…A Hero Falls…
(The Merged Realms of Brave and The Sword in the Stone)
(The Merged Realms of Brave and The Sword in the Stone)
Armageddon.
Apocalypse. Ragnarök.
No matter
in what world it was referred as, it still had the same meaning in situations
like the one that had befallen the Disneyverse. Merlin had chosen to call it
what it was: the end. He, Wart,
Archimedes, Russell, and their newest “roommates,” Carl Fredricksen and Dug,
could see the chaos take place from his tower residence, which wavered more
violently than before, thanks to the continuous earthquakes. Any moment it
could give with the six of them still inside; for this reason, he instructed
everyone to evacuate.
They got
away in time to avoid the immediate downfall of Merlin’s residence – the first
section of the Ector/DunBroch castle to suffer from the devastation. Merlin had
no qualms over losing his temporary home, which was merely a place for him to
stay while tutoring Wart. What he did
fret over was how long the merged worlds had before their ultimate destruction
with the rest of the universe. There was no other place for them to go.
“Is
somebody gonna tell me at any time what the heck’s goin’ on?” A baffled and
terrified Carl asked while running through the halls of Ector/DunBroch with a
group of strangers he had only met for a day. “Am I just dreamin’ all of this
craziness?”
“I assure
you, Fredricksen,” Merlin said in his haste, “all that you are experiencing
right now is very real.”
“Everything
will be alright, Mr. Fredricksen.” Russell calmly assured his elderly friend.
“Genevieve will save us!”
“Oh, that’s
wonderful. That completely lifts my fear of suffering from an attack in the
next sixty seconds,” said Carl, clearly expressing his lack of knowing who
“Genevieve” was through sarcasm.
As the six
of them ran through the halls of DunBroch/Ector, pieces of the castle itself
crumbled all around them. One large portion nearly crushed Wart while the group
finally arrived in the Great Hall. There, they found Fergus and Ector engaged
in another shouting contest. Apparently, the two men had accused each other of
an attack on their castles.
“Oh, you
have got to be kidding me!” Merlin voiced his aggravation over the atrocious
topic of the debate, which could not have occurred at a worse time than then.
(Narrative Note: Only twice in Tales of the Disneyverse has the phrase "You've got to be kidding me" has been used - once earlier in Tale #14 by Adrienne and now by Merlin. The phrase has common usage by Livingston in his work, spanning from The Disney Ghostbusters into World of Disney.)
“Admit it,
DunBroch!” Ector yelled. “This is an elaborate attack that you have been
planning since the moment you and your clan arrived!”
“You are
crazy to think I have anything to do with what’s going on!” Fergus barked back.
“It’s you who’s behind all of this!
Behind the disappearance of my daughter, my wife, my wee sons, and everything
else I hold dear!”
“Never mind
your wife and daughter!” Ector retorted. “What about my son Kay? Hmm? What did
you do with him?”
Their
mentioning of the new disappearances of Elinor and Kay alarmed Merlin, who
realized what little time the merged realms had left. Seeing no end to this
pointless squabble, he stepped in between the two men and said, “Alright!
Enough! Can’t you two buffoons see that your castles – which are one in the
same – are coming down over your ears?” As he pointed this out, a large chunk
of the ceiling broke away and crashed just a few feet near them. “The world’s
ending, men! We don’t have time to waste on bickering!”
“Are you
insane?” Fergus asked of Merlin.
“I’ve been
asking myself that same thing, buddy.” Carl made his presence known in his
acknowledgment of Fergus’s inquiry.
(Narrative Note: This is the first and only time in the miniseries that we see two Pixar characters from separate worlds interacting between Brave's Fergus and Up's Carl Fredricksen.)
“You are not helping!” Merlin snapped at the old
man.
After being
momentarily distracted by Merlin, Fergus and Ector continued in their
nonsensical backbiting as more of their conjoined castles collapsed all around them.
The collapse grew in intensity so much that one piece fell much faster and
harder than the others, crashing into the dining table and smashing it to
pieces on its impact. It was enough to bring Fergus and Ector out of their
dispute once more and look to the crash site along with Merlin, Carl, Russell,
Dug, Wart, and Archimedes. They all discovered at the same time that what had
crashed was not a part of the castle but a person who crashed through the castle.
As the
person faintly stood up from the shattered table, Merlin realized to his stupefaction
that this person was Sean Thomas. However, his features were shrouded and
entangled with those of his seventeen reincarnations. He had the upper left
half of Ellison’s head with her long brown hair, the upper right half of
Genevieve’s head with her long blonde hair, Adrienne’s right eye with her
piercing stare, Victoria’s left eye, Mindy’s lips, Tiffany’s nose, Jacqueline’s
cheeks, Marla’s chin and neck, Buohler’s teeth, Yvette’s left arm, Anne-Marie’s
right arm, Michael’s right hand, Theresa’s left hand, Sheryl’s torso, Allison’s
left leg, and Tasha’s right leg.
