Julien knew something must have happened when the warehouse shattered into view. Cracks spread like lightning. The facade splintering into dozen of dark fragments like fractured obsidian. Brick walls now gleamed in the moonlight. The warehouse now stood as plainly and boldly as if it had never been hidden by ancient magics.
A trio of dogs yipped at the front gate. Julien paid them no heed. He did not care if they had once been accompanied the dragon girl and the so called hero. He was far more interested in what was happening inside.
If the illusion that once hid the building was now shattered, then that likely meant that whatever evil was there was now defeated. It also meant that he didn't have long to seize his moment.
'What are you waiting for?' Malic Korvoth whispered, 'Now is the perfect moment,'
"What's with the urgency? It wasn't that long ago that you were the one telling me to take my time."
'I simply crave freedom. It's been so long that i've been able to perform my divine duties,'
"One small taste and all you crave is more,"
Malic only growled in response. Julien ignored it as he began weaving the mystical energies around him. A dark swirling vortex opened before him. A nifty power the gems had given him. The ability to take him anywhere he wanted provided he knew where he was going.
Opening a portal without a destination in mind was a dangerous thing he'd learned. Not only would it be unstable but also liable take one into a random location on the planet. Like for instance a swamp. He had to spend a few hours in the shower after that incident.
He stepped into it. It felt he was walking into a dark constraining closet. the pressure so intense he likened it to standing at the bottom of the ocean. But it would only last a moment before he would step out the other side. When he did he would find himself in the middle of a great soppy pandemonium.
Swiftshadow could only watch in horror as the man once known Calvin grow and mutate. Antlers erupted out of his scalp, branching out in all directions like the gnarled branches of an old tree. Thick umber fur coated his body and his fingers harden into hooves. his face jutted forward into a muzzle as long fangs grew from his upper jaw. His muscles bulked out enough to put most bodybuilders to shame.
He now resembled a strange hybrid of man and deer. He stood on two legs at well over seven feet, not including the antlers. Each finger was tipped a hard hoof capsule. The gem lay imbedded in his chest. The flesh grown around it fusing it to Calvin's body. Icy blue eyes stared coldly at her and Megamind. He let out a hellish bellow. It shook the ground and sounded like all chorus of all the coldest winds wailing in unison.
He dropped to all fours and charged. All his tines pointed directly at her like a hundred daggers. She couldn't move. Not with Wayne behind her. The stinging in her side reminded her of what those things could do. She had to stand her ground.
Unfortunately Wayne didn't see it that way. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tossed her aside just before Calvin's tines could bury themselves into her flesh. Unfortunately they buried deep into his. The deer beasts momentum carried forward into a wall. Cracks spiderwebbed across it. An alarm blared as water rained down from the ceiling.
The impact had somehow triggered the sprinkler system Swiftshadow concluded. The cubes flashed when the water made contact. The former hostages took their place free of their deer forms.
Calvin retreated back as Wayne slumped down the wall. Blood seeped from several puncture wounds.
"Pity, he would've made an excellent minion," Calvin said in an all too wrong voice. It seemed like it was merged with someone else's. Or something else.
"You're next," He turned his pale blue eyes on Swiftshadow and charged.
A little round ball landed between them. Wilson turned the visor dark as it popped. It was like viewing a supernova through a welding mask. The beast screamed in agony as he clawed at his blind eyes. Her eyes however were protected by the visor, safe from the bright bombs blinding effects.
Megamind stood valiantly with several bright bombs in hand.
"Pity, he would've made an excellent minion," Calvin's voice trembled into Megamind's bones. The sprinklers soaked him to his bones. Metro Man lay prone slumped on the wall. Blood staining his soaked coat.
In that moment Megamind realized just how truly powerful his foe was. In all his life, since the day the two of them rocketed out into space as babes, Megamind never once saw Metro Man shed a single drop of blood. Not even so much as a nose bleed. Not even his most devastating weapon, the Death Ray, was unable to even unsettle a single perfect hair on his head.
Yet here he was, on the ground. Bleeding.
