Immersion World

by Max Jager

  Eyrus took the manual and flipped through a couple pages but mostly inspected how long it was. Ten pages of information on the summons. "You're kidding, right?" He asked, but when he saw the dead serious look Zanath always had in his eyes he threw his arms up into the air and started walking into the center of the room. "Dear god please kill me now." He mumbled and shook his head. He sat down in the middle of the room and began reading the first page and focusing on the summoning.

  "Come on Eyrus!" Pex called out. "The city is in trouble, we all are, quit complaining and help."

  "I'm exhausted." Eyrus countered.

  "So am I." Pex countered. "I'm still working to save everyone."

  "I'm doing it, am I not?" Eyrus pointed out. "Just because I complain doesn't mean I won't help." He stated.

  Two hours later they finished building the machine and set out to join the battle. As they left Evean the alphas and the machine returned to their normal size. For a moment most of them felt strange seeing the two fairies as tiny people again. They could hear the explosions from the battlefield and as Mendelen looked over at the neighboring island he could see this titan-sized demon towering over everything. There was even the swarms of masses at the abyssal demon's feet. The fairies were so small he couldn't see any of them from this far away, but he could see their powerful spells raining down on the demons from above. From massive fireballs blasting holes in the demons' ranks, to powerful lightning firing down, or the ground and surrounding ocean rising up to wipe them out. But the demons had their own magic and even if it wasn't as good it was enough to fight back. The fairies were small and fragile, the demons could take some hits from spells and survive, but the fairies could not.

  The titan-sized abyssal demon was tearing through the fairies like nothing. It was using magic that was exponentially more powerful than anything the fairies had. Making matters worse every time they defeated a demon and sent it back to the underworld the abyssal demon just summoned it right back to the battlefield. Both sides were facing countless casualties every second, but the demons numbers never faltered and were replenished right away. And if they did bring down the abyssal demon it could come right back through the rift. This was not a battle the fairies could win as long as that rift remained open wide enough for the abyssal demon to fit through.

  Mendelen looked at Eyrus, the only hope they had of stopping that demon was hooking the machine to the rift and closing it mid-battle with the abyssal demon, and taking the beast down after the rift was closed. All while the demons knew exactly what they were doing, after the last rift they closed the demons would without a doubt guard this one better. Mendelen tried to think on the optimistic side, but even he couldn't be optimistic about this, this was a fight that seemed to be lost already no matter how he looked at it. He hoped for some sort of miracle.

  As Mendelen turned his attention back to his new friends he realized that they were all marching towards the demons and he was falling behind. He paused for a moment to think this whole plan over, then jogged to catch up with the others and moved in front of them all. He turned to them and held up his hand gesturing for them to stop. "Wait." He said. Everyone stopped and turned to him with confused looks on their faces. "Give the machine pieces to me, then go back to the city. I'm going to do this by myself."

  "Like hell you are!" Estellese snapped back at him. "Nobody is going alone, you need our help."

  Mendelen took off his helmet and looked back at the group. "We need one person to set the machine up. The other three will just be standing around, there's nothing any of us can do to fight the demons. And we are all still hurt from the last fight" He stated. "Look, I'm usually the optimistic one and even I can't see any way we can fight these things. We are in over our heads."

  "We will figure it out, it's what we always do." Estellese insisted.

  "And what if we can't?" Mendelen stated. "We need to seriously take a step back and think this through, our luck is going to run out e- Ow!" He was cut off when Kaden thumped him over the head with the handle of his sword. Causing Mendelen to quickly step away from Kaden and shoot the man a questioning look.

  Kaden turned to Estellese "Sorry for taking your job. But it needed to be done and you didn't do it." He stated.

  "Since when is hitting people my job?" Estellese questioned with a raised eyebrow.

  "We are in this together." Kaden stated. "We either all survive together or we die together, end of story. Now let's go we don't have time to waste." He said before he resumed walking.

  "For once, I agree with him." Estellese said as she followed Kaden. Zanath nodded and he too followed along with Pex and Eyrus.

  Mendelen paused for a moment, thinking it over, but then put his helmet back on and followed the others.

  As they neared the battlefield this intense feeling of pure fear shot through them. The feeling was radiating off the huge abyssal demon. The closer they got to it the stronger this feeling of fear, helplessness and hopelessness became.

  "Empathy magic" Pex answered when she noticed their confused looks. "The abyssal demon is forcing these feelings on you through empathy magic. The best you can do is try to ignore it since you don't have any experience in facing mental attacks. I doubt you'd be able to block it out." Pex seemed scared too, but it didn't look like her fear came from the demon's mental magic, she seemed genuinely afraid of the battle ahead of them. She was a librarian, not a soldier. She scanned over the battlefield and focused in on one section for a moment "I see the queen, let's go!" She called out.

