Chapter Text
Barbara stilled her pen and glanced at her phone one last time, to confirm her paper matched the texts Umber (Ombric) had sent her. The circumstances were vague at best, but he'd stumbled across a prophecy, one that did something no other prophecy did - promised an end to Merlin, if the circumstances were met.
She'd read it six times already before transcribing it to paper, and still didn't know how to feel about it. Because it was hope they hadn't had the day before (she could see Mary Wang's weariness, the obsessive focus she put into her search for Merlin's grail, because without it, he couldn't be defeated).
"There will be an end, a confrontation he cannot forestall. And if nine pieces are gathered to face him, his defeat is assured, though it will not come easily. Three blades forged to bring his end. Three children who have turned against their fathers. And three men who have died twice."
It was the simplest, most direct prophecy Barbara had seen; if Merlin had learned of it, he would have found a way to defeat it. But as it was…
Aside from Mjolnir and the Sword Unbreakable, they had Excalibur, Twilight, and the newly-forged God-Killer - three weapons created for the express purpose of defeating or killing Merlin.
Their forces included Bular, who had abandoned Gunmar's crusade; Steve Palchuk, who had used his father to get close enough to Merlin's familiar to try to kill the dragon; and Barbara herself, who by virtue of opposing Merlin was rebelling against her father.
But none of them had died twice - and those among them who had died once already (Mordred, Aaarrrgghh, and, depending on how you defined death, Jim), Barbara would not allow to suffer that again.
She crumpled up the prophecy and set it aflame with a word.
No, if Barbara was going to defeat Merlin, she would do so without the calculated sacrifice that made Blood Mages reviled. She would do so on her terms.
She took a deep breath. "Emily Jane?" she said to the empty room (but never truly empty, not if there was a creature here who could die). "It's time."
But before Barbara could receive any reply, the door to the library slammed open to admit Steve, breath huffing erratically.
"There's something you have to see, Dr. Lake."
The broadcast superseded all other scheduled programming in the United States. It started unremarkably, with President Martin Walters - the wizard Merlin - staring at the camera, left eye covered with a simple eyepatch, smiling gently.
"My fellow Americans," Merlin said. There was a quiet sound, a gasp, or someone choking, and Merlin's expression darkened, a frown flickering across his mouth. "Hey," Merlin said, raising one hand to snap his fingers. "Eyes on me. You can't do anything for them." His expression shifted back into a wide smile.
"My fellow Americans," he began again. "What a year, am I right? Assassinations, assassination attempts, dragons, wizards - I bet you feel like you're in the middle of an urban fantasy novel, right? And I know there's been a lot of debate about what's going to happen next. When the other shoe was going to drop."
Merlin clicked his tongue. "So I'm here to tell you...the other shoe is dropping. And I'm afraid Fox News was wrong. I figured it was actually about 50-50, whether they thought I was a servant of the Devil, or a God-fearing devotee of their irrational potluck of a worldview, although I admit I stacked the deck, with my whole 'America is just so special I wanted to help it' speech after Eli Pepperjack tried to summon an army of dragons to bring an end to my reign of terror.
"Because historically, when I get in a position of power in a society, that society's days are numbered. Not by coincidence, or accident, but by design. My design. Across a billion worlds, I am known as Cthulhu, the Sleeping God, the perpetrator of a thousand genocides." His smile faded to something subtle, eye glittering as he continued. "So...quite like most of your past presidents." He chuckled. "I joke, of course. None of your presidents were sorcerers of my caliber, and I am almost certain none of them killed anyone in the Oval Office."
"What did you do to them?" a voice sobbed from the other side of the camera.
Merlin rolled his eye with a sigh. "I have no more need of an Immortal Legion - one invincible warrior is enough for my purposes. And that, of course, brings me to my purpose. There is a prophecy, as there always is, when a nigh-immortal wizard enacts a reign of terror across countless eons. There will be a battle, in Arcadia, where I will either perish, or achieve the victory that will usher in the final age of this universe - the Age of Merlin. My enemies have been circling, sniping at me and my servants to wear away at my defenses. And I have decided enough is enough. The United States Army is cordoning off Arcadia Oaks, California. The dragons I now command are patrolling our borders to prevent...foreign intervention. Countless other contingencies - mundane and magical - are moving into place. I am traveling to Arcadia to begin this final battle - to bring an end to this back-and-forth. And once I have won - well, don't start watching any new series on Netflix."
A pop - a gunshot - cracked through the office. But almost before the sound registered, something appeared on the right of the screen. When the image resolved, a man stood next to Merlin's desk, hand clenched about a foot from Merlin's skull. He opened his palm, and a bullet clattered to the desk.
"Did you honestly think that would work?" Merlin asked. The man next to him snapped out his hands, a blur of motion, as two more shots came. Merlin sighed, pulled a pen from a stand, and doodled idly on the desk. There was a gasp from next to the camera, which listed suddenly, twisting to reveal a man and a woman dressed in the dark suits emblematic of the Secret Service. Both were slumped on the ground, one with a gun inches from their hand.
"That's odd," Merlin said from offscreen.
"Sir?"
