Teaser - Crown of Thorns: Prologue

AN: The start of a new project I worked on when I had writer's block with my other fictions. Enjoy, Dragons ;)

Warning:

Please be advised

This fiction may contain traces of religion, myth, fairy tales, pop-culture references, cultural appropriation, sexual content and offensive language. If you are allergic to any of those topics, you may experience knee-jerk reactions. 

Read at your own risk. 

Late summer.

The days were getting shorter.

The wheat was glowing in the golden sunset, the blue sky, dotted with small, fluffy clouds, was slowly dyed red. 

The temperature had eased off from the burning heat of summer, letting the pupils of the world enjoy the last days of their summer vacation, before they would rejoin the dreaded treadmill known as education.

Gory innards, splattering green ichor after being ripped out of their host by a high-velocity bullet.

“They just don’t stop!” the hero known as Tempest shouted, as he summoned his powers once again, throwing the storm into the breach, pushing the strange insectoids back that tried to move through a pulsing rip in reality. Nobody knew what they were. Nobody really cared. Nobody on earth was keen to make another try at talking with a species that had ripped the first person that had tried to do so to shreds, before feasting on his corpse.

One of the insectoids managed to get through the rip, arriving in our reality with a roar that might be considered a greeting amongst its kind. Or a challenge. Or maybe a mating call. One of the metahumans on close-combat duty got to it, smashing her glowing fists against its scythe-like arms, breaking one of them, before dodging the frenzied slash of the other blade. Just as she tried to strike again, the insectoid spit something out, causing her to flinch away, but too late, she was hit into the face. Her reaction was according to protocol, if hit by a strange fluid, don’t rely on your resilience, verify that there is no danger. So, she retreated to the non-combat metahumans, the scouts, seers and healers. Another metahuman took care of the wounded insectoid, finishing it off, before returning to their position.

Such scenes repeated themselves from time to time around the rip, but only a fraction of the insectoids actually managed to survive the barrage laid down by the defenders. 

So, as the creatures tried to pour out of the rip, the heroes poured fire back in. 

But not only the heroes. The military was also in on the party, alongside the villains and some policeman. It was what was commonly referred to as an Incursion-Event, although a small one. In a way, Incursion were the only time when everyone got together and worked at a common goal. Maybe, it said something interesting about humanity that the only time everyone got behind an idea, it was to kill something else.

But, as Tempest shouted, another metahuman started to add his own fire to the barrage, slowly pushing the creatures further back. Those without the advantage of long-ranged powers gave room, so that everyone else could let loose, but they maintained a net around the the rip to make sure that none of the insectoids managed to escape or it would have to be hunted down, to prevent a potential bloodbath.

Finally, a coalition of mythics and super-scientists managed to figure out just what the specific mechanism behind the rip was and how to close it. It took another hour of fierce fighting to get everything in place, but once that was accomplished, the rip was slammed shut, cutting a few insectoids in half, as they were caught in the event. But Earth was safe once more.

Well, relatively safe for now. Nobody knew when the next incursion would happen. 

And nobody knew when some super-scientist crossed the border to mad-science once more and tried something insane. Once they got bored, they would try something interesting and that happened more often than anyone wanted to admit. Sadly, what they considered interesting was commonly in the realm reserved for nightmares. It was the two-hundred IQ and higher equivalent of ‘Hold my bear, I need to show you something awesome!’ And those things never ended well. 

Or, maybe, some mythic would find some old source of sealed power and convince himself that he knew so much better than those who had sealed that power and unsealed it, trying to harness it for whatever purpose they had in mind. There was a single report of such an unsealing ending without tremendous damage to the surrounding area and that was mainly because the sealed entity had not been sealed for its power, but for the simple fact that it was the single most annoying creature ever recorded. 

But it mattered not what the next event would be that required the metahumans on both sides of the law to play nice with each other. It would happen, and until then, everyone would go back to their usual business. While while everyone was packing up, the gossip was flying fast and furious, as the atmosphere lightened and everyone was able to relax. One of the unwritten rules for incursions was that nobody tried to take advantage when they happened. 

It was just a bit of common sense. Nobody wanted to share our wonderful blue planet with some extra dimensional squid-monster that fed on the sanity of its surroundings. Well, nobody but the Vegreens. They believed that every living thing should have basic rights, amongst them bodily integrity and self-determination. Suffice to say, nobody took them too serious. 

But even they only showed up with a few signs and demonstrated what they called the senseless destruction of life. Well, they still sent a negotiator to make first contact. More often than not, that negotiator ended up dying, because, as they called it, the beings that entered our reality were misunderstood and felt threatened in a new environment. 

Finally, the last joking threat between normally bitter enemies had been exchanged, the last insectoid had been tracked down and even the news-crews were slowly winding down their breaking news.

Because, at the end of the day, it was just another Thursday.