Sensory input came slowly to Bakuno. At first, it was only peripheral. The crisp scent of freshly cut grass. The soft, gentle breeze against his skin. Memories of a dream.

Gradually, the sensations became clearer. Orange light from the sun on his eyelids, its warmth caressing his body. The ground below him, and then the awareness of his own weight against it. He heard voices, like incoherent whispers in the wind. They were small voices, children’s voices.

“Is he dead?” one child asked.

“How should I know?” another said. “Here, poke him with this.”

“You do it!”

“I’m older. You have to do what I say.”

Bakuno understood their words but he did not recognize the language, a conundrum he couldn’t explain. Perhaps he was dead. The last thing he remembered was falling asleep. A flash of light, fragmented. Blackness. That awful voice.

A sharp pain in his ribs jerked Bakuno from his remembrance. His body flinched instinctively and his eyes jerked open.

A young boy holding a stick nearly as long as he was tall tripped over himself as he backpedaled away. Another boy, slightly older, stepped between Bakuno and the smaller child, eyes wide and hands held out protectively. Bakuno laughed - a terrible, too-loud bark - as he got to his feet.

“You cannot protect him, insolent pup,” Bakuno warned the older boy. “For I am Bakuno, Tyrant King of all Eldrysis! I will have his head for this treachery. Move aside or share his fate.”

“Uhm. Excuse me,” a woman said from somewhere to Bakuno’s left.

He turned to face her, an icy glare playing across his gaunt features. She was an older, heavy set woman with her gray hair tied in a tight bun and thick optical lenses magnifying her blue eyes. She wore a floral patterned dress and had a large bag, also floral patterned, hanging from her shoulder.

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“Bakuno, Tyrant King of Eldrysis, was it?” she asked. The woman continued speaking without awaiting an answer. “I’m Vicky, Tyrant Grandmother of these two boys, and you need to step the hell away before I call the police.”

Bakuno was not concerned with the grandmother nor these ‘poleese’ she threatened him with. A series of guttural words spilled from Bakuno’s lips and he waved his hands in a complex, practiced motion. Nothing happened.

“What is this?” Bakuno barked, his glare intensifying. “A dampening field? A wordless counterspell? It matters not. I will destroy you with my bare hands and decorate my home with your bones.”

Bakuno advanced on the woman wild-eyed. Vicky pulled a small black cylinder from her bag and held it up threateningly, one finger poised on its top. Bakuno looked at her quizzically, clearly unimpressed, but didn’t slow his advance. He reached to grab her by the throat, then something sprayed out from the cylinder in Vicky’s hand, coating Bakuno’s eyes, mouth, and nose with liquid fire.

“Gahhh!” he screamed as he fell to his knees.

Bakuno tried in vain to wipe the terrible substance from his eyes, the burning sensation overwhelming his face only intensified. An unseen, but powerful kick to the groin dropped Bakuno from his knees to the ground. A second kick, this one to his stomach, took his breath. Bakuno squinted, looking up at her.

Who is this unholy monster? This… Vicky.

He writhed in pain for several moments before being forcefully shoved into his stomach. His hands were pressed behind his back and metal restraints locked into place around his wrists. He heard voices, two men were asking him questions and pulling him to his feet. His tear-filled eyes could only see the dark clothing they wore, like wraiths standing against the light of day. He searched wildly for the woman, but caught only a blurry glimpse of Vicky’s thick backside as she retreated with her two wards in tow. With that awful woman gone, Bakuno would be able to employ his magic!

Jubilant, Bakuno took a deep breath and then hurled flames from his open mouth to melt the faces of his two would-be captors. Only, no hellfire erupted from his lips. Only a breathy ‘haaaaa’ sound and bits of spittle.

“Okay, buddy. Let’s not do that again,” one of Bakuno’s captors said, wiping spit from his cheek. “Get in the car.”

The second of his captors was less patient than his partner. The large man pulled up hard on the restraints around Bakuno’s wrists with one hand and shoved his head forward with the other, forcing the Tyrant King into a metallic carriage.

Bakuno was flabbergasted.

Had that woman, Vicky, done something to take away his magic permanently? Was that even possible? Could she have been the witch that brought him to this strange place?

Bakuno was certain he was no longer on Eldrysis. He’d heard tales of people being transported to another world through various magical rituals. Sometimes to Eldrysis from elsewhere, but more commonly from Eldrysis to some other world. At home, Bakuno was an all-powerful master of the dark path, Tyranny’s Touch. There was not a being on the planet capable of bringing him to his knees. Here, an elderly woman with an odd ranged weapon of liquid fire put him down as though he were no more than a misbehaving child.

He would regain his strength and use it to subjugate this world as he had Eldrysis, but Bakuno clearly had a long, long road ahead of him…