Anonymous Authoress--YAY! Have a cookie, we missed you!! It's been crazy, but we're so happy to be back! Especially with only a few chapters left...it was like, we gotta finish this...
Locked in a Stony Tower--I know what you mean, I've been rereading stuff over and over...such deja vu, all of it. But I'm glad you like the band geeks and orca-dorks. Us writers and theater people are often shunted aside by them...so it's too much fun to be mean sometimes and make them the bad guys :P
Gina--Nicole is very disappointed there was no physical review, but whatever she did to you because you didn't review to her I had NO part in.
A/N: We missed you guys too. It's been a couple of years I think . . . anyways, Mandi and i realized that since we were this close, we owed it to you guys to finish the story. There's not much left - one chapter and a couple extra goodies after this. (I think it was a year and a half...someone correct me on this... --Mandy)
Anyhoo, Mandy wants to say that she will continue writing other stuff with the MBDTA and hopes Nicole will too....even if it is just to get over writing blocks. Love you!
DISCLAIMER: After all this time, we still do not own it. After all this time, I am still sad. And after all this time, I finally got Legolas stuffed into my closet! :D
Chapter 21: The End of All Things
Penelope's POV
Keep driving…keep driving…keep breathing…
Nicole told me to get here as fast as possible. I'm not entirely sure how she expected me to do so in my present state of mind, but thankfully there is such a thing as auto-pilot as my actual thinking brain took over.
My heart, however, felt squeezed. It was painful to breathe, and I felt as though the spirits were trying to pull me out of physical form. Which I wanted to gladly let them do.
The signs to the festival announced I would be arriving shortly, but already I could hear screaming and war cries. Cars raced out of the entranceway—one giant Ford almost running over my baby bug. The bright, triangular flags around the entranceway were turning black from fire. I cringed at the sight of the flames but parked my car and grabbed my rapier from the backseat. I figured I might need it.
As I ran through the entry arch, I found giant, muscled men in chain mail wrestling teenage boys in band uniforms to the ground, instruments forgotten. Yet band kids still marched on in perfect rhythm, past screaming shopkeepers and people running towards the exit.
Then I saw him.
Hooded in a black sweatshirt and jeans, a boy with a lighter threw balls of fire at buildings, laughing maliciously. It was the same presence in my mind from earlier.
"FIEND!" I shrieked, pulling the blade from its sheath. The boy turned, and a Ring of Power glinted in the sun, spouting flames. He grinned, and with a lazy flick of his ring finger sent fire blazing towards me.
I dodged, but more flew at me as I ran at him, and my skirt caught fire. I froze.
"That. Was. My. Favorite. SKIRT!" I screamed, rushing at him. Now he looked scared.
I swung my sword, and he howled as a huge gash appeared in his arm. I swung again, and his sweatshirt ripped along his stomach. I lunged.
Kelsey's PoV
"FIEND!" I whirled around to see a person swathed in cloth with a pointed wizard's hat running at a hooded figure. Penelope.
Suddenly a large figure materialized on top of a wild-eyed cello player. It sighed.
"You'd think she'd realize that most of us have a way of returning from death in the void," Sauron shook his head.
Nicole launched herself at him, despite the fact that others were surrounding us. "You moron! You two-faced, son of a—"
"Nicole!" I warned, whacking a tuba player on the head.
"GUN!" She finished, grinning at me with very white teeth.
"What?" Sauron looked startled. "I thought the plan was to let ourselves get killed to annoy Morgoth?"
Nicole smacked her head and waved her sword at a girl who was waving her paintbrushes at her menacingly. "Back! Back, I say!"
"You know, maybe you should have died earlier," Glorfindel commented thoughtfully as he dueled a boy dressed as Harry Potter. "This pent-up rage she's letting out is sure helping."
"That. Was. My. Favorite. SKIRT!" Penelope's screams echoed, and she promptly hacked the hooded boy to pieces.
"Did you know she could fight?" I asked Nicole faintly.
"No, but you can't deny that it helps."
Ernie's POV
"NO!" I howled in agony from atop my horse as Tomato fell to the psychic. "Taylor, finish them!"
Taylor looked up at me, his face pale and looking as though he would argue.
