#130

The final battle has arrived.

Mary takes the initiative of explaining to Harold Coppola that She and Her friends intend on aiding him and his party in capturing Mark. Though concerned at first, a little mystic tampering ensures that they believe this is a good idea. The participants get into position; and once they're ready, Mark is released.

As Coppola and his landing party rig up their equipment, two “zombies” rush down to him.

Mark doesn't even recognize Susie anymore. If he did, he'd just believe she was another zombie and try to kill her, ignoring his feelings, and filled only with rage over the fact that someone had zombified her. His anger has been grounded as a universal constant. There's only one way to slow it down at all.

Susie and Mina drive him back, with the same streams of concussive light that the Old Man was wielding. He's almost surprised for a second before the shock is eaten away. Then, it's back to hateful screaming, which almost breaks Susie's heart. But we have to remember that Susie is somewhere else.

She's remembering Mary's words to her and Mina, when they were out on the Ocean of Dreams, fighting something symbolic. The voice was the gentlest she's ever heard.

“There are many things that Men cannot do that we can.”

This truth echoes as Susie's beams lock with Mark's. But Mina keeps shoving him back. They have to get him within the frame.

“There are experiences we possess which even the most creative of Men on this or any world cannot fathom. Pains beyond bearing; joys redefining ecstasy. And it is not just motherhood, for we are often contained to merely that. We are not simply sisters, mothers, daughters, or lovers. We are mages. We have Uncountable components secret even to the primary order of the Incomputare.”

And indeed, Susie Sanford and Mina Berkley are Incomputare, but they are the priestesses of the Grandest Ritual. They are the shapers of Life itself, now; for they are daughters of Ishtar, of Aphrodite, of Epona, of Sophia and Shekinah. They are the Daughters of the Fates and Norns, and for all their erect rages even the sons of Borr and Saturn and the Lords of the Underworld have no Fury like their scorn. For the Lady lurks in the pages of books and the pigments of the canvas, and has been with them since their youthful days. May Mark beware.

“Never forget the greatness of your friends, Susie, and never forget the strength of your cousin, Mina. But always remember that behind every great hero is a heroine. And there's often one ahead of him, too. Jacob, Mark, and You must all play their role in this tale, and they and others may end up seeming like the 'main characters' up ahead. But never forget this simple fact:

“Girls rule.”

It was through a man—You—that the world was remade in such a creative way. This new world of jungles and crystal. But the force would never have been in him at all if it were not for someone else.

The force is now battering Mark back. He doesn't stand a chance. And now, by magic, he's within the frame.

“Now!!”

Up on the hill, Coppola signals for his second-in-command to open the tube. She does so, and a stream of sticky concrete begins to splatter all over Mark.

He gives a cry of confusion as the stuff covers him; it slips through his Armor, sealing his mouth shut. The suggestiveness is the last irony he'll ever know. It's not concrete at all; it's actually a substance recovered from a very far distant world, which hardens upon a heavy impact, into a layer harder than steel. As it covers him, he's paralyzed, and they let it cover its own layers, so he's sealed in a sort of oblong shell.

The rectangular frame at his feet instantly generates a box of scarlet energy around him, fed from Coppola Station's massive tesseract reactor, which rivals any of the fuel cores the Empire has ever used. It will take a tremendous amount of energy to shatter such a field, and the frame also draws in potential energy from the air itself. Soon, it will take miracles to have any heat at all; the air inside will become liquid within hours. But hours won't be needed, much less given.

Mark still has his innate abilities, including telekinesis. Though the decreased available energy prevents him from blowing apart the monolith he's sealed inside, he can crack it. He can't bring his Armor with him anyway, for the “concrete”, although it cannot bind with the Armor itself, has bound to the natural level of bacteria on the Armor's surface. It can't get out unless Coppola wills it.

But Mark turns himself to blood, and through the deafening crack he does smash his casing open, and he begins to flow out. This has been anticipated. Though he has very little room, he reforms into his humanoid form—which carries his soul with it. He is now isolated from his Armor, in a way that doesn't violate the spells that bind him to it. He's still hairless, and his face is still twisted with a predictable emotion. The area around him still crackle with fuel-lightning.

