Mark leapt to his feet, only to immediately collapse back onto the floor as a wave of exhaustion washed over him. He knew that feeling. They were back.
Horan winced as he pulled himself up, using the lookout station’s fire finder as a crutch. “We’re… back?”
We’re all back.
Horan’s head whipped around in surprise as he tried to locate the source of the disembodied voice echoing in his mind. “Wha–? Did… did you hear that?”
“…I heard it.” Quet slowly rose in turn, leaving only Waia still on the ground.
The voice returned, transcending sound echoing within everyone’s minds collectively as if someone else’s thoughts were being projected across space. Well, you all did great. Now, sit back in your little protected bubble– courtesy of my brother, be sure to tip him on your way out– and enjoy the show. It’ll be your turn shortly.
Something outside the lookout station caused a wave of green light to pierce the cracks in the window covers, creating shafts of blue within the tiny hut as if a UFO had landed outside. Mark staggered to the door, stumbled down the stairs, and looked up at the source of the light.
Miles away in the gloom, a vast column of blue flame soared into the clouds, dwarfing the mountains from behind which it rose. The growing roar of the colossal fire seemed to nearly cause the earth itself to shake. Then another flaming pillar pierced the earth and sky miles off in another direction, and the ground was definitely shaking.
Quet, the only one other than Mark in any position to walk, passed through the station’s doorway, shrinking away from the rattling window covers, and joined Mark outside. The two of them stared in horror as more and more flaming pillars filled the horizon, each new eruption splitting entire mountains in two.
From somewhere behind the lookout station, Torch dragged themself along the ground on the tendrils sprouting from their back, shards of glass embedded in the twisted flesh of their one remaining hand. They pulled themself forward all the way to the edge of the mountaintop and gazed in awe at the expanse of destruction before them. “It… It is done. I have fulfilled my duty, creator. The world I have endured is pathetic. Let me rejoin the who–”
HE'S BIGGER!
Mark, Quet and Torch all froze as the voice returned, drowning out all other thoughts from its conceptual volume.
Mark fished through his pockets for his translation-glyph, grasped it, and looked at Quet. “You, uh… Magic isn’t fixing this one, is it?”
Quet silently shook her head.
“…Worth a shot.”
HE’S BADDER! Came the voice.
Mark looked to the side to see Torch’s bloody form thrown into harsh relief by the innumerable pillars surrounding the mountain. He stormed towards them, brandishing his knife and shouting to be heard over the roar of the unnatural fire. “What did you do?!”
Torch rolled onto their side, leaving a small pool of blood where they had been lying before, and looked numbly at Mark. “…I succeeded. Any minute now, I will be… granted reprieve from this mortal agony. And you will be… left behind. You have been instructed to witness my creator’s apotheosis. You are to do as you have been told.”
Thin wisps of fire began to extend from the pillars, trailing through the air before linking up with one another and forming a blue web that spanned the entire sky. The tendrils connecting the pillars widened, and were soon joined by yet more tendrils that grew upwards from the ground.
The chains of fire directly in front of the lookout station’s door, forming a vaguely humanoid silhouetted and rapidly growing in brightness.
HE’S FLOWN BACK IN AFTER A TWO-THOUSAND-YEAR FORCED VACATION IN THE DOWN BELOW, AND BOY, ARE HIS ARMS TIRED!
The network of fire twisted into the shape of a head. Then a pair of arms. Bit by bit, a humanoid figure tall enough to touch the clouds was moulded into existence.
LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND ALL YOU OTHER WONDERFUL LITTLE NOTHINGS ACROSS THE WORLD, IN HONOR OF THE PRIMUS WHO LEFT YOU TO STARVE AND MADE ALL OF THIS POSSIBLE FOR ME, IT IS MY PLEASURE TO INTRODUCE YOU ALL TO…
The humanoid frame flared into full existence, the flaming reptilian eye that dominated its face staring down at the insignificant mountain before it.
…ASMOS!
The figure dissipated into thin air, and the pillars of fire halted with it, leaving nothing but darkness and ringing ears.
