"The Girl in the Metal Suit" #3

[Steve]

A graduation gift for Amy.

In our first part, Amy set fire to criminals and Freegan supervillains and Greenpeace econuts and White Power Racist supervillains and helped SG-14 fight the Mistyverse equivalent of the Incredible Hulk.

In our second part, Amy saved the world from an evil sorcerer and his demon allies. An evil sorcerer she also set fire to (and she crushed his hand and caused him to lose most of his magical power, but the key thing is: she set him on fire). And she got to team up with sexy Zaia, buxom Valkyrie, and a winged pervert named Sunhawk, not to mention Nit and Tev, SDN's Mage couple.

So what adventurous exploits will the Girl in the Metal Suit have in her third story? What thrilling team-ups? And most importantly.... whom shall she set fire to this time?


Let's find out!



Chapter 1


It was a sun-filled day at the Hawk Electronics Defense Corporation's Marietta office, with dozens of military and civilian government officials, technicians, and designers present. Everyone was assembled outside, seated in chairs, and prompted to applaud as the owner of the company, James Hawk, was introduced.

Among those listening to his speech were to particular individuals - a lanky, young geek and a purple-haired girl in magenta lab coat who was thinking, Hard to believe that guy's a big superhero. Former superhero. Amy Chan sat with arms crossed, waiting for the days' demonstration.
"The Hawk Talon-D is the most advanced surface-to-air interceptor made on the planet," the senior designer remarked. "It is capable of intercepting a hypersonic bomber, a cruise missile, and even your average pigeon. Those poor, poor pigeons," he said in a lame attempt at humor. Groans came from the audience.

"The test drone is flying overhead now. It is the size of a Maverick missile, a standard air to ground weapon. Now watch."

Overhead the test drone soared, and nearby, a Talon-D missile was activated and fired from it's triped launch device. For most of the crowd, it was the sight of two streaks of flame striking in mid-air and being accompanied by an explosion. Even Amy applauded the succesful test.
Now Hawk returned to the podium. "Excellent work for you all. I'd like to thank you for your hard work, both those who are employees of Hawk Electronics and the free agent programmers who made this project possible. I'll make sure you all get sizable bonuses." He quieted while cheers roared among the assembled, motioningg for them to quiet. "Now now, let me finish please, I'll be signing the bonus checks." A moment of laughter replaced the cheering. "These missiles are excellent defensive systems that will undoubtedly save many lives over the coming years. Militaries and organizations all over the world will be able to prevent terrorist missile attacks with greater ease, and there's no telling the boon this will be for...."


"Defiler! Warmonger!"
Four voices turned everyone's attention away from the podium. Amy muttered, "Oh no, it's the freakos," as she watched the four ragged figures walk up.
"Excuse me?" Hawk said from the podium.
"We have come to avenge the countless innocents harmed by the Military-Industrial Complex of Warmongers, who steal food from all innocent peoples of the world!," the puny leader shouted. "I am the Gaian Crusader, and we are the Freegan Four!"

"Didn't you..."
"Shush, Yancy," Amy said, getting up. "Now back away before Wimpy starts giving us hump-desires."
There was in fact a rush to escape, as Lovesalot began concentrating and spreading his stink across the assembled. Amy pulled Yancy away and toward their van, where it took only a moment to call up the mechanism to have her armored suit arrive beside them, well out of sight.
It would take some time for the suit to make the distance at full throttle, and as Amy waited Yancy called her attention back to the gathering. "Looks like you won't be needed."

The sight? Lovesalot sprawled out unconscious, and Gaian Crusader and Moonchild too busy distracting security with their powers to stop Hawk from fighting Bruce. "Wounded Lion Strikes Poacher!" was the martial-artist Freegan's call, but his blow was deftly blocked by Hawk almost non-chalantly, as was the next with an annoying "Goat Rams Milker!"
"You talk too much," Hawk replied dismissively as he used a swift kick to knock the Freegan fighter over, his impact on the ground causing Lovesalot to get back up. The other two Freegans were coming back at this point as well, and Hawk soon found himself faced by all of the Freegan Four. "We've come to make you pay for all the evil you've done to this world."
"Ah, you mean the billions devoted to charity, my sponsorship of a superhero team that's saved the world a couple times, and millions of lives, and the life-saving technology of our medtech divisions?" Hawk smirked. "Lot of damage there."
"Don't feed us your capitalist lies, warmonger! You got rich on the blood of little children, and for that we're gonna make you pay!"
"Awful big climb for a group of misfits who used to knock over grocery stores," Hawk replied. "And, you did note the part about me being the sponsor of a superhero team?"

A moment later, a massive hammer construct of blue energy slammed into Lovesalot and threw him to the side. From above came a number of figures; Amy recognized Ladyhawk from Justice Force, but not the other two; one of them was a woman in a black and blue uniform with a gem insignia on the chest, the other was a male in a simple black uniform with a small cloak clasped to his neck. He extended a hand and Moonchild squealed, falling down.
Gaian Crusader went to concentrate, but before he could Ladyhawk swooped up to him, and applied a shove of her hand that sent him flying to the ground. Bruce went for Hawk again, but Hawk deftly dodged until the girl in the blue suit extended a hand and pulled him away in a field of blue energy, slamming him into the recovering Lovesalot.

At that moment, Amy's suit finally arrived. She mumbled, "Bah, no use now," but nonetheless decided to put in an appearance. She climbed into it quickly, brought it online, and stomped over just as Ladyhawk finished tying the Freegans together. "Well, I see you got them," she said to the assembled.
"I was wondering if I was going to get the chance to speak to you, Miss Chan," Hawk replied. "In your... unofficial capacity, of course."
"I guess that's what I get for the sorcerers using my name left and right."
"Yes, well, that.... and the fact that you're the only freelancer in this region with access to both my technology and Fahr's, which is about the only way you'd get the electronics to work something like that," Hawk responded. "Don't worry, your secret is safe. Though I hope you'll consider a more permanent arrangement with me."
"I told Iceberg I wasn't interested in being a world-saving superhero," Amy replied.
"Probably not, but I'm not asking you to join the Justice Force, just to be a... free-agent, so to speak."

"Hawk, Sapphire, we have a problem."
"What, Provost?" Hawk said, attention turning to the cloaked man, with Amy easily figuring out who "Sapphire" was supposed to be given the insignia on the chest of the girl with the funky energy powers.
He stood up. "I scanned their unconscious minds. This was a setup. They were hired by someone to attack you to distract us from...."

"Oh Hell," Amy muttered, the police band picking up for her.
"What?"
"Someone is robbing the High Museum of Art. Again. The last time it was robbed I ended up fighting demons and an evil sorcerer." Amy fired her leg jets to follow as Ladyhawk, Provost, and Sapphire took off. "I wonder who it is this time...."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The dome that had been repaired after Amy smashed through it the last time was damaged again, and security troops were scattered around unconscious. "I'll take point," Ladyhawk said, but Sapphire grabbed her with a construct hand before she could go on.
"He is here," she said, in a deliberate and careful tone.
"He?" Amy asked.
"DarkStar.... aaah!" A solid beam of red crashed into Sapphire and knocked her out of the broken dome. Amy looked down to see a male figure in a dark and red uniform, a dark star insignia on his chest with an accompanying field of red. The beam in his hand altered and became a pair of boa constrictors that wrapped around Amy and Provost. A third tried to get Ladyhawk, but she was too fast, and already on the attack. An inhuman scream of rage erupted from her as she crashed into the villain, knocking him into the next room. His constructs released Amy and Provost just as they were starting to crush her in her suit.

Their landing wasn't very soft however. As they were recovering, a bolt of energy struck Provost and sent him flying. Amy's suit tracked the beam to a hunchbacked metahuman with a thick scaly back. She brought up the plasma cannon on her arm and blasted the metahuman back.
A massive red energy blast went by them, having enveloped Ladyhawk. DarkStar emerged from the room, a massive beast-like bruiser beside him, then a lanky thin enemy coming on the other side. "Sorborus, War, deal with them!"
The beast-like thing roared and came for Provost after he got back up, while the lanky guy became a blur, zipping around Amy and blasting her repeatedly with some form of weapon. Damage warnings started popping up on her HUD. With no hit possible with the cannons, Amy switched on her trusty flamethrower and sent a tongue of flame outward. War ran right into it, setting himself ablaze, and began to scream and writhe as Amy poured the fire on him.

Provost's body crashed into her, though it didn't knock her over - it clearly left him in pain though. A beastial roar and thundering footsteps warned her of Sorborus' approach before he actually came up, and she was able to absorb the tackle attempt. "He's.... too strong..." Provost mumbled, probably hurt more by impacting with Amy than by anything else Sorborus did.
Amy took a blow from the bestial thing and flew backward, crushing a post-modern sculpture of misshapen steel beams in the process. "Yeah, well.... I fought Big Steve! For two seconds anyway...." She side-stepped the next blow and began firing her flamethrower, covering Sorborus in flames. "I bet that's gonna smell."
Then Sorborus angrily smacked Amy, and she went flying back even harder, crashing through a wall and smashing a couple of paintings. "If this weren't po-mo crap, I'd be really upset he did that," she muttered as Sorborus rushed onward.
Ladyhawk came between them, catching Sorborus with a punch that sent him flying back through the hole in the wall, just to impact with the wall on the other side of the central chamber and onward through that.

Amy followed her back into the central chamber, where she saw Sapphire coming through the roof with a new arrival, one she recognized; Sakura, the pyrokinetic redhead Otaku. "Where's DarkStar?" Sapphire asked. "I can feel him, he's still around here?"
"Well, if he was here stealing something, maybe the loading bays?" Amy pointed them in that direction. Given everyone present could fly, they went out over the dome and over the building.

DarkStar was alone now, his team still recovering inside, and he had a giant object in an energy construct field that he was pulling out of a vehicle. Sapphire and Ladyhawk attacked directly, Sapphire hitting him with a blue energy beam and Ladyhawk grabbing an armored van nearby, throwing it at DarkStar. He barely had time to bring up a protective field as the van smashed onto him. "Wow," Amy muttered. "It's like she's trying to kill him."
"She is," Sakura replied. "He killed a friend of her's a couple years ago."
Amy nodded, and was about to join the fun when her sensors picked up a second life form nearby. She turned and said "Look out!" just in time to get Sakura to move from an electric blast.
When she looked back down, a figure moved out from around the van, a wand in his hand and a stub instead of a left hand. Her eyes widened a bit. "Looks like we have a substantially de-powered immortal wannabe conquerer wizard," she said to the others as she moved to a hover position over the Dark Lord Elizar. "Do I need to set you on fire again?"

An angry growl came from Elizar and he extended his hand, a bolt of lighting erupting from his wand and striking Amy. She cried out and lost concentration, flying into the museum behind her.
Sakura created a stream of flame to attack him as Provost moved to attack. Elizar conjured a force shield around himself, then created an ice counter-effect up Sakura's flame stream until it enveloped her, covering her in ice and causing her to plummet to the ground. Her impact caused the ice to break off from her, but she was barely moving.
Provost brought a fist back and his arm seemed to dematerialize, but when it struck the field he cried out and fell back. "I heard you were a phase-shifter," Elizar said in his Evil English Accent, "so I planned accordingly." He looked over to where DarkStar was slinging Ladyhawk into a wall before countering a strike from Sapphire. "DarkStar, we have what we need. Gather your man so I might teleport us to safety."

As Amy got up and went to attack the wizard, she heard an engine nearby, and looked to see her van race up, Yancy at the wheel. He stuck his head out and hooted as he raced up to Elizar, who brought up a force-shield that proved insufficient to stop her van from crashing through it and having leftover force to send him flying.
Yancy jumped out of the car and began hooting. "Yes! I ran over a supervillain! Woohoo!" He leaned against the artifact DarkStar and Elizar had been trying to steal. "See, Amy, I can be a help after...."
Elizar whispered something, and the artifact began to glow. Yancy gasped and stepped back, but a moment later energy lashed out from the artifact and ensnared him. He shouted "Help!" just before disappearing.

As he blipped away, Amy went racing for him, joined by the other flyers from Justice Force save for Provost, who was still recovering. Energy whipped out from the artifact and toward them as well, none being fast enough to stop it before it enveloped them. It was a strange tingling sensation, not painful though....
And suddenly they were gone.

DarkStar grinned evilly and lifted his hand, creating a cleaver construct to kill Provost before he could move. But Elizar suddenly shouted, "No!" and began pulling himself up. "That artifact just alerted every Weave-sensitive being in the Northern Hemisphere! The Blackthornes will be here soon enough! We must depart!"
Snarling at being deprived of another kill, DarkStar extended energy construct fields around Elizar and the artifact, reaching into the museum and also retrieving his three present minions. He raced off.

A moment later, Hawk arrived, clad in a new body armor suit complete with jetpack and wings, and a faceplate to hide his identity. He kneeled in front of Provost. "What happened?"
"An artifact..... magic of some sort.... it took the others," he muttered.
A bright light appeared behind Hawk, and he saw two forms materialize. He recognized, from past experience, the sorcerer Nitram Blackthorne and his bard wife Tevar. Nitram asked, "We sensed a tremendous magical disturbance here, what is going on?"
As another bright light heralded the arrival of Professor Maxis, Hawk replied, "I'd like to know that myself."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy had another bodyache when she opened her eyes. She was in a rough bed, felt like hay or straw, and this confused the hell out of her as she slipped out of it. Her armor suit was gone, and she felt rather undressed. It was a small mudbrick structure of some form, but to her surprise there was a mirror present too. Moving forward, and feeling some odd change to her body's weight, she went to the mirror...
The resulting scream echoed throughout the structure.

A wooden slider door pulled open, and a scantily-clad girl with jewels on her brassiere and thong ran in. "My Lady, what is wrong?!"
Not quite acknowledging the girl's dress in her mental state, Amy screamed, "Would you please explain to me why I suddenly have C-cup boobs and why I'm wearing a CHAIN-MAIL BIKINI?!"

[Zixinus]

Quick question: Would you please supply a link to the previous two stories?

[Steve]

Story 1 and Story 2 links.

[Zixinus]

Thank you.

[Vehrec]

Has Darkstar sent her to some sort of mideval fantasy world where all women were less and have higher AC?

[Steve]

Has Darkstar sent her to some sort of mideval fantasy world where all women were less and have higher AC?

Well, if you think about it.... every GitMS story has done, and parodied, something.

The first story introduced the characters; a "superheroine" who isn't motivated by vengeance or high ideals or responsibility but simply by her desire to burn criminals. We met silly supervillains like the Freegan Four and then stereotypically evil ones (the racist ones), then had a stereotypical superpowered brawl with no regard for collateral damage. General comic book story.

The second story had the out-of-the-blue teamup against a "world-conquering" supervillain and world-destroying demons. Large cast of characters, some cut from a general mold (Claymore, Valkyrie), etc. General "major" comic book storyline.

And now..... it should be pretty clear just what GitMS #3 whill be parodying, yes?

[Zixinus]

But Amy isn't a fighter without her battle suit...
EDIT: At least not to a demonstrated point.

EDIT2: I WANT MORE!

[Mayabird]

Sorry it took so long. I'm taking over the writing of this issue.

Chapter 2

The girl took a step back. “What do you mean, my lady?”
“I mean, where’s my armor? My real armor!”
“My lady, I am but a humble slave! Forgive me my ignorance!” She fell to the ground, groveling, sobbing, and showing off ridiculous amounts of cleavage.

“Whoa, whoa, stop it, it’s alright, gal, I just…wait a sec, slave?”

“I begged the Sisterhood - may the goddesses watch over them! – for their protection when my land was attacked, and I became their slave so that I might serve them for all my days! Milady, art thou ill?” Amy Chan rushed outside, not caring about what little she was wearing or how off-balance her C cups were making her.

