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Chapter 36
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Beyond the walls and webbed barriers, there was singing from a voice that barely showed any nervousness, muffled weeping, and the sounds of people trying to break free of the webbing. When Pixeletta walked into the rounded corridor between the stadium and the park, she wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see, but this wasn’t it. If she could somehow read her mother’s facial expression through that mask of hers, she was sure Swan Diva felt the same.

They hustled to one barrier where Pixeletta heard what she guessed was people trying to work away at it.

“Hello? We’ve come to help,” Pixeletta said.

“Oh, thank God,” said one man.

Another said, “Wait, that voice. You sound like the one who put this webbing here.”

“The stadium was still loud after the show was done, man. How can you be so sure?”

“How can we be sure it isn’t, and she’s not back to play some cruel game?”

Pixeletta said, “Please, I’m only here to help you. We both are.”

Swan Diva nudged the side of the barrier. “This is quite thick and strong . . . and gross. There is a quick way to get everyone out, but it’s going to require some serious property damage. That is, unless, you can scrounge enough juice to burn these webs.”

“That might start a fire.”

“Alright, everyone, stand back! I’m going to break this down, and we don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Seconds later, Swan Diva punch away sections of the walls that held up the webbing. Thousands of people waited on the other side. The sight of them all made Pixeletta gasp.

“So many,” she said. “Why didn’t you all flee with everyone else in the city?”

One person said, “This is Paragon, dear. Do you know how many evacuations are called every week, and nothing comes of it? Wait, you two look familiar. Oh my god! It’s Swan Diva, and someone who looks like Pixeletta!”

“Calm down, everyone. Stay calm! We need to get you all out of here. This time is no joke. The evacuation is real, and we need to get everyone across the bridge.”

“Independence Bridge?” asked a man who didn’t sound like he was all there.

“The one and only. Did anyone see the woman who did this?”

“That’s where she headed, don’t you know?”

“What?”

“She left for the bridge after having a laugh. If you hurry, you might . . .”

Pixeletta ran. She heard her mom calling after her, but she didn’t care. This nightmare needed to end here, right now.

Vidnyanta stopped hovering amidst her brisk pace again, and looked back at the city. She wasn’t sure whether to call this a success or a failure. The place was in turmoil, but far too much of it wasn’t to her bidding.

Where was her glorious army harvested from so many worlds? Was Nervaeus too busy inflating his ego to see the looming threat that fool mortal was bringing upon them? Why had so many of the city’s people managed to flee already when Cingeteyrn volunteered to wreak havoc upon the exit until her arrival?

Questions plagued this evening that should have been rightfully hers. Hers to strike at the mortal world so loved by those fools in the Eternal Realm.

She would have to rebuild and return. She’d have to find a new way to burn everything to the ground and reign over the destruction. Vidnyanta dropped her mask to the ground, as well as her robe, leaving only her simple layer of garments. She could pose as a hero and blend into the crowd to make her escape. Yes, that was a simple plan. She wasn’t in the mood for any more obstructions.

She started toward the bridge again, walking instead of levitating, but the lights flickering caught her attention. They shouldn’t have; the city was taking heavy damage and probably losing power for an unknownth number of time in the past month alone. But there was something about this time.

The lights flickering came with the sound of heavy static.

Someone was coming. Disappointing. Vidnyanta found where the person was coming from, and she shot a line of webbing at the interloper.

Pixeletta wasn’t sure when she had picked up a strong sense of instincts, but she shot a bolt of lightning at Vidnyanta. She was going to anyway, but now seemed like the best time. She was glad she did, as her bolt blew through a rope of spider webbing that had been aimed at her.

She kept an arm raised and rested the other hand against a lamppost as if casually holding it. Pixeletta was going to need sources of energy if she was going to fight this woman on her own.

Now, both of them were looking upon one another’s face, same as though they were, with the exception of Pixeletta’s mask.

“The impossible!” Vidnyanta hissed at her.

“The body thief,” Pixeletta said.

“Should we be here like this? I’m sure this meeting will cause the universe to implode.”

“That’s multi-verse theory, and you’re giving me back what’s rightfully mine.”

“The whole world is about to end, you fool!”

“All the better.”

Both women breathed heavily and screamed before charging at one another. Spider silk and electricity burst through the air as Pixeletta struggled hand-to-hand against this so-called goddess. Their strength and speed were evenly matched. The fact that Vidnyanta had her face only served to make the fight ridiculous.

