Orlan stood in the large Anchorheart chamber in the heart of his castle once more, a wooden training spear in his hands, eyes closed. Slowly he began to move, spinning the spear through a series of blocks and strikes. There was no set pattern to his training, looking more like he was fighting invisible enemies than a regimented routine, but that was what worked best for him. The pattern the spear tip wove in the air reminiscent of lightning, flowing along a jagged path without slowing before striking the target with all the power of a rift.
The chaotic yet flowing fighting style was of his own creation, based on his own observations of rifts. It was also utterly impossible without the super-human body granted by the spheres of mana within his soul, performing seemingly impossible lunges, spins and blocks that a normal human couldn’t manage.
But this wasn’t training, it was an active meditation as Orlan focused on condensing a sixth layer of his soul. Doing so required immense concentration, there were a number of chambers in the castle specially designed to assist in meditation. Some were thick with incense, the burning herbs chosen to heighten focus, while others were almost completely bare to remove all distractions. But Orlan always felt most comfortable in the presence of his Anchorheart, allowing his body and mind to slip into a martial trance. The gentle pulsing of the grand stone granting him a sense of calm even as he danced across the room, spear tip humming through the air, for hours on end.
Normally he wouldn’t spend so long in isolation, but tiering up was a critical goal for him. Not only would it improve his mana regeneration, increasing the time he could spend in combat before exhausting himself, but it also improved the Anchorheart. It would allow them to move the protectorate to other regions, not as reliant on mana geysers to sustain the massive floating island.
But, ultimately, he wasn’t some sage of a wizard’s tower, able to shut himself off from the world for days or even weeks at a time. A faint buzzing in the back of his mind broke him out of his meditation, pulling him from the depths of his spirit in an instant. After a moment to ensure being interrupted hadn’t damaged the sphere he answered the telepathic call.
“Lord, there’s another Rift,” Nallia said on the other side as Orlan wiped the sweat from his face, “in a country called Germany.”
“Damnit,” he replied, “that’s too far for us to reach.”
“Indeed,” she agreed, “even if we were to fully discharge the sky-cutter’s mana we’d only be able to reach Spain. On foot it would take us days to travel from there to the site of the rift.”
“You find out about the rift on the phone?”
“Yes, seems like there might have been another rift in the last week on a continent called ‘Africa’ but word never got out,” she added.
Orlan simply sighed, he’d known it would happen but hadn’t expected the rate of rift appearance to increase this rapidly. In the year before Orlan returned it looked like there had been one or two rifts per month, only a handful had been reported as most likely happened far from civilization or in the depths of the ocean. In the two weeks since the major rift that brought him, however, there’d been three reported rifts, meaning a handful likely went unnoticed by the world at large. It was a far cry from the two rifts a day that was the norm on the other side, but he was the only Protector Lord on this side. He could only cover so much territory by himself, even with the island and sky-cutters.
Ultimately there was only one way to help people, and that was to attempt to raise mages in this world. Mundane guns could hold lower tier monsters off, but against a beast rift you needed to do more than simply delay them. You needed to kill them. Even rifts in remote areas could unleash a tide of monsters that could swallow entire regions in the beasts. Thankfully the weak Aether of this world was, for once, working to their benefit. Unlike mages, Monsters needed a constant supply of mana or their cores would break down. The higher tier the monster the more mana they needed. Even on the other side this had restricted what kinds of monsters could appear in which areas, with the strongest often trapped in wild regions where mana filled the Aether like a thick fog.
The mages at the spire figured that the Aether of this world couldn’t support more than second sphere equivalent monsters for any period of time. Any higher than that and the beasts would slowly suffocate from the lack of mana. It might take days but eventually those ant monsters would grow weak and die. Of course, the amount of damage they could do before then was why they couldn’t simply wait the beasts out.
After cleaning off and joining Nallia in the main sitting room he simply waited and watched along with several others as reports came in from the rift in Germany. The monsters there seemed to have the bodies of elephants but the head and neck of a heron or crane. Even normal elephants had hides thick enough to be resistant to small arms, and boosted by magic these monsters were almost immune to small caliber rounds. They were slow and clumsy, but had surprising reach with their razor sharp beaks, able to lash out to spear people in an instant.
