Now, Mexico
An enraged howl rang out over the sound of thunder.
Tlaloc wasn’t happy.
The man hadn’t yet displayed the ability to summon the axe to his hand, but why not just make it just a little more difficult.
The little Cal had read about the mythological Tlaloc back at the museum didn’t mention anything about an obsidian axe with special powers. At least nothing named and famous like another mythical weapon and god that he couldn’t help but notice bared some thematic resemblance to the actual man currently thundering through the jungle like an enraged elephant.
“You threw my axe into the ocean, contemptible person!” Tlaloc roared.
The big man barreled toward Cal.
Predictable… however it was a feint.
Cal cheated. He scanned thoughts. Unfair? Yeah.
He jumped forward instead of to the side or back.
The spears of water missed him completely.
Mythological Tlaloc was the god of rain. He was also considered a giver of life and sustenance. The god of fertile earth and water.
The rain water turned into a battering ram that sent him into the air before he could give Tlaloc another throat punch.
A precious second of making Cal take a turn at being a frisbee allowed Tlaloc to super jump half way to his axe.
“Can’t get separated too long? Or too far? Mix of the two,” Cal mused.
Cal had the advantage of flight.
He cut Tlaloc off at the beach.
“I’ll get the axe back for you if you promise that you’ll give me that sunrise you said you would.”
“Get out of my way, prostitute,” Tlaloc said.
Cal blinked. “Oh… I get it. You shouldn’t use words like that. There’s no need for slurs.”
Tlaloc frowned. “I forget sometimes. You young people. Changing things. It’s good. Just hard for old men like me. Get out of my way, asshole.”
The storm overhead grew stronger.
Cal had to brace himself against the hurricane winds to stay in place.
Lightning painted the sky in eerie reds.
Thunder threatened to drown out the sounds of crashing waves.
“You know, I’ve been holding back,” he said lightly. “I’m not above knocking you out.”
Tlaloc crossed his arms. “I’ve also been holding back.”
“Well… I’ve been holding back more.”
“No. That’s wrong. I have.”
“No way, old man. I’ve obviously been the one holding back the most. You’re the one that started the fight. A fight that I’m talking in the middle of… talking… in the middle of a fight…” he crossed his arms, “I have the literal and moral high ground.”
Tlaloc said nothing.
The big man suddenly leapt leaving great cloud of sand in his wake.
Cal dropped down to avoid the crushing bear hug.
Tlaloc hit the ocean.
“Shouldn’t fight over the ocean if you can’t fl—”
Cal ate his words.
Tlaloc was standing on the surface of the water.
“Right, you control water too,” he sighed.
Tlaloc leapt again.
Cal dodged again.
Angry red lightning struck out of the clouds.
Too fast to dodge.
Not strong enough to pierce his telekinetic shield.
Strong enough to stab a slight twinge of pain into his brain.
Lightning strikes bombarded him.
He swerved and dodged only taking less than a third of the strikes.
Red arcs played across the surface of the ocean like spreading cracks in a damaged window pane.
Tlaloc stood like an impassive statue as the arcs danced across his wet skin.
It seemed that the so-called god of rain couldn’t attack with multiple abilities at the same time. It was either the lightning or the water.
On the downside it didn’t look like Tlaloc was in that big of a hurry to get his axe back.
Cal reached out with his mind and churned the waters underneath Tlaloc’s feet in an effort to break the surface tension.
Once again magic triumphed over science as the attempt did nothing.
Even as the waters roiled, Tlaloc stood unbothered.
“You run around like a scared cat!” Tlaloc jeered.
He pulled up a literal ton of water and swamped Tlaloc by way of a reply.
Tlaloc didn’t look amused. “I control water. That accomplished nothing.”
“You look like a wet cat,” he shrugged.
Tlaloc shot him the middle finger and turned the sideways rain drops into deadly sharp needles—
They broke on his telekinetic shield.
The magic or power simply turned the water into sharp objects. Sure, it made them as strong or stronger than something like steel, but that made them just as easy to block as bullets.
Now, if Tlaloc had been able to imbue an added magic bonus to them then maybe they’d be a bit harder to deal with.
