🚀 go-pugleaf

(continued from part one...)

                                    -<=*=>-

     Rad's head was swimming.  He had to bring Dar to Ian...had to...
     He saw Glum, touching his chin.  Someone had taken Dar from him, and his
arms were pinned back.
     "I...can't undo it..." he heard his brother say, in the tiredest voice
he'd ever heard.  "I'm...too weak..."
     "We don't have to break it now," Yury said, from somewhere behind him.
"Just hold him down until we can get Willwarp, or maybe Healer, in to undo the
damage..."
     Had to obey...had to please Hecate...
     With a roar, he freed an arm, and blasted behind him with a psychokinetic
bolt, freeing himself from Yury's grip.  He spun in midair, intent on stealing
away with Dar.  Instead, he found himself face to face with Shadebeam, and
stopped.
     "Like, Akane..." he said.  She was swimming in his vision...
     When had she become a blonde?
     "I'm her altiversal twin, Shadebeam," Shadebeam told him.  "Now stand
still while I try to help Dar undo the mind-control spell..."
     "Altiversal, like, twin?" Rad asked.  Shadebeam's image lurched even
more, and he felt Yury's arms holding his again, this time to keep him from
falling.
     "It's like this..." Shadebeam began to explain.  Rad listened to her
explanation, groaning slightly as it became more detailed.  She spoke about
altiverses and quantum signatures, images in her head and encounters on
Planet California, five millenia before.  A black ball was connected somehow...
or was it a suitcase?  A cat named Phiel...a weasel named Chad...he felt his
mind starting to buckle...
     There was a cracking sound inside his head, and suddenly, his mind felt
clear.  He looked around, and noticed he was suspended a long ways above the
ground.  Rad looked at Shadebeam, and squinted.
     "Like, whoah," Rad said.  "Like, who're you?"  He turned and looked at
Glum.  "Babe?  What're you, like, doin' here, y'know?"
     "Darling!" Glum exclaimed, hugging him fiercely, electrocuting him mildly
in the process.
     "The strain of trying to understand the plot must have been too much for
the spell to deal with!" Dar deduced.  "An excellent strategem!"
     "Um, yeah, whatever," Shadebeam said.  "We'd better get to the surface,
now..."  They waited, patiently, for Rad and Glum to come up for air.  Finally,
Shadebeam was forced to hit them with waffles.
     "Like, most bogus," Rad said.  "And they're not even, like, buttered."
     "We have to get to the surface," Shadebeam told them.  "Radian's battling
your son, Ian."
     "Is she in trouble?" Glum asked, her eyes widening.
     "Just the opposite," Shadebeam said, grimly.  "She's killing him."

                                    -<=*=>-

     She couldn't recall a time when she'd opened the floodgates so much, when
she'd let her power to project radiation run so free.  Akane held Ian firmly
against her, flooding him with everything she had.  The amount he could
absorb shocked her; almost anyone else would have been long dead by this
time.
     Yet he stood, and struggled.  He was dead, yet he refused to stop moving,
to stop struggling.  His skin was burning, turning black under her relentless
assault, but he did not cry out.
     He was weakening, even as he spoke.
     "Dark...Goddess..." he whispered, his voice sounding twisted in the
rising heat.   "Would you...break...the ultimate circle...?"
     "Yes!" Akane hissed.  "It has to end here!"
     "You...started the circle..." Ian told her.  "You...are completing it...
even now..."
     "Lies!"
     Something cracked against her body, ripping her away from her target.
A nuclear force bolt?  No, it felt slightly different, a bit more controlled...
With an effort, she reined in her power, and rolled as she hit the ground,
ready to come up fighting...
     She stopped, seeing Rad looking back at her.  Dar was standing beside
him.  A few feet away, Kaoru was guarding Chelsa, who was looking at the
burned, bloodied form of her brother with shock.  Akane started towards them,
but was held back by Microvax's armored gauntlet, which closed over her
shoulders.
     "Like, enough," Rad said.  His voice carried across the battlefield,
even though it was spoken with no more force than usual.  Everyone, including
the small crowd that had gathered on the edges of the battlefield, drew in
a breath and waited for him to speak again.
     "You don't understand!" Radian exclaimed.  "It has to end here!  Now!"
     "My brother is right," Dar said.  "Enough blood has been spilled
tonight."  Akane could see Shadebeam standing nearby, moving towards her.
She didn't understand...she knew in her head but not in her flesh what had
to be done...
     "Father," Chelsa spoke.  "Please...please forgive us..."
     She stumbled forward, and Rad reached out to catch her.
     "Noooooooooooooo!!!" Akane yelled, wrenching a shoulder free of Microvax's
grasp in the process.  She was falling into his arms, her body changing
subtlely...
     They touched.  A ripple expanded outward, washing over the battered heroes.
She was falling into him, her body flowing like acid into his pores.  Too
late, Rad realized what was happening to him.  He looked at Akane, his eyes
growing wide, his mouth a silent 'o'...
     Ian lurched forward, towards Dar.  Kaoru moved to intercept him, but
Ian's flesh swept through Kaoru's talons without stopping, leaving only the
burned outer layer of skin behind.  He was sinking into Dar, his flesh burrowing
into Dar's mouth, his eyes, his body...merging...combining...sending ripples
through the fabric of the air, merging with the ripples emanating from
Chelsa and Rad...building, joining...
     There was an explosion.
     The universe fell away.

