Every Creeping Thing (Mythklok, Chapter 51)

[tikific]

Title: Every Creeping Thing (Mythklok, Chapter 51)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Last stands and pleasant music hall ditties.
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing. Also might not be a great chapter for arachnophobes - keep your can of RAID handy.
Notes: Notes after the jump. Part 3 of The Land of Oz.



Mythklok is a Metalocalypse AU. If you're behind and for some strange reason wanna catch up, the best place is my fic journal, tikific, where you are welcome to come visit the bits I’ve written and maybe poke them with a pointed stick. I've also written a general introduction in case you wanna jump in the middle of things, or have forgotten all this stuff due to Real Life.

Last time: Raziel accepted her Latin American Daytime Emmy with good grace and a rather touching speech. Also, the end of the world is nigh! By the way, I totally used a non-canonical name for Pickles for this one. Some anonymous poster on TV Tropes gets the credit, I thought it was kinda clever.


Many years ago....

"Is thee-at MASCARA you're weee-aring, Deeylan?"

Pickles cringed. He had hoped that if he stumbled home late enough, his mother would have given up and gone to bed. One thing you could say about his parents, they were strict adherents to the old "early to bed, early to rise..." crap.

But sometimes Molly would sit up in the chair, long after Calvert had finally retired, and rock and rock and rock and rock. Usually it was not for him, but because her baby, Seth, was away. No matter how late Seth was out, and no matter what he'd been up to, how bad his breath smelled, how dilated his eyes, and what kind of skank he had dragged home, he would get an excited flutter and a smooch.

Seriously, Pickles wondered why Calvert didn't get jealous of the whole thing. It was fucking icky.

But he'd had the bad sense to go out on a night when Darling Seth was also away, and now there was Molly, her face in her fiercest moue of displeasure.

This was gonna be bad.

"Ma," he said, as quietly and calmly as possible. "I'm in a band. Dat's jest da look." Also, he had spent the past hour making out. With a boy. A really cute boy. And he had no idea why he found a boy cute, and why he wanted another boy to find him cute, and the whole concept sort of blew the sober part of his mind, but right now, he just wanted to curl up in bed and think about kissing for a sweet hour or two before dawn came.

"DEEYLAN," Molly shrieked. Was there anything he hated more than how she mangled his name with her horrible, pouting lips. He hated how Molly's lipstick never seemed to stay on her lips, always seemed to stray into the fur on her upper lip. He had vowed, more than once, when he left home, he would leave his name, and never hear it spoken again.

"What's going on here?"

It was bad. The caterwauling had awoken Calvert, who was a light sleeper anyway. So now instead of Molly running off to the bedroom as a prelude to her estimated 72 hour pout over this, there would be threats and lessons and groundings.

He steeled himself. There was really nothing else to do.

"He came home like theee-is!" Molly sobbed. "Weeeee-aring MASCARA!"

"Don't you have a shred of self-respect, young man?" Calvert lectured.

"I'm in a band," Pickles mumbled.

"I won't have my son looking like some piece of trash!" his father thundered.

And then the click. The front door. Oh, no. God no.

"Sethy!" fluttered Molly. Oh mother of fuck. The flirting and fluttering.

Seth muttered something, and Molly was all over him. There was a stench like an overturned brewery truck. You could get drunk just smelling the slimy bastard.

"Why can't you be more like your breeother?" Molly demanded. "He's never giveen us a day's worry. Not a day."

He didn't plan to say it. It just got said.

"Why don't yoo jest go feck Seth?" Pickles hissed at Molly. "If you ain't gettin' it from da old man."

It was too far.

And it was the truth. That was the worst of it.

Molly was out of the room, three day pout probably extended to three weeks. Yeah, who gave a shit.

"Go. To. Your. Room," Calvert commanded.

Pickles managed to glare at him. But then he made the mistake of glancing at Seth. Seth's self-satisfied smirk. The face Molly and Calvert would never see. Because they refused to see it.

It chilled him to the bone.



"And you departed your home some time after that?" Ganesh was sitting out on the porch at his residence, staring up at the lovely, peaceful mountains. He was smoking. It was just a cigarette.

"I t'ink. It wuz a couple months later. Dey found me wit' my boyfriend. My dad did." Pickles was standing. He had been pacing, but he had come to a halt. The mountain air was a little chilly, but it felt really fresh and clean.

Ganesh's lovely eyes drifted over to him. He looked sweetly baffled. Pickles liked that expression. He would have hated pity. But Ganesh would give him puzzlement and concern and curiosity. "Human attitudes towards sexuality, I'll admit, are a source of some lack of comprehension on my part. I understand that there are various taboos, of course. Especially since my medical practice has involved humans." A considered drag on the beedi. A smoking doctor. There were some things about Ganesh that were just kind of awesome.

"Yoo never gawt shit from yer parents, den."

"No,that had to wait until I started fucking an angel," Ganesh laughed. “One can always push things too far.” And then more quietly he added, "But of course, I am not a child."

"But I wasn't... I mean, I guess I wuz a little young."

"I am centuries old. As we all are. Old enough, one would think, to know better."

"But gods don't care about dis?"

"Not as a rule. Humans are more like angels in that respect. To us it would be like worrying which way the wind is blowing."

