Baby dura 1, mana 1

“Damien! Forget the plan, don’t let them live!” The Boss suddenly shouted.

“Who was he commanding?”

“… Respond to my call and wash away all! Water Cannon!”

From the mountainside, one of the scattered “archers” had his hands brought together, aimed at me and mother. We were tricked. He camouflaged himself during the chaos. He wasn’t an archer or even an Augmenter. He was a Conjurer!”

Shit!

I didn’t have much time to react before an incoming ball of pressurized water, a couple meters wide was nearing.

What can I do?

To my immediate right was my mother and to my left were Adam and his opponent not far off; and behind me, of course, was the edge of the mountain. Even If I can dodge this, mother won’t be able to and she’ll be forced off the ledge of the mountain.

What should I do?

“Dammit!” I roared!

Willing all of the remaining mana left in this cursed body, I tackled my mother, propelling both of us out of the way.

I quickly realized my 40-pound body couldn’t carry enough momentum to push both of out of range of the water cannon.

No choice!

If I’m going down, I’m taking that bastard mage down with me!

I focused mana into my arms and pushed my mother farther down out of range. In that moment, everything seemed to be in slow motion as my mother gazed at me in panic and disbelief. She might get a pretty bad bruise from the push. She was going to be fine, but that’s only if I can get rid of this conjurer.

I unsheathed the knife Jasmine gave me from my waist and willed mana into it. What I’m trying to do, I’ve done with ki in my old world but never with mana.

After willing mana into the knife, I threw it like a boomerang, aiming it at the conjurer still focusing his attention on the water cannon. Curving around the edge of the ball of water, the knife landed straight into the leg of the mage.

crap! I didn’t kill him. Plan B.

Plan B was just in case my initial throw couldn’t kill him. I managed in succeeding in the gamble of Plan B, and that was creating a thin string of mana attaching the knife, currently engorged into the Conjurer’s leg, to my hand.

“What the!” shouted the mage in pain as the knife embedded itself deep into his leg.

Losing concentration, the water cannon lost shape, but unfortunately, there was still a surge of water strong enough to push me off the cliff.

I tugged back on the mana string hard. The mage was hauled towards me from the combination of my pulling and the remnants of the water cannon pushing me back.

This is it. I couldn’t help but look around at the battle that was still ensuing. Father and Helen managed to kill the leader. Angela providing back up for Jasmine allowed for them to put the whip-user on his last stand while Durden was rushing towards mother.

Thanks Durden. She’ll be safe in his hands. Everyone will be okay.

The only thing I’ll regret is not being able to see my baby sibling.

With that, everything faded to a black; the last thing I see is the enemy conjurer desperately trying to pull the knife out of him while falling off the mountain, into the abyss along with me.

damn. I always wanted to be a big brother.