Thea

When Ithnaa had described Rajak as her weak little cousin, I thought she was just being super arrogant. Ever since I left the hells, anybody who boasted about their ‘immense power’ was dead or apologizing like 10 seconds later. It was actually a pretty funny pattern.

But Ithnaa moved fast, like crazy fast. I had just blinked and then there was a transparent violet sword sticking out of the door where La’akea’s head had been mere moments ago.

Yet the dragon didn’t even seem to care. She had just moved enough to dodge the blade while continuing to chew on her sandwich. This was the first time I’d felt so completely outmatched since I formed a pact with Bryce.

Our pact had been providing me with 20% of Bryce’s maximum mana, which was a lot. Based on my estimation, Bryce had over 50,000 times the mana of an average mortal, which was apparently what happened when you cast a spell to drain the life out of everybody in a solar system. Well, that and you get charged with a war crime.

It was a long story, and the only part that really mattered was how I had the mana of over 10,000 mortals flowing through me, and I still felt weak compared to these two.

There was a clause in our pact that I didn’t like to use, because every time I did, I got super sick. But now seemed like as good a time as any, so I reached for my connection to Bryce and requested another 5% of her mana. Which would hopefully be enough. But with the weird differences in our timescapes, I wasn’t sure how long it would take before she could agree to give it to me.

“If you’d like.” La’akea smiled. “I can pretend like that never happened.”

“No, I don’t think I would like that at all,” Ithnaa smirked. “I was trapped in that bottle for gods know how long, and now you’re the only thing standing between me and my freedom. Besides, I could use the workout.”

“Alright, just let me stretch first.” La’akea stood up with some effort and walked a short distance away before she started cycling through stretches. She was surprisingly limber for someone her size.

Ithnaa just stood there, half a meter from where I was still sitting, staring blankly at the strange celestial dragon.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked the djinn. “She kind of dodged your first attack without much effort.”

“I wasn’t really trying to kill her,” the djinn lied. “Besides, you’re going to help me this time.”

“I am?” Bryce still hadn’t responded to my request, and even with the extra mana, I still didn’t like the idea of being involved in a fight between these two.

“I don’t mind if you both want to play,” La’akea said while bending over backwards. “Just let me know when you’ve had enough.”

“Yep, we'll do that, just tell us when you’re ready,” Ithnaa said, before whispering down to me. “I’m going to kill her, and you’re going to help, otherwise we’ll both be stuck here forever.”

Ithnaa was definitely powerful, but I wasn’t at all convinced she could kill an ancient celestial of Kai. A celestial’s age and creator were what determined their power, and La’akea had the best of both of those going for her.

Plus, we were in Kai’s domain. That meant she had the home field advantage, and I couldn’t think of a place where that could matter more.

It was at that moment I felt Bryce decline my request for 25% of her mana, right before she offered me 35%. Which I absolutely didn’t accept. Not right away.

35% was nearly twice what my body had grown accustomed to, and increasing it by that much, that quickly, would have me puking my guts out with mana sickness for at least the next half-hour. Or that would be the case, if I didn't have a good way to burn through the excess.

“Fine.” I stood up. “But if we die, then I’m going to be pissed.”

“Yeah,” Ithnaa agreed, as she summoned a second sword. “Me too.”

La’akea started to laugh as she lowered herself into some sort of fighting pose. I wasn’t an expert on hand-to-hand combat, but the dragon looked like she had practiced the position. “Let’s begin.” She gestured us towards her.

“You charge in first,” Ithnaa said. “I’ll reach her before you and then adapt to your style. Any planning beyond that would be pointless.”

“Alright,” I shrugged and accepted Bryce’s mana. I immediately felt the difference as the power began to flow into me. It was flowing slower than usual, but the power still felt amazing. I was going to have to act quickly before mana sickness had a chance to kick in, and the amazing feeling turned into less amazing puking.

I charged forward, closing the distance far faster than ever before, and leapt into the air to come in high with a downward punch. I may not have been an expert in hand-to-hand combat, but my power usually more than made up for it. And I was just hoping it would be enough here.

La’akea was prepared to catch my fist, but pivoted at the last second to dodge a slash that was coming at her legs from Ithnaa. I hadn’t been able to track it before, but now I could see the djinn didn’t actually charge forward when she attacked. She teleported.

It was a nifty trick, and should have been impossible to dodge, but the dragon did it with ease. This was going to be rough.

Despite La'akea's speed, I didn’t relent. I dropped into a sweeping kick, which she stepped over, and followed with a series of punches directed at her torso. She blocked each of them while moving her head from side-to-side to dodge an impossible number of sword thrusts from the djinn behind her.

