[NaNo 2021] - An Anachronistic Aye

Harry huffed. “Fine. So…do you guys want the two hour version or the two minute version…that’s a rhetorical question, don’t answer that. We only have time for the two minute version and kind of not even that. So yeah, let’s get this show underway. Umm, so to put a long story short, you three were not supposed to die, and…well we don’t actually know who was supposed to die or not, that is in a coded database that I did not have to time to properly check, but we know for certain that you three dying is a temporal anomaly, which means it’s something that was nothing supposed to happen, but has now happened due to the actions of….well, we don’t know that one either.”

Daphne just didn’t know how to react to that particular declaration. Finding out you were dead was one thing, but then to be told that you weren’t even supposed to die. She didn’t know what she was even supposed to do in this situation. Was I murdered by someone? No way. There’s no chance I’m important enough for anyone to try and murder. Hmm, maybe they tried to get Susie or Jess for something and I was caught in the crossfire. And if we weren’t meant to die, then what does all this mean. Aaarrgh….why does everything in life have to be so compli…well, I guess this is not really life anymore is it? Everything in death….well great more things to be confused about. Good Job Brain.

“Oh please, we don’t want to kill you, “ said the creature, “we’re trying to apologize for you accidentally ending up here and trying to figure out how to send you back and close this damn leak. It’s been open for 35 years by my calculation, Fifty two year in your human measurements, and we just didn’t really get around to closing the damn thing. We thought it was covered well enough, and set up this crazy little prophecy and everything, and as predicted, here you are so we can close this thing and be done with it finally.”

“You’re making no sense right now,” supplied Harry flatly. The agents seemed to be rapidly gaining confidence as the creature’s movements became less and less hostile. Evelyn herself lowered her arms. It did in fact sound like the creatures weren’t going to attack. From the strength she’d seen on display earlier, she knew that if this thing wanted to kill them, they’d be long dead already.

“Oh, my brother is just being dramatic,” said the other creature, stepping up. Now that Evelyn stopped to take a second, she could see both of them were vaguely humanoid and if she was being honest, besides the very off lines of glowing light that seemed to radiate power running through their faces, they could most likely be classed as beautiful. It was extremely odd. Demons were supposed to have disfigured faces that resembled the inside of a trash can. These two clearly hadn’t got the memo.

“Oh I like that,” said Jennifer, and the two exchanged identical mischievous smiles. Daphne was having a very hard time grasping the idea that the Lord of the Dead had a name as common and normal sounding as Jason. She’d expect it to be something like Jaxor the Destroyer of Souls or something, but then she also found herself feeling somewhat sorry for said Lord of the Dead. The smiles exchanged by the two siblings in front of them were positively criminal.

“Well, I guess we’re okay,” said Jessica, looking towards Susan and her. Daphne genuinely did not know exactly how to process any of this at the moment but she did understand the concept of being killed at the wrong place in time. She’d watched enough movies in her time.

Harry turned to where the demon pointed at, choosing to ignore how it had called that mass of souls charging towards them as a “small army”. Sure enough, in a dull corner of well…rock, it wasn’t like there was anything else on this wasteland, there stood the portal that had brought them here, only unlike the greyish light that had looked extraordinary dim compared to most portals, this one was shining bright white, much like the ones that he’d seen when he’d worked with the ones that they were developing for space flight to the Moon and Mars. This portal seemed almost normal, if it wasn’t for its far smaller size and odd constant swirling effect.

He didn’t know what to make of any of this, but he decided that maybe the best way would be to just go forward with this and do what the crazy demon said. For all he knew, the moment he jumped through, he’d wake up at his headquarters, covered in a cold sweat and realize this whole escapade had just been a dream.

She hadn’t fully wrapped her head around the idea that they were really stuck in this land of the dead due to some kind of mistake in the timeline, but after repeated pinches, she had come to the conclusion that everything the angels had so far said was true and they were indeed dead.

Jessica had come to terms with that fairly quickly. Maybe she’d just been to darker places in life, but she’d been close to the idea of dying more than a few times and this didn’t shock her as much as she’d imagined it probably had for Susan and Daphne. It wasn’t like she’d ever wanted to die, but she’d always accepted that it was around the corner until very recently when she could suddenly see a future thanks to Daphne and her parents.

“Wait. I don’t think he’s lying,” said Rose. “Better safe than sorry.”

“You think we stand a chance of repelling that massive army, this is obviously a trap,” said Evelyn.

“I agree with Rose,” said Harry, speaking up.

“Of course you would,” shot back Evelyn, “Look I don’t care.”

“I’m with the agents, “said Terry, speaking out all of a sudden and stunning Harry into momentary silence. He’d expected the man to do the exact same and do the selfish option.

“Well, I’m not,” said Evelyn.

Jessica quickly glanced up, where the angel glided along above them, a bright blue shape in the darkness that seemed to be ever present in this place since they’d left that planetoid. Wings outstretched, the being looked like some sort of giant peaceful bird, just going about its day.

She realized with a start that Harry was looking down at the two of them, a gentle smile of…almost some sort of pride on his face. The angel caught her eyes and winked, the smile turning into a slight smirk before he quickly turned to face the direction they were heading in. Jessica raised her eyebrows. What was that about? Does he? Did he? Oh, who cares. There are so many more things I need to be worried about right now besides figuring out how a literal angel realized I have a girlfriend.

Before Harry could think much further however, the creatures attacked, a writhing mass of translucent white, grey and black all heading for them in a giant mass. The beings in front of them leaped immediately into action and Harry found himself standing there, mouth wide open as he watched the carnage unfold. It was like he was at home, watching the latest action thriller.

