The Frosted Files:Open Eyes

//Chapter 4\\

     When I inherited this life from my brother during college, I never thought it'd include making a DIY flamethrower in Walmart to battle a plant monster.
    That was under that assumption this thing behaved like a semi-regular plant, of course. Sharp as my nanotech may be, it's thin and light without the leverage to cut through the beast, like a craft knife versus a tree. The craft knife is sharp as hell and could cause a lot of harm - but the tree is big and sturdy, ready to withstand something that small. That's why we use axes, chainsaws, or excavators - and that's why animals like woodpeckers adapted how they did.
    Trees still burn nicely, though.
    I grabbed a big canister of pesticide, the kind that has the spray nozzle attached already. This would add fuel to the fire, pun intended. The beast - gods, this thing needs a name - let out that low growl again, and I heard vines slithering along the floor, feeling for the fallen chain-rings.
    I grabbed a few more things nearby - piping, zip ties, a barbeque lighter, wired thread, et cetera - and began working furiously, small tendrils of the nanotech holding things in place as I put them together, crouched beside a shelf. Normally when I tinker with junk, it's in my lab, with clip arms to hold things still, and moveable lights. Here in Walmart, I had to work with my tech, while hoping I don't burn myself up in a glorious Fate-fireball.
    I pulled tight one last zip tie, and held up my Walmart flamethrower, looking for mistakes. The subsonic growl of the plant thing stole my attention from my little arts and crafts project.
    I took a deep breath, trying my best to keep my hands steady. I can think under pressure fine - I don't normally freeze up or panic - but this was uncharted territory, so far off the map that I may as well grab a new parchment and pen and start drawing the endless sea of unfamiliarity around me.
    Somewhere along the line, my chuckle had died - likely from a very sensible fear - but I felt it begin to rise back up.
    Hands shaking, I stepped around the shelf and towards the chloro-fiend.
    Chloro-fiend. I like that, let's call it that.
    Every hair along my arms stood up, and the danger sense pinged at the base of my skull as the chloro-fiend turned towards me, tendril mane whipping wildly, as if caught in a false wind.
    "Hey, you sun sucking bitch! I like my vegetables roasted!" I yelled as I pulled the trigger. Sure, I could have come up with something better, but I don't think this thing was polite enough for me to wait and think. The pesticide sprayed, and the lighter ignited, resulting in a very short and wide fireball that extended maybe two feet from me. I looked between the flame and the chloro-fiend, which was now crouched. It growled again, and leapt.
    "Gotcha."
    I twisted the piping I had used to direct the flow of pesticide, and felt the little concentration mechanism I had built work it's mechanical magic. The fire flew out, the roar of heat hitting me like a wave. That was the backwash, though - the chloro-fiend got a full blast, right in it's would be face.
    The edges of the plant material blackened, and the flaming plant lion crashed into me.
    I didn't really think this far ahead.
    I went down, hard, the wind getting knocked from my lungs, panic trying to set in, but I swallowed it down. Panic wouldn't help me, not here, not now. The flamethrower was thrown away from me in the fall, and the thing had me pinned. A bit of charred plant fell onto my face, burning - but not as much as the thing's eyes. The red of the eyes felt like looking directly into a laser pointer cat toy, seething with rage.
    Rage I could feel penetrate my eyes, and land in my soul.
    It happened fast - I don't know exactly what it was, but I felt myself being pulled away - and suddenly I was in a jungle, every single plant writhing and trying to grab at me. I stood in a small clearing, and a short distance from me stood a much smaller version of the chloro-fiend, curled into a ball, asleep - and chained. It was bound, collared and cuffed, it's red eyes nowhere near as terrifying as they had been moments before.
    It was hurting. It was in pain, and it needed help - I felt it calling out to me.
    Call me stupid, but I approached the thing, and grabbed at a chain.
    I yelped and pulled my hand back, blisters forming rapidly on my palm in the shape of the chain.
    I looked down at the thing one more time, and was about to try and call my nanotech out, but I was pulled out of the event.
    Now here I was, back at the Walmart, plant beast above me - except it wasn't ripping my throat out. It was looking at me, just looking, almost... hesitant?
    A blast of blue-white flame knocked it off me, giving me a split-second tan in the process. I quickly scrambled back, and looked to where the blast originated off to my right.
