Power

“This is wrong.” Adler says waving at the bloody mess at our feet and covering the room. She’s twitching and holding her hands close to her chest, her breathing is fast and her eyes unfocused. “These were people; thinking, feeling people. It’s bad enough to kill wild beasts, but this?

“This is awful!” She shouts, “Unconscionable!”

I can’t reply to her outburst. I can’t even grate my teeth to express the frustration welling inside me. Even my breathing is controlled by the magical collar that I didn’t even know I was wearing.

I know that Eshya is struggling just like me, but I can’t see it. She’s just standing there unmoving. Not even a muscle twitches in rebellion.

“You… this was too much.” Adler says, “I know she… I get it, but this…” She sighs, “Our system isn’t perfect. I know that, but it’s better than this. You’ll just have to behave, and everything will be alright. I’ll… what… what do I do?”

She swallows, looking between us as she pulls at her hair, staining it red with the blood on her hands.

I’m scared, but even my heart refuses to beat faster in recognition of that fear. My body is no longer mine.

I tear at the mana streams flowing through, me forcing them tight into a powerful vortex and instilling it with fire. One way or another, I will be free.

“Stop that.” Adler says, looking me up and down.

Even control over my own mana slips from me. The currents and flows within me take on a slow and passive nature that I do not feel. Unlike my flesh, I can feel the ropes that bind and control the mana forms inside me, but I can’t grasp them. I can’t pull them loose.

“We should go up… but, will you even survive as a collared beast?” She asks, pulling at her hair, “You’re all so… argh! Why can’t you just follow the rules! Why is everything just…

“Maybe… maybe this doesn’t have to happen.” She says, her voice growing manic as she paces back and forth. I can’t even follow her, my eyes stuck on the point I was looking at when she ordered me to stop.

I tear at my own mind, demanding something, anything move at my will. I struggle and fight against these intangible ropes binding me, but there’s nothing…

“Kyra,” Adler turns suddenly, “I need you to understand why this was wrong. So, let’s have a talk. We can talk it out, you’ll listen. You have to listen. So… why? Why did you do this?”

The forces on my lungs relax, and I can talk again. I want to scream, but I force my fear down.

“I did it so that they could never hurt us again.” I reply, swallowing the spit that gathered in my mouth, “They were going to find some way to hurt us again if we did nothing.”

“What they did was wrong,” Adler agrees, “But this is not good either, Kyra. I know that there’s good in you, we could have dealt with this another way. We could have done something else to stop them. Why did you let yourself become a beast?”

She’s practically crying as she asks me this. Her words all come out in a rush and she barely seems coherent.

“Good? You think this was about good and evil?” I ask, letting out a sigh.

“Everything is about good and evil, Kyra! You chose to do something evil because it was easier for you, that’s the way of beasts. I know that you’re better than that!”

“Who get’s to chose what’s good and what’s evil?” I ask rushing on before she can speak over me, “No one cares about what the peasant thinks, but the King? Fuck it, even the Gods themselves? Why? Why do they get to determine what’s good and what’s evil?”

Adler is lost, having lost her focus as I shout at her.

“Power.” I say coldly, “Because they have power.”

“No.” She shakes her head, “Even if you and everyone else decides to ignore it. Good is still good and evil is still evil. This is still evil!” She shouts waving at the guts on the ground, “It’s nothing more than a violent territorial dispute between beasts!”

“That’s right.” I reply quietly, “What do you think we are. All of us. Even all of those welfare officers are nothing more than beasts trying to pretend that they’re not. Since they have power, they get to decide that they are different. That’s all this is.”

“No, it’s…rrrgh!” Adler pulls at her hair and starts muttering to herself.

I still have one power left that hasn’t been stripped from me. One part of me not bound by the collar.

Mana dense blood covers the floor, a few chunks of something more mixed in and floating over the top. My feet tingle slightly within my boots as I devour the mana from the blood soaking my boots.

Mana drain. The Skill doesn’t respond, but it’s more than just a Skill. It’s part of me.

With this power, I can take back control.

I quietly berate myself for having tried suicide so early on with the fire burst. It was silly, to think that there would be anything that could bind me.

The collar is a magical device.

For it to work, it needs mana.

And it’s already in my body.

There must be some form of protection that keeps it from being destroyed while it’s inside me, but that won’t stop me today.

Adler continues to stress quietly, pulling out her hair trying to figure out what to do with us.

I take the chance to focus on my own mana. There’ll be a trace of the collar somewhere within me, I just need to find it and pull the mana out of it.

Yet, no matter how I try, I can’t find any sign of the magical device that’s hiding somewhere inside of me. I try to find the threads that bind my mana form, but they constantly slip away from my grasping senses.

Without control over my mana form, I can’t even focus my mana senses. I’m left to fumble around blindly.