Pickles was silent for a long moment. He did feel the wind blowing, right then, drying the sweat inside his hands. "Gannish. We're goin' t' rescoo dem."

"Partly. Although partly our mission involves saving the world, so it is my understanding."

"Jest. Why am I dooin' dis? I feckin' hate my feckin' parents. Dey're assholes."

Ganesh took a drag and looked at the mountains for a time. "Do you wish me to say as a doctor? A god? Your friend?"

"Jest. Any. Would be good."

Ganesh tapped ashes. "From what you have told me, your mother is ill."

"Wut? Yoo mean like crazy?"

Ganesh nodded. "And she is beyond my powers of healing."

"Yoo don't t'ink.... You t'ink it's Set'? Messing wit' em?"

"Is that what you wish it to be, Pickles?"

The drummer looked pained.

Ganesh appeared to consider for a moment. "Here is my honest opinion. The magic of which you speak is definitely possible, but it would be a complex and subtle affair. My guess is that Seth chose your parents because he knew they were ... troubled." He looked at Pickles. Now there was honest pity in the eyes. "If you do this, my friend, it must be because you think it is best. I don't believe.... I don't believe they will be released from a curse. This isn't a human fairy story. I know this will be difficult to hear. You have our love, Sariel and mine, you know this. Sadly, though, I cannot offer you what you wish for."

Pickles gulped. And looked away. Maybe he didn't want the truth. Maybe he wanted a fairy story.

"You're both out here, smoking, and neither one of you is high?"

Pickles turned to see Charles holding the kid, who was smacking and blinking, as if he had just woken up.

"We are conversing," Ganesh told him. "And enjoying fresh mountain air."

"And sneaking fresh mountain cigarettes."

Ganesh smiled and blew smoke.

"Was talkin' 'bout my folks," Pickles muttered. Charles suddenly looked concerned. Like he thought there would be hugging called for. But then he smiled, and held out a blinking Elias.

"Hey, l'il dood," said Pickles, who was soon wrapped in four snuggly baby arms. And there was a nice baby smell. Yeah, hug by proxy, that would do OK. Charles was such a bastard sometimes.

Charles had already somehow wriggled into Ganesh's lap and snatched the beedi.

"First my pie, and now my smokes?" Ganesh smiled, not terribly irritated.

"Yuck. These things always smell much better than they taste," Charles choked.

Ganesh grinned and ruffled his short hair.

"Hey! It took me fucking HOURS to get it like that."

"Like wut dood?" Pickles asked as Elias sucked on one of his dreads.

"I have utterly no comprehension," Ganesh confessed.

"I just don't like it to, you know, do anything," Charles protested, trying unsuccessfully to smooth his hair back to anonymity.

Elias was saying something. "What's dat, Boon dood?"

"Aw, shit, the kid speaks better Common than I do." Charles listened for a time. "Wait. Octopus?" Charles looked up at Ganesh, who merely shrugged and hooked an arm around him. "Boon!" said Charles.

"BOOO!" answered the child.

"Let's try English, huh? Pickles? Can you say Pickles?"

Elias screwed up his face in concentration. "BID!"

"Dat ain't so bad," Pickles smiled.

"Pick-les," Charles repeated.

"BIDDA!"

“Dat’s preddy gud.”

“Well, if you really were the Buddha,” Charles sighed. "Might be too hard for him. He still can't manage Elias."

"I had anudder name dey used t' call me," Pickles told Boon. "Mebbe dat would be easier?"

"Pickles," Charles said softly. "You don't have to."

"C'n yoo say Dylan, dood?"

Elias brightened. "DILL!"

"Yeh. Dat's it. Dat's what dey used t' call me. Long long ago."



Australia, the outskirts of Sydney....

There was a squeaking.

Just a squeak.

An old fashioned baby carriage. One wheel needed for grease.

But the man pushing it didn't care. So he pushed. And muttered. Curses. Some banal. Some very ancient.

Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.

And sometimes, if there had been anyone to listen, they may have heard a rustling. Very faint. So very faint.

And then he had passed. And the squeaking stopped.

And, for a brief time, there was a silence.

And then the rustling noise returned. And a scurrying.

A crackle of small branches breaking. Ancient paws. A tail dragging.

A slithering.

Things that should not be flying, darted by.



Uluru, the Dreamtime….

"You knew the location?"

"Of course I knew da feckin' location!" Pickles told him.

Charles sighed. "That coulda been dangerous, you realize that?"

"Dey're my excellent brudders. Of course dey showed me!" Pickles sniffed.

They paused to survey their surroundings. The Koori had constructed what amounted to a makeshift fort around their sacred place. Since there was a lack of construction materials in that bit of the Dreamtime, it appeared that the structure had been thrown together from whatever blew their way. The decor seemed to emphasize rusty corrugated metal and bailing wire, though he was impressed to see a real, working school bus was being used as a gate.

They waited for the ancient vehicle to back up, and entered the dusty compound. Charles was gratified to see that the Koori warriors inside, who he'd taken as a bit on the new age crystal crap end of the scale (which in his mind ranged from Kumbaya on the wimpy end to death metal band on the kick ass end), were packing some pretty impressive weaponry.

