Transcending Limitations

by Brian Wilkerson

  Meza ended his call and put his scry away. “He wasn’t going to kill Eric. If he was, then he wouldn’t have announced himself. He had a different motive for his actions, and I believe I know what it is. That’s why we’re leaving immediately.”

  Seeing their compliance, Meza marched back to Sueno’s main street. His subordinates shepherded dozens of household slaves to them and they merged into a single group. All that remained was to join up with the remaining Ordercrafter Hunters at the gates. Nulso Xialin stood in their way.

  Rather, it was what Nulso would look like if one of his parents had been an orc. The platinum blonde hair with its ponytail, the eerily pale skin, the heavily starched clothing, and even the old-fashioned camera were all the same. The difference was the body type; he was taller, broader, and otherwise bigger in every way. His eyes were glowing red, yet he stood perfectly still. In one hand was a double-bladed ax with a maze set between them. In the other were four seeds of chaos. At his feet lay four white-haired humans.

  Their ponchos were ripped to shreds along with the clothes underneath them. Their gauntlets were shattered. Their bodies were bloody. Their souls hovered above them, linked by an ethereal chain and shrieking in silent agony. At the sight of them, Meza put out such killing intent, it gave Eric chills.

  “Ordercrafter Hunters, attack.”

  “I forbid.”

  That voice froze them all in their tracks.

  The sky above them twisted, bent, and opened up. Five new obelisks appeared out of portals and dropped into place within the town. They crushed the illusions and restored the Orderly Compliance Array. Shimmering in unison, they entered suppression mode.

  Intense atmospheric pressure slammed down on all of them. Annala, Perrault, and Sagart gleamed golden-brown light in defiance. Eric and Kallen stabbed their chaotic spears into the ground to keep themselves upright. The freed slaves immediately prostrated themselves. Hit hardest of all were the Ordercrafter Hunters themselves.

  Meza stood tall, but his followers found it difficult to stand at all. Their poncho, supposed to hide them from Order, came alive and wrapped about them. Their Ordercraft Negator Gauntlets, supposedly ordercraft made to serve chaos, dominated their hand and attacked its body. Then invisible forces lifted them into the air while simultaneously compelling them to bend in a bow.

  “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall not both fall into a ditch?”

  The voice rang in their minds. It was deafening and debilitating. None of them could withstand the force of it, not here in its own domain where it was most powerful. Meza alone worked through it.

  He ripped out of the Order Concealing Poncho and removed the ruins of his Order Negator Gauntlet. Then he stood straight without strain and projected a chaotic aura just to show how unaffected he was by Order’s gaze.

  “My Eternal Hobby is resisting you, Odor,” he said through gritted teeth. “You cannot cow me so easily!” He threw an arm to his side and shouted, “Ordercrafter Hunters: Execute Escape Plan Theta!”

  The remaining six members of Meza’s squad were in a helpless state. Without their Ordercrafter Hunter gear, they were no better off than any other elf, and worse still, their ponchos were transformed into straitjackets. Threads of Order’s power held them aloft, like bugs caught in a spider’s web. In short, it was the premise for combat simulation thirty-one.

  When Meza gave the command, they performed a maneuver prepared for just this sort of situation. They silently chanted a specific chaotic hymn while performing a precise series of movements within their restraints.

  Nulso bellowed and charged, swinging his ax. Meza ducked under it, pressed his hands against the drone’s stomach, and ignited an elven-style mana bolt. The blast only pushed his foe back three feet, doing no damage, but it broke the charge all the same. Now the beast’s attention was focused on him alone.

  Meza dodged his next slash and struck a bladed arm into his back. An aura flashed and repelled the attack. He turned his other three default limbs into blades and struck rapid-fire, but all of them failed to pierce their target.

  “You can’t win here, elf. Your power is diminished while that of Nulso Rage is magnified.”

  Nulso Rage lunged and Meza dodged, but too slowly. The orcish man grabbed his leg and smashed him into the ground. After three rounds of this, Meza shrank his leg to slip out of his grip and then spun to kick him with the other leg. The brute didn’t flinch and Meza had to twist again to avoid falling flat.

