My Sudden Monster Convergence

“Ugh…” I grumbled. I landed on my side and just about a hundred things should be screaming out in pain but………I sorta just felt like I ate a slightly undercooked potato. Even that feeling just went away as if I didn’t fall a few meters from the sky. I looked down at my arm, the scales weren’t even chipped and they weren’t glowing either.

“Oliver! Are you alright!?” Mom was busy checking my body, probably looking for a backward bending knee….heh. “You stay right there! There might be some internal damage!” She continued to pat my body down, looking for any tender spots.

Leave the brat there. He just wants attention.

Damn fuck. I might not have been hurt but this feels eerily similar to my younger days…..

Fuck you too. 

I sighed. “Mom, you know I’m fine.” I said calmly.

“You’re fine when I say you’re fine!” She shot back angrily. I just sat up and scooped her up in my arms. “Oliver, I told you to stay still.” She grumbled in frustration. I just rubbed her back as she glared at me. 

“Fine. If you can move then tell me why you were ripping up the forest?” She asked sharply.

“Uh….?” Before I could pull away she gripped me like a bear Clinging to its favorite fish, forcing me to stay still. “I, don’t know why?” I shot out in a panic while I tried to shake her off me. She gladly responded by caving in my ribs and freezing me with icy eyes.

“Oliver? Do you understand what’s happening? What, this is?” She looked like she was shooting lasers through my skull.

“I tore apart those trees like it was nothing?” I said but she gave a nod that said go on. “I was in the air somehow?” I added.

Mom's stern expression softened after that. With a sigh she loosened her grip a little. “Oliver.” She began before pausing to make sure I was paying attention. “That was ninety percent a mana frenzy. Unless this is normal dragon behavior. In which case I’d still be worried.” She removed a hand to hold her worried face. “But, getting angry at you would be stupid, idiotic even!” She said in a tone that sounded more like regret.

“What do you mean? I did mess up grandpa’s yard and I even let my mana freak out, I might’ve made a giant fireball the size of the moon!” I argued. There was no way my power wouldn’t have created something bigger than this. And I allowed myself to go with the flow!

Mom firmly tapped my shoulder with her hand. “NO. it’s not fully your fault and I won’t have you blindly blame yourself either.” She grabbed my checks and pulled on them, as if she was trying to stretch my face like clay.

“But I-” I tried to continue and she pulled my cheeks harder.

“Nope!” She then pressed her forehead into mine and tried to look me in the eyes. With my head being larger she ended up focusing on my right eye. “I also failed to act. You asked about learning magic and even the air around you felt wavy. I could’ve acted better but I didn't. I'm sorry I did poorly.” She closed her eyes. “So, let's say something….. whenever you feel like uh-”

“......Jumpy?” I finally offered.

“Right. When you feel super jumpy let me know….. how about saying ‘spinning’ when you do and blink or nod to clarify.” She offered.

“Alright. I’ll warn you that way……… But what if we’re somewhere public? I’d rather not tear up the streets.” I lifted my sharp claws into view. 

“Oh? That’s easy!” She slapped her hand on my shoulder, the ring on her finger glowed a pale blue color. Suddenly the heat within my chest began to swirl like a thousand rushing rapids that mixed together into a river going right to my shoulder. It felt like splashing cold water into my face but the rebuke never came, I was just there….. The tight feeling in my chest sorta just, disappeared.

Huh. So to solve my problem would just take me quickly channeling my mana out of my system. If I can’t then finding a place to pump mana into some passive magic might work? I think I remember spells from games in my old world using up mana too. Maybe using a constant mana draining spell all the time might actually work. But what woul- magic armor! If that green capped elf can just buy some then maybe I can magic up some.

“Mother, are there any constant spells that drain mana? Ones like armor or buffs?” I asked, sounding like I gave a casual hello. All while a blue bubble was growing larger and larger in the palm of my mother’s hand. It was big enough I could use it as a punch bowl. “Maybe I can make armor that looks like clothes and use that.”

“Aaaaannnd, I’ll stop doing this now.” She pulled her hand away from me, the weird bubble pulling off my shoulder with a wet plop sound. The instant the bubble was off me, I shook my body like I imagined a centipede crawling up my back.

“Wha? I-” My face cringed. “Why do I taste grapefruit!” It was incredibly bitter and way too sour for my liking.

“That’s a new one. Hehe. That happens when you drain from your storage. Whatever mana isn’t absorbed comes rushing back like a wave. No idea why it tastes weird, guess that’s why people call it mana rot.” She said with a shrug. “But it also mutes your emotions.” She warned but I raised an eyebrow at that. “NO. That only happens when someone with a dungeon made item does it. So You can’t control your instincts like that.” she waved the bubble in front of my face, it was wobbling in the breeze and was now half the size of a yoga ball.

“Besides, I only took a tiny fraction of your mana. most monsters make one the size of an earbud, any more and I’d just die, faint if I’m lucky. And you were just suggesting construct clothes.” Mom said, sounding overly annoyed. “If you want to be an exhibitionist maybe we should move to Fellare or one of those insect colonies. They never wear clothes.” She said with a quick shrug.

My face instantly burnt up from what she was suggesting. Running around without- these boobs bouncing around for every- “M-m-mom! What the heck are you talking about!” I shot out so quickly my voice even cracked into an odd squeak.

