GODLING # 30: The Reality Bomb Saga Part Three

 GODLING # 30:  The Reality Bomb Saga Part Three 
by J. Vandersteen 


– GODLING – THE ONE MAN PANTHEON:  THE REALITY BOMB SAGA PART THREE 

Godling, Sir Magick and Bogatyr stand in Bogatyr's cavernous headquarters. 
"It seems these reality bombs that are going off all over the globe are causing tears in the fabric of reality, weakening the walls between different realities and dimensions." 
"That sounds pretty incredible even to me. And I've visited Olympus," Godling says. 
"As this world's mystic protector I've visited several other dimensions and have prevented several beings from those dimension to enter this one. I don’t know who is placing these bombs, but I have a feeling he or they plan to cause a tear wide enough to enter our world,” Sir Magick explained. 
“What kind of beings should I be thinking of?” Bogatyr asks. 
“Sometimes creatures with tentacles, sometimes other versions of ourselves. There’s a lot of possibilities.” 
“I have some experience with that last one,” Godling says.  “I wonder if there’s a connection there.” 
“What do you mean?” Sir Magick asks. 
“Some time ago a lot of different versions of myself showed up to help me out in a showdown with a supervillain.” 
Sir Magick strokes his chin. “That might explain how the bad guys were able to plant the bombs. It probably caused just enough of a tear in the fabric of reality for them to drop a few bombs through.” 
“So in a way I am responsible. Or my otherworldly versions are. Sounds like an extra motivation to get this whole mess wrapped up.” 
“Another hero just dealt with another Reality Bomb crisis. I suggest we visit him and enlist him in our quest,” Sir Magicks says. 
Bogatyr and Godling agree. Sir Magicks says a few magic words and suddenly the heroes are standing in Japan. The cyborg hero Ninjoid is still trying to compute what happened, having fought off were-cats. Now he faces another surprise with the appearance of the other heroes. 
“Identify yourselves,” Ninjoid says. 
The heroes tell Ninjoid their names. Sir Magick tells them why they are there. 
“This unit indeed faced strange beings that disappeared suddenly. I would be happy to join you in your quest,” Ninjoid says. 
“Excellent. I will try to pinpoint if there is another tear in reality right now to be found somewhere. Let me concentrate for  a moment.” Sir Magick closes his eyes. The heroes surround him. After a few minutes Sir Magick opens his eyes wide. “Yes, another tear is near. I will teleport us there right now.” 
The heroes disappear from the Tokyo city streets and reappear in a busy mall in Germany. 
“There!” Sir Magick says and points at a corner of the mall. The heroes see a portal of light, flickering for a minute. A man with a long white beard, dressed in a blue robe steps from the portal. He is holding a device. 
“He’s holding a Reality Bomb!” Godling says and speeds to the robed man. 
The robed man is startled and drops the Reality Bomb. He grabs a knife. Godling grabs his wrist and twists, the knife drops. Godling grabs his robe. 
“Who are you?” Godling says. 
The robed man struggles with Godling, trying to get free but Godling is stronger. The other heroes stand by his side. 
Ninjoid pick up the Reality Bomb. “Scanning device. Alloy unknown. Technical origin unknown.” 
“Who are you?” Godling repeats. The robed man punches Godling in the face, but he just shakes that off. 
“I’m way stronger than you, pal. Give it up and tell me what I want to know.” 
“Da, we insist,” Bogatyr says and puts the blade of his sword against the robed man’s neck. 
“I guess it doesn’t matter. You won’t be able to stop us anyway. The timer of the Reality Bomb will go off in mere seconds.” 
The bomb explodes, knocking Ninjoid against the wall. Suddenly everyone in the mall is standing upside down, their feet on the ceiling. 
“What?” Bogatyr says. “Seems like up is down and down is up.” 
“A shift in reality,” Godling says. “Good to know they don’t all involve inanimate objects becoming weird creatures.” 
“Yes. It will wear off like the other effects,” Sir Magick says. 
The robed man uses the slight upheaval to produce a small pen-like item from his sleeve. It turns out to be a blaster of some kind, firing a light bolt right into Godling’s face, who lets go of his prisoner. Smoke comes from Godling’s face. 
