Adventures of John: World War Magic
Chapter 2: First Battles
"So, you're supposed to be the expert, right?" Jack asked. "How do we deal with this guy?"
We flew outside through the hole the creature's fist had left, entering the street in fighting stances. If this was a television show, I think we all would have looked incredibly awesome. As we flew through the opening, I made sure to change my clothes from casual royalty to full John the Adventurer battle armor, complete with fiery-red cloak and flaming sword.
"It's an ogre," I answered. "See the immense amounts of fat covering its body?" Everyone looked up at the twenty foot monstrosity, which was indeed impossibly fat. "All that fat serves a purpose. It is thick and very durable, and so acts as protection. The only way to get at it is through areas not covered with fat."
"So go for the eyes?" Annie inquired, pulling an arrow from her quiver.
"Exactly," I answered. "Also, watch out for those boils!" I shouted to Jack, who was flying towards the beast. "They will burst if you get too close, and you do not want to know what sort of nasty things you will find inside an ogre."
"Got it," Jack said. Turning to Elsa, he let loose with one of his crooked grins and winked. "Let's see what you've got, Princess."
"Hey!" I exclaimed, flying off after him. "Only I get to call her that! And don't flirt with my girlfriend!"
Annie shot arrow after arrow at the ogre's eyes, with tips ranging from regular pointed tips to incendiary explosive tips. Jack flew around his head, distracting and blinding him with random bursts of frosty magic. I tried to get in close with my sword, but every time I did he swatted me away with his giant fists. Elsa, after sending icy shards towards his face with little effect, froze one of his legs, sending him off balance. The creature teetered for a moment, trying to regain some sense of stability, before crashing to the ground. Without its fists blocking my way, I was able to leap onto his face, sinking my blade through its eye socket.
"Nice one!" Jack exclaimed. "Good going John!"
"This is no time for celebration!" I snapped at him, backing away from the quickly deflating corpse. "This is just the beginning. Our collective magic must have attracted the creature, but that doesn't mean there aren't others all across the world. We have a lot more to worry about than a single ogre. No matter how abnormally large it was."
"What do you mean?" Elsa asked. "Are they normally smaller?"
"A lot smaller," I answered. "They usually tend to be about twelve or thirteen feet. The largest one I had ever seen before today was about fifteen feet tall."
"What do you think this means?" Jack asked, looking concerned.
"What do I think it means?" I chuckled. "Either our combined magic attracted one of the largest ogres in history, or the massive influx of magic mutated it, making it larger and stronger. Either one is bad news. On one hand that means that we are quite literally a giant monster magnet, and on the other it means that every monster we face from here on out will be more difficult than it would normally be."
"But we can take 'em," Jack insisted, crouching on top of his staff. "After all, we've got ourselves an all-star line up here."
I sighed, exasperated by his ever-present optimism. He didn't seem to grasp the reality of the situation. "Come on then," I told them. "We need to get an eagle-eye view of the situation.
"I don't know if you remember this," Annie remarked, "but not all of us can fly."
"Really?" I asked. "Whatever happened to that imagination that you and I are famous for? Well, I'm the famous one, but you get the point."
Annie rolled her eyes at me. "Alright then, Bro." Concentrating, she conjured up a fancy-looking jetpack. "Now this is flying in style," she said, slipping on the jetpack.
Looking back at the house, I saw my older sister by two years Elyse standing in the doorway with Terra, staring at us and the massive deflated corpse at our feet. "Hey Elyse!" I called. "Look, I'm older than you now!" I turned away, then turned back, grinning. "Oh, and by the way, ha ha! I was right all along about magic. Tell Mom and Dad I'm off to save the world!"
"Let's go then," I said, and we all took off, Jack using the winds, Annie her jetpack, Elsa launching herself with streams of icy power, and me transforming my cloak into a pair of dragon-like wings. Together we soared over the city, looking for signs of trouble. We didn't have to look very far. The city was in complete chaos, monsters everywhere. The streets, freeways, and highways were clogged with cars trying to escape, which only made them easier targets.
In a back alley a mother clutched her baby, running from a massive half man, half wolf creature. A silver-tipped arrow to the skull stopped that beast in its tracks. A nearby jewelry store was being swarmed by goblins, their slimy little fingers grabbing anything valuable they could find. They soon found themselves frozen stiff by Elsa's icy blast, and from what I heard it took three days for them to thaw out. A trio of wyverns who were preying on fleeing pedestrians discovered that dragons aren't the only ones with fiery temperaments, as they faced off against me.
These and many more like them we faced, flying across the city, the four of us dropping out of the sky light a group of superheroes, saving the day from the monsters. While there were those that thanked us for our aid, there were many who cringed in fear, thinking they had been spared one cruel fate only to face another. After several hours of this, the sun had finally found its place in the sky, and the worst of the creatures had fled from its rays.
"Nice to know that some things don't change," I muttered, lying down on the nice, comfortable green grass, which is not very common in a desert like Vegas. "I was half expecting the vampires to be walking around in the day now.
"Don't be such a downer!" Frost told me. "We've won the day!"
"Won the day?" I questioned. "This has been happening across the world, thanks to you! This is just one city! How do you think the cities that don't have a team of magical superheroes protecting them faired? And what about all the days and nights following?" I felt the urge to punch someone, preferably Jack Frost, in the face. "It doesn't matter how powerful we are," I told him. "This is a world-wide catastrophe. We aren't the Justice League, we can't take on something like this all by ourselves." Then I had an idea, one that I hated immediately as I thought of it. "We need to go to the ones in power," I told them."
"What do you mean?" Elsa asked.
"As much as it pains me to say it, we need to go to Washington. We need to see the President."
"You mean the guy that's ruining our country?" Annie asked incredulously. "The guy that is using the NSA to spy on everyone? The guy that wants to brainwash us all into following his Communist policies? The guy behind the catastrophe known as Obamacare? The guy that you hate with a burning passion? That president?"
"Yes," I sighed. "That president."