Tel could only spare a second to look at the creatures lunging over the water. They’d been wrong to think the monsters would wait until the dam was completed before finding a way across.
Neela, Born, Doctor Pain, and a bunch of people Tel didn’t know by name already fought along the shoreline, their hands full just with the Twitchers. It’d only be seconds until the rest of the normal – if they could even be called that – creatures rushed them from the side. As soon as they did, with their weakened magic, it would be over for them.
He needed to do something… now.
“No,” Tel grimaced. The whole point of this – of embracing who he was before – was to save these people he considered friends. As it was, with little more than a dribble of chaos energy, there was no way they could win, or even hope to survive.
They needed more energy, and there was only one way he could do that.
Tel tuned the Voice out and concentrated on the chaos energy swirling around him, on the two portals opening on either side. Those portals were the key, but if things stayed as they were, it would take at least another minute before they were ready. He’d had to limit the power funneling into them, the pain of it already at the threshold of being too much for him.
“Time to take the limit off,” Tel said, gritting his teeth against what was coming, and then just… let go.
The controlled power flowing through him burst in a deluge that washed over his consciousness. The world vanished in a flash of pink, and it was everything he could do hold it together enough to keep directing that rampant energy into the two portals.
Pure chaos roiled around his body, like it was flaying his skin and growing it right back in alternating seconds. Air turned to water to fire and stone and back again, filling his lungs and clogging his throat. He floated then fell, expanded like he was an overfilled water skin, then compressed like the entire ocean sat on his chest.
Images of his past flooded out of the door in his mind. Hiding from the other kids in the woods. A quiet tree with a hanging noose. The wobbly stool under his toes as he strained to stay upright. The pressure on his throat as the rope closed. The silver hand on his shoulder as the orphanage burned, his anger burning to match. A dead body in black and white lying on the street in front of him. Running as more black and white chased him, dogging his every step. A valley, fire and destruction raining all around, and a small town caught in the crossfire.
Regret. At what he’d done. At what he’d become. The mountain he locked himself away in to hide from the past and to protect others from him.
Shara, and the cracks in the walls he’d built around himself.
He held on to that last image, of her offering her hand from the back of her stupidly named horse. If he’d never met her, he wouldn’t be here now. But maybe she still would be. And he had the chance to protect her.
He wasn’t going to fail.
Tel screamed at the energy trying to tear him apart from the inside out, not even a second having passed since he opened the floodgates despite how long it felt, and poured everything into the two portals.
A sound like reality rending itself apart echoed from both sides of him, and something stirred beyond the open door in his mind.
“Come on,” he yelled through gritted teeth, pushing on the darkness, and the tornados of pink energy exploded apart as massive clocks rose from the gap formed by the rotating gears on the ground. Each fifty feet tall, numerous clock-faces dotted the huge brass-coloured constructs, and Tel fell to one knee as he activated the machines with a thought. Two dozen second-hands started simultaneously, the resonance field created by their perfect measurement of time spiraling out in a pink sphere that rolled down the hill and across the river in single tick, butterflies the size of hawks slicing through the air.
“That should help,” Tel whispered as the other measurement systems installed in the clocks purred to life, numbers and readings blinking. “Good luck, Shara.”
*
Shara snapped her chain-fist in front of her, deflecting the spiked appendage just in time, then backpedaled and spun. Around came the metal fist to connect with a muted whomp, and the creature stumbled back a step, stunned but not really injured. Not wanting to give it a chance to recover, she charged back in, leaping into the air for another spin to build up momentum, and brought her arm up and over for a powerful downward swing.
As soon as her feet left the ground, a wall of pink washed over her, but she didn’t have time to consider it, and finished the rotation of her swing.
WHOOOOOOOMP, the fist came down on the poor creature with a corona of energy as big as she was, and the resulting concussive wave hurled them in opposite directions. Shara flew through the tall grass to hit the ground and roll before coming to painful stop.
“Ow,” she said, blinking and looking up a pair of legs standing beside her. “Oh, hi Lance.”
“Come on,” Lance said, offering one hand while her other was held out to the side. Preparing more arrows?
Shara took the offered hand and the help to her feet, then looked around Lance. She’d been wrong. It wasn’t arrows – it was more like ballista bolts.
“Looks like your friend came through, though this isn’t what I was expecting,” Lance said, gesturing with her right hand, and the stone spikes shot off to crash into the monsters gathering on their side of the river.
“Me neither,” Shara agreed, getting her bearings and giving her head a second to stop spinning from the earlier blast of her own magic.
