Unfathomable Power, Book 2, Chapter 57

I backpedaled as quickly as I could, avoiding the pole that the old man whipped back and forth with speed that cracked the air. I attempted to grab it on a backswing, nearly losing two fingers. Instead, they were broken, maybe shattered. The pole, when in motion, felt like it weighed several tons. Trying to grab it had been like trying to grab onto a bullet train.

He used my moment of distracted pain to land a haymaker on my jaw, the blow sending me tumbling across the desert for several yards. I managed to keep moving with the momentum, throwing myself up and to the side just in time for that pole to slam into the dirt hard enough to blast me back with a small explosion.

The old man was laughing again.

“You’re so fun!” The weird, static-filled, record-scratch voice of the Waker grated upon my psyche. The pole came again, a wide-sweeping strike that I was sure would obliterate my stomach if it hit. I awkwardly leaped up and lifted my legs perpendicular to the ground as it barely missed hitting me, with its passing tearing at my Clothes of the Other Side. I felt them shudder in discomfort at the near miss.

Before I could get my feet under me, the Old Man dropped the pole and caught it in his other hand, but brought the newly freed hand back in a backhand that I barely got my hands in front of. It sent me sailing again.

Jesus Christ, he’s knocking me around like a tetherball.

I roared, tentacles bursting from my thighs, shoulders, and back as I sailed through the air. I felt my skin go back to the void coloration as I stopped holding myself back, and I even grew a few inches. My spine, thighs, and biceps were cracking and popping along with my fingers and toes as I stretched out, topping seven feet in height. Half a dozen tentacles stabbed into the ground and halted my flight, and with a mighty flex moved me aside as the old man appeared, leading with the pole. Another crater was born as the pole narrowly missed slamming into my clavicle.

I lashed out with the remaining tentacles, sending them in low and stabbing them into his legs. I lost a good quarter of them to a flick of the pole but traded the explosive pain for three nasty holes I tore into his thigh and calf. With a mental flex, the tentacles grew wicked barbs, and I rattled them in the wounds before ripping them out.

The Waker didn’t bleed. Instead, hazy images poured out of his wounds, accompanied by myriad smells and sounds that you could just barely detect. The images and sensations poured from his wounds, at one point a liquid, next a gas, then back to a liquid. I didn’t have time to see much more as the old man roared like an old modem mixed with an air-raid siren and snapped the pole in my direction.

I wasn’t close enough for him to reach me, so I assumed I was safe. I was wrong. A blast of compressed air slammed into me and sent me tumbling, my body feeling like I had just been in a car crash. I shakily got to my feet just as the Waker hobbled up to me, his ridiculous speed making his hobbling gait look ludicrous and horrifying in equal measure. He reeled back with his rod and I saw my chance.

I dove forward, bringing my elbows into my chest in a tight boxer’s stance as I got within his weapons reach. His face cleared for a second and I saw his eyes widen in alarm as my left hand (the one with the broken ring and pinkie finger) jabbed out and struck his wrist, spoiling his strike and sending pain exploding up my arm. I screamed through the sensation and planted my right foot between his, stepping into him as I executed the best uppercut of my life. I felt the Other Side coated knuckles of my right connect into the soft tissue under the Waker’s jaw and rocked his head back like a Pez dispenser. His feet left the ground from the power of the strike, but I wasn’t done.

I shuffled closer and brought my elbow down, a sudden inspiration blooming mid-strike as I instructed the LotOS to grow a spike out of my elbow. A thrill of victory ran through me as the black, living armor followed my command in the split second before impact, stabbing three inches into the Waker’s chest as my elbow halted his upward momentum and sent him back to the ground. I moved forward to pounce on him, but a stray kick to my hip sent me tumbling away.

“I’m—“ the Waker coughed an image of a strange tool made of bone. The image clung to his chin and dripped down to his throat, before changing into the sounds of some animal I had never heard before. “I’m no longer having fun.”

The Waker rose to his feet and slowly advanced on me. Slow compared to his previous speed, that is. He was still moving faster than an Olympic sprinter. Instead of the huge, telegraphed swipes of his rod, he now moved it much like a saber. A nine-foot saber that hit like a wrecking ball. I rolled away from his first few probing attacks, barely managing to get to my feet.

