Without Slimes

Out of desperation, he yelled, "God's Number!"

The next second, a new scenery enveloped him. He was in a child's room and God was a pudgy child picking her nose.

"Hah?" God sneered in the girl's body, "what do you want? I'm busy here!"

"Help me out, I'm stuck in a battle beyond my powers, how do I get out alive?"

God looked him in the eyes and slurred, "Hmm. Use the skeleton to block all their attacks. He'll die for sure but at least you can live."

"I mean get all of my friends and myself out of there. If you can't even do that-"

God had disappeared from the bed he was lying on and reappeared in front of Zeeth, grabbing his mouth, glaring at him. "If I can't even do that? Were you going to say 'how can you call yourself God?' Listen, punk. I'll do what I want, when I want. And you know why? Because I am GOD. Don't ever question my powers. your life means nothing to me, I will turn you to smithereens the next time you try to undermine me. Now leave, take care of this by yourself! Do you see what I'm doing? I'm cutting your twenty minutes to now!"

The next second he was back, in reality, adrenaline pumping through his veins and a demon ready to attack.

She jumped up, noticing the three of them, and ran to them, tendrils and water ready to attack. She jumped into the air and the four of them tried to attack, knowing anything they did was going to be almost useless. A tendril hit the floor to drag her even faster while one of the beast's tongues whipped past her and hit somewhere behind them. It broke the floor and caused them all to fall back into the pit. One of the demons high powered jets of water flew past her. Before he knew it, blood was raining down on him. Cuddles stopped squawking and its wings beating slowly died down. He froze, not wanting to look up. But he didn't need to. Her head, Cuddles dead, bleeding, lifeless head cut off at the neck, fell down from the sky and hit the floor in front of his eyes. Blood spurt out from it.

He looked up and saw her body, missing her head. It was surreal, he thought it was just an image, that the warm blood was just in his imagination. But it was real. Her body fell down through his arms. The blood coated the floor as the demon came closer and Cuddles body lost size and died.

Her death hit him somewhere he had never been hit before. His insides churned and hurt, the bloody feathers stuck to his robe. At first, he was simply confused, his mind was a mess while it was trying to work out how he should feel, depressed, infuriated, or afraid. But anger took over and everything became a blur as he simply did what his body told him to do. He fell to the ground and held onto her wing.

"AAAAAAHHH!!!" Zeeth struck his fist on the ground and let out a loud, desperate yell that echoed high into the sky. The slowly moving clouds quickly slowed to a halt and darkened. They changed directions and circled around a single point above him, rapidly speeding up and darkening just like his face, thunder rumbled within. A light strike hit the ground next to him, frying a patch of grass that sizzled into nothingness as the clouds collected together more and more to create a massive grey stormcloud above them all that felt like it was pressuring them to stay down. When he looked up, murder in his eyes, hell babies seemed to keel over and choke on empty air, coughing and holding their throats from the pain.

"Impressive," she told him, looking at the sky and diving at them once again after stopping herself to avoid the lightning, "you have a strong affinity with water. Too bad it's not enough."

Rain poured down on them and the beast yelled, unaffected by the storm or change in pressure. He didn't know what he was doing, but he ran at her. He didn't know if he felt more powerful, or if the rage was blinding him to feel a rush of adrenaline but he just wanted to tear her to pieces. He used the pouring rain to boost his speed, hardly even noticing it was happening. The rain surrounding him stopped in midair and all curved like needles to attack the demon. She whipped them all away with a black tendril but that blocked her vision for a second and he appeared to her side, where her vision was blocked by her tendril and punched her in the face.

She was knocked back in the air but no other damage could be seen. She took control of the rain hitting her to attack him, but the rain fought back against her control and attacked her again. She looked at the water in surprise but her face steeled again.

"Fine," she muttered and conjured a large ball of water with icicles protruding out of every end. It came rushing at Zeeth, still in midair, using the rain to keep himself up. He was ready to shoot right through it but a hole appeared in the ball of water for him to slide right through. He punched her in the stomach with black magic coating his hand at the same time lightning struck her and this finally caused damage, her skin was bruised just a little while his hand was bleeding from the impact. She whipped him away with her tail, blood came out his mouth as he fell through the air, the water slowing his fall and she came rushing at them again.

Further above them, a single staff pierced the clouds. It paused and a foot landed on it, neither of them moving in the air or a second. The foot kicked one end of the staff and made it vertical. The foot stepped on its left end, where a circle was carved with an "L" carved into the center, and mana was sent through it. The staff glowed blue and the circle widened to coat the entire staff and the person standing on it and both the staff and person instantly charged down. It flew down into the one-way barrier and hit the demon on the neck. She landed an inch from the four on the floor with the staff and the person holding her down. Her tendrils and jets of high-powered water rushed at him a single swing of a second staff dispelled all the attacks.

she pushed him off before the staff could kill her and jumped back. But she was too late, he already swung the staff back and enhanced the right side like a hammer. He hit her face like a baseball bat, but she was knocked off her feet with ease as she bounced around like a ping pong ball all around the barrier. She hit the invisible wall, hit the beast, hit the wall, over and over again until she was a mess on the floor.

"Stop." another voice exploded from the portal. It wasn't loud, but it echoed through the air. It hit them in the chest over and over again, forcing his mind to follow. It seemed to affect them all that way, the beast halted all its tongues and the demon paused as well. She stared at the floor, frightened beyond belief.

