Red Twilight: Demon of the Flowers

Chapter 42 The Light at the End of the World

Realm: Nimh

Place: Dagger Pass, East Island

Chrono sphere:20-05

Steam pours from the smoke stake of the iron mill, a train howls. The gate summoned by Jessica drops Hetatsubachi and Vita on the ground in a grassy field, a light wind ruffles their fur. Vita jumps around to face Jessica "Jessica!"

The Weaver steps through the gate last, her head ducks painfully "Yes?"

Vita stands shaking as she looks around "where is my mother? Has she fallen in battle?"

Jessica shakes her head "no, she is lost in space."

Vita jumps up and down "then we must return. No wolf is left to fend for themselves."

Jessica shakes her head "the road to Phawks is broken. No one can return there now. We just witnessed the power of creation. Phawks is gone, and a new universe will soon replace it."

Vita collapses as she tries to understand what Jessica has implied. "we witnessed a universe die?"

Jessica nods "believe it or not that was the least bad possible outcome. Tatsu was almost right about almost everything. Missionary, was not a 'teenage girl' but had just become pubescent. In the life cycle of her race, this is when they are the most unpredictable and dangers. She was about to start dividing uncontrollably. Anyone she touched would have become infected with the same sickness that killed Seeker, and I currently have. This would lead to a domino effect where in a short time all the infected would turn into those living black holes and the whole of the cosmos would slowly start to crumble under their weight."

Vita shakes her head "that is too big, too much, I am not ready to deal with this." Vita becomes aggravated. The wolf girl turns sides to side as if she was suddenly lost. "I need to run, I need to go somewhere."

Jessica mounts her staff in the ground "Do you know the way to Lupu village? I know something about the queen's daughter that she would be most happy to learn."

Vita is almost shaking, all the strange things she has seen since meeting her father and Jessica is all flooding into her mind "Dagger pass, to Lupu." She tries to make a map of the area in her head "take the fairy to Snowhead, walk west until Stripher ridge. I know the way."

Jessica nods "Go to Lupu, tell the queen that Princess Gina is now a guest of Kuro, she has been for a time know. Tell her to send word to Aki that she should like to offer up her daughter as a political trade. Prince Sun is to be married to Princess Gina, or there will be a price to be paid."

Vita repeats "Tell the Queen to have Sun marry Gina." Vita runs off her mind threatening to break from the strangeness of it all.

Tatsu comments as he watches Vita run away "I will miss her, she was a good hunter."

Jessica shakes her head in protest "Vita was never a hunter. She was a little girl looking for the love of her parents." There is a long moment as the two of them watch Vita vanish over the hills "Tatsu, is the hunt still on?" Hetatsubachi nods, Jessica nods in return "Tatsu, I need you to go to Red Twilight. My husband is visiting there disguised as a politician Walker Lamarsis, the Silinanite, Prince of the Silver Moon. He is going by the name Laurence Walker. Find him."

"What do you need me to do once I am there? " Tatsu ask softly

"Wait for him to cross paths with Charlie Belmond, then come back here." Jessica explains "I need to take a trip to Agora, If all goes well we will meet here soon."

Tatsu looks at Jessica, "I need to eat, I can leave in the morning." He takes one last look forward watching where Vita had vanished to "sometimes the brave are asked to stand for a moment, other times for a day, but once the brave have stood to face mortality and seen what they are it leaves a mark on their being. Battles leave scars, some so deep that one will never be whole again. Vevavita Una had to fight today. It may be a lifetime before she heals."

***

Realm Red Twilight

Place: Washington D.C.

Chrono sphere: 20-07

Senator Walker walks alongside his bodyguards: A fox women from the Kami Tribe called Krystal, A gargoyle from Azure called Demona, and a BOW constructed from the blood of Tail Vixon named Karin that looks like a kami. Walker knows well that in the world of polices nothing means more than looking good, and that he does well. Walker has just announced his candidacy for the next presidential election and filled his paperwork. Walker is running for the Freedom Party on a platform of equal rights and inclusion for all races. He has used Krystal and Karin as proxies. Krystal pretending to be his wife, Karin, his child.

