Chapter 28: The Steel-Driver

‘A man ain’t nothing but a man.

But before I let that steam drill beat me down.

I’ll die wid my hammer in my hand,

Die wid my hammer in my hand.’

-- “John Henry”

From the direction opposite where they entered, Mr. Aitvaras barged in. “To think I cared so much about your money, Ostara!” he slurred. His formerly pristine suit was tarnished by soot. “What good’s cash? Zombies don’t buy things!” Fire burst from his hands. While it would take weeks to scratch a dint in such a vast collection, he started destroying anything at claw.

The companions were unsure what to do. After all, they were no friends to Ostara. Why be concerned with what befell her property? Then, the demon kicked aside a jade vase, exposing a cache of eggs. They were easy to tell for the real thing, since they were beside a collection of Faberge eggs.

Even so, these were like no eggs Grace had even seen. To imagine what exotic species they much hatch into! A mix of colors and designs, polka-dots and checkers; shapes ranged from perfectly round to pointedly elliptical. Mr. Aitvaras cared nothing for their uniqueness, stating his intention to “Turn ’em all to omelets!”

Bennu flew the distance of the treasury, spreading his darkened wings to catch the brunt—no, the whole—of Aitvaras’ wrath. A challenge passed between the two firebirds silently, as when Grace and Goldtalon communicated by imprinting.

Any semblance of Mr. Aitvaras’ human disguise melted forever, including clothes. He committed to being a demonic rooster, slashing his whip-tail at Bennu. He dodged the strike, similarly avoiding the demon’s spurs. Bennu clearly relished being able to show up Mr. Aitvaras in flight abilities, which was not possible when they met at Christmas. His trajectory seemed chaotic, but a familiar observer could discern why he headed a certain way. He was leading the rooster away from the rare eggs.

Grace led Goldtalon, Diana, and Fox to the pile just as the birds started wrestling. They carried the most valuable objects in the treasury as gently as they could, beyond the flaming battle. Unfortunately, giving each object its deserved and fair attention meant only moving one at a time. After a few minutes watching, Anansi weaved a new silk bag.

It held despite its flimsy appearance. Diana scouted a relatively safe place for those eggs stolen from their proper families by Ostara. Goldtalon’s wings brought them there faster than by walking. The stash was hidden under a rug made from a genuine unicorn, complete with a thin, sparkly (but surprising sharp—according to Fox) horn coming out of its forehead. The others were silent, but William Henry peaceably hummed the entire time they worked.

Mr. Aitvaras could not literally stare daggers, nor turn anything to stone. But blue-tipped yellow flames burst from his sockets, striking Bennu. The attack would have injured the rest of the companions, but he had decided to fight a phoenix. Bennu only became stronger, blazing with a rainbow to equal the mix in the jellybean stalk.

Bennu came from behind Mr. Aitvaras, pinioned his radiant wings over the rooster’s. In the heat of the moment, the phoenix failed to realize it was the same position the Stymphalian bird held him in the morning he came to the Murder’s hollow. Grace, who turned to see if he needed help, remembered, though.

Mr. Aitvaras had natural defenses, however. Reptilian spikes along his back dug into Bennu’s breast. The demon slammed his head back, slashing the phoenix in his crane-neck. Then, the rooster twisted his head around, belching smoke into his opponent’s eyes. But to a phoenix, any warmth is good.

The power Mr. Aitvaras kept giving to Bennu let him withstand the pain the demon’s bodily arsenal inflicted just a few moments longer. The furious duel became a matter of who would give under pressure first. The period of attrition lasted long enough the companions successfully rounded up the eggs, agreeing to return them home later if they could.

When Bennu at last released his hold, a still-steaming Mr. Aitvaras crashed to the floor. Melting cheese coated his feathers like tar. The demon was physically diminished. The chain holding the scroll around his neck broke. The item was on the ground only a moment before being taken up by William Henry.

