"So, this is where Ego is sleeping," Cecil remarked.
Against the backdrop of emptiness, the building before them seemed immense, stretching a great distance into the sky and encompassing a significant amount of surface area on what would have been Meridian-Omega's south pole if it had such a thing. The ghostly blue energy on the ground swirled and flowed like water with unnatural calmness around the edges of the structure erected there just hours ago. It was an entire cathedral, standing alone on an empty burnt out star, but there were subtle differences between this place and churches back on Earth. All of the stained glass was colored pure black, in stark contrast to the solid white stone walls that comprised the building, and at the top of the steeple was nothing. Occasionally, thick bolts of lightning created from the Central Star's stray energy leapt up from the ground to strike one of the walls, but they held together without so much as a scratch or tremble. Twenty-one steps led from where Cecil and his friends stood to the large double doors that permitted entry into Ego's unholy creation. There was an arch around that entrance that looked like several human and alien bodies twisting around one another, probably formed from memories of souls the monster had eaten since its conception.
Becky squeezed Cecil's hand tightly as she added, "It looks just like the one in Austria, except it's not old and run down."
Motioning to the windows high above them, Bane noticed, "This place was very meticulously designed for someone to sleep a long time. The black glass prevents light from entering, the walls are made to keep the interior cool in hot weather and warm during cold temperatures, and those doors look thick enough to filter out a tremendous amount of noise."
"I hope it's had a good nap," Amber growled angrily, ascending the first two steps at the same time. "Let's get a move on. The faster we wake this thing up, the faster we get to save Alex." She began walking quickly up the next couple of stairs, but a hand reached up to grab her leg and stop her. "What gives?" she asked, turning around.
Cecil pointed to his right, and slowly she realized the same thing he did: a group of seven Twilight Legionnaires approaching them. All of them were decorated with black jumpsuits slashed with orange or purple stripes, and each had empty white eyes so there was no telling what they were looking at. The apparent leader, a Legionwoman with short dyed-black hair and painted fingernails, pointed back toward them and the other six charged forward ready to fight.
Flipping backward, Brittany avoided being kicked by a Legionwoman with two purple stripes across her chest and a permanent scowl on her face. When she regained her footing, Brittany fell into an offensive stance and prepared herself to attack. The Legionnaire dashed forward and slashed wildly, and with a quick bounce and twirl, Brittany maneuvered herself behind the attacker and kicked her directly in the lower back. Quickly, she slid a vial and syringe out of her pocket, filled the syringe with a milliliter of anti-pseudoine serum, and plunged the needle into the fallen woman's neck.
A heavyset Legionman stampeded toward Bane with speed that was not possible for someone his size. "I warn you," Bane snarled as his assailant got closer, "unless you call off your attack, you will die." The man with four purple and one orange stripe guffawed loudly and moved to strike with a fist the same size as Bane's head. Nimbly, the New Omnian avoided the blow, then leaped into the air and landed with his feet on the Legionnaire's shoulders. Angrily, the larger man reached up to grab the smaller but, as he did, Bane executed a swift and sharp kick that knocked the bulky hands away. Then he let himself fall to the ground and, simultaneous, slid his leg out to send his opponent tumbling over, unable to get up. Just as Bane was about to land the killing stroke, Brittany scrambled over to the immobilized Legionman and injected him with a dose of the serum. "I suppose I shall be merciful today," he said, sounding disappointed.
Knowing she was being approached, Rebecca hurried to put the cathedral wall at her back, then turned to face the dark-haired Asian Twilight Legion woman out to kill her. The aggressor bounced forward and kicked high, and the defender dodged to avoid being hit then grabbed her opponent's leg and took the Legionnaire down. Before she could get back on her feet, Brittany snuck up behind her and sheathed the needle of her syringe into the darker woman's neck.
"Stay back," Amber warned. The two male Twilight Legion members circling around her snickered and growled, anxious to attack their designated target. With superhuman speed, the first man charged forward and the second dashed off somewhere to the side. Unable to split her attention, Amber focused on the one who remained in front of her and jumped into the air. She jump-kicked hard, forcing him backward, and unwittingly placing herself in danger as the second opponent she could not see appeared behind her and caught her in a tight armlock as she landed. The first Legionnaire smirked as he approached, cracking his knuckles and licking his lips, apparently preparing to pummel her senseless. Before he got the chance, Amber thrust her head backward, startling her captor enough to make him relax his hold, then broke free. Two rapid and successive but powerful kicks forced the man in front of her to the ground face-up, then she whirled and slammed one palm into the second's face and her other palm into his gut. He doubled over and Amber kicked straight up, directly into his face, sending him to the liquefied ground face-down. "Hurry!" she called over to Brittany. The other girl quickly dashed toward the fallen men and administered the anti-pseudoine serum to each.
The woman with dyed hair and colored fingernails would have been cute, if not for the empty white stare, the permanent look of irritation on her face, and the fact she was a strung-out cultist seeking to utterly destroy the known universe and reshape it in the image of some devil locked in a perpendicular world for the last three thousand years. "Praise Lord Tracer, the Rising is here," she chanted, but the words conveyed no understanding or substance in the way she said them. "Lord Tracer told us about you infidels, and gave us permission to kill you on sight. I feel privileged to serve the Lord."
"The Lord?" repeated Cecil, holding back a laugh at his confronter's ignorance. The two men on either side of her were each armed with a shotgun aimed directly at him, so not laughing was a fairly easy decision to make. "What has Michael given you in return for your blind loyalty? A trip to outer space, sure, but that is irrelevant. You are not in control of your own bodies, your own minds, your own souls! Between the pseudoine, Arcanza's brainwashing, and Michael's lies and corruption, you are not human anymore, and if you think you are ascending above human take a look at how easy your fellow Legionnaires were defeated and restrained back on Earth. Take back your own lives, and reject the path to obliteration. We cannot make the decision for you so, please, come to your senses now and save yourselves!"
For a couple seconds, the leading woman remained quiet, even while her unaffected bodyguards kept their weapons drawn and pointed. It was hard to tell if his words were weighing on her mind or not, because of that damn expressionless look, but very quickly he no longer needed body language to guess what the woman thought. "Kill him," she ordered her guard.
