POBee 376.2 - Bee-sisting the Storm |
Ansari kept swimming ahead with his dragon cloak, but turned his head back just in case.
“Slippery little monster, aren't you?”
A current had blown past his dragon coat’s maw just as he bit down. As he had suspected, the water spirit had managed to get out of the way…mostly. Its left arm was missing from the bicep down, faintly glowing mana bleeding from the wound into the water.
The water spirit turned to look at its arm and blinked, its glowing eyes opening wide. It scowled and turned to glare at Ansari, even as the bleeding mana pulled in the surrounding water to reconstitute its arm.
Ansari swam out to sufficient distance for another charge before wheeling his dragon coat around. He smirked to himself.
An elemental spirit wouldn’t be that easy to take down when surrounded by their own medium…but Ansari had nearly managed it on the first strike. The fangs of a dragon could pierce through matter and magic alike…the wound he dealt to the water spirit proved he could kill it. All he needed to do now was get in a good hit that would disperse it entirely…and he had already broken through the worst the spirit could throw at him without a mana storm to back her up.
This time, he’d be on the lookout for any last minute surges of Water mana. This time, he would not miss.
Ansari began to beat the water with his dragon coat’s tail, surging through the water. He grinned even as he narrowed his eyes on the spirit.
“Kulgono was insufferably arrogant but he was one of ours. You will now pay for his life with yours!”
“That’s right, cast your spells, do whatever you can, little monster! It won’t matter, you cannot drown a sea dragon!”
Then the water spirit…shoved its hands apart, like it was opening a heavy double door. The water spinning around Ansari surged away from him. He immediately dropped as he was left in a column of empty air, plopping down into the muddy seafloor.
Ansari blinked as he watched the water swirl around the edges of the open space. Of all the things the water spirit could do to him…this was the last he expected. Sure, taking him out of the water had stopped his charge…but it also meant he was now freed from the spirit’s medium. It couldn’t do anything to him without bringing him back into the water, while he could leap back into the water whenever he pleased.
Then arrows began to strike his dragon coat.
Ansari spun around and found himself face to face with an army of fey and beastkin that was somehow marching on the seafloor. They now stepped into the dry area to face him…lead by five metal golems packed with a great deal of mana…
Klinpidas swung his dragonblade with his full might, intending to blow the fey swordsman away. The fey accepted his blade…but instead of being blown away, he flew in step with the blade, causing both men to spin around until Klinpidas spent his momentum.
He was now left face to face with a grinning dark-skinned fey as their blades locked together.
“I’m Mehsvar, Disciple of the God of Swords. I would hear your name before our duel.”
Klinpidas glared and swung his blade again.
“Begone, fey! You will not take my name so easily!”
The fey let Klinpidas send him flying, flipping over before coming to stop midair. The fey shook his head with a sigh.
“Pixies, ruining a good duel as usual. So be it, we’ll speak with our blades instead!”
The fey flew straight towards Klinpidas. The Tower Guard stirred up his mana and coated his blade. His mana resonated with the former dragon fang, coating it as a dragon would its own body. He swung his blade overhead, intending the cleave the fey in two.
The fey did not even attempt to dodge, instead spinning his blade around and striking Klinpidas’ sword from the side. The dragonblade barely missed the fey’s shoulder, swinging through the air. Klinpidas leaned into the swing, moving to strike the fey with his shoulder. The fey spun, placing his palm on Klinpidas’ shoulder and pushing off it. He gave Klinpidas a light slash on his back as he took distance again.
Klinpidas growled and spun around…and found the fey shaking his head.
“You have great power…but you seemed to have grown too accustomed to it. I would guess it’s been at least a few decades since you last met a foe more powerful than yourself?”
Klinpidas did not respond, instead stirring up his mana. He channeled more mana into the spell dragon wings on his back, greatly boosting his speed. He channeled it through his arms, letting him heft his dragon blade as if it weighed nothing. He channeled a dragon’s senses through his eyes, ears, and even his skin, letting him see every tiny movement the fey made, letting him hear and even feel the fey move through the air.
Then he lunged at the fey, assaulting the fey with a rapid barrage of swings any one of which could crush him outright.
And yet…not a single strike landed on his foe. The fey appeared to move slowly, barely leaning forward or back in a flowing motion, more like a slow dance than anything. He swung his sword on occasion, tapping Klinpidas’ in just the right place to nudge it away. Klinpidas could feel the side of his blade rub against the fey’s armor…but still he couldn’t hit his foe…
Renoros set up a continuous gale spell to knock the insects away, then charged towards the fey archers. As he approached, he heard a shout over the noise of his gales, more in his mind than his ears.
