I tried to jump out of the pit to help my friends but a massive red hand grabbed me and slammed me into the ground. It knocked the wind out of me. I turned over and found myself staring into an angry red face with two horns protruding from the top of its head.
It was an oni. An ogre like monster from Japan. They were called demons but not in the judeo-christian heaven and hell sort of way. In the terrifying monster sort of way.
It had white hair, thick corded muscle and ropes tied around its forearms like bracelets. It stood at an imposing four meters tall and wasn't wearing a shirt. They were known to eat humans.
I either needed to defeat this thing or get away from it, but with how quickly it grabbed me out of the air, I was pretty sure getting away from it wasn't an option.
It started to crush me in its grasp, slowly suffocating me. I couldn't tell if it was trying to defeat me in a fight or outright kill me. As it crushed me with one hand, it reared back its other fist to slam on top of my head, which would surely kill me, regardless of its intentions.
I had to get out of its grasp. It was holding my arms against my body, so I had no way of blocking the incoming blow from above. I allowed the stress from the fight to melt away and concentrated on the Vi in my body.
I gathered up Vi around the parts of my skin that the oni was grabbing with its hand and released it suddenly, blowing its hand open and breaking its fingers. I heard them snap as it dropped me onto the ground.
I landed on my feet. With its knee caps at chest level for me, I chose them as my next target. I had never done a Vi blast punch before, but I was about to try. It seemed the only weapon I had in my arsenal that could hurt this thing was Vi blasts.
I gathered a high concentration of Vi into my fist and slammed it into the oni's left knee cap. I released the Vi on point of impact and its kneecap shattered. Its leg folded backward and he fell onto his ass.
I hit his right kneecap with my next punch and blasted Vi into it as well. That folded his leg sideways. Now he was sitting flat on the ground. I was granted much easier access to his face.
I hopped up onto his protruding stomach and delivered a Vi blast punch to his lower jaw, hoping to knock him out without killing him. It shattered his jaw, but only internally.
It didn't break the skin, so he wasn't bleeding. This made him fall back and slam into the ground unconscious, kicking up dust into the air. I had finally defeated my pesky and terrifying opponent.
I looked around quickly to see if anyone else was going to try to stop me from helping my friends, but I noticed I was the only one left standing in the pit.
"It seems we have our winner! I'm being told his name is Dylan Sanguis! Give it up for Dylan Sanguis folks!" The lich announcer said.
Empowering my legs with Vi, I jumped out of the pit and ran over to where my friends Dan and Tommy were sitting. Victoria and Dan were leaning over Tommy who seemed to be having trouble breathing.
"What happened?" I said, panicking.
"The werewolf landed on Tommy. His ribs are broken, and one of them punctured his lung. It looks bad. He's coughing up blood," Victoria said. "I could turn him into a vampire, but his wounds are too severe for the enhanced healing to save his life. He would still end up dying."
A medical team arrived on the scene a few seconds later. The lead medic came up to us. He looked at Tommy struggling to breath and the blue make up rubbing off around his mouth where the blood was coming out, and said, "What's going on here? If I didn't know better, I'd say he was a human."
"He is," I said. "I know we broke the rules, but can you save him?"
"You're lucky I'm just here to save lives and not report illegal activity, because you would be in a lot of trouble," he said. "Having said that, we'll do our best to save him. Now make some room."
Victoria, Dan, and I moved back so the medical team could assess and work on Tommy. I watched as they assessed his condition. One of them put their hands above where his rib was puncturing his lung.
She looked like a fairy of some sort. She had pointed ears, green hair, and translucent wings coming out of her back. I saw green magical energy come out of her hands and enter Tommy's chest.
Tommy started coughing harder and more blood came out. The fairy pulled her hands back and got a dark look on her face.
"What's wrong?" I said. "Can't you heal him?"
"His injuries are too severe. If I continue healing him, he'll die from internal bleeding before I can finish my work. He has about ten to twenty minutes left of agony, but that's it," she said with a somber look on her face.
"D*mn it!" I said. This was all my fault. Not only did I take him to the dangerous monster world, I got him front row seats, putting him in even more danger. Then it was me who sent the werewolf flying at him. I literally couldn't be more at fault.
I'm such a selfish asshole. I prioritized having one last fun night with my friends over their safety, and now one of them was going to die for it. If Tommy died, I don't think I could live with myself. I didn't know what to do.
It was at this point that the announcer had walked over to us and was giving a play by play of the emergency.
"Terrible news folks. One of the audience members was crushed by the flying werewolf and it looks like there's nothing they can do for him. It's a sad day here at Monster Mash Matchups," The lich said.
"We hate to see it folks. Deaths happen, but never of an audience member. This is history in the making folks, and not the good kind."
I got pissed at him and said, "Help or go away!"
"How could I possibly help?" He said.
"I don't know! Don't you have lich magic you can use on him?" I said.
"Not on a zombie. If he were human I might be able to do something about it," he said.
"He is human!" I said.
"Oh! In that case, move aside," he said, kneeling down.
I moved out of his way. I was surprised, but grateful that someone was actually trying to save my friend instead of just giving me bad news.
"Two things first. Does he have something on him that's special to him, and is he ok with becoming a lich if it saves his life?" He said.
"Yes, he has a knife he carries with him everywhere. And I don't know. I'll ask him," I said. I knelt down right up close to Tommy's face and said, "If he can save your life, are you ok with becoming a lich?"
"What's a lich?" He said, coughing up more blood.
"It's basically an undead wizard. Your body will continue to age or decay. I'm not really sure which, but you will you'll basically live forever," I said.
"Will I… be able… to get… girls?" He said between choking breaths.
I looked at the lich. He said, "Yes, you'll still be able to get with girls, if that's what you mean but you have to learn the magic to do it. It's basically the same or better than normal sex though, so that's nothing to worry about. The only downside is you'll only be able to get with monster chicks. Human women usually aren't that into liches for some reason."
"Let's… do… it," Tommy said.
"That's good enough for me," The lich said. "Knife?" He put his hand out.
I fished the knife out of Tommy's pocket and handed it to the lich. The lich pulled out a can of spray paint and made a big circle on the ground around Tommy. Then he placed the knife in the circle and made a circle around it.
He began making symbols on the ground inside and outside of the circle and on Tommy's body with the spray paint. Some were rudimentary and other's were very intricate. I watched in shock and hope as the lich proceeded to make preparations to turn Tommy into a lich.