I punched the dash of my cruiser. The air conditioning had quit working and it was a ninety-five-degree day. My partner had called in sick (he knew the air conditioning had stopped working) and I was stuck on the worst route in the district. I had the windows rolled down but creeping through the village didn’t precisely get a breeze blowing through your hair. I shouldn’t have been there. I should have just called in as well and waited until the car was fixed. There was a fight a brutal fight. A man with tattoos that covered his whole upper body and crept up his neck stopping just below his jaw was beating another man with brass knuckles.

I jumped from my car and ran through the yards stumbling over toys and leaping over a short fence. I called in for backup on my shoulder radio and pulled my gun. I tackled the man from his blind side, and he spun before we hit the ground and caught me in the teeth with his brass knuckles. His eyes showed surprise as we hit the ground. I held my gun to his chest and prepared to roll him over. Then I heard the familiar click of a gun cocked. Two more men ran around from the sides of the house. One with a shotgun and one with a handgun.

They were on both sides of me before I could even raise my arm. It was hot and I had made a fatal mistake. I stood slowly and let the gun go limp in my hand. The man under me stood to his feet and I dropped my gun to the ground.

I pictured my daughter in the moment. Her red curly hair bounced when she ran. Her relentless joy. She had always hugged me when I came in the door. She was always the first to jump up and greet me. When I got my divorce it had put a damper on that relationship. I could only see my daughter every other week. Bitterness had thrown a wet blanket over me. Now at this moment, my only desire was to hug her one more time. Squeeze her extra tight and tell her I love her.

The man with the brass knuckles punched me again in the face and I fell to the ground. The guns stayed on me. Then he reached a tattooed hand down and grabbed out my wallet. I was powerless. Defeated. I cursed my partner in my mind. He was sitting in air conditioning binge-watching television with his new girlfriend, just living on love.

“That’s gonna cost you pig. You don’t belong here, this is my jungle.” He searched through my wallet and pulled out my I.D. “You want to live?”

I rolled in the grass holding my jaw. It took me a minute to register his question. Then I stopped and looked up at him bewildered. I hadn’t considered living an option. I nodded.

He tucked the I.D. in his pocket and knelt down in front of me his arms resting on his knees. I looked from the 187 tattoo on his neck to the tear drops down his cheeks. I swallowed. He held up the picture of my daughter. “You work for me now.” He tucked the picture in his pocket as well. Then he reached in his other pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. He dropped them on my crotch and I flinched. “Be at Double O Donuts at eight. Go home hug your family and thank God for second chances.” He stood and walked off. His accomplices walked backward a few steps and then turned to follow him.

They had me. Power was an invisible thing in life. Invisible but very tangible. You could see it if you knew how to look. It was held by those that were most brutal in life and they carried themselves differently than the rest of us. They had found the switch that kept them caring about other human beings and managed to turn it off. That gave them a certain power over others. They could never rule forever with this sort of power though. Either someone more powerful, more brutal would come along and knock them off their throne, or their own inferiors would grow angry enough to overthrow their cruel master. Then another would rise worse than the last. I was a sheep to be herded. I had wandered into the wrong pasture and found a new master. A cruel one.

“Wake up.” Tootsie buzzed so close her wings tickled my face. I rolled out of my dream back into reality. I was in tall grass covered in sweat. I scratched at the itch from laying in the grass. Then I saw the feet of Shia, tiny little white flower buds grew up from her nails. I rolled the other way and a pair of hooves were planted on that side. I looked up at the towering half-bull half-man. He had his big arms crossed and his brow raised on one side.

I sprang up. The entire camp was gathered around me. “What?” I demanded.

“You said one hour,” Mia answered.

Tootsie snickered. “Uh oh.”

“So?”

“It’s been three,” Shia answered. “We have been watching you moan on the ground and drool.”

“I passed out. Where were you at Tootsie? Couldn’t you have woken me?”

“Don’t blame me I stung you on the face twice.” Tootsie looked around at all my irritated clansmen. “Tell them you are going back to bed I want to see their faces.”

The dream was lingering in my mind about to vanish entirely but I could remember the feeling at the end of it. The feeling of helplessness. The feeling of defeat. Why did all the wrong people always get power over good people? Why were there no true, honest, great heroes? Why did they only exist in fables? Because to rise to power they had to be cruel. They had to do what others would not or could not do. Could a man rise to power and not be corrupted by it? Could he manage to not shut off that empathy switch? I looked around at all the impatient faces. I was their chief if only by a lucky roll of the dice. If someone removes me from the throne then these people will be serving a cruel master.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

“We don’t want any more frog rhino chief.” The centaur stepped forward. I looked him over. He was an athletic man with a ponytail. Not big just strong. He had a long narrow face that came down to a pointed chin. He had the lower body of a white and brown spotted horse. The shoulders of the horse's body twitched. He didn’t have challenge written on his face, more like pleading in his eyes. He wanted to believe in me, but he was unsure.

“Neither do I. Across that valley is the beginning of something for us. If we are going to march across Lumiterra we will be swallowed up by whatever force is more dominant than us. Unless we become the force to be feared. We will have to do some questionable things. Let the blood guilt fall on me. You are my hands. I need my hands to be coordinated, swift and decisive. Today we are no longer sheep to be herded. No longer meat for the grinder. Today we are wolves.” The applause was a little more lackluster than I had hoped but I got a few nods of acceptance. If we were successful they would grow more confident. “We will raid, we will pillage. We will terrorize the citizens of Lumiterra. Let their children spread the tale of the year the Shadeslayers strode through their land. Let their soldiers tremble.” Shia began to shift and breath faster. The two old goats began to look at their feet. “Don’t take me the wrong way. We will not be tyrants, we will give full quarter to all that surrender. We will deliver women and children to their homes but every man that raises a sword against us will take a turn in the pit.” The goat women looked up hopeful.

I turned and marched into the valley. The crescent moon hovering over the heads of my targets. We would be approaching from the dark. We would be swift. We would be brutal. I looked down at my arms I could feel the raw strength increase. I could see the new density. New veins spidered up my dark green arms. My thighs were like logs, my chest was like a brick wall. I felt alive for the first time in years. I wanted to run but I restrained the energy, demanding control. I crept through the dark toward the camp ahead. Goar tip-toed next to me and gave me a bump on the shoulder.

I looked back to see the three dwarves struggling to keep up. They were trying to stay in the knocked-down grass of our wake but jockeying each other for the nearest position to me. The one with the long grey braided beard never let his eyes fall from me. He was like a train on his own track and I was at the end of it. I took note of him. I would have to get his name.

Tootsie buzzed past the horns of Goar and landed on my shoulder. “You can communicate with your party through your data pad.”

“Are you actually giving me timely, useful advice?” I muttered under my breath.

Tootsie gasped, “always.”

I opened the data pad and tested the option. Once Shia and Mia answered I looked over my new stats.

Orc

Chief Barker

Pig Face

Level 19

Strength: 25 Hunger 20

Dexterity: 11 Thirst 05

Charisma: 5 Entertainment 5

Intelligence: 18 Concentration 16

Manna: 5 Shelter 0

Constitution: 17 Energy 14

Perception: 15 Hygiene 10

Exp: 19,610

Soul Points: 01

Skills: Furious Feline: cost 2 mana,

Dex: +3, Claws, time: 1 hour

Carapace Skin: +4 Constitution,

Cost: 2 Mana, time: 1 hour

Phantom Cloak: Cover a target area of three square-meters for 7 minutes (Stage 2)