Super & Real
Chapter Eleven
I.
The plane flew over the ocean as Jack Hurst sat in the lounge area, taking drinks from a glass of ice water. The events of the past few days weighing on his mind, he focused on the situation at hand. Most of his accusers denied him his right to suffer for the burden on his shoulders. Each person judged, punished with death for their sins, or for choosing to fight against their Lord and savior, their fate weighed on his mind. No matter what he told the world, they didn’t believe him. They saw him as a monster to be conquered, a villain to be defeated. The people that supported him, had swept through the halls of governments, upwards from the bottom levels, driving their leaders out who chose not to follow. America had shown the strongest willingness to follow. The leaders of the federal government had chosen to surrender in the end.
“It is a wonderful day,” The Lord spoke, seated across from his chosen servant. “With the government choosing not to fight against their own people any longer, the kings in their chambers now have agreed to serve us.” He saw the expression on Jack’s face. “Tell me what troubles you, child.”
“I hate being looked at as a monster,” he replied. “Every death weighs on my soul.” A hand moved up and wiped his left eye. “I don’t enjoy taking part in killing these people.”
“You do what must be done,” The Lord advised. He got up and knelt beside the seat of his ally. “I am grateful you have led so many millions of Our Father’s chosen people to our side. Their power has brought unwilling nations to their knees, and more are soon to come. Do not lose faith, my child.”
Jack smiled and hugged his Lord. “Thank you,” he said, blinking away tears. “I can’t wait for the chosen day where no one has to suffer and die anymore.”
“With your hard work and vigorous faith,” The Lord replied, “it shall come about. All of Our Father’s children under one Heavenly blanket of love, it shall be a wondrous day indeed.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” a voice called from behind them.
The Lord stood and stepped back to his seat. Jack turned his head around. “Yes?” he said.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the man in the suit continued, “I just wanted you to know we’ll be over mainland China in less than an hour.” He swallowed. “We’ve received word that if we continue, we’ll be fired upon. I…uh…” he blinked a long moment with bated breath. “I just wanted to know if…that was gong to be a problem.”
The Lord looked at him, then looked past him with a white glow in his eyes. It lasted but a moment, then he redirected his attention. “My child,” He spoke, “do you have such little faith in your Lord? Do not fret.”
The man smiled and returned to his seat. “Great! I’m glad to hear it,” he said.
“I’m sorry for having these moments,” Jack said, waving it off.
“Not at all,” The Lord advised. “You are but a man. These are feelings that all men have. Few could have carried the burden as far as you, and fewer still would be able to carry it even farther.” He took a drink of water from a cup. “Do not be so harsh on your own mind.”
Turbulence rocked the plane. “That was a warning shot!” The co-pilot shouted from the cabin.
“I had hoped,” The Lord began, stretching his arms to the end of his armrests, and pushing himself to a standing position, “that my voice would have calmed them and convinced them not to fire. It seems I must take a more direct route.”
Miles away from the plane, at ground military installations within the People’s Republic of China, operators controlling missile launchers and their commanders watched the first warning shots explode within proximity to the plane. It bobbed up and down as it jolted from the shockwave. “Give them five minutes!” the commander shouted, in Mandarin, standing at the center of the control room. “If they haven’t begun to turn around, destroy them!”
“I had hoped,” The Lord’s voice spoke, inside their heads, in their native tongue, “that I could have convinced you with my earlier words. Apparently, that was a mistake. I will not make it again.”
Each of the ten operators seated at their stations suddenly went up in a burst of white-hot flame. Their primal screams of horror and suffering lasted but a moment, cut off by their utter immolation. Their ashes fell to the seats and the floor below in less than ten seconds. The commander clasped his hands to his head in horror as he fell to his knees, his screams lost in a cacophony of fear as soldiers dashed from their posts and abandoned the station. This situation repeated itself at the same time at dozens of other stations across a fifty-mile area.
Jack watched his Lord’s eyes glow and then die out. He knew action had been taken. He stood up from his seat. “Please show me their deaths,” he said.
“You need not ask this of me,” The Lord advised.
