Episode:
19: The Great Monsoon, Part 1
Adam must fight to defend the cloud gears from the Empire, but the level at which the Empire is willing to go just to win is shocking to all. Adam finds help from an unlikely source.
One slap to the side of the metal cube functioned jolly well. It turned into pure magic, before changing shape and taking the form of a ten-foot-tall mechanical turret. It whirred to life, beeping yellow until Adam inputted the instructions that identified its targets. Even for relatively old technology, it was surprisingly advanced. The Negative Cloud Kingdom had exhausted quite a lot of their money developing weaponry before they were conquered by the Butterfly Empire, and they had to hide them when they came under their occupation. These defence cannons had been lying dormant for centuries, and they still stood the test of time.
Magic, plus technology. Amazing!
Adam stood back up and examined his handiwork. The turret was now completely operational.
'That's the last one.' He whistled in relief. 'All four-hundred defence cannons have been set up at strategic points around the city. This'll make a world of difference.'
'You really think so?' asked River. 'The Pony Heads deployed as many Cloud Knights to the basement levels as possible. What difference will a few hundred little cannons make?'
'"Little"?' he scoffed. 'They're twice your height! Besides, this stuff really packs a punch, and they're really precise, too.'
The defence cannons used some kind of magielectromagnetic core to function, which distributed energy by magical means to supply the ammunition. The cannons fired a powerful, high-speed energy projectile capable of blasting through three-inch steel. They were equipped with a reasonably advanced computer system and a network of wires and arcane circuitry, allowing it to be programmed to target and eliminate anybody whom the mechanic desired.
Admittedly, Adam understood little of how it worked. He understood the technology behind the magielectromagnetic core, and inputting a target was reasonably easy, but he was no mechanic. He awkwardly had to go back to Lilacia so she could give him some notes on its operation.
After that, it was simply a matter of distributing the cannon cubes with Dimensional magic and setting them all up. Doing it one by one was annoying, but at least it offered him the chance to get to know how it worked a little better.
The very last defence cannon Adam set up was in the location in which he and River had been stationed: the engines rooms of the Cloud Kingdom. Adam and River had been sent to defend the cloud gears, the primary target of the Butterfly Empire. It was not just them, of course, but they and their defence cannons were the last line of defence. After all, as Chezna had said, somebody with mastery over the arcane arts was certainly a trump card.
A warm blast of steam ruffled through the clothes beneath his armour. The engine rooms of the Cloud Kingdom were filled with brass metal walls, shining almost like gold. Various cyberpunk-esque pipes and exhausts thumped in rhythm to the gears and hissed out steam. A large set of metallic double doors stood at the end of the room, with a series of locks over them. No doubt there was a whole troop of Cloud Knights guarding it on the other side.
'So, what was the other Princess Pony Head like?'
Adam looked up at River. He shrugged. 'She's more down-to-Mewni, I guess. She's more serious, too, but she's a good person at heart.'
'How'd you meet? It's rare for a princess to make friends with a wandering commoner.'
The Mewman rolled his eyes at the remark and said, 'It's a long story.'
'We are not dispensed of time, Adam.'
'Okay, fine.' He trilled his lips. 'We met in the Sawdust Semidesert. I was scavenging for some supplies, and Lilacia was on her way to a meeting with the Resistance. She was being tailed by several Empire agents for her suspicious behaviour, so she got ambushed. I got involved, took 'em out and stopped them reporting her back to the Empire. She was grateful enough to keep in contact, to give me reports about all Butterfly activities in the Cloud Kingdom…y'know, in exchange for keeping quiet about her complicity in the Resistance's operations. In Mzulft, she almost got caught, but I managed to get her out. So that's why she's helping us.'
'That's…quite a transactional relationship.'
'That's what life is like where I'm from,' he said, shrugging. 'Everything comes with a price. You don't get anything for free. If you happened to encounter someone who didn't want something in exchange for service, they're far more untrustworthy than even the common thief. You know, if you're good at something, you should never do it for free.'
'Do not take offence to this, Adam, but I hope never to visit this "Negative Multiverse". I've already heard from Star many things from her stay, and none of it was particularly pleasant.'
Adam looked away. 'It's a horrible place, I know,' he admitted. 'But it was my home. It's my past. And…it's a part of me.'
'If you don't mind my asking…why choose to fight this war on both fronts? Where do you belong, with us or the Negative Multiverse?'
He thought long and hard about the question.
'You were right. About what you said before.' River frowned. 'I'm not a soldier. I'm barely even a sorcerer. I'm just a peasant who got lucky. I never had any standing in anything. Whilst I was fighting for my survival out there, almost dying every other day, there was only one thing that put me a cut above the rest. My brain. I was smart; that was all I had, but it was enough to survive.'
River breathed through his nostrils. He knew Adam hadn't really answered the question, but there was still some information to glean from his answer.
'So…once this war is over, where will you go? Where is your home, really?'
'I don't know,' confessed Adam. 'But I hope to hell that I will.'
To cut off their conversation, there was a loud rumble that shook the entirety of the Cloud Kingdom. The pipes spat out more steam and the cogs clanged against one another. River and Adam exchanged worried concerns. A wave of Multiversal energy surged through the city, causing the hairs on Adam's neck stood up. The Empire was back.
Adam hurried over to the communication system in between the cloud gears. It was a holographic interface, enabling him to open a communications channel with the front lines. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to pick up. The line was dead on the other end, which was certainly never going to be a good thing.
'Lemme switch to the security cameras…' His eyes widened. 'No…'
A fleet of dark, ghostly creatures with big, sharp claws poured out of an intermultiversal portal overlooking the kingdom. They had bright, evil orange eyes, and a wicked smile on their faces. Together, they looked like one massive shadow descending on the city below.
