Vigilia Fidelis 2: Ring the Bell
Fatmouta was awoken in the middle of the night by a blaring alarm. She’d been sleeping in the office, again, and scrambled for her glasses before turning on the lights and sitting up. She blinked at the red light and wailing alarm. That was the Endbringer Alarm. She got up, picking up her Vision and clipboard before hurrying out, still barefoot. She made her way to the Cheyanne Mountain situation room, where desperate techs were already scrambling.
“Why the alarm? The next scheduled attack is the Simurgh, and she’s going to be attacking Tel Aviv on March 23rd. That’s not for eight days,” Fatmouta said, hurrying into the room. It had been a bit odd to get a handwritten note scrawled on the back of a bar menu from Ziz about her “next playdate with the radish.” But, at least the Simurgh was communicating with them. Even if she had blown up all their telecommunications satellites.
“It’s not her!” a tech said, pointing to a satellite image already on the screen. Fatmouta peered at the image, which was focused over the coast of Brazil. It was still the middle of the night there as well, but an unnatural darkness was shrouding a large region, blotting out the lights that should have been shining from the cities and settlements in the region.
“What is it? Not the Behemoth? Why the alarm?” Fatmouta demanded, accepting a cup of coffee from a harried looking aid and sipping at it.
“We don’t know! It’s a new one, but it tripped the Endbringer warnings.”
Another image was thrown up, CCTV footage of an enormous, black serpent. Fatmouta felt her hand shake, and had to slowly set her cup of coffee down before she spilled it all over herself.
“What is…” she stepped closer to the screen, studying the frozen image. The previous Endbringers had been large, but not so large as to qualify amongst the ranks of the truly enormous kaiju monsters that had captured the human imagination in fictional media. The largest of the Endbringers was the Alpha Behemoth, which was much larger than the original Behemoth, at 80 feet tall. Compared to the most famous kaiju, Godzilla, the Behemoth was tiny, less than half as large as the so-called King of the Monsters.
This creature though…
“How tall is that building, there?” Fatmouta asked, pointing to the largest structure that the black serpent was coiling itself around.
“Er, about 450 feet tall, ma’am,” a tech supplied.
Fatmouta’s mind blanked for a moment. This new Endbringer…it was taller, wider, and broader than the building. Just one coil was half as large as the building, and the whole thing was big enough to snake around the entire city. “Then…then this thing is…”
“We’re estimating it to be about half a mile tall, and three to four miles long,” another tech said, their voice shaking slightly.
“That’s…that’s more than a kilometer in height, and five to seven kilometers long,” Fatmouta breathed. She turned. “Do we have a team deployed?”
“We’re getting everyone ready to deploy, ma’am, but the local defenders…” the tech swallowed. “We…we captured some of their broadcasts. It…it’s bleak.”
“There’s another thing,” another tech said, and Fatmouta turned to them. “Dr. Mother…this isn’t a standard Endbringer.”
“The scale alone makes that obvious,” Fatmouta snapped, but the tech shook their head.
“No, ma’am. It…it’s Abyssal. Look.”
More data streams popped up, and showed rampaging beast that by this point, Fatmouta was familiar with. Mimics, riftwolves, hilicurls, skaven, orcs…they were rampaging through the town.
“Get a team deployed immediately. We need samples. Evacuate civilians as a priority as well,” Fatmouta ordered.
A little icon blinked, a pair of pixilated sunglasses. A moment later, the world’s most annoying desktop helper appeared, as the live feed cut off. “Foolish mortals! Be grateful that the ALMIGHTY DRAGON LORD K’UHUL AJAW is here to protect you! Do you have any idea how many wards I’ve had to put up while you’re streaming this junk!?”
“That is why we keep you around, Ajaw,” Fatoumota said, rubbing her forehead. “I need all data on Sao Luis.”
“Mwahahaha! The Almighty Dragon lord has already-”
“Data, Ajaw! Lives are on the line!” Fatoumota barked, and the little egotist of an AI grumbled, but started pulling up maps, population density charts, and known capes in the region. As annoying as Ajaw’s personality was, he was the second most powerful artificial intelligence in the world. And unlike his ‘elder sister’, he was completely loyal to Cauldron.
