Before the wizard could shoot his deadly lightning bolt in Michael’s direction, he noticed Buddy’s body glowing under his husband’s arms.
“What the heck?” the wizard thought to himself, as he stopped the lightning charge and watched the dog’s body closely.
Michael let out a surprised gasp, as Buddy began to shed his doggy appearance. Like all those years ago in the cabin, it was as if his spirit was leaving the body. The fur evaporated into the air, as the dog’s canine features disintegrated off of his husband. Mixing into a spiral, the spirit shown brightly, as a ghostly version of Buddy appeared. It woofed happily, before panting and wagging his tag.
“What the fuck?” the wizard thought to himself.
The wizard, having been apprehended by the police beforehand, didn’t see Fido float off of Freddy’s body in the cabin and into the night sky. As a result, he became distracted by this strange occurrence, as the dog flew his way over to his master, Tom. Michael noticed that Freddy’s naked body had finally returned to normal, but he couldn’t feel a pulse or see any other sign of life.
“Freddy?” Michael whispered to him in tears. “Freddy? Freddy wake up.”
As Michael tried to shake his husband back to life, Buddy floated his way over to the exit door. There, turned around and leaning his back onto the door, was Tom.
“Buddy?” Tom asked with a confused tone in his voice, as he stood up.
The wizard looked on in astonishment, as Buddy began to have a conversation with his master.
“Hi master” Buddy communicated to Tom in his thoughts.
“Buddy!” Tom exclaimed.
Buddy licked him with his ghostly canine tongue, but Tom could only feel a chill on his face.
“Buddy! You’re alive!”
“No, master, I am not alive.”
“Huh? How? How are you talking to me right now?”
“I am a ghost now. I died almost a year ago.”
“Almost a year ago?! How?! How did that happen?!”
“When we went camping in the woods on New Years Day, you threw your ball at me and I chased it into the forest.”
“Yeah! That’s when you first went missing!”
“Well, master, when I ran out there to get the ball for you, I got cornered by a bear.”
“No!!!!”
“It’s true, master. The bear cornered me and attacked me with its sharp teeth. I had entered into her territory and she was defending her cubs from what she considered a threat. She bit me and dragged me into her den. I bled for several hours, before I finally passed away.”
“No!!!!! Buddy, no!!! Don’t tell me that!!!!!”
“What the fuck is going on over there?!” the mayor exclaimed to Marley.
Marley couldn’t believe what had transpired that evening. His boss went seemingly insane. They met an all powerful wizard. Nearly the entire police force, plus the commander, the police union leaders, his fellow colleagues and an army of assassins, saw their blood spilt on the floor of this abandoned warehouse. Now, he was looking at the ghost of a dog.
“I must not be getting enough sleep at night” Marley thought to himself. “I have to be hallucinating all of this. It can’t possibly be real.”
Sad as it was to say for Marley, all of what he had witnessed and would witness was, in fact, as “real” as it could get. While Buddy continued to speak to Tom telepathically, Chris continued to try to wake Sofya up.
“No” he quietly whispered to her, as a tear fell from his eye. “No, you can’t be dead. You have to wake up. You have to help us defeat this evil man. You may be carrying my child. I don’t want to lose you or my offspring. Please find a way to get up.”
Chris became less concerned with his naked appearance, as he tried, to no avail, to bring Sofya back to life. Michael couldn’t bring his husband back to life either, causing another flood of tears to well out from his eyes and onto his face. The wizard became disoriented, overloaded by the amount of things happening at the same time.
“This is totally unbelievable” he thought to himself, as he continued to quickly look around the room. “I don’t know where to keep my eyes set on. I don't know what I should do next. Should I kill Michael now or get back the ring from that dreadful mayor? What’s Tom talking about with that ghost dog? Is it going to try to attack me now? How do I counter this? This is all too much for me to handle right now and I’m supposed to be able to handle just about anything.”
While the wizard struggled with making his next move, Buddy continued to converse with Tom in his thoughts.
“I have to leave now, master” Buddy communicated. “It’s time for me to say goodbye.”
“No!” Tom cried. “No, you can’t leave me!”