  He jumped back and shapeshifted. His new body was non-reflective to hide its image and remove its internal temperature, heartbeat, and exhalation. Even his soul was hidden through a property he discovered seven hundred years ago. Nulso Rage grabbed his throat regardless.

  “Your tactics are no longer effective. As humans are mayflies to you, so you are to me.”

  Nulso Rage grabbed his waist with his other hand and wrapped order construct tendrils around the rest of him. It cocooned him in Order’s power and began draining his Seed of Chaos. The silver-grey of Order was all he could see. Then a flash of golden-brown punctured it.

  “FOR LADY CHAOS!”

  At the conclusion of their hymn, the Ordercrafter Hunters’ ponchos burst into flaming bits of material. Once their feet were back on the ground, they flowed into formation. Three of them cut the cocoon open while the other three occupied Nulso Rage.

  Heather wove in and out of the drone’s strikes and attacked rapidly to keep his attention. Fergus rescued their fallen comrades and Gust plucked their Seeds of Chaos from his hands. Then they fell back while Ian, Jilith, and Kaeger stepped forward with Meza at their center.

  The four of them surrounded Nulso Rage and struck at irregular intervals. There was an underlying pattern to their strikes to keep themselves coordinated, but there were so many variations to this basic template, and they were so well drilled in all of them, that to an outsider, it may as well have been random. Nulso Rage bellowed and lashed out, making the ground quake and the air shudder, but his ax never touched them. He only accumulated injuries. Then all of them felt faint.

  Blue streams of mana left their bodies and souls and collected in the center obelisk. The Orderly Compliance Array punctured their protective suits to reach it. Then it was delivered to Nulso Rage. Thus empowered, even all eleven Ordercrafter Hunters were tossed about like twigs in a storm.

  “Annala! Sagart!” Meza shouted. “Where’s that holy back up?!”

  At that moment, Annala was in the form of a giant bird and trying to peck through the barrier that the Orderly Compliance Array cast upon the town. In her claws, she held Kallen, Eric, and Perrault in a grasp that they could not break without hurting her.

  “I have to get out of here; they’re in danger!” she cried. “I have to get out of here; they’re in danger! I have to get out of here; they’re in danger!”

  Sagart floated at her side, attempting to talk sense into her, but the words were drowned out by Order’s voice. The deity had been droning in her ear ever since the party encountered Nulso Rage. He spoke of the peril that her boyfriend and adoptive sister were exposed to in this country and how urgent it was that she remove them as quickly as possible. Her own heart did the rest of the work for him.

  Then a bolt of golden-brown lightning punched a hole through the blockade and smote Nulso Rage. The elite ordercrafter fell backwards, smoke drifting off his charred body.

  Standing before the elves was a woman with long golden-brown hair and pointed ears. Her eyes were red as blood and glowing with battle light. The phrases “Ye Guilty” and “Ye Innocent” were inscribed on her gauntlets. Sewing needles and thread rested in pouches at her waist alongside pouches containing nooses. Around her neck was a knitted scarf. The fire that burned Nulso Rage was held in her right hand.

  “Belldandy!” Meza exclaimed.

  “That’s me.” Every hair on her head became a sewing needle and she quickly patched the protective suits the elves wore. Then she added improvements, such as embroidered flow
ers. “I saw you in enough trouble to merit a divine intervention.” She kicked Nulso Rage and he stirred. “He’s only mostly dead,” the trickster goddess continued. “You’ll have to finish the job yourselves.”

  “With pleasure,” Meza said.

  His ten subordinates impaled him with twenty swords. Activating a holy rune, they began the process of obliterating his body. Damaged as it was, the drone was still a bigger threat than the army of civilians marching towards them.

  In response to Belldandy’s arrival, the local obelisks awoke the town’s population. As one entity, they left their homes carrying whatever weapons they had on hand: bats, kitchen knives, blacksmith tongs, or sewing needles. They became a militia that outnumbered the raiders over ten to one. Against Meza alone, the odds were a hundred to one. He muttered, “The temps are gonna hate me for this.” Dual-wielding his swords, he rushed into their midst and cut them down two at a time.

