Altered Fates: 2065 A.D. free porn video

In the year 2065 the United States is a theocracy in all but name, and at the center of the system sits the Medallion of Zulo.... ALTERED FATES: 2065 A.D. by BobH (C) 2013. (Note: While not essential to your understanding and enjoyment, you will get more out of this story if you first read my tales 'Altered Fates: The Cult', 'The Chapford Wives', and 'Amazons', on which it draws quite considerably. All are available here on FM.) 1: Ray Standing at the altar before Sister Alice Main and waiting for his bride, Acolyte Raymond Rollins reflected on the previous day and smiled. As was expected of them on their wedding eve, he and his fiancee had consummated their union, making love for the first and final time in their old lives, as tradition and custom dictated. It had been wonderful despite the extra-strength condoms the Church required him to wear - getting Janice pregnant would have been disastrous and probably led to them being shunned by their families. He was surprised by how sad he was they would never get to make love like that again. "Nervous?" asked Todd, his older brother and best man, in a low whisper. "A little," he admitted. "Don't be. You and Janice make a lovely couple now and you'll make a lovely couple afterwards. You'll be as happy as Carina and I am, you'll see." Ray glanced back to where Carina, his sister-in-law and best friend since childhood, was sitting on their family's side of the aisle, her stomach distended by her pregnancy. Any day now she would be giving birth to their first child, a boy. He would be the first of many she would bear. Their church required them to be fruitful and multiply, so she would spend most of her child-bearing years pregnant, giving birth to child after child. In the row behind her sat Ray's younger brothers and sisters, all ten of them. How large would his own family be, he wondered, by the time he was attending their weddings? The organist struck up "Here Comes the Bride" and there she was: Janice Sutton, gliding down the aisle that ran down the center of the wedge- shaped chamber, on the arm of her proud father and looking beautiful. As soon as she was standing beside him and her father had stepped back, they turned to face each other. Ray lifted back her veil and smiled shyly at her. Even without make-up she looked radiant. They then turned to face Sister Alice. "The first question shall be asked," she intoned. "Are you Acolyte Raymond and you Acolyte Janice ready to shed your old selves?" "We are," they replied, in unison. "Then shed your outer garments to signify the shedding within." As with all clothing worn by brides and grooms of their faith, their wedding clothes were designed to be quickly and easily removeable. Janice's Maid of Honor, her sister Martine (who would be walking down the aisle herself tomorrow), stepped forward to unzip the back of her wedding gown. This fell smoothly to the ground. As Janice stepped out of the gown then out of her four inch heels, so Martine took her veil, and stepped back. While this was happening, Todd stepped forward to take his brother's jacket, and the tie-and-fake-shirtfront that was a single unit that clipped around the neck. Ray stepped out of his slip-on shoes then pulled the special quick release catch on his belt that let his trousers fall smoothly to the ground. Next he stepped forward out of these to stand beside Janice, both of them now clad only in the stretchable unitard that was the regulation undergarment for both genders on their wedding day. Neither were wearing the anchor pendants that everyone now wore at all times, Starkist or otherwise, since to do so would have sabotaged the ceremony. "The second question shall be asked," intoned Sister Alice. "Having shed your old selves, are you Acolyte Raymond and you Acolyte Janice now ready to accept your new selves?" "We are," they replied. "Then let our most holy of holies, the blessed Medallion of Stark be brought forward that it may consecrate your union." A panel silently slid open in the wall behind the altar and an ornately robed man entered carrying a sturdy metal case. This was Brother Peter Kane, a powerful Mage and the Keeper of the Medallion. He stood beside Sister Alice then pressed his thumb to the fingerprint reader on the top surface of the case, which slid open to reveal the Medallion. To most eyes it looked like a cheap and tacky piece of junk jewellery, a gold-ish disc with the face of what might be either a demon or an angel on one side, and what could be either random scratches or crude script on the obverse, but to true believers it was an object of veneration. It also had real power. "You may touch the Medallion," said Sister Alice. They both reached out, and as their fingers met that cool metal surface so each felt a powerful jolt, like a static electrical charge that ran up their arm and through their body. As they took their hands away so Brother Peter closed the case and exited the way he had entered. There were seven weddings being held simultaneously in the Octagon - one in all but one of the wedges - and all needed the Medallion. This was it, Ray knew, their transformation had begun and there could be no turning back. They were committed now. He could already feel his body slowly starting to change. "Today you Raymond and you Janice become the latest in a long line to be touched by the transforming power of Karl Stark, the Great Leader, a line stretching all the way back to the beginnings of the Church on our California ranch in the 1960s, one hundred years ago...." Sister Alice then launched into the litany which, as life-long members of the Church they knew almost word for word. With no need to listen, Ray's entire attention was focussed on his body. "Gods, demons, and other magical creatures," Sister Alice intoned. "In the beginning our ancestors were their playthings and their prey. Demons and monsters were our nightmares made flesh, but the Gods were worse. They were our dreams given form. They looked like us yet felt no kinship with us. Our ancestors were building their early civilizations while subject to the whims and caprices of those powerful and unpredictable Gods. They wanted to be free, and they realised this might be accomplished by using those among them who had magical abilities of their own. Such abilities were weak and rudimentary at first, but our ancestors were smart enough to realize that if those with such abilities interbred, then each succeeding generation would have more ability to use magic than the preceeding one." He was shrinking, Ray could tell, because at the start of the ceremony he was taller than Sister Alice. He was now the same height as her, and still heading down.... "The Gods didn't pay much attention to the early wizards, even when they grew strong enough to start killing demons and trapping their energies in various mystic artefacts. As the powerful wizard families continued to interbreed so they eventually gave rise to the Mages, to humans powerful enough to take on the Gods themselves. Now the Gods had to pay attention, but they did so far too late. They thought they could bring the Mages to heel. They were wrong." Breasts, there were breasts growing from his chest! Even knowing it was coming, Ray could not get over how totally weird that felt.... "The wars that followed were long and bloody with enormous losses on both sides. Eventually, a truce was called and a compromise was reached, a covenant agreed. Henceforth, humans would not be subject to the whims of the Gods, and the Gods would turn their attention to other matters." Ray had always affected a military-style buzz cut so feeling hair slowly creeping down past his ears and onto his shoulders was so strange.... "And so the Gods departed and magic faded from the world. As the long millennia passed we forgot the Gods but they did not forget us. They came back and took over most of the world. Most, but not all. That we are here at all