Armies of soldiers stood ready over a looming hill. Every soldier stood gazing forward, looking over the mountainous terrain, almost unblinking. Every soldier held a musket firmly leaning against their shoulder, sharpened bayonets glinting in the sunlight.
Every army looked to be organized in a near perfect square. Every different square of soldiers had different colourations to them. One square looked like stereotypical British, red coats and tall hats. Another square held blue coats, and tri-corner hats. Another was wearing primarily dark grey and red.
Finally their commander spoke up, breaking their lull.
“You know the orders, don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. You’re up against a lot,” a woman’s voice spoke up. The commander soon stepped in front of several of these squares. She loomed over all of the soldiers – taller than the mountainous hill.
“Wait for everyone else to give the signal. Then you march in.” She said again.
“Alana, what on earth are you doing?” A different voice said.
The soldiers’ commander looked over at this voice. It belonged to a human, someone who looked much older than Alana. He stood even taller than she did, looking over her various squares of toy soldiers.
“Just giving my men a briefing,” Alana responded.
“Sheesh, you had a lot of spare time,” the man said, looking over just how many of these toy soldiers were set up, “Are these things marching down to help us?”
“They are,” Alana responded, “Even if I’m unable to fight along with the rest of you guys, these things will still help at least.”
There was a sudden chuckle from a completely different voice.
“I’m amazed at these small details, young lady,” This new voice said, “Are you seriously scrying through all these little things at once?”
Alana looked over at the source of this voice, she recognized it as belonging to some other person she knew. Person was a bit of a stretch – a strangely human sounding voice was coming from the muzzle of a lupine. A black wolf, looking over all of the toy soldiers the way a domestic dog would a series of toys.
“No, I’m not, I’m merely sending these things in as a distraction.”
“You’re our reconnaissance girl, not a combatant,” The wolf said, standing back up to all fours, “It’s amazing that you did this, but you should know better than anyone you’re not to be in the fight. You should be ready to retreat at the top of a hat.”
“Yes yes I know, but I feel so worthless. When the fight actually begins against those incarnations, I’m just sitting here whistling songs to myself. At least these toy soldiers can provide a bit of a distraction.”
The human simply rolled his eyes.
“Either way, send them in anyways…just don’t be surprised if we step on a few of these. Those bayonets look sharp.”
“Their guns only fire Mana, anyways,” Alana responded.
Unbeknownst to them, another figure was watching this. Fortunately for them, it was not one of their enemies. Alana stopped for a second and looked towards that hill they were stationed behind.
“A-HA!” She said, pointing there, “I see you Kiara.”
The one known as Kiara then revealed herself to the wolf, the man, and Alana. Kiara was actually a small snake, with yellow and black scales forming thick parallel bands on her. Despite being a small slithering serpent, she was quite poisonous, a krait.
“You are getting better, young girl, you were able to sense my presence,” Kiara said, not with her mouth but with a voice inside the heads of those nearby, “I’m quite impressed with this effort. I don’t think this will be as valuable an asset, but it can help to distract the incarnations.”
“Thank you,” Alana said. Coming from Kiara, those words meant a lot to her.
“However, I am here to call you three to order. You there, Heiss, change to your true form.”
The man known as Heiss nodded, and he shut his eyes. Before Alana, the man changed shape, a wolfish tail sweeping the ground lightly. Muscle growing, and vicious paws replacing his hands and feet. He looked much like a classic werewolf, but with a featureless white void replacing his pupils and irises.
The spirit wolf seemed to vanish, having been merged with his host, Heiss.
“Now, follow me,” The krait said, slithering off, “we begin battle within the hour.”
As a human, Alana was actually the minority of this small group that had formed. It was no army, but just about all of these people in front of her, human or not, were stronger than ten men, if not even forty.
Amongst the group sat Heiss, the big black wolf man. Kiara, the small krait who had lead the group there soon grew much longer, gaining a pair of arms, but still leaning on coils. She referred to herself as a naga, although she had also been called an ‘anthro snake’ by Alana. A human sat on his knees, a sheathed katana leaning against him.
Next to this human was what could only be described as an unusual hybrid of a human and a rhinocerous, easily the biggest of the group. Even bigger than the bullish looking person sitting next to him. Another human sat next to this bull, holding a bunch of paper in her hands. To her left was a seemingly human looking girl, but a pair of silvery fox-ish ears and nine tails gave away the fact she wasn’t human.
Two hyena-people sat next to this foxish looking human. To them was a bear, and then a seemingly normal looking bald eagle. A man who was almost completely covered in robes sat in the circle, too. Finally, an anthropomorphic lion sat on the ground.
