by Alex Raizman
Ryan peered up at the clouds hung low over the island as he forced himself to stop shivering. Maybe we can use the cloud cover to our advantage? Ryan wasn’t sure how best to do so, but there probably wasn’t much that could be done there. Still, should ask Athena or Crystal. If nothing else, at least it sets the mood well. Ryan shook his head to stop his woolgathering and looked around.
Crystal was already there, standing by her doorway. It clashed with the barren landscape, a single door resting upright in the middle of a field of rocks where no structure had ever stood. Not that his own door looked any less out of place. Crystal was moving her hands and arms while staring at the open air near the shore with an intensity that surprised Ryan. His divine sight informed him of the dozens of equations she was weaving together, equations that governed fluid dynamics and airflow and moved gravity in wild and weird webs.
He saw a few specs flying through the equations. Ants. Apparently in their quest for food, most of an ant colony (awoken from hibernation by the temperature changes Crystal’s equations were causing) had wandered across the path of an area of reversed gravity strong enough to rip them off the ground. For a moment, Ryan felt a great deal of empathy for those poor little bastards. They were just going about their business, doing ant things and living ant lives, and all of a sudden forces they couldn’t comprehend ripped them up and tossed them about.
“Hey,” Ryan said, rubbing his hands together.
She smiled without looking at him, not wanting to take her eyes off her equations. “You can’t be cold, love. We had a mud fight on Mars, being cold right now is just your brain thinking it’s supposed to be. How’d the challenge go?”
Blushing at the reminder, he tried to ignore the cold, hoping he could override his brain soon. “Well enough. I imagine Enki will be rushing out here for a showdown as soon as he sees it, if we have him pegged right.” He twisted an equation of his own, pulling the ant colony out of the gravity web. “Where’s Athena?”
“I sent her out for some needed things. Food, drinks, all of that. If the fight ends up being more of a battle, we’ll need to be ready for a chance to rest and eat up, yeah?” She twisted a few more equations, each number being chosen with deliberate care, her breathing coming heavier as she did. “And even if it doesn’t, I’m going to be Hungry after I finish this.”
“Makes sense.” He squinted harder at the equations. “Okay, I know you’re building some kind of...gravity matrix, I guess? But I can’t tell what it does.”
Crystal’s smile widened. “Give me a moment and I’ll show you.” She did a few final adjustments, then stretched. “Whew. Be a dear and turn the rock there, there, and there molten, would you? Keep melting it till I tell you to stop.”
Bemused, Ryan did as she asked, changing the temperatures to over two thousand degrees. As soon as he did, the molten rock got pulled upwards and began flowing along the gravity channels. “Keep the heat up, love!” she said, sitting back on a rock to catch her breath. “That’s about four hours of math right there.”
Like how falling dominoes form a portrait, the molten rock quickly took shape. Soon a small castle, complete with a wall and battlements, stood at the end of the island. Ryan let out a low whistle as Crystal dismissed all but the gravity equations, causing the molten rock to cool as quickly as the arctic air. “Okay, you have got to show me how to do that,” Ryan said.
Crystal gave him a thumbs up. “Took me about seven thousand years to master that trick, love, so it’ll have to be after this is all done.”
“You sure? I could ask Enki to hold off for a few millennia.” For the moment, at least, he was warm from the heat radiating off the conjured castle.
Athena chose that moment to return, giving Crystal a knowing grin as she stepped out of her doorway. “Already showing off, Crystal?” Ryan noticed there was a half second hesitation before saying the name - Athena seemed to be struggling a bit more with remembering not to call Crystal Ishtar than she did with not calling him Eschaton. “Had to do your instant castle trick?”
“If you had ever mastered it, love, you know damn well you’d do it every chance you got.”
“Granted.” Athena hefted a duffle bag - one that looked far heavier than snacks could possibly account for. “I’ve finished my task. With a bit extra.”
