Author's Note: I have decided, for this time, to combine chapters 28 and 29 into a single post due to the shortness of the former. This story is also nearly over. Thank you all for reading and getting this far. =)
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Chapter 28
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Regardless of the city’s lively nature at almost every hour, most stores had the sense to be closed well before three in the morning. Whether it was good sense or bad was open for debate.
Hexplosion, an emotionless supervillain from who was visiting from central Europe, had found himself a convenience mart that was open, and surprisingly well-stocked, at this hour. All he needed was a quick lunch, which Hex intended to pay for. He stole money and arcane reagents when they were rare, but stealing food was just wrong. He lacked in emotion, sure, but what of monster took food away from others?
Maybe he was still running on his own time zone. Who knew? But, he was hungry, and the last thing Hex needed was for some hero to barge into the store and—
“Drop that hotdog, villain!” Oh good, it was Techsplosion.
Hexplosion thought it odd that the “-plosion” heroes all had it in for him in the short time that Hex had been in town, but he didn’t feel one way or the other about it. That was the effect of one of his earliest hexes, which he had yet to reverse in the last few years. The need or desire never really arose.
“Now, you wait a stinking minute,” demanded a man with an accent that would make anyone laugh . . . if they could. Texplosion ran into the store. “What makes you think you can just barge in here, with my name, and take my villain on like this?”
“Your villain?” asked Tech. “I saw him first.”
“Oh, so you’re not going to defend against taking my name, are you?”
There was a roar outside. The voice of Rexplosion announced, “I’m a dinosaur!”
Totally disinterested in the escalating argument, Hex set down some money on the counter, behind which the man running the store was trying to duck for cover like some half-witted coward, and then Hex walked past the heroes.
Harsh words became a brawl in every sense, but Hex kept walking, totally uninterested in everyone else’s issues.
He did not get far before rockets and other explosions rocked the store behind Hex. "Take a vacation in the States," his therapist had said. It would do him and his lack of emotions some good, the therapist had told him.
Red gleams of light appeared and vanished through the sky, Hex noticed. He wondered where that could have been from.
A mother lifted herself out of bed. Her baby was crying again.
This time, the crying sounded different. It sounded more fierce. Either that, or the young woman was too tired and finally had enough. She did not sign up for this.
She picked up the first solid object she could find and carry in the darkness, and wandered toward her baby’s room. She bumped into the wall, and it only made her angrier. She never felt this ready to kill anyone before.
Then the crib came into view.
The unthinkable was now hardly a thought at all. The mother threw the object in her hands, and it hit the crib. Her baby’s tantrum stopped for one blessed second, and it picked up again. What was it going to take? The mother walked to the crib; the answer became more obvious with every step.
A fallen hero to some, a villain to more, had tracked down a man she believed to still be a villain, no matter his claims to the contrary.
After a full week of contemplation, all inhibitions left her. Tonight she was finally going to do what she’d set out to do. The fallen hero used this one moment of clarity and insatiable passion to kill the man after entering his apartment. There were no witnesses of the act. No one saw the woman, especially not at this hour.
When it was over, and her deeds finally sank in, she saw the sky outside. Lights like red hairs, matching those on her head and the crimson color of blood on her hands, flowed through the sky above Paragon City. They came and went without any pattern.
Unsure if she was behind this or not, the fallen hero sank to her knees, and watched.
No, she was not fallen, the former hero told herself. She was something different now. She was something new, something necessary, and her work was just beginning, even if she was caught in the awe of what was happening in the sky above.
“Not a generic hero,” he uttered for what must have been the hundredth time charging down the street, trying to break up the disturbance of mafia gangsters and thrice as many thugs who’d apparently never heard of belts.
Saelum Blaster could cleave and shape rock with the beams he shot from his fists. He spent the past few years saving lives left and right, including that horned lady the other day when a riot had threatened her life after saving one of the citizens present.
He was starting to think that Paragon was nothing more than a bunch of ingrates.
Maybe one thug paid him any mind before Saelum jumped into the fray once more with a fist ready for a go. A few more people took notice, but they told him to get lost. Since when was a granny armed with nothing but her walker one of these thugs? Finally, he snapped. Saelum Blaster hammered his fists into the road beneath them all. His power cut into the concrete and asphalt, and the ground shook. Everyone who had been fighting sank and collapsed, their feet or hands stuck in the rubble, which did not give way any more than it had.
Then something hit him. Saelum could not see what. In seconds, all he could see in a painful daze was the night sky, which looked just as dizzy as he felt, but it moved without him, as did everyone else who was still able.
He had to get up. He had to prove himself.
Not a generic hero. Not a generic, damn hero.
