There’s something that caught me sideways in the last year. I started to really exercise and find the limits of my enhanced strength. Every kid has an idea of what they would do if they had super strength, right? I’m not superhero strong, but I am stronger than peak humanity… so I guess I am? What I mean to say is: I can’t lift a car above my head, but if you got me good and mad I might be able to rip your arms out of your sockets.

Because I read so many comics and, later in life, briefly got into video games—I had an idea of what was possible with superior strength.

That idea was wrong.

See, Superman can lift a car and beat someone with it because the artist thinks of the car as one thing, one solid thing, when in reality it’s thousands of pieces held together with nuts, bolts, screws, and welds. The first time I tried to lift a car, the bumper came off in my hands because it was a Volkswagen Beetle and the bumper was still attached more from luck than any fastener. The next attempt deformed the chassis and cut my hands on the metal, which resulted in a rushed visit to Urgent Care, which itself was even more of an anxiety-filled experience because of my weird hands.

Thus, hot tip: If you’re trying to lift a car, grab the frame. It’s the part of the car the owner's manual tells you to place the jack when you get a flat tire. It’s usually a little back from the side of the car making it an awkward grab, but it can be done. I never managed to lift a car, but the day I tipped one over by my lonesome sits on a high shelf in my memories, the shelf labeled “Proud Moments.”

It was with all this in mind that I set to the task Albright gave me. I’ve never fired a belt-fed machine gun. I know they have bipods usually. I had thought that was to control the recoil, and that may still be the case (as I haven’t fired it yet and don’t know what kind of recoil it has), but now I think it’s because the gun is fucking heavy. It’s over twenty pounds easily, and even if a portion of that is the ammo, I can’t imagine being able to wield this easily before I made my adjustments to my body.

So, as I got within a few feet of the door, I set a wide stance, lowered my center of gravity, lifted the BFG to my shoulder, and prepared for the kick.

As I opened up the gun, I was mildly (and pleasantly) surprised by how little recoil there was. I walked the gun back and forth, just below head height, over the stone table we were using to brace the doors. As I held down the trigger and moved the big gun back and forth, I tensed, ready to dodge out of the way should there be return fire.

Just as I had the thought, a familiar spike burst through the door and slammed into the table we were using for cover, punching through it with just enough force to shatter the stone and tumble to a stop some feet behind me. Just then, my gun ran dry, so I dropped it and dove to the side as half a dozen foot-long spikes shot through the door.

“Demon!” I yelled.

I glanced at Kristy, who was looking at the spikes flying past with consternation. Okay, her sacrifice magic doesn’t affect all projectiles, apparently. I craned my neck behind me to where Beats was working on Roy, but it didn’t look like the big knight was getting up anytime soon.

I looked back at Greg, who had abandoned the doors for a moment to pull two spikes out of his hip and arm. Just as the big guy got the one out of his arm out, the doors burst apart as two, 8-foot-tall centaur-looking spiked tumors burst into the room. They paused as they were met with the high-caliber response from Albright and his Garand and a spray from Kristy’s assault rifle.

Look, the demon truck had been gross and scary—but it had been in a shape I had seen before. You know; a truck. These things looked like what would come out of David Cronenberg’s head if he had been asked to design a monster that was a mix of a knight, cancerous, fibrous growth, and bone spurs. The worst thing about them was that they looked so fleshy and moist, while also having bone everywhere.

While I gathered my magic into another spike like I had used against the shoggoth, I had a flash of irritation at my supposed danger sense. I was getting surprised an awful lot over the past few days, and only when things were incredibly outside the norm was when I got a warning. In fact, I had only had a handful of premonitions since I had started this supposed vacation. What the fuck was wrong with my vacations?

As the magic coalesced into a spike, I promised myself to examine my warlock abilities in more detail. Over the past year, I had been so focused on my magic that I hadn’t spared attention for much else except improving my physique and recovery (and flirting with Ida over Facetime).

