#57

Lefty Sinister will wake up. There will be nothing but shattered rubble all around. “Where am I...?” he will ask, but then he will remember. He will be in the remnants of his gang's hideout. He will sit up and gently weep into his hands. His hideout was, or will be, a bar named “The Future Tense”, and by golly The Future Tense was the best fucking tavern in all the land. Whoever did this, or will do this, and got rid of his gang (kidnapped 'em? Whacked 'em?) will pay.

He'll pour himself as a drink as he thinks through all the possible attackers. Whistlin' Pete? Nah. Wilbur the Wanderer? Never. Capone Secondo? Unlikely.

Fox.

It will have to be goddamn motherfucking Fox.

Inspector Fox will be a loose cannon in the Boston Police Department. Mostly because he is, or will be, a hideous mutant. Fox will sometimes be known as the Headhunter, because he will have three heads. Stolen, it will be said, from other hideous mutants.

Mack Greasy will be the charmer of the trio; born with a shark's smile, Greasy's animal mutant-head is that of...well, a shark. He will sprout from Fox's left shoulder, for it will be Fox who controls the main body. He will be left in charge of charismatic motions, but also for the more vicious planning. While logical, Greasy isn't as wise or intelligent as Inspector Fox, and is often thrown off by the scent of blood. He'll have a severe issue controlling his murderous impulses when someone bleeding is about.

Puck will be the dreamer of the trio. As a vulture, Puck ought to be concerned with scavenging, but ultimately will spend most of his time believing that he is a faerie. This may be to compensate for his ugly appearance. During his weirder ravings, he will claim that he was the vulture who menaced Leonardo da Vinci in the crib, thus making him something of a “culture vulture”. Occasionally, however, his mad fantasies will generate plans for the much more grounded Inspector Fox.

Fox himself has a head that manifests as...well, one might be able to guess. Sitting pretty between Greasy and Puck, he will be a greater fusion of the two, possessing the charming calculations of Greasy and the brilliant dreams of Puck. He won't be too fond of the pair, however, even if they are part of his body.

The trio will have an interdimensional bicycle, which they'll use to occasionally visit and police other universes. This will be mostly just be obnoxious, from Lefty's standpoint. And he will know that Fox is doing this to particularly lash out against the New O'Grady Mob, who will have evaded him time and time again.

Hm? The New O'Grady Mob? Bleh. Well, we don't, or won't, talk about the Old O'Grady Mob. Information on that sort of stuff will be classified. For now.

Sinister will be the head of the New O'Grady Mob, even though his name isn't, or will not be, O'Grady. The real O'Grady died or will have died, or will have otherwise moved on, by the time these events come to pass.

“But such bullshit doesn't matter now!” Lefty will proclaim loudly. Now it will be time to hit the streets and look for the scoop on Fox. He will still have some stoolies who might be able to sell him some dope on the Inspector. And, perhaps, the whereabouts of the rest of the Mob. Provided they haven't already been killed.

Lefty'll load up his Chicago typewriter in his violin case and step out of the ruined bar. A brief glance upward at the broken neon sign overhead, a sworn curse of vengeance, and it will be time. The black and white city will swirl with cigarette smoke; and in that smoke, one will almost be able to see the palpable rage of one fuckin' pissed off mobster.

#56

Mark wakes up. There is nothing but shattered rubble all around. “Where am I...?” he asks, but then he remembers. He was in the remnants of the Old Man's landing craft, far from home, in America. He didn't know anything about America, so he doesn't know where he is. Heck, he doesn't even really remember how he crashed.

He looks around for Levingt and the Old Man. Both gone.

He tries to remember if he wondered if this was what would happen. Because then, it would be ironic. But that would probably require the Old Man saying it wouldn't happen or something. And the Old Man never said anything worthwhile to Mark, that he could reuse for his own purposes.

Prick.

He stood up; the craft was completely smashed, beyond any sort of repair. Not like he could repair it, anyway. It's not a vacuum cleaner, and therefore past the boundaries of his tiny world.

