A Tragicomic Duel: The Maiden of Stars vs. The Dirt-Stained Cynic. Part 4 (By Elijah Kopp and Robert Burns)

SCENE IV. A Churchyard.

(The air is heavy with the smell of damp earth and ancient rot. GRAVEDIGGER is in a partially finished pit, tossing skulls over his shoulder with rhythmic indifference. Enter OPHELIA, her celestial raiment now glowing with a pulsing, necrotic violet. Her tome, Missiletainn, hums with the bass of a dying star.)

GRAVEDIGGER

(Singing gruffly)

"In youth, when I did love, did love, methought it was very sweet..."

(He tosses a shovel of dirt that lands squarely on OPHELIA’S shimmering boots.)

OPHELIA

(Her voice vibrating with the frequency of a solar flare)

Base knave! How darest thou sully the boots of the Cosmic Sovereign with the dross of mortality? Knowest thou not that I have deleted Kings and vaporized Protagonists?

GRAVEDIGGER

(Leaning on his spade, squinting up)

I know that dirt is dirt, lady, and a pit is a pit. Whether you be a "Sovereign" or a "Stat-Grinder," you’ll fit the same six feet of earth. This house I’m making lasts till doomsday. It’s a sturdy build; no "Aqueous" leaks in this basement.

OPHELIA

(Lifts Missiletainn; the pages flip violently, shedding sparks of dark matter)

Thou speakest of the end? I am the end! Thy shovel is a toothpick against the Maw of the Void! I shall unmake thy graveyard and turn thy skulls into stardust!

GRAVEDIGGER

(Picking his teeth with a splinter)

Aye, you’ve got a high level of "Loudness," I’ll grant. But tell me, who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

OPHELIA

(Screaming, her aura expanding into a supernova of violet spite)

The one who builds the Galactic Rift of Eternal Erasure! Witness the Calamitous Cometary Burial!

[Alarum. A pillar of obsidian starlight crashes down into the grave. The earth erupts. Tombstones are launched into the stratosphere like jagged confetti.]

GRAVEDIGGER

(As he is hoisted into the air by a geyser of magical soil)

O, a most efficient way to move topsoil! My Union shall hear of this "Overpowered" labor-saving device! I am undone by a lady with too much mana and too little patience!

OPHELIA

(Floating over the smoldering crater where the churchyard used to be)

"Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Nay! There shall be only the vacuum of my wake! Thy cynicism is buried beneath the weight of my celestial stats!

(She lands, her eyes narrowing as she looks toward the distant spires of the castle.)

OPHELIA

(To herself, her voice dropping to a chilling whisper)

This world is too small. Its peasants are too frail, its heroes too scripted. To truly test this divinity, I must strike at the root of my own blood. Laertes... my brother. He thinks he knows the sting of a blade? I shall show him the bite of a collapsing galaxy.

[Exit OPHELIA, leaving behind a smoking hole in the earth and the faint, echoing whistle of the wind.]