The mysterious man took this opportunity to hit her again, knocking her straight into the remaining hell babies, killing them, and out the only entrance. Her body demolished the wood she placed there as a guard like paper. Once her babies were dead and she was far enough away, the gate began closing itself. Five fingers held onto the closing gate but a glass of reality pierced itself together no matter what he did and forced his fingers back.

The moment the gap closed, so did all the eyes of the beast, Rah. it slumped back down on the ground with an earthquake-like tremor and without missing a beat, the man held up his simple staff, and all the slimes that had escaped immediately shrunk and zipped to the end of the staff. Soon, it looked like a wooden staff with a blue gem on the end.

Under his large straw hat, Zeeth could see a glowing eye, a blue that seemed to look everywhere at once. The blue light looked at the hundred slimes that collected into a single orb, and straight at Zeeth.

The monks around them were staring at the man. They all suddenly got on their knees and stopped moving. The blue light dispersed and the men also hurried back, carrying their injured or dead.

"These are yours?" the man said. He wore a loose yellow tunic and the hat somehow perfectly cast a shadow on his face.

Zeeth stared at the man, trying to see his face, then at Cuddles. He went over to stroke her feathers while holding back his rage.

"Yeah," he said. The rain stopped pouring and the clouds dispersed again.

"Has the bird just given birth?"

They all looked at him in mild surprise.

"I see. My condolences. What is her name?" he said without waiting for their answer.

"She- her name's Cuddles. How did you know she just gave birth?"

"Experience. What will you do then?"

He clenched his teeth and said with the face of a devil, "I'm going to rip that demon to shreds and feed her to pigs!!"

The unknown man sighed and swung his two staffs around, snapping them to his back. "You would have to kill her first. Can you do that by yourself?"

"Is she not dead?"

"No. I simply knocked her far away, it wasn't enough to kill her."

"Why didn't you kill her?! She's evil!"

"Evil to you for killing your pet. My only goal is to ensure the Mountain of the East stays. I don't care for her, I don't kill if I don't need to. As long as she is far enough away, you can fight her by yourself."

"I'm not by myself. I never am, I have a hundred slimes." Zeeth said, clenching his fist.

"You see these slimes as your simple minions? If you are going to attack her or keep having them follow you on these dangerous journeys then you will not get them back."

"What?" he sputtered, "Who are you to decide that?"

"Call your 'minions' back. If they come back to you, then you may do as you wish. If none go back to you, then you will leave without them and hunt her on your own." he looked at the blue orb on the staff on his back.

"Huh?!?!" Zeeth yelled, "what kind of joke are you? Guys, come back!"

He tried communicating with them but none of the slimes came back. Anger and confusion mixed in his mind. Why were they not coming back? But they always listened, why are they not listening now?

"What did you do to them?"

"Nothing. I simply showed them a place better than being with you. And all have decided on their own, none wish to come back."

"Give them back."

"They wouldn't want to even if I gave them to you. You are not a friend, you are a master. And there is no comradery in that."

"I don't care!" Zeeth yelled. He ran to take the ball of slimes back but he was impressed that the man was able to compress them so well, each into a perfect size to make all 100 slimes into an orb. His fist was just about to connect with his face and snatch the orb in one swing, but the man moved to the side without even looking like he was moving. He looked at his feet and saw a slime, one that wasn't his, wiggling about. Zeeth looked at it curiously, did this man tame slimes as well?

"Come back when you've cooled down. I will give Cuddles a proper burial but anger will not help you here. You do not deserve these slimes, I will be keeping them safe for now, if you come back and they are satisfied, they will come back themselves." the man put a hand to his chest and told him, "if you come back without learning to control yourself, I will push you away again."

He pushed him in the chest, a tremendous force and a bulbous, cool blob touched his chest, a feeling that he couldn't forget, a slime was in his hands, it just wasn't his. In the next second, he felt himself flying away, out the entrance. He flew back faster than he had ever flown before but he didn't feel physical pain, simply emotional pain. Page and Elton were flying with him and the two stopped him in midair.

"I'm going back."

"Don't." Page said, "I remember him, none of us are strong enough to even scratch his clothing, especially without your slimes. He said to come back. That means he is willing to give you the slimes back, and he made it sound as if he was willing to teach you, just not when you yell so much. But he is interested, probably because you controlled the weather and had a hundred slimes."

"Then what am I supposed to do?! Those are my slimes, I can't leave them!"

"Not the very start," Elton slurred.

"What?"

"Sorry, I'm tired. But it's not like you were born with the slimes, right? You had to tame them yourself, what did you do then?"

"I spent most that time trying to take slimes."

"Exactly, by yourself. So maybe he wants you to explore the world by yourself, figure out how to live happily without slimes and then you can get them back."

"I agree with the skeleton," Black said. "He will not keep these slimes forever, you tamed them and they are your pets. Their loyalty should be beyond simple obedience with a skill to tame them, it binds your very life together."

"Then why did they leave me?"

"They didn't. They simply wanted to live with another person, a person that apparently showed them a better world than the one you were offering, but they will grow homesick and search for you. That is what a tamer skill means, undying loyalty until intentional and needless harm is done to each other. You will get them back, but while he holds them I recommend experiencing the world without them and learn something so when you come back, you are more impressive. And at that point, they will want to come back to you." Black said coolly.