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The Vault is a lot like IKLEA. All halls and showrooms and twisting corridors that lead you every which way and then some new ways you never thought existed until the Vault showed them to you. It’s full to the brim of all the products you’d ever want, ones you’d never want, and things you feel mildly about, and it’s all perfectly preserved with expiration dates of never.
And JJ’s one of these. Except she can wander out of the perfectly preserved halls in and out, hand always on the left wall for safety. She likes to compare herself to the Minotaur, chasing ghosts. Doomed by the sins of her forebears, doomed by Jaylen and all her murders.
Sometimes she finds the gates. They’re always locked.
Somewhere else…
The Secret Base reeks of coffee. Zephyr hates it. But Parker Macmillan, the Firewalker, is on the field, standing by second base stoically, and like hell Zephyr's gonna let that asshole kill him.
Because the Pies are dead men walking. He knows it, everyone knows it. And when-not if, when they die, they’re taking someone down with them. Just like drowning.
The image of his sister being dragged away by the tides comes to mind.
All eyes are on him and the Power Chaaarge sings through his blood and the secret base beckons him and he slides in, leaving Philly far behind.
He’s not sure where he is but Neerie’s there. Somehow. Nice move, she says. I like the part where you turned tail and ran like a coward instead of taking the heat.
Fuck off, Zephyr says. You don’t know what it was like. Besides… He trails off. It's hard to look at Neerie, immateria dripping in her face as she grins smugly.
I don’t give a shit, she says. I’m not real! I’m never gonna die!
Somewhen else…
Jefferson Delacruz grins in the way only vae can, a half-cocked mess of spaghetti-tangle wire limbs. “Well, Haruta Byrd, I am incredibly glad that you ask. My theory is that in between the dichotomy of Pie and Die, there is another option. And that option is Or.”
He points to the churning hole punched through the sky. “It all has to do with that, you see. I have been observing as it consumes Rules, Items, pieces of Stadiums, even Suns. You remember August Obrien, correct?”
Haruta nods.
“She circumvented Avoidance to destroy an integral part of the League. I am going to do the same.”
“Are you serious?” Haruta’s filled with something not quite excitement, not quite fear.
Jefferson turns to stare at Haruta, eyes forming in faer tangled mass. “I am tired of pie, Haruta Byrd. And I am afraid of death. It’s all very simple.”
At the Horizon…
The Dale will party. They’ll remember the dead, remember the living, scream into the skies at the top of their lungs because there, at the edge of the Black Hole (Black Hole), there is no dawn, no sunrise, no tomorrow. Only an endless nightlife lit by shining neon and floodlights, lighters held up high, the soft green glow of the Iffey Jr. that Jode holds in the air as if it was their guiding star.
Players and fans and just normal people mix together into a mass of humanity unwilling to go just yet, trying to make this night last just that bit longer. Someone screams “NOTHING BAD WILL EVER HAPPEN TO THE FLORIDA TEAM!” at the top of their lungs and someone cheers “LONG LIVE LEAL!” in response and the crowd is a wave, is glowing, is electric.
Rivers is standing on a table and yelling something, Sixpack is right by xaer side flinging his solo cup into the air. They’re starting a chant, screaming together, Qais clambers up to meet them and their voices carry through the building as everyone cheers, memorializing. Leal, Horseman, Mason, Moss, Pony, Passon, Anthony, Maldonado, and the energy in the room is reaching a fever pitch as-
The Black Hole washes over them and leaves nothing behind.
In the middle of a moment…
Killing a god is a bloody thing. There will be songs written about it, one day. They’ll never capture the heat on your face correctly, never catch the smell of burning metal. It’ll be made out to be some grand heroic gesture, some one and done act of defiance where you flip off the gods and leave them burning in your wake.
Maybe it is, for some. But the image is burned into the back of your eyelids, the scattered melting screams echo in your mind. You did what had to be done, you say. But it doesn’t get rid of the memory.
Inside Antarctica…
Workman Delacruz pilots the Lab like it’s their own personal orchestra, the undead symphony of a team resurrected. Dead ahead is the Vault, gilded claims of Safety and Preservation sparkling through the Lab’s comm feeds. Behind them, there is an empty Hall, blue fire haloing them like the last grip of a squid’s tentacles, trying to drag them back down to the depths. To port there is a melted pile of golden slag. To starboard there is nothing at all.
Elena Watson breaks the suffocating silence with a sharp cackle. “Well, there goes our grant money!”
In the shifting Desert sands…
Somewhere, the progeny of a long dead god stares at a crashed speedboat beached on the Desert shores and wonders why they feel sad.
At the beginning of the end…
The Hades Tigers will never look back. They will embrace the dead but leave them be, let them pass back into the shadows as the Tigers rush forwards into the golden lights of the supernova and then of the Vault. Slap the top of the doorframe, give one last salute, never look back out the door as it shuts and the universe dies behind them.
There’s nothing left they’d be willing to look back for, anyways.
After it all…
The Immaterial Plane collapses, consumed by the Black Hole (Black Hole.) The Band plays on. Somewhere, a Commissioner coughs into a Microphone. But if nobody was there to hear it, did he really make a sound?