today as free men and women is thanks to one man: Karl Stark." "Blessed be his name!" chanted the congregation in unison. Hips. And an ass. It hadn't looked big when it was Janice's, but as it grew his butt was starting to feel enormous.... "Blessed be his name!" agreed Sister Alice. "When the Great Leader was born it was with full knowledge of the Gods and with the power of a Mage. He was sent to guide us and protect us, to save us. It was he who revealed that children of those who had been mystically transgendered would be born with the potential to be magic-wielders, a potential that needed to be activated before they reached puberty if they were to realise it. But even if it wasn't it could be passed on to the next generation, multiplying if they bred with someone who was also the child of one or more mystically transgendered parents. Two parents produced the strongest potential, with the mother producing the stronger when only one parent was mystically transgendered. Such was the Great Leader's love for we his people that he allowed his power to be placed in a humble vessel, a simple medallion, that it might be used to accomplish this vital work even after his death. Witness the power of that medallion now. Witness the glory and the blessings of the Great Leader's wisdom and his power." There was more after this, a recitation of the early struggles of the Church, but this was the important bit. As Sister Alice finished, so did their transformation. Ray suspected this was not a coincidence, that because the transformation took thirty minutes or so to run its course the length of the service had been tailored to match this. Ray was hyper-aware of the reality that he was now all woman. And that now he always would be. "The third question shall be asked," intoned Sister Alice. "Now that you have been transformed by the power of the Great Leader you are no longer Acolytes but a full Brother and Sister of the faith. Have you chosen new names for your new selves?" "We have," they intoned together. "I am Brother Keith," said the former Janice. "I am Sister Gillian," said the former Ray. "Then take up your clothing and let that which each has shed now clad the other." While Todd helped Keith, Gillian stepped into her three inch heels, then into her wedding dress, which the Maid of Honor slid up her body before zipping it. Next Keith stepped forward, veil in hand, and placed this on her head before they turned to face Sister Alice again. "The fourth and final question shall be asked of each of you," intoned Sister Alice. "Do you Brother Keith take Sister Gillian for your lawful wedded wife, to love and to cherish and to give as many children as she may bear, until death you do part?" "I do," said Keith. "And do you Sister Gillian take Brother Keith for your lawful wedded husband, to love and to cherish and to carry as many children as he may give you, until death you do part?" "I do," said Gillian. "Then by the power invested in me by the Mother of the Church, I declare you married. Brother Keith, you may kiss your bride." As she walked up the aisle on her husband's arm to the applause of their friends and relatives, and smiling happily, Gillian found herself thinking back to last year and to the wedding of her sister Claire and best friend Matt, who were now her brother Todd and sister-in-law Carina. She had wondered then what it would feel like to be in Matt's shoes, and now she knew. In the Church of Stark, guys went down the aisle as the groom and came back up it as the bride. That's how it was, and how it always would be. 2: Carol From her office window in the uppermost level of the Octagon, the enormous temple sited where the reflecting pool had once been, Carol Erhardt stared along the National Mall, her gaze sweeping past the blackened stump of the Washington Monument and the reassuring sight of the DC anchor floating several feet above the ground, and coming to rest on the building beyond. "You told me you could control Congress, Johanna," she said, turning to face the other two women in the room, "yet they've refused me the resources I need." "We're coming up on a decade of Austerity," said Johanna Osterman, choosing her words carefully. "With exporting overseas now an impossibility, belts have been tightened to the point where even your needs can't be fully met." "If they aren't then nothing else matters, none of it," said Carol, her voice betraying her anger and exasperation. "Or have those idiots on the Hill forgotten what happened the last time the Anchor Program was underfunded? A failure in the New Orleans anchor caused a cascade effect that took down all the others linked to it throughout Louisiana and we lost the entire state! Thanks to them it's now part of Huitzilopochtli's territory. Human sacrifices are being carried out on top of the pyramid in the French Quarter, for Stark's sake! Do they want to lose another state? The US is home to the only population of free people left on the entire planet. We can't afford to sacrifice any more of it. It's going to take another twenty years, another generation, before we've bred and trained enough Mages to stand a chance against the Gods. If we lose the US before that then it's game over for humanity." "She's right," said Lorna Cheung, the other woman in the room, in her lilting Irish accent. "Without the anchors everything else is pointless." At six-one with serenely stern Asian features, her long black hair cut with geometric precision, she made a very striking figure. Carol sighed and regarded her lieutenants with irritation. Like her they appeared to be in their mid-twenties, but all three of them owed their apparent youth to the power of the Medallion of Stark, a rejuvenation option used as a special reward and not available to the rank-and-file of the faith. All three of them also looked as they had half a century earlier, none having taken the opportunity to adopt new forms. Then again, by any measure all of them were attractive women, so why change bodies they were happy with? She and Lorna had also once been male, something nobody knew about them and which they didn't know about each other, but both had now been women so long that manhood was little more than a distant, faintly unpleasant memory. Johanna headed the Cabal, a secular group of multi-billionaires who through their wealth controlled the government. The populace still voted in elections, of course, but who they chose to represent them had ceased to have any real meaning a long time ago, even before the return of the Gods. Both the Democrats and the Republicans were in the pocket of the Cabal and would do whatever their paymasters required. Usually. Carol wondered briefly if she ought to summon the President before her and give him a dressing down. Perhaps she would. He knew he only served at her pleasure, but it didn't hurt to remind him of that reality from time to time. "The real tragedy is that we couldn't talk the Order of Merlyn around," said Johanna. "We need all the power we can muster, and we could ill afford to lose theirs." This was a dig at Lorna Cheung who, as head of the Church's magic division had ordered the assault on the Order's stronghold. "They refused to see reason," said Lorna, clearly annoyed, "refused to combine their forces with ours in a common front against the Gods. They insisted on opposing us, and on following their own path. When we went into Kennet Cove two years ago the last thing we wanted was a massacre." "And yet that's what you got," said Johanna, smirking. "Enough squabbling!" said Carol, silencing them. "What's done is done. If the Order refused to see sense and to come under the wing of the Church then we are better off without them. Are we absolutely sure there were no survivors?" "Witch-Commander Stanley assures me there weren't, and she led the raid," said Lorna, fingering her anchor pendant nervously. "A pity. Oh well, on to other business," said Johanna. "Are all our spy satellites still