It was a good thing that Alana was a bit desensitized, as all of these animal-people were completely in the nude. The lion finally spoke up.
“This is part where you expect me to give an arousing speech to everybody, correct?” He said in a very loud and commanding voice, “Well you already know what I’m going to say. We have six others in there. Alana, you’ve plotted your way in, I assume?”
Alana nodded, “Yes, they’re being guarded by two incarnations – I recognized them as being Sorrow and Apathy. I’ve been able to send a small paper doll in, courtesy of Mara over there.”
Mara smiled, flicking some paper around.
“Perfect…we attack within the hour. You know the deal – rendezvous here, where Alana’s waiting. Alana, you will jump through our portal first.”
“But wait,” Kiara piped in, “Alana will provide more help too – she’s prepared a rather…small army of tin soldiers.”
“Children’s toys…ha!” one of the hyenas laughed.
“No seriously,” She said, “I can at least order them to serve as a distraction!”
“She has a point,” The eagle piped in, somehow speaking with a hard beak, “Not full-fledged golems, but still useful.”
“I see,” The lion said, “I’ll look over these…mayhaps you should be able to send these in first, while we sneak in after they create a ruckus. Remember, you’re a controller, not a fighter.”
Alana nodded.
Within the hour, everyone, human and animal-man alike waited behind the small army of tin soldiers, who still kept moving.
“Alright,” Kiara whispered to Alana, “Send them.”
Alana nodded, “Charge!” She ordered her soldiers.
In perfect formation, she watched her small creations march up and over the hill. The other fighters scrambled, waiting for Alana’s army to create a ruckus for them to sneak in. The eagle had flown high to observe this.
Roughly ten minutes later, she could hear demonic wailing from across the small island.
“That’s our signal, let’s get them,” she could hear one of the two hyenas said, as both hyenas ran over the hill. The other animals joined, as did the few humans. Alana simply waited, and then closed her eye. Alana viewed the action through a few of her random soldiers’ “eyes”.
Fortunately for her the soldiers were doing their work. Creatures who didn’t seem to follow the laws of physics rushed random soldiers that broke formation. At best, they were a distraction, but a few of their guns managed to shoot down some of the aerial combatants.
Soon an ominous feeling washed over her, as the soldier she was looking through was picked up. It wasn’t by one of the aerial demons; it was by something – or someone else. It was then turned around to face this creature.
Alana almost fell back into her real body, but her sight and hearing still stayed bound to the tin soldier, which started walking in the air, holding its rifle out. She saw right what it was – a human dressed in a suit, with an almost entirely bald head save for white along the sides and back. He smiled, something terrible.
It was him, the cause of this all. Gregor Topham. She almost wished it were an Incarnation staring at her through the tin soldier, not their primary enemy himself.
“Fascinating, you had the time to prepare all of THIS?” Gregor said, “You really were a child at heart. Don’t try pulling your sight and hearing out, I know you’re there, girl.”
Topham poked the toy soldier’s face, which Alana saw. She instinctively squeezed her eyes shut even more, now.
“Watch this then,” He said, turning the soldier around to the squadron of tin soldiers, still in near perfect formation. In one second, a fireball landed in the middle of the squadron, blowing the tin soldiers to bits.
“Now, you get to watch,” Topham told the soldier, flipping it back to face him, “As all your companions join the collection. I know you’re over that hill. Did you really think I did not dete-“
He was soon interrupted as a swarm of paper flew over his face. The soldier fell to the ground, getting back up and firing small bolts of mana at the sorcerer’s head. More rectangles of paper flew over his face, with foreign looking markings on them. They quickly formed knots around his face like bandages. He continued to claw at the paper mask, while two more people rushed into the vision.
One of them was the nine-tailed fox, Mara. The second was the Asian looking man, pulling out more bits of paper that he threw onto Topham. Each of these paper strips stuck to him like glue, as Mara tossed a few more small paper dolls at him, inflicting small yet painful cuts on his skin.
“I know you’re there Alana, I can’t hold him off forever. Pull out, NOW. Wrath is coming right for you. Mara, get her out fast.”
“But Daisu-“
“RUN!” The man said, putting more and more paper to the struggling man, “Wrath will tear through Alana like tissue paper!”
The nine-tailed fox-woman grabbed the tin soldier and begun to dash away. Alana immediately pulled her senses out of the doll and jumped to her feet. She heard only a loud explosion – that must have been from where Topham was.
