05-10-2018, 02:33 PM
I’ve just not long started repairing the first section of wall when I hear a man’s voice cry for help from behind me. I may not actually care at all about these people, but I learned long ago that superior officers generally don’t appreciate it when those under their command simply ignore their fellow soldiers in their times of need… and it seems a safe assumption that the same applies to kings and their subjects. So I turn to see what he wants… not yet willing to let the curtain of Omnilium dissipate from around the wall, not until I hear what they actually have to say, but willing to do so if necessary; I’m sure that Gilgamesh would want me to help his people in an emergency, even if it meant delaying the walls a little.
Upon looking, I find not one but three people stumbling to a halt before me; two women and the man, all panting heavily, clearly having just run a long way, despite their malnourished forms obviously not being in any way fit for the task. One of the women even falls to her knees, whilst the other forces herself to speak through laboured breaths, “Help. It’s the king.”
“What?” I’m suddenly fully alert, wondering what could possibly have happened to the king that would send these three scurrying off to find the nearest Prime with such terrified expressions on their faces. Despite the desert heat, a deep chill runs through me.
“He’s in danger!” pipes up the man, “There are bandits. Lots of them. We could hear them approaching. He told us to to go back to our homes, but... we couldn’t just leave him to fight by himself! You have to go to him!”
“He’s in danger!” the kneeling woman echos, gazing imploringly up at me, as if she seriously believes that there’s any possibility I might refuse to rush to his aid after having heard such a thing, “Please!”
“Of course.” I agree, nodding firmly and dropping my hands, dissipating the Omnilium I’d been focusing on, leaving the summoning half done; the wall is now a mostly intact slab of stone, though looks incredibly worn, rough and ugly, being very clearly unfinished… not that that matters now, at a time like this. I point in the direction Gilgamesh had been headed, to the stretch of wall on the opposite side of the gateway from myself, “Over there?”
“Yes!” the standing woman all but wails her answer. It’s clear they’re all desperate for me to get a move on as soon as possible—petrified at the thought of losing their king again so soon after his return—and even though I highly doubt that some mere bandits could ever seriously harm such a divine being as Gilgamesh, the very thought of such inferior creatures daring to so much as scratch his perfect face infuriates me.
“Right.” without another word I dash past them in a dead sprint, not so much as glancing at the elaborately decorated city gates or the smooth, straight-edged and powerful new wall just fashioned by the god-king...
As I’m sure I must be coming upon the point he reached before this unwarranted interruption—for I can see some of the old, crumbling wall in the distance—a massive detonation tears apart several small buildings in an enormous cloud of billowing flame and acrid smoke. It’s enough to cause me to stumble and almost fall over in shock; when those people had said bandits, I had been imagining simple thugs armed with no more than swords and bows, maybe the odd crossbow or axe as well… but I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a mage, much less one with such tremendous power.
I force myself to keep on running—in fact, if anything, my pace increases, for I’m loathe to leave my king to face such a horror alone, much less when I know that the spellcaster has numerous allies by their side—but I’m overcome with self-doubt, realising only now that a better use of my time might have been to rush off to fetch the guards and that ‘Kanda’ person the Golden King mentioned earlier. I curse myself for a fool. Of course I should have realised that any bandits powerful enough to take more than a casual wave of the hand for my king to vanquish would surely be so mighty that there would be nothing much I could hope to do against them.
I grit my teeth, now just as angry with myself as with the attackers, wondering how I could possibly have let myself get so caught up in such a laughable notion as a puny newcomer to the Omniverse like myself charging to the rescue of the great King Gilgamesh to not even consider something which ought to have been so glaringly apparent.
I spot him, and immediately I change my mind; as disgusted by my own arrogance as I may be, that emotion does even approach the incandescent rage that fills my heart at the sight of the mighty god-king lying in an ungainly sprawl in the centre of the street, whilst three ugly, metal, two-wheeled magic carts roar off down the street. A swirling, golden portal opens in the air near one of the contraptions, and from within a magnificent spear darts out, impaling a rider before dissipating into countless motes of golden light, as the odd vehicle crashes to the ground and the bandit's limp corpse rolls off to one side.
The other two drive off into the city, though, laughing despite their comrade’s loss. Laughing at Gilgamesh.
“My king!” I rush over to him, whilst he begins to get to his feet.