All around him, the ethereal energy began jumping up off the ground and lapping around his legs. Its pulse began to change instantly, suddenly synchronizing with the frequency of energy that the Omni Morpher sent through Cecil's body, which in turn assumed the same rhythm as his heartbeat. The energy from Meridian-Omega began to change color as well, gaining a faint but noticeable shade of red blended with metallic silver. The sound of two gunshots filled the air. Reacting on instinct and faith, Cecil lifted his hand and motioned sharply; the star's energy jumped up again underneath the two bullets and incinerated them before they could do any damage. Then, with unnatural speed fueled by OmniTech, Cecil charged forward and leaped over his three assailants, landing on his feet behind them. With his first punch, directed at one of the mens' necks toward the top of the spinal cord, he knocked one armed Legionnaire out, and with his second punch, directed at the other man's shoulder blade, he forced the second to drop his shotgun onto the ground, where another swirl of red-tinged energy awaited to instantly disintegrate it as quickly as the bullets earlier.
"I hate you Power Rangers so much," the woman chided. She reached over to the guard that was still conscious and screamed angrily as her skin began to melt together with his. It happened very quickly, but time slowed down enough for Cecil to watch everything that occurred. The bodies and the male and female Legionnaires melted and blended together into a single form, then reshaped and recolored themselves to form into a twisted monstrous creature. Smoothly the creature rose to its clawed feet and stared at Cecil with red-hot angry eyes.
Cool and unflinching, Cecil moved his right arm back as far as his elbow would go, then tightened his hand into a fist. With all of his rage and frustration packed behind it, Cecil punched forward as fast and as hard as he could. More of Meridian-Omega's surface energy rose from below to reinforce the blow. The end result was chaotic: Cecil's fist penetrated the Legionnaire monster's thick skin, passing directly through the area in its chest where, if it were human, its heart would have been, and exploded out through the creature's back moments later.
"Oh my god!" he heard Amber gasp somewhere nearby.
Bane's deep voice was quiet and, if possible, a little nervous, "That is disturbing."
Realizing what he had done, realizing that he had just punched completely through a monster that was once two Twilight Legion members, Cecil quickly brought his hand back, pulling it through the hole he had created, and turned around to gag and choke until he threw up. Behind him, he heard the carcass thump on the hard steel-like ground.
Two slender arms wrapped around him and Rebecca whispered to him, "Calm down, Cece. Relax."
"I hate it all," he panted, spitting a string of saliva that hung down from his bottom lip. "I hate it all. I have to end it. I have to end it all."
"Not alone," Becky told him sternly. "We're all here to save Alex, stop Michael, and end it all. But we're doing it together, not every person for themselves. That's what Craig wanted to do. You're the Red Ranger now, and we're the Omni Rangers, because we work together as a team."
Amber's warm and reassuring hand grabbed Cecil's arm firmly. "Becca is right. This battle is everyone's responsibility."
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, but still with the disgusting taste in his mouth, he turned to meet the stares of the others and said, "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me." Tortured memories from days before came back to him, of Fhare being so agonized by his Psychic Stream power that she shattered her own spinal cord, that sound forever burned into his eardrums, along with the anguished cries of her lover who watched it happen. "I'm a terrible person," he informed then quietly. Tears wanted to come, but he held them back because crying at this point in the battle was worthless, and it could cost them their lives.
"Forget it, it's over," Bane said coldly, motioning toward the reconstructed Holy Demon Sanctuary and the stairway ascending to its doors. "We have to keep moving. Time is working against us."
Still breathing heavily and feeling nauseous, Cecil reached into his pocket and produced a wrapped stick of gum. He unwrapped it, slipped the gum into his mouth to take away the unpleasant taste, and stuck the wrapper back into his pocket. With a shadow of sadness still hanging over him, he took one last look at the monster, sickly lime-green blood still oozing from the six-inch hole in its chest cavity, and apologized silently to the Legionnaire woman that thing used to be. Then, hurriedly, he, Amber, and Rebecca caught up with Bane and Brittany as they had already started going upstairs.
As he and his friends climbed the unscratched and brilliant white ivory steps, some of Oriquin's words from their journey to the Nexus began to haunt and dominate Cecil's thoughts. "Since we have a policy of truth between us now," the Omnian Lord of the Dead had told him seriously, "I must tell you of a concern both Soleron and I shared several months ago. As you know, the OmniTech Ability Band takes a heavy toll on one person's mind, so heavy that twenty-five years after using it a Ranger begins to go insane. Your case is different, though, in that we know of no Ranger throughout history who has possessed a Talent in mental manipulation as you do today. Please be vigilant in your use of your abilities and careful with your judgment. It is not a light responsibility that Prince Hopwood has thrust upon you."
Finally, the four teenagers from Earth and Bane arrived at the enormous entrance into the Sanctuary, and they were halted by Brittany's shaky demand of, "Wait a minute."
"What's wrong?" asked Amber, pausing just long enough to turn around and look at her friend.
"The doors are open!" Brittany gasped. She pointed at the giant, thick wooden doors reinforced with metal bars, framed in an archway that looked like several human and creatures blended together in expressions of pain and terror. Focusing his eyes, Cecil located the spot she was pointing to, and cursed sharply under his breath. On the right door, a fresh handprint was embedded deep into the surface, thin tendril of smoke still rising from its edges. It was obvious the doors had been pushed open by someone, and it was also obvious it had happened recently.
Cecil tensed, and began chewing his gum even harder than before. "Someone used distraction tactics on us again," he concluded. "While we fought the Legionnaires, they got inside the cathedral before us."
"Do you think it's Michael?" Rebecca asked. Her voice was quiet and still, but just about her entire body was trembling, and her eyes had the glazed look of being on the verge of crying.
"According to Craig, Michael's plan has nothing to do with Ego," Amber reminded all of them. "It's probably just some other Legionnaire going inside to explore and find out what this place is. We'll just defeat them as quickly as the five out there." Cecil noticed she intentionally left out the two he had murdered, and was grateful for the consideration.
Stepping forward, Bane was the first to enter, and he was slow and intense in his examination of the surroundings inside. Cecil motioned for the three girls to enter before him, then hesitated when it was time for he himself to do the same. Finally, with a last deep breath of manufactured clean air, he entered the Sanctuary and braced himself for whatever terrors lay inside.
The floor was made of the same thick wood-like substance that the door was created from, and the antechamber split into three separate locations: forward and to the left was a small empty room, forward and to the right was another empty room, and directly forward led into the cathedral itself. There were two fountains in this chamber, each alive, in the shape of two twisting and threatening serpents with a gentle flow of water pouring out of their mouths, down their forked tongues, and into a base below. High above, a chandelier hung down from the ceiling, a plethora of candles casting warm and flickering glows across the room.
