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Chapter Fifteen
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Chaos reigned immediately. Aline barely even had time to feel the true fear of being in a pitched battle; her robo-dragon was off like a shot, breathing flames and dragging its rider along.
Aline's task was to disrupt vital enemy units by rampaging through them and dropping Writer's Blocks. She was to be one of the elite forces, a vital part of the offense. If the enemy couldn't advance because they were being sucked into a vortex of nonbeing, so much the better for their side.
In reality, she mostly screamed a lot and flailed. This strategy seemed to work for her, so she proceeded onward with it.
The writer's blocks barely affected her at all now. Only the occasional metaphor occurred to her; mostly flowery ones about war. This left her free to deal death and destruction with impunity.
These aren't real people, she thought as she sank a squadron of fangirls. They're metaphors. Abstractions. Not real people with real parents and friends and interests, just inhuman, monstrous abstractions…
Just as she was starting to feel really terrible about herself, a yaoi fangirl managed to climb all the way up the robo-dragon, Legolas style, and nearly took out Aline with a blow to the back of the head that she didn't see coming—just as Trunkie heroically ate half of her. When he opened up again to give Aline access to the precious blocks, there was no trace of the half-a-girl.
Jesus, thought Aline, even though she was Jewish.
She hurled another writer's block with many fewer compunctions.
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D didn't even have a mount. She didn't need one. After all, she was all about understatement. It was kind of her thing.
She wore no armor, no special gear. She had her trench coat, her boots, and her flamethrower. She did not charge, but merely walked, the vast forces around her parting like the Red Sea.
She could even have sworn there were some slow-motion effects going on just for her benefit, her coal-black hair and coat-flaps blowing majestically in the wind as she went to her death.
She was quite sure this would be her death. As an avatar of death, she was uniquely equipped to know things like that. No matter how things went, D would fight alone, and fight spectacularly, and she would die. Normally, bodily death wouldn't be an obstacle for her. Antropomorphic personifications died all the time. Some bureaucracy later, they got new bodies and were right back. She could even get the same body she was used to, short and stumpy and sallow though it was.
But with reality ending, she imagined the bureaucratic backlog would be incredible. No new body for her.
So, she figured, she'd enjoy it.
Slowly as she walked, she unhooked the nozzle to her flame thrower. She flipped the switch that would let loose the gas in the canisters stored on her back. Step after step, until she saw the first of the enemy, a wild contingent of shippers, waving their spears and cutlasses, screaming about Harmony or whatever the hell.
Gee, she thought, right before she squeezed the nozzle and filled her world with flame and death and violence. I'm really going to miss Nikki.
It was a thought that made her sad, so she quickly covered it with fire.
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Nikki flew above the chaos, swooping occasionally to direct troops and help out on individual skirmishes. She didn't really know much about battles, but then, neither did Marie. Neither did any of the teenage girls taking part on either side. As such, it wasn't much of a realistic battle, leaving the mighty general with free movement to observe.
Things weren't going well.
There were just too many of them.
She saw mighty beasts of legend swarmed over like termites over a delicious abandoned Victorian house. She saw great warriors overcome by nothing but viciousness, devotion, and numbers. Sheer numbers.
Evil armies were frequently numerous, she thought, but then, they usually weren't made up of disadvantaged, devoted teen girls fighting for their right to exist.
It was troubling.
Nikki knew she probably wasn't a hero. And D probably wasn't a hero. And Jenna was absolutely, definitely not even a little at all a hero.
But they weren't...villains, were they?
Aline certainly wasn't.
But Aline was a teenage girl…
It would all come down to her, she was sure of it. She was the main character, of course it would all come down to her. She just had to trust.
She wasn't much for trust, which was why she'd borrowed one of that raccoon's machine guns and was presently going to town on whatever got in her way. Nikki had absolutely no idea that a machine gun was not a hand weapon, and that by all rights it should have pounded her shoulder into splintered mush after five seconds. Nikki was very careful to keep herself completely ignorant of the realities of warfare. It was this that most accounted her great success.
