by Simon Archer
As the gray creature collapsed forward onto its knees, its body began to crackle and fissure like a volcano was erupting inside it. Then it exploded outward in a cascade of still more hearts that swept outward and flung the two next closest rock monsters onto their asses.
“Do you have to be so destructive, Jodie?” Veronica said as she leapt into action beside her friend and delivered a flying kung fu trunk slap to one of the creatures before it could recover. The impact was more than enough to send the creature flying backward through a building, and as the debris crashed all around it, I felt the shockwave of the blast ripple through my stomach.
“There ain’t no laws when you’ve got claws, baby.” Jodie chuckled as she struck another pose, this time with one leg back and her hands making a heart next to her shoulder. Once again, her Aura began to rise, and I realized that she was taunting to fill her special meter. Or, at least, it seemed like it worked that way.
“Garrett, hurry up and transform,” Melanie said, glancing at us before she jumped off the building. “We can’t do our final attack unless we’re all transformed.” Then she ran at the rock monsters and began her own catfight.
“Makes sense,” I said as I looked at my three summoned minions. “Ready, guys?”
“So, we just hold up our coin and yell what it is?” Gobta confirmed, and when I nodded, he dubiously held up his coin. “Dragon?”
As the word left his lips, there was a scream from beside us as a green mech suit with a dragon’s head and giant wings enveloped my Hobgoblin friend. Only, while one of his hands was clawed like I’d expect a dragon to be, his other was long and sharp looking with a bunch of holes in it. Gobta must have been confused because he gave it a tentative swipe through the air causing it to illicit a whistling sound.
“I do not understand. Is this a blade hand?” He stared at me helplessly. “I’m not sure what to do with this...”
“It’s a flute,” I said with a shrug. “Try playing it.”
“Do I look like someone who can play a flute?” He tapped his dragon helmet with the flute. “And how do I play this with a helmet on?” He shook his head. “This makes no sense.”
“Just go with it,” Veronica said as she used her trunk to squeeze the life out of another rock monster. “It will work. Promise.”
“Right…” Gobta shook his head before putting the flute to his lips, and as he did, a very catchy tune that could never, ever have been played from a flute ripped across the horizon. Then the bay beside the city began to roil, sending waves smashing against the shoreline as a massive green dragon tore itself free from the oceanic depths. “Okay, that’s kinda cool.”
Then he played another tune on his flute, and instantly the dragon charged into battle, smashing into the rock creatures while unleashing blasts of fire from his massive jaws.
“Master, I have a problem,” Queenie said, dragging my attention away from the battle at hand. “My coin is broken.” She held up a blue coin that, sure enough, was broken in half. “I would try to use it anyway, but I can’t read the whole command word…”
“Maybe I can be of assistance, fair Ant Queen,” Hudson said as he held up his own coin, which, of course, was the other half of Queenie’s coin. “I think if we put them together, it will work.”
“Makes as much sense as anything else,” I said as I looked at them and shrugged. “Try it.”
“As you wish, master,” Queenie said before she and Hudson joined coins. Then their eyes flashed.
“Wonder Summons Powers Activate!” they cried in unison, and as a flash of sapphire light rippled out of them, blue, caped mech suits enveloped their bodies.
“Form of Mighty Eagle!” Queenie cried right before she transformed into a giant mechanical eagle with a slight paunch that leapt into the air. Then she made a beeline for the closest rock monster that was currently engaged in a catfight with Melanie.
“Form of Giant Ape!” Hudson yelled, and unsurprisingly, turned into a blue version of King Kong that jumped into battle with all the fury of a giant, pissed-off gorilla.
“I guess that just leaves me,” I said as I looked down at the coin in my hand. Then, I held it up. “Orc Pirate.”
Power.
That’s all I can say because, at that moment, I felt power unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. And that was saying something because I was, quite literally, a god. Sure, maybe not here and now, but I had experienced that level of power before.
This?
