Came here from TVTropes.
First time in a site like this…I heard this kind of site usually populated by assholes…so far everybody seems polite. Though do you really need to add “fag” to every subject/verb? Do you like cigar that much?
How do you post stories here? Do you just copy paste it from Word or something?
Also, English is not my mother tongue. I apologize in advance for the imminent massacre of your noble language.
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This is a dark, and stormy night…
Sounds cliché, but seriously, what do you want to say? This is indeed a dark and stormy night, the kind of night that really makes you want to stay inside your house, sulking, drink a cup of tea, or coffee, whatever your fancy, but this is probably not the best time for trying to dodge lightning strikes.
Especially if said lightning strikes aren’t coming from the skies.
TAR!
“Oi, fucknugget.”
you swear, the next time you have a group of magicians as an adversary…you’re going to bring fire extinguisher, because currently, your pants is on fire.
“Ahaha! That’s quite a hot pants you are wearing, hunter!” shouts one of the cultist above the barrage of small arms assault.
Oh shut up.
The group of cultist continues to laughs and throwing insults as they continue to spray your mildly fortified position with bullets, and the occasional lightning bolts.
You use nearby puddle of water, the result of the leaky roofing of a derelict storage house, to put down the hotness level of your pants by a few notches.
Squatting down behind your car, you squint, and behind the ridiculous bullet curtain, you can see your goal.
It’s a girl, lying unconscious on top of some sort of sigil on the floor, about twelve of age, short black hair, you know, the usual type of kid that evil cultist usually kidnap to make a vessel for a dead god or something.
Maybe that’s what this particular occult group is trying to do. Honestly, you couldn’t care. You are paid. And if that means that you are going to save the world, well, that’s a nice bonus.
Well, of course, you could just shoot and kill the girl from here with your highly remarkable marksmanship, but then the contract will be invalid.
Okay, time to brandish your own brand of magic.
You pulled out your foci, an item to focus your magic, from a holster behind your classic noir trench coat.
If Harry Potter has a foci made of holly wood, yours are solid metal. It also has a lot of moving parts, and it’s kind of heavy. And it shoot bullet.
There’s no rule that said that you can’t turn the barrel of your Model 500. into your foci.
Okay, maybe that was a stupid idea. But you don’t care. Magic and logic have never seen eye to eye.
You point your “wandcannon” upwards towards the ceiling, and start filling it up with your magic.
“Magelight…maximum power.”
You pull down your leather fedora closer to your eyes, as a bright ball of light is suddenly shot out from your gun, and explodes into a miniature sun.
The crowd of robe clad cultists quickly reacts to protect their recently fried eyes, their scream of agony filling you ears. With joy.
You pull the hammer of your revolver, and its functionality returns to that of a normal gun.
Normal, 2 kilogram worth of over-engineered death spitter ready to launch five rounds of solid death at your command.
You can basically taste the grin that formed on your face. This is going to be fun.
So, there’s seven cultists in the room, you have five rounds.
Using magic to reinforce the cancellous bone in your arm, you stand from your cover and take aim, holding your gun in your dominant hand. Meanwhile, your other hand grabs inside your pocket and pulls out your trusty butterfly knife.
You charge. Your soft soled feet move quietly. Blinded by your magical flash bang, the nearest cultist has no way of knowing what’s going to happen.
Your blade makes no noise as it goes through his neck like butter. Hydrophobic coating keeps your coat from getting stained.
Even before the body has completely fallen to the ground, you’ve pull your trigger…
Bang.
And the second cultist’s head asplode.
You are firing a model 500. one handed. This act is enough to break a normal person arm. Fortunately, the most basic thing in magic utilization is “energy conversion”.
By coating your cancellous bone with magic, conversing the energy from the recoil is pretty easy.
The temporary blindness suffered by the other five cultists is almost gone by now, and the sound of your gun gave them a quite good approximation on where you are.
Though, before he is able to pull the trigger of his assault rifle, the third cultist dies instantly after your thrown knife goes straight through his eyeball and through his central nervous system.
Chasing after your knife, you release another shot mid-run, your accuracy unhindered as proven by the death of the fourth cultist member.
Retrieving your knife from the corpse of the third cultist, you vault over some metal shipping container, just in time before the place where your head used to be is filled with bullets.
Four dead, three left, and they are moving in to surround you. You have no way out.
Poor bastards. You have three rounds left.
You de-cocked your gun. The hammer completes the magic circuit sewn inside the metal, turning it back into a wand.
“Dragon’s Breath. Curtain for the Assassin.”
Stream of water vapor shoot out from your gun, covering your whereabouts.
Of course, the cultists have a lot of ammo and can afford to simply shoot at your general direction.
Of course, this also means that they are looking hard at your general direction.
“Magelight…maximum power.”
Surprise, bitches!
Another string of agonized scream filled your ears as the cultists got blinded for the second time.
“Magesight.”
You switch your plane of view; you can now see all seven planes of the world, straight through the curtain of smoke.
Looking at their very essence, you see that some of these cultists have done some modification to their physique. Some of them even have what seems to be a primitive version of the Black Onyx System implanted inside their body.
Score! More stuff for the black market!
Bang. Bang. Bang. Three heads asplode.
You just about to celebrate your victory and decide to have extra large pizza for breakfast, a moment before a bullet flying pass just inches from your right ear, the wind pressure almost ruptured your eardrum.
An eight cultist, standing near the girl. He must have been hiding or went to the toilet or something to avoid the slaughter of his friends.
He’s wielding an RPK light machine gun. And he has sticky trigger finger, firing continuous stream of bullets.
You don’t panic. You never panic.
“Steadfast Ward.”
