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This message Lair Legion: The New Underground #3: Entropical Paradise was posted by Fin Fang Foom on Friday, January 3, 2003 at 18:19.
One dream, one soul
One prize, one goal
One golden glance
Of what should be
One shaft of light that shows the way
No mortal man can win this day
The bell that rings inside your mind
Is challenging the doors of time
The waiting seems eternity
The day will dawn of sanity
This rage that lasts a thousand years
Will soon be gone
--Queen, “A Kind of Magic”
--------------------
There are only two things in life that Fin Fang Foom is entirely sure of, and one of them is this: it will never end.
At the far reaches of Earth stood an empty grey mountain, cloaked with unbreathed air. Its jagged tip pierced the thick cloud-cover. If one were to stand on that tip, no ground could be seen--only a downy white ocean, and a stark blue sky filled with brittle wind. And today, for the first time in the mountain’s life, someone was standing on it.
A dragon adorned the spike of rock. It had one leg straight, with the other bent at the knee, one foot higher than the other--like an explorer staring off towards the horizon. The Makluan had the same weathered, worn look that many ancient statues possess; with deep creases between his densely-carved scales. His thoughts were not of his surroundings.
Reality was hopelessly, unavoidably orbiting back to Finny’s own viewpoint. He had a bitterly personal understanding of what it took to make the world work: sacrifice. Specifically, doing something not in your own interests, but in the interests of others. Some, such as superheroes, understand this in the best of times--while most only understand it in the worst. Such as now.
And so he stood on the mountain, bracing himself for what was to come. Irregularly-timed bursts of air whipped around him, skidding on top of the endless clouds. He knew that “peace” wasn’t the absence of fighting, as fighting never ends. Rather, peace is when those who normally do the fighting can handle it themselves. War is when a significant amount of the populace are forced to get involved, either as participants or victims.
The dragon didn’t want them to have to get into this--he considered it a personal failure. Life has enough problems without them having to worry about the fate of the universe. But, at the same time, he understood why they’d want to be in on what was about to happen. And he knew they couldn’t win without them.
The world knew what was going on. It was yet another alien invasion…except this time, the prize was a man’s soul. And if he got it back, everyone would die. Glitchy satellite pictures showed a plummeting armada, far outnumbering any forces on Earth.
And yet, at no point had any leader or citizen suggested that they take his soul, and the orb containing it, off-planet. Assuming the universe was dead anyway, it’d be quicker, and less painful--no invasion, no war. But as long as the orb remained on Earth, they had a better chance at keeping it out of the hands of a god gone bad. An unofficial democracy swept the planet, in the form of public opinion--everyone just agreed that they had to at least try, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
A news ‘copter sprang from the clouds, cutting a wide arc through the sky. Finny could feel a billion eyes on him. He thought about the people he knew--where they’d been, what they planned to do. How close they felt they were to getting what they wanted. Having it end now…it made him feel sick. All that suffering, all that effort, for nothing? He multiplied that by an uncountable number of beings in the universe. And the progress that everyone had made in terms of culture, science, the understanding of reality…it could be like it never happened. No. The experiment called “life” wasn’t done yet.
The dragon looked upwards, and then lifted an arm to the heavens. He pointed.
Thousands of planes erupted out of the clouds--SPUD hoverfighters, and military jets from around the world. A festival of sonic booms escalated, and the swarm flew at a forty-five-degree angle; while Finny stood still, allowing them to race by him.
He lowered his head, closing his eyes. Just a few seconds to rest, and he could make it. He had one goal: to instruct Vorrow on a very simple fact of life. This universe belongs not to those with power, such as the politicians, the conquerors, the superhumans, the gods…this universe belongs to the people.
And the people have powerful friends.
Lair Legion: The New Underground #3
The Fight For Forever
After existing for several infinities, Vorrow had thought that there were no new experiences left for him to discover. He was wrong. The concept of rejection was entirely new.
The silver-skinned artificial god stood in his war-planet, feeling mildly numb. His secret was out--everyone knew he was really VH; the interstellar version of the Anti-Christ. He honestly thought the people wouldn’t care. He’d loved them despite their failings…couldn’t they do the same for him? Instead, they stopped fighting, forcing him to rely on nothing but his AI-piloted spacefleet.
Vorrow habitually stroked his golden clothes, cloak, and hair, trying to calm himself. He was in a huge, indoor flight deck, which had been set up to host a reception for him. A good portion of the planet’s personnel was there, with their folding chairs and banners and tables with snacks. He kept telling himself that his plan could still work. The cloned copy of that little slug could eat through the casing of the Ultimate Nobbler, breach its power-source, and blow up the universe. If he got his soul back before then, he’d have the power to use the Nobbler’s energy to make a new, better reality.
He didn’t understand it: he wanted to give them heaven, and they were giving him hell. After finding out his true identity, the guards were shooting at him. The people were throwing lightweight chairs and equipment. Everyone was angry at him. Physically, his invulnerability kept him from feeling it, but emotionally…
His voice was desperate, pleading. Not because he thought he might lose, but because he thought he might lose them . “I’m on your side! I just want what’s best for you, I swear…why do you care about the rest of them? They never did anything for you! But I did! I did, and I want to do more!”
Vorrow rationalized as best he could. They were mad at him for lying. That had to be it. All he had to do was clear everything up, and it’d be fine.
He remained lost in thought, oblivious to the fact that they were shooting handheld energy-cannons at him. He owed the people, he knew that much. They’d awoken something in him. Before them, he’d never cared about anyone but himself. Now, he cared about them, but they hated him…
Though not prone to melodrama, Vorrow suddenly understood true love: wanting the best for someone, even if they hate you. In a moment of anger, he’d decided to let the Ivoreans die with the rest…but no, that wasn’t right. He’d give them paradise. It was about what they neeeded, not what they wanted. And they’d know that he’d been right all along.
He began walking. Guards threw themselves at him, wrapping their arms around his legs, trying to wrestle him to the ground…but he couldn’t be stopped. Flying tackles ended brutally, like they’d just hit a wall. Vorrow was now smiling to himself, imagining what it’d be like when they’d praise him again. The crowd poured onto him, a wave of bodies that tried to smother him. It affected him in the same way as a mild wind.
They stuck blasters in his face and shot him repeatedly, and he thought it was cute. Literally hundreds of people tried to pile onto him, and it had no effect. Eventually, he had to start flying, as they were underfoot--he didn’t want to crush them. Someone took a running start at him and snapped a chair over his head.
They’d look back on this and laugh. They’d apologize over and over, and he’d say, it’s okay, I still love you…
---------------
On the streets of Parodiopolis, the masses moving along the sidewalk parted like the Red Sea.
Two strange individuals were walking to a blocked-off street. One was a hulking, Nordic-biker-looking man who wore black leather and had hair of the same color. He carried a primitive-looking baseball bat with a nail in it. The other was a menacing, black-metal cyborg, with red eyes.
Exile put a hand to his ear, and nodded. “The soul-decoys are ready--they’re all in unpopulated areas. But there’s still a squadron coming here…”
Donar nodded. Speaking of something else entirely, he said, “One more time?”
“One more time.”
After Exile took a step back, Donar began swinging Mjalcom. It decimated any wind resistance. Soon, it was making a strange noise, and moving unevenly; like it was pushing against some invisible groove, and just waiting to slip into place. The unseen barrier made a straining noise, and then broke in a high note…the sound of nature having the moisture wrung out of it.
The few winter-grey clouds in the sky cracked like cocoons, revealing darkness underneath. They then expanded, puffing out with pride, and soaking into each other. Within minutes, the city was blanketed with thunder and black skies.
Donar took off like a rocket. Exile’s eyes glinted like they’d just caught the light of a crimson star, and blood-red energy was drawn to him, crackling. It formed a human-shaped shield, swirling around him, random sparks coalescing into something tangible. He went soaring, leaving a glittering wake.
Seconds later, the first wave of Ivorean AI craft hit the atmosphere. News ‘copters showed their distant, blurry forms swooping towards Parodiopolis, though the city was blocked from view by thunderclouds. On a huge TV screen that hung from a skyscraper, everyone saw it--and, though it was futile, ducked.
The ships plunged into the clouds, and were subsequently electrocuted into dust, which was translated into something else entirely. After a few seconds of nothing happening, the adults on the street stopped cowering, stood up straight, and uncovered their heads. All of them suddenly had something wet in their eyes. After rubbing and blinking, they saw that it was raining purple, and the children were playing.
The adults looked up at the screen. As more ships flew into the void, the rain increased. They flinched again, but none of the ships got through. They then looked at themselves--most were in overacted duck-and-cover poses that even a mime wouldn’t commit. More self-conscious than anything, they tried to act dignified. So they calmed down and went about their business, like they knew it was safe all along.