As long as you stroked his ego, that is.
“Excellent work, Ajaw,” Fatomota said sincerely. “Without your efforts, our team wouldn’t be nearly as prepared. Forward this to the ready team. Who is on deck?”
“I have already alerted our most capable of warriors for this holy crusade!” Ajaw preened, his irritation of a few moments before forgotten. Dr. Mother wondered exactly what was going on with Richter that his AIs kept behaving like hormonal teenagers. Well, to be fair, Tessa acted like she was a hormonal 20, but Ajaw acted like a 13-year-old boy.
The list of names popped up, and Fatmouta nodded her approval. “Mouse Protector’s squad. Excellent. They’re combat veterans who have trained to fight the Abyss. And Miss Militia as well. Good, she and that dog of hers have experience containing the Abyss, and both Mouse Protector and Miss Militia have been at more than one Endbringer fight.”
“Mwahahaha! I will coordinate with this team! They already have the very best of our protective gear! Elemental energy seems to be the best counter,” Ajaw stated.
“Good. Now get me some workable data,” Fatmouta ordered. “We need a counter to this new Endbringer that doesn’t involve us begging the Archons for help.”
Sitting around on duty while you were one of the ready teams was typically an eminently boring pastime. Most of the time, MP, Carlo, Slug, Roach, and Shamrock played NFL Blitz Pro or NBA Jam 2k5 on the Xbox. They had tried playing cards exactly once. On the very first hand of Five Card Stud, Shamrock had been dealt five Aces. They had gotten a fresh pack, and Roach, who was always scrupulously fair, had shuffled and dealt. Instead of five aces, Shamrock had ended up with five sevens.
They stopped trying to play cards after that.
Currently, they were playing a round of Elemental Warfare 2 on the Battle Creek map. Carlo was trying very hard to focus, but Mina was currently sitting in his lap and waggling back and forth as she gripped her controller, tongue sticking out as she sprinted about the map with a shotgun, trying to secure the last few kills for the win.
Ostensibly, she was sitting in Carlo’s lap because, between Roach, Slug, and Carlo, there really wasn’t much room at all, with Shamrock sitting on Slug’s shoulders and cheering him on, as she was currently banned for glitching through the map (again) and killing everyone with a sniper rifle while she was out of bounds.
The reality was that even though Carlo and Mina were not officially in a relationship due to their difference in rank and the fact that he was serving under her, a lot of the ‘paperwork’ that Carlo filled out in her office was a lot more hands on than Mina was willing to admit. Technically, fraternization wasn’t against Protectorate rules, but it would probably have led to Carlo being transferred out of the squad, and neither of them wanted that.
Just before Mina managed to grab the shotgun and likely secure her win, and Carlo lost the plot completely, the ready alarm began to blare.
Instantly, controllers were tossed aside, and the team grabbed their gear. They were already in uniform, and it was a matter of looking at the board to see what the threat was.
“Endbringer,” Gregor sighed, reaching up to help Shamrock down. “Great. Thought it was the Simurgh next.”
“Wait, why is Abyss lit up if it’s an Endbringer?” Shamrock asked, cocking her head to one side as they started at the wall. Other potential threats included “Unknown S Class Threat” and “Slaugther House Nine” as well as “Fatui Incursion.” Usually, it was only one threat panel that lit up, but now both the new Abyss icon and the Endbringer warning were ignited.
A door swung open in the middle of the room, and through it stepped the familiar form of Miss Militia. “Because we’re facing a potential Abyssal Endbringer.”
“Ten hut!” Mina barked, and Carlo and the others snapped to attention and saluted.
“At ease, we don’t have time for that,” Miss Militia said, though she had the formal rank of Colonel, compared to Mina’s rank of Captain, even after her promotion. Unfortunately, Mina probably wasn’t powerful enough to ever receive another promotion. Carlo was already a 2nd Lieutenant, and likely to be further advanced due to his Alexandria power set inherently being stronger than Mina’s grab-bag powers.
“You lot o’ Yanks are always givin’ it the old salute an’ all that. Ain’t you gonna pull that stick outta your April an’ ‘ave a bit of fetch with it?”
