Szentendre, Austria-Hungary, 1900
Loric is playing to win. He does not play to win because he is particularly good at tag, or even because he likes the game. He likes it about as much as he does anything-that is to say, not at all.
He does not dislike tag, or the other children, all street urchins like himself. He just...does not feel anything about them. Loric does not know the word 'apathy' yet, for he is four and has never seen a book, but he would likely say it fits his feelings, or lack thereof, towards the world.
Suddenly, Loric falls to the ground, yelping. The baton's blow was softened by the dog skins (skins them himself, mostly old strays too weak to defend themselves from a shiv through the neck) he wears, but it still hurts, driving the breath out of his lungs.
Loric does not know this, either, but the reason he is always short of breath has nothing to do with physical effort.
The man who struck him is tall and stern, with steely eyes shining in the shadows of his cap, which hide half of his clean-shaven face, all hard angles and lines.
Staggering to his feet, Loric notices his friends are all gone. This does not hurt. He wonders if they care as little about him as he does about them.
Before Loric can ask why he was struck, the uniformed man-Janos, as Loric will later learn- points to a side alley. He and his rat friends were blocking the main street, he says, and the villagers don't need or want to see orphans.
Loric asks what an 'orphan' is, and the explanation that it is a child with no parents results in a blank stare, for he does not know what a parent is, either. Janos shows him his pistol, but still has to hit the boy with the butt for him to get the message.
***
Szentendre, Austria-Hungary, 1912
Loric learns about Janos' funeral from a friend, who curses the man and mutters 'good riddance', crossing himself mockingly. One less pain in the arse, he says. That day, the teen watches it from a distance, and sees Janos had no family, or at least none that came to tell him goodbye, for he devoted himself to his duty.
A miserable fate, in Loric's opinion. That grubby headstone is going to fall apart in years, he knows, ground away by wind and rain.
Still, trying to put himself in the history books the way he does is...not advisable.
Loric only notices the woman halfway through running at the thug with a knife in one hand and a torch in the other, but it just makes things even better. It's like something out of the fairytales. He'll be a hero!
Loric's legs never heal properly, for all his human life, but the thug runs away, not because he's scared of him, but because he's scared of drawing attention. The woman eventually thanks him for his courage, after berating him for his stupidity. She takes him to the village doctor, and here, he learns her name is Csilla, she is four years older than him, and she works as the doctor's assistant. Given how diminutive and mild-mannered the man is, Loric bets the square-faced, heavyset woman does all the hard work, though he keeps his opinion to himself. Csilla is burlier than him, not that that's a high bar.
From the doctor's records, Loric also learns his family name, and that he comes from a family of tailors. The Szabo patriarch, father of half a dozen children, threw his last son away, unable to provide for one more mouth, for the work only paid so much.
Loric asks the doctor how come he hasn't met his parents yet, as the village isn't that big, and learns they died over a decade ago. Disagreement with the law, turned into a brawl.
Loric shrugs. 'Can't ask anything from the dead.'
Csilla snorts. Neither knows how wrong that statement is. Yet.
***
Szentendre, People's Republic of Hungary, 1958
As Adalbert returns home, Loric cannot help but muse that they really shouldn't have named him 'noble'.
He and Csilla married after it became clear he wouldn't die in World War 1, at least on the front, crippled as he was. They had children late, though not so late that their son didn't get to fight in World War 2.
He doesn't know where Zoe is nowadays. His daughter's inclination towards women makes her about as popular as Bence, who avoids public places like a bat avoids light. Bence is not a true "changeling", as they used to be called before the Shattering brought true shapeshifters into existence. Still, having three children, including two strange ones, is memorable, and this is all Loric could ask for.
He killed himself two years ago, when the Revolution failed, and it became clear his country would never be remembered as anything but a sattelite. Loric doesn't want the Soviets writing history. Hungary's story should be its own.
Csilla was horrified at the change, and died shortly after. From stress, he supposes. She considered herself a widow until her dying day, with children who didn't come to sit by her deathbed.
'Father,' Adalbert tries to not to look smug, and fails. He always had his mother's poor control of expressions, and the magical power received during the Shattering hasn't helped. 'They sent me to kill you.'
'Hmm,' Loric nods. His son is wearing the uniform of some service or the other, he can't remember all the secret police's names or branches. His mother's raven hair is cut short under a green hat. 'Did they tell you why?'
