The Battle of Milliways

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

A few moments ago, the door blew open. Now all hell has broken loose. A thing with wings and far too many legs escapes the opening (into space blacker than even space should be allowed to be); Cuthbert Allgood pivot and shoots from the hip, hitting it in three places before it crashes into the fireplace.

A giant beetle with an almost-human face, bullets bouncing off its shell, breeches the boundary and leaps at tiny pink prey, and explodes back as Smith and Wesson ventilates its soft underbelly. Don't fuck with the ballerina.

Joe Manco backs towards the bar, cigar clamped in his teeth, fire with one hand and fanning with the other; he's on his second gun and running out of bullets. But there's dynamite on the bar. He's used it before. The cigar lights the fuse, and the dynamite joins the head barman's in arc into the todash darkness, clearing the middle ranks of the nightmare flow that will not be staunched.

Raph hurls a volley of shuriken into the dark, driving back the rat-like monstrosities speckled from head to toe with eyes and teeth; one leaps through the doorway, and quicker than thought comes the sai to impale and fling the wretched thing away.

Alain Johns, grim, purposeful and intense works the left side; Moiraine Sedai hails fire from the right. Standing next to Roland who is sprawled on the ground and, currently, reloading, is Svava, shooting sharp shards of runic magic through the door and cleaves any creature foolish and lucky enough to enter the bar with the bright, spinning razor-edge of her seax blade.

There are things with too many eyes, and limber spiders whose webs burn like acid where they wisp and blow; and all manners of horror. Something moves behind them all, something big. One enormous baleful eyes shines like a yellow moon on a planet in God's shadow. It reaches something with talons--a hand, but that eye, oh, that eye is set in the center of its palm.

And crouched under a table is Ace, and thank all the gods of every world Tim gave her the nitro back.

Comments

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

Ace is a bit too busy right now to be thanking any gods in particular, but she's sure to get around to it later. She snags a canister from her belt, looks up at the opposition, and pales. She needs more nitro. She pulls out her emergency stash, quickly tying it to the canister in a make-shift booster pack, and frowns as she glances up at the monster again as she ties her last knot. Better safe than sorry. Very sorry, in this case. The very last bit of nitro gets slapped onto the whole contraption, and she rolls out from under the table, a feral gleam in her eyes.

"OY! Ugly bugger with the bug-eyes!" she howls at the monstrous creature reaching towards the bar's defenders. "CATCH THIS!" With a vicious twist she snaps the timer down, arming the nitro, and only gives it a few seconds worth of fuse. Just enough time.
With every bit of strength in her, she flings the nitro at the looming eye. It reaches up to block the shot...

The resulting explosion rocks the bar, despite how far she threw the bomb into the darkness. Where there was once a monster, there is a crater.

[the-woodpecker.livejournal.com]

*And Bernard sees the nitro flying in slow-motion and gapes.*

Oh, fuck.

*He ducks behind a table quickly, shouting as the explosion seems to rock the bar's very foundations.

He shakes his head and peers over the table.

They're still coming.

Bernard gets up and flies to the door, slamming it shut and leaning against it, panting and shaking like a leaf now that it's over.

He takes account of the scene before him.

Ace is flat on her ass, looking like she doesn't know whether to be shocked or pleased. Vaguely, he registers Meg's presence all the way across the bar, near the door to the Lake. Svava is near Ace, already picking herself up.

Raph's wincing and looking up sheepishly from the remains of a table and chairs.

Cuthbert and two other men Bernard doesn't know, but one of whom he'd like to meet after seeing him handle that boom-boom, are sprawled on top of a man who could only be Roland Deschain.

And Moiraine, glowing with an almost unendurable light, is the only person within the blast radius left standing.

He takes a deep breath, then slides to the floor, his knees weak.*

Well, shit.

[lastgunslinger]

Fuck-commala.

This is the first clear thought he has had in days.

He's half-blind -- the bar is too bright. Slowly things come into focus.

He takes the bullets out of his ears, rolls out from under Cuthbert and Alain and Joe. The blankets don't seem to want to let him go, and he doesn't care, much -- he's cold. So cold.

He holsters, but it takes a few tries. His hands are shaking.

And then he reaches under a nearby table, and pulls the Horn o' Deschain out from under a chair.

And he looks at Joe. Their eyes meet. Blue and blue. Both of them know what passed between them. So much that could be said.

His black (but with more white, now) hair is sticking up every which way. His blue eyes are still wild and mostly unfocused. For a moment he looks scared. Perhaps ashamed. Relieved. There's tension on his face, and lots of it.

And it all finally resolves into a wavery smile.

Softly, he says, taking in the bounty hunter's face, seeing it very well:

"You're the one who does the cutting."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Joe moves his arm towards his pocket, but it feels like someone ran a spike up the length of it. Feels broken, from the elbow forward. Hurts like a bitch.

Left-handedly, he fumbles in his shirt pocket for what he needs.

He holds out his hand and the flimsy packet to Roland. He coughs. Some ribs gone, too. Cuthbert's a heavy son of a bitch.

"Cigar?"

"Now don't you lose that fuckin' thing."

[lastgunslinger]

Roland takes one. It's hard. Hands still shaking.

"Say thankya."

And eyes glittering, as his right hand tightens on the horn.

"Never in life."

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Cuthbert rolls into a sitting position, shaking his head to clear it. His hat has been knocked off in the explosion, and his first clear thought, of all things, is that nobody better be lying on top of it.

Then, he looks at Roland--white-tinged hair and weathered face and missing fingers and all--and a grin starts to spread across his face.

"You know, for someone with no imagination whatsoever, you've got a hell of a knack for dramatic entrances."

