Chapter III - Unite or Perish

Heroes are not entirerly immortal nad could it be that the threat is bigger than they thought?

THE THREE MERCENARIES were walking around the Sphinx, they had tried walking different directions, but they never saw any village or any pyramid.

“Where the hell is everything? I thought there were more pyramids and s**t around here, but nooooo, those fuckers had to disappear?” Jason shouted, Keira glanced at him but she somehow could not take her eyes off Jack.

“Listen, I guess we’ll just have to wait here at the Sphinx for someone to show up, we can’t walk around all day without finding anything… Let’s just rest here in the shadow of the Sphinx, shall we?” Jack said, while he sat down in the shadow of the huge Sphinx whose head was missing. Jason leaned against the wall of the Sphinx, standing next to Jack; Keira sat down next to Jack, quite close to him.

Not far from where they were, next to the wall a dark mist appeared. Out of it, four creatures stepped out.

“What in the goddamned hell is that?” Keira whispered as she stood up, aiming her weapon at the dark mist.

“I have no f****n’ idea, but I ain’t gonna find that out too soon” Jack replied as he fired his weapon at the four creatures. Somehow the bullets missed the four, but that did not stop the three merc’s from firing their weapons.

     No matter how many rounds the merc’s fired off, no matter how many grenades they threw; it still did not affect the four creatures.

“F**k me, I’m out!” Jason shouted, a few seconds later, both Keira and Jack were out of ammunition as well.

“Any ideas… Anyone?” Jack asked, both Jason and Keira shook their heads, “hand-to-hand? Knife versus something that looks big and scary a small distance away?” Once again, Keira and Jason shook their heads, they just stood there. The four creatures started walking towards them.

     “Are they the ones who are going to save the world? They’re way too few, don’t you guys think?” Ililsa asked, Assadar, whose tremendous powers had weakened, did not reply. Instead, he walked faster towards the three, “by the way, Assadar, thanks for placing me in the shadow… Good to know you still remember that sunlight kills me!”

Assadar stopped and turned around, “does sunlight kill you?”

He kept on walking, the three stood there, frightened.

     “Don’t kill us, whatever you are, we mean you no harm!” Jason shouted as he got down onto his knees.

“Yeah, we did not just fire around six hundred bullets and waste ten grenades on them, now did we? Smartass” Keira whispered.

The creature spoke.

“I am Assadar, a Fiend, I come from hell in order to help you with saving the world, these are my three friends, Maravi the werewolf, Ililsa the vampire and Aili the gargoyle, we have come to help you with stopping the war which will break out in two days.”

“First question: is this a joke? And second question: what war?” Keira asked as she looked down on Assadar.

“You do not know about the war that will wipe out humanity from the face of existence?”

“No, I’ve never heard of it, I thought the apocalypse wasn’t going to happen until millions of years!”

“My friend, this is not the apocalypse… It is worse.”

     The ground started shaking, it seemed like an earthquake, but it was not. The whole Sphinx began sinking into the ground; the group ran away as fast as they could.

After a long time, a time which seemed like hours which only lasted for seconds,  the massive cloud of sand settled, the three merc’s managed to get away before they were sucked into the ground together with the Sphinx, so did the demons, only problem was the sunlight.

“Where is Ililsa!?” Maravi shouted, he turned to the merc’s, “have you seen her?”

“I’m not too good with… Anything, but if she was a vampire… Well maybe she burned to death, I mean, after all, it is quite sunny…” Jason replied, Maravi grabbed Jason’s shirt, lifting him up.

“You insensitive human! I shall rip you apart and feast on your flesh!”

“Maravi, stop… He did not mean it… But you know he is right…” Assadar said as he walked closer to Maravi, “Drop him, Maravi.”

Maravi let go of Jason, Jason who was unprepared for the landing accidentally landed on his back.

“I’m sorry… It’s just that… I loved Ililsa…” Maravi said, looking down on Jason who was still lying on his back.