All hell had broken loose at the riverbank, with dozens of the monsters having made the successful leap across, and hundreds more lining up at the dam. But, whatever Tel had done – pink energy staining the sky and huge butterflies circling around – had evened the odds a bit.
Born – that had to be him – was living up to his name as the Woolly Shambler, now twice as tall and looking like a complete beast. Wide jaws with huge incisors spread in a roar from his completely hair-covered head, and his clothes were totally gone, replaced with thick… wool across his massively muscular body.
Neela stuttered between enemies, except now she seemed to be leaving afterimages behind each time she did. Afterimages that slashed and cut like whirling dervishes, inflicting just as much damage as she herself did.
Another nearby mage, one who’d been breathing fire before, grew leathery wings out of his back while scales replaced his skin, and his breath billowed out in great waves.
This must be like when my magic got stronger after Tel tweaked my watch. They’re all seeing their powers upgraded.
Looking at Born and the firebreather, Shara glanced down at herself. Still regular fingers…
“You done gawking,” Lance asked, more stone spikes lifting into the air and launching off. “The extra energy is great and all, but I don’t know if it’s going to be enough. We need all the help we can get.”
Was this it? Was this what Tel had been aiming for?
Shara glanced back at her friend. He was back on his feet, chaos energy hurtling around him like he stood at the eye of a storm, and more gears twisting.
No, this sharing of power wasn’t his endgame. Whatever he was doing, he’d still kept most of the chaos energy for himself.
Looking at the massive gears twisting in the air behind him – and the size of the tear in reality they were forming – even Shara couldn’t stop a shiver of dread from running down her spine.
Just what was he planning to unleash?
*
Tel took a breath as he looked at the fighting in front of him. The pain had eased somewhat when he’d raised the giant clocks, their production of chaos energy vastly outstripping the stopwatches and smaller clocks. Still, it had taken time to prepare the other portals, and they were almost ready.
All he needed to do was push.
A small part of him screamed not to go through with what he was about to do. To go back to hiding.
He couldn’t.
Even without the complicated measurement and sensor systems around him, he could see how the battle would progress. The power he’d shared with the other sorcerers had let them fend off the reinforcements from across the river, but the reprieve was only temporary. More crossed with every second, and two more of the towering, multi-legged creatures had joined the first on the other side.
The chaos readings from those three things were off the charts, and if they made it across, the fight was as good as lost.
“They won’t make it across,” Tel said, squashing the part of himself that wanted to hide, and pushed on the darkness through the door in his mind.
Reality tore behind him, the sound almost deafening, as a huge, gear-jointed arm bigger than Tel pushed its way through and slammed to the ground beside him. A heartbeat later, a second arm crashed down on his other side, and with a whirring of mechanisms, the two arms pulled the heavy torso out.
Tel left the bottom half of the giant weapon inside the portal – easier to put it back later – but the wide body, and the five cannons with barrels bigger than he was, easily engulfed him in its shadow.
Ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk ka-chunk, the five barrels lifted off the monstrosity’s back and began to pull at the chaos energy, spiraling spheres of pink energy forming at the ends.
While those powered up, Tel pushed through the ten small portals in front of him, child-sized weapon-spheres – more advanced versions of the APPs – rising out of the ground to lift into the air. Whirring gears signaled their systems coming online as well, and Tel turned his attention next to the fifteen portals on each side of him. Another push, and skeletal, metal hounds stepped out, their bladed feet pawing at the ground, and the weapons on their backs pulling in chaos energy.
The Voice was right. These were the things he’d taken from the mountain enclave’s vault, but the monsters in front of him had earned his full attention.
Tel lifted his hands to the sky, concentrating, then swept his arms out wide, dozens – then hundreds – of small portals opening in the air above him. With a mental push, the barrels of weapons emerged halfway out of the hanging gaps in reality and began to gather chaos energy.
“Don’t even think about trying to betray my like last time,” Tel said, his voice cold.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Keep that in mind,” Tel said, focusing on one last portal directly in front of him. No larger than he was, it still took a tremendous amount of effort to pry it open, all the chaos energy around him faltering for a second as he pushed through the doorway in his mind.
All at once, the gears split, and something began to come through. The metallic hood came first, then the silver skull grinning underneath as the hundreds of tiny gears worked to convey the facial expression. A silver foot followed, then the metal humanoid stepped back into the world for the first time in years.
“Aaaah, it’s good to be back,” the Voice said, pink glowing within the shifting gears of its eyes. The right side of its body was in tatters, badly damaged in their last battle, its right arm completely missing, and its leg seemingly unable to entirely straighten. Still, the pink core at the center of its chest glowed strong, and a wicked hand sickle appeared in its left hand.