“Clothes you can turn on and off?” She asked but I only gave a worried puppy look. “Oliver, mana clothes are the most, absolute worst magic creation since edible clothes and fucking limp wands. Excuse my language. Not only do you have to constantly think about them less you end up mooning people. You'd have to be so detailed to make a rice sized construct, that it has to be a lifelike photo! So you're stuck with a bland, plain and a completely un-unique style! Let alone if you walk into a magic buffer, instant AND free nudes for everyone!” Mom ranted to the point she even forgot to take a breath between sentences. She even threw the bubble in the air as she started showing the importance of her words with hand movements. The bubble on the other hand flew off into the forest.

“OK-OK! I get your point!” I shouted as I quickly covered my chest and I tried to cocoon myself with my wings, only for the clawed tips to puncture the ground. Turning me into a bright orange tent!

“Speaking of showing off, you might want to change shirts when we’re done here. Your little jetpack thing burnt holes in the back.” She said before pulling herself out of the wing made tent.

“Aw come on!” I groaned.

After pulling my wings outta the floor and then covering my back with them, mom pulled out her wand. It was studded with several cut gems and faintly glowed whenever she waved it or breathed. She led me over to the less damaged trees, though this one still had several bent or missing branches and smelled like mashed strawberries. 

“Now between you and me….” She looked around and eyed grandpa’s house for a few seconds. “Trees are often the best training partners as you have already tested out.” She winked at me. “So levitating. With wandcraft you generally tell your magic what to do, light the wand’s stored mana with your own, aim and fire.” She said before quickly waving her wand like she was writing something in the air, aimed at the bark aaannnd. The bark glowed green and pulled itself off the trunk like a candy wrapper.

“But you didn’t say anything, how’d you pull that off?” She didn’t figure out how to use mana like a monster or is she actually a……

“Controlling magic isn’t that hard. It’s just like learning a new secret handshake.” She leaned in and motioned me to also come closer. “The best spellcasters make up their own handshakes.” She whispered like she just gave me a way to sneak out of the house and a fake ID.  

She lifted her wand just like a pencil or chopstick and slowly moved it in the air, drawing shapes in the air. “I use a handshake called Manh-eun. Using  a single letter of Grand runic that translates to many things then filling in the gaps with simplified runic standard and you have a computer from the nineties!” She explained as she wrote another thing in the air. “Now when I command my magic I tell it to go, gather around my aimed target and pull the outer layer off target. Generally the spell is seventy percent the grand with some simplified to better visualize the type of spell. The last thirty is the command of how it acts.” She explained as she made another spell pull off more bark and reshaped it into the rough idea of a hat.

“I’m sure you’ve heard monsters have more control over their mana. I wasn’t too sure what that personally meant to a monster. So I asked around at work again and the new rookie on floor ten was able to give me some better details. Smart guy, maybe I’ll steal him from Grendle.” Mom nodded to herself, not even hiding the huge grin on her face. “Anyway, from what he explained, monsters use mana like their legs. The more you use them the better you get but from what I understand, monster mana is actually reactive to your emotions far more than in humans.”

“Then mana boosts emotional knee jerks?” I asked, a little nervous that I might always be emotionally stupid, sure it could explain the nutty instincts but I didn't like the idea of always freaking out.

“He didn’t make it sound like that. I think it’s more of a cool factor. The whole, ‘you know what would be cool’ thing.” She explained, rather poorly I think.

“I don’t think it’s that simple, otherwise I would’ve been able to use magic as easily as I can snap my fingers.” I argued.

“Yet you were flying in the air like you had a jetpack on. And how’d you do that?” She countered. 

“I-I was going with the flow…” I reluctantly answered, lowering my gaze.

Mom smiled, grabbed my sides and aimed me at a small branch laying on the ground. “Now wouldn’t it be cool if that branch flew just like the air?” She asked with a giddy jump to her voice.

“Yea….it kinda would be…” I muttered under my breath. Locking my eyes on the stick, I first poured warm mana into my body and focused on it moving through my body. Shifting and rolling like sandy wind… leering at the branch, I let the words echo in my head.

wouldn’t it be cool if that branch flew just like the air?

wouldn’t it be cool?

flew just like the air?

Branch like air? 

Cool air?

Flew?

I felt a slight tugging in my fingertips, almost like pulling the sticky part of tape off. 

The branch began hovering in the air. It's flying! “Look! It's floating! I'm doing that!” I exclaimed to mom with a huge smile. My heart was beating like an overheated race car engine, pounding and pulsing like my last.

“I knew you could do it! I'm so proud of you Oly!” Mom cheered, easily getting carried into my energy as she jumped and threw her fists in the air.

I threw my fist up to join her only for the branch to rocket up into the sky and out of our sight. My eyes couldn't even see where it went, the only thing I could tell was how my arms felt slightly sore for a second. Sorta felt like I threw a heavy metal box a pound or two heavier than I’m used to.

Mom was watching the sky before she turned to me with a smile. “Hey Oliver?” She asked in a let's cut in line voice.

“Yeah?” I gave my own smile.

“The yard's a total mess, so many branches and rocks….” She eagerly hinted almost jumping in place. We stared at each other, wide giggling smiles.

“You're right! Can't leave grandpa’s place a mess.”