Chapter 6: A little flex here, a little flex there.
It’s been a week since I met up with Lucifer, and made a deal to teach me dimensional and universal hop magic. To start off with, Lucifer decided to teach dimensional travel first since he finds it easier.
Over the course of the week while learning this magic, I also hung out with Maze a fair amount. I won’t lie, I have been enjoying the sex quite a lot.
‘The things that woman can do with her tongue… MMmm. Chiefs kiss!’
While I was fantasising about Maze and her demonically awesome tongue, Lucifer’s voice brought me back to reality.
Lucifer: “So, how does the training go, Artoria? Got it yet, or are you still thinking about getting into Maze’s pants?”
Turning to him and looking up from my seated position on the floor I just give him a wry smile.
Artoria: “Can you really blame me? Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve indulged like this? But anyway, I think I got the spell more or less usable? I was about to test it, want to see?”
Lucifer: “Yea, this could be interesting. Since you don’t have enough mana to target specific dimensions yet, I wonder where we’ll end up?”
Grunting in annoyance I give him a nod.
Artoria: “Correct. That is very annoying, but now that I am no longer being held back by the Throne of Kings, I should eventually start to get all of my power back, and even start to grow. Me being able to learn this spell is proof enough. Anyway, ready?”
Lucifer held up his hand, and then turned around and shouted to Maze.
Lucifer: “Hey, Maze! Artoria is about to test the dimension magic. Wanna bet where we’ll end up? I think of the Silly Putty dimension myself. Or maybe an evil version of this one?”
Maze yelling back, “I vote the evil version! It’s so obvious because of how much she radiates!”
Lucifer: “Deal! When I win, you have to give me back rubs for a week!”
Maze: “And when I win, you need to give me foot massages for a week!”
Rolling my eyes at them, I start to prepare the spell. Luckily it wasn’t some long ass poem or some shit. It was just using your mana to create glyphs and spell circles. And, as Lucifer put it, a “healthy dose of imagination of where you want to go.”
As the glyphs and spell circles started to appear, Lucifer gave a nod of approval.
Lucifer: “Very good, Artoria. These are perfect. All that is left is the imagination part, and then fueling it with enough mana at once. Once you’re able to have the needed mana, I think you’ll be able to dimension hop at will. Now, let’s see who wins this bet!”
Rolling my eyes once again, I just activate the magic. Soon after Lucifer and I are covered in pitch black for several seconds. Soon enough though, the black fades and Lucifer and I are standing in a field in the middle of nowhere.
Looking around I try to sense anything near us, but I am unable too. I also notice that I am not made of Silly Putty.
Smirking at Lucifer I say, “Well, we’re not made of Silly Putty. So you lost the bet. Now, is this an evil version of where we were, or did Maze also lose?”
Lucifer just sighed and slumped his shoulders.
Lucifer: “Looks like I’ll be giving her a foot massage for the next week. This world has something called the Crime Syndicate. Basically just an evil version of the Justice League.”
Artoria: “Ahh... I know them. Hmm… I want to fight them.”
Lucifer: “Well you’re in luck! Someone is heading here. It seems your teleportation wasn’t subtle hah.”
Artoria: “Can you tell who it is?”
Lucifer: “Think her name was Superwoman.”
Artoria: “Awesome. You don’t mind if I murder her, and everyone else in their little club?”
Lucifer: “No no, by all means. Let loose. I’ll even do you a solid, if you’re about to die, I’ll just transport us back. I want to see how much you can push them, or if you are just too much.”
Hearing a sonic boom, I turned to what I think is East to see a small dot gradually getting larger. After several seconds someone crashed down in front of us. As the dust cleared, still in the stupid “Super Hero” pose of landing, Superwoman slowly stood up.
Superwoman: “Who are you? Or rather, what are you?”
‘Yup, that’s Superwoman alright. The hot ones are always fucking bonkers. Now that I think about it, I am included in that now aren't I…?’
Superwoman: “Hello? Are you an invalid? Answer me!”
I suddenly heard Lucifer's voice in my mind, ‘They won’t be able to see me. This is all your show Artoria. Show me a brilliant display!’
Choosing to be the silent mysterious type, I just summoned my sword in my right hand and used Mana Burst.
Superwoman’s eyes widened at my display, and I could see she was actually affected by my aura a bit, like Wonder Woman was.
Superwoman: “What the fu-”
Appearing in front of her in an instant, I swung my sword horizontally while flaring up a full powered Burst Air for the first time.
Superwoman: “-CK!!”
She didn’t have time to dodge, so she brought up her arms in an X, and hoped for the best. A massive explosion of red-black fire raged from my attack, and engulfed Superwoman whole while causing extreme damage for thousands of kilometres beyond her.
After the attack subsided, I heard Lucifer whistle behind me.
Lucifer: “Well, damn me twice. That was impressive. You just obliterated an area roughly the size of China.”
