Chapter Twenty: We Are Here to Change the World
From Emperor Palpatine's throne room on the Death Star, Fantasia loomed in its majestic white splendor. His view of the planet, the armada, and the Sphere came from the observation dome at the top of a tower placed directly next to the station's superlaser. The platform served as Palpatine's watchtower in order to view the laser's firing demonstrations. His chamber could only be reached through a massive circular doorway with a large metal beam that rotated to unlock the door. In the main chamber, his throne was elevated above the floor by a short staircase, flanked by his Royal Guards and Imperial Senate Guards. There were numerous control consoles surrounding the throne. Throughout the room were decorations of large statues made of black stone.
Fantasia was in excellent trajectory of the superlaser, just as the Emperor desired.
He sensed the turning tide of the battle on the planet, angered in the particular failure of Vader against a mouse and two would-be Jedi.
It was as the blue-haired woman warned him – Fantasia could not be taken so easily. But he was prepared to take drastic measures nonetheless.
"What is our next course of action, Your Majesty?"
Tarkin accompanied Palpatine in the throne room. He was nowhere close to being as in tune with the Force as his emperor was, but he was certainly aware of how their efforts – despite how quadrupled they were – dwindled in this war. Reports from the other ships came through fast of the heavy firepower and necromancy that the sorcerers on the planet carried, picking off their troops rapidly.
"This world we sought to conquer must now be destroyed," Palpatine asserted, his displeasure evident in his tone. "Governor Tarkin," the Grand Moff stood at attention of his next order, "have the superlaser primed and ready to fire on my command."
Tarkin bowed to his ruler. "Yes, Your Majesty. It will be done."
He made haste in his departure. Time was of the great essence.
Fighting Yve Ette head-on and bare-handed was a mistake that Taryn, regardless of the Guardian power both she and Marcia possessed, started to see. The physically advantageous Yve Ette had the fight in her favor. She hardly needed her bizarrely structured lightsaber to beat the life out of them both. Taryn in particular found herself strained and exhausted, lying face down in the dirt after a hard and swift roundhouse kick to the face. She only had this new body for a day; there was still a lot to get used to. One thing was for certain: it could definitely take punishment well.
She felt herself yanked off the ground by the back of her shirt. Dribble flew from her mouth as her head whipped from the rough-handling. Once again, she was facing Yve Ette, that vicious, bloodthirsty smile on the corrupted reincarnation's countenance. She did not waste any time in throwing punches. Her fist was like a blur until Taryn could see the lines on the knuckles before everything fleetingly went white and her brain rattled in her skull. She counted ten hits before they stopped all of the sudden.
Through hazy, doubled vision, Taryn could almost make out what looked to be Marcia holding Yve Ette's arm back, drawing attention to herself. Taryn felt the grip on her shirt drop, along with herself, as Yve Ette centered her onslaught upon Marcia, who became more of a victim to Yve Ette's quick feet than her hands from the Bruce Lee action she brought down on her.
A knee to the face sent Marcia reeling back and down to the ground. She made an attempt to get back up, only to be pinned by a big heavy boot planted firmly between her breasts. She could not get up any less take a breath from the immense pressure on her chest. She saw Yve Ette standing proud atop of her, her special-made lightsaber flaming above her head. It was clear this fight, as well as Taryn and Marcia themselves, had come to an end.
"No weapons and no brains," ridiculed Yve Ette, half-turning towards Taryn in her address. "I expected more from you, Joanie! You're always full of surprises!" She focused on Marcia again. "But this one…she's a poor excuse of an abomination that's just waitin' to be—"
POW!
From the left, a fist unexpectedly flew in and clocked Yve Ette, knocking her off of Marcia and wobbling back while her lightsaber fell out of her grip. It was not so much as a powerful punch, just a measly love tap to distract her. Judging from the register, it was not Taryn that threw it. She turned her head to face her attacker and laughed once she noticed it to be Katie.
The blonde carried the impressive height and muscle definition to look imposing to any mere mortal, but Yve Ette was nothing of the sort. She tried everything in her power not to laugh too hard at the foolish woman, who danced in place like a boxer in a ring, especially with her red robe bouncing along to her rhythm.
"C'mon, you bully!" Katie challenged. "I ain't afraid to show you who's boss!"
Yve Ette grinned with vindictive glee. "And I don't need no lightsaber to kick your big butt!"
She was all too keen to prove this straightaway. However, something kept her from taking another step. Her eyes searched below to see the cause of her immobility, discovering the startling sight of her feet molded to the ground.
"What the—?"
Before she knew it, she was tackled from behind. The charge came so fast and hard that she was knocked right out of her boots, which remained meshed to the ground. As she hit face-first into the ground, her right cheek momentarily skidded over the gravel. The linebacker was Brandon, who had one large knee embedded in her back, putting all his weight into it to keep her pinned.
"Honey Badger," he yelled to Katie. "Get her weapon!"
"Honey Badger?" Yve Ette groaned into the dirt. "Seriously?"
Quickly, Katie followed her lover's command and bolted for the disengaged lightsaber hilt lying uselessly on the ground.
