The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

Thirteen slamming impacts detonated against his invulnerability, and The Mountain grunted slightly in pain. It was all considered one hit, not separate ones like bullets, the Resonance between the Shards making them a single effect.

“Damn!” he swore, looking up at me with rather more respect now. “That was a really good hit, yeah...”

He trailed off when he saw two Cards flicker up in my hand, and thirteen shimmery Hearts and Spades gathered around each of them.

“Oh, shit,” he murmured, and I flicked them at him.

The musical chimes blew into him, and this time a groan escaped him as his feet plowed furrows in the ground, venting the force slamming into and through him. His chest and arms were also covered in frost now.

He looked at me over his arms warily.

I flicked up four Cards calmly, and fifty-two Suits danced around them, ready to go.

“Damn. Is there more?” he asked, when I didn’t let them go.

The suits collapsed onto the Cards, which changed from Threes to Kings, thrumming with their combined power... and then they Split into four sets of identical pairs.

He stared at that hard. “More?” he asked softly.

One by one, each Card charged up with the bioelectricity of my Wrath, then Windfire started spinning around them. Explosive Runes etched themselves onto each Card, and then they captured the power of my Alchemy Bombs in them as he watched.

I hadn’t moved. “More?” he asked again, watching the display.

I flicked my other hand, and a single set of four Kings overwrote the Fours there in my fingers.

He considered that for a long second, fingers moving as he counted just how many Suits were in motion there. “More?” he asked one more time.

Aces through Kings, Holo-Cards flowed up from the deck and danced around my head in a Halo of Cards, twenty-eight more Diamonds and Hearts ready to be unleashed.

“Mother of Mercy,” he muttered under his breath. “Is there more?”

“The longer I fight, the more magic gathers, and the stronger it becomes.” Fiery Admixtured doubles of all the frosted Cards appeared, doubling the ones in my hands yet again, and he winced despite himself, although it didn’t touch the Crown of Suits above my head. “Then there’s various enhancement magicks which can be Cast on myself, the target, or the battlefield, layered Kickers I can still add on...” I trailed off, shrugging.

I let the magic dissipate back to whence it came, although the Cards I’d placed Runes on remained. I kept them in my off-hand, but flicked up the Diamond for him to look at. “This is a pre-Cast spell, an Explosive Rune, cast at the III Level. I can go up to VI.” I tossed it at him, and he lifted his arms as it detonated against his chest, grunting as ice coated the front of him and blew in all directions with explosive violence... but didn’t actually hurt him, other than getting in the way.

“Damn. That’s like a grenade going off, except cold!” he observed, watching as I held up the other three cards.

Clubs, lightning. Hearts, fire. They blew over him, doing no harm, but letting him measure their power and strength.

I held up the Spade. “I’m going to have to fix you up after this one hits you, Mr. Hill.”

He studied my face for a long moment, bravado coming up, tamping down. He was dealing with magic. “Why’s that?” he asked, looking down at himself. His shirt and pants were a little ragged, and he had some welts and minor bumps on him, but overall, he wasn’t in bad shape. Hitting him while he was braced and Rooted allowed him to pass through a lot of the damage, and draw more strength up to Resist more, bordering on immunity.

“The Element tied to Spades is Water. That attack energy of Water is acids and bases, the PH scale... and Water has Elemental dominance over Earth. You have probably never been hit with a truly powerful acidic attack, but your invulnerability is literally half as effective or less against it. Guard your eyes.”

He raised his arms in front of his face and nodded, and I threw out the Three of Spades.

The blast of dark acid blew out and away, and true to form, the first real exclamation of pain escaped him as his invulnerability failed to fully ward away the clinging and viscous erosive power of the magic.

His shirt was blasted to stray goo, and twisted little pock marks of acid damage appeared all over his chest and the underside of his arms, as well as punching holes in his trousers. He went down to one knee, gritting his teeth at the pain as bubbling black steam danced over him from his injuries before quickly fading away, leaving only the twisted scars of impact behind.

“Flesh wounds,” he hissed, looking down at the little circles where his skin had been eaten away. “Damn!”

“Yes, and something you need to be aware of. A Water-Avatar can make life very miserable for you if they know how to manifest Acid and use it on you.” I walked up and put my hand on his chest, holding a Four of Diamonds, and despite himself he groaned in relief as golden crystalline light played up and down him, wiping away the holes and restoring him to pristine condition.

“Healing magic. You can do healing magic!” he blurted out despite himself. “Do you know how valuable that is, girl?”

“Absolutely, which is why I’m not waving it around and opening a clinic for millionaires to come throw money at me to relieve their sore backs.” A Five of Diamonds burned up as I restored his pants, but his old-style t-shirt was done. He tossed the moldering remnants of it off to the side, and I brought out a new one from my Vest, which he shrugged on casually, giving me another look.

Schmot Gurl, thinking ahead. “How powerful of healing magic?” he asked.

