by Sean Davies
“Winston! Are you okay?!” Veronica yelled, as the laughter and witchfire subsided.
“Yeah—are you?” Winston replied, getting off the floor.
“I think so. As always, I’d love to know what’s going on inside your head...” She surveyed the damaged city around them, before falling deathly silent.
“What is it?” Winston asked with concern, turning to face Veronica, but soon saw what had her speechless.
One entire side of the horizon, over the apocalyptic landscape, was occupied by the Alternative Mayor’s round grinning head. A torrent of green witchfire shot out of his city-sized maw and covered the land again, forcing Veronica and Winston to dive to the floor as even more of the detention centre was blown away.
When the fire abated, Winston and Veronica got up and looked fearfully at the god-like Mayor, wondering if this was the Archmage’s latest stunt. An armoured Inquisition trooper crawled along on the floor into Winston’s open-topped cell, and the dreamscape’s ground trembled as the Mayor lifted off his enormous top hat and sent a swarm of green Blightmoths across the land. One of the car-sized creatures plucked the trooper out of Winston’s cell and threw him into the air, where several other Blightmoths sliced into him with their paper-thin wings, shredding him to ribbons and showering the Reynoldses in gore.
Veronica wiped the blood out of her eyes and then licked it off her fingers. “I think they’re on our side,” she said, seeing more Blightmoths ravaging the imaginary population in the distance. “Did you envision a massive Mayor?”
“Not that I know of,” Winston said unsurely, awestruck by the scale of the destruction around them. “I was trapped in an infinite prison of nothingness. The best I managed to summon was a bouncy ball, but even that got taken away from me.”
“Same here,” Veronica replied, studying the burning Capital, “but I couldn’t summon anything at all. How long were we in there? It felt like years.”
“No idea. I think the Archmage fucked with our perception of time,” Winston told her angrily.
“I hate that prick, so very, very much,” she pouted.
The enormous Mayor vanished from the sky and reappeared as his normal size behind Winston and Veronica, making them jump in fright.
“Winston and Mrs. Winston!” the Mayor cheered happily. “Good to see you, good to see you indeed!” He gave them both a chest-crushing hug.
“Is that really you, Mr. Mayor?” Winston wheezed.
“Not exactly, my boy,” the Mayor began wistfully. “The Mayor outside of your noggin put me inside of your noggin to help fix your noggin… that I—I mean, he—did! But I’m more or less the Mayor you know and love, indeed I am!”
“Well, thanks for busting us out,” Veronica said, giving the big puppet a kiss on the cheek.
The Mayor giggled bashfully. “I’m a taken man, Mrs. Winston, indeed I am! That reminds me—what are you two wasting your time in here for? There’s a wedding I need your help with… not to mention a filthy pre-wedding celebration for myself and Arria,” the Alternative stage-whispered comically behind his hand.
“We got our asses kicked by Omniosis,” Winston explained, “and then he locked us in some void.”
“That dastardly Demon! But why are you here, dear Winston?” the Mayor asked, still confused. “Can’t you see where you’re meant to go?”
Winston gave Veronica a confused look, before shaking his head and shrugging.
The Mayor pointed down at the floor. “There’s a ruddy great light down there, that there is!”
“It’s a metal floor…” Veronica said, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the ground.
The Mayor scratched his head, and then took off his broken monocle and handed it to Winston. “Silly me! Try with this. It should help you see clearer, that it should!”
Winston placed the monocle over his eye and looked around. The hellish landscape the Mayor had created disappeared, and was replaced by a pure white vista in which the Mayor and Veronica were floating.
“What do you see?” Veronica asked.
“Nothing,” Winston replied.
“Down, my boy, look down!” the Mayor told him impatiently. “Chop chop, now—I need my best man by my side for the filth-ridden festivities, that I do!”
Winston looked at the white space directly beneath the Mayor’s feet and saw a glowing sphere of golden light in the distance, what appeared to be many miles down in the ground.
“There is something down there… what is it, Mr. Mayor?” Winston asked, intrigued.
“I’m not sure, but it’s the only thing in this place that matters, Winston my lad,” the Mayor replied, accepting his monocle back. “The only thing that matters indeed!”
