by Ramy Vance
Suzuki was still rubbing his throat as Beth came over and helped him to her feet. “Well, that was anti-climactic.” She laughed. “Guess the war’s over.”
Diana shook her head as she knelt to inspect the burn marks where the Dark One had once stood. “No, no, it is not. That was merely a name of power. The most Sandy has done is restrict him from our plane of reality for a bit of time. I don’t know how long. It is a victory, but a small one.”
The angel queen ran into the cavern, and a jet of fire shot past the Mundanes. They threw themselves out of the way. “Holy shit, I forgot that thing was even here,” Stew shouted.
Behind the angel was the sound of scurrying feet. Suzuki could see dozens of smaller angels pouring into the cavern. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on controlling the angels. What he got instead was a loud screech of feedback in his HUD. Guess that’s a little too much, he thought as he pulled down his HUD.
Minus twenty-seven percent chance of success.
Great. Now I guess we are fucked.
Something large fell from the top of the cavern, as large as the massive angel. From the back, Suzuki first thought it was a dragon, but when he looked closely, he could see it was not a creature but a metal construct built to look like a dragon.
Even though the mech had wings, Suzuki could see the boosters and jet propulsion built into its backside.
The dragon mech leaned forward and fired a beam of plasma at the angel queen, who leapt out of the way with a grace one would not expect from such a large monster.
Then the dragon mech turned around to face the Mundanes. The dragon mech had an elongated neck built out of steel material to resemble scales. It had a glowing orb in the middle of its chest, and its claws were razor-sharp. The wings that spread as it turned were energy-based, a glowing grid of blue energy in place of the skin of a dragon’s wings. Two plasma cannons were mounted on its shoulders.
Stew gasped loudly before he practically squealed with joy. “Holy fucking shit, that is so sick!” Stew shouted.
The chest of the dragon mech opened, splitting apart to show a cockpit. An older man with dusty gray hair and a scar running down his face leaned out. His face was worn and looked like it had been carved out of stone. He wore an eyepatch, and his good eye sparkled with an almost child-like joy. “Heard y’all were waiting for a cavalry,” the man said. “Come on, hop on the back, and I’ll get y’all out of here. We’re in for one hell of a fight.”
Suzuki breathed a sigh of relief.
Help had come.
There wasn’t time to waste asking for credentials, so the Mundanes scampered into the palms of the mech as they opened toward them. Then the mech took off, blasting off for the ceiling of the cavern, bursting through the narrow hole and out into the night sky. The Mech landed, and the Mundanes climbed out of its hands. The cockpit opened again and the man smiled down at the Mundanes. “Name’s Roy Hunter. I’m with the Dragonriders. We’re here to help you clean up this mess,” he explained, pointing at the sky.
There were four medium-sized dragons flying in a circle. They were covered in steel armor and carried the same cannons that were slung over Roy’s mech. Each dragon had a rider on top of it. It looked like Roy was the only Dragon Rider who was piloting a full mech.
The other dragons were covered in tech. Human tech, and other tech, too.
Suzuki opened his mouth to thank Roy but was cut off as the angel queen burst out of the ground, screeching and breathing fire into the night air. Once she had widened the hole in the cavern, hundreds of angels poured out like ants fleeing their colony.
Roy laughed and slammed the side of his mech. “All right, Suzuki, that big son of a bitch is yours. I have to take care of that roaming sphere up there. Looks like the one from the other facility has made its way over here. Time to knock that bad boy right out of the sky.”
Suzuki’s eyes went wide as he tried to find the words for his fear. “Wait, up to me?” he stumbled. “How the hell am I supposed to take care of—”
“Calm down, kid. Your friend just got here.”
A few feet away, as quiet as death itself, Ashegoreth, the Red Death, the red dragon captured by the Dark One in the defense rings, landed. She also had been outfitted with shoulder plasma cannons and the steel armor the rest of the Dragonriders were wearing. She nodded when she saw Suzuki. “There is no time to talk,” Ashegoreth said as Suzuki ran toward her. “Let us burn through our enemies, and we shall speak in the comfort of their ashes.”
