CHAPTER 21 - BRAD AND DELPHIA

Second Age, Echo Realm

"I'm sorry Brad, it's just too much" Delphia Hoax sobbed, pressed against his pilot's uniform. "You're breaking up with me because I don't know how to tie my shoes? I got sandals for a reason" he asked in disbelief. A nostalgic ardor raced through him. "You were there when I got my degree in shoe tying from university. You should have known this was coming sooner or later. I've tried everything to keep us together, thinking our love could sort it out, but we just come from two different worlds" Hoax recited as she clutched onto his shirt, letting the guilt burn through her veins. He rubbed her back to calm her down, then made some space between himself and the girl he had known for the last three years since freshman year, even into basic training, "It's going to be okay, Delphia. I knew you had to tell me before". She wasn't perfect either. She spent too much time in the walrus club and never bought him any cashews, even when they came down from ropes in buckets from the passing hot air balloons when they had their friday picnics in the park. But sometimes cashew acid can bubble through you like hamburger milk. In a good sort of way, better than the woozy feeling you get around antique furniture. Smoothing out the wrinkles on his pilot's uniform, he raced back through the corridors without looking back, until a metallic door screeched open to let him pass through it's solemn barrier. Minutes later a para-half raider deployed from the empty docking bay of the mausoleum ship Healthy Reckoning. Alike the fighters of old, but with cilia sprouting from the body of the jet at intervals, it joined its peers, diving into the fray. Brad turned the bio-ignition as the ship flew past a group of alliance infantry, and the ship changed into a paramecium, gobbling up the hapless men. As soon as they were dissolved, he switched off the ignition, returning the ship to its previous state, then hunted down a Vecktan fighter, downing it with spell-blasters. In the distance, other ships had locked sights onto an executive frigate, but as he flew to join them, more Vecktan fighters intervened. A white gleam soared across his window as the line cannon fired at the defending mausoleums. The fighter barrel rolled to evade. "Peddle to the metal and get as close to that Line Cannon as possible" the radio beeped. Jets on the raider ignited, but with un-tied shoes, he wasn't able to press the accelerator hard enough. "Bastard. That's the real reason Delphia broke up with us. She knew all along" he realized. Brad smiled as he understood the truth, then bolted down, in lightning speed knotting the laces. As the daring pilot thrust forward to the target, the Line Cannon ignited, downing the frigate, and the raider rushed past at full speed.

Farther away, the Scilysts gathered. To the right and left of Glitter Cat stood Teddy and Crytania and Decker and Jack Bronze and Father Lemon Slug. Melina and Linden went to face Glitter Cat, but as Echo ran to join them she was blocked by Crytania and Decker. As Glitter Cat attacked, she was repelled by a tide of exothermic energy released as Melina and Linden became atoms of hydrogen that fused into a helium atom. A portion of the fleet set their sights on the feline, who summoned zip lock bags that grew in size and opened their mouths like giant beasts and sealed away the ships and infantry that dared attack it. Returning to form, the Couple found their adversary breathing glitter fire balls at them and scratching with its claws, sending arcs of energy their way. Linden wrangled with the beast until falling back again after a painful scratch. Melina brought out a bottle of golden nail polish and threw it down, breaking it apart and shattering the glass. From the golden liquid rose jellyfish that swam towards the feline and burst into cheerful stinging gilded explosions. "Watch out!" shouted Echo as the animal made its way back to them and refromed into a refrigerator. The appliance opened its door, and instead of an icy refreshing draft came an infernal flame expelling continuously outwards. Seeing it headed their way, Linden summoned a portion of dough and a rolling pin and rolled his counterpart into the substance as the flame consumed them. He was thrown back, and as it dissipated Melina broke free from a burnt cookie as it crumbled. "Thanks for that!" she called, knowing how the act had saved her from the attack. Linden was not done. He saw the feline return to form and brought out a birthday cake, blowing the multicolored flame of its candles casting a cloud of smoke towards the animal which he wove into a dragon that breathed a current of cake flame. As that occurred