Some of the broken machinery bits were still flickering with a strange blue light, that seemed less like twisted and melted circuitry and more like faerie light. Probably not fuel-powered then. Did those two mention it was powered by fuel? Mark bets they did. He doesn't properly remember, though. Still. Lying bastards.

Well, the fact of the matter is that this is a real mess. And not just in the way of everything around Mark being a mess. The fact of the matter is that he is stuck in America, possibly in Canada, with no true direction. And, his escorts, who were supposed to carry him on this ill-defined “mission”, are now probably dead.

Bullocks.

Overall, Mark realizes that standing around and vaguely cursing at the recently deceased is the exactly wrong thing to do. Instead, he needs to get moving.

There's a forest to the south. Behind him, there's...more forest. Welp. That just leaves us with fewer options, right?

Heh. “Leaves” us with fewer options. Mark feels better already. Puns are totally ironic. At least, so he was taught when he was a wee lad.

He starts heading south. He thinks he can see some sort of...crimson tower, of sorts...in the distance—maybe his c̶a̶p̶t̶o̶r̶s̶ companions went there after the crash. Riiight. And they didn't take him with?

No-good pieces of shit.

#55

I want to take this time to point out that what follows is a work of fiction, and contains trigger warnings regarding those troubled by depictions of school-based violence. No offense is intended towards victims or associates of victims who have been affected by in-school attacks. My apologies.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Mina woke up. There was nothing but shattered rubble all around. “Where am I...?” she asked, but then she remembered. She was in the remnants of her school, far from home, in England.

Something...something happened. Something terrible. Involving Aurel...?

She turned and saw one of her professors; at least, what was left of him. His bloody severed head had been mounted on his desk. She suppressed a scream and jumped backwards. This only knocked over another desk, where another pulped student—Jenny something—had been placed.

She blinked and stepped away from at all, taking a minute in the corner to regain herself.

The classroom was dark, illuminated only by a thin red light coming from the glass window in the door. It was from a small fire, slowly burning itself out. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, but she hoped it had been long enough for her attackers to leave. If they had an intention to leave.

She didn't know how she had survived. She remembered, though, how it had gone down. A group of blue and red-garbed soldiers had come in to the dorms, barking vague orders, which no one heard or understood. Several students, including her, had taken refuge in the classroom, but the troopers followed them. The professor tried to stop them; he lost his head. Then the blue ones opened fire with those rifles they had—she dove under her desk—and knew no more.

She touched her head. There was matted blood in her hair, hardened crimson tangled with the brown. She must have hit her head, and in their rush the soldiers assumed that the blow had been fatal. That could mean they were careless; or in a hurry.

She looked over the classroom. There was nothing here; nothing but the fallen bodies.

Moving quickly, she then went to the door. The metal knob was still warm, but then, the entire building was uncomfortably warm. She recognized that orangish glow now, and realized that the intruders must have tried to burn down the building. By some miracle, that hadn't come to pass. That could mean good news for her—and for any other survivors.

As she slipped through the door, she passed. Aurel was dead. He must be. He had discovered the thing at the bottom of the cave, that had allowed the army to come out. From him, they learned that the school was nearby, and had decided to attack. The cave was close enough so that if an army came out, the students would see and report their position. The brutality here was too intense for them to have spared her friend.

What about Jacob? No, Jacob had to be safe. He was still in Minnesota, and they had no reason to go there. Even if they did, the Army might be able to prevent a full scale invasion. She only hoped she could find another computer; her Skype was acting up, as was the phone, so she was cut off from him. She had to tell him that she was alright; he would be worrying.

Of course, she was worrying, too.

The hallway wasn't much better. She tried not to look at anything at all, but the everything that was this hall was available on all senses. She started running, uncaring of the fact that there could still be enemies about.

The only fortunate thing about all of this was that most of the people were face down.

When she opened her eyes after her long run, she had ended up in the cafeteria. She didn't know why; she just naturally gravitated there. Fewer corpses in here; really one, in fact (like that was a genuine bright side) and all around were overturned bins of silverware and shattered plates and trays. Some had blood on them, but she had noticed awhile back, as casually as she could, that blood was pretty much everywhere now.