Brandon kept eyes between Katie and Yve Ette. He suddenly felt his knee drop and hit the ground, looking below him to see Yve Ette no longer there. Swinging his head back to Katie, he screamed, "LOOK OUT!"
Katie froze the second her eyes met with Yve Ette, following a successful teleportation from underneath Brandon to where she retrieved her saber. Her heart beat out of her chest as she stood face-to-face with the sinister woman – that cold glare in her eyes penetrating the courage Katie showed against her only seconds earlier.
"I have to commend you both on your foolish attempt," Yve Ette said, "but, in the end, that's all it was…foolish!"
Katie's eyes darted to Brandon, who could only kneel helplessly where he was as Yve Ette stared down Katie, ready to slay them both with her lightsaber.
She switched it on. Nothing happened.
Glancing to her weapon, Yve Ette suspected something different. For one, the usual heft in the hilt was absent; it felt light – really light – as if all the components within it had been emptied. Then there was the glaring inscription she found near the end of it: "Made in China."
Yve Ette's fiery eyes grew wide. "This is a toy!"
A sharp, knifing pain shot through her back and migrated through her chest as a familiar blade made of fire and lightning protruded right before her eyes. She had been impaled by her own weapon, the evidence there between her breasts. The pain was overwhelming; breathing no longer a luxury she had.
She heard a voice whisper close from her right, "It's incredible how fast I can shop at Toys R Us during a warring invasion."
Anne-Marie. She orchestrated this diversion, using Katie and Brandon to buy time to switch the specialized, Guardian-killing saber with a common knickknack. It should have infuriated Yve Ette, but even she had to admit the genius of it. Anne-Marie was a reincarnation two tiers above Yvette, which placed her as the second most experienced and powerful Guardian next to Genevieve. To have underestimated her was a mistake Yve Ette subconsciously kicked herself for.
The blade switched off, leaving Yve Ette's twitching body to collapse to the ground. This twitching soon transpired into convulsing. Her eyes and mouth glowed red, until that glow seeped out in the form of a ghostly blood-red mist – the spirit of the entity known as "Dawn" that possessed and corrupted Yvette for many years. It howled in defeated anguish, fading into oblivion.
Freed from Dawn's hold over her, Yvette stared into the heavens with content eyes, the red glow no longer plaguing their usual crystal blue hue. Unfortunately, the content turned to suffering, her body twisting from the gaping, bloodied hole in her torso.
Anne-Marie went to her immediately, kneeling beside her. She knew the one risk of purging Dawn's spirit from Yvette's body with that lightsaber was in turn ending Yvette's life cycle. It was what the weapon was designed to do, and there was no way of stopping it.
"Hold still," she calmly instructed Yvette. "It'll be alright."
There was much regret in Yvette's tear-flooded eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so very sorry for all I've done."
Anne-Marie forgivingly shook her eyes. "It was never your fault, sweetheart." She heard the gravel around them shift and glimpsed up to see Taryn, Marcia, Katie, and Brandon watching on. Their faces registered compassion.
"I wished I could've lived a better…longer life." Yvette's voice was close to a whisper; she was fading. "There's so much…good I could've…done…so…much…"
Her eyes slowly closed, permitting herself to pass on.
Anne-Marie hung back, tears in her eyes. Together with Taryn, Marcia, Katie, and Brandon, she watched as the body of the reincarnation "Yvette" gleamed in a gold/rainbow hue and broke down piece-by-piece into a pile of dust, the leather attire Dawn had her wear as "Yve Ette" all that remained with it. Soon after this process, Anne-Marie waved her right hand over the remains, conjuring a spell that transferred the dust to another plane of existence, awarding Yvette's successor – Buohler – a better atmosphere to be reborn into.
"He's so cute," Walter exclaimed, getting acquainted with Benji. "He looks so much like a mini version of Sean."
The scene of Walter and Benji standing at eye level with each other delighted Genevieve, Victoria, and Natalie as they witnessed the exchange. It was enough to take their minds off the nightmare happening outside the White Mountain fortress.
Benji was intrigued by Walter, lightly stroking his foamed skin and patch of brown hair, as if Walter were a cat. "You're a Muppet," he observed with excitement.
"I sure am." Walter pleasingly acknowledged before he was warmly embraced by the enthusiastic six-year-old. The gesture drew a collective "aww" from Genevieve, Victoria, and Natalie. "I love you, too, buddy."
As touching as this moment was for everyone, Genevieve could not help but feel distressed for Walter. "I'm so sorry you're mixed up in all of this," she told the Muppet.
Walter separated from Benji, directing his focus to Genevieve. "Oh, it's alright," he said with a hint of optimism. "Sean promised me that I'll get back home as soon as this Penz comes back."
"Speaking of which, where is she?" Natalie questioned. "She should've been back here by—"
Natalie let out a deep gasp, as did Victoria.
Both women experienced a sudden panic attack that brought them to their knees.
Genevieve, Walter, and Benji looked on them, concerned and baffled.
"What's the matter with you two?" Genevieve asked.