“Wait a minute!” Bogatyr says and grabs the villain’s robe and tugs him towards himself. “You’re not going anywhere?” 
“Are you okay?” Sir Magick asks Godling. 
“Yeah,” he says. “It hurt like hell but I’m already using the powers of Aesculapius to heal my face. He managed to surprise me.” 
“He won’t be surprising me,” Bogatyr says and kick the blaster out of the robed man’s hand. 
Then down is down again and up is up again. Everyone is standing on the floor again like they should. The mall’s visitors are all pretty dazed and confused and are pointing and staring at the strange costumed men. 
“I will take us all away from here, we have caused enough of an upheaval here.” Sir Magick teleports the heroes and their prisoner to Bogatyr’s cave. 
“Now you talk to us,” Bogatyr tells the prisoner. 
“I’m not telling you anything,” the robed man says. 
Bogatyr pushes his blade against the robed man’s throat. “Let’s see about that.” 
Godling grabs Bogatyr’s arm. “Wait, we are heroes. We don’t torture.” 
“I’m a warrior, sometimes to win a war you have to get nasty,” Bogatyr says. 
“There must be other ways to make him talk,” Godling says. “There are always alternatives to violence.” 
“I am that alternative,” Sir Magick says. “A simple truth spell will have him talking.” 
Godling smiles. “And I thought I had a vast array of powers.” 
Sir Magick touches the robed man’s head with his fingers and says a magic spell in an old arcane language. 
“Now tell us who you are and what your plans are,” Sir Magick says. 
The robed man speaks. “I am Throx, member of the Council of War and Science.  Our Council rules my reality. Our goal is to rule all realities, invading them and conquering them using our army of warriors and monsters from the realities we conquered. We seek out cracks in reality, and use those cracks to enter the other realities. There we drop our Reality Bombs, causing the cracks to widen enough for our armies to enter. Our armies are so powerful we always end up conquering the reality we enter.” 
“How do we close the cracks?” Godling asks. 
“Cracks in reality are caused by anomalies, things or beings from other realities. Find the anomaly in your reality, remove it and the cracks close.” 
Godling frowns. “He could be mentioning my fellow Godlings from other realities. But they’re gone now.” 
“Are you sure about that?” Sir Magick asks the One Man Pantheon. 
“Not 100%, I guess.” 
Sir Magick nods. “Then we need to make sure. In the meantime we need to make sure Throx here poses no danger.” 
“No problem, using the powers of Hephaestus I can forge some unbreakable restraints for our prisoner,” Godling says. 
“I should have the tools you need for that in my cave,” Bogatyr tells him. 
“I will see if I can track down your other self,” Sir Magick says. He sits down, closes his eyes and concentrates. Then, “Yes. Found him. There is another you, Godling. I can teleport us there.” 
“Sounds like a plan, as soon as we get Throx tied up,” Godling says. 
* 
Half an hour later Throx is totally bound and tied with chains, sitting helplessly in Bogatyr’s cave. 
“Time for us to go,” Sir Magick says and teleports the heroes. 
They all reappear in the Nevada desert. There, the eye-patch wearing Godling is practicing some moves with a broadsword. 
“What?” Eye-Patch Godling exclaims when he is suddenly surrounded by the heroes. 
“Hello, me. What are you still doing here?” Godling asks. 
“I’m still here to make sure my past becomes your future,” Eye-Patch Godling says. 
“Your presence is endangering our present,” Godling tells him. “Please, return to your own reality.” 
“Not possible. I am here to save your world, not endanger it.” 
“You heard my comrade,” Bogatyr says and puts the point of his sword against Eye-Patch Godling’s chin. 
Eye-Patch Godling uses the powers of Ares to disarm the hero with one move of his broadsword, then kicks him in the gut, knocking him on his behind. 
Ninjoid draws his laser-katana and strikes at Eye-Patch Godling, who jumps back to avoid it, then strikes with his mighty sword, cutting off Ninjoid’s sword-arm. 
“You hurt my allies. That was a mistake. Now you will have to fight me!” Godling says with clenched fists… 