"I can practically draw that rune in my sleep - three people don't make much of a grail, but still, I should have felt that energy," Merlin replied. "Ugh, who the fuck knows - maybe James Buchanan wired this place to power some sort of Presidential Blood Magic. Tell Clyde to get the Joint Chiefs together so we're all on the same page." He wandered back onscreen and picked up an ornately carved staff of wood from an umbrella stand. "And let's get out of here."
The world had stilled around Robert Willikins. When he'd shot President Walters, he'd known if he failed, his life would be forfeit. But he hadn't expected...this. A world still and grey, quiet except for his own breathing.
"Your death does not have to be for his benefit," a voice said, that of a woman, dark-haired, grey-eyed, and sad. Sorrowful.
"What-"
"He cast a spell to kill you and your partner," the woman continued, "to use the pain of that death to increase his power." Her brow wrinkled, frown deepening. "It's a thing he does."
"Can you stop it?" Robert asked.
"Oh. No," the woman said, the quiet sadness returning to her voice. "I'm - I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Emily Jane, and I'm the anthropomorphic personification of Death."
"So...you're not here to save me," Robert replied, voice dull - and what had he thought, that someone would swoop in at the last minute to stop Merlin?
"No. I'm here to offer you a choice," Emily Jane said. "There's nothing either of us can do about Merlin killing you. Luckily, this isn't the sort of magic that traps your soul; you're going to...wherever your final destination is as soon as this is over. But it's possible, here, in the moment before death, for you to offer the power released by your death to me."
She drew a dark rainbow, a glittering stone, from a pocket. "This is a grail. It holds the power of those who have been killed, or offered themselves as a sacrifice, to create it. If you will it, the power of your death will settle here, instead of in Merlin's grail. And some small fragment of your sacrifice will be turned against him, when the time is right."
Barbara stared at the black opal. It was small enough to easily fit in her hand, but heavy, as well. She wasn't certain if it was objectively so, or if her knowledge of what the stone contained affected her perception of it.
"I was doubtful, when you suggested this," Emily Jane said. "People...are not often happy to see me. And the truth sounds...fantastic. Impossible. And who is to say my intentions aren't worse than Merlin's?" She was quiet a moment. "But except for those who followed Merlin, chose of their own free will to pursue his goals, every person I spoke to agreed, gave of themselves to defeat him."
Barbara felt a smile tug at her lips. She'd been more cynical, once, but something about watching their band of rebels grow with every new encounter had given her the hope to suggest the plan to Emily Jane, to build a grail of their own, built of those who, at the end of their lives, would offer up their deaths to Merlin's defeat. It couldn't hope to match Merlin's power, but it was something.
Emily Jane wasn't paying attention, though - she seemed to be staring into the middle distance, frowning.
"Emily?" Barbara asked, and the other woman shook her head.
"I've worked with death long enough to understand things no mortal ever could," Emily replied. "Blood Magic among them. The Philosopher's Stone doesn't just gather the energy from the death of living things. Whenever something dies, is expended, the Philosopher's Stone collects that energy.
"It is an engine, transforming entropy to potential, and in the hands of a conscious being, potential to energy. It wants to be found, to be used, to extend the lifespan of the universe. Blood Mages capture that energy for their own use, hoarding it, interfering with the process. And I worry...Merlin did something when he had control of the Philosopher's Stone. Because when people died a thousand miles away from him, untouched by his machinations...I could see something leeching their power. Not the wholesale absorption of the Philosopher's Stone, but. An avalanche is just a billion snowflakes." She shook her head. "But you don't have the time to sit ruminating on this. And neither do I."
And Barbara's chest hitched, a skip of a heartbeat. "What do you mean," Barbara said, "about time?" Emily Jane didn't reply. "Do you mean, you'll be busy, soon?"
"I can't see the future," Emily Jane replied. "Not the way you're thinking. But death looms large in my mind."
"Is my son going to die, Emily?"
"Of course - everyone dies." Emily offered Barbara a soft smile.
"Even Merlin?"
"...We'll see."
The debate was short - they didn't have time for a longer one (Merlin could be in Arcadia in a moment, with a thought, and although Dr. Lake opined there was something he had to do before he could try to kill them all, it was a ticking clock nonetheless). Merlin knew about the Gyre, and about Claire's aptitude with portals, giving each method of approach its own risks.
It was Claire who ended the argument. "Merlin may be able to respond to a single portal, block it or booby-trap it - but not two, not four, a dozen."
Dr. Lake frowned, and Mordred felt unease mirrored in his chest. "You can't do that," he said. "Even with the power of the Dragon's Tear, you don't have the power - it'll kill you."
"God, yes, I know," she retorted. "But the Dragon's Tear isn't the only power I have - wasn't the only power in the Shadowstaff."
But the Shadowstaff was destroyed, and phylacteries introduced their own quirks and inefficiencies to the magic of any stone. The only other way Claire could access such magic was by consuming the stones themselves, a type of Blood Magic she'd learned from a parallel self.
