//------------------------------// // 17 - Merlin. // Story: The Royal Gamer // by SleepyBear //------------------------------// Excalibur, the holy sword of the legends, a sword capable of killing gods and giving its wielder an immense amount of power if said wielder had the will to use it. It was possibly the best weapon in this world, but it also made me the greatest hunting target for the so-called gods. For what I read and gathered the gods have been on an endless quest for the Sword, they are not likely to hesitate to kill me to finally acquire the item they have been looking for. And after all the shit I’ve been through since I got here, I wasn’t ready to die, just yet. I had to play this smart, if I died in the past, I would die in the present, if they didn’t find out I acquired the holy sword then I would be safe. So Excalibur would have to wait in my inventory, at least until I figured out how to survive. My mission in the past was unclear, so I decided to at least make the best out of it, I decided to train. Once my… Brother found out I wanted to train… let’s just say Sombra happily offered to help, apparently, Vlad aka me had neglected his training for quite a while now and as the good older brother he was, he was starting to get worried. “Let’s do this brother!” Sombra said with enthusiasm. “Yes! Fight! Show me your power!” Celestia in the past was certainly different from what I expected. Celestia was thrilled about the idea and said that we should fight each other, to see how far behind I was, and that she would be the referee when in reality she wanted to see my ass getting destroyed by Sombra. Luna for some reason was also excited and had put on a cheerleader costume to be my personal cheerleader squad of one. Grinning at their enthusiasm I agreed, in the end, it wasn’t such a bad idea, so after a bit of talking we moved to a more battle suited place, the arena in Umbris. ‘Alright… you don’t have to win, you just need to learn, focus Jack,’ I thought, as I entered the arena, and got into my position. As soon as Sombra and I were ready, Celestia's royal voice thundered in the arena, announcing the start of our battle. "Let the battle begin!" Celestia had barely finished her sentence when Sombra instantly charged at me. I barely had time to put of a defensive stance, which allowed me to parry Sombra's first blow with my forearm. I continued to block his next five blows as well, before attempting to counter with a roundhouse kick—which failed when Sombra caught the kick with his left hand and with his right delivered a punch to my guts that threw me far away to the seats in the area. 'No pain, well I guess is for the best,' I thought, as I shook off the debris and jumped back into the battleground. I took in a defensive stance, and I exhaled as I saw Sombra eyeing me with curiosity and concern.  ‘Why is he looking at me like that?’ I wondered as I kept my eyes on him. Sombra quickly continued his brutal assault teleporting behind me, delivering a horizontal kick that I parried with my own at full power pushing Sombra back a bit, I heard a small crack on my leg but decided to ignore it for now. With Sombra off balance,  I took this one chance to try and take control of the battle. I dashed forward, continuing to deliver a barrage of punches and kicks, but Sombra was easily blocking and parrying all of my attacks as if they were predictable. After a while, Sombra sighed and with a powerful push of dark magic, he broke my guard off and once again took total control of the battle delivering a powerful assault of powerful attacks combining fists and kicks, each set of them even stronger than the last. Losing the offensive I decided to block or parry his attack but I was quickly becoming overwhelmed by Sombra's power and speed, knowing that on hand to hand I would never win, I jumped backward taking my distance, and started to charge a mana beam. "You know," Sombra said with a sad sigh, "It's sad you would hide something this big from me brother, who was it? Was it father?." I didn't know how or what to reply because I wasn't entirely sure what did he meant by that, and before I could even muster the words to do so I found myself spitting blood in the ground on my knees, not feeling pain had become a liability, I took his blows and this was the result. “Vlad!” Luna shouted teleporting to my side, glaring at Sombra. “I think you might have gone a tad overboard,” Celestia added with concern. But Sombra ignored them, keeping his scrutinizing gaze on me. "I connected multiple blows at you, all of them infused with dark magic, just one of them should’ve inflicted a lot of pain, that what they do, pain over damage, but you didn’t even notice them," Sombra said with a sad look as he slowly approaching me, "Or even try to get rid of the marks, normally purging your body from this type of magic would be easy for you, after all, you are a master in the holy arts, but you didn't even notice it, so how could you purge them? but that’s