Five days ago, in a certain little province within the Great Kingdom of Gwenael, a priest of a chapel dedicated to the God Spiro, Master of Growth and Burning, heard a hum from behind the alter.

Coming from somewhere behind the statue of the gold eyed,  farmer god. With a puzzled frown, he inspected the area behind it, even going as far as going outside and walking around the chapel itself before deciding it was nothing.

The next day the hum was louder, more ordered, more like music and less of a disordered drone. Again the priest inspected it and again he found nothing.

The day after, the hum had grown even louder, sounding more and more like music, there were words now, he couldn’t ignore it any longer. And so he had the one of the servant-faithful go to the guild to request aid from someone more experienced who might know what was going on.

By day four, there was a reply from the KOG guild that also served as messengers, that help was on its way. On Day five the chapel was no more, the singing had turned to screaming, the music was turned to wretched groans.

Whether it was the office building that felt on top of the chapel or the creature that emerged from beneath it, all that was left was rubble and broken stone and colored glass.

*****

Two days later and all of Gwenael was up in arms, there was a new danger assailing the land. Which was nothing new, but time it was a little bit more then their champion and paid help could handle.

In addition to the countless little settlements and towns that were simply erased from the map. A grand total of fifty cities, duchies, Kingdoms and lesser-kingdoms had fallen to this new threat.It need not be mention that by the time the tenth city fell, the threat had been labelled Calamity-Class.

The KOG had even already sent six S-Ranked parties to try and handle the issue. Only three had returned to tell the tale of what they saw. Only one party had enough sane and whole members left to tell it with any real coherency.

The rest returning witless, their flight guided by fear and instinct. Many of them fleeing all the way to their familial homes before regaining control of themselves.

*****

The few Witnesses described the being as a creature made out of smiles. Its form and physiology strikingly similar to that of numerous waterfowl. Described as a quote unquote ‘Silly-Goose’, though it possessed a scale that it placed at least one hundred seventy-five stories in height.

Each portion of the entity, down to the feathers, was made up of a heap of countless smiling mouths. Complete with teeth, tongues and the beginning portions of a digestive and respiratory tract.

On its back was a rider who was at least thirty feet tall and was built similarly to its mount. Its body made out of yellowing enamel and quivering pink flesh. On its head sat a crown flames that was haloed by a light that came from the heaven.

And in the rider's hand was a musket that had a smiling mouth at the end of it. Shooting out explosive and calamitous laughter each time the rider pulled the trigger.

*****

Siofra of Gwenael was the Argus continent’s city of the arts. World famous with many of Monde’s most famed artists, players and bards calling it home. A city of glittering blue crystal towers and bright green overgrowth. Filled with opera Houses, theatres, concert halls and galleries.

A city where music played on every street and all the cityfolk always had some song or the other rattling about in their heads. Upscale, energetic, elegant,  and decidedly elite.

A resting ground for many of the aesthetic artifacts and cultural achievements of the old and new worlds. Such a city was now in danger of being destroyed. Such a city a could not be allowed to fall. For when it fell the world would became a much dimmer place for the loss.

Thus its Mayor and the Lords of Gwenael that called the city home could only fall back to the one option they’d had yet to take.

*****

“Tangent...sorry Tangent-‘Lord’, Thespian Gray, good to have your people with us on this little jaunt. How did the thing in Meallan go?” said Edna.

Her manner both professional and upbeat. Speaking as if this all was really just  a walk in the park. As if the flattened town that they were standing hadn’t been home to half a million actual lives. The only sign of how tense she actually was being seen in the intermittent flapping of the little white feathered wings at her back.

Jermaine just chuckled, by now he was used to his new boss lady and her quirks. She wore chipper, and pleasant, the same way he wore cool and collected. It was just a control mechanism, a way to give herself distance.

A way convincing herself of what she was doing before she convinced others.

And she was really laying it on thick now, that smile of hers remaining glued to her face despite the spanking she and the other girl, just took. Their light armor battered, ripped and shattered, a little blood spattered in their hair and from corners of their mouths and ears.

“No problem, we settled things with company that wanted to start something, and helped out the Meallan branch of the Maynards. So why did you call us here?” said Jermaine.

