Mankind's biggest failing was that we feared anything different, anything we didn't understand. But did that have to make us irredeemable in the eyes of races like the Elders? Were we really the evil we sought to fight?
Even though we were still in our eight-hour window of being in separate bodies, Marie and Ella had both stopped what they were doing and looked my way. I felt my cheeks heat as I realized that no, we were not evil as my girls both fought true evil inside themselves every day but they chose love. They chose good. And as much hate and violence mankind is capable of, we also treasure love above all else, so the Elders are wrong. And we were going to show them that, even if it was the last thing we did in this existence.
Rapunzel glanced over at the sandbags that soldiers of six different countries who have flown in, were stacked in front of all types of military equipment. Then she asked Masika, “Umm you showed the military types the glowy projection thing about your people walking through oceans as big as mountains? Their bags of sand aren't going to do much.”
The hidden Elder shook her head, and said, “Our forms don't mean anything, and adjust for the circumstance. When Elders marched on Neverland, with lands divided by oceans, they had to be like the mountains themselves that rose from that ocean to make the islands. And the humans... they know not of me, child. The others in your group wish it so.”
The others gravitated toward us where we were bunching up and we all froze when we heard an echo of a memory from a forgotten thought calling out Titania's name, just as a little girl in a tattered skirt came running out of nowhere as she faded into existence, “Titania, they come!”
I whispered, “Isla?”
She glanced my way, her frantic look wavering as she smiled and curtsied. “Ella.”
I looked at my hands. Ahh, I forget which body I wake in sometimes. I shook my head and opened my arms and said, “Parker.”
Then the ghost of the little matchstick girl rushed into my arms, and I was surprised I could touch her in Ella's body. Then again, Ella and Marie had been infused with the magic of the amulet that had cursed them, to begin with, so after so many centuries those dark magics must be in their blood.
Isla was cold as ice, which made me feel the vice on my heart again as it brought her tragic end to mind again. Freezing to death, surrounded by people in their warm houses, the people who turned a blind eye to her and left her to her fate on the streets so many centuries ago.
The others gathered around, and the ones who could hugged her, the others greeted her. It was fitting that the spirit of the little girl who had befriended us all, and who was to oversee the Scales for the Elders, was actually working for Masika, to prevent the mortal realm from becoming less than a memory.
The Voodoo Queen looked at the semi-corporeal girl with fondness and asked, “What is it, child? I can feel them almost upon us.”
Isla moved over to her, and said in earnest, in tones that belied her outward appearance, reminding me she has seen so much more than any man or woman could ever dream of, “Lapetus comes with the others, I ran as fast as I could along the path between worlds. They know the defenders of the mortal realm congregate at their arrival spot, so he has ordered them to split up, and emerge at the confluence points before the moon is full.”
She looked over her shoulder, her eyes widening as if she could see the Elder's approach, and the frantic look told me that it was sooner than we were ready for. Then again, could anyone possibly be ready to fight for the very existence of their reality?
Robyn landed next to them, her large fairy wings moving slowly behind her as she stated, “Tonight is the last night before the full moon. Confluence points?”
Masika held her hand out, palm up and a globe spun up which looked exactly like the Earth, complete with moving weather patterns. It looked a little too real, and I wondered if maybe it was the world and we were somehow both here and above it seeing it like this. The power of the Elders truly frightened me, and that is saying a lot since I'm friends with an actual goddess.
She spoke. “The pathways between realms is more a construct of the power of creation and destruction both.” An amber flow of energy appeared to strike the small Earth. I am sensitive to magic, and I felt the metaphysical world around us shudder and shake, and I gasped at the pressure of it, then smiled because it tasted of cloves and cinnamon and burnt paper... Titania's magic.
But it also frightened me because it proved my earlier feeling of this representational Earth because the wave of invisible power stuck at the same moment that amber stream hit the small spinning planet in her palm.
We all leaned in, except for Snow, who had partially manifested her Perchta form, and simply nodded as if this were something every young child should know. Rachel slapped her lightly on the back of her head and it just amazed me that she could make the goddess not take herself so seriously, and the love in Perchta's eyes for one of the last werewolves on the planet was a physical thing.
I understood it all too well. Gretta Snow and Perchta were one being after the goddess had sacrificed her power to save the human she had come to love. So Perchta lives on as part of our friend, and together they had fallen for the sometimes overbearing wolf. Like my Ella-Marie had been, they were two parts of a whole, so it shouldn't surprise me every time I saw that love shining through this woman who was as old as time and nature herself.
At that thought, she was gone. One instant Perchta was there, the next a large white crow stood, and it flew up to land on Masika's shoulder to peer at the globe in her hand. I poked at her feathers. “Hey, you're crowding her, woman.”
The crow rolled its eyes then hopped onto my arm and I stepped back. I nuzzled her soft downy feathers, and I could feel the buzz of incalculable power pressing against my cheek.
Then the Elder went on as the globe grew as she dropped it to spin in the air in front of us. She indicated where the stream touched the planet and said, “The path seeks the weakest point in the reality to break through. In this mortal realm, there are countless stars and countless worlds, but Earth was the weakest point.”
