~ four

The remaining crew of the airship watch with the lady-bomb as their many counterparts disassemble the walls, invaders engaged with the witness' hoard.

The soldiers under the General reinforce the ops base, check mobile launchers and begin their deployments.  Thesis walks behind the General.

General - Turning to him with a look over, "Heard about you.  The turncoat prince."  He turns back to the field with the binoculars, "Soon to be king."

Thesis stands next to him, looking over the field.

General - "And our treaty ?"

Thesis looks at him staring until the general looks back, inhales the scent through his nose and grins, the general furrows his brow.

Thesis - "Secured."  His grin widens. "Should we prevail."

General - "We prevail ... you're not the one out there fighting. You've done nothing here. You've watched others do it all for you."  He puts up binoculars over the field.

Thesis - Standing next to the commanding General, as they look over the field together, "Indeed."

~ Persephone leaves Hades dying in his chair, heels clicking from The Rough Storybook.  Elizabeth smiles watching the general sign the bill, the tip well bowed for.  The general turns to her and smiles back.
________

Standing in a plain amid the tall grass and dragonflies nocturnes playing ~

Empirical - "What is this ?"

Nocturne - Spinning and dancing, "We're dying."

Empirical - "Death is a decision."

Nocturne - "Looks like you've made it."

He reaches for her as she spins past, hand passing through.

Empirical - "So it's done then ..." He looks to the distance and breathes the air, "... at last."  A smile watching a wave-flock of distant starlings.

Nocturne spins into a crouch as the starlings wisp away gone in a mirrored motion.  She smiles.

Nocturne - "So easy.  That's why you fail."

~ A grenade blows the dead from Empirical, tossing him across the wrecked chamber.  He rises watching Nocturne finish the last of the heads in the room.

Nocturne - Turning her head back smiling as she tears the spine from a surviving commander, "It's because you're weak inside."

Empirical - Turns to the Architect' throat already in his grip, cracks it and tears the head off, then walks for Nocturne.  "Did you even know !?"
________

The new soldiers fill the field, all looking to have the slightest grey hue.  Watches stop, phones burst as they approach nearing the core, they drop all electrical in a pile.   Hum-Vs sweep around them keeping distance from the displacement, top guns readied while the choppers fly over, side-mounts jacked.

Timepiece - "This is it.  Our last run."

General - "How do you know ?"

Doe - Looking over his shoulder, "Because I'm not standing behind myself tapping my watch."

Timepiece - "Either this is it or none of it happened.  Nothing at all."

('Live 4 Love' by Prince and the NPG)

 

Timepiece and pragmatism each take a handle on the engine core while in the field they paint faces and armors, gusts and whirlwinds all around in growing storm, dark clouds gathering over, wind pulling them more than pushing them over.

____

Horses' feet charge the cavernous incline, the walls falling around.
____

Each of the forty pulls a cord hard wired through to their own grafted brass.  One by one they attach to the core, Timepiece fixing the wire-box to the engine mount.  The storms start hitting hard, the tornadoes nearly there, the ground begins to quake.
____

Falling rubble knocked aside by the unicorn's horn in front, Nyx at front with the pole as a joust, a gathering dust from the destruction all around as the underworld collapses.
____

The gathering falling in to the evacuating walls, soldiers diving for their trenches. while the soldiers and vehicles prepare for the run around the crew. From the quieter ends of the field, zombies pause in their meal, looking up at them.

The gate ahead has an army lined endlessly past, down a wide promenade for battle, gun towers looming over, walkers reinforcing as far back as seen. More cruisers lower from their sky, the gate's generating beam pounding down from their moon above.

Chewing the random limbs as they walk, they shyly work their way toward the crew, with an almost cultish love in their eyes.

Timepiece flips the switch, a wave of realities washes through, dotting the all around, different versions, some in the same place, some in others, the ground all around showing the same fluctuations.

The start the run for the gate, the ground cracks.

Through waves of smoke and debris, the Gargareans weave through the walkers and march, a gust clearing the debris, leaving them gone. They work their way through, Nyx planting the pole as a vault to the top of a walker, other climbing their chains.

The storms above drop funnel, hitting the ground nearby, riders mixing through the clouds and taking advantage while the zombies follow their lead.

The choppers cover their path with heavy bombardment before taken by storm, then chutes skidded wind torn to the ground. Standard soldiers pull back to the hill, away from the increasingly focused destruction.

In the dusty night the horses easily sidestep the bright gunfire's continuous sprays, on and out through the clouds with the winds while Nyx tears a driver from a walker and throws him beneath the step of another being overtaken by Gargareans.

She drops a grenade in the hole and jumps to Surly's back, continuing the run.

The crew starts getting hit by heavy fire, losing one then another while the hum-Vs sweep a path ahead between them and the gate.

The spinning storms gust over, zombies swirling in the tornado, joyfully flying ecclesiastically, arms reaching high.

The crew hits the gate with the core.

The pulse overloads the gate beam generating it on the other side, a wave following up to it's moon.  With harmonic feedback it comes slamming back down causing a wave across both fields in total circumferential destruction, precisely up to the wall.

In the dust, the gate still shimmers.
____________

Nocturne - Drops her arms in the middle of the fight, tears stream, "... no ..."

