Armageddon

by Erik Schubach

  Titania had recognized that, and she tried to convince them to abandon their ways, but when they did not listen and turned their backs on her, that is when she left the Elders to find a new way, and travel a new path.

  I had to blink. Walking in front of them on leash-like chains, their arms, and legs in irons, their naked bodies beaten and bloodied, were the brothers Grimm. They looked up to see us across the six city blocks between us as the buildings seemed to be pushed aside as the world warped.

  Wilhelm gave us a bloody, cheesy smile, as Jacob gave a wave from his hip the best he could in shackles. Even without their power, and mortal again, the two were irreverent. I could imagine the hell they have been giving the Elders through what looked like many sessions of torture.

  The Elders' eyes both snapped to me and Daria who went wolf and settled under my hand as I dug my fingers deep into her fur. Her subsonic growl only audible to me and Rachel, though now that I think of it, Snow and Masika likely could hear it too.

  They started striding toward us, the rumbling and shaking of the world around us belying the forms they had taken. That was something they had to see about themselves, they could have done as the Voodoo Queen and simply taken human form, but they chose to be more than twice the size of a normal human and appear as gods from ancient history.

  They say they are here to simply reset a realm that is irredeemable, yet they chose intimidation. Should that not raise their own red flags?

  As they stepped from the pathway between realms, tens of thousands of soldiers marched behind them. It was an eclectic bunch, representing dozens if not hundreds of alien or animalistic races. Some looked to be no farther developed than the Neanderthals of Earth, with clubs and loincloths, while some wore futuristic-looking armor and what could only be energy weapons.

  Then General Lance stepped up beside us as we prepared to meet the incoming enemy. I looked over at him and shook my head. “Ready your men. If we cannot convince the Elders to leave in peace, they're going to need you.”

  He looked exasperated, and said under his breath, “I thought they were supposed to be as big as mountains, ready to consume the world. But this, this is something we can handle.”

  I looked at him sadly as I said, “This is just the form they choose to show us.”

  I placed a hand on his arm and let just a trickle of the power of the Scales unfog his eyes to see through the fake reality. I saw his eyes widen in fear disbelief as he whispered, “Mary, Mother of God.”

  And this is why I admire mankind, I had been part of it for such a short time before the cloak had chosen me to be the Red Hood. But he just swallowed, nodded, then got a look of determination on his face as he went back and started shouting orders to his men. He saw what we truly faced, and he knew the futility of it, yet he prepared to fight.

  Snow took a single step toward me and with that magic that smelled of nature and earth, she was simply a white crow who landed on my shoulder. She has always amazed me with the control she had over her magics. And it also amazed me that I was friends with an actual goddess.

  Rachel stepped beside us as she reholstered one weapon and placed her hand in Daria's fur as well. Then the four of us strode forward to meet the enemy through a tide of power that felt a physical thing to the Scales in me.

  We met in the middle in silence, our eyes on theirs in defiance. I opened my mouth but snapped it shut again when Wilhelm said, “Hello. Nice day for a stroll isn't it?” I sighed and looked away from Hermes' eyes. It took all I could muster not to wince. From a distance, the brothers looked bad, but up close it was even worse, they had been beaten and tortured and not a single inch of them was not heavily bruised or bleeding. And their faces beat to hamburger.

  He was grinning at me, looking at me through two swollen eyes. I asked, “Do you mind? We were in the middle of a confrontation of wills.”

  “Oh, but of course. Don't mind us, we'll just stand here... in chains. But I don't suppose you have any food on you? They haven't fed us in months, they sometimes forget we're physical beings. Good thing the laws of nature don't work the same on the pathways between realms or we would have perished long ago.”

  He was trying to keep things light, and to annoy the Elders like he was attempting by this banter, I sighed. “You two are the most high maintenance pains in the asses that I've ever...”

  Hermes snapped out, “Enough incessant prattle. You Grimm brothers are the most irreverent creatures, if we didn't want you to observe the fall of your precious mortal realm today, we would have dispensed with you long ago. That we had ever chosen you to wear the mantle of Scales still eludes us.”

