With Friends Like These...

“Oh… my apologies”, says Armageddon.

I find myself able to move again.

“I forget sometimes to release that one.”

I’m now stood, a helpless witness, to this ethereal king of darkness standing over my son’s unconscious body. What am I supposed to do, shoot him? Would bullets even work on him? Probably not.

Armageddon raises his hand over David’s chest. A single, yellow orb slowly descends from it and lands on him.

David sharply inhales, gasping, writhing around. He blinks his eyes, face to face with this demonic king staring down at him. His eyes go wide.

In the span of about five seconds, David tried to teleport away a hundred times. The sound was horrific. Like a heavy machine gear grinding metal on metal, he flashed in and out of view, almost too quick to see, tearing a pocket in the air with every attempt, immediately captured and sent back. He’s trying to flee.

“Not so fast...”, Armageddon sighs. It almost sounds like he’s having fun.

Finally, he gives up, sitting upright, staring wildly at his captor.

“YOU...”, Armageddon booms. He leans in closer.

“You killed my Slimes.”

David catches sight of me.

“DAD?”

“Don’t mind him; he tried to protect you, actually.”, Armageddon assures him. David is staring at me with a rueful, angry expression. It’s not my fault, man. I try to signal him to calm down with a gentle hand wave. He looks back at his captor.

“And what of it?”, he responds, indignantly.

Armageddon is taken slightly aback.

“Well...”, he trails off.

“I didn’t think anyone could actually do it.”, with a tinge of happiness.

Huh?

This catches David off guard as well.

“Do you have any idea how many times I watched people try to kill them? They kept trying over and over, it was really pathetic. I mean, come on, these Elves are supposed to be the best magicians in the world. Then, you showed up and just one-shotted them? Are you kidding me?”

Both of our jaws are just hanging open. David tries to explain himself.

“Well… I… Uh… I don’t think anyone ever tried just blowing them up.”

An incredulous look creeps across Armageddon’s face.

“JUST blowing them up? As if it were that simple? Are you kidding me?”

He breaks out into a chuckle.

“I gave them every possible advantage. Foresight. Magical ability. Wealth. Power. Telepathy. An intelligence network. A cult of worshipers who would throw away their lives in an instant to save them.”

David nods, gulping.

“They practically invented barrier magic. Though, I don’t know why no one figured it out before them. Anyway, I think about two hundred master mages had attempted to assassinate the Council. Some got close. What the hell are you, anyway? Just a human?”

A bead of sweat forms on David’s forehead. He nods again.

Armageddon turns around, a look of strange, accusatory curiosity on his face.

“Did you do this to him? How did he end up this way? I’ve never seen a human like this in my life.”

I’m speechless. What am I supposed to say to that? I just meekly lift my hands up and shrug. He turns back to David.

“Demonstrate to me what you used to kill those Slimes.”

A purple cube appears to our left.

“Miniaturize it if you must; that barrier will contain it. Go ahead, do it.”

David glances at me, as if for reassurance. I give him a stern look. Go ahead.

David casts his three-part spell.

“Deglutire.” A purple square envelops the box.

“Demoliri.”A white-hot flash erupts within its confines.

“Grand Seal.” The box crumples, folding in on itself until it collapses into a tiny, pin-sized, pitch-black marble on the floor, which begins rolling away, coming to rest in the grout of one of the marble tiles. Tiny, golden swords pierce the marble, connected by chains, and ring together as they lock into place.

Armageddon is beside himself.

“OOOOOOOOH!”, he exclaims. He’s thoroughly excited by this. The atmosphere is palpably uncomfortable.

“This is genius! That’s no mere explosion spell. It functions at the very basic building blocks of matter. Not even the most obsessive explosion specialists had come anywhere near this level of refinement. How did you know to split the atoms apart?” Armageddon is leaning over him with a terrifying, nerdy look on his face.

“Well, sir...” David trails off. “In my world, we used something similar in a weapon of war. A bomb. It worked very well.”

