Mage Catalyst

by George, Christopher

“You started cheating,” Renee chucked as she launched her next attack.

  Duelling with mana threads is nothing like fighting with swords. For one, unlike a sword, reach is not an issue. The mana thread can extend or decrease in length as required. The second factor is that mana threads can bend and weave as per the wielder’s direction. This made it difficult to predict where an attack was going to come from. Renee would launch a feint which would be easily blocked and then with the same swipe, curl the thread back to attack from another angle. It made for a nerve-racking duel as any movement made by your opponent could be an attack. Any motion, however slight, could be twisted to launch a thread in a new direction. It was lucky that Renee wasn’t trying to actively kill me, as I’m sure that she’d had the opportunity on several occasions.

  “You’re not even thinking about the invisibility field anymore, are you?” Renee asked as we passed in a particularly explosive exchange.

  “No,” I replied. I was surprised that I hadn’t realised it until it had been pointed out.

  “Not bad, Twitch. Not bad,” Renee complimented as she launched a vicious swipe at my head.

  I had already picked up on her habit of talking to act as a decoy for an attack so I wasn’t surprised when her strike came. I threw myself to one side to avoid her attack and sent my own attack at Renee’s exposed side. Renee cursed and had to throw herself onto the ground. My thread sailed harmlessly over her head.

  “Okay,” she grunted as she launched an attack from the ground, “but let’s see what you do now.”

  Renee swivelled forward aggressively and rose to her feet. A second thread lanced out from her left hand and I frantically stumbled back as she brought two threads to bear. There was no way I was going to be able to manage two threads and a field. I didn’t even try. I was amazed that I was doing as well as I was with a single thread, but it was now obvious that I was over-matched.

  Renee had launched a particularly fast strike with her left hand, which I was amazed that I had managed to block. My mana thread had seemed to move of its own accord. Unfortunately this strike was only the beginning of my problems. As Renee spun around, her right hand came back around and her other mana thread swung around in an underarm arch towards my stomach. I don’t know how but it was again hastily and luckily blocked.

  I actively retreated at high speed across the rooftop. The problem was Renee was slowly and inexorably pushing me towards the triangular skylight in the centre of the rooftop and there was very little I could do to stop her.

  “Do you give up?” Renee hissed at me with a grin as she spun towards me on her next pass.

  “Never, I’ll take anything…”

  But I never got a chance to finish my sentence as with a vicious swipe Renee swept my mana thread out of the way and her second thread caught me just under the ribs. Time seemed to slow down for me. I could see her thread coming at me at high speed but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I attempted to drop the invisibility field and erect a shield at the last second, but I must have been too late. The impact of the mana thread drove my body backwards and through the skylight behind me.

  This obviously wasn’t Renee’s intention as I heard her curse when I fell through the glass and down into the room below. I must have immediately gone into shock because I didn’t really feel the impact. I appeared to have dropped into a kitchen of some sort, but it was too dark to really see where I was. The only light in the room was from the broken window above me.

  “Shit,” Renee called down. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

  “My shoulder hurts,” I called with a slight chuckle. For some reason I found this reply very funny.

  “Don’t move,” Renee ordered as she prepared to jump down into the room.

  I reached around and felt my left shoulder, which was stinging slightly. Strangely enough my side where Renee had struck me had gone cold but there was no pain. The only pain I felt was from my shoulder. I brought my hand back and I could see a dull red stain on my fingers.

  It was clearly visible in the moonlight.

  “Renee, I’m bleeding,” I called out.

  Renee landed with a slight grunt. “There’s a lot of blood,” she commented darkly as she moved towards me.

  “Does it look bad?”

  “Don’t move,” she ordered as I tried to rise. Renee leaned over me. Her face became a mask of horror and guilt as she inspected the scene. “I need more light,” she muttered as she walked around to my right.

  Renee raised her hand and built a small ball of mana into a sphere. She then flexed her fingers and launched it several metres into the air. When it reached the apex of its journey it exploded like fireworks. It may have been the blood loss or the shock, but the overall effect was breathtakingly beautiful. The mana cast a faint blue halo over everything. It was even casting shadows throughout the room… It was producing light!

  Each mana particle was reacting with the air around it. I could see little droplets of mana igniting in the air and falling to the ground. It was like it was snowing mana. There was a faint sizzling noise as the mana wafted to the ground. The reaction repeated itself as each mana particle faded and fell to the ground.

  I heard Renee gasp as she again looked down. I turned on my side and saw I’d basically splattered onto the side of a table in the centre of the kitchen.

  There was so much blood, too much blood.

  “Don’t move,” Renee ordered again calmly, but I could tell there was a degree of hysteria in her voice.

  “Renee, it’s okay,” I murmured.

  Renee rolled me onto my side and a choke escaped her lips. I couldn’t tell if it was a laugh or a cry.

  “Well, it’s a light cut,” Renee commented clinically.

  “Light cut? That’s a lot of blood for a light cut.”

  Renee swiped her finger along the edge of the table and brought it to my lips.

  Tomato sauce.

  “You must have landed on a bottle of tomato sauce.” Renee smiled, her eyes glittering with nervous amusement.

