Spires

Family was tough sometimes when it came to communication.

They could be like Lera, who’d look at him while he warned her about touching the strange, glowing crystal throwing off weird readings, nod and then touch it anyway.

Luckily, for her it had only turned her skin blue for a week. Had she been any less robust it would’ve gone much worse.

Naturally, he got blamed for it.

Never mind the fact that he couldn’t have stopped her with all his power armor-augmented strength.

Or they could be like his grandmother, who’d pat his arm, say how strong he’d become and then tell him to hide behind her while she forcefielded a young ibingan to death.

Never mind the fact that he was an adult that had faced more dangerous things.

The figures in the gray were sort of like that.

They didn’t listen.

Or rather they did, but then went ahead and did what they thought was best… at least that was his sense of their dynamic. He didn’t know for a fact because it wasn’t like they talked to him. It was more like a feeling. A sense of wants, needs, intention.

He didn’t puppet them on strings.

It was more like he’d point them in a direction to fight monsters and bad guys, to protect him and those he wanted to protect.

The latter was just about the only thing they did automatically.

The hierarchy was clear.

His safety came first. Followed by those he cared about. Then innocent acquaintances and strangers.

Her! he thought. Contain the explosion!

The old ambassador jerked suddenly mid-sentence as she challenged Ranger Captain Mouthy’s reasonable request to come along and step into the specially made armored cell on the back of the heavy-duty truck’s bed.

The brawny woman snapped a warning as she and the other rangers retreated while dropping magic shield generators.

The ambassador’s security detail barked their own warnings at what they thought was an assassination attempt.

Weapons free!

Until they too, suddenly snapped limbs in random directions.

Alin pushed the gray into the occupied homes, finding the rest of the ambassador’s staff in similar straights, writhing painfully on the floor as metallic growths erupted from their flesh.

“The ambassador’s the bomb! The rest are sleepers!”

He was close to a hundred percent sure about that.

The things inside the old Americans all felt the same, but only one was heating up to volcano-like temperatures.

Ghosts of his relatives moved through the gray.

Their presences marked only by the displacement of the fog swirling in their wake and the faint hints of color from the forcefields that was the gift of his grandmother’s side of the family.

They took so many different shapes.

Weapons or shields.

Each different one belonged to an individual that he— no— the fog… it was the fog that did this to them.

Not him!

He knew them now from the tales his grandparents had told him.

It had been hard at first to put a name, a face, a person to the intangible presences trapped in him, but time and many talks had eased the guilt some.

They had assured him that there was value in the good he did, the good they did together.

His dad had theorized that if they weren’t pleased with the state of things then they would’ve likely tried to remedy it by trying to kill him.

If he was a prison of sorts, then logic suggested that a prisoner in search of freedom would stop at nothing. Which meant they’d try to kill him.

He fondly remembered the dagger-eyed glare his mom had given his dad for saying that.

Flat panes of faint teal light surrounded the glowing ambassador in a tight box.

More forcefields layered behind it.

A veritable rainbow in the thick gray that was as translucent as air to his allies and as opaque as smoke from a tire fire to his enemies.

The ambassador erupted in a blinding flash of golden heat.

Forcefields bowed outward under sudden pressure before shattering like glass that disappeared into the gray like dust in the wind.

The lyrics forced itself into his thoughts.

That was how he knew it was bad.

Randomness tended to only come when he was really pushed.

Great grandaunts and granduncles and cousins of varying degrees suddenly vanished.

It’s okay. They’re not really dead.

He forced the gut reaction away because it sure felt like dying a little bit inside at that moment.

The rest of the ambassador’s staff vanished along with the houses.

A small mercy that they wouldn’t need to face those brand new horrors.

The explosion powered through the magic shield generators, blowing them out in a second.

The truck ceased to exist while the armored cell on its bed toppled to the street with much of its outer layer ablated.

Strangely, only the upper layer of the street vaporized under the intense golden eruption.