“I have to master. I came back, via the power of the ring, to try to help you out and give you a sense of closure. I bred you a new litter of puppies with your wonderful new dog Lady.”
“So she is pregnant?”
“That she is, master. She’s a great bitch and you will spend many wonderful years together.”
“How will I do that? Can’t you see what’s happening in this warehouse right now?”
“I do, master, but fear not. Once I say goodbye and go on to the after life, the tables will turn on that wretched wizard.”
“How do you know this?! He just killed Freddy and his own daughter, for christ sake!”
“Well, master, when I died, the first thing I wanted to do was be back in your arms. I missed you so much and I wanted to be by your side. You may not endear yourself to most people, but you are a great master and you always treated me with kindness and love while I was alive.”
“So you didn’t run away from me?”
“No master and Lady will not either.”
“Lady! I—“
“Master, listen to me. After I died, I begged the spirits in the after life to reunite me with you. They told me I could come back temporarily, to say goodbye and to assist someone who needed my help. It was with the power of the ring, on that ghouls finger, that allowed me to come back to Earth to spend time with you again. My spirit was removed from the man whose body I took over, with the incantation spell on the back of the ring.”
“Is he still alive?”
“If you want to defeat the evil wizard, master, then you have to let me go. Let me say goodbye, before it’s too late.”
“Buddy, I’m going to miss you so much. You were the best dog I ever had.”
Buddy whimpered and licked Tom with his ghostly tongue.
“I will miss you too, master, but it’s time for me to say goodbye now. I promise you that my departure is for the best. The wizard will not win this war, though the odds may seem bleak. Goodbye master. I will always love you.”
“Goodbye Buddy. I will always love you too.”
Buddy floated out of the warehouse, barking as he disappeared into the night sky. Tom let out a stream of tears, as he slouched back down onto the floor. His back was supported by the door, while he sobbed in pain over the departure of his beloved pet.
The wizard stood in awe, but also in a sense of fear, over what had just transpired. He had heard the conversation take place between Buddy and Tom and did not like what the dog had to say.
“The tables will turn on me?” the wizard asked himself. “How is that even possible?”
As if it was fate for his question to be answered in that moment, two events occurred at the same time. The first development was that Freddy began to breathe again and stir in Michael’s arms.
“Freddy!!!!!!!!” Michael exclaimed.
Freddy moaned quietly, as he began to stir awake.
“Freddy!!!!!! Freddy, you’re alive!!!!!!”
Michael pulled his husband up and brought him into a big, tight embrace. The two of them hugged, before Freddy leaned in and kissed Michael on the lips. In that moment, the second development occurred. Distracted by the scene before him, the mayor didn’t notice the Ruggeri ring glowing on his finger. While its glow passed his glance, what happened next did not.
The mayor began to feel an itch on his hand. Absentmindedly scratching it with his other hand, he began to feel it get prickly to the touch.
“Huh?” the mayor thought to himself.
When the mayor looked down at his hand, he saw that it was beginning to sprout black fur.
“What?!?!?!?!” the mayor exclaimed, as he saw his arm and hand get furrier by the second. “No!!!!! It can’t be!!!!!”
The mayor’s screaming caught everyone’s attention. Marley gasped, as he watched what was happening to his boss. Chris stopped looking at Sofya’s body to look up at the mayor. Michael and Freddy stopped embracing to watch what was happening. Tom looked up from the door, but couldn’t see too much from such a far distance. The wizard let out a surprised gasp, but then began to chuckle.
“Pathetic” the wizard thought to himself, as the mayor began to change into a dog. “He probably read the inscription too many times, so now he’s become a slave to its curse.”
The mayor yelled out in fear, as his arm began to shrink. His bones began to crunch and his hands turned into paws. One of his fingers pulled back into a dewclaw, as his nails turned into claws.
“Oh my god!!!!!!” the mayor yelled. “I’m turning into a dog, like Freddy did!!!!!”
The mayor, distracted by his new front legs, heard a crunch in his spine.
“Ahhhhh!” he exclaimed, as he fell onto the floor on his back.