The one named Jennifer hurled herself into the air with lightning speed, extending a pair of large blue wings as she then proceeded to glide over the massive army, a humongous stream of fire so hot it burned blue emitting from her hands, decimating large chunks of the assembled force. The Darkness, the other Harry swung his hand, generating a bolt of lightning on an energy level Harry had never seen before. And he should know, he created a lot of lightning daily as part of his job.

He could see the translucent veins on the being glowing a brilliant dark cyan color, pulsing with energy that was powerful enough that Harry could almost feel it. The being then proceeded to swing his massive whip of lightning and it sent the entire front line of the army flying in a singular swipe. It was a battle on a scale so large, Harry was having genuine trouble trying to understand how forces of that magnitude were even possible.

Harry stopped in front of the closed gate and looked back, seemingly checking if all three of them were there before he then turned around and proceeded to tap the gate. It looked like a very light push that shouldn’t have even budged a gate of this size, but the massive contraption swung open so fast it looked like someone had smashed it with a giant battering ram.

“Careful with the gate,” said Jennifer and Harry gave her a sheepish smile.

“Haven’t opened this thing in ages,” said Harry, “forgot how ridiculously easy it was to open.”

She held out a hand, nodding towards the portal. There was a slight bit of hesitation from Harry. He looked at her hand, almost as if he was afraid of what it meant. Then, he threaded his hand through hers, holding it firmly and giving it the gentles of squeezes almost as if he was reassuring her and himself of something. Rose didn’t want to put a name to any of that just yet, but she softly whispered.

“Together?”

“Together,” he repeated, just as soft.

Jessica watched as they proceeded to gently open the door, then give a short bow and gesture for them to go inside. As she passed them, Jessica turned to thank the guards, and she very nearly screamed, in fact, seconds later, Susan did in fact scream.

She’d assumed the guards were humans, maybe souls of the dead or humanoid angel like things like Harry and Jennifer. Instead, they were much more terrifying. They were definitely humanoid, but their faces were oddly twisted, almost like someone had put a human face through a blender and then stuck it back on there.

Slowly, she released herself from his arms, and turned to look at his face, just inches away.

“For the sake of all that is holy in this world, just kiss already,” came a voice. Moment temporarily broken, she glared at the offending person; Evelyn.

“You really should, cause we like need to get out of this place and do other things.” It was Terry this time.

“Shut up Clarke,” said Harry.

Rose turned to look at him again and broken into yet another smile. Their faces were inches apart. She could feel his breath on her skin, tickling her checks. Slowly they leaned into each other even as a couple of catcalls erupted around them.

With that, the angel turned and jogged into the room, loudly announcing her presence by clearing her throat. Jessica looked inside and the scene that greeted her was the very last thing she’d expected to see in the official chambers of the lord of the dead.

For starters, the lord of the dead looked like he was wearing a cheap Halloween costume, with the black clothes and the flowing black cape. All he was missing would be a pair of plastic teeth that made it impossible to talk. Second, said cape was currently held high above his head as he covered from a pair of what looked like two rulers that were on the warpath against him.

Harry was also laughing rather loudly as the lord of the dead awkwardly ducked underneath the rulers, covering behind a giant black office chair which for some reason had highlights in lime green of all colors. The lord of the dead also happened to be making an annoyed squeaking sound of some sort and it looked far more like two five years playing around than anything else.

At the sound of the clearing through, they proceeded to immediately break up, the rulers diving back into wherever they were meant to go immediately as Harry sobered up. The lord of the dead stood up while maintaining as much dignity as he could possibly muster and slowly pushed the chair away. To his credit, he didn’t try to dramatically swish his cape or do anything else. The way he stood made it extremely clear that this was someone who was dangerous and he knew it.

Of course, Vankous could easily call for backup, and one of the people left behind on the ship, most likely Larry or Winn would teleport over for assistance but he was Vankous Frostification. He never called for backup. The backup had to call for him. And so here he was, holding his position as best as he possibly could, trying desperately to protect his hairdo and he supposed Tony too. Tony was certainly more important than the hairdo, or at least he’d never admit otherwise.

“Vankous, we have to call someone,” said Tony. Vankous huffed at him. Typical. He always wanted to choose the reasonable option. He honestly needed to acquire a better sense of adventure.

“Clearly, we have this under control,” replied Vankous, coolly, not wanting to give anything away.

“Don’t you do that to me, I’ve know you too long, you’re not in control. We’re just about holding on here,” said Tony. “Come on, just give in, let’s get one of the others to come here. Just one, we should be able to handle it from there. You can even say it’s my fault, which to be fair it is, I really should’ve restocked on ammunition. Those teddy bears just ate up entirely too many bullets.”

Want to grab a sandwich?” asked Stean, “all of this is making me hungry?”
“Hmm, good plan, I’m going to go for like a large tub of ice cream,” said Harry, brightening up at the prospect. If this thing was going to throw failure after failure at them, they at least deserved some consolation food at this point. Vankous also nodded enthusiastically to that particular suggestion.

“You can get yourself a sandwich, but yes, an tub of ice cream is starting to sound very good at the moment, can we try and drop by…” began Vankous before Harry shushed him. He knew exactly where that was going and right now they did not have time to be diving down into the mortal world to acquire Vankous’s favorite flavors, and he certainly couldn’t let Vankous complete his pitch for going there, because that would be far harder to turn down.

“But…” continued to protest Vankous but Harry simply shook his head.

“We don’t have that kind of time, you can go get the food if you want and see if there’s any of what you want left over from our last stop there. Get me something with chocolate, Stean, tell him what you want. That’s the best I can do,” said Harry, “this ship is not moving right now, not when everyone else on the team besides Winn is out on the field handling anomalies to say nothing of the fact that we have to also be working, not sneaking around ice cream makers.”