“Ahana?” I want to help him up, but even in a situation so dire as this, some inane, stupid part of my brain feels that touching him would be too presumptuous, so I just stand around awkwardly instead, until something small and hard strikes the back of my head.
Crying out in pain and stumbling, I clutch at my skull for a moment—I don’t seem injured, fortunately—before straightening up and whirling to see what lies beyond the mostly collapsed section of wall which the two of us stand beside.
There are a lot, lot more vehicles out there, as well as a giant of a man, who seems to be a gladiator, kneeling and bound in chains that connect to more of the portals, which I realise must be the god-king’s handiwork. Another pair of the two-wheeled transports leap into the air, but are intercepted when a couple of portals open behind the god-king and beautiful, bejewelled swords fire out of them like arrows, one embedding itself deep between a bandit’s ribs, into a lung—sending her cartwheeling off her vehicle, which spins out of control and crashes to the ground—while the other strikes part of it’s target’s ride, rather than the man himself, somehow causing a massive explosion. The flames reach to little more than a foot away from my face, and I cry out in shock, cringing and flinging my arms over my head to shield it as I’m showered in fragments of detritus. Thankfully, though, even in their current, reduced state, the golden flames of my Protections seem able to keep these from cutting me.
The wreckage of the scorched conveyance and its unfortunate driver crash down in the sand behind us, and I immediately hop up onto one of the larger chunks of broken masonry in front of me. There’s likely little I can do in my current state against all these foes, even without taking into consideration that archmage who must be out there somewhere… but I don’t let that bother me. I have to at least try to impress my king; if not with my actual power, then at least with my willingness to put my life on the line for his sake… I can only hope that Omni wasn’t lying about the whole ‘coming back to life’ thing.
“Blasphemers! Heretics! You dare to lay your filthy hands upon the God-King of Nippur!?” holding my hands out to either side, I activate my Creations spell, causing two long, thin lines of golden fire to burst into existence for a moment, before vanishing to reveal a solid gold javelin in each of my hands. The only response the heathens make is to laugh and jeer louder, if anything.
One of the four-wheeled metal carts swerves past, the occupants holding out odd-looking weapons a little like crossbows, though without the actual bow. Light flickers at their ends and loud cracking, booming noises fill the air. I don’t even see the projectiles, but I certainly feel the pain as they impact upon my clothing and flesh. I’m almost knocked off my rock, though a glance down at myself reassures me that their shots have barely even broken my skin; these little cuts sting, and I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to see the skin around them bruising over later… but my life certainly isn’t in any danger.
I hear the king yelling something from behind me, though between the sounds of the vehicles and those of the weapons, I can’t make out a word of what he’s saying. He could be ordering me to hurry up and attack already, or he could be telling me to get back out of such an exposed position where they can easily keep shooting at me… or he could be ignoring me completely and just cursing the disgusting vermin who dared to oppose him.
Regardless, in the heat of battle, it’s not like I have the luxury of asking him to repeat himself, so I’ll just have to carry on with what I was about to do anyway and hope that I’m not accidentally disobeying orders.
Another of the rickety contraptions speeds towards me, but at the last moment, just as it’s driver turns the wheel which seems to control its direction, I leap into the air, land with one foot on the shoulder of the hulking brute—judging by all the chains, it seems a safe bet that my king has this one in hand, so I don’t bother attacking him—then jump again, flipping head over heels to land in a crouch on one of the seats in the vehicle's middle row (there are eight in total; two up front, with a couple rows of three behind). Aside from the driver, there are two tanned, scruffy-looking men standing in the cart as well; one in the same row as myself, the other in the one behind. They both seem a little thrown off by my sudden arrival for just a moment, but then react quickly, cursing at me and demanding that I die as they open fire.
At this range, their weapons—which I can now see actually fire tiny little pellets; like some sort of odd mix of a crossbow and a sling, though they can clearly shoot far, far faster than either of those—hurt a whole lot more. My enraged, repulsed expression vanishes in the blink of an eye as I gasp in pain, knocked over onto my butt and slammed back against the vehicle’s side by the streams of little objects that batter my arms and torso, small golden flames flickering in and out of existence each time one strikes my body and bounces off.
