TRACK 6 –

A LITTLE LESS THAN THREE DAYS PRIOR…

“I’ve miss you so much.” I said softly, as soon as our kiss ended.

“I as well my beloved.” Moon Flower replied, a huge smile across her face.

“What are we chopped kidney ass?” Night Star chimed in, her tone jocular and playful.

“The expression is chopped liver, but I missed you as well Night Star and all of you too.” I said, letting my fiancé go and laughing in good humor.

Moon Flower, her sisters, the Chieftess, Dancing Lion, and me all shared a group hug. We, laughed, cried a bit, and then all tried to talk over one another.

“If you all are quite done playing grab ass we do have a limited amount of time here.” Coyote said, his tone annoyed and impatient.

“Sorry, we just haven’t seen each other in a while.” I said, squeezing Moon Flowers hand.

“Yes, yes, hello ladies. Now, let’s get going.” Coyote said, turning and walking away gesturing for us all to follow.

The goddesses went ahead with Coyote and the four of them began talking together and ignoring all of us. Except to make sure we were following along. The six of us talked as well filling each other in on what had happened in our respective time apart.

I was impressed with their battle plan and coordination during their war. I asked her how Winston was when she talked about the Riders and to tell him I missed him. She asked about Freak when I told her what I had been through and then asked a few choice questions about Arun’s sister and the Norse-Ojibwe in general. They all laughed when I told them about Walking Coyote meeting his soulmate in Sage.

When I got to the new weapons, ships, and airships all of them were fascinated and asked question after question about them. Then I got a message and accessed it while we walked after the deities.

LEUITENANTS INFORMATION UPLOADED…

MAPS UPDATED…

TRIBES UPDATED…

RESOURCES UPDATED…

ALL INFORMATION UPDATED…

INSERT UPDATED WAR SHAMAN RESOURCES TABLE HERE

I closed the windows and saw that the girls were doing the same. Good, I hadn’t been sure if they had gotten the same abilities as those who had been with me. This showed they had, then we reached the top of the tower we were climbing and filed into another of those teleportation rooms like we’d come in. Coyote gestured for us to enter after him and went through the familiar swirling vortex. The goddesses waited for us and I let the girls go first and followed after.

The itchy tingling sensation hit me like the last time I used a portal and then all thoughts of that were gone as I stared in surprise at the room around me. I wasn’t the only one gazing around like a tourist, the girls were as well. The deities weren’t impressed and stood in the center of the room deep in conversation. I took the time to study the area.

We exited the portal and were in a giant round cavern studded with fifteen foot high glowing crystal monoliths everywhere I looked. Then I began to notice a pattern and the crystals were set in concentric rings around the center of the cavern. The crystals themselves were glowing but not one color, as I got a closer look I could see scenes playing out almost like I was watching a TV or monitor of some sort.

The deities had finished their conversation and called all of us over to them. A minutes later we were surrounding them like kids around their chaperones before a fieldtrip.

“This is my scrying area. Each of these crystals is a window to your world. Each is a different enemy you must eventually face.” Coyote explained.

“This is awesome you have a window to them so we basically can spy on our enemies and get a huge advantage.” I said, excitedly.

“Not quite. Think of it as tag of a song like in a YouTube video. If you play to much of it you get your video banned. We can only watch enough to know who they are and where. If we do anymore then that the other deities will notice and game over. Sorry to burst your bubble.” Brigitte said.

Moon Flower and the others looked blankly at each other during the exchange, but I heard Hasteoltoi explain it in terms they understood clarifying things for them.

“Our time here is limited so let’s begin. Follow me.” Coyote said, walking over to crystal monolith in the far side of the cavern.

As we walked I saw that a lot of the crystals were blank showing just a white static. I heard Chieftess Shining Eagle comment on this and Shakaru answered her.

“These are areas that have been destroyed or taken by another deity’s champion. We no longer have any information on them.” The goddess explained.

“What do you mean?” Ice Blossom asked.

“For example, you took over the central plains of North America. If another god or goddess participating in this struggle were to look there with scrying of their own they would see only white static. Understand?” Shakaru asked.

Ice Blossom said yes and I changed my course of thought. If we could scry the enemy they could scry us. That thought sent chills down my spine. We arrived at the crystal and Coyote began talking pulling my attention from my dark thoughts.

“…is the first of our enemies we should know about. This is the European Alliance, EA for short, they are the deities who in charge of the European countries. Currently, they have recently reached an agreement for a ceasefire to fight a common enemy, the Ottoman Empire, which we will talk about later. For now, we will focus on the EA. Watch the crystal and then I will explain.” Coyote instructed.

The image resolved itself and started with a map of Europe circa the 1400’s.

