Part 5 - Blood of the King

Chapter 105 - The Struggle (Part Two)

Conall, Teresa and a number of the other leaders stared out across the vast plains of the Middle East. In the far distance, the shimmering was slowly parting to reveal Khahrahk's army. For those in Zaltoxir, it had been two weeks since Max had left, and there was still no sign of his return. Now the King was approaching the Tree, time was running out. Since Max's departure, the alliance had battled hard. Five different battles were fought against the eastern force: in Iceland, in Scotland, the English Channel, Switzerland and Turkey. Against the western force, only two had been fought: in Mongolia, and Kyrgyzstan. The High Aether of the Quintari sighed, bowing his head.

"Where are the Duotari, the shield of the many races of the omniverse? Where are the Tritari, the sword of the hopeless? Where are the Quadtari, the horse on which we ride to war? We are alone."

There was silence for a moment, then Churchill responded:

"Why do we feel we are alone? In my time as Prime Minister, I have known alone and this is not it. We stand together: gods, demi-gods, Quintari, Pritari, kings, queens, leaders, generals, directors; the worlds united under one banner. This is not alone, this is greatest alliance ever to be built. What we do here today will be remembered, whether we win or we lose. If we fail: we will live on as a scar in Khahrahk's mind, a beacon of hope for those that come after us. We will be remembered as those who would make their stand when there was not even a foundation for us to stand on. And if we succeed in what we were put on our worlds to do, then we shall go down in history as those who saved all life; who fought for what was right and brought the days of pain and suffering crashing down. We shall give not even an inch of ground willingly: we shall go on, and we shall never surrender!"

Just as he finished, the sky was filled with bangs, pops and the whistling of the wind. All looked up, and what they saw brought hope: hundreds, if not thousands of ships, burst from temporal warp. As the three largest ships settled down, three columns of energy appeared next to the leaders and generals. The High Aethers of the Duotari, Tritari and Quadtari bowed their heads.

"We have come. We bring the greatest warriors of Noladis. The omniverse stands."

The Pritari and Quintari High Aethers bowed their heads too.

"We give you our gratitude."

Teresa tapped her com badge.

"Communications, send a message to whoever else is out there in the omniverse. The final battle has begun, and all are welcome wherever their allegiance lies."

"Yes ma'am."

The director turned to the leaders and generals.

"So it begins."

It took only one hour for Khahrahk's forces to enter artillery range. However, the battle began half-an-hour earlier as alliance star ships as well as Ares jets began to bombard the attacking force. Things seemed to be going well for the moment as more and more Kates, Children of the Scarlet King, and defectors were blasted apart by the bombardment. Suddenly, Conall spotted something leap into the air. A moment later, a Duotari ship was torn apart from the inside out, followed by another a moment later. Meatball Demons began to fight back as well, knocking every type of aircraft from the sky with equal ease. Whether it was an Ares, a Spitfire, a biplane, it burned. Soon, all that remained was the ground forces of the alliance. The ground burned with the debris of aircraft and star ships.

As the artillery bombardment began, Conall turned to Teresa and held out his hand.

"It was nice knowing you."

"It was nice to know you too, despite what history says."

They shook hands, then turned back to the matter at hand. The Romans had formed a shield wall, amongst which Scottish soldiers held pikes to skewer anything that charged. A horn blared from the Scarlet King's army and they came to a halt. The Kates and humans organised into ranks.

"Unless he's taking a nap, Khahrahk himself isn't here." Said Conall to the commander.

"I doubt he's napping. My guess is he's waiting to hear from Jeser about victory, then he'll come to do some ceremonial burning of the Tree."

"Do we know of anymore of Khahrahk's children, or did we kill them all?"

"Something that isn't round is here, but we'll never know where until we fight it. SCP-058 was set free by Jeser in Bastria, and I'm guessing it took down all the ships. Then there's SCP-239, the Witch Child; arguably, she's stronger than the others."

"We'll just have to hope she hangs back."

"Yep."