Dr. Lake must have drawn the same conclusion, as her frown deepened. "We don't know the long-term effects of the sort of Blood Magic Shadow Weaver used. You could develop a dependency on consuming magic energy, or-"
"If we don't face Merlin, we won't have time to worry about long-term effects!" Claire snapped. "Besides, it's a little late to debate whether it's a good idea for me to absorb the Shadow's Eye and Fiend's Blood that used to be in the Shadowstaff. I did it like, a week ago." At the shocked silence in reply, she grinned, scanning the assembled warriors (Frederick had made himself scarce again, and most of the Eclipse Knights were leading an assault to break Merlin's stranglehold on Russia, but that left them with an impressive collection: the Galadrigals, Aaarrrgghh and twenty Blind Monks, Bular, Draal, Jack Frost and forty yeti, Stricklander, a dozen trolls native to Arcadia Mordred couldn't name, Aster, an honest-to-god wishing star, the Tarrons and their bodyguard Varvatos Vex, Nicholas St. North, Mordred, Galahad, Jim Lake Jr., Claire Nuñez, Toby Domzalski, Eli Pepperjack, Steve Palchuk, Mary Wang, Darwin Franklin, and...Barbara Lake). "Is everyone ready?"
She didn't wait for a reply; they didn't have the luxury. Claire drew a line across her forearm with a short knife, wincing as the line of blood welled up slightly. And then she held both hands out, palms parallel to the ground, closing her eyes. And Mordred watched, because there were few things more captivating than skillful sorcery (relying on her own blood, and the amplifying effects of the Fiend's Blood she'd consumed to do this, instead of her own magical reserves, Claire wasn't a true master, not yet. But the skill to do what she was doing was that of a master). A hand clamped around Mordred's wrist, and he spared a glance for Jim, whose mouth was parted, brow furrowed in worry.
"She knows what she's doing," Mordred offered. "More or less," he added, because he'd lied enough to Jim in the early days of their friendship. "It'll be easier, because the power is in her - every spark of it is hers."
And then the world went dark. It was not a portal opening beneath Mordred's feet. Instead, he was pulled through a veil, feeling that boundary passing through him, like mesh through water. The dark and the cold persisted for just a moment before the process happened in reverse, except it was like being thrown through glass into a blinding light. It took a moment, adjusting to the warmth and light, for Mordred to panic for the sake of the trolls, for Jim-
But the sixteen of them, human and changeling and alien, dragon and cat, were scattered across the main square of Arcadia Oaks, none of the trolls anywhere to be seen. Claire, braced on one knee, one hand down and the other drawing her knife down the length of it, was squinting up at the sun, and Mordred felt a thrill in his chest.
"Claire, where's-" Dr. Lake began, only for Claire to cut her off with a 'shush'.
"I have to concentrate," Claire said.
"What are you doing?" Aster demanded.
"We can't win without the trolls," Claire said evenly. "And sunset isn't for another hour." She let out a low, long breath.
"Do you know how much power it took Morgana to put out the sun?" Eli asked. "A lot - and you don't-"
"I didn't need power to beat her," Claire growled, raising her bloodied arm to the sun. "And sunlight isn't what kills trolls. Ultraviolet light is." And between one breath and the next, something happened. The world was just as bright as it had been a moment before, but there was an emptiness to the air, and a fading warmth. Mordred risked a glance upward, finding an odd distortion in the air around the sun.
There was a moment of quiet, before, "That's all well and good, but what happens if someone takes you out in the middle of the battle?"
"Yeah, like I'm dumb enough to cast a spell like this if I have to concentrate on it," Claire said with a roll of her eyes. "I just lensed the atmosphere for a couple of hours - it'll be fine. Hey!" Her voice rose to a shout. "You can come out now!"
"Keep it down!" Galahad snapped. "We don't need Merlin's whole army descending on us-"
"It would be a glorious start to this battle, and necessary, given we intend to face and defeat that army anyway," Vex said, gazing around the square as he turned slowly. "But that does raise a question - where is Merlin's army?"
"He didn't come by himself, did he?" Jack asked. "Even he couldn't be that stupid."
A stuttering sound - a low chuckle - echoed across the square. And a form stepped down from a stand that had once held a statue (of what Mordred couldn't recall, not with the end of the world looming large in his mind). A familiar form - rugged, scarred, dressed in a neat dark suit. Mordred scanned the square for a sign of the rest of the Immortal Legion, gaze skittering across Aja doing the same. In his examination, Mordred saw the doors of City Hall creaking open to admit Jim (who'd let him leave first?), and the other trolls, the latter stepping out only when Jim failed to turn to stone at the touch of sunlight. In another world, they might have spent a longer time staring up at the sun, which few of them had ever seen, and none of them without fear of what the light would do to them.
"If you are looking for my brothers, you will not find them," Legion said. "It was decided that Merlin needed a Legion no longer - or, rather, he would prefer a one-man army." And then he rushed at Aja with the speed a man could only achieve by being four thousand and ninety-six times as powerful as an ordinary man. He slammed into an invisible wall of force, bounced back and leapt over it, but the rest of them were reacting, now (just not fast enough, not nearly fast enough). Vex, the closest to Aja, drew the strange, protractor-shaped objects that formed the hilt of the Akiridions' energy weapons, calling forth a sword as he moved to intercept. But Legion was a blur, rolling under Vex's swing to be met by a punch from Aja. She had been born with the power of strength that matched that of trolls twice her size, but her punch barely phased Legion. The man raised a leg and kicked her with the flat of his foot, sending her flying backward and forcing Vex to chase after his charge rather than continue his assault on Legion.
