by Jan Stryvant
"The gateway opened several hours ago," Jessie told him.
"What? Then where are we going?"
"We're taking the long way home," Trevor said.
"We've been running almost non-stop for a full day now, and you want to take the long way home?" Krista snarled.
"Have you looked at what's following us lately?"
"Please tell me you have a plan!" Boe grumbled and dodged around a tree.
"Course we do!" Jessie replied.
"And?" Krista prompted.
"First time we rested, I passed on that we'd be late coming through the gateway, so could they 'please have a little something ready to welcome our friends?'"
"And?"
"Last time we rested," Trevor said panting, "they told us they needed a few hours. So we're giving them a few hours."
"Why don't we just use the last bomb?" Jake asked.
"We will, but we're worried it won't take out the prince. He's gotta figure we'll be setting up traps at the gate."
"So how much more of this?"
"About an hour; we're on the final leg now!" Jessie told them.
"Do you think the defenders at the gate know we're coming?" Boe asked.
"Like that matters!" Krista growled. "Now how about we pick up the pace? I'm sick of this place!"
The rest of the trip to the gateway passed in silence, if you discounted the panting and the occasional oath when somebody tripped and stumbled for a moment. They were all drawing on the pool of lion powers now, though thankfully it didn't take much to keep going.
Trevor wondered what the First and the others were up to, but he had problems enough of his own to have been bothered to ask about it the last time he'd been back to the mountainside.
When they burst into the clearing, everyone shifted into their hybrid form without even thinking about it, and started shooting their weapons and throwing their last few grenades at everything and anything that wasn't brown. No one had come through from the other side, but Trevor had been told they had problems of their own right now, so the amount of support they could count on was going to be severely limited.
The fight was brutal, and it was fast. No one wanted to be here anymore, and no one really cared how much damage they took, just as long as they didn't actually die here.
"Jessie, take your team through," Trevor said and waved at her. "Let 'em know I'll be through just as soon as our guests show up.
Jessie nodded, panting heavily, and waving her team over, they ran through to the other side.
"How do you want us to deploy?" Jake asked.
"Grab Boe and climb those trees on the edge there. The moment you see 'em, drop down and run on through. I'll go last."
"Sure thing. Come on Boe."
"What do you want the rest of us to do?" Lena asked.
"Just stand here with me. I want it to look like they almost caught us so we can draw 'em in close. Just make sure everyone understands to duck around behind the gateway and not to be in front of it."
Lena nodded and sat down to wait along with the others.
"Do you know if Grism made it back home?" she asked him then, surprising him.
"Yeah, he did. Course he hasn't reformed yet, so we're still gonna get back there before he does. I heard Adam's dead, too."
"Adam? What, did he get caught cheating on his girlfriend already?" Lena asked, laughing.
"Nope, he led an attack against a prince and sacrificed himself so the others could kill it."
Lena stopped laughing and looked at him. "Are we talking about the same Adam? Suave ladies man who fucks anything in a skirt and avoids responsibility like a shadow avoids the light?"
Trevor nodded slowly. "Renee said Keairra couldn't stop dancing for hours, she was so excited."
"Now I can't wait to get back there just so I can see how Sampson is taking it!" She giggled.
"You know," Quinn spoke up, "we really should get Sean to make as a butt ton of those silver bombs and invade over here like his buddy Chad wants to. I bet we could sure mess this place up big time if we did."
"I think the First is waiting until after the permanent gate fails," Trevor pointed out.
"Waiting is always a loser's game. I'd rather be out here killin' something."
Just then Boe and Jake dropped out of their trees and came streaking towards the gate on all fours.
"Okay," Trevor said as he got his bomb out and removed it from the chain, which removed the safety. "Engage their leading ranks from here, then start pulling out when I give the word. I'm setting this for twenty-five seconds."
Trevor wound it up quickly and pressed the trigger button. Once he released it, the mechanical timer would activate. He figured if he got killed, at least the bomb would still go off.
Jake and Boe ran by, diving into the gateway, and the rest of Trevor's team opened fire as the leading edges of the pursuing djevels came out of the trees on the edge of the clearing. It was a line of bonde, but they were followed by a second line of ridders, biskops, a few things Trevor wasn't quite sure what their names were, and two lords.
Tossing the bomb to the side, Travis pulled his pistols out and started shooting.
"Withdraw!" he called out as he quickly emptied both of his pistols. He dropped one and reloaded the other, and had just finished firing when someone grabbed him from behind and dragged him through the gate.
"What the hell?" he said looking around. It was pitch-black.
"Nighttime!" said Quinn, who was the one who had dragged him out.
A couple of other hands grabbed him then and hustled the two of them around to the other side of the gateway.
"Come on, we got two helos on the other side of the hill. Shift into your human form! We gotta go!"
Letting himself be dragged along, Trevor shifted and dumped his pack. There wasn't anything in it he wanted anyway. As they crested the hill, he saw the outlines of the helicopters and the dim formation lights as his eyes adjusted. Everyone was crammed into them, and as he got there, they crammed him and Quinn in, while the other person, a werewolf, just stood on the landing gear support and held on to the side.