an alliance ship set its sights on Linden and fired a powerful missile which detonated in his vicinity, but he took the explosion and put it in a box and wrapped it up with a bow and regifted it back to the ship which was destroyed. Twisting like a supersonic drill the glitter cat attacked Melina. Seeing this, Etheria, first removing a ship from her path by ticking it with the omega-feather, then proceeded to research through the historical archive of dreams until finding those of operations in which surgeons are surrounding a patient doing intricate work within a cavity. Drawing those dream-images of the surgeons into the surgical cavity like that of dust into a vacuum cleaner, summoned the patient's bed, and from his chest came a beam of energy of the converted, pure dissolved dream selves of the surgeons that impacted the glitter cat and gave Melina breathing room to escape from its clutches. Obsidian arrived and distracted her away from that battle. Sailing near them, the beast became a pirate ship of feisty felines that loaded its cannons with disco balls and fired onto them. Linden beckoned a drying machine and opened its door, took out the lint trap and removed the sheet of lint, rolling it into a ball and translating it into a sphere of energy which he threw at the ship, breaking it apart, cracking its hull. The disco balls were now scattered about, and from the body of the glitter cat came flies which landed on them, and they began to rot away, altering the multicolored light that they shed. During the distraction, glitter cat turned itself into a disco ball and had one of the feline pirate's fire it through a cannon at Linden. This time, Melina defended him from the attack by sending back the blast with a tennis racket. At this, the creature roared with ferocious anger, and summoned the scattered glitter cats from across the battlefield to return to it, until it grew ten times in size. Both of the Scilysts took out containers of dental floss. Their tops opened, the white strings shot straight out, then wove into enormous geometric cubes, and as phenomenological energy coursed through them the lines became light. Glitter Cat was wounded and reduced to size as the dental floss cubes pummeled her. Scratching open a portal in space with its claws, the feline dragged Melina into it. Linden followed, and found that they were in a mountainous, snowy landscape like that of the alps. "This is the room of the meridian gateway in the white citadel where I became what I am, and where you two will meet your end" she assured them. Flurries of snow fell down from the overcast sky. It began to rain thermometers. They also appeared from all around, from the surrounding snow of the mountains, some even wiggling like worms through the air and ground towards them, and as they did ice began to collect on their surfaces and grow. Combining together into a spinning tornado, the snow and ice and thermometers dragged the couple towards it. "Say whatever you want, you will not escape from absolute zero!" the animal yelped. Linden held back Melina, and watched as the vortex lifted off the ground, becoming and became a well in reality, a thermodynamic black hole. Soon they were surrounded by thermometer worms that entangled them and began to encase them in ice as they fell towards the precipice. Linden broke free from its hold and called into being a disembodied elevator that they both escaped into and ascended out of the dimension of the meridian gateway back into space. Glitter Cat followed, purring at them ominously. Linden revealed a lab microscope and wrapped it around himself until it was mechanical armor. When he was near enough to the enemy the lenses rotated down over his eyes like reading glasses and from them, he discharged a beam of scientific light that scarred her. Enraged, she slapped him with her tail, shattering the microscope suit. Melina created a house and broke off its chimney, tuned it upside down and placed it on her back. The chimney blew out its smoke and propelled her like a jetpack toward the glitter cat, who she punched across the maw. She was hit with more glitter fire balls and fell back. Linden grew younger into that of a boy and took a stick and a hoop and began hoop rolling, until the hoop became a galaxy, and sent it to the glitter cat. "Bullseye!" he shouted, returning to age as the gear sliced through. But the feline soon regenerated and reformed. A square of grass lawn appeared that the cat landed on. Sprinklers appeared on the lawn, and she purred at them, sending them out into space. They continued to grow in size as they rotated around, sending out sprays of water. As they approached the couple, the sprays