Fallen Mage Regressor

Mal jumped forward to try to save Rolam, but he was too late. The vines wrapped around Rolam and a crack echoed out.

Rolam's arm hung from its socket, loose and drooped. Rolam tried to move out of the way, but the vines remained sturdy. Mal found himself cursing. How had the vines managed to sneak up on him? Then again, Rolam had been dodging the vines for most of the fight thus far. He was probably completely worn out at this point.

Mal's heart beat like a drum inside of his chest. He slashed through the air and his Nettleleaf dagger clanged against the hard scales of the vines. A group of vines reached up and tried to grab him and he just barely managed to dodge out of the way.

Holam blasted another energy bolt at the vines and they collided in a wave of heat and sound. A boom echoed out and the vines shriveled up and let Rolam go.

Lusia darted just in range and stabbed at one of the black tendrils. Another clang echoed out, sparks of fire coming from the impact. The tendril swiped through the air and Lusia side-stepped with a fluid motion.

Mal's eyes dinned between Rolam and the black vine creature. Mal didn't know what to do. Light had failed, and he was out of Fireglove. Heat at least still seemed to work based off of how Holam's energy blasts had managed to get the creature to dodge back.

Heat, Mal thought. Heat. Where can I get more heat?

Out of Fireglove, it wasn't like there was burnable material around, so—

"Philo!" he shouted. "Blast that thing!"

"W—where? I can't see it!"

Mal cursed and ran up to Philo's side. He yanked his wrist and pointed it in the direction of the monster.

"There, fire!"

Philo opened up his jaw and a blast of flame shot forward and landed directly onto the core. Red lit up the entire thing like a bonfire. Another high screech burst through the air and Mal covered his ears before he realized that it still wasn't dead, he took one hand off, winced from the pain, then moved Philo's arm in the direction of where the monster had moved.

"Again!"

Philo opened up his mouth and another blast of fire shot straight through the air and landed on the creature. Even through the scales, the vines visibly shriveled and reared back.

"One more time!" Mal shouted.

Philo opened up his jaw for a third time—

And then, as they always did, things went horribly wrong. The core shrunk back down and raced along the ground, vines shifting along the floor in some mockery of movement. It reached up toward Philo's jaws and for a moment, Mal thought that it would try to invade Philo's body again.

Instead, it shut the jaw tight.

With his mouth shut, the flame bounced around on the inside of Philo's mouth, then expelled out through his nose like water from a pressurized pipe, something that Mal had only seen in a handful of instances. Philo let out a pained scream. His eyes rolled back into his head and his legs stopped moving.

Mal ground his teeth together. What were they supposed to do now?

The vines pulled off of Philo and it almost seemed like it was looking at him.

And then it moved.

Mal's mind ran at a hundred miles a second. Every possible way that everything that he could think of to survive, but none of it was returning a positive result.

With no other options, he did the only thing he could think of.

Help.

He activated his Bramblevine bracelet, but he didn't target the writhing massive creature. No, he targeted the latent seeds under the dirt. The roots of the trees surrounding him. Something interfaced with his response, something recognized his call. Mal got the impression that it had fervently agreed, as if it had been waiting for Mal's request.

Vines ripped from the ground and snapped around the tendrils of the other creature. The creature was halted right then and there.

It flexed its body and black veins ran down the green vines, slowly turning them the same color as the creature. With nothing else to do and no other options, Mal placed his hands to the ground and activated his Bramblevine bracelet again. A column of greenery burst out of the ground and completely encased the creature.

Mal frantically thought of what would be able to kill it. Light and fire. They were out of fire, and light had stopped working because of the scales.

But what if they ripped the scales off?

Mal dug his hands into the dirt and activated his Bramblevine bracelet for a third time. There was a wave of feedback, exhaustion—not him, but from the plants and the forest.

"Come on, we take this thing out and you'll be able to rest for the next five months," he whispered. "Work with me here."

A beat of hesitation.

And then the vines groaned. He could somehow sense it—they were piercing inside of the blackened monster, ripping it to shreds, exposing it, then—

Mal channeled his intent one last time into the vines and it pulled the massive green ball of plants and roots into a clearing just a few feet away. The top ripped open, exposing the creature to the sun.