Empirical pauses and looks at her, then draws back his fist with gritted teeth and rage.
____

Nocturne crashes through the wreckage and into the field, followed by Empirical.  He roars to the field as he kicks her over, the sound throwing back all around him, on all sides.

Empirical - Kicking her over and roaring to the human army, "! Hated ! Feared and despised, they sent me !   The galaxies, the realms of peace, they sent me here to resolve you."

His remaining army surrounds behind him, chewing on the limbs of the fallen.  As Nocturne starts to rise he kicks her hard over again.

Empirical - "Your champion !  Broken !  Your ways !  Damned !  Your Reign of Terror !"  He swings his foot again, "Is ! OVER !"

Nocturne - Lying on her face stretching an arm up, "! WAIT !"

She rolls over painfully, pulls the cigarette and lights it.  She watches the flame and smoke make a strange twist with a breeze.

Nocturne - Exhales, "No it's not."

('Super Stupid' by Funkadelic)

 

Song intro ~ the hill filling with headlights, engines rumbling in the dusk.

She stares at the night sky as he stares blindly to the hill, confusion turning again to rage. She swallows a flashing red chip, pulls out a flask and drinks, choking a bit.

Nocturne - "You know what ?  I think you're right.  But I just don't care."  She throws the lighter in a high arc over the gate, into the field directly behind it as his eyes follow.  They don't give a fuck about me either."   She hangs out her arms, "! Fire !"

The General looks at Doe.

Doe - "She can take it." (song main)

Launchers across the field unload, tanks roll down the hill and cannon the ground troops while the missiles lock on the the chip. She stands with the sky filling with rockets behind her and walks for him as they begin to strike.

She grabs the back of his head and starts hitting the missiles with it, she grabs his leg and bats them, she takes a few per pleasure while the bombardment is ceaseless around them.
____

The trucks pour down the hill, some rodded, some with giant tires, some just shit loaded with shooters in the back, many have plows mounted, battering the army, their walkers slowed by rubble on their side and heavy fire from ours.
____

Tossed across the field Nocturne refuses to let go of Empirical while missiles continue to strike.
____

A man with the name 'Trucker Bob' painted below his side window of his semi talks on his CB - "All right boys, you know what to do !"

A woman gets on the channel, "Fuck you !"

They all jerk their steering to the side and forward while the trailers all start a sideways slide in the wet grass into a fast wall toward the remaining walkers. Fertilizer, gasoline, etcetera kind of cargoes.

Trucker Bob - The CB filling with cheers and cursing, "! Everybody Bail !"

Female voice - "Go to hell !"

Doors fly open and drivers lean out with wide eyes, nervous laughing at the approaching line of walkers and their own skidding wall. They leap off running as fast as they can

The trucks hit the walkers, a line of explosions across the front.
____

Threshers chase invaders in their headlights through the field, Farmer Bob marches, flipping his spin-loaders, "I told you to get the Hell off my Propertay !"
____

Launch codes are transmitted to ships off port, jets launch from the deck, those close unloading, some into the gate and others into the fight.
____

The hills fill with locals then further from. Campers set up barbecues, boards with nails sold for three dollars at a stand, with barbed wire for ten, etcetera.

Burgers are flipped and cheers for the fireworks come from the cheering lawn-chair section, wearing sunglasses for the flashes of fire.
____

As the music fades the sound does too while Nocturne continues to pound her fury against Empirical, hitting hard and fast. Roaring and throwing him against the hull of his cruiser, continuing blindly.

She throws Empirical to the ground and elbow drops him again, continuing to beat him as Empirical begins to fade reaching blankly up.

Others around call to her beyond his hearing (no sound at all but the hits and his pain) as she continues.

Thesis walks up, heel crushing the pebbles and dirt loudly he stands over them and puts out his forefinger, stopping Nocturne's fist in a shimmering wave, the sound of a gong underwater.

Nocturne looks up and the field is empty of all but they three, dragonflies swarming and dancing around wheat blowing in a calm breeze, undisturbed, never a battle.

Thesis - Circling around staring at Nocturne as Empirical reaches for him, "And do you wish to rule ... my world ?"  He stares in solemn challenge.

Nocturne stares back breathing hard.   Thesis continues eye contact while he stomps Empirical's head, crushing it.  The ground cracks as the world returns to battlefield and his own cheering people.

...

Thesis - Still watching Nocturne, "! We return !"

He continues staring at her while his people exit to the gate behind him, followed by shipments of seed guided by the special soldiers.  When they return, only then does he break eye contact, and turns.

The gate closes after him, showing nearly no destruction on the other side, peaceful in the silence of all the world's eyes and commanders, it's people.

Nocturne looks around at the people, the destruction and death, and sees Doe in the crowd.  She pulls a string from her mouth, gagging as it regurgitates the attached flashing chip and throws it down, the stares again to Doe.

Doe - His lighter closes, exhaled smoke in a twist, whispering, "I'll find you."

She looks at him, camera's flash, crowds approach, she glances between, then back to where Doe was, now gone.

She tears off the last of her armor, walking away toward the peaceful plains, through where Thesis had walked.  Some move to catch up and the disturbed wheat shows she's gone.

Helicopter searchlights find nothing but breeze.

The view sweeps in front of the massive field of living, dead, clockworks, soldiers and just people, then behind them to show their size and the untouched wheat before them, armies from around the world just now arriving.

~ ! The End ! ~