They can’t have been firing for more than a couple seconds by the time they stop shooting—their weapons seeming to finally have run out of pellets—but even so I know I must have taken scores of direct hits. My skin feels as if I’ve just deactivated my defensive magic and then spent a few minutes running a cheese grater across it. Loathe as I am to admit it—even in the confines of my own mind—they’re testing my resolve severely. The thought that every single one of these outlaws is equipped with such potent magic weapons horrifies me, especially since, by comparison, I’ve found my powers to be greatly diminished since coming to the Omniverse.
“Fucking Primes.” the one nearest me snarls in a tone of mingled annoyance and disgust, pulling a small, metal cuboid from the object he carries and tossing it away, before lifting another, identical rod from his belt and moving to slot it into the weapon. I may not have the slightest clue how that thing functions, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess that what he’s doing now is reloading it, and that he’ll soon be firing again.
Eyes wide with terror that I’m eternally grateful my king cannot see, I drive myself forward with all my might, leaping to my feet with a wordless battlecry... which, tragically, comes out sounding a lot more like a shriek of mingled fear and pain than I'm at all comfortable with. Even though I can clearly see that none of the multitude of lacerations adorning my upper body are really all that deep, that doesn't change the fact that the slightest movement of my muscles feels as if it’s tearing them apart.
The rush of relief and satisfaction I experience as the point of my right javelin tears into the soft flesh of his throat—piercing his windpipe—is immense, and a moment later I smile involuntarily as I watch him stumble backwards, dropping his weapon to clutch ineffectually at the hole in his neck in a futile attempt at staunching the flow of blood which gushes from it.
The second shooter makes ample use of my moment of distraction, though, and I cry out again as I’m once more caught in a hail of speeding pellets. This time, however, he’s aiming higher, and many of them hit my face; my own flames blinding me as they struggle to keep me from harm. Dropping my javelins, I throw my arms up protectively… just in time for the man to stop firing, his weapon empty already.
“Hah. You dumb bitch. I bet you thought you was some kinda big shot in that fuckin’ trash heap o’ a city, huh? But b' now you gotta see how all that magic-y, fantasy crap o’ yours ain’t worth shit ‘gainst a decent gun, right?”
I don’t have the slightest clue what he’s babbling on about, but at least he’s not shooting anymore. I take a few haggard gasps of breath, leaning my back shakily against the front row of seats to support myself. I blink several times, then wipe at my eyes with the back of one hand, trying to see, to no avail; it seems that plenty of the cuts on my face are deep enough that they’re bleeding freely, for my vision is nothing but crimson, and the moment my eyes are cleared, they fill with blood once again.
I hear a small click as he locks another of those sticks into his weapon, and flinch at the thought of it, then dive towards where I remember seeing him last, screaming in rage and desperation. He laughs. I crash into the seats and flail helplessly, trying to grab him. My hands find nothing but air, and then I freeze as he presses the weapon’s end to my temple. Never mind my skin… at this range I’m not even sure if my skull will be able to hold up against another couple seconds of sustained fire.
He grabs one of my rabbit-ears, tugging on it painfully and holding tight... keeping me in place, ensuring I won't even be able to try and back off when he opens fire. I lick my lips nervously, tasting the metallic tang of blood. Well, this is it. I’ll just have to hope that Omni was being honest about us Primes being reborn after death… although even if He was, I’m not sure I’ll be able to work up the courage to return here… can I really dare to show my face to King Gilgamesh again after failing him so abysmally that I managed to take out only a single foe before being overwhelmed?
In a last ditch effort at not being quite such an embarrassment to the god-king, I decide to try something that I’m almost entirely certain won’t work, seeing as it's a spell which has already failed me once since I've come to the Omniverse. Given that I’m about to die anyway, though, it’s not like I really have anything to lose by taking another shot at it, so I speak the word anyway, “Bahaal!”
The first thing I see is light. Wonderful, glorious, golden light, as the eruption of fire burns away the blood from my face. And the first things I hear are his screams, and a broad smile stretches across my face. I pull my head back, and am elated to feel my ear come free as his clenched fist crumbles to ash. By then my pain has vanished, my flesh and clothes knitting themselves back together, and the driver's shrieks have begun. They don't last long. Only a fraction of a second after she's perished, a great explosion comes seemingly from nowhere, and I suddenly find myself tumbling through the sand, golden flames obscuring my vision as I laugh maniacally, still managing to keep my focus on maintaining the restorative spell, somehow.