The man finally stopped humming. “I’m sure, certain, unequivocal there’ll be a fine from the Croatoan Archives,” he said without humor. Only a grimace. “You have your medicine, drug, panacea. But I know by hard experience, Ostara yet has everything she needs to conquer, rule, take over Earth. I left the world because I hated how humans treated others, strangers, outsiders. That being said, spoken, articulated, a planet of zombies would be even worse.”

“I remember,” said Goldtalon. “When I was controlled, and bad bunny forced me to dance around. How I couldn’t fly to save kitty…” He only resumed speaking after Grace stroked his back. “It’s not like sleep. You can see, hear, smell everything. It’s not numbness, like when your tail still feels tingly. You know you should care about stuff, or want things. But you can’t, even when you try forcing yourself to. It’s just whatever you get told, and then follow orders.”

“Schrodinger was our friend.” Grace held onto her griffin. “Except Anansi, but you probably would have liked him. We can’t let the spores get to anyone else.” She eyed the brew in the cauldron. It did not seem like nearly enough.

“Ostara stole, took, purloined all her ideas from the spider,” said William Henry. “She had me actually make, build, construct them. Chained, shackled, stuck to my workbench, even while sleeping, I was mostly forced to slave away on tanks. Don’t know how many I scraped together, but enough so all the moon rabbits who normally, usually, typically worked the forge or guarded this treasury could fit inside. I heard even the miners abandoned, left, relinquished their drilling equipment. I’m unaware what’s changed in war, battle, fighting down below, but if she beats the human’s minds, it won’t matter Ostara only has a few physical weapons.”

“We ought to take out the tanks anyway,” said Anansi. “If they can’t invade, the spores won’t matter. Why not adapt a plan I suggested to my buddy Homer? We find an empty tank, you fly it down to Earth with the others, who won’t suspect your identity. Then, you pop out, put the rabbits to the sword, and I go home. Not exactly a Trojan Horse, but then, only Homer could do it right. Wonder what he’s up to now.”

 “I’m sorry.” Bennu looked up from checking on the eggs of his former neighbors. “The Greek poet Homer is dead.”

“Really? No!” Anansi’s thimble fell into a pile of silver objects, including a top hat, clothes iron, boot, battleship, cannon, racecar, purse, rocking horse, and lantern. “Could have sworn I’d spoken to him last Tuesday. Or was it Ares-day? He was just about to start his second sequel to the Odyssey.” 

“Yes.” Bennu rechecked the cache of eggs, accidentally slipping on a Faberge imitation. “Several thousand years ago.”

Anansi sighed, which, coming from spider mandibles, sounded more like a whistle.

“The only sword we have won’t do much good in fighting.” Grace instead offered Ridil’s healing power to anyone injured. None accepted. Those forced to fight off the Sandmen had been fixed up before the enemy battalions arrived. Goldtalon seemed fine. His natural hunger had returned, at least. He was already eating a hole through a wall of brie. Grace sheathed her sword and pulled her silky-yet-strong bag across her chest. The leftovers to Goldtalon’s cure were placed in the last free containers.

“I don’t think, believe, anticipate we’ll be able to steal a tank,” admitted William Henry. “But I know how best to break them before they leave the moon.”

“Why this urgency?” asked Bennu. “Ostara’s planned this conquest for a long time. Is it starting now because we, ulp…intervened?” The indigo bird shivered till he turned lavender.

William Henry inhaled deeply. “Not unless you dictate the course, progression, cycle of the calendar.”

“Don’t you know what day it is?” Anansi literally jumped in. “I wouldn’t either, except my torturers were chatting about it all week. It’s Easter Sunday, when the goddess is not only at full strength, but also connected to your homeworld by the complex, subtle ties of magic.”

“If she decided to,” continued William Henry, “Ostara could alter, change, remold the entire shape of the Astral moon.”

“Told you I saw a crescent forming!” shouted Bennu.

