Chapter 7: Aqua

"Excellent as usual," Reddel applauded. "I think we can finally place this art into the "always successful" category, well done."

Melia watched as the effects of her Shadow Stitch snared all of the even-numbered drones, leaving the odd-numbered ones unaffected. The art didn't last for very long, but she could cast it in only three to five staff motions and had mastered target selection.

"Now that you've got another ether art under your belt, I think it's time for something that I suspect you'll enjoy quite a bit more." Reddel smiled broadly. "Next week, I'll be teaching you about a third elemental."

Melia's eyes lit up. Elementals had taken a back seat for so long that she had quite forgotten there was still four of them to be learned.

"I'll keep exactly which one a surprise for now." He gestured to the door. "See you next week."

Melia would have liked to spend the rest of the week guessing at which elemental could be coming next, and possibly seeing if she could squeeze a sensation out of her Practice Staff for it. But the early-December week became unexpectedly busy. She was just finishing her last growth spurt, having grown five centimetres in the past year, and as a result was going through a lot of wardrobe upheaval. Coinciding with this, it was finally decided that she was just too weak physically for someone her age, and was "prescribed" a pair of physical activities.

Monday and Thursday, it was tennis. Melia couldn't complain too much about this; the sport was mostly short bursts of movement with racket-swinging mixed in, which she recognised as being potentially similar to the kinds of motions she'd make in battle with a staff. She also found it quite entertaining to frustrate her instructor with her ambidextrousness, never being forced to make a backhand. But she couldn't stand the feeling of sweating all over, far more than any other action she'd ever done, and getting legs crossed and falling over onto the hard court was a frequent occurrence.

Tuesday and Friday was worse: endurance swimming. Melia didn't mind swimming on principle, but had quite the conflicting mindset concerning attire. Under normal conditions, she was a willing ally of the decree "the child princess shall bare no skin", flat-out refusing to wear anything more revealing than elbow-length sleeves and knee-length skirts (and even then would supplement them with long gloves and socks). Yet when it came to swimming, she was equally intolerant to bathing suits, consistently balking at even the most water-appropriate fabrics. The imperial tailors, obviously unaware of this disparity, provided her with almost wetsuit-like garments that reached out to her wrists and ankles. As a result, swimming back and forth across the imperial pool felt far more like a chore than an enjoyable activity.

In addition to the general soreness that the sudden start to these physical activities was causing, disturbing news was relayed to the royal dinner table Tuesday evening.

"A siege?" Sorean was surprised; Mechon were not known to do anything aside from direct attacks.

"Of a sort." The advisor kept reading the scout's report. "Approximately a dozen Mechon have overtaken the Trevsieg Tunnels, killing any who stray too close. With no other routes leading to Colony 7, it has been effectively shut off from all other Homs settlements."

"But Colony 7 is self-sufficient," interjected Kallian. "What could they hope to achieve with a blockade that far out?"

Sorean figured it out quickly. "Isolation. By keeping communications cut, eventually the other colonies will assume the worst and cease attempts to investigate. For Colony 7, morale will drop once they realise they are trapped with no means of escape. And the tunnels are complex enough to support a military installation, which can be constructed with impunity."

"An impressive plan to be sure," said Yumea, "but why not simply attack the colony and destroy it directly, as they have done to all the others?"

"It is indeed a far more long-term and tactical approach than we have seen from any Mechon, for no apparent advantage." Sorean turned to the advisor. "Post a constant vigil on Colony 7. I wish to remain informed on this situation for as long as it continues. Secrecy is paramount."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Melia watched the advisor bow and exit the hall. She knew that Colony 7 was somewhere on the Bionis' lower left leg, but keeping maps on that area was not a priority, so she couldn't picture the situation. With the other three family members continuing to discuss the Mechon's tactics in terms above her, she kept eating and idly wondered why the Mechon had skipped Colony 6, a much more convenient location to attack and occupy.