The trolls arrived then, Aaarrrgghh rolling into Legion, only for the warrior to shift just enough to grab the troll and use his momentum to spin in a circle and hurl Aaarrrgghh into Draal, sending both trolls sprawling into a tree. Bular hit Legion, then, right hand punching his skull and the other his stomach, but Legion didn't even seem to notice the strikes.
He did grab the hand against his skull, twisting it as he yanked Bular forward. The hand, made of mithril and magic stone, crushed in Legion's grasp, and Bular stumbled forward as Legion produced a blade in his still-free hand, unassuming except for the certainty that only a fool would fight trolls without access to Creeper's Sun.
But Legion was not fighting only Bular; a pair of Krubera, black silk blindfolds marking them as Blind Monks, trained to look a few moments into the future, enough to anticipate their enemy's every move, attacked Legion from either side, forcing him to let go of Bular's hand and contend with them. As Aaarrrgghh pulled Bular away and Draal closed in on him, Legion scowled, and raised one foot slightly, before bringing it down to earth.
The ground within twenty meters of Legion collapsed into a crater, while the shocks of the attack sent Mordred tumbling as the buildings at the edge of the square shuddered and cracked.
No, Mordred corrected himself as he climbed to his feet, in time to see Legion pulling his blade from the stone form of a Blind Monk. It wasn't an attack. It was a step - probably only a fraction of Legion's power.
Vex screamed as he leapt at Legion from the edge of the crater, sword raised high. Legion pulled one hand back and punched forward, the force of the punch not only throwing Vex away from him, but throwing up a gale of dirt and grit that tore several trees from their roots.
It had been thirty seconds, and Legion had claimed one fatality, thrown their entire assault into disarray, and the one person who'd hit him hadn't even hurt him.
"Something's wrong," Mordred muttered to himself.
"No, I'm pretty sure we planned to get our asses kicked." Mordred glared at finding Jack taking cover behind a bench with him.
"That's not what I mean," Mordred replied. "With that sort of power - he could have killed half of us by now."
"Yeah? Just wait until I get my hands on him!"
"No, I - he's toying with us," Mordred snapped.
"Buying time," Jack said. He squinted through a cloud of debris as Legion threw a yeti through the movie theater. "Where's Mary - I bet she could give us some idea what Merlin's planning-"
Mordred wasn't looking toward the explosion, so he just felt the sound and pressure, the wave passing through in a heartbeat. He turned in time with Jack to see them approaching - hundreds of figures marching behind a pair walking down the middle of one of the approaching streets. A building was still burning on the side of the street.
Merlin had shed any pretense of modernity, wearing instead a breastplate of metal the color of dried blood, walking with the aid of the Staff of Avalon, from which hung the glittering gem born from the willing sacrifice of his dragon familiar, the Orb of Dragonkind (the reason why he now commanded an army of dragons, why Eli Pepperjack and his mother remained now in human guise, for fear of what taking their true form would allow Merlin to do). A sickly white light glittered at his throat, likely a grail containing the power of another universe's Light of Creation, which he had ripped from Shadow Weaver - an alternate version of Claire Nuñez who had feigned allegiance to Merlin in the hopes of getting close enough to kill him. A patch covered his left eye, almost certainly sacrificed to the Norns to drink from the Well of Urd. All in all, he was proudly displaying mastery of four of the six branches of magic, and with or without the Philosopher's Stone, Merlin was a master of Blood Magic, the possessor of the most powerful grail in existence.
So, five.
Modern fiction contained tales of villains collecting...sets of artifacts to achieve great works. There were, too, stories of what happened when those sets were keystones of the fabric of reality. Names had been bandied about in their discussion of Merlin's chase of the Light of Creation, examples of this. Thanos. Robotnik. Dragonballs.
(Considering all that, something worried at Mordred's mind, something he was missing, or had forgotten.)
But the light of the flames died, allowing a clearer look at Merlin's companion, and all thought of magic and villainous masterworks left Mordred's mind.
Because he knew the man walking next to Merlin. His face was older, more worn, than the last time Mordred had seen him (and it was his fault, his choices, that caused that), but the time legend said he'd slept in Avalon had helped him weather the ages as well as Galahad.
"Do you see, Arthur?" Merlin asked, voice carrying across the square, resonant, powerful, sure. "A Shadow Sorceress who has taken up Morgana's mantle, alien beings, and a master Blood Mage - unbaptized, unconstrained by the laws to which we have bound ourselves."
And Arthur's eyes - brown (hazel in the light of midsummer), sharp, narrowed as he examined the fighters, Krel drawing out barriers to block the blasts of wind Legion could create with a punch, the hail of concrete missiles he could make by kicking at the ground. trolls trying to pin him in even as he took a yeti's head off with his poison-tipped dagger alone. Mordred saw the moment his father noticed him, because the man's stern expression faltered, eyes softening, lips parting as he said something to Merlin.
