iCarly: iMeet the Relatives: Chapter 6: First Casualties
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I don't own iCarly. If I did, it would still be playing.
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"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."
-Military truism
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Chapter 6: First Casualties
On the way to Socko's uncle's condo, Carly still worried. What if something went wrong?
She tried to soothe her own fears. Grif was a grown, er, angel. He knew what he was getting into. True, maybe there was some danger, but he'd promised not to take any chances, and, of course, being an angel, had to take his promises seriously. This first foray was more of a recon mission that an actual rescue mission.
And, anyway, what could possibly happen to him that he, and, if necessary, his Aunt Maggie couldn't handle? Carly had seen the kind of power the Host of the Dominion, the Lordships, Maggie and Grif's host, wielded. And his Uncle Jemiah…Carly didn't think a comet strike would be any problem for him.
On the other hand, would Uncle Jemiah do anything? Maggie had said that even the Host of the Seraphim, Jemiah's Host, didn't venture into the Darkness all that casually themselves. She hoped Jemiah hadn't decided to let his errant nephew simply suffer the consequences of his own, in his opinion, unwise decisions.
But there was always that troubling possibility.
….
I prepare myself as well as I can. I've only heard about the Darkness, and encountered it only in its manifestations here on Earth. I realize that none of this will truly prepare me for the horror I will face. But I must be brave. There are many souls dependent on me remaining true to my vow.
What kind of angel would I be, were I to turn and walk away now? I couldn't live with myself, knowing that so many were suffering terribly, and I stood by and did nothing.
But I have to admit, I wonder why none of the other angels have ever attempted this before. Perhaps they knew something I do not.
I find that possibility troubling.
I'm almost glad Carly is away for the weekend. She would want to be here, in the apartment with me, as I make my first journey into a place, a state of being that has terrified every sentient being in all the cosmos. No, this will be just me. Just a fast in-and-out. Just to see what I'm up against.
I Stand in the middle of the apartment, gathering myself. Even though I am Standing, for once I Stand alone, the electric cyclone swirling around me. I must prepare myself for…for anything.
And then…with a flicker of perception, I follow my tendril that leads downwards, into the ultimate horror….
Strange. I had always been told there was nothing here, no light, certainly no Light, no hope, nothing. But in some strange way, I see a battlefield. Nothing grows in it, and I can see countless bodies lying twisted and broken, some in one color uniform, some in another, but most in the basic color of all fallen soldiers everywhere: the brownish red of dried blood.
I scan the area, searching outward cautiously. There are things here, after all, it would seem, and it would be unwise to challenge them without knowledge. And then I hear a groan from the ground beneath me.
"H-help me…" The voice is barely a whisper, but I can hear it clearly in the eerie silence of this tomb of a battlefield.
I scan for the source of the voice. There; a youngish-seeming man, in a brown uniform. His features are unremarkable, save for the pain evident in his eyes. I drift downward towards him. "Who are you?" I ask. "What is your name?" This is more important that it sounds; too long in the Darkness and it is quite easy to forget one's previous existence altogether.
"D-Devin. Devin Boscovitch. I….where am I? What is this place?" There's horror in his voice, as he looks around the quiet battlefield, that I'm sure he remembers a different way.
"My name is Gryphon. I'm here to help."
"I'm so cold. Why am I so cold?" There is nothing here, in this eternal void, no light, no heat…nothing.
I approach him. I take nothing for granted, of course. "Let me help."
"You…you can help me?"
"If you will let me. Come; take my hand." I extend my hand.
"You can help me! You really can help me! All I need is YOUR HOT ANGEL BLOOD!" And the creature I had been talking to morphs into a monster too hideous for words to describe, and leaps at me….
…straight into the annihilation field I projected with the same hand I offered in friendship and rescue. Within less than a flicker, it is no more.
As I said, I am under no illusions about this place, nor its denizens.
….
Dr. Phillips and Weston reviewed the security footage, searching for the right time stamp. They had a pretty good idea as to when the…"incident," as Phillips called it, had happened. Now all they had to do was run the video loop forward, focusing the image enhancing software on the area around column where the briefcase had been found.
