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tikificTitle: Goodbye Max Rockatansky (Mythklok, Chapter 52)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Seth’s icky soldiers vs. the good guys in post-apocalyptic Australia
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing, bunyips. Remember what I said about arachnophobes last time? Same for non-lovers of snakes here.
Notes: Notes after the jump. Part 4 of The Land of Oz: there's gonna be one more part after this, just FYI.
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: the guys helped out the Koori warriors in their last stand against Seth. Who, guess what, doesn't fight fair! What a douche.
And a couple extra notes before we go this time. First,senoritafish sent me a link to this amazingly appropriate artwork. (In case you guys were wondering, I like squid art even if it has nothing to do with my crazy stories.) OK, and then, as you may have noticed, I seem to make Charles a comically bad driver. There's NO CANON for this, in fact, on the contrary, he's an epic pilot of those flying thingamajigs. I wondered where the heck this came from, when eppieblack was kind enough to send me this link to some Brian Epstein driving stories. I suspect more than a little inspiration for the original Charles was the Beatles' epic awesome manager, and I know I love the heck outta Eppie. So, there's that.
"No talking, no schoving!" boomed Murderface, who sat contentedly behind the wheel of the ancient school bus.
Some bemused Koori entered and filed cooperatively into the back, being careful to tuck their weapons away out of sight.
From her perch up atop the vehicle, Raziel said, "This will be awesome! I wish I'd packed my leather outfit!"
"Yeah, I hate being underdressed," Charles grumbled.
"Have you finally adopted my attitude towards high fashion? Because you couldn't possibly be snarky about a matter of this high import!"
Charles, who was caught up in cleaning a dizzying array of weaponry, merely glowered. “Did you at least pack a gun?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, they gave me one of your little human weapon thingies," Raziel babbled, bringing out a rifle that looked bigger than she.
"Are you sure you're gonna be OK for this?" Charles asked, much more quietly.
"We know it likes drummin'," Pickles told Charles as he clambered up beside him.
"I could...."
"Don't even. Yer drummin' is worse den yer guitar playin'." Charles’ glower deepened as Raziel snickered. "Besides, I'd radder take my chances out dere wit' da snake dan in here wit' more spiders." He shuddered and pulled Toki’s red shawl tighter around himself.
"All right ladies and gentlemen, are we ready to get this show on the road?" inquired Orula, who climbed up on top of the bus, only to nearly topple head first back down to the ground.
"Ah, Orula, you sure you feel up to this?" Charles asked him as he tried with limited success to steady the Ifa.
"No one does snake charming like a Footlights veteran!" declared the sloppy god, waving his inexhaustible bottle ofakvavit.
Charles shrugged. "I'm, uh, sure Ganesh would agree with that one."
"Ganesh!" Orula enthused, taking a rather enthusiastic gulp from his bottle. "Capital fellow! Pity about that Oxford business!"
"Hey! Blondie!" said Raziel, helping a sneering Skwisgaar mount the bus as well.
"Skwisgaar?" asked Charles.
"Pickle ams needs someones to accompa-knees hims," the guitarist muttered sullenly, nervously fingering his Gibson.
"Splendid!" declared Orula. "My dear musician friends, today, in honor of our audience, we are to be PREACHING THE BLUES!"
"Blues ams dildos," Skwisgaar grumbled. Suddenly, the guitarist was laid out flat on the top of the bus, clutching his face.
"Orula!" shouted Charles in warning. He was immediately down at Skwisgaar's side, holding up an arm.
"He ams bwoked by dose," the guitarist wailed.
"I AM ORULA. I AM SONG," declared the god. He was trembling. And so was the bus. And the landscape nearby.
"Hey, Orula, could I get a shot of that akvavit?" asked Raziel.
"Yeh, dood, Ah'm parched," agreed Pickles.
"Why, certainly, have a spot!" Orula told them courteously, all the wrath suddenly drained from him as he poured shots.
"Skwisgaar," Charles whispered while Orula was distracted. "Music gods. They can be touchy."
"Hims ams scarier than my dads," Skwisgaar told Charles as he was helped to his feet. "I ams hopes he ams nots warpsed my Gibson," he fussed, thoughts of his nose suddenly dismissed as he sighted down his guitar's neck.
"Get in, schit down, schut up and hang on!" came a cry from down below as the bus lurched unexpectedly into gear and several feet backwards. Charles dragged Skwisgaar into his makeshift crow's nest, which looked to be fashioned from an old metal barrel, and Raziel tossed Pickles, akvavit and all, into the old fashioned bathtub that was her station, and also appeared hastily welded to the top of the bus. Chango reeled, but somehow kept his footing, and did not spill a drop of his drink.
There was a flash of lightning, and Skwisgaar's amp crackled to life. "Thanks, Chango," Charles yelled down to the saluting god. "Hold this," he told Skwisgaar, handing the surprised guitarist a large rifle. He popped open a porthole on the top of the bus and jumped down inside. "William!" he shouted.
"Yeah, bro?"
"After we break through, keep it slow! Remember, we're trying to lead them away, not outrun them. But, uh, don't be too obvious. Only look like you're trying to outrun ‘em!"
"What the fuck is he talking about?" Murderface asked gleefully.
"Drive casual baby, yeah!" advised Dick Knubbler, who was happily sitting beside him.
"Uh, yeah," agreed Charles. He looked up and down the benches, to the white painted Koori, all surreptitiously cleaning and checking weaponry. For the thousandth time, he tried not to think about Ganesh and the Koori with the horrible jellyfish stinger burns, and then scrambled back up the porthole.
The bus had backed away from the wall, as if it were opening the gate. Personnel stood to the side, ready to assemble pieces of the temporary gate Phanuel's engineers had somehow cobbled together. In order for the plan to work, they would have to get by Seth's troops massed outside the door.
Wotan also awaited near the gate. It was strange to see him mounted on a horse that was not his faithful Sleipnir. His mount, a black stallion, actually looked to be half demon. Steam rose from its nostrils as it snorted. A few Koori were mounted behind him, mostly sitting two to a horse.
Wotan signaled that he was ready. From atop the bus, Raziel cheerily blew him a little angel kiss.
Wotan and his men charged through the opening in the gate, howling and firing off weapons and generally making a big commotion. Once the mounts were some yards from the compound, several of the double mounted Koori slipped from the saddles and positioned themselves where they could fire off weaponry and generally make a lot of noise and fuss.
Just as Seth's troops started to gather around them, Murderface ground the bus into first gear and lurched out as well, hurtling off in the opposite direction. The gate was immediately patched together behind them. It took some moments of running around and confusion, but after a delay, Seth's soldiers began to fire in their direction.
Ignoring the crossfire, Orula lurched to the back of the bus and began to sing. Pickles picked up the rhythm immediately.
I - I ran outta liqueur now
I - I ran outta liqueur now
They told me late last night, "Can't get to the liquor store no how."
Mmm, mmm, big poison crawlin' snake
Mmm, mmm, big ass poison crawlin' snake
Someone better come hit that big bitch wit' a rake.
Ignoring his throbbing nose, Skwisgaar started noodling with a guitar part.
For its part, the giant snake, which had recovered from its great fall with apparently no injuries, appeared to be attracted by the song. It spat out the Koori it was chewing on and started to undulate after the bus.
"It ams following us!" Skwisgaar shouted. Charles looked up. He had been too busy to notice. Some of Seth's shrouded bug warriors had hopped onto motorcycles – where the hell had they found motorcycles in this gods forsaken part of the Dreamtime? - and were in pursuit as well. Since they were capable of much faster acceleration than the ancient school bus - even with William Murderface behind the wheel - several of them had now pulled abreast of the vehicle and were firing at will.
"Aw, fuck this!" said Raziel. She laid down her gun, went to winged Form, and flew a bit ahead of the bus, where she waited for the first unlucky pair of bug riders with her sword out. She made short work of the cyclists, and then, as an encore, grabbed the handlebars of their vehicle.
I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule the stage!
I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule the stage!
Don't try an upstage me boy
I set the critics after you
"Hey, Sariel! Lookit me!"
Sariel quit firing off three weapons simultaneously at approaching bug soldiers to look down at the calling voice. "Raziel, what the FUCK do you think you're doing?" he shouted down to the angel turned motorcycle mama.
"Having fun!" she called, whacking a bug soldier with a cool backhand of her sword.
"You're not supposed to be having fun!"
"Why the fuck not?"
"Because...." But Charles was unable to come up with a good reason.
Suddenly, he leapt from the bus.
"Whoa!" laughed Raziel as he landed behind her.
"What are you waiting for? I want a fucking motorcycle too!"
Raziel, who rode a motorcycle much the way she drove a car, with minimal employ of any braking system, suddenly lurched alongside some cycle-mounted bug warriors.
"There you go!" she shouted back. Charles frowned and jumped to the other cycle, knocking over the shrouded passenger as he did. The driver, alas, proved more resistant, and the cycle ended up in a full lurching reverse before Charles had finally wrested the driver from his perch and turned him back to bedbugs with a quick flash of machete.
