Nature Is Overrated and I Will Die on That Hill...which Happens to Be Part of a Nature Trail

 

Armed and Devilish

“The meat supply is growing thin, my pretties. Looks like we’ll have to go back to eating our fruits and veggies,” said Tina Rabbit, watching her forest creatures licking and gnawing at various humanoid skeletons. The bones varied in shapes and sizes. Though they would be unrecognizable to the naked eye, Tina remembered them all.

A family deer licked the femur and forearm bones of a widened skeleton which once belonged to an orc, judging from its massive and rotting fangs. Squirrel children frantically ran and played between the eye sockets of an unfortunate gnome corpse. One gray wolf rolled over on its back and gnawed away at an ordinary human bone, almost crushing it between its mandibles. White rabbits played hide and seek underneath the ribcage and spinal cord of a formerly obese ogre.

All Tina could do was smile upon her furry children. She flipped her long brunette hair backwards and fiddled with her gray dress as she admired her fuzz buckets’ handiwork. “It’s been a while since we’ve had uninvited guests in our forests. I love tender ribs as much as you guys, but I love peace and quiet even more. No harm shall come to my babies or my trees.” She leaned down and stroked a wolf’s ears as it chewed on a skeletal forearm. “I love you all. Each and every one of you. Gather around for a…”

A crow’s squawking interrupted her sentence as the jittery bird of prey circled above Tina. She held out her arm and allowed the little guy to land on her wrist. “What’s wrong, my feathery friend?” she asked in her usual calm voice. “Don’t tell me we have more visitors.” The crow shook and squealed as it tried to find refuge underneath her druid’s gigantic sleeves. “It’ll be okay, little man. Mommy will take care of it.” She pointed her index finger at the rest of her friends and demanded, “Remember, don’t come swarming in until I tell you to. We lose too many furry friends that way.”

The forest creatures continued chewing and fiddling with the humanoid remains while the crow darted out from under Tina’s sleeve and flew slowly enough so that she could follow. The trees in this forest were large enough to hide the most suspicious activity from plain sight, but if there was yet another criminal deal going down in Tina’s neck of the woods, the meeting place would have to be carefully thought out. It would have to be so unobvious that…”Wait a minute…you’re kidding me…”

Tina didn’t have to walk far at all. This new business deal was happening right along the dirt path and there was already a bush for her to crouch down in. “The arrogance of these people…at least he’s got some meat on his bones,” Tina muttered to herself.

And why wouldn’t this buyer be arrogant? He towered over his seller at a whopping seven feet tall. His chiseled body looked like it had medicine balls stuffed in it. He didn’t even have to wear elaborate armor, just legless red shorts, brown leather boots, black straps across his chest and back, and a dark hood over his head that made him look like an executioner ready to chop someone’s head off. To Tina, however, he closely resembled an S&M store that blew the fuck up. She couldn’t help but smile at the same time she was pissed off at the man’s superiority complex.

The seller was a mirror image of his towering client: skinny, frail, covered in baggy robes and an oversized hood, his fingers elongated and bladed, his appearance kept quiet to those with naked eyes. It was amazing that he found the strength to hold a steel briefcase that could double as a tower shield. What wasn’t nearly as impressive was the seven foot tall gimp tossing a sack of gold coins his way and the seller nearly falling on his ass.

“Okay, you little shit,” belted the giant. “All five thousand gold pieces are in that bag. If you don’t believe me, try doing bicep curls with it. Now open the goddamn briefcase and show me what you’ve got.”

The seller gently set the money bag on the ground and twirled his hands around the metal case. “Forged in the fires of hell itself, strong enough to slay the mightiest gods, deadly enough to burn entire cities to a blanket of ashes…I give to you…” He unlocked the briefcase and unfolded what appeared to be a rusty trident. “The Cluster Fork!”

Tina giggled through her nose and had the two businessmen looking around for potential spies. She put her hand over her mouth and crouched down even lower.

