Operation Pacifica: The Exercise of Vital Powers
by Slider the Feral (NYAR!)


"It is double the pleasure to deceive the deceiver." -- Jean de la Fontaine


PLACE UNKNOWN
TIME UNKNOWN, BUT DEFINITELY AROUND DAY THIRTEEN OF OPERATION PACIFICA


 Slider and Jace cleared the tunnel to find themselves in a massive
  antechamber whose dimensions could not be easily determined due to the
  edges being swallowed by shadow. The shadows also obscured whatever was in
  the room itself, but it rapidly became the least of their problems as a
  grinding sound came from behind them!


 "Closing, the walls are!" Windigo shouted. "Move now!"


 Maenads began diving through the shrinking hole as the walls began to close
  in. Nemesis managed to clear the hole with a diving leap, but Blackblood
  got caught as the hole closed around his hips. Shardik grabbed both of
  Blackblood's arms and pulled with all his daemonic might. Somehow the
  opening yielded just enough space to let Blackblood slide free as Shardik
  was pulling, and both Maenads fell back a couple of meters into the
  chamber, with Blackblood landing on top of Shardik.


 "HELP!!" Reggie cried, sticking his snout through the now-melon-size hole.
  MENSAns are not the world's fastest runners, and this was being made
  painfully clear as the wall crushed and severed the saurian's tail.
  Reggie's shouts for aid turned to screams of pain.


 "He's a dead genius," Deadlock noted, "we can't save him."


 With a wet SQUISH, the walls inexorably closed on the doomed MENSAn,
  showering portions of the antechamber with various mashed saurian parts
  from the hole that used to be a tunnel. Blood flowed freely from the hole
  as an icy, harsh, deep voice made a proclamation that seemed to reverberate
  off the walls:


 "Such is the price of betrayal."
  

 Immediately after that, the shadows retreated to the far end of the chamber,
  where they swarmed around the top of a ziggurat-like dais as the walls
  began to glow faintly. This revealed legions of stone statues -- some
  human, others less than -- arrayed in orderly rows like some archaelogical
  site in China. A central aisle ran down the length of the chamber, leaving
  a clear path towards the dais.


 With a soft PHOOM, the darkness exploded into fragments that flew around its
  owner like planes in a holding pattern during a busy night at O'Hare.
  Charn'El, High Mage of Lyra, sat upon an obsidian throne, his mask showing
  a sneer of contempt. Balefire shone like twin spotlights from the eyeholes,
  providing a contrast to the black robes that were one to two shades short
  of the WOW-that's-black favored by the X'hirjq.


 At the lift of a finger from Charn'El, the statues began to shudder before
  cracking and flaking apart. As the stone began to fall to and melt into the
  floor, it revealed the statues to be numerous thanatins, kept in suspended
  animation by Charn'El's sanctum just in case the Maenads made it this far.


 As the thanatins took up their weapons, Deadlock shouted from his position
  in the center aisle, "HEY! Don't waste your time! They'll all die if they
  attack!"


 "Wot da zoggin' 'eck do ya mean, 'Dey'll all die'?" Slider asked, _sotto
  voce_. "Wot about us?"


 "Relax," Windigo replied, pointing at a black frisbee-looking thing in
  Deadlock's hand. "Has an angle, he does."


 Charn'El didn't even leave his seat as he pointed a finger at the Maenads
  and sent a mental command. As one, the thanatins turned and marched toward
  Deadlock, who strode forth to meet them.


 Deadlock flicked his wrists, revealing the frisbee to be a compacted topper
  as a magician's wand sprang into being in his off hand. "Have it your way,
  jerky," he said as he tapped the brim sharply with the wand. Sliding the
  wand back down his sleeve, he reached in and pulled out a fluffy brown
  bunny by the ears.


 "Hi Cadbury," he said, turning it toward the once-human hordes.  "Kill."


# Judas Priest "Metal Meltdown" _Painkiller_


 As if it were a missile being launched from a fighter's hardpoint, the bunny
  flew from Deadlock's hand towards the nearest thanatin; snarling, breathing
  fire, and sprouting Big Ass Claws(tm)!


 "If I didn't know betta, I'd say dat bunny was doin' a 'Oly WarpSpazm,"
  Slider mused as the luckless thanatin exploded like it _was_ hit by an air-
  to-air missile. The bunny kept going, ripping into another thanatin. And
  another.


