While my inner nerd wanted to do a bunch of sight-seeing and exploration, the practical side of me decided to take a nap. Finding a dark room and simply sitting down in a chair wasn’t really doing it for me so I had to use my consciousness and flesh sorceries at the same time to force me to settle down and conk out for about two hours. Being able to hit the hay at the push of a button would have been considered a super power back before the apocalypse, but my ability was so much better. With my powers, I could condense hours of rejuvenating sleep into a smaller time frame, essentially allowing me to live longer and experience more than anyone else due to being able to cut down on non-productive time. With Kraken functioning as a backup alarm clock, I sat in one of the nanotech comfy chairs and lay down, the entire contraption forming a very snug bed. It felt like I had just closed my eyes when Kraken woke me up.
[Wake the FUCK UP! Yes, it’s been two hours! Yes, this is way too mentally loud for you! And NO! Everything is NOT ok!]
Seeing as all of my questions were answered at the speed of thought by my screaming spirit familiar, I sprang out of the chair-bed with Gungnir in wicked tri-tip spear form and SAW fully activated with the auto-conjured water arms extending from my back. My magical senses unfurled, taking in the entire room even as no enemies or threats appeared.
“The fuck?” I half whispered, half growled, kicking open the door of my nap room and not believing what my eyes told me. The door to the building was open but plugged up from the outside by a very hairy and yet spiky behind. If I wasn’t mistaken, that was Fuzzy’s butt that I was seeing. Next to it, Reeanth stood firm holding her mana-maul in both hands, her grip tightening and loosening as if she were constantly adjusting her grip, her eyes darting back and forth. Meanwhile, Johnny stood in the middle of the room carrying what appeared to be an oversized rolled up fur rug underneath one arm as he grinned his classic shit-eating smile.
“Merry Christmas ya filthy animal!” Johnny shouted, gleefully letting go of his makeshift rug of holding, a loud oof sound coming out of it followed by a lot of angry unintelligible yelling. The package did its own version of the worm as Johnny put his boot firmly on it to hold it in place. Looking at Reeanth, Johnny asked, “Can I show him? He didn’t even have to lift a finger! Nobody saw nothin’, I swear!”
The bottom fell out of my stomach even as it filled with a feeling of foreboding unease mixed with excitement. “Did you bring me who I think you brought me?”
“Yup! Don’t take me for a complete dummy. Big Bear told me that you’d knocked out the guards to the city not too long ago which meant this had to get done pronto.” Giving the rug a swift but not too hard kick, he continued. “And since you were having some beauty sleep, I had Miss Stick-Up-Her-Ass be the lookout as I did the easy part so you could do the hard part. Your brother’s a scrapper too, instead of yelling for help he almost pulled a Mike Tyson and took my ear off.”
Muffled words that sounded very similar to ‘fuck you’, ‘lemme out’ and ‘asshole’ coincided with our human and now that Johnny turned his body, I could see a set of larger than average metallic boots sticking out the other side.
“Well, snargle fargle to you too butthead.” Crouching down, I gave my wrapped up brother a solid smack even though I knew he’d barely feel it through the layers of carpet and slabbed Centauri muscle. “Did you take him down all by yourself?” It wasn’t the dumb question that Johnny took it to be. I mean, I knew that my brother has been doing Centauri training and warfare for at least a couple years due to the time distortion even though we’ve only been at this for three-quarters of a year. Besides, I cheat.
“Well,” Johnny said sheepishly. “I might have had a little help. You can meet her when we hightail it outta here.”
“Better tell him now who she is,” Kraken said. “I can smell it on you and trust me, he won’t like it.”
“Smell what? Ain’t no nose on you!”
“Tell me what?” My face furrowing into a pre-frown as my spirit familiar’s voice hinted that he wasn’t joking.
“It’s not a big deal. Her minions helped me out.”
I didn’t move.
“You know, uh, well, she called them revenants.”
