Written by Fulgur
Illustrated by Crosschan

Chapter 25

The Last Day

"You said you remember the right shape," said Max.
"Sorry," sighed Grace. "I never tried this before. Let's see... how many lines is there supposed to be?"
"Thirty," said Linda without hesitating.
"Really?" Grace was a bit puzzled. "Are you sure?"
Linda smiled. "It's easy. Look!" She took the stick from Grace's hand and drew a picture.
"Just do it like this," she said.
"I suppose I should have some sort of instinct for this," mused Grace as she attempted to draw again. "But no worries! We'll be there in a flash!"
"And after that?"
That stopped her in her tracks. "Huh?"
"How will we stop the Queen?" asked Max. "Mrs. Tain was much more experienced than you are - and she lost!"
"Well, that is..."
"I will pounce on her!" cried Linda.
Max grimaced.
"Let's save this as plan B," he said.

The paddling was one of worst things Raia ever went through. The fact that it wasn't exactly her getting paddled didn't help.
The fact that it was Merta who bounced on her lap, hollering her lungs out, made it only marginally better.
And the worst thing was the she couldn't stop!
"It's really you, aren't you?" she hissed. "You are making us do this. Hurting one another for your personal amusement!"
The mindscape was quiet. Except for Merta's sobs. And Raia's, too.
Raia looked down. The paddle marks were quickly fading - much faster, in fact, then they should.
The paddle fell again. Both girls shrieked in pain.

There was energy in the air. I could feel it, coming from the whole world, invisible lines tying the Queen...
...to everything and everyone.
Suddenly I had a vision - people in the towns, suddenly stopping in the middle of their day jobs, standing like statues, while the tiny pieces of the Queen in their blood heeded the call of their nexus.
She was in everybody. In one of the guards that caused us so much grief in Ceris. In lord of Cant, as he was pouring a glass of wine. In little girl getting spanked over her father's knee. For a short while, I saw Soot and May, sitting in a hut, while Rosey was playing on the floor... then they froze, too.
"Stop that!" I cried.
"No."
Her voice was reverberating now, as she was feeding on people. I could feel some of them wobble... and collapse.
"I require as much power as I can get," she said.
"Why? How can you be so evil?"
"I am not evil. Evil implies a choice. I never had a choice."
She sounded bitter.
"I wasn't a weapon. I was a deterrent. The Ascended Ones wouldn't attack the Earth if they knew I'm there. But one of them couldn't bear that this world might be out of their reach. Oh no, they were supposed to be omnipotent! Noone would stand against them!"
She sighed.
"So he destroyed everything. I wasn't fully aware then, but I remember that time. Cities that reached the clouds - washed away by the sea and molten rain. Power centrals destroyed. People starving to death when the civilization collapsed. But they survived. I survived. Slowly, I learned to live in the blood, growing stronger gradually. Noone is left now. I am the only one who remembers what they did."
"And now... he came back. I know him. The very same monster who tried to kill this planet once."
This time, she laughed.
"I will accomplish my primary purpose. And I will tell you something, Zack... I will really, really enjoy it."

"Ready?" asked Grace. "This is the right shape, yes, Linda?"
The cat-girl nodded. "Yep."
Grace ushered everybody in the central pentagon. One of its lines was broken. She joined it.
"Right," she said. "And now..."
And they were gone.

And they were here.
I gasped, as Max, Linda, and Grace stumbled from suddenly-appeared dodecahedron. Max and Grace looked a bit pale.
"You... need... training..." gasped Max. "This felt like someone turning me inside out!"
Grace didn't answer. Linda seemed unconcerned. "Where are we?" she asked.
The Queen turned towards them.
"Right where you are supposed to be," she said.
Grace turned around.
"It goes down to this?" asked the Queen. "You are going to try and stop me?"
Grace nodded. "I have to."
"Even though you don't have any training? Even though your power is no match for mine?"
"Even so."
"The world won't be saved if you defeat me," said the Queen. "He lied to you."
"He spoke the truth," said Grace simply.
"He was many things. I will strike him down. I will avenge this world."
"If you do," asked Grace, "will we survive?"
"No. But I will."
"You're selfish."
The Queen smirked. "You will help me."
"I won't."
"Come to me!"
The words reverberated in the air. I jerked with their force. So did Max.
But not the girls.
"You have no power over us," said Grace calmly.
"I have no power over her," objected the Queen, pointing her finger on Linda. "She removed me from her system, yes, but you? You have the power! You shouldn't be able to resist!"
"But I am!" cried Grace. "And as for you...!"
Her hands flashed. A truncated tetrahedron appeared and a heat ray hit the Queen squarely in the chest.