'To prove my loyalty to the state, as oppossed to my family-'
'No, you little idiot,' Loric waves him off, laughing. 'Did you really think they care about an old tailor? Or couldn't you imagine them wanting to get rid of an overly-ambitious, gullible fool?'
He drops his human disguise, and has Adalbert's crushed throat in one hand before his neurons can fire.
Draining your would-be patricidal son of life...truly memorable.
***
Siberia, 2030
Szabo cannot believe the new strigoi. There is clearly some trauma at work here-religious household with violent parents? He hasn't read the history section on David's file yet, but why else would his brother hold on to faith in the only thing that can truly hurt them?
He does not have long to wonder, because the little bitch they came to stop brings her puppets out to play. Szabo is extremely unamused by children who try to kill her parents, and Sofia might as well have, given the braindead vegetables that are restrained by the Strangeguard.
When it becomes clear David won't put down her golem anytime soon, Loric steps in, slapping it to dust. Then, he looks for something to teach the girl a lesson, sees the dog, and smiles.
Yes...even if they censor him again, ARC will remember. It will be almost as memorable as that time he filled that pregnant witch with maggots!
***
Arizona, 1950
Dibe is on all fours, breathing heavily. Not because of the effort, as he is not doing anything, only enduring, but because of the pain. His father likes him like this.
Yee naaldlooshi can become the beings whose skins they wear, but Dibe can only wonder if his parents are beasts wearing human skin. He once asked them that, to their amusement.
No, they replied. The only human skin they have ever worn is his, so he can touch himself without doing anything. Aren't they generous?
His mother is working him over today. She is something big and heavy, perhaps a buffalo or moose, though he wonders where she found the skins, and it hurts so, so much. She always picks the skins of males, animals or otherwise, because she likes feeling the changes almost as much as what they let her do.
This is all so he can awaken his magic, his mother grunts in an inhumanly deep tone, and Dibe does. Their plan works, perhaps, better than intended, for his burst of mana turns their hut and bodies into ashes.
***
New York City, 1976
Berkowitz, Dibe muses to himself, is, like most serial killers, a perverse idiot. He does not know why they are all so obsessed with sex, either having or denying it. But then, he's had his share of women and men for ten lifetimes, so maybe he's jaded.
The Son of Sam smirks to himself as Dibe walks into the warehouse, the skin of the dead hooker snug across his body, not that Berkowitz sees it. All he sees is another stupid victim. If the manhunt outside hasn't found him yet, why not profit?
That night, Sam gains a new name, and his second human skin.
***
Ontario, Canada, 1980
Sam does not know the murderer's name. He doubts the savage moron even had one, stalking the woods as he did for his whole life.
The idiot had even less contact with civilisation than he, supernatural vigilante that he was, did. From what Sam could gather, he had never gotten out of the forests, instead stalking hikers and hunters, before making them wish an animal would come and maul them.
The problem, and Sam knows this is a problem, is that he's hungry, and will never stop being so. With winter keeping almost everyone in the cities and most animals in their dens, he has little to eat, even with the herbivore skins on his back.
Maybe it was the hunger, maybe it was the spite, but Sam ate the bastard's heart, and wore his guts for as long as the warmth lasted.
By the time he makes it to the cave, which he swears sprouted out of thin air, Sam is nearly three metres tall and six hundred kilos, but gangly, potbellied and thin-limbed. The body reflects the soul, and the wendigo is ever-hungry.
Sam enters the cave out of...fear of discovery? Punishment? Maybe it's just his repressed urge to hibernate, he thinks drily.
Two things are waiting for him inside the cave, just as they are waiting inside the core of his being.
One of them is ever-shifting, from bird to reptile to fish and things that have no names and never will, every moment. It greets him with a shriek that makes his soul shrivel.
The other is human, at least in shape. Small, sexless and hunched, the thing's leathery skin is wrinkled and cracked. Its thin, wispy white hair frames its face like a curtain as it grins at him with a toothless, tongueless mouth, fondness gleaming in empty eye sockets. It loves him, and wants to have him inside it, forever.
The Beast recognises this, and bellows in challenge at its newly-revealed rival. Hunger laughs breathlessly to itself, and beckons Sam to come closer, so it may consume him.
Sam walks in between them, and the Beast tears him as part just as Hunger bites down on his flesh. Their powers slip over each other like oil and water, but, with all of his dying will and power, Sam grasps them, and draws them into himself.