I seek that something inside me that’s not quite right, that’s not quite me.

Nothing should be inside me that’s not mine.

Nothing.

Everything inside me is mine.

Everything that I touch is mine.

Everything that I see is mine.

Everything is mine.

This goddamn collar too, is mine.

I can feel it, something that denies me. Something digging into both my flesh and my mana form alike. It’s like a thousand invisible thorns buried in every muscle, every vein, and every nerve. The threads where these thorns grow wrap around my mana form, binding and controlling it.

I would growl if my lips weren’t forced to remain still. I yank at the threads inside me, and I feel pain fill every nerve in my body at once. The thorns dig into my body and mana form denying me my every sense. All I feel is pain.

And it’s all worthless distractions.

I pull harder at the mana threads.

There’s a parasite in me that needs to be removed. It can’t be poisoned or coaxed out, so I will pull it out of me no matter how much it resists.

The more of it that I pull loose the less threads and thorns that exist to dig into me. The mana that I pull from it burns inside my chest, cutting me most pleasantly. I stir it around inside crunching it so that it will become mine as I kill the pest inside me.

I pull, and yank, and sever the beast inside until, in a final satisfying moment, everything becomes mine.

Everything in me, is me.

I slowly open my eyes, and blink away the thick silver goo gathering over my eyes. I lift my hand to wipe it away, but more just keeps escaping from me. I hear panicked, alien speech through the bubbling liquids that fill my ears.

I wave my arms around and soon feel an impact as someone grabs my hand. They’re soft and warm.

I blink and force my face closer, barely making out Adler’s white hair and fluffy ears. I instinctively try to use my grappling Skill, but for some reason the connections are missing from my mind and my hands don’t move as smoothly as they should.

Still, I take her by surprise and manage to twist her around and lock her arm behind her back, her mana form is superior to mine, but not by that much.

Panicked, alien cries escape from the young woman in my grasp but I refuse to let her go. I shove her to the ground and push her limbs down, but she struggles, and she’s stronger than I am.

I pull at her mana, desperate for an edge over her as I try to get the opportunity to pull her collar out. Inside her there is something else. Something that’s not her.

Something I’ve discovered about my mana drain touch, is that it pulls mana from further away than I first thought. If I could only pull at the mana in the skin of what I touch, I’d never be able to drain anything. No, when I use mana drain touch, I pull at the mana deeper into a creature’s flesh. I should be able to do the same with the collar inside her.

Finally free, I force all the mana I can into the vortex in my mind. I press my hand down on Adlers throat and glare through and past her flesh. Inside her, is something that isn’t her. Something else. I can’t usually see the mana inside of a person, but as she stirs it into a spell, it becomes impossible to miss.

I strip that mana away with prejudice and watch as the remnant mana in the spell scatters as its flow is broken. Her eyes shine, and she starts talking faster, more desperately.

Her words are voiced with the same pleasant tune that I’ve heard from her before, and the way she speaks reminds me of the French language. Partly because of the flow and pronunciation, and partly because I have no fucking clue what she’s saying.

I fucked up my translator, but that’s tomorrow’s problem.

Now, where the fuck is her collar.

I press my face closer to hers, trying to see some hint of the alien mana inside of her. My brain hurts from the mana that I’m trying to force into it, but it’s still not enough.

Adler says something before gathering her strength and shoving at me. She’s still panicked, but she’s recovering. Though she freezes up again as she sees the blood that we’re bathing in.

I growl, spitting out the strange silver metal that’s still leaking from me, and pull myself more firmly on top of her. I need her to stay still while I work, but what can I do…?

Angry and frustrated, I glare down at Adler. Her white hair is now soaked in blood and gore. For all that we’ve done together, she’s remained strangely innocent, and now she’s going to hurt us. She’s going to drag us into hell with her good intentions.

She looks up at me, terrified; tears in her eyes.

I lean down over her and press my lips to hers.

It’s not something romantic. It’s not something joyous, or happy.

Our teeth clash, but the pain is nothing compared to what I’ve been through. I continue to press down on her.

Adler stops fighting me. I don’t know what she’s thinking, or feeling, but I know she’s always been easily embarrassed when it comes to things like this. It’s a distraction, and it works.

Our kiss tastes like warm silver that’s still bubbling up from inside me.

Pulling the mana from everywhere else in my body and shoving it into my brain. I let the mana vortex form and then fray as it becomes too much to control. I feed yet more mana into the cycle to fill in the gaps and make up for the mana escaping from the frayed flow. I push and press, even as my own mana ticks down with every second.

The heat builds up in my head and my mana senses start to clear. With my eyes closed I feel for the mana deep inside the woman underneath me. I catch hints of my prey, small threads hidden inside her body.