She swooped and dived, helping wherever the flank seemed weakest. She ought to have been looking for Marie—Marie, just Marie, not mother, not Mom—the one person who could really threaten the Hub and surrounding territories (i.e. everything). But even Nikki's mercenary tendencies were curbed when she saw the very people and things who had herded her through childhood under threat of annihilation.
Time after time, she saved canons from certain destruction. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
Her pteranodon was tiring. He perched on a convenient outcropping in the middle of the battle as it surged around them. Nikki took deep breaths, wiping sweat from her forehead. They'd win. They would win. Or else, she'd—she'd—
She spotted D. She could track her path through the battlefield by the scorch marks and piles of ash she left in her wake. But even in from the sky, she could tell her heart wasn't in it. Nikki had seen D up against an impossible enemy with nothing but her flamethrower before, once. It had inspired awe and terror and loyalty. But now…she was a mere shadow of herself. Well, more than usual.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a particularly advanced yaoi fangirl leapt up behind her, wielding a twenty-dollar garage sale katana, all the more deadly for her sincere belief in it. D must have sensed her, because she wheeled about, but she was too slow, the flame thrower too heavy, she wouldn't work up the momentum fast enough—
Nikki filled the yaoi fangirl with lead, her blood running cold and ruthless, just a bare second before a gout of flame torched her completely.
She saw D glance up, her dark hair blowing in the wind, tangled and stunning. She gave a faint grin, and was then out of sight as the pteranodon kept flying.
I can't keep doing this, Nikki thought, her ears ringing. I'm only one person. I won't make that much of a difference. I need to find Marie. I need to end the threat. There's always going to be someone else to save.
She banked, flying deeper into the enemy's side of the field, where Marie would be. I have to—
She spotted a grizzled, shirtless barbarian nearly overrun with shippers, clinging to him, threatening to bring him down through sheer weight. He was roaring with rage, clawing at them, to no avail.
She swooped low, her pteranodon snatching two of them in its talons and flinging them away.
Yug the Unrelenting had always given her just the best girl advice.
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Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh—and another one bites the dust, thought D. She was having an awful lot of inane thoughts during this battle. Not that she descended into an inferno of rage every time she got in a scuffle. She was usually very clear-headed in these situations. She'd be thinking about any number of things as she went. Old memories, cool places to go for coffee, things she was reading, the impending deaths of everyone around her. That sort of thing.
That last yaoi girl had almost killed her. Would the sheer power of belief in shitty fake swords have sliced her to pieces before she had turned around and torched her? If Nikki hadn't been there, D didn't know what would have happened.
I'm off my game, she thought, as scores of teen girls fled in terror before her.
Nikki was gone now, probably off to murder her jerk mom. D was alone.
She happened to glance up. Gee, she thought, What's that weird black mark in the sky?
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A dark hole opened in the unsky. It was not mere black, nor a mere evilly-purple black. It had traces of devilish red, and a color of pure malevolence indescribable in the tongues of women or men.
It began as a pinprick, and grew as big as a plot hole. But then, it became bigger, growing at an alarming rate. Many of the participants of the battle paused to look up.
Nikki's face broke into a wild grin.
All the forces of hell itself broke loose from that awful pit in the middle of the sky.
Devils and demons, hellspawn and succubi, beasts of unimaginable terror and destruction of every size and unspeakable shape came lurching forth, bursting like a pustule. And they showed no signs of ever stopping.
"JENNA!" Nikki couldn't suppress herself from shrieking.
Her sister came riding forth upon a three-headed dog with a tacky spiked collar. Her yellow dress was pristine, her hair a lovely floating brown cloud behind her.
"Guess what I found!" the little girl said cheerfully, as the forces of hell itself swarmed over the field of battle.