“Zombies?!” Memories of me being scared shitless when this whole boondoggle started flooded my mind. The first Ripple or two messing with reality as some messed up kid raised the dead, planning some very not good things with his newfound power. This was back when I was still dealing with my own modern sense of morality, the idea that killing wasn’t usually the best way forward. Although I did seal off the graveyards within a few miles of my home, I never followed up on that little shit who hurled literal death magic at me. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up even as my focus for the past couple months, preparing to wipe out the Hungry Ones, bristled at the fact that I let someone go who was mildly related to the very thing that I was devoted to getting rid of.
But we have to be clear. I still haven’t seen a ‘Hungry One’ yet. I don’t know if they’re the run of the mill zombie that people think of from the old show ‘Walking Dead’ or if they’re the messed up, super-powered, over the top zombies with all kinds of freaky powers. The crazy chick Nicole, her zombies were freaking dinosaurs that she’d reanimated from the Natural Science museum from Phoenix, and the memories that I’d gotten from her companions were too tainted with terror for me to get much information about what necromancers could do. I’m operating in the dark with half-baked assumptions and it may just get me killed.
Relaxing my grip on Gungnir caused the blazing light in the crystal spear-tip to dim as my emotions also came down from their instinctive reaction. Turning to Reeanth, I asked my question in a tone that brooked no funny business. “I already don’t trust whoever she is. Have you met her? And how is messing with dead bodies allowed by anyone in the city? I thought Centauri were all about rules, and there’s definitely gotta be some rules against that madness.”
“The arts of necromancy are generally reviled and scorned throughout the cosmos, but not everywhere,” she clarified. “Necromancers can be just as benevolent or wicked as any other magic user. And to answer your question, yes, I’ve met Judy and she’s a fine warrior. Her take on necromancy is a bit odd. Most raise their revenants and use them as cannon fodder while they function as either long range artillery or support. Judy is actually an accomplished warrior who fights in perfect tandem with her minions.”
“And that’s odd because?”
Kraken scoffed. “Because it’s devastatingly effective. Who would suspect that the controller of the horde would be hidden within the horde?” Turning to Reeanth, Kraken asked, “I assume that she goes for quality over quantity?”
Johnny jumped in. “Totally! She has five of them and each one is decked out in layers of bone armor and older Centauri tech. I’ve fought them one at a time and as a group and they kick my ass every time.”
A loud banging on the door interrupted our conversation. Due to my sudden awakening from my nap by Kraken, I was already kitted out and ready for anything. This whole ‘not every situation requiring combat’ mindset was starting to get in the way. Johnny opened the door as six large humanoid figures stalked through, each covered in impossibly thick bone with wicked spikes coming out at the elbows, knees, shoulders, and backs. All but one had glowing red eyes but each carried a kite shield with a sharp point at the bottom in one hand and a big battleaxe in the other.
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“I cannot BELIEVE you talked me into this!” The one without the glowing eyes took off its intimidating helmet, revealing a beautiful buxom blonde. Walking up to Johnny, she attached her axe to her back and poked him in the chest. “You owe me BIG!” Turning to me and then eyeing the struggling form in the rolled up carpet, she stuck her hand out and sweetly said, “Hi, I’m Judy. And you must be the one that’s got everyone up in arms.”
Shaking her hand firmly, I pulled back instantly and let out a little hiss as her magic almost burned me. My own enchanted gloves were barely strong enough to hold back the cloying blackness that reached for me from inside her hand. My fears were right. This kind of magic is anathema to me, my weakness.
“Sorry,” Judy said quickly, her voice showing genuine regret. “They didn’t tell me much about you except how awesome you are.”
Shaking my hand back and forth to get rid of the tingling feeling, I stood up straight and looked her in the eye. “It’s ok. A friend of Johnny’s is a friend of mine.”
