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Post by spanishspy on Jun 29, 2017 4:31:35 GMT
The metallic clutches strapped Annette Zhou into the machine that was the Department of Defense Superhuman Research Division's hopeful trump card in the coming war. She breathed deep breaths and tried not to panic.
The cover went over her, sealing itself into a socket and locking the hatches. In the small torpedo-shaped container, wires and clamps and other implements penetrated her skin.
There was a small microphone and speaker that let her communicate with the outside researchers. She knew that the other human computers were locked into other interfaces, but she was the subject.
"Annette," said Gonzalez through the microphone, "I know you are worried, but understand that in doing this you are brave and loyal. The other test subjects had gone insane from this, rambling on and on about some sort of being that talked to them. What disturbs me is the consistency, the possibility that there are beings beyond us. But no matter; if this works you will save us all."
"Thank you." That is all Annette said.
Gonzalez inspected the console one last time. "Everyone, to your stations!" He called out to his crew.
"Psionic Amplifiers?"
"Check!"
"Psionic Conduits?"
"Good to go, sir!"
"Generators?"
"Up and running!"
"Life support stable?"
"Yes sir!"
"Very well!" he proclaimed. He unlocked the glass case covering the activation lever, grabbed it, and pulled it.
Electrical noises from the generators began humming, then whirring, then screeching. Tremendous amounts of psionic energy were being shunted into this woman, the most every brought into a single human being. It was tweaked from past experiments, of course, but even so it was the largest amount of the experiments.
Annette braced herself. The energy coursed through her, at first shocking her. She breathed more and more heavily, and tried to remain of sound mind.
As the energy surged, she began to feel some ... thing. Some experience, some emotion, some knowledge of something ...
She felt everything.
Everything.
It felt as if her mind had opened its doors not only to her surroundings, but to all existence. She experienced the existence of stars and galaxies and planets, and civilizations and beings and indeed other universes. She experienced the existence of things for which words did not exist. She was catapulted from reality to reality at breakneck pace, seeing all that was in all forms.
She could barely think. She could only experience.
"Annette."
It was a voice. It was not Gonzalez or anyone else she recognized.
"You have gotten this far, and their test has succeeded. Do not worry for you will get out of this safely."
The voice paused. Existence continued flowing into her.
"You will save your civilization in more ways than one, and you will save many, many more. I have faith that your efforts will succeed."
Everything then stopped. She was back in the compartment, still shackled. She was in a daze, but conscious and alert, but dazed. A daze of other existences still lingered in her.
She felt something off. Something wrong.
Something malevolent.
Something in the back of everything. It was mobile, it was present, and it was not Vucub-Caquix (she knew his frequencies from the data that had been tested; frequencies translated into some sort of odd experience she could not describe).
The container rose, the cover lifted, and the shackles unlocked. She was breathing erratically. "Is she alive?" asked Gonzalez. "Are you okay? Annette, do you hear me?"
She heard him, felt his presence, his very being. She mustered up the words to speak.
"I am alive. I can't say anything else. I don't know what happened, but I felt absolutely everything."
Gonzalez' eyebrows rose. "Does that mean ... we've succeeded?"
"Maybe."
She searched her memories for something, anything familiar.
Her home. Her childhood home in Santa Monica. She clung to that memory as a bulwark of sanity in an otherwise insane universe. She willed to be there with all her might, to be in a simpler time in simpler situations.
And then there she was. Standing in the yard of the house she had grown up in. Her parents had long since moved out, but there it was.
She walked around a bit, testing her strength. She was fine. She was focusing.
Other realities were still present in her mind. Of universes beyond her own comprehension.
She focused on one, randomly, and lo and behold she found herself in the crowds of an iron city. People in odd clothing and hats (especially hats, which tended towards three points in some way) strode around. She looked up, and saw a gigantic purple crystal, shaped in some vaguely spherical geometric form, towering over the city. Ethereal entities resembling humans floated around in the sky, as did iron ships with red crystals on them.
She selected another reality, on a whim. She drifted in space, peering into its vastness. There was a planet and a sun in the distance; the planet was not Earth. There were satellites orbiting it. Nearby were some sort of vehicles, colored in bluish chrome with green accents, firing beams at opponents who were black and purple. They were two armadas at war, for what, nobody could tell.
She was floating. She could breath, or did not need to breath. She could also move, and observed the ships.
There were windows in the chrome ones, and in them bestrode mechanical insectoid constructions in a similar color scheme, scampering about and interfacing with consoles.