Jack shook his head. “No,” he countered. “If I am to be your servant, and judgment is to be handed down to my fellow men, I must be able to bear the weight of the actions I am taking part in.”
“As you wish,” The Lord spoke. He touched his servant’s forehead and showed him the lives lost to judgment.
After a few moments, Jack pulled back, breathing hard and wiping his eyes. “Thank…you…” he uttered, regaining composure. His breathing returned to normal. “I am a better servant by sharing the burden.”
“I worry about you,” The Lord admitted. “You share in burdens not needed to be borne by you.”
“I’ll be alright,” he said. “I hate the killing but recognize its necessity. I will not falter. Our glorious kingdom, free of suffering, shall come about.”
“We’re coming in for a landing,” the pilot announced. A short pause followed. “Sir, are you sure? They’re not giving us permission to land. There’s tanks on the runway!”
“It won’t be an issue,” The Lord stated. “Begin landing procedures anyway.”
“Gotcha,” the pilot confirmed.
On the runway, three columns of tanks, spaced thirty feet apart, sat half the length. The military had decided their unwanted guest would not be arriving. The wind picked up, and the sunny skies overhead turned overcast. The gray clouds turned a dark bluish color, venturing on violet. Military commanders and their soldiers looked as the impossible weather pattern formed overhead. Droplets of rain fell from the oddly colored sky. The water fell on the flesh of men and women, little beads of dark blue rain, harmlessly rolling off the skin. Where it landed on tanks, guns, or any other weapons of war, they dissolved in the liquid like sugar into hot tea. The weapons intended to keep their guest at bay disappeared in puddles of liquid, leaving behind tank operators sitting in puddles on the runway. Soldiers stood with empty hands and men crouched in front of empty air where mounted anti-personnel rifles once stood. As swiftly as the display had begun, the clouds parted, the sun came out, and the bright rays combined with a gust of warm wind blew the liquid away. Men stood baffled as the plane began its descent from the sky above Chinese airspace.
The plane touched down, with confused and angry soldiers standing helplessly on the sides as the vehicle taxied to a stop. As the door opened, a stair descended from the plane. Jack Hurst stepped out, with his Lord in front. A gust of wind blew aside a group of soldiers clamoring to ascend the staircase. With their feet on the ground, the Lord and his servant stepped away from the plane. An older gentleman, adorned with a more elaborate uniform than the rest of his soldiers, approached. Despite the obvious fear in the eyes of his men, he looked as firm as ever.
“Are you the general?” The Lord said, in Mandarin.
“You will not destroy our nation,” he commanded, “the way you destroyed India!”
“Their nation made a choice,” The Lord replied. “I responded in kind, with judgment. I am here not to destroy, but to save. All who decide to prostrate themselves before me, and accept Our Father’s love into their heart, shall be saved. It is my intention only to bring about a wondrous kingdom of mankind, all together under one God, accepting and loving and not suffering anymore.”
The man would not be budged. “No,” he replied. “Others may see a savior, and the people of the western world might be easily swayed, but in you, I only see a false prophet who commits murder of any who refuse to accept his word.” He paused a moment to reflect. “After all, isn’t the Lord of Christianity supposed to be a healer and accepting of all?”
“Does the text not itself say that when I returned,” The Lord explained, “that I would be returning as a conqueror? That the armies of Satan would be marshalled in the hearts of men, and I would be tasked with defeating it and bringing the children of God before their creator in love and in power?”
The general considered this for just a moment. “You have the power to do as you wish,” he said, “but understand that there are those who will never accept your racket of ‘love-me-or-die’ as a gift from a God above.”
The Lord’s expression darkened into a somber tone of grief and anger. “I am tasked by The Father with judgment of all who refuse His call,” he stated, sternly. “Should I interpret this as your refusal to accept?”
“You will have to be seen killing me,” he said, as helicopters for news agencies hovered nearby, their cameras fixed on the ordeal. “I want my people to see the ‘love’ you bring them firsthand.”
The Lord bowed his head for just an instant. “As you wish,” he uttered.
The general launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around The Lord and planting his feet in a futile attempt to hold him back. In response, The Lord, unimpressed, simply moved his right hand and the man got launched a few meters into the sky, where he flashed into dust in an instant, his scream a dying echo in the wind. The men scattered at the sight.