Samuel Shiftskin emerges from the cave that never was, healed through the Beast's power, only to be bound by chains of order that shackle his power even more securely than his body, and pulled down facefirst into the snow. A golden, armored heel grinds into his neck, and Sam grins. Smells like woman. Is she one of those who like stepping on people?
Well. There could be worse deaths.
"Dibe of the Navajo Nation. Postcognition confirms you are guilty of fifty-three counts of murder, twenty-five counts of identity theft, four hundred seventeen counts of unauthorised magic use, and-"
"Add 'cannibalism' to that list, babe,' he chuckles, though it turns into a wheeze when she presses down harder.
"Thank you for the honesty, vigilante. Would you like some broken bones with your sentence? Case like you, no one would bat an eye if you resisted arrest."
"Bullshit! Maybe if you were that weregryph with a telephone pole surgically inserted up his ass, but..."
Sam is given an offer between execution, or ARC service. He smiles when he asks Aya if he'll serve under her, so of course they end up in different divisions.
***
Salem, USA, 2030
Sam is playing when Szabo and Faith arrive in his wood-panelled, leather-covered office, the former humming to himself, the later weighted down by her latest acquisition.
"We are going to the UK," he preempts any questions. "Joint op with the Roundhouse. I hope you believe in fairies, my darlings...hello there. Who do we have here?"
"A black heart and a darker mind," the Fivefold replies, smile twitching spasmodically. She glances at him for permission, and Sam nods. Her aura briefly darkens, then one of his basilisk skins blackens and fades out of existence.
"That will be very useful for disposing of evidence," he says brightly, fingers steepled. He doesn't like the lack of self-control, though. He'll have to inform Tamar, if he doesn't already know. There are some demons like that lovesick fiend that calls herself Fernandez's wife, and then there are obvious pricks like this one.
Maybe he could ask Fixer? Ned was the one who first helped her manage multiple trains of thought without losing her identity, and there's still some lingering affection, even if the attempt at matchmaking fell flatter than Faith's chest.
"Any questions?" he adds, rising from his seat. It's covered in the skin of a particularly-annoying weredonkey, who repeatedly told him to kiss his ass in their fight. Sam decided to turn the tables on him.
"What were you playing when we came, sir?" Szabo asks, rocking on his heels with his hands behind his back.
"You came upon seeing me? Aw, shucks. Didn't know I was that loved..." Sam shakes his head, as if shocked. "As for what I was playing?" the Salem Head gestures at his instrument with a flourish.
The lungs, bones and intestines are meant to resemble bagpipes, but Sam clearly has no Scottish blood in him, because it sounds like the building materials wailing. Which, while lovely, was not, perhaps shockingly, his intention. "Organ music."
Dammit...and the thing was still steaming when they arrived. Sam hates it when good flesh goes to waste.
***
Sparta, Greece, 2030
'Lord...' the empousa breathes, kneeling before Asterion's shrine. She has sacrificed a bull, placing the best parts on the Black Hunger's altar, while eating the rest in a display of humility. She has slit her wrist, too, and let her blood drip at the hooves of his brazen statue. She will heal.
Asterion's cult is not large enough to have its own temples. As such, the Bull Rampant shares houses of worship with Zeus Cthonios. Hades has gained popularity in recent decades, while his relatives have lost some. The ebony temple is not as large as Ares', but it is large enough to hold the shrines for Hades himself, his wife, and his champions.
'I am driven to deceive and consume men. Is it possible to overcome one's hunger, like you have?'
'If you think yourself worse than me, I fear there is little I can help you with.'
The empousa looks up in shock. She had spoken to herself, and her senses, mundane and arcane alike, have detected nothing. And yet, the brass statue is now looking down at her, arms crossed and onyx eyes blazing.
'Are you...are you in the statue, lord?'
'I have been in the statue, though not this one. Sorry. It's an...' Asterion flashes a fanged grin. 'Inside joke. I am merely speaking through it. As for your question? I can answer it, though you will have to listen to a story first. Will you give me some of your time?'
'Of course, lord!' she says excitedly, still kneeling despite him gesturing for her to rise.
Asterion shrugs. 'Then, if I may be so brazen...'
The Tartarus Engine, the empousa realises, employs rather unusual methods of verbal torture.
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***
Hades, 1990
'Leaving again? Going to eat some children, are we?' Minos asks, chin in one hand, the other tapping on his Judge's desk. The dead demigod's blonde locks have become almost white in the sunless underworld.