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Aline was a little surprised by the forces of hell itself joining the battle on their side, but honestly, not by a lot.
Yeah, we're definitely the bad guys, she thought, but it was a brief, inconsequential thought, taken in between hurling death to all those below her. As she decimated scores of ravening teen girls, her robo-dragon snapped them up and ate them. She had a vague suspicion that a robo-dragon wouldn't actually be able to digest human flesh, but who knew. Things were weird here. Did robo-dragons poop? Would she have to pick up after it?
She definitely didn't have plastic bags big enough for that.
Oh, no, she thought as one of her deadly missiles rendered an entire squad of fangirls into black nothingness, I hope I won't get in trouble for that. I've already messed up so much.
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The battle wore on and on. With the sulfurous, mind-bogglingly hideous demons from the pits of every conscious mind's imagination of the span of all human history, things were a bit more even.
D barely even had to try anymore. She just sauntered forward with her hand clasped tight on the trigger and everything burned before her. If anything got close to her, some kind of red-skinned devil or lawyer would snatch it up and bite its head off.
Then—suddenly—the flames sputtered, stopped. She was squeezing the trigger, but there was no fire. Just a few pathetic hissing noises.
She was out of gas.
This had never happened before. Never. Not for all ten million or so years that D had existed had she run out of firepower.
She stared at the useless fire hose in her hand, mute and disbelieving. Numbly she let it drop.
There was probably a metaphor in here somewhere. Something about how the flamethrower represented her ego, and the gas in it represented her belief in herself, and when she ran out of that, when she lost hope—no fire.
Which was stupid. It was probably because reality was ending. D was, in her own awful way, an integral part of reality. Parts of her amalgamated imagination-identity must be breaking down.
Or maybe it was the metaphor thing. Like she actually knew.
Soon they'd realize that the lack of flame issuing from her general direction wasn't a temporary situation. She would have to use her grace period wisely.
She loosened the straps of the flame thrower from her back for what felt like the first time in a very, very long time.
The first enemy combatant that was brave enough to lunge for her got a steel canister to the face.
"Anybody else?" D snarled.
For a second they hesitated. Then they, as a whole, decided that the answer was, 'all of us, at once, while screaming'. They descended upon her.
She did well, for a while. She whacked and clunked and smashed skulls and splintered limbs and bit and spat and kicked for all she was worth, but she was, after all, inhabiting a rather small, physically unimpressive body. One by one, they snuck in a cut here, a blow there. She'd die the death of a thousand cuts. Or else they'd just dogpile on her and she'd be crushed to jelly.
She could pinpoint the exact moment where she gave up. She just couldn't lift the damn canister anymore. She was just so tired. She'd existed for such a long time. Maybe it was best that reality was ending. She'd get to rest. Nobody would ever bother her again.
Sorry, Nikki, she thought, closing her eyes. I don't think I can come back this time.
But bodily nonbeing didn't come.
She could swear she heard the rumble of horse's hooves. Or was that the revving of a motorcycle engine?
She opened her eyes. The combatants were fleeing, but not from her. She turned.
"Out of gas, huh?" Walt said. "There's a pill for that, you know."
D stared, her long-deadpan facial muscles struggling to convey a fraction of what was going through her head. Then she smiled. She really, actually smiled.
"Sorry we're late," Fran said. She was as horrifically thin and emaciated as ever, her eyes bulging, her skin sallow and stretched tight over the bones, but she was wearing it so much better suddenly, as well as she had in the heyday. And she didn't have that stupid hat anymore.
"Can't have an apocalypse without horsemen, can you?" Paul rasped in his disease-choked voice. He didn't look quite as unwell as he had back in the day, but then, this was a post-germ theory world. Allowances had to be made.
"Horsepersons," Fran corrected sharply.
"Wow," D said, a little bit choked. "Guys, I…"
"Didn't think we'd come?" Paul chuckled. "Of course we came. It's the hopeless eleventh hour of the final battle, and we're the cavalry."