besides the point, what really concerns me is that, even though you are on the floor coughing blood, you are not feeling any pain whatsoever," I hadn’t noticed that he had connected his attacks at all, this was very troubling indeed. "Even when the pain is small like a paper cut or something, there is a reaction," Sombra at this point was standing in front of me, "But in your case didn't even flinch, so tell me brother did father punish you again?... no... don't answer that..It was a stupid question... I know it was him..." The very ground started to shake and shatter as Sombra growled, "If only I was stronger," “I…” was I supposed to pin this on his… our father? I felt it was one of those situations where there wasn’t a right answer, “It’s alright, I’m sure we can find a way to fix this…” “You better fucking believe it!” Sombra growled as he nodded. “Let’s go to Merlin, if someone can break whatever you have… it’s her,” Luna added as she used her magic to heal. Merlin… well this is getting interesting…  “Sounds good,” Celestia nodded as she helped Luna heal me. Merlin, at least in my world, was an old mage that helped King Arthur Pendragon to save the world and guided him to Excalibur. This brought on many questions, just how much were my world and this one connected, was Arthur real here? “We can’t let that woman use my brother as a guinea pig,” Sombra muttered in defeat, he was against the idea of taking me to Merlin, apparently she had quite the reputation of being a crazy scientist. “You know she’s the only one that might be able to lift the curse of a god… other than the gods themselves,” Celestia sighed trying once again to calm the overprotective brother this past had given me. “And she’s not that crazy…” Luna added with a weak smile, making both Celestia and Sombra stare at her in disbelief, like she was crazy, “Ok, maybe she is…. but one of us has to believe…. right?” “You know I’m not so sure I still wanna go with her now…” I chuckled, by how they described her I felt I was going to be dissected. “See?! He doesn’t want to! Let’s go!” Sombra pointed at me, trying to rally everyone out of this plan. But he was immediately stopped when Celestia gave him a cold and calculating glare, “If you want to help him… this might be the only way… I can’t imagine when we have kids or something… they won’t be allowed to have friends or date…” “If we have girls, then they won’t be allowed to know boys exist!” Sombra promised full of determination, completely forgetting about me. “So how long before we get to my imminent doom?” I inquired casually, ignoring Celestia and Sombra. Luna hummed deep in thought before she smiled and answered, “About one hour or one hundred years… depends on how talkative Merlin is feeling.” One hour to one hundred years, what kind of time frame was that?... scratch that cable companies in my world are the same. “She has her house in a pocket dimension, we can’t enter unless she wants us inside, and you know how she is sometimes,” Celestia elaborated with an exasperated sigh. No, I don’t, but you guys don’t know I don’t, so fuck me, “Yeah, I know.” “Well… well… well… what do we have here” A voice whispered in my head and by the looks of everyone, it wasn’t just in mine. “Merlin… we…I… Vlad...” Sombra was having a hard time, and by how constipated he looked I came to the conclusion we were talking to Merlin. “What dear Sombra?... I can’t quite hear you…” Merlin teased, her voice sounding condescending, but also alluring; both inviting and dangerous. “We need your help,” Sombra said between gritted teeth. “Tatata… what did I say last time… if you want help you need to say it….” Merlin said with a short laugh. Well, things were sure getting fun, Merlin might not be that bad after all. “....” Sombra was dare I say sweating as if she had completely defeated him. Was it really so embarrassing what Merlin wanted him to say, I couldn’t help but wonder as I stared in evil delight at the situation. “It seems you don’t need my help that much…” Merlin said, before adding, “Well I have other things to do and seeing you guys don’t need my help.” “For the love of… just say it Sombra!” Luna demanded, clearly worried about me. “Nothing you say can be that bad… come on…” Celestia smiled, trying to encourage him. “Fine… I’ll do it for my brother…” Sombra took a deep breath preparing himself for humiliation. “Now you have to dress up too… you made me wait,” Merlin giggled. In a wave of magic, lights, and smoke Sombra emerged dancing with new outfit. Making me lose my shit. He had a sombrero and maracas, the situation was too much, I practically bursted in a ball of flames and laughter. “Hahaha hahaha!” Celestia soon joined me on the floor with Luna following right after. “I.. hate… you...all….” Sombra muttered as he kept dancing with the maracas. “Fine… if you are willing to humiliate yourself that much, you must be desperate,” Merlin chuckled appearing in front of us, and all I could think was. ‘What that fuck?! What is she doing here?!’