-------------------
Thousands of feet above the southern portion of the Atlantic, there was a battle--to say the least.
It was a sprawling tableau of smoke trails, explosions, flaming debris, and energy blasts that threaded between the combatants. At any given time, several hundred parallel dogfights were going on. “Up” and “down” were long-forgotten concepts. The noise was an indecipherable cacophany: technology shattering, piqued with what some pilots thought sounded like final screams, while others dismissed it as static jumps. The usual practice of scanning comm-frequencies had been made useless; it was like channel-surfing in Hell--clipped fragments of sentences that contained last-ditch attempts to stay alive, cries for help, apologies to loved ones, and quickly-worsening situations.
The crescent-shaped Ivorean AI craft had silver bodies, with color-coded specialized equipment. Navy for short-range fighters, black for bombers, purple for those with advanced-maneuvering multidirectional rockets, and dark red for strafe-blasters, among others. They weaved and bobbed simultaneously, apparently hooked up to some larger network. Sensor data from each individual ship was shared with the rest, giving them an all-encompassing POV that allowed them to see the battle in its entirety. The Ivoreans outnumbered them by a ridiculous amount…probably about twenty thousand to their one. The pilots had no idea how they were surviving; something had to be taking out all the Ivorean ships, but they had no idea what.
With so many attacks being unleashed, the pilots were more worried about accidentally flying into an energy blast or alien missile, rather than actually being targeted. The battlefield existed from front to back, side to side, up to down, and was full of light and sound and motion. A waterfall of Ivorean ships were streaming from the upper atmosphere, just waiting to break into formation. And this was just the first wave…
Lieutenant Dan Pragson of the USAF was currently racing through the strife, trying not to think about the fact that projectiles and lasers and other craft were zipping all around him, no more than ten or fifteen feet away. His jet’s guidance computer was barely able to compensate, trying to chart the course of all the possible threats and how to avoid them…his screens looked like old comic book pages, crammed full of multicolored pixels that were supposed to represent the others in the battle. Before today, he’d never had more than ten dots on his screen at one time; while now, hundreds were traipsing in and out of his range every other second.
An alarm screamed in his helmet--he instinctively hit the vertical thrusters, with no time to pray that there wasn’t anyone above him. Just as he did, three streaks of shimmering blue tore through the air thirty feet below him, where he’d been a half-second ago.
He spotted his attacker: it was one of the purple-equipped ships. It tumbled suddenly, like it was going down--but no, that was just how they flew…it rolled to the side, dropped fifty feet, and charged him, guns blazing.
Pragson half-barrel-rolled the plane, narrowly squeezing between the twin energy blasts. The columns of fire kept pace with him, and began to tighten--but he hit the retrorocket “brakes”, just as the duo of blasts converged right in front of him. He then cut the forward ignition for one terrifying second, and when he flipped it back on, he’d nearly blacked out and fallen to his death, but he was tucked in tight behind the stupid silver-and-purple ship.
He toggled to heat-thriving ammo, aimed at the thing’s thrusters, and let loose.
Under normal circumstances, those bullets were lethal. After going through high temperatures, they became more explosive than a dozen missiles. So it was no surprise that the Ivorean craft was quickly reduced to smoldering ribbons of circuitry.
But his showmanship had gotten the attention of a batch of dark blue short-range fighters--they swerved, heading right for him.
They were seconds away from opening fire. Throwing caution to the wind, he flew straight up, into a group of descending Ivorean fighters, which were new to the battle. They provided a nice semi-living shield, as he essentially ducked behind them, letting them take the brunt of the short-range fighters’ blasts. Of course, it only took the rest a few seconds for them to get out of the way, thanks to their coordinated AI…
A new voice crackled across the grainy audio waves: “Don’t worry about them--when I say shoot, do it!”
Pragson, amazed that they hadn’t yet shot him, got ready. Then, the short-range fighters were pushed by some invisible force, landing right in what could easily be his line of fire. A voice said “Shoot!”, and he did.
Four of them gone, just like that. A red-haired kid in an orange costume and black jacket buzzed his cockpit, giving him a wave. “Let’s take ‘em out together--I assist, you pull the trigger!”
Pragson nodded. The kid was casually glancing at the Ivoreans’ missiles, and making them jump off-course slightly, so they’d hit other Ivorean ships. He also had some sort of…cane? Whatever it was, it was launching columns of flame, and creating black-ash wounds in ships. He was on the volunteer fire squad of his tiny hometown, and that was anything but normal fire. After a moment, Pragson realized that the kid wasn’t alone.
For the first time, he really thought they had a chance. If he made it out alive, he knew that Karla would eat up this story. And for that matter, in forty or fifty years, it could make him the coolest grandfather in town…
-------------------------
“We either get executed, or we get harems the size of cities. Your choice.”
A planet in the Ivorean system: a base kept secret from all but ten people. Eight are the scientists who work there, and the other two are Vorrow and Occultis. Up on the surface, the people are virtually rioting, furious at Vorrow for having tricked them into war.
The lead scientist was a man with unruly green hair and a sardonic disposition. While the others panic, pacing about their main lab, he remained disturbingly aloof. Smiling his ego-filled smile, he said, “We knew about Vorrow, and they’ll eventually find out we knew. So either they kill us, or the universe ends and we get to be gods. Sidekick gods, but gods nonetheless. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m really tired of this crap. Standing in line, having to pay for things, not being able to kill people who annoy me, women being able to say no…that just isn’t my vision of an ideal reality.”
One of the other scientists snorted. “We’ve already done everything we can to help. Now we just sit back and wait.”
“I’m sorry, you must want some neanderthal who makes 15,000 a year to form a mob and beat us to death. Sure, stay right here--but me? I’d like to make absolutely sure that we’re gonna win.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“Well, they aren’t exactly done yet…but I’m sure the rest of the Ivorean pantheon that we made will be happy to help.”
--------------------------
In another part of the same aerial battle, Hatman--decked out in his Atlanta Falcons cap, which made him metallic black, winged, and razor-sharp--was surveying the field. They had to hold back the AI-ships: not to prevent them from getting somewhere, but to make sure that a lot of reinforcements kept arriving, to blunder into their little soul-decoy trap.
He took a hard right, streaking towards a cluster of enemy ships--he literally tore through them, opening gashes as he went. Hatman wasn’t quite the natural flier that Nats was, but he more than made up for it in terms of battle experience. At the moment, he was on the line with the military minds who were organizing the war, and the major superheroic players. Almost everyone had something specific to do…
Like a bird, his sight had also been enhanced--his powers translated it as a much wider and more accurate scope of vision than humans had. Even Hatman’s peripheral vision was 20/20, despite the fact that he was looping and dodging enemy fire and wading through shredded technology.
They weren’t in short supply of targets. A seemingly never-ending amount of alien craft were coming from space, untouched and ready to take even more shots at increasingly-fatigued Earth forces.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hatman noticed a grouping of gold-silver craft on the edge of the battle, swooping purposefully. Those were Vorrow’s colors, which probably meant that they were tougher than most. It looked like they had advanced scanning arrays, and that could screw up the trap.
Into his comm: “Pegasus, Enty, three o’clock high! Take ‘em out fast!”
A winged, auburn-haired woman in white, and a man in crimson-and-gold armor, tore towards them. She heard an electronically-enhanced voice tell her to spread them out. There wasn’t time to inform him that no-one gave her orders, but she did it anyway.
She opened up with blue-green cosmic blasts, powerful enough to make the ships scatter without dignity. He flew into them, his armor suddenly glowing white, with scintillating black streaks. For some reason, he stopped dead in mid-air.
The ships paused, and--seeing no reason not to--shot him.
His armor didn’t refract the blasts, nor absorb them. His armor wasn’t damaged, either. The first beam hit him in the helmet, but it exited between his shoulder blades, magnified and faster. It took out another Ivorean ship. This kept happening; it was like the beams were going right through him, without hurting him…they’d go in and come out at a different angle.
And in seconds, the silver-and-gold ships were utterly destroyed by their own weapons.
“Filtering field. When it’s too much to absorb, I just pump it through the armor and get rid of it as quick as I can.”
Pegasus shrugged. “I saw the Coliseum when it was still a mile high and full of raging centaurs and zombie gladiators--am I supposed to be impressed?”
NTU-150 sighed, and took off into the thick of the nearest major dogfight. The Ivorean ships had seen what his field did, so they immediately cut their energy weapons…leaving them with essentially one hand tied behind their backs.
He didn’t have that problem--he put two fists in front of him as he flew, and began smashing through enemies. Many of the AI ships had run out of missiles, leaving them weaponless, as long as Enty was around. This made things much easier for the pilots, who were essentially shooting fish in a barrel. Pegasus was also cleaning up against them, easily shrugging off their projectiles and blowing them away with cosmic blasts.
