I walked across the mall parking lot, just so I could drop my shopping bags off at the car. Personally, I was done with shopping and wanted to go home so we could work on our plans for how to deal with those three bastard gods. Unfortunately, my friends weren’t done shopping yet, and since I was outnumbered and outvoted, neither was I.

“Maybe I should go check on Matt,” I said, looking for an excuse to get away from the clothes and jewelry that Cassandra, Lauren, and Teri were interested in.

Matt was probably still hanging out in the game store, testing out one of their latest games. I wanted to be doing that too, even if I hadn’t actually played many games lately. Being stuck in a real live video game, with serious life and death consequences, kind of took the fun out of playing regular games. Still, it would be way better than going through another clothing store.

“We don’t need Matt,” Teri exclaimed. “This is a girl’s day out…”

I groaned at that, wondering why I’d ever let myself get drafted by the other side. Oh yeah, because if I hadn’t, I would have been dead for good.

“You know,” Cassandra whispered to me. “There’s a costume shop on the other side of the mall, and I saw a Slave Girl Leia costume in the window…”

Though I wasn’t a big geek like Matt, I had definitely seen the movies. Who hadn’t? “You’d look pretty good in that,” I responded with a faint grin.

Cassandra smirked, asking, “Who said it was for me?”

I blushed at that, then blushed even more deeply when Teri exclaimed, “Get a room…”

Cassandra suddenly paused and looked around with a worried expression, sniffing the air as she did so. I immediately tensed up and tried to see what had caught her attention.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I smell smoke,” Cassandra answered.

She pointed towards large cluster of buildings across from the mall, and I could see a little smoke coming from one of them, smoke that became thicker and more noticeable as I watched. Then the whole building exploded into flames.

“Aw, crap,” I exclaimed, suddenly having a VERY bad feeling about this. “Pfath?”

Cassandra hesitated a moment, staring at the building with a look of intense concentration before nodding. “Fuck. Yeah, I can feel her…but just barely.”

A couple seconds later, the neighboring buildings caught on fire as well. I could only watch in horror, knowing that as bad as things were, they were only going to get worse. I’d seen Pfath’s real body and the kind of damage he’d caused with ease. Compared to that, this was a mild campfire. Pfath finally emerged from the flames and paused to look in our direction.

“How the fuck did she find us?” Cassandra demanded, touching the silver bracelet on her wrist. “I thought this thing was supposed to keep them from sensing my presence…”

“Yeah,” I responded with a deep scowl. “But I’m not wearing one.”

“FUCK!” Cassandra spat out, shifting into her armor.

I shifted into my armor as well, saying, “Honestly, I don’t think she even noticed us until now. I think she was either amusing herself, or trying to draw some champions out of hiding…”

“You should probably get going,” Teri told Lauren, shifting into her own armor as she did so. Unfortunately, her baseball bat didn’t go into storage the way her armor did, so she didn’t currently have any weapons.

Pfath started running towards us, leaving a trail of flames on the ground behind her. The sight of it all made me a bit nervous, or more honestly, terrified. Though I’d never admit it to anyone else, everything I’d been through had left me with a touch of pyrophobia.

Cassandra began firing arrows at Pfath, including some with a little extra ‘oomph’. The arrows hit Pfath and burned away, though a couple of them seemed to blow nice sized holes in the god’s borrowed body. Unfortunately, Pfath immediately healed and kept coming at us.

“No good,” Cassandra spat out bitterly.

I threw a shield on Teri, then summoned Matt to my side. He appeared beside me, looking a bit confused.

“What the hell…?” he started, obviously wondering why I’d pulled him away from whatever he’d been doing. Then he saw Pfath and gasped, “Oh…”

Matt immediately shifted to his armor, though the only weapon he had on him was the one dagger. Still, he was better off than Teri.

“I thought we were going to come up with a plan before going after these guys,” Matt said.

“Yeah, but she decided not to cooperate,” I responded.

“Armestia’s champion,” Pfath exclaimed once she was close enough.

Pfath gave Cassandra an odd look, probably wondering why she couldn’t sense Cassandra’s presence, even though she was obviously right there. And for someone with the kind of awareness that a god must possess, that had to be a bit frustrating.

“And Maelyne’s champion,” Pfath added a few seconds later while staring at me with a cruel sneer. “How do you live, mortal? Arakthiel destroyed you along with your goddess…”

“And he did a piss poor job of it,” I responded, making sure there was a shield wall in front of me that the others were using for cover. However, I was prepared to throw up some more protection the moment I needed it.

