Chapter 2 Science and Sorcery
“We have how many jobs that need to be dealt with right now?”
Arrowny glances at the others around the library table... Saphir shrugs...
“Three paying, and one vision... all in different parts of the world.”
Ryan folds his arms on the table, and lays his head down on them.
“Can we put any of them off?”
Justin shakes his head.
“The customers are rather adamant about speedy service... and, as always, the vision one is rather time specific. We need to do them all now... or we lose out. Also,” He takes a breath, “it’s not like the paid ones are things we can just pass over. They are demons who want to kill people... we can’t really tell them ‘oh, sorry, but we had other things to do’. Kind of ruins the hero image.”
Brad laughs...
“When did we become heroes?”
“Good point.”
Ryan raises his head...
“Five of us, four missions. Brad, Justin, Saphir, and I can fight... so if we split up, Crystal has to go with one of us. But, Brad doesn’t have the magics... so... hell, guys... I don’t have any friggin’ clue as to how we’re going to split this up.”
“Well,” Saphir nods toward Justin, “we’ve been working on something that might give Brad some magical power. Well, not just Brad... but you get what I mean. We’ve been working on a way to make magical grenades...”
Ryan’s eyes widen...
“Magical grenades... like... spells?”
“Yeah... elementals... fire, ice... that kind of thing. Maybe some status jinxes... whatever we need.”
“You can do this?” He glances around at Justin and Saphir...
“In theory.” Justin pulls a small blueprint from one of the file folders on the table. “We have a couple of prototypes made. The main problem is that we’re trying to activate a magical reaction with a physical trigger. It doesn’t always work. I think we have the kinks worked out... but they haven’t been field tested yet.”
Brad stands up...
“I’ll test them.”
They all look over at Arrowny, who waves his hand and shrugs...
“Fine. What are the jobs?”
Justin throws a file into the middle of the table.
“Minotaur in Spain. Strong, but not much else.”
Ryan grabs the file, and passes it to Brad.
“He’s yours. You won’t need much magic to deal with it.”
Brad nods, and Justin holds out another file.
“Banshee in Ireland. I can adapt a force field to block any sonic waves it makes... so, I’ll take this one.” He throws a third file to the table. “There’s a demon in B.C. that some of the local magic community thinks it is going to start breeding any day now... and they want it dead before it does.”
Saphir reaches forward, and grabs the file without saying a word. Crystal glances over at Arrowny.
“Guess that leaves us with the vision. It’s in Nova Scotia... Halifax, to be exact.”
Ryan nods...
“Okay. So, Saphir will drop the rest of us off one by one. When we finish the jobs, we’ll send him a voice mail message, and wait for him at the same spot he leaves us at.” He looks at Saphir. “If you finish first, and nobody’s left you a message... come help one of us.”
Saphir nods.
Justin slides four cell phones across the table, one to each of the others.
“I’ve rebuilt these things. They’ll work pretty much anywhere on the planet, regardless of satellite position. We’ve got the same voice mail features and such... just clearer calls.”
They each take their phones... and Arrowny claps his hands.
“Okay guys... let’s do this.”
* * * * * *
Saphir stops in Spain just long enough to drop Brad off next to a fountain in the village square where the Minotaur has been sighted... he doesn’t even close the Warp gate... just kind of slows down, and pushes Brad out. Since Justin is the one who actually deals with the clients... getting jobs, and collecting payment and such... all he has to do is kill things...
“Yay... I get to kill things!”
He looks around... and is quite amazed by the sheer number of people who seem to be running for their lives... all shouting, and pointing at something behind him.
He lowers his head... realization dawning on him... and slowly turns...
... and comes face to face with the Minotaur.
The creature’s horns are covered with blood... and there are still small bits of skin stuck to the fir around its bull mouth. Brad sighs...
“Hi... I’m Brad... and I’m probably going to be your lunch today.”
The Minotaur roars... stomping its feet like a bull about to charge...
Brad roars right back at the creature... and then slams the flat of his axe into its head... and it stops roaring. Instead, its eyes widen, and steam pours from its nostrils. It clenches its human like fists... and bares its teeth.
“Okay then... that didn’t work.” Brad slowly takes a few steps back... very slowly...
He gets about ten feet away, but figuring that the Minotaur will charge if he moves much further, he stops.
“Well, if that didn’t work,” Brad pulls a small grenade like thing from his belt, and presses the little red button on the side, “THIS WILL! FIRE GRENADE!”
He throws the grenade...
... and it bounces harmlessly off of the Minotaur. It hits the ground, and after a seemingly long pause...
... doesn’t do anything.
Brad just shakes his head...
“Well damn!”
The Minotaur charges, and Brad runs off in the other direction as fast as he can...