She then decided that was enough. She willed her way back into the Rockbridge County installation, in the very room she had awoken from her haze in. She could still feel all reality, but she could hardly make sense of it. It was only a smorgasbord of experiences all felt at once. She could hardly think of words for it.
Gonzalez saw her appear. His jaw dropped.
"It worked."
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Post by spanishspy on Jun 30, 2017 2:12:12 GMT
"Annette! You're alive!" called out Gonzalez.
Annette just stared at him.
"I am."
He didn't hear her, at least not with his ears, as one would hear sound waves. He felt it, and he knew the sentiment.
"Is this telepathy?" he asked. Most normal humans only had limited ability to receive telepathic messages.
"I think so."
She could feel their emotions, read their minds to a degree. The crowd of researchers and human computers stood there in fear and awe. She could feel it, primally, as she could feel other realities in the back of her mind.
"WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO - WOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Sirens. The installation's alarms were going off.
"What is this for?" asked Annette indignantly, still not opening her mouth. They still all heard her.
"Hostile forces converging on this facility. Prepare for lockdown."
The siren continued to blare. "All of you, to the safehouse! I will see what my powers can do."
"Are you sure, Annette? Are you sure this is a good idea?" blurted out Gonzalez. "You literally just got them!"
"We need a field test, and what better time than now?"
She envisioned the outside of the facility, and sure enough she was there. A mob of Vucub Caquix cultists, apparently recently possessed, were marching on the facility with guns and jury-rigged APCs made from civilian vehicles.
Out of the ground popped turrets, which began firing on the invading forces. She began focusing on one cultist near the front of their group.
She focused on him, and could feel the psionic energy welling up inside her. She concentrated all her thoughts on him, and commanded her natural talents to manifest upon him.
He stopped, dropped his gun, screamed, and dropped dead.
The cultists stopped. There was a frenetic chatter among them, in Spanish and in English.
What could she do with her other powers in regards to objects? Metal had no mind, and metal was what composed the APCs.
Could she make portals?
Of the morass of universes that flowed through her head, she picked some other place with no planets nearby, only the void and distant stars. She focused on that, not willing herself to go there, but willed the universe 'towards' a pickup truck.
Under the truck opened a portal to this starry void. The air started flowing into this void, which seemed to suck in things around it. These things included trucks and people. The people screamed and the truck engines accelerated to no avail.
The portal closed, and they were gone.
They began fleeing.
"Could I teleport myself over there?"
She envisioned it. She imagined herself standing in front of the fleeing cultists, and lo and behold she was.
She focused on them as a group. The psionic energy flowed through her, and materialized around the group as a purplish field surrounding them. They stopped in awe.
Then they stopped living.
They fell to the ground, and the field evaporated in a shockwave that sent the grass flying out.
They were gone.
She envisioned other places, other worlds, but did not go to them. She chose to look at places she had been before.
Her hometown. Places in Rockbridge County. Washington D.C. Guatemala.
She lingered on the base in Guatemala she was deployed on for a while helping with intelligence. She looked at it from overhead.
She saw light. Fire. Combat.
There was Karoly Bakos and several other superheroes, accompanied by regular army men and women. They were fighting off more cultists, apparently with more to their name than just soldiers. They had birds and other animals of a ghastly kind aiding them.
She concentrated on that point. It was in the air, but she felt she could fly based on her experiences right out of the test chamber. She envisioned herself there.
Sure enough, there she was, floating over the base in Guatemala. The battle raged.
And she was ready.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 1, 2017 3:55:09 GMT
This base was not only an air base; it was one of the major field logistics centers fielded by the US in Guatemala. Since it was so close to the projected Doomsday Karoly Bakos could only imagine that Vucub Caquix had something up his sleeve, given the massive army of cultists attacking it.
They were armed with powers of flame as well as both melee weapons and projectile weapons pilfered from the Americans and the Guatemalan government. They didn't much discriminate based on what weapons they used; they just wanted to fight for their God.
Bakos was playing a less direct frontal role; instead of fighting them head on, he would teleport behind the advancing lines and take them out that way, with his own guns or grenades. He would throw grenades into cultist tanks, usually an Abrams stolen from the US, and phase away before they exploded. Otherwise, he had knifes to assassinate soldiers, and pistols for when those wouldn't work.
It was exhausting. American bullets flew in his general direction, and he phased several times a minute to dodge fire from both sides. He phased behind an advancing column to breath for a moment.
And then some sort of gash, some sort of maw, opened up. He could see distant stars through it.
"What in God's name?!" he exclaimed. He phased away from it.
