Tabitha’s gaze never left the yawning tear in reality. She aimed her rifle at that chasm in the sky, ready to loose a storm of bullets at whatever lay within the swirling darkness of the Thoughtstream.

Her manic smile threatened to split her face. Then it retreated to her cheeks. Then it disappeared completely as she saw the full extent of the wrath she had called upon us.

“Move!”

I barely had time to think, Tabitha was manhandling me, throwing me to the ground several metres away. Junogloris started speaking-

Then everything went to hell.

Blinding light. Storm winds. The unmistakable acrid smell of burning soil. An invisible force slammed into me, only Junogloris catching me kept me from being launched skyward.

I looked at the spot where I was. But there was nothing. No trees, no grass, no mud, no earth. All that was left was a crater several metres wide, hundreds of metres deep. its insides perfectly smoothed. Lined with still glowing glass. Glass that used to be dirt.

I looked to the sky, gazed upon whatever dreadful thing could wield such horrific power.

It was enormous, easily twice the size of a mountain. A brilliant white globe, feathery wings as large as skyscrapers sprouted from each cardinal direction, flapping in perfect harmony. On each wingtip was an equally gigantic flaming wheel, spinning furiously, its spokes spitting sparks with each frenetic rotation. And on its surface were a myriad blood shot eyes, each the size of a lake. Upon each one burned the ever shifting name of El.

And every single one of those eyes was trained on us.

The world shook, my vision swam. All I could hear was my heart racing. One of the galgalim. Whoever this Lacan was had actually sent a galgalim.

A great roar resounded, and from the tear in reality spilled a multitude of messengers, easily numbering in the thousands. Each one held a bow, string taught, golden arrow pointed directly at us.

“The bloody hell are you gawking at? Get down!” Tabitha screamed, even as she aimed her rifle at that army that blotted out the sun.

The winds howled as thousands of arrows were loosed. The deafening staccato beat of gunfire answered the call. The evergreen was transformed into a sea of gold and red, blood fell freely from the heavens above. The arrows buried themselves deep, burning whatever they struck, the divine wrath of heaven punishing this land that dared shelter the enemies of El.

Junogloris moved nimbly while he carried me, like water through burning reeds, whatever arrows he couldn’t dodge breaking against his skin. Never relenting in his desire to protect me.

Then the sea of messengers parted, and the baleful eyes of the galgalim beheld us once more.

It’s eyes glowed like a second sun.

The telltale noise of the galgalim’s fury resounded, a rattling bass so deep and so loud it caused bones to quiver.

Junogloris tensed, Tabitha was already jumping away.

The ground Junogloris stood on glowed white.

Junogloris leapt.

And from where we stood erupted a massive pillar of flame. All I could see was fire. All I could feel was heat. All I could smell was ash.

The flames connected land and sky, and nothing in its path survived, not trees, not clouds, not stone.

And then it was gone. Leaving nothing more than a crater in its wake.

But there was no rest to be had, for the messengers had converged once more, loosing their arrows in a rain of annihilation.

“Quick, follow me.” Tabitha said, running to the north, firing backwards haphazardly at the unrelenting swarm of messengers. Junogloris, with me in tow, closed the distance between us in bound.

“Behold the doom your pride has wrought upon us, savage.” Junogloris glared at her with as much hate as he could muster.

“Shove it, mate.” she said, even as she dodged yet another stream of arrows. “And I ain’t out of plans yet.”

“Ah yes, the savage’s ingenuity. The same clarity of mind that called one of the Many Eyed Ones on our heads. Forgive me if I am less than reassured.”

“I said shove it.” she said, reloading her gun, firing it at the multitude, which began to part once more. The galgalim came into view. Tabitha gripped her spent magazine.

“Cover your eyes.” the magazine glowed bright emerald green, and she threw it as far as she could, straight into the space between us and the galgalim.

An explosion, even with my eyes closed the brightness threatened to blind me. The unmistakable smell of gunpowder and soot assaulted my nostrils. As well as a something that I couldn’t quite place. Blood? No. The air was thick with that stench. Something similar. Iron fillings?

“You can open them now, mate.” Tabitha said. As soon as I did, my eyes immediately burned, assaulted by the cloud we were in. We were in a smokescreen, and from the smell and the excruciating stinging in my eyes, I had a feeling I knew how she accomplished this on such short notice.

“Seriously.” I said. “Deconstructing that magazine and then blowing it up, all without any alkahest? You’re a terrible alchemist too?”