"Roxanne, take the hostages and get out of here. Minion grab Wayne," He reached into his utility belt and grabbed another bright bomb.
She nodded and starting herding the hostages towards the exit.
Megamind charged forward as the deer beast brandished his tines at Swiftshadow. He skidded over the wet concrete as he chucked the bomb before the beast. He flicked down a modified welding visor as he did so. He knew it worked as the beast cried out in agony.
Minion helped Metro Man to his feet.
A dark portal appeared on a nearby wall. The boy know as Julien steps out of it. He stood flabbergasted at the chaos before him. Somehow Megamind couldn't help but think that this wasn't good.
The moment the beast regained its vision it charged at the first thing it saw. And that was Julien.
When the beast charged at Julien, Swiftshadow didn't have time to think. She didn't have time to think over what she was doing or why. She just acted. She pounced onto the beasts back, wrapping her jaws around a tine. Talons digging deeply into his hide.
She wrenched the beasts head sideways. The beast swerved to the side narrowly missing Julien. The beast beneath her bucked relentlessly. A part her felt like a cowboy in a rodeo. He reared and tossed his head. Her wings and tail kept her balance. As his hind quarters kicked up the tine in her jaws snapped. She flung forward skidding across the floor.
She felt the stampeding hooves approach. She expected to be trampled and gored. Yet that didn't happen. She glanced up to see the beast struggling in a tangled mess of shadowy tendrils. Julien stood with an outstretched hand. the serpent gem glowing brightly on his lapel.
"Wilson!" She wasted no time in readying herself. Electricity surged down her back and throughout her wings. She allowed her soul fire to mix into the fray. She drew a breath and fired. A silvery bolt of lightning exploded from her maw, hitting its target. The beast flew into a wall. The tendrils torn apart.
The beast was still for only a moment. Fur singed and smoking. The smell of burning hair entered her nostrils. And for a single blissful moment Swiftshadow had thought the battle was over. Then the beast stirred. He rose to his full height. Maniacal laughter echoed throughout the warehouse.
"You think you've got the best of me?!" He challenged, "I am merely just beginning,"
He disappeared. Vanished. Invisible.
Megamind was suddenly flung into the air. HIs body tumbled into Minion and Metro Man. The three of the them collapsed into a tangled pile. Roxanne shouted something as she helped the last person through the door.
Julien was next. An invisible hand gripped him by the neck and slammed him to the ground. Wilson shouted terrified for his nephews life.
Swiftshadow knew she had to do something. But how does one combat an invisible enemy? Malic Korvoth's presence filled this entire building like a noxious gas. Oppressive and suffocating. Her spirit sense could only tell her so much. Unless she located him like she did with the very building she now stood in. She channeled her magic into her eyes and the beast appeared before her.
She dove out of the way of his charge. HIs aura was now a sickly stone grey. The Gems blue was the only colour present. He shook his head in confusion and surprise. He pawed the wet concrete sending up splashes of water. He charged her again.
She launched herself over him sending down a torrent of soul fire raining down upon him. The Deer beast screeched in agony as the flames burned away at his hide. His illusion shattered like black dyed eggshell. Calvin bucked and thrashed as the flames burned his flesh. He managed to douse the flames by rolling on the waterlogged concrete.
Dark tendrils ensnared him once again.
Dark energies swirled around Julien. Dark bruises formed around his neck. HIs aura was a pale watery green that was almost grey. A green star on his lapel and a pair of colours in his breast pocket. Violet and orange.
She was so distracted by his aura she almost didn't notice him reach out with a tendril. With a swift and visceral motion he tore the blue stag pendent out of Calvin's chest. The beast screamed as blood spurted from the gaping hole where the gem once lay.
The beast collapsed into a puddle. Consciousness faded from his eyes. the muscles shrank and the antlers fell off. The beast was no longer a beast. Calvin lay in a puddle buck naked. Fortunately he was face down. There were somethings that Swiftshadow knew that she did not want to see.
She blinked away the magic in her eyes. She looked over her shoulder to see Julien standing proudly with the stag gem in hand.