Geisel was gone, his phantasmal form torn apart in savage fury by the recently de-crowned Sharkasaurus Rex.
The equally ethereal Theodor watched the entire sudden rending in still shock. As did the rest of the infinite school, millions of fellow ghost fish that had all gathered to psychically leash the mighty megalodon. They didn't even realize such a thing was possible. They had survived life. They had survived death. They were supposed to be free... not fragile.
Even Sharkasaurus Rex seemed surprised. The great megalodon floated in the upper atmosphere aimlessly. It's pitch black eyes wide and it's simple animal mind confused. It's jaws flexed open and closed. It's ghostly body faded transparent and then back solid. All as if a child experimenting with new experiences.
Theodor felt a hand pass through his small form. Hovering beside him was the Super Wizard From Space, trying to get his attention while still watching the great shark. With growing worry he started to say, "We should back away..."
Suddenly Sharkasaurus Rex snapped its leashes and launched into the midst of the infinite school.
The shark's massive mouth opened and closed with ferocious speed.
A dozen of the ghost fish were instantly shredded. Spectral scales and transparent fins were torn apart by monstrous teeth.
A quick swallow and the shark rocketed forward, snapping at more prey.
"Scatter! Hide!" called out Theodor in pitched fearful thoughts. "Rex is mad! Rex is hungry! Everything is his food!"
The school started to dart away in every direction, streaks of transparent colours fleeing from the ferocious mass. Waves of telepathic fear crashed into each other, multiplying panic upon panic.
But in their terror, instinct still gripped most of the ghost fish. Even when bolting chaotically, they unconsciously bunched together with others of their kind.
The larger groups just made easier targets for Sharkasaurus Rex, who slammed into them with rows and rows of terrible teeth. His massive body flitted in frequency. Many of the small ghosts popped. Many were chopped up in gnashing bites. Some lucky few passed through the megalodon's body unscathed.
"Run! To the mountain!" yelled out the Super Wizard From Space. He clapped his hands and then slashed them out. Another flat plane of blinding light cut through the air and across Sharkasaurus Rex's eyes. The beast flinched at the painful brightness passing through his spectral form and reflexively dimmed it's solidity.
The other fish were awash in their own horror, nothing but unyielding blues in their minds painting over rationality. But Theodor was a blue fish, used to swimming in such grim waters. He circled around the closest of the groups he could, roping their desperation with his own frayed images of practicality. They grasped at the thought strands and followed, dragging their own brighter hopes behind them.
He caught as many as he dared in his psychic net before he saw the dull calcium of fifty-five rows of giant teeth start to reappear, cheshire-like. They seemed bigger than before, each one now easily taller than several men. His courage ran out and he dived toward the planet, dragging any ghost fish that still clung to him.
Down, down, down he swam, back into the thick of the atmosphere and finally into the rock solidity of the invisible monks' mountain monastery. Passed rooms and halls and corridors, into the walls and floors and the thick bedrock roots of the peak. Only when the school's panicked thoughts finally lightened up into calmer pastel hues did Theodor finally relax his hold. He watched them a moment, their spectral forms seemingly safe, milling about within the core of the mountain, before he alone rose up and out again.
The invisible monks were in an uproar, marching in organized perfect order at breakneck speeds. They all were headed to the craggy surface of the mountain, faces firm with discipline. Theodor followed some of them outside, watching them spread out in a perfect grid pattern. No point of the mountain side was too steep or too slippery to their trained balance. Each man took their position, planted their bare feet, and looked straight up.
Drifting upwards, Theodor eventually reached the balcony where the other space-champions had been watching. Brody Dharma was standing on the railing, his tail wrapped around the wood for extra balance, his large gecko eyes staring up into the sky like the rest of his order. His jovial nature was masked by a ready cautiousness.
They all watched the night sky, still, as the dark shadow chased fleeing rainbows, with a single star flinging bands of light. And the shadow was growing. Rapidly. With each terrible bite.
Then the rainbows came straight down at the mountain. And the shadow dived after them. Moonlight reflected off dull white teeth as they gnawed away the slower pricks of running colours at the end.
"The surface of even the stillest lake can be broken by the humblest of pebbles!" called out Brody Dharma, reaching into his robes and pulling out his little silver gong.
