The next three had shaken off most of their disorientation and came at me in a group, using some kind of three-person attack formation I couldn't recognize. I leaped back once again. And since I was still using a much longer weapon than they were, I started strafing around them, knocking the blunt parts of my spear into any vulnerable limbs. Two more cracks sounded out, and all three of them went down in a tumble.
A fight against seven grown armed, grown men, and it was completely one-sided. I couldn't believe it, and a look at my opponents' faces told me neither could they. They were trained combat professionals all at least my height and with much more visible muscle, and here I was, knocking them around as if I had been a superhuman all these years instead of a disabled teen. I seemed to be at least twice as fast and strong as the best of them, and just as skilled with my weapon as they were with theirs.
Somehow, this felt like a bigger victory than coming out on top of any of my other battles. I had won every fight I ever had with gibber-kin, dread moles, and those nightmare gremlins that everyone else was so afraid of. But winning against other human beings, instead of being beaten and mocked and thwarted by them?
That was entirely new.
The last two had to be creeping up behind me, since I hadn't seen them for over a minute. I stepped forward to twist around, my spear whirling back and clunking over another man's head by total chance.
But I had given the last attacker an opening, and he rushed the distance and lunged into me. I was still able to sweep my shield up in time, but his weapon scratched off my guard to slash at my mailed shoulder. The metal rings stopped most of the blow's force, my mineral-skin got the rest, and my vital guard remained untouched.
That was right, I reminded myself. Even if these guys do land a blow on me, one that gets through my armor and spells, my enhanced vitality was guaranteed to handle anything but a stab to the brain. These idiots were from Earth, they didn't have any magic to bypass my special hit points.
I dropped my spear, snapped my head into my attacker's face a couple times, then grabbed him by the shirt and lifted him off me. I grabbed his arm with both hands, took a run with him for about ten steps, then I slammed him into a nearby tree and yanked his arm backwards until I heard it crack. He went down with another cry of pain and tried to crawl away from me.
By then the melee was clear. Two of my attackers were getting up to their knees slowly and groggily, but the other five just writhed and moaned on the ground.
I would have felt bad for them, if they were actually experiencing one tenth of the pain I'd had to deal with every day for two years. That, and they all just tried to kill me.
Warren Rhodes watched the whole scene with disgust, baring his teeth and looking as if he were about to spit on all of us. Dalfrey shrugged next to him.
“Impressive,” she said, eyeing the scene of me practically dancing around seven armed men. “That people from Earth can grow here this much, and this fast. Beyond our predictions, even.”
“That's bad news for the predictors,” Rhodes growled. “I don't pay people to fail.” As he said that, he shot a dark look at the men still writhing on the ground.
“Don't be too disappointed, Rhodes,” Barnes said next to him. “Just think, if a half-crippled thing like John Malcolm's son can become like this here, and this soon, what awaits us?”
“Everything we were already due on Earth,” Rhodes said with another growl. He looked and kicked at a guard that was still crawling forward. “Get back on the other side and tell everyone they just lost their medical for a month. If they can't deal with John Malcolm's little shit in the next ten minutes, the coverage is gone for three months. If I have to take so much as a single step forward the whole team gets downsized. The severance package will be a bullet delivered into the back of the head.”
“Yes, Mr. Rhodes,” the man gasped on the ground. “I'm so sorry Mr. Rhodes. I'll be right back with the others Mr. Rhodes.”
As the man crawled his way back to the portal, Rhodes looked at the mist and called out.
“Everyone else, hold your ground! We seek parley with the Lady of the Mist!”
I held off from attacking at the moment, just in case Stell had a better plan than me laying into them some more.
She didn't answer them at all, and I loved her for it.
“Stell, of Avalon!” Rhodes called out again, and I felt my skin grow cold when I realized he knew her name. “We have your Challenger's body on Earth! This is your last chance to talk!”
I heard footsteps behind me. Stell came to stand by my side, crossing her arms. She met Rhodes' glare with a glare of her own that was about ten degrees colder in Celsius. She had changed to a long-sleeved black t-shirt that said “Keep Calm and Demand Trial By Combat” on the front.
“Alright,” she said calmly. “I'm here. You have about ten seconds to make sure you don't regret it.”
“I called for Stell of Avalon,” Warren replied with a snort. “Not some tiny-chested teenage girl. Go get your queen.”
“Nine seconds,” Stell replied calmly.
“I wasn’t kidding when I said we have his body,” Rhodes growled, casting a brief and derisive glance at me. “Your hormones are endangering his life. Now go get your queen.”
“Five seconds,” Stell replied. “Less if you keep pretending you can still give the order to hurt someone with a broken neck.”
Warren cocked his head back as if he had been slapped, then he looked at Stell again. This time his gaze was as frosty as her own.
“Chris,” he growled. “Get over here and talk sense into this little girl.”
