Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

At first there was nothing, then a surge of energy hit me and a green bar showed up, going from two to ten real fast, my stats going along with it as smaller graphs below.

“Whoa!” I said, stepping back and moving my arms about, feeling power unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

“I think he likes it,” Red’s voice came through, distantly.

“You’re damn right I do,” I said, turning back to the ogre and putting up my fists. “What’ya got now?”

The ogre grimaced and then charged, and only now did I see the huge war axe in his hand. Or maybe it had just appeared? Either way it was coming for me, and fast. That was fine, because I sidestepped and moved into him, catching him with an elbow to the face before the strike could hit, and then swept him to the ground.

The hill I was on shook as he hit, and then again as I came in for a stomp like he’d done to me. He rolled out of the way, then back at me after my foot landed, so that he was able to grab my legs and take me down.

“Shit!” I shouted, feeling him claw up at me and then watched as he rose, both fists in the air and ready to take me out.

The bar appeared again and brought me to level twenty in a blink of an eye. I wanted to see what that felt like. I took the first ogre hit, my health and defense high enough to survive it now, and then caught him with a good blow to the stomach and follow-up strike to the throat. Heaving him off, I circled and came at him brawler-style, actually catching him a few times and then finally knocking him down with a good hook to the jaw.

“Nice one,” Mowgli’s voice came from him again, and he stood, assessing me. “How about…” He held out his hands, and suddenly nine more of him appeared, all identical and equally as buff. “…now.”

They all came at me and I was dodging, punching, striking with more speed and power than seemed would ever be realistic. Each time I took a hit my levels increased, so that I brought it back on the ogres with a vengeance.

A good kick took out one’s legs, an uppercut sent another onto his ass, and then a knee to the face ended one more. Then I stood there, looking around, and they were all gone while my level indicator said “Level Fifty.”

Damn.

There was no more room for doubt or wondering if this was for me. After experiencing that, I knew there was only one route for me—I was going to become the best Protector these fairy tale guys and gals had ever had, and I was going to level the hell up as fast as I could.

I felt a pinch and then the world vanished. Mowgli was standing there with the facemask in his hands.

“Not bad,” he said. “And what’s more important, your body didn’t fight off the Ichor sims. Usually we can tell in there how one will react, but in your case, survive long enough and you’ll do just fine.”

He turned, pulling up a screen that was part of the machine as the assistants helped me out of the rest of it. Then Red and Pucky were congratulating me, showing me the playback on another screen. It was like watching myself in a movie.

“It affects everyone differently,” Red explained. “I’ve seen some people puke, others pass out. You were like you belonged there, owning it.”

“But… isn’t it wrong of me to want to level up?” I asked, realizing the deeper meaning there. “It’s like… wanting to take lives.”

“You have to remember they’re our enemies,” Red said. “They’re evil, and wouldn’t hesitate to take your life, too, if given the chance.”

Pucky nodded. “And there’s judgment. Maybe not all are truly evil, but if one is about to gut you, I say tear his fucking spine out.”

“Whatever you do,” Mowgli said, turning to show me the screen, “you’ll do it well. Everything here says your body is taking to it, that you will make an excellent warrior, and that we shouldn’t have any problem upgrading you along the way.”

“And if there had been problems?” I asked. “What, you’d have put these marks on my chest just to be tossing me aside if I didn’t perform adequately?”

Mowgli’s grin faltered, but then he clapped me on the shoulder and said, “Good thing you did. Come, join us for the meeting. You’ll want to hear this.”

I turned to Red and the others, hoping for more of an answer than ‘Good thing you did,’ but they were already following him to this big meeting he mentioned, so I did too. We went up a floor and into a conference room that had illustrations of many of the Myths as they might have appeared. There was even Beast looking much more like what I’d imagined him from reading the story as a child, before ever being exposed to the Disney stuff. There was a mermaid—oddly no one had thought to cover her breasts with sea shells, though I imagined breasts weren’t exactly ‘private’ among real mermaids. It was hard not to stare at that one.

Good thing the room was large, because soon many more Myths started filing in. The main group joined the conference table in the middle, and I was amazed to see many Myths I recognized there. Jiminy, Bagheera, and Beowulf sat near Mowgli, and Thumbelina was on a small cushion at the corner of the table. There were many whose identities I couldn’t be sure of, such as the one nearby with the golden fleece around his shoulders—Jason, from the Argonauts story, maybe? Made sense, but I wasn’t sure how all the gods fit into this stuff, aside from Thor, who’d already been mentioned.

“The fact that Peter has returned is worrisome,” Mowgli said, agreeing with a woman a few seats over who