Under Fire.

Rave looked at her phone as her connection was suddenly cut. “Shit.” She mumbled, “And he just called to warn us.” “Did he? Well a bit too late.” “From the sound of it he just went through a fight of his own.” Rave explained as the two of them looked around. “A full-on trap barrier, huh?” She exhaled with tension, “What’s the difference to a normal one?” “They only pull in their targets and block most communications. My phone normally shouldn’t lose connection even in a Barrier.”

John clicked his tongue, “Urgh, if only Aclysia was with us I would feel a lot safer.” He said and noticed a shimmering at the rooftop. He pointed his hand up there and used Mana Ray. The attacks charging time finished just in time as well it seemed, the attack stopping halfway through the air as it collided with something on the path. A moment later the sound of the gun vibrated through the air.

“On the roof!” Shouted and started running for the school. They couldn’t stay out in the open with a sniper on them. “I’ll take care of it!” Rave said and used her superior Agility in a fairly impressive way as she outran him and then started climbing the school’s façade.

John would only have endangered himself if he tried that kind of manoeuvre so he entered the building the traditional way. He was promptly met by a hooded figure trying to hit him with a stone sword.

Well that didn’t help that much. John dodged the strike narrowly and almost stumbled into another one of the golems. The black stone bones rattled underneath robes as the Golem took a swing at him as well. John wouldn’t be able to dodge, he needed to try it, he used Possession.

The Golem stopped abruptly in his strike and John retreated to safety to get a better view of the situation. Aside from the one that originally went form him there were two others of the robed Soldier Golems. He positioned his new Golem body between himself and the enemy and took a look at his mana. Currently he had 290 Mana and regenerated 21 – 12 that meant he still had 9 Mana per Minute to spare.

That meant he either could use his other skills or try to overtake a second Golem. With two Golems he would have turned this 1vs4 situation into a 3vs2 in his favour. Problem was that he had no idea whether or not the skill actually allowed him to take over two objects at once, he hadn’t tried yet. He had to make the decision as the enemy trio went on the offensive. Two of the adversaries went after the turned Golem while a third one went around to attack John, ‘No better time than the present to find out!’ He told himself and used Possession a second time.

Okay, so that was bad. He more or less put his Golem on Auto-Pilot, which was a thing he didn’t even know he could do until now. Maybe because the Golem had been able to move on his own beforehand as well? Whatever he had to focus on dodging.

Well, if he couldn’t use another one of the Golem’s there always was another way to get another ally into the field. He flipped the mental switch to give Gnome a corporeal form. A bulge of cement formed from the floor and formed into the little girl with yellow dress that was the Earth Elementals Avatar.

Now of what help would a little girl be? Not much. What help would a little girl made from stone be? Well when she got the message of what she was supposed to do and grabbed the Golem by its skeletal ankle John no longer had to worry about dodging as the enemy was now, effectively, shackled to the ground.

‘Thanks Gnome.’ He sent to his familiar, ‘no problem John.’ Gnome waved with her free hand as John pulled the Sword of Glory from his inventory. Sure, he wasn’t able to handle the weapon properly but he still could swing at a few times at an immobilized enemy with a weapon that was way shorter than his. Long Story short he very clumsily hacked apart the Golem that had been attacking him.

Just in time too as the other two finished the one under his command. John was a bit panicked for a moment, handling two at once could be a bit of a pickle. The Golems, if they were even capable of that, seemed to giggle as they realized that as well. However, John had an even better realization. The Golem he had just used had died so all he needed to do in this situation was….

The two Golem’s made a step towards him. John pointed his finger at the left one and said. “Wololooo.” In what was perhaps the most stupid reference he ever made before his new Possession target tackled its old buddy.

Having the limitation of only one target at a time was only a little problem if he could use all of them as sacrificial pawns. The Golems crashed on the ground and the enemy one was pummelled by strikes by John in his temporary body. He also sent Gnome over and the Elemental ended the enemies’ existence with a stomp of her stone foot that shattered the head.

“Great, let’s head up.” He said to…. himself actually. He was the Golem and Gnome shared his thoughts anyhow. Still, felt weirder to not say anything. He handed the Golem the Sword of Glory. The artificial body was able to handle it more easily. Sending the Golem up front to take eventual enemies and with Gnome at the rear he also felt safe from enemy ambushes.

Unsurprisingly the rest of the building was also filled with these kinds of Golem’s. Now that he had a strategy however they weren’t that hard to deal with. He just sent the one he was Possessing up front. Not only was it vastly superior to the enemy thanks to a longer and sturdier weapon but John, without wanting to pat himself on the back, also was a lot smarter than some thrown together Artificial Soldiers and as he was controlling the Golem he could actually outmanoeuvre them a lot of times. Once a Golem did crumble because of a mistake or sheer **** of numbers he just used a new one, picked up the Sword and they continued on their way.

Only at the stairs to the third floor did he encounter some meaningful resistance in the she shape of around fifty of the blasted things standing on the steps like some kind of black bloc that wanted to obstruct his every step. It would take a lot of time to take out such a **** so as they readied their weapons John sighed.

Luckily there was a creative solution for everything. As the bloc took a step as one John sent a mental command to Gnome. ‘If you would be so kind?’ He asked nicely but the intent was clear. ‘Okay, John.’ Gnome answered. The elemental stretched out her hand (John wasn’t sure if that was even necessary but hey he also made stupid gestures for the effect so maybe Gnome was effected by him?) and pointed at the ceiling. Cement and stone fell down from above the skeletons and crushed many of them in a single stroke. However even though that took care of about three fifths of them there were still a lot of them. John wasn’t fazed though.

‘Take the right wall next.’ He instructed and moments later Gnome swept the whole wall across the floor, pulling with it the remains of the dead and the still animated golems before crushing them against the opposite wall.

John had a slight coughing fit as the dust that that action scattered through the air reached him as well. The whole party had cost him a good half of his mana but that was worth the pretty efficient removal of that obstacle. ‘I should hurry’ he thought and hastened up the final floor and up to the roof.

Up there he found Rave in a melee fight with somebody who obviously didn’t want to be in one. The person disengaged over and over again as Rave set after him or her. John wasn’t able to tell. The person was wearing another one of the thick black robes and had the hood pulled deep down, an unnatural shadow covering the face.

The second the person saw the door opening and John stepping through a smoke grenade was thrown that obstructed the vision. John had no idea what was going on but he got a message a moment later.

John immediately left the Barrier in hope to catch the mysterious attacker but the person was nowhere to be seen on the outside. It didn’t help that he had no specific knowledge when or where the enemy had left the barrier.

“That was weird.” Rave said and walked over to him. “What took you so long?” “I needed to kill some Golems and …. OH SHIT!” He shouted and entered the barrier again. The Golem inside had reclaimed its consciousness (John made a mental note about that) but that wasn’t the problem. John almost had forgotten to take his sword with him. A Possession, a weapon changing hands and a skeleton taking a free-dive from the roof later he returned to reality. “Where was I? Oh yes, golems. They were in they and it took a bit to handle them.”

“Okay, all in all that wasn’t so bad.” Rave said and looked over the school. John nodded, “Nope, it seems we got thoroughly underestimated by…well whoever that was. Let’s get out of here and call Travolta and see if he knows what this was about.”