Mark swallowed and looked around. “…Looks like that’s it for us, the–”
With introductions out of the way, continued the voice of the being identifying as Asmos, how’s about we start the show?
The valley at Mount Baker’s foot split open, revealing an abyss of yet more blue light that quickly widened and made the mountain range on the other side pull away. The nascent ravine spiderwebbed outward on both ends, splitting the landscape into minute islands.
A tremor rippled through the mountain, throwing Mark and Quet onto their backs. The shock also sent Horan, who was about to climb out of the lookout station, tumbling down the stairs. Torch stumbled and fell over the edge of the mountaintop, presumably landing on the dirt road that wound up the side of the mountain. They were far from anyone’s number one priority at the moment, however.
Mark forced himself up to his knees, then looked up to see the mountain on the other side of the artificial ravine rising into the air, exposing the packed earth that held it up.
I do hope you understand, continued Asmos, that it’s really nothing personal. I’ve got great things planned for my future, is all, and I’m not exactly a fan of participation trophies.
As the islands of earth continued to distance themselves from each other, Mark saw a tidal wave of fire rise over the peaks from the north, swelling and reaching its zenith as it raced towards Mount Baker.
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He quickly rose fully to his feet and pulled Quet up in turn. “Back to the station! Now!” He scrambled towards the hut, waving at Horan to command him to stand and follow them both back.
The wave hit three seconds before Mark shut the flimsy door behind him. The wall of fire was repulsed by some invisible, oval-shaped field around the station, bending and sliding around it like two identical magnetic poles being pressed together. The SUV outside, however, was less lucky, and was hurled out of sight in an instant. The dead trees on the mountaintop seemed to still be affected by whatever ward Deus had laid on the area millennia ago, and remained intact.
Waia struggled to pull herself up and maintain coherent consciousness as the other three cowered in the station next to her. Her senses blurred and her mind grew foggy as she dimly processed the fact that the inferno of blue light surrounding the station and the trembling earth below her weren’t usually there. She was supposed to have healed by now. Why wasn’t she healing?
Man, came Asmos’ mind-voice, is it good to finally do something other than watch you all scurry around! My little agent did a great job of clustering you all together, since now, I barely have to split my attention to see how you all turn out! More people falling into those chasms I’ve been making than I expected, I’ll be honest. Well, more fuel for the fire. And the very same group of Primoi who let you all experience this are cowering in a fire lookout in Washington as we speak! They’re definitely looking at it now, am I right? Be sure to thank them on your way out, folks.
Mark got an idea. A bad one.
“Okay, uh…” He looked around the sparse room. “…Horan?”
Horan clutched at his ribs as he leaned against the wall of the station. “What now, even?!”
“Alright, you make sure Quet is okay, and stop Waia from bleeding out on the floor if you can.” Mark pushed a nearby window cover open a crack and looked outside. It seemed like the fire wave hadn’t made the outside too uninhabitable. “If any of you three think of anything, anything at all, that can help with this, do it. I’ll buy you another couple minutes.”
“I…!” Horan gazed in terror at Mark. “You can’t be serious!”
“When am I not?” Mark got up and made for the door. Before he could turn the handle, however, green glyphs carved themselves onto the brass, locking the handle in place.
Quet lowered her hand and glared at Mark. “I won’t let you.”
“I need to do something to give you time,” replied Mark. “I’ve got a feeling that whoever all this said he was, he’ll manage to get to us in here soon enough. We’re all dead anyway if we hide in here, I might as well draw things out in here just in case one of you happen to remember some trick to this.”
Quet sighed and exchanged a worn-out look with Horan. “Do… Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m not compelled to tell the truth like some people here,” said Mark. “But I don’t need to be. I’ve got absolutely no idea.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Quet shrugged and snapped her fingers, dispelling the glyphs on the door handle. “It’ll have to do. Knock ‘em dead.”
Mark nodded and stepped outside, making sure to shut the door behind him.
He walked out down the path leading out from the lookout station. Planting one leg on a dead tree that hung almost horizontally over the edge of the mountaintop, he gazed out at the sea of rising and falling islands that had been ripped out of the ground. What had this thing called itself again? “…Asmos!”