 For his part, Deadlock was tossing out another bunny, producing the same
  gory results. Another soon followed, and (wait for it) did just about the
  same thing.


 Hanover did what any living furry energy capacitor would do in his place
  when faced with killer lapines: climb on top of the nearest person or
  object and cry, "What the hell are those things?"


 "OW!" Shardik yelled, being the subject of Hanover's hiding. "Get off!"


 Windigo replied, "Bunnies! Bunnies!" as Deadlock ripped the hat in half,
  bringing a whole army of bunnies to the party.


 "Feral vorpal bunnies (tm), to be precise," Deadlock noted.


 At this point, the thanatins did what any army of once-human, brainwashed,
  and mutated faceless minions would do when confronted with hordes of
  seemingly unstoppable killer lapines: flee the chamber, trampling their own
  as necessary, only to be overtaken and taken out by said hordes in the
  attempt.


 Slider picked up a bunny (tm), staring at it in utter disbelief.  Oddly
  enough, the bunny (tm) was quite docile around him. Meanwhile, the rest of
  the Maenads began to frolic with what bunnies (tm) weren't killing or
  eating thanatins. It was one of those situations that were quite funny, as
  long as you weren't actually living them as a thanatin.


 Charn'El had had enough. He rose from his throne, banging his obsidian staff
  on the floor, accompanied by a high-pitched whine that got louder and
  louder...


 Then everything went black for a second.


# White Zombie "The One" _"Escape From L.A." soundtrack_


 When the Maenads could see again, the bunnies (tm) had disappeared as
  quickly as they came, and Charn'El was nowhere to be found. There was,
  however, the high-pitched whine that accompanied Charn'El's rise from his
  seat, and it was reverberating off the walls in the same fashion as the
  earlier comment about betrayal.


 Blackblood looked to his left only to have a conical vortex slam into his
  side like a runaway borer, sending blood and shadowstuff flying through the
  air, while Blackblood was sent into the far wall. Charn'El materialized on
  the side farthest from his dais, not too far from where Slider and Jace
  were.


 While Blackblood wrestled with the vortex familiar, Slider took this moment
  to catch the High Mage with his robes down. His voice sounding the warcry,
  the redcap sprinted directly at the Lyran, with bloody and messy murder on
  his mind.


 However, the High Mage was unfazed. Casually, almost dismissively raising
  his hand, his lips moved in an incantation before a number of cold iron
  rods shot out of his sleeve in a shotgun-like pattern. Five of them caught
  Slider in various joints and places on his torso, actually knocking the
  redcap back three yards before he could even feel the pain and chill of
  Banality.


 Slider spit out blood as Jace caught him in his arms. "The rods inside are
  so hot," he said, his voice accent-free as a side effect of the large
  amounts of Banality flooding his being. "Why do I feel so cold?"


 That being said, consciousness abandoned him once again.


****************************************************************************


# Jerry Reed "She Got The Gold Mine (I Got The Shaft)"
 

 Slider awoke in the same white room he had seen before, though he didn't
  remember it. Death was careful enough to erase all memories of Her in the
  minds of those she had to relinquish. The door on the far wall opened as it
  did before, only to reveal Feral Jackson, the Holy Albino, shaking his head
  and tut-tutting. "He ganked you good and proper, didn't he?" he asked.


 "Who _are_ you?" Slider asked, his memory turned to stir-fried random from
  Banality.


 "Oh Lord," Feral muttered. "Shoulda known this would happen when your
  subconscious chose a changeling for your feral form. Ever see 'The
  Neverending Story', kid?"


 Slider blinked a couple of times and nodded.


 "You remember the Nothing? Well, your kind calls it Banality, but what it
  does is damage body, mind, and spirit. Even if your body survives, you'll
  forget that you were ever as... how can I say this?... talented as you
  were, and then you take up the dullest hobbies, and hang out with some real
  prigs... bloody awful way to go, if you ask me.


 "And cold iron conducts Banality quite well, as you know by now."


 "That's smurftastic, but I don't know what you're talking about," Slider
  replied.


 Feral went on as if he hadn't been interrupted: "What I can do is put your
  mind back in order somewhat, blot out most of the excess Banality.  You'll
  have to seek out other changelings to complete the recovery, but it'll be
  enough to carry on."