When I come to a stop, I’m lying on my back, spread-eagled, still grinning like a lunatic. Not only will I actually be getting a another chance to prove myself in this battle, but Omni’s words to me from before been proven correct; 'With it, anything you desire can be yours'. I don’t know how much of the Omnilium that's been building up within me had to be expended to re-learn that magic, but right now, I wouldn’t even mind if I’d lost every drop; it’d all be worth it to get this opportunity for a do-over, this second shot at living up to my king's expectations.
I swear to myself that I won't squander it this time. I’ll be smarter. I know not to underestimate their armaments now. I stand, letting my smile fall away, to be replaced by an appropriately serious, determined visage, and then I dismiss the flames. Glancing around, it seems that the cart I was in—which, at this point, has drifted quite a ways from the main battle over by the wall—was itself the source of the detonation, as it has now been torn completely to pieces, many of which are still glowing red-hot from their brief contact with my magic. The sand around me has been heated tremendously as well, to the extent that a great haze of warped air rises from it, distorting everything I look upon. Gold fire caresses my bare feet where they touch the ground, keeping my soles from burning.
I notice a pair of the two-wheeled vehicles peeling off from the group and heading my way, and quickly I call another javelin into being in my right hand, then lean back to prepare to throw it. I hesitate a couple moments, to let them close in a bit. They each bring up a weapon similar to—though longer than—the ones being wielded by those men on the cart, and begin firing wildly. Few of the shots hit me, and the force of those that do is mostly absorbed by my Protections, though I grunt in pain nonetheless. And then I make my throw.
The javelin sails through the air to land right on target, striking the rider on the right in the chest, in such a way that they (from this far, I have no clue as to the gender of either of these two) twist violently in their seat, wrenching their transport to one side.
The same side that their partner happens to be riding by.
The vehicles collide and roll over with a horrible racket, scattering parts everywhere (they’re not the most sturdily-built of conveyances, it would seem) and dashing the outlaws painfully against the ground. With memories of my own, recent travel accident on the way through the Dunes fresh in my mind, I’m only too happy to let this pair get a taste of what that felt like for me.
I give a harsh, brief laugh as I stalk towards where their bodies have come to rest, summoning yet another spear. I can’t very well move on without checking to see if they’ve survived first, after all. And, in the event that they have, rectifying that immediately.
Upon looking, I find not one but three people stumbling to a halt before me; two women and the man, all panting heavily, clearly having just run a long way, despite their malnourished forms obviously not being in any way fit for the task. One of the women even falls to her knees, whilst the other forces herself to speak through laboured breaths, “Help. It’s the king.”
“What?” I’m suddenly fully alert, wondering what could possibly have happened to the king that would send these three scurrying off to find the nearest Prime with such terrified expressions on their faces. Despite the desert heat, a deep chill runs through me.
“He’s in danger!” pipes up the man, “There are bandits. Lots of them. We could hear them approaching. He told us to to go back to our homes, but... we couldn’t just leave him to fight by himself! You have to go to him!”
“He’s in danger!” the kneeling woman echos, gazing imploringly up at me, as if she seriously believes that there’s any possibility I might refuse to rush to his aid after having heard such a thing, “Please!”
“Of course.” I agree, nodding firmly and dropping my hands, dissipating the Omnilium I’d been focusing on, leaving the summoning half done; the wall is now a mostly intact slab of stone, though looks incredibly worn, rough and ugly, being very clearly unfinished… not that that matters now, at a time like this. I point in the direction Gilgamesh had been headed, to the stretch of wall on the opposite side of the gateway from myself, “Over there?”
“Yes!” the standing woman all but wails her answer. It’s clear they’re all desperate for me to get a move on as soon as possible—petrified at the thought of losing their king again so soon after his return—and even though I highly doubt that some mere bandits could ever seriously harm such a divine being as Gilgamesh, the very thought of such inferior creatures daring to so much as scratch his perfect face infuriates me.
“Right.” without another word I dash past them in a dead sprint, not so much as glancing at the elaborately decorated city gates or the smooth, straight-edged and powerful new wall just fashioned by the god-king...