'Sorry. I've grown used to them being sent to me. Why don't you do that again? Or do you need to demand tribute from a loser first?'
Asterion does not look at his mother's husband as he strides past him, nor does he wait for his reply. He briefly considers bumping into him, accidentally, but that would be too petty.
Hades' throneroom is utterly lightless, but Asterion does not need his eyes to see. His king blazes like a trillion galaxies to his arcane sense, and that much is, indeed, within Hades' power to create or destroy, with but a thought. Still nothing compared to his youngest brother, but Asterion considers him a far worthier king.
'Zeus spoke to me today,' Hades' mouth barely quirks in his dark beard, and Aster wonders if he's going to suffer through another of his master's attempts at joking. Judging by how tightly he is gripping his obsidian throne's armrests and how his inky eyes are narrowed in his chalk-white face, he is probably just angry, though. Persephone is on Earth, so...
'Through Hermes,' Hades continues, and Aster nods. The messenger is always bringing souls in, and often drops by to try and cheer up his dour uncle. 'Zeus asked me, through him, to ask you to find a certain child.'
'A demigod?' Asterion is about as masochistic as any regenerator, but Hera is not someone he wants even vaguely interested in him. The woman's spitefulness makes Demeter seem forgiving, which no underworlder can say with a straight face.
'I think so. Hermes spoke obliquely.'
'Did he give a description, my king?'
'No.' Hades leans back in his throne, and Aster realises he's not angry. He's waiting for the anvil to drop, like in those bizarrely violent human cartoons, and holding in his laughter. 'He dares not even look for them, he says.'
'Then...' He's going to be the chump of this story. He just knows. 'Then how am I supposed to find them?'
'Given how concerned Zeus is,' Hades gestures, and something darker than any shadow on or beyond Earth floats down from besides his throne to Asterion's side. 'They must be powerful. Either his or the Earthshaker's.'
'That is hardly helpful, my king,' Aster complains, and Hades blasts his body, able to withstand Earth-pulverising force with hardly a bruise, to subatomic particles with an annoyed look. The minotaur regenerates a fraction of a nanosenond later, hands up, palms out. 'I'm just saying.'
'If they look like they belong in a brothel, they're Zeus'. If they look like they belong in a zoo, they're Poseidon's. Now take my Helm, and go.'
Asterion grabs it out of the air, and it moulds to fit his horns and muzzle, removing him from perception, mortal, supernatural or divine. As far as creation is concerned, he does not exist.
That is how Elsbeth Crane, so named for her favourite kick, is rescued from the fighting ring Hera made sure she would end up and hopefully die in. Her mother was only too happy to sell her, afraid of the goddess' wrath.
***
'...but, lord,' the empousa's brow furrows. 'That...how does that answer...?'
'How? Do you think the minotaur,' Asterion sneers. 'Would have obeyed his king, or saved a child as oppossed to eating her? A child that might have been the god's who arranged for his birth and the way his mother's life fell apart? Events which, as you well know, are linked? Now...please, return home. I have been dividing my attention between Earth and...'
***
TOI-849b, 2030
Heracles is fighting a monster. This is not unusual. What is unusual is that this monster is his friend, and, according to some, his chthonic counterpart.
The planet Asterion and Heracles are fighting on is several times larger than Earth, forty times heavier and orbits a sunlike star. By all right, it should be a gas giant, like Jupiter, but it has almost no atmosphere.
This bothers neither of the warriors. They move around the planet hundreds of time faster than light, covering well over a hundred metres every nanosecond and circling it thousands of times every heartbeat. Each of their strikes has the power to shatter this world, yet their strength is directed only at each other by their will, so the planet is undamaged. So far.
Heracles was sewed back together by Hephaestus himself, and healed by Apollo, yet a darkness hangs over his soul, visible as the stars to Aster.
His friend is not one for brooding. Heracles' mood swings from boisterous joy to murderous rage, but he is not inclined towards dwelling on things that upset him.
'Wait,' Aster says after Heracles heeds his gesture to stop. 'This fight was meant to lift our spirits, but I feel like I'm sparring with Thanatos here.'
'It was meant to sharpen our skills for the coming war with the voidspawn,' Heracles corrects. His loincloth is ragged and his beard long and wild, but his eyes are the worst. The deep blue is almost black with...
'Will you tell me what is bothering you?'
A sigh. 'I wish Thor was still here.'
