Grafts.
Mechanical tumors jutted from her core’s surface, dark and limned with silver scrivenings that hinted at ominous power hidden within their shadowy shells. Somehow, she’d attached the Machina to her core, adding to her strength, giving her powers I could only imagine. The scripts that covered those orbs were far too advanced for me to comprehend in that short a time. But that glimpse was enough to know that my mother was a walking arsenal. If we went to war, here and now, I didn’t know who would win.
“Oh, you see it within me,” she said. “There are other ways to grow, Jace, than simple advancement. I will give you strength most sacred artists will never know. With your unique abilities, no one will stop you. Not the sages, not the dragons, not even me. Why fight me now, when you could lose everything? Wait, bide your time, take what I offer. Then, when your strength is beyond doubt, you decide which path to take.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Clem snapped. “You know she’s a liar.”
There was no denying the truth of that. My mother was a dark creature filled with scheme upon scheme. Her plots had twisted the entire world around her black heart. If I accepted her gifts, she’d do the same to me. I’d be a warped shadow of my former self, another tool in her arsenal.
I didn’t want that. All I wanted was to be free of schemes and plots. I wanted to fulfill the Flame’s quest, not just to save the world, but to cut myself loose from whatever destiny had in store for me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But that will never happen.”
My mother sighed and her eyes drifted down to her bloodstained feet. Her shoulders shook, and a ragged sob escaped her. My friends glanced toward me, uncertain of what to do. My mother’s plaintive cries tore at my heart.
That was when she tried to kill me.
The Machina that surrounded her cores flashed a dazzling spray of light in a chaotic pattern. Jinsei arced away from her feet, tearing up the planks of Eric’s deck as silver lightning blasted toward each of us.
Eric moved quicker than I did, vaulting over the blast before it could reach him, and knocking Abi clear of the sizzling bolt meant for him. Clem leaped into the air and twisted, activating a technique that lifted her high over my mother’s assault on a whirlwind that hurled our whiskey glasses over the railing and out of sight.
I was so stunned by my mother’s sudden attack that I didn’t have time to activate a defense or leap away. Instead, I took a step to my right and twisted on my front foot so my side faced her. The blast of jinsei threw splinters into my robes and missed me by a hairsbreadth. The swirling hem of my robes burned away as the lightning passed me, and every hair on my body stood at attention. If any of those deadly streaks had touched me or my friends, it would’ve blasted us apart.
I couldn’t give her a second chance to kill us.
With an angry roar, I sent jinsei racing into my legs’ channels and exploded into motion. I crossed the distance between us before she could so much as blink, feinted with my fusion blade as I approached, then swept its hilt toward her face in an unexpected follow-up stroke.
My mother was a skilled fighter, though, and she darted nimbly away from my attack. Her own serpents appeared, a trio of heavy, segmented appendages that looked much like my own. They struck with blinding speed and precision, forcing me to fall back on defense and parry a flurry of impaling strokes.
Clem and Abi spread out to the sides, working to flank my mother while Eric angled in toward her back. Professor Song had shown us wolf pack tactics in our advanced combat class, but this was our first time to put them to use in a pitched battle against such a deadly foe. I hoped they’d work as well as he claimed.
“You can’t beat all of us,” I said. “Eric and I are at the same level as you. Give up. I’ll make sure you get a fair trial. The adjudicators will decide what happens to you.”
She threw her head back and laughed like a madwoman. Her voice cracked the sky like thunder, and she lashed out with another series of brutal attacks. Blasts of jinsei burst from the tips of her serpents, lancing toward Clem and Abi, who had to abandon their approach to dive out of the way. She spun away from me to face Eric, a handful of glowing kunai appearing between the fingers of her left hand. Those weapons she flung at my friend, who responded with a sweeping beam of fire fueled by sacred energy to burn them out of the air.
I took my chance and lunged forward, pushing every ounce of power I had into a spear thrust that drove the tip of my fusion blade through my mother’s spine. Blood splashed from the wound, and she screamed in pain. Her legs buckled, her severed spine no longer able to carry commands to them.
At least, that’s what I saw happen.
But in the next breath, my mother slipped away from my blade, twisting in the air as she leaped to safety. Her serpents struck the instant she landed.
The first of the trio of unexpected attacks shot past my blade to open a bloody gash across my ribs. The second was deflected by my own serpent. The third I batted aside with my weapon just before it punched through the center of my throat.
“What was that?” Eric asked.
My mother’s form jittered from side to side, like a movie skipping frames. The Machina that surrounded her core crackled with power as the scrivenings she’d invested in them unleashed powerful defensive techniques. I recognized the power as a cousin to Vision of the Design that let me see a
