The New World
Copyright© 2024 by Dark Apostle
Chapter 46: Skirmish
Fan Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 46: Skirmish - The story follows James Smith, a man who dies and finds himself in a surreal afterlife courtroom, where his life is judged as "zero sum"—neither good nor evil, just utterly average. Dissatisfied with being consigned to eternal mediocrity, he manipulates the cosmic bureaucracy into granting him a second chance in a new world, where he is reincarnated as a child with his memories intact and perks... - edited by my lovely Steven.
Caution: This Fan Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Ma/ft Mult Coercion NonConsensual Reluctant Slavery Lesbian BiSexual Heterosexual Fan Fiction Farming High Fantasy Rags To Riches Restart Alternate History DoOver Extra Sensory Perception Body Swap Furry Magic Incest Mother Sister Politics Royalty Violence
The tall mage looked at James with the unhurried calm of a man who knew he had insurmountable power. His eyes moved across the scattered bodies on the plateau—the dozen soldiers James had put down—with the detached assessment of someone tallying property damage rather than human lives. When they settled on James, they carried something that wasn’t quite respect but was adjacent to it. A recalibration.
“I said she would die if anyone came.”
James ignored him entirely, looking directly at Iona instead, and cocked an eyebrow. She was still shaking, the rope at her throat forcing her bound hands low, bare feet on cold ground, but her eyes were alert. The eyebrow got a response: the faintest flicker across her lips that wasn’t quite a smile but lived in the same neighborhood.
“Iona, are you alright?” James asked.
“Talk to me, not the whore. Besides, she cannot speak,” the mage snarled.
James turned back to him with the expression of a man mildly inconvenienced by a scheduling conflict. “Alright, who are you?”
“I am Moratan the battlemage.”
A beat. James let the silence do the work, tilting his head slightly as though genuinely searching his memory. “Sorry, never heard of you. Nor has your name ever been mentioned.”
The flatness of it landed exactly where James had aimed it. “Then you are a provincial oaf. I am a world-renowned battlemage.”
“Sure, keep telling yourself that. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Kidnapping a mundane from her bed certainly shows your power.” James gestured at Iona with a casual wave. “And parading her while naked is definitely a demonstration of power.”
Moratan’s composure cracked along a single clean line. The rope dropped from his hand and the bolt of energy that followed was fast and viciously bright—a javelin of compressed force that crossed the plateau in a heartbeat and hit James’ shield and came apart like water against granite, the energy dispersing into the barrier and feeding back through into his reservoirs with a warmth he could feel settling through his chest. He let none of that show on his face.
“I only see a little power in you, but you obviously know some tricks.”
“I have had a little training. I was just the closest mage to Castletown, even though I am just a novice. Why did you take Iona?”
The anger bled out of Moratan’s expression, replaced by something more comfortable—the ease of a man who had reassessed a threat downward and found the new number acceptable. “She is just a pawn. I was told to keep her pure, otherwise she would already be a plaything for my men.”
“So why keep her naked?”
“Why not? She is nice to look at.”
James glanced at Iona, who was staring at him with an expression he filed away carefully for later examination. He looked back at Moratan. “How much were you paid? Hiring so many men is not cheap. And all for one girl.”
The battlemage made a dismissive gesture at the bodies surrounding them. “The girl is meaningless. Her father is the target. My employer wants him to stay out of the war once it starts. I am only one of the hired mages. The Emperor of the East is a superb planner.”
‘Now that I have him monologuing, I wonder what else I will learn.’ James kept his expression one of mild, curious interest—the attentive face of a student grateful for instruction. “Tell me about the Emperor. I know nothing about him.”
Moratan’s posture shifted—shoulders settling back, chin rising slightly. “The Emperor has decided to expand his empire, and the kingdom to the west is the obvious target. He has assembled a huge army for this war.”
“Interesting, this is news to me.”
“I am offering you a chance to join the Emperor’s army. You impressed me with how easily you tracked us and then defeated a squad of trained men. You show some potential that can be cultivated with training. This is an opportunity that few are even offered.”
“Tell me more. What would I learn?”
“You would be taught to be a proper battlemage—flying, attack spells, and control of magical beasts. The skills can make you a god.”
James reached down and sheathed his sword with the deliberate motion of a man who has made a decision. He looked up with an expression of open, genuine interest. “Tell me more, you are right, this sounds like a wonderful opportunity. Would I have to pay for the training?”
“I would be the trainer. You would have to swear loyalty to me and then follow all of my instructions to the letter.”
“How long is the training? Would you supply food? I do not have much money, which is why I took this assignment.”
“Let us sit down, and I will answer your questions.” Moratan pointed to a table in front of the tent.
