[ Location: Abandoned Chemistry Lab -> Frostwell Basement ]
The blue screen vanished, leaving me standing in the dusty chemistry lab.
My hands were buzzing not from being tired, but from the raw, crazy thrill of Aether still singing in my veins.
'I just chopped a cosmic invisible rope in broad daylight and farmed two thousand points off a panicked high school hallway. Man, it's good to be me.'
I looked away from the chalkboard and at my two terrified classmates.
"Grab my arms," I ordered, holding my hands out to Eddie and Chrissy.
"What? Why?" Eddie backed up fast, his combat boots slipping on the floor. He was gasping for air like he'd just run a mile. "You just blew up a hallway with a laser sword! Your eyes are glowing! I am not touching you, man!"
"Eddie, the cosmic monster are about to crash down on this exact spot. If the teachers find us here first, I'm going to have to memory-wipe the whole school," I snapped, sounding annoyed. "Grab. My. Arm."
He looked at Chrissy, who was shaking violently on the floor, whispering about yellow signs. He cursed, grabbed her by the waist, and grabbed my sleeve.
'Apparition.'
CRACK.
The world folded up.
I bent space easily, squeezing us through a tight, invisible tube.
We slammed onto the carpeted floor of my basement.
'Mom is at her country club lunch and dad is at work. The house is mine. Good.'
Eddie immediately rolled over and gagged into a plastic trash can. Chrissy curled into a tight ball on the rug, her eyes squeezed shut.
'Three people. Two teleports.' I thought, dusting an invisible speck of dirt off my jacket. 'And I still have half my Aether pool recovered.'
"Teleportation," Eddie wheezed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You... you actually teleported us. Like a wizard."
"Like a guy who read the rulebook and decided to rewrite it, Munson," I said, walking over to the ping-pong table. "Sit down. Breathe. Try not to throw up on the rug, it's expensive."
Eddie stumbled to a folding chair. His hands were shaking so badly they vibrated against his knees. "I need... I need to do something with my hands. I process things by writing. Campaign notes.."
He unzipped his denim jacket, pulling out a beat-up leather notebook and a black pen. He hunched over the table, his hand flying across the page in fast, jagged strokes.
"Chrissy," I knelt beside the cheerleader, my voice commanding but calm. "Look at me."
She whimpered, pressing her hands over her eyes. "It burns. The shape... it burns behind my eyes."
The temperature in the basement suddenly dropped.
It wasn't a normal Indiana chill.
It was a wet, choking cold.
The smell of stale salt water and rotting yellow fabric flooded the room.
The basement lights began to flash.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
'What the...'
I whipped my head around.
Eddie was staring at his notebook and his pen had torn through the paper, bleeding ink onto the wood.
He wasn't drawing a D&D map.
He had drawn a twisted, jagged symbol. and three curling tentacles around a broken center.
The Yellow Sign.
"Why did I draw this, Vivan?" Eddie's voice cracked. His feet slowly, terrifyingly, lifted half an inch off the basement floor. "Why is it in my head?!"
' So it's a mind virus,' my super-fast brain connected the dots instantly. 'I didn't just expose magic in the hallway. I exposed the Curse. Anyone who watched the exorcism got infected. Clever trick, Hastur. But sloppy.'
"Drop the pen!" I roared.
I didn't have time to cast a spell because the connection to the dark dimension was opening right in my house.
The virus was using Eddie's drawing as a doorway.
I bit down on my right thumb, drawing a single bead of blood.
'I'm drawing high-level blood seals on my mom's wall to stop a monster Wi-Fi virus. I should really charge the Hastur a fee for this.'
I flooded the blood with pure Aether and slammed my hand onto the ping-pong table, right over Eddie's notebook.
"FUINJUTSU: UZUMAKI CONTAINMENT!"
[ Ability Active: Sealing Arts ]
The blood It spread out from my palm in perfect, sharp black lines.
The writing crawled across the notebook, over the table, and shot across the basement floor. It climbed the walls and the doorframe with terrifying speed.
A see-through dome of blue energy snapped shut over the room.
Unbreakable.
The flashing lights stopped.
The smell of the black lake vanished, cut off instantly by my barrier.
Eddie dropped to the floor, gasping for air as gravity pulled him back down. He scrambled away from the table, staring at the glowing writing with pure awe.
"What did you just do?!" Eddie yelled, panicking.
"Quarantine," I smirked, wiping the blood from my thumb with a handkerchief. "You're both infected. My barrier blocks the signal. You're completely safe in here."
"Infected with what?!"
Before I could explain cosmic entity's to a him, a sharp, cold ping tapped against my danger sense.
[ Remote Viewing (Passive): Threat Detected. ]
My vision blinked with a quick radar scan.
Four distinct signatures had just crossed onto my front lawn.
But They were ice-cold , like walking corpses and they were moving toward the front door with smooth, deadly speed.
"They will come to neutralize the anomaly." Aizen's warning from the chat echoed in my head.
'Perfect. Some organization is here and they picked the absolute worst day to test me.'
I walked to the basement stairs, drawing the Void Blade from my inventory.
The dark metal hummed as it tasted the air, eager for a fight.
"Do not leave this room, Munson," I ordered, adjusting my collar without looking back. "Do not touch the walls and do not smudge the ink. If the barrier breaks, you both melt into soup."
"Where are you going?!" Eddie shouted.
"To teach the neighbour's watch some manners."
