Bells of War

I didn’t ‘just’ get something to eat later. There was no time to. I could only send off a message to Mindy quickly that I was stepping out before I followed Blin through the weird portal.

This was an emergency, but I didn’t think I was going to be much help.

How could I be when I wasn’t even dine unlocking my powers?

But I would manage, that was the lie I told myself as Blin closed the portal behind us.

The Portal snapped close at the speed of light with a sonic boom and the kinetic explosion from it would have turned me into mashed Clarke if it weren’t for Blin immediately grabbing hold of me and teleporting.

We appeared a few miles away from where the portal was destructively collapsed by the agent of destruction who stood placidly beside me.

I stared at them, utterly and evidently dumbfounded. First came the comprehension that Blin could move faster than light, then the worry of what space-time element he must have destroyed to collapse that portal, then even more worry for what must have happened to my condo.

Condo, I thought hysterically, more like the entire building and half of New York.

I looked back to where the portal had collapsed and what had been a hill was now a kilometers wide canyon.

“Hope my apartment isn’t going to get the same geographical redecoration?” I asked them.

Blin frowned as though confused by something which had me worried before they shook their head negatively.

“The destructive effect of closing a portal made by a Bastion of Finire only affects the location the portal was closed from.”

His encouraging reply made me release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Well then, thanks for the save, that thing would have turned me to liquid meat,” I told him and he gave a short now in acknowledgement of the appreciation.

I paused for a moment as I realized something just at that moment. “Hold up, if you could teleport, why did you have to use such a dangerous means of transportation?”

Blin tapped their chest which was wrapped by a band I hadn’t paid much attention to before. It looked extremely high tech and even had indicator lights.

“This device is like the identification cards of your world, it allows us access to the systems of Varganna, one of which is the teleportation modules spread across the planet,” Blin said.

“Our IDs aren’t really like that, but I understand,” I told them. The bands were essentially the hardware equivalents of passwords for access to even cooler hardware-like devices that allows Vargannas to teleport to anywhere on their planet.

Which meant they could only be used in Varganna, which explained why Blin couldn’t have used theirs to transport to Earth.

“Come, we need to find Bastion Apocalypse, he’s the Bastion of this Cosmic Region,” Blin said, offering their hand to me.

I nodded at that. Just as I was the Bastion of the Cosmic Region Earth resided in. Well, other Bastions took care of the job for now until I was ready to officially take up the duty.

I gave Blin my hand and they teleported again.

This time we arrived at a place that looked like a mission control center. It was occupied by two men, none which looked like Blin and thus weren’t Vargannas. One, a male, or at least I assumed he was as he looked quite like one but I couldn’t be sure as he was a red skinned alien with scales instead of hair. He was like an evolved, bipedal, red crocodile, just without a tail.

The other was also presumably male. He looked so black he was almost blue and his eyes were completely black, no white sclera. He was bald, if that was by choice or a result of his species genetics, there was no way for me to know.

The red alien was the first to acknowledge us, he gave Blin a nod then turned to face me, Amber eyes regarding me from head to toe. “And who have you brought here to us, Bastion Blin.”

“Bastion Ultimate, I would like to introduce the youngest Bastion of Genesis. He is yet to choose a title,” Blin answered promptly, yet calmly.

“Hi, I’m Clarke. I haven’t gotten to picking a title yet, I’m still waiting to come up with one that resonates with my purpose,” I said, stretching out my hand for a handshake while wondering if the gesture was universal.

Either it was or Bastion Ultimate had something against him because the red alien scoffed, disregarded me, turning instead to glare at Blin.

“You brought a handicap here to defend your people?”

They blinked in surprise at the hostility in Ultimate’s tone, hesitated for a moment before answering. “We were of the opinion that to defeat this otherworldly incursion, all help, able to be gathered, would be needed.”

Ultimate’s glare increased and he had a look I recognized very well, having been at the receiving end of it from several of my superiors while I was still in the army. It was a look that said they regarded you, everything about you, as nothing more than a fly.

The other alien turned his black gaze to me, watched me curiously for a second as one would an ant seen doing something interesting. He then turned to Ultimate.

“We must not antagonize potential allies, Ultimate,” he chided with a surprisingly soft and calm voice.

Ultimate grimaced but nodded. “As you wish, Apocalypse.”

I sensed some deference in his tone. That surprised me. There was no reason for him to be showing such respect to Apocalypse. To my knowledge there was no chain of command among Bastions, each Bastion was the only authority in their Cosmic Region, so why did Ultimate just treat Apocalypse like he was his commander? Was it because this was Apocalypse’s Cosmic Region?

Perhaps, he simply just respects him, after all, Apocalypse must have a reputation to back up such a grim title.

The near vanta-black alien turned to look at me again. “Bastions without professional titles have a patronym added to the name of their Aeon. You shall answer to that for now.”

I nodded, understanding what he meant, but had to ask, just to be sure. “So like Genesison?”

All three aliens in the room stared at me like I’d grown a second head, making me suddenly self cautious. What did I say now to have garnered such a reaction?

“It’s Genesis'i. For a Bastion of Finire, it would be Finire’i,” Blin told me and I nearly face palmed.

Of course it would be something alien. Why had I assumed differently? Maybe it was because it seemed like we were all speaking English so I’d assumed the patronym would be in English. That had been quite presumptuous, even on Earth there had been patronyms from hundreds of languages.

Regardless, I should have known better as I’d known since I became a Bastion that no alien I’d met was actually speaking English. Perhaps it was my Aeon, Genesis, feeding me instinctive knowledge as it’d done with explaining how Primus used his powers to me.

I suspected that they were somehow using their powers to facilitate Omni-linguality or perhaps had a device that helped them with that.

My bet would be on them using their powers. Before I could ask, though, an alarm went off.

Ultimate led us further into the room, to a station where Apocalypse stood over, watching a holographic display.

This was the first ever 3D visual I was seeing produced by technology.

But my awe for it soon died upon seeing what it was relaying to us.

The hologram showed starships, hundreds and hundreds of them. Nearly unlimited.

I gulped at the sight. This was not a battle I came prepared for.