Chapter 5: The Mission?

Rex and Estrella sat down in the truck to get away from the sun as Ryujin and Theo spoke to them. It was in the middle of the day, and they still remained on the highway trying to figure out what the reasons for this myriad of mythics for being here in the first place.

“Our mission is to fix a mistake that happened a month ago, a mistake that was so horrible that it led to the destruction of most of the human race,” Ryujin explained.

He stood defiantly with his two sheathed katanas. Their handles sticking out like jewels ready to be plucked at a moment’s notice.

“We did not notice this happening until the ICBMs were launched that the world was coming to an end,” Theo told them. “The Cold War that NATO and the Soviet Union were engaged would then result in nuclear annihilation. We, the many members of the Coalition of Deities surmised that your race was doomed to destroy itself. There was nothing we could do, and we let fate decide if you should wipe yourselves out or not.”

“Why?” Rex asked. “You exist, you always had, and you would let us kill ourselves! Why not interfere?”

“Almost five hundred years ago,” Ryujin explained. “The countless gods, mythics, fairy tales, we all existed. A well-renowned profit predicted that a powerful entity would come to devour the Earth and everything on it.”

“It was known as Cataclysm,” Theo added. “The devourer of everything. It was on a direct path to Earth and would have wiped everything out of existence. Our only hope, the only thing that saved the human race, was for all the gods, regardless of ethnicity, abilities, beliefs, powers, strength ... to unite together to combat this powerful entity. The unity of all these mythics created the Coalition of Deities. Its job was to destroy Cataclysm or face annihilation. We created a powerful crystal known as the Lintarsha shard that combined all the magical properties of every god and deity into one super-powerful burst of magic. The idea was that Cataclysm absorbed magic and energy along with all physical matter. If we overloaded it with magic, it would over saturate it and destroy it.”

“We ssstill don’t know if that was what did it, though,” Renenutet interjected as she watched the highway with her long rifle.

“It is our best-held belief at this time,” Theo argued back. “The point is that the crystal worked and the crystal shattered into several pieces around the planet and ... possibly other worlds.”

“The fact is,” Ryujin spoke up. “The crystal was barely completed on time. It required more time than necessary to complete it. All attempts to speed up the process failed. In the end, we had to send our mythics into Cataclysm to buy valuable time in the completion of the crystal. Wave after wave was sent in ... barely any returned. I myself was part of a wave that went to it; I have little memory of what happened. I just remember the explosion and being thrown out in space. I fell back to Earth gracious that I was still alive but with little to no memory of how I got back.”

“Were you a part of this great fight?” Estrella asked Theo.

The minotaur shook her head and smiled. “I am only sixty years old. I wasn’t a part of it.”

“Wow ... you don’t look bad for somebody of sixty years of age.”

If Theo could blush, she would. She took her hand and rubbed the back of his head while looking away from her.

“Thank you,” she finally responded. “Us deities live for extremely long times compared to you humans.”

Ryujin looked at the two as they spoke to each other and finally resumed talking after they got done trading their words. Rex himself was continuing to observe the conversation between them before looking back at the dragon.

“Anyways,” the dragon resumed. “Prior to the nuclear war last month, our goal was to find the Lintarsha Shards, remains of the crystal to find and reassemble, and to clear out any rouge mythics that mean to bring ill harm to humanity. That has been put on hold until this mission clears. Our mission now is to fix a problem that happened that led to the tragic massacre of humans on this Earth. It is a problem that we can and will try to fix with utmost priority.”

“Please tell us what happened,” Estrella pleaded with urgency.

“We did not know it until the bombs fell,” Ryujin told them. “There was nothing we could do to stop the bombs. To us, the humans made the decision to eradicate themselves. We are not responsible for your actions ... however, there was a massive shift in the balance of Earth. Nuclear explosions were everywhere; the disturbance could even be felt by ourselves. We had a couple of our own members leave the Coalition and go on their own. It caused a shift in our own beliefs. We began to seek the words of our great prophets, including those not even a part of the Coalition, and to find guidance on what to do next.”

