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- When TLG awoke with from his typically broken sleep, he found Robin floating over his head and gazing down at him. At least the impression was such but it was hard to tell these days which way was up or down or sideways for that matter.
- ‘Come on little one.’ Robin spoke gently.
- ‘The King awaits us’.
- TLG jumps up and finds he is floating across the interior of the sphere. He looks out and notices there is no more long straight black tunnel, he is in a ring shaped tunnel, a circular tunnel that looks as if it had no beginning or end. The walls are completely white with no floor or ceiling as the tunnel was also round. It was as if they were inside a large donut. There appears to be Starmites wandering about performing various technical duties. He can hear their thoughts but they are speaking of technical concepts the TLG cannot comprehend. They seem to be walking horizontally on the outer walls of the tunnels with their heads pointing to the inner walls. TLG cannot see all of the way down the corridors but he assumes they just go in a big circle and join up eventually.
- ‘Robin drifts to his steering position and starts manoeuvring the sphere down the round corridor. TLG looks behind him to see their entrance on the outside wall disappear behind automatically closing shudders. Several spidery vehicles creep along after them as they glide effortlessly down the round corridor, like a bubble floating on a gentle breeze.
- ‘Where is this King?’ TLG asks.
- ‘I think he must be in here.’ Robin replies gesturing to a large closed circular shudders in the inner wall of the round tunnel. Robin gently drifts the sphere towards the door and it opens before they collide.
- The interleaved shudders separate perfectly and silently revealing a large spherical room. They glide in.
- TLG looks curiously at his surroundings. The spider vehicle follows them through the shudders, then the shudders close behind it. This room is bright blue with blue light emanating from the outer wall. In the centre of the room is a gold tinted glass spherical hub about three yards in diameter supported by and array of blue glass spokes connected to the outer wall of the spherical room. TLG can see something going on in the golden glass ball but it is hard to see from where he is.
- As they drift closer to the centre, a single Starmite appears from behind the golden glass hub and buzzes towards them. TLG is frozen with anticipation as the Starmite approaches. But TLG recognizes this Starmite.
- ‘Cosmo!’ TLG shouts.
- The Starmite raises his bee hands to touch the outside of their scope but recoils as if felt heat from a hot surface. The Starmite just hovers before TLG and gazes at TLG with a curious eye. The Starmite studies TLG’s storm cloud. He was so close now that TLG feels he could reach out and touch him if it were not for the hermetically sealed Etherscope that envelopes them.
- ‘Cosmo do not you recognise me?’
- ‘I do not believe we have met, you must have me mistaken for someone else.’
- .TLG and the Starmite just float there, glaring at each other in disbelief. Then the Starmite slowly makes a smile.
- ‘Welcome, I am Paulus, the Starmite King.’ The Starmite finally speaks with his thoughts directly to TLG.
- ‘Thank you, I am The Lightning Gnome but you can just call me TLG.’
- TLG is amazed at his resemblance to Cosmo. ‘How could this be?’ he thought to himself.
- ‘Then I take it, we are not the only beings in existence. How far does the universe extend?’
- ‘Infinite, as far as I can tell.’ TLG replies remembering what Robin told him of the Starmites hermetic existence. Robin just hovers behind them with his ridiculous grin.
- ‘And you are Infinite also.’ TLG adds.
- ‘Are you a Starmite like us?’ asks Paulus.
- ‘No, I am a Gnome. I come from a place much colder than the centre of a star. You cannot exist in our world and we cannot exist in yours.’ TLG now feels very confident in his understanding of things and is proud to give his newly found knowledge to the Starmites.
- TLG talks for hours to the Starmite divulging everything he knows to this isolated creature. He talks about the other Starmites at the centre of every star, he talks about vortexes and travelling universes in the Meta universe, he talks about his storm cloud and Odelin who is lost in broken universe all the while Robin just stands silently grinning with enthusiasm, motionless and emotionless.
- The Starmite finally asks the inevitable question.
- ‘What is your companion?’
- ‘He is Robin and the Ghost Head’
- ‘Has he come to destroy us?’
- ‘No’ TLG says in a self-assuring tone. ‘But we do need to ask of you a grave service.’
- ‘I will do what I can.’ Paulus replies.
- ‘We are travelling universes to find my Odelin, but he resides in a universe contained in your Star Flux Inhibitor containment field. We need to enter the containment field to rescue my Odelin as his existence grows more tenuous as we speak.’
- Paulus’s rosy complexion drained from his face as he heard TLG’s request.
- *The Request*
- ‘I am afraid that it the one thing we cannot permit my friend’.
- ‘Please we beg you?’
- ‘You know why not’ Paulus asserts. ‘If you interrupt the Inhibitor, we all disappear forever. This machine ensures our existence and without it, our star will collapse into oblivion. I feel sadly for your loss but I'm afraid the answer is no.’
- TLG hangs his head in despair. ‘Is there no way at all?’
- ‘I'm afraid not.’