The buyer swiped the trident out of the seller’s hands and swung it around with as much effort as a toothbrush. He even used the middle tip to pick his teeth and the other two tips to scratch his back. “Not bad,” he said sarcastically. “But how the hell is this supposed to be worth five thousand gold pieces! I can’t even buy a whorehouse full of slutty women with that kind of money!”

“That’s no ordinary trident, Mr. Jackhammer.”

Tina giggled again, but still managed not to attract attention her way.

Waving his hands over the rusted weapon, the seller said, “The Cluster Fork has been passed down from several generations of demonic forces. Entire wars were won with this piece of weaponry. Religions were split apart by this trident’s might. The Cluster Fork…”

Tina figured “Mr. Jackhammer” had enough of the hokey salesmanship as evidenced by the seven-footer jabbing the seller through the heart with the trident. That wasn’t where the heinous assault ended. A fiery circle formed around Mr. Jackhammer and melted not only his opponent’s corpse into ashes, but also the bushes and trees in his vicinity.

One of the trees had a crow’s nest inside. The family of scavenger birds angrily flocked around their attacker’s head and pecked at his face like their beaks were deadlier than medieval weaponry. Jackhammer put and end to the assault by grabbing all of the birds in one massive hand and crushing them into bloody feathers.

“Oh no…no, no, no…no…” Tina whispered as tears ran down her face. She tried to keep quiet as she snorted mucous up her nose, but accidentally let a scream slip when a family of grizzly bears came out of hiding and surrounded Jackhammer for a beat-down.

The giant stabbed one of the bears through the gut and slung his now fiery body around the others, reducing them to barbecued meat done a little too well. Jackhammer raised his weapon high in the air and laughed like a madman as a flaming aura danced around his already powerful body.

Tina couldn’t stop screaming at the instant horror as Jackhammer laid devilish eyes on her. He pointed the Cluster Fork at her and growled, “Ain’t so funny now, is it, bitch? Go ahead! Laugh it up! I double dog dare you! Don’t be shy!” No response, only jitters. Animals of all kinds, squirrels, wolves, deer, and birds, flocked away from the roaring inferno and all Tina could do was stand there with vibrating legs. “Answer me!” Jackhammer shouted.

She couldn’t answer, so a running deer did it for her when it bucked her on its back and carried her deep into the woods to safety. Tina’s wobbly legs made it difficult for her to stay upright during the chase and she came close to falling off several times. Jackhammer on the other hand had no problem sprinting through the woods lighting trees and shrubbery blaze. Another deer tried to kick him in the ribs, but all it got in return was a trident up the ass.

Tina shrieked and kept one hand over her eyes while the other was on her mount’s antlers. Images of her fluffy friends dying left and right in mass genocide assaulted her mind and sped up her heartbeat. Her blood grew colder and her skin dampened like a waterfall. After the deer halted and Tina stopped mumbling whiny slogans to herself, she slowly lifted her head to see that she was indeed underneath a waterfall and she wasn’t going crazy.

“You think a little bit of water is going to stop me?! I’ve seen infected pussies that were wetter than that!” barked Jackhammer with a fiery background behind him and his arms folded.

Tina slipped off the deer’s spine and backed up a few steps alongside her animal companions. She wanted to form a snappy comeback, but all that came out of her trembling lips was slobbery drivel.

“What’s the matter? Cock got your tongue?!” Jackhammer chuckled. “That’s okay. You’ll have plenty more reasons than that to be on your knees for me. I’m your majesty now! I rule over everything! Now be a good little girl and take off that sexy dress for me!” He licked his lips and caused Tina to shiver even harder than before.

She didn’t want to look her potential rapist in the eyes. She didn’t want to look at any other part of his body either. Instead her mind was pumped full of images of fiery treetops falling left and right. And then she had an idea, but her anxious tummy told her not to use her animals like that. Then again, her options were limited. It was too late for this forest. It would forever be known as a criminal hideout for shady deals. Mother Nature had been too kind to these crooks even in death. But it wasn’t too late for one more forest…

As Jackhammer cupped his ear and mockingly listened in for a response from Tina, she swallowed a lump and raised her finger in the air before casting it down upon her opponent. Swarms of squirrels and rabbits crawled all over Jackhammer’s body, leaving little rabid bite marks in their wake. Tina made a slash mark across her throat and instructed a deer to kick the trident out of Jackhammer’s hands, which it did after several long seconds of the giant snapping the necks of the little creatures.