The park was next.

Heavy duty shield generators squealed in protest before failing.

Ranger mages and specialized shieldmages were the next and last line of defense.

Mana surged from within.

They poured everything into their best spells, burned through their best Skills to protect the dozens of parents and children screaming and grabbing each other behind them.

Face holes bled, bodies drained against the blazing golden heat.

They found salvation a moment before they hit their breaking points.

Aunt Rayna appeared overhead.

Gravity bent at her will.

A dark spot directly over the epicenter where the ambassador once lay.

The golden light curved away from the failing rangers surrounding the block that once contained 8 houses in two rows of four.

Up it went, sucked into the black void until nothing remained, but the sounds of crying children and the chatter of rangers calling out casualty reports.

Alin sagged.

“All healers! We’ve got reds!” Ranger Captain Mouthy barked through the comms. “Priority heals! I want it done yesterday! Triage and prep for transport in 2. Backup heals for the yellows! Everyone else, eyes up and ears open. This shitsack ain’t done until I know every last one of those taints are smears on the ground!”

“Captain. I’ve got nothing on the enemy. They’re all gone.”

“Good, Goldenspoon, but I want that triple-checked. Fascists are like cockroaches. A few always pop up even after you’ve sprayed every inch of your kitchen.”

“Boy.”

Aunt Rayna descended through the smoke.

“Yeah?”

He didn’t like the look on her face.

The same crease on her brow that his dad got when about to deliver bad news.

“Your home’s under attack.”

Alin’s eyes widened.

His heart skipped a beat.

Then he calmed himself.

So what?

It was, like, the best defended place in the world.

Sure, his dad was gone—

Another worrying thought.

That same explosion… could his dad handle it?

Yeah, easy enough in a vacuum, but his dad wasn’t flying into a nice controlled environment with just him and the ambassador bomb.

Nope.

There would also be 3 demigods and whatever else the old American military decided to throw in, which, they had projected, would be as much as they could set up in the time they had.

“I’m sure they can handle it.”

“I’d hope so, but we’ve lost contact and the last bit we got didn’t sound good. Satellite scans are showing nothing’s wrong, which is suspicious as hell. We’re trying to scry, but they’re having trouble.”

The thudding in his chest resumed.

“What did they say? Like a call for help?”

“No, but…” Aunt Rayna sighed. “I can’t leave.”

“Right,” he nodded. “If they can attack home, then they can do the same here. I wonder how they managed it. We would’ve detected physical travel. We’ve got detection and defenses against portals, gateways and teleportation.”

“Listen, boy. I’m not going to order you since I’m retired.”

Sure… retired… she always said that.

“We need information and we need it quickly, but I don’t want to send someone that can’t survive what they might find.”

“Right, I get it. My armor’s the best defended and I can hide in my gray if it comes to that.” He nodded briskly. “Let’s do it.”

Backpack opened at a thought.

Undersuit slid and snapped into place around him.

The full power armor emerged from where it had buried itself in the ground.

He stepped into it and went through a truncated start up sequence.

Seconds and he was ready.

“Not to mention no one else here can survive the speed your about to shoot me at.”

Aunt Rayna smiled sadly.

“I’m sorry, Boy. Please be careful. If it’s bad then I’m ordering you to do your best to retreat. No heroics. No mad charges for revenge.”

“I thought you said you can’t order me around.”

“That was as a retired ranger to another ranger. This is me being an aunt to her nephew. Listen, if it’s really bad, call me and I’ll come.”

He would’ve liked to say bye to Kat, but she was busy standing guard over the yoga moms and their kids.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

He locked his limbs tight to protect against the tremendous forces he was about to be subjected to.

Aunt Rayna created a gravity tunnel of sorts.

Like the barrel of the gun or a cannon.

The field beneath his boots pushed, while the field above the rooftops pulled.

Black fell over his vision like a blanket suddenly pulled over.