- Meanwhile, Robin who has just been listening to the conversation knowing that he is less acceptable and probably less influential than TLG finally reanimates in a last effort to soften the Starmite Kings position.
- ‘We mean your Inhibitor no harm. We just wish to take what is ours and we will be gone and no more favours will we ask.’
- ‘How is it yours?’ the King replies. ‘You cannot claim a realm that the Starmites created. We are the custodians of all that is contained within the confines of this Star.’
- Robin was starting to appear agitated as was the Starmite King.
- Robin hissed at the King. ‘You are ignorant and you know not, the damage you cause, the countless lives you destroy with your machine. The least you can do is give us this one Xroud!’
- The Starmite King hovers around in a circle and returns to face Robin. ‘You say we destroy, but you know that without us, you could not exist. You are also a product a machine like this one. Be gone! You are no longer welcome here.’
- TLG was starting to feel uncomfortable and his cloud was growing more active. He had never seen Robin this angry before and an angry Robin is not something you want angry around you.
- Suddenly Robin barks out those fateful words.
- ‘We are taking the Xroud, you cannot stop us.’ Robin starts moving the scope towards the Inhibitor and in desperation The King cries ‘No!’ and throws himself at the scope but the King just bounces off ineffectual.
- TLG looks at Robin whose face is locked in a determined grimace, with gleaming teeth and saliva dripping from the fur on his chin. The Scope moves closer to the Inhibitor.
- ‘What are you doing?!’ TLG shouts at Robin. ‘I do not need Odelin enough to destroy this place!’
- ‘He is mistaken!’ Robin gasps his reply.
- Suddenly time seemed falter as TLG witnessed the horrific events unfold before him as if in slow motion. TLG could see that more Starmites had joined their King and the King hovered there with two of his Bee eyes locked on the Scope. As TLG, Robin and the scope approached the Sphere in the middle of the room, the room seemed to pulsate and flux.
- TLG could see beams of light dancing around the outer edge of the golden glass hub and folding into its centre to focus on a point that did not exist. It was as if the beams were being consumed by an invisible point at centre of the star. But the point was not a thing, more of position.
- *The Entanglement*
- Suddenly TLG notices something moving in his left pocket. He looks down and is petrified to see, little skeleton wings griping the rim of his pocket. The Gnome skeletons have reanimated and were crawling from TLG’s pocket.
- TLG grabbed the bony wings and cast them to the bottom of the scope to watch in horror as they reconstituted themselves into living creatures. TLG could see the flesh and feather growing impossibly from the bones as the bones expanded. They had fully formed so fast and silently that Robin had not noticed.
- One of the creatures reared on his talonsous legs and glared at TLG with deep black eyes, TLG knew oh too well.
- Monkey birds!? TLG had met these Gnomesk creatures before when flying the Bee machine from the cave. The monkey bird applied his gaze to TLG’s cloud which had started glowing furiously in the commotion. The Monkey bird then cowered from the cloud as if responding to some instinctual, archetypal fear then recovered and turned to Robin who was still driving the scope to the hub. Meanwhile the other smaller Monkey bird had positioned itself, next to its contemporary and was loosely mimicking its movements, both Monkey birds now looking at Robin’s back and jumping and jostling on their talons as if preparing for a fight.
- Suddenly both Monkey birds pounced on Robin simultaneously. There was a hideous screech as Robin was administered with a powerful bite from the Monkey bird closest to TLG. Then Robin retaliated with an equally powerful swipe with his claws at the Monkey bird number one. But this attack was blocked by Monkey bird number two who then attempted to thrash Robin with his talons.
- TLG could do nothing except look on in horror along with the Starmites but TLG wished he was standing at more of a safe distance.
- The scope had now stopped moving as the three creatures seemed to be locked in some bizarre martial arts demonstration with a power of which never witnessed before. Monkey bird one or two would attach Robin who would always perfectly block the attack and retaliate at either one or the other Monkey bird. TLG had to huddle at the bottom of the Scope as the creatures danced around this furious battle, which seemed almost choreography in some bizarre fashion. Always attacking, always blocking. Surely, one of them would falter giving the other the upper hand but none did. It was as if each creature could perfectly anticipate the others moves therefore locking themselves in an infinite stalemate. All creatures seemed supernatural and impervious so there could be no winner.
- The fighting creature’s movements started to synchronise as if they had established a rhythm of attack and response. As they synchronised they hastened and where beginning to resemble a blur of creatures.
- TLG could feel the pressure of the wind created by the furore of the blurred mass before him. It was so strong he could barely retain his grip on the spongy inside of the scope. He imaged he would soon be swept into this entanglement and disintegrate in the mass of revolving talons and teeth. But then again, he did not feel vulnerable. He imagined the consequence but felt, in himself to be as impervious as the other creatures in this scope. He wondered if he should just let go and see what would happen.
- He gazed to the blurry mass, which by now was completely unrecognisable as three creatures locked in battle. It looked like brown windmill blades spinning so fast no individual blades were perceivable and the sound similar to the loud buzz of a Bee machines beating wings.