“Why would the Easter Bunny want to change the shape of the moon?” asked Fox.

“Physics. Even in the maddest, craziest, most deranged corners of the Astral, laws of nature still hold some influence.” William Henry sighed. “Schrodinger was first to explain that to me, myself, I. Ostara naturally wants her soldiers, mercenaries, army to cross the space between here and Earth, but never bothered to learn shadowboxing. She can still form a ramp, slope, inclined plane for her tanks to roll down, otherwise, they’d be endlessly circling a still very spherical moon.”

“That’s a crazy idea!” cried Anansi. “Why didn’t I think of it?” Somewhere among the piles of precious jewels, metals, art, paintings, furs, rugs, and silks, he picked out a bright yellow fedora which nicely complemented his raincoat. He pulled it over his Groucho glasses.

“You did, spider,” responded William Henry. “While Tecciztecatl tortured, tormented, abused you, as I understand it.”

“What about the governments?” asked Fox. “The militaries on Earth. Sure, the bunnies might take out a few countries with spores, but other nations will have time to prepare weapons. A bunch of rusty tanks—even ones that fly—wouldn’t do much next to atom bombs.”

 “Atom. Bombs.” William Henry said the words individually, like he could not picture them being used together. “I’m a bit behind, belated, lagging on military technologies. Apparently, I not only missed, lost, was absent for the war to end all wars, but the war that happened after that, too.” 

“It’s simple,” said Bennu. “Atom bombs are bad. The most destructive thing humans have dreamed up so far. Still, there were and are much worse things out in the cosmos. The least damaging—to the soul, I mean—is the radiation travelling across space. While parasitizing the world tree, Yggdrasil, I can’t imagine Radixomniummalorum bokor was never struck by it. Yet the spores are still thriving, at the expense of my ho…former city. Who’s to say nuclear weapons wouldn’t make it worse?”

“Radioactive fungi-controlled zombie slaves to an evil, immortal rabbit goddess,” summarized Fox. “I can’t think of anything worse than that. And I really, really want to. Worst thoughts are my thing.”

“Thought they were mine,” Diana pouted, though her heart was clearly not in it anymore.

“Okay.” Grace clapped. A whirling happened in her head so powerfully, it felt impossible no one else heard. “If the tanks are supposed to fly, there must be a runway. It ought to be close, so they won’t have far to bustle from where they were built.”

“We track the direction of the treads,” said Fox. “Like following the forge’s heat.” After a great deal of listening, the consensus was the tanks outside the palace moved in a generally western direction. They had little idea how to stop the machines from taking off, though. At this stage, they could only gather information.

The walls making up most passages in Mooncry consisted of Swiss cheese, with plenty windows available to glimpse adjoining areas. When the prisoners were first paraded through the castle, cursing, slavering rabbits glared as them. Now, Grace and her friends exploited the holes to spy ahead. 

Groups of rabbits were heading west, but their eyes were cast to their feet while they marched rank-and-file. Some wore helmets, others carried pastel grenades. Lines parted to make room for Ostara and her lieutenant. All failed to notice the companions peeking through a nearby hole. Ostara rifled a set of index cards.

“Ready to address the troops, boss?” Tecciztecatl hefted his peg-leg as a club.

“Obviously.” Ostara wore a jeweled tiara, with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds. A pink sash with sparkling lights flashed the words “Miss Fairest” across her cream-colored tummy. “It’s my special day. Mine. Not anyone else’s. Not anymore.” Ostara honored Tecciztecatl with a side glance. “Wait, you have another leg!”

“Sure.” Tecciztecatl nodded his head, as scruffy and unclean as ever. “Our new allies healed me, like you’ve been saying you’d do all this time.” He quailed a bit under Ostara’s sudden scowl. “Y’know, the augur and spider. They said you let ’em go.”

