Served the asshole right.
“Almost there,” Leila said.
I’d been so focused on the puke that I hadn’t noticed the magic pulsing in the ground, but it looked like it was getting ready to do something impressive and potentially dangerous. I was so curious about it that I found myself leaning over just a little too far.
“What the fuck is…”
That magic was still running through me, though thankfully it wasn’t hitting me to the point that I was on the verge of blacking out. That would’ve been bad all the way up here throwing myself at those orcs like a literal magical dive bomb or something.
Then it hit me exactly what I was thinking. I looked down at myself. At the glow pulsing through me. At the line of magic running through Leila and down to the blinding glow below. It was like that magic was pulsing back into me at the same time.
“Out of curiosity, what happens if you lose control of that magic?” I asked.
“Bad stuff,” Rachel said. “We need to let her concentrate.”
“I’m not sure I can take them all out even with what I’m doing here,” Leila muttered, and there was a small spark as she lost her concentration that sent a small geyser of magic and dirt fountaining up below. Which tipped off the orcs that something was seriously wrong, but they were too tightly packed to beat a hasty retreat.
The magic pulsed through me from somewhere beyond. I felt like I could almost take it. Use it. Bend it to my will. Something almost seemed to be whispering to me from beyond.
I looked down at the orcs below and smiled. Sure I knew that it wasn’t necessarily a great idea to listen to a voice whispering to me from the beyond, but right now I agreed with what the voice was saying. Or maybe it wasn’t a voice. Maybe that was me talking to myself and telling me what to do, and I liked what I was hearing.
My stomach did a little twist as I stepped into nothing. It’s not like there was a railing there to keep me in my place. Clearly the creatures that’d grown this tree didn’t have OSHA safety standards.
I whirled around in time to see Rachel trying to grab at me, but she wasn’t fast enough. It was probably a good thing. With the kind of momentum I was throwing around I might’ve taken her with me, and the last thing I wanted was to have her plummeting through the air as well.
Wind whipped around me, but for a wonder I didn’t feel nearly as terrified as I should’ve. Sure falling like this should’ve been pants-shittingly terrifying, but mostly I felt exhilaration.
And there was something else that hit me. The certainty that I could do something with this. Magic pulsed down below, and there was a line of it moving from me up to Leila’s staff up above and then another line moving down into that pulsing magic.
The magic came from me. Rachel had made that clear. It’s not like it was all that difficult to figure out given the context. She was channeling magic through me because I was the magic talisman or MacGuffin that let them do their magic thing on this world.
Which meant I should be able to take control of that magic. I just needed that crystal to make this work and bring down a world of hurt on those orcs. I patted at my pockets, but the thing wasn’t in there.
Panic shot through me. I needed to do something to save my ass, damn it, and I couldn’t do that if I didn’t have the magical key that let me tap into those powers. I also didn’t have much longer until I reached those orcs.
I figured it was even money whether the fall would kill me or the orcs would rip me apart. I’d proven remarkably resilient so far, after all.
In desperation I reached out for the line of magic running from Leila to the orcs below. At first it didn’t come to me, but I reached out again and called to it. If ever there was a time when I needed to summon my lightsaber in time to take out the Wampa then this was it, damn it.
Though in this case it was a bunch of orcs and not a massive snow beast that was the problem.
The magic line twitched and arced towards me, then snapped back. Annoyance shot through me. This was my magic, damn it. I didn’t care if I’d dropped the magic crystal thingy. I was going to make this magic my bitch, damn it!
I reached out again and this time it snapped in place. Like one moment it was flowing down from Leila and her staff, via me thank you very much, and the next it was flowing into my arm. Magic flowed into me and the glow hitting me turned blinding. Magic filled me and I was opened to something waiting for me in the great beyond.
I couldn’t explain it. There was the magic Leila had channeled through me, and feeling that pulsing through me opened me up to the magic trapped in the ground below which flowed into me and somehow opened a door to something beyond the veil of the world.
Magic flowed into me. The glow around me would’ve been blinding, but again I was the source of that glow so it seemed like the universe was willing to give me a little bit of a pass on being able to see even as the stuff pulsed through me with all the brightness of a flash from an atomic bomb going off.
I reoriented myself. I realized I could float down if I wanted to. I could fly up to where Leila and Rachel were standing if I wanted to. With the magic pulsing in me I could see them staring down at me with surprise written on their beautiful faces. But there was something I needed to take care of down there, so no Superman impression for me just yet.
Those orc motherfuckers in that clearing had killed my elves, they were threatening my city, and I was going to make those fuckers pay. So I pressed my fist out and did a reverse Superman as I hurtled down towards the orcs.
Some of the orcs looked up in surprise as they suddenly had several different shadows moving in different directions from the blinding light I was shining their way meeting the blinding light coming from below them. They screamed in terror and dismay, but it was too late for the fuckers.
I was inevitable, to quote a purple asshole with a ballsack for a chin, and it was time to show these fuckers just how puny I was when I was given the power of a god!
