by Alex Raizman
Those two factors’ new values caused Ryan to burst into flame. With no other option, he dove out the window. The small part of him that wasn’t focused on the fact that he was on fire was glad to note that Týr leapt out after him.
Hardened steel met solid wood a couple times in the air, and then both of them impacted the street below. Týr was on top, and Ryan, for the third time in under a minute, found himself slamming into an object that should have shattered his body. In this case, the ground. Concrete cracked in a spiderweb around their impact.
The pain was incredible, but through it all Ryan was sure of one thing. He might not have been able to prevent his impending impact with the ground, but he could at least not burn to death in the process. He twisted reality to force all the air away from himself, and the flames went out. Týr didn’t seem interested in trying to incinerate Ryan completely, and let the normal laws of friction and air density around Ryan resume. Allowed. I couldn’t even break it, Týr just stopped maintaining it. In some ways, Týr was more dangerous than Enki had been. Less brutal. He was the scalpel to Enki’s claymore. And now that Týr was on top of him, Ryan had no idea how he was going to survive.
He didn’t have to answer that question, because Týr stepped back. It was a stark contrast to the relentless assault Enki had dished out. Týr was actually giving Ryan a chance to stand up as opposed to pressing his advantage. Is he stupid? Ryan thought, trying to get to his feet, or is he just that good a guy? Thankfully, this gave people on the ground time to scatter. Unfortunately, the people on the ground were...people, and only backed up some. A few had run - at least, Ryan hoped they had - but for the most part people were reaching into their pockets and pulling out cellphones to record. Men and women in business suits going about their day. Teenagers holding skateboards. One group in particular drew Ryan’s eyes, a man and a woman standing there, with the woman holding a small child who was staring at them in wonder. Seriously? You have a damn baby, run you idiots!
Ryan realized how the two of them looked. Týr was still spotless, his hair blond and his smile gleaming, his sword shimmering in the sun, while Ryan had skin covered with dark soot that still smoldered in places and a primitive weapon with black glass and skulls. Skulls? Seriously? I should learn to shapeshift so I could sprout horns, Ryan thought through the pain. Might as well go all in.
Ryan noticed how carefully Týr’s posture was constructed. Chest out, sword extended, a firm yet confident gleam in his eyes mixed with a half smug grin. It looked, to the people surrounding them and to the camera phones like an angel fighting a demon. Exactly what Týr wanted. He’s not stupid. He’s mugging for the damn cameras.
Before Týr could take maximum advantage of the mixed poses, a window shattered, and Crystal and Athena repeated Ryan and Týr’s descent - with Team “End the World” getting similar results this time around. Crystal got buried in the concrete as well, but Athena backed off. For a moment Ryan thought Athena was going for the same effect as Týr. Then he noticed Crystal still had her sword up and was already rolling out of the pit. Athena hadn’t moved to try for the dramatic effect. She just didn’t want to get impaled.
“It’s over, you foul abominations!” Týr shouted as Athena stepped next to him. “Your plan to destroy the world ends here, once Enki returns from whatever you did to him! Your reign of terror is over.”
“Seriously?” Crystal spoke up here, giving Ryan time to catch his breath and push away the pains of his burns. “What kind of wanker talks like that?”
The ghost of a smile crossed even Athena’s eyes with that. Týr scowled. “Fine. You’re both badly hurt. Surrender now and we’ll show you mercy.”
“Any time now!” Ryan said, his voice as loud as he could make it through the pain. “Can we hurry it up?”
“Hurry it up? So you wish to surrender?” Týr and Athena shared a confused glance.
“I wasn’t...ah, damn, that hurts...I wasn’t talking to you.”
Athena whirled around while Týr kept his blade pointed at Crystal and Ryan. The door to the front of the hotel opened, and out walked Moloch. “Terribly sorry about the delay,” he said, “Horrible traffic around the Void Nebula, you know how it is.”
“Moloch,” Athena hissed. That one word carried more actual emotion than every earlier statement combined. “So you’re the backup.”
