“Order, we have a small, teeny, tiny problem. Probably nothing, but we’re just popping by to let you in on the news.” The female God whipped around to see Idiot 1 and Idiot 2 floating towards her.
Great. When it rains, it pours.
“Yes, I’ve been made aware of the situation. In fact, I’m dealing with it right this moment.” She gritted her teeth, gesturing to the elf creature that was currently fashioning the remains of his acquaintance into a squelchy meat nest of sorts.
“Huh- WHOA! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Stories flinched, flailing his hands wildly in front of him to cancel his forward momentum. “No, that’s not the problem we’re talking about - why, did something else go wrong?”
“Oh.” His face paled as he finally recognised what the thing ripping up the other elf was. “That’s one of the elf subjects, I’m guessing?”
“Yes.”
Stories gulped. “Well, then I’m afraid to say that our teensy small little problem that we’ve come to tell you about… probably has to be upgraded a few ranks to a large, uncontrollable crisis. Your other elf subject – the girl one – is back at the elven tribe’s treehouses right now; she’s calling for them to assemble and go fight someone – I’m presuming that would be us.”
Order froze in place. No. That couldn’t be right. “Say that again?”
“I’m saying, the female elf, Treen; she’s at the treehouses, she’s shouting-“
Order ran over to the side, past the elf-beast amalgamation. She scanning the holding area frantically, sweeping her gaze over the sheet of the now very obviously empty plastic. No, no, no! That girl was just here! She saw her! Treen was standing a ways away from the other two boys! Order had periodically made sure that the three were still there! The only time that she took her eyes off the girl was when…
When that boy started screaming and yelling that he was in pain.
“GAAAAH! DAMN IT! ONE TIME, WHY CAN’T THINGS GO WELL, JUST ONE TIME?!” Order screeched, yelling her frustration out loud as strongly as her lungs could handle. She tore the miscellaneous pouch that was secured to her belt and flung it to the ground, the contents spilling out everywhere.
“ONE.”
Kick.
“TIME.”
Kick.
“RRARGH!”
When she’d finally exhausted herself abusing the satchel with a series of heavy and unfocused kicks to its side, Order collapsed on the ground, panting and huffing heavily. Stories and Survival just let her tire herself out; she wouldn’t be any help with the other crisis while she was in a state of rage, anyways.
“You done? Still gonna need your input on the other problem.”
Order squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and counted. One. Two. Three. She felt her pulse gradually slow, her mind expelling the fuzz of anger and irritation, filling the newly evacuated space with logic and reason. The moron was, unfortunately, right. Quelling the fire was the more pressing issue; expressing her deep vexation at overlooking one or two aspects of her perfect plan would have to wait.
Order turned to Survival, eyes stony and serious. The self-proclaimed apex of masculinity stood there, sheepishly looking back as he wondered what she wanted from him this time.
“You know what you have to do now. The infection mustn’t spread. Do it.”
Survival’s face hardened. Oh. He reached over with one massive palm, and hovered over the elf-beast’s head. Of course I’m the one that has to do this, he grumbled. This is discrimination against big people. Stories could have done this just as easily.
Then, as he’d been taught to do, he focused divine power into the hand and closed his fist, squeezing. The creature’s head, suddenly experiencing inward pressure from all directions where there was none before, popped like a balloon.
Thus ended the life of the elf named Leffy; only a mere fifty-six years of age.
Order confirmed the death of the animal, before beckoning the two lesser Gods to follow, already hurrying off in the direction of the elf tribe. She bit her lip, cursing as she walked. The current state of affairs was not proceeding as planned, but it might still be salvageable. For example, the outbreak might be confined to a small area of the living quarters. Maybe it wasn’t still too late to separate a segment of uninfected from their brethren; the colony could still survive.
==========================================
It was too late.
Even before she’d reached the base of the tree there was no saving anyone. Order hoped that the disposition she’d observed in Leffy might have been replicated in the other beasts – that they might be too focused with desecrating a single body to attack others.
The periodic tossing of bodies – some dead, some still very much alive - off the treetops proved otherwise.
Splat.
There went another one. Each impact highlighted the steadily diminishing time that still remained. Order regarded the flattened mush of a body, hands on her hips as she ran through her options. Perhaps she could still carry out the plan to select a couple of the seemingly unaffected and isolate them from this chaos.
Splat.
Or… or she could still hunt down the rampaging infected; they were the problem here, not the potentially corrupted. Kill off all the mutants, worry about sorting through the rest later.
Splat.
No, that’d take too long; there was only three of them, and two of the Gods available to handle the rapidly declining situation needed to light their energy reserves on fire just to be able to restrain the animals. Even if they did catch one or two, the remaining beasts would simply go after the unaffected. And a single one of them could kill hundreds.
Splat.
Order gritted her teeth. No, the time for salvation was over. There was no helping any potential survivors. They’d likely have been infected by now, in any case. And she couldn’t risk the other organisms present on the planet. At the moment, the infection was isolated to the elves that were present in this part of the planet. Wipe them out and it’d be settled.
