Terraform

We're on a rampage, bottles poppin' off

Before you know it, there's rubble and dust

'Cause we'll be f*****' it up

Somebody say, "You better run

"Yeah!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Freya Familia opened their eyes, they were greeted by a sight that others had been greeted with after falling to the hands of the Ptah Familia's ruthless powerhouses. Ottar squinted his eyes against the rushing wind in his face as he watched the green grass of land miles below him becoming closer to him every second of his fall. He cast his eyes over to the seafront where he saw the ruins of the castle he and his Familia had taken refuge in.

Stretching along that vast expanse of land was a burnt out trench filled with molten earth that smoked with the heat it produced. The beginning of that line started right under the chin of the titan whose fiery breath was the last thing the Boaz remembered. Meaning that trench was in direct line of where he and his Familia had been.

...Which meant he and his Familia had probably just died then and there. And they'd had no time to react.

His emotions were a complete mess. One surprise after another had been thrown at him that he'd not even had time to process them. He'd just been blasted to death by the breath of a monster leagues above Balor. He'd faced Balor once and had nearly died because of the sheer intensity of the monster rex's attack, and among them had been a blast of magical energy that it would shoot from its mouth.

Ottar had managed to survive such a thing when he'd been level 6 and at the prime of such a level. And here he was almost a decade later, one level higher and he'd been instantly vaporised by this monster above other monsters. It was only this twisted, absurd and frankly blasphemous magic wielded by the Ptah Familia that his soul had not been thrown into the reincarnation cycle and his ashes (if there had been any) were laid to rest upon the dirt of the earth.

And the fact that he, his Familia and all the other Familia were being kept alive confirmed Hedin's theory. This was all just the beginning, a prelude to the period where the Ptah Familia were going to descend upon them full force and personally. He looked to his hands and was greeted with a grim sight. His normal twin swords were nothing but melted stumps now, only the hilts and cross-guards remaining. Perhaps he'd instinctively raised them in front of him to shield himself from the blast.

It was clear that that didn't work. And though they were not the best pieces of equipment he had at the moment, they were very high quality and for them to be melted so fast considering he had no more memory than an instant of burning pain when the titan had fired at him...well, that was why he had his other swords with him.

Having learnt from the happenings upon the other Familia that Steve and his friends had put down, the Freya Familia for the most part knew that the initial impact they'd have with the ground would not harm them. So they righted themselves in the air and bent their knees as they all landed on the ground with great thuds, but firm and tall as they readied themselves for the next challenge.

Ottar looked behind him and saw that they were very near Orario with the western wall of city well in sight. There was about 3 miles to cover to reach there but it gave Ottar an idea of how far they'd been sent away from the sea shore. But what was also clear was the barrier that the Ptah Familia had put up. It stood between them and the city and from their efforts so far, it was impregnable.

Already several other adventurers from the other Familia were at the base of it and trying their very best to somehow break and get past it but it was futile. How could you break something you could not touch? And it was also a statement of how cruel the Ptah Familia was since there was only a few hundred feet of distance between the world border and the city wall. To a normal person, it would seem like quite the distance to cross but and adventurer would be able to pass it without breaking a sweat. Safe haven and freedom was right there, just beyond the fingertips of their grasp but because the Ptah Familia was still not done with them, they were made to wallow in despair at salvation being in sight but they could not reach it.

"What do we do now?!" Hedin asked him, his hair ruffled a bit and his glasses crooked. His knuckles were gripped around his weapon so tight that the knuckles had become pale. "We cannot retreat. There is nowhere to go. And it is clear they will not accept a surrender."

"You think of surrendering!" Allen thundered, though there was a mad look in his eye. "We're the Freya Familia dammit! We don't run from a fight!"

"We just died you imbecile!" Hedin shouted at the cat beastman. "You were just incapacitated by a finger...A FINGER!...and then we were all snuffed out at once. I don't know what sorcery they're using to keep everyone from staying dead, but it's the only thing that's keeping us from staying that way! They clearly aren't done with us."

"And if it's so clear to you, why are you mentioning surrendering?" Allen asked. "They want to fight, then the only option left is to fight! I'm not going to go out lying down. I'm fighting till the very end."

"We don't have other options." Ottar said as he turned back to the direction of the sea. "We're not in control...if they're going to fight us, then they will fight us. That's that. So be prepared."

Alfrigg, one of the Gulliver brothers looked up at the sky and noticed something.

"The hell is that?" He asked as he pointed at a dark spot in the sky that was gradually growing bigger.

But as it turned out, it was not becoming larger due to a growth in size but because it was a large object coming closer to them. They tensed as they they believed it was another of Steve's projectiles before their jaws fell open in shock as the object was big enough for them to realise what it was.

...

