Chapter 7
“Beginning of the End”
Shrubby was a little plant fairy incapable of assuming humanoid form. Her aspect was always that of a little bush with what looked vaguely like a face. Restless and childlike, she had a tendency to uproot and wander.
Shrubby was exploring the forest of Region One… when she felt a sickening dread… and glimpsed unnatural movement. The little plant fairy hid among actual bushes. She watched as what looked like a Concubine came into view. The approaching thing was wearing the green body shirt of a Concubine Scout but without the goggles and elastic hood. This creature’s eyes were soulless black! Its upper half was humanoid but its “legs” were clusters of crawling tentacles! A throng of shapeless things crawled and slithered after it.
“They are coming for the grove,” Shrubby realized. “They are coming to turn us all into monsters!” The little fairy feared sounding a warning for she was warned that the monsters could hear thoughts as easily as they heard voices. Shrubby cringed and trembled as the shapeless monsters crawled and slithered past her as a wave of encroaching death. “No,” her heart feared for her sleeping people. “Oracle!” her mind cried a whisper. “Oracle, please hear me! Please hear Shrubby!”
“I hear you, little one,” the warm, soothing, maternal voice of the Oracle answered. “I see you now. I see what you see and hear what you hear. Stay hidden.”
“I will.”
There were millions of plant fairies on planet Telluria, less than a thousand of whom were carnivorous. The hundreds who ate flesh and blood were warriors when the need arose. They guarded their millions of gentle kin. The carnivorous plant fairies heard the shout of the Oracle hail them, “Warriors of the woodlands, monsters come for us! Save us all!” The warriors could see what the Oracle showed them and they hurried to meet it.
Brendaxa the Insidious bowed before Yississ. The monster reported, “Milady, our plan has been foiled. We could not reach the sleeping plant fairies.”
“Why not?”
“Milady, our hunters were ambushed as they converged upon their prey. Our soldiers in Region One are slain to the last.”
“Ambushed? Mortal women cannot surprise our hunters.”
“Milady, it was neither the Concubines nor the Army of Four who pounced them.”
The rotting demon snarled.
The bodies of millions of women and over a million monsters littered the charred and cratered east of Region One. The burnt husks of sprawled vehicles, downed aircraft and grotesque cyborgs were spread out among the carnage. “I’d like to say we won,” Adam remarked at the sight of countless bodies.
Drusilla mentioned. “We are nigh destroyed.”
The man bowed his head.
Adam joined Drusilla and her officers in reviewing the situation. Lieutenant General Yazmin tallied, “Only one-point-three million Virgin Soldiers remain on Telluria. We have nearly four thousand main battle tanks and over four thousand entomopters. Ninety-eight of our remaining aircraft are strategic bombers.”
Adam reminded, “We slaughtered everything they threw at us.” He wondered, “How many monsters does Yississ have left?”
Lieutenant General Elzbeth answered, “From what our Scouts can observe, hundreds of cyborgs, thousands of polymorphs and over two hundred thousand zombies.”
Everyone stared at the holographic map of a section of the Bleak Mountains. An armored fortress with a tower in its middle sat perched on the highest peak. “We can’t open portals any closer than ninety clicks,” Lieutenant General Olga informed. “Our aircraft are susceptible to mass destruction within sixty clicks.”
Drusilla added, “The terrain is a natural fortress.”
Adam wondered, “Can that super weapon be used against ground forces?”
Olga answered, “Not effectively. The uneven terrain won’t allow it. Besides, the beam is innately responsive to motion and may have difficulty reacting to the motion of things on the ground.”
Drusialla explained, “Ground forces are relatively safe from the weapon but will be massacred trying to storm those hills.”
Yazmin said to Adam, “Ten million plant fairies are residing here in Region One. Perhaps you should conscript them for military service.”
Adam chuckled, “Most of those girls couldn’t fight or kill to save their lives: literally.”
“What of the males?”
“Honestly, I’ve never met a male plant fairy. Apparently they’re rare and like to be left alone. Most of them live in the Lonely Forest and only come out when they’re in the mood to ‘pollinate’.”
“Region Zero,” Olga recognized. She told Yazmin, “Scanning and communication are impeded in Region Zero.”
Yazmin insisted, “The plant fairies need not fight or kill. If they simply join our troops in storming the hills they will lessen our losses of valuable combatants.”
“No!” Adam fumed. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“Her idea is entirely logical,” one of the hooded women vouched.
“Hell no! My girls aren’t your damn cannon-fodder!”
“Yet you are willing to use us as yours.”
“You girls are armed and dangerous soldiers! I want you to fight, not die! Throwing plant fairies up those hills is damn coldblooded!”
“Inefficient,” Drusilla concluded. “Our troops would be unable to maneuver if burdened with herding noncombatants. We must be nimble and swift.” The black hoods of the lieutenants nodded in acknowledgement of their general’s conclusion.