She instead focused on the shiny surface of a cruel-looking kitchen knife, locking off more unsavory parts of her brain, and her perceptions.

She felt a strange echo of something as she picked up two of the kitchen knives. They wouldn't be much good against people with guns, but maybe she could throw them and get a good hit. Or trick them into close combat fighting. Then she could take them down, with blind luck alone; something she now seemed to have in spades.

There was a pause. She seemed to sense that this sort of pondering, concerning knives such as these, had happened before. And not that long ago, either.

She decided then that, since this place was relatively clear, it would make a good spot to rest. She ducked behind a table, isolating herself from the single corpse, and attempted to take a breather.

That was when one of the red soldiers walked in.

#54

A message has been passed down to Yr. Humble Author by the Management.

The note is exceptionally boring, and as such I will do my best to paraphrase. It seems that due to the extraordinary damage applied to the Multiverse in these troubled times, recurring imagery may be utilized, and the resulting tangents that link the remaining threads of the story together may be jumbled and out of sync with the main continuity of the tale. Rest assured, however, the Management has invested in the Author the confidence that he will be able to carry the tasks ahead with due diligence and intellect.

Which is to say, time is fucked up, we're jumping across different parts of the Multiverse, and there'll be one intro to each new tangent that will be reused a bunch of times just to confuse you further. But don't worry, because I will be there with you (and with You, as well) to help things reach their logical conclusion without too many hitches.

However, due to the complexity, there does remain the possibility that I will be killed by this story, just as I was killed in the form of my Earth-Beta-2 incarnation just a little while back. In that case, I guess I'll just have to think really hard until a contingency plan emerges. I'll still be around when my body's gone, so I'll have plenty of time.

Anyway. Nice of the Management to give us a fair warning, I say. Things have been rough around here. And speaking frankly, I get the distinct impression that they're about to get roUG—

The Author has overstepped his bounds.

Necessary data supplied.

This session is now logged off.

#53

“Blast. They have access,” Doctor Kai was saying.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Jacob replied. He was examining how much darker this fresh circle was, so tiny amongst the rest of the marble step.

The elder man sighed. “This planet—this Earth—like most worlds roughly referred to as 'Earth' in the Multiverse—is a monitor station for the Ultra. The Gods, Universal Architects, whatever. Think of the most complex idea you know. Quantum physics. A being whose thoughts are made of suns. A number between four and five that's not a decimal. Warp that out of proportion, make it exponential to a power that's even more incomprehensibly huge than the idea, and that's almost what the Ultra are like.” He set his hand on Jacob's shoulder, and led him back inside the impossible House.

“When my...Master, established the colony within the Lost Stream—the non-canon zone, where stories that are too lame or too vicious or too unworkable to ever exist in real life—he had returned from death at the hands of the Administrator, who run a place not unlike this House. But meant for studying the weirdos of the cosmos. To refine something down to a core weapon, which he believes is called the Primeval Superhero. The living trigger for the Multiverse—and thus the most powerful being to ever live.” He paused. “Well, second most powerful. Possibly third.

“The Primeval Superhero is to be the Administrator's weapon against the Ultra. He's something of a crazy anarchist. He believes that total and complete freedom arises from the death of the people who maintain the Multiverse; the ones who did not create existence, but the ones who are responsible for the placement of that wonderful beacon of story-gardening, our mutual homeworld, the Earth. My Master didn't care much for these plans, so he escaped. Of course, my Master doesn't care much for Earth, either—though he is from one of them. I found him in my wandering. We had adventures. Then I went mad, killed a good number of people, and then died.”

He looked at Jacob, who had sat down on the steps.

“Of course, here I am, once again. The wonders of cloning. Old Kai Cripps, back to life.” He grinned. “Did you hear me?”

Jacob turned and looked at him. “What?”

“Ha.” Kai stretched out the single chuckle for a little while, before pacing arbitrarily. “I'm lowering us into the pit. We have to reach the World Snake before it wakes up.”

