Better Supernatural: Battle Grounds

[Dresden Files redux, jump #54: Battle Grounds]

Previously, on Better Supernatural: https://pastebin.com/AiGZFjhQ

It was the worst part of any true war I'd ever fought in: The waiting, Squid-bird things swooped out of the night to test our defenses periodically.

And so, I meditated. Around me, the thrum of ancient power shook the earth. Around Elodie her own meditation set off a gentler echo to it, ivy and rosemary twining around our ankles. Neither of us spoke, so desperate was I to hoard what energy we could afford to into such a fragile vessel, after the Abjuration of the Maidens had broken from a few red-eyed blasts.

The Staff of Forbidden Light flashed with a fire briefly reflected in my eyes. The protoshinmaic vortex embedded in the Glove of Reality's Architect pulsed like the worry I held for Chicago this night.

"He's fighting a kraken. Are you sure he's fit for this?" I muttered to Odin, as he came up behind me. "You think a big squid will kill him, after everything else?" he asked, chuckling, but his eyes winced in sympathy as he clapped me on the shoulder.

"There's so little" I whispered, listlessly "so little I can do without breaking something. Everything, rather. Ferrovax can't even participate but I, I'm not even really here. I wish, more than anything, that I could do more"

"Don't wish too hard" joked Elodie nervously, as we gingerly brofisted over our little Imperial in-joke "or you'll live to regret it".

1/9

She was young, relatively, then. This was the first true siege she had ever fought in her life, and like me she had taken the measure of how unprepared most of Chicago was for the enemy. On an intellectual level I had long felt that the true measure of divinity wasn't in the firestorm or the whirlwind, but the gentle whisper preceeding a bonafide miracle. I yearned for a miracle badly tonight-but there were few I could muster without destabilising the situation further.

"You will do plenty" promised Mab, givine me the cautious nod of an ally she could depend on but not publically reveal too much about "merely with what power this mortal vessel "merely by lending your support to my Knight. As always...stranger...I commend your tenacity at ripping occult lore from the very cracks in the universe, and find your disappointment that you may /merely/ the powers of a less well-read Archive bewildering. You have made a study of the Mantle, and inferred it's functions". It wasn't a question. I liked that about Mab. "Now, we shall discuss the particulars of your involvement in my battle plan"

First Harry showed up looking like he badly needed a coffee blessed by sun-kissed perfection-so I gave him some. He roused all the Little Folk of Chicago to run interference against the BLOODY Fomor, had a bit of a row with the other Accords signers and almost smiled when Elodie and I made a point of standing with him and flaring my staff to shine a cleansing light. Mab's eyes glittered from across the room. Just as planned.

The little folks weren't alone either. My citizens, endowed with world-bodies or law-natures, would wreck havoc if allowed to arrive in force but I had roused masses of devas to lend their aid.

It still wouldn't be enough.

2/9

I watched Harry deliver his rousing speech to the ragtag militia.
I watched Karen, whole and hale unlike a possibility I'd sensed where it was she Harry took as his second on the heist in Hades' vault and not I, support his battle-worn words with the authority and tactics of law enforcement.
I lent them both a bit of shine, a striking bit of lighting that made them, for a moment, have the charisma of kings and heroes of times past.

"We might die tonight. I could use the backup to save a lot of innocent people tonight, if you've got the...manpower" said Harry, as I double checked the suit of spells I'd woven around them both.

I took a deep breath. Exhaled. "There is a spell I can cast, the Incantation of the Invincible Army. It will turn those fighting for Chicago's sake into legendary heroes that shine like the sun. It will last as long as I keep my arms raised and stand still. And I can raise them all night. I'll back you up if you need it, but-consider our options here"

We said nothing for a while.

"Well" said Harry in that mix of nervousness and grimness I knew all too well, "I'm glad you're here now". And then he met my eyes. "Huh. No soulgaze. And no sunglasses, no dim lighting and no spiritual influence. I...I should've been been more worried, huh?"
"Harry, trust me. I'm the last person you need to be worried about. Worst comes to worst, give me a shout. Don't worry how, I'll hear. I swear on my name"

And then we shook hands, and the man's desperate eyes flickered with just a tint of hope.

"Fuck, I hope that wizard knows what he's doing" I said to nobody later, in the changing rooms.
"He never does, you know" said Marcone, who seemed to be hanging around the changing rooms tonight.
We stared at each other.
"You've made your loyalties clear. But this is my city too. And I think unlike him, you play well with others" he said.
"Maybe I do. What do you need?"
He took out something in his pocket and showed it to me. A sad, ironic smile crept on his face. "Insurance" he said simply.

