“So, who did you bump into?” Harry asked as they made their way to their assigned table.
“Her,” Murphy said as they approached their seats. She and Harry were placed next to Jack and Reika on one side, and woman he had not seen before.
She sat at the table, leaning back in her chair with an assured grin on her face. She had an athletic build and vivid red hair, swapped in a diaphanous, but still slinky, emerald dress.
“So,” She said, “Are you really a wizard named Harry?”
Dresden was tired and had been through a lot in a very short period of time, so his response was less than diplomatic: he just grumbled under his breath.
That was when he noted her chair. It was made of a metallic substance that clashed heavily with the room.
“Harry,” Murphy said, “This is--”
“I go by many names,” The woman in green interrupted, standing up to her full height. Though she was shorter than Harry—she still stood an impressive 6ft, “I have been called: Tifa Lockheart, Lina the Pink, The Fifth Fire Shadow—and just yesterday, someone called me Susan. That was kinda weird. But, for today, I’m just Eiko.”
She extended a hand to Harry, who took it. He shook it, but notices that her hand barely closed around his, he guided the vigorousness of the shake—which was pretty limp with his condition.
“I’d say more, but the movie’s gonna start soon,” Eiko said.
“Movie?” Harry asked as he plopped down, with Murphy between him and Eiko. On the other side of him sat Jack—acting as a thankful buffer to him and Reika. Beyond Reika were others—a Blonde woman in silver, a nerd with a mild military build and a large, bald black man with a golden symbol on his forehead. Harry thought it was a tattoo until he sat down and saw it was three dimensional.
Murphy turned to explain what she meant when the lights dimmed, leaving only a single bright spotlight, which grabbed everyone’s attention.
At its center was the President of the United States, David Xanatos. He still maintained a youthful appearance, but stood with pure confidence.
Harry guessed it was the beard.
Flanking him from behind were two secret service agents. One was a blonde Amazon whose hair was tied back in a knob; the other was a dark haired man with broad shoulders and an athletic, military build. They both appeared quite young—maybe late twenties like Eiko—and the woman had on large metal bracers over her forearms.
Next to the President stood a woman in a military uniform Harry had never seen before. It was similar to a blue naval uniform, but the arrangement of various icons on it was off—way off.
The fact that the woman in question had light blue hair and a strange third eye tattoo in the center of her forehead raised further alarm bells.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Xanatos calmly began, “I have called you all here today to discuss grave matters. I’m sure it has not escaped your attention, but the previous century has been fraught with strife, conflict and near apocalypse, only getting worse as the millennium encroached.”
Harry could think of 3 events offhand that nearly brought about an apocalyptic upheaval in the nature of the world that he had been personally involved in within his lifetime alone. He was pretty sure that was far to frequent to be normal for a long time.
It’s nice to have someone agree with you.
“Thanks to contact with the Time Space Administration Bureau and other organizations already within the Earth’s government perveau, we have come to a grim conclusion that earth is entering what the TSAB refers to as..."
The room filled with screens that floated in mid air—each one displaying an image of destruction, death and horror. Some were medieval battles in the darkest depths of the Fairy-realms or “Nevernever”, others were battles beyond the furthest stars, still others featured rampages of monsters and demons unopposed.
Harry recognized a few of the monsters. Godzilla. King Ghidorah. Rodan. Some of the clips, he realized, were film from earth. Recent news broadcast no less. One of them was of Godzilla’s battle against Ghidorah in New York. Others were clips of just the monsters on their own—Ghidorah leveling Paris, Godzilla attacking on Tokyo, Varan marauding across the gulf of Mexico.
But those were only the monsters Harry could identify, in places Harry knew. There were hundreds more Harry had never seen before in places ranging from the ancient to the alien. The monsters themselves ranged from gigantic insects to things Harry wished he never saw, and one really
ugly mother--
“A period in time when high technology, magic and primordial forces reach a level of activity that threatens all sapient life forms at one or more points in their history. Hundreds of species never make it past this barrier—obliterating themselves before they took their first strong steps beyond their home sphere, or being obliterated by energies they could not control or foes they could not overcome.”
Harry looked on at the images and saw Armies of summer fairy soldiers together with humans in medieval armament running into a massive battle against twisting creatures resembling hobs, but larger, armed and armored with what looked like materials made of wrought iron.
But that was impossible—iron burned fairies—winter or summer.
Behind them stood nearly a dozen or so fiery demonic beings seemingly made of semi-solid magma and built like classic devils—some 20ft in height. Armed with flaming whips, they lead their lesser beings into battle and cut a bloody swatch through the coalition.
