#78

As the two survivors of the New O'Grady Mob run in, a gunshot will go off. Fox will be holding a pistol—one which has just opened up a new hole in Bones Ellson's head. He'll have died instantly. Lefty's only hesitation will be to give a cry of vengeance, before he opens fire at that triple-headed piece of shit.

All of the bullets will bounce off. Fox will remain silent as this happens, his weirdly-human eyes staring almost mindlessly at Sinister.

Lefty will keep screaming and firing until there's nothing left in his clip. Only at that will he lower his gun. Fox's own gun will remain trained at his head. Yet it'll soon be clear that that's not what he's intending to use.

Fox's mouth will slowly open, and inside will be a somehow familiar brown light. At once, the light will slam into Lefty, lifting him up and throwing against the wall; he'll release his Tommy gun, which will spiral through the air before seemingly disintegrating. He doesn't know it at the time, but that gun is going on to become myth, spinning through dimensions until reaching McGee Manor circa 1921. A man named Gregory O'Grady, a compatriot of the Manor's owner, will use it to replace his own, lost in a battle against a cult. He'll bring the trade around full circle by giving away his name.

The light will cause Lefty to scream again, as it will induce horrible burns. He'll begin to feel nausea from the intense pain when the beam releases him, causing him to drop to the floor, his trench-coat smoking.

“I trust you will not attempt to rebel any further, Lefty.”

“Bastard...”

“You think thinking and saying that word, my friend—but I assure you, back when I was human, I can quite assure that I was born in wedlock.”

“Don't care...” A grunt.

“You care of few things, my mobster friend.” Lefty will begin hovering again, but without the beam. Weakly, he'll observe that he is floating towards the open mouth of Mack Greasy. “But I will rectify that. I assume that you will start caring much more of the quality of things in life, once you become the sole survivor of this universe.”

Lefty will faintly hear Puck the vulture quietly bicker with Fox. Apparently, this wasn't meant to be the plan, and there's some confusion on the other heads' behalves. Greasy will not protest, however—for he will begin slowly, agonizingly chewing on Lefty's body. Lefty will be too weak to scream—for now.

Fox will begin walking towards his personal portal frame; he'll enter a code of sorts into a terminal next to it, and the image within will be one of endless fuel-brown light. H̶e̶'̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ He enters The Unscene, and at least to Lefty, time goes mad. No more Future Tense. Something else replaces it.

The foursome are now standing outside Universe-Beta-4.

Lefty struggles to observe it, even as one of the shark fangs gouges out his left eye—it will regenerate shortly, however, due to the nature of his captor. To him, at least, this strange field, his native universe, appears as a shimmering oval, full of stars—a patch of brightness against the endless sea of flashing brown. It is rather beautiful, he's forced to concede, before his other eye is removed. The last image he gets of it all before this occurs is the observation of galaxies, and the tiny lifeforms growing in them; and of a massive border of constantly shifting yellow energy embracing the border of the whole thing. He's actually pretty unfazed with how tiny it is, really.

Fox waits for his eyes to grow back before he makes the next move. On a silent cue, Mack Greasy stops chewing, to prevent Lefty from being blinded again.

Fox raises a single hand towards the universe, and from it, a loud and blinding burst of light appears. In the stream of light, Lefty can observe small human forms; the dying bodies of his fallen gang. This is a beam of story-energy, and as such it is of varying difficulty to behold. It travels at its own pace, as well, but soon it contacts the edge of Universe-Beta-4. The boundary around the edge of the universe begins to shake violently, making a high-pitched gibbering sound as it does so. The image of the universe starts to become mottled and bulged, and there is a sense of tension—it is the sound of a thousand trillion stories being ended at once. Within the universe, quadrillions of lifeforms are destroyed, including any number of heroes and villains. It all sounds like a horrible musical theme, like the sound of an approaching monster—the worst of them all, the most terrible beast conceivable.

Then, all at once, like a pane of glass, the universe simply shatters. The music ends with at once, as if this is an inconsequential event. In in its place, incalculable levels of fuel pour in, burying a handful of shards that still exists as microverses. Lefty feels only a slight pain in his chest, and he tries to ignore even that. It's the burn of one's world being lost forever, with no chance of a resurrection.

Fox raises his other hand, and instantly, a suction effect takes place. This excess fuel is being drained into him, and is automatically being turned into raw power.

The resulting light that surrounds Fox blinds Lefty; and the resulting scream of both pain and ecstasy that he lets off deafens him.