Before the mayor landed, the ring zapped his newly formed paw and flung itself up into the air. When he landed on the concrete floor, the mayor felt his body shrink. His chest and back itched, as a coat of black fur grew underneath his clothes. His body continued to shrink, as his legs slipped into his pants. He couldn’t see the changes happening underneath his now baggy clothes. When he looked up, he saw himself shrink further into the floor and into the clothes underneath him.
While the mayor continued to transform, the Ruggeri ring flew high into the air.
“My precious!” the wizard exclaimed, as he tried to levitate up to grab it.
Chris spotted the wizard levitating and got up from the floor. He had already failed once in his duties to protect his boss, Freddy Benson. That guilt would live with him for the rest of his life. He would not allow the wizard to attack his boss again or transform him back into another dog. If he could redeem himself in that moment, it would be by making sure the wizard did not get his hands on the ring.
When the wizard went to touch the ring, it zapped him with a powerful shock. Letting out a groan, he watched as it dropped back to the ground. While flying down towards it, Chris ran in the direction of its descent.
“I got it!” Chris exclaimed, as he jumped up and allowed the Ruggeri ring to slip onto his finger.
Falling into a defensive posture, Chris curled himself into a ball. As this occurred, the mayor went through further changes on his body. He felt a stubby tail poke out of his butt, ripping a hole in the briefs he wore. He felt his face push out, as a black muzzle stretched out of his mouth and then drooped along the sides.
“Noooeergh” the mayor tried to moan out, but found that his speech was going, going, gone.
His nose turned black and became very damp. He could feel his tongue grow longer, forcing him to begin panting in fear. The colors of his eyes changed, as he lost it in his vision. His teeth grew sharper, his ears got pointy and his face became covered in fur. When it was over, the mayor knew what had been done by the ring he held onto for so long. Although he wasn’t exactly sure of what breed he became just yet, he realized that he had turned into a dog.
Landing on the ground, the wizard pointed his finger at Chris. He began to recharge for another deadly bolt of electricity.
“You just made a big mistake!!!!!” the wizard exclaimed.
Chris crouched in fear, trying to prevent the wizard from taking the ring he long desired. Before the wizard could fire his shot, however, a rumbling could be felt onto the floor. Tom began to scream, before he got up and ran to a corner of the room to duck for cover. Michael and Freddy freaked out, before they got up and joined Tom. The dog began to yelp out in fear, as it struggled to shake itself free of the mayor’s clothes. The wizard gasped, suspecting what was going on.
“No!” he exclaimed. “I must have activated some trap that my wretched daughter left on this place!”
In that instant, a giant portal opened up that covered the front of the warehouse from the floor to the ceiling. The wizard had never seen a portal of this size before, so he knew it could only mean one thing.
“Trouble” he thought to himself, as he stood in a defensive posture.
Coming out of the portal was a large army of magical soldiers, streaming out in the hundreds and, in seconds, in the thousands. When the wizard had broken out of the Fallen Island prison complex, his release of the other inmates had triggered a magical world war. The forces of evil organized an uprising against the forces of good. Many perished in the battles that were raging, caused by Victor Roshkovich’s grand breakout from magical facility that held the most dangerous criminals in its walls.
The forces of good had fought valiantly, but they were becoming overwhelmed by the sheer size and power of evil. The leaders of the magical world believed that re-apprehending the source of the breakout would weaken the evil forces and their will to fight. In haste, they tried to find Victor’s location, but were unsuccessful in their efforts. That was, until Sofya gave them the signal, using a homing spell she cast on the warehouse before she died.
With this information, the magical world was able to pinpoint his exact location and gather a large army together to fight him until his defeat. Sofya knew she couldn’t defeat her father on her own, but she knew he was no match for an army the size of the what the magical world was capable of conjuring up. In life, she felt she had done a lot of wicked things. She was no villain, but she was no hero either. She wanted to redeem herself and in her visions, she saw a way she could do so.
She knew she’d never make it out of the warehouse alive, as she had foreseen this in her visions during her meditations in life. However, when she had successfully defeated the mayor’s army, she hoped to stall her father, for just enough time, so that the magical world could prepare its forces, to attack him and take him back into custody. All she needed was to keep her father in one place and stall him for enough time until the soldiers were ready to charge. She paid the ultimate price for executing this plan successfully, but she knew, in her heart, that it was the only way to stop her father, once and for all.