“What did they say?” Rex asked.

“In the last five hundred years, the Coalition was being spooked by a rogue mythic by the name of Frieshutz, the mythical marksman. He is an actual German/Prussian mythic known as the greatest marksman ever to walk the Earth. His story was filled with a tragic event where he made enemies with the wrong people, and those people decided the best way to hurt him was to murder his wife in cold blood. In a true spat of revenge, he vowed to fulfill it by asking a deal with Satan.”

“El Diablo!” Estrella asked with shock. “You are telling me El Diablo exists?”

“Yesss,” Renenutet replied.

“Frieshutz was given two big important things by the Devil,” Ryujin continued. “One was eternal life until he would find and kill all the men that murdered his wife. The second was a series of magical bullets, five to kill his enemies and one for himself once he completed his mission.”

“Even though he killed some overtime, he would go and seek out the generations directly linked to those murderers,” Theo interjected and explained. “My mother and father almost caught him in World War I before he managed to escape. He was down to one more individual to kill. He was spotted briefly and fought one of our teams while he was serving with the Nazi Regime before he disappeared again. It took him forty years before we found him and unfortunately it was too late. He killed the last person on his list before he took the gun to himself, satisfied that he avenged his wife.”

“You are gods, though...” Rex questioned them. “You couldn’t track him?”

“No,” Ryujin replied. “We can pick up magical use, however, only in the right circumstances. Too deep in the ground and we can’t pick it up but in the wide open, we can. Any magical use that isn’t coming from us, we send a team to investigate it. For all, we know it could be a rouge mythic running amok or somebody that is learning how to use magic that we can go and help and assess to join our group. The only thing we obviously picked up was his gun, with the magic bullets being used twice in Soviet Russia. The police found the body of a man named Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov that he shot and killed. His body was found on a rooftop. A day later, the bombs began to fall, and the world as you know it came to an end.”

“Thanks to an individual in our Coalition,” Theo explained. “A human woman by the name of Daiyu began to put things together. She surmised that Petrov’s death was a horrific loss on humanity and that, according to Frieshutz in his own words, was shaping the destiny of humankind. Our seers also concluded that Stanislav Petrov was supposed to prevent World War 3 from happening. His death, a day before the fall, was the worst thing that could happen as he played a crucial role in preventing the Soviet Union from launching nuclear weapons onto the NATO nations. One man on one day saved the human race from destruction. But because he is dead ... you and I are standing here right now.”

Rex thought about everything that she just said as he looked at Estrella. His eyes looked down as he simply shook his head.

“What does it all mean then?” he asked them. “What can you do to correct this?”

Ryujin made a straightforward move. He pointed to Theo.

Theo looked down as she sighed. “I am the key to this. Most of us deities have a wide range of powers and abilities. Ryujin obviously is a dragon that can fly and have several forms to utilize against his enemies. Renenutet here is the Goddess of the Harvest and can manipulate and control trees and plants...”

Rex looked at Renenutet as Estrella focused on Theo.

“What is your power then?” she asked her.

“I am a Goddess of Time.”

“What?” Rex looked at her. His eyes went wide. “You have the power to manipulate time?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Well ... what are you waiting for? Go back in time and save this man from getting killed.”

Theo cocked her head and even made a “tsk, tsk” motion to him. “If only I could do that, we wouldn’t be talking right now. No ... I can manipulate time around me, but my powers are limited even in that. I can go back in time but only about twenty seconds into the past. It is as if nature itself is designed to prevent us from going into the past to alter events. My powers are amazing, but it has its drawbacks.”

Rex and Estrella seemed at a loss as they looked at them.

“Hey! Don’t give up so soon. There is hope. Ironically your own demise is what will save you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked her.

“We are in the search for an Einstein Crystal; it is a crystal of extreme power that is only found from cataclysmic events. These crystals can be created from things such as powerful volcanic eruptions, massive explosions, or something like...”

“A nuclear explosion,” Rex concluded.