She was in some sort of Alpine-looking, absurdly green valley between very tall, pointy, snow-capped mountains. There was a slight chill in the air, but despite that most of the women, and they were all women, big busty women with rippling muscles and lots of weapons, wore things similar to herself, but maybe with a thin cloak over their shoulders.

It’s like something out of a bad fantasy novel. Or maybe a lesbian porn video.

“Milady!”
“Gimme a sec here. I, umm, need to get my bearings.”

Okay, last thing I remember. Something about pigeons, something exploding, oh yeah, people were getting sucked in. Some evil magic ancient artifact…oh…I will BURN that museum down...

“Their art is crappy, too,” she muttered.

“Amy!” shouted a voice that seemed mostly familiar. She jerked her head around, trying to find the source. “Over here! I’m glad you woke up.”

It was the land of buxom babes, and suddenly there was a big muscled man with rippling muscles emerging from the crowd and grinning widely. He looked familiar too, as if-

“Yancy?”
“Yep!”
“Did you decapitate a bodybuilder and stick your head on it?”

Really, it wasn’t fair to say that. For one thing, he didn’t have acne anymore, or any acne scars. His facial structure was slightly altered to, more rugged cheekbones and a chin that had probably been carved by a glacier. His greasy blonde hair was now long and shiny and pulled back in a manly ponytail. And yet, it was still Yancy, just superimposed on the Legendary Action Hero body form. Somehow.

And then Yancy laughed, a deep, hearty laugh of a Greek demigod. Amy found it quite disconcerting. She was also slightly jealous that he got to get the body of an action star while all she got was big breasts. Well, longer hair too. Amy suddenly realized that her purple hair was flowing down over her shoulders nearly to the level of her enlarged –

“Has the sleeping heroine awakened?” The words had been spoken by a tall redhead with a big, 80s-like hairdo falling over her blue-cloaked shoulders. It was held back from her forehead by an iron tiara, which looked much tougher than what the word “tiara” normally evokes. Her indigo cloak was plain and unadorned, but of fine fabric and weave – it was no peasant’s dress. Instead of a chain mail bikini, she wore a breastplate – emphasis on “breast” – along with bracers and greaves, all of burnished bronze. Just peeking out behind her cloak, Amy could see a scabbard with a sword. Oh no, I’ve entered fantasy-world description mode, she thought.

“Indeed she has. Lady Tanya, I present Amy Chan of Atlanta. Amy, this is Red Tanya, daughter of the Queen of the Steppes, and Captain of the Guard of the Sisterhood.”

“I greet you, Amy-chan, Defender of Atlanta,” Red Tanya declared, clasping Amy’s right arm in her own. “Lord Yancy has spoken well of you and your exploits with your enchanted armor.”

“Pleased to meet you, too.” She flashed Yancy a Look. “Speaking of armor…” Yancy held out his hands and shrugged, and Red Tanya spoke, instead.
“If you feel you can walk, my slave can lead you to the council house to be fed and regain your strength, and there we can answer your questions.” She smiled at Yancy, a little too sweetly for Amy’s comfort. “If he is any guide, you must have many. Kalina!” She shouted, and the slave girl ran out of the hut, bowing. “Take the Defender Amy-chan to the council house to be refreshed. Bring out the bread and meat and whatever else she desires. I must summon my patrol and the members of the council.”

“I obey, mistress!” She bowed, and turned to Amy. “Defender, if you may, please follow this humble slave.” Amy hesitated a moment, wanting to ask Yancy something, but he and Red Tanya had already walked away into the crowd of women warriors milling about. Before they vanished completely, she saw them link arms.

“You lucky, lucky bastard.”
“Milady Defender?”
“Alright, I’m coming.”


Amy Chan never turned down free food, even if it was from super villainesses or scantily-clad slave girls. Not that she found the thought of either to be appealing, but it was the principle of the thing. You never knew when you’d get to eat again, plans and schedules be damned. And anyway, she wasn’t going to complain about all-you-can-eat sides of meat, freshly baked bread, hunks of cheese, and unlimited mugs of wine, beer, and fresh milk. She would have preferred to go without the slave girls attending to her every want and need, though. She didn’t like slavery anyway; it didn’t matter if they preferred slavery to the Sisterhood to whatever the Empire might do to them – it was still wrong. Having half of them be Yancy fangirls, and the other half holding her in awe because she was Yancy’s boss and a purple-haired sorceress, though, was just rubbing it in.

Anyway, the Empire: It was one of two main factions in this world, the other being the loose alliance of everybody who wasn’t the Empire. It controlled all the land west of the mountains to the sea, having conquered a multitude of little kingdoms, principalities, duchies, free cities, temple lands, and so forth. The Empire also had a Dark Lord and was very evil in a puppy-kicking, mustache-twirling kind of way. All the slaves serving the Sisterhood had fled there for protection from the Empire.
The alliance was headed by the Sisterhood, traditionally an elite school for training women in the arts of war and the defenders of the mountain passes from bandits and beasts. Now, they were the last line of defense keeping the Empire from rolling over the mountain folk and streaming into the eastern lands – vast plains, followed by vast steppes, and then followed by a desert that everyone was convinced stretched to the end of the world. The valley they were in was one of the Sisterhood’s sacred training grounds and also the home of the Oracle. Now, it was also becoming the headquarters of the alliance members trying to push back the Empire.
While the Sisterhood had small numbers in absolute terms, they were very, very good at what they did. They and their allies in the mountain folk, thanks partially to the narrowness of the mountain passes, could hold back the huge but mostly peasant levy armies of the Empire. For a time, anyway.

After getting through the exposition part, Amy had to admit that Yancy had done a damn good job of tailoring his stories of their world to their world-view. Atlanta had turned into a grand and very shiny city of metal towers. She wore enchanted armor, powered by petrified lightning. The metahumans were described as humans with innate magic power, which was close enough to the real thing anyway that Amy had no complaints. Yancy had described himself as an apprentice/journeyman enchanter studying under the master enchantress, Amy herself, the Defender of Atlanta, who, when not fighting off wicked sorcerers and metahumans, designed engines of war. And at that thought, she snapped her fingers.

“Gunpowder!” Amy exclaimed out of the blue, startling the girls who were talking to her. “Did Yancy tell you anything about gunpowder, or how to make it?” They looked at each other and shook their heads in confusion. “He should’ve. I wonder why not. It’s really simple. Any of you could make it.”

“We could do magic?” Kolina asked, in shock.
“It’s not really magic, just chemistry. And I could show you how to make devices to use the gunpowder. You don’t have to be slaves, you know. You could be soldiers and go after the Empire directly.”
“But we’re no warriors!” one of the others argued. “I could never wear armor and carry a shield into battle – I lack the strength.” The other girls murmured in agreement.
Amy shrugged. “Without my armor, I’m not much of a fighter, and yet I’m the Defender of Atlanta.” She then started grinning. “And who needs swords when you have guns, rockets, and cannons? Oh, and grenades too.”
“What are those things?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” replied Amy with a chuckle.
“And we could wield these things in battle?”
“Absolutely!” Their eyes started to widen as they began, for the first time in their lives, to think of the possibilities.
“When can you start?” one of them asked.
Amy began, “Right n-” but at that moment, she saw Yancy and Red Tanya enter, along with a number of other armed and armored warrior women. “Tonight,” she corrected. “I’ll start tonight. Hey Lady Tanya, Yancy! Good to see ya again! Are these the members of the patrol?”

Red Tanya raised an eyebrow, seemingly in amusement, as she said, “Indeed, these are the members of my patrol who discovered the five of you when you fell from the sky.”

“Five? You mean…Ladyhawk, Sakura, and Sapphire are here too? Where are they?”

Yancy’s face dropped. “I-I couldn’t…”
One of the other warriors clasped his arm. “You were naked and alone, beset by a ten horsemen, Lord Yancy. There is no dishonor in it.”
Amy butt in, “Wait, what happened?”
Red Tanya held up her hand for silence. “First, we will eat. Then, there will be time for our tales.”

After eating, one of Red Tanya’s lieutenants, Pokrovka, began the story. “It was I who spotted the first falling star. Star metal is a precious substance which can make the hardest weapons, so we headed towards where I had seen it fall. While we traveled, we saw three more stars fall, and then a fourth, going to the same place, and then we hurried, for the Empire would also be following such a portent. But we arrived too late.”

Red Tanya continued, “Men riding the dark horses of the Empire had already reached the grove where you five had landed. Three of your number, three women, had already been dragged aside, and the horsemen were trying to take you as well. But Lord Yancy was standing over you, naked as all of you were, with only a stick he had found on the ground, and was trying to defend you from them. When he saw us arrive and attack the Emperor’s men, he charged the men guarding the other three women to try to save them as well, but they knocked him aside and rode off with the women.

Pokrovka finished, “I pursued with the patrol, and we slew five of their number, but the men carrying your companions slipped past the mountains. We believe they may have gone to the twisted citadel near the dark forests, but for what reason I know not.”

Red Tanya took Yancy’s hand. They’re not even trying to be subtle, Amy thought. She spoke, “It is a rare man who is allowed to enter our hallowed ground, but in showing such courage to stand against such hopeless odds to defend four women, Lord Yancy has earned our trust and the privilege of free rein of our valley.”

“That’s great and all,” Amy said, not very politely, “But what about Sapphire, Sakura, and Ladyhawk? And my armor?”

The warriors shook their heads sadly. “We saw no armor as you and Lord Yancy have spoken of. You were lying face down in the bracken, naked as the rest. As for the women, we do not have the numbers to assault their citadel, and none of us have the skill to sneak past their sorceries and magic protections to rescue them.”
“But, they’re metas! If their powers still work here (and I hope they do), they could probably blast their way out once they regained consciousness. Only problem is, they wouldn’t know where to go if they did escape. If you could send even one person to wait, just in case…”

Red Tanya shook her head. “We barely have enough warriors to guard the passes, much less to send on such a quest deep into enemy territory. I do not have the authority, but I will beg permission from the council tomorrow when they gather.”
“If you don’t have the numbers, I can help,” Amy answered.
“Lord Yancy said you were an enchanter, not a warrior,” Red Tanya said, with more than a hint of skepticism.

“That’s true, sorta, but, and I was telling this to the, ah, servants here, I can teach you how to make weapons that could make them into effective warriors.”
“Things like your enchanted armor?” one of the warriors asked.
“Not exactly. I don’t have the tools to make the tools to make the tools and so on to build another one of them, but I can definitely make gunpowder. And if you have blacksmiths that can make swords and armor, they could definitely make a bunch of guns. Cannons, even. Ooh, if you had any petroleum around, by any chance, I could make Greek fire – well, something close to it, maybe. Cheap napalm? Hey, if I can make grenades, I could make mines. Bombs, of course. Oh man, while I’m at it, I could totally build-”

“Amy!” Yancy shouted, interrupting her. “May I have a word with you?”
“Oh, sure. One moment, everyone.” She followed Yancy outside and then away from the entrance. He looked around to make sure no one was nearby and hissed.
“Gunpowder?”
“Sure. It’s easy. I used to make it in high school when I got bored. You start with-”
“Guns. In this society.”
“If some guy in a cave in Shitcanistan can make a knockoff AK-47, their blacksmiths can make a musket.”
“Amy, are you sure it’ll work?”
“Of course it’ll work! It’s a simple chemical reaction. If the laws of physics were that screwed up, we’d probably be piles of goo right now.”
“This is a swords-and-sorcery fantasy world, though.”
“All the more reason to invent gunpowder and all the wonderfully destructive things you can make because of it. They’ll never see it coming!”
Yancy decided to switch to a different subject. “You’re also not even trying to fit in. What’s this supposed to be, anyway?” He tugged at the raggedy cloth that Amy had wrapped around her shoulders, somewhat covering her body down to her hips.
“It was a bread sack.”
“A bread sack.”
“Yancy, I’m sorry, but there’s only one guy I don’t mind being naked around, and it ain’t you.”

“Amy, look…”
“No, Yancy, you look here. You found a girlfriend. That’s great, but let’s not lose track of what all is happening. We got sucked into that magic artifact thingy and ended up here. We’ve got three missing superheroines in enemy hands, and I don’t know where my suit went, which is the one thing that might give me a fighting chance. First off, we gotta rescue them. I’m not having anybody…what do bad guys do in this world, feed heroes to wild animals? Whatever they do, it’s not happening on my watch if I can help it. Second, we need to figure out what happened and if we can get back.”
“These people here need our help now.”
“There was this little blue planet called Earth. You might’ve heard of it. It’s your homeworld.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“The last time I got involved in magical crap, I had to fight big evil demons that wanted to conquer the world. They could be in serious trouble, and that’s where our primary responsibility lies, because that’s where we’re from, and it may very well be out fault what’s happening there. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have gunpowder to make.” She turned to walk away, then stopped. “Umm, Yancy, does this place have an apothecary, or medicine women, or something like that?”

Yancy stifled a groan. “The Oracle handles all that.”
“Oh, cool…so, where’s the Oracle at?”
“The set of buildings on the other side of the reedy pond.”
“Okay, so…”
Yancy pointed. “That way. You can’t miss it.”
“Alright, thanks! Could you tell the others that I’ll be at the Oracle’s place?”
Yancy sighed. “Sure, Amy.”
“Thanks again! See ya later!” And Amy took off in the general direction of the pond.
* * *
Amy Chan barged into the largest of the buildings soaking wet, having managed to miss the pond until she had fallen headfirst into it. Immediately, a young woman with long blonde hair and twinkling gray eyes handed her a towel and a dry robe. “You may change behind the curtains over there,” she gestured, with a small smile.

“Ooh, thanks,” Amy said. She ran behind the curtains, glad to finally get out of the chain mail and bread sack. Then she paused a moment and stuck her head out from behind the curtains. “Wait a sec, a question.”
“I saw your tumble into the pond. I thought you would like to dry off and change into dry clothing.”
“Ah, alright, good thinking. Thanks again!”

The young woman sprinkled some powder into a bowl of water and twirled it around with the tips of her fingers. She chuckled. “It’s not all headology, Amy Chan.”

“Wha, huh? How’d you kn…did-”
“No, Yancy did not tell me about ‘headology,’ nor did he tell me that you graduated summa cum laude from Georgia Tech with a double major in-”
“He could have told you all of that, though.”
“But he could not have known about that incident at the dinosaur museum when you were in third grade.”
Amy paused for a moment, then went back to changing. “Touche’. Also, pleased to meet you, Oracle?”

The Oracle laughed. “Yes, well met, Panzer Pyro, but I suppose I should I just call you Amy.” She removed her fingertips from the water. “And if it makes you more comfortable, I do not know what half of those words mean. So many strange thoughts in your mind! Especially this ‘gunpowder’ at the very front.”
“Not really that strange. It’s pretty simple, really,” Amy replied. “Charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate, erm, saltpeter. Grind ‘em up together in the right proportions. I can do some extra stuff after that, but that’ll work for a demonstration. So, I’ll need those three, a mortal and pestle, and some scales or balances.”
“I have all of those,” the Oracle answered. “Though I worry. If it truly is so simple, why has no one in our land discovered it yet?”
“Somebody’s gotta be first,” Amy Chan said, with a shrug, as she emerged from behind the curtains.


The slave girls peeked in through the windows and whispered to each other, wondering what the purple-haired sorceress was doing. They had expected something more impressive, but maybe it was just the first step. Would Amy Chan start speaking words of power over the small pile of powder in the bowl? The girls got especially excited when Lord Yancy and Red Tanya arrived to see what was happening.