Jacob blinked, this blink significant to him, somehow.

“Um...hm.”

“Yes?”

“Can we...get windows on this thing?”

“I suppose that can be arranged.”

At the Doctor's mental request, an ordinary house window, with a frame of décor fitting the period that this Manor was supposedly from, appeared in the east wall. Jacob went and looked outside.

The House was moving down rapidly. He still couldn't get his head around the machinery he was seeing, but he figured that if the machinery was the Earth, in its “true form”, then it only really had to make sense to the people who built it. Somehow it was machinery and rock/magma/whatever at the same time. Which probably logical, in some sort of hilariously advanced scientific sense.

He barely seemed to notice as some wreckage at the outer boundaries of the campus lurched into the pit smashing loudly on the machinery below. As some pieces, like chunks of cars, plunged in, probes emerged from the walls to catch them, bathing them in light blue light—the same color as that which had washed over the area above and exposed this place. Jacob quietly assumed that data about these sorts of things—however insignificant they now seemed—must be of some value to the people who designed this system of gadgetry.

“The Beta-3 forces may have been shielded by our enemy's influence,” Doctor Kay was saying. “So it's likely they've already descended far below us. Likely to awaken the Serpent.”

“Can we get a view of things from the bottom?” Jacob asked. He glanced away for a second, barely noticing the bust of the shark/vulture-faced creature, whom he had once drawn in a dream. “Maybe we can see their craft in some way, if they have one.”

“Good idea.”

Jacob kept staring out the window as Kai made a screen appear on the floor. Below them, indeed, a small fleet of helicopter-like flying machines could be seen. The pit seemed to go on to the center of the Earth—and as ridiculous as it sounded, it did.

Kay considered how good it was that he foresaw that they would strike at this particular Soft Place. Maurice, or Morris, or Morh Rhys or whatever it could be called, was charged with very potent Small Town energy. The more power it had, the deeper down it went—therefore their foe wasn't running the risk of security devices, due to the sheer absolute depth of the shaft accessed here. He could have struck at New York or Paris but the human resistance there would have been stronger. Not as if it mattered much to someone like him.

That was when the Doctor remembered something that mattered more than he had considered. Behind him, the young man was still fixed to the window. The Doctor closed the image and walked over to him, trying to give off an aura of human warmth.

“If it's any comfort at all,” he said. “Your brother and your friends were not meant to die in this timeline.”

“Not meant to?” Jacob asked. “Does that mean that this timeline or whatever has gotten messed up?”

The older man realized at once that he had indeed revealed that; and Jacob had perceived at once that this was the truth. Amos Berkley and the Vecchio brothers had originally been meant to be at the end. But in his own way, the enemy had warped time here. Destinies had been altered. Perhaps even Kay's own survival wasn't guaranteed.

There was then an awkward silence.

Suddenly, The House stopped moving, shaking violently as it did so.

“What's going on?” Jacob asked.

“I don't know,” Kay said, in as cool of a manner as he could conjure. “This isn't supposed to be happening either.”

He looked out the window and saw a number of flickering blue particles suspended around the Manor. He frowned—it didn't look good.

That's when the voice came in.

“Virus scan result identified and verified.”

“Shit.”

“What is it?” Jacob didn't seem quite so worried. More...preparing. Cautious.

“I think he's sent a virus into the computers. He's making the machinery think that McGee Manor came up positive on one of their negative invasion probes. Simply put, the Earth thinks we're a virus.”

“Shit.”

There was a pause, and the sound of something moving down below. In the center of the room, an image of what was making the sound appeared before flickering out. “And they've gained control of my control of The House.”

“Shit.” Jacob bit his lip and frowned. “Well, what can they do to us?”

“Best case scenario, we're banished to the Lost Stream. Worst case scenario, sent to a corrupted universe, like Universe-Beta—which this universe is a Pseudo-Spawn of, incidentally, from a Syzygy—or we're completely destroyed. Vaporized down to the quantum foam, in essence.”

