7~
Already making the arrangements to be there, Mayor Nettles and her two-man security detail entered the CCN news studio on the lot at CC Studios, with a certain degree of fanfare, experiencing the complete deference of every manager, director and staff member, therein.
Expected professionalism was on full display, as the facility made every effort to make the mayor's last minute idea, an impassioned speech to calm the emotions of the citizens, or, at least, redirect their nervous energies towards more positive ends, and remind them that they were not panic-stricken criminals, come to successful fruition.
"What are you doing in there, Red?" Daisy asked from the office.
"Watching TV," he answered from a couch in the living room. "All that computer stuff's already boring. Now, it's so complicated, even Velma can't make any sense outta it."
"I didn't say I couldn't make any sense out of it," Velma defended, under her breath, her pride slightly hurt. "It's just different than what I'm used to, that's all."
Focusing back to the work at hand, she, finally, found the Swiss name of the bank. "Okay, I found the bank. This Bubble search engine's not too shabby," Velma critiqued.
The bank's summoned homepage stated all of the usual amenities of what that institution could do, as Velma swept her gaze over the website's various directories. Finally, she found the Log In button, and stopped cold, before proceeding. What did Greenman ever call himself? What would he deem a worthy password? Her quick mind, quickly, went blank.
"I think I've hit a snag," she admitted. "I can't get access to his account, unless I give them his personal information, and I couldn't even guess what that is."
Another thing that puzzled her was the fact that when she entered the login page, it only had a single, central box to interact with. It didn't seem like a wide text bar that would allow for more than a word or two to be written, it was just a white box with the 'Enter' button below it.
Experimentally, Velma moved the cursor into the box's center, and tried to type her name, but no letters appeared.
"What's this box for?" she pondered in frustration. "What does it do? What does it mean?"
Velma tried not to despair, but nothing was getting done, and worse, Marcie was probably having the fight of her life, and she was letting her down with her failure. Feeling stuck, she rested her head into one of her hands and sighed.
Her breath floated the nearby piece of paper from the desk, and it fluttered to the floor. Daisy, absently, picked it up, and asked her, "Is this your drawing?"
"No," she moaned. "It was there before I got here. It might be Greenman's, but why would he have it next to his computer, I'll never-" She lifted her face from her palm and stiffened in thought. "Wait! Why does he have that next to his computer?"
"You thought of something, Velma?" Daisy asked.
"I think so," Velma perked up. "This internet is different that the old one. I'm in a login page, but there's nowhere to type a username or a password. What if...its security was different, too? What if..." She thought of the image on the paper. "You had to...draw it?"
She took the paper from Daisy, placed it on the desk where she could see it, moved the cursor inside the box, held the mouse's left click button down to create a line, and carefully copied the image from the paper. When she was finished, she nervously clicked the Enter button.
The page suddenly changed, and a new page appeared, showing orderly lists of stored wealth stockpiled in a vast bank account and stored in numbered, private vaults.
"Yes!" Velma yelled. "I did it! I did it!"
"What did you do?" Jason asked.
"I guess Greenman didn't take into account that by changing the world, he changed everything, even the world's computer technology. With everything being more or less pagan, I suppose personal symbology became a major part of cyber-security. That symbol must have been Greenman's icon, his identity on this internet."
"Then, that means that everybody might have there own symbol out on this Weird-wide Web," Jason reasoned.
"And Greenman must have kept his close to his computer, so he would always know how to draw it. Fascinating!"
"Well, what do we do, now?" Daisy asked, grateful that they were back on track.
"Now, we make some serious withdrawals," Velma said.
She opened another tab to Bubble, and this time, began searching for the names of charitable organizations created by the modest, surviving churches of the world that were driven into near-obscurity.
Armed with a long list of these humble institutions, she returned to the tab of Greenman's account page, and upon finding a window for optional donations, she typed in their names, and began parsing out huge, magnanimous shares of his fortune among them, each contribution feeling like a righteous gut-punch to Greenman, until, at long last, there wasn't a cent left to his villainous name.
She ignored the disclaimer that told her that once this was done, there was, legally, no going back, tapped the 'Enter' button under the donations window, and smiled, knowing that mere mortals had just delivered a death blow to Greenman's finances, and gave the varied, struggling faiths of this new world, a surprising and much-needed leg up on the competition.
"Finished!" Velma exclaimed, proudly. "Now, thanks to Greenman's bottomless generosity, the other world churches will be able to start spreading their word and they'll all compete, again."
Daisy gave a surprised look, upon hearing that. "Compete? Huh! I never actually thought of them as competing, before."
All Velma could do, in the shadow of this metaphysical triumph, was shrug, philosophically. "Well, it won't be perfect. It never really was, but, at least, it'll be fair."
"Hey, guys," Red called from the living room. "Mayor Nettles is on TV."