“That is it?” Red Tanya asked, skeptically.
“It doesn’t look like much, but it’ll make quite a bang,” Amy Chan answered. “Tell her, Yancy.”
Yancy took a deep breath. “It does, in our land, but-”
“Whaddayamean, our land?” Amy snapped, as she lit a stick at the fireplace. “Why shouldn’t it work here?”
“Well…”
The stick lit at the end. “Alright, everyone stand back a bit. Don’t get too close, and,” she yelled at the windows, “don’t be too alarmed.” The others took a few steps back. Amy lifted out the stick and held it out at arm’s length, as far as she could from her body, and touched the lit end to the gunpowder.

Nothing happened.

She managed to keep her jaw from dropping and tried shoving the lit end into the gunpowder.

Again, nothing.

In desperation, Amy grabbed the whole bowl and flung the powder into the fire. The fire acted as if a handful of sand had been tossed on it, but with a faintly sulfuric smell for a moment that quickly passed.

Yancy went to Amy’s side. “Umm, Amy? Are you okay?”
“My brain just broke.”

[Zixinus]

Lots of fun so far. It looks like Amy is stuck kicking ass the old-fashioned way.

But let me guess some of the plot: the artifact grants dreams and it was Yancy's fantasy or something that was granted?

EDIT: Also, why the change of writers? Is there something going on?

[Steve]

Lots of fun so far. It looks like Amy is stuck kicking ass the old-fashioned way.

But let me guess some of the plot: the artifact grants dreams and it was Yancy's fantasy or something that was granted?

EDIT: Also, why the change of writers? Is there something going on?

I may end up doming some scenes, but basically I ran out of juice on the story with all the other stories I'm writing clamoring for attention, and Amy has some hilarious ideas on what to do. So I told her to go ahead and take over if she wanted.

[Mayabird]

I bet you thought there were no more updates, but you were wrong! I'm just extremely slow about updating stuff! Ha!

Steve wrote the last little bit.

Chapter 3

The sun rose over the beautiful green valley. It occurred to a sleepless, more-than-slightly deranged Amy Chan, as she held her knees close to her chest and slowly rocked back and forth, that the sun might actually be rising over the static land. She looked back down at the small objects she had been using for testing, then rechecked her scribbles on bits of parchment and her scratches on the ground.

Amy fell on her back, flailing her arms and legs and screaming in a tantrum.
“IT MAKES THE BABY ISAAC NEWTON CRY!”

The warriors of the Sisterhood had more important things to do than watch a powerless sorceress flounder about impotently, and were away training or patrolling. The Oracle had been called away for divination. Many of the slave girls had also left, in sadness or disgust. Many, but not all.

“Is she ill, Lord Yancy?” Kalina asked.
“No, not ill, but…she’s not taking the news well, as we would say.” Yancy shrugged.
“Can you speak to her, help her ‘take the news well’ perhaps?” asked Avre, another of the slave girls.
Yancy took a deep breath. “I can try.”

Amy had gotten up and was stomping the ground furiously. Suddenly, she stopped, and then screamed a feral bellow of rage into the sky.

Yancy yelled as he approached. “Amy, get a grip, seriously! You’re just making a scene and embarrassing yourself.”
She was stunned into silence for a moment, then looked as if all her energy got sucked out. Weakly, she turned around. “I don’t think you understand.”
“Look, I know this is all very weird, us ending up in this fantasy world, but we just have to go along with it for now. Like you were saying last night, we have to rescue Ladyhawk, Sapph-”

“Yancy, Yancy!” She grabbed his broad shoulders and tried to shake him. “Momentum doesn’t work!”
“What?”
She pointed at the objects on the ground. “Momentum. Sometimes energy seems to come in, and sometimes it just goes somewhere. Action and reaction. Conservation of energy. All that super-basic physics stuff. It doesn’t work and that’s impossible! It’s-it’s unpossible!”

“Well then, that’s just the way it is in this world,” Yancy responded calmly. “Physics is just different here.”

“No, it doesn’t work that way. If physics was that different, we shouldn’t even exist. We should be, we should be piles of goo, at best, and definitely shouldn’t be able to walk around and, and, and everything else!” Amy started pacing, “And then, sometimes it’s even inconsistent. Like, fire works just fine here, and you can burn about everything normally, but coal doesn’t burn.” She picked up a lump. “They dig it out of the ground, use it for coloring stuff, some weird witchcraft medicine, things like that. But not fuel because it doesn’t burn!” Amy reached down and grabbed the parchment. She pointed at the next several items on the list. “And these are supposed to be flammable too, like freaking alcohol, and they aren’t, and-”

“Calm down! You’re gibbering.”

“You may not believe this, but I have an organized mind. I got everything in nice neat little columns and orders and…subclauses…and plans charted out way out ahead of time, even when I’m making up stuff as I go. Sometimes. Step 1, help these people out, so step 2, they’ll help us rescue the gals from the Big Bad. Step 3 we figure out how to stay alive so step 5, we escape.” Amy didn’t even notice Yancy walking away as she continued, “And there are substeps to the steps, except how do you plan when nothing works right? The universe is supposed to be....”

Yancy returned to the girls, shaking his head. “She is not thinking clearly. I don’t think I can do anything, but I’ll keep trying.”

Kalina thought for a moment. “She did not sleep at all last night. Perhaps it is just exhaustion.”
Avre nodded. “Rest does ease the mind. The Oracle taught me to make sleeping draughts. I should prepare one for her.” Avre paused for a moment before going into the Oracle’s workshop, but Amy Chan soon burst out gibbering with Yancy following behind.

“Maybe in this world we’ll just have to fight with brute strength. Take up a sword and fight with them. Look at them out there,” he gestured at the fields full of women training. “We can join them.”

Amy Chan watched for a moment, blankly, thinking that something was wrong at the scene but being unable to say what. Then she thought of something that might have been right, but she knew it wasn’t quite what she intended. “Yancy, the only time I’ve touched a sword in my entire life was when I went to the Renaissance Fair in seventh grade.” Something, something missing, just on the edge of her conscious mind…

“Well, I don’t know much either. I just took a few fencing lessons in high school.”
“Whoa, seriously? Didn’t see you much as a, you know, exercising per- It’s so contrived!” Not quite it, either. Something, something! Something! What is the something?
Yancy held back a sigh. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s like, it’s like, this is all set up to make us fight with swords, and have hot babes with swords and no industry. I bet springs don’t even work. Can’t even make crossbows. Ballistas? Trebuchets? Could we even make those? Would a windmill even work? How are we supposed to fight like, what’s the word? What’s the word?”

Some time passed, and just as Yancy was giving up in disgust, turning away from Amy Chan as she pointed at some women riding horses bareback and saying something about balance. He saw Kalina running towards him, and she bowed as she approached. “Lord Yancy, forgive our presumption, but sister Avre has made a sleeping draught for the sorceress-protector, for we believe-”
“-her thoughts are clouded by lack of sleep,” Yancy finished. “Good thinking. I’ll bring Amy now. Amy! You’re hungry and tired and need some food and something to drink. Come on.”

He took her by the arm and started pulling her along, following Kalina back to the Oracle’s workshop. She didn’t resist, though she muttered, “Metabolism. How would metabolism work if chemistry is broken?”

Back at the workshop, Yancy led Amy to a bench. “Please, rest a moment. I’ll get you something to drink.” He left her sitting and went to Avre, who was carefully pouring the potion into a mug.
“It is a powerful draught, one that will give her a long, dreamless sleep,” she said. “She should drink it quickly, and tomorrow when she awakes she should be refreshed, but ravenously hungry and thirsty. The Oracle-” Avre’s instructions were interrupted by a loud snore. They turned and saw Amy, slumped across the bench, already fast asleep.


“That’s a hot new outfit,” said Richard Feynman, as he slipped an arm around Amy Chan’s bare waist. She had lost the bread sack somewhere, and blushed all over from being so uncovered. “I like it.” He tipped up her chin very slightly with his other hand, but then Amy heard a bugle sounding reveille.

I can never get to first base she thought as she pulled herself away, following the call. She put on her blue uniform, but the shoddy was so travel worn and threadbare that only the thick mud of many battles on it was holding it together. Amy was glad for it though, because it covered the chain mail bikini.

And then she was at General McPherson’s side, because she was his aide, and the general was talking to Uncle Billy Himself about taking Atlanta. Suddenly, she couldn’t help but blurt out, “But sir, combustion don’t work here!”

And then General Sherman looked up, taking off a Roman centurion’s helmet which he hadn’t been wearing a moment before, and looked into her eyes and said, “Amy, we will make Georgia howl even if we must do it with pointed sticks.”

“SPEARS!” she shouted as she bolted up from sleep, shocking Kalina, who had been checking on her.
“Spears?” Kalina asked.
“No, not spears. Pikes.” She continued excitedly, and speaking faster and faster, “Long pikes. People don’t fight in formation here. I’ve seen better drill in that drunken marching band from college. Everybody’s warriors, not soldiers. Romans didn’t need fancy technology, just organization. And pikes, advantages with reach. The gals probably don’t have the upper body strength to swing a mace or sword or anything against huge guys in armor (I mean, I don’t) but if you can stab the other guys when they can’t reach you, you win. Ooh, and stirrups, those can’t be messed up, and-” Amy continued, talking as she searched for something to write on.

Kalina looked over at the Oracle, who had been watching the steam rise from a cauldron. The Oracle smiled at what she saw, and then as she looked towards Kalina, her smile broadened to a grin.

--------------------------

Meanwhile, back on Earth
An Hour After the Transfer

Hawk and Provost watched expectantly while Nitram and Maxis continued their incantations, both sorcerers hovering in mid-air as ethereal magicks swirled around them and the item, placed in the Circle of Power the Blackthornes kept in their manor in the Appalachians of West Virginia. Tevar stood away from her husband with their children around her, providing the raw magical power to help their parents find the missing heroines (and Yancy).
There was a sudden surge from the artifact and both sorcerers' auras suddenly and abruptly blinked out, both of them falling to the ground. "What is wrong?" Provost asked them.

"A barrier of some form has settled over the artifact," Maxis informed them. "I... do not understand how Elizar could do this and we could not."
Nitram rubbed at his chin. "Elizar no longer has raw magic power to force a barrier, it must have been raised after the others were transferred."
"Do you have any suggestions?" Hawk asked.
"None at the moment, Professor Maxis and I must study this item more before we try again."
"Maybe if we found Elizar it would help? The rest of the JF could be here very quickly...."
"No." Nitram shook his head. "Elizar could provide no useful help to us. Please, just leave this to us. We shall try to make you comfortable while we work."

[Mayabird]

First section was written by Steve.

Chapter 4

"I think we've waited long enough."
Sakura made the remark as she, Aurora/Ladyhawk, and Sonya/Sapphire swung over the large pit of snakes, tied up and together by ropes around their wrists, ankles, and waists. Not just any snakes were in the pit, but big ones. Nasty, too, with human-sized teeth and a pit filled with bones.
"Let these sacrifices to the Great Snakes bring Victory to our Empire!" the priest at the altar cried out. The men before him cheered enthusiastically and one began to operate the pulley to lower the three superheroines into the pit.
They'd attained consciousness, full consciousness at least, only mere hours before. And had awoken to find themselves in scanty attire right out of a bad fantasy movie and with... "enhancements" to the curves of their figures. Instead of breaking out immediately they'd taken some time to recover their strength and see if the Metal Suit Girl and her boyfriend had been held as well. They'd not been seen, though, and it was pretty clear now that the three were the only prisoners at this place.... whatever it was.

"Okay, let's kick some ass then," Ladyhawk said. A fun-loving grin came to her face as she began to flex her muscles. The rope began to bend against her superhuman strength. It started fraying next...
Sapphire concentrated and her power aura formed around her. At her mental command the aura created hardlight constructs of scissors that cut the ropes.
With the ropes cut she and Ladyhawk began to hover. Sakura fell just a bit before her flame aura ignited.
The cry of "Witches!" came from the assembled. Archers went for their bows and the priest began to chant. Suddenly a blue light clasp appeared over his mouth, holding it open. Sapphire lifted him up toward the three ladies while Sakura sent streams of solid flames into the ranks of troops, making them flee and igniting the bows of the archers in the groups. "So, there would've been two other people with us. A scrawny kid and a girl with purple hair. Tell me where they are..." Sapphire looked downward while removing the clasp from his mouth. "...or I feed you to your pets."
"I... I will not cooperate! The Great Snakes will not harm their follower!", the priest shrieked.
"Let's see about that," Sapphire answered. Smiling mischievously, her aura formed a fishing pole construct with the priest wrapped around the line. She lowered him down in that fashion.
The priest cried out when the first snake snatched at him from the protective grate, barely missing him. They all began to coil up in anticipation of feasting on the man. "We did not take them!" the priest screeched. "The Sisterhood... the Sisterhood has them!"
"That's better," Sapphire remarked. "And where can I find them?"
"The... the opposite end of the valley in the east!"
"Thank you for your cooperation. I guess your snakies will have to wait for dinner." She moved away from the pit, eliminating the fishing pole construct and tossing the priest to the side.
"Sisterhood, huh?" Sakura crossed her arms. "This could get interesting."
"We're stuck in fantasyland and someone's given us boob jobs," Ladyhawk said. "I can do without interesting if we can get home instead. I really like PlayStation 4s and plumbing."
"Far end of the valley," Sapphire noted, looking to the east. "Let's go looking."


This is taking longer than I thought. Amy Chan surveyed the field, watching her pikewomen drill. It always takes longer than I think. But at least my speech was good, after that shameful performance o’ mine. It wasn’t her brightest moment, the whole ‘being incoherent from an all-nighter after physics didn’t work’ deal, and of course everyone was skeptical of her new plan after that.
“Yes, it would seem I am as powerless as all of you, a sorceress with no sorcery, but we are not powerless.” Was that the line? Something like that. “The armies of my land are not made of warriors strong in body, great as individuals, but many, pooling their strengths.” Or something. It’s easier to remember all the lines I cribbed from every famous speech that... the lines aren’t straight and they aren’t tight. “Lieutenant, do you see the trouble?”
“Yes, mi-Commander,” Kalina stumbled a bit, but caught herself and continued. “A horseman could ride through the gaps and tear a path through the formation.” Once she threw off the servile behavior, Kalina was showing herself to be quite competent, and she was learning fast.

“Exactly, Lieutenant. In a tight mass, not only can a horseman not ride through, but the combined strength of pikes can hold a warrior off before he or she can try to cut a way in.” I’m making shit up as I go and I’m probably going to get everyone killed. Why am I doing this? To save the others, except this is taking so long and there’s no telling what’s happened to them already. And the main purpose, to convince the Sisterhood to send out fighters to try to rescue them because we can work to defend the valley…well that isn’t working at all. They don’t believe me one bit. If the Oracle didn’t trust me so much I wouldn’t have been able to talk the blacksmiths into making the pikes. They were all drilling with long tent poles with rocks on the end, heavier than Amy hoped the pikes would end up being, for training while the pikes were being made. Pikes that Amy had based on the spears that a few Sisters used instead of swords, because she didn’t know what kind of shape proper pikes should have. And none of this is going to matter if they try to cut and run the moment battle starts. She remembered some historical-well, alt history- novels she’d read about how pikes could stand against cavalry if they stood firm, but how they’d be cut down if they fled. The point of drilling is to make sure they still do what they’re supposed to do when the time comes instead of pissing themselves and deserting. Make it automatic. But would it work? Would it really work when their commander doesn’t know a damn thing about it either It grated on her mind…

…And somewhere, if a location could even begin to describe it, someone, or perhaps, something, savored the doubt/guilt/fear/worry, and tried to nudge it more, ever so slightly…

…and Amy threw it off with a thought of, Oh fuck it all, I’m doing this anyway, and it applies to me too, ‘cause I’m gonna be in the front line, all Greek style. “Back to the ranks with us, Lieutenant,” she said, and they both descended the hill…

…and the someone snapped back in shock. A willful one, resistant to pushes, one to affect only with care. But the indirect approaches were so much more amusing with this one, in any case. Stealing energy away or adding it to her rolling balls, preventing the coal and alcohol from burning, and watching her get increasingly confused and upset. The buildup of drama was always so much fun, especially once it came crashing down, when the grand schemes failed.
But hours of watching tired, attractive women march with spears was boring, and could not hold the being’s attention for long. It looked for something more entertaining and saw it approaching…

“We’re under attack!” Scouts rushed back towards the Sisterhood’s grounds, shouting warnings. The guards put up the flags of attack, and confused cries spread across the camp, like a panicked game of Telephone. “The Empire is coming!” “They’re sending their sorcerers!” “Dragons! Dragons approach!” “The sorcerers summoned demons!”
The phalanx, or at least something that could generously be called it, of pikewomen had been marching towards the entrance of the training grounds, marching to the beat of drums (exactly two of them) and singing the most rhythmic martial song that the slave girls knew. The song was ragged, as the women were all exhausted (to the point that Amy couldn’t remember why she thought the singing was a good idea in the first place), but at least they kept together now and marched mostly in step. The rising flags did not register in Amy’s mind, but the others all recognized them. The phalanx crumbled as some women stopped and others tried to keep marching, directly into their stopped comrades. The drums went silent and the song petered out. It was only then that they could hear the shouts all around them.