The air in the area began flowing away, and the cultists were sucked into it. The portal closed, and there was scarcely anything left of them.
He looked in awe. He scanned the area to see if anything was coming. "Hampton, are you detecting this portal thing?" he asked into his transceiver.
Hampton, who was helping them remotely in Guatemala City, sounded shocked. "There was an attack on a research facility in Virginia by embedded cultists. It was marked by a tremendous outburst of undirected psionic energy, and now that energy has made its way down there. Apparently, you guys there have backup."
"What the hell do you mean, Hampton?"
"He means me."
Bakos did not hear the voice. He felt it. He thought it.
He scampered around, terrified, wondering where this voice came from.
"Behind you."
He turned around. He saw, floating, a woman in scientific garb unleashing portals and killing cultists with some form of psionic energy.
"I am Annette Zhou. We worked together a bit a few years ago, and now, for reasons I don't have to explain, I have all sorts of bizarre powers."
"Well, for whatever this is worth, thanks. You're up there; can you see how much is left?"
"I can see that they are being routed."
"Good show, good show, Ms. Zhou!" acclaimed Bakos.
In the distance, he heard cheers at the base.
Then screams.
He saw planes and tanks and trucks being levitated, crumpled, and thrown about. One slammed right into a control tower, which fell right down.
"What is happening?" asked Annette. "I can sense something hostile, but I'm not sure what."
"Oh, I know who this is."
"Who?"
"The Vanguard."
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 6, 2017 2:51:47 GMT
The air control tower that managed this base's incoming aircraft toppled as a crumpled up jet was flung at it. No doubt it was Esmeralda.
"They must have known this was somehow coming!" spat Bakos. "Are they in league with Vucub-Caquix?"
"No. I can sense the psionic emissions. I feel from them ... opportunism. They saw that you would be under attack and decided to strike when you were weak."
Bakos was still adjusting to how Annette spoke through psionic emissions and not through her voice. Nevertheless he understood. "Can you read their minds?"
"Not from this distance. But I can get the gist of their intentions."
"What the hell are the two of you waiting for?" cried out Mark Wheeling from the battle. "Get over here!"
Annette and Bakos each teleported in their own way to Wheeling, who was using his powers of various energy fields to take town cultists.
Esmeralda threw a hunk of metal at them, which Wheeling destroyed with a field opening from within it. He enlarged the spherical field, glowing gold, to block other projectiles.
"Hampton!" called Bakos into the transceiver, "what is the status of the Vanguard attack?"
Hampton could be heard typing and talking into other microphones. "Their main jet is overhead. You could cripple the Vanguard as a whole if you can take it down. It appears most of the Vanguard is on the ground, but even so we could take prisoners."
Annette glanced to both of them. "Take down Ormanni. I can deal with the jet." She leaped into the air, scanned for the jet, found it circling the base, and pursued it.
Wheeling and Bakos advanced. Wheeling deactivated the defensive energy shield and gathered his strength, only deviating to take down the hunks of rock and metal being thrown at them.
Esmeralda hovered closer on her platform, specially made to be manipulated by her. "Your reign of terror is just about over! Just get out, and stop your genocide!" she snarled, almost frothing at the mouth. "I have not seen anything good from your presence, and I can't imagine people as intelligent as you have! Why do you do this?" She said this as she threw more and more debris at them.
"Keep her occupied! I need time to set up a two-point field!"
Bakos nodded, and teleported behind her. He opened fire on her with his pistol (even superheroes had them, depending on their powers), and before she could respond he teleported again to her side. He zipped around like a particularly annoying bug, throwing punches or bullets.
Around them were two yellow points, one on either side of a line with Esmeralda as the center, each slowly forming a hemisphere. When done, it would trap her in a spherical field.
Esmeralda, panicked, called into her own transceiver. "Rodriguez, get the jet to my location and provide fire support!"
"Si!" called out Rodriguez, the pilot. The jet came zipping towards her, guns getting ready to fire.
And then it stopped in midair as a rift in reality opened behind it.
The jet was not stopped; rather it was being pulled back into the starry void. Bakos could see Annette floating behind them all.
Rodriguez, no matter how good a pilot, could not escape the air being evacuated into the void. The ship came to a brief halt, then fell into the rift. The rift then closed.
By then, the field around Esmeralda had completed. She was trapped.
"So, Ms. Ormanni, at long last. We can talk," remarked Bakos. "And, as per Washington, I have a proposition for you."