For those who had been watching events on screens in Orario, they already knew what this object was. It had been quite clear to them when Steve had stamped his foot so hard that his body sunk underground as if he were in water. Godzilla and the rest of the Ptah Familia retreated completely from the castle grounds and watched with the city as another stupendous feat of strength took place.

Before the eyes of the spectators, the castle grounds began to groan as cracks appeared around the perimeters, before a blast of pressure spat dirt and dust up those cracks and the whole castle as well as the ground it stood upon began to rise in the air. Millions of tonnes of weight held aloft in the arms of Stephen Hewer who was revealed to be situated underneath, holding up the castle on his hands like Atlas holding the sky in Earthen mythology.

The Minecrafter ascended in the air as he took the castle further into the sky before he pushed upwards a little, making the castle and the tiny island of earth it sat on jump in the air a little before coming to rest on Steve's fingertip. He grinned as he saw no hearts or saturation bars on his interface, nor could he feel the chilly weather of the seaside, nor did he even have the need to breathe.

Creative Mode was something else.

He span the castle on his fingertip like he were spinning a ball before flexing that arm and volleying the whole structure in the direction of Orario, in the approximate place where he estimated the adventurers to be.

So the adventurers trying to cross the barrier felt a chill go down their spines as they sensed the foreboding and imminent destruction. They turned to see an entire castle with its remaining tallest tower pointed right at them while the whole building was spinning like a bullet as it rocketed towards the barrier. The people in the west side of Orario panicked as they saw this thing coming at them like a meteor from the distance and some fainted from the lurching of their hearts as they thought this castle was going to fall upon the city.

But as Steve had dictated through {Tongue of the Laws}, nothing inside the barrier was to affect anything outside. He'd essentially cut out the inside of the barrier as a separate space where you could see what was happening inside from the outside. The castle came to a suddenly halt as it was forbidden from passing the world border. It was that sudden stop however that finally did it in for the old fort as its imploded on itself due to the velocity it was travelling at.

When it had passed over the Freya Familia, they'd been struck in the face by a great gale. The stronger adventurers firmly kept on their feet, while the weaker ones were sucked into the inertia and were airborne once again for a few moments before they went tumbling and sprawling across the grass a hundred feet away from where they previously stood.

The castle shattered into fragments of itself which then rained down upon the fleeing adventurers who ran away from the barrier to avoid being crushed. They were near hysterical now, and they grabbed their weapons having realised just as the Freya Familia did that there was no chance of escape and the only thing they could do was fight.

So amongst all the palpable fear, trauma and despair shone the light of pure survival instinct in the mad eyes of the adventurers who were being tormented by these miracles. They picked up their weapons and grit their teeth hard as they looked over to the West and the direction of the sea, knowing that their enemy was going to show himself any minute now.

---

"Did you have to do that?" Alex put a fist on her hip as she stared at Steve.

"No." Steve shrugged as he dropped out of creative mode. "I just did it for the sake of it."

"Just how petty can you be, boss?" Ari raised a brow before rolling her eyes. "Well? What now?"

Steve stuck a tongue in his cheek in thought as he looked in the direction of Orario before looking back at his friends. He enjoyed the pettiness of his actions. But he had to admit, a small part of himself questioned why he was tormenting these ants as he was. But he then remembered the main reason he'd entered this War Game in the first place. True, it was not like he signed up to enter it since they were the Familia that was challenged.

But he could have finished this all in one blow if he wanted. He aimed to send a message home to people and though he was sure that that very purpose had been accomplished, he was still not done with his other objective.

"Where are our new friends?" He asked them.

The players all parted before him as he lay eyes upon the four women they'd brought from the two weaker Familia of their opposition. Daphne and Cassandra sat on their knees with clasped hands, while a paralysed and very much awake Aisha lay beside a still unconscious Haruhime. Steve tilted his head before walking up to Aisha and lifting her up by the shoulder.

The Amazon's eyes flicked from side to side as she wondered what was going to happen. Steve inspected her up and down with utmost scrutiny before looking back at Kai.

"Nice work." He nodded to the blonde haired girl who smiled at him. Steve turned back to the Amazon. "Still, a bit overkill."

"Well she wouldn't stay still nor listen to reason." Kai said. "I had to incapacitate her, otherwise I would have killed her had you not forbidden me from doing so."

"She can't help herself from fighting." Steve said as Aisha's eyes fixated on him. "She's been charmed by the Harlot to not disobey her in any matter and right now, she must fight us, the enemy. So she must fight alongside her Familia. She couldn't help herself. As long as we are that enemy, she will fight us even if she doesn't want to." He took his helmet off and looked at Aisha. "Blink three times for yes. Are you going to listen?" Three blinks were what he got in response.

"So just to be clear, you're not going to undo the nerve attack?" Zuri clarified. Steve ignored him and continued as he addressed the Amazon.