"Come now, be reasonable, Arthur. Your son is dead. The foulest sort of necromancy may conjure a spirit to inhabit his body, even attempt to mimic his mannerisms. But there is no magic that can return the dead to life."
If Merlin had merely lied to Arthur, claiming Mordred had turned on his father, Mordred was certain he could convince his father of the truth. But everything Merlin had said was true. Mordred had died, and there was no magic that could return the dead. Only Death herself could revive those who had yet to pass beyond the veil into true death. But how could Mordred explain that story, the stumbling path of his friendship with James Lake Jr., the blossoming romance that had driven Jim to offer up his humanity in exchange for Mordred's life?
"Still…" Arthur glanced behind him, and Mordred at last saw what made up the ranks of soldiers behind them.
The frontmost ranks were men and women dressed in U.S. military garb. Behind them were...bodies, half-rotten, in older uniforms, and the backmost ranks skeletons dressed in scraps of fabric.
"These men and women fell in service to this country, and by ancient pacts I invoked at the advent of this - the battle for the end of the world - such people may rise again to fight. And...well, I am their Commander in Chief. This is no dark magic, Arthur. The living are coming to complement these troops, but now...I believe it is time to end this."
The United Nations was, foolishly, debating about the proper response to President Walters' - Merlin's - declaration of war against humanity, forgetting that they had no power so long as the American ambassador was loyal to the wizard. NATO was in a similar predicament.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, for all its bluster, had never developed the means to do anything if the Americans decided to destroy them. There was no nation that counted itself among America's enemies who had such power, no terrorist that could respond to Merlin's brazen plans with any hope of success.
The People's Republic of China, however, had never bowed to American authority, and cared little for the opinion of nations that would condemn them for doing what was necessary. Like America, they could suffer no censure or penalty from the United Nations unless they allowed it.
And they were the equal of America when it came to the most destructive of weapons.
So as the United Nations argued, as the American Congress struggled to convene in the waning hours of the day, the Chinese military sprang into action.
There was some debate which delayed a response, and that was how much force was appropriate to unleash upon Arcadia Oaks. In the end, they decided upon twenty-five warheads - they could not presume that the force of a single nuclear explosion would destroy a wizard whose legend had endured for two thousand years.
But a mere ninety seconds after the first planes took off, they were downed by aircraft of unknown design, aircraft that quickly were swarming China's airspace.
The mystery of their origin was shortly resolved when a massive vessel of similar design appeared in low Earth orbit, spilling out more craft.
A billion worlds. It was unsurprising that at least some of them would have sided with a man such as Merlin, and from that thought, certain that they would provide reinforcements in his attempt to take this world.
Ten planes were destroyed in the first surprise attack, and another five as the military rallied to provide some defense. Reports came quickly that every nation with anything approaching an air force was under assault by these alien invaders, a brutal assault to allow no succor to the settlement where Merlin had indicated would be the site of his final victory or final defeat.
Six more fell, even as the warheads' escorts destroyed a dozen of the attacking craft (but there were dozens more, and the wide berth they were forced to make around the mother ship was a delay they could not afford, and more chance for Merlin's extraterrestrial allies to take down the ships. Another expended its payload trying to destroy the invaders, and another, the first to shoot, had its missile shot down itself.
But two burst through the firefight, fired off their missiles, and turned to protect the payload from the invaders' ships.
It was with bated breath that the assembled military officers watched the radar as the missiles pierced American airspace, angling toward California.
And then in the moment between passing over water, and land, the missiles vanished.
High above the California coast, Xialzresdun, hovering with slow flaps of her wings, which would not keep any other creature her size aloft, watched the two missiles streaking toward her. She knew the power contained within the weapons, a force that could destroy even a dragon. It would be unwise to strike the missiles with the destructive power which were most dragons' first resort.
She took a deep breath. "Suleykshul Zun Vokos!"
Her voice ripped into metal and plastic, wires, and raw radioactive material. And according to her voice, her will, she stripped away all the destructive force the weapons contained. They fell apart as their trajectory changed, no longer soaring but only falling, no more a danger than a simple meteorite.
Steve wasn't a coward.
He hadn't run from the battlefield.
Yes, he'd gotten himself out of the middle of the main square, and off the ground, as quickly as he could once they'd arrived in Arcadia.
But it wasn't because he was afraid.
It was just.
He'd come to this battle alongside dozens of people practiced in melee combat - fighting with swords and axes and hammers and teeth and claws. And Steve could fight like a teenager - punch and shove and maybe kick if he was feeling vindictive. He couldn't match hardened warriors, much less the ranks of the undead Merlin had apparently summoned from the Arlington National Cemetery (Steve doubted it was the only reason he'd wanted to be President, but easy access to an undead army had probably sweetened the deal).
So Steve was perched not at the top of the church, which was the most obvious place for a sniper, but a lower post from which he could easily see the place any reasonable sniper would take on top of the church. He had a rifle and three bullets made of orichalcum.
And he hadn't fired one shot.
He wasn't plagued by the doubts that had stayed his hand through most of the Battle of Fading Dawn, but by new, improved doubts.
