Chapter 21 – Redeemer

Last time on BTL: Our heroes gabbed like a slumber party was happening as Astrid discovered that after the fight with the vampires, all the children were missing. As tempers flared between Chuck and Butress, the room they were staying in transformed into a huge cavern. Large enough to hold a dark elven magic user and a red dragon. Fight!

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You know…you read about them all your life, see pictures and paintings flying in mid-air battle, you scribble and draw your own pictures, and it makes you think how truly wonderful and beautiful dragons really are.

Until you realize that you are lunch to them.

My concern was not how close I was to the beast, nor was it the elven magic user about to cast a fireball on us, not even that I was weaponless. No, my concern was how I was going to clean my pants after the load just I blew into them. My next concern was taking my first step away from the creature. I was frozen solid in my tracks, staring with my mouth agape at the gleaming scales that formed the torso of the dragon. Floating above us, flapping its wings, it gracefully slithered and craned its neck to get a better look at us.

Luckily, others in my party were not as taken by the spectacle as I was. Butress was a step behind in casting his spell, and Chuck knew that. Ender’s hand movements grew quicker and his voice louder and swirls of fire started to form around his hands.

“Elf has three seconds, Butress has five.” HS remarked.

“Dammit!” Looking at the dragon, then at the rest of us, Chuck’s eyes sparked. Not needing casting time, Mileena put a protective shield around myself, Burnsy, Butress, and Lil Skold as Ender shot a fireball at us. Fire erupted onto the shield. The shield seemed to melt under the intense heat. But it held completely as the fireball dissipated.

The earth trembled underneath our feet as the dragon landed. Its head craned back as we heard it inhale.

“Oh, lord.” I said.

Jupe and Chuck were straight in the line of fire. Intake of air was finishing as Jupe grabbed Chuck by the chest. They landed on the ground with Jupe on top of Chuck.

“Look out!” yelled Jupe.

The dragon snapped its head forward and a rumbling came deep from within the bowels of the beast. It let out a roar and a column of fire blasted out of its mouth.

Just then, Butress directed his dispel fire at the two lying on the ground. As his spell hit them, so too, did the dragon’s breath of fire.

“Jupe!” I screamed as I watched in horror.

Ender floated down to the ground twenty feet in front of Burnsy, Butress, and me.

“You.” He pointed at Burnsy and waggled his finger at him. “Bring it.”

Burnsy looked around and then scrunched his face at Ender. “Are…are you talkin’ to me? Are you trying to talk smack with me?” He thumped his chest with every syllable. “You had best be quiet or I’ll get a glass of shut-the-fuck-up juice from the fridge!”

Ender made an uppercut motion with his arm and a column of solid air hit Burnsy underneath the jaw. He reeled back and landed on his back.

“Ow! Dammit! I bit my tongue!” he said as blood dribbled out of his mouth.

Ender stared him down. “Girl.”

From his back, Burnsy flipped himself up onto his feet and unsheathed his other short sword. He spit on them both and grated the swords together.

“Let’s mingle.”

Meanwhile, Gunblaze rushed over to aid Jupe and Chuck who had not moved since the onslaught of the dragon’s fire. Gunblaze tried to clear the smoke around them and he turned Jupe over to see his face. He patted Jupe on the face with his gauntlet. No sign of life. Again on the face and then a harder smack on the chest. Jupe’s eyes flickered.

“Goddamn, will you stop hitting me!”

“Oh, sorry!” Gunblaze looked up and saw the dragon raring back again and inhaling air.

“Clear!” Gunblaze grabbed his shield and planted it in front of him as the dragon blasted. The fire rained down onto the shield as Gunblaze planted his boots into the ground. The force of the blast slid him back several feet, but the shield held.

Jupe stood up. His clothes except for a loose strand around the crotch were all that was left of his clothing. Lil Skold ran over with Jupe’s battle axe.

“Here’s your weapon, Mr. Grizzly.” Lil Skold cocked his head slightly. “Hey…you’re not covered in hair anymore!”

