Mage Emergence

by Christopher George

  I tore a hole through the roof and onto the ground floor of the loading bay where I was immediately greeted by three figures. I couldn’t tell if they were mages or not with all the noise around, but I assumed they were at least some of the ones I had been sent to find.

  My assumption was confirmed as a thread launched itself at me and impacted against my shield. I hadn’t even seen it through the noise. The magical static caused by the Shading spell meant we couldn’t even see our own threads. This made fighting with them far more interesting.

  I launched an attack of my own, relying on my intuition and experience, and was greeted by the sight of one of the mages being swept savagely from the loading bay area and deeper into the warehouse – direct hit! I wasn’t sure if he was out for the count or not though. It was logical to assume that he had raised a shield, in which case he may have survived. It had been awfully easy though – maybe their gambit with the shading had worked against them?

  His companions hadn’t been idle; several more threads were launched in my direction but missed due to my speed. I saw out of the corner of my eye a concrete column explode into shrapnel behind me as one of their threads went wide. I launched a response of my own, but my skill failed me as the thread missed and tore out a section of crates, sending splintered wood flying everywhere. This was pointless. Fighting with threads in this environment was like fighting with needles in a haystack. I could use Mana Nova, but I might just as easily end up hitting myself. No, this required something more primal. I balled up all the energy I had into a single point of detonation, similar to the Awareness blast from before, but much more dangerous.

  I was almost prepared to detonate it and set a blast loose that would probably destroy most of the warehouse and hopefully my foes along with it when I began to hear screams coming from my headset. Several more threads hit my shield, but again they were nowhere near powerful enough to even make my shield bend. That cinched it – they couldn’t possibly have missed again. These were apprentices. They were a diversion. So where had the masters gone? I had little time to contemplate that, as the apprentices launched another attack against me. It was time to deal with them and then find their masters. I released my blast and saw my foes smack through the concrete walls and fly out as my telekinetic explosion tore through the building. The blast had absolutely wrecked it - there was very little left of the structure. The building had been mostly a shell for the loading bay, but I left it in ruins. I couldn’t see my foes amongst the rubble, but I had no doubt that without the ability to teleport they would have been caught up in the blast and killed.

  Now all I needed to do was find the other two, who had mysteriously vanished. Where the hell had they gone? I turned back to the clear bay behind me when my question was answered - not because I could see their Mana signatures since everything magical was static, but I could see their effect. Slowly and with titanic strength, the giant aircraft carrier was being lifted from the bay. With all the static I had no idea where the effect was being summoned from.

  I was too far away from the carrier to see the stress marks that I knew I would find on the reinforced metal, but I could hear the fury of its rise. Water cascaded into the bay as the carrier was lifted around twenty metres into the air.

  I launched myself back into the air from the ruins and landed with accustomed skill on the docks. If it weren’t for this damned noise I could teleport back onto the ship to attempt to do something about it, but I couldn’t see well enough to teleport. Who knew where I’d even end up? It was too dangerous. Besides, I was too late. I could hear it from here. The twisting and grinding screech of metal on metal was overpowering. I watched with grim detachment as the ship tore itself in two. Even if I was on board there was nothing I could have done to stop that.

  The rear half of the carrier tore off and fell back into the water, its descent announced by a massive tidal wave caused by the behemoth’s fall. The front half of the ship was held in the air a little longer before it too plummeted back into the depths. The central tower and command structure had been crushed under the pressure of lifting the ship into the air. I could only assume that everyone on the bridge was now dead. I had no idea if this included Glave. For all I knew he could be fighting on the deck, but with all this static I’d have no chance of seeing him.

  I could only hope that if anyone had survived the drop that they were able to get to rescue craft before the end. I could just make out through the Mana static the shapes of three choppers. Some of my troops at least had gotten off the ship before it had plummeted. I could hear assorted gunfire coming from the bay as they attempted their landing. Someone at least would make it off that wreck. My breath caught in my throat as I realised the situation of another I had left on the now doomed craft – Emily Perry. She would have no way of making her way to the escape craft. She was sealed within her cabin. Securely sealed – I had seen to that. There was no way she had gotten out of her quarters yet. She was trapped.

  Someone had to save her, and I was the only one capable of that now. I glanced towards my soldiers involved in the gunfire exchange with the soldiers on the docks and then out towards the downed ship. In the end, the choice was simple: I had to save Emily.

  The sinking ship seemed to be very far out in the harbour and I’d never tried to leap that far before, but I knew that it could be done. Under normal circumstances I would teleport, but this was not an option since I couldn’t scry ahead. I would be unable to see through the magical static clearly to register a target site. No, there was only one way that I was getting over there. I readied myself and used my powers to launch myself into the air. The old me would have taken a run up, but I now understood that physical strength meant nothing where the Mana was concerned. I could barely stand without assistance, let alone run, but I could make this jump. Distance was irrelevant too.

