Armageddon

by Erik Schubach

  Then she smirked. “And she is no longer of this realm, as she has been marked by the demon realm forever. I shall watch over her until she can return to her own.”

  Then she turned her back on the Elders. One called out in a feminine tone, “Sister...”

  It was clear that some of them were torn over losing Titania from their fold. The other Elder said with soul-wrenching grief, “They've killed Mnemosyne.”

  Masika's steps faltered a moment as she paused but didn't look back, saying, “You... she was the aggressor here. You all took that chance by coming here to kill every being in the mortal realm because they do not fit your template. She knew they would not simply lie down as you played... gods.” Then she took a deep breath to center herself and then marched past us carrying Illya.

  I noted that neither had Illya shrank nor had Masika grown, but she was somehow cradling the immense, raggedly breathing unicorn to her. I had to close my eyes so my mind didn't break over the contradiction. Reality bending magic gave me a headache. It was bad enough when Dot did these sort of things, but to the Voodoo Queen, it was as natural as breathing, and I'm sure she wasn't even aware she had done it.

  Lapetus regarded her back a moment, then huffed in exasperation as he pointed at Red. “One last time, return to us the power from the mantle of the Scales, or we will take it ourselves.”

  Mari smirked at him and said, “If you could do that, you would have already. You see, I've figured out the power of the Scales. It must be freely given. And if I'm right, the raw power itself can either be returned to you or alternatively the mantle can bestowed upon another duo. You didn't expect the Grimm brothers to give it to us before they returned to you for judgment.”

  He roared, the earth quaking beneath our feet, “Enough, we will kill you and take what is ours.”

  Maireni Damaschin has always had this quality about her that exuded authority and power. Some say it is the power of the Alpha Wolves or something the cloak of the Red Hood had bestowed on her, but I believe it is that she had been forged into a weapon for right over the centuries. She has seen so much, done so much, and endured so much that her will has become unbreakable.

  And she inspired you just by looking at her. She took one step forward and smirked as she lifted a hand to beckon with her fingers as she said, “Then come and get it.”

  Chapter 15 – Night of the Red Hood

  I stepped forward beckoning the Lapetus, baiting the Elders, smirking and hoping I was right about everything. I was playing with the fate of our very existence here. I didn't believe he could do as he said as I taunted, “Then come and get it.”

  I have lived dozens of lifetimes, still the blink of an eye to an Elder, but an eternity when measured in the short but brilliant light of mortality that burns like a thousand suns before it is extinguished. And as Ella would say if she were still with us, I could smell a pile of horseshit from a mile away. The Elders wanted us to think them gods, but they were flawed like everyone else. Not even the one true Goddess I knew was perfect.

  This is how they kept order and lorded over the other realms. Being judge, jury, and executioner. They couldn't show weakness or the other realms may realize what we already have, and rebel. Masika has already seen what has become of her once noble race of watchers. They strayed from their path and became the very thing they hated, but they seem blind to it.

  If we failed here, then all the life in the mortal realm, the most expansive realm on all the paths through the veil, so expansive it had countless worlds with countless people in it beyond the tiny scope of our planet. They could do it with the power they had between them, a little less so with one of their number dead. And that is why they needed the substantial power woven into the mantle of the Scales. If they reset now, they might fail, and the power of the Scales would be lost to them forever.

  I could be wrong, but I prayed I wasn't. All I had was my experience with those who would be king in my many lifetimes, and they always fell on their own swords, intentionally or not. And I had two aces up my sleeves left to play. If they were not enough, then we will have failed everyone... I will have failed everyone, and I could not allow that to happen this night. It was time for me to do what I was created to do.

  They charged... I charged back.

  Tonight is the night of the Red Hood.

  I dodged right, pirouetting around a spire of molten rock that erupted from the ground where I was about to step, but I had already seen it happen in an impression of the future the power of the Scales afforded me. I could feel the power weighing and measuring the outcome as it would pertain to the balance between good and evil in the realm we stood in.

