Humans Don't Make Good Familiars- Part 67

Jake’s POV

“Suma, I think we should go next.” I stated.

“But I thought you wanted to wait and watch?” Suma questioned.

“I did, but now I want to give it a go.” I said.

“Jake… remember… we can’t use magic like that. Our combination would-“ She said, but I cut her off.

“I know… I remember what happened. But I don’t want to do that. I just think we can handle it.” I told her. She remained quiet for a moment, but relented.

“Sir, my familiar and I would like to go next.” She told the drill instructor.

“Alright then, take your positions on the battlefield and begin on my command.” He acknowledged. Suma fluttered up to my shoulder and rested on the perch on my armor.

“So Jake, do you have a plan?” She asked as we approached the field.

“I do, this thing is weak to long range attacks, and I think I have just the thing to get my strikes in.” I told her as I made my plan.

“Care to enlighten me?” She asked. I reached into my bag and pulled out a handful of steel ball bearings I had purchased a few days ago after I had an idea for a spell.

“With these,” I told her. She stayed quiet for a moment, looking a bit concerned if her tilted head was anything to go by.

“Jake, I know you’re strong… but you realize that training dummy is made of metal, right?” She asked. “How do you plan on throwing those hard enough to do damage?”

“I don’t,” I said. I explained my plan to her, she seemed warry, but agreed to go through with it. If everything goes as planned, then we will both get our hits in no problem. We took our positions, I was far away from the dummy, and she was covering me until my spell was done. It was a complex spell, like nothing I had ever tried before, but I was pretty sure it would work.

Once we were in our positions the instructor gave the call to start, “Begin!” As he said that, the new dummy that had been brought out lurched forward quickly… in fact, it was much faster now than in the other rounds. It rushed at Suma and started spinning its, comparatively, huge metal arms around. She flew straight up and began her half of the plan… meanwhile I began my half. She wasn’t much of a fighter, but she didn’t need to be, she just needed to buy me some time.

“Fly Crimson Bolt!” She yelled and cast her spell. A lance of fire, just like the one she used when that magistrate attacked us, flew at the dummy. I had expected it to slam into the dummy and score her one of her needed hits, but instead the thing suddenly leaned and narrowly avoided being hit. It was like some kind of spinning top of doom the way it was moving and twirling. “Fly Crimson Bolt!” She yelled again and launched another attack. Once again, the dummy dodged.

While this was happening, I was focusing on the balls and the spell. There are four fundamental forces of the universe, the strong force, the weak force, gravity, and the electro-magnetic force. Of these four, I was attempting to manipulate the final one. I had been preparing for this spell for a while now, studying military documentaries about the technology, and looking up videos on the internet to gain a better understanding. I started by envisioning the target becoming magnetized, and drawing the ball bearings closer as the approached, then I used magic to create a kind of rail system along the path I wanted the ball to follow. As the ball would go, it would be pulled along by electro-magnetism through the air, and suspended with my mana. But that is where the documentaries and I began to split. Technology had its limits, pulling something with magnetism is easy, but switching the polarity at the halfway mark is nearly impossible… unless you have magic. While the spell was pulling the balls along with magnetism, it would also be generating a reversed polarity behind the ball, driving it forwards.

“Jake, how much longer?” Suma asked as she dodged a flame attack from the dummy.

“Now! Dodge!” I yelled and took aim. This spell was different, unique, and hard to imagine. I needed something solid to picture as I cast it. Suma had mentioned that her people did this occasionally too, so I thought I would try it out. “RAILGUN!” I proclaimed and activated the spell.

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Suma’s POV

“RAILGUN!” Jake yelled as his spell activated. I had already moved from between him and the dummy, and I was soon very glad to have done it. His spell was strange, I could feel some magical energy building up, but it wasn’t very much. Certainty not enough to destroy such a large enemy. A blow path of light appeared and connected Jake and the center of the dummy, for a moment, I expected some kind of fire-spell, but I didn’t actually see the attack. Before I had time to realize what happened, the training dummy exploded violently into thousands of pieces. A roar like thunder shot through the air and the blue path vanished. It startled me so much I lost my concentration and nearly stopped flapping my wings. There was literally only scraps and splinters left of the dummy.

“STOP! STOP!” The instructor ordered. I landed on Jake’s shoulder as the instructor yelled for us to get back to the group.