Timber toppled like a felled tree, crashing into Hardhat.
She had messed up, was too slow.
She should’ve been in the lead when that dark cloud had snaked down the stairs.
Instead, Timber ran right into it.
And now the young ranger was dead. His front half a red, oozing ruin.
Armor, clothes, skin, muscle, bone, it had all been eaten away as if he had been splashed with the most corrosive acid in the world.
An instant.
He was gone.
All of his Skills had failed to save him.
All their defensive spells had failed.
“Air Blast!” Lasik pushed the cloud back, but not quickly enough.
It touched Bootleg Jesus’ arm.
The man screamed.
Skills did nothing.
Armor, clothes, flesh, bone dissolved in two blinks of the eye.
Hardhat pushed Timber’s body aside.
It was too late for him.
She pushed Bootleg Jesus down toward the rest of the squad.
The cloud reached her.
She felt her dad’s old construction hat vibrate.
She couldn’t see it, but she knew the bright yellow surface was cracking, flaking.
“Sarge! Sustained Air Blast!”
Lasik’s spell buffeted Hardhat and the cloud up the stairs.
A hand yanked on the back of her armor.
“Setting up magic shield! Sealing the stairwell!” Molds swiped frantically on a tablet, placing it on the landing. “Watch your step!”
Hardhat stumbled over it.
She was fine, but that instant in the cloud had hurt.
“Heals on the sarge!” Bluesilk called.
The tablet’s screen flashed a magic shield into existence, sealing the cloud to the upper stairs.
“I’m okay! Fall back to the next landing!” Hardhat snapped. “Babyapple, I want a ward! It’s eating through the shield.”
“On it!” the young ranger frantically traced arcane sigils on the wall and floor as the rangers above him rushed down.
Mold’s shield sparked and cracked as the dark cloud pressed against it.
“Done!” Babyapple said.
The sigils flared just as the tablet exploded.
“Oh shi—”
“Down, down, down!” Hardhat dragged Babyapple.
“It’s holding!” Babyapple whooped.
They retreated several floors before halting to reassess.
“Wait,” Greygrass scowled. “Where’s Timber?”
Hardhat exchanged flinty gazes with Aims and Dastardly.
“Some kind of cloud with a melting effect,” she said after a moment. “Ate through Skills and spells in an instant.”
“Awww, man…” Greygrass sighed.
“Molds, can you scan above us?” Aims said.
“Uh… yeah, that flare of mana sorta cleared out the interference,” she pulled out a laptop, “hey, Bluesilk, I need you to hold this for me.” Fingers flew, clacking away. Those with the capacity for magic saw the telltale glow of active mana around the device. “What am I looking for, sir?”
“Vitiator?”
“Traces, but I’m pretty sure he’s not up there anymore.”
“Ghost Sorcerer?”
“Also gone.”
“Gone ‘gone’?” Dastardly said.
“Traces, but nothing more.”
“Shit!” she replied.
“Um, ma’am, doesn’t mean he’s ‘gone’ gone.”
“What about that Dread Paladin asshole?” Dastardly said.
“Same.”
“Sounds like we have no reason to be here anymore,” Aims said.
“Timber…” Hardhat said flatly.
Aims nodded. “Can you trace the cloud to its source?” he said.
“On it,” Molds tapped away.
“Wards are holding, but I’m having to actively fuel them,” Babyapple warned.
“How long?” Hardhat said.
“Couple minutes,” he shrugged.
“Head back down,” Aims said. “Dastardly with me. Any second now, Molds.”
“Got it, sir. Likely source seems to be five floors above us,” she pointed.
“Alright, we’re coordinating. Squad Skill,” Aims activated it, linking him to Molds and Dastardly. He aimed his revolver at the direction Molds was pretty sure their target was located. “Ready?”
Dastardly loaded a special bolt in her enormous arbalest with a nod.