  The Alphas broke into a sprint and the fairies sped up as they raced towards the battle with their weapons at the ready. Stray spells that had missed their targets were flying out of the battlefield in all directions and some of those spells came raining down on the Alphas. Pex held out a hand and projected a barrier to protect the group from a laser that nearly struck them, then Eyrus flew ahead of everyone and pointed at a massive incoming fireball, sending a huge and powerful jet of water out of his fingertips as if they were a firehose and dousing the fireball before it could harm anyone. The Alphas had to evade shards of stone and ice that rained down on them,, while running over terrain that was torn apart and devastated from the battle. The trees that used to be part of the forest here were all burnt, knocked down, torn apart, or some combination of the three, the ground was covered in boulders, craters, scorch marks and was completely deformed. The fairies had the advantage of flight, the terrain hazards didn't bother them, but the demons and the Alphas were having difficulty maneuvering through this.

  They finally reached the front lines and they could see the queen fighting the demons but she was deep within the enemy ranks, and the two hulking pure demons who spotted the Alphas approaching the front lines immediately moved in to block them.

  Eyrus pulled back and the rest of the group stopped and looked up at him. "That is out of my skills" He stated flatly. "I can't take on a pure, nevermind two of em at once."

  "We have to get through to the queen!" Pex insisted.

  "Yeah. Duh. But let's do this the smart way, not the charge in and die way." Eyrus stated. "We need to fall back and go around them." He focused, and water from the ocean to the north flowed over to them creating a protective dome around them, just in time to block an incoming hail of fireballs from the pure demons.

  "We don't have time to find another way. We have to go now, before more people die." Pex argued.

  "I agree with your friend Pex. If he can't handle those things we shouldn't face them." Mendelen stated. He braced himself as he saw the two pure demons sprint after them, intent on running through the water-dome to attack. But as they neared the dome a bolt of lightning struck the ground in between the pure demons, and the bolt exploded on contact with the ground. The two pure demons were caught in the explosion and were badly hurt, both of them were knocked to the ground. Then bolts of lightning shot out of the smoke and struck the pure demons, electrocuting them and killing them on the spot.

  As the smoke cle
ared, one of the elderly fairies from the council hovered in the air near the center of the explosion. One of her hands held a fairy-sized fireball, the other had bolts of electricity running down her arm, and several small stones were orbiting around her in a display that would have been very intimidating if she wasn't five inches tall.

  "Seree!" Pex called out.

  "I could see that water barrier from a mile away, don't do that when you're trying not to draw attention. What is going on Pex? Give me an update." Seree asked in a sharp and to the point tone.

  "We built the machine, we just need to get the humans and the machine to Sybil." Pex answered.

  "I forgot what was said in the throneroom, can the humans fight?" Seree asked.

  "No they cannot." Pex answered.

  Seree sighed "Follow me then, and don't stand too close. Keep your barrier up." She ordered. "Not the water one, an aether one." She corrected before flying off towards the queen and into the heart of the battlefield. Pex, Eyrus, and the Alphas quickly followed along behind her.

  Pex summoned a barrier around everyone except Seree as they ran and the group kept a short distance behind Seree so she could clear the path. "How is the fight going?" Pex asked.

  "Not good." Seree replied. "We have already lost Chi and Rene, and Kiri is missing. He was fighting with us but I no longer see his unique spells anywhere on the battlefield, his condition is unknown but I don't think he survived."

  Pex grew very quiet and lowered her head.

  "So that leaves three elders, the king and queen, and the army to fight the demons?" Mendelen asked.

  "Four elders." Pex quietly murmured. Her chipper and optimistic tone seemed to have disappeared. "Kiri is not an elder."

  "Kiri is Pex's father." Seree stated. She was trying her best to clear the demons out of the way without drawing attention, she was keeping her spells as small and discreet as possible and when she needed bigger spells they were very brief. They charged forwards through the lines, moving as fast as they could over the battle-torn ground. Watching the fairies and demons clashing around them.

  A greater demon stumbled backwards in front of the group, but it was not facing them. It raised its arm up and blasted a massive fireball up at a group of fairies hovering above them. The fairies seemed to be engulfed in the flames, but a moment later the group came charging through the other side of the fireball, the fairy in the front holding up a bubble-like barrier around the group. The entire group looked wounded and exhausted except for that one in the front, who was seemingly their leader and stronger than the rest. As soon as they passed through the fireball the leader stopped and the other fairies flew forwards, surrounding the greater demon. They began circling around the demon, throwing magical shards of ice and metal, some of them were even firing lasers at it. There was too many for the demon to block and it was taking hit after hit. The demon stomped its foot and a fiery explosion burst out from its body in all directions, the flames struck the two closest fairies and burnt them to death on the spot.

  But the lead fairy quickly pointed his staff down at the demon and the demon was surrounded by a bubble that contained the flames and stopped them from striking any other fairies. As quickly as it appeared to contain the explosion the bubble shrank, forcing the flames back inwards and burning the demon severely with its own attack. As the bubble and the flames disappeared the demon was badly wounded, and before it had time to react two of the fairies had already summoned giant ice spears, which were giant compared to a human never mind a fairy. These ice spears floated above the fairies and as soon as the barrier disappeared the fairies thrust the spears into the demon's sides as two of the other fairies flew up above the demon's head. Together they created a massive laser that they fired back down on the demon. While the metal-element fairy used the metals in the demon's armor to make sure it didn't move to dodge the attacks. The demon was torn to pieces.

