48 Usagi Days / Finale, Pt 3

- 48.1 -

The girls fled down the white corridor, away from the Orchestration chamber, and emerged back in the main area of the control center—just as the Orc managed to wrench the doors open, barely enough for him to poke his head through the gap in the twisted metal.

Orc: "Oh, honey … I'M HO-OOOME!"

They kept running, across the control room, heading straight for the cargo elevator at the other end. Ruby could hear the sound of metal tearing, bending behind her. She fought the urge to look back.

The four of them scrambled onto the cargo elevator, which was little more than a large open platform suspended within the shaft.

Anemone, her hands trembling, swiped her sister's keycard on the console at the back of the platform.

A harsh Bzzt! sounded. Access denied.

Anemone: "Come on! What the—"

She tried again. Bzzt!

As Anemone kept trying, the other girls watched the door of the control room. A large green arm smashed through the ever-widening gap between the door. And then another arm.

Anemone swiped again. Bzzt!

Ivy, panicking: "Annie? Wh-what's taking so long?"

Anemone, shakily: "I—I d-don't know. It won't—"

The Orc was now forcing apart the blast doors. The metal creaked as it strained, buckled—and then, finally gave way, the doors bursting open fully.

Violet, whimpering: "H-he's in. He's in. He's in."

The Orc stepped through the mangled doorway.

Thoomp. Thoomp. Thoomp.

The elevator platform beneath the girls shuddered with each of his slow, plodding footsteps.

Violet and Ivy, who had up until now, only seen the Orc as a green blur tearing apart wardens in the atrium, stared in amazed horror as they took in the full sight of him. The hulking mass of pure Orc-muscle, green Orc-flesh. His smiling yellow teeth. Those glowing, red eyes.

He stopped in the center of the room. He placed one arm behind his back, and extended the other, in front of him, palms facing up—and then bowed, deep, gracefully, like an aristocrat gentleman offering a dance at some royal ball.

He glanced up from his bow, grinned madly at the girls. "Ladies … Shall we?"

Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

Anemone was at her wit's end. "Come on! You stupid piece of—"

Beep! Access granted.

Anemone sighed with relief as the cargo elevator rumbled to life. She spun around, away from the console—all sense of relief draining away in an instant when she, too, finally saw the Orc standing in the middle of the control room.

As the elevator slowly began to lift off the floor, the Orc bellowed out an ugly, mocking laugh.

Orc: "I never thought you had it in you, Hanasaki Ruby. Letting one of your friends stay behind in the blast, while the rest of you scurry away to safety, like rats. Ha! Ha! Oooh … There's a Darkness in this one, boys!"

The elevator ascended, carrying the girls upward. Soon they were above the Orc, looking down at him.

Orc, head tilted up, still grinning: "Say, I've got a fun idea! Why don't we race each other to the top? You've got a bit of a head start—but ya know, I've always been proud of my climbing skills! My teacher always said I was the fastest climber in the class! HA HA HA HA!"

Then, with alarming speed, the Orc sprinted toward one end of the control center. The girls watched in terrified wonder as he leapt up, dug his fingers into the panel of monitors and displays, and scaled the entire length of the wall with ease.

As the elevator neared the top of the control center, the last thing they saw, before the room slipped out of view, was the Orc tearing through the ceiling, and disappearing into the darkness above.

- 48.2 -

The elevator motors whirred. The cargo platform ascended through the dark shaft. The PA system announced the minutes remaining until Void-Null.

Twelve.

Ten.

Nine.

Ivy: "Where does this thing even go?"

Anemone: "It opens up somewhere on the surface."

Ivy: "The Orc—it's not really going to dig through five kilometers of solid earth, is it? Not even an Orc could do something like that … Right?"

Nobody answered. In the silence that followed, the only sound the rumbling of the machinery, Ruby remembered Lucy had placed something in her hand, when she'd taken the Void-Null card. In the chaos that had followed, Ruby had put it in her medical gown's side pocket, and forgotten about it.

She took it out now. Lucy's 20-sided die.

Her face crumpled. The tears began to fall again.

- 48.3 -

PA: "Void-Null, in SIX MINUTES."

Ivy: "What are we going to do when we get up there?

Violet: "Maybe R.A.B.B.I.T. left some vehicles on the surface."

Ivy: "… Why would they do that? The anti-SDF barrier doesn't extend past the station."

Violet: "Well, I dunno … But we're kinda screwed if there's nothing up there. What are we going to do—run past the Void-Null radius in the, what … minute and a half we'll get by the time the elevator finishes?"

Anemone: "Minute and a half? … If we're that lucky."

PA: "… FIVE MINUTES."

Ruby: "It'll be there."

The other girls turned to look at Ruby. … They had a feeling they knew what she meant. But they wanted to hear her say it, anyway.

"I know it'll be there. I have the utmost, uncompromising faith that it'll be there."

The memory of the Orc's voice rang in her head, again. "A burgeoning practitioner in the art of particle manipulation—now, are you sure you're not part Orc already, Hanasaki Ruby?"

"It has to be there. … It will be there."

"… FOUR MINUTES."

"… THREE MINUTES."

"… TWO—"

Ruby: "… It will be."

- 48.4 -

Once the elevator neared the top, the surface above parted with a mechanical whir. The midday sun came flooding in. The sudden light blinding them, even as they shielded their eyes.

