Myths and Gargoyles by Jamie Hawke (interesting books to read in english txt) 📕

the statement applied to many of us. “Do you really think you have a chance of standing against me?”

Without waiting to see if anyone else would answer, I shouted out, “I’m the Protector. I will protect.”

“You, boy?” He gestured out to the world. “You owe them no loyalty—they’ll destroy each other just as they’d destroy all of us! I’ve lived among them, I know.”

“It’s never too late to make a change.” I stepped forward, hating how I sounded like a motivational poster. “In this case, the change starts with you backing off… or dying.”

He scoffed. “You’re in no position to threaten me. My forces surround the world.”

“And yet, I’ll bet they’ll fall back the moment I’ve taken your head.”

“You…?” He scoffed. “You’re like a little baby compared to me, you with that sword—you’re as likely to cut off your own scrotum as scratch me. You, a Protector? Join me, I’ll train you. I’ll show you what being a Protector really means.”

“I know what it means well enough.”

“Clearly, you don’t.” He moved closer, eyes boring into me. “I am a god, yes, but also a Legend, if you must call it so. Your kind were meant to protect us all, to see that humanity can’t touch us.”

“I’m here to protect your kind, yes.” I stepped forward, again, not wanting to seem like I was the backing down type. “In this case, that means protecting both fairy tales and humanity in one… against you.”

“Well then…” He held out his hands, a sudden rush of gods appearing at his side. An army like that of heaven about to descend on us. Shit, it was intimidating. “Prepare to die, Protector.”

He brought his hands forward and the gods streamed down on us. To her credit, Maleficent was the first one to charge this time, her fairies streaming up with her in a blinding effect that let her attack hit the mark on two gods right off the bat. Sekhmet and Bastet were right behind her, so I got the idea that the gods were taking the brunt of the attack from us “non-gods.”

But I wasn’t about to stand for that—I was going to take my share of the blows, dammit. Running up to the first god to land, I met him in combat while Elisa took out one who was coming in at me from above.

“Thanks!” I shouted, and the blast that I sent through this god was enough to stun him until I’d slashed his throat open with my blazing blue blade.

Attacks came at me that I absorbed, using the energy for a group attack, then running to help defend Huera as she healed two of Elisa’s brothers. My whole team was in the process of moving together, forming a wedge, while the gods kept the enemy from getting behind us. Spells were flying, Chris and the others making their way back to us and half-way up the hill, Mowgli and the other Myths doing their best to join forces as well. The gods were working to keep us separated, Legends were mostly being used as cannon fodder so that flying monkeys, trolls, and various others, like Rumpelstiltskin, were falling dead in droves. A few Myths fell, too, but so far none of my own team, and none that I knew by name.

A roar sounded, then two more, and I glanced back to see three large bears, one with Goldi locks on his shoulder. She held a bazooka, which she fired into the sky. The explosion hit the closest pyramid, sending a large section of it down to crush the enemy beneath it. Goldi and her crew came charging, others with rifles and more following. From what I could tell, this new group wasn’t even fairy tale.

Jets streaked overhead in the distance, laying down the attack on the buildings in the sky, but one vanished.

“The normies are back at it, at least,” Red said, momentarily appearing at my side. “They’re seeing our fight and rallying to the cause.”

“About time,” I grumbled.

Maybe they could at least serve as a distraction, but as few normie lives lost during the process, the better. I’d never understood the idea of valuing civilian lives more than those of the military, but now that I was there in the midst of a battle, it started to make sense. We were there to give our lives, if that’s what it took. Every one of us was there to sacrifice so that others didn’t have to, which meant that every life lost ‘back home’ was another loss to our cause, another reason our sacrifice, if it came to that, would mean that much less. Our lives weren’t less valuable, but if I were to die there on the battlefield, so be it. As long as my death resulted in less chance of success for the enemy, and in less death back home.

Not that I could compare myself to those men and women in the military, I thought with a laugh. They’d been doing this for years, training and fighting for our lives and freedom, and here I was like a baby in the grand scheme of it all.

Then again, I was going for the end game. Whatever it took to grow, to make myself the ultimate warrior… I’d do it.

Maybe when this was all over, I’d find a way of changing how the system worked. I could partner with the police, the Marines, all of them, and combine their discipline and firepower with my use of the supernatural. A conversation for another time, of course, because at the moment I was staring down a goddess who’d decided I was her next target. Then another. Then a third. All stared at me, slowly stepping closer, weapons drawn.

I recognized them, maybe from a show I’d been watching recently and then read about online? I wasn’t sure, but seeing them there with their gowns of stars and planet patterns, their curved blades, and the way their eyes seemed dark and full of the stars.

Confirming my