“Shouldn’t we be doing something?” Donny broke the silence. Both knew what he referred to.

Mrs. Hamilton kept the smile from her face and her voice grave. She leaned back in her chair, the picture of normalcy. It wouldn’t do to let him know how amusing she found his behavior, in the context of the serious threat. “Of course, we should be doing something. We should be preparing.”

Donny mouth puckered. “We are already prepared.”

“Then we are remaining prepared, for as long as it takes.” She spoke with a serene voice. It was almost cute to see how much the current Donny, the stalwart and gleaming pillar (albeit retired) of Donnyton, resembled the nervous wreck of a leader he had once been. It made her oddly nostalgic, even as a new threat loomed over Expira.

Of course, Mrs. Hamilton harbored her own secret fears in the shadowy alcoves of her heart. Yet she also knew that allowing the tension to leak out from there would only numb her edge. The Grey Weaver needed to be so still as to allow reality to forget it existed. Only then would its webs be able to tug all the particulars into alignment.

Mrs. Hamilton felt her eyes pulled right back to the expansive bay windows on the East wall. Yet how could she not worry, when the visible evidence of the threat to the Alpha Cosmos hung above them?

Her home stood on the hill above Donnyton and provided a perfect view of a sky turned into a glittering nebula. The colors had been developing for a while, but it was only after a massive asteroid had been obliterated by the strange dimensional forces manifesting there did people begin to watch the horizon with dread.

The vigil in Donnyton was only one of hundreds of similar worried gatherings. When Randidly Ghosthound fought against whatever monsters sat atop the Nexus, the Alpha Cosmos witnessed his struggles.

The current early evening sky was a cross between the aurora borealis and seething clouds of nuclear fallout. Any Skills or physical drones sent to investigate the phenomenon were summarily devoured, with no feedback. An analyst from Zone 1 had determined that the gorgeous colors resulted from temporal distortions, but this tidbit did not make anyone feel any better.

So the Alpha Cosmos, because similar reports came from the other planets, waited. Mrs. Hamilton could sense that Randidly possessed some defensive ability, a cloud of brilliance that kept the seething winds of annihilation in check. Yet even the staunchest supporter of Randidly Ghosthound could find little to say at the moment.

Mrs. Hamilton had decisively turned off the television ten minutes ago. Which meant she had little to do but watch Donny pace back and forth. She willingly indulged in nostalgia, remembering times when they had engaged in similar situations.

Only then, the threats were hordes of mundane monsters.

“Perhaps we could use this opportunity to talk about recent life decisions,” Mrs. Hamilton took a sip of her tea and eyed Donny’s man bun with distaste. Hairs stuck out of the lazily tied hairdo in every direction.

Donny just blinked at her. “What are you talking about? Now isn’t the time-”

The clear, resonating note of a horn cut through their distracting little conversation. Its deep note sank into Mrs. Hamilton’s body and filled her with a stirring feeling of valiant daring that she hadn’t felt in quite some time. Even the Grey Weaver clicked its mandibles in response.

The call was a request, but also a surging note of inspiration. Randidly Ghosthound needed help. The people of the Alpha Cosmos were being called. Mrs. Hamilton narrowed her eyes. Yet the note of the calling… the sender wasn’t the Ghosthound himself?

Her first response was that it was a trap. But then she felt the Pantheon stirring too, so it must be legitimate. Who… ah, his Knight.

Mrs. Hamilton felt her senses tingling in the wake of the horn’s clarion ring. Already, she could feel the frothing tide of emotion exploding across the Zones in response to this sudden development. Perhaps most disturbing detail for Mrs. Hamilton was how… pretty, the note of the horn was.

She pressed he lips together. A pretty prelude to what would undoubtedly be a bloody and violent truth.

She and Donny discarded all pretense of serenity and moved to the window. Independent of the war of illumination happening in the sky, they watched as a dozen massive pillars of light lit up across the horizon. Focusing on the closest, Mrs. Hamilton could see it was actually a massive staircase, leading out of Expira and to another place.

