Apocalypse Tamer - Chapter 122: Man vs Hospitality

The Bohens had gathered quite the motley crew of allies across their journey. It didn’t occur to Basil just how many until they gathered for a war council.

No tent could hold them all, so they held the meeting on the deck of Cassandra’s ship. General Leblanc, chief commander of the French Armed Forces, was the first to teleport in; his aide, Neria Elissalde, followed shortly. Leaders from the Swords of Saint George gathered under the paladin Simeon, alongside minor warchiefs the Bohens helped in Germany and Hungary. None impressed foreign dignitaries as much as Vasi’s father, Braniño, who had guards pull out a red carpet so his feet wouldn’t touch the dirty ground. At least he took the time to hug his daughter in public along the way, much to her chagrin.

“I am so proud,” said the demon king with tears in his eyes. “I look away for one month, and you are already higher leveled than Daddy!”

“You are not mad I became a full Fomor?” Vasi asked her father. Considering she had denied a transformation into a fiend, she must have expected her father to be bitter about it.

“Why? Your mother’s cruel fairy elegance is why I fell in love with her in the first place!” Maure wiped tears off his reptilian eyes. “I already imagine you crushing mortals under your heel… you grew up too fast…”

“I, uh…” Vasi rubbed her hands together, clearly unsure how to reply. “Thank you, Father.”

“You… you called me Father…” His daughter’s words only caused Maure to cry once more. “I’m so happy!”

While his behavior made Vasi uncomfortable, Basil noticed a small smile forming at the edge of the witch’s lips. Perhaps there was hope for these two.

Even Ronald was present at the gathering. A Boss leaving his dungeon exposed the Neurotower to danger by removing its forcefield, but by now Château Muloup was a well-fortified fortress. Enough troops protected the Guild’s base so that Ronald could afford to join the assault.

Only one person was missing.

“Where’s Varney?” Basil asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Hiding,” Shellgirl replied with a smirk. “No seriously, I’ve no idea.”

“Your guess is correct,” Vasi said with a snort. “I’ve contacted him through the Logs. He said he was too busy treating refugees to send military support, but he will make sure his dungeon would work as a ‘fallback zone,’ whatever that means.”

Basil wondered each day why he had spared that cowardly vampire. “I should summon him as a meat shield,” he complained as he and his teammates took their seats around the war table. “But knowing the leech, he’ll dodge and let us eat bullets at an inconvenient time.”

There were many faces he did not recognize among the warlords present, including a man dressed as a Buckingham guard and snapping orders at a certain ‘Karim.’ Most humans present were Europeans however, and either level sixty or approaching it. The Bohens remained the most powerful group present, but this war council was not to be underestimated.

“Is it wise to organize a meeting so close to the enemy’s territory?” Simeon asked the assembled warlords. Cassandra’s warship remained a few kilometers close to Ashok’s God-Field.

“Metal Olympus must have already detected us by now.” General Leblanc stroked his beard as he observed the thunder-saturated horizon. “However, I suspect they will wait for us to enter their master’s field before engaging us. Their objective is not to win in a pitched battle, but to protect their territory. They possess eighty kilometers of buffer land to bleed us dry, so why would they attack us now?”

“I doubt they expect our plan of attack either,” Cassandra said. “They must be preparing for a standard assault rather than the more unorthodox tactics we’ve discussed.”

“Are we certain this ritual of yours will work, Cassandra?” Simeon asked with skepticism. “We exploited a similar flaw to invade the Unity’s systems, but it strikes me as odd that Metal Olympus shares it.”

“I believe they are unaware of their weakness,” Cassandra replied. “We have experimented with scrying. We can observe parts of their dungeons by using our allies’ godly essences as a focus.”

“They don’t know anything,” Little Nessia confirmed. “These people meddle with forces they do not comprehend.”

General Leblanc joined his hands. “What you want to do is a repeat of our successful attack on the Unity: make their Faction network believe we are part of it and let us in.”