“You two, head down,” Aims waited for the two young rangers to disappear down past the next landing. “Fire in the hole.”
The thermite-like round burned through concrete and iron like a hot knife through butter.
Dastardly’s bolt screamed behind it after waiting a few seconds to let the small tunnel cool.
Several floors above, Cabal Elder Shax licked her lips.
That had been tasty, though she was disappointed that she hadn’t tasted more than the one. Anticipation built for more. That strange magic shielding wasn’t going to last much longer. She’d taste the rest then.
“What are you doing? We need to get out of here. The master isn’t in danger anymore,” Mammon huffed as he came down the stairs.
Shax ignored him, intent on her hands curled like a raptor’s talons as she pushed the dark cloud.
“Elder Mammon, Master Shax is killing our enemy as we speak. They’re learning what it means to face the Cabal,” one of the acolytes sneered.
“Okay, good,” Mammon nodded. “I’ll just head to the other si—”
His words and everyone on the floor were swallowed up by the explosion.
Dastardly stumbled as the stairwell rumbled.
Aims grabbed her and threw the both of them out into the corridor.
Fire chased them, licking at their backs.
The lights blinked, then went out.
Emergency lights at the end of the corridor came to life.
“C’mon. I don’t think we want to stick around too long,” Aims coughed.
“Yeah, we should get out of here before the whole thing comes crashing down,” Dastardly said.
They raced out into the front lobby where the other rangers had gathered.
Dead Cabal bodies littered the space.
The burning smell masked that of piss and shit.
“We left Timber,” Greygrass said.
Aims saw Hardhat’s jaw clench. “There was nothing we could’ve done,” he said. “Focus now, grieve later. The next spot on our quest tree is—”
A screech reached into his ears and wrung his brain like it was a wet rag.
He staggered.
“Danger!” someone screamed.
Was the building about to come down?
It was shaking or maybe that was just him.
“Out, now!” Hardhat barked.
Aims hung back, doing the head count.
Minus one, he reminded himself.
He was the last one out, boots crunching on the shattered glass.
The rain felt good, almost soothing. Warmer than it had any right to be.
“It’s not going away!” Vicks said. “I can’t— it’s all around me. Worse that ever before!”
“Oh God!” Babyapple’s eyes widened. “Molds, get a shield around everyone!”
Rayna’s Rangers acted without hesitation.
Training and experience showed their value and saved lives.
At least for the moment.
Molds held a smartphone over his head, casting a bright dome over everyone.
Babyapple frantically traced sigils on the parking lot asphalt. “Stay inside!” she snapped.
“Aww… fuck,” Dastardly muttered.
“Yeah,” Aims had a feeling and it wasn’t good.
A pinkish blur streaked out of the darkness, parting the curtains of rain.
Molds cursed as the shield broke an instant before the smartphone exploded.
That wasn’t good.
From what Aims knew that only happened when the damage far exceed the shield’s capacity in an instant.
“I’m not ready!” Babyapple screamed.
Aims fanned his revolver.
Not where the blur was, but where his finely honed instincts and Skill guided his hand.
It recoiled away from the young ranger’s exposed back.
Babyapple gasped at the demon revealed.
It stalked around them.
Just beyond the lights from Babyapple’s sigils.
“Finish your wards,” Hardhat’s voice was steel as she stepped out of the partially completed circle.
Earlier
Rai stood in the rain, overseeing the loading of confused pregnant women into the vehicles. He constantly checked the southeastern end of the street despite the fact that he couldn’t see that far with his natural eyes through the thick curtains of rain.
The warm and soothing rain, which didn’t track with how he had imagined the rain was in this part of the world. In a way it reminded him of home and its tropical rain forests.
“Not as humid here, which is nice,” he muttered.
“We’re almost done, Sgt. Spiritwalker,” Sakura whispered into his ear.
He stood like a statue, not willing to give the woman the satisfaction of seeing him jump.
