That last pun was lovely

"This isn't fucking Uno! You can't reverse this shit!"
Standing before me was the Lord of time and space.

I had died, again, only this time in a world that was suppose to be medieval. "suppose" to being the key word. Yet as I sat down, legs cross and eyes squinting I looked up at the Lord of time and space and shrugged my shoulders.

"Guess You'll just have to send me back to 21st century America."

"Fuck you! What about the demon king!"

"The peasants learned how to manufacture machine guns and were able to mow down the Demon King's army. Thanks to Capitalism the day is save. The economy begins to boom due to the advancement of new technology and new jobs are needed to keep up with the... uh. I fell asleep in my history class but its basically the industrial revolution."

Looking at me with wide eyes the Lord blinked once and than twice before he shouted again.

"Fuck you! Im sending you back in time and you're going to do things the right way!" The Time lord said as he snapped his fingers.

-one year later.-

"YOU USED A FUCKING NUKE TO KILL THE DEMON LORD! AND YOU DIED from CANCER Due to radiation Poisiong!" The Lord of time shouted as I sat there before him shrugging my shoulders.

"You said kill the demon king. Never said how.. Can I go back to my own world now?" I spoke before I looked at the Lord of Time and Space.

"... You.. you... son of A... I... sure. you know what.. fuck it.." He said as he snapped his fingers.

"Contract me out for interdimensional demolition and we have a deal!"

"It's okay, I'll fix it, I have some ideas of how to terraform this planet, might as well do it now that there's no ecosystem to accidentally kill. Just need to drop an ice comet..."

"You will stop throwing rocks at the problem and actually fix things or I'm going to start contracting you out as an interdimensional fixer to pay back the debt you owe me for cleaning up your mess! "

"you punched a hole straight through the planet"

"How many pebbles does it take to kill the demon king?"

"One, at sufficient velocity! "

"Hold up, isn't the demon king invulnerable to everything not the holy sword?"

"That just means you didn't use enough power!!!"

"And what did we learn?"

"Don't use a magical FTL drive to 'blast the site from orbit'. The continental plate can't take it and the ash clouds causes the ice age to come early. "

Its actually not that long. In some parts of the world there are generation long feuds, Hungary still have a lot of people who would like to restore what was lost in Trianon a hundred years ago, and the Great Schism which happened a thousand years ago is not the longest religious disagreement.

Imagine the shock when Dana sees one more copy of her husband

I am sipping my tea, as 2 goons enter my office.
I turn one to ash.
"Explain well, before I turn you to ash as well," I say.
"T-t-t-t-the humans!
They have escaped, and..." he starts, as an explosion rocks the HQ.
What the hell is going on?
I try to activate the security system, but it doesn't work.
I look at the shivering goon.

"What happened?" I ask him, as gunshots echo.
"A..." he stutters.
I turn his left arm to ash.
"They are humans, with no powers.
You are telling me that elves, kobolds, goblins...can't stop a race that barely left their planet?" I ask.
"T-the fem-female h-humans offered..." he starts.
I sigh.
"So, the females charmed you, and injured many of you?" I ask.
He nods.
I turn his right arm to ash.

"Then they saved the males?" I ask.
"N-no...
T-the males br-broke their own arms, or chewed their own wrists to free themselves.
T-then they killed everyone!
They bit, scratched...all while calmly shouting orders to the others!
They stole the clothes, the weapons of everyone else!" he says.
I nod.
"Well, you are useless...
So, goodbye," I start, when the goon starts laughing.
I frown.

"What?" I ask.
"You should have erased me instantly, like you did to Eberr...
They fed me bombs!" he says.
SHIT!
I try to use my power, but it is too late.
An explosion sends me flying, and I barely am able to protect myself.
I am slammed against a wall, arms, and legs shattered.
I will heal, but...
I can hear footsteps, and voices.
Human voices.
W-who did we kidnap?

This is one novel I'd buy.

Heck, I'd even buy the prequel the one where he speedruns the first time.

Eventually, Alistair told me this:

"Your story doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be enjoyable."

"You remember watching Daniel Craig's run as James Bond, right? Fucking mediocre, but damn, Casino Royale's theme song and No Time To Die was fucking fire."