Another high screech. It attempted to move away, but was unable to do so. The green vines had grown barbs and were dug deep inside of the black ones. It made a hissing noise and smoke wafted upwards into the air, the faint smell of burnt meat tickled Mal's nostrils.

The scream slowly died down until there was finally nothing left.

Mal breathed in and out.

[Done...?]

"Yeah, done. Take a break."

The forest fell silent, whatever psychic link that had been established disappearing or at least falling dormant. It was like there'd been a pressure on Mal's head, in Mal's brain, that had just suddenly lifted.

Mal felt something drip down his upper lip and hit the ground.

He reached up and brushed the area with his thumb and looked at it.

Blood. Bright red and clearly his own.

It wasn't like I was expending any energy of my own, he thought. All I was doing was using a little bit of my internal mana to activate the bramble vine bracelet, which helped focus my request to the forest. It was the forest doing all the work, so why am I worn out?

He wiped off the remainder of the blood from his mouth using the sleeve of his school robes. He stood to his feet and glanced around.

Three sets of eyes stared at him.

Lusia's expression was as blank as ever. Mal was fairly certain that if he were to examine her brain, there wouldn't be a single thought going through her mind right now. Not out of stupidity, but merely because she was completely unconcerned with the current state of events now that the threat had been eliminated.

Holam was shocked. His eyes were blown wider open than Mal had ever seen from him and he reached up and rubbed his eyes, looked at the corpse of the monster, then at Mal. Rolam grinned widely, despite the limp arm from the injury,

Mal ignored them and walked over to the remains of the creature.

Most of it had shriveled up and completely died, a mix of dirt and ash coating the remaining dry plant matter. Mal pushed aside the external shell and found a few seeds at the core.

I'll be taking that.

They were pure black and looked almost more like raisins than normal, fresh, healthy seeds. He pulled out a vial, placed the raisin-like seeds inside, and put the cork back on. Once finished, he stood up from the side of the monstrous vine corpse and shoved the vial back into his satchel.

"Alright, let's go. I don't want to spend another minute here," he said.

"Are we—" Holam gestured at the mass of green roots and vines that coated the forest floor. "Are we going to talk about what just happened?"

"No, I'd rather not."

A flicker of confusion crossed Rolam's face. "Honored leader, that was impressive, last time you used this spell, it wasn't this powerful. How did you do that?"

Oh, they could tell that it wasn't normal wizardry. Then again, their aunt was a witch, perhaps they weren't completely uninformed.

"Innate magic," Mal said. "Not a huge deal, but I prefer not to advertise it given our choice of academy."

"That was incredibly powerful innate magic," Holam said. "Is it from your matrilineal line or patrilineal line?"

"Matrilineal."

Lusia was, of course, totally uninterested in what was currently happening.

No, that wasn't quite true. She'd given him a brief look at his deception. She wasn't questioning him, Mal knew her well enough to know that. Rather, she'd more likely than not simply been confused at why Mal was deceiving them. He'd have to explain his reasoning to her later.

"Matrilineal," Mal said. "My mother's side of the family always had this ability."

"That's incredible," Rolam said. "You should use it more often, honored leader."

"Maybe."

"Wait, wait, wait." Holam shook his head. "I've seen innate magic before. Innate magic is what that Draconid just did with his fireballs. Innate magic doesn't allow you to do whatever that was."

Mal shrugged. "What's the alternative explanation?"

Holam's jaw clenched. Rolam put his unhurt hand on Holam's shoulder.

"You're overthinking it, Elder Brother. And besides, it isn't that big of a deal, is it? Mal happens to have an unusual talent. It's just like me with my physical ability."

Holam slowly nodded, some of the tension draining from his shoulders.

"Of course, you're right. I don't know why I reacted so strongly. I suppose it isn't that strange in the grand scheme of things."

A groan from the floor.

"What happened to Philo? Why do Philo's nostrils hurt?"

Mal sighed.

"I think we've got a lot to catch you up on, Philo, old buddy."

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