26
(Season 2, Episode
13)
Only One
Mary’s kiss was deep on a whole new level.
She tapped her instincts and let the power that she had only
just recently realized she had, wash over her. She reached deep into his soul and pulled. Before, with her Zach, it had been a desperate
reaction to possibly dying, now she could really feel it, savor it.
Love it.
She drew the energy from the side-stepper and felt his mind
and will begin to fail. Suddenly, out of his pores, a silver liquid began to
ooze and collect in a pool on the floor below him. As his will failed, so did his precious
machines, now just useless metal on the floor.
Still, she drew more. She would take his mind and he would be hers,
ending his threat forever.
“NO!” Zachariah screamed, reaching the top of the stairs.
He leapt into to action, desperate to stop Mary from
destroying herself and them. He wrapped his
arm around her waist and pulled backward while kicking forward into his twin’s
chest. Mary screamed at the sudden loss
of connection and passed out.
“You fool!” Seamus yelled, but it was too late. Zachariah’s kick had sent the side stepper
backward through the doorway and into the chamber.
Mary had slipped into unconsciousness from shock and
Zachariah slowly laid her to the ground.
“We failed.” Kahn
said quietly.
Zachariah stood and turned, once he was sure Mary was going
to be okay, although he still wasn’t sure. According to Mel, she would be a completely
different Mary when she woke.
His eyes confirmed what Kahn and Seamus had said. When Zachariah had separated them, the side-stepper
had ended up on the other side of the doorway. “I didn’t mean to do that,”
Seamus shrugged, accepting his fate. “It doesn’t matter what happened now, we lose.
Only one person can be in the chamber at a time.”
The side-stepper shook his head and began to pull himself to
his feet slowly, still trying to shake off the effects of the succubus’ kiss.
Zachariah suddenly began to grin. “Wait, wait, the spell says only one person
can be in the chamber at a time?”
Seamus raised his eyebrow and looked at him seriously. “Yes, anyone else who tries to enter will be
killed.”
Zachariah laughed out loud to himself, then pulled his
ripped and torn Polo shirt over his head. Seamus put his hands up in shock. “Why the hell are you taking your shirt off?”
“He does that right before he does something stupid.” Kahn spoke matter-of-factly.
Zachariah hopped on one foot, not a flattering sight, to
psych himself up.
“I don’t understand what is he going to-” Zachariah cut off Seamus by sprinting three
steps forward and leaping through the doorway.
Everybody held their breath as the second Zachariah collided
with the spell guarding the doorway, but he did not burst into flames. Instead, he passed right through and crashed
onto the side-stepper, the two rolling to the ground in a heap.
“How?!” Seamus cried, shocked.
“They are both Zachariah.” Kahn said, putting a hand up to stop Seamus
from getting any closer. “The spell
believes there is still only one person in there.”
“Get off of me!” the side-stepper cried as he planted both
feet into Zachariah’s chest and shoved him off.
“You ain’t got your nanos anymore, buddy!” Zachariah yelled.
“It’s a fair fight now!”
The side stepper came to his feet. “Fair?”
As Zachariah stepped in for a big telegraphed overhead
right, his evil twin moved fluidly, blocking the sad punch with his left and
chopping Zachariah to the face with his right. At almost the same instant, the side-stepper
planted a perfect forward kick to Zachariah’s abs and sent him to his back.
“Fair?” the side-stepper continued motioning to his cut abs
and toned arms. “That’s a joke, right? Look at me, nano machines or not, I am the
picture of perfect health. I have
trained in three different types of martial arts. You are an eight-year dishwasher who likes
video games and comics.”
Zachariah coughed as he tried to pull himself to his feet. “I’m finding myself,”
That phrase got Zachariah’s brain turning. He thought back to the trail, to the attack,
and to what the side-stepper first spoke about.
“What are you smiling about?” the side stepper frowned at
his adversary.
“You lost your nano-machines.” Zachariah said as he stood.
“I don’t have time for this.” The side-stepper said as he curled his first
and punched for Zachariah’s neck.
“Nope,” Zachariah said as he circle-blocked the blow,
perfectly.
The side-stepper looked confused. That should have been a killing blow. He balled his fist and struck again for
Zachariah’s solar plexus, this time.
“Nope.” Zachariah
said again as he stepped around the blow as if he knew it was coming.
The side-stepper became furious and charged Zachariah with a
barrage of attacks.
“Nope.” Zachariah
blocked his knife hand strike.
“Nope.” Zachariah
said as he slapped away a left jab.
“Nada.” Zachariah
said as he ducked a big right hand.
“Slap!” Zachariah
yelled as he countered the big blow with a huge overhand pimp slap.
The side-stepper roared in anger. “How are you doing this?!”
Zachariah smiled and charged forward.
“Boom!” He said as he
struck Zachariah to the abs with a hammer-fist.
“Sweep!” Zachariah
yelled as he kicked the side stepper in the knee, blocking it.
“Tony Jaa!” Zachariah
yelled as he stepped in and drove the knee into the side-steppers face.
The side-stepper rolled backward, blood sprayed from his
lip. Zachariah danced backward and fell
into horse stance, mocking Bruce Lee, right down to the high pitched yelp at
the end.
The side-stepper shook his head and wiped away the blood
with his hand. He seemed to calm
himself, trying to reclaim the situation.
