Gwen sweat from the power being pulled through her. Long since, she used just a touch of the energies being thrown about to reinforce her nerves, her blood vessels, her heart, and her brain. If she hadn’t, she would have collapsed from the effort, not to mention the pain. The pain came in waves now, but it was such a steady, constant companion that it no longer distracted her.

The Master had responded to her call. Across the multiverse fans of every genre stared at the forums he set up, waiting for her next puzzle. When Morgan summoned something, while she spent power to bend it to her will, the forums spat out suggestions by the pageful of what would counter it. From there, divination did the winnowing, and all that remained was willing it to happen.

That’s how it worked the first time, anyhow. When the great black dragon appeared, terror raced through her and she froze. Her first thought had been the Master. He had the forums up, pulling in many of the same people as the ‘cheerleader game’ before Morgan could finish dominating the dragon. The divination had been grasping at straws, when it finished she was certain she’d screwed up, but she was too far into the summoning to stop.

The tiny yellow avian looked more than a little like some artist’s minimalist conception of ‘bird’. When it flew up to the dragon, Gwen was certain she’d summoned an appetizer, with herself as the main course. Before she could begin again, the bird jinked, dodging the black flame coming from the gaping draconic maw, and poked itself into the huge eye.

A gout of fluids blew the bird backward. The dragon screamed and tried to flee, but the bird intercepted it. It darted in, and another gout of blood and humors blew the bird backward. The dragon sank to the ground with a scream, dying as it landed. The bird flew up to Gwen, chirped at her, and was gone.

Now Morgan summoned once more. Two of the girls died to power whatever she was bringing into being. Part of Gwen shrieked in horror, but that part had been frozen, locked up long ago on a morning of blood and terror. Now another, colder part of her held sway. If none of the girls survived, Morgan couldn’t wake the World Serpent.

Suddenly cold water sloshed over Gwen’s feet. She smelled the sea, and the measureless expanse between her and the sorceress rippled like waves. From the circle of pedestals, Morgan’s voice rang out with her invocation. Before her summoning appeared, she called out a taunt. “Stupid mortal. We were elder gods before you infested your own psyches with terrors from the deeps. Since you like them so much, I summon one to devour you. Awaken, sleeper! Arise!”

Something came up from the depths. A great head, covered in tentacles, humped its way clear of the waves. Gwen had no idea what it was, no time to figure it out. As Morgan began her rite of domination, she turned her webcam to the thing and posted the picture.

The replies started coming in almost immediately. Most of them were complete gibberish. Gwen looked again through her haze of pain and determination. She couldn’t understand the problem. It was some kind of immortal squid beast from before time, from beyond the cosmos and beneath the waves.

On the scale of things, it just didn’t compare with foster parent puree. In that moment, Gwen realized she might be insane. She didn’t care. The bitch wasn’t summoning Jormungandr, wasn’t getting through the gate, wasn’t getting past this spot. She was responsible for every ounce of Gwen’s pain, and she would pay in full.

A corner of the Internets repeated one name over and over, almost a chant. Gwen hesitated; if she summoned something that wasn’t innately inimical to Morgan’s creature, she had no power to coerce it. No other names appeared. Her divination wasn’t needed, they seemed so sure. Her voice whispered nonsense from a laptop’s speakers. On another screen, runes and symbols flashed into being, twisted and writhed. Gwen’s will encompassed both, bringing the thing into being.

From beneath the waves yet another creature surfaced. Great plated spines shed water and sparks as they rose. As Morgan finished her coercion, Gwen’s creature looked around. It saw the horrible giant squid-headed thing and threw back its head in a howl of challenge that split the sky with lightning and breath of blue fire. Moving quickly despite being knee deep in ocean, it tromped toward Morgan and her creature, elemental destruction formed of scales and fire.

Gwen sighed in relief. That relief was stolen away when the thing’s tail swept negligently toward her. She closed her eyes, praying it would pass over or even under her. A moment of tremendous impact preceded the shriek of metal tearing. She opened her eyes. Some of the pain in her legs was gone. She looked down to see the cause.

“Oh.” Below her waist she was just… gone. She could still feel, faintly, through the magic which had coursed along her nerves and now coursed through the air. Her blood still flowed through tubes made of pure magic. Fascinated, she tried to pass her hand through one leg.

When she was done screaming and swearing, the giant lizard sank below the waves with a triumphant roar. Three more girls lay lifeless on their pillars, and strange words of power flew from Morgan’s mouth. The plane they dueled over dimmed, clouds appearing in the space above them, obscuring what stars appeared. Morgan’s voice rang out again, mockery still predominant. “You mortals have such active imaginations where your own demise is concerned. So much of your entertainment is given over to mortals of broken mind who have chosen to make an art of human demise. Give those psychopaths just a touch of the infernal, and your kind laps it up like mother’s milk.”

