AN: 10:31 PM, July 15th, 2018. Well, I give up, I'm treating it like a video game. I realized I'm messing with a universe were believing something can quite possibly make it true. After all, in fate, gods only exist because people dreamed them up, the most powerful weapons are belief personified and all magic is actually based of of using self hypnosis to make you believe that things work that way!
Hell, there's this one character he basically ripped apart a three thousand year old werewolf like phantasmal being . . . sorry, elemental, simply because he had a weak "sense of self" and didn't know he shouldn't be able to do that! Meaning that the damage someone causes could be enhanced hundreds of times simply because it is believed they had that much power by the masses!
So yeah, I give up. Ill still try and give realistic speeds, but beyond that . . . well, prepare for a lot of power hype and desperate battles against statistically superior opponents, and a whole lot of shocking decisions on our protagonists part(I hope.)
The sound of gunshots echoed through the mountain pass, as Calastor Grain reminded himself that, as he had assumed he would be discovered three minutes earlier than he was, he was actually doing rather well. Not that that made being swarmed by no less than six dozen wolf familiars, in the middle of Russia, on the brink of winter, an any more pleasant experience.
He unleashed another hail of gunfire into the pack, several wolves jumping out of the way at speed far exceeding that of a normal wolf, others finding their great agility useless in the face of reinforced bullets moving at mach three. With a powerful surge, Calastor jumped twelve feet strait up before kicking off of a thick tree, propelling himself out of the middle of the pack. Landing on the ground just beyond them, he turned and unleashed yet another barrage into the wolves. At least three dozen canine corpses littered the forest floor, leaving only half of his original enemies remaining.
His gun ran out of bullets just as the wolves recovered enough to switch directions, with the larger than normal beasts closing the distance before he could reload of switch guns. With a vicious swing of his arms, he threw his guns into the mass of the pack, were to wolves tried to jump away as the guns glowed red hot, only to fail, with six or seven of them being consumed in twin blasts of flame.
While this did pause the wolves in front for but an instant, it was not enough to stop them, and Calastor found himself facing a tide of thirty or so masses of magically enhanced dog-meat. The first two wolves to reach him lunged in two massive leaps, only for Calastor to step forward, rather than back as it expected, grab its open jaws in his hands, and viciously snap it before throwing it aside an bringing a vicious uppercut into it's partners own jaw with enough force that ins neck audibly snapped and it was sent flying up an an almost comical spin. This happened in less than a second.
The next three wolves that lunged at him slammed into an invisable barrier, and bounced off, which had the side affect of causing the rest to skid to a halt just short, on of the three jumpers all but trampled in the process, giving Calastor time to jump back into the trees, jumping from lib to limb as the pack pursued, constantly trying to nip his heels or hit him with the weak spells that their master had embedded into them when they were first made.
'I'll have to make sure that a forest fire doesn't start after this', he thought as he barely avoided a blast of fire that would have hit his leg as he kicked of another tree. While he had the advantage of agility, the pack was faster, and thus all but constantly beneath him. 'Should I use the grenades? No, they'd be to easily visible and most of the wolves would dodge, it's not worth it.' he needed a way to get them off his back . . . of feet as the case may be.
But these weren't ordinary wolves, they were far smarter, could bit through steel, had hide tougher than oak-wood, and could use basic magecraft. And that was before taking into account how these woods were all but the worst environment to fight them in.. Overall, they could probably rip a SEAL or Spetsnaz group of similar size apart rather easily in these woods.
Looking ahead he noted that he was nearing a rather steep slope that he had noted earlier into the investigation. Apparently, it was a used in a sled competition during the wither months, but for now was just a long, flat, smooth slope that was several hundred feet long. Perfect.
Now focused on one direction, he used a simple spell to increase the kinetic energy behind his jumps, and managed to propel himself ahead of the pack. (He would normal just increase the level of reinforcement on his legs, but that wasn't an option seeing as he didn't have the focus to do it while running.) coming up to were the trees broke off at the edge of the slope, he jumped, grabbed something from his wrist, rolled mid air, and landed on his back at the same angle as the slope, facing the wolves.
The object he had grabbed mid air, a small gun decoration from his bracelet, suddenly expanded into a full size military grade assault rifle, and with a flick of the safety, he was shooting at the wolves even as he slid backwards down the slope, successfully stopping their charge and causing them to retreat back to were he couldn't see them.
Sliding unto the flat ground at the end of the slope, he jumped to his feet, quickly shook out the dirt that had gone down the back of his shirt, and took off running in the direction of the town, messing around with the various tools he was carrying as he did so, finishing by checking that the pack strapped to his left hip was still there. Confirming that it was, he redoubled his pace.
Roughly three minutes after he had gone down the cliff, he heard to sound of snarls and howls in the distance. The pack was back on his tail. But this time he had several of his better suited mystic codes ready for battle and in easy access range. He could take them out without risk of being attacked while his guard was down.
By the sound of the wolves, Calastor came to the conclusion that they were roughly forty feet behind him and gaining three feet per second. He didn't look back, rather gazing ahead and focusing entirely on the forest ahead of him.
The wolves closed in behind him. Thirty feet. Twenty five. He kept running. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. He jumped unto a tree branch, his grip iron, and flipped himself so he was upside down balanced on one hand. In the other, he held his re-loaded machine gun, with which he opened fire. The wolves dived aside, but no less than six were killed by the sudden surge of bullets right into their centre.