'Wraiths!'
The Empire had managed to recondition them.
Adam kneaded his face in worry. He raised a hand to his side. 'I summon the All-Seeing Eye, to tear a hole into the sky, reveal to me that which is hidden, unveil to me what is forbidden!'
A poof of purple mist transformed into a bright fiery eye. An image immediately appeared in place of the eyeball.
There was a second intermultiversal portal, this time below the kingdom. A swarm of owllings and wildlings seeped out from it, flying at great speeds around the base of the city. Many of the new defence cannons employed seemed to be holding them off, but there was simply too many of them to hold back forever. Adam gulped.
'That's impossible!'
'What are they?' asked River.
'Owllings, and wildings!' he cried, pointing at the Eye. 'But they're…forbidden. They were locked inside the Gates of Elysium centuries ago! The Empire could never have used them; they grew sentient beyond control!' He took some deep breaths to avoid hyperventilating. 'If the Empire's using them…then they're prepared to win this war at all costs.'
'What do you know of these creatures? Anything that may aid our forces in defeating them?'
'I don't know much,' he admitted, shaking his head worriedly. 'They were all before my time. It just…it doesn't make sense! The owllings and wildlings – they've always hated the Butterfly Empire. They wouldn't just suddenly start serving them!' There was a loud beeping on the communications console. 'Hold on…there's another alert.' He tapped on the hologram. A 3D blueprint appeared of the lowest basement level, the level they currently resided upon. 'Shit. The owllings and wildlings have already breached the outer hull of sublevel fifteen. They're making their way in.'
Adam was interrupted by the appearance of bright, spinning rune floating next to his ear. The Arcane Communication spell. King Pony Head possessed a relic enchanted with the spell, which he had told Adam he would use in the event he needed desperately to alert him of something.
'Adam?'
'The Empire's using forbidden creatures. Wraiths, owllings and wildlings! They've already breached the outer hull!'
'I am aware. We are receiving word about our deployments at the outer edge. They are currently facing a horde of these creatures! You must help them!'
'They won't stand a chance without my help. I'm on my way!' He ended the magic call with haste.
'Adam!' called River. 'It is imperative that we ensure the cloud gears remain intact!'
'I'll be back.' He opened a portal to his right. 'Hold the fort while I'm gone, okay?' He disappeared through the portal without leaving any room for argument.
River sighed. Adam knew how to be stubborn when he wanted to be, and he was content to be like that most of the time. Reluctantly, he unsheathed his sword and waved it warningly about the room. Adam had enchanted his sword to make it stronger against magical objects.
All was silent in the hallway Adam arrived in. Broken, burnt pipes hung loosely from the walls, dribbling steam and black smoke infrequently. Absent wires hung out from mauled metal panels, spitting out sparks onto the grated metal floor. Monitor screens on the walls displayed bright white static, eliciting an incessant hum in the background. Sections of the floor grating had been ripped open, revealing the beaten pipes and metal foundations beneath. Yellow lights on the ceiling flickered and sputtered, their glass cracked and shattered.
Adam looked down at the ground. Many Cloud Knight bodies littered the floor, their swords, muskets and shields just beyond their grasp. He bent down to inspect their bodies. Their flesh had been ripped apart; their bodies torn out wildly with huge gaping slashes.
Only the Monster-Mewman hybrid physiology of a wildling, and its subsequent musculature, could be capable of inflicting such wounds.
There was a loud clanging noise in the distance. It echoed through the hallways and rattled the metal walls. Adam shot up. He scanned the hallway for any sign of movement, but the hallway remained dark and silent.
Adam clamped his wrists together and twisted them, before waving his hands over himself. A white silky aura appeared around his body. It was a Hecate Protection spell, one that he'd read about in the Mace Family library. That should help prevent the wildlings from causing him too much harm with their sharp teeth and brute strength. Without it, he risked being mauled to death without even managing to fire off a shot.
Electric shivers jolted through his body. Gingerly, he walked to the end of the hallway, keeping an eye out at all times. A silhouette shifted across a light as he turned the corner. Adam clenched his fist, and an aura of fire grew around it, lighting up the next corridor.
Something growled behind him. He spun around in time to witness a pale white hunk of flesh barrelling towards him.
Fortunately, Adam's Hecate Protection spell prevented the wildling from making physical contact with him. However, it could not absorb the force of the push, which caused him to slam against the wall. The runes of the protection spell appeared around him to indicate the damage he had sustained.
Quick as lightning, he fired a Solarian Blast at the wildling. However, the owlling on its shoulder bent forward and absorbed the blast. It redirected the blow straight back at him, at least a hundred times stronger. Adam was ill-prepared when his own Solarian Blast struck him directly in the chest, sending him crashing through the metal wall and into the next room. Without his protection spell, he would have been instantly incinerated.
He groaned, sitting up. His protection spell was already almost entirely depleted.
The wildling roared, tearing off a chunk of metal from the walls and throwing it at him. Adam raised a hand, and a golden portal opened in front of him. The metal debris was immediately redirected, crashing into the wildling, and knocking its bird companion off its shoulder.
A growl escaped the wilding's throat. Its humanoid figure grew in size, its muscles and veins flexing grotesquely. It had matted black hair, adhering to its sticky, sweaty patchwork flesh. Two beady orange eyes hid behind its greasy locks, along with a set of jagged, malformed teeth that salivated with saliva.
With a few booming stomps, the wildling entered the room through the massive hole they had created. Adam trapped the angry wildling in a network of crystals. He clenched his fingers into a ball, and a series of runes attached to the crystals to reinforce them. A simple reinforcement seal, which caused the crystals to enlarge and get even stronger. The wildling whined in pain as it tried to free itself from the grasp of the Crystal Trap Attack.