Ithnaa was mirroring my movement from behind La’akea, keeping to her flank in what should have been a blind spot. But, neither of us could land a single hit on the dragon.

I could feel Bryce’s mana surging, which meant I had to spend it or I was going to be hit by a wave of mana sickness. I had a natural ability with fire and illusion magic, and it was about time I put it to use.

I cast a spell to become invisible, while simultaneously cloaking myself with an illusion of me that moved slightly slower. It was also a little taller, but that was mostly for me and didn’t help all that much in the fight.

The effect was subtle enough that La’akea didn’t notice right away and started having issues predicting my movement. I actually managed a few hits before she caught on. Once she did, I started to vary the speed of the illusion, which earned me a few more hits.

But, she seemed to be taking the damage in stride, which meant we needed a new plan. So, I tried something that I had never done before. Still invisible, I stepped to the side, leaving my illusion where it was, and pumping mana into the spell in an attempt to make it material. It didn’t work at first and La'akea was still staring right at me through the invisibility spell.

So, I doubled the amount of mana in the illusion. It still wasn’t working, so I tripled it. At six times the mana, I finally saw the dragon’s surprise as the illusionary fist hit her in the face.

I smiled, and since being invisible wasn’t working, I dropped that spell to create two more solid illusions. Now, with four of me and one djinn, we started making headway on the dragon. That lasted until Ithnaa managed to land a small cut on the left side of La’akea’s neck, and the celestial dragon switched to offense for the first time since the start of the fight.

She reached forward to grab the left-most illusion-me by her face, and then spun her entire body around to kick Ithnaa in the side of the head. The djinn was launched into the exit door, and La’akea followed through with her movement to pitch the illusion-me across the room. The poor illusion exploded into a cloud of mana the moment she hit the wall.

Seeing myself thrown across the room and splattered against a wall wasn’t exactly the best feeling, and when I looked to my other selves, they both nodded in agreement. None of me were interested in experiencing that first hand.

Ithnaa was slowly picking herself off the ground, and La’akea was standing there with a shit-eating grin. “Had enough?” She asked.

“Not on your life,” Ithnaa said, as she stood and rolled her neck to stretch her muscles, before dropping into a fighting posture as four more arms sprouted from her back, each wielding equally sharp semi-transparent violet blades. Then, with a visible flex, her body was wreathed in purple lightning. “I’ve been stuck in prisons for long enough, and it’s time for me to be free.”

She obviously wanted to keep going. But me-one was shaking her head and waving her hands, and me-two seemed to be in agreement. I sighed and looked towards me-one. “I understand you’re scared,” I said. “But we need to get back to Bryce, she’s going to be worried about us.”

Me-one deflated a little but seemed to accept what I said. Then me-two placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and that caused her to nod before firming up her resolve. I thought I could detect a little chemistry between the two of me, which I thought was cute. It’s always important to love yourself.

“We’ve got this, okay?” I slammed my fist into my palm, and my other selves mirrored it with a determined expression. “We’re going to defeat that dragon, then we’ll take the key and get back to Bryce!”

I nodded as me-one cheered silently and me-two clapped her hands rapidly. We definitely had this.

“Shush,” La’akea whispered to Ithnaa. “They’re having a moment.”

I turned back to see the two of them standing near each other. Ithnaa still had her six arms and was still glowing with purple lightning, but she had dispelled two of her swords in order to double facepalm.

“Don't judge,” I said. “They got discouraged by seeing their sister get splattered against a wall. You wouldn't want to fight either if you just saw that happen.”

“Back to sandwiches, then?” La’akea asked.

“No, I’m still going to kill you,” Ithnaa said. “Even if I have to do it without this idiot’s help.”

“That’s rude.” All three of me crossed our arms. “La’akea, if I join your side, will you let me go?”

“Nope,” the dragon responded. “The mistress wants you here, so I can’t, but I will continue to eat sandwiches and drink with you.”

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see me-one pointing at La’akea while nodding rapidly. “I know,” I sighed as I turned back to the dragon. “But we can’t. Bryce is waiting.”

“Fine, but if we’re doing this,” La’akea said. “Then I’m putting on music.” She disappeared, leaving me and Ithnaa just standing there.

“Why isn’t she taking this seriously?” The djinn asked.

“She’s one of Kai’s kids, and not taking things seriously is like Kai’s whole thing,” all three of me shrugged. “Plus even if we do manage to kill her, then she’ll just go to her afterlife, which is probably like 20 feet that way.” I pointed to the right, but it was mostly for effect. There was no actual way for me to know where Kai kept her afterlife, but we were in her domain so I figured that it had to be nearby.