“I’m sad to say, but earth has already failed the test once before. Our species survived, but it took us over twenty thousand years to even approach the level of technology needed for such a confluence to occur again.”
The image of a flying machine reminiscent of a police issue robot or Patlabor blasted at swarms of Gyaos over an ocean turned red with blood passed by Harry’s table. As they tore at it, it fell apart like broken pottery.
Eiko pointed and quietly said “It’s a
Gundam!” and added a choked off cry from the pit of her stomach.
Harry gave her a look, initially of disgust, but he realized she was joking to hide her fear.
Harry wished he could muster up a snide remark at that moment. But seeing people torn apart by Gyaos, crushed under giant machines, liquefied by sound waves…
It made him glad he didn’t eat beforehand.
The next image even more so—it was a mass of red tentacles and ropey organisms coalesced over several buildings, forming a cyclopean figure reminiscent of a pagan idol. Its face contained a single mask-like eye with two large fins on either side of its head. From its base, several other horrors budded off from the individual ropes which lost cohesion as the creature’s mass traveled from its top to its base. They resembled half-formed torsos, living cloaks, jellyfish and hydras, Humanoid figures with too many faces for its head—so some appear in random places on its torso and masses of tentacles that congeal into a singular mouth. All of these creatures shifted in coloration from a sickly red to a lifeless gray.
Harry wondered if this was a Walker of some sort. Though with the hook-like scythes that were attached to many of the creature’s sides, it probably had a moniker like “He Who Reaps Life” or perhaps “Those Which Reap Life” as it did seem to be continually budding off new forms of itself.
“Our current Dark History has been actively running for over thirty years now, with inklings of its occurrence going back to the First World War. It could go on for another hundred years at this pace—or we could all die tomorrow. Dark History’s don’t end until we move beyond what divides us for the sake of all sapient life on the planet.”
The image of several spaceships with odd pyramidal designs raining gold energy bolts down on a planet’s surface, leveling all structures on the surface, passed Harry by.
“I’m rather certain that none of us here want to see this history repeat itself. So I am asking you for your cooperation in the long term. Some of you are nervous, afraid that we will turn your organizations into supernatural lapdogs of the government. To be blunt, we have those already. What we—the United Nations, The Time Space Administration Bureau and myself—want is cooperation and friendship for the survival of sentient life on the planet. The more of us that work together on this—the greater our chance of survival.”
“So how do we fight this thing?” A voice called out, Harry turned to see the Hellboy as its source, scowling at the images as they passed him by.
“For that, I’ll turn this over to Captain Lindy Harlaown of the Time Space Administration Bureau: one of Earths many allies in space.” Xanatos said, and motioned for the woman with the third eye tattoo to take the podium. The images of war and horror disappeared.
“Fellow Sentients,” She smiled as she spoke, “I am Captain Lindy Harlaown of the Time Space Administration Bureau…I believe that it is somewhat analogous to the Federation on
Star Trek. Though, we are a society of mages as well as space travelers.”
A low murmur went through the crowd. Harry had figured right, but still did not want to believe what he was hearing.
“We are an alliance of worlds which have all greatly suffered through various Black Histories. My own home world, Mid-Childa, went through two such incidents leaving many artifacts of those wars behind.”
New images filled the screen. These were simple three dimensional images of items or snapshots of locations.
Most of the items were books of one sort or another. However, a few were quite different — medieval weapons, stone tablets, even an odd shaped revolver appeared in the lineup.
“We’ve come to call these highly destructive and dangerous artifacts Lost Logia. Our original mission on this planet was to secure a Lost Logia from our planet which made its way here. Earth was already well known to us as a planet with an extremely large number of unaccounted for lost logia.
“It is standard First Contact procedure within the TSAB to aid a planet in the location and containment Lost Logia and related locations. Many of you have done so already and for that we are greatful. Still, there are many that, if they fall into the wrong hands or are left on their own, will ensure that this Dark History will repeat itself once again.”
The images changed again, showing what Harry assumed were members of the TSAB in action on various planets. Mages in flight, battling machines, fallen mages and monsters alike.
“The final phase of this project is to eventually bring earth up to the technology standard of the Bureau. We will be sharing standard humanitarian aid where applicable. Earth is a good deal away from our dimensional hub, so I cannot promise much immediate action beyond my own ships’ capabilities. Still, by the slow, monitored introduction of our Magical systems to earth, we can eventually bring humanity out of the chthonic masquerade the planet has around it—but the shortest time frame for that is still a hundred years off, so there’s little need to worry.”
The lights went back up as Lindy continued, “Of course, there are a lot more details in the actual treaty documentation—but we’ll address any questions or concerns you have as an initial reaction to the proposal.”
