by Andur
“But you will be alone against him! He may be a god of creation, but that doesn't mean that he is weak!” -Lada
I hug Lada tighter. “I won't be alone there. I think I would never be alone again in that void zone.”
38 - Plan or no plan?
I am sitting inside the living room while reading a book. It's good to distract my mind. Celes is sitting across from me.
“You don't have a plan, do you? Don't you want to train? I will help you! The coronation is next week you know? There isn't much time left and that bastard will try to kill you.” She is pestering me for days now.
Train this, train that, come up with a plan. I sigh and drop the book. “I have more knowledge and power than most people in this world. What can a week of training change now?”
“I don't know. I am afraid. I couldn't defeat that bastard! Even if I would fight a perfect fight, I would run out of mana before him. It's unfair!” Celes covers her face with her hands.
“That's because of your fighting style. Your only strategy consists of breaking the enemy's defence with sheer force. And I have to admit, that's enough for you, because you are a genius in inner mana manipulation. You don't waste any of your power, while fighting. But our opponent is cheating in this case, so it's not really a fair fight of power between two persons.” I try to cheer her up.
“Cheating!? How? Can we expose his trick?” -Celes
“No. I guess he received mana from the Meltheim's ritual. They must have found out how to store the stolen mana inside a person.” I am just guessing here. I have no proof.
“B... Ugh. But I thought there is still a maximum to the mana a person can store?” -Celes
I shrug my shoulders. “Then he is very talented and got his possible mana household filled up to the brim. Some people can store more mana than they could ever generate on their own. He could be such a talent. I will just have to fight with my brain and not with muscles.”
“How do you think you can defeat that monster!?” -Celes
“I already fought more powerful opponents and won. You are a perfect example. Though you have much more power at your disposal, I killed you in our fight.” I grin at Celes.
“You died too....... ” She looks at me with a grim expression.
I shrug my shoulder and lay back my head. “Then I need to try harder this time. If the fight lasts long enough, I might get past his passive defence and pop something important inside him.” I muse to myself.
“You know how unlikely that is. It's almost impossible to enchant a person against his will. Your mana inside and around your body is protecting you passively against any outside influence. Someone, who wants to manipulate mana inside your own sphere of control would need to tune his own mana perfectly to your own. Healing is just possible, because your control is already gone. And it just restores something to the state it should originally be in. So the natural defence doesn't interrupt it. But if a healing spell would disturb the natural order inside your body, it would be just cancelled.” Celes explains.
I chuckle. “Perfect explanation, but not entirely correct. Many people think of it like you do. And they are right..... in a very rudimentary way. But the natural magic resistance is a little bit more than that. It's the unconscious refusal of every living organism to be influenced by another’s will. But that unconscious protection isn't without fault. If you get disturbed by a strong pain, or are very focused on something, this defence tends to drop. During my days as soul-mage, I did nothing else than feeling the minds of others. And if you are adept at small manipulations, you can slip past that defence. Tell me, how can I lift you up with my telekinesis? Aren't I manipulating the mana inside you?” I lift Celes up into the air, until she is hovering a little above her seat.
“Huh? But you aren't manipulating the mana inside my body. The protection just stops you from doing something inside my body!” Celes tries to explain.
“That's the error most people fall prey to. I am manipulating your mana. I changed it's location, didn't I? It's just that I am not rearranging the natural flow of mana within you, so your unconscious defence doesn't recognize my intervention as harmful and didn't activate. So I slipped past your defence.” I explain.
I continue. “I could do everything I want, as long as I don't rearrange the flow of your mana, I could teleport the air out of your lungs, or heat up the food inside your belly to cook you from inside. If you are distracted strong enough, I could go farther and manipulate something small which really belongs to your body. But that's enough, I could pop a vein in your head, or slice the nerves inside your spinal cord.”
“So why don't you do it all the time then?” -Celes
“Because everyone gets indoctrinated to set up a magic shield as the first thing to do during combat. Fighters do it by coating themselves inside mana or an aura, mages cast a real shield. Lower class magicians and fighters just think of it as the first line of defence. But to an experienced soul-mage, it's the last line of defence. It's everything that stops me from executing Markorn on the spot.” -Me
“Then you have a big problem, he activates that thing every fight. It's the first thing he does. And it's his best weapon. It's not a problem to keep it up either.” -Celes
“I just have to make him drop that stupid mana aura for a mere second. One second is all I need and I could dissect him in a thousand different ways.” I stare into the fire.