"Déjà vu all over again," remarked Brittany, and Rebecca nodded her agreement. The five Rangers proceeded into the church and all of their questions were instantly answered.
In this part of the Sanctuary, the floor was covered by carpet the color of blood, a dark and disturbing red shade, whereas the walls shimmered with gold lit by torches and candles positioned all around the large open space. There were only two other things present here. One was a gigantic hole, a deep perfectly circular pit that had to be at least fifteen paces across in diameter. The other was Corout, standing on the opposite side of the abyss, staring at them disapprovingly.
"You," Bane snarled.
Corout smiled. It was not a devious smile, or a satisfied one, or even a reluctant one. Just a simple, undecipherable smile. "Except for your eyes, you look completely different from them, your father and your dead brother." Gauging Bane's reaction to his words, even though to Cecil it seemed there was no reaction at all, the aged Omnian confirmed, "Yes, Salodis is without question dead. Prince Hopwood should have told you. He did it, after all."
"Why are you here?" demanded Cecil, grabbing Bane's tense shoulder and pulling the New Omnian behind him despite a short-lived struggle to advance forward.
"I have seen many things in this universe," answered Corout, "but never the legendary soul-eating Ego. It has been sleeping on Earth for centuries and then, for the last year, give or take a few months, devouring all life within the Firmament."
Cecil stepped forward until he stood close to the edge of the pit and demanded, "Stop rambling. The last time we met, you said you wanted control of Twilight Legion, but according to Craig you are still serving as Michael's obedient little lapdog. What diabolical game are you playing? And what part is Ego playing in that game?"
Lowering his gaze to stare into the darkness below them, several braids of white hair dropping in front of his face, Corout avoided any eye contact as he replied, "The game is over. Michael has bested me on every front, and has betrayed even those who once worshipped and idolized him, and very soon will have Meridian-Omega's power for himself. There is only one thing left for me. Revenge."
"Revenge?" Cecil repeated.
"Yes. Revenge." Corout lifted his head back up, and his features had taken on an entirely different aspect. His large black eyes were round and full, bloodshot and emitting tiny sparks of electricity. Somehow, his wily and thin body was now pumped and muscular. The wristbands he wore around his wrists hummed with a high-pitched sound, and bursts of raw energy began exploding outward from his hands. "Revenge for Rapture Hold! My Rapture Hold! You killed them all, mercilessly and methodically, and for that, all of you will DIE NOW!" Lifting his left hand, Corout fired an enormous energy blast toward his five targets.
With all of his speed and strength, Bane pushed Cecil aside, and made a motion as though he were throwing a baseball toward the sky. A wall of ice appeared between them and the Omnian, and the explosion detonated harmlessly against it.
Lifting his Omni Morpher, Cecil exclaimed, "It's morphin' time!"
"Omni Cerberus!" Amber Donaldson morphed into the Black Omni Ranger.
"Omni Pegasus!" Rebecca Spencer morphed into the Pink Omni Ranger.
"Omni Hydra!" Bane morphed into the Blue Omni Ranger.
"Omni Sphinx!" Brittany Elliott morphed into the Yellow Omni Ranger.
"Omni Titan!" Cecil Mercuric morphed into the Red Omni Ranger.
Gathering together in their morphed states, they cried together, "Omni Rangers! Full power!" just as the ice barrier shattered and Corout charged forward to attack them.
"No more holding back!" the former Omnian scientist screamed, grabbing Brittany's helmet and tossing her effortlessly into the side wall with a loud thud. "I will not rest in peace until all your blood is shed!"
The Black Ranger bounded in front of Corout, and while she did so she called out, "Onyx Armor! Zenith Aura!" Instantly her Ranger uniform changed from tight-fitting spandex-like material to something more like a suit of shiny black armor. And around that armor, a spectrum of colored energy began to encircle around her. She pushed forward hard with both hands, as if she were trying to push Corout over onto his back, but the Omnian broke the shove with a sonic boom and returned the assault with a powerful low punch to Amber's stomach.
Leaning to the side to address the Pink Ranger, Cecil ordered her, "Analyze him."
"Right," Becky answered. "Energy Breakdown!"
From behind, the Blue Ranger summoned, "Storm Lance!" and "Water Claw!" then began slashing and attacking to draw Corout's attention away from Amber. Grinning intently, Corout turned around and lifted his left hand, palm upward to the sloped ceilings. A ball of bright energy began to coalesce over his hand, then with a throwing motion the energy ball streaked toward Bane, accompanied by a trail of light and a hissing electric sound. It collided head-on and sent the oldest Ranger sprawling to the floor with a dull cry filled with more frustration than pain.
"The energy is coming from those wristbands," Rebecca informed Cecil. "But it fluctuates so fast! One minute he's weaker than one of us, and the next he's as strong as all five of us."
Cecil nodded. "Cover me," he told her. "Ruby Armor! Battle Shield! Chaos Sword!" The unfamiliar heaviness of his Gemstone Armor was compounded by the weight of the shield that formed around his upper chest, but it was still very easy to maneuver despite the equipment. He gripped the sword tightly in his right fist, upsidedown, and ran forward at a quick pace.
"Volt Cannon!" he heard behind him, and rapid discharges of electrical energy began deluging the area around Corout.
As Cecil reached his enemy, he swung the blade forward first, then followed with a high kick toward the evil genius's face, and swung around to attack the feet again with the sword. Corout, however, fluidly and immediately drew his own sword and parried the final blow. "This is the best you children can do?" roared Corout, then used both hands to slash his sword diagonally with the intent to kill. Cecil felt a large lump of gum slide down his throat. "Death awaits you!" the old man scoffed.
Just when the jagged steel was about to reach Cecil's shoulder, Amber's voice cried, "Silhouette Steal!" Corout's sword was suddenly encased in a shell of dark energy, and instead of moving toward Cecil's heart it moved harmlessly to Amber's own hand.
"Dazzle Wave!" exclaimed Brittany. The entire church filled with blinding light, which rendered Corout totally sightless, but because of their special visors none of the Rangers were affected.
