Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 727
🕑 Added 2024-10-03 23:50:39 +0000 UTCI strode out the door fast enough to be noticeably hurrying but not fast enough to seem panicked. Mephistopheles was a methodical, implacable kind of guy, and I wanted to really cement that image.
Rayden caught up to me within seconds, jogging without any worries about image. Lucky bastard. “Hey, Fist-o! Wait up.”
“I have changed my mind.” I intoned. “I do care how you address me. You will refrain from using such a ridiculous moniker for my person.” I didn’t mind Fist that much, but Fist-o wasn’t anything I wanted to go by.
“You got it Fisty.” He said with a thumbs up. “I’ll keep going through nicknames until we find the perfect one. It’ll be Fisteriffic.”
I almost groaned out loud. It was like dealing with Bethy. Actually it wasn’t, Rayden wasn’t half as endearing. I really missed my vampire bestie. And Benny, and Jessie. But I shook that off. If the act of talking to people made me homesick, I needed to socialize more than I thought. I sighed. “Fist-o is acceptable.”
“No can do Fisterino.” He chirped. “I refuse to call you something that you so clearly hate. I’ll never use the name Fist-o again. We’ll find you the perfect nickname Fistocles.”
“Oh look.” I drawled as we rounded a corner. “A distraction.”
His head whipped around, his lips peeling back in delight as he watched what appeared to be a giant green ferret made of lightning jump on a towering figure with the head of a bull as it tried to smash the beast into the ground. It dissolved into a shower of verdant sparks as the bull man roared his anger.
“Puddles!” Shouted a green haired girl in a green leather jacket. “Tanner, what the actual fuck? It takes him hours to reform when he gets destroyed, what are you waiting for?”
A figure appeared behind bull man, climbing his back and reaching around with a dagger to try to hook back and slit his throat. The knife got caught in his fur and he reached back, grabbing the formerly invisible guy and hurling him at a nearby building. The armored sneak hit the shadows of the building and melted in, and I heard the green girl sigh.
“Fools!” Boomed the minotaur. “You speak to me as equals? I will crush you all!”
I knew Mephistopheles wouldn’t do anything. He would probably just watch and enjoy the show…but I was still Shane in real life. I was a hero, or I tried to be, and I wasn’t going to let this big asshole crush these people because they’d TALKED to him informally. My instincts were screaming at me to help, and I tried to listen to my gut. Withdrawing my staff, I stepped forward, and I reached for Limbo.
Despite the month of training, I hadn’t gotten much of an opportunity to work with Limbo. It didn’t work on people too far above my rank, and most of my sparring partners were. Still, I’d been workshopping the pseudo Domain. After a month of backstopping and tweaking the imagery, I’d managed to refine the ability into something both more useful, and more deadly.
As I stepped into the First Circle of Hell, I felt the world around me shift. Not overly much, not a full change. It was less like a real Domain and more like a film I’d laid over the world that lubricated my powers a bit.
My mind split. Piece of Mind creating parallels of me to parse the information from a combination of the Overlay and Eye of Revelation.
The last time I’d used this ability my mistake had been following the narrative in the heat of the moment. I hadn’t done my due diligence, hadn’t shaped the pseudo Domain to be what I needed, and so it shaped me. This time though, I’d done the work, come up with the legend I needed, and I had tied it intimately into who I was.
Moonlit Night to set the stage, Eye of Revelation and the Overlay to predict their actions, Piece of Mind to parse the multitudes of possibility, and the hyper corrosive black flame of Belial and Mephistopheles to destroy the other options.
Rather than manipulate him with the Domain like a puppetmaster, i identified the possible outcomes, and used the power of my destructive energy to eradicate the paths they had until they walked the one I wanted. I still controlled and deceived, but this was more in like not only with my destructive side, but with my Fatewalker nature.
The minotaur spun, roaring at me, and I saw a thousand reactions, blazing through my head like an infinite map. In a feat I wouldn’t have been able to do without my pseudo Domain (I was just going to start thinking of it as a lowercase D domain for ease of consideration) I saw all the possible outcomes, parsed and analyzed them as a dozen people, and discarded the ones I didn’t want.
My staff licked out, explosions of dark energy destroying possible outcomes as I boxed the minotaur in, getting rid of possibilities before they could be realized and slowly constraining the big bastard to dance on my string like a puppet. I felt that cold, sadistic joy well up in me again, but it was muted this time, balanced by the Fatewalker and by my own new and more powerful soul.
The bull man roared, diving forward…into my staff. An explosion knocked him back, and he fell right onto a strike as I Double Troubled behind him. Every step was like destiny, implacable, inevitable. I wasn’t just beating him. I was making him beat himself, smashing into my staff at the exact right time.
It took only a few seconds for him to drop, flesh sizzling and burning from my powerful dark corruption. Everyone around us was just staring at me as I let the First Circle recede, the domain returning to where it came from. I felt a surge of weakness after it was gone, but not enough to seriously bother me. Much more manageable than before.
Rayden whistled. “Damn Fist, that was fucking brutal. Did you guys see that? That was some ‘quit hitting yourself’ type of shit.”