NEXT: GODLING versus GODLING 

GODLING # 29: The Reality Bomb Saga Part Two

GODLING # 29: The Reality Bomb Saga Part Two
by J. Vandersteen


– GODLING – THE ONE MAN PANTHEON: THE REALITY BOMB SAGA PART TWO

Paris... The Eiffel Tower has grown arms and legs. Two eyes glow a red light from the top. It is alive and smashing cars with iron feet. People are in panic, running everywhere. Cars explode, people can barely avoid being trampled.
Godling arrives on the scene, flying towards the Tower. "Have no fear, citizens of Paris. I saw what was happening on the news and came as soon as the speed of Hermes could take me here."
Metal arms tried to slug the One Man Pantheon who could just avoid them. He landed on the top of the Tower. Using the power of Hercules he started to pummel it. Iron breaks under his mighty fist.
"I feel bad about tearing this thing apart," Godling thinks. "It IS a national monument. I don't understand what happened to it, but it seems like the crazy kind of thing that happend back at Campus yesterday when that tree became alive."
The Tower started to shake, trying to shake Godling off. He holds on for dear life, his legs swing left and right as he tries to keep a hold on the Tower. With a final shake of the Tower Godling looses his hold and is flung through the air.
He channels the flying powers of Perseus to keep himself from crashing to the ground and lands in front of the Tower. "I'm afraid I'll have to melt you down to scrap," he says and starts to fling fireballs at the Eiffel Tower, using the powers of Hephaestus.
The Tower starts to glow and its legs start to melt. Suddenly the eyes are gone, the arms dissapear and what is left is only an inanimate but damaged Eiffel Tower.
Amidst ambulances and police cars Godling stands, still not sure what happened. "Just like yesterday. The weird stuff starts and stops."
"The tower," one of the cops says. "It's badly damaged. Look at that leg... It might topple."
"Not to worry," Godling says. "I have the engineering skills of Hephaestus at my command. I will fix it."

*

Buckingham Palace. The guards are firing their rifles at the tourists. Their eyes are ablaze with fire, their teeth are fangs, their ears are pointy and their faces are purple. They look like demons.
A man in a fancy suit and a long, black duster with the Union Jack on it and a domino maks covering his eyes appears from out of nowhere. "Don't worry. Sir Magick has this covered. Demons are my speciality."
The demon guards concentrate their gunfire on him, but a shield of light protects him.
"Strange, these do not seem to be real demons. What kind of abberations of reality are they? Let me see how they deal with a magickal blast." He fires two lightbolts from his hands. Two demonic guards fall on the ground, bodies smoking.
"Well, that certainly did the trick," Sir Magick says. He says a magic spell and three large tentacles appear from the ground that curl around three other demons,
Suddenly the demonic guards turn to regular men again, dazed and confused.
"Hmmm. The effects of whatever happened here seem to have worn off." Sir Magick says another spell and the tentacles are gone, releasing the guards.
"I will have to find out more about this." He say another spell and dissapears in thin air.

*
Moscow.
A man in battle armor and a helmet, a shield and sword in his hands stands in the middle of the Red Square. He is being attacked by monstrous bears. The bears are red and their eyes blaze with fire. The man slashes the beast with his sword.
"These blasted beasts appeared from nowhere," the hero says in Russian. "These citizens are lucky Russia's biggest hero, Bogatyr happened to be in the neigborhood."
The square breaks open and a red dragon appears. It breathes fire at Bogatyr.
"A Zmeir!" The Russian hero defends himself with his shield. The dragon hits him with his long tail, sending him flying through the air.
He is caught by the flying form of Godling.
"Who?" Bogatyr says.
"I think you have seen me on the news. I am Godling. I have seen news reports about you, Bogatyr. You are the hero-protector of Russia, right? I saw you battling these things on the news and thought you could use a hand."
"Put me down, Bogatyr needs no help. I can slay these monsters."
Godling put him down. "You seemed to have a bit of trouble with that dragon, though."
The dragon comes flying at them, big leathery wings swooping, claws ready to snatch or kill.
"Back off!" Godling says and slings a lightning bolt at the dragon. The dragon falls. Bogatyr attacks the creature with his sword. Godling smashes it with his mighty fists and Hercules strength.
"Its scales are stronger than the mightiest armor!" Bogatyr says.
"Keep hitting it. It will break," Godling says.
Suddenly the dragon and bears are gone.
"What happened here? Where have these creatures gone to?" Bogatyr asks.
"I'm not sure. But this is the third time I've seen this happen. I think this is caused by strange bombs that disrupt reality," Godling says.
"Tell me more," Bogatyr says.

