Origins and Endings

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS. PLEASE, IF YOU ARE A NEWCOMER TO THIS SITE, DON'T READ ANY FURTHER. INSTEAD, PLEASE START THE STORY WITH THE ENTRY ENTITLED "#1".

Soundtrack is Complete

Hey everyone. I just wanted to point out that the Soundtrack is complete and on YouTube. Just check out this link and you'll be good to go! Once again, special thanks to Rory Bezecny and George Looks More Closely for that tremendous effort. George Looks More Closely is looking into an album deal which may well include the two tracks they did for Dieselworld (Mina's theme and Jacob's theme).

As soon as I can, I plan on doing a write-up on some of the backstory that fed into Dieselworld. This includes an aforementioned hilariously-awful middle school short story that influenced the character of Mark. Stay tuned!

The Conclusion

This is what happened to all of them afterward.

Jacob never saw Doctor Kai again, and You never saw Klaus again. They didn't know it at the time, but that meeting they had in The House was their goodbye. They missed them for the rest of their lives, but occasionally they dreamed of them, and that was good.

It was the Old Man who took them away, and they subtly knew this, and blamed hir for it. But ze didn't get off scot-free. Ze still had hir dreams, or dream; which ze is having now, in fact.

In hir dream, he wakes up. He is on a slab, and the last thing he remembers is being torn apart by a machine gun trap, somewhere in Asia. He screams, both in pain and in terror. Even in his wildest trips, and even in the presence of demons from the abyss, he's never been afraid before, but now, as he wakes up from the bitterness of death, he's terrified.

But dying was just a dream. He's on Coppola Station now, and as he sobs into his hands he gets a brief glimmer of the future; not far from him is a frozen man who smells like electricity and loss and planets. Soon, something will happen that will make that man wake up. And he will never be the same after he kills that man.

Even at the height of hir power, in the depths of hir Lost Stream, where Libertas has full reign and there is no suffering, Zay Arkmoor does not sleep easy.

Sometimes, when practicing their powers, Mina and Susie can see hir dreams. But as they grow older and gain more power, they know it's not kind to peer into such things. For their way is to be a much subtler one. They will show their strength in different ways.

Centuries later, Dieselworld will have many Incomputare such as they, as it is its destiny to be a land of magic; but for now, they are the sole Masters on the Earth.

The world grows and changes. As The Cascade and its predetermined systems fall apart—for indeed, it is a Cascade no more, containing but one universe—Earth-Beta-3 stabilizes and gains elements from its fallen siblings. Neon deserts and unmapped tundras become populated with new forms of life; not too dissimilar to the fuel-mutants the Empire created, but lacking the suffering of those beings. In the wake of the Empire, the people it mutilated to make into its tools die silently. The mutants starve, and eventually even the fuel-powered cyborgs and Guards shut down. With the tyranny they represented gone, new civilizations grow on the wastelands Fox made a point of creating. Life is restored to the planet.

The adventurers can smile as they settle into new homes. You and Susie return from Britain to the former fuel fields where they once lived happily. Here, Your mom and Earl are overjoyed to see that in the face of everything, they made it out alive. They celebrate in New Cenabum, which is already being rebuilt by its tenacious citizens. They help them, and in turn their houses are restored. While Susie stays behind, however, You eventually moves into the old shack where he first found Klaus' doll. He needs a reminder of his adventure as he ages.

Jacob and Mina stay near their friends, living in the market settlement not far from the farm. They each have their own house, and at the midpoint of their yards is a pair of tombstones: one for Aurel, and one for Amos. The latter simply reads, “The Slimechap: A Man Who Died”, which they think he would have found hilarious. Somehow.

Lefty Sinister doesn't have a permanent home, 'cause he's on the run from the law. He never let go of that Tommy gun, and after doing some investigative stuff on the local lore, as it were, he found out about a certain outfit that intrigued him greatly. Not long after he gets to America, the New Fennec Gang is active. After all, an old man needs somethin' to keep him goin'.

And a' course, they don't talk about the Old Fennec Gang.

Months pass, and when they do it's Jacob who is wandering outside when he bumps in Madame Levingt. He gives a cry of surprise upon seeing Her, believing Her gone alongside the Old Man, Kai, and Klaus. But She's not. She smiles as She often does and offers to have tea with him; and he agrees. For he still has some questions.