He'd let his sights linger on Merlin a few times before he'd turned away. The wizard was doing very little, clearly relying on King Arthur (even a few months ago, Steve would have still been reeling to think the actual King Arthur was down there, but that was before Steve had made forays past second base with a dragon) to lead his forces to victory. But Steve was certain Merlin wasn't stupid or arrogant enough to enter this battle without protection, that without coordination with someone who could strip away whatever magical barriers the wizard had, even an orichalcum bullet wouldn't do much.
He'd considered Arthur for a long minute. The King of the Britons had a blade forged of the same metal making up Merlin's armor, obviously enchanted and probably some weird Blood Magic parallel to orichalcum. The undead soldiers responded to his commands, and after some five minutes, when living ground troops began streaming onto the scene, the rest of the soldiers did, as well. And he was outmaneuvering them without any apparent effort - there was only one surviving member of the Heartstone Trollmarket contingent of trolls, a troll named Bagdwella who kept almost everyone at a distance through her use of improvised weapons (to include benches, streetamps, trees, and the corpses of her compatriots). The only bright point there was that Galahad was mowing through the ranks of the undead like he was an actual paladin.
Worse, Arthur apparently considered the presence of Mordred (what he believed to be an undead mockery of his dead son) a personal insult, and had on several occasions closed in on Mordred to dispatch him. It was now taking the combined efforts of Jim, Toby, and Claire to keep Arthur at bay, as Mordred seemed unable to bring himself to attack his father. Perhaps out of respect for Mordred's reluctance to hurt his father, the trio were doing little to harm Arthur directly. Rather than calling on the destructive powers of Mjolnir, Toby was using his own natural power to throw Arthur aside whenever he drew close. And when Arthur had learned to adapt to sudden shifts in gravity, twisting to adapt to his new "down" whenever Toby attacked him, Claire was there to take advantage of those moments to throw him through portals - usually no more than a few dozen yards, as she'd expended a lot to bring them here in the first place. And if Arthur got too close, there was Jim, a mostly-grown troll driven by the desire to protect his loved ones.
As the battle went on, they made mistakes, reacted too slow, got cut, let Arthur get too close once or twice. But Steve couldn't bring himself to kill Mordred's father, not when the people who knew him best were risking everything to avoid doing so.
And that left Legion, who was single-handedly fighting thirty or so trolls, five aliens which included two combat specialists and a mostly incorporeal creature who fought using a mass of sand they seemed to control telekinetically, and a guy who could make ice with his mind. He wasn't winning, but he'd killed ten trolls already, and didn't seem to be slowing down. He had ungodly reflexes, and he and his brothers had been nearly bulletproof back when they'd had merely sixty-four times the strength of a normal human, instead of ten times that.
Except all that strength, all that defensive power, came from an elixir brewed by an alchemist, a Blood Mage. If Steve could get him to hold still for one second...
If he could get their attention without exposing his position…
Steve's phone vibrated in his pocket.
They'd been off the grid, phones locked up, turned off, batteries long-dead, for the months they'd been hiding from Merlin. And yet when the moment had come, when Merlin had revealed himself and called them to meet him in Arcadia, Mary had returned everyone's phones fully charged. How she'd predicted they'd be needed that exact moment, Steve couldn't begin to fathom.
But when he fumbled to pull out his phone without compromising his stability, Steve found a short message on his phone.
Social Media Queen
u ded?
Steve snorted, typed a quick 'no' before pausing, staring at his phone. Hadn't he just thought he needed a way to get someone's attention?
Steve
i need a clear shot on legion
The ellipsis appeared for just a moment before Mary replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
Steve didn't waste time wondering what she was going to do, just returned to his perch, moving to keep a bead on Legion, or as much as he could with a guy who could cross a hundred yards of battlefield in the blink of an eye.
A relatively small ball burst out from where the spellcasters had taken refuge, Blinky rolling toward the central combat. He threw something to the side as he uncurled, twin explosions behind him preventing immediate pursuit as he rushed to Draal's side, a hurried word sending the larger troll around the edge of melee with Legion, toward Jack.
Jack Frost.
Steve tensed as he watched, finger at the ready. He wasn't certain what he expected; Legion was almost certainly wary of what a guy who could control snow and ice could do to him, so they couldn't simply freeze him in place. Still, he wouldn't be found wanting when his moment came.
Bular, down to one hand now that his prosthetic had been destroyed, burst through a gap opened by two of the blindfolded Krubera warriors, swinging around to kick Legion. The man laughed, stepping inside the arc and slamming his Creeper's Sun-coated knife into Bular's leg. Aja was behind Legion, grabbing his arms; without waiting a beat, Legion braced his legs and crouched forward, sending Aja flying over his back.
And in the moment Aja hit the ground, Legion's momentum and her own carrying them both to the ground, ice leapt up around them both, freezing them in place.
And Steve squeezed the trigger. One shot, one kill.
The shot missed Legion's heart, punching through his shoulder, and for a moment, Steve was certain he'd fucked up. But when Legion moved to break free of the ice, nothing happened - he didn't move, so when Vex closed in, weird blade raised high, he had nowhere to run.
Clyde shoved open the door to Ruth's office, already talking. "Okay, I'm sure you've heard the news - me and the Joint Chiefs are keeping an eye on things from the-"
"Haven't you heard?" Ruth asked. She was leaning back in her chair, feet up on her desk. "It's over."