From across the room, the first to stand was a member of the Catholic Church, Enrico Maxwell. He was a slim with his gray hair tied back in a pony tail, but still looked rather young.
“This is a joke,” He stood rigidly, lowering a condescending eye at Lindy, “Surely, this is a joke. You expect us to believe that
aliens want us all to cooperate? How absurd. I expect you have Antennae hidden inside your hair too.”
“Most humanoid life forms in the galaxy descend from the ancient Mu, so we do tend to look ‘Human.’” Lindy answered calmly, “As for being an alien, we can take select groups on tour of either my ship, or the two inter-stellar cruisers earth has already built.”
A murmur went through the hall as that bombshell was dropped as casually as a pebble. Harry himself nearly did a double take. If aliens were indeed real and looked like humans, it should not be that surprising to find at least one or more Ancient Astronaut theories turning out to be true too.
“I’m sure that will be most informative,” Maxwell nodded his head slightly, “But you cannot expect organizations who have centuries of animosity to work together easily?”
“Of course not,” Lindy smiled, “I expect the process to be a long, drawn out one. However, we feel the threat is certainly worth a little paperwork, don’t you agree?”
Enrico Maxwell scowled as he sat down.
A small blonde woman stood up to speak, her seating name read as ‘Buffy Summers.’ Harry expected her to be taller for all the crap she pulled.
“I don’t have quite the objections that Father Gray Ponytail, though I’ll be trying to get on that spaceship tour later on.” Buffy paused to get a look at Father Maxwell, who scowled back at her, “And I really hope you’re not eating hamsters while our backs are turned. My main concern is with the women under my care. I’m sure a lot of people here who are not too eager to become tools of any government. We don’t want to be drawn into something like the 39th Central Asiatic Conflict.”
“Until the masquerade is broken,” Xanatos answered, “magical and mundane affairs will be kept separated in terms of resource allocation.”
“And afterwards?” Buffy’s face darkened slightly.
“Magic will be a part of everyday society,” Lindy answered, “Given the—Slayer, right?”
Buffy nodded as an answer.
“Given a Slayers known predispositions towards violence and their power,” Lindy answered, “Simple registration and training in how to responsibly use their abilities. I believe you are attempting to do something similar, correct?”
Buffy looked as though she had a rebuttal at the tip of her tongue, but it died as she answered Lindy: “Uh, yeah.”
“We would work out the details of such registration and training as we worked out the treaties—but I believe it would be something analogous to a drivers license here on earth,” Lindy smiled.
Buffy sat down, mumbling something Harry could not pick up.
“Any other immediate concerns?” Lindy asked.
“What about those of us who
want the Dark History to continue?” A new voice with a slight German accent filled the room, and the lights flickered.
Two figures appeared in the center of the room. One was a short, round man, in a white suit with glasses, his blond hair neatly combed so that only half of his bangs dangled over his forehead. The other was far larger, both in terms of height and musculature, with long dark hair and holding a long, curved blade sheathed over his shoulders. Guns and staves from the agents and Secret Service pointed at the new arrivals, and several of the guests stood up, ready for battle at their entrance.
“Hold on,” Xanatos interrupted, “It’s a hologram.”
They lowered their weapons slightly, but remained on edge.
“I have a different proposal for you,” The shorter of the two continued, “It is far simpler and more satisfying than paperwork and treaties could ever be.”
He clenched his fist in a tight ball in front of him and said only one word: “War.”
After letting that sit in the air for a moment, “War without end, a war to engulf this planet, this galaxy and beyond—to the very gates of Valhalla! War as pleasure, War as pain, War as a catalyst to bring about the best and the worst in mankind.”
The Major turned grin continued to grow as he spoke, “A merciless, bloody war. A war built on iron, lightning and fire. A war whose very existence is needed for mankind to survive in any way, shape or form. A Massive war—a War of Worlds! A war beyond any that man’s history has ever known!
“Stand and fight us—the Last Battalion—or lie down and die as we press our jackboots into your throats. Or, if you choose to stand and watch, we will do so to those you hold most dear. Maybe that will get the urge for war to burn in you, as it does me. Precious people. Family, friends…”
The Speech-making madman mouthed two words towards Harry’s table. Harry wasn’t the best at lip reading, but he could barely make out the words—and they weren’t English.
These two words elicited a gasp from the God Machine and caused her to pale significantly.
Harry believed the words to be a name—but not from a language he was familiar with—and that wasn’t very many. Cam-E-Nah Eye-Yacht-Oh? He had no idea as to its significance—but they caused the God Machine to quake in fear.
Their images flickered into nothing before the ground shook and a white light filled the room. Harry braced himself for the shockwave.