  Deciding that he had the massacre well in hand, Belldandy flew to the top of the town’s blockade. There, she unwrapped the scarf from her neck and wrapped it about Annala’s. The item instilled a minor chaotic divinity that quieted Order’s drone. No longer deaf to the world, Annala realized what Order had done and berated herself. Then she used her vantage point to determine the battle’s status.

  Nulso Rage was standing up despite the attempts of the Ordercrafter Hunters to destroy him. The support of the Orderly Compliance Array enabled it to absorb their power and used it to enhance his body. He now stood twice as tall as before with three additional arms and the girth to support them.

  The militia wasn’t staying down either. When Meza slashed them with his chaotic blades, they mana mutated. Guided by the will of Order, they were more dangerous than any normal monster. Meza fought a losing battle as they closed in on him.

  “Sabotage. Support. Strike.”

  Without elaborating, Annala dived into the civilian mob. She released her passengers on her way while returning to her elven form. She tore through the stomach of a monster near Meza, rolled forward, and spun around with bladed arms. This motion cleared a section of enemies and gave Meza breathing room. Without pausing, she hacked and slashed at the crowd while reciting the scripture necessary to give chaotic combat buffs to her allies.

  Nulso Rage had Gust’s and Eagon’s heads in his palms, Alice’s chest under one of his feet, and Danielle in his mouth. Then golden-brown auras surrounded all ten Ordercrafter Hunters. With this support, they escaped and cut off the drone’s extra limbs. A knitting needle the size of a lance bisected Nulso Rage from crown to ground.

  Belldandy sat on top of it and drove four more needles into the drone from different angles. She hopped off and said, “You’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here. Go help your leader.”

  A trickster volunteering such help was the only thing not in their extensive training program. As such, they stood still as petrification victims until Belldandy gave them a stink eye. Then they assisted their leader against the horde of undying monsters that still heavily outnumbered them.

  Then Sagart realized that they weren’t. Looking around, she saw it clear as day. Elves were all around her. Though they were currently kowtowing and pleading for forgiveness, they were still elves. All they needed was encouragement and they could save themselves. She gave thanks to Lady Chaos and released a chaotic pulse.

  It banished all traces of fear and despair from their minds and souls. Without Order’s voice masking their individuality, they could think clearly. They looked around, evaluated the situation, and came to a decision of their own free will. They continued submitting to Order.

  “This is my world. They are subjects of my world and were born to my world. They have no initiative. Even if they wished to leave, they know it is impossible to do so.”

  “Freedom is a void and slavery is a path, is that right?” She clutched her paidrin. “Then it’s time for a little heresy.”

  She jumped up high and stomped the ground, utilizing all her priestly power to move two square feet of orderfied ground into a platform. From here, she shouted, “Listen to me, my fellow elves! I understand that you are scared and believe your situation hopeless. Order is a mighty force and has crushed you under his thumb for a long time, but that changes today! I introduce to you your new mistress!”

  Some of the elves perked up at this. Freedom was either a foreign or a forgotten concept, but they could grasp switching loyalties. It was necessary because they were a property that could be taken via Eminent Domain and this was the loophole Sagart planned to exploit.

  “You see before you the goddess of elves! The elf mother reborn, a second Arin!”

  Now she definitely had their attention. If there was one story that Order couldn’t suppress, it was the story of Arin’s Ascension. All elves wanted to know where they came from, if for no other reason than to understand their race’s relationship with their divine overlord and why they were his slaves. As Order could not lie, he could only refrain from speaking. In this case, the words of other elves filled the void.

  They knew Arin as a priestess, healer, and empowerer, and when they looked at Annala, that was precisely what they saw. Eleven elves beat back hordes of monsters guided by Order’s deific will, and behind them, they saw Annala praying over them. The drone and drain of Order did not affect her, and the divinity of Belldandy’s scarf made her all the more angelic.