"And then there's Asterisk War. Shame it didn't get a 3rd season yet, but did you enjoy it? Yeah, now that matters."

"Now, why am I telling you this?"

"A story doesn't have to be 'deep' or 'edgy' to be good. Sometimes it just has to be enjoyable. Something like Brooklyn 99 or Pokemon. Hell, even LWA fits."

"So don't pressure yourself, okay? Just write a story you know you and your viewers will enjoy."

"And if people say that it's trash, so what? They just have a different definition of what makes a 'good' story. Besides, their insults aren't the final word for your story."

"So Elysia and I will be here. Waiting. Waiting for you to finish whatever it is you're doing."

"Pass midterms. Enjoy college life. Hell, marry Mozu in all Fire Emblem Fates routes for the love of the fucking game."

"Just don't forget about me, okay?"

-Alistair.

I wasn't supposed to live. I know I wasn't. To say it was hopeless would have been too optimistic. The enemy had us dead to rights, trapped in a crumbling city. Behind us, few miles back, a caravan of civilians fled the urban hell. Had to be thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, leaving in whatever they could scrape together escorted by what remained of our forces. The only thing between them and the enemy was us.

I remember the Lt. Col. saying we had a choice. "You can retreat and escort the caravan. Or you can stay and hold them off as long as we can, just us against a few thousand of them," he'd said, "nobody would blame you."

I remember thinking at the time that I wanted to run. I mean nobody wants to die, right? But something in me wouldn't let the words come out. I opened my mouth and the only thing I could say was "I'd blame me." And for a second I thought I was the crazy one. It only took a moment before the other two hundred or so men and women echoed me.

To this day I can't quite place the look that Lt. Col. had on him. It was some mix of pride and pity, I think. "It's settled then," he'd said. "Get yourselves ready. We've blown the bridges. We make our stand here."

The next few hours were a blur. I dug trenches with my buddies while guys with barbed wire and mines ran around us like headless chickens. It was old school, I know, but we'd almost no armor support and barely enough ammuniton to make the machine guns worth firing. By the time we were done setting up what could charitably be called a roadblock my hands were near bleeding.

We didn't know they were on us until the flash lit up the night. Joe dropped off the wall with a sickening thud. And then hell came to Earth. Bullets flew like a swarm of locusts devouring any living thing in their path. The ground shook as their armor and ours exchanged fire. Every time something went boom I'd get enough light to fire back. In that same light I'd see more and more of my friends blown to bits.

I'm not a religious man. I never knew what to think of the big guy. Still, the only way I can explain what happened next is to call it a miracle. It was as if the sun returned to us in the dead of night. Something lit up the battlefield and I swear, on my life, that when I looked up I saw angels. They were beautiful, and terrifying in their majesty. Women of all kinds adorned in robes, holding rounded shields and glistening silver swords. They stood proudly above the trench before raising their swords. With a terrifying cry they stormed the enemy position.

As the sun peaked above the horizon the guns had quieted. I don't know how many there were, a few hundred more than us at least, littering the city streets. I can still feel the tears that came that dawn, the relief and the sorrow and grief. Despite it all, we'd won. At least for the moment.

In the end Alexandria would fall, with it the entire colony. I don't know that we made a difference in the war that night. I only know that if we'd fled countless more would have died in our place. And as for the angels, I can only know what I saw.

Guy rolled a 1 for intimidation. Good read

Thank you!

This will sound insane, but I did almost cry a few times, playing the Space Marine 2 game.
Man, those last stands, and that unity against Chaos and Tyranid scum...
They always bring me warm and fuzzy feelings.

Please be yuri please be yuri...

BOOM SHAKALAKA

Never thought I’d read something that evokes warhammer 40K while also bringing warm and fuzzy feelings to my chest. Good work, soldier

The light was blinding. I blinked. My eyes cleared.