She had beaten the eyes and ears of his guardian spirits… again.
“Good. And the exit route?”
“Ophrys said it was clear the last time I checked in. I’ll check again before we leave. It shouldn’t be a problem,” she gestured toward the east where the lights from the fires lit up the night with a deceptively warm glow.
The city was fighting.
At the king’s castle.
The hotel district where the outside forces were staying.
Not to mention the stadium that had been burning for some time.
Collared monsters have been released. Slaver King withdrew home protections.
The words in his head were accompanied by flashes.
The images were too quick to consciously process, but burned into his memory nonetheless.
Sakura grimaced. “Did you—”
“Yeah… not our problem. None of those places are on the exit route.”
“Nursery site 3 is,” Sakura said.
“There’s nothing we can do from here. We load the cars and get them to the camp like planned,” he glanced down the street and caught the frantic flashes of light. His eyes widened. “Incoming!” he snapped. “Hurry up the boarding process!”
“Danger sense!” a shout went up.
Ambrose’s usually steady hand was shaking from the way the lights wavered.
Spiritwalker drew on one of his bound spirits.
His eyes shined underneath the streetlight.
An angry mob marched up the street.
“They even have the torches,” he muttered.
He blinked.
The mob was gone.
In its place was a thick red cloud.
Another blink.
He stared into a pale, pink chest, human-like.
A blink.
Disorientation.
Emergency substitution technique was unpleasant when one was a passenger.
Spiritwalker tried not to vomit as Sakura tugged at his arm.
The demon held a cut log in its clawed hand, staring it with something like confusion.
Its face was smooth aside from the two black orbs for eyes.
A mouth split the smooth surface.
“Oh shit. That’s the demon, isn’t it?” Sakura hissed in his ear.
It focused on the two of them with a sharp-toothed leer.
The log in its hand exploded, showering them with splinters.
Spiritwalker had already acted.
A thought called on one of his spirits.
A shimmering form coalesced mid-leap, meeting the blurring demon a bare dozen feet from the two rangers.
The spirit wrapped a thick tail around the demon’s legs.
“Fuck! It’s fast with those backwards knees,” Sakura said.
The spirit sank claws into the demon’s body and teeth around its head.
Dark fur glowed with ethereal light.
The giant binturong spirit from his homeland struggled to grapple the demon.
“Get on the truck,” Spiritwalker said.
Only one remained.
The rest of the vehicles were red tail lights in the distance.
Rayna’s Rangers rushed to join him and Sakura.
Useless.
They were just going to die.
Everyone had been fully-briefed on the demon’s capabilities.
They were dead.
Spicy and Creep Chipmunk came running up the street, behind the demon.
The former paused to fire bursts into the demon’s back.
The latter put on a burst of speed, stolen from one of the shrunken animal heads on his belt.
He cut an ugly gash into the pale, pink flesh with his Igorot axe.
The cut healed as it was made.
“Get on the damn truck!” Spiritwaker snapped.
Oatmilk rapped the truck’s side, signaling the driver to take off. “Sorry, Sgt. Spiritwalker. Couldn’t hear you over the rain,” the stocky middle-aged man shrugged apologetically.
Spiritwalker’s head snapped back to the demon.
He felt his spirit’s destruction the instant it happened.
The demon blurred.
Sakura appeared in front of him.
Fingers moved quickly in front of her mouth.
She breathed a plume of fire.
The demon struck through the flames.
It paused with another log in its grasp.
The rangers opened fire.
Bullets peppered its flesh, only to be pushed back out in the next instant.
Spells scorched it, only for the effects to vanish in the next instant.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The demon hurled the log.
Spiritwalker sent a large, glowing catfish to swallow it before aiming for the demon.
It shredded his spirit into nothing from the inside.
Too fast.
Too close.
Creep Chipmunk dashed in with quickness and agility beyond human capability.
Two ineffective slashes.
Spicy screamed.
