MillennialMage
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Chapter: 601 - Mother v. Daughter
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 12:00:13 +0000 UTCPrevious__________ToC__________Next
Tala felt a bit conflicted as she squared off against her daughter, even if it was explicitly at her daughterâs request.
Should I slap her down quickly to show her that she still has a lot to learn?
-TalaâŠ- Alat sent the impression of a head shaking in exasperation. -No. No. Under no circumstances should you do that. She is aware that you are far above her, physically and as a combatant. She doesnât need you crushing her into the ground to realize that youâre a better fighter than she is.-
âŠYeah, youâre probably right.
-Iâm definitely right.-
Fine, fine.
This, of course, brought up the obvious question of why Tala was the one fighting Lea at all.
Terry had been playing games with her that might have bordered on sparring, but in truth, for true sparring, he was a really poor opponent for someone just learning to fight. He moved and fought like no other creature or being that Tala had ever faced, and his inhuman shape made him doubly unsuited for a new combatant.
Tala had been sparring for years against other Mages at the Academy before she and Terry had started to clash.
Rane, similarly, fought with an insanely unusual style, moving out of the way unnaturally due to his magical defenses, though it was not to the same extent as with Terry.
Still, fighting against him would train a novice to hold back on their strikes, rather than putting true power behind them. Honestly, fighting Rane was barely better than doing forms, except for the variable nature. That is actually why Rane and Lea had engaged in such âclashesâ quite often over the previous weeks. Throughout, the girl had insisted that they werenât proper spars, because she could never land a hitâeven when he moved slow enough for her to get around his mundane defensesâand he simply tapped her with Force when he would have landed a blow.
Even slamming the sword into her, while not using its magics, wasnât more than a blow from a pillow would be for a mundane fighter. Rane could probably have put enough force into it regardless, but that would have required him going faster than her, thus turning it from a practice session into her being a practice dummy for him.
That made sense because Force was a devastatingly powerful weapon that, if activated, could damage even Talaâs powerful defenses. Yet, Force didnât have a âmiddle stepâ, at least not from the perspective of a mundane opponent, even one who was as resilient as many Refined. Rane would either be effectively taking a switch to his daughter, or be cutting her in half with Paragon level magic.
Thus, Tala was the best choice, if her first ârealâ opponent was to be one of the Sappherrous family, and Lea was insistent that she wanted it to be. Because all of that âreasoningâ aside, Lea had asked to âreally sparâ against Tala first.
Again, she didnât count the play fighting she and Talax did on occasion when they met up. They werenât mature enough in their mentalities to truly clash in a meaningful manner, despite their seeming perfect fit as sparring partners. Tala hoped that they would be able to grow into that once Lea was more comfortable sparring.
As Tala was going to be her sparring partner, that meant that Tala needed to choose a level at which to fight. She could just match Leaâs ability, but that was effectively what theyâd been doing with the training, and the girl had specifically asked for a âreal spar.â
Tala sighed, summoning Flow to her hand, its sparring sheath solidly locked in place around it. After a momentâs hesitation, Tala decided to just ask. âDo you want me armored?â
Lea gave her a searching look. âCould I do anything to your armor?â
Tala instantly shook her head. âNot in the slightest, not unless you have something hidden within you that none of the searching thus far has been able to reveal.â
The girl seemed to consider. âWe can still count hits against it as if they were on you without armor?â
Tala grinned. âOf course we can.â
âThen yes please. That way I can go full out.â
-Hey! You didnât cackle like a bog hag and tell her that there was no chance of her harming you.-
What? Of course not. Why would you even say such a thing?
-I like to note when progress is made.-
I dislike you sometimes.
Alat simply sent the feeling of a beaming smile in return.
Talaâs armor flowed over her, giving her just a bit more height due to the material added under her feet and atop her head. The white steel meshed with reality iron was a thing of beauty, and the jointless construction made it almost without weak points. Though, obviously every valleyâsuch as in her armpitsâwas a place where force could be more easily focused, and thus, technically, a âweaknessâ, comparatively.