Without looking down at his belly he began to scratch it. His lips moved and smacked around and finally garnered enough courage to look down. No hair. His torso, his legs, arms, face, and head were completely devoid of hair. No eyebrows, no beard…nothing. Skeptically raising his non-existent eyebrow, he expanded the waistband of his shorts and looked inside. He gave a little schoolgirl yelp as he discovered that he now would have to hope that the women loved the Brazilian look.

“Gimmee that axe, Lil Skold.” Jupe grumbled.

He snatched the ax from Skold’s hands and ran towards the dragon.

“BAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!”

“It is time for the filth of this world to be burned beneath the elven flame!” Ender poised opposite of Burnsy. “For too long have we let the disease run amok, destroying the ground which feeds us, infecting the mountains that protect us, and tarnish the land that bore us.”

Burnsy slumped slightly. “Speaking of those that bore.” He pointed his sword at Ender and made a cutting motion with each word. “You! Talk! Too! Much!” Burnsy lunged at Ender who sidestepped his attack and thrusted his hands forward in mid-air causing a solid column of air to kidney punch Burnsy. The blow knocked the air out of him.

“I’ve known children who fight better than you.”

Burnsy coughed up more blood and leaned on his sword to stand up.

“I’ve known some women in New York to have a bigger dick than yours! That don’t mean squat.” He tapped his sword to his metal protected crotch. “Speaking of that, you’d better bend over,” Burnsy nodded behind Ender, “cuz yer about to get a big one!”

I had a good ten feet start and lowered my shoulder into Ender’s back. Lifting him up as a football player does in blocking drills, my force carried him and slammed him against the rock wall. Ender was able to get his hands in front of him and create a pocket of air that protected him against the blow. Unfortunately, my face was not so lucky, as his elbow met my eye socket and sent me reeling back. A column of air knocked me back twenty more feet.

Burnsy jumped between Ender and me.

“Ah, the girl again.”

Burnsy scrunched up his face. “You know what, Shitty? I’m going to enjoy seeing you bleed.”

Ender clicked a device on his wrist and out popped two blades one in each hand. “Up close, then.” Ender immediately took up the offense which took Burnsy by surprise. Normally, Burnsy is the one on the attack, but Ender’s quickness was causing him to counter every move. Rather than thrusting, Burnsy was reeling and stepping backward.

“Skold! My sword for battle!” As Gunblaze spun around to yell at Skold to get his sword, his shield crumbled into an ashen pile. He cupped his hands to his mouth, “And a new shield too!”

Jupe reached the dragon’s feet and began to hack away at its ankle. It lifted its foot and slammed it down where Jupe was standing a split second beforehand. Coming out of his roll, Jupe sprung up and ran underneath the monster to its belly. Thrusting upward with the point of his battleaxe, he started to try and gut the beast. However, the scales were so strong they broke the top point of the axe.

Chuck held out his hands and began to bring his arms together. A blue ball of magic was developing in front of him growing and increasing in intensity. When his hands touched the energy, a loud boom rang out like a shotgun blast and the lightning bolt hit the side of the dragon. The spell caused dozens of scales to be blown off the beast.

“There’s your weak spot!” he yelled.

HS from the opposite side of the room began to shoot arrows into the exposed area. Blood began to ooze from the wounds as Jupe began to take aim on the area. As he ran to the side of the dragon, the tail of the beast whipped around and smashed Jupe in the leg causing it to break.

“GAAAAHHH!” Jupe hit the ground holding his leg in the air. Chuck and Gunblaze both saw that a bone was exposed beyond Jupe’s skin.

“I’m tired of having humans and dwarves breed like the animals they are. Multiplying like little amoeba in pond scum. You and your genetic make-up must be cleansed!”

Ender was starting to get past Burnsy’s defenses. Visibly tired, my friend was starting to sweat, breathe heavy, and worse yet, get sloppy in his fighting.

After a volley of thrusts to his upper and lower body, Burnsy left his midsection open for a surprise kick from Ender. Hunched over, a knee to the face was next. As he reeled from that, a cut to the shoulder blade. Ender knew exactly where to attack. His arm drooping, Burnsy only had one blade against two.

