Chapter Nineteen

Combating The Rogue Mages and Their Chaos Magic

William and Rocssanna stepped in. “Leave them to us, they only sensed our ship, and they do not know you’re close. We’ll disable the ships while Sky and Jane can free the few magic users they have.” The two ships moved from in front of the enemy ships the smaller scout ship unseen.

The rogue ships opened fire first on the Titan’s ship that seemed to come out of nowhere. The ship resembled giant oblong disc with short wings, and two tiny tubes slapped into the bottom. The new enemy ship dwarfed the largest freighter two times over. The initial volley of laser fire hit the shields and was absorbed, and the huge ship faded from the sight of the rogue’s ships. They had no idea where they went to, so they fired randomly into space in the directions they could have gone.

The random laser shots didn’t have any feedback other than blinking out in front of the ships. They had no idea how fast the Titan pleasure cruiser could move. They were just under the tiny ships and fired their railgun for the first time. They targeted the ships with no captives first to see how they worked against their shields. The magical railguns were like bullets through the tissue paper. The railgun crippled the engines and kept the ships from moving. They repeated the process of crippling the rogue ship's engines using the railguns.

Sky and Jane in their scout ship pulled alongside the rogue ship with the most captives. She was using a small side door, with the umbilical tube to connect ships. Sky proceeded to rip opened a hole into the rogue’s ship. Before she could make her way through, flames came up through the hole she made moments before. The fire didn’t damage the shielded tube but started to heat the metal on the scout ship to a red glow. She used her hyper-speed twice and charged through the tube connecting the two ships. As a titan, any intensity of combustion did not affect her body. The mages and soldiers wore the same typical black uniform with shatterproof magic goggles. Only the shape of their bodies gave away the gender of the combatant’s.

She darted down the tube and slammed into the mages who used the fire spells. The binding spell test in live combat worked to perfection. She rapidly progressed into the ship as she bound ten mages, almost instantaneously. All of the vanguard mages were bound before Jane processed through the tube herself. Jane and Sky went in deferent directions after brief eye contact and a nod of agreement. Jane engaged the rest of the mage's attention to herself with impunity; the new shield’s a cheat.

Sky sensing the dense numbers of people in the chambers she flickered to their location. The loop worked beautifully as she transported the abducted people to Sky’s house where the androids controlled by Conny organized their stay till the mission was over. Most were thankful for being saved, some just wanted to help, and some wanted to go home.

Jane finished most of the main forces and started to free people to expedite the process when she could. She took little fire as she continued to free more of the people inside of the chambers. She returned shot for shot as the rogue mages relinquished cover to discharge their spells. The new protective shield worked against the fire and wind spells they cast

Sky was moving slow enough to draw most of the fanatical mage’s attention from the abducted people in the chambers. The power of the spells dropped dramatically as she freed the magic users. In ten minutes, all of the people were freed and inside the Knights house. The rest of the rogue mages in the rooms she had entered were all captured in the binding spells

“All clear with no fatalities. How is everything on your end, Jane”? Sky asked Jane, finding her in a large room filled with empty chambers. She was sensing for any hidden rogue mages on the ship.

“The loop worked as well as I thought it would. Conny says they’re all conscious and resting in the beds you made. Some of them want to join in the mission if we let them.” Jane said as if asking her if she wanted to swap places with other mages.

“I’m glad that the loop had worked so well, but I can’t say anything about them helping us on our mission they’ll have to talk to Fred about joining us.” Sky thought about having more people risking their lives for others or maybe even revenge. “I’ll see you back on the ship. I’m going to rig something for those evil rogue mages.” She told Jane before she disappeared.

“Remember to inform Fred about anything you do. I think he feels left out with all your ideas that are better than his. He’s the captain, but you’re running the show and solving all the problems.” Jane told Sky who could hear her but wasn’t there. “ Jane realized after a sudden epiphany of what they had a young child do.

“What are we thinking let a child take part in this supernova black hole”? Jane thought to herself. Yet it made sense to her, at the same time felt it was wrong to let her do so. She recalled faintly overhearing Joe say something to Todd; it was about destiny or other. It was meant to be. A calm passed over her emotions, somehow feeling pacified on a new level she never felt before.

