FMH: Everything ~ Thirty-Five

- Taylor -

Her organs were barely holding together, and lightning and fire raced through her body, altering everything it touched. She had used mana. She had been connected to mana. She had never been molded by mana. Her body was, until this point, only changed in the standard ways by her expenditure of Potentia. However, as she activated the Spell that she had managed to copy off of Luke's Skill, she was able to directly feel her body being remade.

Thanks to her main Characteristic increase having always been placed within her Senses, Taylor was able to track the lightning-fast movement of power, watching carefully within herself as she waited for it to be expended. She only had access to this Spell until she was fully healed, which meant she needed to regulate her intake of liquid mana so as not to burn herself out. As the mutagenic power roiled through her, she took a small sip again and again, whenever she felt its efficacy waning. She had never considered mana as a ‘mutagenic’, but now she was confronted with that very fact.

Her reasoning behind this was simple: her cells were not being healed by this power; they were being replaced. This strange liquid energy seemed to understand intrinsically what the best parts of her were, as if it were following the optimal growth of her body from something even smaller than the cells within her.

Finally, she was too close to the edge to risk taking another sip, so she opened her eyes and pulled her mind out of the deep, dark well that she had put it in to keep her sanity intact. Now, instead of watching the process, she felt at her remade body. A wince was only a fraction of a second away, as she stretched her body and fully expected to find that it was still damaged beyond repair.

But there was no pain, no matter how much her mind screamed that it should be there. Opening her eyes fully, she looked around and noticed that she was still wrapped within the lotus, and it had roots tickling up her left arm toward her mouth and nostril, now that Andre was otherwise occupied. “Oh, no you don't!”

Flexing her arms and legs simultaneously, she burst from the petals of the lotus in a shower of white confetti and chunks of burned, blackened… bone and skin? Which had fallen from her during her rejuvenation. Truly, it was a macabre sight, but she didn't mind one whit. For the few moments she had been fully conscious after damaging herself so badly, she had been in unimaginable pain. Taylor would prefer death to going there again. Now, having been able to move past that so quickly, she exalted in the freedom of movement her body allowed.

All the way until Zed coughed and pointed downward. She followed his motion, realizing that she had been clothed by a flower. All of her garments had been completely destroyed in the conflagration. Slowly she turned around, so that she was facing away from her teammates, and calmly called out to Andre. “My Druidic friend, would you be so kind as to clothe me in greenery instead of my birthday suit?”

“Ah, ahh… yes! Yup, I can do that.” Andre quickly reached for a seed pod on his own outfit, tossing it in an arc toward her lightly shivering body. It bounced off her back then latched on, roots growing along her skin for a moment before vines and leaves sprouted and rapidly wrapped around her. In only a double handful of seconds, she was covered enough to rejoin her group, if not polite society.

“What did I miss?” Taylor gently inquired of the others, meeting their eyes in a direct challenge. Zed smirked and opened his mouth to call her bluff, only for a vine to wrap around his head and gag him.

“Mostly, it was just travel,” Andre casually stated, even though he was blushing as red as his hair. “For the last while, we have been watching Luke destroying monsters as we tried to figure out a way to help.”

Taylor looked over at where the rhythmic sound of spears clinking against armor were ringing out. She watched through the strange fog as Luke pumped his arms like the pistons of a waterwheel, each thrust forward felling one of the enormous monstrosities he was fighting. The Mage took in the tall, ivory-colored, faceless amalgamations of metal and cloth and had to suppress a gulp on a sudden dry throat. “What are those?”

“We don't know, and for some reason, that makes Luke really upset!” Zed had bitten his way through the vine and spoke as he was spitting out a pulpy chunk of green. “I guess he’s used to knowing what he’s fighting when he’s here, and he muttered something about this being ‘just like the goat situation’, whatever that means.”

With the tingle of overabundant mana still present within her system, Taylor looked out at the thousands of enemies in her vision and allowed a savage smile to slither across her face. “I think I know how I can help.”

“Please don't shoot fire at them,” Andre pointedly reminded her. “I don't know if you can survive doing it again.”

That removed a small amount of her feral grin, but she hadn’t been planning to roast herself again. “I was talking about long-range attacks. A bombardment of artillery attacks and the like, with Zed coordinating it so that he can get some Potentia as well.”

Deciding that it would just be easier to start making with the magic, Taylor started casting Thunder Beast’s Eye, continually pumping mana into it in order to bring the Spell to new heights. Each second, she was able to regenerate enough mana to consistently put more into the Spell, so she continued devoting that power to adding additional lightning bolts to the framework. Eventually, she was forced to stop, out of sheer mental fatigue of containing the power and keeping it from erupting in a cataclysmic single burst.

Panting heavily, she cut off the channel running between them, ending her mana expenditure. She stared up at the enormous eye in the sky, which easily had five thousand bolts of lightning ready to blast out of it. She couldn't help but whisper, “It's beautiful.”