Unfortunately, Enty couldn’t keep the filtering-field live for more than a few minutes--he switched it off, activated his repulsors, and black-flecked, explosion-colored beams raged through the Ivorean ships. He tore away engines and weapon attachments with his hands. And his boot jets made him far faster and more maneuverable than they’d expected…
Energy blasts closed around him from all angles, like a net. But he always dodged by at least a few inches, while holding his arms out to the side, straight, and perfectly targeting enemy craft. Deciding to give his repulsors a break, he activated a tractor beam in his gauntlet, latched on to a purple-and-silver ship, and started swinging it like a mace. It slammed into six or seven other craft before finally falling apart.
His fingertips glowed neon blue, and ten tiny lasers lashed out. Not very explosive, but they sliced ships in half, and his targeting computers let him attack ten at a time, rather than just two or three. While doing this, he put his unibeam on thermal, and easily overheated the engines of the more strained ships.
Suddenly, he found that he was alone. He’d taken out thirty or forty ships in about twenty seconds--not bad, but not his best. He could do better. But he had to be smart about it. So, he activated his scramblers, grabbed one of the falling Ivorean ships, and tapped into their frequency.
A few moments later, hundreds of ships were cut off from their shared sensor network, flying more blind than before…in the initial seconds of it, before they had time to react, the pilots took out more than they’d destroyed in the entire battle so far.
“War used to be something that actually mattered. But now, it’s all faceless cannon fodder…no class at all,” Pegasus grumbled, taking a few seconds to notice some ship trying to kill her, and then reducing it to atoms. “Is there a point to any of this?”
“Absolutely,” Hatman stated, arriving from the other end of the battle. “We’ve got enough of ‘em here now--let’s do it!!”
With that, the battle began to lower closer to the Atlantic. And, “coincidentally”, the Ivoreans finally pinpointed something they’d noticed before. According to their scanners, something with the same reading as Vorrow’s soul was just under the water. Might be real, might be a fake. But they had to find out.
Now that this area was in the battle’s backdrop, the Ivoreans stopped firing--they couldn’t risk destroying it. The heroes and the pilots turned tail, buzzing the water and trying to leave. The AI craft followed them, planning to divert at the last second and surround the area that might contain Vorrow’s true self…
That was when a hundred-mile-wide coral reef leapt out of the water and quite literally swallowed tens of thousands of the Ivorean ships.
The pilots were gaping. Variations of “What in God’s name was that?” filled the airwaves.
Hatman said, “Sentient coral reef. Sea monkeys told us about it. Don’t ask.”
----------------------
Goldeneyed shot up in bed--he found himself lying in one of the mansion’s high-tech medical bays. His mask was drooping off the edge of a nearby metal table, but he had his black bodysuit on.
Surprisingly, he was the only person in the room. They usually kept someone around to calm down the patient, once they woke up. Everyone must have been tied up with that whole end-of-the-universe thing. But he saw a note magneted to a storage cabinet.
“blah blah blah you exhausted your powers blah blah blah don’t use them for a few hours!? We may not be around in a few hours…”
He considered trying to teleport…but even moving around hurt, which wasn’t a good sign. Still, he couldn’t just sit around and wait. There had to be something he could do.
Bry grabbed his mask, and hopped into an elevator. In seconds, he was in the mansion’s main foyer. He saw that the windows were blacked out--of course, it was still underground, they hadn’t had time to--
Then everything snapped into place. As he took off running, wincing as he went, he couldn’t stop laughing…
----------------
Vorrow was standing on the green, black-ringed surface of his war-planet, glancing down at his handheld computer. Sol-4 was holding its own against his first line…but he’d only thrown four percent of his forces at them, so far. The rest were on the way. Sheer number would kill them--he had about forty million AI ships.
He took off for the battle, flying through the blackness. Before he left, he’d secured the war-planet; as he’d need it later. The personnel were locked out from their software, it was all on autopilot. It just needed to sit there and maybe defend itself, until it was time.
Then, his computer beeped--he sighed, he’d have to turn it off once he got into the fighting. His AI ships were great, but they alerted him about every stupid minor development….not having time to check the screen, he put it on audio.
“Consider yourself planetjacked.”
Vorrow was then caught in the crossfire of four hundred mile-wide energy beams, all coming from behind.
From a great distance away, the scene resembled a giant spider silhouette. A tiny dot of a body, and many far-too-long legs on either side, all sticking out straight, but at angles. Vorrow was in the center of the tiny dot; which was, for one second, the size of a small star. Every cannon on the planet’s western side had been used, and he could feel it.
It didn’t kill him. It hurt him, it annoyed him, the force from the explosions sent him flying towards where Sol-4 was, more or less…and it made him reconsider exactly how impregnable his war-planet was. There were only two people who were capable of something like that: The Dark Knight, and that one girl he’d seen on Universe’s Most Wanted…princess turned master thief, something like Ziles…
-------------------
“Did you think that’d stop him?”
“No. I just wanted that annoying little git to be softened up for the really big guns--the ones in the LL.”
------------------
Goldeneyed settled into a mostly-dark seat, and closed a manhole-like covering over him. Then, controls powered up, glowing; and he found himself surrounded by screens which were just now blinking awake. He strapped himself in, spun around to test the chair, and nodded sharply.
This area was plugged into the mansion’s communication systems--someone was calling, and no-one was answering. He tapped into that line. “Yeah?”
The voice of Roni Y. Avis, con-man supreme, could be heard on the other end. He had a nasal New Joisey accent. “Okay, so here I am, selling insurance, what with the war and all…but you gotta tell me, you guys are gonna pull this out, right? ‘cause if you don’t, I’m out for like millions…”
Goldeneyed gunned the engine. “Are you kidding? We’re just getting started.”
-----------------
Outside, the grey explorer statue on still-disguised LL island was watching the Ivorean ships, which hovered outside Parodiopolis, unable to get in. Muffled electonics hummed to life. The statue’s eyes glowed a neon blue, as did its staff.
A split-second later, the ships were in the midst of a sparkling cerulean aftereffect, and they exploded simultaneously. The statue was gone: in its place was an empty foundation, and a cloud of recently-disturbed cement dust.
-----------------
“Trust me.”
Abby Moursen had been sitting in the same position for exactly two hours. For a normally hyperactive six-year-old, it was an impressive feat. She was sitting on the floor, her back pushed up against a wall in her parents’ cabin. Her knees were bunched up between her arms, pulled up to her nose--she peeked over them. Abby’s brown hair was mingled with soot, which was also smeared over her pink pajamas. The reason she wasn’t moving? The cabin was on fire.
At some point in the last few hours, she’d heard a lot of loud sounds in the sky, and everything got dark; the sun was blocked out. Her parents lived in northern Canada (which she pronounced “Candia”), where they went from village to village, as Red Cross doctors. They were allegedly close to the North Pole--but they’d never tell her which way it was, as they thought she’d wander off in that direction.
The woman in the funny blue costume was standing in the middle of their living room, her hand outstretched. Abby’s friend Kim had a toy of her, but she couldn’t remember her name. Abby often had trouble telling between the made-up heroes and the ones on the news, as a lot of the made-up ones weren’t cartoons, and looked real.
Above them, timber was cracking--the ceiling rafters were starting to buckle.
“Abby, I’m Dancer. I’m like your mommy and daddy--I help people. They sent me to help you.”
“I want mommy.”
“She can’t come, sweetie. There’s a w--there’s a fight going on, and we had to have everyone leave. But I’ll take you to them. Promise.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
She blinked. “Okay.”
Dancer walked smoothly across the room, and it seemed like the fire danced out of her way. She picked Abby up, and started for the door, unhurriedly. “Close your eyes.”
Abby did. She nestled her face into the space between Dancer’s shoulder and neck. Flaming chunks of wood poured down, falling around them, but never touching them.
Then everything felt cold--she opened her eyes. They were outside, in the snow-covered plains. And a jeep was just pulling up…
Of course, it was her parents. They wore the same clothes they’d worn yesterday, and looked very tired--she remembered that they’d gone to the hospital last night, for just a few minutes. They never left her alone for more than a half-hour, and there was a neighbor that could check on her…Abby looked up. That house was gone.
Dancer handed Abby over to her mother, and that was when they heard a loud thump.
Something had landed, about thirty feet away. It kicked up a cloud of opaque snow. A man-shaped outline emerged, slowly defining itself as it came closer. It looked like a bee, but it was a person. The thing had yellow honeycomb wings that were shaped like thin ovals, and vertical yellow-and-black stripes on its chest, and black legs and arms. Its head looked human, but it wore an oversized black helmet with strange eye-shaped visors, also honeycombed in a tint of golden amber.
