Zippy Zip-A-Long

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

 

Professor Von'Osmond paced back and forth nervously in his new laboratory workshop deep underground in a massive base in the USA. He wore a white labcoat stained oddly in places, plastic gloves and gumboots. On a wide workbench were beakers of strange bubbling liquids with bunson burners beneath them that were switched off. They had never been lit in the first place. The liquids, in theory, should not have been bubbling with so much heat but they were in seeming defiance of natural laws.

 

A pretty young woman of a lab assistant was standing to one side in her labcoat. She was taking notes onto a clipboard. A reel to reel tape-machine, of a kind now being manufactured in the USA but which was still hard to get for most people, was ready to record notes as well but the professor was not sure what he should say. So he sat down into a comfortable leather swivel-chair and the young woman came over and sat on his lap.

 

He sighed heavily as she wiggled around to make herself comfortable and then he spoke with a sombre tone to his voice. "I fear that the very worst is coming to pass. The transdimensional cracks are growing between the Thirteen Worlds. Nirn, Terra #1, Terra #2 and, most likely, my real home world of Transexualvania. I must think. My head is too murky. My thinking is too excited. I must have relief. Yes, something to take my mind off things. Please keep wriggling, my dear young wife."

 

Yes, his wife! She smiled warmly and did so. His wife but he had secretly created her in a laboratory a very long time ago. That is a laboratory on his home world of Transexualvania. He had come to love his young wife and when his Lords and Ladies had ordered him to kill her, he had instead fled with her to this crazy world with its jukeboxes, World War Two, big bands, chemistry sets, motor saloons, movies, toffees, coffee and so much more both weird and wonderful.

 

He had to be careful with his wife for she was just a tad sociopathic.

 

He had done some work with Professor Exman and at the start had assumed the other man would be typical local Earthman but no, the other man was canny with a very sharp mind able to seek the exotic and understand it. The other professor clearly suspected that Professor Von'Osmond was not what he said he was.

 

The professor sighed and then he kissed his young wife. She eagerly kissed him back. She was a tad nymphomaniac as well.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

 

The monster Hitler and his evil hordes were coming.

 

Grey buildings, grey mist and the Kremlin in the distance. Soviet forces were building up defences to hold the cities of Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad from enemy attacks. Odd things were happening in the capital city. Stalin was dead and a new great leader was rising out of nowhere to replace him. He brought with him reforms to bring true limited democracy at a local level, a cutting down of both beauracratic size and power, a limitation on the secret and political police forces and the freeing of many political prisoners. How this happened, nobody new, but a strange change was taking place in Russia.

 

The strange little woman looked like a typical well off Russian woman in her fur coat. She hurried along a wide sidewalk through bustling crowds. There was the smell of cooking potatoes and cabbage, the sounds of drunken folk, the roar of big clumsy Soviet built buses and prostitutes dotted the sidewalks of that district. Even as she turned off the sidewalk and into a very empty, very grey laneway, her mind went carefully over the details of the agreement made. Yes it was as water tight as one could make it and the Spiritums had no good reason for even trying to cheat. Their world was also in danger, was one of the Thirteenth Worlds.

 

The laneway was special for it had existed, but not in the normal sense, for many years. It simply existed but did not exist for normal people. The buildings either side of it had been built back in the 1840s but somehow the laneway was much older than that. Then the strange little woman was at the end of the laneway, at the magical vault door that looked like basic wooden double doors perhaps to a storage room or workshop.

 

She clapped her hands, the doors swung open with a glowing sparkling in the air and out of a glowing cloud beyond flew the first of the Spiritums to enter that world. Glowing spirits, semitransparent, vaguely human shaped, seeking their enemies of fallen spirits, seeking to inspire people, seeking to enter those willing to take them, seeking to fight transformed Hitler and his monsters but, more importantly, the darkness behind the transformed Hitler.

 

First there was a trickle, then dozens, then hundreds and then, finally, thousands of Spiritums flowing out of that place as they spread outwards through Moscow and beyond.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

 

Yushinavel, the buried Ayleid city, was permeated with the evil of the second instrumentality of the Dark0ne.

 

The Eternal Champion and the Knights of Light were fighting in a great, typically Ayleid chamber as wave after wave of zombies and skeletars, animated skeletons, came at them. The magical bolts and flames flew. The machineguns roared. Autorifles blasted away. Pulseblasters blasted away. Zombie after zombie exploded, burned and truly died. Skeletors shattered, burned, also died. The skeletors and zombies were of the Ayleids (Wild Elves) who had perished back when they had tried to exploit the second instrumentality for their own desires and from the Ayleid army sent to destroy the second instrumentality.

