In The Shadow Of His Smile
Prince Gauss was crying like a little boy. He was sitting against the reading room’s wall, sobbing and despairing over his absolute failure to spot reason or logic in his universe. It’s not easy to have a tidy mind with neat concepts of thermodynamics and evolution with colossal squids lurking under the coldest waters of Denmark or warmongering Anabaptist shamanic drug warlords cast fireballs against cyber-SWAT squads trying to disrupt their fuzzy vore snuff bunnygirl slave-trade. He tried in vain to imagine a logic reason anyone would want to bring back Busthulhu. He wondered why the hell magic worked one way with wizards, another with vampires.
Then again, being a dragon didn’t quite help.
Being the "deity" of his people got in the way of relationships, too.
His tutor found him. He always did. The bastard spied on him.
"What, Moebius. What now."
"You know it isn’t proper for the heir of the Gamezohan Empire to cry."
"Do I hear and do I care."
"You never have before, sire."
"Heard? Cared?"
"That too, but I meant crying."
"Nothing wrong with that."
"Shows weakness, sire."
"Only if I can’t use it as an instrument of power."
"I don’t think that’s what your highness is doing currently. Should I forward memoranda to the Emperor, sire?"
"You know, old man, I’ll put you to sword as soon as I’m emperor."
"That means I have more thirty thousand years to live, since your father is quite healthy."
Gauss snorted. "Oh, yes, human. You’ll live that long, surely."
Moebius smiled. "I have tutored your grandfather."
"Yes, you probably have, wizard. But you are pretty fucking ugly for a Neanderthal, you know."
Moebius’ smile widened. "Ah, the prince insists in lacking nobility even in speech."
"You mockery of an old... mockery. State your business and run."
"I’m here to remind your highness you have to pass the Eighteenth Trial."
"Ah yes, the joy of birthdays."
"Indeed, sire. Indeed."
As Gauss left to his armory to gear up for the Trial, Moebius chanted between teeth.
"Rex sedet in vertice, caveat ruinam! Nam sub axe legimus Hecubam reginam..."
The helicopter landed in an urban setting. Gauss was in his human-closer intermediate form, which he used in combat. In general, he didn’t leave human shape willingly. But he could hardly forego the extra magic affinity, diamond eyes, extra muscle and scaly wings.
His escorts of the Silver Dragoon Guard retreated back into the aircraft. Soon, he was alone.
His nostrils flared. Orange. He decided to filter out that smell. He also turned off draconic treasure sense, since the tingly scream of the many pennies down the gutter became overwhelming altogether too easily. He was, he decided, in Citrus. What for?
A firefight was going on somewhere. Suddenly Gauss noticed a stench so overpowering he had not understood what it was before. Rotting flesh, all over the city. He swallowed the tic tac he had been sucking. And, as he imagined, a zombie mob turned the corner of Lemon Avenue.
"Dwarvening hell," Gauss thought. Equipped with full Silver Beret officer standard issue, he was carrying about eight hundred pounds of battle armor against magic, energy, ballistic attacks and general melee weaponry, weapons to equip a regiment, communication, surveillance, intelligence, building, destroying, fortifying, infiltrating, tons and tons of gear to found a small city. Warring with Gamezoha could mean a poor nation’s prosperity, if they managed to kill a single Silver Beret.
They never did.
He extended his hand and a 3.2 caliber cannon-pistol jumped to his hand. He blasted the ugliest, closest zombie, a minion of Zog, his data goggles informed him.
Mickey the Cod died again.
"I don’t get it, Oscar. Why is it that whenever one vaguely ‘heroic’ guy is vaguely ‘questing’, he starts bumping into people willing to join him, and he trusts them rather immediately?"
"Perhaps it’s some sort of narrative imperativ-" Gauss ran into Oscar.
"Hey, I’m Gauss, can I join you?"
"Sure. You seem trustworthy."
Awkward moment as the world rewraps itself around this painful damage to the fabric of reality.
"Right. I saw some zombies. 255 of them."
Jon raised his arms against the Heavens. "Curse their holy-number-profaning hides!"
"No, I killed one."
Jon lowered his arm. "Uhm. Oh yeah. 256. Now we can rock."
The zombies were closing in.
Oscar charged. Jon charged. Vinny pointed his arm at the zombies and tried to make it go "pow". Eventually, bluish energy started consuming lines and lines of the undead.
Gauss was trying to assemble his mortar. "Now, tube three-b plugs in slot c8 of barrel t5... where’s barrel t5?..."
Oscar’s sword was covered in flames. He stared at it for a while. Since the flames didn’t burn him, didn’t go away and made zombie-hacking much easier, he just shook his head and continued his harvest of heads.
Jon slashed his way until he was near Oscar. "Hey, winged one! I’ve already killed twenty-four!"
Oscar looked at him, understanding not showing in his eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, how many have you killed?"
"Forty-eight. Why? Are we competing?"
Jon gulped.
"...what, competing? About such frivolous subject? Of course not. Of course. Not."
Eventually all the dead were dead. Again.
"Huh, that was easy," commented Vinny. He immediately knew he shouldn’t have said that. Luck didn’t happen to him. Easy fights were never the fulcrum of a plot. Something very bad would happen, and it would happen soon.
The others knew it too. Swords drawn, Oscar and Jon looked around suspiciously, knowing every cockroach in the street could turn out to be a Great Old One itself. Gauss got his non-eutectic sword from his belt. He entered deep meditation, permeating the nearby space with his personality.
That was just what the Enemy was waiting for.