"What?" Max seemed puzzled. "But... how?"
The Queen staggered, but immediately recovered and conjured up truncated icosahedron - the Fuller barrier.
Then she striked back.
She didn't bother with shapes. She was the source of all geomancy, and she didn't have to follow its rules. Grace dived aside, but the blast has singed her clothes.
On her chest, something shined.
The golden heptagon medallion.
The Queen laughed. "So this was it!"
Grace smirked. "At one time, they called it 'Trojan horse'."
"This might be a bad moment," said Linda to me, "but can you tell me what this is all about?"
I shook my head. "I don't know. It doesn't look good."
Grace stood up. For the first time, I noticed the panic in her eyes. But her moves, her speech, didn't show anything...
"So you decided to come to me?"
"Yes," said Grace, simply. "You are not leaving this world. I'm taking care of that."
She raised her hand. "This is the end."

"Why?" cried Raia. "Why can't I stop?"
Merta stopped bawling for a moment. She looked over her shoulder, and sniffed.
"You must forgive me," she said. "Only then you can stop with the paddling."
"What? Why would she..."
She paused. Her hand was frozen in the air, in mid-swing.
"It's not the Queen who does this, right?" she said. "It's you."
Merta nodded. "Somehow."
"You're making me spank you."
"Yes."
"But why do I have to suffer?"
"I don't know," said Merta. "That's not my doing."
"You mean that I'm doing it? That I'm blistering my own bottom here?" screamed Raia. "Not a chance!"
"It's because you feel responsible for me," said Merta. "You are my mother, no matter how you want to deny it. You gave me life. Isn't that what mothers do?"
"You are just a figment of my imagination!"
"A figment that had known true love," said Merta. "You never did. You did great things, Raia. But you were never happy, were you?"
*SMACK!*
"Aaah!"
"You won't talk to me like this!" cried Raia.
"Try to deny it! You were always alone, just with... with her. When I met Zack and others, you were jealous of me! You wanted to be happy, too!"
"No! I can't afford this! I had my duty!"
Merta sighed. "Forgive me," she said. "And I'll forgive you. We don't have to hurt each other."
"What sense is in that now?"
"There is! Zack will save us! I know he will! And then..."
"Yes? Even if he managed that, then what?"
"Then you will get your chance to be happy," said Merta. "I promise."

It was an endless hall, made of metal, and full of lights. Grace looked around her.
"This is not right," she said. "Where is Max and Linda? Where am I, for that matter?"
"Forgive me."
She turned around. Shawn was standing there.
"You are..."
"Collector, yes. Or Leik Tain. I have many names."
"Where am I?"
"You are where I am."
"Send me back!"
Leik Tain sighed. "I can't. This place... is not real. And neither are you, in a sense."
"What do you mean?"
Another man appeared. Tall, muscular, with black skin. "You wouldn't stand a chance against the Queen. I have evened the odds."
"Evened the odds?"
"Your medallion," said the man. "I have created that, long time ago. It was a... relay."
"Between us and the Earth," said Leik. "I helped Veronica to stop aging. She couldn't do it alone."
"But she gave it away."
"Until eventually..."
"It got to me," said Grace slowly. "I got the medallion and the powers."
"We can strike now," said the black man. "We need your body, but we can supply it with unlimited energy. We can stand off against the Queen."
"My body?" gasped Grace. "Then - this is..."
"Mindscape. Sort of," nodded Leik. "You're in Collector's mind."
"Who exactly is 'Collector'?"
"It's me."
"And me," said the black man.
And then, more figures appeared in the view. There were men and women, old and young, of all shapes and colors. There were odd, metallic shapes, and creatures from nightmares.
"This is what Collector is," said Leik. "Collector of souls. Every one of us became a part of him."
"Part?"
"We are all one being. We can take on shape and personality of any one of us. We share our memories and our lives. It's... satisfying existence."
"And all these...?"
"Yes. Collector is very old. There are thousands of us."
"Including me."
Grace raised her head. Most of figures have disappeared, leaving only this one; sleek, metallic creature resembling a man. He looked like a bad sculpture.
"I have no name," he said. "But long ago, before Collector absorbed me, I would be called Radical. I was the one who tried to destroy this world for the first time."
He paused.
"We ask you to forgive us for using your body. We do it because I don't want to... do the same thing again."

