Wizards vs Aliens: Spanner In The Works

Chapter One: Somewhere In The Tranquil English Countryside...

Contains mild scary moments

Chapter One

Somewhere in England, there was a quiet country village, lit not by street lamps as darkness clouded over the sky, but rather multiple candles placed in each and every window. There were few hints as to modern intervention in this serene haven; a satellite dish balanced on a roof, a television seen inside a lounge, a mobile phone abandoned on a coffee table. No teenagers stalked the streets. Occasionally a fox scampered across the road, but with minimal interruption.

Such a tranquil location could be deemed as being cut off from the world - closer to nature, indeed, for woodland surrounded the houses and roads, uniting the human civilisation with the wild, magical ways of the forest. A mysterious setting as this could not be passed by the wonders of the Netherside. Usually, the odd faerie flitted past a home or a will-o-the-wisp floated into somebody's garden, but rarely anything more.

Echoes of soft giggles intertwined with the whisper of gentle breezes, progressively becoming louder and louder, until anybody standing outside would surely catch ear of them. The laughter grew less mild; before long mischievous screeches drowned out the wind. Eventually, small shadows flashed past dustbins and flower beds. The shrieks became meaner, and were soon joined by collapsed washing lines, bin spillages, flowers being uprooted and so on...

This was most certainly not the work of a harmless elf or a hamadryade.

The village was in deep trouble.

There was only one magical being renowned for wreaking such devastating havoc.

Gremlins.

They were the naughtiest, most disrespectful, most hair-wrenchingly abominable of all the creatures of the Netherside (rivalled only by goblins, trolls and bogles) and they were right here on the doorstep of so many innocent victims, who were ignorantly slumbering through all the pandemonium that was being inflicted upon their lovely settlement.

Unfortunately, aside from being troublemakers, gremlins also had a terrible habit of drawing attention to themselves. They fed upon mischief, so anyone sensitive to enchantment could easily feel the amount of nourishment they were generating from their mayhem. Likewise, anybody who had programmed a scrying mirror or a computer to detect such powerful magic would soon be alerted that there was an abundance of it right within the town the gremlins had victimised...

The peaceful village was about to receive yet another unconventional visitor. A tall man clad in blue armour with yellow scaly skin and tentacles materialised onto a street, accompanied by several henchmen. He held up his arm, reading the data on a screen built into his gauntlet.

Varg directed the soldiers forward. The Nekross were truly going to feast upon a wealth of delicious magic that night!

Since all the villagers were in bed, no-one caught sight of the team of burly aliens striding toward the centre of the gremlins' play. It was not difficult to detect where each little monster was hiding, as they left a trail of destruction everywhere their feet trod.

Varg paced toward a cluster of bushes, as the guards got ready the containers in which they would carry their prizes back to their spaceship. The creature in the bush snickered merrily, totally oblivious of the fate that awaited him. Two of the crewman laid down the crate. Of course, a gremlin might not just walk into an empty box simply from curiosity. To ensure they were captured, bait had been positioned within - what more could a gremlin not resist than a machine just waiting to be ripped to pieces, in this case a blaster.

The prince bent down, his eye on the target. He beckoned to the henchmen, and they moved behind the rubbish bins, as to avoid being seen by their prey. Varg concealed himself behind a letter box, only to realise it was much too short to hide him properly, so he bent down, straining to stop his knees from jutting out.