"Remember… We each need to focus on the same part of the lake." I tell my friends. We are in one of the more rural parts of La Moquitia, surrounded by dense woods in every direction. Ahead of us is a tremendous lake, a gigantic body of water.
"I'm gonna focus on the water closest to us. No point in making this complicated act even more complicated." Andrew tells us. We let him lead the way, and watch as some of the water lapping at the sandy shore of the lake begins to slowly float up towards us. I reach out a hand and join my telekinetic force to Andrew's, letting him lead the way while adding in my own immense power. More of the water begins to drift towards us, though pulling it towards us is strenuous and taxing due to the fact that the water that we aren't grabbing weighs it down. Matt and Steve stretch out their hands as well, and we feel a tremendous amount be pulled from the lake. Truly thousands of gallons of water.
This is an unpleasant, though rewarding, exercise. We feel the resistance and weight of the water that we aren't dragging as it pushes against what we're pulling towards us. I delight in the strain this puts on our telekinetic muscles, providing us with experience in a way that we haven't always been challenged to do. When all that resists an object is the air moving it is simple, easy, and fast, if you have the telekinetic strength to do so. But we're going up against other telekinetics. We're gonna need to exert ourselves in different ways than we're all used to.
"We need to get used to what it feels like when there's interference." I tell my friends. No one complains but I can tell we're all straining a touch more than we're used to.
I enjoy this sensation, and I kick myself for not training like this earlier in my stint here. I'm used to using telekinesis with no resistance and I realize now that I've accidentally spoiled myself.
We manage to pull a shocking amount of water out of the lake and I sense my friends wondering what to do with it. I take a deep breath and begin to pull the water towards us. My friends watch the water come towards us, and they shut their eyes. I feel their own telekinetic feelers pulling water towards them as well. Four thick tendrils of water emerge from the floating mass of water our actions have created.
Eight pairs of psychic limbs pull water towards them, reaching into the tremendous body of floating fluids and draining it. Tentacle-like bodies of water reach our arms and begin to wrap around them.
"Okay." I mutter as we each familiarize ourselves with something akin to water bending. I move my arms around and keep track of where the water encircling is. I'm the first one of the four of us to let go of the tremendous orb, which causes the others to let go of it as well, since my involvement is the amplifying factor that makes it possible for us to do something like this. The water drops out of our control and falls back into the lake.
I move into the air and focus on the bodies of water around my arms and aim them at a tree. I point my arms in the direction of some nearby trees and fire the water at them. The bands around my arm rocket outward and slam into the tree, hitting it with significant force.
"Baby water-bending. I still can't do the weird shit but… This is the start." I utter. My friends watch me and do the same thing, though in other directions.
The rest of the day we do different cycles of training activity. At one point I generate heavy objects using my ability to warp reality with my dreams, entering a state of beholder-like "Sleep" to do so, and I lead us in testing the limits of our forcefields.
Forcefields are gonna be one of the key advantages we have over the MOGO intent on killing… everything really, but us first and foremost. If we can render some of the attacks of the mob of foes we're gonna have useless, both together and separately, that'll give us a tremendous ability to get closer to the monster and attack.
"Okay now's the time to practice using forcefields as a way of attack." I tell Andrew, our most proficient forcefield user. We're still on the shores of the lake. I wait for Andrew to nod before I reach into my inventory and retrieve a soccer ball.
"The objective here is simple. Squish this ball." I tell the no-longer-moody young man. When he signals that he's ready I toss it in his direction. We all watch him freeze the ball in mid-air, catching it in a tight forcefield. He does this without gestures or anything of the like, simply through raw force. His focus isn't even on the ball itself, but we watch the object begin to get compressed. I can almost see Andrew's forcefield as it shrinks around the ball.
"Assuming the MOGO we face is similar to the one I struck down, our… friendly MOGO, it won't be leading its forces with much finesse. If we're creative with our telekinesis we can do a lot more than they can." I remind my friends. I watch them absorb this knowledge as Andrew's forcefield shrinks down to the size of a pin, compressing the ball so tightly it explodes.