Natalie fought to breathe as much as she did to speak: "I-It…It f-feels like…my heart…a-and lungs…are…t-trying…to jump…outta m-my…mouth!"
"S-Same here!" Victoria concurred.
The attack passed as suddenly as it came, relieving the two women of the tormenting pressure to their internal organs. Genevieve and Walter helped them to their feet just as a bright golden hue shined at the corners of their eyes. Their eyes squinted from the illuminated figure standing close by.
"Adrienne?" Genevieve managed to identity the visitor.
From what she could make out, it was not the young Padawan she recalled seeing back at the castle-mansion. This was the older one – the one who helped her save the Disneyverse from a world-eating dimensional rift in time and space not very long ago. Her entire body shimmered, her clothes were a ragged combination of those of her past and present selves, and her eyeballs were replaced with orbs that sparked in a mixture of gold and rainbow, giving them a chillingly alien presence.
"My god," Victoria murmured, shocked by this frightening change in the reincarnation. "Adrienne, what have you done to yourself?"
"What was necessary for my survival," she answered in an echoed voice. "I've fused my past with my present, creating this ultimate form you see before you."
Genevieve's heart skipped a beat. "What? Do you realize what you've done? You've endangered not just your timeline but all of ours as well! You could wipe us all out of existence! You know that?"
Adrienne frowned. "I have control over all of time and space, distilling all paradoxes. I see the universe as it is – every living microorganism." She raised her arm, pointing her right index finger to Genevieve. "Including you."
The tip of her fingernail sparked with the same gold and rainbow colors that her new eyes did, an energy emitting out of her body and towards Genevieve. It slithered in through her mouth and nose, overwhelming her entire body until her eyes ignited in the gold/rainbow hue. Her head titled back and her arms outstretched, engulfed in the glow. Within seconds, she atomized and dispersed in thin air.
"GRANDDADDY!"
Shocked by the sudden unnatural combustion of Genevieve, Benji tearfully hugged Victoria's hip, burying his face into it.
Walter, Natalie, and Victoria herself were just as appalled.
"How could you do that in front of him?" Victoria scolded the perpetrator of the circumstance. "You killed her!"
"She's safe." Adrienne reassured. "She will reemerge someplace much safer than here, I promise. You all will."
This did not sit well with Natalie. "We can't leave Fantasia. Not when it's still hot at war with the Empire."
"I am bringing this conflict to an end here…tonight," Adrienne declared.
Victoria shook her head at this abomination. Benji still clung onto her, soaking part of her tunic in his tears. What Adrienne did to Genevieve and the effect it had on the child was unforgivable. "This power you've gained for yourself…it's too much power," she stated. "It's going to corrupt you!"
The orbs in Adrienne's skull fixated on Victoria; the sparks in them intensified. "You know, I've never liked you – not since the day of the rift! For once, I'm saving your butt, and you're being ungrateful? Why am I not surprised?" After a long pause, she raised both of her arms, the glow of her body brightening. "None of what has transpired here and now will be remembered by any of you. I cannot risk you coming back to Fantasia."
"Now wait just a minute," roared Natalie, who began to feel just as angry as Victoria. "It's not your place to change our fates!"
The echo in Adrienne's voice reached godlike quality: "I have the power to do whatever I choose to! I'm not a slave to time and space anymore! They are slaves to me! I'm the anomaly they have nightmares of! Like it or not, change is happening!"
Between Natalie's retort and Adrienne's manic declarations, Victoria came to a shocking conclusion: "It's you. You are the singularity Anne-Marie spoke about." Her fears in this "ultimate form" enhanced from the revelation. "Adrienne, listen to me…"
"I am done listening, especially to you!"
Adrienne waved her hands. Victoria, Natalie, Walter, and Benji vanished.
Alone in Deborah's fortress, she proceeded in stepping out onto the summit, facing the breathtaking view of Auda City and the rest of Fantasia as it fell at the mercy of the invading Imperial ships. Stretching her arms out, she let out a shriek heard from all over the planet. The attacking TIE fighters erupted in simultaneous explosions above the city and everywhere else in the skies.
In her shrieking, her glowing, shimmering body lifted high above the mountaintop.
She blazed like a sun in the eyes of everyone in Auda City, becoming hotter and brighter to the point that she overtook the planetary atmosphere.
The blinding visage could be observed from space, even within the Emperor's throne room on the Death Star. He questioned the unnatural glow that swallowed the entire planet. Was it some sort of counterattack? Not wishing to take any chances, he reached for the comlink button to give Tarkin the order he had been waiting for.
Before Palpatine could so much as utter the word "fire," a series of explosions redirected his attention back to the window. A fiery wave of energy spread out into the armada, disintegrating every Star Destroyer and TIE fighter orbiting the planet. It crossed through the Sphere, cracking it in half before it also disintegrated from space, but not before unleashing a multicolored shockwave that shot towards the Death Star.
The Emperor howled in sheer terror, witnessing himself and the battle station he occupied become the meal to the hungry, destructive shockwave.
Nothing remained thereafter – no ships, no Death Star, no Sphere, and no Fantasia.