functioning, and if so what are they telling us about the rest of the world?" "Yes, they're all still functioning," said Lorna. "Not a single one has yet been targeted. Either the Gods don't care about anything beyond the atmosphere or they want us to see what they're doing. As for the big three, nothing much has changed in the areas under their control since our last meeting. Britain is still Aphrodite's personal pleasure dome and, as in every other country, the flesh of the populace is treated like modelling clay and some of the, ah, bodily modifications that have taken place in her domain have to be seen to be believed. On the other hand, most people are now physically gorgeous. They all even have good teeth." "It doesn't actually sound too bad," mused Johanna. "The entire country is essentially her personal harem," said Lorna. "If you don't mind that - and of course having to worship her - I suppose it doesn't. Continuing my report.... Loki still rules across most of Scandinavia and the examples of his 'mischief' we can see indicate a very dark, very inventive, very cruel sense of humor. Ares still holds sway across most of Russia, which is one huge charnel house of never-ending war. The various sea Gods still control the seas and the wind Gods the air, confining us to American soil and only that air and those waters on or above our own land. The other Gods, those who find themselves 'lesser' during this turn of the cosmic wheel, control everywhere else, of course. I'll have a breakdown by country prepared for you, if you want one." "Not that the concept of countries means much outside America anymore," sighed Johanna. "Which brings us to the big question: what about Australia?" And that really was the big question, the biggest and most worrying of all. Although she hated the idea, Carol knew it meant that someone would have to visit the Island of the Gods: Manhattan. 3: Martine Martine Sutton pressed her hot young body against his, pushing him up against the wall, her tongue seeking Damon's own, feeling her erect nipples pressing into the fabric of her Maid of Honor dress. "We can slip away now," she said huskily. "I'm all danced out and neither of us ought to drink any more. Keith and Gillian left half an hour ago so it won't be considered rude. Heck, everyone will *expect* it of us." "Sounds good to me," said Damon, as she took his hand and led him across the hotel ballroom to the exit, pretending not to notice the smirks of those they passed. The kissing continued in the elevator they took up to her room, and in the corridor leading up to the room, but as soon as they were in the room itself they paused for breath. "Come and see our wedding dress," said Martine, leading him over to where it hung. It was the same one her sister had worn hours earlier. Having their weddings on consecutive days allowed her parents to reuse it and so save money. Even the reception and party they had just come from were doubling up for both weddings. "Isn't it amazing! We're going to be a beautiful bride." "We sure are," he agreed, sparing it no more than a glance, "but that's tomorrow. Right now I'm more interested in tonight." "You're right," said Martine, smiling at him and licking her lips lasciviously. "This is the only time we'll ever do this with me a woman and you a man, so let's make it memorable." They undressed quickly but carefully, piling their clothes on top of a chair. When they were done they stopped and looked each other up and down, lust temporarily replaced by curiosity at seeing the other naked for the first time, at this preview of what they themselves would look like in less than twenty four hours. Damon was sandy-haired and good- looking, slim and fit, and Martine had been immediately attracted to him in that peculiar way that only a Starkist was attracted to a member of the opposite sex, which was not only as a potential lover but also as someone whose body they could imagine their own being reshaped into on their wedding day. It was a very different way of looking at the world but one which increasing numbers of people were adopting so fast was the Church of Stark winning converts. With its power an actual demonstrable force rather than just the promises offered by other faiths it was rapidly becoming seen as the one true religion with the others falling by the wayside, now followed out of force of habit mainly by the elderly. Martine had been born and raised in the Church so she had always known what getting married would mean and had never questioned it. Non- believers who didn't understand how the faithful could calmly submit to this didn't appreciate the power of faith. She wondered what it must be like for a convert like Damon, what he must truly think of it. Martine took Damon's hands and placed them on her breasts. "Just think, this time tomorrow these will be yours," she said, reaching out to grasp his penis, "and this will be mine. Does that seem weird to you?" "No," he said. "I've accepted the church and all it requires of me into my heart. I'm proud to be a member, proud that I'll be helping protect human freedom, and proud I'll be taking on your form and taking you as my husband." "And you've never felt yourself to be a woman trapped in a man's body?" This was a real concern of the Church, that the gender dysphoric might join purely to achieve a desired transformation rather than out of genuine belief in its tenets. "Not ever," chuckled Damon. "When I become a woman and don that wedding dress tomorrow it will be the first dress I've ever worn." "Good," said Martine, suitably mollified, "then come here." Much later, after a marathon lovemaking session that left them both exhausted, Martine was sitting up in bed next to her slumbering fiance, smoking a very welcome post-coital cigarette and studying his sleeping face thoughtfully. When that was her face she was growing a beard, she decided. Looking at his roots it was clear Damon dyed his hair and that it was actually a lot darker. She'd be changing that, too. Martine took a long drag on what would be one of her last ever cigarettes. She had never seriously tried to quit smoking, having always known that switching forms would end the cravings; it would be like flicking a switch. Which meant Damon would inherit them and it would then be his problem. He would be the one who would have to go through the withdrawal. He couldn't start smoking himself, of course; that would never do, not when he was going to be spending so much of his time pregnant. Martine and her sister had a wager with each other to see which of them could father the most children when they became male, so she would be keeping Damon permanently pregnant if she could. The Church exalted those couples who produced lots of children anyway, and no way was she letting her sister beat her. Martine looked down at her breasts, so pert and so firm, and ran her fingers over her trim little waist. Soon these would be Damon's. She would expect him to do his best to keep his girlish figure and to look sexy for her but, sadly, they wouldn't look as good in a few years' time. No, what with the inevitable stretch marks and the wear and tear from all the breast feeding he'd be doing they wouldn't be looking that good for long at all. It would feel odd at first, returning to her job as a man after their honeymoon, but so many people were now Starkists it wouldn't raise the eyebrows it once had. She would also have the muscle to put the obnoxious male colleague who'd been annoying her on his ass if he continued treating her as he always had. It was an appealing thought. Taking a final drag on her cigarette, Martine stubbed it out in the ashtray on her bedside table and picked up the church-approved box of extra-strength condoms they'd been issued with. Still one left. She shook Damon awake. No point letting it go to waste, after all.... 4: Ashley Ashley Buffington emerged from her tent ten yards inside the tree line and stretched, eagerly