DAVID
Time stopped, and pulled itself apart.
Was this really my doing? Was I the root cause of this orgy of violent and terrible destruction?
None of that mattered now. The end had come and gone, leaving but one object floating in a black void: a red, fist-sized Stone, the one we used to power the Anubis.
Sander's voice echoed through my mind, "After much deliberation, it took almost all of its power and poured it into a simple red stone, and named it…Ragnarok…"
So…the red stone was really the Stone of the Dark Lord? Cut from his hand by Crayak and lost among the universes?
And I…I was the Beast…the destroyer of worlds and civilizations…the bastard son of a half-demon and a long dead sorceress…
"Fuckin' A!" Said a sneering, sarcastic voice, "It's my favourite cleaner! I'm really proud of you, kid, you kicked the shit out of this universe!"
I turned around, not sure how I was even still alive, "Puck."
The Satyr-like creature smiled, and looked upon me with a sinister glare, "My ass was on the line, big time. You were my last chance to stay alive, and you really came through. I couldn't be more happy. I don't think I've been this delighted since Duriel began the Crusades."
"What the Hell just happened?" I asked, confused.
"You did your job! Fulfilled destiny! Completed the cycle! Whatever you want to call it, you did an amazing job of it, although it was a few months behind schedual."
"What are you talking about?"
Puck laughed, "Oh, come on! I'd have thought that you'd have figured it out, by now!"
I stammered, "What…?"
"That little stint in Paradise? When my Master's Shrike killed you? When your dead buddy told you every little thing you needed to know, and that meddling fool, Whistler, explained it so plainly that any child could make sense of it?" Puck sneered, "You were too damn powerful when you came out...gave even the most powerful High Demon's trouble. You destroyed dimension after dimension, in your first hours of being."
"I don't understand…"
Puck continued, "You wouldn't! You wiped out millions of lives! The chaos and mayhem you spawned in your wake was brilliant, at least, until you proved impossible to sedate or control."
He looked upon me with a sinister gaze, "You went after Gharanz-Tyre, the Tower of Doom, itself! You Azorath, the most powerful High Demon, and flung him off the plateau of Targoroth! Our realm of Tartarus was in total anarchy! And it was all my fault! So, I thought to myself, why not split him up? Dilute each particle of his being, and give it to a human youth, since they are so damn susceptible to my puppetry."
I was blown away, totally confused, "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you aren't human, David James Taggart! You may have a human form, a human mind, but your soul is Demon! And a very powerful and potent Demon, at that. Yes…it lay dormant inside your psyche until you met he Animorphs on Terra Firma…it grew as you were exiled as a Nothilt, as a rat. It was unleashed when you were cloned by Sirex 4891, and grew more and more powerful with each of your attacks and losses."
Puck went on, "When Sanders was slain by Aleks, the Mercenary…"
"Wait! No…Jake murdered Sanders! In the mall! Aleks tried to help him!"
Puck sneered, "Sorry, kid. Aleks killed him. Want to see?"
An image of Sanders, in his Anaconda morph, lying on the ground, out of sight of the main battle, in the mall. He was gravely injured, and fluttering in between life and death.
Aleks, in morph as a Jaguar, bounded towards him.
Aleks…thank God,He moaned, Please…please help me…
No, Sanders. I will not help you. Pray that God has mercy, but I won't.
Aleks took a swipe at Sanders head, and killed him in one stroke of his claws.
"NOOO!"
"Yeah, I kind of expected that reaction. Let's watch it again, from different angles, shall we?"
The scene of Sander's murder played over and over again.
"Hey, you can actually SEE the bone shattering when he brings his claw down…now, THAT is cool."
A small circle, like the kind that appears in instant replays at NFL games, encircled a section of the Anaconda's neck.
"STOP!" I shouted, "Stop it!"
"Alright," Puck said, "Just so we understand each other."
I was outraged at this…my right hand man had murdered my protégé…one of the only human beings that I had ever cared for…dead.
