And this is the part where the story becomes dark and
disturbing.  (I warned you.)
	I hope I'm not going too fast for anyone.  If you missed a
chapter, please e-mail me.  I'm also really interested to hear what
people think of these last two chapters, even in general terms, so let
me know.

Django Wexler (khaine)
khaine@mindless.com

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be
explained by stupidity. 


Chapter Ten

    This time the demon appeared at noon.

    It was Sunday, and the school was therefore mostly unoccupied.
There were a few teachers, finishing up their grading or working with
particularly troubled students; a few clubs and other student
organizations; the after-school program.  No one noticed when the
ultimate weapon appeared on the roof, with barely a crackle to mark her
arrival.

    There was a moment of silence, as though the world were holding its
breath.

    Then a bolt of crimson power punched down into the venerable
brickwork like the hammer of God, blowing through three floors and
digging through subbasements until it hit bedrock.  It was accompanied
by a noise so loud and deep it was barely sound -- the wave of force
tossed the cars in the parking lot as though they were toys and
shattered the windows of the houses across the street.  Bits of molten
rock and metal splattered outwards, like spitting fat, and covered the
surrounded roads in little puddles of flame and melting asphalt.

    The demon hovered, untouched, in the center of the hell she had
unleashed.  A tiny bell rang, inaudible over the destruction.

 

    Mary screamed, and fell to her knees.

    It was as though someone had snuck up on her from behind, set the
point of an iron spike against the back of her skull, and smashed it in
with a sledgehammer.  The world blurred into unrecognizablity, and it
was all she could do not to lash out with her power, instinctively, and
shred everything within a hundred yards.  The pain spiked again, and she
toppled from her knees onto her side.  Her heart pounded a fast,
irregular beat, and her breath caught in her throat.

    She never actually lost consciousness, but for a time the pain
obliterated all other considerations.  It subsided horribly slowly, but
it did subside, and she became aware of someone shouting her name.

    "Maer!  Are you okay?  Maer?  Say something!"

    [Aku.]  Mary opened her eyes and found herself lying flat on the
sidewalk, face-down.  She rolled a little bit and spat a mouthful of
grit.  The little demon sighed with relief.

    "Jesus, Maer.  You okay?"

    "No."  Mary completed the turn, and ended up on her back.  "I'm
dying."

    "You...you're not serious, right?  C'mon.  Seriously.  Are you--"

    "It's a demon."  Mary stared up into the evening sky, stained a
brilliant red by the sunset, and tried to figure out what was odd about
it.  "A big one.  I've never felt anything like it."

    "I figured that, but...god damn..."

    "I have to get up."  She closed her eyes again.  "I have to go kill
it."

    "Are you crazy?  You're not going anywhere near that thing!"

    "I have to."

    "You're going to get yourself killed!"

    "If I don't, someone else is going to die."  She opened her eyes
again, having realized the problem.  [It's not sunset.  It's *noon*.]
Mary raised her head, painfully, and saw the vermillion tower of pure
energy that reached to the heavens.  Her mouth opened, soundlessly, and
for a moment she could only stare.

    "You are *not* going in there."

    Mary struggled into a sitting position, and Aku hovered in front of
her.  The street was deserted apart from the two of them -- everyone
else was, quite sensibly, running for their lives. 

    "You're not going, right?  We're going to run for it."

    She turned around and got to her feet, wobbling only a little.  The
pain was still there, flooding outward from the point where the demon
had rent the Barrier asunder, but it was bearable.  [For some
definitions of bearable.]  Mary grimaced.

    "Right?"

    "That tower is coming from the school."  Mary took a long breath.

    "Oh, *shit*."

    "Yeah.  Come on."

    "Shouldn't we go get Sumiko, at least?"

    "I think she'll find her way here, Aku."

 

    Rin stopped the car and stuck her head out the window to watch,
unable to think of a sufficiently vile obscenity.  The sky had turned
the color of blood, and the dust and smoke were ballooning outwards in a
spectacular mushroom cloud.

    Overhead, a pair of police helicopters thumped their way towards the
scene.  She admired their bravery -- for all they knew, a nuclear weapon
had just gone off -- and she couldn't help but wince when a line of
brilliant energy swept across and blotted both of them from the sky in
horrible red-on-black explosions.  She fell back into her seat,
speechless, and finally turned to Deus.