Adam stared at Drusilla, wondering if her final decision was compassion or cold logic. Maybe it was both. Did she care? He believed she did… but was that just his wishful thinking? Of all the strange creatures the man had ever encountered, this woman was the strangest of them all.
Adam wandered out into the woods to pay the Oracle a visit. The man peered up into the leafy branches of the Great Tree. He called out, “You knew I was coming.”
The leaves rustled as the Oracle answered, “I was waiting for you.”
The man summarized, “Yississ sacrificed the bulk of her troops just to kill as many Concubines as possible. She slaughtered most of them so I can’t say she failed.”
“My king, slaying mortal women was but a means for slipping through them. Our enemy was fighting so as to hunt. Our little Shrubby foiled the true design of our murderous enemy.”
“Shrubby?”
“My king, our little Shrubby found her courage and dared a whisper. I heard her cry. Her voice was the death of creeping monsters and the salvation of us all.”
“Wow! Our little shrub did all that? I’m proud of her.”
“As am I, my king. I wanted you to know.”
“Back to business,” the man insisted. “Yississ depleted her own forces while mauling the Concubines. Our girls won’t get their strength back. The monsters will, slowly but surely. If we don’t stop them now, it’ll be too late. Am I right?”
“Yes, my king. It is as dire as you say.”
“We need more troops. Rally everything we have.”
“My king, your kingdom is a world of few warriors.”
“Give me everything we’ve got.”
“Adam, what few warriors we have guard the many who are gentle.”
“I know. Yeah, we’re taking a big risk but I’m not being reckless. We need to hit the monsters fast and hard, while they’re still weak. We need to finish this before they finish us.”
“Yes, it must be done. Adam, King of Telluria, I believe in you. I shall do what you require.”
“Thank you.”
Adam returned to the Temple of the Great Seen Unseen. The Oracle cried out, “Warriors of Telluria, come! Your king beckons! Come to him!” Thousands of goblins armed with bows, arrows and daggers came to the Middle Forest: Region One. Thousands of sasquatches also came. Hundreds of carnivorous plant fairies awaited the mustering force.
“This is it?” Adam worried.
The naked Oracle of Tell
uria was in buxom, humanoid form. She answered the man, “The people of Telluria are few and our warriors are fewer.”
“We have an entire planet! We need more people!”
“My king, this world was meant for human dwelling. Humanity was to fill our lands. Alas, you are our only humanity.”
“How good are these warriors?”
“Their prowess is deadlier than that of Concubine Scouts and Sentinels.”
“How do they compare to the Army of Four?”
“Your four outmatch them.”
“Seriously? The Army of Four could whoop all their asses?”
“My king, the Army of Four is mighty indeed.”
Adam sighed.
The Concubines armed the goblins with minicarbines and sharpshooter carbines and the sasquatches with stormguns. The women trained and helped organize the Tellurian warriors. Drusilla told Adam, “Your subjects prove surprisingly amiable and cooperative. They learn quickly. You’re carnivorous plant fairies have assumed the role of officers and work well with our Priestesses.”
Adam looked at Flora and winked. The carnivorous plant fairy smiled.
The Concubine Expeditionary Forces were as scientific as they were military. The Girls in Blue and their commanding sisters in purple studied the weapons and devices of the enemy and developed countermeasures. Olga Purple the Erudite reported their findings, “The enemy super weapon is initiated by its supporting edifice but powered by the Everlasting Storm. Breaking the connection will disable the weapon for twenty minutes or longer.”
Drusilla asked, “How do we break the connection?”
“By firing enervation ordinance into the stream. Few such weapons are likely to hit unless fired in overwhelming volleys. Should even one connect, it should prove adequate to disrupt the stream and perhaps break the connection.”
“We’re going to lose a lot of aircraft getting that close.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Adam and the lieutenant generals waited for General Drusilla as she pondered her options. She asked Adam, “Would the Army of Four be willing to fly behind the bombers and land right at the enemy’s doorstep?”
“Totally.”
“Don’t be so quick to volunteer. Your entomopter may be zapped out of the sky before reaching its destination.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Drusilla explained, “Depending on how many of you survive the super weapon, the Army of Four, hundreds of Tellurians and thousands of Scouts and Sentinels shall land just outside the enemy’s perimeter. Each group among you shall have its particular objective. Your success shall allow us to pummel the enemy with airstrikes and to move our main body into position.” Adam nodded. Drusilla warned, “This won’t be easy. It may prove impossible.”
Adam assured, “One way or another, this is coming to an end.”
“Yes, indeed.”
The Army of Four gathered under the Tree of the Oracle. Adam told his soldiers, “I love you all. No matter what happens, I’m proud to have fought alongside you.”
Conjure the half-goblin worried, “Are we losing the war?”