“Oh, I love a good decapitation strike.” Braniño reminisced in his chair like a serial killer reliving his crime. “I collected so many heads over my long career… the nostalgia…”

“We must take the Apocalypse Force’s troops into account,” General Leblanc pointed out. “Our intelligence division informed us they intend to leave Thessaloniki once the Incursion concludes. From early reports, the Horsemen have elected to downsize their army and move with a smaller elite guard.”

Basil scowled. From his experience in Hungary, he knew that the Apocalypse Force’s version of ‘downsizing’ involved culling the weak to help the strong gain levels. “How much time will it take them to reach Athens?”

“Less than you, Basil,” Neria Elissalde replied grimly. “Their force is mostly made of undead, who do not have to worry about fatigue or logistics.”

“We must deal with Metal Olympus before the Incursion ends,” General Leblanc stated. “Or else we’ll either be trapped between two armies or ambushed at an inconvenient time.”

Braniño shifted on his seat. “Why not let our enemies kill each other first and then finish off the winner?”

“Because the Apocalypse Force’s goal is to capture Kalki, not claim territory,” Leblanc replied sharply. “From experience, the Horsemen react to any resistance with overwhelming force. If the Avatar is accidentally killed in the crossfire, then we can kiss the planet goodbye. Letting the Maleking’s thralls escape with him would be just as terrible.”

Braniño didn’t seem too bothered about the possibility of Earth’s destruction, but seemed to relish the upcoming fight. “I will intercept them then,” he decided. “I have run out of heroes worth killing in my world, and my forces are better at claiming territory than rescuing hostages.”

Vasi frowned at her sire with genuine concern. “Besides the fact both Horsemen are stronger than you, Father, Belphegor is nearly impossible to destroy and Brina is an expert combatant.”

“My pony princess, your concern warms my heart.” Braniño chuckled. “However, it is not the first time our family has danced with ghosts and liches. If this can’t reassure you, I only intend to delay these two. You don’t reach my age without learning when to exit the stage.”

“Oh my, I love those,” one of his demon bodyguards said with a smile full of nostalgia. “Nothing beats a paladin’s crushed face when he realizes we’ll be back for round two.”

“Let us focus, please,” Simeon grumbled, interrupting the chitchat. “The main risk I see with this operation is that Ashok and Maxwell will evacuate their hostages once we begin the invasion.”

“I’m not sure they can,” Neria said. “According to Benjamin, the Parthenon dungeon was specifically engineered to seal the Avatars away. Other dungeons won’t do the trick.”

General Leblanc remained skeptical. “We can’t exclude the possibility that Maxwell created a backup location without informing his allies. Considering the man’s duplicitous nature, I sincerely doubt he doesn’t have an ace up his sleeve. We must block all possibilities of retreat.”

“Metal Olympus controls dozens of dungeons, maybe more,” Simeon pointed out. “Some of them could be outside Europe.”

“According to Benjamin’s postmortem notes, the Parthenon is the hub for them all,” Neria replied. “Since Ashok acts as the faction’s leader, his dungeon serves as the power center of the entire organization.”

“Ashok is Metal Olympus’ Guildmaster?” Basil frowned. “Not Maxwell?”

“I was just as surprised as you are, young man, but Benjamin Leroy confirmed it before his demise,” Leblanc confirmed. “Considering Dismaker Labs’ HQ was located in Malta, I strongly suspect Maxwell wanted to decouple his personal fiefdom from Metal Olympus’ teleportation network. He only trusted his allies as far as he could throw them.”

“Divide and conquer.” Braniño snorted in disdain. “A leader afraid of his own troops has no hope of victory in wartime.”

“But it does reduce the odds of a coup,” General Leblanc replied. “Which, considering Maxwell treated his allies as expendable, might have been the entire point. They were distractions meant to divide and weaken us, and when they outlived their usefulness, he threw them to the wolves.”