As I stood up, seeing only with one eye, Ender was thrusting and parrying with ease. I could tell he was toying with Burnsy. The dark elf saw me staggering up and sort of smiled my way, a casual smile, grabbed Burnsy by the shoulder and thrusted his sword into Burnsy’s mid-section.

“Nooo!” I held out my arm and started to run forward in slow motion. Burnsy coughed up more blood and his swords clanged to the rocky floor. He grabbed onto the sword that was stuck in his belly and looked up to his aggressor.

“Shitty.” whispered Burnsy as he fell forward onto his side. I lunged for the swords lying by Burnsy and immediately started attacking Ender. With reckless abandon, with tears streaming down my cheeks, with no care of my own being I began an assault on the dark elf. For the first time this day, Ender began to step backward after a thrust at the face, defended, a slash to the side, defended, a spin and a kick to the head which nailed him on the nose.

Tasting his own blood with his tongue, Ender regrouped and smiled.

“Bastard!” I yelled.

“Ironic,” Ender replied.

Ender lunged at me and I sidestepped his attack and kicked him in the ass. He fell to his knees but tried spinning on the ground to try to cut my legs from underneath me. I leapt backwards to a wall retracted my body inward and sprung outward launching myself at Ender. My fists and shoulder hit his face and I smacked the ground landing on my stomach. Looking backward, it pissed me off that Ender was visibly hurt by the punch but not on the ground. In the moment he was trying to regroup, I kicked the back of his knee which sent him crashing downward.

I got up quickly, a sword in both my hands. Ender’s back was to me and I knew this was my only chance to kill the magic-user. I reared back and aimed for the neck looking for a nice complete clean cut. Instinctively closing my eyes, I slashed forward. Rather than hearing a *slice*, I heard a *thud*.

Opening my eyes, I saw I had the sword turned the wrong way and I had just smacked the butt side of the sword against Ender’s head.

As I thought ‘just my luck’, Ender hit the sword out of my hands and quickly stood up and rubbed the back of his head. I looked at my one sword against his two.

“Again,” he said robotically.

“I’m out!” yelled HS holding up his quiver. “I’ll, uh, be over here…with Skold.”

“Great,” muttered Chuck. Although the arrows did hit the dragon, the overall effect of them were null and void in the big scheme of things. Chuck was running to Jupe as he writhed in pain from his broken leg. Gunblaze crossed Chuck’s path and started to yell at the dragon distracting it from both Jupe and Chuck.

“Woo! Hey, HEY!” He waved his sword and clanged it against his armor. The dragon glided his head down to Gunblaze and started to sniff him. It let out a horrendous roar at him and Gunblaze instinctively put his shield up against his face. The wind rushed past him, but no fire was forthcoming.

He looked back over his shoulder. “Who…who told me to do this? Did anyone ORDER me?!”

The dragon batted its wings and started to hover ten feet in the air. It convulsed its neck and made a hawking sound. Opening its mouth, a miniature fireball shot out and raced down to Gunblaze.

“Gah!” Gunblaze lunged to one side as the flaming ball of phlegm crashed to the floor. It sizzled the ground as it flattened out. “Ew!” replied Gunblaze.

The beast spewed out another ball and another as Gunblaze was quickly running out of unphlegmmed floor around him.

“We’re sitting ducks here.” Chuck commented as he braced Jupe. Looking down, the bone was starting to rip more and more skin causing increased bleeding.

Jupe looked up at Chuck with bloodshot eyes. “Get…me up there.” he grunted.

Chuck gave him a puzzled look. “Up where?”

Jupe pushed his chin towards the dragon. “On its back.”

Giving him the same puzzled look. “You can’t get up there. Only eng could throw you up there.” Chuck looked over at me reeling from vicious attacks from Ender. “And he’s not available right now.”

“Mileena can do it,” said Jupe.

Bewilderment now flashed across Chuck. “You have a friggin’ broken leg with a bone sticking out! You can’t possibly do anything!”

Jupe grabbed Chuck’s shirt. “Get. Me. Up. There. It’s the only way.”

“Only way to get you killed!” Chuck looked into Jupe’s eyes again and thought for a second. He sighed and said, “Mileena has a repulsion spell but it’s meant for objects not people.”

