#6: Magnitude of Attitude

By: M Monroe Casey

 Scene One: 

The Windowsill was still on the catastrophic events unfolding in front of her. Sitting all the way in her private and exclusive world, all Monica Dancer could do was watch it unfold and hope that the others could do something about it. With a hand covering a mouth agape, she continued to witness the possible end of all earthly things.

Divinity stepped back from the keyboard as the supercomputer finished downloading and now, repeated the protocol name over and over again, each time still louder than the last in that nearly abandoned warehouse in the outskirts of Aktau. Its new dogma was in place and a smirk now sat upon the Goddess of Design’s face as she could feel the gaze of the Windowsill without a single care given to the otherworldly witness. Monica, and subsequently the High Goddess too, knew about her and the plans that were now in motion, but she didn’t care. Change was coming. Furious Malice T3 has already begun shifting this pathetic world that Stained Glass once attempted to claim. She knew in every fiber of her soul that she was going to make enemies from all sides with what comes next but none of that mattered. Face got what she deserved. She attempted to play both sides and betray their team. She had her alliance too though and in her heart of hearts, she believed that was enough. Let CJ or the Star goddess come, she was ready for any and all challengers.

The nearly twenty-three-year-old, Lenna-Anna Nicole was ready to bring the literal fires of hell, spewing up in the holes she was about to create in the crust of the earth and yet knowing this very real consequence, nothing could change her mind now. She was going to take the best parts of the world she once knew and recreate it. The reborn “Garden of Eden” was coming and with it, in reality, a perfect home. It would boast the fjords of Norway, the sand dunes of Morocco, the theme parks of Florida and so much more. They would really have it all and they would never get bored in their new home. For all Divinity really wanted was to exist there and spend her days with Let There Be and no one else. It would be much like their dormitory in their university all over again, or the childhood playrooms they accompanied each other in as kids even before that, this new place would become their own paradise. Let the world burn around them, she didn’t care. Home was calling and through the near limitless powers that now coursed through her veins, it was finally attainable.  

Completing the perfect feng-shui minutes before her roommate completed the perfect lighting, they both sought after these similar goals. To be with each other forever. Just the two of them having manicures, watching television and happily talking. This singular and crazed obsessive thought raced through her brain as she looked into the glowing screen ahead with its arrows, spinning faster and faster. But through it all, a devious smirk was still being worn on her powerful and slowly deaging form. 

As the anti-earthquake artificial intelligence protocol began to cause one of the things it was originally created to help stop, Furious Malice T3 began to slowly adjust the frequencies within its own synthetic convection currents that it possessed, upping some and lowering others. There was no more need for the nuclear core of their world to literally shape the topography of it all, this program could move it all by itself. 

The critical numbers of a rapidly changing planet flashed on the screen much to Divinity’s delight and as she was beginning to bring the earth to its shaking knees, Monica failed to notice as another catastrophic warning rang across on the Windowsill. This time in the recesses of the underground caverns below the sleepy metropolis of Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Without her quickly grabbing the remote and changing it over directly, it began to record it all in its lonesome. A magical looking-glass recording a dark pit deep below a city street. A pit currently housing two of some of the loneliest beings across the Cosmos. Well… two of them, for now. 

Scene Two: 

OMG stood in front of the chained up prisoner, a devilish smile upon her aged face as she gazed down at her prey. A slowly fading away Face shook herself awake with the limited leeway that the chains gave her. It was her sky blue eyes that nearly matched her small northern lake blue sweatshirt and short sunshine yellow bottoms, that looked up at the chain-wielding monster that held her in place. The thick black chained wrapped mummy stood over her with a chuckle to match the dimly lit lair. 

“… OMG?” 

“Hello Face… Couldn’t act and pretend your way out of this one, huh?”

“What are you doing? What’s… happening… to… meeeeee…” As her energy was being drained from her form at an accelerated rate now, Face began to get light-headed and trail off in her sentences. 

“You are just coming back home. Where you should be. Just like Divinity and Let There Be after you. Your exit was just first and a little faster is all.” 

“But… WE… were… teammates…. ALL… of us… breaking free from the Star… and what about the code, I’m still alive… and… THE High one……. you……… liedddddd…” 

Face’s head dropped down as she finished muttering the “d,” her blonde hair falling in a droop across her tattered and exhausted face. Two of the chains that directly connected to her pointer finger fingertips dimmed their glow as the draining was nearly completed. 

“First off, you were literally going to ally with the Star Goddess when I caught you so calm down there, doll. Secondly, codes are meant to be broken dear. But sweetie, don’t worry, we are still teammates through it all! You will just be with me now. Forever. It will be just like you always wanted… a friend. So… welcome home…” 

“You… won’t get away… with thisssssss…” 

“Watch me…”     

With the circle of candles providing the only light in the darkness of that pit deep below Cooper Avenue South, they too began to fade and diminish one by one as her chains spread around like tentacles, snuffing them out. With only the two closest candles now burning on either side of Face, they were the only two active lights in the room as the draining chains finished their job and faded to black too. With just two candles and no other light, the Windowsill itself could barely see somehow that OMG leaned down and picked up a small ghostly white pearl that lay where her chains once held Face. Her evermoving wrapping began to shift and change, revealing her exposed clavicle and neck region. Placing the pearl on a small chain, she donned her new trophy and began to walk towards a midnight stone throne she carved for herself. As the chains moved back to cover her full form, the burn mark right above the left side of her lip from her first junior high Lucky Strike cigarette could be briefly seen. Her sentient and alive wrappings quickly covered her face completely though as she muttered to herself in a determined vocal. 

“One down… hehehehehe…..” 