"Forcefields as weapons." I remark, and Andrew smiles. From here it's my turn. I retrieve another soccer ball and toss it into the air. I also have reached a point of proficiency with my powers where I can do this without focusing or gesturing at the ball.
The thing freezes in mid-air and then nearly instantly disappears, compressed so tightly it just disappears, tiny pieces of synthetic leather filling a tiny point in the air. I instantly turn off the forcefield and watch as the pieces of leather fall. I reach out and catch the small remnants of the ball even as I summon two more soccer balls and telekinetically toss them to my other friends. Steve and Matt, unlike Andrew and I, have had full, meaningful lives, and while they both grow in terms of their telekinetic strength quite quickly, they aren't on our level. Both of the 20 somethings need to gesture towards the soccer balls to catch them, but when they do the balls freeze. A few seconds later their balls are compressed into scraps as well.
The next few weeks are filled with training. We alternate between Greensboro and the rural parts of Honduras, with me giving my friends chances to check in with their loved ones while we hone our powers. The weeks turn to months, and when we reach the exact halfway point between when we started training and the anticipated emergence of the MOGO I begin to switch up and intensify what we do for training.
Deep in the tunnel complex I've created I float in the middle of another enormous chamber. My friends surround me and I silently take in the sight of the three warriors.
Andrew, Steve, and Matt, look focused and in their element. All four of us are leaner, sharper, and stronger than we've ever been. Rocks and boulders around me begin to float and I grin savagely as my friends get ready to face me.
"Today we're gonna… intensify things." I explain, causing the heart beats of my brothers in arms to speed up. I can feel that they can feel something coming.
I morph into my more monstrous, and terrifying, form: that of an undead beholder. I feel my limbs disappearing and my body consolidating its mass into that of my most inhuman form and as my friends let out surprised and horrified sounds I begin to laugh.
"Show me what you've got." I exclaim, channeling something I don't often get to channel into my voice: my ability to be terrifying. I mix in my truly superhuman senses, mixing the raw sensory potency of my "Hentai Orc" altform into my beholder body, allowing me to hear the soft sounds of rocks beginning to be aimed at me. I aim a pair of eyestalks at each of my sparring partners, which still leaves me with my central eye and four eyestalks.
"You're gonna have to be faster than that!" I remark before blasting them and their projectiles with telekinetic rays. My rays seize control of the projectiles my "foes" were readying as weapons against me and drop them harmlessly to the floor.
"I'm a beholder. It's one of my… forms." I state, quietly. My friends size up this claim and I hear them make soft sounds of acceptance. I've already shown them my powers and they know that I am a nasty Swiss Army Knife of versatility when it comes to a range of different things though there's plenty I'm not excellent at. Matt and Andrew are lifted off the floor by my telekinetic rays, and I am about to throw them at each other when they close their eyes and clad themselves in forcefields, freeing themselves from my grasp.
"That's it!" I utter right as Steve hurls himself at me using telekinesis. He is fast, truly superhumanly so. I laugh as I dodge his initial tackle, able to do so thanks to my own superhuman speed, but it's enough for Matt and Andrew to reach each other and attempt to barrage me with a wave of stony debris. One of my eyestalks hits the earthen wave with a blast of antimagic, causing it to fall even as Steve successfully nails me with a second tackle.
Steve grabs one of my eyestalks and uses his telekinesis to roughly emulate superstrength. My ability to feel pain is shut off but he slams me into the walls of the cavern and begins to try and push me away. This attack would actually be pretty effective on most foes… but I am not most foes. A single eyestalk of mine opens in his direction and blasts him with an antimagic ray, before I capture him in my telekinetic grip and hurl him away.
"Matt! Distract him." Andrew says, causing Matt to gesture towards me. I am about to face Andrew when Matt pulls the ground in front of me up to form an obstacle and barrier to shield Andrew from view. That sort of environmentally sensitive thinking is part of what makes a really, really good telekinetic and I am delighted to see Matt using his head as we fight.