“I’m almost done; you better get to the ship.” Jane hesitated for a second and started to run towards the scout ship. Jane was in the ship’s corridor when a gust of air blew by her. She knew Sky had passed her and most likely waiting on the bridge. As Jane reached the bridge, she saw Sky and Swan planning the next ship to board. Sky turned and gave a smile, Jane. “Could you look at this flight plan and see if you approve of it? If you do, we can stay by the side door for boarding and quickly move from ship to ship. I’ve placed a clone of our A.I. on the ship and Fred can command it. I also fixed it but left the regular shields instead of the new ones. They will look different than the before, so it will look like one of ours. They can be used as distractions, so they don’t know how many ships we have.” Sky said with a smile.

“That is an amazing idea to help us with this mission. If Fred ever allows other mages to join us, they’ll have ships to use.” Jane said as she walked up to see what Sky and Swan had planned. Jane looked over what they had come up with and asked a few questions to see what her plan was. She was able to make a few suggestions, but only one made the grade. Sky hade a reason for everything she was doing. The only thing Jane suggested was to enter through the top of the ship and not the side.

The three ships left Sky and Jane to finish subduing the six rogue ships. The one they took over followed the three cloaked ships with five more to follow as she commandeered them. The new way of entering the rogue ships worked well, and they took the enemy by surprise. Sky thought she was the one going to free the captives, but Jane was the one who could do while she captured the mages. It worked out well, and she had no desire to change anything at least boarding ships. The one thing that disturbed her was the fact that all the mages felt dark and cold. They had tried to use their chaos magic on her, but she moved faster than the spells were cast. The chaos magic that hit the walls behind her wake left a small hole with a kind of black corruption left behind. The healing spell took away the taint of corruption, but not return the piece missing. The whole ship reduced in size by the volume missing. So, she had no idea what it would do to her new shield being so close to her body. She thought she would let Fred know about the chaos magic and that she was not hit by any yet.

Fred became a hologram, and Joe was in the background. “I hate to ask you this, but I would like you or Jane to get hit by at least one chaos spell. We need to know what it will do to your new shield spells. Maybe you can wait till the last mage standing and allow Jane to get hit.” Fred sounded reluctant with his request.

“Sorry, Fred Sir, but I don’t think it would be the same for Jane and me. Jane was altered by chaos magic, and I’m a Titan. I’m not sure if the effect would be the same if it cracks.” She told Fred with a smile keeping an optimistic sound in her voice.

Fred just shook his head. “That’s why I need you to do it. I want you not to get hit by the spell just your new shield. I need to know how the new shield will hold up to the chaos spells. You and Jane are most likely not to be hurt by the chaos magic if you were to be hit. Most likely, you might be able to nullify the odd magic before it can hurt you.” Fred said, hopefully.

After Fred cut off the communication with Sky, a flood of guilt washed through his body and soul. “This is insane letting a little kid fight in a battle instead of doing things his own kids would do. At that instant, he loathed himself as much as spaced excrement. He tried to think about what madness took him to think it was a rational idea to let her take part in this incursion. A memory unbidden enters his cognizance as if placed there. He saw himself kneeling before a small child magic power surging from every pore of her body. Flames erupting from her one hand then arks of electricity from the other. The shocking display of power was only second to her disembodied voice. ”I have magic, I know magic, I am magic, and I want to be taught, magic! Please, no more lies about magic. I have a memory of when, and where, I do not know, but I know I hold all five gifts of the elements like no one before me. I am here for a reason; I was born for a purpose, teach me for I hold, life, and death”. A chill went through his body than a calm acceptance. Something or a being of a higher power was guiding things along.

Unknowingly he began to speak out loud to all of his crew could hear thanks to Conny. “Who are we to judge the guiding hands of Fate. We all have done things we regret. To judge now is to be judged ourselves, will we be on the wrongs we’ve done to our perceived rights”. Fred stood still speaking, and with more conviction in his voice., fists balled up and continued now knowing he was heard. “Let Fate guide it’s cruel hands and try and let us prevent it from being any more heartless than we have to. It may be her fate, but it is a fate we share. Let’s all live to see what Fate has in store for our little girl. I know that we all feel guilty at letting such a small innocent child help us. Anyone in their right mind would not let it happen; we all know that deep inside. Yet here in a short respite, we question our sanity. It is her providence that guides us. We are just along for the ride. But what we can do is make her ride as smooth as possible in the now. But space rift me if I don’t keep testing Fate every time before something like this happens again.” Fred punches out with the last words. “Onward to victory.”