As the smoke cleared, I saw Superwoman face down on the ground, with no arms. Her whole body was charred black, and her super suit was all but gone. She barely resembles anything human anymore.
Artoria: “I am surprised how easy that was, Lucifer. How did the League have trouble with this joke of an Amazon?”
Lucifer let out a chuckle and said, “Well, to play my own advocate. The Justice League never sent an attack with that kind of power at her, causing the deaths of.. Oohh… just over 30 million. You wiped out a rather large city or two in that attack. And your attack had an obscene amount of magic to it, obviously. Magic that seemed to just up and ignore her defences for the most part, which is interesting.”
Turning to look at Lucifer I tilt my head and ask, “And you’re fine with me just killing 30 million people?”
‘Or rather, I am even fine with the fact I just killed so many. I can’t feel anything towards their deaths. Nothing. I wasn’t a nut job was I?’
Breaking me out of my musings, Lucifer said, “Nah. Not the world I am currently in. And this world will eventually get destroyed anyway, so what does it matter if some of them die now or then?”
Artoria: “Out of sight, out of mind huh?”
Lucifer just nodded, “Pretty much.”
Before I could continue the conversation all of a sudden, the world started to slow down greatly. The next thing I see is a man dressed in the dumbest fucking speedster suit I have ever seen. As he ran up to me with his right arm raised back ready to punch me, I also brought up mine to meet it.
The man’s eyes widened behind his goggles as we both punched each other's fists. There was a loud kinetic explosion and the ground around us blew apart. The speedsters arm also exploded and turned into mist while the force of the explosion pushed him away from me.
I just simply used magic to keep myself from also being flung like a ragdoll. Looking down at the loser, I think his name was J something Quick.
J Quick: “Gahhh! MY ARM!! What the fuck!”
Walking up to him, I raised my left leg above his chest with the intention to stomp down on him. He obviously noticed this as Speed Force lightning started to course around him. Sadly, he wasn’t quite fast enough, as I ended up smashing my foot down on the side of his chest instead.
My foot unfortunately just passed through him as he phased himself though it. Or, rather that was what he was expecting. Instead, my foot crushed his body like a paper bag, and his guts exploded out everywhere.
J Quick: “Wha.. ho… how? I… thought…”
I didn’t let him finish as I stabbed my sword through his skull. Pulling it out of his head, I turned to Lucifer with my head tilted.
Artoria: “Okay, how come my foot didn’t phase through him like we were both clearly expecting?”
Lucifer: “Short answer? Magic Shenanigans.”
Artoria: “And the long answer?”
Lucifer: “Magic Shenanigans.”
I just slumped my shoulders, and dropped my head.
‘Why did I even expect a real answer? Haaahh.’
Artoria: “Well, that’s two dead, in short order. I never understood how speedsters could ever lose though.”
Lucifer: “Well, all of them are never going as fast as they can at the start. Not that it matters to you from what I’ve seen. You have FTL reflexes, which is honestly absurd. Magic really is bullshit, huh?”
I just shrug my shoulders. Before I could respond though, there were another series of sonic booms. Several seconds later, floating above me and just out of range from my aura, were several more members of the Crime Syndicate. As I was about to ask Lucifer a question, his voice rang in my head again.
Lucifer: ‘If you are wondering where Owlman is, you already killed him. He was in one of the cities that were destroyed when you killed Superwoman. Even better? He died taking a shit! HA!”
It took everything I had to not snort or start laughing. The big bad owl(bat) died while taking a dump. That was just too perfect.
‘Let’s see, who do we have here? Power Ring, Ultraman, Grid, and Deathstorm huh?’
Power Ring: “Whoa.. what happened to those two…”
Grid: “Unknown.”
Ultraman: “Are you two fucking around? That woman down there clearly killed them.”
Power Ring: “Huh? What woman?”
Grid: “Affirmative. No other lifeforms detected in vicinity.”
Firestorm: “No.. no there is clearly a woman down there dressed in armour with a scary looking sword…”
‘Ha. I can understand Grid not being able to see me because it’s just a machine. But leave it to the “most cowardly being” in this dimension to not even be able to see me with the Power Ring.’
Ultraman frowned, and let out an annoyed tsk, “Great. So we’re dealing with something supernatural.”
‘Bing bing bing! Well, might as well open up with what worked on Superwoman.’
Raising up my sword with both my hands, I prepared another full powered Burst Air. I then brought my sword down and let the attack go.
Ultraman: “Incom–!”
But it was too late, once again my attack engulfed everything before me in magical red-black fire.
Once the attack was done, and the dust had settled I was only able to see Ultraman left. But he was wounded pretty badly. Everything behind him was just molten rock and despair.
Ultraman: “Tsk. Magic.”
Even though he complained, I could see him already starting to slowly heal.
‘Well, that’s Superman for you I guess. Let’s see how far I can go.’