 He placed a hand on Slider's forehead, noting with some small measure of
  dismay that the mottled gray was turning to fleshy pink in splotches, all
  over his body. After muttering syllables in a strange, guttural language,
  he stepped back and allowed Slider to piece things together.


 "Wot da sneck just 'appened?" Slider asked. "Dere'z a buncha memoriez just
  swimmin' around in me 'ead. Wuz I really talkin' all like a normie or
  sumfin?"


 "You got trashed, that's what happened," Feral replied. "Look, you can't
  just run out on a full frontal assault against Charnie. He'll just thrash
  you like before. You gotta be smarter than that!


 "Or at the very least, watch out for cold iron rods," Feral said, grinning
  without rancor.


 "'k," Slider replied. "So wen kin I give 'im anuvver taste of boot leather?"


 "It'll be about a coupla minutes. Want anything from Mahavishnu Donut?"


 "Nah, I gotta stay 'ungry. I'm 'a eat dat 'and of is, and dat's just da
  appetiza, if ya knows wot I mean."


 "Glad to hear it. Tell you what -- I'll show you how to make the Dreaming
  work for you in a fight. Make it a little harder to dispose of you so
  casually in the future, eh?"


 "Fookin' great! Dere'z sumfin I've been meanin' ta ask ya, tho'."


 "What?"


 "Just wot da sneck did Windi mean when she said sumfin about 'desseevin' da
  desseevur'?"


 "Ah, the Ritual of Lizzie Borden. Basically, it's something that calls me
  from beyond the Veil... or so Charnie thinks.
 

 "What it actually does is makes someone up to look like me; voice, smell,
  and all that rot. Naturally, Charnie'll toss everything he has over there,
  which is why whoever gets this treatment has to be pretty tough."


 "Or a naturul energy capassitur," Slider finished. "J. 'E'd bleed orf da
  spell energy an' not even flinch."


 "And that's not all," Feral added. "The Ritual also creates a wormhole to
  the void for sticking Charnie afterwards."


 "Den we'd betta not waste any more time," Slider added. "I wanna knock 'im
  around while 'e's somewot movin'."


A FEW MINUTES LATER...


 Slider's eyes snapped open as he awoke from unconsciousness with a start. He
  rolled over on his stomach and narrowed his eyes, culling favor with the
  Dreaming as the Albino had showed him. The Dreaming answered as what felt
  like a 220-volt current ran through him for a second or two.


 "Es..ka..flow..nay my ass... [1]" growled Slider as he rose shakily to his
  feet, secondary eyebrows flaring as he pressed a hand over his wounds.  In
  keeping with some universal ordinance regarding the laws of cool, a red
  ring flared out like a hollowed explosion or Akira wave around him, as
  Slider prepared to introduce the High Mage of Lyra to the awesome and
  terrible glory that was Wounded Redcap With The Full Weight Of The Dreaming
  Behind Him.


 Only to find Deadlock standing over the supine form of the High Mage,
  placing a charm on his chest which somehow made Charn'El arch his back in
  dire agony. Apparently the Ritual had already been completed.


 Slider slumped to his knees as the ground started to shake. "Wot a letdown,"
  he mumbled before falling on his face and losing consciousness for a second
  time.


 The tremors felt by Slider soon spread across the entire breadth of Pacifica
  Island as they picked up in frequency and force. Giant rocks crumbled off
  of the great cliffs ringing the island's northern and eastern coasts, only
  to land in the sea. Elsewhere, crevasses began to yawn, soon crisscrossing
  the Wasteland and spreading towards the steppes.


 Pacifica Island had begun to die.


 Sulphurous clouds belched forth from the rapidly spreading cracks as those
  portions of island that were completely surrounded by them began to sink
  into the sea. Lava immediately bubbled toward the surface in the wake of
  the sinking sections.


 Down in the settlements of Pacifica, it looked as though the Last Judgement
  was already taking place. In Sponge City, buildings crumbled and fell over
  as the more violent tremors hit. On the opposite end of the island,
  Charn'El's Tower collapsed like a poleaxed steer. Debris scattered for
  miles around the settlements, crushing whatever Sponges were around. Not
  even those in the outskirts were safe.