“Welp.” The younger man's face was indifferent.

Outside the window, which was now similarly glitching up, like the panel in the floor, a semi-circle was embracing The House. The particles continued to flash in the air.

“I was expecting us to get farther in the story than this,” Kay or Kai added.

There was more silence, interrupted only by the voice of the Ultra returning once more.

“You are in violation of continuity and related subroutines. Initiating teleportation.”

“Teleportation?” Jacob repeated.

There was another pause. In this, Jacob could sense emotion, of a sort, rising from these machines. Confusion, but very muted. There was little that could fool things this ancient now. Was Kai attempting to trick them? Or was it something else...?

“Banishment subroutines analyzed,” the machine said. “Universe-Beta-2 is part of Cascade phenomenon. Origin: Earth-Alpha and Earth-Gamma Syzygy, in progress. Banishment thus must be answered for in Cascade continuity furtherance.”

Jacob considered asking what this all meant, but Doctor Kai seemed confused as well. The semi-circle now began to move—slowly at first. It was orbiting The House.

“Hang onto something!” Kay shouted.

“Initializing teleportation in 3...2...”

The Doctor ran forward and draped Jacob in his cloak. Therefore, for the younger man, things went dark a little early.

Only Kai Cripps saw The House be filled with a brown light, wherein he saw lightning crackle, and strange things stare out.

#52

Once Jacob was inside the Student Center, he saw it was in ruins. It was predictable; though on further inspection, it looked like most of the damage was accidental. Probably from the shocks of the explosion outside. Maybe the army had first manifested in town, and then moved to campus, and were taking it from the outer border inward. Maybe this, the center focus of the campus, was where they planned to place their breaching device.

Where was Doctor Kai? They didn't have any sort of communication between each other; if this was where they planned to place the breaching bomb, it could be too late before the Doctor arrived.

This was honestly the least of Jacob's concerns, but he clamped down on the others.

He was approaching the coffee shop—covered in coffee, both beans and liquid, from one of the shocks—when he saw a form still behind it. It was dressed in red, so he cocked his pistol. His hands were still shaky but he was getting control over them. Suddenly, it lunged out...

“DROP THE GUN.”

At the sound of that voice, Jacob did drop it. But then he picked it back up again a second later.

“Jacob?”

It was Amos.

He had been wearing a red t-shirt.

“Amos? Holy shit.” There was a pause. “Well, been looking for you.”

“How did you fucking get here? I mean, to Morris?”

“You mean Maurice?”

He blinked, and then muttered something quietly to himself. He seemed confused. There was silence for awhile.

“Well, look, mate, we gotta get outta here,” Amos said, dodging the subject.

“Figured that part out. Listen, I have a transport, we can...”

He dropped to the ground then as the ceiling—made of concrete—shattered. Amos was barking something about hiding inside the coffee shop—without thinking he crawled inside as pounds upon pounds of sheer matter fell down on him. The floor was splintered and a bathroom, hidden beneath, was breached, with water spraying up through the hole.

Jacob gasped and pulled his leg out from some rubble. No harm done, just a bruise. Amos started to pull him back further behind the counter, shouting something about a reinforced awning overhead.

The front windows were smashed; the front door was buried. Dust was everywhere, sending both men into a wild cough.

It was only a few minutes later that they both got a good look at what had crushed the building.

“Fuck!” Amos shouted as he struggled to stand. “I-is that...McGee Manor?” He looked at his brother. “Did you summon my bloody D20 party to save us?”

“Not...not quite.”

The House was apparently attempting to land. Doctor Kai was leaning out a window (though Jacob remembered there being no windows aboard the Manor). “Jacob!” he was shouting. “You found your brother!” Jacob tried to stand up, not taking his eyes off The House. “Get outside, quick, and I'll pick you up!”

Jacob looked around. Most of the hallways around the coffee shop were full of debris. All exits were blocked.

“We're sealed in! Can you get any closer?”

It looked as if he was about to say something else, but suddenly, the building shook around, rattling more rubble loose. Above, Kay, or Kai or whatever, mouthed something. “Oh, no.”

