Nightmare Realm Summoner

Orchid’s warning came too late for anyone to react. Derek exploded forward, kicking up black sand behind him as he loped across the Mirrorlands desert, one of Shale’s swords still lodged in his face and the other clutched in one of his hands.

Shale thrust his hands forward. Every sword around him trembled, then leapt into motion. They split through the air with a howl and slammed into Derek one after the other, each collision making him stumble.

A blade carved his arm off. Another one lodged itself in his knee, while a third slammed into his shoulder and spun him around.

Before Derek’s arm could even hit the ground, strands of red sinew burst from his shoulder and latched onto his falling arm. They yanked it through the air and re-attached the limb with a wet squelch.

He stumbled through the hail of strikes, then continued his charge. He’d been slowed, but he hadn’t so much as missed a single step. Shale took a step back and yanked his hand back to him.

Only a single one of the swords — the blade that had cut his arm off — responded. It flew back to fly despondently alongside Shale. The rest of them didn’t even twitch.

Shale’s features went pale and he opened his mouth, but Derek didn’t give him the chance to speak. Even though he hadn’t stopped moving after getting stabbed, he was far faster than he had been at the start of fight. Some of Shale’s attacks had killed him.

Derek closed the distance between himself and the Outworlder in instants. He drove straight into the other man with a roar. Shale ran him through the heart with his final remaining sword.

The blow did nothing more to stop Derek than swatting a bear would have.

Shale leapt back as the other man swung his own sword at him, narrowly avoiding the strike. He tried to reach out for his swords again, but Derek didn’t give him the opportunity to do anything.

His fist crashed into Shale’s stomach. The Outworlder doubled over with a wheeze, only to catch a knee straight to his nose. It shattered with a loud crunch, sending blood splattering over Derek’s already-soaked body.

Derek could have run Shale through then and there, but he didn’t. Instead, he brought the hilt of a sword down on the other man’s skull. Shale staggered back with a gasp of pain.

“What do you say?” Derek roared, whipping his elbow up into Shale’s chin and knocking the man’s head back with a crack. Blood sprayed through the air in its wake. Derek threw his sword to the side and drove his fist back into the Outworlder’s stomach. It connected in a meaty thump before the other man could even respond.

Shale fell back, landing on the sandy beach. Derek stomped on his stomach and Shale folded up around his foot, eyes bulging so far out of his head that they threatened to pop out. Derek grabbed the man by the hair and hoisted him up before himself like he was holding a doll rather than a human.

“I asked you a question!” Derek screamed. He gave Shale a furious shake. “What do you say when someone was waiting their turn and you butt in front of them in line?”

Shale’s lips trembled as he tried to form a word. That evidently took too long, because Derek slammed his forehead into Shale’s. The Outworlder screamed in pain.

Alex and the others could do nothing but stare in disbelief. This was such a far cry from the peaceful, placid Derek that he’d met just a short while before that he could hardly believe they were the same person.

“Answer the question!” Derek screamed.

“I don’t know!” Shale rasped, his voice nasally and choked from the blood dripping down his throat. “I don’t know!”

Derek let out a roar. The muscles in his back rippled as he twisted his entire body and drove Shale’s face into the sand. Then he lifted the man’s head and slammed it back down twice more.

He hoisted Shale once again.

A final flicker of defiance and anger twisted the Outworlder’s face. His hands twitched at his sides and clapped together before himself as if he were trying to shake his own hand.

“Soul Manifestation. Silver rain.”

Alex stiffened.

Nothing happened.

“The Disruptor isn’t that strong yet,” Orchid’s voice rang out, cold amusement dripping from her voice like poisoned honey. Her earlier warning about Derek being an Incarnation — whatever that meant — seemed to have evaporated from even her own mind.

Derek slammed Shale’s face into the ground once more, hammering it into the sand with several punches to the back of his head. Then he grabbed him by the hair and hoisted him back up. Bloodsoaked sand peeled away from Shale’s face in sheets.

Derek and brought his mouth close to the other man’s ear.

“What do you say?” Derek whispered.

“Sorry,” Shale half choked, half-sobbed. His features were barely even recognizable anymore. His nose was twisted at an angle and blood marred his heavily bruised, sand-covered face. There wasn’t a scrap of the former pride that had gripped him.

