"WHO DARES KILL MY WORSHIPERS!"

The voice resonated with the air around me, shaking it like a foam pool noodle. My chest was feeling the pressure, making me feel a strong tightness.

I'm pretty sure this world doesn't have bass speakers, so is this more magic shit?

The trees of the forest were swaying violently as if they were shaking with the same anger of the unknown foe. No matter who it was, magic-enabled or not, the villagers had needed to meet their end. I didn't mind pissing off an entire forest if it meant that turtle murderers were brought to justice.

I guess I'll find out real soon how much conviction I put behind those words; a ton, or a metric fuckton.

A glowing red light emanated from the forest; slowly growing in size and intensity.

So much pomp and circumstance, all it needed now was a villain-entering-the-room music accompaniment. Just emerge from the forest already...

A man wearing a striped red suit walked out of the rumbling shrubberies. I almost chuckled, seeing a man in such fancy clothes emerging from a bush. He had to wipe some berry juice off of his shoulder to maintain his refine image.

His red hair was long and well-groomed, hanging at his shoulders in smooth locks. He had some firey stubble that looked freshly groomed and a perfectly clean upper lip. Above his mouth was where a small nose and big red eyes rested. The pupil of each eye had a little flame in it. The fire twisted and curled along with his breath.

Along with his amazing eyes was a long scar going across the right half of his face. The scar was a thin line that cleanly went from his right ear to his left chin. Whatever made the cut had probably nearly sliced his whole head in half.

His suit looked like modern Earth ones, making me curious as to where he got it. The other major fact I should probably ask him about was his hideous scowl aimed directly at me and Mr axe.

Don't blame me! The axe did most of the heavy lifting.

"You! You killed these people! Worshipers of me and my forest! Why have you slighted me so?"

Was this guy serious? Emerging like some big bad boss and demanding answers. The only authority I answer to is me, myself, and I. His glowing ass would soon learn that I held very little sympathy for his followers' deaths.

"You! Boy! Answer me!"

Every word was sending waves of air at me and my group. I was the only one not caring about the injuries sustained from the very powerful soundwaves. Turtley had his hands on his little earholes, Jane was kneeling on the ground in pain, accompanied by Allen in the fetal position with his hands on his bleeding ears.

Oh no you didn't Mr.Glowstick.

I'm a simple man; hurt the people I like, and you die. Mr. axe was going to get his second meal in an hour. The stone and wood weapon was adjusted in my hands. The weight was entirely natural to me at this point. I had been using it for weeks after all.

The man seemed offended that I even thought of attacking him. His hands waved and flames the size of rice started to grow in size and intensity until they were dense cores of solid fire. They were hot as hell, but they couldn't dissuade me.

He launched the fireballs at me, one at my heart and the other at my brain. Going straight for the vitals, clearly, he has had a bit of experience fighting people. Too bad that I knew how to fight people too. The first rule of a fight: don't get into a fight. The second rule of a fight: protect the vitals.

I dodge rolled to the side, this time it worked. I felt like a real-life video game character. That was the first time in my entire life that dodge rolling worked. The excitement of the achievement grew within me and was used as fuel to swing my blade as I jumped forward.

Mr axe sliced through the air, aimed directly at the glowing man's neck. I was going for a clean decapitation.

His head would look nice on the end of a stick as my flashlight.

He didn't bother to dodge, catching the edge of the axe with two fingers. I felt the rock wedge locked in place by his admittedly strong fingers.

So cliche... He caught it with two fingers. Oooooh, so amazing; too bad coolness doesn't matter in a fight.

Since my blade was wedge in his fingers, I let go of it and landed on the ground. I immediately jumped right back off the ground and sent my knee right into his chin. I thought it would knock him out, or at least stun him, but no. My attack completely shattered my own knee.

Ouch. That really hurt.

My pendant started to heal my now crippled leg while I used my remaining usable leg to hop away. The glowing man watched me in awe, staring at my chest intently.