Raziel stood, arms crossed, glowering.

"This is not a good strategic position," she stated.

"I'm sorry, Raziel," Charles told her. "Why don't we go defend the OTHER magical spot that's located up the road in a better position?"

"Don't be snotty!"

"Why not?"

"Well, yeah, good point."

"Where's your husband?" Charles asked.

"With yours," she smiled. "Off worrying somewhere else." The mention of the word husband did manage to distract Charles for the fraction of a second it took Raziel to muss his hair.

"IT TOOK ME AN HOUR TO GET IT LIKE THAT!"

"You never used to be so vain."

"I hate it when my hair ... does ... things."

"Dood, look on da bright side, mebbe we'll all be killed by my brudder soon," Pickles said morosely.

"Sariel doesn't want to go to his grave with bad hair."

"Yeah, that's true, I'd hate to be that guy in Harry Potter who didn't quite lose his head."

"Do yoo anjil doods become ghosts?" Pickles asked, now honestly intrigued.

"That's metaphysical," Charles said.

"Yeah, you'll probably have to ask Ganesh," Raziel said.

"After he's smoked a few," Charles allowed.

"Maybe we turn into pie!" Raziel speculated.

"Oh, that would be awesome!" Charles said, his eyes lighting up.

"You'd be sad. You'd want to eat yourself, but you would have no teeth!" Raziel told him.

"I'd be a pie that only Ganesh could eat," Charles informed her as they began to walk off.

"So, you'd be in and out of Ganesh?"

"Like usual. As it happens, Ganesh's mouth and Ganesh's ass are two of my favorite Ganesh parts...."

Pickles stood and watched them stroll off. Here they were, about to die horribly, and the fucking angels were ... bantering. He sighed and regarded the dusty ground. They enjoyed this stuff: that was the thing. Gods and angels. They didn"t seem to like each other, but they all looked the same from his perspective. And what the fuck did he think he was doing here? A piece of trash, trying to rescue parents Ganesh had bluntly told him couldn't give a shit.

"O Excellent Brother, Pickles!"

He smiled and embraced the white-painted Koori.

"You have come to defend our most sacred place, our most, most excellent well to the bottom of the world."

"Containing the most primo water!"

"As used in thrashing."

"A place of legend."

"A most excellent place!"

"Which we must guard from Seth!"

"Who is most, most un-heinous."

"As well as bogus."

"And undeserving of excellent water."

"Not to mention quality hair care products."

There was much nodding.

"Yoo doods seen my band?" Pickles asked.

“What do you mean there are no cocktail schauschages?” Murderface was whining to a confused looking Koori.

“Oh Excellent Brother, Pickles!” called one of the black Dream Walkers. The drummer found himself surrounded.

“Hey,” sighed Pickles.

“We are most disquieted that we do not have sufficient party snacks for the bodacious warriors of Dethklok.”

“It is a bummer of legendary proportions!”

“Not to mention most hiddie!”

“Doods, let me talk to dem, OK?” Pickles told them. He steeled himself, and went to talk to his sometimes not terribly excellent brothers.

“Thisch plasche schucksch,” Murderface was grumbling.

“Look, doods, have yoo looked around? Dis is post-apocalyptic Australia! Dey might not have da snack selection yoo are accustomed to!”

“I’M PECKISH!” Nathan rumbled. “You don’t want me to perform with LOW BLOOD SUGAR, do you?”

“Ams true. Ams makesing him irritaballs!” Skwisgaar testified.

"Doods. Yer gonna have too rough it a liddle while yer here,” Pickles warned them.

"Ams nots broughts my handcuff," Skwisgaar sneered, moodily strumming his dusty Gibson.

"Skwisgaar. Dood. Rough IT, not-."

"Ja. And I ams not sees da lovely ladies. Ams inpactsing my social lifes!"

"I ams havingses da productive times," Toki chirped.

"Pfffft," muttered Skwisgaar.

"I ams knitsing da lovelies angel wing shawls!" he said, throwing a large, silver cape-like article of clothing over Pickles' shoulders.

"Uh. Yeh. Dood. Dis'll be great in da hunnert degree heat," Pickles told him.

“Teacher’sch pet,” Murderface grumbled, grinding his knife into the sand.

“Don’t worry Murder baby! We’ll have a groovilacious times with the Koori, yeah!”

“Yoo decided t’ come too, Dick?” Pickles asked.

“Dick Knubbler isn’t afraid of any ancient unspeakable evil, baby, yeah! I’ve been in the entertainment industry for too long, baby, yeah!”

Pickles spied Ganesh and Wotan striding by, and decided to scramble after them so as not to murder any musicians. The gods were both tall men, so it seemed to take at least three of Pickles's steps for each one of their strides.

"I'd feel better with my fucking horsemen in back of me!" Wotan fumed.

"You know, Uncle, this is not the place for cavalry. Nor human - or formerly human - soldiers. They would not be able to resist the terror brought on by an Ancient One."

"Fucking tentacled monster crap. I need to call Cousin Poseidon and grab his fucking speargun."

“Hey god doods,” Pickles gasped as he almost but not quite pulled abreast of them.

“Pickles!” boomed Wotan, giving him a bone rattling friendly pat on the back.

