"So, Liebschen," said Katrin, solemnly, "are you ready?"
The dream seemed to stretch on forever. D.X. was weary, he wanted only to rest.
"Rest soon enough. But are you ready?"
"No! Damn it, no, I'm not ready."
"Good," the wizened teacher smiled. "Knowing you are not ready is one of the best indicators that you are, in fact, ready."
"It's today, isn't it? That's when she's going to strike."
"Ja. And you will have to defeat her, ready or not. Now, time for one more drill before
you wake."
"Please, Katrin, I need some rest."
"I know, Liebschen. Soon enough. But now…."
Katrin threw every bit of herself at D.X., and he saw it coming, and knew it was too much to stop.
But this time, he saw it—saw the way to redirect it.
The parry was awesome in its skill. As the force of her spell dissipated, the God-Teacher smiled at her best pupil.
"Yacob," she said, "you are ready."
* * *
The day dawned cold, as D.X. stirred in the cage in which he was imprisoned. "Damn," he said, quietly. He struggled to a sitting position, the broken bones in his left foot aching terribly.
"Morpheus," he said, quietly, fixing his foot as best he could. The injury backed down to a dull throb—good enough to walk on, he figured.
He turned, and—
"Shit!"
"CALM DOWN," said the woman, who stood beside the cage, eyes closed. "BE QUIET. DO YOU WANT TO WAKE ME?"
"Wha—"
"NO TIME, LITTLE ONE…IF I WAKE UP, I LOSE THIS MOMENT. THIS IS ALL THE TIME I HAVE LEFT. TRANSPORT!"
D.X. rematerialized in a dorm room that was instantly familiar, the way only one's former home could be. He was still three inches tall, but he knew every square inch of this place.
"Thanks, Liz," he murmured.
And before the two sleeping giantesses in the room could awaken and notice him, he was transporting himself.
* * *
Teri saw the future clearly. It was the near future, she knew; everyone looked exactly as
they did now, altered only by dream-imagery.
They were in Madison, but the dream-Madison sat in the midst of a desert. Jake called to her, but his voice made no sound. Instead, she focused on the giantess in the middle of the town. Liz.
"Jake! Don't!" she cried, though she didn't know why.
And suddenly, the cliff opened up, and she saw him falling away.
And then, suddenly, Terri felt herself bathed in a blinding white light. She started to cry out, but suddenly, she felt very, very calm.
"Now," she said, to nobody in particular.
And then…
…her eyes fluttered open, and she saw him standing by her, six inches tall, smiling.
Was she awake? She wasn't sure. It was that twilight moment, between consciousness and unconsciousness, and she wasn't quite sure which was which.
She picked him up and lifted him onto her chest, and sighed happily as he grew himself to a normal height.
They made love as normal people do; there is nothing remotely wrong with that.
Slowly, she awoke fully, and he was still there. He had escaped from Liz. She didn't know how, she didn't care how.
He'd come back to her.
Thank God.
* * *
"So that's what I know," said D.X., a few hours later. He was dressed and ready to go, his foot fixed as best they could (for there were limits even to what GTS could do), his back bandaged, his soul on fire.
"Leah, you say," said Ronnie. "Well, she's gotta be pissed."
"You have no idea. We need to start killing our enemies until they're dead. This poetic justice thing just isn't working out like one would hope."
"So what now?" asked Sarah, munching a bagel. (D.X. had long agreed with Napoleon; a good General studies his history.)
"Now? We go to Library Mall and we wait."
"Isn't that just what they'd want us to do? Shouldn't we make them force us out into the open?"
"No, Scott," said Ronnie. "We can't risk what they'd do to other people while we sat idly by. This fight doesn't belong to some poor sophomore. It belongs to us."
"Right," said D.X. "And if we're going to fight, we'd better fucking win."
"So we just go down there and rumble? Sharks vs. Jets?" asked the female Adept.
"Less dancing involved," chuckled D.X. He liked Scott, but he knew Scott would end up junior to his wife eventually. Scott knew it too, of course; he didn't mind much.
"Seriously, we've got twenty-eight operatives here now. We'll have about a hundred by three o'clock, which is why they'll strike as soon as possible."
"One-thirty?" said Ronnie, archly.
"You stick with what works, right?"
* * *
Leah Jackson stood boldly in front of the group. She had known for the instant that she rematerialized that she wasn't in charge; she wasn't stupid. But The Coed had shown remarkable humility. Liz had insisted that Leah design the battle plan—"You have more experience in this, Madame President. When we finish with this, I'll take Madison. You can have the rest of the world."
And so Leah admonished and cajoled the assembled women. They weren't up to League specs—but Leah knew that the Cadre would have enough troops here soon to overwhelm them.
It had been her idea to let Machina escape. For all the good it would do them. He was still conflicted about The Coed. He was as much a liability as anything.
But he knew that they wanted a fight now, and he'd bring it. She was counting on it.
And so she gathered her group of irregulars and directed them to leave, by twos and threes, and prepare for the coming battle.
"Thirteen Thirty," she said, smiling. "That's zero hour."
For her part, Angie wasn't sure she liked her girlfriend passing up command and control. "You're sure this is a good idea, Liz?"
"Don't worry, dear. She knows what she's doing. So do I." She patted Angie's tush gently, warmly. "Tomorrow you'll be Princess of Madison. What do you think of that?"
"Sounds lovely," said Angie, smiling to cover the butterflies in her stomach.
* * *
It was one-twenty-eight in the afternoon, Central Daylight Time, on a beautiful Wednesday in May, as the two sides approached.
Liz's irregulars were arrayed in a classic League formation—a ring around the command structure. D.X. had his group spread in what Anon's dad used to call the Spotted Dick formation.
D.X. knew there'd be satellite ops coming out of nowhere, at least if Leah had anything to do with it.
