Arc Four : Mercury, The Winged Messenger “I have at times shuddered, thinking of what the last thoughts of worldwide officials elected and unelected were. Before their monsterizations, incubizations, or even death. Did they, in their last hours, minutes, or moments, realize that they had been played for fools? Whether by the Lilim and their allies, or by third-party opportunists, or by organized individuals such as the ones now known to comprise the Kuiper Group?” -excerpt from the Mamono Encyclopedia Britannica, First Edition, Chapter Four: The Superpowers of Earth And Their Downfalls Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest January 2nd, 20-- 5:51 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Secretary of Transportation Allen Jackson has left the room to have a moment alone, leaving his Sig-Sauer P229 DAK pistol on the table, to prove that he isn’t going to kill himself.) (SecHHS Dhar) “NOOOOOOOOO! It’s over man, game over! We’re gonna get raped! They’re gonna make us run a train on every woman in here! I’m married, damn them! They’re gonna send in the octopus-chicks and they’re gonna anally rape every single one of us for all the trouble we’ve caused for that super-bitch Lilith!” (President Delvecchio) “Okay, okay! Everyone, calm the fuck down! Dupree, you’re our SIGINT guy, tell us step-by-step, why my missiles aren’t flying!?” (Senator Dupree) “Simplified? We’re half-locked out. Something’s in the system, and it’s preventing the message from going through. It’s some kind of… firewall. Best guess is that all those tech-savvy traitors Non’s been hunting down all this time. I think they pooled their efforts into making some kind of reverse-firewall. It’s preventing the signal from getting out from… give me a minute. I’m trying to find out the range. It’s got qualities of a jamming-signal, Jesus, this is some bleeding-edge tech. Chesterfield’s gonna have to give us a good explanation, this shit reeks of stolen or reverse-engineered NSA software. It looks a lot like the programs we use to create the daily Gold Codes!” (Delvecchio) “You think this shit could be coming from inside the White House?” (Dupree) “This was definitely caused by someone on the inside. And I don’t mean the Secret Service. I mean someone in the goddamn room.” (Delvecchio) “Alright, fuckwad. Show yourself! Tell us how to reverse it, or I swear to baby Jesus I will strangle you with my bare hands, right here and now.” (Eydis puts her left hand to her temple, as if she was scanning the room. She then places her hand on Congresswoman Palmieri’s shoulder for three seconds. Secretary of Agriculture Plains-Flower decides to stay as still as possible, without having an erratic heartbeat that could out him. Unfortunately for him, this is a foregone conclusion.) (Eydis) “It’s Secretary Plains-Flower! He’s the traitor!” (Plains-Flower, knowing that the jig is up, and that he won’t be leaving the room a free man, grabs the fully-loaded Sig pistol that Jackson left behind. Grabbing the closest person to the right of him, an astronomically unlucky Mickelson, he puts the gun to the Attorney General’s head. Moving his gun between pointing it at Mickelson’s temple, and at the President’s head, he begins to make his demands, as everyone in the room pulls their own guns out in response, save for Senator Douglas and EPA Administrator Lemonis.) (Plains-Flower) “Okay, that’s far enough! Turn off that computer, or I'll put one in your skull, Delvecchio! Yeah, I’m the ‘traitor!’ I decided to join the winning team! You wanna know why? Because Royal Makai isn’t going to steamroll us with industrial consumerism, and toss us in county-sized cages until we start acting like good little white shopping-mall sheeple. The kind that don’t complain when we get shipped out to the other side of the planet to die for other white shopping-mall sheeple! You think that a few decades of ‘I’m sorry’ concessions can make it all go away? Did you REALLY think that having a Cabinet packed with traditional and modern minorities, won’t have a few bad apples with a bone to pick against the concept of the United States itself? You retards invited way too many enemies into your midst over the centuries! That’s why Utah turned on you, that’s why the last Prez and Veep turned on America, and that’s why I did it! It’s business AND pleasure, Mister President! And the new competitor on the block offered us a much better deal than the Bureau of Indian Affairs ever did or ever will! Waddaya think, Non! We ‘redskins’ should really stick together at a time like this!” (Non) “Get fucked! Don’t you EVER lump us Inuits and the native Hawaiians with the rest of you First Nation fuckups! Unlike you dipshits, we were never stupid enough to think that our little heya-hoya peyote-sessions would ever have a chance at beating Moscow, Washington, or London! We did the smart thing, and joined them after fair negotiations, showed The Great Chiefs that we were sane enough to not deserve getting reservation’d! Maybe if you prairieniggers hadn’t smoked your brains out on caveman-psychedelics, you’d have been smart enough to play for the real winning team!” (Plains-Flower) “That’s exactly my point, you wannabe-whitey Uncle Tom! That what you aspire to be? Delvecchio’s personal Sitting-Bull house-Injun circus act? Gonna put on your Captain Cold outfit and wack-ass sunglasses whenever the Russian and Canadian ambassadors want a cheap laugh? Our days aren't numbered, our HOURS are numbered! We’re gonna go TOO far! We’re already stretching the limits of the Mamono’s patience, and if we launch those nukes, they’re gonna bust in here and just kill us all instead! Davis was right, The Order was a cakewalk once Makai got their groove on, and that’s why they all got to live! If we bust out the hardballs, swinging around our nukes like a rabid bull, they’re gonna put us down with their version of a fifty cal! There won’t be any of your signals coming out, not within two hundred miles of DC! Just turn it off! Put the guns down! You can still surrender without getting your heads pickled in jars on some Lilim’s mantlepiece!” (Delvecchio) “Fuck no, bitch. We’re gonna go out shiny and chrome! Go ahead, pull that trigger! You got one shot before everyone else pumps your guts with more lead than a Costco-size box of pencils, so you better aim at this king, and you better not miss! The work’s gonna continue, you won’t stop anything! You’re just another setback that lines the story of life for a few more pages, because the author wanted to add some drama and thin the cast out a bit!” (Mickelson) “LISTEN HERE, YOU TREE-HUGGING FAGGOT. LET. ME. GO. LEMME GO AND WE WON’T KILL YOU. WE’LL PROSECUTE YOU LATER! Then you can let the court of public opinion decide your fate. Or don’t. Pull that trigger, no-balls bwah-bwah-bwah asswipe! Shoot me!” (Plains-Flower screams at the top of his lungs, then gives into Mickelson’s heckling. He pulls the trigger, not knowing that Eydis is using her magic to shield the nine-millimeter bullet’s primer from the firing pin. After several failed attempts to shoot the Attorney General in the side of his head, Plains-Flower gives up and drops the gun. Hamlet’s aide leaps over the table to tackle him right as the gun hits the floor.) (Hamlet’s aide) “I got the bogey! Can I shoot him? Wring his pencilneck until his head pops?” (Mickelson) “That’s all right, airman! I know what to do with him.” “Okay everyone, here’s how it is! With the Supreme Court gone MIA or KIA, that leaves the absolute authority of American law and order to me! As the head arbiter of justice, I leave it to the jury to decide this traitor’s fate!” (FBI Director Willemsen) “Marcus Plains-Flower! Under the provisions of Emergency Order REX-84 and Executive Directive 51, for the crimes of treason, attempted assassination of an Cabinet official, sabotage of federal and military assets, and attempted blackmail of the President of the United States, I sentence you to death! Does the jury concur?” (SecInt Lawrence) “Honorable Director, the jury unanimously finds this nigga guilty! I say we take off his coat, write ‘TRAITOR’ in dark red Sharpie pen all over his chest, and hang his redass off the roof! I know we gots the rope, I seen it in the Lincoln bedroom last night!” (Mickelson) “I’ll toss him off myself. Say goodnight to the bad guys, redskin!” (With Hamlet’s aide’s hand muffling his mouth, Plains-Flower tries and fails to beg for mercy as Mickelson and the aide leave the room to permanently dispose of him. After about ten seconds of more awkward silence, the President speaks up.) (Delvecchio) “So, did, uh, anyone suspect him of anything before the invasion started?” (SecHHS Dhar) “I knew he was taking bribe money from Monsanto, but so does half of his whole Department. Other than that, the only sketchy thing I knew was that he was putting pressure on Indian Affairs to pack that bureau with his stooges. In hindsight, he was probably going to make sure that the reservations got top-priority once Royal Makai started running things.” (SecHS Non) “Me and Matsuda knew that some Mamono infiltrators had their hands deep in his department, but we thought the buck stopped at the office of one of his branch deputies. We had no clue that they had gotten all the way to the top, right Matsuda?” (SecEd Matsuda) “Y-yeah, that’s right. Some of my people were noticing unusual shit that traced back to his department, namely sex education curriculums for reservation schools, but we chalked that up to be just a coincidence. Fuckin’ hell, I didn’t think he’d pull a stunt like that.” (SecHS Non) “Neither did I, Mickelson got lucky that Jackson hadn’t chambered that gun. Or somebody’d have to be cleaning all the Attorney General and SecAg brains and guts off the room. Matsuda, we need to talk. In private.” (Matsuda) “S-sure. Um, let’s go, I guess. Someone knock on our booths when Dupree manages to unfuck the firewall.” (Dupree) “It’ll take some time, I’m afraid. I’d ask Andreas upstairs to send her own SIGINT guys to help, but we need them to keep up with sending out non-bogus distress calls, and to direct the right reinforcements to the roof.” (Non and Matsuda leave the room, as Eydis walks over to Wheeling for his ‘check-up’. Non returns to the same booth of silence that he and the Valkyrie had previously conversed in, while Matsuda takes one that happens to be one door down. They grab the booth phones, as the Secretary of Education presses the corresponding speed-dial option for Non’s respective booth.) (Matsuda) “So, you figured it out?” (SecHS Non) “Wasn’t too difficult. You overplayed your hand with the whole ‘high school guys should feel okay with advances from assertive women’ thing in this year’s sex ed textbooks. Right out of the Mamono playbook for getting their men.” (Matsuda) “It’s not like that! I swear to God it isn’t! It was Plains-Flower, all of it! He and this one succubus showed up to my place last May! She had power, man. Oozing with magic power! I could FEEL the energy around her!” (SecHS Non) “Slow down, describe this broad! Physically!” (Matsuda) “W-well, she had white hair, um, pinkish-white skin, white wings and tail, backwards-pointing horns, black paint marks all over her shoulders, chest, waist, and ankles. Oh, and she had black sclera, red eyes, and pointy elf ears! (About fifteen seconds of silence ensue.) (Matsuda) “Non? Non, are you still there?” (SecHS Non) “Yes! Yes! I’m still here. Shit, uh, d-did she have these creepy-looking eyeball things on her horns, thighs, ankles, and the tips of her wings and tail?” (Matsuda) “Uh, yeah, she did!” (SecHS Non) “What in the utter fuck, lady! That was Druella! That was the architect of their entire invasion! She’s the fuckin’ Attila the Hun of Mamono! How!? How did you NOT turn into a monster right then and there? She’s a Lilim! The fourth eldest, in fact! Her sheer presence should be enough to monsterize women that don’t have magical skills, not to mention making guys like me literally cum in a second, and disable the aggressive parts of our brains! What the hell did you do? Because if you were monsterized into a doppelganger, Eydis would’ve turned you into a pile of ash back in the West Wing!” (Matsuda) “W-well, the thing is that Druella knows her own strength, so she showed up in a human disguise. She showed me her true form with a very well-drawn picture. She’s been undercover as a member of Dole’s board of directors!” (SecHS Non) “Shit! The fruit company! She’s that white-haired bitch that turned the company’s sketchy shit around. Epsilon Lime spotted her hanging around Plains-Flower too, but we assumed she was just some hippie stooge doing publicity stunts to bump their stocks up! Oh no, no, no, no, no! We had it all wrong! We thought their big plan was to take us out from the inside, institutional-wise. How did we miss this? She’s a demonic lifeform, Hollywood predicted this, of course they’d go corporate! That explains it! That explains why our Third World sources have been reported way higher rates of monster and incubization over the First World! They got to Nestle!” “Why DID she pick getting her claws into a fruit company!? Prisoner fruit! That was the real key to the Earth! She and her goons’ve been lacing as many freshwater supplies as they can! Epsilon Lime and the Five Eyes were able to mostly hold their internal infiltrations at bay, but we thought it was the main event! That’s what caused the massive monster spikes last afternoon in Los Angeles, Dubai, and Kuwait City! They targeted the water plants that pump the ocean and sieve out all the salt! Plains-Flower, UN ambassador Ayodele, you, SecState Walaszek! You assholes were a smokescreen to throw us all off! Give me ONE good reason why I shouldn’t get out of this booth and shoot you myself?” (Matsuda) “Because they lied to me! They lied that they wouldn’t hurt us once we got captured, but that whole orgy plan proved that their promise was bullshit! Look, I just wanted the superpowers that came with getting monsterized. I didn’t ask for them to take over the USA, I don’t want them to take ANYBODY over! I don’t want it to happen to anyone that doesn’t want it! This isn’t fair! This should be a choice! Anyone that forces people into transforming into something they don’t want to be, well, I say they DESERVE a couple hundred gigatons of plutonium to the everywhere! So I’m switching sides, I’ll tell you everything I know! I don’t wanna die, and I don’t wanna get brainwashed, but if we don’t act fast, I won’t GET to have a choice! I was on the fence back in the West Wing, but we’re so close! We’re just a push of a button away, and we can get out of this! Once their cities are radioactive scorch marks, we can dictate terms of surrender, and I can force them to monsterize me without the brainwashing side-effect! Deal?” (SecHS Non) “Well, we had really ought to save every bullet we can, and at least you learned your Saturday afternoon cartoon lesson on trusting strangers with bad reputations. Okay, Secretary. You’re back on the winning team. But I’m telling Eydis about this, and if we catch you flip-flopping again, she’ll finish you off. And she’s quite partial to the clean-’schwack’ of an instant decapitation. We haven’t seen a monster that can bounce back from that. Yet. Oh, and one more thing. Wanna know how I found out about you working with Druella?” (Matsuda) “H-how? (SecHS Non) “My younger brother Paul’s in twelfth grade. Two months ago, I was on the phone with him, we was catching up with each other. He told me all about how everyone was taking the piss out of the new sex ed curriculum. So I bought a copy to see for myself. Gotta admit, pretty ballsy to add descriptions of those femdom positions. But you covered that base by having an equal amount of maledom positions discussed. Smart, but not smart enough to fool ME.” “Oh! And one more thing. I ran into Blackwire before he left the building. Didn’t kill him, he was on our side all along. But, he told me to tell you that you’re a complete bitch, and he hopes you get botulism.” (Matsuda) “I’m going to grab a brick to clock out that smug prick if I ever see him again.” (With her loyalties settled, Matsuda and Non leave their booths to return once more to the conference room, taking their seats while walking right into a heated discussion between Lemonis and Dhar.) (Lemonis) “...and if you did a better job at letting local cop departments keep tabs on your Section Nine programs, inner city crime would’ve been down by sixteen percent! Your fuckups with the poors are what really cost us the election!” (Dhar) “Oh my God, like that even matters at this point. The President-elect and Veep-elect got bagged by the aliens this morning at the UN. There ain’t gonna be a peaceful transfer of power in eighteen days. So it’ll be years, maybe a decade, before we can call off a state of emergency and step down! Maybe two decades, depending on how bad the Chinese counter-nuking goes! And we haven’t even STARTED on considering if the Kenkouans pull out their own version of WMDs, or if the whole country goes 1992 Yugoslavia on us, or if the Russians decide to kick us while we’re down! At that point, you’ll certainly be free to run for POTUS yourself if you care so much!” (Dupree) “Will you two just get a room and stop bickering like a comedy sketch of a faggot couple? You know, this whole time, I’ve had the two of you listed in my phone contacts as Curry Whiny Bottom and Gyro Whiny Bottom! Now don’t go out and dispute this, because I know that Dhar and his wife play with double-end dildos, and Lemonis likes his women verbally masochistic! So shut the fuck up! I can’t concentrate with all the yelling!” (As both Dhar and Lemonis slump back into their seats, embarrassed and ashamed, Matsuda speaks up.) (Matsuda) “Everybody, I have an announcement to make. After comparing notes with Non here, we’ve concluded that engaging in diplomacy with Royal Makai is completely out of the question. I’ve been the closest to getting into their upper management, as I’ve been working with Epsilon Lime as a double-agent. We’ve just figured out what their primary tactic for world domination is. They’re dumping that prisoner fruit shit into every body of freshwater they can find. We know that Plains-Flower was working directly with the Lilim, and that the Dole Food Company is to be declared one-hundred-and-one percent compromised. Add every single employee of that company onto the REX-84 list, high-priority liquidation! They don’t consider us worthy of negotiations. After all, every human woman to them is just a future monster that hasn’t seen the light yet, and every human man is just jizz-cattle that needs to be put in their place! So if any of you were thinking of using our nukes to force them to the bargaining table, forget about it! They won’t stop for anything except AFTER the usage of equivalent or superior force!” (Dupree) “Got it! The firewall’s unbreakable, but I know the range of it! It’s programmed to block any orders from the Football within two-hundred and fifty miles of the Pentagon, so we’ve only got one realistic option. Someone’s gotta take the secondary Football out of range. Non! It’s gotta be you! You’re the youngest and most physically spry. No offense to Secretary Lawrence, but I was at the yearly baseball game, and I know that Non’s faster and better at endurance than him! The primary Football’s out, and we’ve only got about twenty-three and a half hours before our Gold Codes expire! That’s how long of a window Non’s got at getting the signal through!” “If you fuck up though, then we’ll have to hold out until today’s codes expire, and tomorrow’s are active. Then we send out Lawrence with the tertiary. If he fails, then we’ll have to send three of us out. They’ll take the primary one to Offutt, and pray to God that STRATCOM can reboot it. And if Plan C fails, we’ll be on a Shitmalayan summit with no oxygen tank. Now take this laptop and get the fuck out of here, Non! Get up to the staircase right before the roof, and stay frosty until an unarmed helicopter can pull you outta this frying pan! I’m getting word from Andreas that we’ve got reinforcements incoming from all over the place. We’ve managed to bypass the locks on the Avenger and Vulcan anti-air systems on our roof, along with the ones on the roofs of that New Executive Office Building, the Main Residence, the Eisenhower, and McKinley’s Little White House! The immediate airspace is clear for now, but you’ve gotta get out of here before the surrounding AA systems get taken down!” (With that said, Senator Dupree shuts the secondary Football’s screen down, then shoves it into it’s leather briefcase. Davis hands Non’s daily Gold Code to Dupree, who places it in the outside zipper-pocket. After locking the briefcase, he shoves the bag back into Non’s hands.) (Davis) “Don’t fuck this up, and remember, you’ve got a little over twenty-three hours. If you fail, we’ll move to Plan B, and we’ll have to declare you CIA. Compromised In Action. Good luck, Secretary. We’ll be holding our breaths. And as for Sergeant-Major Wheeling and the rest of you aides, get out of here to guard the secret north-bound subway exit! With all the Secret Service traitors, I’d put a million bucks down that they’ll try to come in from there. There’s a plain-jane big red self-destruct button by that exit’s doorway, hit it if you’re overwhelmed!” (Davis walks up to Non to shake his hand, as Dupree turns around in his chair to also shake Non’s hand. Wheeling salutes Non and Eydis, then dashes out the door to grab another firearm from the Operation Center’s armory.) (SecHS Non) “I won’t. You have my word. I’ll get the job done, or I’ll put a bullet through my noggin. There’s just one thing though. I’m gonna need some backup firepower. Palmieri’s a reservist Army Staff Sergeant, and I can trust her with my back. Phillips, you know how to use an M16?” (Phillips) “Semi-auto AR-15, yeah. Massachusetts was pretty gay with the Commiecrat gun regulations.” (SecHS Non) “Good enough, come with me, and you’ll get to keep those front row seats I mentioned.” (Phillips) “I wouldn’t miss this for TWO worlds.” (Palmieri) “Well, ladies, Ragnarok awaits for no one.” (Delvecchio) “Dupree’s plan is perfect, but there’s one thing I need to add. We’ve gotten our codes in, so all Non needs to do is to push the ‘Big Red Button.’ Since Omaha’s gone dark, I’m not so confident that Offutt can keep STRATCOM safe. If they figure out what’s really going down, then they’ll sic a Lilim on Non, then throw everything they have at us and Offutt. Miss Eydis, I’m not your Commander-in-Chief, and we can’t actually make you follow any of our orders. So this isn’t an order. I’m begging you from the bottom of my heart. Leave us. We’ve done what needs to be done. We’re expendable now. This whole building, this whole city, is expendable. But Offutt needs your help, they’ll need all the help they can get until Non gets the signal out.” (Eydis) “The plan is sound, and you are correct. My services are needed far more in Nebraska. Very well, I wish the best of luck to you all, and I will escort the dearest Secretary to the roof, along with the Congresswoman and Miss Phillips. I only ask of one thing in return, President.” (Delvecchio) “Name it.” (Eydis) “Everything that has transpired here, everything I have told you of my homeworld, let the people of Earth know the full truth. Intentionally or not, entire civilizations and nations have made sacrifices over the ages. Sacrifices beyond measure, reaching beyond recorded history, that have all culminated in you having this opportunity to defeat the Demon Lord once and for all. Do not desecrate or bury their memories in lies or secrecy. Do not desecrate or bury the memory of your own people, who have given their lives so that your nation would not go quietly into the night, or vanish without a fight. If you do what I ask, then you and your descendants will be blessed, this I swear on the last remnants of my Goddess’s Light.” (Delvecchio) “I promise you, I can do what you ask of me. I would have done it anyway, to be honest. Even without your blessing, I have to admit that it would be selfishly profitable to blame this entire crisis on the previous Presidential administration. I won't need to lie about ANYTHING to elevate myself with positive fame.” (Eydis) “Ahahahaha! Ah, I see. Oh, you remind me very much of a shrewd mayor I once knew back home. Very well then, consider the blessing to be a gift for your hospitality then. As to you, Sir Little. That was a wonderful vanilla latte that you brewed, and I know that you fairly did not give me any special treatment over the others. Farewell, my friends, and may we meet again in a better world!” (General Hoboken) “Menendez, head out with them too. Once the Angel and Non are gone, that leaves you as the only person around here with good experience in going toe-to-toe with the Mamono. Consider yourself reassigned, you’re the Army adjutant to General Andreas now, she’s made a command center out of the East Wing Theater room, you’ll find her there.” (Delvecchio) “So it’s settled. Non’s little quest to get the signal out will be referred to here on out as ‘Operation Shower-Shank.’ After all, what IS the best way to waste a rapist, ahaheheheh. Hamlets? Get your flyboys and girls in on this. Call in the HAMMERDOWN protocol, and get them in the loop with Andreas so she can tell them which targets to manually avoid! We’re skipping the green flare part, our turned troops will already know about that! And the defense of the White House will be referred to as ‘Operation…. Eagle’s Nest?’ No… ‘Odyssey Dusk?’ No, still too on-the-nose. It's gotta be something with gravitas, but out of left field. Hmmmmmm. ‘Operation Kevin McAllister?’ Nah, nah. Wait, ‘left field’, that gives me an idea. I got it! ‘Operation Ninth Inning!’” (The two women, two men, and single magically-enhanced humanoid exit the room, as the sound of clapping and cries of luck-wishing befall our motley crew. Upon reaching the first floor of the East Wing, Non hands Palmieri his Steyr G62 and corresponding magazines. Phillips is already filming, using a smaller waterproof video recorder found in a PEOC storage room, with enough batteries in her pockets to last a week.) (SecHS Non) “Take my rifle, and wait a minute. I need to see someone.” (Phillips) “Who?” (SecHS Non) “Secret Service Agent Guitierrez. He’s a good man, escorted me all the way from the senate offices in the Capitol Building. Then he got smashed into a wall by an angry Minotaur at the theater room above us. I’m going to check up on him, say my goodbye if he’s awake.” (With the doors and windows shut closed with blast shields, the East Wing Reception Room now serves as an infirmary. Our protagonists enter the room, as Non walks over to the stretcher carrying Agent Gutierrez. A Marine Corps E-5 medic is listening in on his heart using a stethoscope.) (SecHS Non) “Corpsman, how’s he doing?” (Medic) “He’ll live, but he’s got contusions around his shoulder blades, broken left arm, hair-fracture on the left side of his pelvis, and he’s lost a lot of blood. He’s still out cold.” (SecHS Non) “Angel, is there anything you can do?” (Eydis) “There is most certainly something I can do. If you could all stand back from me for a few moments. I will need some space to unleash a wave of healing magic into the entire room.” (The others comply, as Eydis “charges up.” She begins to glow with a dandelion-yellow light, then twenty seconds later, her hands are placed on Guitierrez’s chest, much like a defibrillator. Rays of that yellow light burst from him, towards the other patients in the room. All of their wounds are healed within one minute, as Guitierrez still lies asleep. The patients that were awake, get up from their stretchers to begin clapping and rejoicing at Eydis for the modern medicinal miracle. Eydis blushes, and takes a bow.) (Eydis) “Dearest Secretary, your friend is well. But he still needs to rest, and his subconscious agrees with my prognosis.” (SecHS Non) “That’ll do, sweetheart. Thank you. Let’s go. Davis and Dupree were right, we ARE running out of time, and I’ve got less than a day to get to a Kuiper workstation.” (Phillips) “What’s a Kuiper workstation?” (SecHS Non) “You’ll see it soon, Phillips. You’ll see it all.” (Phillips) “Cryptic as shit. I love it!” (The group walks past the Garden Room and East Colonnade once more, noticing that the blast shields have also been put into effect. Walking past the Theater Room, they find that the corpses of tour guide Johnson and the Mamono that had populated the room, had been disposed of, tossed down the hole that used to lead to the Zulu Papa Oval Office emergency exit. Newly-minted General Andreas is now using the room as a command center, with a table placed by the door, containing large radio equipment for the purpose of cross-communicating across branches for the first true siege of the White House.) (The razing of the building’s predecessor on August 24, 1814 doesn’t count, as the previous White House and most of the city had been abandoned without a fight. Andreas sits in the projector room wearing a one-ear headset, as the group looks at the projected screen, indicating the real-time status of the District of Columbia and its surrounding areas. By now, the only US government structures within a one hundred and fifty mile radius still considered to be safe zones are: Raven Rock, Mount Weather, the White House, the Postal Museum in the far east section of downtown Washington, and the Udvar-Hazy annex of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.) (Andreas) “Looks bleak, doesn’t it? The Steven Blum Reservation got compromised seven minutes ago. Maryland State Police HQ out in Annapolis went dark twenty minutes back. The locations you see on this map are the last pieces of freedom left on either side of the Potomac. Only outlier is here, CIA headquarters at Langley. Their signal is still active, but when we tried communicating with them, Director Kinnear and Deputy Director Wayne called my personal cell phone just to tell me that they’re observing total radio silence until seventy-two hours after the nukes fly.” (Menendez) “Then where’s our reinforcements coming from?” (Andreas) “I was getting to that. Our first wave of reinforcements will be three Blackhawks full of troops from Wright-Pat, and it’s the 371st Sustainment Brigade, Ohio National Guard. After that, a V-22 Osprey will arrive, packed with operators from SEAL Team Two’s Third Platoon. It’ll be a tough landing for the roof, but it can be done. Marine One won’t be making it. They’re on their way to meet up with the Governor of New York in some bunker near Buffalo. Poor bastards almost got caught at Camp David while trying to evacuate the last President’s grandkids. It’s FUBAR.” “....Granddaughter was already turned into a mothwoman, like mother, like daughter. Kinky slut managed to chase down and have some hot & sloppy baby-making with her own brother, but she only managed to get one orgasm out of him before the Secret Service and some of our MARSOC boys knocked her out. She’s currently tied down with rope and a ballgag to the side of M-One. Don’t ask where the ballgag came from. Grandson’s still human for now, but the incubization process has already seeped in. They put him in the backseat, ziptied to the chair and a sweatband around his open mouth, keeps him from talking without getting choked. I tried to tell them to terminate the mothgirl, but M-One went radio-silent. I know about the Oval Office, I’ve had an open channel to the conference room since Director Willemsen got there. I heard everything important, I’m up to speed.” “After the SEALs get here, there’s two more incoming choppers, one's got survivors from DC Metro’s SWAT unit, call themselves ERT. While the last one incoming is a Bell 206, carrying assorted stragglers from the Norfolk shipyards. Non, Phillips, and Palmieri will be taking that Bell out of here, it’s unarmed so it’s useless to us for extra firepower. It’s expendable. You know what to do once you get onboard. Once you guys clear DC airspace, it’d be best for Miss ‘Freyja’ to use those wings and haul ass for Offutt. We’ve got more reinforcements trickling in later, but the closest one of them is a little under an hour away, irrelevant to you all. STRATCOM has already been informed about getting reinforced by the Valkyrie, they’ll be expecting you.” (Menendez) “Well, here’s where I get off. I know the Kuiper stuff is a need-to-know thing, so good luck with whatever it is. You know, we had some good times, me, Non, and Eydis. A shame that after everything we went through, Epsilon Lime got nailed right before the finish line. I suppose that’s the nature of what we do, fighting wars that we shouldn’t expect to see the end of. Gentlemen, Valkyrie, it’s been my greatest honor to fight by your sides. Forget about Lawrence, I'd bet a cool million that Non’ll make it. He’ll make sure that all our blood, sweat, and tears'll mean something more than a casualty list footnote on Wikipedia. And Eydis? Don’t worry about Omaha, I know what you can do. You’ve got this in the bag, and you’ll be able to turn the tide, take the whole city back if you put your mind to it. Just watch out if the place gets targeted by a nuclear counter-strike. Hooah!” (Menendez salutes them and leaves the group for the theater room’s back entrance, now repurposed as Andreas’s command room. As the group walks through the East Wing Visitor’s Foyer, Eydis proceeds to make a monologue of lamentation.) (Eydis) “The Order would have lasted another two-hundred years, had they been led by men of that caliber. In the final century, even the Heroes tended to be easily-seduced psychological weaklings, their minds coddled by fragile dogma and even-more fragile confidence. Royal Makai offered a far better deal than the pointless brutality that The Order inflicted on it’s own, in their primitive attempts at enforcing self-control. The positive gifts of incubization were more than enough to shatter their idea that The Order was all-righteous. I have come to realize that, in my time on this world. There were better alternatives, I know that now. But the Popes would never release an inch of power to alleviate morale, and the Chief God was all too eager in allowing them to indulge their lusts for absolute authority.” (Phillips) “So if this Chief God was a successive title, do they just manifest into thin air once the previous one is killed?” (Eydis) “Not quite. If the Chief God were to step down, they would appoint a trusted Angel or Valkyrie as their successor. Always from one of the races of divine human-like creations. But never a Cupid or Houri. Given the nature of Lilith, a Cupid or Houri could never be trusted with that mantle, although Chief Gods in the distant past had often once been servants of Eros. The last Chief God was an ascended Angel, and her predecessor was the first Houri in millennia to ascend to that rank. And although lesser gods like Eros existed in my homeworld, they were all eventually convinced one after another to join Lilith, leaving the Chief God all alone. I cannot blame her for all of the erratic behavior near the end of her life, as I suppose that it truly is ‘lonely at the top,’ as is a saying here. However, if the Chief God was slain before appointing a successor, the mantle would be randomly cast to one of her creations. As I did not acquire this mantle, nor had any successor recalled me to duty in the years after my Goddess’s demise, I conclude that the mantle went to a fallen Angel or Dark Valkyrie that has sided with Lilith. A Cupid or Houri with the mantle would have quickly hunted me down.” (Phillips) “So, the last Chief God was basically your mother?” (Eydis) “Not exactly. I WAS human, once. As were all Valkyries. Eighty-eight years ago, I lived in a village called Kurgania, in the furthest northern tip of a land known as Dragonia. As you would expect from the name, it was a series of kingdoms ruled by dragon-women. These reptilians acted as public-face puppets for the Lilim. As my home was near an icy river delta, my father made a living by hunting creatures much like seals, walruses, and beluga whales. At the time, our village was a critical beachhead in The Order’s campaign to retake the land of Dragonia, and my father’s business of selling items gleaned from whale carcasses was quite profitable, along with my mother’s talent at making fur coats from other beasts. Until it all came to naught.” “The dragon-queens came together to raid our village, leading the usual motley army of assorted monster-women. In an instance of dark irony, they turned my mother into a seal-like creature known as a Selkie. But she didn’t last long, as when she soon cornered my father in a stockade, she tackled him in an attempt to give me monster-siblings. And Father…. dropped a live torch. Right onto a barrel of Dwarven-designed mining dynamite. I was nearby the entrance, and I saw my father drop the torch as Mother tried…. to force herself on him. I saw them explode right before my eyes. The detonation launched me for what felt like dozens of feet into the air, before I landed into thick snow that broke my fall.” “The village was burning, The Order was routed, even the evacuations were failing, as sea-Mamono and the flight-capable ones came down upon their boats like ants towards a candy piece. All alone in the world, with no home left, no family, no safe haven, I ran westwards, into an area rife with glaciers. But with the disorientation from the explosion, the shock of having lost everything but the clothes I wore, the shock of defeat, I was not in a rational state of mind to worry about survival. All that concerned me was to get as far away from the monsters as I could. I was tired, and the weather got colder, and colder, and, and… And I hid under a burrow in an attempt to get away from the chilling winds. My fingers and feet were numb, and I went to sleep. I awoke to find myself in the Chief God’s realm. An Angel woke me up, greeting me to the realm, giving me a soft hug. She informed me that… I had died. Died of what I now know to have been hypothermia. I-I was only seven years old.” “But the Chief God had heard my final prayer before death had taken me, and she sympathized with the desperation and rage in my heart. My anger and frustration was boiling. My hatred for the Mamono was absolute, the desire to avenge my parents, my village, had taken complete authority in my mind. For this, the Chief God gave me an offer to join her legion of Valkyries, to obtain the power I needed to scourge Dragonia for what they did to me, and to so many others. Once my training was completed twenty-three years afterwards, my first action was to raze my old village to the ground, sparing none but two human men who had been taken captive, their assigned Mamono had not been able to reach them before meeting doom at my blade.” (Palmieri puts her hand on Eydis’s shoulder.) (Palmieri) “Your family died, Eydis. YOU died. There’s no shame in having a few tears about it, and no one sane could blame you for what you did to avenge them.” (Eydis) “I...thank you. But my story doesn't end there. I spent about two more decades wallowing in hate, then.... I began to calm down. I began fighting, not for revenge, but for hope. I fought to ensure that no child would have to experience what I did. That no innocent child would have to watch their family die, then themselves die cold, alone, and forgotten. My original body was buried in an avalanche less than a day after I had passed away. Nothing left behind for any sort of necromantic monster to reanimate my corpse. That is why I fight to help you. My revenge was fulfilled and finished decades ago, yet I allow Royal Makai to believe that I am still insane with grief, as an intimidation tactic. For all the death and destruction I brought upon Dragonia, and as the last openly-active Valkyrie, I was feared across the world. I was Dragonia’s Public Enemy Number One, you could say. Across all of Kenkou, I was a ‘Boogeyman.’ A symbol to scare children out of even CONSIDERING to make attempts at using Holy Magic, out of the fear that I would be summoned. And as Non knows well enough, I do not spare children. I leave NOTHING in my wake but innocent humans. I MUST protect the righteous and innocent. Because there is no longer a Chief God to grant them revenge.” (With that silently understood by the others, the group reaches the last stairway to the roof. Phillips attempts to bring some levity to the situation.) (Phillips) “So, how exactly are we organized into an adventuring party?” (Eydis) “What are you talking about?” (Phillips) “Dungeons and Dragons, the roleplaying game. Eydis is obviously a cleric with paladin gear, Congresswoman’s a fighter, the Secretary’s a wizard, since he’s got the ‘magic box’ of incalculable power, so where does that leave me?” (Palmieri) “I’d be more of a Ranger, moron. Everyone with a gun would qualify as a Ranger by DnD rules. But screw it, I’ll humor you. Can you sing?” (Phillips) “I do a swell enough Taylor Swift impression.” (Palmieri) “Then you’re the group bard, congrats on the promotion.” (SecHS Non) “You know, I’m feeling a little exposed with just this Colt forty-five. Hey, Corpsman! Are there any piles of guns on this floor?” (An M14-armed USMC White House Honor Guard, still wearing his dress uniform, points the group towards the right place.) (Guard) “First bedroom on the left, number 303, can’t miss it!” (SecHS Non) “Eydis, come with me. The two of you stay by the roof entrance. Once our reinforcements show up, they might need a few extra hands for covering fire.” (Right as he says that, Attorney General Mickelson and Hamlet’s aide open the entrance.) (Mickelson) “Ah, there you guys are! We did it, got rid of Plains-Flower. Took us a while to find a good red Sharpie to write TRAITOR on his chest, took us some time to keep him from struggling too! After that, we’ve been firing potshots at the monsters around the fence perimeter. That chug didn’t talk though, so we’ll have to stick to that getting-out-of-range plan that the others had in mind. Ran out of bullets, so we’re gonna go help out on the first floor! I hope your ride gets here fast, because they’re gathering around us. Andreas told us to save our shots until the fence is breached. Once that happens, we’ll see the whites of their eyes. Good luck, assholes! And you too, Miss Eydis!” (Non and Eydis walk over to the bedroom, where they find a table with assorted firearms and tagged bags of loaded magazines.) (SecHS Non) “Okay, let’s see. Something compact, but full-auto. Something in a heavy caliber…… Holy shit! They’ve got a few Thompsons! They’re just M1A1 30-rounder only ones, but they’re antiques anyways! Not compact though, as cool as they are. Ah, here we go! Folding-stock Uzi forty-five, regular ten-point-two inch barrel. Tag here says that it’s a Vector Arms conversion for using Grease Gun magazines. Cool…. Great! Same ammo as my Colt. Eydis, close the door. We need to talk in private while I arm up. Are there any listening devices in the room?” (Eydis) “There are three. I have already created cones of silence for their sound-capturing equipment. They can see us, stand in the same direction as me. They will not see our mouths move.” (While the conversation goes on, Non takes out his damaged front Level IV+ plate for an identical replacement, along with locking and loading his new-old Uzi, and replacing the cummerbund of his plate carrier with the appropriate counterpart for sub-machine gun magazines. Loading four magazines on each side, the one already chambered makes nine magazines, or two-hundred and seventy bullets.) (SecHS Non) “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry to hear about what happened to you and your family. I’d go utterly mad with rage and grief if I lost my parents too. Or Paul, or Daniel. I’ll be making a phone call to them right before I launch. They need to know what I’m about to do. They need an advance warning to get to shelter. Palmieri’s with me, so I’ve got a backup.” “Well, ‘Sedna,’ it’s about time we kicked off the Kuiper Protocols. OPUS-32 will go into effect as soon as I reach a workstation. Mickelson and Willemsen are already working on REX-84, so we can proceed on cleaning up the nation, once we can crawl out from the fallout. Delvecchio’s right though. You need to get over to Nebraska to help out STRATCOM. Escorting me the whole way could help us kick off OPUS-32 faster, but your presence will paint a giant target at me for every Lilim on the continent. Not to mention the Ultimate Hero. How’s your detection of him? Any changes?” (Eydis) “He is moving, but he is currently southeast. I would have to guess that he is slightly less than two miles away.” (SecHS Non) “Hmph, that would line up with them using the Smithsonian Castle as a command center. No worries. Once those choppers arrive to drop off those reinforcements, you can use their commotion as a distraction to slip out of the city. You don’t think that the Big Damn Hero will be able to track me through magic, would he?” (Eydis) “It is unlikely, but not impossible. You have no Holy mana to detect, but that Cheshire you spoke of, may have marked you. Or that Yeti that broke into your home. I do not detect it, but I am not omniscient, as much as I wish I were. I am afraid to say that it is a risk we will have to take. Are you ready?” (SecHS Non) “Almost. There’s only one thing left to do.” (Eydis) “What is it?” (SecHS Non) “This.” (The 29-year old southeastern Alaskan then gives the 95-year old northern Dragonian one long, firm, yet gentle hug. The Dragonian accepts the hug, then reciprocates with one of her own, equally firm & gentle. The former National Security Advisor could swear that he could feel something from her face stream down to his hair, but he refuses to look.) (Eydis) “I-I do NOT deserve this. I’ve done such terrible things in the name of my Goddess, with her utmost approval! I am over thrice your age! B-but thank you. Thank you so much. I have not felt a warm touch like this since my comrade and friend Saraquel wished me luck as we flew into the fray of battle. It was the very day that the Chief God was slain, and her realm deleted from existence. Like many others, Saraquel was transformed into a Dark Angel, perverted into forcing herself upon a teenaged boy she was meant to serve as a guardian towards. Some of my comrades fell on their own swords, only to be monsterized into Liches, Banshees, or even Wisp-Wills. Six years. It has been six years since I have been deemed worthy of a simple hug.” “I cannot afford myself the time to put into words just how much you mean to me. I had given up all hope before arriving on Earth, as I have said before. All that had kept my mind going was the possibility that I could come across whomever took my Goddess’s mantle, seize it for myself, then kill myself in a suicidal attack to vanquish Lilith. With her demise, her worldwide spell would vanish, and all of Mamonokind would revert into their ancient bestial forms. Nearly all life on Kenkou would die in a blizzard of violence, rather than the slow whimper of the un-immortal races, one by one perishing from old age and a lack of men to propagate with. Leaving the immortals alone to learn that they should have been wiser at self-sustainment.” (SecHS Non) “You think YOU don’t deserve this? I don’t deserve this! I’ve done horrible things too, for President and country. Before AND after I met you, I was one of the highest cogs in the cold machine of the military-industrial complex. I risked soldier’s lives to give corrupt companies good testing exercises so they could justify selling subpar products. I have pitted nation against nation, family against family, just to put the world into some semblance of preparation for Royal Makai’s invasion. I have deliberately ignited conflicts, arranged the murders of royalty and autocrats and elected officials and bureaucrats, because they had noble reasons for interfering in my machinations. I have ordered the murders of women and children and decent men alike, all because they were too far gone from demonic energy. I haven’t personally murdered children yet, my dear. But I stood by and ordered others to do it for me! Stood by and let you do it! It’s no better than pulling the trigger myself.” “At one point or another, I have manipulated and cheated everyone that has ever put their trust in me, except for you, my father, and Paul. We are about to abandon all these wonderful and good and brave people in this building to die or be raped, better people than either of us could ever hope to be. And we made them think it was their own idea. We have already made calculated sacrifices of good people, in order to slay greater numbers of evil. And there is a significant chance that we are going to slay BILLIONS just to save a few million. I have freely entrusted the weaponry knowledge necessary to kill these billions, to people and nations who do not deserve it. Neither of us deserve a happy ending to this catastrophe, Eydis. But I’m going to keep fighting and clawing and grasping to get one anyways. The Great Game calls to me. And I must take a seat and play, until they force me off the gameboard. I MUST. I don’t believe in destiny. I think the future is always fluid until it arrives. That there really is no fate but what we make for ourselves. But I was born with a talent for strategy, and I’m going to use my talent to save as many people as we can.” (Eydis) “D-do you remember of the dream you had? The one you told me of, when I asked what your idea of an optimal personal future was?” (SecHS Non) “I do. I dreamed of a three-story Victorian-style country home. Out in the woods of northern Colorado, near Fort Collins. I said that it would be the most beautiful place to house a family. Five kids, a fluffy cat, a hunting dog, a helipad, and a picket fence with barbed wire.” (Eydis) “They would have been beautiful and wonderful children.” (SecHS Non) “Hey! Don’t you ever forget, ‘Brunnhilde.’ It’s never over until the Valkyrie sings.” Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America Ulysses S. Grant Memorial January 2nd, 20-- 6:25 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (We change our scenery to hardly two miles away, where on ground level, three monsters converse. A Gargoyle holding a blank clipboard mockingly wears an U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General's dress uniform. six-foot-nine-inch tall incubus who gives a false appearance of roughly 26 years old, stands clad in a pitch-black half-lancer suit of plated armor. Royal purple colors his elbow and knee plates, as well as his gorget and circlet-crown. In one scabbard of his, there holds a wide Demonic Silver longsword that slims down at the tip, with a Valentine-heart pommel. In his other scabbard, lay an unassuming golden falchion. We last come to an unarmed five-foot-ten lesser succubus, who wears a royal purple hoodie-tracksuit with two black stripes trailing down the sides of the clothing's arms and legs.) (The Ultimate Hero) “You’ve done quite the impressive job at securing the city, Crystine! Your parents will be proud to hear of this. In less than a day, you’ve managed to cut these Americans off to only a few small strongholds. And in one more day, they’ll all hail us for showing them the light of pleasure. Isn’t that right, Azneth?” (Azneth) “Indeed, Daddy, she HAS done well! I just hope that those strongholds’ll listen to reason, and don’t do something drastic like ritual suicide or something. There’s too many cute and healthy men amongst them to be needlessly wasted.” (Crystine) “A thousand thanks, my leiges! But I’m just the executor of your fourth-born’s will. It’s Druella and her inner circle that have put forth all these well-managed plans to cut this ‘Eagle’s Nest’ to pieces. But there’s still the serious threat of that Advisor.” (The Ultimate Hero) “Yes, yes, I’ve already read through Mister Plains-Flower’s file that he prepared for us on this ‘Epsilon Lime’ group. As per our suspicions, the Valkyrie fanatic Freyja and her accomplice, that Non fellow, are still on the loose. They were ready for us, even if their compatriots were not. Smart man. Now why did you summon for me to come here? You found me right in a nick of time, as I had just finished clearing out their great hall of legislation. My daughter Azneth here, has noted quite a significant amount of bravery from those men inside. Their technology will be their undoing, but the average fighting men of Canada and America are leagues beyond The Order’s conscripts. Were it not for my presence or my daughters, this would be our most costly campaign yet.” (Crystine) “Well, milord, we’ve located Mister Non’s personal automobile in this parking lot, right over there. That gray one. He should have important information in there, and since Druella is still in New York City, I thought you should be the first to glean any possible information of importance. I’ll get inside.” (The Gargoyle walks over to Non’s car, a five-year old Toyota Tundra. As the co-ruler of Royal Makai stands waiting at the memorial, Crystine breaks the driver’s seat window to get inside, triggering the car alarm. Unfazed, she goes over the broken glass to manually unlock the truck from the inside. Unknown to her, the then-National Security Advisor had already predicted that the Mamono would try this. Two days earlier in the Pentagon’s underground parking section, in a ploy to up his killcount by a few more, Non had arranged for fifty-seven pounds of C4 to be placed in the truck bed, wired to the alarm system, and set to go off precisely seven seconds after the alarm is triggered. Crystine opens the door, gets into the front seat, and waves in triumph at her leader, as the C4 goes off, instantly killing her. Several other cars in the lot were also destroyed, the shrapnel killing three other Mamono that had been scouring the lot for looting reasons. As his lesser succubi daughter is struck by fright and uses him to shield her from the explosion, the son of a Chief God looks upon the destruction in a new fit of surprise, but also excitement. At the same time, a former human-turned-Lizardwoman stops by to check on them, driving an open-topped Mini Cooper while listening to Sweet But Psycho by Ava Max.) (The Ultimate Hero) “Clever boy! “You there, are you mated yet?” (Lizardwoman) “Uh, no sir, not yet! That’s why I’m driving around! Just, uh, prowling the streets until I find some cute straggler! Say, are you two okay? You looked pretty close to that explosion.” (The Ultimate Hero) “We’re just fine, thank you. And you will get your man soon enough, I give you my word as the highest Sir of Royal Makai. But first, I need your help. Can you give us a ride to the Smithsonian Castle?” (Azneth) “But, Daddy, I can fly us there myself!” (The Ultimate Hero) “I know you can, dearest. But this will be faster, and it will save you some energy that will be needed for any upcoming battle. Remember, never turn down help from a friendly face, as we have no need for saving face. Our power and the will to use it correctly, is what has granted us the respect we deserve.” (Azneth) “You’re right, Dad. So can you take us there?” (Lizardwoman) “I sure can, missy! Call me Willie, by the way. But what do I call you, handsome? And your sweetie?” (The Ultimate Hero) “They call me a Hero, but I prefer being called Sir.” (Azneth) “And I’m Azneth, thirty-fourth-born child of The Ultimate Hero and The Demon Lord! Say, that’s a nice helmet you’ve got there.” (Lizardwoman) “Well I’ll be damned, I did NOT expect to be chauffeuring for royalty today! Righty-o, Sir! Let’s blast. And you can take the helmet, princess! It was my sister’s, doesn’t fit her anymore on account of her new Chimera horns.” (The three speed off, and in less than two minutes, reach the Royal Makai temporary command center in the Smithsonian Castle’s rotunda. The Hero and his child are now filled with sadness that a good woman like Crystine had to perish just to unintentionally prove his prediction about the National Security Advisor.) (The Ultimate Hero) “Everyone! Worry not, we’re all right! That explosion killed Crystine, but the two of us were far enough to be unaffected. It’s a shame that we lost her, but we cannot afford to let this campaign fall apart, not when we’re so close to finishing a job that should have been done a world away! I will take control until a replacement is found. Frennis! You said that a Hellhound had some sort of plan to seize the main section of that White House. Tell her to start it now!” (A Titania speaks up) (Frennis) “Yes, sir. I’ll fly over to give her the message! It’s sundown anyways, so she should be ready already. I’ll grab a radio first. I already know what our secure frequency is.” (The Ultimate Hero) “Alright, are there any recommendations for a suitable replacement for Crystine?” (A Nereid wearing a US Navy uniform runs up to the Hero, raising her arm up to salute.) (Nereid) “Rear Admiral Addams at your service, that’s ‘Addams’ with two D’s. I believe that I can help. I know this city like the back of my hand, and I have a good insight on the current situation.” (The Ultimate Hero) “The job is yours then, Lady Addams. Tell me about these current developments. You seem awfully worried” (Addams) “Well sir, it’s great, but it could be better. We’re going to have to siege the entire White House. Non and that Freyja got through our ‘net.’ They managed to link up with a large group of loyalist soldiers that came in from the east. They’ve killed nearly all of our Secret Service assets, destroyed the Treasury offices, and have completely retaken the White House. The western section of that building has been destroyed from within, and it seems that our public announcement demoralization ploy was a complete failure. That Valkyrie and her troops rescued them, and they’ve murdered the President and Vice-President. Successive authority has come down to Congressman James Delvecchio, who was one of the hostages that have been freed. Sir…. they tried to unleash the atomic arsenal. Plains-Flower’s firewall is the only thing holding them at bay from annihilating us all. And they figured him out.” (The Ultimate Hero) “How so?” (Addams) “Two minutes ago, we received word over the radio. Attorney General Mickelson tossed Plains-Flower off of the White House roof. With a noose around his neck. And since Matsuda isn’t with him, that would mean that either they’ve killed her some other way, or she ratted him out to save herself.” (The Ultimate Hero) “Oh, no. No, not again.” (Addams) “What do you mean?” (The Ultimate Hero) “All this has happened before. When we sieged the last stronghold of The Order, they went into a spiral of ideological purity. Any known moderates and naysayers among them, were executed and displayed to us in an attempt to scare and demoralize ourselves. It failed, but the loss of life was unnecessary, and I consider it a black spot in my career as a warrior. Freyja was undoubtedly involved in it, just as she now uses your countrymen as a proxy to continue The Order’s reign of terror. She’s learned. Used our own tactics against us. As the file states, Mister Non is an unwed man with a lackluster record of romantic relationships. Freyja has seduced him, taking complete advantage of his loneliness, his thirst for violence, and lust for power. Through his authority and office, it’s clear they’ve been creating a ‘New Order’ of sorts, with that Epsilon Lime group as their Inquisition.” “But it’s not too late. He is quite an intelligent man, and his record states that he prefers to resort to diplomacy first. If I can back him into a corner, I can appeal to his sanity and reason with him. And I may have to literally back him into a corner. But that Valkyrie must fall beforehand. She’s a highly-skilled war maiden, and she’s equally as clever. Send a warning out to all our forces. If she cannot be restrained or shown the light of our pleasures, then she must be killed. I won’t give this order with joy, but she’s murdered far too many good people, directly or indirectly.” (Addams) “Affirmative, I’ll get the word out. In other news, there is a group of resistance in a Postal Office building, but they’ll be ours within the hour. The Central Intelligence Agency continues to resist, but they’ve been pushed back towards their headquarters. They’ll be neutralized once Druella arrives, as she had something in plan for them, or so Crystine said. Lastly, there is a group of resistance at an aerospace museum on the far western edge of the city, but the airport that’s adjacent to the museum has been taken. They’re irrelevant. The White House is the only unknown factor, and it’s likely that they’re fortifying as we speak. If that Shucky lady’s plan works, they’ll be ours by midnight. Lastly, we have complete functional control over the Potomac River. The Coast Guard hasn’t been able to breach our perimeter at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, and the Navy is on the run, scattering all across the Atlantic Ocean. They’ve got no plan, and they know their days are numbered.” (The Ultimate Hero) “Most excellent. My wife will be quite pleased to find out how soon I can return to our palace. I shall come with you to the siege. This time, it will not be a one-on-one battle with the Valkyrie. This time, there’s no way out. She’s surrounded on all sides. Even from the air, unlike last time.” (Addams) “Sorry to burst that bubble sir, but I’m afraid that they DO have total air superiority at the moment. Someone inside the White House managed to regain control over the facility’s anti-air defensive emplacements. We’re going to have to either put our full effort into a ground assault, or we can wait it out until their anti-air weapons run out of bullets.” (The Ultimate Hero) “A little bit of both can be done, Admiral. I’ve done this before, one hundred and thirty years ago. A large force of Order soldiers had managed to retake a city called Al Mar. They had a large group of sorcerers that were heavily trained in countering aerial Mamono. So I had the idea to use our aerial forces to ascertain the maximum range of their spells. Then I ordered them to maintain a perimeter around the city, just past that furthest range. With the sorcerers distracted with trying to eliminate our flying friends, it created an opening that we exploited to cut off their command structure, and the dominoes of that city fell soon enough, back into our hands.” (Addams) “So I should give the order out to maintain an aerial perimeter to intercept anyone coming in or out, while we simultaneously search for a gap in those defenses to exploit?” (The Ultimate Hero) “Precisely. And the quicker we find that gap, the sooner we can all go home to our loved ones. Make it so, Admiral Addams.” (Azneth) “I’m going to miss Crystine, but she should have been a lot more careful around that Non fellow’s things. Do you really think that we might have to kill him, Daddy?” (The Ultimate Hero) “I’ll do everything I reasonably can to force him into surrendering, but I will not allow him to murder any more Mamono once I have him. I will NOT allow him to hurt you, your mother, or your sisters, most importantly.” (Azneth) “I understand, Father. It’ll be a terrible shame if it comes to that.” (As the newly-promoted Admiral gives out the orders, The Traitor Hero turns towards his new chauffeur.) (The Ultimate Hero) “Lady Willie, would you be a dear and take us to this White House?” (Willie) “I sure can, pal! I’ll join in on the fight, see if I can grab one of those Marines that guard the place. Always did like a man in a clean uniform!” Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 1650 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest January 2nd, 20-- 6:40 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (As Frennis the frantic Titania flutters down to the front doors of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, she runs up to two Salamanders that are on guard duty, listening to Warrior by Scandal & Patty Smyth out of a Sony portable CD player.) (Frennis) “You two, I’m on orders from The Hero himself! I need to find Shucky, it’s green-light time! Get everybody in the building ready!” (Salamander 1) “On it! She’s at the fourth floor, right by the rooftop ladder, can’t miss her!” (Frennis) “Thanks!” (As the oversized fairy floats up the stairs, reaching the fourth floor, she doesn’t find her objective, instead finding three average Succubi, three Inaris, and a Dragon listening to Ashley’s Roachclip by The Soul Surfers, while playing strip poker. The reptilian is tonight’s biggest loser, already down to just her panties.) (Frennis) “Alright, mooks. Fun time’s over for now, you can get back to your game later. We’re about to take on a Valkyrie and the fatherfucking President of the United States! But I need to find Shucky before that, so where is she?” (One of the Inari speaks up.) (Foxey Lady) “She’s one floor down, wanted to listen to her own tunes by herself.” (Frennis) “Dammit, the President and his pack of assholes will be dead of old age by the time I find her. But thanks anyways, and good luck on your manhunts!” (As she floats one story down, she slams the door open, bumping right into a Hellhound holding an Iphone that’s playing Wild Child by W.A.S.P. In her other hand-paw, is a whimpering brown Dachshund puppy.) (Frennis) “Oh no, I’m so sorry! Wait, are you Shucky?” (Shucky) “That’s my name, twinkle-toes, don’t wear it out. Now gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t knock your lights out for hitting this good widdle boy with that fuckin’ door?” (Frennis) “I was told to find you, Ultimate Hero’s direct order! He gave you the green-light for your plan to fuck with the pricks inside the White House.” (Shucky) “Did he tell you that it’ll also alert all our forces in the city without getting our positions intercepted?” (Frennis) “Holy shit, that sounds genius, whatever it is. Well, don’t just stand there, sun’s already set, and Crystine said that it’ll have the maximum effect if you do it right at dusk!” (Shucky) “Alright, alright, I’m going. Just gonna put widdle Silas in his container for now, keep him safe until I come back with a daddy for him.” (Frennis) “Wait, is he actually your son?” (Shucky) “No, retard. He’s just a stray puppy I found in a trash can around noon today.” (Frennis) “Oh, he’s so cute! Can I give him one pat?” (Shucky) “Sure.” (Frennis attempts to give Silas one quick headpat, but the puppy bites her middle finger, releases, and makes a loud bark.) (Frennis) “Ow, what the actual fuck!?” (Shucky) “Ahahahahahaha! Oh, he’s just teething, and he gets scared around non-canines. He’ll get better, he’s a good boy!” (The Hound of Hell puts the larval doggy inside of his travel crate, locking it and placing it on a table, with the key underneath.) (Shucky) “Alright, let’s show these bitch-boys who’s about to be the Alphas around here. Come with me, you overgrown butterfly. You’ve gone through some shit to find me, might as well give you a front seat to the main event. I also might need your help with something.” (The two monsterwomen walk back to the fourth floor to reach the rooftop, as the poker players had taken the other stairway to the street level. The canine and fairy climb the rooftop ladder, now getting a good view of the US forces on the White House rooftop as the second reinforcing Blackhawk helicopter finishes unloading supplies and troops on the roof, along with the Marine and Army vehicular assets that form a secondary perimeter around the building. With the lull in direct assaults on Whiskey Hotel, the tanks have done a good job at flipping military and abandoned Secret Service cars onto their sides, to form makeshift barricades. With the forces of Royal Makai now in operational control over the streets of Washington, a multitude of Mamono now surround the White House on all sides just beyond the fence perimeter, with more and more forces trickling in by the minute. And Shucky is about to make things a whole lot worse.) (Shucky) “Alright, I’m in position. Hey, fairy, tell me something.” (Frennis) “My name is Ariel Frennis, but just my last name is fine. And what is it?” (Shucky) “Alright, ‘Frennis’. Lemme throw this out. You ever heard of the Twilight Bark?” Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest January 2nd, 20-- 6:45 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Phillips) “You guys ready? Only two more choppers until our ride shows up.” (As she says this, the troop complement of the second Blackhawk rushes by to reinforce the ground floor, as the commanding officer stops to salute the Secretary and the Congresswoman.) (Officer) “Sergeant Major Ferguson, 371st Sustainment Brigade, Ohio National Guard, reporting for duty! Sorry to say that we lost a fourth Blackhawk from the West Virginia State Police, they got intercepted right above the Bethesda Navy Exchange! Stupid bastards stopped to rescue what we thought were two civilians on the Exchange’s roof, since they had just enough extra seats for them! Turned out to be a trap, one of them had some fuck-huge sword, sliced the rotors off right when they landed. We’re with Big Mac Two.” (Non yells out to a group of SIGINT Marines who are using the third floor Game Room’s pool table as a desk for their computers, having turned the whole room into a rigged-up command center. This was on account of the work computers in the third floor offices having been found booby-trapped, then disposed of by being tossed out the windows, several hours earlier before the blast shields had kicked in.) (SecHS Non) “Hey, jarheads! You heard the Army puke, add that Exchange to SCORCHED NEST, ASAP.” (Phillips) “What exactly is SCORCHED NEST?” (Eydis) “It is an emergency protocol that authorizes your Air Force to begin bombing campaigns upon every compromised structure of importance in this city, not unlike how the Russian Empire razed their own capital when the French emperor Napoleon had arrived. It is a wise yet drastic tactic, using locations of cultural and military significance as bait, to lure in as many forces as possible, then destroying those locations from the sky.” (Phillips) “Oh my god, oh shit. I thought they made that up just to make a cool level for Call of Duty. Fuck, man.” (Palmieri) “What are YOU so worried about? They know not to bomb us as long as the bunker is still giving them the green light.” (Phillips) “No, it’s just that there’s so many tourist spots that I never got to see in time. Oh well, not like I could’ve done anything about it.” (SecHS Non) “Phillips, chill out. If we survive all this, I’ll get Lawrence to give you and your whole family some lifetime passes to every tourist spot, museum, and national park there is. And before you ask, no, I didn’t make that pass up. Since the last administration, we’ve given them out to everyone who wins the Medal of Honor, the Congressional Medal of Freedom, and we also give ‘em out to anyone who makes at least one-star General or Rear Admiral.” (SIGINT Corpsman 1) “Mister Secretary, I’m PFC Denton. We’ve got Big Mac Two sharing their camera feed, copilot says we need to see this. I’m patching in the PEOC and General Andreas too!” (SecHS Non) “Show me the money.” (The corpsman shows the group his laptop’s screen, while Andreas watches from her workstation, and Dupree quickly puts the visual feed on the main screen in the bunker’s conference room. They see a normal camera’s display of a misty micro-cloud that is covering up the Eisenhower Building’s roof.) (Big Mac Two’s copilot) “Viewers, are you seeing this?” (PFC Denton) “We are indeed, but what does the Angel think of this?” (Eydis) “It is magic, most certainly. It could be a fairy of some sort, could be an elven sorceress. But it is not a Lilim, that much is sure.” (Big Mac Two’s copilot) “Alright, now check this shit out.” (The feed changes to the helicopter’s electro-optical camera, revealing a massive ball of heat emanating from the center of the mist. And some of the heat appears to be waving around.) (Dupree) “There’s something in there that’s moving around. Looks….” (Andreas) “It looks like a wagging tail.” (Congresswoman Sorrentino) “Just what the hell is this thing?” (Eydis) “That is exactly what ‘this thing’ is. Or rather, you guessed half-right. It’s a Hellhound.” (Right on cue, an ear-piercing howl of one-hundred and five decibels overtakes every single communication device in a one-mile radius. The howl echoes throughout the concrete jungle of the greater D.C. metropolitan area, bouncing off of the buildings. The Postal Museum and the Air & Space annex, radio in to scream at Andreas, demanding to know what in God’s name could that sound be. Even the CIA at Langley breaks radio silence, only to inform the other survivors that they’re listening in to know what’s going on. All across the District of Columbia, Arlington, and the outlying edges of Maryland that surround the District, Mamono canids howl one after another in response, to confirm their locations and to authenticate the message.) Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 2400 East Capitol Street Northeast January 2nd, 20-- 6:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Werewolf) “Come on you bitches, that’s Shucky’s signal! We’re bum-rushing that White House!” Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 400 Michigan Avenue Northeast January 2nd, 20-- 6:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Dark Priest) “Is that the Hellhound’s signal?” (Kobold) “It sure is! Means we’re going for the President’s house!” (Dark Priest) “You all go on, I will stay with the children and keep the church bell ringing!” Alexandria, Virginia, United States of America 3671 Richmond Highway January 2nd, 20-- 6:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Kikimora) “It would seem that our fiery friend Shucky has made an open invitation to the fray! Follow me everyone, I know where she is!” (Kobold) “I’ll get on the roof and keep howling into this megaphone until everyone else is on their way! I might be able to bounce the message out further!” Alexandria, Virginia, United States of America 6600 Little Falls Road January 2nd, 20-- 6:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Werebat) “Shit, Azneth wasn’t lying, that Hellhound really CAN woof! Ohhhhh, my poor ears. She’s howling from that fancy palace near the big white obelisk! Let’s go everybody, she wouldn’t get this loud without a REAALLLLLYYY good reason!” Alexandria, Virginia, United States of America The Former Estate of General Robert Edward Lee January 2nd, 20-- 6:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Lich) “Azneth, come in!” (Azneth) “What is it Lyza, we’re about to get a little busy right now!” (Lyza) “I know! I’m on the speaker setting, I heard the howl that’s probably ripping your ears up right now! Do I proceed with the mass resurrection?” (Azneth) “Bad idea, Lyza! These humans are going to get VERY, VERY, VERY upset if they see that we’ve been turning their mothers, daughters, and wives into Zombies, Ghouls, or any of the different Ghost types! Wights, Liches like you, Banshees, the rare Pharaoh, ehhhhh, they’ll get over it.” (Lyza) “I’m sorry to tell you this, my Lady, but that’s not how this works. The resurrection process works on a soul-per-soul basis, I can’t control who gets what sort of new and improved body, and I can’t resurrect any men yet. That’ll be viable about two months after we turn this area into a Demonic Realm, and we can’t resurrect them after five months of being dead. As much good as Demonic Energy can do, this universe has hard limits that cannot be surpassed, even by your mother’s magic!” (Azneth) “I see. Well, this is how it is. Send any of the resurrectees that are ghost-types or have rotting skin, over to help out with constructing encampments around the tall white obelisk. We should have them nearby our primary target, just in case we need reinforcements for a concentrated attack! As for the corporeal ones WITHOUT rotting skin, let ‘em do as they wish. It wouldn’t be fair to resurrect them, just to force them into attacking their old allies and loved ones.” (The Ultimate Hero) “Sweetbun, you’re saying ‘attacking’ like we’re actually going to hurt them.” (Azneth) “Dad, you’re being insensitive again! This isn’t like home. A lot of those resurrectees died horribly, and their deaths put their families through a lot more grief than we’re used to. There’s some lines that we could cross, but shouldn’t. Not unless you want a repeat of those Kreuz maniacs that took us thirty years to flush out! Stop the car now, Willie, we’re getting a little TOO close. Daddy can handle it, but I don’t wanna stain his armor if some roof sniper spots us and splats my head off! Back up over to that ‘Red Cross’ place, park behind the building. We’ll watch from the windows on the second floor, it’ll keep us out of sight from those ‘flying choppers.’ And no sane American airplane pilot would dare attack the Red Cross! So, are we clear, Lyza?” (Lyza) “I am bound to your orders, my Lady. A shame that that Dark Angel Michaea beat me to the head groundskeeper. Such a kind and handsome catch he would have been.” (Azneth) I’m sorry to hear that, Lyza. Say, if I find the gardener of THIS place, I’ll see if he’s willing to give you a chance. I know your type.” (Lyza) “I am not worthy of your bountiful generosity, but I accept your offer. Lyza, over and out.” (Azneth) “Ava, you there?” (Ava) “Loud and clear, boss.” (Azneth) “Get in front of that White House, wait a little longer. I want to see them make the first move. We’re almost at checkmate, but it’s still too early to call it inevitable. We just need to keep the right pieces on the right parts of the board at the right time. I’m going to write a letter right now, and I’ll pass it down to you. Once you get it, use a megaphone and read the letter out loud to those humans. Wait for them to give an answer. If they don’t surrender, we take direct action.” (Ava) “You got it, boss. I’ll make sure we all hold off ‘till then. I’ve waited fourteen years for a man of my own, and I can wait a few more minutes.” Maclean, Fairfax County, Virginia, United States of America 1000 Colonial Farm Rd January 2nd, 20-- 6:49 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Central Intelligence Agency Director Kinnear) “Well, Wayne. It sure looks like Delvecchio, Non, and Big Miss Goody-Two-Shoes have quite the…. eheheheh, ‘Hot Dog’ on their hands right now.” (Deputy CIA Director Wayne) “Boss, I’ve got an idea. With the Load of Shite House attracting the alien hoes like moths to a flame, and I know they literally have moths in their ranks, we’re gonna have the best opening we can get to zip our asses over to Mount Weather or Raven Rock, have a pint, and wait for all this to blow over.” (Kinnear) “Wayne, you gigantic pussy. Have you NO sense of drama? This is gold, baby. We’ve got a livestream to the end of the world. And I mean the X-Men kind, not the R.E.M. kind. Let’s sit still, do nothing besides closely defending our property. Let’s NOT go out of our way to piss off the reality-warping demi-goddesses of lust, and their Big Papa. Listen man, this is going to go three ways. One, the Mamono win. We pin everything on Non and Menendez, wash our hands clean with falsified evidence that they blackmailed us into assisting Epsilon Lime. We give them an ultimatum, too. We know we’re going to get literally fucked one way or another, so we’ll make a trade with the Big Bad Lilim. We give them EVERYTHING we have on our data servers, in return for getting to choose our forced wives. If we don’t get to choose whether we get fucked or not, then at least we’ll get to choose WHO we get to fuck. If they don’t hold their end of the bargain, we set off the ninety-seconds deadman’s switch and wipe all the servers clean. It even sets our cloud-server private satellite black boxes to a thirty-seconds self-destruct.” “Possibility two, the Valkyrie and the Eskimo pull Operation Shower Shank off clean. The nukes fly, we win, and we’re back to business as usual. Don’t worry about any Presidential emergency powers to make us declassify anything. Any files that could incriminate you or me, were already scrubbed, destroyed, or altered four days ago. I know that dickhead Halberstram would give Delvecchio a rimjob if it meant landing a shot at MY chair, and he won’t be getting no shots. And possibility three, we all get blindsided by a Chinese, heeb, or maybe even a French nuke. Then it doesn’t fuckin’ matter, as we’ll be underground, and all our political problems will become moot. Russian nukes are highly unlikely, I know Non and the Joint Chiefs cut a deal with the Kremlin into making a policy of ‘don’t launch at us, and we’ll look the other way if you wanna atomize anyone else besides Canada’.” (Wayne) “If that’s our end of the bargain, what’s theirs?” (Kinnear) “Their conditions were that we allow each other’s militaries to use each other’s refueling assets, aerial OR naval. And if there’s Russian assets making an all-range distress signal, then we’re obligated to send anything reasonably nearby to assist, and vice-versa.” (Wayne) “I’m likin’ our odds, Boss. But I’m still going to get a chopper ready, just in case.” (Kinnear) “Fuck it, go ahead. Best to cover ALL angles I suppose. How’s Our-Man-In-Kaliningrad doing?” (Wayne) “I was on Vakulov’s little dark-web chat room about thirty minutes ago. He’s doing just fine for a triple-agent. His intel says that Royal Makai’s having trouble in taking Volgograd, like THAT worked out for the last assholes that tried it. Moscow’s gone completely