Armageddon

by Erik Schubach

  She froze as the thrumming approach just stopped, leaving an ominous magical silence in my head, and she whispered, “They're here!” Then she slapped one of the circles before we could say anything and we were falling through the very fabric of space. I caught a glimpse of something my mind was having a problem processing before we were all stumbling on a pier in Tokyo with our military escort.

  I had seen, or felt, or perceived five entities that defied my brain from comprehending, as they seemed so massive and inconceivable and the power emanating from the indistinct shapes magically blinded me temporarily with that simple glimpse. But I knew I saw motion at their bases that seemed to go on forever.

  I whispered, “Titania was right, they brought an army.”

  The others got ready as the soldiers all started taking positions while I looked around in terror for the roads everywhere which were clogged with people and vehicles all trying to head north out of the city. Virtually everyone was still here in the gridlocked city. It was daylight here where it had been almost sunset back home.

  On blocked off side streets, tanks and armored personnel carriers were heading toward our group as people started screaming at our sudden appearance. Dot looked at us and exhaled, shaking her head. She knew what I had already figured out, many of these civilians were about to die and there wasn't anything any of us could do about it.

  It was best not to dwell on the things we couldn't change and concentrate on slowing, or stopping the enemy when they stepped through.

  I whispered as I looked in the direction those huge presences had been standing on the pathway between realms, “Where are they? Did we get the cities wrong?” There was a pit in my stomach thinking they came through in one of the cities we thought they wouldn't.

  But Ella-Marie, Toto, and Dot said in unison, “After sunset in Seattle, under the moon.”

  Oh.

  I prompted, “When is that?”

  And the world tore open a few hundred yards from us, swallowing people and buildings as I felt something huge moving toward the tear in reality as they again said in unison unnecessarily, “Now.”

  I normally would have made a Captain Obvious joke, but my full attention was on the diminutive figure who casually strolled out of the rift, an entire army of warriors of all sorts of alien races streaming into Tokyo behind it.

  A tank swung its turret and just before it could fire, it flattened, like a planet had been dropped on it. We looked between it and the figure who had a hand up in a crushing fist.

  There was no rush to battle from the enemy as they just started massing behind the woman, who looked very much like a smaller Dorothy until she looked around to all the faces of the people screaming and running as the arriving soldiers formed a wall between the civilians and the incoming force.

  Then she became the doppelganger of a young Japanese woman who had tripped and was being helped to her feet by a soldier, who helped her away and told her something before she ran off into the crowd. Then this shape-shifting woman scanned the arriving soldiers and her almond-shaped eyes landed on us, on Dorothy specifically.

  She said something in Japanese, then when we didn't respond she spoke in English, her eyes boring into Dorothy's, which were crackling with green flame and energy, “Oz... this is not your fight. You may go back to your realm in peace or you will suffer the fate of this realm. We have passed judgment and the mortal realm shall be purged and reset.”

  Dorothy cocked her head like she had heard wrong as more power started swirling around her, the world was warping around her as she had already gathered so much. “You do not belong here, Elder. It is you who shall go back to your realm, in pieces if need be.”

  The woman said, “I am Mnemosyne, third of the elders, you have made your choice. Now you must choose the instrument of your doom.”

  I couldn't help it before I could stop myself I was asking, “You're kidding right? Choosing the instrument of our doom? That's like right out of Ghostbusters. The Elders have to be more original than that.”

  I looked at the others and said, “Keep your minds blank, or it's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man all over again.”

  Toni... Toto, in her human form, said, “Oh shit... sorry. We're in Tokyo, I couldn't help it.”

  Mnemosyne whispered with an almost sadistic smile, her eyes dark, “The die is cast,” as she thrust her hands out and it was as if the very fabric of reality was torn out of the air in chunks around her and started swirling around her form as she seemed to start growing while she pulled into herself, the shreds of time and space forming a sort of protective ball around her... a cocoon.