"Now that's telekinesis!" I roar before turning my central eye's cone into a burst of disintegration. The attack cuts through the earthen wall, and I get to see Andrew surrounded by spikes made from stones that Andrew is lifting with his brain. His telekinesis is fast as hell and he wields it deftly. The spikes are sharp, and large enough to restrict someone's ability to dodge them if they were earthbound. If I were earthbound Andrew would actually have another nasty attack tactic at his disposal: turning the earth under me into spikes.
"I hope your healing factor can take this!" Andrew shouts before the spikes speed towards me. They move fast and I admire Andrew's almost earth-bending as I zip between the spikes. If I couldn't fly… I'd have to counter the attack, which I believe I'd be able to do but it's nice that I don't have to do that.
Steve tries to tackle me again, mixing telekinesis with his sharply honed athleticism. He only tries to tackle me, as in he doesn't succeed, because I watch him with an eyestalk and tackle him with a masterfully crafted forcefield that invisibly streaks through the air and clips him, even as I nail Andrew with a single well-aimed sleep ray. He collapses, uninjured but out cold.
Steve is sent flying into a distant part of the chamber, which won't hold him for long. I turn my focus on Matt and watch as he reveals a curious affinity. He erects more earthen barriers between the two of us, gesturing almost like an actual earthbender as he pulls thick stone walls into being. I almost focus on the walls before I hear Matt leap onto them. I look up and spot him smiling at me.
"Steve's not the only fighter!" He roars as he begins to kick the earthen walls at me. I let out a laugh as I take in the creativity of this fight, even as I move out of the way of the attacks. I can fly, freely, as a beholder and that tactical advantage is a real one.
"Gotcha!" Matt says as he stops the earthen wall that was just about to nail me and dismantles it with his mind. Beneath me there's a flurry of swirling stones and I hear him laugh as flares his fingers directly upwards. I am caught in the storm of stones, and I feel the damage being done to me.
"Good job! This is the sort of thinking that'll-" I say as I am tackled by Steve again and pushed out of the stone-tornado. I am sent flying back, sailing into the air above the floor of the cavern.
"And now I'll capture you!" Steve says as he focuses and, without gestures, causes a ton of stone and rock to surround me. It's an excellent move and I smile, flashing the stone a toothy, inhuman grin, before all of my eyestalks flare out in different directions and I unleash a blistering storm of disintegration rays.
The stone is destroyed and I immediately follow up with telekinesis, hitting everything around me in a shockingly powerful array of telekinetic grips. My friends freeze, captured by me unleashing my true power, and I switch into an amalgamation of my human form and my beholder form. My hairs end in thick stalks of eyes. I clap and smile as I signal the end of the sparring, while awakening Andrew with an antimagic ray.
"That was really good! Oh thank goodness. The three of you are capable of giving me a fight. And if I don't take you seriously I think I'd lose, or else start to take you seriously. That's a fantastic sign." I state with a sincere grin. I flip through the air as I let out a relaxed laugh.
"When we fight on the same side we'll be able to do a ton. Matt, your affinity for earth stuff is shockingly high. The way you used the environment on me was nice. Steve, your up-close telekinetic takedowns are awesome. Andrew, it seems like you fight like a destructive telekinetic. One who creates nasty projectiles and flings them at foes. That could be really scary, though it doesn't work as well against someone with similar powers on your overall level. Though I did do a cheap shot to stop you early." I tell the trio. They look at me, heartened by my words and observe my healing factor already finishing up. It's… a scary level of regenerative power.
For the next few weeks we engage in real, brutal sparring matches. We alternate between fighting one-on-one and fighting in teams. Sometimes we switch up who is fighting everyone by himself, whether it's me in one of my alternate forms, Matt, Steve, or Andrew, fighting against everyone else. Three weeks before the date I have long since earmarked, the five year anniversary of my arrival in this world, I am resting with my friends in the house we share in Greensboro. The faint, distant sounds of both television and one side of a phone call, are among the noises I pick up while I reach into my soul-inventory and retrieve two items.
