Herald's Hand

"Now, little human. You're the oldest one here," Tastidios, the Vulpi leader of the Waxing Sickle grinned at the ten-year-old Fanghui. "Your parents are quite wealthy slime. Did they tell you where they store their most precious things?"

Tastidios' skull mask terrified Fanghui and his four little siblings. He shot one of his three hostage younger brothers in the knee with his shotgun. Fanghui's sister and the other brothers huddled in fear in their family mansion's burned dining hall.

"Please, stop!" Fanghui stood until Jilek, a thin bony Vulpi snapped his finger to send him flying via telekinesis.

"Stop? Then bring us some treasure unless you want me to give your little brothers and sister the same fate as your parents."

"Find us some good ol' money and gold, yah?" Jilek giggled.

"I-I don't know where..."

Jilek flicked his finger to command a drinking glass to crash into the sister's face. She cried in pain when the glass cut her delicate skin.

"Leave Kifen alone! I'll do whatever you ask!" Fanghui begged.

"Good boy. Now go quickly. You only have one minute until I ask Mogris to fry your family into a barbecue!"

Tastidios pointed at a buff Vulpi with fire tattoos on his muscles. His fists smashed together to form a giant fireball that exploded.

The kids shuddered at the demonstration while Tastidios laughed. "It's cute how humans obey when we show them our magic!"

I need to be quick, but if I don't, Kifen and my brothers will die! Fanghui scrambled into each room. Where do Mom and Dad hide their treasure?

He only had 30 seconds left, and Fanghui still struggled to find what the Waxing Sickle wanted.

"This looks valuable!" Fanghui found a giant Jade urn in his mother's closet and carried it. "I hope this will save everyone!"

Gunshots sounded as the Chinese police fired at the Waxing Sickle.

"Kill those petty humans! They should never exist with us divine beings anyway!" Fanghui heard Tastidios order Mogris.

Fanghui tripped on the stairs when the dining hall exploded, dropping the jade urn that shattered into pieces.

"I screwed up!" Fanghui cried, staring at the broken artifact. "What time is it?"

In dire realization, he scampered to the ruined dining hall to look for his siblings.

"No!" Fanghui wept as the Waxing Sickle and Chinese police fought in a gunfight outside. "Jein! Hongmi! Limian!"

Three dead brothers with charred bodies piled in a pool of blood and fire. Fanghui bawled, helpless to save them.

"This can't be happening! Kifen? Xiao mei? Are you there?"

"W-Wongshi..." He heard a weak voice calling his first name from the living room. "D-da ge..."

Fanghui ran towards the voice in tears, hoping that Kifen was still alive.

"Kifen!" He held her burnt hand.

He sniffed, looking at Kifen's tattered school uniform and skirt. Her skin swelled with hot burn marks as her cut belly bled. She was dying.

"No! Stay with me, Kifen. Please! I can't lose you too!" Fanghui hugged his dear sister, ignoring the searing pain of the burn marks.

Soon, the Chinese police tended to the two survivors. Fanghui wasn't hurt as much but Kifen's body suffered too much. Thus, Fanghui built Kifen a droid apparatus that provided her with total parenteral nutrition. Kifen's droid form was Fanghui's bodyguard known as Jin Feilong.

Never forget what they did to you! Make them pay! Make all of them suffer!

For years, Fanghui practiced the Herald's Hand, an arcane martial art used by ancient Scandinavian seers during the age of Vikings. To become an invincible warrior, he injected mercury into his body, the only metal on Earth immune to Vulpi ZNA powers.

Ma, Ba, wo de san ge xiao di, xiao mei. Dui bi qi. I failed you all, and I couldn't fulfill my duty as da ge. I couldn't protect you all from the Waxing Sickle because I was a weak er zi. I promise to redeem myself and help you all rest in peace. I'll clean this world of Vulpi thieves!

***

Vultau masters and Vulpi apprentices launched their magical meteors, icicles, lightning, and hurricanes at Fanghui. Their powers couldn't pass the imaginary barrier emitted by Fanghui's mercuric nervous system.

"Herald's Hand: Gateway to Niflheim!"

Fanghui's red hair flickered like fire, smashing his foot into the ground. The earth erupted into six massive fissures shaped like angel wings that engulfed the Vulpi in white holy fire. The Vulpi families wept as Fanghui slaughtered them like animals, the same way his family was massacred by the Vulpi.

Military soldiers faced the blood-covered Fanghui and fired their rifles. Bullets ricocheted off his mercuric barrier as tanks and fighter jets launched their heavy artillery.

"Herald's Hand: Claw of Fenrir!"

Fanghui swiped his hand to reflect the shells at the military forces that opposed him. Bullets and missiles ricocheted back to wherever they were fired from. Tanks and aircraft exploded from their shells as the soldiers were killed by their bullets.

Monks and martial art masters screamed battle cries, slicing blades and pummeling fists onto Fanghui's body. Swords and spears snapped in two when colliding with Fanghui's body while the rolling punches simply tickled.

