Anti-Mage

Anton looked around the Oval Office as everyone reviewed the Notification they’d just received. He then double-checked the first notification and the time stamps provided by each. Anton looked at the clock again. It was just after 3:00 in the morning. Magical Density had increased to 1% approximately 4 hours ago. Now it was 2%. If it kept growing at the same rate, it would be 3% around 7 a.m., which meant it would be 5% by 3 p.m.

Magic hadn’t been added slowly last time; it had just happened. The SYSTEM had also been considerate enough to explain the rules. This time, magic wasn’t being added all at once. Suppose Magical Density grew by 1% every four hours. In 32 hours, it would be at 10%. 360 hours after that, it would reach 100%. In just over 16 days, Earth would go from a world that didn’t have magic to one that did.

Anton was brought out of his thoughts when the President asked, “Anton, what does this message mean?”

“Just what it said, Mr. President. Magic is leaking back into this world, maybe the Universe. I’m not sure if this is a local phenomenon or if it’s Universal. Anyway, magic is being added to this world.”

“What does that mean exactly,” One of the civilians in the Office, probably the Secretary of Defense, asked.

Anton cleared his throat and looked around the room. “When this happened to me before The SYSTEM reset, Magic was added back to the world pretty much all at once. Also, the Earth increased in size by a factor of 10. It doesn’t look like that happened this time, even with the population increase. The SYSTEM made the Earth into an Alternate Dungeon World. You know what? None of that matters. What matters is that in every version of the SYSTEM I’ve experienced, Weapons of Mass Destruction didn’t work. I also didn’t see too much in the way of high technology, but I’m not really sure how it was affected.”

“And why is the SYSTEM so important,” The President asked.

Anton smiled, “Because once you unlock it, you can do cool stuff like store items in a dimensional pocket that only you have access to, like this,” Anton said as he held out his hand face up and had the President’s phone appear in it. Anton turned it to see his face, unlocked it, and set the pin code to 1111 before he put it on the President's desk, “Thanks for letting me use your phone. The current pin is one, one, one, one. You might want to reset it to your Face ID.”

The President gave Anton a cold look as he picked up the phone and reset it quickly.

Anton turned back to everyone in the room while the President fixed his phone, “Hopefully, the SYSTEM will let us know what’s coming, but I would suggest that you ground all air traffic and try to get as many people who were out on boats back to shore as soon as possible. If you have some Doomsday bunker that you plan to send everyone to in case of a global killer event, you might want to activate that too.”

The President looked up from his phone, “You make it sound like this is a global killer event.”

“Mr. President, I have personally been nuked, killed, and attacked by various monsters and even vampires. Yes, real vampires. Now you tell me, if all of that is going to be unleashed on the world, what would kind of event would you classify that as?”

Someone spoke up from the other side of the room. Anton had no idea who she was, though. “Maybe we should wait. We don’t want to start a panic.”

“You know what, I’ve given you about as much information as I can,” Anton said before anyone else could reply. If we’re lucky, we won’t see 5% Magical Saturation before 3 p.m. local. If we’re unlucky, it’ll be sooner. I figure the SYSTEM is going to do something when we hit 5% or 10%, so I think I’m going to go and check on something before we get that far.”

“Wait!” The President called. Out.

Anton froze and waited for the President to continue.

“What is Minerva?”

Anton looked around the room and asked, “Is anyone from NASA in the room?”

“No, but I’m fully briefed,” The person that Anton thought was the Secretary of Defense said.

“Very well. Have you been briefed on all stellar bodies within this solar system?”

“What are you talking about?” the man started to ask, then paused before he said, “Oh.”

The President and a few others looked from Anton to the Secretary of Defense before the President asked, “Charles, what does ‘Oh’ mean?”

Anton watched Charles look around the room and weigh what he could say before Anton interrupted his train of thought, “Mr. President, there is a 10th Planet, if you all count Pluto as a planet, on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, in the same orbit as Earth.”

The President looked at Anton as if he were speaking gibberish, and then he turned to Charles, “Is that true?”

