Out of Time the Grand Quest

by Christopher Douglass

  Then, between one running step and the next, he was gone. He appeared on top of the giants head, at the same time, one of the floating eyeballs exploded, a man sized hole suddenly going all the way through it. He fired multiple rounds into the creatures skull at the center of the red mark. After at least twenty hits, the beast fell over dead. He looked up at Jeremy and was gone, reappearing in front of his commander. He didn’t miss a beat, running backwards and twirling to jog beside so he didn’t crash into the man, the red mark gone from Jeremy’s chest. It had all happened so fast, Maria was sure the other monsters hadn’t even realized he was there until after he was already gone.

  As some of the soldiers turned into animals she had never seen before but looked dangerous, and others donned the skin of elementals or pulled earth around them as armor, Maria finally believed they could do this. The sight was inspiring. Even as she watched, one man launched himself into the air, morphing into a small red dragon that breathed fire on the enemies while flying circles. It was then she noticed Kimi was still beside her.

  “Aren’t you going to go fight?”

  “ I will, but I just thought of something. I’m working it out in my head to see if I’m right or not.”

  “And? What have you thought of?”

  “You haven’t contracted with anyone yet right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then contract with me.”

  “What! But you are already contracted with Bree!”

  “I know, but one of my Other abilities is called Unity, I’m not sure, but I think that means I can contract with multiple people. If I do, my Power to Imagine will become stronger. I’ll be able to unlock it’s full potential. In return I will make you and Bree even stronger by linking your powers together through me. No harm in trying right? If it doesn’t work I don’t expect you to kill Bree or anything. All that will happen is we exchange a bit of blood.”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “There is no way in hell I will ever contract with you.”

  When Kimberly looked at her puzzled, Maria let out a laugh, the first real laugh she had had in ages. “Sorry, I just wanted you to see what it felt like to hear those words. But you were right not to contract with me back then. I trust you, so I’ll try it. Like you said, if it doesn’t work we will just exchange a little blood.”

  Kimi pulled a dagger from her belt, slicing her forearm quickly and handing the blade over. Maria did the same, swallowing a sudden bout of fear. Their arms met, their blood touched and every cell in Maria’s body felt like it was on fire. She barely heard herself utter the words to complete the ritual. Barely saw the column of white light that shot from Kimi’s head. She was consumed by the torrent of magic that threatened to break her apart. In her mind she saw thousands of possibilities to which she could put her magic that she had never thought of before. The knowledge of the Ageless Sorceress flooded her mind again, this time not trying to take over, just settling into the nooks and crannies and becoming her knowledge to use as she saw fit. She knew that this time, that knowledge would not disappear.

  Kimi glowed. She visibly glowed. The aura of pure white light made it hard to look directly at her until it died down. She clenched her fists while breathing deeply. With each breath she seemed to grow. Her emotions settled and the sense of an immovable mountain stood before her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bree with the same look of surprise and the same dimming glow around her body. She too felt more solid than she had before, as if her feet went all the way to the center of the world.

  “It worked.”

  Maria’s words were a bare whisper, but Kimberly nodded anyway. “Yes, it did. Now I know. I know!”

  Kimi looked from Maria to Bree, who had come to stand with them. “We need to borrow your power for a little bit.”

  “We?”

  Maria wasn’t sure who had asked the question, her or Bree. Kimi smiled even wider. “We.”

  She raised her hand and brought it down in a slashing motion. The very fabric of reality warped like a time tear. From out of the tear stepped Kimi after Kimi. Each one wore Kimi’s face, but all were different. Maria knew instantly these were all of Kimberly’s persona’s made manifest. She recognized the Ageless Sorceress in midnight black robes with swirling stars moving across the cloth. Kimi the Blade in full stealth garb and holding two daggers in her hand. Sir Kimi, the Knight. Doctor Kim in her white lab coat. A Kimberly that looked like some science experiment, with whiskers and a tail. A Kimberly with white wings, a Kimberly that looked like machines had taken over half her body stood next to Kalashnikov Kim.

