THE BLUE VIXEN
VICTORIA, BC
11 NOV 2011, 00:48 PST
Ray grumbled as he contemplated the problem. “Donna makes this look easy. How do you make a dragon breathe plasma?”
The dragon-girls he was studying shrugged. “Ask Donna?” suggested Tawny.
Ray stuck his tongue out at her. “I don’t want to go to her for everything. If plasma won’t work, what about a cyclotron?”
“How are you going to fit a cyclotron inside of us?” asked Carmen.
Ray shook his head. “Other way around. I’m going to fit you around a cyclotron. Imagine a Ourobouros, except that instead of swallowing its own tail, the lizard body is a circle, with multiple heads around the circle that can tap off the beam... You’d need to be a few hundred meters across, but the parking lots around here are empty enough we could pull it off.”
“You’re going to merge us into a body with four heads?” asked Tawny, eyes bright. “Wicked.”
“I was thinking of at least eight, to give you good coverage in all directions.”
“Do it!”
The two started growing abruptly, and Ray had to hustle them out the door before they overwhelmed the room. “Oops. I don’t know my own strength.”
Rowan chuckled softly. “Something like this was inevitable. Just keep them from rampaging on the neighbours, please?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Ray had the two dragongirls position themselves on either side of the building. Once each of them was almost as large as the building itself, they started to thin and lengthen. Ray guided their maws to each other’s tails, and soon there was a lovely ring of scales encircling the Blue Vixen. After a brief time, heads started to emerge from the ring, pointing up at the sky. “Ready?”
“Ready!” roared eight heads in unison, each sending a bright blue beam into the sky.
Ray winced. “Well, at least you were pointed up. Try to keep the property damage to a minimum, we’ll see to evacuating the area.”
Once the evacuation order had been called in by Dr. O’Brien, Ray pinged Donna’s communication crystal. “Okay, we’ve got a defensive grid prepared. Can you do anything to help thin their numbers before they get here?”
Duncan answered, “We can’t leave, they’ll swarm the place if we do. But there’s also no sign they’re trying to slip past us. Maybe they think we don’t know about the other wing? Gwen says we’ll be close to done by the time that wing gets to you, so I’d rather not disturb the standoff.”
“That sounds like a no.”
“More like... let’s let them get closer. I could ship you a bunch of our new drones, they’re murder on the monkeys and the mites. If I shrink them first, I can bounce them through the upper atmosphere. You’ll have them in ten minutes.”
Donna cut in, “You might not want to hand them off directly. Each one has about 30 grams of Cobalt-60.”
Colin shuddered. “That’d be a hell of a dose. Far away is good, thanks.”
“Alright, we’ll set them up to intercept over the north island. Not a lot of people there.”
There was a hesitation, then Duncan called out, “Drones away. No reaction from our buddies here, so I think we’re good. But now that I think of it... I’m tempted to ‘let’ a couple slip through, give them hope that they’ve got a shot at this gambit until the last moment.”
Ray mulled that for a time. “Gwen?” he called out at last.
“It’s a solid idea. We should be able to start the closeout about the time they get there. Henry is pretty sure they’ll be able to feel it when we shift gears, might rile ‘em up a bit.”
“How long will closeout take?” asked Duncan.
“Twenty minutes or so. It’s a big enchantment.”
“It’ll take them most of that to get here from their encampment. Let’s do this.”
Ray sighed, and bowed his head. “Do it. I’ve got some cobalt-tipped ammunition here, just in case they get past Carmen and Tawny.”
“Are ye mad?” demanded Colin after the crystal went dark. “Those things, here?”
“Our best chance to end this. Besides, I’m not the only one who can shoot. Right?”
There was a murmur from the girls, then Isolde stuck her hand up. “I’m a decent shot.”
Ray pressed a pistol into Colin’s hands. “Just in case. You do know how to use one, right?”
Colin quickly and professionally unloaded the gun, checked the action, and reloaded it. “Spent a tour in the reserves, over in Croatia.”
Ray nodded. “Good. We can do this, for Donna.”