    "Agent Deus, don't you think--"

    Rin stopped.  Deus was gone.

    "Agent Deus?"

    A familiar figure in black jumped over the car, moving so fast she
blurred and making a beeline for the school grounds.  Rin hesitated only
a moment before gunning the motor and going after her.  [Fuck this.  I
can't just watch, this time.]

    

    Lia pushed her way through the hysterical crowd, fighting the tide.

    [Mary.]  The horrible, glowering sky barely gave her pause.  [I have
to get to Mary.  I have to find her.]

    A fat woman, holding two children by their shirt collars, shouted
something at her.  It was incomprehensible over the roar.

    [She'll be okay.  She said she'd always be okay.]  Lia turned
sideways and slipped through any gap she could find.  A teenaged boy
brushed past and accidentally elbowed her in the stomach, and she sank
against the wall of a storefront, suddenly breathless.  [She'll be...she
said...]

    The crowd ended, suddenly, and she was in the clear.  The street
ahead of her was empty except for abandoned cars and shopping bags, and
a few newspapers, blowing in the wind.  Lia paused a moment to get her
wind back, then started to sprint.

    [I have to find Mary.]

 

    Mary jumped down from the last row of houses, across from the
school, and raised her disguise instinctively.  Billowing clouds of dust
had enveloped the school ground, and something still burned within,
throwing waves of heat across the road.  She walked into the cloud
slowly, a white-hot spear of solid air in each hand, gripped so tightly
her hands were shaking.

    [The demon has to be around here somewhere.  My best chance is to
get the drop on it.  In this dust, if I hit it before it knows I'm
there, it'll go down no matter how tough it is.]  She did her best to
forget that the last part of that thought was just wishful thinking.

    Distance felt oddly distorted, as though she'd walked for hours.
Vague shapes moved inside the dust, and the air was filled with shrieks,
moans, and plaintive cries.  Mary kept walking, aiming for the
barely-visible glow of the fires.  She practically stumbled over a
little girl, who must have been all of four years old, wandering away
from the fire in a daze.  Mary checked to make sure she wasn't hurt,
gave her a quick pat on the head, and pushed her away from the school.
The girl kept walking, and Mary tried not to think about she meant.
[There are others.  Dear God.]

    "The kids..."  A voice echoed softly around what had been the
school's main quad.  Mary hurried over.  "We...have to..."

    "What kids?"  

    A figure, slumped against the wall of an undamaged building, looked
up at Mary's approach.  "The kids.  Did...did they get out?"

    "I saw one of them.  What happened?  Did you--"  Mary took a step
closer and froze in her tracks.  The woman was wearing what was left of
a green dress, and half of her face was just *gone*; white bone peeked
out from under the char.  She waved one arm vaguely, desperately.

    "Did they...get out..."

    Valiantly, Mary tried not to vomit.  She turned away and marched
desperately into the dust.  [The police and the ambulances are on the
way.]  She could hear the sirens, in the distance.  [I don't know
anything about helping injured people.  And if the demon's still here,
no one has a chance.  I have to kill it.]

    Another figure loomed in the cloud, this one sitting on a chunk of
fallen masonry.  Mary approached cautiously until it resolved itself
into a girl, Lia's age or a little younger.  She had short hair and was
clutching her bag in her lap, hugging it like a life preserver.

    "Hey."  She didn't look injured, but Mary asked anyway.  "Are you
okay?"

    The girl whispered something that Mary didn't catch, so she took a
step closer.  "Are you okay?"

    "Again..."  Her voice was still almost inaudible.

    "What?"

    The girl looked up.  She was really quite pretty, Mary noted
absently -- she wore an odd half-smile and had a clip in her hair on
either side.  Her clothes were odd, though.  [Almost like...]

    "I destroyed another city today."

    [Oh, shi--]

    The girl started to glow, all over, and there was a sudden crackle
and flash of lightning.

 

    Kei stumbled to a halt against a parked car, and Sumiko landed from
her headlong flight and looked back at her.

    "Are you okay?"

    "I..."  Kei leaned heavily on the metal.  "I don't know.  I feel..."

    "Stay here, if you need to.  I have to go find--"

    "No."  The demon straightened up.  "I'm coming."

    [If Mary goes back to the Outer Realms, I won't let her leave me
behind.]

    Sumiko nodded.  "Let's move, then."