One effective back hand crushed Spiritwalker’s oldest friend through the window of the office building across the street.
The demon ignored Spicy’s taunting fire as it loomed over Spiritwalker.
Its black orbs seemed to sparkle with something like wry amusement.
Spiritwalker wondered briefly if his class gave him that particular insight.
“Take The Blow,” Oatmilk beat the falling hand.
Spiritwalker found himself behind the dark-skinned man.
The enchanted round shield was doubly strengthened by a Skill.
The strike against its surface brightened night into day for an instant.
Everything broke.
The enchantment.
The metal.
The wood.
The arm.
The Skill.
The demon plunged its hand into Oatmilk’s chest, treating his thick plate like paper.
The ranger choked blood, but fired back. His submachine gun spat a steady stream of bullets into the demon’s smooth face.
Creepy Chipmunk appeared out of nowhere, blood in his mouth.
Igorot axe carved straight through the demon’s arm, only for it to completely heal the instant after.
He cursed.
“Headhunter’s Decapitation!” he snarled.
The concave edge carved through the pale, pink neck.
Once again, it healed instantaneously.
Oatmilk twitched.
The other rangers gave everything they had.
The demon ate the man’s chest from within, leaving a gaping hole when it let him drop to the slick ground.
“Get clear!” Corpse Flower called out. He barely waited for Creepy Chipmunk to get out of the demon’s vicinity before he fired an acid mist bolt from his X-bow.
“Hold it!” Spiritwalker pleaded.
Spirits erupted from his body.
Their ethereal nature made them invulnerable to the acid.
Two knives spun out of Curious’ hands, sinking into the black orbs.
The demon struggled with the spirits as the acid mist continually ate away at its pale, pink skin.
“Panda! Can you lock it down?”
“I don’t know, sir, maybe, I’ll need time to find the right story,” Sketchy Panda said as a spectral book appeared in his hands, pages turning rapidly.
“Carnifex, I need a weakness.”
“I’ve been trying, sarge,” the brawny woman said. “I can’t get anything. It’s like it doesn’t have bones, muscles or tendons to target. Either that or it’s way too strong for my level.”
“A story about imprisonment, but a just one,” Sketchy Panda murmured.
“Hurry it up!” Curious threw a second pair of knives to replace the ones the demon pushed out.
The demon suddenly broke the spirits, rushing toward Sketchy Panda.
How was it determining its targets?
“In the Zone. Sweeping Strikes,” Wet Dreams strode in behind his shield and axe.
He lasted a full second before the demon threw him into the clinic.
“Oh fu—” Sketchy Panda stumbled back, spectral book vanishing.
The demon struck— air.
It found itself inside a building.
Something tingled on its back.
It pulled a small strip of cloth with a strange symbol written in red ink free.
Back on the street a few blocks away, Sakura gasped for breath. “Sorry… plant… tag… run back… line of sight. Never… substitution… distance before. Give… second… lead… away…”
“We’ll lead it away,” Corpse Flower said.
Creepy Chipmunk hobbled over supported by Spicy. “I can do it, if I get a heal,” he grunted.
“You’re bleeding internally!” Spicy snapped.
“Just need it fixed enough and I can push the limits for a while longer. Me and Sakura are the only ones that have a chance to last long enough with that thing chasing us for the rest of you to get away.”
Spiritwalker shook his head.
The demon had been toying with them.
He didn’t doubt that it could catch them without much trouble.
How much time did they have?
“Wet Dreams is busted up bad,” Four-toes came out of the clinic.
“I’ve got it!” Sketchy Panda said. “Paradise Lost. Where the devil is imprisoned in hell,” he read from a spectral book in his hands.
Spiritwalker blinked.
A pair of arms arced through the rain, blood spraying in their wake.
He didn’t know whose.
One was thin and lightly armored.
The other was muscular and heavily armored.
Rangers screamed.
A pale, pink blur was in their midst.