“Now!!” they shout again, and the field drops. You steps in front of Mina and Susie, and raises Your hands.

You is possessed by Madame Levingt, as She doesn't want to try the voodoo doll trick again—there's no need for You to die now. Though You will learn to use the fuel-armor again in time, even with Your soul, there isn't time to pick it up, and so She has to act. Plus, She has greater knowledge of what the fuel can do than anybody. So as Mark charges, She begins to fire a chilling beam of the fluid.

This type of fuel acts in such way, with such icy frost, that it penetrates even in Mark's higher-dimensional brain tissues—for the fuel itself is multi-dimensional. They need to stop his brain in order to have him enter stasis. And so as his body freezes, he finds himself losing his ability to think. His hot anger, both preexisting and in reaction to this, buys him a bit more time, but soon it is too late.

The fuel hardens into crystals, and soon Mark stops both moving and thinking. The Moonchild has been captured.

Coppola and the others seem hesitant to approach him, and with good reason. But Madame Levingt climbs down and stands next to him, showing that it's safe.

“By Gekkos...” he whispers. “Is he dead?”

“No,” She says with a smile.

“Good, good...” Coppola seems aghast, once more with good reason. “And you have reason to believe these crystals won't defrost unless exposed to several hundred degrees?”

“Just keep him refrigerated well and it will be difficult for him to escape.” Of course, it was more complicated than that, but She'd be helping them out, till the critical moment.

“Very well. We can transport his Armor and its...container, using the frame.” He pauses. “Thank you for your help.”

“No problem! It's like I think I told you. We're fellow explorers. Anything that'll help you will probably help us.” Her smile widens.

Susie relaxes her powers, and Mina does as well. This causes Jacob and You to feel safe coming near them. And as the crew of Coppola Station loads up Mark and his Armor, they begin to talk.

“That was incredible,” You says. You doesn't know what else to say, because it's a true statement on Your behalf.

“Glad you liked it,” Susie replies. She seems out of breath, but it's only a pretense.

There is a pause, but it's not born out any one thing in particular. It's the start of something that they've all wanted for a very long time.

The scene goes through a transition, to something mercifully slower.

“So you...have that...power, from now on? To use magic?” Jacob asks.

“It'll take practice. And I probably won't use it often. Yorick can use the fuel like he did, too, from now on.”

You is only tangentially aware of Your part in it all; but regardless Your part was objectively a good one.

“If he wears the armor, right?”

“Yes. Which I don't think he'll need anymore.”

Sure enough, the regeneration circuits Mary Levingt placed in Your armor have done the job. You has made a full recovery from death; there are barely even any scars. But of course, throughout it all, there has been a great cost on all of them. An invisible one.

They talk briefly about how Susie and Mina were chosen to carry magic into this world when they crossed the Dream Ocean, and what that necessarily means for the days ahead, now that the world has been terraformed—a fact which now almost seems to be an afterthought. They say that She called this changed Earth a “fantasy world”, where any number of new adventures can be had. But as they explain this, there's a crack in their voices, suddenly. And they and the two men begin crying.

They cry in sadness, for Amos, for Aurel, for Lex and Marcel, and for Mark. There's sadness for everyone who died when Earth-Beta-2 was destroyed, and even for those from Earth-Beta-4, whom they never even met.

They cry in anger, against Inspector Fox, against the Emperor, and against the stubbornness of Klaus and Doctor Kai, and everything in between. They allow the anger to burn them, as it burned Mark, and they feel it course through them over matters both silly and horrific.

They cry in fear, for all the times that they could've died and for the time they did, and for when it looked like they had lost everything and seemed like they would have to go on alone. Fear overtakes them for the vastness and cold emptiness of the afterlife, and the wriggling limbs of things they saw at the edges of space and time.

They cry in joy, for the fact that they're all still beautifully alive; and for the fact that now they know it's over, and there's no more confusion, and they can just go on living, which is all they ever wanted.

Jacob holds Mina, and You holds Susie, but as they all just cry together, they all come together and hold each other. For they've just needed each other all this time, and now things can start off on a better note.

It's finally over. The saga ends, and it's time for the heroes to go to whatever home they have.