Slave girls fled from the entrance. Sisters ran towards the entrance, one by one with weapons in hand, but it would take some time before all of them could assemble. Too long. Some of the pikewomen, realizing they had nothing but a stick with rocks tied onto them, dropped them and ran. Some were too tired to run and just fell to the ground, weeping and praying. Amy Chan watched her command crumble and her tired brain struggled to think.
A voice snapped her back. Kalina asked, “Commander, what do we do?”
My legs are so sore. “I am going to make my stand here, Lieutenant. The rest of you can run. Maybe I can buy you some time.”
“Commander, I will stand with you!” Kalina answered. Two of the other lieutenants, Avre and another girl whose name Amy couldn’t remember, then replied with, “As will I!”
Well shit, now we’re all gonna die. “Very well. Pikes, halt! Raise pikes!”
The three flying superheroines could see the encampment ahead. “I guess that’s the Sisterhood,” Sakura said, watching the tiny figures below run around like a disturbed anthill.
“They don’t look happy to see us,” Ladyhawk noted, just before an arrow whizzed by her ear. “Hey, they’re shooting at us!”
More people below began to shoot arrows at them. “Some welcoming party,” snorted Sakura.
Sapphire tried flying closer. “Hey, stop it! We’re not here to hurt y-hey!” She threw up her aura in time to shield herself from a number of arrows. “We just want to find a couple people!”

The phalanx was starting to form up again, only at a fifth of its original numbers, but in some semblance of order. Most of the crying girls had stopped and taken up their tent poles again at the example of their commanders. They held up their sticks in defiance and sheer stubbornness.
And then Amy recognized the power aura. “Sapphire! Is that you?”
Sapphire heard her name in the din and looked for the source. Then, in a group of ragged women wielding long rods, or something, she spotted purple hair. “Metal Suit Girl, a little help here?”
“Right! Pikes, stand down! Everyone, stop! They’re friends!” Sapphire landed by Amy, who was jumping up and down and waving her arms. The other women with her dropped their weapons and joined in.
“Stop the fighting! Stand down!”
Sakura and Ladyhawk joined them on the ground. The warrior Sisters who had already arrived crowded in to see and yell challenges. Some of them pushed the slaves aside, not paying them any attention. Soon Red Tanya arrived, shoving her way through with Yancy in tow.

“Silence!” ordered Red Tanya, and the noise subsided. She turned to the superheroines. “Intruders, I know not who you are, but you are on the sacred grounds of the Sisterhood, and if you wish harm on any of us we will not-”
Ladyhawk interrupted, “We just escaped from a bunch of snake worshippers to get here and this is how-”
Then Yancy jumped in between them. “Lady Tanya, allow me to introduce Ladyhawk, Sapphire, and Sakura, the women who had been captured by the Empire. It looks like they were able to escape without our help. Ladies, this is Red Tanya, Captain of the Guard. And you’ve all met Amy already,” he said, nodding at her.
“Yeah,” said Amy. “I think we have some catching up to do.”

[Mayabird]

Chapter 5

Waiting and not acting was against both Hawk and Provost’s nature. Try as they might, they could not stay in comfort elsewhere when they could possibly be needed, so soon after they had left the occult chamber, they returned, though with coffee and folding tray table in hand.

The swirls of magic were different this time around, not just different colors and patterns but also a generally different feel, one gentler and more cautious as the sorcerers searched for a weakness or defining mark in the barrier. Maxis spoke, in an arcane tongue that neither Hawk nor Provost could understand.

“There seems to be an underlying pattern, something familiar.” He guided Nitram to what he had found. “Do you sense the layering?”
“Yes. It may be possible to tease apart the layers.” The tones of the spell changed as they tried to probe what could be a weak point.

And then, for a brief moment, from an impossible multi-dimensional geometry, a window in space opened. It shut too quickly for either Maxis or Nitram to take advantage of it, but one creature did: a little, cute, golden-haired monkey that now sat on the artifact.

“Ma, a monkey!” said Sean-Eric.

“Laird!” Nitram and Maxis both shouted at the same moment.
“Him agin!” said Tevar, obviously displeased.

“Who or what is Laird?” Hawk asked, putting down his coffee.
“ ‘Who or what’ is right,” muttered Nitram, as the monkey jumped off the statue into Hawk’s arms.

“Laird, huh?” said Hawk, with a chuckle, as the monkey started climbing up onto his head. “You’re a cute little guy to cause us so much troub-HEY!” The monkey leapt off his now wet head and ran back to the artifact, chittering in laughter. Sean-Eric couldn’t help but laugh, though Jhelian was too mature to join in. “That thing just took a pi-”
“Children in the room, Hawk,” interrupted Provost.
“-leak on my head!” The monkey responded by chittering some more and emptying its bladder on the artifact. Sean-Eric started to laugh again until Tevar swatted at him. And then the monkey vanished back through the impossible window, leaving nothing but its mess.

Hawk, disgusted, demanded, “So is this Laird that put up the barrier a monkey who likes potty humor?”
“Laird’s a no good git who needs ta get a spankin’,” Tevar interjected.

Maxis replied, “Laird is a, I suppose you could call it a godling, a childish godlike being. The description is not really correct, but it gives one the right image.”

“A god,” Hawk said. “You are saying that a god put up that barrier and did…this?” He gestured at his head, which he was wiping with a napkin.

Maxis floated down beside Hawk and Provost. “I wish to say this privately, to avoid angering the Blackthornes further. They have encountered Laird before, and it was not a pleasant memory for anyone involved, even ignoring the monkeys.” He stopped to gather his thoughts before continuing. “Laird is very powerful. In raw power he exceeds all of us put together. But-” he interjected, before Hawk could speak, “He is limited in what he can do with that power within a universe, and limited in what can best be described as ‘discipline.’ He is prone to playing practical jokes, and his ability to concentrate, to focus on a task, is weak.”

Provost thought for a moment. “Is there any way we can exploit his weakness?”
Maxis shook his head. “All we can do is wait and see if he grows bored with the barrier and drops it.”
“There is no way to overpower it?” Provost asked.
“None. It appears to be an inter-universal portal, and since it is not within a universe, so to speak, Laird can put his full power into maintaining it.”
“Inter-universal portal,” whispered Hawk. “So much power, but…why go through all that trouble to create a portal and then block it for those five people? What does Laird want with them? What is so special about them?”
“Maybe nothing,” Maxis said. “Maybe it just amuses him. But now, you must excuse me, for we have work to do.” He rose back into the air towards Nitram. They exchanged arcane words, and their auras changed as they prepared a new spell.


Somewhere that was nowhere and on the outside of everywhere, the being called Laird did something that could be called laughter at the pitiful attempts of the two sorcerers to find a weakness in the barrier and the discomfort of the superhero called Hawk. He recognized one of the sorcerers now and idly wondered if sending out the monkeys would be just as funny the second time, but then Laird noticed some mischief rising on the world he considered his. Forgetting his joke, he watched the events unfold, on the bone throne of the Empire…


The priests groveled before the dais, made entirely of the bones of enemies that had fallen before the blade of the Eternal Emperor, the Nameless Lord of All Lands, the King of the Great Snakes, and a multitude of other titles. The Emperor sat upon his throne of royal skulls and melted crowns, entirely encased in his black, unbreakable armor.
“O highest majesty, forgive this pathetic worm that is your worshipper, for this slime begs to speak unto Thee,” said the high priest of the Great Snakes.
“Speak,” the Emperor intoned, and his deep, gravely voice echoed through the chamber.
“O highest majesty, the prisoners, the women fallen from the sky…they have escaped!”

This time, his voice, colored with rage, echoed far beyond the chamber. “ESCAPED?”

“O highest majesty, they were sorceresses! They used powerful magicks to escape their bonds as we, your lowly slaves, were lowering them to the Great Snakes, o highest majesty. The sorceresses then burned the bows of your archers and flew away, o highest majesty.” The high priest pressed his face into the floor, hoping beyond hope for mercy.

Silence, not even broken by breathing, for the priests were too scared even to take breath. It was broken by a rumble, like thunder, but more threatening. “You left out one thing, priest.”

“NO! NO! THEY THREATENED ME! PLEASE O HIGHEST-”
“You told the sorceresses of the Sisterhood’s camp. You betrayed Us.”
“I BEG-”
The Emperor’s hand rose to his helmet. “BEHOLD THE FATE OF ALL TRAITORS!” And then he lifted his visor.
The hapless high priest screamed in agony as he burst into flames, black and deepest violet. The other priests dared not raise their heads from the floor or look upon the dying priest. The royal guards looked straight ahead, unflinching, as the high priest’s wailing ceased, and his body crumbled into ash.

Spectacle over, the Emperor gestured to no one in particular, “Have the rest of the priests fed to the Great Snakes, as their leader should have let happen to himself.” The prospect of the Sisterhood, the last, greatest hindrance to the Empire’s spread, having three powerful sorceresses on their side was an unsettling one. They must be stopped, crushed utterly before they could pose a threat. “Vizier?”

The vizier appeared, as if from nowhere, to the Emperor’s right, just off the dais. “Thy humblest and most wretched slave arrives, o highest majesty.”
“How soon can all Our sorcerers be assembled?”

The vizier realized that thought for a moment. “O highest majesty, your miserable slaves will need two days to assemble all Thy sorcerers from all the corners of Thy vast and mighty realm.”

The Emperor’s voice boomed across his citadel. “Then summon them all immediately, and gather all the army together. In three days time, We march against the Sisterhood to destroy them forever!”

[Mayabird]

Chapter 6

To Laird, it was an appetizer for the bloody feast to come.

Adonis and a flame-haired war princess sparred in the grass.
Angst. Always a nice light snack.
“You are learning rapidly, Lord Yancy. Perhaps one day you will be able to defeat even me.” Red Tanya was correct; he was not fooled by her attempted distraction and sidestepped in time. But even so, he could not help but blush a bit.

Tanya noticed and winked at him. This time he was distracted, and she pressed the wooden practice sword to his chest. “Must not get distracted in battle, my-” she cut herself off before she could add more.

“I don’t think this is a fair battle, Tanya,” he responded with a hint of flirting.

Oddly, her face became a grim mask. “Again!” she commanded. “War waits for no woman…or man.” And they began their sparring again in all seriousness, for more reason than one. Red Tanya had dealt with the goddess of war, a bargain for her martial abilities: she could love no man until he had bested her in battle.

Hopes that will soon be crushed. Glorious anticipation.

It was fun to show off a bit. Sisters and servants paused for a moment at the flaming streak that was Sakura, doing a couple laps around the valley. Ladyhawk hefted a massive boulder ten ordinary people could not have moved, flew with it, and then hurled it as if it was a pebble.

Sapphire floated in the air, waiting, and as the boulder flew her way she shaped her aura into a large springy net. The rock flew into it, stretched it back a moment, and then bounced back towards Ladyhawk. Warriors got out of its path instinctively, but Ladyhawk caught it before it reached the ground. She pitched the rock back at Sapphire, whose aura turned into a baseball mitt to catch it.

Down below, several practice posts had been left alone by wary people who did not want to be in the path of a falling boulder, just in case they missed. Sakura flew down and lit each wood-and-straw post with her aura as she dodged around them. Sapphire set the boulder down and made energy construct candle snuffers, putting out the flaming posts. Not to be stopped, Sakura shot flames from her hands, relighting them all, but moments later a blue energy hose appeared, reaching down into a well on one end, with the other soon spraying down the practice posts. People laughed all around and were heartened; how could they lose with these three sorceresses on their side?

Ah, another serving, with a touch of insecurity as well.
Amy Chan wondered how long it took (in real life…wait, did I just think that?) to train a squad of pikes so they would function in battle without getting slaughtered. Six months, minimum? Did they have six months? Would she be here in six months? It occurred to her as broke for a meal that she really should have thought this through instead of blazing ahead and starting up this pike thing, but the girls had been so disappointed when the gunpowder failed.
Then a messenger arrived from the blacksmiths. The first set of pike heads was done. The internal disquiet was silenced.
Oh well. I’m already here and already doing this. Better make the most of it.

Stubborn determination…that’s no fun at all. I should fix that. Time can be a flexible thing. Events can sometimes be altered in the past to affect something happening in the present, especially when the rules have been bent already. And so, the previous evening, a scout followed a trail left by Laird and made a strange discovery.

Amy lifted one of the pike heads in her hand and touched the blade with a finger. “Ow!” Amy said, more out of surprise than actual pain.
“Those edges are sharp,” the blacksmith said, proudly.
“They’re perfect. Thank you!” Amy responded, apparently fascinated with the drop of blood oozing out of her finger. She carefully set it back down. “How long until the rest are ready?”
“Two days, milady.”
“…two days?”
“I cannot get them done any sooner. We have many repairs…”
“No, I mean, only two days?”

Very conveniently, the scout Helsi entered and announced, “Milady Defender and Commander of Pikes, the Warrior’s Council must speak with you. I bear important news.”
A Warrior’s Council, as far as Amy could tell, occurred whenever four or more full Sisters were in one place talking. But this seemed more serious. She turned to Kalina. “Lieutenant, please handle things for me while I am away.”
“Of course, commander.”

A small bite to Laird, but it would do for the moment. A hint of the shock to follow. It would be many voices, many bright, sharp little thoughts. He could barely wait, even as quickly as the world’s time went by. But first, a taste.

“YOU FOUND MY SUIT?!?”

[Mayabird]

Apologies ahead of time, but this chapter was just hard for me to write but I think I have everything set up and out of the way now so the rest shouldn't take another six freaking months. I also have a little apology thing written for when this is all completed, and it's definitely good.

Chapter 7

It wasn’t until midday the next day that the group was able to set out to examine the suit. Helsi led, followed by the Oracle, Amy Chan, Kalina, and a couple guards. Partly, it was because people had affairs to take care of before they could leave the valley. The rest was Amy’s fault, since she would not leave without a number of tools and a means of carrying them, which meant an extra horse. It was also Amy’s fault that they made slow progress over, as she couldn’t even remember the last time she had ridden a horse, and she was doing it bareback. Even Kalina, who had been a slave servant until very recently, had more experience riding.

Notes to self: if I survive this, remember to seriously push stirrups. Actually, scratch that. Saddles first, then stirrups. And there has to be a better way to put a pack on an animal than what they did. Harnesses? Then Amy almost fell off again and forgot her train of thought. Maybe I should focus on staying on top of this living animal I’m supposed to be controlling. I hope it doesn’t see a snake or something. Then Amy almost fell off again and forgot what she was thinking about.