A cloaked old man teleported himself before the group. He held a staff with a glowing pink orb. "Behold, the bringer of light."
Gauss barely had the time to mutter "Moeb-" before being struck down by a ray of heat, unsurprisingly fired from the orb.
"Gentleman, your quest is over. The tyrant is dead."
Jon shifted uneasily. "Uh... er?"
"I’m saying that I’m good and he’s bad and please stand aside so I can finish him off."
"Oh," said Vinny, "but you stink of lying and... evil... stuff."
"What are you saying, Vinny? My magic finds no evil in this old gentleman."
"Well, he’s just teleported. I’m not the wizard here, but that’s probably harder than something to hide his evil."
"I trust his nose," said Jon. "Psalms 1:1 - ‘how happy is the one who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the assembly of arrogant fools’."
"Uh, yeah. That." Vinny pointed his arm at Moebius. "Go away, or I’ll shoot you."
Moebius smirked. "Fools." He raised his staff. "I have measured your puny power with my zombies! Fear the power of the 1423rd most powerful object in the universe!" Intense, happy pink light flooded the city. Five elementals were created, between the villain and the heroes.
Gauss was back on his feet, his wound closing visibly. He barely dodged a hand of pure darkness, which touched his goggles, making them disappear. "Oh, good, Void."
Oscar hit the water elemental with his fiery sword. There was a loud hiss, and the elemental shrank noticeably. At that moment the water elemental cannoned a jet of water, throwing Oscar against a nearby building. His wings were wounded and wet, he could not fly for the rest of the combat. With zeal, he charged again against the water fiend. He would defeat it. He did.
Jon charged into the fire elemental. "I’m in fire for Jesus!" he proclaimed, and ignoring the painful, scorching burns, pushed the creature against the glass doors of Citrus Mall. The doors collapsed, and both fell into the structure. The sprinklers went on - the elemental went off.
Vinny pointed his finger gleefully at the air elemental and made it go bang. It vanished in blue flash. He smiled, and pointed at the earth creature. He fired. There was no effect whatsoever. He tried it again. He unsmiled, and started backing away. The beast charged. Vinny dodged out of its way. When it turned around, it exploded in a mountain of rubble. Vinny saw Jon grinning, Gauss’s smoking mortar in arms, cradled like a beloved child.
In the meanwhile, Gauss thrust ineffectively the Void elemental. It had created a Void blade, and touching it would mean instant oblivion. As soon as he parried an attack, his sword was gone. Gauss closed his eyes, preparing for the worst. His mind reviewed all it knew, seeking for some useful memory. That’s why people’s lives flash before their eyes. But only a dragon truly remembers.
Gauss was at the Imperial dojo, at the time of his achieving of twelfth dan. He recalled the strong scent of cinnamon incense, the aura of his palace, the touch of the delicate black silk kimono he was wearing, how he had let his grayish-white hair grow for that specific occasion, the taste of iron that remained for years after he forged his first katana, what he was thinking right then - Oscar Wilde: "red-hot iron, white-hot iron, cold-black iron. And iron smells and iron taste, and a Babel of iron sounds" - he remembered that moment and all others, but most importantly, he remembered his sensei’s words.
"If one is to imagine the ‘perfect sword’ that can cut and swing with no resistance, a sword that is an extension of the mind and heart of the warrior who wields it and not a dead weight of steel, then it becomes clear that the sword is of little consequence compared to the will of the strategist. Those who would master the Way must come to understand this: a sword is a tool whose purpose is to cut. Each day the strategist must practice this until it is not practice, but a part of their spirit. The strategist knows that every sword they wield is perfect, for their will is perfect, and it is through their will alone that they win battles."
"I wield a ghost blade," Gauss said. The Void elemental looked at him in vague puzzlement. "There is nothing in my hand, but air. Yet there is also my abstraction of sword. I will it. And with it, I shall strike you down. And you, old man, are next."
"Get him," shrieked Moebius. He pointed his staff at Gauss. The Void elemental assumed the shape of a panther, and readied to pounce.
Gauss extended his hand forward, as if holding a sword. "I dare you."
The Void attacked. In mid air, as it crossed Gauss’s imaginary blade, it ceased to exist, or, more appropriately, it began to exist, Void filled with the dragon’s Will. Moebius started gathering energy around the orb, preparing for a devastating beam of destruction. The staff was blown off his hand by a mortar shell. "Shock and awe, baby!" grinned Jon. "I mean, Psalms 1:6: ‘certainly the Lord rewards the behavior of the godly, but the behavior of the wicked is self-destructive’."
Moebius instantly fell to ground, without the staff. He looked up, into the barrel of the 3.2 caliber cannon-pistol Gauss was pointing to his head. "I am a merciful ruler. I believe in mercy. I believe in redemption. Just repent."
"Don’t do it... I repent... my king... my friend... my-"
Gauss sighed. "This is your Judgment Day." He placed his finger inside the trigger guard. "You know the rules. TELL NO LIES."
Moebius stuttered. He then gritted his teeth. "You fool. I’m only the tip of the iceberg. You and your race... are the past!" The traitor was now cackling madly. "Cthulhu will rise! Nazism will triumph! Mankind is DOOMED! HEIL BUSH!" *BANG*
Gauss looked at the shriveling, headless carcass. "So much for trusted mentor and stuff. I wonder how many of my courtiers are plotting against me right now. Probably all. If I still have a court."
Vinny patted his shoulder. "There, there. You can always join us for no good reason and get away from politics, and ... things... and stuff."
Gauss looked at him. "You know... that almost makes sense."
"I suppose it does," sighed Vinny, "I suppose it does."
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