I shoved the distracting thoughts aside and launched the magic at the closest demon, who was in the process of lining up a shot at the small goth. The magic slammed into its side, right behind its first set of legs. The flesh parted easily at first, but I discovered through the rather regrettable tactile feedback of the magic that the flesh was lined with many layers of thin bones, almost a cross-hatch. The layers of bone did a frustratingly excellent job of bleeding power from the strike, and my magic only penetrated a little over half a foot. The blow made the demon stumble, and the mass of lumps that might be its head glanced at me with what I assumed to be rage from its energetic movements. Although it was hard to tell because I couldn’t make out any eyes. Nevertheless, it ignored me to pursue Kristy, who was backing away as she swapped out a magazine.

On instinct I split the spike into four barbed points, causing a migraine to bloom in my head from the effort of forming the unfamiliar shape. I powered through the pain with a roar and shoved the barbed points deeper into the demon, managing another few inches for each point. My roar rose in pitch as I doubled down on my effort and yanked the magic back at me.

The side of the demon opened up and spilled viscera, reminiscent of a video I saw of a whale being disemboweled—if you replaced the dead fish and intestines with cancerous growths and so, so many spiky bones. The demon staggered several feet toward its right, toward me, before crashing to the ground as its front legs collapsed.

It hadn’t been ten seconds since the demons burst through the door, and I was already exhausted. What’s more, the demon I targeted didn’t seem particularly put out by having a huge, gaping hole in its midsection. It turned toward me and, though it was considerably more clumsy, dragged itself with its arms and hind legs toward me with alarming speed, slamming stone tables aside like they were made of balsa wood. One of the spikes on its shoulder suddenly lengthened and pointed at me.

That was all the warning I needed as I hurriedly shaped my magic. The pain in my head flared again, the pane of bulletproof magic slow to form. I raised my arms and pivoted at the spike fired. Through sheer luck, the spike glanced off the armored forearm piece of the mantle, deflecting it just enough for it to avoid impaling my arm—instead, it just took a swipe of skin off the inside of my bicep.

Okay Colm, think, I thought as I backed away from the angry cancer demon. Magic is no good right now, the Webley will explode in a mushroom cloud of hate if I use it again before it rests, and I might as well fight a pit of barbed wire if I get within melee distance with this thing. What do I do?!

I reached down and strained, wasting a precious second ripping a bench from the floor to pivot and slam it down on the mound of flesh I assumed was the demon's head. The stone bench sank into the flesh with a thump but didn’t shatter as I expected. Also against expectations, the blow that would kill a moose didn’t bother it much. It swiped the bench aside, its return swipe I barely avoided by leaning back and dashing away.

I felt my silent passenger (gotta change the way I think of that prick) twitch and I was reminded of his final words from the dream. Combine my fire with my magic? Hell, I hadn’t even used the fire aside to clean up some blood.

Fuck it, let's give it a try.

I summoned a plume of flame in front of me, which was draining even with it only being a few feet away. The upside was the sudden appearance of fire gave the demon pause. Then I summoned my magic in the fire—

And nearly collapsed from the feedback of having my fire forcibly snuffed out. I was incredibly lucky that the side effect of shoving of bunch of telekinetic magic into a big plume of magic flame was a blast of dry heat that knocked the demon onto its back and scorched it. The downside was that having my fire snuffed out while I was creating it felt like pulling a muscle in my mind, and I barely remained conscious through the discomfort. It wasn’t painful, exactly, but it kind of felt like someone had just jabbed my brain with a finger. The other, probably equally bad downside, was the same flash of heat slammed into me and sent me flying back

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

I tried to get my feet under me, but they got tangled up in each other and I fell, barely slowing my fall with my elbow before my cheek smacked into the floor and scraped for a few inches before my momentum bled off.

Fucking… ow.

I was probably missing my eyebrows. My exposed skin, which was mostly my face and hands, felt scalded. The discomfort on my face was amplified by the scrape across the floor I’d gotten. I tried to get my hands under me, but I was still under whatever weird effect I was experiencing from snuffing out my own fire, and they didn’t want to do what I told them. I managed to roll onto my back and push myself away from the demon with my feet, the stone floor biting into my shoulders, ass, and hips as I scooched away. The demon flopped over onto its belly again, and though it was visibly feeling its wounds, it still seemed determined to make me regret being born.

