13: Not Even a Battle

Evermore worried about her son now. But she prepared herself with her most powerful attack as Kai announced that the signal - probably belonging to the Black Dragur - would appear. Milliseconds felt like hours waiting for the signal to arrive at their location. Appear how? It wasn't time to dwell on that. Rocco went to Kai who wasn't fighting either.

That's when Rocco yelled at them to not attack. The rift that opened, and who exited wasn't who they were expecting. But rather, "Machi?" Rocco ran to his friend who was about to faint and helped him. "You guys have 30 seconds." He coughed and wondered why everyone was staring at him.

Evermore looked horrified and even Rocco was terrified. The cough he just had, expelled blood. His nose and ears too, were dripping with blood. His body was pushed to the limit to execute the plan, to lure the Black Dragur to his mother's location where a battalion was waiting. 30 seconds passed and the rift reopened, Machi, being healed quickly by the combined effort of the Black family. Noticing the book he had in his hands, Machi passed it to Dawson before relaying that the dragur was after the very book he was now holding.

"Ah. The trauma." He grabbed his chest and Rocco laughed and leaned forward in relief.

Everyone wondered what just happened but they snapped back to focus and Dawson tossed the ability book over to Lord Hellyer. "A game of tag. This will be fun." Rocco joked. Machi agreed in a joke and noticed that Kai was handing him a mic and headset along with Rocco. Seeing as the reason the dragur was not attacking civilians was due to their effort, plus the weirdly good battle experience he had, Kai thought it best Machi had some sort of input in the battle. But, his voice broadcasted, and so was the scene everyone was watching. Drones recorded the scene live.

"That Dragur is after the ability book," Machi announced and no one had time to react, "but it ain't an idiot. I only managed to bring it here because I had gotten Rocco out of the vault. You essentially have to play a game of tag while attacking it. But one thing. Avoid handing the book to my mother for now."

They all turned to Evermore whose body was adapting to the massive increase in power. "Where are all the other Dragur?" Lord Hogwood asked and Machi looked to the sky.

"I think... the Dragur are declaring war," Zac said. Seeing the ship in the sky, everyone wondered how they'd deal with that fleet. "One step at a time people." He clapped, remaining optimistic in the face of battle. As they threw the ability book around, they noticed it—the lack of injury on the Black Dragur. Exhausting themselves, their enemy was unscathed. It was not only causing them stress, but annoyance and their faith in defeating the enemy was dwindling.

Kai saw Machi Harkness with a worried look. He was theorising the many different possibilities of survival of the entire City and them...

"Shit." Machi cursed and looked to the fight. No matter how much they tried, their abilities didn't... work. It made no sense, but that was the only conclusion. Black Dragurs and perhaps all Dragurs were unaffected by abilities.

'It's impervious to abilities. Abilities at the fundamental stage are mana, ambient power circulating at high volumes in people. Meaning that you need something other than abilities, mana, fighting.' Carbine said.

He didn't want to say it, Machi didn't want to entertain it either, and they both knew Dawson would be against it. But right now they had no choice.

"Machi, you're just a kid. You don't have to shoulder it. What's going on?" Kai asked.

"It's impervious to abilities. No matter how you look at it, at their level, even with their combined effort... can't defeat it. Unless something changes, causing a massive boost in power, a rampage of sorts, there's only one way we can win this fight..." Kai noticed it too. But he was unable to come up with a solution in time.

Opening a rift using the excess ki Jo left in him, Machi watched as the body Carbine possessed walked out and a certain spectator was shocked to see this occur again.

"Master Machi, what do you need?" Carbine asked.

"Get them all back. And the book."

Machi watched as everyone appeared on the ledge where Kai and Rocco were huddled. Seeing the book appear in Machi's hands, Evermore was wondering what was running through his head.

"Machi, how many possibilities have you run?" Rocco asked in the silence.

"Not freaking enough. Why do we have to get the one that's impervious to abilities?!" He groaned and tightened his grip on the book. He cut the connection of the drones and the earpieces to the rest of the city. "Rocco, have you recovered?" Seeing him nod, he then turned to Jo.

"You want to test how effective it is."

"Your strongest hit, as fast as you can. You know... don't destroy your body though." Machi weakly chuckled. If Carbine was right, Jo would be the only one with the upper hand in this battle. "I can't do any more rifts unless I want to destroy my body accessing this residual power, so Rocco, stay alert in case Aunt Jo needs to be taken out." He nodded and Machi looked to Jo who was gearing up for the battle ahead.

But it went by all so fast.

"In war, there is always someone pulling the strings, the brain" Freed chuckled, "getting rid of that ruins enemies plan." The others on the ship were shocked that it was a kid but Freed wasn't. "Is the kid special?"

"Very."

The Black Dragur had gone straight for the brains of this battle.

Cameras showed it clearly. The place where Machi Kilgore Harkness stood, possessed only his footprints, and nothing else.