“I was wondering why it took you that long to nip off to the corner store,” Crystal said, walking over. Athena just handed her a box of cupcakes, which Crystal snatched greedily.
“What else did you get?” Ryan asked, knowing it would be a little while before Crystal had the presence of mind to care.
Instead of answering, Athena unzipped the bag. The top layer was food and bottles of drinks, some alcoholic and some not, as well as playing cards, books, and games. The bottom layer - swords, knives, guns, and bullets. More than enough for the three of them.
“Woah. Why the arsenal?” Ryan asked. Crystal didn’t even glance up, currently in baked chocolate heaven.
“During long fights, you might find your weaponry options from your nanoverse change. Best to have some options from the core world if weapons get dropped or broken.”
Ryan sat down. “I guess that makes sense.” He glanced at the guns, then at the still-cooling castle. “So, this is really it, huh?”
“I should bloody well hope so. Otherwise we just went through a lot of effort for no reason.”
Athena nodded. “We issued a challenge, with a location. Enki has to know we’ll prepare the island for a battle, and with Moloch on his side Enki will have an army of some conjured horror or another. We, courtesy of the King of Hell, will have an army of demons.
They lapsed into silence for a few minutes. “Hey, since we’ve got a moment, I’ve got a question - if we become gods by finding nanoverses, is Zeus actually your father?”
That got a ghost of a smile out of Athena and an actual laugh out of Crystal, who was paying more attention than Ryan had realized. “No, he wasn’t. In old times, humans often presumed familial relationships between gods, and we rarely cared enough to correct them. In those times, people would have likely assumed the three of us were siblings, since we all look to be about the same age.” She glanced at Crystal, who was still chuckling, and rolled her eyes. “It’s part of why so many tales exist of supposedly related gods being...intimate.”
“Ah,” was all Ryan could say. He had to fight back his own laughter, while turning slightly red at the thought. Athena quirked an eyebrow, then glanced at Crystal. He saw the realization on her face, but not the reaction - if she cared at all, she didn’t show it.
“Okay, I’m good enough,” said Crystal, standing up and getting her last few chuckles under control. “Ryan, since the deal was with you, be a dear and call up our demon legion. Athena, can you still do that lensing trick? Might be good to know if Enki is here yet.”
Athena nodded and began weaving reality. Ryan watched - he’d never really gotten a chance to see Athena work. Every other fight, it had been mostly a melee. There was still math there, but the equations didn’t make sense, looking more like random gibberish math written on a board for a movie that wanted a character to look smart. Guess it’s because she’s working with elements. Ryan stood up, and raised his arms, focusing on calling up the Legion of Hell. Crystal watched him expectantly. For about thirty seconds he stood there as Athena did her equations. “Uh. So, funny story. The Heresiarch? Didn’t exactly tell me how to call up the Legion, and I don’t know how to work the weird phone she gave me.”
“Oh dear. Well, maybe just...call?”
“Yeah, sure.” Ryan rubbed his hands together and threw them out again. “King of Hell! I, Ryan Smith, call upon the Legion thou hast promised! Send them forth!” Silence followed. Crystal coughed, and Athena stopped her mathematics to look at him with a concerned frown.
“Thou hast promised?” Crystal asked, and he could all but hear the smirk in her voice.
Ryan felt himself blush again - not from Crystal’s teasing, but from
the look Athena was giving him. “It felt right, I guess?”
“Well, maybe you should try aga-”
A pillar of black stone erupted out of the ground, causing them both to jump back. It rose, jutting through stone and ice like the devil’s fingertips. Athena dropped to a crouch, drawing her sword, and Ryan stumbled backwards, frantically trying to grab onto the equations to be ready for an attack.
As he did, lightning struck the pillar, a bolt of unnaturally red electricity that defied the natural order of lightning to ignore the castle and instead strike its target. Ryan had to blink to clear his eyes from the flash of light, his heart racing. C’mon, what the hell is going on?