  The Alphas and their escort rushed past the remains of this fight. As they ran past, an explosion that was strong enough to shake the ground and knock the Alphas over struck something high in the air above them. The Alphas all hissed and shouted as they fell, their wounds from the previous fights made the fall very painful but they got up as quickly as they could. As they stood up several burnt and maimed corpses of fairies fell to the ground around them, the fairies must have been far enough away to avoid the explosion but not far enough to avoid the flames it left behind. The Alphas were shaken by this sight but it didn't affect them too much. As they looked up at Pex and Eyrus the two fairies were completely pale and looked like they were about to be sick. The two of them were far from okay, Eyrus clearly was not taking this well and was struggling to hold himself together. And Pex was even worse, she was watching so many of the fairies she knew dying all around her, the small fairy was visibly shaking and looked very sick. On Top of that, she was still exhausted, she had never stopped to rest after flying all the way across the ocean, and she even expended a lot of magic getting them back quickly, and was still outputting a lot of magic to keep them alive. But they had to keep moving, they kept running.

  Several lesser demons rushed across their path but were chasing after another fairy and didn't even seem to notice the Alphas and their escort. A full demon came falling out of the sky and slammed down into the ground in front of the Alphas, but died on impact. The fairies who had thrown it flew in to shoot a stone spear through the back of its head just to make sure it was dead before flying off to find another target.

  The closer they got to the heart of the battle the more chaotic everything became. They were surrounded on all sides by explosions, lightning strikes, blasts of water and fire, the earth under their very feet was moving in a nearly non-stop assault on the demons from all of the fairies using earth magic. Their barrier was taking hit after hit, and only half of those hits were from demons trying to stop them. The other half came from the crossfire of the fairies who were just firing spells into the crowd of demons and not expecting any allies to be on the ground. Pex was starting to fly lower and lower to the ground, clearly exhausted and struggling to keep the barrier up.

  Seree made a quick gesture as she flew and several large rocks began orbiting around the group. Any time the lesser or normal demons tried to move anywhere near the group all of the orbiting rocks would start breaking apart and firing a hail of stone needles at the demons, like several machine guns all firing on the same target. Some of the weaker demons were torn to pieces but most took cover and were left behind as the group kept running. Seree didn't care if she killed them as long as they couldn't follow the group.

  As a greater demon stepped out in front of the group to block their path it launched a black orb at Seree. But Seree moved to place the orb directly between her and the demon and pointed at it. A bolt of lightning shot from her fingertips, through the orb, and at the demon. The orb shattered as the lightning went through and the greater demon was forced to throw up an ice wall to protect itself. As soon as the ice wall went up Seree made a waving motion with both of her arms and a fiery dome appeared around the greater demon and quickly began shrinking, surrounding it on all sides and threatening to shrink so small that the flames engulf and burn the demon to death. As the dome shrank Seree made another upwards motion with one arm, and pointed the other above the demon's head.

  The greater demon focused. Using its mastery of fire magic it stomped its hoof on the ground and let out a roar as the fire dome blew away and disappeared. But as it stomped a stone hand sprung out of the ground and grabbed its leg and yanked the demon down to one knee. The demon immediately yanked itself free, but wasn't fast enough. Seree brought her other arm down and several powerful bolts of lightning shot down from the sky and struck the demon, killing it.

  Two pure demons on the sides turned to the source of the lightning and spotted the Alphas. They immediately focused and made a thick ice dome around them to stop them from going any further. Then ice shards began breaking off the walls and ceiling and blindly firing at ev
eryone inside. Pex's barrier held up, keeping the ice spikes off them, but with each spike that struck the barrier Pex was cringing.

  "Stick close!" Seree called out as she flew off towards the wall in front of them, then clapped her hands together and sent a massive blast of flames out at the wall, melting clean through the ice. Everyone ran out through the new hole in the ice and as they ran Seree waved one arm off to the side, creating an earth wall behind them to block the path of the two pure demons.

  Seree turned to face forwards after making the wall and was immediately met with the sight of a giant fist hurtling towards them from above at incredible speeds. "Move!" She shouted out. But there was no way anyone was going to get out of the way in time.

  Something that looked like a small bug in comparison to the giant fist rushed out in front of it and clashed with it. As the fairy and the fist clashed it sent out a shockwave that knocked the Alphas and several nearby demons over. But then the fairy punched the giant fist and knocked it away before he prepared to block another. "Seree! Are these the humans Sybil told me about?" He asked. The fairy was an odd one, he looked young like the queen. His wings were different colors, one was green the other was blue and he had one green and one blue eye. He had spiky white hair, wore a blue vest and black baggy pants that stood out from the typical clothing for the fairies. His clothes and excessive jewelry were also covered in gems of all types and colors.