Worlds War One

lii [Badia]

It was different than she pictured it would be. Bad had imagined something terrible. The stink of sulfur, a haze of smoke, the screams of the damned. But She'ol was not hell. It wasn't the place where doomed souls went when someone died. This place was the home of Mot, someone older than even hell itself, as old as the dawn of time. It wasn't some nightmare realm full of terror and torture. It was endless nothingness.

The ground was completely flat, a matte surface devoid of any color. It stretched in every direction without variation. It existed without bump or trough, more floor than landscape, as even as polished concrete poured by an expert mason. No vegetation pocked its surface, and no ridge formed as far as Bad could see.

Above, the sky was entirely dark. No cloud existed, and no star shined. Vast nothingness seemed to stretch on forever. Like a bottomless pit only stretched overhead. A void without edge and contents, empty and empty and more empty. What kind of sky featured no stars, no planets, no comets or constellations? What universe was this?

"It is so lonely." Private Ramírez turned all around. "He's been living in this realm by himself since the beginning?"

"Since the very start of all time, yes," Saanvi confirmed.

"No wonder he wanted offspring to keep him company," Private Ramírez said.

"Being lonely is no excuse for annihilating souls and stealing bodies, Private," Bad snapped.

"But it is a reason, Lieutenant," Private Ramírez said. "It helps me understand why he did it."

"The enemy always has a reason, soldier. I'm not here to understand. I'm here to make him stop. If he needed someone to hug, there were better ways to go about it."

"Understood, Lieutenant," the soldier replied, although he still seemed curious. Bad could handle curious if it didn't preempt following orders.

"Remember, Mot nearly killed Panina in Arcadia. If the spirit of the realm itself hadn't saved her...."

"I'm not going soft, Lieutenant. I'll have your back."

Bad nodded.

They walked for what seemed like endless miles. Saanvi had told Seaman Choi that Magi could make glamours powerful enough to mask their approach. Seaman Choi practiced a spell as they hiked onward. The only advantage they had was the element of surprise. Bad bargained the whole mission on Rotten assuming that the Misfits had been too overpowered in Arcadia to be foolish enough to pursue. Seaman Choi finally managed to create a glamor that made the squad invisible to anyone looking in their direction.

As the squad marched forth, they made shapes out of the uneven horizon. There were buildings. Someone had built homes of various structural materials upon the flat floor of She'ol. Upon closer inspection, the building materials were the bodies of undead Golems. Each house was slate or mica or quartz or shale—several dozen structures. Penina studied them as if they were haunted houses—Bas realized they were the hollow husks of Penina's brethren. The citizens of She'ol had taken up residence in these skeletal domiciles.

"What is the plan, Lieutenant?" Airman Fox asked as they crouched along the perimeter of the small settlement.

"Drill, Private Ramírez, you and I, we are the distraction," Bad said. "We have to draw the possessed Angels off while Seaman Choi, Penina, and Princess Saanvi strike. Rotten is the target. The only target. We end him, and it should release everyone under his influence. Including Private Golden."

Bad looked at Private Ramírez, expecting an argument against being separated from Penina, but the soldier was silent. He looked at Seaman Choi, and the nephilim nodded.

"A Demon, a Golem, and a nephilim working together," Saanvi agreed. "We're the only ones who have a shot at taking down an Architect."

Bad and the other Humans split off from the rest of the squad. They wandered through the neighborhood of Golem corpses. The undead living in these hovels were not the same zombies who had attacked them in Arcadia. Residents peered out from the homes and watched Bad and her soldiers pass. The glamor concealing them from observation didn't work anymore now that Seaman Choi was with Saanvi and Penina. Besides, to act as decoys, they had to be seen. Did the undead wonder if Bad and her boys were fresh recruits? Were there so many undead that one did not recognize another?

Bad recalled Raqqa. She'd gone into Syria with a dozen soldiers, and she'd made it back out alive with just one. Only Drill. She had survived because of him. If she was going to make it out of She'ol alive, the big sergeant might end up being the only thing between life and death once again. Drill stayed close. Bad wouldn't want it any other way.

Johnny Rotten and his soldiers had gathered at the center of this makeshift town. Private Golden stood on his flank. Angels surrounded the undead army. There must have been a hundred zombie soldiers gathered around Rotten. He was pointing at a map certainly older than ancient Egypt, markings stranger than hieroglyphics adorning the aged parchment. Bad and her crew could almost get within striking distance before Private Golden marked them as they approached.

Rotten drawled, "Braver than I thought. Stupider than you ought to be."

"She brought the big guy," Private Golden taunted. "I thought Drill turned tail and ran with the Ghost. I can't believe you got the superstitious lummox to walk right into the heart of She'ol."

"There are enemies all over the worlds, Rotten," Bad declared, hand on the hilt of her knife. "Wide or narrow, there's always someone who wants to take what doesn't rightly belong to them."

"These bodies are all mine, Human," Rotten said. "You borrowed them for a while, like a book from a library. But I'm calling them due sooner than expected."

"I don't believe you're the one that gets to decide when they come due," Bad argued.

"I don't believe you know one way or the other," Rotten retorted.

This situation would end only one way. There was only one way anything like this ever finished. With violence. Each time. Because all these Wider Worlds might be full of magic and wonders and things beyond imagination, Angels and the Almighty and beautiful places straight out of myth, powerful objects that can make wishes come true, weapons beyond the ken of simple man, concepts that could confound even Einstein, and yet there was a straightforward truth that was not two twists from the telling. It was a universal law. If you want something, you must fight for it. At the center of All is violence.

"I've come for my soldier," Bad said. "And I mean to take her with me."

"If I send her back with you, can I expect you will stand down and retreat?" Rotten asked.

"I wasn't here asking," Bad said. "First, you die. Then Private Conner comes with us."

"Die?" Mot asked. "I have lived as long as Time itself, you insolent Human. You insignificant speck. You small blip on the canvas of forever. I will not die. I am beyond your limited scope of existence."

"Then I will settle for making you shut up," Bad answered.

The undead attacked. And Bad was ready for the fight.