After listening to this startling proclamation, the rest of us went straight to take the elevator to the bottom floor. In the real church, the elevator is the only way to get into the basement, and Ashley and I assumed that the “bottom floor” of the meta-church would be referring to there.

While on the elevator, I feel the anger I previously had towards my parents sapping away, and I find myself feeling guilty now about how I talked to them. That said, I also still feel that new feeling; that resolve within me to see this through to the end. The two feelings mix together and give me a sort of somber focus on the task at hand.

I have never been to the basement of the real church before, but I can safely guess that it does not look like this. It is a massive room, probably double the size of the school gym. It is also ominously empty, except for one thing in the center of the room; a massive tank, several times the size of a regular one, with triangular treads that shoot upwards at a 45-degree angle, a single protruding cannon on the right side, a distinct cockpit at the top similar to a science fiction spacecraft, and a raised ramp, with Matthew 22:36-40 engraved onto the bottom. The size of the weapon, as well as its strangely angled treads and exposed cannon, give it a distinctly threatening appearance. Just in front of the entry ramp stood Pastor Palmer, facing away from us with his hands behind his back, simply pondering the tank. His clothes are surprisingly casual compared to everyone else’s, consisting of a Sunday polo shirt and a pair of slacks, though he does have a heavy combat belt with various things I can’t quite make out from here. Finally, on the opposite side of the room is a massive ramp that leads to a set of closed metal doors; presumably how the weapon will reach the surface.

Ashley, Ted, Anja, Nova and I tentatively walk into the room. Nova’s eyes are darting around the room, seemingly trying to find any hidden threats, while the others remain focused on Palmer.

After a few steps, Palmer, without turning around or moving at all, says in a tired sounding voice, “Ah. Good afternoon to all of you.”

We sort of look at each other awkwardly and come to a stop.

“You seem like you were expecting us,” Ashley states simply.

“I know about everything that goes on here. It’s my curse…” Palmer replies.

Still no motion from him. Nova, looking tense and uncomfortable, says, “So. I’m gonna guess that’s your secret weapon or whatever.”

“Yes,” he states calmly. “Here it is, ready to mobilize… and yet, not a single member of this church has been able to pilot it.”

“Really?” Anja interjects. “You mean you don’t have a single military vet in the church who has experience with this stuff?”

“You miss the point,” Palmer replies. “The weapon is a quite special and temperamental one. It seems as if the door will only open for a select few. The clue is in the engraving.”

“Love the lord God with all your heart and all your strength and all your mind,” I recite automatically. “And love your neighbor as yourself. All the other laws are built upon these two,”

“Precisely. The two most basic commandments, and yet all of them fail to live up to them.”

“Wake up call, isn’t it?” Ashley snarks.

“Yes. As it turns out, I now believe that your father was right about the state of us. The congregation has grown too complacent. They no longer seek inspiration, but only my comfort. And thus they have failed to love their neighbors. Paradoxically, the invasion plan that gives them this comfort is now rendered impossible…”

“Well, uh, duh,” Nova comments. “You’re not exactly ‘loving your neighbor’ or whatever if you’re going out to kill them all.”

Palmer moves for the first time, ducking his head and sighing in a frustrated manner. “Your view of ‘love’ is far too narrow,” he preaches. “True love is not about being nice. It is about doing what is in your neighbor’s best interest, even if he is kicking and screaming all the while. As Johnathan Edwards wrote, we are but sinners in the hands of an angry God. In order to repent, the people must learn to fear. They must be taught of the punishment they will receive on the other side if they refuse to change their wicked ways.”

There is a pause. Nobody else speaks. Ashley turns her gaze to me, and we lock eyes. I remember what happened just now with my parents. His talk about fear is bringing back the sudden epiphany I had… I start forming a response in my head.

“It will not open even for me…” Palmer laments. “What clouds my heart, oh God? I pray that… I will see the sign and will realize my sin.”

Struck my inspiration, I say, “The scripture says to love God with all your heart and strength and mind; not fear.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. They are the same.”

“Not exactly…” I reply. “When your actions are driven only by fear of consequences, you only do the bare minimum it takes to get by. You never really understand why you’re doing it, or what value it has. You’re just blindly following orders… and then you… have no ability to make your own decisions.”

“Exactly right,” Ashley interjects, looking pleased. “Which makes you an easy picking for false idols of the world. Something you should think about.”

