The Owl lifted into the battle smoke.
Dragon against Clockwork Golem.
Teeth against gears. Magick against machinery.
The sky had become a malfunctioning engine.

Lady Blackbird stood on the deck.
“Nearest wormhole, Captain Avery. Now.”

Avery pulled the levers.
Space buckled.
The stars became white scratches on black glass.
JUMP to Gotham.

They arrived scattered like bad thoughts.
Each went to his preferred corner of the city.

Meanwhile Gotham was coming apart.
Highlord Macdonald organized wrestling games while the streets burned with civil unrest.
Mercenary guards fired into resurgent mobs.
The city answered with broken windows, clubs, knives, slogans.

Above it all the Guardian Angels watched.

Then the Behemoth appeared.
A shape against the horizon.
Too large to be a shape.
“Sound the alarm. Prepare the defence.”

South Tower.
Four sent to watch the approach.
Jeffrey the Sharpshooter.
Julien the Medic.
Morgan the Rogue.
Peter the Messenger.

Julien closed his eyes.
He listened with the part of the mind that listens beneath language.
‘Something evil this way comes’.
Then:
“A huge dragon.”

Peter launched the glider.
From above, Gotham was a warzone.
Rebels still rioting against mercenary troops.
Vigilante martial artists converging on South Tower.
Everyone moving.
Nobody knowing where the exits were.

Peter returned with the report.
Then North Tower.

Engineer Leonardo was waiting among wires, brass instruments and improbable machines.
“According to legend,” Leonardo said, “the dragon has a weak spot. Hollow of the throat.”
“We have an experimental flamethrower.”
“You might try it.”

The Guardian Angels received a signal.
HELP.
Then another signal came screaming through the apparatus.
‘North Tower.
A huge Clockwork Golem is approaching the city.’

Two monsters.
One city.

Morgan went scavenging.
Alchemical powder.
Black residue.
Things that should not be mixed.
He built an experimental grenade.

The dragon came closer.
Closer.
Throw.
The grenade met the dragon breath.
FLASH.
BOOM.
“DUCK!”

Jeffrey did not duck quickly enough.
He became toast.

Julien was already moving.
Bandages.
Salve.
Medical intervention in the middle of the apocalypse.

Peter raised the flamethrower.
Click.
Nothing.
Then:
BOOM.
Peter joined Jeffrey in the emergency ward.
Julien sighed and went to work.

Morgan had better luck with the darts.
One flew.
Direct hit.
The dragon’s eye erupted.
“Yeah.”

Meanwhile Rudolf arrived.
Jeffrey’s twin.
He carried a meteor hammer.
The weapon spun through the air, chain hissing, and wrapped itself around the dragon’s neck.
Pull.
The dragon pulled harder.
Rudolf left the ground.
For one second he was airborne, attached to a dragon.
Then he let go.
Iron bullets.
Fire.
One found the weak spot.
The dragon screamed.

A blind dragon is a city-wide problem.
It turned south.
Then north.
“The good news,” someone said, “is that it is leaving the South Tower.”
Pause.
“The bad news is that it is rampaging through the town center.”

North Tower.
The wounded dragon charged.
BANG.
The tower shook.
Again.
BANG.

The dragon collapsed against the structure.
For one impossible moment it seemed the city had survived.
It had not.

Morgan took Peter’s glider.
Up.
Over the streets.
Onto the Golem.
Metal hands reaching.
Clockwork heart turning.
Cogs within cogs within cogs.
Morgan found a panel.
Opened it.
Inside was a mechanical nightmare.
Whirr.
Click.
Grind.
He inserted his knife.
The machinery stopped.
The Golem stopped.

Then the North Tower gave way.
The dragon’s weight had become too much.
Stone cracked.
Iron screamed.
The tower folded into the street.
And the Clockwork Golem came down with it.
The Golem collapsed onto the dragon.
Dragon beneath Golem.
Golem beneath rubble.

