by Ramy Vance
There weren't a lot of soft spots in Roy's heart, but he had one for the Shaman.
Cire pressed his hand to his chest. "My brothers and sisters, we've only started this battle. My strength is needed within the Netherverse, where the final stand will be made. Your strength will keep our homeworld safe."
An orc in the crowd shouted, "Why not take us with you? The horde would overrun the Netherverse."
Cire smiled, and even from a distance, Roy could feel its warmth. "No, the afterlife is too small for your heart. Leave this foul business to me and show these humans what it means to fight like an orc."
The horde roared in anticipation as Cire turned and stepped into the Gate.
Blackwell was sitting on the knee of Roy's mech, smoking a cigarette. "Glad we're not the ones going on a suicide mission to the afterlife. I'd like the chance to actually die rather than closing my eyes and waking up in hell."
Suzuki, who was talking to Naota, chuckled. " I agree with you about that. At least we get to mount our own suicide mission."
Naota had ingratiated himself into the Mundanes' group. He paused his conversation with Beth and Sandy, smiling his usual goofy smile. "Wouldn't be a good last mission if we didn't risk something, right? This is what makes all of the great story arcs, you know. Heroes pushed to their limits. That's how you can tell who deserves to win."
Blackwell put out his cigarette. "Call me a cynic, but I would prefer the odds to be a little more in my favor. I still think I would be in the pretty badass group if there were a couple thousand less ghouls to deal with."
Roy climbed into his mech as he went over the plans left by Cire. They'd talked their strategy over briefly after they'd received the order from Anabelle. What they had wasn't really a plan since it boiled down to a single point: stay alive. "You think he's going to make it to the rest of them by himself?"
"He won't be."
At the base of Roy's mech was Myrddin, smiling at Roy. "How are you doing, old friend?"
Roy jumped out of his mech, slid down its legs, and ran toward Myrddin. He threw his arms around the wizard, his eyes widening as he let out a yelp when he passed straight through Myrddin, whose form wavered like a ghost’s. Roy hit the ground and rolled over, cursing under his breath. "Would be doing better if you'd let me know you were incorporeal. Is this a beyond-the-grave kind of thing or out-of-body-experience kind of thing?"
"A bit of both, mostly out of body. I've made a slight adjustment to Anabelle's plan. Giving José and me a body would take too much energy. I've sent José to help on the gnome world, and I will help Cire make it to the Dark One's tower, but I wanted to check on you. Just in case."
Myrddin's eyes wandered to the horde in the distance. "Looks like you've been keeping busy."
Roy crossed his arms as Naota and Blackwell walked over to him. "It's been a joint effort. You set me up with some good agents. Strong-willed. Capable of taking care of themselves and talented leaders. You did good with the DGA."
"I like to think so."
The Netherverse Gate shook violently, sending a slight aftershock toward Roy and the rest of them.
Myrddin walked toward it, growing fainter with each step. "Just wanted to stop by, Roy. Wish you all good luck and say goodbye if this is to be our last meeting."
Roy lit a cigar as he climbed back into his mech and shouted, "You gotta get better at goodbyes, old man."
Myrddin looked over his shoulder, his smile and eyes twinkling like stars. "That is one thing a wizard never learns."
The old man vanished in front of the Gate as it exploded open, purple flames flying everywhere.
The Mundanes drew their weapons. Stew stared hungrily at the portal while Suzuki whirled his battle-axe. Beth impatiently tapped her daggers, and Sandy floated serenely, her wand gripped tight.
Roy slapped the side of his mech. "Okay, assholes, let's make sure that we leave a huge fucking bloody mess, all right? Let's get 'em!"
A serpent's head came through the portal. It was nearly the size of a minivan, its eyes flashing as its tongue flicked out and the rest of its body made its way through the portal. It was the Dark Melody stretching out, the liquid taking a sharp shape. As more of its body became visible, Roy could see that its skin was rotting, and some of its organs were visible through the thin skin.