“Where do we go?” Jack said, turning to his Lord, after the spectacle.
“We do what we’ve done thus far,” The Lord replied. “We go in search of people. Wherever people are, there are those who will be willing to listen.”
They moved forward, towards a city ahead, and to both opposition from the powers that be, and to the masses that needed their message badly. From behind, a collection of super beings that had aligned themselves with Jack and their Lord, exited the aircraft and followed into the city.
“My lord!” August Dietrich said, approaching Jack and the Lord.
They both turned. “What tidings do you bring?” the Lord asked. Jack watched with intrigue.
“One of our loyal soldiers has found the whereabouts of the forces of Satan!”
“Fantastic news!” Jack announced. “My Lord, are we to dispatch them now?”
The Lord shook his head. “No,” he said. He turned to the flock of super beings. “My servants, you will go to where they are and you will fight them. You can win this fight. My servant and I will remain here and minister to the lost children of this nation.” He turned to Jack. “You agree, or not?”
“Oh, yes!” Jack announced. “I believe your plan is flawless, oh Lord!”
The group took off behind them. “With the Father on their side,” The Lord explained, “they will not be able to lose.”
“Oh, glory day!” Jack cheered.
II.
Luther’s memories ended as the group found themselves caught up. After the group had been brought up to speed, they each regarded Jericho and Jennifer, as the two of them had been at the center of this issue the longest.
“So,” Annie said, “what do we do now?”
Jericho’s senses activated. “We may not get much of a choice,” he said, sweat beading on his forehead. “They have someone who can sense people, and they seem to know where we are.”
A tone of dread fell over them. “Goddammit,” Annie said, shaking her head.
Ed pulled out the katana he would use in his Kadosuke form, and John retreated quickly to another room and returned with a different looking kimono to the one Ed wore. “Try this,” John said. “I forgot to show you earlier.”
Ed hastily pulled the character’s kimono off and tried the multi-colored, sci-fi looking one. Instantly, lines of light escaped from his sword and passed through the kimono and into his flesh. He felt tingly all over as power surged through him. “What the hell did you make?” he asked.
John did a perfect Doctor Anti pose, pushing his safety goggles up and down. “I have to say,” he said, “it’s quite an item. It channels the energy from the sword into you to make your form more durable.”
Jennifer looked outside the shelter using her sensory powers, and saw their enemies flying over the countryside, either under their own power or carried by the telekinetic, whose power seemed enhanced by the fake Jesus. Focusing her energy manipulation powers into her senses, the shock of what she discovered almost caught her breath in her throat.
“Oh hell,” she swore, “this fake Jesus has upped all their powers.”
Annie clenched her enhanced fists. “Looks like we fight to the death,” she lamented. “I was hoping to avoid this.”
Jericho turned to his biological family. “Mom! Dad!” he announced. “I need you to get out of here!”
Suzanne turned to her son, surprised. “They found us here,” she stated. “Where can we go?”
Jericho touched his mother and father’s shoulders, granting them enhanced teleportation. “You’ll be able to go anywhere on planet Earth,” he explained, “and sense who’s coming!” He pointed to Jack Hurst’s wife and children. “Take them, and keep them safe!”
Suzanne started back in shock. “What about Luther!”
Luther turned to his mother. “I’m not a helpless victim,” he explained. “I’m going to help.”
Emily and her sons gathered around Jericho’s mom and dad. “See you, hopefully, when things are better," Suzanne lamented. A moment later, the small group vanished.
“How long?” John asked Jennifer.
“Another minute,” she said.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” John said, pulling out a handheld remote. He created a portal in space-time, jumped into it, and it vanished behind him.
“The hell is he going?” Jericho shouted.
Raymond smiled. “You’ll see,” he said. “We worked on it together.”
“Worked on what?” Ed cut in.
Raymond turned to the man. “You’ll see,” he explained. He could see their confused expressions. “Time flows differently in there.”
Jericho looked confused for just a moment, then an eager grin appeared. “Call it, Capacitor,” he said, electing their leader by default.
