Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ New Rules, New Ruler ❯ The Final Chapter! ( Chapter 30 )

Chapter Thirty

*A/N This is going to be the last chapter. And I thought this would never even reach twenty! Speaking of which, this is the third or fourth draft, hence the lateness. I was altering this just last night! And this morning. And a lot recently, when I in fact have a very long English essay to write. Why is fanfiction so much more fun? And easier? *

Tash stood there, smiling serenely. Her brown eyes sparkled and her lips twisted into an approximation of a smile. Her clothes were a little charred, her hair a little wild, her face a little dirty, but she was calm. Her body radiated it. Actually, it radiated something else: heat. She was burning up inside.

"Pyrokinesis," Schuldig sneered. "There's a reason there's so few psis, you know. Pyrokinetics and telekinetics tend to accidentally kill themselves; telepaths and telempaths tend to do it on purpose; clairvoyants, post-cogs and pre-cogs go insane; and healers go undiscovered." He tilted his head and stared at her. "Is it just me, or is it hot in here?" he grinned.

Her eyes widened and some nearby bouquets spontaneously combusted. "It is, it isn't, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, the wonderful English subtitles on the Japanese dubbed 'Hamlet'," Brad nodded. "'To be or not to be? That is the question'. I always preferred 'Much Ado About Nothing' myself. Shakespeare had a talent for spotting the flaws in his society and exploiting them."

"I'd rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me," Tash quoted solemnly. A few more flowers went up in smoke. She smiled. "It's true, I never could be having with men. Too many destructive tendencies. Women create, men destroy. Women are nurture, men nature. Nature: so messy, so wild, so savage, so painful. But now I'm here to make it all better."

"Nature's not all bad," Schuldig protested "It's only when it's tampered with it really goes wrong."

"Tash, you don't want to do this. Just, think it through. It won't work. You must know that," Nagi pleaded from what had been the back of the group. As it was, he was now standing closest to Tash, and the first to catch the wisps of a smell that reminded him rather frighteningly of Schuldig's cooking.

"Of course it will work!" Tash scoffed. "I am all powerful. It said so, in the writing. Why do you think I had Tanya print it off? I'm invulnerable. I'm omnipotent, or at least have the potential to be so. I'm omniscient, thanks to Schuldig and some unknown Rosenkruez nurse."

"You're not omnipresent," Farfarello observed. "You're not God."

"Are those the criteria? Omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient?" Tash laughed. "What are the perks?"

Even Farfarello couldn't find anything to say to that.

"Dear cynical Schwarz," Tash sighed. "You just don't understand. I can do this. I'm the only person who can. And if you stop me, you will be remembered forever and the people who prevented eternal bliss and peace on earth." She gave them a scornful look and smoothed back her hair. She didn't notice the strands that came away in her hand, the many, many strands.

"We're not exactly popular as it is," Crawford said wryly. "We've already tried to destroy the world."

"Really? Well, I'm going to fix that. Everyone will be happy with what they've got and life will be perfect."

"No it won't."

"Shut up, Schuldig."

"Hey, I'm the mind reader here, and I say it won't! I really ought to know. You know, what with hanging about in other people's heads all day." Schuldig leered at her. "I mean, humanity ain't nice by nature. People out there, it's all rape and torture and death. They can't stand each other. They can't even stand themselves. Humanity? Ain't worth it. Go happy the rabbits. Less effort, instant gratification. Trust me, I'm a telepath." He smirked at her, sticking his hands in the back of his trousers and wiggling his hips crudely.

"You're not the only telepath now," Tash said menacingly. The floor around her feet began to blacken. "You know, I have a theory. What you hear, those are the thoughts they're trying to lock out. The thoughts the shield from themselves, not the ones they're shielding from you."

"Yeah, maybe. But I've been a telepath a hell of a lot longer, and I'm not insane. Well, maybe," Schuldig admitted, "but not as bad as you! If everyone's happy, what will make them strive for more?" Schuldig frowned. "Why, if you're happy lying dying of hunger in the African dustbowls, bother eat? Why bother get up and go to work if you're happy in bed? I'm so happy doing nothing, I might as well die. I'm happy not eating, not sleeping, not moving, not breathing…"

Tash stared at him. "That won't happen," she growled. "I won't let it."

"It's human nature," Nagi protested. "Well, maybe not quite to that extent, but it could. Without the ambitious drive people will do nothing. They won't want to do things if they're happy with what they've got. Society will stagnate. Economies will crumble because no one will work. There'll be no food, no fuel, nothing. No one will want to do the jobs that really need doing: cleaning sewers, digging graves, that sort of thing."

"I'll make them want to. I can control them. I can do what I like!" Tash stared at him.

"That's really quite an immature attitude," Crawford observed. "Even young children realise they can't always have things their way."

"You'll be hated! Forever! By everyone!"

"So what else is new?" Schuldig spat bitterly.