Suddenly, Alana gulped. It was him! Wrath was coming. She looked right to her left and spotted the skeletal frame. It was Wrath, a burning skeleton with bits of seared flesh still clinging to his body. Out of all the Incarnations, Alana feared Wrath the most.
“Hello little girly,” she heard Wrath say, “I like your soldiers. Great job creating Shabti.”
Alana didn’t even stick around – she had to run to the escape as fast as possible. She was stopped once more when the skeleton appeared right in front of her.
“Nobody runs away from me when I am speaking! No-body! See this?”
He held up one of her soldiers, one who had escaped the demons. It somehow stayed in one piece in his bony fingers. Wrath took the doll’s head in between his thumb and forefinger, and quickly crushed the soldier’s head, sending the headless body to the ground.
“That’s what I’m going to do to you,” He said, “It will burn…much worse.”
Before Wrath could do much, Alana was swept off her feet and into somebody’s arms. It was likely Mara’s. Mara was somehow able to still move fast, despite holding Alana in her arms. Wrath was blocking the small portal out, but even he couldn’t catch up to Mara. She ran right on through, sending Alana right back to their off-island base. Alana was plopped right down on the floor.
“Quick,” Mara said, “Wrath’s going to follow through any minute now!”
Alana wasted no time in grabbing the fire extinguisher from the floor. Somehow hefting it up, she waited right by the portal for Wrath to manifest through. Thankfully, he developed tunnel vision. They knew Wrath well enough to anticipate this.
Right on the dot, the room begun to heat up as the skeletal incarnation walked right through the portal. Alana then attacked, instead sending the heavy red can right into Wrath’s face with a sickening cracking noise.
“You idiot! You’re supposed to spray him with that!” Mara shouted, as Wrath soon reached up, his skull falling back through the portal. Alana wasted no time in bringing the fire extinguisher down onto his spine, somehow crunching several of his vertebrae. This meant nothing to the Incarnation, unfortunately, but it made her feel a bit better.
The skeleton stopped his advance, just long enough for Alana to step in front of him. Instead of delivering a one-liner, she simply screamed and brought the fire extinguisher right into the skeleton’s ribs, sending it tumbling back into the portal to the island.
Mara wasted no time in dismantling the runic circle, shutting the portal for good. There was no way they could get back to the island now, and no way the islanders could get back to them. For now, only Alana and Mara were there, panting as adrenaline pumped through their veins.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Alana said, dropping the heavy fire extinguisher to the ground with a heavy clang, “I think I’m going to pass out until morning or afternoon. Three…two…one…”
Alana then crumped to the floor in a heap, thankfully still conscious enough to keep herself from hitting her head on the floor as she fell.
The very next morning, Alana woke up, thankfully having been moved into something a bit smoother than the floor. One of those old futons that had been taken from eastern Asia, still in the place that Mara and Daisuke shared.
“Oh shit,” Alana said, snapping up, “What day is it? I got school!”
She looked around, not getting a response that she suggested. Alana crawled off of the fouton and looked around. She was in the basement of the boarding house she lived in, where Daisuke and Mara rented.
“Hellooo?” Alana called out, “Mara? Daisuke? You there?”
She got no answer as she left the bedroom and walked into the living room, attached to where they had made a kitchen. Alana half expected Mara to be in there cooking something for her, but there was nothing. Except a note on the whiteboard attached to the fridge. Alana walked right up and read it.
“Alana – I have called you in sick from school today. It is absolutely crucial that you do not leave the building until I tell you. Do not even leave the basement unless it’s absolutely necessary! There is a lunch for you in the fridge. I should be back by 5:30. Do not answer the phone, and stay away from the windows.
-Hugs and Kisses, Mara”
Alana sighed a bit. AT least that was one loose end tied up. She opened the fridge and sure enough, there was the lunch box, wrapped up Bento style. Mara and Daisuke were practically parents to her, ever since her real parents died and she lived in the ‘Manitou House”, as it came to be known.
Despite how old fashioned the two could be, at least their ‘apartment’ had a television she could watch. Alana had a computer upstairs, but just to be safe she didn’t make any plans to leave the basement. Unless someone else came for her, who wasn’t Mara or Daisuke that is. Alana simply sat back on their Lazyboy recliner and ate the bento that was made for her.
Hours and four sappy soap operas later, the door to the basement opened up. Alana nearly jumped, holding the remote with intent to throw as she looked towards the door. As a familiar woman walked down the stairs, she set it back down, not taking her eyes off.