 

Graham Maharg, the living god, led another party in another chamber. Brothers of Steel in power armour blazed away with 20mm autoguns, 5.5mm miniguns and flamers. A powerful Litch, once an Ayleid Lord, was leading an army of zombies and skeletors against the strange little man but they exploded, burst into flames or just melted when they got too close to him. The Litch Lord held back and hurled undeathly energies at the living god but they simply ceased to exist.

 

The invaders of the ancient city had not put forth all of their forces yet and they would not do so until the final push into the great vault chamber where the second instrumentality was to be found. Until then they expected it would be a long fighting slog into the great ring chamber around the vault.

 

But at that moment something hideous and evil screamed, the sound somehow echoing through the very walls of the great underground city.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

 

War raged in the realm of Oblivion.

 

Daedric forces fought daedric forces across islands surrounded by glowing larva seas. Dremora fought dremora in the first time in thousands of years. Swarms of scamps were hurled against each other as expendable first waves. Spider deadra, low flying wasp daedra battled each other and daedragons fought above other forces.

 

Now one side had new weapons, though, like submachineguns, rifles and machineguns, flamers and biomechanical striding war-machines firing rocket-launchers, machineguns and cannons. Jagrunes Dagon's followers had gained knowleage of such deadly devices and mysterous forces had begun constructing such devices as soon as they could. They had been adapted to be used by various kinds of lesser daedra. Such as dremora and scards needed less adaptation.

 

But there was something else favouring Jagrunes Dagon; he had far more followers than he should have had, than his father, Mehrunes Dagon, had ever had. Just where were they coming from?

 

The Eternal Champion crouched on a narrow ledge watching the battle play out before her. The weapons were replicas of human devices of their World War Two though some were adapted. But who or what had made so many of them in such a short time and while making design adaptations?

 

Perhaps the answers lay with the long vanished Daedric Artisans and the daedrones.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

 

Scully and Muldar awoke and sat up, hugged each other quickly as if to affirm life and noticed that they now wore odd gear of an almost medieval style, dull coloured, fairly rough cloth but very durable and practical. Hidden in shoulder holsters beneath thin jackets were odd metallic pistols that they found they already knew of, somehow. Each giftgun generated one pulse a second up to a total of a thousand pulses and these pulses could be used to create various 'magical' effects.

 

Each also had boots, pouches on a belt, a canteen, some coloured coded small flasks, a sheaved knife, a bow and arrows in a quiver-scabbard and a ring on each middle finger of both hands.

 

They looked around the green forest shown up by the moonlight of two moons and saw in the distance a settlement of some kind, perhaps a large town complete with walls and a castle. Then they saw a wooden sign post and Muldar stared at it in shock.

 

Scully frowned. "As we have already worked out, we are clearly on some kind of alien world."

 

Muldar shook his head in wonder. "We are inside a computer game called Oblivion Online, a massive online gaming realm based on the super continent of Tamriel, and surrounding islands, on a world called Nirn. I used to play it sometimes when I was hunting down a ring of seriel killers who used to communicate in code through the game realm. Then, when I could, I played it for fun. That there is the city of Kvatch. It was destroyed by the demonic invaders from the realm of Oblivion, called the daedra, but has since been rebuilt. Well, this is reality and that is a popular game realm. At least I think that this is reality."

 

They walked further towards the small city, being large by local standards, until they came to a rough looking paved road going towards the walled metropolis with smoke drifting up from many chimneys. They crouched there and observed carefully what they could while hiding behind a bush.

 

But nothing came along the road which looked as if it needed repairs long overdue.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

 

The hulking German Tiger battletank fired off its powerful cannon at the monsters in the distance. There was the blast of an explosion that hurled zombies into the air. The old Nazi symbol was gone from the machine, being replaced by the those of the New Germany Republic, the NGR. Another Tiger battletank was overturned and burning not far away as a mixture of German, Italian and British Commonwealth soldiers came up from behind. New body-armours had appeared amongst the forces that helped greatly against zombie claws and fangs. Some soldiers slew zombies not with guns but with swords, axes and other such weapons that did not run out of ammo but which slew the lesser undead very nicely. Others were newly named soldier-mages hurling elemental bolts of fire, electricity and ice or spectral projectiles.

 

They were in a big valley in the Italian Alps and were fighting to stop the enemy from moving further southwards. Most Italian soldiers had not wanted to fight in World War Two, had been every ready not to fight or to surrender, but now they fought to defend their homeland, their people, from death and worse than death. Now Italian soldiers battled with great courage and skill. They had nothing to lose by doing so and everything to gain.

 

Old enemies were reluctant friends.

 

Jews amongst the Allies found it very hard to fight along side the German soldiers.

 

Sherman battletanks and Kangaroo APCs filled with troops, were coming from the south. African soldiers, mostly black, had been recruited, trained quickly and equipped, supplied with what ever was available.

 

But thankfully he was there.