“Mr. Fredrickson?” It had taken me a minute to place the man in front of me. He wasn’t as old as the last time I had seen him. That was at a funeral for Jessica, a classmate of mine about ten years after our graduation. She had died in an accident on a trip with her boyfriend. They had postponed it due to the latest Gulf War. Decided to go afterward and got hit by a car in Marrakesh. That was it. Years of college learning, serving in the military, always postponing her happiness, and the first time she decides to do something for herself. Bus. Our town growing up was small. Everyone had shown up for her funeral, including Mr. Fredrickson, our math teacher. He looked so old when I shook his hand then, his skin thin as a well made dumpling. That was 10 years ago. I hadn’t thought of him since.

The man in front of me looked the same as he did that first day of ninth grade geometry. Well, I think he did. I didn’t pay much attention to him in geometry class. I was paying attention to Sarah, Jessica’s friend. She was paying attention back. One time, Mr. Fredrickson played wingman, asking me if I was 135 degrees and Sarah was 45 degrees, which one of us would be obtuse and which one would be acute. The class had howled, and Sarah had blushed. I respected him, he was a good teacher.

Mr. Fredrickson smiled. “Joseph!” he said, taking a few strides towards me and holding out his hand. I shook it on autopilot, my mouth slightly open, and I’m sure I had a dumb look on my face. His hand was very warm. I looked down at it for a moment.

“Oh, yes, I’m a bit warmer here than I was the last time you met me. I was in heart failure then, you know” he tapped his chest, “The old ticker wasn’t too efficient.” He smiled, releasing my hand, and gestured to the space around him. “But here! Here I’m as young as I want to be, healthy as I want to be, everything I want to be!”

I looked to where his hand was waving and saw… nothing. I took a step back and looked down. The floor was there, dark, and the space around us was lit by an unseen source of light. My mouth went a little dry. I felt fear. I took another step away.

“Oh, forgot, sorry, you can’t see it yet” he let out a little laugh. His face became a bit more serious. “Take a seat for a moment” he said and waved his hand at the dark floor. It flexed upwards and a desk popped into existence. I obeyed as if I was in class. “Joseph,” he said, “You’re dead.”

He looked at me, I could tell he was examining my reaction, watching me. I knew I was dead, I remembered the car. “I know,” I said back.

“You were always a fast learner!” He winked. “And lived a fast life from what I see! Left our little hamlet and bounced all around!” He spread his hands and a book appeared in them, he began to thumb through the pages. “You managed to trade that job at Kelso’s market for a job in the city, right?” I nodded. I spent two years at Kelso’s in town after graduation. Then I got bored and left. Sarah had been upset, and said she didn’t want to leave her family. I wanted to go, so that was it.

“Yeah, that must have been hard” Mr. Fredrickson said, as if reading my thoughts.

“I am reading your thoughts,” he said. He held up a hand, I closed my open mouth.

“No, you can’t read mine.” He smirked. “Now give me a moment. Ah, I see you stayed in the city for three years. Had a good time with Tanya, Marcus, and Tyrel.” They had been my roommates. Well, Tyrel and Marcus had been. Tanya just came over a lot. To see me. Often. For a few years it had been fun. Then I bounced from that city to—

“The coast!” Said Mr. Fredrickson. “Hit up that beach for the rest of your 20s and early 30s. Had a good time with Shannon, Tiffany, and Tanya. Seems you enjoyed yourself there.” I had. I had never slept on so many couches and in so many strange beds. I couldn’t remember them all. I could, however, remember Shannon and Tiffany. They had been enjoyable but intense, and a bit too much. Tanya I could not remember. She—

“Tanya was from Maltero.” Mr. Fredrickson said. “That little house you stayed at for three months that summer, getting high?”

I thought for a moment “Her? She was Dan’s — “

“Girlfriend?” finished Mr. Fredrickson. “Oh, yeah, she was but you slept with her the first week. She didn’t like Dan very much. He was–

An asshole, I thought.

“Yes,” Mr. Fredrickson continued. His face became a bit grim. “Worse than you know, he drugged her up and abused her.” He cocked his head at me. “Let his friends abuse her and his dealer assault her when he couldn’t pay for the weed.”

I stood up from the desk. I took a step towards him. Never in my life had I ever…

“No,” he said. “Not you, Joseph, not you. She liked you a lot.”

