Modern Age Online

The Sludge Demon roared as Kaleb and his friends put their heads together. Behind him, Abby, Two Gun, Claire and Mass were trying to keep the seven-foot Sludgy humanoid in check. Nearby D34d-I was approaching Kaleb. Jar-lock and Vivienne were having a whispered conversation as the feathery alien stuck a hand out to Kaleb and quacked.

*Quack*

“Got a loaner I can borrow while you three noodle over the orb.”

Kaleb pulled his Cybar and passed it over into one of D34d-I’s four hands. Thinking it over, Kaleb then pulled his Quad-Gun and spun it to ice. D34d-I stared at the gun warily, but Kaleb simply handed it over and shrugged.

“Keep it on blue and it should freeze the thing up pretty well. Just don’t hold the trigger too long. The frame has been strong enough so far. But who knows how much longer it can last?”

D34d-I carefully grabbed the gun and then waddled off to help the others. Kaleb, feeling naked without most of his weapons and gadgets tried to pull his lab coat over himself. Then he realized his coat was still in the dirt a short distance away. He sighed and instead focused on the two mages who were still whispering over the Nexus Orb.

Jar-Lock and Vivienne seemed to be engaged in a heated, whispered discussion. The tall blonde woman was vehemently shaking her head as Jar-lock was pointing down at the orb in his hand. Kaleb snorted, getting their attention as he waved his mechanical arm around. The wrist where his hand used to be sparked and snapped menacingly, but he ignored it.

“Something y’all want to share with the rest of the class? Our friends are over there trying to kill a Demon Lord, y’know?”

“Actually, they are trying not to kill it. If we do, it’ll just go back to its realm and we’ll be back where we started.” Jar-lock explained.

“What we need to do is draw a containment sigil and find a decent container to hold the bastard.” Said Vivienne.

“And I’m telling you we don’t need that!” Jar-lock interjected. “We have a magical tether to the Demon Lord. All we have to do is reverse the pull and suck the sonofabitch into this thing!”

Kaleb glanced at the orb Jar-lock was waving around. Even now, the thing tried to twist his vision and was giving him a headache. Kaleb turned away and watched the ongoing fight between his friends and the Sludge Lord. Claire and Mass were slamming their fists into the thing’s amorphous body. They didn’t seem to be doing a lot of damage, but it kept the thing’s attention. Abby and Two Gun were getting in the odd shot as they could. But D34d-I was standing off to the side, only occasionally joining in. In fact, the duck seemed hesitant to even use Kaleb’s weapons. Kaleb rolled his eyes and rejoined the conversation with the two mages.

“Ok, so we suck the demon into the orb. What are the possible outcomes?”

Jar-lock glanced up. “Well, if it works, we contain the Demon in a prison of its own design. Which it may be impossible for it to break out.”

“May be impossible?”

“The orb was created by the demon and uses its strength to sustain itself. The demon would need a strength greater than that to break itself out. But the stronger the demon gets, the stronger the orb becomes. So it’s a feedback loop the thing can’t get out of.”

“Or,” Vivienne spoke up. “The orb won’t be able to contain the demon and instead we blow ourselves to kingdom come. It would be like trying to jam two batteries together and hoping the result is a bigger, stronger battery.”

“What about if we waited for the cops? Maybe they have something to help?”

Jar-lock shook his head. “The police mages got hit with a massive backlash when this thing busted out of their containment field. We were trying to get it contained. But then it sensed its orb.”

“It went ape-shit and crashed through the barrier. Most of the mages dropped from the massive amounts of mana that was thrust back into them all at once.”

“So we either take the risky option or we try to wait it out until we find someway to contain it?” Kaleb asked dubiously.

Vivienne bit her lip in annoyance. But a shout from the fight behind them drew their attention. The sludge monster had grabbed Claire’s leg and flung her bodily away. With only Mass to hold the beast back, the Sludge Lord jerked toward them menacingly. It ignored Abby and Two Gun as they tried to get its attention and rushed for its orb. Kaleb swore and reached for a gun, but all he had was his Magic Gun.

Jar-lock and Vivienne summoned their magic and their minor spells as they all backed up. Kaleb tried to focus as he aimed his Magic Gun. He could see D34d-I still shooting with the Cybar just beyond the Sludge Demon and he hissed angrily.