A headless, legless torso landed in front of Spiritwalker.
The armor— it was—
A spirit boiled out of him instinctively, blocking the demon’s grasping hand.
In its palm a circular mouth appeared, filled with rows of jagged teeth.
“Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree…” Sketchy Panda read.
Spectral pages flew from the book, affixing to the demon as the young ranger continued.
More and more swirled around the demon, wrapping it up like a mummy.
“It’s working,” Spicy whispered.
Spiritwalker dared to hope. “Everyone that can, go! I’ll stay with Panda. Call it in to command. Tell them we made contact with the demon and to send the countermeasures. We’ll hold it here for as long as we can.”
So said, a great explosion in the distance jarred them all, causing Sketchy Panda to lose his concentration.
The story wavered and stopped.
The demon burst loose from the pages.
Spiritwalker readied himself for death.
One that didn’t arrive.
The demon vanished with a gust of wind.
“There,” Spicy pointed in the distance.
A tall building was on fire.
Spiritwalker consulted the map he had memorized.
He realized what that building contained.
The surviving rangers scanned the darkness warily.
The danger sense had lessened greatly.
“What the hell just happened?” Sakura said.
“It found something more interesting,” Spiritwalker said. “Get this to command, now!” he snapped. “Tell them that the demon is heading for the Cabal HQ.”
“Aims’ and Hardhat’s squad,” Creepy Chipmunk caught his eye.
“We can’t warn them,” Spiritwalker said.
There was too much interference generated by the Cabal’s heinous rituals.
“Try anyways,” Creepy Chipmunk said.
----------------------------------------
They crashed into the battle like lightning and thunder.
The Left Fist of the Slaver King was an enormous man clad in a mix of thick steel and ceramic plates. He stood taller than basketball players of old and wider, stouter than the football linemen from the same era. All while being much faster and more athletic than any of those professionals judging by how quickly he moved through the melee without trampling over his own allies… much.
Sometimes it was just unavoidable and he had only one imperative.
Protect his king.
He clipped a fighting noble with the side of his armored leg, breaking bones and knocking her into a thick knot of people fighting. Slavers and former enslaved scattered like bowling pins in his wake.
“I can’t see the king,” he said.
Riding on his back and shoulders the Right Fist of the Slaver King stood higher. “On your nine o’clock,” she said flatly.
“They’re in the way,” he stared at the group firing spells and weapons from behind glowing magic shields.
“Not for long,” she fired a grenade into their midst.
A lanky young man caught it and hurled it back.
The grenade went high then suddenly sank straight back to them.
The Left Fist of the Slaver King struck it with the hammer side of his over-sized poleaxe.
The explosion showered him with ineffective shrapnel.
Thoom!
The Right Fist of the Slaver King fired another.
This one was melted out of the air by a young woman wielding a futuristic-looking pistol.
“How strong are those shields?”
“It’s magitech. I can’t tell exactly, but judging by the shots they’re taking… not a problem for you.”
“Hang on.”
The king needed them and the quickest way to his side was in a straight line right through their enemies.
“Trample Charge,” he muttered as he shot forward like a dragster launching off the line.
A man with an arm of wood and earth tried to trip him up with thorn-covered vines.
He barely slowed as he ripped through them with steps that shook the floor.
A middle-aged woman in strange armor and wielding a rifle sprayed him with an impossible stream of sharp projectiles.
They cut through his thick plates of steel and ceramics like they were cloth, drawing pinpricks of blood when they struck his Skill-toughened skin.
“Armor For King,” he muttered.
The rest of the projectiles bounced off.
Clinging to the handles and stirrups built into his backplate, the Right Fist of the Slaver King stuck a hand over his shoulder. “Acid Missile Barrage,” she said with that dead tone of hers, like she was reading out a recipe for pie rather than condemning a group of people to painful deaths.
Small orbs sizzled past his ear, trailing bright green light as they flew in multiple arcs.