The clouds directly above Mark parted, revealing an enormous flaming orb with a single jet-black vertical slit in the center. An eye. He’d gotten his attention.
“I’m not done with you!” called Mark. “You and me! Get over here, and finish this!”
Oh, right, came the voice. Would you like me to broadcast a correction to my previous statement? A group of Primoi plus one idiot human. The most boring part of your little road show, and you think you’re the one to finally put a stop to me?
“Why don’t we find out?!” replied Mark.
…Hm. I’ll humor it. The eye vanished and the clouds returned over Mark’s head. In a flash of blue, his gun reappeared in his hand. You dropped it down there, among other things. I’ll offer it back. I’m sure it makes you feel big and strong.
Out of the stone of the island across from Mark, a small colosseum rose into the air and drifted into the void between its island and Mark’s. Discs of stone were skimmed from the uppermost layers of the colosseum’s ringed wall, aligning themselves like stepping stones for Mark to walk along.
Mark took a deep breath and stepped on the first disc, moving out into open air. He did his absolute best to not look down, and tried a lot harder than his best to think about how small the discs supporting him actually were. None of them could be more than a foot in diameter, after all.
It didn’t take long for his resolve to break. He looked down.
Between the small islands, there was not some chasm leading into darkness, not a great expanse of uprooted earth. There was nothing. Simply a void of blue light continuing downward for miles with no earth in sight. Whatever Asmos was doing to the earth, it wouldn’t be identifiable as a planet for long.
Have to start somewhere, responded Asmos, reading Mark’s shock at the sight. I’ve been shunting the planet into a few extradimensional spaces for the past few minutes. Deus gets the people, I get the dirt. The earth’s core is gonna make for some primo building material, but you’ll just have to take my word on that. You won’t be there to see it.
Mark collapsed to his knees and caught himself on the next stepping stone, too paralyzed with fear to stand. Laughter reverberated within his mind. Acrophobia. A classic. One you don’t even try to hide! Messing with humans is really too easy sometimes.
The remaining stepping stones yanked Mark forward and dumped him on the outer edge of the colosseum before losing their animus and falling into the abyss below. Mark staggered to his feet, hurried away from the edge, and stepped through an archway that led through the wall.
The colosseum wasn’t especially big; maybe only a hundred feet across. In the middle of the sand-covered floor (had the mountain the colosseum was made of been full of sand?), a large throne was fixed in place. Ribbons of fire swirled around the throne before coalescing into an eleven-foot-tall replica of the enormous figure that had shown itself earlier, seated passively on the throne with its single baleful eye fixed on Mark.
Something for you to shoot at, explained Asmos.
“Perfect.” Mark transformed his gun into a long hunting rifle.
Not that it’ll do anything, continued Asmos. You may or may not have noticed, but I’ve kind of moved past the whole ‘corporeal form’ thi–
A bullet whizzed harmlessly through the effigy’s flaming head, blowing a crater in the throne behind it.
Seriously? We haven’t even formally introduced ourselves yet!
Mark took another ineffectual shot.
But just to be clear, this is your entire plan? Shoot at me with your gun? No trick or anything? I can see that there’s nobody sneaking up behind me.
Mark lined up a third shot. “It’ll work one of these times.”
No it won’t. This is disappointing. The effigy lifted a talon-shaped finger, and Mark’s latest bullet froze in mid-air inches from its faux-eye. Sad, even. The bullet pivoted around in a half-circle and, with another finger-lift, was fired straight back into Mark’s stomach.
Mark cried out in pain and collapsed to the floor, blood spilling out onto the sand as he curled up into a ball.
Asmos’ simulacrum vanished back into thin air. But it’s not like I was expecting anything more from some random human. I was actually going to let the four of you stay alive for another half-hour or so, to give you a decent picture of what I’ve got planned out for the rest of my days, but if you insist on coming to me, I can move my timeline up a ways. I’ll give your more competent friends your regards. Nice knowing you!
The colosseum began to disintegrate.