“...being urged to stay the fuck indoors.” said the reporter appearing on a dozen screens behind a shop window, not that anyone was listening. “This comes from an anonymous tip, because goodness knows we don’t get enough of those. Stay indoors, lock yourselves in, and let the night pass. Yeah right, I’m going to give my boss a piece of my mind.”
The reporter got up from her chair the same instant that the window was shattered by rioters fighting over who got to carry the screens.
Indeed, all across the city and its surrounding area, people fell to their rage and primal urges. Regardless of sex, race, or creed, no one was safe from the energy fueling everyone’s worst and nobody’s best.
The more that the Dallevan League fought in the other realm, the more humanity lost. The red columns fading in and out across the sky became more numerous and pronounced, though most people did not notice or care about them.
Everyone cared only about their problems.
Everyone cared only to end them, by any means.
On and on, and on, it went until the red beams burst from the seams and white light consumed everything. It was the night when humanity fell — Rancor Night.
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Chapter 29
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Breath passed audibly, but Mary could not tell if it went in or out. Her senses came back to her like they had been fished out of the mud, and had yet to be washed before she regained them.
Everything radiated away from the silhouette of the enormous crystal in the middle of the room, but then the few objects went out as another wave flowed from the crystal as thick as Mary’s arms, and as slow as a leaf blowing in a light breeze. It passed the items from before, and they would glow and radiate and fade out once more.
Mary was both frightened and confused. Then she saw Ohm Wire and the demon formerly known as Bates; they stood still, affected the same way by the light.
The sounds of sniffling reached her ears. Mary revolved around the crystal’s shadowy outline, curious as to how she did not see anyone or anything beyond it, then she saw her.
It was Mary’s other half. Huddled and crying.
Mary approached her. The water she waded through made no sound as she walked, or rather pushed one leg forward after the other. Mary was so close. She reached out for her other half’s shoulder.
“Don’t,” the other whispered. “Don’t. And stop that, I hate being thought of as the other one. The evil one.” She turned on Mary. Her tears were a fiery red, but by no means thick like blood. “Especially when you’re the one breaking promises. Ugh! Why do I hate being evil so much? I’m supposed to be me. I only ever wanted to be free and full of endless bliss.”
“Breaking promises?” inquired Mary.
The bad half pointed to Kyra, whose eyes appeared so lifeless.
“I have not broken any promises,” Mary said, “I’m sacrificing myself to protect her from my fate. I’m doing this for her so she won’t have to suffer.”
“And you think that will be the end of it? You think she will be safe when the world is transformed into a hive of demons and unfortunate survivors? We should have fled. We should have done something to keep our master from winning. Two centuries, and he still commands my every breath, even as we are now.”
“Poor Kyra,” Mary’s yin went on, “thrown into this because of her heritage. And now she’ll perish in ways no one should ever experience. In ways I shouldn’t have been.” She fell to her knees in front of Kyra and examined her own hands. “What choice did I ever have? Born impossible, bred wrong. Whatever’s left of her, and you, will hate what comes next, and there’s nothing any of us can do.”
“There’s always a choice, Phoebe. You wanted to use her to break free yourself.”
“Then you interfered, being the little hero in an overwhelming storm. What would you have me do?! Trick someone into destroying my prison with me along with it? I—I can’t... There’s no way...”
Mary pinned her other half to the ground by the shoulders.
“Pull yourself together,” ordered Mary. “There’s still a choice. There has to be.”
“Doom, death of the soul, devastation and worse for so many...”
“Help me. We can fight the arch-demon together. We can still save everyone, but you have to try. You have to pull yourself together, if not for yourself then for Kyra. For the succubi who brought you into this world against all odds, and wanted more for you than a life of debauchery, but were taken away before they could raise you. For every man, woman, or child who could have been, or still could be. Help me!”
Memories of old, of both David and the old Mary—no, Phoebe—flooded her mind in a swirl, with an overwhelming number of emotions at their cores.
“I can’t,” said Phoebe.
Mary said, “You’re not allowed to say you can’t. Not until you’ve given it everything you got.”
“We are but one aspect of demonhood. The arch-demon is all. Our power couldn’t as it is. Maybe if we drained the sexual essence of everyone in the western world we might stand a chance at overpowering him, but now he’d throw us into oblivion like a used rag if we’re lucky. If we’re fortunate, there won’t be an eternity of being violated without pleasure accompanying us when we get there.”
“Phoebe, why did you take my ice powers away?”
“Your ice powers...” She stood and faced Kyra.
“Maybe our demon powers won’t work, and maybe my super strength won’t be enough, but what if I had my ice powers?”
“I took them away by accident. This half of me entered your body, and felt something hurting me as I melded with the body, so I stripped it away out of instinct. Oh, Mary, I’m such an idiot.”
