Collide Gamer

The Gamer’s golem body met with the Contender in the centre of their isolated arena. Inkaryl and Tietan met. The resulting shockwave rippled outwards and hit the walls. Mouths opened up, extensions of Izha’s unleashed will, filling the room with mocking laughter.

‘I’ll get to you soon enough.’ John thought with the grim satisfaction he would take in tearing Izha apart layer by layer. This favoured puppet of his first, then the flesh he had worn in life, only to finally kill the mind that had long since detached. Izha was a creature of the Lorylim now, which meant he would take a long time to kill. Perhaps he could even shut the gate closed, fence him in with Tiamat for an eternity of torment.

‘John…’ Gnome’s voice entered his mind.

‘Remove yourself from those filthy fantasies of indulgence,’ Stirwin growled, a lot more forceful than any of his other elementals would have been. ‘This is not a path worthy of you.’

John ignored both of them, to concern and anger. They knew he was very capable of paying attention to the fight and them. He chose to ignore them all the same.

Weapons disengaged, their wielders drawing back to ready another attack. A puppet without a mind of its own fought against the Gamer’s golem. The exchange of blows filled the room with the clang of metal, then the aggressive sound of shattering.

The second blade of Tietan burst like a shard of ice under the cracking impact of flaming Inkaryl. Pieces of black Mihtril tumbled, only for tongues of flesh to snap out of the hilt of the weapon, gluing it back together in an instant.

The elementals that Sigmund wore upon his body screamed with him, their wills broken and made subservient as much as that of their summoner. Little bits of Lorylim matter squeezed out between segments of the armour. Sigmund charged again.

The Mandala Sphere pulsed in his vicinity. The free pulse of Unstable Arcana was immediately followed by a Mana Chain. It yanked the former man back instantly, leaving him wide open for the descending might of Inkaryl to-

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“You know you could have saved me, right?”

“W-what are you t-talking about?” John returned a question to the leader of his guild.

It was the five of them, like it should have been. He, Jimmie and Travolta sat around the table. The surface of the piece of furniture was more scratches than wood. Same could be said for the concrete floor of the old arcade. Rave’s heel bounced on it endlessly, following some rhythm only she heard. Her bubble butt swayed with every tap.

“Wipe the drool off your chin, dude,” Jimmie whispered.

John snapped out of his staring, then he did clean up his chin. ‘God, I am pathetic,’ he thought. ‘Then again, with an ass like that, who can blame me for drooling a little?’ “What w-were you talking about, T-travolta?” For the stammer, he would take blame. How much he wanted it gone…

“This could be what you had,” the bald, middle-aged man answered and threw another card on the table. “All you had to do was show a little more concern for me. Instead, you just took Rave out to the forest and got stronger. You had to show me how fucking weak I was, so I went for the Blood.”

“He’s right, you know?” Jimmie asked. “I left the Abyss because I saw what kind of monster you were becoming and I asked myself… what’s the point even in competing with that?”

“Ya hearing that, tiger?” Rave shouted over the click-clack of the arcade machine she was playing. “It’s all because ya picked my butt over being a decent friend.”

“But you just had to push ahead. To impress the girl, to feed your ego.”

John turned his head, to see Victoria sitting on a chair. Her head was attached the wrong way around, the skin wrinkled from the horrid twist.

“Everything has a cost,” John stated, his voice suddenly deeper and without any flaw in his articulation. “If I could talk to you again, I would… but this is just a waste of time.”

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The Creator Puppet was on its back, Tietan’s points buried in its chest. The second John returned to full consciousness was the second the Contender took a boot to the stomach. Sigmund was forced back, a flying piece of armour and misery. The Creator Puppet leapt to its feet, while the elementals manifested from incorporeal form.

There was a haste to the actions of his familiars. He could sense information flowing between them. No doubt, they were discussing his shortcomings internally. He knew them well. They wanted to end this quickly so they could tend to him sooner.

Soothing this frothing rage was not in John’s interest. He had more of it to give, more of it to pour from his soul. It gathered as quickly as it spilled from the open wound in his heart.

A lance of kinetic lightning drove Sigmund back against the wall. Siena and Salamander arrived next, the first slicing open the throat of the man before the second bombarded his armour with her multi-armed assault. Each strike by the apocalypse elemental sent pieces of armour flying. The earth spirit whose item form she was breaking wailed in impotent rage.

In perfect unity, Salamander jumped back, to make room for the brunette whose raised fist could have dented a mountain.

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“I’ve decided to leave you,” Brenda said. “You’re 18 and I am sick and tired of watching after you. You have a girlfriend now, she can raise you, you spoiled brat.”

“Shut – up!” John growled.

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The second of interruption in their thoughts slowed Gnome. Sigmund managed to curve out of the way. A dent half a metre deep appeared on the surface of the Cyclostone wall. The Contender swung his elbow in return, striking the earth spirit’s face. Gnome stumbled two steps back, catching herself even without the help of Undine.