Rubble all over Gotham.
South to North, the city wore the scars of the battle like fresh wounds.
Smoke.
Broken towers.
Burned streets.
Twisted metal.
Silence.

The heroes gathered among the wreckage.
The worst scenario had been averted.
This was considered a victory.
In Gotham, you learn to celebrate the disasters that did not happen.

Ping

The ceiling exploded.
Stone and dust thundered into the hall.
Something vast crashed through the roof.
It had claws.
It had wings.
It had far too many teeth.
And it was wearing what appeared to be a brass helmet.

The creature roared.
The windows shattered.

Scurlock drew his sword.
Unlike Blackbird’s elegant rapier, his weapon was a long, wicked blade, black as midnight and twice as unpleasant.

“Right,” said Avery. “Who attacks first?”

Lady Blackbird grinned.
“I do.”

She sprang onto the back of a fallen statue, ran up its shoulder, and launched herself at the creature.
Her sword flashed.
She struck one of its horns.
Sparks flew.
The creature bellowed and swatted her aside.
Avery caught her.

Scurlock leapt onto the creature’s claw.
He drove his sword between two scales.
The beast shrieked and shook its limb violently.
Scurlock held on with one hand.

“Guardian!”

“Yes?”

“The lever!”

The Guardian went pale.
“Which one?”

“All of them!”

“That seems unsafe!”

“Precisely!”

The Guardian hurled himself toward the machinery.
Leonardo followed.
“Wait for me!”

“You’re an engineer!”

“Exactly! I understand levers!”

Behind them, Lady Blackbird and Avery attacked together.
Steel rang against brass.
The creature snapped at Avery.
He ducked.

Blackbird thrust.
The blade vanished between its teeth.
She stared.
“Oh.”

Avery grabbed her by the collar.
“Run!”

They fled as the beast bit down.
The sword snapped.

Blackbird looked at the broken hilt in disbelief.
“My sword!”

The Guardian pulled three levers.
Somewhere beneath the palace, a machine awakened.

ping:

Lady Blackbird drew her sword and advanced to attack her advesary.
“En garde, Lord Scurlock!”

Lord Scurlock sighed.
It was the kind of sigh a man makes when the evening has gone badly and somebody has just spilled gin on the carpet.
He rose from the throne.
He was tall, thin, and dressed in a black coat that looked as though it had been tailored by a funeral director with a grudge.
A silver chain hung from his waist.
At the end of it was a watch.
The watch was ticking backward.

“Must we?” Scurlock asked.

Lady Blackbird lunged.
Scurlock stepped aside.

She struck the throne.
The throne screamed.

Lady Blackbird spun and attacked again.
Scurlock parried with one finger.
The blade stopped an inch from his chest.
“Good sword,” he said.

“Good finger,” she replied.

He smiled.
Then he flicked her sword across the hall.

It landed beside Captain Avery.

Avery picked it up.
“I dislike him,” he said.

“You’re not alone,” said the Guardian.
The Guardian was hiding behind engineer Leonardo.

Scurlock looked at him.
The room became colder.
“You,” he said.

The Guardian swallowed.

“Me?”

“You pulled the lever.”

“That was her.”

Scurlock walked toward them.
Behind him, the golden throne folded itself into the shape of a chair.

“Lord Scurlock,” said Avery, raising the sword, “what exactly are you planning?”

Scurlock stopped.
Through the enormous windows came the sound of something moving across the sky.
Not flying.
Dragging itself.

Scurlock glanced upward.
“For once,” he said, “I’m not planning anything.”

The marble floor trembled.

“Then what is that?”

Scurlock looked at them.
“That,” he said, “is the reason I built the door.”

Avery frowned.
“The door exploded.”

“Yes.”

“Was that part of the plan?”

Scurlock considered this.
“No.”

The ceiling cracked.
Something enormous looked down through it.

Scurlock smiled without humor.
“Now,” he said, “we may all attack together.”

ping: