MAGNUS

I crawled out of the blackness to the sound of voices. My thoughts were a jumble of information and I hurt, dear gods did I hurt. I could feel myself laying on a bed, and none of the voices sounded threatening so I just breathed and let the thoughts organize themselves. The fight with Marcus, using the unique cards, and channeling aether through that dangerous talent to read the pattern of battle. I remembered Varis yelling something, but in the combat haze I had been in I hadn’t listened. Fenris and Alara were two of the most powerful creatures I had ever heard of, but image binding had a flaw when using creature cards in combat. The user had to still give some direction to their actions. When my grandfather and Fenris were fighting together Fenris was able to act on his own initiative, the image of Fenris had to be directed though it still retained enough autonomy to decide how to attack. I had needed another edge if I was going to make a fight of it, and had drained my supply of aether. Unfortunately that edge only lasted about two minutes before I stumbled and caught the rush of Marcus’s monsters with no defenses. Between the aether drain and the phantom pain of the arena I wasn’t surprised I had passed out.

Dean Brenner’s voice interrupted my recollections, “Are you certain this isn’t from the arena?”

Professor Siodha answered, “I don’t see how, we used his own techniques to build the charge crystals. Even with the sheer amount of aether that was used within the arena between those two it didn’t even drain a fraction of the stored capacity.”

I spoke up in a rasping whisper due to a dry throat, “It was my own Talent.”

I slowly eased open my eyes to look at them. The two were at the doorway to the campus infirmary, with the stoic form of Marcus leaning against a wall watching me intently. The dean’s gaze speared into me and I tried to shrink a bit further into the bed as she demanded, “Explain.”

“My primary talent has a few quirks to it. Right now it seems to provide a passive increase to my ability to recall patterns and the meanings of bindings I have discovered. When I actively use it I can read the patterns, both activate bindings and in general. Unfortunately I don’t have a large supply of aether, and it drains me fast. Combine bottoming out my aether with getting hit with the sheer number of attacks that landed and I’m surprised my brain didn’t fry,” I said.

Marcus snorted, only to end up receiving a glare from the dean before she turned back to me and said, “Well the medics have given you a clean bill of health. They wanted to let you rest for the rest of the day in case there were any problems. Your pixie told us you didn’t push the Talent into unlocking further, and explained what she meant. Your friends will bring you your assignments after they finish classes. If there are any issues with this mysterious Talent of yours I want to be the first to hear about it.”

I nodded my agreement and she stepped out followed by the professor. Marcus however pulled up a chair next to my bed before handing me a glass of water saying, “Good fight kid. You’ve gotten better since I last saw you.”

I almost snorted the water out my nose. Swallowing it I said, “I was twelve the last time you visited the mountain old man. You have to expect some improvement.”

He grinned, stretching out the old scar that ran along his cheek, before he said, “As I recall you were always a sneaky little git with a new trick up your sleeve. You caught me by surprise with those cards, that’s for sure.”

I grinned back at him and said, “What, not with the guns?”

A firm hand patted my leg as he replied, “Oh those were clever. I remember seeing your grandfather using the original, and the professor told me you had made a copy of it. I hadn’t expected you to shoot spells from it though, or give one to another student.”

“Yeah, that’s a new trick. It worked out pretty well on your troops, but that ghost of yours kept you safe,” I replied.

“Something your grandfather once told me: Prior preparation prevents piss poor performance. I got to see files on each of you little shits. I knew you and that girl favored ranged weaponry, having a counter already prepared saved me a lot of hassle. That light sphere of yours was a good trick though, bought you enough time to get clear,” he said.

“Is this a performance review then?” I asked.

He nodded, “I already went over your team's performance with them, and the other students. Your professor was right when he said you students would make this worth it. I was getting bored being retired.”

I laughed with the old soldier before he continued, “Other than overexerting yourself, what was your biggest mistake?”

I had to think about that one for a moment. I wasn’t an experienced fighter though and I couldn’t pick out any specific thing I had done wrong. I looked at the old man in defeat and said, “I’m not sure. I know you had counters to most of what we could throw at you. I figured if we kept up the pressure we should be able to hit you.”

He nodded and answered, “Fair strategy, but your biggest mistake was taking command over the more experienced members of your group. The young princess has been trained in military tactics. You knew ahead of time that I would be able to field a large number of opponents for you, which meant the situation had changed in scale. It’s why I targeted the two of you first. I knew you were too tricky to leave on the field, and she had the knowledge to capitalize on it. You also failed to use that toy on your head which would have told you how to get past my armor before the fight even started. And finally you split your group up too much. You left yourself unable to support each other easily.”

I had to think about that for a moment, and the old soldier kept quiet while I did. He was right of course. I had gotten used to the fact that the group kept looking to me and failed to see that others would have had more expertise for that fight. It did however raise a question, “Was that fight to prove yourself to the class or for some other reason?”

That question got my hair ruffled, like he had done when I was a kid, and he answered, “That too, but mostly it was to give me a sense of you kids. You can tell a lot about the instincts of a fighter when they are backed up against a wall. Take your friend Takahashi. His instinct in that surprise attack was to put himself between my strike and his friend. While the other one tried to end me as soon as the fight started. If I hadn’t had the defense prepared I would have caught a bullet between the eyes. Your first instinct was to buy time to gather information, which isn’t a bad strategy against an opponent.”

I couldn’t argue his conclusion. I knew my companions proclivities in a fight from our trip up the mountain, but the man who was to teach us needed to know them as well. With another pat on my head the old soldier said, “I’ll let you get some rest. Think over how you could have fought without having to use those trump cards of yours.”

As the man left I leaned back into the bed and mentally called out, “Varis, are we sure there isn’t anything wrong with the Talent?”

“No you idiot!” came the voice of an angry pixie, “You didn’t push it to a new stage thanks to the arena, but if you keep using it before your strong enough you could easily kill yourself or worse.”

“There has to be a solution that would allow me to draw on the analytical capabilities of it without turning myself into an aether starved beast,” I said.

“Maybe, but until you figure it out you will need to give it time. I can help in controlled circumstances to offset the drain you are under, but not in combat. If my concentration is broken you could suffer the full effects of the drain without me being able to help,” she pointed out.

I responded aloud, “Fair enough, though I want to test the capabilities at some point. When I finally am able to use it reliably I need to know the effects.”