All things considered, Melia ended up forgetting that she was to learn a new elemental until she reached the door of the training room on Wednesday. The realisation immediately improved her mood, as she eagerly stepped inside and took up the Training Staff, summoning and dispelling a bolt and flare just for fun.

"Ready to begin, I see," Reddel said. "Considering your natural affinity for the subject, let's see how well you can do with nothing more than the name of the elemental."

Melia stood ready. I already know bolts and flares. The four remaining classical elements are water, earth, wind, and ice. The question is, will it be one of the easier or harder ones?

"Summon an aqua."

Water, the source of all life, and the blanket of the world below. Melia started focusing on a stormy ocean, with torrential rains and crashing waves. But she could quickly tell that something was wrong: she couldn't feel any sensation from her staff, no indication that her thoughts were imparting any watery energy. She tried upping the severity of the mental storm, adding more rain and higher waves, but still couldn't detect any results. The strain and confusion on her face were evident. After a solid two minutes of trying to squeeze something out, she went limp.

"Do not be disappointed," Reddel spoke. "You have simply fallen into the classic novice trap. One hundred percent of my students have been fooled in the exact same way."

Melia responded to this comment with perhaps the most passive-aggressive straight face stare-down in history.

Reddel couldn't help but laugh. "Don't worry about it. Here, let me show you the desired result." He summoned a ball of water over his head.

Melia stared at the liquid elemental. It certainly projected a different kind of energy than she was used to - simply being near it made her feel more relaxed and reinvigorated, as opposed to the tense and aggressive energies that bolts and flares generated.

"Aquas are not an elemental of offensive power, but of healing and support. They cannot be summoned by focusing on the destructive properties of water - instead, you have to focus on its calming influence, its revitalising effects."

Still miffed about the trap but recognising that the explanation made sense, Melia held her staff aloft again and started wondering what exactly to focus on to generate such feelings. After a bit of consideration she settled on the sensation of a hot shower after a stressful day, and started focusing.

It took about ten seconds of concentration for the first hint of success: the staff's handle started feeling damp, as if it had recently been retrieved from a warm pool. Melia kept focusing, eyes closed. It didn't really feel like the sensation was getting that much stronger - although it was becoming more lifelike, in terms of making her gloves feel wet.

Certainly more challenging than the two I already know, she started thinking. It makes sense to throw a hard one into the mix early rather than wait until later...what was that?

Melia broke concentration and opened her eyes, looking down at her feet. A thin film of water was running down her staff and dripping onto her shoes.

"Er..." She moved the staff enough to stop dripping on her feet, but the damage was done; her socks were completely soaked.

"Indeed, that can happen," Reddel noted. "As the embodiment of a physical liquid as opposed to an energetic plasma, it is slightly more difficult to contain the elemental in a compact form. There is no real trick to doing so; you simply have to ensure that your summoning energy remains in a single place, instead of having it leak out before completion."

Melia tried again. It was harder to concentrate on the mental sensation of the shower with her eyes open, but after fifteen seconds she could feel the water building up again. She spotted a leak and focused on making it retreat, which was successful but delayed the main summoning. More leaks appeared over the next several seconds, all of which were taken care of without much delay. After a minute and a half, she finally felt the release of energy that signified success, and looked up to see the aqua sitting in the head of the staff.

"Very good," Reddel commented, as Melia mentally plucked the elemental out of the webbing and hovered it down to eye level. "Incidentally, aquas are the most temperamental of all elementals when it comes to environment, in that the ease of summoning them is strongly based on the ambient humidity. To contrast, flares are slightly harder to summon at low temperatures, while bolts have no such swing."

Melia sent the water elemental flying at a distant target, where it impacted with a satisfying splash and evaporated. She then got to work on summoning a second one, her wet gloves and socks becoming more irritating by the minute. Eighty seconds later, with the new aqua created, she brought up a bolt and flare to sit alongside, creating a rather impressive-looking lineup of elementals.

