Scales like Stars Pt. 11

"And I think you are absolutely fucking out of ammo."

Xosh clenched his fist.

Then snapped his arm. Merton started to move - but the spinfusor disk sliced along his belly and burst out the side of his body with a spray of blood and a pain he couldn't even begin to describe. He clutched at his side and made a sucking, gasping noise, then a choking noise as blood started to flow from between his lips.

"You were off by one," Xosh snarled.

Merton fell to one knee.

"Merton!" Brash screamed.

Then a black flame shot out and struck his side. It flared and the wound closed up, vanished, healed as if it had never been. Merton and Xosh both looked at Ozge, who lowered her palm. "Now we're even," she said.

Brash blinked from where he sat in her arms.

"Kick his BUTT, DAD!" He shouted.

Merton turned. Xosh brought his shrike catapult around. The bladed edge of the barrel was still more than enough to disembowl Merton. Save that Merton met it with his shield - which flared to green life with a thought. Merton howled out a wordless warcry then shoved forward, driving Xosh backwards. The Emperor of the Chromatic Dominion gave ground, his feet skidding along the slick floor.

"I am a dragon you fucking monkey!" Xosh growled.

"Funny," Merton said, smirking. "I thought you were a banker."

He lifted his shield up as lightning surged from Xosh's mouth. It slammed into the shield and reflected into the ceiling with a spray of sparks. Merton slashed and Xosh parried with his shrike catapult. Silvery chrome and glowing green met and sparks flew again.

"Not that being a banker is bad!" Merton laughed, then jerked backwards as Xosh grew a third arm. His claws slashed out and once more met his shield, sparks flying. Merton stepped back again, then flew his shield. Xosh caught it with his upper hands, then had to grow two lower hands to grab onto Merton's wrist, to stop Merton's lunge from becoming an impalement. "In fact, if you stayed a fucking banker, I think we'd all be much fucking HAPPIER!"

Xosh twisted himself into a complex loop, his body shifting into an ophidian shape that let him writhe past Merton. Only Merton's quick twist and bringing up his psi-shield saved his spine. But claws still slashed along his calf and pain shot through him. He fell to one knee. Then Xosh was on him, grabbing the shield and hauling his arm upwards. Merton parried a claw strike at his chest, then slashed at Xosh. But Xosh simply took the blow, letting it split scale and muscle, not even seeming to notice. For it wasn't his scales on the line.

Instead, he knocked Merton's wrist aside, then slammed him down.

"Did you think you could defeat me!? A level one wizard with some fancy tricks?" Xosh boomed, lightning crackling around his mouth.

Merton wheezed.

"Kinda hoped..." he admitted.

Xosh lifted up his clawed talon, then grinned. "You know what I'm going to do, Merton Miles? I'm going to rip out your throat. Then I'm going to disembowel that little fucking pet of yours. Then I will have Priestess Ozge raise your ghost and I'll wring every secret you have out of your soul before binding you into my fucking ring...then...I'll make your ghost watch as I take your form and then fuck your wife. I'll make you watch as I fuck her...and then strangle her in the bed. Do you understand?" His other hand was wrapped around Merton's throat, squeezing. He rocked Merton back, then forward. "Then I'll start on your family and your friends and your concubine and your whole fucking planet. I'll make what the hellcannon would have done seem like nothing! Nothing, you hear me!"

Sparks dropped from his mouth.

Merton wheezed out a faint whisper.

Xosh chuckled, then loosened his grip slightly.

"What?" he growled.

"You..." Merton whispered. "You got red on you."

Xosh looked down.

A tiny red dot shone on his chest.

"Dee dee dee dee..." The dot swept up to his shoulder. Xosh slapped at it. "Doo doo doo doo." The dot swung to his right shoulder. "Nah nah nah nah!" The dot finally settled on Xosh's forehead - painted there by the glowing red nose of Brash as he perched on Ozge's shoulder.

Xosh blinked.

Merton jerked his head aside.

