Adventures of John: New World Order
Chapter 7: Preparing for War
Jack flew out of the way as the Gatling gun blasted me to oblivion. Or, at least, it would have if I had still been standing there. I had drawn on some of the energy I had taken from the battery, giving myself a burst of speed and flashing across to the other side of the quad. "Is that all you can do?!" I shouted at the robot. "You've got to be faster than that!"
"What are you trying to do?" Jack questioned me, whirling around the robot in an attempt to distract it. "Get it angry?"
"It's a machine," I told him, "it can't get angry. Besides, all we have to do is take out its power source. It can't do anything without power." I then flashed to the walkway overlooking the quad, escaping another blast from the robot.
"And how do you plan to do that?" he asked, blasting the robot with ice in an attempt to freeze it. Unfortunately, before the ice could cover it entirely it began to heat up, melting the ice into slush. "It seems to be pretty smart for a robot," Jack remarked. "Not to mention the giant machine gun in its head."
The mechanical monstrosity, apparently having had enough of my vanishing act, turned its gun on Jack. "Jack!" I exclaimed, but it was too late. A salvo of energy blasts emerged from the gun, blasting Jack into the earth, and then hitting him a dozen more times. I zipped over to the crater the blasts had formed to see him slowly crawl to his feet.
"That… hurt," he muttered. Seeing my worry, he waved me off weakly. "Don't worry about me," he told me. "I'm an immortal, remember? Worry about them." He waved at the people in the cafeteria and the quad, some of which were staring in wonder while others cowered in fear. "Save them," he told me. "Be the hero. Be John the Adventurer, even if you don't have the armor and the cape."
"It's a cloak," I informed him as I turned back to the massive machine. "You hurt my friend," I told it. "You've made me angry." My eyes began to glow golden as I gathered what little magical energy I had left. "And you won't like me when I'm angry." I began to vibrate at impossible speeds, until it was difficult to make out anything of me other than a blurred outline. I leaped at the robot then, flashing past it taking a chunk of its armor with me. I came at it again and again, faster than the eye could see, each time removing a piece of its armor and wiring. After what felt like an eternity but was more like five seconds I stood panting amid the scattered pieces of what had once been a massive robot, the only intact piece a glowing blue orb the size of my fist. "Well," I sighed, breathing heavily, my hair sticking in every direction. "That must be what being the Flash feels like." With that I fell to my knees, barely keeping from falling unconscious.
"Yes!" I exclaimed, pumping my fist in the air weakly. "Didn't pass out this time!"
"Good job," Jack laughed, limping towards me and reaching out his hand. "So what now?"
"Now," I answered, grabbing the orb that had been the robot's power source. "We arm ourselves." I grabbed his outstretched hand, pulling myself up. "You!" I pointed at the little group that I had gathered. "Come with me!" They all stepped forward, and I turned my finger to Edwardo. "Not you Edwardo!" I told him. "I can't have a member of the group who can't see one of the other members. Stay here and contemplate the fact that everything you ever believed was wrong with everyone else. Daney, Daniella, Amy, Amber, you come with me." I strode purposely to the parking lot, not waiting to see if the others were following.
"You had magical powers this whole time!?" Daney exclaimed as she caught up to me. "And you never told me?!"
"Actually I did," I responded. "Many times. You just thought I was joking."
"Why didn't you ever do anything magical before?" she questioned.
"Our world is basically magically dead," I informed her and the others. "I am actually an incredibly powerful sorcerer, but without any magic to draw on I can't do anything. Luckily the robots are powered by magic, so when I snagged their batteries I was able to use the power inside them. Hence the whole robot-tackling plan."
"So what are we doing now?" Amy asked.
"Getting weapons. If you want to turn back you can, but I would personally prefer being armed to the teeth when the Unlidary send more robots to the school."
"Why don't we just call the Doctor?" Amber asked.
"You know the Doctor?!" Amy, Daney, and Daniella all asked in shocked unison.
"And how does she know?" Daniella added.
"She reads my stories," I answered. "If you had started reading them when I had asked, you would know too. But we can't call the Doctor. Last time we met, he had recently acquired the Cyberman head known as Handles. Do you know what that means? That means that right now he's at Trenzalore, fighting a war that will last three centuries. He won't be able to help us."
"But he's the Doctor!" Daney countered. "You could just contact a younger version of him, or even the Twelfth Doctor."
"I can't," I replied sadly. "The number the Doctor gave me seems to have a pretty linear connection to him. Besides, the Doctor didn't know me when we met. If I were to meet a younger version of him it could create a paradox. And there are… other issues with trying to contact future versions of the Doctor." It wouldn't be my Doctor, I thought inwardly. "Either way, we can't rely on him for help. We are going to have to fix this ourselves." Unfortunately I had been driven to school by a robot, so my car was still at the house, but I could still steal one of the cars the robots had been using. Yes, that is illegal, but seeing as the government was currently being run by evil aliens from outer space and I was stealing the car from their evil robot servants, I decided I could make an exception.