She walked around the globe to where the torrent of energy was striking the Puget Sound area here in Seattle. “But it takes an enormous amount of power to break through the veil. “Fractures form, and the power leaks through these cracks.”
Amber lines formed, circling the globe in a network of jagged cracks. “This power bleed through is what allows so many varied augmentations to your peoples, it is the source of what you refer to as magics.”
This is the source of what made us... Avatars and Keepers?
She went on, a smile on her lips when her eyes swung to me. Could she read my mind? My eyes widened and I looked away, to the spinning Earth. She chuckled and said, “Weak points, in reality, occur where many fractures overlap. And these points change when more of the bleed-through energy is consumed. Which is why Seattle is currently the weakest point between realms. Many magical battles have occurred here in recent times.”
Evelyn, who was always so outgoing before she became the new Red Hood, stepped forward and said with excitement as she pointed at the fractures in a semblance of her old sarcastic and bubbly tones that was so good to hear, “Lay lines! You're talking about lay lines.”
When we had lost Mari to death for a time, before the Scales woke her from that eternal slumber, Eve held onto crushing guilt after she was drawn to the cloak of our fallen leader and felt the compulsion to don it. The magics within it, transferred the lupine curse to her, creating a new champion.
She thought we would all fault her, thinking she sullied the memory of Mari. She didn't understand that we loved her, and who could fault her if the cloak thought she was the most worthy to carry the mantle of the Red Hood and the power it possessed. And even after Red returned to us and they now share the burden of the curse, she was rarely outspoken anymore to anyone but her love, Rapunzel.
Masika smiled and nodded as she touched one of the amber
cracks and a pulse of raw power swept over me as the globe pulsed. I glanced around and nobody else seemed to notice except Gretta, who ruffled her feathers.
The huge ferocious-looking hound beside Dot, who stood at my chest level moved up to examine the globe. Snow hopped from my arm to the shoulder of the beast as Toto examined the cracks. I absently dropped a hand to sink into her fur and froze, forgetting she wasn't the hell hound she resembled, but our friend. I had been Daria's keeper while Mari was... dead. And it was how I connected with the grieving wolf, it had become instinctive I guess.
Toto didn't seem to mind, but someone whispering in my ear, causing a frightening chill to ripple down my spine had me withdrawing my hand, “Hello, Parker.”
I swallowed hard and turned to give a sheepish look. “Hello, Dorothy.” A jealous Dot is a dangerous Dot.
She cackled at my wavering tone, and she shoved my shoulder. “Just messing with ya.”
When the world felt to have dropped two feet, I barely got out, “For god's sake, Ella,” just as a huge whump of released earth energy was released and Dot went tumbling back to freeze in mid-air as she was surrounded by crackling emerald lightning.
Ella, in Marie's body, growled out, “Don't go intimidatin' the lady now, Witchy-Poo, or I'll be givin' ya the what for!”
Dorothy gave her a positively wicked smile and they charged at each other. I slid between the two titans who could level me in the blink of an eye, my hands held out between them. “Girls! Can you two behave and listen? It seems we've run out of time and Masika is sharing something important. I swear you're nothing but a couple of children.”
They both looked anywhere but me as they said, “Yes Parker.” “Yes, love.” Then my clothing ruffled at the barest twitch of Dot's finger as she turned back to the globe with mock attention. I looked down then felt the burn of a blush on my cheeks. The unstable witch had dressed me like some sort of overtly sexualized schoolmarm. I felt something on my head and reached up and sighed as I pulled the thick-rimmed black glasses from where they were pulled up to the bun my hair was styled in now.
Ella cut off a snerk as she was looking me up and down appreciatively until she realized she was wearing a full clown costume with those oversize clown shoes again. She started cursing under her breath as she started to pull it off.
An amused looking Elder said, “If you children are done.” She touched Seattle on the globe and the lay lines pulsed again and where multiple lines crossed around the world, those crossings pulsed as well.
She started the globe slowly spinning. “Currently, there are nine confluence points, the five strongest, making the weakest points for entry, are these.” Five of the crossings glowed brightly.
Rapunzel said, “I'm just going to...” She snapped a picture of me on her cell with a cheesy grin on her face. Oh lord. She had just discovered Twitter while we were in Kansas, and she has over a half million followers already. I was going to be a meme, wasn't I?
Nicole, the first Wolf Hunter, came to my rescue as she stood in her honest to god suit of shining silver armor, leaning on her silver sword. “Really, Raz? Do you think this is the appropriate time?” Just when I was going to thank her, she grinned and scrunched her head to her shoulders, “Send me a copy?”
Ok, I was going to die of embarrassment, but then I realized I was in the body of one of my loves at the moment so I raised a finger as my cheeks burned with the heat of a thousand suns. “Me too?” What? I'm only human and Ella is smoking hot, I wanted to know what she looked like in librarian mode.
As if I wasn't already blushing myself out of existence, Masika cleared her throat. We all quickly gave her our full and undivided attention as Marie, in my body, stepped beside me and slowly, sneakily, took my hand. I knew we'd be sharing that picture in the future if we actually survived this.