I move my hand to grab at those threads, my mana drain ability is no longer guided by a Skill but I lived most of my life without Skills.

The thread is slippery, but with persistence I eventually feel it in my grasp, and when I do, I refuse to let it go. Not wasting a moment, I yank at the thread of mana, consuming it as I’ve already done to my own collar.

Adler shudders under me, her teeth clenching and biting into my lower lip. I don’t pause or hesitate, pulling relentlessly at the collar inside of her. The mana flows from it slowly but surely, like tearing off someone’s clothes by pulling at the loose threads.

I try to hold her down underneath me, but her convulsions are stronger than I’m able to restrain. The fact that she’s biting my lower lip becomes twice as painful as I can’t fully pull away from her. I’m thrown to the side as she twists, and shoves, and trembles.

Finally, her convulsions end. Her body stills and relaxes, but I still need to pry her jaws open to free myself from her. I continue pulling at the threads, feeling as if I’m finally catching the body of the thing inside her. Relentlessly I pull the last of the mana out of her collar until I devour every thread of it, finally slumping over her still form.

“Adler…” I say, feeling her neck for a pulse. It’s there, but weak. Droplets of sliver metal form on the edges of her eyes, and silver drool bubbles from her bloody lips.

Rolling to the side and shoving myself up to my feet. I shove her onto her side into the recovery position. I think this is what you’re meant to do when someone is at risk of drowning on their own vomit, and this situation isn’t so different to that.

Vii, Nel, and Eshya still stand frozen the same as when we were ordered to stop. The order hasn’t been retracted despite the fact that I’ve pulled every magical device out of Adler.

Ria stands to the side of the room frozen by terror rather than by orders. She’s the only one of us that was never collared.

Approaching Eshya first, since she’s closest, I look into her unmoving eyes.

“I can…” I spit out a glob of warm no-longer-magical mercury. I hope this isn’t actually mercury, it’d be a pretty sad way to die after all this.

“I can melt your collar.” I say to her. “It’s all I can do. But it’ll hurt bad.”

She can’t nod. She can’t even blink. The order Adler gave her before I knocked her out was so complete that I need to check just to make sure that she’s still breathing.

I look around to make sure there’s nothing exceedingly dangerous to fall on before leaning close and hugging her, as much to help me stand as to catch her when she falls unconscious. If Adler is any example, I get the feeling she’s not going to stay conscious for long.

This time it’s not very difficult to find the threads of foreign mana inside her. I try to be more careful and use a lighter touch, but in the end it makes no difference. Eshya starts convulsing the same as Adler had before her, no matter how gentle I try to be.

“Sorry, it’ll be over in a moment.” I say, holding her trembling body close. I pull at the mana in the collar with all my strength. The collar resists, but not for long. My experience with Adler makes it a little easier to chase the threads, and it doesn’t take long before she too goes still in my arms.

Together we fall to the ground. I can barely react in time to soften the fall and protect her head. Her eyes close, and her breath bubbles out of her lips. She’s still alive.

Spitting another silver glob, I make sure that Eshya is laying down safely and stumble across to Vii and Nel.

It’s torturous, but there are no screams, and when they’re finally freed from their chains, they fall to the ground unconscious. Silver liquid slips from their mouths, their eyes, their ears, and everywhere else if they’re suffering the same as me.

Small droplets are even forming on my arms in place of sweat. I wipe away the reflective little orbs as I take in the murder scene around me.

It’s something of a rather different experience when you’re the one who made the mess, I almost feel a little proud about it.

Adler’s right. I am a bit fucked up, aren’t I?

Releasing a deep sigh, I head over to where Ria stands watching me with frightened eyes. The pistols are still in her hands, but I’m not sure she knows that. Just in case there’s some mana shock issues going on, I take a small fruit from the table, wipe the blood off of it, and shove some mana into the gem girl.

“Ria,” The girl jumps as I call her name slowly moving the food around her mouth, her shining eyes come into focus as she looks at me.

I hear a gentle crystalline ringing, a gentle sound that clearly holds meaning that I cannot understand. She’s talking fast, but it all sounds like a strangely beautiful tune to me.

“Your voice is more beautiful without the damn translator messing with it.” I say, “Unfortunately, I can’t understand a word of it.”

She quiets, standing straighter and putting her pistols away. Without any real holsters, she struggles to shove them wherever they’ll fit in her fluffy, now-red outfit.

“I don’t know if you can understand me,” I say, “But I’d like some help pulling them out of here. They shouldn’t have to wake up in this mess. Also, there should be a cleansing stone down here somewhere.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 702 units

~Mana distribution:

Skin: 0/24%

Muscle: 0/12%

Mind: 42/42%

Cardiovascular: 0/11%

Misc.: 0/10%

Efficiency: 42/79%

~Skills:

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