You’ve always been proud of your mastery in conversion of energy, especially kinetic energy. Though, at the opposite end of the spectrum, there is something called ‘conservation’ of energy. That means all that energy got to go somewhere.
And at 600 rounds/min, Ruchnoy Pulemyot Kalashnikova has a lot of energy.
Your hand is trembling, barely able to contain the barrage of kinetic energy. You are holding your magic ward at an angle in hope of deflecting some bullets instead of facing them head on, but alas, you won’t be able to hold on for much longer.
And then, you remember your master’s quote;
There is no problem that can’t be solved with the right application of fist to the right person’s face.
With that philosophy planted firmly in your skull, you charge. The last cultist continues to fires at you, and the closer you get, the harder the bullets hit. But you can hold it for at least another five seconds. Enough to get inside punching distance.
The earth itself shook as you release all of the kinetic energy stored inside your arm through your fist. Some of that energy is released into the air, creating a visible shockwave and micro sonic boom that is almost enough to makes you deaf.
But most of your stored energy is skillfully utilized into the cultist’s face. There is no blood, as the speed of your punch created enough heat to cauterize any blood vessels that you have inevitably ruptured. It happens so fast that the cultist seems to take a while before he realizes that you have literally punched his face off. You punched him with such force that instead of a cave in, the cut where half of his head used to be is clean edged, as if he had been slashed with a very large blade.
It took a few seconds before the Grimm Reaper remembers his job and the last cultist’s body falls to the ground with satisfying thud.
You feel victorious and satisfied. You decide that you will have extra coating of cheese on your pizza.
After making sure that there’s no other armed adversaries around, you holster your weapons and start to approach the girl.
Now that you’re not being shot at, it’s easier to describe the girl. Though the contract didn’t specify any names, they still gave you some description. And as far as you can tell, it’s a perfect fit.
Neck length raven hair, pale complexion, and a face that can only be described as ‘innocent’. And you would bet, if those eyes were to be opened, it would reveal two emerald green eyes.
She’s wearing a pink pajama, natural for a night time kidnapping. Beneath her, drawn on the concrete floor with a peculiar combination of chalk and blood, there’s magical sigil with patterns you’ve never seen before, though it seems to be based on the classic pentagram frame and ouroboros core.
Well, time to retrieve the package.
You’re just about to lift her up when…
Pip. Pip.
Your wristwatch chipper, signaling midnight.
This is the time when you say “oh fuck me”.
You almost lost your footing when a sudden earthquake strikes, though your gut feeling tells you that this is not a natural occurrence.
The sigil beneath the girl lit up with sickly green light that reminds you of nuclear waste. And you can tell that you are standing at the epicenter of this earthquake.
Something’s trying to get out, and you’re standing on top of the gate.
“Oh, double fucknuggets.”
You switch up your trusty, magically sharpened butterfly knife and hold it in backhand grip.
You squat down, and start to bash the blade against the floor, taking a good chunk of concrete in the process.
Quickly and efficiently, you break all the focal points in the magical sigil, your expertise clearly visible as you break the last ‘eye’ on the inner hexagon.
And as sudden as it started, the earthquake stopped.
You let out a big sigh, and decide that you would have some extra toppings of mushroom on your pizza. And maybe some pepperonis.
And then…you fall.
“Uberfuck.”
Whatever that thing was, you think it managed to make enough damage to this fabric of reality that it makes tears. Because, as far as your knowledge can discern, that is what happened here, you are falling through between the fabrics of realities.
The first thing you can make out of the chaos is…eyes, a lots and lots of gigantic, yellow eyes looking at you. Besides that, everything is dark.
You’re not panicking. Yet. You need to find a way out. That, or shoot yourself to be spared from insanity, while you still have control over your arm.
Fortunately, you don’t have to ponder for long as you’re quickly being spat out from that nightmarish environment.
As to where you’re being spat out, however, you can’t say that you are fortunate.
Mental note: if you survived this, learn to fly, pronto.
You keep your mouth tightly shut. Don’t want to scream and bite your tongue off.
Splash!
You landed smoothly in a lake. You raise your fist just on time to punch the surface tension of the water so it doesn’t turn you into a pancake. But still, the impact fills you with plenty of kinetic energy to use later.
You reckon that that was your second worst landing ever.
Fortunately, you’re an expert swimmer, and you quickly find yourself standing at the edge of the lake.
Now, there are four main concerns in your mind.
First, the ‘package’ is gone. That girl from before isn’t with you anymore.
Second, your underwear isn’t hydrophobic, and it’s getting cold.
Third, you’re hungry, and there’s no pizza parlor in sight.
Your fourth concern, which you said out loud; “Where the fuck am I?”
You’re standing on a dirt path that seems to be running around the lake, wide enough for an ox cart, sandwiched with line of pristine grass and flowers of all kinds scattered about.
The first thing that grabs your attention is the gigantic red mansion on your left.
The owner of that mansion is probably rich and well connected, and would be good source of information, or at least, you can ask the gate guard on your current whereabouts, because a mansion like that got to have some guard force, right?
On your right, the first thing that took your attention is an old woman, carrying a big bag and wearing the weirdest set of red pants you’ve ever seen. She seems to be approaching some sort of mobile food stand, which reminds you of your state of hunger.
Between the food cart and the mansion, nearest to you, there’s a little girl dressed in blue. Sitting with her foot inside the lake, she seems to be toying around with some sort of amphibian creature in her hand. Maybe her parents would be kind enough to provide you with clean clothes? Or at least the girl can show you the nearest clothing store.
Where to?
-Big red mansion.
-Food cart.
-Little girl
How does the voting system works, anyway? First to three wins?