“Correct. We are searching for this crystal. If we can obtain one, then I can, at least in theory, be able to use it to multiply my power to the point that I can jump one month into the past and save Petrov from death and save the human race.”

“Holy shit!” he replied. “Well, there are plenty of nuclear craters, why haven’t you find one yet?”

“They are rare even under such events,” Ryujin told him. “We are launching teams to investigate each crater and so far nothing. The crystal requires certain materials in the ground, right conditions, and a powerful explosion to all make it happen. Just because you randomly detonate a nuclear bomb on the surface doesn’t make one of these crystals.”

“The fact is,” Theo added. “We have been doing aerial searches on these craters, and we investigated the crater around here and were unable to find the crystal. However ... just because there is nothing at the crater doesn’t mean that no crystal was formed. It is very well possible that one was created, and somebody else found it before we did.”

“So if we find this crystal, then Theo will reverse the damages? Everything that has happened will never happen,” Estrella spoke out loud.

“There is no guarantee,” Theo replied. “I have never made a long jump in the past like that. It could ... rip a rift on Earth and do massive damage to every living thing here.”

“No different than the nukes that were landing on our doorsteps. Does not matter to me,” Rex remarked.

“That is our general consssensssusss as well,” Renenutet said as she hissed a little bit. “Doesss not matter anymore.”

“Could also cost my life as well,” Theo added as she sighed. “There are reasons why I can only go back so far.”

“Why not try going back 20 seconds and then 20 seconds again while doing it till you reach the fragmented timelines?” Estrella asked.

“I did that a long time ago. The rift I create not only collapses throwing me back to reality but is in the end ... very painful.”

“What about other deities? You are a collection of gods; surely, you would have others that might affect time, right?”

“We actually have one surviving deity that can also affect time, and that is the Hindu goddess Kali,” Ryujin answered her. “The problem is that Kali’s powers are more meant at advancing time forward, not going back in time. True that she is more powerful than Theo here, but in the end, Theo is the only one that can push herself into the past even if it is just seconds.”

“Plusss Kali is not exxxactly helping usss that much sssince Nuclear Armageddon anyway,” Renenutet added as her tongue flicked the air again before going back to her mouth. “Ssshe feelsss that humanity dessservesss thisss ending too.”

“We are pouring all our resources to making this happen,” Ryujin told both Rex and Estrella. “We normally enforce a strong ruling on our members, including ourselves, that nonhuman deities and nonhuman fairy tale creatures must maintain our human forms.”

“Well, that makes sense I suppose on why we would never see you or why prior to the bombs falling on why humans never saw you guys,” Rex commented. “You have all been hiding in plain sight, just like the Yuki family was doing.”

“Yes. By using our human forms, you never notice that we hide among you. It allows us to not interfere with your lives and not impact your religions and beliefs any further than needed.”

“Wow,” Estrella reacted as she focused her eyes on Theo’s body. “So, you have a human form?”

Theo nodded. A grin appeared on her face.

Ryujin explained, “With the change of the mission, however and the fact that the human race has been virtually wiped out, the Coalition of Deities has concluded that we no longer need to maintain our human forms. We have no need to maintain them if the timeline is going to be changed for the better anyway.”

It all made sense to Rex now as he started to put it all together. He always wondered why he began to see creatures that shouldn’t exist that started to appear after Armageddon. Ryujin and his team had explained it to them on why they began to show up and in such large droves.

“How can we help you,” Estrella asked them. “If it means being able to fix and restore the human race, what can we provide to such powerful creatures such as yourselves?”

“Information,” Theo asked. “You know the terrain better than we do. Yes, some of us can fly, yes some of us have some foresight abilities, but in the end, you humans know some things we don’t. Lack of information is surprisingly our biggest weakness right now, and if you know of any groups of people that might have any leads on where we can find an Einstein Crystal, then help us. All members of the Coalition are in full search mode to get a crystal right now. Tell us, and we will send ourselves or another team to go and investigate it immediately.”

