Now, Kansas
“Become one with the Dominion of Immortal Light and Joy.”
Nila heard the voice accompanied by the most beautiful music.
She closed off her Threnosh-made helmet’s audio with a cybernetic thought.
The otherworldly invader appeared just as Cal had described it.
An ivory-colored androgynous body, perfectly smooth like alabaster or porcelain. Unnatural with no hint of reproductive organs. Large golden wings sprouted from its back, they rustled in the wind like true feathers despite metallic sheen. Strangely, it hovered above them without flapping its wings.
Zalthyss’ mouth moved to reveal rows of sharp teeth, but the words didn’t reach her.
The music, however, still ran through her thoughts.
She raised her SAW and squeezed the trigger.
Superstrength allowed her to hold the stream of bullets steady on the golden-winged angel.
They plinked off doing nothing more that leaving smudges on Zalthyss’ pristine surface.
She emptied the drum magazine in seconds.
Zalthyss didn’t allow her to reload another.
It swooped down faster than anyone in the parking lot could react.
Strong hands gripped her throat.
The SAW broken as it was torn from her superstrong grip.
Nila was up in the sky in a split-second.
Zalthyss spoke.
She couldn’t hear.
A confused look briefly flashed on its perfect mask-like face.
Its mouth opened.
Her faceplate cracked.
The music grated in her ears.
The sound of the wind rushed through along with the voice of music.
“Better. You are clad in the toys of the deaf ones. You will find that it will serve you as well as it did them.”
Her left arm was held immobile in a vise-like grip she couldn’t fight.
She punched it in the side of the head with her right.
One after another.
Her fist blurred as thunder boomed in the dark night’s sky.
A slight smile crossed its unmarred face.
“How will the ceasing of your song change Honor’s?”
Black closed in around the edges of her vision as the grip around her throat tightened.
“Mach Throw!”
A loud boom shattered all the windows at street level.
Metal plinked of both Zalthyss and her armor.
Ineffectual—
Not entirely.
It had happened too fast for the normal human perceptions to follow, but she wasn’t normal. She was better.
Trevor had thrown a handful of the bullets she had wasted on Zalthyss.
Her mistake had been aiming for center mass when she should’ve aimed for the wings.
Tiny holes marred the golden feathers.
A flash of something on Zalthyss’ face.
She hoped it was pain.
The moment of distraction gave her a split-second to throw her legs up and around the arm squeezing the life out of her.
She grabbed the wrist with her free hand and pushed with her hips and legs.
The alabaster arm straightened with agonizing slowness as she fought against going into that long dark corridor. The elbow stopped. The arm was straight, but she couldn’t move it further.
A large fireball consumed them.
The heat washed over and the flames singed her face through the cracks.
Down below, Jimenez loaded another bolt into her crossbow.
A second thwang echoed in the strained silence while dozens of people watched from behind what cover they could find.
The purple goop expanded quickly to engulf Zalthyss’ head.
It released Nila’s left hand to pull at the gunk.
She now had her entire strength to put into the flying armbar.
Its elbow began to move.
She was suddenly shaken off and found herself plummeting to the street.
It freed itself from the goop and turned its attention to Jimenez.
Zalthyss opened its mouth and sang to the woman.
“Intercept!” Marci moved faster than she could’ve otherwise. Impossibly fast.
She beat the song to Jimenez taking it on her large round shield.
The wood began to disintegrate.
“Reinforced Shield!” she grit her teeth.
The song rose.
The wood melted.
Followed by Marci’s armor. Then her clothes. Then her flesh.
Jimenez screamed.
Nila hit the ground with her legs, bending to absorb the impact. She leapt to the lowest rooftop, drawing her baseball bat-like club from the magnetic sheath on her back. It was too far up for her to reach from the ground, but if she could reach the tallest building…
Shrewed barreled through the song, tackling both Marci and Jimenez out of the cone. “Monsignor! They need heals!” he roared in mingled desperation and pain
“Heater! Cutter!” Trevor hurled baseballs at the Zalthyss one after another.
Dayana’s rifle shots did nothing.
“I can’t reach him,” Hayden whispered.
“Trevor!” Jayde snapped.
“What?”
“Can you throw people?”
“… no! Why would you think that?”
“Forget it… useless,” Jayde muttered.
Monsignor reached Marci and Jimenez.
Patches of bloody muscles greeted her.
A warm light surround her and the agonized women as she began to pray.
“She’ll take care of them,” Shrewed grabbed Amber’s shoulder. “You’re a Mage, can’t you hit him with something?”