The lot of the climb into Walker's limo, Karin fiddling with the radio one the car is on the road. Walker talks to Krystal "you know what I hate?" he fails to give Krystal time to think it over "Neckties. Of every article of clothing, it is easily the least functional."

Krystal tugs on the skirt she is wearing trying to prevent it from rolling up her legs as she is sitting. "Try a miniskirt some time." Kristle fidgets in place "I wish I could wear my armor under this. I am a spear-fight trained by the Heathenist Knight, tight dresses don't become me."

Walker leans back in his chair placing his hands on the back of his head as he watches Kristal struggle to keep her dress in place "you want where armor under silk, it will wreck the folds of the fabric."

Kristal looks up at her king with a lightly irritated curl to her lip "my womanhood sticks an inch and a half off of my body and is shaped like a fortune-cookie, and you are looking at folds in the fabric?"

Karin nods and whispers "mine is shaped the same way… how strange. We had been born on different planets, and yet our bodies are similarly shaped. Seems statistically unlikely. maybe you could wear looser dresses."

Walker leans over placing a hand on Karin's face petting her "well the way around unlikely statistics is with a large sample size. Maybe there were only a hundred possible shapes that a mammal's body could have taken, so the mold gets repeated time and time again across space? So, if you are warm-blooded with forward-facing eyes, interlocking teeth, a cranial plating and a symmetrical body shape, everything else has limited changes."

Karin looks to Kristal "are we also chemically compatible and subject to retroviral cross infection?"

Demona adds on "I highly doubt it. Any parasite I might be housing would find your body very uninhabitable."

Karin smiles "what about physical compatibility."

Walker cuts her off on that "come on, let's keep it PG."

Karin turns back to Krystal "were looser clothing." Karin locks on to a channel on the radio, a heavy metal song playing. A powerful whale starts the song

(Lead singer)

"We are the daughters of Boldar,

We are the Lords of the north

We will leave you no place to go

We were born to kick your ass"

(backup singer)

"We will bring the pain"

(Lead singer)

"We are wolves on the hunt

You will run

You will hide

We will charge

There is no place to turn

We are here to bring you down

We will take you our "

(back up singer)

"we are the bringers of pain"

(Lead singer)

"There is no hope

There is no way hide when we come to claim your life

We Are"

(backup singer)

"The Bringers of Pain"

(lead singer)

"she has come for you

She has hungry eyes

She will dominate your life

She is the Bringer of pain"

Karin smiles and dances in place "I like this song."

Walker explains "literally everyone on earth does. That is by design, the base player Mac, he is the Tamriel called Sa-La-day-NameO. His idea was brilliant to be fair."

Demona looks over to Walker "to sell a million albums?"

Walker chuckles "to call out void worshipers with a magical trap." Walker looks between his friends "He, and I have been working together to set a trap for Cravixs for some time. When the devil gets here, we will be ready for him."

As Walker's car pulls into an underground parking ramp, a snake woman awaits, her tail wrapped around a pillar her back pressed to the wall, a flamberge dirk slid into the back of her belt, she wears an animalistic smile, her eyes narrow and predatory.

Tama is a bounty hunter from Hell, today she has a large prize in her sights, Walker LaMarcus, princes of the moon. After an embarrassing loss in a cage fight Tama lost a good deal of respect amongst her kind, but bringing Walker into Hell dead or alive will forgive her for all of her past failings. Tama proffers the idea of dead. It is easier to drag a dead body then to carry a living one after all 51% of the body is more than enough to prove she scored the killing blow. That is why she brought a 'Magebane' with her, a weapon explicitly forged to kill Moonfolk.

As the car pulls to a stop Demona leans off to the side looking out the window "Rose?" she questions, she then looks to Walker "that is your half-sister isn't it?"

