I climbed out of the stairwell and was greeted by pandemonium and sunlight. Turns out that the detonation of the leyline had already begun, causing a chain reaction or something. Bouts of flame sprung up from the ground randomly, spewing dirt and earth everywhere. The people around us were more concerned with fleeing the area than apprehending us, so I still considered the situation mostly under control.
However, a tug on my sleeve drew me back into reality.
“Hey, asshole,” A suspiciously angry voice said. I didn’t even need to look to tell it was Aris. “How do we get out?”
I quickly thought up an answer. “Uh, double jump over the barracks over there, hit that wall with two rockets-”
“Oh, forget I asked.”
“You got it!”
I focused. The only place that didn’t seem to be randomly blowing the fuck up was a small, definitely-not-yellow brick road that led to some stables, where I spotted some conveniently placed horses.
“Hey,” I began, being serious for once. Aris noticed and turned, confused. “See that road over there?”
“Uhm, yes, I do?”
“Well, the plan is simple. That is the only piece of land that hasn’t juiced yet. Whether it’s because of a lack of underground gas chambers or something is irrelevant. We make our way across that to the horses, and exfil.” I turned to face Aris and Ryan. “Got it?”
They nodded, and I turned back to the road. One small issue, though.
“Hah, hello there, NRA mongrels!” The sorcerer, wizard guy from earlier was standing there, negative the pointy hat. Positive the goons though, all wearing that special armor. And he was wearing a cape this time, for some reason. Fuck.
This was so not preem.
“The Noxonorean democratic movement shall not be snuffed out by the lackeys that the NRA sends to do its dirty work! Damn, NRA, always trying to put limits on what kind of weapons we can have!” The wizard said oddly specifically. Then he shook his head.
“But no longer! For with the power of the prong behind us, we are strong!” He triumphantly exclaimed.
I chuckled. “Buddy, you think you look strong?” I gestured at his fluttering back garment. “You wear a cape. You’re just a cheap fucking knockoff.”
Him and his goon squad looked at each other, confused.
I blinked, confused. “Wait, did you say democracy? As in, power-to-the-people democracy? Every-man-a-vote type democracy?”
The wizard scoffed. “Of course not! The unwashed masses should never have a say in how an empire is run. It is the learned scholars, the nobles, who-”
Ryan stepped forward, eyes bugged out. “MANAGED DEMOCRACY!?” He bellowed in anger.
I took a step back and unslung my rifle. “Nah man, vapo that shit. Light ‘em the fuck up!”
I fired off a short burst of bullets at the wizard and his crew before dashing off to the side, hunkering down behind a pile of rubble. The wizard put up a shield to block the bullets, then retaliated by sending a hail of sharp icicles flying at Ryan and Aris.
Their quick thinking saved them, however. They ducked behind other piles of debris, and Ryan returned fire with his rifle. I followed suit, but the magician just put his shield up again. It did stop the icicle rain, though. That was a plus.
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I racked my brain. The last time he had put up a shield, the only thing that stopped it was more magic. Then, the answer seemed obvious.
“RYAN!” I shouted across the road. The explosions around us muffled my voice, but he heard me. His head turned, and I saw the snarl on his face.
“Keep ‘em suppressed!” I shouted, and he gave a hand wave as confirmation before he began to smoke off rounds at the shielded wizard. Meanwhile, I reached around my bag to grab an object with a wooden handle. Pulling it to my front, I saw the staff.
Strangely, the crystal on its top was glowing more than usual. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, but it didn’t matter. I gripped it tightly, wondering what to do. Trial and error, maybe?
I risked a peek around my pile to aim the crystal end of the staff at the wizard, and yelled, “Expecto Patronum!”
Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. And Ryan happened to be reloading at that exact time, so I received a swarm of ice shards thrown at me for my troubles.
I tried different spells, but none of them seemed to work.
“Expelliarmus! Abracadabra! Open sesame!” I banged the butt of the staff against the ground. “Work, you fucking piece of rot!”
“HEY! DUMBASS!” A shout drew my attention. Crouched beside Ryan, an almost miniature form lay. It was Aris. She gestured at the staff, then mimicked a throwing action, which confused me. Why did she want to play baseball? Football was all anyone played now. I gave her a shrug in response.
She threw her head back and groaned, which I thought was a major overreaction. I just think the Red Sox had a higher skill base, that's all. Why was that offensive? Then, she surprised me when she leapt up out of the ditch she was in and charged across the road.
She dropped behind my pile, knocking my shoulder in the process. I was about to complain, but then she yanked the staff out of my hands, grabbed the catalyst from my bag, and before I could protest, stood up over the pile of rubble and shouted something even the translator ring didn’t interpret.
There was a huge flash of light and a strangely clear sound of glass shattering. It took a few moments for it to fade. When it did, me and Ryan didn’t waste the opportunity. We both stood up and went wild on the soldiers. They all fell in unison like bowling pins, their free trial on life having unfortunately expired.
I gazed at the fallen bodies for a moment before I turned to Aris, who was still holding the staff… and the catalyst, AKA my leverage. She eyed me in response for a moment, then something changed in her eyes, and she turned away.
Not knowing really what else to do, I turned to the fallen form of the wizard. His cape was singed and torn from whatever spell Aris had cast, and he was frantically drawing a… fucking pentagram on the ground!? What the fuck!?
I raised my rifle, determined to do God's work. “Hey buddy, battles over. And sorry, there's no happy ending. It ain’t that kind of massage parlor.”
He ignored me, and began muttering to himself while still scrambling to draw his little satanist thing. I glanced up at Ryan, uneasy. What was he doing?
I poked my gun against his head. “Uh, hellooo, buddy? Are ya spaced right now or something?”
He finally spoke, head tilting slightly. “Enemy of the North, Nurturer of the South. Persecuted of the Gods, Friend of the Sands. Unlord, take my body and vanquish my enemies, and my life, is yours…”
I didn’t like the sound of that, so I slammed a bullet right in his temple. But, just as I did, he drew a final line on his pentagram, and it suddenly lit up in shining red light. His body slumped to the ground, but the pentagram continued to shine brighter and brighter with demonic red light. I backed up from it slowly, as did Ryan. Aris brandished the staff with malicious intent, gazing at the redness with an increasing mix of fear and… awe?
With a scene ripped straight from an old flick called The Exorcist, the wizards body floated up and spread its arms out like a mockery of Jesus Christ on the cross. My eyes widened into saucers at the following scene.
His ribs lengthened, stretching against his robes until they suddenly and violently ripped open the skin. His chest rotted away, revealing a shining red light coming from within his organs, which were all glistening and producing a thick black substance.
Blood poured out of every orifice, even his pores, but it wasn’t as if he was bleeding. No, eventually the flow stopped and was replaced by the black goop before stopping completely. His blood was being replaced.
His skull grew until it exploded out of his head, growing into a deer-shaped skull. The antlers were a shiny black and red.
His bones extended out of his body further, the flesh rotting away as his limbs lengthened. His legs gained several feet on them and his feet were replaced by long hooves. His- you know what, I shouldn’t even call this thing by his- it’s arms grew as well, gaining claws.
Finally, its robes burned away, removing the last traces of humanity from it. It stood at around 15 feet tall, towering over all of us. It hung lifelessly in the air, then the pentagram rose off of the ground, spun rapidly in the air, then plunged into the body. The mutant shuddered, then dropped. It didn’t collapse, oh no.
It stood.
It stood unnervingly still, silently gazing ahead at nothing in particular. I took a small, tiny step back, then another when it didn’t react. Explosions still rang out around us. And I kept walking backwards, as did the others. Until I fucked up. I slipped a tiny bit on a pebble. I didn’t even hear the sound of the rock because of all the explosions.
Its head snapped to me with a crunch of bone, before snapping into action by moving unnaturally fast and bounding to me on all fours, SCREECHING as it did.
“IS THAT A FUCKING WENDIGO!?” I screamed, leaping to the side out of pure fear and shock, and it leapt past me, swiping at my head and missing by an inch. It regained control of its speed with incredible agility, grabbing onto the ground and stopping its inertia before making a sound that was like a mix between an endangered moose’s cry and a train.
Nobody wasted their time, the spell broken by its spring into action. Me and Ryan immediately switched off the semi auto mode and opened fire on the beast while Aris started using the catalyst to fling whatever magic she had at her disposal. All of that didn’t do shit, however.
It roared even louder, and took two long strides on its two back legs and swiped at Ryan. He managed to dodge, while I tossed a flashbang at it. I turned away just in time before it exploded. I heard the wendigo screech, and I didn’t waste this opportunity.
“GET TO THE FUCKING HORSES!” I bellowed, and we all sprinted as fast as we could to our only means of transportation.