  It used to annoy me when the brothers Grimm used the power in that way to avoid strikes from not just the enemy but from us. And I knew how it was a minor misuse of the mantle, as it wasn't screaming in my subconscious that I must bring about balance. It was a matter of sheer will against the driving force of the magics not to act upon it to change the balance back to equilibrium, by adjusting how much good or evil there was in the world.

  Grudgingly, I had to respect the brothers for how many centuries they had to listen to the incessant voices in the back of their minds pushing and nagging and screaming for it to be so. And they used it to maneuver this entire confrontation to try to either free the mortal realm of the Elder's influence or to end the voices all together if we fail here.

  I twisted and turned at an almost sedate pace, closing the gap between us, keeping track of Daria with the bond of the Scales as she circled behind them stealthily. I had to smile, at our new sisters, Dorothy and Wendy, the Hook, as they weren't as... subtle as us, as they just blew through every obstacle and sliced through any spells the Elders were throwing at us.

  I never thought I'd meet any humans who would be able to give Perchta a run for her money until these two arrived in our lives after we Scales sent the others, without their knowledge, hunting for allies using their distracting thoughts to guide them while on the path to Perchta's Gardens.

  Rose... she was broken again, I could feel it within her, her own balance was torn from her and she radiated sorrow to match the potential for evil that coursed through the literal venom in her veins. But the way the Elder with one leg stared at her advancing in a storm of whupping and churning vines, she may be more formidable against the Elders than anticipated. I had to smile in pride, she too was of the Damaschin line like Rapunzel and me.

  Our other sisters had no fear, they did not benefit from the power of the Scales as I did, yet they charged right alongside the other Avatars. I didn't have time to worry about them, they could defend themselves, and Snow and Perchta would make sure that they were as safe as we could make them.

  I just needed to get close to them to pull off what I hoped would turn the tide of this battle for the survival of the mortal realm.

  The song of the hunt was singing in my blood, and the power of the Alpha Wolves imbued in the curse of the Red Hood had me growling like a wolf, showing my slightly elongated canines as I whipped up my crossbow, smirking at the tip of the bolt in it as I let lose a shot.

  I whispered, “A present for you,” as the bolt, which they didn't even attempt to block because it was as insignificant as a bullet to them, struck home in the eye of the Female who looked to be healing burns from all over her body.

  The Elder screamed in agony as the bolt which I had tipped with an arrowhead carved from demon bone, did what no mortal weapon could do as it penetrated her eye and blinded her on one side. The other uninjured one, dressed as Hermes, held her as he pulled the bolt from her eye and touched the arrowhead, hissing as he dropped it as it had bitten him. He roared, “Demon bone! They use demon bone against us Lapetus! We must combine our power now and start the reset, the mantel of the Scales be damned. We've lived without that part of us for so long that we will not miss it. They've killed Mnemosyne, injured Phoebe, and crippled Themis. It must end now, no realm has dared defy the Elders of
Xiltrylnyn like this cesspool of a realm has, they must be made an example of.”

  Lapetus looked from me for the barest instant to look at his battered group then he growled out, “Fine. Titania has forsaken us and now we have lost another of us, and I swore that would never happen again. We cannot allow our numbers to dwindle any more. It is time for judgment, prepare yourselves, brothers and sister.”

  They all moved into a circle, back to back, the lamed one using a warped and twisted girder from the wreckage of the city as a crutch. I could feel them pulling power from beyond our realm, power to shatter the bonds of reality and matter that held together with the very fabric of time and space. They were using themselves as the conduit. Was this... was this how the Big Bang had occurred?

  Were they truly blind to what they had become? Their presence swung the pendulum to evil, above all the brave men and women of the world who fought and died this night, above the gathered Avatars. But that was the first ace I was to play, but only if we could reach them before they had enough power for the chain reaction of their reset to begin.