 

    Lia hesitated on the edge of the cloud of dust.  The school was in
there somewhere, and it was the quickest route home, but--

    [I'll have to go around.]

    "Lia Rivers?"

    Keyed up as she was, she spun around so fast she almost fell over.
Behind her was a tall, blocky man in a neatly tailored black suit and
sunglasses, the villain from a thousand UFO movies.  Lia nodded
uncertainly.

    "W...who are you?"

    He pulled a badge from his pocket and waved it in front of her face
at eye-blurring speed.  "Agent Deus, BSC."     

    "What's going on here?"    

    "Your sister needs your help."

    "Mary?"  Lia's eyes went wide.  "Why?  Is she okay?"

    "She's fine for the moment.  I don't have time to explain."  He
pointed, further into the dust cloud.  "Go.  She'll explain."

    "But--"

    "It's safe, for now.  Go!"

    Lia nodded quickly and started to run.  Deus stared after her, the
corners of his mouth turning ever so slightly upwards.

    

    "Not bad."

    Mary climbed slowly to her feet.  The air around her was hot enough
to redden her skin and smelt burned, heavy with the ionic tang of
vaporized metal.  Under her shield of vapor, though, she was untouched.
The girl -- the demon -- looked nonplussed.

    "Not bad at all."  She leaned against the wall with exaggerated
fatigue.  "So you're here to fight me?"

    The demon nodded.  "Yes."

    Mary stared the thing down while energy concentrated, bit by bit, in
front of her hands.  "Why?"

    "Because I'm a weapon."

    [At least it's honest.]  Mary pretended to consider that point, then
brought both her hands around from behind her back and hurled twin
spears of liquid fire.  She finished the motion with a roll, to avoid
the inevitable counter-attack, and this turned out to be a good idea.

    The demon didn't dodge.  It simply held up a hand, and the energy
splattered as though it had hit a solid wall.  Mary stared,
incredulously, a moment too long -- she had to jump hastily aside as a
blue-white beam from somewhere overhead slashed down and burned a
semi-circular track across the point where she'd been standing.

    [O...kay.]  Her mind worked furiously.  [It's got some kind of
shield, but there has to be a hole.  Maybe if I can take it by
surprise...]  She jumped again as the beam stabbed towards her, landing
on the roof of the school equipment shed.  [I need a distraction.]

    "You shouldn't fight," said the demon.  "It's only making things
worse."

    "Right."  Mary timed her next jump carefully, taking off from the
top of the little building just before the blue-white laser smashed it
to kindling.  Her trajectory took her right over the demon's head, and a
thousand needles of ice slashed down at a gesture.  The demon didn't
even blink, and the needles shattered, but Mary landed right at its feet
and knocked the thing's legs out from under it with a sweep.  As the
girl fell, she gathered energy -- they ended up face-to-face on the
ground, and Mary blasted the thing in the face with her accumulated
power.  Her vision flashed white for a moment, and her hair sizzled in
the backlash.

    [It didn't work.]  She realized it just in time, throwing up a
shield as fast as she could.  The explosion picked her off the ground
and tossed her in a long, flat trajectory destined to end as a painful
impact against a stone wall.  Mary curled into a ball and was braced for
impact when a yellow-and-white blur came out of nowhere and fielded her
with a catch that would have done credit to a wider receiver.  Two girls
landed on the ground, coughing.

    "You okay?"  Sumiko sounded anxious; Mary waved reassuringly while
she tried to regain control of her lungs.

    "I'm -- I'm fine."  Regaining her feet was a bit of a struggle.
Even through the shield, the blast had been impressive.  "Thanks."

    "No problem."  Sumiko peered towards the center of the dust cloud.
"What are we fighting?"

    "A demon."

    "I figured that.  What does it look like?"

    "Some little girl.  It's got power to burn -- shrugged off the best
I could do like it wasn't even there."

    "So how do we hurt it?"

    "My guess is that its shield requires conscious control.  Maybe if
we hit it from two directions at once, we can sneak something through."

    "Sounds good."  Sumiko crackled her knuckles, and the thin field of
energy that surrounded her body shimmered.  "I'll see if I can get its
attention, and you waste it."

    "Right."  Mary stopped.  "Did you bring Kei?"

    "She's around here somewhere.  Whatever she had is getting worse,
though.  She probably won't be a lot of help."

    "Okay."  Mary let out a deep breath.  "Let's do it."