“Mouth of the Endless Hunger,” a woman with pink-streaked hair raised her hands, conjuring a rip in space that made him sick to look at.
A hint of teeth, tongues and an endless void, into which the barrage inexorably flowed.
“I lost control of them,” the Right Fist of the Slaver King said.
The vague, nauseating mouth vanished as the woman sagged to the floor.
“Oh well,” she said flatly. “I’ll just do it again,” she cast the same spell.
This time there was no counter.
The green orbs struck the magic shields, causing the tablets emitting them to smoke and whine as the magical acid ate them.
“Slow down if you don’t want to get any on you,” she said.
He didn’t.
His armor was thick enough that the acid would fizzle out before it got close to his skin.
The young woman with the futuristic pistol fiddled with it frantically as he drew closer with frightening speed.
A big man rose to his feet, shaking his head groggily, before pointing a hand of metal and plastic.
Lighting arced through the rapidly dwindling space between them, playing across the surface of his armor, barely affecting him.
The Right Fist of the King wasn’t as tough, she gave out a strangled cry of pain.
Still, her presence remained clinging to his back, so he ignored her.
A wall of wood, earth and thorny vines erupted under his boots.
He stumbled, but only for an instant.
The young woman raised the pistol.
The fireball exploded in his face. Searing heat stole his air even as the flames found their way through the thin eye slits and small mouth holes to burn.
“Fast Heal,” the Right Fist of the Slaver King said.
Hot pain dissipated into cool comfort.
“Rapid Retreat!” the woman in the strange armor spoke quickly.
He crashed through a magic shield, shattering it like glass.
They had scattered just in time thanks to the aid provided by the Skill to avoid being trampled underneath his steel-clad boots.
Their leader continued to fire her strange rifle as she scrambled back.
He lashed out with his over-sized poleaxe one-handed, extending his reach.
Impossible strength hammered the axe head into the woman’s chest, cleaving straight through her rib—
Was what he had expected.
Instead, he hammered her into the floor, flat on her back.
When he pulled back his weapon all he saw was a small indentation in the woman’s strange armor.
He glanced at his steel edge.
It was ruined.
At least the woman wasn’t moving.
A small shape leapt on his face.
Something sharp and wet tried to stab into his eye slit.
He reached up with his free hand and ripped the attacker off.
What he held surprised him.
It was a petite, yet curvaceous young woman in a black dress. Perfect raven-black hair framed a beautiful face. Long lashes fluttered up at him. She graced him with a shy smile.
He felt a sudden urge to protect this woman from anything and everything.
“Charm magic or something,” a flat voice said from behind his shoulder, “Fire Spray.”
For the second time in a handful of seconds, great heat washed over his face.
The charming young woman in his hand screeched like an animal as the flames engulfed her head.
He tossed her writhing body to one side, shaking his head as the cloud of confusion cleared. “Thanks,” he muttered.
“You men are vulnerable through your dicks,” she said flatly.
“Ginessa!” the young woman fiddled with her futuristic pistol and drenched the burning woman with water.
It wasn’t a pretty sight, but the woman was still moving.
“Let’s go. The king needs us.”
“Right.”
“No. You stay and fight us,” another middle-aged woman, rough, scarred, a soldier from the cast of her features and the confident way she stood, gun in her hands.
The Left Fist of the Slaver King heard the taunt and had no choice but to turn and face the soldier.
She had to be at least Level 40 in her class if he couldn’t just outright ignore her.
He took a step.
She squeezed the trigger.
He stopped underneath the barrage of bullets.
“What are you doing? Just charge through like you usually do,” the Right Fist of the Slaver King said.
The bullets plinked off his armor.
She was right.
It shouldn’t have been a problem.
Yet, he couldn’t take a step forward.
All he could do was stand tall to keep his partner safe and cover his face with his arms.
“It’s fine. I’ll go when she needs to reload.”