'I heard his father brought back his gho-'
'He should not have needed to be brought back!' Heracles tugs his brass nose ring, and Asterion grabs the back of his head in turn, before smashing him facefirst into the planet, shattering it and propelling the fist-sized fragments in all directions at near-lightspeed.
When Heracles shakes his head, unhurt but exasperated, Aster huffs, before punching him to the sun and rushing after, running on nothing. He is on Heracles half a second later, and pummeling him with punches that make the sun shake and ripple.
'Only one person can do that,' Aster says conversationally. 'And you are not her. Are you feeling better?'
'My nose felt almost numb after you shattered that planet with my head,' the god of strength replies. 'But I'm better. Why?'
'Put on your armour. I'm going to punch you.'
'So?'
'Hard enough to mangle your father, eventually.' Aster grins, raising a clenched fist. 'Armour up.'
Shrugging, Heracles summons his adamant full plate around himself. Then, Asterion wills himself to be stronger, and strikes him so hard the shockwave obliterates the star and atomises TOI-849b' remains, even as it loses strength traveling. The Olympian is sent flying thousands of lightyears away, faster than he can react, but Asterion has willed himself to be faster too, so he catches up instantly.
The minotaur's next punch sends Heracles flying out of the Mily Way, destroying thousands of red dwarfs on the galaxy's edge, and into a spiral galaxy twenty-three million light years away. Asterion closes the gap in a blink, before punching his friend out of the observable universe, with such force the nameless galaxy dwarfing Andromeda is erased from the face of reality.
'This is what will happen if you don't fight back!' Asterion bellows, lifting Heracles by the gorget with one hand. 'Surtr overcame you because he was stronger. So what? Thor died. So what?! He is still with us, and would beat you himself if he saw you like this, you long-faced bastard. And don't get me started on Hebe-'
'Fine, fine!' Heracles tries to growl, but ends up laughing. His push sends Asterion careening into a rocky planet larger than any gas giant, which becomes gravel, before being turned to dust by the minotaur's laugh. 'Just stand still, you overpowered prick...'
Asterion spreads his arms as his friend summons his bow. The arrow, tipped with hydra venom, would reach Earth's sun from the blue planet's surface in a second, but to his eyes, which make a mockery of light and its laws, it is frozen, unmoving.
Nevertheless, the arrow pierces Asterion's body, for all that it is tougher than anything and indeed, everything in this universe. The venom unmakes him on such a level that the quantum strings making him up are destroyed, as completely as if Atropos herself cut them.
Then, Asterion wills himself back into existence, smiling.
The clapping is unexpected, though.
Asterion does not recognise the newcomers, except from stories before his time.
'Impressive show, m'bull,' Solarex looks similar a golden statue of Sol Invictus, and is just as insufferable, though he lacks the self-awareness to realise it. His body, golden and muscled, shines brighter than all the stars in the universe, which empower him, combined.
'Indeed! Ischyros is delighted to meet a friend who can choose how powerful he is, like itself!' The grey alien bounces up and down like a child, six ham-sized fists clenched in excitement. Its headless, fat body has no genitals, and its voice is androgynous.
'Hello? How and why did you two find us?' Heracles asks, friendly but wary.
'Well, y'know how it is...' Solarex drops what he must think is a roguish wink to Asterion, who stares back, blankly. 'The Watcher asked for some outside expertise. You know, for when the voidspawn come to fuck your pretty little blue world sideways, and every other way too.'
'The Watcher?' Aster echoes.
***
Atlantis, 6000 BCE
'We will die together, my love,' Zhalkhos gurgles, eyes barely visible in his mangled face, as he stares up at his limbless, weeping wife.
All their works-their empire-are gone. Falling down around their ears, just as the continent itself is falling into the world-spanning ocean. It has already covered the mountains, and is still growing.
The last two Atlanteans, just as they were once the first among their people, do not believe their last gambit will work.
It was only natural, they believed, that the greater should rule over the lesser. Like the gods themselves, who treated them as peers, until the landwalkers stopped praying for their overlords' mercy, and started praying for salvation from gods the world over. They had walked the Earth before this flood, the Flood, was sent to wash away the sinners. And the greatest of them all...
Xilema laughs bitterly at the old saying. Her body, once flawless, is covered in tiny silver scales, and thrice the height of a landwalking woman. She does not feel like the "greatest" anything anymore, except the greatest fool.