Karrin and Walker look between each other, Karin shakes her head, Walker nods then looks to Demona "nope, that is a Tanuki dressed in my sisters' clothing."

The car stops, Walker and his bodyguards step out, Walker snaps his fingers and he as well as his friends are all dressed in battle gear. Demona is outfitted with a wolf skull helmet a bearskin chest plate matching leather leggings and loincloth, strapped to her hip is a sword with an ax head fabricated to the handle. Krystal is granted a glowing white toga and a pike forged from a blue-steel, coiling bronze leggings and matching armbands. Karin loses her school girl outfit and gains an S&M style leather bodysuit and a red velvet overcoat. Walker himself gains a kung-fu outfit with the word rabbit written on his chest in kanji, the crest of the silver moon burns on one arm and his back is adorned with a massive silver white cape with oversized shoulder pads, Walker swings one hand off to his side and a Nodichi long sword flashes into being.

Walker smiles boldly "Sister, you have some explaining to do." Walker draws a hand into his chest, black fire gathers around his body as his earth-shattering magic gathers. Walker is the sixth most powerful invoker ever to live. His spellcasting is swift, is magic piercing. Marks Karingson once said that 'Walker is earth last great chance for survival' Marks was right. The Moonfolk are deadly enemies, and Walker is the deadliest of them all.

Tama has no idea how badly outclassed she is, she smiles and holds out her arms "No kiss?"

The rattling of chains reaches across the underground. A howl shatters the stillness. Hetatsubachi jumps from the darkness at Tama's back "Hello again Tama. It has been a while."

Tama drops her ploy, she turns into the cackling raccoon dog Tatsu knows her to be. "Didn't I already kill you?" she looks over to Tatsu.

Walker call out "Hetatsubachi? You are late."

Tatsu looks over Tama's head "Sorry, got lost on the way here." Tatsu drops at Tama's feet an ivory mask "Tama, you were born in Hell. If you want I have the power to break the hold 'the Nine' have over you. Take the mask, and I will free you. Don't, and I will be forced not to…"

Tama reaches around onto her back she partly draws Magebane, "you… would offer to help me?"

Tatsu nods.

The lot stand waiting, waiting to see who will make the next move.

***

Realm: Drakolus

Place: Library of Agora

Chrono Sphere: 20-07

Rhaegal works side by side with Cilverant, books are scattered about, a magical construct fill the room as the two have erected a construct that can build a model using all the knowledge of dimensionalism the Worldwalkers have gathered to try to understand 'what is the darkness?' 'what is Cravixs?' the void? These monster from outside time?

At last, after five years of calculations things are starting to come together. A map of the cosmos is now in there reach, and the cryptic words of HIVE are becoming more evident. 'The Cosmos above, the Cosmos Below' it wasn't poetry, it was a hypothesis, one with some revolutionary explanatory power. So often the worldwalkers talk about water and how the cosmos move in a fluid way. What is not talked about nearly as much is the effect of gravity on time-space, and the shape of the cosmos.

Some see space as a cone, others as a globe or some two-dimensional slab, but what if space was a vacuum in a cone, in a cylinder? What if once you reached the edge of the cosmos, you fell off an emerged on the other side of the vacuum? What if high pressure always moved into low pressure? What if the world that is and the world that was were both at the same time? Negative matter and matter by necessity exciting in the reflection of each other? The work of thousands of wizards over millions of years finally taking shape.

Jessica walks into the library answering a summon, her pace is slow, her clothing in tatters, apparently she has been fighting shortly before being brought here. Not the dragon or the living armor say a word about her condition. Rhaegal jumps to her side and leads the mouse to the device they had been building "Jessica, you are here in good time!"

Jessica tries to play off the pain she is in by pulling her hands into her breast and tuning her head up batting her eyes childishly "Hello Rhaegal. What have you discovered?"

Rhaegal points at the device "are you familiar with the 'triplet pendulum experiment'?"