Adam grinned, “Aren’t we always?”
Hairy the sasquatch smiled. His large hand patted Conjure on the head.
Flora the carnivorous plant fairy assured, “Adam, we shall prevail by you, our king.”
“No, I’m going to win because I’ve got the best troops in the world.” Adam collected his thoughts. He told his soldiers, “We’ll be flying in with the vanguard. If we survive the antiaircraft and that super weapon we’ll find ourselves face-to-face with every monster on Telluria. We fight our way up a mountain to that metal castle on top. We get inside and we reach that damn super weapon. Conjure, you’ll have the honor of blasting that thing into scraps.” Adam looked at Flora as he told everyone, “Yississ is in that metal castle: it’s her home here on Telluria. She’s stronger than any of us so we don’t fight her alone. We take her on together. Any questions?” Conjure raised his hand. “What?”
The half-goblin wondered, “Shall the Concubines be coming with us?”
“No, Conjure: they’re dropping us off so we can fight a demon and her two hundred thousand monsters all by ourselves.”
“Really?” Adam rolled his eyes.
The Gentle Desert was a gray wasteland of rocky hills under a dark, flashing, rumbling sky. The Bleak Mountains were the middle of this rugged terrain. “This land shall be the seat of my growing power,” Yississ had decided. “Our base here shall become the capitol city of our galactic empire of living death.”
Portals opened near the southern, northern and eastern foothills of the Bleak Mountains. Entomopters, legged vehicles and throngs of Virgin Soldiers poured through. Thousands of goblins and sasquatches armed with plasma guns and led by carnivorous plant fairies accompanied the army of clone women. They marched into the hills and valleys as they converged on Yississ and her monsters.
The Army of Four was still in forested Region One. They were on the bustling tarmac of a Concubine airfield when greeted by a Concubine Priestess. “This way,” the Girl in Purple led them and a group of Scouts and Sentinels up the tail-ramp of a beetle-type entomopter.
Rapidly flapping wings hummed as they lifted aircraft buzzing into the air. Flashes of light ahead expanded into portals to the other side of the planet. The swarm of entomopters flew through them.
Hairy was a very big, burly humanoid armed with a stormgun and wearing a large power-pack. Too big for a seat, he lay prostrate on the floor of the entomopter he was aboard. “Comfortable?” Adam asked him. The sasquatch whimpered.
Adam, Flora, Conjure and Virgin Soldiers lined the walls sitting in padded bucket seats. “Hello!” Adam uttered over the vibrating hum of the aircraft. He offered his hand to the Girl in Purple sitting next to him. “I’m Adam!”
The woman shook his hand, introducing herself, “I am Drusilla.”
“Drusilla?”
“Yes, Adam, it’s me.”
“What?! Why? You should be in your command room directing the battle!”
“I have already outlined my strategy. My sister Yazmin is the better tactician so she shall direct the particulars of the battle.”
“Yeah, whatever!”
Drusilla pouted, “I didn’t ask for your consent because you have no say in the matter.”
“Obviously!”
“Don’t worry Adam: I am among the most proficient combatants in the Virgin Army. Those accompanying me are as well. Our best are coming with you.”
Drusilla was not wearing a parachute, otherwise, Adam had a mind to drop the tail-ramp and toss her out. Then again, there was something so sexy about her insisting on coming with him. The man grinned.
Brendaxa the Insidious was not one for overconfidence. Antiaircraft emplacements surrounded the basecamp. Electromagnetic pulse waves and streaming, wavering beams of plasma shot up from the mountains and tore into the encroaching swarm of entomopters. Victims burned and or exploded.
“Whoa!” Adam was startled by the jostling of the aircraft. Hairy suddenly slid and rolled towards him! Adam caught the burly sasquatch with a kick and tried to heave him back. The man groaned, “Stay out of my lap!” The entomopter leveled and Hairy plopped back onto the floor. The big sasquatch flattened himself against it as best he could.
Scores of dragonfly-type bombers led the swarms of locust-types, followed by the many beetle-types. The bombers themselves were fully armed with enervation ordinance and meant exclusively to disable the super weapon. Concubine Jockeys, the Girls in Brown, were the pilots and crew of Concubine aircraft. A monitoring Jockey reported, “Enemy super weapon initiating. Ready weapons. Await lock before firing.”
The tower atop the Castle of Yississ flashed and sparked into a continuous bolt between itself and the Everlasting Storm above. Tendrils lanced out and zapped bombers! Aircraft burned and plummeted. The many others kept coming, more of them burning and dropping all the while. “I have a lock,” a Girl in Brown reported.
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The remaining bombers unleashed a volley of rockets with glowing yellow warheads and whitish yellow tails. Tendrils shot out from tendrils and blasted the incoming missiles, eroding the volley until only one rocket remained. The last missile smacked into the skyward bolt with a blinding flash and a resonant boom! The skyward bolt was no more… for now. “We are clear,” a Jockey reported. “Make your landing.”