The rift was in a relatively remote location, it seemed, and the German army was on the scene fast enough that Orlan suspected that the units had been on standby. Of course, most of their weapons were of minimal effect, only anti-tank weapons seemed to be able to reliably put the beasts down. The knights were especially interested when the first tanks appeared on the streams, such large armored vehicles were unknown to the other side. The tanks did better than Orlan expected, their main gun more than capable of putting a shell clean through one of the monsters. But it was clear they weren’t built for this kind of combat, most rounds were designed with fighting other tanks in mind and tended to pass completely through the monsters. Often they hit something vital on their travels but these beasts were tougher than any normal animal and many times they simply took the hit and kept going.
The rate of fire of the big guns also left much to be desired, more than once news helicopters witnessed a group of tanks be overwhelmed by a stampede of the elephant like monsters. They would kill a few, but couldn’t get more than one or two shots off before being overrun. Normally infantry would screen for the tanks but no amount of small arms fire would deter these monsters.
“What’s the policy on recruiting boss?” one of the girls from second lance asked suddenly.
“I’m not sure,” Orlan admitted, “I’d planned on recruiting as normal, but with the risk of soul blight…”
“I think all we can do is make them aware of the risk,” the knight shrugged.
“And conduct a test for mana allergy,” Nallia added, “it’s a risk but better than nothing.”
\-\-\-\-\-
It looked like a small army had gathered in front of the capitol building as the car baring Orlan pulled up to the structure. He’d initially planned on simply landing a cutter across the street, but figured that it was best to not. Instead the cutter had touched down some distance from the city and he’d called to ask for a pickup. The man on the other side sounded annoyed, but when Orlan offered to simply fly over the city in a cutter he became much more amenable.
“We were only expecting one,” the first security guard to approach commented, glancing at the other three with him.
“Did you actually expect me to come alone?” Orlan asked with a raised eyebrow, “honestly, most of my knights wanted to come with me.”
“Knights huh?” the man said, glancing at the two women with him, both of whom wore frilly dresses, before shrugging, “we’re going to have to search you for weapons.”
“Really?”
“It’s procedure,” he shrugged, motioning for them to follow. Of course a half dozen news vans were present as he walked into the capitol building, thankfully security kept them away allowing Orlan to enter unmolested. The next half hour was spent walking through metal detectors and having themselves searched. It was all completely useless, of course, as he could pull his weapon out of his personal space at any time.
After that annoying process they spent well over an hour simply waiting to be called before whatever committee had called for the meeting. By the time the four of them were finally called it was well past nine, when the meeting had been supposed to happen. The room for the meeting wasn’t the main floor of congress, but a side room. A dozen committee members sat at a long raised desk facing the rest of the room, while Orlan was restricted to a simple table with a few chairs on the ground, meaning he’d be forced to look up at the committee.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Typical, he thought to himself, governments never change, even in other worlds. They just had to feel superior.
There was only one name plate at the small table and, surprisingly, it had Orlan’s full name. With a scowl, before sitting he ran his finger across the nameplate, a pulse of mana vaporizing the paper that had been fitted to the plate until just Orlan was left. This action drew some raised eyebrows from the congressmen who were still getting settled, but they waited until everyone was seated to begin.
“Why don’t you begin with introducing yourselves,” the committee leader offered once the room was quiet.
“I’m Protector Lord Orlan,” he replied confidently, “This is Lady Lailra, my second in command, and Lady Nallia, my personal aide. Finally is Grandmaster Benimar of the Mage’s Spire.”
“Interesting,” the committee leader replied, not bothering to introduce himself but there was a nameplate for ‘William’ before him. Next to him the Grandmaster mage grumbled softly to himself, of everyone he was the only one who hadn’t wanted to come, but Orlan had felt that a representative from the spire was a good idea.
“According to the ID you showed our men your name is Orlando Eckhart,” William continued, “is there a reason you don’t use that name?”
“As a Protector Lord I’m required to give up all familial ties, from names to titles,” Orlan explained, “and I’ve always gone simply by Orlan, so I figured I’d just make it official.”