“Are your band mates prepared for their big, er, performance?” Ganesh inquired.

“Da feckers. Dey’re havin’ tantrums dat dey don’t have feckin’ snacks.”

To Pickles’ surprise, Ganesh and Wotan shared a smile. “Sariel will no doubt be demanding pastries be delivered in the near future,” Ganesh grinned.

“I’m quite certain M’Lady will want a change of clothes.”

“Stylish clothes! Never a bad idea!” Ganesh averred.

“Now, if I could just get my hands on a fucking speargun….” Wotan said, as the two men strode off again.

Pickles frowned. “So we’re all feckin’ batshit?” he said to himself.

"Oy! Of course I can charge it up, 'at's what oi do, mate!"

"It's a delicate instrument!"

"Oh, but not too delicate!"

"Well, not too delicate, of course, it is to be used in a combat situation...."

"But within parameters!"

"Oh, yes, of course within parameters."

Pickles turned to see the pair of lab-coated scientist assholes he usually only encountered when he was stoned out of him mind and got lost making his way through the dungeons of Mordhaus.

They were talking to a couple of dark-skinned men he didn't recognize. One wore a cape and had mad scientist-type frizzy hair that he wore parted a bit off to the side, making him look somewhat like a bespectacled Gumby. The other, was dressed in a red jumpsuit painted with lightning bolts, six inch zebra-striped platform heels, and a red cowboy hat. He also had, Pickles noticed, lightning bolts painted in silver across his face.

"Now, gentlemen, IT IS NOT TO WORRY! Chango is a master of electrical crafts!" promised the Gumby man.

"Also, I like to make things blow up!" Chango agreed.

"But we face an unknown enemy!"

"That is true! An unknown enemy of unknowable power."

"An unthinking opponent!"

"Of unstoppable capabilities."

"Won't you have a spot of akvavit?" urged the Gumby man, holding up a bottle.

"Well, we are on duty, Lord Orula."

"Don't want to neglect duty!"

"Oh, but just the barest drop! The BAREST DROP!" Orula poured out shots for the scientists and Chango. "And as for our unknown enemy, I faced more hostile crowds in the Footlights. Did I ever tell you about the time..."

"Yeah, actually, you did mate," Chango told him, downing his drink.

Pickles looked up, sensing something besides bickering.

There was a cloud in the cloudless reddish Dreamtime sky.

And it was moving.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK!” Charles commented. He and Raziel were there, now watching the sky, as were all the beings in the compound.

Pickles suddenly held his arm. “No. Dood.”

“Open the gate!” Wotan was calling. “Open the gods damned gate now!” A Koori jumped behind the wheel of the ancient school bus and ground it into reverse.

They alit on the dusty ground outside the gate.

Angels.

The leader, a blond Seraph, Court Formed and walked up to greet Wotan. "Our mutual friend, Phanuel, thought we could offer assistance. We have warriors among us, and some engineers, who might help prepare your fortifications."

"That sounds splendid!" Wotan boomed. "Ye are most welcome."

'Zacharael?" sputtered Charles.

"We felt it was the honorable thing to do," the angel explained. "Plus, Seth is really the biggest asshole."

"He is a total asswipe," Charles grinned. And then the grin widened as Toki had glomped Zacharael in an Official Hug.

"Angelses!" squeed the Norwegian.

"Uh, he does that," Charles explained to the baffled Seraph.

As the group made their way inside the compound, Wotan took Charles aside. "Can you see your way to telling that Chango fella to ease up with the thunder and lightning? I've only risked bringing a few of my least skittish mounts here with me. And he's scaring the fucking daylights out of 'em."

"I can try, Wotan. Chango and Orula both have a flair for, uh, the dramatic."

"Don't fuck with my gods damned horses! That's all I ask."

"I'll go find 'em," Charles told him, as Wotan walked off with Zacharael.

"I was just talking with Elegba," Ganesh told Charles. "I think you might wish to speak with him as well, Sariel."

"About?"

"He sees pathways, as I do."

"That's the reason we have him escorting the damned scientists back. What?"

Ganesh pointed to the tall god, who stood shaking his head as Orula and Chango shared yet another shot of akvavit with the now giggling scientists.

"I will need to take your men out very soon I think," Elegba said, without any preface. Charles studied him. He looked worried.

"One of you wanna tell me what's going on?" he asked, looking up between Elegba and Ganesh. Despite the fact of being the love of his life, Charles was quite convinced that Ganesh was tall sometimes simply to annoy him.

"The pathways seem to be closing," Ganesh said.

"I don't know how this is being achieved," Elegba told him. "Orula has forseen that you will stand alone here. But the future is cloudy to him as well."

"Cloudy or blurry?" asked Charles, as Orula rolled on the dusty ground. "OK, tell you what, I don't think those guys are gonna be much use to us after Orula's through with them, take 'em out now. The fewer humans we have with us, the better. I'll tell Wotan what you've seen." Elegba nodded, politely tipped his hat, and went to retrieve the now quite sloppy scientists.

"I don't understand how even Seth could close off all the pathways. This is the fucking Dreamtime, isn't it? I thought you guys all made your own roads?"

"It could be his function is an opposite to mine," Ganesh mused.

"Lord Placer of Obstacles?"