Unfortunately, he ended up a good mile in back of everyone, and stalled.
It was at this point that he remembered, in two thousand years, he had never actually learned to ride a motorcycle.
He experimented with kicking various pedals and cursing creatively, his usual modus operandi when confronted with recalcitrant machinery. He remembered, too, to curse Raziel, as his predicament was certainly all her fault.
And then, for some reason, he looked up.
A lucky kick start got the engine fired, and then the cycle lurched forward, just missing a striking fang. He ground the engine into some kind of gear, and made for the school bus, now retreating up ahead, and barely more than a strike’s length ahead of the mammoth snake.
Snake Mountain blues
My akvavit is gettin' low
I could mix more cocktails
But no one would know!
"Gods damn it, Raziel!"
"Hey, I didn't know you knew how to drive a motorcycle!"
"I don't! Why didn't you FUCKING remind me? I nearly got eaten by the snake."
"What snake?"
"THAT snake!"
"What snake?"
"THAT....".
He jerked his head back.
The snake had halted.
"Oh, FUCK!" He gunned the motor, or did what he thought would gun the motor, and ended up slowing down and nearly stalling again. He managed to wrest the machine back into a friendlier gear, and soon came up abreast of the bus.
There's a little red asp
Playing in the Outback
A little red asp
Acting like an asshole
He ate some Koori and my Uncle Brad
And he slithered along and I said I'm glad
I'm gonna kick your asp all over the desert
Hiss hiss hiss!
"Gods dammit, slow down, William!" Charles screamed.
"What?" screamed the driver.
"WE LOST THE SNAKE!"
The school bus, with more braking power than Charles ever would have imagined for such an ancient vehicle, suddenly slammed to a halt.
Charles overshot by almost half a mile before he was able to locate his own braking device, turn around and come back, knocking over one of the few of Seth's soldiers who remained in pursuit with a well-placed kick.
The bassist had climbed out of the bus and stood conferring with Raziel.
"I don't know why my tempting blues classics aren't working!" Orula complained from up above. Charles noticed with some relief that Pickles and Skwisgaar still appeared to be clinging on for dear life up on the roof. "Everyone is so critical nowadays!"
"I ams not t'inking dat last one's was da blues," Skwisgaar muttered to Pickles.
"Yeh, but it wuz pretty brutal, wut wit' eatin' Koori an' Uncle Brad," Pickles allowed.
"If he won't come to usch," Murderface was grumbling, "then maybe we schould pay him a vischit." He hopped back inside the bus and gunned the engine.
"Wait! William! No!" Charles shouted.
But the bassist had already turned the bus around in a hail of dust and pointed it directly back at the snake.
"You bitches better jump NOW because we ain't stopping!" Murderface shouted to Raziel and Charles.
The Koori remaining inside the bus disappeared.
The bus lurched ahead.
Orula took his curtain call and vanished.
The bus hurtled towards the snake, which now appeared to be rearing up in anticipation.
Raziel appeared, wings out, over Pickles. She tackled the drummer, and they were gone.
The snake raised its great body to strike.
Charles jumped atop the bus, grabbed Skwisgaar by the Gibson, and pulled him away.
Murderface and Dick Knubbler joined hands and roared with laughter.
And then bus and snake were united a ball of flame in the middle of the desert.
Charles sat holding Skwisgaar for a moment. And then he sat up, looking into the guitarist's eyes. "All right?" Skwisgaar nodded. The Swede’s eyes were starting to turn black from his broken nose, but otherwise he seemed fine.
"That was awesome!" laughed Raziel, pulling Charles to his feet. He saw that Pickles was there, back at the compound, still clutching his improvised drumsticks, and getting friendly slaps on the back from Nathan.
Chango had his arm hooked around Orula, who was evidently telling tall stories about his performance.
Wotan was there. "William?" he asked, a large hand on Charles' shoulder. "Knubbler?"
Charles shook his head. Wotan pointed.
There was a fireball, off in the distance.
"Fuck," said Charles softly.
"They crashed the whole fucking bus into the thing," Raziel said. "You think that will be enough?"
"Frankly," said Wotan. "No."
There was a puff of smoke, and then a winged figure was rolling on the floor. His wings were aflame.
Raziel threw her Toki shawl over the burning figure, and Pickles then did the same, and they managed to extinguish the fire. And then under the careful eye of all, Raziel unwrapped everything and peered underneath.
It was a pair of badly singed white wings. Raziel carefully drew one large wing back to reveal a choking, sputtering William Murderface wrapped tightly inside.
"Bro," said a shaky Murderface, as they helped him out.
Dick Knubbler, in his Samael Form, was underneath. Murderface crouched by his side. "Dick! Dick!"
Samael's sightless eyes blinked open.
"Are you OK, Dick?" asked Raziel.
Knubbler choked. And then said weakly, "Baby, I haven't had this much fun since the Renaissance!"
"You're not gonna fly for a while, dude," Raziel told him. "We'll have Ganesh take a look at your feathers when he gets back."
Charles merely looked pained. He climbed up to look out from the top of the wall.
"Did we get the baschtard?" Murderface asked as everyone helped Dick Knubbler to his feet and Orula offered him a spot of akvavit.
"It's back," called Charles from up on the wall. "And, uh, now it's mad."
Raziel was beside him. And Wotan. It was visible in the distance, coming from the area of the fireball.
All the troops who were left standing had now retreated to inside the walls.
The giant serpent writhed out of the desert and made straight for the compound. It did not pause for even Seth's bug warriors, as it slithered straight through the shrouded soldiers, until it was up to the gate.
Weapons fired, and magic users threw spells. But nothing seemed to even impact the beast.
It reared, its giant head coming down right square on the gate.
There was a crack.
Wotan mounted and awaited in the courtyard. Raziel stood beside him, sword at the ready.
They exchanged a worried glance.
Once again, the snake struck the gate. Despite layers of corrugated metal and protection charms, it buckled.
Then, thunder crashed overhead.
All looked up. For once, it was not Chango's lightning.
Lord Shiva, astride his great bull, roared across the sky.
Ahead of the god flew eight white hunting tigers, each big and strong as a rhino, each on a golden lead.
Ganesh appeared too, riding some paces behind, straining to keep up with his father.
Shiva cried out, and the tigers released. They charged ahead, swiftly surrounding the now confused adder. It struck out, lightning fast, but failed to grab the clever felines. Under Shiva's whistles and calls, they teased and provoked it, skillfully driving it some distance away from the gate, finally backing it up against the hillside. The snake slithered and snapped, and finally reared back, its mouth open wide.
That was when Gungnir found it. Wotan’s great spear impaled the beast through its mouth, and it fell back, twisting and coiling, now pinned to the hillside. Shiva gave a cry and spurred on his bull, sword at the ready. He reached the place where the snake was pinned down. He jumped from his bull and raised his blade.
There was a huge crack, like a gunshot.
“He’s breaking Gungnir!” Wotan said. “SHIVA!” Charles and Raziel were already flying towards the snake.
Ganesh screamed “FATHER!” just as the adder wrested free of the broken spear and lunged for Shiva. The blue god managed to leap aside, but the monster’s fang grazed him, taking him down. It raised its head to strike again, but Ganesh, now standing over his fallen father, waved his arms, blowing the scales off the wounded snake just below its jaw. Raziel was on its head, driving a sword into one eye. The beast reeled. And then Charles was there, running up the body, driving his machetes into the soft flesh where Ganesh had blown off the magicked scales. The blades found blood. The snake's entire body went into a spasm, and Charles jumped away just before it fell with a thunderous slap, its jaws still quivering.
And then it wasn't a giant snake at all, but a writhing mass of tangled, dying snakes. They snapped. And wriggled.
“Is he still breathing?” Charles asked, carefully picking his way to where Ganesh was huddled over Shiva, being careful to avoid the still poisonous jaws. He noticed he was covered in snake blood.
“He’s alive,” Ganesh said quietly as he carefully wrapped his father in his jacket. “I have antivenin in my bag, but….” His voice caught. He left the rest unsaid. Raziel alit and carefully tucked the god in her somewhat burnt shawl.
“Here,” said Wotan extending his arms. They turned, having not heard the god come up behind them. Ganesh carefully placed his father in the god’s large arms.
“Ganesh, you round up those cats. Sariel, bring the mounts. Let’s move.” He hoisted Shiva like the god was nothing and turned to carry him back to the compound, Raziel hurrying along with them on her short legs. “That slimy bastard broke my damn spear!” Wotan cursed.
“Bastard,” whispered Shiva.
Ganesh gave some kind of tiger whistle. Charles approached Shiva’s massive bull with some trepidation, but the beast proved tame. He paused to hand Ganesh the reins of his horse. "Go ahead and ride Nandi back. He's a magnificent mount," Ganesh told him with a slight smile.