“Do it!” replied Jupe struggling to even sit up straight.

Fireball after fireball rained down on Gunblaze.

Attack after attack came from Ender.

Chuck gave in to Jupe’s demand with a sigh and his eyes sparked. Jupe stood up leaning all his weight on his battleaxe while Chuck knelt to get a better angle and looked up at Jupe.

“For the L337 LL4/\/\4$!” yelled Chuck.

Jupe sneered. “Do it!”

Mileena flashed on Chuck’s back. His arms kicked back as the spell took effect and launched Jupe into the air. On his way up, one of the dragon’s wings smacked into him, but Chuck was able to control his flight by moving his own arms and body to control to flow of repulsion.

“AARrrrrrr!” Jupe’s face contorted as the g-forces increased. Jupe was directly above the beast when Chuck released the spell. Jupe fell ten feet onto the back of the dragon, most of the weight went onto his broken leg. Blood spurted out of it as he straddled the back.

“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” He arched his back arms spread open battle axe clutched in one hand skin red from burning legs red from blood eyes red from rage dragon starting to try to buck him off he raised his battle axe above his head holding it with both hands.

“Die! Die die die mother fucker!” The axe chunked into the joint of the wing. Again and again he slammed down his ax on the same spot and finally sliced it clean off. The axe went behind his back, fluidly twirled it, and in one motion slammed it down onto the other wing. It too was sliced off. The dragon roared and writhed in pain as it started its quick descent to the ground.

Gunblaze happened to be in the path of the falling object.

“Oh. Hell.” He leapt as far as he could to his right and fell flat on his stomach.

Gunblaze felt the tremendous shockwave as the monster hit the ground. Barely opening one eye he sensed no movement coming from the beast that lay inches from him. Both eyes open and trying to get up, he felt his sword was stuck. Looking at where it was stuck, he saw that the dragon had landed on his upright sword, skewering its eye and straight into the brain. No movement, no breathing, no gurgling came from the creature.

From atop the dragon, Jupe stood.

“For…for the L337 LL4/\/\4$!!” he started to hack at the back of the beast. “Baaaaahhhh!!” The rage overtook him.

I was starting to tire. Even with my enhanced strength and endurance, and with only one sword, my shoulder muscles were starting to burn and ache. My breathing heavy, my defense weak and Ender was not breaking a sweat. I was barely keeping him from straight out killing me. He had already slashed my thigh and wrist and my leather armor was the only thing keeping me intact.

I was holding my sword with two hands now as Ender kept a constant grin on his face; toying, playing. My bad luck continued when the dragon hit the ground. The shockwave that went through the cavern knocked me off my feet. Not even having enough time to raise my head, Ender stepped on my cut wrist and I screamed in pain releasing my sword.

He tapped my chin with his sword and walked around to view me face to face. “You are almost a worthy opponent if it wasn’t for you being the scrotum of this world.”

“You asshole! Where do you get off being so high and mighty?”

He sat down on my chest with the point of his sword digging into my throat. “Listen, outworlder, and yes, I DO know you are NOT from this world, how dare you come here and try to make yourself out to be one of them! How DARE you come here trying to change this world! How dare you try to hide yourself amongst us and try to protect the filth of this world! Did you not think we would not hunt you down, find you, and exterminate you?”

He stood up and dug his foot into my wrist. “And you know where I ‘get off’ from? Ending the low end of gene pools.”

“FREEZE, mother fucker!!” With one hand barely keeping his stomach intact, Burnsy stood behind Ender with one of his handguns leaned up against Ender’s head. He cocked the hammer back.

“I’ve left one bullet in each of my babies for a special occasion. Guess what, you shit. You are our grand prize winner!” He tapped the gun against the side of Ender’s head. “Get off of him.”

Ender stepped to the side.

“I’ve usually got a rule against killing unarmed people, but since you have two arms you qualify.” Burnsy pushed the barrel into his head. “Pray to whatever gods see fit to even have you.”

Standing up I saw Burnsy’s hand tighten around the gun. Not knowing to stop him or applaud, I was too woozy to do either. His finger moved the trigger, the hammer shot forward, and the gun fired.

