The air thickened, and Calal’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. A strange sensation passed through him. His first instinct was to call it magic, but it didn’t feel like any magic he’d ever sensed before in the two centuries of his life.
“Did you feel that?” he asked quietly.
Mear nodded and pointed. “That felt like it came from farther down.” He leapt out of the tower. A quick wind spell allowed him to fall halfway down the steep slope and land as if he’d taken a single step. Calal joined him a moment later.
They were now on the outskirts of the town, on the opposite side from the desert folks’ caravan. A few small warehouses lined the marble streets. A smattering of elves and a few other races stood along the street, gesturing and talking to themselves, confused and concerned looks on their faces.
The strange pulsing energy lingered.
“We’re obviously not the only ones who sense it,” Mear murmured. He summoned a quick shield. “I’ve heard rumors that now that the Drow don’t have a queen, they might try to return to a life of conquest. Attacking a border town would be a good place to test their strength.”
Calal scoffed. “I’ve heard just the opposite. Besides, this doesn’t feel like Drow magic.” Despite his disbelief, his heart pounded, and he also cast a shield spell. Sparkling energy surrounded him.
“Who then? More Rhazdon adherents?”
“It’s probably just someone opening a huge portal or another gnome prank.”
An opaque dark hole appeared in the air ten feet above the ground, and lines of dark green energy crackled across the portal.
“See?” Calal pointed. “Just because something’s a little different, doesn’t make it dangerous. We’ll inform the new arrival about proper protocol once they’re through, though.”
A two-armed, two-legged humanoid figure emerged from the portal and dropped to the ground, landing on its feet with a thud.
Calal didn’t recognize the species. He wasn’t sure if the mottled silver-green metallic outer layer surrounding the creature was its natural skin or some type of armor. Two sharp blades made of the same material extended from the tops of both arms, and although it had a head, the creature lacked any obvious eyes or other distinguishing facial features. Two curled razor-tipped segmented appendages extended out of its shoulders, twitching. They looked as if they could reach farther than the creature’s arms if fully extended.
Calal sighed. From the look of it, the creature probably was some underground race. Maybe a Halican relative or something of that nature. That would explain its appearance and the odd sensation associated with its portal.
Mear stepped forward. The music of a quick Light Elf translation spell followed, although they could be tricky with non-flesh-based races. “May we help you? I’m afraid I don’t recognize your race.” He looked at Calal, who shrugged back, as clueless as his friend. “This is the town of Alazi.”
The new arrival stared at Mear for a moment, not moving. Then a sudden loud roar had Mear jumping back, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“We are the Vax,” the new arrival declared, the translation spell working after all. The deep, foreboding tenor of the original voice remained, unaffected by the spell. “We are the Purifier. Your planet represents a threat. This ends your warning. You will die.” The Purifier slowly raised an arm.
Calal jerked up his hand and made a few quick movements. Melodious notes flowed into an alarm spell to summon additional guards. He followed with a remote transmission spell, his heart racing. Mear had gotten his wish. The latest threat appeared far more dangerous than a drunken dwarf.
“Vax?” Mear murmured. “I know that name, but from where? And what do you mean, you are the Purifier?” He pointed his sword at the Vax. “No matter. You will stand down immediately and surrender. Your threats risk inflaming public unrest. I don’t know if you’re a criminal or if this is a bizarre act of war, but the Great Treaty is in force, and we were hired to protect this town in any event.”
The Purifier took a single step toward Mear, and the elf raised his free hand and murmured an incantation. Strands of rope appeared and wrapped themselves around the arms and legs of the Purifier. The elf smirked, confident of his victory.
The Vax ripped through the ropes with ease and let out a long, low growl.
“If you don’t stand down, we’ll be forced to harm you,” Calal explained. “Please don’t force us to do that.”
The Purifier stopped. He turned his head slightly, but it was hard to know what he was looking at given the lack of eyes. A green bolt blasted from his right blade and struck Mear.
The elf flew backward, hissing in pain. He landed on his back, his sword in his hand. His shield failed, but given the burn on his chest, the magic had saved his life.
The people who had come to see what was happening shouted in alarm, scattering.
Calal pointed his sword and rattled off an incantation. A ring of fireballs appeared and exploded against the Purifier, producing nothing more than minor scorches. A creature immune to fire was a dangerous beast indeed.
Mear leapt to his feet and strengthened his shield. A bright red aura gripped his sword, and he charged the enemy. He swung for the shoulder. He shouted in triumph when the enchanted blade sliced through the creature’s arm and separated it from his body.
The silver-green metallic limb fell to the ground, and the Purifier howled in pain and anger.
Mear stepped back with a cocky grin on his face. “Such threats, but you’re not so powerful, are you, Vax? I can take you apart piece by piece.” He brought his blade back. “You’re not worth such an ancient blade, but so be it.”
Calal’s gaze dipped to the severed limb. He could make out the bloodied back of a red-skinned arm. The Purifier was an armored creature, not some ground-dwelling race of metal and stone.
Silver-green metallic tendrils shot from the Purifier’s wound, twisting around each other and forming the outline of a new limb.
“It’s not over,” Calal shouted.