“What's going on?” Amos yelled.

Then there was another shake—a bigger one. But this one was much different than the earthquake at Lex's house, or any of the previous bomb blasts. This one resonated; and that particular word, “resonated”, struck a chord with Jacob as he felt the vibrations now traveling through the air. It was as if the music of the universe had been exposed, or at least that the entire universe was now shaking. He felt suddenly afraid, but he didn't know why.

Doctor Kay, also, looked afraid—terrified, in fact. Jacob never thought he would see such a thing on that particular person's face. He only had a second to consider this expression before the older man started yelling.

“The breaching device is in place!” he shouted. Jacob felt himself go pale. “Get aboard! Get aboard now!”

Jacob looked at the rubble and saw that may he could climb it to the top of the broken Center; but the first chunk was far too tall for him to climb, with no handholds. Still, he had to try. He gestured towards Amos, who still had no idea what was going on, to follow him.

“What's the breaching device?” Amos asked.

“I don't know, but it's supposed to blow this whole campus—and maybe the town—wide open,” Jacob replied. “Whatever it is, we need to get above it. If that's possible.”

He was now trying to get up the first large chunk, but even with his best jump he wasn't making it. Doctor Kai was yelling inarticulate things about hurrying.

“Jacob?” Amos asked then. He was briefly interrupted by Doctor Kai shouting something about the enemy having arrived. “Marcel's dead, isn't he? Lex, too, right?”

Jacob paused, and looked back at his brother. “Yeah. Yeah, they are. How did you...?”

“It doesn't matter.” He grinned then, with a little bit of his usual cheese. “I'm empty, now, bro. I lost everyone here too. All but one.”

He then seized Jacob, lifting him over his head and placing him on top of the rubble. Jacob suddenly couldn't hold back his horror, but he still tried. “You're, uh.” He blinked something away. “You're serious?”

Amos didn't stop grinning. “Get out of here! I've got one last performance.”

“Amos, you dumb sack of shit. No!”

“You're the one who's being a dumb sack of shit. Now, get out of here!”

Jacob started climbing, but he didn't look away. Not until he saw and heard the rush of glowing cyan light coming towards them.

He climbed faster and faster, his head flushed hot, until at last Doctor Kai pulled him aboard. He looked down, where so far below him, his brother was.

Amos was still smiling. “Hey, bro!” he shouted up. He had also seen the light.

“Watch this!” And he turned around, throwing his arms up in front of his face like he was defending himself against some shitty-ass rubber suit monster. In his mind, he likely was.

One last overdramatic and stupid “OH NO!” and the Slimechap was no more. Reduced to a cloud of trailing Kirby dots, and then not even that.

The light swept everywhere below the floating House, consuming the campus, not even leaving ruins behind. In its place, thousands of feet down, was exposed and raw machinery. Too complicated for Jacob to understand.

Of course, that wasn't the only complicated thing in his head now.

#51

Jacob and Lex followed Doctor Kai out onto the front steps. “Dude,” Jacob said then. “Um.”

“What?” Doctor Kai said.

“We, uh. Seem to be several hundred feet above the town.”

“You're thinking about that first. That's a good thing.”

Jacob turned to him. “What am I supposed to be...”

Then he saw the plume of smoke. The same as in the news video. Beneath it, he could see nothing, except the protruding ribs of fractured buildings.

“Ah.”

There was a pause, with the high winds filling what would normally be awkward silence.

“So, your House can travel across the sky and cover a hundred and sixty-plus miles in twenty minutes. Can you drop us in without anyone who's down there noticing us?”

“I think something to that effect can be conjured.”

Lex sat down as gently as he could on the stairs.

“So, wait. We might have to fight terrorists down there?”

Kay, or Kai, or whoever, who had been focusing on disguising The House as something else, looked at Lex with disdain. “Your brother is down there fighting the terrorists for you. Now, I know your family has indoctrinated you enough on the particulars of supporting your troops, so frankly, you should be able to do a better job at fighting these 'terrorists' than Jacob here.”

