Chapter 16: Venus Transit

A shining bio-memetic suit floats limply in the middle of nothingness.
Kopesh-Ra fades.

Without hope of return to enter the Dream City, Samuel lets go of his loose attachment to life. But just as he lets go, as he allows his hope to fade and gives in to the abandonment of the Universe, a great event occurs.

Behind him, as if from nowhere, a tremendous light appears. As Kopesh-Ra lifts his head, he can see his own silhouette embracing the darkness, as if a blackness deeper than the Void imprints itself on the edges of that dark place. A bright dot at the center of the shadow begins to grow larger. The Universe is returning to Kopesh-Ra, the galaxies accelerating toward him, beautiful masses of light and life, wonderful agglomerations of matter and consciousness, passing by him, through him.

He slows as he approaches a spiral galaxy, at the edge of the rim whereupon a smallish, blue-green planet greets his presence. He realizes this is his home, and the light behind him is his Star. Just as he is about to return home; however, a malevolent presence returns to the cosmos and once again blocks his way. The Beast, now immense and bloated, larger than the planets around him, resumes the dance, tossing Kopesh-Ra about like a rag doll. But his bio-memetic suit and the Shield protect him, and with great concentration, Kopesh-Ra increases his mass to match the size of his opponent.

The Beast grabs the Moon with his immense hands, hauling it over his head, and heaves it at Kopesh-Ra, who leaps to avoid the massive object. But Ra’s grasp of the manipulation of space and time is untrained, and he vaults well over Lo-Sàfah, spinning past a smallish red planet and crashing into a bed of asteroids. Grabbing the two moons of the red planet in his hands, he throws them at the Beast, who easily moves aside, coming then into reach of a giant gaseous orb. Disappearing almost completely into the outer gas cloud, the Beast releases the gas giant, which hurtles at unimaginable speeds toward Kopesh-Ra. But at the last moment, he turns and grabs a ringed planet, using it to deflect the striped, stormy orange giant, shattering both and scattering a dozen moons, large and small, across the solar system, like a cosmic game of planetary billiards.

Feeling the weight of the last collision, Kopesh-Ra feels fatigued, even with his biomimetic suit and the Shield sent from the Dream Master to protect him. He knows that he cannot continue to battle the Beast endlessly. He looks at the Day Star, Nova. As if in mourning for the loss of her planets, the Star dims and the light by which the galactic brawl is seen diminishes. Kopesh-Ra understands that he needs to make a final, ultimate effort to defeat Lo-Sàfah, and he heads for the Star. The Beast follows, hot in pursuit. He reaches for Kopesh-Ra as they pass his home world, being torn apart by massive gravitational forces unleashed from the battle. In a final burst of energy, he leaps upon Kopesh-Ra, tearing at his enormous being. But Kopesh-Ra has reached his destination: the Evening Star, Venus, the complement to the Day Star, Nova. In harnessing these two energies, he will unleash Balance, his only ally in the ultimate battle.

Resisting the urge to succumb to the teeth and claws of the Beast, Kopesh-Ra pushes Venus forward toward Nova. The Star gets hotter and he raises the Shield, exposing himself further to Lo-Sàfah’s sharp spurs, which crawls inside of him. The depth of the intrusion keeps Kopesh-Ra from moving further, preventing him from unleashing Balance. But then he remembers the Six Secrets. Repeating them out loud he succeeds in disentangling himself from the Beast and pushes Venus with enough force to send it crashing into Nova. As the two masses encounter one another there is a momentary, eternal, silence.

Lo-Sàfah recognizes the nothingness. He falls toward the emptiness and as he reaches the center, the brilliant finale of the collision of masses explodes around him, engulfing him and leaving no doubt about the fate of the Beast. Kopesh-Ra is blasted back by the explosion, only his Shield protecting him from the detonation, moving at accelerating speeds out of the solar system, away from the spiral galaxy and back to the edge of the Universe, to descend into the gate from whence he came.

Balance defeats Chaos, Beauty trumps Darkness, the planets reform and realign, and The Universe returns to normal.