Mear placed a hand behind him, and an air burst spell launched him forward. He raised his sword for a decapitation strike, but his blade met the neck of the beast with a loud, reverberating clang.
The elf’s eyes widened in surprise, and only his tight grip around the hilt of the blade kept it from flying away as he jerked to a sudden stop. He jumped back, gritting his teeth. There was only a shallow cut in the neck.
“Mear, be careful!” Calal shouted. He took his opportunity to fire a few bolts of light magic. The first made the Purifier stagger back with a shallow blackened hole in his armor. The second barely marred him. Silver-green metallic tendrils filled the hole, and the Purifier’s arm continued to regenerate.
Mear backed up, shaking his head. “Protected your head, did you? Cleverer than I gave you credit for.” He swung again, this time going for the other arm, but his blade bounced right off, leaving only the barest hint of a scratch. He tried a third attack, but this time the Vax met Mear with his own blade.
The Purifier’s weapon sliced through Mear’s enchanted long sword and the top half clattered to the marble stones of the road. Both pieces stopped glowing.
“Impossible,” Mear shouted, still gripping the hilt. He spun in time to avoid the Vax’s blade taking his head off, but one of the razor-tipped shoulder appendages shot forward and speared him through the chest. He coughed up blood, blinking down at his wound in surprise. The shimmer of his shield vanished, and his head lolled forward.
“No!” Calal shouted. He launched more light bolts, but they did nothing.
The Purifier brought Mear’s body closer and pushed him off the bloodied appendage with his armored foot.
A green bolt erupted from the tip of the other appendage and slammed into Calal’s shoulder. Pain exploded through his body as he fell to the ground. Unlike the first attack on Mear, Calal’s shield had done nothing. A huge blackened hole surrounded by charred flesh ran through his shoulder.
In the
distance, several other guardsmen were approaching, some zooming along on slabs of earth, others soaring through the air with the help of magic.
Flashes of green light danced across the remaining arm blade of the Purifier. The first arm was halfway regenerated. The appendages swung back and forth, blasting green hellfire into buildings, fleeing people, and animals. Two gnomes emerged from a nearby building and summoned a huge wall of ice in front of the Purifier.
A moment later, bright green beams blasted from the arm blades and carved through the wall, buildings, and anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way, including some of the newly arriving guardsmen and the gnomes. The top of the ice wall fell back, smashing into the ground and sending up a shower of ice shards and dust.
Calal fought unconsciousness as pain suffused his body and gripped his shoulder, murmuring a healing spell. The Purifier wasn’t the only one who could regenerate.
Lightning crashed into the monster, then acid. The surviving guardsmen were counterattacking.
Some of the attacks did nothing, but others forced the monster back and wounded it, only for its regeneration to continue. Always, the next similar attack accomplishing nothing.
Roaring, and with his arm regenerated, the Purifier swept the area with twin beams of death. His appendages continued their staccato spitting of the green bolts. They burned deep into any unprotected Oriceran they encountered.
The roof of a nearby building collapsed, and several people inside screamed as the heavy stone crushed them.
Calal staggered to his feet, not bothering with his sword. He shoved his hands forward and began chanting a complicated paralysis spell. They didn’t need to kill the Purifier. If they could disable him, they could get more reinforcements and figure out some way to handle the creature. All beings had a weakness.
The Purifier’s back was turned to the elf as the creature mowed down the newest guardsmen arrivals, their defenses not protecting them from his beams.
Bodies littered the ground, and smoke poured from the burning buildings.
Calal finished the spell, and a glowing glyph appeared on the back of the Purifier.
“That should hold you, monster,” Calal spat.
The glyph disappeared, and the monster let out a growl. He advanced, and this time massive lines of juddering energy appeared on his blades. The Purifier’s shoulder appendages stopped firing, and the tips grew brighter.
Calal swallowed. “Can nothing stop you?” He hurled an ice lance, a fireball, and blasts of pure light magic at the Purifier. Each spell landed, but the creature didn’t seem to notice or care.
The green light grew blinding, and Calal shielded his eyes.
A massive green blast exploded from the Purifier and smashed into a nearby crystal tower, obliterating the structure and some of the smaller wooden buildings nearby. The shockwave knocked Calal flat on his back.
The elf groaned and craned his neck up. A massive cloud of crystal shards spread across the sky and rained down in the following moments.
Calal sat up in time for the Purifier’s next major attack, which blew away several smaller buildings in one blast. Not a single undamaged building remained standing in the area. He didn’t bother to survey the bodies.
Somehow cruel fate had left him alive against an unstoppable monster. He stared, his breathing shallow, his mind refusing to offer any useful tactics. He did nothing as Vax beams and blasts ravaged the area.
The Purifier advanced toward the town. All the carnage and destruction so far had been limited to the edge.
Calal fell to his knees and began chanting a new spell. If he couldn’t stop the Purifier, he had to save everyone.
The Purifier halted his advance and slowly turned around. The elf continued casting his spell as the monster raised his arms and charged a beam attack.
Magic filled the air. As Calal spoke, his amplified voice shouted from above, as if a god were speaking to the town. “Flee! Run! Evacuate! The smoke isn’t a normal fire. An unknown monster immune to magical attacks has slain the guard. You can’t win against this monster, regardless of your power.”