became like powerful laser beams. The couple became books that flapped their wings like birds, transitioning between both forms as they evaded the sprays. Pursuing them, the sprinklers crossed paths and mutually destroyed themselves. With a mirror sword Alexa chopped through the constellation snakes that Obsidian attacked with and sent her away with a telekinetic push. The cat summoned a herd of giraffes on another grass platform and scratched a wound in space, until blood seeped out over them, painting their bodies and performed a spell, crystalizing them and turning them into candy canes. After they were fully candied, she changed shape yet again into that of a hammer, casting off the glitter, and smashed the candy canes until they were nothing but shards. Then the cat returned to its shape and sent the razor-sharp shards towards the couple like a volley of arrows but were thwarted as Melina erected a shield barrier. Feeling drained, Linden opened a door to a dimension with a nursery and they both raced down the aisles, taking the potted plants and smashing them against the ground, then eating the shards of the flower pots for their healing properties. Returning, Melina made appear above them an assortment of three-hole punches that opened up as if to clean out their insides, and the confetti of the little circles of paper fell down onto them, like rice thrown at a wedding, and when glitter cat looked again, the couple had become clothed like that of masked carnival goers. "My darling, this has gone on long enough. There is only one way to train an unruly pet such as this" she said. "Are you really thinking of that? We would be spending a great deal of power" Linden replied. "Yes, it's time, but I can't do it without you" she answered knowingly. Linden nodded in agreement as both drew from a vast well of magic, and holding their hands out created a beautiful sphere shimmering like glass. "Incredible!" Echo gasped, seeing that the Couple intended to finish off the glitter cat with a seed of a sphere of time. Seeing that Echo broke away briefly. "Antique Tempest!" she cried and summoned a series of wall mirrors, and the image on their surface was that of a storm cloud dispelling lighting that hit the glass, channeled through it and became mirror lighting that hit both Crytania and Decker, stunning them. With the connection of the electricity certain dreams from the Scilysts entered Echo like memories. "Eat that!" Alexa cried from afar as she watched the sphere, following its trajectory. The glitter cat bared its fangs and opened its mouth wide, devouring the glass. Time seemed to stand still as everyone watched, battlefield voyeurs. An eruption swept across space as the animal disintegrated. Hogarth and Slobber Dan were ejected from the chaos, drifting unconscious. Slowly the cloud dissipated, and the Couple began to sigh in relief. "I think it exploded trying to bite off more than it could chew" Melina said. Linden laughed heartily at the witticism. Then, a sense of dread overcame him, and his laughter slowly died down. With a trained eye he peered through the jamboree until seeing a robed figure sitting on a single piece of glitter. Taking Melina's hand, he went to the place where the monk rested and felt the magic of the seed within that figure.

"Who are you?" Linden demanded. Standing up on the piece of color, the gift-bearer cast off its cloak and removed the mask. Echo arrived and stood between her parents. "Be honest, did any of you even mourn me?" Nomi asked, casting aside the mask. Around the irises of her eyes were little flecks of glitter. A silence ensued as both Nomi and her adversaries looked to the horizon and saw a sheet with dots of light stripped away, and in its place a white, empty background. Then, due south of that northern gulf another hollowness appeared. Small negativities appeared to the west and east, and others above and below but far out of sight. "The ascension is here" Linden reported throughout the fiefdom. Echo felt a chill set into her bones, the ceaseless approach of some unpleasant finality. Nomi looked directly at Echo, "We haven't been formally introduced, have we? I'm you. At least that's what I've been told". "It doesn't have to be like this. There's no time" she answered, aiming her gestures at the evaporating architecture of the world. "That's what makes this so exciting. Playing with other people's fates. Not caring what may be the end result. Happy up in our high castles, blissful, like children being read a story" Nomi replied, jilting her objections. "Visioness?" Echo whispered to that aspect inside. "She may have my body, used as a scaffold to materialize her, but my spirit is in you" Visioness