Sitting down on the throne, she gazed directly at the Windowsill and began to laugh a deep laugh. Louder and louder in her seclusion, all the while, as the less alone Star Goddess neared her own destination. Actively seeing the other massive event unfolding in front of her, Monica watched as in a wave of pure and raw energy-ridden power, Hamza, Erickson and Baleigh arrived in the outskirts of Atkau, her spiritual guide of Rashid in tow too. Landing on the lightly shaded concrete in the now evershifting world, Baleigh and her famous brunette ponytail toting self looked to the nearly abandoned warehouse in the east of town as her Goddess powers felt the presence of another. Pointing ahead, her small crew knew instantly what kind of dangers existed ahead. The days of Sionwonie and Smooth Stone in the woods of Stevens Point seemed so peaceful and so very far away now.  

“She’s there…”      

With a surge of enthusiasm, they charged ahead as the slowly emptying streets prepared for as Monica described it, “the end of all earthly things.” As they approached the warehouse, from left to right, they walked Baleigh, Hamza and then Erickson. Slowly and cautiously reaching for the disjointed and broken door, Erickson’s long wooden hands grabbed the handle and heaved it open. The three of them entered the tattered and disorientated structure and scanned it over, seeing only a nearly empty room with a few holes in the roof and floor. Connecting these two surfaces, there was a monitor in the middle of the room with its spinning circles rotating over and over again, now at their fastest speed yet. 

Fed up with the massively dangerous and selfish Goddess plot after Goddess plot, the exhausted and nearly energy depleted Baleigh yelled to the emptiness around them.

“WHERE ARE YOU?”

A soft and robotic voice replied but at a level nearly incomprehensible. 

“HUH? ARE YOU TOO SCARED TO FACE ME? FIGHT ME!!!!!!!!!”  

The voice replied again but no one could hear it amongst the four souls in the room with it. 

“Ummm… Baleigh?” 

Still at full volume, she replied to Hamza. “WHAT?” 

“This should help,” Replied Hamza. 

Using his long puppet fingers, he hit the volume button a few notches higher as the metallic voice greeted them into the warehouse. Then, just as the greeting began, a new notification flashed across Windowsill for a completely new location. San Juan, Puerto Rico. It mentioned a particularly powerful soul has come back to join the War once more. Curiosity overtook her as Monica grabbed the remote in a hurry and hit the button, starting a few minutes before their present time. 

Click. 

Nathaly Queen and Roberto Roberts lay on the hotel bed, taking up one half of the bed each. Eyes staring straight up to the ceiling above and a deep anger swelling up in each of them as they did. Nathaly kept on playing the memories of Merida over and over again in her mind, like a blooper reel of shame. She couldn’t even protect her home country, or even worse, her home city. All this Goddess wanted to do was bring back a world lost and she couldn’t even help with that either. She lost in all forms and accounts. Sitting up, she looked at the frustrated Roberto. Angry for a whole different reason though, frowning as he zoned out completely. He was a man who failed to protect his best friend as she just wanted to help another even more sad and tired soul. The Goddess of Beauty needed them both and he still failed everyone. These thoughts raced in his brain, buried underneath his unkempt mat of brown hair and dried sweat. A single phrase escaped his dehydrated and tired lips as his tree bark brown eyes looked up at his amiga. Her similar shaded curly shoulder-length hair was all sorts of a mess too as her eyes gazed back at him. 

“I’ll never fail you again… Never… again… This all happened because I didn’t trust you enough in the mission. I’m sorry… but I got you now, Nathaly… Siempre…” 

“I believe you do… pero estoy bien Roberto… we don’t have to give up… We can try again…” 

“Si?” He responded to the smirk on her face.  

“Si… porque what does unity make?” She reached out dirty and battled hand to him.  

“Everything hermoso…” He grabbed hers and held it tight. 

“Let’s do this…” She reached out her other dirty and battled hand. 

“Si.” He grabbed it too and held them both tight. 

Getting on their knees and looking at each other, much like the cathedral of Merida, they assumed the position again. Holding their hands on the hotel bed with the soft crashing waves of the Atlantic outside, they began to speak the power phrase completely three times. This time with no fighting back from Roberto or a tearful conversation in the midst of it. This time, the goals of the Vessels of Beauty were in complete and utter alignment. 

“Unity makes everything beautiful… La unidad hace que todo sea hermoso… Unity makes everything beautiful…”

As the dark purple light overtook the room then quickly faded, Stained Glass now lay alone on the bed as the television talked about the “Central Asian Crisis” at a soft volume ahead of them. No expanding glass for now, they were saving energy for something far more important at the moment. Leaning up with a devious chuckle, they looked down through the two kaleidoscope eyes upon their own hands. Red and orange shades from Nathaly and a multitude of blue from Roberto gazed upon the rainbow variety that covered their whole body. Two pinwheels of color in their eyes were now hellbent on one thing and one thing alone. Murdering the Star Goddess. Laying back down on the bed, Stained Glass began to self-induce their comatose for they will need all the energy they can muster for what was coming next. Finding the button on the remote once more, Monica brought the Windowsill back to viewing Furious Malice T3 as they were just starting their monologue. 

Click. 

Scene Three 

After each sentence, its robotic pattern let out a deep and loud scratching noise as its own protective systems desperately tried to fight off the new programming it was given. Although with the powerful and hard to break corrupted virus coursing within it now, Furious Malice T3 began to tell its message of hate to the teenager and her living puppets. A message all its own desperate for logic and love all the same.  

“I per-fect ALL im-per-fec-tions… It is what I was built for. To help hu-man-ity see the light.” 

“See the light?” A questionable Baleigh began to load up a finger of her signature pink starlight as the artificial intelligence “perfected” continued to spew its absolute dogma. 

