26(S2E13)- Only One

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!