They reached the mouth of the cave in the evening, after scrambling along rocky trails. At first glance, it looked just like a dark hole in some rock, your stereotypical cave entrance. As they set up camp, Amy noticed Kalina giving the cave an occasional nervous glance. She asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The cave. The cave is wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where I come from, we had many caves in the hills. We would go swimming in one, a big cool pond in the summer where all we village children would play. Sometimes we would explore some of the others, even when Grandmother scolded us and said we could be lost forever. My cousin once found a white fish with no eyes in one of them. I know caves. That cave looks wrong.”

And when Amy thought about it, she knew Kalina was right. It looked regular, round and arched, instead of a place where the rock had been dissolved or worn away randomly. It was right at ground level on a sheer cliff face, like a cave out of a cartoon show. It was tall enough to let a human walk straight in but only wide enough for maybe two people to walk side by side. The rock didn’t seem right, either. It was supposed to be limestone or something like that but it looked like granite.
“You’re right,” Amy said. “That does look funny. It looks almost like a mine shaft instead of a real cave.”
Kalina nodded. “Might it be a trap?”
“A trap? Yeah, it’s suspicious, but, who would do this, or even could do this, and why make a trap out here?”
“We should ask the Oracle.”
They went to the Oracle and told her about their suspicions of the cave. “The Emperor’s sorcerers could do it,” the Oracle answered, “but I would know if they had been near. They have a certain aura I can detect even with my limited power. Though I wonder…but no, it could not be that.”
Amy asked, “Be what?”
“Nothing. Let us rest. All we can do is see in the morning.” And the Oracle would not say more on the subject.


Aerial reconnaissance is a wonderful thing, especially to those who had never experienced it before. The three superheroines lacked X-ray vision or super-sight but from their high vantage point, they could see columns of dust and smoke rising into the sky, and closer up and above they could see the cause of the dust: motley mobs of warriors, some on foot and some on horseback, armed with every imaginable weapon, converging upon a large, once-grassy expanse where other mobs of warriors had already set up camp.

“What a ragged lot,” Ladyhawk noted as they circled back around. “Looks like a bunch of medieval street toughs wearing leather armor.” She looks towards the other two and a small feral grin started to grow on her face. “Think we can take them?”
“Ten thousand to one odds? Sounds good to me!” said Sakura. “I call the right flank!”
Sapphire shook her head. “We should go back and report to the Sisterhood before doing anything.”

“For that?” Sakura said, gesturing at the army camp in the distance. “Amy’s pikes know more about soldiering than them and they’ve only been at it a few days.”
“It’s true. We could probably scatter all of them on our own,” Ladyhawk said. “Toss a few goons around and the rest will flee. Probably get more of them out of commission from trampling than anything we do.”
“I have a bad feeling.”
“About what? That bunch of snake-heads with bows and swords? They couldn’t do anything to us and they should know it.”
“That’s exactly it. They know a little about what we can do and they’re mobilizing this army anyway. I think this Emperor has a trick up his sleeve.”
Sakura snorted. “You’re just being a spoilsp-hey, no fair! Wait for me!”
Sapphire started turning her head before catching herself, but not before she noticed a blur out of the corner of her eye that was Ladyhawk racing towards the camp. Sakura chased after, and Sapphire had no choice but to follow.

Sapphire overshot Ladyhawk, who had stopped to uproot a small tree, but when she started to slow to return she heard Sakura reaching the camp with a whoop and a “Take this, barbarians!” With a shrug, she continued to the camp with Ladyhawk just behind. Someone would have to keep the two of them out of trouble.

As predicted, as soon as the three superheroines started throwing down, the horde became an unruly mob scattering mindlessly about like an overturned fire ant mound. Bits of tents and camp fires were flung through the air as Ladyhawk swung her tree around. Men fled as the flying bits of camp fire and Sakura fire set their hair and clothes alight. Sapphire’s constructs of blue aura tossed a few people around, but her heart wasn’t into it. She was more focused on looking for trouble, which was why she saw it coming.

A blue hand snatched Ladyhawk away just before the bolts of black lightning struck the tree, which was destroyed in a series of small, splintering explosions.

One figure stood out amongst those on the ground. The fighters were all still running about chaotically, but this man stood alone. He wore a black robe with a cowl partially covering his face. Thin, pale hands, still with crackles of black lightning sparking off of them, pulled back the hood to reveal his pinched, scarred, hairless face and eyes that were nothing but yellowish orbs. Orbs that could still see, for he turned towards the three and shot more lightning at them.
The superheroines dodged out of the way, but for all her caution, a stray arc caught Sapphire on the ankle. She yelped in pain.
“More of them coming!” Sakura shouted, pointing at more approaching black-robed figures. The fighters were starting to regroup as well, and some were pulling out bows.
“Fall back!” said Ladyhawk, and the three retreated back towards the Sisterhood’s valley. Behind, they could hear cheers.

After they put some distance between themselves and the enemy camp, Ladyhawk flew close to Sapphire. “Sorry for not listening.”
“It’s alright,” Sapphire answered. “We wouldn’t have known about those dark wizards, or whatever they were.”
“A trick up the emperor’s sleeve,” Sakura muttered. “I guess that’s what they are.”


In the morning, the little expedition headed into the cave, leaving one of the guards behind at the entrance with the horses. This meant that Amy Chan had to carry as much as she could on her back. For some reason she couldn’t quite place, she stubbornly insisted on carrying all her own junk, but Kalina at least talked her into not also carrying a torch.

The cave, more like a tunnel, was disturbingly regular for a while, a straight path through the cliff. The walls were dry stone and the floor was clear and even; it was easy walking, even when lit only by torches. But soon the walls started becoming damp and the ground was littered with rocks and strange, slippery molds. The path started twisting, going up or down or to the sides, and here and there they could see crevices and cracks in the walls too small for a person to fit through. Their tunnel, though, stayed about the same height and width.

“This seems a long way to scout a cave,” the guard grumbled.
“I swear it was not like this when I discovered it,” Helsi said. “At least, I thought not. I heard voices, men’s voices, within the entrance and followed it only a short distance until I reached the cavern.” And then, just around the next bend, they saw light ahead. The tunnel opened up.
The ceiling was several storeys above the ground level. The walls were lined with crystals like a giant geode. Multicolored stalagmites had been starting to grow in one corner of the room, and it and the crystals all sparkled in the light from an opening in the roof where part of it had caved in, leaving a rough pile of rubble and dirt beneath. It had apparently happened recently, because there were still traces of green on the leaves of branches that had fallen in with the rest.
And in one of the crystalline walls was one particularly large, clear crystal, and inside of it was a robotic suit.

“Alright!” Amy said. She carried her pack over and dropped it right beside the crystal. “Let’s see if I can get ya outta there.” Amy dug through the pack and pulled out a pickax. “Take this!” The crystal didn’t even make a sound when the swinging pickax hit the crystal and bounced off. The pickax would’ve flown off into the cave had Amy not held onto it so tightly; instead, she just landed flat on her back, still clinging to the handle.
“Commander? Are you hurt?” Kalina asked.
“Ughff. No. Ow.” Except maybe my pride. “You know, I’ve always believed in three things. The first is that the universe is rational and follows logical order. The second is that the universe can be figured out by people via rational methods and observation.” Amy got to her feet and raised the pickax. “The third…” she said, as she hit the crystal again, “…is that if you hit anything hard enough, it’ll break.” She hit it a couple more times. “…and if it doesn’t break you didn’t hit it hard enough!” With one more silent smack for good measure, she dropped the pickax. “Though sometimes it’s really, really difficult to hit something hard enough. Like, space. Need a really big gravity well to break space.” She dug through the bag, thinking about supernovas and nitroglycerin.

Amy really, really wanted her suit back. Some might call it nakedness, insecurity, vulnerability, incompleteness, and other vague psychological wordiness. She would’ve said that it was her suit and she wanted to set people on fire very badly because physics was broken and that wasn’t right at all and when things weren’t right she wanted to burn bad folks. An inner child she never acknowledged who believed all that stuff they told kids about how if you believe in yourself and work hard enough you can do anything didn’t want to give up. There was always hope!

But the grown up said that some things weren’t possible, or at least weren’t possible without a lot more time than she had, and things weren’t perfect and they didn’t work exactly as planned and you can’t argue with facts, even if they piss you off. Most of the time you don’t get what you want. And it sucks. But oh well. There was magic in this world and coal didn’t burn and her suit was in some sort of magical crystal thingy and it probably wouldn’t work anyway if she freed it. Electricity in sword-babe world. Yeah. Give up, walk away, go back to your pikewomen because adults have responsibilities.

But her adult side wasn’t pleased either and decided to let the childish side vent just a little bit, and she kicked the crystal out of spite.


Laird had been waiting, something that annoyed him greatly. Watching, and waiting for an opening, to remove something else that annoyed him greatly. The mental barriers had stayed up too strongly, too suspicious of everything. But that moment of physical contact with Laird’s shield meant he could get in, delicately remove that adult cynicism and uncover the youthful naïve idealism. Exhausting work, but now that annoyance was removed. He could sit back and enjoy the rest of the show as it unfolded exactly as he wanted.


“I can do this. Maybe I need to think smart instead of with brute force.” Amy started digging through her bag again, mumbling to herself.

The group, all but Amy, heard footsteps echoing from the tunnel. Rapid footsteps. The guard and Helsi both reached for their weapons, before they heard the person stumble and curse and knew that it was the guard who had stayed outside. She ran in a moment later, out of breath, able to say only, “We must return!”

The Oracle asked, “What has happened?”

The guard held the message, a small slip of parchment that had come off a messenger bird. “The empire…the emperor’s forces are on the march! Even the sorcerers are with them! It will be a desperate battle and we must stop them!”

“Then we will return at once,” the Oracle said. The others nodded in agreement, except for Amy. They entered the tunnel, but Kalina realized that Amy was still on the ground, scribbling on a piece of parchment with a stick of charcoal. She turned back to check on her commander, and when the Oracle saw her turn she followed as well.

“Commander, did you not hear? We must return to the pikes. Our first battle awaits. Commander?”
“If this doesn’t work, I could always try setting a big fire to heat the crystal up and then throw cold water on it while it’s hot. Might shatter like that.”
“Commander? It is Kalina! Answer me!” She grabbed Amy’s shoulders and tried to shake her, but got no response.
“But how do I get enough water? Should I try something smaller scale and see if it cracks? But that might be strong enough. Must be big.”

Then Kalina ducked in front of Amy and started to yell at her face, but the words all caught in her throat as she looked in Amy’s eyes.
The Oracle saw it all and asked, “What is wrong? What do you see?”
“Before the empire destroyed my village, I saw many people like this.”
The Oracle stood beside Kalina to look, and then gingerly reached out to touch Amy’s forehead. Her fingers only lightly brushed the skin before she snatched her hand back, as if she had been burned.

“LAIRD!” The Oracle’s cry echoed through the chamber. “As I feared!”
“Who is Laird?”
“The trickster lord. A demon god who has plagued our lands and many others, playing with us as children play with toys.”
“A demon god?” Kalina slowly edged away from Amy’s weirdly insensate form.

The Oracle held her hands near the giant crystal holding the Panzer Pyro suit. “A trap. This entire cavern was Laird’s doing.”
“A trap by a demon god…but why, Oracle? Why would even a god do all this?”
“Laird’s power is far beyond mine, and I could not even begin to delve his mind. Perhaps it was revenge for something she did as Defender of her metal city.” The Oracle looked over the suit, then said, “Or maybe, it is like children breaking open an ant nest, just to watch the ants scatter in fear. The ants cannot understand the mighty gods who do this thing to them or why, but the children do it for their own amusement.”

Kalina shuddered. “Is there anything we can do for her?”
“Nothing,” replied the Oracle. “And if we stay, Laird could snare us as well.”
“We cannot just leave her alone like this!”
“But we must. The empire is coming, and the pikes will need a commander. If the Sisterhood and the passes are lost, so will we all.”

The guards were about to return to the cave when the Oracle and Kalina emerged. “She won’t be coming,” the Oracle said to their unspoken question. “I shall explain on the way back. And we should take her horses as well.”


They made much better time back to the valley, arriving in time to see the first scouts of the Sisterhood riding out to establish their camp. Kalina excused herself to return to the pikewomen and see to their preparations. Nothing had been done, and she threw herself into getting everyone armed and assembled while dodging questions about the whereabouts of their commander. They obeyed their orders as they took their positions in the phalanx, but they could not help but whisper to each other, “Where is she?” They were a barely coherent mass as they started to not so much march or flow as ooze slowly towards the valley’s gates. They didn’t even reach it when they met the main Sisterhood forces going forth.

Red Tanya herself gave the order. “Halt! What is this?”
The mob stopped, with some collisions, and Kalina stepped forward. “Milady Tanya, we are going to war as well!”
Red Tanya did not smile. “We allowed you slaves this indulgence only so you could understand the rigors of training, and on the Oracle’s urging and Lord Yancy’s defense of your commander. But now she has been taken by a demon lord-” and at that there were gasps “-and we have real fighting to do now. Perhaps, one day you might be useful for home defense, but now, go back to your hearths. You would only hinder us and get in our way.”

Yancy had ridden up while she was speaking, and as she went back to the warriors he said, “I heard what happened, and I am sorry, but it’s true. None of you are ready to fight and Amy is g-g…” He couldn’t get the words out. “Just, just stay here. There will be time later.” And with that he rode back as well.

“Is it true?” “Is it true, Kalina?” “A demon?” “What happened?” “What did they say?” “What is happening?” “What are we going to do?” “Is it really true?”

Kalina’s head drooped. “Yes, it’s true,” she said to the woman beside her, and the word spread like a flashfire. She ignored the rest of their questions and their arguments and sobbing and everything else and wandered back to the village. The phalanx slowly dissolved after that and was gone by the time the last of the Sisterhood had left the valley.

It was a quiet night in the valley, and it already held a sense of mourning. Kalina slept deeply, dreaming of nothing, as it had been a long day, and awoke long before dawn. She could not go back to sleep, and so she walked, looking over everyone else’s sleeping forms, when she noticed one light still burning, the Oracle’s.
The Oracle had not slept at all.
“Kalina? Come in, come in. I heard. Rumors spread so.” She rubbed her eyes. “I said I could not probe Laird’s mind, but I tried anyway.” And the Oracle looked up, with an exhausted and slightly haunted look on her face.
“And you could not find anything.”
“No, I did. His guard must have been down. I was able to sense an immense feeling of…satisfaction? Smug relief? Very pleased with himself, at least.”

Kalina thought for a moment to consider it. “Could it be related to the trap?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I could not tell.”
“Why else? Laird set that entire elaborate trap for her, and it worked. It must be. But why her?”
“Revenge, as I said? Or maybe she was a danger to him. The gods do not like threats.”
“Danger?” Kalina paused, then smiled and had to hold back laughter. “How could she be a danger? Her magic doesn’t work here! Laird has her magic armor. Lady Amy is a terrible fighter, worse even than Lord Yancy. Her sorceress friends with their incredible powers would be much more of a danger to a god. What does she have?”
“I do not know, and I need rest,” the Oracle said. “Please, accept my apologies for my weakness.”

After Kalina left, the Oracle returned to a crystal bowl of steaming liquid and poured in a handful of sand, just to check. “Mmm, yes, I believe I said…indeed. Crude, but…yes.” She nodded to herself and laid down to sleep.