The armor’s systems woke him up at several hundred meters altitude and about 20 kilometers on his way northward.

The HUD informed him that he was perfectly on the flight path to his hotel-casino home.

Long range scanners came up empty just like the satellites.

Even the zoomed in visual didn’t show anything amiss.

No tell-tale signs of battle, like smoke and flashes of light.

Which was sign enough that something was wrong.

There wasn’t an hour in the day that they weren’t shooting at monsters attacking the walls.

It took minutes to cross what was a half hour drive at safe freeway speed.

Less then a kilometer away revealed what had been hidden.

Battle.

His home was under attack and it looked bad!

The walls were breached in multiple places.

Which he would said was impossible, yet his eyes didn’t lie.

An illusion?

No.

He was resistant to those thanks to the gray within.

Monsters poured in.

A different type through each breach at each cardinal direction.

They attacked any human or sapient in sight.

Of which there were two sides.

His and the old Americans.

They wore their flag openly on their camouflaged body armor.

And they didn’t fight alone.

The sky was filled with their allies courtesy of the pantheon.

A blend of bird and woman.

Beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

Wing arms flapped as magic gems set in the center of their sculpted breastplates or helmets fired spells.

The majority were similarly sized to the average human. A few grew to twice, three times that size.

Without the aid of the inherent magic in their bodies flight would’ve been impossible.

Much too heavy with wings way too small to provide sufficient lift.

The bulk of the harpies assailed the skyship high in the sky.

The R.S. Rayn of Fire lived up to it’s name, but in the negative.

Flames engulfed her as she listed ominously to her port side.

Tracers streaked, visible even in the daylight.

Magic shields sprang to life around the harpies.

It took a sustained burst to breach the golden hued shields.

When they did, red rain fell on the battle below.

Tracers streaked from the ground bound guns.

Some joined their fire to the skyship’s, while others raked across the ground, tearing through tough chitin, monster hide and enchanted body armor.

It was an ancient dance, that between offense and defense.

Armor became stronger and tougher to handle weapons.

Weapons became deadlier to defeat armor.

A cycle without end.

The serpent devouring its tail.

Speaking of serpent… a giant one lashed the side of the Danger Complex with a spined tail.

It hissed in pain as the spines shattered against the Threnium.

Blood and dark smudges marred the dark gray surface, but it remained whole.

A team of old American soldiers worried at the armor plates covering the front doors with a cutting torch.

Alin wrestled with the dilemma he had been forced to confront over the last few months when it became clear that conflict with the old government was

Killing monsters was mostly easy.

Human slashers had been more difficult, but ultimately he had rationalized it as not a real choice.

This?

This was different.

He didn’t know these soldiers, but he couldn’t convince himself that they were all evil and deserved death.

His parents and his ranger training hadn’t prepared him well when it came to the dehumanization of potential and actual enemies.

The truth was it was quicker and safer for him and those he cared about to hit the soldiers with lethal force.

To disable created risk.

Then again, they weren’t a threat to those inside the Danger Complex.

The torch would run out of fuel long before it’d even scratch the Threnium.

A decision made, he fired microthrusters, bringing his boot jets around to point to the ground.

The sudden deceleration pushed his stomach into his chest despite the armor’s systems.

The flare of light caught the giant serpent’s eye a moment before he put a burst of flechettes into the right one with his recoilless rifle.

The summoned monster dissipated into light as the summoner shouted a warning to her fellow soldiers and pointed up.

He would try not to kill them, but they had attacked his home first.

If he was held responsible for his choices, then so should they.

What was that saying the older rangers used often?

Ah… yes.

The old Americans were about to find out.

Mt. Rushmore, Spring 2053

There sat a bubble.

An invisible one.

The shape of it only discernible through the blazing golden light sealed within.

He had a little bit of time, so he called his youngest brother.