 

    The demon was glowing with a pale white radiance that shone softly
through the billowing dust and smoke.  It had dropped the little
handbag, and that back of its school uniform had been reduced to shreds
by a pair of oddly fractal, crystalline wings with which it hovered a
few feet off the ground.  Mary peeked around the corner of the main
school building, which was still mostly standing, and looked up to where
Sumiko had perched on the third floor.

    [Here goes nothing.]

    A dozen razorcurrents darted forward, slamming into the seemingly
impenetrable barrier around the demon with a series of pops like the
explosion of a string of firecrackers.  This was distraction -- most of
Mary's effort went into lifting a chunk of debris, a boulder the size of
a washing machine, and lofting it gently across the quad.

    The demon, as expected, didn't fail to see that coming.  Mary was
running before the girl even raised her hand, sending a swarm of tiny
white lights to obliterate the corner she'd been hiding behind; at the
same time, the chunk of metal and concrete blew apart in an expanding
ring of dust.  The brickwork of the building shivered dangerously, but
Sumiko had already jumped into the air.

    Mary stopped, shielded, and braced as a wave of energy hit her --
she managed to keep her feet this time, but not by much.  She was
already breathing hard, and the effort of turning the staggering energy
the demon was throwing around was not helping.  

    The beam cut off as Sumiko landed, clubbing the girl heavily on the
back of the neck and driving her to her knees.  Before the demon could
react she twisted lithely and kicked it squarely on the chin, hard
enough to throw the thing into the air.  Mary tried to ignore the
pounding in her head and pull together enough energy for a
follow-through, and Sumiko jumped again, poised to stomp on the demon
when it landed.

    It didn't.  Fractal wings of pure light snapped outwards so fast
they blurred, and the girl hung suspended for a bare instant of either
of their heads.  Her entire body glowed with a soft, white light, and
the eyes she focused on her two opponents were disapproving.  Mary
[felt] the power gathering, slithering over her skin, and she braced for
a counterattack -- ready to jump, ready to shield.

    A familiar voice cracked across the field, recognizable even as a
scream.  

    "*MARY!*"

    [No.]  She refused to acknowledge it.  [It's just my imagination.
It's just--]  There was a moment, a hopeless, doomed half-second, before
she started to turn.

    "Lia--"

    The demon unleashed its power, a concentric ring of expanding
white-hot death.  Mary's shields flared under the onslaught, but held --
the power wasn't concentrated to a point but diffusing outwards,
explosions marching across the town as building after building collapsed
in a ring around the school.  She had to imagine the screams, since she
could hear nothing over the roar of destruction, quivering while she
shouted mental commands at legs that seemed to be mired in jelly.

    The moment broke, and time seemed to speed up again.  A fresh cloud
of dust covered everything, whipped back and forth by scalding-hot
winds.  The demon was gone, though to where Mary couldn't imagine, and
she could barely make out Sumiko's crouched figure in the debris.  Mary
beckoned and staggered blindly towards where she'd seen her sister.

    

    "Lia."  Mary fell to her knees.  The younger girl was sprawled
amidst the metal shards from one end of the gymnasium, covered in enough
dust that her face was already as pale as death.  Her eyes flickered
open, though, at the sound of her sister's approach, and she raised her
head weakly.

    "Mary?"

    "It's me."  Mary shuffled a few inches closer, and Lia's eyes
blinked against the dust.  

    "You're okay?"

    "I'm fine."  Actually, every nerve in her skin was screaming as
though someone had gone over it with a file.  "I'm fine."

    "I didn't...I didn't believe you.  About being okay."  Lia took a
long, raspy breath.  "I knew you'd be here."

    "I told you."  Mary felt something running down her cheek -- either
tears or blood.  "I told you not to worry about me."

    "Yeah."  Lia shifted her shoulders a little.  "I'm sorry."

    "I've been lying to you.  To everyone."  She realized, suddenly,
that she didn't know where to begin.  "I am...I mean, I can..."

    "I figured...you were lying...about something."

    "Lia..."

    This time it was tears that filled Mary's eyes, and Lia smiled
peacefully.

    "God, Mary.  Look at yourself.  This isn't...a deathbed confession.
You're going to beat that thing, and...everyone will be fine.  I'll be
fine."

    Mary took her sister's hand; the fingers were already cold.  A metal
shard had embedded itself in her back, and just the tip of it stuck out,
between her breasts, gluing her shirt to her skin with a spreading
stain.

