This entire situation was, in a manner of speaking, pretty damn bad.
Two minutes seemed like they went by in the blink of an eye, and I barely had time to get two thoughts together. This wasn't the first run-in we'd had with this bunch of Stephen King rejects, but this was the first one that was in such big numbers. I'm not saying I was nervous, exactly, but....
Hell. I was fuckin terrified.
But, see, sometimes that was a good thing. Fear could make you do a lot of crazy, not very smart things sometimes, but it had one big shining good side: it always triggered that fight or flight response. That little primitive part of you that tossed a coin to decide whether you run away and go find new pants, or grab the nearest big stick and start speaking softly.
And this time? Well...
I already had my big stick ready.
When the mob of freaks and assorted monsters started turning my newest favorite checkpoint into a Wal-Mart parking lot on Black Friday, I was not a happy wizard.
"Just couldn't even let me finish planning a spell, could you..." The words came out in a heavy sigh that was, in all honesty, way more shaky and faltering than you'd imagine. I was still a few big steps away from 'knee-shaking coward', but I wasn't exactly at my best. Go figure, almost two weeks of pretending to be a soldier took a toll on you.
Still, I had plenty of adrenaline to work with now. 'Fight Response' was my middle name. Okay, actually, it isn't. Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. I would say 'conjure by it at your own risk', but...there has to be something left to be conjured. And I have a feeling like I might not be around for much longer. At least not in one piece.
As the monsters surged forward, I couldn't really do much directly against so many. Except just to lurch forward, tightening my knuckles around my staff, and steeling myself for what was about to come next. Acid and fire and explosions rained down over my little slice of hell on earth, and it was being quickly overrun by enough slavering, ugly monsters to make a dozen Hollywood B-Horror movies. A raised staff and a projected dome of mostly transparent energy warded off the raining death and hell, as I bowled through some of the lesser schlock in my way.
We were outnumbered five to one, here, but most of them weren't much to worry about. There were only two that stood out as major threats. The big, angry Metroid-wannabe, and the mutant offspring of a Keebler elf and Cthulhu.
Ugh. Don't think about that image too hard.
My free hand fumbled in my duster pockets, taking hold of the familiar weight and heft of my blasting rod, and without missing a beat I whipped it out. One quick shout of "Fuego!" and a roaring sheet of flame blasted out, turning the ground in front of me into a smoldering, ash-covered stretch of nothing littered with a few twitching, charbroiled insect-freaks.
Venteferro," I whispered under my breath. And all around, the weapons which had been dropped and scattered in the charge started to lightly shake and rattle on the ground. The bits of metal in our hastily put together construction, and all the shredded bits and chunks of armor all rolled over and shifted about, subtly coming to all point in one direction. Just about impossible to notice in all this chaos, but...that was kind of the idea. What they didn't know about could hurt them a whole lot.
I didn't even break stride, continuing my charge at something between a steady march that would have been intimidating if I wasn't sweating bullets and an ungainly jog. Two against one...one obviously a giant terror with enough nightmare-spawning potential to terrorize an entire school's worth of kids, and the other with enough...something or other. I don't even know.
It's hard to be witty when you're diving into life or death fights, alright?
"Hey, so, as far as ultimatums go?" I spoke up, willing my voice not to shake with everything I had in me. "Six outta ten. Solid delivery, but the follow through of a saturday morning cartoon bad guy."
"It wasn't meant to be sincere, you oaf," the unmade general snarled, with a mocking sneer. "It was meant...as a distraction."
"A distraction, huh? That's pretty smart. Kinda wasted by just strolling on in here with a head-on attack, though." I just shrugged, and slowly lumbered to a stop, panting as I swung my staff out to point at the dragon...bird...monstrosity...thing. "So, what are the chances here of us just...sitting down for a nice chat, and settling this like civilized people, man to giant terrifying dragon-man?"
The response that came wasn't from the big nightmare-thing. It was from the small nightmare thing, in the form of a laugh that immediately drove a white-hot knife of pure agony twisting and spiking directly deep into my brain.
Oh, yeah, and the actual blast of magic accompanied by some pedestrian half-brained wording. Just calling out the name of the element? Seriously? How did they manage any control over magic like that?
"Infriga!" Without even a wave of my staff to direct it, an icy chill crept out from my body. The air before me plummeted in temperature, and a thick sheet of ice formed out of nothing, quickly bringing up an entire wall. It was nearly immediately demolished by the incoming spell — lightning bolts, seriously? Why something so unnecessary? — but it bought me the extra two seconds I needed. Time to pull out a spell that I'm sure would be a hit at parties, if it wasn't frowned upon to use magic for something as frivolous as 'entertainment'.
"Noctus Ex Illuminus!"
I sprinted out from behind the crumbling ice wall in two separate directions. One of them was actually me, the other was just a quick and dirty illusion. It wouldn't hold up to any kind of serious scrutiny, but in chaos like this? It didn't have to. It just had to buy me another few seconds to get out of the way.
"Venteferro!" This time, I wasn't quiet about it. Both me and my illusionary doppelganger thrust our staff forward, toward the beasty and the smaller beast. All those little metal bits from before immediately shot forward. Like something between Paul Bunyan's own personal shotgun and some kind of nightmarish directed shrapnel bomb, it pelted dragon and pint-size wizard both, and plenty of other monstrosities behind them. The screeching and cursing were an intermingled mess that only made my headache worse, but damn did it feel good to do some damage.
At least, it did until the dragon whirled around and stared daggers right at me. "Oh. Crap."
The illusion failed right when all my focus went to the nailgun trick. This always happens.
A noise somewhere between a roar of indignant fury and the shrieking of an angry bird emitted from the giant ghastly general, as flames spewed forth from his jaws and he lunged forward right at me. He lunged forward fast. Too fast.
"Riflettum!" was all I had time to manage, and the shield that weakly sputtered to life was barely enough to blunt the impending charge. It shattered like glass, and I felt almost all the air exit my lungs right about the time I felt my everything get bathed in a torrent of scalding fire and disgusting dragon breath.
I screamed, of course. I think everyone would.
But I did something that I'm pretty sure not everyone would, either. Having magically enchanted clothes that are fireproof helps, but they were never tested against dragon flame. Still, just a second...just long enough to gasp out a few syllables...!
"Ass...an...ti...." I sputtered and coughed, thrown backward by a lashing tail as it tore through my duster, and only missed running me through entirely by virtue of sheer dumb luck. The entirely too warm feeling running down my pants afterward told me it hadn't missed entirely, though.
I toppled over into a messy tumble, rolling backwards and sideways onto my hands and knees. Covered in soot and ash, and coughing up what little air I could still suck down, it looked like it was all over for me. And let's face it...it probably was.
Guess that makes me a cornered mouse.
"...ass...an...ti...us!" With the last baston of defiant strength I had, I practically threw my staff at the gruesome twosome, and the wood splintered and cracked as all the sigils on it flared to life. Pure kinetic force exploded out, rushing forward in a ground-churning wave.
I could see big bird's eyes go wide right before he got hit with a wave of pure momentum the size of a minivan, and was sent flying into the rest of the ruckus.