Chapter 50: Breeze

  “All right, so everyone wants to join the fight except Amir and Dunham, who will stay behind ready to fly in as an extraction team. I’m not saying I agree that everyone should join, but everyone is supposed to have given this a lot of thought,” Angela said, looking at Sophie in particular.

  It was a terrible decision to bring her along with them for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly, she wouldn’t even fight. The group had, in a stroke of excellent luck, got two extra magical weapons in Jessie’s schemamajigs that proved useful in their fight even when wielded by normal people, but those would go to herself and Emma, those who were more useful in a fight.

  The girl would only hinder them, requiring protection rather than fighting, complicating their efforts. Angela didn’t even know why the girl was so adamant about joining them.

  Was it her bond with her sister? The fear of losing her again? Was it her crush on Erik? The girl wasn’t stupid. Angela didn’t believe she would put her own life, and that of the others, in danger for something so stupid as a crush. It had to be related to Jessie, but Angela couldn’t tell where Sophie’s logic broke down.

  “You don’t want me there with you, and I get it,” Sophie said, the look in her eye…unusual. “I can’t fight. I don’t have magic. But I’m supposed to be there. I just feel it. I get the feeling that if I’m there… it’ll be alright. It’s strange, but… That’s the feeling I’m getting.”

  “I just think you should stay back. I don’t have a real say in this, but if you were my sister, I wouldn’t let you go. That said, every single one of us has been in this since the beginning. It might feel a bit more…hollow without you,” Angela said, smiling as she finished.

  “We’ll keep you safe. Priority number one is to get Erik and Jessie all the way there as safely as we can. As long as you keep close to us, your sister, or Erik at all times, we’ll keep you safe too,” Emma said. “We common folk have to stick together in all this magic nonsense, right?”

  Sophie smiled.

  Jessie was well underway with her trial. As trials went, it seemed simple, though long-winded. As far as she could tell, she had to follow the gaseous orb in front of her while layering several mist-like gases inside it.

  It seemed to change speed at irregular intervals, and sometimes even rotation, but if Jessie didn’t crash into it or get too far behind, it wouldn’t reset. It helped that she didn’t get tired inside her mindplace, as she had been running for well over an hour by now, just at a few varying speeds.

  Unlike Erik’s very material mindplace, Jessie’s was more abstract, with colours free-floating around, moving like both liquids and gases sometimes. As she ran, she ascended and descended stairs of heat, climbed atop walls of wind and sprinted through alleyways between buildings made of sound.

  Very much like Erik’s mindplace, hers had undergone big changes for every gem she’d absorbed until now. There were no spirits or ghosts or whatever Erik experienced. She was alone in here—but it wasn’t lonely. With every step she took, she’d see something different, experience something new.

  Grace, her triceratops familiar, wasn’t there either. At least, not exactly. The traces from the absorption were clear as day; a mirrored mindplace beneath Jessie’s feet.

  There was no ground or sky; instead, just colours. Elements. Beneath her was Grace’s world, the exact mirror image of Jessie’s own. Whenever Jessie moved in her world, so did the mirror translate the movement. A recent change, though welcome, was Grace being inside that mirror world, acting as the Witch’s reflection. The change happened close to her death, too close for it to be a coincidence.

  When a week had passed and Jessie summoned her again, Grace would disappear from the mindplace. When both summoned and ‘inactive’, it seemed her familiar waited in a separate space.

  The ability that influenced her world more than anything was Natural Flow, her perception power. Before that, everything was no more than colour, but her perception ability provided so much nuance and meaning to her world that Jessie was already struggling to remember how she used to perceive it before.

  The change inside her after absorbing Enter The Storm, her field ability, was that it increased the speed of things in a circle around her. Whenever a part of a red cloud entered the field, the particles inside would separate from the rest, keeping the same motion, except with higher speed. This could turn a very round and compact cloud into a long, wavy cloud if she wasn’t moving much.

  Volt Surge, the minor ability attached to Enter The Storm, made everything that entered the field light up for a few seconds. It resembled fireworks exploding in the night sky.

  Jessie finished layering the contents of the orb. She wasn’t sure whether they were supposed to be layered in a specific order, but the orb soon decelerated to a complete standstill.

  It released its contents with a kettle-like scream, the shell turning to vapour as it emptied. Gases mixed and danced around Jessie before expanding. As it did, it seemed like an infinite number of grains, no bigger than every other molecule around. These grains joined everything else around. They seemed to light up even brighter than everything else when they entered her immediate area after this, an odd effect considering they were slotted to different major powers.

  When Jessie was about to leave her mindplace, she waved goodbye to Grace in the mirror world beneath her. She then noticed a peculiar movement of the elements in the mirror image of the ground. Parts of the elements above her moved side to side, quite different from the normal ebb and flow of everything.

  She saw new things in her world all the time, and she was about to let it go when it happened again, this time as she turned around. The same general vicinity as last time moved, though this time with a jerk as it swung around.