The rest of the gang left the office and gathered around the couch, watching Janet Nettles, looking to her people with a mixture of hope, determination, and a hint of trepidation that this might not reach them in the way that she hoped.
"Good people of Crystal Cove," she began, with a calm, measured voice. "I want you to stop what you are doing, and take a look at what has happened, here. Fear and terrible misunderstanding have torn apart this town that we built and love. Our fear.
"I know that we're scared, and we don't understand. We need somebody to explain this new world to us. But, fighting our neighbors, destroying property, and stealing from one another is not how we'll come by those answers.
"We are the people of Crystal Cove, and whether we call ourselves Covites, Covians, or Covers, we are better certainly better than this, and we can prove it. But, I don't want you to prove to the world. We don't owe it anything. I just want you to prove it to yourselves.
"Thank you for listening."
The gang sat in momentary silence at the end of the broadcast, absorbing the mayor's earnest plea for both civic unity and stability.
"That was pretty heavy," Red commented.
"I hope people are listening," said Velma.
"Yeah," Daisy added. "We need some sanity after what we've been getting. And now, we've got Thorn Soldiers running around? That can't be for her."
"No, it can't," Jason agreed. "But, I think there's a way we can help."
"How?" Red asked, incredulously.
"Like this," Jason said, pulling out his cell phone and dialing, quickly. "Hello, Sheriff?"
Stone's voice barked through the phone's tinny speaker. "Who is this? How did you get this number, and can't you call back, later? My wife is on TV, doing her mayor thing."
"We know. Sheriff," Jason explained. "There might be a way we can help the mayor and the town."
There was a pause in the harangue, and then, "I'm listening."
Jason gave a knowing glance to Velma. "Does the police station have wi-fi?"
Hovering over a souvenir booth, with strong strokes of his green wings, Greenman noticed that he was getting a little out of breath from their tumbling, wrestling match. Although Marcie, ultimately, had the upper hand with a fast, unexpected boot to the nethers, both combatants were visibly winded.
It soon became evident to both them why this was. He had spent centuries of his adult life fighting campaigns on the ground, and so, had the tactical advantage of experience, yet this kinetic, aerial, three-dimensional combat was something neither of them had truly mastered. Every strike, strafe, kick, and offensive dive was wholly improvisational, but any contact made between them became instinctive and brutal.
From her high vantage point, Marcie looked down, and saw the crowds scattering from under her. She hoped that it wasn't fear of her that made them run, but she also was grateful that they were leaving this dangerous area. No matter what they would have thought of her, they would be safe, so she could concentrate on the Wicker Man, which was still smoking from flaming shins and smoldering knees.
The choking clouds were so dark and thick, they obscured the structure's midsection, and she feared that the captives would surrender to the smoke long before the flames ever consumed them.
She prepared to hunch her shoulders and aim herself towards the effigy, when she noticed that the yells and screams from the throngs below were still insistent, as though there was something down there that continued to threaten them.
Greenman's distant laughter not only punctuated the situation, it confirmed it. "I'm afraid, Miss Fleach, that you may be a little preoccupied before you can stop my sacrifice from happening," he gloated, pointing over to one section of the crowd closest to an island of landscaping.
Stunned people were running from a crop of three, newly-grown Thorn Soldiers, shaking soil from their shoulders, and brandishing their weapons at brazen rubberneckers and slow-moving citizens.
"Ugh!" Marcie growled. "I forgot that they could do that!"
She clicked her heels to order the boots' pumps to reclaim a portion of Super Helium, oriented herself down, in mid-hover, and power-dove over the people, while Greenman gave her a regally dismissive wave, saying, "Take your time."
Landing between the Soldiers and the crowd, Marcie drew their creatures' collective attention to her, watching, as they quickly lumbered into flanking positions around her.
She moved to the first combatant, dodging an impaling thrust from its thorn-sword, and then, reaching out, she seized the weaponized arm, and yanked it free from its analogous elbow, greenish sap, flowing freely from the stump.
Its partner bore down on her with its sword, from the side, but Marcie, not letting go of her appropriated weapon, batted the incoming slash away, and then, thrust the tip up into its head.
As that Soldier's tree-like legs buckled, and it collapsed from its green life gushing out of the deep, cranial breach of its deflating head, the first Soldier's body had already bled out and fell, prompting its twitching bulb-arm to pull away, tearing from its shoulder.
Marcie noticed the bulb-arm moving like a beached octopus along the ground, seeking for the nearby landscaping, to plant itself. She took a step forward to intercept it, and then, screamed, as her back was lit with the fire of sudden pain, owing to the sword point of the flanking Soldier stabbing her from behind.
Marcie turned to face the creature, holding the part of her back that was pierced. She expected her palm to be bloody, when she raised her hands to fight her attacker, except that the suit wasn't penetrated.