assured her. The adversary offered them a memory, and they saw through her eyes. A lonesome alleyway with a mound of books stacked high. She poured gasoline over them and lit a match, igniting the kindling. Then, out of her cloak she produced the book that had once been her home. Its cover was smooth and inviting, she kissed it in its center and released it onto the mound. The book burned until it was a prune of ash. "The world is being stripped away, just as the meaning of my life was when I was severed from my home. When my father fell ill, and lost his sight, I spent the remainder of my days caring for him, bringing him with me on a long journey. And at the end of that journey there was a cure. He could see again, and I had saved him from the oblivion of his own mind. Maybe a few years passed, and we were happy", and tears began to slide down her cheeks. Melina felt the bitterness of her avatar, but cast off the inference, "All I hear is someone who does not want to mature. Every time things change in life we are disappointed, but we learn how much larger and complicated the subject is". "How can you hate your own father so much? The past was stolen away. Do you even know you are a thief? Like a good one, you are so delightfully apathetic. But now I can do whatever comes to mind. That's what magic is for!" laughed the monk ardently. Echo began to speak but was cut off by her father, "No, empress. Judgment is what matters here. She is a war criminal that gave the decapitation star to Hogarth. There is no going back from that. She has to die here and now". "I completely agree" Melina seconded. "Nomi, even by burning that book, you couldn't destroy the meaning in it" Echo assured, holding her hands out to steady the anger welling up in her counterpart. Her face dry again, Nomi breathed, letting the inhalation and exhalation energy follow its course, "Who cares if life has meaning or is meaningless. I am so magnetic now. Look how reality finds me irresistible. The world can watch as I instill you with my beautiful vengeance!". Upon realizing that underneath her layers was a band t-shirt, echo felt uncomfortable. Three against one, the match began. A whirlwind of countless attacks back and forth. The filthy ink of betrayal welled up inside echo, but she drank it down. Her lighting attacks were doing little, so she cast a halo beam from the cave iris. Nomi summoned the word "LOGIC" and took the "I" in her hand, turning it into a sword and sliced through the beam. But it had given echo enough time to trans-manifest near her. Nomi became limp as a fist smashed against her right cheek. The patron turned to see contact lenses decorated with flecks of glitter tumble through the ether. Then her jaw fell, and both Linden and Melina stopped in their tracks as Nomi lifted her head. "My real father was used in experiments. He was a test subject for a scientist who replaced his eyes with kaleidoscopes. So, when I arrived in the Moment, I knew I had to became a scientist, and replace my own eyes, to see things in their true light" she explained. Echo shuddered, seeing the lenses of the kaleidoscopes where eyes should be. Then with both hands Nomi pulled the tubes from her eye sockets and held them as blood trickled down from the empty hollows. Like an infection, the cybernetic mechanical substance of the kaleidoscope spread across her body. Nomi looked at her skin, from the viewpoint of an ibis flying over the Nile delta, a wonderous tattoo. Switches rested on the surface of each tube like a flashlight. As she pressed them, they ignited as twin sabers, blades of pure kaleidoscope light. "This life has no center. It's like a doughnut rolling on a conveyer belt, just waiting for the glaze to cover it to hide it's shame. Maybe an inspector will pick it up to see if it has a blemish, but then look through it as they wonder how their life became like this" she monologued. "That is blasphemy to the many hard-working doughnut inspectors!" Linden shouted. Seeing it drifting, Echo grabbed the Logic sword. Drawing lines between points, Linden and Melina crafted constellation swords and shields. In immense fury Nomi fenced the three of them with her sabers. By directing them jointly she could project intolerable beams of kaleidoscope light and by swiping them cast wide arcs. "It's too strong!" Echo shouted as the logic sword shattered under the weight of the saber. "Daughter, take this shield" Melina said, tossing it to her as a ray nearly arrived at its mark. After the heat had fizzled away, echo let the shield expand, and the points became grain-stars, then disrobed themselves of light. Then a volley of the spikey pollen grains menaced Nomi, but she