Jennifer looked at him, then at the others, and saw them nod. “Alright,” she said, heading for the door. “Let’s take it outside.”
August Dietrich, his power surging with vitality courtesy of the almighty power of the Lord, carried the group of supers as if they weighed nothing. A righteous feeling of pride surged through his very soul as he felt the combatants in their hovel not a few kilometers away. He couldn’t hurt them from so far away, but it didn’t matter. The Lord had returned, and given him glorious purpose, tasking him of leading the group of empowered mortals in servitude of the Father on High. He had been born again; only now, with the glorious Kingdom of Heaven on the horizon, he knew he could fall in battle with Satan’s emissaries, and he would be saved. Along with an army of true believers, he knew whatever heathen gods these foolish blasphemers and their idols of gold conjured up to fight them, it would not ultimately amount to a hill of beans against the power of God the Son.
“How farther?” a pyrokinetic said, looking up from the protective shield his telekinetic brother-in-arms had around him.
“About sixty seconds, brother,” August said.
The group flew at top speed over the jungle, until one of their own spotted the heathen enemies exiting their compound and gathering outside, weapons drawn and readied. An Asian-looking man in a multi-colored kimono, wielding a sword glowing in various blue and violet hues from lines of light surging up and down it stood near the front. In the very front, the leader of Satan’s forces on Earth stood poised, an aura around her of electricity, the air by her pulsing with power. Behind her, to the left of the Asian man, an enormous woman of sheer muscular bulk garbed in some heavy-duty full-body armor, with solid silvery gloves, and a mighty war helmet atop her head stood with boots planted firmly and fists clenched. Two ordinary looking men, one with chin-length straight brown hair and a freshly-shaven face, and the other, with long black hair and a recently-amped up physical build, stood near the back. Both Torvalds brothers had changed their appearances, but they were recognized all the same.
As the group of the Lord’s soldiers encroached ever closer to the enemy, August counted, and thought back to what his Lord had taught him of the foes. "Aren’t there supposed to be two more?” he asked.
A huge hole opened in space right above the enemy group, and two enormous robots fell out of the portal. It collided with the group, smashing the force fields apart, throwing the group into chaos. “It’s all yours!” a male voice cried out, amplified artificially. Raymond piloted one and John piloted another.
Of the dozens of warriors brought together, August caught them all and shielded them from harm. A few were slightly injured by the impact, but he would have the healers heal them. Right now, battle had begun.
“Fight to the death!” Jennifer beckoned, after their scientist allies emerged from the alternate dimension in the machines of war they’d designed. “I don’t want to kill either, but if they don’t give you a choice, don’t give them a chance to kill you!”
She shot forth, as her group moved outward in various directions. Annie, as the mighty Cyroya, took bounding, Amazonian leaps, coming down fist first towards one of the healers. She knew, from Jericho’s intel, that the enemy group had no fewer than five healers, who would keep the enemy army coming back for more. He gave them a sense of where each was, and Jennifer told them to target some of them first, if possible.
Five barrier supers arranged themselves into makeshift phalanx against the giant battle goddess. Her massive boots landed on their force fields and she leapt backward, flipping and landing on her feet. Propelling herself forward, she plowed both outstretched metallic gloved fists into the group of shields. The ground quaked as some of them dug their shields into the dirt. A few got thrown back because their reflexes hadn’t been up to par.
Someone grabbed the healer and pulled them out of the line of fire while the barrier supers scattered. One formed a forcefield around a super who could solidify himself and the telekinetic launched him at the goddess. Annie dodged to the left as the projectile shot past her. With insane reflexes, she caught the person by the leg and launched them into the nearest crowd of baddies she could find.
Jennifer shifted into super speed, as the scenery froze around her. There stood several supers ready to fire lasers or projectiles made of light at her allies, and she dashed past them, turning them around to fire at their own combatants instead. As she headed for one of the healers, intent on taking them out of the battle, she saw, near the back, one super, a young man in his late teens, seated on a rock, glowing. Out of a sense of dread, she headed towards him.
