And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.
Isaiah 34:4, Christian Bible
"Welcome back to radio free earth! Resist! Humanity demands it! Resist! This is Fiala Karalosi from the ENN and today we have a very special segment! In it, we're going to be covering some important wizard concepts!" There was an indistinct murmur. "What? Oh yes, I'm sorry. It won't happen again. We're going to be covering some important mage concepts. To help me understand, we have an expert sorcerer here to explain!" Another indistinct murmur. "What? Oh, oops! I mean, we have an expert mage here to answer some questions. Please welcome our guest, the master of time and space, the Doctor!"
A male voice came on the air. "No. I'm not the Doctor."
"But is says so right here!"
"Let me see that." There was a rustling of paper, then a sigh. "No, it says that I am a doctor; Dr. Carl Greenburg, with a doctorate in Spatial Vectoring."
"Right! A doctor with a mastery of space and time!"
"No. I'm actually a master of space and mind. Fuck time. Never felt it was worth the effort to study."
"But Doctor, aren't space and time linked? The same concept, seen from different angles?"
He laughed. "Ha! That's actually just some brilliant marketing by time masters. The majority of time magic is mostly worthless, with a few exceptions where time magic has supreme dominance. Totally different from distance and space."
"If you say so Doctor!" Fiala said. "Now, we all know you're a master of space. But you say that you're also a master of mind. What exactly does that mean?"
"It means that I've mastered magic dealing with the mind; Astral Travel, Communication, Illusions, Mind-Shielding, and mental Self-Empowerment."
"Huh. I don't really get it, but that's ok! Double master Dr. Greenburg, can you tell us what's happening now? In the last few days, we've kicked the Reapers off earth, but there are millions of them still in space! What's next in our fight against the Reapers?"
"We're going to take the fight to them directly. We'll travel from Earth through the gauntlet deep into the Umbra, and wrest control of the Mass Relay from them."
"Uhh? The Relay is out by Pluto. In space. What's this Umbra? Gauntlet?"
Dr. Greenburg sighed. "The gauntlet is the divisionary barrier separating reality from the spirit realms. It's also earth's atmosphere."
"What? You mean the Umbra is outer space?"
"Space is one way to describe the Umbra, Fiala."
"Then why don't you just call it space? Why give it a different name? Umbra. Hmm, strange word. Ummmmbrahhhhh."
"Because it's not just 'outer space'. Ghosts, demons, and spirits live there too. It has different parts, with different properties. It's an inhospitable place inimical to life."
"Inim…intimical?"
"Inimical. It means harmful. Unfriendly, or hostile."
Fiala laughed. "Oooh, OK. I get that! But nothing can live in space. It's not just unfriendly – you can't breathe vacuum!"
"Actually, with the proper skills and willpower, you can."
Fiala gasped. "What? Are you saying your amazing mind powers allow you to breathe in space?!"
Deadpan. "Yes. My mind powers are so strong I can even make you breathe in space."
"Squeeeeeeeeeee!"
A sigh.
"Hey! Here on earth I've heard some of your people's folklore. Humans have a lot of stories about magical beings. Are you saying those beings actually still exist? In this… Umbra?"
"Yes Fiala. Beings such as gryphons and dragons were forced to leave earth long ago. They still could exist somewhere, and you would have to go through the Umbra to find them."
"There was one that I thought was really cool! Something called a unicorn? Are you saying it's really a space unicorn? If I get into a ship, I can see one of them in space?"
"You don't need a spaceship to get to the Umbra. You can visit it in dreams. Or even by stepping though a mirror. And you're not going to find a horse just floating around if you take a spaceship."
"Oh well! Still, that's super exciting news. Let's continue our interview! So, Doctor. Tell us more about yourself. I hear you do martial arts?" There was a squeaky noise as Fiala bounced up and down in her chair.
"Well, I'm a member of the Akashayana Sangha, commonly known as the Akashic brotherhood. We practice martial arts and use it to help us perform our magic. We focus on mind magic."
"And…?" The squeaking increased.
A sigh. "And we practice a magical form of martial arts known as 'Do'."
"That's right, listeners! There really is a magical martial art! It's called 'Do', which means 'the Way'. I'm told that understanding what the 'Way' exactly is requires months, if not years, of meditation and enlightenment, so I'll save you all that trouble and just tell you that it's the Way of super-effective-magic-punch-explosions! Remember the vid of Reapers that attacked Tokyo? They were jump kicked out of the air! With magic Kung Fu! WooPAH!" She made punching and kicking noises.
"Indeed."
