by Ramy Vance
But now wasn’t the time for nostalgia or hopefulness. Anabelle continued her climb up the side of the rollercoaster, trying to plan out her course of attack. Any fire magic was pointless. Most wyrms were immune to earth magic as well. Didn’t matter. Anabelle had always hated dealing with earth magic.
She was left with her strongest and weakest skills: lightning and water. Lightning was also out of the question. She could feel a static-electric buzz, the closer she came to the wyrm. The vibrations could be from the Dark Gate, but she chose to play it safe.
Anabelle finally made it to one of the higher loops of the coaster. She was close enough to launch an attack. Manna flowed from her chest to her hands, and she imagined herself as part of a river—the manna the current, her body nothing more than liquid.
The wyrm hadn’t taken notice of Anabelle yet. Thank God those things are so dumb, she thought as she stretched out her arms. Her hands lost the consistency of flesh, transforming to liquid with the force of water blasting from a fire hydrant.
The wave of water hit the wyrm, sending it careening from its circumnavigation of the Dark Gate. As it skittered away, wrapping its serpentine body around itself, Anabelle climbed to the top of the coaster, putting herself between the wyrm and the Gate.
The wyrm appeared unaffected by Anabelle’s attack. It hissed loudly and surged toward her, spewing a thin jet of fire.
Anabelle whipped her hands in front of her, allowing the manna to change her hands back to water. She threw a wave out in front of her to extinguish the wyrm’s fire, creating a large cloud of steam and mist.
The wyrm flew through the steam at Anabelle and knocked her off the top of the coaster. She grabbed a piece of scaffolding, almost yanking her arm from its socket. The wyrm was doubling back, its tiny wings flapping ludicrously.
Anabelle pulled herself up and into the girders of the rollercoaster, hoping to lose the wyrm and allow herself a few moments to recover. She had no such luck. The wyrm barreled toward her, sending debris flying while Anabelle tried to find something to hold onto.
Fortunately, she fell on top of the wyrm’s head, which had been positioned to snatch her out of the air. She wrapped her hands around its neck, shifting them to water. She stretched her arms all the way around the wyrm’s throat, then concentrated on the sensation of snow against her cheeks.
Anabelle’s hands and arms solidified into ice. She pulled up as hard as she could, yanking the wyrm toward the Dark Gate and tearing up the rollercoaster which stood in her way. If she was lucky, the Dark Gate would fall, breaking when it hit the ground.
The structure of the rollercoaster was compromised. The whole thing was teetering like a giant, drunken baby. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed. Anabelle was doing everything in her power to help that process along.
The wyrm thrashed desperately, the way a fish does when pulled from the water, certain of its death. This was simply a waiting game. Anabelle knew it, and so did the wyrm.
Finally, the pair burst through the top of the rollercoaster, sending steel bars hurtling into the air. The area around the Dark Gate collapsed in on itself, crashing to the ground.
As Anabelle and the wyrm passed the Gate, she thought she caught a glimpse of a pair of bright green eyes. Far too bright to belong to an orc or goblin. The kind of hues humans were known for. The vision lasted only a moment, but it was enough to pique Anabelle’s curiosity.
She released the wyrm and flung herself into the air, redistributing her manna throughout her entire body so she could easily dodge and weave through the cascade of steel beams and debris surrounding the Dark Gate.
After a little bit of maneuvering, Anabelle managed to grab hold of the Dark Gate. She peered through it. She caught her breath, surprised that the portal within the Gate was split in two. On one end, the portal appeared to lead back to where the orc forces had come from, while the other led to a place Anabelle didn’t recognize.
The second portal held the green eyes. These eyes belonged to a human with bright red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was dressed in HQ’s standard assassin uniform and was hunched over a computer. A gnome stood at her side, impatiently tapping his feet and glancing over his shoulder.
Anabelle leaned into to get a closer view of the pair. “Who the hell are you?” she asked.