The Half-Demon smiled, "You were supposed to use the Bugs, in the beginning, to destroy the Empire. In the wackiness that was supposed to follow, the universe would go up in smoke. But, you blundered there, so I had to get personally involved. Hell, this bomb of yours only worked because it went off in Z-Space! It tore the fabric of that sub-dimension apart, so the main dimension crumbled at the seems!"
"Davie Boy, I'm going to give you a little treat. I'm going to show you what some of the other-you's have accomplished, some of the finest, the cream of the crop, to speak. I think you might enjoy this…"
Puck flicked his wrist, and we were gone.
……………………………………………….
The transition didn't happen like I expected, a flash of light, a cheesy sound effect, the surroundings just suddenly changed to a big, sparse room, at a huge table in it's centre sat a single guy with the same face I saw in the mirror every day.
"There's a handsome fella." I said to Puck.
"Takes after his old man." Puck slyly retorted, "Observe, if you will, David Moonbeam, leader of the Moon Beam Posse and another failed angel of death, he just wasn't fit to live up to his real potential."
Moonbeam looked impatient, like he had some place to be and was waiting for his ride to get here, Puck filled me on more information, it was the year 1981 but humans had advanced quicker, mankind had settled on the moon and were spreading through the solar system, Moonbeam lived on one colony, the moon city of Utopia, "Thanks to people like our boy Moonbeam here though, it'll never live up till it's name." Smiled Puck.
The door opened and in walked Moonbeam's lackeys, I realised with a small shock that I recognised two of them, one was Roach, Alek's old mafia compadre, the other one was much more surprising, Rachel Berenson, ex-Animorph and apparently on my side this reality clutching what looked like an M16 assault rifle, hell I'd found her attractive before, but holding that gun like she knew how to use it she was a fuckin' stunner.
Moonbeam was smiling a maniac's grin, the kind that screamed 'Heeeere's Johnny!' He leapt from his chair and grabbed one guys shoulder "Is it, taken care of?" His entire right side of his face twitched when he talks.
"Yeah, yeah it's done David." The guy told him quickly, as if afraid for his life.
"No problems Dave." Rachel interjected, "and we made sure that rat-shit Dom took a very long time to die."
"Gi-yah!" Moonbeam yelled in delight at the roof and laughed like a lunatic, "Beautiful! Just beautiful!" All the others seemed to look relieved that he was so pleased. "Well ladies and gents, I think a few brewskis are in order, drink up!" They walked from the room, leaving an astral Puck and me alone.
"He seems a little on edge to be anything like me." I said to Puck.
Puck sneered, "Moonbeam's been a little on edge ever since he saw his daddy slitting mummy's throat and leaving her to die." Puck seemed amused telling me this. "Now Moonbeam, he had a passion for destruction like yours Davie boy, no need for a greater purpose or cause, he just loved destruction, he might've succeeded in fulfilling his destiny if only he'd had the means you've been given, no he only managed car-bombings, random acts of public violence, invoking gang warfare, oh sure, he was the terror of Utopia in his day but he just didn't have your ingenuity or luck Dave."
We'd changed locations seamlessly while Puck was talking to me, and judging by Moonbeam, time too, he and his posse were crouched in an ally, not far away I could see some sort of political conference was going on.
"This is it lads and lasses, were going in for the big time! Governor Clinton is going down!! " Moonbeam was jittering with excitement, the others just looked scared and nervous as hell, "Now baby! Now!" He ran from the ally followed by the rest of the posse, he was holding the same style of M16 gun Rachel was holding before and fired at the stage, people scattered, secret service men went for their weapons and tried to protect the governor but it was too late, his chest had blossomed with bullet wounds.
The police covering the area went nuts and started returning fire, the Moon Beam Posse returned with heavy fire from their assortment of submachine guns, Roach, clutching a pair of Mini Uzi's went down hard, firing wildly. Posse members and cops both were going down, Moonbeam and Rachel ran for it and Moonbeam took four in the chest, he flew backwards and slammed into a lamppost, pain etched on his face.
