Chapter 188: 188: Motivation

Let’s see, we’ve got beardo, half-nose and… the third Inquisitor didn’t really have any obvious flaws, like a certain younger brother. We’ll call him Jim Junior.

Jim Junior leapt at Garth’s back, and was blown away by a tiny purple and yellow potato flower that cast Force Shield.

Garth took the fraction of a second that rebound bought him to summon something flashy. If he wanted attention, this would probably do it.

Summon Nature Spirit.

Garth sent his lure out into the other plane, and snagged a big one.

“Oh boy, Woody’s grown up a bit hasn’t he?” Garth muttered as the fifty foot tall treant stepped out of the spirit world and into 6th avenue.

Half-Nose didn’t seem to like that, and neither did the people on 6th avenue et al. What few people had gathered to gawk at the spectacle of the police precinct exploding, had chosen the better part of valor once the treant began peering over the buildingtops onto other streets.

Honestly thought there’d be buildings taller than four stories after eight hundred years.

“Woody, these bad men tortured someone I brainwashed, an act almost as despicable as brainwashing her in the first place. Get ‘em.”

I should see if there’s a way to summon a stronger Treant in a smaller package, because his mass is just becoming a problem.

Woody obliged, leaning down to slam his fist on Half-nose, who managed to dodge, sending a fireball right into Woody’s face.

It seemed to make him mad.

Woody went two-fisted, slamming the ground with everything he had and causing the earth to buck under Garth’s feet.

Half-Nose dodged that as well, leaping into the air to escape the onslaught.

Maybe there’s some kind of caster spirit I can summon, because the turn order ratio of being outnumbered is a probl-

Beardo and Jim Junior jumped at him, while their boss was being distracted by Woody.

Garth sidestepped toward Beardo, grabbed his head and slammed it into Jim Junior’s armor, using the bearded man as shield and weapon, sending the two of them tumbling to the ground.

“Don’t interrupt my inner monologue.” Garth said, tugging Beardo’s knife out of his wrist. There are a lot of options that become available when defense is no longer important.

Illusion

Garth made an illusionary Black Labrador.

Shadow.

Shadow flew out of the pool of darkness around Garth’s feet and filled up the illusion like prison origami, making it solid and allowing him to touch people in the most inappropriate ways.

“Who’s a goodboi?” Garth asked, and Shadow whined, whipping his tail around.

“You see those guys?” Garth pointed at the stunned inquisitors. “Those are bad guys. Bad guys.”

Shadow growled.

“Go get’em!”

Beardo and Jim Junior seemed a little taken aback at first at the medium-sized dog running toward them, less frightened than confused. Then Shadow’s teeth punctured deep into Beardo’s armor, drawing a pained scream out of him.

Jim Junior decided to help his buddy rather than ditch him to continue attacking Garth.

This left Garth completely unsupervised.

Hmm. What should I do with my newfound freedom? Garth thought to himself.

Garth’s first instinct was to create a wooden lifeguard tower and watch the fight while occasionally blowing a whistle to tell them to stop running.

That just seems immature.

Crack.

Woody tore off a chunk of building and threw it at Half-nose, who dodged around it in midair and sent a volley of conjured steel bolts down at Garth, ignoring the giant treant.

That makes sense, Garth thought. Once Half-Nose was out of reach of Woody, he ceased to be particularly troublesome, so why not take the opportunity to go for the source?

Woody held his arm over Garth’s head, and the steel arrows buried themselves in the back of the tree-person’s massive hand.

I wonder what style Inquisitors are being taught nowadays. Seems to focus on steel conjuration and subdual. I think I saw a hint of mind magic there, but it got torn to pieces by my Lantern.

Woody grabbed the patch of metal stake jutting out from the back of his hand and tore them out, throwing the whole group back at Half-nose like a speedball. Half-Nose managed to divert his own summoned weapons away from himself with a slanted shield.

There was an explosion behind Garth, and he glanced behind him to see Shadow launched away, trailing smoke. The black lab went through a brick wall, and darted out a second later, none the worse for wear, aiming to disable another limb.

The two inquisitors had learned not to let him get close enough to bite, and so as soon as they saw the dog coming back out of the building, they took to the air, leaving Garth the only one still on the ground.

Pussies.

“You whippersnappers!” Garth said, shaking his fist at them. “Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy shmancy fly spells! We had to walk through four feet of snow to get to our fights, and we liked it!”

The three of them reconvened in the air, sharing a brief converstion while dodging pieces of the precinct lobbed at them by Woody.

Garth took the opportunity to see to Gloria.

“How’s it going Gee?” Garth asked, putting his hand on her forehead and checking the state of her conditioning spell. Looks like someone took it off.

“I didn’t tell them anything. You would’ve been so proud of me,” she said.

“Would’ve been?” Garth asked.

Heal.

Operant conditioning.

Might as well put that back.

“I’m standing right here, super-duper proud of you.”

The damage faded away, leaving the severe looking middle aged woman beaming at him like a happy baby.

“So if you could leave the area and go to the Green Hell, I would appreciate that.”

“Do you have a little cabin there we can hide away in?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“Something like that.”

“That would be lovely.”

“And you can wait on me hand and foot, taking care of my every need. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Oh, yes!” she breathed, her eyes wide.

“And how do you feel about Garthspawn?”

She frowned, as if confused by the question.

“Disgusting things whose only purpose is to act as wombs for the nobility, aren’t they? Emotional, clingy creatures driven by their base desires, that can’t think rationally to save their lives.”

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And this is why I don’t feel bad.

Heal.

With one more application of heal and some minor telekinesis, Garth freed her from the rubble.

“You go on ahead, I’ll meet up with you there.” Garth said.