With a strong swing, Cecil attempted to return the favor by cutting out the evil Omnian's heart, but even it complete blindness Corout grabbed the Chaos Sword with one hand, yanked it from Cecil's grasp, and flung it directly at Rebecca's head. "Ionic Field!" the Pink Ranger cried. The invisible particles between Becky and the weapon aimed for her began to glow with soft pink energy and, as it passed through, the dangerous metal-containing sword dropped harmlessly to the ground.
Amber jumped back into the action just as their opponent began to recover his sight, using Corout's own weapon to attack him. "Get back there!" Cecil called out to Bane, Rebecca, and Brittany, pointing toward the door to the antechamber. "We need to devise some kind of plan."
"I disagree, Mercuric," replied Bane, as the four of them grouped together during their brief chance. "He is being too unpredictable and irrational. Almost like he does not want to win, but feels obligated to put up a fight."
"That son of a bitch cannot be that powerful," Cecil growled.
Rebecca suggested, "The Zords would never make it on time, but maybe we could summon the Omni Tank."
"We need Revell to do that," countered Bane, apologetically.
Touching the silver Morpher around his left arm, Cecil felt a very strong and very dangerous sensation sweep across him. "I must do it. I must end it. I must use Annihilation Surge."
"Too late!" Fractions of a second after Corout's voice pierced the air, a huge explosion of energy blew apart their small gathering. Realizing he was being thrown through the air, Cecil scrambled to get a glimpse of his trajectory, then cursed as he realized he was several feet above the gigantic hole in the center of the cathedral, just second from falling down. Aided by an emergency rush of adrenaline, he reached to grab ahold of the edge of the chasm. Gravity continued to pull him and, although he successfully seized the ledge, his entire front slammed hard into the descending black wall. His armor absorbed three-fourths of the impact, but he was still temporarily debilitated by shock and pain. When he had reacquired enough of his senses to look upward again, Corout was standing there, one lifted foot poised above both of Cecil's gripping hands. Cecil immediately began trying to remember the words to the Lord's Prayer, and hoping he would learn his sister was somewhere safe when he reached the other side.
A large tremor began to shake the entire cathedral. Corout, surprised, turned his head around to look, and when he did Rebecca's voice exclaimed, "Magnet Wave!" Cecil felt himself lift up and out of the threatening void, completely powerless to move, and place gently down on the opposite side. She had used her power of magnetism on his gemstone armor to rescue him from falling.
"You think you are all clever, do you?" sneered Corout. He extended a single finger and twisted his mouth devilishly as a single, intense beam of pure energy blazed from the digit directly toward Cecil. Before it reached him, however, the one beam split into four, bent around into four different directions, and instead struck the other four Omni Rangers with its original full intensity. The Black Ranger shrieked and fell, butt-down, back against a far wall. The Blue and Yellow Rangers also fell, silently, onto their backs. The Pink Ranger took the hit standing and motionless. "It will be interesting to see how you all react to a paralysis ray," he laughed.
Lifting his hands, Cecil used, "Psychic Trance!" Typically, this Talent-based ability was able to disorient opponents and render them dizzy for at least enough time to get in one or two cheap shots. However, atypically, Corout made a sharp gesture, and instantly the mental attack was reflected. The whole world turned upside down; heat became cold, colors became deafening sounds, and Cecil instantly became unable to separate out his thoughts.
Reality snapped back in place. Corout was pressing Cecil against one of the cathedral walls with one hand, using an inhuman, in-alien, unnatural, or even unreal strength, and the Omnian's other hands was drawn back, balled into a fist, raw energy crackling and swirling around it. It looked like a flushing toilet, and "Shit," was the only word he could easily form to describe the new situation.
"I cannot believe this is all you children had," the villain said, almost sadly or regretfully, in a tone completely grim and serious.
"It's not," Amber's voice announced. Cecil could not see anything from his perspective except for Corout's massive shape. "Eclipse Surge!"
"Blinding Surge!"
"Electrocution Surge!"
"Blizzard Surge!"
Suddenly, the alien's bloodshot eyes went wide, as if he had suddenly gone blind and was shocked at his inability to see. Electric currents swelled up around his feet, and he bit his lower lip so hard to avoid screaming out that thin trails of blood began to leak out from the soft tissue. Cecil forced himself to make a dash and escape, caught sight of his morphed friends nearby, concentrating on invoking their ultimate attacks. Corout's elbows were forming a thick and solid layer of ice and then, on a more focused examination, Cecil realized they were actually turning into ice. With a startling and instantaneous snap, Corout's arms were severed at the joint, utterly separating him from the power source around wrists that were no longer a part of him. At last he screamed out in agony, just as a small ball of black energy that was descending toward him from above exploded, sending his body sailing across the church.
Corout landed with a sharp cry in the center of the cathedral. Relaxing their focus, the four Rangers rejoined their leader, then approached Corout, still wary of the resilient aged fighter. One at a time, they detached their helmets to be able to directly breathe the pure air that, ironically, was present on Meridian-Omega because of the dying man underneath them.
"Pathetic," Bane snorted.
Brittany nodded. "For someone who brags about having a high intelligence, you certainly never proved it with your actions."
"You have caused a lot of chaos in this universe," Cecil told him. "But no more."
Blood streamed out at a constant rate from Corout's mouth, but he was still able to talk around it and make his words coherent. His eyes were no longer black and bloodshot, but were now normal, human-like, still dark but the life within them visibly slipping away, and he turned to look at Amber. "Your grandfather...was a great man," he gasped. "I was jealous...of how much more intelligent he was...than I. I am sorry...he became...a casualty."
Amber's face took on an instant scowl, and she demanded harshly, "What do you know about my grandfather, you insane mother f..."
Ignoring her, and turning to Bane, he added, "You have a quality...both Arcanza and Salodis lack. It is both your greatest power...and your most exploitable weakness. If Michael was not about to destroy you all...you would have become something." Finally, turning to Cecil, he admitted, "I still wonder...if Rapture Hold would have been victorious...if they had worked as well as you do...as a team..."
A shaft of green energy drove down hard into Corout's forehead, a crack signifying its penetration of the skull followed quickly by a soft squishing sound, and a pool of dark red blood and soft pink tissue began spreading out from under the Omnian's head. Amber released her grip on the Lifeblade's handle. Instead of disappearing, the blade of energy became a solid material and remained embedded in the diabolical genius's brain.
"Thank you," Bane said coldly.
"Deliver us from evil." Cecil was proud he still subconsciously remembered part of that prayer.