sucking in lungfuls of the clear, clean early morning air they still had in this part of rural Massachusetts. She glanced back into the tent to where her buff young lover Kyle was still slumbering and smiled at the memory of the previous night's love-making. Young men today were so much more easy-going sexually than they were when she was young, so much more willing to accomodate someone like her and her particular proclivities. She stroked the small red gem embedded in her chest-bone wistfully. She was now seventy years old chronologically but, thanks to the gem slowing her aging, no more than forty years old physically. Good genes also meant she actually looked a decade younger than her physical age, and since thanks to those same good genes she was extremely pretty she was still able to attract handsome young men like Kyle as lovers. Having the large sexual appetite she did, this was something she gave thanks for every day. Hester Collins was standing at the edge of the clearing, scanning it through her binoculars when Ashley carried a freshly-brewed coffee over to her. "Thanks," she said, barely sparing Ashley a glance as she took the coffee. "Any activity?" asked Ashley. "Nothing I can see, no," said Hester. "They might have left passive mystic alarms that will alert them if anyone uses magic on the site however, so I'm loath to do any casting until we have to. Here, take the binoculars while I drink my coffee." Ashley did so, studying the contents of the area with interest. It had until recently been home to Chapford, an exclusive gated community named after a colonial era village that had once existed several miles from here before burning down in mysterious circumstances. This was a very large natural clearing in the middle of a lush wood and could only be reached via a non-signposted turn off from I-95. Chapford had contained only six houses, every one of them virtually a mansion, each built in its own distinct yet tasteful architectural style. Arranged in a rough circle around a small, central park they had oozed money and class. In the centre of the park was a jutting outcrop of rock with a gentle slope on one side and a steep drop on the other. Left balanced on top of this outcrop by retreating glaciers had been a flat rock. Roughly square in shape, it had been about twenty feet wide. This was the altar-stone, site of many mystic ceremonies going back thousands of years. Like the houses it was gone now, dynamited where they had been burned to the ground, the destruction recent enough that foliage had only just started to cover the remains. In order not to be seen they had travelled here under cover of darkness and pitched their tents the previous night. "My home was the Spanish-style, neo-colonial house," said Hester, pointing to one of the blackened ruins. "They really did a job on this place," said Ashley. "It's as bad as Kennet Cove." "No, Kennet Cove was worse," said Hester. "No one died here. We knew they were coming and we got out in time, but losing both of our bases pretty much destroyed the Order. That's why we have to stop the Traitor." No one ever called him by his name. He was always just 'the Traitor', as if even saying his name would somehow defile their tongues. Although Hester appeared to be in her early twenties, Ashley knew the other woman's body was more than three hundred and seventy years old, but her youthful face was starting to show signs of the stress she was under. The Order of Merlyn had been all but wiped out, and Hester's daughter and sister were both with the Starkists. All their hopes now rested on her son. This was their last roll of the dice, their final gambit. If the plan failed that was it: game over. "Do you ever wonder if maybe the Order should've joined forces with the Church of Stark to fight the Gods?" asked Ashley. "Never!" snapped Hester. "They want us to exchange one religious tyranny for another. If freedom is to survive we have to defeat both of them." She was right of course, but if they united against the Gods wouldn't it then be easier to take down the Starkists after the Gods were defeated? It was an argument others had made, Ashley knew, and one which had led to several high-profile defections from the Order. The fact there were only three of them on a mission as vital as this one spoke volumes about just how depleted their ranks now were. "I want to take down the Cabal, too," said Ashley. "Your father?" "My father," she agreed, "Lafayette Buffington III. Do you remember the mindbomb scare?" "I doubt there's anyone who was alive back then who doesn't remember it. Terrorists setting off bombs that randomly switched the minds of anyone caught within its blast radius? Terrifying!" "Right. Well Daddy was one of a group of powerful men and women who hoped to use the mindbomb effect to achieve immortality, to move their minds into fresh young bodies when their current ones got old or damaged. Unfortunately, being exposed to a mindbomb blast also immunised you to its effects so while you could use it to switch bodies once it wasn't a ticket to immortality. Still, even being able to use it as a one-time deal made it valuable. Ironically, while my father and his friends were looking at mindbombs as a way of extending their lives there was another group looking at Daddy and his friends and plotting to steal those lives for themselves by other means." She paused, swallowing hard before continuing. "Daddy was replaced, his body and his life stolen by one of the Cabal, just as all of their bodies and lives were stolen from the rich and powerful. The Cabal are a bunch of old spies, cold warriors who didn't want to be put out to pasture when the Cold War ended seventy five years ago and who had a way to swap their minds into the bodies of others. They tried to replace me too, because I realised the man claiming to be my Daddy wasn't him, but I got away. My husband didn't. That was fifty years go. I've been running ever since." "Any more of that coffee?" said a new voice. "'Morning, Kyle," said Ashley going over and sliding her arms around his waist, "About time you got up." "Yeah, well, it all doesn't go down 'til three this afternoon, so I figured I could lie in, rebuild some of that energy we burned off last night." He pulled her to him and kissed her, wrapping his strong arms around her and making Ashley very happy. "Probably a good idea," said Hester, "because when that spell activates this afternoon all hell is going to break loose. We'll need to make ourselves scarce as soon as it's done, so after torching this camp we'll be running back through those woods as fast as our legs will carry us." Kyle said nothing, going over to the small fire and pouring himself a mug of coffee from the pot brewing there. He was the strong silent type was Kyle, both things Ashley liked in her men. She watched him take an MRE from his back-pack for breakfast and hoped his eyes and ears were as strong as the rest of him. Hester would be casting the spell and Ashley would be her tether, keeping her from being sucked in by what were some powerful, highly dangerous magics. Ashley had no magical ability herself but the gem in her chest had enough juice for her to play this important role. And while the two women were thus engaged it was Kyle's task to watch over them. He had been a marine sniper and was now their protector. "Uh, Hester?" said Ashley, suddenly concerned, "Your nose is bleeding." Hester put a finger to her nose, frowning at the blood it revealed. "Damn!" she said. "Holding all this power inside me is harder than I thought it would be. My anchor pendant is hiding that power from prying eyes, but when I remove it this afternoon to do the spell I'm going to light up like a Christmas tree to anyone who has witch sight and happens to be casting that sight in this direction. The wedding better not run late or we'll be in trouble." "It'll be on time," Ashley assured her. "Starkists believe that punctuality is next to godliness, remember?" "Let's hope you're right. We'll need to pull together as many of the alter-stone fragments at the base of the rock as we can," said Hester. "This was a place of power for thousands of years and I have strong ties to it, which is why we're here. Even shattered, the alter-stone should let us focus the energies we'll be commanding. We only get one shot at this so we have to get it right. This is our only chance to rewrite history and save the Order...." 