She was still shorter than Lea, however. Not that the girl seemed to notice, given the awe in her eyes. âPrettyâŠâ
Tala smiled within her armor, and thankfully, her daughter didnât need a reminder to focus back on the fight to come.
Lea, for her part, was armed with a white steel weapon that matched her skin perfectly⊠because it was the same material. In the case of the weapon, however, it was only partially under her dominion.
The white steel that made up much of her body was as much under her authority as most peopleâs own flesh, more so in fact.
It moved and flowed according to her unconscious will, giving her greater flexibility and range of movementâwithout difficultyâthan any human was capable of without magical aid.
Is it magical aid for her, though?
-I mean, it is magical metal, but itâs hers, and it is her body. I could see it being argued either way.-
Fair enough.
Regardless, the girl fell into a perfect sword stance, her weapon matching Flow in length and design, save that it was a two-handed variant.
Tala smiled at her daughter, pointing out a potential issue. âIf youâre using two hands, would you like to make it longer?â
Lea frowned for a moment, then nodded. âThank you for the suggestion, mother. I will.â
More white steel manifested as Lea willed it to her from their familyâs store of the stuff, the blade lengthening to the maximum reasonable for a fighter of Leaâs height.
It was a wise choice, given that she could shrink it when and if she closed the distance between them. Tala smiled. âBetter.â
Rane was sitting off to one side of the sparring ring, Terry perched on his shoulder. While Rane was clearly watching with an eye toward supporting his wife and daughter, Terry seemed to be on edge, watching with attentiveness that Tala had rarely seen.
âAre you ready?â
Lea nodded once.
âThen, begin.â
Lea moved instantly, the tip of her sword dropping even as she thrust forward, toward Talaâs heart.
Tala almost just let it hit. In her armor, she was confident it wouldnât hurt her, and she could use that to her advantage to strike out at the girl.
No, Tala. You said youâd count any hit as if you were unarmored. She ignored the fact that the thrust likely wouldnât do much to her even if she were unarmored.
Flow flicked to the side, smacking the thrust off course, and causing it to pierce empty air off to Talaâs left.
Talaâs parry came with a riposte, and she thrust for Leaâs shoulder, planning to drive her back with the distributed impact from Flowâs sparring sheath.
Lea surprised her, however. Subtle magics began to dance throughout the girlâs body, the automaton nature of her body starting to show itself.
The girl pulled the shoulder that Tala was targeting back and to the side, using the same motion to throw her body in an odd twist, allowing Lea to jerk her extended blade sideways in a vicious cut.
Tala rolled with the incoming, unexpected attack. That got her torso out of the way as she turned her own thrust into a cut toward Leaâs abdomen.
Lea surprised her again, leaping off her planted foot to move her whole body over the sweeping strike.
Ahh, she went ballistic.
-Poor girl.-
Lea had no way of changing her trajectory now, and so when Tala used her massive strength and solid footing in the ground to rip her blade upwardâchanging the path of her strike as no mundane fighter ever couldâit slammed into Leaâs outstretched side. There was nothing Lea could do to counter the move.
The back and forth, which had been essentially a single quick exchange, had taken less than a breath, all told, demonstrating just how physically capable Lea really was.
Tala was still going more slowly than she was capable, but that made sense. She was a Paragon fighting against someone with near Refined level physicality.
Though she was going more slowly, that didnât mean that the strike was weak or without power by any means. It hit like a runaway caravan wagon. As Flow was in its sheath, there was no cutting. Instead, the power of the blowâand of the cutting magics that were held at bayâwas all transformed into an impartment of kinetic energy, which shot Lea up, into the sky.
Now, most of the time, sending something âinto the skyâ is simply a statement that it went really high. In this case, however, Lea being thrown into the sky meant that she flew up to impact heavily on the upper boundary of the sanctum within Kit.
Thankfully, it wasnât rapid enough to cause a magical disturbance for Tala to contain. Even so, this had not been Talaâs intention. Tala closed her eyes within her armor. Oops.
-YeahâŠ-
Rane winced, shifting forward as if to be ready to stand up at need.
Terry let out a low whistling trill of interest.