They saw a scruffy looking but otherwise completely nondescript man venture along, carrying the briefcase. He stopped, looked at his watch, stood there for a few minutes, continuing to glance at his watch, the very picture of a man waiting for his wife or children to join him at a preplanned rendezvous.
Finally, he put the briefcase down, glancing around, and walked softly away. The two scientists zoomed in on the scan of his face. "Here. The guy who left the bomb. There's a good description of him; send it out, see if we can't find the bastard." Phillips spoke without a trace of emotion; he was too interested in what was going to happen next.
Minutes passed. Then, two people approached, the young man looking around in an almost theatrical way, as though trying to appear to be searching for something. But something about his attention, the way he walked, the way he stood, told the two his real attention was focused on the briefcase.
There was no sound pickup, of course, but he zeroed in on the briefcase, seeming to examine it. The girl who was with him appeared to be urging him to leave, pulling at his arm. He half-turned to her, and nodded in acknowledgement. Then—and here Phillips hunched over the monitor as though he could zoom in with his own naked eyes—the young man in the black leather motorcycle jacket passed his right hand over the briefcase, then turned and allowed the girl to lead him away, out of the camera's range. The two noticed the time stamp on the footage.
Phillips leaned backward, a look of triumph on his face. "Okay. Explain that."
"I don't get it. He didn't do anything…"
"But he did. And look: look at this." Phillips ran the footage again, once again zeroing in on the couple. "See how her face is distinct? Relatively, I mean?" Carly's face stood out in the paused loop. "But look at him." A brief tweak of the monitor, and the camera zeroed in on Grif. His features were blurred, out of focus. "Her features, her face,-clear. Standard security cam clear, I mean. But his? He was right next to her but we can't see him as well. Now, why is that?"
"Alright! Alright!" Weston threw up his hands in despair. "You win! So this guy is…is who? Or should I be asking, what?"
Phillips chewed on a knuckle. "Either question…is appropriate." A pause. "But…perhaps we should also be asking, who is she?"
…..
From the top floor of the Columbia Center building in downtown Seattle, Jemiah watched an approaching thunderstorm. He saw it, but his vision was capable of seeing so much more…
He saw his young nephew as he made his first foray into a place that was not a place, that was the ultimate terror for all those who were self-aware enough to even have a hint of its existence. It was not for nothing that the angels had been detailed to guard and secure the world known as Earth, a designation that meant so much more than just the mere planet. It was not for nothing that they were called upon to defend a world that, for the most part, didn't even believe in them.
And, in some cases, those who did believe were the very ones who were the most dangerous.
He saw his nephew destroy the creature down below, commending him silently. Good; Grif was not some innocent, going into open warfare with open arms and good intentions. He knew there would be that which was arrayed against him.
He allowed his senses to range outward, surpassing every sense and sensor known or even suspected by man. Maggie; He saw her sitting in her apartment, watching Grif, biting her lip, clearly worried. He smiled. This was natural.
He allowed his senses to range over the world of humans. Jemiah could see the world of human communications, see what was being spoken, listened to, transmitted, broadcast and secure alike. Nothing was hidden from him. Nothing could be.
And he saw Drs. Phillips and Weston reviewing the security footage of the Comic-con, where Grif had, in his opinion, so unwisely interfered. This could be…problematical.
And he saw the Mountain People, driven from their home cave by an unnamable something, saw their weary trek across the Oregon countryside. That incident would bear looking into.
With hardly more than a thought, he sent his thoughts winging their way towards Aunt Maggie. {{Margaret? I have discovered something that needs to be looked into. Are you familiar with the Mountain People?}}
Gryphon's Aunt Maggie jumped just a little. She'd been so deeply concerned about Grif's first foray into the Darkness that she was startled by the communication. {{Y-yes, Grif has told me that his Carly and her friends encountered one, not that long ago.}}
{{This is in the vicinity of that, and involves the same group.}} He proceeded to send her his information on the wrongness that Snow Walker and Home Carer had dealt with. {{I need you to acquire more information about this 'wrongness.' Is it truly something from the Darkness? If so, this is unprecedented.