Sky looked at Jane, who shrugged her shoulders looking a little embarrassed. She continued as if not hearing Fred's speech. “I don’t think I can nullify the evil magic they are using. I couldn’t dispel the magic they used on Jane, so I don’t think I will dispel it. But if it’s just one spell I’m sure I can handle it if it passes through the shield. I’ll try it when we’re on the next ship.

Sky’s parents were able to attack the next group of ships from behind and sensed they had no captives. Fred told them not to worry about taking their lives if they wished. They didn’t want to kill without due cause, but it might be necessary. They told Fred. “Is it possible to cast the binding spell over an entire ship without any contact with them”? William asked Fred

“It might be easy if you have enough magic to cast it. I think with the magic Sky is sharing with you it might be possible. Do you know the incantation for the binding spell”? Fred answered William.

“I know the binding spells Sky told me about and showed us how to cast them. Will the same spell work on the entire ship it’s cast on”?

“Yes, you have to put more power into the spell. You’re just fortunate your little daughter was able to make the spell more efficient than before. It would have taken three timers the magic it does now.” Fred said, answering William. “We would love to help you, but they only know of your ship and maybe the scout ship. We’re going to start on the assault on the first planet. The ships defending it are all on full alert. We’ll use the extra ship to distract some of them, but since most are without captive, we’ll wipe most of them out. We’re going to see first hand how well Shining Fang does in full combat.”

“I do not doubt what this ship is capable of doing. I’m sure if I wanted to, I could wipe this entire solar system by ourselves if we didn’t have to save lives.” Todd and his crew were sitting able to see everything around them, with only the interior of the ship blocking line of sight.

Todd had the view of probable trajectories of every ship in sight thinking of plans and contingencies. “I thought if we could use the railguns to fire spell packets through the shields directly. If that’s possible, we don’t need to kill anyone. The only problem is what do we do with all those psychopathic mages. If any have high connections, they might be freed within the week after being held in custody. It might be better to keep a few for questioning and justify our actions. Mark Douglas may be linked to the whole thing, so this might run quite deep into politics.” Fred considered what Todd was saying.

“I think your right, Todd. We’ve got to link him to these abductions and legal magic practices. We can’t allow this to get any bigger than it already is. It’s so far taken up almost an entire solar system, and I don’t know how many more supports this insane cause. They must be going after power-hungry mages to recruit.” Fred said to Todd as he speculated over everything.

“When we’ve rescued everyone, we should run the faces of the people we’ve captured through facial recognition databases and see what comes up. We don’t even know who we’re dealing with right now other than a horde of fanatical mages bent on destroy Titans.” Joe added to Fred’s words he was voicing.

Sky broke into the conversation. “I don’t want to kill these people at random, but I don’t want to set them free to start over somewhere else in the vastness of space. It’s just not fair to all of the good people stuck with their evil deeds. What can we do about them so they can’t harm anyone else”? Sky pleaded with her friends and family. She had just freed a teenage girl and approaching another who could be her twin brother. What discussed her right then was the lack of a cover over them most had — greasy smears of what Sky thought left by frequent touching the canopy of composite glass on both chambers.

“I’m not sure if there any other options between the few we have. The courts with crimes against them should be put away for a long time. No doubt some will get the full wrath of the law. Unfortunately, those with political connections will likely get a slap on the wrist. Giving the death sentence by our own hands will likely have us before the courts. We’ll have a better chance of a slap on the wrist than most if we can prove Mark Douglas is behind this or at least partially.” He gave a little thought. “How long do you think your stasis shield would last”?

Sky smiled. “They would last forever unless dispelled, even if kept in a pocket space.” They had to stop and start the mission once more. William started to take out ships around the first planet with the most abducted people.

