but I’m braced for it, the slight jostle to my aim not enough to force my attack to miss the giant ball of flame. I detonate the construct, a wave of flame rushing over the battlefield, but the wolf girl just spits blood out of the side of her mouth and presses the assault again.

For a split second, I zoom my sight in on the image of the blood falling through the storm. Separated from the main body, it quickly starts disintegrating into motes of orange magic.

A lightning bolt crashes down from above Thea’s head. She tries to redirect it like she did with Minerva’s Fulminant Thunder, dropping a guiding trail of green magic into the ground for the bolt to follow. Fear is ever so prone to following the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, anger tends to follow only the path it sees ahead of itself, and the bolt strikes true. Thea screams.

I have to help her. The new magical girl is an orange mage, and orange is need, anticipation, desire. I focus harder on that need to save Thea, let her scream ring out over and over at rapid speed in my mind, gather the magic, and speak the spell.

“[F ʟ ᴀ s ʜ D ᴀ ɴ ᴄ ᴇ]”

It’s costly—

My power reserves have been reduced to 26%. My temporary power reserves have been reduced to 11%, dropping by approximately 1.24% per second before extraneous use.

—but I ignore my sensors going haywire as they briefly cease to exist, teleporting twice along the same path the other girl took to end up right next to her, already swinging a punch.

“Sʜɪᴇʟᴅ ᴏғ Tʀᴜᴛʜ!” Veritas shouts, and a blue barrier stylized to look like her shield pops into existence in front of me, taking the punch in place of my target.

“¡Fᴜᴇʀᴢᴀ Aʀᴅɪᴇɴᴛᴇ!” Aurora follows up, and suddenly the orange mage has a glowing aura of yellow that flickers like flame. A buff of her own, and mine are starting to run out. Another lightning bolt crashes through me, my extra energy reserves rapidly falling.

“Gʀᴀsᴘ ᴛʜᴇ Eɴᴅ!” Thea counters, fleshy tentacles pouring out from the pages of her book and reaching into small portals in the air. The other ends appear around the wolf girl, wrapping around her and holding her in place.

“Pᴀɴɪᴄ Bᴜʀsᴛ!” Thea follows up, blasting everyone else away, myself included. She rises higher into the air, a shimmering shield protecting her from the wind and the rain. “Last chance to leave! I mean it!”

The girl caught in her tendrils just roars like an animal, ripping herself free from the spell with brute strength.

“Fine then,” Thea growls. “Aʙʀᴇᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: Sᴀᴛᴇʟʟɪᴛᴇ Cᴀɴɴᴏɴ.”

A beam of bright, sickly green falls from the sky like a god from heaven. It engulfs the adult magical girl even as she tries to dodge, the cylinder of death simply too wide to avoid before it connects. When the bright flash ends, it leaves behind a circular hole in the earth deep enough that from where I am I can’t tell if there’s an intact person at the bottom or not.

The sound of thunder reaches my sensors, and Thea starts falling from the sky. What happened? Did she overuse… no. It was Minerva’s storm. The moment Thea’s attack descended, the light disguised the bolts of electricity all converging on Thea’s position at once. My thrusters burn, but a gust of wind counteracts my attempt to reach her, and Veritas slams into me with her shield, knocking me into a building. I land on the wall feet-first and launch off of it to catch Thea, and Aurora’s orbs slam me back into the ground. Minerva carefully lines up a shot.