"Does practicing the Way make you super strong? Can you flip over tables? A car? A spaceship? Can you punch a bullet? Can you show me something? Do something awesome!"
Another sigh. "Fine, but only for a minute."
"Yes! OK listeners, let me describe what I'm seeing! The Doctor is standing up! Now he's bending down!" She gasped. "He's holding himself up on just one hand! Now he's balancing his entire body upside down on his fingers. Five fingers! Now he's doing pushups, upside down! Wait, he's taking a finger away! Four fingers, three! More pushups. Two fingers. One finger! He's balancing his body on one finger! Is he really pushing himself up with one finger? Maybe he's pushing the world down instead! His strength must be enormous!"
A calm voice. "Do takes only dexterity, not strength, to use."
Fiala gasped. "Now he's… he…" Her voice lowered, quivered, "Now the Doctor's not using any fingers! He's floating in the air!"
There was a rush of air, and the sound of someone sitting down in a chair. "Like I said earlier, I'm not the Doctor."
"But you're a magic martial art master. And a space doctor."
"…Yes."
Fiala gasped theatrically. "Gasp! What? But Doctor, how can you be a magical martial artist and a space doctor at the same time? You're not even Asian! You're from Minnesota!"
"What, there's some law that Minnesotans can't learn martial arts? Or martial art masters can't become doctors of physics?"
You could almost hear Fiala frown. "Well no, but then it's usually like a doctor who knows some martial arts. Or a martial arts master who uses herbs and roots to heal. You can't be a master of both things. Doesn't that break some rule?"
"Absolutely not, Fiala. First, I'm not a medical doctor. Secondly, you will often find that mages have deep understandings in multiple spheres of magic. There's nothing special in that. In fact, all mages pursue at least two spheres, or even more."
"You've said that word before. Please tell our listeners; what is a sphere?"
"Mages divide all reality into nine spheres of influence. All things are created from Prime. Focused through Spirit and Mind. Given form though Life, Matter, and Forces. Perceived through Space (Correspondence) and Time. Destroyed by Entropy, only to resume the cycle once again though Prime."
"But don't they conflict with each other? Like, as a martial artist you can't believe in space. And your doctor powers disprove the idea that people can do martial arts?"
He laughed. "It's not like that, Fiala. I'm an Akashic. That means I believe that the mind, body, and spirit are all parts of a larger whole; the self. In the same way, each person is a part of a larger whole; the universe. We believe that simple tools can be used to hone ourselves to perfection. This is the way I practice my willworking; my magic. There is a harmony to how planets and stars dance through the galaxy. Knowing how suns and gravity work doesn't prevent me from comprehending myself. It actually helps. Just as a planet orbits around its star, does not my body move according to my mind? Just as an asteroid drifts through the cosmos, do not my actions also float through the orbits of the people around me?"
"Nod, nod."
"Fiala, you realize you're actually saying the word 'nod' and not nodding your head, right?"
Fiala nodded solemnly. "Deep. Very deep."
"You didn't understand a thing I just said, did you?"
"Correct! Your wisdom astounds me!" She gasped. "Or did you read my thoughts?! I hear that all Akashics are able to choke people to death with their mind!" She made choking noises. "Like that!"
"Trust me. Even though I am a master of the sphere of Mind, there is no way I'm ever going to enter your mind."
"But you didn't deny it! You can choke people to death with you mind!"
Sigh. "Yes, yes I can."
There was silence. Fiala's voice came slow and thoughtful. "So wait. You're a wizard with super mind bending powers, and magic martial arts?"
"Not a wizard. A mage. But yes."
"So you're a Jedi?"
"Not really. See, the-
"But you can control the weak willed, right?"
"Yes."
"You can move objects without touching them?"
"Yes. But Correspondence is more than just levitat-"
"And you have a glowing sword?"
"Well, I actually do have a sword, and it does glow with the shacked fury of the sun. How did you guess that-"
"So… you're a Jedi?"
Sigh. "Yes. Yes, Fiala, I am."
"Squeeeeeeeeeee!"
78 hours after D-Day
After days of search and destroy missions, the Reapers were effectively purged from Earth. And humanity's eyes turned towards the sky. A sky full of Reapers.
Thrumming vibrations shook the atmosphere as the twin realms of Doissetep and Mus rose from Earth's gravity well. A piercing harmonious tone echoed as they crossed the gauntlet into the Near Umbra, and further, heading to outer space and the Deep Umbra.
Behind them flew the gathered ships humanity had left. Time for the Alliance to go on the offensive; Humanity lifted to the stars, reaching forth to drive back their foes. Drive them back to the darkness from whence they came.
