XPost: alt.comics.lnh

#50.4

She was a rubenesque figure dressed in a robe of moonlight, glittering and gleaming, wearing the dreamlike atmosphere like an evening gown. If the net. heroes didn't know better, they could have sworn they saw Ending blush, just slightly.

"What manner of being is this!?" gasped the Black Halo. "The power within her... it transcends even that of a God!"

"Oh boy," said WikiBoy. "I know this one. It's VAMMO Woman..."

"The RACCelestial Madonna," whispered Occultism Kid.

"Oh hi!" said Catalyst Lass. "What are you doing here?"

"Boy, this story sure has a lot of characters," said Merissa.

"Indeed," said VAMMO Woman, her voice echoing through the theater. "But I have come to bring a final end to this song."

Plotchopper, without speaking a word, charged her with his axe.

"You have no place here, Plotchopper. The time for endings is at hand--real endings. WikiLull could make do with fragments, but this story has to end."

She clapped her hands and with a mighty VAMMO! Plotchopper was knocked right out of the theater. The X-Over Men in the audience clapped and cheered.

"Okay, look," said Ending. "Bringing an end to this is *my* job. Why are you dragging this story out?"

"Well, it's gotta have an ending that feels like it means something, right?" said Catalyst Lass. The absolutely ridiculous burst of motivation that had brought her here was guttering away. Here in this un-world she felt strained, diminished to almost nothing. But she had to keep pushing through, moment by moment.

For the one thing she could never let herself lose.

For Tara.

She looked Ending in the eye, exerting her catalytic powers to the fullest. "That means giving us a chance."

Ending shook her head, unimpressed. "Do you know how many people challenge me to try and bring the person they love back for the dead? If I had a nickel for every time some wannabe Orpheus came in and tried to bring their lost love back from some underworld or other, I'd have... a hell of a lot of nickels, I'll tell you what.. The point is, a lot of the time you don't get a satisfying ending, in life or even in stories. Do you know how many LNH series have just stopped? Sometimes things just end, and there's no point to it at all."

She crossed her arms. "Look, Occultism Kid, you seem like a pretty sensible mage. You understand this right?"

"I do." Occultism Kid laughed hollowly. "Believe me, I do." His voice, which had grown throaty and raspy ever since his ordeal in Beige Midnight, now sounded like a cassette tape stuffed in a desk drawer for thirty years, worn and pitted and scratched. "But I've had enough of it. I've seen enough loss, enough horror. I agree with Cat and Merissa - we're coming back with Tara or we're not coming back at all."

"Black Halo? You're a death god, right? You should understand..."

"Aye, so I am," said Black Halo. "But I too have known great loss. Long I carried the life force of my dead world and its people within me. Though that tale may ne'er be told, for my Writer lies bent under the weight of Real Life, I remember it well. The strain of it near broke my soul, had not--" He looked around for Lethal Lawyers. "--a hero set me on the right path and helped me restore some of what had been lost. For though I am a death god, I serve not death for its own sake, but the balance of death and life--and where that balance be threatened, there shall the Black Halo strike their blow!"

"Jeez," said Ending. "These hero types. WikiBoy, can you talk them out of this?"

WikiBoy shook his head. "Look. We've put a lot of effort into finishing this issue, and we're getting it posted no matter what. Got it?"

"Oh so that's how it is, huh?" Ending frowned. Instantly everyone felt a sharp stab of disappointment, as if she were their elementary school teacher. "Well, if you're not coming back without her, maybe you won't come back..."

"Wait," said VAMMO Woman.

"What? Oh right, you're here too. *God*, this storyline has a lot of characters."

"You must remember, Ending, that though you yourself may inhabit a different narrative mode, this is above all a superhero universe." VAMMO Woman's deep, echoing voice was strangely calming. The others all relaxed their posture, except for Ending. "And that means that the fundamental questions of the world's meaning are decided by great battles. A chaotic free-for-all would, no doubt, be inconvenient or possibly fatal for many of you--and I had enough of that for a lifetime after Retcon Hour, myself--"

"Same," said Token Girl.

"--but the situation could be resolved through a duel."

"God damn it, you're right," said Ending. "But you'll see - one day, they'll write more Lunaverse stories, and then I won't have to worry about this..."

"Well," said Cat, drawing in all her passion and longing for Tara, all her need and fear, feeling the catalytic power blaze through her, "they won't write any Lunaverse stories until they finish this one. And they won't finish this one until they one last good fight in. See?"

"Hmmm..." said Ending, "...that's true. A duel, huh? Another one?"

"Yes," said VAMMO Woman. "Token Girl, you will not be the one who fights in it this time. You have done enough. But there is one who has not yet taken her final role in the narrative..."

"That's me, right?" said Merissa.

"Yes," said VAMMO Woman. Merissa grinned smugly.