The owlling squawked, zipping through the crystals with ease and racing towards him. Adam clenched his fist. A series of vines erupted from the ground, attempting to grasp the owlling mid-flight. The owlling managed to dodge the rapid vines and attempted to ram into him.
Unfortunately, Adam was quicker. He clasped his hands together, and a small, ruby forcefield cube trapped the owlling in its place. It bashed its head incessantly against the cube. Adam could feel it absorbing some of the magic with each blow, but it seemed to be having some difficulty with it.
'Listen, owlling!' he commanded. 'You're an intelligent creature. Speak!' The owlling merely ignored it, robotically bashing its head against the forcefield. 'Why are you helping the Empire?' He frowned, leaning in to inspect the creature. 'Something's not right. Wait…what's that?'
The owlling had some strange collar around its neck. Wires protruded from a central, glowing orange crystal, pulsing with energy. It was metallic and alien to him, flickering with magic and electricity. Puzzled, he spared a look to the wildling by the hole in the wall. It was still attempting to escape from the crystals.
Sure enough, a collar of the same design was wrapped around its neck. It pulsed in tandem with the owlling's collar, indicating some kind of connection.
I guess it's not just the Cloud Kingdom that's been combining magic with technology…what has the Red Queen done to them?! It must be something truly diabolical…
A small force shook his bones, and the next thing he knew, the owlling broke free of its ruby prison. It opened its beak and produced a debilitating sonic screech, forcing Adam to collapse onto the ground. He clutched his ears in pain.
His Crystal Trap Attack shattered, and a moment later, cold pale flesh pressed against his arms. The wildling was on top of him in an instant, holding him down onto the ground. The owlling flapped its wings and leapt onto his shoulder, pressing its monstrous beak into his ear canal.
Adam groaned in pain as he felt his magical essence being drawn out of him. He struggled against the wildling's grip.
The owlling seemed to be infatuated with his magic, far more than it had been to Star. It was probably because it was the anti-magic that the creature was so used to.
A howl of pain escaped his throat. No words could come out. He knew he had to act quickly. He didn't know what would happen when an owlling succeeded in drawing out a victim's natural mana, but he doubted it was anything good.
C'mon…think, Adam, think! How can you get out of this?! The control collars…they are magic PLUS technology, right? I can't exactly nullify the magic right now but…circuitry – THAT I can counteract! Electricity can disable technology, can't it? It burns it out!
'Brutum…' he rasped, 'Fulmen…BRUTUM FULMEN!'
A torrent of electricity erupted from his hands. The wildling on top of him shook into a frenzy, though not an ounce of pain escaped its lips. The owlling screeched in agony, slipping off his shoulder and falling to the ground with a thud. Soon, the wildling's grip on him loosened, just enough to allow him to heave the heavy weight off of him.
Adam swirled his hands around before the wildling's body on the ground. Sections of the metal ground shifted upwards, suddenly becoming fluid. The different pieces slid into place, pulling the wildling half into the ground, as the metal and stone encased its limbs and trapped it.
Chains of Captivity!
Four small chains appeared out of the ground to seal the owlling into place, just before it could move. He reached forward and grabbed the orange crystal in the centre of its collar, delivering a surge of electricity to loosen it. He ripped it out and sealed his hands around it.
'Calysto Beam!'
The insides of his palms lit up with cyan energy. He grunted as he felt the force of his own magic forcing his hands open. Eventually, the light died down, and he opened his hands. The crystal no longer glowed; it became dark, dull orange fragments, caked with sand. He glanced at the collar on the wildling's neck, and, without a second thought, he stuck out a hand and produced a second Calysto Beam to splinter it into pieces.
The collar on the wildling fell from its neck. It hit the ground with a vociferous clang.
There was a banging noise behind him. He turned back to the owlling, only to find that it was struggling against his Chains of Captivity. It let out a raspy hoot before banging into the metal wall.
'Calm, owlling.'
The creature stopped and looked at him, narrowing an eye in confusion. It looked down at its neck and spotted the missing collar.
'It appears you have freed me,' said the owlling.
Adam arched an eyebrow. 'So that collar really was controlling you?' They nodded.
'Yes. Foul mystical technology produced by the Red Queen. Shouldn't you know this already? You are one of my captors.'
The Mewman frowned. What was the owlling talking about? When he placed his palm on his cheek, however, it hit him. His cheek marks – they identified him as a Butterfly, of course!
'I might have cheek marks, but I'm not part of the Empire,' he told them. 'I never have been.'
The owlling glared at him. 'Are you attempting some kind of mind trick, Butterfly?' Without warning, the creature burst forth from the Chains and slashed him with its talons. 'Because it won't work!' Adam flicked his wrist, and the owlling was encased in ice up to its neck.
As the owlling struggled, Adam said, 'Don't bother trying to absorb that ice. It isn't magical.' He sighed. 'I'm telling the truth! Listen: I acquired magic from a wand fragment from our world, but I'm not a Butterfly like the one you know. The Butterfly Empire have come into a conflict with another multiverse, one with parallel versions of the people you and I would be familiar with. Over here, there is no Empire, only the peaceful Butterfly Kingdom. This world's Moon never dabbled in Dark Transmutation, nor did they seek conquest of the multiverse. I've allied myself with them.' He folded his arms. 'We have a common enemy. If we were to form an alliance, we could fight off the Empire's forces.'
'How can I possibly trust you?'
'You're right to be distrusting,' he admitted. 'But I didn't stand to gain anything by freeing you. I chose to release you. Therefore, you can guess that, at least, I don't have any love for the Empire.'
The owlling glanced away for a moment, hooting in contemplation. 'And what do I have to gain from this, exactly?'