  Rachel, knowing the game being played by the annoying brothers said as Jacob worked at some earwax in his ear like he wasn't paying attention to what was happening, “We just call them the fuckin' Grimm brothers.”

  Then Jacob spoke, lifting a finger that looked to have been broken and healed crookedly. “Point of fact, you never chose us for the mantle. It was Isla who recommended us. So all things being equal...”

  The other Elder roared out, the windows in the buildings around us shattering, “Enough!”

  We all blinked as our ears rang, and Wilhelm said, “I think I need a restroom. Haven't peed in ages and...”

  With a roar of frustration, Hermes yanked the chains, sending the brothers careening through the air to tumble along the street in a tangle of limbs and chains. I winced internally without showing any outward signs of it. They were mortal now and that would have killed most men. But they staggered to their feet. Jacob said, “Ow?” And Wilhelm contemplated it a second and said, “Most definitely. Ow. But on a positive note, I don't have to pee anymore.”

  Apollo roared again, “Silence or I will take your tongues. Do you never shut your mouths?”

  Ok, I was smirking now. Even mortal now, those two had the power to drive everyone around them mad. I voiced this to keep them off balance like this. “They do get a bit annoying, don't they?” I was motioning with my hand behind my back for them to go, to get to safety. Well, as relatively safe as they could be at ground zero.

  Wilhelm said as they trudged along, limping toward Masika, dragging heavy chains behind them, “We'll just go sit down to watch and catalog our new injuries. Can bruises get bruises?” Then Jacob asked, “About that food... even some...” Isla materialized by their sides, looking as if she wished to help them along.

  “Go!” I had to cover my ears at the shriek from Hermes. Then he glared at us. “This is why your kind would have never amounted to anything, and proves why there is no help for...”

  Rachel asked almost innocently, “What? Because of them? They're as annoying to us as you. We could'a killed them ourselves for ya, and saved you the trip here if that was your reasoning.” I had to grin, we all knew instinctively what the others were doing, and if we could keep them off balance for...

  Hermes crouched to place his face inches from Rachel and he shouted in that earth rumbling frustration. “Silence...” Then he paused, his nose twitching as he pulled slowly back, his eyes narrowing. “You stink of the demon realm.”

  I was almost relieved to hear the hesitation in his words. So they truly were afraid of something, afraid of the demons. Good.

  Rachel covered her nose. “Yeah? Well, you need a breath mint.”

  I tried not to snort at Wilhelm's voice in the distance. “It's a bit drafty this time of year without clothes.” Jacob adding, “Though it is freeing.” Those men are the type every sane person loves to hate. But they were our annoying asses, who had saved me from eternal slumber, so a part of me was relieved that they were still alive.

  Apollo loomed over me and Daria as he stepped up to us. “Scales, you have failed in your duties, this realm has been out of balance for some time now, due to the mismanagement by the prior Scales and your refusal to execute your responsibilities.”

  I shook my head, not blinking as the immense power of the being washed over me. “I
disagree. If you could feel what we feel, it was when you stepped through to this realm when the balance torqued overwhelmingly to the side of corruption. You have lost yourselves and cannot see what you have become. Deigning to preside over all the realms as judges, jury, and executioners had perverted your original purpose, to observe the natural development of other realms. If it is their fate to extinguish themselves, it should be left to them. No matter your power, you are not gods, believe me, I know one.”

  Apollo shook his head as Hermes crossed his arms over his chest as if in judgment while he spoke. “You cannot begin to conceive what we Elders can see. Your words cannot prevent the inevitable. We will reset the mortal realm, to rid eternity of this and countless other planets which have kept the realm in chaos. With us shepherding the new worlds we create, a more acceptable reality will come to be.”

  Then Hermes said, “Return our power to us, the mantle of the Scales will be given to our new creation.”