“I’ve got the basic spells every Mage gets, but I haven’t focused on making them stronger. Not like with my sword and armor,” Amber said.
A loud crack echoed above them.
Nila sent Zalthyss toward the ground with one swing of her bat.
“Close enough,” Hayden shot it with her custom taser.
The prongs caught on the metallic feathers.
She had taken Cal’s stories to heart.
Understood the danger from what she had just seen take place over the course of less then a minute.
She put all of the lightning in her body into Zalthyss.
Arcs of electricity coursed down the metal wires and flowed across Zalthyss’ perfect wings and body.
Nila leapt in and slammed it into the street.
Hayden’s electricity played harmlessly across the surface of Nila’s club and armor.
“Yes!” Jayde leapt in despite the fact that one arm was in a sling. “Fireball!”
Hayden cut her power.
Jayde’s punch landed on Zalthyss head.
The explosion rocked it back a few steps.
Jayde was caught unprepared. She was protected from the effects of her spell punches for a few moments after casting them. Unfortunately, her usual targets tended to get sent flying much further away.
She tumbled across the asphalt. Eventually coming to a stop in an unmoving heap.
“Flicker Movement!”
Dayana appeared.
“Bleed!”
Sparks flew as her blades struck perfect skin.
Zalthyss’ hand shot out.
Dayana kicked, stabbed and slashed to no avail.
Zalthyss pulled her arm to his mouth and bit.
The scream chilled Hayden to her soul.
She had already reloaded another cartridge but couldn’t shoot now that it had her friend in its grasp.
It swallowed the chunk. Armor, clothes and flesh.
Nila stepped in and struck its arm, getting Dayana free before grabbing her and sprinting back to Monsignor.
Hayden fired again.
To the same effect.
The other people in the parking lot finally joined in.
Gunfire erupted.
Fireballs.
Magic Missiles.
Bolts of magic ice, fire, earth and wind.
All converged on the golden-winged angel as it slowly floated off the ground.
“Open yourselves to the song and find eternity.” Zalthyss raised its arms out wide. “Remain deaf and know the end.” It opened its mouth to sing.
“False idol!” Monsignor stepped forward with a prayer on her lips. “You prey on our fears. You subvert the truth of the Lord. Your lies stop here! I strike you in the name of my faith! Smite Evil!” she raised her flanged mace.
The bright yellow-white ray descended from above and struck Zalthyss.
Discomfort flashed across its perfect face.
Finally.
Monsignor roared but the light flickered, then vanished.
“There will be no eternity for one such as you.” Zalthyss sang at Monsignor.
The song ripped through the air.
Nila wavered as the pain of it nearly brought her to her knees even though she wasn’t in the direct path.
The rest weren’t as resilient.
Everyone else fell to ground screaming in agony. Blood flowed from their eyes, noses and ears.
With one exception.
Monsignor climbed to her feet. Her armor and clothes disintegrated but her flesh healed even as it flaked away. She raised the remnants of her triangular shield with a prayer. “My faith is my shield. My faith is protection for all under his eyes. It matters not if they believe. For I believe. Barrier of Faith.”
A warm yellow-white light shined from her.
It pulsed and radiated in all directions.
The air roiled where it met the song.
Back and forth they went.
Zalthyss brow creased as it sang with greater intensity.
The song no longer reached them physically.
The song continued to play in their thoughts.
Monsignor faltered.
She teetered for a moment.
Then fell.
The air rippled as the song spread out to engulf them all.
Sudden silence.
Nila tilted her head to the sky.
A loud bang shook the sky.
Zalthyss’ head snapped back.
The golden-winged angel suddenly vanished from sight.
The only marker of its passage was the large gaping hole through the building across the street and many others behind it.
Cal dropped out of the sky landing in an eruption of asphalt.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The unseen song crashed against his telekinetic barrier.
Sorry.
Nila heard the voice in her head.
Took your time, she thought back.
The eternal church and the cannibals slowed me down… but that’s no excuse. I almost lost you.
No, you didn’t.
I’m sorry, but there’s no time. You guys need to get out of the city. 15000 more Meat Parade are already here and they’re headed this way.
They’ll have to go through the church.
They’re coming too. Zalthyss put out a call. Every true believer is coming and the cannibals are going to go where there are people to murder and eat.
We don’t have enough vehicles. We only got one other bus working and only a few cars and trucks that Knox’s and Heddy’s group brought. We’ll have to leave a lot of people.
Don’t worry. I put out my own call. The ‘unbelievers’ will get here first. You’ll have minutes to cram everyone into the vehicles, but it’s the best I could do. Get out of the city. The east side has the least amount of Meat Parade. I’ll take care of Zalthyss and catch up with you later.