'Freedom.' The owlling raised its eyebrows. 'I can promise the freedom of you and your kind. If I can disable all these collars, you'll be free to do whatever you want. I could find somewhere for you to live, without the influence of anyone.' He hummed in thought at the possibility. 'Maybe…some kind of magielectromagnetic pulse? If I could deliver a massive pulse like that, across the whole kingdom…yeah, that would do it. Then all we have left is to deal with the wraiths, which would be much easier.'
'You have yourself a deal, Butterfly,' the owlling agreed. 'But I want us to be left alone. By you, the Butterfly Kingdom, by everyone. Only then will we leave you alone.'
'I can do that. I can just open a portal to an isolated dimension. I think…well, Neverwyr keeps to itself. That sounds like a good option.'
The owlling nodded, and Adam subsequently removed the ice that was trapping them in place. They flapped their wings and shot energetically about the room, squawking happily to themselves. They only stopped when they came to their wildling companion.
'Might you free my friend here?'
'Oh! Yeah, of course.' He opened his palms and flared his fingers, causing the metal prison the wildling was encased to loosen and release.
The wildling roared angrily as they escaped, thumping its fists against the ground in a fit of frenzied rage. They were about to attack Adam, when the owlling flew in front of him and hooted, releasing a wave of blue Pacification magic. The wildling stopped, coerced into docility. They straightened their back and hummed compliantly, nodding at Adam.
'He sees you as an ally now,' explained the owlling. 'It sickens me even now to see much of my kind robbed of their free will. I must return to the fray. I have many brothers and sisters whom I must free. At least until you can manage to set them free yourself.'
'Yeah, I think I have an idea for that,' Adam said, nodding. 'I need to get back to the engine room.'
'I see.' Brusquely, the owlling flew close to his face. Their beady eyes bore into his soul. 'Do your best to keep your word, Butterfly. We do not forgive betrayals so easily.'
He gulped. 'I understand.'
'Good.'
Adam nervously opened a golden shimmering portal to his right and stepped through it.
From the moment Adam returned to their engine rooms, he knew something was wrong. It might have been the louder, more wheezing noises that the cloud gears were producing, or the higher pitch with which the steam was escaping the pipes. However, what tipped him off to the danger of his surroundings most were the Butterfly Knights littering the floor, and the debris strewn everywhere. Sparks of electricity flickered from the exposed wires of the various turrets in the room. Only one single turret remained in the corner, deactivated, whilst the rest had been burnt, hacked, and slashed beyond repair.
Adam flipped over the body of a knight. They were riddled with burns; their skin melted against their muscle and bone and their metal armour was blackened with ash. He looked up and noticed a body on the ground ahead of him.
'River!'
He ran over to him immediately, searching desperately for a pulse. Adam breathed a sigh of relief when he discovered that River was still alive. He had numerous burn injuries on him, piercing through his knightly armour.
'River? Can you hear me?'
The king groaned in pain and slowly opened his eyes. He only managed half-lidded eyes, but at least he was conscious. His hands lit up with a blue aura of Restoration magic, slowly alleviating the burns.
'Adam…?' he wheezed. 'You're…here…'
'Tell me what happened,' said Adam. 'Who did this to you?'
River grunted in pain. He looked up and weakly pointed ahead of him. A raspy voice escaped his throat. 'Him.'
Adam's eyes widened as he felt a sudden ball of heat approaching. He ducked just in time to avoid a crimson red fireball zipping overhead. Dark Tom, clad in black leather and a golden crown, stomped towards him.
'Tell me how to bypass the forcefields around the cloud gears!' he demanded, his fists burning with the Immortal Flame.
Adam chuckled, blocking another fireball with a forcefield. 'Wow, you stole the Immortal Flame from your Arybailos, and infiltrated the Cloud Kingdom, and yet you can't figure out how basic Cloud arcane tech works?'
Adam neglected to mention the fact that he didn't understand how it worked, either, but wasn't Dark Tom supposed to be the King of the Underworld? Still, it would probably just undermine himself.
'Do it, or your friend dies!' A series of crimson demonic daggers appeared out of thin air. He lazily threw down a hand, and they all shot towards River at incredible speed.
Nonchalant, Adam conjured a large, metallic target board in front of River. The knives struck the target one by one, before disappearing with a flare of bright red eternal fire. There was a small pushback against the target board, but Adam levitated it forward. He opened his fist, and the metal target immediately fractured into sharp fragments.
In one smooth downward motion, he sent the metal daggers shooting towards Dark Tom. He managed to dodge them, but Adam animated them further, forcing them to chase after him. One of them managed to wedge itself into his abdomen. His face contorted into intense apoplexy and roared with fire.
Dark Tom produced an intense stream of Immortal flames. The metal shards were reduced to molten slag seeping into the grated brass floor. All apart from one, which barrelled towards his face.
'Not the face!' he exclaimed, holding up his hands. He managed to spit a torrent of flames that reduced it to ash.
'Didn't I leave you in pieces last time?' mocked Adam. 'I recall impaling your head on a wall.'
'Don't insult me!' Tom cried, flying upwards and sending bullets of fire at instant speed. 'I am the King of the Underworld and the Immortal Flame! It will take more than dismemberment to kill me!'
He raised his arms, and a bright flaming portal appeared out the ground. Several blackened skeletons climbed out of it, hobbling towards him with swords and shields equipped. Adam dodged their attacks, sending a wave of energy that sent them flying across the room.
However, he was ill-prepared when a fiery portal appeared below him and several fiery chains appeared out of them, latching onto his limbs, and holding him down to the ground.