"Just you watch," said Merissa. "I'm a hero. And I'm not just a hero, I'm the greatest hero of them all. I'm just the kind of person who can beat you."

"That's what Gigamesh said," said Ending.

Everyone except for Merissa and Ending walked off the stage and took their place in the audience. Entertainment snapped his fingers and buckets of salty popcorn appeared in their laps and Mister Paprika bottles (now that's a years- long-LNH-writer's running gag!) in their chairrests.

The fighters took their places. Merissa made sure to stand on the left side of the stage, following the laws of Noh theater and tokusatsu.

With a flash of thunder, Ending shifted form. Now she was wearing a plague doctor mask and hat along with a cute black minidress and thigh high stockings. Pinned to her breast was a perfect black rose.

"A plague doctor mask? Really? Well, that's subtle," said Token Girl.

"Nothing about this period in history is subtle, I'm afraid," said Occultism Kid.

"Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku," chanted the X-Over Men as one, "Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku..."

The duelists stared each other down, two immensely powerful presences separated by only a stage's width. The tension grew thick in the air, buzzing like a flourescent bulb, almost unbearable...

"Electrocutioner's Song!" chanted the X-Over Men symbolically. "Flame Wars II, Flame Wars III, Retcon Hour, Beige Midnight!"

Ending shifted minutely, and Merissa charged!

Somehow, instead of the Ultra-Mega-BIGGUN, Merissa was holding a katana with a rainbow-anodized blade and a stupidly intricate hilt with a golf-ball-sized opal in it. She swung it at Ending, who blocked with the shaft of an obsidian scythe, spinning it around in an attempt to bisect Merissa, who knocked it away and thrusted and parried.

"Retcon, retconner, retconnest!" sang the X-Over Men. "Ohhhhh, the suffering of Kid G, the Three Day Lull!"

The contest was evenly matched, despite the fact that a sword-vs-polearm fight should be over one way or another within seconds, but Merissa was slowly being pushed back.

"You had a whole life ahead of you, kid," said Ending, doing some cool and fancy spins of the scythe. "A really weird life, but a life all the same. Now all that's gonna end here."

Merissa's awesomeness-sense told her that this was more than a test of her powers, or even her heroism; she would have to do something *absurdly* cool to take the advantage.

"U-Force, R-Men, ElfForce Millenium!"

Why was she in this duel in the first place? Merissa had a tendency to charge into whatever fight was available, sure, but she'd had a reason for this one. To change things-- to save someone--

That was it!

"Look, Tara dying would be good drama. Nobody's arguing that." Merissa parried and riposted, getting some fancy footwork in there while she had the chance. "But that's for the readers, right? Drama and good endings are there to satisfy 'em, to make 'em happy."

"At least you get that much," said Ending, executing a physically impossible spin that Merissa just barely dodged.

"Well, if that's all you're giving the readers-- you're not giving them nearly enough!"

"What!?" Endling flinched and just barely dodged herself, Merissa's rainbow tip passing thru the space where her chest had been.

"Ahhhhh, the impossibility of eternity, the Eternal September," chanted the X-Over Men urgently. "Ahhhhh, the darkness of infinity, the Infinite April!"

"There's so much drama out there! They need more than just more struggling and more dying!" Merissa forced her advantage, blade shimmering liquidly in the stage lights. "They need to know there's something worth struggling *for*!"

Ending found herself forced back, step by step, barely knocking away Merissa's thrusts with the shaft of the scythe.

"Employee-Empowered, Paradigm-Shifted, Individual-Ownership, Downsized, Streamlined, Reinvigorated Crimes of the Brotherhood!" climaxed the X-Over Men!

"They need to know happiness is possible!" shouted Merissa. "That they can find a happy ending for themselves, not just a narratively appropriate one! They-- need-- HOPE!"

("Definitely Drew wrote that bit," whispered Token Girl.)

Merissa struck!

"AMMONITE!"

The duelists stood, facing away from each other, weapons at the end of their follow-through. Slowly, the petals tumbled off Ending's rose.

Somewhere far away, church bells rang.

Ending straightened and took off her mask, a rueful smile on her face. "Well- argued."

"Well that's settled," said Catalyst Lass. She and the others who'd journeyed with her stepped up to the stage behind Merissa. "She'll be coming with us now."

"...I don't know," said Tara. She sat in the metal folding chair, next to Ending, looking up at the heroes, hands folded in her lap, posture slumped.

"Huh?" said Merissa, getting up out of her cool pose. "We went all this way and fought Ending to get you back, and... you don't want to come back?"

"I said... I don't know. It doesn't feel right."

"Why?" said Catalyst Lass, startled.

"The thing is..." The stage lights went out, a single light shining on Tara from above.

