The ocean.
He could hear the ocean.
He could feel noise happening around him, but all he could hear was the waves.
Then a shrill, keening whine.
Slowly the sound of gunfire, machinery, and screaming pierced his eardrums.
The Avatar opened his eyes. Immediately he had to blink and clear them of dust and gravel.
A metallic talon came crashing down next to him, spearing a cat wearing headphones; its life ended with a gurgled invective.
Lord Chuckles put his hands over his head and ears.
Intellectually he understood that he needed to move. That he was in just as much danger staying still. That he could manage his escape in all this chaos.
He just couldn’t get that message down to his legs.
Instead, he curled up into a ball in the mud and dirt of Stuffopedia.
•••
Grebok kept his feet as war rose up around him.
Drunkenly he stumbled back and forth. No place was safe; no refuge even back the way they came.
A Virus-Killer fell. A chorus of cheers went up as it came down. The subsequent rush of dirt and dust almost blinded the Keykeeper. He threw up his arm as an ineffectual shield. Grebok blinked until fat tears carried the grit out of his eyes.
He watched as a pair of faceless men hoisted Sparky—with a black sack over his head—onto a flying skimmer. He couldn’t make out the pilot or who else was around him. It was too far away. Too many Googol-Men and a surprising amount of satyrs between here and there.
He’d never make it.
•••
Godwin was hoisted to his feet by rough hands.
He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from it. An army of angry will-o-wisps danced in his eyes. His helpers almost came into focus but waxed back into formless blurs.
He blinked hard, the one and zero that were his eyes reduced to hyphens before exploding back into binary.
A mostly naked woman with tassels over her dee-daws and a gigantic, black strap-on member dangling from where her hee-hoo should be was on his right arm. A malamute in a diaper standing on its hind legs was on his left.
Revolutionaries.
The filthy things were touching him with their filthy things.
Ernst tightened his left hand into a fist; a palm sized blade ripped out from the elbow of his jacket. With a quick jerk backwards he got a satisfying yelp as he stuck the comically overlarge dog in between the 8th and 9th rib. The Doctor slipped from his useless doggie grip and drove a fist into the woman’s breastbone; she stumbled back a step.
Blam!
Just enough room for his gun to clear its holster. She went down. Her tassels spun in a flailing, macabre dance.
Blam!
The dog clutched vainly at his tender, exposed belly as he fell to the unforgiving earth.
Godwin turned to survey his war.
•••
“We got what we came for, let’s move it.”
“But, sir? All these people—”
“This is war, private. They knew what they were signing up for.”
“Sir?”
“It’s the cold reality of combat, soldier, now move it, move it, move it!”
“Sir!”
It’s hot in this sack, Sparky opined to himself miserably. He made no effort to move or resist. It was what it was.
His younger—inner—self was getting angrier by the minute. Sparky ignored him. What did that kid know? Had his anger ever served him in any capacity? Did anger save his mother? His father? His grandpappy? No, no, and nope.
Better to lie here like a good weasel.
•••
Grebok was trained for this.
They were all heroes, sure, but Grebok was the only one with any formalized military training. He was taught how to shut out distraction, how to overcome fear, how to think rationally through the fog of war.
Chuckles. He needed to find Chuckles.
No, first, he should arm himself.
He understood in the abstract that he was armed with a laser eye. How could he forget? It was was assaulting him with information at a maddening pace. He couldn’t bring himself to put his life in the hands of lemming-tech. They were lemmings for chrissakes, not rats or martens. Those were mammals with a touch of smarts. He would probably use their laser eyes.
Belying that notion, when the eye alerted him to a fallen rifle, he was quick to scoop it up. But then he froze in indecision. If he shot at somebody—anybody—he only drew attention to himself as a combatant. He didn’t want to do that.
As he sorted out what to do next he scouted around for the Avatar. It was a as inoffensive as he was likely to get.