*

Across time, space and reality two tall men with long beards stand in a room filled with gadgetry. They are dressed in blue togas with a thick purple stripe in the middle.
One of them tells the other, "There is another rip in reality coming up. If we are fast we can drop another reality bomb soon."
"Good," the other one says. "With every bomb we drop we get closer to our goal... Total domination of all realities!"

*


Tokyo, Japan.
In the city streets Ninjoid, the robotic ninja stands on top of a car, slashing at what look to be human cats with his laserkatana.
"Does not compute. Source of these beings cannot be determined."
A pretty female TV reporter is standing not far from Ninjoid, saying into the microphone, "No one knows how these cats suddenly turned into these humanoid monsters that suddenly started to attack."
Ninjoid seems to be overwhelmed by the large number of enemies and is on his back, sprawled across the car. He kicks and punches at the cats. His katana is on the floor.
"He seems to be facing defeat!" the reporter says, clearly distraught.
Just as all seems to be hopeless the cat creatures are gone into thin air.
Ninjoid gets up, looking left and right, trying to process what just happened.

*
Monica is watching TV in her home. She is watching the footage from the Red Square where Godling and Bogatyr battled. There is a knock at the door.
She opens up. Wade is in front of the door, holding a bouquet of roses.
"Hi, darling. I'm sorry about our fight the other day. I didn't mean anything by my comments about Godling. It just annoys me sometimes how people seem to forget the real heroes of this city are the non-powered cops, putting their lives on the line every day withou superpowers to protect them."
"It's okay. I understand. Please come in, those roses look lovely."
Wade walks in and notes the TV.
"Godling in Russia? So now he's off fighting demons all over the globe?" Wade says. "Good thing I upgraded a bit. It seems our little hero doesn't care about our city anymore."
"It wouldn't be fair to the rest of the world if he just protected New Troy," Monica says. "It looks like that Russian hero really needed the help."
"Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Didn't want to start anything again."
"It's okay. I will put those flowers in some water first."
She walks into the kitchen and fills a vase with water.
"Anyway, is it me or are more and more of these heroes popping up all over the world?" Wade says.
"I'm not sure. I do think there are a few more running around in the USA these days."
"And there's Ninjoid of course, in Japan. Pretty impressive that robot, I have to admit."
Monica puts the flowers in a vase. "Would you like some wine. Or a beer?"
"Beer sounds great," Wade says. "I love you babe!"
"I know. But do I still love you?" Monica thinks.

*
"So this is your headquarters?" Godling asks Bogatyr.
They walk into a cave, set into the mountains.
"It is where I keep my weapons and plan my quests," Bogatyr says.
The cave is filled with medieval weapons that seem to be updated to the 24th century, either carrying flashing lights or gun barrels.
Godling inspects a spear. "Is that a rocket launcher attached to this spear."
"That is right. Sometimes a threat cannot be handled by steel alone."
"Impressive."
"As are your powers. So, you think what you encountered in New Troy and Paris is related to what we just faced?"
"Reality seemed to be disrupted in all cases. Maybe we can team up, try to figure out what is going on together. You seem pretty experienced at this kind of thing as well."
"I have been a hero for a long time indeed," Bogatyr says.
Suddenly smoke fills the room. Out of the smoke steps Sir Magick. "Greetings, heroes."
Bogatyr draws his sword. Godling readies the spear he was inspecting.
"I'm no threat to you. In fact, I can be a helpful ally to you both. We are all facing the same threat. There's another hero in Japan that just faced off against another disruption in reality. I propose we enlist his help as well."
"Wait a minute," Bogatyr says. "Who are you? Who says we can trust you?"
Sir Magick lifts a finger. "There's not much time for discussion. We need to act fast before the crack in reality gets too big... The things that can come through would destroy the Earth..."






TO BE CONTINUED