Adam struggled against them. Dark Tom appeared behind him. He had a sword clenched in his hand. He thrust it forward, but instead of going through Adam's chest, it merely went through a portal instead. He groaned in frustration and tried again. And again, a portal appeared to block his way. In fact, no matter how many times he tried, or fast he plunged his sword towards his back, he could never manage to land a finger on him.
The sound of bones clacking caught his attention. He looked up. The skeletons he had summoned now all lay on the ground, decapitated.
'Dammit!' he cursed. Adam had outsmarted him by making him destroy his own creations.
Adam opened a portal out from under himself. He fell through it and ended up hanging from the ceiling above him. The chains around his wrists were too strong from him to break, not without more creative means. Shutting the portal that he was hanging from was the perfect solution.
The chains truncated immediately, cut off by the portal itself. He fell for a moment, before landing on a purple forcefield platform he had produced. A tremor shook him for a moment, and he looked down. His platform was cracked by the force of one of Dark Tom's fireballs. Spotting him an annoyed glare, he jumped down a series of forcefields to avoid the lithium red balls of fire that the demon king would fire at him from a distance.
He began to predict Dark Tom's patterns. It seemed he was right-handed, so he preferred to throw fire from that hand.
Adam leapt onto a wide forcefield and countered his blow with a stream of cyan blue flames. It easily blasted through Dark Tom's fire and struck him in the chest. He slammed against a wall with a vociferous boom.
Ice began to spread from the point of contact, stretching out across his body and freezing him against the wall. He strained against it, but the ice merely grew larger around his devil flesh.
'Don't bother,' Adam warned, landing gracefully on the floor before him. 'The Icy Fires of Kheimon are…quite fond of demons. The more you struggle, the stronger it will get.'
'I beg to differ.' The demon king activated his Immortal Flame aura. His flames were snuffed out almost instantly by the ice, reinforcing even stronger around his limbs. He tried again, but his fire disappeared even quicker. 'Dammit!'
'Told you so,' he teased, rolling his eyes. 'Now let's talk. Honestly, what were you thinking trying to destroy the cloud gears? You do know that the Cloud Kingdom is the most heavily fortified city on this planet?'
'Not my plan,' admitted Dark Tom. He probably would have folded his arms if he could use them right now. 'Not Starship's, either. The Red Queen insists that subjugating an entire multiverse somehow wouldn't be helpful. She thinks you're all vermin – which you are, by the way – but she thinks you need to be "purged". Personally, I'd prefer to crush you under my boot. Starship thinks much the same.'
'Destroying Mewni won't win you the war,' Adam argued. 'If anything, you'll just draw the attention of all the other dimensions. Then they'll just come together and work against you – which would just make a bigger threat for your Empire.'
'Unfortunately, I agree with you,' Dark Tom spat. 'But the Underworld's service is consigned to the Butterfly Empire for all eternity.' He sighed. 'I fail to see how this information would help you, which I couldn't be happier with. Maybe you're dumber than I thought. Anyway, time to break out of this unseemly little spell.'
His eyes burned with flames, and a portal appeared below him. Ghoulish, winged demons broke forth from beneath the Underworld, chinking away at the magical ice trapping him. The Icy Fires seemed almost annoyed, for their ice began to spread onto the demons instead.
'Okay, fine, you have some skill. But it's not enough!'
His Immortal Flame powers coursed through his body, licking the air around him with burning intensity. He reached up and ripped his head off and tossed it onto the floor. His neck flashed with bright fire, and his body disappeared from within the magic ice. It inexplicably reappeared on his own body.
With a sickening crunch of bone, he stood back up and twisted his limbs into place. His head, however, was back-to-front. Dissatisfied, Dark Tom grabbed his head and twisted it one-eighty degrees into place.
'Aha!' His face fell. 'Oh.' Adam was standing in front of him with his arms folded and an unimpressed eyebrow risen.
Dark Tom immediately punched him through the chest. He looked up at Adam's face, expecting to see one of pain and shock, but he was completely impassive. He staggered back, confused, until the image of Adam disappeared. It had been nothing more than an illusion, and a convincing one at that.
'What…wh…where did he go?!'
'Right here.'
Before the King of the Underworld could even react, Adam plunged a crystalline dagger through his head and snapped his neck. Dark Tom slumped to the ground, currently dead. The Mewman looked down at his handiwork.
'That won't keep him down for long,' he muttered to himself.
Reluctantly, the young warlock reached down and seized the body by the neck and waist. A golden portal appeared next to him, to a dead dimension, and Adam chucked the temporarily deceased Dark Tom through it. Adam patted his hands for a job (momentarily) well done.
Now I need to figure out that whole "magielectromagnetic pulse" thing…good thing there's still one defence cannon left.
He spared a glance over at the cloud gears. They were great big brass cogwheels, spinning in opposite directions to one another. Magically magnified streams of purple electricity connected them, flickering and shifting between the spinning wheels. The forcefield around them was orange and translucent, segmented into small diamonds like a cylinder of carbon nanotubes.
Still holding up. Admittedly, though, the tiniest of flickers seemed to echo across its gleaming surface.
He sighed and went back over to River, casting the Health Restoration spell on him with haste. After a brief check of all the bodies in the room, it seemed River was the only survivor. His years of warrior experience had blessed him with an abnormally robust form, even for a Mewman. The Cloud Knights had not been quite so lucky.
'I'm…I'm fine, Adam,' said River, after a prolonged period of silence. He shakily got to his feet. 'You must work on repelling these creatures.'
Adam glanced at the deactivated defence cannon in the corner. 'I think I know what to do.'
He levitated the cube towards him, passing it through a portal to make it closer to him. Exerting himself after that fight with Dark Tom led him to feel rather lazy right now. It hit the grated floor with a clang. He reached forward and pressed the button on the side, and it transformed into a towering metal cannon.
