//------------------------------//
// Redemption 
// Story: On the Corner of Straight and Narrow 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	Sam stared upwards as the magic geyser began to peter off and fade.  Where it had erupted, a massive crater drove deep into the ground, breaking several underground pipes in the process.  However, the magic had sealed the pipes back up, so nothing poured in to fill it.  These were only ancillary details, however.  Nothing was really registering to Sam at the moment.  His eyes were locked on the fading geyser, the last trace of his lost family.  As the geyser faded completely, his eyes blindly traced the white speck that fell, outlined against the sky blackened by magic's light.

It took a full five seconds for his mind to fully register the white speck, and a desperate hope sprung up in him.  Without thinking, he charged towards the center of the crater.  Halfway down, he spotted an incongruous trampoline with a broken spring.  He grabbed it as he passed.  Spotting a roll of duct tape further down, he grabbed it as well.  A large broken clock provided him a working spring.  Reaching the center of the crater, he employed skills developed over years of point and click fetch questing to rapidly assemble a working trampoline, which he set in the exact center of the crater before jumping onto it.

He kept his eyes locked on the falling white figure that grew slowly in his vision as he proceeded to bounce higher and higher.  As he got high enough, he saw the distinctive shape, and on his last bounce he caught Max's unconscious form just after the apex of his jump.  As he was already starting to travel downward, he was able to dip his arms to absorb most of Max's momentum as he went downward.  He bounced a few more times on the trampoline until he came back to a normal height before bouncing off.

Paperwaite and Norrington had rushed up close as soon as he saw what Sam was doing.  "Is he...?" Paperwaite asked.

As others gathered around the rim of the crater, Sam kicked the trampoline aside to lay his little buddy down in the exact center.  It somehow felt like he was supposed to.  "Max?" he whispered hopefully, gently patting the lagomorph's cheek.  "Little buddy?"

Max stirred slowly, his eyes fluttering open.  "Did anyone...get the number...of that giant battle robot?" he mumbled.

Sam's smile split his face.  "You're okay," he choked out, pulling Max into a tight hug.

"Oh, hey Sam," Max said casually.  "What'd I miss?"

Sam chuckled as he released Max.  "Well, you turned into-"

"Wait, where's Trixie?" Max demanded, turning this way and that.  "Why isn't she here?  Is she still napping?"  Pulling Sam's coat up, he ducked his head into Sam's inventory.  "Trixie?"

Sam's face fell.  "Max...you turned into a giant dark dimension monster.  We...went inside you to fix you, but...we had to evacuate before the nuke hit you.  ...Trixie leapt out of my arms before we were all the way out, and...rushed back in.  I don't know what she did, but...she saved you..."

Max stared at Sam, his face quivering.  "Y...you're joking, Sam," he asserted, his voice shaken.  "You're...you're pulling my leg, right?  You wouldn't let Trixie do something like that, right?"  He grabbed hold of Sam's coat and shook him.  "This isn't funny, Sam!  Where's Trixie?"

Sam hung his head.  "Max..."

"You!" Max shouted suddenly, rounding on Norrington.  "You did this, didn't you?"  He began raining punches on the eldritch abomination.  "Give her back!  Give her back!"

Though Paperwaite winced in pain with every blow, Norrington took the abuse in silence until Sam pulled Max back.  "Max, he didn't-"

"No!" Max snapped.  "Someone did this, and I'm going to kill them!"  He writhed viciously in Sam's grip until he broke free.  "Who was it?"  He yanked his gun out of nowhere.  "Who am I going to shoot?"  The air seemed to crackle around him.

Sam sighed sadly, hanging his head, saying nothing.

Max shivered.  "No...it can't...I won't accept it!"  He spun, reality warping around him.  He didn't have his psychic powers anymore, he could feel that.  But the atmosphere was still so etherically and psychically charged that the intensity of his volatile emotions was enough to make things happen.  "Satan!" he shouted.  "I'm gonna make a deal!"

Satan appeared in a flash of fire and light.  "A deal, Max?  Any particular reason you called for me specifically-"

Max rushed forward, gripping Satan's hand beseechingly with both of his.  "I'll give you my soul!  I'll give you Sam's soul!  I'll sign over the souls of the entire United States of America!  We'll become your army to conquer the world in your name!  I'll lead your armies in a war on God!  I'll yank that arrogant ass off his throne, turn him over my knee, and spank him for your entertainment!  I'll do anything!  Just...just bring Trixie back..."  He fell to his knees, tears pouring from his eyes.  "Just give me back my little girl..."