  “I tried to raise a shield,” I explained tentatively.

  “Yeah, I think I saw it as you were disappearing through the window,” Renee commented. “Your shield must have broken your fall and crushed the tomato sauce bottle”.

  “Can I get up now?”

  “I guess.” Renee shrugged. “Be careful though, there’s a lot of broken glass on the table, there must have been some glasses on the table too.”

  I tentatively leaned forward to allow Renee to better see the table under me.

  “Your back looks like something out of a horror movie.” Renee chuckled. “Fortunately it appears to be mostly sauce.”

  “I think you owe me a new shirt.” I grinned.

  “Lean further forward,” Renee ordered. “There are bits of glass in your shirt.”

  I leant forward and let Renee inspect my back.

  “Neat trick with the light,” I commented.

  “Quiet,” Renee ordered curtly. “There’s quite a bit of glass in your back, doesn’t seem too bad though, it must have happened when you lowered the shield.”

  “Small mercies eh?” I chuckled.

  My back was beginning to sting a little.

  “We should probably get out of here,” I commented, glancing around. “Someone may have heard the noise when I came through the ceiling.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve got most of the big pieces, but we should go,” Renee agreed. “We’ll head back to my place and I’ll patch you up properly.”

  “Do we need to do anything about the light?”

  Renee shook her head. “No, it’ll last about half an hour then it’ll go out by itself.”

  She helped me off the table. I cringed slightly as my back began to tingle. I sent a mana thread up through the now gaping hole in the roof and pulled myself back onto the roof. Looking back through the smashed skylight I noticed with some degree of chagrin that we’d made one hell of a mess down there. The broken glass
from the skylight was scattered across the floor and some of the pieces on the table were covered in tomato sauce. The whole kitchen had the feel of a particularly grisly murder scene. I had a brief moment of guilt and sympathy for the poor person who was to be greeted by that sight when they came into work tomorrow morning.

  “It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it?” Renee observed as she joined me on the rooftop.

  My fall through the window had really done a number on this place.

  “Come on. Let’s get you bandaged up,”Renee called.

  I agreed wholeheartedly. My shoulder was really starting to ache.

  I reactivated the mana field around me and made several small jumps across buildings. Renee led the way guiding me from building to building. She skilfully directed us towards the best places to land and to launch from. I got the feeling this wasn’t the first time she’d done this.

  * * * *

  Renee let us into her apartment from the balcony door and in a brisk manner went to the hallway cupboard and retrieved two towels and placed them over her coffee table.

  “Okay, lose the shirt,” she ordered as she began to pour some water into a bowl.

  “What? No flowers or chocolate first?” I quipped as I removed my shirt. Renee didn’t comment as she was busy directing a lamp to shine down on to the table. It was beginning to look like one of those scenes in the movies where someone is about to be interrogated. After I had removed my shirt I noticed with annoyance that the left side of the shirt was completely shredded.

  “You definitely owe me a new shirt.” I grinned as I presented the shirt to her.

  “I’ll lend you one,” Renee commented. “Now, lie flat.”

  I lay flat on the table and let Renee get to work. It wasn’t the most comfortable of surfaces.

  She had to adjust the light source several times before she was satisfied.

  “Yeah, this doesn’t look too bad at all,” she murmured, dabbing my shoulder with a damp cloth.

  I realised she was trying to pick up the small slivers of glass that still might be in or around the wound.

  “We might not have to take you to hospital after all,” Renee determined.

  “Hospital?”

  “Yeah, glass wounds can be bad,” Renee explained, “especially when they’re shatter wounds like yours.”

  “How do you know how to do this?” I flinched as Renee gently dabbed my shoulder with a damp cloth.

  “I’ve had some experience with first aid,” Renee answered.

  “I suppose this kind of thing happens a lot, huh?”

  “No, not really, but accidents sometimes happen. All in all you’re not that injured… considering,” Renee reflected.

  “Yeah, I’d like to know why I’m not more seriously hurt,” I asked grimly. “Some of those glass shards from the roof were huge.”

  It didn’t take a whole heap of guessing to figure out what would have happened if one of the glass shards had come down onto me.

  “I’d guess your shield held out until your impact with the table, or maybe just afterwards if you bounced. In fact I’d say that’s likely the case. These cuts would be far more serious if you hit them from that height.”

  “Bounced?”

  “Possibly.” Renee shrugged. “You fell quite a distance.”

  “You’re telling me,” I chuckled.

  “Your body really can take a pounding though. You’ve got to be impressed by that.” Renee smirked.

  “Gee thanks, it’s always nice to hear a girl say that to you,” I snickered.

  “I think I’m almost done.”

  “It is starting to hurt less,” I commented.

  “I’ve removed three largish pieces of glass and God knows how many small ones,” Renee remarked.

  The largest piece was no larger than a twenty-cent piece.

  “Okay, I’m going to apply some antiseptic now, this may sting,” Renee warned.

  It did, it stung a lot. I tried not to yelp but I did wince.

  “Okay, I think we’re good,” Renee stated as she began to clean up.