    "Lia."  Mary squeezed, as hard as she could.  "I love you."

    Lia's smile widened.  "It's just...a scratch.  Relax.  I'll... I'll
be..."

    She breathed in suddenly, raggedly, and her hand squeezed Mary's so
hard her nails dug into the back of her sister's palm.  Her back arched
for a sudden, agonizing moment before she relaxed, and her hand
uncurled.

    Mary bowed her head, still squeezing.

    "Mary!"  Sumiko's footsteps kicked up a haze of dust.  "Are you
alright?  I can't find the demon, and Kei has to be around here
somewhere.  I--"  She pulled up short as she finally processed what was
happening.  "Oh, *shit*.  Can you carry her?  If you get her back to my
place, there's a few favors I can call in--"

    "No," said Mary dully.  She let go of her sister's hand, and it
dropped limply to the ground.  "It's over."

    "No.  Gods."  Sumiko went to her knees in the dust, pressed her hand
against Lia's chest, and hoped against hope.  There was nothing.
"Mary--"

    "I want you to go."

    "I--"  She stopped.  "What?"

    "Go.  Get out of this town.  Now."

    "What are you *talking* about?  You don't stand a chance against
that thing alone!"

    "I won't be alone."

    "Mary--"

    "Don't argue with me, Sumiko."  Mary turned around, her eyes bright
with tears and a cold determination.  "Just go."

    "I won't.  If we don't stop this thing here, this"--she gestured
around--"is going to be everywhere.  Where am I going to go?"

    "You don't understand."

    "No?  You've got some kind of super-weapon that stands a good chance
of taking you out along with it, and you don't want me getting caught in
the blast.  That about right?"

    "Sumiko--"

    "*Fuck* you.  You don't have protect me, Mary.  Understand?"

    The was a long pause, interrupted only by the howling of the wind.

    "Okay.  We're going back to my house."

    "What's to stop her from destroying the rest of the city in the
meantime?"

    "I will."  A dark shadow detached itself from one wall and resolved
into a woman in a black suit, with sunglasses.  "Do you really have some
way to destroy that thing?"

    Mary suddenly felt exhausted, drained.  She nodded slowly.  "Maybe.
Weren't you--"

    "Things change."

    Neither Mary nor Sumiko had the energy to argue the point.

    "I'll hold its attention as best I can.  Be quick."

    Mary nodded.  She bent down and pulled Lia to her, slinging her
sister's body across her shoulders like a coat.  Her muscles complained,
but she ignored them and started out down the street in a steady lope;
Sumiko followed her closely.

    "So what are we going to get?"

    Mary licked her lips, and tasted blood.  "za'Tsara'Vor."

 

    It was waiting, in the dusty darkness of the attic.  Mary could feel
it.  The sword was waiting, [gloating] -- after all, it had finally won.

    [I don't have to do this.  I can still go back there, and fight.]
She felt Lia's hand jerk, the memory somehow embedded in the raw nerves
of her skin.  [I can go back there, and die.  I might be better off.]

    She ascended the steps, one at a time, and forced herself into the
corner where the thing lay.  za'Tsara'vor wasn't glowing, or pulsing
with otherworldly power.  It just lay there, smugly confident.  It knew
she had no options left.

    [The demon won't stop at killing me.  How many more will have to die
before it's satisfied?]

    [Shit.  When did this stop just being about me?  I don't *owe* these
people -- I've saved them over and over again.  Why should I throw my
life away?]

    She unrolled the cloth she'd brought against the floor with a soft
rasp, and prodded the sword with a stick until it toppled over.  Then
she wrapped the cloth around it and every-so-carefully picked it up.
Even through the fabric it felt cold, and she could feel it watching.

    [Robyn's out there, somewhere.]  Mary clung steadfastly to that
thought.  [She was going out with her new boyfriend.  Away from the
town.  If I can stop this thing...]

    [It's better this way.  She wouldn't understand.]

    Sumiko looked up as Mary descended.  Lia lay on the couch, her arms
crossed under her breasts -- she looked almost peaceful, as though she
was hugging herself in her sleep.  Mary could only bear to look at her
for a moment.

    "Mary?"  Sumiko looked concerned.  "You're not going to fall apart
on me yet, are you?  We've got a world to save.  Then you can cry on my
shoulder."

