Grapeshot Pantheon

by Dragon Cobolt

  She stepped up and kicked the door. The hinges exploded in a spray of stucco and drywall, the doorway flipping as it flew into the narrow industrial looking stairwell, bouncing off a wall and leaving a hairline fracture in the concrete.

  “Tada,” Meg said, cheerfully.

  Tethis scowled.

  Liam held up his hand. “Wait!” he said, frowning. Everyone stopped – and they heard what he had heard. It was the unmistakable heavy clunk clunk clunk of boots, the jingle of modern military armor and weaponry. Liam risked a glance and saw six men running up the stairs, their brutal looking submachine guns at the ready. The faint radio chatter he could hear was entirely in French, so he wasn’t sure what they were saying. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Liam looked at Sun Wukong. “You, in front, deflect the bullets. Meg...” He grinned. “You know what to do.”

  Sun Wukong started forward, grumbling under his breath about being in the front. But he had pulled his staff out to its full size and was twirling it in circles. He came to the corner of the stairwell just as the heavily armored cops came around the opposite corner. Their submachine guns started to chatter and bullets sparked and pinged off the staff. Meg stepped up onto the edge of the stairwell and leaped out, her wings fanning for just long enough to slow her descent and angle her to land behind the soldiers. She punched one man in the side of the head. He sprawled, and the squad started to try and react. As they swung their weapons around, Fizit flowed past Liam. She leaped like an animal – arching over the railing, sailing in the open air, then landing palm first on the face of another cop, who had just enough to scream something before he was put on his back.

  “I forgot she could do that,” Tethis whispered.

  Liam nodded. “Lizards are scary sometimes.”

  Sun had taken advantage of the abatement of fire to step up and smash one of the cops in the jaw with his staff. The cop hit the ground with a groan. By then, the rest of the squad had been taken down by Fizit and Meg’s fists. Liam grinned.

  “It is kind of nice not having to do all the work,” he said, scooping Tethis up with a grunt.

  “Hey!” Tethis squeaked.

  “Sorry, we gotta move fast,” Liam said, starting down the stairs three at a step. He was joined by Sun and Fizit. Meg simply dropped down the center of the shaft. Gunshots rang out and Liam’s heart sprang into his throat – but as he craned his head over the railing, he saw Meg was blowing smoke from her pistol. Faint groans and a few screams of pain came from the corridor. Liam took the steps five at a time, and came to the bottom to find Meg slapping a new magazine into her borrowed pistol.

  The corridor had five more cops – these ones were plain clothes. Each one was clutching a knee.

  “Meg!” Liam snapped.

  “They’ll live,” Meg said, cheerfully. “And they’ll walk again. Healing magic, remember?”

  Liam made a face.

  And then, at the intersection of the main corridor that adjoined to the corridor, he saw Liv walking past two other cops who were trying to stop her. Both had set their riot shields up and locked them together, their feet planted on the ground. They were throwing every bit of weight into trying to slow Liv. She hadn’t even paused and wasn’t even pushing. She just stepped forward and the cops skidded backwards. Finally seeming to get annoyed with even this minor delay, she put her palms on both shields, then shoved to the side.

  The two cops smashed into walls with groans.

  Liam started to jog forward. “Liv!” he shouted.

  She ignored him – she was glaring at the doorway that she had focused on.

  Liv was going after Ares.

  And she wasn’t going to let a goddamn thing stand in her way.

  ***

  Liv shoved the doors open. “Father!” she shouted, her voice booming into a room suddenly silenced. Her elven ears, even before she had unlocked the true powers of her God Node, would have picked up the panicked sounds of screams, the shouts, the confused calls. There were dozens, maybe even hundreds of languages, all compacted in that room. Diplomats and translators both were all being ushered out of the room as fast as they could go. But the situation had gone from ‘alarming’ to ‘full action’ so fast that the room was still packed. Guards were struggling to get to clear firing positions.

  And there, standing behind the podium, was Amanda Deinhardt.