That’s when thirty crows made out of slimy darkness descended on it and began to tear strips of flesh off the demon. A high, tea kettle-like scream came from each of the crows as they devoured the flesh. After a few seconds, each crow that ate the flesh of the demon became stronger and bigger.

I looked past the murder to see Kristy staring at the demon, holding one of her Hot Topic tchotchkes forward like a crucifix. It was some little anime character I didn’t recognize, dressed in black with hair like crow feathers. Black flames licked up the item around Kristy’s hand as she focused on the demon, which was attempting to swipe the crows out of the air in futility. Several spikes shot out, one narrowly missing me by less than a foot, but no crows were hit.

“Help Greg,” Kristy said through her teeth, not taking her eyes off the demon.

I nodded loosely and spent a precious few seconds getting my shit together. I focused on my body and with a little of the knowledge I stole from other-me (no, I’m not calling him that either), smoothed out some of the internal damage to my head and body to the point where my equilibrium came back in stages.

I shakily got to my feet, using a nearby table to leverage myself up. I stood, taking several shuddering breaths before raising my eyes and taking in the rest of the room.

Greg was fighting the demon with his big-ass sword, driving the weapon into the creature with huge, chopping slashes that failed to sink more than a few inches into the thing. Several wounds covered Greg, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the way he fought.

Albright was being pressured by a group of cultists, who must have followed in after the demons. They charged him with clubs and knives, and he fought them with a surprisingly flashy kind of gun-fu as he dodged and parried them with a couple of Glocks he must have pulled from his interspacial warehouse. Every parry and dodge was punctuated with a burst of gunfire from either handgun, lighting up a cultist… who weren’t staying down. After taking the bullets, the cultists would fall momentarily only to stand and rejoin the fight.

I needed to help, but I was coming to understand that even if I wasn’t feeling the majority of the damage my body had taken over the past week, it was still piling up. I had taken bigger hits than this (some earlier today) and had been less shaken than I was now. Whatever was suppressing my hunger, my nicotine addiction, and whatever else was likely suppressing the weakness and pain I was supposed to be feeling.

Magical healing is miraculous, but it doesn’t create something from nothing. Most healing spells took what was available and rearranged it, usually the body's own reserves. And I had been magically healed… three times? Four? How the fuck am I still standing?

“Colm!” Kristy said through gritted teeth. Shit, I had been standing and staring into space for several seconds. I nodded shakily and started walking toward Greg.

...But what the fuck could I do?

I still had my old spells to rely on, but I really didn’t want to use them with whatever trauma my brain had just dealt with. I didn’t want to bake it on top of whatever damage my experiment with fire had done. I could bring out my tentacles, but I was reasonably sure that’d just make Albright kill me.

Stubbornly, as I stalked across the room, I began another attempt to combine my magic and my fire. This time, with a teeny, tiny bit of fire and magic so maybe I won’t brain myself again. Maybe it was the sequence that was wrong? I started with the magic first, creating a tiny telekinetic cloud. Then I brought up my fire into—

It was like walking into a screen door— but for my brain. I stumbled and barely managed not to fall by catching myself on a bench. Maybe I didn’t need to help, maybe Greg has everything—

I watched as Greg was sent flying from a powerful front kick from the demon, sailing and smashing into Albright.

"Okay…" I said with a sigh.

I grumbled under my breath and tried once again to combine my magic with my fire. I started with the smallest portion of each, threading them together simultaneously—

My brain twitched and the magic failed as soon as they came into contact.

“What the fuck!” I hissed.

Greg was back on his feet the moment his momentum bled out, charging back toward the demon. He cut down a few of the cultists who had closed in on him and Albright as he passed. Albright was slower getting to his feet, favoring his right side. His glasses were missing.

One of the cultists took advantage of the weaker Albright and rushed his right side. I barely managed to gather enough magic to shove the cultist off course, my brain feeling it was on fire from the effort. Albright took advantage of the off-balance cultist and circled around him, emptying the mag of his Glock into the crowd of cultists. Only two fell, but it bought him enough time to roll across a table and get some space.

A pair of the cultists spotted me bumbling around and came at me with clubs. I brought my hands up into a boxer’s stance, not trusting myself not to fall over with something looser.