It was quite unlike that because this felt strong in a way that was simply unexplainable in pitiful human language. I felt it ripple through my body in an instant, filling me with the nearly insatiable urge to beat the fuck out of stupid rock monsters for daring to step upon my planet with their weak rocky bodies.
Giant plates of mechanical armor tried to fuse to my body, tried to contain my sheer power within them, but unlike the others, I was too big, too massive, too large to be contained. I needed to be free, and as the mechanical armor surrounded me, it simply disintegrated as a ripple of Aura fill me to the brim.
Then the Hand of the Destroyer King on my wrist flared like the mother fuckin’ sun, should that pitiful star ever actually, you know, be bright enough to shine like a mother fuckin’ diamond.
And shine I did because a ripple of red energy exploded out of my body that quite literally flattened all the surrounding buildings. Then the whole of the simulation seemed to bend and warp around the edges as I turned my eyes on the monster in front of me in time for me to catch its fist with my face. Or, mostly anyway, because thanks to my training, I managed to get my gauntleted hand in front of the blow.
It was strange because even as the force of the punch flung me backward, for an instant, I could see him for what he was. A creature made of ones and zeros, of bits and bytes. Of code and magic.
The Hand of the Destroyer King has encountered a hostile enemy. Special ability: Feel the Truth has been activated. You can now see the enemy for what he truly is. For the duration of this battle, strikes delivered to the opponent’s weak point will deal more damage than normal.
As the words from the message dissolved around me, I realized I could see a giant glowing spot on every one of the creatures around me. Even the massive golden asshat in front of me.
“Perhaps you will be interesting enough to take care of myself,” Gold Wolf said as he dropped back into a fighting stance and made the “bring it” gesture. “Come on. Unless you’re afraid to go it alone.” He glanced around where my friends were still battling the rock monsters, only it was starting to seem like for every single one they defeated, two more sprouted up to take their places.
“Mano a mano is fine with me,” I said as I got to my feet, one hand reaching for the Sword of the Destroyer King. Only, I suddenly found I couldn’t access my inventory. Damn. Well, that was fine. I was more than able to take this guy down with my fists. And the brace of old-fashioned pistols strapped to me. That might be useful.
“Then bring it,” he snarled, wings unfurling to display a truly massive wingspan. And then they burst into golden flames that coalesced into massive fireballs that hovered just above him.
I dove to the side as the fireballs smashed into the ground with enough explosive force to incinerate the spot where I’d been a moment before. I rolled to my feet, and as I came up in a fighting stance, I pulled a pair of pistols from the brace around my body and fired.
The pistol balls smashed into the monster as he hurtled toward me like he was trying to go for a double leg takedown, and though the metal balls ripped furrows in his flesh, he kept moving anyway.
I responded by dropping back into a staggered stance, and then, as he barreled toward me, I hit him with a Muay Thai knee straight to the nose that rocked his head back. Normally, that would have been enough to put down the average tough guy, but it only threw off his momentum a bit. He was already shrugging off the blow as his shoulder slammed into my gut. The force was enough to cause me to skid backward, but as his arms tried to gri
p the back of my legs so he could pull me off balance, I shifted my weight and used a Judo throw to fling him over my hip. He smashed through the building next to us before slamming to the ground, and I wasted no time in following up.
I focused my Aura into my foot and then went to stomp the groin like any good student of Master Ken would. Unfortunately, either the creature barely had any downtime, or he’d studied break falls even more than I had because, as I went to attack, he rolled backward and came up on his feet.
As my foot caved in the street and hit the sewer beneath, he tried to sucker punch me. I caught the blow on my gauntleted forearm with a standard boxer’s block, unfortunately, pretty much the same thing that had happened last time happened again. The force of the impact threw me backward, and I slammed into the ground hard.
Breath whooshed out of me even as I tried to roll to my feet, only as I did, the monster leapt into the air, raised his arms high, and summoned a massive fireball. Then he flung it at me. Because, of course, he did.
Only I’d seen enough Dragon Ball Z to know how this was likely to end if that hit the ground. The smaller ones he had summoned before had taken out nearly a square block, and this was a thousand, no, a million times that size. If it hit, we were as good as dead.