INSERT MAP

After the map, the crystal played the next scenes showing different battles among the different countries. I remembered my history and those battle back then were particularly vicious and brutal. No one turned their gazes away though, we had seen our own share of brutality. The countries continued to war with each other none getting the upper hand for some time, then a new player entered the game, the Ottoman Empire.

“The EA is under control of the Christian gods and the Ottomans are under the control of Muslim god. The EA came together and put aside their differences when the Ottomans showed up. Lucky for you that leaves their forces in the New World without backing so it is our chance to consolidate our power base.” Coyote explained.

“Does that mean we have limited time to finish reconquering our lands and preparing our defenses before they turn their attention back to the New World and us?” Moon Flower asked.

“Ding, ding, ding, you are correct. Even with the Ottomans keeping their attention it won’t last long. Other deities are at work around the globe. This world is the last chance to change the future for most of them, us included.” Coyote explained, walking to the next crystal and gesturing for us to watch.

This crystal showed a world map with different factions outlined in different colors all around the map.

INSERT MAP

I studied deep in thought, thinking of different strategies and the millions of different variables that I had no control over that could be disastrous.

“Penis for your thoughts?” Moon Flower said, tapping me on the side and breaking me from my internal spiral.

“It’s penny, not penis.” I said, laughing heartily and giving her a kiss on the cheek my earlier mood gone.

Moon Flower had that ability to make me stop worrying and think in the now. I mean she was so gorgeous and amazing how could she not? Maybe I’m biased but she was pretty much the best thing since sliced bread. I finished loving on my fiance and went back to the crystals. Coyote continued his explanation as we studied the maps.

“As you can see, the world is at war but all the factions are currently consolidating their powerbases. After they are done each will be looking for new areas to expand and grow their power to continue the war until there is only one faction left. They don’t know of us yet but they will soon. Already, the other gods and goddesses are taking sides. The war battle for our people has changed to a war for the world.” Coyote said, ominously.

Everyone was quiet for a minute while we pondered and digested his words.

“That’s why Apophis and Loki were so damn smarmy and confrontational.” Brigitte said, breaking the silence.

“Be that as it may, it really only changes one thing.” I said, looking around and waiting till I had everyone’s attention.

“Don’t keep us in suspense dear.” Moon Flower said, in chastising tone but playful as well.

“Just means we have to kick every single one of their asses.” I said, with a wolfish grin.

Grins mirroring my own appeared on faces, human and deity alike. Coyote gave me a wink then continued talking.

“That’s right and that starts with finishing the retaking of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.” Coyote said, as if it was the simplest thing in the universe.

“No problem, let me just wrap up the conquistadors and The Fallen. Oh, then Moon Flower will just roll down and takeout the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca’s right quick. Shouldn’t take more than a few weeks.” I said, the sarcasm one-hundred percent noticeable in my voice.

“Don’t be ridiculous Law, you have at least six months to a year before they will be sending any significant forces back to the New World.” Brigitte said, cheerily.

I looked at the goddess and just blinked a few times before turning back to Coyote who was looking back at me but I could tell he was laughing at me on the inside.

“Brigitte is right, but don’t let that discourage you. We must move our timetable forward and conquer some key territory before we run out of time. Each of these crystals shows a different factions base, territory, and leader that we need to take over. Go familiarize yourselves with these then we can continue our strategy meeting.” Coyote instructed.

The six of us humans began walking around and studying the crystals while the deities talked. I led us to the first of the crystals and we gathered around. The scene showed the area of Mexico and a glowing red X was on the capital of Tenochtitlan. The image changed to a video a man I vaguely recognized though I was sure I had never met or seen before. Then it hit me, Hernan Cortez, the man who conquered the Aztecs.

He was a large man wearing the typical conquistador garb, pantaloons, cuirass, and high boots. I could tell his were of extremely high quality. An elegant sword hung at his hip along with a brace of one-shot pistols. His eyes were what I focused on. They were glowing with a dark red energy and I could tell he was a magic user.

Cortez stood atop a huge ziggurat overlooking the massive city of Tenochtitlan. Everywhere construction was underway. I saw so many different types of buildings, forts, defensive walls, and many other things. The EA may have been focused back in the Old World but that didn’t mean their people here were taking it easy. The city was massive and from the looks of all the construction going on was going to be a bloody nut to crack. The image restarted and I watched one more time committing it all to memory then moved on to the next crystal.

This one started off with a map showing an X at where the city of New Orleans would be at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Here the image changed and showed the burgeoning fort town with construction going on everywhere. I saw a huge harbor and river fort combined with a coastal fort that was about half done. Along with the hive of construction were hundreds of large galleons, frigates, and other ships of war from the time period. There was no main leader that the image showed it just repeated the same construction scene over and over.