"Look man, I'm flattered you find my chest so attractive, but I'm not gay."

That sent the already flaming man into even more fiery anger.

"I wasn't staring at your chest you insolent worm! Where did you get that necklace? It holds so much mana... I could live for millennia off of just the power it radiates. Give it to me now! Or else I'll kill you and your little band of idiots!"

"Can you tone it down a bit? All you do is shout. Your blood pressure must be through the roof."

The man charged at me this time. His speed was like a jet engine. Pillars of flame were shooting out of his body to move his body faster in my direction. I tried to escape the attack, but I was still just a regular man; I can't dodge jet speeds, all I could do was turn my body to the side.

The man grabbed at my chest, but missed when he tripped over my foot. I wasn't able to fully dodge his attack, but by turning, I was able to trip him like we were in grade school. I inwardly chuckled at my actions until my leg let me know it was completely shattered.

The man's fingers slid past my shirt and left deep, charred gouges in my chest. This new round of injuries was much more painful. Every breath was a conscious effort. The bones that made up my rib cage were carved through like they were clay. The only marks left behind were deep cracks that ran through the remaining bone, letting me know just how hot the attack had been.

The man had been sent flying and my last remaining leg had been shattered. I was now collapsed on the ground, staring at the fake sky while he was quickly regaining his footing and charging at me again. Jane and Allen didn't know how to fight and were useless against this strange man, so they stayed where they were and just watched with scared faces.

I was able to lift my head to look at him and was startled to see that he was completely out of breath and sweating profusely. The flames around his body were fading fast and everything that made him seem like a colossal threat was quickly waning.

Glow man finally made it to my relaxed and broken body. Jane and Allen looked like they wanted to help, but what would be the point? They would just delay him for a full second, at most.

They screamed for the man to stop, but it didn't matter. Their voices were like background noise for us right now.

I looked deep into his troubled eyes and watched him take labored breaths. He looked back down at my calm don't-give-a-shit eyes; lungs equally straining to give me air.

His hand started to reach down and grab at the pendant. It was now visible through my burned shirt. The apparently precious necklace laid on my chest unassumingly. I didn't think much of it other than the fact that it healed me super quick; I only kept it because it was useful.

The moment the man's hand wrapped around the pendant, a single sigil character glowed brightly and resisted his grasp. He grunted and grasped harder, sweat only pouring down in increasing quantities.

I would have attacked him, but without my legs to generate some nice forces, I was unable to make any decent moves. I did enjoy watching him fail at grabbing my gemstone.

The man looked extremely weary now, like he was on the brink of collapse. And collapse he did. His body fell over into the long grass and burned it to ash. Jane and Allen helped me stand up and watch the whole thing.

My legs were healing nicely, they would be fine in the next half dozen minutes or so.

The man's body glowed brightly for one shining moment before it collapsed like a shell. The exterior cracked along a million lines, all making tiny bits of glowing dust that blew away in the slight breeze. At that was left behind was a small being.

A lizard?

The man was a small and little lizard? Was there a joke I wasn't getting? Had he magically swapped with a lizard just to fuck with me? Was this a man who turned into a lizard? Or a lizard that had turned into a man.

The lizard was glowing the same bright red that the man had been wreathed in, so I assumed they were one and the same.

I had just fought a lizard. Huh. Try new things every day I suppose. The little reptile looked very tired, laid on its back like it was dead.

Do I kill it now? But it's just a lizard; with some weird magic.

I asked my body parts for suggestions since my most vocal proponent Mr. Stomach had been oddly quiet since the little incident we had earlier. It was a majority vote in favor of not killing it. My knee caps fought hard in the 'kill it' camp, but with a calm and calculated argument from Mr. Heart, they changed their tune.

I wouldn't kill it, for now. See what it knows and maybe have it help us in the promised land.

Right now, it didn't look human, so my fury was easily contained once a vote was reached. As a bonus, he was a reptile, so I placed him gently on Turtley's back. The small little lizard boy was the perfect size for my little turtle buddy.