His vision cleared just in time to watch as the pillar split down the middle and the two halves began to slide apart. Athena was backing up, and Ryan did the same, readying a bolt of lightning to try and throw at...at whatever was happening. A field of crimson energy formed between the split halves until it was a portal almost twenty feet long.
Demons began to emerge. Did they have to make such a dramatic entrance? Ryan thought as his heartbeat slowly returned to normal. The host of fiends were fairly uniform, their skin dark red or deep blue. Each one was well muscled, with large, goat like horns, and tails that ended in little arrowheads. They wore armor of some black metal and carried a variety of weapons; Ryan spotted swords, halberds, and bows.
As they marched forward, the portal drifted away to deposit more, until nearly five hundred soldier demons stood on the rocky island. One of them stepped forward. His armor was more ornate than the others, and he was one of the ten Ryan could see with large, bat-like wings emerging from his back. He bowed to Ryan, and the Legion followed. “Sir. I am Ashtaroth, and my legion and I are ready to serve at your command.”
“Oh. Awesome. Uh, you may rise?” They did and looked at him like they were expecting orders. Ryan glanced at Athena and Crystal. Athena had gone back to manipulating equations, and Crystal was grinning.
“Maybe,” she said, tapping her finger on her chin like she was deep in thought, “they would like to man the castle and the battlements, yeah?”
Ryan turned to Ashtaroth. “Take your soldiers and man the castle and the battlements. And treat any order given to you by these two as if it came from me.”
If Ashtaroth found the exchange amusing, he didn’t indicate it, just bowed and began barking orders. The Legion headed out to take their places. From what Ryan could see, it was ten groups of fifty, each one commanded by one of the winged demons. The groups seemed to be segregated by weapon types, with the two archer groups taking the best vantage points.
“Thanks for the save,” he muttered to Crystal, who gave him a pat on the shoulder.
“Love, Athena and I were war goddesses, remember? Don’t stress about what to do with the army, we’ve got that covered.” Ryan nodded with relief, glad he didn’t have to figure out how to command an army of demons.
“Got it,” Athena said, drawing their attention to a spot in the air. Ryan saw what she had done - by making solid spots of air and playing with refraction values, she’d created a spot where you could stand and see various sections of the island magnified. “It won’t last long,” she said, pointing to a spot in the air, “but they’re here.”
When they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her, they could see what she saw - Enki, Bast, and Moloch standing on the opposite side of the island. Bast was lounging on a rock, loading her pistols. Enki’s back was to the lens as he worked on some twist to reality, a complex one. Moloch was weaving equations, and it looked to Ryan like he was working with actual mathematics. It’s Athena’s lensing trick he realized. Huh, I can see Moloch’s math. Ryan didn’t waste too much time pondering that as Moloch pointed to a spot in the air, and with a chill, Ryan realized they were looking at each other through these lenses.
Enki turned around, grinning and speaking.
“Should we attack now?” Ryan asked. “Before they have backup?”
Athena and Crystal both shook their heads. “They could have their own backup by the time we get there,” Athena said.
Crystal gave a murmur of agreement. “We only get one shot at this, love. They’re undefended right now, and I know Enki doesn’t know how - wait, what?” Hearing her confusion, Ryan focused his attention back on the lens. Molten rock was rising out of the ground, twisting and shaping itself much like Crystal’s had - but on a larger scale, and far quicker, the molten stone flowing like water instead of gravy.
“No way,” said Crystal, frowning. “No way he did the work that fast. It took me four hours to do the equations - no way is he powerful enough to do that much twisting that quickly!”
“Crystal, what’s that mean?”
But Crystal didn’t answer right away, still staring in growing shock and fear. Athena spoke for her, after a hard swallow. “It means Enki is far more powerful than he’s let on.”
At that moment, Enki looked straight up into the lens. Moving with the slow deliberation of one who wants to make absolutely sure you don’t miss what’s happening, he raised his middle finger, giving enough time to be certain they got a good look at the extended digit. Then, with a twisted grin, he snapped his fingers and caused the lens to shatter.