“We’ll figure something out; just keep using your special binding spell when you can.” Fred broke off to engage a few ships and then moved on to the next group.

Jane and Sky followed behind her father’s ship to rescue more of the captives. She could feel the chaotic magic. Coming out of the ships her father had disabled and they started to move once more. The strange magic was able to fix their ships or at least get them moving again. She could see what they were casting, but to her, it was like scribbling with wax sticks young kids used to draw. They made no sense it was as if they were cast with just pure hatred intent. It started to make some sense. Casting with emotion can increase the power of the spell, why not make one that looks like a mess work.

Jane interrupted Sky’s thoughts. We better hurry they're the ability to get the ships moving again faster than we anticipated. I don’t know how but we’ve got to stop them before they can start fighting again. We have the element of surprise with us and the firepower. We have lasers and stealth working for us. It’s your railguns that are taking them out the way they’re shielded.”

“They’re using chaos magic to fix or at least propel the ships along. I’m not sure how it works so we’ll have to hit the entire ship with the binding spiel. It should stop anything from any motion or action. But their crazy magic might affect the spell I’m going to cast on such a large area.”

“We’ll have to try and see if it works. If not, we rescue everyone we have to and destroy any ship we don’t control. Get ready we’re coming up on the first ship that they managed to get working again. There’re no captives onboard fire your special binding over it and see if it works.” She was over the top of the fastest moving crippled ship. Sky stood by the loading ramp to fire the spell at the ships as they passed them. She held out her hands and gathered power within her hands to suddenly release the powerful spell. It hit some kind shield different from most and spread out over the surface and stopped halfway around it. She hit the ship again, and the spell finished going over it all momentum stopped and started to drift slowly.

“They have a shield over the ship. It didn’t work though. My spell just flowed over it and stopped the time of everything inside. The only thing that can break the binding spell is me or one of us using my magic. It’s twice as dense as the spell needs to be. Next time I’ll hit the shield to find out the size and cast the binding over the top of it.

“Well get ready those ships are flying faster and in different directions. I wish you could have made this old thing faster. Todd is getting ready to lay waste to all the fighter ships with no captives. He could have flown all the way through at the speed your ship is capable of quarter way.” Jane stopped speaking to check her controls and called to Sky the next ships are coming up be ready their starting to build up speed.” Just as she finished speaking to Sky, the furthest ship was torn in half.

“All ships trying to escape will be destroyed without further notice. That was your last notice you will be arrested or killed; there will be no escaping.” Fred’s voice was final, yet the ships continued to scatter out from where they were originally disabled.

Sky’s light spell shot out and hit the shield covering the ship and gave her an idea of the size of it. Sky quickly built up power to cast a binding spell to encompass the shield and the ship. The spell flashed around the ship just out from their shield. All movement inside stopped instantly after the spell surrounded it. “The spell works fine once you know where the chaos shield is. The only problem is anything completely within the shield. It would be easier to use the binding when they’re first disabled. They’ll have to leave the ones with the captives so we can save them.”

William heard what his daughter said and did just as she suggested. Most of the ships were smaller ones without the people used as magic batteries.

Todd and Fred were wreaking havoc on the fighters and battleships. With no captives to worry that they could fire without precision and care for the loss of life aboard. To the rebel fanatic mages, their ships were self-destructing. They could not detect much of Little Tooth and nothing at all from Shining Fang. A flash on their screens was the most they saw before their ships were torn apart. Shining Fang had an almost perfect way of attack. The only way of telling where the attack came from was the direction the debris went in. The projectiles moved too quickly to track, and the distance could not be calculated either. At least not enough to fight back with any accuracy. Todd and Fred flew their ships around the enemy so quickly each shot came from a different direction. They had no chance to fire back once they found themselves engaged in a battle. The rogue mages could only fire from a distance around their fellowships as they were reduced to space scrap. Their communications were too short before they were silenced forever. Just a few of the larger ships seemed to leave crippled yet somewhat intact.

Only the second group of ships were able to make any meaningful communication before going silent.

David Teflon heard two words among the jumbled words in the coded transmissions that made him go pale “Titan ship.” He was told a medium military empire ship, and a small scout ship was coming for them and two Titans with their daughter. He almost had the scout ship, but some magics from nowhere helped them escape. He didn’t know of any details because the pursuing was destroyed before any could be sent that made sense.