Ghouls came through behind the snake once the serpent was on the orc world, and had floated up into the sky. The ghouls looked around dumbly as if they were not certain of their purpose since there were no bodies in front of them.
Above them, the snake's mouth split down the middle and another head shot out, screeching a call for war and pain and suffering.
The first line of ghouls raced toward the orcish army.
Roy looked down at Blackwell and Naota as Nib-Nib trotted over to join them. "Make me proud, people. Start shooting. Use that portal as a funnel to get as many of them as you can, not that you’ll get them all. There’s too many, but at least you’ll even the playing field." He turned to the Mundanes. "Do what you guys do best."
Roy slipped back into his mech, fired the thrusters, and headed toward the serpent.
The sky-snake spun and spat thick globs of venom.
Roy barrel-rolled out of the way as he locked onto the sky-snake with his missiles and fired.
The missiles tore through the snake, raining a torrent of intestines covered in the Dark Melody on the battlefield as ghouls and orcs clashed below, plasma weapons and steel meeting the hardened and sharpened Dark Melody weapons the ghouls wielded.
The sky-snake wrapped around Roy's dragon mech, its tail bashing the mech's head.
Roy killed the thrusters and let the weight of the mech pull the sky-snake out of the air. At the last second, Roy hit the thrusters and vented the excess heat from the mech, burning through the reptile’s skin.
The sky-snake released the mech and it darted to the side and fired, shredding the construct with dozens of plasma blasts. "Looks like this will be easy enough," he said as he turned back toward the Gate.
He spoke too soon. The Gate was expanding up and outward. As it continued to grow, more sky-snakes came through the portal. "Shit!" Roy muttered.
Down below, Naota and Blackwell were standing back to back, firing at the ghouls surrounding them.
Blackwell emptied his magazine and loaded another, then another. Soon he was out, so he tossed his rifle aside and drew his pistols, then resumed firing. Naota swung his chained electric blades, an upgrade Abby had provided—granted, after she gave him a two-hour lecture about safety.
Naota cleaved through a ghoul that had launched at Blackwell, who ducked, barely seeing Naota's movement, operating mostly out of instinct built between the two over the last few months.
As Naota pulled his blades back, Blackwell tapped him on the shoulder. The former security guard bent over, and Blackwell rolled over his shoulder and kicked an approaching ghoul.
Not far off, Nib-Nib and the tribe leaders led the charge, the old shaman among them, pulling lightning from the sky as the orcs made their push.
Nib-Nib sliced through a ghoul before tearing into the creature with her mandibles.
Stew, who was admiring Nib-Nib's kill, whistled before spinning and cutting a ghoul giant in half down the middle. He kicked the corpse out of the way as Suzuki launched a fireball that tore through a ghoul at Stew's side.
Sandy and Beth were wading through a sea of goblin ghouls, the hunched creatures jittering, their jaws clenching and unclenching as if they were possessed by spirits and their bodies were not their own.
Beth flipped backward to put some distance between her and the ghouls as she fired three arrows, nailing three ghouls in the head. "I'm at three, Suzy!"
Sandy sent a bolt of lightning through the horde of ghouls, skewering a few of them. "Psh, ten souls have already fallen to me."
Scaly claws gripped Sandy's shoulders, and she looked up to see a vrosk infused with the Dark Melody and Tesla's tech. The creature's beak was nearly
gone and cracked down the middle, and its eyes were lifeless. It lifted Sandy into the air.
An electric blade struck the vrosk in the chest.
Naota flipped up his sunglasses and winked at Sandy before yanking the vrosk toward him with his chains. Then he jumped and brought the other blade down on the creature’s neck.
Roy scanned the battlefield. "Looks like we've got this."
As Roy spoke, the sky-snakes above, which had been floating ominously but not attacking, screeched. The portal grew once more, this time stretching to the height of a skyscraper. "What the fuck is going to come through this time?"
A foot, the largest Roy had ever seen, stepped out. Then came a leg, and soon a waist and torso.
The giant, a creature thirty feet in height with dead, dull eyes and a grizzled bear-face, gripped the sides of the Netherverse Gate and pulled himself onto the orc world.