And half a kilometer away, the Talon-9's forward railgun coughed once. A tungsten dart the length of a longsword struck weakened adamantine plates, cutting a hole as perfectly straight as if it had been drawn by the ruler. Or painted by a laser. The tungsten dart didn't so much as deviate by a nanometer, meaning that it struck Emperor Xosh the First (and last) of the Chromatic Dominion right square on the back of his skull.

His head did not so much explode as become so many fine particulates. The hole continued to cleave into the ship, leaving a gaping, cherry red circle on the deck plating about half an inch from Merton's head.

The roar of the round's impact filled the room and blew Xosh's headless body off Merton's body, leaving him coughing, gasping.

Brash thrust his arms up into the air. "I get solo XP!"

"You do not!" Merton coughed, rubbing at his throat.

The ground shuddered. A low, distant roar came echoing up from the narrow hole shot into the ship. Merton stood, shakily as Ozge's head jerked up. That roar had contained words - words spoken in Abyssal. Merton looked at Ozge. She translated: "Uh, that shell just killed Pazuzu's favorite pet hellhound."

Brash hopped onto Merton's shoulder. "Don't suppose you can do any cool badass flying?" Merton asked.

"I...no..." Brash admitted. "That evil jerkbag lying evil dumb demon of nightmares drained me. I'm...still really tired..." He blushed. "I can try-"

"No, it's fine!" Merton said, nodding. He took Ozge's hand and then started to run down the corridor. The floor shook and the ceiling groaned and the whole warsphere seemed to buck and rock under their feet. It was more than the slow collapse into portals. It was something big. And it was something pissed. Merton hissed to Brash. "Brash! Cough up a nuke, please!"

"A what!?" Ozge yelped as Brash coughed, cutely, and a glowing pin roughly the size of a hand grenade. Merton spun around, looked up, and saw a crack rent in the ceiling by the shuddering of the ship. He underhanded the nuclear bomb upwards, then dragged Ozge into the biggest, thickest bit of cover he could. The white flash that bathed them was stark and fierce and burning - but with layers of adamantine between them and the relatively small tac nuke, Merton hoped that the acute radiation sickness wouldn't kick in until they were back on the Talon-9.

When he looked up, the ceiling had formed into a perfect ramp of molten metal, sloughing down into the corridor. Above him was a yawning mass of empty ship - then more corridors, their floors blown away and raining down in bits of molten metal. He winced. He hadn't quite figured out how to get past that point.

A sudden torrential roar of sonic hammer-blows struck his ears. Before his eyes, the corridors and chambers that he had revealed started to vanish, as if huge bites were being taken out of them by the worlds most ferocious woodpecker. The holes came in at a shallow angle, and he could see the rippling in the air as railgun slugs tore and tore and tore. Then adamantine sheets tore upwards in a squeal and groan of apocalyptic noise.

"Ow!" Brash groaned, clutching his claws to his head.

"There!" Merton shouted, though he wasn't sure if anyone could hear him.

There was the Talon-9.

It flew down into the gaping hole it had blown into the Warsphere, but it was still too far. There was molten metal dribbling down, enough to make a ramp. But it was still too hot. And then, like an obscure bit of rules screaming from the back of his mind just in time to right a campaign that had gone derailed, Merton screamed at Brash: "WATER CANNON!"

Brash gasped. Then his back unfolded and a water cannon the size of his whole body snapped out. Ozge pointed at that and screamed: "What the everloving fuck!?"

"It's for vampires!" Merton shouted.

"How does THAT make sense!?" Ozge screamed back as the roaring, groaning sounds of the warsphere collapsing became even louder. Water sprayed from the cannon, striking the metal. Steam filled the air and Merton didn't waste time. He sprinted forward, his feet skidding and burning at the same time as he charged up the ramp with Ozge and Brash. The water continued to sluice along and he nearly lost his footing at least five times. Then they were bursting out of the cloud - and there was the Talon-9, and hanging from her cargo hold were ropes, and hanging from the rope was Gunner. He reached out, grabbed onto Ozge's arm and bodily flung her upwards.

His arms grabbed onto Merton.

And then a blue scaled hand reached from the fog and closed around his ankle.