Please— be careful.
He tossed his handcannon to her.
I love you.
Love you too.
The conversation had taken place in the span of a second.
Cal disappeared after Zalthyss as quickly as he had appeared.
Nila roused the wounded, which was everyone in the area.
It was a miracle that no one had died.
She told them what was happening in the city.
Bloodied and beaten they moved with urgency.
They were racing death… or worse.
No one wanted to lose.
----------------------------------------
Cal cursed himself.
He had been delayed.
Nila, the little guy and the others had been moments away from death.
Both the eternal church and cannibals had tried to bring him out of the sky.
They had shot at him with guns, arrows, spells and even Skills.
And they had been strong enough that he hadn’t been able to simply block them and brush them off.
Something in the song, the music that had consumed the entirety of their thoughts had boosted the eternal church faithful beyond their limits.
In his desperation he had done something he had never wanted to do.
He had tried to control their minds.
But, the song had stopped him.
He had left them and the cannibals alone after that.
Let them fight and occupy each other.
He had reached those that didn’t believe in the church’s lies. Those that only pretended to go along out of fear.
He had showed them the truth of everything.
Zalthyss.
The Meat Parade’s true numbers.
He had left them instructions to follow if they wanted to escape. Directed them to the emergency shelters in order to free those being used as hostages.
Not everyone would make it.
Many would die in the attempt to commandeer vehicles from the church.
They would die to the roving packs of cannibals infesting the city. They would die to the church murdering them rather than allowing desertion.
It was out of his hands now.
He had to kill Zalthyss or none would escape.
The false angel burst out of a crumbling building.
He hit it with an invisible fist while reaching inside its mind to rend its thoughts.
The song, the music, shredded his own telepathic walls.
It didn’t have a mind, at least not in a way that he understood.
Something told him that he wasn’t going to have the time to unravel that mystery.
Zalthyss opened its mouth to sing.
The air rippled as it swept toward him.
The song broke on the telekinetic wall.
Zalthyss was fast.
The weakened wall shattered and sent a spike of stabbing needles into Cal’s brain.
Zalthyss appeared in front of him with sharp fingers spearing for his eyes.
A hasty wall slowed it enough for him to slip his head to one side and land a telekinetically-enhanced punch to the stomach, followed by another to the face.
Sharp teeth shook loose.
A mighty gust of wind blew him back as Zalthyss flapped for distance.
He sent a shower of blades, spikes and ninja stars to swarm around Zalthyss.
He knew they wouldn’t pierce the alabaster skin but needed the distraction to grab those golden wings in telekinetic hands.
He pulled with all his might.
The wings strained, then started to give.
A look of unmistakable pain crossed Zalthyss’ face.
It opened its mouth.
He filled it with as much flying metal as he could stuff.
The song erupted free regardless.
Pain struck his brain as his telekinetic hands were disintegrated.
A moment’s distraction on his part almost proved costly.
Zalthyss swooped down with a mighty flap of its wings. Straight for Nila, the little guy and the others.
The air burned in their wake as Cal gave chase.
He reached out and wrapped thin metal wires on every part of its body that he could.
Several wires snapped as he pulled Zalthyss up into the dark night sky.
Enough held.
Cal spun the partially bound false angel in a wide circle before letting it fly toward the eastern horizon. He added a telekinetic shove that would’ve toppled the strongest building.
Zalthyss broke the sound barrier several times as it hurtled through the sky.
He chased after it.
The landscape miles below him blurred as he pushed his speed up to and then beyond his limits. A telekinetic shield around his body kept his clothes from catching fire or simply being torn off.
The great Mississippi river flashed below him.
Tiny lights sparkled in the distance below. They stood out in the darkness as stark reminders of how little remained of the old world.
Settlements.
He felt their minds wake at the loud booms disturbing their slumber. Their wonder at the streak of golden light in the night sky as they frantically searched for the source of the noise.
Zalthyss fought the spin and righted itself.
He didn’t allow it.
A telekinetic punch forced its flight to continue.
The music raged in discordant unhappiness as he continued to pummel it through the sky.
Mountains loomed ever closer as the minutes flowed forward.
The Appalachians?
He sensed thoughts, presences hidden in those mountains.
Not human, nor animal.
Monsters.
Other outworld invaders.
Sapient.
He thought to hurl Zalthyss at one of the stronger feeling ones.
Decided against it.
He didn’t know what the song, the music might do.
There was a chance that he’d hand Zalthyss another powerful being to use against him.