“What if you lift him up like in your first fight and spin him until he looses consciousness.” -Celes
“It would be nice if it would work. But I fear he has at least some possibilities to attack from afar. Mother said that his father is a smart guy and everyone knows how I fight. It would be stupid to send someone against me, who couldn't escape something like that.” -Me
“So we really need a distraction.” -Celes
“Would you strip and dance on the throne, I am sure that would ..” *SMACK* “..Okay. No naked princess on the throne for my coronation.” I sigh.
“Perverted stuff is forbidden until marriage! Think of a better plan.” -Celes
“Yes my queen.” *Smack* “No sarcastic comments either!”
“But you are my queen!” This wasn't fair. Celes stops with an already raised hand. “Oh, you are right. Well then you are forgiven.” She leans down and gives me a kiss on the forehead, giving me a nice view at... ohohoho... if she evolves even further I might forget her personality!
*Whip!*
Ow! Fucking tail!
“You know what that one was for!” She leans back in her seat again.
“You sure you don't want to distract him with a little dance?” I ask her, but she doesn't even consider to give an answer.
“I guess I will have to die a gruesome death and you will get raped by that guy every night from then on.” I shake my head.
“If you trained your soul magic so much, then just walk up to him and do some stuff to his soul, wouldn't that work?” -Celes
“Hoh, that's the idea! When the duel starts, I will kill the stupid spectators and create a horde of zombie's to cover him in a mountain of corpses. But I have to disappoint you, soul magic is just about tuning yourself to other souls, heightening your sensibility for them. It allows you tricks like my instant casting and using the weak points inside someone’s defence.” -Me
“I feel that you aren't entirely honest, but I will forgive you.” Celes fiddles with her fingers. “You know? We could just try to murder him together. Fuck the stupid laws of this world. We will deal with everything else afterwards.”
“I am shocked! A god of order proposes to break the law!” I shake my head.
“The laws of this world are barbaric! They challenge you to duels on every occasion! It's like some bad movie!” Celes hits on the table.
“Well, it's the easiest way for them to get rid of me, while gaining all the power at the same time. Fortunately simply assassinating me wouldn't ensure the throne at the same time. If the king dies by assassination, the new king
would be chosen by election. I am sure that the crown would just go back to Nicosar. Strangely enough he is loved by the public.” -Me
“I heard he was a good king while he held the title. During the war, he became a hero. Fucking geezer, if the people just knew his real personality!” Celes shakes a fist at her words.
I nod too. “It's late already, I want to sleep.” Standing up, I turn to the door, but Celes jumps on my back. “Hey!”
“I have to check another item on my list! Being carried piggyback to my room and laid on my bed!” She hugs me tighter and almost chokes me.
“I don't think we are on those terms yet.” I am not a horse!
“There is a reward!” She whispers into my ear and dangles a piece of chocolate before me.
*chocolate* or *humiliation* or *chocolate* or *humiliation* or *chocolate* or *humiliation*
39 - Coronation!?
“I look like a penguin in this!” This isn't right! I am about to fight for my life and I look like some opera singer from Italy!
“This is the traditional garb for the coronation. No chance to get around it.” My mother explains.
“Wonderful. At least we can please the audience.” I stretch a little. “This will rip during the fight! I will be butt naked on the throne.”
“That would be bad. I will go and get you my old robe! I should fit you just fine.” Nicosar offers and runs off.
I let out a heavy sigh. “You are king of the fucking world and you can't get a suit that fits.”
“You remember the right words to take the crown from the priest?” Ireth interrogates me again. She asked for the fourth time now.
“Yes. Hereby I take the throne and swear to protect the country and it's people. Not that hard to remember. Much more important, anything new about our brethren?” I ask with a displeased tone.
“No. But I am sure they will come. Though I didn't officially invite them.” Ireth smiles at me.
The door flies open and Nicosar storms in. “Here try this. I wore it just once, so it should be fine.”
I get dressed and surprisingly, it fits! “Hoh, not bad, at least this proofs that you are my grandson. You have the same build as me, when I took the throne.”
