Chapter 21
The President said in shock, "The missiles are gone! And what is that your showing me, where is that? We still had seven minutes."
I sighed and said, "I destroyed four of them, the fifth was the response you ordered. Through that portal is the capitol city in the Elven dimension."
I started to wonder if I broke myself. I was expecting the numbness I had felt at killing a handful. I had potentially just killed millions, yet all I felt was that towering rage. Fucking Elves.
When the President was silent for a minute or two I looked over, he was looking at me in shock. I closed the portal, figuring I had enough footage.
I said softly, "Sorry sir, we haven't been too forward on how much power Witches actually have. Actually what I did wasn't that hard, it was the ability to speed up our perception of events that allowed me to move so quickly, or in another perspective, slow down the missiles enough to destroy them. You know we can control gravity, I just crushed the charges out of alignment to cause a normal explosion."
I sighed, "The last one was simply a matter of opening a portal right in front of it."
He nodded soberly. "I need to step down our readiness and call some world leaders. I assume you got that footage for the news?"
I slowly nodded, "We are probably their only intelligence source, if we don't show them what they caused by not following our demands, they might not find out."
He cleared his throat meaningfully. I guess I lost my right to a thank you by nuking a city, even if the man had given the order. He was probably just a little to freaked out, I know I was.
I sent the video to Karen as I opened a portal to the condo and stepped through. I had no interest in making threats, or answering questions, I would let the video it speak for itself. The message couldn't be any clearer.
I couldn't look anyone in the face, so I jumped in the shower. It's not every day you both save your world, and commit an atrocity, in a string bikini full of sand...
When I came out I grabbed a beer, I wasn't going to get drunk again, I just needed one to relax a little. Was I even allowed to say I was a Witch that loved life after what I did? The fact I had saved many millions of lives didn't seem nearly as important at the moment. Once again, the ball was in their court. I just had to hope I wouldn't be forced to do anything like that again.
I stayed in the background the best I could for the rest of the day. I didn't want to mess up everyone else's day. It was around nine at night when I took Harmon home, I gave him a wistful kiss on the cheek, some first date this turned out to be.
He said as I moved to leave, "It is never easy making a decision like that. All you can do is save as many lives as you can, sometimes that makes you make hard choices. Don't let it make you a hard person, you are a wonderful woman Ash, it would sadden me if that were to change."
I nodded. I knew he meant well, but his words angered me. I didn't want to be responsible for the whole damn world, and make decisions to attack others. With my new enchantment active, I opened a double portal to the condo and stepped through, turning off the enchantment with a thought collapsed the portal.
We talked briefly about Harmon, they all liked him as I thought, as I hoped, they would. But this news brought me no joy at the moment. I decided I needed to meditate on everything tomorrow, the one fear I had above all, was that with my full power I would become a monster, misuse it. I couldn't help but wonder if that's exactly what happened.
I knew it was all mixed up, without that power millions would have died on my world. If I hadn't done it, then next time they would have no reason not to launch a lot more, or do something worse.
That night was one of the few in my life I didn't want sex at all, Bonnie and Tom held me as I fell asleep, as I wondered why I couldn't cry...
It was Sunday, so I slept in and had a late breakfast and drank a cup of coffee. The anger had slipped away while I rested, now I just felt depressed. Logically I had to do what I did. This wasn't like in the Demon dimension where I could easily overpower and banish the people challenging me. I didn't feel guilty for not finding a peaceful solution, there didn't appear to be one.
I started meditating on it, but didn't come up with much outside of what I already knew. It was both horrific and necessary. I regretted it, but I wouldn't change it even if I could. They had tried to kill millions with five nuclear missiles, we had responded by sending just one of them to their world. I wasn't by any means happy with it, but I knew I would eventually come to terms with it, and continue living my life.
If only there was some way to track them down, we could have done things differently. But there was almost no point in playing the what if game. What was, was.
"Ash?"
I sent, "Hi Harmon, what's up?"