"The thing is, some readers... some readers are tired of holding on to hope." She looked up, into the darkness, towards Cat, the unflinching spotlight bringing out the dark circles around her eyes, the blotchy redness in her skin; she looked away. "There's people who get a sense of, I guess, life being more liveable from stories that are sad or dark or fucked up, like Sig.Lad's death in X Post Facto, or a lot of Arthur's stuff, or even Legion of Occult Heroes #4. Because that can help them deal with all the Bad Stuff in a way that feels more manageable, I guess. And it helps them feel like they don't *have* to keep holding onto hope. That can be a real burden sometimes. Especially now."

"Tara..." murmured Cat, quietly bearing witness.

"Sometimes the whole thing about 'hope,' about stories making your life better or whatever, just feels really... hollow. Sorry, Merissa, no offense. But when people use it as a justification to like, punish people who write things they think aren't hopeful enough, or whatever, you just get... tired." She shook her head. "It's been two presidents since 'Hope' felt like it meant anything, if it ever did."

("Jeanne definitely wrote that line," whispered Occultism Kid.)

Cat felt her motivation draining away in the face of this sudden, blunt pessimism, felt that awful coldness returning; but she bit her lip, she didn't look away.

"Even knowing that there's somebody worth struggling for... doesn't mean the struggle's going to be worth it. It doesn't mean you aren't going to make things worse than they were before, that you're not going to destroy the good things you used to have." Now Tara was resolutely *not* looking at Cat, her gaze turned to the scrapes on the floor left by Merissa and Ending's spirited duel.

"The thing is--" She swallowed. "The thing is, there are so many people in the Real World right now who have lost people they care about, and if I came back, just like that, I don't know if it'd feel hopeful. It might feel cheap, unearned-- like a slap in the face to everybody who had to go thru that same struggle, and didn't get a magical second chance. Sometimes, fucked-up things happen, and you just have to move on. That's all."

No one really knew what to say to that. Ending nodded, as did Occultism Kid.

"No!" shouted Merissa. "I can't accept that. If that's what the world's like, I'm going to fight it every step of the way! I--"

"Shhh," said Catalyst Lass, putting her hand on Merissa's shoulder and gently pushing her back. She stepped, with slow, heavy steps, to the center of the stage, under the spotlight. Her motivation had almost died away... but she reached down, down, down inside herself... and found the place it had come from. The reason it was there... and that was enough.

She knelt down, coming face to face with Tara, and let the words she'd found come out. "Look. I know sometimes I come across like I'm... well, needlessly optimistic. But... that's not because I'm naive. I've lived through some bad things, and I've... failed. You know that. I've seen the fucked-up endings where you just have to move on... even caused them."

Tara nodded, still not looking her in the eyes.

"I understand that there's times when it feels like nothing good can ever happen again. But it's in times like that when we really need to hold onto the things that matter to us. Especially each other. And that's what this story's all about, isn't it? The Writers wrote this for each other, and for everyone else on RACC. For the people who are still around, and the ones who came before, who inspired them even if they'll never know... for the generations who went thru their own terrible plague, their deaths unnoticed in the middle of wonderful prosperity, and kept going, kept moving on, in the hope... in the hope that people like me could be with people like you."

The blotchy redness in Tara's skin filled in with flushing warmth. She looked up, into Cat's eyes, and nodded again.

Cat smiled, big, wide, genuine. "I know there was a time, not all that long ago... relatively speaking... when it seemed like there was no way things could go on. [Just Another Cascade #12--Footnote Girl--good lord, is this issue still going?] And one of the things that made it feel worth it was you. So... I had to try and return the favor. That's all."

"...okay," said Tara. She reached out and took Cat's hands, and Cat lifted her to her feet.

"Well said, Catalyst Lass," said the RACCelestial Madonna, as the stage lights came up. "But there is a certain truth in Token Girl's words. On your word, we redressed the balance of Drama and Comedy, but that balance is still fragile. There are costs that must be paid, to the narrative, to the universe, and to yourselves. This is how magic is. We are at an Ending, and End something must."

Occultism Kid stepped forward, to stand in front of the matriarch of the Looniverse.

"I'll do it."

====

And somewhere beneath the Earth--

A bright, painful spark. The energies of Retcon and Continuity coursing through Captain Continuity's body collided with each other, reshaping into something else.

The words came to him in a flash, as if they'd always been there. Maybe they had and maybe they hadn't.

He shouted:

"RetContinuity Fusion Flash! GreenRingKnight!"

Floating in the air, he felt his costume slip away. He was naked. Green threads wove themselves around his body, taking the form of a sleek, elegant armor. He didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that no one was watching him, as it was a pretty cool transformation.

He focused the green energy arcing from his hands upward.

He didn't know how long he'd be able to hold onto this power, but it would be long enough.

"Guess what, fuckos? Captain Continuity is back!" screamed Captain Continuity, now the GreenRingKnight, as he burst through the Earth.

Drew "time for the big finish!" Nilium

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