Grimoires and Gunsmoke

While everyone in the encampment had fallen deafeningly quiet, Bennett decided to just roll with the absurdity and voiced his own thoughts. .“The mere fact that something so stupid worked, pisses me off...” The engineer said with annoyance while he flicked a tiny hand off his sleeve.

“Heh.” Elijah let out a smug huff as he jammed his pistol back into his holster.

Coleman however, stood completely stunned as he stared at what was left of the fairy, unable to fully accept what had just happened. The thing had promptly exploded in a dramatic fashion, showering everyone in its proximity with strange bloodless gore.

“Is this what happens when you do DMT?” Sutton commented, completely at a loss for words. He had trained nearly all his life to think on his feet and deal with any situation, except this. Magic, demons and now fairies. There was a limit to what they were prepared for, and this was FAR beyond that threshold. "Because I get the feeling this is the type of shit Joe Rogan sees when he keep talking about DMT"

“Actually I feel like this is some men in black shit.” The brown skinned bald SEAL from earlier pulled his neck gaiter down to show a scruffy face. “We should also probably get this dumbass back to be quarantined or something.” He pointed a thumb at Elijah who was still being treated by the SEAL’s Corpman.

Elijah shot the bald man a glare that could curdle milk. "Fuck you, Mack! How the hell was I supposed to know I was making a deal with some psycho fairy!?" he snapped, the smugness from before wiped away by sheer exasperation. "God damnit, now those fuckin’ nerds are gonna start poking and prodding at me like i’m some kind of fuckin mutant rat."

Mack simply shrugged with a smirk on his face that said this really wasn’t his problem. "Hey, I’m not the one with space aids." The man said with humor filled eyes. “Shoulda thought about that before you started fucking around with the spire.”

“Shut your marginalized Mr. Clean lookin’ ass up.” He retorted, snapping his head at the shiny headed man, followed by a colorful slew of profanities, each one more inventive than the last. Everyone started to chuckle, but the medic was abruptly cut off by a low, dangerous snarl from the SEAL Platoon’s corpsman.

"Stop. Moving." The corpsman's voice was quiet but carried the kind of authority that made even a hard-headed operative like Elijah pause mid-rant.

Elijah flinched away from the corpsman who glaring at him with zero tolerance for his antics. "We don’t know what that spire or that god damn fairy did to you, so stop hopping around like a dipshit when I'm trying to make sure you don't drop dead from magic fuckery." The corpsman snapped, forcing Elijah to hold still. “You’re a god damn medic, you should fucking know these things…” The SEAL continued to grumble as he went back to his work.

Bennett, having witnessed the entire exchange, walked over and gave Elijah an insufferable smirk. “Well, well, well… How the turn tables.”

The stupid reference caused Elijah’s eye to flick up at the engineer in irritation, but he wasn’t able to retaliate unless he drew the ire of the corpsman who was checking his vitals.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Elijah shot back with a scowl, "You're just jealous you didn't get to shoot Tinkerbell."

An incredulous look formed on Bennett’s face that said he thought that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard. “Ya, no thanks.” He replied, shaking his head. “I’d rather eat shit than deal with whatever cosmic voodoo bullshit you've just signed up for."

A disgruntled huff of air left Elijah’s nose as he finally sat upright. The corpsman gave him a difficult look as he finished checking Elijah’s vitals. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, so…” The corpsman stood up and walked away. “Keep your cosmic aids away from me, this is the eggheads problem now.”

Coleman watched the exchange with a mix of amusement and concern. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling the weight of command heavy on his shoulders. With a deep breath, he turned to Sutton, who was already looking his way, both wearing complex expressions.

"We… should update Warmonger," Coleman stated with a lot less confidence than a Army Special Forces officer should. "They need the full picture, especially after this... fairy fiasco."

Sutton nodded in agreement. "Yeah… This is completely out of both of our paygrades." He said before turning around, walking off to organize and see to the entrenchment of their new beachhead.