Clyde snorted. "No, it isn't. The NSA's monitoring the whole battle and we're kicking their asses, but we've still got to kill the key players before Merlin will let us stand down."
"No, it's over," Ruth repeated. "I just got the call. Three hundred ninety-five voted to impeach, and eighty to remove from office, and that's just because they couldn't get ahold of everyone on short notice. Fastest I've ever seen Congress act. We might have gotten this to drag on a day or so if he hadn't made fun of Fox News in that little declaration of war."
"Impeach - what the fuck does it matter?" Clyde demanded, waving in the vague direction of the Situation Room. "Merlin's in Arcadia - he's got Arthur and an undead legion, and the army isn't keeping up to date on the news."
"Yeah," Ruth said, twisting as she kicked off the desk to stand as her chair fell to the floor. "But I figured if the Secretary of Defense told them to stand down, they would. Or some of them, at least."
"Stand…" Clyde shook his head. "What the fuck are you talking about? We're here to support Merlin to the end. I'm not telling anyone to stand down!"
"Yeah, I figured you'd say that," Ruth said. "But I thought I'd give you the choice." She stepped forward, face shifting as she did, until she was the mirror of Clyde, eyes fading from bright red to the color of dried blood. "I'm going to guess I'm going to have to kill you to pull this off, right?"
And Clyde pulled a gun to shoot, but Ruth was already inside his guard, punching his throat. While he choked for breath, pulling back, Clyde fumbled for his replacement backup grail, calling forth a sphere to keep living creatures away from him.
"What are you doing?" he demanded, hoarse as his voice returned. "You're supposed to be on our side!"
"Oh, Ruth White was on your side," the doppelganger replied, mouth twitching into a smirk. "Quite intractable about it, which is why we had to kill her."
"Kill - but you've been - she's a Polymorph! How did you fake that?"
"Fake it?" the doppelganger asked. "I find myself offended at your implication. I am a Polymorph myself, and until recently, Grand Commandant of the Janus Order." He sketched out a bow. "Otto Scarbach."
"The Janus Order is supposed to be on our side too!" Clyde snapped.
And Otto frowned, slightly. "Supposed to be? I think not. For centuries, changelings have lived in service to one power or another, those able to use our familiars, or the threats of people we have come to care for, as leverage. Only the Polymorphs have possessed the true right of self-determination - to own the consequences of our choices. I bound myself to the changelings for my own purposes, to serve whoever best served our people.
"With the release of their familiars, the changelings lost their one defense, and became vulnerable to Merlin's promises. But times have changed. We have at last understood what Morgana concealed from us since the beginning - the power of our forms, and so have for the first time in history been able to decide our allegiance without fear of retribution." His - Clyde's - smile went toothy, eyes glowing to make it something frightening. "Should it surprise you that we have no love for the man who has bound us with threats?"
Clyde shot Otto, but the man's skin was suddenly rough, armored, and the bullet bounced away. "You can't touch me!" Clyde snapped.
"Oh." Otto grabbed something from his pocket and swiped it at Clyde, a splash of foul-smelling liquid. Something happened, a flicker in the power shielding Clyde from his attacker. "I think you'll find you are mistaken." He took a step forward, smile again wide. "After all, with Merlin commanding an army of dragons, how difficult do you think it is for the Vice President to get her hands on a few ounces of dragon blood?"
The space cult fleet was ignoring the moonbase, which was the only bright spot in this whole fucking mess. The engine room was a bust - there was obviously some sort of power there, blue light humming within the depths of the forgelike device at the heart of the palace. There were levers Darci was afraid to touch, some sort of weird slot for a keystone or something, buttons she'd literally dragged Kubo back from, and a complete absence of owner's manuals.
"Your grandfather fucking sucked, Kubo," Darci muttered. They were in the throne room, watching the flashes at Earth level showing where the fleet was assaulting what looked like everybody.
"Not to argue your point, but he didn't build the Moon Palace," Kubo replied, winding his way past Darci's feet to settle in front of her. "He probably expected to teach me how to use it when I finally accepted my place by his side."
"Yeah, like I'm going to trust a boomer on how to use anything more complicated than a gear shift," Darci muttered. "This place has defenses or something, right? Like - dropships or something to fight attackers?"
"Probably," Kubo replied. "But if we can't wake it up-"
"Everyone else is fucked," Darci concluded. She watched a particularly large explosion over the Pacific. "This sucks. I'm going back to the engine room. Give a shout if we get boarded or something." She swung the Sword Unbreakable over her shoulder as she sauntered from the throne room.
A chorus of howls echoed across the town, stilling the fight for a moment, until dozens of wolves tore into the back of the living portion of Merlin's army. There was a shout from Merlin - he hadn't expected this (and he'd said the army had barricaded Arcadia, so it would be unexpected. Barbara spared a thought wondering if someone in the army had decided following a genocidal dictator was wrong, before discarding the thought as needlessly optimistic). Merlin raised the Staff of Avalon (a show of force, not any sign of what he intended to do), and runes flickered in the air around him - almost too fast to read. But Barbara knew Merlin, better now that she understood his history, his connection with her. Blood Mages had magic that could tear the souls out of those too close to them and use that death to fuel their grails.