“I can restore someone to life who has died within the past two weeks, regrow lost limbs, and pretty much cure any mundane disease. Fresh flesh injuries are trivial.”

The Healing Domain was plenty strong and useful in many respects, yes...

“Gods almighty,” he said softly. “Do you have any idea how much people would be willing to pay you to be able to come back from the dead?”

I looked him right in the eye. “I’m not the one who has to be convinced. My healing power stems from Heaven. The returning soul has to have Heaven’s approval to come back. It’s not up to me.”

He froze for a second, thinking that over. “Oh,” he murmured, the dregs of Christian knowledge coming back, building on Tribal awareness of many gods. “That... makes a vicious kind of sense,” he admitted.

“Resurrecting someone with no strings or costs attached afterwards... you’re definitely going to be paying something up front, and it’s probably really bad, based on the entities willing to actually do that for you... and they don’t take dollars.”

He grunted, considering that. “How long can you keep up that level of blasting?” he asked professionally.

“I can keep up the Eight Kings and Four literally all day, either as separate Suits or Merged. They instantly double to add the Elemental Kings on the second repeated Casting, or I can use some other variant, like Chains or Explosions or something. Boosting beyond that takes power I can run out of, but most of the Kickers, like the Lightning and the Windfire Spiral, just take time to add on, not power. I can vary between straight force damage, fire, cold, lightning, acidic, and thunder damage as I see fit, too.”

His face didn’t move much, but he finally realized that he was dealing with a monster, and suddenly he wasn’t necessarily the most dangerous person here, even if he knew more.

“I have one more thing to demonstrate to you, and you’re really not going to like it.” I could see him reflexively wince. “You know what an Interdiction is, right?”

“I never had to worry about it before, but with the Teleporting... it stops that, right?” Interdiction defenses actually popped up BEFORE dimensional movement became common. Like someone was expecting it...

“All forms of dimensional movement, yes. That includes time-skipping, moving between planes, all types of Summoning stuff in, and rote Blinking around like annoying bastards. You can overcome it, but it’s difficult, pitting your will directly against the Caster of the Interdiction, who happens to have Reality on their side. Not easy to do.”

“Why do I have the distinct impression that you can do that?” he asked rhetorically.

“Depends on the other Caster. The Big Names can certainly keep me out,” I smiled. “Interdiction has a real-world equivalent, called Stillflight.”

He blinked, carefully memorizing the name. “And what does that do?” he asked gravely.

“It blocks all forms of non-natural movement, especially forms of magical flight, for which it was named. But it includes telekinesis, enhanced non-biological forms of super-speed, levitation, and so forth. It prevents people from messing with gravity, magnetism, and similar forces, enhancing the laws of the natural world, just like Interdiction, to resist them.”

He caught it after a moment. “It would stop my Weight?” he asked pointedly.

“Enhancing gravity is no different from ignoring it, from a manipulation standpoint.” I flicked up the Six of Diamonds, and it shimmered and dissolved into six overlapping waves of crystalline magic that faded into the air as they spread out all around. “Go ahead.”

He made an effort, and I could feel it, reaching out and trying to draw down on Gravity, wake up the King on His throne and bring Him down.

It didn’t work, running into the edge of my Will, now combined with the natural resistance he could normally overcome easily.

He tried repeatedly, pushing and pulling at gravity, and I stood there and nothing happened as he grit his teeth and really bore down on things, trying a long and sustained attempt, putting his senses out there as he never had, trying to feel the resistance to his power.

“It’s earth-based,” he muttered after a second, his eyes snapping open to stare at me. “I... could do that!” he realized after a moment.

“Probably. It’s the opposite of what you normally bring to bear, countering messing with natural forces, instead of bending down gravity.”

“Damn. You can totally shut down my Weight! That’s my biggest defense against a lot of yahoos who can move faster than me, and fly...”

“Well, you can shut down most fliers, and speedsters who can ignore physics and air resistance pretty hard. The combination of the two effects is utterly brutal against many spellcasters, by the way, especially if they are trying to run away.”

“Yeah, there’s some people can nullify the Weight around themselves, although they have to focus on it,” he admitted. Those people were at his end of the power scale, too.

“Magic evolves. You need to evolve, too, and you’ve been holding yourself back.”

“How’s that?” he asked reasonably. When I had advice for him, it had always been good advice so far. Me showing him my power also forced him to change perspective from just Schmot Gurl to Dangerous Schmot Gurl.

“You’re too slow for how strong you are, and your fighting technique needs to improve,” I said flatly, staring at him. “You’re holding onto your human limitations, but you don’t need to, and you need to learn a more advanced fighting style... something that will allow you to go toe to toe with Hercules.”

He considered me silently, thinking that over, not making a snap judgement. He didn’t act like the brightest tool in the shed at times, but he was experienced, and he thought about things, so he wasn’t rash about it.