In an almost formal fashion, it declared, “Mortals call me Treyce. I serve Vorrow.”
Dancer stepped in front of the family, looking right at him. “Don’t be stupid.”
He stepped back, preparing to attack--that was when he noticed the debris.
About half a mile away, AI ships were falling out of the sky. But it wasn’t random…they were forming a path. And it was headed for him.
He fell into a crouching position, covering his head. The shower of wire and components was much larger than it first appeared; there was no way he could dodge it. It slammed into him painfully, while somehow avoiding Dancer and the family. She stood unmoving, somehow knowing that they wouldn’t be touched.
Then, suddenly, it stopped. He struggled to his feet. His first instinct was to grab one of them, but a transparent red dome popped into existence, protecting all four. Lightning the size of a redwood cut through his torso, skewering him with white-blue voltage. He landed several hills over, creating a melted snow angel against his will.
He heard the fall of thunder that hadn’t yet hit. Endless seconds later, it did, reverberating deeply. Three figures became visible, calmly walking over the hill that Dancer and the family were standing on.
Steam was rising off his body, and he tried to get up.
Fin Fang Foom, Donar, and Exile paused by Dancer. They exchanged a few words. The dragon brushed a hand against Abby’s face, clearing away the soot. She wasn’t afraid--she’d seen big scary dogs that were actually nice. He smiled, like he was appreciating something of great value. Then, that turned to anger, and he glared at Treyce.
Finny cleared two hundred feet in a matter of seconds, plowing into him. Still in mid-air, the bee-like man pushed off, trying to get clear--but the dragon clamped a claw on his shoulder, pulled a fist back, and nearly punched his head off. The impact made snow fall from what few trees there were.
Dancer sighed. “I warned him. But I seem to run into a lot of stupid men.”
-----------------
Chronic found himself in a recording studio--which wasn’t entirely unusual, for him. Except this one wasn’t cheap. And the signs on the wall weren’t written in any language on Earth…which was a problem, as he was pretty sure he’d been there a few seconds ago.
He straightened, ran a hand over his t-shirt and jeans--not that it did much good, it looked like he’d slept in them--and gripped his demonic guitar, Steve, nervously.
“Guess who?” The voice was without humor, and he recognized it immediately…no-one else was that monotone and frightening. Over the intercom, The Dark Knight said, “Plug that cord into your guitar. We’re using a plan that NTU used back on Earth, but he had shorter range. This time, we have the AI frequency. We’re second in a two-wave attack.”
Chronic shrugged, casually going along with it. He slung Steve over his shoulder in one smooth motion, like a gunfighter from the Old West. “What’s the first wave?”
-----------------
Vorrow was still reeling from the impact of the blast, heading for Sol-4, albeit upside-down and backwards. But he wasn’t complaining--it had given him quite a bit of propulsion, and he’d get there faster than he would under his own power.
He grinned. In the distance, a winding snake of tightly-packed ships were headed for Sol-4. His reinforcements had arrived, and there were at least ten or twenty million of them. He had this one in the bag.
Upon squinting, his stomach fell into a bottomless chasm--those weren’t his.
Half the ships were from the Intergalactic Council; they were the ones that had surrounded the Ivorean System, earlier. But the other half…those were the Ivorean people. That couldn’t right--they weren’t fighting, they were flying side-by-side.
Then he remembered a messy little detail: the Ivoreans hated him.
And the ships were battle-damaged, somewhat. He suddenly realized why his reinforcements had been taking so long to get there. How many millions had he lost already, thanks to them? The Council and the Ivoreans had huge war machines, easily the size of his own…
He tried to use his flying abilities to push himself to a halt, so he could control his motion better…instead, a wave of ships as tall and wide as space itself enveloped him, firing as they continued on to the battle on Sol-4.
-----------------------
Chlorm had thought that becoming evil was some big, obvious thing, that could be easily seen. He’d lost his mother and brother to the Million Year War, and at the end, he hated it more than anything. And when Vorrow came along, promising everything, he went along without really thinking. Before he knew it, they’d sentenced another planet to live with the kind of violence that they’d suffered from for longer than their written word had existed.
All it took was a few days--a few days of becoming what they hated, without even noticing, and it was enough to ruin a planet. Maybe a universe.
He hated war. But if he had to choose between that, and aiding and abetting in the destruction of the universe, it was an easy choice.
------------------------
Chronic tested out a few playing stances, trying to get comfortable. “Time to give new meaning to the term ‘noise pollution’.”
------------------------
Everyone on Earth had assumed that the majority of the war was taking place there--they were wrong.
For the first time, alien video feed was pumped into cable and satellite networks around the world. And they saw a war zone the size of a galaxy, with tens of millions of AI ships going up against the major ruling forces of the universe, who weren’t really into the idea of being destroyed. It was made clear that these ships were trying to get to Earth. And the battle was edging closer and closer to it, though it was still outside the Milky Way.
A few familiar faces were present--Amazing Guy, and almost the entire Yellow Flashlight Corps. DarkHwk, as well. It seemed like they were having more luck than before…some voice-over, translated, informed them that the AI ships had been cut off from their communications network by “sheer sonic energy”, which was overloading their audiovisual intranet. They now had no idea which groups needed help, which were doing which missions, or anything. They couldn’t even “talk” to each other at close-range.
A nervous alien bureaucrat with no arms, floating hands, and purple skin read nervously from a printed piece of paper, saying, in rough “Terran” (an amalgamation of English, Spanish, and Arabian) that they were very thankful that the LL’s intervention in this situation, and that they were grateful to the people on Sol-4 for their help.
And people all over the world sat down, blinked, and--for no logical reason--felt important.
------------------
The President, wearing his favorite navy blue suit and red tie, saluted the guards in front of the giant blast doors. He looked past them, towards a General. “Well?”
“We aren’t doing too badly. The battle in the South Atlantic is over--we won, there. The North Pole could be doing better, but some of the LL powerhouses just showed up, and the Air Force has a few advanced squadrons on the way. The castle in Germany is still untouched: they haven’t gone for that one, yet. Alien reinforcements are on the way--on our side, I mean. They’re engaging the AI reinforcements in inner space, and SPUD’s sparing what they can to back them up. And it’s been confirmed that The Dark Knight has control of the war-planet. He’s actually keeping quite a few of the AI ships away from Earth with it--but the Ivoreans themselves are running it, he managed to open the software up so they could--”
“Okay, okay--but what about after? I mean, with the war-planet…can the IRS repossess that for us?”
“…he said that if we tried it, we’d be sodding ourselves. And those were his exact words.”
I’m getting sick of him--first all the corporate scandals, now this. Anonymous informants my--
-------------------
Occultis landed lightly on a sickly greenish-yellow hill, touching down with one hand, and then rising up. He found himself in a winter-dead countryside--no snow, but the grass was withered, the hills were featureless, and everything had a faded look to it. Sideways lightning branched across the shadowy blue sky, like it was night rather than day.
He saw his goal immediately. It was either a small castle, or a big, gothic mansion. The grey masonry was weathered, and its two spires had red-thatched wooden cones tipping them off. Those particular colors made him feel uncomfortable, but he tried to ignore it, and started off for the building.
Occultis often wondered why modern cities were never built around castles. Of course, he knew that they were to be historically preserved, and doing new construction near them was a legal hassle. Still, places like this seemed to remain out in the forgotten wilderness. If they couldn’t knock castles down and build a skyscraper over them, they didn’t want anything to do with them. Then and now taking different routes, living in different territories, mutually rebuffing each other. That feeling had drenched him for most of his life.
For once, he fit in: his black uniform, with its antique single-breasted jacket, rang of the past. His cloak was also black, with a neon green interior. His hair was also dark, and streaked with green. He knew that these were the last moments of his old life. Knowing it would soon be over, he felt that there were things he should’ve done…but he didn’t care. Not anymore. Vorrow’s paradise would make him forget all that. And all he had to do to get there was check this place out, and see if they’d hidden Vorrow’s soul here.
An empty gulley surrounded the castle--crabgrass was wedged in it at odd angles. Ages ago, it must have been a moat. He easily leapt over it, into a huge doorway that was missing its drawbridge. A courtyard beckoned. It was filled with collapsed wooden marketplace sheds, and broken-down wagons.
He then stopped dead in his tracks. His mystic senses picked up a consciousness behind the castle--not the long-dead workers who’d built it, or the royalty that had defined it…someone newer. It wasn’t that he was a mind-reader, but that he could easily discern between order--organized human work--and chaos--when things are laid out randomly. Someone had made this scene exactly the way they wanted it.
The wind picked up. In one of the towers, a bell rung in a creaking, strained fashion. For a second, he thought nothing of it--just the wind. Famous last words, those. By the time he’d remembered what it really meant, it was almost too late.
