Puny God

by Andrew Beymer

  Not the kind of thing you expected to see on a girl at a college dance club. At least not unless we were talking about the week leading up to Halloween when everyone got drunk and dressed as slutty as possible even though it was usually fucking cold.

  Only Halloween was still a good month away. There was no way those things over there could be people dressed up in costumes. Not to mention those costumes hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  I bumped into another dude who was trying his best not to lose his beer as we slammed into each other. He also looked like he was about to start something with me.

  “What the fuck are you doing bringing beer on the dance floor assfuck?” I shouted.

  He looked like he was considering a punch, but then a pretty girl with fiery red hair that didn’t exist in nature was right there next to him pulling him away from the fight he’d no doubt been about to start.

  I looked up again and the orc dudes weren’t orcs anymore and the girl didn’t have those weird pointy ears.

  Mostly because I couldn’t see them at all. My eyes narrowed. I figured it couldn’t mean anything good that I couldn’t see them. Not with the way those guys had been tugging on the girl and she’d been doing her best to keep from going wherever they were taking her.

  I scanned the tables around the edge. Maybe there was a rational explanation for this. Well, a rational explanation for the parts of this that didn’t involve people turning into orcs and fairies.

  Like they could be a couple of guys trying to pull the girl off the dance floor because she’d had too much to drink or something. Yeah, I wished I could believe that, but they weren’t anywhere to be found around the edge.

  My eyes came to rest on an emergency exit. There were supposed to be loud noises that came from those motherfuckers when they went off, but I could totally see where the music could be loud enough that no one would hear the screech of an emergency exit being thrown open.

  I frowned. It didn’t seem to make much fucking sense to have an emergency exit like that when nobody could hear the motherfucker going off, that was the kind of stuff that led to situations like that night club fire that shark band was headlining back in the day, but what the fuck ever.

  I wasn’t sure what the fuck I was going to do to stop them, but I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I left that girl to those asshats. Maybe it was nothing, but then again maybe it was something.

  I wasn’t sure what the fuck I was going to do against a couple of assholes like that, but I figured sometimes just letting assholes know they’d been seen doing asshole stuff in a very public area was enough to get them to stop being assholes.

  Yeah, I really hoped that was going to be the case here, because otherwise I was fucked considering how big and hulking those guys were.

  So I took a step towards the back entrance, having no idea at the time that I was about to make a decision that was going to change the course of my life forever.

  On the bright side I wasn’t going to have to worry about failing out of Physics when all was said and done, but I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. Spoilers and all that.

  3

  Two on One

  I was on the verge of pushing the door open when someone was right there pressing their hand against the door and pulling it closed. For a panicked moment I thought it was one of the bouncers coming over to bitch me out, but then I realized the hand was way too wimpy to belong to one of those walking and breathing slabs of beef at the front entrance.

  I turned to see Tom staring at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked. “This is an emergency exit. You go through there and it’s going to make a loud noise!”

  I thought about the loud noise I didn’t hear when that girl went through the door with those other slabs of beef that looked like they’d been raiding the ugly mask department of the local year-round costume store. The kind of awesome place that could only survive in the city, or in a college town where there were enough college kids having theme parties year round that it kept them in business.

  “I don’t think you need to worry about the noise when this door opens man,” I said.

  Maybe. There was always the chance I was wrong and that girl and those dudes hadn’t gone out this way.

  “But I do have to worry!” he shouted to be heard over the music. “If you get us kicked out you’re going to ruin my chances with the ladies!”

  I glanced behind him to see if the ladies he was talking about were more hypothetical than real. The lack of actual girls standing near him would seem to back up that assumption.

  “I’ll take my chances on ruining your night,” I said. “I think I just saw a girl getting pushed out there by a couple of big guys, and I need to make sure she’s not in trouble.”

  I tried to push the door open again, and again Tom pulled the bar shut before I could push it down far enough to set off the alarm.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I growled.

  “You said it yourself man,” he said. “There are potentially a couple of assholes out there trying to have their way with a girl. Do you really want to get your ass kicked interrupting them?”

  I stared at Tom like I didn’t know him. I mean we’d never been in a situation like this before, so it’s not like I could judge his character in a situation like this or anything.

  Still, I was surprised he’d act like such a scared wimp when he was faced with the very real prospect of a damsel in distress on the other side of the door.

  “Yeah, I’m sure I want to go out there and help the girl who might be getting assaulted,” I said. “Besides, you of all people should appreciate what I can pull in a fight.”

  He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then shut it. Instead his hand went to his nose. I hadn’t meant to break his nose, but the guy had been acting like a first rate prick at a bonfire party, and I did have my black belt at that point.

  Sure it’d been a black belt from Master Kenny’s Strip Mall McDojo, but it turns out that’d been more than enough to break Tom’s nose that night.