“They said, Tecciztecatl, they said? This is what I say: they tricked you, idiot!” Ostara stuck out a paw to stop some stragglers among the ranks. “Due to some incompetent idiot’s incompetence, we have at least two escaped prisoners! Find them now, and you don’t have to participate in the invasion.” She turned back to her lieutenant. “What of the others?”

“Well, the spider said the augur ate them.”

“All of them?” Ostara’s customarily wide eyes became slits. “A girl ate two other brats, a phoenix, and a griffin? No! Check the treasury, and the forge while you’re at it. Last thing we need right now it our faithful tinkerer getting away.”

Plenty of rabbits willingly volunteered if it meant staying home. Anansi left half of them in stiches. Goldtalon had the other half in need of casts. Grace’s friends learned that once finishing touches were put on the tanks, the brightly painted vehicles rolled across a rusty drawbridge over the pepper jack moat, barely seeming to support the weight.

Traffic proved intense. To keep from being crushed, the companions holed up in a tool closet. Bennu’s light revealed wrenches, screwdrivers, and hammers. (Though none as big as William Henry’s) The last panzer crossed. Rumbling persisted in the west, but from tank engines idling. Waiting.

After crossing the rusty bridge themselves, they spotted Ostara at a distance, standing at a tall pulpit. To peer over, she needed to stand on several peach crates. Beyond the moat and walls of Mooncry lay a paved, even cement road. It slightly curled at its end, but was hardly the peak Bennu claimed to have spotted from the Sandman nest.

“Doo, doo, doo. Oh, the burden I’ll bear being sole sovereign over everything surveyed!” Ostara declared after throwing her cards away. “To hold such power.” She snapped her fingers. Tecciztecatl placed a plate loaded with what looked like clay before her.

The companions, old and new, sneaked further onto the lunar surface. While the heat of the moat kept them from freezing, many preferred the chills to its terribly spicy miasma. Diana untied her coat from her waist. Grace took her own off her shoulders. Rabbits had yet to spot them, but even if they fled here and now, the vimana that brought them was demolished. Someone suggested going back for the one in the castle hangar. For now, Grace got on Goldtalon’s back. They glided to better view what the Easter Bunny was doing.

“Today.” Ostara addressed the brigades popping out of tanks to hear her. “Tonight. Tomorrow. I will soon rule Earth just as I do this moon. For completion’s sake, I’ll rule everything between, as well. Nephelokokkygia, Magonia, etc. See, my noble henchbunnies, what feats I’ll accomplish! I can grow, compress, or shrink this celestial body itself. I can even reduce it to nothing. Granted, if I did that, we’d have nowhere to stand…er.” To end an awkward pause, Ostara stuck her paws into the spherical mess of clay, set on reshaping it.

At once, a quake occurred of a magnitude far stronger than those made by the panzers. The entire moon must have shook! Dust clouds blew from every direction. Those that could pulled hoods or collars over their mouths. Others shielded their faces with wings. William Henry dropped his hammer and pulled down his visor.

Only Tecciztecatl wheezed from breathing debris. It must have choked the army as well, but they showed no discomfort. A sizable portion had eyes covered in yellow film. It quickly dawned that frigid whirlwinds would not be the worst weather. Ostara worked madly until she triumphantly held a clay crescent. The moon itself (at least its dream-side) was metamorphized to copy the image between the goddess’s paws.

A wave of vertigo crashed through griffin and rider. Grace feared they would fall right off the edge into—where exactly? She refused to think about it, instead steering Goldtalon back to their friends.

 Ostara continued loudly droning. “Really, you loonies have the easy task. Just pop down and hide the candy for those unsuspecting, weaponless children. Don’t hide them too well, but also don’t make it too easy. I mean, I want the little wretches infected with secret spores, right, but how about some sport first?

“Then, once the kids are controlled, it should spread to their parents, and so on. Since messes of humans live on most every continent, fungus should spread to the other species. We might have to check on those fancy-pants penguins, though.”