  I had just an instant to make a realization, the Elders... they had the names of the Titans. Was that what they were? But didn't the Titans give birth to the gods? Were the Elders more powerful than gods?

  Then with screeching and warbling cries, the armies behind her started charging toward us and the soldiers who were all just staring in incomprehension, their guard down. The first salvo of green lightning from Dot, slamming into that impossible cocoon caused a shock wave that blew out the windows of the buildings around us for blocks and caused a little tsunami to ripple out into the ocean.

  People all around were knocked off their feet and the first wave of Mnemosyne's hordes were tossed like rag dolls back into the tear in space. The witch, now floating a couple of inches off the ground due to the power she was holding, asked over her shoulder, “Toto, what did you do?”

  I noted the men and creatures with the Elder seemed to disintegrate when they hit the rift. Was it only a one-way portal?

  Toni shrugged and almost whimpered, “I said I was sorry.” Then she made silly claws with her hands and stomped her feet. Then she was a huge hell hound diving into the second wave of fighters as the mass of distorted reality continued to swell and grow.

  Ella-Marie was already diving at Dot, who caught her with magic and slung her like a missile into the middle of the incoming swarm and with a huge whump of released Earth magic, bodies went flying from where my girl had punched the ground.

  That was my cue and I ran forward pulling a bit of that same earth magic into me as my feet started clinking on the ground as they turned to living crystal. I hit the first of the enemy, who looked to be what I would consider a caveman since he wore skins and carried a big club. I winced as I heard bone-crushing as a much smaller whump of released energy came from me.

  Then my back started crackling as it spider-webbed into crystal when the first of the wall of bullets the US and Japanese soldiers struck. I called back, “Hey assholes! We're on your side, watch your aim!” After what we learned before this all began, I'm not so sure the bullets hitting me were accidental.

  Dot took two running steps and her power swirled around her pulling the very clouds from the heavens to rotate around her and lift her high in the tornado they formed. It left a trail of destruction through the enemies, her lightning arcing out to those who got past, and Toto was picking off the stragglers with her massive jaws and claws like the two were performing a deadly choreographed dance.

  Then I realized that they actually were. Those two had fought a daily war against Demons in Oz until Ella-Marie and I had helped them locate the demon who was hiding in their realm and opening the gateway to let the other demons in. In over a hundred years of fighting hordes just like this on a daily basis, they had probably forgotten more about waging war than most generals could learn in a lifetime.

  I waded in, trying to get to Ella-Marie since we fought well back to back, with her doing the heavy lifting as I ran interference and kept the riffraff off of her. Then I was blown sideways, tumbling along the ground, a crystal ringing in my ears. I rolled to a three-point stance and saw other explosions here and there in the middle of the tide of bodies. Glancing back I saw soldiers launching shoulder-fired missiles.

  God damn it. They didn't care who they were shooting. I looked around and yelled, knowing she could hear, “Dot! They're heading
for the civilians!” Almost half of the group coming through saw easier prey in the people running away than those who were tearing a path through their forces.

  One second I was almost at Ella-Marie's side, the next I was in front of the group swarming through and slaughtering the civilians. I hated it when she did that to me, it was disconcerting. I just growled out a challenge and tried one of Ella's signature moves and spread my arms wide, forcing the magic through and out of me instead of channeling it, intending to do a spray of crystal shards to mow down a group charging me. The reality of it was that, no matter whose body I was in... I wasn't Ella. I was almost mortified when only two shards of crystal slung out to take down a particularly large birdlike man.

  Oh lord, I actually heard Ella's snort over the din of battle as she fought her way toward me. She called out, “Pick up a spare, Witchy-Poo? As she vaulted off the back of a six-armed grizzly creature as it fell over dead from a stroke from my girl across its throat with a crystal blade.

  Dorothy thrust a hand out from where her tornado was trying to keep the enemy off the soldiers. Green lightning formed into a large baseball bat which hit Ella-Marie so hard I could barely follow with my eyes as my loves careened into the backside of the incoming conscripts.