The micro-mail integument of the skin, an inner layer of millions of microscopic, interlinking, metal chains, under a smooth, lightweight, chemical and puncture resistant outer layer, defied the stab, but still bruised her badly.
She channeled her ache into focused anger, desiring only to kill this thing, quickly. She reached up with a flap, and simply slashed its vulnerable head free, with a clawed hand.
Turning to face the fallen Soldiers, Marcie saw that they were arm-less, as their legacies were now crawling away to find safer places to grow.
Quickly, she jogged over and snatched up one bulb-arm by the tendril, and then, rushed to gather the other from the thinning herd of people, before flying back to get the bulb-arm that was just separating from the decapitated creature.
"Wait a minute," Marcie thought. "I thought there were four of them. Where's the other one?"
A scream from a woman who had lost her footing after a portion of the crowd had knocked her down in the stampede, alerted her to the location of the last bulb.
Crawling with purpose, it surged, blindly, towards the terrified woman, who did not realize that she had fallen near another island of landscaping that its rudimentary brain sensed as a good spot to spawn.
The woman curled into a ball of hopeless fright, but before the bulb-arm could slither over her to reach the turf, Marcie swooped low, and plucked it away from the petrified park-goer.
With an armful of writhing, struggling plant life, Marcie, quickly, looked around for somewhere to dispose of them. A peripheral glance at the fires, crawling up the Wicker Man's shins, gave her some much need inspiration.
Pivoting to its location, she released the dangerous brood into the fiery base of the statue, watching, as they twitched and curled in destructive agony, until all four bulbs were devoured in the conflagration.
Using the warm air around her to flap above the destruction, Marcie alighted on the damaged, upper rib-cage, and was immediately beset by the smothering fumes, continuing to blindly rip at the outer, wicker material, which proved flexible enough to resist some of her tearing, bending and keeping most of its shape, when it snagged against her claws.
"Dad!" she yelled into the dark clouds, before hacking for air. "Dad, are you okay? Mr. Owens and Mrs. Owens! Say something!"
She thought that she heard sounds of choking and half-shouts, but then, a sudden chorus of screams echoed from a distance, getting her immediate attention.
She, reluctantly, flew from the statue's miasma to see where the next disturbance was, and didn't have long to look, as Greenman, looking as though he was waiting for her, stood over the fallen operator of a nearby control panel, one that ran a lofty tower ride, while the riders, suspended at its apex, saw this winged creature, and yelled, worried about what he would do to the controls, far below them, while they felt like treed cats.
Sighing with fatigue, Marcie understood what this maniac was doing, creating one distracting crisis after another to keep her away from his alter. She could easily ignore the frightened, unwilling pawns in his game and simply focus on the Wicker Man, but could she live with herself, afterwards, if her inaction cost them their lives?
Stretching out, she bolted towards the tower, not bothering to dive towards Greenman. Instead, she ascended, climbing up to the trapped passengers.
Just as Greenman predicted. With a mighty, wooden fist, he smashed a crater into the top of the panel, which spat out a small storm of sparks and destroyed electronics, before spreading his leafy wings, and flying back towards his effigy.
Above, the car jerked and started in the throes of its malfunction, and then, just as the riders had feared, the car's electronic safeguards failed, its brakes released, and the sky and Marcie fell away from them, in a stomach-churning descent.
By raw reaction, Marcie twisted her body, hard, and winged over, letting herself almost free-fall to follow them, with only the natural friction of the car against its vertical tracks slowing them down enough for her to, at last, latch a desperate hand onto the framework above it.
For a few seconds, the scientific side of Marcie's mind gave her some reprieve, commenting on how this visit to the park, chaotic as it was, was giving her excellent data on the capabilities of Lilith, and in its own cold and clinical way, even thanked Greenman for putting the suit through its paces.
But now, it was the Super Helium's turn to show its chemical mettle, as she slapped the other hand onto the framework over the car. Sheer, brute strength was called for, but it couldn't come just from the suit. Now, the true lifting power of the gas's buoyancy would have to be tested.
Bringing her heels to tap together, Marcie started introducing more Super Helium into the suit, but it didn't just flow into the sealed bladders underneath the hips, breasts, and posterior, but also, smaller, ancillary ones within the biceps and calves, increasing the suit's overall surface area that the gas needed to work with.
At the same time, sensors picking up the forceful, downward shrug of Marcie's shoulders, told the flat, flexible motors underneath her wings to flap has hard the suit's enhanced strength would allow, as she endeavored to pull the car up from where she gripped it.
With a snap and a stiffly fluttering motion, the wings extended to their full lengths, acting as shuddering airbrakes, as they the thin, micro-mail fabric between the wings' 'bones' gathered all the air it could, without rupturing or tearing apart.
The car still continued to plummet, and for a brief moment, she thought of releasing some of her stored Super Helium onto the car and its screaming passengers, and if, by some miracle, it wasn't blown away in their wake, letting its properties reduce their atomic density that they could be light enough to be slowed down.