Staring down at the disgusting sight, Amber was frowning, but seemed completely impervious to the aura of discomfort surrounding the whole situation. Sweat had converted her bouncy reddish-brown hair to a dark brown color slick with moisture. Her right hand was trembling along her side. "He was responsible for forming Rapture Hold, and for bringing them to Earth. If it weren't for him, and him alone, Alex would be beside us right now."
"Amber," Rebecca whispered, softly, placing a hand against the other girl's back.
Taking the opportunity to startle them all, Cecil screamed at the top of his voice, "Wake up!" He lifted his helmet with both hands, slipped it onto his head, and began walking with determination toward the massive hole in the church floor. "Time to wake up, Ego! Rise and shine! Wake up!"
In an all-too-rare sight that caught everyone by surprise, Brittany smiled, and it even touched her bright blue eyes, but just a tiny bit. "Wake up!" she screamed. Hurrying to catch up with Cecil, she took his hand in hers. "Let's wake up! We've got an entire Twilight Legion to feed you for breakfast, big boy!"
Rebecca gave Amber one last, reassuring hug, then she herself caught up to Brittany and Cecil and took his other hand. "Wake up, sleepyhead! You're so lazy! No more naps for you!"
A confused Bane blinked, tilting his head, shifting his eyes back and forth between Amber and the other three Rangers, then sighed and replaced the helmet of the Blue Ranger. "Get up!" he cried out. Instead of running, he walked calmly but quickly until he caught up with Brittany and took her free hand. "Ego! Get up!"
Their group paused, and together they ceased their ridiculous called to turn around and wait for Amber to return to them. Corout's comment about a grandfather must have still had her spooked, because she continued to stare at his corpse with a obvious expression of a million thoughts and questions inside her head. Amber did not know what Cecil did—that she was Craig's twin, Seraide's child, and therefore the granddaughter of an Omnian scientist named Nyru who was killed decades ago when that planet still existed.
Slowly, Amber lifted her head up, and wiped her eyes off with the back of her left hand, the firelight reflecting in the metal of her Shadow Morpher around the same arm as she moved it. She replaced her helmet then, stepping over the cadaver, she strode confidently forward to meet her friends. Taking Rebecca's hand in hers, Amber cried out, "Wake up, Ego! Wake up and put an end to this dream!"
Watching on a monitor that displayed everything the Red Ranger saw through his helmet's visor, Craig smiled and leaned back in his seat. "Put an end to this dream," he sighed wishfully.
Nearby, with his eyes glued to the same screen, Oriquin screamed, "Wake up!" as though the sleeping creature could hear his voice all the way up here in Gemini Destiny.
The last echoes of their screaming faded away somewhere above them.
The Red, Yellow, Pink, Blue, and Black Rangers stood around the simple altar, a lone stone tablet, no more than six feet in length, three feet in width, and three feet in depth. Hard white stone walls were all around them and the air would have chilled them to the bone if they had been unmorphed.
"Just push him off," prompted Rebecca.
"No, you," Cecil whined. The Pink Ranger punched him in the side, but neither he nor she actually felt the blow.
Amber stepped forward, intending to get the job done, but Cecil quickly stuck his hand out and pulled her back, away from the creature sleeping on the altar. "What?"
"I am going to awaken it," he told her firmly. Then, swallowing a lump of fluid built up in his throat, he added nervously, "How do I awaken it?"
Sighing, Rebecca pushed him forward, accompanied with a trite, "Like that."
He stumbled forward, but caught he feet at just the right moment to position him standing directly over Ego. The creature's peaceful body was frighteningly human-like, but absent of any distinct characteristics that would suggest a gender, including hair. Its flesh was a deep golden color, non-threatening, and stood out in utter contrast to the plain flavor of this resting place. Very slowly, thin trails of silver-colored energy emerged from various points on its form, then quickly disappeared, but while they were there Cecil got the uneasy feeling that he heard several voices screaming at the border of his ability to hear. He placed both hands against the alien body, and was surprised at the sensation of peace and contentment that unexpectedly warmed his soul.
"Wait," warned Brittany. "We have to make sure we awaken it with OmniTech, so we can convince it that it was the fault of something from Meridian-Omega. Otherwise, it's going to head straight for Earth and give us a whole 'nother headache."
"Good call," Cecil replied. Lifting the Omni Morpher to eye-level so he could examine his morphed reflection in its metallic gleam, he told the device, "I know there's some type of essence within you. You are not alive like us, but like a tree or a plant back home on Earth. Please know that we are all sorry for doing this; the fate of the universe it at stake."
Bane snorted impatiently. Also eager to get it over with, Amber was rocking back and forth on the soles of her feet. "You think these are alive?" Brittany muttered under her breath, shocked at the idea. "I guess, it they are, right now's the time to say 'thank you.' I've always had the impression somewhere deep inside..."
"Now!" Cecil cried, extending his hand. "OmniTech Annihilation Surge!"
A barrier of light surrounded the altar, but touched no part of Ego. In a matter of a few seconds, the stone pedestal exploded into millions of smaller pieces, and subsequently those pieces split apart into a million particles each. By the time those particles had been torn apart and shredded into a million parts themselves, the atoms were too small to attract to one another and the target was instantaneously obliterated. No evidence remained that an altar had ever been there.
Without support, Ego dropped to the floor fast and hard; upon collision with the ground below it, its eyes snapped open instantly. It stood up very slowly, or maybe time just seemed to tick by slower than normal, and before long it was hovering in mid-air and on its way up its tunnel to the surface of the cathedral up above.
I TASTE THE UNIVERSE ONCE MORE.
Ego's voice was not sound, it was thought, and it beat against the insides of Cecil's head so hard it made it difficult to put meaning to the words.
"It is finished," Bane observed. "Let us teleport."
Cecil was still stunned by Ego's announcement, so he did not react instantly, but eventually he placed his opposite hand on the OmniTech Ability Band in preparation to summon forth its power.
"No!" screamed Amber.
Turning quickly, Cecil demanded, "What's wrong?"
"She can't teleport away!" Rebecca answered in a frantic exclamation. "And I can't either!"
"For some reason," observed Bane, whose cool rationality starkly contrasted his friends now more than ever, "all of our abilities except for teleportation are intact."
Brittany's voice was trembling as she begged, "Cecil, do something. None of us can teleport. And if we can't get back to Gemini Destiny before Ego reaches the surface, it's going to suck our souls along with Twilight Legion's."