Everyone who saw the giant froze.
Stew chopped off a ghoul's head and then leaned on his axe. "Whoa. I didn't know giants got that big."
Sandy shook her head as her mask disappeared. "That's not... Oh. Oh, no. That's an ancient giant. They've been extinct for centuries."
Blackwell, who wasn't far off, shouted, "So, it's bigger. What's the big deal?"
Before the grinning Naota could say anything, Blackwell raised his hand to cut him off. "Do not comment on the pun."
"Everyone is going to want to get real fucking far away!" Sandy shouted.
The ancient giant opened its mouth and unleashed an icy blast, freezing everything beneath it as it conjured an ice axe. It slammed the axe into the ground, causing a ripple to pulse through it.
Suzuki pointed his axe at the giant. "Beth, you, me, and Stew are taking that thing down."
Sandy shoved Suzuki. "Wait, what about me?"
Suzuki shook his head. "I thought you might want to take care of that."
Sandy followed Suzuki's line of sight. A cloaked figure had just exited the portal, its eyes glowing. It tossed back its cloak, revealing a gaunt man covered in tattoos, holding a birch wand. "Oh, mage fight? On it!"
The mage raised his wand, conjuring a murder of flaming crows.
Roy, who was flying above, trying to pick off vrosks while avoiding the sky-snakes, finally saw the ancient giant. "Fuck. Well, at least the Dark One is keeping it interesting."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Abby hadn't thought about how the teleporting tech was going to work. Once Martin told her he and the consciousness had copied and repurposed the tech, she assumed that either of the two extra minds in her head had figured out how to use it. Turns out, the only thing that had been figured out was how they could turn it on.
When the bright light around Abby faded, she found herself in a plane of existence much different from the nine realms or the Netherverse. At first she couldn't tell what she was looking at, but the more attention she paid to the shimmering lights and the cacophonous noises around her, the more sense it all started to make.
Bright lights moved here, the inverse of shadows. They would stop from time to time, and their voices could be heard echoing throughout the plane. The ground she stood on was not earth, it was solidified light. Millions of suns and moons hung above Abby as she slowly took her first few steps.
On closer observation, she could see multiple versions of herself stretching to infinity. There were not only versions of herself, but there were also versions of the DGA standing next to her, or at least some of them were. Some versions had walked away. Others had disappeared almost instantly, and still more shimmered in and out of existence. "The multiverse," Abby muttered. “That’s how Tesla travels. He's not teleporting. he's slipping between dimensions."
Martin appeared in front of Abby, a human-sized paperclip with googly eyes and a cup of coffee. "Correction, we're slipping between dimensions."
A rumbling voice from within answered—the nanobot consciousness. Since their first conversation, it had grown difficult to understand. Martin interpreted for the others. It hadn't caused a problem yet.
"So, what now?" Abby asked.
"The consciousness and I are still trying to map the area and see how this all works. Keep looking around. We need as much visual information as possible. We have the same tech as Tesla. All we need to do is learn how to implement it."
Abby barely heard Martin since her mind was focused on something else. If she could travel like Tesla, she might be able to undo his work. An increase in nanobots would allow her to short-circuit at least some of Tesla's army, and it would also afford her more power. As long as she kept moving, dumping the nanobots, she wouldn’t burn out.
Having come to a decision, Abby silently concentrated on producing more nanobots. She instantly felt the increase in power.
In the distance, Abby saw a flash of purple light and she instinctively took cover behind a set of lights. Her eyes zoomed in on the source of the flash.
Tesla stood there, smoke coming up from his body. He'd shed a lot of his armor. He looked sleeker and faster than before. Bursts of purple energy crackled off his skin.
He's not drawing lightning to him, Abby thought. He's creating the power himself.
Tesla knelt and slipped his hand into the light as the purple energy crackled around him. There was another flash, and he was gone.
"We'll keep an eye out for him," Martin said. "I have a feeling he's going to keep popping in and out."