So…I THINK I get how this works. Or some of it.
Adam reached forward and slid up the access hatch. He got to his knees and slid under it to get a good look at the inside. It was indeed as strange as the arcane technology sounded. There was one, large central crystal, glowing bright blue and eliciting a low hum. Across the circuit board, there were dozens of smaller power crystals, pulsing with mystical energy.
Several wires threaded through the circuits end to end. Adam reached up and began disconnecting them, threading them all the back to the magielectromagnetic crystal core. The auxiliary power bank at the bulk of the cannon was a massive magical battery attached to the metal walls, so Adam proceeded to sync that up to a new circuit connecting all the other, supplementary cores to the main one and its auxiliary battery. He had no idea if this would even work, but it was going to take him a while to connect every single power crystal. He also had to consider some way of forcing the defence cannons to shut off before they could completely overload. Not because he wished to avoid damaging them, but more to avoid releasing dangerous radiation levels along with a pulse of magielectromagnetic waves.
As he was trying to connect two ends of wires, he felt a violent rumble beneath his feet that rattled his ribcage. An Arcane Communication Rune appeared next to the side of his face. He groaned, setting the wires down.
'Yes?'
'Adam – it's the Empire!' It was Queen Pony Head's voice this time. 'Their owllings, wildlings and wraiths have regrouped. That small intermission you mentioned did nothing; they are closing in on your position.'
He slammed his fist down at his side. Adam had hoped that his allied owlling would manage to distract or pause his kind enough to buy him some time to rewire the turrets. Apparently not.
'Dammit.' He bit his lip. 'Dark Tom managed to sneak his way in. I took him out, but…he's reduced our defences down to almost null. There's just me, River and the forcefields around the cloud gears.'
'I'll redirect forces from the front lines to your location and –'
'No,' he said firmly. 'I have a plan. Those wildlings and owllings are being controlled with arcane-tech collars. If I can use this defence cannon to set off a magielectromagnetic pulse, or something, I think I can disable them.'
'You "think"? You present nothing but risks, Mr Butterfly.'
'It's Adam. And I don't fully get how this stuff works, okay? I never went to school, y'know! I'm doing my best here. I may not really know how the technology side works, but I know how magic works. Just…a little faith, please.'
'I have no choice BUT to put faith in you. Be warned…this pulse would cause a citywide blackout.'
'Not a problem,' insisted Adam. 'You'll only have the wraiths left to deal with. They're weak to light – strong, concentrated light.'
'Our light-based weapons work on the same arcane technology. They would simply be fried.'
'Well…our magic might be limited, but not without…flexibility. I can help too. I can enchant some of your stuff. That might work. I dunno.'
'Hmm…well, it seems we have no choice. How long will it take for you to produce this "magielectromagnetic pulse"?'
'Not sure, but it'll be a while.' He tapped his thumb on the side of the metal plating impatiently. 'I'm working on it right now.'
'I will inform the King.' Adam could almost feel the nod she made. 'Godspeed, Adam. Godspeed.'
With that, the magic call ended. He rolled out from under the defence cannon and made eye contact with River, who by now had recovered almost entirely from his injuries.
'River. Defend this room with your life.' He glanced at the cloud gears. 'Out of all of them, the owllings are the ones to look out for. They'll probably try to eat through the forcefield with their magical absorption powers. If they manage that, it's game over.'
'I understand,' he said, drawing his sword. 'I shall defend this room with my life! I will fight to the end!'
Adam nodded gravely. 'I hope it doesn't come to that.'
A loud banging on the set of double doors at the back of the room seemed to accentuate his point. The wooden barriers on the door didn't seem to be holding up very well. Gritting his teeth, Adam stood up and shot out a series of white, lock-shaped seals, which latched onto the door. He spun his wrists and drew his fists apart. Silvery white lines connected them together, creating a barrier against the wall.
'It's a simple spell, and quite breakable,' Adam admitted. 'They're gonna get in here whether we like it or not.'
'Indeed.' River walked over to the door, noticing how each bang against the door would slowly deepen the cracks forming in the magical seals on the door. He spotted a few landmines stored in a metal cupboard at the side of the room. River hummed in content. 'These should help.'
He got to work setting them in place all along the engine room floor. Cloud Kingdom technology was always more advanced than it looked from the outside. The medieval appearance that the city took on its surface was more to do with tradition than anything else. Mewni wasn't like the Middle Ages on Earth. These mines would be especially useful against the forces of the Butterfly Empire.
Once River finished setting the mines, he smiled, admiring his handiwork. 'Just one of these could blow a grishnak to smithereens.'
'Oh yeah?' cried Adam, sparing quick glances as he pulled out the wires from under the access hatch and drew out their copper cores. 'Well, how 'bout them?!'
He pointed to the doors, just as the protection seals broke and shattered into pieces. The doors bust open with a loud boom, and a horde of owllings, wildlings and wraiths charged in. The wraiths came first, instantly setting of a landmine. The creatures' recklessness set off a chain reaction of explosions, forming a line up and down the entrance to the engine rooms.
Fortunately, the debris and rubble blocked the entrance. Now, aside from a few creatures drawing themselves out the rubble, only the creatures that had managed to get inside would be able to get to them.
'That was a good idea,' admitted Adam. 'Cover me!' He caught a nod from River as he slid into the defence cannon's access hatch once again. He got back to work rewiring its circuits and making sure the power was distributed evenly.