“Damn it, Duck! Freeze the damn thing!”

As Kaleb yelled, he unleashed his own stream of ice from his magic gun. He could feel his mana leave him as the Sludge Demon’s black oily flesh turned blue and started to harden. Jar-lock’s fireball and Vivienne’s white bolts also hit the creature, searing its roiling flesh. But it still tried to rush them, long tendrils of black sludge reaching for Jar-lock and the prize the bulky mage held in his hand.

Kaleb cut his stream of ice off as he felt himself reach the bottom of his mana pool. A flash of something in the corner of his eye tried to draw his attention, but he ignored it. All the notifications could be gone through at the end of the night. He was rapidly searching his pockets for something else to throw at the Lord when D34d-I finally started firing his own ice ray into the creature. Kaleb looked up to throw the duck a thank you and instead saw Abby standing there with his gun. D34d-I was behind the short woman as she fired off sheets of ice into the back of the Demon Lord.

“Really?” Kaleb had to ask as he glared at D34d-I.

The alien duck merely shrugged at him. Apparently, his equipment was well-trusted with the duck. Kaleb bit back an angry comment as he shook his head and turned back to Jar-lock and Vivienne. Both of the mages had switched to ice attacks as well. Between Abby, Jar-lock, and Vivienne, they managed to freeze a sizeable chunk of the Sludgy demon. Its skin turned to ice, and it slowly stopped moving. Becoming a large frozen sculpture of a creepy-looking sludge demon.

Kaleb blew out a breath as the others joined him and the mages. Two Gun spat on the ground as Claire rushed back over to them. Mass also put himself between the iced demon and the rest of the group. Both Super-Strong members of the group looked worn down and beaten. Their armor was corroded and pitted from the demon’s sludge. Kaleb started thinking redesigns as Abby walked over and handed him his Quad-Gun.

“Stupid duck was afraid to use it.”

“Saw that.” Kaleb acknowledged.

*Quack*

“In my defense, I’ve had to listen to you cause explosions in that little lab of yours for a while now. How was I supposed to know how safe that contraption is?”

“The fact I brought it into the field should’ve been a clue.” Kaleb sighed.

“Hey, how about we table this discussion for after we don’t have a slowly melting demon in front of us?” Two Gun nearly growled.

“The ice won’t hold it for long. We need to seal it, quickly.” Jar-lock said.

“We don’t have a proper container!” Vivienne argued.

Kaleb rubbed a hand down his face. “Then we use what we have! Which, I’m sorry, happens to be the Nexus Orb.”

Two Gun glanced between Kaleb and the Mages. “Problems?”

“If we fuck it up, the orb will explode and kill us all.”

Vivienne snorted. “And it will create a crater the size of a football field. Plus, the demon will still get away!”

“Which is why the others need to hurry and run. The three of us can take the workload. The Professor might not have a lot of mana capacity, but he won’t need much to pass the magic through.”

“So I’m a magical transformer?”

“Essentially. You take in the demonic energy and pass it Vivienne, who creates a spell to pull the energy further down the line to me. When it gets to me, I thread it into the orb and try to reverse its pull.”

A sheet of ice cracked on the demon, and Kaleb hissed loudly. “Fine. Let’s go. Everyone back off and hope this works.”

Claire grabbed Two Gun and leaped away as Mass did the same for D34d-I. Abby gave them all one last look before she vanished into the shadows. Sighing as his friends all vanished, Kaleb tried to rub his hands together. But wound up shocking his hand with his still sparking broken arm.

“So how do I do this?” Kaleb asked as he shook the pain out of his hand.

Jar-lock sat in the dirt and stared at the orb as Vivienne prepared herself. She pointed her wand toward the frozen demon and explained.

“You need to make contact and find the demon’s mana signature. Once you have it, mentally grab hold of it and try to pass it on to me. From there, it’s just a matter of holding on.”

Kaleb winced. “This is going to feel gross, isn’t it?”

“I imagine.” Vivienne said, not looking happy about it either.