5: Lorna Sitting in an armchair, languidly sipping a scotch, Lorna Cheung smiled affectionately at the women sleeping in her bed, their blonde hair dishevelled, their limbs entwined and the bedclothes tangled about them. It had been ages since she had last had a night of such wild, unrestrained sex. She hadn't realised how much she had missed it. And how wonderful to do it with bodies she was intimately familar with, even though she had never met either girl before. While not openly opposing it the Church of Stark nevertheless frowned on homosexuality. This stemmed from their belief that all sexual activity should be about procreation and all procreation should be about breeding powerful sorcerors who could battle the Gods, with Mages being the ultimate goal. Unofficially the Church turned a blind eye to it so long as those involved in such activity did not neglect their procreational duty. It was drummed into church members almost from birth that they would eventually switch genders so of course they accepted this. Nevertheless, they often still had desires towards what had once been the opposite sex but was now their own and stifling those desires had led to problems. Which is why when Lorna Cheung had been despatched to New York she had had no difficulty attracting a couple of young women to spend the night with her in the guest apartments at the Church of Stark's impressive church in Brooklyn. She had been too jazzed by her assignment to sleep anyway so a night of passionate sex with the Caetlyn twins had been just what the doctor ordered. Not that they actually were twins, despite being physically identical. Nor was either named Caetlyn. Both were missionaries, members of the church sent out to convert the heathen, and went by the names Acolyte Susan and Acolyte La Toya. It was believed the Church's message was easier to get across when coming from someone who was gorgeous, and none came more gorgeous than Cate Hunter had in her youth. Lorna herself had supplied the garment of Cate's she had kept from a tryst half a century earlier that was used in conjunction with the Medallion to bring about the transformation. Of course, Cate Hunter herself had stolen that body using a blood spell that Lorna had given her, the same spell which -coincidentally - Johanna Osterman had recently traded an ancient artefact with her to learn. why, when they had access to the Medallion, would she need a mind-swapping spell? And why had she tried to undermine Lorna's position at their subsequent meetings with Carol Erhardt? Johanna was up to something but Lorna had no idea what, and that worried her. There was a knock at the door. "It's time, ma'am," came a voice. "I'll be with you shortly," said Lorna, throwing back what was left of her scotch. Not exactly the breakfast of champions, but she couldn't have eaten anything right then anyway what with the way her stomach was churning. Getting to her feet and leaning over the bed, she softly kissed the lips of each of the girls in turn, gently caressing her breasts until she sleepily awoke. "I have to go now, babies," she said, "but I've left instructions you're not to be disturbed today. I'll be back later, but in the meantime enjoy each other." When Lorna made her way down to the building entrance there was a bullet- proof sedan waiting to take her the short distance to the Brooklyn Bridge, a sad necessity in these days when senior figures in the Church could be the target of terrorist attacks by misguided malcontents who worshipped the returned Gods and who wanted the anchors destroyed so as to let in their 'blessings'. They called themselves 'Scythians' after the town where the Amazons had lived in America, though they were not connected to them. Funny how despite the Gods being known by a multitude of names across different cultures they were still mostly called them by their Greek and Roman names, Loki being one notable exception. "Lieutenant Adams, ma'am," said her military driver, holding the door open for her and saluting as she got in. When they pulled out into traffic he said: "I was here on G-Day, y'know. I saw the other bridges shimmer and vanish as if they'd never been leaving the Brooklyn Bridge as the only connection to Manhattan. I didn't learn about the tunnels 'til later of course, that it was as though they'd never been dug in the first place. Do you think it's true what they say about the Brooklyn Bridge, that they chose that for the link because of aesthetic reasons?" "I have no idea," said Lorna, intrigued to meet someone who had seen the event with their own eyes, "but it's consistent with what we know about them. So you saw the Manhattan skyline change, too?" "I did," he said, "and it's not the sort of thing you can ever forget, but I think I was more affected when I saw what they did on Liberty Island for the first time." "The Statue of Liberty morphed into the Statue of Ares," said Lorna. "Right, and where she'd been holding aloft the torch of freedom he holds up a double-headed war axe. Every time I see it it's like he's flipping us the bird." Attempted missile strikes on the statue and on Manhattan had resulted in the missiles being stopped in mid air and dropping harmlessly into the water. "The Church didn't have any places on Liberty Island or in Manhattan. If we had...." "Yeah, I know," said the Captain, "and we're all grateful you had them where you did. If your scriptures hadn't warned you to build the anchors, and if you hadn't had a first-generation anchor ready in each of your churches that day, America would've fallen like the rest of the world did." As he talked he touched his own anchor pendant as he once might have sought comfort in a crucifix, and Lorna relected on the anchors, feeling the usual unease she felt whenever she did so. The Gods' reality rewriting powers would not work on anyone or anything that had been anchored, but she did not believe the Church had had the anchors built because of scripture. She knew the Church and its scriptures to be a fraud, the Medallion of Stark to actually be a mystic artifact called the Medallion of Zulo that predated Karl Stark's birth by several centuries, and Stark himself to be a charlatan. Yet somehow they had known how to build the anchors, and when they would be needed, and they had had millions of anchor pendants ready to hand out on G-Day. All of these were paid for and manufactured by the Cabal, that mysterious group of multi- billionaires led by that cow Johanna. They were the wealthiest people in America, the people who actually owned the country and who had bought the government long before the return of the old Gods. "I was also part of the raid on Scythia, that town upstate where those Amazon bitches used to live. It was a real anti-climax to find they'd abandoned it and all moved to Manhattan two days before G-Day." By coincidence, a spy satellite had been passing over Manhattan at the exact moment the island began to transform. The change started on Madison Avenue and radiated outwards. Best conjecture held that where the anchors fixed an area and proofed it against transformation, someone had constructed an 'anti-anchor' on Manhattan that had the opposite effect, making reality more malleable there and so able to be massively changed. Close examination of the images identified ground zero as the Olympus Images building. Tax records showed most of its executives lived in Scythia, hence the raid. Later sifting through footage from traffic cams and the like showed the