“This sucks,” Teri blurted out. “I can’t even go punch that bitch…”

“Yeah, and it’s not like I can sneak up on her,” Matt grumbled, giving his dagger a skeptical look. Of course, he could still throw it without getting too close, but Pfath had already demonstrated her ability to simply shrug off damage.

Pfath fired a blast of flame at me and it smashed against my shield wall and quickly burned through it. I immediately threw up another shield already knew that Pfath had much more powerful attacks, so this was either something of a warm-up, or she was up to something.

“You will die screaming, mortal,” Pfath called out in Oraevian, probably having no idea that I actually understood what she said. Then she said something else, though I couldn’t quite make it out. Apparently, I didn’t have the vocabulary for that yet, though I was pretty sure it was profanity.

“Bite me,” I called back in Oraevian, which earned me a look of surprise and confusion.

“Hey, bitch,” Lauren called out, making me gasp since we’d told her to run away.

I glanced back to Lauren and was surprised to see her standing there with a gun in hand. She’d obviously decided to pull it out of her purse, and while this would normally be a good time for something like that, it was a STUPID idea when dealing with gods.

Lauren opened fire, hitting Pfath several times in the chest and stomach. The god snarled in annoyance but didn’t seem to be seriously hurt.

“Damn,” Lauren gasped, taking several nervous steps back. “I always wanted to shoot Nadine, but in my imagination, it was always a little more…effective.”

Lauren took careful aim and fired one more time, this time getting Pfath in the middle of the face. It was a messy hit that would have killed any normal human, but unfortunately, Pfath wasn’t human. She dropped to the ground but caught herself and slowly stood back up. Her ruined mess of a face healed right in front of our eyes.

“Fuck,” Cassandra gasped, looking more than a little worried.

Pfath snarled and send a wave of flame right at Lauren. Cassandra screamed in horror and looked like she was about to run to Lauren’s side, but a wall of flame separated them.

“LAUREN!” Cassandra screamed.

The flames wrapped around Lauren and surrounded her on all sides, though left an island of safety in the middle. The wall of flames began closing in, and I realized that Pfath was messing with Lauren, trying to terrify her as much as possible before killing her.

If Maelyne had been there, she could have simply created a shield around Lauren and protected her, but I didn’t have that ability. Unlike Maelyne, I couldn’t create shields around just anyone. However, there was one way I could help her.

“Come on,” I exclaimed, desperately activating one of my abilities.

“What the hell?” Lauren exclaimed with a look of surprise. A second later, a new popup appeared.

LAUREN MICHELLE GAYLE IS NOW YOUR COMPANION.

I immediately summoned my third companion to my side. Lauren appeared beside me, much to her surprise, and that of my other friends.

“When Maelyne sent me back,” I quickly explained, “I got a third companion slot.”

I threw fresh shields on all three of my companions, then quickly glanced at Lauren’s status screen.

COMPANION 3

NAME: LAUREN MICHELLE GAYLE
GENDER: FEMALE
AGE: 19
HEALTH: 100%
MANA: 100%
STATUS: NO INJURIES OR ILLNESSES. NEGATIVE STATUS EFFECT: TERRIFIED.
SPECIAL ABILITY: LESSER HEALING AND FORCE BLAST.

STRENGTH: 8
STAMINA: 10
ENDURANCE: 9
-
AGILITY: 10
REFLEXES: 9
DEXTERITY: 10
-
INTELLIGENCE: 13
CHARISMA: 11
AWARENESS: 12
-
MANA POOL: 100
MANA RECOVERY: 100
HEALTH: 100
REGENERATION: 100

These stats weren’t bad, and as my third companion, she’d gained +2 to intelligence, charisma, and awareness, as well as a few abilities of her own, lesser healing and force blast.

“You’ve got a couple abilities now,” I told Lauren. “Be ready to use them.”

“I do?” Lauren asked in surprise.

“You’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly,” Matt told her, before asking me, “What abilities?”

“Healing and some kind of force blast,” I answered, not taking my eyes off Pfath. “But honestly, I don’t think your force blast will be any more effective than your gun.”