  I flexed my shoulders as I summoned the power. Usually when making a jump like this, I would tether a thread to the target and use it to guide myself to my intended landing spot. I couldn’t do that here as the Shading spell obscured my thread. No, this was going to have to be done the hard way. I could feel the power reverberating through my bones as I built it to a crescendo. With a simple grunt I let myself soar. Without a guiding thread it was pretty much akin to strapping a rocket to my ass and launching myself face first into the horizon.

  The remains of the carrier was several kilometres or so out in the harbour bay and I wasn’t going to be able to make that jump in one leap. But I only needed to get closer so I could see the target more clearly. As I reached the apex of my leap, I could make out the deck from the forward aft of the carrier. That was enough to attach a thread to.

  I felt a slight tremor as the thread connected with something. This was a new experience for me without the ability to guide my threads. I had to go on instinct. As it turned out, my instincts were very good.

  As I began to descend my trajectory, I used my tether thread to pull me down towards the carrier. There was only a subtle thump as my feet landed upon the downed carrier’s surface.

  The carrier was listing at an awful angle to the side as water filled the interior corridors. Smoke from electrical fires rose into the air like a funeral plume for the downed vessel. I did some quick estimates but was unable to tell which half Emily’s quarters would have been in. When in doubt – search the larger half, which was the rear half of the carrier. I could see it about fifty metres away. It had landed at a much steeper angle and was almost vertical in the water.

  I leapt across the void between the wrecks and clambered into the interior. It’s much harder to assess which corridor you need to be in when you’re looking at them from a vertical cross-section. I took a guess and dropped down into one of the corridors.

  Smoke and flames were pushed aside by my shield as I clambered down, using door frames and hand holds to make my way further into the bowels of the downed ship. The smoke and flames were merely a hindrance than an obstacle, as they only obscured my vision. At
the rate the ship was sinking, I was more concerned with the water, which would prove much more troublesome.

  I navigated my way for about twenty metres before I realised I was on the wrong floor. I quickly punched a hole into the floor to clamber up to the next level. Another hole in the ship was unlikely to make much difference at this point, and I couldn’t easily find any stairs.

  This corridor looked a little more familiar, but I was still unsure of where exactly on the downed ship I was. I wished that damned Shading spell would expire already so I could just teleport and get Emily and myself off this wreck. The screeching noises of distressed metal and fizzling was overwhelming. I had no wish to be consumed within this wreck when it finally hit the bay floor – even with my powers I doubted I’d be able to withstand the pressures involved once the sea finally claimed its prize.

  I dropped down into a T-intersection and finally realised where I was. If I was correct, Emily’s quarters were just to the left corridor and then down the hall. I slid to my left and walked along the walls to the intersection.

  The corridor was filled with water. It was rising fast. There was nothing for it. I hoped that the internal doors would be watertight and that Emily would be okay – at least until she ran out of air. This is, of course, assuming she wasn’t crushed when the ship sunk. In all likelihood I was about to rescue her corpse, but I wasn’t prepared to give up yet. I wasn’t sure how long I could hold my breath for. If I tightened the field on my shield structure, I could make it airtight. This would give me more time; however, it could potentially lead to asphyxiation from the trapped carbon dioxide. Theoretically it would work, but I’d never attempted this before – I had never had the need. I flexed the field around me and felt it tighten around my skin. It would be next to useless should anything serious hit it, but it was watertight. Configured like this, the shield would crack and fail under very little pressure. I also couldn’t go too deep under the water, as the shield could burst from the pressure.

  I took a deep breath and jumped into the corridor. The freezing water immediately sent my body into a state of shock as the breath was forced from my lungs by the coldness. I peered into that cold dark sea, but was unable to see anything.

  I blindly lashed out with a Mana thread, hoping to secure it to the far corridor to pull myself deeper into the murky water. If my memory was correct, then Emily’s quarters were about halfway down this corridor. My vision was obscured to the point I could barely see more than a metre in front of me. It didn’t take me long to locate Emily’s quarters, though – her door was the only one welded shut. The seal around the door looked secure. The vents along the roof were another matter. There would be water in the room. I could only hope that Emily hadn’t already drowned.

  I briefly considered my options. If I blew the door in with force, the pressure would blow out the rest of the seal and water would crash into the room – probably killing her. I needed to do this intelligently - I needed to cut the door open.

  I had used Mana Nova to seal the door shut. Was it possible that I could also use Mana Nova to cut through the door under water? I held my hand out and summoned the power to bring forth a Mana Nova thread. At first nothing happened. Then a thin tendril of Mana shot from my hand and ignited. It was painfully weak, but it was stable.

  It would need to be stronger. I pushed more and more power into the thread until it was strong enough to cut steel. Bubbles formed around the thread as the water surrounding it was brought to boil. Even through my shield I could feel the heat.

  My first incision into the door gouged out a three-centimetre gash – not deep enough. My second strike tore through the door. Water immediately poured through the gap and into room beyond. If the room hadn’t completely flooded before, it would now. Great – I now had a ticking clock. Could I cut through the door before the room completely flooded?

  It turns out I couldn’t, but by the time I made it through the door there was still a half metre gap of oxygen below the ‘roof’ of the room.