“Yes. The light of hea-ven. This wo-rld is cur-rent-ly bro-ken. Sin exi-sts in a wo-rld bro-ken and in ab-sent of God. I shall re-create para-dise he-reeeee. God ret-urns to this wo-rld then and there is no… more… sin.” 

A quizcal Erickson, usual to his analytical self, offered the question to his robotic opponent then. 

“How will you recreate a paradise on our earth?” 

Before Furious Malice T3 could begin speaking, they all simultaneously felt the shifting of the earth officially begin. 

“Sim-ple. Use my ab-il-it-es to move the best parts of this wo-rld to-geth-er. A bro-ken wo-rld will be-come fi-xed with the new Gar-den of E-den. God will love us againnnnnn.” 

The much more emotionally grounded Hamza replied while Erickson began looking around the room for a possible puppeteer and Baleigh just stood and listened to the speech. Her dark pre-storm red sweatshirt and midnight shaded pants ready for whatever came next.  

“What do you mean the BEST parts?! What happens to the rest?!” 

“Like I said, small be-ing… I per-fect thin-gs… No more sin… no more hate… no more wa-ste.”

“NOOOOO!!!” With a yell of outrage Hamza then charged at the monitor with his wooden staff, made from the same alien wood he was carved from, raised into the air. 

Knowing very well that this might be a trap, Erickson yelled to his wooden brother. “Hamza! Wait!”

“When God re-turns… I will gre-et him fir-st… To the hea-vens I goooooo.” 

As the 2.057 meter creation of Baleigh’s workshop leapt to do his part in stopping this madness, the shifting sounds and feelings of the very crust of the earth itself finally came to their fruition and the true power of the system was finally revealed. With his wooden staff bouncing off the reinforced magical metal without even a dent, the machine then began to raise itself and their entire warehouse higher into the heavens above. Collecting dirt and concrete alike beneath it like a rising self-made mountain, it began to climb up and up. Caught off guard and in her balance too as it was churning the earth beneath them, Baleigh Luisa wobbled and then fell down to the levels below into a cloud of dust and debris left in their wake as Hamza and Erickson were both carried further up Atkau’s newest jutting peak. Knocked out of the warehouse but still being carried to the heights of insanity. Amongst the dust, a surge of high level power was seen on the Windowsill as she instantly teleported herself out of there, back home to Calgary to see just how dire this situation truly was. Hands on the remote, Monica changed the image to Naj and Jack at the Spring Dance, minutes prior to the churning of the earth, two souls desperately fighting against the darkness all around. 

Click. 

“Like help me!” Tiff yelled as she was slowly sliding in her solid black flats down the collapsing floor tile. 

With a riff forming in the center of their gymnasium, the vortex began to slowly drag them all into it. Sliding further and further, Kyle leapt in an attempt to help his “bae” but without the complete reach, he couldn’t quite get to her. Fingertips missing each other, she continued to slide down to the hazardous pile of rubble beneath. While most watched in horror, Naj and Jack looked at each other, a synchronized light bulb between them both. 

“I got it! We can all help! GUYS! HUMAN CHAIN!” Naj yelled as she ran up to join the crew attempting to assist their Social Queen. 

Forming a line that reached back to the structurally sound bathroom door down the hall, they held hands and the last person, fully outstretched, was able to clasp the well-manicured hand of Tiff. Dragging her up to safety amongst the group, the whole of the dance then helped each other to the exit. Guys, girls and all between helping each other. Bullies, jocks, nerds or freaks didn’t exist then because now, it was purely about survival at this point for something far worse was truly at play. Being the last two to leave, Naj and Jack looked back as the cracks from the gymnasium began to tear the whole building apart and eventually succeeded in its goal. Watching their school crumble under the sheer force of the earth itself shattering, they proceeded down the empty street to see no one around except Tiff and Kyle who waited for them. 

Their other classmates, teachers and volunteers escaped to safety without them in tow. Looking at each other once more then up, a gasp and a ‘woah’ escaped from each of their throats. Above them, one of the “relatively small” tectonic plates creeped over the suburbs of Calgary. Completely covering the night sky, stars and moon, the large chunk of the earth’s crust moved and soared above them. Even as they watched in those split seconds, they could see it was beginning to pick up speed now.   

Tiff, in her uniquely terrible day of almost being swallowed from a pit in the floor, then looked at Kyle with a smile and then over at Naj and Jack. Naj’s short brown hair, in her dark long blue dress, began to acquire a bit of dust from the heavens above. Jack’s orange hair, with his matching blue two-piece suit, also acquired a thin line of dust now too. She shook it off her own head and then gazed at each of them, truly seeing them both for the first time. Gazing into their Missouri forest green eyes, they all noticed one thing and one thing alone about each other at that moment. It became much harder to see each other in the shadow of something or another. Looking up in terror, a chunk of the crust has broken free, coming straight for them as they all screamed in unison. With a gasp from Monica, she didn’t even notice that the Windowsill notified her. She has now reached the current time. A concept almost broken to her entirely.   

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” 

In a group hug, they then stopped as watched as a blast of pink starlight slammed into the baseball field sized boulder plummeting towards them. Shattering it instantly, massively dusting the neighborhood all around, Baleigh landed on the street next to them. Her left hand finger gun was beginning to fade from its hot pink to a soft one as she looked at them and smirked. Reacting first, Jack yelled at her in excitement, thanks and disgust. 

“BALEIGH SOFIA LUISA!!!!!!! WHAT WAS THAT AND WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?” 

With a surprise hug from Tiff and Kyle too, the four of them surrounded her in support but before she could answer Jack’s question, she offered a quick response and then teleported to the skies once more. 

“One sec Jack. I can explain soon…!” 

Yelling at his friend from the age of 4, he replied, “FINE! BUT YOU ARE BUYING THE COFFEE!”  

With a smile, Baleigh yelled back. 