“You put 'terrorists' in finger quotes,” Jacob said. As, indeed, the Doctor had.

“Oh yes.” He paused. “They're not terrorists. They're actually Imperial Guards. I told you about them.”

“Ah.” Jacob still didn't know what that meant, but clearly Doctor Kai was some sort of pretentious dipshit, and therefore able to resist the most biting of interrogations.

“I'll bring us down,” the Doctor said. “I've refreshed your ammo and I have as much as you need for the task ahead. Remember. Do not let them activate any sort of breaching device.”

Jacob didn't know what the breaching device would look like, but for now it didn't matter. He was also considering the idea that McGee Manor itself might have some sort of weapon on it that the Doctor was neglected, but again, he was not in the mood for reasoning with nincompoops.

The House descended, and Jacob felt anticipation. It was likely that Lex did as well. There was a storm rising in that smoke, or some such bullshit. Bad metaphors, heh. It was like he was acting like Amos now. He was almost...

Of course he didn't foresee that Doctor Kai would push him off of the steps.

The fall was a light one, much lighter than Jacob was afraid it would be. He rolled with it but Lex didn't, and for a second, given the groans, it looked like Lex was badly hurt. But he stood up fine and didn't complain of anything. Before them, they could see the recreation center for the U campus, in twisted ruins. Again, surrounded by smoke, suggesting everything inside was burning. In its lot, a bunch of broken cars could be seen, alongside what looked like a wrecked U.S. APC.

Lex saw the APC and began to sweat. “Holy cow,” he said. “If my brother's guys couldn't deal with this...”

Jacob just shrugged and walked forward. He, too, was sweating. But he stuck to his pistol, and then turned back to look at The House. He saw then that it was flying past and over them, with Kai still aboard.

“I'll meet you up ahead!” the cry came. But then its speaker was gone.

“Shit.”

Lex turned to look at Jacob. “Maybe he's securing the town? The news said the town was being destroyed, too...”

“Yeah.”

Jacob started going forward, with Lex behind him.

Jacob was already weighing his environment. The smoke would cut off breathing. And his long metalhead-style hair could get caught on things. Maybe he could swing it around like The Shadow's cloak, to get people away from shooting at his head or something. Who knows. His shoes were in good shape for this sort of thing. And unlike Lex, as mentioned, he had been here before. But Amos could be anywhere. Likely without his phone. Jacob didn't have his own phone, so that didn't matter...

In the distance, he heard the sound of something exploding. It was far away, though, so that was alright—though each explosion could be lethal for anyone they were looking for here.

They made it across the “lake” (really just a valley) between the two prominent dorm halls. It was now a crater-covered wasteland. The cafeteria was ahead, relatively safe. Maybe people would be in there.

That was when they saw the soldiers. American soldiers; from their universe. Not any of that “Imperial Guard” shit. (Though what does an Imperial Guard even look like? he wondered.)

“Hey! Look!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Civilians! Survivors!”

The platoon ran up to the two at once.

“Look, kids, we gotta get you outta here! How—how did you even get out here in one piece? We're bombing everything to Hell!”

Before they could say anything, the soldiers had grabbed their arms and were dragging them into the health office, on the other side of one of the dorms.

Lex resisted at once, and when they took him inside he tried bolting for it. Jacob was the one to lunge after and knock him down; he then took him back. “Stay together,” he said simply.

He surveyed the soldiers. They seemed panicked, and rightfully so. Whatever was going on was out of their hands, almost; but they had such huge guns. That suggested things about the size of the enemy army; if they were small, they would be well-trained. Or, there could just be a lot of them.

He also remembered that these were, if Doctor Kay was to be trusted, invaders from another dimension or some shit. It would be unwise to underestimate them. But if there were Imperials, there must be an Empire. And if there was an Empire, there must be an Emperor. (Such a thing was obvious, and Jacob underestimated the skill of anyone who wouldn't realize that immediately.) If these were “Guards”, then maybe the Emperor himself was here. If they took down the Emperor, they could conceivably stop the Guards. Or, possibly, make them angrier.