But, it was far too risky. The gas was the only thing keeping her aloft, and she needed every molecule of it to keep from being grounded while faced Greenman.
However, gradually, as she struggled, Marcie could begin to feel less and less resistance weigh against her, as her breaking and pulling, actually, began to lag the speed of the wayward ride.
"Hang on!" she yelled, and as they descended closer and closer to the grounds, the lessening of the passengers' cries, she noticed, also reflected this welcome change, as they, and the car, finally, touched down.
Marcie hopped off the top of the ride, and didn't have time to hear the people's shaken thanks, before she launched back into the sky to deal with the still flaming Wicker Man, and its mad creator.
Keeping himself aloft over the weakening structure, on the thermals caused by the fire, Greenman spared himself a few moments to watch as the flames rise higher, licking and blackening the effigy's hips. It wouldn't be long before the coughing, suffering fools inside would be served up for his personal gratitude and glory.
His situational awareness forced him to look away, and check back to where he left Marcie. She was already speeding to his position.
With a growl of annoyance, he flapped away, using the warm, rising air to give him a boost in speed and altitude, as he soared, like a great bird of prey, for the roller-coaster, in the distance, Marcie in hot pursuit.
From the corner of his eye, Greenman could see the swift open-air cars climb and zoom along the mountainous tracks, which inspired in him, a hasty idea.
Flapping as hard as he could, he climbed, as he headed in the direction of a low peak in the roller-coaster's course. Then, he dove, using the kinetic energy of his dive to give him the momentum needed to swoop, level out, and then, with a yell, smash through the steel supports under the apex of the peak, severely weakening the rails, above.
Effective as the distraction would be, it wasn't without painful cost, as Greenman had to land, soon after.
As people wisely gave him a wide berth where he landed, he shut his eyes, closing his concentration off from the world, and focused on being whole, as rent wings and a brutally gouged, wooden body slowly began to heal and mend.
In the midst of his regeneration, he looked up to see how Marcie would handle this new preoccupation.
Marcie, shocked to see Greenman actually torpedo himself through the ride to damage it, turned her concerned attention to the small train of cars preparing to end its circuit, by climbing the nearby high peak to gain enough potential energy to race down the slope, below, and crest the dangerous, lower rise, ahead, at speed.
Grimly satisfied at how the Lilith suit performed over at the tower ride, she banked towards the high-rise, flapping hard for more speed, and then, banked tightly, once more, to swiftly orient herself with the rear of the train, as it reached the top. A fast grip on the back edge of the last car was all she could find before the train rocketed down the slope.
Only the strength-enhancement of the suit kept Marcie's arm from being violently wrenched from its socket, as she, clumsily, held on, scaring the living daylights out of the riders.
The wind whipped over her wings, threatening to open them, like parachutes, and snatch her from the ride, as she fought for balance from this mind-bendingly dangerous stunt, and against the raw four-to-six G's of the shaky descent.
Frantically, she crawled, one hard-earned hand- and foot-hold after another, over the heads of the bewildered and upset passengers and their cars, as she battled to get to the forward car before the train reached the damaged peak.
Just as the train of cars swooped up from the valley between the slopes, a determined Marcie, looking as if her demon mask was still on her, bared her teeth and muscled her way to the front, brushed other hands away from the handrail to give her room, and locked her clawed hands onto it, praying that it would hold, and she timed herself for what came next.
She flexed her wings open and straightened her body out, so that she was being pulled along from the car, like a living kite, as the cars reached the summit.
Gritting her teeth, she gave the forward car a back-wrenching yank upwards, lifting it over the unsupported rails for the space of two seconds.
She let the car drop back onto the rails, far enough away, she hoped, from the weakened section.
It was, allowing the speed of only the mid and last portion of the train to burden the rise, momentarily, causing torn supporting, below, to fall free to the ground.
As the train, finally, rolled safely past, the rails, deformed from handling the sheer, vibrating weight of the cars, alone, suddenly, snapped from their softer welds, and curled away from each other, like cut, metal springs.
Fatigued and aching, Marcie let the car go and glided with the train, acting as an escort, as it entered the station.
A lanky, young man working the train's controls, stopped the train, and saw a winged Marcie land, exhausted, on the station's platform, while the passengers all disembark with barely restrained and panicked haste.
"Marcie?" he said, recognizing her in her strange attire. "What are you doing here?"
"Phil, shut the ride down!" she gasped, allowing time to try and settle her heart and rest. "Go to the office, and tell the staff to close down the park! Now!"
Phil, looking confused, tried to ask, "But, Marcie-"
"Just do it!" Marcie yelled, spreading her wings and letting the Super Helium lift her tired body aloft, while she slowly headed back to the Wicker Man, hoping that it wasn't too late.
The sound of a bell ringing by the front door of Hanley's hardware store stopped him from his task of stocking wrenches on the shelves.