I almost laughed, before I remembered I was playing tall dark and brooding, so I just loomed ominously. The one upside to the shock and awe approach I’d taken was it had been so overwhelming people had forgotten to ask WHY I’d done it. I probably just seemed like I wanted to kick the shit out of some huge powerful Ascendant.
“That really WAS awesome!” Chriped the green haired girl. “Thanks for the save, big guy. I’m Vesper, and that over there is Tanner. Puddles is my summon, though he’s gone, and our friend Archimedes was setting up a big attack to take down the beefcake over there.” She gestured at bull guy. “Still, it was really nice of you to lend a hand.”
Shaking my head, I boomed. “I simply wished to test my strength against a worthy foe. Your fates were immaterial to me.”
She chuckled. “Whatever you say, big guy. I can tell you’re a big softie deep down.”
“Right?” laughed Rayden. “He’s definitely a nice guy. I can tell.” He grinned charmingly, holding out a hand. Rayden Strent, at your service milady.” He leaned down to kiss her knuckles and she rolled her eyes, though she smiled at a bit at the gesture. “I was just about to step in to help.
Desria snorted, her seaweed hair drifting oddly on the light breeze in a way that resembled actual underwater plants. “Can you not be a shameless flirt, for like…five minutes, Ray. These people are probably our competition. I’m guessing you guys are here for the selection like we are?”
Vesper shrugged nervously. “I mean…maybe? I’m not sure. My faction is kind of under a lot of pressure. I’m from a system near here, and when I heard about this…I don’t know if I really have any other options, but a lot of these gods don’t really sit right with me. I’m still deciding on whether we’re going to enter.”
“We are.” Said another voice as a tall blonde man with broad shoulders stepped into view. Over one shoulder he was carrying a massive war maul, the head glowing with condensed power. Archimedes, I took it, and that would be his big hit. The fact that it was still teed up was a bit alarming, and I immediately went on guard.
Rayden seemed not to care, and Desria remained relaxed, but Cavallo, the big quiet aqua haired member of their trio, narrowed his blood red eyes at the other warrior, sizing him up.
Vesper glared at the blonde. “We decide that TOGETHER, Archie. And we haven’t. Tanner and I are still on the fence, so unless you want to go it alone you’ll wait for us to make a decision. I don’t appreciate you trying to bully us into falling in line.
“Tell you what.” Rayden said cheerfully. “Why don’t we treat you all to a bit of food. We were just going to break bread and get to know our terrifying friend here before your fight caught us off guard.” His tone was bright and inviting and I felt kind of…confused.
This wasn’t going how I expected. I thought everyone who showed up here would be an edgy lunatic hell bent on crushing people under their boot. These people all seemed…nice. Just friendly Ascendants my own age. Sure the minotaur was a dick, but that still wasn’t like…evil. These people were here for their own reasons, and they weren’t all bloodthirsty monsters like I’d expected.
But that didn’t matter, really. I was still going to have to get through them to win this. To beat them all so I could be free of my great grandmother and my family could be back together. Granted, my dad would still probably be off doing whatever until I kicked his ass and dragged him back, but being able to go visit my grandfather in the Holy Dominion, see where my sister grew up. It all sounded like a dream.
So I firmed my resolve and settled into my character, but I also promised myself I wouldn’t ignore this feeling either. Callie was there with me, her love and support giving me the resolve to do what I could for these people. People like Vesper and Rayden might be decent despite their desperate situations, and if they were, I would help them.
I could have Sorana pick them up on the Acheron when I left if I felt they were worth saving. So I followed the group back to the tavern, and we all sat down and ordered. I got some shepherds pie and a mug of root beer, and everyone was suitably terrified when they saw my mask mouth open.
After we decompressed a bit and got to know each other, I turned my attention to something Vesper had said. After a brief pause, I finally asked. “Tell me about ‘the selection’ as you call it. Tell me what you know of those who are chosen.”
Vesper chuckled. “Seems like its the least we owe you. We can do that. I don’t know how much it’ll help though. We just heard a rumor and came here on a whim. I THINK someone said something about the selection happening in Deltaverde, but the trip there is taking us a while.” She coughed in embarrassment. “We’re not used to B-rank planets.”
I got that, though I couldn’t say so. Rayden had no such compunction, however. “Yeah there’s an adjustment period. Don’t worry, you can stick with us. We can track down Deltaverde together. Once things kick off we might be rivals, but there’s no reason not to work together until then.” He grinned at me. “You’re invited too, big guy.” I thought for a second and then nodded. Having some help certainly couldn’t hurt. I’d take what I could get.
Comments
Kevin McGuire
Mephistopheles has become a tsundere. Good job Shane.
CringeWorthyStudios
Shane: I’ve gotta be all dark and menacing for the plan! Also Shane: … so how can I do all my usual hero saving people stuff without breaking my cover? “Well that one guy was just annoying.” “I’m not saving you, I just felt like challenging a worthy foe!” “She looked at me funny.” Never change, Shane. Thanks for the chapter!