I wasn’t sure if that meant we didn’t know who the leader was, they weren’t powerful enough, or we just didn’t know. I mulled it over as we went to the next crystal. The map this time showed an X in the place that would one day become Miami. The same sorts of construction was going here as in the previous crystals. There was a leader this time and the image zoomed in on him.

I didn’t recognize this man at all, but he did resemble Cortez in the style of armor and weapons he had. Besides that, he was the counter opposite. Blonde haired and blue eyed, with pale skin, and Caucasian features made him seem not Spanish. But I knew historically that the Spanish were more like that, especially those from Catalan, Spain. The man even sported a Spaniard style moustache and beard but it was dyed jet black.

He was standing aboard what looked like a large pirate ship, but I knew those wouldn’t be around for another hundred years. My mind did some mental gymnastics and I came to the conclusion that this was another champion sent back in time. Words appeared over the man’s head and when I read them it made sense. He was Blackbeard the pirate and was in control of the city. Then the map zoomed back out and highlighted the whole of the Caribbean and placed two more X’s, one where Havana, Cuba would be and the other where San Juan, Puerto Rico would also be.

Images of the construction filled forts and towns filed the crystal and I knew things were just getting tougher and tougher. We now had pirates with more advanced ships than I had planned for originally. That was ok because I was sure our ironclads and airships would be technologically superior, but this just meant there were going to be more things I couldn’t account for. This was going to take some more planning and strategy.

We moved on to the next crystal and this one showed something interesting to me as an amateur historian. There were two X’s and the first was in a place that I knew was considered where the lost city of El Dorado was supposed to be located. Treasure hunters of my time had theorized it was somewhere in modern day Columbia at the mouth of one of the Amazon’s thousands of tributaries. It was said, if you find the beginning of the mighty Amazon River you will discover El Dorado.

The second was in another familiar place and if you’d ever seen the movie Lost City of Z or read any of the myths or legends of the place it was immediately recognizable. The X was above a place known as Kuhikugu which was deep in the center of the Amazon rainforest almost in the middle of modern day Brazil. Both places showed huge amounts of construction but all I could see of the leaders were shadowy glimpses and nothing substantial. I couldn’t tell any details about them, not even if they were male or female.

What I could see however, in addition to the construction projects were giant ziggurats with thousands of people on them. That wasn’t the focus of the scene, what was were the people being sacrificed one after the other in some kind of sick assembly line type parody. We all stood there for a moment watching the horrific amount of death and all went through our own personal range of emotions.

“Well, we’re going to have to kill the fuck out these ass taints.” Dancing Lion said, breaking the silence and dragging chuckles from all of us at the dark humor.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” I said, giving the Jicarilla scion a wolfish grin.

I gestured for us to move on and there were no complaints. The mood was somber to say the least when we reached the last crystal. This one was of the entire western hemisphere and more red X’s were spread out across North, Central, and South America, with a few in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans as well. The X’s were smaller and showed areas that were a different color in the surrounding territory. An explanation came up showing that they were strategically important locations for our defense.

In North America the X’s were in New York City, Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, and up further north Halifax and St. Johns. On the west coast was San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Juneau, and Anchorage. In the Atlantic ocean was Bermuda and in the Pacific was Hawaii. Central America had the fewest X’s, they were on Panama City, Cabo San Lucas, Acapulco, Cancun, and Managua. Not a lot of places to take over but I was sure the jungle warfare was going to be a hellish undertaking. South America had X’s on Caracas, Fortaleza, Sao Paolo, Buenos Aires, The Falkland Islands, Varparaiso, Pisco, The Galapagos Islands, and Buenaventura.

By conquering these locations I would be able to create a defensive web around all my territory. There were more smaller X’s inside all three continents but these were relegated to a third priority status. Although, some needed to be conquered in order to form the defensive web. These locations were mostly the capitals of modern day countries, with a smattering of places that had always been historically important. Coyote had called these places of power and humanity always tended to gravitate to them.

We finished the last crystal and once again I was glad we had decided to use the modern names I was familiar with for places and such. It really made it a lot easier, even though I did have to explain some things once in a while.

“Since everyone has seen all the crystals now its time to finish our planning session and head back to reality. Time is almost out. Come gather around.” Coyote said.

Once we had all gathered around humans and diving beings alike we all looked to Coyote. He held an innocent expression on his face and pointed at me.

“Law is the champion it’s his job to come up with the strategy.” He said, with a one hundred percent falsely innocent tone.

I sighed and shook my head. Of course, the old rascal would do that and I was prepared for it. Good thing for all of us I had already started forming the plan.

“Ok, here’s what we’re gonna do.” I said, pulling up a map of the Western Hemisphere and instructing everyone else to do the same.

When they were all ready and paying attention, I started to relay my plan.