“Stop it!”
But Renoros grinned…and did not slow down at all. He had seen what had happened to Lindkontas, noticed the Tower Guard pausing in response to pulses of mana. He had shielded his mind against attacks by the fey, the Mind attack would not stop him! Nothing would!
Until he was engulfed in flames.
His cyclone shield whipped the flames around him, keeping them from burning his dragon coat. Renoros found a fey in red clothing and with a cloak of fire burning all around him. The fey grinned at him before sending another blast his way.
Renoros narrowed his eyes even while he boosted the power of his winds. He was perhaps the most vulnerable to Fire of all the members of Starami’s Claw, because Air and Fire mana had a mixed relationship. Sufficient Air mana could snuff out weaker flames, but if the Fire mana was strong enough the Air might only stoke it instead. He would have to be careful to make sure his Air was powerful enough to overwhelm his foe.
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And the mana burning bright ahead of him indicted that this fey was no slouch, possessing mana on par with a Tower Lord. Not on par with Lord Starami, of course, but still powerful enough that Renoros had to take this seriously.
He left it to the gale spell to keep the chaff away and focused in on his opponent. The archers, the insects, and even the Mind mage could all wait. This was the foe Renoros needed to defeat.
The bees tumbled through the air as the windy hive burner blew them away. The reserve formations tried to fly in to replace them, only to be blown away themselves. Fortunately, the wind didn’t hurt them…but bee army couldn’t even approach this foe, much less fight him. Even the Firstborn and her monster bee knights couldn’t power through the wind, not even after she empowered her own wings. At this rate, the bees would fail to defeat the enemy and would fail to protect the fair ones. They would fail the trust King placed in them.
But there was one bee who had already been preparing for this exact situation!
“Will help! Know what do!”
The Fourth of the Seventh zipped through a shortcut before anyone could stop her and charged towards the battlefield. Bees were getting blown around by wind and Air mana, but the Fourth of the Seventh could manipulate wind and Air mana, so she could help, just like she was supposed to help in the new windy room! She flew straight towards the tumbling bee army and spread her wings, intending to create her own wind to help!
But…spreading the big wings of a nomadic bee caused them to catch the powerful gale, as they were designed to do. So, instead of creating wind of her own to help, the Fourth of the Seventh ended up getting blown away even farther than bee army…much to the panic of her entire hive.
“Queen mother!”
The Fourth of the Seventh’s First Minister panicked even from her place back in the Bee City. She may have evolved beyond her own instincts…but still every part of her reacted when she realized her queen mother was in danger. The First Minister thus let her instincts take over and immediately acted to protect her queen. She began to dance frantically while pushing out as much mana into her hive as she possibly could.
A wave of mana surged through the Fourth of the Seventh and all of her children as the First Minister declared a new hive edict. Every bee born of the Fourth of the Seventh found their wings beating harder and their mana reaching out into the air around them, surrounding them with a thin layer of Air mana, all to help them fly through the gale and assist their queen mother.
Though, most of the nomadic bees had gotten blown away along with the Fourth of the Seventh, so none of them were in a position to help either their queen or the rest of the hive of hives.
Save one.
The First Dronecaster had joined the battle along with Beero and the hive of the fallen. But…the dronecaster and battlecasters could not resist the gale any better than the rest of the bee army. They were blown away in the middle of a spell dance, the mana sputtered and dissipated as the battlecasters were all knocked out of formation.
“Beero!”
The First Dronecaster buzzed his wings as he watched Beero tumble around. He could feel her panic, she had already lost her flight once so losing control was frightening her. First Dronecaster wanted nothing more than to help her but he had no idea how! Fire and lightning and mana stingers wouldn’t help! The First Dronecaster reached his mana out to Beero’s to try and reassure her, but that was the extent of what he could do…
Until a wave of mana hit him from his old hive. The First Dronecaster had been considered to have joined the hive of the fallen ever since his evolution…but he was still a bee born of the Fourth of the Seventh and connected to her, especially as a drone who naturally blended the mana of different hives. So, the First Minister’s edict affected him too.
His wings strengthened…and he felt a new mana type enter his body. Air mana, a type the hive of the fallen hadn’t yet learned to use since none of the Fourth of the Seventh’s hive had joined them yet.
Except him. The dronecaster, a bee specialized in mixing different mana types to cast spells. Who had also spent more time studying spell casting than any other bee in the hive of hives back when Beero was trying to help him evolve.