Charles frowned. Well, that way would be faster than leading it he supposed. "Uh. You promise not to kill me?" he asked it. The beast appeared placid, so he carefully stepped into the saddle the same as one would a horse. He briefly wondered whether he should have Court Formed, but hadn’t time to think, as he was quite suddenly thundering through the air, wings trailing, holding on for dear life to a bull as big as a freight train.
Nandi didn’t wait for the gate to be opened, but instead sailed right over and, to Charles’s further surprise, stopped on a dime.
He slid down, and stood for a time trying to catch his breath. He jumped at the wet, warm feeling on his neck. He turned to see the thing had been nuzzling him. It was batting its lovely eyes at him, gentle as a lamb.
“Nandi appears to have taken to you,” Ganesh laughed softly. He pushed his hair out of his face, and it fell back again.
“You got burned!” Charles suddenly exclaimed, seeing the red mark on Ganesh’s cheek.
“Just a bit. On the way out. The tigers and Nandi rather took care of everything on the way back.”
“You need to put something on these!” Charles declared, suddenly seeing more burns on the god’s body.
“I’m fine,” Ganesh protested mildly, holding out a rather torn shirtsleeve. “Though I am afraid Toki’s lovely shawl took a bit of damage. I thought to see if perhaps my mother could effect repairs.”
“Ganesh. We are going to get your medical shit, and then we are going to put some of that smelly goo on these.”
“Pity with your bedside manner you didn’t choose a career in medicine,” Ganesh smiled.
Charles grabbed the oddly detatched god by an arm and half dragged him over to the medical kit, where, under Ganesh's patient instruction, Charles poured vinegar over his jellyfish wounds, and then carefully plucked out any of the stingers that had wormed their way into his skin. He remembered the wounded Koori howling in pain as Ganesh – who was admittedly a lot more skilled doctor than he - had done this to him, and worried about Ganesh’s lack of reaction.
"Sariel? A word?" It was Wotan. Charles noticed that as he stood up, Orula immediately took his place, offering Ganesh a shot of his seemingly inexhaustible bottle of akvavit.
"How is Shiva?" Charles whispered.
Wotan merely shook his head. "We'll need to get him out of here soon as possible."
"I'm worried about Ganesh."
"Shell shock. We'll keep him busy. He's our only doctor, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Now, you need to make sure your boys are ready for the big showdown."
Charles nodded and went to check up on Dethklok. Or rather Lovely Science Ninja Team Dethklok, or whatever the fuck Kitsune had dubbed them. As it turned out, Raziel was already there acting officious, as well as sharing akvavit shots with a now slightly sloppy Chango.
Charles stood back and watched. Actually, both Raziel and Chango appeared quite frankly drunk. He was taken aback. He had known Raziel since the beginning of time, and yet he had rarely seen the little angel drink in amounts that would affect her.
He turned his attentions to his band. Nathan, bless him, looked fine. Murderface appeared well too, though now that Charles looked, his moustache definitely had gotten a bit singed. Pickles, by contrast, looked miserable, huddled up under one of those ridiculous shawls.
Speaking of which, Toki at this moment appeared to be presenting yet another one of his knit masterpieces to Skwisgaar. The guitarist squinted suspiciously through two black eyes. He grabbed the shawl with a somewhat ungracious, Pfft, but then shrugged out of the strap of his precious Gibson and very carefully folded it inside the wrap and set it aside.
“Charle!” said Toki perkily.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, suddenly self-conscious. “Are we all ready?” he asked lamely.
“All present and accounted for,” Raziel announced.
“Well, it is only FIVE OF US,” Nathan noted.
“We even have an inspiring theme song!” Chango declared, waving a bottle.
“We do?”
“Oh, yeah, I wrote it last night,” Nathan agreed.
Maggots crawl
Feeding on eyeballs
The stench of death
In corpse-strewn alleyways
Filled with pus
And desecration-
“Well, that is, ah, catchy and inspiring,” Charles interrupted.
“I call it, ‘Death Metal Rangers BY THE LAKESIDE!’” said Nathan.
“Uh-huh. Well, we think you guys will be needed pretty soon.”
But suddenly everyone was silent.
It was such a small sound: a squeak. Being carried by the wind.
Charles and Raziel were already up on top of the wall.
A small figure, visible in the distance.
A man. Pushing an old fashioned baby carriage.
“I’m worried, Raziel,” Charles whispered. “We thought we were gonna wound her first. But I’m afraid the magic is gonna be too strong for my cutting powers.”
“I guess we’ll have to see if your scientists know what they’re doing.”
“Oh, don’t say that Raziel.”
Charles leapt off the wall. “Guys. You need to do whatever the fuck it is you do. NOW.”
Chango first fired up a boom box with a bit of lightning so as to play Nathan’s cheery new demo.
Nations tremble and die
To the sound of burst eardrums
Blood and spinal fluid
Leaking from doorways
And you my love
What was your name again?
“Pretty touching!” Raziel commented.
“Yeah, a death metal love song is always a risk,” Charles sighed as he watched the band disappear into separate mechas, which begin to combine into one giant robot. They looked back across the wasteland.
Seth had disappeared.
Charles looked down in surprise. Raziel had grabbed his arm. For once, she wasn’t dragging him off shopping. She seemed genuinely frightened.
He glared.
It hadn’t been there. And then it was.
He wasn’t even quite sure what to call it. It looked so big. And somehow, you sensed, you were only seeing a small fraction of whatever it was.
Ganesh had come up beside them. He was staring up at something. “The aura,” he said. “I have never seen the like. It goes up forever.”
They all winced at the tremendous thump. The giant mecha was complete.
Now a tiny ant by comparison, Chango appeared to be concentrating mightily at the base. The robot held itsgiant taser up high.
Suddenly, lightning crashed seemingly from all directions at once. The air fizzled with ozone smell. The great electrical weapon glowed with the light of a thousand suns.
“OK,” Charles said softly. “Go get ‘em.”
The robot clanked and thumped, walking purposefully towards the creeping horror awaiting on the wasteland.
It seemed tiny to Charles. Like a toy robot. A tiny wind up toy. Oh, for fuck's sake, what had they been thinking? They had no chance against that thing. He opened his mouth, to scream, to call them back, but found Raziel now had both hands clamped to his arm.
"Let them go. Let them try," she whispered.
The robot drew its weapon.
And then there was the light, like nothing seen on earth before or since, a pure white light of all the lightning in the sky, scorching the Dreamtime wasteland, and then arcing into the horror.
And then it was over, and it was darker than it had ever been before. Several pairs of immortal eyes blinked, watching.
Silence.
It came without warning. A single bolt, arcing out from the beast.
It hit the mecha smack in the middle of its chest plate.
The mecha fell with a tremendous crash, immediately splitting into the component vehicles, which sat, burnt out and ruined, on the desert floor.
"Get them!" Charles screamed. But his words were caught by the wind. It was like a hurricane, suddenly blowing across the wasteland.
Raziel was in winged Form, trying to get out to the stranded team, but found herself buffeted back by the wind. "Holy fuck!" she said as Ganesh caught her.
Charles leapt from the wall and tore off across the compound. "Come on," he urged, jumping on Nandi's back. "We need a goddam freight train." The great bull was in the air almost before he had the reins. It seemed absolutely unhindered by the windstorm, and placidly flew out to retrieve the musicians now huddled on the desert floor.
"THAT THING IS SO METAL!" Nathan thundered when they had returned to the compound. Nathan Explosion was probably one of the few persons on earth capable of being heard over the now gale force winds.
"Sariel. Maybe you should get Nandi and take your boys out of here," Wotan shouted in his ear. Charles turned.
The thing. It was the eye of the hurricane now.
Ganesh, patting Nandi’s muzzle, nodded sadly. Ganesh looked completely burnt out, Charles thought. Worse than when he’d run out of magic.
“Raziel. The battery thing!” Charles told her.
“What about it?" she shouted. He had to read her lips. The words were being torn away. "You wanna boost?”
“No. What do you think would happen if you did it right over the power spot?”
“I dunno. But it would probably be pretty cool!”
“She is not doing it,” Wotan declared.
“What? Why not? It’ll be awesome!” Raziel declared.
“Because it’s too fucking dangerous, and I’ve already seen somebody fall today.”
“Sweetie, quit worrying, I’ll be fine!”
“You have no idea about that!”
“Wotan,” Charles said, as quietly as he could in the din. “What’s our other option?"
Wotan looked pained.
The little angel, who was having a terrible time keeping her footing in the wind, leaned against Wotan as he led her to the sacred spot. It was covered up by what looked like an old crate. A Koori removed the box from her.
It was a rusting, leaky faucet.
Charles felt a hand on his arm. "Dis is da sacred magical place we bin riskin' our asses fer?" Pickles shouted in his ear.
Charles shrugged. "Australia," he shouted back.
“All right, you need to clear out!” Raziel mouthed to Wotan as she grasped the faucet to keep herself from blowing away. She brought put her biggest, heaviest broadsword, which somewhat helped the situation.