  “Whatever man,” he said, his voice a little more heated than the situation deserved. He was totally thinking about that night. He always got salty thinking about that night. Maybe he was even hoping if I went out in that alley I might get some of what I gave his nose that night.

  What the fuck ever. I pushed on the door again, and this time he let me push it open. Though he did stop me with a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’ll go get help or something,” he said. “I’m sure the bouncers don’t want any trouble like that either. Try not to get your nose punched in while I’m coming to the rescue.”

  I grinned and held up my fists in a stance I hadn’t used in half a decade. I hadn’t kept up with that stuff since getting to college. I’d been too busy studying.

  Too busy playing games, is more like it. It was a lie I repeated to my parents often enough that even my own treacherous brain had started to believe it.

  I put my hands down. I was acting like an idiot. It’s not like I actually wanted to get in a fight with those assholes. One of the things Master Kenny had drilled into us over and over was that he wanted us to survive a fight we got into, and usually that meant not getting into a fight in the first place.

  We’d spent a lot of time working on running in addition to sparring. Both because Master Kenny claimed cardio was next to Godliness, especially for a bunch of shitheel elementary school kids who weren’t always the greatest listeners, and because he told us the most effective way we could win a fight was to run away from the motherfucker if we could.

  I didn’t think I’d be getting that chance here.

  I peered into the alley. There was a single old incandescent light hovering over the door providing light. The bricks back here were dank from rain earlier in the day, and I stepped in a puddle of something I didn’t want to think about as I moved out the door. I could hear something dripping in the distance,
along with…

  Rustling, and a quiet whimper that sounded like a woman in trouble. Instantly my blood was boiling and I wasn’t thinking about how the old style brick from the ancient buildings hadn’t been painted and done up to look pretty in the alley behind The Club.

  I slammed the door shut and there was a loud click that had a surprising amount of finality to it. I looked down at the door and it occurred to me that locking myself out might not be the best idea.

  It was a short distance to the emergency exit, but it was a hell of a lot longer to get to the end of the alley. Damn it.

  Shadows moved at the end of that alley, just at the edge of the light overhead. Whoever was over there and whatever the fuck they were doing, they didn’t want an audience. Which meant whatever they were doing couldn’t be good.

  My fists clenched. I didn’t bring them up, but I was ready. I was still running a pretty good chance of getting my shit kicked in, but what the fuck ever.

  One of the reasons I hadn’t joined the campus martial arts club was I’d quickly realized I could mop the floor with most of those wannabes. All I could do here was hope these guys were just as bad in a fight.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, hopefully loud enough that someone might hear what was going on from the alley entrance.

  There was a street out there that was teeming with college kids going out to have a drink and maybe find someone to spend the night with, after all. The only problem being there were plenty of bars out there blasting music at volumes that should’ve had the cops called on them, which meant there wasn’t much chance anyone would hear me, let alone call for help.

  Motherfucker.

  There was deep rumbling from the dark end of the alley. A rumbling that felt like it was almost as loud as some of the bass pumping through the walls from The Club. Damn.

  “Get out of here, human,” the voice said.

  Get out of here, human? What kind of fucking line was that?

  A little voice whispered to me that it was the kind of line that would come from a creature that wasn’t of this world. From a creature that actually was an orc, or whatever the fuck these things called themselves. A creature that could snap me into a couple of pieces without breaking a sweat if it really wanted to.

  Basically not the kind of motherfucker I wanted to cross, but it was a little too fucking late for that now. Damn it.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “You need to leave the girl alone. Go now and I won’t say anything to the cops.”

  Now there was a fucking lie if there ever was one. I was going to sing to the cops as long and as loud as they wanted to hear me singing. I was going to tell them everything I saw here. I was memorizing every detail. I even glanced down at my phone to set the time in my memory.

  They didn’t have to know that I fully intended to turn them into the authorities, though. That seemed like the kind of admission that would put a real damper on the rapport I was trying to build with them. A rapport that hopefully wouldn’t end with them beating the shit out of me.

  There was more of that deep rumbling laughter from the darkness at the end of the alley. I figured deep rumbling laughter from the other end of the alley couldn’t mean anything good for me, but I was already out here and it’s not like I could turn and run.

  I mean I totally could turn and run. Discretion is the better part of valor. Only that would mean leaving that girl to deal with whatever the fuck it was these assholes were getting ready to do to her, and I was suddenly left with an uncertain feeling that maybe what I’d thought they were going to do to her and what they were actually doing to her were two very different things.

  “We don’t care about your authorities, human,” the rumbling voice said. “This is your last chance to get the fuck out of our business. You’d best take it if you know what’s good for you.”

  Yeah, that was the kind of voice that belonged to a guy who was confident he was going to fuck me up six ways from Sunday without breaking a sweat. I glanced over my shoulder in the vain hope that maybe some of that help Tom had been talking about might be coming, but no dice.

