It was disorienting. She hadn’t seen in this spectrum in months. She hadn’t yet seen in that spectrum. Now they saw in both. It was confusing. The world appeared both greater and lesser: colors and heat and power and life, all now overloading her senses, overloading her sight. And speaking of power, they took a step forward. The ground froze and shattered. And their sword gleamed. It was a cold light, something wholly new; a mixing of two separate powers. A mixing of two wills. They swung it, and felt reality shudder in its passage, and frowned. Without the second array, it would not have been enough. They watched her stagger to her feet. Her eyes were suns, ablaze in fury. She roared at them and burst into flaming power. This is what she was like when weakened. They gulped in fear, but quieted the sensation.

“Oh no, my dear Betsy. What have you done?”

“Betsy is gone. We are more than just Betsy, more than just Johanna. And we are going to end you.”

“I will rip Betsy out of you, and I will discipline her. You will be my Champion, Betsy. It is too late, you can not refuse.”

She lunged, appearing in a flash before them. They turned and slashed behind them, causing her to leap away in panic, the heat image dissipating. They followed up with another attack, stepping forward to combo a series of slashes and stabs with the coldly shining weapon. She soon grew tired of fighting on the defensive and burst into a sea of flame, engulfing them and the entire area. They flinched at the suddenly much greater heat. She used this momentary stagger to reform and thrust her hand through their chest. They smiled and lopped the arm off at the elbow. All present watched her arm disappear, absorbed fully into them. She screamed and tried to fly away, only to slam into the cage. It bent with the force, this time, but eventually snapped back flinging her back to them. It hadn’t dissipated yet.

“Call her. You’ll never defeat us alone. Oh, but that’s right. You hate each other, so much that you’ll turn unassuming people from other worlds entirely into pieces in your cosmic board game. Well, no more. We’ll end that today.”

They walked slowly toward her, where she lay on the ground at the foot of the magical cage. She hissed at them and stood up, then began to glow more and more radiantly. They spread out darkness to match, tamping down her light. She snarled and threw fire at them hot as the sun, which they matched with a chilling wind, dousing the flames and freezing her to the bone. They got to her and she leaped away, only to feel the bite of the sword. She wouldn’t die from being cut, grievous as the wound may be; gods were stronger than that. She could still feel pain, falling back to the ground, screaming in pain. And then another voice was heard, from a woman standing just outside the bounds of the cage.

“My. I admit that my dear sister could use a bringing down to size. But this is too much, don’t you think?”

“Then why don’t you come stop us?”

“Because I am no fool. I’m not walking into that trap, dears.”

“Why not? You walked into the outer one.”

The new arrivals eyes sharpened. She burst into a storm of darkness quickly expanding out until she hit a very obvious boundary, before reforming in her original position, grimacing. Her face was set in a rictus of hate to match that of her sister’s earlier. She stepped through the inner wall.

“Very clever. Though I shudder to understand where you found enough materials to set up two of these rituals. Very well, you have me here with my dear sister. I hope you can handle us both.”

They looked between the two sisters, setting up on opposite sides of them. They fell into an aggressive guard and prepared to meet the two sisters.Both attacked at once. The fire and light not weakened in the slightest even with her gaping wound and missing arm. The shadow and cold even stronger. But the goddesses had little combat experience and none of it recent. They had been fighting constantly since they had gotten their powers. It showed. They danced around the sisters’s attacks, redirecting the attacks at the opposite sister than she who launched it, and striking back with their own attacks at the same time. It wasn’t long before the sisters were desperate, running low on energy, and eyes full of fury, blazing or empty as they might be. But they just kept going. They were standing tall and strong, sword held lightly in one hand, batting aside attacks and lashing out with just as much fury as the two they faced.

And eventually, the goddess could not keep up their uncoordinated assault. Flame was spewed and redirected as usual, and darkness raised to block it. And out of the collision of the two a blade came scything, followed by the scream of the middle sister, now matching the youngest for number of arms. They snaked their own shadow out to the arm as it fell, and felt it absorbed just the same. The two goddesses were afraid, now. Even against the both of them, the combined Champions not only didn’t falter but strengthened. The two sisters exchanged a look, and fled, blasting the same point of the cage, hoping to overwhelm it with their combined firepower. The youngest screamed in pain, a blade through her. They’d gone for her first, the moment the sister’s backs were turned, for it was at her that their ire was greatest.

“How? How are you doing this? The Rite of of Zarthous-”

“Would overwhelm any one mortal. We are two, made one. Eternally. It is enough.”

“There will be more. You think we are the only gods who will come to your plane? Any gods you once had are left or dead.”

“Don’t worry. You will keep the plane safe. Both of you. And we’ll help.”

With a pained, drawn out no, the first goddess disappeared, drawn into the blade she gave her Champion so long ago. They turned to face the middle sister. The one who had corrupted Johanna. She turned to face them, desperation clear on her face.