The dragonfly-type bombers veered to the sides on their way back to base. The locust-types and beetle-types kept onward: the beetle-types touching down as close as they dared. Tail-ramps dropped and thousands of Scouts, Sentinels, Keepers, goblins and sasquatches disembarked. Locust-type attack entomopters covered the landing troops with sprays from chin-mounted stormguns and volleys of caseless rockets. Beetle-types shot back into the sky or were blasted by continuous wave beams while trying to do so.
“We’re going in hot!” Adam warned as his entomopter swerved and landed. Hairy was the first off, his stormgun blazing into awaiting zombie Sentinels. Blood sprayed and the undead defenders winced and dropped.
The Castle of Yississ was an armed and armored, self-shifting assault fortress converted into the housing of a super weapon. The edifice was also the home of Yississ and the headquarters for her army. She watched from a metal balcony as the Battle of the Bleak Mountains raged below. The demon smirked, uttering, “Men are brutes and women are victims. Together they are mindless and helpless. Adam and Drusilla, you and your underlings are gathering for a slaughter.” The demon’s forces had an ambush waiting for the Concubines marching towards her from south. Those coming from the east would be next, then those from the north. “My darling Brendaxa knew you would eventually come. She prepared for these final days of your feeble struggling.”
Flora, the strongest of all Telluria’s carnivorous plant fairies, was coming. Yississ looked at the rotting hands of her own body. Long ago, this festering flesh with six breasts was once the comely body of a priestess who worshipped her. This human form had long since corrupted into something grotesque and monstrous. Now it was rotting and dying for it was human and outliving itself. “I shall be strong,” Yississ shivered with anticipation. “I shall be lovely and my loveliness shall be eternal. Come, my new body. Come to me.” Yississ had foreseen the coming of the lovely, terrible fairy. “Come to me, my lovely, terrible flesh!” The rotting demon outstretched her long arms and cackled maniacally.
Sasquatches wielding stormguns and wearing power-packs blazed away. Goblins and Concubine Scouts peered through telescopic sights and made precise shots. Concubine Sentinels stormed positions.
The monsters fought back: Cyborgs that were once bipedal vehicles and their crews were followed by throngs of zombie Sentinels. Blood Drinkers and Head Eaters crept about among the rocks, pouncing and snatching victims.
Shapeless maws dropped from the edge of a rocky cliff. The mouths bit off and swallowed the heads of Concubine Sentinels below! “Hairy!” Adam pointed at the scene. Hairy raised his stormgun and strafed the cliff with streaming bursts of plasma bolts. Head Eaters shrieked, bled green and dropped.
Blood Drinkers were swarming from below. “Conjure!” Adam hailed the half-goblin. “Burn ‘em!” Conjure knocked an arrow and aimed. The head of his missile burst into bright blue, heatless flames. He loosed and the arrowhead exploded into a ball of blue, heatless yet consuming fire! The shapeless monsters shrieked and shriveled!
Zombie Sentinels were charging… when vines shot out of the gray dirt and whipped around the undead women! Flora strangled, crushed or slammed them together.
Conjure ducked and rolled as the tentacles of a cyborg battle tank swung at him. The partially mechanical monster tried to stomp on him! Conjure slapped a glowing bomb onto the thing’s “crotch” then dove aside and snapped his fingers. The monster was blasted into gory and fiery chunks!
Concubine recoilless rifles mounted on short tripods blasted the other approaching cyborgs. A barrage of stormgun and small arms fire slaughtered the incoming waves of zombie Sentinels. Drusilla and a squad of Sentinels finished off what remained of the assailing Blood Drinkers.
When the shooting stopped, Adam asked Drusilla, “Having fun?”
“I am doing my duty.”
“You do it well! Take cover, girl: more are coming.”
Brendaxa the Insidious was in her command-and-control room monitoring and directing the battle. “I am not to be disturbed,” Yississ had commanded. “My child, do whatever you must and we shall be victorious.”
Brendaxa loved Yississ. Yes, the demon was harsh and cruel but always for the better. Brenda the Insightful was weak and fearful. Brendaxa the Insidious was mighty and terrible. It was better to be an undead monster than a living human being. It was better to be the instrument of fear rather than its victim. Brendaxa relished her inhuman strength and unholy insight. She was grateful. She swore unto Yississ, “Milady, all that I do I do for you. My mistress, your will be done.”
The air assault was but the vanguard of the ground offensive. A three-pronged invasion was converging from the south, east and north. Most of the Virgin Soldiers and their battle tanks were coming from the south, because its route was relatively easier. “Mortal women are easier to catch unawares,” Brendaxa deduced. “They are easier to slaughter.” The trap had been laid. The women were soon to spring it.