    There stood a man with white fluffy hair, dressed in high end white and black close fitting leather, with a large white cloak billowing around his shoulders. He had black markings on his face, either paint or tattoos, and his eyes. Oh man, his eyes. They were white. Not pure white, like some avenging angel sent to save my sorry ass, but the iris was white with lines of light gray.
    Oh yeah, he was floating, too, about a foot off the ground.
    I blinked and looked back at the chloro-fiend. It lay a few yards away, blue-white flames dancing along it a lot better than my regular coloured flames had.
    The floating white eyed guy calmly walked over - on the air, of course - and offered me a helping hand, which I took. With his extra height of air, we stood eye level. He looked like he belonged in some young adult fantasy novel, maybe the secondary character on the cover.
    "Nice to finally meet you, Fate." He smiled, and shook our still-clasped hands, his voice young. He couldn't be but barely out of high school.
    I blinked again. Not what I was expecting.
    "Adrian. Adrian so'Wyllt," he offered, except I hadn't asked his name, or even put my thought into words yet.
    "I-"
    "Yes, I know, unnerving. You're welcome, by the way, for the help."
    "Wh- no, no, lis-"
    "The thing needs help, I know. Those are cleansing, spell consuming flames, Fate."
    I looked back at the thing, and noticed it looked a lot smaller. Not quite as small as I had seen in the vision or whatever, but smaller. I turned back to Adrian, to be met by his smile.
    That smile was getting annoying. Almost as annoying as the mind reading.
    "Wow, rude. I just saved your life, and you call me annoying?"
    I blinked again.
    "Listen, Adrian, thank you, but I am out of my element here. What is going on?"
    I assume he can help - he just did something to that thing that I had fought to do a fraction of.
    He walked over beside the chloro-fiend, and bent down, picking up the chain-ring.
    "Well, Fate, it seems that your Fog has cleared."
    He tossed me the rings.
    "What fog?"
    "Ah, ah. Not fog. Fog, capital F. The Fog is the magical essence that keeps things like this-" he poked the plant creature with the toe of his shoe, "- from being noticed by, or noticing the everyday population. Honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long to Look through it." He turned back to me with that smile still plastered to his face.
    Fog. Magic. As if that was real. What did he take me for, a child?
    The chain-ring sat in my hand.
    ...
    What if it wasn't a lie? I mean, I had chalked him floating up to some wire arrangement, his eyes to coloured contacts. Hell, even I made a flamethrower from random things - maybe he did, too, with a little more chemistry to get the flames those colours.
    But what if magic existed in the world? The very same world I had known and grown up in, that I had lived in?
    I slipped the rings on my fingers. Even though Boris had significantly larger hands than me, the rings fit perfectly. I held a hand in front of me, and thought of the shield I had seen.
    Nothing happened.
    I looked down to the rings, then back up - and Adrian was gone.
    "Not everyone that can see magic has it, unfortunately." Adrian said, right beside me from behind. I had to restrain myself from hitting him when I jumped.
    He chuckled, and I spun around.
    "Focus, Fate. On the shield, how it looks, what it does, why it does what it is."
    "And why are you helping me?"
    His smile grew a little wider, and he leaned towards me.
    "Call it a future investment."
    That was incredibly concerning and confusing, but I didn't want to argue with the warlock-
    "Wizard."
    "What?"
    "Wizard. That's the proper term. People with magic already in their blood and souls are wizards. Warlocks are people who have made some kind of deal for power, like Elvis."
    "Elvis was magical?"
    "Of course he was, haven't you heard his music?"
    I nodded.
    "What about witches?" I asked.
    "Magic from tools - like those rings. Except those belong- or, well, use to belong to another wizard."
    The rings, right.
    I looked back down to them, and thought of the shield, how it looked, how big it was. I stared at the empty space in front of my spread hand, wishing and willing the shield to just exist, and something clicked somewhere inside me.
    I felt a little bit of weariness settle into my shoulders, but I saw a spark of blue-green light, and the shield sprang into existence.
    I gawked at the translucent disk, moving my hand and watching the shield move with it.
    Adrian clapped me on the shoulder.
    "Welcome to the world of magic, Fate Frost."