Pfath blasted us with flames, though this time I threw up a shield over all of us, and it was just in time. Unlike the last attack, this one was actually intended to hurt. I grimaced as my mana slowly dropped, though I was thankful that I now had enough of it available to make good use of this ability. And thanks to ‘loyalty’, adding Lauren as a companion had just given my powers a bit of a boost.

“Fuck,” Cassandra blurted out in frustration. “We’re trapped…”

I was suddenly reminded of the way that Maelyne had been trapped within her own shield, but this wasn’t the same situation. For one thing, I didn’t have enough mana to hold out nearly as long as she did, and for another, I was pretty sure that Pfath couldn’t lock us down on her own. All she could do was try to burn us out, so this had become a contest of stamina.

“How far can you teleport?” I asked Cassandra.

“What?” she blurted out in surprise. “How did you know?”

“You can teleport?” Matt asked her in surprise.

“Awesome,” Teri added.

“It’s not really teleporting,” Cassandra finally answered. “I mean, it’s short distance, and line of sight, but if there’s anything between me and where I’m trying to go…like fire or a force field…I slam into that instead.”

“Gotcha,” I replied with a nod of understanding. That meant she couldn’t just teleport out of here. That also explained why she hadn’t just teleported over to Lauren earlier. “When I drop the shield, get some distance so you can snipe this bitch…”

“Good idea,” Cassandra responded with a snort. “Except I can’t do it when anyone watches.”

“Why the hell not?” Matt asked in surprise. “You’re not usually that shy…”

Cassandra snorted. “Armestia is the goddess of secrets, so one or two of my abilities only work when I’m using them in secret…”

“Then get ready to run,” I told her with a scowl.

Even as the flames burned around my shield, Pfath screamed out, “YOUR DYING SCREAMS WILL BE AS PRAYERS TO MY EARS…”

“This bitch is an even bigger pain in the ass than the old Nadine,” Lauren exclaimed.

The flames finally died away and I let out a sigh of relief, not sure how much longer I could have kept that up. It seemed that as powerful as Pfath was, she had her own limits as too, at least, she did while using a human body.

Dropping my shield, I said, “Now!”

Cassandra immediately began running, as did Matt and Teri. I refreshed their shields, though they both quickly ran behind some of the parked cars. Lauren remained with me, looking scared and confused.

“Don’t worry,” I promised. “I’ll protect you.”

Lauren nodded relief, then asked me, “How do I use these powers?”

“Imagine that you’ve got a button or switch in your head,” I told her. “Then push it.”

“Got it,” Lauren told me.

A second later, she fired a beam of golden energy from her hand, hitting Pfath in the chest. The god staggered back a little but wasn’t harmed.

“Damn,” Lauren exclaimed in frustration. “I was hoping…”

“Yeah,” I told her with a scowl. “These bastards are like end bosses. They shrug off just about everything…”

I threw up a shield wall and then glanced at Lauren. She seemed to be holding up all right, at least for now.

For a moment, I considered the energy blast that she’d fired at Pfath. It was a much smaller, much weaker version of what I’d seen Maelyne do, and I couldn’t help but feeling a little jealous at that. That kind of thing really would have been useful, but instead of getting that, I get an extra companion slot. Then again, if I hadn’t been given the companion slot, I never would have been able to protect Lauren.

“At least I’m not the only healer around now,” I muttered, thinking of Lauren’s healing ability.

However, like Matt’s ‘stealth’, Lauren’s ‘lesser heal’ and ‘force blast’ didn’t have a rank on them, which probably meant that they were currently stuck at a base level and couldn’t be ranked up the way my own abilities could. And that meant, even though Lauren and I both had ‘lesser heal’, the same ability, mine would be a more powerful version.

My attention went back to Pfath, who’d now formed balls of flame in each hand. It appeared that she was done with her little breather and was ready to get going again. However, she hesitated and looked around, apparently trying to decide who she should target. I had an idea.

“You’re ugly,” Teri called out from where she was hiding behind a car. “And those flames make your butt look big…”

I chuckled at that. Teri might not have the stats for a tank, but she certainly had the taunts

“Good job, Teri,” I called out, making sure to throw another shield on her. As soon as Pfath threw the fireballs in her direction, I summoned Teri back to my side and told her, “Try to keep Pfath distracted…”

“Aye aye,” Teri responded, giving me a mock solute before running back off again.

Cassandra had gotten a bit of distance and was firing arrows at Pfath again. These weren’t doing a lot of damage, but the constant barrage of arrows kept the god distracted. Matt took advantage of that to throw his dagger at Pfath, hitting her right in the back with it. The dagger vanished as Matt put it back into storage, then Matt pulled it out and repeated the attack.