“Well, Sir, yes, sir, but.”

“But what? How do I, the President, not know about another planet…”

“It was need-to-know and a condition of…”

“Something you will no longer need to worry about slaves,” a feminine voice called out from air in front of the President.

Anton looked around but couldn’t see anything. If they were using some scrying magic, he wouldn’t have been able to detect it. Nor should they be able to detect him. It was interesting that they could speak through it, though.

A moment later, Anton saw two individuals teleport behind the President’s back and with their backs to the window. Both wore black armor and appeared to be thin and lithe. Anton thought they might be elves, but something nagged at him about the two. He was about to Analyze them when one stepped toward the Agent on the wall behind the President to his left, and the other moved to the Agent on the wall to the President's right.

Before either intruder had taken a step, Anton hit each with a Mind Bolt. Each Mind Bolt cost 10 Psychic Energy and inflicted a base of 8 points of damage plus the modifier he received for his willpower attribute bonus, which was 674. He wasn’t sure if it was added or if the modifier was used as a percentage-based modifier. While the SYSTEM couldn’t show him what he did to the intruders, he knew what his Personal Status said his skill was supposed to do.

What he didn’t expect was for two heads to explode. If he had a chance, he would need to find a psychic attack skill that only stunned the target, especially if those idiots over on Minerva were weaker than him.

“Garder!”

That call had come from an individual who was watching the room

The President looked to his left and right while the Secret Service Agents drew their weapons to cover to the bodies that had appeared beside them while they moved into flanking positions behind the President.

“Sorry, that was me,” Anton said.

“Who is speaking? I do not see anyone speaking.” The feminine voice called out angrily.

“Well, I’m right in front of the President’s desk. If you can’t see me, I guess your scrying spell is a bit pathetic, isn’t it?” Anton called out to the room

“Anton, What are you doing?” The President asked quietly

Felix, who was sitting on one of the couches behind Anton, added, “I’d like to know that as well.”

Anton held a finger to his lips.

“Anton? Well, Anton,” the female said as she spits out his name, “I was going to do this the easy way: Kill the leader, use the people in that room, and move from there, but I think it will be much easier to kill all of you. Since you’ve seen magic before, let me show you something for the first and last time.”

A moment later, a baseball-sized orb of an orange and red pulsing light appeared directly in front of Anton, less than a foot away from his head. Before anything could happen, Anton reached out and waved his hand through the ball, which caused it to vanish.

“What was that?” The President asked.

“Probably a spell of some sort that was meant to explode,” Anton said thoughtfully.

“You mean like a fireball,” Charles said.

Anton smiled, “Exactly like a fireball, probably more like a Delayed Blast Fireball, but I’m getting sidetracked. Mr. President, get everyone out of this room. She’s probably going to try again.”

The President didn’t hesitate, “Everyone, out of the room, We’ll meet…”

Anton cut off the President, “MOVE OUT!" Then he looked at the President and put a finger to his lips.

The President nodded, “You heard the man, move out!”

Anton walked over to one of the bodies and checked it. He didn’t think he was dealing with elves, but he needed to be sure. Also, he was waiting to see if anything else was going on. He was pretty sure whoever it was still had their eye on the room. That their little present hadn’t worked should be pretty obvious. If they were tracking the President, he should have a few moments to check the bodies. If the scrying magic were stationary, well, they’d soon see someone rifling through their assassin's things.

No sooner had Anton started going through the body of the first Assassin when a portal opened up directly beneath it. Anton had a split second to dodge away and not fall through, but he saw that the hole opened into another lighted area with a floor that looked somewhat familiar. Anton fell with the body and lightly landed on his feet as he took in the surroundings.

He was in a 50 x 50-foot room with a grey orb at its center. Standing next to the grey orb was a feminine-looking person wearing something that looked like a cross between a jumpsuit and a full-dress uniform for the military, minus all the ribbons and metals. Two other individuals were standing with her who looked to be wearing something very similar to the female except that it appeared to be a thicker, possibly better-armored set of clothing.

