A few hundred thousand miles above the upper atmosphere of the planet known to its people as Monde, a grand spell has been cast.

It was a spell of magnetism and gravity. Drawing any suitably small astrological bodies towards the planet decreasing their size for the sake of increasing their density.

Turning them into uniform spheres to keep them from breaking up as they came screaming through the planet’s upper atmosphere.

They all flew in the same direction, towards the same spot, as if homing in on that position.

If one looked down from above one would see nothing there. Just empty space and trees. One would have to look below, heading underground till one found the secret city of Sorcerers and Enchanters, a city founded by the Seven Sons Council.

A place of marvels and miracles and magical study. A place filled with arcane mysteries and scientific progresses that could change the world if they ever saw the light of day.

The spheres all hurtled to the land that lay above the city, flattening that portion of the hinterland. Smashing into the ground. Smashing ‘through’ the ground. Obliterating all that lay below. The next five minutes became a roaring hellstorm of screaming and fire.

The whole continent trembled as a ten thousand year old, secret city saw its end.

Elsewhere all that was known was that a great amount of stars were falling. Brilliant bright, technicolors streaks moving across the blue black sky.

And like always there were some who would say it was a very good thing, a sign of good things to come, and some who’d say it was a sign of very bad things, a sign of ominous portents. For the most part all these people were just charlatans.

Soothesayers and so-called gurus who knew next to nothing, because only the church had access to precognitives and oracles.

As for the Church, the Church generally believed that the less that was said about the future, the better off the world would be.

*****

Elsewhere in Argus, King Cadeyrn of Albrecht looked up in the night sky, watching the stars fall, and worrying if his was amongst them. Wondering if he would come out victorious in his endeavour or he would fall.

At his side was a youth wings for ears. A stony faced mute, who stared up at the sky with a bit of loneliness in his  young eyes. Seemingly unaware of how much was resting on his shoulders.

*****

Elsewhere still, a battle was being fought for the fate of one of the Great Kingdoms.

*****

Worse than the cascade of glowing red orbs that fell everywhere, annihilating all that they touched, were the mannequins.

The plasma rain would scorch all that it fell upon, turning flesh to ash and changing soil and stone into molten glass. Then the mannequins would come and shatter all that remained, beating it into powder.

The entire countryside was set ablaze and just when everyone was thinking things couldn’t get any worse, the mannequins came. Digging themselves out from the under the earth. Scuttling across the land like and upturned nest of spiders.

The thousands of twenty-foot tall golems marched as a discordant but disciplined  army. Heading towards the nearest signs of life, seeming to seek out any and all survivors of the flaming rain.

Mashing anyone who got in their way into paste, stomping anyone who happened to pass by into a smear. The things were vicious and beyond their apparent focus on wiping out the survivors of the burning cascade, their actions seemed to all be based in blitheful, baleful randomness.

Full of ill-intent despite the ‘inanimate’ creatures not possessing any sort of intentions at all.

*****

The Great Kingdom of Lloyd had a problem. A problem strikingly, worryingly similar to the one that had struck Meallan. Something roamed their lands, destroying their cities, towns, and villages.

Burning everything with fire and sending the mannequins to crush and dismantle whatever was left. This being Monde, such a thing was neither unheard of, or unmanageable, it only became so, when Lloyd tried to handle it themselves.

Perhaps it was the paranoia of a weak nation. Rather then make requests to the KOG, or call on their so-called ‘allies’, and ex-oppressors, they sent their heroes to deal with the issue. The result being that Lloyd was now even weaker than it had been before.

The loss of  a majority of their champions would likely return them to the state of being a Ward-Nation, a vassal state to either Meallan to the South or Nereida to the North. Those were all issues for the future though. For those problems to become relevant the Great Kingdom of Lloyd would have to survive the ravages of the entity that still roamed its lands.

Considering that three fifths of the region had already been scourged away, things were looking dire. With their people crying out, and threatening to revolt, those in power finally called out to all who would here. Unfortunately by this point they had little that they could repay their so-called friends with.

All that had held worth was glassen or burnt away. Lloyd had only a handful of great cities and less kingdoms remaining, and any who had interest were waiting.

Letting the Great Kingdom bleed a little more before they stepped in, so they could have a nice, helpless target, ready and waiting for them, once the smoke had cleared.

Having watched friends turn to foe and witnessed the materialization of their worst nightmares, a nightmare that they’d already had to live through once before, a desperate Lloyd turned to other avenues.

*****

A song washed over all of the Lloyd wastes, the power within its notes, unnerving all who heard it. Edna hovered a few hundred miles above, a thousand mile trench, she’d asked Jermaine to have his Thousand Ghosts prepare.

A  flood break made with the intention of slowing the approaching threat.

She looked down at the horde of bright white mannequins. Though a grim smile was set upon her face, she was frowning on the inside, with distaste, worry and unease as she watched them scuttle across the land.

The creatures occasionally melting and reforming themselves as they moved over the areas that were harder hit and therefore hotter and harder to traverse through.