Suzuki leapt atop Ashegoreth and grabbed her reins.
Roy’s mech fired up its jets and took off. Suzuki watched as he flew toward what he had originally thought was the moon. “Focus!” Ashegoreth shouted.
Suzuki gripped the reins tighter and turned his focus to the angel queen, who was belching fireballs at the Mundanes. His friends were quickly being overrun by angels. Ashegoreth sprinted toward the angel queen. The Red Dragon tackled her, ending her deluge of fire and knocking the monster to the ground as her tail swiped at the dragon, trying to impale her.
The rest of the Dragonriders descended onto the battlefield, their plasma guns burning through angel after angel. Beth ran up to one of the riders and leapt onto his dragon, slid down the dragon’s wing, and fell on top of two angels with her daggers, skewering them. She flipped off the angels and made her way toward Suzuki and Ashegoreth.
Sandy and Stew were cutting their way through as many angels as they could as they tried to get closer to Chip and Diana, who were pinned against one of the Dragonriders. The Rider’s dragon spewed fire that burned through a couple of the angels. Diana raised her wand and levitated, the sky above her darkening. “Cover me!” she shouted at Chip.
Chip slammed her hands together, and they converted to her double plasma cannon. She dug her feet into the ground and started firing at anything that moved.
Rain started to pour as Ashegoreth and the angel queen wrestled. Ashegoreth managed to sink her teeth into the angel, but not before she whipped the dragon across the face.
Beth slid under an angel, tearing its stomach open before rolling back to her feet and leaping atop Ashegoreth. She landed beside Suzuki and nearly fell over him. “You didn’t tell me you had a whole other party of Dragonriders,” Beth joked.
Suzuki laughed before being cut short by Ashegoreth getting back to her feet. “Dude, I had no fucking clue there was a dragon posse, but I am so glad there is!”
“It’s kinda like a biker gang except cooler, obviously.”
The angel roared and flapped her wings, taking off into the air.
Beth grabbed one of the reins as Ashegoreth spread her own wings and headed after the angel. “Sweet!” Beth shouted. “I thought I was going to miss out on this part.”
Ashegoreth went racing for the angel, spewing fire at the monster. The angel was even faster in the air than on the ground. She easily dodged the stream of fire and doubled back on Ashegoreth before the dragon could turn around. “Don’t worry, we got you,” Suzuki shouted as he let go of the reins and ran down Ashegoreth’s back, Beth following closely behind. “Give me your old sword,” Suzuki demanded.
Beth unsheathed her sword and tossed it to Suzuki. They both leapt, weapons at the ready, at the angel queen.
Below the dueling fire-breathing creatures, Stew and Sandy were slowly making their way through the horde of angels. Sandy raised a bone creature from the corpses of the angels and the thing shuffled off, grabbing whatever it could get its hands on and ripping it to shreds. Stew stopped for a second to admire Sandy’s handiwork. “Damn, babe, that is one gross-looking monster,” he complimented.
Sandy smiled as she pressed her hand to an angel’s head and shot a bone spear through it. “Thanks!” she chirped.
The angel queen crashed to the ground a few feet away from Sandy and Stew, throwing them both into the air as Suzuki and Beth tumbled off her. Ashegoreth landed directly across from the queen. She let out a jet of flame the queen leapt over and, landing on top o
f the dragon, started tearing into her neck. Ashegoreth screamed in pain as she scrambled to get away.
Suzuki turned to Stew and shouted, “The queen is too fast, and the other dragons are busy! We need you, Stew!”
Stew threw down his swords and screamed in rage as his eyes flashed red and his body started to contort, the bones cracking and stretching, his muscles growing long and taut as he grew to a size he had never reached before. He was larger than a troll, nearing the size of a giant, but unlike giants, he was not bulky and thick. His muscles were lean, and his arms were nearly long enough to touch the ground. His face had contorted as well, his nose sharpening almost like that of a goblin, his mouth filled with razor-sharp fangs. He roared in anger and took off toward the queen. He slammed his body into her side, and she let out a screech of pain as Stew tackled her off Ashegoreth.