Merton screamed as his leg was drawn taut and he felt two hundred pounds of weight drag against him as Brash yelped and clung to the back of his head. Looking back down, he saw Xosh. He was dangling from his leg, his headless body smoking and smoldering with contact with the still hot metal. Behind him, the decks were collapsing downwards - revealing swirling portals straight into the depths of hell.

Xosh's neck stump rippled and a new head forced its way out. His eyes glowed with fury and he snarled. "I moved my brain you idiot monkey!"

Merton clenched his jaw and lifted up his free leg. "I..." he kicked Xosh in the face. "Have had..." He kicked again. "ENOUGH..." He kicked again. "OF YOU!" The last kick hit tongue. Merton had enough time to realize his mistake when Xosh chomped down and Merton's foot ceased to be a foot and started to become shattered bone, torn muscle, and pain. Lots of pain. Xosh shook his head and Merton screamed - feeling the pain of his leg, his foot, his shoulder joint. Gunner couldn't let him go to draw his pistol or rifle.

Xosh continued to speak - growing an extra mouth on the back of his head. "I may lose everything! But I will have YOU!"

A squeal of unspooling rope filled Merton's ears. He saw, through a haze of pain, Julia. She held a laser pistol in one hand and her other was on the rope. She was attached by a harness, her witches hat cocked aside. She aimed.

Fired.

And hit Merton's leg.

The laser cut through skin smoothly and left behind a smoldering ruin.

Merton howled - then gasped as the pressure on his leg vanished. "You missed!" He howled.

Xosh fell, his mouth filled with Merton's foot. His eyes were wild with furry. His arms reached upwards and he started to try and grow his wings...

Fell.

But the B-suit that he wore remained too damaged to respond...

Fell.

And so he dropped, like a stone, trailing red blood like a stream of ruby crystals...

Fell.

And then plunged into the maw of Pazuzu as he flew up towards the portal. The massive demon lord's mouth closed with a resounding srunch.

The Talon-9 lifted upwards.

Peeled away.

Dragged the ropes up. The cargo hold slammed shut and Merton sprawled backwards against Gunner and Julia. Julia, her voice thick, her eyes brimming, gasped: "Y-You take way more damage from lasers, sorry!"

Merton...simply laughed. Hysterically. He sprawled back and wheezed out: "Should have named him Toothless!"

Underneath the Talon-9, the warsphere collapsed down to a single point of shimmering red light, the portal that had been sustained by the recursive feedback of the hellcannon rippling. Pazuzu massive arm reached out, groping around wildly for the ship that had killed his favorite hellhound. Then the portal started to close and he withdrew his arm in a hurry - yanking it back before the portal slammed shut with a reverberating boom that could be heard on Earth.

And across the Earth, crowds that had gathered to pray, to hold one another for the last time, to run for shelter...begin to cheer.

***

"He gets a FUCKING TALK SHOW?!"

"Honey," Relix said, putting her hands on her hips as Merton slammed the news paper shut. "You need to keep calm. Humans take forever to regrow limbs. Doubly so when they take that much hard radiation."

"Sorry, but, I'm with Merton on this one," Julia said.

Merton tossed the newspaper - the headline EX-PRESIDENT NEW SHOW TO AIR ON FOX - visible from the can and laid back in his hospital bed. The window of his room looked out on the vast blue-white swath of the Pacific Ocean, shimmering as druidic magic on a scale the galaxy hadn't seen for centuries was worked by xenodruids from the depths of House Rengario's jungle planets struggled to save the Great Barrier Reef. The hospital ship - the USNS Comfort - was, even weeks after the battle, still filled with priests of various faiths and the mineral wealth of several African nations. Most of the bodies out there were being raised, if possible.

Not every one could be. Not every soul called out to be returned to their mortal coil. Not every priest could find them out there. But the death toll of the battle was still ticking downward - though its rate of reduction would level off then cease as the last bodies became too desiccated in space. It was harder to find all of them than you might expect.

The door clunked as someone knocked politely. Relix scowled, but stepped aside as the door opened and the President of the United States came into the room. He looked drawn and worn down, but that was usually what Presidents looked like so Merton wasn't about to complain.

"Well, uh," he said, nodding to Merton. "I cannot overstate what you've done, Mr. Miles."