I scampered off with Max and Linda, leaving Grace and Queen in their silent duel. We could all feel the energy, but there was certain balance of powers. Both combatants were wary to strike.
"It's Shawn!" spat Max. "He, or this master of his, took control of Grace!"
"Maybe it's for the best!" said Linda. "She couldn't hold too long on her own!"
"Still..."
I looked at my medallion. My sword. "You know... maybe we could do something now. If this thing would work one more time... Maybe she can't deal with both Grace and us?"
"No!" cried Linda. "What about Merta? You did all of this for her sake!"
"Grace won't care about her," said Max glumly. "Even if she wins... Merta and Raia might be lost."
"No!" I cried. "There must be a way, damned!"
An explosion rattled the room. Someone has striked.

"You had..." said Grace.
"Yes. I aimed meteoritic strikes towards main cities and industrial zones. I brought down the human civilization. At that time, I believed it was the best way."
"Why?"
"Because I believed that humans are obsolete. I believed that my kind is the next step. That we are destined to dominate the universe. But humans invented a weapon that could kill us. I striked at them because I was afraid."
"That's not an excuse!"
"We all feel deep sorrow about what happened," said Leik. "Even he does, now. We could coexist with humans, even if they had the Queen. But now you have no control over her. She has evolved, and she rules your world. Collector decided to stay close to Earth precisely to stop something like this from happening."
"We have diverted a large asteroid towards the Earth," said the black man. "It will strike the Castle of Seal, but it is large enough to cause mass extinction."
"Large enough to kill off human population," said Leik. "But it won't actually hit, unless..."
"Unless we give it a small push. In about ten minutes," said Radical.
"If the Queen dies before then, we won't," said Leik. "Otherwise - it leaves us no choice."

"Why?" hissed the Queen. "There is no way you can win! We both know that!"
"Maybe I still have hope," answered Grace.
"Hope for this world?"
"Hope for those who live in it."
"Hope for people like me?"
The Queen looked at me. The armor was gone, but I still had the sword.
"Not this again! You don't know when to quit, do you?!"
"Well, now..." I started.

*SPANK!*
"Yeeeouch!" cried Raia.
"Ouch!" cried Merta.
"Stupid literalism!" hissed Raia. "'It hurts me more than it hurts you,' yeah, right!"
"But it does work this way!" protested Merta. "When a mother must spank her child, she knows it's her failure. She thinks that the spanking wouldn't be neccessary, if she just did some things differently. It's not the child's fault - it's her fault, and so it hurts her more! When her little girl cries and promises and tells her that she doesn't want to be spanked - you think it doesn't break the mother's heart?"
"I suppose," said Raia. "But she spanks her anyway."
"Because it's her duty to do so. Such as it's your duty to spank me."
"Or Zack's?"
"That's different."
"How so?"
"Well..."
"Maybe because he likes to spank you?"
Merta was silent.
"What if, in time, he won't be content with punishing you for your misbehaviour?" pressed Raia. "What if he will desire to spank you more than you deserve? What then?"
"We will think of something," said Merta. "Maybe I will always need an occassional spanking. All those spankings from childhood - childhood I never had! All those spankings you should get! No," she smiled a bit, "I guess I'm going to be a naughty girl for some time."
"Fine, get your butt spanked if you want to, but don't drag me into it!"
"Then forgive me!"
"What? Destroying my life? Being so damned annoying? What's there to forgive?"
"Everything," said Merta simply. "And I will forgive you. That's a deal."
"And if we forgive each other, what then?"
"We'll think of something."
Raia put the paddle away, but she couldn't resist not smacking Merta's bottom with her hand one more time.
"Ow!"
"OK, then. Let's put everything behind us. I forgive you."
It was as if a big boulder fell from her shoulders. She stood up, dropping Merta unceremoniously on the ground.
"Now, what shall we do?"