* * * * * *
As soon as Saphir drops him off in Ireland, Justin heads for the graveyard where the Banshee was last reported to be.
And, luckily, it’s still there... just sitting on a tombstone... randomly obliterating other tombstones with its screams. As the technomage approaches, quarterstaff ready, it turns its head...
“I’m glad somebody finally showed up. I’ve been getting bored with all this random destruction.”
Justin raises his eyebrows in wonder...
“Really? Because, I was under the impression that you were... evil. And, that you really like to destroy things.”
“Oh... I do. I just like to have a moving target every now and then!”
She opens her mouth, and screams... enough to not only shatter a man’s eardrums, but to split that same man in half while it happens.
But the sonic waves just wrap around Justin... who is just standing there, with a rather bored look on his face.
“Are you quite done?”
The Banshee hops off the tombstone, and gazes in awe at him.
“How... not dead... should be... what happened? How did you stop that attack?”
He shrugs...
“I am a technomage.”
The Banshee floats forward, carefully eyeing Justin...
... and then it back hands him, sending the Warrior crashing into a tombstone.
“It’s a good thing I’ve still got all that natural Banshee strength then, isn’t it?”
Arrowny and Crystal land in Halifax, in a remote section of Point Pleasant Park, just in time to witness the first bit of a fight between two men... both with swords... one dressed in a rather frilly, brightly coloured fighting suit, the other in normal street clothes.
The plain clothed man appears to be about middle aged, and is fighting with a wide blade medieval style sword, making wide, sweeping attacks. The other, more flamboyant and older man, is using a long, thin, blue steel rapier, making simple jabs at his opponent.
Huddled against a large tree, somewhere behind the fighting men, is a teenage man.
Crystal leans toward Ryan...
“These are the guys I saw in my vision. Near as I can tell, they’re fighting over the guy against the tree.”
“Well, which one’s the bad guy?”
“I don’t know. The vision focused in on the old guy with the little sword... but that doesn’t mean anything. I always either focus on the thing we’re supposed to save, or the thing we’re supposed to kill.”
“Great!”
Arrowny readies Sky Render, and takes a few steps toward the fighting men.
“Excuse me! Which one of you is the good guy?”
Crystal rushes over.
“What are you doing? You can’t just ask which one is good!”
The old man parries an attack from his opponent, and rakes his rapier across the younger man’s kneecaps, causing him to fall to the ground. He puts the tip of his blue sword to the front of the fallen mans neck... and slowly... very slowly... pushes it all the way through to the ground. The fallen man dies, chocking on his own blood...
The old man pulls his rapier from the body, and glances over at Arrowny.
“Just for records sake, the answer to your question...” he nods toward his victim, “... he... was the good guy.”
Arrowny smiles, and raises Sky Render...
“Good to know.”
As soon as Saphir materializes outside the high school in a small B.C. town, he is met by the principal.
“You’re the Warrior guy?”
Saphir nods, and the principal points to the school.
“The demon just went in there. I’m not sure what kind it is... but some of the locals seem to think that it’s getting ready to breed. We’ve had demon problems before, but this thing killed five of our police officers trying to get in there. It’s just out of our league.”
“Not a problem.”
It doesn’t take long for Saphir to make his way through the school... little towns have little schools.
He eventually makes it to the doors of the gym. He slowly opens the doors... and finds the demon, large, slimy, and purple, standing in the middle of the room.
Unfortunately... standing around it, there are about fifteen smaller versions of it. Apparently... it was not ‘getting ready to breed’... it was ‘breeding’.
Saphir takes a deep breath, and bursts through the door, trying to take the demons by surprise.
He manages to knock a few back with a force wave, but it only connects with a handful of the demons. The others, now alerted to his presence, turn and rush at the Warrior. He swings wide, trying to keep them at bay... but there’s just too many.
One of the beasts grabs hold of Saphir by the neck, and throws him against the far wall of the gym.
Saphir quickly gets to his feet... and pulls out one of his Cards. The picture depicts a great winged warrior, and the name is PALIDOR. He touches the Card to the blade of the glaive...
“BAEaemeay-teoon RAae-ku-deah!”
The Card becomes light, which is absorbed by the blue star sapphire under the blade of the Glaive of Ceruleus. The sapphire emits a bright light, which surrounds Saphir. When the light dies down, the Warrior can not help but be shocked...
The demons aren’t moving.
The spell he cast was a simple ‘haste’ spell... it should have only made him about twice as fast as he would normally be... but as he approaches the closest creature, he sees that it is still moving... just very... very slowly. He watches for about five minutes, and the demons only manage to take less than a full step in his general direction.
“This is NOT what’s supposed to happen.”