I began to lose tentacles as I was forced to use them to keep him at bay. One by one he’d clip them off me, like he was pruning a bonsai. I was down to four when that rod clipped my left forearm, a grazing blow that felt like being hit by a truck. It transferred enough kinetic energy that I felt my arm wrenched in its socket and made me stumble down to a knee. The Waker’s body language lit up with excitement as he pressed his advantage.

Which is when I hit him with a harpoon of telekinetic force.

I may have forgotten how to use my silent passengers new trick, but I was still a goddamned wizard/warlock. I had magic, goddamnit. The Waker took the hit in the abdomen and was thrown back, and was so surprised that he dropped his rod. Unfortunately, avatars of the Distiller seemed to have some innate magical insulation, as the magic failed to penetrate. The Doorman hadn’t been too bothered by my magic, either.

I growled, clutching my arm to my chest as I rushed after the Waker. My arm was a mass of pain, a pulsing sensation of pure pressure, but I didn’t think it was broken. Probably fractured, with how much it was hurting. I think the LotOS had distributed the energy over a wider area to save my arm. I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow my arm wasn’t a giant bruise… if I could even bruise anymore.

The Waker rolled to his feet as I arrived. I went to close the distance on him again, and I could tell by how quickly he tried to get away he was now well and truly wary of me. He shook his hand, once again summoning back his rod, but I knocked it out of his hand with a bar of telekinetic force. Static exploded out of the Waker in what I assumed was a growl of frustration, but I didn’t give him time to wallow in it. I stepped into him and prepared to hammer him with a right cross.

Only, my footing was wrong. I didn’t generate the power I needed, and something was wrong with my right hand. My fist connected badly with the Waker’s face, and I felt something in my wrist snap. I was so surprised I didn’t notice the Waker’s fist until it landed on my ribs with enough force to send me into the air. I heard several snaps.

I landed several yards away and quickly, ungainly got back to my feet just in time for the Waker to arrive. He started pummeling me, a wave of panic searing through me as I was unable to defend myself. My movements were ungainly, my reflexes shot. If I blocked a punch it was only due to instinct rather than skill, often pure chance.

I don’t know how to fight anymore.

I shoved him away to buy time, screaming as the movement made my fingers and wrist explode with pain. I cast a glance over my shoulder at the Elysium agents for help. What I saw made my stomach fall. They were all… on the ground, drooling. Only Albright, Calhoun, and Kristy seemed to be paying attention, Albright holding his hands forward in a warding gesture that I assumed was to combat whatever memory attack the Waker was doing.

I snapped my eyes back in time to awkwardly dodge a hit from the Waker. I fell on my ass and scrambled away, each movement sending forks of lightning up my arms of pain.

“Sheb Benfomat Dedend,” the Waker said.

I—I couldn’t understand him. I felt like I should.

More of that horrible laughter tore through the night as the Waker casually kicked me, in the same spot he had punched earlier. I couldn’t even react. The pain was such that I blacked out. I came to moments later, rolling to a stop next to… a prickly thing. Oh god. What is this?! I SHOULD KNOW WHAT THIS IS! I latched onto anything I knew about it, trying to dredge up what it was. It was green. It had… things on it. They poked you. WHAT IS IT?!

The Waker laughed again, the noises horrible but I had no words for them anymore. I just knew they were wrong. I tried to stand but I was having trouble moving. I barely saw the Waker approach as he hit me across the face with the back of his… end of arm. Oh no.

Something in my jaw snapped as he hit me, and my head hit the ground and bounced. I made wordless noises, crawling away from the… the bad man that was hurting me. Why was he hurting me?

I felt my thoughts become simpler. There was so much less to draw from. I knew I had magic. I don’t know how but I knew I did. I screamed and threw it at the bad man. The result was a slight fluttering of the dust on the ground and of the bad man's clothes, which caused him to laugh horribly again.

The bad man kicked me, almost lazily, onto my back. Before I could do more than whimper his arm-things grabbed my neck and began to squeeze. I tried to fight him off, but it was like my arms were broken. I think they are. There’s so much pain.

The bad man spoke again but I couldn’t understand him. My chest hurt so much, but now there was a new pain. I needed to use my neck, but the bad man kept crushing it. I—

I—

I don’t know what to do.