Phantasia

Only as she passed through the midsection, she felt her strength falter as darkness overwhelmed her attack and came grasping for her like a thousand tendrils. She spun around in an attempt to shake the grasp, but spiralled out of a control like a bird struck by a stone, hit the grass hard and rolled to a stop. Gasping for breath, she pushed herself up on one knee and looked to see what damage she’d caused, but the bullet wound she’d inflicted had already healed as the creature sucked up earth through its limbs as a plant would water. Then, before Phantasia could devise a new strategy, it pounced. Flipping twenty metres or more into the air, it twirled its heavy stone body around as if it were a professional gymnast and then relinquished its ignorance of gravity to come hurtling towards Phantasia like a dropped stone.

She dived to escape, sprinting along the grass to conserve power until the moment before impact, whereupon she leapt to avoid the earth-shattering quake that followed. A plume of dirt rose from the impact crater and Phantasia could sense the dark aura inside shifting around in preparation for another offensive. Having thrown most of her strength into her first attack, and lacking the natural faerie ability to recharge from her surroundings, she knew she had to minimize her risks and stall for time. Her best hope now lay in her teachers intervening.

The automaton came blasting out of the dirt cloud, propelled by whatever magic powered it. Phantasia somersaulted over the attack, giving her a valuable moment to assess the situation while her opponent overshot into the depths of the school field and righted itself. Looking around for potential aid she found her options were limited: Ms James’s armoury and weapons-testing ground was on the other side of the field and the only things close by were the swimming pool, the courts, and the gymnasium. Nothing she could use, unless the creature had an unexpected weakness to tennis balls.

It came at her again, this time keeping its body low to the ground as its limbs raked through the grass, throwing up mounds of dirt behind them. For all its adaptability, its magically enhanced gymnastics and its regulative properties, there was one thing it had that didn’t give it an advantage: a physical body. Phantasia charged towards it then jumped high and, as she’d hoped, the creature followed. It was a test of endurance now: ten metres… twenty…thirty…it was still following her…thirty-five…forty…

It fell. A physical being, no matter how magical, was still constrained to the laws of physics – its magic could only defy them for so long. It crashed into the field, sending up another dirty cloud towards the heavens, while Phantasia came to rest on the wooden fence around the pool. She could still feel the dark aura, but she knew now that this thing could never catch her. All she had to do was repeat the process until it wasted its energy or gave up trying. Phantasia smirked at her cunning plan.

Then the dust cloud parted as a spherical storm of dark energy, strong enough to manifest on the physical plane, shot towards her. She dived to avoid it but the attack was fast and crashed through the right side of her body, sending her tumbling out of the air and onto the grass embankment surrounding the pool. When she recovered her momentum and reached out to steady herself she noticed she’d lost an arm – the very matter that made up her ethereal body had been wasted away!

And then the automaton overshadowed the pool once again, only now its body had changed. Crackling with dark energy, it had adapted itself to deal with Phantasia’s strategy – and now she had no energy left to retaliate.

Chapter 40
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