“Hmpf. Yeah, I suppose this will work.” I nod while looking at myself in the mirror. At least this suit isn't so close to the opera style. “I will be off then, I'll be back in a few minutes.”
“What? No, the coronation is in half an hour!” Ireth wants to stop me, but I already teleported.
The world around me distorts and reforms again. I am in my facility and in front of me is the cold fusion reactor, which supplies the city with energy.
Three workers are repairing something. They are very concentrated and have their backs to me. “Hrm. Hrm!” They turn around. “Prince! Shouldn't you be at the coronation!?”
“I need something, and that's the access cover for the main power supply line, am I right?” I ask them.
“Yes?” One of them answers with an enquiring voice.
“Step back, I just need a second.” All three step back and I take a look at a knot of cables. Some of them are a little burned. The distribution device, which I am looking at is under high strain and has to be maintained very often.
But it's no problem, the workers were just replacing the old parts. Everything in my facility is redundant. There are at least two replacement systems for everything.
I am only interested in the heavy red plate behind all the other cables. It gives access to the big cables, which transport the electrical energy to the city. I grab the plate, which protects against accidents and pull it off.
“!!That's dangerous! You need the right protection prince!”
“I know.” I feel the energy, which is running through the cables and grab them. Even before I touch them a spark of energy reaches for my hand, but I just absorb the power and convert it to mana. A little bit of smoke rises from my fingers and I cut my nerves with telekinesis. Sparks of electrical energy wander around my body without harming me. The lights start to flicker.
Humans may be the best containers for magical power, but it's way more convenient to convert mana from another source of power like I am doing now.
I waited with this until the last moment to be sure to walk into the fight with every ounce of power I can hold. Unfortunately Markorn is a real talent and will still have much more mana at his disposal.
This will somehow even the odds.
After a minute I pull my hands back, which are a little charred at the fingertips. It's hard to control the conversion process. A little healing spell fixes the problem.
The lights come back online, seems like I drained a little more than the systems could handle. I turn around and look at the three pale faced workers.
“Ar.. Are … you okay?” Seems like they already saw their heads being lopped off for letting the prince commit suicide.
“No problem, I just needed a little more power than the system could handle.” I look at the now completely charred electronics. “You will have to do a little more work than you anticipated.”
“N.. no problem, we will work overtime.” Another one of them offers. I smile and wave my goodbyes, while I teleport back to my room.
“Where have you been! We had a short power outage here.” Nicosar asks.
“I just paid a short visit to my lab.” I walk to the door and leave for the throne room. Nicosar and Ireth follow me with grim determination.
When I arrive at the entrance I can see Celes with Katrine and Arthur. I wave at them and walk into the throne room. There are just nobles from Tirna. No wonder, why should a Stricc noble visit the coronation of the king of Tirna.
I make my way to the throne, where a priest of the church is waiting for me. Everyone's eyes are on me. The hall is completely silent.
While I am on my way, I identify some familiar faces. I identify Sandra, Gabriel and the Cygnus siblings in the first row of spectators. I smile, while I walk by.
I couldn't find Markorn or Seredorn. Though I know Seredorn just from bad pictures. It is unlikely that I would recognize him.
Arriving at the priest beside the throne, I nod to him and he starts to speak to the audience.
“Nobles of Tirna! We are all here today to....” I stop to listen to boring speech and scan the people for the problematic individuals. But it's hard to find a special person inside that crowd. Mother and grandfather took place in the first row of the audience.
A few minutes later the priest arrives at the important part of his speech. “.... and if there is someone, who believes himself a better king. He may speak now or remain silent forever!”
The priest looks over the crowd and just as he wants to speak again. “I will be a stronger king! I challenge Angrod of Tirna!”
Murmurs start to spread inside the big hall and everyone tries to find the rude person, who disturbed the coronation.
The crowd parts and two people are standing there. It's Markorn and a guy which couldn't be anyone else than Seredorn. Seredorn is strongly resembling my father. He holds himself upright with a walking stick and his left leg is missing from the knee downwards.
The priest is shocked. “And with which right are you challenging Angrod?”
Markorn steps forward. “I am Markorn of Tirna, son of Seredorn of Tirna. The previous kings brother!”
The priest grinds his teeth. Obviously he wasn't informed about this breach of protocol. “Then the challenge is legal! You are the challenged party, you have the choice of weapons and location.” The priest turns to me and looks at me.