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Splat.
Splat.
Splat.
It was decided, then. Cauterize the wound, prevent the proliferation of the disease. Wasn’t ideal, but in the circumstances that was all she could do. Order removed a non-descript piece of black chalk from a leather pouch from her belt. Most of her pouches held measurement instruments, items which helped to confirm estimates or theoretical figures. The contents of this pouch, on the other hand, were kept separate for a different reason.
The reason being that they were meant for large scale destruction.
“Um, lady? No time for arts and crafts here. There’s a whole riot going up there in the trees – aren’t you going to stop them from killing everyone?”
Order ignored Stories, continuing to outline the base of… She looked up, counting the treetops with a finger. Seven. Seven trees. After the lopsided oblong was completed, she took a few steps back and double-checked her work. Yep, seven trees.
“God of Survival, I will require your assistance with this.”
“Really, mate? I know you’re in charge and all, but I already did the… you know,” Survival clasped his hands together, miming a double-palm crushing. “Get Stories to do it; he hasn’t done anything since we got here.”
“Hey! I helped you with the uh… with the… no, wait, that was Order. Ok, but I’m still very useful!”
“I would, as you say, loop the God of Stories and Creativity in on this. However,” Order glared at the clueless idiot. “Neither he nor I have the requisite divine energy to activate the Incineration Matrix of the God of Death and Taxes. I’ve always gotten around this limitation with the help of a friend of mine, but that was for small scale burnings. The size of a wastepaper basket. Given that our target this time is seven fully grown redwood behemoths, the proportional requirements will exclude either of us Gods from helping. You, on the other hand, have an entire planet-sized bubble of energy that you’ve been maintaining the entire time we’ve been here. Redirect that to the chalk delineation as you’ve done before - with your hands, to be more specific.”
“Wait, wait, wait. We’ve not gotten to the point where incineration is necessary, have we? There are still people we can save up there! Living, sentient organisms!”
“This is the only way. You think I want to wipe out these specimens because I want to?” Order snapped back. Stories, as per usual, thought with his heart; not his brain. The mutates were faster, stronger, and more vicious than every elf that lived in the tribe. If the Gods were to prioritise saving the elven race over exterminating these carriers, one could escape, running off into the forest. All it would take would be one. And the planet would be overrun with exponentially increasing copies of them.
“Think of something! You’re the God of Knowledge, dammit! You’re smart! Don’t just kill them all because it’ll be harder!”
“Do it.”
“Well, you’re the boss, mate.” Survival shrugged, taking up position by the chalk drawing. With a little effort, he forced out his divine might through his palms, the white light of materialization blinding everyone present, a show of the sheer torrent of power currently being poured into the Incineration Matrix.
Almost immediately, a translucent, grey frame shot out, outlining the seven redwoods with lines that criss-crossed its form. This was the preliminary stage, where the mechanism of the Matrix felt out what it was to destroy, to confirm the size, mass and shape of its target, and to make sure that everything within its confines were to be removed from this world with great prejudice. The elf mutants noticed the Matrix just as it had completed its encasing of their hunting grounds. It was the unmistakable smell of heat; the singing of the hairs in one’s nostrils as you approached a campfire.
One brave mutant tried his luck, leaping off a branch to aim for a nearby, untouched tree. Alas, he impacted the grid of grey lines and was halted instantly. Escape was impossible for mortals that did not know how this device functioned, least of all beasts that only knew how to bite and scratch. It began to claw wildly at the strange wall of lines howling a bestial war cry as it clung to the side. So ferocious was its attempt to break free from its new and final prison that it hardly noticed that the heat within the Matrix was beginning to intensify.
The grey lines now shifted in colour, gradually glowing red-hot as it entered the final stages of what it had been created to do. In this process, every line in the matrix would connect with its partner on the opposing side of the wall, attaching to one another with extended threads of intangible red. These threads would phase through anything within, linking up one by one. Innumerable linkages would be made at this moment, forming at first a web-like structure, then increasing bit by bit until the only colour that anyone or anything could perceive within the Matrix would be a vivid crimson.
Only at this point would the Incineration Matrix fulfil its purpose, sending through its weave of lines temperatures exceeding that of any nearby star, and holding this level of heat until everything within was returned back to their most basic elements, leaving naught but empty space behind. Usually about one and a half seconds.
Order watched the Matrix complete its task, and fold back in onto its chalk projector, then advanced to rub it out with her boot. Hardly anything other than a passing lesser God could reactivate the Matrix, but why leave it to chance? Satisfied with the removal of the mechanism, she spun around to talk to the two lesser Gods.
Survival was still staring awed at the space where the seven trees once stood, now reduced to nothingness. Stories had on an indescribable expression of frustration; like he wanted to shout at Order for resorting to that, yet also understanding that the severity of the situation may have warranted an equally harsh response.
She clapped her hands together sharply to get the two’s attention.
“Now. After action review.”