A Boy, a Dog Girl and the Weight of Years: Part Five

The muscular wizard lifted the auto carriage over his head, his magically enhanced body glowing red as his eyes burned likewise, madness running through them. With a mighty throw he hurled the car down the street.

Isadora calmly stood her ground and cleaved the car in two with her sword.

“Don’t.”

She charged forward, punching the madman in the face, trying to get him under control. Behind her, Vessria used a magic flashing artifact to temporarily blind attackers with one hand while an enchanted whip which extended and flowed like a part of her body held a crazed woman whose skin turned to metal.

“Any time, Bollingers!” Vessria shouted.

The three potion makers leapt into the fray, spraying streams of potion from their back mounted tanks. Their forms had been changed into dogs, inspired by a certain canine friend, letting them run from victim to victim much faster.

“Never fear! The patented Bollinger curse reversal potion is here!” Gratham shouted as he sprayed a man who spat poison globs at them.

“No charge for the first dosage!” Helline cried out as she got a man made out of gas.

“Though we are not responsible for dry cleaning bills,” Luca said as he covered a man with two heads, one made of fire and one made of ice, in the purple goo.

As the group cleared the streets, guards helping them to suppress the maddened wizards with antidote dispensers of their own, Hellman and Cortz swooped down on magic construct wings.

“Mother! News from the front!”

“Chistos and VanVeer are down!”

“What?!” Vessria shouted.

“Worse, we’ve been told the Fallen Doctor escaped and is heading for the bell!”

“He plans to infect the bell's sound waves themselves with this madness!”

“If Chistos and VanVeer couldn’t stop him, who the bloody hell can!” Isadora questioned.

As those words left her lips, the Fallen Doctor turned the corner, blitzing past them all, hero and guard and crazed victim, his eyes set on the distant bell. Following closely on his heels were Honey and Zack, with her running on all fours like a colossal and single minded beast. Zack didn’t even notice them as they passed, only following the Doctor.

There was silence for a moment.

“Were Zack and Honey chasing the fellow in the loincloth?” Gratham asked.

“I think, dear, our lives depend on them,” Helline said.

“Oh. Good,” Luca said. Everyone looked to him, puzzlement on their faces.

“How is any of this situation good?” Vessria asked.

“Zack doesn’t quit. Honey doesn’t abandon him. And…they’ve made me believe in them. Force is barely keeping us alive. If there is another way…they’ll find it.”

*

“What are we going to do?!”

“For the fifth time, Honey, I am making this up as I go along!”

Honey stamped through the snow, gaining ground on the Fallen Doctor. The speed was only half the issue. Once they caught him, they’d need to deal with him.

“Why didn’t he kill us?” Zack wondered.

“What?”

“At the warehouse. He jumped over us. He’s supposed to be a single minded murder machine. He could have backhanded us into a wall. He didn’t. Why? Something is there…”

The plaza of the great bell came into view. Time was running out.

“Honey! Magic his ass!”

“Wind at our back…ice at his feet…the elements obey me to protect my sweetheart!”

They felt a great push of wind behind them, blasting them into the air. In front of them the Doctor began to slip as the ground under him iced, slowing his charge to a crawl. It was there, fifty yards before the bell, where Honey landed before the Doctor and Zack landed on his back, arm around his throat.

“What are you doing?” the Doctor asked as he slowly walked over the ice.

“Choking…you out…”

Honey created magical barriers around the Doctor’s feet. He quickly pulled his feet from them, breaking the constructs. Then he reached back and grabbed Zack by his skull, holding the boy so they were eye to eye.

“Boy…the boy from another world. The rage in me remembers you. This is not even your world. Why do you try to stop me?”

“Any world…with Honey in it…is my world…you ass clown.”

A memory sparked in the Doctor’s mind. A man long ago, staring down a demon lord, saying something similar about his woman.

“She isn’t human. None of these wizards are human. They bring death. My existence is death. This cannot go on. The death must…”

“What?! End?! You think killing millions of innocent people will stop the world from suffering?! You don’t get to decide these things! I’ve had a crappy life! I’ve suffered! But I’m also here getting my head broken by an evil wizard dick…”

“Shut up…”

“…because I’m not going to let innocent people be hurt! I don’t care if you’ve been hurt! Either of you in your messed up soul or whatever you have! You are choosing to be a monster! You…”

“Stop talking.”

He remembered more images. A woman holding his hand. A mother and father soothing him after a nightmare. Calling him good.

“…decide what you are! I know what you are, or at least what you were! You fought against an evil man when you realized how much pain he was causing and who he was inflicting it on! The Skabbart part of you isn’t different! He’s felt the same pain! Evil men hurting other people, creating more evil men! It’s bullcrap! You decide what you are! I did it! Honey did it, and I guarantee you, she may have started her life as a dog, but even if we fail today, she’ll be more human than you’ll ever be!”

A dark lord sealing him away.

A mother’s last words, blaming wizards before the rope went tight.

“I SAID BE QUIET!”

The Doctor threw Zack. The boy’s body crashed into the bell with a dull, hollow thump before sliding down into the snow.

“Zack?”

The world was still. Neither Honey nor the Fallen Doctor breathed.

“Sweetheart?”

Zack remained still.

A howl of grief and rage filled the night sky. Honey turned on the Fallen Doctor, energy surging through her and crackling off, fire lighting in her eyes, the earth beneath her trembling, an S rank wizard’s power exploding from a devastated girl’s body. She struck at him, delivering blow after blow, and he fought her off, straining against the onslaught as she poured her pain into him.

His eyes remained on Zack the entire time.

“I…I am what I…”

“You murderer! You took my sweetheart! You stole him! Give him back! GIVE HIM BACK TO ME!”

“If I could…would it end the pain?”

Her fist stopped.

No! The bell! Kill them all! Kill…

I am a doctor.

You are a monster! We are killers!

I am a demon.

I am a victim.

They are the monsters.

They.

THEY.

“She is they…”

The Doctor looked at Honey. Skabbart knew her. He had studied her. The Doctor knew what to ask.

“If I could bring him back, would you sacrifice your humanity?”

A scene long ago, across eons. A woman before him. A choice to be made. Would he sacrifice his place in the demon empire to save her?

“Yes. I’d give up being human. Dating and marriage and babies. All of it is meaningless without Zack there. My sweetheart…the world needs him. I need him to exist.”

No hesitance.

The Doctor pushed her off. It was easy, surprising Honey. He walked over to the boy, laying so still in the snow.

“Why do you do the things you do?”

He put his hand on Zack’s chest. Light poured from it, bright golden light, surrounding the boy.

“You will show me why.”

Zack’s eyes fluttered open.

“This is not judgment canceled. It is judgment delayed, Zack Hartwell.”

The Doctor sat, his knees drawn up to his chest, staring up into the sky. Zack pulled himself up, cracking his neck. He looked around, seeing the Doctor sitting calmly, Honey in her overpowered form, the bell silent.

“Did we win?”

Honey ran to him, her beast form melting like spring snow, the young girl beneath it throwing her arms around him. She sobbed and wailed into his chest, her tears hot, her cries vibrating through him.

A monster was awakened from a man’s rage.

The love of two young people softened his ancient hate.