Kalina looked up at the stars and walked some more, wondering at her question. What does she have? What does Lady Amy have? What does the Defender of this mythic Atlanta have here? What does Commander…commands an army. She has an army. The pikes. We pikes.
But we are a weak army, a terrible army. What is so dangerous about us? She thought back to Amy saying something about formations and depth and strength in numbers about why they were doing different things. And things so different. Is it the mere idea? The thought of us? Is there something special about us? What could it be?

Whatever it is, it makes a god fear us. A god that destroyed my village. No, the empire did, but he was the one that made the people like Amy, so they could not see the empire coming. He must want the empire to win. I thought there was nothing I could do to stop it, except serve the Sisters. But I can fight. And I can lead. I must be their commander now. And we have a battle to fight.


Kalina went back to the sleeping women. She found Avre and some of the other lieutenants together and woke them up. “Pikes, we must assemble!”
“Hmm?” one of them said, rubbing her eyes.
“We must wake the cooks, prepare a hearty breakfast, and assemble in full gear after our meal. I will speak to everyone, the full phalanx.”
“Ugh, why?”
She explained.


Everyone was assembled. There were many grumblers and some who were confused, but they had just eaten, so most were calm and alert. Kalina had them assemble before a platform where she could speak to all of them, for she had to fill Amy’s place, and this was something Kalina thought she would do.
“I did not want to tell you before, but yes, it is true. Our commander, Amy, Defender of Atlanta, was caught in a cruel trap by a demon god. She is alive, but unaware of her surroundings and cannot be brought back. The Oracle spent the night trying to find a way to free her. She could not, but she learned something else.
“Laird, this god, did it because of us!” Kalina held out her arm to silence them before she continued. “Laird fears the power of our pikes! He wants the empire to win, and for the Sisterhood and all of us to be scattered to the winds! That is why the commander was trapped, to stop us! To hold us down!”

Voices started shouting out. “Kill him!” “Get him!”

Kalina continued, “So many of us failed the defender before, ran when we should have stood our ground.”

“We won’t fail her again!” “NO!” “Fight!” “Down with the empire!” The shouting continued and grew louder and wilder. Kalina could not silence them, so she decided not to bother with the speech anymore.

Instead, she ordered the drummers, “Attention call!”
And very soon, the phalanx was leaving the valley.


A while later, the Oracle woke up and noted the eerie silence. She walked around, saw the absence of nearly everyone except a few elderly slaves, then smiled and went back to sleep.

[Mayabird]

Most of the rest of the chapter 8 and the epilogue is already written. Give me a month and I might have this thing completely done!

Chapter 8


The previous night, the camps of the empire and Sisterhood could see each other’s campfires in the distance, on the far ends of Last Fields, the small grassy plain at the foot of the mountains. Many battles had been fought there before because it was an ideal location for an army to stop an invasion from the mountain passes, or vice versa.

In the morning, they lined up on either side of the field, out of bowshot of each other. On one side, the warriors of the Sisterhood, still and silent. They had repeated their oaths before coming out, and the time for chatter was over until the battle’s end. The other side was far larger and noisier, for the imperial ‘army’ and its ‘warriors’ consisted mostly of any man who had a weapon and wanted or could be encouraged to fight. They hurled insults and jeered, and they would have already charged the Sisterhood if the Emperor’s captains had not been holding them back. Their jobs were to herd the mobs of men, and they were doing it at that because there were still social niceties to perform.

In the middle of the barbarian rabble, there brooded (no other word would really work) a giant black pavilion with a tower sticking out of the top.

“What’s that thing?” Ladyhawk whispered to the warrior near her.
“That is what the Emperor rides in when he leaves his castles,” the Sister said. “It is wheeled but pulled by no man or animal, but sorcery they say.”
“And where are those sorcerers we saw? Riding with the Emperor?”
“I would believe so.”
“Oh good. Nice clear target,” she said, as a figure cloaked in black rode out of the pavilion on a pitch-black horse.

The Emperor’s Herald stopped about halfway between the barbarian armies. “The Eternal Emperor, Nameless Lord of-”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Yancy muttered under his breath. Red Tanya beside him did not move or change her expression, but he was almost certain that she winked at him.

“-Wielder of the Lightless Flame, Final and Highest Warlock, to whom all sorcerers prostrate themselves-”
“Geez, how long is this going to go on?” Sakura asked. “Can we go beat them up already?”

“-and rightful King of the Steppes,” The imperial horde may not have understood the barb, but the Sisterhood certainly did. “Has come to retrieve three sacrifices to His Great Snakes. Return them, and you will be left unharmed for another day.”

Red Tanya, instead of meeting the Herald, took only one step forward (a grave insult) and replied back with merely, “I am Red Tanya, daughter of the Queen of the Steppes, Captain of the Guard of the Sisterhood, and you are lying, treacherous scum. If you want to fight, then fight us now!”

“FOOLS!” The herald’s voice changed suddenly, from a mere deep, booming voice, to something truly sinister and unnatural. “YOU WILL BE DESTROYED ON THIS DAY, ON THIS FIELD, IF YOU DO NOT RETURN TO US OUR SACRIFICES.” The black cloaks on the possessed herald started flapping around him, though there was no breeze. It was even making the horse edgy. “AFTER CROWS HAVE EATEN YOUR EYES AND FLESH, WE WILL MAKE A TOWER OF YOUR BONES. AROUND THE TOWER, A FOREST OF STEPPE MEN IMPALED UPON STAKES. WE WILL-”

Yancy could not take any more. He took one step forward. “Hey Emperor, SHUT UP!”

For a brief moment, just long enough, the Emperor was flustered. “HOW DARE YOU? NO MERE MORTAL MAY COMMAND US! YOUR DEATH WILL BE THE SLOWEST, AND I-”

“I too grow tired of this talk,” Red Tanya said, impressed with Yancy. “That thing will babble until nightfall. Pokrovka, silence it.”
Pokrovka readied her throwing spear, checked the winds, and hurled it at the herald with all her skill and might. It struck him squarely in the chest, knocking him off the horse in a spray of violet sparks. The horse bolted off before the herald’s body began to erupt in black, crackling flame, which did not spread but disintegrated the grass around the body. Before the herald’s body itself fell apart, the Emperor made one last, brief, feral scream of rage, so short it almost seemed like a squawk of indignation.

The Emperor’s captains decided it was a good time to release the throngs. The horde of fighters started to charge the Sisterhood at full speed. Behind them, the Emperor’s black pavilion began to spark with dark magic, flashing soundless lighting in the skies above the battleground.

“That’s our cue!” said Sakura. “And this time we won’t be caught by surprise!” She started to rise into the air.

Sapphire hesitated. “I don’t know. They don’t seem to be doing anything-” She was interrupted by a supernatural bolt striking the ground in front of the three superheroines, exploding in a blast of dirt and charred grass. The charging imperial warriors cheered at the sight.

Sakura turned and replied, “You were saying?” Then she faced the imperial side again. “That does it! No more Miss Nice Gal!” She shot off towards her target, with Ladyhawk and Sapphire racing after her.

Red Tanya watched the imperial charge, holding up her hand for the Sisterhood to hold their positions. The men had started running at full speed, but as some became more tired, they slowed and held back others, while some swifter men kept running. The line became increasingly ragged, and even the faster runners began to slow under their leather armor and heavy weapons.
She had fought in many battles. “Yancy, stay close to me,” she said, before throwing down her arm. She bellowed a war cry and drew her sword. The other Sisters did as well. And then they charged.

They smashed down the first imperials who had broken from the pack and then their line collided with the main imperial mass at full speed. After that, it was a general melee.

The men threw themselves at the Sisterhood with wild abandon. They swung their weapons, sharp and blunt, with all their might, but most of them were only used to fighting unarmed or badly armed peasants. Each of the women, trained in fighting and with fine weapons, was worth ten of the thugs. The ruffians were being cut down. And Red Tanya was the greatest warrior of all.

The first three screaming fighters to run at her fell in three swift strokes. Then Red Tanya stepped over their bodies and cut off the head of another, and kept advancing, cutting a bloody swath as she went. And Yancy followed.

Maybe he should have been horrified by the carnage around him, the death and gore and blood and entrails and screaming, or that his girlfriend was perfectly calm and in her element. It could at least have been expected of him. Or maybe he could have been proud of himself for not freezing up from the horror. But really he was far too busy to think about much else than what he was doing: trying not to die.

Yet again, some guy screamed “TRAITOR!” at him and charged with weapon raised into the air. (Again, he didn’t have time to wonder why they yelled that at him, though it was obvious with some thought: a guy much handsomer than them alongside an army of glamorous fighting women – simple jealousy, really). This was aside from the imperials who realized that they were no match for Red Tanya in battle, but they might be able to get that guy beside her instead. Yancy dodged and parried, over and over again, slowing them down long enough for Tanya to dispatch them.

Another guy, another ax in the air, hollering, “DIE!” Red Tanya got him in the throat, and the field became that much muddier. She was hardly going to let Yancy die on her. He had grown in skill so quickly, and in his first battle he was handling himself so well. Hadn’t even been nicked yet. Perhaps, one day, he would even be able to best her in a duel…

And so the two of them lead the fight through the center of the mob, with the rest of the Sisterhood following their captain.


The superheroines’ battle wasn’t going as well; they were locked in a stalemate with the sorcerers. The air smelled of ozone and was filled with swirling dust and smoke. The sorcerers, small and twisted, stood in a ring around the Emperor’s pavilion, chanting in a demonic, hissing tongue and protecting the Emperor inside with their eldritch magic. A boulder flew through the dust cloud towards one side of the pavilion and a giant blue sledgehammer on the other. The sorcerer’s chant hardly seemed to change, but bolts shot up from their hands to shatter the boulder, and the hammer evaporated before it could smash anything at all.

“Sakura, where were you?” Ladyhawk yelled.
“Crap, I didn’t see your signal,” answered Sakura, also yelling. “There’s too much dust in the way here.”
“How do they keep doing that, anyway?” Sapphire added at the latest construct that they simply magicked into nothingness. “It doesn’t work like that!”

Ladyhawk coughed and tried to get her breath back. Something about the dust seemed wrong, probably some effect of the magic the sorcerers were using. “Do either of you have any idea at all about how we can beat them down?”
“Nothing.”
“None that we haven’t used already.”
“I thought so – watch out!” They scattered a short way from the beam of angry violet magic. The sorcerers could apparently see better through the choking cloud than they could. Ladyhawk then added, “I’m going to fly above a moment, see if there’s anything we’re missing.”

She flew up and out, trying to escape the dust and smoke. It seemed to her like it was trying to follow her and impede her view, and she was right. The magically-propelled dust was trying to suffocate her, even pulling away from the other two and chasing after her. Ladyhawk, though, had been in the hero business for a long time.
“How about the ol’ Spin Around Very Fast trick?”

She stopped in the air and started to turn. Faster and faster, she spun until she made a little tornado around her, whipping the dust around her until she could feel the sense of wrongness in it fade. “Ha! Take that, magic!”
Superheroes rarely used the trick because it tended to make them very dizzy, and Ladyhawk was no exception. The dust was clearing, flying off into the sky or settling back to the ground, and from her vantage point in the air she could see ahead.

She was facing back towards the main battle. She could see the Sisterhood, standing out against the filthy hordes, in the middle of it all, seemingly ready to break through their center and cut the imperial line in half. And Ladyhawk could also see the counterattack approaching, a giant group of imperials going around the entire battlefield, preparing to strike the Sisterhood in the back. An encirclement! They would be trapped!

For one brief moment, she forgot her own battle and cried out, “No! We have to warn-AAAAGH!” The distraction was all the Emperor needed to throw a tendril of his own magic, a rope made of the essence of pain. It wrapped around Ladyhawk’s waist, and like a whip it arced up and then slammed her into the ground. She shrieked at the Emperor started to lift her into the air again.

“Ladyhawk!” Sakura’s flame aura expanded with her rage. She charged the pavilion, flame shooting ahead of her, but the flame simply moved around it, as if it struck an invisible dome. And then, as with the boulder, bolts of energy shot from the sorcerers at Sakura. She saw them coming at her just in time to dodge most of them, but there were too many. One struck her squarely in the chest, and she plummeted into the ground.

Grimly, Sapphire tried to form some construct, anything, that wouldn’t evaporate when it came too near the sorcerer’s magic. Even a basic sharp beam to try to cut the Emperor’s rope faded to nothing before it came too near, and Sakura had fallen too close to the pavilion to be able to grab her with her power. Sapphire considered running over and simply physically grabbing Sakura, but that would put her dangerously close to the sorcerers too, and there was still Ladyhawk in trouble. And the Sisterhood, who’d be exposed if they let the sorcerers by. Maybe she should just dig a deep trench around the pavilion and hope it couldn’t float over it?

Sapphire didn’t know the full extent of the situation, but she knew that things were getting very grim.

[End of Part 1]

[Steve]

An update, yay!

[Mayabird]

Sorry - I really suck at writing battles. Still not done. And the rest to be written is all battle.

Chapter 8, Part 2

And that was when the pikewomen arrived.

They were dusty and tired, having stopped only once, at the Sisterhood’s campsite, but they were also completely unexpected. The battlefield was so loud and kicking up so much dust that no one noticed their approach, though the pikes had plenty of warning.

“FRONT RANK, LOWER PIKES!”

One particular thug, a nobody who had mostly spent his time following some local imperial lordling around, beating up whoever he was told to and then drinking whatever alcohol was within reach, heard the orders. He was near the back of the mob of the encirclement and couldn’t see much at all. Really, he didn’t know what was going on, except that the crowd was moving in one way and he was being taken along.

“CHARGE!”

He was confused for a moment, because there wasn’t room for him to charge, and the voice seemed rather feminine. So did the yells. He decided to mill about and wait until someone else did something. That someone else was a nearby horse, who screamed and threw its rider before trying to flee through a mob of other men to escape.

That was when he saw the sharp blades on long poles, tightly packed going downhill, straight for him, very quickly. His slow brain didn’t have enough time to register the information as the pikes crashed into the mob.

The leaders were all in the front, where they could get the glory, or the back, herding the army in the generally right direction. The middle was just supposed to follow along. Very few of them had heard of discipline, especially considering the dregs they had come from, and there was hardly a noble sentiment among them. The moment the screams of “TRAP!” and “TREASON!” and general pain of men and horses started reaching their ears, the more they were inclined to try to flee. The more they saw others trying to flee, the more they were convinced that something terrible really was happening. And when they did see, when already agitated, they saw something new, something not seen before in the history of their world, and this new thing was not on their side. The momentum was broken as the men started to scatter. The panic spread through the imperial encirclement.

And right through Laird. For the first time in millennia, he was genuinely shocked.

It was just too damn much for him. He had that meddlesome tech-happy normal stowed away. Everything else was going just as he wanted it. The battle was going beautifully. Why this? How?

Various magic users on two worlds, in tune with the weird harmonies of the Weave, heard the dissonant chords of a god-sized temper tantrum, with flailing and smashing of everything within reach, like barriers to portals. This included two in a place called West Virginia.

“The barriers are down!” Maxis shouted, partly in exultation and partly in confusion. “Quickly, before Laird regains control!”
“I’m going…!” Nitram answered, just before touching the artifact and diving through the portal.

He found himself high in the skies above a strange, savage world. It felt odd, not quite right, like something else was exerting its will on even the fundamental laws of the universe. Which probably meant Laird’s influence, permeating the entire world. Nitram cast a simple spell to stop his fall so he could float above and cast another to find the lost people. One of them seemed to be close, and the other four close but slightly more distant. He teleported to the nearest one.

A cave, filled with the taint of wrongness and Laird, like a sour taste in the mouth that wouldn’t go away. It was stronger here, as well, more overt than elsewhere. He could sense it in the walls, and the giant magical crystal that contained mechanical armor from another world, and one purple-haired woman on the ground clutching her head.
“OH MY BRAIN! AAARRRAH! What hap-hi Nitram! About time. We’ve been stuck in here chain-mail bikini world for days and – ugh - crap. Do you mind getting my suit out of that freaking crystal? I have some aspirin in it.”