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 7, 2017 3:01:44 GMT
The last few hours were a haze to Esmeralda. She remembered Bakos giving her an offer, but she went out cold shortly thereafter. She woke up in a holding device that surrounded her in her entirety. On her head was a frame that injected into her cranium. She tried shaking it off with her powers, but nothing.
It was a psionic inhibitor. When used in certain ways they could prevent superhumans from using their abilities. Here, she was powerless.
She looked to the sides, and saw other Vanguard superhumans. The Hero Twins. Lenin. Many other of her compatriots.
On the other side of the room was a screen. In front of said screen stood Annette Zhou, Karoly Bakos, and Mark Wheeling, alongside other superhumans and regular infantry.
A man in a lab coat walked into view. "They are all conscious, as you have requested."
"Very well," replied Bakos.
The screen turned on. On it was Donald Rumsfeld, President of the United States.
"The Vanguard of the Oppressed, brought to heel at last. Such a shame that it came to this, but this is how the world unfolded. Now, to cut to the chase, Mr. Bakos said we had a proposition. We do."
There was a silence of a few seconds.
"And that is?" asked Esmeralda.
"It's simple, really. Help us take down Vucub Caquix and his minions and we will withdraw from Guatemala."
The Vanguard mumbled among itself.
Hunahpu tensed up, shaking the capsule but not breaking it. The guards readied their guns. "And how can we be certain?" he growled.
"What strategic interest would we have in this country if the main threat is gone?"
"Efrain Rios Montt."
"Oh, him," sighed Rumsfeld. "He is the person who Guatemala has chosen to lead them. He is the people's choice!"
"He came to power in a coup!" spat Esmeralda. "Why would we want to keep him here?"
"Tell me, Ms. Ormanni, what choice do you have? The capsules in which you stand are rigged to kill each and every one of you, and if they can't, the men and women in front of you sure as hell can. And besides, if it gets out that you refused to save the world from this monstrosity, you would go down in history as ideologues and jacobins. Hundreds of millions of lives are on the line and yet you fight us? Would not those who die count as 'oppressed?' Are you willing to make that kind of sacrifice for your own vanity?"
More silence. Esmeralda knew that he had a point. She detested him and his military-industrial complex, but realistically they had the best chance of taking down a god. And she was no fan of Vucub-Caquix; the Vanguard had defended civilians against the attacks of his cultists several times. He was a greedy, nigh-infinitely powerful thing.
And the Vanguard was only a few people.
"No."
The Vanguard gasped. The Americans remained quiet.
"I accept your offer on the condition that all American troops are withdrawn from Guatemala after he is defeated."
Rumsfeld nodded.
"Of course."
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 11, 2017 2:48:21 GMT
As the Vanguard was integrated into the broader Allied command structure the world looked fearfully on that small Central American country. The world news was waiting with apprehension; would there even be money to earn after this? They didn't know.
In Washington and in Guatemala City and in the other capitals of the world the leaders of all the nations prepared for what had been dreaded. The Doomsday Clock moved its second hand closer and closer to midnight, and its handlers prayed that it would be a folly and nothing more.
The submarines that President Rumsfeld had dispatched to the Pacific and Caribbean were on high alert.
The cities of the United States, and of anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, prepared for the cataclysm.
It was doomsday.
December 21st, 2012.
The new baktun. The new age.
Or so they thought. When the sun rose that morning in St. John's and in Joao Pessoa the world seemed quiet. Perhaps it was a fluke? Would it not happen?
Those in the eastern parts of that hemisphere hoped to whatever deity they prayed to that this was merely a scare.
But the sun in its inevitable march westward came unto the war-torn highlands of Guatemala, and the earth began to shake.
As hill gave to ravine, out emerged a flock of birds and other creatures loyal to the rebellious bird god.
And then, the giant bird, the bird whose arrival heralded doomsday.
Out rose Vucub Caquix.
Befitting a deity of the sun, great rays of fire and light emanated from the deity, squashing any and all foreign positions in his kingdom, his civilization.
His loyal flocks flew in two directions: north, to the power that currently shackled his kingdom, and northeast, to the power that had shackled it for centuries in the past. Still more went to clear his kingdom for himself.
And he began to move northward, destroying anything and anyone that did not match his vision of perfection.
And as millions burned, very few were aware of the presence that lurked in the shadow of Jupiter, watching very attentively the affairs of the third planet from Sol.
But this presence knew that a small team of researchers had detected its psionic emissions. It knew that they had an inkling of the affairs of something far beyond them.
It waited.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 12, 2017 2:40:33 GMT
Excerpts from a live feed by Der Spiegel, December 21st, 2012,
Massive flocks of birds and other creatures spotted off the coasts of the Canary Islands.