  Damn it.

  I turned back and there was a flash. Only a brief flash, but it was enough to show me something I really didn’t like. Sure enough those two assholes were hovering over the girl, and she was splayed down with her dress riding up. Not good.

  “This is your last chance to get the fuck away from her,” I said.

  I wondered where that glow was coming from. My first thought was they had a stun gun, and maybe they were going for a way more intense version of the whole date rape thing that didn’t involve slipping something in her drink.

  Only the more my eyes adjusted to the darkness the more I realized the glow was coming from the girl, and not from anything these two assholes held.

  It was pretty easy to see the glow wasn’t coming from the two assholes, because they were both charging at me and I knew there was no way I was going to be able to get away from them before they landed a hit, but I could also tell the glow was staying at the dark end of the alley and not traveling with these pricks.

  They moved with an impossible speed. A speed that seemed almost superhuman. Almost supernatural. The more time I spent in this alley dealing with this fucked up situation, the more I started to think that maybe there was a hell of a lot more going on here than I’d initially suspected.

  Not that I had time to think about that. No, there were two massive assholes coming at me, and instinct went into action without me thinking about it. Because that was the fucking point of doing the same exercises over and over again so I wouldn’t have to think about what I was doing when I was faced with a situation where there were a couple of ugly beefcakes coming at me.

  I also suddenly felt a new burst of strength filling me. A glow popped up around me illuminating those assholes, and in that last moment before we collided they went from looking royally pissed off to almost terrified.

  Bring it, bitches.

  I ducked low and hit the first guy with a punch right to the gut. It helped that he seemed to be relying on his size and momentum to carry him through his punch that whiffed through the air just over my head.

  Don’t get me wrong. That sounded like the kind of punch that would’ve done some serious damage if it’d actually hit. The fact that I could hear it even though it wasn’t landing was proof enough of that.

  The point is it didn’t land, so the asshole was shit out of luck as my suddenly glowing fist made contact with his stomach. Okay, some weird shit was definitely happening here, and it wasn’t just that glow surrounding me.

  Like I would’ve figured I wouldn’t be able to do much damage to an asshole like this with a punch. He looked like he was pure muscle, and he felt like it as my knuckles made contact. We’re talking the kind of dude that could do just as much damage getting hit as he did when he was doing the hitting.

  Only that strange glow surrounded my fists as they made contact with his stomach, and he flew back a good twenty feet. He probably would’ve gone farther, but there was a brick wall at the end of the alley, and it’s not like he could go through the damned thing.

  I stared at my fists in wonder. I’d never been a big Daniel Laruso type back in my days in the McDojo. I’d done my time and got the black belt, sure, but it’s not like I was coming home with the big trophy or a night with Elisabeth Shue or anything like that.

  Which meant there shouldn’t have been any reason for my punches to suddenly hit with the force of something straight out of an old Street Fighter 2 cabinet. Though staring at my glowing hands was what ended up being my undoing.

  Yeah, it turns out stopping and staring at your fists in the middle of a fight to the death with a couple of giant orc creatures isn’t the best idea considering stopping and staring at my hands gave the second asshole enough time to jump on top of me and pull his fist up.

  His fist wasn’t glowing, but it certainly looked big enough that he was going to give
me one hell of a bad time when that hit landed. Damn it.

  I tried punching him, but whatever mojo had been working on me a moment ago was clearly no longer a thing, because my fists refused to glow or do anything useful. No, they just landed against the dude with an ineffective thump.

  The guy grinned as he flexed his own fist.

  “My turn, human,” he said. “I told you this was none of your business.”

  The dude sounded like he was trying to sound like he was sad about having to rearrange my face, but the grin plastered across his face made it clear he wasn’t sad at all. The fist came down towards my face, and I watched it with a detached fascination as the world seemed to slow down around me.

  I hadn’t been in many real fights, and even then it’d been years. It was actually sort of interesting seeing everything happening for real again after all this time, for all that there was another panicked part of my brain screaming that this was going to hurt like a motherfucker when that fist landed.

  The alley lit up again, and I worried that maybe it was the feeling of the fist landing. Only it was still only about halfway to my face. Weird how adrenaline pumping through your system could make everything slow down like that.

  Then that glow slammed into the orc bro and suddenly his fist wasn’t coming for my face any longer. Suddenly there wasn’t any orc bro even standing there. No, there was just a little bit of smoke where the guy had been.

  I blinked a couple of times and looked around. First to one end of the alley where the first one I’d punched was still leaning against the wall looking like he wasn’t going to be getting up any time soon, and then to the exit where the other orc bro had gone skidding to a halt out in the street.

  People screamed in surprise, and there were a few car crashes. I could only hope one of those crashes came after the car ha run over the fucker.