Half a million Reapers waited in Upper Earth Orbit, ready to crush humanity back into the dirt.
20 minutes earlier, Alliance HQ, London
There was a grinning savagery in the air. A predatory expectation.
People frantically rushed about; the last few moments before they took the fight into space.
"T-minus 5 minutes!"
"All wings, report in."
"Red leader standing by."
"Gold leader standing by."
"Home fleet standing by."
"Doissetep Central standing by."
"Mus Concordance Prime standing by."
"All lights green!"
Admiral Anderson stood. He nodded at the assembled mage liaisons. "It's time to lower the Avatar storm."
They nodded back. "Avatar storm dispersal commencing." Technomagic omnitools blazed to life. One of the mages knelt and started beating on a small drum. Others started chanting.
Anderson waited in silence; a bubble of calm in the furious action of the command center. After a moment, he leaned over to one of the mages that wasn't working on the ritual. "James, I've always wondered what exactly the Avatar storm was. Supposedly it's a centuries old weapon?"
The Hermetic shrugged. "It's a kind of spiritual Kessler syndrome. Shreds anything trying to leave earth."
"Yes, I gathered that much." Anderson nodded. "But how did it come about? Who built it?"
"Ah." James scratched the back of his head. "It wasn't really planed. A couple hundred years ago Stygia set off a magic thermonuclear relic bomb off in the siege of Enoch. That prematurely set off another nuclear relic that was going to be used in an experiment to close the mouth of Oblivion."
Anderson frowned. "What's a relic?"
"You know; a unique mythical version of something. Extremely powerful. Like how Excalibur's a sword relic."
"Relic… nukes." Anderson sighed. "…and what exactly is Stygia?"
"Stygia is the capital of the western dead, located on the Isle of Sorrows deep in the Tempest." The mage glanced at Anderson's stare. "The city in hell built by ghosts?"
Anderson closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "And Enoch?"
"Enoch? Don't they teach this stuff in school? The first city of vampires. Caine settled down there after being kicked out of the Garden of Eden. After it was destroyed by the biblical flood, it was preserved in the underworld. Still used as a secret base by the vampire shadow illuminati, though. But the Stygian attack was all a Ferryman plot in the end."
Anderson stared at the mage.
James sighed. "Ferryman? Like Charon? You know, the guy who take souls across the river Styx?"
Admiral Anderson kept staring.
The mage coughed. "Well, anyways, this blew up a bunch of souls, and their fragments formed a destructive layer between earth and the Umbra. Anything that didn't have a safe way though got annihilated. At the time, everyone thought it was a sign of the end times." He chuckled. "Heheh. After a while, we figured out a way to stop it. Then we did the obvious thing." His smile turned dark. "We weaponized it."
The other mages looked at Admiral Anderson. "Avatar storm disabled!"
Anderson bared his teeth. "Begin Operation Overoverlord!"
Magic lifted off earth, leaping to devour humanity's foes.
Both sides opened fire as soon as humanity crossed the gauntlet into the Umbra.
Swathes of destruction rippled through the Reapers. The nation-chantries of Mus and Doissetep surged forward in humanity's vanguard. Thousands of explosions gouted against shields and wards; fractal patterns of light and quintessence blazing, iridescence sublimating. Pulsing fire, lightning, and the primordial forces of reality struck back. Sundered Reaper hulks spiraled down to earth.
Returning beams of garnet magnetohydrodynamic potence struck down Alliance ships, sending them also tumbling down; drawn to earth by gravity.
Beneath the fleets pounding each other, weather patterns swirled madly across the globe. Earthquakes shook the mantle. Dormant volcanoes erupted. Missed shots crashed into the planet as well; craters of dirt and water amidst explosions.
"Stay on target! Stay on target!"
"Heavy fire, boss! Twenty-degrees."
"I see it. Stay low."
Alliance ships danced around and over the surfaces of the immense chantries, darting out to strike at exposed Reapers before retreating behind Doissetep and Mus's immense wards. Reaper fire caught the slow and unlucky, carbonizing the desperate Alliance ships.
"Stay in attack formation!"
"They've coming in! Three marks at two ten."
"Wait! They're breaking off!"
All the Reapers suddenly turned, synchronized fire drilling into a single spot on Doissetep's wards. For a moment, the shields held, under the combined strikes of over three hundred thousand Reapers. With a burst of irrigo light, the shields imploded, runes and sigils unravelling.
"This is Doissetep Central, they're focusing on our starboard flank! Home fleet, see if you can draw some of their fire."
"We're on it."
"Do a barrel roll!"