A tension I hadn’t noticed left the room as both Reeanth and Johnny let out huge sighs of relief. Both were eyeing me as if I were a bomb about to explode. “What?” I growled. “I got bigger fish to fry than my own insecurities right now.” Grabbing my badly packaged brother, I started dragging him towards the room I had taken a nap in. “Heavy ass chunk. Mom always said you needed to lose some weight.”
“My lord! What do you need us to do?” Reeanth’s question had more sides to consider than what was on the surface. I had many things I needed to do, but very few of which I could actually delegate. The biggest priority wasn’t actually fixing my brother; disabling the gate at the center of the city was the biggest priority, and in such a way that it could be reactivated easily would be the most prudent course of action. Then, fixing my brother would be the next item on my list and then the rest of his soldiers on down the line. Keeping the mind-controlled Centauri from finding out about us and our plans involved us not doing anything to actually attract their attention.
“Reeanth, stay near the door in case anyone comes knocking and divert them if possible. Johnny, sit on my brother and make sure he stays put,” I ordered. “Judy, if you please since I know you don’t answer to me, if you wouldn’t mind being our quick reaction force backup? If anyone busts in, take them down quickly, quietly, and without bloodshed. We’re gonna need to do this with minimal noise and violence if we want a shot at success.”
To her credit, she simply nodded and placed her overly armored goons in strategic places around the room so that they wouldn’t be instantly noticed by incoming traffic. Reaching down, I placed a quick mental whammy on my brother, knocking him out to make it easier on everyone till I got back.
“You got a back door I can use?” I asked. Reeanth pointed at a small hallway in the back. Following the well lit corridor, I touched the blue button on the side of the door, the portal opening up just like a freaking Star Trek door. “Cool!” I muttered as I shut the door and dove into the earth. The direction I wanted to go was even easier to find below ground than above it as the gate gave off an incredible magical signature due to its very nature and the fact that my fucking tree was hooked up to it.
Within two minutes, I was holding Gungnir in staff-form parallel to the main root of this branch of Yggdrasil, the energies of my main magical tool forming a buffer as I delved into the entwining of my tree and what could be described as a parasitical gate. [Whoever did this is a master of not just portal magic, but also runic and nature as well. It’s like the PHD version of you did this.]
[Not helping!] I shot back as Kraken scanned the set with wonder. [I’m trying to work here, not geek out over someone else’s masterpiece.] Following the thread of power up the root and into the trunk of the World Tree, the base of the gate’s platform was melded at the molecular level with the part of the trunk just above the surface of the earth. From what I could tell, that was the conduit for powering the portal as well as forming the symbolic stability necessary to rip holes in space. The upper part of Yggdrasil wrapped up along the structural rib bones making up the sides and then joined at the top formed the necessary shape so living things could physically travel through.
[What you’re looking for is at the tip of the rib bones,] Kraken said, his mental voice sounding very far away. [Each one has an identical rune that functions as entangled particles. Activate one and the other mirrors it, completing the ritual circle and opening up the gateway. The runes going down from there then do the heavy lifting and the ones at the bottom on that stone plate are what make up the coordinates.]
[Well, I could either disable the activation runes themselves, which would be a pain in the butt from down here, or I could simply persuade the tree to stop sending power to the gate.]
[Nature sorcery for the win.] Grumbling at me seeing the simple but most effective solution when he didn’t, Kraken sank back into Gungnir as I gently pushed my power into the tree. Twenty minutes of communing later, this offshoot of Yggdrasil was convinced that ‘a drought’ was upon us and it began cutting off the flow of power to its upper half, directing the flow of mana from the leyline below it into its roots to better weather the rough times ahead.
[At least my way you didn’t have to lie to a tree.]
[I do hate to say it, but my little white lie will only make this branch even stronger. Besides, I have a theory,] I mused as I headed back to fix my brother. [I bet that the overall level of planetary mana is determined by how many Yggdrasil roots there are on the planet, and by how strong the trees themselves are. Think about it, while it pulls power from the leylines underneath it, you can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed how the tree somehow pulls more power from inside of itself than from its surroundings?]
