Mab sits on a log before a stump with a tablecloth, sharing her coffee with an unknown woman.
Woman - "So ... what exactly is Sanctuary"
Mab - "Well. Sanctuary was founded by a warlord with no name in 2008." She sips. "It was all very exciting." Turns her eyes away with another sip.
Woman - "So ... what happened ?"
Mab - "Oh ! Well he found an empty world. A prototype universe, they say, abandoned. He was looking for a home for his soul."
Woman - "And ..."
Mab - "Eck." Puts down her cup. "You're an impetuous little thing. What's your name ?"
Woman - "I'm Mariposa Liddell."
____
At a dirty Victorian orphanage an unpleasant nun fills out paperwork - "Mum was a crazy and Da was an opium sot !"
____
Mariposa - Back at the table, she twitches her eye at the sound in her head, "You're Mab. A clockwork fairy ?" She looks up a moment as though she had heard something, then back in shock, "And you're bloody off your rocks."
Mab - "And your coffee will not be special. Take that as you will."
Mariposa - "Whatever. Will you please tell me the story now ?"
Mab - "I'm really quite busy at the moment ..." Turns in her chair.
Mariposa - "I know your secret." She sets down her cup.
Mab - Eyes widening, she turns them, then her head, then the rest of her slowly toward her guest. "Well ! As I said, it was all very exciting."
________
Begin grained black and white puppet show with socks ~
"In 2006 a nameless warlord found a realm. It was completely empty."
A dead sock-puppet, x for eyes in front of a throne and nameless puppet placed on the cushion.
"A place for him and his people alike back when they were few. A scattering of warriors and vermin ...
Angry puppets. " 'grrr ...'
"Some of these unkindly types were old demons with whom he had become acquainted over the years and found them honorable in spite of their assorted, sorted and sordid tales. By his standards, anyway ...
Grizzled puppets next to half drunk beers. "Hm.
"They told him it was painful to be sealed and the seals were used to control them all ! This is why the demons were so angry all the time. So then he got angry too ...
Angry puppet next to empty beer and sword. " 'grrr ...'
"... and as he does love to play war ... they began to raid the many hells and break every seal they could find. To each and all of the confined he gave his word :
Puppet with paper fire and sword taped to it while Mab makes a 'deep warrior voice' :
" 'You have been forgiven your crimes and we will defend your honor, but if you continue to do harm it is by our honor that we must kill you.' "
The burning puppet bobs at another. " 'Derp dee-der !'
" 'Do ! You ! Seek ! Sanctuary' ?!'
"If the beast could not be redeemed, they would slay it there standing."
A pile of dead puppets. " 'aaaa ...'
"From then on Sanctuary was given to any and all. In 2008 he made it official."
Puppets carrying puppets. " 'yay ...'
"Within a year, Sanctuary became vast. With many governances of tales and myth within, lost spirits and forgotten threads ..." She starts sounding increasingly recited, "... schools for dreamers to dream, within while stories old and new walk beside the living. All bound by one law. 'No cages'."
Happy socks " 'yay ...'
"! There !"
________
Back to coffee, Mab puts away a pamphlet.
Mariposa - "That doesn't make any sense at all. The entire thing rests on his decency, while his army ever grows with more hellish socks !"
Mab - "Indeed it does."
Mariposa - "Is that why your bag is packed ?"
Mab - "I will swat you."
________________
1990
Persephone and Saffron on the property court, Persephone in the same outfit while Saffron's changes according to the day and her concept of a 'tennis outfit'.
Persephone - "But didn't you notice the gargoyles were eating the intruders ?" She serves.
Saffron - "No !" She hits back. "Well yes !" And again, "But I was sleeping !" ... "I heard growling" ... "went back to bed !" She misses. "Damn it !"
Persephone - "Well it's a good thing I didn't hire you for security !" She serves again.
Saffron - "Ha !" A return. "What am I going to do ?" ... "Damn it !"
1993
Persephone - "But I disappear from my room every time I leave for the harvest !" She serves.
Saffron - "I though you had" ... "a secret exit !" ... "Like Versailles !"
Persephone - "Never been there !"
Saffron - "Me neither !" ... "Damn it !"
1996
Persephone - "But I talked about my husband ! About going to the underworld to deal with him !" She serves.
Saffron - "I thought" ... "he owned" ... "the ski lodge !"
Persephone - "Ski lodge !?"
Saffron - Dancing - "! A point !"
1999
Saffron - "You know what was suspicious even before I read about you is that you're really good at tennis but you've never actually gotten any better at it !" She serves. "That's really weird !" ... "Damn it !"
~ Tonight ~
She stares at the empty court through the dusty window, touching it's glass bubbled deeply with age.