"I tire of this," Merlin said. "The back and forth, each side momentarily seizing the upper hand. Would you like to know why I needed the presidency? Because it made my plans for Earth easy. My cults have spent millions of years spreading death, indiscriminate to all who do not know the paths of the stars. For months, my people have been returning to the sites of these massacres, setting the runic patterns that will transform them from grails to…" He paused, gaze drifting. "I saw this phrase, once, and I find it wholly appropriate for my purpose. They have created Crests of Blood. The anchors for the greatest work of Blood Magic in the history of the universe. And Arcadia Oaks, the site of so much bloodshed, the deaths of my Trollhunters, of Morgana, is the keystone."
The earth beneath them pulsed, and both werewolves and living soldiers near Merlin fell to the ground. Another pulse, and Barbara could smell it - a rancid, metallic scent as something seemed to claw at the inside of her chest. Others around her were choking, gasping, dying. Barbara struggled for the opal, but found it slipping from her grasp.
Her hand twitched, and in the moment before her heart stopped, something slipped into her grasp, hand clenching around it by reflex. And for a moment, she knew peace; the pain, the panic, were gone, and she could breathe easily.
But then she remembered she was fighting, and looked down at her left hand. There, red light spilled out from a metal case. The Amulet of Twilight? It took only a moment's thought to realize what was happening. The Amulet of Twilight, like Daylight before it, could bestow its essence upon its wielder, and the Amulet of Twilight contained a fragment of orichalcum. Enough, she suspected, to protect its bearer from Blood Magic.
But that meant-
Barbara's gaze dropped, falling, as if guided to, on the still form of her son, and she felt her chest grow tight, eyes wavering, watering.
Jim had never understood it wasn't his job to protect Barbara.
"They say you fancy yourself a sorceress," Merlin called out to Barbara. "So you will appreciate, I think, watching the birth of my masterwork."
When Jim died (again, depending how you defined death), he found himself facing, not Emily Jane, but a blond, blue-eyed man who grabbed his arm the moment he saw Jim was awake.
"Come on," the man insisted, forcing Jim to stumble along after him as the man walked away.
"What-"
"We don't have much time," the man snapped. "Merlin's magic is doing something to the Void - it might be destroying it. But for a few moments, at least, we have our opportunity."
"Our opportunity to do what?" Jim asked. There was darkness around them, dim, featureless, but then he saw a crack in the floor beneath them, from which a spark of light spilled. And then he saw another, larger one, in the air to their right. "What's happening?"
"The walls are crumbling," the man replied. "The Void is falling apart. And that means two things. For one, we are finally connected to the rest of the universe." He stopped at a door, locked and chained, standing in the featureless space. But the cracks were gathering here, and Jim could hear voices beyond it. "Which includes every iteration of the Void that exists."
"And second," he said, dipping a finger into a crack to pull away a glowing sort of ink which he drew on the door, "we have access at last to Death."
The man finished a crude sort of design on the door, and between one beat and the next, Emily Jane appeared.
"James," she said quietly. "Karl," she added, nodding to the man. "I don't have much time, here."
"I know," the man, Karl, said. "But you'll listen to me. Because you want the old wizard dead as much as we do. There are spirits in the Void, spirits of the dead, one hundred and eight humans who died in service to Myrddin Wyllt, but have yet to pass on from the world. You have the power to grant them life again."
"Not for free," Emily Jane replied. "The cost is not for my own amusement - a cost must be paid. And for over one hundred lives-"
"Not forever!" Karl said. "Just for one evening. Until sunrise. What would that cost?"
"One soul," Emily Jane said. "Released not to death, but to oblivion."
And Karl turned to Jim, grinning. "We haven't much time, boy, but you see? We can still win this. And given the stakes...I think one soul is a bargain."
All across the surface of the Earth, the sites of a thousand battles, massacres, disasters, flared with energy, as runes carved at the locations drew on the bloodied grails for power. And as the runes burned, life - all life - nearby was drawn into it. People choked and died as their souls were pulled from them. And planes and cars crashed, causing no more death than would be caused in the end, but more destruction, certainly.
And if you could view this from space, and see through the Earth, you would see lines of bright light connecting these points, making an intricate shape. If you knew of runes, you might call this three-dimensional sketch a 'master rune'.
If you pulled back further, you would see pinpoints of light burning among the stars, other worlds experiencing the same thing, the death of billions as crests of blood burned a master rune into the surface of the planet.
And bright lines connected these runes, to create, if you could step back further, a single massive mark upon the universe. A rune of such size and grandeur that it could only be formed by a creature who could plan a million years in advance.
A neutral observer would hesitate to call such a rune a masterwork, however, for only its scale made it impressive.
Except for the runes carved into the heart, the keystone of this construction. Known to none except those who had made a sacrifice at the Well of Urd, roughly translated, they meant “ascension”.
Because to a timeless, immortal master of all six branches of magic, not in mere power but understanding (and this is what Mordred had forgotten, that demons were fallen angels, and understood Celestial power as well as one’s native tongue), there was no further advancement save godhood.