“So, they’re gone for good. Then I suppose we have to make due with what I have left. Even if it’s not enough, and I die trying, I’ll sooner do that than let this asshole have the victory he desires. I could use Kyra’s help to, if she was able.”
Mary stopped when she realized that Phoebe was sobbing again.
“I know what to do now,” said Phoebe. “I wish I understood it sooner. The power of it. The power to do what I must. Yes, that’s how I’ll do it.”
“You’re losing me here.”
“Come here, quickly.” Mary did as Phoebe requested. Phoebe joined Mary’s and Kyra’s hands. After grabbing Mary’s with some force Phoebe said, “The greater good sucks, just so you know, but damn, it feels good doing something for it for once. Promise that you’ll remember me ‘til the end of time.” No, that was an order, her final decree.
When Mary opened her mouth to speak, Phoebe placed a finger over it and shook her head, all the while standing like someone dignified. She was the queen succubus, and Mary was her subject.
“For everything that went wrong, for all the good times we could have had, don’t think ill of me. Not even my innuendos.”
Phoebe raised the conjoined pair of hands up to her cheek, still damp from tears and soft besides, and she hummed with more serenity than Mary ever thought possible. The crystal silhouette gushed out more light, rather than in short waves. It filled the room that everyone stood within.
Her hums broke as if into a tune, which slowed further and further, and faded away the longer it went. Then the light filled Mary and Kyra.
And time returned to normal within the nether realm.
The oversized demons pounded away at Princess Undercut, but she parried in a terrible rush. Between the demons and the panic, she knew that staying here was not a good idea, so she ran as soon as there was an opening.
Princess Undercut skipped past the three demons, and dove for her husband, hoping to catch him in the air. He was moving too fast for her to try grabbing with teleportation, because there was no telling which direction anyone or anything fell next, because he was moving fast and Mortar once mentioned that stopping suddenly would kill anyone with a snap of the neck or worse, because she was too frightened to think of anything better than dart forward after Psi Wizard.
Psi saw her, his vision limited from the speed of his fall, and he felt her coming for him. He reached out. He trusted in Princess Undercut to save him.
After a few harrowing moments and as many close calls, one interrupted by a sharp rock that swung between them and nearly took Psi’s arm with it, Princess Undercut caught him by the hand. They were joined in a full-body embrace in seconds, and she teleported them into safety. They drifted somewhere dark for a moment, and then shifted suddenly onto one of the plateaus above where they started.
They heaved together for a time before Psi looked up.
“Look out!” he shouted.
There was a mage with an axe ready to take a swing at Princess Undercut, but Psi pulled her forward and used the leverage to kick the mage in the chest. In his anger for the attempted attack, Psi reached deep into the Mage’s mind, well beyond the emotions or frontal, basic thoughts, and he found what made the mage tick.
Psi clenched the core of the mage’s mind and yanked at it. This cause the mage to twitch and jerk violently before falling to the ground as nothing more than a vegetable.
He turned back to his wife, who huffed as hard as ever.
“I could have saved myself,” she said.
Her husband shook his head and said, “I don’t care if a meteor fell and you alone could take it. Nobody tries to harm my wife, or our child, and gets away with it.”
They kissed warmly, but then the island shook, and their already short moment of romance was made brief. The vulture-like demon screeched and prepared to make another swing at the couple.
Suddenly, a burly man descended and hammered his fists into the back of the demon’s neck. Trash Knuckle and the vulture facing one another whole entire time as they fell to the ground. The villain gave the giant vulture a left and a right before the demon could recover, and then he shoved the creature off the edge where it fell up and crashed against the jagged underside of another island.
The plateau turned away then. Hardly anyone who was present got to see the monster drift off into oblivion, never to be seen again after that.
“Yeah,” said Trash Knuckle, “any other pipsqueak out there want to pay for the big guy getting thrown out the door? Come on, I totally have all night!”
And, to boot, he was tired of falling every direction all over this forsaken place. He could have sworn that he saw the outside world a couple of times as he did so.
Just then, there were two explosions close to the same time. The bigger one was on an island to the distance, and the other blew apart the front doors of the castle. The arch-demon was flung from the opening.
Everyone looked between the two explosions, especially toward the castle, but all they saw at first was a stream of smoke leaving the castle doorway.
The arch-demon skid across a few islands before stopping on one, at which point he attempted to stand. He stopped when he heard the sound of a gun being pulled in front of his face.
“I do love a good plan as much as the next mastermind,” said Walter, “but yours is over.”
Walter accepted the look of fear and panic on the arch-demon’s face, but then the demon ignored him and looked toward the castle with that expression.
Two figures stood at the doorway then. Dressed for debauchery, but armed with enough power to demolish the entire realm, were two women.
Adamast Cross and Ohm Wire.