Another sigh left Coleman’s mouth as he reached for his radio’s push-to-talk and with a click of the transmit button, the special forces Major spoke with a clear, concise voice.

"Warmonger, this is Baron. Sitrep as follows,” he spoke in a clear and concise voice, but paused as he looked over at Elijah who was busy putting back on his heart. “Post-encounter with the entity resulted in the structural collapse of the spire and the… manifestation of unidentified entity,”

As the fuss around his medic started to get louder, Coleman turned away as well and started walking to where the pillar had imploded. “ Entity has been neutralized by, but we potentially have someone compromised by… unknown variables.” He continued, looking around at the slagged rockets that had finally cooled. “Request immediate medevac for assessment and containment. How copy, over?"

“Warmonger copies all, we were watching. Wait one.”

While Coleman waited for HQ’s reply, His eyes scanned the perimeter as he kept his push-to-talk in his hand. The aftereffects of the day's chaos had left the area looking like something out of a nightmare, with a gaping dark hole where the spire had once stood.

But what was most fascinating was the landscape around the nonexistent structure. Whatever that spire really was, it looked as if it had suddenly and violently exploded from the ground, leaving the area scarred.

The radio crackled to life once more, and Warmonger's voice returned with instructions, "Baron, Warmonger. CBRN medevac en route, ETA five mikes. Maintain maintain security of the area and report the current status of compromised individual, over."

Coleman glanced back at Elijah, who was now under the watchful eye of his teammates, ensuring he didn't exacerbate any unknown condition he might have contracted from the encounter. "Compromised individual is stable with no visible signs of physical trauma.” He replied looking down the hole where the spire once stood and saw nothing but a void. “Casualty’s exhibiting no immediate symptoms, but potential exposure to unknown anomalous effects, over."

"Roger that, Baron. Keep us updated on any changes. Secure any intel gathered for debrief upon return. Warmonger out."

With the medevac on its way, Coleman stepped down from his vantage point and made his way back to the team, his mind already going over every detail they would need to report. The reality of paperwork and debriefings that were going to be involved with this shitshow weighed on the teamleader like a 10 ton boulder.

“At least there’s no way this day can be even more of a clusterfuck…” Coleman grumbled to himself as he rejoined his team. "Alright shit heads, let's make sure everything's ready for when the bird lands. And someone keep an eye on Eli-" The words got caught in Coleman’s mouth as he stared at Elijah with wide eyes.

Elijah himself had confusion marked all over his face when has saw everyone had the same shocked expression as Coleman and was slowly backing away. “What? What's wrong? Am I growing a third arm?” Elijah looked around and finally noticed the figure sitting on his shoulder.

“Hmmmmm…” A familiar voice hummed as she bounced her leg on top of the other. “You mortals can see me? How fascinating…” She murmured in interest. “Clever too…”

A deafening silence permeated the entire encampment as everyone stared at a being who, just not a few minutes ago, blew into chunks of flesh. However, the silence ended when the little thing immediately blinked in front of Elijah’s face the moment he stood up and in turn, grabbed ahold of his face with both hands in a wide hug.

“HOLY SHIT-AHHHHHH!” Elijah yelped as he flailed and fell backward, tripping over his own medpack.

“ I LIKE MY SERVANTS CLEVER!” The fairy yelled joyously before a vicious cackle left its mouth. ”AHAHAHAHA! SUCH POTENTIAL!”

The Fairy’s laughter echoed through the encampment, reverberating off the debris and the remaining structures, sending a shiver down the spine of every soldier present. With the creature's hands still affixed to Elijah's face, a new tune left her mouth as a distorted chant resounded like it was being amplified.

Suddenly, within a blink of an eye, strange marks engraved themselves into the ground across the entire encampment. The soldiers, regardless of how trained or disciplined, instinctively started to back away, shielding their eyes from the blinding light that emanated from the giant and strange pulsating glyph underneath their feet.

“AHAHAHAHAHA!” A manic expression painted the fairy’s face as she cackled. “YOU’LL MAKE SUCH A PROMISING APOSTLE!” It said, coming to the conclusion that whatever this mortal was must have been insanely powerful to resist the touches of soul magic.