The soldier’s assault rifle had a drum magazine, but it wouldn’t take long for her to empty it from the way she kept her finger on the trigger.
Yet, the stream didn’t stop when it should’ve.
Skills.
One suppressing him in place.
Another keeping the gun firing.
Something like automatic reload.
The woman went through what felt like another magazine when a hand darted from over his shoulder.
Green orbs streaked out, only to be blocked by sudden magic shields.
“Oscar, Tobin!” the soldier barked, “we’re coordinating. Spell guns first.”
Two others, a young man and woman flanked the grizzled soldier, raising those futuristic looking pistols.
The soldier stopped to reload.
He tried to charge and failed as Oscar fired a barrage of magic missiles from his spell gun.
When that stopped, Tobin fired small bolts of fire.
“The king needs us,” the Right Fist of the King said flatly as she risked raising her hand over his shoulder to launch acid magic missiles that where blocked by another magic shield.
He saw that those were the work of the big man with the metal and plastic hand. The man discarded a burned phone with each spell blocked, but it looked like he had a lot of those.
The soldier reloaded and resumed firing.
The other two holstered the spell guns and leveled their own assault rifles.
It appeared that the former couldn’t be reloaded. He filed that information away for later. It would be valuable to the king.
Together the three kept him pinned in place for what felt like an eternity.
“The king—”
“I know!” he snapped.
Use a Skill?
Or wait them out?
He decided on the latter.
The soldier couldn’t keep it up forever and the king was mighty.
“Counting down!” the soldier barked. “Commander!”
The woman in the strange armor sat up with a groan.
She should’ve been dead, chest smashed by the force of his blow even if he failed to do more than scratch her chest piece.
Instead, she stood, picking up her strange rifle.
“We can’t let them get to the Slaver King,” she coughed. “Oscar, Tobin, Cara, Hillary, exit plan. Take Ginessa with you.”
They stepped back and vanished.
“Magitech. Stealth field,” the Left Fist of the King said.
There was something like a ripple in the air, like wavering haze off a hot road moving away and through the chaotic melee.
“Also an ignore effect.”
Let them run away.
It didn’t matter.
The king took priority.
Soon.
The woman in strange armor continued to bark orders. “Del, I’m linking everyone to you. Can you handle it?”
“Yes, Watch Commander,” a sad-eyed man said.
No.
Not just sad.
There was a familiar look in the man’s weepy eyes.
He had seen it before in his own mother’s eyes nearly ten years ago.
When she stood in front of her children… what remained of her children.
His father was in pieces a short distance away.
The terrible monster had triumphed after a fight that felt like an eternity.
His mother held her axe.
Her look had said ‘no more’.
She had already lost her oldest.
His brother.
Brave.
Her husband.
Strong.
“You won’t take them away,” she had said.
It was grim determination in the certain knowledge that she’d die before the monster killed her remaining children.
Which is what happened.
She had succeeded.
In part.
Out of her three remaining children, only he had managed to escape the monsters claws long enough for help to save him.
The sad-eyed man had seen death and he’d do everything in his power to go first.
“I’m out!” the soldier said.
The Left Fist of the King suddenly felt free.
He stepped toward the soldier letting his grip slip all the way to the bottom of his long-handled poleaxe as he swung it. “Expanded Cleave.”
He aimed to catch more than the soldier with the table-wide extension to his axe head's cutting edge.
Eyes widened in surprise as the soldier and the others in his targeted arc ducked under the sweep a split-second ahead with perfect synchronization.
He wasn’t certain, but it looked as if they were already in movement before he had even began his strike.
“Solat’s Mire,” the Right Fist of the Slaver King pointed. “Do it again.”
The enemies boots sunk into the ugly morass that had replaced the hardwood flooring in a wide area.
“Expanded C—”
The Watch Commander cut through the wood haft of his weapon with an impossibly accurate stream of projectiles from her strange rifle.