“Understandable, my dear,” She says when he mentions such a thing. “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, I guess I just want to know about something I saw when I used that D8 to switch places with Amos. Y'know. After Amos was technically dead.”

“Hm...” She thinks for a little while. “I know what you're talking about.”

“Not surprising, given.”

“Ha, ha! Well, in order to explain that, I think I'll have to explain the nature of The Cascade, definitely.”

“Interesting. That was going to be my second question.”

“Good! Alright; let me start by saying that in this Multiverse, your brother was not a unique individual. But then, neither are you. Both you and Amos had alternate incarnations who are very near to this universe, who both had a decisive role in securing the creation of Earth-Beta-2; and subsequently, Earth-Beta-3, or 'Dieselworld', and Earth-Beta-4, or the 'Headhunter World'. Those Earths gain their alternate names because they're based on video games that existed on the Earth 'above' them. Your world contained a PC game called Dieselworld which in turn was the loose basis for the next level of The Cascade, Earth-Beta-3; and on Earth-Beta-3, a video game existed called Headhunter which created some of the basis for Earth-Beta-4. Because this Cascade's energies were not as strong as others, there was no Earth-Beta-5. Ultimately, this caused video games to never exist on Earth-Beta-4 entirely.

“This is how The Cascade works. A particular work of art or media will be affected in such a way that it will 'inspire' the next world; the Earth of the lower tier. Let's say a Cascade event—which I'll describe in full in a second—affected Universe-Delta, created Earth-Delta-2. On Earth-Delta-2, Cascade energies affected van Gogh's Starry Night. Earth-Delta-3 would be a world perhaps with similar landscapes to those depicted in Starry Night; Starry Night would be the prime basis for how that entire world works. From there, a painting on Delta-3 would be affected, creating Earth-Delta-4. And so on and so forth, down to Earths Delta-5, Delta-6, Delta-7, etcetera. At some point, however, the Cascade energies would run out, say on Earth-Delta-8. On Earth-Delta-8, painting would be unheard of entirely, preventing the energies from Cascading further to create Universe-Delta-9. Do you follow so far?”

“Basically. But how does a Cascade form, then?”

“Getting to that. A Cascade event is known as a Syzygy. They occur when 'storylines' of intense magnitude draw two Earths together. Their universes intersect with appropriate consequences, which exacerbates the storyline further. In fact, Syzygies may be self-generated, because Syzygy energy can flow back in time to make the magnetizing story in question happen in the first place. Usually a Syzygy is spaced between Earths of a proper distance; you'd never get both between Earth-1300 and Earth-1301, but you'd get one between Earths 1300 and 1302. There has to be a universe stuck in the middle, from which The Cascade flows.

“As you can guess then, 'your' Syzygy took place between Earth-Alpha and Earth-Gamma, eclipsing Universe-Beta. This is a fantastically important Syzygy, and a dangerous one, because Earth-Alpha is the 'Prime Earth'. It's where the most important events for the Multiverse begin. The First Enemy of the Multiverse, a sorcerer named Edward Tamaron, and the Second Enemy as well, named the King of Time, were born on Earth-Alpha.”

“Wait. Enemies of the Multiverse? That sounds important.”

“Okay. Hm. In essence, there are Three Enemies of the Multiverse. They are destined to be the most powerful beings in existence, who will come very close to destroying...everything. The First is Tamaron. The Second is the King of Time. The Third is the Emperor.”

“You's dad?”

“No. That's just a coincidence in naming. We don't know anything about the Emperor, actually. But we dread its day of coming.”

Jacob lets this thought sink in, but not for very long.

“The King of Time, meanwhile, has become infused with the power of the Time Nexus. In effect, you have already fought the Second Enemy—but this is not his final battle.”

“What?”

“Unbelievable, certainly. It's incredible that you're still alive. But the Time Nexus itself, released by the demon Kul'ul, isn't the Second Enemy's final form. It's not your destiny to fight the Second Enemy directly. That would be the job of Doctor Kai's father. His true one, not the man who adopted him, and became Inspector Fox.”

Silence ensues for a little bit.