A mortar exploded nearby sending kittens and Googol-Men flying in all directions.
Grebok ducked instinctively and ran low.
Eventually he spotted the telltale red frock of his companion. He was hard to make out, covered in dust, debris, and blood as he was. The Miradorian hastened step toward his friend. If he could get him to his feet, they might be able to slip away in this mess.
As Grebok lurched across the battlefield he heard a scream approaching. He turned to see a portly man in a sports coat charging him (in fact, a weatherman who accidentally crapped himself on live TV, making him inadvertently famous for all time). Dark, stinky smears ran across his cheeks like warpaint. A splintered femur gripped in his hands like a makeshift spear.
He was coming in high; much too high to attack effectively. Grebok could easily shoot him mid-charge, or wait until he got close and hatchet him across the stomach with the rifle-butt.
As he surmised his options, he caught sight of the wind-tossed, ill-shaven good looks of Jason Priestley: sitting in a dark robe atop a toppled Virus-Killer.
Death!
His scythe leaned nearby; he ate ramen. He gave Grebok a little wave.
The Son of Drogmar flinched and dropped the rifle to the ground.
•••
Godwin shot one of the faceless throng in the… where the face should be.
Another, holding a broken chair-leg like a de facto tomahawk jumped over his fallen comrade, shouting to whatever god he pleased. Godwin caught the offender’s arm, kneed him in the breadbasket, and helped him the rest of the way to the ground with a sharp tug.
A single bullet through the back of the head sent him to have it out with said-same god.
Where were his prisoners? More importantly, where was that head?
Scanning the chaos he caught a glimpse of the simpering pile of soot-smeared Avatar, cowering in the shadow of a downed Virus-Killer. Godwin emitted a shrill whistle and circled a finger in the air. His Shields Squadron disengaged and made their way to their commander.
Where were the rest of them?
•••
The man in the sports coat gnashed his teeth at the air as he stormed over fallen bodies. He snapped the neck of a wounded Googol-Man who had been struggling back to his feet. The weatherman shoved the now-limp body aside.
Grebok had nowhere to go.
He looked down to his unclenched hands. He knew they should be white-knuckled fists, tense with intent to harm; but this poor bastard didn’t know any better. He probably had kids at home who had to put up with no end of teasing from their school-chums about their father’s incontinence. Maybe an estranged ex-wife who couldn’t bear the shame. What right did he have—even in self-defense—to end the man’s life?
Grebok looked back up and over the shoulder of his onrushing assailant. Death shot him a thumbs up, then made a rude gesture involving moving his hand back and forth while sticking his tongue into his cheek rhythmically to simulate oral sex. It was uncalled for.
Grebok resigned that his last thoughts would be those of mild indignation.
The weatherman bore down on him.
The jaundiced and fractured bone committed to its deadly arc.
Grebok’s eyes squeezed shut.
He thought of R.T.
Blam!
When Grebok did not, in fact, expire, he risked a glance.
The be-sportscoated man—missing the better portion of his head—fell limp to the earth.
Grebok turned to see his savior, Doctor Ernst Godwin marching up to him, his elite squadron falling in behind him.
•••
Lord Chuckles wasn’t a religious guy—might sound funny coming from a guy who identified himself as the Avatar. That usually insinuated the embodiment of a godform and all. He just never got much spiritual learning growing up. Beyond that, what with his newfound intelligence, it didn’t make a lot of sense to discover spirituality now. Not really.
So he wasn’t sure who he was beseeching to preserve him through this. Only that whoever they were, he hoped they had room on their dance card for him in all of this mess. Also Grebok. Probably Sparky as well. You know, while he was hoping for miracles and all.
So when he was tapped—somewhat politely—on the shoulder, and he rolled over to see Grebok looking apologetic, he wasn’t sure who to thank. Only that he was very happy to see him alive.
Even if he would prefer slightly less armed men reaching down to haul him to his feet.