And these dozen were just the ones they could see. Mrs. Hamilton did some rapid calculations as she considered the new developments. When the second stirring note arrived from the horn, it now pointed her directly toward the staircases. All her affection and pride in the Alpha Cosmos became a hook that tugged her forward. By heading and climbing those stairs, she could help Randidly.

Mrs. Hamilton grimaced. “We need to mobilize every squad Donnyton has. Contact the twins.”

Donny’s expression became solemn. Caught up in the dramatic moment, he purposefully raised a hand and clenched it into a fist. “I’ll retrieve my shield immediately. If the Ghosthound needs help battling against the monsters of the Nexus-”

“No, you-” Mrs. Hamilton clicked her tongue rather than allowing her exasperation to cause her to curse at this man’s folly. Instead, she conjured a whip of spider silk and lashed Donny’s back with it. “Let me be clear; we will not be sending all of Donnyton’s Squad up in support of Randidly Ghosthound. Consider the bigger picture: somehow, Randidly, or more likely one of his lieutenants, has created hundreds of stairwells across the Alpha Cosmos that lead directly to an alien battlefield. Our Squads will be gatekeeping those stairwells, so no one gets themselves pointlessly killed.

“Probably… no one under Level 100 is allowed to pass. And we need to move quickly.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Oh,” Donny blinked again, looking exceedingly stupid with his man bun. “Oh. It did feel pretty inspiring. LIke I could be a part of something larger, so long as I just gave of myself to help.”

Mrs. Hamilton sighed, tapping her fingers against the table. Each tap released a reverberating noise in the room, which spread through her Skills and allowed her to communicate with her contacts across Expira. She contacted other factions, making sure they would do the same. “Just be glad Kharon isn’t nearby its enthusiastic students… hahh. I bet Tatiana has a real headache right now.”

*****

Devick told her a little jealousy was natural, when Randidly called and a woman rushed to his side, but conceded that strangling her (no matter how sneakily she accomplished the murder) would probably be a bad idea. So she just clicked her tongue and watched as the bedraggled bear woman took the two items tossed to her from Randidly. Literal pearls of power, tossed before lumbering swine. The woman raised the horn to her drool-y lips and blew.

Despite her natural disapproval, Devick practically melted as she heard the sound of the horn. Because contained within it were all the reverberating emotions that the bearwoman felt. Her desire to change and improve. The determination to fulfill the expectations of Randidly. The willingness to put everything on the line.

A hazy portal came into being behind the woman. Devick watched as she took a breath and blew out another clear note.

“It is a foolhardy thing to put your fate into the hands of others,” Pine muttered next to her.

Devick tilted her head to the side. “True. But there are so many things you cannot accomplish alone.”

“Will this accomplish anything?” The monkey looked up at the rift in the chamber above them. By now, almost all of it had been filled with darkness. The inky depths were reflected now in the monkey’s eyes, a perfect stillness from which not a single ripple emerged. Just proximity was enough for the darkness above to pour into the monkey and replace its snippy personality with fatalism.

After the second blow of the horn, there was a third. The crackling light from the conflict between Randidly and Laplace grew larger and larger, forcing the bear woman to retreat a bit, nearer to Devick. She then blew the horn a fourth time. The edges of the portal grew increasingly clear, the edges a swirl of churning energy. Ready and waiting for individuals to accept its summons.

But other than the focus of the edges, there was no response. The portal remained inert.

“You see?” The monkey lowered its gaze, a hollow smile shaping its face into one more vessel for the darkness to fill. “To reach for help… just proves how far you are from another. How isolated you have become.”

Devick looked at the monkey for several seconds, as the bearwoman stored away the horn and gathered her image around her body. To her credit, the bearwoman didn’t seem to hesitate or worry about the response. After a small hesitation, Devick said. “...it almost seems like you are happy that the call hasn’t been answered.”

The monkey pressed its lips together. The bear woman sank her image deeper and deeper into the ground. At a certain depth, she encountered Randidly’s Yggdrasil image. The two didn’t necessarily merge, but a strong complementary effect radiated out around them. Randidly might now have strangely inert images, but the powerful shapes created a reaction. The ground beneath their feet pulsed with life.