"Herald's Hand: Glory of Valhalla!"

Fanghui's back erupted with silver angel wings that blinded the masters as his bloody claws slashed them into piled organs. Nations fell as Fanghui's Kneapexist Global Federation chased the Vulpi across the world, leaving them to seek refuge in America.

***

"Lord Tastidios! We're in trouble!" A Waxing Sickle soldier rushed into the boss' tent.

"What is it now?" The skull-masked leader finished eating a chicken leg with Jilek, Mogris, and other Vulpi subordinates.

"It's the Global Federation! They're killing us all!"

The man was shot by Reaper Squad commandos who marched inside the tent. Supreme Herald Fanghui walked in with Jin Feilong, Hernamidos, Amitonyx, and SANDRA.

"Y-you," Tastidios recognized the red and teal eyes.

"At last, I've found you," Fanghui hissed.

"Jilek! Mogris!" Tastidios ordered the Vulpi fanatics as he loaded his shotgun. "Show that man how we make humans bow as we did years ago!"

The telekinetic and flame lackeys stood in front with grinning faces. Jilek flicked his fingers to launch a psychic whirlwind at Fanghui. The bony man cringed when his attack didn't affect the Supreme Herald.

"Thou ought to showeth respect to the Supreme Herald! Atone with thy life! Arcane Cybernetics: Vector Lightning!" SANDRA lifted her metal fingers, frying Jilek to crisp with electricity.

Mogris punched his flaming fists together, running to squish Fanghui with his huge tattooed arms. The invisible barrier pushed Mogris back, leaving him confused.

"The stupid fox freak needs to know his place!" Amitonyx's hand boiled with magma that solidified into a dark igneous blade. "Tigris Ifrit: Sword of Agni!"

He threw it into Mogris' chest, making him scream. Jin Feilong then slashed the buff Vulpi's head off with her sharp claws. A panicked Tastidios fired his shotgun at Fanghui along with his last minions. The bullets did nothing as Fanghui brushed his shoulder.

"General, why don't you put them out of their misery?" Fanghui told Hernamidos. "All except for the leader."

"Heh, with pleasure," With a flick of his wrist gear, tiny homing missiles swarmed the tent and killed off the last soldiers.

"W-what have you become?" Tastidios fired until his shotgun ran out of ammo.

"What you made me," The blood-covered Fanghui cornered him.

Tastidios slammed his shotgun's stock onto Fanghui's head only to find it bent. He punched Fanghui's chest, but the Supreme Herald didn't wince or feel pain.

Fanghui touched Tastidios' chest. "Herald's Hand: Helix of Jormungandr!"

With his hand's simple clockwise rotation, Tastidios' spine and rib cage curled clockwise with Fanghui's almighty hand. He shrieked, feeling his rotated bones pierce out of his skin.

"Please, have mercy!" Tastidios begged with his coiled body.

"You killed my parents, Jein, Hongmi, and Limian. Kifen has to live in a droid body to survive. You tell me to show you mercy?" Fanghui roared, kicking him in the face. "Have you fox freaks no shame?"

Tastidios cried as his skull mask broke.

"I have something to show you before you atone for your mistreatment of humans," Fanghui dragged Tastidios by the tail.

He threw him outside, where the Reaper Squad lined in formation and saluted. "Hail, Fanghui!"

Tastidios crawled his twisted body to see his entire hideout burnt as Chimaera battlecruisers floated in the sky. He gasped when she saw his Vulpi comrades lynched on giant skewers guarded by crusader droids.

"Death to fox freaks!" The Reaper Squad chanted.

Fanghui glared at Tastidios. "You had fun killing my family, so I had fun killing yours. Bullying isn't funny now, isn't it?"

The Waxing Sickle leader sobbed. "Okay, you win, Fanghui. I know I was wrong, I swear."

"Liar!" Fanghui roared. "My family did nothing to you, but you robbed and killed them anyway!"

Tastidios whimpered and held onto Fanghui's royal red cape. "I-I'll do whatever you ask!"

"Then find me some treasure. You have one minute," Fanghui recited the words Tastidios said to him as a child. "Isn't that what you told me when I begged for mercy?"

The Waxing Sickle leader squealed when Fanghui dug his palms into his chest and lifted him high. "W-wait, please forgive me! Let me live!"

"Herald's Hand: Skoll and Hati!" Fanghui ripped Tastidios' malformed body into two bloody slabs of meat.

***

"Supreme Herald," Maika's hologram spoke in Fanghui's office of the Arcane Phalange in China. "The Eclipser Virus has been planted and Cecilius is dead. The UICA is on the run and our invasion is a success."

"Good work," Fanghui nodded. "I know you have ambitious plans to reform America into our vision. I look forward to it."

"Thank you, Supreme Herald. The Shin-Kaminari are always indebted for everything you've done for us."

"And the Federation couldn't have asked for great comrades like yourself."

"Hail, Fanghui!" Maika saluted before her hologram disappeared.