A surge of light escaped him as he entered the same speed as her. His feet touched the ground and he took off at an incredible pace. An attempt to intercept his trajectory failed as her hand grasped only air as she’d arrived just short of where he had been. Without hesitation, she took off after him, flying instead of running. The man’s velocity was nothing short of ridiculous. He ran much faster than she, and almost as fast as her flying speed. His closest target was the leg of one of the two robots. His hand began to vibrate.
“No!” she shouted.
He turned his head at the last moment.
She collided with him and knocked him off path. He tumbled and regained his balance right away. Jennifer didn’t wait a moment; she took off the moment she made contact. Unfortunately, she swung her fist and it caught air as he ducked and ran the moment she arrived. It dawned on him that he wouldn’t be able to evade her and would have to fight her. He turned her way and drove vibrating fists into her torso.
Jennifer felt the force of a battering ram against her body with each blow. His speed so great, she struck out to block his blows, but his fists moved around her hands as if automatic. Next, his fists blasted into her face, knocking her for a loop.
“Give it up,” he said, his voice distorted by the slight difference between their speeds.
Her indestructible skin held, but her sense of balance started to falter. Soon, she would be dizzy, and he would have the opportunity to break away from her and do untold harm to her group, because none of them were fast enough to be able to handle him. Dammit, she thought. Think!
She couldn’t hit him because he moved too fast. If it hadn’t been for his momentary distraction, he’d have torn apart the leg of the robot. What could she possibly do to harm him?
An idea came to her as she stumbled. His next blow headed straight for her right temple. If he connected, she would lose balance. He grinned as he saw his attacks beginning to weaken her. “This is the end,” he said, drawing back his fist. She shot out a hand to catch it, and he moved his fist effortlessly around it. His blow connected with her forehead.
A burst of electricity shot from his hand up his arm and to the ends of his body. From every part of her aura, she’d drawn upon her energy manipulation to send a surge through him when he contacted. The jolt moved through him fast enough that he only managed a few steps away before it convulsed the muscles in his legs and he stumbled, collapsing to the ground.
Jennifer sprung forward, landing next to the prone speedster, and collided an open palm with his forehead. His body fell limp in a heap. She fell over onto her butt.
Jericho, struggling with supers throwing projectiles at him, saw Jennifer vanish from where she stood, while a man in the back, glowing, did the same. An instant later, Jennifer and the young man reemerged, the latter sprawled on the ground. The billionaire could sense that the super had been given a fatal blow, but a few specks of life remained. He launched a shockwave at the group attacking his brother and him, and he shot forward. His hand touched the prone enemy, and he looked to the side at his ally. “Are you alright?” he asked.
Jennifer stood up. “Fine,” she said. “It’s just that, I wasn’t expecting them to have someone this powerful.”
Jericho took this as his cue, and shifted into super speed, using the newly copied power. He headed straight for August. His hand held tightly into a striking position; he readied the blow. The telekinetic shot an invisible assault that gut punched him, launching him back.
“What was that?” Jennifer asked.
“Automatic defense,” Jericho noticed. “Certain people are given protection passively.”
“Great,” Jennifer lamented.
Together, they looked around and saw a few more people with speed powers. “Looks like they thought of everything,” Jericho lamented. They too had been gathering power since arriving. The four enemies took off running, heading in different directions.
At normal speed, Raymond and John didn’t see the speedsters and their fast allies moving about. They had their hands full redirecting plasma fire from the energy types. “Shield status!” John shouted, moving his machine arm in the direction of a group of five shooting basketball-sized projectiles of white-hot plasma at his robot. He fired a rapid succession of bolts of power at them and they scattered.
“Shields are at seventy percent,” his robot’s voice said. The situation would be awesome, he thought, if it weren’t for the dire situation outside the battle.
“Ray!” John broadcast to his battle partner. “We’ve gotta take out the telekinetic!”
Raymond had judged just the same, seeing that August sat in the center of the combat, protected by an invisible barrier that automatically returned any attack that came his way, no matter how fast or powerful. “How?” he replied. “His protection is automatic!”
