Spaceships and Magic, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Chapter 59: Drastic

"You've changed up your fighting style, I see," I remarked now that there was some distance between us, "That was a pretty unexpected turn of events." 

It was completely contrary to everything that I had seen of Yr'Arl's fighting abilities so far, and it led me to believe that I had been seriously underestimating the cat-like alien for as long as I had known him. 

"When I took on the knowledge of Squadron Leader Belana's teleportation ability, I realised that the best way to make it my own would be to give it an offensive edge," Yr'Arl explained. 

But those were the only words I was going to get out of the alien because he was already on the move again. 

With a flash of light, he was in front of me, but the blow I had been expecting didn't come, he was gone again. 

This time he appeared above me and was already sending down a lance of electrified energy. I used propulsion to dive out of the way, and with my enhanced cognition thanks to the extra speed the move granted me I shot off an energy beam of my own in response. 

The two beams of manna infused power collided head-on, cancelling one another out with a flash of light. 

That didn't mean I was safe though. Yr'Arl had been smart and had used the flash of light to activate his teleportation ability yet again. This time he had anticipated my use of propulsion and had put himself directly in my path, allowing him to swing out an arm with devastating effect. 

I flew straight into his fist and was knocked down to the ground, so hard that I actually managed to feel that one through my shields. This fight was going nowhere fast. I needed to figure out some way to get around his seemingly omnipresent teleportation abilities. 

Before he could put his boot down on my head, I conjured a low gravity field around his foot and yanked up hard. It wasn't enough to put him down, but the balance issues allowed me to jump up and slam a fist right back into his face. It was immensely satisfying to see Yr'Arl rocket away into the far wall, just like I had done when he had first hit me. 

Unfortunately, I had no ability to teleport, so I couldn't keep up the pressure as he had. 

But an idea had formed, a way to stop him from being able to get close at all. 

I brought up my hands for balance and brought into being a swarm of ball bearings with my ability to conjure small objects made entirely from manna. I then used my anti-gravity field ability to suspend each of them around me in a cloud, with my final trick being to send them swirling around me in a protective wall. 

Yr'Arl stood slowly, clearly realising that I had changed my tact to something that was much more defensive in nature than my fighting style usually would be. But then, we weren't going for anything lethal so my most powerful options- namely my anti-magic sword crafted from the claw of a Null Space Invader- wasn't an option until he spawned in his spectral armour. 

Nevertheless, Yr'Arl was sticking to his guns. He was still going to fight me all by himself. 

He lashed out with the lightning attack again. The electrical manna cut through my bearings like butter but fizzled out before it could quite reach me. That was a worry, though. While I was keeping the spinning balls going, I was unable to use a majority of my powers. It was taking a lot just to keep up the shield. 

So instead, I decided to do something drastic. 

I sent my ball bearings hurtling at Yr'Arl in a wide arc, blanketing the space above and around him. It forced him to teleport, the flash of light clearing him from the effective range of my swarm attack just before they reached him. But his teleportation play, the only one he really could have made in that situation, had been exactly what I was expecting from him. 

I summoned the swarm back to me as quickly as they had left and set them to spin around my body once again. If the sound of the balls bashing into a soft body was anything to go by, my play had worked perfectly. 

I turned toward the sound and watched as Yr'Arl was pinged between each of the balls, it was like watching a pachinko machine. 

After a few hits, he sailed free of the swarm and had a decidedly annoyed look on his face. 

Yr'Arl started to chant once more, and for a moment I thought that I might have finally broken him to bring out the spectral armour. But no, with a heavy smell of ozone in the air I quickly realised that hadn't been his plan at all. 

A colossal burst of electricity soared out of his hands and bathed the training room in its power. While the walls, floor and ceiling were designed to absorb manna energy, the ball bearings that I had summoned weren't and they were blitzed out of existence entirely. 

In order to survive the blast, I had to bring out my sword. I unsheathed the manna proof blade and slashed through the oncoming stream of energy, just fast enough to carve myself a path through the field. 

It was an impressive display of power and one that had clearly only been a distraction because as I sheathed my sword once again I realised that the spectral armour had indeed been summoned, but with a twist that I truly hadn't been expecting. 

In past encounters with the armour, it had always operated off its own accord, clearly taking orders from Yr'Arl, but never actually involving him in the combat. 

But this time? 

Yr'Arl was wearing the armour like a knight of old, and he was running straight toward me.