Morgan’s last words were quiet, muffled. Visibility dropped to a few dozen feet. Gwen posted a recording of Morgan’s words, sent a live feed to her forums.

A quiet, malevolent voice whispered in her ear, “Gwendolyn…” She twitched, ignoring the pain of twisting to look behind her. There was no one there. Something landed where her lap had been, ripping a scream from her throat where it passed through where her legs had been. When her vision cleared, she looked down to see her own foot, torn from her leg. Another whisper tickled her ear, “What are you afraid of, Gwendolyn?”

Her head whipped around. She didn’t dare move her chair. She scrabbled at the arm of her chair, but her gun had been lost with her legs. Something stroked along her leg, and she looked down to see a ghostly hand just as it grabbed at her. It evaporated as it passed through, but not before splattering blood on the ground and tearing another scream of pain from her throat.

Her divination returned a name. Part of her looked on in disbelief, but she was already typing the commands for the summoning. Nonsense words whispered, symbols writhed, and she focused her will.

A bell, bright and cheerful, rattled from behind her. In front of her, the thing that had been tormenting her shimmered from the mist. It had claws for hands, a mask for a face, and layers of old, dirty clothing covered its nakedness imperfectly. It stalked towards her, muttering, “…cut your fingers off for appetizers… pet your raw nerves… bleed you out.”

A hand, warm and gentle, touched her shoulder. A voice, quiet and calm, spoke to her while she stared at the thing approaching her, “Hello there. Are you in trouble?”

“She’s in more trouble than you can get her out of, wimp.”

The comforting hand on her shoulder patted once then lifted away. A man in a simple red zippered cardigan walked past her. His movements were gentle, yet quick and precise as he pulled the zipper closed. The thing beyond him leapt, claws flashing. The quiet man had already gone to one knee, the claws passing over his head completely.

“My shoe’s come untied.” Long, dexterous fingers tied the simple canvas sneaker before the horrible thing could recover from its lunge. When it swung again, he stood, his movements once again coincidentally moving him out of the path of the wicked slashing claws.

The thing drifted back, its voice becoming a ubiquitous whisper once more. “What are you afraid of, old man?”

“Oh, lots of things. We all are, you know. But that’s not important.”

“So, what’s important to you, meat?”

“It’s important to do your best. To try even when you’re afraid. To stand for what you believe, even when it isn’t popular, and could cost you things you value.”

“Stand for this, meat!”

The thing lunged out of the mist, claws reaching for the man in the sweater. He didn’t move, duck, or dodge. Gwen winced when the tips of the claws stuck out from the back of that sweater, and the red darkened. The monster tried to back for another strike and stumbled. Its claws smoked, melting into the mist, even as the arms of the main in the sweater encompassed it.

“It’s OK to be angry sometimes. You might even need to shout to let that anger out. But doing right means never letting that anger hurt someone else. You were hurt, weren’t you?”

Screamed, incoherent profanities spilled from the monster’s mouth in a torrent as the man in the sweater enveloped him in a gentle embrace. The claws boiled away until clenched fists pounded at the gentle man’s shoulders.

“It’s OK. Let it out.”

The thing in his arms, now as much tortured, scarred man as monster, pushed him angrily away until they stood clasping forearms. “I killed more people like you than you can count! I’m a killer, child by rape of killers. I AM fear!”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“And that’s okay. I accept you for who you are. That’s where you came from, and we all have to come from somewhere.”

“Why won’t you die!”

“It’s okay to be angry, but if you become anger, you lose who you are to that anger. And that’s sad, because you’re special.”

The monster melted away with a heartrending scream. The mist dissipated as the gentle man in the sweater turned and walked back to Gwen. Looking at her legs, she thought for a moment he might cry, but instead he smiled, one hand laid gently where her knee had been, one hand on her shoulder.

“You’re so brave, so strong. You’ve suffered so much, and still you go on. I’m proud of you. Don’t ever forget, love is never cowardly, and kindness is never weak. Always remember, you’re special just the way you are, and your friends will always love you for what you are.”

Gwen’s voice broke on her reply, “Thank you. I’ll try.” Tears dripped down her face into her lap.

“I know you will, and I’ll always be proud of you.”

A flare of pure, soft, white light, and he was gone.

Gwen rested her tattered hands on the arms of her chair until she finished weeping. She looked up when power, more than she thought possible, rushed into her. The broad, flat plane on which she sat stretched on to infinity, but Morgan still stood out clearly at the far end. Her voice rang out with the completion of her invocation, and once more she turned to face Gwen.

“Now, novice, you will die, and your world will be overrun by forces dreamed of by those with the hubris to foretell the future!”

