GWS:Scene Two part 2
Catastrophe in Cairo, part 2
VernichtungTräumer holds Doc Achilles in his arms like a child. "Herr Doktor! Prepare the altar!" A Nazi researcher stands up, blood oozing out of the bullet holes that riddle his chest, and rushes over to an ancient stone altar, which he dusts off. As he spreads a strange powder over the altar, VernichtungTräumer speaks to Doc Achilles. "Your annihilation will serve the Reich more than you can possibly know. Our german philosophers and magicians have started us down a path toward the ultimate annihilation. Even they do not see what only one such as I, one who has completely given up his humanity can see! Annihilation is all that awaits you here today, 'Doc', but your annihilation will only hasten the ultimate annihilation...the ultimate annihilation which your precious Science will bring about!" He sets Doc Achilles down on the altar, and as her head lolls toward Dain, he realizes that she's been awake this whole time! Why isn't she fighting back? Why isn't she even getting off the altar? VernichtungTräumer looks down at Doc Achilles and says "Rebecca Achilles" in a deep, weighty voice.
Dain thinks 'Rebecca?'
VernichtungTräumer looks up. "She is not annihilated. There must be some sort of supernatural creature here. Most likely one of the fae. Find it!" As VernichtungTräumer spits out the last two words, centipedes come streaming out of the walls of the antechamber. Some of them are headed straight for Dain!
Dain thinks 'uh oh.'
Meanwhile, in the darkened cave Lucy flinches as she feels some Thing oozing up her arm. "Yeek!" *KABLAM!* Lucy fires her cannon and goes reeling backward into some stone edifice. She can see a hole exiting through the cave wall. Actually, it looks like a door of some sort...but there are no hinges. "Uh oh...a seal," says Lucy. There is no trace of the thing she thought she felt.
The stone seal, carved with thousands of Egyptian hieroglyphs, distintegrates as though made of ash. Behind it is VernichtungTräumer and the Doc. Lucy has a moment to look quizzically at them before she notices that behind her is a perfectly round sphere of void, ten feet across, floating above a pedestal.
VernichtungTräumer looks momentarily awed by the perfectness of the annihilation. It's deeper, more timeless, more endless, than he had ever imagined. But...what is that at the edges?
"No," VernichtungTräumer screams, "it's filled with eyes! It's--filled--with--eyes!" The sphere starts to dilate and shrink. Lucy dives into the other room, as the sphere pulsates faster. The sense of eyes watching overtakes everyone, and there's nothing that anyone can do but squirm in agony as they try to look everywhere at once. The pulsating seems to send ripples through realty as though it were water.
Dain climbs though the large hole in the broken wall, entering the deadly three way conflict. Realty ripples back around Dain, the fae within him fighting this ancient force for control of normal space around his person. "Annihilation isn't in your power dabbler." He calls to Vernichtung "The universe has more folds than you've ever seen, and the story is just beginning. Though I do foresee that your part in it may be cut short!" Dain coldly intones over the agonized cries of Vernichtung and his remaining scientists.
"Achilles! Are you going to let this fool spread his lie of annihilation." A pause "The first law of thermodynamics, what is it?!
Lucy feels the Eyes linger on her, looking for an opening into her mind. Her back arches with the sensation. "Oh no you don't," she shouts. "You don't want inside my brain, you Squiggly Thing. Go back to Eye Land, or whereever you're from--mmbah!" Lucy feels the eyes rush onto her in a furious attempt to break her, but Lucy was on guard. "Oh...Gosh. This feels...weird."
Up above, VernichtungTraumer looms over Rebecca, while Dain sweeps aside nazi thugs left and right, trying to reach the pair.
"First ... law ..." Rebecca mutters, the poison still coursing through her blood. "'course, it's still only a theory ... 'til it's tested ..."
Her eyes light with curiosity. "And there's only one way to test," she says, her quavering voice starting to gain strength. "Come on. Say it! Say my name!"
"Bah, you know that the presence of your fae companion corrupts the purity of purpose necessary for annihilation.* But never fear, he will block me for only so long..." and VernichtungTräumer reaches over and pulls down on a piece of statuary. The altar, along with several tons of stone around it, begins to descend, leaving Dain behind...
...meanwhile, Doc Achilles' words hang in the air. "Say my name!...Say my name!...Say my name!..." echoes in the void of annihilation and that piece of nothingness that was once Gerhard Schroeder has a vision of a long night on a train, his hair being yanked out of his head by an American with the soul of a tigress. Perhaps it is the feelings he still harbors for her, or perhaps it is merely the reality-altering effects of Dain McEwain's presence, but Gerhard manages to bring himself bodily into the world, as some sort of humanoid void! He opens what ought to be his mouth and Doc Achilles' voice comes out, "Say my name, you little Hun! Say it!" A dozen Nazis gape in bewilderment as the air in the pyramid starts rushing to fill the void. One of the Nazis looks quizzically at the void and asks, "Becky?"