It was Mara. She was in her ‘human’ disguise, a Korean woman who worked as a journalist. As soon as Mara entered, she appeared to grow a pair of silvery ears, and nine tails snaked out from behind her. (Her breasts also expanded a bit but it was mostly men who noticed) Despite that her true form was that of a nine-tailed fox, Mara preferred an ‘in between’ form.
The kemonomimi looked towards the television upon hearing it. She sighed a bit.
“And here I thought the first thing you’d watch would be the news,” Mara said, “Not this ‘Seconds of Our Lives’ stuff.”
“There’s nothing else on, even on Discovery,” Alana said, “And PBS is just running stuff like Arthur.”
Mara signed and changed the channel to Channel Four news.
“Well, you know the news better than I do,” Alana said to the fox, “Are we wanted criminals now?”
“No,” Mara responded, “The incident appears to have been covered up. As far as everyone else knows, nothing happened in the South Pacific other than a boating race entering its second day.”
Alana sighed a bit in relief.
“Don’t start assuming anything just yet,” Mara said, “Daisuke really damaged Topham last night. Plus, a few incarnations saw your face. You’re lucky it’s…the fiery rampaging one.”
Mara didn’t dare say, “Wrath”. That could have summoned him, or got his attention.
“So do I have to stay in here the whole time? You can’t just call me in sick forever, you know.”
“I’ll have to put some illusions on you, just to be safe. They may not also have your name either. That’s fortunate. Either way, we have to be careful. Topham’s a very powerful man, got the whole Twentieth House bowing to him, even other Houses too. Wouldn’t surprise me if a few Vampire Bloodlines or Were-packs are also following him willingly. Now he’s got just about everyone here, except us.”
Alana hit the power button on the TV, which was only distracting the two from their conversation right now.
“Wait, everyone?”
“I’m not going to sugar coat it,” Mara said, “Everyone. Only we escaped. Things were going downhill before he showed up, and Daisuke and I were coming to get you out safely, but we didn’t expect Topham himself to show up. Daisuke only held him off. Even if those paper bombs and seals managed to work, they probably only slowed him down for a little while. Probably why we’re not branded as criminals yet.”
Alana was speechless. She wasn’t exactly close to everyone in their little Boarding House, but it was a little hard to accept. Everyone was now captured, held captive by Incarnations themselves. Alana had scouted out the island where other captives were; she knew what was likely happening to them now.
She remembered the images she saw. Werebeasts forced into their “feral” forms, essentially large animals. Magicians locked up like prisoners, unable to use their powers. The two vampires she saw were hooked up to an IV of some kind of fluid – likely blood that kept them alive. Other creatures were imprisoned through some more creative means.
Demons and Incarnations walked the walls of the prison, some of them even threatening the “Gallery” if they misbehaved. Right now, the thought that everyone else, Kiara, Daisuke, Heiss, and the rest were trapped in the prison from hell…it was almost too much to bear.
Alana thankfully didn’t cry, it wouldn’t have done anything about it. They were stuck, until they could be bailed out, if they could be bailed out. At least Topham and his cohorts didn’t kill their prisoners. Instead, they trapped them with Apathy. The robed human with the misshapen head, and the demonic hand. Alana feared that Incarnation the most, next to Wrath.
“Look, I know you’re probably feeling really sad right about now,” Mara said, “Just let it out, okay?”
“A bit later, okay?” Alana said, “It’s not going to do anything.”
Mara sighed.
“I guess you’ve cried enough, right?” Mara said, “I mean, Daisuke was taken, too!”
“It’s done nothing,” Alana said, “Even if it got you to be nice to me, I remember Rushida. He could never stand it. Called me an anklebiter. To change the subject a bit, what do we do now?”
“Well, if we’re going to keep our battle up with Topham, we’ll have to regroup and find new people to join our fights. Except we need more than just the Manitou House.”
“And we only have a few…well do you know anything about the well, others?”
Mara shook her head.
“Our work is cut out for us. We need to find more allies to stop those power-grubbing demons. More than just fourteen of us. “
“And another portal,” Alana said, “I kind of trashed it…sorry, I know only Dafydd knew how to make those and it’s not cheap.”
“Actually,” Mara smiled, “You did better than I would have.”
“Great!” Alana said, “you know this sounds kind of like the plot for some of those games I play. Kind of like that one where only a handful of people survive a battle, then have to assemble an army who don’t believe in some greater threat and are disorganized, and-“
“Alana this is serious!” Mara piped up, “This isn’t going to be some kind of video game. We’re going to have to do a lot of talking and a lot of looking.”
“Well alright,” Alana responded, “Just don’t ask me where to start…”