The king reluctantly stepped back, and, taking a moment to spit on her hands, Raziel grasped her sword by the worn hilt. Then with a mighty heave, she thrust it into the ground near the faucet with all her strength. The power was amazing. Standing several meters away, and in the high wind, Charles felt every hair on his body stand on end. He grasped out blindly next to him and found Ganesh’s hand, which he clasped as tightly as he could. He felt he could no longer breathe. The power, like an electrical current, seemed to radiate through the entire compound. He saw Ganesh bending his head back. "Raziel's aura?" he shouted.
"EVERYONE'S aura!" Ganesh shouted in disbelief.
And then it simply stopped.
Raziel looked around, and then pulled the sword out of the ground. She lurched, buffeted by the wind again. “Nothing happens? That’s SO LAME,” Raziel grumbled. Her hair was still standing on end.
But suddenly, standing by the faucet there appeared a very strange being. It looked something like an alligator that somebody (probably Toki) had painted hot pink. It glanced around and then, apparently unfazed by the high winds, ran towards the gate. It was carrying a small item, like a briefcase.
“What the fuck was that thing?” Charles asked.
"That's a bunyip, O excellent brother Charles,” the Koori told him.
"What the FUCK is a bunyip?" asked Charles.
The pink beast went boldly marching out the gate and right up to the atrocity, which now hovered just outside, tentacles swaying in the great wind.
“What are you doing in my billabong, mate?” asked the bunyip. Its voice was not loud, but somehow, it could be heard over the terrible din.
“It’s gonna be an ex-bunyip soon!” Raziel shouted.
The Ancient one rolled out a tentacle and grasped the bunyip, like it wanted to tear it apart.
But the odd pink creature was somewhere else.
“Get outta my billabong, ya beastie!” raved the pink bunyip, giving the Ancient a tiny kick for emphasis.
Confused, the Ancient horror grasped out again.
The bunyip appeared at yet another place.
“I ain’t warnin’ you again! Scoot!”
The Ancient horror struck.
There was no more sign of the bunyip.
“Look,” said Ganesh. Charles couldn’t hear, but saw his lips move, and the finger pointing. There was water coming out of the faucet, lots of it. And then more and more. And then the pipe flew up and a geyser of water started to rush out of the hole.
And then the hole started to collapse, and the pit immediately filled with water. Everybody drew back.
“HIGH GROUND!” Wotan shouted. “EVERYBODY! High ground!” He pointed up to the back of the compound.
Various parties began to disappear as they Walked to the top of the sheer outcropping that abutted the back of the compound.
Ganesh was off like a shot, and returned, cradling his injured father, mounting Nandi with him. Shiva looked terribly small. Charles variously herded and threw various band members atop the bull as well.
“Raziel, are you getting on?” Charles screamed as the little angel stood in the middle of the compound, buffeted by the wind.
Just then, Wotan, astride his black horse, came galloping across the camp, and, without breaking stride, scooped up Raziel to sit behind him. He then proceeded to ride straight up the nearly vertical rock formation to the top.
“That guy is such a fucking show off!” Charles laughed, just as Ganesh grabbed him by the belt and threw him on Nandi, and the stately bull proceeded to fly everyone up to the top of the rocks.
The winds somewhat abated on the top, so it was possible to speak again. Charles did a frantic headcount to make sure everyone was accounted for, and then crouched at cliff side, next to Raziel. She pointed.
Water had completely flooded the compound by now. The Ancient approached, curious.
It stuck a tentacle into the floodwater.
And screamed.
Charles crouched down and covered his ears. I was terrible.
The thing jerked back from the water. Steam actually rose from its injured tentacle. The water had scalded it.
"Hey, is that thing miked?" Nathan Explosion was asking. "That was an AWESOME METAL SCREAM!"
"I don't think so...." But Charles was suddenly distracted by the sight of Dick Knubbler being held over the edge of the outcropping by Murderface.
He held a microphone.
"Whatever we pay that guy," mused Charles, "It ain't enough.”
And there were more screams. The Ancient thing reared back from the water, but it was being quickly surrounded by the flood, which showed no signs of abating.
With the wind still kicking, the water was roiling into a sort of tide, which actually splashed as high as the rock formation.
“This is seawater!” said Wotan, taking a taste. “But we’re nowhere near a sea!”
The Ancient was partly submerged. It must have seen the outcropping. Now howling in pain, it rushed for the rocks, where it extended tentacles up the side and tried to haul the rest of its horrid body upwards. The outcropping shook from the weight, as if rattled by an earthquake.
“GODS DAMN IT!” Charles shouted. “You are not getting up here, you fucker! Ganesh, hit it so I can slice its fucking tentacles off.”
Ganesh tried throwing a destructive blow at the nearest tentacle. Charles sliced at it, and succeeded in severing it, much to the apparent distress of the beast.
Orula stumbled forward to the edge of the cliff. He took a very, very big gulp of his akvavit, and then he sang:
I’d like to be
An inland sea
In an octopus’s gravesite, with you
We’ll drag him down
Below the ground
And let him boil away like some goo
I’ll ask my friends to sing with me
To put away this tentacled beast
I’d like to see
Eternity
In an octopus’s gravesite with you.
We send him down to Davy Jones
And I ain’t talkin’ bout the Monkee
Resting his head, if that’s a head
On some comfy rocks below the sea
We would sing and dance around
Because this fucker’s in the ground.
I’d like to see an inland sea
Fry this guy to calamari
“SOLO!” screamed Orula. Skwisgaar had already plugged into his amp. The Swede played as if his life depended on it, somehow making Orula’s ridiculous music hall tune into something grandly brutal.
And then they were all covered in water. Between Charles and Ganesh cutting off tentacles, Orula’s distracting song, and a cephalopod-killing guitar solo, the beast had finally lost its grip on the slippery rocks, and plunged into the now quite deep water below, creating a quite spectacular cannonball effect, splashing salt water everywhere.
It emitted one last ear-splitting scream.
“DAAAAAAAAA-DEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
And then it shuddered, and disappeared below the waves.
There was a sudden puff of green mist, and then the wind died down, and there was no sound, but the lapping surf.
Orula happily high-fived Skwisgaar, somehow finally managing to lose his balance. Chango was there, offering them both akvavit.
Ganesh hurried to check on Shiva.
"Wait? This is now a beach?" Raziel asked Charles, who shrugged.
Raziel turned. Several of the Koori Walkers had gathered around her.
"Yeah? What's up, Koori guys?"
“O Most Excellent Sister, Raziel,” said the Koori, bowing down.
“Uh. You guys are fine. You don’t gotta do that,” Raziel said as she stood, but Wotan, now standing beside her, whacked her in the arm.
“You have brought the surf to us," said the Koori.
"She is excellent."
"And bodacious."
"As well as an angel babe."
“Sure. I mean. Any time.” Wotan scowled at her, so she continued. “Uh, I mean. Most Excellent Koori Brothers. I hope you will … live in peace. And … prosperity. And, uh … shred most bodaciously?”
At the last bit, the Koori suddenly jumpted to their feet as one, and great cheer erupted.
“SURFS UP IN DREAMTIME, DUDES! KAWABUNGA!"
Wotan put an arm around Raziel as the Dream Walkers scattered to their surfboards. “Damn, I hate making fucking speeches,” Raziel groused.
Charles, still crouched at the cliff, which was now a rocky beach, chuckled.
"Charles, where's my feckin' brudder? WHERE'S SET'?"
"I dunno, Pickles," said Charles, turning to the drummer. "I'm sorry," he finished lamely.
Ganesh was now standing by silently too. "My father....." he said. "I need to...." He gestured.
"Yeah. I'll go with you," Charles told him. "Pickles. I gotta go. Raziel and Wotan will get you guys back. We'll talk later. In Sydney." And he was already running towards Ganesh and Nandi.
"Yeh," said Pickles. He turned to the faint sound of screaming. Murderface and Dick Knubbler were playing back the beast's screams to Nathan, who appeared to be taking notes for a new song. Farther away, some Koori had loaned Toki a surfboard, and he was now trying to learn to shred.
Skwisgaar was sitting alone on some rocks, picking out a tune on his Gibson, which seemed to have come through intact. Well, more intact than the guitarist, anyhow. Pickles went to sit beside him.
"I t'ink I bwokes by doses," Skwisgaar told him through two quite black eyes.
"Yeh, I t'ink yoo did, dood."
"Chango says he abs fixes it, but I t'inks I abs waits for Gadesh."
"Dat's prolly a good idear," Pickles agreed, watching Chango giggling and rolling on the dusty ground.
"You abs worried about your brudders?"
"Yeh," said Pickles.
"I'b sorries."
Pickles stared. It wasn't like Skwisgaar to be sort of cool. Maybe Orula's punch had caused brain damage?
"You abs wants to listen to by new songs? I abs collaborates wit' Orula."
"Yeh, dood, wut's da song?"