Instead, he aimed for a mind that had no room for conscious thought other than the next prey to kill.
He punched Zalthyss into deep, dark woods that covered a small valley nestled between steep, rugged terrain.
Coils scraped through trees.
Tongue lashed out to taste the air.
The deep thrum of a beating heart. A mighty engine that gave life to the massive creature.
A fanged mouth snapped out from the canopy and swallowed Zalthyss whole.
Slitted eyes regarded Cal with malice as he floated several hundred feet above.
The great horned serpent flicked its tongue out before slipping back down into the forest.
It sounded like a rumbling train as it slithered away.
He tracked its passing by the violent shaking of the trees.
“That actually worked? No way—”
The song burst into life across all his senses.
Zalthyss was a golden streak of light as it burst out of the forest and crashed into him.
It reeked of blood, guts and stomach acid.
“Indignities matter not to the dominion.”
Zalthyss spun him around and threw him with a song that he barely managed to block with a telekinetic shield.
The closely projected shield saved him his skin but he still went spinning into the sky.
It flew after him and continued to bombard him with the song that wasn’t a song.
It was all he could do to maintain the shield.
He couldn’t fight the spin nor escape the song.
They ate the distance like a starving man.
The miles flashed by in a dizzying mix of ground and sky.
The stars left light trails in his vision, just as the scant lights on surface did.
Finally, he caught Zalthyss with a telekinetic punch buying him the moment he needed to bring a halt to his spinning body.
Zalthyss blasted him closer to the ground.
He caught a huge statue standing in the middle of the ocean.
The headless statue held up a giant torch.
There was no time to ponder that.
Zalthyss blasted him again.
Cal expected to crash into something hard.
He didn’t expect his end to be on something bouncy and sticky.
He felt the creatures simple minds and wondered if Zalthyss was the petty sort.
Thousands of legs skittered across the finger-thick strands of webbing that had caught him and saved him from a painful landing. Only if it was to provide sustenance for the dog-sized spiders heading toward him.
The web stuck to his skin and his clothes.
He pulled but he lacked proper leverage.
The best he managed to do was break a few of the parts were the webbing was connected to the sides of the buildings.
He pushed the spiders away from him with a telekinetic burst.
Zalthyss swooped in.
He threw a bunch of spiders on the false angel.
He bought himself a second.
It was enough as he sped up his perception of time.
Everything around him seemed to slow to a crawl.
Using his telekinesis he broke the webbing down on the molecular level and freed himself.
Time returned to normal.
Zalthyss song washed over him and the chaotic mass of webbing strung up across several blocks of city skyscrapers.
Cal flew deeper into the mass weaving through the tangled strands.
Zalthyss disintegrated everything in a wide cone in front of it in pursuit.
Cal reached out with telekinesis and grabbed two skyscrapers on each side of the street in front of him.
Steel groaned then gave way.
He flew through just as he pulled both buildings down on Zalthyss.
A great cloud of dust and debris rose up to choke several city blocks.
He flew above it, circling, searching for the false angel.
The cloud dispersed with a burst of the song.
Zalthyss suddenly appeared behind him and struck him down toward the street.
He tumbled through the debris of the two collapsed buildings.
Zalthyss was on him before he could get to his feet.
A golden hand pulled his left arm out to the side.
“Two lost. Two taken. Three remain. Yet to be taken.”
Zalthyss regarded Cal’s three-fingered left hand for a moment before opening its mouth to sing.
He grit his teeth.
The telekinetic shield around his hand held…
Until it didn’t.
The shield shattered.
Cal saw white stars.
He felt a flash of pain as the skin of his left hand disintegrated.
The muscles followed.
The pain stopped at his wrist when the nerves melted away.
His vision cleared just soon enough to see the bones crumbled into dust.
Zalthyss was done with the hand, but not with the rest of him.
The song moved past his wrist and up his arm.
The pain returned as a throbbing thing of fire.
He shunted it into a space in his mind and locked it away.
He needed to concentrate.
Zalthyss had given him an idea.
He remembered how had once reshaped the metal and earth deep within the depths of Orchestral Meridian.
He hadn’t simply just torn and moved with invisible hands like a child playing in the dirt.
He had moved molecules once.
Senses beyond the physical allowed him to see past the cells that comprised the nearly impervious alabaster skin.
His arm continued to slowly disintegrate beneath the beautiful sound.
He sped up his perceptions.
It felt like an eternity to move the molecules that comprised Zalthyss’ shell.
He was certain of that now.
There was nothing within.
Only the song, the music.