Jessica crosses her hands in front of her body "I am afraid I recall nothing of such an experiment."

Cilverant explains as he is drawing up a formula on a plate of transparent plastic "it is an experiment of gravitational physics." He walks over to the monitor of the computer in the room "it is easy to measure the movements of a single swinging object, adds a second and a third suddenly things start getting far more interesting."

Rhaegal pulls up a graphic of a planet and begins a speech "this is earth…"

Jessica cuts in "Which earth?"

Cilverant looks to her "Doesn't matter, as the scale gets larger the starting point becomes less relevant."

Rhaegal continues "Earth is part of a solar system; a solar system is defined as a network of objects locked in orbit around one or more suns. That is the first pendulum. But as we watch the sun, we notice that the sun is rotating just like each of the planets. As we pull back on the scale, we will find that as earth is in solar orbit the sun is in a galactic orbit. The gravity of each sun is affected by the gravity the sun on each side of it." The graphic pulls back showing a solar system spinning and drifting in one direction. "but why does a solar system spin? Well, it is because the solar system is in orbit. Also, each sun is part of a galaxy, that galaxy spins also, it is in orbit around a nebula." The graphic pulls back more showing a spinning nebula.

Jessica nods "I see."

Rhaegal continues "this gives us our second pendulum." He pulls back the graphic more now showing a multitude of nebula drifting in space "now this is where things start getting strange. Now from this scale there is no easily tracked sources pulling on space, but space is still following the patterns it should if it was being pushed by something."

Jessica tips her head "so what does this mean?"

Rhaegal nods with her and grunts as he collects his thoughts "it means there is a missing 'dark mater equation' we can't see anything forcing gravitational fields out so large as to effect this spinning to continue but we can extrapolate.

Cilverant chuckles "Rhaegal the Fire-minded here has been working for days without sleep trying to finish these equations."

"Now, what direction is gravity pulling at this point?" Rhaegal asks.

Jessica tries to draw in the air to invasion motion "outwards?"

Rhaegal corrects her "no, gravity attracts object, it always does. But that is the pendulums pulling against each other. The rotation of the suns and the planets hold object in relative space. But are moving away from the center of the universe. Why?"

Jessica shakes her head "I don't know."

Cilverant adds in "Undercurrent."

Rhaegal clicks over to the next largest image; the image is now so far out that multiple universes are visible floating around in a negative space like blood cells rushing around in a body. "Gravity isn't air, it behaves more like water, the universes are like minerals adding mass to the 'water' larger, denser universes sink, lighter ones get pushed to the top, there is now a high density and low-density system. The larger ones seem to be rolling downhill, the larger are getting pushed uphill."

Jessica flattens her ears and looks to Cilverant "I don't understand."

Cilverant looks down "we are now getting into high-level physics."

Jessica blinks and points at the image "stop time now!"

Rhaegal widens his eyes "pause." He freezes the image.

Jessica moves in close and points at the center of the image. "was that bubble there before?" there is a semi-tangible looking object at the center of the image.

Cilverant shakes his head, "no, that bubbled up from underneath."

Rhaegal fast forwards through a few more phases "and here is how." The screen shows an hourglass-shaped model "we are in metrical reality right now. But matter requires a negative. For the cosmos to be balanced there has to always be an even number of positrons to electrons, every movement requires displacement, whenever whatever the first object to excite began existing there was a kickback, or backfire. We started moving in one direction, there was something else that needed to start moving the other."

Jessica lifts one ear and twitches her tail "like when you fire a crossbow, how the bow pulls upwards and back right?"

"displacement of energy" Cilverant acknowledges.

"But that displacement happens when the bow stirring snaps forward and the potential energy of the crossbar becomes kinetic energy. So, what the trigger the release?" Jessica tries to understand

Rhaegal thinks fast "I feel like a better analogy would be if I tapped two bottles together then drilled a hole in It and filled one side with water, the water is looking for equilibrium." He lowers his head "but then things start boiling up from the lower cup into the higher cup, and that shouldn't happen."