"Surf abs up, IN HELL!" Skwisgaar told him, beginning to pick out a somewhat metal, somewhat surftastic riff. And Pickles sat there for a while, listening to the Dreamtime surf roil on the rocks.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Seth’s icky soldiers vs. the good guys in post-apocalyptic Australia
Warnings: Slash, AU, OCs, swearing, bunyips. Remember what I said about arachnophobes last time? Same for non-lovers of snakes here.
Notes: Notes after the jump. Part 4 of The Land of Oz: there's gonna be one more part after this, just FYI.
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: the guys helped out the Koori warriors in their last stand against Seth. Who, guess what, doesn't fight fair! What a douche.
And a couple extra notes before we go this time. First,
senoritafish sent me a link to this amazingly appropriate artwork. (In case you guys were wondering, I like squid art even if it has nothing to do with my crazy stories.) OK, and then, as you may have noticed, I seem to make Charles a comically bad driver. There's NO CANON for this, in fact, on the contrary, he's an epic pilot of those flying thingamajigs. I wondered where the heck this came from, when eppieblack was kind enough to send me this link to some Brian Epstein driving stories. I suspect more than a little inspiration for the original Charles was the Beatles' epic awesome manager, and I know I love the heck outta Eppie. So, there's that."No talking, no schoving!" boomed Murderface, who sat contentedly behind the wheel of the ancient school bus.
Some bemused Koori entered and filed cooperatively into the back, being careful to tuck their weapons away out of sight.
From her perch up atop the vehicle, Raziel said, "This will be awesome! I wish I'd packed my leather outfit!"
"Yeah, I hate being underdressed," Charles grumbled.
"Have you finally adopted my attitude towards high fashion? Because you couldn't possibly be snarky about a matter of this high import!"
Charles, who was caught up in cleaning a dizzying array of weaponry, merely glowered. “Did you at least pack a gun?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, they gave me one of your little human weapon thingies," Raziel babbled, bringing out a rifle that looked bigger than she.
"Are you sure you're gonna be OK for this?" Charles asked, much more quietly.
"We know it likes drummin'," Pickles told Charles as he clambered up beside him.
"I could...."
"Don't even. Yer drummin' is worse den yer guitar playin'." Charles’ glower deepened as Raziel snickered. "Besides, I'd radder take my chances out dere wit' da snake dan in here wit' more spiders." He shuddered and pulled Toki’s red shawl tighter around himself.
"All right ladies and gentlemen, are we ready to get this show on the road?" inquired Orula, who climbed up on top of the bus, only to nearly topple head first back down to the ground.
"Ah, Orula, you sure you feel up to this?" Charles asked him as he tried with limited success to steady the Ifa.
"No one does snake charming like a Footlights veteran!" declared the sloppy god, waving his inexhaustible bottle ofakvavit.
Charles shrugged. "I'm, uh, sure Ganesh would agree with that one."
"Ganesh!" Orula enthused, taking a rather enthusiastic gulp from his bottle. "Capital fellow! Pity about that Oxford business!"
"Hey! Blondie!" said Raziel, helping a sneering Skwisgaar mount the bus as well.
"Skwisgaar?" asked Charles.
"Pickle ams needs someones to accompa-knees hims," the guitarist muttered sullenly, nervously fingering his Gibson.
"Splendid!" declared Orula. "My dear musician friends, today, in honor of our audience, we are to be PREACHING THE BLUES!"
"Blues ams dildos," Skwisgaar grumbled. Suddenly, the guitarist was laid out flat on the top of the bus, clutching his face.
"Orula!" shouted Charles in warning. He was immediately down at Skwisgaar's side, holding up an arm.
"He ams bwoked by dose," the guitarist wailed.
"I AM ORULA. I AM SONG," declared the god. He was trembling. And so was the bus. And the landscape nearby.
"Hey, Orula, could I get a shot of that akvavit?" asked Raziel.
"Yeh, dood, Ah'm parched," agreed Pickles.
"Why, certainly, have a spot!" Orula told them courteously, all the wrath suddenly drained from him as he poured shots.
"Skwisgaar," Charles whispered while Orula was distracted. "Music gods. They can be touchy."
"Hims ams scarier than my dads," Skwisgaar told Charles as he was helped to his feet. "I ams hopes he ams nots warpsed my Gibson," he fussed, thoughts of his nose suddenly dismissed as he sighted down his guitar's neck.
"Get in, schit down, schut up and hang on!" came a cry from down below as the bus lurched unexpectedly into gear and several feet backwards. Charles dragged Skwisgaar into his makeshift crow's nest, which looked to be fashioned from an old metal barrel, and Raziel tossed Pickles, akvavit and all, into the old fashioned bathtub that was her station, and also appeared hastily welded to the top of the bus. Chango reeled, but somehow kept his footing, and did not spill a drop of his drink.
There was a flash of lightning, and Skwisgaar's amp crackled to life. "Thanks, Chango," Charles yelled down to the saluting god. "Hold this," he told Skwisgaar, handing the surprised guitarist a large rifle. He popped open a porthole on the top of the bus and jumped down inside. "William!" he shouted.
"Yeah, bro?"
"After we break through, keep it slow! Remember, we're trying to lead them away, not outrun them. But, uh, don't be too obvious. Only look like you're trying to outrun ‘em!"
"What the fuck is he talking about?" Murderface asked gleefully.
"Drive casual baby, yeah!" advised Dick Knubbler, who was happily sitting beside him.
"Uh, yeah," agreed Charles. He looked up and down the benches, to the white painted Koori, all surreptitiously cleaning and checking weaponry. For the thousandth time, he tried not to think about Ganesh and the Koori with the horrible jellyfish stinger burns, and then scrambled back up the porthole.
The bus had backed away from the wall, as if it were opening the gate. Personnel stood to the side, ready to assemble pieces of the temporary gate Phanuel's engineers had somehow cobbled together. In order for the plan to work, they would have to get by Seth's troops massed outside the door.
Wotan also awaited near the gate. It was strange to see him mounted on a horse that was not his faithful Sleipnir. His mount, a black stallion, actually looked to be half demon. Steam rose from its nostrils as it snorted. A few Koori were mounted behind him, mostly sitting two to a horse.
Wotan signaled that he was ready. From atop the bus, Raziel cheerily blew him a little angel kiss.
Wotan and his men charged through the opening in the gate, howling and firing off weapons and generally making a big commotion. Once the mounts were some yards from the compound, several of the double mounted Koori slipped from the saddles and positioned themselves where they could fire off weaponry and generally make a lot of noise and fuss.
Just as Seth's troops started to gather around them, Murderface ground the bus into first gear and lurched out as well, hurtling off in the opposite direction. The gate was immediately patched together behind them. It took some moments of running around and confusion, but after a delay, Seth's soldiers began to fire in their direction.
Ignoring the crossfire, Orula lurched to the back of the bus and began to sing. Pickles picked up the rhythm immediately.
I - I ran outta liqueur now
I - I ran outta liqueur now
They told me late last night, "Can't get to the liquor store no how."
Mmm, mmm, big poison crawlin' snake
Mmm, mmm, big ass poison crawlin' snake
Someone better come hit that big bitch wit' a rake.
Ignoring his throbbing nose, Skwisgaar started noodling with a guitar part.
For its part, the giant snake, which had recovered from its great fall with apparently no injuries, appeared to be attracted by the song. It spat out the Koori it was chewing on and started to undulate after the bus.
"It ams following us!" Skwisgaar shouted. Charles looked up. He had been too busy to notice. Some of Seth's shrouded bug warriors had hopped onto motorcycles – where the hell had they found motorcycles in this gods forsaken part of the Dreamtime? - and were in pursuit as well. Since they were capable of much faster acceleration than the ancient school bus - even with William Murderface behind the wheel - several of them had now pulled abreast of the vehicle and were firing at will.
"Aw, fuck this!" said Raziel. She laid down her gun, went to winged Form, and flew a bit ahead of the bus, where she waited for the first unlucky pair of bug riders with her sword out. She made short work of the cyclists, and then, as an encore, grabbed the handlebars of their vehicle.
I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule the stage!
I'm the Crawlin' King Snake
And I rule the stage!
Don't try an upstage me boy
I set the critics after you
"Hey, Sariel! Lookit me!"
Sariel quit firing off three weapons simultaneously at approaching bug soldiers to look down at the calling voice. "Raziel, what the FUCK do you think you're doing?" he shouted down to the angel turned motorcycle mama.
"Having fun!" she called, whacking a bug soldier with a cool backhand of her sword.
"You're not supposed to be having fun!"
"Why the fuck not?"
"Because...." But Charles was unable to come up with a good reason.
Suddenly, he leapt from the bus.
"Whoa!" laughed Raziel as he landed behind her.
"What are you waiting for? I want a fucking motorcycle too!"
Raziel, who rode a motorcycle much the way she drove a car, with minimal employ of any braking system, suddenly lurched alongside some cycle-mounted bug warriors.
"There you go!" she shouted back. Charles frowned and jumped to the other cycle, knocking over the shrouded passenger as he did. The driver, alas, proved more resistant, and the cycle ended up in a full lurching reverse before Charles had finally wrested the driver from his perch and turned him back to bedbugs with a quick flash of machete.
