When the hand of the Destroyer reached out, it pierced the veil between two worlds.

That created turbulence. That turbulence created something to fight back the

intrusion.

It knew its purpose as soon as it was born. It knew everything that the spirit world

knew. It’s ability to convert the energy of the world into magic matched any magician

without the years of training.

It felt small compared to what was trying to come through the veil between universes

and wreck the Earth.

It looked up at the giant hand reaching into its mother’s reality. Its purpose asserted

itself. This has to be pushed back.

“Are you all right?,” asked one of the humans on the ground with it. Magic formed

around his hands.

“I don’t know,” it said. The sound was thought changed to phonetics and spoken

without speaking. “I don’t know what I am.”

“Decide quickly,” said another man. He drew an arrow from a quiver and shot it into

the giant hand reaching for them.

It reached out and started trying to close the door. Its personal power was nothing

compared to what it was facing. It just wasn’t able to channel more energy.

If it could, it might destroy the planet by accident while fighting the invasion.

The human magician tried to boost its power. It felt will pour into it. It wasn’t

enough.

What could they do if they couldn’t close the door?

“I didn’t think this would be happening when I became an adventurer,” said another.

He wore clothes from some faraway land. “What can we do here, Hakim?”

“I have no idea,” said the other, a servant by his clothes. “I don’t think I can do much

on my own. Perhaps I can bolster the closing spells.”

“So the three of us will try to reverse things while Cain and the other try to stop the

summoner,” said the human magician. “Let us see what we can do.”

It joined with the magician. Their control of the energy being poured out by the Well

of the World made some resistance, but it wasn’t enough. Then the servant added its

efforts. They had built a crumbling wall to hold the giant hand back.

Then the veil shook.

It perceived that the others that had arrived had seized control of the Well. They had

engaged with the summoner and he had been knocked out of position.

“We need to keep up the pressure,” said the human magician. “We can’t allow the

portal to stabilize again.”

It asked for more power to meet the challenge. The world blazed with the effort. It

knew that it could be causing mortals to be expiring from what it was doing. It felt

like it had no choice.

If they didn’t fight off this invasion, then there would be no world for mortals to

enjoy.

“We’re doing it,” said the magician. “We just need a little more.”

“We have a problem,” said the master of the Djinn. “It looks like our summoner has

spirits to fight for him.”

It turned to face a pillar of fire bearing down on it. It didn’t have time for this. It was

trying to save the world. Didn’t the summoner know what would happen if things

were allowed to stand?

Didn’t he care?

It diverted some of its energy into trying to blast the fire away. The Destroyer was

about to open the door so wide they couldn’t close it. That had to be more important

than a fire elemental.

The fire elemental disagreed with its assessment. The arcane blast didn’t slow the

flames down as it tried to burn the new being in front of it.

“Allow me,” said the magician.

The magician waved a hand. His opponent was some kind of fish made out of water.

Ice ran through the core of the thing, freezing it in the air as it flew at him. He

diverted the flight into the fire elemental. The opposites began battling each other

instead of trying to kill the summoner’s opponents.

The magician buried them both in the sand as a way to get rid of them. Once they

decided to stop fighting, they might be back. Until then, their natures demanded

satisfaction.

It looked around. The others were busy holding off their own opponents. It was

critical to get the Djinn back in play to help close the door. The two mortals should

be helped as a matter of course, but it wasn’t strictly necessary from its point of view.

There were always more mortals to draw life from to keep going until something

happened and there were none left.

It decided that the best thing to do was to help the Djinn with the other air spirit. Then

it could deal with the last two problems easily.

“Bottle it, Hakim,” said the master. He smiled as he exchanged sword blows with the

thing of clockwork trying to cut him to pieces. “Then get rid of the monster

summoner trying to deal with the King.”

Hakim reached under his long white coat and brought out a bottle as the whirlwind

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reached for him to drive him into the ground. Suddenly the Djinn was ten times as

tall, and the bottle had grown to still fit his hand. One brassy hand brought the mouth

of the bottle down on the whirlwind, trapping it. Then a cork went into the opening

to keep it sealed tight. The servant placed the bottle back under his coat.

The Djinn grabbed the mushroom like mass full of arrows and sword cuts. It tried to

produce more of itself to fight as he picked it up in the air. He decided that just

throwing it up high enough would be enough to get rid of it like his master

commanded.

The tower of blades decided that it needed to double its efforts before it was removed

from the battlefield. If it could kill the Djinn’s master, that would be enough to

remove the Djinn too. A wave of light punched the very core of its being. Then its

copper body fell over and it was inside a stone in the magician’s hand.

“We have to get back to work,” said the magician. He put the stone away in a carrying

pouch. “At least the summoner wasn’t able to take advantage of our distraction.”

It agreed. It was time to shut the gate for good.

The archer sent an arrow through the breach. He didn’t have any magic to his name.

He just wanted to save the world.

The hand of the Destroyer grabbed the swordsman. The massive fingers closed and

crushed the life out of the hero.

The hunchback smiled as ash flew into the wind. That was one of his tormentors

done. Now he had to kill the rest.

An arc of lightning struck the dead man’s sword. It changed as the hunchback

marshaled his own forces. The sword flew into the air, a thing of white bone and

lightning.

