Monday, November 9, 2009

The Armageddon Spectacular, Book 5: The...END?!

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth. Many earths. Many many earths. He created all life and every detail of it, in an array of dimensions and universes, to infinite perfection.

....then he took a day off and left managing it all to someone else.

That's where we came in.

The kingdom of Natori-Vilal was the initial collection of powers that ensured the universe and all in it and around it ran smoothly. Over time, several beings were dispatched throughout it to watch over it....to guide and protect it. Their names don't even register with me anymore. They were lost over the countless eons, to a variety of manners, or still traverse the cosmic trails today.

I do not care.

But in the end, all it came down to was just 2. The masters of Space and Time, granted superlative power over all others. And over the endless billions of years we amassed more and more power. Those who could not handle their powers gave them to us, and we usurped the powers of those we felt would harm Creation. Under our watchful eyes, universes went through their natural progression - they were born, and then they died. To us, the complexities of the fabric of existance were like basic math and spelling skills are to an educated child. We evolved beyond evolution, became beings that could create and kill upon a touch or with the merest of thoughts.

Then we got lazy. Horribly lazy. We felt it was necessary to use the beings that inhabited our universes to help us guard and patrol them. Such little things, such selfish, vile and sadistic things! All their weaknesses, all their imperfections....yet they fulfilled their meager tasks with acceptable results.

We trusted them, enabled them....even cared for them.

And thus our own weakness was revealed. We were not perfect. We were not gods. We saw mortals in a biased light of ignorance and compassion. Our emotions overcame us and reduced us to their levels.

But we had the power. Oh, and such power! The power to take all and crush it, to reshape it as we wanted. Galaxies could be erased with ease, whole lifeforms could be created and uncreated at our whim. We ran unchecked and could bring all that we surveyed under our control!

Then you happened, Firmus Piett. You and your.....love affair.

You were nothing more than just another minion. You and your friend Herve, a cosmic curiosity himself but insignificant in the end. But then you somehow seducing the Hellion herself, and aroused once more the attention of......the Holy Vacationer.

He suddenly saw us for what we were. MONSTERS, he cried out in his great bolded voice! And he reduced our powers infinitely! No longer could we run our unwielded power across the depths of space and time. We were....emasculated. Mere caretakers who watched from afar and sent others to do our work for us.

We needed the power..........because it fueled us, because it FED us. It was a hunger we could not live without! And unlike most others, you and Herve fulfilled our hunger the best. Your pointlessness and insipidness somehow became more delicious and nourishing as the years progressed. Your "ridiculous battles" across the timelines and timescapes served no real purpose beyond satiating our hunger. But despite this appreciation of your imaginative talents and situations, you were nothing more than useful tools to us in the end.


Chronos: And now.....we come to the end. The fulfillment of a billion billion years. Our sordid back story....[scoops up the fragmented remains of Cosmos' skull]....well, our back story....[tosses it away].....is the last thing you will ever hear.

[Pause]

Chronos: No snappy comeback. I'm almost sad, if I could bother to remember what that emotion was anymore.

[Piett, still overcome by the events of the last few minutes, sits crumpled on the floor amongst Jim Ferr, his dasughters and the Webmaster.]

Webmaster: You'll excuse him if he justed watch his best friend die, you bastard!

Chronos: And I killed mine yet still managed to get through that diatribe. I tire of this. Pick them up.

[HG Wells, the Man-Mammoth and Super Collider surround the heroes and lift them to their feet.]

Jim Ferr: You can't kill us like this! We don't even know why, Lucy....why?!?

Lucy: I'm the fucking devil, you idiot. In all the years we were together, you never say this inevitability coming?!

Chronos: He's a mere mortal, my love. [caresses her midsection] Oh, the tale of how this happened...

Lucy: Dearest, I'm afraid you're falling for the classic villainous trick of overexplaining your side of things and your nefarious plans.

Piett: Tell me. [yells] TELL ME!!!

Chronos [smirks]: But he asked so rudely. Let me torture him.

[Lucy silently smiles as he chuckles.]

Chronos: You see, Piett, no one master of the continuum can exist without the other. When I myself died those several years ago, Cosmos had my sister Chronosia to fill the void of my death. But when my sister died at his irresponsible hands, that convinced me that I needed a stronger companion. One not able to die so easily, or to kill without much thought put into it. I needed a better mate. And a female one, because even a cosmic superpower gets lonely and has needs. So who better to pick than your dear Lucy. A woman of absoulte perfection, whose only flaw was......her own mate. So I got in her ear, as you'd say, and convinced her to change her demands of him, ever so slightly, until finally her imperfect mortal mate abandoned her. And when you stumbled back into her life, and ended up destroying the very realm of Hell as a result - an event that somehow bypassed the watchful eye of [points up] - I preserved her in this device, a cosmic suspension which would both keep her flawless personage intact and also rewrite her very essence to be able to house and control the powers we Natori-Vilali were created to possess. I then decided to abandon my own "mate," Cosmos, by driving him over the brink of stereotypical evil madness, until finally he was broken in both body and mind, where I connected Lucy's suspension tank to his dying body and transferred his power into her rebuilt body.