“Can you show me?”, Armageddon asks with childish glee.

“Uh… I guess I can...”

A picture-perfect model of the Little Boy from the bombing of Hiroshima materializes in front of us. A deep, dark green color, its sheer mass and square aerodynamic fins are truly impressive. It’s perfect, down to the finest details.

“Show me the internals.”, he begs.

Half of the bomb vaporizes in an instant, showing the firing mechanism, a long barrel, and the circular polonium-beryllium initiator rings which kick-start the explosion clearly visible. Armageddon eyes this contraption up and down, positively nerding out.

“You knew how to build this?”, he asks, hungrily.

“Well, I had read some papers about it.”, David responds, humbly.

I’m stuck here watching this God of Death absolutely drooling at one of the most important weapons of war in my country’s history. The feeling is wholly uncomfortable, to say the least. I glance at David. He returns my gaze. He’s just as confused as I am.

“I want you to tell me more about your world. Please, come with me.” He stretches out his pale, sickly hand. David reluctantly takes it and rises to his feet. It’s a very cold hand.

Armageddon turns to me.

“Forgive me, but I’m going to borrow him for a bit. I’ll bring him back, don’t worry.”

As usual, before I can say anything, I find myself back on the ground, in the same spot I was standing before Kalth picked me up. With a tremendous screech, the maw tearing up the sky snaps shut and disappears. I collapse onto the ground, on my butt, bewildered.

Kalth flies down from the sky, landing in front of me, visibly concerned.

“What happened?”

I have to think for a moment.

“Well… He asked for my son. He found him, and brought him to him.”

“And?”, Kalth asks, impatiently.

“I think they’re on good terms.”

He can scarcely believe what he’s hearing.

“On good terms?”

I nod.

“Do you have any idea who that was?”

I shake my head.

“That was the very reason we Elves established the College of Magic. Our founder, Sir Montgomery, dedicated his life to standardizing magic education for all Elves after witnessing that… thing… kill millions of innocent people.”

“He said his name was Armageddon, sir.”

“Yes, that’s his name. He spoke to you?”

I nod, again.

“He seemed… different from what I expected.”

A look of total confusion envelopes Kalth’s face.

“Different, how?”

“Well, sir… He was more like a mad scientist, than an evil God of Death, if I could put it that way.”

A wrinkle forms on Kalth’s forehead.

“A mad scientist?” His dislike of the science teams seems ever-present.

“He was very interested in a weapon of war from my world which David produced for him. Apparently, he used it as inspiration for the spell he used to kill the Slime Lords.”

Another awkward silence ensues.

Without saying a word, I’m hauled off to a briefing room, with the king, the four Elder Mages, and a veritable retinue of scientists, security specialists, and students. It’s like a military tribunal. I’m interrogated relentlessly.

I can only say what I know; what I saw, and what I thought. It was my first time seeing David since the incident. What they, and I too, fail to understand is how the two of them managed to gain some sort of rapport between eachother. A few hours pass of endless, relentless questioning. In my head, I wish Leia would just rescue me from this nightmare so I could go take a nap.

David, on the other hand, was transported to Armageddon’s playground. Or rather, palace. A terrifying, foggy, depressing world of glass and black marble. It contained vast, empty spaces, with square, featureless buildings and thick, stale, dead air.

The two of them walk together in this silent, eerie realm. Armageddon turns to him.

“In your father’s memories, I saw a very curious thing. A carriage, with a tiny wheel for steering, which propelled itself along as if by magic. But, in your world, there is no magic. Please, build one for me.”

David is totally taken aback by this. A car? He wants me to build him a car? He has to think on his feet, here. He pauses for a moment, trying to remember the workings of an internal combustion engine. He holds his hand out in front of him.

The steel frame of the car materializes. Then, the body, the wiring, the interior, and finally, the engine. Bit by bit, he calls on his obsessive automotive hobby memories, creating a perfect replica of his dad’s car out of thin air.

Armageddon smiles, smugly.