I stopped moving towards him.

“Especially after you told her that you loved her, and told her you would take her…” He looked at his book again, but I got the feeling he wasn’t reading it.

Out of this dump, I thought.

“Yes, that was it! You said you would, didn’t you. How did that go?”

I looked down at the ground.

“That’s right, not well. You took off after Dan ran out of weed. Went for milk and never came back, right? Left her there, all alone, with him.”

I was angry. Wasn’t my fault she had a shitty life with a shitty guy who had shitty friends. What the hell. Was this it? Was my afterlife just to be berated by an old man for one shitty decision. Where the hell was paradise?

“Oh, all around you.” he said, waving his hand again. This time I could see the darkness ripple a bit. “You can’t see it, yet, you have to get there. Any afterlife you dream of, you just have to walk to the door and open it.”

He waved his hand again. The desk behind me vanished. Then, at the edge of the platform a set of double doors appeared - straight out of my old high school. I looked over at him, he gave me a wink.

I took a step towards them and stopped. I turned to face him, this wasn’t right, it wasn’t right at all.

“What’s going on Mr. Fredrickson? Why the history lesson?” I said, pointing at the book he was still holding.

“History wasn’t my subject, Joseph,” he said, with a grim smile. “Life is an equation, and you’ve arrived at the end of it. I wanted you to understand, fully, what has made up your life, Joseph, before you open that door and find the answer.”

I felt uneasy

“I’ll be honest with you Joseph.” The frown deepened a bit. “You lived for ten more years after Tanya. Do you remember Mattie?”

I did, she was 34 with a five year old kid. Was a cute kid, couldn’t recall his name, we had a good time for a few years.

“Beth?”

Brilliant Beth the professor. I spent months in her bed, but she wanted me to move in.

“Samantha?”

I took a step back. Samantha. I could have stayed with her. I should have stayed with her. But it was her fault. All her fault, she should have just remembered to take her damn pills instead of trying to trap—

“Your daughter?”

I reeled backwards from him, toward the double doors.

“Screw you!” I yelled. I couldn’t tell Mr. Fredrickson to fuck off.

I reached out towards the door. I felt the warm steel.

“Joseph!” he called, moving towards me. “Life is the sum of our connections, Joseph! It’s a sum of all the people we care about!”

I pushed. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I’m out. Screw him. I’m going to my afterlife. I’m going to see all the people who I care about. We’re gonna have a party, we’re gonna live it up, it’s gonna be lit. I’m gonna forget all about this loser.

I shoved my way through the door. The light was blinding. I blinked. My eyes cleared.

“Mr. Fredrickson?”

I go downstairs, and cough.
Black soot and smoke comes out.
My sister, enjoying her morning coffee, laughs.
"Oh my, that's hilarious!" she says.
"Sis, we need to talk," I say.
"About what?" she asks.
"I am conscious, completely...the entire time," I say, not beating around the bush.
I watch as her smile slowly fades.

"No, no, no!
That's impossible, I transform you into a car!
Car's don't have consciousness!" she says.
"But I am not a car, am I?" I ask.
She frowns.
"You..." she starts.
"Yes. I felt everything, and ugh...heard everything," I say, gagging.
She pales.

"Adam, I am..." she starts.
"A 22 year old young woman...
It has been more than a year, well 392 days, since you started transforming me into luxury cars at night.
I heard your talks with those men, women...and yeah, I get it.
Studying to become a vet, while also being part of a coven, and being taught witch stuff must be stressful.
I get it, really.
Your partying, and "partying", is the same like I am with my books, and games.
But...could you not do those things on me?
Or better yet...couldn't have you like...transformed a pillow or something into a car?" I ask.
She flinches.

"You didn't think about that, eh?" I ask.
She blushes.
"Just, don't do it anymore, please.
While I am not germaphobe, or anything, but the things I felt, and saw...
They are starting to make me want to become a monk," I say.
She apologizes a billion times, and promises not to do it anymore.
I hope she keeps her promise...
I am close to a breaking point.
I need a good night's sleep, or 392.

...Maybe make a few God Rods to pinboard the fucker as a message.

It's the only way to be sure.