He rushed over to his counter, ready to greet the potential customer, and instead, saw a group of people he wished that he never saw, again.
Sauntering past the threshold were three older teenagers, two boys, a large, slow-looking one and a lean, sly specimen, led by a slick-looking girl in a satin jacket and headphones.
"What are you doing, here? You're not allowed back!" Hanley warned, thinking about calling the sheriff, even though he and another group of teens nearly cleaned him out of gardening merchandise. "You planning to smash my store, again, like last time?"
"How didja know?" the large felon asked, then felt a sharp elbow in the arm from the girl, who addressed the proprietor in a tone more contrite, or disinterested than either her attitude or outfit suggested.
"What he meant to say was that we came back to work off the damages to your store. My old man saw the mayor on TV, and he wants me to put things right with you, so we came here to ask if you want us to do anything for you. He said that with those monsters running around, we need to stick together, or something."
Hanley gritted his dentures and glared at them. He didn't know what made his old blood boil more, the nerve of these criminals returning to the scene of the crime, the notion that they thought that he would ever forgive them for the vandalism done to him, or the obvious insincerity in their distaff leader's voice upon offering to make such futile amends.
"Well, the only monsters I see around here, are you three," the store owner said, angrily. "But yes, as a matter of fact, there is something you can do. Get out of here! Leave! You've done more than enough damage, and I don't want to catch you hoodlums darkening my doorway, ever again, or it's the sheriff, next time!"
All heads, suddenly, turned to the sound of someone approaching from outside the front door, and before Hanley could recollect his professional composure and cordially react to the new visitor, the door was smashed inward and skidded across the floor.
Everyone quickly stepped away from the rent door, giving the two Thorn Soldiers and a single Herb Hound the extra room they needed to make an intimidating entrance.
"Whoa!" exclaimed the thin boy of the group. "So, that's what they look like, close up!"
"You hoodlums brought those things with you, didn't you?" Hanley wailed, as dire visions of his business being leveled by the creatures, only for the remains to be scavenged by these punks, was starting to manifest, to him.
"Are you crazy, man?" the large boy yelled out. "Those things'll wipe us all out!"
Hanley saw the girl zip into a nearby aisle. Fearing that she was about to run out with ill-gotten gain, he asked, loudly, "What are you doing?"
"I'm not gonna be fertilizer for those things!" she answered, then said to her friends, "Grab something, guys! Maybe we can fight out way out!"
She grabbed the closest thing her hand could find from the mouth of the aisle she was standing near, a hatchet. Her compatriots reached for a nearby broom and mop, swinging and holding them out to hold the Herb Hound and one of the Thorn Soldiers at bay.
The other Soldier turned to Hanley, the closest target of opportunity to it.
Hanley stepped away from the counter and was preparing to hide under it, when the girl, moved by the knowledge that the old man was going to get pulverized, twisted around and flung the hatchet at the monster.
It sang through space, until its sharp head sank fairly deep into the Soldier's back.
The Thorn Soldier stopped its advance, and then, turned its bulk to face the now defenseless attacker.
The girl, keeping her eyes on the creature, blindly reached out for another hatchet, but only succeeded in spilling them from their rack and onto the floor, as she saw its long thorn-sword rear back to spear her with little effort.
Then, the sword swung back, limply, to the Soldier's side, the hatchet that was buried in its back, now buried in its head, lightly splattering ichorous sap across her surprised face.
The following sounds of thick, flexible wood and plant matter tearing, cracking and breaking filled the hardware store, as three strangers calmly stormed through the bosky barricade and proceeded to dismember and decapitate the remaining Soldier, and then, crack the solitary Hound in two.
A woman's foot stomped into the curling bulb-arm of one of the Soldiers, splitting it against the tiled floor into two, smeared, wet halves. She then looked up from her gristly work with a pleasant smile and greeted the dumbfounded humans on behalf of her partners.
"Good afternoon, citizens," she said, as if nothing had happened. "My friends and I were sent by the Mayor to assist in this crisis. We will be doing all we can to help rid Crystal Cove of this menace. You have the Mayor's word. Please excuse us."
The three Questoids walked from the store, leaving the occupants both shaken from the close-call, and, for one old man, gradually rethinking his hasty, negative opinions of Mayor Nettles.
Finally arriving back at the burning colossus, she could see Greenman, once again standing upon the head of the statue, both to stand watch over it, and to enjoy a commanding view of the usurped park and its poor defender.
"Greenman," Marcie called out, huffing from where she floated, to rest. "Why are my father and the Owenses in that thing?"
Greenman assumed a casual and mockingly thoughtful pose, slowly pacing around the top of the head, in the appearance of collecting his thoughts. "Well, the esteemed Mr. Ricky Owens is in there, because his Roman ancestor killed my father, centuries ago, his pregnant wife shares his fate, so I can make her suffer, as I cut off their bloodline, forever, as a more lasting punishment, and your father, Winslow, is in there, because, well, I just hate loose ends."
