Ama's Crushing Power (Patreon)

This is a short story, set circa three hundred years before the events of Mana Mirror, on a continent that's an ocean away from Mossford. In the modern years, Ama and Atsila are wise and just rulers on this continent, renowned for their mercy and wisdom, as well as their great love for one another. They have become known by the title "The Sun and Moon Queens", just as Meadow is "Springbringer" and Orykson is "Analyst". Hope you enjoy!

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“Run me through a debrief of what you’ve learned about the target,” Ama asked as she looked at Spider.

Since his recent advancement to Spellbinder, her right-hand-man had assumed a humanoid form that was tall and lanky, with long, slender limbs, dark and hairy skin, and short cropped hair. He had an additional set of eyes on his forehead, above and to the side of his normal ones, and all his eyes were beady and black, like his original form.

“Your target is an Arcanist,” Spider said, “possessing abnegation and physical mana. He has a powerful permanent shielding spell.”

“How?” Ama asked curiously. “Is that what he’s bound himself to? Some sort of powerful shield? Is it the effect of an ingrained spell?”

“I suspect both,” Spider said with a chitter of laughter. “My estimation would be a growth spell that he ingrained, then further bound.”

Ama ran a hand through her silver hair and slowly nodded.

“Can it be punctured by third or fourth gate spells?” she asked.

“Some of the more powerful ones can reputedly do so, though I’ve never been able to see it happen. I suspect that he can also flood the shield with mana, making it all but impossible for anything below the power of fifth gate spells to punch through.”

“I see,” she said, frowning again. “It sounds like he has built his Mana Garden well.”

“Quite well, my lady,” Spider said, “for a bandit.”

“I can still win, though. Right?”

“Assuredly,” Spider said with a bow of his head. “I will take care of his bandit troupe. They rely upon his power, not true skill or training. Most of them aren’t even first gate.”

“A bully with a throng of drones he can control, who pushes people around.”

“Quite.”

“And he’s attacked Atsila and the rest of the Anagalisgv blood? You’re certain?”

“Many times over the course of the last year,” Spider said.

“Good.” Ama said, hardening her jaw and standing up. She waved her hand and snuffed out the fire with a wave of ungated mana. “Let’s go.”

The bandit’s camp was just as pathetic and squalid as Ama had feared.

They’d not taken care of the land, leaving pools of mud, beer, and worse scattered across the camp. She lifted her skirts up slightly as she walked, so they wouldn’t drag in them, and she flinched as her soft leather moccasins squelched.

When she reached the center of the camp, she dropped the shadow spell that she’d been holding to shield herself from the vision of the men that made up the camp and looked up at the moon. She took a deep breath, unused to this direct of an action.

“Tsul! Come out and face me! Your actions have gone on long enough, and I am here to take recompence!”

She glanced around. Several of the men scattered around the camp looked up at her and one of them barked out a low laugh.

“What do you think you’re doing, little girl?”

She gave the man a stern look and crossed her hands behind her back.

“I’m nineteen, and I’ve done more with my life than you have.”

“You little shi–”

He tried to rise, but his hand caught on Spider’s gossamer webbing. There was a thump as he fell to the ground, already asleep.

A few moments later, Tsul emerged from a tent. He was a tall man, his dark skin shining off the pale light of the moon. In one hand he carried an atlatl, though he had not loaded it with a spear, that still slung over his back. True to what Spider had said, a shield of force floated around him, ready to intercept an attack.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice rough with sleep and drink.

“I am here to kill you,” Ama said bluntly.

He rubbed his eyes and then chuckled.

“Kid, I’ve heard of you. You’re that moon girl. But you’re not an arcanist. If you’d waited until you were, I would have had to back down, but…”

His spear was in the atlatl and launching towards her, its momentum and speed enhanced by a force spell.

“Your refusal to wait until you were on my level is going to be what gets you killed.”

The spear froze in midair and shattered into a thousand shards of wood and ice.

“My turn,” Ama said lightly. She leapt into the air, her creation mana forming tiny platforms under her feet to allow her to keep leaping up, then swept her hands down. Ice, forged into the shape of a massive blade, bearing the power of a third gate spell, came down upon the rouge arcanist’s head.

And did nothing.

“I think you’re starting,” he said, waving his hand and banishing the spell she was using to run on the air, causing her to plummet out of the air, “to see how futile this is.”

He waved his hand and a third gate offensive spell of his own rushed from his hands, a concussive pulse of force that she was forced to shadowstep out of the way from.

The tree where she had been standing a moment before, however, fell with a mighty crash. She winced. Oops.

He whirled his head around, looking for her, but she slipped her invisibility spell on again. It took more power than she’d have liked, but she needed her next shot to be perfect.

He was right – she wasn’t an arcanist. But she didn’t need to be in order to get past his shields.

She poured her fourth gate lunar mana out into the air and began to condense it, then launched an overcharged spell at him.

Inky tentacles of shadow and acid erupted from his feet.

This was the most powerful attack she knew, but he was a powerful defensive mage. Which is why she’d bought herself the time to condense her power.

She had condensed the mana of the spell to be on par with the density and purity of fifth gate mana. It wasn’t a substitute for true fifth gate spells, only a fourth gate spell fueled with greater power than its own.