“What about your men? They are injured.”
Moratan didn’t even glance at the groaning figures scattered across the plateau’s edge. “They were defeated and disgraced. They can patch themselves up. They are failures and thus beneath my notice.”
‘What an asshole. He sounds like one of the slavers.’ “You said Iona could not talk. Did you cast a spell on her?”
“Yes, I did not want to hear her whining. I had enough of that with my wife, which is why I developed the spell. It made all the difference in my marriage. She will stay mute until I reverse the spell, which will only happen if her father obeys his instructions.”
“Fascinating. I did not know magic could do that.” James marveled, pouring genuine-sounding wonder into it. “You must be very powerful to be able to create spells.”
“After a few years training with me, you will find that you will be in the upper tier of mages. I am one of the best. If you obey me, you will be rich and respected.”
“If I say yes, how would we proceed?”
“I will test you for magic potential. If you have enough, I will cast a loyalty spell, which you will accept.”
“How do you test for magic? I was shown a few spells and told to practice. It sounds like I missed a lot.”
Moratan studied him with the indulgent expression of a master contemplating a lump of raw clay. “Hmmm, what spells do you know? List them for me.”
“I was taught a way to draw magic power from the surrounding areas, a shield, and a force. That is about the list. Since I had so few, I practiced them obsessively. My biggest problem is getting enough power to cast a spell.”
“That is the basis of a mage’s power, learning to draw and store magic. If you can accomplish so much with no training, then you must have great potential. Give me your hand, and I will take your measure.”
James held out his hand, watching Moratan reach for it with the easy confidence of a man who had never once been surprised by someone weaker than himself. ‘Just standing there looking reasonable, perfectly in control—waiting for the hand to reach back.’
The moment Moratan’s fingers closed around his, James shifted his grip with the practiced speed of someone who had spent years learning exactly where a human hand was weakest, locked the thumb, and broke it.
The sound was small and intimate and extremely satisfying.
Moratan’s face went through several expressions in rapid succession—confusion, recognition, shock—and James was already moving through all of them, driving a punch into the bridge of the mage’s nose and following it immediately with a hard shot to the throat. Moratan stumbled backward, the professional composure stripped away entirely, and had his shield up before he’d finished stumbling—which told James everything he needed to know. Even in genuine pain, even surprised down to his foundations, the man’s instincts were faster than most mages’ deliberate actions.
This was not going to be a short fight.
James grabbed a stool from beside the table and hurled it. The shield deflected it without effort. He cast his eyes around the plateau for anything heavier and more useful, planted his feet, reached out with Grab, and drew Iona in close behind him. Then he Lifted several of the injured soldiers from the ground and flung them bodily at Moratan.
The blow to the throat had stolen his voice but done nothing to his hands—he deflected the incoming men with contemptuous ease, batting them aside with Force blasts that sent them tumbling away across the ground. Then something changed: Moratan’s shield darkened, deepening from translucent to an opaque black that swallowed his outline entirely. James had never seen anything like it and had no idea what it signified.
“Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face,” James called out, buying seconds while he thought.
Moratan’s image split.
Five identical figures erupted outward from the dark shield in five different directions, each moving with purpose, each wearing the same dark robe, each carrying the same deliberate stride. For one suspended moment James stood in the middle of it, turning, genuinely uncertain—and then he remembered Fel tracking the particles of flight magic, and reached out with every scrap of Observe he had.
One of the figures was emitting them.
He crossed to Iona in three strides, cut her hands free with his belt knife, and pressed the blade into her palm. “I will be back as soon as Moratan is dealt with.” He gave her a fast kiss—she made a muffled sound of surprise against his mouth—and turned toward where the real mage had gone.
He Grabbed a tree in the fleeing mage’s path, used it as a fulcrum, and launched himself in pursuit.
‘Flying is a lot more efficient than Lifting,’ he thought, skimming through the canopy at speed, branches clawing at him. ‘I need to learn that spell.’
The chase lasted an hour. Moratan finally descended into a clearing where the trees thinned, landing with the unhurried.
“Who are you?” Moratan asked, and for the first time, his voice carried genuine uncertainty beneath the professional surface. “You looked like a barely trained novice, yet you saw through a powerful illusion spell.”
“I am a novice; you are just not as skilled as you claim. Now surrender or die.”
Moratan’s answer was a Force bolt that hit James’ shield with a concussive crack and threw him backward into a tree trunk hard enough to shatter it, bark exploding outward, the impact driving the air from his lungs in one total expulsion. Before he’d recovered, the second bolt arrived. Then the third. Each one hit harder than the last, the mage making no attempt at subtlety now—just raw power, stacking impact on impact while James was already off-balance, each strike grinding him further into the tree’s remains.