Carlo blinked as a short man with dark hair and a shaggy black tail stepped out of the door behind Miss Militia, dressed in the same protective battle rattle Carlo was. The dog-man had a gleaming Cryo Vision on a collar around his neck, which explained what he was, but why he was here.
“Why is Dick Van Dyke Jr here?” Carlo asked, nodding to the short Vision Holder.
“Oh, we got a proper joker ‘ere, gov. Call me that again an’ I’ll ‘ave your loaf of bread,” the short dog-man snarled, his hair shifting so that Carlo noted a pair of fuzzy black ears on his head.
“Duke, Lieutenant Pavo, none of that. We have a major emergency,” Miss Militia said, and held out a hand, where a hologram projected from the palm of her power armor. A map of Brazil appeared, then zoomed in on a large island on the northern coast.
“Ten minutes ago, a massive black serpent appeared above the city of Sao Luis. The population is approximately one and a half million people. This thing is both an Endbringer, and infused with the Abyss. That matches what we know of the Shards: they’re absorbing Elemental energy, which is why we’ve seen parahumans recently that can wield. The same seems to be true of Abyssal Energy.”
“So what does this have to do with The Traitor?” Mina demanded, folding her arms over her chest and shifting uncomfortably. Carlo had to resist the urge to hug her. She’d known Eidolon, been one of the original Wards that he had mentored. She’d cried herself to sleep many times over his betrayal, especially since he’d gone over to the same monster who had killed so many of their friends in his blind lust for power.
Miss Milita shook her head, looking sick. She’d feel that betrayal worse than anyone. “We don’t know, but we’re looking into it. If David, that is, Eidolon, did create the other Endbringers, this one seems to be born out of the blackness of his own heart.”
There was grim silence for a few heartbeats, then Miss Militia cleared her throat. “We’re going in on data retrieval and civilian evacuation. We don’t know what this one can do, but if it’s half as powerful as the Twins, and the Endbringers have gotten progressively stronger, then we’re in for a bad time. You all have the new Class IV containment suits?”
Carlo nodded along with the others, touching the durable material of his uniform. It was a slick material, not quite metal or ceramic, but some sort of Tinkertech. It glowed slightly and was infused with Elemental Energy, which was the best defense they had against the Abyss.
“Good. We’re translating to a secondary point, then opening a doorway to the outskirts of the city. We’re not engaging directly here. None of us have the firepower to tangle with an Endbringer. We get civilians out, and we gather what intel we can,” Miss Militia ordered.
Carlo nodded and braced himself. The Colonel turned her back along with her little attack dog, and Mina leaned in to give him a quick hug, their body armor clanking slightly.
“Good luck,” she whispered, and he leaned down to kiss her cheek.
Then a door opened onto a twilight, crater-marked, red dusty plain. In the distance, Carlo saw the deep dark of the ocean after sunset, and he wondered exactly where they were. Then another door swung open before them, and a dark purple mist began to roil out of it. He engaged his helmet, lifting up off the ground to fly through the doorway.
“Pavo, get eyes on the sky!” Mina ordered, and Carlo nodded, lifting up to try to get above the clinging dark mists. He kept a wary eye out for mimics and rift hounds, but nothing attacked him. It took nearly a full minute of flying as fast as he could, which was right around terminal velocity, or 180mph, when he was going straight up like this. That meant he had climbed over 15,000ft by the time he broke free of the mists, and looked out over the island. He swallowed. There was a great dark shape in the distance, but if that was a snake…it was the size of a mountain. He reached up a trembling hand and touched his ear.
“MP, can you read me?” he asked, whispering despite himself. The eerie fog formed odd shapes, drifting up around his feet like it was clawing at him.
There was silence for a moment, then a strange woman’s voice answered, “This is Dr. Mother with Protectorate HQ. Your team is cut off. The Abyssal energies are interfering with our comms equipment, but you’re now in range of our comm buoys, Lieutenant. What can you see?”
The dark coils had shifted, and Carlo caught sight of many glowing eyes. “This thing…it’s massive, Doctor. It has to be miles and miles long. It’s covered the entire island in this fog. How long has it even been here? We deployed immediately.”
“It appeared at 02:37 hours, and it’s 02:41. Less than 14 minutes. Is the fog spreading?” the Doctor’s voice asked grimly.