So, I did the only thing I could. I summoned all my Aura, did my best Ryu impression, and then thrust my hands forward while expelling all my Aura in a futile attempt to stop the giant fireball from killing us all.
“Hadouken!” Aura exploded out of my hands in a whoosh that made me see stars before it crashed into the fireball with a thunderclap of sound that caused a shockwave of force to ripple outward as the two blasts exploded in midair.
My feet lost purchase with the ground, and I was flung backward. I smashed into a building that did all of nothing to stop my flight because I punched straight through it… as well as the six after it.
When I finally came to a stop on my back, there was a truly impressive amount of destruction hewn in my wake, but worse still, the Gold Wolf seemed relatively unfazed. He hung there in the air with a cruel, malevolent smile on his face.
“Fool.” He shook his head. “To challenge me with such power. It’s truly pathetic--”
His words were cut off as Gobta’s green dragon plowed into him from the side, driving him into the ground so hard he cleaved a furrow in the street.
Then the catgirls attacked.
“Let the power of Love shine bright!” Jodie cried as she flung her heart-shaped hands forward. Melanie and Veronica followed suit, and a trio of pink, yellow, and black hearts blazed through the air before slamming into the fallen creature. Only, this wasn’t a single attack, exactly. It was a concentrated beam of energy that kept hitting the creature, and it didn’t take long to see that it was quickly draining the three catgirls of Aura.
Worse, I couldn’t even tell if it was actually hurting the monster because it just looked like he’d been scuffed up a bit.
“Master, should I attempt my Final Sting?” Queenie’s voice reverberated in my ear, but I shook my head.
“No,” I said as I got to my feet. My Aura was dangerously low, and I had a sinking suspicion that her suicide attack wouldn’t be a strong enough attack to finish off Gold Wolf. If it failed, I wouldn’t have the Aura to resummon her. “I have another plan.”
“What is your plan, master?” she asked as she landed lightly next to me still shaped like a giant robotic eagle.
“It’s time to form Voltron,” I waved my hand, “or whatever this version of Voltron is.”
“That’s a great idea, Garrett!” Jodie cried as her heart beam gave out, and the monster started to rise. “Superbot to the rescue!”
I nodded, shut my eyes, and then focused on what I wanted to do, and as I did, the magic words filled my brain. “Link Forms!”
It was a bit strange because as I opened my eyes, I found my hands going through a set of intricate motions that, while I hadn’t known them previously, somehow were now second nature to me.
Still, as I did them, I noticed two things happening. First, all of the others were next to me, and what’s more, they were all doing the same thing, by which I mean, all making weird poses that seemed to cause them all to glow with energy. Well, all except Gobta, who just played a slightly different tune on his flute arm.
Second, the armor encasing my body began to shift and move as parts of it fused with those around me until our combined forms shifted into a sort of weird dinosaur tank thing.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Jodie said, and I looked over to see her standing there next to me in what seemed like a massively large cockpit.
“This is a very strange scenario,” Queenie said from my other side, and I nodded to her as I looked around. Sure enough, everyone was here. Even Gobta. Which, I dunno, I guess made sense.
“Either way, that thing is about to get up, Garrett.” Melanie pointed at the viewscreen where Gold Wolf was, in fact, starting to get up. And from the look of things, we’d barely smudged his gilded armor.
“Right, let’s give him something to remember us by!” I grabbed the joystick in front of me and moved it while my other hand flew across some buttons, and crazily enough, my friends all mimicked my actions on their own consoles. “Mecha Blast!”
As I pounded my fist on the big red fire button in front of me, arcs of lightning shot out of the eyes of all the now-fused mechs. The impact sent Gold Wolf staggering backward, and as his giant wings beat the air to help balance himself, I noticed that the move had charged one of the two bars on the viewscreen. This one was labeled Super Attack, and that sounded like a great idea, so I decided to go for it.