exodus from the town on the morning of G-Day minus two and the convoy of vehicles crossing the bridge into Upper Manhattan a few hours later. When they chose the island as their new Olympus, the Gods obviously expected America to fall to them as everywhere else had. That didn't happen. Tough shit, Gods. And so the Brooklyn Bridge had become neutral territory. It was where you would meet if you had managed to arrange a face-to-face with someone from the other side. Or to deposit a large sack. A large fort had been constructed at the Brooklyn end of the bridge, one bristling with artillery and hosting a large contingent of elite troops. Getting through the fort and onto the bridge usually involved a lot of paperwork, but Lorna's position in the Church got her through the formalities and onto the bridge in under ten minutes. Waiting for her was a golf cart, which she climbed into and drove to the middle of the bridge. Then she waited. The Amazon came galloping over the bridge on her steed, drawing to a halt ten feet from Lorna and dismounting in a single, impressively fluid move. She was tall and muscular, had long blonde hair trailing down her back in a single braid, and was dressed in what looked like a tan-colored sleeveless version of a professional bike rider's leather outfit, matching lace-up boots, a sword hanging from one hip and a holstered Uzi from the other - Amazons might prefer close-up, one-on-one combat, and seeing the light die in an enemy's eyes as you slew him, but they weren't stupid. From battle reports she'd read Lorna guessed the woman also had a variety of knives concealed about her person. The Amazon's steed wasn't a horse but a centaur, one wearing a set of dog-tags around his neck. His bridle and blinkers concealed his face but Lorna knew who he was thanks to the name tattoed on his chest where the identity patch would've been on his uniform: Klein. This was Owen Klein, a member of the team of Navy SEALs who had been sent across the Hudson on a covert reconnaisance mission to Manhattan nine years earlier, soon after the Gods took it, and who had never been heard from again. Until now. This was a provocation, Lorna realized. If some fool in the bridge guard unit saw the name and took offense there could be a problem. The regular military hated the Amazons anyway. Regardless of how formidable they were as warriors, they had also been fifth columnists. Many had joined the militaries of the world in order to be in position to do the most damage on G-Day. Often the brightest graduates of elite military academies such as Sandhurst and West Point, they got themselves into positions of authority at bases where the military kept there most powerful weapons. When portals opened on bases and next to centers of governments across the world on that day and armies of female troops poured through they quickly neutralised all the militaries on the planet. Except in the US. With the explosive growth of the Church of Stark in the previous few decades there were lots of members of the miltary who were also members of the Church. In order to blend in some Amazons joined too, though their true allegiance remained with Ares. The day before G-Day, the Church hierarchy got word out to members in the military, identifying the Amazons and telling them to be ready. They knew exactly when it would start and exactly who the Amazons on the important bases were, all of whom were arrested minutes before the portals opened. In other countries not only were their militaries taken by surprise but they faced forces who also had magic on their side. In the US it was the attackers who were surprised. Not only were US forces waiting for them but, thanks to the anchors, their magical weapons wouldn't work there. It was a total rout, though the Washington Monument was lost during the fighting in DC. Afterwards, the US military was purged of all the Amazons secretly within its ranks, but they soon discovered there was a limit to what they could do to them. Lorna still rmembered the first time she had watched the video of Colonel Lauren Claiborne's initial interrogation. She has asked for her driver Clara - another Amazon - to be present as a condition of her speaking freely to her interrogator, Major Clark Curtis: "Is that thing rolling? Good," she had said. "My name is Lauren Claiborne, Colonel, United States Air Force. During my many years in the service I have served the United States with distinction, but I am first and foremost an Amazon. My tribe and my god the Lord Ares command my first allegiance. They always have and they always will. I understand that you'll want to treat us as traitors rather than the prisoners of war we are and will almost certainly expect to subject us to what you term 'enhanced interrogation' and what the rest of the world calls torture. That would be a mistake, and I'll now show you why. Clara? If you would, please." "Yes, ma'am," said Clara. She was standing with an armed guard at her shoulder where Lauren was seated at a table, facing the major. Both were shackled, hand and foot. As soon as she had finished speaking, Clara crumpled to the floor. "What the fuck?" said her guard, as the Major got up from his desk and came into view of the camera, rushing over to attend to Clara. "She's quite dead," Lauren said calmly, still staring into the camera. "It's an ability we all have. We can end ourselves with a thought at any time. Unfortunatly, Clara died in your custody. There will be a price to pay for that, as there will be when any of us die in your custody." "What price? What are you talking about?" demanded the Major. "Go to the Brooklyn Bridge in an hour and you'll find out." An hour later a sack was dumped on the bridge. Inside were ten severed heads, both male and female but no children. When word was received Major Curtis demanded to know what it meant. "I would have thought that was obvious, Major," said Laura Claiborne. "If you kill an Amazon in your custody or cause her to end herself then ten of yours will die. While our magics can't get past those anchors of yours, there's a low-level telepathic awareness between Amazons that lets us know when one of ours has fallen. We expect to be treated as prisoners of war. Those on your side we have captured will be treated the same way. The exception will be anyone you send against Manhattan from this point on. The island is now the home of the Gods. Any who set foot there now will be blaspheming and can expect no mercy." The message was received loud and clear. As well as all those on Manhattan when it transformed there were also thousands of Americans abroad on G-Day. That was too many people to put at risk. A PoW camp was established in Colorado and the Amazons who had been captured were held there to this day, in model PoW conditions. What no-one had appreciated was that the female troops who had poured through the portals on G-Day were not actually Amazons but from somewhere else and those that had been captured were incarcerated in the same camp. This was not a consideration that had been extended to the men of the Navy SEAL team. They had gone into Manhattan and had paid the price, as Lorna was now seeing with her own eyes. Klein appeared skittish, whinneying as a horse would. Lorna guessed his intelligence had been dialled down as part of his transformation. His rider calmed him, turning him sideways on to Lorna. That's when she saw his teats. However male he might appear from the front, Klein was a centaur mare. "Sorry about that," said the Amazon, striding over to Lorna, "but my steed is in heat and it's making him restive. My name is Jennifer Marrs." She held out her hand and Lorna shook it. "Lorna Cheung," she replied,"but...he's in heat?" "All of his team are. It's time for them to foal again so we've brought in a fine Arabian stallion who will be servicing them in their stable tonight." "'Foal again?'" said Lorna, shocked despite herself. "Yes," said Jennifer. "When you mate a centaur with a horse you get a unicorn, just as you get a mule when you mate a donkey with a horse. Millennia ago you knew this, but that knowledge like so much else was lost to you. Sadly, unicorns are just as infertile as mules, though of course highly sought after despite the fact they will only let virgins ride them. We breed as many as we can." "So all of the squad are now centaur mares?" "Except for their Captain. He was the only one who chose to be perfected, though the others might have if we'd told them the alternative." 