But one second turned to two seconds as the glyph burned brighter and brighter, “AHAHAHahahaha…hah… wait…” A sound of concern left the fairy’s mouth.

Looking around she noticed that the vast majority wasn’t just being put into her binding spell, but being sucked into landscape on the other side of the poorly constructed gateway. As a matter of fact, her power was being consumed at an alarming rate.

And it was only increasing by orders of magnitude.

“Waitwaitwaitwaitwait!” The thing yelled, trying to stop whatever was happening, but unfortunately…

It was far too late.

“NONONONONONONO, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!!!” The fairy screamed as she looked around at even the power that had been stolen from her was flowing out from the world around her. “I DIDN’T MEAN TO BIND AN ENTIRE WORLD!”

Panic started to fill the small being as it felt nearly every ounce of its power drain away into the insatiable maw of the glyph. The light became so blinding that none of the soldiers could look directly at it.

“SHUT IT OFF! SHUT IT OFF!” The fairy screeched, now in a full-blown panic. Her voice no longer melodic but sharp with fear in the realization that the mortal she was trying to bind wasn’t from this reality.

By this time, the fairy had already let go of Elijah and floated into the air to look around at eons of power being consumed by another reality. But as soon as it started, the spell stopped and winked out of existence causing the fairy to immediately drop out of the air and and right onto Elijah’s fae

“OOF!” The strange being yelled out in pain before scrambling to her feet.

Elijah was in the process of sitting up right with a mix of shock and fear spread across his face. Looking his body up and down, he noticed that he was in one piece and wasn’t growing any extra limbs. However, he also caught sight of an angry looking fairy with fiery hard standing on his abdomen.

“Y-You!” It pointed its finger and jabbed Elijah’s face. “Give it back! Gimme back my power!”

“What the fuck… just happened?” Elijah groaned, rubbing the back of his head. He chose to ignore the fairy floating up with its beating wings and looked at his comrades also recovering for their stupor.

“You didn’t tell me you were from another world! You didn’t tell me you weren’t from this reality!! It whined before zipping to Elijah’s head and beat on it with her tiny fists. “Gimme it back, gimme it back, gimme it back, gimme it back, you thief!” The fairy continued its ineffective abuse.

Again, Elijah waved his hand in an attempt to smack the annoying thing away from him, fully expecting for it to vanish and show up the other side of his head. However, surprise spread across his face as his hand found purchase on a small body, sending it rocketing away from him towards the ground.

“OOF!” The fairy cried out as Elijah watched the thing recoil off the ground cartwheeling a full meter before coming to a full stop, face down. There the fairy thing laid stock still for almost a minute until it finally stirred and slowly got up with trembling arms.

Squinting his eyes and giving them a good rub, Bennett clutched his weapon tightly with his dominant hand as he scowled. “What the FUCK just happened!?” The engineer then started looking his body up and down to make sure he was in one piece.

While the rest of the soldiers and marines did the same, Elijah was busy fending off an even more determined little nuisance. “You…” The Fairy said with tears in its eyes while it wobbled on its tiny legs “You thief! Why’d you take it all! You took all of it!”

“I only wanted to give you a little bit, but you and your stupid world took it ALL!” the thing wailed as it pulled and yanked. “Gimme it baaaaaack!”

Elijah winced in pain as the belligerent fairy grabbed a fist full of hair from under his helmet and started pulling. Fed up with the assault, the medic reach up and grab the little fucker, cause her to squirm. “Can you STOP?” He demanded glaring at the small, snarling gremlin.

“You can’t do this to me! I’m a goddess! A real one!” The fairy protested as she did her best to resist his grip. “I curse you! I’ll damn you! I’ll eat your soul! I’ma goddess ya know!”

Never in all his years had Elijah wanted to squeeze the life out of something so small until he ran into this insufferable little shit. It was beyond him how something so cute and small could be so god damn troublesome, annoying and most of all, persistent.