  Liv felt her mind echo like a bell – and felt a returning echo from the replica of Deinhardt. It wasn’t just that, though, that made her utterly certain of what she was looking at. It was the fact that Amanda Deinhardt was charismatic, charming. Pretty, even, if you were into women who showed they were mortal.

  But she didn’t radiate command like Ares did. Just looking at her, part of Liv longed for what she had felt before Brax. Before Liam. Before she had seen what Ares had done to beget her. Before she had been forced, by fate and by the people around her, to see what her life of war and servitude had meant. It had been so easy to coast from battle to battle, to…

  To just follow orders.

  She had felt utterly certain in those days. And even in the form of an older human, Ares radiated that certainty. And that promise of security. A place. He hadn’t even said anything and part of Liv wanted to bend her knee and beg to serve her father again. Like in the old days.

  To be quite honest?

  It pissed her right the fuck off.

  Liv snarled. “Show yourself to these people, father. Lying sounds a bit like a pussy move to me.”

  Ares shook her head. “I don’t know who you are, but the President of the United States doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  Liv tossed her head, her eyes flashing. Her hands clenched and lightning crackled along her skin as the bits of debris that her forceful opening of the doors had peppered the floor with started to float upwards, like they couldn’t quite remain attached to the ground anymore. The carpet rippled beneath her feet, invisible waves of force pulsing away from her in growing patterns. She grinned – and there was no mercy in that grin.

  “So we get to do this the hard way then. Good.”

  Liv flew straight for the fake President.

  The blinding light didn’t come from before her.

  It came from her left.

  Searing heat smashed into her shoulder and Liv veered hard to the right as if she had taken a ninety degree angle. She shot over the heads of cowering diplomats and translators and guards, then smashed, back first, into a wall. The wall gave with a roar and spray of plaster and dust and debris. Liv’s back crashed into a desk that some functionary had abandoned, cracking the immense wood and metal frame completely in half. She coughed and sat up, feeling a slow, dull throb beginning to spread along her back, from her shoulders to her ass.

  She coughed and stood, walking into the amphitheater.

  “What the absolute fuck?” she asked, waving dust away from her face.

  The far wall had a hole sliced into it. The edges smoldered and flickered, but what bits of metal that had been worked into the wall looked just as smoothly vaporized, their cherry red edges sticking slightly farther up than the blasted plaster and brick. A dark form flew through the hole, then landed with one foot on the railing of the walkway that curved around the massive meeting space.

  “Who the fuck are you!?” Liv exclaimed.

  The woman who had flown in...was utterly unlike any woman that Liv had ever seen.

  For one thing?

  Her skin was blue. A dark blue that nearly shaded to black. Her eyes were glowing red and her teeth contained two long fangs that hooked over her lower lip. Her breasts – full and heaving – strained against a uniform that was nearly the same shade as her skin. The sleeves of the uniform ended in tattered rings around the shoulders. It looked as if she had simply torn them off, to give her muscular arms plenty of room. But what was even more bizarre was that the second set of arms that grew beneath the first. One of her lower hands – the right one – still smoked and flickered with spots of black light, which
shimmered between her fingers like a heat haze. Her upper right hand held a wicked looking combat knife, while her lower right held a sawed off shotgun.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Kali. Also known as Kalika. Also known as Shyama. Also known as the queen bitch of the fucking universe,” the blue skinned woman said, her voice a sneering, mocking one that Liv recognized.

  It was basically her own.

  “Now,” Kali said, lifting the shotgun and aiming it right at Liv. “Stand the fuck down right now, you Dodekatheon bitch.”

  Liv responded by throwing half of the desk she had landed in at Kali. The desk shot through the air as fast as a bullet, and Kali had to blast it away with a beam of purple light from her palm. Liv immediately noticed that this beam didn’t blow through walls or vaporize the desk. It just knocked it out of the way and set it on fire. As the desk smashed into the wall and the diplomats went screaming and running for the exits, Liv started to bound forward. Every step sent her rocketing forward in a zigzag pattern, forcing Kali to swung her shotgun left and right, trying to track her. She fired at the last second. Liv saw the slug shooting towards her – it wasn’t buckshot, as she had expected. She twisted, flipping around faster than a human could possibly see.