“Yo,” Eron replied. “Ambassador went boom. Poor bastard. I’m can see you guys. Those planes are in the air and so are the missiles. They’re really scrambling with those guns. Figure you’ll be taking artillery soon-ish.”

“I couldn’t stop it. Rapid City’s up to you.”

“I’m looking there now and nothing yet. Maybe I help with the demigods first?”

“They’re going to wait and see how this fight will go before triggering their false flag. I’ll try to drag things out to give you time.”

“Yeah, okay… sucks, dude. Poor people have no idea what the assholes put in them.”

“Listen, there’s nothing anyone can do for them now.”

“I know. Good luck.”

“Same.”

Distant bangs signaled the first barrage.

Shells arced across the clear skies before shattering into dust at the touch of his thoughts well before they reached the apex of their trajectories.

His telekinetic bubble began to crack against the strain of the contained explosion from within the ambassador as it continued to grow.

It was unfortunate, but not unexpected that the two demigods could handle it fine.

He hurled the bubble into Mt. Rushmore.

The soldiers hidden in the nearby buildings opened fire with guns and spells.

He took it on his telekinetic shields and pushed a thought into their heads.

This isn’t a danger close situation. The demigods see you as ants. Being anywhere close to them in a fight is like standing a block away from the laser designator for a daisy cutter or a low-yield nuke. Both of which are also on the way. You have 5 minutes to put distance between you and here. Ask yourself this question. Why did your commanders keep the full scope of this operation from you? Why did they hang you out to dry? What else are they lying about? Rapid City? And most importantly, why is your enemy saving your lives?

He placed a few more thoughts before grabbing each soldier in an invisible bubble and flying them the 3 kilometers to Keystone. It was on them to secure transport out of the area.

The remaining faces of Mt. Rushmore crumbled and burned underneath the golden light.

A shout echoed, cutting through the noise of the artillery shells firing.

He seized them, redirecting them toward the demigod lancing through the sky like a comet.

Gone was the barely there tunic.

Replaced by full-coverage armor of enchanted adamantine emblazoned with the crest of her mother. The so-called ‘God’ of motherhood.

Eyes flashed gold beneath the full-faced helm as Aehrone thrust a gauntleted hand out.

The golden spear broke against his shield.

“It’s weird to me that they’d send you of all people. The other guys I get. They’re violent sorts. But you? Why not send a demigod of war?”

“My mother is the queen of the pantheon,” Aehrone said. “From the lowest beast to the mightiest civilization and every concept imaginable in between. All must be birthed by a mother. And what fiercer fighter is there than a mother protecting her child!”

A roar and a charge—

Cut short by the hand-sized needles raining from the sky.

Asphalt erupted in dust and debris swallowing the demigod.

“Good hits, but no pen,” Cal said into the comms.

Captain Molds cursed aboard the R.S. Raynanaut.

The skyship had been lurking at the upper edge of her flight ceiling where the Earth’s gravity became too weak for the float stones to function.

“If you get clear, we can try again.”

“No. Please deal with their air support and missiles. Er… leave the ones in my radius alone.”

He pushed a thought into the minds of the pilots of the attack helicopters, ground attack planes and fighter jets approaching from Keystone and Rapid City.

They turned away and headed for the next closest airbase within their ranges.

“Right, so the bomber and the nuke. Seriously, who the fuck launches a nuke?”

“Desperate people.”

“Yeah, figures. We’ll take care of them. Raynanaut out.”

The bomber had a fighter escort but even with outside enhancements their flight ceiling fell well short of the skyship.

A horn suddenly called across the mountain forest.

It reverberated with power beyond the mundane.

He could see the magic permeating the sound waves.

The second demigod stood atop the ruined monument with horn to his lips.

Golden eyes, but unlike Aehrone, his stared unblinking.

It reminded Cal of that one terrifying time back in the old days when he had encountered a grizzly bear on a hike. The distance had been great, but the massive beast had felt as if it was close enough to touch.

