Aella stood on the battlements, sword and shield in hand. Her heart was beating with a methodical rhythm, trained over the years never to waver, never to stop until she breathed her last. She was quite sure tonight would be the night it would beat for the last time.
She looked at the approaching force, the power that leaked from them staining the land red. To think their leader had chosen to use a Godstone simply to empower an army was ironic. He wanted power to rule the world, had been so desperate for it that when he held the one thing that could make him a god, he barely used a fraction of it.
Turner approached her, his robes swooshing with the wind and his staff glowing with a force far beyond Aella’s comprehension. It could be seen as funny that someone who had come from a world without magic had become one of its greatest masters. But even the man who had wiped an entire continent from the map when he’d lost his daughter looked grimly upon the army that marched towards them.
“So this is where it all ends huh?” he said. “Always thought I’d go out drawing in tits and booze, I suppose this is better. Blaze of glory and all that.” There was a sadness to Turner that he’d never quite been able to hide. Even as he’d made his home here, he’d always yearned for the world he came from, and losing his family had only made it worse.
Aella looked upon her ally, “If I’m to believe what I hear some of my men say, I’d think drowning in ‘tits and booze’, as you so poetically put it, is the better option. Must say though, I never expected our little rebellion to get this far. Seems like we did something good at least.”
Turner chuckled at that. “That we did, didn’t we?” Then his expression turned serious. “I just want to say, if this is really our last moment of peace, thank you. For everything you’ve done, for the times you pulled me out of the gutter, the times you helped me when I’d once again puked all over myself and for sticking with me when no one else would.”
“What are friends for?” Was Aella’s simple response.
The army was nearly within range so they both turned to their own. “ATTENTION!” Aella bellowed. A small force of no more than 100 men and women from all walks of life gathered in the courtyard. They looked tired, but there was this fire burning inside the eyes of each and every one of them.
“Outside these walls, the world we all loved is in cinders! Outside these walls, an army approaches that has taken our homes, killed our loved ones and destroyed everything we believed in! Will we take that lying down?”
“NO!”
“Will we let that army take this last bastion from us?”
“NO!”
“That’s what I wanted to hear. Any other group would have given up but you do not! You will not! For tonight, we decide the destiny of our world! TONIGHT WE MAKE THOSE BASTARDS PAY!”
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Mages hurled spells at the army, taking out countless of the soldiers. Warriors danced through the battle, ripping and tearing the army apart. Aella was proud. Small though their group of rebels may have been, they had still been trained by the greatest warrior and the greatest mage this world had ever seen.
Her blade moved faster than the eye could see, beheading a soldier here, stabbing another in the heart there. She moved with purpose and grace. Turner had disappeared before the battle started, attempting to fulfill their last plan. It was a ‘Hail Mary’ as he would put it, a last-ditch effort to put an end to the insanity. The more Aella killed, the slower she got. A coldness seeped into her bones, tugging at her mind and trying to break her will.
All around her, her soldiers broke down in tears before being swiftly killed by one of their opponents. Of course, this had been too easy against an army empowered by the Godstone.
She laughed as realization hit her about what was happening, as fallen soldiers rose when their killer had been put down. They would never defeat this army, they couldn’t. But they didn’t need to either, they just needed to stall until Turner completed the plan. She resolved herself and pushed through.
She still fights on.
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Turner ran faster than he’d ever run before. His magic flowed around him as it removed every trace of his existence. He’d been worried he wouldn’t be able to find the stone. He didn’t need to be. The closer he got to it, the more he felt it. This Otherworldly power seeping into this world.
He felt a kinship to it. It was not meant to exist here, not meant to be used like this. Turner understood that. He had felt that way himself. The stone seemed to pull him in, called out to him.
And then he saw it, in the hands of The Unmaker. They were no longer someone in the true sense of the world. The Unmaker was a part of his army. Any who succumbed to the calls of insanity before their death became a part of his army. This body was merely a vessel through which he channeled the stone’s power.
And the stone itself glowed as red as the army itself. Stories of the Godstone depicted it as an egglike sapphire and when Turner squinted he could see that it might have been that once but no more.
He reached out, ready to take the object that would be the key to saving so many lives. He was close, so close. His finger touched the stone and the Unmaker looked him straight in the eye.
“Did you really think you could steal from me?” His voice was low and menacing.
Turner looked him straight in the eye. “Yes, definitely.” And he poured his magic inside the stone, taking control. Everything was consumed by a blinding light.
When Turner opened his eyes he was sitting in front of a familiar face. Rullies, the goddess that had transported him to his new world smiled at him.
“It seems you’ve gotten your hands on one of our little trinkets.”
Turner looked around, the battle had stopped, time itself had stopped. “Lucky I did, otherwise this place would have been a barren wasteland. Not too many people to worship you then.”
Rullies was unfazed by the thought. “I have worlds far more populated than this one who worship me, it wouldn’t have ever registered to me if not for that thing in your hands.”
“Pragmatic as ever I see. Well, since I’ve got this little trinket and I’ve heard what you can do with it, explain to me how it works.”
“You are allowed” Rulies started, “to both change a fundamental law of the universe and by doing so ascend to godhood. Simply think it and it shall be so.”
Turner grinned, “Just what I was hoping for.” Rullies gasped as she felt the law take hold, rage filled her. The war was over, he’d won. And now, he’d make the lives of anyone who hadn’t struggled for their power a living hell.