Author: Derek

Anne

Anne looked up at Arem as the elf pointed at one of the robed cultists. In the shining armor, Arem truly looked like something out of Lord of the Rings. Except the whole being aligned with the forces of evil. The biggest of the ten orcs nodded at Arem’s unspoken command and grunted. The eight-foot tall creature pulled drew a spear and hurtled it at the cultist. The man stumbled out of the way as the heavy spear thunked into the earth next to him. Anne cursed, but then she noticed that the pressure on her mind was gone. She could feel the streams of wild magic dancing around her. Anne looked over to the black-eyes and saw that they were all looking around dumbfounded. Even better, Sam and Jason were standing back up.

Anne felt her resevoir of power and tugged at it hard to force the streams of earth, air, heat, and dark into the binding she’d seen Veronica draw once during their lessons. It wasn’t delicate, but Anne drew even more power to brute force the binding. Satisfied, she slung the spell at the black-eyes. The dust particles in the air around the black-eyes were suddenly bound together into small pea-sized pellets that glowed with intense heat before raining down on the black-eyes. They screamed in pain as the super-heated pellets punched through them. Whatever had been holding them together broke. Maybe half of them ran into the woods screaming in pain. The rest were laying on the grass, dead or badly injured. Anne fell to her knees gasping for breath. She felt Veronica’s hand on her arm.

“Should have warned you that the link between us was two-way,” Veronica said weakly. The small woman looked like she had just ran a full marathon. Anne started to apologize, but Veronica just shook her head. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be functional. Especially without those bastards in my head.”

“That was a very interesting binding,” Arem said, standing over them. “I didn’t think anyone could do that on this side of the gate.” Arem looked like he wanted to say more, but Jason appeared out of nowhere and fired a burst into the elf. Arem grunted as the bullets tore through his armor, but he didn’t go down. Instead, he moved with an unbearably fluid grace and slapped Jason’s head with the flat of his blade. The agent went down in a heap.

“You’d best see to your menfolk,” Arem said, through gritted teeth. “One of them is badly injured, and I’m not talking about this one.” He pointed his sword at Jason’s unconscious form. Arem whipped his hand up and a gate appeared. The orcs quickly bundled through the gate before Arem strode through. Anne blinked away as the gate shut.

“Help me,” Samantha said to Anne, lifting up Veronica. The sorceress looked annoyed she needed the assistance. “I can’t hear Joseph’s thoughts. We need to go find him.” As the three women started hobbling over, the darkness was broken by the shining light from Erik’s sword. Samantha swore and pushed the trio faster.

Erik

The sudden appearance of the orcs gave Erik and Kurt a chance to pull their injured comrade away from the monstrosity trying to kill Joseph. Erik had seen enough combat to know Joseph’s injuries were far beyond his meager skills. Maybe if Veronica were here, she could sling a spell that might save the young man’s life.

Erik rocked another magazine into his ACE. If Arem’s orcs could keep those monsters busy, then Erik could finish the cultists. Those people were why Erik was in this park. He motioned for Kurt to stay with Joseph before creeping forward. Ten to one odds weren’t that great, especially considering whatever the cultists were throwing around was still screwing up his telekinetic abilities. It helped that most of them were looking at one of their number that now sprouted an orc spear out of his chest. Erik chose one of the cultists that still gripped a small machine-pistol in her hand. He brought up his rifle and placed the floating reticle on the woman’s head.

Something snapped. That was the best word Erik had to describe the feeling as psychic energies whipsawed through the air. He could hear screams from where Sam and the others had been. They must have done something. All Erik knew was that he could suddenly feel again. His empathic and telepathic senses roared back into him. Erik stood up and let his assault rifle fall on its sling. His hand fell on the hilt of Far’ling. The darkness retreated as the elven sword glowed with ferocious blue-white light. The cultists all spun at the sudden light. Most of them recoiled in horror as they saw Erik walking towards them with the sword. A few stared back defiantly and started to cast their own spells. He gave them a predatory smile. It had been quite a while since he’d truly let loose.

With a boost of power, Erik was five meters in the air. Far’ling whistled through the air before scything down two casters. The blade was already arching back to meet Erik as the Avalonian slammed down boot-first on his original target. The woman’s bones crunched satisfactorily under Erik’s mass. Erik sent his sword at a fourth cultist who was trying to gather Outsider magic. Two small mundane knives lanced out at two more trying to bring up their machine pistols with the force of crossbow bolts. Erik rolled and threw up a slanted telekinetic shield as the seventh cultist fired his machine pistol. Erik was probably one of the strongest telekinetics in the Emprire, but his shields couldn’t stop bullets. They could redirect them. The woman he’d landed on stopped groaning as a half-dozen bullets laced her back. Far’ling was barely in his hand again before Erik launched the elven blade at the shooter. Two more cultists were sprinting towards the trees. Two more knives shot out and felled both of them.

Erik caught Far’ling as the sword sailed back into his hands. He reached out with his empathic senses. Where was the tenth one? Nothing. There was no living emotions anywhere around him. Just the ghosts of the dead. Erik looked down at the design the cultists were carving into the ground and barely kept himself from vomiting. He drew up all of his remaining power and blasted the ground around him. Bodies flew and dirt and blood covered Erik as he found himself in the middle of a three meter hole. Satisfied, Erik fished the burner cell phone from one of his pouches and hit the speed dial.

“Good evening Lady Maritza,” Erik said, “I’m afraid we’re going to need a clean-up at Hope Park.”