 Adding insult to property damage, lava spewed from the gaping wounds in the
  pseudo-earth, covering both B'Harnate Minion and settlement in molten rock
  that cooled like clotting blood. Smoke and steam billowed forth as Pacifica
  was claimed by the ocean that bore most of its name.


DOBERMAN TRANSPORT _DTT DEATHTONGUE_
SEVENTEEN MILES NORTHEAST OF LAST KNOWN POSITION OF PACIFICA ISLAND
0336 HOURS FLEET TIME
DAY FOURTEEN OF OPERATION PACIFICA


 "Any Khorne-damned sign of the Maenads yet?" Malcolm asked as he wandered
  around the massive cargo bay of the _Deathtongue_.


 "Not yet," the yeoman replied for the nth time that night. The nocker was
  getting more profane as the night and his frustration wore on, and the
  yeoman was feeling the brunt of it.


 "Well, when the frukin' hell are ya gonna know?"


 "I really don't know what to tell you. There's a good chance they went down
  with the island."


 "grumblefuckinMaenadscantbefuckindeadpigfuckingknownothingmutter..."


 "Brother Malcolm," began a female voice behind him.


 "What is it?!?" Malcolm said as he whirled around to face this new speaker.


 "Well, since the redcaps are in that cacafuego-be-damned mood[2]," Deirdre
  answered, "Ellison, Adolfo, and I drew straws to see who'd come get you. I
  lost."


 "mutternicetoknowImappreciatedgrumble..."
 

 "You can't just take it all out on some yeoman all night!" Deirdre snapped.


 "Well, what the fruk do you want me to do? I've fixed all the vehicles twice
  already, and all the weapons too!"


 "Excuse me," another voice spoke in broken English, "Give us a hand, can
  you?"


 The two Khornates immediately snapped to ramrod-straight attention at the
  sight of the two highest-rankers in the Chosen, Windigo and Shardik.  The
  latter held a very weary and bedraggled Slider in his arms. Shardik waved
  them at ease as best he could, asking, "Where's the sickbay?"


 "Oh-oh-oh, that's quite all right, sir," Malcolm replied, growing a
  sweatdrop.


 "We'll take him off your hands," Deirdre added, blanching at Slider's
  condition as she relieved Shardik of his burden. "He needs to rest by a
  balefire anyway."


 "Yeah," Malcolm replied. "I don't think I've seen such a bastard like him
  look that bad and _not_ be undone."


 "Ok," Windigo sighed. "Leave him in your hands, I will. Remember!  Maenad,
  he is! If he dies, follow him, you will."


 "And keep this quiet!" Shardik hissed. "We need some sleep without being
  mobbed."


 As the Commander and Lieutenant Commander left for another ship, Malcolm
  turned toward the heavy weapons troll and asked, "You really can carry him
  as far as the balefire furnace?"


 Deirdre turned her head back toward Malcolm, answering, "As far as you
  like."


LATER...


 "How's the patient doing?" Gideon asked Malcolm as the two stood at the
  threshold of the furnace room, where Slider lay before a raging balefire.


 "Well, he's getting some color back in both seemings, thank Khorne, but he
  hasn't woken up yet," the nocker replied. "Must have had a close encounter
  with some iron weapons."


 "And Sister Deirdre?"


 "She won't leave." Malcolm gestured toward the room where Deirdre sat,
  keeping both redcap and door in her field of vision.


 Gideon nodded, knowing all too well a troll's dedication to guardianship.
  "Well, when he wakes up, tell him the others in High Command want to see
  him."



 Deirdre woke up from when she nodded off to find a single red chimerical
  rose in her lap, along with a note, which read, "Sorry I couldn't thank you
  personally, but you know how these high command types are when they want a
  meeting. -- J-R"


 "I've been watching over J-Rock?" she asked. She blinked a couple of times,
  and smiled a small smile.


THE OBSCURE

[1] This refers to a series called Tenku no Escaflowne (The Vision of
  Escaflowne). The bad guy mechs in this series have five-barrelled weapon
  pods on each arm that usually shoot out spears made of liquid metal.  Think
  the T-1000 on crack.

[2] Cacafuego is a redcap term used to describe the horrible indigestion
  redcaps get when they eat nockers.


To be concluded in "There All The Honor Lies"...