Persephone's voice - "True glass is a liquid, that's why it does that. It just takes a very long time for it to flow."
She drags down long hallways with her candles to her quiet bed, once her lady's. But on her pillow is an extraordinary chocolate and a note.
Persephone's voice - "My dearest Saffron,
"Sometimes what we think we know isn't what is. Looking forward to your arms around me as we ride. Soon. I promise it."
"Your beloved Persephone."
_______________________
Lucretia's mouth, twitching with thoughts, plans and possibly something in her teeth, noise and shaking side to side from the chapel's movement.
Nameless - "You killed my people parts you know. That's why I woke up in my chair."
Lucretia - Her mouth smiles, "Even."
The movement comes to a stop.
The walking chapel towers over Sanctuary's gate as nameless and Lucretia observe from it's second story, through two arrow slit windows in the stone, a few feet from each other. At the gate waits the bus driver with the keeper of the book's chariot surrounded by countless bloodthirsty.
Bus Driver - "! Wooooords ! We seek Words with the keeper of ... 'Sanctuary' ... whosoever or what ! you may be ... Make them Tearful ! Make them Sullen and Apologetic words, and then give us entry to your land. ! Speak !"
...
Lucretia - "! No !"
Nameless - "Hey ! You big flapping moron ! I'm right here !"
Bus Driver - "We care not of You ... nameless betrayer, Liar and Coward from identity itself. ! And Thief ! You are a low and haunted creature who Befouls these fine investigations with your Predictable Treachery. We see just as you say, You are right There !"
The crowd roars their disapproval.
Bus Driver - Continues as he shakes his great chains to cheering throngs. "No ! We seek the head of God the Betrayer ! God who killed his fair wife Asherah ! She who was most beloved of All the Gods and Myths Alike ! She who was the flower of this Earth when He took Her from us All !"
The armies wail behind him cheering Her name as the driver looks back to them, shaking his chains in pride.
Lucretia - To nameless, "Huh."
Nameless - "Yeah ..." He extends his scope to see the smiling keeper of the book looking back at him, a bit twisted, ready to war.
Bus driver - "We seek Also the Head of Gabril the Destroyer. Ruinator of Heaven's most peaceful plains ..." He hangs his head and shakes it before snapping it back up. " ! Gabril !" Betrayer of his own angelic wisps and these Good Trials Alike !"
Cheers acknowledged with turns and nods.
Bus driver - "And You, Lucretia, Daughter of nameless evils and keeper now of Evil's Dark Land which we will now ... ! Raze ! to the ground. First it is especially Your head we seek to top the piles and pyres which we burn Tonight ! Because it is You who keeps these Heads from ! Us !"
He turns to face the blood thirsty screams behind him.
Bus driver - "Today we Purify ! ! Tonight we Feast !"
Greater cries reach out and fill the plains.
Lucretia - Looking over the vast field of impending brutality. "If it hadn't been us it would have been the living, wouldn't it ?"
Nameless - "Yes, it would."
...
Lucretia - "Sorry I killed your people parts."
...
Nameless - "Sorry I deleted your file."
...
Lucretia - "Tried. You tried to delete my file. You didn't format the drive."
Nameless - "I know. I believed in you."
She looks at her father examining the field with war in his eye, then looks back.
Lucretia - Amplified across the field "! No !"
_______________________
Amazon scenes running much longer than the clips.
('Fists of Love' by Big Black)
Saffron runs to the mansion armory and flings the doors wide.
____
A motorcycle wheel on the plains, view back to masses of Amazon bikers, many pulling chariots with gunners and others their own guns. They curve to approach the mass of tributes from behind.
________
Persephone lowers the visor of her motorcycle helmet and leans in over the handlebars of a fast looking motorcycle, modified beyond make, if ever it was.
____
The Amazons split to surround the mass in single file on either side. At the back is Jean D'Arc atop a chariot waiting.
________
Saffron - There's a weapons missing and she smiles, touching an open wooden sword box, a sword's empty place seen set in red velvet with another chocolate.
____
Moving Amazons further along side the mass, chariot gunners turn to fire.
________
Persephone - Talking her way through the process, "Flip the switch and slow rev up."
The engine sounds out like hovering explosions ...
____
They gun wildly along the wall of warriors running parallel causing them to stop and turn, many falling before the heavy guns. The edges of the mass slows causing discord in their forward flow. More and more turn to regard the new threat.
________
Saffron looks at an empty velvet placement, chewing another chocolate, "The blowgun ... ?"
____
Jean D'Arc's team heads for the middle of the mass, a three bike team, the front with a wedged tip, pulling an anti aircraft gun which she fires directly ahead screaming.
________
Persephone - "Hold the brake and grind the wheel ..." Her back wheel grinds, a sword on her back with a lock of Saffron's hair hanging from the pommel.
____
The back of the mob turns among the many fallen and being shredded.
________
Saffron runs back to the bedroom and finds another chocolate on the bed, the window open she hears the roaring motorcycle.
____
Jean D'Arc's side gunners and riders prepare to enter the storm of raiders, followed by many more. The riders of her chariot bikes pull chainsaws, followed by those behind.
________
Persephone - "Now just. Let. Go."
____
Jean D'Arc's binoculars show the keeper of the book turning back over her shoulder and smiling at her. Pulling back shows that the Amazons have the field surrounded, though thinly. Guns and mortar are prepared while archers take place in the high ground, all outside the field.
Their method is to herd the massive army into a tight pack stumbling over itself, which from a distance appears as a near gelatinous mass of 'warrior', moving and squirming amoeba-like.
_____________________
Pipsiveya - Whispering in darkness. "It's okay. I know you can't tell, no matter how much you want to. So just look at my eyes. He knew I would find you, Gabril. That's why I'm here, so just open your eyes and look at mine. It was His plan.
Gabril sobs and opens his eyes as the golden light escapes them with tears streaming out filling the room and Pipsiveya's eyes, showing her holding his cheeks in her hands.
Pipsiveya - Hugs him around the head as the room goes dark again with the closing of his eyes. "Thank you Gabril. I know how hard that was."
Gabril cries again into the black.
_____________
In another place, a white light, tempered, not blinding.
Nyx's voice - "Hey big guy. You know why I'm here."
_____________
Nameless - "Didn't I just give an uncountably large army the other day ?"
Lucretia - "You know ? I never actually considered them all that useful."
____
At the great tree Nemesis is doing high impact aerobic dance while the army attempts to follow. She is wearing headphones and all are oblivious to any noise but their own.
Nemesis - "! Hey ! West Flank ! Shape it Up !"
____
Nameless - "Hm."
Lucretia - "And ... didn't you recently become the king of the dead ... ?"
Nameless - "They wandered off, remember ? You have no idea what it's like gathering those things. I got nothing."
____
A sleeper wakes from a nightmare.
"... fucking zombies ..."
____
Lucretia - "Oh. Hm."
Nameless - Drinks and starts squeezing his way through the arrow slit, waving his cane, "Bring it on, Pansy Cakes ! I'm going to eat that fat brain of yours !" He jumps down and lands before the behemoth.
The bus driver pauses and raises a brow, while behind him the book's keeper smiles, lowering her mortar.
Keeper - "Fire." The mortar blows nameless through the gate, destroying it.
Nameless - Stumbling to get up in the rubble and dusting himself, "God Damn it ! I'm not in that book !"
Lucifer hovers down, arms crossed as nameless stands, then looks at him crossing his arms in a mean squint.
Lucifer - "You owe me a cellphone."
Nameless - "Fine."
They uncross their arms and turn away from each other as nameless is violently swept to the sky by Mikal with a sonic boom traveling upward.
Bus Driver - "! They are breached !" Pour Fourth into that foul land. Pour forth and Purify ! ! Har-Megiddo !"
Lucretia furrows her brow observing this, then rolls her eyes before looking rapidly across the field, eyes darting.
The vines grown from the base of the temple tower start crawling toward the invaders from behind to right. Past the Amazon camp and under paths they thin out to capture as much of the mob as she can understand from where she is.
As many runners begin to pour through the broken gate and between the chapel's stomping legs, they see Lazarus grinding laughter and wielding his hammer, metal men exiting the bushes, all laughing along, carrying shards of iron.
_____________
Hippolyta stands in front of a cave over a temple looking toward the breached gate from within Sanctuary. Priestesses exit the temple beneath to see what has happened.
Pipsiveya - Exiting the cave behind her - "The trials are wrong."
Hippolyta - Turning back to her with shock, "What !? You mean ..."
Pipsiveya - "Asherah is alive. The trials are wrong. God ... He walked away. No one knows why but Gabril. But God's innocent."
Hippolyta does not question her daughters word, even within. She looks back to the metal men attempting to stave the invasion, though many pour by with sheer number.
Hippolyta - "We've got to protect Gabril."
Pipsiveya - "Agreed."
_____________
Nameless struggles with Mikal, beating him with his cane while they rocket high up over all where atmosphere thins.
Mikal - Head jerking in response to beating fist and stick, holding him off with both hands gripping and not letting go as they rise, "You ! This is all your doing !"
Nameless - "Get off me you damned cherub !" Beating him now two handed with the stick. "I Didn't ! Do ! Anything !" He points a blunderbuss to Mikal's face which fizzles in the thinning atmosphere.
Mikal pauses and swats it out of his hand putting his around nameless' throat, holding him low and squeezing hard with a furious hatred in in his eyes.
Mikal - "It's ! Just ! ! You !"
Nameless - Struggling to speak, "This ... Isn't ... Personal ..."
('It Will' by Pain Teens)
Mikal's eyes go wide with horror and nameless slides out of his now open hands and into a fall, just missing his reach for the cane's handle, which appears to be protruding from Mikal's ass, under the plates of his armor.
Nameless goes wide eyed backward into free-fall cursing back to Earth while Mikal slowly cartwheels away ...
Nameless struggles with his scope against raising wind of atmosphere, attempting to right himself to view flat, he looks for Har-Megiddo.
Barely sighted, he lets the scope fall behind him and stretches his arms to steer his way.
Nameless - Grinning while he starts to gain velocity and the sky turns blue, "I'm coming for you, you mad bastards."
His clothes and hair burst into flame with the rest of him, while he laughs wildly, face forward and arms pressed at his side, Eyes and lips flapping wide with his grin.
____
From below the Jean D'Arc looks up from the field at the sound of a sonic boom and puts up her binoculars showing a fireball streaking. She furrows her brow with concern to it's uniqueness and turns the anti-aircraft gun to it looking through it's long scope.
Nameless is shown in the scope, naked, hairless and burning, wide eyes and teeth cursing madly for the ground to come faster.
____
(these scenes need to be filmed as though he were the coolest hot-rod spaceship ever being showcased burning into the atmosphere, while he flaps naked in the wind)
Nameless burns into the atmosphere, followed closely by a blunderbuss, a powder bag, a scope, some loose archaeological change and an action figure doing 'the crane'.
____
Jean D'Arc - Eyes going wide "Clear the Field !" She pulls a high red flag and waves it forward, as seen by the watchtower at the base of the temple. "! Clear the field ! Amazons ! To Sanctuary !"
________
He starts taking anti-aircraft fire, magics and explosions around him.
________
Lucretia notes the Amazon commotion and terrored flood beneath the chapel's feet, then notes the streaking fire ball. She focuses her eye before it goes wide.
Lucretia - "Chapel ! Sideways !" Still wide with a panic, "Drop when the last Amazon gets through and nothing else !"
She runs the the side window as the chapel turns stomping and kicking at the invaders, then slamming sideways over the frame of the shattered gate. She looks back over the rail to the chair beneath when the chapel is bumped hard.
Tall giants rush from the field to hold the chapel up and allow the keeper's war cart and attendants through then dropping it back to its feet, marching into Sanctuary, grabbing at metal men while two wrestle Lazarus.
________
The shelling continues, one in the face laughing ...
____
The Amazon tower sees the red flag and flares launched by Jean D'Arc toward the gate to Sanctuary and orders the mortars surrounding the field.
They bombard the front to thin the path before their sisters and to slow the unsuspecting front lines behind them, while the circle into the gate in long rows firing sideways then behind them as the enter, creating a deeper wall of flesh.
More mortars hit the mass from behind causing the them to slow and turn from the middle effectively slowing the herd to a near halt, front falling back against the charge in collision.
Mortars and archers then begin to pull gear and disappear with as much as they could grab, as quickly as possible.
____
Through madness and fire nameless watches the tiny field change shape with the motion to the gates. Ever closer he begins to make out the last of the Amazons entering the gate, countless behind them of the tribute army.
____
The last of the Amazon bikers enter, followed by Joan D'Arc firing back against a regrouped and charging wall stampeding their fallen. Boadicea swerves across their path, laying napalm, then turning with a flaming arrow to ignite it.
As soon as she's past the chapel it drops, blocking the gate. From the field behind is seen cannon fire, anti aircraft and magic pointlessly targeting the fireball.
____
Odin looks up with his one eye and sees what's coming. Looks around the field to the blocked gate and knows it's the end.
Zeus raises his lightning to the sky then lowers it knowing nothing can be done.
Loki laughs at the sight while his intestines devoured by a great black dog.
Many look up, all too late. This is the first time it's fully seen how many of the rabble were in fact gods.
____
Nameless hits the ground face first, creating an explosive crater across the field, swallowing and destroying everything in it's circumference, burying Sanctuary's gate and knocking the chapel sideways from the impact and buried.
All in the sky but the highest flying are swept in the rubble, knocked down by stone or flung away. On the ground gods, recognizable and not are entombed while the trial temple and it's tower are shattered, dropping the bell with a tonal thud.