The anger evaporated from Derek’s features in a split instant. A huge grin split his lips.

“Oh, well why didn’t you say so? Your apology is accepted. I did get here first, but I know it can be exciting to have a fun fight, so I don’t mind letting you go first.”

Derek plucked Shale up from the ground in a princess carry. He strode right up to Alex and Claire, then dumped the man unceremoniously on the sand before them before brushing his hand off.

“Please, continue. I wouldn’t want to get in your way.”

“Incarnations,” Orchid muttered under her breath, and Alex had absolutely no idea if she was disgusted, awed, horrified, or some combination of the three.

Shale’s lips worked and he gasped, spitting up sand and trying to gather enough air to say something.

Alex pointed his palm at the man’s skull. A glass spike pierced out and thunked straight into Shale’s eye. The man jerked, then slumped back, dead. Power trickled into Alex from the kill — a fair amount considering how strong the Outworlder had been and how little he’d participated in the fight against him.

There was a long moment of silence.

“Huh,” Derek said. “If he was so weak, he really should have waited his turn. It’s a bit embarrassing to get killed that easily after being such a brat about going first.”

Derek knelt and wiped the blood covering his knuckles off on the sand beside Shale. The blades protruding from his back slid back beneath his skin with a wet squelch, and he shook himself off before walking back over to Orchid and crouching beside her. With a grunt, he scooped her bound form off the ground and slung her over a shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Orchid demanded, squirming fruitlessly.

“I put you on the ground,” Derek said. “That was rude. I don’t want to get your clothes dirty.”

“My clothes are the least screwed thing about me right now. They could use a little dirtying,” Orchid snapped. She hesitated for a moment. “Thank you for carrying me, though. I appreciate it. I owe you a debt.”

“It’s no problem,” Derek said with an easygoing shrug that bounced Orchid on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “My good friend asked me to help you out, so how could I say no?”

Alex blinked.

Not that I’m complaining, but when did we become good friends?

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I think I might be a bit drained of energy at the moment,” Alex said. He couldn’t deny that there was a rather uncomfortably large portion of himself — a rather insane one — that really wanted to see what he was capable of against Derek when they were both going all out. Unfortunately, now was definitely not the time for that. He was completely drained of energy. “If we fight now, every single one of us are going to be stuck here.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Derek said with a smile. His eyes lowered to Shale’s corpse and his features darkened. “You know, I was thinking about it a bit. Especially after this asshole. Everyone I’ve met since the world ended has been a giant dick. You know, you’re the first one to actually fight me like a gentleman. Can you believe that?”

Yes.

“Seriously?” Alex asked, injecting disbelief into his tone and trying to keep himself from laughing. He couldn’t tell if Derek was insane or not, but he supposed anyone who was going to survive the apocalypse had to be at least a little bit off their rocker.

“Seriously.” Derek gave him a straight-faced nod. “I know. It’s a shocker. But I was thinking — the System said I have to kill other Anomalies to get stronger. I want to get stronger so I can fight more and beat some manners into this crummy world… but I don’t really want to kill you anymore. It’s way too hard to find someone worth spending time with. It would be a real bummer, you know?”

Orchid looked from Alex to Derek. She squirmed once, trying to free herself from her bindings, then gave up and slumped over the large man’s shoulders with a sigh, resigned to her fate.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Alex said. The vestiges of the adrenaline that had been pumping through him started to wear off and he gave Derek a grin. “I’d still like to spar with you, though. We had a great last fight.”

That awoke Orchid from her resignation almost instantly. “That’s right! You fought the Incarnation before! How did you—”

“He won,” Derek said. “It was a very good fight.”

Orchid’s gaze shifted back to Alex. She swallowed heavily. “I… I see.”

“Derek, do you think you could set Orchid down?” Claire asked, leaning heavily against Alex for support. “We should really untie her already.”

Derek blinked, then hurried to comply. He grabbed one of Shale’s swords and jabbed it into the chains, trying and failing to cut them free.

“They’re Suppressors,” Orchid said, her face pressed into the sandy ground. “There should be a key on Shale.”

Alex spotted a keyring on the man’s belt after a moment of searching. He pulled it off and tossed it to Derek, who set about freeing Orchid. The chains fell away from her and she let out a huge sigh of relief, rubbing her wrists as she sat up.

She pushed herself to her feet, then studied Alex for a long moment before lowering herself in a bow.