"Actually, we already got reinforcements from hell," D pointed out.
"Geez," Fran muttered, "You try to do something nice for someone, and all you get is whining."
"Yea, Deb, I kinda thought we were having a moment here," Walt said. "You can tell because we're having this whole conversation in the middle of a battle like it's no big deal."
"Are we having a moment, guys?" Fran queried.
It was eventually agreed upon that they were, in fact, having a moment.
D rubbed at her eyes, which were undergoing kind of mysterious allergic reaction. "Where'd you get the hogs?"
"Stole them from the Good Omens apocalypse," Walt said brightly. "That's why we're late."
"Well, I hope you have one for me," D groused, crossing her arms, "Because I am not riding bitch."
"Bitch is a gendered slur," Fran said, glaring. "You bitch."
Hers was pale and ghostly. Perfect.
She settled into it, not minding at all that she didn't know how to drive a motorcycle any more than she knew how to drive a car.
"Well, friends," she said, revving the engine, "Let's have ourselves a properlike apocalypse. Reunion tour edition."
The Four Lesser Horsepersons of Uncomfortable Truths rode out.
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Suddenly, the robo-dragon lurched sideways.
Aline hadn't actually been consciously controlling it. It just went where she wanted it to without her having to do anything at all. As soon as she realized that this didn't make any sense, all semblance of control was lost; the robo-dragon was going to go where it wanted.
It was all she could do to hang on.
Enemy soldiers were being trampled underfoot, but every few seconds one of them would clamber up on it and make a swipe at Aline.
Unfortunately, she was too busy clinging to the saddle to effectively defend herself. Her life was in Trunkie's hands—hinges?—now.
At first she couldn't understand why this had happened—then she saw it. The robo-dragon's head was low to the ground, snapping its powerful jaws at something tiny and fleeing. She squinted, trying to get a good look at it. With the crush of the bodies and the constant attempts on her life and the breakneck pace they were moving at, it was damn near impossible.
Then she saw it. It was a tiny flat cylinder with little legs and a compass face. It was the Narrative Direction.
Aline relaxed. If she was following the Narrative Direction, she could only assume she would be where she was supposed to be.
Unless, it suddenly occurred to her, that she was one of those heroic sacrifice type underdogs.
Oh dear.
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The tide was turning. They were advancing! Nikki could see where one sea of bodies met the other, as her side began to push forward.
She whooped.
For a moment, she became so caught up in the excitement of actually winning that she forgot she had a job to do.
She wheeled around, confident, now, that her associates would be more or less safe. Missiles flew at her; arrows, bolts, flaming pages of fanfiction. She managed to dodge most of them, but not all. The pteranodon took a few hits.
She shushed it comfortingly. Just a bit more. Just enough to find Marie…
…who was nowhere to be found.
In fact, neither was the Fourth Wall.
Hmm, Nikki thought. Where actually is the Fourth Wall?
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Marie took a deep breath.
So many thoughts—worries, fears, regrets, wild hopes—crowded her mind that they all faded to a buzz in the back of her head.
She had to concentrate on what she was doing now. This whole battle was a distraction to keep her daughters occupied long enough. They would be getting last-minute tide-turning reinforcements just about now. It was time to act.
She gave a pleasant, professional smile, and turned to you. Yes, you. The reader.
"Hello, my dear reader," she said. "This is Marie. You've been reading about me as the villain of this story. I don't hold this against you at all."
She took out the Reality Hammer. "You've been mislead," she told you, quite reasonably. "Narrative framing devices are powerful tools, but in the wrong hands, they can wreak havoc. I'm sure you've encountered this in your day-to-day life."
You take a moment to think about this. Perhaps what she says is true, even if she is a fictional character.
"But now," she said, taking a deep breath, her fingers tightening around the Hammer's handle, "It is time for that to end."