His heart began racing at hyper-speed, and his thoughts followed suit, as panic and crisis began to permeate the air. Raising the Morpher, Cecil exclaimed, "OmniTech Teleport!" but nothing happened. "OmniTech Teleport!" he screamed again, frantically. Rebecca began crying out in desperation, as well, but it did her no more good than it did him. "I..." he stuttered helplessly, lost in the confusion. "I don't know what to do."
On the spaceship, far above the burnt-out remnant of the Central Star, the chaos was also at maximum capacity. On the piloting stage, Oriquin was screaming, uncharacteristically angry, at Alpha, "Redirect Gemini Destiny's core power to form a teleportation signal! Do it! Now!"
"That is not possible," Alpha-S2 replied. "Energy reserves are spent from our offensive against Trinity Rising."
"I can't use Black Hole to teleport them," Craig panted, leaning against the railing of the piloting stage, exhausted from his efforts to try. "Each time I try, the resonance..."
In his head, Arcanza was screaming violently. Sometimes the hollering was so loud Craig lost the ability to hear his own thoughts. "Stop this! Stop this!" the evil Omnian soul pleaded. "Nobody is worth this much pain! The resonance is killing us! Stop this now!"
"Of course," growled Oriquin, his hands tightly gripping sweat-slicked graying-by-the-minute hair on top of his head. "The resonance. Just like it tries to repel tainted powers like ours, it tries to attract pure powers like theirs. That idea is the basis for the stray energy theory; why did we not realize it?"
Finally, forcing himself to calm down, Craig stepped off the piloting stage and walked slowly over to the closest monitor. He stayed quiet for several seconds as he tried to catch his breath as quickly as he could. "I did realize it."
"I am the god of destruction," Arcanza laughed in his mind one more time.
"What?" snapped Oriquin. "You sent your friends down there, knowing they could not come back up? I knew your personality had been changed, warped, but I never expected..."
Craig snapped back before the older man could complete his reprimand. "It's not like that. I realized it, and I gave Cecil a detailed backup plan in case anything went wrong. But he must have either not read it, or is too hysterical now to remember it."
Oriquin turned away from the screen, closed his eyes, and shook his head in disappointment. "Emotion triumphs over logic again, I fear. At least, in consolation, we will put to rest a threat to the universe, so their souls will not be taken for naught."
"Amber, Cecil, please!" Craig cried out in a screaming prayer directed at the screen displaying his panic-stricken friends far down below. "Hurry and get off that star! Don't die!"
The Black Ranger de-morphed. Amber's deep blue eyes were wide with fears and tears, and her concentration had been shattered too much to maintain a morphed form anymore. She collapsed into a fetal position on the cold floor and remained absolutely still and quiet. The rest of them followed their friend's lead and release their hold on now-useless OmniTech powers.
I THOUGHT THIS HOME WAS SAFE. I WAS WRONG. NOW I FEED!
Cecil did not need his psychic talents to hear the subsequent screams of Twilight Legionnaires that must have entered the cathedral shortly after the Rangers battle with Corout, a battle that he would have guessed took place years ago rather than the ten or so minutes that had actually passed. Ego's voice continued to be crushingly audible. Even more frighteningly, Cecil was beginning to think about wild and random things. He remembered being too frightened to sleep when he was a little child, so he climbed into his big sister's bed and curled up next to her. Even then he could not sleep, but at least he felt safe. He wished Krista was here now...
"Paper," Amber sobbed. Apparently, she was having flashbacks of days gone by as well, because the words were distant, as though they came from someone else.
"I'm scared," whispered Rebecca into Cecil's ear. "I don't want to die in a pit in the middle of nowhere."
"Me neither," Brittany added. Becky's voice must have not been as quiet as she had tried to make it.
He started to think about something comforting to say to both of them, but suddenly he had a epiphany. Paper! In fact, it was so obvious, his first instinct was to berate himself for not remembering right away. Craig had written a very detailed second plan that had made little sense at the time, but now it was their only ray of hope for surviving this ordeal. "I have it!" he exclaimed. Reaching into the pocket inside his black jacket, he removed the Spirit Seal. A part of him was surprised it was intact now, considering the severe beatings he had endured above. It was shining silver, featuring a design of five humanoid figures holding hands with a single rainbow-colored aura traced around them carved into it. Almost as if the thing were made just for this specific purpose.
Bane turned his nose up at the Seal. "What good will that piece of shit do?"
"Craig said it can hold souls," answered Cecil, treating the New Omnian's sarcastic comment as a real question. "We need to concentrate, transfer our souls into the Spirit Seal, and then after Ego leaves we can transfer ourselves back into our bodies. There is no time left to think about it. Choose now! Oblivion or soul transfer!"
"This is crazy!" chirped Brittany, shaking her head violently. "I don't know if it's possible, let alone if I can do it."
"We are in the middle of the universe, a life-force-eating demon is hundreds of feet above us with a growling stomach, and Michael is somewhere on this star plotting to conquer the universe." Cecil set the Seal down on the floor where the altar used to sit, then he himself sat cross-legged in front of the hand-sized disc. "If Craig says this thing can transfer souls, then it can transfer souls. Just have faith!"
Bane, despite his initial reaction, was the first to sit down next to Cecil, and grumbled, "Faith," under his breath. "If this is what it requires to see Rachel once more, then so be it."
Rebecca and Brittany were quick to sit down, as well. "Okay, I have faith in you, Cecil, and that's all I need to believe you," Rebecca affirmed.
"Yes," was all Brittany had to add.
Aroused from her catatonic state, Amber crawled over to the circle and looked surprised to see them. "I don't know what's going on," she told her friends, "but I know what I have to do."
They took one another's hands once more, connecting a five-membered circle around the Spirit Seal. "We are going to survive this." Cecil's promise was firm and honest, the kind of words that found their origin in his heart rather than the typical words that trickled down from his mind. "Craig knows what must be done to release us, and he will when everything is safe." With a final, deep, cleansing, relaxing, hope-filled breath, he instructed, "Look into yourself, see your soul, then wish it into the Seal."
He followed his own advice, and suddenly he felt another presence inside himself, something childlike and yet dangerous. It was Ego, already burrowing its way into Cecil's soul to steal it! With all of his inner strength, Cecil fought against the monster, struggled to keep it at bay and then, when he saw his little chance, he submitted himself to the Spirit Seal. Everything went black, and he never knew what happened after.