Just to test... Saphir raises his glaive, and slashes the blade through the demon’s chest. It slices through easily... leaving a thin line of separation between its two halves. He slashes at it a few more times... each time creating a new separation.
Moving on, he cuts each demon, one by one, into four or five sections each. By the time he finishes, the first one has not even begun to fall apart.
When each of the demons has been slashed apart, he walks over to the gym doors, and takes a deep breath.
He wills the PALIDOR Card back to its original form... when it becomes solid in his hand, the haste spell is broken, and each of the demons fall to pieces, with rather sickening sounds, spilling their organs over the floor.
“I have no idea what just happened... but that was cool!”
He pulls his cell phone out, and checks to see if anybody has messaged him that they’ve finished their jobs...
... nobody has.
“Guess I’ll go help Brad...”
Justin kick-flips back to his feet. To anybody who may have been watching the fight, the simple move would have looked really cool, what with the technomage’s black trench coat flowing behind him and all... but, of course, nobody’s watching.
No matter though... he didn’t become a demon hunter because of the fame...
As the Banshee charges, he slams the tip of his quarter staff into its face. If it were human, the blow would have been strong enough to kill... as it is, the creature is still dazed a bit.
The Banshee tries to shake off the blow, but Justin doesn’t give it the chance. His own knowledge of fighting, coupled with the extra training he’d received from Kenneth during his time as an employee of Apocolypse Incorporate, has taught him that if an opponent takes the time to shake it off, you need to hit them some more.
He continues beating on the Banshee, attacking its head to keep it off balance, and its throat to keep it from shouting, as Banshees have a tendency to do. The screams couldn’t hurt him, due to his force fields, but they could cause some serious property damage.
Justin keeps the Banshee down for a while before it manages to grab hold of his weapon (apparently, Banshee’s aren’t really that bothered by electricity) and kicks him in the stomach. It continues attacking Justin until it backs him against a particularly large tombstone. It slams Justin against the stone, and punches him repeatedly, snarling.
“You may have cancelled out my screams, but your other powers are USELESS!”
Between punches, Justin manages to smile.
“I’ve got powers you haven’t seen yet!”
On his mental command, the technomage’s quarter staff retracts its size, compressing from five feet long, to a one foot baton. Another thought, and a bright white flame bursts from the end of his weapon... a plasma torch... white hot flame.
As the Banshee goes for another punch, Justin blocks, and slams the flaming end of his baton into its throat... its demonic flesh burns away, leaving an acidic smell in the air. Its mouth gapes open in a mock scream of pain, but no noise is heard...
An extremely hard kick to the creatures kneecap sends it to the ground, lying on its back, rolling around in pain, pointlessly covering its burnt throat, trying to dull the pain. Justin turns to the oversized tombstone, and drags the flame of the plasma torch along its base. The stone cracks and blows apart under the extreme heat, making a nice, clean break line at the bottom.
As the Banshee rolls around on the ground, Justin moves behind the tombstone, and pushes against it with all his strength. The stone begins to crack along the break line... and when he adds in the power of his force fields, it topples over, landing squarely on the upper body of the Banshee.
A loud SPLAT, along with some thick grey paste, lets Justin know that the demon is dead... but even so, it still takes a few minutes for its feet to stop twitching. Justin sighs, putting away his weapon, and takes a seat on the side of the fallen tombstone.
He pulls out his cell phone, and presses the quick dial button for Saphir’s voice mail.
“I’m finished with the Banshee. Pick me up in the little graveyard just a little ways away from where you dropped me off.”
In a flash of light, Saphir appears in the main square of a small Spanish town... just in time to be pulled into a run by Brad.
“Hey! Where’s the Minotaur?”
“Behind us!”
Saphir glances over his shoulder, and sees that the manbull is indeed behind them, and gaining ground with every step. He glances over at Brad...
“I have a plan!”
“Oh... that’s nice. I hope it works out as well as your plan to put magic into grenades!”
“Why? That didn’t work?”
Brad just sighs as Saphir takes out one of his Cards... the wolf FENRIR. He turns to Brad...
“I’m going to try casting a Stop spell on it... but, the way my day’s going, it’ll probably end up freezing this entire town rather than just the Minotaur.”
They skid to a halt, and Saphir touches the Card to the blade of his glaive.
“FUah-haneayn KU-deoo-bae!”
... nothing happens... he tries again...
“FUah-haneayn KU-deoo-bae!”
At this point, even the Minotaur has stopped chasing them to glance wonderingly at Saphir, who is furiously tapping his card against the blade.
“DAMNIT! FUah-haneayn KU-deoo-bae!”
... still nothing...
The Minotaur gives a small snort... a sort of laugh... and renews its charge. Brad steps forward.