- As he gazed transfixed and wondering how much longer, he could prevent his inevitable introduction to claws and talons. He started to see shapes appearing in the blur. TLG blinked his eyes tightly and shook his head in an attempt to shake the image from his mind’s eye but when he opened them again the shapes were still there. The spiral shapes that he had seen in Cosmos cave were haunting him again. But what did it mean? He could perceive an oval border and within that, were two juxtaposed spiral shapes that slowly gyrated in opposite directions. Almost exactly the same as they appeared to him in the cave.
- Suddenly The King was standing outside the scope staring at TLG though the transparent perimeter of the Scope. A large golden tear running down his face as he addresses TLG with his thought.
- ‘I realise what you are now, and I know what you must do. There is no option for us now but please know this in your heart my friend. You are more powerful than you realises. If not, the most powerful of all. But you have a good soul and I know you will use it wisely. But do what you must do.’
- The King returned to his contemporaries who where all just watching in amazement. Now the whole chamber was filled with Starmites crawling and buzzing with anticipation.
- TLG looks his storm cloud which had now become smeared by the force of the gyrating blurred mass of beasts, with the symbol of the Oval and the spirals reflecting the light of the building cloud. The buzzing from the mass had been gradually increasing in pitch and was now a high-pitched monotone that was hypnotising and surreal.
- He looked around at the scenery outside and wondered how he had managed to get himself into this odd situation. He imaged himself back in his own village and tried to remember what it was like to be normal, but as he did he realised that things were always this strange. He was a Gnome with a lightning cloud over his head that lived on a ball that floated in space in a universe that was a mere atom of another universe that was yet infinitely large and yet infinitely small, all of which were governed by a natural ethics rather than natural laws. Yes things are indeed very strange and there is no escape from this strangeness.
- TLG felt as though he were falling into his mind. He suddenly felt disjointed from himself. He felt his eyes were not his, like an imposter in an empty vessel that was not his own and all he could do, was gaze from these windows in wonder at this bizarre theatre that performed only for him, on this bizarre stage of existence. But when he turned his gaze from the spirals to the entourage of Starmites all gazing in at him in the Scope, suddenly he felt as though he were the theatre and they were the audience.
- TLG was so enthralled by what was happening inside him and the perspectives and revelations that were raging through his mind that he started to laugh. He laughed and laughed so hard that he started to cry, and he cried and cried so hard that he started to laugh and all the while, his storm cloud was glowing brighter and brighter and the little faces of Starmites all gazing at his cloud and the little bubbles of thoughts that burst from their heads and all hell was suddenly released in a colossal flash of light that even dwarfed the light at the centre of this Super Star and in that instance the dancing mass was no more.
- TLG was stunned.
- Robin was the only one standing there on the bottom of the Scope looking completely unscathed as if nothing had taken place.
- ‘What took you so long little one? I knew you would see me in the end.’
- Robin returned to the invisible controls of the scope ignoring the Starmites that parted as he resumed his collision course with the golden sphere at the centre of this star.
- TLG just waited, feeling powerless along with the Starmites who all just hoped that they would not be destroyed by the intent of Robin. As the Scope finally reached the hub, it just seemed to fold into the hub as if the two spheres were merging into one. TLG found himself with Robin, inside the hub with Xroud beams all around them. Robin positioned the Scope, which happened to almost exactly the size of the hub. It was as though the scope had become the hub and vice versa. Right before them in the centre, there it was.
- The tiny black spec at the focus of the Inhibitor.
- ‘The Xroud Cloud’ Robin finally spoke. ‘That is where your Odelin is, somewhere in the tiny cluster of broken universes. I bet you they never even realised how much has been destroyed by their Inhibitor. But I guess their nature.’ Robin thinks loudly making sure the Starmites can hear him.
- ‘And the wonders it creates.’ TLG follows knowing full well, that he himself may well be a product of one of these accidental meta-universal antagonists. Robin just ignores him and continues. He looks out at the Starmites to address them.
- ‘I can get what we need without disturbing your stabiliser, so have no fear.’ Robin turns to TLG with a grin.
- ‘I will use a smaller Etherscope to remove the Odelin Xroud from the Xroud Cloud. Once entrapped, we will leave you in peace and intact.’
- The Starmites just stared at him in silence knowing they had no control over him anyway.
- ‘You will not be harmed.’ TLG speaks out addressing the Starmites.
- The King buzzes around to hover in position before TLG.
- ‘He will do what he must and I know that suits you Lightning Gnome.’
- TLG looks to Robin who has already started conjuring a new Etherscope and both the King and TLG just watch in hope the Robin knows what he is doing and will be careful with their existence.
- Robin has positioned himself directly in front of the Xroud Cloud and holds up a tiny marble sized glass ball, a precise miniature of their own Etherscope. Like a tiny lens that has does not reflect only diffracts. He takes the Scope between the his thumb claw and forefinger claw and ever so delicately, with much concentration, moves the tiny scope around the Xroud Cloud that surrounded the singularity.
- TLG and the Starmites wait anxiously for the end of the universe.
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