“Your brother, meanwhile—or at least, his Earth-Gamma counterpart—has engaged the First Enemy. And that's what brings us to this present Cascade. Earth-Gamma's Amos Slimechap, along with a group of his friends and a friend of my own whom we'll call 'Iron-Mask', faced Tamaron as the events of the Syzygy. You—or, rather, Earth-Gamma's Jacob Berkley—aided him. And so it was through 'your' work that you, and indeed your entire universe, came to be.

“I take some credit away from you, though. When in the afterlife, around the time that the deal with Kurq'wes was sealed involving the Cosmic D8, you saw not only a specter of yourself, but you saw your brother vanish from existence. In reality, Amos was the bargaining chip. Kurq'wes sent his soul back in time, through the Multiversal barrier...”

“And he became his Earth-Gamma self.”

“Yes. As an infant, destined to grow up with your legacy of heroism within him. You gave him the power to create your universe, and in doing so, you've revealed your true role. You couldn't do anything in the fight against Mark except wish good luck on Mina and Susie from the sidelines, but in reality, you've created The Cascade. Provided, it took two versions of you to do so, but still.”

Jacob feels his face glow as he hears this. It's unbelievable, and gives him a lot to ponder. Holy shit.

“And I bet I can guess your last question.”

He looks up then. He's very distracted. “Hm?”

“'What's the future of Dieselworld?'”

“Oh! Yeah, that was what I was going to be asking you, honestly.”

“I figured! But I'm sorry, I shouldn't be looking around in your head anymore.” She pauses, and waits for him to smile a little. It's a sincere smile. “The tale of you and your friends in Dieselworld will end on a good note. It truly has become a world of myth. You have You to thank for that, of course; and Susie, in the end. Though you should thank Mina, and yourself as well, for making sure the world survived.

“In a few days, you'll learn hands-on what the future of Dieselworld is. It will start with You, as it did before. You'll invite you out somewhere, perhaps to one of the nearby jungles, to start exploring. And trust me when I say this: it's gonna be glorious, honey.”

Jacob's smile widens as he considers the implications.

He's not alone.

You is sitting in Your new house, also contemplating things. She's right; You does want to have the group out on another adventure, deep into the jungles, to see what sort of beasts and treasures are waiting out there. It sounds fun, if adventure is something to ever be summed as such. But, You plans on calling on them in a few days, because for now, You is busy. You is listening.

You can tap into the fuel directly, of course, thanks to Your armor. And via that, You is learning something very important about it. You held Yourself back from using it once You learned of its evils, but it was only the certain users and abusers of it that made it that way, or made it seem that way. You knows that now. For indeed, how can there be genuine, objective malice behind what is the substance of reality itself? After all, while reality can be filled with darkness, or made to seem darker, it is the light that always defines it, even in the face of tragedy. And the human spirit reflects such a thing—no matter what, it never gives up. It keeps continuing, to strive towards that light, even when knowing of oblivion, and even when days come that make the darkness seem stronger and stranger than ever.

Then, the light can be very strange as well, just as it can be very strong.

The fuel is free from evil at present, in the face of victory, and so its sound begins to filter into You. Through it, You can see the true vision of the universe incarnate; and it's a dance, an elegant pirouette of glow and dream. And in a new world of so much possibility, of such great magic, it all looks so beautiful to You. So beautiful.

I can't believe it's just the beginning, You realizes. This thought fills You as You listens to the Music of the Spheres. 

 

Ending Will Be Up Tomorrow

Dieselworld will conclude tomorrow.

It's been an awesome journey, and I'm glad that you were there to see it--even if you're reading this for the first time, long after the last entry is published. Please, tell other people about this, and please feel free to give me feedback yourself.

I'm told that there's just one more track for the soundtrack that needs to be recorded. When that's done, I'll post all of the remaining tracks to here and YouTube.

Plus, as you'll see, it's not all over. In the weeks following the final entry I'll be making some posts about some elements that fed into the story, which will include a hilariously shitty short story I wrote in middle school that became part of Mark's story. You will laugh, because I suck.

And the story itself may not be entirely over either.

Anyway. It's been a blast, you guys. Thank you. 

#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.

#129

The Old Man senses what's coming and blinds Mark with a flash of light. At the back of hir mind, ze issues the thousandth apology to him, for what is coming. When the flash is gone, the Old Man is gone; and in hir place, a young fellow, dressed in clothes strange to You and Susie, can be seen.