Blowing out another breath, Kaleb approached the melting demon and reached out with his normal hand. His palm came into contact with the melt ice and he felt it sink into the sludge. Immediately, his skin started to burn, and he hissed against the pain. He reached out with his magic and tried to focus. But he couldn’t find anything.

“Use your sight,” Jar-lock ordered.

Kaleb bit back a snide remark and focused his magic to his eyes. Instantly, his vision was obscured by a large black cloud of mana surrounding them all. It coiled and writhed around everything and seemed to be centered on the demon. Kaleb tried to grab a piece, but the cloud evaporated in his hands. He tried again, but the stuff wriggled and slipped from his grasp over and over. Getting frustrated, Kaleb reached for a tendril of mana that sprung from the demon like a tentacle. His hands made contact, and for a moment, he was elated. Then the tendril slipped away.

“Argh! What am I doing wrong?”

“Use your mind, not your hand. Focus!”

“We are definitely getting you some magic training after this.”

“Put it on my list!” Kaleb shouted as he focused his emotions and reached out with his mind.

His mental grasp coiled around the same tendril as before, and he felt the thing squash under his control. As he did, a gross smell crossed his nose, and he immediately felt like he had eaten garbage. He wanted to retch, but Kaleb knew that would mean letting go. So instead he gathered up the mana and mentally threw it at Vivienne.

“Incoming.” Kaleb gulped out as he tried not to vomit.

He used his magic sight to see the mana hit the tall blonde. Her face recoiled, and she almost fell over before she waved her wand and sent the power on down the line.

“Keep it coming! Faster!” Jar-lock yelled as he focused on the orb.

Kaleb winced and started mentally digging the mana off the Demon Lord. With each mental grab, a new level of gross hit Kaleb in his senses. His eyes burned, his ears hurt, and he could smell and taste things so vile he didn’t want to think about them. But he kept at it, scooping the mana of the Demon Lord away with his mind. Soon Sludgy got free enough to start roaring again. But Kaleb ignored it as passing the demonic mana along got easier.

Soon, it felt like the demon wanted to pass through Kaleb. It was after another few minutes of transferring mana that Kaleb realized something was wrong. The mana was still being pulled down the line between them. But little bits of demonic magic were sticking to Kaleb with each growing regularity. He tried to tell the others, but opening his mouth made him want to puke. He couldn’t say or do anything as more of the black sludgy mana stuck to his on magical aura.

“We’re almost done!” Jar-lock cheered, apparently unconcerned.

Kaleb tried to speak or say anything. But the wave of demonic energy in his body consumed him. Soon he was a passenger in his own mind. His mouth stuck shut by demonic mana. His body was shrouded in it and he momentarily wondered why neither of the others could see it. Then Vivienne said something that gave him hope.

“There’s something wrong.”

Kaleb gave a cheer within his mind prison. However, what happened next made him shudder in fear. His body spun around without his conscious thought. He was stuck watching as he turned on Vivienne and Jar-lock. Jar-lock was still looking down upon the orb, but Vivienne was watching him. Kaleb felt his eyes lock on the orb and his body moved.

Arms wrapped in dark tendrils reached out toward the orb. Kaleb could just catch glimpses of his body as it passed by the mental window he was peering out of. He looked like he was covered in the Demon Lord’s mana. Vivienne shouted a warning and Kaleb felt a flash of pain hit him in the side. But his body ignored it as both of his tendril-like hands reached Jar-lock and the orb.

The big mage barely had enough time to glance up as Kaleb’s arms switched to large black spikes. A look of shock passed over Jar-lock’s face as Kaleb's spiky arms cut through his chest. Vivienne cried out again as Jar-lock slumped over. Kaleb watched his body ignore the mage as he reached out for the orb once more. He could feel the power pulsing within. Whatever Jar-lock had done to the Nexus was making it call out to Kaleb. His tendrils coiled around the orb, and Kaleb felt a sense of home. The nasty feelings in his senses abated, and for a moment he thought he was safe. Then an unnatural pull dragged at Kaleb’s center. He watched through his little window as his face and head were dragged toward the orb. The disgusting feeling came back as Kaleb felt his consciousness slip into the void, inky blackness surrounding his mental prison. Somewhere outside his mind, Kaleb heard his own voice howling in rage.