  I called out, “Dot!” As I leapt into the air, and she backhanded the air with so much power that if I were not the Red Hood, would have shattered my bones. I had watched her and Ella do this maneuver many times when they were practicing attacks back in Kansas.

  In their distraction as they watched me being flung toward them to cross the last thirty yards in the blink of an eye, I saw a shadow diving at another Elder as I clenched a fist, tendons creaking and knuckles cracking as Lapetus thrust a fist at me almost too fast for my wolf senses to follow, but I wasn't trying to dodge it.

  I whipped my fist at his, and my much smaller fist impacted his and the world seemed to suck in on itself as power compressed between us, and I willed the mantle of the Scales from me and into him with our contact just as Daria buried her fangs in the neck of the female from the Elder's blind side.

  Then sound and energy returned with a vengeance as Daria and I were thrown back by the shockwave. I felt as if my lungs were being hyper-compressed by the wave of power that was throwing me back, reigniting the world around us in flames and destruction again, most of the debris from the city now vaporized.

  Perchta caught me in mid-air as Wendy looked through her hook as it shone like a star in the heavens, superheating as she caught Daria in a bubble of force, attenuating the bone-crushing force.

  When the wave passed, Perchta dropped me to the ground, I landed in a three-point stance, my eyes trained on the Elders as I growled out with venom of my own, “You wanted the power of the Scales back that bad? You can have it.” Instead of surrendering the raw power to them willingly, Daria and I had instead passed the mantle on to the two Elders instead. Assigning them as the new Scales so they could feel what it is that their people had become.

  Lapetus blinked at me, looking shocked and confused as Phoebe stared at her hands then at her kin, her voice whispering as she glared at Daria who was now circling around them to my side, “What have you done?”

  Then her eye widened as she asked almost in horror, “What have we done?”

  I have to admit that this was a big gamble when the Grimm brothers bestowed the mantle of the Scales upon us, I had been dead at the time. I didn't know if when the power of the Scales left me if I would return to that state or would still live. I would have gladly given up my life if it were to save this realm and all those whom I loved, but I admit to feeling an immense sense of relief that I am still here.

  I looked down to Daria as she moved under my hand and I buried my fingers in her fur, a questioning look on my face. I sighed heavily in sorrow for my girl when she just shook her massive wolf's head. It appears that she had lost the ability to shift back to human without a full moon now that she had transferred her part of the mantle of the Scales to the Elders.

  I watched as Lapetus and Phoebe struggled with the new knowledge the power had imparted in them, the realization that nobody ever wants to learn about themselves, especially when they believe in their heart they were doing the right thing. How does one deal with the knowledge that they... are the bad guy?

  This was the moment of distraction my sisters needed, and almost as if it were choreographed, a wall of thorn-covered black vines and brambles tore up from underground, forming a barrier around the Elders, Rose screamed in effort as the vines tore out of her flesh and into the ground to feed it. Hook was reinforcing the lethal barrier with a wall of force as Dot brought greenish lightning down upon the titans in a display of power that eclipsed anything I had seen her do before. And the magic tasted like it was almost tainted by Elder magic.

  My blood ran cold at the realization that it must have been Dorothy who had killed the other Elder, as a witch of Oz takes on the power of those she kills. This information just made Dorothy more dangerous than ever in her uncontrolled state. She had been almost uncontrollable before, but now she threw around the power of would-be gods... and those gods now were screaming.

  I looked at the crazed look in our friend's eyes, and the smile full of glee for the agony she was dealing out. She truly was the Wicked Witch of Oz at that moment, and that made me nervous, remembering the tales of the Dark Years of Oz when the wicked overwhelmed Dot, we might have to contain her somehow after this was over, and that broke my heart as much as her losing Toni.

  The four Elders were able to take each other's hands and together they slowly pushed the universe away from themselves, forming a sphere of energy that felt as if it shouldn't exist in this or any world, and the lashing vines and lightning strikes seemed to bend out of existence around them just to appear on the other side. It was as if the shield was simply bending reality around that bubble of nonexistence.

