Fight the Fanfic Chapter 7
Something Wicked Comes
By Captain Gaul
“Guys, we need a new hideout….”
“We don’t need a hideout, we need a fortress.”
“Fine. Where are we going to get one?”
The seven of them hung in the sky, encased in a magical sphere. From their vantage point, they could see most of the world. What they couldn’t see at any one point, they could see a second later as they orbited the world at great speeds. Nothing seemed suitable for their purposes.
“What we really need,” Devon began, “Is a castle.”
“Great. We just blew up the best one. The other is haunted.”
Tom knocked Frank and Devon’s head together. “Duh! We blew up the 1000 AD Guardia. We’ll just go get the 600 AD Guardia.”
As Frank and Devon massaged their heads, Tom was at once readying the spell. A minute later, the sphere ripped through time, and was soon hovering over Truce Village, 600 AD.
The fight was short. A series of magic bolts ripped through the lines of defenders, the King was dragged off into the woods by two of the surviving cronies, and before long, the invaders were in charge of Guardia castle—again. As they were enjoying the king’s wine, plotting their next move, and playing Twister on the rug, one of the surviving henchmen rushed up to the group, short of breath.
“Someone’s…*huff*…coming….” Frank, Devon, and Tom rose up in unison—though a little tipsy—and readied their firepower. They all tried very hard to take battle stances, though the effect was comical, and Frank actually fell over when he saw the cloaked figure burst through the front door.
The door ripped apart, weakened by a fiery blast and smashed aside by Magus’s scythe. He walked forward, coolly, and gave the three men standing against him an icy stare.
Frank climbed to his feet, trying to hold his sword up. Tom looked confused (he had never played the game), and Devon started gibbering. He tried to recount the method he had used to defeat Magus before, but nobody could understand him, on account of the stuttering. Frank simply got disgusted and charged for Magus, hoping desperately that he was charging for the right one of the two he saw.
It didn’t matter, Magus simply shot a beam of dark magic his way, and within a few seconds, Frank was frozen in mid-lunge. Tom pointed his scepter at Magus, and half-chanted, half-cursed a few magic syllables. Magus made a quick gesture, and Tom screamed as the scepter grew very, very warm, until it burst into flames in his hand. Devon finally rationalized what to do, and fled to the throne room, kicking the door shut and locking it on his way. He shuddered as heard the wood buckle under the repeated magic attacks, but all he needed was a few seconds.
“Bearer of power, bearer of might, oh shadowy one, oh master of the night…um, he whom Magus doth despise, and Demon Staff doth crave, not to mention the only person I think who can save me right now, I summon thee…OMEK!”
At about the same time, in a different story entirely, Omek was about to make the gesture which would surely slay Marle with a bolt of energy.
An instant later, Omek was very surprised to be standing in Guardia Castle.
Devon had not expected the spell to act so quickly. He lifted his wooden rod, and prayed Omek’s vision wasn’t very good. “See? Demon’s Staff. You want it?” Devon gestured to the door. “Then kill Magus.”
Omek scowled, and Devon felt his soul trying to slip out of his body. “Do you toy with me, human? Do you presume me to be some trained pet?” Devon shook violently with fear. Omek raised his hand and pointed it. A burst of flame flew off and struck Devon, setting fire to him, his clothing, and the staff. Omek scowled again, and stalked over to the screaming Devon.
“Would the Demon’s Staff BURN, peon?” Devon made no response, as he was screaming and shaking and burning. Disgusted, Omek grabbed the staff, and stuck it into Devon’s left leg. Trying to make sense of his surroundings, he headed for the door, opened it—and was quite surprised to see Magus standing in front of him, even more surprised to hear Magus say “Who the hell are YOU?”
* * *
“Crap! How the hell did Omek get in here?”
“One of the invaders summoned him, sir.”
Gaul typed furiously at his control station. “Damn!” He typed a little more, muttering all the while. “First a prologue, then an element, then a couple of characters—but Omek? If we don’t solve this RIGHT NOW…remember my comment about the head in the Tupperware dish?”
“Yeah….”
“It’ll be like that for all of us, if we can’t resolve this fast.” He thought for a minute. “Right! Demon’s Staffs! Omek would be tempted if he thought we had a Demon’s Staff!” He reached over and opened the drawer marked ‘souvenirs’, and rummaged around a little. He pulled out a pyrite staff, strangely decorated, and a small device that evidently screwed onto the end. He hooked the two together, and turned to his assistant.
“Chi, can you get me to Guardia Castle, 600 AD, right now?”
* * *
Magus cursed as his leg was once again cut. “Dammit, old man, who are you?”
“What’s the matter, Janus, don’t recognize your own father?” Omek hit Magus with a shadow spell of unknown type, and Magus writhed.
“You’re…urgh…nothing…like…my father. He’s been dead for years!”
“Come now, do you really believe that?” And Omek struck him again.
A voice called out from behind. “Omek! Is this what you’re looking for?” Omek spun around.
“And who might you be?”
Captain Gaul walked down towards Omek. “My name is unimportant. But you came for this, right?” And he held out a gold staff.
Though his vision was obscured from the strange lighting, he believed it at once to be a Demon’s Staff. He stared the captain straight in the eye, and Gaul could feel his will weakening. “That’s right. Why don’t you give it to me?”
“Why don’t you just take it?”
Disgusted, Omek snatched the staff away, then realized that something was very wrong. He examined the staff, found it’s color to be wrong, the designs to be incorrect—then the staff started shaking, glowing red, and heating up. He whipped his head up to look at the captain, who was trembling.
“Shit…wrong attachment!” Gaul threw himself backwards and ducked for cover. Omek looked again at the staff, and bellowed with rage. The staff exploded, and Omek could see, even through his glass eye, a field of pure, powerful, piercing white. His red eye turned pink for a brief instant.
* * *
Ahem…fortunately the author chose to intervene here. Um, let’s see here. Omek was at the core of the blast, which is very much like being at the eye of a storm. He wasn’t really harmed too badly, aside from being very shaken and having some serious, albeit temporary, vision problems. And, by coincidence, the energy of the blast sent Omek straight back into his own story, so quickly back that Icy won’t even notice he’s gone, all though Omek might want to see an eye doctor first chance he gets, once he’s conquered the world, or whatever he’s going to do at the end of Demon’s Gate.
In the meantime, though, we’ve got a local problem to be dealing with.
* * *
Gaspar observed everything from his station. He glanced appreciatively at the Paradox Remix, which was working extremely hard to keep this series of misfortunes from wrecking the universe.
*You’ve got to admire anything that can cope with the fact that the same castle has been blown up twice now, and not even stop to scratch its head.*
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