The eye was staring at the strange amalgamations, the central pupil of it flickering along the ranks of enemies so quickly that it wouldn't have been possible if it were not literally made of lightning itself. It could have been Taylor's imagination, but she felt that the eye was excited. Completely satisfied with the Spell of her own creation, she smirked at her companions and started walking toward the edge of the conflict. “Are you guys coming, or am I going to claim all the Potentia for myself?”

As she glided across the ground toward her new test subjects, Luke turned and took a look at the enormous spectacle she had created. He huffed gently in either surprise or slight disbelief, indicating that she should take the enemies on the left. Taylor was fine with that and almost positive that she would be able to end this threat entirely on her own. With a deep breath, she very carefully had the eye send out only a single bolt of lightning.

*Zzzap-pow!*

Damage dealt: 10,125 (225 lightning damage, 45 creatures hit!)

Potentia gained: 2,250! Your Sigil is recording a new type of creature destroyed! Would you like to add this new creature to the Hollow Kingdom’s bestiary for a small reward? Yes / No.

The fact that the creatures were not added to the bestiary already meant Luke had not wanted to. She trusted his judgment and selected ‘no’ without any further hesitation. “Forty-five creatures killed… that means they are worth fifty Potentia each?”

“They are worth fifty to you?” Luke shouted furiously. “I'm starting to get less than five!”

“Hey!” Zed called sadly. “You guys are getting Potentia?”

Andre shrugged at the Bard and got to work making plants.

“Let's see if this works for getting a cut sent my way… hey, Taylor, there’re a whole bunch of enemies to the left of Luke. Try killing as many of them as you can.”

Taylor decided to keep her mouth shut after that and simply rake in the power increases. Controlling the Thunder Beast’s Eye was a slight challenge at this size, but she mentally willed it to strafe along the line of creatures, blasting a straight line of energy every other second.

Just as she made the command, a silver needle penetrated her right kneecap, obliterating it and pinning her leg to the ground behind her. She let out a scream of pain, even as she gripped the needle-spear-thing to keep from falling over backward and taking additional damage.

Damage taken: 50 penetrating damage! Right leg crippled, movement speed will be greatly impaired until this wound is repaired.

“Ahh! Look out, they increased their range!” Zed shouted just an instant too late to help her. Taylor heard Luke roar in pain as the automatons that hadn't been able to attack him due to their distance suddenly added their attacks to the ones raining down on him. Through the pain-filled haze, she watched him accumulate light wounds. “Retreat! Everyone! It looks like they are able to react to outside interference. That, or they are able to fight back at greater range if someone is using ranged attacks against them!”

The Mage grabbed the needle, pulling it out of her leg with a wet *squelch*. Using her hands and one leg, she bear-crawled away from the new edge of the creatures’ range. Moments later, she was dragged out of the way by her clothing, which had grown longer vines and was pulling her toward Andre. Before she even got there, her clothing had wrapped tightly around her wound, staunching the blood flow and injecting her with local anesthetic.

To her great relief, during the entire time she had lost her concentration, her Spell had been continuing to work as ordered. Hundreds, then thousands of monsters were being destroyed every second, even if there was no indication on the battlefield. Her eyes tracked one of her bolts of lightning, seeing a long row of the creatures get melted into slag, only to be replaced in the next instant by a fresh set of the creatures, perfectly healthy and ready to attack.

“Celestial feces, this world sucks!” Her annoyed mutter was heard by her teammates, and Zed began laughing so hard he had to hold his sides.

“You’re so… ha… so right.” He wiped a tear off his cheek, sitting down next to her and smiling as she felt at the leg that had almost been entirely amputated. If the needle had hit dead center, it would have completely removed her leg in a single strike. Luckily for her, it had been aimed at center mass, so it was still attached by two inches of cartilage and skin on the outer edge. “Looks like you need to watch Luke heal up again. Something tells me you're going to do a lot of that. Just remember… no matter how impressive he looks, don't fall in love.”

“W-what?” Taylor muttered in surprise as she looked at the Bard wildly then over to Andre in a flash of concern. “Luke? Who could ever-”

“Ahh, I’m just messing with you.” Zed’s eyes twinkled knowingly. “But it wouldn't hurt to let your other teammates know that you aren't going to be swayed by his enormous, rippling muscles. You know, for posterior's sake.”

“Posterity's sake, you mean?” Taylor’s thoughts were whirling so quickly that she missed his chuckle.

“Yeah, that. Sorry, I was distracted. Not sure if you noticed yet, but the vines that dragged you over here and are now acting like a tourniquet had to come from somewhere. Like… your clothes.” He gave her a wink, then turned and sprinted away.

She was laying flat on her stomach, having not been able to move under her own power, but she looked back and down… seeing that the full moon was indeed out tonight. Even though she had feigned disregard the first time, being caught out like this twice within only a few minutes was too much.

“Ze~e~ed! I’m gonna blast you!”