[ Location: Frostwell Residence - Front Porch ][ Time: 1:30 PM ]
I pushed the front door open and stepped casually onto the porch, resting the Void Blade on my shoulder.
A thick, unnatural fog had rolled over the front lawn, swallowing the oak trees near the street.
Four figures stood at the bottom of the porch steps.
They wore dark, perfect cloaks that seemed to swallow the sunlight.
Their skin was pale as marble, flawless and completely still and they didn't breathe.
Jane. Small, blonde, looking like an angry angel.
Alec. Her twin, looking deadly quiet.
Felix. A giant mountain of muscle.
Demetri. The tracker, his bright red eyes locked right onto me.
'System. Observe.'
[ Target: Jane (Volturi Guard) ][ Race: Cold One (Vampire). ]
[ Threat Level: S-Class (Psychic). ]
I stared at the floating blue text.
My brain had to reboot for a second.
'Volturi? Cold Ones? You have got to be kidding me. First I wake up in a Stranger Things world. Then Stephen King's murder clown starts living in my head and now I'm dealing with the Twilight universe? Just how blended and complex is this damn planet?!'
I looked at the four pale, perfectly groomed immortals standing on my lawn.
'Vampires. Seriously. I'm battling Outer Gods, and Earth's great defense mechanism sends Stephenie Meyer's Italian interns to deal with me? Insulting.'
"Boy" Jane spoke. Her voice was like silver bells ringing in a graveyard. Sweet, but promising death. "You have been very loud today. The flare of your energy... it disturbs the peace. You soak up terror like a pig while the veil rots."
"I had a problem," I said smoothly, looking down at them with a bored expression. "I had to use the heavy-duty spray , are you guys selling cookies? Because I'm fresh out of cash."
Felix growled, a low, rumbling sound that shook the wooden planks of the porch.
"How rude," Jane smiled.
A cold, dead thing. "Lord Aro is fascinated by the anomaly in Hawkins. A boy who smells of the Abyss. You have a choice, Boy. Come to Volterra. Join the Guard to fight the rot. Serve the Kings."
"I have an empire to run," I sighed, channeling my inner villain. "And honestly, Italy is way too far a commute to serve beneath someone else. I think I'll pass."
Jane's red eyes narrowed.
Her angelic mask cracked. "The alternative is ashes."
"Take him," Alec whispered.
Felix blurred.
He cleared the porch steps in a split second, his massive fist aimed right for my chest to crush my ribs.
I didn't even blink.
'Gravity Well.'
[ Ability Active: Psychokinesis (Divine). ]
I slammed my mind down on him.
Felix hit an invisible wall of pure, heavy force. The porch groaned under the sudden, massive weight.
The vampire was forced to his knees, the wood breaking violently beneath his boots.
He gritted his teeth. His muscles bulged as he tried to push up against the pressure.
'He's way heavier than a Demodog. But I've wrestled the Mind Flayer. A sparkly meathead isn't going to make me break a sweat.'
I stepped forward, looking down at the struggling giant and increased the pressure just to watch him sink an inch deeper into the wood.
"Fascinating," Jane watched, tilting her head.
She hid her surprise well, but I could smell her shock. "You have raw, god-like force. But your human body must have a limit."
She took a step forward.
"Let me help you break."
She looked directly into my eyes.
"Pain," she whispered.
[ System Alert: Enemy Mind Attack! ]
It hit me like a lightning bolt straight to the nervous system.
It ignored my mind shields completely. It was pure, raw agony injected right into my brain.
My [ Occlumency Level 5 ] and [ Spirit 500 ] flared to life instantly.
A fortress of steel and violet fire surrounding my mind.
The pain washed over the walls. It stung and felt like my blood was simmering on a stove.
But I didn't scream.
I just tilted my head, looking at Jane.
"Is that it?" I asked.
My voice was deadly quiet, and a sharp, wild grin spread across my face.
Jane's eyes widened. For the first time, absolute terror broke through her cold face. Her gift—her absolute, perfect weapon—was failing.
"You call that pain, sweetheart?" I chuckled, my eyes blazing violet. "I've got a killer clown living in my head that tells better jokes than that. Let me show you what real power feels l—"
But the universe, as always, hates a speech.
At the exact moment my mental defenses were entirely focused forward to push back Jane's attack... the back door of my mind was left a tiny bit open.
BURN.
The Abyss Mark on my right hand—the spiral scar left by the Yellow Eye—seared with white-hot, blistering heat.
"FOUND YOU, LITTLE KING."
My vision went double.
The Frostwell lawn faded into thick, humming static.
The smell of rotting yellow fabric wiped out the scent of pine trees and vampires.
The King in Yellow had used the quick distraction to break the perimeter.
I looked up. Jane was staring at me, horrified that I wasn't hurt. But behind her, standing in the mist, the world itself was peeling apart.
A figure in torn, shifting yellow robes was rising from the asphalt of my street. Tentacles wiggled beneath a pale mask.
'A vampire trying to fry my brain, and an Outer God trying to steal my soul, What a beautiful day' I thought.
My grin sharpened as the Aether exploded around me in a violet hurricane.
'Finally. A decent warmup.'
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(New Membership Option)
New Membership - Special Tier ( Only 15 members Limit )
DISCOUNT Code : BCAF8
Content: Read 30+ chapters ahead. + Access to All my fanfictions.
Link: https://www.patreon.com/c/kapa69
Support Goal:
1000 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter.
Please drop a Stone to support the story!