Such a little number of souls to eat, thought Ego, as it proceeded about its business of gathering its breakfast. When it had come to this world, so long ago—or maybe it was not so long ago, it had no need for or method of measuring time—the place had been empty and quiet and blissful. But now there was life here, and Ego's energy was slowly, steadily waning.
It summoned another surge of shadow fire from the conflagration surrounding the cathedral, absorbed the flames into its body, then expelled them in the form of another hundred threads of energy as it had already done five times before. The silver rays spread out across the world, piercing the souls of each and every lifeform they encountered, then returned to Ego and melted into its growing swell of power.
Suddenly, it noticed something unfamiliar happening directly below, somewhere inside its place of rest. Five life signatures, one that it had just now tried to claim, had sealed themselves off from its pull.
HOW DO THEY FIGHT AGAINST THE DRAIN?
Ego tried sending out only five silver threads this time, but it failed to pull anything back, and something it had not felt in a long time, an eternity, returned. Pain. Disappointment. Angry, Ego extended the range of its threads as it sent yet another series of a hundred threads; this time it would scour the entire solar system if need be to make up for the shortcoming on this uneasy planet.
It located a group of seven additional souls positioned far above it. And they were magnificent life forces, two of which the likes it had never encountered before. One seemed strange, almost twisted, but it would sever Ego's purposes all the same.
I FEED!
As Ego attempted to pull those seven souls back, though, more lamentable discoveries were made. A bright cage of solid white energy materialized around six of the seven souls, preventing any of them from being touched by a silver thread. It tried, again and again, to break through that threatening shield, but failed each and every time. Slowly anger was building up and, to keep itself calm, it focused instead on the last of the seven souls, the one unprotected. With the last silver thread, it took hold and began dragging that life force back to the planet, but for some reason the single soul split into two, and only one of the two was successfully pulled back.
The final essences were devoured, including that final half-soul, but there was no satisfaction in the end result. Enraged, Ego screamed, a piercing wail that would have shattered the mind of any living creature left on the planet to hear it. Shadow fire erupted from the steeple like a volcano of darkness, and it unleashed millions upon millions of silver threads, laying a powerful weave across the entire globe.
IF I CAN NOT HAVE EVERY SOUL, THEN I WILL TAKE THE SOUL OF YOUR PLANET ITSELF AND LEAVE YOU ALL TO DIE!
Everywhere, Ego's threads began to pulse and whisper as they systematically absorbed all of that stray energy flowing along the crust like water. It felt like young, fresh energy, collected over the span of a few decades, perhaps, and reinvigorated Ego with a feeling of immortality that it had not felt since its birth eons ago. After anything that was able to be soaked up was, it recalled the threads to its body and ended the feeding abruptly. All sparks of shadow fire vanished. The cathedral's steeple was scattered in pieces in every direction, and the rest of the building was already beginning to rot. Its stay here was finished, so Ego began flying at the highest possible speed away from the agitated rest stop.
It reached a wall of solid blackness that it recognized from before, when it first began to sense something was wrong. Carefully, Ego passed through the dark wall as it opened to allow it to leave. Seconds after the passage resealed itself, the worst imaginable fate came to pass. That energy Ego had absorbed from the surface was beginning to react violently in opposition to its normal, soul-created energy.
NO!
Deep in outer space, just outside the edge of the Nexus, the forces that composed Ego and the twenty-five years of accumulated energy from Meridian-Omega tore one another apart. A single-worded scream was forever lost in the emptiness surrounding it. The souls of those devoured over the millions of years the creature had lived were instantaneously released, and proceeded to whatever awaited them beyond a death they never had until now. Ego was no more.
He fell to his knees, panting, sweat and tears stinging his eyes, the memory of how much effort he had just extended and maintained still recent enough to make his head throb in rhythm with the blinding orange and green afterimage that was all he could see against the backs of his eyelids. Never before had Oriquin's Starlight power been put to such a test. And despite the fact that he had just saved six people from becoming a part of Ego, his thoughts were still wracked on the one he failed.
"What happened?" He heard Seraide questioning him in a terrified voice, but not enough strength to answer had returned yet. There had been only seconds to react, once he realized that monster was sending his evil tendons toward them all the way up here in Gemini Destiny. Oriquin had acted on pure instinct, throwing up a barrier of Starlight designed for the sole purpose of protecting everyone on the ship.
Another voice became audible, and at any other time but the present it would have made him rejoice. "High Lord Oriquin looks completely exhausted, but alive." Soleron always acknowledged Oriquin's presence one way or another before getting down and dirty to the business at hand. It was this dedication to duty, down to very smallest detail, that truly placed him among the best commanders in six thousand years of history. And, if he was speaking coherently and assessing the situation, he mind must have been healed amidst all the chaos taking place.
"Here," Talyserys guided him. The former priest's strong shoulders had been slipped under Oriquin's right arm, and those under his left arm must have belonged to Pyrial. "Be careful, Lord Oriquin, you look unstable."
Struggling to regain his voice, Oriquin replied, "Thank you."
Somewhere in front of him, off to the right hand side, Seraide was repeating over and over, "Craig? Craig? Are you alright?"
Without opening his eyes, partly because he could not and partly because he did not want to look into his sister's eyes, he informed her what had happened moments ago. "Ego tried to take our souls. I was able to shield the six of us. But because Prince Hopwood...because Craig possessed the Black Hole power, I was unable to use Starlight to protect him. I am afraid..."
"Please don't say Ego got him," pleaded Laurasia.
"Yes." Oriquin would have been sick then, but he was too weak to even do that.
Dead silence followed that proclamation, but eventually Soleron's strong voice broke that uneasy quiet. "Monitors show that Ego was destroyed just after he escaped the Nexus. In my subjective analysis, I would say the tangible power of Meridian-Omega caused an incompatibility with the intangible power of souls."
Summoning every last iota of strength that comprised him, Oriquin forced his eyes open and fought the urge to scream as bright light once again seeped into his vision. Seraide was kneeling at Craig's side, cradling his head in both her hands, clearly uncomposed and on the verge of hysteria. Laurasia stood above her with hands firmly locked on her friend's shoulders. On the fallen young man's opposite side, Soleron stood fiercely still, arms crossed, staring down at his former protégé with icy blue eyes that were filled to the brim with that all-too-familiar intelligence.
"What about the Rangers?" asked Oriquin. "Were any of them taken?"