“For Donna!” chorused all the others.
*** *** ***
ABOVE AMOR LAKE
VANCOUVER ISLAND, BC
11 NOV 2011, 02:17 PST
The monkey-demons were cruising over a broad valley, below the level of the surrounding mountains. The leader squawked when he felt death-metal approaching, and the group scattered, but it was too late. Moments later, the drones flashed through their formation, cobalt-flechettes ripping through monkeys by the hundreds. Dozens of them tucked their wings in tight and plummeted to the lake below, and all but four were gunned down before they hit the surface.
The drones buzzed angrily over the surface of the lake, “stymied” by their prey’s actions. Some distance away, the four monkeys slunk out of the lake, and sprinted through the trees toward their goal.
*** *** ***
HEART OF THE WORLD
MACKENZIE COUNTY, AB
11 NOV 2011, 03:18 MST
“Oooh,” exclaimed Duncan. “They didn’t like that at all. Seeing a lot more activity now. Whatever they’re working on, it’ll be big.”
“So hit it with plasma already. Brushback pitch.”
“I’d rather not stir up the next. Gwen, how long?”
“Closing in about twenty-two minutes. Don’t ask for a timer, this is fiddly.”
*** *** ***
THE BLUE VIXEN
VICTORIA, BC
11 NOV 2011, 02:41 PST
“Contacts incoming,” relayed Ray from his position on the rooftop. “NORAD says either three or four, keep your eyes peeled.”
Four bright beams of plasma lanced out, and four monkeys exploded into ash. Tawny and Carmen roared their triumph.
“Nice shot, but don’t get cocky... Mites!”
Tawny and Carmen sent dozens of plasma bolts into the sky, but the mites were never quite where they seemed. Ray waited until they got much closer, then opened up with his rifle, as did Isolde. He got two shots off to her one, and to his surprise, three of the mites vanished, as if the bullets had been guided to the targets. Vanessa’s voice ghosted melodically in his ear, “can’t let you boys have all the fun.”
“Where’s the fourth?” called Ray.
A loud shot rang out from below. “Target down,” called Colin over the headset. “Left an ugly looking cloud behind.”
“Yeah, stay well away from that. Anyone feel any more?”
“Nope, we’re clear,” sang Vanessa. The choir picked up its latest hymn right where it had left off, and divine power once again flowed to Gwen and her great work.
*** *** ***
HEART OF THE WORLD
MACKENZIE COUNTY, AB
11 NOV 2011, 03:42 MST
“Here they come,” cried Duncan. “Something big is moving in the middle of that cloud.”
The plasma launchers opened up, and broke holes in the shroud of monkeys around the core. This time instead of a cloud of rocks, there was one enormous one.
“Beginning closure,” called Gwen. “Give me twenty minutes, and we win.”
“They’re moving faster than before. Contact in fifteen. Pull all the power you need before then.”
“How’d they get that rock moving so fast?” asked Donna, awed. Duncan ported an observation platform above the swarm. It died a fraction of a second later to a dark lance of energy.
“They’re using demonic energy to create thrust. And beam weapons. Anything made of lunar magic is toast.”
“Drones are fully mechanical, right?”
Hundreds were already leaping into the night sky. “Yes. But they won’t dent that thing. I need something big.” Duncan grabbed a chunk off his Cobalt-60 seed-block, and formed it into a lance. He started it growing, then teleported it twenty kilometers above the point where the rock would be in a minute’s time. As it fell, it continued to grow, to the size of a telephone pole, and beyond. Duncan flooded it with magic so that at every moment, its growth was its new permanent state.
When it hit the rock, it was almost 100 meters long, and over a meter in diameter. It speared the rock to the ground, and the mites inside died by the tens of millions from cobalt exposure.
And every bit of that death energy was channeled into the great dark crystal inside it. Death flooded out in a jagged purple cascade of lightning that washed across the plain, scouring away everything in front of it.
A fragment of a second before it would have washed the triad away, Dia teleported them above the ravening wave. They stared down at the ruin below them in awe and horror.
“Well, fuck.”