“Oh… I am so sorry, Maravi, I didn’t mean it! But… Between you and me, I know what it feels like to lose those you love… I became a merc after my parents died, shot to death, point blank range… I wanted to find the guy, but I couldn’t, still looking for him though.”

“I am also sorry for your loss, human.”

A moment of silence followed those last words from Maravi, the merc and the werewolf stared at each other, and eventually stared at the empty desert. Pyramids and villages had been sucked into the desert landscape, was this going to happen to the rest of the globe?

  

Reunited

     “Let’s see here… Hmm… Sixteen of us, we are all gathered, even though we are not” Constantine said, the samurais, ninjas, the thief, the assassins, the monks and Juvenal stared at him, not understanding what he meant, “right above us, three mercenaries and three demons are trying to find their way back to civilization. The demons escaped from hell to help us, now, the mercenaries on the other hand accidentally appeared here… We could use them, after all, they are a lot more modern than us and do know the world a bit better than us as well.”

“Constantine, we’ve lived for over eight-hundred years, we know quite a lot about the world as well!” Gaetan, one of the assassins, replied.

“Well, Gaetan, you are right about that, but there’s one thing we are missing… Why the Gods are starting a war against earth, the Devils are joining the war too but for different reasons, one of the mercenaries knows what is going on, he just doesn’t know that this war is related to what he knows, we must find them before sunset, or else the demons will get them first!”

The cave, or their headquarters started shaking, it was about to collapse, or so they thought.

“Oh… And hello John, good to see you again! That weird fellow told me that I was going to meet a good ol’ friend!” Constantine was filled with joy, John, like always did not seem as happy.

“Good to see you too, Constantine, it’s been a while since last time…” Their hideout started shaking again, worse than before.

“This is not right… Something’s wrong…” Gaetan said, the two other assassins, Jerome and Azim took a step closer to Gaetan and slapped him in the face.

“Of course something’s wrong if it’s not right, retard!” Azim shouted, the ground started shaking again, pieces of the roof started collapsing, “what the hell is going on out there!?”

“It appears that someone is summoning the darkness… My God, they’re going to send out the demons to capture the others!” Juvenal responded with panic in his voice, “We must send up at least five brave warriors to save them!”

“What about those who stay?” Kame asked.

“Those who stay will be teleported by me to another location, Juvenal will stay here and wait for those who return,  we will probably end up in two different locations, but we must find each  other once more… But for now, I need five if not more to save those above!”

Gaetan, Unaduti, Nishiken, Michio, Renjiro and Makoto stepped forward.

“You know that a few of you might not return… I suggest that you say goodbye for the last time, who know what those demons are capable of…” Constantine said, the six said goodbye for the, hopefully not, last time.

    

Search Party

A portal opened up on the wall, each of them entered, and each of them were transported into the desert, where the sky had gone dark, swarms of bug like creatures were flying around, scouting the area for the demons and the mercenaries.

“If the Flies haven’t found them yet… Something has to be wrong” Unaduti said, as he focused to hear the ones who were out in the desert, but he could only hear the buzzing sound of the Flies.

The six started walking, it seemed like the Flies were either unaware of them or they just did not care about them since their priority was the demons and the mercenaries.

The six noticed that the Flies were flying around a certain area, from time to time the Flies dived down behind the sandy hill, but they never reappeared.

“I believe that our missing ones are where the swarm are circling” Gaetan said, the other ones nodded, they started running towards the swarm, they were running at an incredible speed. Once they were close enough, Gaetan jumped, he was ready for an airstrike at the Flies who were on the ground, as he flew over the sandy hill he saw something weird.

In the middle of the thousands of dead Flies there was a small sphere, a small dark sphere. Gaetan landed on a dead Fly, he slowly walked towards the sphere, when he was close enough the sphere disappeared and he saw six figures, three demons and three mercenaries.

“Come with me, I will get you to safety!” He told them, when he had finished his sentence a Fly caught him and flew up high in the air. Gaetan started kicking his legs as the Fly was holding his arms; Gaetan noticed that other Flies were gathering around him.