Tash stared from one face to another. Schuldig: hated because he was illegitimate and a freak, living on the streets by the age of eight and selling his body at eleven for drugs to help ignore the voices in his head. Crawford: spent his youth always seeking the love and respect of people who couldn't care less how he felt, only what he achieved for them, using him and abusing him for his talents. Nagi: unwanted accident for two teenagers and consistently reminded of this, beaten and abused by a drunkard father and seeing his own mother die of a drug overdose, scorned and mocked for his powers at an orphanage that couldn't afford to keep him. Farfarello: the child of a nun brought up to believe in strict Catholic values, resentful of the demands placed upon him and the rules he was supposed to obey when others broke them, shunned because he looked like Frankenstein's creature, crazy as a loon but sharp as a tack and treated like an idiot.

Tash stared at them. Pain, anger, hate, fear, jealousy, lust, madness… Her eyes widened. She had to stop this. She couldn't cope with this. Schuldig's mouth widened slightly, and Schwarz dropped the shields they spent their lives maintaining. The emotions flooded her psychic senses, the thoughts drowned out her own.

Hate them kill them I shouldn't I want to it's His fault let them die kill them need it want it hurt Him hate him kill them who cares not enough be better kill them more efficient hurt Him hope he's dead my fault kill hurt hate kill hurt hate killhurthate killhurthate killhurthatekillhurthatekillhurthateKILLHURTHATe…

Tash stumbled backwards. "Be happy," she whispered. "Be calm. Be content." She kept muttering, kept choking out the words: "be happy, be calm, be content, be happy be calm be content behappy becalm becontent behappybecalmbecontent…" She trembled like a leaf, wild eyed she projected the emotions, beating back the wave of agony and abhorrance. Schuldig's smirk began to waver into a real smile, Nagi relaxed a little, Crawford stopped glowering, Farfarello… Farfarello remained, as usual, unaffected. He stared at her through one glassy cat's eye, watching her like a cat waiting to see if the idiot prey will move, just a whisker, so it can pounce.

Hurt him kill Him revenge on Him kill her hurt her revenge on her…

"You know," Schuldig told her, still smiling, "pyrokinesis is an extremely volatile talent, and emotionally responsive. You know what that means?" he slid an arm around Crawford's waist and leant against his lover. Crawford gave him a peck on the cheek.

Tash stared at him. Emotions overwhelmed her telempathy. Information overloaded her clairvoyance. Thoughts overcame the telepathy. Fear and horror and anger grasped her in wraithlike anguish and threatened to pull her into the whirling maelstrom of inner turmoil. She struggled desperately to maintain some kind of balance between her conflicting powers.

Smoke swirled around her like a magician's trick. Fire danced out of her nose and mouth and ears, making her look like some demon summoned from Dante's inferno.

Her healing talents struggled to keep up as she fought to contain the fire. Flesh blackened and cracked and peeled, then smoothed and shone white again. There was an audible squelch as some internal organ expanded beyond measure in the heat and exploded. A frown crossed her face, and there was a throbbing pulse as it regrew. She was regrowing her internal organs. Nagi stared at her. She was truly invulnerable. If she were to die, they would have to give her no time for thought. A bullet to the heart, a bullet to the brain, both too slow. A split second would be a split second too long. Conscious, unconscious or subconscious, part of her would heal herself. And then she would take revenge.

"I'm not going to die," she told them calmly. She turned to look at Farfarello, her primary adversary here. His usual thought pattern continued unheeded.

"You can't contain it," Schuldig gloated. She smirked at him. Turning her head and raising her arms, a jet of flame shot from her body. Farfarello laughed maniacally as his clothes went up in ash and the flames caressed his nude flesh. It tickled. Tash smiled.

"She's invulnerable," Crawford murmured, watching his teammate enjoy what was likely to be his final moments. He was having difficulty caring, having difficulty rousing himself to action. All he wanted to do was hold Schuldig. Even knowing that it was Tash doing that didn't help. Lethargy gripped him as Farfarello burned.

There was a pop.

Not a particularly ominous sound. Quite an anti-climatic sound, really. Almost a pleasant sound. And in it's wake, silence. Nagi's eyes widened at what he'd done, at the empty space that used to be a solid person. The pop was the air rushing to fill the space the person had been. No final scream, no splat or squelch or any interesting noise of demise, just 'pop'.

Schwarz stared at the greasy pile of ash. It wasn't pleasant to look at. Dark streaks were left on the ground by the cooling fragments of her body and blood smeared the windows. The plants dripped. Crawford had the presence of mind to turn a hose of Farfarello, introducing sound to the otherwise silent flower shop.

"Hey!" Schuldig said suddenly, cheerfully. "This is Weiss's place! They get to clean this up!"

* * *

'Hello again.'

'What? Wait, no, this isn't right…'

'I hear you don't know much about religion. Perhaps I could help? In the beginning there was the word, and the word was God…'

'But… I'm supposed to be in control. I'm possessing this body. Why aren't I in control?'

'I'm its original occupant, and I'm not…'

*You like, you like? You utterly grossed out by the way to obviously impending death? You understand where Tash is? You R&R and C&C and S&M… okay, not the last one. ^_^ All done! Wait, still got an epilogue here… thought: does the formatting work, the bold and italics? Because that last bit might take rather more concentration than it ought to if the text formats all look the same. *