“Four seconds,” Stell said calmly, and without missing a beat.
“Wait- ow- stop, wait,” Chris said, walking away from whatever tree I had knocked him into, and still clutching his side. “Everybody just stop.” He shot both his dad and me a dirty look, then with another breath he stood up straight and tried to put his winning smile back on. “Look, we're sorry. We misread the situation terribly. Wes is a criminal back home,” he ignored my snort. “So we let the situation escalate out of control. We came here for him because he's dangerous. Can we talk to you about that? Are you Stell, or someone that can speak for her?”
“I'm the one who answered when you called for Stell,” The lady of Avalon said. “So I'm the one you're dealing with at the moment. Wes is here, in my world, by invitation. You are not. And I don't appreciate any portion of the conversation I heard just moments ago. This is not your world. You are not getting any free power here. You are not welcome. Call off your toy soldiers and return to your own lands. And if you harm a single hair on my Challenger's head,” she added with a growl. “I will make you, your organization, and possibly your entire planet pay very, very dearly. Let me know if I need to convince you of any part that message.”
“No, wait, okay,” Chris said surprisingly. “You win. We'll leave here, okay? We'll turn around and head right back. But consider this: people on our planet know how to come here now. Don't you want to know how? Even if we leave, future contact's unavoidable, right? Because if we can figure it someone else will too.”
I had forgotten just how fast Chris could think, I realized. Especially how fast he could think while talking.
“You just might have a point,” Stell acknowledged with a tilt of her head. “If I could trust a single word out of you.”
“Come on,” he said, trying that same smile that had worked on so many girls back home. “You haven't even let me introduce myself yet.”
“No need,” Stell replied calmly. “I know exactly who you are.”
“Oh really?” He asked still smiling.”
“Yeah,” Stell nodded. “You're the guy with the crushed rooster.”
“What the-” the tall dark-haired quarterback sputtered. I chuckled in spite of it all, remembering Stell's confusion over the word 'cock-blocker.'
“Yeah,” Stell said with a confident nod. “It's happened at least twice, right?” She almost seemed sympa
thetic. “Poor little rooster. Was it in the exact same place both times?”
“Crushed roost-” Chris sputtered. “What are you even talking about? My rooster's fine!” He turned his head and growled at me. “You bastard, what the hell did you tell her?”
“He didn't need to tell me anything,” Stell answered calmly. “It's pretty easy to recognize. People must be lot less perceptive back on Earth. Honestly, I'm not sure how you've managed to hide it for as long as you did.”
Dr. Dalfrey actually snickered at that, and Chris turned to glare at her.
“She's not going to play ball, Dad,” Chris snarled. “She doesn't think we're a threat.”
“Up to this point, we haven't been,” his father said darkly. “Barnes, start us off.”
“As you command, my lord,” Barnes said formally. He reached behind him to grab at the portal.
The purple-black energy began to coil around his hand. Before Stell or I could act, he threw it forward. Three splotchy flames landed onto the ground in front of him.
“Brothers and kin from beyond the lock,” the robed false-pastor intoned. “We beseech thee. Join us, that we may have fellowship in hate.”
The oily flames suddenly whipped into a blaze.
“Warning,” Avalon boomed. “Foreign contaminant de-”
Our planetary super computer suddenly hissed, and went silent.
Stell's blonde hair whipped through the air as she turned her head.
“Emergency systems engage!” She shouted. “Full override!”
“Attempting,” the mists said after a moment, a haze of strange static accompanying the words.
“Wes!” she turned her head back toward me. “I've gotta fix this! Kick their asses!”
“Yes ma'am!” I said, charging the three people who had come from my world to ruin a second one.
This time I didn't hesitate to use the bladed end of my spear.
In fact I regretted not charging them earlier with it.
Chris dodged to the left, but he wasn't my target anyway. I thrust my spear directly at his dad, a man I had grown up seeing for most of my life. One the entire town had respected for the business he had brought in.
I expected something inside me to kick in, to get in the way of trying to hurt a fellow human being in a way that could easily kill him. But my muscles complied completely. Even my conscience was silent.
But my weapon still stopped inches away from the giant arrogant man.
A purple haze flickered in front my spear-blade, and it felt as if I was trying to push the weapon through a barrier made of thick jello. The man's eyes had grown wide and furious at my attack, and he seemed to be straining as hard I was at the moment.
Somehow, he won whatever contest we were performing, and I felt myself suddenly pushed away. But the effort seemed to have cost him something, because there was a trickle of sweat running down his left temple.
“Did you see that, Chris?” Warren Rhodes said in a deadpan voice. “Nothing but a cripple-headed brat made of pedophile dung, and he still had the balls to try and take my life. That took courage son. Make sure you learn a lesson from that.”
