Chapter 18: Manna

The Null Space creature barely reacted to the moves that the girl was making as she speed blitzed it. Her blows landed like the rapid-fire blasts of a machinegun, but none of them seemed to do anything to sway the beast. It just stood there, allowing each blow to land.

"Why isn't it doing anything?" I asked BB under my breath.

<It's storing the kinetic energy from her blows,> BB replied. <I don't know if she realises it, but with every hit she lands she's just making the thing stronger and stronger.>

It was a visible gain in strength, too. Every time her fist struck the carapace of the Null Space invader it bulged slightly in response until, after it had been sustaining the hits for a while, all that energy simply had to come out.

The girl hit the creature again, but this time it reacted.

It grabbed her hand mid-strike and launched her away from itself hard. She careened through the air and smashed into a wall. It must have been made from the same stuff as the training room I had battled Yr'Arl in, because while the wall did bend outward a little for a moment, it didn't break. It just flexed back into position and deposited the girl onto the ground.

She stood, shakily. It was clear that hit had injured her, but she also clearly wasn't planning to go down so easily. The Null Space invader didn't care either way.

The creature strode toward her with slow and heavy steps. It brought its three clawed fingers up to its own chest, and plunged them in with a sickening squelch.

<This is their most powerful attack,> BB said, responding before I could ask why the creature seemed to be maiming itself. <Their chest cavities hold condensed anti-manna, the energy source that powers their dimension. If it hits something powered by manna, then that thing is drained of all its manna and converted straight into anti-manna, which the invader will then consume.>

"So what the hell is this thing doing on a highly populated megacity?" I hissed, "Surely that's a bit of a health and safety oversight."

<It is. It shouldn't be here, but my guess is this is some kind of underground fighting ring that you've managed to stumble across in the depths of the megabuilding. You certainly don't do things by halves, do you?"

While we were talking the creature had peeled back its carapace to reveal the fleshy interior. Where a heart would have been for a human, there was a golden pulsing energy. That must have been the anti-manna. It looked almost beautiful. I wanted to touch it.

The girl fighting clearly didn't feel the same. The golden energy lanced outward, not dissimilar from my energy beams, toward the girl. She leapt out of the way and conjured a series of small manna constructs in the air. They were anchored in place and allowed her to dodge with ease.

The anti-manna beam hit the wall, and this time there were much greater effects. Clearly whatever esoteric material the invulnerable wall was made from was backed up by manna, because wherever the beam hit it smouldered like wood in a bonfire.

The beam shut off and the null space alien allowed its chest to close back over, clearly, it could only sustain a beam attack like that for a short period of time before it had to recharge. It seemed like they were at an impasse. The girl's machinegun punches couldn't damage the creature, and the creature's anti-manna beams couldn't hit the girl because she was too fast. Stalemate.

Or so I thought. The truth of the matter seemed to be a little bit different.

From her vantage point above the creature, the girl had started a chant with her palms splayed open. Runic symbols sprung into being, just like when Yr'Arl had done the same thing. But these runes didn't symbolise a sentient piece of armour being brought into the world.

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Underneath the creature a giant rune burst into existence, the same happened above it. All of a sudden I could smell ozone in the air, the sort of smell you'd get moments before a lightning storm. That was when it began. A series of colossal lightning bolts crackled through the space between the two runes and battered the null space invader.

At first, it looked like the invader was going to be taken out by the attack, its body shuddered and quaked. But then the sound reached my ears above the loud cracking of the lightning. It was like nails scratching across a chalkboard, high pitched and piercing. The creature was laughing.

It turned its four glowing green eyes up toward the girl, opened its mouth, and screeched. The noise was horrific and even more piercing than its laughter had been. I clapped my hands over my ears and screwed my eyes shut. By the time they were open again, there was no sign of the invader, it had disappeared.

The girl had been knocked off her manna constructs and was left on the ground, alive, but clearly injured. No one had moved to help her, they were still stunned by the screech of the invader.

I lept over the barrier of the fighting pit and scrambled over to her. She was breathing, which was a relief, and as I got close her eyes fluttered open.

Her glowing green eyes.

I'd recognise those eyes anywhere.

They were Lara's eyes.

"What're you doing here?" she slurred her question as if she were drunk, it was likely she had some sort of a concussion.

"I could ask you the same thing, what were you doing in here with a Null Space invader alone?"

"Underground fight ring… Infiltrated their ranks… Heard they were bringing in an invader… didn't believe it but… had to be sure, and well, you saw where that got me," she explained, her speech slowly evening out.

<She has a faster healing rate than the human baseline, she'll be fine in a few minutes,> BB explained.

I offered her my hand, she took it, and pulled her up.

"Where's the invader?" She asked.

"It took off after it did its screech attack, everyone was disoriented, I was the first to come to and it had already left," I explained, she looked more worried with every word.

I knew what she was going to say before she even said it.

"Looks like we're going to have to go find it, then."

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