“Is now really the ti- Terrible?! You take that back!”

“I mean, I’m no Trismegistos, but this is a really inefficient deconstruction, something that dense should’ve made a cloud twice as big.”

“Well excuse me for only having finished the intro course. Friggin’ Academy’s a bunch of elitist bellends.” she said, even though we both know that accomplishing deconstruction without any alkahest was something even experienced alchemists struggle with.

“Begging your pardon, Mistress Luna, but I believe more pressing matters are at hand?” said Junogloris.

“Right, I bought us about three minutes, five max. Ready to hear my plan yet?” said Tabitha.

“What plan? How could you possibly have a plan for this? Do you not know what that thing in the sky is?” I said.

“Mate-”

“Because I don’t think you do. That’s a galgalim, something so powerful that one of them could fight an Ancient One to a standstill. Four of those could-”

Stench of blood so thick it should overpower all else. The cries of lives so cruelly cut short. The radiance of the Empyrean turned night into hellish day.

“You alright there, mate?” I waved her away. Found my bearings.

“We can’t kill that thing. We can’t even fight it. So unless your plan involves somehow opening a portal to the Underworld and then somehow convincing one of the Ancient Ones to fight for us, I fail to see how any plan you have would work out.”

“Who said anything about killing it?” she said with a smirk.

“Wha-”

“Mate, I hunt gods and demons and bathe in their blood. Doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

“Pretty sure it does.”

“Fair.” she said. “Then it doesn’t mean I’m stupid. We’re not fighting that thing. I have a boat docked north of here, about thirty minutes away, less if Lion boy-”

“I beg your pardon?!”

“-carries both of us all the way.”

“So that’s your big plan? Instead of dying in a forest, we die on a boat?” I said.

Tabitha sighed deeply, muttering something that I couldn’t hear, but I had a feeling that it was something less than charitable about my mental faculties.

“Alright let me spell it out for you. What’s that thing made out off?”

“The Many Eyed Ones are flesh and bone, savage. But their hides are many times more resilient than the stone walls of a fortress. Unless your boat has weaponry that can level a city-”

“Right, whatever.” Tabitha said. “And did you notice that, unlike any of its other friends, that thing never left its hole? Even if that would make it way easier to target us? Hell, it doesn’t even have to leave the Thoughtstream for too long. It could just flap its wings at us, and our little sanctuary would be gone, and we’d be dead by now. Yet it didn’t. You getting it yet?”

“I fail to see-”

“Junogloris, we’re going with her plan.” I said.

“Mistress Luna?”

“Finally! Let’s-” I gripped her shoulder as hard as I could.

“This plan of yours rests on a lot of assumptions. If it fails, you can be damn sure I’m killing you before I die.”

“Eh. I’d love to see you try.” she said, licking her lips.

“Mistress Luna-”

“I won’t ask you to trust her Junogloris. By the seven hills, I don’t either. But at least trust in me.”

“…Very well. For your sake, Mistress Luna, and for no one else.” He knelt down, offering his shoulders. “Come along then, savage, I shall be your steed.”

“Don’t mind if I do-”

“Any sign of treachery, and I throw you to the Many Eyed One, am I understood?”

“Bloody hell, what’d I do to deserve all this hate?” I simply stared at her as she alighted on Junogloris’s shoulders. He wrapped his arms around me, carrying me as delicately as he could.

“Look lively.” Tabitha said. The smoke began to clear, the galgalim’s eyes sinister glow cut through the thinning smog.

“Let’s go.”

The ground beneath us glowed a blinding white, but Junogloris was already gone covering in seconds what would have taken me and Tabitha several minutes.

Tabitha faced backwards, her rifle freshly reloaded, slaughtering any and all of the messengers that stood against us.

I was muttering blessing after blessing, burning through the stockpile of faith that Tabitha had given me. Arrows missed their mark, bullets found theirs, and both Junogloris and Tabitha moved and reacted at speeds that saw the limits of human capability as merely strongly worded suggestions.

And so was a northward streak carved deep into the Amazon, the verdant greenery burnt to the ground wherever we went, replaced with a sickening trail of dripping red and burning gold. Finally we reached where the river met the sea. It was there that we saw our salvation.