“Damn it!” Jackhammer shouted repeatedly as he chased after the trident, which was being sucked down the stream and into the waterfall. Tina instructed the wolves to bite at his ankles while she instructed a nearby grizzly to knock down a burning tree over the distracted giant. Not only were his legs bleeding buckets, but the tree found its mark: right over the skull of the arrogant giant.

But it didn’t faze Jackhammer. It just made him smile evilly at Tina, who slowly backed up as he stalked upon her. He threatened, “I can get the trident later. I’ve already got a spear I can impale you with!” He dropped his legless shorts and exposed his ugly, mushroom-infested dong to her. Tina was so busy looking away that she plopped backwards into the water, not knowing where to go next.

“Open wide, little lady!”

She reached behind her and felt something sharp. Deer antlers! It felt so wrong to use a corpse in such a way, but when she fearlessly jammed the antlers into Jackhammer’s crotch, he bent over and howled in misery. But he ripped them out and tossed them aside like it was nothing despite the heavy bleeding. His smile grew wider and more sadistic. While deer, wolves, and bears ganged up on the seven foot savage, Tina swam away feeling like a coward.

The sounds of animal bones crunching and flesh being ripped and shredded pounded her brain and caused her to swim faster. She picked up her speed again when she heard the familiar leather boots clomping beside her. Every animal and every weapon tested against this giant failed to keep him down for long. And then…she threw something else at him. Something random. Something unexpected. And as soon as she threw this final weapon, Jackhammer’s agonizing cries were accompanied by crackles of fire.

Tina turned around and used a nearby deer’s antlers to help her out of the water. But she saw the same thing her companions did: burning flesh, blackening blood, and a once indestructible god turning into a pile of rotten meat and ashes. All because he had the Cluster Fork sticking out of his chest.

She couldn’t celebrate yet. She dashed over to him and collected his ashes in her front dress pocket before yanking the trident free. She and her animal companions outran the growing fire that consumed their home. Tina’s legs were still wobbly and she almost fell back into the water, but she was carried by a grizzly bear at the last minute. For now she could relax, but even that was impossible with all the violent imagery her mind played out for her.

Tina couldn’t even dream the hour away. A numbed out brain wouldn’t let her. Adrenaline kept her nerves ice cold. Her heart wouldn’t stop beating. She kept expecting either a fiery trident or another kind of “spear” to assault her any moment now. She watched her forest home go up in smoke. All that was left for her was this new grassy field where a significantly smaller animal army greeted her with sympathetic licks and head bumps.

“I’m sorry, my friends,” she cried. “Your home is gone. Everything we’ve worked to build is gone. Mother Nature lost. She never loses. I don’t even know if we can start over again…unless…”

Tina wiped multiple tears from her eyes and sprinkled Jackhammer’s ashes amongst the empty dirt. Multiple animal minions brought their dead loved ones into the pile as well as the bones of previous criminals who made deals in the now burning forest. They all gathered around with Tina leading them in a speech.

“You see this, everyone?” she said while choking back more tears. “The rain will come again one day. And when it does, these ashes and bodies will grow into another tree. And from that one tree, a new forest will grow. Life will begin again. But that won’t be for years to come. Mother Nature’s rebirth is always a slow one. But what shall we do for now? How shall we sustain ourselves until those years pass?”

Turned out the grass was quite delicious to the animals as they munched on it with fervor. If Mother Nature yielded these tasty results in such a short amount of time, perhaps the rebirth of the forest wouldn’t take long either. Tina smiled and fell on her back before releasing more tears to rehydrate the ground. The wolves licked her tears clean, signifying forgiveness for being used in combat so recklessly. It was their home too and they had the right to defend it. She hugged them around their necks and tried to fall asleep in her new cuddle-puddle, but to no avail.