Unfortunately, he ended up a good mile in back of everyone, and stalled.
It was at this point that he remembered, in two thousand years, he had never actually learned to ride a motorcycle.
He experimented with kicking various pedals and cursing creatively, his usual modus operandi when confronted with recalcitrant machinery. He remembered, too, to curse Raziel, as his predicament was certainly all her fault.
And then, for some reason, he looked up.
A lucky kick start got the engine fired, and then the cycle lurched forward, just missing a striking fang. He ground the engine into some kind of gear, and made for the school bus, now retreating up ahead, and barely more than a strike’s length ahead of the mammoth snake.
Snake Mountain blues
My akvavit is gettin' low
I could mix more cocktails
But no one would know!
"Gods damn it, Raziel!"
"Hey, I didn't know you knew how to drive a motorcycle!"
"I don't! Why didn't you FUCKING remind me? I nearly got eaten by the snake."
"What snake?"
"THAT snake!"
"What snake?"
"THAT....".
He jerked his head back.
The snake had halted.
"Oh, FUCK!" He gunned the motor, or did what he thought would gun the motor, and ended up slowing down and nearly stalling again. He managed to wrest the machine back into a friendlier gear, and soon came up abreast of the bus.
There's a little red asp
Playing in the Outback
A little red asp
Acting like an asshole
He ate some Koori and my Uncle Brad
And he slithered along and I said I'm glad
I'm gonna kick your asp all over the desert
Hiss hiss hiss!
"Gods dammit, slow down, William!" Charles screamed.
"What?" screamed the driver.
"WE LOST THE SNAKE!"
The school bus, with more braking power than Charles ever would have imagined for such an ancient vehicle, suddenly slammed to a halt.
Charles overshot by almost half a mile before he was able to locate his own braking device, turn around and come back, knocking over one of the few of Seth's soldiers who remained in pursuit with a well-placed kick.
The bassist had climbed out of the bus and stood conferring with Raziel.
"I don't know why my tempting blues classics aren't working!" Orula complained from up above. Charles noticed with some relief that Pickles and Skwisgaar still appeared to be clinging on for dear life up on the roof. "Everyone is so critical nowadays!"
"I ams not t'inking dat last one's was da blues," Skwisgaar muttered to Pickles.
"Yeh, but it wuz pretty brutal, wut wit' eatin' Koori an' Uncle Brad," Pickles allowed.
"If he won't come to usch," Murderface was grumbling, "then maybe we schould pay him a vischit." He hopped back inside the bus and gunned the engine.
"Wait! William! No!" Charles shouted.
But the bassist had already turned the bus around in a hail of dust and pointed it directly back at the snake.
"You bitches better jump NOW because we ain't stopping!" Murderface shouted to Raziel and Charles.
The Koori remaining inside the bus disappeared.
The bus lurched ahead.
Orula took his curtain call and vanished.
The bus hurtled towards the snake, which now appeared to be rearing up in anticipation.
Raziel appeared, wings out, over Pickles. She tackled the drummer, and they were gone.
The snake raised its great body to strike.
Charles jumped atop the bus, grabbed Skwisgaar by the Gibson, and pulled him away.
Murderface and Dick Knubbler joined hands and roared with laughter.
And then bus and snake were united a ball of flame in the middle of the desert.
Charles sat holding Skwisgaar for a moment. And then he sat up, looking into the guitarist's eyes. "All right?" Skwisgaar nodded. The Swede’s eyes were starting to turn black from his broken nose, but otherwise he seemed fine.
"That was awesome!" laughed Raziel, pulling Charles to his feet. He saw that Pickles was there, back at the compound, still clutching his improvised drumsticks, and getting friendly slaps on the back from Nathan.
Chango had his arm hooked around Orula, who was evidently telling tall stories about his performance.
Wotan was there. "William?" he asked, a large hand on Charles' shoulder. "Knubbler?"
Charles shook his head. Wotan pointed.
There was a fireball, off in the distance.
"Fuck," said Charles softly.
"They crashed the whole fucking bus into the thing," Raziel said. "You think that will be enough?"
"Frankly," said Wotan. "No."
There was a puff of smoke, and then a winged figure was rolling on the floor. His wings were aflame.
Raziel threw her Toki shawl over the burning figure, and Pickles then did the same, and they managed to extinguish the fire. And then under the careful eye of all, Raziel unwrapped everything and peered underneath.
It was a pair of badly singed white wings. Raziel carefully drew one large wing back to reveal a choking, sputtering William Murderface wrapped tightly inside.
"Bro," said a shaky Murderface, as they helped him out.
Dick Knubbler, in his Samael Form, was underneath. Murderface crouched by his side. "Dick! Dick!"
Samael's sightless eyes blinked open.
"Are you OK, Dick?" asked Raziel.
Knubbler choked. And then said weakly, "Baby, I haven't had this much fun since the Renaissance!"
"You're not gonna fly for a while, dude," Raziel told him. "We'll have Ganesh take a look at your feathers when he gets back."
Charles merely looked pained. He climbed up to look out from the top of the wall.
"Did we get the baschtard?" Murderface asked as everyone helped Dick Knubbler to his feet and Orula offered him a spot of akvavit.
"It's back," called Charles from up on the wall. "And, uh, now it's mad."
Raziel was beside him. And Wotan. It was visible in the distance, coming from the area of the fireball.
All the troops who were left standing had now retreated to inside the walls.
The giant serpent writhed out of the desert and made straight for the compound. It did not pause for even Seth's bug warriors, as it slithered straight through the shrouded soldiers, until it was up to the gate.
Weapons fired, and magic users threw spells. But nothing seemed to even impact the beast.
It reared, its giant head coming down right square on the gate.
There was a crack.
Wotan mounted and awaited in the courtyard. Raziel stood beside him, sword at the ready.
They exchanged a worried glance.
Once again, the snake struck the gate. Despite layers of corrugated metal and protection charms, it buckled.
Then, thunder crashed overhead.
All looked up. For once, it was not Chango's lightning.
Lord Shiva, astride his great bull, roared across the sky.
Ahead of the god flew eight white hunting tigers, each big and strong as a rhino, each on a golden lead.
Ganesh appeared too, riding some paces behind, straining to keep up with his father.
Shiva cried out, and the tigers released. They charged ahead, swiftly surrounding the now confused adder. It struck out, lightning fast, but failed to grab the clever felines. Under Shiva's whistles and calls, they teased and provoked it, skillfully driving it some distance away from the gate, finally backing it up against the hillside. The snake slithered and snapped, and finally reared back, its mouth open wide.
That was when Gungnir found it. Wotan’s great spear impaled the beast through its mouth, and it fell back, twisting and coiling, now pinned to the hillside. Shiva gave a cry and spurred on his bull, sword at the ready. He reached the place where the snake was pinned down. He jumped from his bull and raised his blade.
There was a huge crack, like a gunshot.
“He’s breaking Gungnir!” Wotan said. “SHIVA!” Charles and Raziel were already flying towards the snake.
Ganesh screamed “FATHER!” just as the adder wrested free of the broken spear and lunged for Shiva. The blue god managed to leap aside, but the monster’s fang grazed him, taking him down. It raised its head to strike again, but Ganesh, now standing over his fallen father, waved his arms, blowing the scales off the wounded snake just below its jaw. Raziel was on its head, driving a sword into one eye. The beast reeled. And then Charles was there, running up the body, driving his machetes into the soft flesh where Ganesh had blown off the magicked scales. The blades found blood. The snake's entire body went into a spasm, and Charles jumped away just before it fell with a thunderous slap, its jaws still quivering.
And then it wasn't a giant snake at all, but a writhing mass of tangled, dying snakes. They snapped. And wriggled.
“Is he still breathing?” Charles asked, carefully picking his way to where Ganesh was huddled over Shiva, being careful to avoid the still poisonous jaws. He noticed he was covered in snake blood.
“He’s alive,” Ganesh said quietly as he carefully wrapped his father in his jacket. “I have antivenin in my bag, but….” His voice caught. He left the rest unsaid. Raziel alit and carefully tucked the god in her somewhat burnt shawl.
“Here,” said Wotan extending his arms. They turned, having not heard the god come up behind them. Ganesh carefully placed his father in the god’s large arms.
“Ganesh, you round up those cats. Sariel, bring the mounts. Let’s move.” He hoisted Shiva like the god was nothing and turned to carry him back to the compound, Raziel hurrying along with them on her short legs. “That slimy bastard broke my damn spear!” Wotan cursed.
“Bastard,” whispered Shiva.
Ganesh gave some kind of tiger whistle. Charles approached Shiva’s massive bull with some trepidation, but the beast proved tame. He paused to hand Ganesh the reins of his horse. "Go ahead and ride Nandi back. He's a magnificent mount," Ganesh told him with a slight smile.