The woman smiled, “Anton, I presume.”

Anton smiled back as he said, “Yes.”

While the female had pointed ears, her pallid complexion and blood-red irises didn’t match any elf Anton had ever heard of. She more resembled what Anton would have thought of as an undead or vampire, but not exactly like he’d run into in the Labyrinth.

“It would seem that you are my prisoner.”

“It would seem that way to you, I’m sure,” Anton replied. “Before we continue, might I have your name?”

“Slaves do not speak….”

Anton flashed forward and struck with a double palm strike. It was a simple move. Both hands struck out at the waist level and targeted the floating ribs of the target. It was usually meant to push your opponent away. Because Anton had to move more than 5 feet, there was momentum behind his strike. That momentum transferred to his target, which ended up being very bad for the soldier.

The soldier he’d attacked had tried to block it and failed. Anton’s palms connected, and the soldier was flung into the wall 20 feet behind him with a loud “CRACK!” before he slumped to the ground. Anton was pretty sure he was dead but didn’t wait to find out.

The second soldier had pulled a very wicked-looking short blade from a sheath on his back and was already swinging at Anton’s head. Anton quickly sidestepped the strike and chopped at the wrist of the hand, holding the sword with the heel of his left hand. Simultaneously, he struck the neck of the second soldier with the webbing between his thumb and the pointer finger of his right hand. There was another loud crack as Anton broke the soldier's neck. Unlike his first strike, he didn’t put the full force of this strength behind the strike and instead tried for an effect, crushing the target's throat.

The attack worked. The soldier dropped his sword, reached for his neck and throat, and dropped to the ground.

The female looked at her two guards. “You are powerful,” she said as she pointed her hand toward Anton, and the red gem embedded in the ring flared. Now that you’re my slave, we can begin.”

Anton looked around as if confused. Did she just cast a spell to enslave him? Not having the SYSTEM tell him what had been used against him was beginning to be annoying. Anton smiled, “Yeah, NOT your slave lady…” Anton was interrupted as both the female and he looked at the second guard, who had begun thrashing before he finally went still. Anton stepped away from the female until the soldier’s head was directly below him, pulled one of his pistols from his inventory, and fired two rounds into the soldier's head.

The look of shock that crossed the female's face was priceless as Anton returned the pistol to his inventory and commented, “Doesn’t it suck when someone you thought was dead stood back up.”

“Why?” the female asked.

Anton shrugged and put the pistol back in his inventory. He said, “I believe I covered that already. Besides, it’s not like he was going to get back up anytime soon, anyway.”

“If you cannot be controlled, then die,” she said as she raised her left hand, and a different ring’s gem, black this time, flared.” A globe of darkness surrounded Anton for a moment, though none of it touched him.

Anton ignored the sphere of darkness and stepped forward through it, which brought him up to the gray orb. Anton reached out and touched it.

Welcome

You have established contact with Portal Node 10. Would you like to add this Node to your local Network? Yes or No?

Anton was a bit confused. If he were in Antarctica, this would be the Pillar 10 Portal Node. Of course, if the Pillars had been removed, then the SYSTEM would have had to update their structure. That it had already done so was impressive. Also, last time, there was a message that stated that this node could only be used with local nodes. There was no such message this time.

“Excuse me, am I boring you?” the female alien called out to Anton from a few feet away where she stood watching him. He’d been so focused on the orb that he’d disregarded her as she’d stepped away from him when he approached the node from whatever she’d cast at him.

Anton decided to stick with a flippant attitude and answered honestly, “Well, yeah.”

Anton watched as the woman’s complexion became darker, flushed maybe, but he couldn’t be sure until she brought herself under control, pulled a weapon from her belt, and fired. It at him. Anton wasn’t quite sure what kind of weapon it was, but it punched a hole clean through his chest. He didn’t die, though. He leaned his weight forward and allowed the node sphere to hold him up while his body healed.