He knew what to do the moment the mana poured into him. His antennae glowed as he sent mana straight towards Beero like a communer might.
“Beero, have idea!”
Beero immediately stopped panicking. She didn’t even ask, instead instantly sending her mana towards the First Dronecaster, trusting him to do whatever he needed to with her power.
The First Dronecaster connected Beero’s mana to the First Minister’s and started converting the battlecaster’s mana to Air. He then started to create a mana dance. He couldn’t physically dance as his body tumbled in the gale…but he was an evolved drone, specialized in finding, identifying, and manipulating bee mana. It took him a few tries, but he eventually formed a mana dance purely through mana manipulation.
This time, he did not use the dance steps for “sting”…but for “wings.”
The mana wrapped around his wings, forming new extensions made of mana that spread out from his body. When he beat these wings, they gathered up the air and mana around them and use it to propel him through the gale. They even formed a small shield of air mana in front of him to try and cut through the wind blowing him around.
As a result, the First Dronecaster was the first bee blown away to stabilize himself. He immediately positioned himself in front of Beero, blocking the wind so she could regain control of her flight once more. She then joined in his mana dance as they had done so many times before, soon she had spell wings assisting her as well. One by one, they extended their new spell to the other battlecasters, helping each one fly steady despite the gale.
And yet, flying steady and maintaining their position was all they could do. They had been blown far away from the hive burner by that time, they still could do nothing to help the fair ones battling him from here. The gale was still too strong for them to approach…
Finnakynne’s eyes went wide as bees and bumbles tumbled through the air all around her. The human was heading straight for the fair folk’s formation, the cyclone of wind around him knocking their arrows off course. She stirred up her mana and sent a blast in his direction.
“Stop it!”
But the human did not stop, did not even pause. Finnakynne frowned…perhaps the humans were ready for her attack this time. Or…perhaps it was that her Mind mana blast was barely a fraction as powerful as the one in the previous battle. Her blessing didn’t active this time…the bumbles were unhappy being blown around, but they weren’t in mortal danger at the moment. Finnakynne wasn’t moving to save them from imminent death…so she couldn’t call upon her blessing. Nor could she ignore her own misgivings about relying on her mother dearest’s tricks when she had specifically resolved not to.
But then, without trickery or Mind magic…what could she do?
In the meantime, she did her best to help the bumbles steady themselves and regain control. The bumblebee soldiers stopped tumbling…but then immediately tried to fly back into the gale, pushing until the gale overwhelmed them and sent them tumbling back once more.
Finnakynne furrowed her brow. She knew the bumbles wouldn’t stop, she could feel their resolve. They were utterly committed to flying into the gale, they wanted to shield their smaller bee sisters so they could all fly again.
She wanted to help them…but she hadn’t actually practiced Air magic all that much. She was a pixie, after all! She could innately fly and pick things up with magic, so why did she need to blow some wind around? She already had to spend way too much time practicing glamours and illusions and Mind magic and other tools of her mother dearest’s mischief, so Air magic had been strictly for playing around!
So, maybe she could help the bumbles fly through the gale…but against an Air dragon-blessed champion? Would she still have enough focus to spare on protecting the bumbles when they actually got there? Or would she just deliver them to their deaths while she was distracted by the wind? She wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if that happened.
Besides, Ury had it covered! He could totally set the stupid mortal on fire without her help, right? The mortal might be suspiciously unburned at the moment…and also a champion of Dragons, creatures known for not caring about getting burned, but surely Ury would overwhelm him any second now. It was fine. There was no reason for her to endanger the bumbles…right? Not even if they really wanted her to!
As she debated with herself, the bumbles kept flying forward, beating their wings as hard as they could. But once again, their advance slowed to a crawl and they were sent tumbling through the sky. The bumbles all buzzed with displeasure, upset that they couldn’t help their little sisters tumbling around. Finnakynne’s expression dropped.
“Ugh! Ok, fine! I’ll help, I’ll help, so cut that out, Bumbly! Just give me a moment to think…um…let me see…”
Finnakynne glanced around, considering what to do. At that moment, a pulse of mana going through the hive link caught her attention. Then, she saw the magic bees starting to employ Air magic. She blinked.
“Huh…I got it!”
She shouted, sending her voice and her mana towards a communer that was also riding Bumbly, the communer assigned to keep the bumblebees connected to the bee army.
“Call your empress for me, ok?! I have an idea! I need the gravity bees, the magic bees, and the wind bees here, as soon as possible!”