James Grabbed the shattered trunk and threw it. Moratan diverted it with a wave. James reached wider, Grabbing the trees surrounding the mage and wrenching them downward by their trunks, a ring of falling timber crashing inward from all sides. Moratan disappeared under green chaos—and James ran.
He pushed through the forest until Moratan’s senses could no longer reach him, then stopped against a boulder, hands on his knees, reservoir nearly empty, hands shaking with the depletion.
‘I’m over my head.’ At one time, the thought would have terrified him, but years of experience quickly squelched the terror. ‘But I cannot abandon Iona.’
He pulled Bartholomew’s storage devices from his pack with unsteady fingers and donned them, found the nearest ley line by feel, and opened the connection. Power flooded in—slow at first, then faster as the devices began to fill. While they filled, he ran through everything he had: shield, Grab, Lift, Force, electricity. The subterfuge had bought him time and nothing more. Moratan had more raw power, more spells, more experience, and was now forewarned on every front.
‘One shot. Whatever I do has to end it, or he ends me.’
With all reservoirs full, he headed back. The clearing held only downed trees and churned earth—Moratan had freed himself and was gone. James broke into a run toward the camp, knowing the mage would have repaired whatever damage the fight had cost him and would be waiting with a prepared defense.
Just before the camp’s edge he stopped, pulled the Ring of Finding, and concentrated on Iona. She was in the left tent—alive, stationary, contained. He exhaled.
He reached out with Observe and tamed a deer grazing at the tree line, sliding gently into its senses. Through its eyes, he studied the camp: four guards still mobile, the rest accounted for by the plateau or the earlier chaos. Moratan’s tent was closed. James held the deer still and watched, occasionally tilting the animal’s head to scan the perimeter.
He set the farthest tent on fire.
The screams came immediately—three men boiling clutching blankets, beating at the flames with the desperation. Moratan emerged from his tent at the noise and began scanning the tree line with the slow, methodical sweep of a mage using every sense available. His eyes passed over the deer without pausing.
While Moratan scanned, James worked.
He identified suitable trees at the camp’s edge through Observe, then began shaping them—stripping branches with Lift, working quietly and slowly enough that the sounds blended with the forest’s own settling. He severed each trunk at the base, sharpened each top, and laid the finished spear on the ground. The work took an hour. He prepared eight weapons.
He topped off his reservoirs one final time.
Then he set the two middle tents ablaze simultaneously.
Men poured out into the open and James moved, Lifting each man away from the camp one by one and depositing them in the forest far enough away to be irrelevant. When Moratan burst out of his tent shouting for soldiers who weren’t there anymore, his expression curdled into something uglier.
James launched the first spear through the deer’s eyes, guiding it around to Moratan’s blind side.
It took the mage across the back of his knees and dropped him hard. The second arrived before he’d processed the first—catching him across the shoulders, driving him flat against the ground. James released the deer, crossed the distance at a run, reached out with the draining spell he’d learned from Ari’s own technique, and felt Moratan’s reservoir begin to empty into his own while simultaneously using Lift to smash the stunned mage into the nearest tree trunk with everything he had.
The connection severed. Moratan dropped.
“Very clever, I will have to find out how you did that. But from your trainer, as you will be dead.”
James was already casting. The Force spell hit Moratan and pinned him against the tree while he brought his sword up—not to cut, not yet, but to force Moratan’s shield into active defense, demanding concentration, demanding reservoir expenditure. The mage’s shield held against the blade but every second it held was a second it was expending what James had already partially drained.
Then he built the prison.
A shield around Moratan—tight, fitted close, threaded through with heat, the connection between the mage and the ley lines cut off inside it the way a hand cuts off a candle flame. He tapped the closest ley line himself and poured everything into maintaining it, feeling Moratan’s remaining power hammering against the inside of the barrier with the desperation of a man who understood exactly what was happening to him.
James activated the electrical field.
The jolt cracked through the enclosed space like a thunderbolt. Moratan’s concentration shattered—James felt it go, felt the pressure against the prison walls simply ‘stop’—and squeezed the shield inward, forcing the mage to curl, knees to chest, the heat and the current working together in the shrinking space. The hammering resumed, weaker, then weakened further, then stopped.
James maintained the prison for an hour. He stood in the quiet of the ruined camp and watched the sealed shield and did not move and did not let the reservoir waver. When he was finally satisfied, he dropped it.
He drew his sword, stepped forward, and took Moratan’s head off with a single clean stroke.
The chase was over. The rescue was almost complete.
‘If it were not for the uniqueness of the electric current, Moratan would have defeated me. He was under pressure and did not have time to analyze the new force.’
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