His plans started to fall to pieces when he heard of a huge ship flashed into view for a few seconds and then disappeared. Minutes later, ten ships disappeared along with it. His plans were just about to come to completion. He was just a week away from sending his armada to unknown space to bring his retribution to the Titans. Mark Douglas was about to send a fleet of fighters to investigate the two missing ships. They went missing shortly after picking up the scout ship. The captain of the empire ship was under armed for a major space battle. It only had beam type weapons and no projectiles other than small arms. From what he recalled, Fred was some kind of genius with magic and the Titan daughter had an impossible amount of magic. David had no idea what that meant, but he knew he was going to get that magic and make it his own. Some of the things Mark talked about made him think Mark was practising chaos magic too much without shielding his mind correctly.

David’s retina screen flashed with an urgent vid-com. He called out, “Yes, what is it”? The face of a mage clearly in a panicking appeared. “There are more ships engaging us in battle than the two we were told about. We’ve been able to deduce that four ships are using a superior cloaking shield. I’m not sure but, Oh spaced shit. The vid went dark, and there was nothing the comlink was dead.

David assumed as dead as the captain of the ship he was in. He had to get more information, so he called the closest ship to him on the grid of patrol ships. Nothing again then the next nothing again he couldn’t understand how four ships could do so much damage so quickly. They had updated their shields with the new spell casting they received from possibly the very ship that was kicking their tail exhaust. He must have been holding back for years to place so many updates, and many were restricted were not easy to get even with Mark making to request for them and now many were taken off-line till further notice. Somehow it was impossible to transmit them through any relay station.

After some frantic calling, he managed to get a hold of some trusted people. It was one of his captains and magic researchers on a decimated colony planet where they kept the colonist and most of the captives. The captain reported that all of the ships with no hyper-chambers were being destroyed with no chance of retaliation.

He was the magic Frankenstein who came up with the plan of using the magic users as a type of batteries and elemental gift sharing. His parents had worked on the Chaotic magic they all had learned to various degrees of success. He was lucky to discover that putting a shield over your mind protected you from the madness of excessive use. His parents and some of their colleagues learned the hard way about the mind-scrambling effect the strange magic had. He found out the elemental less magic affected his mind when he was teaching his first sympathizer to his cause. Brad Crisp took to the new magic like docks to water.

Once he knew the basics, Brad practiced without pause. After four weeks of almost constant practice, his mind was greatly affected. He past had lost his immediate family to a rampaging Titan. There were many such people he found who flocked to his cause. Brad was one of the most vehement on getting his revenge on the colossal giants. He never felt himself slipping into madness as his rational mind was eroded. David was able to talk to Brad and see how far he had lost touch of reality. He was more of a paranoid delusional crazy mage than a sane one. From mad with grief too insane with the power, he was a mess. When first meeting him, he looked clean cut and a little bit unnourished from grieving the loss of his family. Brad was just what David thought he needed in a student. He was picking up the new magic when he had none. Born with no elemental gift made him a minority amongst gifted magic users. I gave him what he wanted. Power, magic, and a chance for revenge against the Titans that made his life an empty shell. He took to the magic and made it his own he didn’t have the intelligence to do regular magic. The new magic takes emotion to work, the stronger, the better, and Brad had more than enough anger and hate. His power was amazing and almost overflowing was just getting stronger. The problem was the magic-enhanced the emotion you draw your power from. He just got angrier and hated almost everything.

Within two months, he couldn’t talk in sentences and just started to grunt in response to most questions. He was easy to enrage, which caused the magic to flare dangerously. David decided to limit his reaction with the now over volatile gift less mage.

He was able to find more people like Brad, but no one was as passionate as he was. David noticed like Brad; they started to show signs of excessive emotional instability. Some would cry; some couldn’t think straight because they were too mad. Others would go on a rant of what they would do to the Titans when they had the power to use against them. He heard shielding the mind to diminished the effects might work. He had it put into practice and found it noticeably slowed the mind-eroding. The main problem was shielding your mind took effort and slowed progress. It didn’t help that you didn’t feel like your mind was degenerating to a primal state It seemed the magic affected the user from the outside of their body.

