PSTH: Chapter Twenty-Eight (Patreon)

Combat essence… It sure is a weird one. It’s another essence type with multiple proposed other names: somatic, bodily, corporeal, form, meat, enhancement. The issue is, none of them fully encapsulate the type. It’s great at empowering people, sure, but there are a handful of unique aura spells, shroud-like effects, and short term future sight spells that fall under combat essence’s purview. That essentially gets rid of most of the names. Generating a sphere of spinning aura and willpower, then launching it into a person doesn’t exactly scream ‘enhancement’. That’s not enhancing anything, but nor is it any of the others. Seeing the future is usually reserved for arcane types, but short term combat predictions are combat? The whole thing is kind of nonsensical and hard to understand, at least for me… 

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Intro to the eleventh in a video essay series about essence types and their unique factors, 454 Modern-Era

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My face flushed bright red and I bolted to my feet, blowing a few strands of white hair out of my face. They didn’t actually flip out of the way, as I had hoped, which only had the product of making me look like a fool as I scrambled to push the sweat-slicked bangs up. 

“Nope, fine, just work I am on cult stuff,” I said, the words all spilling out of my mouth as I nearly tripped over my own feet in my attempt to grab my backpack. Gawain stared at me flatly, before raising a single eyebrow painfully slowly. 

“Care to try that sentence again?” 

“I was working on moving cultivation while you were out,” I said as I got my feet under me and steadied, gently waking Scales and Hex from their own cultivation naps. “Got carried away with time.” 

“Ah. You have five minutes to clean up, then I’m leaving to the Consortium to film.”

He strode out of the room, and I rushed to the bathroom. I didn’t have the time or inclination to shower, with it still being so early in the day, so I just got a damp towel with a bit of soap and wiped myself down. I didn’t have any product for my hair, so I just gave it a quick rub down as well, then put on some deodorant and rushed outside, the storage gems tied to my belt jingling. Gawain nodded, and we made our way to the consortium in a very awkward silence, since I didn’t know what to say to the man. He was just so hot and cold at the same time, I had no idea what to expect from him. 

After we checked in, we headed through the facility, passing a variety of other tamers as we did, and I felt a small surge of an emotion I couldn’t really place. I felt like an imposter. Despite the fact that I was stronger than about one in five Tamers here, I felt like I didn’t really belong. Gawain, on the other hand, looked completely confident as he strode through the halls, which really only exacerbated the issue. 

We made our way into one of the designated rings, and each of us poured a bit of power into the protective enchantments, then started up the recording devices scattered throughout the room, linking our augpads to them to download the records. As soon as we confirmed that everything was rolling, Gawin strode out to the center of the ring and pointed at me. 

“We took on Councillor Cruz’s challenge together, and we both won. It’s time to see which of us is actually the better tamer! I challenge you!”

My augpad buzzed as the challenge was registered, and I glanced over it. Thankfully, he’d only put forward a bet of twenty credits, which I was happy to match. I knew the Consortium wouldn’t allow irresponsible wagers, but even so, a part of me had been worried he’d be throwing hundreds of credits up and expecting me to match it. I had enough in savings to technically match that kind of bet, but that money would be better used on supporting a hostel, getting transportation, or purchasing some nicer foods. 

I clicked to match and accept the bet. An instant later, Lavender anima surged around Gawain as Gabis and Gryphon appeared, both taking on their battle forms an instant later. I thrust my own hands out, and Scales bounded forward, followed a moment later by the surge of yellow forming into Hex, who had been within her storage gem. Both of them took their battle forms, and I immediately broke into strategy mode. 

With Hex around, gifts weren’t in play. As a Cyric, Gabis relied on his damage reflection gift a good bit, so he was significantly less powerful. Negating the Wyfynod gift to cast lightning at a normal spell cost despite not being lightning primals, would be helpful, but it wasn’t going to save Scales. If Gryphon got a few good lightning spells in and took out Scales, then the fact they cost twice as much wouldn’t be enough to skew the battle. Maybe if I had more Primals, but I didn’t. 

It put me in an odd position. As a water Primal, Scales should go after Gryphon, but Scales didn’t have any water spells, while Gryphon had lightning spells. 

Then I focused on Gawain. He clearly came from a wealthy family, the kind of people who ate beef every Sunday, rather than only on special occasions. He had seen me fight against Councillor Cruz, and knew that Scales hadn’t had a water spell then. But that was then. If I were him, and could treat spell imprinting discs like candy, I’d assume my opponent would get one immediately, rather than being willing to wait until level seventeen. 

Sure enough, Gawain’s lilac eyes shot from Scales to Gryphon, and I launched into action, sending suggestions to my Primals. Scales barreled forward, rushing at Gabis, while Hex leapt atop his form, then launched herself at Gryphon in a tangle. The lightning that was starting to charge up between Gryphon’s antennae released, only to miss Scales by a mile, as the moth-like Primal was brought to the ground by one of its natural predators: a cat. 

Well, moth-like Primals weren’t really moths, and cat-like Primals weren’t actually cats, so perhaps the analogy didn’t really work, but Hex’s mass was still enough to bring Gryphon down. She clamped her jaws down with a Shade Bite, even as Gyphon started swapping over to fire, and Scales struck Gabis. 