The female watched Anton and raised the weapon to finish the job. Before she could pull the trigger, Anton activated Specter. Like everyone else he’d seen from this dimension, she also had the white opalescent core of energy within her semi-translucent body. Anton reached out and touched it as he activated Possession. This time, there was a bit of resistance, but he was able to overcome it with only a little bit of effort. That was interesting. Maybe she had an inherent resistance to possession or mind alterations. It didn’t matter now. He thought with a chuckle.

What was he going to do now? She was using items, so the first thing he needed to do was remove all of them and make sure she didn’t have any hidden on or in her body. Anton removed all of her clothing and then felt her body for jewelry or piercings. She had three rings on her fingers, which he removed and placed on her clothing. She also had simple earrings that he quickly removed and set down by the rings. Next, he used her hands to feel all over her body for anything that didn’t feel normal, like a skin patch or cover that had been placed over something. He also made sure to push on the skin to see if anything had been embedded in her skin in areas that were historically not deadly to humans. Like human females, she had breasts, so he made sure to check directly under her breasts as well as along her thighs, buttocks, and groin. If he was being honest, her body didn’t appear to be very different from human females.

He didn’t go through her things; he could do that later. Anton picked everything up and stored it all in his inventory. He didn’t want to risk letting her go and watching her flee through the node. He had an idea where she would flee to since it seemed that the node was no longer limited to the local area. This female and her four soldiers had come from somewhere.

Before he left, he wanted to check something, though. Anton walked her naked body out of the Node room and back to the room he’d found the pillar in so long ago. If this was Antarctica, it should be right where it was before. If this wasn’t and others were here, well, he had nothing to be embarrassed about or worried about. She seemed to be the boss after all.

No one else was present in the facility as he made his way through the hallway and into the room with the transparent floor. When he stepped into the room, he knew he was in the same room because he could clearly see the shaft below the transparent floor with one change. The Pillar that had once been in this room was gone, and the clear floor extended over the area the pillar had once occupied to ensure that the whole floor was covered.

Anton walked down the only other hallway in the room and quickly came to the chamber where their submersible had surfaced when he’d first found this facility so long ago. He noticed that the body he was possessing was beginning to feel a bit cold. Anton pulled some sweats and a sweatshirt out of his inventory but left the female barefoot. His inventory even let him pull the clothes out of his inventory so they were on her body without him having to put them on. The wardrobe function of his inventory was turning out to be very useful.

Anton walked back to and through the former pillar chamber before making his way back to the Node Chamber. He touched the node and focused on the White House Oval Office. He’d only been gone for 10 minutes or so, but it was still empty. Anton had the node open a portal and set it to stay open for 2 minutes before closing. Next, he went over to each of the dead soldiers, the two he’d killed in the Oval Office and the two he’d killed here. Anton touched each and willed them into his inventory. Once all four were stored, he stood and walked over to the Portal.

He stepped through the portal and waited until it closed before he called out, “President Cruiger, This is Anton. I found the leader of the aliens that attacked us earlier. Do you have a secured holding cell we can stash this woman in?”

A moment later, two Marines and two Secret Service Agents burst into the room from the two doors, weapons drawn, “Freeze, DO NOT MOVE!”

Anton allowed the agents to restrain the body he controlled before he said, “This is Anton. I am currently in control of this Alien. I am not sure how powerful she is. Get her into a cell, please.”

When none of the Agents or Marines responded, Anton sighed, “Very well. I am about to release this alien. Be ready for her behavior to change. Anton ended his Possession but remained in his Specter Form while he kept an eye on what she was up to. Immediately, the alien started trying to free her arms from the restraints around her wrists as she looked around to get her bearings. Her demeanor changed to one of a frantic trapped animal when she saw what she was wearing. When she hadn’t calmed down for a couple of minutes, she was dragged from the Oval Office.

Instead of following the female, Anton dropped through the ground to the Presidential Emergency Operations Command. He found the President, Mrs. Ellisson, Felix, Caitlyn, and a few others had been in the Oval Office in one of the meeting rooms. Most of the aides that had been in the Oval Office were not present. Anton noted that one of the monitors in the room had a picture of the empty Oval Office on it.