managed to slice through all of them that got too close. Reverting back to mirror swords that could be recreated at will, she trans-manifested close, and had her arm severed by a snap of the saber. A predatory grin disclosed itself across her face but was soon turned to surprise as a cloud lumbering through space creeped up behind her, enfolding her in its wooly bumps. Becoming an oval, the white cloud hardened into an egg, then, of its own accord cracked a portion of its shell, firing out the white albumen and yellow yolk with its captive within. The substance jettisoned down onto a logic forest platform, and then began to cook and bubble as if on a frying pan. Nomi screamed in anguish. The cloud returned to form, and Zenith looked down on the hapless creature. Linden descended, extending the blade of his constellation sword by lengthening the lines between the points. "Did you find what you were looking for" Echo asked, turning to Zenith. Nomi crossed her sabers just in time but was sent through the body of the platform along with Linden, fragmenting it. Only a crater-maker managed to escape. "I did, empress. Have you managed to lose your arm so soon? Let me mold you a new one", and he took the purple and blue substance of his albumen and yolk, attaching it to the stump, and it regenerated as new as soon as the veins of mirror blood wove through it. The Couple continued to hound the gift-bearer, and echo turned, seeing that the arcs that had not hit their mark continued towards the SOTA corona, damaging it. Uffhill, who was nearby reacted and performed a spell to call forth giant band-aids, laying them against the corona to seal the wounds. Nomi switched into a horseshoe magnet to absorb a barrage of mirror lighting, then turned around and released it at the Couple, who were thrown back. Seeing an opening, the monk joined the sabers, lifted then high and let them fall, sending a titanic arc their way. "Too obvious" echo called, dragging them to safety. Unabated, the arc continued onwards into the depths of the solar system. When she saw Onsuru join them, she spoke to the Couple, and they crafted another constellation shield, which echo gave to her, and touched her shoulder, trans-manifesting her into a mausoleum ship. "Saturn is in the way of that arc. Make sure that doesn't happen" she said to her and whispered to the engine. The mirror light drive in the core of the ship roared like the first thunderous omen of a coming storm and raced the arc as it sprinted. Arriving a minute before it, Onsuru disembarked and stood with the shield ready, hardening it with a layer of leaves. If not stopped, the arc would cut a slice perpendicular to the rings of Saturn. Onsuru felt her breathe become cold as it approached. Struggling against the shield, the arc bent across the curve of Saturn and dissipated. At its point of contact the shield broke and the energy sliced a line through the patron, dividing her, but fizzled before it reached the atmosphere. Yet again the fiefdom was then short another of the five as she entered the light of the echo seal. Oasis-Two felt the demise of the child of the grassland and knew that she remained now as the last fragment of that existence. Then Linden and Melina were at either side of Nomi at a distance. Each of them took a teacup of coffee and grew it in size. The half-spheres, the domes of coffee separated from the tea-cup. Nomi looked and saw that to either side the giant domes had hardened and were approaching to crush and seal heal within. Close now, the surfaces of the halves sparked with coffee lightning that reached out to the other and drew them tightly together. A minute passed in silence, as they glanced at the sphere for motion within. Then, waves of burning coffee pounded against the Couple, eating away their masquerade costumes. As her neck reattached from a nova of the decapitation star, Nomi took handfuls of glitter and scattered them against her face to regenerate it. Echo saw that her mother was recovering as the monk made a move towards her. "Pelfe, come out for a minute!" she whispered, and the woman soared over to above where Melina was faster than her host could manage, and summoned two harps. The strings of the instruments slithered down, touching the limp figure, and as soon as they did she switched, becoming a featureless wooden puppet that fought against Nomi, striking her in the chest and sending her backwards. Melina recovered and returned to form, and Pelfe did not even turn her head backwards as she melted into the chest of her host once more. Nomi called into being a door beside her. From the other side came a knocking, and she opened it, letting in a pizza delivery-man. "Here's your