Chapter Two
The Gathering
The alien massacre continued to rage across the face of the Earth, the alien forces spreading outward and carving a path of death and destruction that knew no end. The Gods had to work fast. The original eight reached out, first to their own pantheons, and then to those that surrounded them, alerting all they came across of the plan.
On the Caribbean island of Haiti, the Vodou God Baron Samedi stepped out of a nightclub where he had spent much of the previous night engaging in all his favorite forms of hedonism and debauchery. He flourished his long coat, tucked his cane under his arm, and lit up a new cigar, looking out on his island just as the alien armada reached it.
"Well, well, what have we here?"
Baron Samedi took a long drag from his smoke, watching as the island's population was decimated in minutes. He glanced to the northwest, where he could see mortal military around Cuba trying its best to hold off the attackers, but nothing they tried had any effect.
Samedi turned away. Human wars were a constant occurrence, and death was a mere passing from one stage into another. What did he care? Honestly, the most interesting part was that a new player seemed to have entered the game.
He twirled his cane as he walked down the lane, humming to himself a song that had played in the club the night before. A mother and her child ran past him, only to be sliced in half by an alien's large green sickle. Samedi stopped, adjusting his gloves as he prepared to do his job as a psychopomp. He bent down over the two corpses and reached out his hand, but stopped.
His eyes scanned the two bodies. Something was wrong.
He looked around the street around him. Bodies lay everywhere, all just waiting for him to help guide their souls to the afterlife. But for each and every single one, something very specific was missing.
Samedi's hand clenched around his cane.
His thoughts were distracted as a loud roar pierced the sky, and a humongous feathered serpent slammed into one of the alien ships, clamping onto it with his big jaws and tearing at it viciously.
"You dare to attack my people, monsters?" the creature shouted, tossing the ship at one of its fellows and swooping down to scoop up a number of the aliens in one bite and swallow them whole. He was about to attack another ship when a blast hit him in the side.
Samedi raised his cane, considering making a move, when a second feathered serpent rushed through the sky above, slamming into the ship that had shot its fellow as a monkey and a spider leapt off its back and started bashing every alien they came across. Baron Samedi slinked back into the shadows at the sight, considering it best to wait and observe for now.
"Are you alright, Brother Quetzal?" the second feathered serpent asked.
The first shook his head, rising back into the sky. "I am only singed, Kukulkan," he said. "What is happening here? Why are you accompanied by Gods from across the sea?"
"We have formed an alliance." Kukulkan filled in his Mexica counterpart on everything that had been discussed at the meeting in Palestine.
"It is a daring plan," Quetzalcoatl said. "You can count on my aid."
"Thank you, my friend. I intend to cross the sea, recruit the Gods of the Maori, the Hawaiians, and all others of the Pacific. Can I count on you to travel South, reach out to Viracocha of the Inca and the others of South and Central America?"
"You can. But what of North America?"
"We've got that covered," Sun Wukong said, landing on Quetzalcoatl's back and picking through his feathers for bugs. "Nancy and I have a couple of friends up that way. KK here was just giving us a ride."
Kukulkan nodded, ignoring Anansi as he spun a web between his horns. "I have brought you here, Tricksters. Please, hurry. We do not have much time."
"You got it," the Monkey King said. He leaped off Quetzalcoatl's back, grabbed Anansi, and somersaulted off a nearby cloud, vanishing into the distance.
"If you'll excuse me," Kukulkan said, shaking his head in amusement, "I must visit Xibalba before I make my journey. Farewell, brother."
"Farewell."
The two feathered serpents parted ways, heading to the south and west respectively. Baron Samedi stepped out of the shadows once they were gone.
"Interesting," he said, before twirling his cane and disappearing.
Far up north, in Yellowstone National Park, the aliens dropped a giant creature that towered over the lodges dotting the park. Its heightened sense of smell drew it to the animals of the region, and it quickly slaughtered any and all bears, bison, moose, elk, wolves, and tourists it came across, leaving a path of death and destruction in its wake.
As it crested a hill, it stopped, smelling . . . something. Something like . . . rotten eggs? Or sulfur? The creature wasn't certain what the smell was, but it didn't think it was alive. It turned its attention instead to a herd of buffalo resting near the smell.