“So this is pointless?” Ithnaa asked.

“Not entirely,” I explained. “It’ll take some time for that to happen, and if she has the key on her, then we can take it.”

Ithnaa looked like she wanted to ask something else, but we were interrupted by way too loud music and forced to cover our ears. Thankfully, that only lasted for a few seconds before the music dropped to a reasonable level.

It had a rhythmic beat, and the lyrics were something about eating dirt, or dust, or something. I wasn’t sure of the specifics, because I couldn’t fully understand the language, which was unusual for me. But the beat was fun, and made me want to stomp my feet.

La’akea reappeared with a smile, as she bobbed her head to the music. “Sorry about that. Ready to get started?”

Ithnaa replied by teleporting into the air behind her and swinging all six swords at the dragon’s head. The ground erupted with a pillar of purple lightning in the newly empty space where the djinn landed. “Hold still damnit!”

“Make me!” La’akea laughed as she easily dodged Ithnaa’s attacks.

The two of them darted around the room, Ithnaa attacking and La’akea dodging. The celestial dragon was too fast for us to hit, and too tough for us to wound. We needed to think of something clever.

At that moment, me-two tapped me on the shoulder and I turned to see her smiling while holding a small flame above her palm. Oh, right. Fire.

In my defense, the last time I tried to push the limits of my fire magic was back in the fight against Teolix on New Eden. At that time I only had access to 7% of Bryce’s mana, and there was no way to know how much more damage I could do with five times that. Not without doing math or something.

Besides, with one of my illusion clones gone, I was feeling the effects of mana sickness creep in again. Burning things would be the only responsible choice for health and science!

I channeled more mana into my illusion clones, giving them around a third of my total each, before darting into the fray.

La’akea was no longer jumping around to dodge, instead opting to stand still and barely move out of the way of each sword thrust. It was impressive to be sure, but since she had stopped moving as much it made her an easy target for my magic. Especially with her back to me.

All three of me spread out as to not hit myself in the effect before each lifted a hand into the air and spewed fire at the fighting duo from around 2 meters away. I started with a relatively low heat, mostly to give Ithnaa a chance to get out, before amping it up to a dangerous level.

The djinn got the memo pretty quickly, teleporting out of the literal line of fire, but La’akea tried to weather the heat. She lifted both arms to cover her face, but otherwise just stood there. Which was fine by me, because I was just getting started.

The three streams of fire fully opened up, each producing a lot more heat than I had ever created before, and the temperature in the room spiked enough that I began to sweat. Which was interesting, because I had never done that before. At least, not because of the temperature.

La’akea wasn’t laughing anymore, which I took as a sign in the right direction. So, I ramped up the heat further by concentrating the flames into narrower streams, each of the three becoming a pressurized jet of flames.

The white stone floor in the room was beginning to glow red, but the dragon kept taking the hit straight on, which was fine. It just meant I needed more heat.

I dispelled my other selves and poured the extra mana into my spell, starting to lean into it to stop myself from being blown backwards. The enchantment in my boots activated, helping me to stay standing by increasing my effective mass. I made a mental note to thank Bryce again for picking them out back on Drassun.

My mana was getting low, and it was starting to get hard to breathe, but I increased my output one last time and concentrated the beam further into something that could no longer be accurately described as fire.

“Thea! That’s enough! You’re going to kill us both if you keep going!” Ithnaa shouted over the sound of my spell. I stumbled forward a few steps as I cut off the mana.

It was possible that I may have gone a bit overboard. The room was a disaster area, with a line of molten floor that led to an even more molten area the size of a large swimming pool. If I had cast a spell like that anywhere else, then it would have definitely killed everybody in the room. Thankfully Elysia’s strange physics saved at least me and Ithnaa, but the ancient celestial dragon was nowhere to be seen.

“I swear to the gods, if you melted that key,” Ithnaa complained.

I was about to apologize, but was interrupted by La’akea lifting herself off of the molten floor. The djinn and I just stared, completely at a loss for words. The poor woman was in rough shape, with terrible burns covering her entire body, but she was still alive and moved like she was unharmed.

The dragon strutted out of the molten swimming pool as if nothing had happened. She stopped about a meter in front of us before flexing all of her muscles, and one bright flash of golden light later, she was completely healed.

“Do you understand now, little djinn?” La’akea asked. “You are in the realm of my goddess. I am all powerful here, and won’t allow anybody to leave unless she commands it.”

“Even so,” Ithnaa clinched all of her fists. “I refuse-”

“Okay, what the actual fuck is going on down here?” A woman’s voice interrupted the djinn, causing all three of us to turn and see a furious Kai resting her hands on her hips.