The wizard did not have to time to understand the bravery of his daughter’s sacrifice or the brilliance of her plan. He prepared to defend himself from the onslaught that was rapidly approaching. He powered himself up, getting ready to fight the soldiers off with his magic. Wanting to gain some leverage in this battle, he grabbed the mayor’s advisor Marley and levitated him into the air with him. When the wizard landed on the riser, he held Marley up to his chest.
“Help!!!!!” Marley screamed in fear, as the wizard began using him as a sort of human shield.
The dog finally managed to get out of its clothes and ran over to Chris. Chris, seeing the Cane Corso dog that the mayor became, sighed in irritation as it approached him. The only sign of its previous humanity was the shredded briefs it wore on its backside. Reluctantly, he picked him up and carried him over to where Freddy and Michael were sitting. Freddy, Michael and Tom leaned against a wall, in awe of what was taking place up in the air. They looked up to the riser and watched as the wizard defended himself from the forces of good from the magical world.
“What a rotten snake” Michael thought to himself, as Chris ran over to him with the dog in his hands. “To use a human shield like that is so cowardly and low.”
Chris sat down next to them with the dog, as they took in the sort of show before them. The wizard used his magical bolts of lightning to kill the soldiers one by one. They fell like dominoes, but more of them continued to charge at them. Though he was able to kill hundreds of them easily, he was soon beginning to feel his energy start to drain. When he peered over to the magical portal, he let out an irritated groan. It was if the soldiers kept coming and coming, with no end in sight.
“I can’t keep fighting them like this” the wizard thought to himself, as the soldiers shot magical bullets at him, which he continued to deflect with ease. “There’s just too many of them for me to fight off. I have to kill them all in one blast and then close that portal door.”
The wizard placed a defense shield around himself, covering a panicked Marley inside. The soldiers tried to attack the shield with their with guns, spears and swords, but found they could not penetrate inside. One of the leading soldiers noticed that the wizard began to glow. A mysterious light began to form on his chest.
“Red alert!” he yelled out to the oncoming soldiers. “Victor Roshkovich is going to blow! I repeat! Red alert! Victor Roshkovich is going to blow!”
Knowing that their lives were now forfeit, the goal of the magical soldiers was to minimize the number of casualties from what was going to happen. Their first order of business was the close the portal door to the magical world. Their second order of business was to seal up the warehouse, making sure the attack stay confined to its walls. Then, they noticed Freddy and Michael sitting in fear next to Chris, Tom and the dog.
“Protect the mortals!” the soldier ordered. “I repeat! Protect the mortals!”
The five of them, sitting on the floor, watched as all of the magical soldiers gathered their energy together and shone a bright light in their direction. The soldiers intended to put up magical shields to protect them from the impact of the blast. Their combined energy would be enough to make it so that they were impenetrable to what the wizard would soon unleash.
The first person to gain this protection was Freddy. He had been a victim to the Ruggeri’s ring curse twice and nearly paid for it with his life on both occasions. His bravery was rewarded with the first shield placed around his naked body.
The second person to gain this protection was Michael. He was the brains behind Freddy’s brawn. He planned out the defeat of the wizard the first time. His contributions made the soldiers’ ability to fight him off now possible the second time. His intellect and cunning were rewarded with the second shield placed around his body.
The third person to gain this protection was Chris. He bravely fought the mayor’s forces on a number of occasions, risking his life to protect the members of his team. By taking the ring, before the wizard could get his hands on it, he made it possible for the soldiers to weaken him in battle. His courage was rewarded with the third shield placed around his naked body.
The fourth person to gain the protection, and the last one on merit, was Tom. He overcame his poor social skills to help Freddy and Michael defeat the wizard. He brought Freddy back at a critical time. He agreed to go into disguise at the mayor’s house, knowing the risks he faced, and lead the wizard into Sofya’s trap. His flexibility was rewarded with the fourth shield placed around his body.
Once those who were deemed worthy of protection got their shields in place, the soldiers used the remaining time left to protect as many other people as they could. They only were able to protect the mayor, who had become a dog, before their time for protection had completely run out. They intended to shield Sofya, hoping to bring her back to the magical world, in the efforts of trying to revive her. However, they had just run out of time before they could do so.