                                    -<=*=>-

     The black sun is rising in all directions, illuminating the nothingness
that is the universe and all its shadows and dimensions.  There is a voice
emerging from the sun, a voice that she hears as color, every color overlapping,
every sound imaginable raining down upon her...
     She can see it now, and hear the fury of the disintegration of time and
space.  A single particle travels a single line, except when it doesn't.  The
particle is stopping, the universe is collapsing upon itself, collapsing into
the black quantum light...
     There is no past here, she realizes.  There is no future.
     There is only now.
     Now is ceasing to exist.
     She sees the cities crumbling, as Chia Pets storm through them, devouring
all in their path.  Vampires and mages and warriors and storms and twisted
dreamtears are intersecting, blending, fracturing.
     Tara smiles at Radian, and says thank you, very politely.
     She looks so much like China, though her smile is purely Kyoko's.
     Everything collapsing into the light, the roaring, whispering light...
     She sees Glum, moving relentlessly into the heart of the storm, focused
on a single point in the heart of the black sun of resurrection, death, and
birth, the point where Rad and Chelsa are blending, the point where Dar and
Ian are blending, fusing, joining...
     No.  Not joining.  Rejoining.
     They are separating, five milleniums elsewhere in the now, and they
are merging again.  The Rad and The Dar are reclaiming their divine power,
being born and reborn in an instant...
     IAO, screams the light.
     The funniest joke in the universe...
     Glum's body is falling apart, crumbling under the divine storm.  She
cannot feel pain any longer, she is dead, and yet, the assault continues,
looping into itself, skipping like a vinyl record, an eternal circle...
     She knows what she must do.  She has her role to play in this divine
tragedy.
     Isis, light, the golden dawn, the beginning, the birth...that was The Rad.
     Osiris, darkness, the chaos wind, the escape from death...that was The
Dar.
     Akane realizes who she is.
     She is Apophis.
     She is Death.
     She is the black sun rising, the dark goddess whose hall Isis must pass
through before she brings Osiris back to life.
     The light speaks to her, and she calls it ARCANA.  She knows the word
means something, but she does not know what, yet.
     You see now, the light tells her, as it burns into her skin, into her
mind.  You are the beginning and the end and the circle and the line the
particle travels.  You are I.
     Cycles...
     The Earth is being ripped apart, by the gravitational force of three
suns merging into one black sun.  It doesn't matter, since it all ceases
to exist before the destruction is complete...
     Leaving only the black sun...
     She sees Glum, alive...
     A single particle, traveling a single line, back and forth in time...
     She thinks of Faith, of Gus, of all the transcended beings, and feels
the impulse to laugh, though she does not know why.
     She sees The Rad, The Dar, and Glum disappearing into the light of
the black sun...
     The light...
     The brutal quantum light, washing over her...
     There is a second explosion, more gentle than the other...