I needn’t have bothered. While the cultists were armed, they were pretty normal strength-wise. I dipped one attack by the one on the right and a quick jab to his sternum shattered his rib cage, while the other went down with a broken cheek from a backhand, without a chance to attack. I overcompensated with the blow, expecting more resistance and nearly fell on top of the guy. As I steadied myself, I noticed they were beginning to rise again. A few kicks to the ribs delayed them and I began to move toward Greg again.

This poor fucking guy, I thought, looking at the big-chinned front liner. He was covered in wounds, his left arm hanging by a few tendons from the elbow. He was giving ground to the demon, unable to retrieve his sword which was impaled quite deep into its shoulder.

And I still didn’t know how to help him!

Afraid I was about to liquefy my brain, I tried a different track with my magic and fire. Maybe, maybe they need to be combined before they manifest? At the base. With this in mind, I slowed down the process of summoning my telekinesis, to the preparatory steps that I could now literally do in my sleep (my nightmares result in holes in the wall—it’s a huge pain in the ass). At the same time, I grabbed the source of my fire—which caused me a mental stumble as it wasn’t where I was used to. The part of me that I normally reach for was now just a hollow, slightly sore portion of my mind. The fire now resided somewhere deeper. Now that I realized that, I could see why the fire was so tiring now. It was burning… me, for lack of a better word, for fuel.

Not my life force or anything. Just, whatever energy one has that allows them to get through the day. There was a purely physical, real portion of it, the reactions the body induces to food and glucose to produce energy and heat. But also that more, esoteric energy that gets used up by concentrating. I drew a little bit of that, via the fire, and before allowing it to manifest, braided it with the budding energies of the telekinesis spell.

...Okay, no backlash. I let out a tense breath and continued, keenly aware that no matter how well Greg could heal, there was probably an upper limit of damage he could take. Gently, then with more confidence, I pushed the magic and fire out and created and pushed the twinned energies in a shape telekinesis has an easy time holding: a ball.

A ball about the size of a grapefruit appeared in front of me, shedding light into the dark room with its dark orange fire. I shoved more energy into it, making it denser, before shooting it forward into the side of the demon.

It burned a hole clean through it.

The feedback from the fire and magic was also weird as fuck. The tactile feedback from the telekinesis spell when used by itself was similar to feeling something through a thick glove, except from a part of yourself that doesn’t have skin and isn’t a part of you. It takes a long time to get used to. Before, when I burned the bandages, the only feedback I got from the fire was a brief relief of effort from fuel being added to the fire.

The feedback from the combined abilities felt amazing. It felt like a Christmas dinner while popping bubble wrap cocooned in the satisfaction of a particularly good dump. Okay, maybe not that last bit. It… kind of defies description. One thing I knew was I wanted to do it again, and that told me how dangerous this combined power was.

But whatever, I got demons to kill.

The demon arched its back, and spun towards me, ignoring the pulverized and lacerated Greg. Greg collapsed to one knee, which I felt was understandable. Take five, bud.

Before the demon could fully orient on me, I took my new pyrokinesis and expanded it, making it lose some of its density. It became a thick cloud about the size of my torso. I noticed there was no strain from the fire, even with it being over a dozen feet away. Seems the asshole in my head was right.

Before the demon had crossed more than five feet toward me I dropped the fire onto its head.

It didn’t like that.

The demon began thrashing immediately, reaching up and trying to pat the flames away. But it was like trying to pat napalm. Instead of smothering the flames, now its gross hands were being consumed. I applied some more pressure to the ability and there was a series of hisses and pops as the monster's head superheated, water vapor escaping in bursts.

I shaped the effect into a blade. It wasn’t much of a blade, because anything thinner than a Halloween store rubber knife made my head pound, but it still was enough to carve through the demon with disturbing ease.

And it just felt so good. Almost sexual.

After the demon was in several pieces on the ground, I sent the little six-inch blade through the room, dicing up the remaining cultists into flaming chunks, and helped Kristy carve up the rest of the demon she was tormenting. When it finally stopped moving he fell to her knees, her little anime figure turning to dust in her hand.

That’s when three shoggoths burst into the room.