Gloria Pendleton blushed and nodded, practically skipping away.

Alright, back to what I was doing…Spectacle.

Control Weather.

Garth used the Control weather Spell-like ability to make clouds form above the city, shrouding the confused Inquisitors.

Garth modified the laser tree schematic in head, dubbing it the Attention Seeker, then he had it sprout from the ground beneath him. The tree had the bearing of a sequoia, and it lifted him straight into the sky, soaring up, and up, into the low hanging clouds he’d conjured above the city.

“Attention Seeker, do your thing.”

At Garth’s mental nudge, the tree began to emit multicolored lights, creating shifting beams of harmless light in the mist of the cloud, causing refracted light to bathe the entire city in a scintillating glow.

Think they’ll notice that? Garth thought to himself as he watched the tree below him. Could’ve used some epic music. It was a little too late to add speakers to the tree and start blaring Welcome to the jungle at full volume. The timing was just off now.

I guess we’ll just have to make due.

Half-Nose slammed into him from behind, his Lantern interfering with Garth’s, tearing him off the top of the towering laser tree, causing them to tumble uncontrolled through the air.

Garth contracted and spun his Lantern as he’d been taught, shredding Half-Nose’s domain and restabilizing his flight.

Relying on his instincts, Garth threw a hand over the back of his skull and felt a knife skitter off his finger bones.

Looks like he’s going for a brain shot now. Garth wasn’t sure if that strike would have gone through his skull, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

Garth caught the man by the armor and hauled him over his head, kicking him away.

Not out of his Lantern, though. Garth grabbed Half-Nose telekinetically while he was still inside Garth’s range, rendering him powerless.

“So hey, I was wondering if you guys could give my brother a message.” Garth said, eyeing Half-Nose, who didn’t seem to be used to being on the bottom.

Guy seems like a top. Got the haircut for it.

A shearing in the air behind Garth was enough warning to dodge the floating sword before Beardo and Jim Junior flew at him from both sides.

Garth flew up.

Once they entered his Lantern, their flight became uncontrolled, and the two fully armored men crashed into each other, unable to change trajectory.

“I don’t mean to the bad guy monologue thing,” Garth said, snatching the other two up with Telekinesis, forcing them to stay inside the range of his lantern. “But isn’t charging into a guy with a better Lantern than you a bad idea?”

Half-nose whipped out a tiny crossbow.

Garth batted his arm to the side with a puff of mental energy, causing him to miss with the tiny thing.

Fool me once, shame on you.

“So the message that you’re going to send to my brother for me is as follows:”

Garth took a deep breath, organizing the many things he wanted to tell his scumbag brother, most important of which was allowing the execution of his Succubus-in-law. That was assuming Leanne was telling the truth. Older people’s relationship with the truth can be more…nuanced.

“The disciple of the Divine Lantern says hi.”

It didn’t really mean anything to Jim, but it meant a lot to his puppet masters.

Garth flung them downward at a speed just barely safe enough for them to survive.

From what he could tell, the minions had Endurance around forty-five, and their boss outpaced Garth around sixty-five.

That was with normal, unmodified human bodies. Six point five times regular femur strength vs six point oh times carbon-reinforced, carefully human-designed femur strength.

It wasn’t even a question.

That meant that terminal velocity didn’t really pose a threat, since their weight-to-toughness ratio was too high, so he gave them a bit of extra zing, launching them straight downward at breakneck speeds.

How much damage does balsa wood take from a fall? Maybe a few scuffs. Same concept.

Garth pushed himself downward at full speed, keeping them in range of his lantern as they tore through the air.

One thing you always see in monster movies and robot fights... superhero movies…etc, is the strong one is always tossing the other ones around when they would be better served grappling.

Have I thought this before?

In any case, Garth didn’t intend to do them the favor of allowing them outside his Lantern.

As the ground was rapidly approaching, a grenade tumbled up to him. It was a strange sensation to see the little pinless steel orb floating up to him, since he was outpacing gravity.

Garth threw his hand in front of his eyes, and created an ironwood shield in front of him in the blink of an eye.

The blast knocked the wind out of him, causing him and his shield to spin and hit the ground at an awkward angle.

Garth was flipped around three times and landed on his back, buried three inches deep in the cobblestone road.

“Uugh.” That definitely had some zing to it. Who gave these guys grenades? Shoulda guessed though. They are human, after all. We’re good at this shit.

Above him, the laser light show continued in the clouds overhanging the city. Flickering green, red, yellow and blue beams filling the grey sky with color.

Now all we need is EDM

Heal.

All the aches and pains fled Garth’s body, and his most recent wounds finished closing up instantly. He still had blood armor patches all over his body, though, and his clothes were shredded from the rough play.

I need to learn Mending. Ya know, if it exists.

Garth rolled out of the hole and surveyed his situation.

Beardo and Jim Junior were buried in the ground, breathing faintly, while Half-nose was climbing to his feet.

With a shaky hand, he pulled the Mythic core out of his Status band and held it in front of himself, aiming it at Garth like a gun.

Mana began to pool around Half-Nose in alarming quantities.

“What the hell are you?” he demanded with a snarl.

“Oh, there’s so many classic responses to that, I’m finding it hard to pick one,” Garth said with a chuckle. Robocop, batman, your worst nightmare? It opens up so many doors I’m having trouble picking one.

Mana was sucked into Half-Nose like water into a sponge, and a fraction of a second later, a beam of energy tore out of him. Garth ducked to the side with a yelp, but lost a significant amount of his shoulder.

Never been on the receiving end before. Kinda fun. Garth leapt out of the way as another bolt of pure energy screamed past him, roasting his outer skin as it passed by his legs.

Macronomicon

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