The Reaper had arrived.
*
Shara whipped her short-chained fist forward, whomp, the impact stunning the creature and sent it stumbling back a step while she advanced, pivoting as she went. A full rotation around, the fist gathering energy as she went, WHOMP, it hit the monster’s face a second time – still not enough to bring it down. Chain still whirring through the air, Shara slipped the weapon’s hilt from one hand to the other then bent over double, chain whipping over her to complete another rotation, and then brough it around for one more hit.
The fist came up at a slight angle with a visible corona of energy to slam into the creature’s chin, WHOOOOMP, SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The ground shook at the impact, tossing Shara into the air as a gigantic wave of water suddenly blotted out the sky.
“Oh… shit…” she cursed a second before the water crashed down on her.
Down was up and the wave spun her around as it rushed ahead until she pushed her magic into her feet. All at once, she stopped, stuck to where she stood in the air while the water rushed on and on. Then the worst of it was past, the ground soaked, and grass flattened as she stood horizontally a few feet above it.
Gasps and coughs echoed around her while she took a few steps to get a better vantage of what had just happened.
“Did I…?” she started to ask, until her eyes fell on the devastation across the river. Craters bigger than any of the houses in the nearby town quickly filled with water as the river flowed into them, trees lay flattened beyond, and body parts and dirt fell from the sky.
“Your friend should’ve warned us…” Lance said from a few feet away to Shara’s right, her hair plastered to her face and clothes sopping wet. Aside from the sudden bath, she didn’t look any worse for wear.
“Tel did that?” Shara asked, dropping to the ground, and turned back to where her friend stood on the hill. The massive metal weapon that had come out of the portal behind him had vanished, and a pack of skeletal hounds tore down the hill, but could he really be responsible for that kind of destruction?
“Ah, you must be Shara,” a strangely hollow voice said, and Shara turned again to find a hooded, silver skull staring intently at her from a few inches away. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person. Tel thinks very highly of you.”
“I… I…” Shara’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t form proper words as her brain filled in what she was looking at. At what was standing uncomfortably close.
“Oops, if you’ll excuse me,” the silver skull, the Reaper, said, then spun away, left arm snapping out to parry aside a spike aimed at its head. “So rude, we were getting acquainted.” No sooner had it deflected the attack then its arm jerked across the creature’s chest, leaving a line of split flesh and gouged bone with some kind of short, hand-scythe.
The creature stepped back with a hiss of pain, but like Shara had learned the hard way, the things were damn durable.
“Resistant,” the Reaper said. “Interesting. Calculating. Calculations complete,” it added in its hollow voice, then flipped the hand-scythe into a reverse grip. Lightning fast, the Reaper’s arm came up in a short uppercut-motion, a blade of pink energy as long as Shara was tall slamming into the creature’s groin. Then straight through its gut, chest, and head, to split it cleanly in half, the two pieces falling in opposite directions.
“Now, where were we?” it asked before the body even hit the ground, and turned back to Shara, who couldn’t help but take an instinctual step away. “Don’t be like that. I’m here to help,” it said, skeletal jaw somehow twisting upward at the sides in a smile that did not ease Shara’s worries. “For now.”
“For…?” Shara started to ask, but the Reaper was gone, and she snapped her head left and right looking for it. Where? Where did it go?
“What… what was that doing here?” Lance asked from nearby, voice shaking. “That was a Reaper. A damn Reaper. We’re all dead.”
“Not yet, apparently,” Shara said quietly, eyes scanning for the telltale silver skull, but it was the house-sized, pink scythe blade across the river that got her attention. Flashing across at waist-height, the glowing line split an entire row of creatures into two. “It’s… helping us?”
Moving as fast as – no, faster – than even Anad had in the Trance, the Reaper cut through the ranks of monsters like… like a scythe through wheat. One-handed, it decimated the numbers across the river, even as more and more poured out of the trees at a mad dash.
Tel. It had to be him. He’d brought a Reaper. Did that mean they had a chance?
A growl to her left, and Shara whipped her chain up just in time to deflect a spike lancing towards her face. Grabbing the chain just below the fist as it flew by in her other hand, she twisted and wound it around the creature’s other stabbing arm, then pulled. Even with its inhuman strength, the monster went up and over, its own momentum used against it.
As soon as the creature hit the ground, Shara quick-stepped back, spinning the fist around and around as she turned and then finally brought it up and over.