Across the endless field the ground rumbled, stirred, boiled. Things emerged from the ground. Things with too many limbs and eyes. Things with carapaces and claws. As they emerged, they moved together and moved in strange patterns. Gwen vaguely remembered a show she’d seen on bees communicating that way. This time, at least, she could type in her trouble. She did so, annotating it with a real time feed of the bugs as they gathered.

There was only one problem; they were gathering swiftly, and some of them spotted her. They moved toward her. She wasted a moment scrabbling for a gun that wasn’t there, then fired up her divination. They were body lengths away and closing when she executed the summoning, driving it with her will, not even consciously aware of what she was summoning.

Something went wrong, the spell trying to tear her in half. The focus of her summoning wasn’t clear, and each interpretation tore at her, pulling at her, wanting to bring itself into existence. Each half of the summoning used the only thing at its disposal: pain. Gwen felt her lips stretch in what might charitably have been called a grin. Pain was an old friend.

The bugs slowed as energy whirled around her, lifting her, lifting the dust from the field beneath her. They stopped, waiting to see what she would do. She looked down on them, looked back at her screen to see the words written there, see the dichotomy. Her eyes wouldn’t focus. She didn’t care, really. If either would work, then both would work better. Forcing her way through the pain, she exerted a will honed by years of hardship, juxtaposing both interpretations of her spell and summoning them into reality.

The bugs evaporated, torn apart by plasma fire from hidden bunkers. The ground rumbled as huge swaths of ground centered on the portal were moved, restructured, rebuilt. Finally, searing, shocking pain engulfed her as something shoved its way through where her legs should have been and stayed there. Then she passed out.

***

Drone X’thyl knelt before his Queen and Goddess. She was life, she was love, she was mother to the swarm. Somehow X’thyl knew that he was at the same time both hundreds of cycles old: a senior scout master reporting to the Queen-Goddess herself, and he had only existed for mere moments. The cognitive dissonance did not bother him. The Queen-Goddess existed, that was enough for him. His inner palps quivered with joy when she communicated her need to him.

“Drone X’thyl, what is this place?”

The Drone bowed low, ashamed of his partial failure, but answered as fully as he was able. “My Queen, we are on a flat plain of dead soil. There are almost no organics here. In one direction three scouts saw a small organic being, but it destroyed them before it could be collected. The being guarded a gateway to a place smelling of digestible organics.

“In the other direction lies an organic being claiming to be you. She possesses your voice, your scent, and your visage, but never all three at once, and never with your manner. We would have disposed of the imposter, but she is protected by some form of force field. Within the field are other organics as well. Not many, but enough to feed you for a cycle or more. Diggers and builders have been directed there, to attempt passage under or over the field.”

His Queen forgave his failure without rancor; perhaps she too knew the strange feeling of only just arriving in existence. Her words were both reward and chastisement, for while he was allowed to hear them, they were not directed at him.

“Warrior K’nok. Bring me the imposter and all her organics. Use whatever means needed. Send your second legion with X’thyl, he will lead them to the other being. Once she is collected, we will explore this gateway.”

Both Drone and Warrior responded immediately, fervently, and reverently, “Yes, Queen-Goddess!”

***

Gwen shook her head and regretted it almost immediately. She didn’t remember drinking or being hit on the head. Despite all that, it pounded. Her pharmacopeia sensed her pain and dispensed an analgesic directly into her bloodstream. In seconds, the pain receded. Once that was taken care of, she glanced around, trying to see what she had summoned.

Something bothered her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

The gateway still stood where it had been, although now a small stone blockhouse covered it. A metal portcullis barred passage into the elevator she could still faintly see. She looked up from the blockhouse to see more stone walls surrounding her. On one side, the one facing Morgan’s pedestals, stood another portcullis, this one large enough to drive a tank through. A moment’s examination, even from this distance, and Gwen knew it as a sham. It was a steel grating never intended to move. It was the bait for a trap.

Walking over to the interior of the wall, a small hitch in one of her rear legs caused her to stumble. She’d have to get that serviced soon. For the moment, though, her pharmacopeia felt her discomfort again, this time sending a small Cyte to oil the recalcitrant joint. Before she made it halfway up the wall, the hitch was gone. The only sound was that of alloy claws finding purchase on the rough stone.

Gwen reached the top of the wall, slowly and carefully peeking over the top to see how close the enemy was. A few moments and she felt more confident, pulling herself to the top of the tower at one corner of the keep set about the gateway.

She stopped. Something wasn’t right. She looked around. At the far side of the nominal ‘front’ of the keep stood another tower. That seemed right. To the front of the keep were layer upon layer of concentric arcs of bunkers. They opened toward the keep, intended to fire into enemies that had passed them. She knew without asking that those bunkers would be invisible, or nearly so, from the far side. At the edge of the circles of bunkers, she could just barely see something engaged with her periphery guards.