Abby crossed to what looked like a multidimensional version of the Netherverse Gate. It was farther from the one she'd come from but not too far. Besides the distance, it seemed like everything moved much faster in this plane than the other.
Something caught Abby's eye, and she watched a light version of herself walking backward, away from the Netherverse Gate. "What is going on? Might as well check it out. We still can't figure out how to get out of here."
"We think we have an idea," Abby murmured as she reached for the light version of herself. She slipped her hand into its body and concentrated on venting every source of energy in her body outward.
The light version of Abby exploded and the universe was sucked into the vacuum created, Abby along with everything else.
Another bright flash. When her sight returned, she was standing on solid ground.
The air was heavy with the scent of iron. Abby looked down. She was on the orc world, but something terrible had happened in her absence.
Dead orcs littered the ground, the earth moist with their blood. Among the bodies, Abby could see Roy and Blackwell. Next to their corpses was Naota, kneeling, his hands covered in blood, his face streaked with dirt and tears. He looked up at Abby as she walked toward him. "How are you... You died," Naota said. "I watched you die."
Abby didn't say anything. There was too much to take in. She wasn't overwhelmed, she simply knew she couldn't waste time asking unnecessary questions. "Where is our body?"
Naota pointed, his finger trembling, toward a pile of dead bodies to the right. "What's happening, Abby?"
"We don't know."
Abby walked over to the pile, trying to keep from freaking out. On an intellectual level, she knew this was not her reality. She had stepped into one of the infinite variations of the timeline. That didn't change that she wanted to run over to Naota and hold him and promise that everything would be okay, nor did it keep her from screaming when she saw Terra’s and Anabelle's broken bodies.
Abby collapsed at their side, and she picked up the elf’s head and held it in her arms. "Belle. Terra."
There was a rustle from the pile of the dead, and Abby jumped. Across from her, a black arm forced itself up.
The alternate dimension version of Abby sat up. She was still in her armor, and the right side of her face had been bashed in. Her eye hung from its socket, connected only by a cord. This version of Abby was much more machine than human.
The two Abbys met each other's eyes. "What are you...how is this?"
"Another timeline. Are you—"
The
alternate version of Abby shook her head as she coughed blood. "We're not going to make it. But you know, Rasputina was right." She laughed softly. There was no joy in it.
"What are you talking about?"
"None of us matter. None of our lives do. I didn't get that until now."
Abby shook her head, fighting back her tears. "No, we do. All of us do."
"That's not what I meant. This is, though."
The alternate Abby lightly touched their hand to their chest, which split open to reveal a nano-core, an energy source with roughly the power of a small nuclear bomb. "We tried to fight our way to the Dark One's tower, but we underestimated Tesla. If you're trying what we did, you won't make it. Take out Tesla, and get Suzuki and Alex to the tower to take your place."
She reached in and ripped out the nano-core, tossing it to Abby. "None of our lives matter in the long run like we thought. Do you understand what I'm saying? From Tesla's power, I think he understood that, too."
She closed her eyes, sighing, then opened them no more.
Abby had to push down the urge to vomit. She turned away, concentrating on the nano-core. "We don't have one of these, do we?"
"No,” Martin said. “This Abby must have done something different with her nanobots than we did. We can still use the tech, though. It'll make you stronger. A lot stronger."
"How many dead versions of me do you think there are?"
Martin appeared in front of her. "Are you sure you want to do this? It seems…I don't know, wrong."
Abby's nanobots covered the nano-core like ants at a picnic. When the nanobots retreated, the core was gone. The girl went over to the corpse of her alternate self and pressed her palm to her cheek, tears flowing as her nanobots rolled over the other Abby, assimilating everything they could. "We all need to make sacrifices, and ours will not be in vain."
She stood and glanced at Naota, who was staring at her in horror.
Abby's body started to hum with energy. "We're sorry, Naota. We are so sorry."
There was a flash, and the universe was gone. Abby was back in the plane of lights and possibilities. She watched as another version of her sprinted off and stopped in its tracks, then took a deep breath and tore into a new reality.