The cords of wood on the ground remained brown, but became much more flexible--they sprang at him, jaws snapping. He caught one right in front of his face, broke its neck, and jumped thirty feet in the air before the others could get him. Wood-to-snakes? Someone loved the classics.
Before he came back down, he had a second or two to think. A large portion of magic is based in symbols--usually two-dimensional ones, combinations of circles, squares, triangles. Some three-dimensional ones exist, but they’re usually based on 2-D ones--like the Pyramids, and Stonehenge. The bell shape was one of the more obscure ones; they can act as amplifiers, under the right conditions.
On the ground, the snake-like creatures coiled into springs, and blasted into the air.
It’s much easier to change the consistency of non-living things--the exact reason why Occultis wore a cloak. He wrapped himself in a ball with it, and set it on fire. The snakes couldn’t stop themselves in mid-air.
By the time he’d landed--he was skilled in the mystical martial arts, not just magic--the snakes were ash caught in the breeze. His cloak had stopped burning, and his fists took on a green glow. With all the wood gone, the courtyard was just old dirt.
Then, something hard closed around his hands--his green energy had crystallized. Someone had sabotaged the air; no pure energy could be used without it hardening and becoming useless. He’d have to rely on matter-manipulation alone. But the fire hadn’t done that…the effect was just within the courtyard walls.
He tried to smash the crystal, as he needed his hands free. Magic was interpreted through finger-patterns and the like. Then, he saw her, on the other side of the courtyard.
She was a brown-haired beauty, in black, navy, and powder blue robes, which had a design he wasn’t familiar with--it almost looked like the Japanese flag, a sun with rays outstretched…
He’d heard of her. “Sorceress.”
“Occultis.”
It had started to rain. He initiated a jump-kick at a superhumanly-fast speed, but she’d expected it--the streaks of rain became ghost wire, which went through him and burned his soul. There were dozens of wires separating the two, and he tried every “undo” reverse-spell that he knew, to get rid of them…
Instead of wasting time attacking her, he did a short-range teleport to the bell, sliced through its cord with a chop, and let it fall. It died in a sour note. He could feel the energy-solidification spell wear off, and he grinned.
At least, he did until the tower turned to pearl, which is remarkably combustible when faced with aura-lightning.
The explosion threw him out onto the hibernating prairie, and he grated against the land’s bald spots, eventually managing to roll onto his feet. She flew out of the castle (an ability she didn’t always use, but had always had), and before he could react, the grass had turned to chains, which lengthened and grabbed him.
Not bothering to break them, he simply teleported free, and blasted away at her with neon-green energy. The chains acted as a vortex, drawing in the energy…he added directional thought-runes, firing again.
This time, they went right at her--she threw up her hands, and the beams curved at the last moment, missing. But they screeched resistance, and doubled back, backlighting her with green impact. She hit the ground.
He charged her, knowing he was physically superior--but when he got within range, the air blurred into a silver net, which surrounded and protected her. A segment of it extended in his direction, rushing at him…
Occultis blinked a force-field into existence, but it went right through it. The silver netting was intangible. It actually flew down his throat and eyes, tightening.
He doubled over--as he did, cosmic strobes went off in his brain. He was numb all over, he couldn’t even feel the ground underneath his feet…he tried to get his hands in position for another spell, but he couldn’t feel his fingers.
Sorceress was rising to her feet. Her right hand was glowing a color that only existed in the fourth dimension. The ground was shaking, like she was pulling something out of it…
He’d seen this move before. Trying to focus, he uttered purging spells, desperate to get the lightshow out of his mind.
She resurrected the music of an ancient tribe of nomads, who’d once had an encampment in these hills. It was a war-song. Before he could think of a way to dodge it, the strobes were drowned out by overlapping victory-chanting in a dead tongue, he could feel warriors dancing around a fire on his body they were stomping and stamping and cursing their enemies wearing the heads of dead animals the fur is hot and smothering and the spear he holds gives his hands splinters and everything holding him in the present time was cut loose, temporal vertigo, leaving him in a prelude to battle with death weighing heavy on his knees…mystics can protect themselves from words and dialects and symbols, but never music; the true universal language.
Occultis never saw what hit him. When he came to, there was a crater the size of a swimming pool, and he was in the center of it. He backflipped out, nearly pulling every muscle in his body in the process, and huge stone blocks from the castle were flying at him, swirling around, a tornado of granite that was smacking him in the head and chest and keeping him from getting his footing…
With every impact came a flash of white--white magic. Occultis’ own power was shrinking like a shadow, he was in a high noon of power, and his own mystical reach was retracting into the point where he stood…
Then, the stones stopped. A network of energy suddenly connected the blocks, tiny blue beams that held them in place. Diamonds sprouted out of the energy, forming a globe-like jungle gym held together by shimmering white columns. He tried to teleport out, but the diamonds refracted him, he kept bouncing back into his newfound prison. Gravity died, and grass and dirt rose freely into the sky, the dirt becoming breathing rock and the grass becoming acid-filled vines. They wrapped around the globe, another protective layer to keep him in, stitching between the castle-stones and diamond. The rock became reflective, pockets of mirror that, when he looked into them, created a million multiple reflections, as they were aligned with the other bits of mirror, and in the time it took for him to see all the reflections and illusions of them, hours had passed, leaving him unconscious.
Sorceress was gone. A dry wind blew across the dead hills, brushing against the vine-sprouts of an earthen, diamond-wrapped, mirror-laced sphere.
--------------------------
“Rule number one: fight smart.”
Half a mile under West Virginia, a lone figure lowered down a cord, landing on a metal-grating stairway. The room was pitch black, but he could see just fine. It was all unheated, and the air was stuffy and swarming with dust…not that he noticed.
A voice continued to guide him. “Straight ahead, then right. The access code is KERR-05971.”
Upon arriving at the door and its keypad, the man paused. The keypad was non-standard. Its buttons were too big, it was on a metal plate the size of a TV screen, had five rows of two numbers each, and was barely digital. This thing really was ancient. Still, he hesitated. “You sure this won’t trip any alarms? Or inform them that someone’s here?”
“Code gets you around the alarms. And this base’s only modem died in the 70’s--back then, they called it an ‘advanced switchboard’. They haven’t tried contacting it since, so they haven’t noticed.”
He didn’t believe that, but he punched in the code anyway. The door attempted to slide open--it died about halfway. “Dammit.” The man pushed it open, straining against dead gears.
It opened up into a huge, empty room the size of an airplane hangar. But the floor was unusual--it was a series of domes. He had to be careful, to avoid tripping in the spaces.
The man looked around. No doors, and he didn’t see what he’d come here to get. “So where are they?”
“Wherever they are, you’d better find ‘em. I mean, you can go take on Vorrow’s foot soldiers one on one, maybe hold your own against a few…but it’s easier to just--”
Metal clanged, and a stick figure of a robot rose from a crouching position. It had big, green, goggle-shaped eyes and double-barrelled blasters for hands. A recording with horrible quality--it sounded like an eight-track--said “You are trespassing on government property. Please surrender to the nearest--”
A half-second later, its head was blown off. The man prepared to lower his gun, when he realized that someone was standing behind him.
With a bang, the lights came on. Michael McKinley, in a suit of nondescript black body armor, whirled to face another man in black--Messenger.
They pointed their guns at each other, refusing to back down. Michael just had one, while Messenger had two, and held them John-Woo-style sideways.
“I was getting all ready to break in here, and you did all the work for me,” Messenger said casually. “What’s your deal? Who are you?”
“You don’t need to worry about it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Michael’s voice raised a notch, in terms of nastiness. “I’m here to help save lives. With the universe on the line, trust me--you really don’t want this fight.”
“Get over yourself--I’ve gone up against worse than you.” Messenger paused. “You’re here because…?”
Over Michael’s helmet-comm, DuPlis said, “How did he even know about this place?” Michael asked Messenger the same thing.
“You don’t need to worry about it,” Messenger replied, coated in sarcasm. “But I asked first.”
“Might as well tell him,” DuPlis sighed.
“This was a major military base back in the sixties. What they kept here might be useful against Vorrow’s forces.”
“I knew that much--had the same idea. But what’d they keep here?”
“They kept, uh…” Michael looked down. Messenger followed suit.
They were standing on tightly-packed blue skullcaps, done in a Kirby-esque design. If you looked closely, between them, you could see the hints of arms and torsos, far below. Messenger finished the sentence for him: “…Sentinoids.”
“Antique ones. Pretty worthless, but, we need all the numbers we can get.”
“Huh. I thought the UN told ‘em to dismantle these things.”
“They did, but…” He trailed off, self-explanatory.
Messenger lowered his weapons. “Okay. You got codes to make ‘em work?”