Ostara waited for Tecciztecatl to wash off her paws before continuing. “Sorry, it’s sticky…oops, right! If there’s resistance, that’s what those lovely guns and grenades are for. I have personally accounted for all your needs. So head on down this road I’ve provided! Might be a little bumpy. But remember whom you’re doing this for. I feel I’m well worth some sacrifices. The time is spring. Let my centuries-long plans be sprung. Fireworks! Murder! Gardening! Should be fun.”

The rabbits ambled to their stations, not exactly in an orderly fashion, but a fearful one. The head tank took off down the asphalt road, now a great curved ramp. Momentum carried it down like a sled off a hill. Mechanical wings sprung from the space below the gun turret but above the skirt and wheels. It glided more than it flew, but before reaching Earth, it and its crew had to brave a void of unseen fears and regrets.

There was a pause as the tank entered the Place of Dead Dreams. Then, it was lost entirely. Following tanks similarly failed to pass the nightmare barrier.

“It still only takes one reaching Earth to spread the spores globally,” Fox worried, again stealing Diana’s job.

“I come, originate, descend from a long line of steel-drivers.” William Henry picked up his hammer. “Let’s see what I can do to make up for my part in salvaging this scrap, junk, trash.” He laughed while swinging the heavy object both-handed, breaking the gun off the last tank in line.

“There’s a time and a place for destroying machines.” Anansi spoke self-importantly, rising to his full height, arms tightly crossing his thorax. “Right now. Let’s make some chaos!”

William Henry laughed again. “Follow my lead, guide, example, I’ll show where all the weak spots lie.” He threw the hammer into a tank’s tire treads. The vehicle veered away, jumping the moat to crash into the palace. “Didn’t exactly give the war effort one-hundred percent, even before I had any hope you might rescue, liberate, deliver me.”

“I can finally use this yarn.” Anansi scurried to Ostara’s pulpit, all the while keeping low and unseen. The spider stuck one end of his silk line to the platform, the other to Mooncry’s wall. Now, any further panzers would need to break the thread to get down the slope.

Surely it was not strong enough to trip up vehicles so much heavier that, by comparison, it might as well have been spun from nothing?

Apparently not, because that is exactly what happened. The rows of tanks became terribly congested. Fox was about to join in, brandishing a wrench from the maintenance closet. Bennu put a violet wingtip to her shoulder.

“There’s the issue of the spore mine,” he said. “Ostara can always salvage old weapons, but there’s only one existing source of the Root of All Evil. Out of us, you have the greatest connection to stone. I’d say the pebbles you’ve called down must add up to a decent-sized mountain. Can you sense anything below?”

“I…” Fox pulled back her hood and ran a hand through her brittle hair. “Don’t think I have enough strength left. Awwww, can’t I just vandalize some tanks like everyone else?”

Diana came to Fox’s other side, putting a moist, warty hand on her shoulder. “Tatum Esther Levinson, you’re probably the strongest person I know.”

“Not just physically, like lifting stones,” Grace chipped in. “Like, you don’t change yourself for anyone, even if adults order you to.”

“Compromise.” Bennu turned from the destruction beginning to unfold in earnest. “We’ve criticized your worst excesses before, but you’re always honest with your feelings, even through uncomfortable times. Doesn’t everyone else deserve to feel true to themselves?”

“I think so!” Fox closed her eyes. A tremble came from the ground beneath her, but thankfully caused no vertigo like the moon’s reshaping.

“Then you have the power to stop Ostara from stealing that truth away.” Bennu left to help Henry and Anansi. “I promise, once you get back, there’ll still be plenty things to destroy.”

“Can you sense the spot where the rabbits were mining?” asked Grace.

“No.” Fox opened her eyes. “Dr. Bezoar would know more…Wait. If I really concentrate, I can feel this gap in the rocks!” Fox identified the abscess as under the candy stores. She claimed she could reach there by stone-skipping or collapse the mine, but not both.