"As we've said...."

"We don't know what he can do. Yeah."

"Charle?"

Charles turned to the sound of Toki's voice, willing himself to not act as distracted and concerned as he presently felt. "Yes, Toki?"

"I has mades somet'ings for you."

Now Charles really steeled himself. A model of the Titanic? That would at least be appropriate. He silently prayed it would be an adorable plush voodoo doll. The entire band was gathered around, including, for whatever reason, and eager looking Raziel.

Charles suddenly found himself cocooned in what seemed to be sixteen layers of a multigenerational knitting project. He noticed that it was silver.

"Ams da angel wingses shawlses! I ams mades it silvers! I ams calls it ... da Tokis shawls!"

"Toki, I am.... I am speechless," Charles told him.

"You're gonna make one for me to?" Raziel fussed.

"Of course, Lady Raziel," Toki smiled, and whipped out a similar shawl, this one in dark brown. Raziel squealed and tackled him in a hug, and then experimented with stylish ways of draping it about herself.

Raziel then looked expectantly at Charles, who, after sneaking a pained expression her way, held out an arm and found himself engulfed by a Toki hug. "OK. All right," he said.

“Don't expect us to fucking hug you!" Nathan growled.

“I remain thankful for the small things,” Charles sighed.

"O Excellent Shri Ganesha!" a Koori called to the god, who was hanging back in the crowd, trying not to grin. "We have a badly wounded brother."

"Show me," said Ganesh.

"Wait, we already have an injury?" Charles asked. He and Raziel exchanged a glance, and both hastened after Ganesh and the Koori. One of the black Dream Walkers was curled up, and seemed to be in terrible pain. Ganesh talked very softly with him, and, after carefully donning a pair of gloves from his bag, began to examine him.

"He had just come back from outside the compound," the Koori explained. "We had sent him out to the nearest chemist’s shop to obtain quality hair care product for some of our excellent brother Seraphim," the Koori noted.

"They were everywhere. Everywhere," the warrior whispered. He shivered. "They just kept stinging, my brothers."

“These are burns,” Ganesh said quietly. “Chemical burns.”

“Box jellies,” said a Koori who was crouching nearby. Ganesh nodded.

“Uh. They burned him with preserves?” Charles asked wistfully, his head filled with visions of delicious pies.

“Jelllyfish,” Ganesh supplied, grabbing supplies from his bag. “A rather noxious local species, as it happens.”

“Wait. Jellyfish stings? In the middle of the fucking desert?”

"I need vinegar," Ganesh said, removing some forceps from his medical bag.

"You're gonna make a salad?"

"Sariel, kindly quit thinking about your greedy angel stomach and got fetch it for me?"

"C'mon, we'll go have Toki knit you a pie," Raziel said, grabbing Charles by the elbow.

"I can't eat a pie made from acrylic yarn!" Charles wailed.

"SARIEL!" said Raziel, leading him away from the wounded Koori.

"What?"

"There's jellyfish. Where there's not supposed to be jellyfish. Think!"

"I'm thinking I'm hungry," Charles said stubbornly.

"Think strategically, gods damn it!"

He gave her a low blood sugar glower and kicked the dusty ground beneath his feet.

The dusty ground....

"FUCK!" he said, grabbing Raziel by the shoulders.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Raziel said.

"Where are Phanuel's engineers? Where?" Raziel pointed, looking puzzled, and he took off running.

"What have you guys done about the ground?" Charles demanded.

A pair of Cherubim looked up, concerned. "We have fortified the walls," the foreman told him, "and we have magicks for attacks from overhead.

"The ground! What about the fucking ground below?"

"We generally don't, O Honored Sariel," a Koori told him.

"You don't have ANY noxious creatures in Australia who fucking burrow?"

Concerned glances were exchanged. The foreman rolled out the plans. "We don't have sufficient materials to cover the ground in time. We'll need to build in combination with magicks. This is the area around the sacred ground. Start here and spread out. All the magic users who can be spared: get them here. Now."



A bit later, Charles found Ganesh walking and muttering. The ground seemed to waver under his feet as he walked.

"You casting misdirection spells?" Charles asked him.

"I have many good ones. But the best ones take time and materials to prepare. I'm not sure how much time we may have. So Chango and I are doubling up.” He indicated the spandex jumpsuit-clad Ifa, who appeared to be doing an odd dance over the ground nearby.

“Huh,” said Sariel, regarding Chango. “I remember moves like that from the eighties, but I was usually coked out of my mind.”

“I thought you hated techno?” asked Ganesh.

“It wasn’t techno!” Charles protested. “It was electronica! Completely different thing!”

Chango suddenly came to a halt and looked off in the distance.

"What was that?" asked Ganesh.



Pickles sat miserably in as much shade as he could find. At some point an hour or so back, everybody had suddenly quit pacing around and started running around. He wasn't sure of the point. But he was suddenly envious of those stupid angel shawls Toki had been cranking out. He needed the shelter - his fair skin had not been handling the Dreamtime sun very well.

He squinted under his shading hand, thinking he's seen movement. No, must have been some kind of illusion from the heat and sun. He looked harder. There was a dark spot he hadn't noticed before. Like a burrow. A nice dark animal burrow.