I place a sword, my orc weapon, on a kitchen table and I retrieve my wand and put it next to it. My wand is an item with sentimental value and my orc sword has a pretty essential function. I put my book on the table and flip it to the page that denotes my builds. Each of my fiat-backed trinkets has a full description on the long page in my book that tells me its capabilities. I have a decent collection of toys and tools to mess about with, and I study the tools arrayed before me with a contemplative gaze.
My grimoire has a description for my "Orc Kit" item. "This is a simple set of shapeshifting armor and a weapon perfectly fit for your mighty new body. This armor and weapon are simple things but the armor is carefully crafted and fiat-backed to always absorb as much of blows as possible before harm is dealt to you, and you have perfect control over how much harm the weapon you use can deal, such that you can use it to knock out foes you don't want to kill, even if by all accounts they should die as a result of the beating you inflict on them."
The weapon's ability to deal non-lethal damage is critically important. With it I can deal gigantic amounts of damage to a wide area and not kill anyone. I don't want to kill people whose worst mistake is being in the general vicinity of an apocalyptic monster, if it can be avoided. I silently take the wand in one hand and the sword in another and relax as I activate a perk that has been a part of my arsenal for my entire chain: "Mixer". As the power activates I feel it reaching into my soul and allowing me to guide the form the fused product takes.
The two objects I'm holding begin to vibrate when the perk is sure of what form I want the fusion to have. After a few seconds I open my hands, letting go of them, and watch them snap together. The object that the perk's usage creates is a regal looking wand imbued with the ability to deal magically non-lethal damage. The object almost falls before I catch it with telekinesis. It hovers in the air in front of me and I reach out and grab it with my left hand.
"Okay… I suppose I'm ready for the apocalypse." I tell myself. The wand in my hand won't kill anyone, no matter what spell I use, unless I want them to die. I momentarily wonder if I could cheese the drawback and I contemplate trying to grant a wish that would kill the monster coming for my friends and I outright, but the instant I think about that my bad idea perk goes off and I sigh.
"Drawbacks. It can't be THAT easy." I utter before shaking my head in annoyance. To be fair it's a whooper of a drawback, giving those who take it a massive 600 point bump to their budget. It being deemed something you can't cheese is perfectly reasonable from a jump-design standpoint. But since I didn't pick my build… Gah.
I put my wand in my inventory and glance at my phone. It's pretty late in North Carolina which means it's early evening in California. I quietly call Amber and I put her on speakerphone right before she picks up.
"Hey. I'm sorry for calling, I know that's not my style, but I wanted to talk to you for a bit." I explain.
"Oh. What's going on?" She asks, and I smile.
"I just want to check in and see how you're doing. It's been… a busy four years." I remark quietly. I can almost hear Amber's facial expression shift subtly as she makes a quiet noise of something approaching annoyance.
"Yeah… It really has. You left immediately after graduation. We're all worried about you, you know." She tells me and I frown.
"Something's coming. That's why I've been distant. Something big." I tell Amber, causing her to go silent for a long, awkward moment.
"Are you going to come home when you're done?" She asks. I can hear a distance in her voice but its not a cold sort of distance. She's remembering something. Almost certainly memories of her original life, both before she started to work for me and then her memories in this world.
"If for whatever reason I don't get a chance to tell you… When this is over I would like to see you." I tell Amber. I don't try to hide the fact that seeing her makes me happy, and I can feel her reacting to that, even over the phone. For a moment I remember every conversation we had back in Bard World, and I wonder if I should have taken her with me on my globe-trotting journey.
"I see…" She replies, but we both smile. Her response, though moderate in terms of her word choice, carries a note of emotion that she can't hide from me. I can faintly hear the music of her soul and I can feel the elation she feels at my words, just like I've no doubt she can feel the excitement in my words about her coming here.
I spend over an hour on the phone before ending the call. When the call ends I gaze out a window in the kitchen and take in the sight of the night's sky. Stars light up the sky above the city and I watch them twinkle for a few moments.
My last encounter with an honest-to-God monster was the MOGO in the tunnel it had created to try and lure prey to itself. It was on death's door. It wasn't dangerous in that state and up close to it I could shut down its only form of defense given its circumstances. I'm firmly aware that this time I won't be facing one under such remarkably positive, laughably one-sided circumstances.