[Chronos genuflects to his mistress of space, and they mock Piett with a callous and overly dramatic make-out session. If Herve was still alive, even HE'D roll his eyes and not be turned on by it. Well, maybe a little turned on.]

Wells: Can we finish this, master? [Chronos waves his hand in approval] Excellent. Man-Mammoth, make them watch this.....Super Collider! KILL the children!

Super Collider: Wait, what? Oh........no, no I can't kill them. Look at 'em. They're so adorable.

[Brooke and Tracie giggle and do other cute baby stuff.]

Super Collider: Awwwwww seriously, so cute!

Wells: Fool! Obey me!

Super Collider: Killing kids was never part of the--

[Suddenly Brooke and Tracie pull 2 large sharp objects - almost like knitting needles - out of the napsack and forcibly stab Super Collider in the neck.]

Super Collider: ARRRRRGHHHHHH!!!!!!!! MY NECK!!!!!!! YOU'VE STABBED IT!!!!! WHY DIDN'T I SEE THIS COMING?!?!?!?! WHY!!!!!!!!! RRAGGHHHHHRUARRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Jim Ferr: How can he be screaming and yelling so much with those 2 things jammed on both sides of his neck? He should be dead by now. And when did you start knitting, Ashley? This just makes no sen--

Ashley: Dammit, dad, DO SOMETHING TO SAVE YOUR CHILDREN!!!!!

[Super Collider continues his horrific death throes, as the napsack slips around his arm and he struggles to remove the 2 needles from his bloodied neck. Jim Ferr runs to get his children, but a sudden pulse blasts from the Super Collider's cybernetically enhanced body and sends him and all others within reach flying back. He stumbles back toward the windows of the bridge, as sparks begin to fly and more pulse waves emit from him.]

Super Collider: No.......malfunctions corrupting........failure to.....contain....EXPLOOOOOOOODE!!!!

[Suddenly the Super Collider's black hole vortex, now unchecked and under no living being's control, erupts and rocks the entire bridge with a massive explosion (or rather, implosion?), destroying a radius of about 50 feet around him in the interior of the bridge. Ship claxons alarm and the entire ship begins to shake and lose control of its own navigation abilities, as everyone within the ship feels the hideously cold void of outer space. The Super Collider, with the 2 children still on him, falls out into the depths of space and toward the Earth.

Everyone within the ship, all of whom are positioned far enough away, feel the tug of anti-gravity and hold onto something....anything....for dear life. A chain of people forms - despite their opposing alliegances, the time for conflict has been very much paused for all present. At the very end of this chain of struggling survivors is the Man-Mammoth, whose giant mutated hands quickly lose their grip on Piett's leg, and he falls. But Piett catchs him, by the tusk, and holds on. But the strength of the void's suction is too much; however, instead of Piett's grip loosening, his grip stays firm and it is Man-Mammoth's very tusk that begins to tear out of his face. He yells in pain, until finally the tusk is pulled completely out, and the behemoth mutant plummets out of the ship. Emergency shields finally activate and seal off the bridge, but they are a bit too late for at least one, as the Man-Mammoth is consumed by the cold embrace of deep space.

With gravity restored, the momentum of Piett's arm sends the tusk flying out of his hands, and towards HG Wells.]

HG Wells: No.

[The tusk rams straight through his head, and after sending his body careening against the ravaged main console of the ship, HG Wells' body twitches moves for the final time.]

Chronos: Damnable fools. This is the LAST time I put any trust in your mortal men.

[Chronos sends an energy blast toward the heroes, still recovering from the cosmic calamity, which knocks them to and fro. Jim Ferr tries to attack, but Chronos blasts again and sends him flying to the other side of the damaged bridge. Ashley is next, but she is stopped by Lucy Ferr and backhanded to the ground. The Webmaster summons several small bullet points out of thin air and hurls them at the masters of time and space, but they stop them in mid-air and send them careening back at the cyberspacial guru. They pierce and tear through his body and he falls to the ground, his life now very much in question. They finally descend on Piett, who is still down and not yet recovered.]

Chronos: And so it comes to this. [rolls up his sleeves] I'm going to do something that should've been done long ago.

[He savagely kicks Piett in the face.]

Chronos: Beat some sense into you.

[As his lover Lucy looks on gleefully, Chronos proceeds to just lay a beating down on Piett. Off to the side, Jim Ferr tends to his dasughter Ashley, but she shrugs him off and instead directs him to tend to the dying Webmaster. Jim complies and takes the Webmaster in his arms.]