Satan stared down at Max...and tears poured from his eyes as he sighed.  "I can't do that, Max," he said softly, comfortingly.  "Trixie is not part of our cycle of life and death.  That's why her virtue has been attributed to the two of you.  Wherever her soul has gone...it's beyond my reach.  All I would be able to do is create a demonic simulacrum of her that would act as you remember her...but I won't do that to her memory.  I'm...sorry, Max."

Max stared up at the Prince of Lies...and saw only truth in his eyes.  "No..." he whispered, staggering back.  "No!" he wailed, turning away to land on all fours.  "No!"  He pounded his fist against the ground, and the charged atmosphere caused it to crack and splinter in response.  "Why, Trixie?" he wailed, smashing the ground again.  "Why?  Why would you die for me?"  He lifted his head in an anguished wail.  "I'm not worth it!" he screamed to the uncaring heavens.  His head fell down, hanging limply from his neck as he broke into choked sobs.  "I'm not wo-o-o-rth it..."

Sam knelt down beside his despairing partner.  He rested his hand on the lagomorph's back, his own eyes wet with tears.  "Just...let it all out, Max...let it all out..."

They stayed there, the entire world seeming to be in solemn silence save Max's choked sobs.  Not even the wind dared to blow, and no pin dared drop.  After a time, Max spoke up.  "I...think I'm going to be sick..."

"I know what you mean, little-"

Max suddenly coughed and hacked, his body jerking like he was purging a hairball.

"Oh, like that," Sam replied.  "Well, it's best to let that all out, too."

With one last hack, a sphere of light was ejected from Max's throat to land in the exact center of the crater.  Emblazoned in the light was Trixie's Cutie Mark.

Sam stood up, walking towards it, wondering what it could be.  When he saw that the image of her Cutie mark showed the exact same face no matter what angle it was viewed from, he knew something mythic was going on.  Hope began to swell in his heart.

The sphere slowly expanded until it was the exact size to contain Trixie, and then flared.  When the light faded, a very damp pony slowly pushed herself to her hooves.  "Ugh..." she grumbled as her horn sparked.  "Trixie needs a bath..."  She began to shake her hoof off.

Max lifted his head, his eyes filled with both hope and fear.  "...Trixie?" he called out, his voice a little hoarse.

Trixie's head spun around on her neck to face him, and her eyes widened in joy.  "Daddy!" she called out excitedly, lunging forward as her wings flared with her joy.

Nobody moved a muscle or managed a complete thought for a full minute.  Finally, Trixie turned her head back around on her neck to gaze upon her new feathered appendages, and expressed her reaction to them with all the eloquence at her disposal.  "...oro?"

"Those are new," Paperwaite pointed out.

Norrington gasped in surprise.  "Trixie...exactly how did you cleanse the dark dimension energy out of the tumor?"

Trixie kicked her hoof.  "Trixie...didn't.  Trixie...absorbed it to power the spell so she could purge the tumor..."

Norrington sniffed the air around her.  "But...there's no trace of dark dimension energy in or on you now...but a great deal more power, as though it were...purified..."  His eyes went wide.  One of his tentacles seized Paperwaite's leg and yanked him forward.  "On your knees, fool!" he commanded.

"What?" Paperwaite demanded.  "Why?"

"She absorbed and purified dark dimension energy and achieved a new, beautiful form...while retaining her personality.  You are in the presence of a newly ascended goddess!"  Norrington lowered his eyes.  "All hail the Divine and Beautiful Trixie!"

Trixie's eyes nearly popped out of her head as everyone gathered in the higher levels of the crater - even Satan himself - knelt and repeated the chant.  As the chanting went on, though, eventually a smile tugged at her lips.  "...Trixie could get to like this..."

"Not much different for us," Sam pointed out from his kneeling position.  "We already practically worship you anyway."

"Worship can come later," Max said.  Rushing forward, he pulled Trixie into a tight embrace.  "...I thought I'd lost you..." he whispered, crying into her mane.

Smiling, Trixie wrapped her forelegs and new wings around him.  "I'm harder to lose than that..." she whispered, nuzzling him as the city worshiped their divine savior.