  Even Lapetus had been heavily damaged by the assault, slowly healing burns and blisters covered his skin, and he was panting in the effort to keep their defense up.

  He roared out, “Enough!” and slashed his hand in the air; I could feel the others feeding him power. Perchta was suddenly in front of us, a hand raised and I felt her own power wrap around us like a summer breeze in a meadow, feeling of all things nature and warmth and protection as we were moved what felt halfway between the mortal realm and the pathways between worlds as an immense wave of power tore the world apart around us, and even in this strange phasing between two realms, we could feel the fury of the magic as it passed through us.

  I swallowed, thank the gods for Snow, without the mantle of the Scales, I don't think even the curse of the Red Hood could have withstood the force of four Elders. My eyes narrowed as I saw the doubt and indecision on Phoebe's face as she lent her power. Good, the Scales were warring in her mind, calling out for balance. I knew how maddening it could be and the toll it took in one's mind to ignore the call.

  She was adding to the imbalance and she was warring with that knowledge.

  My eyes widened and I spun back to look at the group with Masika and exhaled in relief, the wily old Elder had done something similar to avoid the blast wave that had already reached the Cascade Mountains and brought some of the peaks cracking and tumbling down. How many towns between Seattle and those peaks had just been destroyed at the whim of brings who saw us as no more significant as insects?

  Illya was still out, but she was now in her human form. That was a relief, I didn't know how we would contain her without Belle, and we already had Dorothy to worry about.

  Once the last of the shockwaves passed, then we were back on barren ground that resembled flattened and polished stone as far as the eye could see, all the debris of a great city just blown away from the epicenter where the Elder's stood, panting and gasping. They were overextending themselves, and even gods did not have unlimited power.

  When Lapetus raised his hand again, Phoebe grabbed his arm. “No stop. You know this is wrong, you can feel it just as I can. Titania was right. We've lost sight of who we are, and our purpose. We are contributing to the problems here in the mortal realm, not solving the
m. She let go of his arm and grabbed her head between her hands. “Everything is wrong! I can't make the voices leave me alone. We...”

  Lapetus growled out at her, as Hook and Dot started to spread out a bit from our group, preparing for another attack, “It is a trick, a distraction. They are using the imbalance to confuse us.” He looked past us then spat out in disdain as he grabbed her hand, thrusting one forward toward Masika's group. “Take the mantle back you annoying fleas!”

  Wilhelm and Jacob shuddered then exhaled as their wounds healed before our eyes. Wilhelm said, “Ah, so this is what it feels like not to be in pain anymore.”

  Jacob nodded his agreement, “Indeed. Refreshing. Now if we could do something about the breeze on our nethers.”

  “I may have to pee again.”

  Parker muttered, “Oh dear god, they're back.”

  I smiled sadly at her, glad that she could still joke when I saw that soul-rending pain in her eyes. Ella and Marie were her joy, her love, her reason for everything good in her life, and these beings had taken that from her. I could not imagine her pain.

  The fog in Phoebe's eye seemed to clear as she shook her head, her other eye was mostly healed now, just a milky white sheen over it, and I noted Themis' stump had grown halfway to the ground. We had to finish this now before they all healed.

  I told the others as they advanced with Perchta, “Hold.”

  They looked back at me and I gave them, 'the look.' telling them with my eyes to trust me. I had one last card to play, and it was the most dangerous gamble of my life.

  I moved in front of the group with all the authority I could muster, pulled the red hood of my cloak back to look Lapetus in the eye across the twenty yards separating us. I felt my subsonic growl raise to audible as I regarded him and the others one at a time then said, “You are right, Lapetus. Enough. It is time for you to leave this realm with your tails tucked between your legs. We've entertained your petty cruelty for too long. I give you this one chance to comply or you will face my wrath.”