Marcie gave him a weary, yet grim smile, saying to him, "Then we have something in common, Greenman, because I don't like loose ends, either. In fact, you might want to think about where my friends are, at the moment."
For the first time, today, Greenman looked worried. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, while we've been here, airing out our differences, my friends should be in your home, about now, doing what all young people do when they have the place to themselves, raiding your refrigerator, running up your phone bill...and using your computer without your permission."
"What?" he growled, his concerns growing by the second.
Catching her breath, it was now Marcie's turn to look insufferably coy, as she considered. "Oh, I wouldn't know what they're doing, right now, but it's safe to say that my friends can be pretty imaginative when it comes to causing trouble, and I bought them plenty of time to cause you some."
"Then, I swear to you, girl," he muttered, under his breath. "Before your people turn to ash, I'll make you pay for every sabotage your friends inflict!" Greenman cried out, expanding his wings and leaping out at her.
Marcie wheeled over and dove, heading, with a swoop, towards a high mounted sign furthest from the area - Greenman's Garden of Glee.
An accelerating Greenman, too caught up in his bloodlust, pursued her too closely, and upon hearing his approaching wing beats, she took a sudden turn from the sign.
Greenman, not having to her smaller frame and better maneuverability, couldn't react and steer in time, crashing into the sign with force enough to snap its posts and make it fall to the ground.
"Ha, now that's a marked improvement!" she taunted in the sky. Then, she turned to the sound of the heavy, low-frequency whumps of rotor blades.
A CCN news helicopter circled the Wicker Man's black column of smoke, chronicling the sacrifice in progress, and the battle raging around it, as the grounds of the closing park were clearing of frightened park-goers.
Inside, only the screams, coughs and yells accompanying the loud, crackling fire, could be heard from the effigy, as Winslow and The Owenses, hearing the helicopter, as well, carefully started climbing up the warp and weave of the torso's smoky, wicker interior, trying to escape the terrifying flames that were now creeping up and feeding on both legs and one hip, on their way to enter the nearby mid-section.
Marcie and Greenman, their eyes locked on the Wicker Man and each other, raced through the sky to be the first one, there. But, before either one got close enough, they both realized that only the winner of this conflict would also win control of the statue, so they intercepted each other, and clashed, like raptors.
Marcie kicked away from Greenman, before he had the chance to overwhelm her with his size, larger wingspan, and strength, but she had no way of knowing, that even as all of Crystal Cove watched, spellbound, by the battle, the fate of the nature of Druidry, and thus, the fate of this new world, was also being decided on by this conflict, and as a result, pagan viewers from across the globe were watching the international news with partisan eyes.
Some cheered wholeheartedly for Greenman and his blood-soaked, traditionalist ways, while others, representing more progressive views, rooted for this strange and incredibly brave girl, defending life below her, and standing up to his murderous dogma.
Yet, as the statue continued to burn and threaten the lives inside, every blow and slash Marcie risked close-contact to land, was now being shrugged off, more easily, and rapidly healed. She was tiring out and her reflexes slowed further, allowing Greenman to land punishing, slashing blows on her.
A swift, opportunistic punch from Greenman connected with Marcie's eye, knocking her, with a yelp, into a backward tumble.
She was tempted to stop and favor the injury, but instead, not wanting to give him time to think, she shook her head, used the momentum of the knock-back to give her enough speed to make a tight turn, and fly back to a waiting Greenman.
He was expecting her to charge into him, as she had in the beginning, in which case, he was prepared to catch her in a bear hug and crush her beneath his folded wings, but he was effectively caught off-guard, when, at the last minute, Marcie folded her wings and tucked into a tumbling, fetal position.
When she judged herself close enough, she stretched out of her roll into a speeding kick that connected the toe of her boot into the bridge of his nose, crushing it.
With a howl, he flew backwards, as Marcie flew past him, on a direct course for the effigy's weakened rib-cage.
Her mind, suddenly, exploded with the pain of, what felt like, both a punch and a cutting sensation, from behind, as Greenman caught up with her, and with a single slash of his wooden talons, tore ragged slits through the defeated micro-mail of her suit's skin and deep, red furrows across her back.
Although her gas bladders weren't breached, the blow, coupled with her already intense exhaustion, knocked the wind out of her, making her stop flapping her wings, and fall without protest.
She desperately wanted to rest, and would have done anything to be promised to sleep and forget about everything that happened this year, but then, a wooden hand with an iron grip reached out and grabbed her by the throat, like a Questoid, just before she fell.
Stoically, Greenman held Marcie out at arm's length, while his massive wings lifted them both higher and higher above the park with every wing stroke. Even as she uselessly punched and banged on an arm that might as well have been made of industrial-strength steel, he said nothing, as they ascended.