                                    -<=*=>-

     Akane awoke, and knew she had failed.  Rad, Dar, and Glum had disappeared
into the quantum fissure, slipping through the first crack in the universe.
     They would emerge again.  It was just a question of when.
     She thought back to seeing her own body, dead, on a table in the
TransDemesne, and estimated she had six months left.
     Everyone remaining on the battlefield was unconscious, having been
rendered so by the first explosion.  Akane shook her head, trying to clear it,
and forced her wounded body into action.
     "Hrrrr," Shadebeam groaned.  "What...hit me..."
     "You don't want to know," Akane said.
     -Believe it,- Kyoko spoke up.  -I was there, and *I* don't want to know!-
     "Your magic shielded you," Akane told her.  "Come on..."
     "Too weak to fly..." Shadebeam said.
     "Our bikes are in CalForce's garage," Akane said, forcing her to stand.
"Everyone's out...the team, the crowd, the reporters..."
     "Okay," Shadebeam whispered.  "I think I can make it."
     They managed to get five feet before being stopped by a figure standing
in their path.
     "Going somewhere?" Chalandra asked.
     "As a matter of fact, yes," Akane said.  "Please...I don't want to hurt
you..."
     "You wouldn't have the strength, even if you did have the will,"
Chalandra said.  "Besides, I'm not going to stop you."
     "Thanks..." Shadebeam said.
     "In fact, I'm going with you."
     "What?" Akane asked.  "Why?"
     "Because he knows that I made your escape possible," Chalandra said.
     Akane's eyes grew wider.  "When was this?"
     "HAL was lucky I was the one monitoring you when he agreed to help you
escape," Chalandra said.  "He's kept me informed about your progress ever
since then."
     "Does Manny know?" Akane asked.
     "He does now," Chalandra said, as she leaned over his unconscious form.
     She touched his chin, and left a kiss on his lips.
     "It will be easier this way," she told him, before standing.
     "Then he knows about HAL," Shadebeam said.
     "No, I covered for him," Chalandra answered.  "Some slight variations
on the truth.  HAL tried to correct them, but Manny cut him off..."
     <<Chalandra, please do not go...>> HAL's voice spilled out of the
tiny transciever affixed to Chalandra's collar.  She ripped it from her
jacket and crushed it in a single gesture.
     "What about Kaoru?" Shadebeam asked.  "Shouldn't we bring him?"
     "Leave him," Akane instructed.  "He'll be better off here.  They can
help him achieve his dream.  It'll be a safer place than where we're going."
     "Where are we going?" Chalandra asked, as she opened the garage door.
     "Seattle," Akane said.  "I've got to pick up some luggage."
     "It'll be tough to get all the way north without being spotted,"
Chalandra said.  "But I do know some people along the way."  She paused,
and looked at the night sky.  "Come on.  We want to be far away from here
by dawn."
     Minutes later, three motorcycles roared out of the garage, carefully
dodging around falling heroes and pedestrians as they roared into the quiet
night.

                                    -<=*=>-

     "Ow," Atkinson groaned, as he blinked.  For a few moments, he fought to
remember where he was, and what he had been doing.  There had been a battle,
a battle that Rad had come down to stop.  There had been some movement, an
explosion...
     The next thing he remembered was waking up.
     "Sutherland," he said, reaching over to shake his fellow M.I.B. Agent.
"Sutherland!"
     Sutherland groaned, indicating that he was rather reluctantly entering the
land of the living again.  Atkinson turned his attention to his equipment, and
rewound the tape, trying to see what had happened during the time that had
elapsed between the explosion and his waking.
     Nothing.  Not even static.  Just nothingness.
     "Undoubtedly, some magnetic pulse has erased this portion of the
recording," Atkinson said.  "What do you think, sir?"
     No response.
     "Sir?" Atkinson asked.  "Special Special Agent Selanova?"
     She wasn't in the van.  He looked out the driver's side window, and saw
her, standing outside the van.  Atkinson opened the door and stepped out.
     "Sir?" he asked, as he looked into her eyes.
     They stared straight ahead, glassily.
     He waved his hand in front of her face, failing to get a response.
     "Hoo boy," Atkinson commented, as he touched her cheek.  She seemed alive,
and was breathing, though shallowly.
     "Sutheland, get out here!" Atkinson ordered.  "We've got an emergency!"

WHAT THE HELL?

Answer is easy.  Question is very hard.  Read SUPERGUY.
--
Gary W. Olson         swede@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu         swede@drycas.bitnet

       "Mine brain has meditated on the spinning of The Chao
        It is hovering o'er the table where the Chiefs of Staff are now
        Gathered in discussion of the dropping of The Bomb
        Her Apple Corps is strong!"
                     - The Battle Hymn of the Eristocracy (first verse)