Basil nodded in agreement. “The only side Maxwell serves is his own.”

“Hence here is the plan: we will teleport soldiers across Metal Olympus’ bases and overtake them all at once without leaving them a chance to regroup,” Cassandra explained. “Our seers and diviners will ensure your groups are teleported where you can do the most damage. However, Ashok must be dealt with as soon as possible. Although his control over Zeus’ essence is not as absolute as he believes, he might be able to block our access given time.”

General Leblanc smiled as he glanced at Basil’s team. “How good it is,” he said, “that I know the perfect team for the job.”

Basil shifted uncomfortably in his seat as heads turned in his party’s direction. He was almost thankful when Braniño snorted. “Only because my daughter is leading it!”

“We will do our best not to disappoint you,” Vasi said with a forced smile. Basil sensed her kicking his leg under the table to make him start talking.

A short, awkward silence stretched on as others looked at him. If they were in an action movie, now would be the time for a clever speech.

But Basil was no sweet talker, no speechwriter, no politician. He hated wasting words and public addresses weren’t his forté. He tried to think of a clever answer, but came up short.

In the end, he decided to speak from the heart.

“I…” Basil cleared his throat before rising from his seat. “I’ll be honest, I shouldn’t be at this table right now. If this world had taken a less catastrophic turn, I would be gardening right now.”

Not the best way to begin a war speech, but nobody interrupted him.

“Dismaker Labs did not give me a choice. They shattered our world, flooded it with chaos, and invited invaders to despoil our lands.” Basil briefly felt ashamed as he remembered his early days. “For a long time, I thought this was somebody else’s problem. That I could simply survive without owing anyone anything.”

Basil met everyone’s gaze. Many people present were allies gathered from other worlds, but most had lived through the System Apocalypse first-hand.

“But… as some eloquent philosopher whose name escapes me right now once said… all that evil needs to win is for good men to do nothing.” Basil coughed. “I mean, that’s why disasters always worsen. People look the other way, expecting someone else to clear up the mess for them. By the time they realize they have to act, it might be too late to change anything. Better men and women should be here fighting in our place… but they’re all dead now.”

Basil thought back of Benjamin, of Kuikui and Orcine, of his mother. His mother most of all. All dead and buried.

He wasn’t a winner. He was a survivor.

“We’re the people who were skilled enough, powerful enough, and lucky enough to make it to this moment alive. Metal Olympus is Dismaker Labs. All they do, all they have ever done, is destroy and despoil. Six billion people have died already because of them.”

The number sounded unreal when Basil said it, like a bad dream verbalized. Cassandra and Braniño, who came from worlds far less populated and developed than Earth, stared at him as if he had gone mad. It seemed that they couldn’t intellectually grasp the magnitude of the disaster.

Basil couldn’t blame them. He could hardly fathom it himself. Quantifying horror did not make it any less terrifying.

“So long as Ashok and Maxwell draw breath, more will perish.” Basil glanced at his team. The party that had followed him all the way to the Moon and back. “We’ll destroy them not because we’re the best people for the job, but because someone has to do it.”

Basil returned to his seat. “We’ve sworn an oath to cut evil’s head off once,” he concluded. “We’ll keep it.”

Vasi clapped immediately, as did Plato and Rosemarine. Bugsy whistled like a hooligan, as did Shellgirl and Ronald. The others’ reactions were more lukewarm; a few claps and sharp nods, but no applause like in the movies. Basil was fine with it. His actions would speak more than his words.

It was General Leblanc that broke the silence. “I will be blunt, young man, I have heard better speeches,” he said with a warm smile. “But you are wrong about one thing: you and your team do deserve to be here.”

“If you hadn’t saved my life in Dax, I wouldn’t be alive right now,” Neria reminded Basil. “Your actions in Bordeaux, in Paris and so many other places laid the groundwork for today’s operation.”

“Our country wouldn’t exist anymore without you, Sir Basil,” Simeon added, his words echoed by his allies’ sharp nods. “We would follow you into Hell itself, if you asked it of us.”

