#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.