Carlo turned around and watched for a moment. “Yes, I think so. Hold on.”
He raced to the edge of the fog, and followed along. It was spreading, not as fast as he could fly, but probably about as fast as a man could walk. He relayed that information, and Doctor Mother sighed. “That tracks. We have limited aerial coverage after most of our telecommunications satellites were destroyed by the Dragons. We’re relying mostly on high-altitude flights, but they’re still en route. Get back in contact with your team, and get us a report on what’s happening on the ground.”
“On it,” Carlo agreed, and dove back down through the fog. It was so thick, he nearly ran into the ground, which could have knocked him a bit silly with how fast he could go when descending, more than double his speed ascending. He was tough, but plowing into the ground at the speed of a passenger jet would rattle even his cage.
Before he could even begin to look for Mina and the others, he heard screams in what sounded like distorted Spanish. He nearly wrote it off as Abyssal murmurs, but then remembered that he was in Brazil. Swearing, he flew forward and found a group of fleeing civilians with several uniformed police officers, who were firing old-style gunpowder firearms at a group of those masked hilichurls that came out of Abyssal portals. The poor saps didn’t even have the newer elemental weapons, though thankfully, hilichurls were the easiest to stop of the Abyssal creatures.
Not kill, though. Carlo didn’t know if it was possible to kill a hilichurl. He’d seen one get its head ripped off and it still didn’t die, though thankfully it just snarled then. Do enough damage, and their bodies went down, even if they still twitched.
Carlo flew in hot, drawing his cavalry saber and laying about, cutting off limbs and caving in heads. Cut off a hilichurl’s arms and legs, and it stopped being much of a threat: shoot it in the body, and you mostly just slowed it down for a bit.
It took only a few moments, and Carlo landed, the civilians crowding around him. One of the police officers came forward, one eye swollen shut and one arm hanging limply and bleeding.
“Thank God! where the hell have you sentinelas been?! These things came out of do nada and started matar gente!”
Carlo could only sort of understand what the man was saying as far as the Portuguese went, but he got the general idea of things. He pointed to himself, and spoke in Spanish. “I’m with the Protectorate! Estados Unidos! We need to get you out of here!”
The officer frowned at him. “Norte-americano? What the porra! Well, shit! Fine, if you’re here to help, I won't discutir. Come on, the ponte is this way.”
Carlo was pretty sure that ‘ponte’ was bridge, so he nodded and put his hand to his ear. “Pavo to MP, Pavo to MP. I have civilians here, where are you?”
He got nothing but static. Heart sinking, he flew circles around the civilians as they hurried down the foggy street, clashing with a pair of rift hounds before they could attack.
However, one of the civilians started screaming and clutching their head. Without hesitation, Carlo swooped in and decapitated them. Their corpses sprayed black blood, and then little biting insects began to fly out. He tried to kill them, but the civilians panicked, and the cops fired at him. They scattered to the wind, and no matter what Pavo said, he couldn’t catch them all. In the end, only a pair of crying kids, one a boy of about 10 who was carrying a little girl of 2 or 3, remained.
“Madre de Dios, this is fucked up,” Carlo growled, and grabbed the kids and flew on. He heard screams in the fog, and knew that most of the civilians were getting massacred, but there was nothing he could do.
A moment later, he saw a bright flash, and the ripping sound of tinkertech weaponry. He flew the screaming kids that direction and found the rest of the squad in battle with dozens of rat-like skaven, led by a pair of chanting mages. Carlo set the kids down and flanked a mage, cutting the thing in half, before hurrying back to collect them.
“Pavo! There you are,” Mina said over he suits speakers. “Comms aren’t working! Did you contact HQ! What’s the situation?”
“That snake is the size of a small mountain,” Carlo said as Roach produced a pair of specialized gas masks and put them on the kids to keep them from breathing in more of the Abyssal contamination. “There’s no way we can fight it, and there’s monsters everywhere. Can we call for evac?”
“Not with comms down,” Miss Milita said grimly. “We need to exfil though. We’re going to be overrun by the monsters.” She pointed to a small knot of civilians that Slug and Shamrock were guarding. “And we’re out of protective equipment. The map says we go this way.”