  On and on they came out of the tear, until at least twenty stood before them. Each with their own unique flavor and feel, there own personalities. Without a word, they all turned at the same time and headed for the enemy. They didn’t run, they walked. And as they walked they prepared for battle. The original Kimi still held the dagger in her hand, but that seemed to be the only weapon she needed. Maria could feel her power slowly drain away towards the group. It wasn’t much, and would be a while before her magic ran dry, but she could feel it all the same.

  A pack of the unicorns turned towards the Kimi’s, flames swirling all around. With a wave, the Sorceress doused them with water that dampened their fires. Before the Sorceress finished her single movement, four bodies were riddled with throwing knives, another two were beset upon by a Kimberly with eight spider legs that sprouted from her back and the one with tiger stripes. Yet another was snatched by the Kimi with white wings and taken high into the air until it was just a speck. The speck grew larger as the body plummeted back towards the ground hitting another of the horse creatures. Neither one died from the collision, but they didn’t have a chance to get back into the fight before a spike of earth impaled them both. Even with that they weren’t dead, they screamed in agony but didn’t expire.

  As the army of Kimi’s fought on, Maria noticed some of them flickering. Somehow she knew these were personas that Kimi had little information on or definition for. Such as the spider-woman, and the angel woman. These ones jumped in front of incoming attacks headed for either another persona or another mediator under Jeremy’s command. Each time one died, Maria felt a surge of magical power return to her. It almost seemed to be more than what she had already spent helping keep the persona army alive.

  Soon another wave of these Unnamed came into view, this time a swarm of ones that looked like purple fairies. Kimi and her other selves were lost in the chaos shortly after, but still Maria knew the general area she fought in. Gunslinger Girl shot high into the air, unloading hundreds of bullets into the fairy swarm from Gatling guns under each arm. As she fell, Kimi the Blade hooked a weapon with a dagger and shot skyward, throwing knives that exploded in the midst of the swarm. She gave a yank on a line Maria suddenly noticed traveled back towards the ground and Ageless sorceress flew into view, the fishing line unraveling around her waist. She twirled her staff over her head and brought it down with force.

  The sky darkened, lightning exploded from the clouds that suddenly appeared, bodies flew in all direction as the lightning walked in an expanding circle across the ground, attacking any enemy it came in contact with. And then, as the Sorceress fell, another Kimi popped above the heads of the rest. Maria knew this was the original, she could just feel it. Just like she somehow knew the names of all these different personalities. The dagger she held morphed into a rocket launcher, then a nine pack missile launcher the moment the rocket had left the tube. It morphed again into one of Kimi the Blades hook-line daggers which she used to propel herself out of the way of the fairies hail of retaliation bullets.

  A roar off to the side caused Maria to tear her eyes from her new mediator and to the area Jeremy was fighting at. Even in the midst of battle, he gave off a calm composed air. While his soldiers yelled and shouted, he was silent. While they threw arms and legs about to wildly avoid fists and maces and all manner of weapons, Jeremy walked through the battlefield like he had l
ived there all his life. A ham fist from a Gorgrunge fell from the sky straight for the top of his head. Without even looking, he stepped to the side, letting it land inches from him. The fist opened and swung sideways to grab him up. He took another step and vanished, the hand sweeping through empty air.

  Jeremy appeared once more, this time falling from the sky above the creatures head. As he fell, he spread his hands wide. Maria could faintly make out a wavering of the air between them. The man’s feet touched the monsters back and sunk into the flesh. No, not sunk in, they were vanishing once more through a rift. The Gorgrunge’s head entered the area between his hands, disappearing an inch at a time. Before Jeremy vanished into the rift at his feet he lifted his palms upwards, severing the top of the monsters skull clean off. Maria had no idea where he had transported it to.

