A Wicked's Punishment

As Lucien Fairfax, the man who had done so much wrong to me, weakly stood before me talking about how I hadn't won yet, I was only delaying the inevitable, and everything I had done would be destroyed by the spire's power. "Why? Why must you interfere?" He asked me. I thought about what I had done. I had made the place of my childhood a festering wound upon Albion, I made many homeless with my greed, I caused fear in every single life to ever hear of me, and I had killed so many good/innocent people. I realized then that I was a monster. My sister would be more scared of me then she was of the old man before me the day he killed her. I had become the person I hated the most, Lucien.

I simply stared at him hating everything he did to the people of this world, everything he had done to the other heroes, everything he had done to my family, ... no I was just hating him for what he had done to me. Was I so concited that I only cared for myself? Thousands have suffered by this man as well, yet I only think about myself. Oh how I wish I could turn back time and have done what I should have instead of what I wanted. I looked at him feeling so unfit for life when he said, "The New Kingdom will have no place for Fate or Chaos… Or He-"

A single gunshot piereced the silence of the interior tower, and Lucien stumbled back with a bullet in his side. I watched as he quickly tripped to the edge of the small, raised dais, and with one last yell he plummeted into the darkness below. I looked over at Reaver who, blew a bit of smoke off from his Dragonstomper .48 before reholstering it. "Oh, I thought he'd never shut up." The Hero of Skill turned to me, blinking a bit at the look on my face. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to kill him?"

I looked back to where Lucien had fallen, and replied, "No...I truly didn't." "What? I thought this is what you've wanted ever since he killed your sister." Hammer said a little surprised by my responce. "It was...but I realized something...I'm just as bad as he was. I became a plauge upon the world, I didn't deserve to kill him, I don't even deserve to live." "Want me to kill you too?" Reaver asked jokingly or at least I thought he did. "Reaver!" Hammer glared at him before saying, "So…Lucien's dead…What now?"

"Now?" echoed a familiar voice, as the three, and even Garth who had recovered, suddenly looked about the Inner Sanctum of the Spire for the source of the wise, elderly voice. A pulse of light erupted from the dais Lucien once occupied, as it rained toward the ceiling in edged droplets. Within, the familiar shape of an old woman took form from translucent air, and solidified as the warmth of colors withdrew back into the seal below her feet. "It is time you gained your reward: your gift for saving the world from a madman's selfish dream."

"Theresa?" I asked. "The Spire has awakened. And it still has the power to grant one wish: Yours." The blind woman smiled briefly, before extending a hand, as she had done to the other three heroes before. "Come. Take my hand." I reached for her hand as a blinding light took both of us from the place I had discovered just what I had done to the world. White, endless white, like the pureness I wish I had found in life. "What is it that you want as your reward?" Theresa asked me.

"...I don't deserve a reward for what I've done...you see more than anyone else in this world, you know of what I've done. I don't want anything praising what I've done in life, if anything I want it all to be taken back. Undo the actions I've made, bring back those that have died in both lucien's and my hunger for power, undo all the pain and hurt I've caused. That is what I want. If you can do that. Theresa nodded but once, and her words echoed the finality of the Hero's choice. "So be it." I felt the Spire's endless power began to stir. The pure Will of the spire began gathering within the storm growing outside. Around the Tattered Spire, cobwebs of crackling energy leapt from the numerous, radiant spheres, that began to form. And then, in a heartbeat, the Vast Will Energy Imploded in a massive wave across the sea, Bending reality in its wake.

Back within the Spire, I stared into the white that surrounded me, feeling as if it was taunting me with it's holyness. Theresa said, "Your wish has been granted. All those that had suffered from both your choices and Lucien's have been brought back, all your selfish choices have been undone, all the evil you've done has been erased.

The light faded from around us, and we once again stood on familiar stone. Hammer was the first to speak. "We heard everything." Theresa took the initiative to speak on her my behalf. "Yes. A wish was made, and the World will bear its consequences."

But the Hero of Strength was not about to give up on me. "When my father died, it was awful. I can hardly bare thinking about it. To sacrifice him myself… No. It took amazing strength for you to do that. More strength than I'll ever have." "Strength? No Hammer, it's what I should have done in my life instead of what I did, I didn't deserve a loving family, I didn't deserve a lot of things I had in life, these are the rewards for what I've done." I said feeling a painful emptiness inside. No sooner had I spoke these words did Reaver decide he could keep his mouth shut no longer. "Yes, yes, yes, but on to more important matters. What about ME? What do I get?! Cash would be nice!"

As the three heroes discussed their demands with the woman, I began to think. If the world had be cleaned of all my wrongs, I would have to rid it of the thing that caused them. Each of the other three heroes began to say their goodbyes, but before they could leave I called out, "Wait Reaver! To your earlier question... yes." "Yes? Yes for what?" Reaver asked confused. "To killing me. I don't have the strength to live, nor have I the strength to kill myself...please Reaver...end the curse that is my life." I begged him feeling every part of me screaming in defiance of this. Garth looked at me surprised I had even asked that, while Hammer asked, " What are you saying!? You can't just..."

For the scond time a single gunshot piereced the silence of the room, but this time instead of Lucien it was me. As I fell to the floor I saw my life as it would have happened if I had been more helpful with my life. I saw many families smiling and laughing cheerfully, many homes looking beautiful instead of destroyed, and I saw a family, my family welcoming me home with welcome arms. I heard Hammer Yell, "Reaver! What did you just do!?" "I only did what he asked me to. I prefomed a service to him. He asked for mercy and I gave it to him, I don't see why you're upset..." Reaver retorted. "Because he was my friend, our friend! Are you really so heartless to not care at all about him!?" Hammer yelled out. "I agree. Did you really not develop any emotional bonds to him through the time we all spent together?" Garth asked. "Not really, no. He seemed to be the kind to stab me in the back at the first oppertunity, and judging by what he said he would have too." Reaver said coldly. "If I ever see you again Reaver..." I heard Hammer say before the blackness that had claimed Lucien before now claimed me as well.