Annie drove a mighty fist down on a plasma super, who’d been firing at the robots. A barrier super arrived just in the nick of time to throw up a tent-like forcefield of energy over the ally of his. The force of her blow drove the edges of the field into the dirt. Before the guy could adjust the shape of his forcefield, she drew back a mighty leg and soccer-kicked the two of them as hard as she could. The two of them, encased in a force field, uprooted like a tree and launched in the direction of the telekinetic. The barrier fizzled out and the two yelped in a mixture of pain and shock as they collided with August’s passive protection, before abruptly going silent and limp as they fell.
Before any of this was going on, Jennifer and Jericho dashed around, combining their efforts to stop speedsters from being able to attack their allies. The billionaire would dash to get within ten feet of one of them, then before they could deliver a blow to an ally unable to defend, he would hit them with a dizzying mental attack.
The first one, he got within a few feet of Annie when, suddenly, his mind flashed away from where he was. In an instant, he spent several years in the memories of a civil rights leader named Sharon Francis. When he came back to himself, he checked his hands. What had happened?
Before he could react, a hand grabbed the back of his head and a powerful surge of electricity fried his neural tissue. Jericho grabbed the lifeless speedster and launched his body out of the way. He turned and ducked beneath a swipe of a hand that would have decapitated him. The second speedster drew back for a second attack, when Jericho nailed him with mental attack. He stumbled, and in that instant, Jericho launched an attack that stopped the man’s heart. The speedster’s body collapsed as he writhed on the ground in pain.
Jennifer discovered that two of the speedsters didn’t have the same type of power as the others. While she couldn’t tell how the first one’s power worked, or how Jericho’s opponents’ powers worked, she could sense that some form of energy manipulation had to be involved in these two. In some way, their bodies manipulated power that didn’t come from this dimension.
Instead of trying for one of her allies, they double-teamed her, driving a knee into her stomach while another went for a kick to the back of her head. She couldn’t dodge both, but the force of the front impact let her dodge the back attempt. Her arm shot up and she latched a hand on the speedster’s leg. Immediately, his leg vibrated, and he shook his way free in moments, before she had a chance to do damage. In that moment, though, she’d sensed the power coursing through him. Whatever caused superpowers to exist, could create similar effects through vastly different means, like a knife and a laser both being able to cut. The power he wielded allowed him to alter his flow through time.
Her first opponent peppered her with punches and kicks. Her body barely withstood the attack. Focusing on the otherworldly energy inside her, she adjusted the flow through her body and became aware that her speed powers indeed acted separately. She could stand still, and reality would be frozen around her, and that was her first speed power as Capacitor. She could also move incredibly fast without the laws of physics damaging her or her damaging her surroundings. That was her second speed power. It turned out that she could focus on them.
Utilizing them semi-autonomously, as she had, her uses had been acceptable until now. Unfortunately, these opponents had such power that she couldn’t just let her abilities act on autopilot. She had to have fine control over her abilities, or she wouldn’t win. In her mind, she focused on her time-related speed power, and cranked it up as far as she could push it. All of reality slowed to a crawl around her. Her own body stood locked in position. The fist paused in mid-air before it could get to her. She stood locked in her own mind. If she could gasp, she would have; her enhanced mind allowed her to think at this impossible, almost unfathomable rate. She couldn’t look around her, but now, she presumably had all the time in the world to contemplate her situation. Was this what it would be like to be an artificial intelligence, a computer, thinking at the speed of electricity running through nano-circuitry?
With will, she turned her velocity-based speed power up, little by little, and felt that her time-based speed power dropped in intensity to compensate past a certain point. The relationship between them fascinated her. She couldn’t use them both at maximum, because if you pushed one past a certain point, it necessarily dipped the other. The fist began to move once again, and she found she could move, albeit with effort, as she struggled to find the perfect equilibrium point, where both her speed powers could sit at their highest levels. As the fist moved towards her, and she pulled her arm up to catch it, struggling, she focused harder than ever internally.