Gabis’ spikes were larger in his battle form, and much sharper, but Scales was quite a tank when he got going. That was one of the reasons I’d spent so much time hunting for a Sharmond, after all. Without Gabis’ reflecting damage gift to reinforce them, the spikes that struck Scales’ and diamond-like body and shattered into a thousand tiny shards of pneuma before fading away and being reconstituted. Scales’ Pneuma Bite crunched down around Gabis as Scales pinned the armadillo-like Primal down. 

Hex spun and tried to evade the small orb of flame Gryphon shot her way, but it clipped her side, searing her pneuma and causing me to wince. Gryphon was already wriggling and writhing, working to get out from under Hex, and I knew that she couldn’t pin the opposing Primal down forever. The moment more sparks of lightning started to build between Gryphon’s antenna, I thrust my finger forward and changed the mental suggestion I’d been pushing to Hex. Rather than latch on with another Shade Bite, a Shadow Cloud erupted around the pair, controlled in a tight dome that would keep the anima loss minimal, while still preventing Gryphon from seeing Scales and hitting him with a ranged lighting bolt. 

Gabis unleashed a small, sharp earth spike at Scales, and the blow struck, absorbing a chunk of Scales’ pneuma, but not so much that it put him in any real danger. Once again, Scales was in a position where he had to trade blows with an opponent, but unlike early in the fight with Councillor Cruz, this time the scales – hah – were tipped in his favor.

Then a searing arc of lighting slammed down onto Scales’ back, sending cracks splintering through his battle form, and I whipped my head around to see Hex launching herself through the air at Gryphon, while the moth-like Primal furiously beat his wings to raise higher and higher in the air. Somehow, Gawain had enough spatial intelligence to guide Gryphon’s movements well enough to slip from Hex’s grasp and out of the tightly controlled bubble. Hex’s claws missed, barely, and she leapt atop Scales’ back again as I had him pull back and disengage. 

That was the only thing that saved him, though only barely. Another bolt of lightning clipped him, even as Hex landed on Gryphon a second time, causing the pair to tumble to the floor. A spike of earth struck Scales’ side, and the cracks widened across his form, beginning to glow vibrantly. I resisted the urge to curse, since we were on camera, and instead had Hex shift positions to launch her Weakening Smog at Gabis. Scales rushed him, crunching down with a Pneuma Bite. In that same instant, Gabis unleashed another spike of earth. 

There was a flash of light as both of the Primals’ battle forms dissolved at the same time, and a stream of essence flowed into us. It wasn’t a trickle, like we’d lost, but nor was it the flood of victory either. I supposed that made sense for what – at least when seen as one on one – was a draw. 

I turned my attention back to Hex and Gryphon. If the moth-like primal could escape high enough into the air that she couldn’t hit him well, then the fight was effectively over. That meant if I wanted to win, then I would need to hit hard and fast. There was no time for strategy or focus – only striking. Shade Bite after Shade Bite built around Hex’s mouth, her front claws, her back claws. In the same moment that she was launching her attacks, though, I heard Gawain’s voice and saw him rub his eyes. 

“Drat. I’d hoped to keep this an ace up my sleeve for later.” 

Light exploded out of Gyphon’s form, blinding everyone, wiping out the half-formed spells rushing out of Hex’s core, and dissolving a chunk of her anima – not her pneuma, interestingly. Her physical strength, speed, and resilience were untouched, it was merely her magical reserves that took a hit. 

It was only then that I realized the critical error in my judgement: I had dismissed the full scope of a Wyfynod’s gift. It didn’t just allow lightning spells to be cast at full strength, but rather, lightning and radiant spells. It was a habit I’d have to break. Just because Hex’s gift nullified other people’s gifts didn’t mean I should disregard them. There were plenty of ways they could be relevant: if she got taken out, if Scales was paired with someone else, or as in this case, if someone had built their spells around the gift. I had known this, and even expected Gryphon to have a lightning spell for this reason, but had never expected him to have a radiant one, simply because they tended to be rarer and I hadn’t seen one yet.

Just like I’d read Gawain’s assumption to pull ahead early in the battle, Gawain had read my own assumptions. 

While Hex and I blinked to try and clear our eyes from the flash of anima-devouring light, a spell hit Hex, and I felt her Pneuma reserves dip. Another blow hit, and then Hex conjured a massive cloud of shadow, one large enough to nearly cover the entire arena. It was enough to let her dodge the next and dash to the wall, even as our vision returned and she pulled the cloud back into herself. 

Hex’s form was filled with glowing cracks, as was Gryphon’s. It was going to come down to the wire. He fired bolts of flame at her as she leapt back and forth, then bounded at the wall. She hit, turned, and used the momentum to launch herself at him… only to get struck head-on with a bolt of fire. Her battle form dissolved and she landed nimbly on her feet in her normal form, scampering over to me. I patted her and Scales both, then looked up and smiled at Gawain. He looked at me with some trepidation, as if he was trying to calculate if my smile was real or not. 

“Good fight. You, Gabis, and especially Gryphon did great,” I admitted honestly, before adding, “I want a rematch.”