  The slug hit the wall of the room.

  Liv landed and brought her fist down towards Kali’s jaw.

  Kali caught the fist with her upper right hand, then smashed her head into Liv’s face. Liv saw white as she sprawled on her back, shattering one of the formerly used desks. Wood and plastic crunched under her and Liv saw Kali’s boot lifting upwards. Liv rolled out of the way and Kali smashed the floor so hard that the wood buckled in a circular crater. Splinters went flying and one of the boards caught Liv and actually flung her upwards. Liv took advantage of her flight, shooting up and right.

  Kali started to fire quick, strobing blasts of energy from her hands – dropping her shotgun as useless. The purple beams of energy peppered the ceiling, filling the air with dust and smoke. Liv wove and darted in a wild pattern – and saw that Kali was grinning hugely.

  She was having the fucking time of her life.

  Liv risked a glance down and saw Ares – still in the form of the President – running for the back door. She was putting on more speed than the President should have been able, but less than what she knew Ares could do. Clearly, Ares planned to keep up the deception as long as possible.

  “No!” Liv snarled – shooting forward.

  A beam of purple light shot past her front, just barely missing her. Liv skidded to a stop in the air, glaring at Kali, who was starting to fly herself, flickering black flames roaring to life around her.

  “Oh, this dance hasn’t even started yet, Olympian,” Kali purred.

  Ares got to the exit and ran right into the arms of another bizarre being. Where Kali radiated violence and sexuality and power, this figure seemed to glow with a kind of peaceful glory. But that didn’t stop Liv from gawping, because, well, the fucker had the head of an elephant. It smoothly merged with his otherwise normal body – he actually had more of a paunch than Liv would have expected, though his four arms were only slightly less slabbed with muscle than Kali’s.

  The elephant guy grabbed Ares.

  “Come with me, Madam Presi-” the elephant guy stopped, looking square at Ares.

  “Whoa, everyone!”

  Liv looked back.

  Liam had just run into the room. Next to him was Sun Wukong, holding his staff and looking smug as ever.

  “You!” Kali snarled, starting to fly towards Sun.

  “Hey babe!” Sun waved.

  “You know her?” Liam hissed, sounding shocked. Then, louder. “Ganehsa! Look out!”

  Liv snapped her head back.

  Ganehsa – what kind of god was he? - had stepped away from Ares and was drawing what looked like a battle ax from his hip. But Ares had moved in the same fluid motion, shifting as he did so. The form of the President rippled away from him and a knife flew into his palm, shot from a wrist bracer. The knife itself looked odd – glossy black and smooth. Liv had no time to admire it, though. Ares batted Ganesha’s trunk aside and plunged the knife into his chest.

  Kali’s roar of rage shook the room.

  Liam started to sprint forward. Liv flew.

  But it was Sun Wukong who acted first.

  He stepped forward, his staff flipping up into the air. It actually left his palm before dropping back into it as he stood in a perfect form. Had this been the Olympics – either ancient or modern – every onlooker would have known that he was about to break every record.

  He twisted.

  And threw.

  His staff arrowed through the air with a whistling sound, the black iron tip rushing straight towards Ares, who was jerking his glossy black knife out of Ganesha’s chest. The elephant headed god fell to one knee, clutching at his wound, still looking faintly shocked. Ares heard the staff flying towards him. He turned, then smirked, and caught the staff with one hand.

  Then, with a surprised grunt, he actually toppled ever so slightly to the left, having to shift his stance. His eyes widened as he realized just how fucking heavy Sun Wukong’s staff was. But then his grip tightened and, as he corrected his stance, he swung the staff. There was no elegance in his movement. Just brute strength. The staff rushed outwards and Liv tried to put on as much speed as she could.

  The staff was hurtling towards Liam but he had already started to drop – combat reflexes honed to anticipate and act before even the superhuman speed of a former God of War. It was the single most stunning things Liv had ever seen. Liam went into a skid, something small and black cradled in his arms. Liv recognized it.

  It was a submachine gun.