Michael did the same. “Yeah, and I know how to program them to go after the AI ships. Let’s get to it…”
Then thirty men with grey-matter bodies and black, mask-like headdresses materialized into the room, and opened fire.
-----------------------
A draconic voice rang out over icy air: “One last push! Hit it!”
There were two main fronts left: one, the war-planet, where the Galactic Council and human Ivorean forces were taking on twenty million reinforcements. And the North Pole, where the Terran forces and superheroes were taking on the last group of AI ships to get to Earth, before being cut off by the war-planet’s defenses on the edge of the now-ten planets. At this point, for both sides, going to Earth meant turning your back on the huge battle going on beyond Pluto, and that was just giving them a ton of free shots at you. Neither side could break away, which left Earth dangerously on its own.
The first thing everyone noticed was the titans. Specifically, Fin Fang Foom (full wyrm size), Hatman (in his NY Giants cap), and Goldeneyed (in the statue/robot, armed with a glowing blue staff). They drew fire, distracted AI ships, and generally took out waves of them at a time, with a single swipe.
River-sized lightning snaked across the sky, irresistably drawn to the AI ships, and swallowing batches of them at once. Superstrength and an invulnerable baseball-bat-shaped piece of wood tore through enemies like they were made of weak sandstone.
Exile kept his power usage in check--he’d use the occasional crimson-energy-blast to take out an important-looking piece of equipment on the ships, rather than trying to destroy the whole thing. Crippled craft spun to the ground, usually getting hit with stray bolts before crashing.
He formed solid energy-globes over thrusters, muffling their momentum and setting them up for veering F-16s. When he wanted to get physical, he’d form two long blades on each hand, and charge every enemy in sight.
Nats was showboating, annoying many AI ships without really hurting them. TK shoves, using fire to singe their weapons…when quite a few would be after him, he’d fly right in front of a cloud--which happened to hide Finny’s mouth. Thermonuclear flame took out dozens.
Bry’s robot shot sparking blue energy from its eyes, and it was so fast…the thing was interpreting his reflexes at computer-level speed, allowing him to near-instantaneously react. It had bootjets, and he combined his natural acrobatic skill with flight, tumbling and flipping and spinning. Whenever he moved his staff, he couldn’t help but take out several of them.
Missiles bit into the AI ships, which hesitated one picosecond too many--Pegasus’ cosmic energy would do them in, or Enty’s repulsors, or Nats’ fire, or Bry’s eyebeams, or…
Pulse bolts from Enty hammered one into the ground. When another got behind him, he used his bootjets offensively, swinging his feet underneath it and blowing a column clean through it. He made a sphere of energy with his hands, shoved it into the ship, and shoved the ship into a cluster of other ships. They didn’t particularly view it as a threat…and it exploded, taking out dozens.
The giants were becoming too easy of a target--Finny shrunk down, and Hatman switched to his Superman cap. In seconds, their increased maneuverability and speed were presenting a different threat…
Sorceress finally arrived. She greeted the AI ships by turning the gold in their circuits to lead, via an energy field that extended around her for about two hundred feet. She began flying around, and they just couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. Otherwise-undamaged ships were dropping like flies. She had to make the jets and hoverships immune, of course.
A blur of motion and sheer physical force was a prelude to slagged ships, thanks to Hatman. Exile created tiny bubbles of interdimensional energy in them, and then had the bubbles expand, causing them to strain to pieces, rupture and explode, or smash a key component, causing them to crash. He kept an eye on the pilots, and saved more than one by creating a last-second forcefield.
NTU once again activated his filter-field, and had the ships taking each other out with their own blasts. This time, he added in guidance-scramblers, throwing the ships off-course so others could get easy shots in on them.
Nats got a TK lock on a ship, and started pushing it around, using it as a battering ram, and as cover. He’d shoot off fire bursts from underneath. Pegasus backed him up, cleaning off the ships he’d ram.
Fin Fang Foom sank his claws into a ship, tearing out its technological innards. His fists and tail slammed into many of them, knocking them off-course or shattering them completely. He’d often double-team them with Donar, sandwiching them between fire and lightning.
They were holding the line. It wasn’t pretty, and it was taking the combined military might of Earth and much of the universe, but they were doing it. Then seven beings, each a color of the rainbow, blasted onto the scene and tore into them with seven elements not found in the Milky Way…
-------------------------
Throughout the war-planet, an alarm was ringing: they had intruders.
A green-uniformed security squad, with somewhat rectangular guns, were pressed against a wall, next to its corner. Bodies lay strewn on the ground, in the hall that the corner led to.
Echoes of an explosion were still ringing. A man shouted into his headset, “One! Just one! But he’s--”
Metal bit into flesh, and all fell silent.
A bald man knelt over their bodies. He wore a dark blue jacket and trousers, with a grey shirt. In one hand he carried a jagged knife. Peron had been given a seemingly simple task: some tactical genius was organizing the war-planet’s defense, and he was to put an end to it. If the war-planet fell, things would be much easier for Vorrow…
“Peron. An Ivorean god--their weaponmaster, and teacher of combat.”
Peron spun, and found himself facing a black-haired, black-uniformed man. The Dark Knight still had his disguise on; he hadn’t brought his costume or gear, other than his Knightstick--he’d been undercover, after all, there hadn’t been room to hide much. And he’d made sure the Librarian informed them on the rest of the Ivorean pantheon, just in case.
Currently, the Knightstick was in katana mode. Peron took one look at that particular weapon, and knew who he was dealing with. He put his knife in his jacket, and pulled out a sword with a serrated edge. Then, he glanced around defensively.
DK grinned. “If you’re looking for Ziles, no--she isn’t here. I had her run an errand.”
---------------------------
In a popular hotel chain, in Denver, a man woke up. He had a bloody nose, and his human facemask was lying on the floor. His red shirt had an electrical burn, but it was out now. The last thing he remembered was opening the door…
He tried to get up, but only managed to raise his head a few inches off the floor. He stopped trying, and let his head roll to the side. His eyes shot further open--the dresser had nothing on it.
The backup slug was gone.
---------------------------
Blue-green filled Vorrow’s eyes: Sol-4, at last.
--------------------------
Messenger and Michael were literally back to back, surrounded by grey-bodied, black-helmeted foot soldiers, all carrying energy pistols. Both had their arms rigid, holding their own guns. The room was huge, but its lone door was blocked off. Messy had shot a few of them experimentally--their bodies chemically knit back together. And their heads were too armored to hurt.
“Hey,” Messenger said. “Speakenzie English?”
They clicked in reply.
“…the one time in my life I might want to think about negotiating, and they can’t talk.” Messy had briefly considered the famed “take us to your leader so we can escape and blow stuff up” trick.
Through electronic voice-enhancing/distorting gear, Michael said, “Screw that. Fight smart--we don’t need to win the battle to win the war. Hold your own for thirty seconds, I’ll do the rest.” Michael then jumped at them, triggering a violent, energy-strafe-reply…
Messenger somersaulted and rolled forward, dodging enemy fire. Then, he whipped out a razor letter, and decapitated one--he couldn’t hurt their heads or bodies, but he could separate the two. No point in wasting ammo when he knew it wouldn’t hurt ‘em. He used the head as a club, bashing others with it…
Michael charged in a jump kick, managing to put a few dents in their heads, thanks to his own armor. He focused on throws and sweep kicks, just trying to keep them occupied and away from him.
While decapitating more of them, Messenger was starting to have doubts about this guy--he seemed entirely comfortable wading into horrible odds. Messenger had done that every day for as long as he could remember, but he had a sane sense of self-preservation, though his anger often drowned it out…while this guy didn’t seem to care about his life.
Michael was gradually working his way towards a certain wall, using his enhanced speed and reflexes to avoid a firestorm of attacks. Then, something leapt out of his wrist--one of them jumped to the side, thinking it was safe.
The cord landed in a data-socket on the wall, and in seconds, the “floor” was shaking.
The Sentinoids were spreading out, creating gaps in the floor. The metal-striped ceiling was opening like blinds, creating gaps. The Sentinoids’ arms were raising. Michael and Messenger jumped across them, heading for the door. The greybodies followed, thinking they could shoot them in the back…
That was proven incorrect when several of the Sentinoids identified enemies in the room, and fired.
Just as Messy and Michael got out of the room, and flattened their backs against either side of the door, a series of explosions punched through the open doorway. Everything rumbled, and then faded.
It was now empty. They greybodies that hadn’t been blasted ended up falling, landing underneath the robots’ bootjets. Nothing was left of them but smears.
Messenger nodded in the direction they’d gone. “How many were there?”