Relix bristled. "I helped!"

"You kidnapped a sovereign citizen of the United States," President Miller said, frowning. "Multiple times!"

"Pff!" Relix scoffed.

"Honey..." Merton said, chuckling as he sat up, wincing as the regrowth enchanted cast around his stump shifted. The pain that tingled from where his foot was regrowing made him wince every few hours, and sometimes woke him up from his sleep in a cold sweat. Worth it, though. Having a foot again beat the fuck out of the alternatives.

Relix shrugged. "Anyway, you can take your Medal of Honor-"

"That's reserved for members of the military," President Miller said, his voice dry.

"-and shove it. Merton has been given the Prismatic Talon and honorary dragonhood." She petted his head gently. Brash crawled out from underneath the pillow at that moment, yawning. He blinked as he saw the President, then waved excitedly.

"Hi!"

President Miller looked as if he was getting a great big throbbing headache. This, also, was pretty normal for Presidents. "Overlooking the kidnapping-"

"Oh!" Brash gasped. "You can't spell kidnap without nap!"

President Miller's brow furrowed. "I don't see how that applies..." he said, frowning.

"It doesn't not apply!" Brash said, fanning out his wings excitedly.

"No it does not!" The President snapped, his temple clearly throbbing.

"Double negatives make twice positive, and then the two pairs pair off and kiss!" Brash said, curling his tail around his legs as he sat back like a cat.

"Brash, you can stop helping now," Merton whispered while Julia giggled from the corner of the room.

"Because I won!" Brash exclaimed.

"We need someone to be the United Nations' diplomat to the Metallic Empire. Earth is in a tenuous position - the Chromatic Dominion, according to our metallic friends, has been severely weakened, but several of the Chromatic houses have chosen to fortify their territory. They can send more fleets after us." The President frowned. "We need allies."

Merton slowly leaned back. "And you want me and Relix to ensure we have them?"

The President sighed. "Yes."

"You call it an Empire," Relix said. "But...that's overstating it slightly. Yes, several close allies of House Castrovel are helping. But there are other metallic houses that have formed their own kingdoms. Then there are secessionists - drow, dwarvish, orcish. It's a mess."

"All the more need for a skilled...party..." President Miller. "Like you and anyone else you want to hire on."

Merton smiled, slowly. He leaned back in his seat. "So, when does it stop being the United Nations and become the Earth Alliance? Or Systems Alliance? Or United States of Earth?"

President Miller chuckled. It was a dry chuckle. But his eyes gleamed with the avid excitement of someone who knew that the future held as much promise as it held danger. "We shall see, Mr. Miles." He inclined his head. "We expect you to recover fast."

Once the President left, Relix grinned down at Merton. "It'll be quite an adventure. Disparate houses to re-unite, secessionists to talk to our side. And lets not even get into the insanity you're pushing for..." She said, reaching out to caress Merton's chin.

"What insanity?" Julia asked. "I wasn't informed of insan..." She paused. "You knew he'd ask?"

Merton smiled, clasping his hands on his belly. "I suspected..." he said, smiling slightly. "And I discussed possibilities with Relix."

Relix scowled. "I still tell you, no one will go for it."

"Go for what?" Julia asked, excitedly. She started to bounce in the seat.

Merton smiled. "A little thing called representational democracy."

"Ohhhhh myyyy gawwwwwwwd yaaaaaaaaaaas!" Julia thrust her fists into the air. "Lets Hamilton this fucking galaxy up, WHAT WHAT!" She leaped to her feet. "I'm young, scrappy and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my...shot!" She danced.

Merton laughed - then winced, then cried out as Relix and Julia chose that moment to pounce onto the bed. And the ship continued to orbit as below them the Earth spun and accepted new refugees and new settlers and new merchants and new ideas. And as people went to work on building the new defense ships or civilian spelljammers for booming space exploration and space exploitation industries, and as pundits jawed and twitters tweeted and trolls flamed and people were people in the great, complex, beautiful mosaic that was humanity...each of them looked up.

At the stars.

Glittering like the scales of a dragon - waiting to be conquered.

THE END

Merton, Brash, Relix and company will return in The Quantum Horde!