I slammed into the ground in the middle of the orcs as I thought of killing them all, and I whipped out to tactical view at the last moment to get a good view of the destruction since I figured I wasn’t going to get a very good look at what was going on from the first person view considering I was staring at dirt.
The tactical view was nothing short of spectacular. Dirt and pure magical energy fountained up into the air and orc bodies went flying every which way as a wave of magic consumed them.
The unlucky ones at the center of the blast were blasted away into nothing, their bodies disintegrated by the magical energies slamming into them before they could realize they were in deep shit.
I laughed as I watched the wave of magical energy flow out and up. Moving out in a wave through the forest in a wide circle, and my tactical view zoomed out with that wave to show me everything within the area of that attack.
Including woodland critters and elves and other creatures I didn’t want caught in that blast. Shit. Not good.
Only the blast ignored them, passing harmlessly by anything that wasn’t an orc. I wished I could see what was happening up close and personal instead of watching everything zoomed out, and no sooner had I thought it than I zoomed in and was riding the wave on all fronts which was one hell of a mind expanding trip!
I rode it through orc encampments all around the tree that were destroyed while everything else around them was left untouched. The circle of pure destruction moved out and only targeted the Dark Lady’s minions and gave them a really fucking bad day.
Not that I could bring myself to shed a tear for the motherfuckers.
One part of the wave started to falter as it moved into territory that got more dark and twisted. It was a good distance from the elf city, and I figured that meant I was getting close to the Dark Lady’s domain on that end. I almost thought I could feel surprise before a magic force reached out and pushed back against the wave.
My magic snapped back and flew in the opposite direction. At first I thought that couldn�
�t be good, but the force of the snap back gave it more force, and the farther wave caught up with the wave hurtling towards the elf city and the orc army around it and added to the speed and power.
I would’ve grinned if I wasn’t a disembodied wave of pure destructive magic. The Dark Lady might’ve done me a solid by pushing back like that. The renewed wave of magic washed over the elf city and incinerated orcs pressing against the walls and breaking through in spots.
One moment they were bellowing and terrorizing elves near the city walls, and the next they were blasted away by magic that swept past those elves harmlessly as magic pulsed into me from the beyond and I pushed it into that destructive wave and moved past the elf city.
Though as it went farther out I could feel the magic wasn’t as intense as it hit straggling orcs. It went from destroying orcs to simply knocking them on their asses and sending them running.
And as the power receded I was hit with that same exhaustion that’d hit me before when Leila was channeling magic through me. The magic at the center, the stuff that Leila had been building up when she was working her spell, was starting to sputter out. And with it that connection to the great beyond was also starting to sputter out.
The magic thinned out to the point that the orcs it hit were barely shivering as it moved past them, and then there was nothing left of it and with a blink I was back in the clearing lying at the bottom of a massive crater.
I tried to get up, but aftershocks of what I’d done that were still hitting me, and I couldn’t move.
Damn. That had been a trip. I stared up into the canopy above and saw the twin points of light of what I assumed were two suns up there somewhere. I also thought I could see the branch I’d fallen from earlier, but I didn’t see anyone out on it.
Not that I necessarily would’ve been able to see them from all the way down here without that magic in me. Whatever. I stared up and wondered if they’d come down to check on me. Hopefully they hadn’t been taken by that magic I’d unleashed on the world.
That would be a hell of a thing if I ended up killing my companions by unleashing that magic, but no. I’d seen it destroy orcs and leave elves and cute little woodland critters alone. I could only hope it would do the same with my friends.
So I sat there staring up into the light and relaxing for the first time in a long time. For a brief moment I didn’t have to worry about class, scholarships, becoming a god, or trying to defeat an orc army chasing me.
I’d done it. I’d saved the day. I wasn’t sure how the hell I’d managed to save the day, I wasn’t sure what the hell kind of power that was that I was throwing around back there or how the hell I’d get back to it if I needed it, but what the fuck ever.
I could sit back and relax, and it felt nice. So nice that I closed my eyes and figured I’d rest them for a little bit. Let the worries of the world wash over me. Yeah, that was the ticket.
Only of course someone would have to go and interrupt me trying to rest my eyes before I could really get down to my resting.
“Is he alive?” Rachel asked.
I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want the world bothering me right now.
“He can’t be dead,” Leila said. “We need him.”
“I can send men down there to see if he’s okay,” Eleric said.
My mouth quirked up in a slight smile. Eleric was okay. I never would’ve thought I’d be thinking something like that considering our rocky start, what with him trying to steal my crystal and run off through a portal with the fucker, but whatever. I’d…
The crystal. I frantically felt through my pockets for the thing, but it was still gone. Damn.
I suddenly had a very bad feeling. That thing seemed pretty important, and I’d gone and lost it in a fall into a clearing full of orcs.
Though come to think of it, it’s not like the place was full of orcs any longer. I doubted any of those fuckers would be coming within miles of this place any time soon after the spanking I just gave them. At least if I was a bunch of orcs who’d just gotten my ass handed to me by this world’s equivalent of a god who could vaporize my buddies I’d probably be thinking long and hard before invading territory.