Perhaps out of instinct Rachel ran to him to check on him, the firing stopped, she grabbed him around the shoulders, "Too late," Moonbeam told her "Stick a fork in me baby, I'm done." He giggled wildly and broke into coughs of blood.
Rachel stayed by him, determined to stay by him till the end, he grabbed her by the back of the head and kissed her, forcing himself into her mouth, her eyes widened then lost herself in it till he broke away, "Life's like a bad cigar babe, it stinks and then it's over."
Rachel bought three in the back from one over zealous rookie; by the time she slumped over on top of Moonbeam both of them were dead.
Puck smiled cruelly, "And so ends the saga of David Moonbeam."
The Half-Drac laughed once more, and we were in another place…
……………………………………………………………….
"Ah, yes. So many of them. So, so many."
"And they all failed that miserably?"
"No, no. Some came close. One almost succeeded. Let me tell you of the Beast that came the closest to his goal, David Berenson..."
David Berenson was antisocial. He didn't move around like you did, but he made no connections to anyone. Not even to the human family he was placed in, not even his twin, Rachel. When he moved to Syracuse, he found a glowing blue box one night, and brought it to school. Of course, this universe had its own team of animal morphers, they called themselves Manimals. They were under the "guidance" of a duo of runaway Maiar infants named Gri'yang and Fred, given a bunch of discarded Maiar weapons that allowed their animal morphs to… I think the word "evolve" is the best fit here. Berenson had a run-in with them, and they stole the box. I came to him in a dream, to get the box. Beasts had failed before; I would do my damndest to make this one prevail. The boy broke in and tried to steal the device. The Manimals caught him, but they placed him in a very public situation and the Yeerks were notified to his presence. He was made a Manimal. Unlike you, however, he was rather compliant, until I gave him the Medusa Shield. That Shield was perhaps the most powerful Demon artifact in history, barring the Ragnarok Stone, of course. The Shield soon corrupted him, filled him with unimaginable power. He destroyed the Syracuse Yeerk Pool, and all in it besides the Manimals and Visser Three. He fled to space.
Ah, the carnage that David Berenson wreaked on his dimension! His first act was to slay the Council of Thirteen on Mordoria. He killed Tak Sistranus without effort. His power was almost insane. Guided by voices inside the Shield, David wreaked havoc on countless worlds. He blew up a moon of Concord Dawn; the populace was pelted with the fragments for decades! He went to the Anati system, where Yeerk and Andalite fleets were battling, then cause the sun to supernova and destroy them both. The tragedy of that battle was forever marred by the irony. He would kill leaders on random worlds simply to drive the population into a panic whilst he would murder hordes of innocents, and not-so-innocents, if innocents could not be found.
And, of course, there was his opposition. Ah, it's amazing how the imminent threat of certain death can bring races together. Andalites, Yeerks, the Kelbrid Confederacy, even the Gervasid Protectorate, many neutral species, all of them joined together, putting in what measly little ships they had to form a fleet against Berenson. Even Visser Three died a hero's death during the conflict. Of course, the Manimals opposed him. There was a piddling little leader named James, a technical nerd named Wu, a clairvoyant named Kay, a little moron named Rhea, an incredibly depressing being named Dan, and a stuck up bitch named Marisa. Each had a bit of power over some element; Fire, Ice, Lightning or some other nonsense. Luckily, the Medusa Shield, forged within the Machine Itself, was more than enough to handle them.
Just to be sure, I sent him armies of Dracs. They were released through a portal in the Shield. Hell, the Shield already contained several beings of severe power; Berenson unlocked a Shrike when he needed to escape. The Shield had been used previously, by a High Demon named Ovilkhan, who attempted to conquer Egypt with it.