[Duh. It is the World Tree, which means it’s connected to the rest of ITSELF!]
[Forget I said anything.]
Sneaking in through the back door, one of Judy’s zombies almost made me crap myself as it popped out of a side door. It was only through Kraken screaming, “WAIT!” that I didn’t accidentally blast it to kingdom come with Gungnir. The beefed up monstrosity stayed to guard the door as I jogged to my nap room. Ignoring the fact that my personal creep factor was ratcheting up every couple minutes, I got back to my younger yet much larger brother and carefully unrolled him with a bit of help from Johnny.
Kraken deposited the small shard of light based Chaos in my hand which lay on the ground next to me. Using my flesh sorcery, I opened up a small cut in my cupped palm and dipped my finger in, swirling it around before I began drawing on his forehead. “Pentagram within a circle to help me focus energy,” I muttered, hoping and praying that my fumbling in the dark would not be pointless. I picked up the Chaos shard in my right hand and held my left hand over it, generously squeezing out blood to give it a nice crimson coat. Placing that down on my brother’s forehead inside the small ritual circle, I healed my hand and banished the excess blood.
Using my earth sorcery, I covered my brother from the neck down in a thick layer of conjured stone, making sure to put an extra bit banded around his chest and arms so that at no point during this procedure he’d be able to screw around.
[Let’s tilt this a bit more in our favor,] Kraken said from inside Gungnir. [Place the tip of Gungnir over his head and slowly move it down until I tell you to stop.] Pointing the spear downwards with the bladed tip just over the carefully perched crystal, Kraken molded the blade so that it morphed like putty and covered up the miniature ritual as I slowly moved it closer to Andy’s skin. [There, now you can channel through your staff which will serve as a buffer against the parasite in his head]
“Thanks.” I whispered as I closed my eyes, gripping my staff with both hands as I leaned my head against the cold skin of the wood.
[Ok, so this ain’t gonna be easy but I do suggest that you let me do the delicate work. If you supply the sorcery and power while letting Gungnir serve as the focus, I’m confident that I can free his mind,] Kraken explained. [Although the biggest part you have to play is that I cannot use the light sorcery at all, it requires a mortal’s will to be activated and that’s all you. Focus on a cleansing light, the symbol of purification, and do NOT stop focusing on that until I tell you. Without that, none of this will work.]
Trusting my familiar, I let my mind fall into itself as my breathing evened out. He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t completely right either. I’m not the only one in this fight, Andy can lend his strength too. Fighting this from both angles would let our chances of success skyrocket, the hard part would be reaching it. Using my mind sorcery, I split my focus, letting one part focus on what Kraken needed to make this work and the other completely devoted towards flavoring this entire working with the memories and good times I’ve shared with my brother. This couldn’t be an attack on his brain because then he might fight it, ruining our chances of bringing him back to himself. If he could get the message, the overwhelming feeling that his blood was fighting for him, then removing the gnarled roots of the banned Centauri experiment wouldn’t stand a chance.
The little shit, well, big shit now, was tough. When he was younger, I remember us playing out in the snow. Our yard didn’t have a fence back then but the boundary of our yard was marked with trees we’d chopped down with dad and hadn’t yet split and put away. The snow the night before was every child’s dream, glistening white power that blocked every evil schoolbus allowing us to do what kids do best. The problem with days like today is that there’s always something that can make it go wrong, which is where Andy came in.
I had run inside to use the bathroom real quick, but it’s never really quick when you have to remove eight layers of clothing to do your business and then put it all back on. By the time I had gotten back outside, my little brother had fallen off the logs that were slicked over with ice and broken his arm. But because he didn’t want to ruin the snow day, the rascal had gotten back up on the logs and was still playing even as his right arm was clearly broken at thirty degree angle. The rest of the day was spent at the hospital with him crying, not because of the pain, but because he thought that he’d ruined the entire snow day. Even back then he was tough, and now, now I just needed that toughness one more time.