Name: Greenling
Story: All Great Things
Colors: Lawn Green #5 (day at the beach)/Camo Green #6 (d-day)
Supplies and Styles: Brush (teleological), Stain (Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some smaller countries are neutral. -Robert Orben), Bichrome
Word Count: 1,784
Rating: PGish
Warnings: Violence.
Summary: I have tried my best for many weeks now. This thing is not getting any more finished. Have snippets of the end of AGT 1.

Also, last Bichrome, palette done, meh. Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.


The morning went by like a dream, the group talking and eating as if nothing had happened. Lance tried and failed to keep a sort of discipline to the proceedings; the strange, unreal quality the air had gained as the shatter had grown surely didn't help. Some chattered with a sense of urgency that seemed close to death, while others were sullen. Dmitry wasn't much of a people person, but even he could see the strain. For his own part, he just felt tense.

It was maybe half past six in the morning when the dregs were woken up and filed into place. The sky had cleared up from the unnatural storm, but was still pissing rain off and on. The gutters were rivers. They would have to walk down to the beach, or as close as they could get, standing on goddamn roofs if they had to. Dmitry still wasn't sure what the goal of all this was.

*

Using the sword felt like dancing.

Three demons banded together to come at him, their once-humanlike forms twisted and bloated into shatter-colored aquatic creatures, like happy rainbow tumor-crabs. Dmitry lunged forward, diving under one huge claw and letting the sword tug him out of the way; before he could think, it swung up and back, lopping the whole arm off in a hiss of colorless fire. He landed on his back foot as another charged- the sword didn't move. A full second passed, his mind blanking as to what to do about the thing coming at him. Then it fell, sliding comically on a thin sheet of ice made from the water still filling the streets and landing face-first on the concrete. Only then, the sword pulled him forward to decapitate the monster.

He glanced to Diana- who gave him a suspicious look- and gave her an awkward thumbs-up.

At first, the sword had yanked him around like an angry little sister, impaling itself gracelessly on things and tugging him away from danger only as an afterthought. Under the adrenaline, he could still feel the bruises. Maybe it was adapting to him, or vice versa; he hadn't felt the strange surge of feeling that came before a blackout since he woke up that morning.

The hordes got larger as they approached the beach.

*

They fought for hours. Lance's idea of defensive positions proved invaluable, as they found themselves fighting in waves. Demons and the ocean battered the two buildings they held, and what solid ground they could keep was valuable. Dmitry found himself letting the sword be and taking up a rifle for a long stretch, until someone came up with an idea to batten floating trash together, freeze it, and fasten it semi-securely to the building. It took long enough that it was barely useful for extending their close-range combat options, but it let them create a bridge between their point and the other position, which helped refresh their supplies a little and created a seeming "weak point" in their defenses they could herd the demons through.

Soon enough the giant fish returned, having morphed into stranger and stranger shapes the same as the rest of them. Many walked on tall lobster-legs, which helped a little with their floaty awkwardness; others had teeth like sharks and tentacles like giant squid. The tentacles were more of a problem than the teeth. One of the fish came floating out of the sea with what looked to be a laser made of coral growing out of its forehead, which turned out to be remarkably effective when it flash-blinded two people before it was taken down.

Slowly but noticably, the shatter continued to grow. The sea began to boil, and its colors started to bleed into the sky.

The next few minutes came all at once.

*

Diana sat on the floor with her shoes off, feeling the relative cool of the stone floor through her clothes. It was muggy inside the office building; near the front wall, there was a cool breeze through the windows, but she was stuck in the back. It had been almost nice at first, when she was shivering from too many firebombs, but the sweating hadn't helped. She didn't actually get any colder from using her power, her body just sort of... forgot what temperature regulation was.

At the moment, she was mostly alone. Lance was pacing the hall between the rear and the front. He was supposed to be resting himself, but in his case that meant chugging a bottle of water and fiddling with the cubicle-wall-and-flotsam barricades stuck up between front and back. They were damn near out of ammo, especially the kinds that were useful on the increasingly-well-armored demons, and aside from that he'd taken a few hits. Some of the demons were smart enough to throw things, and one lucky bastard had winged him in the head with a road sign through a window. It had looked a lot worse than it was- he didn't have a concussion at least- but he was still supposed to be taking a break while they made sure.