“I see,” William said, writing something down before continuing, “there are a number of reasons for this meeting. First on the schedule is your actions in Boston and Jefferson.”
“That’s where you want to start?” Orlan asked, surprised.
“Please refrain from talking unless asked a question,” William warned him with a mild glare over his glasses, “Now, the Senator from New Jersey is first, you have ten minutes.”
“Thankyou chairman,” another woman on the committee replied, taking a moment to gather her notes, “Now, Mr. Eckhart, accord-.”
“Call me Orlan,” the protector interrupted.
“Please don’t talk during my time,” the woman scowled at him before continuing, “according to news reports you employ quite destructive means during these ‘rift’ events as you call them.”
“Destructive how?” Orlan asked.
“As in damaging,” the woman insisted, “many buildings in Boston were damaged by your so-called magics.”
“We try to minimize collateral damage, if that’s what you’re asking,” Orlan said slowly, “but there’s only so much we can do when the monsters can punt a person through a solid wall.”
“But you admit to causing widespread damage?”
“The damage would have been worse if I hadn’t been present,” countered Orlan.
“And it never occurred to you to leave the situation to the military?”
“If the military had any chance of helping I’d consider it.”
“I understand you’ve been missing for over a decade, but according to our records you were a college student when you vanished,” she pressed, “I find it hard to believe that you, no matter what you went through, and a handful of girls could be more effective than the most powerful military on the planet.”
“Did you see what happened in Germany the other day?” Orlan asked, “do you honestly think-.”
“Mr. Eckhart,” the woman interrupted, “I’m reclaiming my time.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means it’s my turn to speak,” she snapped, glancing at the chairman before looking down at her notes, continuing after a moment, “now, after the events in Boston you resisted the agents sent to arrest you, is that correct?”
“The two squads of soldiers you sent to my island you mean?” Orlan asked with a raised eyebrow, “ya, I wasn’t going to just go with them.”
“So not only did you cause extensive collateral damage, injure several agents while resisting arrest, there are also reports of people dying after being treated by your people. Yet you insist you’re more effective than our own army. I would suggest that this man is as much of a danger to our nation as these monsters are, if not more so. We can’t simply allow vigilantes to go around causing such damage and loss of life,” the woman said, turning to the chairman before Orlan could respond, “that’s all I have to say Chairman.”
“Thank you senator,” the man in charge said as Orlan stood.
“Excuse me,” he growled, “do I get a chance to respond?”
“If someone wants to donate their time to you then you can speak,” the chairman replied, looking through the papers on his desk, “those are the rules.”
Next to Orlan both Lailra and Nallia were quite tense, their smiles strained as they clearly struggled to keep still and not draw their weapons. Orlan simply took a deep breath and sat down once more, he’d known this would be frustrating, he just had to deal with it. Eventually the next senator was called to speak.
“Now, Mr. Eckhart,” the rotund man started, the grinding of Orlan’s teeth almost audible across the room as he was once more called by his old name, “based on reports all your so-called knights are women, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Orlan started, “its due to a quirk of-.”
“Thank you, Mr. Eckhart, but it’s my time,” the senator interrupted, “and all of them are white, correct?”
“A few of the girls are from further south but-.”
“Please answer my question, Mr. Eckhart.”
“The majority of my knights are fair of skin, yes,” Orlan growled.
“According to the report, you also committed a racist act following the event in North Carolina,” he continued, “Do you have an issue with black people?”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Answer the question please.”
“No, why would I have-.”
“Thank you, Mr. Eckhart,” the senator once more interrupted, “perhaps you can explain why-.”
“A moment senator,” the chairman interrupted, “that was quite the accusation, surely Mr. Orlan deserves a chance to respond.”
“It’s my time, chairman, he can respond on his own time.”
“I’m going to pause your time then, give our guest a chance to defend himself,” the Chairman stated, nodding to Orlan.
“On the other side I spent most of my time in northern Eura and Siria,” Orlan said after taking another calming breath, “on this side that corresponds loosely to northern Europe and western Asia. Travel isn’t as common or easy on that side, and recruitment mostly comes from local populations, so it’s to be expected that most of my people resemble the populations native to those regions.”