But there was no body slumping to the ground, no blood, no brains….nothing. Then I saw Ender ten feet from where he was standing a split second ago, smiling. He held up his hand and on one of his fingers was a golden ring.

“You know the great thing about rings? No casting time.” His other hand was making a twirling motion and my eyes widen as I saw the bullet Burnsy fired twirling in mid-air halfway between Ender and my clanmate.

“Now my dilemma is who do I waste a good piece of metal on?” He nodded to Burnsy. “My girlfriend over here or this messiah from, what WAS it called…Earth?” He smiled at me. “And I do mean WAS.” He cackled.

I wanted to rip him up. Physically tear him limb from limb. As I tensed up, he said. “Ah ah. Watch out, now. I need you alive. See I have chosen him to die.” Ender nodded at Burnsy. “And I want you to see him die.”

Just then a hand from behind came to rest on Ender’s head.

“Release the bullet.” Butress said calmly. “You have no more charges in your ring and I am but one syllable away from casting a lightning bolt through your head.”

Ender showed no emotion.

“Release the bullet. If you think your movements are faster than my word, then try it, monster.”

“I’ve been watching you, Spellcaster. Healer, yes. Killer, no. You couldn’t kill the elementals even when your friends’ lives were in danger.”

Ender slowly turned around to face Butress. Butress’s hand was now on Ender’s forehead.

“Butress.” I said in a warning tone.

Butress switched his weight from one foot to the other.

“Release it.” Butress said.

“You will have to kill me.” said Ender calmly.

“Kill him, Butress.” said Burnsy.
“Release it.”
“Kill me.”
“Kill him!”
“Release–”
“Kill–”
“Kill–”
Ender quickly brought up his hand.
“Drack!”

Burnsy ducked as best he could as a bullet and lightning shot past him. Ender’s body jerked and convulsed, and the energy poured through him. Tendrils of energy raged around his body as he screamed in pain. Seconds passed as Butress kept the spell alive. Smoke started to stream from Ender’s body. The charred body thumped to the ground but Butress did not turn the spell off. Rage filled his face, he was gritting his teeth, and sweat poured from his temple.

“Butress!” I yelled.

I maneuvered around behind him and bear hugged him.

“Butress! Enough!”

The spell kicked off and I felt Butress breathing so hard to the extent that he could have hyperventilated. I leaned my head against his back as I heard him starting to cry.

“You got him. You got him. Easy now.” He turned around and dug his head into my shoulder.

“fndr.” Was all that he could say.

Seeing Burnsy slumped down to his knees, I grabbed Butress by the shoulders. “We need you again, Butress. Burnsy’s hurt bad.” Not even realizing until now that there was a dead dragon in the room, I looked around and added, “and they may need us too.”

Butress stood back up straight, nodded and weakly smiled. “I’m ok for now.” We both went over to Burnsy. Butress eased him into a laying position and started cutting away some of his armor and clothing.

Butress looked at the wound. Gently as he could, he started to clean the wound. Burnsy winced as Butress dug around with a cloth. He whistled. “You are one lucky bastard. Missed the stomach but punctured a kidney from what I can tell.”

I leaned down over him. “No hip thrusting for you for a while.”

He smiled and gave me the thumbs up.

I sat down next to them and started to breath normally again. I do not want to go through that again anytime soon. I noticed Chuck and Jupe coming this way. Jupe was leaning heavily on Chuck’s shoulder and hopping. Looking down at his leg I noticed it was bent at a 45-degree angle and the bone sticking out.

“Good lord! Are you ok?” They limped up to us.

“Lord, what happened to all your hair!?” asked Butress bandaging Burnsy.

Chuck rolled his eyes.

“Don’t worry your damn heads about that!” growled Jupe. “I just want to know one friggin’ thing.”

“What?” I asked.

He hobbled and turned around to have his back face us. He hiked up what remained of his shorts. He pointed to a bullet hole on the left cheek of his rear end.

“Who shot me in the ass?!”

My head slumped in between my knees. I couldn’t help but start to laugh.

-Next, back to Earth in “The Willowisp”!