Her augmentation sensed her squinting to see. From the side of her thorax a tray extended. Atop it was a laptop screen and a telephoto electronic camera, already lining up on the spot she squinted to observe. She watched for a moment as a small group of bugs approached the outer perimeter. The guns waited until the last one was within range before they fired. Working their way from last to first, they serviced target after target, blowing the bugs into steaming piles of chitinous wreckage.

Something was very wrong. Gwen closed her eyes, trying to figure out what it was. She only heard faint noises as her grunts pulled the dead bugs back into the bunkers. They might be eating them, they might be reanimating them, they might be making trophies of them. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was hiding where the line of death started.

The after battle cleanup died down. The quiet whine of her laptop tray retracting into her armored shell died down. The only remaining sound, terribly faint, was the faint whimpering of a woman in the distance. That would be Morgan, although why she whimpered Gwen had no clue. Perhaps, now that she was out of power, she worried that Gwen would shoot her.

Morgan was wrong to worry. Worry was for things that might happen. When Morgan’s magical defenses were down, Gwen was going to blow her the hell away. The thought sent a pleasant frisson of anticipation through her. Armor panels slid back, her chain guns extended partway and spun at Gwen’s thoughts of mayhem. It was only when she heard the whine of her plasma cannon warming up that she realized she was getting a little too into her fantasies.

Something was seriously, seriously wrong. With a herculean effort of will, she forced herself to think about the last few moments of her summoning duel. The man in the sweater had made her missing legs stop hurting. Morgan summoned the bugs. Gwen summoned something…

“What the hell did I summon?”

Her laptop extended again, the last entry from the summoning suggestion forum automatically coming up. Taking the time to read, she searched for the meaning of the words on the screen. Immediately she understood. Two separate programs had been given the same name in different locals. One was a minefield design aid, created to allow military personnel to design fiendishly intricate defensive works. The other was a home brew expansion to a popular video game, an FPS with hordes of undead, demons, and cyborgs all mixed together.

Gwen froze. Comprehension dawned. Slowly, terrified of what she would see, she twisted around to look behind her.

She gleamed in the omnipresent light. Shiny silver fittings set off broad plates painted glossy black. On the rearmost portion, which she knew without knowing how held her fuel and ammunition storage, a huge red hourglass had been used to set off the black. Her eyes went wide as she counted four gleaming metallic legs on each side of her body. That body was at least twice as long as she was tall.

Twice as long as she had been, at least. She stretched her legs to full extension, scaring herself a little with how far above the tower roof she could stretch herself. When her forelegs came off the tower surface, she stopped. Faintly, above her head, she could just make out the beginnings of some kind of web. It intrigued her. She wanted to climb it.

“What the hell is going on?!”

Gwen shook herself, settling down onto all eight legs, trying to sort out how she felt. While she pondered, a small, red, pudgy demon, one arm and leg encased in gleaming steel, clambered to the top of the tower. His voice was incongruously deep, and Gwen smiled as she realized his accent sounded remarkably like Pey.

“Apologies, Mistress. I was seeing to the placement of the outer bunkers. I got a look at our opponents as well. They have some guns, but nothing to worry about. They’re designed to wound,” here a grin spread across his face, revealing petite fangs and tusks, “and we both know how little wounds matter to us.”

“How did we get this way?”

The imp looked perplexed, like she had asked what yellow tasted like, “Does that matter, Mistress? You summoned us into being. Until you choose otherwise, we guard this gateway. From both sides, if need be.”

Gwen sighed. The imp plainly intended to be helpful, but equally failed to understand answer her question. She was about to dismiss him when a thought occurred to her. “Do you really need me here?”

“Oh, no, Mistress. Your firepower, while significant, isn’t needed to hold the gateway. Feel free to go look in on the bugs or torture some lost souls or something. You know, whatever you do while we implement your schemes. Entertain yourself,” a big grin split his face in two, “after all, it’s good to be the Queen.”

Rolling her eyes and laughing, Gwen shooed him about his duties. She couldn’t help it, for the first time in ages she felt free. The gate was safe. The witch Morgan was under siege by her own summoning, and without any more innocents to sacrifice would soon be so much bug chow. She felt good.

Her eyes flew wide at that last. She held a hand in front of her and made a fist. Over and over again she opened and closed her hand. Eventually, after staring at her hand in motion for at least fifteen minutes, she noticed a small clicking sound. Her pharmacopeia analyzed, dispensed, and the sound quieted.

Gwen threw back her head and laughed. It was a good day to be alive.