It never came back down.

“We lost the King,” said the other fighter, the controller of the Djinn.

“There’s nothing we can do about that now,” said the magician. “The rest of us might

follow him in the next few seconds if we don’t get this door shut.”

“This being is called the Destroyer for a reason, Master,” said the Djinn.

“I’m sure it’s not because of its good looks,” said the fighter.

Sand covered the summoner in a cloud. He closed his eyes as the desert became his

weapon. All he had to do was inflict as much damage as he could to the other

magicians and reduce them to the same condition as the one who died.

Two of the magicians turned as he approached. He gathered more sand as he ran at

them. He would be a giant crushing gnats by the time he arrived to deal with them.

Then he could take the Jinn from the Easterner and use it as a weapon against those

in the pillars. He liked the simplicity of it.

Twin beams of spells struck his sandy shell. He exploded out of his protection. He hit

the ground again. He murmured a summons to provide a distraction. There was no

way for him to win against both of the magicians. They knew what he could do, but

he didn’t have any clue how to counter their spells at the moment.

He needed to escape so he could try some other scheme to gather power. He couldn’t

afford to be exposed with no power to fall back on. He hated that he had to abandon

his scheme when he was so close, but if he didn’t, he would be at their mercy.

His distraction arrived in a fog drifting away from the scene. He threw a screen over

it with a few murmured words. Let them stop that.

It perceived that the little group was winning the struggle. The Summoner had been

forced from the fight. The presence in the ring had reversed the call. All they had to

do was hold on.

The fog sweeping in with whatever was inside of it concerned it, but the door had to

be shut first.

“I think this is trouble, friends,” said the master of the Djinn. He swept his sword in

a circle with the flick of his wrist as he adjusted his grip. “And I don’t see anything

solid to fight.”

“It’s a death cloud,” said the magician. “It has to be contained and dispersed in an

area away from life. It looks like there is a protective shield to keep our magic from

shredding it in place.”

“Hakim, bottle this cloud the same as the air spirit, and take it away from any living

thing,” said the Easterner. “I feel like that should handle things unless we need to do

something more permanent.”

“Yes, master,” said Hakim. He brought out his bottle and grew tall enough to face the

cloud. He uncorked the bottle and forced the air and fog to flow inside with a

minimum of problems. He corked the bottle and held it against the shaking in his

hands.

The next part was trickier. He needed a place where there was no life around to feed

the death cloud. And he needed to get rid of the air elemental without allowing it to

hurt anyone.

Hakim left the Earth. He glanced around from the edge of the air. He couldn’t fly

much further without hurting himself. Only the order from his master allowed him to

go this far.

He saw the perfect place for both of the problem spirits. And they would never be

able to return to Earth across the void. He lined up the course he wanted, and placed

the bottle on a sailboat pushed by the wind from the Sun. He pushed it out into space

with a flick of his wrist.

He watched as the sailboat cruised across the solar system, picking up speed as it

went. It struck the edge of the planet that would one day be known as Jupiter and

broke apart. Elemental and Death Cloud fell into the high winds of the planet.

Hakim nodded. He had to return to his master and hope they had done enough to save

the world from destruction.

It nodded as it took in the Earth. The pressure was easing. It had accomplished its

mission with the help of the mortals that had arrived on the scene and the guardian.

It could go back to the spirit turbulence without a care.

“The summoner got away,” said the magician. “I can’t see where he’s gone.”

“He’ll be doing this same scheme again in the future,” said the Easterner. “Hopefully,

he burned up a lot of his power so he’ll be easier to beat.”

Two others joined the group. It nodded to the guardian.

“An unexpected ally,” said the guardian, smoking his pipe. “Who would have

thought? How do you feel, spirit of the air?”

“The work is done,” said it. “I am returning to the aether.”

Its body, magic and the parts it had forged into something that looked almost human,

broke apart as the mortals and immortal watched. The spark of it vanished into the

last surge of turbulence as the rivers of the Earth became placid again.

“We lost the King, and our new friend has turned to dust,” said the man who would

be known as Al-a-Din.

“We’ll see the both of them again,” said the guardian, gesturing with his pipe. “One

will be reborn to fight mortal troubles over and over, and the other will act to protect

the Earth from other Destroyers.”

“What makes you so sure about that, No One?,” said Cain. He floated in the air.

Their ally was mysterious to a fault, so he might not answer. On the other hand, he

knew things men were not meant to know and might answer just to give them a small

glimpse of what they might have to fight in the future.

“Because it was destiny and the will of the universe for this to happen,” said No One.

He smiled at the expressions his words elicited. “Forces had to be brought to bear that

we couldn’t do ourselves. And now that those forces are in motion, they can never not

be in motion. Our friends will return to aid us again when we need it. Have no fear

on that.”

“It seems a bad trade,” said Al-a-Din.

“I know,” said the guardian. “That’s why it’s up to mortals to choose whether to make

that trade, or not. You are the ones that can change the world. A man with no name

like me can only sit and watch while others do the real work.”

He gave them one more smile as he turned and started across the desert. He vanished

when a small dust devil obscured him from view.

“I think he puts others on his work because he’s lazy,” said Cain.

“I’m sure,” said the magician. “Until we meet again, friends.”

The heroes went their separate ways.