“How? How are you doing this?” Vidnyanta asked.

“Magic,” Pixeletta said, her tone as defiant as all the teenage years she never got to live.

“Why do you keep fighting me? I can’t give you your body until it turns to dust. So just die and become one with me.”

Pixeletta drained multiple currents of electricity from the surrounding lights, and she let off a massive bang of power as Vidnyanta grabbed for her neck. It knocked her back, disorienting her. She could hear the other woman grunt as well.

That was it. She herself felt drained, and would need more power than the lampposts could withstand—they were already burning out after what she did—if she was to dish out any more attacks, or even a tiny spark.

Damn, she was dizzy.

Her version swung left and right until Pixeletta managed to focus on the object on the ground. It was the amulet. She picked it up, and the band was broken.

“Why?” the other woman asked again, this time hacking and grunting as she stood. “Why can’t I have things my way?”

Pixeletta said, “It’s because you try too hard to use what isn’t yours.”

“Like your body, your powers, your memories?”

“What?”

“Yes. I bet you didn’t know I could tap into everything this body can do. But it’s too stubborn. I thought it was fitting, but it’s a herd of stubborn cattle trying to remember something beyond their scope to see or hear. But I know; I know all of it.”

“The day I died. You can tell me what happened, can’t you?”

“Join me, and I can show you. I can make you whole, and more.”

“You’re bluffing!” She watched Vidnyanta take a step back. Pixeletta took two steps closer with the amulet in hand. “If you really know, then tell me now.”

“I . . . No, not until I’ve taken your soul.”

She wrapped the amulet around her hand. She could barely feel the electric energy fizzling out inside the lampposts. “My memory, give it to me. This is your last chance.”

Vidnyanta held out her arms with a knowing smile. Living bodies had currents in them, and Pixeletta could almost feel hers from a few feet away. It was disturbed. It was like plugging an American appliance into a European outlet, only faint.

“You think I’m coming to you like this,” Pixeletta said, “that I’ll fall for your false promises. I can live without the one memory. It will hurt, but I will live. There’s only one thing I can’t live without. The world could end right now, but I had to come, had to stop you, for one thing only. And that is my own body!”

She grabbed at the surrounding electrical energies and punched into Vidnyanta’s chest with her amulet-wrapped hand. The other woman trembled and mumbled against her before the blow, but now she screamed. All of reality screamed, even after light consumed them both.

Swan Diva accompanied the crowd of people from the stadium across the park on their way to the bridge. They all hurried across as much as a number of obstacles could allow, but Swan Diva and a couple other heroes on the scene tried their best to keep everyone calm. To keep everyone from trampling over one another.

They all reached the far side of the bridge when a girl’s scream echoed from afar. A pale green light illuminated the sky in a thin pillar that narrowly missed the alien ship.

“Oh, my baby girl,” Swan Diva whispered. She looked to the other heroes. “Get everyone to safety.”

Then she flew with all her might toward the source of illumination.

Mortar Mage gave his face a harsh wipe with one hand. He was missing something. His calculations were great—better than anything devised in the histories of magic or science—but they missed an equation within an equation. Time was running out, and, at best, his work could have resulted in the instant eradication of everyone and everything in a ten mile radius.

The remaining reports coming in through the radio only weighed down on him more heavily as they went on. Friends and colleagues hospitalized, or worse. People trapped in one building or another.

He failed. He promised to bring back his love, to protect everyone in the city, and to prevent the end of the universe from coming many billions of years too early.

Someone’s scream reached him then. He looked at one screen monitoring Paragon City; a number of screens even.

There was an eerie light, taller and slimmer than the ones he’d put in to protect against the tampering of anyone with the sight. His magically inclined senses told him everything he needed to know. That was a beacon, or he was about to make it one.

Suddenly, he had everything he needed. Mortar Mage could shift and focus the effects of the rift opening between here and the end. He plugged in the numbers, and adjusted the reagents around the lab.

Everything was where it needed to be. Even magic had its laws, even if they were bound to another realm science was not.

He stopped briefly when a dark brown line cracked across one of his arms. Too much magic in too little time. All the runes in the mortal realm couldn’t change his need for more time to try and rest or recover, and not even the best mages who tampered with time could give him any more.

Time was up. The clock he had set up ticked away its last seconds.

Mortar Mage grasped the first lever. Then pulled.