“DEAL!” 

As three more field sized boulders began to crash to the ground while she herself did a little slower, Baleigh met each one with a blast of starlight, successfully taking them out one by one. Feeling her own energy depleting to nearly half now, Rashid then spoke to the naturally youngest Goddess. 

“You need to slow down Baleigh. Over time, your powers will fade and you need to be patient so they can come back.” 

“I can’t slow down… these people need me…” 

“Yes. But it’s all pointless if you don’t have enough power to stop that machine…” 

“I am fine. I can do it all.” 

“Okay…” 

“I got this…” With a determined look upon the face of a woman who was forced to grow up a lot lately, her dark purple painted nails cracked her knuckles on both hands as she finally landed back on the street and looked back the one kilometer at her friends huddled together. With a smile towards them, she finished her sentence to her Shaman, “I can handle this…” 

Turning around to save energy and walk back to them, a vengeful glass punch met the left side of Baleigh’s face, smashing her through two houses to the south and into someone’s backyard pool. Crashing into the water, while forming her own version of a small tidal wave, Baleigh lay face-first in the dirty springtime water for a second before her brown eyes opened but before she could react even further, Stained Glass was there with another punch to the back of the head and then two into her gut. 

Scene Four

In a yell of concern, Jack, Kyle, Naj and Tiff ran down the street in their formal wear towards their friend in grave peril. With the sounds of crashing earth chunks, sirens and screams of terror all around, the group resorted to yelling at the tip top of their voices as they progressed forward.  

“WHO WAS THAT?” Jack yelled first. 

“I DON’T KNOW!!!!! WHY WOULD WE KNOW THAT?” Kyle yelled back. 

“I DON’T KNOW. MAYBE YOU DID! WAS I CRAZY OR WERE THEY MADE OF GLASS?”

Tiff responded back, “YOU WERE RIGHT… THEY WERE LITERALLY MADE OF RAINBOW COLORED GLASS BUT MY QUESTION IS… HOW ARE WE GOING TO HELP AGAINST THAT?” 

“I KNOW IT’S DIRE BUT SHE NEEDS US. WE HAVE TO TRY…” Naj stopped running in her mid-sentence as the sirens wailed to their west, checking her phone with one unread, then read and then replied message from it. Continuing her sentence, Naj ushered the group to their next mission. “ACTUALLY… I KNOW A BETTER WAY WE CAN HELP HER! C’MON! FOLLOW ME!” 

As her friends, forged in the new fires of world-ending-stakes and the old fires of social complications, ran off in the direction of her house, Baleigh took two more punches to the gut from Stained Glass as she flopped in the disgusting water like a struggling tuna. Grabbing the left leg of Stained Glass, Baleigh’s gymnast strength heaved herself away before the next punch could land. Tired, battered and on-the-run, she began to swim away to the closest edge of the pool. Pulling herself up and then getting onto the cracked concrete slab, she climbed to her feet quickly and rushed to the gaping hole in the house that she created by accident. Nearing a few steps from the hole, she hobbled but before she reached the openness of possible safety and maybe enough energy recuperation to teleport herself out of there, Stained Glass grabbed both of her shoulders from behind, on either side of her soaked and smelly sweatshirt, and forced a teleportation of them both. 

Succeeding in their goal of isolating the Star, Beauty brought her to the empty and split streets of Hilo, Kona, Hawaii. In a moment of shock, not knowing a Goddess could force transportation of another, Baleigh stood on the streets for a second until a powerful raised knee kick met her back, launching her into the damaged rubble ahead. Crashing into the upturned stone, it was all looking over and done for her as her eyes began to close. Much like the cobblestone patterns that she lay on in the square in Merida, she began to go inwards in this time of desperation as the chuckling and maniacal Stained Glass neared even closer. Slowly walking for dramatic effect.  

“Rashid… I need some help here…”    

“No… you don’t.” 

“What do you mean? I’m getting my butt kicked… I’m going to die if you don’t help me… This is all from a person I want to save too… I literally can’t even break their roles or save my own… Please help me and use your ghost magic or something…” 

“Baleigh, you don’t need my help. Think about it, did I help you win the fight against Sionwonie and Smooth Stone? What about the past version of me? Stained Glass? Lighting?” 

“No…”

“That was you. You are the Star. It’s your play. Write your own ending…” 

“But you said their roles are already played out… what if their roles are to succeed… what if their roles are to win the ‘War of the Goddesses,’ I can’t fight all… of…this… Those were just one or two… this is the whole world…”

The Goddess of Beauty neared her prey, a few steps away now as her hands began to glow for the taste of glassy revenge.  

“You don’t have to fight it alone. You have me.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I promise. Until the end, my new friend. Trust me but more importantly, trust you.” 

“Yeah?!” 

“Always. Do it for KJ and Dumes… you can do it. But first, we got to put Beauty in their place again. It does look like you’ve recharged enough though… So, how about let’s show this glassy goon who the Star really is then head back to Kazakhstan?” 

“Deal…”

“Then… we will worry about saving them from their roles. Let’s just not die first…” 

“Okay… that’s fair.” 

“Are you ready?” 

“Let’s save the world…”  

“Deal.” 

Opening her eyes in a moment of defiance against the overwhelming odds stacked against her once more, Baleigh in all of her track star glory, leapt to her feet and looked the meter away to her adversary as a slow and creeping “larger” tectonic plate soared above. Staring at the two pinwheels directly, Baleigh winked and then ushered her challenger to come and bring it on. With starlight loading up on both hands for one and living glass on the other’s fingertips, the two sides charged at each other in an attempt to end this fight. With either death or a change of heart as the end result, the streets of Hilo would now become an attempt to finally change it all. 