“I am only here because I want my daughter to be happy.” Braniño crossed his arms. “She has placed her trust in you… prove worthy of it.”

Basil snorted at the arrogant demon lord and grabbed his girlfriend’s hand under the table. He hoped he had proved himself worthy of that many times over.

With the general strategy established, the rest of the council focused on the tactical details. The presence of high-level force multipliers like Cassandra, Simeon, Maure, and Ronald offered multiple possibilities.

It was decided that the Bohens, alongside Steve and Simeon, would be teleported to Ashok’s doorstep and hopefully take him out as swiftly as possible. Maure’s army would secure the rear and prevent a pincer maneuver by the Apocalypse Force while other forces overran Athens and Metal Olympus’ other troops. General Leblanc would coordinate the assaults on the enemy’s backup dungeons from a command center, while Cassandra and Ronald would lead the ground charge on the Parthenon.

All in all, it was a simple plan. Get in, hit the enemy quickly, then establish a foothold. By now, the army had access to powerful buffs that would hopefully tip the scale in their favor.

“Then this is settled,” Cassandra said with a smile. “We attack within the hour.”

The operation went awry the moment it began.

Basil sensed it the second he and his party were teleported away. A flash of red light swallowed his vision, the same as the time when they invaded the Unity’s base on the Moon. However, instead of landing on a floor of steel and stone, Basil’s feet touched a pond of water.

“Za Warudo!”

Vasi cast her time-stop spell immediately, as was the plan. Her staff excluded the party from the effect, letting the group move and breathe while all sound stopped around them. Water droplets splashed aside by their landing froze in midair. The color gray shrouded all things.

“Battle formation!” Basil ordered. Rosemarine, who had come in her full draconic glory, expanded her wings to cover the team. Bugsy and Shellgirl moved to the left and right, while Plato hid under the cover of invisibility. They expected to land in front of Ashok, or in a room filled with soldiers.

They were deceived.

The hall the Bohens landed in was some kind of temple, but not the Greek kind. Hundreds of colossal neurotowers supported a marble ceiling so tall not even Rosemarine’s head could reach it. The pond under the team’s feet reached up to the ankles, and lotus flowers floated on its surface. All in all, the place reminded Basil more of an Indian sanctuary than the Greek Parthenon.

“Where’s Steve?” Shellgirl asked almost immediately. The Steamobile should have teleported with them, yet it was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Simeon?”

“We’ve been had!” Basil grit his teeth as he noticed a distinct absence of reinforcements. He scanned the area with Monster Insight, expecting Ashok’s soldiers to ambush them. “Bugsy!”

“I sense someone, Boss!” Bugsy looked up at the other end of the hall, right behind Basil. “There!”

Basil turned around, his halberd raised for the kill. Instead of striking, he froze in place.

Three golden statues of the Trimurti sat at the end of the strange sanctuary in a lotus position, each of them larger than Rosemarine herself. The representations of Brahma and Shiva gazed down on the Bohens with an ominous look, but it was Vishnu that spooked Basil the most. Two of the Preserver’s four hands held crimson spheres within which the vague shape of a man and a woman could be seen. Basil immediately recognized Kalki’s silhouette.

A second man sat atop the sphere, a mocking smile on his loathsome face.

“I’m sorry I had to reroute you so suddenly,” Maxwell falsely apologized with a mocking tone. “I thought we should have a little chat.”

Time had come to a halt, yet the enemy could still move within it.

“Chat this!” Rosemarine raised her cannon arms at Maxwell without skipping a beat. “Eden–”

“Stop!” Basil shouted, his dragon halting her movement. “You might harm Kalki!”

“I would not recommend it.” Anton Maxwell hadn’t changed one iota since the Bohens last encountered him in Paris. His red, lionlike mane smelled of blood, and sunglasses hid his deceitful eyes from sight. Everything about his body language screamed danger. “If you wake these two up, this ruined world will come to an end.”