“Look, old man. This is just a waste of both our time and energy. Why don’t we just sit down and have that chat? Then we can both get back to beating up the scumbags that actually deserve it.”
“You come to my place and make demands? You Americans have always been like this. Throwing your weight around, thinking everyone should kiss the ground you walk on just because your ancestors got lucky and stole our lands.”
Cal blinked. “Dude, look at me… I’ve got more in common with you. Colonizing bastards screwed both our ancestors.” Literally and figuratively.
“And you’ve gotten even worse. You bring your collars. You take people. You make the world even worse than it already is. You’d think the spires and monsters would make you change. But it only made you worse!” Tlaloc spat. “Or maybe it just gave you the excuse to show your true selves.”
“Dude! Are you deaf? I’m going to fuck those shits up! But I need to do it without killing the enslaved or destroying their minds. You can do that. Tell me how? Help me.”
“Lies. That is all you people have brought with you. You won’t trick me again.”
Pillars of water surged out of the ocean stabbing toward Cal. He shattered them with a thought.
Lightning struck dancing through all the water in the air, conducted to the water on the surface of his shield. Reddish pink arcs played over his vision, across his body.
“Pretty lights… kinda tickles.”
“You mock me,” Tlaloc growled.
“Willful dumbasses get clowned, bro.”
He chopped Tlaloc’s legs out from under the man and punched him into the turbulent waters. All while flying a hundred feet away.
He put out a call while he waited for Tlaloc to swim back up.
The seafloor wasn’t too deep this far out, only about 30 feet.
Tlaloc hit the bottom, immediately planted his feet and jumped. He shot out of the surface like a cruise missile.
Cal slapped him farther out. Where the water was deep, dark, cold and full of terrible monsters.
It’d be a good test of Tlaloc’s capabilities and tire him out enough that Cal could restrain him enough to force an actual conversation like proper adults.
This whole misunderstanding fight thing was just stupid.
Tlaloc pulled himself out to stand on the surface and shake a fist at Cal.
Cal raised a brow.
He knew what was about to happen.
A 20-foot-long great white landshark swam through the depths. The mutant creature was slower, less agile than a true shark owing to the fact that it had four legs. However, it was still incredibly powerful. It surge almost vertically with great sweeps of its muscular tail and swam like a swimmer with its legs.
Jaws opened wide it clamped down on half of Tlaloc’s body.
Cal saw it all in slow motion.
Rows of razor-sharp teeth closed on dark, bronze skin. Then shattered. Leaving tiny indentations.
“Didn’t even break his skin,” Cal mused.
The landshark trashed as it continued to bite down, too stupid or maddened to care about its broken teeth as it descended deeper.
Tlaloc reached around its huge head and ripped its eye out.
The god of rain forced the landshark’s mouth open and ripped it apart in an impressive display of strength and savagery.
Blood reddened the waters in a wide swathe around him as the landshark’s body slowly sank.
More predators swam in from the deep.
Cal had merely drawn them in.
The blood and violence merely set them off in a frenzy.
More landsharks swam in.
Some went for the corpse.
Others went for Tlaloc.
They bit his arms, his legs.
He flexed his muscles, harder than steel.
Teeth broke, jaws broke.
He tore chunks out of their tough skin and flesh with his bare hands.
Normal and mutant sharks moved in as well.
Everyone fought everyone for a bite.
Cal flew overhead watching the action from a safe distance.
The storm continued to rage above.
“C’mon, man… is this really how you want to spend your time?” Cal made sure Tlaloc could hear the words despite being under water in the middle of a feeding frenzy. He also made it so Tlaloc wouldn’t question the fact. “Look, I’ll pull you out. You listen to me for a few minutes over some drinks and grilled meats. You help me, I help you. We destroy a bunch of slavers. Free the enslaved. Make a better world for everyone…”
Tlaloc roared by way of response sending enraged bubbles to the roiling surface.
Cal felt a surge of power radiate from the man.
Something tore through the water like a supersonic torpedo.
It cleaved through the press of creatures around Tlaloc breaking and cutting through tons of thick skin and muscle to fit in his hands.
The obsidian axe.
“Okay, okay,” Cal nodded, “it can do the whole returning to the hand thing,” he marked the box on the mental checklist.
Tlaloc whirled the axe around him moving nearly as fast as he would’ve out of the water.