Anne

Anne picked herself up off the ground as echoes of psychic pain throbbed through her mind. Anne didn’t know what or who had just ordered her death, but it had more psychic juice than anything she’d encountered since the Avalonians popped into her life. Her hand tightened on the grip of her carbine. She looked up as the group of forty teenagers walked robotically towards her group. Their eyes were completely – disturbingly – black.

Anne reached out to the streams of wild magic. She could feel their presence, but her mind couldn’t focus enough to touch them. There was some – distortion? – in her mind that prevented her from touching the streams. With a great deal of effort, she pushed through the distortion and ran headlong into her mental block.

PUT YOUR WEAPONS DOWN. echoed in Anne’s mind. This voice was different. It wasn’t painful like the earlier one, but it struck something primal in her mind. The voice was alien and human all at the same time. Fear spiked through Anne. Every teenager in front of her smiled identically.

DO NOT FIGHT. DO NOT RUN. the voice said in her mind. Her analytical mind told her that there was something wrong with the voice. Anne’s eyes went wide as she realized it wasn’t one voice. It was many voices forced into one. Fear turned to rage. The teenagers stopped and all cocked their heads quizzically. She raised her carbine. She should have listened to Erik. Well, she could rectify that error. Anne lined the holographic dot on the boy that stood at the center of the line. He looked at her with a confused expression. He was still wearing it when Anne put the bullet through his right eye.

Erik

Erik rose to a shaky crouch. He was still dealing with the double hammers of Outsider summoning magic and whatever psychic blast the cultists had managed. The psychic energy must have been focused on the other group, but just getting glanced with it was enough to make it impossible for Erik to use his own telekinesis. Even his empathic senses were screwed up.

“You didn’t happen to bring a Javelin tonight?” Joseph asked Kurt, looking as the two abominations lumbered towards them. One was a headless, eight foot tall muscle-bound humanoid, except its pectoral muscles were plate-sized eyes. It roared from a mouth that opened where the abs should have been. The other monster was only seven feet tall, and had its arms coming out of its waist and tentacles coming off of its shoulders. Where the face should have been was only smooth, pale white skin.

“Nein,” Kurt answered, crisply. Kurt must be truly disturbed to slip back into his native tongue. Kurt brought his shotgun up and fired at the headless monster. It bellowed as the slug slammed between it’s huge eyes. Viscous silver fluid oozed out of the hole. The monster barely missed a step as it bore down on the three men.

Joseph crab-stepped a few paces to the side and opened fire on the cultists behind the abominations. One screamed as Joseph’s burst tore through his torso.

“I assume there was a reason for that,” Erik said. He took a breath and pushed back down the pain before squeezing the trigger on his ACE. Brilliant orange fluid splurted from half-a-dozen holes in the shorter monster’s head.

“I was hoping that killing the robes sent those things back,” Joseph answered. He took down a second cultist. “I don’t know what’s more terrifying. The roar from the big one or the ultimate silence from the small one.”

“Schweigen,” Kurt answered, emptying his shotgun at the headless monster. Slugs and buckshot laced the monster’s torso. Dozens of holes, including several in the large eyes, leaked the silver fluid, but the monster kept coming. Erik turned his ACE on the large monster.

“Concentrate on the big one and try to take it down!” Erik ordered. He stitched the creature with the remainder of his magazine. As Kurt and Erik reloaded, Joseph fired a long burst into the monster. It’s roar sent shivers of fear down Erik’s spine. There was something fundamentally wrong with the sound emanating from that abomination.

Erik yanked the charging handle on his ACE and put three long bursts into the monster. He squeezed the trigger again, but the magazine was empty. Erik let the ACE drop on its sling and he drew the custom revolver from its shoulder holster. The first shot rocked Erik back. He was too used to using his telekinetic powers helping to dampen the recoil of the mammoth revolver. He braced and emptied the cylinder into the monster as both Kurt and Joseph emptied their own weapons into the monster. With a roar, the monster went down to one knee.

The second monster appeared out of thin air behind Joseph. Erik tried to shout, but the monster moved with blinding speed. One tentacle ripped the M4 out of Joseph’s hands while the second tentacle slammed Joseph across the back. Joseph fell to the ground. Erik and Kurt watched with horror as the monster leapt into the air and landed on Joseph’s back with a sickening crack.

Anne

The two groups stared at each other for a second as the smoke wafted from the barrel of Anne’s carbine. The roar of the abomination from across the grassy field galvanized both sides. The black-eyes – Anne couldn’t think of them as teenagers anymore if she wanted to survive – stared at the group and Anne felt terror rise under their psychic lashing.

Jason and Samantha writhed on the ground, both unable to overcome the black-eyes assault. Veronica, on the other hand, smiled and held out her hand. A ball of blue flame danced above her hand. With a whispered word, the ball streaked to one of the black-eyes. The girl didn’t even have time to scream. She just vanished. Veronica collapsed to one knee. Anne fired two bursts from her carbine and knelt next to Veronica.

“That took a lot more out of me than it should have,” Veronica said. The black-eyes stopped and fell into what looked like a fighting stance. The next thing Anne knew, she was on the cool grass as waves of vertigo and nausea swept through her. She looked over at Veronica. The sorceress was on the ground as well with her eyes closed. She was swearing in what sounded like Hindi.

“Oh that was a nasty one, wasn’t it?” a familiar voice said from above. Anne looked up and saw Arem’s smiling visage standing over her.

“I told Erik he was going to need my help tonight,” Arem said. Anne rolled over and saw a gate between them and the black-eyes. Ten orcs wearing heavy metal plates and gripping long spears walked out of the gate. Half of them turned to face the black-eyes as the rest surrounded Arem.

“As the humans say, let’s finish this,” Arem said, and all ten orcs screamed.