There was a brief flash of a very bright light from the other side of the hill, and then they took off.
"What about the ones following us?" Trevor yelled to the one outside the door as they took off.
"That's why we gotta get out of here. They planted some sort of big ass bomb down there, and we don't wanna be around when it goes off!" the werewolf on the outside said.
Vises Ikke held back, letting two of his lords take their biskops and ridders to the forefront as they neared the gateway. Obviously they had known this one would be open, somehow, and if they'd known that, he wouldn't put it past them to have prepared an ambush.
He was angry enough with them destroying what had been promised to him by King Sladd, the food pens which were to become his responsibility, but he was not so angry as to become stupid. He was a prince, after all, and one didn't stay a prince by acting rashly. He heard the sounds of those damnable weapons the lions had brought into their world, and was about to order more in after they'd stopped, when suddenly everything went white and a large explosion roared through the area, knocking down the trees and blowing him from his saddle!
When he regained his feet, he saw that probably a tenth of his people had died, but it was no matter; they'd respawn soon enough. Grabbing his mount's reins, he quickly subdued it. Mounting back up, he rode up slowly to survey the damage.
Both lords were dead, but he already knew that, having felt them die when the explosion occurred. All that was left of the hellige point and its attending structure was a large hole in the ground that the gateway hovered over. Turning around, he saw that his guards had all survived and were still attending him.
"Onath, Hunkle," he said, pointing towards two of his biskops. "Take your sworn and go through the gateway and pursue them. Report back to me what defenses they have arrayed against us on the other side of the gateway!"
&
nbsp; "Yes, my Prince!" they both said, and he watched as they ordered a number of bonde to stand in front of the gateway so they could be used as a ramp for the others to access the gateway.
"Will we be pursuing, my Prince?" Ducath, his head guard, asked.
Prince Vises Ikke shook his head. "Sadly, I have my duties to our King here. Come, let us gather our people and return to the pens. I need to see to their rebuilding."
"Yes, my Prince!"
Prince Vises Ikke had barely cleared the compound when a huge gout of fire came blasting out of the gateway, killing all who were before it.
He was very happy that day that he had other duties after all.
Ξ
"Sean? I think you better come upstairs."
Sean and Roxy both looked up from their reading; Keairra was standing in the doorway.
"What's up?" Sean asked, and standing up, he stretched.
"Your father wants everyone upstairs; something is going on."
"I could use a break," Roxy said and, standing up, started stretching as well, which caused Sean to stop stretching and watch her instead.
"Down, tiger!" Keairra laughed. "What have the two of you been doing, anyway? We all thought you were having sex or something, because no one has seen you since morning!"
Sean shook his head, then frowned. "We've been reading Omushkego's notes. They haven't been painting a very nice picture of the kinds of things the Inangar were up to."
"Omushkego?"
"That guy you all ate," Roxy said.
"Oh, yeah, him." Keairra shrugged.
"He did it on purpose, Mom," Sean told her.
"Wait, what?" Keairra asked, eyes wide.
"Let's go upstairs and see what the First wants," Roxy said. "Then you can tell everybody."
"What about Mahk?" Sean asked.
"I don't think Mahk is going to be with us much longer," Keairra said. "You know how your father is."
"I got dibs!" Roxy grinned and, grabbing Sean, she pulled him past Keairra, who followed them both upstairs.
When they got there, Sean saw that the First was sitting in the open living room area where the couches and chairs were, with all of his wives and the pride around him, except for Sasha and Peym, who were closer to the stairs.
Estrella, Cali, and Peg were all seated by Mahkiyoc, who was watching something on his tablet, apparently fascinated by it.
"What's up, Dad?" Sean said as he came over to stand by them.
"Yesterday Trevor and Jessie found the holding pens where the demons were holding their food."
Sean waited for the inevitable correction from Cali, and when it didn't come, he glanced over at her. She had her wings out and was watching Mahkiyoc like a hawk. She was biting her lip and looking very nervous about something.
"What did they do?" Sean prompted. He noticed the First had glanced over at Cali as well.
"They used one of the silver bombs you gave them and destroyed it, going back and wiping out any of the survivors until they were chased off. They just went through a gate a little while ago, using the other bomb you gave them to dissuade pursuit."
"And destroying a minor hellige in the process," Estrella added.
"It was quite the demonstration of mass converted to energy," Mahkiyoc said, looking up from his work. Apparently he was listening to them. "I am told that you did this using only that skill you call 'magic'?"
Sean gave a shake of his head. "I only used magic to control it. Like you said, it's simply physics."
"Still, I am sure our physicists would have been impressed."
"We also discovered," the First said, overriding the conversation, "that the king here, King Sladd, is going to personally invade Earth soon."
"How did you discover that?" Sean asked.
"Our friend over there was watching a major gathering, unlike any he'd seen before, at the main gateway. He asked Esti for help identifying the demons. She told us it was Sladd."
"That's not good," Roxy said.
"No," the First agreed. "It's not. And as I may be the only being alive who can fight, and possibly kill, a king, I think we need to leave, and soon."
"Only think?" Sean asked.