The Geomancer

Getting away from the madness of city life was exactly what Ally Bennett needed when she went on this hiking trip. Not a single soul dared to venture up these mountains and that was just the way Miss Bennett liked it. She was dressed for the boiling hot weather with her hiking boots, tan shorts, and tight camouflage T-shirt. Sweat poured off her brow, arms, and legs like a fire hydrant, but she didn’t give two shits and a flying fuck in a rolling donut. Her long brunette hair felt sticky, but that was yet another small price for the sake of introverted physical fitness. She lived for the beauty of Mother Nature no matter what the weather was like.

Just when she thought she was alone at the top of the mountain, she saw something that made her drop her hiking staff to the rocky ground. “What the hell?” she silently said to herself as she noticed a man dressed in green and blue wizard robes chanting in tongues while holding out his hands in a Jesus Christ pose. Ally’s first thought was to run back down the mountain screaming like hell. But this mysterious being was just like a car crash: she couldn’t look away no matter how much she wanted to.

The mystical chant ended when the blue haired being turned his head and gave Ally a look of venomous scorn. “You have no business up here, woman. Turn around and leave if you value your life!”

“First of all, dumb shit,” said Ally with her hands on her hips. “This is a national fucking park. Everybody’s welcome here no matter how weird they look in those god awful clothes of yours. Second of all, my name is not woman. It’s Ally. Ally Bennett.”

“Bryan Valencia,” said the wizard. “Nice to meet you, Miss Bennett. Now that the sappy introductions are over, I suggest you get going before shit starts going down!”

“Okay, Mr. Wizard Guy, that sounded a little bit like a threat, so I’m just going to pull out my cell phone and dial 9-1-1…what the hell are you doing?!” Ally never got the chance to press the buttons on her smart phone as she was stunned by Bryan’s geomantic powers. With wide-eyed horror, she watched him raise his palm in the air and levitate a large rock off the ground. The floating rock was hurled into Ally’s cell phone, shattering the gizmo into tiny fragments while giving Ally a red mark on her hand and a reason to scream “Ow! Jesus!”

As the hiker shook out the pain in her palm, Bryan smiled at her and said, “Do I have your attention now? Would you like another demonstration of how badly I can crush you? That rock trick was just child’s play compared to the damage I’m capable of.”

Clutching her hand to sooth the pain, Ally asked, “Who the hell are you, anyways? I know you said your name was Bryan and all that, but what the fuck, man? You’re lifting rocks off the ground, you’re dressed like you’re going to a nerd convention, you’ve got blue fucking hair, I don’t know what to believe anymore!”

“All of those things you so ignorantly described are the traits of a geomancer,” said Bryan.

“Geo what?”

“Geomancer. I control the elements of the earth. If I want an earthquake, I’ll give you one. If I want a mudslide, you’ve got it. But then I figured, why stop there? Earthquakes and mudslides are tinker toys. To really get in touch with Mother Nature, I have to be right here at the top of this mountain. A mountain, which by the way, was at one point an active volcano. You ever wonder why nobody comes up here? Well, let’s just say they’re not fast enough to run away from the lava, like the idiot brain surgeon politician once said. I swear to god, the ignorance of your people is mind-boggling,” ranted Bryan.

“So this is it, huh?” said Ally in a stern voice. “You’re going to blow up this damn volcano just to show everyone who’s boss. You’re such a noble guy.”

With his fists at his side, Bryan roared, “What do you know about nobility?!” The sudden crescendo caused Ally to bounce backward in fear. “Why do you think people go on hiking trips to begin with? To get away from it all. Well, I’m not getting away from anything. I’m confronting the sins of this world dead on. Don’t you ever get sick of the world sometimes? All the violence, all the rape, all the bigotry, all the zeal. The poor are disenfranchised while those in charge get a slap on the wrist. Women are treated as sex objects while men laugh at their misery. Dropping bombs has become the new diplomacy. Well, if it’s bombs you want, I’ll drop the biggest one mankind has ever seen! My decades of geomantic studies have come down to this! And there’s nothing you can do about it!”

