"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap! Why do you have to set limits on my mana and abilities when I am going to be fighting other overlords?" I thought as I ran from a menacing human; I can see the crackle of electricity shifting across his body.
"Well, for starters, it's fun to watch you panic when I don't tell you what The One took away from you." That would be The One's assistant, who communicates to me through my thoughts. He or she, quite frankly, I can't tell by the voice, enjoys screwing me over in crucial moments.
Another bolt of electricity flew by my head, I decide to take a breather behind a tree, bad idea, it would seem, as I get a jolt by the current as it flows into the ground from the tree. "Quit running and fight me you One lapdog!" He yells at me as I ran away; I begin to short range teleport to get away from him, and manage to get some breathing room between me and him. After a few minutes of short range teleporting I manage to get away, at least until Murray picks up my mana. "Can I at least have my bankai form? It will allow me to fight back," I asked.
"Nope, you have killed many enemies with your magic before you received Manabu from the Bleach universe, have you forgotten your magic?" The assistant replies, "Besides, Simon has given you access too many new magics from his library, and you don't need him to use them."
I sigh, knowing that the assistant is right, and use my mana detection to find out where Murray is; he is gone for the time being.
Why am I fighting Murray you may ask, well it's a pretty short story. I might as well catch you up on the background information as well, which is quite longer. As Murray said I am what non-One affiliated, and some of them too, call a lapdog for The One; basically think of him as god, but less Omniscient, holy, always do good, and more as in oh yeah I forgot to tell you this important thing, do as I say, and morally ambiguous.
He also can't intervene directly in the affairs of the overlords and the worlds. I am the One's "lapdog" because, as stated before, he can't intervene directly and he sends me to fix problems. Don't get me wrong, The One usually sends me to overthrow tyrannical Overlords or intervene when an overlord enters a world and aids the antagonists of that world; I am gone from my world for periods of time, and rarely do I see my castle and minions.
The One, or perhaps The One's assistant, (seeing as how I've never talked to The One directly) sets limits on my powers when I enter 90% of worlds, so that my intervention, coup, or whatever I may be doing, is not only much harder, but is detrimental to my success rate. The assistant says it's to make me "stronger", but I think he enjoys watching me almost die.
You may also be wondering why I would follow orders secondhand from a person I can't interact with, seems to enjoy screwing with me, and says that he is the assistant to the "god" of all the worlds; well, I kind of owe The One, since he ascended me from my world and turned me into an overlord. I feel that as long as The One, whether it is the assistant or not, keeps sending me to places where I experience the misery, which the ruling overlord exerts, that the inhabitants have to put up with; then I will keep following orders so that I can stop their misery.
You heard me talk about mana, well mana, MP, magic, whatever a world calls it, it is all the same, is the raw power that all living beings are infused with at birth. You have mana, your pet has mana, that tree that's outside your window has mana, all of it starts with 1 mana. As you kill things, you are infused with the being's mana, so it snowballs, kill a being with 2 mana? Then now you have 3 mana. A child of 2 beings is bestowed mana equal to half their aggregate amount. Most mana transfer is minor, small increments that add up faster than you think, but in my case, I was infused with a large amount quickly, which causes terrible hallucinations and night terrors, temporarily. Overlord's non-natural death causes their mana to surge to their killer. Everything you do temporarily uses up certain amounts of your mana pool, human activities rarely surpass the 1 range, but magic can take up vast amounts of mana to use, depending on the strength of the spell.
Oh yeah, might as well tell you about overlords, overlords are in essence magical beings that range from humans and humanoids, to unshaped monstrosities and everything in between. I am by no means the strongest overlord, I think that title goes to Zetta, who is a book right now, which is a different story, but I am not an overlord that should be underestimated. Being an overlord that helps The One has its advantages, mostly being death proof. I still lose most of my mana if I die, but The One reincarnates me in my original shape back at my world. I haven't died yet, but I'm hoping that The One follows through when I do.
As you probably have already deduced, I am fighting Murray because he intervened in this worlds affairs. Usually if I have to spend long periods of time to assist in a world I am given full details about the world and given a full background in the world from The One. Since Murray made his move obvious and quickly, all I have to do is get rid of him. Easier said than done of course, but I have to wait for him to reappear.
Suppressing my mana I enter a small, urban town, looking around I see limestone buildings with a Greek architectural model. It seems that many concepts from my original world are shared among several worlds. I ignore the townspeople and head toward the bar in the town… and walk right on past it toward a lonely grassy hill, based on this, you probably can guess that I do not like being social in the worlds. I barely can hold a conversation, and the only reason I can keep talking to you is that we aren't conversing, (at least we shouldn't be, otherwise you are talking to a computer screen). I climb the grassy hill to reach the top, slipping on some loose mud, but regaining my balance quickly to reach the top of the modest hill. As I sit on the grass I realize that it is very stiff and pokey, but I sit down anyways, even though I do not wish to get my white jacket dirty.