    [Right.]  Mary took a deep breath.  [If I -- somehow-- live through
this, I'm going to find Robyn and just tell her everything.
Everything.]  Her eyes were dry; the tears wouldn't come even if she
wanted them to, as though some valve in the plumbing had rusted shut.
She tucked the wrapped sword under one arm.

    "Okay.  You have to stay away from me, Sumiko."

    "But--"

    "Listen to me.  Once I draw this thing, I probably won't be able to
tell you apart from the demon.  So what you need to do is clear out and
wait for me to kill it."

    "You're sure you can?  Because I don't want to leave you--"

    "I'm sure.  Afterwards, get the sword away from me.  Hurt me if you
have to."

    "Got it."

    "You have to be *fast*, Sumiko.  Understand?"

    "I understand.  Let's go -- before that thing destroys anything
else."

    

    Rin ducked back behind a wall and hid as the energy beam blasted her
elemental into tiny, glowing fragments.  She felt its destruction like a
punch to the gut, and as deep as she dug the energy to summon another
one simply wasn't there.

    [I've never lost one before.  Now three, in one day.  ]Her breath
came in gasps.  [What the hell ]is[ that thing?  Category Six, at
least.]

    It couldn't be a Category Seven.  There was no such thing as a
Category Seven in real life.  [Its powers aren't varied enough --
there's a lot of energy there, but all it can do is blow things up.]

    [And where the *hell* is Deus?]

    "We're back."

    Rin's head snapped up to find Mary and the Oriental girl who
accompanied her jogging down the street.  Mary had a long, wrapped
bundle under one arm, which she assumed was her super-weapon.

    "Thank God."  Rin wiped her forehead.  "I think I kept her
contained, but she's really pissed off."

    "Get out of here."  Mary put the bundle on the ground and unrolled
it, slowly.  The black wood of the scabbard gleamed weakly in the red
glare that filtered through the dust.

    "I was planning on it."  Rin stopped for a moment, then shook her
head.  "Listen.  I'm going to get backup, but they're not going to get
here before that thing kills you both, if it can.  So think of this as a
failsafe."

    "I wouldn't have it another way."  Mary's hands hovered an inch or
two over the hilt.  "If you get back here, and find me holding this--"

    "I get it."  Rin smiled grimly.  "Until next time."

    "Right."  Mary's eyes flickered to her friend.  "Sumiko.  Get lost."

    "I'll be watching."

    "Not too close."

    

    Mary's hands closed around the hilt.

    It was just as good as she remembered.  Better than magic, better
than sex -- the flow of sheer power that hammered up her arms and
blasted out threw the top of her skull.  It was like being a god.  It
[was] being a god.  The sword didn't need to offer temptation, because
it knew this was enough.  Leaving it, even after a only a few seconds,
had been endless agony.

    For a moment, instinctively, Mary resisted.  As she had the first
time, she fought the crashing tide with sheer force of personality and
almost, *almost* wrestled it to a standstill.  [But this time, I need
it.  I need the power.]

    [Goodbye.]

    She lowered her defenses, and the force of za'Tsara'Vor overwhelmed
her in a wave.  Mary stood stock-still for a moment, then opened her
eyes.

    "_Oh,_yes..._"

 

    The demon was waiting, sitting on a rock in the center of the zone
of destruction.  It was essentially untouched, though a light film of
dust had settled over its school uniform and unremarkable brown bag.  It
looked up as Mary approached, plodding slowly through the dust cloud,
and it smiled.

    "You're back."

    "_Yes._"

    The demon got to its feet, and spread its hands.  Angular, fractal
wings snapped into existence, and its whole body was suffused with a
soft glow.

    "I need to keep fighting.  I'm a weapon, after all."

    "_No._"  Mary kept coming, step by step.  "_Your_fight_ends_here._"

    The demon's eyes narrowed, and energy crackled across its wings.
Mary took another step, and the yellow-white beam snapped into
existence, slashing past where she stood and blowing the scorched earth
into dust.

    Mary took another step out of the cloud.  A singed patch ran across
her jacket, from her right shoulder down to her left hip, but she was
otherwise unharmed.  She look up at the demon, and smiled.

    Fire erupted from as the air itself was transformed to plasma fire,
but Mary kept walking as though it were a gentle bath.  The demon
frowned, and a barrage of green sparks flooded the whole plain with
explosions; when the smoke cleared, Mary's sleeve had been nicked by a
flying splinter, but she merely smiled and kept coming.