[...]
Contact with the Canary Islands has been lost. All armed forces in Europe are on high alert.
[...]
Video feet reveals that Cabrakan, the Mayan Earthquake God and son of Vucub Caquix, has made landfall near Huelva. NATO forces are being deployed to Spain.
[...]
Seville, Granada, Cordoba, Malaga, and other cities in Andalusia have been nearly destroyed. Refugees are fleeing northward towards Madrid and Murcia.
[...]
Cabrakan's army is moving towards Madrid. The city is being fortified.
[...]
The surviving population of the Madrid region is estimated at four percent of the pre-doomsday total.
[...]
American, British, and French nuclear weapons have been launched onto Spain. There are unconfirmed reports of a massive psionic energy field around Cabrakan's army.
[...]
Ballistic missiles have seemingly froze in the air over Cabrakan's army. Psionic interference is suspected.
[...]
Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valladolid, and other major Spanish cities have been destroyed via nuclear bomb. Others are being destroyed by Cabrakan's armies.
[...]
Toulouse has been destroyed in a nuclear blast.
[...]
Southampton, Portsmouth, and the rest of coastal Hampshire have been destroyed in nuclear blasts.
[...]
The Cote d'Azur in France has been destroyed in nuclear blasts.
[...]
Less than ten percent of the population of Normandy is expected to have survived nuclear blasts. Bordeaux and Nantes have been destroyed.
[...]
French government functions are being boarded onto planes to parts unknown. It is suspected they will go to the British deployments at Akrotiri and Dhekelia on Cyprus.
[...]
Nuclear bombs have dropped on Paris.
[...]
Nuclear bombs have dropped on London. British government functions are being evacuated to Scotland.
[...]
American military administration is being moved to somewhere in the former Soviet Union.
[...]
There is no signal coming from the Low Countries.
[...]
Forces from all over Eastern Europe are designating Prague as the the site for a pitched battle. Civilians west of Prague are recommended to move eastward.
[...]
The Valley of the Ruhr emits no communications.
[...]
Midnight, Prague time: European forces are converging around Prague. Refugees are being settled in former Eastern Bloc countries. Anyone in Bavaria or Baden-Wurttemberg is encouraged to go north or east; no bombs have hit Berlin or Hamburg or points to the north. Those in France, Spain, or Britain are advised to stay hidden.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 13, 2017 5:30:20 GMT
Nobody would ever have guessed that one day Vladimir Lenin would be leading US troops in Guatemala. But lo and behold there he was atop a watchtower, directing a combination of American and remnant Vanguard troops.
The Vanguard did not have enough survivors to form its own unit and so were impressed into service with the rest of the deployment at this location, named Fort Schwarzkopf.
The encampment was being besieged by human and animal acolytes of Vucub Caquix, who was moving northward. They could still see the the firestorms he left in his wake, befitting a god of the sun.
Esmeralda and Karoly worked together to defend one gate, as did the Hero Twins on another. Mark Wheeling and some lower-ranked American superhumans guarded a third.
And, directly stemming the tide some meters away, fought Annette Zhou. She was rapidly becoming adept at staying the tide of the men and lizards and birds that swarmed them. She opened rifts and sucked them in, and focused on individual soldiers to psionically overwhelm them, thereby having them drop dead.
She focused on one group of human cultists. They were armed with weapons taken from the American presence. She began opening a rift behind them.
And then she fell to the ground, some malicious entity above her. It was scaly and green, and exuded a tremendous amount of heat. She gathered her strength and attempted to push it off, and succeeded after several minutes of doing so.
It occurred to her that she didn't teleport away. The surprise must have affected her to the point that it simply did not occur to do so, and that being physically pinned made it hard to concentrate on teleporting.
She teleported into the air, and then realized this was no ordinary demon.
It was Zipacna, a son of Vucub Caquix.
He roared. "Come down, you pitiable thing!" He looked up and spewed fire from his mouth, invoking the sun in doing so.
As she dodged his attacks she tried to psionically overwhelm him. She focused more and more energy unto the lizard, but to no avail. He had some sort of 'shield' if that made any sense.
So little things in psionics, and especially with this new ability to rip holes in the fabric of reality, could be truly expressed in words.
She opened a rift behind him. Some cultists were sucked in, but Zipacna anchored his claws into the ground. He even could resist the tug of the void while moving, although moving more slowly.
She threw voids and psionic energy at him. Nothing.