WHOMP, the fist came down on the creature’s chest hard enough to crater the ground, and the monster didn’t move again. But it wasn’t the only one. Dozens of the creatures were still on their side of the river, and the sorcerers were fighting for their lives.
They had a chance, yeah, but it was a slim one.
Assuming the Reaper didn’t turn on them first. Then they were screwed.
*
Anad froze, eyes locked on the army emerging from strange portals on the hill.
Those aren’t the same portals from the forest. Just what is happening?
“It’s… it’s just like that day. We need to get out of here before… no…” Mediator Hulo gasped, and Anad tore his eyes away from the pack of metallic hounds to look at the man on his right. Mediator Hulo’s face had gone completely white, and he lifted a shaking hand to point at something.
Anad followed the man’s gesture to the crest of the hill where a final portal opened, and somebody stepped out.
What is he so…?
Then Anad saw the metallic hood covering the silver skull. And the sickle.
“Reaper,” he breathed. “We need to get everybody ready to…”
BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM the biggest cannons on the hill fired with a roar like thunder, flattening the grass down the hill in a rush, and five balls of pink energy shot towards the river. Not even a heartbeat later, the hanging barrels of weapons in the air glowed blue and fired their own bolts of energy to chase the pink. Just like that, the sky – no, the entire world – was painted in unnatural colors, washing out the normal blues and greens.
Chaos manifest.
SCHOOOOOOOOOOOM the far side of the river vanished in a dome of fiery destruction, the blast wave lifting the river out of its path to crash down on the near side. Sorcerer and creature alike vanished in the mad gush of liquid, and water like a heavy rain thrummed on the leaves above Anad’s head as normal color returned. For now.
Maybe Mediator Hulo has the right idea.
But, even as Anad thought that, the pack of clockwork hounds charged forward, ground tearing in their frenzy, and the floating mechanical spheres darted towards the river. It wasn’t over, and already people and monsters knocked down by the wave were picking themselves up.
Wait, where’s the Reaper?
Lines of pink flashed across the other side of the river, and Anad pulled his eyes away from the carnage. This was their chance.
“Mediator Hulo,” Anad said, taking stock of the forbidden technology and sorcerers battling the strange creatures. “We need to fall back and get the others out of here. With that Reaper here…”
“Oh, now there’s a familiar face,” an odd voice said, like a crowd of people talking all at once through a tin can. “Funny we should meet again like this.”
Anad’s head snapped to his right at the Reaper standing in front of Mediator Hulo, looking down on him with cold, glowing pink eyes.
“No, no, no,” Mediator Hulo said, staggering back a step, his own eye flaring almost entirely black, dark blue just barely curling around the edges.
“What? Not excited about our reunion?” the Reaper asked, stepping into the treeline to follow Mediator Hulo. “You don’t want to join your friends? I’ve got them right here with me now,” the Reaper said, tapping the back of its wicked hand-scythe against its own chest.
The mention of his friends, of the Reaper having them – Whatever that means. – triggered something in Mediator Hulo, and his lips pressed hard against each other while his eye narrowed.
“Die monster,” Mediator Hulo screamed, his double-step back planting his foot, and he lunged forward to drive his glowing black blade straight through the center of the Reaper’s chest.
The Reaper’s pink eyes looked down at the blade through its chest, almost like it was surprised to see it there, and then back up to meet Mediator Hulo’s gaze.
“This is for my friends,” Mediator Hulo said, twisting the blade in the Reaper’s chest, and the mechanical boogeyman gave a stuttering jerk.
And then it was back at the treeline, pink afterimages, like it had backpedaled, hanging in the air from where Mediator Hulo had stabbed it. Except… the wound in its chest was entirely gone.
“I have to admit I’m surprised you had the guts to do that. So different from when you pissed yourself in fear last time,” the Reaper said, its eyes looking at Anad and the other two nearby Mediators. “Doesn’t change anything though,” it said, then flicked its wrist and tossed its sickle into the air.
All eyes followed the glinting metal as it spun by reflex – No, it’s a distraction! – but when Anad looked back down, the Reaper’s hand was gone, replaced by a weapon barrel glowing a fierce red.
“Goodbye,” the Reaper said. FWAAAAAM, a torrent of red energy burst out of the barrel of the weapon, completely engulfing Mediator Hulo, and Anad threw himself in the opposite direction as the wave of heat rolled out. As soon as it had started, though, it stopped, and when Anad pulled himself to his feet, he saw a widening cone of the forest originating from the Reaper was simply gone.
Blackened dirt was all that remained for what had to be a hundred feet, except for the lone Chronosteel sword embedded in the ground glowing a faint blue before the light faded completely.