Charles frowned. Well, that way would be faster than leading it he supposed. "Uh. You promise not to kill me?" he asked it. The beast appeared placid, so he carefully stepped into the saddle the same as one would a horse. He briefly wondered whether he should have Court Formed, but hadn’t time to think, as he was quite suddenly thundering through the air, wings trailing, holding on for dear life to a bull as big as a freight train.
Nandi didn’t wait for the gate to be opened, but instead sailed right over and, to Charles’s further surprise, stopped on a dime.
He slid down, and stood for a time trying to catch his breath. He jumped at the wet, warm feeling on his neck. He turned to see the thing had been nuzzling him. It was batting its lovely eyes at him, gentle as a lamb.
“Nandi appears to have taken to you,” Ganesh laughed softly. He pushed his hair out of his face, and it fell back again.
“You got burned!” Charles suddenly exclaimed, seeing the red mark on Ganesh’s cheek.
“Just a bit. On the way out. The tigers and Nandi rather took care of everything on the way back.”
“You need to put something on these!” Charles declared, suddenly seeing more burns on the god’s body.
“I’m fine,” Ganesh protested mildly, holding out a rather torn shirtsleeve. “Though I am afraid Toki’s lovely shawl took a bit of damage. I thought to see if perhaps my mother could effect repairs.”
“Ganesh. We are going to get your medical shit, and then we are going to put some of that smelly goo on these.”
“Pity with your bedside manner you didn’t choose a career in medicine,” Ganesh smiled.
Charles grabbed the oddly detatched god by an arm and half dragged him over to the medical kit, where, under Ganesh's patient instruction, Charles poured vinegar over his jellyfish wounds, and then carefully plucked out any of the stingers that had wormed their way into his skin. He remembered the wounded Koori howling in pain as Ganesh – who was admittedly a lot more skilled doctor than he - had done this to him, and worried about Ganesh’s lack of reaction.
"Sariel? A word?" It was Wotan. Charles noticed that as he stood up, Orula immediately took his place, offering Ganesh a shot of his seemingly inexhaustible bottle of akvavit.
"How is Shiva?" Charles whispered.
Wotan merely shook his head. "We'll need to get him out of here soon as possible."
"I'm worried about Ganesh."
"Shell shock. We'll keep him busy. He's our only doctor, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Now, you need to make sure your boys are ready for the big showdown."
Charles nodded and went to check up on Dethklok. Or rather Lovely Science Ninja Team Dethklok, or whatever the fuck Kitsune had dubbed them. As it turned out, Raziel was already there acting officious, as well as sharing akvavit shots with a now slightly sloppy Chango.
Charles stood back and watched. Actually, both Raziel and Chango appeared quite frankly drunk. He was taken aback. He had known Raziel since the beginning of time, and yet he had rarely seen the little angel drink in amounts that would affect her.
He turned his attentions to his band. Nathan, bless him, looked fine. Murderface appeared well too, though now that Charles looked, his moustache definitely had gotten a bit singed. Pickles, by contrast, looked miserable, huddled up under one of those ridiculous shawls.
Speaking of which, Toki at this moment appeared to be presenting yet another one of his knit masterpieces to Skwisgaar. The guitarist squinted suspiciously through two black eyes. He grabbed the shawl with a somewhat ungracious, Pfft, but then shrugged out of the strap of his precious Gibson and very carefully folded it inside the wrap and set it aside.
“Charle!” said Toki perkily.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, suddenly self-conscious. “Are we all ready?” he asked lamely.
“All present and accounted for,” Raziel announced.
“Well, it is only FIVE OF US,” Nathan noted.
“We even have an inspiring theme song!” Chango declared, waving a bottle.
“We do?”
“Oh, yeah, I wrote it last night,” Nathan agreed.
Maggots crawl
Feeding on eyeballs
The stench of death
In corpse-strewn alleyways
Filled with pus
And desecration-
“Well, that is, ah, catchy and inspiring,” Charles interrupted.
“I call it, ‘Death Metal Rangers BY THE LAKESIDE!’” said Nathan.
“Uh-huh. Well, we think you guys will be needed pretty soon.”
But suddenly everyone was silent.
It was such a small sound: a squeak. Being carried by the wind.
Charles and Raziel were already up on top of the wall.
A small figure, visible in the distance.
A man. Pushing an old fashioned baby carriage.
“I’m worried, Raziel,” Charles whispered. “We thought we were gonna wound her first. But I’m afraid the magic is gonna be too strong for my cutting powers.”
“I guess we’ll have to see if your scientists know what they’re doing.”
“Oh, don’t say that Raziel.”
Charles leapt off the wall. “Guys. You need to do whatever the fuck it is you do. NOW.”
Chango first fired up a boom box with a bit of lightning so as to play Nathan’s cheery new demo.
Nations tremble and die
To the sound of burst eardrums
Blood and spinal fluid
Leaking from doorways
And you my love
What was your name again?
“Pretty touching!” Raziel commented.
“Yeah, a death metal love song is always a risk,” Charles sighed as he watched the band disappear into separate mechas, which begin to combine into one giant robot. They looked back across the wasteland.
Seth had disappeared.
Charles looked down in surprise. Raziel had grabbed his arm. For once, she wasn’t dragging him off shopping. She seemed genuinely frightened.
He glared.
It hadn’t been there. And then it was.
He wasn’t even quite sure what to call it. It looked so big. And somehow, you sensed, you were only seeing a small fraction of whatever it was.
Ganesh had come up beside them. He was staring up at something. “The aura,” he said. “I have never seen the like. It goes up forever.”
They all winced at the tremendous thump. The giant mecha was complete.
Now a tiny ant by comparison, Chango appeared to be concentrating mightily at the base. The robot held itsgiant taser up high.
Suddenly, lightning crashed seemingly from all directions at once. The air fizzled with ozone smell. The great electrical weapon glowed with the light of a thousand suns.
“OK,” Charles said softly. “Go get ‘em.”
The robot clanked and thumped, walking purposefully towards the creeping horror awaiting on the wasteland.
It seemed tiny to Charles. Like a toy robot. A tiny wind up toy. Oh, for fuck's sake, what had they been thinking? They had no chance against that thing. He opened his mouth, to scream, to call them back, but found Raziel now had both hands clamped to his arm.
"Let them go. Let them try," she whispered.
The robot drew its weapon.
And then there was the light, like nothing seen on earth before or since, a pure white light of all the lightning in the sky, scorching the Dreamtime wasteland, and then arcing into the horror.
And then it was over, and it was darker than it had ever been before. Several pairs of immortal eyes blinked, watching.
Silence.
It came without warning. A single bolt, arcing out from the beast.
It hit the mecha smack in the middle of its chest plate.
The mecha fell with a tremendous crash, immediately splitting into the component vehicles, which sat, burnt out and ruined, on the desert floor.
"Get them!" Charles screamed. But his words were caught by the wind. It was like a hurricane, suddenly blowing across the wasteland.
Raziel was in winged Form, trying to get out to the stranded team, but found herself buffeted back by the wind. "Holy fuck!" she said as Ganesh caught her.
Charles leapt from the wall and tore off across the compound. "Come on," he urged, jumping on Nandi's back. "We need a goddam freight train." The great bull was in the air almost before he had the reins. It seemed absolutely unhindered by the windstorm, and placidly flew out to retrieve the musicians now huddled on the desert floor.
"THAT THING IS SO METAL!" Nathan thundered when they had returned to the compound. Nathan Explosion was probably one of the few persons on earth capable of being heard over the now gale force winds.
"Sariel. Maybe you should get Nandi and take your boys out of here," Wotan shouted in his ear. Charles turned.
The thing. It was the eye of the hurricane now.
Ganesh, patting Nandi’s muzzle, nodded sadly. Ganesh looked completely burnt out, Charles thought. Worse than when he’d run out of magic.
“Raziel. The battery thing!” Charles told her.
“What about it?" she shouted. He had to read her lips. The words were being torn away. "You wanna boost?”
“No. What do you think would happen if you did it right over the power spot?”
“I dunno. But it would probably be pretty cool!”
“She is not doing it,” Wotan declared.
“What? Why not? It’ll be awesome!” Raziel declared.
“Because it’s too fucking dangerous, and I’ve already seen somebody fall today.”
“Sweetie, quit worrying, I’ll be fine!”
“You have no idea about that!”
“Wotan,” Charles said, as quietly as he could in the din. “What’s our other option?"
Wotan looked pained.
The little angel, who was having a terrible time keeping her footing in the wind, leaned against Wotan as he led her to the sacred spot. It was covered up by what looked like an old crate. A Koori removed the box from her.
It was a rusting, leaky faucet.
Charles felt a hand on his arm. "Dis is da sacred magical place we bin riskin' our asses fer?" Pickles shouted in his ear.
Charles shrugged. "Australia," he shouted back.
“All right, you need to clear out!” Raziel mouthed to Wotan as she grasped the faucet to keep herself from blowing away. She brought put her biggest, heaviest broadsword, which somewhat helped the situation.