As I’m sure I must be coming upon the point he reached before this unwarranted interruption—for I can see some of the old, crumbling wall in the distance—a massive detonation tears apart several small buildings in an enormous cloud of billowing flame and acrid smoke. It’s enough to cause me to stumble and almost fall over in shock; when those people had said bandits, I had been imagining simple thugs armed with no more than swords and bows, maybe the odd crossbow or axe as well… but I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a mage, much less one with such tremendous power.
I force myself to keep on running—in fact, if anything, my pace increases, for I’m loathe to leave my king to face such a horror alone, much less when I know that the spellcaster has numerous allies by their side—but I’m overcome with self-doubt, realising only now that a better use of my time might have been to rush off to fetch the guards and that ‘Kanda’ person the Golden King mentioned earlier. I curse myself for a fool. Of course I should have realised that any bandits powerful enough to take more than a casual wave of the hand for my king to vanquish would surely be so mighty that there would be nothing much I could hope to do against them.
I grit my teeth, now just as angry with myself as with the attackers, wondering how I could possibly have let myself get so caught up in such a laughable notion as a puny newcomer to the Omniverse like myself charging to the rescue of the great King Gilgamesh to not even consider something which ought to have been so glaringly apparent.
I spot him, and immediately I change my mind; as disgusted by my own arrogance as I may be, that emotion does even approach the incandescent rage that fills my heart at the sight of the mighty god-king lying in an ungainly sprawl in the centre of the street, whilst three ugly, metal, two-wheeled magic carts roar off down the street. A swirling, golden portal opens in the air near one of the contraptions, and from within a magnificent spear darts out, impaling a rider before dissipating into countless motes of golden light, as the odd vehicle crashes to the ground and the bandit's limp corpse rolls off to one side.
The other two drive off into the city, though, laughing despite their comrade’s loss. Laughing at Gilgamesh.
“My king!” I rush over to him, whilst he begins to get to his feet.
“Ahana?” I want to help him up, but even in a situation so dire as this, some inane, stupid part of my brain feels that touching him would be too presumptuous, so I just stand around awkwardly instead, until something small and hard strikes the back of my head.
Crying out in pain and stumbling, I clutch at my skull for a moment—I don’t seem injured, fortunately—before straightening up and whirling to see what lies beyond the mostly collapsed section of wall which the two of us stand beside.
There are a lot, lot more vehicles out there, as well as a giant of a man, who seems to be a gladiator, kneeling and bound in chains that connect to more of the portals, which I realise must be the god-king’s handiwork. Another pair of the two-wheeled transports leap into the air, but are intercepted when a couple of portals open behind the god-king and beautiful, bejewelled swords fire out of them like arrows, one embedding itself deep between a bandit’s ribs, into a lung—sending her cartwheeling off her vehicle, which spins out of control and crashes to the ground—while the other strikes part of it’s target’s ride, rather than the man himself, somehow causing a massive explosion. The flames reach to little more than a foot away from my face, and I cry out in shock, cringing and flinging my arms over my head to shield it as I’m showered in fragments of detritus. Thankfully, though, even in their current, reduced state, the golden flames of my Protections seem able to keep these from cutting me.
The wreckage of the scorched conveyance and its unfortunate driver crash down in the sand behind us, and I immediately hop up onto one of the larger chunks of broken masonry in front of me. There’s likely little I can do in my current state against all these foes, even without taking into consideration that archmage who must be out there somewhere… but I don’t let that bother me. I have to at least try to impress my king; if not with my actual power, then at least with my willingness to put my life on the line for his sake… I can only hope that Omni wasn’t lying about the whole ‘coming back to life’ thing.
“Blasphemers! Heretics! You dare to lay your filthy hands upon the God-King of Nippur!?” holding my hands out to either side, I activate my Creations spell, causing two long, thin lines of golden fire to burst into existence for a moment, before vanishing to reveal a solid gold javelin in each of my hands. The only response the heathens make is to laugh and jeer louder, if anything.
One of the four-wheeled metal carts swerves past, the occupants holding out odd-looking weapons a little like crossbows, though without the actual bow. Light flickers at their ends and loud cracking, booming noises fill the air. I don’t even see the projectiles, but I certainly feel the pain as they impact upon my clothing and flesh. I’m almost knocked off my rock, though a glance down at myself reassures me that their shots have barely even broken my skin; these little cuts sting, and I wouldn’t be remotely surprised to see the skin around them bruising over later… but my life certainly isn’t in any danger.