Gibbed chunks of monsters and animals swirled around Tlaloc like he was in the middle of a blender making the most disgusting meat smoothie in the world.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He swam to the surface surrounded by a chum slick hundreds of yards in diameter.
“Is that all you have? Summoning monsters? And you expect me to believe that you aren’t evil?” Tlaloc roared. “Contemptible person! Fight me properly and I’ll make the world a better place by separating your head from your neck!”
“For the record, I didn’t magic summon anything. Also, I had zero involvement in what’s coming. That was all you. All that blood and action was what brought it over.”
Something worse than the landsharks and other predators drew closer.
It was larger than even the largest great white.
The front half was that of a shark, while the back half was that of an octopus’ tentacles.
“What?” Tlaloc’s eyes narrowed. He scanned the waters around him, head on a swivel.
Tentacles as thick around as the big man’s massive thighs struck dragging him back into the water.
“Huh?” Cal realized something. “Am I the boss monster?”
In for a penny, in for a dollar.
He cast his thoughts farther out. Tlaloc was still going strong. This sharktopus probably wasn’t going to be enough. A grin spread across his face. He found something several miles away, nearly a thousand feet down on the sea floor. Hidden within a seafloor canyon was a settlement filled with some old acquaintances.
“Well, look at that… a lucky coincidence.”
Are you there, Deep Azure? It’s me, he thought. No?
Silence.
----------------------------------------
Tentacles wrapped around every inch of him. Even his head.
Sharp teeth in the suction cups rasped against his skin. Tearing his pants. Scratching him. An annoyance.
He struggled for the leverage to tear free but the strange monster made it difficult spinning him through the water toward its waiting teeth-filled mouth large enough to swallow him whole.
He had seen strange monsters and mutated animals.
This blend of shark and octopus was somewhere near the top of that list.
He let the lightning within loose.
The monster didn’t react.
Perhaps its skin protected it somehow?
It was an unnatural creature. Nothing said that it had to have the qualities of a real animal. Indeed, it appeared to be resistant to thousands of volts of magical lightning.
Tlaloc opened his mouth and bit down on part of the tentacle covering his face.
He worried his head back and forth.
The monster flesh was rubbery and tasted foul.
He spat it out and sent the lightning into the open wound.
The monster spasmed.
Immense pressure gripped Tlaloc as the tentacles tightened reflexively.
He readied himself.
The instant they relaxed a fraction he surged with all his strength.
He pulled free enough to get a good angle with his axe.
The dark water churned with the monster’s blood mixed with a dark, inky substance that clung to Tlaloc and irritated his eyes.
Lightning surged forth with his will boiling the water around him and burning the substance away.
The shark mouth came from behind.
He struck it with a fist sending it deeper.
Its remaining tentacles came for him again.
He sliced them to bits.
He had always hated seafood.
It came for him one more time crazed beyond reason.
That’s how he could tell the difference between a natural animal and a monster.
The former didn’t attack without cause. Hunger or fear. They didn’t simply kill for the sake of killing. More importantly, they did their best to avoid injury and death.
This monsters bled from its severed tentacles. Its jaws flopped oddly from where he had broken some bones with his punch. And yet it came on.
He ended it, like many things, with an axe to the head.
The impossibly sharp obsidian blade sunk deep into the shark head.
Red arcs of lightning danced across his arms, up the haft, to the blade and into the monster charring it from within.
The blackened carcass slowly sank into the dark depths.
Tlaloc swam upward for what felt like the tenth time.
The noisy American was no longer a simple annoyance. He was a dangerous threat that needed to be dealt with lest he cause pain and suffering for the people.
They may have shared a similar skin tone, but Tlaloc knew the man for what he was as soon as he had spoken. He heard the English beneath even though the universal translation system had made the man’s words come out in Spanish.
The lies wouldn’t fool him.
The Americans were the ones that had brought slaves to their country centuries ago so he wasn’t surprised that they were the ones to bring it back.
His time under the collar was a vague haze in his memories but he knew that he had suffered.
The knowledge that the man he was had actually loved that existence fueled the storm within him.
Never again!
No one would live in chains!
Let those that held them die!
He surfaced.