The altar comes to a stop with a satisfying clunk and dust fills the air for a second. Lucy looks up and, for a second, she loses her concentration and sees some evil Nazi sorcerer-type hovering over Doc Achilles. Then the terrible, terrible eyes are back in her brain and she's back to her terrible struggle, not noticing as VernichtungTräumer incants, "Rebecca Achilles."
Sound pummels Doc Achilles' ears and she feels a strange sensation in her belly, but she still exists! VernichtungTräumer looks up to see the clear shaft to the area where Doc Achilles' fae creature still fights. He raises his hands and streams of crimson energy fly out from his sleeves, filling up the shaft and blocking the fae interference.
Doc Achilles begins to fade...
Dain flips one of the charging animated corpses dressed in an absurd lab coat. He regains his balance, but allows his arms to fall to his sides and his eyes close. The rippling edge of space that his fae nature holds sway over begins to spread. Centipedes and scorpions fall into red earth as they are engulfed. The chest of a corpse melts into a heron, the legs of the same body into a brown fish flapping in a puddle of pond water. The stone under Dain's feet doesn't sprout grass, but becomes grassy earth. The last animated corpse falls to the ground and spreads as a sheet of blue flowers. As the red shield is touched by the rippling wave, it spikes and moves like the raised fur on a cat's back, but doesn't break, only giving slightly. We see Dain smile and open his eyes. We hear his voice, but his mouth does not move. "Well Dabbler, you've kept the wolf out by locking yourself in the tiger cage." Vernichtung Träumer looks up at his shield as hears the voice as well. We look down at the red shield from Dain's side. It's vibrating with Dain's voice like the cone of a giant amplifier. "I can't help you any more Rebecca, but I know it is in your power to stop this. I'm going to be very displeased if you let him kill you." Not altering his level, possibly ironic, tone except at the end, where an uncharacteristic edge of warmth creeps in "Is that Lucy down there? I wondered where she'd gone. Well then, I'll leave things for you two to take care of." The rippling cat fur effect recedes from the shield and begins to collapse into Dain once more. As it washes away from the objects it changed, they revert to their former substance, but not form. The heron, now with the fish in its beak, falls into a heap of twisted flesh. The floor becomes stone again, though retaining its grass- bladed form. As the last of the rippling space falls into Dain he sways once, eyes closing, and falls flat to the ground, exhausted.
As Rebecca fades, she is already slapping together gizmos that she pulls from belt and boot and jacket. "Adjust for ... urgh ... transplanar flux? Okay, let's see what you're made of!"
VernichTraumer looks at the glowing, spinning whirligig in Achilles's hands and cries out "No! You fool! Your slavish love of science will be the end of us all!"
Upstairs, Nazi Wissenschaftlerkommando Heinrich Braun leaps into the shaft. Holding his specially enchanted swastika, he passes effortlessly through the mystical crimson energy.
Landing at the bottom on one knee, Heinrich looks up at the glowing, spinning whirligig that was Becky Achilles, his best friend from back in his university days, toiling as an exchange student in America. It was Becky that helped Heinrich admit to himself his true nature, his forbidden love for his fellow man. Although he had turned his back on that world to help the Reich, he still owed this woman a great debt--if nothing else, for the enchanted week he spent with--no, he must not think of such things.
Heinrich pulled out his Ätherrekalibrator and his retrofitted Luger with unholy bullets made from the bones of the Reich's victims and yelled, "I will save you, Becky!" Heinrich leapt into the void...
The explosion rocked the foundation of the pyramid. Dust and stones begin to fall all around as Lucy and the Annihilation Dreamer duck for cover. The squiggly thing made up of eyes even stops to witness the conflagration.
Inside the void, Heinrich chants to himself, "I am Rebecca Achilles, I am Rebecca Achilles, I am Rebecca Achilles..."
In the moment's respite from the Eyes as it's distracted, Lucy shouts, "Doc! What should we do? You always have the best plans. You can figure anything out--Aaaaaah!" Lucy crawls to the Doc and grabs her translucent hand, before passing out as the Eyes overwhelm her mind.
VernichtungTräumer turns a cold eye to Lucy. "You shall not interfere in this!" and with a broad gesture, he summons up swirls of black void and hurls them at Lucy. Everyone around can feel their soul being tugged in the direction of Lucy, as the Eyes get sucked into her!
Lucy gasps, and draws breath to scream. She waits to feel the horrific violation of her mind and soul, tensed for agony.
A few long seconds later, Dain manages to crawl to her. Lucy looks at him in surprise. "I'm ... I'm okay," she says tentatively.
"No," Dain says darkly. "You're not."