"I wanted to know if you'd found your answer. If not, I was prepared to grant you a little more time."
Sean snorted and glanced over at Mahkiyoc. "Oh, I found it all right."
"Then please, why don't you enlighten all of us."
"What about…" Sean nodded his head towards Mahkiyoc.
"Oh, I think he deserves to know," the First said with a faint hint of a growl.
"Know what?" Mahkiyoc asked.
"Your friend, or colleague perhaps? After reading his notes, I sincerely doubt he had any friends."
"You have read his notes? But they were unreadable."
Sean laughed. "It's called encryption. You know, you may be smart at some things, but you're painfully ignorant about others.
"Now, your friend Omushkego got upset over the loss of the Wenangar. I'm not exactly sure who or what they were, but he wrote about it, and from that point on he was ostracized by everyone in his own field, as well as just about everyone in the rest of your society."
"They were a mistake. They no longer had a place in our society," Mahkiyoc said with a shrug.
"Yeah, sure they were," Kalif said.
"You found out about them?" Sean asked, looking up.
"They built this place. All of it. Then they were sent back home. They were sort of a client race. They grew up with the Inangar, and as the Inangar grew and flourished, so did they."
"They were no longer necessary," Mahkiyoc said. "They could not come with us on our journey."
"Yeah, we'll come back to that," Kalif said and motioned to Sean to continue.
"So, Omush finds himself isolated from all of society, and he starts to do his own research, go his own way. I guess he didn't really care all that much, at least until the demons came in and started eating people. Seems they ate his family, and while to the rest of the Inangar the bonds of family no longer meant anything, to him it still did.
"Anyway, while everyone else was either ignoring the problem or running around in a panic, he started to look for a solution. Along the way he realized the problem wasn't just the demons, it was the Inangar as well."
"How could we be the problem?" Mahkiyoc asked.
Sean looked at Mahkiyoc, noticing all four of his wives were now watching him like a hawk watched a mouse.
"Because you released the demons on all the other realities out there, and you not only didn't care, you didn't do anything about it until they came after you.
"So," Sean turned back to the First, "he started looking at predators, big ones, tough ones, ones that had some level of intelligence, but which, while ruthless, still exhibited the bonds of family."
"Like lions," the First said.
Sean nodded. "Yup. But he didn't see us evolving beyond what we were, which was simply animals. So he decided to experiment. I don't know how long it took him, but he figured out how to put us on the track to self-awareness. But it would require a sacrifice, a great sacrifice, on his part. So he made his plans, prepared himself, and when the pass on our planet was ending, he put it into effect."
"What plan was that?" Mahkiyoc asked, apparently quite curious now, as he was no longer looking at his workstation.
"He shot his body up with a number of different viruses, took I don't know what else, then lured a prince into chasing him, and dropped himself and the prince in the middle of a group of very hungry lions."
"And?"
"We ate him," the First said with a growl. "We ate him, and we ate the prince."
"You…"
Sean was impressed to finally see real emotion on Mahkiyoc's face. It was fear.
"Stop hi…" Cali started to say, but there was a cheetah suddenly attached to his neck, and Sean didn't hesitate to follow Roxy, shifting in the air as he launched himself at Mahkiyoc as he went down under Roxy's grip.
&
nbsp; A moment later Peg, Estrella, and even Cali were biting into the body, ripping off chucks and eating him! Sean couldn't help himself, especially as he could feel Mahkiyoc's life force flowing into his body, not unlike when he'd killed those demon lords before. But what did surprise him was just how much of it there was!
When it ended and Mahkiyoc was dead, he sat back on his haunches and looked at his wives. Estrella didn't look all that different. Peg and Roxy's eyes seemed to be glowing, and they were a little unsteady on their feet as they sat there and groomed their muzzles, both still in animal form.
Cali, however—Cali's eyes were glowing, and she was shaking slightly, with blood all over her face, chin, and down her chest. Shifting into his hybrid form, Sean quickly moved over to her and wrapped his arms around her.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
Cali nodded her head slowly.
"Why'd you eat him?"
"We were afraid she might not survive on the mountainside," Estrella said.
"Plus it's not like he didn't deserve it," Roxy said.
"I feel…different," Peg added, looking around. "Is it me, or is it getting darker outside?"
"What the…"
Everyone looked out the window.
"Better open up that gateway, Dad," Kalif growled.
"Twice in one week? Wow, I feel honored!" the First laughed.
"You don't understand. This reality is collapsing."
Sean noticed that the First immediately turned his efforts to opening a gateway. Calling up his stats program, Sean could see there was a lot of lion power out there, but not enough for he himself to open a gate. When it suddenly dropped to almost zero, Sean cut the program, and grabbing Cali, he dragged her through the gate into the lion la-la-land, the others following behind him in short order.
The First came through last and dropped the gate the moment he'd gone through.
"You were saying, Son?" the First said, looking over at Kalif.
"The Inangar wanted to live forever, but they weren't immortal. So they figured out a way around the rules. They constructed a reality—I guess you'd call it a soul trap. Then they sent their servants inside it and had them build everything they would ever need. But there was a problem."