Light and heat flashed across the corner of his eye.
A magic shield shattered, but blocked the spell before it could strike the Watch Commander.
The big man with the metal and plastic hand cursed as the phone in his hand burst into flames.
The Left Fist of the Slaver King glared at the soldier, pointing at her even as he shifted his grip on his weapon’s broken haft. He made his intention clear as he raised the splintered wood like a javelin.
He hurled it with the speed and power of a ballista bolt— right at the sad-eyed man.
The feint proved fruitless.
The man with the arm of wood and earth had somehow seen through it. He had already raised a wooden barrier.
Jagged splinters showered the area.
A dark beam of thin energy shot through the hole in the barrier.
The Right Fist of the Slaver King’s spell trailed his javelin.
Extensive practice and Skills allowed them to work in concert with perfect coordination without the need for words just as a man’s hands did.
The beam zipped over the sad-eyed man’s helmet as he ducked, continuing until it melted another person fighting in the chaotic melee.
Again, their enemies displayed their own perfect coordination, but it was more than that. They anticipated everything. As if they knew the attacks were coming.
“Max, can you do something about this mire?” the Watch Commander said.
“It feels beyond me, but I can try to harden it,” he plunged his wood and earth hand down into it. “Rest is up to you.”
“He’s going to do it… slowly,” the Right Fist of the Slaver King said.
“Then stop him.”
Spells flew and were blocked or countered.
“I understand now. Foresight or precognition Skill,” she pointed at the sad-eyed man, “shared with everyone through her command and control Skill,” she pointed at the Watch Commander. “Recommend killing him. Her armor will take a lot of effort to breach.”
Meanwhile their king needed them.
How much time had passed since he called for them?
Minutes.
Too much time.
Fights could be decided in seconds.
He made a decision.
“The king needs us. You’ll go first.”
The Right Fist of the Slaver King’s protest was cut off by the force of his throw.
Their enemies fired at her as she arced through the air.
She blocked every shot with a magic shield until she was out of sight, hopefully close enough to aid their king.
He picked up the broken remains of table and hurled it at the sad-eyed man.
A crackling blue-white claw of lightning rent it asunder.
The big man had freed himself from the hardened mire.
That took strength beyond the norm.
“Go for the eyes, Mr. Bigglesworth!”
A flash of movement.
Followed by pain.
He swatted at his face.
Blinking the tears away.
He felt his helmet.
It was intact.
His vision cleared, though the pain remained.
A small, twisted thing sat on the pink-haired woman’s shoulder.
Like one of those hairless cats, except bipedal and with a smug look on it’s face.
It waved it’s claws mockingly, trailing ethereal wisps of pinkish magic.
A growl escaped his throat.
He raised a foot and brought it down.
Earthshaker Stomp!
Violent shaking broke the floor and knocked everyone off their feet in a hundred-foot radius… with one exception.
The Left Fist of the Slaver King’s boots broke the hardening mire, it couldn’t hold him.
He kicked the soldier’s assault rifle into pieces, then stomped into her armored chest.
Bone broke.
Blood from her mouth painted his greaves.
She grasped his ankle, but he tore free with ease, breaking fingers in passing.
The grasping vines cast by the one called Max barely slowed him.
The big man with the claw of crackling lightning was the quickest to his feet.
They traded blows.
Lightning scorched thick steel plate, while the sledgehammer-like punches of spiked gauntlets burst magic shields and the smartphones that cast them.
He reached down and ripped the man’s helmet off before backhanding him.
Cheek flesh ripped, teeth flew, and jaw shattered as the man spun like an out of control top before crashing to the ground in an unmoving heap.
He reached the sad-eyed man, who glared up at him defiantly.
Raised his fist.
A looming shadow of doom fell on the man’s face.
He saw his mother.
Hesitation.
Thorns bounced off his armor.
An unearthly shriek.
Instinct forced him to spin.
Impact!