“Ah, it feels good to get out and stretch,” the Reaper said, its hand back to normal as it caught the sickle falling through the air. “Now, I do hope you can keep me entertained while I kill some time,” it said, turning its pink eyes on Anad, though it paused as it looked at him. “What’s this? Another familiar face? Anad, wasn’t it? I thought Tel killed you back in Bastion. I guess he held back at the last second. Good for him… too bad for you,” the Reaper said, the gears in its face whirring as a sadistic grin split its metal face.
It knows my name? How does it know my name? It must’ve been in Bastion… but it also knows Tel’s name.
Anad’s sword glowed a fierce silver as he leveled it across his body in a defensive stance, and he pulled hard on the Trance, drowning out his questions. With that much power flowing through his body, even a Reaper would move so slowly it would…
The Reaper casually walked towards him, as if the world itself wasn’t crawling around them.
No time to hesitate.
Anad pushed back on the fear churning in his gut, at every horror story he’d heard about Reapers, at the abject terror he’d seen in Mediator Hulo’s eyes, and at the metal monstrosity in front of him. He pushed back… and then he charged in, blade a blur with his thrusts.
Face, chest, gut, his blade flashed silver three times, and three times a wicked hand-scythe was perfectly placed to meet it, deflecting the blow in a splash of smoky light.
“Oh good. Try that again,” the Reaper said, sidestepping into the scorched earth where it had annihilated Mediator Hulo.
Anad obliged, charging in with an overhead slash like a headsman’s axe, which the Reaper predictably brought his scythe up to parry. Planting his front foot as soon as their blades met, Anad pivoted at the waist to bring his cane-sheath around with all his strength.
Hard to parry attacks from different angles when you only have one arm!
The dirt twisted under Anad’s heel, and he overbalanced when his cane passed through a pink afterimage of the Reaper, and he stumbled forward. Where? He brought his blade back up to a defensive angle across his chest and turned to find the Reaper stepping out onto the scorched earth again, the pink images of it already fading.
How is it doing that? And what is it doing?
“Hrm. Multiple sword styles and extreme speed. Calculating. Calculations complete,” the Reaper said without emotion, then raised its scythe and charged forward.
The first attack was a simple sweeping arc, which Anad backstepped out of range from, then counterattacked with a quick lunge. Clang, their blades met, the Reaper repositioning its scythe at inhuman speed, with its elbow up high and its blade underneath to perfectly block the point of Anad’s sword.
With a flick of its wrist, the Reaper snapped Anad’s sword away and stepped back in on the offensive, a downward, cross-body slash Anad couldn’t dodge from his position. However, instead of straight parrying it, Anad jerked his own sword back in to redirect the scythe’s trajectory, sweeping it away from his body to the left.
Even that bare touch of their weapons shaved silver smoke off his blade and pushed him back so hard his heels left short furrows in the dirt. Giving him no time to set his feet, the Reaper came in again, its backhand swing aimed to take Anad through the neck.
Sword too low and out of position to parry the attack, Anad flexed his lower back and leaned away for all he was worth, pain flaring a line of fire across his throat at the same time his sword came up behind the scythe.
Mechanical pink eyes widened in a moment of slow-motion surprise before the arc of silver light parted the Reaper’s head right between them.
Anad finished the swing of his weapon, the silver curtain still hanging in the air, then twisted his wrist with the sword above his head and brought it back down as he stepped in – to hit nothing but air.
What?!
“Recalculating,” the Reaper said without emotion, once again stepping onto the scorched ground. “Calculations complete. Results within acceptable range. Now then, let’s continue,” it added, its voice inflecting in a far too human way.
Anad licked his lips and stared at the Reaper’s face, not a scratch on it. Nothing to show he’d just cut it in two. Just like when Mediator Hulo had stabbed it through the chest.
Just what is going on?
“What do you want?” Anad asked to buy himself a few precious seconds to figure out what was happening.
“I told you. Killing time, mostly,” the Reaper answered.
“Why?”
“Well, that’s a secret. Too bad you’ll be dead to find out what it is.”
“Even if you kill me, the other Mediators will stop you.”
“Other Mediators?” the Reaper asked. “You mean them?” it said, then gestured over its shoulder with its scythe.
Anad’s eyes flicked for just a heartbeat at the motion, then did a double take. The other Mediators, and what looked like all the Regulars were charging up the hill towards the town behind the sorcerers.
And leaving Anad all alone with the Reaper.
“Yeah, that’s too bad,” the Reaper said and dashed forward.