Not enough radiance to rival the seeping darkness that approached them. But a solid foundation of power. Using that foundation, the bear woman leapt upward, energies concentrating on the red gauntlet Randidly have given her.

“There’s a difference between your pleas being refused… and you never asking for assistance,” Devick said quietly. “Finding help begins with admitting you need it.”

While Randidly continued battling with Laplace below, his Knight ascended to meet the darkness above. Pine’s negative subconscious filled the entire wound in the chamber. In only a few seconds, it would fall and crush this place. Yet Devick and the monkey stood in twilight beneath its domineering reign without fear. The bearwoman’s gauntlet crackled with power.

The two watched and waited. Devick watched the gauntlet, while the monkey’s eyes kept flicking to the portal.

The gems along the gauntlet’s knuckles released enough luster to cause the darkness to pause. Devick felt three very distinct powers emerge from those gems, powers the bearwoman should not possess: Laplace’s swirling power of time, the pure light and heat of a newly born star, and finally… the honest and direct power of a perfectly executed punch, courtesy of Elhume.

Randidly Ghosthound’s Knight channeled those three forces and threw out a blow supported by her own image of the Primal Ground. She became a pillar of light, supported by a flowing current of ripples. She punched without fear in the movement, only determination.

With a deafening boom, her attack stalled out the descent of darkness. The mass of Pine’s subconscious trembled. The three images and a Knight’s determination had stilled the implosion of the Nexus.

But just for a few seconds. As the rumbles dispersed, the light from the gauntlet began to fade. The mass resumed its descent.

Into the resulting few seconds of peace, the monkey spoke with its teeth exposed. “All that matters is the result. You are too concerned with meaningless methodology. To ask or not to ask, silence is silence. In the end, irrelevant.”

“The methodology only stops mattering when you cease living.” Devick cackled. “Maybe its unreasonable, but so long as you cling to life…”

Just as the three borrowed powers faded and the pillar of light vanished almost entirely, the portal released a gurgling burp. Rapidly, the threshold of energy swelled to almost triple its previous size. And from its depths-

First came a massive head, covered in scales wrought of gleaming sapphires. A long neck emerged, taut with the muscles to support the massive maw. Then came the hulking body with its massive wings pressed to its side. Its obsidian claws clicked against the ground as it forced its way through a portal not designed for a creature of that size. Already, a chill wind rose in the surrounding vicinity.

Soon a full Frost Dragon Broodmother forces its way out through the portal. The majestic creature spread its wings, raised its head, and roared.

The chill aura the dragon trumpeted was almost immediately devoured by the other forces at play in the chamber. But its massive bellow was a different sort of signal; as it roared, another dozen massive portals condensed in the surroundings. More Frost Dragons wormed their way out of portals, looking weirdly similar to cats forcing their bodies underneath doorframes. And while their frosty images couldn’t exist on their own, they could rise together in the first inklings of a new sort of current.

Devick didn’t say anything to the monkey. She just stood by its side and observed.

The dragons were only first, likely due to their speed. They spread their wings and took a few tentative beats, lifting their hulking frames off the ground and spiraling up to join a fading bearwoman. In their wake, wave after wave of other reinforcements poured out of the portals. Riders and Heralds, atop rhinoceroses, spiders, and camels. Winged Serpents moved in small squads with rotating circles of runes around them. And finally came the humanoids, individuals whooping and blazing with their individual images. Each brought a small note of support, a small ripple.

They turned in unison and climbed a manifesting staircase of energy, moving to lend their power to the Ghosthound’s weakening Knight. With ice and fury at the tip, a new pillar of light was formed from ten thousand individuals who had heard the Ghosthound’s call. Just as Pine’s dark subconscious had begun to move, it was halted with a resounding crash.

With the fate of the Nexus in the balance, the Alpha Cosmos stepped up against the monsters of the outer multiverse.

They bought Randidly Ghosthound a little more time to overcome an Eternity.