  It was at this moment another cry rose up. This time from the tree line. From out of the thick forest ran centaurs with their longbows, and gnomes with their mining picks and slingshots. Elves appeared as well, their musical voices giving a battlecry that gave strength to all who heard it. The blue skinned warriors moved like lightning and danced like water, their thin swords and short range bows a blur as they commenced their attacks. The normally playful Slyph flew inside man sized tornadoes they wore like armor, fists of ethereal cloud substance swinging into the fray or protecting their allies.

  But foremost leading the charge was Nimli and a coven of Urma that darkened the skies. There seemed to be five for every one other ally they had brought with them. Even from here, Maria could see the spears and shields each one carried. The gleaming red and brown armor they had donned. Even the sparkling white teeth as they all grinned with an almost demonic gleam in their eyes.

  Maria thought things could not look better. Their forces looked overwhelming now. The Unnamed were slowly being pushed back as their forces dwindled. But Maria was wrong. As awe inspiring as the sight before her was, she found things could in fact get better. A roar that literally shook the air and caused the trees to tremble reverberated all around. A body followed that roar. A twenty foot long, six legged, blue scaled body with two sets of gloriously glittering wings.

  A dragon.

  One of the rare and near extinct creatures was fighting on their side. And not one of the common red ones either, but a blue one. One with command of both fire and ice and could cast magic spells like a human.

  Wild cheering went up at the sight from all the men and women of Yandor, her voice as loud as any of them. Her grandfather puffed out his chest, all signs of his weariness gone. With a flick of his wrist, his purple wizard hat appeared in his fingers. He set it on his head at a slant and raised his staff!

  “Mages of Yandor! Charge!”

  Chapter 42: Kimi Ascended

  “How much longer do we have?”

  Kimi imagined she could hear the tapping of keys in her ear as the Controller worked. She knew she couldn’t, the keys were made of light and had no noise.

  “An hour more. The Seers and the technicians have almost broken the last firewall and taken control of EVE’s innermost core. Once they have, it will take only a few keystrokes to open a portal back into the Maw and pull them in. Think you can hold out that long?”

  Kimi looked out at the battlefield littered with bodies of both the Unnamed and the allied forces. Of the sixty soldiers Jeremy had brought, only twenty-five remained. The number of the magical creatures Nimli had mustered had also dwindled. Anyone with medical knowledge was working overtime tending to wounds. The battle had gone well at first, but slowly the allies had been beaten down. With wave after wave of these Unnamed who had superhuman stamina continually showing up, such an outcome was inevitable.

  “We will have to, won’t we? Maybe Joel is right, we should let them have the Quester’s Tree. Bunker down behind the shields and wait out the last hour.”

  “Negative. If you think they are strong now, let them eat some magic and you will find how wrong you are. Remember, many of them were meant to live off of magic, or were created as weapons to combat mages. They have been starved of that magic since their imprisonment thousands of years ago. Right now, they are like a tapped out mediator who used up all their power.”

  “Understood. We will do what we can, you people just work faster.”

  “For a peaceful future.”

  Her earpiece went silent as Jordon ran up with sweet bread and glowing blue water. Bree and Maria stood on either side of her, also devouring the offered food while Joel and Grell led the current attackers. Bree had a long gouge down her arm from shoulder to elbow, courtesy of a flying Unnamed’s talon. It was bound tightly, but red still seeped through. Maria fared better, though one eye didn’t open completely. She had taken a punch to the face from a fist the size of a boulder. She was lucky the shield she had erected took the majority of the blow or else her head would have detached from her body.

  “Well, what do they think about giving up the tree?”

  “No good. If the monsters take the tree they become stronger. Probably too strong for us to handle. We just have to last an hour more.”

  Maria nodded at her answer, her eyes taking in the fighting just like Kimi was.

  “Can you do that army of Kimi thing again? That might buy us twenty minutes more at least.”