The queen turned to face Stew. She still dwarfed him, but Stew was the only option they had until Hunter returned or Ashegoreth caught her second wind. This was the power of the Dark One’s genes, Suzuki realized. It was like taking the strongest parts of a race and putting it on steroids.
Stew beat his chest as he roared and charged the queen. She returned the attack, leaping as Stew threw himself at her. They collided with a heavy crack, Stew biting at the queen as he pounded his fists into her back, the angel wrapping her tail around Stew’s neck to strangle him.
Sandy grabbed Suzuki’s hand and said, “We can’t let him do this. He’s going to get killed.”
Suzuki looked at the sky. Diana was still charging her spell. “I know, I know,” Suzuki said, trying to figure out what to do. The battlefield was still thick with angels, and Chip was too far away to reach.
“We handle this ourselves.”
Suzuki charged at the queen. Beth and Sandy came running behind him. He tossed himself onto the massive angel’s back. Sandy and Beth flung themselves onto her as well. They all started hacking as she flailed, releasing Stew from her grasp. Stew didn’t waste any time on the ground, though. He rolled to his feet and grabbed the queen by the tail while the Dragonriders cleaned up the rest of the angels.
Stew pulled hard, and the queen lost her footing and fell on her face. The Mundanes jumped on the queen’s back and hacked at her, trying to cut into her exoskeleton.
She pulled her tail out of Stew’s grasp and lashed him across the chest, sinking the sharp tip of her tail deep into his torso. The berserker screamed and grasped the tip, then broke it off in his hand, blood gushing everywhere as he plunged it deep into the queen’s leg.
From above, Diana shouted, “Mundanes, get clear!”
The Mundanes scattered, leaving the huge angel wounded and exposed.
Diana pointed her wand at the queen and screamed with the rage of a thousand storms. Flaming meteors came flying from the black clouds above.
Sandy raised her hands, her eyes going white. She pulled a shield of bones up over the Mundanes, who huddled underneath it, Stew’s body rapidly returning to its normal size as he pressed on his wound.
Meteors peppered the battlefield as the Dragonriders took to the air to avoid the cataclysm. The queen tried to rise as well, but before she could get into the air, a lightning bolt double the size of her body struck her.
The ground trembled from the force of the bolt, and the meteors continued to fall for some time. Fire spread across the earth, scorching everything that lived. The Mundanes huddled as close together as they could while Sandy tried her best to heal Stew’s wounds.
After some time, the meteors stopped. Sandy waved away the bone hut, and the Mundanes exited. The angel queen lay still on the ground, breathing heavily as she tried to stand and continue fighting. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Stew shouted. “How the hell is that thing still going?”
Ashegoreth landed and towered over the Mundanes, holding Diana, who was unconscious, in her claws. The magical strain had been too much for her. The cracks in her skin were more pronounced than usual, and the glow behind it was dull. Ashegoreth placed Diana in front of Sandy, then turned to Suzuki. “She lives because she is part dragon, fused with the Dark One’s evil,” she explained. “Dragons do not die easily, and neither does the Dark One, but she will not be getting up soon.”
Suzuki walked over to the angel queen. It was true; she was down for the count. Her body was broken, and it was a miracle she was even breathing. “Okay, so what do we do?”
“My dragon’s fire is enough to kill a dragon, but I do not know if it is enough to kill this abomination.”
“What if I have the Dark One’s genes too?”
Ashegoreth looked at Suzuki and huffed out a cloud of smoke. “You who has my gift of dragon’s blood as well?” she asked.
Suzuki tapped his HUD as he nodded. “Yeah, I got infected by the black petal sprouts. Chip saved my life, but the Dark One’s genetic code bonded with mine.”
Ashegoreth wistfully scratched her chin as she thought. “And you have the dragon’s fire, so—”
“Wait, what are you talking about, dragon’s fire?”
“I told you when I first gave you my boon of love. The blood is more than just being able to summon me. The blood defines you as part-dragon. Our fire is your fire. Come, let me touch you.”