“Oh, it’s no biggie. I would have you go do the other stuff you have to do or you know, just take a break, but it’s looking like things here are going to be a little bit stickier than we thought. So I’m going to have to ask you to for a little bit of favor.” said Edna.

Her tone playful though her gaze remained hard and flat and exhausted. Her eyes dim and ringed with shadow.

“Well...that’s cool, I guess. What’s the favor?” said Jermaine.

Elena spoke up, her hand slung over her friend’s shoulder, seeming to stealthily support the girl because it seemed she could barely.

“We’re gonna need you and your Thousand Ghosts to evacuate Siofra.”

Tangent frowned, not quite getting what was up, but still catching that someone was different.

“I thought you guys were here because the guy’s in Siofra decided that they couldn’t ‘afford’ to evacuate?” said Tangent.

Elena shrugged, her expression and slightly helpless.

“Yeah, and that’s why you’re evacuating the city not its people.”

“Oh….” said Tangent, seeming to understand.

“...Wait...what?” he said, seeming to change his mind about his understanding.

Elena, chuckled tossing Jermaine a box which he handly caught with a magic hand.

“Mhm...What is it?” said Tangent, curiously staring at the package, that was held within the glowing blue grip of Jermaine’s aether construct.

“A new toy Billy thought up...Things are a bit dire and since plan A failed, I think it might be best to hedge our bets a bit.” said Edna.

“Okay. I can dig that. Anything else you need us to do?”

Elena looked at her old boss, who currently stood at the middle of the second realm, Gaseous Realm, Iron Ranked Practitioner. She was half-tempted to ask him to bring all his similarly cultivated lieutenants and come along for their second attempt.

She stifled those urges when she considered that Edna and her had barely been able to do anything even though they were near the end of the third realm. Liquid Realm, Tenth Layer, Elation Ranked Practitioners.

Laughably unable to act in the face of a threat that seemed to have them thoroughly outclassed despite technically being on realm lower then theirs.

“Nah, just follow the directions on the box and try to help Ell and I keep this job from being total wash, yeah? It’d be a teensy bit bad for our reputation if we really shit the bed on this.” said Edna.

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Jermaine nodded.

“Will do.” he said. Calling up and N-Door, with the permissions that had been inputted into his mental phone construct. Entering the dark doorway while Tangent trailed behind him. He stopped midway through before letting the portal close.

“Hey, Stay alive you two.”

Elena smiled, hers far genuine then her friends, though it was slightly feral.

“Tch...Like we’re going to let some oversized duck kill ‘us’. You just keep up things on your end, Jerry.”

*****

The Silly Goose waddled across the wastes and it seemed like the whole world shook each time it took a step. Occasionally it would come across a village or town and it’d either simply crushed it to nothing, consumed by the countless smiling mouths that made up the goose’s body.

Either that, or people would be gifted with the happy annihilation that came at the end of the rider’s musket. A bright warmth washing over them the ‘lucky’ citizens. Filling their hearts with a deep though slightly unwholesome bliss, before their souls were made to explode with the force of a fission reaction.

It’d be one thing if Gwenael was sparsely populated like other parts of the waste,  but in this part of the continent the settlements and cities were tightly clustered, with many of them a mere hours walking distance from each.

Or a mere minutes walking distance for the mountain-sized Silly Goose. In short, when it killed, it killed by the millions.

Ever the good girl, Edna had wanted to save lives and try to stop the creature's’ rampage before they could end more lives. Heading into the fight before either she or Elena were fully prepared and had fully scoped out the capabilities of their opponent.

It nearly cost them their own lives, but she still couldn’t accept apparent fact of her inadequacy. She couldn’t accept being stronger and still being helpless. The creature was only barely of the second realm, the same went for its human-ranked rider.

*****

“Okay Edna-Rae, you’re the one with all the details and plans, you can’t go half-cocked this. That’s ‘my’ job. Now tell me how we’re going to handle this.” said Elena.

Her eyes fixed on the world below, while she and Edna stood on a platform made of aether. Looking down at the horror  and destruction that came with the silly goose’s passage through the wastes. The world turning over on itself like soil turned by a farmer’s hoe.

“....I….uh…” said Edna. Words trailing off, unfinished and not even half formed.