'Perfection' was what Amazons called the process by which men were made smaller, weaker, submissive and feminized - an Amazon's ideal man in other words. And their ideal was the norm in many places where the Gods ruled, which by this point was most of the world. "We prefer our men 'unperfected'," said Lorna. "It's one of the many reasons we don't want your Gods." "Like it or not this is a new age, the age of the Female Ascendency. Don't you believe women should be running things?" "Actually I do, and before the return of the Gods things had been slowly evolving in that direction in the West. I don't like the Amazon model of submissive, feminized men. Most of us don't." "In those parts of the world where women had been kept down and abused by their men since time immemorial we had no trouble convicing them of the value of the Amazon way. They embraced it with open arms. My wife Gary - originally the Captain of your Navy SEAL reconaissance team - is pretty, petite, deliciously submissive and I love him deeply. He's given me two big strong daughters who will grow into fine warriors and a sweet, very affectionate son who will make some lucky Amazon a lovely wife one day. He's the apple of my eye, my adorable little princess. My wife is carrying our fourth child; I'm hoping for another son. Gary always looks so radiant when he's pregnant. We're very happy together." "I'm sure you are, but his mind and body were altered without his consent. He did not enter into your relationship of his own free will." "Free will in men is overrated. It's a burden to them, and they misuse it. I know from experience that men are happiest when women do the thinking for them." "He had a wife." "I know. I saw the photo in his wallet when he was given to me. Now he *is* a wife, and much prettier than her. He's better like this." "Neither of us is going to convince the other their way is better," said Lorna, "so let's move on to why we asked for this meeting." "I suspect I know, but go on." "Australia." "Ah," said Jennifer, "we were wondering how long it would be before your curiosity got the better of you. You'll have viewed it with your spy sattelites, of course?" "Of course. We're just not sure what we're looking at. It appears to be a wound, an enormous hole in the centre of the landmass from which energy appears to be boiling. Can that be right?" "Within the limits of what your technology can detect and mortal minds comprehend, yes it can. The Gods have an enemy. Who or what that enemy might be is unknown. They refer to it as 'the Other'. It is attempting to alter this world, to rewrite reality on a global scale. Australia is where it is attempting to enter this plane, but the power of the Gods is stopping it. They are holding it off. The 'boiling' you are seeing is but the interface of colossal energies being unleashed against each other, of matter broken down into the stuff of chaos. Pray the Gods don't fail, or we will all suffer the consequences." "We can help," said Lorna. "This is our world and we want to defend it." "You?" said Jennifer, giving an incredulous laugh. "This is way out of your league. If you want to help you should deactivate your anchors, let the Gods into your lands and accept them into your hearts. You're at most an annoying distraction to them, but still a distraction they could do without. So if you want to aid them that's what you need to do." "That's never going to happen." "I didn't think so," said the Amazon. She turned and mounted her steed. "Return to your leader and her false religion and tell her what you've learned here. And if you want to live another two hundred years pray the Gods can keep the Other contained." "How can you know how old I am?" said Lorna, stunned by her words. "How? I am an emissary of the Gods. They have given me the ability to see through lies and artifice, to 'read' the magic that has been used on someone by them or by others. You were born a male in Dublin, Ireland in 1870 and stole your first female body twenty years later. There have been many more since then. I sense that you've kept this from your colleagues for some reason, not that I care why. Your petty squabbles and intrigues are trivial things next to the threat our world faces. I've told you what you need to do. Now take it to your superiors and try to make them see sense. Farewell." With that she dug her heels into her steed's sides, turned, and galloped back the way she had come leaving Lorna Cheung staring after her. 6: Damon "Nervous?" asked Larry Sutton, as he and Damon stood at the altar awaiting the arrival of the bride. "I just don't want her to be late," said Damon. "She won't be, man," said Larry. "With the number of weddings they see at the Octagon in a day she daren't be." That was true, thought Damon. Because their weddings required the Medallion this was the only place they could be performed, and Church members came from all over the country to be married here. The place worked to tight schedules and no one could be allowed to disrupt them. Larry was 17 years old and the only member of his fiancee's appalling family Damon could stand - and that included his fiancee. He claimed to have no living relatives, so Larry had been delighted when Damon asked him to be his Best Man. This wasn't true, of course, any more than his surname was really Smith, but it had been a necessary subterfuge to get him to this point. "Have you decided on names for your fistborn yet?" asked Larry, making conversation. "Karl if it's a boy," said Damon, following the tradition among believers of naming first sons after the Great Leader, "and Hester if it's a girl." "Hester? Isn't that kinda old fashioned, like eighteenth century old fashioned?" "It's my mother's name," said Damon, glancing at his watch. A minute to go. One minute until the ceremony was due to start. One minute until his mother up removed her anchor pendant in Chapford and cast the spell. One minute until they changed the world. It had taken a lot of dedication to get him here. He had started out with long hair, a beard, and a beer belly, all of which were now gone. His hair had also been dyed, all in an effort to make him unrecognizable should he come into contact with his aunt or sister, or even with any member of the Church's intelligence division who doubtless had files on him and his family. Joining the Church, going through its initiation process, and romancing Martine were all means to an end. To send him back through time required not only the large energies his mother had amassed but also the power of the Medallion. In the process he should also be able to steal the Medallion and so cripple the Church. As Hester explained it, the Medallion wasa a powerful instrument of fate, one which did not like to be constrained but 'out in the wild', changing the fates of those it encountered. Since the last time the Church regained the Medallion it had held onto it for decades using magic to keep it in place. By now it would be busting to be free, and because of that there was a very good chance fate would see to it their plan succeeded. If it did then he would soon be back in the past, where he could stop the Traitor before he betrayed them. The organist struck up "Here Comes the Bride" and there she was: Martine Sutton, gliding down the aisle that ran down the center of the wedge- shaped chamber, on the arm of her proud father and looking beautiful. As soon as she was standing beside him