And he knows Roland just got out from under the pile of gunslingers-and-Joe, say sorry--but nonetheless, he launches himself at his friend in what's as much a tackle as a hug.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Alain pushes himself up into a sitting position. His head swims for a moment before the world steadies around him. Absently, he notices that his ribs ache with bruises (apparently you can bruise even when you're dead, here), that his head is throbbing, that one shoulder hit the ground hard. And that he was lying on Cuthbert's hat.

Most of his attention, though, is taken up with the scene before him. Thirty or forty years, Cuthbert said, and he said true. Roland is weathered and grim, hair streaked with white, one hand mangled. The sight is shocking.

But he's still Roland. Still ka-tet, still himself, still one of Alain's best friends in the world. And they have just stood true together, all nine of them in this group of friends and strangers, and remembered their fathers' faces very well. He holsters, pushes himself to his feet, and follows Cuthbert, feeling a grin stretch his lips.

[mnt_raph]

*There's a reason Raph was looking sheepish when Bernard caught sight of him.
He let go. He lost control. Again. Just like before, only this time there happened to be an actual enemy in front of him. He was lucky. And as he looks over the aftermath, he realizes just how lucky they all were.

It's too much. He's intruding. He feels raw and worked over. It's not right, him being here. Him laughing like that, taking that much pleasure from that much carnage. To him it wasn't about survival, it was just about winning.

The others don't see him get to his feet or walk towards the lake door. They certainly don't see him look back with failure in his eyes. No, as far as the others are concerned, he just disappeared, and that's just how he wants it right now.*

[lastgunslinger]

For an instant it's almost too much -- almost like he's being smothered.

Then he realizes who it is.

Then he realises who both of them are. He remembers the last few days, you see.

And Roland bows his head and leans against Cuthbert and Alain

(an old man in a dry month)

and after the bitter cold of the todash darkness he is finally starting to get warm.

[blue_ajah]

*With the door now shut and the danger sealed away, Moiraine releases saidar and allows her glow to fade. She turns toward the others, and then pauses at the sight of Cuthbert and another she does not know, but who must certainly be a gunslinger, reunited with Roland-- no longer lost.

The Aes Sedai smiles.*

[balletrat]

*It takes Meg a moment to regain her sight and balance, from where she lies sprawled near the door out back.

When she does, she sees:

one front door (closed)

several todash monsters (in pieces)

one Valkyrie (worried)
one nitro bomber (exultant)
one Aes Sedai (serene)

two dead gunslingers (overjoyed)
one bounty hunter (Bound)

and one live gunslinger (appropriately aged, and being appropriately pounced by everyone in reach.)

The tallies add up satisfactorily.

Meg closes her eyes again, and, the most important things being accomplished, begins to note her own bruises.*

[skjaldmeyjar.livejournal.com]

Svava picks herself up off the floor. She glances at the door, grins faintly, then looks around for the others.

She knows reunions and she smiles faintly, watching the men with the guns. It looks like the man knocking on the door managed to return home, afterall. The valkyrie grabs a napkin (knocked loose from somewhere in the explosion) and starts cleaning todash monster gunk off the seax blade.

And a long battle, hard fought and justly won, comes to an end. The victorious all deserve a drink.

[nitro-is-ace.livejournal.com]

Ace stares at the door.

All the nitro in one fell swoop.

She's never done that before.

....

That was bloody marvelous.

Dimly she recognizes that all must be well, since there seems to be quite a lot of pouncing and laughing and general 'damn, but we did good' conversations going on... so she exaults in the sheer glory of that huge explosion.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland finally looks up, and at Cuthbert.

There's something there -- some strange, unidentifiable emotion. The reason it's unidentifiable is because it's so rarely seen on Roland's face.

He's content.

Then he turns to Alain, and looks right at him, silently bidding Al to see him for who and what he is. An old man. An old friend.

"Hile."

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He's half-sitting, half-kneeling on the floor of this strange bar, one arm around Roland and the other around Cuthbert. His head pounds -- a minor concussion, he thinks -- and his bruises ache.

He's brimming with happiness.

He looks at Roland, and he sees him. Sees him very well.

And smiles, small and warm. "Hile."

[key-youth-bert.livejournal.com]

Cuthbert's head is still swimming, and he has bruises in more places than he can count, with his head still feeling that way.

He's also going to find a rather crushed hat when he finally breaks away from Roland and Alain.

For now, though, he just looks at them both, as Alain and this version of Roland meet for the first time.

And they are well-met, and when Cuthbert throws his head back and laughs until he can't breath, the sound is perhaps brighter and truer than it has been in years.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Alain exchanges a look of tolerant amusement with Roland. And Roland's face may be old and lined, and his blue eyes faded and intense and his hair half grey, but it is the same look they have exchanged a thousand times, in nearly twenty-four years of friendship with Cuthbert.

He rests his aching head against Roland's, and just grins until his cheeks are sore with it, and then keeps grinning.

[lastgunslinger]

Soon he'll stand up and go to the bar and eat something before going to bed.

He hasn't slept in...three days? Four?

It'll feel good.

For now he looks around Milliways, and sees the bar and its patrons very well, and for tonight at the very least, if never this strongly again, he is incredibly glad to be here.

To be alive.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

There are things (http://www.livejournal.com/community/milliways_bar/3528689.html) to do. Healing and drinking and eating and talking and rejoicing.

But really, it ends here. This is the end of the battle, of the door, of Jake's coma, of the ka of 19 and the heartless justice of fate.

It ends as all these things must end, as the business of gunslingers will ever end--in loss (http://www.livejournal.com/users/joewithnoname/19914.html), and exultation and gunfire and in love.

Cam-a-cam-mal, pria-toi, Gan delah.
White over Red. So God wills it ever.