The assassin spun, drew a gun, and fired three shots. Anabelle was barely able to pull away in time.
“Hey, what the hell!” Anabelle shouted.
Curiosity is not generally an attribute of professional killers, but this assassin seemed to have some. She lowered her gun a fraction. “You stick your head out a portal and start shouting, what do you think is going to happen?” she asked. “And who the fuck are you?”
“I asked first. Besides—”
Anabelle saw an orc enter the room from the side. She was about to say something when the assassin turned and tossed a dagger into the orc’s skull. The hilt of the weapon had the Middang3ard insignia etched into it.
Maybe it was time for a change of tactics. “Hey, is that an L7 neutrino grenade?” Anabelle asked.
The assassin gave Anabelle a sly look. “Yeah. Just recently approved.”
“Yeah, I got the memo last week. Can I have one?”
The assassin shrugged, unhooked one, and threw it to Anabelle, who caught it, popped the pin as she turned, and flung it into the open mouth of the wyrm chasing her.
“Huh,” the assassin murmured. “Didn’t even see that thing there.”
An alarm inside the room started to blare. The assassin touched the side of her face, and a nanotech mask blossomed across her face. Anabelle recognized it as friendly tech.
“Tell Myrddin I know how the Dark Gates are being made. I managed to get one to work on the gnomish world, hence this little convo,” the assassin shouted. “Tell him that I need to speak to him. Soon.”
Anabelle thrust a hand out to the gnome and the human, shouting, “Wait, I don’t even know your name!”
The assassin turned to answer, but her words were caught up in the explosion behind Anabelle. She’d forgotten about the wyrm.
Anabelle hit the ground and rolled away as the wyrm exploded above her, sending guts and viscera raining down like some kind of hellish snowstorm. When she opened her eyes, she was covered in a thick layer of blue blood. “Fucking great,” she muttered.
As she tried to wipe off the blood, Blackwell and the recruits, equally bloodsoaked, walked up to her. They all stared at the portal as it faded from the shattered Dark Gate.
“Guess that ends that,” Blackwell said.
A taser went off, and Blackwell jumped and pulled his gun. Naota was standing behind him, absentmindedly twirling his taser. He didn’t seem to mind that Blackwell was aiming a weapon at him. “Whoa there, buddy, you might wanna stow that,” the guard said. “There’s a strict ‘no firearms’ policy here at Excitement Land.”
Naota threw down his plasma rifles, drew his nightstick, and assumed a badly formed bō-staff stance. “Ahh, much better. Now, I’m gonna have to kindly ask you to sheath that lightning right there before I bring the thunder,” he threatened.
Blackwell stood there, unable to speak. “Did you not see anything that just happened?” he exclaimed. “We’re the good guys. We just blew up a dragon.”
Naota pointed his nightstick at Anabelle. “I saw her blow up a dragon, but I can see you are all in cahoots. Either way, there doesn’t seem to be a threat anymore. So please, pack that lightning on up.”
Anabelle burst out laughing as she walked over to Naota and threw her arms around him. “Now, this is a human that I like.” She chuckled. “He went after an orc twice his size with a taser. How many did you end up killing?”
Naota blushed as he put away his nightstick. “A gentleman never tells,” he said.
Anabelle clapped her hands and shouted, “Okay, squad, time to head back to HQ. Since Roy’s reinforcements never showed, they’re on cleanup duty. Security guard. You’re coming w
ith us.”
Naota lowered his head humbly. “Sounds like you’re inviting me on some kind of grand adventure,” he whispered. “Like something you’d see on an anime or a satirical 1990s comic book. But I’m afraid I can’t go, Miss. I’ve sworn a solemn oath to the great Excitement Land. To protect and serve. I’m gonna honor that pledge with my life.”
Blackwell snickered, although the other recruits tried to hold back their laughter. “Dude, look around you,” he said.
Naota did as he was told. The park had been nearly obliterated. “On second thought, I’d like to start my hero’s journey,” the guard said, his face solemn.