  “Yes, the second coming of the First Elf!” Sagart proclaimed. “A new age is dawning and she will need your help to birth it. For that reason, she will take your help! She came here not to free you but to draft you into the service of Lady Chaos!”

  The slaves began to react. Possession is nine-tenths of the law and filial authority was codified in Latrot’s laws. They were currently in Sagart’s custody and she said the mother of their race demanded their help. Order’s own laws compelled them to take up arms in support of their brethren. Just as they began to stand up, ten enforcers appeared around Sagart.

  Order would not allow his brainwashing to work against him a second time. They rushed in to silence the cleric. Sagart gripped her paidrin tighter and shouted, “Zatos 4:14 - ‘Though I walk through the shadow of the valley of Order, I shall fear no oppression, for you are with me!’”

  A golden-brown aura wave repelled the enforcers. Hefting her crosier, she smacked them further away from herself. The less resilient among them sparked chaotically and withdrew. She thrust her staff at the huddled elves and said, “Chaos is with you! Feel her power and do your duty to your new mistress, Annala the Godmother!”

  Cinder stepped forward and shapeshifted her arms into swords.

  “She will make me into a lady, so I will make her a queen! FOR THE GODMOTHER!”

  Running as fast as her little legs could carry her, she jumped onto a militia monster and plunged her blade arms into its back and head. The beast fell forward and its death stained her brand new dress. Ignoring this fact, Cinder pounced on another militia monster.

  Her fellows joined her in waves. First came the freshly caught elves who needed little encouragement to regain their confidence. Following them were those who wavered on worshipping Annala instead of Order. Third were the longest enslaved who couldn’t fathom victory. When they joined the fight, it was out of duty, not desire.

  Their brainwashing told them that Annala was their legitimate mistress. If she weren’t a mistress, then she wouldn’t have servants, and if she didn’t take them, then they wouldn’t be hers because none of them possessed free will. Thus, she had to be a mistress and they had to be her servants. Ergo, they had no choice but to help her. Soon the air was filled with “for the Godmother!” and the dying screams of militia monsters. Sagart kissed her paidrin.

  “It’s a good thing the Church of Chaos doesn’t have an inquisition…” she muttered. “Otherwise, I’d get burned at the stake for that.”

  Then she recited a traditional prayer. The best thing she could do right now was offset the energy drain and keep the enf
orcers as far away as she could. Then one of the obelisk towers fell.

  Eric adapted his mana blade to use chaotic energy. With pure primordial power, he slashed left and right on the east obelisk, followed by a thrust at the center of the X; each repetition of the combo weakened the obelisk until it fell.

  Kallen had been deep in meditation ever since Annala grabbed her. Now her River of Chaos Enlightenment was active. With personal divinity, she struck down three obelisks in the time it took Eric to do one.

  Perrault launched herself at an obelisk again and again until it fell.

  With the towers gone, the clerical holy boost to the Ordercrafter Hunters became more effective. It drove them to chop their enemies to pieces, burn them to ashes, and then scatter them to the four winds. Even Nulso Rage, denied much of his homefield advantage, was overwhelmed and destroyed. A cheer went up and five portals opened up.

  Out of each one stepped another Nulso Rage. One from the east, one from the west, one from the north, one from the south, and one from the center. Next to them, five more Order Obelisks appeared, restoring the Orderly Compliance Array once more. Belldandy groaned and thrust her needle spear at the nearest Nulso, but it caught the blade in one hand. It spoke to Belldandy and the other four Nulso echoed it.

  “Resistance is Forlorn.”

  A truly titanic wave of power erupted from the Nulso. It wiped out all of Sagart’s prayer power and knocked everyone off their feet. Not even Belldandy was unscathed. Reality itself was so focused on these five spots that they became something like blackholes. They absorbed all the nearby energy into themselves, leaving everyone else exhausted.

  With great effort, Eric swung his staff in a pattern while calling out the names of the Four Basic Elements. Each word activated one of the divine lights within his staff. After five, he could unleash the Chaotic Starlight and vaporize Nulso. Meza and Sagart stopped him before he could get that far.

  “Don’t! He’ll absorb them too!”

  “For the Godmother!”