"What is going on? Why? This thing is beyond me! And they thought they'd turn me into a god that could stop this sun-monster, to say nothing of his son!" she thought to herself, getting more frantic. More and more rifts. More and more attempts to psionically overwhelm the beast. More and more dodging.
It occurred to her to try something she had not done. Something risky.
The presence of her mind of all realities became her half-focus, the other half being Zipacna. She had no idea if this would do anything, or leave her alive even, but some recklessness may be of use.
She focused on channeling the two concepts together, if that made any sense. Her mind began entering a haze.
She saw everything again.
Everything.
The blur of all existence overwhelmed her, but it seemed like it was flowing through a conduit. Through herself.
"Annette."
"What?" she mentally screamed. "Who the hell are you?"
"You have found a way to save your people. Practice this, hone this, and your great enemy will be vanquished."
The voice paused.
"And then you will be called to greater things."
"What? What does that mean? What does any of this mean? Tell me! Tell me!"
Nothing.
She fell to the ground.
She dug herself out of a ditch, which was odd, because she did not remember a ditch being there. She climbed out and saw a roughly hemispherical trench having manifested itself.
She clambered out.
Zipacna was nowhere to be seen.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 14, 2017 3:28:14 GMT
Zipacna was dead.
It took Annette longer than it should have to come to terms with that.
She had killed an ancient God.
She stared at the crater in horror and amazement.
Seeing her folly she teleported back to Fort Schwarzkopf to help in the defense. To her amazement the forces of the false Sun God were retreating.
She manifested in the middle of the base. There was quiet. Not celebration, but more so a feeling of confusion. Their triumph was inexplicable.
The troops of the United States Army and the Vanguard of the Oppressed had retreated behind the walls. They all looked at her in amazement. Bakos and Esmeralda were first among them, closest to her.
"What happened?" asked Bakos.
"I'm not entirely sure how I did it, but I think I killed Zipacna."
"You killed a god?" asked Esmeralda. Here nostrils were flared and her brow was rigid. She did not immediately believe this.
"And yet it happened," replied Bakos. "I have faith in her."
Esmeralda sneered.
"What has happened elsewhere?" inquired Annette nervously. "How goes the war here?"
Bakos gave her a distraught look. Esmeralda fumed with righteous anger.
"He has nearly obliterated most of Mexico and has laid waste to most of the US between Los Angeles and Houston." Annette could tell Bakos was holding back tears.
"Is there any way we can help?"
"We've lost most communication with the mainland. Washington is telling us to hold our ground, but asked you make it to California. That's where he is confirmed to be." He paused.
"You were their ultimate weapon."
"I know. If those were Washington's orders I will follow them." She inhaled. "Good luck," she said to her compatriots.
"Good luck to you as well," replied Bakos. Esmeralda nodded her assent.
Annette envisioned her hometown.
Santa Monica. She could remember her carefree childhood, long before this apocalypse had begun, but still during a terrible war, the Russian one to be precise. But that did not touch Santa Monica.
She envisioned her old house.
She found herself in a wasteland.
She looked around frantically, hyperventilating. Was she in the right place?
There were crumbled streets. She leaped into the air to survey the ruin, and the shattered roadways were familiar. This was Santa Monica.
Or was, at least.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 18, 2017 4:16:48 GMT
Through the grey skies punctuated a bright light which moved ever closer. She could feel a psionic presence moving along with it, and that presence was angry. That presence was aware that something was amiss, and was intent on correcting such an unholy injustice.
The sun god screeched and cawed, and hurled beams of fire and light at her.
"I did not imagine that the usurpers would have the likes of you among their rank," she felt him opine through his psionic abilities.
"Clearly I am not normal."
She leaped into the air to avoid the blasts. She felt the psionic waves emanating from him, attempting to throw her around, trying to silence her once and for all. Being the psionic entity she had become, she could resist him.
The jumping around and avoiding his psionic attacks grew to be almost dull. She tried to channel the otherworldly energy that she had used to defeat Zipacna, to only some avail.
Every time she tried, she grew stronger. She could channel more and more of this particular kind of energy and focus it on the deity. She felt herself tampering with reality, impaired by his sheer psionic presence.
"Annette."
This was not the voice of Vucub Caquix, nor was it the voice of the entity that had addressed her previously. The voice was almost feminine, unlike the deep voices of the other two.
"It has come to our attention that this threat of yours is beyond the scope of that which we can ignore. We have familiarized ourselves with the rules of your particular reality. We will aid you."
"What?" she asked.
"We are channeling immense amounts of psionic energy to you in a way that will not hurt you. Go. Do what you did to Zipacna to him."