The CCN news cameras stayed on the image of the two of them rising, ever more, as if Greenman was some forest-clad angel bringing a bespectacled demoness to Heaven for punishment. Then, he, finally, spoke to her.
"What is religion?" Greenman asked her, rhetorically. "It is a mask with two faces, one, the usurper, the other, the missionary. One man's terrorist is the other man's crusader. I love my faith and I've broken men on the battlefield to elevate that faith, because, in my eyes, my gods are good, and rational, and just, and generous.
"My father was a good man, and an even better druid. His devotion inspired me, and I would have been more than content to learn under that noble priesthood, if a Roman soldier hadn't come and showed me what religion, true religion, was, by doing what any good dog of war did, and slaughter an innocent man while he was trying to save his oak trees.
"Long generations of history, knowledge and culture was put the torch and the sword, just to prop up their already stolen Greek gods. But, my gods of old answered my prayers, made me an immortal defender of the faith, and, eventually, moved me to cross your path."
Upon saying that, he tightened his grip on her, a little more. Whether he was satisfied with simply choking her or breaking her neck, Marcie didn't dare relax, as she gasped.
She looked down at the burning Wicker Man and her personal failure. She couldn't hope to break his hold, and she couldn't save her father or The Owenses. They and the cherished memory of their hometown would perish under this madman's impending theocratic tyranny.
"Now, after all of that, you may be asking yourself, "If different people's gods are so powerful, then why do they let these people fight in their name?" he asked, softly. "The answer is that, like the Romans and their pantheon, the Christians and their Crusades, and the various other cultures pressing their beliefs upon still others, we're all in physical, bloody competition to see which religion wins out in the end. It's been waged before, and above this park, it was waged, again.
"I won't ask what you believe in, because it would be meaningless. My sacrifice will be offered up before the sun sets on this sad, little town. What matters is, whether or not, you can strike my faith and power from the mountaintop, and stop me from tearing your world apart in my gods' holy names. That is a form of warfare I can truly respect."
With that, Greenman power-lifted Marcie with his one arm, over his head, as if giving a grim, grand toast, his clutch putting focused pain upon her windpipe and nape.
Attempting to twist her head to relieve the agony, Marcie, fearfully, looked down. Time was running out.
Below her, the Wicker Man's legs, pelvis, one arm, its shoulder, and a portion of its head were now on fire, and, she noticed, it, or rather the old ride that it replaced, was awkwardly placed near to the new water slide and pool her father had purchased, recently. Under better circumstances, she would have complained to him about such ride arrangement.
'So close...' she thought, regretfully. 'The burning man, so close to the water that could have...'
Then, her eyes widened. 'Wait a minute!' she thought, again. 'That's it! That's it! Two birds with one stone!'
Focusing her strength, Marcie whipped out a kick to Greenman's throat that would have shattered the larynx of a normal man. Instead, his eyes popped in choking pain, his hand sprung open, and while he frantically held his throat, Marcie, quickly, flew off.
"Where are you...going, little bird?" he gasped, sprouting writhing vines from his forearms, while he watched her glide away, his windpipe starting to clear. "Afraid I'll clip...your wings?"
Mentally mapping herself from where she flew, Marcie banked high and around, so that, from her new course, the Wicker Man, now belching fire from weakened holes in its body, and the recovering Greenman, were between her and the water slide.
She came in, soaring at her fasted speed, yet, stretching her lean, tired body, like an arrow, and flew directly into the waiting vines of Greenman, ramming him in the torso, as she wrapped her arms around him, attempting to pin his broad arms to his sides.
"What are you doing, detective?" Greenman chuckled, slowly coiling his tangle of ivy around her body and throat, while she continued to shove him backwards with every wing beat. "Something desperate, perhaps? You can't hurt me, child!"
"Maybe!" Marcie yelled through gritted teeth, straining against his muscled bulk to keep on course. "But I'll bet this will!"
Out of concerned curiosity, Greenman craned his neck to see what she was talking about. With sheer effort and will, she was steering them on a meteoric, high-speed, collision course with his fiery alter.
That, normally, would have just inconvenienced him, if it was simply damaged, but her sudden action seemed to have a glimmer of method to her madness, an aggressive tactic that he had not seen in time, that sobered him with an uncomfortable fear of uncertainty.
"What are-What are you doing?" he asked, struggling against the equally struggling, leverage-robbing hold of her strength-enhanced arms, her trapezius muscles on fire from moving his resisting, extra weight.
"One way or another," she sobbed in agony, almost to herself, as her aching body closed in on her target. "You're getting...a sacrifice!"
Not fully understanding what she knew, his confidence, suddenly, left him, as the two smashed through the Wicker Man's flaming head, like a large bullet.