  With a suspicious squint, Jessie waved her arm in the air with slow and purposeful movements. In front of her, the gases and liquids of all colours did the same. How…quaint.

  Erik gasped, his hands locked to his bent knees as he held his torso up at an angle. He was nearing his limit. That irritating, power-stealing, arrogant little knight-spirit could fuck off.

  With no way to tell time except the rotating shadows cast from the white sun circling the black sun above—which had already made two rotations and then some—Erik was sick and tired of not getting anywhere. This was by far the hardest trial he’d ever had, and the longest. Had it been a day?

  After an intense fight several hours ago, both Erik and the knight had been too tired to carry on, both lying on the ground a few metres from each other for an hour or two. Erik wanted to take the chance right then, but his body wouldn’t move an inch. Never had he seen a spirit so defeated, though. Could it be faking?

  Leviathan and Sovereign had both shown him such incredible power during training that they seemed to have an infinite amount of energy to draw from. After hours of training with them, none of them seemed any worse for wear.

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  Perhaps the trial restricted them. He had defeated Leviathan after all. Certain limitations were put on Erik as well—his ocean didn’t obey his will at all, for instance.

  Erik felt a sudden, unanticipated shift in the air. He raised his torso to stand, looking around. He felt something, but it didn’t seem to be from inside his mindplace. The feeling was familiar, yet…new. It reminded him of… someone.

  It refreshed like a gentle breeze, yet it scorched like the sun. His instinct said… Jessie? Yes. Jessie’s aura! He could feel it even in his mindplace. She had got an aura ability.

  He felt the Witch’s aura as calm and controlled as could be. She already had such amazing control of it. Erik’s first experience with his aura made him want to hide it, to tuck it away. She might already be better at controlling it than he was, and he’d been training to control it for a week, with help from Sovereign.

  Erik looked at the knightly spirit he was fighting. Not a damn chance he’d lose against Jessie.

  “Did anyone open a window?” Sophie asked as she placed her hands on each of her upper arms, rubbing the goosebumps that had turned up.

  “We’re in a helicopter flying over the Mediterranean, of course no one ‘opened a window’,” Angela said, then stuck her hand out and eyed it. “Though I do feel a slight breeze,” she stated almost like a question.

  Emma and Sophie both looked around but found no trace of an open window. They asked Amir and Dunham in the front, but they felt nothing.

  “You guys suppose it’s one of those two?” Emma asked after having felt around the sliding door and windows for a leak, finding none.

  “Might be. Jessie, I’d wager, considering her other abilities. But this isn’t her static zone-thing, that feels way different,” Angela considered out loud.

  “You think it’s safe for her to use whatever it is inside the heli? Amir banned the ‘Bzz Area’ after all,” Emma asked.

  “Guys! I write this down for a reason, you know! It’s called Static Storm,” Sophie complained, finding her notebook in her carrying bag.

  “Is it? That doesn’t seem right,” Emma asked, reaching forward to grab the book. Sophie pulled it toward her to protect it.

  “Yes! I know all their…” she started but found the page containing Jessie’s ability information. She cleared her throat, her cheeks reddening.

  “Yes?” Emma grinned with a flash of her teeth.

  “… Storm,” Sophie mumbled.

  “What was that?” Emma asked again, her smile somehow widening further.

  “Enter The Storm, okay? It isn’t my fault her abilities read like sequel-titles.”

  “I’m just messing with you! We couldn’t remember either, right? Besides, I’ve been wondering about something,” Emma laughed, then grabbed the book from Sophie’s hands, holding a page up to the girl. “What does all this mean?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Sophie.

  “I mean, like, this.” Emma pointed at a line on the page.

  Major Ability

  Name: Enter The Storm

  Tier: Iron | Rank: 0 | Reflex

  “Oh, Reflex? They said it’s like, umm…when that ability’s power grows, the attribute connected to it also grows. So, when Enter The Storm increases to Rank 1, Jessie’s Reflex will increase too, though they don’t know what exactly that means. I suppose her reaction time will improve?” Sophie explained to the best of her ability.

  “Okay, makes as much sense as the rest of it, I guess. How about this?” Emma said, moving her finger down on the page. She had to angle it back to her so she could see what her finger pointed at.

  Type: Spell, Field, Lightning.

  Cost: Middling

  Effect - Iron:

  Storm (Lightning):

  Activate a field around you, charging the air and sending bolts of lightning at targets.

  “The Effect is what the ability lets them do. Here, the ability Enter The Storm lets Jessie cast the spell ‘Storm’, which is a lightning-attributed spell.”

  “Right, but Iron?” Emma specified.

  “Oh, it’s just a way for them both to separate different effects into tiers. It’s more future-proofing than anything else, except, umm…let me…here,” Sophie said, grabbing the book and searching for the right page. She turned it towards Emma, showing her the entry of one of Erik’s abilities.