Scene Five

Glassy hands blocked starlight blasts once more in a complete and utter recall of their first fight, almost move for move. Over and over again, the attempted glassing was deterred by transition of the other hand to moonlight. After a particularly large starblast was knocked to the left, leveling the basketball and tennis court of the condominium complex they warred in, they both stopped as Baleigh began to feel worse than ever before, visibly wobbling now. With a brief amount of pity, Stained Glass began to try reason with the headstrong teenager. For no headway was being made for either side as they each attempted desperately to search for an “opening,” in the other.  

“YOU! Just stop!” Stained Glass attempted to reason. 

With not enough energy to even keep up a front anymore, Baleigh muttered back, “Never… I… will… never… stop…” 

“You could have turned your back on this world… found a new home with your family and let me have it but you just couldn’t do that, COULD YOU?! I don’t feel anything but pity for you… you did this to yourself…”

“This… world… will… never… be… yours… because… how… can… you… cover… it… in… glass… if… Design… breaks… it…” 

“I don’t need this world how it was… mi mundo siempre es hermoso… you foolish child. I can’t understand why you would stop me from this… WHY DO YOU HATE LOVE? You can’t even begin to fathom my loss… EVERYTHING I KNOW IS GONE!!!!! I will have my home… and your selfishness will never be in my way again…”

“Wait… listen… to… me…. You… and… Design… both… just… want… a home,… I can… help… you… Please…please… we… don’t… have to be enemies…….we… are… more… alike… than you know……….” Baleigh began to stumble forward as the lights on both hands began to dim. Her ponytail hair tie failed now completely as her shoulder length sweat-crusted brunette hair fell at the sides of her face. 

Clenching both hands in a fist, the equally headstrong nearly ageless being yelled back at her, fed up with the games, “NO!!!! WE ARE NOT ALIKE… AT… ALL… YOU DUMB HUMAN CHILD… JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY AND STOP WASTING MY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!” 

Charging forward with an open-palmed left hand, Stained Glass met the weakened starlight attack from both hands nearing the close proximity of their opponent. Dropping a left foot kick into her leg, Baleigh Luisa doubled over in pain as an elbow then met the middle of her spine. Crashing her into the ground hard, Stained Glasses’ other foot forcefully landed in the back of her right knee. With an audible crack that rang across the whole small battlefield, she yelled out in tremendous pain as Monica gasped on Mt. Couch. 

Literally crawling away now in the black tar parking lot of the shattering housing complex, the Star attempted to escape as Beauty walked up behind her, catching up with ease. Placing the same foot that dropped her only two minutes earlier on the back of her neck, Stained Glass remained unsympathetic to the cries of agony that sounded from below them. 

“Goodbye, Star… it looks like your role was to lose, after all…” With a dramatic raise of their rainbow shaded left leg into the air, the combined soul of Roberto and Nathaly forged in the fires of their goals and hatred, used gravity’s malice in that moment for a merciless move to end it finally. Overhead, a chunk of the tectonic plate fell off and began to plunge towards them both. 

“NOOOOOOOOO… ?” Monica yelled from the other side of the Windowsill before she stopped herself in complete perplexity, asking to the tense air around her and Cal, “Wait… why is she… smiling?” 

Baleigh muttered to herself as she quickly reached her for right leg pocket, “Nahhhh… I just needed you close enough… THANKS BESTIE!!!”     

Pulling out the Sapping Stone she acquired from the “World Beyond,” Baleigh then planted it upon the bottom of their foot before the damage was done. With a yell of pain, Stained Glass lost their balance and stumbled backwards. Rapidly then applying the stone to her own shattered kneecap, the adrenaline source of another Goddesses’ strength began to course through her body. Sporting a rainbow colored right-leg kneecap cover now, the gleaming teenager got to her feet and smirked to the even now more angry Beauty as the darkness of the impending doom from above neared. 

“See… I told you we are alike!”  

“Standing in the way of my world’s return wasn’t enough for you… You had to spit on my legacy, my people and my history… Now… I won’t just win… I PROMISE YOU!!!! I… will… break… you…” 

Quickly shattering the largest chunk to fall yet, she thoroughly minced it like the beef of last week’s Fajita Thursday’s and as she brought her eyes back down through the settling sentiment to the fight at hand, a rageful glassy fist met the left side of her jaw once more. With a force made stronger through pure passion, it smashed her into the grassy field to their left, forcefully churning the fertile brown ground. Knowing she would have been down for the count without that recent adrenaline shot, Baleigh then painfully and defiantly stood up to her opponent again. Clenching the stone tightly. With another surge of its power, she felt the second thirds of what it had left then and smirked towards the one with the glowing rainbow hands, as one of her own hands began to glow pink and the other white. 

Preparing to witness the dramatic conclusion to the second grandiose clash of the Star and Beauty in that many days, a notification then rang across the Windowsill that her hazel eyes were instantly drawn too, distracting her from this current fight entirely. Muttering to herself, Monica’s bewildered and shook voice began to slowly accept the truth of what is maybe coming to pass.

Her and Stained Glass might have something in direct commonality.  

“Warning. 32 minutes until irreversible damage to Planet Earth… Extinction of current life on planet: Highly Likely.”    

With the magic of the Windowsill able to fully analyze the situation at hand, she then watched with knots forming in her stomach as the 32 minutes left for her former home world quickly became 31 minutes and 30 seconds. Hurriedly grabbing the remote with immense curiosity on how Erickson and Hamza are doing in their fight to stop this, the Windowsill was turned back to the source of it all and the current battle there. An intense battle taking place in a completely shattered and broken city, one that could now have a new slogan come election time. Assuming it, and everything else, lasts that long. “Welcome to Aktau, home of the world’s tallest mountain.”    

Click.

Scene Six 

“Hamza! Watch out!” 

