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The planet below him looked very similar to the Earth that he had come from, as it had past several universes he had travelled through. It really didn't matter to Ao, though, as he, and the Nirvash he was sitting in, were being held in a low orbit by forces existing outside of normal time and space. He would only ever observe the Alternate Earths that he would come across, but he would never interact with them, such was his punishment.

He had erased the Quartz from existence and, with it, the ability of the Scub Coral to cross into alternate universes. He had corrected the history of the world he belonged to and had stopped the Secrets from crossing over into his parent's dimension, but at what cost? His parent's home planet would be forever doomed to exceed the Limit of Questions and he and his sister would never be born. His parents… his mother would be forever unhappy.

The only reason he even still existed was because of his mastery over trans-dimensional and temporal travel he had gained over the last couple of years.

Ao sighed at the futility of his situation. "Hey, Truth, are you still there?"

"Of course I am, where else would I be?" his IFO's archetype replied.

He cringed at that. It was still strange to him, having his once mortal enemy turned into a friendly OS for the Nirvash. The being that had once caused so much pain for him and those around him was now his eternal ally on his journey through time.

"You know, thinking back on my entire journey, I could have done a lot better than I did," he said with a sad tone in his voice.

"Yes, you could have."

"Hey! You aren't supposed to agree with me!"

"Sorry, but it's only natural that you didn't make a perfect decision. With that Quartz Cannon of yours, you had virtually unlimited options as to what outcome you could create."

Unlimited Outcomes… He had been pondering all of the choices he had made and could have made, from the first day he was stranded here, trying to find the best decision.

"If you're that dissatisfied with the conclusion, then why don't you change it? Start over from the beginning?"

Ao's head shot up from its resting position on his folded arms. "What?"

"You have the power to manipulate time and space thanks to our little trip through the dimensions. Why not use it to correct your mistakes?"

He continued to stare incredulously. "Could we… return everything to the way it was?"

"It's certainly possible. I still have enough energy to place you back when it all started. I can put you right around the day you crashed into Gazelle or sometime earlier if you prefer."

"We'd still need a plan though." He said as he brushed his blue locks out of his eyes.

"It's up to you, what path you take, but know that I can't do this twice as we'll both revert to our original forms and I won't have my memories."

"Yeah… I'm sorry it has to be this way Truth…"

"Don't worry about it, my friend. It's more important that you and your family are happy."

At that point, he began to plot his return and all of the details that he would change along the way. After several hours of pure thought and calculations, he was ready.

"Truth, I'm sorry to say that I'll be fighting the Secrets and protecting the Scub Coral to the end this time."

"I assume you have a good basis for making your decision?"

"Well, the Coral had more positive effects on the people than negative. Even though the Scub were invaders of our world, it was the Secret's actions against them, the Scub Bursts, that did the true damage."

"What about the disease that infected the Coral Carriers?"

"I've thought about that too. Technically, that disease was never proven entirely lethal. Plus, the Scub Coral was able to cure Naru's disease and even bring a man back from the dead with Coralian-like abilities. It'll be a gradual process, but humanity can recover and evolve past those issues just like those from my parent's world."

"…and the Limit of Questions?"

"The Secrets initial actions drastically reduced the world's population. It will be thousands of years before we reach our own Limit of Questions and we'll be relieving the burden off my parent's world."

"All right, you've made your point quite clearly," Truth replied with a mechanical noise that resembled a sigh, "but what about the Archetype? You'll need one if you want to win this fight."

"Well that's simple," he said with a smile, "I'll use the type Zero Archetype that was within Iwato Island's Scub Coral."

"And how exactly are you planning on doing that?"

"Hey, Naru isn't the only one who can interface with Scub Coral, you know." Ao said, clearly annoyed.

"I should have guessed you'd have a plan for that too. That's all we really needed to go over, so I guess I'll plot your course back to your original time. Remember, if all goes well, you'll be in the same body as you were in that time, so don't act too suspicious okay?"

"If all goes well?"

"There's no assurance that our plan will be completely successful. Be prepared to alternate in case of failure. If we do succeed, then you'll know much more than you are supposed to. People will wonder how you know that much, especially if there was no way you could have learned the information in question, so lay low."

"Got it, and Truth…"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for everything, and… goodbye, my friend."

"Goodbye Ao."

Then, tightly gripping the controls of what remained of his faithful IFO, Ao initiated his final time jump back into own time and his own body. He had made his decision. He would take up the reigns of destiny and provide a better future for all.

A/N:

I obviously didn't approve of AO's BS ending that basically destroyed the plot of the entire series. So I wrote this instead, and don't bother correcting me if I got the ending of the show wrong because that's what I'm going to use as a basis for the story. Please don't criticize me too hard on this one. It's my first time writing major character dialogue and I'm obviously not very good at it right now, but I'll get better with time. If anyone wants me to continue this, then post it in a review. If not, then I'll make it a oneshot and use it for future reference.