by Dan H Kind
Chapter 50
The Enemy Revealed
Chaos writhed as a spherical black hole upon the fabric of reality, crackling with intermittent flashes of red-tinted lightning. Tentacles of shadow stretched outwards from the Void like the appendages of a demonic octopus, contorting and whipping in the air before the companions with an unholy life of their own. A voice like the parley of a python king hissed from the globe of sentient shadow. It echoed through the heads of the assembled beings like a call from a lunatic realm.
(Hades was useful, but I no longer have need of the wretched mytho. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end—for I am Chaos. I am the Formlessness that encompassed the All and Nothing before the universe began. That's right, before you mythological and human jokers showed up and complicated everything, I was in control!)
A mind-numbing shriek resounded within the minds of those assembled upon the grassy knoll. The mythos grabbed their ears lest they burst, but this did not dampen the shrill, maniacal laughter.
After the horrible sound died away, the Void hissed: (After Shiva has expended his energy and destroyed Creation, I shall absorb him and the ashes of this pitiful reality—and then there shall be nothing left in existence but me. Then shall the universe be as it was meant to be, before Creation spewed forth from my essence like the excrement it is.)
Chaos let out another piercing wail that destroyed all reason. Shadow-tendrils shot out from the Void, latched onto human and mytho flesh, and sank in, wrapping themselves around the turmoil that resides deep within the minds of all beings and pulling it back to its irrevocable, undeniable source. Each and every one of the companions—including the Buddhist monks —was inexorably dragged towards oblivion, the snuffing out of their ken, the end of their lives. No mytho could die without being forgotten, but the Void That Was All in the Beginning was an unknown variable in that cute little equation. Chaos's ken gave it the power to absorb all things. Maybe permanently.
Glimmering steel balls flew from the hands of Tom Sawyer's gang, and lightning-like bolts of energy shot from Stephone's hands. The Void swallowed the missiles. Sir Arthur's sword-cane moved at a blur, slashing tentacles. The severed portions of the protuberances squirmed and dissipated into mist, but the remainders almost instantly re-extended. Numerous tentacles latched onto Sitting Lotus, who sat in the lotus position, meditating, as the battle raged around him.
Then someone zoomed around them and the tree at impossible speeds, a blur passing between them and Chaos. A circle crafted of some sort of sandy substance formed around them, growing thicker each time the zoomer passed by. Every one of the tentacles attached to the companions were severed simultaneously. The pieces still clinging to them flopped to the ground, wiggled and jiggled like snakes with their heads chopped off, and dissipated into purple smoke.
Master Mirbodi halted and grinned around at them. “I bet you forget I still have magical cornmeal. No matter what Chaos think, it mythological being and cannot cross magical barrier.”
The Void screamed—audible through the protective bubble, yet not nearly as thought-shattering as before. A hissing sounded, and Chaos began to expand, as if the ancient mytho was feeding on the flesh of reality and growing stronger on its meat. Soon the swirling, living shadow had enveloped the companions, and all around them was darkness. Lightning flashed, striking at the bubble of salvation—and the space around them began to shrink.
Trickstertron had the eyesight of a star-traversing eagle, and when it turned its gaze across galaxies to the tiny blue planet of its origin, it observed the anomaly latched onto the northern hemisphere of the globe, growing like a festering black boil. Instinctively knowing what was happening, it did the only thing it could.
Trickstertron raised its hand towards Earth, as if to wave goodbye.
Chaos closed in on them. No weapon would penetrate the endless darkness, so those inside the bubble stood stoic and awaited the end of their lives, the end of existence, the drying up of the Ocean of Myth, the death of the universe.
And then the darkness lifted.
Trickstertron stretched across the universe to grab Chaos and drag it across galaxies. A mind-jarring scream issued from Chaos as it was plucked from the Earth. Trickstertron's arm, with fingers as thin as three or four Tricksters in some places, retracted in the blink of an eye.
Trickstertron observed the quivering black marble clutched within its Trickster-digits. “I am Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters. I am all Tricksters and none. Life contains chaos. Life contains order. Both and neither. Not one or the other.”
Trickstertron raised its arm to its writhing Trickster face and popped Chaos into its mouth like a gumball. Trickstertron chewed once and swallowed, then smacked its lips and burped the loudest burp Creation ever witnessed. A stream of wispy black smoke shot from between the elk skull's grinning jaws and dispersed into space.
Trickstertron laughed, loud and long, its millions of Trickster parts guffawing and chortling, and those watching from Earth could not help but laugh as well.
Life, and the universe, would go on.
And then Trickstertron began to come apart at the seams, unraveling like an old blanket some alien god had left draped across the galaxy.