“Thank you. I did not expect the Starfallen family to go through so much effort to save me, especially when you are attempting to conceal your presence.”

I’m honestly kind of surprised Orchid still thinks we’re with the Starfallen family, but I bet she must think that we’re just pretending to be Nativeworlders to conceal ourselves from the other families. It’s the literal exact opposite of what we’re actually doing, but things are so twisted that we might actually be able to stick to that story.

“We had a little help from Absolution,” Alex said. The more truth there was in a lie, the easier it was to pull the fake bits through as well. “There was an Assembly where we found out that the Broken Sword decided to overstep their bounds. He drew attention to himself while we got you.”

Orchid blinked in surprise. “I was worth that much?”

“I take deals I make seriously,” Alex said. “And I believe there was a Town Token that you agreed to help us get.”

A small smile pulled at Orchid’s lips. She wiped some of the blood from her face and gave him a nod. “I did do that. Still, I did not expect to be saved. I will not forget this. If you can get us back to 274-50, then we can get to work immediately. I’ve made progress on locating it and I believe I’ve narrowed down the potential area. Getting the token will be even easier now that we have an Incarnation on our side.”

The hell is an Incarnation? The System hasn’t mentioned anything about that, but she called Derek one during the fight. I’d love to ask, but I don’t think I could pull that one off without revealing how little I know. I’ll have to talk with Claire about it later when she isn’t here.

Derek didn’t seem to know what Orchid was talking about either. He just scratched at the side of his neck, then adjusted the position of a dagger jutting out of his chest.

“I don’t really like picking sides,” Derek said through a frown. “Makes it less fun, and there were some things I have to deal with. Still have other anomalies to hunt. You know how it is.”

Orchid paused, then mirrored his expression. “Wait. You mean you aren’t working together?”

“He just happened to swing by trying to kill me at a good time,” Alex provided. “That’s it.”

“Smelled you,” Derek said, tapping his nose sagely as if that was meant to answer anything.

“If you weren’t allied with us, then why did you help?”

“Alex asked me to.” Derek answered like the response was the most obvious thing in the world. “You don’t have to throw your life in with someone to be polite.”

“Right,” Orchid said slowly. “You’re interesting, Nativeworlder. Has anyone ever told you that? Are you sure you don’t want to throw in with us? I can guarantee power and—”

“No thank you. Maybe another time,” Derek said with a small shake of his head. “I don’t mind helping out every once and a while, but I don’t want to get kenneled. I’ll get stronger with or without anyone’s help, so I’m just going to go where my nose takes me. Maybe it’ll be here. Maybe somewhere else. Who knows.”

I love this guy. He doesn’t give a shit about anything other than being polite and ambling about killing people.

“I think the first thing we’re going to be doing is resting for a little while,” Claire said tersely. “I’m not in the best shape to do much of anything else right now.”

“Feel free to sleep. That goes for everyone. I will not allow anything to take any of you while you rest,” Derek promised. “As pretty as this place is, I’d like to get out as soon as possible.”

“Just so you know, I can’t get you back to earth quite yet,” Alex warned. “There are a bunch of people that are going to try to kill us when we return, so we’ve got to prepare a bit before returning."

"That’s fine.” Derek shrugged. “I can be patient. I don’t mind going on vacation for a little while. Do you want to sleep now?”

I’d be willing to bet nobody has ever called a visit to the Mirrorlands a vacation before.

“I think relocating first would be a better idea,” Alex said with a shake of his head. He nudged Shale’s corpse. He didn’t mention that relocating would also buy time for his monsters to respawn. “This body is going to draw monsters. In the Mirrorlands, that could be a big problem, especially as we are now. Let’s get somewhere safer, but resting for a bit is a good idea. With Orchid here, nobody can get the Town Token before we do — and I want to level up before we deal with the poor sods waiting for us back on 274-50. We set the terms of the fight, not them.”

Orchid examined Alex with newfound respect. “You mean you’ve been holding onto your energy instead of using it to ease your restrictions? That’s… bold.”

Alex just smiled in response.

If you think that’s bold, then we’ll see what you think when you realize that I’m not even a Starfallen at all… but right now, with the amount of energy I’ve gotten since the last time I’ve advanced, I think I’ve got quite a few goodies waiting for me to cash in.