"I can't exactly dispel divine powers yet. Even if I could, I haven't had enough practice with Ptah to do so just yet. But my god surely can break it. However, you will understand that as long as your are under that influence, I cannot trust you while you're able to move freely." Three reluctant blinks. "Now let's be clear. I did not mark your little sister here for any lustful interest. I already have two wonderful girls in my life and I'm quite content with them. What I do value is her secret power. I want it within our ranks and our arsenal because it would serve us best. You don't trust us and that's okay; I wouldn't trust someone who offers good intent right after making sure I'm as vulnerable as possible. However, I plan to put an end to your captain and the things she does, and I plan to stump Ishtar once and for all. My reasons for doing so are my own. However, I will not in any capacity wrong an unfortunate girl. You being here is all the proof I offered. In reality, Haruhime is all I really want from your Familia."

"You said the Amazon was a good fighter though." Sunny remarked.

"She is." Steve said. "She can be free to do as she pleases once this whole thing is done and dusted but Haruhime will stay with us. That is non-negotiable. We will take the best care of her however, nurturing her powers while at the same time helping her normalise and get a little more self-confident." Steve looked down at the Renard. "Thought it would be more helpful is she were awake to hear this. No matter." Her placed Aisha back down on her back this time and took a second to raise a brow at her scandalous outfit. "Bear your current state for a bit longer. You'll be free of all restraints soon enough." He then turned to the other girls looking at him warily. "And then there is you."

"How did you know about us?" Daphne asked. "And why should we trust you?"

"I've heard you were straight to the point and you don't like unnecessary chatter." Steve smiled. "How I knew of you? Well I did my research naturally on every member of the Apollo Familia and followed up on bits of talk here and there. As for how I came to Cassandra's 'nightmares' so to speak...well you don't exactly hide a trail when you go telling people about what you dreamed of now do you?" Steve looked more pointedly at the blue haired girl before sighing and crouching. "Cassandra, you want to know something?"

"Yes?" The girl asked him.

"I believe you." He said.

"What?" She asked in confusion.

"Your visions...I believe them." He said to her, making her widen her visible eye.

"How? Everybody I've ever met only say to me that they're nightmares...or coincidences..." She took a side-eye at Daphne. "...nobody's ever believed me. Why would you?"

"The common sign of a prophet is that the majority don't believe them." Steve smiled grimly. "I'll admit I'm opportunistic. But where I see oddities, I see possibilities. Your visions could be put to better use amongst people who actually believe them instead of amongst people who don't even look and listen to you, let alone hear what you have to say." Steve stood up and looked at the two seriously. "It may surprise you two after everything you have seen here today...but even I have enemies I'm wary of."

"YOU? You are wary of someone?" Daphne questioned like she'd heard the most incredulous thing ever. "You after all the powers you've shown, you after throwing a bloody castle halfway across the world! You who control a thing like THAT?". She pointed up at Godzilla who stood above all of them looking down at them as his fingers flexed and unflexed. "You have someone to fear?"

"Yes I do." Steve said. "Everyone has a natural enemy. There is not really such thing as an apex...and my natural enemy is one that I take...quite seriously." Steve's own eyes gained a faraway look in them as two glowing white ones appeared in his mind. He then shook himself out of that state of mind and smiled down at Cassandra. "However, her abilities may help me see that enemy coming...so, I can definitely prepare ahead of time."

"You want us to join you, because you think Cassandra's dreams will help you see a guy that YOU are afraid of! Wouldn't that mean that this guy you speak of is way more dangerous than you? Joining you would put us at risk of facing that guy, so why should we join you then?" Daphne asked, a bit breathless in her disbelief. This absolute monster standing before here was someone whom she'd been skeptical about just the night before and yet he'd proved her wrong. Now he was saying that there was someone even worse than him? She learnt from her lesson and no way was she going to put herself or her friend at risk.

"It's a good point." Steve conceded. "However, I assure you the safest you'll be if he ever does show his face is with us. Now, we'll speak no more of this. The only proof I can give the four of you of my good intent is the four of you yourselves." He pointed at the Renard and the prophet. "I needed only these two, but I also brought along for them their best friends who can be their pillars of support when they inevitably join our own ranks and it will help them acclimate. You know the stakes of this War Game. Any members we demand from your Familia are ours by agreement." Steve turned away from the girls and looked at his Familia. "You guys ready for the last act?"

"Just one thing Onii-chan." Efe said as she held the flag in one arm and pointed away with another arm. "Their flag was probably inside the castle you just threw. If we took it, the War Game would be over."

"And where's the fun in that?" Steve asked in jest. "It's most likely amongst all the rubble that is left of the castle. If they find it, let them find it. We have other plans." The air around him became hard as he adopted a more serious demeanour and they knew that it was time to return to the battle. "Prepare the anti-gravity spell."