and her father had stepped back, they turned to face each other. Damon lifted back her veil and smiled at her. Without her make-up she looked disconcertingly sweet and innocent. They then turned to face Sister Alice. "The first question shall be asked," she intoned. "Are you Acolyte Damon and you Acolyte Martine ready to shed your old selves?" "We are," they replied, in unison. "Then shed your outer garments to signify the shedding within." Martine's Maid of Honor was her sister-in-law Gillian, who Martine had been Maid of Honor to the previous day. Both couples would be travelling directly to the airport after the ceremony to start their joint honeymoon. Gillian stepped forward to unzip the back of her wedding gown, which fell smoothly to the ground. As Martine stepped out of her gown then out of her five inch heels, so Gillian took her veil, and stepped back. While this was happening, Larry stepped forward to take Damon's jacket, and the tie-and-fake-shirtfront that was a single unit that clipped around the neck. Damon stepped out of his slip-on shoes then pulled the special quick release catch on his belt that let his trousers fall smoothly to the ground. Next he stepped forward out of these to stand beside Martine, both of them now clad only in their stretchable unitards. "The second question shall be asked," intoned Sister Alice. "Having shed your old selves, are you Acolyte Damon and you Acolyte Martine now ready to accept your new selves?" "We are," they replied. "Then let our most holy of holies, the blessed Medallion of Stark be brought forward that it may consecrate your union." A panel silently slid open in the wall behind the altar and an ornately robed man entered carrying a sturdy metal case. Brother Peter Kane, Keeper of the Medallion, stood beside Sister Alice then pressed his thumb to the fingerprint reader on the top surface of the case, which opened to reveal the Medallion. This was it. "You may touch the Medallion," said Sister Alice. As they both reached out for it, Damon knocked Martine's hand aside and grabbed the Medallion. "Excalibur!" he said. And his world exploded. Damon tried to hold onto the Medallion but it was suddenly red hot, and he cried out and dropped it, his hand burning as he was thrown bodily down a long tunnel of light, exploding out of it into cold night air. He seemed to be in the center of a ball of fire, though it didn't burn him, and falling to earth from what felt like a great height. Then he slammed into the ground. The landing winded him. Struggling painfully to his knees, scanning the trees illuminated by the small fires his arrival had caused, he had only one thought: "who am I?" His hand hurt. Looking down at it he was surprised to see a face burned into it, as if someone had branded him. It was a demon, or possibly an angel - he couldn't tell which - but whatever it was he was sure it was important. If only he could recall why. He tried his hardest to remember, but the effort proved too much for him and he blacked out. He was awoken by someone turning him over. Looking up he saw a young girl in her mid teens, staring at him wide-eyed. She was wearing a grey bonnet and a long black dress of some rough, homespun material that left only her face and hands exposed. At that moment, finally, a name came to him. Staring up at the girl he said: "Stark." Then he blacked out once more. 7. Meg Around her the forensic thaumaturgy team were packing away their various instruments, so Meg Stanley took a moment to wander over to the remains of what had once been her home. Standing in the blackened ruin she looked around her and sighed. This was where the six of them had been reborn, her, Hester, Prudence, Mary, Abigail, Elspeth - the Chapford witches. Now only she and Hester were left, and until this incident she had believed Hester was dead too. Wistfully, she swept some ashes aside with the toe of her boot to reveal the fire-cracked stone floor of what had once been her kitchen. "Ah, Chapford, if only we hadn't had to destroy you." Meg had moved out long before then but the house held a lot of good memories. She had been happy here and it was sad to see it like this. Hearing the sound of vehicles approaching she looked up, her eyes instictively going to where the road connecting Chapford to I-95 broke the tree line. Three vehicles burst into the clearing, two military transports bearing armed soldiers and between them an armoured sedan with blacked out windows. Meg wondered briefly whether the soldiers were regular military or an arm of the Church, not that that distinction had much meaning these days. The vehicles screeched to a halt in front of Meg, whereupon a besuited man leapt from the passenger side door and opened the rear door for its occupant: Carol Erhardt. Stepping out of the car, Erhardt looked around her distainfully before her gaze came to rest on Meg. "Witch-Commander," she said. "Church Mother," Meg replied. "It's been two weeks since the incident at the Octagon. Do you have a final report for me?" "I do." "Good, then you can give it me while we walk," she said, waving her guards back so that they could have privacy."So, this is definitely where the spell originated?" "Yes, there's no doubt. The readings we took at the scene of the crime in the Octagon match those we took over there by the shattered remains of the altar-stone at the base of the rock." "And the culprit was definitely your sister? We now know the man calling himself Damon Smith was really her son, but can we be certain she was behind him?" "Yes, it was Hester. There's a, ah...flavour to her spell-casting that's unmistakeable." "Yet you assured me she had died at Kennet Cove and that you were now the last of the Chapford witches, so how can that be?" "I don't know for sure, but I have a theory," said Meg. "We're functionally immortal, and we have major league healing abilities that allow us to recover from anything but lethal force. The first of us to suffer such a blow was Elspeth. At the moment of her death, half a century ago now, her power passed to the rest of us, evenly distributed. It felt like being hit by a sudden, brief wave of nausea. At the time we had no idea what had just occurred, of course, but two of us happened to be together when it did so we knew this was a shared experience. We compared notes with the others then convened here in Chapford to decide what to do about it. That was when we realised the power we'd inherited along with these bodies and decided to learn how to use it. By the time of our assaualt on Kennet Cove only three of us were left - me, Hester and Abi, the others both being members of the Order of Merlyn. As Kennet Cove burned I was hit with two waves of nausea which meant two deaths. Or so I thought." "What do you now believe happened?" asked Carol, her interst clearly piqued. "At the time of the massacre the power I gained after those jolts of nausea was less than I'd expected, but I put that down to Hester and Abi having used a lot in the defence of Kennet Cove. I now believe that Hester was never at Kennet Cove at all, and that Abi somehow managed to split her power so that the half that came to me was divided into two bursts, separated by a minute or so, in order to fool me into thinking Hester had also died. Very clever of her." "In your initial report you said that Damon Smith had been sent back in time. How on Earth could your sister muster the power to do such a thing? Everything we know about them tells us that even the Gods can't travel through time. They change the past by altering the present with the past altering to fit the new reality." "We Chapford witches may not be as powerful as Mages but our bodies are very good at absorbing ambiant magic from our surroundings. Basically, we're walking batteries. When we acquired these bodies Earth's magical field was weak. Cast a sorceror's sphere back then to measure it and it would be no bigger than a tennis ball. Do you know how big one would be