Her attention focused on the ground, where she watched a town get swallowed up by hundreds of happy, blinding, white  mushroom clouds.

The gears in her head chugged and churned painfully, trying to process the last fight and turn the experience into something useful.

If she had to guess the disparity the creatures’ actual strengths and their apparent strengths would be based in their physique. Which would why, while their aether levels were of the first layer of the second realm their actual capabilities were at least of fifth realm or higher.

Watching the creature kill, she found herself dithering. It wasn’t that it was untouchable, or impossible for Elena and her to face, it was just that she hadn’t wanted to do so at the cost of innocent lives. It seemed that that wasn’t a possibility anymore.

Elena watched her friend struggle, understanding her thoughts as if they were written plain on paper for her to read. She called up Billy to ask how much use his new spatial device could handle.

It was pretty much what they’d thought it was, only enough to save Siofra, but she asked if there was anyway to improve on that, and somehow he delivered just like he always did. Telling her of a trick that could be used to temporarily merge the artificial space with the space of the N-Doors.

Satisfied with her first call, she called up Jermaine and asked for an urgent favor, informing him of a change of plans. Then she punched her second best friend in the shoulder to shock her out of her stupor.

“Ow...what?” said Edna.

“I’m just going to go for it.” said Elena.

“What!? No!  It nearly killed you. It nearly killed the both of us.” said Edna

“Yeah...but nearly dead isn’t quite dead, now is it? Plus, Eddie my darling, somehow I don’t think it’ll be that bad this time.”

“....That’s not a very convincing argument, Ell.” said Edna.

Still sounding a little distracted as she frantically tried to think of how to stop the catastrophe that was taking place below them.

“Look behind you.”

Edna turned after she watched the gleaming city of music disappear, she saw other towns and cities do the same. A small relieved smile, shattering the tired grin she’d been wearing.

“...Why didn’t ‘I’ think of that?” said Edna. Her gaze growing a little less dim.

“Because I’m smarter than you?” said Elena. Keeping as a straight face possible as she answered.

The poker face eventually crumpled and she crooned, wrapping her arms around her friend before drifting past her and lazily falling to the earth like a snowflake.

“Okay...okay...maybe its more like I’m just a quicker thinker...In any case most of the surviving the random bystanders should be out of the way pretty soon...What say you we fuck this ugly duck up, hm?” said Elena.

Edna nodded, a bit of something very dark, and vicious entering her smile. While it wouldn’t make up for the lives that were lost she looked forwards to working her frustration out on the main culprit.

Elena dropped down and faced off against the goose and its rider. Flitting about and dodging the smiling teeth and the salvos of deadly happiness. She struck it multiple times, fracturing her owns bones from the force multiple times.

Sending off a  quick series of mountain pulverizing rabbit-punches but barely making the beast rock on its heels.

Halfway through she was forced to shield herself from a blast of happiness that came from both the rider and the goose. Her tail wrapping around her, forming an airtight sphere as the ruinous rays of joy came.

 The dark energies irradiating everything that happened to be nearby and boiling away all the moisture in the area.

“Tch...this is gonna be  a bitch and a half ain’t it…?” said Elena. Grumbling to herself, as she prepared to continue stalling the beast’s calamitous stroll through the wastes.

The thousands ghosts sent their fastest runners to hit all the remaining towns and settlements in the area and soon there was only empty waste.

Satisfied that she wouldn’t hit anyone else, Edna called out her AWs, nine hundred ninety-nine of them appearing and shifting to their energy cannon form. Rotating in rigid formation and rising higher into the sky.

She and Elena pulled back as the whole sky turned monochrome and the aether that flowed passively through the environment began to churn and boil. Down from the heavens came a gray beam of blinding all consuming, ever hungering, nothingness.

The beam tightened into small line of silken rainbow hued light then erupted with enough force to turn the entire region into charcoal. It was overkill that she’d hadn’t dared make use of, before, but nothing was left of the Silly Goose or its rider.

Edna looked down, saw what she’d done and found herself feeling surprisingly refreshed. The creature was finally gone and any damage to environment was being cleanly handled by aether flow of the world.

Edna watched the green growing back over the burnt brown, in double time. She felt herself grow light headed, her eyes rolling up into the back of her head as fell back into Elena’s waiting arms.