Moments later, there is a flash of light to the group's left. Two men and a woman have apparently just teleported down...or something. Once again, there's more confusion. But one of the men is very old, and instantly they can recognize him as Harold Coppola.

The new figure who was once the Old Man approaches them. “Hey, man!” he shouts out, as he's running. The trio seem weirded out by his presence.

“Dude!” He seems to pretend to be out of breath. “Are you guys, like, the Children of the Moon? Man! When I ended up here I thought it musta been you guys...”

“Um, I'm sorry...sir,” the woman says, her expression reflecting her feeling of oddity. “We're not, uh, Moonchildren. We're just explorers. Now, how did you get here?”

The young man just grins stupidly, but it's a false smile.

“You look very familiar,” Harold Coppola says then. “Very familiar indeed. You remind me very much of a figure I almost knew once—Zay Arkmoor. I don't know why I see such an uncanny resemblance, however.”

“The name is Zay Arkmoor, dude. The Satanist Detective! That's what my chums call me, at least, these days.”

“Great Cyaegha!” Coppola cries. “Mister Arkmoor! How did you come to be here?”

“Look, I really don't know, man. But listen. It's gotta be the Moonchildren what brought me here. I know it! It's just one of those feelings, y'know? Hey!” He points over at Mark, who is, in fact, fooled by the disguise—and held passive, by Madame Levingt. “Maybe he's a Moonchild? You think?”

The group takes out a device which Jacob instantly realizes is a dead ringer for the tricorder from TOS. In fact, it seems to have been designed specifically for that resemblance. In his mind, he feels himself begins to call the other man “Spock” and the woman “Bones”, though he figures he'll never be formally introduced to them.

Mina picks up on the reference too, but she doesn't care for it; she keeps glancing over at Mark, who is only barely being held back. He seems to be twitching profusely.

“He does seem to emit the sort of energies you've estimated, Master,” “Spock” says. “Should we initiate capture protocol?”

Coppola strokes his wrinkled chin for some time, just staring at Mark. Then he sighs. “Yes, I believe so,” he says gently.

The young figure seems to smile at this, and then turns and walks away.

“Are they going to...contain him, then?” Susie says weakly. “Is it going to happen?”

“They won't do all the work,” the young man says. “I think we have a role in it too.”

“What?” Her voice isn't holding up. “I refuse to help. I want to just hide in The House and wait until it's all over. Am I allowed to do that?”

“No,” he says simply.

“Why the fuck not?!”

“Because if I remove this disguise and use my powers, they'll know I'm not merely Zay Arkmoor. They'll see me as a Moonchild and...'canonically', Mark is the only Moonchild they've met. But you and Mina will carry out a special task for Mary. You will have to do something as well, at the end.”

“What am I doing?” Jacob asks.

The young man's face doesn't show any particular feeling as he says, “I'm not sure. Perhaps nothing.”

Beat.

“...what.”

“Sadly, I do not know if you really serve a purpose at this point. But there is a certain energy about you that I know is important. Unfortunately, I can't explain it right now.”

“Welp.”

“Indeed.”

The landing party is making preparations. Jacob sighs heavily, and Zay ignores him, taking the rest of the group aside.

(Permission for photo used granted by alexkon)

#128

They're now standing outside McGee Manor. Mark has no more targets to attack, but his rampage hasn't ceased. Faint thoughts of how he looks right now and opinions on popular literature are intercut with the desire to exterminate all living things in existence. In the future, he senses a battle with an adversary that defeats him, but he doesn't care. All zombies must be destroyed.

Including those ones standing outside a familiar-looking House.

He screams, just an inarticulate cry, but the Old Man raises hir hand. “Mark!”

The savage roar stops instantly. The voice seems familiar. That not-quite-man not-quite-woman voice.

“Do you remember me?”

“I remember you, queer.” The Old Man is not offended, because ze self-describes as queer. Of course ze does, ze's a pansexual intersexed individual. But the intent, from Mark, is that of appropriation and hate. Presumably where that came from, there are also ideas of nonchalance towards pilfering other races as well.

Mina, Jacob, You, and Susie see that Mark's Armor has solidified. It matches that of the sketch of the Old Man from the Fennec Gang notebook. Ornate, and intercut with shifting patterns, symmetrical and orderly; but impossible to fully conceive. And it glows with that faint greenness that isn't quite green; it's more of a color beyond the human-visible spectrum. He looks like an ancient magical knight, which is frankly what he really is.