Moloch smiled. His mouth was a rotten graveyard overgrown with black moss and yellow, crooked headstones. “No, my dear. You know I detest physical confrontation or utilizing my divine powers in so crass a matter.” His voice was thin and airy, like the breeze through a mausoleum. From the doorway behind Moloch came a high, plaintive wail, the inhuman agony that Crystal and Ryan had heard on Cipher Nullity. Moloch's rotting grin widened with Ryan’s eyes. What is he doing? What the hell is he doing? This isn’t what we talked about.
Hands began to emerge from the doorway, pitch black hands that did not attach to any arms. The Hecatoncheires, almost half again as tall as of the one they had encountered before, pulled itself through the narrow doorway like ooze sliding through a pipe. “That, my dear, is the backup.”
◆◆◆
Ryan’s mouth fell open. This isn’t the plan. That’s not the plan at all. No part of the plan called for a damn Hecatoncheires! What the hell is Moloch thinking? The monster let out another long, mournful wail, and Ryan subconsciously edged closer to Crystal. Not behind her, definitely not wanting to get behind her again… he glanced around at the crowd.
Logic would dictate that the sight of an abomination against biology, physics, and several known religions (and at least two unknown cults) would have more people running in the kind of screaming terror that later on necessitates a change of undergarments. Apparently, however, the fight or flight instinct had a third partner in the modern age of camera phones - fight, flight or photograph. Most of the crowd was, distressingly, choosing the latter.
“Can’t be that bad, right?” Ryan half whispered to Crystal, watching Athena and Týr get ready to square off against the monster. “You smote the one we faced earlier pretty quick.”
Crystal let out a choking sound that Ryan could only call a rage laugh. For the first time since Moloch’s betrayal, Ryan saw Crystal’s face. If looks could kill, Moloch would have been completely removed from reality from the sheer force of Crystal’s glare. “Love, that was a half-starved Hecatoncheires, and we were in a realm where I was queen for a few thousand years. This is Earth, and that one is nice and healthy.”
Týr and Athena didn’t wait for Moloch’s brute to make the first move. They charged in, each of them taking a different side in half arcs. The Hecatoncheires’ hands moved, but it was different from what Ryan had seen before. The hands were all moving independently - not two giant masses, but swatting and grasping like a swarm of bees with fingers.
“We should...we should go.” Crystal’s voice still tight with anger. “This was the plan if we were losing, yeah? Get Moloch here, let him distract, we get out.”
“Right.” Neither of them moved as Týr got swatted aside on the left, ramming headfirst into a stoplight post so hard that it was bent in half, and a dozen hands latched on to Athena on the right. They began to tug on her arms, and she started to scream in agony as it tried to tear her apart. But that wasn’t what Athena and Tyr were focused on. Both of them watched as Moloch headed back into his ship, the hotel doors closing behind them.
You played us, Moloch. The realization hit Ryan with a sudden flash of rage. You set us up. If we help Athena and Týr, we’ll be too tired to fight Enki and Bast. If we don’t…Much as he might wish he could, Ryan couldn’t escape the reality that that Hecatoncheires was going to go on a rampage after it killed Athena and Týr. They would get better, but the random innocent people? Not so much. I knew we couldn’t trust you. I just hope I get to pay you back for that. Crystal and Ryan didn’t need to share a look. She drew her sword, he his obsidian weapon, and they ran in.
They both began twisting equations as they
ran. Ryan dropped the coefficient of friction of Athena’s skin to nearly zero, a reversal of the trick Týr had tried on him. The hands trying to tug her apart slipped off and went flying wide. Crystal did something far more complex than just changing an equation. Instead, she twisted the atomic number of the nitrogen in the air around the horrible lamprey head of the giant. Seven changed to nineteen, and the nitrogen changed to potassium, as every molecule of water in the air for a full block was sucked in towards the monster. Before it could move far from the head, the temperature jumped up several hundred degrees and the potassium reacted with the water, as potassium is prone to doing.