Despite humanity's desperate counter press, the Reapers suicidally continued to focus fire on Doissetep; hundreds of miles of its right flank simply exploded, pluming quintessence into the void. Slowly, the massive chantry twisted, trying to rotate its wounded flank away from enemy fire.
With the chantry's shields down, thousands of Reapers touched down on Doissetep's surface; ripping armor off and burrowing down even as they continued to drill magnetohydrodynamic ruin into it. Husks and Occuli pour down into the rents, bent on devouring any humans within.
Even more thousands of Reapers swarmed closer, using Doissetep's own bulk as cover against the rest of humanity's forces.
Anderson immediately gave the order as soon as Doissetep's shields dropped. "We'll have to engage them hand to hand. Signal the moon. Counter push!"
"Aye, Admiral!" One of the communication staff pulled off his headset and unrolled an ancient looking scroll. It was covered in softly glowing script, and was wrapped around a small black stone disk. He lifted the disk from the scroll to his lips. One finger tracing the glittering writing, he spoke into the stone. "Let this be the hour when we draw swords together. Fell deeds awake. Now for wrath, now for ruin, and the red dawn. Forth, Garou!"
As the comm specialist spoke, the words blazed red on the scroll, erasing themselves in burning swirls.
"Passphrase's too damn long." Anderson grumbled. James nodded. They turned back to the tactical display.
Battle-ready Garou in Crinos, Glabro, and Hispo forms rippled onto the surface of Doissetep, pathing directly into hand to hand distance. Each step they take bounds them towards and through the Reaper lines. Blades of gleaming argent rise and fall, severing tentacles, piercing hulls, and dismembering husks. Even in space, their hunting cries are heard across the Alliance comms.
As one Reaper falls, the Garou lift their swords and dash off to their next foe, howling as they flicker across the battlefield. Miles away, another Reaper falls to their blades, and they flash towards their next prey. The Garou are at home here, moving and twisting in ways beyond possible.
One of the Alliance techs stared blankly at the tactical displays. "How are they surviving in space? How are they moving so fast? How can they breathe?"
Garou whip by, swarming Reapers and chopping them to bits with their silver klaives. When the Reapers strike back, physical strikes whisper though the Crinos death machines without harm. Where desperate magnetohydrodynamic energy passes, Garou either step back through the gauntlet, or burn extra rage to dash impossibly away. Some simply transform themselves into the sun itself; becoming plasma wolves unbothered by the Reaper weapons.
James leaned over. "Garou are both human and spirit; they live as easily on earth and in the Umbra. Guardians of humanity. You guys keep thinking that the Umbra is just another word for space. It's not. Dreams live in the Umbra. The spirits of everything, living or dead, can be found in the Umbra. In the Umbra, speed is no longer based on physics, but on willpower."
In the distance, a bunch of Garou leap into space. Flying together, they formed a three dimensional phalanx formation. Then they started spinning. They dove directly at a Reaper and corkscrewed their way through it. Flickering, they ripped through anther Reaper a mile away. And again, and again.
Seeing the tide of battle turn against them, the Reapers on Doissetep's surface swarmed down into the cracks and chasms of Doissetep. As they dug deep, blue tendrils of mass effect energy started to leak though their armored forms.
"They've overloaded their reactors! They're going to expl-"
Thousands of blue-tinged explosions silently thundered across Doissetep. A rumbling tremor. Vibrations. Then a crackling green light spewed out of the cored flank of Doissetep. Additional explosions. A ten mile crack streaked through the Doissetep's glacis. Mile-long chunks started to detach and drift away.
"Resonance cascade! Cataclysmic quantum event detected! Scatter! All units, pull back!"
Garou and Alliance ships fled. Reapers directed even more fire into the collapsing hulk. A giant fireball engulfs Doissetep's entire right end. It lists for a long moment, sigils and runes flickering. Multiple explosions continue to come from inside it, throughout its entire length. Everything is on fire; an eldritch flame that sears the eye. From its prime meridian, a series of explosions ripple from right to left, unzipping the chantry into miles of broken rock, strewn in all directions.
The burning chunks of rock spin into the void. The strange fires burn brighter and brighter, then suddenly die out; leaving not even rubble behind.
Within less than a minute, the entire chantry of Doissetep is gone.
Not a single rock remains.
Admiral Anderson spoke. "All ships, rejoin formation around Mus. Spread out and prepare to engage across the entire front if they try to repeat the same maneuver."
One of the Alliance generals ran up to Anderson, gesturing wildly. "They've destroyed Doissetep! We've got to retreat! Pull everything back! Regroup! Send in all the reinforcements! Send – why aren't you concerned?" He glared suspiciously at James, who stood next to Anderson.