The real question is if this will trigger her berserker aspects?
-And if so, what it will look like. I suppose weâll see when she falls back down.-
Instead of falling back down, there was a pulse of power originating from within Leaâs very soul, and the girl vanished.
-Oh⊠I was wrong, but thereâs the answer regardless.-
Instantly, Lea appeared behind Tala, having used her granted authority within Kit to move herself.
Her eyes were now a solid, glowing red, her face expressionless, and her lips pressed into a firm line. Tracings of red power similar toâbut also quite obviously notâinscriptions radiated down and out from the back of her head.
Leaâs weapon had morphed almost in an instant, and a short, barbed mace struck out for Talaâs head from behind, but the older woman caught the blow on Flow with ease, even as she spoke. âNo. You canât use that in a fight. You wonât have it out in Zeme, so you canât learn to depend on it.â
Lea didnât acknowledge, instead trying to use exactly what had been forbidden once more. This time, Kit rejected her will, and Lea didnât shift.
Her lack of willful shifting didnât faze her for long as she attacked again and again, Tala blocking each blow with ease, allowing the girl to spend her energy on a fruitless assault.
Well⊠she doesnât really have energy to run out of in that sense? She hummed to herself. Rane or any other biologically human berserker had a finite amount of physical reserves to draw on, and their heightened activity levels and strength when enraged meant that they burned through them quickly, putting a definite time limit on the effect.
Lea didnât have that.
She just had her gate.
And her gate was endless.
Rust⊠Well, it wasnât entirely a bad thing. Lea was practicing, utilizing not only what Rane and Tala had taught her, but also doing things that were decidedly reminiscent of Ioâs movements so long ago, seemingly resulting from the power flowing through her body.
-There do seem to be combat instincts ingrained into the body, and sheâs tapping into them.-
Yeah, she seemed to be able to do so even before her soul reacted to the damage her body took.
-Seemingly, yeah. Though, they seem to expect her to have complementary systems that she lacks.-
Indeed. Did you see her off hand? It moved as if grabbing for something that wasnât there, even as she leapt free of the ground before I smacked her.
-I did. It would be worth investigating afterward.-
Agreed.
Tala finally turned around to face Lea even as the untiring barrage of attacks continued unabated.
And why should it slow?
Lea wasnât going to get tired.
Her arms werenât limited by biological muscles.
She could, quite literally, continue to attack for days.
Iâm not quite sure what toâ
âWell?â Leaâs voice snapped out, clearly inquisitive and not full of anger. âAre you going to strike back, or was your one hit all that you could manage?â
Tala blinked a few times at that. Wait⊠sheâs still cognizant?
-It seems so.- Alat giggled at the realization. -Oh, yes. This will be interesting.-
Leaâs lips hadnât moved, so it was possible that there was still something keeping her from communicating traditionally, but sheâd always been able to speak without using her mouth, she just didnât do it very often.
Tala stepped into the next strike, blocking it as all those before even as she struck out with her off-hand, striking the girlâs wrist to redirect the attack rather than the blade.
Lea allowed the white steel to act as steel at the hit, meaning that while her arm and weapon were forcefully shoved to the side, nothing was broken or damaged, at least nothing easily detectable.
Tala took that moment to really look at her daughterâs soul.
The gate had a look similar to that of one that was in the process of gate-breaking, massively more power than usual was flooding out and shiftingâalmost lensingâever so slightly, taking on an inhuman tinge.
This wasnât to do with her non-standard body. Instead, it seemed to match what Tala had observed in Rane every so often when his own âboonâ activated.
Even so, the magic pulsing outward wasnât alone, and in that way, Leaâs soul was acting entirely unlike Raneâs.
There seemed to be an odd sort of solidity both around and throughout her soul, only seeming absent in the opening of the gate, itself.
As makes sense, itâs hard to have âsolidityâ in an opening.
-Except that the emptiness around the soul has solidity.-
Yeah, well, that emptiness isnât a connection to another world. Itâs different.
-...Fair⊠while somehow making no sense at all.-
I am just describing what I see, Alat.