River attacked the first owlling that approached. It flapped its work and barrelled towards him like a brown-feathered bullet. He kicked it back and stabbed its wildling in the chest, dislodging its heart. Two wraiths appeared behind him, just as he smashed the head of an owlling with his enchanted blade. He managed to dodge their attacks and plunged his blade through one of them before shoulder-barding the other away from him. The wraith engaged in a flurry of swipes, hoping to land a hit even mildly, but River was fast enough to block them all with a few swift sweeps of his sword.
As he was taking care of the wraith, however, a wildling snuck up behind him and prepared to crush his head with its bare hands.
A bright green laser shot past River's ears, catching his attention. The beam struck through the wraith's neck, as well as disintegrating the head of the wildling that attempted a sneak attack. He glanced over in surprise at Adam, who reached out from under the cannon to fire off the Solarian Blast. River gave a nod of appreciation and sliced an owlling in half.
'I'm almost done!' cried Adam, pulling the circuitry out of the hatch, and reworking it into a second panel on the side of the turret. He heard wings flapping and looked up, spotting a group of owllings flying towards him. 'Shit.' He stood up, his hands glowing with purple energy.
Yet, he was caught off-guard when the owllings simply ignored him and went straight for the forcefields around the cloud gears at the back of the room. He aimed a Solarian Blast at them, but something tackled him to the ground. His stray spell ricocheted off the forcefield and struck the wall with a boom.
Adam fought off the wildling that had tackled him, trying to get closer to the control crystal around its collar. Another wilding bit into his shoulder, forcing a cry of pain out of his throat. He blasted it away desperately from him with a fleet of flying narwhals.
'River!' he cried, holding back the wildlings with bouts of Towering Inferno and Perilous Hydromancy. [45] 'The owllings! Stop them!'
Unfortunately, River was currently preoccupied with wraiths. Adam groaned as he finished off the last few wildlings using Skulls of Damnation.
Fuck. He looked back at the owllings. They were almost done with eating through the forcefield. Shit! I gotta think fast.
Adam glanced at the defence cannon. The central core crystal was hanging from the end of it, still glowing blue despite being disconnected. He managed to redirect the wires and isolate the main core, whilst syncing it up to the other secondary cores. The entire circuit had been partially rerouted to set off a surge of energy that would be amplified by the various power cores, creating a massive magielectromagnetic pulse.
The circuit's incomplete…I need to provide an initial boost…
He leapt over to the defence cannon, batting an eye to the owllings that were getting ever closer in consuming the forcefield. Hastily, he synced up the ends of the wires and held them into place.
Adam took a deep breath. He drew out as much mana from within himself as he could. His cheek marks lit up a burning shade of purple, as a fiery magenta aura enveloped his body. It travelled from his bright white eyes to his hands, before passing through the wires and leaking into the magical power core. It lit up scintillatingly cyan, brighter than he had ever seen before.
He looked up. The owllings had breached the forcefield. Within moments, they would be able to destroy the cloud gears. At least this pulse wouldn't affect it.
No idea if this'll work but…it's now or never!
Hurriedly, Adam reached over and flicked on the internal activation switch. All the bright lights of the defence cannon gleamed, sputtered, and vibrated with overwhelming energy. The various power crystals lit up in tandem with the main one, until the turret could no longer contain its power.
A massive shockwave of magielectromagnetic energy echoed about the room. Adam held a hand up to block the luminous waves that shook his body.
The owllings and wildlings in the room stopped and faltered. Simultaneously, the control collars around their necks splintered, their crystal cores dying down, until they fell to the ground with a loud clang. Much to his relief, the owllings hounding the cloud gears ceased, turning around, and releasing waves of telepathic commands towards their wildling companions.
A great roar erupted among the wildlings. They evaporated the wraiths with a single punch. The owllings tore through the remaining wraiths with their magic-absorbing beaks. Within an instant, the room was cleared of all enemies.
Meanwhile, the magielectromagnetic shockwave reverberated through the entire basement level. Adam's recent owlling ally smiled, before opening their beak and drawing the pulse into his mouth. They heaved its small chest and spat out an exponentially larger magielectromagnetic pulse. It surged throughout the entire kingdom within a few seconds, frying almost all the arcane technology in the city, including every single control collar.
A golden portal appeared in front of the owlling. They blinked. Reluctantly, they passed through it, picking up their wildling on the way.
They found themselves floating high above the Cloud Kingdom. Dozens of other portals were open beside them, home to a flood of their owlling brethren carrying their wildlings pouring out of them. The owlling gasped in surprise as in a much larger, far more massive golden portal opened opposite them, glimmering welcomingly.
As the other owllings and wildlings flew towards the portal, the final owlling stared on at their brothers and hummed in surprise. 'Huh,' they remarked. 'Who would've thought? How surprising. A good Butterfly.'
The owlling flapped their wings and fluttered towards the giant portal.
Adam shifted in his seat and drank from a glass of water.
'And then we fought off the rest of the wraiths and the Empire was forced to retreat.'
Star sat up. 'Wow. I'm super impressed you managed to open so many portals at once.'
Adam was sitting in a chair by Star's infirmary bedside. He had managed to convince Marco to stop watching her like a hawk and let him take over for a bit, once he returned from the Cloud Kingdom. Naturally, Star wanted to know about his exploits in the city, as she'd only heard whispers from the maids, servants, and guards in the castle. He was more than happy to oblige.
'It wasn't easy,' he replied, sitting back in his chair. 'I had to focus hard, and by that point, I'd already exerted myself multiple times before that. Couldn't even use the Seal – I'd used it too many times already, using it again would've done some damage. Could've even killed me.'
Star gasped. 'Wait, seriously?!'
'Possibly.' He shrugged. 'I've had a lot of practice with Dimensional magic, so I didn't need it anyway.'
'And if you hadn't?!'
'But I did, that's what matters,' he said, rolling his eyes.