  This confirmed my suspicions about the mantle of the Scales. That it was part of the Elders' own power that they had cleaved from their own and shaped it into this driving need for balance... and that they could not simply take it from us. It had to be given of our own free will or bestowed upon others just as the Grimm brothers had given it to us before Isla took them to their fate with the Elders.

  So it was a power of its own now and they wanted to unmake it to add the power back into their collective. Which gave us either a bargaining chip or a potential weapon if things went bad here. I said simply, “No.”

  Apollo sighed and said, “Then we will just strip it from your corpses.”

  Snow hopped off my shoulder and Perchta towered in front of the two Elders, virtually glowing with pure silver power, her snow-white antlers reaching to the sky. I've never seen her manifest in anything larger than human and it was awe-inspiring and a little frightening to know I had exchanged blows with her before she had the bulk of her strength back. Now, she was almost who she had been, nature herself, a goddess of both love and of wrath.

  This was it, what we all had feared, she and Gretta had finally become one, and Perchta had just been reborn. I could feel it with all of my being, her power called to the wolf in me. She said in a tone that sounded like the fury of a hurricane, tamed only by her sheer will, “Elders of Xiltrylnyn, be it known that this realm is under my protection. If you and your brethren attempt to do it harm, then I Perchta, Mother Goddess of Nature and leader of the Wild Hunt will stand against you.”

  Hermes looked up at her and said, “This is not your concern, nature witch, return to your gardens and leave this realm to its fate.”

  I wondered what these Elders real names were, I just knew who they were trying to look like, so Apollo and Hermes it would be until I knew better. Though I assumed Apollo to be Lapetus, their leader.

  Perchta smiled down at me and I could see Snow somewhere in those cloudy white eyes swirling with barely restrained power, and then she inclined her head slightly to me before looking back at the Elders and said primly, “No.”

  My eyes could barely track Apollo's hand as he struck at her. She simply, almost casually, raised a hand, and all the power he had channeled behind his punch struck a shimmering wall of magic that tasted of nature and the creation of life itself.

  They both slid back a dozen feet as the power attenuated and burst to the sides vaporizing buildings and heaving the ground, the great wall surrounding the city cracked and crumbled where the power struck it. We were all barely able to keep our feet through the shaking of the very earth itself and the cacophony of sound of rushing power and destruction.

  Perchta was panting, her legs looking shaky then she smiled almost cruelly and I followed her gaze. Both Apollo and Hermes' noses were bleeding. Hermes looked almost panicked as he motioned a hand and their horde started to charge.

  I paid that no mind as I smiled, feeling the predator in me rising over the fact that these Elders, who fancied themselves gods, were bleeding. Gods, do not bleed. As one we charged at the flood of warriors, snarling and bellowing our challenge as Perchta clashed with the Elders.

  I swore to myself, that this day, no matter the outcome, would be a day the Elders would know they had been in the fight of their lives, as I dove on the first of the enemy.

  Chapter 11 – One Big Lizard

  We stared on as the massive shell of energy cracked and fell away. Ella-Marie swept me back with an arm. “Behind us Parker.”

  Dorothy looked from the creature emerging from the dissolving shell of reality with a cocked eyebrow toward her girl. Toni blushed and squished up her face as she said almost cutely, “Sorry.”

  I just stared on in disbelief as Ella-Marie said, “Bloody hell, that's one big lizard.” It was, and I was a little confused too.

  I know what all of us were expecting, we knew Toto had been thinking of Godzilla and all those old black and white monster movies of the giant lizard stomping through Tokyo. Apparently, Mnemosyne had used the intent behind Toni's thought to model a similar threat. I pointed at the beast as it shook its head as if to clear it and then swung its gaze to us, “Umm... that ain't Godzilla.”

  As the monster roared, it hesitated at all of our confused looks. It hissed out, “I shall be your death. And when you and your allies fall, then we will reshape the mortal realm and shepherd it into what it could have been.” Its massive tongue snicked out to taste the air.

  Even Dot was smashing her lips to one side and pointed at the creature, a questioning look on her face. Toto shrugged.