In an instant, they charged, they flew towards him; he kept on kicking, although it was in vain. The Flies tore him apart, limb by limb.

On the ground, the other five stared up into the dark sky, they saw Gaetan being torn apart, but there was nothing they could do.

The demons and mercenaries approached the other five.

“I am truly sorry for your loss” Assadar said as he stared at the remaining five.

“Do not worry; he did not die in vain, at least he bought us some time” Unaduti replied, the mercenaries were shocked.

“You don’t care that one of you just died, he was f*****g torn apart, and you don’t give a s**t!?” Keira shouted at the five who seemed untouched by the loss of Gaetan.

“Yes, we do care, but we already said goodbye, now follow us unless you don’t want to end up like Gaetan.”

     The nine ran as fast as they could, Unaduti was first in the line, he was the biggest, and so he would provide cover in case something would attack. Which happened, a swarm dived towards the group.

Unaduti was the first one to be swept away, Renjiro and Makoto were next, just like Gaetan, they were torn apart and eaten.

The portal leading into their temporary headquarters opened up, Nishiken, Michio, Jack, Jason, Keira, Assadar, Aili and Maravi made it to the portal, it disintegrated into nothing.

“Where are the rest?” Juvenal asked when he noticed that four were missing.

“They fell… Well, they were taken by the Flies, torn apart and eaten” Nishiken replied.

“Oh, well no more time to lose; we must get out of here before everything collapses… Or they find us” Juvenal said, like the others, he seemed untouched by the death of the others.

Juvenal opened up a new portal which led to a jungle, the others had already been teleported there; Juvenal was unable to teleport because he was weaker than Constantine, so his only choice was to open up portals which were highly unsafe since anything could get through if it was not shut down in time.

A bright light filled the room, once it was gone; the nine in the room were amazed once they noticed what else had joined them in the small room which was hidden bellow the sandy surface of the desert.

Three angels, tall, muscular, deadly angels stared at them.

The angels pulled out their glowing swords from their sheaths; each angel was covered with a heavy, white armor which covered every single part of their body, including parts of their wings.

Nishiken and Michio turned around to the rest.

“Go through the portal, we’ll keep them busy!” Nishiken ordered, Juvenal nodded, and then used telekinesis to push the rest through the portal. Nishiken and Michio stayed.

“Juvenal, once you’re through, shut the portal so the angels or the demons won’t track you down” Michio said, Juvenal nodded once more, then entered the portal, a few seconds later, the portal shut down.

     Nishiken got his Katana ready; Michio got his spear ready, they stared at each other, then at the angels. They were thinking the same, they knew that they were going to die, but they were going to take at least two of them into the grave with them.

Time slowed down:

Nishiken ran towards the angel to the left while Michio ran towards the angel to the right, the angel in the middle waited for them.

Nishiken dodged the swing of the angel’s blade, he let his Katana cut through the armor, slicing through a few organs �" The result; the angel got down on his knees, Nishiken quickly turned around and let the Katana cut through the spine, then the whole neck including parts of the wings.

Michio ducked when the angel charged his blade, the angel’s blade managed to cut into the wall where it got stuck, while the angel tried to pull the blade out, Michio focused all of his powers to perform the perfect attack with the spear.

The angel managed to pull the blade out from the wall, but it was too late, Michio charged his spear right through the faceplate and helmet of the angel, right through the head.

One angel remained.

Michio and Nishiken were circling around it; the angel was standing in the center of the room. The two of them charged simultaneously, but none of them managed to cause any damage to the angel, Nishiken’s Katana barely touched the angel’s armor, while Michio’s spear gently cut through the angel’s feathers. Five feathers slowly fell to the ground. While they were in mid air, falling towards the ground, the angel grabbed Michio’s spear, with a quick flip of the spear, Michio’s spear penetrated his own head.

Michio fell to the ground, dead; the spear had gone right through.

Nishiken was shocked, but he did not stop attacking the angel, but he did attack with rage. Missing every slash, there were times where he caused more damage to the walls than the angel.