black except for the old KGB bunker system under the Lubyanka. Arkhangelsk is still completely under the Bear’s control. They’re a headless horseman right now. No solid leader to serve as a juicy target, but their command structure is still mostly intact, despite being scattered to the Far Eastern winds. Non’s nuclear pen-pal Walentinov is off-the-map, but Vakulov’s best guess is that he’s using Mount Yamantau as a red herring. He’s going to use his own backdoor program to bring the atom-splitting heat, from somewhere in the Russkie Army base on Severny Island. But Vakulov isn’t completely sure. Two different people with the same physical description as Walentinov were both spotted heading south. REAL south.” (Kinnear) “Like what, some old Soviet bunker in Afghanistan? Azerbaijan? Vietnam?” (Wayne) “Not even close. I mean An-fuckin’-tarctica. One was spotted getting on a plane bound to Tierra Del Fuego, where the passengers are gonna refuel, then head to Bellinghausen Station on the further-out part of the Antarctic Peninsula. And an FSB informant that got turned into a Selkie, spotted someone who looks like the Minister of Culture at Dunedin, southern tip of New Zealand. Guy popped up on their radar for being seen getting on an Antonov Condor. That specific plane was sending supplies and a small garrison to protect…. fuck, this is a long one, ‘Novolazarevskaya’ Station. That one’s more likely since it’s got a all-year runway, and the GLONASS satellite uplink station there would be the perfect hiding place, when it comes to computers designed to make emergency remote nuke-launch authorizations. That person’s clearance card checked out, but she thinks it could be Walentinov using an alias. Either place in Antarctica is highly likely if you ask me, since it was Walentinov’s sugar mama, Counter-Admiral Volkova, who personally issued the orders to double the garrisons for those two Antarctic stations, along with Severny Island. Those orders were issued six days ago, guess that means Non told them what the invasion’s estimated deadline was.” (Kinnear) “So where’s Volkova?” (Wayne) “Waiting out the storm inside of the Admiral Kuznetsov, somewhere in the southern part of the Barents Sea. Whole area is covered in clouds, satellites couldn’t nail an exact location as of twelve minutes ago, when this report was made. All we know for sure is that seventy-seven hours ago, that Soviet fossil of a ship left Kola Bay. And we’ve got nothing on where Volkova’s two kids are. Fathers unknown, on account of ‘hook-up faulty condoms in the Moscow nightclub scene’, but DNA testing that got covered-up by favor-owing friends in the Lubyanka, confirmed that Walentinov is the daddy-o of both. So what are we gonna do if we won’t join the fight, and we won’t leave Langley?” (Kinnear) “Simple. We do the actual job that the taxcows pay us to do. We sit back, and use our agents to centralize intelligence. On the bright side, it’s a good thing the invasion came while guys like us are in charge.” (Wayne) “What makes you say that?” (Kinnear) “Because if the Dulles brothers were still calling the shots around here, they’d hand the whole planet over for a crumb of that Dark Elf BDSM pussy. And while we’re at it, fuck Richard Helms! Short-sighted cunt destroyed God knows how many valuable documents pertaining to MKULTRA, just to cover his own ass. Our research into sleeper agents and chemical-induced mind-alterations never, ever recovered from those losses. Do you have ANY idea how much that shit could’ve been an effective countermeasure to monsterization and incubization’s mental side-effects? And now we’ll NEVER know if it could’ve worked.” Hillcrest Heights, Maryland, United States of America 4231 Suitland Road January 2nd, 20-- 6:47 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Wererabbit) “That’s it! You ladies hear that? It’s Azneth’s Hellhound bestie, uh, what was her name again?” (Giant Ant) “Her name was Shuckle, I think. Must be important if she’s howling that loud. Wasn’t this some kind of plan-thingy?” (Wererabbit) “It was, dumbass. Means that something huge is going down over by that really tall white obelisk.” (Giant Ant) “It’s called the Washington Monument.” (Wererabbit) “Whatever! The important thing is that we need to double-time it on the traps. Intel says that this is the most likely place for those American politicians to try and kill us all with those planet-range super-rocket superbombs. They might even have some sexy singles, and they’ll be in OUR area!” (Giant Ant) “Those super-rockets are called nuclear weapons. Shouldn’t that Druella chick have briefed you guys on that, back on your side of the portals?” (Wererabbit) “She probably did, but I wasn’t paying attention on account of her total hunk of a father. Oh, if only he had room for a bunny in his bed.” (Giant Ant) “Why am I not even remotely surprised.” Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest January 2nd, 20-- 6:49 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (As the Hellhound’s howl ends, the echoes still faintly bounce across the city. And hundreds of canid-type Mamono howl back in response, their voices scattered all throughout the city. Now even more and more monsterwomen begin to surround the Executive Mansion, into a crowd reaching somewhere in the ballpark of eight thousand, with more and more forming semi-organized waves in the back portions.) (A Willys MD that had previously been on display next to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, slowly makes its way through the colossal crowd, as a Manticore stands on top of the passenger seat, while an Orc drives and her newly incubized husband operates a live Mark 21 Mod 0 machine gun, having replaced the deactivated display M2 Browning. The Jeep stops at the south gate without hassle, as the entrance booth USMC dress guards had long since abandoned their posts for better shelter inside of the Main Residence. The PEOC conference room watches the drive unfold from their conference room’s link to security cameras, along with a second viewing angle from the camera feed of the first Blackhawk, callsign Big Mac One, that had arrived.) (Delvecchio) “Okay, that’s it. They’ve got actual guns. They’re pulling all the brakes off. Now you already heard what the Secretary of Homeland Security had to say about The Buck Stopping Here, and he’s right. But I’ve got something to say too. Dupree, Andreas, Marston. Get everybody you can get on the line. They need to hear this. Did we get through to the FCC?” (Andreas) “I’ve patched through to FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, sir. The control station at Mount Weather is still online, and I was able to contact Deputy Administrator Norville. She’s there at the control station, says her boss got captured, so she’s in charge now. FCC headquarters over on 45 L Street Northeast is under enemy control, but Norville says we can reverse-hijack our way into broadcasting nationwide, until each separate local station manually overrides Mount Weather’s signal. The only alerting system still online and encrypted on our side is the Emergency Alert System, which should be good enough. We can also keep looping the broadcast on C-SPAN’s channel and website.” (Delvecchio) “Outstanding work. But isn’t there supposed to be a nationwide notification about me doing a broadcast, right before I do it?” (Andreas) “There is, sir. Already set it off about three minutes ago. You guys haven’t gotten it because you’re underground and surrounded by concrete. Norville informed everyone that you’d be on air within ten minutes. Are you ready? We’ll be using the webcam on the main screen on the other side of the room from you, zoomed in close so we can just get you.” (Delvecchio) “Pan out to the whole room once I say what I have to say. I want the world to know that I’m not alone in here, and it’ll do good for morale. Anyone with a gun, pull ‘em out and get ready to wave them in the air. And get ready to repeat something that I’ll say, but repeat it loud! Like a Rebel Yell! Just trust me, you’ll know what to say and when to do it. And General? Tell Norville to add one of those old Star-Spangled Banner station sign-offs to the broadcast, once I’m done talking. Preferably one that has them sing the fourth stanza, or that unofficial fifth one that Oliver Wendell Holmes made up. And remind me to make that fifth one actually official, if we make it out of this.” (Andreas) “You got it, sir. Uh…… great! Norville says her team is gonna need a few minutes to find a sign-off like that, but they’ll shove it in on later repeat messages.” (Halberstram) “Need anything before you’re on, sir? A…. handkerchief, some help with dusting off your clothes, or something?” (Delvecchio) “I’m fine, Agent, just fine. If I look TOO clean, it’ll defeat one of the points I’m gonna make. I don’t need a teleprompter either. Just tell me when we’re on air.” (Dupree) “James, you’re on.” (Delvecchio) “Shit! Uh, okay, here we go.” “My fellow Americans, this is James Delvecchio. Former New Jersey Congressman. As of about thirty minutes ago, I have assumed responsibility as Acting President of the United States of America. The previous President and Vice-President are dead, and as Pro Tempore Senate leader, that made me third in line. And as of right now, we’ve got thousands of enemy troops surrounding the White House on all sides. Yes, from land, sea, and even air. And more and more are piling in by the minute. These monsters are about to throw the kitchen sink at us, and you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to throw our own right back at ‘em! These people want your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, brainwashed into conscription! To turn your fathers, brothers, and sons into mind-warped fuck-junkies! They’re gonna put us all into one big shitty World Order where we literally CAN’T object to whatever whims that a bunch of royalty wants us to do! ROYALTY! CALLING THE SHOTS! In this nation, I don’t THINK so! My fellow Americans, we’ve done this song and dance twice before. And we’ll fuckin’ do it again!” “Because despite all the magic power they say they have at their fingertips, they don’t have the GUTS to go fight us themselves! And you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna go fight them myself! Because I’m an American! Because I’m not some inbred idiot who sits in a high castle and sips magic bullshit tea all day, while the loyal subjects do all the fighting and running and dying! I’m going to walk out of this stupid conference room, then I’m gonna get a gun, then I’m going to walk out of this stupid bunker, and then I’m gonna go outside and start dropping some daddy-boyfuckers like they were pigeons on the first day of hunting season! Because that’s what this is all about, America! I’m calling open season on every last alien and every last willing ally of them! As of right now, I’m invoking the Selective Service Act. Every single able man or woman of 18 years or older, is now officially drafted! Report to whatever nearest cop or military group you can find, and if you can’t find any, you should probably know what to do by now! Anyone younger than eighteen, I can’t force you to fight, but you’d be a dumb asshole to not pitch in! And if any of the enemy surrender, I leave it entirely up to you on what to do with them! Keep on fighting, and don’t EVER give up hope! Because I can promise you all one thing. And that’s that this’ll be over sooner than you think, one way or another.” “I’d like to say more, but I’m afraid that I’ve been beaten to a good speech by quite some time. Back in October of 1964, a predecessor of mine named Ronald Reagan, said some things that can be said again about today, whether he knew it or not. While his quarrel was with an Empire of Evil known as the Warsaw Pact, we face an Evil Empire once again, since nature abhors a vacuum. An evil even more subversive, enticing, and self-righteous than the last one. Reagan said that ‘If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.’ And that’s a fact. A fact even more true in the literal sense, since today’s foe can cross the stars, and to whom even the fabric of reality, is just another curtain to push away. Now I’m paraphrasing here, but in that same speech, then-Governor Reagan also said that there was 'something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.’ And the forces of Royal Makai have certainly gone beyond time and space, just to grab our little ball of solar driftwood that by what I must now assume to be Design, we have inherited out of the darkness. And I’m going to do what I can to preserve for our children a future. A REAL future! One where they can keep the freedoms that we and our ancestors went and bled or even died for! If we give up, if we surrender, we’ll have made every single one of those sacrifices WORTHLESS! The dawn of a brighter day is soon on its way. And we MUST pull through these darkest hours, or we'll sentence ourselves, and our descendants, to take the first steps into a thousand years of darkness. Thank you for listening. This is Acting President James Delvecchio signing off. Good night, God bless you all, and God bless America. I will see you all on the other side.” “Alright, now pan the camera out.” (Andreas follows the order, getting a panoramic view of the room. As per the President’s request, everyone with a gun has them drawn and pointed towards the ceiling. “One last thing, America. Happy hunting.” (Everyone else in the room) “HAPPY HUNTING!” (Andreas) “Feed’s cut, sir. It’s over.” (General Hoboken) “Okay, everybody follow me to the armory to grab a weapon! Like the boss already said, we’re expendable now, and we REALLY need all hands on deck! Everybody goes except Dupree and Lawrence. We need at least ONE tech-savvy guy to hold the fort down in here and keep our comms stable. You two already have weapons, and Chaplain Jenkins will stand guard in here, just in case. Lock the door once the rest of us are out.” (General Marston) “You heard the man, you apes! Let’s go, y’all wanna live forever!?” White House Main Residence, Third Floor Center Hall January 2nd, 20-- 6:54 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (PFC Denton) “Alright, that Osprey is coming in to land, LZ is considered hot. You three, get your asses ready. Your ride’ll be here in eight minutes.” (SecHS Non) “We’re already ready.” (PFC Denton) “Perfect, just perfect. Well, I guess we just need to-” (The Private first class is interrupted by the blaring sound of a football stadium megaphone’s activation. The White House’s rooftop defenders realize the noise is coming from the South Fence, directly facing them from across the South Lawn. As they call it in, cameras from Whiskey Hotel, the Blackhawks, and the V-22 Osprey currently making landing preparations, all home in on the source of the noise. A much clearer view comes from the opposite end, where monsterized reporters and camera-incubi of the WJLA 7, WTTG 5, WUSA 9, and WHUT 32 local news stations, have already scrambled to get close-up broadcasts of a member of Princess Azneth’s inner circle, the Manticore known as Ava of Katemita. Said Mamono is holding the Thunderpower-1200 that is causing all the aural fuss. She lewdly lifts it to her mouth, making a fellatio-esque motion with her tongue upon the mouthpiece, while spending several seconds pleasuring her tail-vagina with the inner speaker. After releasing her secondary snatch from the inner speaker, she begins to say her piece as she is given an illuminated visible focus above the rest of the crowd from a pair of floodlights, placed on the back of a Ford F-150 that a four-woman herd of Holstaurs had arrived in. Also caught on camera are two green dots of light, moving around Ava’s center mass.) (White House Sniper One) “Mister President, two of us have lazed the target, we’re ready to drop her. Do we proceed?” (Delvecchio) “NO! Hold your fire until the fence is breached! She’s about to say something, and as long as they’re off my property, I’m all ears.” (Ava) “Is this megaphone working? Testing, testing, yeah, it’s working. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-ttention, human resistance! I have a message from my commanding officer, Her Majesty, the Princess Azneth of Royal Makai, thirty-fourth born of the Demon Lord Lilith and her husband most immaculate!” “To the defenders of the American capital, and to anyone who is aiding and abetting them. Surrender now, and the fighting stops here. Just peacefully come on out, and you will be treated with leniency and honor befitting your bravery. Any of you that are already married, are free to return home to your families. Any unmarried men will be issued a wife, with careful and respectful consideration for your personal tastes! All unmarried human females are free to return to their homes with no consequences! There doesn’t need to be more violence today. Let us not finish this wonderful day with a bloodbath. I don’t know what vicious slander that the Valkyrie has been telling you, but we don’t want to kill you. We don’t want to hurt you. We came here to share our hearts with you. Our love. Yes, we have been altering the minds of your citizens. But this is to improve them, to eliminate the moral flaws of your society. We’re trying to help you. So I beg of you, please. Let us help you. But do not mistake my kindness for weakness. We have you surrounded. We outnumber you ten times over. If this olive branch of peace is rejected, then know that I will take immediate action to neutralize the threat that you pose to your world and mine. If you will not let us love you, then we will storm your fortresses and MAKE you love us. We will take you by force, in the literal, carnal, and philosophical senses. Despite the cruel actions that several of you have intentionally done against us in the past, we will not repay death with death. You do not deserve our love, but we will give ourselves to you irregardless. Do not fuck with us, or we will force ourselves upon you with extreme malice. To the President of the United States of America, or whomever is next in your continuity-of-government line, I await your response. Princess Azneth, over and out.” (James Delvecchio, along with four Secret Service Agents and General Marston, have been listening in from the Treaty Room on the second floor of the Main Residence. Delvecchio uses a fingerprint scanner to manually override the blast shield that covers the door leading out to the Truman Balcony.) (Marston) “Jimmy, what the hell are you doing? You’ll be a sitting duck out there! Get back in here and put that shield back on!” (The President of the United States pulls his AN/PRC-152A radio out of his suit, as he walks out onto the balcony, as nearly everyone with a zoom-in camera, binoculars, monocular scopes, or magically-enhanced farsighted vision, gasps at seeing a single man walk out into the (relative) open. Some reporters, and some of the crowd, recognize him from previous news broadcasts and C-SPAN live recordings as the Speaker of the House.) (Delvecchio) “Andreas, get a camera to zoom in on me. Record what I’m gonna say, and send it to Norville.” (Andreas) “Acknowledged, we’re recording. But why?” (Delvecchio) “I want everybody to ‘read my lips.’” “To everybody out there listening, this is James Delvecchio, Acting President of the United States. I have fully heard the plea and peace offer of Princess Azneth. And I have put careful yet decisive consideration into my next plan of action. But before I can answer her plea, I want to say that while her offer has merits, the fact remains that our way of life will be replaced, and our minds and bodies altered without a real choice. I will make one last warning. If there is any sense of patriotism left in any of you among this crowd, I beg of YOU, to walk away from all this. You are all expendable and replaceable cannon fodder to them, and there’s over four centuries of their graveyards that can attest to this. But you aren’t expendable, not to me. I’m not ordering you to fight against Royal Makai. I’m politely asking you to not help them. Without you all, they’re just another matriarch-centered survivalist fertility cult. We don’t need them to fix our nation! We can do that ourselves, we have the power! The American Way can be improved, but that change has to come from choice! From the heart AND the mind! While Azneth and her family offer a change that only comes from warping you to their absolutist desires.” “So with a heavy heart, and an ocean of regret and disappointment in myself, I reject the Princess’s offer, and respond with a counter-offer. My offer is for a complete ceasefire between the United States and Royal Makai. We will cease any counter-attacks, but only if they cease their own attacks. I am willing to personally go to the United Nations plaza at Manhattan Island, and meet with the Demon Lord, or a representative of hers, to negotiate a total withdrawal of their forces from American soil. I want to remind everybody watching, that they drew first blood. Instead of making a peaceful first contact with us, covert operatives of Royal Makai made their entry onto the stage of Earth, not by waving the white flag of peace. Not by offering to shake our hands and make themselves known with a peaceful press conference! No, the first thing they did upon arriving at our planet, was to initiate plotting with disgruntled humans, to subvert, infiltrate, and overthrow the United States government, along with many of our foreign counterparts. Yes, the previous administration has in fact, engaged in counterintelligence operations that have resulted in unlawful detainments and extrajudicial murders of a multitude of Royal Makai’s operatives. We have also established contact with resistance forces from their homeworld, which we have come to know as Kenkou. You aren’t freeing yourself in any way if you let them strike down the Star-Spangled Banner! You’re just turning the clock of society back to 1775. And this nation has sacrificed far, far too much to just lay down and let another monarchy reign over us. I don’t want to kill any of you. I’m sure that without the sex-addiction brainwashing, most of you are wonderful people that I’d be glad to call my neighbor. But if you break down this fence, if you cross this line, then you’ll cross the point of no return. And we WILL kill you without mercy, but with remorse. We will make the people of Kenkou wish that they had never, EVER, found our planet. James Delvecchio of New Jersey, signing off.” (As the former Atlantic Coast Representative walks back into the White House, General Marston immediately shuts the room’s blast shield again. As the crowd mulls on the President’s words, a Grizzly-woman heeds his request and leaves, the last remnants of her human mind had managed to overpower her newfound demonically-energized lust. As she walked away to jeers, hecklings, and open threats from the rest of the Mamono, she held her head up high. Eight more assorted monster-women followed her, exiting the area on the eastwards path of Constitution Avenue Northwest. A Golem walks right up to her left side as the others join up closely behind.) (Golem) “Hey! Uh, my name’s Cindy Owens! What’s yours?” (Grizzly) “Catherine Harrison.” (Owens) “That was really brave of you, you know?” (Harrison) “Brave how? Nothin’ brave about walking away from an obvious turkey shoot. White House has been ready for assholes like them since 1816. There’s a thousand better places for the President to make a last stand than a semi-fortified house out in the open. I think it’s a trap. And I know that no one’s gonna listen except you guys. We aren’t brave, but we’re smart. And unlike that first wave of hungry, hungry hippos, we’re gonna survive this unless we get struck by rotten bad luck.” (The group’s sole Werecat speaks up.) (Werecat) “Uh, hi! I’m Cleopatra Jones. Yeah, like the old disco private eye movie. I saw an empty school bus in front of the International Spy Museum a few blocks south. If we pile in on that, we could take I-395 out of here, and head on down south. I’ve got a key to my cousin’s townhouse down in the south end of Quantico, been staying there for a few days. So, we could all lay low over there until this whole thing blows over!” (Harrison) “Is your cousin gonna be cool with eight extra mouths to feed?” (Jones) “She won’t need to be cool. You noticed that one cat in the Cyndi Lauper reject outfit?” (Owens) “Yeah, she spitted on me and called me a faggot.” (Jones) “Well are you a homo?” (Owens) “No, bitch! I just think that there’s gotta be some less retarded or life-threatening ways to find a good guy. You know, one that doesn’t involve going mano-a-mano with Uncle Sam!” (Jones) “And I completely agree. That cat was my cousin Wilma, and she called me a ‘literal pussy’ for walking away. She wouldn’t listen. Total goner. Dead-ski. I give her about one minute before those chopper miniguns shred her to bits like a Terminator prop.” (Harrison) “A double-amen to what Owens said. Thanks for the offer, Jones. I think we can all agree that it’s a good idea. If I understood Delvecchio’s threat right, then I don’t wanna be anywhere within thirty miles of D.C. Hey, I can see a chopper out there. Look! It’s coming from the southwest! They turned their lights off. Gotta be more government reinforcements. Okay ladies, let’s run while we still can!” (As the nine sane magic-mutants head south, The Ultimate Hero makes his way to Ava. As she gets off the Jeep to kneel and present her 45-watt megaphone to him, he makes a humble curtsy to her. He ignores the two laser-designation beams that have moved from Ava to him.) (The Ultimate Hero) “Thank you, Ava. That was remarkably valiant of you to speak on my daughter’s behalf. I owe you a debt.” (Ava) “I’ll probably cash that in sooner than you’d think, but I’m honored anyways, my lord. What do we do now?” (The Ultimate Hero) “Leave it to me. I’m assuming command for now. Time to show these children what unfettered power really is.” (He lifts the megaphone, still turned on.) “To the inhabitants of the palace that stands before me! We earnestly reject your counter-offer! You had your chance to make this easy on yourselves, and that’s more of a chance than we would usually give to those who follow tyrants like the Valkyries! That’s correct, Freyja! I know you’re in there! It’s over! I have you surrounded on all sides! Your human followers WILL listen to you, and I will admit, our battles in the past were quite a thrill! For that, I give you one last chance to surrender! Fight me yourself, and I will accept an uninterruptible duel with you! But spare the dignity of these humans, I beg of you! I cannot speak for the rest that are gathered here, but you KNOW that I do not want to hurt them anymore than YOU want to see them harmed!” (Quickly ditching the other three, Eydis hovers up the stairs, pushing the rooftop entrance door open. As she arrives on the roof with a clear view of the South Lawn and the horde of Mamono that lie ahead, she points her right hand into the night sky, as said hand crackles with yellow Holy Magic. A spark is blasted out, flying two-hundred feet upwards, as she hears the Marine named Denton, yell up the stairs to inform that her dearest Secretary’s evacuator was one minute away. Seeing a small helicopter in the distance, coming from the southwest, she smiles and quietly says something to herself.) (Eydis) “Ha. Just as he had scheduled. I wonder, my love. Did your ‘script’ account for all of these stalling-speeches as well?” (As her sentence finishes, she draws her sword, pointing it right at The Ultimate Hero. She yells at the top of her lungs, as her spark explodes into a firework-esque display of words. It states “N E V E R !”) (The Ultimate Hero sees the message, and sees the light of the waning gibbous Moon reflect off of his angelic foe’s shield. His straight face turns into a frown of disappointment, as he draws his own sword in response. Pointing it straight at the Truman Balcony, he has only one last thing to say.) (The Ultimate Hero) “The die is cast! Rejoice, children! For the last gasp of the unworthy goddess’s reign of terror will be had tonight! By dawn, a new age will begin!” (On all sides, the Monster-women and their incubi smash the fence down, hauling ass to the building. The two Mark-13 wielding rooftop snipers immediately open fire on The Ultimate Hero, only for their .300 Norma Magnum bullets to bounce off of what looks like a purple deflector shield, but is actually empowered armor with over four centuries of stacked enchantments designed specifically to no-sell long-range attacks. One ricochets into the sky, the other into the left leg of a nearby High Orc, immediately blowing it off. The snipers immediately try to refocus their fire onto Ava, but fail to distinguish her from the other Manticores in the siege mob, resigning themselves to go weapons-free on whatever unlucky hostile gets to be the first that they can spot through their scopes.) (The M1A3 Abrams and M3A3 Bradleys fire their canister shots into the crowd, instantly killing about thirty Mamono with every shot. Along with gunners of the other assault vehicles standing vigil, their turret gunners open fire with their machine guns, slicing through the crowd like a hot knife through butter, especially the Abrams gunners, who had stocked up on only armor-piercing M903 SLAP rounds. As per the prediction of Cleopatra Jones, her cousin Wilma is mostly-decapitated only seven seconds into the fray. Big Mac One and Three use their sideways overwatch positions to fire their M134 Miniguns into both the north and south hordes, turning the battlefield into a Mogadishu scholar’s wet dream. As the first wave turns into mincemeat, the defenders of the White House now double-time it to reinforce the roof with machine guns, expecting the vehicular defenders to be unable to last much longer. As the snipers focus their fire on the ground, Eydis and the other defenders keep their eyes on the skies, providing anti-air cover for the Blackhawks and the V-22 Osprey callsigned Raptor Five. Raptor Five restarts it’s engines, climbing into the sky to provide cover fire over the East Wing, while making room for the incoming Bell 206. From her sword, Eydis blasts yellow arcs of electricity that internally combust whatever aerial Mamono that is targeted. Big Mac Two provides overwatch over the ruins of the West Wing, noticing that the Eisenhower’s rooftop mist and heat signature is dissipating. But the Hellhound was no longer there, by now on the first floor.) (Delvecchio) “IT’S SHOOOOOOOWTIME, MOTHAFUCKAS! FIRE EVERYTHING! I’M HEADED TO THE ROOF. GONNA SHOW THESE SLUTS HOW WE DO THINGS UP IN CAMDEN!” (SecHS Non) “Well, well, Mister Big Shot Hero-King. Time to see if you can dance as well as Eydis says you can.” (PFC Denton) “You three, get to the roof NOW! We need you dipshits to hop on that chopper the second they’re done unloading! Thirty seconds!” 