Susane, the Chosen One, Child of Prophecy, stepped over the body of her fallen companion, not stopping to cry, fury welling up inside her like a billowing volcano, the active kind, not the kind that’s basically just a mountain with a history of anger management issues. Thunder rolled, and finding the sensation pleasant, rolled again, just for the heck of it; lightning danced across the sky like someone who is unaware of the nonexistence of discotheques, a point which didn’t really matter, given that the tower room had no windows. In that single, ultimate instant, the Stars aligned, and Susane felt her Birthright rising up inside her, roiling, uncoiling, slightly squished because it had to share space with the billowy rage stuff, but nevertheless, more puissant than she had ever imagined. She reached deep within herself, and in that moment of clear focus, she finally found her true Power, which turned out to come from environmentally unfriendly sources such as coal, but she would deal with that later.
She lifted the great Runesword, Deathsbane, which was covered in symbols not even the Wizard fully understood, and its own ancient sorceries reached deep into her heart. This brought the occupancy of her chest up significantly past the legal occupancy permissible by local ordinance, which might potentially result in stiff fines at some later point, and the sword found the Chosen One’s heart to be pure, although it did not specify pure what, exactly.
Guided by the knowledge that it was upon her to end Evil in the land, Susane extended her left foot forward and brought the huge hunk of steel, which was glowing with the light of ten thousand suns and seemed almost molten in its blazing intensity, up and swinging in a tremendous, two-handed slash, straight and true towards the throat of the Dark Lord.
The Dark Lord, her own weapon moving crosswise in an aggressive block, struck Susane’s weapon with her own, catching the enchanted metal between the edge and the flat of her blade, and shattering the damn thing like some kind of exceptionally low-quality and poorly-chosen theatrical prop.
As Susane stared in shock at the now-former tool of Destiny, The Dark Lord reversed her motion and slammed blunt back of her unmagical, but extremely practical hunk of sharpened steel down and to the side, straight into Susane’s sciatic nerve. Susane dropped to the floor, her leg buckling under her. The Dark Lord looked down at the Chosen One.
“This isn’t your day, is it, dear?” she said.
My name is Jeff Mach (“Dark Lord” is optional) and I build communities, put on events, and make stories come into being. I also tweet a lot over @darklordjournal.
I write books. You should read them!
My new book, “I Hate Your Time Machine”, is now available! Go pick it up!