“But you don’t have an issue with recruiting black people?” The chairman asked.
“No, I just never got the chance.”
“Objection, Chairman,” another senator spoke up, “but there are no reports of him being in Europe for the last few decades, much less of a flying island.”
“Because I was on the other side,” Orlan said dryly.
“Objection noted,” the chairman said with a slight glance at Orlan, before motioning to the second senator, “the gentleman from Michigan has the floor again.”
“So, Mr. Eckhart, you claim to have no objection to recruiting people of color,” the round man from earlier said, “then can you explain why you attempted to hand a banana to a black man in North Carolina?”
“Uhh,” Orlan started, completely caught off guard by the question, “because bananas are tasty?”
“Are you aware of the racial implications of such an action?”
“No?”
“I see,” the senator said, pausing to scribble something down, “I think it’s clear that, in addition to the issues pointed out by the lady from New Jersey, this Mr. Eckhart fails to live up to the values of the US. Hiring so many women is laudable, but completely ignoring people of color, and even showing distain towards them, I think proves he doesn’t value diversity. Thank you Chairman.”
Orlan was once more forced to stew as the chairman looked through his notes, eventually calling a senator from Texas next.
“You’ve never had to deal with politics like this, have you Mr. Orlan?” the senator asked with a sympathetic smile, “I think it’s important that people have the chance to defend themselves, so I’d like to ask you one question, and then donate the rest of my time so you can defend yourself. My one question is, what exactly happened in Boston?”
“Thank you,” Orlan sighed, grateful that at least one of the committee members seemed friendly, “What happened there, and in North Caroline and Germany, was what we call a Beast Rift. Basically a poorly understood event that deposits hundreds, or even thousands of magical monsters into the world over-.”
“Objection,” the senator from New Jersey interrupted, “this talk of magic is preposterous. Can we stick to scientific terms?”
“I tend to agree,” the chairman replied after a moment, “perhaps we should start with that, can you tell us what this so-called magic is?”
“It’s… magic,” Orlan said slowly, “by drawing energy called mana from the Aether we can influence the world in seemingly supernatural ways. For example, the giant flying island I use is kept aloft by powerful spells placed upon it a thousand years ago.”
“And these beasts can use magic?”
“In a sense,” Orlan replied, “to put it simply every living thing uses mana, even everyone in this room is only alive thanks to magic, in a sense. Of course most people barely require the tiniest gust of mana in their entire lives, but mages, like my knights and I, and monsters can draw on much greater amounts to empower ourselves. This manifests in a number of different ways, all of which are loosely called magic.”
“You can understand how hard this is to believe,” the chairman said, “with how common CGI is today it’s hard to believe what is seen on the news, can you provide an example? Something solid?”
“Sure, I actually prepared for this,” Orlan said, reaching out and pulling a small billet of metal from his personal space, “with enough mana it’s possible for inanimate objects to use mana as well, though in more limited ways. This is regular iron, mostly pure, making it rather brittle. Consider it a baseline, now, this is tier two iron,” Orlan continued pulling another small bar out, “as iron becomes imbued it becomes stronger and heavier, at tier two it’s weight will have about doubled.”
By way of demonstration he dropped first the mundane iron onto the table, which clattered loudly as it bounced a couple times, followed by the tier two iron which landed with more of a crack. Orlan reached out and pulled a third finger length bar before continuing.
“This is tier five iron, after tier three or four things tend to become rather… extreme. So while I’m certain you could, and will, try to explain the other bar with mundane concepts. I expect this one to be a bit more difficult,” he said and dropped the bar from the same height as the others, and the table bent and seemed to buckle as the bar crashed into it, nearly punching through the wooden top. For a long moment there was simply silence following the demonstration before the chairman spoke up.
“And are you willing to leave this… iron to be inspected?” he asked.
“Of course,” Orlan nodded, “I will recommend that, for the tier five bar, you handle it carefully. I doubt you could break it outside of a machine, but if it does break there’s a good chance it’ll release much of the mana within which could be dangerous.”
“I see…”