"NOW!" I bellowed. He grimaced and straightened his shoulders, raising his trumpet before leading the next attack of muscled, football men. I heard myself screaming again as Taylor fell at that traitor Sauron's feet.
Enraged, I dismounted, drawing my sword as it glowed red, flames licking up and down the metal. I started down the hill. These metal shoes were killing me, but they were protective. The others were getting weary—FOOLS! As if they could take the full strength of my forces.
Mandy would first be dealt with, the elves following. Then I would focus on Sauron and Kelsey before defeating the strongest of the Maiar. I laughed out loud. This would be too easy.
I could feel myself growing taller as I approached. Nothing could stop me.
The three girls faced me, their men focused on my army. Ok, so they might die out of order. As long as they died I would be happy. I raised my sword, and with a swipe Mandy was gone.
The others were pale and tight-lipped but held their swords that may as well have been made out of wood at me.
I laughed again and swung my sword, and Kelsey was gone.
I advanced on Nicole.
"Who's the prisoner now?" I sneered with another laugh (my evil laugh was getting quite good). "Prisoner indeed, since I'm about to be rid of you all!"
But before I could kill her…
POP!
Mandy appeared, paler but jaw taut. I frowned and lunged at her with my sword. She disappeared, and...
POP!
Kelsey reappeared. Then—
POP!
—Mandy reappeared. I killed them both.
POP!
POP!
They both returned, grinning.
"WHY WON'T ANY OF YOU STAY DEAD?" I shrieked, plunging my sword into all three of them.
Laughing, Nicole disappeared, only to—
POP!
—Reappear again.
POP!
POP!
Mandy and Kelsey laughed too.
I hated it.
Nicole's POV
The only problems with him killing us repeatedly was that Mandos was getting irritated by our popping back and forth between realms and that we weren't actually stopping Morgoth—just stalling.
So the next moment I appeared in Mandos's hall I confronted him, fully aware that I was only a floating speck.
"Mandos, we need help. We can't kill our charge, but he must stop!"
Mandos scowled at me, rubbing his temples. "You are his guardian. You must imprison him. That is your purpose in life."
I glared, and saw my speck grow larger in his eyes. "I know that! We can't just place him in another void! Look at what has happened!"
Mandos drank his tea as—
POP!
POP!
—Mandy and Kelsey appeared then—
POP!
POP!
—disappeared.
"Create another void with stronger bindings," He suggested. "You have to control him. Perhaps put him in a smaller one this time."
I stuck my figurative tongue at him, made a rude noise, and POP!
Mandy and Kelsey had gotten more creative, popping beside Morgoth and on his shoulders as he screamed with rage and chased them around the fair grounds. Looking at him, I couldn't believe it was Ernie. He had no face, only the red eyes were discernable in the darkness that made up his features. His black armor covered his body, which had swelled to an enormous size. It was kinda disturbing.
I gave chase so to speak until I came to a knot of Band nerds. I soon was surrounded and once more was fighting for my life.
Which is okay is you like that sort of thing.
I blasted the last band nerd out of the way and turned to see . . . no one. Except Mandy.
"Where is everyone?" I asked.
Mandy looked around too, "Hey! Where's Legolas?"
"Je vais detruire Morgoth maintentant." I fumed.
"Erm, uh, Nicole, could you not speak French when I have a splitting headache?" Mandy asked, clutching her head.
"This is the last time, Morgoth!" I called loudly to the skies, "Get your sorry self over here!"
"What do you want, Nickel?" Morgoth stood next to Mandy, his hands open before him, "Do you want to destroy me? The first strike is yours."
I knew this trick; he wasn't going to get me like this.
"How about you just give up." I suggested.
"While I'm ahead? No, Nicole, I believe it is you who should give up. You know my conditions."
"Then why am I still here?" I glared at him, "You and your deal can go back into the void."
"We have conquered the void, Nicole. It will hold us no longer, a fact you are well aware of. Give up your imagined ties to the void and return to Middle Earth in your full glory!"
"And be a slave?"
"Is that what you would have me do? Be a slave in heaven? That is what I was."
"Better to be the ruler of the dark than a slave to the light." I whispered.
"Yes. And my conditions are little to you."
"What is he talking about, Nicole?" Mandy asked me, "Whatever it is, he's wrong."