“He wanted us to see,” Crystal muttered. “He wanted us to know how absolutely screwed we are. Which means this has to be new power...somehow, he’s gotten stronger.”
Ryan let out a long breath. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Just means we…we have to out think him! He didn’t magically get smarter, right?” They nodded.
“Okay, so…” It was his turn to trail off. “You guys hear that?”
It took a bit, but then they heard it too - the thrumming of helicopters blades. Four of them came into view, each one white and emblazoned with different logos. Of news stations. Ryan groaned.
“There’s going to be press here? Why the hell?”
Athena let out a humorless chuckle. “We should have thought of this. Humans have always loved the spectacle of gods at war - that certainly didn’t change in the era of twenty-four-hour news cycles.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes as Crystal let out a curse. “And we practically invited them,” he muttered.
“Oh yes,” said Athena. “The whole world is going to watch the first Theomachy in almost a thousand years.”
“Anything we can do about that?” Ryan asked, knowing the answer was no - not without trying to forcibly remove them.
Crystal collected herself, and shrugged, “Only thing left to do is give them a show they’ll never forget, yeah?”
Ryan and Athena both nodded, and with a growing feeling of dread, they headed into the castle to prepare for war.
◆◆◆
The sun seeped through the clouds in patches, pockmarking the island with spots that managed to be less dreary than the rest of the landscape. Ryan stood atop the castle. After Athena's lens had been shattered, they'd decided to rely on less detectable means of gathering intel and had gotten a pair of binoculars.
Enki's castle was visible to the naked eye, standing nearly twice as tall as Crystal's - she'd muttered something about overcompensation. Whatever monsters Moloch had summoned were humanoid, though even with the binoculars none of them had been able to make out enough to figure out what kind of humanoids.
"Any movement?" Athena's voice at his side startled a slight jump out of him - he'd been too engrossed in staring at the castle, like he’d manage to peer through those walls somehow, to notice his surroundings.
"Mostly milling about, setting up defenses."
Athena frowned at that. “I believe we have a problem," she said as she bit her lip in thought. "Right now neither side has any incentive to attack the other - we both have fortified positions, and the aggressor would therefore be at a disadvantage. Both sides gain the most from trying to wait out the patience of the other."
Ryan turned it over in his head and realized she was right. "Any idea how to break the stalemate?" he asked, hoping she could
give him something to work with.
Athena shook her head. "Normally I'd try throwing some of our power at them, but I believe - until we know the source of his power - it's best we simply wait to defend against his effort to do the same."
Much as he wished he could, Ryan couldn't find a hole in that logic. They had to be reactionary right now, and with Enki not taking any action to react to, they really only had the option of waiting. “We stick to the plan then. After all, it’s the first time we’ve had one that wasn’t just ‘find them and have a big fight’.”
Athena nodded. The island had been prepared for their battle before the challenge was issued - they’d only waited on the castle to create the appearance they were just arriving.
Explosive charges were hidden throughout to give them detonations they could trigger with minimal power. Pits had been dug, filled with spikes, and then carefully hidden. Caches of food, weapons, and supplies were hidden in case they got stranded. Athena had created several alcoves where troops could hide for ambush. Graham Island had become a death trap and only they knew where everything was. Enki’s newfound powers would make the fight harder, but they at least had home field advantage - or something like it.
"There's got to be something else we can do," he muttered, as much to himself as to Athena.
"Well...I suppose we could risk trying to provoke an action out of him somehow. Step off the battlements, make a probing attack. But those carry their own risks."
Ryan nodded glumly, chewing it over with the intensity of a dog with a particularly large chunk of peanut butter. "Wait. No, I think I've got it."
Athena raised an eyebrow, but Ryan was already twisting the laws governing echoes. "Get ready, and tell Crystal and Ashtaroth to do the same. Enki's about to throw something big our way." Athena nodded and headed down the stairs.