While he had not been there himself, Goldtalon easily flew Grace, Diana, and Fox there. He decided he needed a snack…just to get back some energy from carrying passengers.

“Okay, Goldtalon,” Grace conceded. “You can have one treat.” The griffin pushed aside a barrel of royal jelly to get to some honey.

Fox closed her eyes again. Shuffling blindly, she almost walked into a vat which had gone dormant. She fell on hands and knees, but intentionally. Before the cheese floor stained her clothes, the yellow-orange matter edged away, uncovering the stone foundation underneath. The curse from Ostara’s snap had worn off.

“How’s that…” Diana began asking.

“Cold,” Fox answered a different question than what Diana meant. “And smooth.” She mumbled something, about thinking how small a task was helped make it easier to accomplish. Like how shadowboxing could bring one across vast distances if they only imagined things took up the same space. “Before, I had to lift rocks, or carry them from far away. Now, I…we just need them to fall.”

Rumbling filled the storeroom. Like the construction work of an entire city, but where the bulldozers, steamrollers, jackhammers, and cement-mixers were alive, with minds full of fury! Even so, collapsing the mine in on itself felt tame compared to what Ostara did.

“Only a little job,” Fox insisted. “Not that big a task.”

Grace and Diana looked on. Even Goldtalon took a break from gorging. Finally, seismic activity ended. The most immediate result was Fox collapsing unconscious, her face buried in the floor before the others flipped her over. She had extended tons of energy (and likely more than a bit of spirit) destroying the spore mine. Goldtalon supported Fox on his wide, tall back while his paws still gripped the barrel of honey.

The most notable result was the fissure which formed. It stretched from the grenade assembly line to the hangar which formerly held tanks. A faint blue glow came from that direction. Goldtalon and the girls remained safe as long as they kept away from the open diamond courtyard, where hills of junk sank and melted into a newly awakened magma pit.

Diana asked whether Ridil counteracted fatigue. Grace did not think so, as it was not exactly an illness, but tried helping Fox anyway. The older girl drifted out-and-in of consciousness, but seemed fine. Grace meant to set off, but Goldtalon kept sniffing near the fissure, refusing to leave. When queried, the griffin would only say “diamonds.”

Diana spotted what Fox uncovered first. On the fissure’s cusp was a mining machine. Large (but not as big as the flying panzers) its body resembled a topless jeep, with a front consisting of a long drill that, true to Goldtalon’s detection, was covered in diamonds.

“Hardest substance in nature,” observed Grace. “Wonder what it could do against tanks.”

“Fine,” said Diana, “But Fox’ll be really disappointed if we don’t wake her before.”

The unconscious Fox fit in the back seat, along (just barely) with Goldtalon. There were no seatbelts. The girls had no experience driving cars, much less this unwieldy contraption. A further problem was the steering wheel and gas pedals were too far apart for either Grace or Diana to drive alone, even if they had known.

“Ohhhh, how’d the rabbits manage?” asked Diana. “They’re tinier than us.”

“They could form pyramids,” reminded Grace. “They probably stood on each other’s shoulders.” She raised herself to see over the windshield. Diana struggled to reach the pedals.

Her mismatched feet seemed too short. She considered crouching down and pressing them with her hands, even though the floor was filthy with dust, mold, and worse. Diana discovered, though, that the tips of her webbed foot could just barely touch.

They started moving towards Ostara’s moon ramp, crashing through a boundary near the blue-glowing hangar. If the girls had trouble biting through hard cheese, the diamond drill did so effortlessly. Upon breaching the outer wall, Goldtalon worried they would sink into the moat.

Diana floored the gas! They jumped onto the runway. Fox was jostled awake.

“Remember where I pointed out the weakness, fault, vulnerability I put in all the tanks?” William Henry was asking Bennu.

“Sixteenth screw on the left.” Wreathed in purple flames, Bennu hit the side of one panzer. Loosening a screw, it split in half. He then had to dodge a volley of pastel grenades.