Yelling to his friend in the last second, Erickson watched as the last of the falling rocks, from the completion of the mountain, nearly crushed him in its immense weight. There they stood, one small plateau below the peak. One giant puppet brother, forged from the same living alien wood, watching another escape near death once again. An activity that has become far too normal for them both on this harrowing afternoon. Feeling the shared frustration of being removed from the fight in Mexico almost immediately, the two of them continued their climb to the top, fueled by this thought and many more altruistic ones. With only a few outreaches in their elongated bodies, Hamza pulled Erickson up as they both then walked cautiously to the same warehouse door they once were tossed out like ragdolls. Using their combined rage with two staff strikes at the door, it crushed and crumbled to their desire. Step by step, they nearly reached the middle of the room and the hated monitor at the center before a familiar voice greeted them. 

“Wel-come ba-ck…” 

The usually calm and collected Erickson reached his last straw as the clench on his staff showed that he had finally reached a point of his true newfound anger, “You…” 

“God will love me… the most… for I… brou-ght hea-ven back……. But… I… still… ne-ed… to go… high-er……..” 

“Yeah… We get it! Just shut up already…” 

Fueled by rage and frustration without the ability to process what was happening around them now, Erickson charged forward and just as he began, Furious Malice T3 made moves of its own. Rising even higher in the room, it began crushing the very floor they trod upon in its final growth, its final update. As the black walled warehouse itself, flooring and all, began to fall down the side of the mountain, like a great snake shedding its skin, the singular monitor brain of Furious Malice T3 now stood alone. Unprotected and victorious. A singular illogical logic program stood alone at the top of the world, easily holding the fate of all living earthbound things in its grasp. Landing hard onto the rocks below, to the level they just climbed up from, Hamza and Erickson both lay, unconscious as the situation now has reached a point of true criticality. Reading across the Windowsill before she slowly and sadly reached for the remote. 

“Warning. 24 minutes and 53 seconds until irreversible damage to Planet Earth… Extinction of current life on planet: Nearly inevitable.”

Click. 

With the newest adrenaline and now, glassy knee brace from her attempted friend, Baleigh began to finally gain some leverage in their fight. Feeling a comeback in her aggressively expanding bones, she placed her glowing starlight hand on her new knee and watched as it began to glow, knowing it was time for the rainbow starlight to now affect every part of her. Clapping her hands together, her young eyes could see the power spread to both hands as a smirk emerged on her face. Rainbow shaded moon and star light now completely coursed through her hands, forearms and legs, perfectly highlighting her dark purple nails. Then, with an even wider smirk, she met one of Stained Glasses’ punches with her hand, able to finally block it and with her other hand, she slammed into their gut, doubling Nathaly and Roberto’s shared body down for once. Spinning them around in a similar move they pulled on her, she then grabbed both of their shoulders from behind and forced a transport, bringing them both to near the top of the mountain, one level below Hamza and Erickson’s unconscious forms and two levels below the processing brain of the most hateful AI alive. 

Crash landing in the dirt together, Stained Glass and Baleigh both lay still in the still settling dirt and soot while a flash of red light blasted across from the level above the two battle-weary Goddesses. Within seconds of their arrival to that small cliffside, another one of their kin launched the two precious “Tools of the Star” back down the mountainside, in an attempt to “clean out the trash.”

Now, on Mt. Atkau, only four goddesses and one pious AI remained in the war against time as Monica read on the Windowsill, “Warning. 19 minutes and 14 seconds until irreversible damage to Planet Earth… Extinction of current life on planet: Imminent.”   

Scene Seven 

Two pinwheeled eyes opened as Stained Glass climbed to their feet first in an attempt to gain the upper hand. Rushing over towards Baleigh, they were met with a kick to the center of the chest by the ascending Star. With her upper body strength pushing herself to her feet, much like a move she pulled on Rashid in the “World Beyond,” she knocked them back a few meters. On her feet, she burst forward and delivered a passionate punch to their jaw this time. In the settling soot and high altitude air, they both began to trade a collective of twenty jaw, nose, ear, front, back and side of the head punches driven through pure passion. Each without victory and with an oncoming deep exhaustion felt from them both, they simultaneously fell to their knees when Baleigh offered a question through the winces of pain. All the while, a watchful pair of eyes from the Windowsill and two pairs from two levels up the mountain all watched on.  

“What happened… to your planet…?” 

The equally pain-filled Stained Glass replied. 

“A long time ago… we had a King and a Queen. They ruled all and all loved their rule… But one day… temptation befell the Queen… ‘Another soul she desired’… The talks ruined us. A civil war tore it apart… She never even did it… It was all because someone started a rumor…”

With confusion, Baleigh Sofia climbed to her feet and retorted the comment as Stained Glass stood up again once more. 

“But… why do you feel so responsible for it?” 

“I’m their Goddess. It was my responsibility to save them and I couldn’t handle it… I turned and I left… There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of my mistake and what I wouldn’t do to change it… This was just the world I chose to rebuild what I lost… The closest planet in beauty to what I knew… so… to make up for my mistake, I will claim this one instead…” 

Clenching their left hand fist, Stained Glass then gazed at Baleigh before charging ahead with an insatiable bloodlust still residing in their glassy veins. 

“Buuuuuuttttttt… my fashionable friend… this isn’t your planet to claim… and like I told Rashid when he tried to take something of mine… THIS PLANET… IS NOT… YOURS AND YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!”   