  Just before she slammed into their lines, she thrust her arms wide and hundreds of crystal daggers sliced through dozens of the enemy, and she curled into a ball and actually bowled over a few more before rolling up to stand back to back with me. She said in her Cockney accent, “Right love, was that what you were tryn'a do now?”

  It didn't even seem strange to me anymore as I looked over my shoulder to look into my own face and I rolled my eyes and defended, “To be fair, that was the first time I ever tried it.”

  She chuckled as we both whumped out energy into the faces of our attackers, then my body was saying in a toe-curling French accent, “Ella, mon amour, leave our Parker alone. Eet was cute.”

  I grumbled, “Great now they're ganging up on... shit!” Something hit me hard, and I was tumbling across the ground hitting civilians and enemy combatants alike as my entire body became crystal. Normally that would worry me because if I went too far for too long, I could be stuck in that form as a living statue. But not after Dot put the whammy on us, I was stronger and faster in this form, and... harder to kill.

  I looked up to see a roughly human-looking man, just seven feet tall or so, with some sort of plasma cannon grafted to his left arm where a hand should have been. I yelled out, “They got space cannons or something!” He was taking aim at me again, just as a crystal shaft shot up from the ground straight under his chin and through his skull.

  Then Ella was shouting, “Juice me!” And she was hit by green crackling power as she slammed her hands on the ground then grasped with her hands and screamed out a challenge to the universe as she mimed pulling the air up in front of her, and with a rumble, using the borrowed power from a witch who could warp reality itself, my girl pulled up a wall of solid stone going hundreds of yards in each direction, cutting the enemy off from the civilians. Unfortunately, dozens, if not hundreds of the horde were already on the other side.

  I took a moment to admire just how good of a team, a deadly team, Dot and Ella made. They played at being annoyed with each other, but they instinctively helped each other in devastating combos against any adversaries.

  Frantically I called, “Marie? I need to...” Intending for her to use some black magic to cut me a path through the new barrier so I could help the civilians. But I realized Dot had displaced me and I was already there, as a big brute like the one with the energy weapon slammed an electrified cattle prod into my gut.

  I winced. It was almost like getting hit by Ella, as the prod bent and snapped, but a small chip from my gut went pinging off into the chaos, I looked up at him, as I got my bearings thanks to the disorienting location swapping Dot did with us with just a thought. People were dying all around me so it was no time to be subtle.

  Slamming my forehead into the man's chest, I bounced off with a clink. Ok, plan B. “Didn't your mother ever tell you it wasn't nice to hit a girl?” I ducked under a sweeping arm and did the one thing I had practiced in Kansas with my girls, and pulled earth energy through my body and out my hand to form a crystal blade which I thrust up into his armpit. If his physiology was anything like a human it should... he howled in agony as he backpedaled away from me grasping his arm which was hanging limply now.

  I moved forward at the same rate, not letting him get any distance when I noticed something. I grabbed the oversize pistol looking thing off of his belt and just as he started to swing his good arm down on me I pulled the oversize trigger. I blinked through the gaping hole in his chest a moment before he slumped to the ground.

  The twelve-year-old girl in me had me blurting out with excitement, “Space gun! I have a space gun!” And I started charging at the bad guys firing over and over in adolescent glee. Then Toto was beside me howling fiercely, chilling even my bones as we dove on the enemy.

  That's when I made a realization. Oh shit. I stopped and looked at the people being attacked with my heart in a vice, then dug my hand into Toto's fur to get her attention, then started running back toward the wall, calling out to her, “They're splitting us up!”

  We were fighting in three separate locations now, concentrating on stopping the enemy from getting to the civilians and the soldiers and they were counting on that. But as terrible and coldhearted as it sounds, we were trying to save our entire reality here, not just a few people here that we could, but everyone here and any other planets in the mortal realm.