“Hmmm...” Rex thought. “We have met some various groups that operate in the area. Various gangs and clans have taken over and might have some information. One such gang has been getting stronger that even we were planning on getting out of here. We killed four just yesterday that was trying to ... well. We learned that we had to shoot first at times and ask questions later.”

There was much relief in Estrella’s eyes. “You don’t know how happy we are to hear of these news. To know that we have hope now, to know that this ... all this ... this great world has a second chance again.”

“We must warn you that thisss might not work, but yesss it isss worth it,” Renenutet concluded as she looked at Rex. “It isss and mussst be tried.” She had an almost devious grin as her eyes scanned his body. “I myssself enjoy the company of humansss very much.”

“I hear something getting closer,” Ryujin observed as his eyes began to scan the area.

Suddenly all of the characters began to look around. Rex and Estrella started to look around from inside the truck as Renenutet started to slither away from the vehicle to the middle of the highway. Her long rifle was still ready as she carried it with both hands to see what was coming.

Estrella was the first to see it as Ryujin and Theo were next to spot it. It was a small column of vehicles that were traveling down the highway.

“Tank!” Estrella yelled as her eyes were looking from the truck.

“Son of a bitch!” Rex reacted when he saw it too. “I can recognize it too. Painted in black ... Hollow Angels.”

“You know of this group?” Ryujin asked.

“Yes, they are the most powerful clan we just mentioned whose member we killed. They sometimes send a column of their own to invade other clan territories or plunder from others. These guys are nasty. After the end of the war, I wouldn’t be surprised that some have commandeered armored military vehicles.”

“I count three vehicles in one column,” Estrella commented. “One M60 Main Battle Tank, and two trucks. One truck has a machine gun mounted on the back of the bed. Might be facing at least six to eight men, not including who might be in the tank.”

“I might suggest retreating from them,” Rex told the group. “You guys, I don’t know if you can take on a tank. No offense to you dragon, but your swords won’t penetrate the armor of the tank.”

There was almost a laugh from Renenutet as she hissed in rapid succession to simulate her laughter. “You have no idea what we can do, Rex. They are not only outgunned, but they are certain to lose this fight.”

“They will shoot first,” he told them. “They don’t care what they see.”

“They will wisssh that they retreated,” she told him.

“Right, prepare for combat!” Ryujin ordered to the team. “Rex, Estrella, get to a safe distance as we engage them.”

Rex turned his head to look at Estrella. There was a look of determination from Estrella’s face as she saw Theo walk around the front of the truck to get in line with the other two mythics.

“Rex...” Estrella told him quietly. “I don’t think we should retreat from this battle. In less than an hour, I feel like I have a purpose to fight again. These ... gods are trying to make the world a better place again. I will not run, and neither should you.”

Rex thought about it for a little bit. He only had so much time to really consider it for so long before seeing the tank get closer and closer.

“Hollow Angels...” he cringed in his voice. “That alone makes me want to fight them. I hate them and what they stand for. Let’s help them. The question is, how? They have a tank.”

Estrella herself had no answer for the question as she looked at the three in formation, march and slither forward to meet the column of vehicles. The highway allowed enough room for the other two trucks to sling to the sides of the tank as they drove slowly up to meet the three mythics moving together.

“Fuck this! I am going out there to take them,” Rex told Estrella. He grabbed the shotgun from the truck as Estrella followed suit. She grabbed her Rugar rifle, and they both stepped out of the vehicle to walk up to the team formation.

The tank along the trucks was painted in black and given the same emblem of the Hollow Angels to create uniformity amongst their team. Rex with an angry look went and walked up to Renenutet’s side as he extended the stock of the shotgun and had it prepared to fire at the vehicles. His gun might not do much to the vehicles, but he didn’t care. Estrella, on the other hand, joined the side of Theo with her rifle at the ready. The five now stood in formation to face three vehicles.

The column of vehicles started to slow down. They were about 80 feet from the five as the tank slowed down, and the trucks began to slow as well.

Finally, at about 60 feet, the vehicle came to a full stop as the trucks pulled over and began to unload their passengers. The truck drivers remained inside the vehicles as the machine gunner remained as well.