William Henry hurled his hammer on another tank’s hull. It bounced, so caught it in midair. So engrossed, the man was oblivious to the gun of a third tank trained on his back.

For their part, the tank crew did not notice the diamond drill coming behind them. When the mission is to cause wrecks, the girls’ ignorance about driving became helpful. Grace ducked right when ramming the tank, which swerved to the pepper jack moat.

A troop of rabbits, apparently deciding Ostara’s dental plan was not worth drowning for, leapt through their hatch and swam for safety. Though they were enemies, Grace felt relieved no one else suffered the same fate as Schrodinger. The tank was beyond saving. 

William Henry lifted his visor. He hailed Grace and the others. Hefting himself onto the drilling machine’s side, they caught each other up on everything since splitting up. After he, Anansi, and Bennu started striking the convoy, Ostara and Tecciztecatl had vanished.

Fox lifted her groggy head. “Then that clay she messed the moon up with—it’s still there?”

William Henry shrugged. “Maybe. Anytime I walk that direction, terror, horror, fright of vertigo comes over me, so I have to race back.”

“Same with flying,” complained Goldtalon.

“Now we can drive,” said Grace. Smaller than the tanks, and lacking armor, the drill proved faster while also pushing with much greater force. She preferred not having to slam enemies, as it made a storm of sparks. One nearly blinded her.

Over half the tanks Ostara sent down the lower horn of the crescent moon vanished in the Place of Dead Dreams. Honestly, crews in those the companions destroyed had a higher rate of survival. Nonetheless, the queue was eager to follow their predecessors to madness and death, simply because those were their orders.

An unexpected ally appeared when Mr. Aitvaras came rushing down the line, catching one tank on fire. His movements were erratic, almost drunken. Whatever the machines ran on, it must not have been gas, because it did not explode, and functioned enough to shoot the demon with a sizable missile. The blazing-eyed rooster was knocked right off the edge of the moon.

This provided Grace and her friends a free distraction to push towards the pulpit. Fox sprung out first, arguing if they reshaped the crescent into a ball, the land would go back to normal. At least, as normal as possible in the Astral. Waves of vertigo never let up. Some, like Diana, became physically ill. Everywhere was the feeling they would sink into nothing. Gone the way of Mr. Aitvaras.

“Wait, this isn’t clay!” Fox shouted to be heard over crashing tanks. “It’s cookie dough!”

Goldtalon dropped his honey barrel. “Can I eat it?”

Fox dug her fingers into the sickle-shape, mashing it into something approximately round. No grand geological event happened to smooth out the peak before them, where panzers continued riding into oblivion. She and Goldtalon got back into the miner.

Ostara chuckled behind them. “The power’s not in the dough. The moon shall only resume its spherical state once I stop willing this alternate mode to exist instead… which should be around the time I make terrestrial landfall in my plush, personal vimana.”

“It’ll be ready soon, boss,” Tecciztecatl stood by the pulpit. “Soon as I find the keys. Could have sworn…” the scruffy animal rifled for a pocket his body would only possess if he were a female kangaroo. 

“This annoys me,” It was not immediately clear whether Ostara meant her lieutenant losing his keys or Grace’s friends trying to undo her schemes for world domination. Based solely on tone, either was equally likely, until she waved a paw. The drilling machine and its passengers were lifted into the air—almost falling out due to the absence of seat belts—and thrown the distance to Mooncry. They crashed through the roof, into the forge.

If possible, the miner was broken worse than the boomerang vimana, but the companions were only slightly bruised. In the demolition, an entire outer section of Mooncry collapsed over the moat. An accidental bridge. Outside’s cold creeped in, along with the continuing ruckus sound of tanks. Grace, Goldtalon, Diana, and Fox paid that no attention. They stared up.