As the soldiers placed the protection shields on the remaining team members and the dog, the wizard’s core of energy in his chest began to expand and grow. The attacks on his shield did nothing to penetrate into him. They didn’t even cause a scratch. Marley shook nervously, as he felt his back tingle. He felt something surging with a powerful energy he couldn’t see with his eyes. When the wizard was ready, he undid the shield and let out the charged attack.
“He’s gonna—“
Before the lead soldier could warn the assembled magical soldiers of what was to come, the wizard let out his most deadly blast to date. Its power was so mystical, that it could not be seen by the human eye. If an observer were to witness the scene before them, like Freddy, Michael, Chris, and Tom did, along with the dog, they’d witness something that seemed like it could only occur in a movie.
They felt the ground shake below them, as the wizard let out his blast. In that instant, a loud boom could be heard, as the room began to violently vibrate. In one moment, the warehouse was filled with ten thousand magical soldiers, the bodies of the mayor’s army, Sofya’s body and Marley in the wizard’s grasp. In the blink of an eye, they had all disintegrated, turning into ashes, that soon rained down from the sky.
During the attack, Michael’s protection shield cracked. He screamed loudly in fear of the blast reaching him. Freddy put his hands to his shield to try to comfort his husband as best he could. Chris let out a gasp, hoping the blast wouldn’t break through the shield and kill Michael. Before it could penetrate his shield, however, the attack was over.
Michael hyperventilated in his shield, as he watched the ashes of the dead soldiers fall from the sky. The warmth of their shields melted it off as it landed, but it mattered not in Michael’s mind. Even though his husband had been miraculously brought to life, because of the wizard’s evil attack, everyone else in the room, who hadn’t been protected by shields, had just perished in the blast.
All of the police officers in the room, human, pig or dead, had been turned to dust. All of the mayor’s advisors, including his closet one, Marley, had turned to dust. All of the assassins had turned to dust. The splattered remains of the commander and Peter McDonough had turned to dust. Worst of all, Sofya, the wizard’s daughter, who had bravely sacrificed her life to save theirs, had turned to dust. Any possibility of reviving her now was gone forever. In all, almost 11,000 perished from the wizard’s blast; gone in the blink of an eye.
Michael would have broken out into tears in that moment, understanding the gravity of what had just occurred. However, he knew that this was not over yet, so he did his best to remain calm. Freddy, Michael, Tom, Chris and the dog looked up from their shields to the wizard on top of the riser.
The wizard was panting heavily, as he gripped onto the rail of the warehouse riser tightly. He had used this energy before, but never at such a high concentration and never to kill as many people as he just did. He needed a minute to compose himself, to begin to recharge from the energy he exerted. He saw the ashes of Marley on his shirt, but couldn’t bring himself to wipe them away.
Before the wizard could fully regain his strength, the portal to the magical world opened up again. The portal was smaller than the last one. It only carried out a dozen soldiers. They flew up into his direction, looking to arrest him as quickly as possible.
“No” the wizard called out weekly.
The soldiers, sparing not a second, zapped him with their magical tasers and drained him all of the energy he had left in his system. Screaming in agony, the wizard felt his energy levels deplete, as a result of the dozen magical soldiers that surrounded him. He tried to fend them off, but was just too weak to stop them. When they had sucked all that they could take from him, the wizard had collapsed onto the riser. The all powerful wizard, seemingly invincible, had finally been defeated.
Quickly, the soldiers placed his hands behind his back and put handcuffs on securely. Lifting him up, they rushed him to the portal, before he had a chance to wake himself up again. When they managed to drag him inside and back to the magical world, they closed the portal door behind them.
Michael and the rest of the survivors in their shields looked up for a minute, before another portal door opened. With a quick beam of light from a soldier’s finger, the shields were removed from the remaining survivors. Once this occurred, the soldier closed the portal door to the magical world for the final time that night. In that moment, the war was over. Freddy, Michael, Tom and Chris had survived, along with the mayor as a dog. The wizard had been successfully defeated, at the cost of nearly 11.000 lives lost.
After they caught their breath….