With the head and shoulders of the statue burning, it prevented Winslow and The Owenses from trying to climb any further up the walls of the inner cavity, but the sharp collision of Marcie and Greenman almost jarred the trapped victims loose and made them fall into the blazing guts and pelvis of the structure.
However, the impact caused the statue's fire-weakened feet to tear free of the metal supports that held it to the mock stone pillar.
The legs, glowing like charcoals, couldn't support the unstable center of gravity, as the Wicker Man began to tip over; crumbling the limbs into a shower of embers that spread all over the cars on one side of the Rolling Boulder ride.
Then, the rest of the crippled statue, ponderously, collapsed and crashed its deceptive weight across those same boulder cars, ruining the harnessing ley line circuit.
A massive power build-up breeched the top of the facsimile pillar, releasing a blazing, blinding font of primal energies to touch the sky, while the Wicker Man, at last, toppled into the water slide's extinguishing receiving pool.
Minutes passed, and then, after recovering from the crash and finding a wide tear in the prison-like chest where the sternum would be, a shaken Winslow and Ricky Owens, gingerly, helped Cassidy out. Then, all three captives carefully waded from the cooling effigy, as its ruined trunk rested, partially, in the shallow end of the pool.
Further away and unseen by her father, however, Marcie and Greenman floated on large flotsam from the head's remains, over at the pool's far deeper end.
Still draped with long, thick, floating vines that hung about her, like loose lanyards, Marcie tried to keep a watchful eye on her nearby foe, while trying to dismiss the sheer exhaustion and pain from injuries she was suffering from.
Along with her black eye and lacerated back, one of her shoulders was on pulsating fire, the victim of a dislocation. A raw gash raged across her forehead from the maelstrom of fiery wood and violence she passed through, and a splinter, half the length of a ruler, from the Wicker Man's cranial framework had broken off, its sharp end pierced through her throbbing upper arm.
Minor tears and rips from the battle had rendered her integrity of her suit useless. From the crash, so much Super Helium had leaked from ruptured internal bladders, that flying was now impossible, and she was forced to keep from drowning by fighting to stay awake upon a small piece of bobbing wicker head.
Grimly, Greenman had fared far worse. His back, the first thing that connected with his alter, was broken, and his now half-wood and ivy, half-flesh body was badly burned and transfixed with a sharp, snapped length of lean, wooden cranial frame.
Listing on his human half, he shivered in unfamiliar agony, as he slowly shifted his head around to gauge the state of his opponent.
"The gods...warned me over and...over," he gasped, trying to keep his face above the deep water of the pool. "They called you my...mirror, but unlike you, I see...that I failed my home...my father, and now...my faith. Campaigns against true masters-at arms...and I was brought low...by some meddlesome...girl." He almost swallowed pool water, giving in to a sad laugh.
Marcie tried to balance herself on her makeshift raft, her shoulder aching sharply. "Sticks...and stones," she quipped, seething through her teeth.
"You've led your people into...battle to avenge the...old world...like a...warrior queen," he slowly admitted to her.
Consciousness was flittering from Greenman's mind like a small, quick bird, and was becoming just as hard to recapture. The muscles in his neck burned at trying to keep his face above the waterline, but finally, his body proved too weak, his wounds too grave and severe.
There was no more time for thoughts of fear or failure, as the night of death was closing around him, yet time enough for a final farewell, before that darkness and its subsequent judgment took the misguided crusader.
"Marcia Anne Fleach..." he shakily addressed his enemy, fully. "Defender of Cry-Crystal Cove...Yours...is the victory."
In complete exhaustion, his large body, almost reforming into bleeding, dying flesh, weighed him down so thoroughly, that he, quietly, slipped into the water.
Marcie's head laid down on the wicker raft to rest, but she was far too tired and pained to notice that the inert vines, still attached to the few wooden parts of Greenman's sinking body, had cinched and tighten around her, like loose rope, allowing his dead weight to drag her, silently, into the depths of the cold pool.
She didn't have energy or time to gulp in air, before she went under, and it didn't take long for her lungs to start aching on their own, and her anxious pulse to bang, alarmingly, in her ears.
Wearily, Marcie tried to shake, as best she could, to free herself from her tethers, but the wet vines still gripped against the tattered skin of her suit, and its broken wings, keeping her anchored to the departed Greenman.
She grimaced in breathless agony, and soon regretted that she wouldn't be around to enjoy a long life with her father, who acknowledged her, in the end, her friends, whose bonds were forged from adventure, and most importantly, with her Velma.
Terribly, at last, panicked resistance gave way to the inevitable, as Marcie, reflexively, inhaled terrifying lungfuls of cold water that made her spasm and convulse in her asphyxiation and insensibility.
In the deep, cold embrace of the pool, her last conscious thoughts, as a shadowy hand appeared in the faint distance, and the growing silence and darkness closed in around the edges of her perception, were of spending eternity with her ghostly double, having to explain that, like her, she too, had died for her V.