He scooted closer to the hole. He thought about the cool earth underground. It seemed pretty big actually. Maybe big enough for him to crawl into and doze off for a while. No one would notice. And it wouldn't be the worst place he'd ever woken up.

He moved closer. There it was again, the weird illusion. In the corner of his eye.

He looked. It seemed like a small shadow, disappearing around the corner.

Something changed. Now the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck.

He looked more closely at the burrow. It was actually covered in something. Or was it? A netting? Had someone covered it?

He leaned closer.

It was-

Pickles dove to the ground. What was it? Flying past? Had it come from the burrow?

He rose cautiously, looking around. No sight of it now.

He stood, trying to catch his breath. What the fuck?

He felt something. He looked down.

There. It was tangled in his dreadlocks.

And crawling up.

Pickles froze, tears leaking from his eyes.

FWAP!

"I got 'em!" Raziel shouted. She was holding Toki's angel shawl like a matador flourishes a cape.

Nathan swiftly stomped the large black spider, which had been knocked to the dusty ground, into spider goo.

"Toki! You are a knitting god!" Raziel stated approvingly, flourishing the shawl.

"Ams nothings," the guitarist blushed.

Pickles was still too frightened to breathe. He pointed behind them. It was all he could do.

"Aw, SHIT," said Nathan,

And they began stamping on more of the crawling spiders.

"Can we block the fucking burrows?" Charles was saying as he frantically sliced spiders with quick movements of his hands.

"They're coming from everywhere," Ganehs told him, waving a hand and exploding some arachnids.

"I'll take care of this!" Orula announced. "it's time for some Footlights music hall magic!"

"Cambridge," grumbled Ganesh murderously.

"What the fuck does he think he's doing, Sariel?" demanded Wotan.

“Just stand back,” Charles advised. “He looks like an idiot. Uh, because he is an idiot. But he’s pretty fucking powerful.”

Orula had jumped up on a piece of corrugated metal like it was a stage. He did a little soft shoe dance, and then began to sing a cheerful little ditty.


Look who's running up my leg
Try to make a funnel web!
Got his fangs out I can see
Doesn't seem much hope for me!

Hexathelidae the Spider!
Hexathelidae the Spider!


A group of spiders, scurrying madly by, all stopped as if to listen. They drew nearer, attracted by the tune.

And then they started to move, in rhythm.

Slowly at first. A few little hairy legs swaying. And then more and more of them.

The spiders began to dance to Orula's cheerful music hall tune.

"Pfft. Ams dildos songs," Skwisgaar huffed, noodling with his Gibson.

"Skwisgaar," hissed Charles. "Get up there."

"Pffft."

"I said, GET UP THERE AND HELP."

"I ams not playsings for- Ulp!"

Charles had True Formed, and stood, dragging Skwisgaar down by the collar so they were nose to nose, blue eyes meeting silver.

"Skwisgaar. Do you happen to remember when you called my child - MY CHILD - a name? And I DIDN'T kill you?" The wings had arched out, and Charles looked every bit the avenging angel.

A mad as hell avenging angel.

"All rights, ja." Skwisgaar allowed, reluctantly clambering onstage next to Orula. A Koori rushed up with an amp. "Aint's no powers for da ampglifier," Skwisgaar grumbled.

Chango grinned and a bolt of lightning suddenly struck the amp, which hummed with guitar feedback.

"Uh. Thanks dudes," said Skwisgaar, who at first reluctantly picked out a tune, but soon found himself joining in with Orula's song.


Now he's bit me on the ass
His venom's making me collapse!
Wish I had a hope of life
Fuckers causing me some strife!

Hexathelidae the Spider!
Hexathelidae the Spider!


And the spiders, all of them, from every corner of the encampment, scurried over to them.

And they danced.

They danced to Orula's tune.

Charles whispered to Raziel, who set off running.

Ganesh appeared. He was cradling a terrified looking Pickles in his arms.

With a cry of, "Someone, get a barrel or a bucket or something," Charles waved Ganesh over to Orula's makeshift stage. Some Koori put a barrel in front of Pickles. Charles handed him some metal spoons. "Bang it!" he ordered. "The noise makes the spiders go away."

Pickles banged uncertainly, but within a stroke or two, he had picked out the rhythm.


Want this guy to go away
So I'm firing my AK
Now he's gone without a hitch
Don't fuck with me arachnid bitch

Hexathelidae the Spider!
Hexathelidae the Spider!


"NOW WILLIAM!" ordered Raziel. The bassist unleashed a flamethrower, quickly turning the dancing spiders into a field of crispy critters.

“World’s crappiest barbecue,” Nathan grumbled.

“Gods damn it, you’re making me hungry,” said Charles.

“You’re always fucking hungry.”

“Come on now,” said Ganesh, who had just hoisted a rather dizzy Orula over his shoulder.

“I must take my curtain calls!” Orula objected.

“You need fluid replacement.”

“Oh, do you have akvavit!”

“I suppose that can be arranged. That wasn’t bad you know. For a Cambridge man,” Ganesh allowed as they walked off towards his makeshift infirmary.

“Was still dildos tune,” Skwisgaar grumbled. “Ams you OKs?” he asked Pickles, who had collapsed over his barrel drum.