The angel became tired of playing around, he grabbed Nishiken’s Katana, and the Katana did not even cut through the angel’s hand.

“Impossible…” Nishiken whispered as the angel broke the Katana with his hand. As Nishiken stood there, shocked, the angel walked closer to him. The angel grabbed Nishiken’s head.

Nishiken tried to kick free, but it did not take long for his head to pop.

The angel dropped the pieces of Nishiken’s head before turning to the point where the portal had been.

     “The hunt is on…” The angel whispered, the angel picked up the weapons from the dead, angels and the two humans. He pulled the spear out from Michio’s head and placed it in a small sack in which he always put the weapons of his dead opponents, including his dead comrades. The weapons from his enemies are kept as a trophy, while the weapons from his dead allies are but a reminder that he could have fallen with them.

 

Story Time

Seven people walked out from the portal, one who was untouched by the death of his friends, six who were shocked. Ten more walked up to them, no one said anything, it was quiet for a long time.

“I need someone to tell us what the f**k is going on!” Jason shouted, his face was pale, since he had never seen angels, demons, or anything beyond this world.

“Light a fire, John, we shall all sit down and rest for a while… I think we all need it” Juvenal said, ignoring what Jason had said. Jason who noticed that everyone ignored him could not help but pull out his knife and rush towards John, everything happened way too fast, Keira had never seen Jason move that fast before, ever. John turned around and grabbed Jason’s wrist just when Jason was about to stab John in the back.

“This solves nothing, kiddo, I will explain what is going on during the evening, as Juvenal said, for now we all could use a rest…” John whispered as he slowly twisted Jason’s wrist, causing him to drop the knife. John pushed Jason away; Keira walked up to Jason and told him to calm down.

     It was evening; the sun had disappeared behind the tall trees in the jungle, the only remaining light source was the campfire John had made.

The only ones who were awake were the merc’s and John, Jack glanced at John, and someone had to break the silence.

“So… Going to tell us what this is all about?” Jack asked while moving his focus from John into the warming flames.

John sighed: “It is a long story… But I’ll try to keep it short…”

 

Eight hundred years ago a war was about to break out, the Gods and Devils had had enough of each other. But that was not it; there was more to it than we thought. Each and every God created their own so called Hero, the ones they were going to use during the war.

Thor, Loki, Zeus, Hercules, God, Rah, Anubis, every possible God joined forces to fight the Devils.

Of course the Devils did the same, Beelzebub, Hades, Hel and so on.

Many Gods chose to pick already powerful people and give them a few special abilities. I was one of them; they chose people from around the world and created their own Heroes as well.

The Devils created a few “Servants” as they liked to call them. They believed that the ones they had were going to be able to succeed, alas, the Devils were wrong.

The Devils thought that their army which consisted of fifty Servants were going to defeat the Gods one hundred Heroes, actually, they were close to winning.

During the last stand, the Devils had twenty Servants left, and we were only sixteen.

     “Constantine, what are we going to do!?” I asked, I was worried that the Servants were going to win, since we were fewer and whoever won the war would receive the universe as a prize.

“First of all you must steal the mighty crystal which the group leader is holding; the others will distract the rest of the Servants.”

“What good will that crystal do!?”

“That crystal is like a powerful bomb, unfortunately, when it goes boom the only ones who’ll die will be us… It has been created for the purpose of destroying us, if we get hold of it I will be able to change its effect and cause it to destroy the Servants instead.”
I sighed; of course I saw this as a kamikaze mission. I got prepared for the run as we were lying in a ditch not far from the Servants, the woods in which we were fighting had burned to the ground, the only thing remaining was ashes and a couple of fires spread out across the planes.

 I was breathing heavily, so did the rest of the group.

“Ninjas, samurais, assassins and monks, listen up, Juvenal and I are going to stand back here and cast spells to help you, the rest will charge and create a diversion while John charges the group leader among the Servants and steal that crystal!” The rest nodded, so did I, I looked deeply into Constantine’s eyes, realizing that this might be the last time I ever see him again.