Vasi floated above Basil, her staff raised for battle. “My Logs option is disabled,” she warned her boyfriend. “I cannot send messages.”

“Thinking about summoning reinforcements, are you?” Maxwell crossed his legs in amusement. “Don’t tell me you’re worrying about the cannon fodder?”

“What have you done with our allies, villain?” Bugsy snarled, his star of a tail turning red as blood.

“Nothing. Your plans will unfold as you expected, at least once time resumes in three, two…” Maxwell snapped his fingers. “Right now.”

The gray veil covering the world vanished and the march of time resumed. Floating droplets fell into the pond as gravity called them down, and the sound of distant explosions rocked the ceiling. It appeared the Bohens’ allies were assaulting the complex as planned.

Or they had fallen into ambushes.

“If we’re here…” Shellgirl frowned as she realized the obvious problem. “Who is taking care of Ashok?”

“Nobody, I’m afraid,” Maxwell replied. “Perhaps I will send you to him once we’re done. I’m in the mood to gloat for a few more minutes.”

Wary of a trap, Basil analyzed Kalki’s prison and Maxwell himself with Monster Insight. The System confirmed the man trapped in the sphere was the real deal.

As for Dismaker Labs’ CEO… a notification spelled out his real name to Basil.

Mammon, System Virus

Level Ø [ERROR]

Faction: Apocalypse Force.

“Mammon…” Basil clenched his fist. “So it was true… you are a Horseman.”

“I’ve always favored the guise of the wealthy and the powerful,” Maxwell mused. “It helps with the suckers.”

“All this time, you were just the Maleking’s little pet?” Plato snorted. “Disappointing.”

“Is the flock’s master the largest ram eating the grass, or the shepherd who herded them?” Maxwell chuckled. “That brute does not even care for his own faction, let alone command it. It is I who raised him as an icon to worship and convinced fools to follow in his rampage. Many civilizations are too peaceful to embrace the weapons provided by a System, even with all the carrots it provides. They need an existential threat to gather against.”

“And the Unity?” Vasi glared wrathfully at the mastermind. “You shared the Neurotowers’ blueprints with them, did you not?”

“Dragons do not need any push to think themselves masters of the universe, let alone their so-called Grandmaster.” Maxwell made a mock reverence. “But true, those self-centered reptiles wouldn’t even have imagined the existence of other worlds if I hadn’t revealed it to them.”

It was him all along, Basil thought grimly. The blood of a hundred worlds stained this cruel puppeteer’s hands.

“Truly, who is more worthy of calling themselves Conquest than my humble person?” Maxwell put a hand on his chest, right where his heart of stone should have been. “Humans called Alexander a conqueror because he despoiled a quarter of this world, but I have destroyed thousands of them. His empire lasted a fortnight, while those I have inspired trample billions into dust as we speak.”

Everything that this monster touched turned to ashes.

“And now you’re going to kill Kalki before our eyes and add this planet to your list of crimes?” Basil asked with a scowl. “Is that yet another cruel trick of yours?”

“Kill the Avatar? Is that what you think this is, a hit-and-run?” To Basil’s surprise, Maxwell’s condescending smirk appeared genuine. “I would never raise a hand against either of these two.”

Maxwell caressed Kaki’s prison with his free hand, his touch as soft as a lover’s.

“After all,” he said with the most maniacal of grins, “my beloved child isn’t born yet.”

The words hung in the hall like a curse. Basil paled behind his helmet, as he finally realized that survival hadn’t been Maxwell’s only motivation for his atrocities. He had assumed the parasite left a trail of broken worlds in his wake in the name of survival, and perhaps it was one of his motives.

However, there was a second urge inherent in all lifeforms. One Basil, even Walter, had failed to take into account.

“You’ve never wondered,” Maxwell taunted them with a vile smirk, “why I called the company Dismaker Labs, have you?”

Reproduction.