“What are you talking about, girl?” Palmer responds, agitated. “My vision is clear from false idols. My commitment is absolute.”

“Then the door to that tank should open for you, right?” Ashley retorts. “It’s not.”

“You have no place to judge me for such. You live a heretical lifestyle. And you come in here pushing the nonsense hippie doctrine of people like the Universalists, who are trying to destroy the faith from the inside. I will not stand for it! If you think I am ‘going too far’ in my pursuit of God, you will not pass through the narrow gate!”

It’s my turn to shake my head. It’s like he ignored everything I said earlier… “I don’t think that you’re going too far,” I say. “And I never said any of that stuff you said. Rather, I think that you’re not going far enough. After everything I’ve seen here, I now understand…”

“Not far enough?” he interrupts angrily, starting to lose his temper. “I am the pastor of this church. I have gone further along the path than anyone else in this community!”

“Nice one Zoe,” Anja comments. “That seems to have hit the right nerve. Maybe we can finally just fight already?”

“It will not be a fight, so much as…” Palmer suddenly stops mid-sentence and grabs a walkie-talkie that was in his belt. He holds it up to his ear, and after a few seconds, says, “Garrett, where have you been?” Another pause. “Yes, I am well aware of the intruders. Execute the tribunal plan.” He hangs up the walkie talkie.

“Uhh… the tribunal plan?” Nova questions. “No dude, we’re just gonna have a fight. Come on, bring out your shadow form already.”

“My… shadow form?” Palmer asks. For the first time, he sounds afraid.

“Come on, what’s wrong with you?” Anja questions, rolling her eyes. “We’re done with the religious lecture portion. Boss fight time! Get it over with already!”

“I…” he starts breathing deeply and shaking. “What…?”

“Ashley, what’s wrong with him?” I question. “Why is he acting so much differently than my parents did?”

“Hard to say,” Ashley answers. “Perhaps a lack of introspection on his part?”

“A lack of… huh?” I respond stupidly, not sure what she means by this.

We don’t have any more time to discuss this, as Palmer screams “NO!” and then begins transforming before our eyes. The shadows that envelop him steadily grow in size, threatening to reveal something of similar size to the tank. It takes a while for him to emerge, and when he does, he is totally unrecognizable. He now looks like an enormous lion, except with massive reptilian wings and a tail with a stinger on it which resembles that of a scorpion.

As if a regular lion wouldn’t have been frightening enough… I begin to shake with fear and anticipation at the thought of fighting the creature, but the others seem rather unperturbed. A smirk on her face, Anja comments, “Well, this one is positively adorable compared to the last monster we fought.”

“Whoah, he turned into a manticore!” Nova says excitedly. “That’s pretty badass. Not gonna lie.”

The “manticore” that used to be Pastor Palmer seems disoriented. Instead of pouncing on us, he sort of shakes his head, and seems to be trying to gain his balance.

“Well, this seems like a good opportunity to get the first strike,” Ashley observes.

“Yes, but it would feel dishonorable,” Ted argues. “The man doesn’t even seem to know what’s happening yet.”

“I don’t give a fuck about honor!” Anja shouts, bringing her Thompson to ready position. “Let’s get him already!”

“Alright then,” Ashley agrees, nodding curtly. And so, Ashley, Anja, Nova and Ted tear off towards the manticore. I hesitate because I can’t help but to find myself agreeing a bit with Ted; Palmer was not even acting as if he particularly wanted to fight us. But after a few seconds, I take a deep breath and follow them.

Anja arrives at the manticore first and wastes no time in firing on his flank. The manticore seems to notice this, and with shocking speed turns towards Anja and breathes fire towards her like a dragon would. Anja, however, nimbly jumps out of the way, tauntingly shouting “Ha! Not falling for that again!” Her jump goes far further and higher than it would in real life, so I suspect that she is using her wind powers to give herself a slight boost.

Ted arrives next, but instead of attacking him, he casts some spell on the manticore. It’s not clear to me what it did. Ashley, not being able to reach the head, goes for the legs with her sword; however, his skin is tough enough to where this has little effect. One of the paws bats her away, causing her to land several yards away; thankfully, she does not seem to be particularly hurt by this. Nova shoots a lightning bolt at him, which also seems to not do much; the manticore does not even seem to notice it.

“Damn, he’s tough,” Nova observes. “We just gotta try every type of attack we have. He has to be weak to something!”