They passed through the opening. Ruby took her first breath of fresh air in months. Real, actual sunlight on her skin. She shivered. It was the dead of winter, and she was still wearing only a thin medical gown.

The platform clanked to a stop, throwing them forward slightly. And as soon as their eyes adjusted to the light, they saw it: The pink 2002 Kisuzu Usagi. Exactly where Ruby said it would be. Parked a few feet away from the platform.

If any of them were surprised, none showed it. They were less concerned about the apparent teleportation (?) abilities of the Usagi, and more pre-occupied with the immediate air around them, which flexed and rippled and warped, the distortion stretching across the expanse of the underground facility beneath their feet.

The Void-Null was coming.

PA system, muffled from within the cargo shaft: "VOID-NULL IMMINENT. THIRTY SECONDS …"

They piled into the kei-car. Each in her usual position. Violet and Ivy in the back seat. Anemone in the passenger seat. Ruby at the wheel. For the first time in seven months, the girls were finally back inside the Usagi together.

Ruby started the engine. She looked ahead, to the boundary of the incoming Void-Null, where the air stopped shimmering. All the way to the edge of the Old Capital, where the skyscrapers and buildings began. That's where they had to go.

… No way they were going to make it there. Not in thirty seconds.

Ruby shifted into gear and slammed her foot down on the accelerator. The Usagi's tires spun wildly on the frozen dirt, the engine screaming, until the rubber finally gripped the ground, and the car shot forward.

They couldn't hear the PA announcements anymore. How many seconds did they have? Twenty? … Ten? They didn't know. But the boundary was still so far away. Even at top speed, they knew they couldn't make it.

Ruby kept her bare foot pressed down on the pedal, as far as it would go.

The air was growing thicker, heavier. Their skin began to tingle. A strange taste of ozone in their mouths. The shimmering in the air around them giving way to a unnatural, white haze.

This was the end. They were going to be caught in the Void-Null.

In the backseat, Violet and Ivy joined hands.

In the passenger seat, Anemone closed her eyes and prepared for atomic nullification.

And Ruby, in the driver's seat—…

- 48.5 -

…—relaxed. Ruby un-tensed her shoulders, her arms. She breathed out, gently. As soon as the tension left her, the Usagi, as if responding to the change in her body, began to accelerate—faster, and faster. The speedometer needle climbed, higher than it had ever gone, the Usagi surging forward in sudden, sharp bursts, each increase in velocity throwing the girls back against their seats.

Soon the needle reached the far end of the dial. Even then, the Usagi kept speeding up.

They were hurtling now toward the boundary of the Void-Null. The skyscrapers and buildings of the Old Capital loomed in front of them, growing larger as the Usagi approached, traveling at speeds physically impossible for something with such a tiny engine.

The girls held on tight. They were almost there.

Just … a bit … more!

- 48.6 -

The Void-Null itself, when it came, made no noise. No explosion, no blinding spectacle of light.

One moment, the entire area behind them was there—and the next, it … wasn't.

Gone. Erased. Just like that. A perfect, half-sphere crater where Ithaca, and the land above it, used to be.

No "blink-and-you-miss-it" moment—there was simply nothing to miss.

What did make a noise, however, was the massive blast of air that slammed into the Usagi, as the atmosphere rushed in to fill the massive vacuum left behind by the Void-Null.

"Hang on!" screamed Ruby, fighting to keep control of the car through the pressure wave, the strength of it so intense that it briefly lifted the car up off its wheels.

The side windows shattered. Ivy and Violent screamed in the back. Anemone was flung against the passenger door.

For a moment, it felt like the entire car would be torn apart completely.

And then, just as quickly, it was over.

- 48.7 -

The Usagi skidded to a stop just outside the edge of the Old Capital. The old financial district, now a collection of hollow skyscrapers and office buildings. Home to those who had nowhere to go. A dangerous place to be, in any other circumstance.

Smoke billowed out from under the hood. The engine was dead.

A small group of bandits had formed around the car, drawn together by the noise and chaos. Not so much interested in the car as the giant, 5km-deep smooth crater behind it, at the sight of which each bandit stared agape.

The girls sat in the car for a long time. Nobody said anything. No joy, no celebration. No rejoicing at being alive.

After all, Lucy had—…

… Lucy had saved them all again.

One final time.

- 48.8 -

Anemone, after a long silence: "Why'd you keep my rifle here?"

Ruby: "… What?"

"My rifle was sitting on the seat when I got in. I had to move it out of the way."

"I didn't keep it here. I kept it in a closet in my room."

"… Oh."

Ruby, looking around: "Did the Usagi bring anything else?"

Ivy and Violet checked the backseat. "Don't think so."

And then Ruby noticed it. One other thing the Usagi had brought from Ithaca, tucked behind the sun visor above her.

Ruby lowered the visor. Attached to the underside was the photo Anemone's sister had taken of the five of them, back at Ruby's farewell party.

She stared at the photo for a long time. Nobody said anything.

While staring ahead at the photo, a movement in the rearview mirror caught her attention. Something … green.

Ruby's blood ran cold.

A hulking arm emerged from the edge of the Void-Null crater. Then another arm. The Orc's head, and shoulders. And the rest of him, as he pulled himself up out of crater, onto solid ground.

He stood upright, a wide grin on his Orc-face, and began approaching the car and the crowd of bandits.