“About four hundred. Not a lot compared to what Vorrow has, but…” Michael couldn’t picture himself saying the “little bit” part of “every little bit helps”, so he didn’t. And in his armor’s faceplate, on a screen, a tiny notification was flashing--the little surprise he’d put in with their programming was working fine…it wasn’t something DuPlis, or anyone, needed to know about.
------------------------
Sentient green liquid slammed into Donar, writhing over him and trying to strangle him with an incredible amount of pressure. It ate electricity like chocolate. The green man, who was responsible for it, was generating more of the substance, while energy blasts punched through him harmlessly; his form as unkillable as the ocean.
Nats blasted away at him with fire, hoping to evaporate him--but he wasn’t that kind of liquid. These were all alien elements, which had existed long ago, and been lost to modern sceience. Donar dug his fingers into the liquid’s tendrils, but he went right through them…it was like trying to grab water.
There were six others, all the colors of the rainbow--and all could fly. Blue meant a burning ice, violet was a dense, invulnerable darkness, and orange was sponge-like, absorbing everything, from magic to physical force to lasers. Red was a strange, gem-like substance that couldn’t be damaged, indigo was immune to much of time and the laws of physics, and yellow leapt onto jets like a parasite, absorbing technology as it went.
A violet shroud was crushing Pegasus and Finny, forcing them down into the North Pole’s snow. Goldeneyed’s robot was barely keeping out of reach of the yellow one, who desperately wanted to bond with its engineering. Exile had walled himself off in a round forcefield, trying to survive blue burning-ice blasts.
NTU flew over to the orange one, grabbed his neck and ankles, and took off. The violet one was pure energy, and he used the orange one to absorb him, screams echoing from the orange man’s chest. Enty then turned him into a pretzel, shoving his head and feet into his stomach. The orange one unfortunately absorbed himself, imploding and vanishing in a blip.
Donar casually tossed Mjalcom to the green man, who reflexively caught it--his liquid-like arm dragged down suddenly, and the liquid that had been choking Donar went with him, as it was still attached to his other arm. Nats kept the warrior aloft with TK. Mjalcom dipped him in an icy lake, and water diluted his form. He couldn’t get back together. Mjalcom returned to Donar. And, of course, a small thunderstorm was created over the lake, making him even more waterlogged…
The red-crystal man, who’d been attacking Hatman and Sorceress, found himself landed on by a sizable dragon. That freed Whitney to lock onto the superfast indigo one, another energy being, and teleport him into the red one. Energy snapped at its crystalline prison, being repelled instead of magnified. The two shorted out, leaving a fused husk.
The yellow one rushed at Enty, hoping to absorb the technology in his armor--Enty tossed out a small device, which it couldn’t help but run into and automatically integrate into its form. The device was laced with a virus, which created a forcefield, expunging him of the tech he’d already absorbed, and stunning him to the point of unconsciousness.
Blue burning-ice guy suddenly found a crimson energy bubble around him--it shrunk rapidly, crushing him, and breaking most of the bones in his body. Exile grinned.
And the yellow one--superhumanly fast, and immune to the laws of physics--found himself surrounded by illusions, thanks to Sorceress. He paused, hesitated, and a draconic fist hit him in the back of the head.
Finny turned his head, looking for the next attackers. There were none.
The last of the AI ships had gone down. No more were approaching. Sentinoids had suddenly appeared, and surprised enemies were raining down on the icy plains.
In the statue-robot, Goldeneyed flexed his fingers. He was feeling better already. “God, how many of those things did we go through? Hundreds of thousands? Maybe a million?”
“Numbers don’t matter,” Finny said. “There’s one more.”
And Vorrow plowed into him, freefalling at three-fourths the speed of light…
---------------------------
A metal-tipped boot slammed into the side of The Dark Knight’s head, sending him rolling on the floor, flipping back to his feet. He got his katana up just in time, blocking jabs from a serrated-edge sword. Peron was on the other end, smiling.
The blades clashed again. Peron added a sweep kick to his attack, but DK backed off, avoided it easily. He lashed out with a foot, catching Peron in the elbow. His sword yanked to the side, but he didn’t drop it. They’d been fencing for the better part of twenty minutes.
“I’m a god,” Peron explained. “In my time, if I gave the word, a thousand virgins would kill themselves as a sacrifice to me. You’re nobody.”
“Don’t believe your own PR.” With the next sword-clang, DK’s weapon reverted to liquid metal, wrapped around Peron’s sword, and yanked it out of his hands. He spun it once, smacking Peron with his own sword, and then let it clatter down a hall to the side.
DK firmly held the Knightstick, in its billy-club form. He caught Peron in the throat with a kick, and followed it up with a jam to the sternum. Peron coughed, backflipped, and came down on his knees, lashing out with strange shurikens.
Two ricocheted off the Knightstick; DK caught a third between his thumb and index finger, an inch from his face. He threw it back so quickly that Peron didn’t have time to fully dodge--it clipped his shoulder.
“A god? You bleed like the rest.”
Peron pulled out an extendable staff--it clicked into place, and he assumed a defensive stance. Liquid metal came out of both ends of the Knightstick, also forming a staff.
Suddenly, Peron collapsed his arms, his jacket dropping off of them. He tossed his staff away--he was weaponless. What was the point, when DK could just take any of them away? DK switched off the staff, and stuck the Knightstick in its boot-compartment, knowing he’d need both hands free.
Cracking his knuckles, Peron caught DK in the stomach with a kick. DK winced--stupid, stupid, you were looking at the wrong set of limbs…
DK remained somewhat doubled over, while Peron advanced--then, DK did a handstand, caught Peron’s neck with his ankles, and catapulted him into a wall.
Peron landed awkwardly, almost breaking a shoulder…which was already injured. He managed to get to his feet, and dodged a punch from DK. That put Peron in position to punch him back--but the whole thing had been a feint, DK was expecting it. He caught Peron’s fist, squeezed, and Peron felt a muscle that ran from his wrist to his shoulder hyperextend painfully. DK then kneed him in the groin.
DK slammed him against a wall, stepping on one of his feet, hard. An uppercut followed. An elbow to the eye-socket. Peron retaliated with a sloppy punch, and it connected, but it didn’t do any real damage. An open-hand thrust caught him in the forehead, and his skull bounced against the wall, ringing metal. Peron stood for a moment, and then collapsed.
Snorting, DK said, “Gods aren’t what they used to be.”
-------------------------
A hollow whistling filled the Arctic. Upon coming closer, it sounded like a roar. A few birds were briefly visiting a lone tree--they scattered before it came in sight. Then, the tree was wiped out, as two individuals left a huge trail of upset snow and dirt, crashing to the ground at a high rate of speed.
Vorrow was pounding away at Finny’s face in mid-air, and the dragon caught the artificial god’s fist in his mouth, biting down hard. Vorrow gave an undignified yelp, and Finny blasted him with flame. His tail rammed Vorrow in the stomach.
The two of them ended up about fifty feet apart, on either side of a miniature valley. Vorrow hovered, and blasted away with blue, purple-coated energy, which hit Finny’s chest and arms.
A wing moved to block, easily standing up to it. Finny spread flame all around Vorrow--not to hurt him, but to blind him with the steam of rapidly-melting snow. Enhanced senses weren’t something Vorrow had.
While attempting to wave it away, Vorrow was hit in the stomach, and then the jaw. He let loose with a backhand, sending Finny flying backwards. He curved into the momentum, turning around and shooting Vorrow in the face with fire. A pair of fists rocked Vorrow’s head shortly after that.
Staggering back, Vorrow fired blind with his energy. A few shots connected, most didn’t. “You’re on the wrong side! If you’d lived in my day, they would’ve thought of you as a god!”
Finny charged him, hitting him low, and then grabbing his wrist and throwing him away. “That’s why you’ll always be alone--you want people to serve you! Maybe if you served people, you’d understand…”
Vorrow’s face burned with rage--he cometed into Finny, hitting him, blasting him, trying to get the anger and abandonment out of him.
Finny shoved him away with fire. “You’re wasting your time, Vorrow! We’ve got your slug!”
“Wh--no. You might have it, but you can’t kill it. It’s in an invulnerable glass ball that can’t be opened…and you can’t teleport it out!”
“We’ll get it out eventually. And then it’ll get squished, like your last one. And that’ll be it for your big plan.”
Vorrow backed off, looking down at his handheld computer. He could find the slug, he knew that much…he took one look at Finny, one look at the approaching LL…and then he ran.
-------------------
“Why are we here, again?”
Guards laid on the floor, groaning. They were the last Vorrow-loyal military contingent in the Ivorean System. And two men, wearing janitor’s clothes and caps, were walking down a hall.
“Finny said we’ll know it when we see it. And he gave me this little scanner…”
“Thought that was a Game Boy Advanced.”