Jessica looks back and forth between the two of them "does this help us stifle the flow of otherworldly corruption?"

Cilverant ducks his head "there is a hole in space somewhere, the negative universe is leaking into the positive universe. The thing living in your body, it is part of it."

Jessica nods coming to the realization that this is an update not a conclusion "summon me again once you have more information, I have affairs that need to be attended elsewhere." She turns to Cilverant "I am in need of a one-pound block of lightening glass, do you have one handy?"

Rhaegal quickly nods "I do." He walks around the room finding the object in question "do to the lightning dances lightening glass is common in my land."

Jessica offers Rhaegal a kiss "thank you." She lowers her head offering a sexual gaze. Rhaegal blushes excepting the kiss as payment. Jessica then turns to walk out of the room hastily.

Cilverant stops her "Jessica, something has dawned on me. Of all the people I know, many of whom are very motivated, not a one of them move with your vigor, time and time again you scurry from world to world working feverously with a speed and position even I find taxing, and I have the aid of a space station, always you are counting the seconds between your steps. Why? Is it you, Jessica Mother of Mice, that runs so fast or is it the evil within you?"

Jessica turns her eyes looking at her friend with an uneasy look "Cilverant, do not stand in my way. I will show you a wraith like you have never seen if you push me."

Cilverant continues his accusations "It is my understanding that the Jessica from Nimh 000E had sent her children, Jena and Mazia, to Red Twilight 000A for schooling. If I am not mistaking, you had visited there also." Jessica brings a hand up to take Cilverant by the arm. A phantom wind blows around Jessica and velvet fire starts to grow around her body, the demons in Jessica fluid her mind with hunger and greed. Cilverant nods in understanding "that is the key to your darkness; Love, is Anger, is Power. Jessica contain your demons, or I will bring you Peace."

Jessica shuts her eyes and breaths deep forcing the darkness away. "Cilverant, you can not hope to understand…"

Cilverant lowers himself to eye level "What can't I understand?"

"I have watched life begin, and I have watched life end."

***

Realm: Nimh

Place: Dagger Pass, Lost Valley

Chrono Sphere: 20-07

Jessica sits at her desk in her new home, Luke has been returned to her. Luke kneels next to his mother, he wraps her legs in fabric after packing her wounds. Bringing Luke home cost Jessica much blood and respect amongst the Usagi. Jessica waves her hand bringing a pin to life to write in her notebook. She brings a hand down to rub down Luke's nose. She tips her head smiling at her child.

Jessica has packed her bags already, soon Hetatsubachi will arrive with Walker and Charlie. Soon the last of the chess peace's will be in place, and the final battle can begin. All that is left to do is bring Sa-la-daynamO into the campaign, and force Cravixs to take a material form.

Luke looks up to his mother "You can't keep fighting like this. I don't know if I have enough bandages to patch you up like this again."

"Oh, Luke." Jessica brings a hand under Luke's chin, she drags him up to standing and has him lean over her. Jessica kisses her son.

"Mother," Luke whispers in return, he is no longer the boy he was when he met Gina of the wolves, he is now a man, but in the grip of his mother his eyes still go soft, and his expression grows week, a man never stops being his mothers' little boy.

"those of us that have the power to fight have a responsibility to do so," Jessica speaks softly to Luke as he is kneeling between her feet, her hands on the sides of his nose.

The door to Jessica's house is pushed open. Ami walks in, now with tattoos of red fire trailing down her body, her fur white, her eyes stone blue, hastily Ami declares "I am a traveler from the east heading west in search of wisdom."

Jessica whisper "I am a traveler from the west in search of the same thing."

Ami explains "Jessica, I have seen the other side. I have been into the void. I need to go back, you don't need to come looking for me."

Jessica lowers her eyes "Hetatsubachi will be disappointed."

Ami lowers her head "I understand, I am sorry. I wish I could tell you what I have seen. The beginning…"