She focused. She felt the groundswell of energy inside her, and focused it all on Vucub Caquix.
Once more, she felt everything.
Worlds and universes and civilizations beyond all comprehensions entered her consciousness, and they flowed into the god. He screamed and cawed and shrieked.
"I know this is complicated. But things far beyond this world need you. They need your help, for the sake of all reality."
The shrieks stopped, and the sun god fell to his end.
And the cold, metallic presence in the shadow of Jupiter began moving towards the third planet from the sun.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 19, 2017 4:02:08 GMT
The birds flew away and the lizards scampered about, and the cultists were in full retreat.
The report had come in from Washington. Vucub Caquix was dead.
The jubilation of the troops and of the bulk of the Guatemalan population created a thunder that could be heard for miles around.
But their jubilation would not go unanswered.
It was American psionic and radar based detection systems that saw the presence that had emerged from the shadow of Jupiter position itself not far out from the moon. From there, it released several smaller entities.
In the blood-soaked highlands of Guatemala landed a structure several stories high with metal plating that glimmered in bluish white, with several components on it. It emitted a tremendous amount of psionic energy but did not do much of anything immediately.
Similar structures came down in other places.
One, in the plateau of Qinghai Province, China.
One, in the deserts of Rajasthan in India.
One, in the Meseta Central of Spain.
And one in the wasteland of Santa Monica, California.
As humanity wondered what these things were, the presence in the Earth's orbit sent out more ships, down towards Europe, where Cabrakan was marching on Strasbourg. Europe's armies had prepared for a titanic battle in Prague, that city that had already seen so much. But they would not be necessary.
These silvery ships made short work of the cultist armies, and were augmented by similar entities created by the device in Spain. In addition to their ships, metallic insectoid machines served as ground support, alongside other vehicles. Cabrakan himself was incinerated by a bombardment of beams that no human had yet seen.
And as the world's mouths were agape in wonder, a single message was heard to all, emanating from a psionic beacon that dwarfed even that of Vucub Caquix.
"You have no idea what you have just unleashed. You have no idea what sinister forces that are now coming. You have played with fire and you have not yet seen the destructiveness you will wreak. Insatiable entities from beyond this universe now know of your existence, and they are coming. We have arrived to preempt them, and to save you all."
Satellite feed picked up further ships coming from the entity near the moon. They began to elongate, and extended, to the horror of Earth governments, cannons.
These cannons then aimed themselves away from Earth.
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 26, 2017 1:33:01 GMT
Fort Meade, Maryland
The readings coming in from Europe, and indeed the globe over, were stunning. The array of screens was blinking and shifting to this map and that map, and the psionic readings were off the scale.
Donald Rumsfeld was worried. Very worried. He sat at the end of the gigantic table, with generals and admirals and all sorts of military people surrounding him. The atmosphere was one of great tenseness.
Rumsfeld broke the silence. "Do we know what that thing in Santa Monica is?"
Secretary of Defense Petraeus stated plainly, "no sir. However, it is my understanding that the psionic emanation suggests it is in communication with some other entity which we cannot detect."
Rumsfeld inhaled and exhaled, with exasperation. "This just becomes less and less comprehensible by the day."
In front of the screens manifested a great light, with a slight green tinge. As it faded, there were six of the metallic insectoid things that had been in combat in Europe, but smaller, small enough to fit in the room. There were three on each side.
They were flanking a human being.
This human was male, older, white haired, and of European descent. He was dressed in a brown business suit.
"We have answers," he said.
Security guards on either side of the room immediately raised their rifles. Without warning the metallic insectoids fired green rays which reduced them to ash.
Two of them moved to block the doorways, and projected green fields that seemed to block access.
"Who are you?" blurted Rumsfeld, "and how are you in here?"
"We could discern your location through ways we are not willing to reveal. That being said, I have a preposition."
There was silence.
Secretary of State Huntsman proclaimed "What is it then?"
Rumsfeld shook his head but saw he could not do much.
"The answer is simple. We help you defend your world, and you help us in our war."
"What war?" asked Petraeus.
"It is vastly complicated, but to simplify for your own benefit, eons ago when this creation was new there was a group of beings who thought the existence of anything beyond that which came out of the first big bang was an affront to existence. My overseers see otherwise, and want to preserve creation."
He continued. "Those that want to see all sentient life other than themselves scorched to ashes are coming; the vast psionic energy unleashed first by Vucub Caquix and then by your own Annette Zhou attracted their attention. We have established their arrival, and erected the towers on your world in part to serve as anchors of sorts so they cannot destroy your world from another universe entirely."