He was about to relay this information to the soldiers when one of them turned to Lex. “Well, shit, son,” he said. “You look like someone I know.” Professional breakdown. They were panicked.

“I'm looking for Marcel Vecchio!” Lex said. “He's with you guys, supposedly. I'm his younger brother.”

The platoon moved back in shock, with the jump moving sequentially; here they seemed like one thing, one true unit, and this made the next statement even more crushing. “Private Vecchio...was one of us.” He made sure the emphasis was very, very clear.

Lex's eyes widened. “No.”

The soldiers tried to look away. So did Jacob, as Lex seized the soldier and screamed and screamed.

Eventually, he stopped, and slipped away, next to a shattered vending machine.

Jacob was quiet for a very long time after this. “What are we up again?”

“These...things, are pretty easy to spot. Covered in red clothing. We can't tell if they bleed or not, and they take our dead away. For what, we don't know.”

Jacob fell back to silence for awhile. “Have you killed any? And have they started setting up any sort of...device?”

The soldier shook his head. “No on both. They just showed up and started...killing everyone. Blowing everything up. They don't seem to care if people escape, though. And we can't take them down; fuckers have too much armor, or stamina, or something.” The soldier's view became more suspicious. “Who are you, exactly?”

Jacob was about to speak, but suddenly he was knocked down a nearby ramp. Another soldier did a similar thing for Lex. “Hostiles spotted!”

The soldier rolled off Jacob and got his rifle ready. Jacob peered over the lip of the ramp-wall. And indeed, there were hostiles.

They were tall humanoids, clad, as the soldier had stated, in all red. They were “humanoids” because under all of that armor, they may not have even been human. The bulges revealed that indeed, what they were wearing was a sort of armor. The armor was barely decorative at all; almost entirely practical. Though at the arms and on the back, some short ribbons of a fine red silk trailed—this could have been decorative, but Jacob knew it could also be for distractions. It was light enough to move swiftly with very slight motions. The helmet disturbed him most of all; it seemed completely featureless, not even containing a visor. Robots, maybe? With external sensors? Or something else?

The Guard—he guessed it was a Guard—was armed only with a pike of sorts. The pike itself was dripping with fresh blood, leaving no secrets as to how recently it had been used.

“Don't...do anything,” the soldier whispered. He was shaking and sweating profusely. He had said these things couldn't be killed, and with the look he was giving him, Jacob knew it was likely the case. So he started sweating once more as well.

“Is that one of the things that killed my brother?” Lex asked angrily. The others tried to shush him, as he had nearly shouted this.

“Yes, yes, it is,” the soldier gasped quietly. Lex's eyebrows narrowed. Then, he let out a cry.

“NO YOU DUMB SACK OF—”

But it was too late. Lex had lunged out, ignoring anything in his way, towards the group of tall soldiers. One instantly turned on him. There was a swift, nearly invisible motion and—

Jacob couldn't look. He felt his hands start to shake.

“No, no, NO!!!” One of the soldiers shouted. He too stood up and the others followed him. They were shouting indiscriminately but bravely fired into the crowd.

Jacob stood up and watched as the bullets impacted, and then...did nothing. The Guards advanced slowly, as if they knew their invincibility; they most likely did. Then, the one at the front charge, and before Jacob could even reopen his eyes from blinking, the soldier was impaled and crushed against the vending machine.

Jacob knew it was too late and started running. The others didn't notice him escaping; even if they had, they had only a dozen seconds to notice it.

Behind him, as he went as far from the smashed health office as he could, away from Lex's remains, he only heard the quick sounds of spears flashing through the air—or something far too similar.

The gunfire stopped, and even once he made it to the Student Center, at the direct middle of the campus, he knew that he was running out of time. He just had to remember that quote-idea: “running out of time”. Because the second he stopped thinking in those sorts of absurd and clichéd action-hero terms, he was fucked.

“Or else he was fucked”. Heh. Keep it up, Berkley, he thought.