“You DARE show me that?!” John roared at the ceiling. “She loved me! They loved me! And you took them from me!”

“Did she? Did they? Did I?” Izha laughed from all around, while Sigmund was made the living chew toy for a crowd of familiars that individually out levelled him.

The Contender was strong, but he had never again reached the level that he had had when he lost against Thana. Ifrit had been eliminated by the goddess of genocide or perhaps that god had broken his contract. Even after his time in the poison jar of the Death Zone, all he had claimed was pure physical power, a domain in which he had been overtaken.

“What do you know, even?” Izha continued to mock. “Really, really?! WHAT DO YOU KNOW? I shall tell you, I shall tell you, I shall tell you that they all despised you. Your mother despised your weakness. Travolta despised your strength. Jimmie despises what you did to his life, even now. I could have killed him, you know, could have dragged him before you… but I didn’t. He’ll be alive after all of this is over and you will be able to find him. You will drag him back into the Abyss, all to verify that he despised you.”

“Will you shut up and face me?”

“Why?” Izha laughed. “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why would I possibly do that? I can sense your rage, boiling over. Prove me right. Let me win. Those are your choices and you hate it. Your parents didn’t love you. They felt obliged to aid you, the privilege of a child. It plays out a billion times every day. Hate, every parent hates their child for the potential that they took from them.”

“You know nothing of parenthood.”

“And you do?!” Izha asked.

The question made John stop for a moment. There was a gap in his rage. ‘I won’t really know anything unless I live through this,’ he realized. ‘I can’t die he-‘

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The world around him was a swirl of half-formed thoughts. John felt the pressure of the outside invader push into him. He watched the memory that surfaced one step removed.

Brenda sat on the couch. Her face gradually fell. The sitcom in front of her was unbearable. Faked faces with faked happiness. She frowned, then began to cry. She was sad, unfathomably sad. There was a last piece of resistance, then she stood up. Like a zombie seeking its way out, she shambled towards the bathroom. She found a bottle of pills and-

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John ripped the mental influence of the telepath out with immense abhorrence. The elementals became a unified storm, shadow, water, fire, earth and wind all mixing into a wave of energy that slammed into Sigmund and pressed him into the wall. The Creator Puppet jumped in. Inkaryl crashed into the sword arm of the Contender, raised in a desperate bid to defend himself. The bone beneath the armour pulverized.

“All you had to do was let me in.” John and all of his familiar twisted around. The eastern wall opened and out stepped the body of Izha. A skinny, pathetic creature, his humanity rotted away. Fleshy, red-tinged growths emerged from gaping skin. His head was a bloated, throbbing mess. Only bloodless lips remained, on them a wide, friendly smile. It contrasted starkly with the bloodshot, hateful third eye that dominated his forehead. Black brain matter had long since expanded past the constraints of a skull. Dull horns of soft, dripping tissue extended to the sides.

“All you have to do is leave my life,” the Gamer returned.

The collective of his bodies and familiars all launched attacks at Izha – they tried to. The final trigger of the thought was stopped, their aggressive intent stilled in the instance of striking. Losing his rage for a split second only further emphasized it. He pushed through, loosing an Arc Lace at his opponent.

Izha laughed, contorting out of the way. The limitations of the human spine were a suggestion to him, one he broke to the cracking and creaking of his own bones. He twisted and turned his way through the barrage of attacks, a snake that barely had any human skin left. The creases of his exposed brain throbbed with every psychic pulse he sent outwards.

‘Who would even love you if it weren’t for your powers?’ the question echoed in his brain in his voice.

‘Enough of them,’ John answered. He couldn’t be swayed by this one, he had pondered it often enough. Of course he was loved for his power. To be loved only for his power would have come from a place he could not love back, but to be loved in part for his power was just normal.

John shut out Izha after that, with all the mental strength that he had. He dedicated his mind solely to the shielding of his familiars. The Creator Puppet and Mandala Sphere stood still. Even his real body only moved to pluck the golden egg from his belt and throw it into the fray.

Stirwin’s concern for the Gamer’s soul did not fade, even as he descended on Izha with all the might of an angry, celestial-eating crocodile. “LET US BRING LIGHT!”

The air immediately shivered, the bellowing of the crocodile just the first part of a chant accompanied by the attacks of the elementals.

“All shadows cast be ours…” Siena added her part in a voice as even as a singular note on her violin. She danced around Izha, slicing at him with claws, tail and shadow magic, trying and testing for an opening in the Latebloomer’s defenses – finding none.

“The tides will turn!” The first successful attack penetrated Izha’s defensive in the form of a wave of dark water. Even Izha could not suppress the flooding rage of the water spirit completely. Brine washed over him, sweeping him across the room. His smile dropped as he tasted the salt.

“TIAMAT!” he screamed incoherently. It was the horrid vocalization of a man so deep in trauma he was beyond saving.

“Our voices join!” Sylph brought down a lightning strike not on Izha but on the water that surrounded him. The Lorylim-infected Latebloomer laughed and rose, even as spasms wrecked his thin body. He was much sturdier than he looked.