Veronica gave the debris and gore-stricken floor a critical look. “It’s great that we finally know where we’re going and all, but how the hell are we going to get down there?”
“Good question,” Winston said, pulling a face, before noticing the Mayor wasn’t looking quite himself. “Mayor? What’s up?”
“That bloody blighter is pushing me out—that he is!” the Mayor yelled angrily, looking down at his legs as they began to disappear. “I haven’t got long, my fabulous friends. You’ll be needing this!” he added, quickly pulling off his hat and rummaging around in its illogical depths, before throwing Winston his book.
“I don’t feel like I say this enough, Mr. Mayor,” Winston began, truly touched, “but you are an absolute fucking legend.”
The Book Wielder rushed towards the Alternative (who was already faded up to his well-stuffed stomach) and hugged him strongly.
“My sentiments exactly, you hunk of an Alt!” Veronica cheered, throwing her arms around both Winston and the Mayor.
“Oh, I know, I know, you sweet succulent sacks of meat,” the Mayor replied warmly, just as his arms and chest disappeared. “Be sure to fuck that despicable Demon Omniosis up real bad for me, wickedly wonderful Winstons. Farewell…” he trailed off dramatically, long before he vanished entirely. “Well, this is awkward, awkward indeed! Oh, wait, here we go—goodbye…!”
“I actually love that Alt,” Veronica chuckled, shaking her head. “Sorry, but you’ve got competition, sweetie.”
“Get in line—he’s all mine,” Winston winked cheekily.
“So, do you feel any different now that you’ve got it?” Veronica asked, nodding towards his book.
“I feel stronger, more confident, and ready to kick Demon ass… but I still don’t know how to get through that much dirt,” he admitted.
“Maybe we can manifest something? I don’t know,” Veronica sighed. “How about we have a wander through these lovely demolished streets and see if it leads us somewhere?”
“Sure,” the Book Wielder agreed, “a walk through post-apocalyptic Imperia would be a lovely date.”
“When we get out of your head, mister, you’re taking me to Tropica for a whole month for sun, sand, and sex,” Veronica informed him, taking Winston’s arm.
“Fuck that, we’re going for a whole year,” he laughed, as they strolled arm-in-arm out of the ruined building and into the smouldering wasteland.
The entirety of the dreamscape had been ravaged by the Mayor’s witchfire breath. The land was completely silent except for the crackling fires and the sound of collapsing buildings, and the heavens were filled with dark clouds of smoke and ash with a radioactive green tint, leaving little to distract the Reynoldses as they walked down the Capital’s seared roads. A loose rock tumbled down from the remains of a high-rise building where its smashed into the rubble below, making a loud banging sound and startling Winston and Veronica.
“Any luck?” the Vampire Bloodmage asked her husband, as she checked the wreck of a car that was still glowing from the Alternative’s attack.
Winston flicked through his book rapidly, noticing the nearby rubble was moving slightly. “Nope, nothing in here but blank pages.” He growled in frustration, tempted to throw the book to the ground. “I know I’m missing
something obvious!”
“Keep trying, sweetie,” Veronica encouraged, before someone grabbed her arm from within the car she had been searching. “Fuck, get off me!”
An eyeless humanoid figure covered from head to toe in black soot, green embers, and oozing vermillion and orange scabs, was leaning out of the ruined car’s window, pressing broken glass into its horrendously burnt chest.
Veronica elongated her nails and severed the arm from its screaming owner, splashing boiling blood over the ash-covered floor. To her horror, however, the charred victim’s hand remained animated and crawled over her clothes like a spider, leaving a trail of little fires as Veronica desperately attempted to catch it.
Winston batted the hand off his wife with his book and quickly created a pistol before shooting the screaming monster of a man in the head, hoping the same rules applied to these zombies in his own splintered mind as they did to the zombies from various media sources in real life. When the creature slouched forward, dripping magma-like blood from its mortal head wound, the Book Wielder was sure he had won—until the zombie quickly looked up and screamed, two orbs of blazing fire burning in its hollow eye sockets.