I recognized it as one of the engines of war from the past century, a PT boat. But only barely. It’s hull was covered in rust, the paint that would have covered it had long since been stripped away by the merciless sea, leaving the boat a washed out dull grey. There was no weaponry to be found on deck, and on top of the bridge was a garishly out of place, bright green satellite dish, which from the large blots of metal at its base, seemed to have been hastily welded on. This boat, which looked barely large enough to house four people, had the words L’Etoilepainted on its bow in eye catching emerald green, the only thing on that ship that seemed like it was made in the last decade.

“Tabitha?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember what I said about killing you before I died?”

“Look mate, she may not look much-”

“Understatement of the gods damned century, right there.”

“But Ol Star’s been through worse than this. We’ll be fine.”

As if on cue, the sky before us shattered, revealing the massive chasm in which the galgalim lay, its many eyes gleaming with barely restrained power.

Time slowed to a crawl. The galgalim stood between us and Tabitha’s boat.

The telltale feeling of pressure and electricity, as the galgalim unleashed its power. We would never make it in time.

The rattling roar was all I could hear.

Behind us, an army of messengers, their divine arrows cut off all retreat.

A second to react. A second between life and death.

Junogloris’s eyes hardened with resolve.

“Junogloris, wha-?”

The ground beneath us cracked, and winds like a hurricane billowed as he leapt forwards, directly in the path of the galgalim’s fury.

I felt indescribable heat, the air that surrounded us seemed ready to ignite.

And then Junogloris twisted his body, his bones creaking with effort, turning his back towards the galgalim.

And he threw the two of us at Tabitha’s boat.

The deafening sound of the explosion was all I could hear. The unmistakable smell of burning flesh assaulted my nostrils. The explosion slammed me into the boat’s deck with a force that should have split it in two, but didn’t so much as scratch the floor.

I looked up, and saw Tabitha descending gracefully, rolling as soon as she hit the deck and dispersing the force of her landing.

“You might want to move to the side.” she said, her eyes fixed behind me. I turned around-

And was immediately blown backwards as a flaming meteor crashed mere centimetres in front of me.

“JUNOGLORIS!”

All I could smell was burnt flesh. His still burning form consumed my sight.

I ran. I stumbled. I stood up again. The pain wasn’t important. Nothing mattered but getting to his side.

“Please…” I could barely see, my vision was clouded over with tears. “Please. Not you too.”

“Mistress… Luna?”

He shifted. Looked at me. His gaze was clear. My own shaking hands grasped his.

“Junoglo-!” My words were drowned by sobs. Then by laughter. Seven hills, I must look like such a wreck.

“Mistress Luna… This is unbecoming of you.”

“Don’t care.” I said, smiling through the tears. I offered him my shoulder.

“Mistress… To have broken this body in my service. I am undeserving of-”

“I don’t care.” I said. And I forced his arm on my shoulder, lifted him up, and headed towards Tabitha.

Only to be stopped as a barrage of golden arrows cut off our path.

Oh right. The messengers.

“Mistress Luna, stand behind me. I’ll-!” He sucked air through gritted teeth. The burnt flesh of his legs cracked under the strain of just standing up.

His lion skin, that nigh impregnable defence, was gone, burnt away by the galgalim’s wrathful stare, and though it bore the brunt of the flames, Junogloris could not escape unscathed. Vast areas of his back were scorched, his bow and arrows reduced to charcoal, and his right arm was rendered useless, too burned to even twitch, much less move.

“Quick, in here!” said Tabitha, pointing towards the ship’s bridge. We scrambled towards the open door, even as arrows descended upon us. I could hear Junogloris’s laboured breathing, the arrows that should’ve broken upon his skin sinking into it. He was getting weaker.

We couldn’t dodge, and the suppressing fire from Tabitha’’s rifles could only do so much. By the time we got to the safety of the bridge, Junogloris was barely standing, golden arrows shining brilliantly even as they dug deeper into his flesh with each movement.

“Tabitha.” I said through gritted teeth.

“I know.” she said, as she started going over the ship’s instruments, swiftly flipping switches, various flashing lights turned from red to green.

“Savage. Whatever your plan is. Do it now.” Junogloris said. Tabitha didn’t look back, but her movements became more frantic, even as the steady beat of arrows embedding themselves into the ship grew louder.

“Tsk.” Tabitha looked at one of the screens in front of her. “Anchor’s taking it’s sweet time. 30 seconds before we can leave.”

“We don’t have that kind of time, Tabitha!”

“Heh.” she grinned wildly, her eyes shone with a manic gleam that spoke of bottomless bloodlust. “Watch the bridge for me. When that light goes green-” she pointed at a slowly blinking large red light, “-gun the engines.”