  Our confusion seemed to enrage it as it bellowed, shaking the ground and cracking parts of the great stone wall we stood upon. “Prepare to be undone!”

  Ella-Marie held up a finger. “Point of fact before we get to the undoing, but why do you look like some little girl's feckin' pet chameleon? Not saying it's a bad look on you, you really pull it off, but I thought you were trying to scare us, Meepleboop or whatever yer feckin' name was.”

  This oversize chameleon pulled back a bit, looking confused, and if it wasn't fifty feet tall standing on its hind legs, the expression would have looked cute. Then it roared out, “Silence! I told you that I am Mnemosyne. You will accord me the respect that is due an Elder of Xiltrylnyn! My power quested out a reptile form when I plucked the thought from the weak-minded simpleton and this was the most prevalent one in the area.”

  Toto pouted. “Hey!”

  I pointed out as I noted the look on Dot's face and felt immense amounts of her reality-warping magic flowing from her, knowing now that the girls were just stalling for something. “That's a mouthful. How about we just call you Meep from Zil? No, that's too much like Invader Zim, so maybe...”

  She screeched at us and started rumbling toward us, her power flaring so much I almost couldn't breathe, being a sensitive. Ella-Marie wasn't used to how I felt magic as a physical thing, and being in my body, they staggered when they felt just a portion of what I felt. The remaining buildings that had not fallen in the battle thus far, crumbled in her wake. Ok, 'now' the giant chameleon was sort of scary.

  Ella-Marie, Toto, and I took defensive stances, with Toto dogging out, but Dot just smirked, a truly wicked gleam in her eyes as she made a fist and yanked at the air. Before the lizard had made it even five steps, ropes of crackling emerald lightning thicker than the trunks of the soaring redwoods in California, wrapped around the four legs and tail of the mammoth reptile and yanked it back, off its feet.

  I had to cover my crystal ears as the beast shrieked in fury and agony as it was pulled up against the tear in reality, the one way portal into the mortal realm. With the sizzling and popping of flesh and screaming of the thrashing monster as its body was being torn apart, it was pulled back by the ropes of Oz magic.

  It made a desperate slashing motion and the portal just ceased to be. The massive beast slumped, then crumpled, its entire backside missing, including its spine, and half of one side. I could feel the rage before I saw it i
n the Elder's eyes, then with almost a wheeze and flare of its eyes, the emerald lightning binding it, exploded and Dot quickly shielded us as debris flew in all directions destroying the wall and the city for a couple of blocks around. Even the great Tokyo Wall that surrounded the city, was cracked and crumbling for a couple of hundred feet.

  We tumbled down to the ground, I sprawled on my butt, Ella-Marie landing in that damned three-point hero stance of hers, cracking the road beneath her, as Toto landed gracefully beside her on all four paws. We looked up to see Dot suspended in the air by her sheer will and she growled out a challenge and a tornado caught her and thrust her toward the helpless lizard.

  The power in the lizard's eyes extinguished and with a wet tearing and popping sound, its head liquefied and a twenty-foot tall version of Mnemosyne, charged out of the macabre remains as she dove at Dot.

  Just before they clashed, I noted that the Elder's left side was charred and bubbled, her left arm hanging loosely with a blackish goo I think may have been what the Elders had for blood, dripping from it. Dorothy of Oz had truly injured the being who believed herself a god.

  I felt it an instant before it happened, I reached a hand uselessly forward as I started to warn Dot. Just as the two magical titans collided, the Elder released what felt like all her magic at once, intending to end this fight and us in one blow.

  I screamed and fell to my knees as reality was torn around us in spiked, ragged waves of the sort of energy that could reshape creation itself. Somehow, Ella-Marie had moved in front of me, her magics sinking deep into the Earth itself to anchor us as the magic shockwave passed over and past us as the city of Tokyo was shredded, and torn from this reality. Millions of people torn apart in the raging torrent of power, with just a thought from the Elder. I could feel it all happening around us as the spirit of the world itself screamed in my soul.