“I see, now.” He said
as he pulled himself to his feet. “The
one-mind phenomenon. My nanos are no
longer shielding our thoughts from one another.”
Zachariah shrugged. “You
know it, I know it, and I believe you were trained in three different martial
arts?”
The side-stepper smiled. “Two can play this game,”
The two charged each other and both hurled a punch. They were both reading each other’s mind and
the fists struck each other in mid-air.
This incredibly awesome sight was followed instantly by an
audible series of cracks and pops.
Both Zachariah’s screamed in pain and held their broken hands.
“Why would you do that?!” Zachariah screamed
“Me?” the side stepper howled. “Who punches someone else’s hand?”
“They do it in anime all the time and it looks awesome!”
Zachariah yelled back.
“The Japanese cartoons? You really still watch cartoons?!” The side-stepper
questioned, rhetorically.
“Fuck you, evil me! Everybody’s
a critic!” Zachariah said, frowning.
The side-stepper walked over to Zachariah. “Alright, I have
had enough of this. I want you to see…”
Zachariah was confused for only a second but then the side-stepper
began to center his thoughts on her… The one he lost.
At that instant, Zachariah was flooded with the side
steppers memories and emotions. Zachariah saw the first time they met at the
restaurant where they had both worked. He
saw her swagger and felt the want that was within the side stepper. Zachariah saw her playful sarcastic spirit
tempered with a need for logic and levity that made him respect her. She was there every time his own depression
and self loathing nature brought him down. She picked him up with only a smile.
He saw her rosy cheeks.
He saw her fair hair.
He saw the light dancing in her beautiful brown eyes.
He felt the pain of her death, the emptiness, the longing.
Zachariah lived the side-stepper’s life in the span of a
couple of seconds.
Zachariah was weeping now, he could not control the reaction.
“She’s so… everything.”
The side-stepper took a deep breath. “More than your false and self destructive
love with the succubus, she is more than love. What would you do?”
Zachariah steeled himself and looked into his own eyes. “I’d tear the universe apart.”
The side-stepper had won. Zachariah would not try to stop him. This love was bigger than reality, bigger than
creation. It was bigger than even the
two people that shared it.
It would be a crime to keep it apart.
“Go get her.” Zachariah
said and nodded at the lover.
The side stepper turned and walked toward the light, his
mission finally complete.
The beam of energy known as the forbidden spell todesstrahl,
exploded diagonally through the bottom of the chamber and struck the life steam
crack in the second before the side stepper could reach it. The resulting
explosion sent both Zachariahs sliding back towards the doorway.
The light from the pedestal in the center of the room faded
in the second after and plunged them into shadows. There was a moment of black silence before the
chamber creeked and moaned and the ancient stone, once made young by the power
of life, now submitted to the gravity beneath.
“Grab on!” Zachariah
heard the ninja yell as she hurled a manriki chain through the doorway to
Zachariah.
Zachariah grabbed it as the room broke away and began to
fall. “Grab on!”
The side-stepper turned toward Zachariah’s outstretched hand.
“No!”
Zachariah looked confused. “Don’t be stupid, grab on! Quickly! We’ll find her in another dimension!”
“No.” The side-stepper yelled. “You find her in this one. I’m going to find mine. I’m going to find her right now.”
“Don’t do this!” Zachariah stretched out his free hand as
the chamber came completely free.
In the last second possible, the side stepper reached out
and slapped Zachariah’s hand away. “There is only one Zachariah.”
“NO!” Zachariah screamed as the chain tight and held him in
place as the chamber spiraled away, the side-stepper still inside.
****
The side-stepper felt weightless now as he and the chamber
reached terminal velocity.
He closed his eyes and thought again about her. He centered himself on her. He realized now, there was nothing, not even
death, that could keep them apart.
He spoke her name to himself and the wind rushing past them.
He chuckled to himself as much as he loved her he never
could quite remember her middle name. “Was it Lynn or Ann?”
The chamber collided with the ground-level of Avalon, sending
bricks and rubble everywhere through the streets.
The side-stepper, known as Zachariah, found himself
weightless again and floating. He could
see her now… he reached for her and she smiled back at him.
“I can’t make it easy for you Zach.”
****
Sometime later
They stood in the laundry room of the Stevenson’s house in
silence. They had just had another
massive fight and this one was the taker. It made Zachariah think back to the time after
the side-stepper incident.
Mel had asked him what to do about Mary and he had told him
to erase the event from her memory. He
didn’t want her carrying the burden with her, not yet. Mel had told him he could do that but it
wouldn’t bring her back, not the Mary he knew. She would still most likely wake up as a
different person.
Zachariah had told him he had to give love a chance.
Zachariah had taken that chance, and it had failed him.
“Did you ever love me?” Zachariah asked her as she put the laundry
in. The question seemed to make her
think.
She looked at him and for just a second, Zachariah saw the
Mary he fell in love with. “I think I
did… once.”
Zachariah nodded then walked over to her and kissed her
forehead. “Goodbye, Mary.”
He then turned and walked out on the last five years of his
life. He got in his car and he looked
down at his Polo shirt and suddenly frowned.
“I need to go shopping.”
It’s been a wild ride everyone! What
a season finale! That’s crazy about
Zachariah losing Mary, but I happen to know that turns out for the better. Tune in next season when we deal with time
travel, friendship and alcohol!
I think I just might kill Zachariah!
Stranger Things: Zachariah’s trial!