"This is our shoreline! We are it's many stones!" answered out a hundred thousand monks in unison. They all reached into their own robes and pulled out similar silver gongs.
The rainbow of ghost fish dove at the mountain monastery and, like rush of water, scattered in a splash of directions once they skimmed through the surface.
The invisible monks ignored the running school. They all raised their gongs to the falling shadow.
The darkness opened it's great jaw. The beast flung itself at the mountain.
Brody Dharma struck his gong. A single simple note rung out.
A hundred thousand monks heard the tone and, a half second later, a hundred thousand mallets all hit a hundred thousand silver gongs at the same time.
The musical sound slammed into Theodor's wraith-like form and shook every fibre. The musical sound pushed him into a more real state, a more real place in the universe. For the first time since his death, for a brief solid second, he felt heavy and cold and alive again.
Sharkasaurus Rex bellowed a ghastly unnatural sound as the tone washed over him. The echo tried to drag the megalodon toward reality.
The beast resisted, angered. It glared at the mountain side and all the glints of silver causing it pain.
Brody Dharma struck his gong again. A hundred thousand monks responded. The perfect tone rung out again.
Sharkasaurus Rex cried out again, the music pulling at it's spectral skin. But he pulled back, against the weight of the living universe. It opened it's massive mouth, now gigantic in size, and bit side of the mountain.
A chunk of the peak almost a mile in size was ripped out. Boulders and trees and snow were destroyed by rows and rows of hill-sized ivory. A sizeable chunk of the planet was swallowed down the megalodon's gullet. Thousands and thousands of screams were heard and then silenced. A rainstorm of blood sprayed out between the beast's jaws, washing the wounded mountain.
The remaining monks scattered. Feet skipping along loose stones and tree branches and falling drops of their fallen comrades, they flitted through the air away from the shark's wrath.
The night sky brightened, and a whip of fusion fire snapped. It passed through the ghostly body of Sharksaurus Rex, blasting the hole in the mountain. A explosion of molten stone and burning wood spun out into the shark's face. The beast roared at the mountain, shaking off the hard light and noise and debris, and shot down into the mist to hide.
The Super Wizard From Space pulled back and snapped his arm again, flinging a whip of fusion fire after the running monster. The end disappeared into the low clouds unseen, only a terrible explosion as the star power slashed against the planet's surface. The mist glowed, as if a wide forest or plain had caught fire, and a long dark shadow could be seen sliding away. A single dorsal fin poked above the mist's surface, a sizeable hill that slid amongst the hidden valley.
The super wizard rose further up in the air, watching the fin start to circle the mountain range. There with a quiet din coming from under the mist as the simpler people living on the valley floor saw the god-like horror prowling. It was only a matter of time before Sharkasaurus Rex's courage returned and he fed on the helpless. Or struck again at the monastery.
Theodor threw out luring thoughts to the super wizard, bringing him up to the balcony. The cosmic crowns of all the space-champions were aglow, their combined power slightly warping the area they stood. Brody Dharma's own seemed to flare more violently than the others, as if it was betraying his passive expression.
"You tore at our sun. You struck out against our mountain. You gashed wounds across planet Amity itself." said Brody Dharma with measured words.
"I could barely affect him," replied the super wizard when he landed. He seemed to lean over a bit, as if catching his breath. "Even deprived of his laurel wreath, Rex is one of the most powerful beings in the universe. And it's clear the infinite school cannot hold him anymore.
"I'm sorry, Theodor. He must be stopped. By whatever means."
Theodor looked at the grim countenances of the gathered space-champions. He knew the super wizard was right. Geisel was the exuberantly hopeful one, but he didn't realize how much he leaned on that bright yellow emotion. Now, in an ocean of deep blacks and blues, he found his own yellow spot. And it was slowly being stamped out.
"What..." he managed, cutting through the thick silence, "what of the sound. The little music. From the little gongs. They made me all real again. They made Rex all real again."
"Sound seems to cage the near-dead," agreed Brody Dharma. "Emperor M shared that secret with us. The right tone stirs the strands of the universe enough to catch the spirits on our side of reality. At least momentarily.
"But Rex has fed on his own students. He has added their own insubstantial mass to his own. Already he's exponentially larger than he was when he first arrived. And our combined harmonies did not have the ability to completely manifest him."
"Then you're gonna need a bigger gong," said the Super Wizard From Space.