The Black Hills came alive.

A multitude of thoughts turned as one to him.

Monsters and animals that had been fleeing the immense release of power in the parking lot suddenly revered coursed.

Side by side, from mightiest bear to lowliest squirrel and all the twisted mutations brought about by the spires rushed through the dense woodland with one destination and purpose burned into their brains.

He pushed against it.

Then relinquished the idea.

Too much effort to counteract the godly power of the relic horn for the benefits.

A sudden fist struck his telekinetic shield.

“When did you find time to don your armor?” Aehrone said. “My eyes were on you throughout.”

“Who says I wasn’t wearing it the whole time?”

He dropped the shield, causing her to pitch forward.

Her recovering was quick, superhuman.

But he had already deployed his micromissiles.

Fire and shrapnel bloomed.

It was necessary to test the demigods’ abilities.

He couldn’t only rely on reading their minds.

False memories and other such tactics couldn’t be discounted.

He was not a singular existence.

They knew, had encountered another psionic prime in their ancient past. Magic that replicated his abilities existed. Monsters had them.

The demigod bulled through the smoke with a shout.

Short-range laser deployed from his forearm, just above his hand.

The bright red beam scored a barely perceptible line across her face.

She turned at the last second, likely saving her eye, assuming she couldn’t just regrow it or have it regrown.

Long delicate-looking fingers were anything but as she closed her hand over his arm and crushed the laser and the flamethrower hidden on the underside.

His HUD blared warnings.

The Threnium mostly held.

It was the more delicate workings of the mounted weaponry that she had destroyed.

He triggered the electric field.

She laughed.

“You tickle me like a child!”

“See, isn’t this nicer? Why involve the rest of my fellow Earthians? I’ve never fought a war, but even I know it just leads to so many unnecessary deaths. If you’re truly all about the motherhood stuff then—”

She cracked him with a knee to the face.

Her height and his lack thereof made it too easy.

His faceplate held, but projections said it couldn’t take much more.

“Death is a part of the natural order. Young of everything from sapients like us humans to those beasts coming for you to ideas and objects die every instant of every day. Perhaps a man from a primitive world like you wasn’t aware each birth is a product of countless failures.”

He responded with a telekinetically-boosted chopping low kick to the side of her knee.

Magic armor being what it was, there was no gap.

Threnium met enchanted adamantine with a bang that dwarfed that of the artillery guns.

She grunted and responded with a fist to the faceplate.

He let the blow send him flying rather than brace himself to gain distance and open up with every weapon his armor had.

She covered her eyes and weathered the storm.

That didn’t bode well for the prospects of anyone without his level of power taking on a demigod.

Unfortunately, he lacked the magic to test that avenue out.

He took to the sky, battering her into a crater with invisible fists.

An arrow ghosted through his automatic extra-sensory defenses, taking him in the chest.

Liquid flame quickly engulfed him, seeking gaps in his armor and burning the forcefield generators out in less than a second.

It had a rudimentary mind, so he told it to go away.

It fell upon a wide swathe, covering dozens of monsters and animals.

One would need a complete lack of empathy to avoid being affected by their howls and screeches.

The animals didn’t deserve the slow, painful death.

The demigod atop the ruined heads took aim with an ethereal crossbow for a second shot.

Cal covered the distance in a blink.

Invisible force flowed from him like an angry wave.

He battered the silent demigod into the granite, carving a deep furrow for hundreds of meters into the mountain itself.

He allowed himself a petty moment to appreciate how the horns on the man’s helm had snapped against the rock.

It was a powerful artifact.

A relic really.

Probably ancient.

Centuries old, if not millennia.

And he had just ruined it.

The hole in the mountain looked a bit too gaping, so he sealed it shut, moving the stone and earth at the molecular level, sealing it shut as if it had never existed.

A frothing bear splattered against his telekinetic shield.

The poor thing had been thrown by Aehrone.