“Ready to talk?” the short man said from where he floated in the sky unbothered by the rain and wind.
Tlaloc climbed out of the water hardening the surface for him to stand on.
No more talk.
He thrust his axe to the sky and called down the lightning.
A gigantic bolt of dark, angry red shattered the sky and struck the man in the back.
The man fell, tumbling for a dozen feet before righting himself.
Tlaloc mastered his expression. He couldn’t let the shock show. He had felled a giant, feathered serpent with a similar bolt.
The man didn’t look bothered.
Even his shirt looked pristine aside from being muddy and wet.
“Guess you’re not tired yet,” the man sighed. “So… there’s a bunch of bad men down on the ocean floor. I call them ‘men’, but they’re more like fishmen. Anyways, they worship this sort of eldritch godling. Bad news. Cults with gifts that turn them into part seafood. Enslaving innocent women to—” the man grimaced, “breed. I know you’d hate that sort of thing. So… deep breath and have at it.”
Before he could react, Tlaloc found himself thrust roughly back into the ocean.
He was getting tired of that.
He struggled but he couldn’t fight against the force shoving, dragging him deeper into the cold darkness.
His one consolation was he did get that deep breath and he could hold it well beyond the limits of human possibility.
In fact, he wasn’t certain, but his recent experience made him think that he might not have needed to breathe.
A dim glow shined ahead.
It came from a narrow canyon on the ocean floor.
As he got closer he saw clumps of things that resembled grass on the rocks.
They glowed.
How was that possible?
Magic…
Then he them.
Structures.
Like coral reefs.
A net-like dome surrounded the tiny settlement.
He felt the magic emanating from it.
It felt dangerous.
He realized what it was.
Like an electric fence to keep out animals.
Except this was meant to keep out things like those landsharks and that strange blend of shark and octopus.
Shapes swam inside the dome.
Humanoid.
The fishmen.
Did he believe the man?
Were they truly guilty of such a heinous crime? Did they serve a great evil?
It would be very American for the man to pit his enemies against each other. Divide and conquer. That’s how they always did things.
The point would become moot as things came out of the deep.
Giant creatures resembling crocodiles but with flippers instead of feet came at him.
Two of them.
The size of small buses.
Each ridden by a dozen fishmen.
Thin, sharp spines fired from weapons of bone and sinew peppered him.
They stung but failed to penetrate his flesh.
One of the creatures swung around him allowing the fishmen to continue to fire.
The other came straight on mouth opened wide.
Teeth the length of his arm didn’t bother him.
Not with the power of the storm in his veins.
A bolt of red lightning lit up the darkness for a moment before it lanced into the creature’s throat.
The creature spasmed throwing the fishmen off.
Tlaloc ignored the fired spines and swam forward with mighty kicks.
The fishmen were adapted to the ocean.
Their bodies were strong to withstand the pressures. Their hands and feet were over-sized and webbed to propel them with great speed. They even had magic suited to the environment.
None of it mattered.
He was more powerful in every way.
He controlled the water.
He pulled the fishmen to him.
His axe colored the water with their blood.
The other creature veered away and swam for the domed settlement.
That’s how Tlaloc knew that these fishmen were thinking beings.
They knew an impossible fight when they saw it and they didn’t waste their time.
He regarded the dome and the fishmen within.
They rushed about like a school of fish with a shark circling around them.
The American had called them evil.
He couldn’t trust the man’s words even though the fishmen had attacked him.
Truthfully, he would’ve done the same if he saw a power-filled stranger approaching at high speeds.
There was no way for him to talk to them to find out the truth.
The irony wasn’t lost on him.
It was too hard.
He didn’t want to think too hard.
He preferred killing slavers.
There had been no question in that.
Those that held the chains to collars died.
He freed the enslaved and brought them under his protection.
One day he’d free all his people.
Then he’d move on to the rest of the world.
He turned and swam for the surface.
The American wasn’t to be trusted.
However, Tlaloc decided that he’d be a fool not to examine the man’s words.
If what the man said about the source of the collars was true then it was his responsibility to go to it and destroy their makers.
All he need to do was to properly beat the man and restrain him.
Bring the American to one of the mages he knew that could cast the truth spell.
He shot out of the surface toward the man.