Lucy looks at him in further confusion. "But ... I expected to, y'know, black out. Or have it take over my limbs or ... something."
Dain nods. "You expected possession to be something inside of your skin but outside of your self." He sighs deeply. "It's nothing so ... detached. Whatever that was, now it is a natural part of you."
"But ... how do I know when something is me, and when it's ... It?" Lucy says, panic starting to rise in her eyes.
Dain looks away, pained.
Dain doesn't look at Lucy, but eventually answers her question. "There's just you Lucy... Whatever you become is who you are." Dain's words carry the weight of some speaking from experience.
Inside the void, Heinrich chants to himself, "I am Rebecca Achilles, I am Rebecca Achilles, I am Rebecca Achilles..." Heinrich's essence is all to little to deceive or abate the void that calls to Doctor Achilles. The poison from the scorpion's sting overcomes her, and she falls in a swoon. As she fades, small automatic systems in her jacket whirr to life, trying to protect her, then short-circuit, burning up in clouds of acrid smoke.
Heinrich makes one last attempt to save Rebecca, lunging at her coat and repeating his mantra of identity theft. Her jacket falls limp in his arms though, and he assumes that Doc Achilles is gone..."Oh Becky, I knew I could never repay you for what you did for me in Poughkeepsie..." A tear falls from his eye.
VernichtungTräumer looks quizzically at Heinrich before killing him with a gesture. His eyes seem to lose focus as he keeps one eye on the remnants of what was Doc Achilles, and the other on Lucy Cannon. "Welcome to this world, dark one, your host will provide you with ample opportunity for destruction. Well chosen." He then begins to ascend the shaft. Looking back, he says, "oh yes. The 'allies.'" And eerily luminous creatures of pure ectoplasm appear from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, flowing outward toward the allies with hunger and malice in their glutinous eyes!
Vernichtung Traumer raises his head, ectoplasm still draining, the pride of victory swelling in his chest. There is the "Crack!" of mystic energy and Vernichtung slowly turns to look at the fist-sized chunk of stone that has frozen an inch from his head, then to its thrower, Dain.
Dain slowly and shakily rises to his feet. "This is not over Traumer." Dain says, each word distinct and toneless. "Really Fae? Your powers are spent. What are you going to do with that weak man shell?" Vernichtung asks in a disappointed tone, as one of his ecto-creatures closes in on Dain. Dain does not answer, but drops to one knee and closes his eyes, freezing. In his mind he pries open the memory of the dream time, when form was a choice. "I remember being stone" he thinks. "I will be stone again." Dain ceases to breathe. The ecto-creature that was about to engulf Dain stops and looks around, as if it cannot see him anymore.
Vernichtung's mood darkens and a grim look comes to his face. "Enough Fae. You and your human shell will trouble the Reich no more!" He raises his hand and lashes a ray of crimson energy at Dain, straight through the ecto-creature. Dain doesn't move as the ray slices the creature in half, strikes his chest, and reflects back, knocking Traumer into the wall of the shaft. He slides down the wall and lands in a pile of debris at the bottom.
Dain slowly rises, removing from the inside of his shirt the enchanted swastika that the Wissenschaftlerkommando had so kindly dropped before dying. Dain walks over to look down at Traumer, lying in the rubble. "Not over by half, Dabbler."
Lucy's eyes refract into a million points of light as she looks at VernichtungTräumer. "The Otherside is infinite," she says emotionlessly. The points of light start to spin madly as Lucy seems to get closer to VernichtungTräumer without moving, as though space was simply flattened in front of her. She stops an inch away from VernichtungTräumer, and she stares into his eyes. "Do you see it? Do you SEE it?" VernichtungTräumer is confronted with the immensity of infinity in Lucy's spinning eyes of light. A torrent of vastness filled with an unspeakable presence drowns VernichtungTräumer. It's horrible. And it's everywhere. And it's forever.
Then her eyes are blue again, and she starts to blush. "So...did you see it?"
"See it? I am it." VernichtungTräumer opens his mouth and there is only emptiness inside--no tongue, no teeth, no uvula, just the ultimate void that awaits us all. "I have destroyed your pitiful 'Doc' Achilles, and were it not against the greater plan, I could destroy you as easily." VernichtungTräumer escalates his ascent and lands in the antechamber, where he annihilates the remaining Nazi scientists and their field guides, as well as all of the equipment except for one notebook, which he picks up and dusts off.
Lucy looks inside AnnihilationDreamer's void of a body blankly. "It's empty," she says. "Let me fill it." Lucy warps space so that she's next to the AnnihilationDreamer and her spinning eyes return. She grabs him by the shoulders and she says, "You can help me. There's too much! And it's inside. It's inside me. It IS me! You are the only thing that isn't...." Lucy parts AnnihilationDreamer's lips with her finger, and she starts to scream, but there's no sound. The scream is a scream of presence. Lucy's eyes start to slow, and the sparkles float into AnnihilationDreamer's mouth. The light disappears into the abyss inside AnnihilationDreamer's body. The lights dash in, and are extinguished. And then she can start to see something: flesh. A faint shadow of flesh appears in the void of his mouth.