“Funny man. Almost as funny as your disguise. Yeah, no-one’s gonna notice that you have day-glo orange skin…”
“Hey, I wanted to use the giant dark monk cloaks. That would’ve hidden my skin. Like in Star Trek, and the Princess Bride movie, and Robin Hood, and that one early issue of Busiek’s Avengers…”
They approached a door at the end of the hall--a green glove moved at a high rate of speed, breaking the non-electronic lock. Inside, they could hear turbines--specifically, one big one, spinning and generating energy like mad.
CSFB! nodded. “That must be the thing. So, uh…now what?”
“Now…this.” Manman pulled out Knifey, who had a panicked look on his face.
“If this is revenge for the time I showed Candy your naked baby pictures, you shouldn’t--”
Knifey was thrown into the turbine, a proverbial monkey wrench jamming up the works. The turbine sparked, scraped, and then strained to a halt. Sparks flew out of the top of it, and it died.
Wincing, CSFB! said, “…that’s gotta hurt.”
Knifey was whining, and Manman was trying not to laugh. “But did it work?”
----------------------
In space, Amazing Guy was just about to blast another ship--when it stopped moving. They all did.
All the AI ships had lost power.
-------------------------
Vorrow descended towards a small, unassuming building on an otherwise-empty African plain. On the surface, it was an unpainted barn--but when he ripped the doors off, he found that they were thick metal. It had a single room, and someone was waiting for him. He expected their fiercest warrior, given the importance of what he was guarding.
But it was just some guy in jeans and a t-shirt. Vorrow didn’t recognize him.
“Vorrow, right?” dull thud asked.
Behind thud was a bare metal table, which had the slug, and the tiny, plant-filled glass sphere it called home. The whole orb was coated with bacteria, to keep the slug from eating through it--it hated organics.
Vorrow stepped forward, but thud didn’t move. “…what kind of idiot are you? Get out of my way.”
“Um, no?”
Vorrow grabbed him by the throat.
thud remained uncharacteristically unfazed. “Lesson number one: we may not be able to get your pet out, but we can still hurt him. At least, we can with your help. I’ve got this psychic tapeworm, right? And she has me connected to the little guy. If you hurt me, you hurt him. Shared pain thing. And his little one-cell mind ain’t gonna stand up to too much overload, y’know?”
“You’re bluffing.”
“No, I’m--”
Vorrow slapped him across the face.
The slug spasmed, making a strange screeching sound.
“--not.”
A look of horror made its way across Vorrow’s features. He tried to grab the orb, but it was protected by some invisible shield…
“Don’t. If you break the field, it gets teleported into the heart of the sun or something. Not fun. Just give up, because I listen to Generation Xander every day on the radio at six, while I eat food from that one burger place where the girl behind the counter thinks I’m Billy Joel’s illegitimate son…if I let you people screw up my schedule once, I’ll never get it back…”
Vorrow turned around over and over again, trying to think, trying to plan, as his life fell apart around him. thud sipped on a can of pop. Through the doorway, Vorrow saw the horizon fill with grey. Jets, hoverships, the Intergalactic Council and the Ivoreans…
He looked down at his handheld computer--according to it, zero of his ships were active. That couldn’t be right. He hit it on his palm, trying to get it to work.
Then two repulsor blasts took him in the forehead, and crimson energy wrapped around him, flinging him through the roof, into the sky. A barrage of lasers from the ships hit him, and he was struck by Mjalcom in the lower back, while Finny hit him in the stomach. Donar was swinging Mjalcom with the speed of a ninja, easily hitting Vorrow with teeth-shaking impact.
NTU stuck his fingers near Vorrow’s eyes, and near-blinded him with ten lasers. He then grabbed Vorrow’s upper arms and hit him point-blank with his repulsors. Finny grabbed Vorrow’s ankle, and swung him into a huge energy blast from Sorceress.
Vorrow landed roughly. Bry, in the statue-robot, landed roughly on him. He then shoved off with bootjets, scorching him at close range.
Cosmic energy ripped across his chest. Nats pinned him to the ground with TK. Donar, Enty, and Finny bodyslammed him while he was immobile. Donar blindsided him into the sky, Enty winded him with pulse bolts, and Finny got him in a headlock, kneeing him in the back as he did. While Finny held him, Exile used several battering rams on the artificial god’s face. It wasn’t that they were trying to be cruel; it was that Vorrow was still a threat, and arguably more powerful than any of them.
He escaped, trying to fly off--but he found himself smashed between Bry’s robot-fist, and the fist of Hatman, now wearing his Giants cap. Vorrow fell slowly to the ground, trying to stay conscious.
Huge lightning came from nowhere, sending his body into rigidity as it coursed through him. Two types of fire ravaged him. Interdimensional energy blasts punched away at him. A half-dozen mystical tricks screwed with his unique body chemistry, sending him into an unknowable amount of pain. Cosmic energy and repulsors slammed him back to the ground whenever he’d try to stand.
Finny calmly walked over, picked him up by the scruff of the neck, and punched him in the face. Twice. Then Vorrow pushed the dragon away, and pulled out the Ultimate Nobbler.
It was still damaged--its barrel was half-melted; it couldn’t shoot. If he pulled the trigger, the blowback might take them all out. Not enough to destroy the universe, but Earth, maybe…
Vorrow had nothing left. No people. No army. No motivation. No hope. All he had left to do was take out the people who’d stopped him.
He reached to pull the trigger…but the trigger wasn’t there.
The Nobbler vanished in a golden flash. Goldeneyed teleported out of the robot, landing comfortably. He had it. “Looking for this?”
“Or this?” A man in a grey, three-piece suit, and gas mask, with triangular lenses, had arrived. Sleepsand held another orb. It contained Vorrow’s soul.
Without thinking, Vorrow rushed him, grabbing it, shattering the orb…he absorbed it. He was completely himself, again. More powerful than before.
Then his eyes rolled up into his head and he passed out.
Everyone looked at Sorceress, who smiled a little smile. “I spiked it, just like you asked. His soul was old, worn-down…not what it used to be. It would’ve made him a little tougher, but not much. Now, he can’t get rid of it, just like he always wanted…and it’ll keep his power in check.”
dull thud came sauntering out of the barn. “The bad news is, I stubbed my toe and the slug blew up. The good news is, I’m okay…”
-------------------------
“We did it. Go us.”
Nats, and the rest of the LL, were catching their breath, leaning against the barn. Finny and Hatman were off in the crowd, shaking hands with aliens and military personnel. Normally, the team would be celebrating, but they just didn’t have the energy.
Pegasus stood by him. “You should really, really be glad I was here to help. I don’t know if I can just leave all of you on your own after this.”
“Yeah, uh…” Antique Sentinoids were escorting Vorrow’s still-unconscious body away. Nats watched them go. Then Nats watched them all self-destruct simultaneously. Vorrow, in his powered-down state, never had a chance.
----------------------------
The clean-up was going to take forever--but not as long as it could have taken. The next day, the AI ship wreckage was gone. Literally. The damage had still been done, but the dead tech had vanished. People had their own theories on the how and why of it…
TV news shows were packed with survivor’s stories, and more footage of the one-day war than they’d ever have time to play. The LL was helping deal with the aftereffects--that is, the new LL. Fin Fang Foom was still leader, and Goldeneyed was the new Deputy. Hatman was a reserve member, as well as being Senior Advisor. Sorceress, Nats, Ziles, CrazySugarFreakBoy!, Dancer, Pegasus (who joined under extreme duress), and dull thud. Donar and Exile had left, while DK was willing to help out in emergencies, and Trickshot was still MIA.
Vorrow’s murder--less than twenty-four hours old--was still unsolved. The government swore that it hadn’t sent those Sentinoids, or instructed them to do that. They were old equipment, and probably faulty…
Hearings had been set--Fin Fang Foom, the President, and the UN Secretary-General were to be questioned as to the fact that they broke a world law; namely, Altering Reality in the First Degree. It was just a formality, the details were now widely-known, and almost everyone thought they’d been justified.
Occultis was to be tried first in Universal Court--with the Earthlings having a say in the proceedings--and possibly on Earth and Earth-2, as well.
In a Washington, DC apartment, a man was listening to all this on the news, while frantically packing. He wore a common black suit, and had dark blonde hair. He knew what was really happening. The AI tech disappearing had confirmed it.
This man worked for the government. He’d scavenged some of the fallen ships, and download some of their basic info onto his laptop. But he was sure he’d die, if he didn’t get out of DC within the next two hours. It was simple: someone didn’t want the US military to reverse-engineer that particular alien technology. There was so much of it, all crashed everywhere, anyone could’ve gotten access to it…that’d tilt the game far too much.
Just as he slammed his suitcase shut, someone said the last words he’d ever hear:
“Good evening,” bode the Hooded Hood.
End
Fin Fang Foom
*flies away*
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