Another horn blared across the landscape and the ground battle began. The humans of the King's army charged first, some coming to a stop just short of the shield wall and opening fire with semi-automatic weapons. The rest charged into a slaughter, torn apart by the well-oiled killing machine that was the Roman army. Conall flew overhead, blasting away some of the enemy with beams of golden energy. However, despite how many bodies were piling up against the wall, the legions were failing slowly but surely under the gunfire. A trumpet sounded from behind the wall, over which jumped scores upon scores of elves from Middle Earth. At this point, the Romans began to advance, taking one step forward at a time to the slow beat of a drum. Despite the current success, things were about to get worse. Meatball Demons raced overhead, spitting balls of fire into the Roman ranks. Missiles filled the air from anti-aircraft emplacements, knocking a number down but not putting much of a dent in the overall numbers. However, it was enough to make them retreat for the moment, covering the retreat of the humans on the King's side. It gave the alliance a few seconds to lick their wounds. Infantry with ranged weapons was called up as the King's humans charged a second time. So began another bloodbath, turning the grass to mud as a number totalling three million on either side clashed. Teresa knelt down and punched the ground, sending a blue and white projection into the midst. It was hard to distinguish some friends from foes, namely the allied Axis defectors and the King's loyal Nazis. All that told them apart was the black, red and white swastikas on the defectors' arms. The projection leapt onto an obvious priest of the Children of the Scarlet King and ripped their head off, throwing it at another cultist who was cut down by a musket ball to the head a moment later. Teresa didn't know how that projection was killed, most likely some sort of weapon to the back, but she summoned another and sent it on its merry way.

In the meantime, Conall was trying to provide some sort of air support against the Meatball Demons that were blasting apart artillery positions. From this height, he could get a clear picture of how the ground war was going on: it seemed the alliance was winning. That was good, considering their strongest forces were still held back in reserve: hundreds of cavalry units, as well as six of the seven Brothers of Death, alongside the six 'tari' species, all waited their turn to get into the action. Their aid would be most needed when the Kates joined the fight, which they showed no sign of doing at the moment. Of the Brothers of Death, Lucifer was absent; clearly Jeser's weapon killed a little more permanently. Conall quickly formed an X with his arms to absorb a fireball, before returning the favour with a golden jet. He wondered what had become of Max; had the teenage spider completely abandoned them? Or was he just dead? At this point, any conclusion was just as likely. If he had abandoned them, however, Conall suspected the decision would weigh on the spider's conscience until his dying day.

Twenty minutes of vicious fighting later, the ground was little more than a river of mud with dead bodies taking the place of rocks. Teresa surveyed the scene, wiping some of the blood off her suit. The first ground battle had been a success of sorts, although a quote from the now dead Joseph Stalin came to mind: 'one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic'. There seemed to be just as many alliance soldiers dead as there were of the Scarlet King's, but she felt little remorse. Maybe it was the adrenaline of battle still coursing through her veins, blocking out her ability to mourn. Yet there was no time to waste, as Jeser clearly had no intention of letting the alliance rest. This time, the six 'tari' races joined the battle, forming ranks beside their comrades of the many hundreds of other races. A horn sounded from the opposing army and the Kates began to surge forwards. To begin with, it was a slow walk, then speeding up to a jog, then a run, a sprint, and finally a full on charge.

"Stand firm! Fight to the last man! Kill like you have never killed before!" The commander yelled, creating at least her fiftieth projection of the day.

Her body ached from the effort, but she blocked out the pain knowing worse things would happen if they lost today than a bad case of muscle cramp. The alliance forces charged to meet the Kates, yelling all manner of things from 'fuck the King' to 'Alba gù brath'. Teresa's projection was ripped apart by a Kate Sergeant that came bounding straight towards the real her with a few of its comrades. She summoned her muscular version and punched the Sergeant in the nose before its friends pulled the projection apart with their tentacles. Teresa created a sword from her suit and drove it into the heart of one of them before turning and slashing through first the tentacles, then the neck of the second. The Sergeant knocked her to the ground and bounded over to turn her into dessert, but stopped and became distracted as someone pointed to the sky and shouted:

"Dragons!"

Sure enough, great scaly winged beasts were flying in, picking up Kates and hurling them away. Some unleashed blasts of fire and ice. A brown one thumped down next to Teresa, its wings largely beaten up more than its friends. Flames engulfed the Sergeant, leaving behind nothing but a pale puddle and a skeleton. The dragon turned to Teresa.

"Greetings. We are late. Crosis."