After trying different shields, he was able to slow the effects of extreme use. For most of the new elemental magic users they could slow the effects., but not stop it.

During a small skirmish during one of the first major abductions, two of the mages using the new magic went completely mad. He had to bind them and put them into stasis. They couldn’t be used as batteries because they didn’t have any elemental gifts. They could only be used as a type of terrorist weapon to cause a distraction to capture other mages. So, in combat, an unshielded mind will go completely insane, and a shielded one will become overly sensitive to the emotion they used to coax the magic into being. The new magic is not what he thought it would be.

They opened a small clinic to see what happens when used on a willing subject. He didn’t want to use one of the few willing followers to their cause. The first person they worked on was a military woman. She wanted skin that could be stronger than steel with a thought; she also wanted super strength. Her military service was exemplary even without the added magic. She was stealth incarnate and could move with almost blinding speed through a full-fledged battle. The reason she wanted the castings placed onto her body was so she could selflessly protect others who were slower and less experienced. With this woman as a test rat, he was able to twist her into a Titan like body. With that knowledge, he was able to reproduce the same effect without the intense pain she had endured.

David fought his thoughts to the present and found more of his followers, not responding. “What in the super, supernova is going on out there. All I seem to get are jumbled messages about phantom ships firing bullets of power.” He received a voice packet as he scanned for more information

“They’re tearing through all of the shields as if they weren’t there. We thought the new shields were inferior, so we tried the old ones. They were most likely so weak they didn’t even need to use the big gun on them. We are completely outmatched by a small fleet of Imperial ships.” The voice packet abruptly ended.

David didn’t know what to make of it. The voice wasn’t one he knew, but the access codes were hi. It’s must have been someone of importance to send it so high up in his data list. Now he wondered if he should check for himself or run to the far reaches of space to escape the intruders. He wanted the revenge on the Titans, but he wanted to live to see it come to fruition. He came to a decision.

Fred was surprised no one tried to escape the fight and run. “They still don’t know they’re fighting a losing battle and keep coming. I hope we can rescue everyone before they figure out what we’re doing.”

Todd looked over the console and watched the fleets sail by not knowing they flew by the dragon’s mouth. “They don’t seem to want to give up and keep coming. The main planet seems not to be reacting to our presence. They seemed to like their set for action already.”

“Just keep an eye on the movement on the ships. If anyone is going to leave it will be someone on that planet. Sky has almost caught up with her father freeing the abducted people with Jane. They’re still quite away from catching up to us. So, Joe and I will go back and help set some of the captives free.” Fred thought about how good things were going so far. “Todd, I want you to take out any ship leaving if they have no captives. If they have captives, just disable the rogue mages till Sky, or we can free the captives. It’s going quickly with no real resistance. But it’s a large solar system so it will still take time to gather everyone.”

“Not to mention if they make a coordinated escape by going in multiple directions, it may be hard to catch them all,” Joe said to sober the mood.

Sky and Jane were about to make their first assault on a planet surface. It was a small planet just a little bigger than old Earth’s moon. The atmosphere wasn’t breathable, and the temperature was too cold for Jane to go out unsuited. Sky didn’t seem to be bothered by either, so she moved out ahead of Jane. Suited up Jane ran to catch you to Sky in the second structure she had seem run to from the first. Sky was doing quick work of everyone she came to. Jane could feel the magical energy coming off of her. Jane thought she knew why and was about to ask her about it. Before she could ask, a barrage of spellcasting came from seemingly nowhere. The spells felt like worms crawling across your body after they hit her shield. Jane realized that it must have been pure chaos magic. She brought the rifle around to where the magic seemed to be coming from and was ready to fire. Just facing the direction where the rapid fire was coming from, she didn’t see anything. Even with her heightened awareness, they were invisible to her. A queasiness grew in her core threating to make her sick.