I hopped in one of the cars, and just as I had expected, the robot drivers had left the keys in the ignition. In the "perfect world" they believed they had created, there would be no reason to worry about such things. Luckily for me the robots turned out to be so naïve. Before I got in a pair of jets flew by, and enhancing my sight with a bit of magic I could make out one of the pilots saluting to me before heading off to another section of the city. There were still plenty more robots in the city, but hopefully I had made enough of a difference that the Area 51 guys would be able to make it out of this fight mostly intact.
"Get in losers," I told my gang. "We're going to the armory."
. . . . .
"So where are we going?" Daniella asked as we passed through the gate of a gated community.
"My house," I answered, pulling up to it and parking directly in front of the walkway leading to the door. We got out and went into the house, Amber and Daniella looking around. "No time for a tour," I told them. "We need to get the weapons and get out of here before the tracker undoubtedly in that car leads them straight to us." We walked down to the stairs into my basement bedroom, where my cats Stripes and Stars meowed their annoyance at me. I then went to my wardrobe and removed several of the items from above it, placing them on the ground.
"I remember this stuff," Daney told me, touching the katana that I had set down. "You showed it to me and Amy the first time we came here."
"Yes I did," I agreed. "What I didn't tell you is that these items are enchanted."
"The 'made in China' sword is enchanted?" Daney asked incredulously.
"Well, they weren't always enchanted," I laughed. "I enchanted them."
"I thought you said that our world was magically dead," Amber said questioningly.
"Mostly," I replied, grabbing the last item. "It's not so much magically dead as magically dying. If it was completely magically dead there would be no magical realms for me to travel to. There is some magic left, but not enough for me to use my powers outside of the mystical realms. For the most part, it seems that ritual magic is the only kind that works in the mortal realm, and even that is iffy at best. Unfortunately I've never been very good at ritual magic, which is probably why I nearly erased myself from existence the first time I tried to use the rift spell, but I was able to enchant some of my items. Nothing that would work normally, unfortunately, but with a bit of magic…" I touched each of the objects with the glowing orb, giving each of them a faint blue luminescence. "They will work just fine."
Displayed on the floor was the factory-made katana, along with a far more genuine hand-crafted fifty-year old machete my parents had acquired in Guatemala. Also there was a dagger, a small sphere with a Chinese dragon on it, and a small box, which I quickly pocketed.
"What was that?" Daniella asked, seeing the movement.
"Not something you ever want to see used," I answered her.
"What about this?" Amber inquired, pulling out an old gnarled staff with a thickly knotted top and a broken-off bottom.
"Oh!" I exclaimed. "My old staff!" I tapped it with the blue orb, the knots on the top becoming thicker and the broken bottom shifting into a claw-like tip. "I carved that myself, you know. Not as good as my somewhat newer one, which I also carved myself, but even broken it's still good in a fight." I pulled out my staff, a long length of white wood carved with Nordic runes, and tapped it with the giant robot's former power source, the runes in the staff glowing a bright blue. "That's all then. The swords and dagger are enchanted to cut through anything, from adamantium to spirits."
"Adamantium isn't real," Daney told me.
"Not in this universe maybe," I laughed. "My old staff is enchanted so that if thrown the tip will always hit the target. Also it increases agility, the tip can pierce any armor, and the knotted top can deliver crushing blows. All of the weapons have an enchantment that makes the wielder an expert in that weapon's particular fighting style, which is a really good thing, seeing as I doubt any of you have skill with a blade."
"What about that?" Amy asked, pointing at the dragon-sphere.
"That's a medicine ball," I answered. "I decided it would be fitting to give it a healing enchantment. Unfortunately they come in twos and I enchanted them together, so they aren't as powerful separate, and I lost the second one a few years ago. It can still heal, but not nearly as much as I would like."
"Why didn't you use any of this in the World War Magic?" Amber asked.
"You mean the time when the whole world was nearly consumed by the Darkness but none of you regular people can remember it?" I replied. "Back then I had so much magic I didn't need them. Right now we have to rely on what magic we can get from the alien robots' batteries, so we are going to have to conserve energy. Besides, none of you have magical powers. These toys of mine will make it so you can actually do something useful. So come on then, pick your weapons!"
Amy grabbed the katana while Daney snatched the machete. Daniella snagged the broken staff, while Amber took the dagger and medicine ball. With everyone else's weapons chosen, I picked up my staff, feeling the energies coursing through me.
"So what now?" Amy asked.
"Did you get that army I asked for Jack?" I asked Jack.
"Of course," he answered, twiddling his crooked staff.
"Then we are going to get our army," I stated, "and then we are taking the fight to the Unlidary. We are taking back our planet."