The hatch of the tank popped open to reveal a punk dressed man with green hair that put his hand to the top of the tank. He had a sly look on his face as he addressed the five. Altogether, five men from the trucks, along with an armed truck and a tank, all stood in front of the group.

“Well, well!” yelled the man from the tank in a contented look. “What do we have here? Looks like three monsters and two people are blocking our path! Of course, I can believe that you monsters are just people playing disguise to scare us! Well, guess what? It won’t work on us! Right men?”

The five men were all armed with rifles of various designs and modifications. One held his gun up and pulled out a large knife of some sort. He took the knife and practically licked the blade without cutting himself in the process as some sort of intimidation tactic.

The mythics noticed that the humans alongside them were not leaving. They were going to hold their ground against the powerful forces ahead of them. Rex knew all well what these Hollow Angels were capable of. If it were just him and Estrella, then they would have had no choice but to retreat. The catch, of course, was even with the presence of these mythics, how they could hold their own against armored vehicles were anyone’s guess.

“Tank leader!” Ryujin yelled at the human. “You have one chance right now! Turn around and flee, and we will spare your lives!”

The punk leading the tank and the men simply laughed. “You think dressing up in costumes is going to fucking scare us? Men, what do you think? I see one woman right there, and I know some of you haven’t gotten laid in a while. I don’t know what tricks you are pulling on us to make me think that you are women, but if that is the case ... how about you strip those costumes and show us if you are women ripe for us.”

He stuck his tongue out almost to mock them. The other men had similar grins on their faces. Even with the creatures that flew overhead at times and standing in plain sight in front of them, the men seemed unfazed against the mythics that obviously stood in their way.

“Give up, freaks! Otherwise, I am taking out that truck ... oh ... ha, ha,” he laughed. “That is one of our trucks...” The green-haired man simply nodded his head. “I see ... I did have some missing people on a mission that haven’t returned ... now I see what happened.”

The commander slapped the top of his tank as Rex, Estrella, and the mythics stood in formation.

“Men ... kill them!” he yelled as he grabbed the hatch and closed it immediately. All negotiations ended right then and there.

The tank turret began to turn as it aimed its main gun at their truck. The machine gun from the vehicle opened fire immediately as the men also started to pour weapons fire at them. Rex lifted his shotgun and took a quick aim at one of the men. He pulled the trigger of his gun as the area was filled with the sounds of weapons fire. Estrella took aim with her rifle and fired immediately. Bullets wised back and forth between Rex, Estrella, the other mythics, and Hollow Angel’s men. Both stood in a wide-open field of pavement with nowhere to hide.

Renenutet was the first to draw blood as she aimed her long Jezail rifle at the machine gunner. She pulled the trigger of the gun as a powerful round echoed from her rifle, sending a heavy bullet into the gunner’s chest. The bullet pierced his chest as the machine gun fell silent, and his body slumped over from the bed of the truck. She then, with her serpentine hand, grabbed the bolt of her rifle and pulled it up and back to eject the spent casing and send a new round from the magazine into the gun before putting the bolt back. Two shots from the men slammed into her chest and face, but the bullets bounced off of her doing no damage.

Ryujin took a deep breath. Some of the shots were directed at him as the bullets slammed into him, again doing no damage to him. He then released his breath as he unleashed a powerful blue fireball from his mouth, hitting one of the men setting him ablaze.

Suddenly a powerful explosion rocked the scene as the tank fired its powerful High explosive round from its 105mm cannon. The bullet flew with amazing speed as it smashed directly into the truck behind the group of mythics. The shell detonated as the vehicle exploded, sending shrapnel from all directions. The shockwave hit Rex as he flew a few feet and into the pavement. Renenutet turned to look down and could see Rex bleeding from the mouth. Shrapnel dotted his back as it didn’t look good at all.

“Rex!” Estrella yelled in shock. She dropped her rifle as she ran to his slumped over body. The concussive blast was overwhelming for her as her ears rang out. As she ran over to him, a round from one of the men hit her body and went straight to her heart. She slumped over to the pavement breathing her last. It seemed that the journey of Rex and Estrella was all over. They would never get the chance to see what would happen with the journey of these mythics and if they would accomplish their mission...