Anton activated Manifest and waved at the President. Anton pointed at the two Agents near the President and then made a thumbs-up and thumbs-down gesture. The President understood what he was asking and said something to the Agent off to his right. Both agents gave a thumbs-up with their left hands before the president gave Anton a thumbs-up. Anton deactivated Manifest and then deactivated Specter.

“You’re back,” The President called back.

“I am back, and I brought a present.” Anton agreed.

“We saw. Who was she?” The President asked.

“I have no idea who she is. I know that she’s probably not from this planet and has pointed ears like an elf. I also have the bodies of the two intruders that were in the Oval Office, as well as two more I had to neutralize in the Antarctica Facility.”

“Antarctica Facility? What?

Anton spent the next 10 minutes describing the facility and the node that operated a portal device there. He also suggested that the President might want to set up a permanent presence there, which caused the President to ask, “How do I get people there?”

“Well, Mr. President, when we first discovered the facility in my timeline, we reached it via submersible. I can, however, return to the facility and open a portal that your people could step through. Then, I can train a few of your personnel to utilize a node to maintain communication, open a portal, and trade out personnel as needed.”

“Charles, I’d like a team ready to go as soon as possible,” President Cruiger said.

Anton cleared his throat, “The team needs to be at a location I can easily find. If I’ve never been there before, it’ll be hard to transfer them. What we could do as a workaround is get me someone who knows where whoever you are going to send is. I’ll get them to the facility, and that person can bring the personnel in. Also, the location is under about a mile of ice, so it’s doubtful that anyone will be able to stay in contact at all times, they’ll have to open a portal to make contact.”

“Can anyone use this node?” Charles asked.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Very well, let me make a call, and I’ll have someone from the Pentagon here in about 15 minutes.”

Anton turned to the President, “I have another question for you. I have four alien bodies in my inventory. Do you have a place I can drop them off?”

“You’re carrying four alien bodies right now?” The President asked.

“I am.” Anton agreed.

“Charles?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Make sure whoever you bring here has a location the bodies can be sent to. I’m thinking somewhere in Nevada.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Charles said as he pulled out his cell phone and made a call.

While they waited, Anton moved over and spoke with Caitlyn to see if anything had happened while he’d been gone. When she responded in the negative and seemed to take her cues from Felix, Anton moved over to a wall and just kept an eye on the room.

After 10 minutes, an Admiral and another soldier walked into the Oval Office. The President turned to Anton and nodded. It only took a moment for Anton to Planar Shift down to the Node in the Antarctic and open a portal into the White House, which shocked everyone present. Anton waited patiently for a moment, but when no one moved, he called out, “Come on, we don’t have all day.”

A moment later, The Admiral and the Soldier stepped through the portal. Anton closed the portal, smiled, and said, “Welcome to the Antarctic.”

“What is this place?” The Admiral asked.

“I believe it's a travel chamber for a node network. I’m not really sure, but this is where the alien that was captured and the others that attacked the Oval Office came from,” Anton explained.

“So, we need to secure this location?” the other man asked.

The Admiral spoke up, “This is Commander Blake; he will be providing a location to drop the bodies off that you have?” The Admiral asked, “He will also be bringing in a team or two to secure this facility.”

“Great, let’s get started then. This grey orb controls the portal device that allowed me to bring you here. It can also allow you to look in on any place on Earth if you wish without their knowledge,” Anton said as he brought up and displayed the meeting room the President was in. He moved the point of view around as the three of them listened to the various information that was being fed to the President and his team.

“How do I use it,” Commander Blake asked.

Anton removed his hand from the Node, which caused the image to vanish, “Simply put your hand on the node and follow the prompts. You can answer any of the prompts that appear in your vision by thinking or speaking your answers.”

Commander Blake stepped up and put his hand on the Node. A few moments later an image of the Lincoln Monument appeared, then shifted to a beach and finally to a ready room where six men stood in black combat kits. Commander Blake looked to Anton and asked, “How do I make a portal?”

