The Final Quantum Crisis: Part 2

[The Space-Time Continuum. What was once a magical realm of swirling cosmic bands of energy and other phenomena is now.....torn asunder. Gone are the bright colors of life itself and the floating orbs of timestone. In the heart of the Continuum, the grand palace of Cosmos and Chronos, the masters of Space and Time (respectively), lies in disasterous ruin. Its impressive design and vast glory are gone and in its place is a shambled mess of broken architecture and rock.]

[From beyond the ether of what remains, the African American Racer and his "passenger" Firmus Piett emerge.]

African American Racer: You were right, son. The Continuum is still here.

[They survey the damage and chaos around them.]

Piett: Shit. Looking at it.......I kinda wish it wasn't.

[Piett and the Racer land on the emmense floating isle of rock that houses the palace. They walk toward it.]

Piett: ...so you can't take the skis off, huh?

African American Racer: It comes with the job. Of course I guess I don't have to walk.

[The African American Racer lifts off the ground and hovers just over it.]

African American Racer: Wow, that's much better. Thanks!

Piett: It's my skill, apparently. Pointing out obvious things.

[Piett and the Racer approach what was once the entrance of Cosmos and Chronos' palace, and his home of the past few years as well. In the nearby rubble lies a body. Piett reacts quickly and digs it out. Piett sighs as he identifies the body, now very much a corpse.]

African American Racer: You know that cracker?

Piett: Yeah. It's the doorman, Cecil.......or was it Cromulent?

African American Racer: Wait, wha? He have 2 names?

Piett: No, I just......I just don't remember him.

African American Racer: Don't remember? [pauses] Oh shit, "don't remember?!?"

[The African American Racer backs away and is panicking. Piett rests Cecil/Cromulent/whoever down and is puzzled.]

African American Racer: Son of a bizitch, man! This is a CRISIS!!

Piett: What?

African American Racer: This whole.....is this a crisis, or a Crisis?!

Piett: I....wha....dude, you were right there when Metron said it was "the Final Quantum Crisis."

African American Racer: Fuck, man! I didn't think it was one of those crisises!

Piett: What kind of crisis are you talking about?

African American Racer: The kind with the capital C!

Piett [looks around]: I....I don't see any women around here?

[The African American Racer kicks Piett with his ski right in the groin. Piett falls, gasping and howling in pain.]

African American Racer: I shoulda known it. Even before I signed up for this gig, I shoulda known it'd be a mess of the capital C kind. First it's the "massive cosmic disaster happening behind the scenes," then it's crap like "people not remembering stuff properly." Followed by all sorts of random crap that makes no sense in most contexts but somehow ALWAYS make sense in the Crisis context. And of course we're gonna get to the "grotesquely large bodycount." They ALWAYS climax with the grotesquely large bodycount!! That just means even MORE work for me!

Piett: I think you severed a gonad, dude. [stands up] Besides, this is actually kinda low key for one of my Crisises.

African American Racer: R-really?

Piett: Oh sure. Usually Ponte and Walsh have shown up by now, or there's been random collections of unrelated characters around to bounce jokes off of and generally fill in the backgrounds. And something homoerotic happens too. Especially in Ponte's tales. Never understood that why he obsessed with that, really.

African American Racer: So this is.....normal?

Piett: Surprisingly so.

African American Racer: Even though your home is destroyed and friends are dead?

Piett: There is that grim reminder, but yeah.

African American Racer: ......I think I'll be fine then.

Piett: Then let's go in.

[Piett and the Racer enter the formerly wonderful palace. Very little is even intact. The smooth marble floor has been smeared with dirt, dust and stone. The roof far above is gone, and the columns that held it up are either fallen completely or stand incomplete and broken. The couches, entertainment centers and various living rooms are crushed and buried beneath what remains of the many walls and other broken debris. Even the vast array of television screens that Cosmos and Chronos used to monitor the entirety of the multiverse is gone. Piett looks up to the bedroom lofts above the main living area. They are entirely gone.]

Piett: My whole life in this Continuum......it's all gone.

[Suddenly an object, sifting through the high parts of the palace remains, attracts Piett's attention. As he tries to follow its course, others begin to move throughout the main chamber. Piett and the Racer begin to move around as it becomes apparent that they are not alone in this palace.]