“You have beaten my sister. Congratulations. She, after all, was the source of all of your woes. The only reason I reached out to Johanna, after all, was to pay back a favor I owed to her. Now that you have won, why don’t you let me go? If you are worried about my continuing attacks, then do not be. I can swear to peace and friendship. Why are you still approaching. You, you cannot hope to absorb both of our powers, even with both of your souls to process it, it will break you. And the two of you are already so far gone. Do you not want to enjoy your bonding with what little is left of your consciousnesses?”

“That is a risk that we are willing to take.”

“No. Stay away! I will not let you just take me like that!” as she screamed, she filled the area with void, with a lack so great it had even worked on other deities.

“Nice trick. Good thing you already gave it to us,” they stepped forward and impaled her with one unerring thrust.

“I suppose this is the end, isn’t it then? I could pry myself off still, but after that it would just be a matter of time,” she all of a sudden lashed out, turning her hand as real as possible, and her nails as sharp as swords, slashing into their face repeatedly. “Too bad I’m a spiteful goddess. Take this. If I’m to die, then it will only be striking at you. May your wretched souls perish under the strain of your blasphemous attempt.”

They stood there and weathered the attack, as her blows grew less and less forceful, and she seemed less and less real. Until finally, she faded fully, the sword drinking in the last few wisps of shadow. They stood there, alone, swaying now, as the full force of what they absorbed in so short a time assaulted them. They were a boat stuck in a hurricane, their mind torn at and ripped into. And they looked up, and they saw there sparked surprise.

“K-Kim…”

The name was whispered, the archer looking at them with surprise. She must be confused as to what was happening. They could only imagine what they looked like right now. And behind her, panting as if she’d been running to get here, was Suseanne, book poking out of her messenger bag. She was reaching out to Kim, trying to say something. They felt their consciousness settle briefly, their thoughts running in tandem. They fought to have it settle longer, and they knew what they had to do. They heard it as a familiar whisper in the back of their head, profane as usual. They smiled, confidently and reassuringly. It was Betsy’s smile.

They left the two girls with that as they thrust the sword into the ground and exploded in power.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“…and so that’s pretty much what happened.”

Kim looked at me blankly for a moment then started gesturing. She frowned when she remembered I couldn’t understand that. I smiled apologetically and she blew a strand of hair out of her face. Apparently she liked it short, but had rushed over to the strange presence when she awoke without even cutting it. She brought out her phone and started typing on it before turning it around to show me.

And what about that explosion? That had to have covered half the state. At least. What will it do?

I shrug. That would be them releasing the power to do something, far as I could tell from the book. Do what, I still wasn’t sure. It would kind of be up to them what the power was intended for. Hopefully turning my hair and eyes purple would be the worst of it. Somehow I doubted that. I could already feel something from the book, some kind of power. Magic, some part of my brain whispered, but I dismissed that.

“Quite honestly, I can’t say for sure. I know when we had all been planning this, it was supposed to create some kind of barrier around the world. To stop divine agents from outside the plane from coming in and ruining things,” there was a pause then more typing.

And Charlene? Would she have been brought back? Could she have been?

“It- it looks like that would have been impossible. It is likely, based on the wounds that she had, that the bitch of light probably struck at Charlene’s soul. If she hadn’t then they probably could have, especially with the power of two gods. But as it is, there likely wasn’t even anything to bring back. Betsy cried at that, and my little Kouhai always hated having people see her do that. Seems Charlene dying hit her hard. I wonder if it would have been half as bad if you hadn’t, you know, before.”

The waitress brought us the burgers we ordered and left. Someone at the counter yelled at the workers to change it to the news, saying no one wanted to see the local favorite team at whatever sport was currently playing in the background losing. I hadn’t paid much attention, so I wasn’t really sure. I was just looking at Kim as she typed on her phone, waiting for her response. If I was going to be interacting with her much going forward, I really needed to learn ASL.

“..and as a recent addition to tonight’s breaking story, a child capable of shooting what this reporter can only term as lasers from his eyes there with his mother stopped the robber who seemed to be attacking by increasing the temperature. The police are scrambling to figure out what is going on and-”

“Who cares about some freak kid. Probably some bullshit they put in the water these days. Go back to the game, I got money riding on that!”

And the staff did. It didn’t matter, what I heard had me scared enough. I turned in my seat to look at Kim. She looked grimly at me, then typed into her phone again.

That book. Are you a wizard? Can you cast any spells?

I handed her phone back and rushed out the door, Kim on my heels. I stopped, briefly to look at a corner where the shadow of the alley mingled with the sun on the street. I thought I saw two people there, women, holding each other and looking over at me. There was nothing there but the wind. When I looked over at Kim she was looking at the same spot. She shook her head and grabbed me by the sleeve, dragging me forward a step. We were now overlooking a bank. I panicked at the sudden transition and at trying to have everything catch up to me. From the lasers blasting out the wall of the bank, which I’m pretty sure lasers wouldn’t do but I’m not a scientist, I could tell some fight was still going on. When I looked over at Kim she was in her archer uniform from before. I guess I was going to have to learn ASL after all.