She rushed outside. She effortlessly weaved in between arrows. She was like a dancer, and her partner was death itself. Always just a centimetre away. Only ever tearing fabric, never flesh.

The red light kept blinking.

The smile never left her face.

She dropped her rifle, and ran for the ship’s bow. Green wisps of energy gathered around her legs.

And she jumped.

The boat shook violently, nearly capsizing due to that. She was like a comet, headed straight into that mass of messengers numerous enough to blot out the sun.

They moved out of the way, like a clouds parting before a ray of sunshine.

But not all of them moved fast enough.

She crashed into one of the messengers, and held on for dear life. The rest of the messenger’s comrades turned towards her, but they could not shoot, for fear of hitting their own.

Tabitha drew her dagger.

In a flash of silver and red, the messenger she held onto was eviscerated. The messenger fell, but Tabitha had already leapt away, on to her next victim.

The sky above us turned into whirling maelstrom of red, white, and gold. The messengers began to shoot wildly at the interloper in their midst. Tabitha always one step ahead. The water below us began to fill with bodies, ocean blue mixed with deep crimson.

Then, the telltale bass rung, and reality once again shattered. The chasm appeared, now aimed directly at our ship. The galgalim’s roar was all that could be heard.

The light turned green.

I grabbed the lever, helpfully labelled, though somewhat crassly, as “engine shit”, and pushed it as far as it could go.

The engines screamed as they came to life, Junogloris and I were nearly thrown backwards as the ship nearly left the water.

I could’ve sworn I heard Tabitha laughing her head off.

The cloud of messengers followed us, obscuring the galgalim’s line of sight. And Tabitha followed along with them, leaping from messenger to messenger, killing all who stood in her way.

Our ship surged forward, increasing the distance between us and the galgalim. Tabitha reached the messenger close to us, and, with one final explosion of magic, kicked off from her unwilling unwilling perch.

Blood, flesh, and bone trailed in her wake as the messenger was reduced to pulp by the force of her leap. The ship nearly capsized as she made her landing, rolling all the way towards the bridge door.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” she said as she ran towards us, taking the helm from me, her gaze flitting frantically from monitor to monitor, to the windows outside.

The cloud of messengers continued to keep chase, but the galgalim remained in its chasm. Glowing eyes stared at us with unfathomable hate.

Arrows rained from the sky, but our little ship was moving to quickly, and with Tabitha at the helm, the messengers had no chance in hell of hitting us. Their only hope was the galgalim, but…

The shore became ever more distant, and the galgalim remained stationary. Slowly, the crack in reality closed, all the while the galgalim’s gaze never left our ship.

“What’d I tell you?” said Tabitha, grinning wildly. I could only stare at her.

“We almost died, you crazy bitch!”

“Ah don’t get your knickers in a knot, Lulu. Everything turned out fine.”

“How are you so certain…” Junogloris said, even as he slumped down, his wounds finally catching up to him.

“Want to tell him, or should I?” Tabitha said, even as she started rummaging within her coat.

“Junogloris, the galgalim won’t be able to chase us. Not this far. I can assure you that at least.”

“Mistress Luna?”

“Lulu, be a dear and take over for me, will you?” Tabitha said. She walked towards Junogloris, leaving the boat to me.

“I’m running low on the elixir, you’ll have to settle for just enhanced regeneration, at least until we resupply.” she said, even as she produced a bottle filled with viscous, sickly green liquid. “Tell me, love, ever heard of the Square Cube law?”

“Do not presume to fool me with meaningless babble, sav-!” Words died in pain as Tabitha brusquely massaged the liquid into his burnt arm.

“Tabitha’s words aren’t nonsense.” I said, steering the boat as best as I could. The boat rebelled against me very step of the way, its wheel groaning and scraping with each laboured turn. By the seven hills, how did she do this so effortlessly?

“When a thing gets larger, it also gets heavier. But in different proportions.” Tabitha said, ripping out one of the many arrows sticking out of Junogloris’s back. A pained hiss escaped his grit teeth as Tabitha poured the liquid into the hole she made. “For example, if you double the size of something, you quadruple the surface area, and you octuple the corresponding volume. Increases and decreases in size follow that principle, with the surface area of something increasing by the square of the size multiplier, and its volume increasing by the cube. Square, cube. Know what I’m saying?”

We both looked at her like she’d grown a second head.