The remainder of the time limit before the monster's emergence is split evenly between training and practicing my powers and relaxing with my friends. The day before the monster is slated to appear I head to Honduras and pull my pet MOGO into my grimoire. The fiat-backed nature of the object allows even colossal undead like the creature to fit on a single page and in time I plan to give it the chance to avenge itself against the very monster that caused it to die years ago.
In the last few hours of the final day of my fourth year I am watching the news. We are all glued to the screen, and we adjust to hearing each other's thoughts in the back of our minds: we've just completed a soul-mate ritual to better link us and to give us more energy for the fight to come. I am glued to my phone, scrolling through social media as an enormous TV plays audio of some news show.
"Remember our plan. Y'all can't shapeshift. I can." I remark as my friends and I wait for our peaceful life to come to an end. They nod and I watch Andrew glance at the table in the middle of the living room. Three black outfits are on it that cover every part of their bodies. My ability to shapeshift, even into other human forms, is a powerful key that'll help us stay out of the public eye when the dust settles, assuming we survive.
I have powerful abilities that'll help a tremendous deal here but our victory, even with everything at my disposal, isn't guaranteed. The clock strikes midnight and I keep my focus on my phone. Whole minutes pass without any new trending topics online being focused on a single location before my next social media refresh finally shows me what I'm looking for. The hashtag "#Tegucigalpa" pops up on my Twitter account and when I click on it I see images of a strange shape jutting out of the ground that climbs so high that the top of it is past clouds. I click on a video and it shows me figures flying next to a jet-black vaguely stone-like structure.
"Guys. We have to go. It's here." I tell my friends as I turn up the volume of the video and my friends listen to distant screams and the sounds of the destruction the MOGO's initial emergence is already causing.
"It's in Tegucigalpa. The capital of Honduras. Over a million people live there." I say, my voice small and scared. Tegucigalpa was one of the places I lived as a teen. My friends get up and telekinetically pull the outfits we've assembled together, even as I shift into my hulking, brutish orc form. I immediately retrieve my orcish armor and equip it, even as I begin to move towards the sarcophagus that I use as a fast-travel point. My friends are behind me, and we reach the thing in less than a minute. Only a minute later we slip out of the sarcophagus in La Mosquitia, and we speed through the tunnel complex using a rough emulation of super speed. When we exit the tunnel and feel the warm Central American air on us I take off into the sky. My heart is pounding in my chest and I mentally ready myself for what we're about to witness.
My friends are right behind me and we streak through the night's sky. I move faster than I've ever moved as I retrieve my grimoire and take comfort in its familiar weight in one hand and my… safety-wand in the other. My team rockets through the dark sky and in seconds I see the eerie sight of the almost unfathomably gigantic monster.
The creature is more than twice the full height and length of the MOGO in my book. Its body consists of obsidian rock-like, almost chitinous matter and its face is not visible as we near it. We streak past the very outermost edges of Tegucigalpa as I think about every monster I've met and faced in battle, from friendly foes in the arena back in Besou, to the beholders and Beowulf. I also recall my first encounter with my pet MOGO, the one that I just had to finish off and not truly fight. This is nothing like that.
A few hundred feet up a column of people float in the air, circling the beast's rock-like form. They form a band of sorts, and even at a glance there are thousands of them. The creature seems to have emerged near the National Identity Museum and various objects from that historic structure and other nearby buildings are being telekinetically lifted to form a second band of things in a shape that almost reminds me of Saturn's rings.
We don't get to go right up to the beast without disruptions, and shortly before we're a quarter of the way across the city we hear objects behind us lift into the air behind us but miss. Things like street signs, cars, and even trash cans are lifted into the air and chucked at us but whiff completely, and we are almost at the beast when drones that mindlessly encircle the creature are suddenly hurled at us. A full geyser-like eruption of people are sent at us like an impossibly cruel weapon, or something out of the first season of Invincible. I'm ready for this though and I point my wand at the weapon made out of people.
Our fight against a living apocalypse begins with a spell.