430 17th Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. Second floor offices January 2nd, 20-- 6:50 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Azneth) “All forces come in, I repeat, all forces come in! This is Princess Azneth, and my father is now one move to checkmate! Commence with Operation Isandlwana, I repeat, Isandlwana! Stay on maximum alert, the Americans have air superiority in the immediate area, and they’ve got a VERY angry Valkyrie on their side! Shucky, keep Frennis with you, and get fifteen friendlys to help you two fortify that Eisenhower building. If this siege gets protracted, or the Castle is bombed, we might need to move our command center over to where you are. Lyza, stick with the previous plan! All aerial units, I am requesting that you concentrate yourselves on taking those vehicle machine-gunners! And I want those helicopters swatted from the sky! Remember to focus on tearing their pilots out, NOT the door-gunners! Cialis Squad, give me a sitrep!” (Giant Ant) “Sergeant Rohm reporting in! We have complete control over the NOAA satellites here, but I’m afraid that the computers here are only linked to weather-related ones. You’re gonna have to call someone with a hookup to Dulles or the Pentagon for aircraft-tracking.” (Azneth) “Then I will! Admiral Addams, what news of our airspace?” (Addams) “We’ve got two fast-moving objects incoming from your four o’ clock! Probably cruise missiles, non-nuclear! They’re on a precise trajectory for where your father is, you ought to pull him out!” (Azneth) “Nonsense! He’s fought gods, two measly Tomahawks aren’t jack shit!” (Addams) “If you say so! We’re also tracking four slower hostiles, all bearing Air Force IFFs! Two are coming from our seven o’ clock, another at our three o’ clock, and there’s something BIG at our eleven o’ clock, seventeen miles out! I think it’s an AC-130! Sector Seven, Sector Eight, we’ve got a probable Puff Daddy entering your AO at about 4000 feet! Intercept it!” (Dark Priest) “This is Fullmoon at the Sector Four Basilica! We’ve spotted the plane, it’s a Fighter-15 Eagle!” (Werebat) “And this is Deniya at the Sector Nine high school! We’ve spotted your two ‘bogeys.’ Both are Fighter-35s, and they’re shooting their way through our security net! I can hear their cannons right now! You’d best get the fuck out of there, Princess, because those mice you’ve cornered are probably going to Danger Close themselves!” (Addams) “Don’t worry TOO much about enemy air support, ladies! Our troops at the Pentagon have already managed to shut down the Air Force’s drone fleets, or at least the ones that weren’t directly under NORAD. US Army’s still got their A-10 drones though, so don’t get cocky! Remember that they’re remote-controlled and don’t have spirit energy, so it’ll be harder than a golem’s dildo to sense them coming before it’s too late! Especially on a cloudy night like this! You’ll have to rely on their jet noise or tracer fire to spot them! And Deniya’s right, my Lady. It’s too risky for you to be so close to the incoming airstrikes! Even if they don’t target your location, you still might get shredded by shrapnel!” (Azneth) “And that’s a risk I’m willing to take! Daddy’s going to need all the help he can get to make sure that Valkyrie doesn’t slip past us again, and that’s that! Are we clear?” (Addams) “We’re clearer than crystal. It’ll be your funeral then.” (Azneth) “Do we have any mechanized air assets of our own?” (Addams) “We do! We’ve got a line in with your sister Druella’s command center at Madison Square Garden! They’re sending in two C-130s to commence paradropping straight onto the White House roof! And if that fails, they’ve just finished refitting an Apache gunship with Demonic Silver bullets and missiles to provide air support for you, but it’ll be about three hours out!” (Azneth) “How far out are the paratroops?” (Addams) “About twenty-three minutes.” (Azneth) “Damn it all! I get ONE good chance to prove myself as a conqueror, and SHE steals the master-stroke of victory from right under me! I am SO telling Mom on her! This isn’t fair! ARGH! So how are the rest of my sisters doing, as far as you can confirm?” (Addams) “Your family has two confirmed casualties. Sorry for your loss, ma’am.” (Azneth) “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT TWO OF MY SISTERS ARE DEAD!!?? THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE! NO ONE EXCEPT A CHIEF GOD HAS MANAGED TO DO THAT!” (Addams) “Druella’s folks are reporting in a litany of eyewitness confirmations. Urilnara was… roasted in mid-air, earlier this afternoon at Cape Canaveral. NASA hasn’t got much for weapons beyond police security, but several eyewitnesses think she was blasted by a…. laser cannon…. from the American Navy. A corvette named Little Rock is confirmed to be patrolling the Atlantic coast of Florida at the moment, and they’re been testing a cannon of that sort since 2020! I’ve heard of that one. A one-hundred-and-fifty kilowatt directed-energy weapon named HELIOS. It was still considered experimental, until today at least.” (Azneth) “Tell Druella’s team to send a worldwide alert, warn them that we have confirmation that laser-based weapons CAN kill us! Who was the other casualty?” (Addams) “Nesselia. Survivors of her support staff are in Farmington, Utah, and they just managed to reestablish contact. She was in Salt Lake City, negotiating with the Mormon cult’s high Council of their Church. The city was struck thrice with nuclear warheads about twenty minutes ago.” (Rohm) “Lilith’s sweat, that’s what it was! We detected a smoke trail that led from somewhere in northeastern Montana. It split into three objects in space, then dove towards Utah, but we had no idea what it was! Oh shit, oh fuck, they did it. They’ve got The Football online, and they must have destroyed that city as a test!” (Addams) “Impossible, Plains-Flower’s firewall has them locked out of the system, and there’s no way they’ve already sent someone out to bypass the signal!” (Shucky) “Hey, it’s Shucky I’m borrowing this fairy’s radio! Forget about Plains-Flower. They found him out.” (Azneth) “How do you know this?” (Shucky) “I’m sorry, queeny. But I’m looking right at the north face of the White House, and Druella’s inside man is currently dangling from a rope there. By the neck.” (Lyza) “What the fuck?! Who did that? Freyja would’ve given him a clean head-severing, and Non would have simply shot him in the face.” (Shucky) “I’ve got a Siren here that was helping round up the VIPs for Azneth’s Dad’s televised orgy that went tits-up. She says some guy called ‘Mickelson’ did it, and that he’s an ‘Attorney General’. Didn’t know that they had lawyer-soldiers. Kind of interesting.” (Azneth) “That man is the highest-ranking policeman in this country. But his psych profile implies that he’s too mentally stable to do something that horrible. And Delvecchio’s acting pretty bold and brash for a man who’s made a multi-decade career as a reactionary rubber-stamper. This is fucky. Too fucky. Shit! I know EXACTLY what’s going on! I’ve got to get my Daddy out of here!” (Addams) “What? What’s going on?!” (Azneth) “The Valkyrie, Mickelson, that new President? They’re all smokescreens! Distractions to turn our eyes away from the puppeteers pulling their strings!” (Shucky) “Oh Lilith, no! I thought your family and grandma erased The Fallen God forever!” (Azneth) “We did! I’m not talking about a supernatural manipulating force! Quite the opposite! It’s the National Security Advisor! The Epsilon Lime commander! They’re taking everyone in this city for a ride! You, me, Daddy, their own fellow bureaucrats, even the Valkyrie! We…. we fell for it. This was a trap! A diversion!” (Frennis) “My Lady, it’s too late to back out now! And how could this be a trap! Yes, the casualties will be enormous, but there’s no possible way they could hold out in there forever! Not unless they plan to commit suicide with a nuclear attack on themselves!” (Azneth) “No, no. Suicide’s not their plan. Not for Menendez, not completely sure about Non though. WHOA. WHOA, WHOA, WHOA. OHHHHHHH, NO. YOU. DON’T. I SEEEEEEEEEEEEE YOUUUUUUU! WILLIE! START THE CAR, NOW! WE’VE GOT AN ADVISOR WHO THINKS HE CAN FLY HIS CUTE ASS OUT OF HERE LIKE I WOULDN’T FIND OUT! LET’S GO! I’VE GOT A LOT OF SECRETS TO FUCK OUT OF HIM. Addams! You’re in charge of this operation until you’re relieved by another daughter of Lilith, or my father! Azneth out, and don’t contact me unless it’s an emergency! I can’t let those two intercept our transmissions, can’t let them know I've got their spirit-scent, and am in pursuit! Not until it’s too late for them.” (As an awkward silence overtakes the rest of the lesser succubi’s subordinates, the seventh-born granddaughter of Lescatie royal concubine Sasha Fullmoon and her husband King Elt, is the first to speak.) (Fullmoon) “Well, then. I’ve seen the… risque…. photographs of those two men the Lady has deemed to personally pursue. I cannot blame her, they are QUITE delectable. Especially that Menendez fellow. For a fifty-seven year old man, he’s still in peak physical condition for ravishing one of us.” (Shucky) “So, am I the only one who thinks she’s looking to get DeePee’d by them?” (Fullmoon) “Absolutely not.” (Rohm) “I totally dig it. I’d let them tag-team my throat had I found ‘em first.” (Lyza) “No comment. But I can confirm that back at Royal Makai, the Princess has quite a collection of well-used double-phallused monstermen mannequins. Of the life-like sort.” (Deniya) “Oh she’s got it baaaad to get her pussy and shitter stuffed. But personally, I’m not really into pencil-pushers, even if they pump iron at a gym.” (Addams) “I’m starting a betting pool on which one of them knocks her up first. Five thousand bucks worth of gold on Non.” (Shucky) “You’re on! Six thousand on Menendez!” (Rohm) “Six-and-a-half on Menendez!” (Deniya) “Not interested. But if she’s a succubus, then I’d have to agree that she probably wants a threesome. Mmmmmmmm, gets me hot thinking about it too. A big strong man of…. experience, putting a bun in your oven, while a strapping young man defies nature to spill his seed in the wrong hole.” (Rohm) “Girl, that General is past middle age. And the Advisor ain’t THAT young, he’s twenty-nine.” (Deniya) “Still a child to me, I’m seventy-two years old.” (Fullmoon) “Allow me to stir the pot. I wager... that if she gets neither of them, you will all donate ten thousand each to the orphanage I’m going to start at this church. If I lose, I will allow you ladies to get first pick of my prisoners if you are unable to claim a man by the time Azneth finds a husband.” (Shucky) “I accept!” (Rohm) “Sure.” (Addams) “I’m in, and if Fullmoon loses, I call dibs on the one with the widest girth.” (Rohm) “Siiiiiiiiiiize queeeeeen.” (Addams) “Virgin.” (Ava) “GET BACK TO WORK, YOU SLUTS. THERE’S A FUCKING SIEGE GOING ON OVER HERE IF YOU HAVEN’T BEEN PAYING ATTENTI- OH GROSS, THAT’S BRAINS! WE’RE UNDER EXTREEEEEEEEEEEMELY HEAVY GUNFIRE! HURRY THE FUCK UP BEFORE THEY MANAGE TO GET SOME ACTUAL ARTILLERY HERE! HEEEEEL- OW, SHIT! MY FOO-!” (The Manticore’s signal is cut, as unbeknownst to the others, her radio has just been accidentally bumped out of her hand by a Devil, then crushed under the nine-hundred pound weight of a Lamia that was smart enough to be wearing plated body armor.) (Addams) “Lyza! Second wave, send them in! Now! You have your orders, ladies! We get any new converts, send ‘em over to help that flying cat out!” White House Main Residence, Third Floor Center Hall January 2nd, 20-- 6:51 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Phillips) “Dude, you see those thick snow skis on that chopper?” (SecHS Non) “They’re called pontoons, and they also work on water. You know, for floating.” (Phillips) “Guessed as much, but I’ve seen enough Antarctic horror movies to get the chills knowing that we’re climbing aboard that.” (SecHS Non) “Yup. Sure would be fitting if we got taken down and fucked in by Doppelgangers and Tentacle-freaks.” (Palmieri) “Don’t even joke about that! Most of those Japanese pornos are anatomically impossible, and I’m not keen to let them do test-runs on me!” (The Bell 206 lands on the center roof, as the blacked-out windows make it unclear to see who is flying, or who are the passengers.) (SecHS Non) “Eydis, sweetheart, did you scan these guys for Demonic Energy?” (Eydis) “I most certainly have, and they are clean.” (Palmieri) “Excellent! I’ll go tell that pilot we’re the ‘sensitive cargo’!” (Right as the House Representative attempts to knock on the pilot’s window, the co-pilot and passenger doors open up. To the surprise of literally every single human that can see them, along with every single rooftop Mamono that’s viewing from afar, and even the Valkyrie herself, the helicopter has brought a group of what appears to be armored knights, all wielding what appear to be various European-theatre Second World War-era firearms that aren’t even remotely modern. A man in late medieval Gothic armor plating and a barbute helmet walks up to Non, holding what looks like a Mauser MG-42 over his back. Palmieri and Phillips rush onto the helicopter, both deciding independently that when you’re under siege by sex-addicted magical mutants and aliens, you really shouldn’t question who your reinforcements are. Especially when an angelic being has just vetted them.) (SecHS Non) “And just who the FUCK are you clowns? They said your chopper was bringing in folks from Norfolk, not Normandy!” (Gothic ‘knight’) “Well, hello back, you ungrateful nignog! Isaac Wolters, reporting for duty! That’s ‘Wolters’ with an O, not an A! I know who you are, Mister Non! Nice to finally meet the asshole who’s had my brother’s Seabee team doing overtime on renovating those bunkers down in Savannah!” (SecHS Non) “Savannah? My report said those guys needed another week to finish those. Oh God, I’m sorry. But I think your brother’s screwed.” (Wolters) “Oh no, no hard feelings! They finished four days ago! I made my bro a fake report so he could quietly drive back to Norfolk and relax at my place until the 9th! And you bought it! We thought you were just wasting his time to look good for the Oval Office, but I’ll admit, I see now why you wanted him to get the job done so soon!” (SecHS Non) “You shifty son-of-a-bitch! Well, at least you’re here. So what’s up with the getup and guns?” (Wolters) “Me and these boys were at a renaissance faire in Spotsylvania! When the whole world turned upside down, we were caught with our pants down, so we stole a bunch of perfect-replica tournament outfits, put ‘em on, and we hightailed it in a SWAT van back to my brother’s barracks at the Naval Air Station! But my bro was gone, and his barracks was out of guns by the time we got there, so we raided NCIS’s Iraqi contraband collection! This ain’t no Nazi machine gun, it’s a .308 Austrian MG-74! 1998-vintage! So then we rescued a pilot from getting spitroast-pegged by mermaids, and then we took this chopper out to his parent’s winter condo up north in Dover! We got over Chesapeake Bay and were doing some refueling at Cambridge, Maryland when we got Senator Dupree’s S.O.S! You best get going now! And cut some slack on the pilot! Donald Hauser’s his name, and he’s still pretty shook up about almost getting raped by half-human fish-freaks!” (SecHS Non) “I know better than to bite the hand that feeds me! Well, thanks for the ride, and good luck! Head over down those stairs and find The President! He’ll give you something to do now that you’re up shit creek. Welcome to the party, and good luck!” (The Secretary prepares to board the helicopter, noticing that Palmieri is riding shotgun, while Phillips has already put on her seatbelt, and is recording with her camera pointed right at him. As he puts one foot on the left pontoon, Eydis firmly grasps his right shoulder, turning him around. Once facing her, she grabs both of his arms.) (Eydis) “So who ARE these people? They are most certainly not members of The Order!” (SecHS Non) “They’re just civilians in costumes! I say we let them keep wearing them, it’ll be quite a demoralizing shock for Royal Makai to see what they think are their old and new enemies fighting side-by-side!” (Eydis) “How soon should I leave for Offutt?” (SecHS Non) “Make a few big spectacles, something that’ll make a lot of smoke or turn a ton of heads! Use that as a diversion to make a quick getaway! If I was looking at those Blackhawk camera right, the weakest link of these horny bastards will be at our eleven ‘o clock position! Slip through that gap, and see if you can catch a plane or something! Once I’m out of range, I can start Phase Five. Remember, when you get to Offutt, tell everyone you can to make preparations for bunker-living! I’m going to CHARON! Once Phase Five is done, meet me there in one week! If I’m not there, then I’m already dead! ‘Haumea’ will be at NIX, ‘Orcus’ at NAMAKA, ‘Gonggong’ will be at KERBEROS, and ‘Quaoar’ is confirmed to be on his way to HYDRA if those guys at NIGHTWATCH are right. We lost all contact with 'Makemake,' and he might be compromised. And I got a call from 'Salacia' when I was at the Pentagon, she said she's holed up and can't budge, but she's got a trusted comrade working on it. Said this comrade's on her way. Don’t worry, ‘Sedna.’ We only need one of us to punch through their nets. If I fall before reaching CHARON, then Lawrence will set off the Kuiper Protocols tomorrow, and ‘Eris’ will probably be the one who’ll wipe the slate clean. Whether Lawrence knows it or not, and he probably doesn’t know.” (Eydis) “‘Only one of us....? Do not say such things, dearest Secretary! You WILL succeed! I have the utmost faith in you! You must live! For your family! For those who will need your skills and services in the world that comes next! But.....'Makemake' always WAS the weakest link of our chain. I may have to terminate him, and bring Archie in. (SecHS Non) “And so we just might have to. No guarantees in life, sweetheart. But I have just one selfish thing to ask of you. Before you come find me at CHARON, would you please check up on my family?” (Eydis) “That is a more than reasonable request, and I will do so. I had already planned to arrange for your family to meet us at wherever you might be. After all, I have already told you of the visions regarding your sweet nephew Daniel. He too, must live.” (SecHS Non) “Then I suppose this is goodbye for now. May fortune favor we who are bold.” (Eydis) “Godspeed indeed, my friend.” (The Dragonian lifts up the Alaskan, placing his 5’11 body on even level with her 6’4 self. She lets his left shoulder go, only to move it under his armpit to grab the back of his head by his short ponytail. She pushes his head into hers, as she uses her superhuman strength to force his mouth open with her tongue, plunging it as deep as she can go. Their lips stayed in lock for what felt like minutes, but was actually twelve seconds. The holy war maiden slowly retracts her tongue, pulling his head away as a string of saliva connecting the two sets of lips begins to dissolve. As Non’s face went as red as a tomato, he began panting in a combination of panic, and of his body betraying his mind with the desire to continue.) (SecHS Non) “W-w-wha-?” (Eydis) “For luck, my dear ‘Nemesis’.” (She uses a quick spell of propulsion to force Non into his seat, as she raises her left arm to magically lock in his seatbelt, then shut the door. Her sword and shield once again fully drawn, she motions her blade to Donald Hauser, rushing him to get into the air. This turns out to be a terrible idea, for right as the helicopter positions itself to begin flying southeast, the incubus at Ava’s jeep begins to open fire on Raptor Five’s left rotor. His 7.62x51 M993 armor-piercing rounds make mincemeat out of that rotor’s internal drive system, causing the Osprey’s pilot to lose control. In what felt like slow-motion horror, the sole survivor of Kurgania watches as the VTOL vehicle accidentally swerves into her beloved’s helicopter, ripping the left pontoon off with the broken rotor. As Raptor Five tries in vain to regain control, the pilot at least manages to avoid friendly casualties by breaking off from the White House.) (As a minigun operator of Big Mac One retaliates by shredding the Jeep and it’s own operators into an impression of Swiss cheese, Raptor Five crash-lands into the southeastern portion of Lafayette Square, barely missing the statue of the Square’s namesake. Before the pilot can even reach his ejector seat in hopes of getting rescued by Eydis, he is restrained by the vines of an Alraune right outside the cockpit, as a Dryad punches the window and rips him out of his seat for the two plant-monsters to share. The co-pilot quickly unbuckles, grabbing a FN P90 in the hopes of shooting his way back to the White House. He kicks his cockpit door open, knocking over a Dwarf that had been attempting to do the same on her side. Opening fire into the portion of the north-facing horde that had broken off to get a man the easy way, he manages to gun down twenty-three Mamono before his 50-round magazine jams on the forty-fourth shot. He is tackled by a Giant Ant that quickly runs off from the battlefield with her prize, dodging three shots from roof snipers that had attempted to grant the co-pilot a merciful death. The back-door gunner has no delusions that she can escape, choosing to do what little she can by killing as many Mamono as possible with her still-functioning M2 Browning. She manages to slice a decent swath through the crowd, killing seventy-three and wounding another one-hundred and six, dodging three arrows from Cupids. She eventually falls to former Secret Service Agent Michelle Spengler, who quietly sneaks into the helicopter from the broken pilot’s window. Ex-agent Spengler shoots the gunner twice in each kneecap with 9mm bullets from her scoped Browning Hi-Power, leaving her neutralized as an Arch Imp begins the gunner’s transformation into a Golem. The radio still operational, Spengler walks over to it, hoping to contact the American resistance.) (Spengler) “This is Michelle Spengler, Secret Service. I know you’re listening, Dupree. You fucking nerd. Clock’s ticking. The sooner you give up, the less suffering you’ll put yourself through. We can give you a nice submissive Holstaur to live out all your mommy-issue domination fetishes with, or you can piss us off. And I can order a Kraken to keep your asshole triple-stuffed for the next decade. All up to you.” (Dupree) “Cut the tsundere act, Michelle. We all know you just want a big, strong ‘80s Hollywood action star to wrap you in his steroid-pumped arms and fuck you softly. Get bent and get lost!” (Although the left pontoon has been ripped off, Hauser manages to regain control of the Bell 206, narrowly missing the crowd as a Goblin tries to jump up and grab the right pontoon, only to lose her grip, falling back into the horde. As Eydis watches in relief, and a certain Lesser Succubus watches from afar, The Ultimate Hero runs across the South Lawn to deal with one of the M1 Abrams tanks. Climbing onto the tank itself, the driver notices, deciding to plow into the horde while spinning the turret around to knock the Hero off. This utterly fails, as the sheer combined physical strength of the posthuman crowd manages to slow down the tank into a complete stop, as the Hero slices off the primary cannon with his Demon Silver sword that has felled warlords and Gods alike. Ripping the top door off with his bare hands, he