Ashegoreth slunk over to the queen and looked down at her broken body. Suzuki climbed the queen’s body and stood on it. “To breathe fire is to speak the tongue of a dragon. It is difficult for a human, but you will learn eventually. It will burn itself into your mind as you sleep once you utter your first syllable. To breathe fire, you speak our word of life. That is all it means, for fire is life. The word is ohm-serathka. Repeat it.”
Suzuki sucked in his breath and held it tight in his chest.
He looked down at the queen.
“Ohm-serathka.”
As the word flowed from Suzuki’s mouth, his body was consumed by flames.
Yet there was no pain.
He noticed it casually, and the flames died out as his entire body warmed as if he had just had a shot of whiskey. He opened his mouth and the flames poured out, a stream of fire too hot to behold, yet causing him no pain.
The flames struck the massive angel in the face, and she screamed as the fire covered her body.
Suzuki stood amongst the flames, unharmed.
He stood atop the angel queen as she burned.
He said the word again and again, fire pouring out of him and onto the abominable creature.
Eventually, the flames died.
All that was left were bones. Suzuki left the bones and went back to his friends. They all stared at him like they had seen the true him for the first time, which was exactly how Suzuki felt. Uttering those words had changed something in him. He did not know what it was; all he knew was things were different now.
Stew, his eyes hardly able to stay open, coughed up a little blood and said, “Dude, you can fucking breathe fire? It’s about time you were able to do something cool.”
Suzuki knelt next to Stew and propped him up. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to fine.”
Sandy rested her hand on Suzuki’s shoulder. “He really will,” she said. “I’m tied to his life energy right now. He can’t slip away unless I do. He’ll make it until we can get him healed.”
Above them all, there was a massive explosion. It looked like a shooting star falling to the earth. As the star got closer, it became apparent it was the flaming wreckage of the sphere Hunter had gone to destroy. It crashed into the ground a few hundred feet away, tearing up the earth as it skidded across it in its flaming glory.
Hunter’s mech landed behind the Mundanes and Ashegoreth, the Dragonriders right behind him. The mech opened and Hunter leaned out of the cockpit. “Sorry about all that.” He laughed. “Didn’t think it was going to take so long, but it looks like you chaps cleared this up fast enough. What’d I miss?”
The Mundanes looked at each other. Suzuki raised his hand tentatively. “Uh, I just found out I can breathe fire,” he said.
“Huh, Myrddin wasn’t joking. You are a pretty interesting bunch. Well, we’ve torched the facility, y’all destroyed the queen, and I took care of the production sphere. Looks like we’ve pretty much covered all our bases. Need a ride back home?”
“No, we have battle cats somewhere around here. But these two, Stew and Diana—could you take them back to the Red Lion with you?”
“Yeah, me and Red will get them back safe and sound. If you’re up for it when you get back, I’ll buy you a few drinks. Lord knows y’all have earned it.”
“Sounds good.”
The Dragonriders took off as Sandy and Chip loaded Stew and Diana into Hunter’s cockpit. Then Hunter closed up and took off into the sky.
Sandy, Beth, Chip, and Suzuki stared at the flaming wreckage, the bones of the queen, and the dead bodies of the angels heaped upon each other. “Fuck, I need a drink.” Suzuki finally sighed.
24
The Red Lion was out of control that night.
The MERCs returned from their quests after hearing through the HUD network the Mundanes had blown up multiple research facilities of the Dark One. That was before they had even heard of the angels. Once news that Suzuki and the Mundanes had faced off against the Dark One in person got out, the drinks were flowing freely.
A table of honor was made up for the Mundanes, and they were all forced to wear the victory hats, old-school witches’ hats covered in spider webs with a giant candles atop them. Anytime the candle went out, whoever was wearing the hat had to take a shot.
Chip had managed to get the ambrosia the Mundanes had mined to Wendy, the owner of the Red Lion, soon enough that Wendy was able to produce the drink the Mundanes had originally set out to create. The ambrosia was passed around without discrimination, and it was not long before the entirety of the MERC establishment was drunk off their asses.
The Mundanes, minus Chip and Diana, were sitting in a small corner of the bar. After the praise and glory had been heaped upon them, they decided to tuck themselves away for their own private decompression. The party could wait.