James shrugged. "Meh. We knew it would blow up again. It's fate. Doissetep will always be destroyed. We knew it was coming." James smiled. A dark smile. "But what is dead need not stay dead. You thought it was the fifth version of Doissetep, right? Not even close. Doissetep 6000 is going to be even bigger." Teeth like tombstones. "And it'll be made of even more explosions. I mean, can you even imagine the techniques we had to think up to build something in a place literally made of the clashing forces of reality? And then, keep it stable? Trust me. You ain't seen nothing yet." James said. He shrugged again. "Besides, the Garou purified entropy. Then they went and awakened the moon. It's not like we can let them one-up us like that."
The Alliance general was slowly nodding, but paused. "What was that about the moon?"
"Hmm? Oh, you didn't notice yet? Check this out; things are about to get crazy."
The Reapers swarmed closer, closer, pressing the advantage against the suddenly off balance forces of humanity.
The moon stirred. Shifted. Rippled. Then it wrenched itself out of orbit, and crashed into the Reapers. It blazed with light; too bright to directly look at. Beams of power shot out, not only searing Reapers, but also carrying werewolves; delivering them directly into the heart of the Reaper formations.
As the moon turned to battle, a serpent of death and ruin lifted from earth to coil around Luna; its ebony corpus forming out of the heat-death of the universe. The Wyrm opened its maw. It opened, opened. The size of a continent, where the shadow of its mouth passed, Reapers fell cold and grew still.
Mus surged forward, carrying the rest of the fleet of Humanity to reengage.
Today, the Reapers face extinction.
Back in London, the bewildered general stared blankly at the tactical displays. "Wh… When did this happen?"
Two weeks ago
Emboldened by their successful cleansing the Wyrm, the Children of Gaia crashed for 24 hours. When they woke, they found themselves surrounded by a cornucopia of Umbral delights, along with a small card.
The card had a simple message: 'Kkthxbye', and a cartoonish squiggle of a smiling worm/dragon thing.
Shrugging, they tore into the feast. As they gorged themselves, power and insight filled them.
After eating, they took a 15 minute potty break, and then started up a new ritual to awaken the moon.
After everything was over, they framed the card.
"What is this?" the general continued, "Why is the moon attacking the Reapers? How is it even moving?!"
James looked back. "Hmm? The werewolves woke the spirit of Luna, and now She marches with them to war. She also fuels them with murder juice and supercharges their powers."
There was a pause.
The general swallowed. He spoke slowly, "So… werewolves are using the moon as a shuttle? A boarding shuttle?"
"Not just a boarding shuttle. More like a weapons platform," James said. "They're carrying a lot of other weapon systems as well. Like that giant serpent," James pointed. "That's the Wyrm. The embodiment of entropy. The beast that devours reality at the end of time."
"A death weapon," the general murmured. "An honest to God death weapon. A literal death weapon. Not just a weapon that causes death. A weapon made of death."
"Yes. The Death of all known reality, to be precise."
Silence.
"So it's no moon, it's a space station?"
James sighed. "You idiot! It is the moon. It's a space station because it's the moon! That's the reason they could weaponize it in the first place."
The Reaper's orbital blockade fleet crushed, Humanity redid their lines of battle, then turned their engines towards Pluto, and the Mass Relay there.
Half a million shattered Reaper shells drifted in space. Three million more stood before Humanity and the Relay.
Humanity was coming for them.
Omake
The Wyrm coiled around Luna, a blade formed from the weeping ruin of reality in its mouth, tens of thousands of miles long.
"Hrrrrkrrrmrlrrlrlrmmggrr!"*
*"Drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword!"
Omake - Speed of movement in Umbra
"Garou are both human and spirit; they live as easily on earth and in the Umbra. Guardians of humanity. You guys keep thinking that the Umbra is just another word for space. It's not. Dreams live in the Umbra. The spirits of everything, living or dead, can be found in the Umbra. In the Umbra, speed is no longer based on physics, but on willpower."
Another mage leans over. "Actually, since they're werewolves, it's still 60 + Dexterity x3 yards per turn at a sprint. And that's before factoring in any Gifts, fetishes, spirits, or bonuses to Dex if they've transformed into Crinos or Hispo."
The first mage nodded. "Oh yeah. Totally OP."
Omake
James nodded approvingly at the death of Doissetep. "Good. It died in a fire. Perfect."
"What?"
"That way it can't be reanimated by the enemy. Can you imagine a zombie Doissetep? It's would be terrible to fight against."