That's when large bursts of fire exploded on top of its head. The creature roared and looked up to see a giant raven fly overhead, a pair of firebrands clenched in its beak. It made to chase after the bird when it felt something nip at the back of its heels. It spun quickly, but couldn't find anything.
"Whatcha looking at?" a sly voice said.
The monster spun back around to find nothing there again.
"Seriously, are you that slow?"
The monster spun again, this time catching a glimpse of a bushy brown tail sprinting rapidly into the bush.
The monster reared, stamping its feet and going after the thing. It smelled a strong presence somewhere nearby, a little like the wolves it had eaten. Or those small things that kinda looked like wolves. Just as it was about to smash through the brush, another burst of fire caught it right in the eyes and blinded it.
"Oh, nice shot, Smokey!" the voice shouted again.
"I was quite proud of that one myself," a new voice said.
The monster spun around, its vision slowly returning to see the large raven had settled on a small tree overlooking a cliff, a large coyote standing on his hind legs and leaning against the tree trunk below.
The coyote took a long drag on a pipe in its mouth and stepped forward. "Alright, then, big boy," he said. "Let's see how smart you actually are."
The monster roared furiously, stamping its feet again and charging the coyote. Both it and the bird moved swiftly out of the way as the creature barreled off the cliff and into the open air, seeing a large pool of superheated rainbow-colored water beneath it. Before it even had a chance to escape, it plunged into the pool, the water boiling it alive in seconds, the chemicals eating away at its flesh and bone until there was nothing left.
Raven let out a long whistle, circling the pool to make sure it was gone. "Didn't seem very smart to me," he said, landing back on the tree beside his friend.
"No," Coyote said. "Sadly, that one was too easy." He glanced up at the alien ships flying around above. "You think the ones up there are any smarter?"
"I sure hope so," a new voice said. "Otherwise, we're going to be so bored."
Coyote and Raven's eyes lit up. They turned to see a pair of friends they hadn't seen in centuries.
"Goku!"
"Nancy!"
"Wiley!"
"Smokey!"
The four tricksters spent the next two minutes performing an even more complicated handshake involving all of the same limbs from before, as well as all four of Coyote's paws and both Raven's wings and talons.
"What are you two scoundrels doing all the way up here?" Raven said.
"Are we getting the Trickster Guild back together?" Coyote asked. "Did Loki get free?"
"Not yet," Sun Wukong said. "But I hope so."
Sun Wukong explained everything that had happened so far, Anansi helping by weaving an intricate tapestry of it all. "Can I keep that?" Coyote asked once Sun Wukong was finished. "It'll look wonderful in my den."
"Intending to use the afterlives as safe havens for the souls of humanity," Raven mused thoughtfully. "A clever plan. I'd have killed to see the look on Old Thunderhead's face before Jesus explained further."
"I included that, actually," Anansi said, reaching over the tapestry and pointing out Zeus's face.
Coyote rolled up the tapestry and stashed it in his satchel. "If that is the plan," he said, "then what are you two doing here? Shouldn't you be negotiating with your death gods or whatever?"
Sun Wukong stuck his finger in his ear and dug around for a second. "Yeah," he said, shifting a little. "See, the thing with that is . . . my death god, King Yama, he may or may not like me very much. I may or may not have once stolen his book of the dead and erased my name from it. And the name of every other monkey I knew. And you guys, of course."
Raven smirked. "Of course."
"So, you know, I figured the Jade Emperor could handle that part. Plus, we kinda share King Yama with the Hindu pantheon (it's complicated), so Vishnu was already kinda taking care of that anyway, so . . ."
"And my death god's been hunting me for centuries," Anansi said. "So . . ."
"Ooh," Coyote said, scratching his chin. "I'm sure there's a great story behind that. What'd you do?"
Anansi raised six of his hands. "I swear I only borrowed some water from his house a couple times."
"Uh-huh," Raven said.
"Sure," Coyote added.
"I swear on my children. Either way, he scares me. So, I let Nyame handle that one. Plus, Nyame plays cards with Olorun and Unkulunkulu every other Thursday, so he's better at gathering the African Gods than I am."
"And I may have accidentally unleashed a few hundred Yokai once," Sun Wukong said. "So, literally no one in Japan is going to listen to me, so that's one neighbor pantheon out. But we figured since we're friends with you, and you guys are like super important to most of the religions around here, we could take some of the load off of Kukulkan."