I took a deep breath, “CHARGE!” I shouted it out loud, battles cry. Everybody started running towards the Servants; the two wizards were still in the ditch, creating balls of fire and electricity which they launched at the Servants.

The Servants looked like a mixture consisting of humans and demons, most of them were tall and quite muscular, their eyes glowing red underneath their solid black-steel armor.

I remember the fight before I managed to get close to the leader of the Servants.

The Four Samurais running past two of the Servants, while Nishiken and Katsuoshi were running past the Servants they sliced their legs off, while the Servants fell to the ground, Kiyoshi and Michio delivered the finishing blow, Kiyoshi pressed his spear up the throat, through the spine of one of the Servants while Michio fired two arrows which pierced the eyes of the second Servant and into the brain.

The Three Assassins were a bit simpler, they just distracted the Servants, and so did The Three Ninjas.

The Three Monks on the other hand delivered devastating blows to four of the Servants, braking armor, bones, necks, heads, basically every part of their bodies.

Juvenal and Constantine were trying to distract the Servants, but it mostly ended up in them frying or electrocuting the Servants, as I recall it, the Two Wizards killed three of the Servants before I managed to get to the crystal or the leader.

Once I was close enough I saw how the leader was about to lift the crystal in the air, meaning that he was going to set it off. I noticed that I was close enough; with the worthless acrobatic skills I had, I tried to do my best to get the crystal. But I did not realize how huge the leader was until I was standing in front of him.

The leader looked down on me and laughed, an evil laughter, dark and hoarse, frightening and deafening.

“What will you do, ant?” He laughed, while he was laughing I took a few steps back and ran towards him, I placed a foot on his right thigh, pushing myself up while I placed the second foot on his chest plate, it gave me a big enough boost to launch myself into the air, grabbing the crystal from out of his hand. In mid air, while holding the crystal, I noticed the facial expressions changing on the leader’s face, from happy to incredibly angry. I threw the crystal to Constantine before I landed on my back on the ash covered ground.

The leader placed his right foot on top of me.

“I am going squash you like the ant you are, freak!” he yelled, anger filled his voice, I felt how the pressure on my chest increased and I felt the bones breaking, I roared, but all the sudden the pressure disappeared together with the leader.

Constantine had activated the crystal and killed the remaining Servants. The Servants had, like the forest, turned into ashes.

Juvenal quickly healed my cracked ribs, I stood up, stared at the battlefield, what had been. That beautiful, green, animal and life filled forest was now gone.

A bright light appeared in front of us, a voice spoke:

“I am God… I gave you the few abilities you now have… I am going to give you another one, the ability to age without aging. You will live until the next war is unleashed, for the Devils are far from done, and we still have not defeated them. My messenger, the Angel of Death will appear once the war is about to consume the world… This war is far from over…” The light faded away and so did the voice.

And so we lived for eight hundred years, we saw the world change, but no one ever cared about the fact that we never died. I guess the Gods protected us…

 

Some Answers

The merc’s and John sat there quiet, staring into the fire, the flames were playing around, sparks shooting from the camp fire which was slowly dying.

Maravi woke up, stared at the group who sat there, next to the fire.

“Humans… There is something which we’ve forgotten to tell you… The gates to hell will open up in approximately one day.”

John, stood up, anger in his eyes, he woke the rest up.

“It seems like this Werewolf has something to say to us!” he stated angrily, “repeat what you just told us who were awake!”

“What is it?” Kame asked, confused and still tired.

“Umm… The gates of hell will open in approximately one day…” The Heroes exchanged angry expressions.

“You have got to be f*****g kidding me!” Azim exclaimed, “the f**k are we going to do now!? I mean, we are not strong enough to fight the demons; the heavens are going to rain down hell upon us… We are safe nowhere!”

“How can heaven rain hell down?” Aili asked, fascinated over the thought of something like that ever happening. The group ignored him; an argument broke out between the demons, Heroes and the merc’s.

     “SILENCE!” Constantine shouted, annoyed over the argument, “we are not to fight each other, the enemy is out there!”

