The Powers That Be by Aer-ki Jyr (best sci fi novels of all time .txt) 📕

air near where Kara was floating, using the armor she’d built for him to fly, though the Archon needed none herself with her Yen’mer.

Kara pulled her left fist back, summoning what was called a ‘Hard Light’ technique that built an invisible hammer off her arm reaching forward, as Strovok had done before he jumped. She could see his and he could see hers, but non-Essence users could not, though there were none around here. Only a few Elcee watching the pair train as well as watching their backs to keep unwanted visitors from traveling out to their training grounds…which had gotten so damaged from the constant melee they’d started taking their sparring to the air to avoid more surface damage.

Kara waited until nearly the last moment, then surged forward and swung her arm, meeting her hammer against Strovok’s in a thunderclap that was heard miles away. Both Essence hammers collided and buckled, but as was normal it was Kara’s that shattered, letting Strovok’s through after a brief delay…but the Archon spun in the air so it missed her body by inches, with her right hand sending a Jumat-like Pulsewave into the Mek’tal before he could raise his other arm.

His body moved about a meter before a spherical Pulsewave of far greater power responded, knocking Kara back as she tried to brace herself with a Cutting Shield that looked like a bent leaf over her body. It disrupted Hard Light as if they were real objects, causing them to melt and split apart as they hit the ridge on her shield, but the impact of the Pulsewave worked differently and actually pushed more on the shield than it would have Kara’s body, acting like a sail, but still melting aside some of the effect as the Essence was de-crafted and let to whisk away to the realm from which it came.

When the Pulsewave ended, Kara threw one back at Strovok…simultaneously launching a Jumat wave and had both hitting at approximately the same time. Strovok blocked the Pulsewave easily, without it even touching his body, but the Jumat caught him off guard and sent him flying backwards momentarily stunned.

Suddenly his left foot became super heavy, so much so it was being pulled down to the ground by the Gravity Clasp Kara had created and lashed to him, with it responding to the local gravity and pulling towards it until it ran out of power.

Strovok destroyed it long before that happened, but not before Kara got up in his face and dropped an Ubven around him, momentarily pinning him in an Amumu-style Lachka field so he couldn’t raise his arms…then Kara summoned up another Hard Light hammer off her left arm and one on her right, slamming both into his chest.

But they didn’t hit. He projected a Hard Light Shield a few inches away to take the blow…which it did, shattering her hammers again, then she kicked off the shield, moving through the Ubven when he couldn’t, and getting a few meters back as she spread both arms wide and brought her legs up underneath her as she fed as much Essence as she could draw from her Siphon into a containment orb just over her abdomen.

Strovok fought against the Ubven rather than mess with her, annoyed by the invisible field that didn’t want to go away and would only allow him to move as if he was having to fight through meters of wet sand all around him. It wasn’t Essence-based, so he couldn’t see it, but after enough struggling it finally dissipated…just as Kara released a visible light beam from her center of mass.

It wasn’t light, but rather a heavy Essence attack that she had created on her own using three different techniques Strovok had taught her. She called it ‘Final Spark,’ and sent the bright white beam with a kaleidoscope of other colors on the fringes straight into her sensei, trusting in his superior strength, skill, and knowledge to be able to block it…otherwise it could have vaporized a row of people with one shot.

Strovok caught and negated most of it against a Dark Shield, then held up a hand as Kara began to move again. “Stop.”

She frowned. “Did that hurt you?”

“No, but it had more effect than I anticipated. That was not a true Essence attack. What did you add to it?”

“My Bioplasma,” Kara said, emitting a glowing streak from one palm and arcing it over to her other one where she caught, contained it, then snuffed it out.

“Your hands were set wide.”

“I was generating a defensive shield between them as I gathered the charge. I’ve used my Vorch’nas to create secondary firing pathways down to my navel. Figured I might as well use it for something.”

“Then you mixed the plasma with the Emblaze technique?”

“I used Emblaze and a bit of Constrain along with Contain.”

“Plus Accelerate I assume?”

“No,” Kara said, confused. “It launches on its own.”

“The pressure of the plasma?”

“Probably, but it also did before I learned to add it.”

“Produce the defense shield again,” Strovok told her as he flew up closer.

Kara took on the same position, arms spread wide and legs tucked up underneath her but not blocking her abs, then a shield formed to cover the entire front of her body, but not the sides or rear.

“You are using Reflect. Why?”

“I wouldn’t use this technique if I had enemies behind or flanking, only in front. It’s sort of a finishing move or opening salvo. The charge time pretty much makes it that way, and the more time I have the bigger I can get the blast…up until my Contain fails.”

“What’s your max charge time?”

“About 7 seconds.”

“The Reflect isn’t just defending you, it’s also pushing your charge away when you overlap them. I have not seen that done in a long time. It’s an odd technique, and not the most