coming blast. Only North remained, to press the
firing stud. As he did so, the universe exploded around him.
25 The ship expanded in a brilliant flash, but then a hole
appeared along
the bottom of the growing ball and a wave of conversion plasma poured
through the city's shields. The internal shields held for a moment,
giving The Lord God time to scream "NO! NO!" before he was engulfed in
the disrupting plasma.
26 The city's shields held for some time, as the plasma consumed
everything within down to bedrock. Then, they burst, sending a beam of
energy high into the air. The world shook and rocked, then
the energy faded, converting back to matter, and tons and tons of sand
fell back to Earth.
27 Many months passed before North regained his senses. When he did, he
found himself in The Spirit World. The Voice sat beside him, but North
realized he was not only The Voice, that the stories people had told
were true. He and The Voice were the reincarnations of Morn and North!
28 "Well, it's about time!" laughed North's old friend, sitting beside
him. "We were beginning to think we had lost a great deal of you. It's
taken you a long time to pull your essence back together. We've been
doing our best to keep your fields intact until you stabilized!"
29 "I feel awful!" North moaned. "Where are we?"
30 "In the native's idea of Paradise," explained The Voice. "All they
looked forward to, was constant good weather, fruit trees that were
ever full of fruit, and plenty of game. It's going to take us a little
while to construct a world here like what we knew."
31 "Did we get the city?" North asked, "Did we destroy it?"
32 "Nothing's left," answered The Voice, "of us, or, them except for
the few of us that managed to survive with the natives. But They're
well separated and it will be a long time before we meet each other
again.