  “No. That takes a lot out of me, and out of you two as well. I can’t do it alone, and neither one of you has enough magic to sustain it for more than maybe five minutes. I might be able to call up three or four at most, the ones I am most familiar with. But then the two of you will have to stay out of the fighting. That would be an inefficient use of our manpower. Bree is worth at least three mages now that her power is augmented by yours, and you are worth at least five or six alone as well.”

  “Then what are you thinking? You have a plan right?”

  “I do. But it will take me some time to pull off. You two will have to fight on without me when our turn comes up.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Kimi smiled as she sat where she was, folding her legs and calming herself with breathing exercises. “I’m going to create a new character or three.”

  While she didn’t turn around, she knew the exact moment when her mother stepped up behind her. She felt the hands resting on her shoulders without a word. That knowledge gave her comfort in a way that was different from what she found with Bree or Maria. Closing her eyes, she sunk deep into her mind.

  The room that normally held her alternate costumes had gained a door. Where once the characters had stood on racks like mannequins, now they moved around freely. Where once it had only been a simple white room, now it was an expansive house, a communal area as massive as a kings ballroom, even sporting a throne-- her throne. Each persona had there own private room as well, further keeping her from succumbing to the chaos that could have ensued with so many alter egos.

  “Yo sugar buns! Whatch’a doin’ lazing around in here girl!”

  “I do not think it is proper to refer to her as sugar buns gunslinger. She is the creator.”

  “Aw give it up grandma, just because your back story says you’ve been alive for a millennia, doesn’t mean you need to talk like your from the dark ages.”

  “I cannot help it. This is the way I was created to be.”

  “Yeah, well, same could be said for me. She made me a laid back, gun toting, hellcat with a penchant for giving people nicknames.”

  “Ladies, ladies. Verily I say we all shouldst not fight amongst ourselves. It shaint get us anywhere and cause our creator much headache.”

  “Uhg, talk like that is what will cause a real headache. Why she gave you such a speech pattern I’ll never know.”

  “I doth likest this speech pattern. It is, as you might say, cool.”

  Kalashnikov Kim let out a bark of laughter, shaking her head before looking over at Kimi the Blade who was leaning against the wall.

  “You want to put in your two cents Stabby?”

  Kimi the Blade shook her
head. “No.”

  “Now that’s the kind of girl I like. One that doesn’t say much, instead letting her actions speak for her. I can get behind her back story.”

  “Yes, a brash idiot like you who’s answer to everything is to spray it with bullets would like an assassin who’s answer to everything is to run a knife through its belly.”

  “You got a problem with that Crawly? You know, plucking spider legs seems like a fun idea right about now. I hear spiders can survive without their appendages, can you? Plus, if I remember correctly, you were one of the first ones she sacrificed for an influx of power.”

  “That is only because my character is not as well defined. I was created as little more than a passing fancy after reading some comic books. But, I will also have you know I was one of the first she ever created, so I am like your ancestor in a way. Without me, you would have never come to exist.”

  “Enough. I don’t have time to let you bicker amongst yourselves.”

  Instantly the room fell silent and Gunslinger Girl tipped her head in Kimi’s direction. “As you say creator. So, how do you want to do this exactly? It will take too long for you to create an entirely new character from scratch. It took you two weeks to flesh me out as much as I am.”

  “I know, but it won’t take as long to upgrade a few existing characters now will it?”

  The Ageless Sorceress nodded her head. “So then, the question becomes, what characters will you give this upgrade to?”

  “Well obviously you for one grandma. She’s been using you an awful lot lately and your magic is diverse, giving her a wide selection of options.”

  “I do not think that would be a wise choice. My character and background are such that it would be hard for her to make me any more powerful without breaking my persona altogether. She might make my spells stronger, or give me access to spells that could destroy cities, but overall my character would have to stay the same. Also, she does not have much time to upgrade too many, there is still a battle going on out there. Time may be slowed while she speaks with us, but it is not halted. The choices must be made of those who already have flexibility in their background that allows for a natural evolution.”