I hear the king yelling something from behind me, though between the sounds of the vehicles and those of the weapons, I can’t make out a word of what he’s saying. He could be ordering me to hurry up and attack already, or he could be telling me to get back out of such an exposed position where they can easily keep shooting at me… or he could be ignoring me completely and just cursing the disgusting vermin who dared to oppose him.
Regardless, in the heat of battle, it’s not like I have the luxury of asking him to repeat himself, so I’ll just have to carry on with what I was about to do anyway and hope that I’m not accidentally disobeying orders.
Another of the rickety contraptions speeds towards me, but at the last moment, just as it’s driver turns the wheel which seems to control its direction, I leap into the air, land with one foot on the shoulder of the hulking brute—judging by all the chains, it seems a safe bet that my king has this one in hand, so I don’t bother attacking him—then jump again, flipping head over heels to land in a crouch on one of the seats in the vehicle's middle row (there are eight in total; two up front, with a couple rows of three behind). Aside from the driver, there are two tanned, scruffy-looking men standing in the cart as well; one in the same row as myself, the other in the one behind. They both seem a little thrown off by my sudden arrival for just a moment, but then react quickly, cursing at me and demanding that I die as they open fire.
At this range, their weapons—which I can now see actually fire tiny little pellets; like some sort of odd mix of a crossbow and a sling, though they can clearly shoot far, far faster than either of those—hurt a whole lot more. My enraged, repulsed expression vanishes in the blink of an eye as I gasp in pain, knocked over onto my butt and slammed back against the vehicle’s side by the streams of little objects that batter my arms and torso, small golden flames flickering in and out of existence each time one strikes my body and bounces off.
They can’t have been firing for more than a couple seconds by the time they stop shooting—their weapons seeming to finally have run out of pellets—but even so I know I must have taken scores of direct hits. My skin feels as if I’ve just deactivated my defensive magic and then spent a few minutes running a cheese grater across it. Loathe as I am to admit it—even in the confines of my own mind—they’re testing my resolve severely. The thought that every single one of these outlaws is equipped with such potent magic weapons horrifies me, especially since, by comparison, I’ve found my powers to be greatly diminished since coming to the Omniverse.
“Fucking Primes.” the one nearest me snarls in a tone of mingled annoyance and disgust, pulling a small, metal cuboid from the object he carries and tossing it away, before lifting another, identical rod from his belt and moving to slot it into the weapon. I may not have the slightest clue how that thing functions, but it doesn’t take a genius to guess that what he’s doing now is reloading it, and that he’ll soon be firing again.
Eyes wide with terror that I’m eternally grateful my king cannot see, I drive myself forward with all my might, leaping to my feet with a wordless battlecry... which, tragically, comes out sounding a lot more like a shriek of mingled fear and pain than I'm at all comfortable with. Even though I can clearly see that none of the multitude of lacerations adorning my upper body are really all that deep, that doesn't change the fact that the slightest movement of my muscles feels as if it’s tearing them apart.
The rush of relief and satisfaction I experience as the point of my right javelin tears into the soft flesh of his throat—piercing his windpipe—is immense, and a moment later I smile involuntarily as I watch him stumble backwards, dropping his weapon to clutch ineffectually at the hole in his neck in a futile attempt at staunching the flow of blood which gushes from it.
The second shooter makes ample use of my moment of distraction, though, and I cry out again as I’m once more caught in a hail of speeding pellets. This time, however, he’s aiming higher, and many of them hit my face; my own flames blinding me as they struggle to keep me from harm. Dropping my javelins, I throw my arms up protectively… just in time for the man to stop firing, his weapon empty already.
“Hah. You dumb bitch. I bet you thought you was some kinda big shot in that fuckin’ trash heap o’ a city, huh? But b' now you gotta see how all that magic-y, fantasy crap o’ yours ain’t worth shit ‘gainst a decent gun, right?”
I don’t have the slightest clue what he’s babbling on about, but at least he’s not shooting anymore. I take a few haggard gasps of breath, leaning my back shakily against the front row of seats to support myself. I blink several times, then wipe at my eyes with the back of one hand, trying to see, to no avail; it seems that plenty of the cuts on my face are deep enough that they’re bleeding freely, for my vision is nothing but crimson, and the moment my eyes are cleared, they fill with blood once again.