This would look good on the cover of a book, she pondered as she held the three balls of energy above her head in her favoured pyramid formation. Perhaps a biography, with some pun on the "great power from small packages" phrase in the title.

Reddel interrupted her introspection. "As for the properties of the elemental, it is quite weak as a method of directly damaging opponents. Instead, its strength is in regeneration: it passively casts a healing energy over all nearby allies, and striking a foe with it steals some of its vitality and delivers it directly to you."

Melia was intrigued by the concept, but not enthused about the implications. That means I'll have to be injured in order to be tested on it. Not fun.

"With that in mind, may I introduce your latest training partner." Reddel directed Melia to a covered device near the right wall and removed the covering, revealing a large clear tank half-full of a pearlescent pink fluid connected to a dull metal tank and a wrist-sized cloth band. "This collection of tanks and valves contains a kind of ether that allows you to practice manipulation of vitality without risking injury to either party. For example, you can donate some of your energy via the wristband and then use your aqua discharge to steal it back. I don't recommend you try it until you have your aqua summoning ability down pat, but just to let you know it's here."

So no injury, but still unlikely to be pleasant. Melia eyed the compilation of tanks. I wonder what would happen if I used this system to bring me over my natural maximum for vitality. An injection of extra energy? Negative interference feedback? Or just nothing? I'm sure I'll find out later.

COMBAT TRAINING EVALUATION

28 March Sorean 4

Evaluator: Keldon, James

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Name: Antiqua, Melia

Gender: F

Race: High Entia father, Homs mother

D.o.B: 22 February Entirmina 232 (age 72)

Height: 150cm

Weight: 46.3kg

Specialisation: Ether staff

STATISTICS

Note: Due to low magnitude, all provided values are estimates. Each value is scored on the related Eryth Combat Scale.

Physical Strength: 5 Some combination of Melia's recently-begun physical activities and her final growth spurt has added a healthy amount of improvement in this category. Maintain existing course.

Ether Attenuation: 21 Progressing as expected, with no major abnormalities to note.

Agility: 7 Melia remains somewhat clumsy, but this does not seem to be affecting her physical speed.

Resilience: 42 A much healthier value for someone of her age and stature, though still firmly on the low side.

Overall Combat Level: ~0.43 As noted in previous reports, this value overestimates her combat statistics while underestimating her arts.

ARTS

Elemental Discharge: A+ Burst aura now activates in 18 discharges, though some irregularity has been noted when discharging dissimilar elementals in quick succession. Nothing else needs to be said; Melia's elemental skills remain unmatched.

Summon Bolt: A- Summoning time varies between 3 and 4 seconds, with the bolt dealing comparatively extreme damage to targets. It should be noted that progress in summoning speed has levelled off quite a bit for this and other elementals.

Summon Flare: A- Summoning time varies between 4 and 5 seconds, with the ability to detonate the flare at will in addition to on contact.

Summon Aqua: C Summoning time varies between 60 and 80 seconds, with noted difficulty containing leaks. Once the aqua is fully summoned, it responds as perfect as her other two elementals.

Burst End: C+ The defensive drop of this art is now strong enough to be noticed by a casual observer, though it is still minimal enough to be mostly ineffective. Signs also point to Melia learning how to not dump her entire burst aura into a single usage, though she is still far from being able to maintain it.

Hypnotise: B- Casting time varies between 10 to 15 seconds, and can withstand minor interruptions.

Shadow Stitch: B- Summoning time ranges between 5 and 10 seconds, and Melia is able to easily control which targets are affected. At this point, the art's main weakness is its very short duration, which only practice can solve.

Spear Break: F Despite her newfound physical prowess, Melia remains completely unable to break targets for whatever reason. Perhaps there is a subconscious mental barrier in place.

Overall Arts Grade: C With learning a third elemental at a more typical beginner's pace, like all her non-elemental arts, it has become clear that Melia has exhausted her unnatural head start. At this rate, it is expected for her to earn a personal staff at the age of eighty, a healthy ten years ahead of the average.