"Silence." Morgoth told her.
Mandy opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
"And you called yourself an American?" I asked Ernie, the bit of him that was left.
"No, I have always called myself a Cuban."
"Point . . ."
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Give in to my demands or suffer, my patience grows thin!" The booming voice of Morgoth burst through Ernie.
"The void must have done something to you." I commented, stalling for time, "You never had patience before, Morgoth."
"ANSWER ME!"
"Melkor, my child, why do you persist in this?"
We looked up. (I mean, come on, where else do disembodied voices come from?)
"You were once the most gifted of my children, influential and strong, the voice that shaped the earth. What made you change?"
"Eru, Melkor wouldn't let me talk!" Mandy yelled. She looked around, surprised, "Hey, I can talk now."
"I will forgive you, Melkor, if you relinquish your desire for Ea itself."
Melkor screamed like a child, "You don't care for the void, you just want to fill it! Where have the empty things gone?"
"Come." The strength of that order made me fall over. When I looked up, Morgoth, Melkor, Ernie, was gone.
Nickel's PoV
"Well that was rather easy." I got up, and dusted myself off, "Let's go."
"What about Legolas, and Kelsey and-"
Mandy was interrupted by a loud, very audible, POP!
"AMANDA!" Kelsey, Legolas and Haldir, all jumped Mandy as I sidled away to where Glorfindel stood.
"What happened?" He asked.
"Morgoth . . . went away."
"Went away?" His eyebrows shot up skeptically.
"Yeah . . . we'll go with that – I promise he won't be a problem anymore."
"Then I will have to be content with that." He whispered as the others surrounded us.
"Let's go home, Nicole." Mandy sighed, I want to say goodbye to my family at least."
I turned to Glorfindel, "How will they understand, Glor?" I whispered, "Their home is gone."
"Met man mela echa fear ener ar iluver."* Glorfindel whispered to me, "I don't think I will stay here with you." He turned and walked down the hallway.
I turned back to my friends nervously, "You see, when we were last in Middle Earth, I . . . I talked with Gandalf about some things. Some important things. After all, it doesn't make sense that there would be anything in the void – that's why it's called the void." I gulped. My throat felt dry, and everyone was staring at me expectantly. "As it is, we were living in a world of Morgoth's . . . thoughts. Mandy, Kelsey and I know this place as 'Earth'."
"WHAT?" Kelsey yelped, falling over for the first time I'd ever known. "We've been living in a…a…thought of Ernie's? Do you know how creepy that sounds?"
"But what about the people on Earth?" Mandy whispered. "What about…what about Isaac?" Legolas gave her an odd look at this comment, but she didn't notice as she watched me.
"Depends on who you're talking about." I replied, cautiously "Some, like our friends - Meagan, Gina, and the others we've seen in Middle Earth - are something from the First Age - sort of . . . reincarnations by becoming thoughts . . ."
"You mean," Haldir tried to clarify. "Morgoth thought of them, and they became real, to some extent?"
"Exactly - or they are something else that fell into the void."
"I bet Scott is a giant cockroach." Mandy muttered.
"Then what about us?" Kelsey asked. "Are we…thoughts?"
"No," I took another deep breath. "We were on the edge of the world to watch Morgoth. Morgoth tried to return, and we were captured in the void. The void became Morgoth's world, Earth, after he gave up on returning to Arda. We were already there, so the people we became, Mandy, Nickel and Kelsey, were people Morgoth likened us to. The void cracked, in a matter of speaking, for some unknown reason. That's what sent us to Middle Earth, as well as the ghostly reincarnations."
"And Isaac?" Mandy pressed on, her face white.
"Morgoth's thoughts got out of control, so they began to take on lives of their own. But Jacob and Isaac . . . well, have you ever noticed how similar they were to Haldir and Legolas – in the way Ernie would see it."
"Oh my-"
"Do not say God's name in vain, Amanda." Kelsey parroted
"No, Kelsey, I mean it. Oh my God! That's what you were talking about, Nickel, the night we arrived!"
"So Jacob and Isaac are . . . were Haldir and Legolas?"
"To a certain extent." I answered Kelsey.
"Wait a minute!" Mandy interrupted, "Morgoth said something to Eru; he said he missed the empty spaces and Eru was filling them."