Which meant I didn’t have to worry about one of them running off with my crystal. I could find it later and keep the whole “losing the powerful magical object” thing on the down low for now.
“No need for you to send your men down there, Eleric,” Leila said.
A bright light appeared over me, and something landed in the dirt next to me. A hand pressed against my forehead. It was nice feeling Leila that close again. I wouldn’t mind her getting even closer, though I did mind the idea of all the elf soldiers up there watching.
“You can stop pretending to be asleep,” she said.
I opened my eyes. “How did you know?”
“Because there’s no way you’re going to be knocked out by something like that. You’re a god in this world. Gods don’t die when they throw their power around.”
“Oh,” I said, getting up on my elbows. “Well that’s good to know. For a moment there I worried I was going to cause myself some serious trouble or something.”
“Gods can burn their powers out if they try to use too much of it before they’re ready,” she said, hitting me with a severe look. “And you were close there.”
“Maybe,” I said, shivering as I thought about burning out my powers. “But you have to admit it looked pretty cool.”
Leila rolled her eyes. Which was a reaction I got from the ladies quite a bit, if I’m being honest. I wasn’t sure that I liked that bit of my interaction with the fairer sex following me to this strange new world, for all that it was also a strange comfort.
“Come on,” she said. “We need to get you out of here and get back to the city. Who knows what’s happening out there.”
“There’s no need to worry,” I said.
“About getting out of here, or about the city?”
“Both,” I said with a grin, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her close. “Stick close to me, kid, because we’re going back to the city as conquering saviors!”
I threw my fist up and imagined doing my best Christopher Reeve impression. Of course there was the minor problem of a small guttering glow surrounding me, then a whole lot of nothing. I frowned, pulled my hand down and looked at the sputtering glow, and then held my fist up again.
“Having some trouble?” Leila asked.
“Don’t worry,” Rachel shouted down into the crater. “I hear it happens to a lot of guys!”
“Yeah, well in my time they have a little blue pill that takes care of that,” I said, then winced. Though I seriously doubted she’d be able to take something like “little blue pill” and turn that into an investment strategy that might change the world if she ever got back to the past in our world.
I held my fist up again. Again the magical glow surrounded me, but the open flood gate I’d been drinking from when I punched a hole into the magic was gone, and there was just a little trickle now.
“What the ever loving hell is going on here?”
Leila sighed. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. You shouldn’t have been able to do what you did. I don’t know how you took control of the flow from me like that, but the core isn’t supposed to be able to us magic like that. There are a lot of things you aren’t supposed to be able to do that you’ve been doing since getting here.”
I grinned. “Well if I’m going to be an effective Chosen One for y’all I’d better have some abilities that make me more powerful than the average asshole, right?”
“Usually I would say yes, but after seeing the way you tackle difficult situations I’m more inclined to ask the gods to have mercy on our world,” she said, pressing her lips together in a thin line.
“Everybody’s a critic,” I muttered.
Leila wrapped her arm around me instead. I didn’t mind her wrapping her arm around me. I didn’t even mind that it was the girl who was doin
g the rescuing. It’s not like I was some fragile-egoed keyboard warrior threatened by the idea of a powerful woman doing things for herself.
Though, come to think of it, there was a good chance I wasn’t going to be a keyboard warrior of any kind for the foreseeable future considering I didn’t think they’d invented electricity in this world, let alone the integrated circuit or the manufacturing base necessary for creating computers to network together so nerds could have detailed conversations about why the Star Wars trilogy that was in theaters when they were between the ages of six and fourteen was clearly the best.
More’s the pity, but as I looked at Leila and then up to Rachel I couldn’t help but think that maybe some of the perks of being on this world more than made up for it.
We landed on the edge of the crater and I turned to get a good look at the death and destruction all around us. I let out a low whistle as I stared at a crater large enough that you could probably see it from the moon.
Though I didn’t even know if they had a moon on this world. Not to mention if they did have a moon on this world then there was a chance it was farther away than the moon back on earth, but whatever.
“You really did a number on this place,” Rachel said.
“Yeah? You should see what happened to the rest of the orcs,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” she asked, looking at me with a twinkle in her eyes that said she was on the verge of being very impressed with whatever I’d done.
Which was just fine by me. After all, what was the point of doing something potentially stupid and incredibly impressive if there wasn’t a girl around to be impressed by the potentially stupid thing you’d done?
“I’m pretty sure I just sent out a blast that targeted most of the orcs within a few miles,” I said. “I was riding the edge of the blast and most of them were destroyed close in. Farther out they were just knocked on their asses, but most of them were running as fast as their legs could carry them by the time they got up off their asses. The army attacking the city is gone.”
I left out the bit about feeling a darkness in the distance that’d pushed back against me. Now wasn’t the time to bring up the bad guys, or bad gal was more like it, still lurking out there ready to cause trouble.
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