Ovilkhan resided in the Shield. The Shield had the power to absorb whatever it needed. Berenson continually absorbed whatever he destroyed. Be it a leader, a planet, even a star, Berenson would destroy it, marvel at his own carnage, then absorb it. Nothing would be left. Even atoms would be obliterated.
Ever careful that his enemies might catch up with him, Berenson waited until he was unstoppable before confronting him. He destroyed another solar system, goading them. When they arrived, Berenson assumed the form of Ovilkhan, with a fair portion of his power. It was more than enough to destroy them. Their juvenile benefactors tried to help them, giving them the power of Maiar Summon creatures upon their deaths. It wasn't enough. They killed Berenson's body of course. No body could stand up to the forces pounded into it. But the Shield held onto his soul, he kept coming back. He killed each of the Manimals, slaughtered them, one by one, violently. But, those little Maiar brats found a way around that. When he killed their leader, James, he turned into a Phoenix and revived himself and his fallen comrades. They did what few other beings and no humans before did; they Ascended. They became Maiar, powerful Maiar at that, completely one with their element. They fought Berenson. He made one last, desperate attempt, which I have many times wailed over. He detonated himself. The power such an act would destroy his universe, but such an act would have no ill consequence to him. The Shield could infinitely revive him and his universe would be destroyed, his programming would be fulfilled. But those Manimals contained the explosion, using their powers. Berenson used up too much power to be able to exist without the Shield. The Shield completely absorbed him. He's nothing but a trapped mind within the Shield, floating around in the Ether. Happy, saccharine ending for all others involved, including the two Maiar toddlers. Purely sickening. Oh, I almost forgot…I let him out for a bit, into your friend Britz. Told him to kill LaRouche. Pity that didn't work out, isn't it?
"Ah, Berenson's realm was one of great chaos and destruction. If only he had succeeded."
"You wanted Berenson to kill LaRouche so that he wouldn't attack me, just now?"
"Yeah, that's the general idea, yeah. The Dark Lord didn't exactly like your followers, though they made it possible for you to succeed."
Puck smiled, "One more stop, kid. I really hate this little son of a bitch. Almost fucked everything up for me, in the end, but hey, he may still come through."
…………………………………………………………
"And lastly, there's this one. The Biggest Disappointment of All!" Puck said, revealing a new image. This David looked just like me, maybe was me. "As you may have guessed, this one is your doppelganger , your exact double. Same Person, but different. James Hunting didn't die in this world, and thus Mr. Hunting kept his birth name. Your Step-brother Taggart—a bully in this world.
Puck chuckled. "Amazing. This one is most like you and in some ways, the most different. He educated himself in movies, plays, and television. You know . . .useless shit. He bitched and moaned about moving every couple of months till in Atlanta he found a piece of happiness: A loving girlfriend, supportive friends, and constant victories over his one iconic enemy: Brett Taggart. Yes, everything was peachy-keen for Good David Hunting, and then he moves to California, New Jersey.
"This movie-quoting bastard acted just like you when he was given the morphing powers. And like you, he ended up a rat, and while for you, your rodentdom was just a step toward your ultimate destiny. For him, it was a way for the Powers that Be to get him out of the way."
"Powers that be?" I asked.
"This is Crayak's dimension. I'm sure you've heard of him. After he was defeated in his self-provoked civil war of Hell, he rna off and hid out in this dimension, trying to set himself up as dictator, and the treasonous fucker put up a shield around it keeping us out of his little playpen. I was still able to bond the essence of the Beast with one of his inhabitants, but other than that, we've been able to do little else, besides rig the 1996 superbowl, for a victory for the Green Bay Packers, and make Home Alone a moderately successful film.
From what I've been gathering from Crayak's three dimensional bitch-boy, it seems our Lord of Treason has been playing a game with a mortal who some how increased his State of Existence, and Ascended, just like your buddy Aleks wanted to. Both Crayak and his opponent did not want one of their game pieces blowing up the board, so they copied your fate and influenced it so it became his. Quite Genius."