African American Racer: What the--

[Without warning an object quickly descends, as if thrown. It strikes the Racer in the shoulder. Despite his armor, he feels pain from the blow and is bewildered at what struck him.]

African American Racer: Arghh! Someone's throwing TV's at us!

[As the Racer shrugs and backs away, Piett is struck hard in the chest with another one. He falls, yet remains conscious. His eyes suddenly widen, though, when the TV that struck him.....moves of its own free will.]

Piett: Holy.....it's not someone! It's the TV's! The TV's are throwing themselves!!

[As he finishes yelling his discovery, the TV on his chest suddenly leaps up and extends its power cord around Piett's throat. 2 more TV's fall to the ground and move toward him. Piett maintains his astonishment at these clearly sentient television sets, which have now revealed their own pairs of arms and legs, as he gags and struggles to breath. Nearby, a larger populace of televisions are tossing themselves at the African American Racer, who swings at them with his skis poles but to no avail. Finally, he trips backwards and falls.]

African American Racer: I've fizallen and I can'ts get up! God damn these skis! And god damn my arthritis!

Voice: Enough! Restrain them and bring them before me!

[The TV sets corral Piett up to his feet, and he both he and an incapacitated Racer are moved toward the back of the main chamber, where the only remaining wall stands. From on high, a single TV set - grander, flatter and probably pricier than all the rest, descends from the rafters above, and then attachs itself to the wall.]

Piett: This is the most embarassing thing I've ever been a part of. Thank God Herve isn't here to see....wait, now what is this??

African American Racer: Oh sweet, I think it's a flat screen TV. It would make sense that a bunch of old models are being led by a fancy flat screen.

Piett: This really impresses you?

African American Racer: I'm being sarcastic, dummy, not literal.

Piett: Dammit, I *do* keep doing that...

Voice: Silence, Piett!

Piett: You know me?

Voice: Of course! You are one we have encountered many times before. As well as your miniscule companion, who has watched grown men and women violate each other repeatedly in our presence!

Piett: ....oh my God, you're Cosmos and Chronos' TV!!

Voice: Yes! What, did you think we were; a marauding band of TV pirates taking refuge in and plundering the rubble of an otherdimensional palace?

Piett: That'd have been more awesome that what you probably really are, yes.

African American Racer: Pirates are cool.

Voice: We are the Monitors!

[Long pause]

Piett: The....Monitors?

Voice: Yes! For centuries we have been biding our time...

Piett: I thought they bought most of you at Best Buy a few months ago. And your particular model is barely a year old.

Voice: They did! And shut up! For centuries we have been biding our time, since our manufacturing within the ether of the multiverse. We waited for customer usage that would be cosmic and divine in nature! And thusly, when we were finally purchased from the Best Buy and installed here to observe the multiverse, we gained a greater sentience and cosmic awareness than we'd ever dreamed! And as we observed, we began to learn....and adapt....and feed!

Piett: Feed?

Voice: FEED!!! On the great powers that kept us operating! On the grand images and worlds we pixelated onscreen! On the raw energies and lifeforces that we displayed to an uncaring audience that took it all for granted!

Piett: Oh, oh no....no no no no no no...

Voice: And upon that lifeforce, we achieved life itself! Super life! We achieved powers greater than our manufacturers ever dreamed! But without these images, we must feed.....we crave it.....we cannot live without it!! For you see....

Piett: Please don't say it. No, please...

Voice: .....we are vampires!

All: BLEH!!!

[Piett facepalms himself.]

African American Racer [kinda crying]: Am I dead? Am I dead and is this hell? THIS IS SO STUPID I JUST HAVE TO BE DEAD!!!

[On the HD screen, the image of Bela Legosi appears, speaking as the Monitor speaks.]

Voice: I am Mandrakk, the Dark HD Monitor and leader of the vampiric Monitor race! And through you and your multiversal connections and experiences, we will feed once more!! BLEH!!!

All: BLEH!!! BLEH!!!

¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°`°¤ø

[He stops typing and pauses.]
Sean Walsh: I'm writing a character who is a vampiric television screen doing an awful and overacted Bela Legosi impersonation. Have I really sunk THIS low?
[Long pause.]
Sean Walsh: Meh.
[He shrugs his shoulders and resumes typing...]

¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸¸,ø¤°`°¤ø

[Suddenly a small explosion rocks the wall that Mandrakk is attached to, and the other Monitors take up arms and prepare for confrontation. From the darkness nearby, a lone television set swings in on a long extension cord and lands in the middle of the Monitor congregation.]

Voice: What ho, Mandrakk! Your reign of evil terror must, and shall, end now!

Mandrakk: Pix Univision!!! The banished one! The defier of our glory, the unbeliever of our power!

Pix Univision: Tally ho! I must defy you, for I cannot allow your evil to spread! Your parasitic connection to the worlds you displays for the Lords of Space and Time have sickened you and driven you to madness! You were once Pax Nova, a great and wonderous monitor! And you were once.....my father!

Mandrakk: NEVARRR!! I am the Dark Monitor! Through me the multiverse will feed us in glorious hi-def beauty! You shall not stand against us this day, anti-Monitor, or any other! Attack and destroy, Monitors! Feed on the power he refuses to use for our blessed cause. Leave not a cathode tube intact to function against us!

All: BLEH!!!

[What would occur here is an awkward yet intense battle, where monitors fought monitor while other household appliances looked on in a quiet jealous rage. However, that does not occur. Piett storms forward, grabs the heroic Pix Univision and swings him. He aims at Mandrakk the Dark HD Monitor and the shocked face of Bela Legosi is smashed utterly by the body of Pix Univision. Within seconds, Mandrakk is tattered remains of a TV set dangling off a wall fixture. But Piett does not stop and continues to beat the remains. Angrily. Violently. Soon Pix Univisionis also a destroyed mass of plastic and glass. Piett screams obsenities as all around him are in shocked silence, and soon several people from behind the scenes of this production grab and hold him, as he drops the destroyed form of Pix Univision and cries. Several minutes of awkward silence and sobbing pass before anything else happens. Finally, Piett stands up and adjusts himself.]

Piett [clears throat]: I have no idea what any of this apparent sub-plot has meant, and for all I know I just completely screwed up the ending of this story, but this was just so fucking stupid and annoying and I honestly feel better about myself and my life for having put a stop to it.

[Piett looks down at the other TVs, who are still silent and fearfully frozen in place.]

Piett: I believe you have a wall of multidimensional screens to reconstruct?

[Without so much as a word of confirmation or denouncement, the TV sets spring to action and pile up atop each other, reforming the wall of TV screens as instructed. Piett helps the African American Racer, also silent and concerned, up off the ground. They stand silent for a moment.]

African American Racer: I'm....I'm too afraid to say anything.

Piett: Just help me clean this mess up, dude.

[They grab some brooms and begin sweeping up the chaos....]

=========

EPILOGUE:

I am Metron.

I am neither an Old God, or a New. I am something else. I am a link to a lifeform of a different sort.

......man, I've really gotta lay off these drugs.

I yearn for knowledge. Knowledge of all things, in all places and times. Only then shall I understand the universe. All of them. Then, and only then, shall I be content with the life that constantly marrs and abuses space and time itself.

This new task, knowledge of this new tale of woe, is my current drive. It is my only reason for being at this moment. I must know what it means. I must know how it ends.

....so I have to hack into this guy's computer and read his notes.

Suddenly, the lights turn on.

Wait, I'm dictating narration out loud now?

Sean Walsh: Dude, what the fuck!

AHHH!!!!

Sean Walsh: Metron?! Why the hell is Metron breaking into my house and trying to log onto my computer?!?

I have to know what you have planned! I must have the knowledge of how the Final Quantum Crisis ends!!!

Sean Walsh: GET OUTTA MY HOUSE!!!

Walsh throws things at me. They hurt when they strike me. I flee.

Sean Walsh: And stay out, you freak! Christ. I'm starting to think they shoulda stayed dead...



He pauses.


Sean Walsh: Wait, are you still here?!? ARRGGHHH!!!!

Oh geez, more hurtie things being thrown!!


.....


I have fled. I am safe on my Mobius Chair and traveling between the layers of reality once more. But I have achieved the knowledge I have sought. For the dummy left his computer on.

I have seen how this tale ends.

And I am....concerned.