Lucy looks over to the Doctor with a bit of surprise, as she starts to fade in quickly. "Oops. It's still...there," she says, falling to the ground. She hits the ground hard and starts to convulse in ways no human ever has. Her cannon arm explodes and crushes a collumn into dust. The room is filled with cracking rock, and sand starts to filter in above the broken remains of the column.
Cannon balls start to explode from Lucy's arm erratically, spraying rock everywhere and tossing everyone to the ground. A cannon ball smashes into the room with the void and the ceiling starts to crack as the cannon ball bounces around the enclosed space. The cannon ball rolls around the walls, and finally falls into the void with a sizzle. The void starts to wobble and waver as the magical conduits of the chambers surrounding it start to disintegrate.
"...I'm sick of fainting," Lucy says weakly. She looks around at the crumbling ceiling. "Did I do this? Sorry."
The Annihilation Dreamer stands amid the collapsing pyramid. "Such a drastic solution, but one I probably never would have done on my own." He summons forces that should never exist, forces that Einstein has proven cannot exist, and the cannonballs not only continue to ricochet about, knocking holes in walls, but are soon joined by skulls and balls of pure nothingness and void. "I bow my hat to you, Setesh, or Lucy, or whatever you wish to be called, I bow my hat and join you and these 'allies' in the void!" The very air starts to hum as VernichtungTräumer summons more and more of his vile energies into our world!
The pounding of cannon balls and explosions fills our ears, but dulls for an internal monologue. "A long time a go, I was just a man." The sound return to full volume and we see Dain's hand reach up over the lip of the shaft and start to pull the rest of him out. "No demon inside me, making me more than mortal." Dain has pulled himself out of the shaft and started to run toward the prostrate Lucy. "But I wasn't ever normal." Dain ducks and rolls, dodging a flying skull. As he comes out of the roll, already running, he grabs something out of a dead scientist's shirt pocket. "Right now I could almost be human again, but I'm still Dain" We hear, as from above we see he slides down next to Lucy and breaks the tops off the pens from the scientist. He throws the ink down in a circle around them and starts drawing symbols along the inside. As the circle takes form, cannons balls, skull, and voids start to avoid the column over, making small distortion effect where they do strike it and change direction slightly.
Vernichtung Traumer continues to build the barrrage about them.
Void rolls off Vernichtung Traumer like a thick smoke, punctuated by the violent crashing and flying stone debris. He looks down upon Lucy and Dain, his eyes become pits of nothingness. Void spheres begin tearing holes in the circle's protection.
Traumer raises his head and arms to the ceiling. The foundations of the pyramid seem to heave and sunder, the walls cracking and shaking. Utter darkness penetrates the room from those cracks.
A large portion of ceiling falls near the circle, spraying Dain and Lucy with dust and grit. Vernichtung lowers his head, revealing a look that expresses... nothing. Suddenly the voids begin to fall back into Traumer. From the cracks, the floor, ceiling, waves of dark, cold, nothing sweep back into him, still nothing written over his face. The flying spheres of void hit, and pool into him as well.
The last of the nothingness is swallowed up inside him. With what seems an immense effort he turns to look at Dain. "You were right Fae. This is not over. The Reich-" But his expressionless voice is cut off as his head jerks up and he is rolled inside out from both ends, and into a single point, and then nothing.
"Is he dead?" Lucy asks faintly. "I don't know," Dain says from the ground beside her where they both lie, too tired to get up. "Well, where's the Doc?" Dain lifts his head and looks around without getting up. All he can see is dust floating in the dim light. "I don't know," he says. "Do you know why that guy might be dead?" Lucy asks. Dain lets silence answer the question for him. "Okay then, here's one you should know, where'd you learn magic all of a sudden." "I didn't. I'm a mythologist. That circle was a common Persian house protection sigil. It only did anything because we're at the pyramids of Giza and vast amounts of energy had been expended directly on the fabric of reality," Dain replies. Lucy says "Oh."
The space where VernichtungTraumer vanished suddenly is pulled further inside out, an upright bubble where for a brief moment left is right and up is down. Then, rebounding it all but burps back into normal space again. Doc Achilles falls out of that inversion, and slides down a tilted column. Her skin looks sallow, and her face is covered with sweat, as the poison clearly still takes its toll on her.
In one hand she clutches the battered leather field journal VernichtungTraumer was holding right up to the moment of his own annihilation.
"Oh ... hey there Dain," Rebecca gasps. She looks around briefly at the wreckage. "Did we win?"