It was as if time stopped, literally as Theo saw the whole event. Of course, there was always something that she could do. She was the Goddess of Time, after all, as she assessed the whole situation. She still had her powerful hand cannon holstered up as she watched the entire battle. She anticipated all of this and knew that staring down the gun barrel of a tank was no laughing matter. But in the end, she had all the time in the world...

The minotaur lifted her hand and shouted, “Revert!” as light emitted from her open furred palm.

Suddenly everything went into a negative color as if someone took a photograph, and the colors went into a negative spectrum. Everything stopped, frozen in space. She looked around her admiring her work. She always enjoyed this part of her work. It allowed her to have maximum control of the scene. In the end, she was unstoppable, a force that could never be controlled as time was always on her side as long as she had the magical capability to do so.

“Tsk, tsk,” Theo said out loud. Only she moved in the frozen environment she created. She stepped forward-looking at the whole situation. She saw the still-burning flames of the truck as her eyes went to Estrella. Her crumpled body lay on the pavement.

“You ran to him, and that is what got you killed,” Theo commented out loud to Estrella. “And here I wanted to explore your ... preferences. I saw how you looked at me. A woman like yourself must exist that enjoys the presence of ... other women. Let me make this a better outcome, shall I?”

She turned her head to look at Rex that was slumped to the pavement.

“You humans,” she practically giggled. “I love you guys so much. Why are you so fragile? She must care for you. I want to explore more about this relationship you two have. I wouldn’t be surprised if you two might have been doing to each other and surviving this hellish landscape. Don’t worry, Rex. There are plenty of ... hmm how would they say... ‘fish in the pond,’ besides ... that snake goddess already has an eye on you. You might need to give her a chance if you are willing. She already has much experience with human relationships as it is.”

Of course, nobody responded to Theo. Everyone was frozen solid as she transversed time itself. She had halted time and simply walked around like it was nothing.

“Let’s see what I can do here,” as her bovine eyes turned to look at the truck. She waved her hand in the air. Her tail flicked as time started to reverse. The wreckage of the vehicle began to resemble. The shrapnel that sliced into Rex came out of him as it went back into the truck. She smiled as she saw the vehicle was back together. She kept waving her hand as the shell fired from the tank came out of the truck as it slowly went back to the point that she now stood next to the flying projectile.

“Hmmm...” she looked at the shell closely and looked back at the tank. “Such foolishness to fire on us like that,” she shook her head. “What goes around comes around, my mother would always say. Of course, my father would always say that” she said as she looked at Estrella that was now in formation with the rest, along with Rex. Theo then took the shell, and with both her hands, grabbed the projectile that was frozen in mid-flight. She then, with her mighty strength, took and began to alter the trajectory of the shell by turning it. By the time she finished up, she had given one good look as she nodded her head. The round was now pointing at the tank, the very vehicle that fired it.

“Yeah, I like that,” she said satisfied. “Umph ... holding things still this long are taxing on the system. I suppose that will do.”

Theo walked back to where she was standing in formation. She then unholstered her revolver and pointed it at the men as she used her free hand and held it out. She then snapped her fingers as everything went to normal color again. Time resumed normally as suddenly the shell fired from the tank was now heading straight back at it. There was no warning to the others. Rex and Estrella jolted from the tank as it opened fire but were suddenly met with the tank exploding as the high explosive round slammed into it. The armor of the tank broke apart as the splash damage of the shell sent a shockwave that hit one of the men and sent two others flying from the armored vehicle.

“What are you waiting for, Estrella?” Theo called out to her as she took her hand cannon and aimed it at one of the men and opened fire. The powerful round slammed into the man’s chest as it blew a hole into him. He fell to the ground dead as the other men were in shock at what happened. Some of the men screamed as Rex almost stood in amazement at the tank that blew up after it fired. He would have to figure out what happened that caused the event.