Chapter Eight
Terra woke up, unsure of where she was. The remnants of a nightmare clung to her like a thick spider’s web. There had been a creature made of fire, but even before that, grotesque, gray monsters had abducted her. She’d also made the mistake of shaving her head.
As she sat in a stupor, trying to piece together the last few hours of her life, she ran her hand over her scalp. There was no hair. She sighed as she forced herself to a sitting position. Guess it hadn’t been a dream.
Terra looked down at her hands. They were rubbed raw. Even in the dim light, she could see that they were covered with small burns. As far as she was concerned, that was proof she’d gotten off lucky. If her memory served her right, she had tackled a flaming demon. A few burns weren’t too bad.
The cell was empty of everything but furniture and a bowl of food sitting on the chair next to Terra’s bed. Cecile must have left it for her. She vaguely remembered him taking care of her a few hours ago. Or was it a day? She had no idea how long she’d been out.
When Terra reached for the bowl of food, her entire body screamed in protest. Even if her wounds had healed, damage had been done. She sensed it deep in her bones. Her muscles felt as though they’d been stretched and then hammered to goo.
If the door of the cell hadn’t been wide open, Terra would have laid back down and slipped into sleep. But she had seen the open door as she had shoved food into her mouth with shaking hands. There was no way it had been left open by accident. Maybe this was another perk of having won?
Who knows? Terra thought. By the end of this thing, they might give me a tour of their royal palace. Do orcs even have palaces?
Fantasy had never been a particular interest to Terra. She hardly cared about human history. The fictional histories of elves and orcs weren’t high on the list of things that grabbed her attention.
Although her body felt ready to collapse, Terra managed to get to her feet. She dropped her bowl on the bed and hobbled to the door. Almost a minute had passed before she crossed the ten feet to the door.
Terra was certain she was going to pass out. Her forehead was covered with sweat, and she could feel it sliding down her arms. Imagine killing a balrog, then dying on the floor in a shitty jail cell. Only Terra could be that lucky.
Once she made it to the door, she braced herself against it, catching her breath. The pain was still there, but it was getting more bearable. All she had to do was keep fighting through it. Fight. Fuck, Terra thought. I have another fight. You’d think I’d get a little more time for a break.
The possibility of defeat wasn’t something Terra wanted to think about at the moment. Not because she had a problem losing. She just knew that a loss would directly affect any retirement plans she’d been holding on to.
Terra inched around the door’s corner, poking her head out first to see if anyone was watching or waiting for her. The hallway was empty. It wasn’t as though Terra could have made a run for it, even if she had wanted to.
But the door had been left open. Which meant someone didn’t have a problem with Terra wandering around. The orcs probably believed Terra was too messed up to get out of bed. And to think they wanted Terra to fight. Maybe they had a puppy lined up for her or something.
Terra leaned against the stone walls and slowly shimmied her way down the hallway, stopping periodically to regain control of her breathing and to mutter about her aching bones and muscles. But she kept going. Slowly, she progressed down the hallway.
The hallway opened into a larger holding area. A dozen other people—Terra hesitated to call them all that—sitting on benches around the hall. A long dining table took up most of the space in the room. It was sparsely covered with food and bottles.
None of the prisoners in the room seemed to notice Terra. They no doubt had other things on their minds. Among the more humanoid creatures, Terra recognized the look of despair. But there were many other creatures that Terra couldn’t have dreamed of getting a read on.
Three humans were clustered together in the righthand corner of the room. They were staring blankly into space. Their eyes registered nothing and had the blank look of the damned and lost. Each was covered in an assortment of scars and wounds.
Not too far from the humans was a small group of orcs. They did not have the same stiff-spined, military look as the ones Terra had seen so far. These orcs were more downtrodden than the humans, yet were in better physical shape. They didn’t look as beaten up.
In another part of the room, a group of goblins was licking their wounds and sharpening their weapons. They were the only ones so far who didn’t look like they had given up. If anything, they appeared to be itching for their next fight.