But her overcharged spell did the trick. His permanent shield was ripped through, unable to compensate for both the numerous tentacles and the power on par with his own.

She didn’t let herself grow complacent, however. She began to pour out creation mana and lunar mana in equal measure, and prepared another spell that was overcharged. She didn’t release it, however.

Instead, she began to flood the mana within her first gates for both creation and lunar into a spell she had carefully grown.

She’d barely finished when a wave of abnegation mana washed out from him, disrupting the tentacles.

She stepped out from behind the tree and released she spell she’d prepared.

A snowstorm exploded out from her hands, crashing into him, but he wasn’t playing around anymore. He directed his permanent shield to intercept the snowstorm, and flooded it with his own mana.

Spell to spell, his overwhelmed hers. She was mimicking the power of a fifth gate, while he truly was one.

But the power of her snowstorm was enough to force him to take a step back.

Instantly, she cut off the fuel to first gate spell she’d been powering and focused her will on him.

A thousand ice knives, each one conjured from her spell, each one only bearing first gate mana, shot at him from behind.

To his credit, only a few of the knives had struck before he released a pulse of physical and abnegation mana that blew them to shreds. He let out a low cough and flung his hand in her direction.

She shadowstepped away, but it had been a mislead on his part. She’d assumed he was aiming a spell at her, but in reality, he’d used a hasting spell on himself.

The instant she appeared in the shadows of one of the tents he blurred forwards at her, fists glowing with force.

She shadowstepped away again, appearing in his own shadow and driving an ice knife at his ribs, but his foot caught her chest and threw her backwards.

She hit the ground, the air knocked out of her lungs. While she was stunned and unable to move, he flashed towards her, drawing his fist back for a punch.

But just because she was unable to move her limbs didn’t mean she was unable to manipulate her mana. She used one of her favorite creation spells – a simple sheet of grease that she conjured under his feet as rushed at her.

His own speed was his undoing as he slipped and fell to his knees.

That was all the time she needed to shadowstep away.

He rose a moment later and looked around, searching for her.

She hadn’t transported herself to ground level, however. She’d shadowstepped up into the boughs of one of the trees nearby instead. The amateur didn’t even look up, despite the fact that she’d demonstrated a running on air spell.

She rolled her eyes and began to convert her mana into fourth gate, expel it from herself, and condense it.

He expelled a pulse of abnegation mana intended to wipe away invisibility spells, and she had to stop herself from laughing.

“Coward,” he declared.

She conjured the tiny steps under her feet as she ran out into the air, then released three snowstorms on top of his head.

His shield flashed to intercept, and he looked up. He poured power into his shield, but against three of her own, it was no use. The ice dug into him, ripped at his skin, and burnt him with frost.

By the time she’d landed, he was bloody and beaten, laying in a heap. He looked up at her.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?” she asked, tilting her head.

“We’ve never attacked you. We’ve been stealing from many of those who live in overabundance, but you’re not one of them. We’ve never crossed paths, and you’re not a bounty hunter. Is my bounty so high? Has the Anagalisgv blood gone so out of their way to kill me?”

A furious blush rushed across Ama’s face and she turned away.

“Well, um… Their youngest daughter is… really smart, and she’s as strong as I am, and she’s really nice, and she’s really pretty. And she hasn’t gotten a partner to the Harvest-Fount dance yet, so I had hoped…”

She trailed off when she noticed him staring up at her, incredulous.

“You went out of your way to challenge someone with more power than you, someone who’d been,” he paused to cough up some blood, “harassing the most powerful blood in the region… Because you wanted a date?”

When he said it like that, it was rather ridiculous. Her already hot cheeks grew even warmer and she bit her lip.

Spider appeared next to her.

“Mistress,” he said. “I thought you might want to know that Miss Anagalisgv is rapidly approaching.”

“What?!” Ama squeaked.

The arcanist chose that moment to release a blast of force at point blank range.

She’d made a stupid mistake, assuming he was dry on mana, but she had ingrained all of her spells. She was able to call a wall of ice up, just in time. It blunted the damage of the attack, but she and Spider were both thrown back.

A pair of strong but soft hands caught her, and she looked up to see, to her horror, Atsila Anagalisgv.

The girl was her own age, almost to the day. She was taller than Ama, with long brown hair that was ever so slightly poofy, tied in a functional ponytail.

“You must be Ama,” Atsila said, “the moon mage who rose up from nothing, yet has matched my own growth.”

Ama could only nod mutely.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Atsila said. “I see you’ve almost already got him in hand. Mind if I help though?”

Ama shook her head no, and Atsila put her down. Light began to gather around her hands, and darkness flowed around Ama’s as they turned to face the rouge arcanist.

In that moment, their legacies bloomed. Both of them had the same legacy: Opposites Attract. Ama had never felt hers activate before, but the surging power that poured into her Mana Garden, and the enhanced power of her spells meant that it could be nothing else.

Light and shadow blasted out of their hands and ripped through the arcanist’s shield and body alike. Atsila lowered her hands then glanced at Ama with a teasing smile.

“So… Did you still want to ask me out to that dance?”