The last thing Calal saw was the bright green blast of the Purifier’s beam before it incinerated him.
5
Senator Johnston settled into the comfortable high-backed chair at the long table. The President and Vice-President were absent, but the National Security Advisor and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff weren’t.
He wasn’t sure what was going on, only that he’d been ordered to come to the White House for a matter of “significant interplanetary concern.” The newest Oriceran Ambassador to the United States, an elegant female elf with dark hair named Yona, sat near the front of the table, her lips pursed and anger all but visibly radiating off her.
Senator Johnston felt bad for the woman. She’d only been on the job for a few months, and the complexities of Earth-Oriceran relations would make any being faint from stress. Even if they had been watching—and in some cases manipulating—humans for millennia, Oricerans didn’t always understand them.
It was rare that Senator Johnston was not clear what was going on, and the presence of Ambassador Yona suggested the issue wasn’t focused on non-Oriceran aliens. Between the Alliance and Fortis, things had gotten unnecessarily complicated in the last year. He preferred it when the CIA and a few other black ops groups were grabbing the spare alien or artifact.
The National Security Advisor cleared his throat as a few more officials filtered into the room. “Thank you for joining us. We’d like to get started. I’ll skip the bullshit and make it clear what made us call this meeting.” He nodded at the elf. “Ambassador Yona contacted us to let us know there was a brutal assault yesterday on a small town on Oriceran. The single perpetrator laid waste to the town and murdered hundreds of people despite the presence of trained Light Elf guards. The Light Elves have reason at this time to believe the culprit was not of Oriceran origin, and may have launched his attack from a base in the United States. If that’s the case, we’ll have to treat this as a major terrorist incident and do our best to aid the Oriceran authorities in the apprehension and/or elimination of this terrorist.”
Everyone at the table tensed. Even though the nations of Earth weren’t formal signatories to the Oriceran Great Treaty, most, including the US, had signed various other treaties. A massive attack like the one just described could easily push Oriceran into war against an Earth nation, a situation that no one on either side wanted. Senator Johnston knew what the US would do if some fresh-out-of-the-portal Oriceran strolled into a random town and slaughtered hundreds of people.
Ambassador Yona raised her hand, and musical notes filled the air. A moment later a shimmering image appeared, the point of view of someone confronting a figure in chillingly familiar biomechanical armor. “These are the last moments of one of the Light Elf guards killed in the town of Alazi. The elf’s name was Calal.”
“Vax?” came a voice from the image. “I know that name, but from where?”
The magical footage ended with the death of Calal.
Ambassador Yona waved her hand, and the image disappeared. “This evidence is clear. There’s only one being who uses such armor. We’ve tracked the activities of James Brownstone in the past. We know he traveled to Oriceran and engaged in a battle with the Drow Queen, but because the Drow didn’t lodge a complaint, we let that slide. This is beyond unacceptable, however.”
Her hands curled into fists. “We don’t care what you think of this man or how useful he is, we will not allow him to slaughter entire towns. If you attempt to shield him, it will be a violation of existing treaties and a potential act of war. We demand justice, and we will seek it.” She slammed a fist on the table. “His level of danger far exceeds even sending him to Trevilsom, and we intend to bring together a group to hunt him and send him to the World in Between.”
“And where is the killer now?” Senator Johnston asked.
“After the destruction of the town, the murdere
r continued marching in a southwesterly direction. Currently, we’re watching him from afar while we evaluate our options. It’s unclear to us what his destination or goal is, since he’s come close to another town and several villages but hasn’t attacked them.”
When the magical movie had begun, Senator Johnston’s heart had started pounding so much he thought he was going to have a heart attack right there in the conference room, but as the carnage unfolded, calm resignation set in.
The politician had two problems to handle, most likely soon to be three, but at least one of them he could handle immediately without much effort. He still would have to tread lightly, because even though he had been in politics for decades, the woman sitting across the table from him was likely older than the United States.
“If James Brownstone killed a bunch of Oricerans, and if we were shielding him,” Senator Johnston began, “then everything you said would be true, and we would offer our full cooperation. But that creature isn’t James Brownstone.”
Ambassador Yona scoffed. “If it’s not him, then who is it? You saw through the eyes of a man there, and you heard that it was a Vax.”
Senator Johnston summoned his best magic: a disarming smile. “You mentioned tracking James Brownstone, but I doubt you track him like we do. You said this attack was yesterday, and you said he’s still on Oriceran?”
“Yes. So? What of it?”
“James Brownstone is currently in Los Angeles, and he hasn’t left Los Angeles for several weeks. We could go visit him right now if you wanted. He’s at home.”
Uncertainty passed over the ambassador’s face. “What are you saying?”
Senator Johnston let out a long sigh and glanced at the National Security Advisor and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’m saying we’ve got a different nightmare scenario. I’m saying that one of Brownstone’s people, a Vax, has finally shown up. One of the boogeymen of the galaxy is now on Oriceran, and from the show he just put on, apparently being tough doesn’t just apply to James Brownstone.”
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