SMG4:// Exodus

Part 3: Exodus [v2.0]

Ch 1: The Fists of God

The peace was cut short by more earthquakes and the sound of screeching metal. Saiko watched her getaway car slip slowly off the road. They stared down at the lake of world-ending Negative Meme Energy continue eating away at the road. All of them evidently backed up.  The crater had eroded most of the street, cutting through the road behind them. The red sky was only growing deeper red. They hadn't done much by escaping.

"Where are the Guardians?" Tari asked. The last anyone had seen of them was at the seminar hall, which was now beyond any kind of habitability to anyone. Everyone had bet on them surviving, but looking at the world around them, that bet was giving way to doubt.

Suddenly, two silhouettes flew out from the roof of one of the buildings, crashing through the stairways and awnings below and landing with an audible thud at the doors to a small boutique. They rolled slowly off each other, revealing two nearly pancaked, smaller silhouettes.

"SMG4, SMG3!," Meggy exclaimed, "Where've you guys been?"

SMG3 craned up with a groggy look, "We, uh... alerted the horde..."

Suddenly the road far ahead erupted with thousands and thousands of shapes, charging down the road and flooding through windows and alleyways. They galloped and sped along the ground faster than any human or humanoid meme could. SMG4 had, at this point, recovered consciousness and was diving behind the rest of them. The roaring wave of gnashing teeth and glowing eyes was closing in. Everyone either primed their weapon or braced for a quick and extremely painful death.

Suddenly, something hit the ground in front of Meggy, shattering her eardrums. The smoke cleared, revealing a USB port styled drop pod, emblazoned with bright, fiery orange over a white background. The arrow design caught the Guardians attention. The automatic latch door opened slowly, against the onslaught of Negative Memes ahead. Everyone held their breath.

Slowly and with unwarranted, yet unrivaled elegance, a man with an antelope's head carrying a huge musket rifle with a bayonet affixed to the barrel walked in a soldiers march out of the USB ship and stood at attention facing away from them. He wore an orange coat with a bandelier carrying small narrow jars of what appeared to be gunpowder, with slim white pants and a huge musketeer's hat. He stared seriously at the approaching threat, musket at his side. Abruptly, he raises his gun and points down the barrel at the swarm, appearing to only aim at them. He stands there for a long moment as the Negatives keep advancing.

"Oh," mutters the man, surprised. He lowers his musket and turns to the terrified and confused crowd behind him.

"... I guess this Universe really is more incompetent than I expected."

The street explodes.

The entire wall of over a thousand Negatives is ripped apart as a wide, circular bullet hole is literally torn open through the center of the writhing collective mass, scattering hundreds and hundreds of limbs and blobs of NME across the skyline. There was no bullet to be seen, no sound, no recoil from the firer. Yet, the city ahead looked as through someone had fired a grenade through the middle. The man looks up, speaking to no one in particular.

"On my mark, drop the payload."

The Level 3 from earlier came into view from the lake, rampaging through the sludge toward its center.

"Mark..."

The ground erupted again as another USB ship outfitted in black and neon green landed on the opposite side, this time uninhabited with the latch door clanging open. Above them, a young girl dove through the sky toward the Level 3, one hand on the brim of the green baseball cap on her head, the other on a 3-foot-long staff with what appeared to be charms attached to it by ribbon. She looked like she was having the time of her life.