All that science meant that Ryan learned how to create a fireball.
The sudden explosion was deafening, and the shockwave startled Týr into consciousness, in defiance of what explosions typically do to states of awareness. Athena brushed her hair out of her face and glanced at the giant, then back at Ryan, her eyes narrowed. “Why did you help me?”
“Because giant monster! Rampage! Question later, we have to stop it!”
She gave a single curt nod, then rolled away as the Hecatoncheires slapped at the ground where she had been. She threw her sword at it, but she changed the acceleration of the tip as it flew instead of letting it tumble end over end, and the sword punched through the giant at hypersonic speeds. Glass shattered nearby from the sonic boom.
Ryan couldn’t help but wonder why he could follow the complex changes Crystal made, but couldn’t see how Athena sped up a sword.
The Hecatoncheires seemed to dislike being stabbed by a supersonic sword, as anyone would, but was not as inconvenienced as Ryan had hoped. Two of its free hands slapped over the entry and exit wound, stemming the tide of ichor flowing from the holes.
“Bast! We need your help!” Týr shouted, and he did his own twisting of reality. He wasn’t pointing his hand at the monster before them. His hand pointed upwards. When no response came from above, he snarled and turned towards Crystal and Ryan. “If you be not villains, keep it busy, and jump away when I say!”
“Crystal?” Ryan asked.
“Roll with it!” She dashed in, and Ryan followed. Three on one, and they were still getting beat. This monster was clearly annoyed by them, but they were wasps stinging it, and they could only keep stinging until they got swatted.
The Hecatoncheires could do more than sting. Ryan got slapped away like a naughty puppy, bouncing across the concrete and slamming into some poor bastard’s car. That would have been worse, but Týr chose that exact second to shout “Jump!”
Crystal and Athena broke free as Týr’s manipulations took effect. A small part of Ryan wondered what Týr was seeing, if not math. Lenses of air, maybe? Nordic runes? Something stranger? Maybe when this was done, he’d get to ask Týr.
No matter what Týr saw, fifty kilometers up, the atmosphere warped. A circle of darkness five kilometers wide formed as every single photon coming from the sun was shocked to find it had been squeezed into a point one meter across. Dusting themselves off in confusion, the photons then continued their journey to the Earth, but now packed together. The result? A beam of golden light shot from the center of the dark spot in the sky like it had been fired from an alien spaceship and for a few seconds, almost half a billion watts of solar energy found itself meeting the top of the Hecatoncheires’ head.
It may have been an unholy monster, anathema to the normal laws of physics, but normal physics didn’t allow for that much sunlight to come into a single point under typical circumstances. Two cases of abnormal physics met, got confused, and decided that they should let plain old ordinary physics decide this.
Ryan shielded his eyes as those physical laws looked at the situation and decided that the Hecatoncheires didn’t get to be anything anymore. As the Hecatoncheires was vaporized, the beam cut a hole into the ground for another three hundred feet before the energy was expended.
Fortunately, Týr had accounted for energy radiating outwards, and the four gods and dozens of stupidly watching onlookers were not fried alongside the giant. The final touch was a deafening clap of thunder as air rushed back into the column of sky the photons had vaporized.
Ryan stared as he realized he’d watched a man command even a small portion of the sun’s power. I don’t think anyone could blame me for staring at it like a moron. I’m sure everyone else is. He couldn’t completely savor the moment, however. In the back of his mind, a small niggling doubt jumped up and down for attention. Where the hell is Enki? He should have rejoined the fight by now, surely. So why wasn’t he? Maybe he realizes he’s beat. Týr and Athena have to be questioning him right about now, too.
After a few more moments, someone in the crowd cheered. That man was, in fact, Bob Robertson. He’d come to this hotel in the hopes of finally catching his wife in the affair he was certain was going on. He was right - the affair had been interrupted by Ryan flying through a wall. His wife would confess the entire affair later that day after the near-death experience of two gods battling through her lover’s nest. Bob’s cheer started a round of applause and shaking the four gods out of their stunned stupor.