 

About fifty kilometres from the actual fighting, the strange little man crouched on a burned out tank-destroyer and looked northward. He was dressed as a GI Officer complete with fancy golden symbols that meant nothing in particular but which looked good. He waved one hand to conjure up something useful in a field where soldiers and local workers had been dumping pieces of metal, glass, rubber and other stuff that he had suggested. These were to be the base materials to be transformed to things hopefully useful.

 

What he wanted was a British new style machine based on a hulking eight wheeled British Armoured Command Vehicle. It would be an Armoured Logistics Vehicle full of a mix of weapons, ammo, medical supplies, tools, rations and much else. He clicked his fingers. With a sparkling shimmer such a machine emerged out of mid air and a large amount of the gathered stuff vanished at the same moment. After ten minutes it was safe for soldiers to go to the machine and they did so.

 

Then four men were running towards it, Italians from the island of Sicily who he had not seen before. As the men ran, two grinned at each other with sparkling gold teeth, and then all four men sank suddenly down into the ground with cries of shock and fear.

 

The strange little man sighed. "Mafia fools! Did you really think I would let you get away with such tricks. Murderers, kidnappers, theives, extortionists, counterfeiters, smugglers, is there nothing evil that you have not done? When your people fight a terrible evil, what do you do? You try to steal from the soldiers so that you can profit from the suffering of Italy."

 

He snapped his fingers and the men vanished with a brief blue cold sparkling. They were never seen on that world again.

 

But there were worse humans out there than the Mafia as ancient dark cults began to stir and the Mythic Dawn became active on that world.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

IN THE YEAR 2525

A SONG BY (TO BE ADDED)

 

In the year 2525

If man is still alive

If woman can survive

They may find

 

In the year 3535

Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies

Everything you think, do, or say

Is in the pill you took today

 

In the year 4545

Ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes

You won't find a thing to do

Nobody's gonna look at you

 

In the year 5555

Your arms are hanging limp at your sides

Your legs not nothing to do

Some machine is doing that for you

 

In the year 6565

Ain't gonna need no husband, won't need no wife

You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too

From the bottom of a long black tube

 

In the year 7510

If God's a-comin' he ought to make it by then

Maybe he'll look around himself and say

Guess it's time for the Judgement day

 

In the year 8510

God's gonna shake his mighty head

He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been

Or tear it down and start again

 

In the year 9595

I'm kinda wondering if man's gonna be alive

He's taken everything this old earth can give

And he ain't put back nothing

 

Now it's been 10,000 years

Man has cried a billion tears

For what he never knew

Now man's reign is through

But through the eternal night

The twinkling of starlight

So very far away

Maybe it's only yesterday

 

In the year 2525

If man is still alive

If woman can survive

They may find

 

In the year 3535

Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies

Everything you think, do or say

Is in the pill you took today ....(fading

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

 

Yushinavel, the ancient Ayleid city, was now a battleground between three forces. The Eternal Champion led the Knights of the Light, progressive Mer of varied kinds, recently arrived Brothers of Steel and others including magical creatures. The other force were the lesser undead that were once Ayleids. The third force was an army of lesser daedra armed now with new weapons be they scamps, scard warriors, dremora infantry, spider daedra and many other kinds. With them came strange humans and human-dremora hybrids speaking fluently the daedric lesser tongue and wearing dremora style gear except for the modern body-armour.

 

The Eternal Champion began to realise where Jaghune Dagon's extra forces were coming from. They were coming from an Alternate Earth of some kind, or, more accurately, an Alternate Tamriel. She captured a human soldier and with difficulty read his half crazed mind. He was a brain washed soldier of a Tamriel ruled by a greater daedra named Lashunes Dagon, a false goddess rather than a god. There, on that other world of Nirn, most of Tamriel had fallen to the daedra but there was still resistance in various more isolated area from the Imperial City. The Dagon Empire now replaced the Cyrodilin Empire.

 

The Eternal Champion crouched on top of a tall, broad pillar next to a metallic pole ending in a 'stone', a glowing crystalic object of Ayleid power. Around her some of her forces were ready to battle oncoming enemies, a fifth big wave of lesser daedra this time. Bodies and other items had been removed from the big, open chamber floor but it was covered in blood and some gore. The smell of death was familiar with but not something she had ever gotten used to.

 

Fortuna the pixie was crouching next to her, very small in comparison, and was frowning. "So we face not one Daedra Deity but two, a god and a goddess."

 

The Eternal Champion nodded. "Which explains how Jaghunes Dagon is getting so many forces to take on the other Daedric Deities in the realm of Oblivion. We must stop the daedra from getting hold of the second instrumentality. As powerful and evil as they are, the daedra can not control such a powerful and treacherous device. Only the Dark0ne can and even he lost control of his fallen instrumentalities at a critical moment, causing him and his followers great harm in a great battle with the BrightOne."