I WISH I had a camera.

Sadly, the heavens did not send me some magic camera, so I could only save it as a thought. The cute factor was cranked up past what the dial would go to, numbers I couldn't quantify properly; 11, 1 billion, the square root of toast, Pi times the radius of a turtle.

The picture caption would read: Turtley and a little friend.

I place the dual-layered reptile pile on my head and did a once-over of Jane and Allen. They looked physically fine, except for the dried blood around their ears. They were staring at the lizard like it was a ticking bomb, ready to go off at any moment. I waved their worries away. He was already resting on my head, how much of a danger could he be?

"Are you two ok?"

Jane shouted back, "WHAAAAT!?"

"ARE YOU TWO..."

"WHAAAAT!?" Allen shouted at me.

This is gonna be a hoot. Ruptured eardrums are juuuuuust great.

I did my best to hand sign them if they were ok. They seemed to get it good enough and refrained from speaking. I waved my hands and told them to follow me.

It was time for me to search for that stew. It needed to be destroyed, at any cost. I would not let such an injustice remain in this world. Every shred of turtle murdering must be cleansed from the ground I stood on.

I went through each home, checking for things our group would need in the badlands. Spices and tools and gear. I was able to snag two more bags, though they were mainly for herb gathering, they could make do for traveling.

I filled each with a bunch of stuff. Allen watched me with a complicated expression on his face. He was clearly uncomfortable with me going through all of his now dead friends and family, but at the same time relieved that the constant sword over his head was removed.

What he doesn't know is that I am a much larger sword than any other, a sharpened blade that drips constantly with fresh blood.

I saved the best for last, the spot where the village chief lived. It was a slightly larger shack, one with other rooms for guests and Allen's former family. Jane followed Allen to his room to help him gather some personal things. I guess he would be following Jane and I to the badlands. One more turtle lover to grace this planet's culture.

I'd think about Allen and his decision to join us later because I found a fairly heavy rug made from an unknown fiber. There were drawing of ritual sacrifice depicted on it, but I quickly peeled it to the side and found a trapdoor underneath.

Bingo

The door was not that heavy, only a few wood planks worth of weight and with a metal door knocker-looking handle. It had more carvings on it that I didn't care about. Turtley and LL, little lizard, rested on my head. But I couldn't take them into this space, there would be bodies of their dead family cooked into food and stored in vials.

I couldn't put them through that, so I put them down on a table and rubbed Turtley's head. He was the real MVP of this trip to the village. I opened the trapdoor and peered inside.

I was hit in the face with a musty and dry odor. There was a short and sturdy wooden ladder that lead inside. I decided that it was safe enough to go down and scurried down it.

They must not have cleaned this area all that often since anything I ran my finger over had a thick coat of dust on it. Most surfaces were the underground rock, or wooden shelving wedged into the rock walls.

It was a very primitive construction, leading to extremely difficult expansion in the future. Every single shelf was filled with glass vials of a brown, near-black sludge.

'Kept in perfect condition' he said. This just looks like a bunch of decayed, 340-year-old food.

I grabbed Mr. Axe and gently pushed each and every vial off the shelving, watching them shatter against the ground. The smell that was released into the already musty air made me physically gag. It directly bypassed my higher thinking ability and forced my body to convulse at the smell.

Shit, this is horrible. To think that they have perverted the mutilated bodies of turtles to this extent; I will put their souls to rest.

I pushed through my spasming gag reflex and continued to break each and every bottle; until I reached number 341. That was this year's vial. This vial holds the last part of Ali...

I...thought about giving it to Allen. I knew that he wouldn't eat it since he hadn't so much as looked at the full bowels of it, but did I really want to let a piece of a turtle's soul continue to suffer?

I safely put the vial inside my backpack, making sure it wouldn't get crushed, and walked back to the ladder, contemplating.

His character is yet to be seen, but I always make sure to reward those who follow me.