"That's so nice of you," Coyote said.
"I know, right."
Coyote puffed on his pipe for a second. "Yeah, sure, I'm in. I can gather up most of those in the Southwest, then I'll reach out to Manitou out East. He can gather most of everybody from there."
"And I'll head up North," Raven said. "Gather the Inuit Gods and anyone else I can find."
Sun Wukong smiled. "You guys are the best. Tricksters forever?"
"Tricksters forever," his companions said.
The four tricksters performed a much shorter farewell handshake. As they parted, Anansi glanced wistfully toward the South. "So, any chance the Spider Woman's still around?"
Coyote followed the spider's gaze. "Yeah, she's still down there in Arizona," he said. "You know she'll try to eat you if you approach, right?"
Anansi's face spread into a huge grin. "Counting on it," he said.
Shortly after the initial meeting, the seven gathered Gods had used their combined powers to create a new temple, one with a portal to every possible location in the entire world, with rooms for every pantheon so that no Gods could claim authority over it over any others. Once the Gods had gathered their forces and made arrangements with their Death Gods, they were to return to the temple, to make preparations for war.
Ra's Sun Barque entered the portal, coming to rest in a large docking bay. On board, Ra stood with every single Egyptian God he could muster, the only exceptions being Osiris, Anubis, and the Gods of Judgment, who were busy preparing the House of the Dead for the souls of humanity to arrive.
Mixed in with all the Egyptian Gods were Gods from all over Africa. Ra had done his part, reaching out to the Gods of Carthage and the Berbers and others in his area, but the true bulk of that work had been done by Nyame, king of the Akan Gods.
"Thanks for the lift," Nyame said, wearing sky blue garments made of cloud and carrying a large book under his arm.
Ra nodded as he stood beside him. "Consider it thanks for the many days you have entertained me with your stories on my voyage across the sky," he said.
Nyame smirked and patted his book. "Many more where those came from," he said. "And hopefully more still to come. You know my counterpart Olorun of the Yoruba."
He gestured to a large man standing nearby, with bright cosmic eyes and a large chameleon on his shoulder.
"We have crossed paths," Ra said, nodding to him.
"It is rare that I descend personally to the mortal plane," Olorun said. "I hope I and my Orisas do not live to regret it."
"I hope not either."
The three kings looked on as their followers disembarked from the boats. Ra spotted a brief moment of tension between his followers Horus and Set as they both grabbed a large box, but they seemed to be doing their best to put aside their differences for now. Up on the deck, his follower Thoth was taking down the names of every god passing by, the Zulu god Unkulunkulu having to spell out his name for him.
Across the way, another portal opened, and an intricate vessel of Chinese design draped in gold cruised into the port. On the deck, Ra could see Vishnu standing with the Jade Emperor, the Buddha, and the Japanese sun god Izanagi. Various Gods from the Hindu, Chinese, Japanese, and other surrounding pantheons lined the deck.
"Seems they had little trouble gathering their forces," Olorun observed.
"No," Ra said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to launch our countermeasures quickly enough, and this war will only last a short time."
"Maybe," Nyame mused. His eyes drifted to the portals leading to Greece, Scandinavia, and the Middle East. "Though, by my understanding of their legends, I do not envy Zeus and Thor their tasks of negotiating with their Death Gods. There's a lot of bad blood there."
Ra clicked his beak. "I do not envy the task ahead of Jesus either. He and his people have made a lot of enemies in that little corner of the world. I suspect their Gods will be less than willing to ally themselves with him."
As Ra suspected, the three Gods in question were each filled with trepidation in that moment. Zeus descended to his pantheon's underworld, seeing his brother's castle in the distance, knowing full well Hades would not readily agree to Jesus's plan. Meanwhile, Thor flew to the realm of Helheim, a world ruled over by one of the fiercest sworn enemies of Asgard, destined to be one of the key figures of their opposition when Ragnarok came.
Finally, Jesus sat in the passenger seat of a Mazda, the Persian God of the same name in the driver's seat beside him, the pair driving through the streets of Iraq as they approached the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, where he knew Marduk of the Babylonians, Baal of the Canaanites, and Teshub of the Hittites all waited for him.