The king reluctantly stepped back, and, taking a moment to spit on her hands, Raziel grasped her sword by the worn hilt. Then with a mighty heave, she thrust it into the ground near the faucet with all her strength. The power was amazing. Standing several meters away, and in the high wind, Charles felt every hair on his body stand on end. He grasped out blindly next to him and found Ganesh’s hand, which he clasped as tightly as he could. He felt he could no longer breathe. The power, like an electrical current, seemed to radiate through the entire compound. He saw Ganesh bending his head back. "Raziel's aura?" he shouted.
"EVERYONE'S aura!" Ganesh shouted in disbelief.
And then it simply stopped.
Raziel looked around, and then pulled the sword out of the ground. She lurched, buffeted by the wind again. “Nothing happens? That’s SO LAME,” Raziel grumbled. Her hair was still standing on end.
But suddenly, standing by the faucet there appeared a very strange being. It looked something like an alligator that somebody (probably Toki) had painted hot pink. It glanced around and then, apparently unfazed by the high winds, ran towards the gate. It was carrying a small item, like a briefcase.
“What the fuck was that thing?” Charles asked.
"That's a bunyip, O excellent brother Charles,” the Koori told him.
"What the FUCK is a bunyip?" asked Charles.
The pink beast went boldly marching out the gate and right up to the atrocity, which now hovered just outside, tentacles swaying in the great wind.
“What are you doing in my billabong, mate?” asked the bunyip. Its voice was not loud, but somehow, it could be heard over the terrible din.
“It’s gonna be an ex-bunyip soon!” Raziel shouted.
The Ancient one rolled out a tentacle and grasped the bunyip, like it wanted to tear it apart.
But the odd pink creature was somewhere else.
“Get outta my billabong, ya beastie!” raved the pink bunyip, giving the Ancient a tiny kick for emphasis.
Confused, the Ancient horror grasped out again.
The bunyip appeared at yet another place.
“I ain’t warnin’ you again! Scoot!”
The Ancient horror struck.
There was no more sign of the bunyip.
“Look,” said Ganesh. Charles couldn’t hear, but saw his lips move, and the finger pointing. There was water coming out of the faucet, lots of it. And then more and more. And then the pipe flew up and a geyser of water started to rush out of the hole.
And then the hole started to collapse, and the pit immediately filled with water. Everybody drew back.
“HIGH GROUND!” Wotan shouted. “EVERYBODY! High ground!” He pointed up to the back of the compound.
Various parties began to disappear as they Walked to the top of the sheer outcropping that abutted the back of the compound.
Ganesh was off like a shot, and returned, cradling his injured father, mounting Nandi with him. Shiva looked terribly small. Charles variously herded and threw various band members atop the bull as well.
“Raziel, are you getting on?” Charles screamed as the little angel stood in the middle of the compound, buffeted by the wind.
Just then, Wotan, astride his black horse, came galloping across the camp, and, without breaking stride, scooped up Raziel to sit behind him. He then proceeded to ride straight up the nearly vertical rock formation to the top.
“That guy is such a fucking show off!” Charles laughed, just as Ganesh grabbed him by the belt and threw him on Nandi, and the stately bull proceeded to fly everyone up to the top of the rocks.
The winds somewhat abated on the top, so it was possible to speak again. Charles did a frantic headcount to make sure everyone was accounted for, and then crouched at cliff side, next to Raziel. She pointed.
Water had completely flooded the compound by now. The Ancient approached, curious.
It stuck a tentacle into the floodwater.
And screamed.
Charles crouched down and covered his ears. I was terrible.
The thing jerked back from the water. Steam actually rose from its injured tentacle. The water had scalded it.
"Hey, is that thing miked?" Nathan Explosion was asking. "That was an AWESOME METAL SCREAM!"
"I don't think so...." But Charles was suddenly distracted by the sight of Dick Knubbler being held over the edge of the outcropping by Murderface.
He held a microphone.
"Whatever we pay that guy," mused Charles, "It ain't enough.”
And there were more screams. The Ancient thing reared back from the water, but it was being quickly surrounded by the flood, which showed no signs of abating.
With the wind still kicking, the water was roiling into a sort of tide, which actually splashed as high as the rock formation.
“This is seawater!” said Wotan, taking a taste. “But we’re nowhere near a sea!”
The Ancient was partly submerged. It must have seen the outcropping. Now howling in pain, it rushed for the rocks, where it extended tentacles up the side and tried to haul the rest of its horrid body upwards. The outcropping shook from the weight, as if rattled by an earthquake.
“GODS DAMN IT!” Charles shouted. “You are not getting up here, you fucker! Ganesh, hit it so I can slice its fucking tentacles off.”
Ganesh tried throwing a destructive blow at the nearest tentacle. Charles sliced at it, and succeeded in severing it, much to the apparent distress of the beast.
Orula stumbled forward to the edge of the cliff. He took a very, very big gulp of his akvavit, and then he sang:
I’d like to be
An inland sea
In an octopus’s gravesite, with you
We’ll drag him down
Below the ground
And let him boil away like some goo
I’ll ask my friends to sing with me
To put away this tentacled beast
I’d like to see
Eternity
In an octopus’s gravesite with you.
We send him down to Davy Jones
And I ain’t talkin’ bout the Monkee
Resting his head, if that’s a head
On some comfy rocks below the sea
We would sing and dance around
Because this fucker’s in the ground.
I’d like to see an inland sea
Fry this guy to calamari
“SOLO!” screamed Orula. Skwisgaar had already plugged into his amp. The Swede played as if his life depended on it, somehow making Orula’s ridiculous music hall tune into something grandly brutal.
And then they were all covered in water. Between Charles and Ganesh cutting off tentacles, Orula’s distracting song, and a cephalopod-killing guitar solo, the beast had finally lost its grip on the slippery rocks, and plunged into the now quite deep water below, creating a quite spectacular cannonball effect, splashing salt water everywhere.
It emitted one last ear-splitting scream.
“DAAAAAAAAA-DEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
And then it shuddered, and disappeared below the waves.
There was a sudden puff of green mist, and then the wind died down, and there was no sound, but the lapping surf.
Orula happily high-fived Skwisgaar, somehow finally managing to lose his balance. Chango was there, offering them both akvavit.
Ganesh hurried to check on Shiva.
"Wait? This is now a beach?" Raziel asked Charles, who shrugged.
Raziel turned. Several of the Koori Walkers had gathered around her.
"Yeah? What's up, Koori guys?"
“O Most Excellent Sister, Raziel,” said the Koori, bowing down.
“Uh. You guys are fine. You don’t gotta do that,” Raziel said as she stood, but Wotan, now standing beside her, whacked her in the arm.
“You have brought the surf to us," said the Koori.
"She is excellent."
"And bodacious."
"As well as an angel babe."
“Sure. I mean. Any time.” Wotan scowled at her, so she continued. “Uh, I mean. Most Excellent Koori Brothers. I hope you will … live in peace. And … prosperity. And, uh … shred most bodaciously?”
At the last bit, the Koori suddenly jumpted to their feet as one, and great cheer erupted.
“SURFS UP IN DREAMTIME, DUDES! KAWABUNGA!"
Wotan put an arm around Raziel as the Dream Walkers scattered to their surfboards. “Damn, I hate making fucking speeches,” Raziel groused.
Charles, still crouched at the cliff, which was now a rocky beach, chuckled.
"Charles, where's my feckin' brudder? WHERE'S SET'?"
"I dunno, Pickles," said Charles, turning to the drummer. "I'm sorry," he finished lamely.
Ganesh was now standing by silently too. "My father....." he said. "I need to...." He gestured.
"Yeah. I'll go with you," Charles told him. "Pickles. I gotta go. Raziel and Wotan will get you guys back. We'll talk later. In Sydney." And he was already running towards Ganesh and Nandi.
"Yeh," said Pickles. He turned to the faint sound of screaming. Murderface and Dick Knubbler were playing back the beast's screams to Nathan, who appeared to be taking notes for a new song. Farther away, some Koori had loaned Toki a surfboard, and he was now trying to learn to shred.
Skwisgaar was sitting alone on some rocks, picking out a tune on his Gibson, which seemed to have come through intact. Well, more intact than the guitarist, anyhow. Pickles went to sit beside him.
"I t'ink I bwokes by doses," Skwisgaar told him through two quite black eyes.
"Yeh, I t'ink yoo did, dood."
"Chango says he abs fixes it, but I t'inks I abs waits for Gadesh."
"Dat's prolly a good idear," Pickles agreed, watching Chango giggling and rolling on the dusty ground.
"You abs worried about your brudders?"
"Yeh," said Pickles.
"I'b sorries."
Pickles stared. It wasn't like Skwisgaar to be sort of cool. Maybe Orula's punch had caused brain damage?
"You abs wants to listen to by new songs? I abs collaborates wit' Orula."
"Yeh, dood, wut's da song?"
"Surf abs up, IN HELL!" Skwisgaar told him, beginning to pick out a somewhat metal, somewhat surftastic riff. And Pickles sat there for a while, listening to the Dreamtime surf roil on the rocks.