3/9

And then, the night went to hell in a handbasket.

Oh, later they would call it a "miracle" and "Chicago's finest hour" but well-stand amidst the burning rubble and the screams of families terrorised by hateful creatures of the night, and tell me if the honour was worth it. I wasn't down there digging an old woman and her dog out of the rubble. I wasn't there to stand before the cornerhound who broke into the maternity ward. I wasn't even with Elodie, coralling people out of an apartment before the Fomor could wrest them away.

I was on that castle.
With the other immortals and kings.
Raising my arms high, to cast the Incantation of the Invincible Army.
(And God above, I hated myself then because I COULD DO MORE)
(If I was willing to dart over and strike down a mad goddess with all my power right off the bat)
(If I was willing to risk the universe busting at the seams)
(If-)

Somewhere, I let myself know as my senses drifted from my mortal shell, Dresden and Chicago's milita were fighting like men posessed. This was the right decision, wasn't it? To counter the miasma of madness and panic the Last Titan had draped around herself by igniting the hero in everyone present? It was enough. It had to be-

(I saw a man screaming, burned alive in a garage)
(I saw a woman trampled by two others carrying a TV)
(I saw children screaming, harried by things in the night)
("37 casualties, lord" whispered a deva)

-NECROMANCERS, I heard from Harry. The others around me didn't want me to go. I nearly leapt in relief through a portal, and drew the others-the Wardens, River Shoulders-close.

"Black Court. Mavra. Drakul" I whispered. It was almost too late. They were picking up my presence like hyenas sensing a rhino.

Harry nearly screamed. Then he got a thoughtful look. "Anvil time" he whispered back at me.

4/9

Less than a minute later, an anvil that dropped on Mavra. The...thing in a man's body that drank light around it cocked it's head at me curiously as it's children were pelted by pixies and devas alike who'd shown up with garlic clothes, then flicked a wrist at the british Warden.

He was very surprised when I leapt forth and parried the circle of lightless void with my warden's sword. "An interesting spell, wizard" he said. "Except, that's not quite what it or you are, is it?"
"Ask me no questions" I said, a corona of true sunlight igniting the Black Court too near me, "and I'll tell you no lies"
"Let me just ask you one thing. Would you deny the dark gift of immortlity because it is repulsive to you...or merely because you do not need it?"
"I reject it" I said, thrusting "because I like garlic pasta". And then he, Drakul-wasn't there, having darted back just enough to take a bolt of lightning that was the wizard Listens-to-Wind's dynamic entry to the back.

We flung ourselves at each other then, he as inexhorable a tide of clawing night and killing shadow as any Excrucian I had ever dealt with and far less civil, I the radiance and power of a gamma ray burst write small. Hundreds of blows, blocks and dodges collided and deflected betwen us like hail and lightning. My all-too-human joints bend and broke under the strain of fighting with pure divine pith, but the surges of Soulfire that re-knit me as fast as I was broken under my own strength matched the ur-vampire's tireless might.

"Let's do this again" he hissed through bloody teeth.
And then he was just-gone.
"Dead man walking" I muttered. I waved off Harry, through blinding rib.
"No, you TELL ME what a damn Starborn is and-fuck, that a broken rib?" he asked, coming back from some argument.
"Is the night over yet?" I choked out. "Then no, tis but a flesh wound"

5/9

("I can't feel my hands" buttered a fat man with bloody stumps, "Where's, why can't I-")
(Two people were pulled into a wrecked windowsil by something roaring like a wolf, Harry receiving a child from bloody hands)
(That damn crib. Stained red)
("383 casualties, my lord" whispered a deva)

My presence was weak here.
I paid a heavy toll for saving Harry and the Wardens in their time of need. I cracked the roof with my steps. I raised my arms and welded Soulfire through my will into the Incantation, guided the devas to the worst hotspots like a lodestone, tracking the Knights of the Cross, those men I had come to admire more than any Exalt alive. I watched them fulfil the Divine Plan.

I couldn't stop watching the other scenes.

I felt the same bleak revelation overtake Harry. The turmoil within and the wrath of the Winter Mantle swept over Chicago, the burned and broken gathering under his banner like moths to a fire. I took some heart from that, if Mab's Knight had taken the same strategem as I had. Which meant, I suddenly realised-

(Harry. Harry, I'm here. USE that pain. That sorrow. )
(I can feel them, I heard him gasp from miles away. The Winter Mantle, I can feel...the Fomor killing them. The ones I decided to guard the rear)
(I know. My devas are trying to save them. They're...not doing enough)

There was nothing I could have said. Nothing that could prepare Harry for the burden of feeling your subjects, your vassals, your comrades in arms dying and drowning in chaos and madness. But-
-I could let him know that someone else had felt that pain too.