The Voodoo Queen of Neverland pulled the locations closer somehow in our vision through the globe hadn't changed in size... how was that even possible? Mari pointed at one. “Tokyo.” Then another. “Cairo.”
Daria in one step to her side flowed from wolf to human so smoothly I wasn't really sure when it happened. “London and Sydney.”
Gretel finished when I didn't see any more, “And Seattle.” Ah.
I voiced what none of us were saying since we had assumed... no hoped, that we could face the enemy together, combining all our powers to fight something we were ill-equipped to stand against in the first place. “We'll have to split up.” Splitting the party was never good in Dungeons and Dragons, how could it possibly be good here?
I looked around, and I could see the math on everyone else's faces, as most eyes fell on the three who stood any chance against an Elder... Hook, Dot, and Snow, since Titania would not raise a hand against the other elders more than the information she has shared unless they themselves make a move against her.
Three, and we had five locations to somehow cover if we could even reach them in time as we had only until nightfall here in Seattle. We... couldn't win.
This fact didn't seem to even slow Red as she stepped into the world as it dissolved into fluttering butterflies of all things. “Right. We need to break out into teams. Snow, Wendy, do you have a way we can deploy?” She looked at Titania. “Unless it wouldn't go too much against your code to ask?”
The dark-skinned woman contemplated this and then inclined her head, making me feel bad for her. She was stuck between loyalty to her kind and her conscience. It was a dangerous tightrope she walked and I didn't envy her at all. I put myself in her place if I were asked to help stop my friends and family, the Avatars if they had lost their way. How far would I go, and how much help would I give the ones who had to stop them and still live with myself, even though I knew it to be the right thing to do.
Without a word, I stepped up to her as she pushed her tightly braided and shelled hair over her shoulder, and when she looked questioningly at me, I just engulfed her into a tight hug. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed and returned the hug almost desperately as she whispered to me, “Thank you, child.”
She kissed the top of my head and we released each other. Then I watched as Red strode away with purpose toward the command trailer the military had driven in to share the news.
I glanced around when everyone's spelled cell phones chimed and we all went to look, and I grinned as I cocked an eyebrow. Raz had sent everyone the picture and good lord did it do some naughty things to me, Ella should only wear this, forever. Va va voom.
Then I was knocked out of my inappropriate daydream as I shuddered... no, the world shuddered as a sense of dread filled me when it happened, again and again, each shudder more powerful... it was... footsteps! I could feel their approach now. They were so close, the Elders were incoming.
Chapter 6 – Deployed
Everything happened so fast. Masika had shared that the more powerful Elders would choose the weakest points since it took a lot of energy to move that much power through the veil between realms. So that fact chose the locations for our heavy hitters.
Ella-Marie, in my body and me in Ella's, were sent with Dot and Toto to Tokyo.
Maireni, Daria, Perchta, and Rachel would hold Seattle.
Hook, Tinkerbell, Amanda, and Robyn would sail to London in the Sea Devil through the veil itself with a little nudge from the ebony goddess it seemed.
And since Rose and Illya were the most deadly of those who were left, Rose, Nicole, Raz and Eve would take Cairo, leaving Sydney to Belle, Illya, Katiana and Gretel. The teams were as balanced as we could make them.
The trouble areas would be Cairo and Sydney since neither team had reality-altering magics like the others, but if the others could be pressed enough to need assistance, then the Elders would be called to the more troublesome cities.
So the edict in those three cities was to hit them hard and fast and keep the pressure on, while the other two cities' teams were to run harassing and stalling campaigns. If any group were victorious, then
they would transfer over to whichever teams needed support.
The militaries of the other countries had been alerted and they were setting up bases and evacuating their people. Masika would be able to send a small number of the gathered military with their... weapons, to each site because she assured us, her people would be bringing entire armies of conscripted fighters from the various realms they lorded over.
I looked around and my heart fell. Only about eighty percent of the citizens of Seattle had gotten clear so far in the phased evacuation, that left thousands of civilians. And the other locations only had a sparse few hours for their evacuations, the bulk of their peoples would still be at ground zero when the Elders arrived there. I closed my eyes and prayed that this would not be the end of everything and that we could somehow avoid so many innocents dying on our watch.
Tentatively, I made a fist, digging my nails into my palm and my fists crystallized to protect me. Then, since some of Ella's residual abilities infused the body I was in, I tugged at the earth experimentally, my feet crystallizing and I felt so powerful with energy infusing every cell. We had learned that when we inhabited each other's bodies, we had limited use of their signature powers. So at least I would be able to do more offensively in this form than I could in my own body in which I was purely a defensive fighter.
I looked around at the five groups as we glanced at the sun, low on the horizon. Damn, they all looked so competent and dangerous, their game faces on.
Masika was drawing large glowing circles with complex symbols and runes around three of the groups with what looked like playground chalk, as Hook and her squad all flew off to the Sea Devil. While she was still crafting the circles, she absently swatted at the air behind her as the Sea Devil started rising into the air, and it looked as if it actually tore through reality. It was displays of raw power like that which seemed of so little consequence to her that scared me, thinking we were woefully outmatched.
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