She bit her bottom lip as  she watched the swarm overtake the lands of Lloyd, feeling herself grow increasingly anxious and leery.

It was okay, she wasn’t afraid. She’d trained harder, pushing herself near to the breaking point and planning carefully for exactly these kinds of occasions

Edna hadn’t wanted to take this job, when the request came in, she’d been of a mind to turn it down.

Wishing to let to some other group of Mercenary Practitioners take the task. Unfortunately Elena had insisted and as always when Elena made her mind up on something she could frighteningly persuasive.

This was the Gwenael job all over again. Literally. Jermaine and his crew were working on defense, using new improved Evacuator Gates to temporarily shift all the surviving settlements in the region out of the conflict zone.

Elena was down on the ground, pummelling the mannequins, thinning their numbers and slowing their progress. And Edna was up in the sky, watching it all, waiting. Searching…

Behind her there was the girl, the gloomy one, that always followed Billy. She was singing, sing a song that made Edna feel things, and think things, that she’d rather not think about. Singing a song that could end worlds.

Or at least Tamra would be able to do so, when she had gotten stronger, not that she wasn’t plenty strong already.

It was actually all a little befuddling really, these last few jobs were some of the worst and some of the most disastrous, that Edna had ever had to deal with.

On the ground were the Mannequins. Creatures with barely any aether cultivation at all, that could single handedly put a second realm practitioner in the ground and killed anything on the first realm, like a child would kill ants.

The second, was the girl who hung behind her, standing on a platform of nothing, singing a song that made the whole world  tremble as the laws of reality were nudged and cajoled to do as she wanted. Inciting a monochrome effect whilst still just being on the eleventh layer of the first realm.

Edna found herself wondering if maybe she really ‘didn’t’ understand what true power was. She knew Billy had once said that it was more than aether-ranks and bloodlines, but seeing made it easier to believe. Easier to wrap her head around.

Not that she had time to actually think of such things at the moment, she still had a job to do. Watching both the ground below and the air above.

Suddenly she saw movement, a bright flash and hypersonic boom that lasted just barely long enough to warn her. She called up her AWs, her aura rising forming an aetheric shield while she cast wards of protection on both the girl and herself.

Hoping that umbrella Billy gave the girl would pick up the slack because she didn’t have the leeway to do more or invest more effort.

One half second later there was a ‘thing’ floating in front of her, seething,  both literally and figuratively. A liquid metal construct, whose form seemed to be like artist’s rendition of both dragon and knight. A menacing avatar of metal and claw. Idealized, stylized and then fused into a single entity.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

It slammed into her, breaking most of her defenses and a few of her bones. She thought she’d dropped the ball and expected to see the girl fall too. Instead Edna saw the creature diving, chasing her to finish the job. She said a silent prayer of thanks to any god that might have been listening.

Thankful for idiots with one track minds, she was able to adjust, changing her flight course. Her AWs switched to their cannon mode and a beam of agitated nothingness poured out from all of them. Blasting the creature back but not disintegrating it like she’d hoped.

It came back, going from zero to a thousand, in no time at all, the sonic boom that it made as flew through the air, causing nearby mountains to shake and crumble.

She got hit again, and this time it was with barely any shielding at all.

She probably should have died, but considering where she worked and who she worked with, it was only natural she had enchantments in her clothes and charms in her pockets, that would keep her alive and miraculously conscious.  

The earth parted, caving in and crumbling away as Edna fell, becoming a human asteroid. For two precious seconds, she was too dazed to move, she saw the creature getting ready to come after her. She heard Elena’s voice screaming through the phone construct.

Telling her to run, block, fight, do something, unfortunately it seemed her body would obey, her. It was like watching herself get struck by lightning, except she was experiencing it in slow motion.

Watching the bolt branch out, growingly like the limb of tree. Starkly aware that her reflexes would be unable to respond in time

She heard the girl singing as the creature appeared in front of her, a hot white bladed limb held high above Edna’s head.  

Edna winced as she brought her AWs close for second blast. Before she could shoot and before the beast could impale her, a castle appeared, big castle the size of a small moon.

It came tearing through the air, slamming into the creature with the force of ten thousand freight trains, before  abruptly disappearing.

*****

Tamra had stopped singing, her spell was not one of words, the song was just to get her in the right mental. Her power was one of madness and illusions. Like Billy she too could shatter the boundary between the real or create whole new worlds of her imagining.

At least that would the case in the future, for a future her. At least that’s what Billy said, when he sat her down and explained what manner of creature he’d inadvertently turned her into.

In time she’d become a creature that was similar to him, but not exactly bearing the same nature.

For now though, her power was limited to creating figments, powerful illusions that could at least blur the boundary between real and fake. She slammed more castles into the beast.

The world shook. Its bones creaked under the weight that was slammed into it.  

A grand maze of thousand mile high, thousand mile thick, walls, rose from the earth to isolate both the creature and the horde that the creature had created.