“Actually, there is something I can do about it,” said Ally with her arms folded and a death stare on her face.

“And what would that be?” asked Bryan mockingly. “I already shattered your cell phone, so the cops aren’t even close to coming. As far as I know, you don’t have geomantic powers of your own, so striking you down with a thousand stones would be the easiest part of my day. So what other options do you have? What could you possibly do that will stop me from exacting revenge on this world?”

“Call you out on your bullshit, that’s what,” said Ally. Bryan’s facial features and fierce stance softened at the hiker’s stubbornness. “Being against all of those violent things that you’ve listed is noble in its own right. You’d be crazy not to be. It’s like being in favor of kittens and rainbows. Up with puppies! But what good is being against the sins of the world if you’re committing one right now? You’re not a hero to anybody. You’re a hypocrite! Your volcanic blast will take out all of those rich assholes and male chauvinists you hate so much, but it’ll also take out those sexualized women and innocent children that you claim to have a soft spot for. By blowing this volcano, you’ll be no different from the politicians who drop bombs on helpless civilians overseas. Is that the mark you want to leave on this world? Do you want to be a hypocrite?!”

Bryan tucked his head in shame as if those words stung him like a scorpion’s tail. He spent lengthy seconds in what appeared to be silent and deep contemplation. He lifted his head once more, but this time with the same hardened expression as when he started his spell. “You’re so full of shit! How dare you question my tactics! You really think the innocents want to live in a world run by these rich lunatics? Consider this a mercy killing, my friend!”

Something inside Ally Bennett snapped. She grabbed her walking cane and held it like a samurai warrior ready to strike. Her muscles twitched. Her eyes were wild with fiery anger. Her teeth were clenched hard enough to chew through steel. Every word she spoke was full of vitriol and hatred. “If you’re not going to listen to reason, then I’m going to make you! You’re not going to do shit to this world! If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting! This world is worth saving and you’re not going to do shit about it!”

Bryan raised his hands and levitated an entire wall of rocks off the ground, but Ally remained strong and defiant in the face of this new challenge. The geomancer threatened, “You just made the biggest mistake of your life, you crazy bitch! Prepare to die!”

The wizard rained down a storm of rocks upon Ally, hoping to crush her bones into the same fineness as the dirt below. Even with sharp stones piercing her skin, the undeterred hiker swung her cane like a baseball bat and knocked a few of them into Bryan’s throat. While Ally was buried and bloodied underneath a pile of rocks, Bryan Valencia clutched his windpipe while gasping for air. He danced around in pain trying to get his oxygen back, but made a critical mistake when he fell off the ledge of the mountain and rolled down the hill.

The geomancer bumped into many large stones, trees, and sharp grass blades during his barrel roll down the side of the mountain. His spine crunched in two, his arms and legs were shattered beyond repair, and his head exploded with his brains scattered across the landscape. By the time he reached the bottom, he was already a necromantic supper for a family of bears, who feasted on his carcass like the wild animals they were. Nothing was left of Bryan Valencia except for bones and tiny chunks of meat and shit.

Back at the top of the mountain, Ally Bennett stayed buried beneath the rocks like it was going to be her grave. She hadn’t moved for the longest time and her bloody limbs squeezed fresh juice to trickle down the mountain. After what seemed like ages, her fingers twitched and her dirt-covered eyes barely opened.

At that moment she knew she couldn’t run away from the world’s problems like she intended to do in this hike. She was a hero that day for what she did to Bryan Valencia. Her work was far from over. If she was going to join the resistance against oppressive values, she couldn’t do it through volcanoes, earthquakes, or any other form of terrorism. It’s like a famous first lady once said: “When they go low, you go high.” It didn’t get any higher than the top of a volcanic mountain. It didn’t get any lower than being a human buffet table for a family of brown bears.