  But the enemy was trying to use our instincts against us and had drawn us out to basically three fronts, leaving the Elder to do whatever it was she was doing virtually unmolested. Toto slammed into my side and I looked over and she nudged her chin. I nodded and grabbed the fur on the scruff of her neck and dove onto her back.

  I blinked and held on as she dashed off toward the wall, snapping her massive jaws at enemies as we passed while I grew my blade into a long javelin with residual earth magic within me. I couldn't use more until I touched the ground again.

  As I speared a rather small, elf-like creature who was wielding dual glowing blades, I realized the absurd. I was jousting with a glass lance while riding a giant hell hound. I grasped her coarse fur as she leapt at the wall and landed halfway up it, twenty feet and her claws cracked the stone as they dug in and she scrabbled up the rest of the way.

  From our vantage point at the top, we saw a terrifying sight. Thousands of the enemy still swarming through the gateway with only Dot cutting a swath through them between the gateway and the cocoon which had stopped growing, burning through her energy. And on the other side was Ella screaming out her challenge and taking on all comers, while the military guns were silent. Overrun.

  Toto howled and our allies looked up to us. Dot turned her tornado toward us and Ella-Marie took one step toward us before finding herself almost stepping off the top of the wall with oversize clown shoes on. Toto grabbed her in her jaws gently to steady her. Then Dorothy landed beside us, the blood lust of the wicked in her putting a smile on her face.

  I said in a rush, “The horde is just here to keep us busy to separate us and have us expend all our power. Tokyo is lost and we will be too if we forget that that is the enemy, not the horde!” I pointed at the cocoon, which had just started pulsating with an immense power that tasted... misguided? Is that a taste?

  Toni was in human form for just a moment as she said, “Oh lord, Dotty, she's right.” Then she was in dog form as the horde realized where we were and the ones who had projectile or energy weapons started firing our way.

  Then... the egg cracked.

  Chapter 7 – London Calling

  Mother called out to me from the wheel of the huge ship, “Now Mandy!” And I released the anchor once we tore through the veil to arrive inside of the huge walled city of London proper, just on the other side of To
wer Bridge.

  As the anchor plummeted to a courtyard below, I wrapped a hand in a boatswain rope and kicked the peg from the railing. The counterweight fell, propelling me up to the crow's nest at breakneck speed while I called out, “Secure the mainsails! Drop the foresails and stow the mizzen!”

  Our crew went into motion, along with the Lost Boys while my Robyn called out, “All hands, prepare for battle! Raise the gun ports, forward the twenty-four pounders.” I marveled at how quickly Robyn had taken to life aboard a pirate ship. It was something from her time and she took to it as easy as breathing. I sighed when I realized my damn tail was wagging in excitement as I watched her hovering above deck shouting orders. The US soldiers we had brought with us headed to the longboat winches.

  Two RAF Harrier jets flew up to flank us, hovering. I was starting to wonder if they hadn't been told what was coming and why we were here as they slowly panned their nosecones the length of the ship before they turned away and then lowered slowly to the courtyard below to land vertically.

  I looked at the city from my vantage point looking for any sign of the Elder's approach. What I saw was in stark contrast to the harried evacuation the Seattle area had been undergoing. Military and police had people heading north on every other street, while they were using the remaining streets for emergency and support vehicles and what looked like command stations.

  Not everyone was leaving it seemed, as I saw one couple on the roof of an old brick building reading a newspaper and sipping tea as they watched the mass exodus of people below. London had only scant hours to prepare.

  I saw just before we lowered to around a hundred feet above the ground, that the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom was rippling in the wind over Buckingham Palace. “What the actual fuck? The Queen was in residence? What the hell were they thinking? She needed to be evacuated now!”

  I thought back over the history of England, specifically the past hundred years and sighed in resignation. Did King George run when the city was under siege by the Blitz? No. Did he run when Hitler dropped a thousand wolves from planes into London on a full moon in operation Lupus Pacification? No. Did Queen Elizabeth run when the gates of London herself were being overrun when the Alphas declared war on the world? No.