“Just concentrate on creating a way to get there. Think of it like creating a door. The image should then solidify into a portal that opens to the location,” Anton said.

Commander Blake did as Anton instructed, which caused all 6 men in the room to spread out and bring their weapons up toward the portal.

“Stand Down. Code Phrase is Phoenix.”

“Code phrase noted, the leader of the six said as their weapons were aimed at the ground.

Commander Blake spoke again, “It’s Blake. Grab your shit and step through; I have the Admiral and one friendly; now Move!”

Once the team was through, the Admiral turned to the team leader and asked, “One, where’s team two?”

“Team two is at the alternate prep site, “One said after looking at Anton.

“Moving Portal to Team Two’s location,” Commander Blake said as a new image popped into existence and shifted until a second team was visible.

Once the second team was in the facility, the Admiral instructed them to search and secure the facility while team one secured the Nde Chamber. While the Admiral gave instructions to the teams, Commander Blake opened a third portal to an empty room that looked like a laboratory. Commander Blake looked at Anton, “If you’d put the dead aliens on the floor, someone will get to them shortly.”

Anton stuck his hand through the portal and willed the bodies to appear on the floor of the lab, where he piled them. They were pretty messy, so he wasn’t too careful about how he dropped them off. However, they were naked when they appeared. Anton made sure to leave all of their equipment and weapons in his inventory. Once all four bodies were dropped off, he pulled his hand back through the portal, “That’s it.”

Commander Blake closed the portal as the Admiral walked over to Anton. “A moment, please.”

“Anton, Admiral, the name is Anton.”

“Very well, Anton, just a quick clarification. While this Node can be utilized to open portals, are you saying it can be viewed anywhere on the planet?”

“I’m pretty sure it has a much further range than that. But, to answer your question, yes. You can also use it like a map if you wish,” Anton explained.

“Like a map?” The Admiral asked.

“I’ll show you,” Anton said as he stepped up to the Node and placed his hand on it as Commander Blake lifted his off. The Virtual Vertical Screen appeared again with an image of the president's meeting room. Anton focused on bringing the view vertical while looking down. The view on the Virtual display zoomed up through the ceiling of the Oval Office until they were looking at an image of Washington, D.C., then the East Coast, and finally the whole United States.

“Wow!” Commander Blake exclaimed.

Anton smiled, “I shouldn’t need to tell you this, but do not open a portal if you use the node like this. The change in pressure will suck you right out of this room unless there is some seal on the portal. I have never tried it, so I don’t know.

The Admiral smiled, “So we can use this to check on other places around the globe?”

“You can, though it’s a lot easier to pull up places you’ve been,” Anton explained.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“Not at the moment. I figure you’re going to be busy here for a while. Me, I think I’m going to check in with the President,” Anton said.

“If you would let the President know that I’ll make a full report within the hour,” The Admiral asked.

“I can do that,” Adam agreed.

“Do you need me to open a Portal for you?” Commander Blake asked.

“No, I can get there on my own. I wanted to remind you that I found the Alien female and two of her guards in this room. If they came here from somewhere else, they either portaled or teleported in. Whatever Defensive measures you put in place should be geared toward dealing with people who can appear anywhere in this room, maybe even the whole facility,” Anton explained.

Commander Blake nodded, “I’ll definitely consider that.”

Anton nodded, activated Specter, and used Planar Shift to return to the White House. When he appeared, the President was once again in the Oval Office with everyone else. Anton passed on the Admiral’s message to the President and walked over to Felix, who was talking with Mrs. Ellison. Just as he reached the group, a new notification appeared in his vision.

SYSTEM Message!

Magical Density has reached 3%

Anton looked at the clock. 5:58 a.m. It hadn’t even been three hours since the last message. The Magical Density increase was accelerating. That couldn’t be good. Anton felt like he was being watched, and he looked around the Oval Office to find everyone looking at him, then at the President, and then back to him.

Anton said the only thing that came to his mind, “Well, Shit!”