"He doesn't look like a rat."
"That's the best part. Cassie! Cassie the Animorph went back in time and saved his cowardly rodent ass from the rodent fate. Then the little bastard decided to grow some balls and started actually helping the Animorphs!"
"He helped them?"
"Yes. Stuck by them with a fair amount of pissing and moaning and bitching. He made actually made himself a soul! A human one! It's disgusting what he's done to his honourable Dracen roots!"
"So he doesn't destroy the universe. An agent of good, fighting in a Demonic body?"
"I know. Oh, and after the war . . . UG! Don't get me started on how he completely ruins the Yeerks. What a disappointment. But, the little wiener still has potential. He has great amounts of Dr. Doom-meglomaniacal delusions that he can unite the galaxy. Ha Ha! A united galaxy is easier to destroy than a divided one. And once our little 'Alexander the Great' wannabe takes over as leader, which he will most certainly be suckered into doing, that's when I will strike!"
"I thought Crayak blocked you from this dimension."
"Ha! I got through once with just enough power to fuse him with the essence of my son. I am gathering my energies to cross again. It should be easier. I see that David's actions may drive Crayak and his opponent out of this dimension. That being the case, entering should be easier, but I guess all that doesn't matter know that you've succeeded."
"So what's wonderboy doing now?" I asked.
"Let's see . . . . He's . . . . what? . . . . . .WHAT IN THE . . . ?!!!!!!!!!!" shrieked Puck, now noticeably confused, and then angry, "HE ESCAPED! THAT FUCKING ORFF ESCAPED! DAMN HIM! HE'LL RUIN EVERYTHING!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
…………………………………………
I fell backwards through time…things moving backwards, restarting, re-beginning…the bomb, the fight, the ransom on Taloraan, the conversation with Melkor 2120, Z-Space, Galafurn…
I heard a voice, Pucks… "Get back, you fool! Get back to where you belong! You can't do this! It isn't allowed! You can't just do that NOW! You'll ruin EVERYTHING!"
Another voice replied, ethereal, strong, YOU HAVE NOT THE RIGHT TO DESTROY THIS REALM, QUINZ. I WILL CORRECT YOUR MISTAKE…
"You CAN'T! It's not allowed! This was my RIGHT! My LEGACY!"
YOU CANNOT STOP ME. TIME ITSELF HAS ALREADY MOVED BACK, BEFORE THE GREAT DESTRUCTION. I HAVE FOUND JUST THE PEOPLE…NO, THE PERSON, I NEED TO DEFEAT YOUR BEAST. WHO BETTER THAN HIS OWN FLESH AND BLOOD?
"No…you couldn't possibly…"
I CAN, AND I WILL. DAVID HUNTING WILL BE TAKEN, QUINZ, AND HE WILL DEFEAT THE BEAST. THERE IS STILL MUCH LEFT TO PLAY. EVEN YOU CAN SEE THAT.
"NOOO!!!" Wailed Puck, "IT"S NOT FAIR! IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!"
Before I realized what was happening, it was the 16th of January, and Ceri was still building the bomb. LaRouche and Sara were out on patrol…
And I was sure…positive…that my time-destroying bomb would end my troubles with the Yeerks, once and for all.
AUTHORS NOTE: Yes! One more chapter to go! To be posted on Christmas Eve!
I had a good deal of help with this chapter. The segment for David Moonbeam was written by Britz (the fanfic author) based upon an idea from myself and Ryan Griffin.
The segment for David Berenson is based upon characters and situations created by myself and Ryan Griffin, for the upcoming fanfic, "Manimals," by Ryan Griffin. He also penned Berenson's segment in this chapter.
Finally, the chapter for David Hunting was, of course, written by Augestine Quill (The MASTER!) with some small additions and editing by myself.
My great thanks to all these authors who took the time to contribute their mark to Antimorphs. Thanks, guys, you did great!
Only a few more hours till the end!
-Colin