In response to the gods' punishment, the Atlanteans bent all their knowledge and craft to create a monster that could destroy them. The Horror unmade this reality, and all others, before the Unmoved Mover denied this catastrophe, reversing the events and sealing the Horror away.
As the king and queen of Atlantis are dragged beneath the waves, they drown, byt not in water, for that, they can breathe. No, they drown in horror, and Horror.
All the suffering inflicted upon the landwalkers, the humiliation, the fear of the Empire Endless crushing them out of amusement, rushes into their minds and souls.
Their beings fall apart at the seams, but their love holds. They are offered a choice, or perhaps not. Perhaps they have always been like this, and are waking up from a dream of life.
But they accept, and finally, truly become one, to Watch over the Horror they wrought forevermore.
***
'Indeed,' Solarex replies smoothly, golden teeth shining in his beard. 'They know skill when they see it. I think they are still tickled after my first visit to Earth...'
Solarex sees through every star, like Nacht sees through shadows. When Primus attempted to put out the sun, he intervened, to the dismay of the first vampire, who had the worst day of his unlife as a result. Solarex would have killed him, if not for Earth's gods telling the alien King Sun to mind his own business.
'And Ischyros will always help a friend!' the six-armed alien adds. It was named "mighty" by Zeus himself, after a battle where the King of Olympus blasted a dozen realities to nothing, while uterrly failing to even scratch the grey alien, much like everyone else. Its strength and speed are limited only by its will, but its body is, as far as anyone can tell, invulnerable.
'Mmm. I wonder what prize I will be given for my selfless aid,' Solarex does not seem to realise, much less mind, the irony of his words. 'Earth has such gorgeous breeding stock! Is the little vampire still around? After I modify him, he will make a great stud and broodmother!'
Asterion grimaces, and is sure that, behind his faceplate, Heracles is doing the same.
'Don't you have enough breeders?' the Bull Rampant asks with distaste.
Solarex laughs. 'You can never have too many. My son!'
The Son of the Sun is half-machine, half-alive. One of Solarex's many children, he serves as his father's ship, centre of operations, and favourite house of worship. A golden shell, denser than neutronium, surrounds and dwarfs a purple giant star from another reality, which makes UY Scuti looks like Mercury. It is only Solarex reality-bending will that prevents the ship from disturbing the universe.
Especially when traveling from one of its edges past the opposite one in less time than a human would take to blink. The structure houses countless octillions of worshippers, aliens who fell at Solarex's feet out of gratitude for helping their worlds, or fear, or in defeat after oppossing his whimsical will.
All of them utterly adore their god, their every breath a prayer. Many of them, male, female, both and neither, have borne King Sun's children, the Solarians: the power of a hypernova in a godlike body.
'I get so bored of them...' Solarex whispers, then draws upon every star in this universe and innumerable others, channeling their power into a beam directed at his son. The ship, which has weathered Big Crunches with no damage, is vapourised. Solarex's servants moan in ecstasy as their god destroys them, their rapture, pain and terror bringing a brief smile to his face.
Then, he snaps his fingers, and recreates his godly court.
'See?' He turns to Asterion. 'Boring. I do this so often, it...' King Sun shakes his head. 'You two are almost as gorgeous as you are powerful. Do you want to sire life or bear it first'
'You will not lay a finger on any inhabitant of Earth,' Heracles snarls, summoning Marmyadose. Asterion snatches it out of his hand faster than he can comprehend, putting the unstoppable tip at Solarex's throat.
'The Watcher does not speak for Earth. We neither need nor want you, you damned-'
'My! But what do you have on that dreary rock that's so precious? Don't worry. After I break both you and them, you can love me together~'
Asterion almost thrusts the blade forward, but Solarex places a golden hand on his arm, stopping him, and another on his waist, before lowering it.
'So powerful~'
'You damned murderous freak-'
'Friends!' Ischyros is suddenly between them, two hands holding them at bay, buried deep in their unimaginably durable chests, which heal instantly. A third clutches Marmyadose by the blade, as if it is a foam sword. 'Ischyros senses you are not about to battle with joy! Please, stop this!'
'Whatever,' Asterion grunts, ripping the blade away once the alien slackens its grip, then glaring at Solarex, who blows him a kiss. 'I will have words with the Watcher, who feels entitled to call shameless maniacs and utter fools to Earth's defence. In the meantime...many broken realities overflow with monsters, let alone the Void. Why not purge the chaff before the true horrors arrive?'