With Stained Glass only an arms length from her now, Baleigh planted the front of her left foot into the ankle deep soot, took a deep breath in, closed her eyes and then began to rotate like the ballerinas she worshiped as a small child. Building up speed, she spun as Stained Glass slowed themselves down in their rapid charge, only able to witness the cultivating mega power at hand. In a mini-tornado of debris, gravity, rainbow starlight and rainbow moonlight, she then abruptly stopped with a sassy smirk and stared at her opponent with a certain look that her own mother can only describe as trouble. As the dusty wall of power briefly suspended itself in the air, she reached out, first softly grazing and then firmly grabbing a hold of it. With only the time for an audible gasp from Monica and Stained Glass alike, Baleigh Sofia Luisa then molded and formed it into a five meter baseball bat. Lightly tapping the ground that she looked down at first, she turned her eyes up and then without another spoken word uttered, she two-hand delivered the force of it to her enemy’s exposed and unprotected chest. Aggressively launching them straight downwards and through the thick wall of blackened clouds below, the battleground of Mt. Atkau was now down to only three goddesses and one self-righteous computer. 

With a turn of her bruised head, hosting a scowl, her eyes eyed up the next target as Rashid offered a comment to her angry form and Monica read across the Windowsill, “Warning. 6 minutes and 11 seconds until irreversible damage to Planet Earth… Extinction of current life on planet: Near.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t use that on my other body… Ouch…” 

“Not the time, Rashid. I’m not in the mood… It’s been a long day.” 

“Yeah… I get it. Let’s finish this.” 

“Yeah…” 

Elongating the bat into a lasso, she then formed her next tool. Spinning it above her head, she then made contact with the elongated tower that Furious Malice T3 sported as its antenna. Bending down in the crater of ash she only just recently created, she then took another deep breath in and in one swift movement, she brought herself to the top level of the mountain and ripped the broadcasting antenna clean off. Landing in a slide that nearly brought her right off of the peak too, she stopped herself and watched the technology, wrapped in her power, get carried down the mountainside. With a third and final deep breath, Baleigh returned her angsty gaze back to the broken computer program in its small snowy white glass casing. Still and permanently corrupted with its hate but without a way to communicate it, she has won for now. It only took two massive puppets, a whole warehouse, one Goddess, a giant power bat/ lasso and an equally large antenna to fall down the judging cliffs on all sides but the threat it once posed was finally neutralized. 

Seeing the effects of the terraforming begin to finally reverse across the cracked screens all around her, the literal flying plating of the earth was now returning to its original home, back to where each of them truly belonged. Still attempting to catch her own heartbeat through the pulse-pounding two days she just had, a chilling tingle then abruptly rang through her spine and a panicked rush was felt across her whole body as a soft-spoken voice from behind asked a simple question in the equally chilled air.   

“Why did you break my toy?”  

Scene Eight: 

Standing around the average for her age range of 133 cm, the nine year old Divinity stared back at the sixteen year old Baleigh, tears forming in her small blue eyes. Her light blonde hair stood as a strict contrast to the dark blue footie pajamas she wore on the mountain peak. 

“Your toy? Wait… who are you?” 

“Yes. My name is Divinity. This is my mountain and you came here and you broke my toy… Why?” 

“That is a very pretty name Divinity but it was going to drown the world in endless fire… I had to stop it!  

“But…. it’s not your toy! Fur Malice T3sssss my favorite toy and you broke it… you big bully!” Divinity stomped first her left foot and then her right into the dusty ground as the strongest pressure that Baleigh has ever felt from a Goddess began to hover in the air, suppressing the literal natural world itself even. 

“Please… You need to calm down… I’m sorry for breaking your toy but it was going to hurt a lot of people…” 

“My toy friend was making a playground for me and my bestie and you broke it… I just want to ride rollercoasters and play with her there forever… No… No… NO!” As her temper tantrum began to build steam, Baleigh could feel herself being literally pushed backwards and away from her opponent. In her tired state, there was less and less she could do against the overwhelming power she now stood against. 

“Please… we don’t have to fight…” 

“The Goddesses of Design and Light are supposed to live together forever in our perfect home and YOU… ENDED THAT… NO…. NOOOOO…. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!” With her temper reaching full steam now, Monica could only watch in horror as the curse-ridden deaging, once university student and now literal 9 year old terror, Lenna-Anna Nicole began to unleash her full wrath. 

Throwing her arms to each side and letting out a loud scream of frustration, Divinity’s light brown aura flared and then roared into an attack in every possible direction atop Mt. Atkau. With walls of brown light shredding the literal mountainside she stood on, a quickly timed rainbow starlight blast from her left hand cut up the wall before it could reach her, saving her just in time. With both hands hosting the rainbow starlight now, she began to fight back at the walls of light that came to knock her off the mountain, one at a time. Slicing each of them down the middle, all she could do was mitigate the problem though as the strongest of the Goddesses fully let loose her childish anger. Still trying to reason with her, in the thinnest air imaginable in the tippy top of the world, Baleigh tried to get into her mind and finally end this nightmare of a day.  

“Please!!!!!!! Stop!” 

With each line retorted back, another wall of raw power erupted from her aura and barrelled down upon the weary Star.

“No… No… NOOOOOOOOOOO! We were going to have makeovers, play games and have fun all day and you broke it. My curse helped me become the strongest and I don’t care that I’m 9 forever. I will be with Vittoria Ivonee forever and ever and there is nothing you big kids or grown ups can do… JUST GO HOME AND GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!!!!!!!” 

Accepting there is no way to reason with her while Lenna was this age, Baleigh must now separate the problem from the person and try and stop The Goddess of Design, not its 9 year old host body that currently threatened the world. 

“Fine. I warned you. You won’t stop… so, I’ll make you stop…” 

As the waves of power kept coming in at an accelerated rate, she would fire a blast and in the gap, she advanced a few more steps forward. Each attack defended, she made a few steps of progress towards her enemy. Noticing this with a smirk upon her face, Divinity abruptly ended her tsunami of power waves and switched to a new tactic. Forming her aura into two giant hands, she brought the fists down upon the Star. Dodging the literal crushing weight dropping from above over and over again, Baleigh attempted to survive this onslaught and look up at the source of his brutality when she could. The tear-dried face of Design continued to laugh maniacally in their continued attempt to dispatch the Star, once and for all. 