Veronica conjured up Xavier’s Spell-forged steel sword once again, and impaled the severed hand as it launched itself towards her beautiful face. She swung the sword like it was a baseball bat, sending the lively hand flying off towards the half-collapsed World GOVT building, where Veronica saw an army of reanimated fire-eyed corpses in the distance that were silently lumbering towards them.
Winston filled the zombie in the car with lead, hoping to kill it once and for all, but it remained active despite being blasted apart. The nearby piles of broken concrete and scorched debris began to wobble and move as more burnt zombies pulled themselves free of the wreckage, and Winston fired at them in-between frantically riffling through the pages of his book.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Veronica said desperately, pointing at the horde stumbling towards them.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Winston cursed aggressively, as they jogged away up the wide road.
Bolts of green lightning struck the ground all around the ruins of Imperia City, sending clouds of dirt, brick, and concrete into the air, and damaging the base of two buildings in the direction Winston and Veronica were running towards. The Reynoldses stopped dead in their tracks as two tall tower blocks collapsed onto the road ahead with an almighty bang, throwing out an ashy shockwave that sent the couple toppling to the smoking ground.
The charred zombies were all around them, crawling out of empty window panes, piles of wreckage, or just dropping off the remaining rooftops uncaringly.
“I’ll hold them off for as long as I can—you figure something out!” Veronica shouted to Winston, as she ditched the sword and conjured herself a minigun.
The Vampire Bloodmage sprayed the reanimated monsters with a deafening barrage of bullets, slicing their grotesque undying bodies into pieces, as Winston desperately sifted through his book, begging it to show him the way.
“I don’t mean to rush you, honey, but we’re running out of time!” Veronica shouted over her minigun, and she began using her telekinesis to launch bits of broken building at the zombies behind while continuing to fire endlessly at the ones in front.
Winston glanced around at the shambling immortal horrors surrounding him and his wife, and wondered where in the world they could run to. Then his white eyes went wide as he realised how obvious the answer was, both to their escape, and their goal of finding and defeating the Archmage.
“The Gloom!” Winston yelled, as he opened his book down the middle and placed it on the hot road. “He’s hiding in the Gloom! Quick, Veronica!”
Veronica backed towards Winston, still fighting off the repugnant horrors as she asked, “Is there even a Gloom in this wacky world?!”
“He made a copy of Mydia from before the merger, so I don’t see why there wouldn’t be.” Winston reached out for his wife, as scarred and bleeding hands began breaking through the surface of the road. “Take my hand, Veronica, before it’s too late!”
The Vampire Bloodmage kicked away the bloody claws and faces rising out of the tarmac around her feet, and continued her attacks. “But only Book Wielders can cross over using a book! Go on without me!”
“Not a chance,” Winston told her confidently, linking his fingers with hers. “I’ll make it work. We’re going to end this—together.”
Veronica nodded, and threw her manifested minigun at the nearest zombie before joining her husband by his book.
Winston slammed his free hand down onto one of the old open pages as the horde of zombies reached them, and summoned every ounce of his willpower to force him and his wife into the Gloom. Thankfully, the dreamscape version of his book fulfilled the request.
The ruined city moved away from Veronica, Winston, and his book, as if they were all suspended above a planet-sized conveyor belt set to a ridiculously high speed. Buildings, fields, and even the ocean passed them by, as the imaginary version of Mydia was spun beneath them, until finally they caught glimpses of a new, darker land. In a sudden sickening motion, the world came to a stop, and the Reynoldses found themselves in Gloom City, the grim reflection of Imperia City, completely enclosed by a massive crowd of grinning Alternatives.
“Oh, fucking hell…” Veronica sighed in defeat.
Winston turned on the spot, looking for some way out, but there wasn’t a single gap between the tightly packed Alts. If anything, the couple were even more outnumbered then they had been inside the busted zombie-filled remains of Imperia City.
The dark-eyed puppets took a step forwards in unison, and some of the material men and women created orbs of witchfire in their hands, painting the crowd in an unnerving green light.
“I guess this is it,” Winston said firmly, as he flicked his lighter and manipulated the flame into two arm-shrouding gauntlets of fire.