“Okay Father,” my old nemesis said dubiously, but formally. “I will do my best to model the courage it took to strike at you.”
“Wrong lesson, dumbass,” Warren spat. “Courage is a virtue, and virtues are for the weak.”
He tilted his head back at the purple opening in the air. “Any time now.”
Barnes had begun chanting again, and I whirled to try and deal with him. But before I could do so, another knife-wielding figure rushed out at me.
The reinforcements from the portal had arrived.
I was too busy knocking weapons out of my face to count how many. But I noticed the two remaining attackers from earlier recover enough to get back in the fight, and suddenly I was knocking weapons away on three fronts. Bones still cracked and bodies still kept tumbling down, but there were consistently more attackers in my face than there were lying on the ground.
I gritted my teeth at this. I had improved to handle half a dozen grown men on my own, and the universe's only response was to send several dozen more at me. Every time I grew stronger, every time I took one or two steps forward, my problems on earth all hopped on a train to run out ahead of me.
I was tired of it.
No, I was angry about it.
So angry that something inside of me snapped.
I had gone back to striking with the blunt end of my spear after failing to strike Rhodes. Just out of habit. Don't kill humans, something inside of me said. Maybe it was my conscience, maybe it was just societal conditioning to not hurt another person if I could help it. Maybe it was just a habit.
But if it was, I decided then and there that it was a bad habit.
Something inside begged me to stop, but I ignored it as I brought the bladed end of my spear back around. Once I did that, a man began to fall with each swing as I stabbed out, catching a leg here, an arm or shoulder here, and very rarely, a side or hip of the most aggressive or least lucky attacker. The opened flesh also sizzled with a faint hint of electrical magic, making my enemies spasm, pass out, or maybe even die as they fell onto the bloody grass.
Even then, I was holding back, avoiding an enemy's center mass whenever I dared to risk it. Part of me felt that this tiny portion of mercy was costing me, that I was gambling my life and Stell's everything by still choosing to be soft. The other part of me argued that this compromise was still too much, that I was losing something irreplaceable with every drop of blood I tore out of my enemies.
Looking back, I realize that both voices were right.
And I still don't know what I should have done differently.
“Dalfrey,” Warren said, still not moving from his spot. “This is taking far too long. It’s time to show why we risked bringing you all the way from New York.”
“Oh really?” the blonde woman asked dryly. “Your little pack of toy soldiers isn't going to last long enough against my patient? You really want to risk using a one-time resource here?”
“Do it,” Rhodes spat. “They're going to come after us anyway, if they ever find out we stole it. Unused, the relic is just a liability now.”
“Fine,” Dalfrey sighed, reaching into her suit and pulling a vial full of some angry liquid. Another one of Rhodes' soldiers jumped in my face, so I didn't see how she opened it, but a drop of the liquid suddenly landed onto each of the purple flames.
WARNING, Avalon boomed directly into my mind. FOREIGN CONTAMINANT DETECTED.
The right-most flame began sputter and expand, as if someone had just thrown gasoline all over it.
“That was mildly impressive,” Dalfrey said, blinking. “But was it really necessary to use our only spare vial, instead of just using the patient's own blood?
“Your patient's blood was rendered useless long before he was born,” Rhodes said with another sneer. “Those in the Order that told you otherwise were lying to you.”
“I can see why you were so angry about your prescribed duty then,” Dalfrey replied.
“Angry?” Rhodes snorted. “Why be angry, when you can be vengeful?” He turned to look at the chanting pastor-turned-cultist on his right. “Don't drag it out, Barnes.”
Barnes chanted a few more alien syllables, then nodded.
“That should do it.”
The sputtering flame began to collapse, and in one minute it seemed to go out completely, except for a few embers that still smoked at the burnt patch's edges.
And as I looked closely, the burnt patch suddenly bubbled. Then it rolled. Then it splashed.
“WARNING. FOREIGN CONTAMINANT DETECTED. CONTAMINANT IS HORDE PIT. PREPARE FOR ARRIVAL OF HORDE-TYPE MONSTERS.
AVALON'S CHALLENGE IS UPGRADED TO A VILE-CLASS TRIAL.”
The mists themselves seemed to shudder at the pronouncement.
“Horde?” Stell screamed. “You actually dared to bring Horde to Avalon? Have you no conscience?” She k
ept screaming. “Have you no sanity? Have you no fear of me?”
“No, not particularly,” Chris' bastard father answered. “And I have better things to do than to explain myself to a flat little girl pretending to be a grown woman.”
“Adjusting to Star-sown's assistance,” the mists droned out again. “Avalon is stabilizing. Switching from emergency power back to main source.”
“Keep both open for now,” Stell shouted. “Guineve! You're out of time! We've got heads to break!”
“Yes dear,” Guineve's calm voice floated through the mist. “Preparations are done now anyway.”
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