He turns towards me as I arrive behind him. “Zoe! Try your nuclear thing against him!”

“Um, okay,” I agree. I aim a nuclear blast at his shoulder, which once again doesn’t even cause him to flinch.

“What are you children doing?” the manticore asks, sounding no more than mildly annoyed. “I have no time to play games with you. With my new power, I have a great duty to attend to…” And without a second glance towards us, he simply leaps across the room away from us.

“Uh… what the fuck?” Anja yells in frustration. “Where is he going?”

“I guess we’re not good enough for him,” Ashley comments, rejoining everyone else after getting to her feet.

The manticore runs to the metal doors and tears them open with his claws. He jumps through the resulting hole, and even from all the way over here we can hear the sound of enormous, flapping wings outside.

“GOD DAMN IT MAN!” Nova shouts, looking as though he’s about to tear his hair out. “WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO? THE BOSS JUST FREAKING RAN AWAY!”

“I guess we find out where he is going,” Ashley states calmly. “He’s gotta be up to something.”

“This is stupid!” Nova continues to complain, kicking the ground.

“Our attacks weren’t doing a lot to him anyway,” Ted comments. “We should take this time to form a clear strategy now that we know what to…”

Ted is interrupted by the sound of Palmer’s voice. It sounds magnified enough to where we can easily hear him even from the basement, but other than that his voice sounds remarkably calm and normal, lacking the distortions of my parents’ voices.

“Do not be alarmed, everyone. It is your pastor speaking. I have finally managed to awaken the secret weapon. This means that it is time to make our move. This is our mandate to start the invasion.”

“Man, they’d have to be dumbasses to fall for that shit,” Nova snarks. “Him turning into a fucking cat is clearly not the secret weapon.”

“Well, those others are pretty gullible,” Anja reasons. “Where do you guys think he went?”

“It sounded like he flew on top of the military base,” Ashley observes. “Makes sense given that he was trying to address a large number of people, and there are not exactly any other tall buildings in the area.”

“Alright. Let’s go up there and set his ass on fire,” Anja rallies. “You think that elevator will go all the way to the top?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Ashley responds. “There’s no guarantee he won’t just fly away again, but we may as well try it.”

“Aight. Let’s go,” Nova agrees.

The others dash for the exit. I once again find myself hanging behind; leaving the supposed ultimate weapon just sitting there untouched during the final fight feels very unsatisfying. Still, nobody from the church was able to use it, so it’s not like any of us would be able to get it to open anyway.

I reach the elevator to find that Ashley was holding the door open for me. “You’ve had a lot on your mind, haven’t you?” she asks me as I walk in.

“Um, yes,” I say. “I’m sorry I’m being slow.”

“I can’t blame you for that,” Anja says in a comforting way. “You’ve been through a lot today. Well, not just today, but especially today.”

“It’ll be over soon,” Ashley assures. “We just have to see this through to the end.”

“I know,” I acknowledge. “I’m committed to this. I’m ready.”

Ashley gives me a slight nod, and then presses the button that takes us to the top floor.

The elevator has no windows. There is nothing to do but stand in silence and feel the slight rumbling as we go up. Ashley, as always, looks quite calm and collected, not giving away anything with her expression. Nova seems antsy and frustrated, his hands wiggling randomly as if he were dying to do something with them. Anja has her eyes closed and she seems to be breathing deeply; I would’ve thought she’s praying if she was a more religious person. And closer to the floor, Ted is slowly rotating the cylinder of his revolver, checking to make sure it is fully loaded. I must admit that I have yet to really get used to the absurdity of working together with a talking armadillo.

“How do you feel about all of this, Mr. Ted?” I ask him. “You’re so quiet all of the time.”

“I’m feeling fine, lassie,” he replies gruffly. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m a man of duty. I don’t have patience for idle chat.”

“Yeah yeah, so you say,” Anja comments snarkily. “I think the idle chit-chat is what makes it fun.”

“I’m not doing this for fun!” Ted growls.

I giggle slightly despite myself. Still, I can’t help but to wonder what his actual mission is… he says he was sent by an angel, but all he’s really done as far as I’ve seen is go along with whatever we’re doing. Was he asked to help us specifically?

I feel the elevator slow to a stop. My last moment of casual conversation is now over. I grip my shotgun tightly and prepare myself once again.