The speedster launched a punch, when suddenly, the redhead seemed to get blurry for a moment. He didn’t have a chance to wonder about it, though. She shot out a hand and caught his fist at a speed even he couldn’t match. Her other arm stuck out, colliding with his body, and his body shot backward as though a leaf behind a jet engine. He was dead before he touched the ground. The other speedster, who had kicked at her head, landed nearby just in time to see this happen to his ally. He took one look at what happened and kicked his power into high gear. She didn’t even follow as he vanished into the horizon. Based on her estimation, he could be thousands of miles away before he needed to recharge his powers. She didn’t care. He’d fled the scene, which let her focus on the task at hand.
While Annie, John, Raymond, and Luther were busy fighting plasma blasters, barrier makers, and the healers keeping them in battle, August kept throwing up invisible attacks and traps to keep them guessing.
Suddenly, Jennifer got everyone’s attention.
“Hey!” she shouted.
August, and the rest of the attackers looked at the aggressive yell. The telekinetic leader of the pack looked in horror as he saw the bodies of the speedsters piled up, lifeless. Jericho took a ragged breath, wiping moisture from his eyes. “Your main way of attack is defeated,” he explained. “This was your main threat. Surrender now, or we can kill the rest of you at super speed.”
The telekinetic grit his teeth. “You dare assume we would back down?” he shouted. “No! We fight for the Lord!”
“Don’t be stupid!” Jennifer said. “We’re giving you a chance to stop this nonsense!” She paused just a moment to think about it. “If you’re the army of God, why doesn’t God just use his might to strike us down? Why does he need you to fight us at all?”
August shook his head. “The Lord does not need to explain!” he yelled. “We will fight Satan’s army until the last man! God’s glorious kingdom will rise!”
“You will return at once!”
Everyone turned to hear the source of the booming voice.
August realized he heard it in his head. “My Lord!” he argued. “We can still win this! We will die for you!”
“No, my child,” The Lord argued. “I have other battles for you to fight. Return. I will have to fight these particular sinners myself.”
August blinked tears away and sighed. “As you wish, my Lord,” he said. He lifted the corpses off the ground and, hovering the group into the sky, left at once.
Jennifer clenched her fists. “You!” she shouted. “We end this now!”
The Lord, far away, in China, had been speaking to them from afar. “No, progeny of Satan,” he spoke, “you will fight me, in a week’s time, at the destined battle.”
“Dammit!” Jennifer shouted. “Why do we have to give you time to kill more people!”
A grin appeared on the Lord’s face. “We have reached the point where everyone knows of our purpose,” he explained. “Now, it is time to gather your force against the Armies of the Father in Heaven and meet for the final Battle at Armageddon.”
“The Valley of Megiddo,” Jericho whispered, realizing.
“We’ll see you there,” Jennifer simply stated, holding her tongue. Biting back verbally would prove pointless at this point.
“He’s giving us time to prepare,” John said, exiting his damaged robot.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Annie said, blood dripping off her armor.
“Yes, it does,” Jericho thought out loud. A sense of dread appeared over Jennifer’s face, as she realized it too.
“He knows the story,” she said, finishing the thought. “He knows the way it ends. He knows God defeats the sinners and he doesn’t feel he can lose.”
Jack turned to his Lord as they proceeded to the airport, a new flock from China following them. “My Lord!” he said. “Why did you call them back?”
“I tested their power,” The Lord advised, “and I now know how to best defeat the heathens in battle.”
“It was a…” Jack said but trailed off. A realization struck him. “Wait a minute, you never thought our loyal soldiers could defeat them?”
“No,” The Lord said. He turned to his faithful believer. “I never once thought anyone besides myself could defeat the lot of those followers of Satan. The Deceiver has given them too much power. Our armies of mortal men are useful for hunting down and delivering judgment to other powered men and women in servitude against My Father, but those are special. They are especially empowered to defeat The Father’s glorious kingdom on Earth, and only I have the power to stop them.”
Jack pondered this. “So,” he asked, “why sacrifice men against them?”
“Because I needed to prove how capable they were,” The Lord spoke. “That only I could face them down. Those fallen in service of God the Father will be seated beside him in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
This lifted Jack’s spirits. “I’m sorry for doubting you, oh Lord!” he cheered.
“Go make the announcement,” The Lord advised. “Inform the peoples of the world that, in seven days’ time, the final battle of Armageddon will take place.”