(Does it get easier?)
(...it didn't, for me)
(Good) thought Harry.  (I WANT IT TO HURT)

Not long after, there was a gunshot.
And Harry Dresden ate his words.
And I froze.

("950 casual-")

Karen Murphy. Police officer, one-time wielder of the Sword of Faith and giantslayer lay dead because of a snivelling coward.

And for the second time that night, I forsook my spell to fight for my friend's soul.

6/9

Harry Dresden screamed in my grip as he struggled to beat a piss-stained, bruised man on the ground senseless. He struck me with flame, force and will. He gouged at my eyes. He actually forced his flesh to part in gouged reaching for him. And still I held him, and told him over again that it wasn't worth it.

That his magic, unlike my own, was inextricably wound round his soul like a noose and that this pathetic shell of a man wasn't worth staining such a bright thing. Screams became sobs as Butters touched the Sword of Faith's hilt to his shoulder, a death grip became the flailing of  drowning man, and all too soon, as we stumbled out into the night against the true enemy abroad-

-all, too soon it was time to play my part.

The Bright Warding, I was told later, that I had put on Harry with our handshake had splashed the Eye of Balor's force. Saved the bulk of the militia-

("215 new casualties lord, total of 3125-")

-but not the ones nearest the splash zone.

"Knight. Guest. Focus" said Mab sharply. "I am" I responded, turning the iron spears and arrows aimed at our position on the frosted clearing back on screaming Fomor sorcerers. As for the rest-earth melted, the air exploded with a thunderbolt, blue-hot fire rimmed with frost (Dresden), a ray of sunlight that glassed the land below, a spike of frost shooting up out of the ground (Dresden again).

And then, the author of these crimes emerged from her army.

Ethniu spat bravado at Mab, ignored the wizard and fixed me with a brief moment of panic/fury that cracked her composure as I silently held her to account for the crimes perpetuated on Chicago that night. Demanded I leave i exchange for her mercy. Cried out for my allies to doubt me. And when all else failed, turned the Eye's gaze on Mab-

-who spread her arms wide to receive it, who winked at me-

-only to all but shit a brick as I interposed myself in front of her, calmly said "Fire Eating Fist" and poked it out of existence with my pinky.

7/9

"How. How dare" spluttered Ethniu, grinding to a halt, the aura of madness and devastation around her petering out.

"You think you know FURY, child?" I whispered as all the furies of winter exploded around us.  "YOU think YOU know LOSS? Apocalypse. Flare. Attack" I spat, lancing her titanic bronze with a corona of Soulfire-seared essence clutching her hatred like a bullet, splashing the flesh off her face and cracking that will-bound armor using her rage as the hammer. Wielding my power as a hammer, I was as much an existential threat as this wounded animal. Wielding my power as a fulcrum, I could turn the night's madness on it's source.

Perfection, was the thought below thoughts, the gut level instinct spiking my broken mortal flesh from an untimely demise as I dodged a crash of raw power and will, raised my gauntlet and gripped her with a fist of crystalised natural law-which Odin One-Eye took as an opportunity to blast her from on high. Perfection I radiated, slipping through the chaos of the Nevernever's turmoil in order to lead her into the blades of the Erllking. Perfection, I exhaled and exulted as my staff let fly the cords of Essence Inversion through Ethniu's exposed flesh as Titania herself entered the battlefield and quashed the madness

There was no hope of victory. Not with what strength I could wield safely while the Titan thrashed and cursed the land around us. But if I could only delay her enough-
(thunder struck behind us, as the Wild Hunt tore through a cotore of Fomor sorcerers)
-if I could buy time for the others on the field to whittle her down-
(Mab was all silver edges and howling wind, the Titan struck unaware from Harry's fireball and my ray of starlight)
-if I could spare ONE life tonight-
(The Knights of the Cross at last, came bearing angelic might that clipped her stride, and the Archive herself wreathed her in a prison of stone as the Blackstaff drank down yet another burst from the Eye)
-it would be worth it.
(Even Marcone he, and his comrade from his military service, and the Valkyrie, even they stepped forth in person to keep up the pressure on the Titan humiliated in front of all her would-be worshippers like an elephnt hunted by wolves)

That was why I overstretched, the sweeping of my staff parrying a fatal blow meant for Hendricks, the gauntlet ripping a chunk into the Nevernever for Gard to tackle him through to safety-and my person left open to Ethniu landing an exhauted kick that physically tore a chunk out of my torso, probably dislocating my spine and bursting all my ribs.