  Major Ability

  Name: Umbralux

  Tier: Iron | Rank: 0 | Wisdom

  Type: Spell, Light, Dark, Affliction

  Cost: Meagre (Light), Middling (Dark)

  Effect - Iron:

  Flash (Light): A beam of light scorches the target.

  Entropy (Dark): Expels miasma which decays targets from inside.

  “He’s got one ability with two effects. Here, both are spells—‘Flash’ and ‘Entropy’—each with its own element; light and dark. Now, from what I’ve been explained, when Erik gets this ability to Rank 10, its tier will increase to two, or Bronze, which will either change these two or provide new additional effects.”

  “But why Iron and not zero or one?” Emma asked. Angela, who had been muted until now, leaned forward, listening to Sophie’s explanation.

  “I’m not totally sure, but as far as I could tell, they disagreed on the tier-system. Erik wanted Iron, Bronze and so on, but Jessie wanted simple numbers at first. They internalise the information anyway, so it’s just so they agree on the terms they use between them. They decided to go with Iron, Bronze, and so on for tiers and the tier-related effects, while keeping the simple number-system for ranks in-between tiers.

  “The reason I showed you this specific entry though, is this; consider Erik tiered this ability up, increasing it to Iron. That’s supposed to give it an additional effect. All the effects are then separated into Iron and Bronze. This works especially well with this ability, considering the two Iron effects.”

  “I get it. Using ‘Effect - 1’ to list two separate effects or spells would be confusing, as would increasing the ‘Effect’ number for each one, especially considering new tiered abilities. They could go for ‘Effect 1-1, 1-2, 2-1’ but that’s too convoluted and quickly turns complicated,” Angela interjected.

  “Lucky coincidence,” Jessie said as she stretched her arms into the air and curved her back. “That’s the system I considered but realised it would get confusing. Back when we figured this out, we weren’t even sure what sort of things abilities could even do.”

  “I get your system—it’s just logic, after all. But what’s up with Erik’s system?”

  “I think he got it from a book or a game. Something Dynastic sounding, maybe Chinese? Anyway, it goes Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond or Platinum or something.”

  “I don’t get it. First, bronze is an alloy, not an element, and diamond isn’t even a metal at all,” Angela complained.

  “I know! Just do what I do, just think of increasingly valuable materials,” Jessie smiled.

  “In that case, I think gold should be on top, if the top one was platinum. I don’t know much about diamond value, but I think gold is worth more than platinum,” Angela explained.

  “Hey, I’m not the one needing convincing,” Jessie joked with her arms up in the air in front of her.

  “By the way…are you making that breeze?” Emma asked a little while later.

  The girls had whipped out some snacks for the flight, and were all having a pleasant time.

  “Oh! Sorry, I didn’t realise you noticed. I didn’t think humans could—” she said and froze for the briefest of moments. “—I mean, like, people. I didn’t think normal people could sense it,” she hurried to correct herself.

  Erik and Jessie debated this in Afterlife—they were no longer human. Both had agreed that of course they were, they just had magic. Technically, some of their genes were from a dead breed of people, but who was to say those weren’t human? Still, they hadn’t told the others. They didn’t feel different from them, nor did they feel superior, but calling them humans like she had just done? Rookie mistake.

  “Oh, you got an Aura ability? That’s great! Does that mean you can feel Erik’s aura now?” Sophie asked.

  Jessie looked at the others with a slight tinge of red in her cheeks, but they didn’t seem to have caught on.

  “I did! And yeah, I can even see it now. It’s filling the entire helicopter, like this greyish-white haze. It’s calm. I don’t know what it looked like back in the hotel room, but I’m a hundred per cent certain it wasn’t anything like this. My aura is…different. It’s like the air. I can see them both, clear as day, my aura passing through his like it wasn’t even there.”

  Minor Ability

  Name: Atmosphere

  From: Reap The Harvest

  Type: Aura, Will

  Cost: N/A

  Effect - Iron:

  Improved Aura, Aura sense, and Aura control. Aura trait changed to Surge.

  “Are you sure that’s the right word?” Sophie asked as she jotted the ability down, flipping back and forth between two pages to keep the entries consistent. “Trait?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Not effect?” Sophie continued.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Nothing, just…Erik used the word ‘effect’. ‘Aura effect changed to Authority’,” she read.

  “Oh. It still doesn’t sit right with me. Maybe it’s different? Maybe auras can have both a trait and an effect? I mean, if I try to focus it—”

  “Don’t zap me!” screamed Emma, hiding behind her arms as she threw herself as far into Angela as the seat belt allowed.

  “What!” Jessie complained.

  “Surge! You said your trait was surge! Don’t zap me!” she screamed.

  “It won’t zap you!” Jessie yelled in response. “I think…”

  “Let’s all just agree that it’ll be safer if you wait until we get out of this canister filled with flammable fuel flying above the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, shall we?” Angela said with a smile that almost hid her own nervousness.

  “Fine!” Jessie huffed.