“Bugger this!”
Just as the beast gets close, he slams his axe into the ground, causing a massive cloud of dust and dirt to fly into its face. It howls, and tries to wipe the dirt from its eyes...
... Saphir and Brad make a quiet escape around a corner. Saphir just stares at his Card...
“I don’t get it. I just used an uber powerful Haste spell in B.C. ... but now, I can’t seem to even activate this card.”
“Let’s not worry about this till later okay?”
Brad grabs hold of the glaive, and yanks it from Saphir’s hands. He slams the end of it into the ground, and lowers it enough to make about a sixty degree angle with the ground. He turns to Saphir.
“I want you to hold on to this, and put your foot down on the end there,” Brad points to where the end of the weapon is stuck in the ground. “Whatever you do, don’t move from this spot, and try not to let it fall down towards the ground too much.”
Saphir puts the FENRIR Card away, and takes hold of the glaive. He steps down on the end, just as he was shown... and looks up at Brad.
“I take it you have a plan then?”
“Yup! I’m going bear hunting!”
Before Saphir has a chance to question the statement, Brad steps back out on to the main street... in full view of the Minotaur.
“Hey UGLY! I’m over here!”
As he expected, the creature charges... it gets closer, and Brad doesn’t move... closer still, and Saphir considers dropping the glaive in order to physically push Brad out of the way...
But, just as it is about to impale Brad on its horns, the axe wielding Warrior drops to his hands and knees... the Minotaur, having too much momentum to stop, runs knee first into Brad, and trips... falling forward... and landing chest first on the blade of the glaive.
Blood drips down the handle of Saphir’s weapon... the Minotaur is dead...
* * * * * *
Rapier and katana clash, and the old man smiles at Arrowny.
“I believe introductions are common courtesy before a duel. My name is Bastian. And you are?”
Ryan pushes Bastian back before answering.
“I’m Arrowny.”
Bastian thrusts out, and Ryan blocks, taking a step back in an attempt to draw him away from the man against the tree. They fight back and forth, and Arrowny quickly gets the upper hand... his stronger offensive style easily breaking through the old man’s weaker style.
As they’re fighting, Crystal pulls out her crossbows, and takes careful aim at Bastian. She fires, and just as the arrows are about to hit him, he slashes out, cutting them in half during their flight.
Bastian smiles...
“Nice try!”
Bastian turns back to Arrowny and they get back to fighting... but this time, Bastian appears to be winning... Ryan isn’t using the same style as he was before. Arrowny is on the defensive, and seems to be overwhelmed by the older man’s speed. It only takes a few moments for Ryan to fall to his knees under the force of Bastian’s attack.
Arrowny tries one more attack... he swings out at Bastian’s stomach... but the attack is blocked, and Sky Render is knocked away. Bastian takes a step back, and smiles...
“You’ve been beaten... but I will not kill you yet. I am very glad to have met you.”
Bastian swishes his rapier through the air, and vanishes in a puff of smoke. Crystal steps toward Arrowny... shaking her head.
“You couldn’t have beaten him.”
Ryan reaches out to grab Sky Render, and gets to his feet.
“What do you mean?”
“Well... you had him there at the start... then you went on the defensive. Why’d you do that?”
Ryan looks puzzled... and goes through the fight in his mind... and takes a deep breath as he realizes that he, in fact, did change his style to a more defensive one... rather than trying to get the win.
“Damn... you’re right!”
As he tries to figure out why he did this, the man who was leaning against the tree falls to his knees next to the slain swordfighter.
“NO! He can’t be dead!”
Arrowny turns to him...
“He is... trust me. If it makes you feel better, he probably didn’t feel much pain when he was choking on his own blood.”
The man jumps up, and grabs hold of Ryan’s coat.
“HE CAN’T BE DEAD! WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE HIM?!”
Ryan just shakes his head... and punches him in the head, knocking him out.
Crystal looks down at the unconscious man...
“Why’d you do that?”
“I don’t have time for him. I need to figure out why this guy was killed.”
Arrowny gets on his knees, and starts going through the dead guy’s pockets. He finds something, and when he pulls it out, he gasps...
It’s a small crystal vile filled with a silver reflective liquid... like melted glass...
Crystal taps him on the shoulder...
“Ryan... I saw a vile just like that in my vision. Bastian has one... and I saw him after he ran away... so it can’t have been that one. He’s got his own. Looks like he had a connection with the dead guy.”
“I’ll say.”
Ryan places the vile back in the pocket, and stands. He grabs hold of Crystal, and starts pulling her away from the scene.
“Call Saphir, tell him to pick us up somewhere in the city. I don’t care where... but we can’t wait around here.”
She gets on her cellphone as they leave the park.