“Earth should thank me.” Ostara leaped in behind them, balancing on the balls of her feet, her front paws held behind her back. “In fact, once everyone’s in my thrall, I’ll have them do just that! Get my new society off to a polite start. I’ll order them with love: put down machines, shut down factories, cease building, abandon all unapproved weapons. Nature retakes what was stolen by this so-called ‘modern age.’”

Ostara must have put some power in that pronouncement, because it actually sounded reasonable. Far as she could tell, Grace had not been infected with spores. Yet, the Easter Bunny possessed some distinct influence on her mind. The girl felt unsure she should fight it, instead finding herself nodding along.

“Peace and conformity reigns,” Ostara continued monologuing. “Not anarchy. Someone has to direct the masses. Why shouldn’t it be me? As the only god of consequence to survive Ragnarök, don’t I deserve the worship those other deities hogged for so long? Mere mortals have their place—performing my sacred rites, painting my eggs, making me candy. For zombies, though, it won’t feel like work. Everyone will be happy!”

“What if I don’t want to be happy?” Diana was sweaty, and not just from the forge heat.

Ostara said nothing. Instead, she slapped Diana across her face. While not exactly the claws of a predator, a rabbit’s nails are tough enough to break skin. Red gouges made tracks across loose, warty flesh. Diana shed no tears, but her nostrils sniffled.

Grace tugged Ridil from her bag. The sight of her friends’ blood brought out her instinct to help. She could not do that and marvel at Ostara’s glory at the same time. It seemed obvious now: the rabbit was the worst monster of all! She funded the abduction of countless eggs from their families! She murdered Schrodinger!

And that was only what Ostara did so far. Given her way, the smug, selfish rabbit meant to make a world where nobody thought, believed, behaved, or lived differently from their neighbors. How boring was what Grace imagined Schrodinger would say.

“It’s only you I want, augur,” Ostara’s fixated on Grace. “If I zombified you, that bird-talking ability would be lost. You’d be left drooling like the rest. You have a wonderful choice, then. Simply follow orders your whole existence, and never worry about making mistakes. Isn’t that easier?”

“You know something.” Grace huffed between each word. “You actually make being adopted by O sound like a decent choice.”

“Really?” Diana touched her tender face. “That’s saying something.”

“Must I strike you again?” yelled Ostara. “I know you’re a squonk, and can literally be reduced to tears. Don’t think anyone would even bother mourning you. Oh-ho, nobody cares about a poor, fat, short, wrinkly, ugly girl.”

“I care,” said Goldtalon. There was no defiance in his tone—though through the imprint, Grace knew he wished nothing well for Ostara. It was simply a statement. To the griffin, caring for his friend felt obvious.

“You care about this one, too?” Ostara leering down at Fox. Which is impressive when realizing Fox was actually several feet taller. The Easter Bunny should have more properly been leering up. “She’s free to throw stones at me again. My tummy always has room for gumdrops.”

“Rain check,” Fox nearly fell over, but Diana kept her upright.

“You can’t hurt my friends!” Grace shouted. “They’re people, not objects, tools, or experiments! Equals.”

“Boring!” Ostara waved Grace away dismissively. A gesture reminiscent of Director Ambrosius. “No matter how smart, creative, or kind you behave, the strong will still treat others however they want. For evidence, see what I’ve done to your little friends. The cat’s killed, and it doesn’t seem satisfaction’ll ever bring him back. The griffin I’ve enthralled. The phoenix is easy kindling, Henry I’ll soon put to work building fresh tanks. These silly games you’ve played tonight mean nothing to my long-term plans.”

“Don’t forget,” Anansi must have followed them once destroying tanks lost its novelty, “These noble friends also have the brilliant, handsome, wise, and all-around awesome spider god of storytelling on their side.”

“Crawl from my sight, Anansi!” Any cheerfulness in Ostara’s voice sublimated. “Or I’ll smack your buggy butt with a rolled-up newspaper.”

“Pardon me, Ma’am,” implored a woman’s voice with bells on. “That doesn’t sound very polite.”