'You can't just assume you will always survive, Adam!' she snapped. 'What if one day, you don't have a plan? Or it doesn't work?'
'That isn't going to happen.'
'And if it does?'
'It won't. I won't let it. No matter what some freaky fortune-teller says.'
Star looked away despondently. A brief silence fell between them, which was only interrupted by the sound of the rain pitter-pattering against the stone walls outside. After a while, Star hummed awkwardly.
'You know, keep up this Dimensional magic and Hekapoo might get jealous!' joked the princess, taking a sip from her glass of water.
'Ugh, I do not wanna deal with a jealous Hekapoo.'
Star chuckled, and Adam reluctantly joined in. However, over time, her laughter became frayed and trailed off into obscurity. Her smile drained away.
'So…about their Tom. What was he like?'
Adam blinked. He frowned as he sought for an answer. 'Angry. And selfish,' he ultimately agreed upon. 'Didn't you already meet him?'
'I never got a chance to speak with him,' she replied, shrugging. 'I was just a little…preoccupied. You know, what with having to deal with my insane, murderous doppelganger.'
'Fair enough,' said Adam. 'Let's just say that my Tom is so much worse than yours. Honestly…I kinda feel guilty about judging your Tom so harshly back then. He isn't anything like him.'
Star reached out and put a hand on his wrist. He looked up, and she was beaming at him. 'Don't. You were a completely different person back then. You've changed. For the better. Besides, that was almost a year ago! What matters is – we won. You won. You saved Mewni.'
Adam hesitantly removed his wrist from her hand, glancing away. She frowned in concern.
'Adam?'
'It's not as simple as that, Star.' He bit his parched lips. 'Not everybody got to live. Innocent people died.'
'But…that's how war is!'
'I know. That's what I said,' he uttered. 'But River was right. I wasn't prepared to sacrifice lives just to win. I thought I was, but I'm not. The people certainly don't see it as a victory, either. There were riots on the streets as I left. They were not happy with me.'
'But you saved their lives!' protested Star. 'They even gave you a medal of honour for it!'
'King Pony Head gave me that medal; the public had no say in it,' Adam pointed out. 'From their point of view, an inexperienced teenager just waltzed into the kingdom, claiming to have a plan to "save" them. But they don't see the plan. All they can see are the bodies lining the streets. Being famous isn't always a fun time, you know. It puts a target on your back.'
'I know. The Monsters aren't a fan of me in the same sorta way.' She managed a strong enough smile to light up the room. 'In time, they will understand. They'll realise that you saved their lives.'
'Or they won't,' the warlock muttered under his breath. He pressed his lips thinly and sighed through his nostrils. 'So how have things been going in the Butterfly Kingdom?'
She shrugged. 'Not much. Mom's preparing a treaty for all the other kingdoms to sign. Something about "uniting the kingdoms of Mewni" by making sure we protect one another. It's definitely important. If we all don't work together, we'd lose for sure.'
Adam nodded. 'True. The Empire's only getting started. Their highly coordinated network puts us at a disadvantage.'
'I can't believe it.' She let out a huge sigh. 'We're in the middle of an actual war right now.'
'Yeah. The people in the Cloud Kingdom were calling it, "The Great Monsoon",' he replied, shrugging. 'Seems like as good a name as any.'
'That sounds…ominous,' Star remarked. 'Marco seemed partial to the "Great Multiversal War".'
Adam snorted.
'That sounds like something I'd read in Ancient Fairy-tales of the Forgotten Lands. Not something out of an actual history book.' She pouted at him.
'I like it,' she insisted. 'So…do you think the Empire'll try to attack the Cloud Kingdom again?'
He shook his head. 'No. Dark Tom told me that the Red Queen and Dark Star are at odds about the whole thing. Dark Moon wants to kill us all; her daughter wants to subjugate us instead. Failing to destroy the cloud gears would give Dark Star a pretty strong justification to abandon the queen's strategy. My guess is they'll start redirecting their efforts elsewhere.'
'Is…that a good thing, or…?'
Adam's brow deepened. He peered out the window. A few birds were arguing about who had dominion over a small nest in a stone alcove. They snapped their beaks and cawed at one another.
'The Red Queen is a tenacious person. She'll keep trying to destroy us. Just in more inventive ways. And she will never, ever stop.' He looked past the birds and rested his eyes on the approaching black clouds in the distance. 'A storm is coming, Star. It's brewing on the horizon. And I don't just mean weather. We need to be ready for when it hits.'
The Great Monsoon had only just begun.
[45] This is the same spell used by Adam all the way back in Chapter 19 of Volume I to summon a giant mass of water that he could animate at will.
And so concludes the first episode of the finale! And the war is of course given its name at the end, 'The Great Monsoon'. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!
It's quite clear just how far the Red Queen is willing to go, given that she developed and employed mind control collars to control the owllings and wildlings, and found an alternative method to keep the wraiths pacified. The owllings prove to be a formidable opponent on their own, with their ability to absorb and redirect magic, but when they all have wildlings for bodyguards, they become an extremely powerful army. It remains to be seen what other creatures from the Gates of Elysium might be used.
Dark Tom also makes another appearance, though here it's much more extended. It took me a while to figure out how the fight between him and Adam should go. Dark Tom's immortal, and Adam has no qualms with landing a killing blow, so it really seemed like the only option was to have Adam decapitate him and send the head to parts unknown. Dark Tom will be back though, but this obviously put him out of commission for a bit.
Adam's plan to defeat the forces was a pretty simple plan, to be honest. The magielectromagnetic pulse didn't affect cloud gears because they have protective forcefields, by the way.
I guess I don't have much else to say. The next chapter will be episode 2 of the finale. This one will be called "Itsy Bitsy Spider". See you then!