Jacob leans in to the Old Man, who is now merely facing tension on Mark's behalf. “Can't you destroy his body without having to get the past the Armor? Burn him apart via the eye-holes or something?” He feels bad even thinking that, knowing that maybe this man could have once been his friend. And Susie is his friend, and a good friend of his cousin, so when he gets his answer—or sees the result—he has to go comfort her, or face his own guilt.

“The Moonchild's soul is irrevocably bound to his, her, or hir Armor. That soul can continue to animate the Armor even in the face of total incineration. The body will eventually regenerate, and the energy required to split a Child's soul from the Armor is beyond the limit of a singular universe.”

“So we'd all be dead if you pried his soul away from it?”

“Yes.”

Jacob then leans back, and stands close to Susie. Her face is red, but the tears seem to be stopping now.

“I said I remember you, you piece of shit!” Mark shouts.

“And am I supposed to find your memory impressive?” the Old Man shouts back.

Mark doesn't vocalize, and before the group can even finish blinking he unleashes a wave of totally white light onto them. Madame Levingt gets a force-screen up even as they think they're going to die. They see the light break at a wedge and flow around them, incinerating the already-charred rubble of the surrounding city.

The Old Man is caught in the blast, but ze doesn't care. Hir robes are burnt off, however, and beneath is hir own Armor. And Mark sees this.

At first, he's confused. But then, he slowly realizes that that's why ze insisted on wearing totally covered robes; he would know that the Old Man stole his Armor.

For as the Old Man mentions, Armor-theft is the ultimate blasphemy amongst Moonchildren. And Mark knows that that's his Armor; it may have traveled through time to get here, but it's his and no one else's.

It's just another inarticulate scream as he launches a wall of the destructive light at the Old Man.

But ze is not unprepared. Ze is an Incomputare, and while such sorcerers know that magic is subtle, it can take on another guise when needed. And so it is that ze brings up another wall, to drive back Mark's.

The walls interlock and are at a stalemate. It's the first time in centuries that the Old Man has had a true mystic challenge; and so beneath hir Armor, ze begins to sweat. But ze knows ze will win. And ze knows that Mark will sweat more. That's encouragement enough, and hir raw Will holds the line.

In 2070, a pulse from the duel destroys Venus-20181, and the ripples from such a blast destroy the Earth of that universe, and all adjacent planets. Only two members of McGee and O'Grady's Boston Group survive to represent humanity...

All words are robbed from You, from Mina, from Susie, from Jacob, and even from Doctor Kai and Klaus. There's nothing that can be done to even begin describing this. But instead of merely having their senses assailed, they can all feel the emotions that course through these displays of magic. They all know at once that they're witnessing something that they only could dream of as children; and as bitterly terrible as this all is, this rising sense of total destruction, they feel the control in it, and they are all children again. Because magic is changing, and inspiring; and they haven't lost their own magic, they've merely forgotten it.

This is battle, and it's brutal and horrible, but still very much, at its core, beautiful.

The Old Man decides to resist brute force for once and drive spikes into Mark's wall. With grips formed in it, ze reaches and Red Seas the thing, creating a horizontal pulse outward. Both ze and Mark scream out from the effort, but it's the Old Man who gets in the first new strike. An undulating tentacle of that raw light strikes towards the younger figure. Mark responds with a similar casting, and the two strike at a midpoint. After that, it's just another pushing game. But they're almost the same being—they're evenly matched. The only difference is that of who is in the Armor.

Behind all this, subtler things are happening. A psychic duel is taking place, and one would think Mark's insanity would give him the advantage. But that's underestimating things. The Old Man has known every altered state of consciousness available to humanity. Ze's just as crazy as he is.

And other subtle things take place, though in a much simpler way. They're subtle in that they happen to be taking place behind the assembled crowd. Coppola Station is appearing in the skies, having noted their particular redness, and how said redness indicates a magical duel.

Aboard the massive ship's bridge, Harold Coppola peers through his glasses, with the slight regret of his growing age. But he's never seen a battle like this before; and soon all these years adrift may finally be justified. He just knows he has to be careful.

“Ready a landing party,” he says quietly, in his grandfatherly voice.