He could feel Laird’s influence on Amy as well, but it was fading quickly, just as in the giant crystal holding her suit. It had held together only through his power, and now was already starting to fracture on the inside. “Amy, Start at the beginning, and end at the end, please.”

“Ugh…so a few days ago we – that’s me, Yancy, Sapphire, Ladyhawk, and Sakura - all ended up here, which is some sort of fantasy sword-babe world out of bad novels, with some warrior chicks in chain mail bikinis battling an evil empire. And it’s all magic and gunpowder doesn’t work. And the ghost of General Sherman told me to make pikes-”
“What.”
“Recurring dream. Don’t ask. So anyway I started teaching these slave girls how to be soldiers, and then…something…ow, how the hell did I end up here?”
“One moment.”

There was healing magic for headaches, but Nitram did not want to risk it after whatever had happened to her. There was also magic for crumbling magic crystals, but it also seemed risky. The crystal was already well on its way there; he saw a pick-ax on the ground and then decided to speed it on its way. He swung it hard into just the right place and it cracked with a pleasing sound of tinkling glass.
“…dammit,” Amy muttered.
Two more swings and the crystal shattered and fell in a shower of shiny splinters which vaporized and disappeared the moment they hit the cave floor.
“Now then,” Nitram said, “I would also like an aspirin, as I have spent the last several hours since you five disappeared in deep magical concentration, and then traveled through a portal.”

Amy got up and started fiddling with the suit. “Huh, only several hours? One of those Narnia deals where time moves much faster on the inside than on the outside?” She popped open the pill compartment. “While I’m here, I also have a couple caffeine pills. Water?” She tossed a couple pills in her mouth and then sucked some water out of a tube.
Nitram answered, “Just the aspirin, please.”
She handed two over. “Oh yeah, so evil empire, they got the other gals but they’re escaped, and someone said she saw my suit here so I came to see it and then…something…oww…”

“That something would be called Laird,” Nitram said. “Hmm…consider a l'enfant terrible with godlike powers.”
“Oof. So we’d better go find the others, fast? Am I even okay now?”
“From a quick examination, good enough. I should look farther, but yes, time may be of the essence. We should go to the others quickly.”
Amy climbed into the suit. “Alright. So about-nah, I’ll ask about that lat- it works! Oh man thisissoawesomeit somehow actually works!” The suit made the faint crackling sounds of electronics coming on.
“Again, we should hurry. I was only able to come through because something apparently big and important happened to distract Laird’s attention.”
“Sorry, Nitram. Just gotta close up here and I’ll be ready-ommph.”
“Ready?”
“…yeah.” Oh geez, these jumbo-boobs are a tight fit. Hard to breathe. I am seriously tired of this. “Let’s go.”

Nitram brought them both to a high hill near where he had felt the presence of the others. It offered them an unintentionally good view of the battlefield.

“Huh, that’s not good,” Amy said.
“Your penchant for understatement never fails to amaze me,” said Nitram. He spoke a few words of a spell. “I cannot tell where they are there. There are too many people and the dust obscures my sight.”
“Then gimme a sec. I actually have a telescopic thingy in my helmet – barely ever used it, hope I still remember how.” She fiddled with the magnification. “Okay, I think I got it.”
She pointed towards the center. “See that clump in the middle? That looks like the Sisterhood. They’re the good guys. Everybody around them? They’ve got to be the empire. They even look like bad guys.” Then Amy pointed to a spot towards the side where she’d seen a flash of light. “I think that’s where our gals are.” She looked around some more. “And…why are they here? My pikes! We’d barely even started! They’re gonna get themselves killed!” And it’ll be all- “If you don’t mind, I gotta go help them now.” She fired up the jet boots and flew off.

Amy could see it more clearly as she came closer. The pikewomen had done amazingly well, as far as she could tell. Trail of carnage, still in a reasonably tight group, clear area around them, and they’d managed to think up hedgehog tactics on the fly, with pikes bristling out all sides. Plucky newcomers saving the day? Well, a god did it. Law of narrative causality or something? Wish I’d remembered the hedgehog thing before, though. But the pikes were definitely thicker on the front but not as strong on the sides, and from the air she could see that the enemy was probably going to attack one of the flanks, telling from the concentration of men building there, with more fancily-dressed guys in the front.

Time to defend the flank and pretend that I knew what I was doing all along.

It also occurred to Amy as she fell towards the enemy side that this would be the only time in her life that she would ever be able to get away with using her war-cry. So as she sprayed down her first imperial thugs with flame, she screamed, “BANZAI, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

The pikewomen started to cheer.

“I think that’s the commander!” Kalina yelled. “That looks like her armor!” The cheers got louder.

“It is me!” Amy shouted back. The wild cheers from the announcement convinced many of the imperals, those who had already fled, been driven back by big guys at swordpoint, and then witnesses to said big guys getting set on fire, that this time they really, really should flee this time. “I can guard a flank!” Amy set the churned-up grass near her on fire. “Heck, I can guard all around! Let’s take that empire down!”


When the Emperor saw his encirclement collapsing, he had dropped Ladyhawk immediately and went back within his pavilion to consult his scrying crystal. What secret weapon had the Sisterhood hid? An ancient artifact that they had dug out of some mountainous ruin? Yet another sorceress, kept concealed until that moment? Supposedly there had been a purple-haired woman with the others, and she had not been captured by being defended by a lone male there. A personal knight?

But there was no purple-haired woman. Just a group of girls, wearing old bread-sacks and wielding very long, shining sharp spears, which were getting increasingly bloody. Nothing remarkable about any of them at all, except that they were leaving a trail of carnage behind them and had the empire’s not-exactly-finest fleeing before them. The Emperor watched. Watched for a long minute, as the superheroines outside had a chance to regroup and catch their breaths.

As he watched, a young warrior in bronze finery tried to charge the pack, but as he drew near the spears all converged to block his path. His horse reared just before he ran into their bristling points and threw the captain right into them. He half-bounced, half-stuck to the spearheads, flailing uselessly, and when he hit the ground he was stabbed several times more by spears until he stopped moving. This scene repeated several times, with other foolish individuals.

Amateurs, leaving themselves undefended to focus on killing one man. They were strong to the front, weaker to the sides, weakest in the back. Effective enough when fighting as a dishonorable mob against lone men, but they would surely break and run against a concerted group against them. The Sisterhood must have been quite desperate, to equip these girls and have them fight in such a tight group where one thunderbolt could wipe them out. The stupid rabble was terrified of them, but the stupid rabble was scared of everything at first, but they would not be once they were winning again. That’s why the Emperor had captains to make them do what he wanted. He waved his hand before the crystal, and the faces of all his captains began to appear in his view, so he could give them his orders.

“These new warriors, we can’t fight them!” one of the captains blubbered. “It must be some new sorcery! I – AAUGGH!” The captain’s body began to spout flames and his image faded away from the crystal.

“You fools!” the Emperor snarled. “There are but girls, barely more than children, huddling against each other for safety, and you flee before them like rabbits before hounds.” His tirade was cut short by sounds of distress outside. He suppressed a growl against the incompetents that surrounded him. “Prepare a counterattack against this new force. One strong charge should scatter them.” He didn’t even wait for their pledges of submission to his will before he waved their images off the crystal and went back outside.

His sorcerers were straining to keep the pavilion safe. The piles of earth around the perimeter of their shield was already approaching a man’s height in some places, and every second brought another barrage of rock and soil. He couldn’t see the battle anymore for the dust, but not from the magical dust storm he had made; it was being kicked up from all the activity around. Here and there he could spot blue, glowing shapes moving around, digging up the ground and hurling it at them.


“Don’t…ugh…strain yourself too much,” Ladyhawk said. Sapphire was crouched in front of her, concentrating hard on all the constructs, simple but efficient shapes that they all were, that were busily digging a deep trench around the pavilion and hurling the dirt at it. Ladyhawk had never seen Sapphire made so many at a time.

“Can’t attack directly,” Sapphire said as she strained at the effort. “Only way-” the dust in the air caught in her throat. The constructs flickered during her coughing fit but held.

Ladyhawk had to admit, the barrage was holding them down. She’d been able to duck in and grab Sakura away during it, but even that little bit of effort exhausted her. Whatever weird power that emperor had, it hurt. And Sapphire was the only one still mostly in commission. And this was before she even factored in the rest of the battle – what was going on there? Nothing good, no doubt, and all they could do was keep it from getting worse and catch their breath for a moment.

Black thunderbolts shot out and blasted the ground all around. One of them struck uncomfortably close, making Ladyhawk’s hairs stand on end. Sapphire didn’t even notice, so deeply she was concentrating on her constructs. Neither the lightning, nor when the pavilion started lifting itself off the ground.

Ladyhawk grabbed her shoulder. “Stop! We gotta move!” The constructs all vanished. Sapphire had a blank look of shock for a moment before she realized that the pavilion was slowly floating above the dirt wall and towards them and that Ladyhawk was trying to drag her away while carrying Sakura on her shoulder. Then Sapphire grabbed Ladyhawk herself with her aura and lifted all three of them out of the way. Some of the sorcerers jeered and tossed oddly-colored fireballs their way.

One came close enough that Sakura felt the heat as she came to. “Wha…uagh…how dare they…” Mostly out of instinct and barely consciously she flung her fire aura back at them.

It was this exchange of fire that Nitram and Amy saw from the distance.

[End of Part 2 of probably 3.]

[Steve]

Another update! Everyone read now or suffer the wrath of my mighty feet!

[Mayabird]

Chapter 8, Part 3

As Amy shot off on her own, Nitram decided to go to the aid of the superheroines. He still had very little idea what was going on – does not work well in groups, impulsive, terrible at articulating and explaining anything – but the five who had gotten trapped in this world had apparently gotten themselves caught up into the local politics, and in these situations he always had to get entangled himself to extradite them.

Entangled, no. Twisted. As he approached, Nitram could sense corrupt magic, where the fabric of the Weave had been warped and contorted, forcing it to do unholy things. It was a form of dark magic that even wizards like Elizar dared not touch it because of its effects, and it had long ago been stamped out on Earth; partly it was from mages of old actively hunting down and destroying it, and partly because the method of destroying it was relatively simple: untwisting the Weave, repairing the damage to it. (He would explain later that it was actually nothing like that, but the analogy gave non-sensitives the general feel for what was happening.)

But first…he descended towards three lone figures on the battlefield.

“Who’s there?” Ladyhawk struggled to her feet and challenged the one coming towards them. “Nitram? Gals, it’s Nitram the wizard! I think the rescue party is finally here!” Then she slipped back to the ground.

They were filthy, exhausted, and injured in the bizarre ways that superheroes get hurt in titanic battles, but it didn’t look life threatening so long as they had time to heal and rest and got some proper medical care, which they probably could not here. Sakura and Sapphire looked unconscious, or barely so. “What happened?” he asked.

“There’s this evil empire,” said Ladyhawk. “They captured us and tried to make us sacrifices to their snake gods, so we escaped and joined up with this group of noble women fighters called the Sisterhood that was battling the empire. We were trying to fight their sorcerers, but our powers don’t work well near them and they’re very strong, so we got beaten up.” She pointed with one burned arm at the pavilion floating towards the main part of the battle. “That’s them. Ugh.” She dropped her arm and started coughing hoarsely.

“Save your strength,” Nitram said. “There is a reason why your powers were ineffective against them, but it means I can take care of them. I would explain now but there’s no time. Stay back, out of range, and watch the others.” He lifted himself back into the air, began to chant under his breath, and soared towards the pavilion.


“Someone’s coming!” one of the sorcerers cried out. “It’s not one of the witches!”
The emperor could sense the disturbance following them. Yet another new thing? Troublesome. And he could see Red Tanya in the distance.
“All of you, all my apprentices, stop that man. Do not let him pass here! I will go alone to the battle.”
The sorcerers were all still alive because they had long ago learned never to question their dark lord. The pavilion settled to the ground and all the sorcerers leapt out to take their positions, while the Emperor upon his throne of skulls shot out and flew directly towards his target.

Nitram could sense the greatest source of corruption continuing ahead while the lesser sources stopped before him. He had planned to go around or above and ignore them, before they threw flaming purple lightning in an arc around them. “You cannot avoid us!” they intoned, as one voice. “You must go through us if you wish to battle our master!”

He didn’t even pause to say, “Very well,” because he was already forming the spell to repair the Weave around them.


With the counterattack to their backs shattered, the Sisterhood had broken through the imperial army’s center. It was falling apart, and the Emperor did not care. There were always more petty lordlings who would fight to be his captains, more thugs who would pick up a club or blade for booty, and the men who escaped could always be pressed into service again. If need be, peasants could be pressed to fight as well, and there were always more peasants. It would not even matter if the Sisterhood stayed mostly intact, if he could break their fighting spirit by taking away their heart. Lose an army, lose a battle, but take Red Tanya, and he would win the war.

The Emperor ignored the warriors scattering below like ants streaming from a kicked anthill. Just as well, since for every one that was enheartened by the thought that the Emperor Himself was joining the battle on their side, there were two that were absolutely terrified by the thought, plus one that was disenhearted from noticing that anyone directly underneath the Emperor’s throne as he passed tended to catch on fire and explode messily. And meanwhile there were many more who were too worried about fleeing the terrors on the ground to care about any in the air.


Back at the pavilion, the sorcerers futilely tried to strike down the man enveloped in folds of living light and words, the Weave visible around him. They did not yet notice that the light was getting brighter around them, or that they were starting to become fatigued for the first time in years, or notice that the man before them was not attacking at all, and not even dodging – somehow they could not touch him. And he never stopped chanting.


The throne settled on the ground. There were few people still around the space as the Emperor stood up, what little grass remaining dying at his feet. One Sister started to charge him from a distance, but with a flick of his hand she was tossed away long before she came near. He drew his sword, black and sparking, then spun around and cut the throne in two. Poisonous-looking green smoke poured out as it fell apart, and when it touched the ground flames emerged. They spread, two lines of fire going out and around; the Emperor would settle for nothing less than an appropriate arena.

The flames moved faster, eerily silent, and met on the far side, and closed in Red Tanya and Yancy where they had been battling three of the imperial captains. One of them stumbled backward into the flames and was immolated to his dark lord. With one down, Red Tanya dispatched the other two. And then the flames began to pull inward while growing higher, closing in on them, and the two could do nothing but keep moving in to stay from the magical flames.

When the Emperor decided that they were an appropriate distance from him and the arena was just the right size, he stopped the flame’s movement. “At last, we meet,” the Emperor said.
Red Tanya’s only reply was to get into a defensive stance.
“Your Sisters have won this battle, with a little help from those girls with the spears,” he began. “But it is but one battle. Every one of your warriors may be worth twenty of mine, but I can throw twenty one at yours. You cannot easily replace your forces, but I could have another army in-.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Yancy. “You can blabber all you want, but we’re not going to make a deal with you. You’d probably break it anyway.”

The Emperor was annoyed at the breaking of his monologue. “Who is this boy that-”
“A man that’s going to beat your ass down with the woman he loves!” Red Tanya forced down her impulse to cry out, “No! You shouldn’t have told him!”
“Then a dead whelp you will be!” the Emperor boomed. He raised his sword in time to parry and sidestep the wild, frenzied charge from Red Tanya, and their duel began.