Veronica brought her sword into existence, raising the hilt to her forehead before flicking it to the side in a duellist’s salute as she prepared to defend her husband. She knew if she failed then her beloved Winston would be lost, and that the megalomaniacal dictator Omniosis would inhabit his physical form in the real world, damning Mydia to a second age of Archmage oppression.
Without warning, the menacing Alternatives raised their hands in the air and shot witchfire up into the hazy purple sky. The flaming balls of green energy exploded like fireworks beneath the blanket of black and purple clouds high above, raining bright lively paint on the dismal Gloom City below. The mob of Alternatives were also splattered with vibrant shades of coloured gloop, and they cheered excitedly as they embraced the thick rain they’d created.
“Surprise!” the mad puppets cheered, throwing confetti and streamers everywhere.
Veronica didn’t drop her guard, but she did attempt to wipe the paper-littered paint off her face and hoodie. “What the actual fuck is going on now?!”
Winston scooped a big glob of thick blue paint out of his hair and slung it on the cracked road near his feet. “They’re throwing us a party, I think,” he said with a smirk.
“Not a party,” the puppets spoke in unison. “A parade—a parade for the Winstons!”
Veronica tilted her head in disbelief. “You know, Winston, I always thought my mind was messed up, but yours is truly something else…” she sighed teasingly.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Winston chuckled, as the Alternatives began to dance and play instruments. “I don’t get why they’re not attacking or detaining us. Surely that would be Omniosis’ most obvious move?”
The gorgeous Vampire Bloodmage shrugged. “Honestly, I can’t make heads nor tails out of this imagination-land and Archmage ass-hat’s motives. Although, no one’s done more for the Alternative people then you have—maybe even he can’t take that realisation away from you.”
“Well, it’s just my enlightened belief that all people—human, Alt, or Supernatural—are equally as messed up as ea
ch other,” Winston joked, before clearing his throat and addressing the crowd. “Good people of the Gloom, we need to find the Archmage. Can you take us to him?”
“Of course, wonderful Winston, conveyor of candies, supplier of succulent sweets, dealer of delicious delights…” The crowd of puppets rattled off titles until they finally concluded their statement with, “That’s what the parade is for!”
“Okay, now I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Veronica muttered nervously, as the Alternatives started to walk towards them again in unison.
Winston seemed unaffected by the tide of fabric closing in around him, and he raised his arms outwards as he smiled coyly at his wife. “They’re going to carry us.”
“Crowd surfing?” Veronica gasped, highly relieved that they weren’t at the receiving end of something more sinister. “Hell yeah, rock on!” she cheered, allowing the Alts to raise her up.
The Reynoldses were quickly shuffled and bumped along on the fabric hands of the celebrating Alts below, as though they were being swept by the tide. Winston and Veronica looked up at the tall paint-soaked buildings which shot up into the bleak sky, and laughed when the Alternatives within began hanging banners featuring badly drawn depictions of them out of their grimy windows.
Eventually, the married couple were shuffled onto two comfortable seats built into the abdomen of a terrifying mechanical spider, with spindly brass legs and eight witchlight headlamps for eyes. Without waiting for a prompt, the spider scuttled down the road, taking the couple towards the tallest and most foreboding tower in the city.
The banner-waving Alts began to thin out, and eventually Winston and Veronica were all alone (aside from the spider vehicle).
“It’s the Demon Overlord’s tower,” Winston said wistfully, “where it all began in real life.”
“Ending this where it all started… that does sound like an Omniosis thing to do,” Veronica noted.
Winston nodded in agreement, and collected his thoughts. The tower that occupied the place of the World GOVT building was just how he remembered it from his fateful—and Archmage-manipulated, as he now knew—encounter with the Demon Overlord. It was an overwhelmingly foreboding black spire with barred windows that glowed orange from the burning sconces within, and the raised plaza surrounding it was covered with black grass and unattractive deadly Gloom flowers. The miserable gardens also featured broken stone fountains that pumped out lumpy jets of filthy black Gloom water, and grisly statues of humans ripping off their own skin lined either side of the central path that led to the entrance.