#123

The group, Lefty, and Fox lands in a crater in Troy Novantum, which is in the process of being conquered by the Empire. The European Allegiance is tired from decades of war, and so here they are losing. But, miles away, the last of three central command computers has ceased transmitting to the assembled Crimson and White Guards, who are now panicking and relying on faulty backup programming. Similar, the terrain has shifted, with a number of large quartz crystals emerging everywhere. The old city is broken apart, but these fractures benefit the resistance. All around the travelers, the fighting commences again.

“WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!” Mark keeps shrieking. “LEAVE ME ALONE!!”

“Mark!” Susie shouts. Her head is still messed up from prolonged exposure to the plot-warp field, but she's the least affected of all. “Mark, calm down...”

He's ignoring her, just as everyone else is now ignoring Fox.

“Wha...” Fox moans. “Feel so sick...what happened...?” His fox-head, for the first time in years, feels weird. His power is both ebbing and waxing, and thus evades his control. He nearly vomits, but he strains to look up at the too-bright field of power around Mark.

“A-a Moonchild?” he whispers then. At first, he feels nothing for this.

Then, an endless greed fills him, supplanting his desire for order. It's a greed he's buried all along. “MINE!”

Using a spell taught to him by Kul'ul, he lunges forth from his body as pure essence. Desperate to become one with this omnipotent being, to regain even a portion of his power, he enters Mark's brain and immediately attempts to erase Mark's identity. He seeks to become the Moonchild.

And this is when Mark goes totally insane. There are reasons behind this, which shall be explained shortly.

There is a pause.

Then, with an obligatory “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!” he raises his hand towards a building and fires from his palm a burst containing the fury of a star. Everything in the path of such a beam is decimated on an atomic level. The beam cracks the speed of light and bends space and time around it. It travels to the edge of the universe in seconds, and annihilates at least one planet. Somewhere, a star begins to go nova.

This is the Moonchild. Mark is magic now, and in reaction to his manifestation, The House begins its flight to England. Under the power of Shekinah, it arrives in seconds, and its four passengers climb out.

“Blast,” says the Old Man.

Mark has begun his near-final stage of transformation, as he begins to sweat ectoplasm.

“Is it happening, Master?” Doctor Kai says.

“Indeed it is. The Moonchild is generating his Armor. That ectoplasm will sheathe his body and then harden into an unbreakable substance.” Hir narration is directed at the party as well.

You sits up, suddenly invigorated, for the purposes of the four. “You...” You mutters weakly. You's not entirely invigorated, but You's made aware of the four and is given enough energy to address them. “You're the Old Man. I saw you in the Fennec Gang's journal...”

“Yes, I created the Fennecs, somewhere along the way. I'm glad You recognizes me. Some of us may have met, but given the tempest we've faced lately you may not remember.”

Jacob, Mina, Susie, and Lefty indeed don't remember.

“At this stage in the Moonchild's life—the stage of trauma, or else near-omniscience of the inherent abilities of the self—he, she, ze, it, or they become invincible. Nothing can shatter the Child's ectoplasmic Armor; not even the combined energies of three universes.”

Ze's about to elaborate further when Mark fires another beam of energy. Mark is turning now; turning towards the group. Susie feels concern for him, but she also feels fear. She can't look too closely at him, because there's a terrible feeling rising in her. The concern and the fear are blending to become something...uncanny. And she doesn't want to indulge such an attribute, even in him. So once again, even as she's buffeted by a long-standing desire to just give in, she buries her feelings.

She grabs You's hand, and the two beginning running.

“Susie, wait!” You cries out.

“Yeah! Wait!” Mina calls after her. “You may be the only one who can negotiate with him...”

But suddenly, she understands, because they've all been holding back a lot. She looks at Jacob, who is like You; manifesting his mental collapse in the form of giving up. She grabs onto him and begins to carry him away as well. They do need a rest and there's no time to consider logic. He protests, but only because he feels he has to.

“They have a point,” the Old Man says. “I really shouldn't be here. Mary, let's get out of here, for now...”

“Wait!” It's Doctor Kai. “We're not just pacifying him to begin with?”

“No,” Mary replies. “Things must follow the way we remember it. So we said this now, and we said what we said then, then. And the kids ran away, too. That's how it happened.”

Kai says nothing else, and turns back to face The House; but Klaus has already bolted. Klaus is good at moving fast when no one's looking, as has been seen. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Did Klaus escape, too? In your memories?”

“Of course,” the Old Man says. “Your brother's place is at You's side, as always. He is concerned about the boy.”

Kai says nothing else, and begins to sweat (though he doesn't sweat ectoplasm). Mark does not notice them as they go back to The House. He's occupied, even though his powers should allow him to notice all things at once in this universe. He's throwing Inspector Fox free from his body, back into his own.

“Master?” Kai says when they're away from the noise, and heading off to where they're needed next in the story. “What if we're altering things away from your...original memories? What if you just remember it as this because we're changing it to suit your...past-future selves?”

The Old Man laughs. “Have faith, Doctor!” ze says. “It worked for the girls. She has got things under control, because She can keep certain things objective.”

Doctor Kai glances at Shekinah, who is smiling behind Mary's voodoo eyes. “Is that a thing?”

“Of course, darling! What sort of Goddess Almighty would I be without the ability to keep some things orderly around here?”

The Doctor decides to only nod; or maybe She makes him nod, he doesn't know. Ze's right though.

Faith is okay in these circumstances.