“How about I just break every bone in your body- OW FUCK!” Elijah tried to threaten the tiny thing, but she retaliated by biting down on his hand with her razor sharp teeth.

By reflex, Elijah flinched away and let go of the small menace, but she immediately followed up with another bite, this time aimed at his face. Cocking his arm back, Elijah reacted by letting loose a full powered punch that connected and set the being rocketing towards the ground.

“GWAK!” The fairy yelped out as she slammed into a small pile of rocks.

With an audible crack, the poor fairy broke her neck and slump over. The vacant look of death was in her eyes as she stared lifelessly at her attacker, however Elijah wasn’t fooled as he shook his hand and waited for the damned thing to come back.

“STATUS!” Sutton yelled into his headset. The man’s voice carried across the area, imposing order onto the disarray. Rangers, Marines, and SEALs momentarily stunned by the surreal events, snapped to attention at the command, their training overcoming the shock.

Meanwhile, a strange pop resounded as the supposed goddess regained her form and darted, full speed at his face with her chompers at the ready. “GRRRR!” The Vanir growled as she bit down on Elijah's hand, once more.

“All of you alright!?” Coleman yelled to the rest of his team, ignoring his struggling medic as he failed in their air doing his best to swipe at his attacker

Both Bennett and Schwarz just sat there staring at the mind breaking scene unfolding in front of them with a mixture of disbelief and shock as they watched Elijah comedically dance around. This all felt like some kind of weird and twisted joke some weirdo was playing at, but alas, here they were.

As a matter of fact, the engineer looked down at his hands and then started pinching himself all over at varying strengths to see if he was in some kind of coma, however each time he pinched, the man was left disappointed.

“Nah, this is some PCP shit.” Lister, the team’s weapon sergeant, suddenly spoke up as reared up to his full height. “What the fuck is next? We see some kind of-”

“No, shut the fuck up!” Coleman said, bringing a hand up to stop the man. “Not another fucking word, you know damn well ANYTHING is on the table now and your dumb ass is going to manifest it!” He snapped, remembering his own words just before he approached this shit show.

Suddenly the evil cackles of their medic resounded causing everyone to look at him once more. “HAH! GOT YOU!” Elijah yelled out, grabbing ahold of the tiny winged demon with a rag he randomly found wrapped around his hand.

The fairy ignored the man’s every word as she continued to try and bite down, but unfortunately her teeth weren’t long enough to fully penetrate the cloth.

“Let me go, you-! You thief!” She yelled while struggling. “I’m your patron! I’m your goddess! You should obey my every order!!”

Realizing killing her wasn’t going to work, Elijah’s brain went into overdrive trying to find a way to deal with this new pest. “Look, can we talk? Let's talk.” Elijah said, completely at his wits end. “Let’s give peace a chance and talk like rational people, okay?”

Realizing she wasn’t going to get anywhere without her soul magic or any meaningful way to threaten this mortal, the Vanir tilted her head down as she looked up at Elijah while pouting. “Okay fine…” She said with an upset voice.

Elijah looked at the team and the rest of the service members around him and noticed they were all keeping their distance. It was their way of saying he was definitely on his own with this and they’d be staying exactly where they were. Away from THAT thing.

Worry etched the medics face as he sucked in a deep breath. Elijah then exhaled to steady his nerves as he deliberated on what to do, but he knew sooner or later he was going to have to let this thing go. Finally after a few minutes, the man loosened his grip and allowed the fairy hover in place and waited for her inevitable attack.

…

Elijah exhaled a deep sigh of relief as the immediate chaos subsided, the adrenaline slowly ebbing from his veins. "Alright... can you explain what just- OW, FUCK!" His question was abruptly interrupted by a set of sharp teeth sinking into his hand.

Elijah's first attempts at some kind of resolution failed. The small little being had bit down on his hand once more.

“PEACE WAS NEVER AN OPTION!” The fairy continued her assault, her tiny but fierce teeth chomping down relentlessly.