The military men and women were confused and stunned.
"And who are you?"
"Humphrey Jansen. I'm from Boston, or at least a Boston. Not one from this planet, surely."
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 28, 2017 0:50:35 GMT
"So you mean to say you're from another reality?" asked Petraeus.
"Yes. I come from a world where in the early part of the last century we were invaded by the Stewards, as we call ourselves. Suffice to say we needed to secure that timeline in the face of this millennia-long war. Now, your world is a target."
More silence.
"So you mean to say that you are here to protect us?"
"Yes. We believe in the protection of life and of reality. That being said, our common practice is to demand a form of ... tribute from the civilizations we protect, and we intend to make that demand clear."
Yet more silence.
Rumsfeld rose. "What sort of tribute do you want from us?"
"Nothing that would jeopardize your rule. What we ask is that you provide the occasional military units to help us prosecute the war in other worlds. Given your particular military deployments with your 'superhumans' I think they could form a good core of an international task force."
"With what other nations?"
"We are simultaneously consulting with the other two powers on this planet to provide their own detachments, and their client states will follow, much as yours will, presumably."
Rumsfeld's eyebrows wrinkled. "What other two powers?"
"China and India." Jansen looked confused. "With all the damage done to your country in the recent war your capacity to exert force is now significantly reduced. That being said there is still enough for our needs for the foreseeable future. And we will provide reconstruction efforts."
"Is there a catch?"
"We will need your help in reworking the international order to suit our purposes, yes. Nothing big, I would imagine."
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Post by spanishspy on Jul 29, 2017 1:00:56 GMT
From Washington, Beijing, and New Delhi emanated the call to comply with the visitors' demands. They were persuasive, as being beholden to weapons in orbit would naturally make smaller nations comply. And so many nations agreed to provide their own superhumans as well as other troops to this international task force to go beyond this universe.
That being said there were some countries of the world that were not enthused, and wanted nothing to do with the hegemons' demands. In one particular city in one particular country, the response was indeed quite cold.
That city was Belgrade.
That country was Yugoslavia.
And so its Veliky Vozhd Black George, taking his name from an old national hero, refused any requests from foreign ambassadors.
Ambassador Howell had thought that something regarding the continued existence of the human species, and by extension his nation, would be amenable to compliance.
"These ... things do not seem like the types that would let you continue to exist."
Without another word Black George had expelled Howell, and indeed the entire American embassy staff. They flew back to Washington within a week.
Then the Veliky Vozhd decided that he had best demonstrate his power to the world.
The massive military parade through Belgrade was televised and covered extensively through state internet sites. The generals were there in all their regalia, the troops marched in formation, and behind them rumbled the tanks. Overhead flew fighters and bombers and helicopters and airborne superhumans.
And of course, the full powers of Black George were on display.
He shot beams wrecked surplus weapons bought from the Iranians or the North Koreans. It was a grand spectacle.
And then all the men and all the tanks were put on the borders, in case anyone dared trifle with the domain of Black George.
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Post by spanishspy on Aug 4, 2017 2:15:28 GMT
Excerpt from an article in the Wiener Zeitung, December 27th, 2012, entitled Yugoslavia Undertaking Training Exercises near Border
The arrival of the so-called Stewards has had most of the nations of the world falling in with the major powers, with the exceptions of countries like our neighbor Yugoslavia. Black George, the superhuman dictator of the country since the 1990s, has resisted the call to send forces to the Stewards' wars elsewhere, and made a very clear statement against it with a military parade in Belgrade.
[...]
Yugoslavian planes have been spotted near the border between the Slovenian republic and Carinthia and Tyrol, in one case briefly going over the boundary at the Carinthian town of Bleiburg. Austrian and American planes have been on alert, but no violent action between the two sides has occurred.
[...]
Yugoslavian tanks, infantry, and superhumans have been sighted near the border, but well enough in Yugoslavian territory to prevent any international incident. That being said, the commander of American forces in Europe, Stephen Townsend, has put all forces in countries bordering Yugoslavia on high alert. Speaking from Prague, Townsend said that
"The United States has put its full faith in the Stewards and their reclamation efforts. International cooperation is required for the reconstruction of the planet to proceed, and not doing so puts our planet at risk of being assailed by extraterrestrial forces."
[...]
Amateur video feed has shown American aircraft escorting extraterrestrial craft from France and Spain to Austria, and landing at Modling Air Force Base. The US government has denied any Steward involvement, but this is not widely believed.
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