"This is ridiculous! It should be YOU standing with me, and bringing back the inchoation of elder eras! I can feel your power, straining in that mortal form! WHY WON'T YOU CHOOSE FREEDOM!?" demanded the monster that had brought low Chicago. Pain practically deafened me, but it was not in my nature to stop. To cease.

"I get it. I understand now, why the bad guys never use pop references" I said through mouthfuls of my own blood.

"You understand nothing!" she shouted at me. "You've never been locked in a lonely tower all your life!"

"The old trends, the old fashions...they fade. The old values vanish, the friends you shared with warped beyond recognition if you don't lose them all together. The trappings of your life wither to dust, and you leave them behind. And no one will ever remember they were there, or why you loved them. It's like, HURGH" I croacked, kicked again cross the battlefield, still frantically demanding my devas bolster those now unshielded by my Incantation "that old Canaanite joke. The one about the sick camel? Who remembers that?"

"There is-AAHHHH!" screamed Ethniu, stumbling as Mab speared her from behind and Titania's roots held her steal. "Nothing left to be said! I am STILL able to fight and for ALL your defiance, ALL your struggle, you weren't willing to bring your full force to this fight and I was! Had you arrived in force, I" she faltered, and screamed as her armor cracked even more "BUT YOU HAVE NOT AND YOUR DOOM IS SEALED" she howled, repelling all who attacked her in a devastating shockwave.

OH, SHUT UP I boomed, as my life force ebbed out of my body-and spilled into the very storm. I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU.

I took a deep breath.
I drew in my divine force of will to my broken body.
I knew pain, and mortality once again.
I aimed my voice at a wizard still struggling towards us, determined to perform the binding of a lifetime, fighting through tears and pain and exhaustion.

"Harry, let it go. It is not a sin to avenge the ones you love. There are those who words alone will not reach. Ethniu is such a being. You are in pain. You do not like to be hurt. I know because I too have learned these feelings. But it is because you cherish life that you must protect it. Please drop your restraints. Protect the city we both love. You have untold strength that others will not let you see. Just...let it go.”

And with my last mortal gasp, I set free the Solar Exaltation I had held in reserve and let it fly.

Water filled my eye sockets as I lay dying on the ground, night turned to noon as the world lit up with gold. Then there was an echoing thunder of green flame as Marcone must have at last activated the gift I'd given him too. Perhaps I had done enough. Perhaps they could take care of the rest. And yet, and yet-

"-and yet, THE KING STILL STANDS! GUARDIAN. STAR. SHINTAI!" I bellowed.

My thoughts turned to song, spilling from my skull as a thousnd firefly-like sigils and replacing my face with an omnidirectional sigil that was the Old Realm for "I". My flesh forged itself into a holy flame that made a shining answer unto all the bleakness of lonesome infinity. Wings of plasmic lattices beat around me, eyes of shining pearl emerged in marble hands that extended and disappeared. And like a comet accelerating to aphelion and beyond I arced through the night sky and slammed into Ethniu where Harry and Marcone had almost pushed her to the lake. The whole world seemed to shake under the torrents of soulfire and hellfire that pushed Ethniu back until I struck her from the side.

"Why now?! Why NOW do you risk the universe's dissolution-" shouted Ethniu, knocked flailing for but a split second.

PAY ATTENTION I out-shouted, ignoring her as reality started to wobble like tafioca pudding on a roomba. WHAT YOU NOW SEE IS MY NORMAL STATE. THIS IS A SUPER SHINTAI. Immediately the woods around me burned to fine ash and the ground transmuted to marble, a fleeting reminder of how little time I had to exert my cosmic principle before reality was at risk.

"S-such power! I've never seen this force before, but I see now! You can do this too, given time and training my host!" exclaimed Thorned Namshiel as his eyes goggled from the sheer power the Infernal Exaltation had given Marcone. The daft fool had yet to figure out the power was truly Marcone's not his.

AND THIS IS WHAT IS KNOWN AS A SUPER SHINTAI THAT HAS ASCENDED ABOVE A SUPER SHINTAI, OR YOU COULD JUST CALL IT SUPER SHINTAI 2 I cried, physically pushing Ethniu through the ground when she would budge no further. Above us, the clouds were gathering into a red-rimmed vortex.