A shaky Edna stood up from within the crater she’d been lying in, giving Tamra a thumbs up, while smiling that confident smile of hers. Tamra returned the gesture with a shy smile of her own, before passing out.

Sleeping dreamlessly after bringing one of her dreams into the real world.

The umbrella teleported her back to the house. She might have done a little too much. Tamra hoped she hadn’t hurt herself with her exertions. If she did, Billy, in his Master William role, would scold her again.

‘That’ was never fun, for a guy who’d do pretty much anything if you said please, he could be surprisingly strict if he felt the situation called for it.

*****

Edna watched the little witch go, she was a good girl, odd, a bit of  a cold fish, and a little too quiet, but nice, kind of like Billy that way. Maybe that was why she seemed to have been able to get through to him, before even Edna and Elena, had.

It irked her that, that was the case, especially considering that the two of them had known him first and longer, but this wasn’t the time to be worrying about her love life.

The Mercury-Knight clawed its way out of the rubble it had been buried under, some of the stones melting into a glowing red slurry. Edna prepared to shoot it down with all she had.

Shifting the AWs settings so they’d fire cold instead of hot. She was just about to fire when something popped over her, tearing through the atmosphere, and turning the gray sky an opaque blue with its mere presence.

She jumped, teleporting a few miles away, weary of an attack from an unknown. Whatever had just popped into the area, was strong. Conventionally strong. Strong in a way that Edna could understand.

Its aura, washing over everything like the sun on a hot desert day. A figure slowly drifted down, into her view. On his back were six wings. White like the clouds on a perfect day.

In his hand was a sword. Long and thin, and gray. She would have been more on tenthers but she recognized Billy’s handiwork.

“Who-...who are you?”

The figure turned around, handsome in a lost prince sort of way, like a noble that had come down on hard times. His refined features getting rough around the edges, complete with clothes that were slightly tattered and heavily patched, and the beginnings of what would eventually be an unruly beard.

The man scowled.

“Mhm?….Ask your friend. The man’s an ass but he knows how to make offers that can’t be refused...I’ll give him that much…” said the man. Grumbling to himself as he turned to face the creature.

She watched with rapt attention as she watched him face the beast on equal ground, the sword flashing, moving so fast it was nearly invisible. The shockwaves of their exchanges devastating the thankfully empty lands below.

“Damn...he’s got to be at seventh realm or higher…”

“Gah!?”

Edna felt her heart race, and scolded herself. She hadn’t paying close enough attention to her surroundings and Elena, had been able to sneak up on her. Likely joining her as the last mannequins were flattened.

Ever the actor, Edna quickly recovered.

“Seventh? I thinking more like tenth or higher.”

Such numbers were simply unheard of but seeing was believing, and the aura that was washing over them, like the flow of the sea at high tide was too strong to be ignored. Elena, simply frowned nodding, as she watched the man and the beast fight, creating hurricanes and earthquakes with each traded blow.

She couldn’t help remembering that phrase again ‘laughable and laudable’. She imagined trying to fight either the man or the creature and felt cold sweat rising on her back. The hairs on the back of her neck stood as she saw visions of what would most likely be the death of her.

More inexplicable was the warmth that was building in her undercarriage. She was excited in more ways the one. She turned to Elena, and saw her smiling, her look ghoulish, her teeth flashing in the evening light. Looking distinctly carnivorous.

“Hey Ed, this was our dance first, right?.” said Elena.

Edna, ground her teeth feeling her usual resting grin, widening, coming alive.

“Mhm...I guess…” said Edna.

“Then what are we waiting for? Said Elena.

They streaked forwards, upwards, chasing the man and the creature, flying towards the fight. Eager to join in. Edna knew it was insane, but between that and being afraid, she’d rather be crazy.

Thus the two of flew after the Winged man and the Mercury Knight, guns blazing. Their aura’s spiking and going wild.  They caught up to them with a few seconds.

Elena called out, her bellow echoing across the wide expanse of the sky.

“Hey Mister, you ever played volley ball?”

The Winged Man, smashed his blade against the Mercury-Knight trying and failing to impale it.

“...I’ve heard of it.”

There was roar and a rumble of the air, as Elena accelerated, appearing behind the knight both her hands gather together, her tail coiling around them both, forming a sort of impromptu mace.

“Good. Then you should know what I mean when I say I’m setting up a spike! I’m gonna need you to help.” said Elena. Bringing the mace down and smash the creature towards the man.

For what it was worth the man did know, taking advantage of the creature’s lack of preparedness, and loss of poise to pierce through it, with his blade.

Then came Edna’s turn. She was already in position beneath them, Watching as the winged man knocked the creature up into the air with the same movement that drew his sword from its chest.

Her AWs fired out a scatter of crackling black rings.  Blasting the metal beast’s armor open, in its moment of helplessness.

She followed her first strike by sending out a ray of endless cold and force and nothingness that ran through its flesh, like lightning through a mountain climber. It’s body disintegrating as it was driven up, past the upper limits of the atmosphere.