Sky turned to see Jane coming after her to the second building. The first one was almost empty, so it was finished in seconds. Just after entering the second building, she felt a nauseating wave pass over her followed by the sound of spells hitting a shield. She didn’t hear return fire, so she knew something was happening outside to Jane. Before she could react, the door shut, and an even greater wave of nausea passed all around her and spelled slamming into her shield from all directions. Her stomach threatened to empty itself all over the polished floors and the hyper-chambers around her. She couldn’t see the mages at first whatever spell they used just sucked up the magic she used to sense them. Being quick-witted she just reversed her efforts and focused on what was not there. She couldn’t make out the fine details just the basic shapes of her attacker and reacted with a double tap spell casting. The first to break through the shield the second to bind them. The feeling of sickness made it more difficult to fire as fast as she wanted to. The scenario she had just fought was very close, but the nausea was unexpected. Being a Titan, she was never sick, and nothing made her feel quite like this. After binding a few, she could see through the face shields, frothy spittle in the corners of the mad men’s mouths and wild looks frozen on their faces. She could hear Jane outside grunting from the impacts on her shield.

Jane brought her rifle around as she was starting to get hit from what seemed to all directions. She wasn’t the type to fire randomly at targets. Stray bullets of any type could cause loss of life so, through years of training, she could not fire at something she didn’t think she would hit. A foreign thought pushed its way into her consciousness. She fought at first till she felt the soothing magic push away the sickening feeling. It was a wordless vision of what she found to be to show her how to see the invisible mages. What she saw was something akin to blank spots moving around her. With a wicked grin, she trained her rifle and the closest attacker and pulled the trigger twice. Her shots hit the mage dead centre of what appeared to be the plated chest. The first tore down the barrier shield the second bound them into an unbreakable stasis shield. Jane quickly made short work of any mage that came close. Jane went to thank Sky for her gift but could not reach her. Jane ran into the second building to find Sky emptying her stomach into an empty hyper-chamber. There were frozen crazed mages all around her with all the captives freed.

Sky could hear Jane calling for her, but the bile rose in her throat again. She felt Jane’s gloved hand stroking her back, seeking to comfort her.

“Are you okay now, honey? You don’t look so well; I’ve never seen you like this before.” Jane said with great concern.

Sky turned her face to Jane, a weak smile across her face. “How can you take the sick feeling? I thought if I stopped all those evil people stupid magic that my sickness would stop too. There’s more out there, more sickness, more evil men. Is it getting stronger as we cause more of them to get desperate to defend their ideas”? Sky said, looking out focusing on nothing.

“I feel same nausea; it’s like having vertigo, the flue or motion sickness all at once,” Jane told Sky still rubbing her back. “I was trained to work through stuff just like this. During battle is no time to be sick. Is something Todd used to say to Us when we told him we’re too sick to train. He just said we had a train in all situations and conditions of our body’s.” Jane said, trying to hide the look of concern. “I’ll go ahead and start on the next building with the captives. You can rest here, or do you want me to carry you to the ship”?

Sky wiped her mouth with her sleeve and quickly cast a healing spell, and it just seemed to clean up =herself along with everything around her. The queasiness remained in her body and stomach. She looked to Jane and took strength from her fortitude. “I think I’ll get better with a little rest. I just never felt sick like this before. I can deal with pain, but this flip’ flopping of my head and tummy is hard to get used to. If I ignore it, it just seems to get worse. If I think about it, its get’s worse. It only helps if I have something else to do, and that only helps just a little.” She told Jane as she pushed herself to her feet, shakily. “Let’s just get moving; maybe I’ll feel better when all those horrid people are behind a stasis field. They twisted all that is good on this planet.” She felt Jane’s hand study her as she stumbled little before a shield slowly pushed her hand away. Once on her feet and had her bearings she flashed away through a wall making a new doorway in solid 5 cm metal.

Jane shook her head with a smile and followed after the small girl. The nausea was still there but growing faint with the sound and feeling of magical blasts. Sky must have engaged in a fight with the locals. Once out the new doorway what she has seen almost made her cringe. Hundreds of crazed mages with a twisted expression on their faces. Nausea hit her like a physical blow. Sky was in the centre of a pile suited bodies encircled her. Multiple spells knocked her around even as she took others around her down with her own blasts. Jane knew Sky was suffering from a sick feeling that magic couldn’t fix, at least not now. Jane double cast the hyper-speed spell on herself to pick up her pace. Jane brought up her rifle and started firing once she cleared the doorway. Each shot she made tore through not only the shields around them but their armoured bodies and the ones next to them. While Sky was binding her foes, Jane was tearing them apart. Jane’s kill count was not for the squeamish. Her kill count was the highest of their team, even after being out of the loop for two years.