Then there were the wraiths, or at least that’s what Terra thought they were. She’d never seen one before but had read about them in a book on Irish folklore when she was a child. These appeared to be close enough.
The wraiths looked to have been human at some point but were now a calming shade of blue and almost transparent. They wore armor from an older time. If they hadn’t already been dead, Terra would have assumed they were preparing for their own funeral.
Last were the mantis creatures. Terra had no idea what else to call them. They were around four feet tall and looked like praying mantises that had been enlarged to a frightening size. They were a bluish-green color that shimmered in the dim candlelight.
The creatures’ eyes were strangely human while still being buglike. They were the only eyes that followed Terra as she trudged into the room, a keen interest in each of the creatures’ faces as they chattered with each other.
At first, Terra had been worried about entering the room. But now, having watched the rest of the prisoners, Terra felt like she had more fight in her than most of them. There was no reason for her to ignore the bottles of what was hopefully wine on the table.
Terra made it over to the table, pulled out one of the chairs, and allowed her pained body to sink onto the uncomfortable wooden frame. Despite having just finished a bowl of whatever the hell Cecile had brought, Terra was still starving. She grabbed whatever was in front of her and started eating, occasionally washing down the food with a gulp from the wine in one of the bottles.
As Terra ate, the orcs and humans watched her. The goblins were more interested in their weapons than anything else, and Terra didn’t mind. She hated it when people watched her eat, and this was hardly the most comfortable place to deal with any vore fetishists. “You just gonna watch, or are you gonna join me?” she called.
No one answered, but after a moment, a few of the orcs came to sit beside Terra. They didn’t take their eyes off of her, even as they started to serve themselves food and drink. “You’re the one they keep chanting about, aren’t you?” one of the orcs finally asked.
Terra glanced up from her food and grunted an assent before tearing back into her meal. She wanted the conversation, but she also felt an animalistic need to eat. No doubt her body craved anything to help the healing process along.
The humans were now walking over, as were the insectoids, their beady eyes poring over Terra with unbridled curiosity. “Not-a-Male, right?” a short-haired man asked.
Terra took a swig from the jug of wine, letting the fiery stuff burn the back of her throat. “Name’s Terra. And it’s true what they say. I’m not a man.”
; “We watched you take down that balrog. How the hell did you do that?”
Terra pointed at the goblins. “See the pointy end? I tried really hard to get that side to go into his head. Looks like it worked. Don’t tell anyone my secret.”
The orcs cracked up while the humans looked on, dejected. “You talk more like an orc than a human,” one joked.
Terra pointed at the hunk of meat she held at him. “What the hell are you doing down here?” she asked. “Isn’t this whole arena thing an orc event or something?”
“It is an event for a certain kind of orc, the sort that has forgotten being orc is having no master.”
Terra shrugged as she drank more wine. “You’re going to have to do a little more explaining than that. Not sure if I understand this whole…actually, I have no idea what the fuck is going on. Period. So, why not do a little more talking.”
“This arena is built on the remains of an ancient orc burial ground, but there is nothing orcish here. The orcs who run the arena are slaves to the Dark One. We are the ones who cannot be enslaved. Thus, we are to be put to death.”
The other orcs nodded solemnly as they picked at their food. Terra wondered what situation the humans were in. “And what about you guys? What are you doing here?”
The human who spoke before gestured at his friend to pass the wine. “Probably the same as you. I was at a baseball game with my nephew and a big-ass light went off, and now I’m here. No one explained anything to me other than I’m going in there next.”
“So, put to death, huh?”
The human handed Terra the jug of wine and grimaced. “If we’re fighting anything like you had to, it’s pretty much a death sentence.”
An insectoid came over and sat next to Terra. Its eyes bulged a little, and it made a skittering noise that sounded like a thousand crickets all at once. Then it snatched a piece of meat from Terra’s plate and started chomping.