“No hold on right there,” said a grisly voice, “Put your hands on your head and turn around, slowly.” I heard the click of a safety being thumbed. Now, I was fully armored up, bone helmet, spelled armor and everything. But I had not tested myself out against bullets yet. Better safe than sorry. I did as the voice requested. 10 inches from my head was gun, pointed right at me. The hand holding that gun didn’t waver, and the older gentleman with that hand wasn’t smiling. “I don’t plan to act like I understand what’s going on here, but if you could remove your helmet, slowly, that’d be good start.”

“Well officer, frankly, I would rather not. I don’t know if you saw this, or how much you did or did not see, but the little fucker behind had a horde of zombies. And you look like you don’t have a problem with my head suddenly having some holes, so I’m going to leave it right where it is.” During my reply, I was reaching out with my earth magic towards his gun. I know I could manipulate earth and crystals, but I hadn’t tested out metal yet. Worth a shot. I felt his firing pin, ready to go off, and then bonded it to the side of the gun. Now, pulling the trigger won’t be doing any good. Another facet of my magic that worked out. I felt a tiny bit safer. Maybe I should go a bit further. I then grabbed the last 2 inches of his pistol with my magic, and crunched it. The officer stared at his gun in disbelief.

“What the . .” he stumbled out, “How did ya . .” He turned his gun around to examine its sudden lack of utility.

“Magic. Apparently it's a part of our world now. Which brings us full circle to the necromancer behind me. The buried pipsqueak who can control the dead and throw dissolving death at people. But I don’t have time for this, and neither do you.” I pulled off my helmet, “See, I’m human, just with magic. There was some Ripple that vibrated reality yesterday, and I am different, you probably are too. But good luck with that.” I put my helmet back on, fixed his gun and gave it to him, and went to the buried kid.

“Look you little shit,” I said as I crouched near his head, “I’m not going to kill you, yet, haven’t really made up my mind honestly.” His eyes grew huge; he opened his mouth and I conjured it full of ice. “I didn’t say you could talk yet. Now, you’re going to nod yes or shake your head no. Have you killed anyone?” Head shake no. “Were all of those zombies from this graveyard?” A bunch of ridiculous nodding. “Ok, for future reference, if I ever hear of you killing someone and making them into a zombie, I will kill you and bury you in the core of the earth. Am I clear?” I know, I’m soft. It doesn’t help that I was a pathetic nerd in school all my life. I let the kid out of the earth and banished the ice so he could speak, even though I hated his voice. Him taking off was probably the best thing he could have done. Those skinny little legs moved his ass fast enough that I didn’t have time to reconsider my actions. But I had plenty else to do.