“We need to run. The fog is spreading,” Carlo warned.
It took half an hour, but they managed to run to the edge of the fog. A lot of the civilians didn’t make it. The sick and the elderly fell to Abyssal contamination first, and they were left behind to be mercy-killed by the grim dog-man or Carlo himself.
“Not an easy job,” the brit said quietly after they’d had to put a bullet in the head of a woman who had begun convulsing and bleeding black ooze from her eyes and nose. “You might have a stick up your arse, yank, but you’re doin’ what needs doin’.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, limey. But we need to keep moving. Even Class IV isn’t rated for long-term exposure,” Carlo said, and they hurried to catch up with the others, who had managed to finally flee the fog.
A door swung open for them back to that red dusty island, again, now under the full dark of night. They shepherded the two dozen civilians out, where a team was waiting in Class II containment suits, which were suitable for mild exposure. A ritual team was there, along with a dark-haired woman of Moroccan features in a white lab coat and glasses. Though oddly, no shoes. She led the decon ritual herself, holding a Dendro Vision aloft. Carlo felt the wave of purifying elemental energy wash over him and breathed out a sigh of relief. The civilians would be monitored for a week before they were let out of quarantine, and two had fallen and spasmed during the ritual, already possessed by the Abyss.
They were just about finished when Carlo felt a distant rumble in his feet. He put a hand on Mina’s back to steady her, and they glanced around. Was this a volcanic island? Was that an Earthquake?
Then a harder shake hit the island, and Carlo had to steady himself. A moment later, sirens sounded. A tsunami warning?
“Damn,” the woman in the white lab coat with the Dendro Vision muttered, lowering a radio. Even with her darker features, Carlo could see the blood had drained from her face. She turned to him. “Lieutenant, I’m Dr. Mother. Did you see Scion, that is, Zion, when you were scouting?”
Carlo wracked his brain, but shook his head. “No, ma’am. No sign of him. Why? He’s clearly a monster like the Endbringers since he’s behind the Cyclists. The same sort of alien monster as the Archons. Why would he fight the Serpent?”
“He may have just killed it. He unleashed…well, some sort of Rod From God ability that just obliterated most of the State of Maranhão. Seven million people in the first blast. Not to mention the earthquakes and tsunamis,” Dr. Mother said, shaking her head.
“Rod from…?” Carlo trailed off, glancing at Mina, but while she looked sick, she didn’t seem to have any more of an idea than he did.
“A giant rod, dropped from Low Earth Orbit, that can crack the Earth’s crust and act like a nuclear warhead, though with no fallout,” Miss Militia said grimly. She held up a hand, and a small green gun floated there. “Armory says the Avatar just sealed off the Abyssal power. The Serpent isn’t dead, it just fled. He warned it first. It…it’s definitely an Endbringer. The remnants of the dead Thinker. Armory suspects that the Avatar deliberately exposed it to Abyssal energy. The whole point of the Cycle is to find new sources of Energy.”
Carlo’s eyes widened, and Doctor Mother sighed. “Welcome to Cauldron, Captain. Your squad is going to be briefed on some very sensitive matters, have even more thorough background checks, and some loyalty screening.”
“We, we’re loyal, ma’am,” Mina said stoutly, grabbing Carlo’s hand. He gave it a squeeze, and felt his heart pounding. What was happening here?
“These days, we can’t be too careful,” Doctor Mother said. “Oh, and you can keep sleeping with the Lieutenant here. We’ve known for a while, but your productivity and morale improved dramatically once you two actually consummate your relationship, so we looked the other way.”
Now it was Carlo’s turn to flush with anger, while Mina blushed in embarrassment. “That’s none of your business!” he snapped.
“I think you’ll find it rather is,” Doctor Mother said flatly. “I am, after all, Director Costa-Brown’s and President Costa-Brown’s boss. Take them in hand, Hannah. I trust you and Duke can handle things.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Colonel said, saluting the civilian, which startled Carlo. That wasn’t how the Protectorate worked. At least, he hadn’t thought it was.