Bast jumped out of the hotel finally, landing next to the hole Týr had cut in the Earth. Shit, Ryan thought. He and Crystal were both drained. Týr and Athena weren’t in great shape either, but Bast hadn’t done a single thing the entire fight. Her power was unspent, and she was grinning like the proverbial cat that had gotten that damn canary.
“Bast, wait,” Athena gasped “they tried to protect people - why would they do that if they were going to end the-”
Athena’s protest was interrupted as Bast shot Týr in the head.
Her gun - which Ryan noted was made of some strange metal and had some odd design that he couldn’t place - tracked over and, before anyone could react, her next bullet punched through Crystal’s skull.
Ryan was still trying to stand. The shock of seeing Týr die had frozen him, and he was not ready for the way Crystal’s head snapped back at the impact. It was almost like she’d noticed something above her head. The gesture was so natural that, even as the blood began to run down her forehead from the impact, Ryan was half tempted to look up himself. What wasn’t natural was the way her body crumpled, all tension gone out of her bones. Crystal was gone - this was just the body she had inhabited, and without her to animate it anymore it was collapsing into a pile on the ground.
Ryan screamed wordlessly in rage and fear and hatred. He tried to move towards Bast, but he couldn’t find the strength to do anything but slump back to his knees. Crystal was dead. The first person to show him any kindness in ages, the person who had been there to help him through this, the first woman he’d actually been intimate with - seeing her die was more painful than Ryan could have imagined. The gun began to track over to Ryan, but he didn’t care. He was weak, he was helpless, he could barely rise to his feet, and the first friend he’d had in years was dead on the street in front of him.
While Ryan grieved and Bast got ready to shoot him in the head, Athena let out a scream of her own, a surge of emotion that almost cut through Ryan’s own despair. Her scream held depths of anguish Ryan couldn’t match. Athena must had twisted reality the moment Bast had taken the shoot at Týr. The sword she had thrown through the Hecatoncheires earlier finally got back to her hand - passing through Bast’s elbow in the process, disarming her of both armament and arm.
Bast stared at the bleeding stump in confusion. Athena made a step like she was going to follow up the attack, then caught herself and turned to Ryan. She looked as drained as Ryan felt. Even one armed, can we take Bast? The cat goddess’s gaze was already clearing, and she was summoning fire to cauterize the wound.
Seeing Bast injured spurred Ryan to action. He reached out his hand to twist reality and felt...nothing. No math appeared, no power came to his hand.
He could feel his Hungers gnawing at him. I’m out of juice. I ran out of power.
Athena, it seemed, was in the same predicament. “Eschaton!
” She shouted, her voice tight with restrained emotion. “We must go! She’ll recover quickly!”
“What about-”
Athena was moving. She grabbed Crystal’s corpse as she ran, throwing it over her shoulder. “Now, Eschaton. Live to fight another day.”
Hating himself but knowing she was right - Bast’s arm was already reforming bone and muscle - Ryan pulled himself to his feet and, giving his nanoverse a squeeze for the energy, ran after Athena.
Chapter 10
Shifting Alliances
“Eschaton, take us back to your door!” Athena was limping with every step, unable to keep up the pace they needed. The dead weight of Crystal’s corpse did nothing to help her move. On his end, Ryan felt a few cracked ribs slowing him down, although he couldn’t find the energy to care even as lances of pain radiated out from every step. He could barely think.
“My door?”
“Yes.” She looked at his face and he saw a glimmer of emotion. Was it pity? Sympathy? Annoyance? Stomach pain? Ryan couldn’t tell. “You haven’t learned. Fine. Then where is her door?”
Ryan bit his cheek, trying to fight back the hopeless feeling. Crystal is dead. You’re not. You have to keep moving. “Follow me,” he said, turning to walk down the street. People turned to stare. Athena was a beautiful woman, both of them were injured and battle scarred, and Athena was carrying a corpse.
Phones were coming out. “We’re going to have police soon,” Ryan muttered.