  “Emily!”

  “Devon?” she gasped as water washed over her. I breathed a sigh of relief. Emily was clinging to the top of a cabinet. She had a nasty cut down the left side of her face and her left arm looked broken, but she was otherwise okay.

  “I’ve come to get you out!” I said, swimming over to her.

  “You locked me in here!” Emily snarled. Her good hand snaked out and slapped my cheek.

  “Time and place!” I called back as I considered my options. “Can you swim?”

  “I... don’t think so,” Emily replied. Her anger still hadn’t left her face.

  If only that damned Shading field would drop already. I could simply teleport both of us out of there. It didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon, though, so I would need to do this the hard way.

  “Do you think you can hold your breath?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Emily murmured.

  “Okay.” I held out an arm around her and pulled her hard against me. She shuddered as she wrapped her arms around my torso and clung to me. I amended my assessment of her injuries; her arm probably wasn’t broken, but she had a bad dislocation. It would need to be dealt with, but we didn’t have the time to do it then.

  “Hold tight,” I ordered. “We will be moving quickly.”

  I extended my shield to encompass us both and headed back under the water. I had just reached the door when I realised my mistake. On my entrance I hadn’t made the hole big enough for two people to fit through.

  Shit. I hadn’t considered how we were going to get out on my way in. With a flick of my wrist I sent a telekinetic thread to tear the door from its hinges and send it floating into the corridor. Emily and I weren’t far behind it. Once we were in the corridor, it wasn’t too hard to find the surface. All we had to do was keeping heading up. We crested the surface at the top of the corridor, but the water had risen to waist height there. The ship was very quickly sinking, and I had no wish to join it.

  “Are you okay?”

  Emily still hadn’t let go of me. “I think so.”

  She was awfully pale and I could tell she was in pain, but there was nothing I could immediately do about that. We needed to get off this sinking ship before it took us down with it.

  It didn’t take long for me to blow a hole in the side of the ship. Seeing as how it was sinking anyway I doubted anyone would mind some additional holes in an already doomed ship. Once we were topside, however, our options were far slimmer.

  The impact caused by leaping across the bay would antagonise Emily’s already dislocated arm, and I had no wish to cause her further injury. I had no idea how much longer this part of the carrier was going to remain on the surface, but the wreckage of the forward decks looked much more stable. We would be safe there – at least for a few hours. Long enough perhaps for the Shading spell to expire.

  I wrapped an arm around Emily again as we leapt from the rear section of the ship to the more stable front end. Emily winced as our feet found purchase on the runway deck. Emily panted for a few seconds, hunched over holding her side. It was possible she had internal injuries; moving her like that again wouldn’t be a good idea. My next plan had been to jump onto the docks with her in tow. I would need a new idea.

  “We can’t stay here,” Emily said, as she glanced around the remains of the ship.

  “Only for an hour or two,” I replied as I attempted to see what was going on dockside. I wasn’t going to leave Emily here unprotected, but I really needed an update on how the battle was progressing. Had my team survived their landing? Was Glave still alive? Through this damned Shading I couldn’t see a thing.

  “You’re not listening!” Emily thundered. My attention was brought back to her. “We’re not safe here!”

  “Huh? What?”

  “This is a nuclear vessel!” Emily said angrily.

  “What?”

  “Boom!” Emily snapped, making a small explosion gesture with the fingers on her good hand. />
  I sighed. This was the last thing I needed. “Are you sure?”

  “There are fail safes, but I’m not sure how much I’d trust them,” Emily continued, especially considering how quickly the vessel was downed.”

  “How quickly will a reaction start?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. “I don’t even know if an explosion would be likely, but I doubt the designers ever considered the ship being torn in two like this.”

  She had a point. Whatever fail safes had been put in place wouldn’t have taken into account the ship being lifted from the water, twisted until it broke in two and then sent plummeting back into the depths.

  “How big an explosion?”

  Emily shrugged. “It’s a reactor, not a bomb – but if it’s going to go, it’d still be a nuclear explosion – so pretty big.”

  “So you’re saying we need to get off this boat?” I replied.

  “I don’t know!” Emily repeated. “We might be safe, we might not.”

  I glanced around for a lifeboat or anything that might float; unfortunately this section of the ship was devoid of anything that could be utilised as a raft. The sound of gunfire rocketed across the bay as soldiers met resistance from the beachfront. I needed to get back to them.

  “I’ll be back,” I murmured as I geared myself up for the jump.

  “Wait! No! Don’t leave me!” Emily immediately shouted.

  “I’ll send back a chopper to collect you,” I replied briskly. Before Emily could comment further, I leapt from the deck. I landed with a grunt on the dock behind one of the choppers a few seconds later. She had called out something, but I couldn’t hear it over the rush of wind from the jump.

  “Get a chopper back onto the carrier, there are survivors!” I ordered. The main troops moved forward toward the beach. There was precious little cover; the only reason they hadn’t already been wiped off the bay was that the other two choppers were providing overhead support. But I could tell from the fire being returned that they wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.