(Authorial Note: For Thomas's "mangled" appearance, Livingston was inspired by Frankenstein and A Scanner Darkly. He incorporated the idea of a being living with the body parts of various individuals out of Frankenstein and the "scramble suit" from Scanner Darkly, which constantly changes aspects of one's appearance.)
His body
was a mangled assemblage of different people and appeared to be quite the
monstrosity to Ector and Fergus, neither of whom were used to seeing such an
abomination to humanity. The two men unsheathed their swords, appearing ready
to put this poor creature out of its misery (or their misery). Their action was quickly noticed by Merlin, who
stepped in their path with his arms raised.
“NO!
DON’T!”
Nonetheless,
Fergus and Ector were relentless, willing to go through Merlin just to destroy
“Sean.” Merlin shut his eyes and prepared for the worst; but, after a few
seconds, he did not feel himself being trampled on. Curiously, he reopened his
eyes to see that Ector and Fergus had vanished – compliments of the rift’s
devastation on their merged worlds. What had been a devastating sign of the end
became a beacon of hope in this case for Merlin, who was spared from Fergus and
Ector’s wrath along with “Sean.”
“Merlin…”
He heard
the whispers of seventeen different people calling out to him and turned his
attention to “Sean,” who fought to stand upright. His body trembled
uncontrollably until it turned into a shimmering figure in the eyes of Merlin
and the others. “Oh, dear,” said Merlin, staring upon this poor result of magic
that was beyond his comprehension. “What has happened to you?”
“Sean”
responded with a statement that, due to his overlapping voices, was lost in its
structure. It sounded to Merlin and the others like “I lost control,” but it
came out as “Lost I control” – repeated seventeen times.
“Do
something, Merlin!” Archimedes pleaded. “Help this poor creature!”
“You can help him, can’t you?” Wart inquired.
Merlin
shrugged. “I-I-I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with magic like his before.”
“But you’ve
got to!” Russell exclaimed. “He’s our only hope!”
“I-I’m
sorry, my boy.” Merlin regretfully said. “I don’t know what can be done.”
Tears fell
from Russell’s eyes as he looked to the shimmering, amalgamated figure and
approached it while removing Genevieve’s locket from his neck and opening it.
“You have to remember who you are,” the Wilderness Explorer told the shimmering
being that was his greatest friend and personal hero. He placed the opened
locket in the hand that belonged to Theresa.
Bringing it
up to its flickering face, the Guardian of the Disneyverse gazed at the locket
more closely. Its vision shimmered as the rest of its body had, making it
almost impossible to see the two old photos inside the locket. But it managed
to focus and see the photos of the wife and daughter of Sean Thomas. Distant
memories suddenly flashed within its mind of a past life – the life of a happy
yet troubled man who only wanted the best for his wife and daughter. He had a
mother, Joan, and a father, Tomas, who together gave him life in 1986 and
raised him into the respectable man he was. He had friends at his workplace,
The Muppet Theater, and they were once the friends of his mother and father, as
well as Diana – his grandmother. He lived to the age of 83 and died at a
hospital bed with his wife and daughter beside him – his last words being “I’m
sorry.”
(Narrative Note: The details on the death of Sean Thomas have varied from story to story, particularly on the subject of his age at the time of his passing. While Tales alludes to him dying in his early 80s, subsequent stories have presumed him to have died much earlier in his 60s. Since the series deals with time travel and the alterations of it, these differences in detail can be owed to something that could have happened in the past to change them.)
(Narrative Note: The details on the death of Sean Thomas have varied from story to story, particularly on the subject of his age at the time of his passing. While Tales alludes to him dying in his early 80s, subsequent stories have presumed him to have died much earlier in his 60s. Since the series deals with time travel and the alterations of it, these differences in detail can be owed to something that could have happened in the past to change them.)
These
memories and those of another life he lived – one in which he had sisters and
his father had died sometime in his youth – sparked something in the Guardian
that resonated through his form. No longer did his body tremble or shimmer – it
glowed in a radiant rainbow of colors, mixed in with gold, with its mangled
features erased and left his appearance as blank as a mannequin. His arms were
outstretched and his head titled back, the locket hung from the fingertips of
his left hand as he emitted an intensely bright glow that blinded Merlin,
Archimedes, Carl, Russell, Dug, and Wart.
(UP NEXT: Enter JeniLynn!)
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