“Feckin’ hate spiders,” he whispered.

Nathan picked him bodily off the stage and stood him up, and Toki wrapped something around him.

A bright red angel shawl.

“Toki. Dood. T’anks. How did yoo...?”

“Lady Raziel ams helped!”

“I used his pattern,” she smiled. “And Ganesh put a bug-proofing spell on it.”

“Why ams I not gets da shawls?” Skwisgaar groused. “I ams performed too!”

“I ams makes ones for you, Skwisgaar,” Toki told him.

“Pfft. I ams not wants your dildos shawlses.”

“Where the fuck is Raziel going?” Nathan asked.

The little angel ran on her short legs to the gate and leapt up to the battlements where Wotan stood. They exchanged a glance, and then looked out to the Dreamtime desert.

The red sun baked the dusty ground, waves of head visibly radiating off.

As the atmosphere shimmered, there came into focus a group of shrouded figures. First there were few. And then more. They seemed to emerge from the waves of heat.

With nary a sound, an army was assembling.

Raziel, who was afraid of nothing, found herself gulping. Thirst, she thought. She was thirsty.

“Ye’ll lead your father’s angels,” Wotan was telling her. She nodded, concentrating. “I’m gonna take a few of those Dream Walkers. Sariel, you’ll follow along? And not cause to much trouble?”

“Yeah. Except for those bastards,” grumbled the angel, who had come to stand beside them.

“Sounds fine.”

“Uncle?”

“Ganesh, you’ll stay back here and tend to our wounded for now. NO ARGUMENTS,” he added, as he was just about to get one full force from the angry god. The battlement actually trembled slightly, but Ganesh recovered himself, and then leapt down to make preparations.

“Wotan, are you sure…” Charles began.

“Seth is gonna wear us down. We’re not gonna play his game,” Wotan told him. The god turned to address those who had assembled in the yard below. “I want ye to be careful about using up your magic!” Wotan boomed. “He’s gonna try and fatigue us. Some of us are already spent from the gods damned spiders. Use your non-magickal weaponry as much as you can."

Charles frowned and put away the machetes he’d been fiddling with. And then he grinned, looking at a Koori. He leapt below to talk to them. “Hey, where can I get some of those?” he asked.

"Wait until they're in range!" Wotan called. Some Koori manned the big guns at the gate.

Charles noticed with some dismay that both Nathan and Murderface had stationed themselves on the battlements behind large caliber weaponry as well. Probably better than going crazy, waiting, he mused. "You're both gonna stay up here?" he demanded. They glowered at him. "OK, let me put it is way: you guys are gonna stay up here, or I'll have RAZIEL toss your fucking asses back up." They both nodded, now a bit more serious. Getting clobbered by a girl - even one as powerful as Raziel - was apparently not very metal.

The angels hovered above. He noticed that Raziel still had not bothered to go to her full Seraph form, though she now had her wings out. He wondered how much power she really had now. She was pacing now, up and down in front of some massive True Formed Seraphim.

"Hit the deck!" Charles didn't need to be told twice. The Koori who had been standing next to him was gone. One of Seth's soldiers had magicked a gun from somewhere and was strafing the compound.

"Raziel!" boomed Wotan. The angels were already aloft. "Fire at will!" The deck guns exploded with rounds as the gunners on the wall tried to repel he front lines of the invaders while Raziel's angels took out the weapon emplacements.

"Now Wotan?" Charles managed to shout in his ear over the clatter of gunfire.

"Hold off!"

"Ewwwwwww, Wotan!" It was Raziel's voice. She was holding something.

"What the fuck?" he mouthed over the din as Charles leaned in for a closer look.

Raziel opened up her hands. She was carrying a scrap of fabric filled with ... bugs. They wriggled and then fell, squirming to the floor.

"Seth's soldiers! They're sacks of bugs!" she screamed.

Charles looked over the wall. It was true: fallen soldiers simply seemed to melt back into the desert.

"Wotan! We gotta rethink!" Charles shouted.

"Raziel, your troops get the weaponry. Ignore the personnel! Just destroy materiel!" She nodded and was off.

"Can I move?" Charles shouted.

"Yes. Time for infantry. Do some damage."

Charles leapt happily off the battlement and went to talk with the leader of the Koori gunners. Then they signaled to the bus driver and charged out, guns blazing. Charles had greedily grabbed not one but two automatic weapons, and tried to create as much bug splatter as possible. They were receiving heavy return fire, but Seth's bug soldiers seemed more aggressive than accurate, and a lot of the fire wasn't difficult to dodge.

He suddenly heard the explosion over his shoulder.

"Where the fuck did you get that?" Charles demanded of Wotan, who was grinning beside him and holding a shoulder mounted rocket launcher.

"We need you up there, Sariel," said the king.

"Where?"

“You take on that bastard,” said Wotan, pointing upwards. Charles looked up the hill.

“Oh, why did it have to be snakes,” he grumbled.

But it wasn’t just a snake that was writhing its way down the hillside.

It was one of those snakes you see a crazy Australian TV host pull out of his pickup truck's engine in his garage. One with enough poison in an eyedropper full of its venom to knock out all of Manhattan.

Only it was big as a tanker truck. It had more than an eyedropper of venom - it had gallons.