reaches in to pull out the tank commander, tossing him to a Dragon that flies off westwards. He reaches again to pull out the gunner, who attempts to punch him in resistance, only to break his own hand upon impacting the Hero’s nose. He is also tossed out, right into the arms of an Echidna, who fails to escape before she and her prey are killed by shrapnel from a random M68 grenade. With the tank’s weaponry no longer a problem, the Hero and other magical Mamono pool their magical force to completely rip off the turret, taking the loader with it. The tank loader is quickly punched in the gut and seized by a Gargoyle, who takes advantage of the gap once filled by Raptor Five to slip away. The tank driver, now trapped with no way out, raises his hands in surrender as The Ultimate Hero stabs him with Demonic Silver as a precaution. With his strength rapidly failing, the driver goes out with a literal bang, whipping out a M67 grenade with his left hand, pulling the pin with his fingers. As the Hero moves to grab the grenade in a bid to shield others from the explosion, the explosive goes off, killing two nearby Elves, and covering the Hero in dead soldier organs and blood. The grenade also succeeds in cooking off the remaining shells in the tank, which was the now-dead driver’s actual reason for the explosive self-death.) (As the shells dramatically explode, sending shockwaves that even manages to knock over vases and paintings inside the White House, the Hero is flung through the air across the South Lawn, crashing through the roof of the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion. He lies there in utter shock for thirty-eight seconds straight, until Azneth arrives to whisk him away.) (Azneth) “Daddy! We have to go! It’s the Epsilon Lime masterminds! They’re getting away! Daddy, this whole siege was a trap, a diversion! They were ready for us, to...to some extent. And now Non and Menendez are trying to escape, to get past the signal blockade! We’ve got to stop them before it’s too late! Daddy? Say something! Please!” (The Ultimate Hero) “.......My little raspberry. You know, I can recall the day you were born. When you left your mother’s womb, and I held you in my arms. Wrapped in a little purple blanket. As we had already suspected, you were weaker than your sisters. A little smaller. Your Lilim brethren emerged from Lilith quiet and already smug in their strength. Even your less frequent succubi siblings were quiet until they needed a taste of your mother’s milk. But you were crying and wailing from the moment you were born. While several of your older sisters dismissed you, and your mother maintained an air of indifference to keep up her image, as with all but your eldest sister, I held you tighter than I had with any other of our newborns.” (Azneth) “W-what’s the point to this?” (The Ultimate Hero) “My point..... is that your physical and magical inferiority triggered something in me that I hadn’t felt since your eldest sister’s birth. I felt fear. A dam of human emotions that I had held at bay for centuries, spilled loose. Never forget that I have never thought any less of you for being a Lesser Succubus, even if your sisters have done so. I should have been more attentive in their disciplining. Paid less attention at rogering your mother, and more at raising you all to be the most upstanding women there could ever be. Until you were born, I did something terrible.” (Azneth) “Father, what did you do?” (The Ultimate Hero) “I-I did exactly what your obscenely terrible excuse of a grandfather did. I neglected them until I needed something from them. What have I done? I left them to their own devices because it was WORKING! Because their methods for seizing cities and kingdoms were working! We succeeded at raising conquerors, but we failed almost every single one of you when it came to showing you right from wrong! And look where it’s getting us! The tactics of your Lilim sisters may have seen wide success back home, but TAKE A LOOK OUTSIDE! How many Mamono must die before the last Earth nation sees things our way!? One million? One billion? This is why I put YOU in charge of infiltration, until Druella took over from right under you. Because you understand what it’s like to not be near-invincible. I envy you, Azneth, for you can still feel the rush of danger! The thrill of uncertainty! You were right! Druella IS just a ‘one-trick pony!’ Look at the carnage her inadequate planning has brought! More humans will kill each other in this single week, than in entire Order Inquisition terror campaigns! We will see destruction on such a scale that it may even spill into our home! But we MUST proceed! We MUST continue in this disgusting excuse of an eventual victory! And then I will PERSONNALLY return home to have a VERY stern conversation with your sisters!” (Azneth) “......Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Lilim are out of touch, too obsessed with carving their own little kingdoms, too much tunnel vision for getting a husband, as with so many Mamono. You understand this, Daddy, because you were once weak like me. Because of what Grandfather put you through, may he suffer in the worst plane of torment that exists. I’m sorry it had to be this way, Father. But if these horrors are the only way that Mother can finally reject the Radicals and see things from a more sane and reasonable perspective, then that’s the way it must be.” (The Ultimate Hero) “So many good women will suffer for the incompetence and arrogance of their leaders. By your Mother, this is right out of a theoretical Dark Priest sermon. Let’s go. We will have to strike down Menendez, but if Non is even half the man your reports say he is, then he can see reason without a struggle. He’ll probably demand the Lilim’s heads as a concession. And every further minute into this disaster of an invasion, the more I am open to seriously considering it. Forgive me, Azneth.” (Azneth) “I forgive you, Daddy. It’s not your fault. The Radicals took advantage of all the bad things that Grandmother and Grandfather put you through. They manipulated you into looking the other way. But I will always love you, even if you had taken the Radical’s side.” (The Ultimate Hero) “And I will always love you without condition. Now let’s go and show these men that love will always defeat hate, and how true love can defeat fear with understanding and compassion.” (Azneth) “I’ve already handed command over to Addams. Willie is right outside, let’s get into the car and get out of this death-circus. And..... Daddy?” (The Ultimate Hero) “Yes, my sweetest raspberry?” (Azneth) “Are you scared? Because I think it’s okay to be scared, because..... I’m scared too. I’m scared that they just might win.” (The Ultimate Hero) “I am afraid. But I’m also excited, so I welcome this feeling of fear. We WILL survive, Azneth. You have my word as the greatest Hero that has ever lived. I haven’t felt so excited since your mother and I marched through our first conquest as husband and wife. Something has occurred to me though.” (Azneth) “What?” (The Ultimate Hero) “Do you have Mister Non’s telephone number?” (Azneth) “I do. But why do you want me to call him?” (The Ultimate Hero) “I want him to know he’s being pursued. It’ll be far, far more interesting that way.” (Azneth) “I can do that. Tell me exactly what you want him to see? Texting will be easier than a phone call.” Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America The skies over the National Mall January 2nd, 20-- 6:58 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Donald Hauser) “Alright folks, we apologize for the turbulence caused by our Marine Corps, bless their hearts! Please stay in your seats, ignore the missing pontoons, and enjoy your complimentary water bottles and in-flight music! We’ll be playing the greatest hits of The Doors, starting with Riders On The Storm. So relax, calm down, and tell me where we need to go. They told me it was sensitive info, and that it couldn’t be spoken over the airwaves.” (SecHS Non) “Take us to Nashville, Tennessee. We’ll refuel there, then proceed with the next set of instructions.” (Hauser) “This dinkster ain’t got enough fuel for a one-way trip, man. We should have enough fuel to reach Roanoke, Virginia though. A full tank after that should take us all the way to Nashville.” (SecHS Non) “Then let’s do this. Stay low to the ground, but at maximum speed. Don’t want any high-fliers on jet-interception duty to spot us before we exit Capitol airspace.” (A voice bursts out onto the radio.) (Voice) “Be advised, I say again, be advised! This is Master Sergeant McCoy of the 18th Flight Test squadron! I’m in command of the AC-130J currently operating over Washington D.C., callsign Johnny Blaze! We are under attack, and have lost all but one of our engines! We have been given demands to land at Ronald Reagan International, and have no choice but to do so! We are losing altitude fast, and our radar picks up one friendly IFF in our path! Most of our instruments are busted on account of an onboard saboteur! Get out of the way!” (Hauser quickly banks right towards the Pentagon, as Johnny Blaze miscalculates it’s approach due to damaged instruments and cloudy weather. While firing what few rounds they can at the South Lawn, they slam into the Rochambeau Memorial Bridge, cutting it in half, just as Catherine Harrison and her group cross the Interstate-395 bridge that runs parallel. While Harrison and her newfound friends stop their bus to help the cockpit crew that barely managed to eject in time, along with checking up on any possible survivors still in the plane, Non sees them through the window.) (SecHS Non) “Too late, a bus full of monsters just pulled up! Let’s get out of here before that plane crash attracts any atten-” (Fittingly interrupting his warning, a Jubjub slams into the tail-rotor in a missed dive from a higher altitude. Instantly shredded to death, the sheer force of her impact still manages to cause the tail rotor to tear off. The chopper completely loses control, as Hauser tries to ignore the emergency siren to put every neuron in his mind on making a non-lethal crash-landing in the Potomac. He misses the river, but manages to aim towards the Pentagon Lagoon yacht basin. The four manage to unbuckle their seat belts and jump out into the lagoon, while the helicopter spins around in mid-air for eleven more seconds until it’s flight ends in a fiery crash into General Marston’s private yacht. Phillips refuses to even think twice about the absurdity of their situation, immediately swimming towards the Columbia Island Marina’s gas station without a word.) (SecHS Non) “Get the fuck out of the water, we’re sitting ducks! There’s a reason the Coast Guard hasn’t been able to reinforce us!” (Palmieri heads for the southernmost pier, while Non uses The Football’s buoyancy as a paddleboard towards the gas station. He looks back only once, just to see two shark fins about two-hundred feet away, and rapidly approaching. He double-times it to the gas station, as Philips helps pull him out of the water, as the Mersharks are only seventeen feet away. However, all aquatic Mamono are amphibious due to their human and succubus DNA, so that doesn’t stop the two shark-women for a second. One leaps out of the water toward Non, as Phillips shoots her in mid-air. The other goes under the pier in an attempt to grab him from underneath, only for Non to put three .45 ACP bullets into her back.) (Palmieri reaches her destination with no fuss, but as she climbs onto the pier, she realizes that Hauser is missing. She turns around to see that Hauser is trying to make it to the pier to the left of her’s, but something resembling a squid is gaining on him. Right as she opens her mouth to warn him, Hauser is pulled underwater by a Kraken’s tentacle. Six seconds later, both Hauser and the Kraken emerge from underwater, as the Representative gazes in horror to see the squid-Mamono pull Hauser in, her breasts now pressing onto his back. The monster uses her human hands to gently unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants, as her tentacles immediately rush to pull his pants and boxers off at high-speed. She moves her human hands to stimulate his nipples as she moves their heads together to force him into a kiss, not unlike the one she just witnessed Eydis do to Non. Unlike that encounter, the Kraken pulls his head away, then starts nibbling on his ear, right as she takes her smallest tentacle, and swiftly sodomizes Hauser. Pumping in and out of his rectum at extreme speed, her natural lubricant stops him from bleeding (mostly). Going from flaccid to rock-hard in seconds, the Kraken begins to stimulate his nipples with her human hands, while rubbing his testicles and penis with three other tentacles. Hauser is screaming and crying, begging her to stop. Palmieri picks up her gun to shoot the monster, but the Kraken has positioned herself at an angle that makes it impossible to shoot without friendly-firing Hauser. And her body betrays her, as Palmieri finds herself increasingly aroused by the tentacled treatment of Hauser’s well-endowed extremity, even though her husband’s is bigger. The water-monster lets go of Hauser’s chest, points to Palmieri, motions her to come over, then places one hand on the base of Hauser’s shaft. With one stroke up to the mushroom tip, her smallest tentacles simultaneously pressing it’s tip down on his prostate, Hauser erupts his semen across the lagoon. Snapping out of it, Palmieri runs off to find the others. Running down the pier, she sees that the other docked yachts are all occupied by Mamono and their lovers, some civilians, some still wearing their military or police uniforms. Realizing that she’s stepped right into a pseudo-orgy, she holds in a scream as she continues to run up the pier back to shore. Once she gets to shore, she runs right into Non and Phillips.) (Palmieri) “Oh sweet Lord, let’s get outta here. They got Hauser, and they’re destroying his prostate!” (SecHS Non) “Alright, calm down, we’re still clear, and I’ve still got The Football. We wasted two mermaid-sharks at the pier, then we wasted two more catgirls on our way here. Where’s my rifle?” (Palmieri) “Oh no, I’m sorry. I forgot about it when I jumped out of the chopper! It’s scrap metal by now.” (SecHS Non) “Relax, it was a free gift from the Steyr corporation. I thought you were an Army vet?” (Palmieri) “I am! Did five years as a 74D, which is why I got on the Strategic Forces subcommittee, but my mind’s still programmed to take M16-style rifles, and ignore everything else!” (Phillips) “Well that’s perfect! We spotted a Bradley tank out in the Pentagon parking lot that looked abandoned! We doubled back to find you and Hauser, so let’s get over there!” (SecHS Non) “Hey, wait a second. My phone just vibrated! I had it set to silence unless it was family or….” (Palmieri) “Or what?” (SecHS Non) “If it was a member of Epsilon Lime.” (He checks his phone to find that it’s an encrypted text from Menendez.) (SecHS Non) “Check this out, ladies. I just got a text from whomever found Menendez’s phone at his Pentagon office. Fuck texting, I’m gonna call this number. You two be quiet, I want them to think I’m alone. Let’s walk over to the tank while I’m on the line.” (The Secretary of Homeland Security hits the call option on his vintage 2021 Nokia 8.3 mobile phone. The call is answered precisely one ring later.) (Azneth) “Greetings! Is this the American National Security Advisor!” (SecHS Non) “That’s Secretary of Homeland Security Non to you, missy.” (Azneth) “Well helllllooooooooooo, handsome! Congratulations on your promotion!” (SecHS Non) “Well thank you! I’m afraid I don’t recognize your voice. Have we met before?” (Azneth) “Sad to say that we aren’t acquainted, but we WILL be, soon enough! I’m Azneth! Thirty-fourth born princess of the rulers of Royal Makai! I’ve been aware of you since you were the FEMA deputy administrator, but I’ll admit that none of us seriously took a good look at you until your little ‘Epsilon Lime’ group started with those operations against us. I DO have quite the detailed file on you! Impressive academic record, respectable political and infrastructural accomplishments for a man of your strapping age! I must ask, how have you not seriously seeked out a wife by now? Not even a mistress behind closed doors, you haven’t been in a relationship since you were twenty-three! Awfully lonely six years or so, wouldn’t you say?” (SecHS Non) “I completely agree, but I’m a professional, my job takes priority, and I haven’t found a woman worth my time yet that would accept that critical flaw of mine.” (Azneth) “And what about the Valkyrie?” (SecHS Non) “I’m not telling you a damn thing about her. This is between you and me. But I do recall an abridged list of your royal family, and I remember you. You’re that runt Lesser Succubus at the bottom of the list!” (Azneth) “WHAT FUCKING LIST, YOU LITTLE SHIT!? I SWEAR TO MY MOTHER I’LL USE MY TAIL TO MAKE YOU CUM ON EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER LOVED!” (SecHS Non) “Ooh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Touchy subject, I take it? Inferiority complex brought on by always being one step behind your Lilim and succubi siblings?” (Azneth) “Oh that’s mighty big talk, coming from Mister “I used to wet the bed until I was eleven!” You wanna play the psyops game, we can go allllll night! You have an inferiority complex for your elder statesmen, you don’t feel like most of your accomplishments are genuine, and I KNOW you sometimes cry yourself to sleep because deep down inside, you know your older brother is better than you! We have your life under a microscope, mister! We know where you live, we know where your family lives, we know what your favorite 7-11 gas station in Juneau is, we know why you broke up with all your previous girlfriends, we know what your favorite flavor of Blue Bell ice cream is, and we know that you only bought a Toyota Tundra because you were hoping it’d impress your mother!” (SecHS Non) “Okay, retard. So you have a detailed file on me? Goody-good for you. Too bad it’s useless once I end this call. So what was the purpose of the text?” (Azneth) “I had a message from my father to pass down to you. He says, and I quote, ‘To National Security Advisor Non. I must admit, your ploy to draw us to the White House, while using your compatriots as bait, was an outstandingly brilliant maneuver. I take it that you knew about Plains-Flower’s firewall, but left it alone as the perfect excuse to cut and run while we claimed your allies. I must admit, I don’t know where you’re going, but you have Freyja’s Holy magic stench all over you. And your spirit energy shows that she hasn’t taken you as a husband. Odd, but equally impressive. You must have thought that her energy would shield you, but I’m afraid, dear boy, that it’s not a shield. It’s a dinner bell. We are going to follow you to the ends of existence. Your genius is wasted playing political games in this country, and once my sweet raspberry takes you as a husband, your intellect will be put to far, far greater use. The game is afoot, Mister Non. Don’t disappoint me. Yours truly, The Ultimate Hero.’” (SecHS Non) “Listen here, and listen well. This’ll probably be the only advice I’ll ever give to the likes of you. The Great Game began when the first nation made its first enemy. And it’ll end when the last nation runs out of enemies. I’m a player, you’re a player, your mother and father are players. But none of us will ever own the board, no matter how many worlds your family conquers. This is a game that came before us, and it’ll continue to exist long after we’ve all died one way or another. But that doesn’t mean you can’t rack up the highest score. Currently, Genghis Khan has Earth’s highest score. Your mother has Kenkou’s high score. And that’s why I stay in the game.” (Azneth) “You seriously think you can outplay Genghis Khan?” (SecHS Non) “Don’t know for sure. But I’ve gotten this far in only thirteen years. I went from a guy who told his 11th-grade classmates that I wanted to be President of the USA, to my current form of the de facto fifth most powerful man on Earth. Give it another thirteen years, I’ll have this whole planet dancing to my tune. Another twenty-six years, I’ll have YOUR planet dancing too.” (Azneth) “Mmmmmmmmmm, keep going, baby! Keep talkin’ dirty to me! I love a man with big dreams! I can already picture you grabbing me, lifting me over your strong shoulders, placing me onto the United Nations Assembly Hall’s podium, and impaling my poor sopping alien pussy with your thick Arctic cock! Oh, just take me already!” (SecHS Non) “Good grief. This conversation is over. Goodbye, and I hope you survive, just so I can deck you in the face myself.” (Palmieri) “What the hell was that?” (SecHS Non) “That was the runt of Royal Makai, and she just tricked me into having one-sided phone sex.” (Phillips) “Ahahahahaha! Aw, she SO had you going there!” Arlington, Virginia National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial January 2nd, 20-- 7:14 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Azneth) “Oh myyyy, he’s such a dreamboat! His crisp voice, what I wouldn’t give to have him growl sweet nothings while he plows me from behind! I can’t keep a mind like that down! Don’t you see, Daddy? He’s my soulmate! He’s the only one who has the brains AND body to complement mine!” (The Ultimate Hero) “I certainly hope you’re right, Raspberry. Goodness, it’ll be eons before we find that needle of a man in this haystack of offices. And that’s not even getting STARTED on the basements and sub-basements.” (Azneth) “You’re sure he’s hiding in here?” (The Ultimate Hero) “That Valkyrie is doing something to mask his scent, that much is a fact. I can’t get an exact lock on him, but he’s definitely in the area, and what’s a better place to hide than in here? He could bluff his way through with the excuse that he’s here to find his monsterized wife, then wait until another helicopter rescues him on this extensive roof. We’re going inside! With luck, we’ll sense him, then smash our way through the walls or floors to grab him. I should also search his office for any information. Even if he’s got traps in it like that automobile, it won’t do a damn thing to me.” (Azneth) “I wouldn't put it past him to have some sort of secret panic room or passageway entrance in his office. Wouldn’t hurt you to look, Daddy, but it probably would hurt me, aheheheheheh.” Arlington, Virginia Pentagon Library North Parking, B Lot January 2nd, 20-- 7:14 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Phillips) “So, Congresswoman. You know how to drive this thing?” (Palmieri) “I do, actually. I was in CBRN, but my unit did cross-training with the 5th Armored Brigade.” (Phillips) “So what unit were you with?” (Palmieri) “22nd Chemical Battalion, 10th Chemical Company. We called ourselves ‘Chemical’, but we were trained in hazard response for radioactive, biological, and nuclear crap too. Learned how to operate an M7 Fire Support Bradley during that cross-training. The last guys in here got pinched fast. The keys are still in the ignition, and I don’t see any signs that these weapons were ever fired. Hey, Non! You find anything?” (SecHS Non) “Well, this cannon doesn’t look TOO difficult to operate. And take this! Found that Mark 18 carbine behind the inflatable thingy here.” (Palmieri) “Don’t touch that! It’s like an airbag, but for IED impacts!” (SecHS Non) “Got it, got it. You’re the large Marge in charge now. So tell us, Fearless Leader, how the hell do we get out of here without making a metaphorical bonfire for moths?” (Phillips) “Well first, we need to find a fast ride. This IS a parking lot, and there’s no EMP to wipe them all out, at least not yet.” (SecHS Non) “God, I hate EMPs. Not as a real weapon, no, they ARE pretty sweet. I mean in fiction. It’s never well-elaborated on, and it always gets glossed over for the aftermath! It’s always just a plot device the writer uses to nerf civilization so the protagonist can go on crazy Wild West or medieval adventures with modern guns or something, without having to think about ‘Gee, why don’t I just use this bounty money to buy a car so I can turn this twenty-two episode adventure-show that gets cancelled on a shitty cliffhanger, into a four-episode Cinemax miniseries.’ (Phillips) “Or like when they use it to nerf the military so the protagonist can go mano-a-mano with the Big Bag Evil Guy without having to worry about getting accidentally drone-striked, spied on by satellites, or have their big climactic final battle get a cop-out ending when the main villain gets his adobe hideout blown into a zillion pieces by a double-helicopter black operation!” (SecHS Non) “That last one was way too specific. What show was that, Columbo? That Lethal Weapon revival with Bill Paxton?” (Phillips) “No, X-Files. It was the season nine finale from 2002. Before they brought it back in 2016 and ruined the alien invasion story arc by shoehorning in a bunch of post-9/11 conspiracy theories that don’t fit with the older seasons. God, we’re never gonna get over it are we? As a civilization?” (SecHS Non) “Get over what? 9/11?” (Phillips) “I mean the whole shebang. 9/11, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Taliban, Halliburton, literally everything that George W. Bush ever said or did?” (SecHS Non) “Honestly? I doubt it. Nobody today in the White House was in any form of politics back in 2001, yet we still have to explain things in the context of that administration’s aftermath. Hell, I wasn’t even born yet!” (Phillips) “Neither was I. That’s what makes it so cringeworthy. Imagine trying to make a kid born in 1948, care about Pearl Harbor. They weren’t there, nobody in their peer group was there, and it’s just old farts that care and get assblasted if they don’t care.” (SecHS Non) “They said the same about kids that were born right after the Revolution, the Civil War, World War One, Black Monday, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and even the 2008 housing crisis. And WE’LL be the old farts getting assblasted when twenty years from now, all the monster-kids conceived today will bitch and moan about having to deal with the problems we’re creating right now.” (Phillips) “You’re not wrong at all. Is this thing working yet?” (Palmieri) “Yeah, we’re ready. We should probably get to that Air & Space museum annex out by Dulles International. They said that place was still a safe zone. We’ll bunker down with them and wait for another chopper. There’s also the CIA.” (Phillips) “I’d go with the museum. I don’t think I want the spooks to even know I exist, much less beg them for help.” (SecHS Non) “Deputy Director Wayne might be reasonable, but Director Kinnear is an asshole of the highest degree. He’s not in cahoots with Royal Makai, but he will be, once he finds something worth blackmailing them over. It’s how he got the Director job in the first place, doing it to the Vice-President.” (Palmieri) “I’ve got Wayne’s phone number, let me call him.” (She hits up Rick Wayne’s number on her contact list, as the Deputy Director answers on the second ring.) (Wayne) “Congresswoman! Nice to hear from you at a time like this, but you wouldn't be calling me right now without an angle. So what’s up?” (Palmieri) “I know you were tapping the White House the whole time, Rick. So I know, that you know, I’m with Non and Miss Phillips. We’ve got ourselves a M3 Bradley, fully-loaded. Wanna join us and get outta this dump? We’re headed to the Air & Space annex next to Dulles. Our chopper got smacked out of the sky, and we lost our pilot. We’ll hang out over there until another chopper arrives.” (Wayne) “Well shit! Today’s your lucky day! I was about to send for a chopper myself! I’m in. You had me at ‘fully-loaded.’ I’ll meet you at the McDonalds on the corner of Old Dominion Drive and Dolley Madison Boulevard! Just gimme a time!” (SecHS Non) “I know that place. Right next to that Gilbert’s Steak joint. It’s about 20 minutes from here. I’ll direct you. But what gives? We’ll be passing right in front of your HQ?” (Wayne) “I want Kinnear to think that I just pussied out and ran off to Mount Weather. Nobody’s gonna look for me at McDonalds.” (Phillips) “Very good point. Hey, wait a minute!” (Wayne) “What? Hurry up, I gotta get going ASAP, before someone gets suspicious that I left right before you drove by.” (Phillips) “Palmieri, you said that the Mamono pinched you over here, right?” (Palmieri) “They did. What about it?” (Phillips) “So you left your car here. The car that doesn’t need to be hotwired, because you already have the keys.” (Palmieri) “Oh shit! You’re right! I left it right by the helipad across the highway! Let’s move!” Arlington, Virginia Pentagon Helipad North Parking January 2nd, 20-- 7:22 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (SecHS Non) “THIS is what taxpayer money goes to? A pink Jeep Grand Cherokee?” (Palmieri) “HEY! First of all, it was grey when I first bought it back in 2023. My mother-in-law paid for the paint job, bless her misguided attempt to make me look cool. My husband insisted on the front bumper.” (SecHS Non) “So Gabe’s got shit taste then.” (Palmieri) “Shut up! You’re in no position to talk, Mister “I unironically drove a Chevy Spark until my big brother pressured me into getting a bro-truck!” (SecHS Non) “Good grief. Not you too! That succubus on the phone said almost the same thing!” (Phillips) “Ahahahahaha! Yeah, I can totally see you driving a bitch-car. Weenie.” (SecHS Non) “I’m not even gonna dignify that with a response. Let’s just go and grab Wayne already. ” Arlington, Virginia George Washington Memorial Parkway Directly east of the Seabees Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery January 2nd, 20-- 7:25 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Phillips) “Oh my God, this is it, this is literally the Night of the Living Dead! Just keep smashing through! They’ll never catch up to us if we just break on through to the other side! (SecHS Non) “Hey, that reminds me! Can I slap in one of Gabe’s mixtape CDs? Can I?” (Palmieri) “Dude you’re like, only five years younger than me. Stop talking like a high schooler. But sure, pop one in.” Arlington, Virginia Pentagon North Parking Lot January 2nd, 20-- 7:29 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (The front doors to the northern entrance/exit bursts open as a certain incubus and his daughter haul ass for their vehicle.) (The Ultimate Hero) “WILLIE! START THE MACHINE!” (Azneth) “We can sense ‘em! They’re heading north, and one of my operatives said they saw three people in a pink SUV plow through a bunch of our Zombies a bit northwest of Arlington Cemetery! Two women and a man, the man was holding a suspicious bag, and he fits Non’s physical description!” (Willie) “I think that fire over there by the marina used to be their helicopter. They must’ve bailed out, swam to shore, and hotwired a car! (Azneth) “They’ve got to be headed for the Central Intelligence Agency!” (Willie) “Ooooh, here’s my chance to nail a Jason Bourne! Gotta put on some chase music…. I got it! That one disco song, uhhh, Love Machine! Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America 1000 Jefferson Drive Southwest January 2nd, 20-- 7:33 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Addams) “This is Admiral Addams, sending out an all-points bulletin for the Secretary of Homeland Security. He is considered armed and dangerous, but quite a catch I’m told, but if he has to die, then that’s the way it is. He is currently northbound on George Washington Memorial Parkway, probably headed towards CIA headquarters at Langley! Under NO circumstances are you to let him escape the area! He’s riding with two human women in a pink Jeep Grand Cherokee. Vehicle has custom grey front grille bars and vanity license plates that say ‘ASSMAN.’ No, that isn’t a joke. He was last spotted going by the Seabee Memorial in Arlington, stay on high al-wait, wait, wait, wait! I’ve gotten confirmation that the Secretary is riding shotgun. Driver has been identified as… some Florida Congresswoman named Palmieri. We still have no idea who the third person is. Probably just some random civilian straggler. I’m also contacting our Virginia State Police and FBI assets to tighten the net on them. Princess Azneth and her father are also in direct pursuit. Good luck!” Arlington, Virginia George Washington Memorial Parkway Directly west of the Potomac Tributary Waterfall January 2nd, 20-- 7:35 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Phillips) “Uh, guys?” (Palmieri) “WHAT!? I’m trying not to crash while running over as many of these hostiles as I can! Save your bullets, both of you!” (Phillips) “That’s just it! Pay attention to the rear mirrors, you morons!” (The State Representative and Secretary both look in their rear view mirrors, spotting a certain Mini Cooper following them. They can see that the car is driven by a lizard-woman, as a dark-pink haired woman wearing a pink M1 helmet rides shotgun, and a tall white-haired hair with two swords sheathed behind stands in the back.) (SecHS Non) “HOLY FUCK, IT’S THEM! We gotta lose them!” (Palmieri) “I have an idea! Hang onto something, I’m gonna go nuts!” (She swerves left onto an Overlook Trail that leads to Marcey Park. Willie follows, with the Hero getting smacked several times by low branches. Getting off the narrow dirt path, the Congresswoman then makes a hard right bank onto North Beechwood Place. Willie follows, but nearly tips her own car over. As the street merges into Military Road, Palmieri has managed to brainstorm a plan.) (Palmieri) “Okay, jack-offs! I’ve got plenty of friends that live around here, so I know these streets pretty well! Phillips! Reach into the back seat! Gabe always keeps a loaded shotgun back there!” (Phillips looks in the back, spotting and grabbing an 18-inch Browning BPS. She also grabs two twenty-five slug ammunition boxes.) (Phillips) “Jesus, Rep! What the hell does your husband hunt with a cut-down ten-gauge?” (Palmieri) “Cars.” (Phillips) “But why?” (Palmieri) “A combo of several traumatic experiences involving road rage and street-stalking! In case shit like this ever happened! Now pop your head out and shoot those assholes! Aim for the engine!” (Phillips hands the still-recording camera over to Non, as she unrolls the window. She loads the shotgun to the maximum five rounds, then pokes out of the car. She fires one shot, right as Palmieri swerves left onto the Washington Golf & Country Club’s fairway. She misses the engine, instead blowing off the left rear view mirror. Smashing through the metal fence to reach the fairway, both drivers narrowly dodge a sand hazard. Now on the greenery, Phillips fires another shot, this one blowing a major hole in the Mini Cooper’s right headlight, the shrapnel also destroying the right rear view mirror.) (Willie) “Ok, that’s it! Open that glove compartment, Princess! You know what to do!” (Azneth opens the compartment, handing a loaded Glock 34 to the reptile. With her right hand on the wheel, she moves her left hand around the front window to fire potshots at the Jeep in the hopes of hitting the tires. The golf course is unexpectedly bumpy, making it difficult for either armed woman to get a good hit. Three more shots from Phillips all miss, as she ducks back into the SUV to reload. Willie fires an entire 17-round magazine of 9mm, managing to land eleven shots, all of which are lodged in the Jeep’s backdoor.) (Phillips) “Guys, we REALLY pissed them off! That driver’s shooting at us!” (Palmieri) “Then shoot her first!” (Swerving through the course in a ploy to reach North Glebe Road, the Floridawoman makes a beeline for the country club itself, driving across greenway, outs-of-bounds, over tee-holes, and concrete golf-cart paths. Phillips reloads the Browning, just as Azneth grabs the Glock to eject the spent magazine and slam a new one in. The Lizard manages to fire four more times until Palmieri makes a hard right turn, just before the country club. Phillips quickly lets off three shotgun blasts, as the first slug hits the front grill, failing to fully penetrate into the engine block, the second slug bounces off the hood at an angle that leads directly into Willie’s chest, blowing a hole right through her into the back seat, as the third slug bounces off of The Ultimate Hero’s left shoulder plate. In her last moments, Willie loses control of the vehicle, swerving right into the country club’s pool, destroying the car. Azneth and her father leap out in time.) (The Ultimate Hero) “Azneth, do you know how to operate these machines?” (Azneth) “I do, but you usually need a special key to unlock them! We’ll have to look around until we find one that uses a newer push-button system! Oh, Willie. I’m so sorry.” (The Ultimate Hero) “She set aside her desire for a man, just to help us. She will be missed. If we had a thousand more warriors with her self-control, we would have taken this entire nation by noon. You didn’t kill her, Raspberry. That human did. So let’s get a vehicle and make sure that Willie’s sacrifice was not in vain. That none of our subject’s lives have ended in vain.” (Azneth) “Y-you’re right, Daddy. This isn’t over. Not by a long degree.” (The lesser succubus picks up the Glock 34, along with two full magazines that had flown out onto the grass. Flicking the safety on, she places it in her right pocket.) (Azneth) “Actually, I just realized something. About where we are. If I remember the satellite imagery of this area, then we aren’t very far from Deniya! She’s got to be just a few blocks to the southwest, she said she was using a school as a base of operations! I lost my radio in that pool, but if we hurry, we can get a new car over there, for sure!” McLean, Virginia 6920 Old Dominion Drive January 2nd, 20-- 7:46 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Palmieri) “This has got to be the most stressful drive to a fast food joint that I have ever had in my life. How many of them did we waste?” (SecHS Non) “Since we shook off King Moron and Princess Idiot? Had to be about twelve, I think.” (Phillips) “How the hell did they catch up to us in the first place?” (SecHS Non) “They must have seen us get on that heli. So they followed us, saw us crash, and then…. I don’t know, actually. They should have caught us before we managed to find that tank.” (Palmieri) “Technically it’s an IFV.” (SecHS Non) “Oh, whatever! Point is, I think, that they thought, we had ran off into the Pentagon. Went on some wild goose chase in there, then someone spotted us getting into that Jeep. Told them over the intercom, and that’s how they found us. My best guess at least.” (Phillips) “Well let’s hurry up and grab this guy before they catch up to us again! We got a short notice before someone sees us, and calls it in! Not to mention all the mutant cops and soldiers that are probably on their way to comb over the entire county! If they saw us get in the Jeep, then they know that glacier-boy here has The Football! Personally, I think we should just ditch the idea of a helicopter! Let’s just find a 300 miles-per-hour sports car, Non here sits on my lap, and we blast off to Nashville! If we stick to a 290 speed limit, we should get there before midnight, WITHOUT blowing out the engine!” (SecHS Non) “NO! We stick with the original plan! They’ll have blockades on every state highway and interstate within two-hundred miles by now, so staying off the streets’ll be our best bet! Besides, going with a car after that helicopter accident is going to be EXACTLY what they’d expect! That, or us hijacking a plane from Dulles! All their eyes are gonna be high in the sky, or right on the ground! We’re gonna get another chopper, and we’ll stay at a low altitude, but not TOO low!” (Palmieri) “You two stay in here, and stay strapped. I’ve known Rick Wayne since my last year in the Army. I’ll give him an inside joke so he knows I’m not some imposter. Non, get in the driver’s seat, keep the engine running. If this is a trap, I’ll shoot the windows. That’s the signal for you to get the fuck outta here.” (She gets out of the car, double-checks if her Mk 18 carbine is locked and loaded, then flicking the safety on and off again, finally dashing into the restaurant. Over the next forty seconds, Phillips spots and wastes two armored and monsterized Virginia state troopers, the 10-gauge slugs punching through their Level IIIA body armor like a chainsaw through a young cactus. A nearby Papillon Fairfax County deputy sheriff weaves in and out of some bushes across the street, yelling into a radio.) (Deputy Sheriff) “CONTACT! I’ve spotted the pink Jeep SUV that APB got put out on! I can confirm that they ARE armed and dangerous! Two state troopers are down! I repeat, down! This is deputy sheriff Ann Wilkinson, perps are at the corner of Old Dominion and Dolley Madison! I’m going to my motorcycle! I’d fly, but my wings have already taken a few bullet holes from my father! Will continue pursuit with my lights and siren on to help direct reinforcements!” (A voice quickly responds.) (Voice) “Deputy Wilkinson, this is Officer Roseanne, MacLean PD. We’ve got metal and organic birds in the air, reinforcements are on the way. It’ll be a bit longer for non-aerial help, and we’re still on a search & rescue for Princess Azneth and her father! I’m afraid that for the time being, most of our responders are busy on… marital leave, and emergency medical or fire duties! You are fully authorized to open fire if necessary! And remember, we’re under new management! No more Miranda rights!” (Wilkinson) “Affirmative! Hey, Roseanne! Wanna know the best part of my upgraded body?” (Roseanne) “What? Besides the hungry womb?” (Wilkinson) “Most of us can now wear ♫sunglasses at night♫! Ohhhh, these Ray-Bans are gonna get DOUBLE the value out of ‘em!” (As the butterfly-woman runs to her police model Harley-Davidson Iron 883, Phillips rushes out of the Mcdonalds with CIA Deputy Director Rick Wayne, who is wearing a khaki balaclava and one-way sunglasses. They both rush into the back seat as Phillips quickly dives into the front passenger seat. Non slams the gas pedal until the car is at a blazing speed of one-hundred-ten miles per hour. He skips the turnaround to jump a few curbs onto the wrong way down the Dulles Access Road.) (SecHS Non) “Alright, so I head down State Route 267, straight all the way until Dulles International, then I take a left, right?” (Palmieri) “Right! That left is gonna take you down State Route 28! The museum annex is gonna be on your right!” (Wayne) “Guys, we got a tail! Some cop on a motorcycle, she’s got butterfly wings!” (SecHS Non) “Well whaddaya you waiting for? An executive order? Shoot them!” (Wayne unrolls the right window, pulling out his personal coyote-brown Glock 19X, already loaded and safety-off. He fires at Deputy Wilkinson, wasting an entire magazine on misses and plexiglass shield ricochets.) (Wayne) “Goddammit! I KNEW I should’ve requested a 10 millimeter Glock instead of this piece of shit!” (He reloads again, firing six more rounds, until Deputy Wilkinson pulls out her personal nickeled Smith & Wesson Model 67-6. Passing by Tamarack Park at this point, Wayne attempts to center a good seventh shot at her zig-zagging self. The deputy fires all six rounds of 158-grain steel-jacketed .38 Special +P at the Jeep. One shot punches through the back window, going through two layers of seats until it goes through the driver’s seat, stopping at Non’s back armor plate. The second shot narrowly misses Palmieri’s head, blasts through the middle rearview mirror, and blows through the front window, creating a spider-web of glass cracks that partially distorts Non’s view of the road. The third shot goes through the two backseats, lodging itself into Palmieri’s back armor plate. The fourth hits Wayne in the dead center of his Level IV front armor plate, the sheer force disorienting him enough for his Glock to slip through his fingers and fall onto the road. The fifth shot again lodges itself in Non’s back, while the final sixth shot takes out the right-back tire.) (Wayne) “She took out our left tire! Every single one of her shots hit! Fuck, we’ve got a real gumshow on our asses!” (Phillips angrily pulls Wayne back into the car, as she pokes herself out the left passenger window.) (Phillips) “Aim for the tires, retard!” (She fires two slugs at Wilkinson. The first shatters a chunk of her plexiglass shield, while the other blows her front tire into scrap and ripped rubber. Wilkinson loses all control as she does a sideways-tumble onto the road. Her mission was still a partial success, as her new natural-night vision can spot an incoming large group of canine-Mamono that have joined the fray from an orgy at the Wolf Trap National Park, rudely interrupted by the sound of police sirens, gunshots, and loud engines going over one-hundred miles per hour. Along with two UH-72 Lakotas , occupied by monsterized members of the Delaware National Guard, incoming from the southeast and northwest. Walking back down the road as sixty-one assorted Werewolves, Kobolds, Kikimoras, and two Hellhounds run by, she finds Wayne’s discarded Glock. She picks it up, locking in on his spirit energy and armpit sweat. And it’s love at first scent. A single Cheshire cat-woman poofs right behind her, placing a hand-paw-thing on her left shoulder.) (Cheshire) “Yo, buddy. Looks like you’ve found yourself a oneitis. Need some help?” (Wilkinson) “I-I do! Whaddaya need from me?” (Cheshire) “Well, I was going to do a little trollin’ on all those dogs, but I have a hunch that I’ll have more fun following you around. Let’s go get your man. Since they’re in a car, they’ll probably lead us right to some group of delicious guys just…. ripe for the taking. Your scent is gonna lead us right to ‘em, since they gotta run out of gas eventually! Let’s get a car of our own, hurry!” Alexandria, Virginia 6600 Little Falls Road January 2nd, 20-- 7:57 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Deniya) “Here ya go, Princess! Keys to that armored van, right there! Good luck, and there’s six of my troops that volunteered to go with you! They’re already waiting inside.” (Azneth) “Shit, that is a BIG one! Well, it never hurts to have backup. So what’re you gonna do now?” (Deniya) “Oh, just bid my time, let my forces build up for a few more hours. About, eehhhh, maybe four in the morning, we’ll use that White House siege as a diversion for sneaking up on the CIA’s main base. We’ll be going in on foot, so this driveable command center is just a paperweight-with-extra-steps to me.” (Azneth) “Not the worst idea I’ve heard this week. Good luck!” (Deniya) “Right back atcha, boss. Don’t worry so much about micromanaging this whole campaign. We’ve got this under control. Have some faith! Yeah, there’ll be casualties. But we knew the risks when your family asked us all for help! When you all showed us what kinds of weapons and warfare we’d be dealing with! We knew it was likely that this could be a one-way trip to a coffin! But I think that the risk is worth the reward. Because at the end of this tunnel is gonna be a wonderful world full of happy families for us all! A month from now, we’ll be toasting to the fallen, and laughing about how panicky we were tonight! So go! Get your man! It’s no fun when they don’t try to run anyways!” (Azneth) “I gotta agree, there is something to be said about the thrill of the chase. About having to put in some work if you want to get your soulmate.” (Deniya) “See! That’s the spirit!” (Azneth) “Well, I suppose I’ll be going then. So long, you flying rat!” (Deniya) “See you around, Princess! Wherever you’re headed, maybe save some guys in case things don’t work out here!” (The lesser succubus gets into the driver’s seat of an Arlington County SWAT Mobile Command Center. An black-fluffed Anubis is in the front passenger seat, while her father and the other five are in the back. Azneth quickly turns the engine on and shifts to drive, quickly pulling out of the parking lot, going from Williamsburg Boulevard to a right turn onto Interstate-66, not to be confused with the famous Route 66 that was officially delisted in 1985. The jackal-woman kicks off a conversation.) (Anubis) “‘Allo! So you must be Princess Azneth! I’m Rehema Hampton, and it’s an honor to be working with you!” (Azneth) “The honor is all mine, I assure you. I take it that you’re from Egypt? You have a lovely posh accent, where did you learn it!?” (Rehema) “Not quite North African, but thank you! It’s actually a tad fantastical of a story. My father was from Manchester, while me mum was from Alexandria. They met at the Louvre while the both of them were on holiday, one thing led to another in their hotel room after a bright night on the town, and he whisked her away from the barbarity of Muslim ‘civilization’, like a crusader of yore. Ah, Paris truly is the City of Love. I just hope that hotel is still intact by the time I take my very-soon-husband there as a family tradition!” (Azneth) “That is just SO romantic!” (Rehema) “I know! So, have you found a man for yourself yet? I haven’t, sad to say.” (Azneth) “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what this is all about. After all these decades, I’ve finally found a man that captivates my heart, my soul, my mind, AND my body! There’s just a few serious problems.” (Rehema) “What problems, exactly?” (Azneth) “Well, he’s the Secretary of Homeland Security, he’s extremely clever at exploiting gaps in our lines of defense and offense, he’s on his way out of this metropolitan area, and he’s got that portable supercomputer the ‘Yanks’ use to remote-activate their nuclear missiles. The only thing standing between us and Curtis Lemay’s wet dreams, is a two-hundred-fifty mile range signal blocker that prevents his launch codes from being confirmed. As long as we can intercept Mister Non before then, it is my highest belief that we’ll leave the Americans with no better option but to surrender themselves. Within two days, at least. As to whatever male accomplices he has, do what you will, if you come to fancy them.” (Rehema) “Mister… Non? Oh, by Venus, not that warhawk who tried to kiss Moscow’s arse and leave continental Asia to the wolves! No personal pun intended. I thought he was just a high-ranking advisor of some sort or another.” (Azneth) “Oh, he was. But I think he received a ‘battlefield’ promotion. Now that he’s in the President’s Cabinet, he’s got personal atomic codes.” (Rehema) “That man’s a lunatic ripped straight from a Kubrick film. We’ve got to stop him.” (Azneth) “You have the same conclusion as many of my sisters. But my father and I think that there’s a method to his madness. If we could cajole him into a corner, he will likely be willing to make an honest negotiation and surrender, if only to avoid the consequences of his actions committed over the course of his service to the Executive Branch. And a surrender to us, will be a surrender of himself to ME. With his intellect to add to my own, we’ll make a power couple that’ll have entire WORLDS dancing to our tune, not to mention the pedigree of our future children, muwahahahahahaha! But enough about me, what do YOU seek in a man?” (Rehema) “I’m a bit ashamed to say that my goals are far simpler. I just want a kind man who’ll keep the pups occupied, raised well, and won’t hesitate to keep my mind down-to-earth when I reach too high into the sky. I’m a professional writer, so I often find myself utterly disorganized, scatterbrained, and I’ll admit, delusional from time to time. I want someone… real. Someone with the wisdom to keep me grounded when I need to be, but compassionate enough to let me get silly every so often.” (Azneth) “Don’t you ever have to apologize for thinking you’re inferior, just because you have bigger or smaller dreams than someone else. Everyone’s life has a path, and some people who take paths to the big goals succeed, and some lose. The same goes for those with smaller goals. I can’t guarantee anything in life, Miss Hampton. Not even my sisters or my mother can. I can’t even guarantee that we’ll stop Non, or that we’ll even survive. Our last comrade is currently at the bottom of a country club pool, dead from a shotgun blast that blew a massive hole in her chest. It happened to her, it could happen to me, and it could happen to you. I don’t want to hide behind shields of people. Not anymore. It’s eating at me, Miss Hampton. The guilt, that is. By now, you must have heard of the ongoing charnelhouse of carnage that the White House’s siege has become. And it’s all my fault. I didn’t take the American government seriously enough. And by the time this is over, I will have the blood of thousands to be blamed on my…. incompetence. This is fucked up, Rehema! The whole thing! I’m in love with the very same man who’s manipulated me into getting who knows HOW many of my own forces killed! He threatened to kill me and my family, and you know what I did? I got horny! I’m fighting between my instincts that are telling me to mount him by force and fuck our mutual pain away, and my common sense that says I need to seriously consider that I’ll have to kill him with this gun! I’m not a Lilim! Not even a full-fledged Succubus! I’m a walking statement of irony! Despite being the closest my parents will ever have to a human child, I have almost NO magical skill! All I have is moderately-powerful pheromones that can get no-selled by any man with even a mediocre level of willpower! My father doesn’t even really need me! I need HIM! For protection! I-I’m in over my head! And I can’t just go running to my sisters, no, not again! They’ll never take me seriously if I can’t even chase down one man! I’m out of options, and my only way out is to keep pushing forward! Forward towards a man who’ll stop at nothing to kill us all, who’s probably already claimed by that Valkyrie, damn her by a factor of millions!” “I-I need to hold it together. I need to be strong. Or at least try my best. So….who’s the rest of our happy band of huntresses? I need to keep my mind on the mission. The positive parts, that is.” (Rehema) “I, uh, shite. Nukes. My lord. This is….heavy. This isn’t even remotely what I signed up for. All I was told was that we’d be capturing two politicians that broke through our web. I-I’ll do the best I can. That’s all that any of us can hope for, milady. Stop blaming yourself for all that has transpired. I believe that this is squarely Mister Non’s fault for being the trickster that has put you in your place. You’ve been humbled, but it’s not the end. Never the end. It’s not over until we’re dead, or he’s neutralized. It would have happened to anybody in your position, and it probably would have been worse, if your siblings are as grandiose as I’ve been told. I’ve seen time and again, the arrogant fall to the machinations of the realistic and clever. You aren’t even remotely arrogant or callous. Simply inexperienced. But onto lighter topics, the other five are Brycie, Margaret, Terri, Stacey, and Clara. Brycie and Clara are Hornets, our ‘muscle.’ Margaret’s a Holstaur, Stacey’s something called a ‘Night Gaunt,’ and Terri’s the Werebat. Those three are the ‘tech support.’ They’ll be handling communications and every other electronic way we can track down your Secretary. We’ll home in on him in no time. (The Anubis opens the back door leading to the internal command center. Through the middle rearview mirror, Azneth can see the two Hornets are preparing themselves for battle by putting on IOTV armor, ACH helmets, and loading up magazines with D-Silver bullets, for their SOPMOD Block Two-type M16s. The other three have headphones on, and are all busy clicking and clacking away at their computers, as Stacey notices and waves to the two in the ‘cockpit.’ Azneth’s father is taking a comfortable nap in the furthest back, on a bolted-down leather chair. The bovine-Mamono raises her hand, as she has something to say.) (Margaret) “My Lady! We’ve got them! I’ve been listening in on police chatter, as per Commander Deniya’s strict order to maintain radio silence. To observe and listen, never to chime in. We haven’t been able to penetrate whatever encrypted systems the Feds are using, but we’ve got radio chatter coming in from some Virginia State Trooper that was tailing our high-value target! Her vehicle was disabled mid-chase, but she’s confirmed our HVT is headed straight for Dulles International Airport! Congresswoman Palmieri is with him, along with two other unidentified civilian passengers! Their back tire on the right side has been shot to pieces, and our eyes in the sky can see the road-sparks coming from it.” (Rehema) “Should we order a redoubling of our airspace control over there?” (Margaret) “Don’t bother! We’ve got two of our helicopters en route, and they….they just saw their vehicle bank a hard left on State Highway 28, now heading southbound! Looks like they’re going to hunker down at that resistance stronghold at that nearby aerospace museum! Listen closely! We’re still heading down Interstate-66, and that’s a good thing! Keep your eye out for a sign that directs you to an exit to Fair Oaks Mall! That’ll get us on State Highway 50, which is a straight path to that museum! A large group of canine Mamono are following their trail, and our chopper pilot friends are calling in whatever reinforcements we can spare from our forces in the surrounding towns of Chantilly, Centreville, and McNair. Admiral Addams has ordered that our forces at Dulles are to remain on standby to intercept any landing aircraft, or anyone trying to fly off in one. She thinks Non is going to use his own forces at the museum as a distraction to slip into the airport and steal a jet plane. Apparently he already did something similar to the White House, wow, what a shithead. I don’t know what you see in him, My Lady, but good luck.” (Stacey) “We already know where their destination is. So I think we should break radio silence, just once! We’ve got plenty of stolen authentication codes that regular-ass pilots won’t be able to tell are bogus. I say, that we call in an airstrike on the target! It’s three birds with one stone! We save ourselves from getting our atoms split, we take out a center of resistance, and we divert at least a bit of firepower away from our allies around the White House!” (Terri) “That hasn’t got a rat chance in hell of working. First, this isn’t Die Hard 4. Non and that Congresswoman have definitely got friendly IFFs on them, or at least on The Football. Any attempt to call in an airstrike on them, is going to get stopped once they see that IFF. Not to mention that if they figure out the orders came from us, they’ll be able to trace our location and airstrike US instead!” (Azneth) “Wait….Chantilly! That’s where the National Reconnaissance Office headquarters is! I sent that Hobgoblin Maggie over to take that facility! I have my own radio, I’ll call her in!” “Maggie! Maggie, come in! This is Azneth! I repeat, Princess Azneth! We need whatever information you have on that aerospace museum a bit north of you!” (Rohm) “Lady Azneth, it’s Rohm. I’m sorry, but I think Maggie’s dead. Our live feed over the city is detecting smoke clouds coming from that building, so it’s most likely that they got their asses bombed out of existence. Or the building was booby-trapped with some mega-bomb. We have reports coming in confirming that the American Air Force did that at Cheyenne Mountain earlier this afternoon, only that one was atomic.” (Azneth) “Dammit, Dammit, Damn it all! Alright, get the word out to whomever’s on the way to Non’s destination! I want security doubled on the south part of that airport, and I want everyone to attack immediately! Don’t wait for an order, or a speech this time! They’ll be ready for it, and this whole thing hinges on them being unready!” Chantilly, Virginia 14390 Air and Space Museum Parkway January 2nd, 20-- 8:12 P.M., Eastern Standard Time Zone (Wayne) “Alright, alright! We made it! Ha! I knew hanging with you guys would get me a safe ticket outta that inferno!” (SecHS Non) “Buddy, we aren’t even remotely close to the part where the Scandinavian woman with the horned helmet sings! I gotta roll up to that barricade. Palmieri, Wayne, get your badges out! And why are you wearing a ski mask anyways!?” (Wayne) “OPSEC! You guys are stupid! They’ve seen your faces, they’ll be targeting your close friends and family for what you’re doing! While mine are gonna be relatively fine, since those Royal cum-gutters still think I’m pissing myself under my office desk back at Langley! Officially, I exist on paper as Francis Lemmon, with two M’s. A Baltimore hitman who’s been hired by yours truly to assist Mister Non. The real Lemmon died last month in a black op to burn down a Flagstaff fentanyl factory that was ran by an Antifa cell.” (Phillips) “Well, shit. That honestly is a good idea.” (They pull up to the northeast entrance, where two Toyota Tacoma technicals and an Oshkosh M-ATV stand guard. All three cars have M2 Brownings, and a pair of floodlights from the Oshkosh blasts its lumens right in front of the Grand Cherokee.) (SecHS Non) “OW, MY EYES! TURN THOSE LIGHTS OUT, YOU ASSHOLES!” (A voice blares over a megaphone as the Cabinet member, the Congresswoman, and the Deputy Director all scramble to get their forms of identification out.) (Voice) “IDENTIFY YOURSELVES OR YOU WILL BE FIRED UPON.” (SecHS Non) “I’m the Secretary of Homeland Security, escorting these three civilians to safety! My identification card is right here, and here’s my Gold Code!” (Two officers from the Smithsonian Office of Protection Services rush to the SUV, with the respective name tags of Roberts and Donelly. Roberts points a loaded M249 light machine gun at the car, while Donelly gives the items of identification a good look.) (Donelly) “Okay, now open your mouths! That goes for you too, Lone Ranger!” (The four comply, as Wayne pulls his balaclava down to cooperate.) (Donelly) “Okay. they’re clear! Identification checks out! Welcome to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center! Gift shop is right at the front doors, and I’m sorry to say that all our tour guides are busy at the moment, so please be patient until further notice!” (Palmieri) “Very fuckin’ funny, officer….Donelly. You guys wouldn’t happen to have some kind of fast transport out of here, would ya? Because unless you can spare a tire and zoop it in, this ride ain’t gonna take us far!” (Roberts) “Ayo, boss-man! We got anything better than a car?” (Megaphone operator) “HEAD INSIDE AND ASK AROUND. SOMEONE’S GOTTA HAVE SOMETHING READY OR CLOSE-TO-READY.” (As the four head on into the parking lot, officer Roberts and their supervisor fire a spray of warning shots at the Delaware NG Koala helicopter, landing a lucky kill on the co-pilot. The Lakota quickly banks right to land at the nearby Sully baseball field to the northwest, while the Koala breaks off for repairs at Dulles International Airport. Disembarking from the Jeep, the four soak in the sights of seeing the museum undergoing a outer fortification process, with a layer of sandbags and automatic firearm emplacements closest to the building, while a further layer of combined concrete barricades, sandbags, and weapon emplacements is still undergoing preparation. Heading inside to a secondary layer of security, all four once again show their proof of identification to two Federal Air Marshals, and two more Smithsonian OPS guards, along with opening their mouths. The Bostonian has had enough.) (Phillips) “Will someone PLEASE explain to me what the deal with the mouth is? You assholes have been watching too many John Carpenter movies, there’s no way that’ll actually detect an infiltrator….will it?” (Air Marshal #1) “It actually will, crazy as it sounds. The shapeshifting ones, that can pass as completely normal humans without that freaky succubus aura? We got a memo from Army Intelligence, said that their weakness is that they mostly keep their mouths altered a little to make cocksucking more….comfortable for their victims. Some of them have weird uvulas, some got NO uvulas, some have the back of their tongues ribbed for their man’s pleasure, and ALL of them keep their tongues clean. TOO clean. And that’s not even getting started on the ones that look like druggies and whip out tentacles straight from a Japanese cartoon. If the jig is up, they’ll try to hide it, which is when we put a three-eight slug through their cranium. (SecHS Non) “The tentacled ones are called Ropers, and they usually ARE a tough one to catch. Especially since by the time you can detect one, you’re probably already too close. You guys got anything faster than a car ready?” (Air Marshal #2) “No clue, you outta ask all the guys in the main exhibit area, or head on to the other side of the building.” (SecHS Non) “Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll try the first one. It’s right by the gift shop anyways. Good luck!” (Air Marshal #1) “Bring the pain and make it rain, sir!” (SecHS Non) “You got yourself a guarantee, pal!” (The four walk down the hallway, taking the first left entryway. With the museum store immediately to the left, the four-human group enters. Non makes a beeline for the clothing section, on the hunt for a very specific item.) (Palmieri) “Would it kill us to ask just what’re you doing?” (SecHS Non) “Found it! Oh! Uh, well, you see, there’s something that happened back in the West Wing. The Cabinet Meeting room to be precise. You don’t need to know.” (Palmieri) “Whatever it is, the aftermath is happening right in front of me. So lay it on!” (SecHS Non) “Well...you see…. That’s exactly the problem. I got hit by aerosol super-hyper-ultra aphrodisiacs a while before we rescued you guys. So to deal with the problem, I kinda….went into the Cabinet room and laid it all over the place. By the time it seemed like I got it all outta my system, I pulled my ‘draws up too soon, and I dribbled quite a bit. So I really ought to put these new ones on.” (Phillips and Wayne together) “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” (Palmieri) “Oh my God, you big baby. You could’ve just said that you got hit by enemy fire, had to jack it all out, and made a mess. We’re all grown-ups here! We know the score! Or I THOUGHT we were, until Tits McGee and Chucklefuckee here went off! So THAT’S been a priority in your head? Getting cum stains away from your fancy-pants? Christ, just go! Go behind that shelf and change! I don’t need to see your dong, I already have a better one waiting back hom-I mean, at Raven Rock! I’m married and I have two baby sons! I encounter dicks everyday! I get a dick and a load in me when I go to bed, and I see dicks when I change diapers!” (SecHS Non) “Fine! Serves me right for trying to be polite! Remind me next time to graphically describe my next masturbation session like I’m the straight Bret Easton Ellis!” (While the Congresswoman looks away in a disappointed scowl, and the other two slowly cut down the mirth and schadenfreude, Non replaces his now-semi-crusty boxers with a rather risque one that has a print of a Saturn 1 space-rocket in the most important area, which looks exactly as you think it would during a hard-on.) (SecHS Non) “Why the hell would this sell in a fun-for-the-whole-family museum? I bet the procurement guy for this shop was compromised. Eh, whatever, it’s comfy and roomy. Not what I had in mind with using the enemy’s own tactics against them, but you gotta take what you can get, I suppose.” (Wayne) “Sell what?” (SecHS Non) “Check it out!” (The Secretary tosses an extra at the Deputy Director.) (Wayne) “Holy shit, this is so stupid! Get your pants on already and move! I’m putting one on too! ” (Palmieri, still looking away) “Immature shitheads. I’m only five years older than Non, my goodness. Fuckin’ 2000s kids, dirty little bastards, all’a youse!” (Phillips) “Hey guys, check it out! There’s another McDonald’s in here.” (Wayne) “Just great. Right when I thought I was out of the McDee’s game, they pull me right back in. Go see if there’s any food left.” (Phillips) “Looking! All they got is some apple fritter and chocolate cookies.” (Wayne) “I’ll take two cookies.” (Palmieri) “I’ll take a fritter.” (Non) “A fritter too.” (Three minutes later, Wayne and Non are changed, and the group has eaten their small dinner. They exit the gift shop back into the lobby, where they find that the security from before has gone outside to better assist with defending the outside. Automatic fire rings off in the distance, as Roberts, Donelly, and their supervisor are under assault from the enormous pack of canine-Mamono that has finally caught up. With no sign of any Mamono, they assume that the situation is under control. Walking straight down the hallway, they reach the end of the platform. They are now looking down on the museum’s SR-71 Blackbird, with a Space Shuttle right behind it. Now fully in the museum, the group has a few moments of awe, except for Wayne, who’s already been here several times. Dozens of people are scrambling all over the lower floor, either grabbing supplies for fortifications, taking out live weapons off of the exhibits to use in the upcoming siege of their own shelter, or just standing and sitting around, waiting for the alarms to go off so they can skip the boring patrolling and get straight into the fight.) (Phillips) “You know, I wish I came here sooner. We’re face-to-face with the goddamn Enterprise. Heh. Really makes you wish ol’ William Shatner or Chris Pine was here. If there was ever a man with a plan to out-seduce a world of sexy female aliens, it’d be motherfuckin’ James T. Kirk.” (Wayne) “Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s the Discovery. The Enterprise is inside the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum up in New York City. Don’t give up though. Pine and Shatner both live in Los Angeles, now behind enemy lines, so the chance of them screwing that Lilith into surrendering is NOT impossible, but unlikely.” (SecHS Non) “Hey, hey! Don’t leave Connor Trinneer out of the equation. That guy defeated Vulcan logic with ‘THE POWER OF LOVE’.” (Wayne) “True, true.” (Palmieri) “Sorry, Iowans. But the Floridaman gets the green-blooded poontang.” (Phillips) “I know you’re all talking about the blonde from the Enterprise show, but now I’m kicking myself for knowing that I could die or get brainwashed before seeing that one. He was pretty cute on Stargate Atlantis though.” (Before any of them speak further, a man wearing a black PASGT vest, a midnight blue battle dress uniform and a matching-color patrol cap, yells out to the group from downstairs, leaping onto the Northrop N-1M Flying Wing prototype to get their attention.) (SWAT LARPer) “Excuse me! You wouldn’t happen to be the Secretary of Homeland Security, would you?” (SecHS Non) “Indeed I am, but who’re you?” (The downstairs man pulls out his badge. Unfortunately, it doesn’t occur to him that he’s too far away for the others to clearly see.) (LARPer) “Oh, whoops! You can’t see it from here. Special Agent Peter Whaley, Federal Protective Service!” (SecHS Non) “Pleasure to meet you, Special Agent! What’s the problem?” (Whaley) “Nothing yet, sir! Just pointing out that you’re the tip-top of DHS’s pecking order now! Which means I answer to you now! As does everyone else who works for the Department of Homeland Security and every agency under its aegis, ahem!” (With that reminder, several people all over the lower floor stand at attention to salute Non.) (Whaley) “We’re awaiting your direct orders, sir!” (SecHS Non) “Well then, let me be the first to say that it’s an honor to be serving our country with you fine gentlemen and ladies. Carry on, don’t stop for me! Come on guys, let’s get down there.” (The four walk down the left staircase to the lower floor, now under the Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawk. Special Agent Whaley runs up to Non, enthusiastically grabbing his hand to shake it.) (Whaley) “I take it you don’t remember me, sir!” (SecHS Non) “I’m sorry to say I don’t. Where and how have we met before?” (Whaley) “It was at that debriefing three weeks back! When Capitol Police pinched and locked up that gay incubus? I was the one that made the bad joke about his boy-pussy-wussy!” (SecHS Non) “Oh heck, it’s you again. It really IS a small, small world after all. Well then, you work for me now, so here’s my first order. Gimme a sitrep.” (Whaley) “Well, uh, the building’s still completely secure, for now. We kinda ran out of real food during breakfast today. There’s about a hundred and ninety of us, pretty close to The Alamo.” (SecHS Non) “Good, good. Everybody here’s doing a good job! Ya hear me! I noticed a few of the exhibits were gone. Explain, if you can?” (Whaley) “We’re putting them back in service! We had orders from the Department of the Interior’s brass to pull whatever we can back into service! Orders came out two days ago, so we didn’t get much done before then.” (SecHS Non) “Yeah, sorry about that. Our sources told us the invasion was going down two days from now. We were wrong. So you got any working planes that’ll fit seven people?” (Whaley) “I’m afraid we couldn’t get any of the planes ready, except for the XF-35B prototype, which we already sent out to Wright-Patterson yesterday, four of the Cessna prop planes, which have all flow off with noncombatants, an MQ-1 Predator drone that we handed over to the West Virginia Air Natty Guard about eight hours ago, and a Grumman A-6E Intruder that went AWOL yesterday around midnight! So they’re all gone! Only other one was the Piper PA-23 Apache, which all the top museum staff flew off in, right when the invasion started!” (SecHS Non) “Any helicopters?” (Whaley) “We were able to get a few of them up and running, but now there’s only four left.” (The Secretary uses his right hand to grab the Special Agent’s vest by the left collarbone, getting right up in his face.) (SecHS Non) “Listen close, Agent! You know what this briefcase is?” (Whaley) “Uhhh, classified documents that could prove Antifa’s popular conspiracy theory that you’re in charge of an operation to kidnap and dissect alien scouts so we can make new bio-WMDs?” (SecHS Non) “Tha-tha….okay, that was a pretty good guess, not gonna lie! Shit! Who the fuck leaked that!? But wrong answer! It’s The Football!” (Whaley) “The A-bomb laptop!?” (SecHS Non) “Ring-a-ding, baby. We need to get to a secure location, safe from any imminent attack! I know a place, hell, I know a bunch of places! And we need something with armor, something faster than a car, and something we can open the doors and shoot out of!” (Whaley) “Wait, so you HAVE been making bio-weapons from alien DNA!?” (SecHS Non) “NO! But I admit that I HAVE been doing the dissection part. Well, not literally me, I definitely ain’t qualified to do experimental autopsies. Or any autopsies, actually. But I DID sign off on the requests for those. Wait, I’m getting off topic! Spit out what choppers you got!” (Whaley) “Well, we’ve got a Bell UH-1H Iroquois, uh that is, a Huey! Sucks that we had to cannibalize the Spirit of Texas to get it done, but we at least didn’t damage the frame. The Huey’s all locked and loaded, since we took those miniguns off a Blackhawk that crashed on the Dulles runway. This was yesterday, back when we still had the airport. There’s also the Sikorsky XR-4C, but that’s only got room for two. We also got an ex-Coast Guard Sikorsky HH-52A, and that prototype NASA VTOL, the Bell XV-15! Well, there was two of ‘em, but we had no choice but to chop one up to get the other one done! Buuuuuuut, if you stick around for about one more day, we SHOULD have the Bell AH-1F HueyCobra, the Stinson L-5 Sentinel, and the Sikorsky X2 ready!” (SecHS Non) “We’ll take the VTOL! I know that one, Director Vogner told me all about it! We got any Osprey pilots around here? ‘Cause the control scheme had ought to be close enough!” (One of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents speaks up.) (ICE Agent) “I know one!” (SecHS Non) “And you are?” (ICE Agent) “Jake Taliente, ICE! I’m, uh, not actually an agent, despite the uniform. I’m just a mail clerk that grabbed a spare one when I hauled my ass out of the Potomac Center Plaza, back, uh, about six A.M. this morning! I know a guy! He’s right outside, working on the X2!” (SecHS Non) “You trust this guy?” (Taliente) “Hell yeah, I do. We’re in a Shadowrun role-playing group together! And he always gets pissed when someone tries to get erotic in the middle of the game! No chance he’s a traitor! He’s 7532 MOS, qualified Osprey pilot. Goes by the name of Captain Hodges!” (Palmieri) ‘“Well whaddaya waiting for? A Russian SS-18? Go get him!” (Taliente) “Alright, alright, just follow me! Last time I saw him was at the Engen Restoration Hangar!” (The ICE employee runs towards the southwest part of the building, while Non’s group and Special Agent Whaley follow. Around the middle of the floor, Non notices something on his left. He suddenly stops, as Palmieri speaks out.) (Palmieri) “Yo, Eskimo, what’s up? You look clammy.” (SecHS Non) “You guys…..uh, head on over. I’ll be there in a few minutes. There’s something I gotta do. For my peace of mind. Something here I never took the time to see. It’s funny, actually. I was planning to head over and check up on this place tonight anyways, had the invasion happened as we first thought. Go.” (Wayne) “Just don’t take too long, dude. Might have to tranq you.” (SecHS Non) “Hah. That’s kinda funny, ahehehe.” (The group leaves to the hallway that leads to the hangar, while Phillips stops to turn around and record Non. Getting close enough to record his voice, Non notices, and doesn’t care, still standing where he was before.) (SecHS Non) “I know you’re getting this on camera, Sherry. Go ahead. I’m gonna say what I gotta say.” (She follows the former Advisor to a very particular plane. The Alaskan reaches up to place his hand on the furthest right engine turbine, dragging his hand all the way to the underside of the cockpit window glass. He backs up a few steps, then stops. He’s directly facing the propeller plane's cockpit. It’s a Boeing B-29 Superfortress. And it goes by the name of Enola Gay.) (SecHS Non) “Evening, Miss. You’ll have to excuse me for making this quick, but I’ve got to cut and run while I still can. So, here we are at last. ‘Two Minutes To Midnight’, as that Bruce Dickinson fellow often says. Sorry that your B-50 and B-47 kids couldn’t get to star in Round Three. Hell, they won’t even get to be extras. But at least your grandkids will. Ahahahaha! Aaaaaah, here I am. A stupid and sentimental twit talking to an inanimate piece of history. Oh, if only that Demonic Energy crap could animate war machines. And before you say anything, Golems don’t count! But, you know, you two did quite a number on us. The human race, that is. You really did. You and Bockscar were the ultimate paradigm shift that ever existed, up until yesterday. You two took the longest unconquered imperial dynasty that ever existed, and made them your bitch. And we can’t just let some sexually frustrated ‘Things From Another World’ upstage you two! No, not on my watch. Not until some guy in Montana breaks the speed of light. Speaking of movies! You know, I tried to get you guys fixed up to help save America one more time. Tried to give you guys a Rocky 6. To give you one last chance to keep your super-heavyweight belt, and to give Bockscar another chance to dethrone you. One last dance, to show the young’uns just how Nebraska gals get things done. To remind the world that one-hundred-sixty kilotons of whoop-ass is still a force to be reckoned with, even in today's age of megatons. And to let Royal Makai find out for themselves, just exactly why the mere mention of your names can still make Asians and Germans piss themselves in fear. We got your Silverplate mods back in, and I even made arrangements to get two recommissioned Mark 6’s for each of you. And to get them put together at Los Alamos, just like old times.” “But we ran out of time, ironically. Here you are, almost revved up and with no place to go. Bockscar wasn’t ready either. I’m gonna have some serious words with General Fleischer on why the two of you weren’t ready when you were scheduled to be, four days ago. Seeing you guys in action, live and in Technicolor? Would’ve been the coolest thing since Doctor Teller made the H-bomb, may he rest in peace. Wonder what he’d say if he had lived long enough to see today. Him, Truman, Oppenheimer. And your old buddies! Groves, Tibbets, Ferebee, Deak Parsons!? Though I’m sad to say that time waits for no one. Not me, not Eydis, and not even you. I wish we could have met under better circumstances, but the guy who said that ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’? He was right. Who knows, though? Maybe we’ll meet again. Don’t know where, don’t know when, as the Dame Lynn used to say.” “It was nice talking to you, ma’am. Rest easy and keep enjoying your retirement. You did us all proud. And don’t worry. Your successors may not be cold warriors, but they’re still in good hands. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must be going. Going to finish what Truman started. You and Groves wrote the first page of the Atomic Age. OPUS-32 and I, we’re going to finish the book. So long, Miss G! It’s time to let the sunshine in!” “Just like Adam and Eve, said you'd set me free You took me to the sky, I'd never been so high You were my pills, you were my thrills You were my hope, baby, you were my smoke You dropped a bomb on me!” -The Gap Band LINK TO PART FIVE : https://www.4binz.org/544