“Let the unjust burn!” In a flash, all the water evaporated. Izha wove through the barrage of fire, making his way to Salamander. He was deceptively fast when he wanted to be.

“As I make the seasons change.”

Izha’s outstretched hand was about to grasp Salamander’s head, when it disappeared. Human flesh, what little of it had been left on the arm, was turned into mincemeat. The Lorylim-infected Latebloomer impossibly changed his trajectory midair.

John found the source for that in Sigmund. Although broken, the Contender was still a host for elemental magic. Izha commanded the sobbing, tortured remnants of a man, forcing him to aid in the defence against the multi-elemental assault.

With the completion of their Babel Phrase, Gnome had become the nexus of swirling elemental might. At her behest, pieces of the elemental planes were called into real space. The chamber that should have belonged to Tiamat and her minions was set alight in one moment, then filled with supernatural winds the next. Each change spread out from the feet of the season elemental, whose dress changed colours in correspondence to the elements she wielded in the name of her sisters and brother.

Gnome brought her hands together with a thundering reverb. Where only Cyclostone had been, the greyish brown shade of natural rock suddenly appeared, then moved.

Izha ran forwards, heading for the gap. The singular intact eye in his forehead rolled around rapidly, tracing things that his mind must have already deciphered. It locked in on Sylph and Salamander, the two raining fire and lightning from above. Every attack was executed with hesitation. Izha’s powers constantly penetrated the shield that John erected around the minds of his haremettes. It was infuriating, but for the fully realized Latebloomer, the Gamer was just a speedbump.

Effortlessly weaving through, he made it to Undine. The Latebloomer attempted to grasp her head, only for the slime lady to part into her own eldritch abomination. An ocean of teeth snapped upwards, only missing because of another wave of forced peace.

The room turned blindingly bright.

In an instant, Stirwin swelled to a size that broke the dimensions of the room. John’s senses desperately tried to make sense of how everything fit together. Everything felt like it was viewed through a fisheye lens. Enormous, silver-toothed jaws opened, then trembled, incapable of biting down.

Then all became dark. The chamber lost even its inexplicable, ambient light. There was only shadow and in that shadow a stab. Izha let out a rattle.

Then, peace.

John felt it hammer on his mind with the force of hatred. Peace. All angry intent left his body. Peace. He never thought he could struggle so much against it until he truly felt it. Peace. Complete and utter peace, the death of all ambition, the ending of every intent to be better than others, serene and tranquil acceptance of equality and nothing else.

Peace.

“You even make me hate the idea of peace,” John called out to Izha.

The darkness ended. The entire Babel Phrase ended. The spread will of Izha returned to this place. What had been commanding Lorylim the world over oozed from the walls without ever dripping from them. The dome was liquid with the overbearing madness of a soul too large for even its corrupted body.

“Good,” Izha answered, himself completely at peace. There was no madness in his voice, no overplayed act of his own joy in all of this. There was peace in his voice, complete, nihilistic emptiness.

The deeper recesses of John’s mind pushed against the forced serenity. This was the man that killed his parents, that had been the enabler for Tiamat’s schemes that had killed a third of his people, that had forced him to put the crown upon his head in an effort of unity. This here was the very embodiment of everything that was wrong with the world. John had to believe that. Read full story at 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⚑𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⚑𝕟𝕖𝕥

Izha cackled. It was a hollow, dry sound. He put his remaining hand on his stomach, on the wound that Siena had left there. Somehow, it still came back red with human blood.

“I am not the unjustified one,” Izha muttered and turned away. “I’ve tested it. I’ve tested it again and again. Everyone who could copy these powers went mad. Every – last – one. I am not unjustified. No one could have done better than me. You should all be thanking me. You will all be thanking me. So, what if I want to indulge myself? Is a saviour not entitled to the blood of his flock?”

John did not answer. He continued to struggle. There was a breaking point. Every power came with limitations and the gap between them was not so enormous that a struggle would have been futile.

“He lacks the raw magical power to kill you and I lack a body to channel mine… we should fix that.” Izha walked towards Sigmund. Unwilling and yet accepting, the shattered man tilted forwards. Blood and Lorylim matter dripped from the opening in his armour that Salamander had made. More gushed from his back when the cape of shadow was torn in twain and the armour pulled open.

Stakes emerged from the wall behind the puppet and puppeteer. Manifestations of Izha’s greater will shaped into greyish purple nails. Eight of them in total drove through the skinny flesh of the body, fusing together the torsos of the two lost men. The arm stump of Izha turned into a liquid that spread over Sigmund’s sword arm, mutating his armour into a disgusting patchwork of flesh, fungus and stone. The fusion was made complete when Izha’s teeth dug into the back of Sigmund’s neck. Mycelium veins spread out, becoming one with the Lorylim matter already present.

Hunched back, two useless legs dangling from the joined hips, Sigmund rose. He grabbed the heft of Tietan with both hands and spoke in two tortured voices.

“I genuinely want to kill you.”