"I wanted to ask you to dinner tonight, for our date. Also, could you let the others know I want to see them too for our dates? Tom told me about it yesterday, but I have no way to contact them."
I frowned, "That won't work well long term, I'll make necklaces for the other three and they can contact you. That way I will only have to play taxi and not messenger."
His sent sounding amused, "Good idea. So I will see you tonight?"
I pondered that, I was a little worried about leaving the dimension, but I could make the necklaces now and have them contact me if the crap hit the fan.
I sent, "Sounds good, I'll see you tonight then."
He told me to take care, and I got started on three more necklaces. I felt Bonnie's presence as I was finishing them up and opened my eyes and looked up at her. She had a shy smile on her face.
"Want to go shopping with me?"
I smiled back, wondering why she was feeling shy and nervous, but said, "Sure, take this necklace, you'll be able to chat with Harmon on it, not to mention the rest of us, if you ever need us quickly."
I convinced her to stop by the healing center on the way, and gave the other two to Tom and Gloria with some instructions on how to use them. Then I followed Bonnie to the store. I had expected clothing, or shoes, and understood her feelings as we walked into the sex toy shop. I already had a lot of toys, and was confused for a moment until I saw the things she picked out.
I really didn't have anything in my toy box for bondage or spanking. I could guess by her feelings I was here to object if there was anything I was unwilling to do. We left with an assortment of things, nothing that would cause too much pain, I think the thrill for her was mostly the idea of control, and I was more than happy to play pet to her mistress anytime.
We stopped for lunch on the way back, I wasn't that hungry from my late breakfast, but I got a salad and soda. Bonnie was a wonder, we didn't talk about the nuke, or the Elves, she just drew me out and drowned me in the everyday. We left the restaurant and headed back home, when I went up the stairs I started feeling emotions, and the flavor was familiar to me, I knew them well. Too well in my opinion.
"Ma'am, would you come with us, we need your help."
I sighed, kissed Bonnie briefly on the cheek and then followed my two favorite homeland security agents down the stairs. When we got in the car they briefed me on the way over to the building.
"Those Elves have been showing up at our building since four am, one of them told us all that were coming were there now, so we came to get you. I can't say it hasn't been tense, but as far as we can tell they haven't done anything, they appear to be clear of any devices or weapons as well, but I can't know if our searches were effective. Damn nightmare these Elves are."
A ball of anger grew in my stomach, but I did the best I could to push it down. Yes, they made me a mass murderer... killer really, since they declared war on us of a sorts, but still. I managed to keep a hold of my emotions however since this is what we wanted, what we were hoping for.
They led me down to a room that looked like it belonged in a college, it was more of a lecture hall. As I walked in one of the Elves approached me. I didn't bother with pleasantries.
"Is this all of you?"
He said in an inflection without emotion, "In America yes, the agents have coordinates for you for Russia, China, Africa, and South America. There are also... hold outs."
"Hold outs?" What the hell?
He almost looked embarrassed, "When you first aired that broadcast, many of us wanted to leave but were overruled; they thought it was a bluff. There are still twenty three Elves that think you are bluffing about the bomb in our dimension, despite the fact you have accurate pictures of it. There are over five hundred of us at the sites, but still, you will need to hunt down the last twenty three."
Oh right, he says that like it will be easy. This one was four feet away and I still couldn't feel him with my extra senses or magic. Oh, I could feel his life force with my Witch magic, but unless touching I couldn't feel his DNA, just life.
He asked, "Where will you send us?"
I sighed. I didn't really see a reason not to let them go home, we were shielded now. So were they once upon a time though.
"I can either send you back home, or send you where we banished the three tribes, which is a world filled with life, but nothing intelligent. Except maybe eight very angry ex Rulers or wanna be Demon Rulers. But I'm sure you can handle them."
He asked politely, "If you would, we prefer the banishment planet? We would be executed at home for failing so badly in our mission. We felt the only way to redeem ourselves was to give in to your demands in the hopes you keep your word and that our people will be safe."