“Keep them here at the Kahoʻolawe facility. The civilians will be moved to the South African one. We’ve lost all contact with the Gimmel and Aleph facilities, so all operations are taking place on Bet,” Doctor Mother said. She nodded to Carlo. “You did good work today, young man. Keep it up, and you’ll prove the powers we gave you aren’t going to waste.”
Then, a door opened, and Carlo frowned. Was that the Eiffel Tower? Then Doctor Mother stepped through and was gone.
He and the rest of the squad turned to Miss Militia, even as the survivors of Sao Luis were herded off to a holding facility on another continent. “Right. Sorry about this, but I’m going to need a squad, and your people are the best we have, Mina.”
“Don’t worry about it, Hannah,” Mouse Protector said quietly. She shivered, though the night was quite warm. Kahoʻolawe sounded Hawaiian, and it was certainly warm enough for that here, but Carlo felt a chill in his bones as well.
“Right lads an’ lasses. Welcome to the fight against the real evil,” the dog-man said. “Name’s Duke. Ain’t got a rank, but you can treat me like the King o’ England anyway.”
Roach flicked his antennae and his mandibles trembled, and Gregor nodded. “Roach is right. We saw what happened. That was evil. We fight it.”
“Damn right,” Shamrock agreed. “Even if I have to say fuck the English, and not like Hanners here is doing to you.”
Miss Militia suddenly coughed, while Duke started laughing. It was the Colonel who spoke first. “We’re not…that is, uh…no. Our relationship is purely professional.”
“Well, I’m fucking Gregor, and Mina and Carlo have been screwing like rabbits since Finland, even if we’re not supposed to see them sneaking off together at every chance,” Shamrock deadpanned.
Now it was Carlo’s turn to blush, though Roach clapped him on the back and gave him an odd thumbs up, difficult with his insectile pincers.
“Uh, thanks, man,” Carlo managed.
“There’s going to be a lot of paperwork and interviews, but consider this more R&R,” Miss Militia said, nodding to a building not too far away. “Stay in the marked boundaries. This whole place is an old munitions testing site for the Navy and Air Force, so there’s a lot of uncleared shells and bombs beyond the markers.”
“Eh. How big a boom can it be?” Gregor said with a shrug.
Shamrock slapped him upside the back of his head, though she had to stand on her tiptoes to do it. “Have you seen the shells battleships fire? The size of cars they are! Even your slimy ass would be blown to kingdom come if you trip over one of those!”
“Even Pavo should be careful, and he’s got a higher Brute rating than you,” Miss Militia said dryly. She held up a fist. “But our mission is going to be to remind the world that the Protectorate is the Good Guys. We’re the Watchers on the Wall. The Light in the Darkness. We’re going to hit back against Endbringers, Cyclists, the Abyss, and all other threats. We won’t sit and wait for some Archon to save us, or anyone else. We’re going to get out there and do the saving. Today, you saved 27 lives from The Golden Demon and the Black Serpent. We’ll mourn the fallen, but we celebrate the good we did too. Next time, we’ll save more. And that’s it. We take the fight to the aliens, and we win. You with me?”
“All the way, ma’am,” Carlo agreed, and the others added similar sentiments.
“Good. Barracks are over there, though they’re more beach bungalows. And, well, you can set up racking arrangements however you like. Duke and I will be staying here as well, at least for now,” Miss Militia explained. “I was already starting to shift through dossiers to form my team, but this settles things. Now, go get some grub and some rack time. Dismissed.”
There proved to be a small kitchen with food that was easily heated up, but Carlo wasn’t hungry. Instead, he and Mina took a long shower, where the most exciting thing they did was hold one another and cry while the water washed away their tears.
After that, they lay in bed, holding on to one another.
“Twenty-seven. It’s a start,” Mina whispered.
“Yeah. A start,” Carlo agreed.
“So don’t go beating yourself up about the ones we didn’t save,” Mina told him, poking him in the chest with her finger.
“You don’t either, Ratóncita mío,” Carlo said, and kissed Mina’s forehead.
She smiled and nodded.
Both of them woke screaming that night, and for many of the nights to come. They might have saved 27. And they could forget the millions who had perished.
But Carlo would remember the woman weeping black tears whose head he had cut off, or the old man who had clawed his own eyes out, or any of the other horrors he had witnessed.
And he knew this was just the start.