Origin ARS 5 (19 page)

The officer separate the arguing men, seemed
to listen to their story, and then said something to them. The
owner of the elephant started arguing with the newcomer. The
apparent law enforcement officer reached into a holster on their
hip and pulled out a massive firearm that could not have possibly
fit into such a small space.

Both men threw up their hands, and
surprisingly even the elephant lifted up its forelegs. The officer
took something out of his pocket, gave something to each man and
the elephant, and then got back on his wheel-less motorcycle. He
rode off like that sort of thing was an everyday occurrence.

After the show was over, the gathered crowd
departed. Since everyone else went about their business, Scott did
the same. He wandered down the street taking in the sights around
him.

Eventually, he made his way to what he
believed to be a city park. He walked up a set of high stairs to
the top of a hill that acted as an overlook. There were couples all
over the place, as well as small families. Scott was even surprised
by the sight of two fairies buzzing around a small rose bush.
Seeing fairies reminded him of Ero and he smiled a little. He
missed his best fairy friend.

It was dark out, but the city was aglow with
lights and alive with sound. The background music was subdued but
had a certain whimsical and fantastic air about it that seemed
fitting.

He walked to the edge of the overlook and
leaned over the rail. Down below he saw a large pond, and on the
pond shore he saw mermaids lazing about while chatting with each
other.

"Mummy! Mummy! Whazzat!" asked a little girl
excitedly as she pointed down at the mermaids below. They were well
lit by a nearby lamp that caused their scales to sparkle and gleam
in the light. The little girl was cute. She had a little stubby
tail, short hair, and white-furred ears that were rounded but
triangular. She also wore a pretty little floral print dress.

"Sweetie, you know that it's not polite to
point. We have to be mindful of others and the appearances that we
keep." explained the older version of the little girl. She was
motherly, but a beautiful young woman with bright blue eyes and
gleaming white fangs. She wore a sleeveless dress with a fur-fringe
and had her hair done up in an elegant manner.

"But mummy, daddy always says that a honey
badger doesn't give a fu—" began the girl in a sweet, but excited
tone of voice. Her mother whipped her hand down and covered her
mother. "Never mind what your father says, dear."

"Is it because he's low-class, mummy?" asked
the little girl, who was apparently kin to a honey badger.

"Yes dear, but not necessarily the sort of
class that you're thinking of at the moment." She said it with a
warm, motherly, smile. Scott could detect a hint of long-term
suffering in her voice, however. Daddy honey badger no doubt caused
her no end of concern.

The mother continued to show her daughter
around and Scott listened in to their conversation in a casual way.
It was not every day that a man heard two honey badger people speak
in a faux-British accent. The fact that there was no reason for the
accent to exist outside of Earth was even more interesting.

Eventually, the little girl and her mummy
wandered off to some other part of the park. Scott stayed in place
and continued to people watch. It was a strange, yet familiar, sort
of city.

Several hours passed while he stood there on
the overlook. If not for the sudden explosion of a nearby building
and the panicked screams of terror, he might have stayed there the
full nine hours and some change that he needed to wait for Ero and
Herbert to log in to ARS.

Scott whipped his head around to the location
that the sound had erupted from and saw the devastation of what
once had been a substantial building. Nothing but a smoldering ruin
remained.

The wind whipped up and soon the formerly
cloudless sky became heavily overcast. It was not until someone on
the overlook pointed to the sky in the distance and screamed out
the words, "Thunder Reign!" that Scott knew where to look.

Hovering in the sky at a good distance was a
brightly shining mass of lightning that had taken the form of a
bird. A shrieking sound echoed through the air followed by an
incredibly bright flash of light. A thunderous sound like an
explosion, rocked the air and another tall building took damage.
Instead of exploding, it fell sideways and collapsed in a way that
blocked the road.

Air raid sirens began to blare loudly and
soon a strange blue energy field arose over the city. Scott stood
there slack jawed as lightning shot down and slammed against the
new shield.

"Hey you!" snapped an authoritative voice.
Scott turned and saw a man in heavy black armor rushing over to
him. "Get to a shelter now!"

"What's going on?" asked Scott excitedly.

"Do I look like the damned answer police? The
Storm Tyrant
summoned Thunder Reign, if you don't want to
die get underground!" snapped the officer before pointing toward a
group of people running toward a small building on the other side
of the park.

Scott looked to the officer then the panicked
people running toward the structure in the distance. It looked like
an oversized subway entrance. He started forward but suddenly he
felt the hair on his head and arms beginning to rise up. Static
electricity rose all around him.

"Dammit! Go!" snarled the officer before he
rushed toward the edge of the overlook. Scott chased after him and
followed his lead as the man leapt off the side.

"Fuck
Beaaans
!" shouted Scott as a
bright flash of light erupted from the hilltop. A thunderous
explosion drowned out the rest of his obscenity as he hurtled
toward the water. Before he hit the surface a wave of force lashed
out that sent him skipping across the water like a thrown rock. He
skipped twice, was knocked further into the air by a second wave of
force and went flying end over end for a brief moment. He flailed
his limbs spastically while he screamed for his life. A brief few
seconds later he crashed down into the center of the pond with a
loud splash.

Scott lost consciousness momentarily, but
somehow made it to shore anyway. He did not bother to look back at
the ruination that had once been an overlook for the park. He was
currently more concerned with saving his own ass. That underground
shelter idea sounded quite good right about now.

Chapter 5

Explosions rocked the air as the occasional lightning
bolt made it through the city defense field. The warding was
powerful, but spread thin due to the necessity of covering such a
large area. As time passed it would temporarily weaken in certain
areas. When that happened lightning strikes, or worse, managed to
get through.