 

The pixie snorted. "Too bad the BrightOne is not here to help us now."

 

The Eternal Champion sighed. "Fortuna, you should know better. She is always with us as the avatar, the envoy, the champion of the Great Goddess herself who is beyond the Nine Divines as they are mortals."

 

The pixie snorted. "Next you will be telling me that you are that avatar."

 

The Eternal Champion nodded. "I am one of them, yes."

 

Fortuna just stared at the beautiful, powerful woman in shock.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

Taken from an advertisement

 

Mother to young son: "When I bought you home as a baby you were so small I bathed you in a salad bowl."

 

Young son to mother: "That can't be true, mum, I don't even like salad."

 

Mother smiles to herself. "Of course, son, I must be mistaken."

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

COSMIC OPERA

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

 

Professor Exmen was not happy. He paced back and forth inside the great underground complex known as the Hexagon, a fortress of scientific research and development against the enemies of the USA and the Freedom Alliance. He was unhappy to learn that his government had been lying to him. He was in an observation booth overlooking a huge chamber of reinforced concrete and steel plating in some areas. In the very centre of the circular chamber was a special raised platform and on that was an alien spaceship. It was a zetan saucerboat. It had crashed in Arizona in the 1940 and nobody had bothered to tell Professor Exmen, the best scientist in the USA on exotic technologies.

 

Still, now he was catching up with the help of the cool, beautiful young women who stood in the room with him. He had studied all the previous studies of the alien vessels and the various conclusions before throwing nearly all of the reasoning out. The scientists, engineers and other specialists who had studied the craft had been too narrow focused to truly understand it exotic make-up and implications. A young trio of science fiction writers, two men and a woman, had come much closer. It was much more than just a spaceship, it was a transdimensional translatory device.

 

The zetans were involved how with the daedric invasion of New Mexico, of that world, of other worlds?

 

Mages had come from another world, from the Cyrodilin Empire on the super continent of Tamriel. They were in the Hexagon showing off magic and in turn learning about science, about modern technologies. It was hard to say who was most astonished by the other, the Terran scientists or the Cyrodilin mages. The magic at most demand for the moment was that which destroyed the undead, which was designed to kill them. The rise of magic on Terra was causing conflict through out the world but magefolk were often being protected by governments desperate to build defences against the undead.

 

Strange news had come from Europe! The werewolves had broken away from the control of the vampires and were fighting the undead, were often fleeing to join forces with the Freedom Alliance. This was no coincidence. Powerful but subtle magic had been used to free the werewolves around the world from the influence of the Dark0ne who was not Hitler but a monster controlling Hitler. Hitler had become little more than an insane puppet, a figurehead of the Nazis, and rumours came out of the dark controlled Europe that he was dying.

 

A young woman, an angel, then spoke to him. "Professor Exmen, do you know who and what you really are?"

 

He turned and gave her an odd look. Then he considered the strangely vivid dreams that he had been having. He sighed. "I am an arch-angel. It makes no sense."

 

She smiled. "We are called angels but really that is just a name. You are called an arch-angel but that is also only a name. We have a multitude of names in a multitude of languages on a multitude of worlds. We fight the Dark in the cause of the Light but the Great Undeath comes from outside of the natural and supernatural realms normal to both the Dark and the Light or the Rainbow or the Grey that both exist in crossways to the Dark and the Light. Rainbow is chaos of all kinds but also the mixture of many variations. Grey is Law broken down to the common denominator and is absolute control. The Dark0ne has done something very stupid in trying to tip the balance of power in favour of the Dark. He has opened a gateway to allow the Undeath into a multiverse of universes where such does not, should not and can not exist with out dire results taking place. Even the Undeath itself will suffer greatly if this stupidity does not end. The original undead of Tamriel and other such places are not true undead but what one might call quasi-undeath, even the more powerful of them."

 

The Professor sighed and shook his head. "I like being myself."

 

The angel smiled. "We are sorry but now you must change before the US President initiates the foolish plan to fire atomic warhead rockets from England to Continental Europe. The atomic explosions would destroy many of the enemy but the results would in the longer term make them stronger. The true Undeath thrives on very high radiation and the Dark0ne will be able to draw power from it."

 

Exmen frowned. "I have already advised the President to reject the nuclear weapon solution. I wonder if this is why he is no longer accepting my telephone calls or allowing me to meet with him. I am getting the cold shoulder from a few in this big underground horror of concrete and metal. Now is as good as any a time to transform."

 

Then he did, glowing and shimmering, but when he was finished he still looked like Professor Exmen and in many ways he still was. He smiled. "The Light has allowed me to enjoy being Professor Exmen at least to some extent for some time to come. We have much to do and now I will start using my powers to influence people in this underground concrete hexagon."

 

The angels smiled and bowed briefly in acknowledgement of his decision.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 13, 2010 by Maharg67