Goodnight Museworld, Part 1

Dana and the people of Wirestone gathered outside to see the destruction about to befall the planet, unsure of what all the sudden rumbling was. Living in a world of pure amazement, you’d think they’d be able to parse the sight of a dissolving sky and a warping moon. But then again, man’s hands could only do so much in terms of creating things to shock one another. The universe was long due for its turn in the spotlight, even if that very same humanity itself had pushed it back in there.

They didn’t exactly know why it was happening or what it meant. Then again, most didn’t. Somewhere in Japan, two of the only ones given the privilege or curse of understanding intertwined themselves as they waited for the release. In a way, it was cruel. Arrow had prayed for this to come to him, many times before. Now it was the last thing he wanted in the world. But at least, he thought, it could end like this. In the arms of his other, he and Miyano never did wonder about life after death or whether or not it was all worth it. They just embraced, and hoped it wouldn’t hurt too much.

<It’s kinda pretty.>

Tala and Gen sat on their highschool roof. They too, knew of this display’s significance. The place they’d chosen to rest wasn’t the happiest one- but in choosing it, they both reclaimed it as something nice to look back on together. After all, why bother hating even a single part of the time they’d been provided together?

A boy named Nate was in a hospital in that same city, still alive when it happened as he clutched the flowers Tara and Gen had left him that same day. He had been having an excellent day, almost as nice as the one he’d been provided when he first met those two and the sisters from America. 

He didn’t know who to thank for how lucky he had been.

To the West, Gregory was re-reading his friend’s continuation of the greatest series ever written. He thought the ending was weirdly dark, and hoped he could talk to her about it sometime soon. By the time he noticed the hellfire outside his window, Serah was blowing up the party group chat. When he joined, everybody else was already there, and Percival had already gotten himself in an argument with the girl. Rocco and him shot the breeze until the tensions calmed and the group’s leading thief unpacked a whole bunch of emotional baggage and secrets, that were, to be completely fair, quite enlightening. Nobody else there was neurotic enough to immediately think the admittedly horrific phenomenon necessarily spelled out the end of the world, so they successfully calmed her down before then. Even if they never would get to work out how the friend group would function moving forward, they went on one more adventure together under the dreary-colored sky. It made for an excellent roleplay backdrop. 

Meanwhile, Lord Bartholomew Dansuhonvangonvictth C took a rest on his throne. This world was out of his hands now. He’d been a decent lord to his kingdom, at least.

Out on the sea, the waters reflected the hellish portrait the sky had created. Hannigan and Francis were awestruck by the Earth’s performance as their travels continued in spite of it. They didn’t know their time together, that they’d finally pried out of the cold dead hands withholding it from them- was being cut short. However, this injustice only served to let them bask in it until the very last moment.

The American cities were strewn with opened windows, watching the galaxy scream. One girl, now far away from the prison that her father had called a home, looked up at it and smiled at its red brilliance, now dotted with white debris. Her name was Maxine, and that was the only permanent thing there was in this world of freedom. She chewed her gum as she ran off to go about what had been and would continue to be a wonderful day.

Somewhere else, a guy and his best friend continued the same road trip they’d been on for months now, chatting endlessly, him in his same white polo, her in her same red dress.

“So I was right.” Mary absently gazed out the front window, examining the rubble.

“You always are.” Conrad admitted after weeks of discussion about whether or not the moon was being pulled down by human greed or just a supernatural force.

“…I’m sorry?” She tilted her head, missing the compliment as he chuckled.

And there was more laughter to be had in Venge City, all the way over in Kentucky, not before a lot of crying, to be fair.

“It’s not over!” Wheel Nicholson shouted over everyone else trying to comfort Coaster Bozo himself, lying in fear in his bed within his massive tower. “Pull yourself together, sir!”

“I was this close! We just finished rebuilding!”

“So you’re giving up now? Sir, how’s that gonna look to the people down below?” Q Kanigher raised their voice high enough for those very same people to almost hear. “Are you a hero, or are you not?”

“I dunno, I’m just scared—-!” The man wept. Oda Moldoff sat her staff down on the floor next to him and pat his head.

“Then… stop fighting and let us be here with you. We’re your friends… bozo.”

“Y-yeah!” Julie Siegel watched her idol become her child in a matter of seconds, but kept loving him anyway. “Heroes need heroes too, right?”

“That they do!” Kent M. Kanefinger added.

“Maybe not like this…” Foxlam Moore side-eyed the wall.

“Calm down, everyone.” The wise old Go Mayer shrugged away both their notions. “Oda is right. We are all friends here, Coaster.”

“Ya goddamn right.” Wilton E. Marston snorted. “Frickin’ world could end and it wouldn’t change that.”

“Let’s not… get ahead of ourselves.” Mumbled Denny Adams. Happy T. Shuster smiled as she prodded him with the stock of his own rifle.

“Worried?”

“WE WILL NOT WORRY!” Tatsuki Miller suddenly burst out from the back of the family’s unruly gathering.

“THAT WE WILL NOT!” Inio Nodell continued. “NOT IN FRONT OF OUR LEADER- ER, FRIEND!”

“You getting any of this, guys?” Ko Ditbert shook her head.

The horseshoe-theory opposites of the emotional Lee-Bryan Broome and the cold, calculating Anti both mirrored her exhausted motion with a chuckle. 

Down on the front lines of the actual city itself below them, people were going about their lives with little care for the regrets of their local hero, probably for the better.

“The sky is the very color of villainy!”

Brushing away the fears of his loyal legionaries and the grief for their friends and family up on the broken celestial body, Arsene Hatter made his most of what even he suspected to be his final hours, doing it the only way he knew how.

“THAT’S RIGHT!” Spider Hood called out in return, joined by his comrades, from the screeching cry of Anita to the eye-rolled drone of Kyrie.

It was painful to see something so great as the moon go, let alone have your own planet threatened- but in watching it burn, everyone from the elites to the miscreants found a new freedom in this world.