  Liam’s feet smashed into Ares’ shins – doing more to stop Liam than to actually shift Ares. The staff had finished its long arc and Ares was looking down, to try and see where Liam had gone.

  Liam pulled down the trigger.

  Bullets hammered into Ares chest, smashing home and bouncing off his chest as Liam screamed at the top of his lungs – roaring out every bit of frustration and rage and hatred he had built up over the years of conflict, both overt and direct, between him and the God of War.

  It did absolutely nothing.

  Then Liv smashed into Ares chest, going full speed.

  The two of them hit the back wall of the building – exploding out into the street in a spray of brick and plaster. They flew in a curving arc and then smashed into a pillar that was used to support the front of another building. Civilians were going running, police sirens wailed, and screams filled the air. But all Liv could focus on was Ares, his face twisted in rage underneath her. She started to smash her fists into him.

  “That’s for my mother!” she shouted, slamming a fist home. Air rippled outwards from the point of impact. Ares head had actually been knocked a few inches into the concrete stairs of the building. Liv clenched her fist and smashed home again. Another pressure wave explosion – another spray of dust, another ache in her knuckles. She was bleeding, having cut her knuckles on Ares’ teeth and skull. She didn’t care. “That’s for Brax!”

  She grabbed Ares by both sides of his head, jerking it from the crater she had punched him into. Then she smashed him back down with every bit of her strength, feeling the ground ripple with the impact.

  “And that’s for my entire fucking life, you son of a bitch,” she snarled.

  Ares looked up at her.

  His left eye was puffing up and a single tooth fell from his mouth as he spat to the side. Quietly, he laughed.

  He laughed.

  Liv trembled in fury, drawing her fist back. Lightning crackled and she screamed out her fury as she punched down.

  Ares’ hand blurred upwards and her fist slammed into his palm. Lightning surged along his arm, dispersing in a crackling haze of sparks. Ares’ eyes were cold as he clenched his fist – sending a shooting rush of pain through Liv’s hand as bones creaked and crunched.

  “Grow up,�
�� he said, his voice cold. “The only one you can blame for your wasted life is you.” He stood with a surge of energy, forcing Liv backwards. Her knees almost buckled as his hand clenched even more – her bones snapping and popping, sending shooting waves of white hot agony along her arm as nerves were crushed and severed. Her fingers were turning blue and blood dripped along her arm and between his vicious fingers.

  “But you were always blind,” Ares snarled. He flicked his wrist and that black knife of his glittered.

  He swept it upwards and twisted his other arm in the same moment. White hot pain shot along Liv’s cheek and suddenly, the entire world was blood and agony. Something hideously spherical slid along her cheek, and she felt an awful tugging sensation in the very back of her eye. The spherical something swung like a pendulum and the knowledge of what it was nearly made her gag past the pain. Her other eye opened wide as Ares twirled his knife in an arc, holding it in his fist as he twisted her arm around.

  He lifted the knife.

  And a beam of purple light smashed into his chest. Ares nearly ripped her arm from his socket as he was picked up and put through the building. Liv grabbed at her face, then screamed as she felt the dangling eye finally rip free. She hunched forward. She had become so used to being nearly invincible that even minor pain was shocking. And this wasn’t minor. Blood poured between her fingers, and she gasped heavily.

  Kali flew by overhead, snarling – her voice echoing as Liv felt what was left of her vision starting to turn gray.

  “Where did he fucking go? Where the fuck did he go?”

  Liv panted.

  Gods, she needed a nap…

  She closed her eyes.

  Her eye.

  Blackness.

  Chapter Nine

  “And that is how that feels.”

  Liv slowly opened one eye, groaning as she felt sensation slowly starting to return to her body. She did her normal post-battle check up. Her face felt like it had met King Leonidas’ sandal-clad foot for the entirety of the battle of Thermopylae, with a follow-up of every single Persian to grind the dirt in. Her ribs felt cracked, her arms felt leaden, her head swam and she was fairly certain if she sat up, she’d be struck with the specific kind of dizzy spell that only came after losing a great deal of blood.