{{Do not, repeat, do not attempt to engage it one on one. Not without more information. Investigate and report back to me.}} He didn't have to add, "ASAP;" angels seldom had reason to wait to do anything, unless so ordered.
{{Yes, Jemiah. I will go there now.}}
Home Carer and Snow Walker were making their own weary way down the mountain, to rejoin their people, when a bright flash signaled the arrival of Maggie. She inspected the two in front of her, noticed the air of weariness and fear in them both. {{I am Margaret, of the Host of the Dominion. It has come to our attention that you are troubled. Please let me help.}}
Snow Walker and Home Carer were surprised by this visitation, but their own legends were quite clear. This was one of the guardians, one of the Powers delegated to safeguarding sentient beings, wherever they were. They replied in the speech of their people, as they knew no other. "Yes. We have been driven from our home caves by…something we cannot understand. I myself sought to investigate it," said Snow Walker, "but…" And here, he looked downward, embarrassed.
Maggie understood. For all these years, Snow Walker and the members of his tribe had been able to handle their problems, of which there were, as is usually the case with intelligent beings, many. But they had coped. In an ever-increasingly hostile world, they had coped. Now they had encountered something not in their experience, something they could not handle or understand. And something that caused them to fear.
To a proud people, to call this "embarrassing" was a profound understatement.
Maggie clasped her hands in front of her, as a gesture of respect. {{I understand. If it is alright with you, I will go to these caves, see if I can sense anything that may tell us more about these matters that trouble us all.}}
"You…you may certainly do so, Mighty One. But please…do be careful yourself. I do not know what this thing is, but I know it is not to be approached lightly."
{{I will be careful. Now, go. Rejoin your people. Perhaps this matter can be resolved quickly.}}
Maggie approached mouth of the cave the Mountain People had just vacated with a huge sense of justifiable caution. Whatever had scared Snow Walker and his people out was certainly something out of the ordinary, and deserved a certain amount of carefulness.
Almost immediately, she was almost overcome by the sense of wrongness that had so intimidated Snow Walker, only a thousand times worse. Even with her Sight, she could see almost nothing, just a formless, shapeless mass filling most of the cave. Instinctively, she raised her hands, preparing to Speak….
….and was struck such a violent blow that it sent her reeling out of the cave, and falling down the mountainside.
I have just returned from my first exploratory trip into the Darkness. It has proven to be educational, in a discouraging sort of way.
The only living being I saw was the monster I destroyed. I had been told that there were creatures in the Darkness, but to be confronted with one was a sobering experience. And I had seen nothing else there; no souls in limbo, no one else…
{{Gryphon!}} The call comes through loudly, reinforced by distress. It's Aunt Maggie.
She's been hurt.
I'm there in less than a nanosecond, there at the bottom of the slope of the mountainside from whence she fell. A few hundred feet away are some of the Mountain People, looking on anxiously. I bend down, brushing her hair away from her face. She is clearly in pain, or what passes for pain in us. "Maggie! What's wrong? Tell me! What can I do?"
One of the Mountain People joins us. I recognize him; it's the one they call Snow Walker. "Is she…hurt?" He cannot, of course, hear our private communication.
{{Yes,}} I tell him, this time modulating the frequency to make it discernable to him, {{yes, she has been.}} Maggie shudders violently in my arms; I can sense her fighting off the hostile influence that has done this.
But will she be successful?
"She went to investigate a wrongness in the caves where we lived. We told her to be careful. I believe the Darkness to be behind it."
{{That's quite possible. I must take her home now.}} I look around, seeing what has transpired. {{Take your people and get far away from this place. As far as you can.}} Snow Walker shifts nervously at the undercurrent in my voice. I lift Maggie up, preparing to depart. But I cast one last glance at the peak from which she fell. I myself can sense that my expression is not a pleasant one. {{As far as I am concerned, this thing has just declared war on the Host of the Dominion.}}
To be continued…