"Yes Steve." Zuri said as he slammed his staff on the ground and an orange magic circle with many different sigils began to orbit around him.

Steve then turned to look up at Godzilla.

"I don't need you for now." Steve said to the titan. "Go back to the sea and wait for us. I'll call for you when the War Game is done to take everyone back to the city. Once we're done, you have my word I'll set you free to do what you want thereafter."

Godzilla seemed to give a nod and blew a bit of steam from his nose before he turned around. His massive tail came around while doing so and swept over them with a gust that nearly took the weaker four off the ground if it hadn't been for the tail being quite high up. With earth trembling footsteps, the titan began walking away back to the seashore to go for a swim.

"Now that that's done, let's make this space a little more cosy shall we?" Steve said as he raised his palms opposite one another before he clapped slightly.

The difference was instantly noticeable as the world border began to shrink. It passed through Godzilla as Steve had exempted him from its effect and began making the space it guarded inside much smaller. Steve also exempted the four girls from the barrier while on the other end of it all, despair stricken adventurers were pulled further and further away from the city by force. The world border became smaller and smaller until only about 3 miles squared of grassland inside was left.

Steve looked down at the girls. "Another show of goodwill is that you will not be partaking in this next battle. You're free to watch from the side lines...and if you think about running away, well the ones who organised the War Game will be the ones to punish you. Desertion is not rewarded in any setting."

Steve looked to Zuri. "Is it ready?"

"Yep." The sage answered. "Ready to go. Do your thing."

"Good." Steve said as he flexed his fingers as his heart began pumping faster. The real War Game was to begin now. Nothing that happened inside the barrier would affect what was outside, so it was perfectly safe to do this. "Efe, put the flag in your inventory. And do it!"

"Yes Onii-chan!" She squealed as she finally got to do something. She put the flag in her inventory just as Steve had asked before placing her hands on the ground. "Get chunky!" She cried in excitement, and a moment later a purple ripple of magic spread from her hands and flowed across the grasslands. It passed over every blade of grass and ran beneath the feet of everybody within that barrier as their opponents now knew something was going to happen.

Now Steve had programmed her while she was an NPC to be proficient and an absolute monster in Earth magic, even though she was also able to use other magics. Among her abilities was the power to displace chunks in the Minecraft worlds. The programming would run over the different registered chunks and reassemble them randomly at different levels.

So when you looked at the aftermath, some chunks were pushed down deeper below the normal levels, some were a little bit above ground while some were completely in the air and you could see the bedrock layer in the great hole it would leave behind. Now chunks were quite small in comparison to a very large area and Efe's influence had just covered about 3 miles worth of land...land that did not follow game physics and flatlands on top of that.

So the contestants were all caught off guard again when the ground began to shake and quake like never before, like the planet was about to explode or something. Of course none of the quakes reached the outside world but it was quite a phenomenon to see long rectangles of the earth start to rise out of the ground and into the air towards the sky, while some chunks began to sink deeper into the ground. Before long, the spectators were looking at...absolute confusion.

Those feelings however did not compare to those of the contesting Familia who found themselves separated from their comrades as some stuck to the chunks that began to ascend while the chunks that descended took a few adventurers with them. There were no floating islands that reached as high as the clouds and some floating around at different heights while there were some down below. The centremost and highest chunk of all however managed to capture the executives of the Freya Familia.

It was like a live viewing of bad modern art.

"Now Zuri. Isolate the chunks but cast it on the rest." Steve said as the Zuri cast his spell.

An absolutely giant magic circle formed in the sky that span all three miles of space in the barrier and span on its axis as it cast light down on all beneath it. The sight of this magic circle had a certain green haired elf feel a new rush of excitement and her stomach began flipping with a strange warmth. Bubbles of magic formed around the chunks and shielded them from the light coming down as it was clear the were not apart of the spell.

But the adventurers who'd managed to stay on the bits of ground that were not affected by Efe's displacement found themselves beginning to float and levitate in the air, along with debris and dirt as the anti-gravitation spell completely nullified all gravity. The only ones who'd managed to keep to their feet were the Minecrafters who tensed as they readied for battle.

"We're ready Steve." Noor said.

"Jump!" Steve commanded and the adventures all flexed the muscles in their legs as they jumped, cracking the ground beneath them and flying off in different directions towards different groups of adventurers. Steve meanwhile put his fingers in the ground and flexed his arms as with his next move, he got rid of all normal ground for good.

"Serious Table Flip!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comment and Review!

Discord: discord.gg/e5m6wnbV

Read ahead on my Patreon:

Patreon/ Vulkizaro_Zoromi

For commissions:

Ko-Fi/ vulkizarozoromi