Exploding buildings were bad enough, but the
monsters that began to spawn in certain areas would hunt down
survivors. They were weak as monsters might go, but compared with
many of the less active citizens those monsters were hellish
beasts.

Scott, for all of his recent training, was
having a tough time of things as he raced through the city in
search of a place to hide. Unfortunately for him, he had reached
the park shelter too late. The guard turned him away because they
were at full capacity. What sort of man turned away another man in
a crises because space would be a little cramped? Scott had
discovered quite quickly that the city guard valued a little elbow
room more than
his
life.

So it was that the twilight sorcerer fled
through streets filled with rampaging monsters, chased by lightning
that seemed to follow him exclusively. Though, the latter issue was
most likely all in his imagination.

Scott rounded a corner then swiftly ducked
down to avoid a hard swing of a biting steel axe. The beast, some
sort of living armor or machine doll, quickly whipped its massive
axe back toward him with the reverse side. Forced to roll away from
the powerful strike, he was only narrowly able to avoid a surprise
strike from another of the eldritch monsters.

A terrifying sensation tore over him as a
wave of dark energy rippled out. Scott screamed in fear and rolled
away quickly in order to get away from the hellish thing. The
armored monstrosities had the power to cause hallucinations while
instilling a demoralizing fear on their target.

Up, up the fallen debris of a ruined house
Scott clambered. He rose atop the debris and did his best to shake
off the fear effects while the monsters gathered round. They were
not particularly powerful, but they were durable and disregarded
most physical attacks. At least, they disregarded
his
physical attacks.

The aura of fear, the desperation to flee
that it inspired, and the physical representation of his waiting
death; all of these things combined to make it incredibly difficult
to concentrate. However, with that simple moment's respite he was
able to begin the process of calming himself, of reaching within to
begin taking the steps to fight back.

Energies of storm and the celestial forces
above began to surge within him as he envisioned the pattern for
his spell. Within his mind's eye he could see the forces of nature
and the heavens above converge and express themselves via the power
of his will. Scott lifted his hand above his head and unleashed
that power. "Starlight Flare!"

Brilliant in its luminescence, a sphere of
bright white light and crackling lightning appeared overhead. An
auric effect raced outward that would light the world around him
while it also damaged those considered to be opponents. The dark
aligned and demonic would take special damage. Though uncertain
whether these beasts counted as either dark aligned or demonic
beings, it did not matter. The spell was his best hope at
present.

Sluggish due to his lack of skill and overall
experience, the orb floated down as his will directed. The
axe-wielding monsters unleashed unholy screams and their armor
began to spark wildly as they were touched by the celestial
energies. While they could defend against axe or sword, they were
no match for a power that ignored standard magical defenses.

Scott was greatly surprised when several of
the beasts fell over sideways, destroyed by the light. Starlight
flare was an area-of-effect spell, to be certain, but it did not do
a great deal of damage even to the dark or demonic. Of course, this
event was not like the tutorial dungeon. These monsters were not
scaled to his stats.

Unlike the hellions, the living armor beasts
just continued to try and get to him without care or concern. Even
as smoke roiled off of their armor they did their best to terrify
and destroy. They were mindless creatures created by an evil will.
Soon, they were nothing but charred armor and the remnants of a
nightmare.

Scott sighed slightly then slid down the
debris to check the wreckage for loot. He was uncertain of whether
he would even survive this event, but if he did, he wanted to get
paid for his troubles.

It was a scene that replayed itself
constantly throughout the next few hours. Scott, uncertain of where
to go in the city, roamed around in circles. He fought the
automaton beasts, or whatever they might be called, whenever he
could find a safe vantage point outside their reach. He ignored
them the rest of the time. He had a strong suspicion that their
axes would neatly cleave him asunder. Theirs was a game of cat and
mouse. It was a most peculiar variant of that game however; one
where both the cat and the mouse each had a cannon, but their
bodies were made of glass. The first shot to hit would win.

He slipped under a bit of debris to hide from
a passing contingent of the armored beasts. Dozens of them marched
by his hiding place never suspecting that sweet, sweet, mortal meat
resided only a short distance away. Scott would not have said that
he cowered before their numbers, but he would not have denied it
either.

After the rattling bastards passed, he
crawled out of the debris and started moving along the street once
more. He had yet to find another shelter, but had run across many
badly ruined corpses. Men, women, children; it did not matter to
the things that stomped through the streets. If they sighted the
living, they did their best to tear that life away.

"So, this is war in a fantasy world." said
Scott softly in a voice slightly louder than a whisper. A whisper
might give him away as it was often more harsh than words spoken in
a soft tone. It would carry farther through the desolate
streets.

Through an alleyway he slipped, his hands at
the ready and his eyes alert to the dangers of the world around
him. It was hard to sense the energies of man or monster in the
ruination of this part of the city. What was not difficult to sense
was the fear in the voice of the young child who began to scream
just up ahead.

Scott launched himself up the chain link
fence that blocked off the alleyway then flipped over the top to
land on the lid of the dumpster on the other side.The child
screamed once more, before he went terribly silent. Around the
corner, the gruesome sight of six of the beasts repeatedly slamming
their axes down to tear apart the remnants of a former life could
be seen.

Blue eyebrows pressed together. Scott's eyes
narrowed. He was tired of seeing things like this. Sometimes the
monsters stopped to make sure a corpse was a corpse. Yet, this was
far worse. He had arrived too late to even try to do anything for
the boy while he lived. But he would be damned if he let those
things continue to desecrate his corpse.

Enraged, but alert, eyes scanned the area for
some vantage point that he could use to easily finish the beasts.
There was none. It was an open parking lot, but none of the
vehicles were high enough off of the ground to use as a stable
point of attack. "Fine, we'll have to dance a little."