  “You’ve lost a little bit of blood. Might be best if you stay down for a while,” Renee ordered as she deposited a glass of orange juice in front of me.

  “I do feel a little light-headed.”

  “That’s to be expected,” Renee replied. “Next time though, learn to block.”

  She grinned cheekily at me as she moved to clean up the bloody towels and scraps of glass.

  “Good advice.” I nodded. “Although maybe next time, don’t hit me so hard.”

  “Could have been worse,” Renee retorted. “I could have knocked you in the other direction – onto the street.”

  “That’s not really helping your cause.”

  “No, not really,” Renee replied ruefully. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t sweat it.” I shrugged, wincing as my shoulder complained at the effort. “As you said – accidents happen.”

  “No, it’s not right. I could have seriously hurt you,” Renee replied, moving to sit down in front of me. “If my grandfather were here, he’d be seriously angry with me.”

  “It’s okay. I’m fine, besides it all worked out okay,” I assured her, peering into her eyes, which were only inches away from mine. “Besides, I learned a valuable lesson.”

  “What? Not to fall through sky lights?” Renee scoffed.

  “Something like that.” I grinned. “That was a pretty neat trick with the light though.”

  “It’s pretty simple.” Renee shrugged. “Want to learn it?”

  “Can you show me now?”

  “Sure.” Renee nodded as she leant back into a cross-legged position. She then held out her hands in a cupping motion and began to move mana from her hand into a small ball. Wisps of mana left her fingers and collated into the shimmer ball of mana held in her palm.

  “This is similar to the technique used for awareness right?”

  “It’s mana detonation theory, yeah,” Renee confirmed with a nod.

  “Look at how small I’m making the ball though,” Renee explained. “The trick is to keep the actual detonation small.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, too large and it’ll burn out too quickly,” Renee continued. “Notice also how I’m building the wisps.”

  The wisps were wafer thin and slightly curved. They wafted gently from her fingers until they were absorbed into the mana sphere.

  “The important thing is to keep your focus on the ball. Don’t let it detonate before you’re ready.”

  “Then what?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Throw and release,” Renee stated simply as she threw the mana sphere into the air.

  The ball exploded with a flickering sizzle and little particles of mana were flung from the centre and gently hung there in the air. It took several seconds before they began to flare and slowly fall to the ground like snow. Each particle flickered and emitted a faint light as it fell. It bathed the room in a blue halo of light. Renee switched off the light, leaving us illuminated entirely by the mana sphere hanging over us.

  “Pretty,” I commented.

  “Better than a lava lamp,” Renee said sarcastically. “Okay, now you try.”

  “Can I get that shirt you promised?” I asked, very aware that I still wasn’t wearing a top.

  “Oh, sure,” Renee replied and disappeared into one of the other rooms. “I think this might be large enough,” she grunted as she returned several seconds later. She threw a white shirt at me.

  It did. But just, it was quite tight around the chest and was uncomfortably tight on my now very tender shoulder.

  “There’s only one problem.”

  “What’s that?” Renee asked as she returned to the couch.

  “Sportsgirl?” I grinned, gesturing towards the logo emblazoned across the chest.

  “What? Did you expect me to have men’s shirts?” Renee smiled with a raised eyebrow. “Perhaps one with the Playboy bunny l
ogo on it?”

  “Well, no, I guess not.”

  “At least it’s not pink with rabbits on it,” Renee continued, “that was the other option. I don’t have much that would fit you so count yourself lucky that I have even that one.”

  “Fair enough.” I chuckled as I pulled myself into a seated position on the table. “Although I really doubt you have a pink shirt. You don’t seem the fluffy pink rabbit type of girl.”

  “Perhaps not,” Renee smiled.

  I grinned at her.

  “Are you going to try the spell or what?” Renee snapped.

  “Oh, right.” I smiled as I moved myself into a more comfortable position and readied myself.

  “It’s delicate work,” Renee explained, “but not that difficult. It’s usually one of the first spells we learn.”

  I concentrated on the small ball, slowly adding slivers of mana onto it.

  “Too much,” Renee instructed. “Try again.”

  It took me several tries before Renee was satisfied that I had it. When she was finally happy, I had a very small sphere of mana floating gently several centimetres above my fingers.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Okay, you’re focusing on maintaining the mana now,” Renee began. “What you need to do is throw the mana away from yourself and then detonate it.”

  “How?”

  “The same damned way you detonated the awareness spell,” Renee snapped. “I swear you’re the most irritating student I’ve ever had. You do the advanced stuff more easily than the basics!”

  “Natural talent?” I quipped with a grin.

  “No, that’s not it,” Renee snapped. “Although that’s part of it. You are very good at what you do manage to learn.”

  It was hard not to be overwhelmed by her inadvertent praise.

  “…for a beginner,” she added with a grin.

  “You’ve done things with a skill level that would have most learner mages throw their hands up in despair and yet the most basic theories you can’t grasp. It just doesn’t make any sense,” Renee accused.

  “Hey! I get there in the end!” I complained, hurt by the accusation. “It’s not like I’m stupid or anything.”

  “That’s not my point,” Renee cut me off. “Now detonate the damned mana.”