I lean up against the gnarled bark of the Oak tree leaning precariously over the slight incline of the hill. I look out along the rolling fields of… umm, some sort of crop, it appears to stand upright like corn, but much taller and appears to have bunches like a banana tree. The wind blows through my short, brown hair, my gelled hair in front unmoved by the wind. The clouds today are exquisite, low hanging, white and puffy, providing a short respite from the sun's ray for the crop. All of this was relaxing, relaxing enough to fall asleep to.
I wake up with a jolt, suddenly feeling Murray's mana. I rub my face and look back at the field, it seems that I slept through the day and the blanket of night has fallen over the area. The stars have peeked out from the clouds and a transparent fog has settled among the crop. I stretch my body and I stand up, wiping off some dirt from the green stripes on the back of my jacket; the temperature is getting low, so I grab my chilly metal zipper and zip my jacket up. The zipper forces the collar upwards, keeping my neck warm from the frigid winds.
I stand up, letting my eyes adjust to the new lighting conditions; I set out towards where I sense Murray's mana. Unfortunately, it is in the direction of the field, with a sigh I begin making my way through the field.
Then, I shiver, even though the wind doesn't seem to be blowing. I dive forward as a bolt of electricity smashes where I was standing, I force up a wall of stone to lift myself up from the current. I create another wall of stone behind him as I create a wind current to slam him against the wall. He is caught off guard as his attention shifted to the wall when the wind hit him. The wind slams him into the wall and with one hand I keep the wind constant. Now that he is pinned against the wall from the wind, I charge up a few seconds with my other hand and chuck a large fireball at him.
The fireball collides with him and sets him ablaze. I hear him screaming, which makes me cringe, for a few seconds before the fire and the wind drown out the sound, I sit cross-legged on my stone pillar waiting for him to die. All of a sudden the fire and the wall begins to arc electricity and a blast of electricity dissipates the fireball and smashes into me. I am sent flying into the field smashing into the ground and skipping along the ground. I struggle to stand as I see Murray charged with electricity, arcing all around his body. "So you finally decided to fight I see, lapdog," he comments. Hoping that he doesn't see me, I take my katana and stick it in the ground. I begin to short-range teleport around the field, throwing weak stone spells at him. Each time I throw one he blasts where it came from, but instead of hitting his target, it redirects toward my katana.
"Quit hiding!" Murray yells as he smashes away another stone. There is a delay and then I rip up a chunk of earth and toss it at him. He blasts through it, and then I teleport above him and axe kick him into the ground, I land near him. That was a mistake it would seem, as he places his hand into the ground and he begins charging up electricity. The clouds in the night sky begin to darken, and lightning strikes several times at Murray's location. I try to run but realize that he is going to use a shockwave, area of effect spell, so in a panic I grab my sword and begin making water armor.
I cover my entire body with water, but making sure that it wasn't touching my body anywhere. The blast radiates outwards just as I finish the armor, and the armor collects the charge that was going to hit me. I see the electricity arcing around the water, and I collect it in a sphere in front of me. I then shoot the sphere at Murray, he laughs as it hits him, because it recharges him for another attack, but as the water hits him I create a spiked earthen pillar beneath him, impaling him where he stood.
The electricity still arcs on his body as he weakly tries to get off the pillar, but it's of no use. I hear him mumbling something, so I move to listen to what he is saying. "You may have killed me, but the Overlords' Resistance does not end with me," he says weakly. Thinking that it is the ravings of an insane dieing man; I return to my spot from earlier, and stick my sword into the ground. To make sure he's dead, I morbidly watch as the electricity arcing on his body begins to dwindle, and eventually stop all together.
"This is actually my first time killing an overlord. I have defeated monsters and humanoids, but this is the first time I have killed an enemy that talked back, that had minions, that had a LIFE outside of attempting a coup in this world. Perhaps he deserved it, an overlord that loses to me with as little power as I used was bound to be killed sooner or later," I think to myself as I spectate.
He begins to fade and I feel his mana becoming mine.
The crescent moon begins to sit low in the sky and the sun seems to be just about on the horizon, and I am staring at a plain stone pillar. I sluggishly stand up as I glumly walk to pick up my sword, still stuck in the ground from last night's events. "Great job, now take a while off," the assistant congratulated. And so I returned back to my world.