“What?” she said, even as we both continued to stare at her. “I’m several hundred years old, mate. You try living that long without picking up a thing or two.”

“I fail to see how—“

“You thick or something? Lulu knew what the plan was, and she got it way quicker than you did.”

“What she meant to say,” I said, even as the swarm of messengers grew ever distant, “Is that something as gargantuan as the galgalim would be immensely heavy in real space.”

“Yeah, it’d be way too huge to support its own weight. Especially when you told me it was still made of flesh.” she said. “An increase in volume brings with it an increase in mass, and by extension, weight. But the surface area of the bones and fleshy bits supporting that weight wouldn’t be nearly enough to support that, having only increased by a square. Ever noticed why it never stepped out of that portal?”

“Its own enormity would have been its executioner.” said Junogloris, eyes wide. “I don’t understand. El freely used the Many Eyed Ones before.”

“The world has changed, Junogloris.” I said. “Faith doesn’t come easily, and the Thoughtstream no longer bleeds into reality as it once did.”

“Which brings us to my brilliant plan.” Tabitha said. “That thing could only ever target us by ripping open holes in reality into the Thoughtstream. So if we could run to some place where the Thoughtstream wouldn’t be present, or at least not present enough to allow that thing to continue defying the laws of physics, then it wouldn’t be able to follow.”

“And the only place where the web of human thought grows that thin is one wherein humanity is nonexistent.” Junogloris said. “The ocean.”

“And he finally gets it! Great job, we’re all proud of you!”

“Do not test me savage.” Junogloris glared at her.

“Eh, whatever. You’ll come around. Now just lie down for a day and you’ll be fine. Probably.” Tabitha said.

“So, we’ve escaped, barely. What now?” I said.

“Now?”

She suddenly slid next to me, I feel blood dripping on what remained of my clothes. She reached at me, our arms intertwining, my breathing quickened, my blood froze. I could feel her hot breath caress the back of my neck as she drew closer, the pommel of her dagger digging into my back. She reached out.

And flipped the switch marked autopilot.

“Now we go below deck, we get absolutely plastered, and we call it a day, yeah?” she said.

“Wha-”

“Ha! Should’ve seen your face.” Tabitha said. “Relax, if wanted to kill you-”

“I’d be dead already, yeah, I get it.” I said.

“I was going to say I’d give you a bit of time to prepare, give me a better fight than last time.” she said with a shrug. “But yeah, pretty much, ain’t it? So what do you say, how about we-”

Her pants pocket started blaring really obnoxious music, all meaningless, heavily distorted guitar riffs and rapping with neither rhyme nor rhythm. Or sense.

“Just a minute, I have to take this.”

“Your ringtone’s nu-metal?”

“Shh.” she said. “Good afternoon, sir or madam, you’ve reached- Oh. It’s you.” her expression immediately soured. “Uh-huh. Oh really? Well tell you what, you weren’t there at the meet, so I’d say we’re even in terms of betrayal, yeah?” She covered the receiver and said, “The nerve of some people, right?”

“Wow, no, really?” she said, sarcasm practically oozing from every syllable, “No, you listen here Lacan, you send your bloody goons at me, send as many as you like. And once they die like the rest, I’m coming for you. Know what I mean?”

“Huh? Really? Well all right then.” Tabitha said. She pointed the phone at me, “Lacan wants to have a word with you.”

The pretender to El’s throne? What could he possibly wish to discuss?

“Hello?”

DIE.

Strength left my legs. My heart nearly stopped. Black spots blotted out my vision. My anima nearly flickered out of existence. It felt like my nerves were replaced with icy tendrils, snuffing out all warmth.

I fell.

And was immediately caught by Tabitha.

“Ha! Nice try, jackass! Did you really think I wouldn’t ward my phone against Divine Proclamations? I’m honestly insulted.” she said into the phone she snatched from me. “I’ll be seeing you Lacan. Very soon, I hope. Cheers!” She threw the phone on the ground and stomped on it.

I stared at the phone, broken glass and sparking circuitry stared back.

“How much?”

“What was that?” Tabitha asked.

“How much of the Divine Proclamation was blocked by your phone?”

“Oh, enough that he wouldn’t be able to do anything drastic. I’d say around ninety percent, eighty-five if I’m being generous.”

Eighty five percent. A single word Proclamation was able to nearly kill me over a phone line at around less than a fifth of its power.

Lupa’s tits, what did I get myself into?