And- Diana tried not to think too loudly- in hopes he or someone would think up another plan before they ran out of options.

"You've poked at that same spot three times. What's wrong with it?" she finally said.

"Hmm?" Lance didn't turn around. The cubicle wall was propped up against a wall of heavy boxes, blocking about three-quarters of the horizontal distance. There were three of them on alternating sides down the hallway, more to slow the creatures down in case of emergency than to stop them. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just thinking, if there were a way to make these moveable so we could get people back here faster without sacrificing strength when they're up..."

"Come sit down."

Lance sighed. "I don't want to sit down. I know there's nothing I can do, but I'd like to think there is."

"Then let your thing be sitting here and not making me nervous." Diana didn't have the energy to keep the irritation out of her voice.

"Okay," Lance breathed. He wiped the sweat out of his short buzz and then his hands on his pants, then headed back inside the office to drag a rolly-chair up next to her. He seemed grateful to have any focus at all. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine, fine. I could go out there now if I had something to shoot with other than myself."

"Yeah. At least it's quiet, right? Haven't heard anything in a while." Lance smiled weakly.

Diana bit back a curse. He was trying to be helpful, but that was the last thing she needed. "No, that's not good. That is very bad, and I hadn't noticed until you mentioned it."

"It means we're alive for now."

"Don't try to cheer me up," she snapped.

Lance was quiet for a long moment, his smile fading into a glare. His voice got tight, and her stomach churned. "What do you want? To talk about how bad this is? About how we're all going to die if we don't think of something? Do you have any better ideas, Diana? Because right now, I'll take alive."

There was tension between them like an overtuned piano wire, ready to snap and lash someone in the face at any moment. She closed her eyes, images running through her mind: demons being birthed from the ocean, climbing up from the dark, sandy bottom; threads of bright string running through the shatter; a purplish-dark void hanging in the air above the cemetary, and weedy, echoing laughter.

It haunted her. Her fists clenched and she tried to put the thoughts behind her long enough to speak. "No." Her voice was raspy, weak.

"Have hope. Please."

"I'm not good with hope." She pushed herself to her feet, trying to bury the tears in her voice with anger. "I'm not good with faith."

"Hey, there's no need to-" Lance reached out to her. "Diana?"

She yanked herself away before everything went to pieces.

Behind her, Lance was still talking, coming after her, trying to catch up. She broke into a dead run to the stairs, past the guns, up to roof access, slamming the door open with a bang that rung through the air. Faces turned to her, tired, afraid, flickering lightning, spattered blood: she barely noticed. She charged forward, her shoulder slammed into a demon climbing up the side, knocking it off into the water.

(" ") She leaned over the ledge to scream at the blank rippling ocean, pausing just long enough to catch her breath.

Her body burned like fire.

"Climb out of there and come get us-"

*
And then he fell.

Slowly at first, a strange pillowy drift; his mind caught up with him halfway down as it sped up into a dive, feet-first, sliding under the water and bouncing roughly against the street underneath. The roar of water filled his ears and lungs, battering him with debris rushing back into the ocean; something hit him in the back of the head, and he inhaled water.

Panic. Anger. Cold panic- then air again. Solid ground. He hacked until he vomited, wheezing water seemingly out of every orifice his body could eject it from; and the stabbing tightness in his lungs was even worse than the salt water stinging his wounds. Dmitry lay there for a minute or so, catching his breath.

He was alive. Somehow. A few experimental twitches proved he hadn't even broken anything, somehow, though he was still covered in bruises and debris-scrapes. His clothes were ruined, and one of his shoes was gone, but in the context of everything else he barely noticed. He raised his head to look around.

The streets looked like a landfill. The rainbow oilslick in the sky was shrinking- more slowly than the sea was receding, but visibly- and the hordes of demons had thinned considerably. A few stood around, staring aimlessly as they began to dissolve or flicker into nonexistence. None of them seemed interested in trying to kill him, at least. Dmitry looked back at the office buildings: the roofs were covered in people staring off the side, and someone had tossed a series of ropes down the side to the ice-sheet. He saw Lance, and something that looked like Diana lying prone.

Dmitry remembered Peace and tried to scramble to his feet. The first try didn't work, and he landed on his ass, hacking up water. He went more slowly the second time, using the sword as leverage. He made his way down the street as quickly as he could, not sure where he was going.

"Peace!" he called hoarsely.