-Yeah, yeah.-
Regardless, Lea stepped back from Talaâs advance, not trying to get her weapon back into position.
âWell struck, Mom.â The girlâs body was practically vibrating, and she still wasnât using her mouth to speak.
âAre you alright?â Tala inquired, using her aura and authority to create her own voice outside of her armor.
Lea gave a very hesitant nod. âYes, but I think I need to keep fighting. I seem to have triggered some sort of fight or⊠fight response.â
âThe term is fight or flight.â Tala almost chuckled.
âYes, that is the phrase for biological humans. My body seems to only have one option: Fight.â
Tala nodded, having kept Flow in proper position for another clash. âThen, by all means, letâs continue. You work to wind that down, and Iâll keep you and your body occupied. Agreed?â
âAgreed.â Leaâs weapon lashed out again, once more in the form of a sword.
*
It had taken Lea three hours to figure out what was going on and bring it to a halt.
Apparently, the physical response within Leaâs automaton form was controlled in a somewhat similar way to Talaâs gravity magics. That meant that Leaâs mental model for the thing she felt that she was fighting had to no longer apply for her âfightâ response to end.
Once they realized that, Tala dismissed her armor and the heightened state faded from her daughter.
Things had been muddled quite a bit by the berserker boon from Leaâs soul added on top.
That had been what truly jump started the fight systems within Lea. Apparently, taking a hit so hard that it seemed to cause a measurable change in oneâs power source was considered of great import to automata.
Who could have known?
-Anyone with a brain, who bothered to think about it.-
Did you?
-...Thereâs no need to ask silly questions.-
The boon, itself, in turn had stayed active because her soul could tell that her body could maintain it and still felt threatened and in need of protection at an unconscious level.
It all made sense once they figured it out, but before then, it had been maddeningly frustrating to suss out.
At the moment, Lea was in her purple tank for the first time since her âbirth,â as the automated systems within it checked her over, top to bottom.
Rane stood beside Tala, with Terry perched on her shoulder, all three regarding the unconscious Lea. âOur daughter has a long road ahead of her.â
Tala regarded Rane for a moment before nodding. âIndeed. Iâm glad that she has you to help her learn about what she is capable of in this area.â
He smiled. âMe too.â He then glanced her way. âYou handled it really well, today.â
She huffed. âI shouldnât have hit her that hard at the start.â
He grunted. âMaybe, but I think it was good to test the edges of things earlier rather than later. Besides, it was more of a throw than a strike. The fact that the sky got in the way isnât really your fault.â
Tala chuckled. âI could have moved her, or prevented the impact. I simply didnât consider it until after she hit⊠Still, maybe youâre right.â
âI think I am.â He grinned. âFlowâs sparring sheath made this possible. Iâd never really considered Force as limited, but maybe I should get such a sheath myself.â
Tala looked down at where the weapon hung at her belt, the sheath showing noticeable wear. âI was warned that it wouldnât be able to contain too much power. It seems that weâre pushing up against the edges of that. Iâm glad that I ordered a new, more durable one, but Iâm not sure it will be sufficient. As to getting Force one? Maybe, but it seems like something that will only be useful very rarely.â
âYeah, it might be worth contacting the craftsman about your sheath, and youâre likely right that getting a sheath for Force may be a bit unnecessary. Even so, I think itâs worth looking into.â
âThatâs fair.â She leaned against him, and he kissed the top of her head before they both turned back toward their daughter, staying close to one another.
After a momentâs silence, Rane appended, âAfter sheâs awake once more.â
Tala nodded. âAfter sheâs awake again, yeah.â
Terry trilled in agreement, and the three settled in to wait.
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Comments
nugitoBambino
interesting question! i'm leaning towards body in this one. since, in theory, it seems like the "beserker boon" is coming from Rane and he doesn't have the ability to be cognizant once he enters the state. In this case, i'm hypothesizing that Lea's brain not having neurochemicals to distract her is what let's this happen?
PatronTurtle
Now we just need to figure out if she's cognizant during berserker mode because of her soul or her body. I'm leaning towards the soul
