The End is the Beginning

Gaseous Girl had nearly flamed out. She had used up the last of her emergency supply of caffeinated sodas, and burped nearly her last explosive burp at the advancing hell-armies, but there were thousands upon thousands of them, and only one of her. The result was simple, brutal math. Sooner or later she knew she was going to die. After that, since she wouldn’t be able to get her evil twin back to the twin’s universe and restore the rip in reality, the universe itself would die. Gaseous Girl bleakly wondered if God would step in at that point to fix things.

That train of thought led Gaseous Girl to the obvious conclusion. She snap-kicked one last another giant verminous insect, then managed to drop to one knee. She still remembered some of the old prayers, even one or two of the Latin bits. “Right,” she said, “here goes… I mean, in nomine Patris, et Fil-“

There was a sudden, small pop. A raccoon appeared, looking glum and wearing an armored battle-suit. “Hello,” it said. “I’m Bingo. I’ve come to help.”

“You have got to be kidding,” said Gaseous Girl.

“No,” said Bingo miserably. “I’m the answer to your prayer. I’m supposed to save you.”

“You’re the… but…I haven’t finished praying yet!” Madeleine spluttered.

“Look, the angel said, save Gaseous Girl, save the world. So here I am. I brought lasers.”

“Lasers,” Gaseous Girl repeated.

Bingo demonstrated this by opening fire and zapping a rampaging slimy tentacle monster that had been prepared to break the momentary lull in the battle by biting Madeleine’s head off.

“Nice,” she said, “but I’m gonna need about fifty million more of those. We’re still only two, and they’ve got-”

The raccoon produced a small vial from a pocket in his battle suit. “I also brought some holy water, I thought maybe-”

Gaseous Girl snatched it. “Oh, you’re brilliant.” In her hand the vial began to glow red. She shot a look around. Caught in the flow of the battle, she now stood just on the bank of the river Acheron. On the far bank, the possessed Eviler Madeleine stood watching the fight on a little hill, just high enough to give her a perfect view of Gaseous Girl’s demise. She ought to have left the fight to its inevitable end, but she couldn’t resist staying to watch. It was the classic villain mistake, and it had just caught up with her.

“Ready for some science, Bingo?” Gaseous Girl said. “When you heat up water, it becomes steam. And do you know what form of water steam is?”

Bingo’s eyes widened. “It’s a gas!”

Gaseous Girl smiled. “Now you know.” She smashed the glowing red vial into the river, then shot out her hand. A geyser of holy-water-infused steam blasted out of the Acheron, booming away right smack into Eviler Madeleine. The possessed supervillain gave a wrenching scream as she careened off her hill.

Gaseous Girl seized the raccoon and flew frantically across the river, the hell-armies reeling back in disarray. With her other hand she grabbed a flailing arm of her evil counterpart, who didn’t look possessed anymore at least. Then Gaseous Girl charged off towards the exit from hell. She had a flying glimpse of bees chasing a crowd of people, and then a gate loomed up before her, a gate written with even more Latin. Gaseous Girl crashed right through, not even stopping to provide a translation. She had another flying glimpse of trees, and dark hills, and a gaping rift through which she saw a torrent of white stars and red suns. Without much idea of what else to do, Gaseous Girl aimed straight for it.

“Hey! Stop! Wait!” Evil Madeleine screamed. “That’s a rift in reality, you idiot! You can’t just fly into it! You’ll break everything!”

The thought flashed through Gaseous Girl’s mind that she should say something heroic before she pitched into the rift. She blanked. She should’ve prepared-

The universe flashed.

***

Madeleine Smith watched as the ambulance pulled away. Pamela Percy had tripped out of a window and bounced off an awning. Fortunately, it seemed she would live. Madeleine sighed. If only she’d teleported or something, Madeleine might’ve had a job. Since she hadn’t, it was back to the usual patrol. Maybe the Rogue Jaywalker would turn up. She started to turn away, back to her apartment and her cat. Then she caught sight of someone in the small crowd. Her mouth fell open. “Evan?”