Hw saw some Koori wander too close. It was huge, but quick as Chango's lightning. It had reared and struck, taking down several warriors in a single blow.

The Koori did not get up.

He saw it writhe closer to another contingent. Quick as he could, he scrambled around, up the hill behind. Then he whipped out his machetes, and stood banging them together.

"Hey, asshole! Look behind you!"

The snake slithered around, evidently attracted by the clanging noise.

“Yeah, yeah, FUCK YOU,” Charles told the snake, whipping his hands back and forth in a slicing action.

The giant reptile reared.

And then recovered.

It was completely unmarked.

Charles’ cutting powers had had absolutely no effect.

“FUCK!” He dove out of the way as the monster struck, nearly missing being impaled by a fang. And then suddenly he was being smothered. He had backed into the tail, which had suddenly coiled around him. His arms were pinned down, so he couldn’t cut his way out. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t even curse, the breath had been choked out of him.

Not good, he thought. He wondered where the fuck Wotan had gone to, even though he wasn’t sure what he could do. He couldn’t breathe. He was starting to lose consciousness.

And then he felt himself thrashing back and forth.

The ground underneath the snake suddenly collapsed – the entire mountainside had exploded and was coming down in an avalanche. The serpent uncoiled slightly as it fell, and Charles scrambled free. He went to winged form before he’d even caught his breath and flew, hurtling back towards the compound.

Ganesh was holding up his arms, intent on the mountainside he had just destroyed. Charles arrived at his side just as he fell, suddenly collapsing in a heap like a puppet who had just had his strings cut. Ganesh was still breathing, but didn't seem to be able to move. Concerned, Charles knelt beside him. “Ganesh? What the fuck?”

"Help me get him up."

He looked up. Raziel was standing there, holding out her hands.

"He just took down a mountain. He's out of magic. Remember when I did it?"

Charles nodded. It had taken her a week until she was even sitting up jabbering as normal. He helped her get Ganesh standing, and Raziel took his hands. "Now stand clear," she told Charles. Reluctantly, he backed off.

Raziel appeared to concentrate. She stabbed her sword into the ground. Suddenly, there was a crackle, as of electricity. But it was power, just raw power, arcing through Raziel and Ganesh. Charles felt the hairs on his arms standing up.

And then it was over. Raziel released his hands. Ganesh stood, looking terribly surprised. "You OK?" she asked.

"Yes, I think..." Ganesh waved a hand, and some nearby pebbled exploded. "Yes, I am recovered."

“I can use the earth like a battery now," she explained. "Hope I didn't fry you?"

"No, not at all. That was actually rather ... bracing!" Ganesh enthused. He actually looked like he just might need a cigarette.

Raziel winked and flew off. Ganesh turned. Charles was scowling at him.

"What?" Ganesh grinned innocently.

“You can’t cut the fucking snake, boy?” Wotan, who had just come striding up, asked Charles.

“It just barely impacts on the fucking thing,” Charles cursed. “I think Seth protected the scales with some kinda magic.”

“It’s like a Vritra,” Ganesh mused. He and Wotan suddenly exchanged excited looks. “My father! The tigers!”

“Yes, can you go get Shiva, boy?” Wotan told him.

“How the fuck is he gonna get out to find his dad?” Charles asked.

“Take one of my mounts,” Wotan told Ganesh, who grinned and nodded, tearing off towards the horses.

“Ganesh? Ganesh?” Charles was on his heels. ‘You can’t fucking ride out of here!"

“Oh, fuck yes I can!” Ganesh declared.

"What about the jellyfish crap? The burned Koori?"

"I have more concern about my mount. She will be encountering those noxious creatures."

"Wait. Wait," said Charles. He brought out Toki's angel shawl.

"Yes, this will be perfect!" Ganesh declared. He wrapped the shawl around the horse's head,and then, pausing only to give a somewhat flustered Charles a quick kiss, leapt to the saddle and, in a clatter of hoofs pounding the dry ground, disappeared.

“Gods dammit!” Charles cursed.

“Sariel.” He turned.

“He’s not gonna be able to get out of here, Raziel! He'll get his hide burned off! I should go after him. Fuck!”

“Sariel. My husband taught him to ride. He’ll be fine.”

“But he’s not…. It’s your fucking battery thing! Now he’s got delusions of grandeur!”

“OK. Sariel. You get one more. And then I’m gonna start kicking your fucking ass. I mean, literally, kicking your fucking ass. We need you back. Got it?”

He glowered, but then nodded.

“OK, we gotta hold that snake thing off until he gets back...."

"If he gets back."

"UNTIL HE GETS BACK." Charles looked at Raziel, suddenly realizing why she was the general and he commanded unthinking minions. "Plan. Now."

"Uh. Diversion?" he asked.

"Keep talking."

"Uh. Small party. Maybe looking like we're trying to escape?"

"What's the plan?" Wotan boomed as he strode up.

"Wild angel chase," Raziel told him.

"Splendid! We can divert them away from young Ganesh."

"You got a plan, Sariel?" Raziel asked.

He looked at the front gate, where the dusty schoolbus was laboriously lurching into reverse and backing up to let them in. "Oh, yeah," he grinned.