"Do I know you?" Asked the commander, slashing off a regular Kate's head.

"I am Paarthurnax. It has been a long time. Lingrah tiid."

"Oh, I remember you. I'd stick around for afternoon tea, but we're a little busy."

Paarthurnax took to the skies again leaving Teresa to engage another Kate. However, as she went to slash it, a ginger cat sporting boots and a hat stabbed it with a tiny sword. A second later, a green creature and a donkey crushed it completely.

"OK…Shrek is here." Muttered the commander as she went to assist a Klingon.

Conall crashed down on top of a Kate Sergeant that had been close to killing a person seemingly made of blocks, sporting a dark grey armour that shimmered purple. Conall guessed they came from 6834, or Minecraft to the common person. The immortal sprinted at another Sergeant, skidding under it and driving his sword up, into its belly. The abomination didn't react, only snarling and baring its teeth. A tentacle flew his direction while the other nine attacked a group of Pritari. He dissected his and made to Ethereal punch the monster, but it decided he was a better target than the Pritari and redirected the other nine tentacles to hold him captive. Conall was only saved by a golden burst of electricity, in a vaguely spider-webbed shape, that almost knocked the abomination out. He seized his chance and cut off its head before turning to thank his saviour. The Miles Morales from the dimension affected by the Kha'raar bomb gave him a thumbs up. Conall wondered why he was here, given that the dimension should be under quarantine, but he figured the more the merrier and it was possible one of the 'tari' races had a cure. He spread his wings, spinning quickly on one foot to deflect a Kate's attack before soaring into the sky to get a look at how the battle was going. Not good, was all he could describe it as. In addition, it seemed Jeser himself had joined the battle, duelling viciously with Thanos and his Black Order. All were cut down quickly, despite how powerful some members should have been. Conall spotted something else which dampened his spirits: a line of red rock monsters was lumbering into the fight.

Teresa spotted what she could only describe as a golem. She had never seen anything like this, and she hated everything about them including how red they were. A voice beside her told her an SCP-939 was nearby.

"What the hell are you?" It asked, staring at the golem.

The rock monster swung its arms, swatting it far away. Teresa created a muscular projection which tried to smash the golem apart with brute force, but failed miserably. The commander pulled out her pistol and fired, but only succeeded in agitating it even more. She ducked a swing from a rocky fist, only to be slammed into the ground by the second. The first came down and she survived just long enough to feel the bones in her arms splinter.

Conall heard the shouts of the 'Chelsea is dead' and similar things. He dismissed them, having lost friends before. Why should she be any different? In his heart, he felt a little differently, and suddenly realised he had grown far too attached to the commander for his own liking. What did it matter? She was dead now. He leapt out of the way of a metal dinosaur and looked around in the hopes it meant Jacob, and therefore Max, had returned. A trumpet sounded somewhere from the direction of the Tree; Conall flew up to see what was happening and spotted a second army of Khahrahk's was approaching. So the western force had arrived at last. The immortal knew there was next to no way they could win this now, but he felt a great deal of patriotism for Poland as he watched the Winged Hussars, as well as the Rohirrim, charge at the second force.

"'Then the Winged Hussars arrived.'" He muttered, knowing Max would want the Sabaton reference made somewhere if he was dead.

He streaked down to join the Polish and Riders of Rohan. He started to pick a fight with a Kate, only to be wrapped up by a Sergeant that used him as a bowling ball against a pair of Hussars. When he recovered, he was pinned back down by more tentacles. What happened next was a bit of a blur: something went bang and a shockwave rattled out that knocked riders from their horses, but more importantly ripped Kates apart. When the light had dimmed a little, the immortal picked himself up and stared in disbelief.

"Gwen? How? Why?"

"Long story. You'll find out in the next chapter." She replied, cutting a Kate's head off with her katana.

"What?"

"Get used to it. I'll be breaking the fourth wall every now and again. It's kinda fun, actually."

"Oooooookaaaaaaay."

Crossovers in this Chapter

If you can think of it, it was here somewhere. But here's the ones that were mentioned:

- SCP Foundation
- Shrek
- Skyrim
- Minecraft
- Avengers
- Ark Survival (the metal dinosaurs had a cameo)
- Star Trek

I think that's them all...