With a blast of kinetic energy, he was in the air again, rotated until he was vertical with the ground, and kicked off a branch with enough force to send him flying forward and shatter the branch in the process. He shot off with far greater speed than before, easily staying ahead of them now that he was better prepared.
With a final, powerful push, he slammed into the ground roughly a hundred feet ahead of the just now regrouping wolves, spun on his heel, and shot back at the wolf pack. The wolves took a few seconds to register this, by which time he was already on top of them.
Upon reaching them, he dove into their centre, pulled what appeared to be metal shavings out of his pockets, slammed his right foot down at an angle opposite his forward motion, said motion being cancelled out, and spun, throwing the metal in to the directions of various wolves around him. The metal without warning accelerated to speed comparable to his bullets, causing massive injuries to any wolf hit. He was down to twelve relatively unharmed wolves by this point.
His charged a group of two that were still recovering from the surprise attack, slamming the head of the one of the one on the right into the ground with a crunch, foot lashing out to strike the other in the face at the same time, disorientating it. Planting both feet firmly on the ground, he grabbed the still reeling wolf and with a mighty heave threw the four foot tall canine bodily into a cluster of three wolves to his right, before charging another group, with two wolves, on his left who had just recovered.
He dropped unto his back and skidded under a blast of flame from the first wolves mouth as the second jumped to land on top of him, giving the impression of a planned attack. Placing both hands on the ground even as he slid, Clastor slammed his left foot into the ground with enough force to flip him practically vertical, coiled his right leg, and kicked the wolf in the shoulder with enough force he felt bones crumble, causing the creature to shriek as it was vaulted over his body.
Unfortunately this position left his body open to a tackle from the side, and he was sent rolling with another would on top of him, which quickly bit onto his right arm with a grip that would crush steel. Feeling his arm placed under uncomfortable pressure, Calastor tried to pry off the canine off to to no avail.
Realizing that a large number of the remaining wolves were now lunging at him, Calastor chose to waste the mana necessary to both blast apart the skull of the wolf biting his arm and send the other wolves near him flying with notable bruising.
Rising to his feet Calastor quickly pulled what appeared to be a knitting needle out of his boot and threw it at a wolf to his right, only for the animal to jump out of the way of the attack, causing the needle to embed itself in a rather thick tree. The wolves quickly pulled back, realizing that close range combat was a lost cause, and began to bombard him with magecraft, only for the spells to collide with a barrier around his body.
Had the wolves been paying closer attention, they would have realized that every attack that hit the shield damaged the tree with the needle in it.
Calastor blasted into one of the wolves circling him, grabbing it by the neck as it tried to jump aside, the other wolves jumping aside as he slammed it into the ground with a crack. He shot his hand into the ground beside him, ripping out a baseball sized rock, and hurled it at another wolf, who was still off balance from his sudden attack, caving it's skull in when he used a the same spell he used on the metal shards to accelerate the rock to near bullet speeds.
Without warning, three wolves lunged at him, bouncing off the shield. Calastor looked around himslef, as the three circled him closely, one blasting him with blue curses the turned(the tree) to ice as soon as they hit, the others breathe out streams of fire that turned the bark black, but simply flowed around Calastor. Calastor took a fiew swings at the familiars, but they old dodged out of the way. Calastor took a few steps back, only -
"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!"
A howl, a sound-turned-shock-wave, slammed into him. The tree trunk practical shattered, the tree stood for a second, before the tree collapsed downward and DID shatter. Even through his shield, Calastor was sent flying bodily away from the pack, bouncing painfully off of the ground several times before he finally skidded to a stop.
Forcing his sore body back to his feet, he shielded his eyes from the dust, and tried to see the wolves through the cloud. With a slight surge of prana, the cloud was pushed away from him, letting him see that several of the wolves had collapsed to the ground, bleeding from the mouth. Only three wolves remained, each looking rather tired. 'So their bodies can't take the strain of that spell, not surprising, they reduced that tree to pieces, that had to be a ridiculously powerful spell for a familiar. I'd hate to see what would have happened to me if I didn't have unison fate active on that tree.'
Reaching into his other boot, he pulled out a combat knife, and took on a defensive position. The remaining wolves crouched down, looking at him, before, one by one, they slunk of into the woods. Calastor waited for a few minutes before he relaxed. He collected his thoughts, glanced at the sun, and tuned in what he believed was the direction of the town. He had to get their before sunset, the ritual couldn't begin unless there was moon light.
AN: 12:49 AM Saturday 21st, 2018. Ok, well this is somewhat better. Over 2K words. That doesn's seem like that big a difference, except that I've only actually worked on this three days this week . . . yeah, big improvement over my last few chapters, speed wise.
Anyway, This chapter is more or less one big fight and into to Calastor Grain's fighting abilities. Is this him at his best? Hell no, I haven't even displayed his main fighting style. And I won't give you a full character page for him until his more unique traits become plot points.
Ok, review time!
ZenoZen: . . . Yes, ZenoZen, most media's have plot holes and power inconsistency's so it's not surprising . . . but it's still annoying!
Guest: I'll consider bringing in Arjuna(I actually love his design), but not for the fourth war, I'd have to phase out Gilgamesh, and as much as removing him would make the battles less . . . A##-Pully in the end, I've already got plot related plans for him, and their aren't really many servants strong enough for what I need unless I pull Solomon or Siddhartha, and neither of them could play such a good villain unless they were forced to.
Ok, we done? Good, my dads late birthday party's tomorrow and I need to make sure that I don't fall asleep at dinner . . .