pizza, mam" he began, then froze to death in the vacuum of space, as he crossed the threshold, revolving away, stiff as a board into the placid night. She took the pizza box and opened it, then took a pizza cutter with a sharp metal disk, and sliced pieces. Linden saw her take a bite of a slice, then look up at him with a devilish smirk. Holding the pizza cutter, she bent her arm, and the metal disk detached, spinning towards him. Then it began to grow in size, and took on color, and became a revolving saw-blade of a galaxy filled with luminous stars. Linden's constellation sword glowed bright as he thrust downward, cutting the discus. In the confusion Dimeve rushed to attack Nomi. When his vision cleared, he saw the two together, and the kaleidoscope sabers piercing through him. His body crumbled into god-cells that decomposed into sound. Echo saw his wristwatch turn into a hearing aid and heard the sound enter it. "Visioness!" she whispered. The woman left the host and retrieved the hearing aid and returned. Nomi made another tear in space above her head with the saber and drew out a section of land torn away from its parent city of a younger time. Above the surface lay a cemetery with weathered stone memorials and statues. Out of the back of her cybernetic body came cables and plugs and wires that protracted and burrowed into the dirt below the landmass. The cables seethed with energy as it was sucked dry from the cemetery and fed into the body of the monk. As this happened the infection of the cybernetic substance that was like a tattoo spread throughout, sculpting her into a kaleidoscope robot. Their task complete, the cables slithered into her back, then a shoulder mounted missile fired, easily dispatching the loose ground. Echo turned away to see contingents of black robed alliance spell infantry land on the hulls of several mausoleum ships. Looking closer, she could see each of them wore around their neck's necklaces of diamonds, and when they had set foot on the metal exterior touched the necklaces, making the crystals glow black. Each of them grew into massive ants which like a colony picked apart the ships like they were a fresh carcass. "Jack Bronze must have restored the Wailtu with the help of Teledock's power" she thought aloud. "Distracted, are we? You should all be watching this splendid creature. Although those ants are dining very fast. That does look delicious" Nomi taunted. A swarm of tea cups with boiling coffee sent by the couple chased down the rival, and when they were near a brown bear would surface from the churning liquid at the waist and swipe at her with its claw. Then out of the coffee cups would come hidden chainsaws, their blades hot and fiery with the boiling of the liquid. But she evaded those until a brown bear shot out of its mouth a chainsaw that stuck itself into her side. Nomi tore it out and healed herself. Melina came to the right, but she was ready and combined the saber blades into a hammer and smashed her away. Just as that happened Idea tackled the monk from the back, and they both tumbled. Sparring, the patron was subdued by repeated blows of her metal fists. With both hands she summoned an inferno of glitter flame and condensed it until it shrunk exponentially. Idea looked and saw that in her right hand the cyborg held a glowing atom of glitter. Around him the chains of ascension, obeying her commands restrained him. Nomi rushed to him with the orb in her fist and instantaneously the chains shattered as the atom ignited against his chest. As Echo flew to them, she looked and saw the weakened patron, stabbed through with a saber blade. Linden went to the drifting form of Slobber Dan and roused him, then whispered into his ear. His body was bleeding out, and to save his life, there was only one way. Then the Subject and the Reflectant joined together, and the failed body of Idea faded away and Linden looked at who he was holding in his arms. It was Narland Stallonbash, and above his head hovered a light bulb. Before losing consciousness again he saw his daughter Falzar put a ravaged mausoleum ship, covered with Wailtu ants out of its misery with an idea-star, then turn to face Keshtarga. Linen went to his wife and looked at Melina, and as he did his corporeal form faded away, leaving only a red heart. Melina took the heart and it became a stone in her hand. "Emzeser, give me a lake!" she called, and the patron let loose waterfalls that tumbled upwards forming into a pool. At the other shore was Nomi, so she aimed and tossed the stone with a flick of her wrist and skipped it across to the other side. As it collided, Nomi's metallic form was shattered and she returned to her previous state.