“Initiate Super Mecha Blast!” I cried as my friends, and I went through a series of movements that caused the massive mech to react though none of us actually touched the controls. Then the mouths of the dragon and stegosaurus mechs opened wide to reveal huge cannons that straight up blew away the Gold Wolf.
Only as the mushroom cloud of debris began to dissipate, a bad feeling filled my gut. That feeling was made worse by the repulsive laughter that filled my ears.
“You think you can stop me?” A brown-robed sorceress with absolutely ridiculous green hair cackled as she appeared in the clouds high above, and I had exactly one guess as to who she was. Greta Grendel. “Arise, Gold Wolf. Grow!”
She raised her staff high before flinging it down at the creature’s feet from high above. It cut through the air like a knife before burying itself in the smoking ground where the monster had been. Lightning crackled in the suddenly crackling sky as the Gold Wolf burst out of the black smoke, bigger and badder than ever. Golden sparks leapt from his skin as he raised his head and howled so loudly that it somehow caused a disruption in the electronics of our mechs.
A fire sprang up to my left as a cascade of sparks poured from the panel on my right. Only, as Gold Wolf rushed forward and smashed our giant robot tank with his fist, I noticed something else. The second bar had inexplicably filled up, illuminating a humanoid shape.
I couldn’t help it, a smile crossed my lips.
“Form Mechanos!” I cried as I hit the button with the same image on my console.
“Form Mechanos!” the others cried as they hit their own buttons, and I saw a swirl of colors sweep out of us and fill the fantastic mechs around us. Then everything shifted, and the mechs, somehow, formed into a giant, man-shaped robot.
And crazier still, I realized I had my hand wrapped around the Sword of the Destroyer King. Only… it wasn’t my hand. It was the hand of Mechanos, and he wielded a giant version of my own weapon. That’s when I grinned stupidly because, somehow, the super meter was full again.
“Alright!” I said as I looked at my friends. “Let’s do this! Mechanos Power Slash!”
As I spoke the words, I did an intricate movement that everyone also copied, and as I let loose a slash with my own hand, Mechanos followed suit, delivering a powerful blast with his sword that slammed into Gold Wolf and cut him into h
alves that then exploded into bits of golden gobbets that rained down on the decimated town.
“Curses!” Greta Grendel cried before grabbing her forehead. “Argh! I have a headache. I’ll deal with you all later!”
7
As the scenario ended and I found myself standing back in the training room, I saw a message flash across my vision.
You have completed the quest: Training Sequence K. Thrall’s infection has stopped spreading. You gain six stat points and two skill points to distribute.
You have learned the new skill: Auric Support.
This skill creates tethers of Aura that cross between dimensional boundaries. For every level the Auramancer has in this skill, he can create one such tether to a chosen summoned creature. This tether costs no Aura to maintain. While that tether is on, that summoned creature will remain active, no matter the distance through space and dimensions, as opposed to being desummoned. However, the Auramancer cannot transfer any additional Aura through this tether if the summoned creature is outside his normal control range. This tether can be deactivated or reassigned at any time.
A quick glance at my new skill made my eyes widen in shock. Up until now, my summons had been bound to me and my location. Worse, every time I went through a portal or entered a dungeon, I had to resummon them. This skill… fixed that. For every skill level I had in it, I could keep a summon out even if I entered a portal or, hell, was in a completely different galaxy from it.
Sure, it would be easier for them to die given that situation since they wouldn’t be able to draw on my Aura to prolong their lives, but if they did die, I could just resummon them again at my current location.
Needless to say, I immediately dumped my two skill points into Auric Support. Then I used my interface to allocate my three slots to Hudson, Queenie, and Gobta.
“Say, did you guys get a new skill for completing that quest?” Jodie asked as she looked around, and when everyone nodded, including my summons, she gave a little bounce of joy that I very much appreciated. “Great! I wanted to tell you guys about how awesome mine is, but then I worried that I was the only one who got one. Then you guys would all feel bad...” She trailed off with a shrug. “And maybe you will anyway, so maybe I’ll keep it to myself?”