A clump of mutated hares tangled by the tentacles writhing out of their backs and pressed together by the demigod’s superstrong hands followed suit to the same effect.

He gathered the resulting gore and drenched her with it, making sure that it got into her eyes.

She leapt after him, only to fly into an invisible wall.

Interesting that she seemed unable to sense them.

He slammed her into the ground with a thought, splattering furred bodies and smashing twisted bones.

The monsters and animals he piled on top of her until a small hill took shape.

This he compressed like grapes for wine.

He had no illusions that drowning in blood and guts would only be a slight problem for a demigod, but it was disgusting and would trigger her sense of superiority. To her, only lesser beings like mortals and beasts had their faces pressed into the muck.

The moment of sudden silence was an illusion.

Looking at the tree tops, the hills and mountains one could almost forget the rest and bask in the tranquility of nature.

Of course, it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even without demigods and the now silent artillery fire, the wilds were a dangerous place when monsters and mutant animals roamed freely.

“Bad news.” Eron broke tranquility. “I can’t get into the city.”

“Explain.”

“I’ll save you the questions. I don’t know how or why, but I simply can’t cross what appears to be city lines. It’s not physical like a wall that I hit. I just stop.”

He could imagine his brother shrug.

“Tried coming up from underground and flying from above. Same thing. It appears that there’s a sphere-ish barrier that I can’t touch, see or otherwise sense around the city. I tried so many different angles and shit. The helmet saved all the measurements.”

The possibilities shot through his thoughts like poisoned darts.

“The bombs and the others?”

“My eye beams go through, so I can get the others when they activate… I can’t do anything about the bombs… listen, um, you seeded the place with surveillance drones. They won’t be able to false flag this crap on us with all the evidence.”

“That doesn’t help the people in the city.”

“Help who we can, right?”

Cal closed his eyes and centered his thoughts.

Fear vanished, smothered by calm.

“Take out the sleepers when they emerge. Then go down the list. Check D.C. But, I’m going to guess you’ll find it just as impenetrable as that city. If it is, switch to the mobile targets.”

“Submarines and aircraft carrier. Got it. Damn shame they went to all that effort to get those running again. All those expensive upgrades too.”

“Clear the immediate threats first then start hitting military bases and weapons sites.”

The aircraft carrier was off the coast of New York providing air support operations against the encroachment from the wendigo tribes to the north.

A trio of submarines were spread out in the Pacific. One Los Angeles Class was close to the Southern California Coast, while another one accompanied an Ohio Class further out. Fortunately, the ballistic missile submarine lacked nuclear warheads.

Old American military history would be four pieces closer to extinction after his brother got his hands on them.

“I’ve got the list in this helmet.”

“Leave their satellites for last. I want them to see what they’ve cost themselves.”

“That’s a bit grim… and dark… but fair. If you’re still busy down with those two after I’m done then I’ll lend a hand.”

“I won’t.”

“Dude, I can just picture you saying that while chewing glass. Go on then. Kick names and take ass!”

“Stay focused and be cautious.”

His brother tended to default to humor when stressed. He supposed there were worst ways to cope. However, the oldest brother in him would always worry that the youngest wasn’t taking things as seriously as he should’ve. Near invulnerability wasn’t complete invulnerability. Nothing and no one was perfectly invulnerable to every conceivable threat.

“Captain Molds, do you copy?”

A moment.

“Yessir?”

“The old American government has declared war.”

“Um… yeah… we figured.”

“When you’ve dealt with the immediate threat proceed to the airbase they launched from and make it unusable. When you’ve done that do the same to the missile launch facility.”

“Oh… wow… that’s big… but, yeah. Plan B’s a go. We’ve got it covered. Over and out.”

The plan was for a quick war, but everyone always planned for a quick war and how often had things turned out exactly as planned?

As if to answer, the mountain and what was left of the giant granite faces erupted behind him.