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! This is fun! Dance, Star! Dance, Star! Dance, Star!” 

Jumping back and forth, sweaty brunette hair flopping in the physically demanding time of trying not to die, she knew that she couldn’t just dodge forever given how drastically different their power reserves were at this moment. In a narrow avoidance of one of the massive fists, she looked to her left and noticed something near the center of the white rock mountainous plateau they warred upon. Furious Malice T3’s “brain” still hosted two blinking red lights and something that looked strangely like a “back-up antenna.” Knowing the world wouldn’t be truly safe as long as this mountain still stood, she knew then and there what she must do now. 

Tucking and rolling to the left and then even further to the right, she cleared enough space to softly slide her left hand across her right knee, sourcing the power once more. Clapping hands together in the dusty and divot-ridden small battlefield, the rainbow starlight grew to an even brighter shade than even before as it danced across each of her fingers. Gingerly and intentionally moving from one to the next as Divinity adjusted her aura into a giant ball of ridiculously large proportions. All in an attempt to fully remove her from both the mountain and life itself. Baleigh then pointed her two fingers down and fired at the salty white shaded rocks at her feet. 

Launching herself into the air with a surge of immense power of her own, she began to float in front of the setting sun in the dirty skies. Leaning forward to the heights of the world that she once belonged too, she outstretched two hands and closed her eyes. With a smirk much like the one with Stained Glass only a few minutes earlier, Baleigh Sofia Luisa then fired a blast of rainbow starlight from each of her two pointer fingers and as quick as the starlight escaped on its warpath, she crossed her two arms. With a thinly designed disc of power aimed at Design, it avoided her but instead went straight for her newest creation. Slicing into and then halving the ball of nearly CJ level power that she just created. Knowing that she was witnessing the combined powers of two Goddesses and one cursed one colliding at full bore, it was no surprise to Monica Dancer that the natural order of things were merely just suggestions to what she lay witness too. 

With the instability of the ball residing all the way to its core, it began to collapse in upon itself, forming a small black hole. With a quick teleportation directly above Lenna, Baleigh then brought her right foot down upon their shoulder, first lightly touching it before she exerted her full force as she yelled to her opponent, “you may be THE strongest Goddess but WE… have… MORE… THAN… YOU… DO!” 

Only slightly shifting Lenna’s body weight in that whole teleportation endeavor, her real goal was quickly noticed as a yell was omitted from the child. Much like the moment when she herself dropped her ice cream on his pet iguana at Jack’s eighth birthday party, all the Star could do was witness the chaos now. A dropped child size mini black hole was about to meet the synthetically created mega mountain. So, yeah, basically the same as that birthday party mishap. 

As the black hole began to literally split the mountain in half in its descent through the center of the structure, an even more angry Design then pursued the falling Star down the collapsing western half. Teleporting herself behind Baleigh, Lenna created her aura into a few different pillars and then began to pummel her back repeatedly as they both quickly fell to the ground below. Feeling the brutality of the onslaught this time even more, Baleigh managed to maneuver the tides of the air and turn herself around, halfway down now. Firing two rainbow starlight blasts into the pillars head-on, she crashed them then delivered a punch to Design’s jaw. Then, in basically a greeting they each have now because of Stained Glass, Lenna and Baleigh began to gift each other jaw blows, over and over again. One Goddess trying to stop the other and one just desperately trying to make the other disappear. 

Stopping for a second and not returning the sixth blow in a row, as they reached one quarter down to the bottom, Baleigh noticed behind her that the western half of the collapse was only a few of her trackstar feet away. Guiding herself towards the avalanche of hard rock, the soles of sneakers planted on it and in her young teenage soul, she knew it wasn’t over just yet. Positioning herself with a firmest collection of herself that she felt in a long time and then launching off, the Star Goddess then fired a left hand blast of starlight into the rocky wall above her. 

Releasing it from its constraint, gravity took care of the rest as Divinity could only watch as they were the one slammed into, this time by a solid wall of white, salty rock. Being tossed by the very rocks that they forged their mountain with, Lenna soared off into the distance as the western half of the behemoth was catching up to the now-grounded Canadian warrior. Teleporting herself safely away from the collapsing geographic marvel, Baleigh crash landed in her exhaustion in the low-depth shoreline of the dirty and soot-covered waters of the Caspian Sea. Pulling herself out and onto the beach, she then lay down in an attempt to regain and recharge some energy. Laying for a minute or two in the early dusk hours, she knew that Calgary called though as she could hear the final crashing noises of the severed mountain in the distance and the popping noise from the disappearing mini-black hole. 

Opening her eyes and deciding she must go and find somewhere safely to do this recharging before she could return home, Baleigh stood up with a smile on her face because against all odds once more, the Star has emerged victorious. She stopped the end of the world twice and two different Goddesses in under twenty-four hours but before she could react or comprehend more on what just happened or what was to come next now, a singular ray of empty gray light slammed into her. Knocking her to the ground and forcibly closing her eyes once more.  

Knowing Monica was watching on the Windowsill and feeling oddly comforted by knowing a friend was there for her no matter how bad it might get, her eyes opened again.

“Weird… that didn’t hurt…? So… who and… why…?” 

Without any extra pain added, she quickly stood up and then instantly froze in the usually golden sand as ahead of her, two brunette women now stood. Each of them with a face eerily similar to her own. On one of their hands, a hot pink starlight was growing and the other, a dark and sinister moonlight was beginning to form. 

THE END