(Yes, I know I should finish the last one first, but I'm nothing if not random when it comes to fics.)
It had been a quiet week, spent relaxing, and unwinding from the state of perpetual tension in which he lived. Kelne had gone fishing. He'd been most annoyed when some idiot fish had gotten itself stuck on his hook, threatening to spoil the tranquility. But that annoyance had been short-lived. And with Enlil to act as Boss in his absense, the longer-lived annoyances that were known as Minions hadn't disturbed him once.
No doubt about it, he should go on vacation more often. Gods knew he'd had enough unremitting peril in his life over the past few years. Granted, there hadn't been many other people in a position to do anything about that stuff, but he still seemed to have attracted more than his fair share of trouble.
It was probably a consequence of living in Doma, he decided as he wandered up to the city gates. Half the trouble on this planet and a fair bit from others seemed to pass through the city. Heaven forfend the guards might stop some of it. Speaking of which, there was one of them now. Some sort of demon, by the looks. Again, only in Doma.
He was mildly surprised when the guard actually had the nerve to block his path. Come to think of it, there ws something off about the uniform. Definitely a guard, but not the usual type. That feeling of Impending Doom was acting up again...
"By order of Lord Malachias, all visitors to the city are to surrender their weapons."
"Never heard of him." There was no chance whatsoever that he was going to give up his weapons to anybody.
"Malachias the Vengeful, Lord of the Last Hell, Bringer of Darkness and," the guard paused for effect, "Ruler of Doma."
"Did he come up with all those stupid titles himself, or did he need help?" By this time, Kelne was in the middle of a large, empty circle as the rest of the traffic gave the suicidal madman a wide berth. Two more guards converged on him. Each was subjected, in turn, to The Glare. It didn't seem to have much impact.
"You have two choices, human," the original guard said, "The easy way or the hard way. You may live through the easy way."
"Funny. I was about to offer you the same choice." With that, Kelne produced a pistol, shot the first guard, and ran like hell. A quick glance behind revealed that two standing guards, rather than following, were gathering some sort of nasty-looking fire spell. Grinning, he turned and swung off his pack, opening it in a practiced move and bringing out a large carpet.
His world exploded in fire. But that was alright. Given the persistent efforts of certain parties to set him on fire, he'd enchanted his coat against that particular element some time back. By the time the guards realised their error, their target was standing on his carpet, and had flown well out of range.
Gods. I leave town for a few days, and everything goes straight to hell. Literally. Well, no one invaded
his city and got away with it. The first thing to do was get inside the city, where he could find out just what was going on and put a stop to it. This Malachias person was going to
pay for ruining his vacation... <p>I will not waste time making my enemy's death look like an accident -- I'm not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn't believe it.
The Evil Overlord List, #102
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