The rest stared down into the ground, ashamed of themselves, they apologized, basically, “now, kiss and make up.” A few chuckles were heard from the group, after a short while they went quiet once more. They were all about to go to sleep again when suddenly…

“Wait, you guys, do not fall asleep! John told us that the Devils created Servants and the Gods created Heroes… Well what we’ve met so far have been neither Heroes nor Servants, am I right?” Keira exclaimed as she sat up, it was like she had realized something, which she had.

“True, there used to be Servants and Heroes, but now these are ordinary angels and demons… Wait, I think I know what you’re thinking!” Constantine replied, Kame asked: “Enlighten us, Constantine… Or Keira…”

“You say it, Keira.”

“My point being that this is not like the war you were prepared for, what if they don’t send more Heroes or Servants, what if this war is about something else? I don’t know, maybe the Gods or the Devils have done to provoke each other… I might be wrong.”

“No, no, that is a great idea!” Juvenal said, a big smile cracking up on his face.

“Great? More like perfect, but we do not know what they have done, now do we?” Jerome said, “I mean, sure, your theory is probably right, but how do we know for sure?”
“Well it is only a theory…” Kulakinah replied, Sequoyah nodded agreeing, Jason stood up, he cleared his throat to get complete attention. Everyone turned to him.

“What if neither the Gods nor Devils started this…”

“What are you saying?” Keira asked.

“What I’m trying to say is that what if we humans did something to piss them off!”

“That’s quite impossible, I think it’s unlikely.”

“Shh, Keira, listen to what he has to say… He actually might be right” John silenced Keira, with this Keira responded by stretching out her tongue.

“Nothing is impossible, Keira… What if the Gods and the Devils are seeking revenge for something… Maybe for humanity’s way of forgetting them, like the Egyptians did, their Gods disappeared, didn’t they?” Jerome replied.

The group started discussing the options or reasons for which the war could have started.

     After an hour of discussion they all decided to go to sleep, unaware of the fact that somebody was watching them. In the bushes nearby somebody was watching them.

The whole group had fallen asleep, it was silent, whoever was watching them was now gone.

The sound of raindrops smacking down into the ground, leaves and rocks, the faint sound of the wind was all of a sudden, replaced by a massive boom.

The group of sixteen woke up at the sound of the explosion, the ground was shaking, and the camp fire had died out long before they woke up.

“I see black smoke behind those trees!” Maravi pointed it out, the others saw it, “maybe we should check it out?”

The whole group ran as fast as possible to the position. It did not take long to them to find the origin of the smoke, the problem was knowing from where it came from. They saw the smoke from where they were standing, it was an open field, trees grew in a perfect circle around the grass spot. Black smoke rose from the ground but no source of anything that created it.

“Magic?” Sequoyah asked, staring at Juvenal.

“No… There is something here… Something which we cannot see…” Assadar whispered. A few seconds after he had finished his sentence, two humans suddenly appeared, walking out from the dark smoke.

The two persons were dressed as scientists, one male, one female; both of them were carrying something underneath their arms.

“You… You… You must stop it…” the male scientist said before collapsing to the ground, dead, the female fell to the ground as well. The cause of death was two major cuts over their backs.

Another figure appeared from the dark smoke, it was a male, dressed in black, two holsters hanging from his thighs, two major not too normal guns holstered. On his back he had something that looked like a long sword and another big gun.

His eyes were glowing yellow and looked like cat eyes. Not too muscular and not too tall, but he looked very dangerous.

“Who are you?” Keira asked as she slowly approached him with her gun drawn, she looked down at the corpses and noticed the laptops underneath the scientist’s arms.

“You have no ammo… Don’t try to scare me… Check the computers which the scientists were carrying and you may enter the City as well” the male replied.

“The City?” Keira responded as she looked up and saw that the male with the creepy eyes was gone, “where did he go?”

“I don’t know… Check the laptops and see what he was talking about…” John picked up a laptop, handing another one over to Jack and Kame as the four sat down and checking what was on the laptop they found at least some answers.