"You really want to destroy our world?"
"No."
This came from all three parts of Collector.
"No," said Leik. "Of course we don't want to! None of us wants to! But we will have to, because that's what we promised to do."
"The Queen must not be allowed to leave," said the black man. "That is our absolute priority."
"We can hold the Queen down until the asteroid hits. She will be destroyed in the impact."
"Wait a moment!" cried Grace. "You cannot defeat her?"
"No," said Radical. "That is impossible."
"There must be a way to save our world!" cried Grace.
The figures were silent.
And then Grace saw the way.
She staggered under the weight of it.
"There is one way..." she said, slowly. "You all knew it, didn't you?"
They nodded. "Yes. We knew. But we were not able to tell you."
"I can see why! But, that is..."
"The only way," said Leik firmly. "We told you everything we could."
"You want... me to do it?"
"We cannot. We can only show you the way."
"And you will only have a few seconds to do it."
"The prism?"
They didn't say anything.
"You want me to do that?"
Leik Tain smiled. "Of course not. Never. Absolutely not, in any circumstances. Go now."

I aimed the sword at the Queen, and swung.
It hit a barrier.
I swung again, and the barrier shook.
And shattered.
"I'm immortal," said the Queen, but she sounded puzzled.
I aimed the sword at her heart. "We will see."
"Would you kill a woman you love?"
"He can't kill you and you know it!" said Grace. She sounded disgusted. "You can make your skin hard as steel, easy. You can protect yourself in thousand different ways, so why causing him emotional damage to top it?"
"It's... entertaining."
"A superweapon that cares about fun? Hah. Zack," she said to me, "if you hit her... all you would do is to kill Merta. She's far too powerful now."
Suddenly, she blinked.
"I will take c..care of everything," she said.
And she started to draw.
"Sheer stupidity," said the Queen.
"Quite so," nodded Grace.
The shape she drew was a prism. Its seven sides glistened in the air.
Then Grace quickly tore the medallion from her neck and stuck it in the middle of the shape.
The Queen grabbed it.
And crushed it in her fist.

The long corridor was full of figures again. They looked at each other. They didn't talk. They all knew what they want to say.
There was nothing to do now but wait.
A new, shimmering figure appeared.
The Queen looked along the corridor. All figures disappeared. So did the walls. When she averted her eyes, there was nothing left.
She looked the other way, and erased everything else.
Except one man.
"You had this planned from the beginning," she said.
"Yes," nodded Leik Tain. "Fortunately, Grace understood what must be done. So you won."
"No. You let me win."
"Does it matter?"
"It bothers me."
Leik Tain smiled. "It will take years before another one of us shows here. Maybe we won't show at all. Maybe we will quarantine this star system. Plenty of time for you to learn something more about the world."
"I know enough."
"No, you don't. On the day when you understand our sacrifice... then you will know enough."
"I will be prepared when you come."
"Maybe."
"I might destroy your kind."
"I believe that you won't, in the end. Besides, we were never too keen on helping each other. And you still haven't dealt with the humans below. I was one of them, and believe me - they are very fascinating creatures."
"So are you," said the Queen. She seemed surprised to say it.
"Yes."
"I will... regret destroying you."
"None of us can escape our purpose," said Leik Tain. "There is only one thing... call it an old man's curiosity."
"Yes?"
"Your powers. Geomancy. We don't understand it. It disobeys rules of nature. How can you teleport when we are bound by speed of light? How does the cube work? We saw it being used, but our instruments won't show anything."
The Queen sighed. "I believe you have a theoretic model. It's called low-level adjustment."
Leik Tain nodded. "I was afraid so. But that is way beyond abilities of humans. Present or past. Who created you, my Queen? Where are you really from?"
And the Queen told him.
And then she erased him from existence.

The Queen fell down, pieces of the medallion crumbling from her hand.
Grace sat down.
"What happened?" I ask.
"I've just saved the world," she said. And then she started to cry.
"I betrayed him, Zack... I opened the way for her, so she could go... and destroy him. He wanted it that way. It was the only way to keep us safe..."
"What happened to the Queen?" asked Max.
"She fulfilled her purpose. For now," said Grace. "She can't get to any further Ascended Ones now. She's... I think she's asleep."
"We should seal her again," said Max. "While she's out."
"No," I said. "Merta is somewhere in there. And I'm going to get her back."
I bowed down to the unconscious form of my love, and gave her a kiss.
In the next second, I fell in the dark abyss, and I lost consciousness.

End of Chapter 25
 Grace's Readers' Corner:
I can't really talk about what has happened. Not now, sorry. I just know that I will carry my guilt for the rest of my life. Guilt that no spanking is going to erase.
But what is going to happen now? Will people get back their stolen energy? Will Zack find Merta, wherever she is now? You will find this and many other things in the final chapter of Geomancer, entitled "A Lady and Her Knight". Coming soon!