“What can I do?” Lauren asked me nervously.

I glanced at Lauren again. She had her gun and force blasts, but absolutely no armor. I hesitated a moment, then told her, “Go over near Cassandra, and heal her if she needs it.”

Lauren nodded and then ran do to as I’d instructed. I let out a sigh of relief that she wasn’t arguing with me and made sure to put another shield on her.

As soon as Pfath turned to deal with Matt, I made my move. I formed another shield wall and pushed it at Pfath as hard as I could. The shield flew across the space between us and hit the god, sending her flying back and onto her butt.

Cassandra and Matt both took advantage of this to launch more attacks, and even Lauren tried to join in, though her force blasts didn’t have enough range to hit from where she was now at.

I held my spear in front of me, anchored a shield wall to it, and charged straight at Pfath. As soon as Pfath was back on her feet, I slammed into her, knocking her back. She exploded in flames, but I held a shield wall up between us to keep from getting burned. Damn, this was HOT, and NOT in the sexy way either.

“I will burn you down to your bones,” Pfath exclaimed, “and the last of Maelyne will be gone…”

Pfath began increasing the intensity of the flames, and they were starting to go around my shield. I cursed at that, knowing that it was now or never. With that, I dropped my shield and immediately felt the burning heat, though I didn’t let that stop me. Instead, I rammed my spear right into Pfath’s guts, impaling her with everything I had. I felt a strange surge of energy, then saw a burst of light, and a moment later, Pfath exploded.

I staggered back, crying from the burns and desperately trying to heal myself. One heal and I felt better. Two heals and I was almost back to full health. I’d caught Pfath by surprise after she’d moved most of the heat to the sides, so I didn’t get hit nearly as hard as I would have if I’d dropped my shield a couple seconds earlier. Still, it hurt like hell.

I took another step back, holding my spear ready and preparing to use another shield. Pfath had collapsed to the ground with nearly her entire torso destroyed. An arm was on the ground about five feet away from the rest of the body. The whole thing was still covered in flames, but they quickly died out and vanished. I still expected Pfath to jump back up, but instead, a popup appeared in front of me.

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DEFEATED AN OPPOSING GOD HOST.

REWARD: +1 ATTRIBUTE POINT. +300 RESOURCE ATTRIBUTE POINTS. YOUR COMPANIONS GAIN +200 RESOURCE ATTRIBUTE POINTS.

My eyes widened as I read the popup and realized what it meant. “We… We won. She’s…actually gone.”

“Awesome,” Teri exclaimed as she came out from behind a car. “Is she really gone?” She gave Pfath’s…Nadine’s remains a nervous look. They didn’t show any signs of coming back to life.

“Finally,” Cassandra said as she came over to join me with Lauren following close behind. “We finally got rid of that bitch for good…”

“You killed a god,” Lauren said, staring at me in surprise.

“Actually, we only killed her host body,” I said a little awkwardly. “And sent Pfath back home with a black eye.”

“But she isn’t here anymore,” Matt pointed out, “and that’s what counts.”

I nodded at that and looked around, finally noticing that a bunch of the cars in the parking lot had been damaged in the right, and some were even still on fire. Fortunately, my car wasn’t among them. The buildings across from the mall were still burning away and fire engines had arrived to begin putting them out. Another fire engine was coming towards us, along with some cop cars.

“Fuck,” Cassandra exclaimed with a look of annoyance. I saw where she was looking, and it wasn’t just at the cops. We had an audience, and there was no telling how people had been watching us. Since we were in the middle of a mall parking lot, it was a good bet that someone had been watching us from the very start. “We are so fucked…”

“Not necessarily,” a new voice said. I looked over and saw the Cleaner, though I wasn’t too surprised.

“I’m glad to see you’re all right,” I said. The last time I’d seen the Cleaner was after I’d helped him escape from Pfath, Arakthiel, and Kr’aethar.

The Cleaner gave me a polite nod, along with an odd look. “And I’m glad that you are doing well too…” He paused and looked around, scowling as he did so. “You had all better leave. I’ll take care of this…”

“But,” Teri started to protest.

“I may not be very good at fighting,” the Cleaner told her with a smile, “but I am very good at cleaning up messes like this. Now shoo. I have a lot of work to do here…”