    Finally, a column of light speared down from the empty, red sky, so
bright that it blotted out the stars.  It flashed right onto Mary's head
and stayed there, and all around it the bricks sank into puddles and
started to boil.  The earth shook, and cracks ran like frightened
children in all directions.

    "The end of the world..."  The demon stared, proudly.  

    "_Not_quite._"

    Mary jumped out of the center of the column, one hand on the hilt of
the black sword.  She drew it, lightning-fast, in mid-air; there was
only time for a single slash with a sound like the angry hum of a
million bees.  There was a brief feeling of discontinuity, as though
reality itself had hiccupped, and then Mary landed in a crouch.  The
demon didn't land at all, bisected by a bright white line -- it's
expression held nothing but blank, dumb surprise.  Then it faded out of
existence, as though it had never been, and the column of light snapped
off.

    

    The laws of physics resumed their sway.  The demon's onslaught had
super-heated the air, turned it to plasma -- the largest lightning bolt
in the history of the world.  Now, with no more supernatural power to
hold it back, the thunderclap fell inward like a reverse shockwave.
Molten rock and metal sprayed though the air, hardening on the wind into
deadly shards, and the sound alone was loud enough to shatter bone.
Mary remained on her knees, waiting.

    It was some time before things returned to something resembling
normal.  Sumiko picked her way across a landscape as cratered and
lifeless as the surface of the moon.  She carefully avoid places where
the ground was still molten, and her power protected her from air still
hot enough to blister unprotected skin.  Little pings and cracks were
everywhere as the ground cooled and the debris settled.

    "Mary!"

    Sumiko jumped to the top of a large boulder, uprooted from the
bedrock and hurled to the surface, and caught site of the still figure a
few hundred feet away.  She bounded down and raced to Mary's side,
ignoring the heat.

    "Mary!"  The Japanese girl halted a few feet away, warily.  Mary was
on her knees, the sword back in its sheath, her head bowed.  She didn't
move, not even to breathe.  A cold hand gripped Sumiko's heart.

    [She did it.]  Her mind felt numb.  [She sacrificed herself for all
of them.  All of us.  And she won.]  She stared, in wonder, at the
buildings around her that had been fused into slag.  [Somehow.]

    "Mary..."

    She shook her head softly and walked closer.  Mary's clothes were
battered, her leather jacket torn and hanging shredded from her
shoulders.  za'Tsara'vor was untouched, without even a scuff on its
scabbard.  [I'm going to take that sword and hide it somewhere.]  Sumiko
leaned over, and put a hand on Mary's shoulder.  Her eyes filled with
unbidden tears.

    "You did it."  She sniffed.  "I knew you would, somehow.  But...
Damn it, Mary.  Can't we ever just win?"  Sumiko felt her thoughts slip
back to Shibuya, to the horrible crunch of bone.  "Why does it never
work out right?"

    There was a long pause.  When she spoke, Mary's voice was the soft
hiss of escaping breath.

    "Su...mi...ko..."

    "Mary?"  Sumiko looked down, hurriedly, hardly daring to hope.  "Are
you--"

    There was a moment of frenzied action, too fast for the eye to
follow, and a sudden, horrible buzzing.  Sumiko found herself face to
face with her friend, staring into eyes that were nothing more than
black pools.  Her smile was horrible.

    "_Not_fast_enough._"

    Her hands closed around Mary's, still clasped around the sword
driven to the hilt in Sumiko's stomach.  Her mouth opened, slowly, and
Sumiko tasted blood.

    Mary blinked, and a hint of green eyes peeped past the black.  She
gasped, and tears glistened.

    "I'm sorry..."

    Then the power of the sword slammed back into place.  Mary gave
za'Tsara'vor a vicious twist, and Sumiko died without another sound.

 

    Mary pulled the sword out with one smooth motion and returned it to
its sheath, letting her friend's body flop face-first into the dust.
She straightened up, and shrugged off the remains of her jacket with a
sigh.

    [So many things to do.]  She smiled softly.  [So many people to
kill.  But first things first. I have you to thank, Mary, so I will give
you what you want.]

    [Revenge.]

    Reality distorted as the black sword warped time and space around
itself.  A moment later, the pressure relaxed -- Mary was gone, headed
for the Outer Realms.






             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'