I froze, "For once, Mandy, I think you're right – perhaps Eru made more than just Arda, and we wandered in to this other place."
"Let's go then." Kelsey demanded.
"But we can't." I told her. "I don't know how to go there."
"What do you mean?" She asked, "You got us home before."
"It's different when you realize what the world is." I told her, "Though I'm pretty sure Morgoth bent Earth like he tried to do with Arda. It probably isn't the same."
"I guess we'll just stay in Arda then." Kelsey sighed, "At least there is someone here that I love."
I grinned, "There is always someone to love, Kelsey."
Mandy's PoV
As a freshman, I remember waking up one morning feeling completely lost. I think it had something to do with studying until 4:00 in the morning, but I couldn't remember a thing. When I got to school, I went to 5 out of 7 wrong classes and then ended up with ISS for the next day for wandering around the halls.
When I woke up after the long speech from Nickel, I felt the exact same way. It was early in the morning, not yet dawn. I rolled off the bed, quite literally, and walked unsteadily towards the washroom.
Soon, I was able to submerge myself in hot water. I honestly didn't know what to do. I was lost; I needed someone to tell me what to do. Should I be this confused?
A knock sounded on the door.
"Just a minute!" I called, hurriedly pulling on a robe.
Beyond the door was Legolas.
"I just want you to know," Legolas hesitated briefly. "I love you, and if that is not enough just know that this is your home. It has been your creation, in case you didn't know."
I looked up at him, frowning, "What do you mean?"
Legolas came in and sat down, my hands in his, "The Ainor sung the whole world into existence, conducted by Illuvatar in the most glorious of songs. And many of them fell in love with its beauty and wildness . . ."
Nickel's PoV
"Did they take it well?"
"You're a bit of a coward, aren't you?" I asked, Glorfindel, smiling.
"I don't have the ability to turn an attacking vase into a pillow."
"You could have been supportive."
"For when you collapse in exasperation?"
"No, for when the vases start attacking."
"Ahh."
After Melkor's Destruction, several things happened, firstly, every one of our friends who had ever shown up in Middle Earth returned, rather confused, but alright. Within the first week of his appearance, Scott was murdered by a gang of masked people whom I'm pretty sure included Legolas, Gina, and Meagan - led by Amanda. Lisa returned to Lothlorien and established her own little Kingdom convinced she was better than Galadriel at the whole "Lady of the Golden Wood" thing. She eventually sailed West and from what I've heard, became best buds with Galadriel and the two of them would hold "Guess which one is Galadriel" parties.
Kelsey spent six months planning her wedding. Finally, Haldir and I decided that Kelsey needed to relax, so we tossed her onto another flying carpet and Haldir carried her off in a very Vegas style wedding. When she and Haldir came back, she still had her fancy wedding though. It was at the reception that Legolas officially proposed to Mandy. Glorfindel and I had front row seats – we were dancing next to them when he asked her – rather loudly, to. Mandy burst into tears and kissed him. The location of their wedding was difficult to determine (Mandy insisted on having as big - if not, bigger - wedding than Kelsey) – with the elves, or in Minas Tirith with all their other friends? They didn't want to make guests travel too much, but wanted everyone to be there. It was Gimli who – surprisingly – came up with a solution. He's not as dumb as he seems. So Eomer was forced to host a wedding party at the Glittering caves – a pretty place that was large enough and in a suitable location.
Aragorn quickly grew tired of Tomato, Paco, Katie and Taylor's attempts to set the citadel on fire and attempted to send them on an expedition led by Meagan to interact with the Dragons of the North. Of course, this was met with vehement opposition by the rest of us, though Aragorn was bound to have his way eventually.
*We who love make spirits one and whole again
Well that's it for There and Back . . . Again! Those of you who reveiwed - thank you thank you, review again and we shall give you . . . .da dum da dum!!!!!! . . . .well i can't tell you. but in about a week or so (when everyone's gotten around to reveiwing ;) - you know you wanna!) we will post a bonus chapter whcih shall include to construction of your prize. Sorry, we can't give you legolas . . .or any other elf of you choice . . . but this is much better - I promise you!
Wait...that was it?! I thought there was more!!!! -Mandy