Sky was moving quickly but not in the usual fluidity she became known for. She brought up an opaque shield and disappeared behind it. Jane was moving too quickly for the crazed mages to react to. She couldn’t watch what happened to Sky because of the speed she was moving. She then for no visible reason stopped and the once clear bubble around her blackened. The Bubble Sky had around her grew in size, pushing everything out from around her. The mages around her could not break through her shield and not even knock her around anymore. A powerful feeling of extreme magic started to grow within the shield, and the ground started to shake. Some of the mages were physically clawing at the shields with daggers. Jane was frantic with the effort to save Sky from the on slot of crazed mages. She knew that the chaos magic was distressing her more for some reason. She just had to do something to help her, but there were too many of the crazed mages to get to her.

Jane was just contemplating on jumping to Sky’s bubble to drive away from the psychotic mages. Jane was taking run out to come back for space to make the long-distance leap when Sky’s bubble burst. Twenty or more of the mages were sent flying into others around her. Six new Sky’s emerged from the bubble. All six radiated unbelievable amounts of magic. They worked in two teams one would throw the bound mages to the back, clearing the immediate space around them the next two dispelled their magic and shield. The last two bound them in the stasis field to be thrown back like frozen statues with no reverence for safety. The six small girls fought with the fluid motion of dances. But their intent was that of a dragon. Even as they decimated the on coming mages, they only seemed to pause slightly when they encountered luckily few female mages. They were seemingly just as twisted with the chaos magic as the men. But still, their bound forms weren’t used like projectiles like the men were.

Jane saw the difference in how she treated the women mages decided just to bind the ones she came to. She didn’t want to upset Sky by killing ones she spared in even such a slight difference in handling. Jane, while running around the circling mass of mindless mages who seemed only on destroying Sky, still ran into invisible mages who seemed to be watching from afar. They bounced into each other with for her sake seldom frequency. She bound these knowing they kept their minds more than the others, they could be questioned as their crazed counterparts seemed mindless but to one task, killing.

Even at the rate, they were taking out the enemy; it seemed to drag on for hours. Around the Sky’s was an empty space close to fifteen metres. They ventured out looking for ones who were trapped under the bound mages or too injured to move towards them. They fired a few times into the distance to bind ones who were just watching. Jane hadn’t even seen them being too far to use the new technique Sky had shown her. Once they were satisfied, all was clear he walked back to the centre and picked up something off the ground and moved in a blurring speed off to the next and last building close to them. Jane was quick to follow, wondering what the six carried.

The Knights sensed something coming from the planet surface their daughter and Jane went down to. It was as if the hairs on their bodies were blown back in a gust of wind. It left a crawling feeling on their skin. Between the three ships, they had no other ships came to the planet. Todd and Fred took the ships they commanded to the next objective along with the few ships they took over. While circling the planet, they heard a mental scream of anguish come from their only daughter, Sky. The call to her yielded no response, and another wave hit them from the planet surface. They contacted Jane to see if she knew anything and received no answer. On the planet, there was three settlement wee abducted people were being held in hyper-chambers. They had no idea which then went to, and the scout ship they took was cloaked. Each settlement, when scanned were sparkly populated and should have been quickly taken over and the people in the hyper-chambers freed.

When no answer came from either person’s they left the orbit and went planetside to the first settlement they came to. They told Fred what they were going to do briefly and left no room to voice an objection. They all knew this plan circled around Sky being able to free most of the captives from the hyper-chambers. With their own cloak on, they received no anti-aircraft fire and made it to the surface unmolested. Once on the surface, their landing gave them away. The ship had no down thrust engines, but the landing gear made huge craters that shook the entire planet. William, in a rush to save their daughter, came in a little too hot. It was their luck that the buildings were made metal and could accept the shaking with ease. Some of the mages outside of the building weren’t so lucky and were knocked to the ground.