Jim Ferr: It's ok, Webmaster, you'll be fine.

Webmaster: No....[coughs up blood]....no, this is the end for me...

Jim Ferr: Oh geez, don't say that man. What do I do? What can I do to help you?

Webmaster: There's.....there's one chance. When I came back to....all this....I had a wish....a wish I couldn't use....until there was desperation...this is that moment, and I knew.....I knew it'd take me dying to get it to work......you are that chance, Jim....

Jim Ferr: What are you...? Me? Are you saying I'm our only chance? But I'm nobody, I'm--

Webmaster: Nobody? Oh, my friend.....you don't know...? [coughs] Heh. Looks like I missed a retcon.

Jim Ferr: Wha?

Webmaster: You're our only hope now.....and I wish.....wish you to.....[pulls Jim Ferr closer]....remember....

[Lucy turns from Chronos' beating and toward the duo, feeling something.....terrible.]

Lucy: What--?!

[The Webmaster's life slips away, and suddenly a powerful burst of mystical energy erupts from his very mouth. All around him are affected. Lucy is first to feel the effects, as she shudders and falls to the ground. Suddenly, her brother Jim Ferr bursts into flames and screams, but instead of being destroyed by the flames, they engulf him....and rebuild him. Gone goes the form of man, and arises its in place....The Boss. His howls of pain turn into howls of anger and hate, as his powers recollect themselves and abandon his sister, now powerless.]

Boss: YOU......YOU!!!!!

Lucy Ferr: No......it can't......no.......NO!!!!!!!

[With a rage unlike any that's ever been seen, the Boss explodes in anger and sends all his furious hellpowers toward his dear sister Lucy. She tries to shield herself, but even the mistress of space has no chance of survival, and the flames of Hell unleashed consume her and incinerate her completely. There is literally nothing left of her when the Boss's rage finally subsides.]

Chronos: What? NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

[Chronos screams and runs, stumbling and falling to the ground where his Lucy once lay.]

Ashley: No!!!!

[Ashley suddenly begins to fade away, the effects of the mystical burst now affecting her. Because her father is now the Boss, and was never the simple human Jim Ferr, she is ceasing to exist.]

Piett: Oh no, NO!

[The weakened Piett reaches out to her, but Ashley's hand evaporates and she vanishes into non-existance.

And just outside the ship, the Earth itself blinks out of existance, its ravage destruction by a newly born black hole muted to the ears of man by the rules of astrophysics.]

Chronos: No, the Earth! NOOO!!! The Super Collider....his fall.....his powers erupted and destroyed the Earth...DESTROYED MY EARTH!!!! [falls to his knees] That was to be my kingdom.....[looks to where Lucy Ferr was destroyed].....our kingdom. To rule the multiverse....a multiverse I would recreate....just for her.....

[As he sobs, the Boss walks up to him.]

Boss: This ends.

Chronos: Yes. [with tears in his eyes] Yes it does.

[Without a shred of regret, the Boss sends 2 eyebeams of molten hell straight through Chronos' head. The Boss walks away from his fallen corpse, which decays and blows away into dust, and toward a very injured Piett.

Around them, outside the ship, the very stars begin to disappear. Some fade, others blink out, other burst into atoms - the distortion of time itself failing allows the human eyes to see things that would take eons to travel through the vastness of the universe. With no semblance of space and time anymore, their masters now atomized into nothingness, the universe around them is dying. And outside its realm, other universes die as well. The fabric of space and time begins to unravel. Whole parts of the cosmos are literally falling apart. The blackness of space begins to peel away and turn white.

The Executor II slowly turns from the location of the destroyed space station and toward the black hole void that was once the Earth below them. Unable to function on its own, it slowly descends into its oblivion. Its once majestic form breaks apart and is torn asunder.

The Boss stands over a injured Piett, who is coughing up blood and clearly not doing very well at all.]

Piett: So.....this is it, huh?

Boss: Yes. This is the end of everything. [looks down] Are you afraid?

Piett: Scared.....[coughs up blood].....shitless.

Boss: Hrm. Even to the end, your....character remains. [smirks]

Piett: Oh, just end it already.

Boss: Not quite. [looks out into space] Oblivion...and other developments...have claimed whatever passion I had toward wanton death. It's not just the end of you, it's the end of me as well. There is no Hell, there is no hate. This is the only place I have left, and now there is only the coming void to embrace us all. So why not do one last thing....to make amends.

Piett: [coughs] What.....what do you....

[The Boss kneels down and places his hand on Piett's head. Around them, everything fades to white.]

Piett: Heh. S'funny.

Boss: What?

Piett: I died here once, on this ship....long timeago, far far away...who die here again?

Boss: Heh. [closes his eyes] Not quite.

Piett: Wha

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