Outsiders Pt. 04

Lisa, in accordance to his earlier order to show him her rapist, would occasionally turn her binoculars towards the hospital and look at the windows on the higher stories. Ben felt her shock as she saw the paramedic that had raped her through her binoculars. He was in one of the upstairs windows, herding a young nurse away from the window.

Ben cast a new spell of Greater Invisibility on himself and flew towards the window where Lisa had seen the rapist paramedic. He smashed it in as he flew through it, feet first. He landed inside, still invisible and looked around. Female corpses were lying around, mutilated and obviously dead. Most wore grey sweats, but a few were in white uniforms. There was no sign of a live nurse and paramedic.

He floated quietly above the debris and glass shards on the floor and listened intently. The alarm was still blaring outside, but it wasn't so loud on the top floor with only one broken window. Ben thought that he could hear something. It took him a few moments to identify the location of the noise. It was a closed door to his right. He hovered over to it and peered through the observation window in the door.

Inside the typical asylum room was the nurse, screaming for help with all her might. Her arms and legs were tied to the four corners of the bed with sheets. The paramedic stood over her, catching his breath with a leering smile. He ripped another piece of sheet and stuffed it into the nurse's mouth, cutting off her screams. He then began to scream at her, mimicking her own sounds of panic.

Ben had enough. He didn't doubt for one second that the paramedic was going to rape the young nurse. He was probably going to kill her after and blame it all on the inmates. Ben seized his piece of cured leather and cast the spell of Mage Armor on himself. An invisible wall of force surrounded him, making him harder to hit. He set his feet firmly on the ground and promised himself to get the diamond dust needed for the spell of Stoneskin ASAP. He raised his foot and kicked in the door.

The paramedic jumped up in fright and looked at the door. Seeing no one, he drew his scalpel and pressed it against the scared nurse's throat. "Who's there," he yelled out.

Ben floated over to him, set his feet on the ground and seized his hand holding the scalpel. He pulled it away from the nurse's throat and wrenched it as hard as he could. He could feel joints popping in his grasp. The paramedic screamed in agony and began to kick at the empty air around him. Ben pulled him hard by the hand and landed a mighty punch on his face.

The paramedic stood in place, stunned, and Ben let go of him. While the man slowly swayed and blinked his eyes to clear his vision and mind, Ben made one last effort to beat back his wrath. Visions of his mother, trussed up and screaming like the nurse next to them, reared up in his mind and the decision was made. He was going to take a life.

He put all his weight and strength in the first punch which landed on the man's jaw and sent him tumbling into the wall behind him. His head literally bounced off it and Ben slammed it back into the unyielding concrete with another mighty punch. Ben's breath exploded in quick, savage gasps as he alternated fists to the man's defenseless face.

All he saw in his vision was the leering smile his mother's rapist must have been wearing. All he heard was his evil laugh. His lungs burned and his hands were numb, but he punched on until the man slid down the wall, his legs no longer supporting him. Ben roared loudly, making the windows rattle and nurse begin screaming anew. He picked up the slack body of the paramedic and turned to look at the scrunched up, fearful face of the nurse. She was screaming through her gag.

Seeing the young woman's blind fear cooled Ben's wrath somewhat. He picked up the scalpel and cut through the bindings around her right wrist, making her scream all the louder. He set the scalpel down on the bed next to her and said, "Don't tell anyone about this, or they'll think you're a loony."

He dragged the paramedic's body out of the room. Before he shut the door, he tossed the paramedic's set of keys to the nurse and said, "Stay here until the police come to rescue you!" He shut the door and cast Mending on the ruined lock, sealing her in where she'd be safe. He dragged the paramedic to the window through which he had entered and dropped his body to the courtyard below. He didn't care if the man was still alive or not.

He flew out the window to land at the base of the tower, next to where this spell was invisibly spinning on the ground. He had no idea how to end it. He didn't know if it could be ended. If a maximized Greater Dispel Magic didn't work on it, then nothing could.

An explosion went off nearby. Ben flinched and looked that way. In the corner of the hospital's courtyard, the fence passed over a building, making it impossible to climb over the building, but it didn't go behind it, making the building's back wall the outer wall of the hospital's perimeter.

Ben flew over there as fast as he could and saw a few grey-clad inmates clambering out of the hole, coughing to clear their lungs of the smoke. Ben growled in anger. He couldn't have them escape so he splayed his hands horizontally, with the thumbs touching, and cast the spell of Burning Hands. A cone of flames shot out from his fingertips for fifteen feet and burned the inmates that were trying to escape. They all hollared and pulled back inside, desperately beating at their burning clothes.

Ben stood watch over the hole for a few more minutes, casting the spell of Burning Hands and driving the inmates back whenever he heard them try to slip out the hole. He felt Lisa see a line of police cars driving up the forest road and sighed happily. He cast another spell of Burning Hands into the hole, eliciting painful screams from within, and then cast Invisibility on himself as soon as he drew his eyelash and his magic resumed flowing.

He flew back to the base of the tower and only then realized that the guards up there could have seen him the whole time he was shooting fire through the hole in the wall. He shrugged and let it go. The day was insane already and, even if anybody did tell anyone about an invisible man saving nurses and shooting fire from his fingertips, no one would ever believe them.

The cops pulled up at the front gate and got out of their cars, brandishing shotguns and assault rifles. They yelled up at the tower and received no answer. Then one of the cops spotted an inmate crawling out the burning hole in the wall and a few of them rushed over there to contain the situation. The cop in charge sent some officers to patrol the perimeter and radioed in for FBI backup.

Ben ignored the proceedings and went to where Lisa was waiting for him. She was still invisible, but he knew what she could see so he soon found her. "Are you ok," they asked each other at the same time.

"Yes," Lisa said in relief.

"No," Ben said at the same time. "Never mind." He needed to see what this spell was all about and figure out a way to undo it. He sent Lisa the order to accept his teleportation. There was something bothering him. Something he had overlooked. He squinted at the hospital building. The nurse was locked in a secure room with the keys inside the room. She had a scalpel to defend herself and that floor was empty. She was as safe as he could make her for the time being. The cops and feds would rescue her soon enough.

But he was missing something. Something was nagging at the edges of his awareness, teasing him like a schoolkid that saw an unnoticed stain on someone else. He searched his memory and looked all around, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Lisa's invisibility expired and he reflexively spoke the word of Greater Teleport.

Lisa appeared in his den to be greeted by a startled Raven and Krista. They peppered her with questions. Ben sent Lisa the order to perfectly recall and draw the spell she had seen. She sat down on the couch to draw and started telling the girls what had happened at the hospital, making them gasp. Ben ended his invisibility, waved off any questions and retired to his bedroom. He sat on his bed, deep in though.

Felicia woke up and stretched. She started purring and said, "Congratulations, Boss!"

"On what," Ben absentmindedly asked.

"On advancing to level twenty," Felicia said. "Seriously, Boss, I didn't think it was even possible. Well done!"

Ben snorted and shook his head at his cat familiar. "This is real life, Felicia, not a game of Dungeons and Dragons," he said. "You don't get experience points for killing things in real life. I didn't advance to level twenty. If I did, I'd have..." His voice trailed off as he realized he now had six ninth level slots, instead of four. And he had spent one to try and dispel the spell on the tower, which meant that he was supposed to have three. The rest of his spell slots didn't add up to his usage of the day and Ben remembered that advancing in level immediately restored all spent spell slots, among other things. He felt at the spells flowing through his body. They were all there, but there was room between them for a forty third spell to start flowing.

Ben's jaw went slack as he realized he had truly become a level twenty sorcerer.