A ways outside the ring of flame, the pikes and and a few Sisters had met up.
“That was well fought, Defender!” Pokrovka said to Amy. Amy had taken her helmet off for the moment to speak.
“Commander, and the credit should go to the pikes. They brought themselves and did most of the fighting. I just shored up the flanks a bit.”
“But you were the one who thought of it and created your army.”
“Not really. I come from a land where we can build metal cities and armor like this,” and she tapped her chest. “Not everything I know works here, and I couldn’t even begin to remake things like my suit, but we do know a few extra tricks.”
I am glad the suit still works, somehow. Was a bit worried about the propellant.

Pokrovka nodded and faced the distant weird flames, pensively. “We have all been scattered from the battle, and I do not know where our leader and Lord Yancy have gone.”
“I think we should worry about that later,” Amy said. She pointed off to the side. “Looks like the bad guys are doing one last try at regrouping. Break this last bit of resistance, and then we’ll have time for everything else.”
“And how do you propose we do that, Commander?”
Amy grinned. “Same way the pikes have been doing it, but with the Sisters we have here guarding the flanks.”


A sorcerer raised his fist to bring forth another bolt of dark lightning, but nothing happened. He tried calling out the words of power again, but still nothing. Then he reached in for the dark space formed by the Great Snakes, and knew for certain: it was gone. His power was gone!


Two unbreakable blades flashed, one eerily purple-black, and one shining silver. They hardly had time to make a sound before they swung again, thrusting and stabbing and parrying. The Emperor and Red Tanya faced each other in a clash of the ages, witnessed only by Yancy, who could only stand by with his sword and wonder if he should attempt to intervene. He would probably just get in the way and endanger her, and they were both far better and more experienced with the sword than he was, but he wanted to protect her, to rescue her, to be heroic! Something very difficult to do when one’s girlfriend was a killing machine. Or one’s boss had powered…maybe if he attacked from the side and sorta back, it’d distract the Emperor so she could win!

So Yancy waited for the two to fly by in a whirl of metal, and lunged for the Emperor’s side. For the first time in years, a blade struck the enchanted metal of the Emperor’s armor.

Because the Emperor let him, so he could get close enough to swat an unbalanced Yancy away with one arm and send him flying in a different direction from his sword. He landed hard, uncomfortably close the flames.
“NO! Yancy!” Red Tanya cried out. With her concentration broken, the Emperor shoved her away as well with a push of magic force and went for Yancy. She had not been pushed far, but it was just enough to make her sprint to try to stop the Emperor. She was just enough off in her stance that with a hard swing, enhanced by his twisted magic, the Emperor could knock her back a step, and with another, knock the blade from her hand. Then with a bolt of his lightning, he blasted the sword into the air. It spun, sparkling in the sunlight, and fell outside of the ring of fire.

Red Tanya had already run to the side and grabbed Yancy’s lost sword, but it was far inferior to her own star-steel edge. They exchanged only two blows before it cracked, and the fourth shattered it.

Yancy had gotten back on his feet. “You-!” was all he got out before he slammed into the Emperor, and all that came from his lips then was a yelp of pain as the shock of the corrupt magic in the armor struck him. The Emperor flung him at Red Tanya.

“Tanya, I know your secret.” Some sliver of a remaining instinct in him tried to laugh, but the Emperor’s attempts at it failed in a most disturbing manner. “And when I slay your boy and finish you off, you will be mine.” His faceplate managed to leer at her as he took one step forward, but he did not take another. The Emperor paused as a cool breeze passed his armor – the flames had died away. But how?

The sorcerers had been warped, but this figure inside of the circle of flames felt more like a hole in the Weave’s cloth. He must’ve been far closer or longer exposed to the ‘great snakes’ that the sorcerers kept mentioning as the source of their power. The Weave would have to be rebuilt at his core, a much more difficult task than mere restoration. Nitram started by repairing the damage all around, and working inward. Conveniently, it put out the fire first, so he could get a clearer view without the obstructing magic blaze.

“FOOL! Who know dares challenge the Emperor?” But deep inside the Emperor’s core, the last remaining bits of his rotten soul trembled in fear. Whoever this man was, he had easily defeated all of his sorcerers and put out his flames, and he had not even stopped to catch his breath before starting to unravel the outer edges of the Emperor’s very being. He had to be stopped.


Nitram beheld the Emperor, at levels denied to ordinary people, and remembered tales he had heard when just a boy, of beings like this which had once strode the earth. The songs of his brave ancestors who had fought them, and the songs that they had sung to defeat them, which he learned, in case they were needed again. In a corner of his eye he also beheld Yancy being carried away by a strong, red-haired woman, and internally noted that all five missing people were accounted for. Excellent. He could continue rethreading the Weave.

The Emperor threw fire and lightning at Nitram, but just as the superheroines’ powers couldn’t touch him directly in his distorted enchanted field, his powers would not reach this man. Nitram dissipated all of them before they could get close. But sometimes, with more powerful blasts, he seemed to strain more, or they got a little closer before vanishing. Maybe one giant beam of destruction could get through.
The Emperor summoned all his power and reserves and brought forth an avatar of the Great Snakes. The air crackled with unholy energy and sizzled in waves from the heat of it. Blindly, because it distorted the light around it, the Emperor aimed the image of the monster at the place where the mage before him had stood and loosed it. Faster than the wind or any steed, it surged forward, boiling the dirt below it, sending up clouds of dust and smoke. It blew through the space where his opponent had stood, not slowing or slacking, and continued on through the battlefield as it fell apart. Here and there were screams when someone was too close to avoid its effects.

The Emperor was weakened from the great effort, but felt satisfied that he had handled it well. Now to get Red Tanya…and then he felt stabbing pains all around. The air began to clear, and he could see Nitram, standing to the side, far out of the path of the avatar.
“You telegraphed your punch,” answered Nitram to the unspoken question, and then he redoubled his efforts. The Emperor’s scream of pain echoed across the battlefield.

The Emperor was perhaps the most powerful native magic-user on their world, powerful enough that it was slowly consuming him; only his enchanted armor kept his body together. But for all that, it was the corrupt magic of the Great Snakes, and he had never faced an opponent anywhere near his strength. In matters supernatural, he was sloppy and undisciplined, and he was facing an opponent who powers were honed, who had long experience with fights of this scale, and was probably stronger in the end as well.

The Emperor knew that he was outclassed. And this wizard knew how to exploit a weakness he never knew he had. He loved boasting and hearing the sound of his own voice (about the only thing he could still love) but he wasn’t stupid. With a mighty effort, he threw off the words of power that were taking him apart.

“This is not over!” the Emperor screamed. And then he turned away and fled, on foot. The depowered sorcerers still around climbed to their feet and chased after him. The surviving captains who still had not left sensed their lord escaping the battlefield; some panicked and were cut down, but most of the rest joined the retreat. And the army, thugs that could only be kept on the field by piles of booty or coercion and were always trying to escape the moment the tide turned, did what came naturally to them. The imperial army disintegrated, and the Sisterhood and pikes had nothing left to do but mop up the few holdouts and encourage the rest to keep moving.


Laird watched as all his plans, all his schemes, all his planned entertainment went awry. He’d worked much harder and laboriously than he was accustomed, but everything was going just fine, except now everything was RUINED. Maybe not. Maybe it could be salvaged. First, he had to remove the meddlesome otherworldy troublemakers – so he tossed them back through the portal and blocked it behind them.


A flash of light filled the chamber at the Tahalshia manor on the planet Earth. Four unconscious bodies, three superheroines and one sidekick, landed on the floor, as did a very conscious and slightly nauseated sorcerer, and one armor-suited woman who hit with a loud, “OW! What the hell now?”


He looked into minds of fleeing imperials and saw the chaos in them. Some of them could be rallied later; they thought it was just the work of odd magic or strange creatures. But not enough of them had seen the superpowered battles, away from the main action or after the fact, and too many had picked up ideas about the massed fighting. Fragmentary thoughts, no one piece which would change anything, but enough that they would start experimenting, trying new things, turning the lovely warrior world into another soldier world. Laird reached into one’s mind and tried to wipe his memories, but Laird was too tired to do a good job; the man just fell over with a seizure and was run over by a panicked horse. And there were still thousands of others, fleeing in all directions.

The heroic Sisterhood was triumphant and the empire was routed. The sorcerers would need time to regain their powers from the snakes - too much time. There would be rebellions, some of locals rising up against their masters, and some of warlords trying to carve out their own kingdoms. Some of them would be survivors of this battle, or would hire survivors, who knew of how a group of girls had defeated an army. Most of them would not succeed, but they would continue to spread the ideas through the lands. And the Sisterhood would gain new recruits and support rebellions where they could reach. The Sisterhood…and those damned pikes.

Laird lacked the raw power to kill them all; he was spread too thin, altering the laws of reality around this world to make it work as he wanted. He started to pull his power back, letting space-time revert to its normal state –

The Oracle had a feeling that she needed to be outside at the moment. Her feelings, as they were linked to the flows of time, proved to be right as always: the gunpowder residue still in her fireplace ignited.

- it was just getting worse. Laird pulled all his power back to himself, in hopes of fixing everything, but being so out of practice in wielding it all, he had to put most of his concentration into keeping it under control. But left just a little bit to see…

…in a distant land, one that had not even heard of empires, some coal used to circle a campfire caught fire…an alchemist, doing magic experiments with naphtha and saltpeter… a mystic, coiling strips of metal into springs…and of course, that Oracle of the Sisterhood, eyes closed but seemingly looking right at him, and laughing. Laughing.

Even if he had full control of his power, he wouldn’t have been able to destroy the whole world, or even wipe out its biosphere. But now, he couldn’t even influence a single bit of it, much less destroy any, and he was too tired to put his power back the way it had been. That Amy, a purple-haired unpowered nobody managed to thwart his plans even when she was gone, even when she had initially failed. A mere human, with no special link to the Weave or anything, ruined all his fun. How could this happen? And so, like a petulant child having a hissy fit, throwing down his toys and screaming, “FINE! I don’t want it anymore!” Laird left the world to sulk.


“Oh, hey, it’s the manor,” Amy noted. “What’re we doing back here already? Nitram?” She saw Professor Maxis landing beside him. “And who’s that with you?”
“Oh yes, my manners,” Nitram said, holding his stomach. “Amy Chan, this is Professor Maxis, a fellow practitioner of magic. Maxis, Amy Chan, and do not call her the Panzer Pyro.”
“Thanks. And nice to meet you.” Amy took off her helmet and started to hold out her hand, but then stopped, wondering what proper etiquette would be with sorcerers and hoped that it wasn’t curtseying.

Maxis nodded. “Well met, and your reputation precedes you, but we should check the others first.”
“Oh, right, sorry.”

Soon after, Tevar returned, followed closely by Hawk and Provost. "I knew this wud happen. I step out fer a bloody moment an' miss e’erything!"

“They’re back! How’s everyone?” Hawk asked. He knelt beside his daughter, who was still unconscious.

“Everyone seems to be fine,” Maxis said. “Travel through portals is-or rather, tends to be-” he glanced at Amy “-difficult on the untrained, and most people lapse into unconsciousness or feel terribly ill afterward.”
“Some of us get sick anyway,” grumbled Nitram.
“Yeah, we were out for about a day when we landed there,” Amy added. “Though Yancy got better first.” He was also in much better shape then. Looks like he’s back to normal. That has to suck for him. “So, umm, can we go back now?”

“What?” said everyone else.
“I had an army that I was responsible for, and Yancy picked up a hot girlfriend, and we were in the middle of a desperate battle against an evil empire and I, well you know, want to make sure people actually survived it.”
“An army,” Hawk said.
“Yeah, long story. So…portal?”

Maxis checked. “Odd. Before, Laird had simply raised a barrier to the portal, but now it feels…plugged.”
Amy thought for a moment. “Like a tunnel being filled up? I only took three physics classes in college, but I didn’t think it worked like that.”
“It doesn’t,” Nitram said, as he checked. “But ‘plugged’ is a good way of describing it. Or pinched.”
“It appears Laird tried to shut the portal entirely but did a shoddy job. The portal is closed for now, but it will reopen eventually. It may predate his arrival at the other world.”

“Then we have much to discuss,” Provost said, “but first, we must tend to our wounded.”
“I’d like to go wash off, too, and eat something,” Amy interjected. “Will you need me here?”
“We can handle this,” Nitram said.
“Oh good. Mind if I stick this suit in a guest room?”
“Go ahead. But please do not leave the manor. We wish to examine you later for any ill effects.”
“Thanks. I remember where the baths were from last time.”

Amy stepped out and walked down the hall a way, then looked back to make sure she wasn’t being followed. With no one looking, Amy opened the suit enough so that she could reach in and feel her chest. Well that’s good, at least. Back to normal here too.

[Mayabird]

Epilogue


“FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY DOLLARS?”
“That’s what it says, miss. Debit or credit?”

Amy had pulled all the strings she had – including James freaking Hawk - to get her van back. The police had found it after the battle at the High and impounded it for evidence. Or something. The important thing was that they wouldn’t even give it back at first because of some mumblemumblelegalese no matter how many frazzled junior cops she harassed. It was her work van. She needed it for work [“Then why was it at the superhero battle?” “Let’s put it this way – I fired the kid so hard he landed at Grady’s Panzer Pyro Burn Ward.” “Heh, gotta remember that one.”] And more importantly she needed people to not look at its innards and do-dads and tanks for exotic flammable liquids. Among many other things, she didn’t have a permit to make her jet boot propellant.

“Check?” She held up the checkbook.
“Sure thing.”

Not much time had elapsed on Earth during her sojourn on the other world, but she’d had an extended stay at the Tahalshia manor afterwards to make sure Laird’s influence wouldn’t have any negative consequences for her. It was nice for recuperation, but bad for trying to get her van back. [“Seriously ma’am, ya didn’t notice that your work van was missing?” “You ever had your contract work messed up by dumpster-diver supervillains? It gets crazy, okay?”] At least she’d left the week after the demo free for herself so she didn’t have to explain/lie to her customers about where she’d been too.

“Alright, lemme put it through the check machine thing.” It screeched and clanked and rattled and generally complained about its years of mistreatment, but it finally decided not to give Amy any more crap that day.
“Alright, Miss Chan, it went through. Lemme pull it around.”
“That’s alright. I can get it.”
“Naw, miss, employees only on the grounds, city policy.”
“Well, what if you escorted me over there and then I drove it out?”
“Nope, sorry. ‘No access without authorization.’ But I’ll be gentle with it, huh?”

She was irritated enough that she didn’t show her worries, worries that he might accidentally activate the hologram or notice something else odd. The impound lot guy most certainly was not gentle with it, accelerating too quickly and hitting the brakes way too hard when he reached the entrance, but at least it was still running. He got out and said, “You have a good afternoon, Miss Chan,” and went back in the office, having apparently noticed nothing odd. Amy got in and drove off... and after a few turns she pulled into the parking lot of a vacant building and checked to make sure no one had been fiddling with anything in it. It looked like no one had been in it since that day. She’d have to do a more thorough check when she got back home, though.

While she was driving, she thought that the engine sounded a little off, and the “check engine” light came on. Crap. More stuff to fix. I mean, I was going to poke around in its guts anyway, but why this too?

Amy made it home without incident, and then went to the mailbox. It was crammed full of stuff, and the mail lady had left a snarky little note about having the post office hold her mail. She grabbed the entire wad of mail and started looking through it.

“Not important. Alumni magazine. Junk. …[/i]Victoria’s Secret[/i] catalog? What the hell?” And then she found the flier. “ ‘Recently, the High Museum of Art has experienced…’ They’re asking for donations, the bastards.” Amy set down the rest of her mail and reached into her pocket for the lighter she always carried. Zippo, old school, for those times when stuff needed burning.

She held the burning flier until the flame got too close to her fingers, and then she stomped it out on her driveway. From being a Big Damn Hero to dealing with this bullshit. “Dammit, I need a vacation.”


THE END! It’s finally over!


Please read my apology short/PSA.