"Okay," he said, quietly, "everyone on your guard."
"Jake," said Teri—"I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Me too, hon. But I've always had a bad feeling about stuff like this. Okay, ladies and gentlemen…on my mark…."
Before he could call out the attack, Leah called out hers—"NOW, ladies!"
And the battle was joined.
Abruptly, the women broke their formation into an offensive, one-on-one strategy.
"You magnificent bitch," he muttered. "Go! Go! Go!"
The women who had pledged their lives to The Coed may have lacked experience, but they made up for it in ferocity. They showed no inclination to simply trade spells—they would throw an attack and follow it in, kicking and biting and punching and trampling, overwhelming the Society's irregulars. D.X. could see immediately what the plan was—throw enough chaos into the situation that his side's tactical supremacy was neutralized.
They were just buying time. Time to get Liz to full size.
He kept looking for the shot, as did Scott and Sarah. They were busy trying to keep the attackers off their mates, and they were all that was keeping this from becoming a rout. They were back to back, firing at will.
But D.X. knew immediately that it wasn't going to be that easy. As Liz cast her growth spell on herself, he lifted his hand to attack—
--and was caught unaware by an AR spell from Angie. Not a great spell, but enough to throw him off-guard, just long enough for Liz to reach a triumphant 200 feet tall.
"Damn! Sarah—break off and go!"
Sarah knew what the order was for. She cast the spell on herself, and one hundred and ninety-five more feet later, she was sprinting for the giantess in the center of the square.
She caught Liz with a roundhouse that sounded like thunder to the assembled throng. Liz staggered back into the bookstore, hitting the façade with a loud "WHANG!" The front of the store crumbled and fell to the ground.
"Oh, you bitch. You're gonna pay for that," said Liz, as she moved back on the Adept.
* * *
Meanwhile, several hundred miles away, in a physics laboratory in Minnesota, Sasha Peterson was cursing.
"Damn! A decade working on this thing, a decade patiently breaking about eight laws of physics to make this thing happen again—all without having a full idea of exactly what we're doing—and today, all of a sudden, everything seems to work precisely backwards. Jane! What's going on?"
"Everything's exactly right," said the grad student, peering into the bowels of the device. "I can't explain it. Either every single measurement device we have is completely screwed up, or the laws of physics have decided to take a holiday."
Jane idly fingered a locket around her neck. She seemed to hum slightly, just once. She was about to mention something more to Dr. Peterson, when suddenly, the intercom buzzed.
"Doc? Doc! Quick, CNN! Now!"
"Like we have time for that. This better be good," she said, as she turned on the monitors.
Jane and Sasha looked at the screen for a hard moment, and both said the only thing they could.
"Holy shit."
* * *
Sarah and Liz were busy throwing punches and spells, while Scott was busy trying to keep his friends alive. Leah and Ronnie had squared off mano a mano, and were trading spells with reckless abandon. Anon was busy fighting off two lovely young coeds, who were just about an even match for him. Terri was fighting to the best of her ability, which wasn't spectacular.
And D.X. was still waiting for his shot. He had hoped Sarah would've distracted Liz, but if he'd hoped a two hundred foot woman would make an easy target, he was sorely mistaken.
* * *
"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you…well, I don't know exactly what we're bringing you. You're looking live at Madison, Wisconsin, where…."
Susi Kensington watched the television, mouth wide open. "Karen—is that really—"
"Yeah, Susi. It really is." Susi was sick, and Karen had come down between classes to see if her little sister needed anything (like Susi needed the help—she was fourteen, for God's sake).
Truly, Karen hadn't known why she wanted to go home, just as Susi hadn't known why she'd felt sick enough to stay home that day.
But as they both watched their sister fighting for her life, they knew.
"But how did she get—"
"It's a long, long, long story."
"Does Scott know?"
Karen would've chuckled if she hadn't been so scared for her older sister. "Oh yes. Scott knows."
* * *
"She's getting beat up, Jake! I've gotta go in there!"
"No, Scott! Damn it, hold your position! I won't let Sarah down, you've gotta trust me!"
But D.X. wasn't sure he trusted himself. Ronnie had fallen—collapsed in a heap, dead or unconscious, he didn't know. Leah was leading her troops to victory.
And he was still waiting for his shot.
* * *
"Yeah, Laurie, I see it. No, it's worse, I know that girl. Yes, it is! Damn it, this is no time to be reliving our past, Sarah's in trouble!"
The mayor's office had come to a complete standstill, and Kelly was doing her best to talk without drawing the attention of the entire office. Everyone was watching the absolutely impossible spectacle unfolding on television. And Kelly watched too, her heart sinking.
She'd been in New York. She knew what was going on there.
"Damn it, guys, I'd be there if I could," she said, tearfully.
* * *
"Jake! It's now or never!" shouted Terri. "You've got to fight!"
D.X. looked on in horror. Sarah was holding her own, but she was just about the only one. She and Liz were evenly matched.
"Sarah!" he called out suddenly. "Shrink!"
* * *
"Sandy! You see this?"
"Chris, you'd better not be calling me in the middle of a lesson just to tell me there's
something good on television."
"Trust me. You must turn this on. Now."
Sandra looked at her class, and muttered, "Is it newsworthy?"
"It's on every channel there is. I think HGTV just broke in."
Against her better judgment, Sandra Archer turned on the TV in the classroom, and saw something impossible happening. She knew instantly why Chris had told her to watch it—and yes, it was newsworthy.
"You're right…it's definitely something my class and I would be interested…."
She trailed off, and then let out a muffled scream.
"Honey! What is it?"
"Oh my God, it's Liz."
"What? Your sister? She's dead."
"Yes, she is," said Sandy, ashen. "But she's the redhead."
And with those words, she fainted.