"HOW HAVE YOU RETAINED SUCH MIGHT? WHAT SANCTUM DID YOU HIDE IN?!" screeched Ethniu, as my spiritual pressure collided with hers.

"Dresden, is this some sort of reference? I have a sudden premonition this is some kind of reference" said Marcone. Harry didn't answer because he was focused on the binding, but he nodded quickly.

AND THIS

"Wait, wait! Not the island! You have power, do you not?! This is YOUR victory not theirs!! Destroy or bind me on your own terms, not" shrieked Ethniu as I physically picked her up, melting her armor until it restricted her movement.  "NOT AT THE HANDS OF MORTALS"

IS TO GO EVEN FURTHER

"Stop! STOP!"

BEYOND. And the tidal bulk of Demonreach lunged up as I flung Ethniu bodily into the lake.

And then with another big gulp of essence, I forcibly deactivated the shintai and finally passed out. Which ironically, made thinking much clearer once my spirit had abandoned it's mortal clay, and followed it's rescue in a kind of detached delirium.  I sleepwalked around Elodie, run ragged yet eyes still sharp as she hauled the hideiously mangled, scorched pile of bone chips and singed meat into the same rejuvenation tubes I had used to secure Thomas Raith in. It was a strange thing, seeing through the eyes of something so small as a mortal body. In a meaningful sense everything I was, everything that was truly me had overseen the defense of Chicago from an ivory tower in a lofty city on a hill in a reality from a higher plane.

But in just as meaningful a sense, I was stumbling around the angels of death going about their business, free at last from the perpetual distress that had defined my perceived powerlessness to think about the death toll. I spent some time walking in spirit around Chicago. Spreading solace to the bereaved. Putting out fires. Rescuing people buried under piles of rubble, though I was only an inchoate bundle of force and will just...looking for a purpose as much as anyone else.

Time passed.
My body was reconstituted.
I met Dresden at Karen's funeral.
He gave a good speech. You could tell it was a good one, because he teared up midway through it. "Are we good?" he asked uncertainly, afterwards. I must have had a devastated look to rival his own, because he looked taken aback as I said "This is all my fault".

He frowned. "You. No. Karen wouldn't have stayed away from this fight for the world"

"You don't understand. I gave you both wards against traitor fae. Wards against demons and Outsiders. Wards against all manner of Fomor. I just, I didn't see some stupid cop with a gun coming. And all you have to show for it is some damn demigod blessing. So why don't you make like all the other mad butchering bastards who've held one, pick up an especially sharp rock and bring it down over my stupid fat head?"

He looked like he was seriously considering for it for a moment, then slumped down next to me. "Huh. Well if it's all the same, I'd rather do that because you must've given Marcone is too. What were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking" I said, shutting my eyes "that between Marcone and Marcone with a damn Denarian in his head I'd prefer the Marcone with a fighting chance at severing or fighting off the vile whispers in his ear. I was thinking I know the design of those things, and how long it'll take for you both to do more than fling Soulfire or Hellfire willy-nilly using the things as effectively unlimited tools-and that as the practicing wizard, you'd have the advantage. But most of all, I was thinking...before it all goes to hell, the man deserves the tools to bring that little girl in the bed back to good health. And he's the only man he trusts to get that done"

"...it gets worse from here on?" asked Dresden.

"You have no idea, Harry. You really want, I'll tell you some shit the higher-ups don't want you to know. At my place. Shit that will paint a target on your back, among other things"

"Well. Alright then you big mysterious jerk of a cosmic being, in the name of" Harry floundered "Houdini. I uh, bind you by your oath to...um, the rules and ordinances of Chicago as enforced by it's officers, and I bid thee to come help me make potato salad at the Carpenters' this Sunday"

"Damn. Beating two cosmic gods in as many days, wizard? You're escalating out of control, you know" I said, letting out a breath I hadn't even known I was holding in.

"Three. Justine was a Nemesis host". The smile and optimism leaked out of both of us as we processed those words. We struggled for something to say. Finally we both just said "fuck this".

"6,879 deaths" I said tonelessly. "If only I had been ready for this. If only I had come here in force. I could have saved more"

Dresden swallowed. "...me too, man. Me too".

Silence reigned.

Then Dresden said "Also I'm going to tell my boss, the rest of the Accords and Marcone to pay for reparations and give me back my lab. Wanna come with?"

"Hell yes". I was going to pay for everything anyway, but after the brutality of war everyone loves a victory lap.