I hear a small click as he locks another of those sticks into his weapon, and flinch at the thought of it, then dive towards where I remember seeing him last, screaming in rage and desperation. He laughs. I crash into the seats and flail helplessly, trying to grab him. My hands find nothing but air, and then I freeze as he presses the weapon’s end to my temple. Never mind my skin… at this range I’m not even sure if my skull will be able to hold up against another couple seconds of sustained fire.
He grabs one of my rabbit-ears, tugging on it painfully and holding tight... keeping me in place, ensuring I won't even be able to try and back off when he opens fire. I lick my lips nervously, tasting the metallic tang of blood. Well, this is it. I’ll just have to hope that Omni was being honest about us Primes being reborn after death… although even if He was, I’m not sure I’ll be able to work up the courage to return here… can I really dare to show my face to King Gilgamesh again after failing him so abysmally that I managed to take out only a single foe before being overwhelmed?
In a last ditch effort at not being quite such an embarrassment to the god-king, I decide to try something that I’m almost entirely certain won’t work, seeing as it's a spell which has already failed me once since I've come to the Omniverse. Given that I’m about to die anyway, though, it’s not like I really have anything to lose by taking another shot at it, so I speak the word anyway, “Bahaal!”
The first thing I see is light. Wonderful, glorious, golden light, as the eruption of fire burns away the blood from my face. And the first things I hear are his screams, and a broad smile stretches across my face. I pull my head back, and am elated to feel my ear come free as his clenched fist crumbles to ash. By then my pain has vanished, my flesh and clothes knitting themselves back together, and the driver's shrieks have begun. They don't last long. Only a fraction of a second after she's perished, a great explosion comes seemingly from nowhere, and I suddenly find myself tumbling through the sand, golden flames obscuring my vision as I laugh maniacally, still managing to keep my focus on maintaining the restorative spell, somehow.
When I come to a stop, I’m lying on my back, spread-eagled, still grinning like a lunatic. Not only will I actually be getting a another chance to prove myself in this battle, but Omni’s words to me from before been proven correct; 'With it, anything you desire can be yours'. I don’t know how much of the Omnilium that's been building up within me had to be expended to re-learn that magic, but right now, I wouldn’t even mind if I’d lost every drop; it’d all be worth it to get this opportunity for a do-over, this second shot at living up to my king's expectations.
I swear to myself that I won't squander it this time. I’ll be smarter. I know not to underestimate their armaments now. I stand, letting my smile fall away, to be replaced by an appropriately serious, determined visage, and then I dismiss the flames. Glancing around, it seems that the cart I was in—which, at this point, has drifted quite a ways from the main battle over by the wall—was itself the source of the detonation, as it has now been torn completely to pieces, many of which are still glowing red-hot from their brief contact with my magic. The sand around me has been heated tremendously as well, to the extent that a great haze of warped air rises from it, distorting everything I look upon. Gold fire caresses my bare feet where they touch the ground, keeping my soles from burning.
I notice a pair of the two-wheeled vehicles peeling off from the group and heading my way, and quickly I call another javelin into being in my right hand, then lean back to prepare to throw it. I hesitate a couple moments, to let them close in a bit. They each bring up a weapon similar to—though longer than—the ones being wielded by those men on the cart, and begin firing wildly. Few of the shots hit me, and the force of those that do is mostly absorbed by my Protections, though I grunt in pain nonetheless. And then I make my throw.
The javelin sails through the air to land right on target, striking the rider on the right in the chest, in such a way that they (from this far, I have no clue as to the gender of either of these two) twist violently in their seat, wrenching their transport to one side.
The same side that their partner happens to be riding by.
The vehicles collide and roll over with a horrible racket, scattering parts everywhere (they’re not the most sturdily-built of conveyances, it would seem) and dashing the outlaws painfully against the ground. With memories of my own, recent travel accident on the way through the Dunes fresh in my mind, I’m only too happy to let this pair get a taste of what that felt like for me.
I give a harsh, brief laugh as I stalk towards where their bodies have come to rest, summoning yet another spear. I can’t very well move on without checking to see if they’ve survived first, after all. And, in the event that they have, rectifying that immediately.
![[Image: Ahana_Sig_V3.png]](https://image.ibb.co/bAZXiJ/Ahana_Sig_V3.png)