It fought him while he split the shell.
The song sought to pull it back together.
They fought for an eternity.
Then, without warning, it broke.
Cal pushed himself back. He skidded across the ground, slamming debris out of the way.
The song, the music, flowed out of the infinitesimal crack in the middle of that perfect alabaster shell.
Golden light filled the area with blinding intensity.
Cal struggled.
Limits had been brushed against… then pushed through.
Crimson streamed from his face. It soaked the tattered remnants of his clothing as he cradled his left arm to his chest.
Consciousness wavered.
The song rose to a crescendo as it seemed to fill the air around Zalthyss.
“The Dominion is immortal.”
Sharp, pointed finger tips speared into Cal’s stomach crashing into a telekinetic shield that didn’t budge.
Zalthyss sang.
His shield cracked, then broke an instant later.
The piercing pain was a distant thing automatically moved to a place where he wouldn’t truly feel it.
Red streams flowed down alabaster fingers to pool in a once pristine palm.
“Nothing lasts forever,” he coughed and painted a once pristine alabaster face in speckled red.
“Each time we meet less of you remains. What will you lose the next time?”
“I killed you!” he snapped. “This,” he thrust the bloody stump forward, “is nothing! It’s worth it just to rid the worlds of you!”
Zalthyss regarded him with a serene look. “There are more things I can take than your simple shell of flesh and blood.”
“Just die already!” he reached out with a snarl grasping the edges of the crack in the false angel’s chest.
He ripped it open.
Perception slowed.
Debris, spider parts and other detritus hung in the air.
The wind stilled.
Crumbling buildings defied gravity.
“I am eternal.”
The song burst free in an explosion that shattered the sky.
“No… you’re dead.”
Cal saw nothing. Heard nothing.
Everything in a half-mile radius of Zalthyss’ shell went flying.
When the cloud cleared many hours later there was a huge crater in the middle of New York City.
The ground had been scoured clean of everything with one exception.
A twisted black shell stood in the center.
It had been mangled beyond recognition but if one squinted and turned tilted their head to the side it nearly looked like an angel.
----------------------------------------
Jimenez found herself in the lead truck with Trevor.
They stood in the back hanging on to roof rack for dear life as terrified people clung to each other behind them.
“Can you make the shot! It’s kinda dark!”
Jimenez aimed her crossbow and squeezed the trigger.
The bolt streaked through the air and exploded against the wooden gate that blocked their road out of Wichita.
“Shit! Not enough! Need a bigger boom!” Trevor screamed in her ear over the whipping wind.
She held the glass container filled with Santi’s exploding gel.
“There isn’t enough left!” she screamed.
“Give it to me!” Trevor snatched it out of her hand. He took aim and hurled it at the gate with his cannon for an arm. “Multi-projectiles!”
One glass container became many.
The explosions ripped across the entire expanse of the gate and shattered it into a thousand pieces.
Jimenez and Trevor ducked down as the truck zipped through the opening.
Behind them a ragged convoy of assorted vehicles follow.
People died as eternal church fighters fired down at them from atop the wall.
One huge lifted truck ate an enormous fireball that flipped it end over end to crash into the side of a building.
The Mage of Joyous Light that had cast it suddenly toppled off the wall minus his head.
“Nice shot,” Hayden said as she held Dayana steady.
Both of them were on top of the bus secured in place with a hastily-constructed set of straps and chains.
The dark-skinned young woman didn’t say anything. She was sitting on her butt and had the rifle balanced on her wrist. Monsignor had managed to heal her enough to be useful before the woman had passed out.
Hayden regarded her friend.
Dayana's ashen face was covered with a sheen of sweat.
“Are you sure—”
Dayana didn’t say anything. She simply looked for another good target on the left side of the gate since Nila was about take care of the right side.
Nila leapt from moving vehicle to moving vehicle. She left deep dents in the roofs but figured they had more important things to worry about.
A pillar of stone shot up from underneath the car she was on sending it into the air. She rode it like a surfboard before kicking off and launching herself at the Mage on the wall.
The car hit the street in a violent rending and crushing of metal.
She felt for the people that had been inside, but there was nothing she could do for them.
She aimed Cal’s handcannon and avenged their deaths with a shower of blood, bones and guts as the contents of the Mage’s chest cavity exploded out the back.
She landed on the wall, fought her momentum and the wooden surface breaking beneath her to stay on top. She ran a short distance knocking church fighters off with swings of her club.
The rest of them fled so she went back to take care of the other side.
Down on the street the convoy thundered through the shattered gate harried by their pursuers like cattle being hunted by wolves.