Obsidian axe crackling with red lightning as the storm’s winds propelled him higher, further, faster.
----------------------------------------
Cal flew through the sky dodging lighting strikes and that ridiculously large axe.
Tlaloc pursued him. Running and jumping on platforms of hardened water.
The magic of Tlaloc’s ability made it too hard for Cal to disperse them quickly enough.
Cal couldn’t help but be exasperated.
The rain god had actually spared the fishmen settlement.
He supposed it made sense since Tlaloc didn’t trust him.
It actually spoke well to the man’s character. He hadn’t taken Cal’s words at face value, which was actually the ethical course of action.
Tlaloc wanted confirmation.
Fair enough.
Cal was inclined to give it to him.
The idea of using a truth spell was a good one. He just wasn’t willing to go along with it under the duress of being beaten up.
The irony didn’t escape him.
Still, it was a good display of character on Tlaloc’s part. It made it that much more desirable for Cal to get the rain god on the same page.
Now… how did he get to the part with the truth spell without taking some hits?
He led Tlaloc back over land.
The miles passed quickly.
The raging storm followed.
Monstrous minds littered the jungles below. They inhabited the abandoned towns and cities on the Yucatan.
Cal remembered the map and his plans.
They were going to check out the ruins of Palenque.
It was undoubtedly a spawn zone by this point judging by the lack of humanity in the general area.
A thought occurred to him.
He had failed to get Tlaloc to destroy the fishmen settlement.
There was no ambiguity with monsters.
Not when the spires would provide all the confirmation one wanted.
The red lightning and enervating rain continued to batter his shields.
He felt a trickle of wetness leak from one nostrils.
Tlaloc grinned.
“The air is a little dry,” Cal shrugged.
“You’re a terrible liar, contemptible person. But don’t worry, I’ll teach you to tell the truth.”
“Huh? You just reminded me of something,” he snapped his fingers.
Tlaloc leapt off a water platform and swung his axe.
He flew backward out of reach.
“I know mages that can cast a truth spell. I’d be willing to tell you all about the slave kingdom with one of them around to verify.”
Tlaloc regarded him with suspicion. “Yes… after I subdue you.”
Red lightning streaked from multiple directions bombarding Cal’s telekinetic shield.
He continued to fly westward.
There!
He saw it in the distance.
The ruins of Palenque.
Mayan. Not Aztec, like Tlaloc. Er… the mythological Tlaloc.
He flew lower.
Tlaloc leapt in pursuit.
He spun, grabbed the man with telekinesis and threw him at the ruins.
Tlaloc crashed through one of the pyramids. Stone shattered and sent a great cloud of dirt and debris up.
“Oops…”
The spires would probably repair that.
But… did that mean that the original ruins would be forever altered. No longer original, just a copy magically brought into existence by the spires.
Was it so bad if it was an exact copy?
They had done experiments before.
Breaking stores and buildings.
Having the spires system repair them.
They couldn’t tell the difference underneath the microscopes, through spells and Skills.
It had been as if nothing had changed.
Then again the one of a kind ruins of human history occupied a few notches up the rung of importance compared to a Walmart or a random apartment building.
Cal descended to the ground and calmly watched Tlaloc climb out of the crater in the side of the pyramid.
“Typical American. You care nothing for other people’s heritage.”
“You keep going on about that. Do I look like kind of guy that brought ‘freedom’ to brown people’s countries while not so secretly taking every valuable resource they had? Besides, there is no more America. Like there is no more Mexico. Or every other country in the world. We are all just trying to stave off extinction.”
“If you aren’t that… then what are you?”
“Just a dude trying to do only good… everyday…”
“Attacking me is good?”
“Okay, dude… you attacked me first.”
“But you invaded my cou— land, foreigner,” Tlaloc grunted. “You asked no permission.”
“Well, sorry about that. There wasn’t any place to get my passport stamped,” Cal said flatly.
“Permission from me,” Tlaloc growled.
“Oh? You aren’t exactly easy to find. It’s not like you have an office.”
The spires spoke suddenly. Words in their ears and text in their vision.
Palenque: Active Spawn Zone.
“Why did you bring us here?” Tlaloc said.
“To prove you wrong.”
That was when the monsters attacked.