Soleron shook his head in response. "All five of them successfully transferred their souls into the Spirit Seal. I know for sure, because they pushed me out."
Oriquin was too exhausted to hide a puzzled look on his face. "Pushed you out?" he repeated the phrase. "What does that mean?"
"On New Omnis, the Trinity Prophet, Tyamat, used some variety of dark magic to attack both mine and Eztram's minds," he replied in a hurried tone. "Eztram was unable to escape, and the end result was death. I, however, was holding the Seal when the attack began, and was able to transfer my mind inside. It left my body mindless and inept, but prevented my death, enabling me to be here now. Apparently, when some other mind or soul is placed into the Seal, whatever was in there before is 'pushed out' and reunited with the body."
The explanation was complicated, but Talyserys at least seemed to understand, and wondered, "Then, to release the kids from the Spirit Seal, will we need to sacrifice our own souls?"
"Hard telling." A glimpse of the cold, stoic, and detached Soleron shimmered through with his response, and it amused Oriquin enough to elicit a large sigh.
"No more sacrifices."
Everyone turned together to stare in surprise at Craig who, with very careful movements and pacing, used his newly-bestowed sheathed weapon to help him climb to his feet. Seraide kept one firm hand against his back, and the other hovered protectively in front of him in case he were to fall over in either direction. It must have been some mixture of maternal instinct and time displacement as a result of her cryogenic stasis; after all, in her mind, the child was no more than two or three years old. "Are you sure you can stand on your own? You were completely unconscious twenty seconds ago," she reminded him with a motherly voice.
"I'm fine," he assured her.
Oriquin's jaw was trembling, so although he managed to ask, "How did you avoid Ego?" it was garbled and probably undecipherable to anyone who was not expecting the question.
But Craig was expecting it, obviously. "I didn't. He got a soul from me. Just not mine." And just like that, there was a second wind stirring within the young man. His bright blue eyes seemed to light up with anticipation over something, and a uncontainable smile twitched the edges of his lips. "Arcanza's voice isn't in my head anymore," he said in a soft and thankful voice. "And all of the stray energy pooled on Meridian-Omega is gone. There's no more resonance to keep me away."
"What!?" Soleron, Seraide, Talyserys, Pyrial, and Laurasia exclaimed loudly, all at the same time. It could not have been more synchronous if it had been planned ahead of time. Their faces were mixtures of shock, disgust, and confusion, and it was hard telling if Seraide's or Soleron's was more painful.
He brushed off their expressions, and his gaze slid away from them and toward the exit from the bridge to the rest of the ship. "I have to go now," Craig told them all. "Mother, thank you for bringing the Spirit Seal all the way from New Omnis. Soleron, thank you for the training, and for looking after the friends I couldn't. Everyone, thank you for coming so far and doing more than your fair share in this struggle." He turned to Oriquin, who was still being supported by the two former Omnian Rangers, and smiled. "Michael will not win. I will make certain of that."
"Lineage shine on you, son of Professor Donaldson and Princess Seraide, grandson of High Lady Janoa and Prince Nyru," Soleron prayed in a quiet voice.
"I have faith in you," Oriquin told him honestly. "We all do. Come back safe, Craig."
When he opened his mouth, everyone expected him to promise he would, but no words ever escaped him mouth. Instead he ran at full speed through the doors and disappeared down the corridor, undoubtedly bound for the teleportation stage.
His feet connected with the Central Star's surface and nothing happened. Craig laughed to himself, genuinely relieved, knowing that he now had unrestricted access to every nook and cranny of the burnt out star. The only places he truly wanted to explore, though, were directly before him. It was a perfect double of the Holy Demon Sanctuary he had seen on Earth; everything from the large staircase leading toward demolished doors to the broken off steeple from which charred black soot still trickled down slowly pulled by gravity. The monster corpse with a large hole torn through its chest, the charred remains of some Twilight Legionnaires, and a trail of drying vomit were the only differences from the picture in his mind.
Reaching the entry, Craig forced his way into the antechamber and, sensing everything was clear, he proceeded into the church itself. He could not tell if the sight he saw there was disturbing or relieving. Close to twenty lifeless, soul-less, wrinkled and burned bodies of Twilight Legionnaires were scattered around what should have been holy ground. They had all fallen where they had been standing when the terror began. Situated in the middle of it all was the corpse of Corout, with Alexander's permanently-activated green Lifeblade protruding from his forehead. The puddle of blood underneath the Omnian scientist was still fresh, and its smell still hung in the air, blended with heat and ashes and smoke.
"It's like Armageddon itself just took place here," he told himself sadly, "and this is what the end of the world is like." Lifting his hands, he delved deep inside him and began summoning forth the Black Hole powers. They came with the same feelings of sickness and twisted reality that always accompanied them, but the absence of Arcanza's taunts and screams was a true blessing. "Time to rebuild!"
The entire cathedral was instantly covered it blackness and then, in only a few seconds, the dark dissipated and vision gradually returned. All of the dead members of Twilight Legion were now gone, Corout included, and that nasty smell had been purged as well. The floor of the pit where Ego had been sleeping was brought up to surface level, so there was no longer a deep abyss in the geometric center of the Sanctuary. Cecil, Brittany, Rebecca, Bane, and Amber were all there, their bodies still sitting in a upright position, their hands joined to each other's, and the Spirit Seal sat unpretentiously in the middle of the circle they had made. None of them were responsive.
"Good work, all of you," Craig said as he began walking toward his friends. "After I break that Seal, your souls will be returned to you, and then we can search for Michael's body, take his Pseudo Morpher, and open a gateway to save Alex like we came here to do. Then we're all going home!"
A deep rumble of laughter caught him off guard.
Swirling around instantly, his grip on the Black Hole power tightening in reaction to his being startled, his eyes sought out the source of the laughter. But even before he locked onto the target, Craig knew what to expect.
"Michael!" he screamed angrily.
A human form cloaked in shadow descended from its hovering position high above him and landed without a sound between Craig and his five friends in suspended animation. Light from the torches set into the cathedral walls illuminated a face so evil that it was permanently etched into his memory. Every other sight, sound, and sensation melted away, even the sickness of using Black Hole paled in comparison to the sickness of staring into the dark eyes of his parents's murderer, his friends's betrayer, and his own mortal enemy.
Michael Tracer lifted his hand, beckoning Craig Hopwood forward. His voice was full of uncontrolled rage and hatred. "It ends now."
Original Publication Date: 9 April 2003
