Danny woke to someone pounding on his apartment door. A bleary-eyed glance at his phone showed that it was three in the morning, not a time that he would normally expect visitors to show up. The painful spasm in his back as he tried to move reminded Danny that he needed to stop falling asleep on the living room sofa. He had bought a bed for a reason, but never seemed to make it there when he was worn out. The pounding on the door became louder, and the door began to shake in the frame. A bit concerned over who might be out there, Danny linked his phone to the small camera that he had installed over the door.
Three people were there, two bulky men and a young woman. All three were dressed in black business suits, not the sort of people that you’d expect to show up to your ratty apartment complex just to welcome you to the neighborhood. He had planned for this, knowing the day would eventually come. Still not entirely awake, Danny stumbled into the bedroom, grabbed his go-bag, and wrestled with the window latch.
The knocking on the door turned to solid kicks, but the door was holding for now. He had only just moved in, but one of the first things he had done was replace the screws in the deadbolt with thick, six-inch-long ones. Most people don’t realize that the locks usually come with tiny screws that let just about anyone kick open a door with little trouble. His setup should keep them out long enough for him to make his escape.
It took some effort to pull open the window and scramble out onto the fire escape landing, but he managed it in record time. As he started down the fire escape, Danny could hear the door to his apartment begin to splinter. While running down the last few steps to the alleyway below, Danny could hear the door to his apartment finally give way.
“Mr. Wilcox, stop where you are. We’re here to help you,” a man said as he stepped from behind a dumpster only a few feet from Danny. He wore the same type of dark suit as the three people who had just broken into his apartment. Unlike the others, this man wore an old-fashioned bowler hat that seemed out of place for rest of his outfit. He didn’t have time to judge the man’s fashion sense, there were other pressing matters at hand.
“Just leave me alone, I don’t need any help,” Danny replied. He started to run out of the alley, but three more thugs in suits chose that moment to make their appearance at the end of the alleyway, cutting off his escape.
“You really don’t want to mess with me, I’m not in the mood,” Danny warned.
“Why aren’t you in the mood, Danny? I hope you’re not experiencing any pain. Do you have a headache? We can help with that,” the guy in the bowler hat claimed.
Unfortunately, Danny didn’t have a headache, which might have given him a chance. He would have to handle this on his own. If he could just deal with the man in front of him, he believed that he could bull rush his way past the thugs at the end of the alley. He needed to make his escape before the ones climbing down the fire escape joined their comrades.
Not wasting any time, Danny launched a front ball kick into the man with the bowler hat’s gut. The man tried to move away from the kick, but Danny had done this thousands of times, and his strike was perfect. Doubled over from the pain of the kick, the man offered no defense when Danny kneed him in the chin, knocking the man to the ground and hopefully breaking a few teeth in the process.
Danny sprinted toward the end of the alley where the three thugs formed a line to block his exit. Two of the men drew pistols, and the third was talking into his phone. Well, it didn’t look like this was going to be as easy as just pushing his way past a few unarmed goons. If they wanted to escalate this encounter, he was more than happy to oblige.
Turning his focus inward, Danny reached out to the mana that was safely sealed away in his core. Tapping into that mana, he began to form a spell. The mana started to boil rapidly away as soon as he pulled it from the safety of his core, but he figured that there should be enough for two or three casts. A red-tinted glow covered Danny as the mana for his protection spell snapped into place.
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It was only a low-tier Protection from Missiles spell, but it was quick to cast and had a long duration. Normally the spell wouldn’t expire for several hours at his tier and rank, but here on Earth, Danny knew the spell would only give him less than thirty seconds to get things done. His second spell formed as the thugs at the end of the alley began to fire. The slugs from their pistols flattened against the shield, depleting the spell’s power a bit with each hit.
A green portal grew behind the trio of shooters, and out of the portal stepped a man covered in chainmail who was wielding a longsword. Not the summons Danny had hoped for, but these things were random, and sometimes the dice didn’t roll in your favor. Giving his summons a mental command to kill the people attacking him, Danny cast another spell, his mana down below half and falling lower by the second.
Another portal started to form in front of the trio of shooters just as the man in chainmail ran his target through. The thugs weren’t wearing any body armor, so the summoned warrior’s longsword met no resistance. Screaming in pain, the dying man shifted the focus of his comrades away from Danny just as his shield spell failed. Between the normal mana drain of this world, and the impacts of the bullets, the shield had collapsed far sooner than Danny had hoped.
The surviving gunmen opened fire on the warrior, who found that bullets pretty much ignored chainmail. As the summoned warrior fell, Danny’s next summoning portal finished opening, and a pair of goblins with spears charged out. Shrieking their strange, high-pitched war cries, the goblins didn’t even need a command from Danny to start their stabbing spree. The little green terrors loved bloodshed and were often difficult to control.
With his escape clear, Danny ran for it. After only taking a few steps, something punched him in the back twice and threw him to the ground. He couldn’t move, and it took him a second to realize that he had just been shot. Trying to form a healing spell, he realized there wasn’t enough mana for the task. Pulling the remaining dregs of mana back into the protective core, Danny tried to think of a spell that would get him out of this situation, but it was becoming difficult to think straight.
Cackling with glee, the goblins finished off the men blocking the alley and ran off toward whoever had shot Danny. A fresh hail of gunfire cut down the pair of goblins and their bodies hit the ground before fading away into small clouds of vaporized mana. Danny tried again to move but couldn’t. One of the shots must have hit his spine. Danny’s vision started to fade as the woman in the suit that had knocked on his door crouched over him.
“The goal was to take him alive,” she chided the man in the bowler hat who also limped over to stare down at Danny, a smoking pistol held in his right hand.
“He was going to escape, and at least his death will feed our master,” the bowler hat guy said.
“Capturing him would have fed our master over and over again. You’ve wasted a resource, and your actions were foolish. That is not acceptable,” the woman said. Another gunshot rang out and the man collapsed next to Danny, his bowler hat rolling slowly down the alleyway.
“Don’t worry, young man,” the woman said to Danny as she pulled a long, curved dagger from inside her jacket. “Despite my associate’s carelessness, I won’t allow you to suffer any longer than is necessary. Die knowing that your passing serves something greater than all of us. I’m sorry,” the woman apologized as she dragged the knife across Danny’s throat.
“Clean up the site and get our men out of here. Throw the body of the summoned being in the dumpster but take his wallet and any valuables. Make it look like a robbery gone bad. Work fast people, even in this neighborhood, someone will have called the police because of the gunfire,” the woman ordered. Her voice faded away as Danny’s life ebbed. One final prompt appeared before he was no more.
This summoned being is dying.
The new candidate selection process has begun.
A new summoned being has been identified, beginning the connection and compatibility assessment.
This new candidate is deemed undesirable, the subject’s mental state is unbalanced.
Restarting process…new subject identified. Beginning the connection and compatibility assessment process.
Initial tests show that the chosen subject meets the minimum requirements.
Establishing a link to begin integration.