AUTHOR WARNING!

DO NOT READ THIS STORY IF YOU HAVE NOT BEATEN THE GAME. I don't want to be responsible for you getting spoiled. If you HAVE beaten the game, enjoy.

It was too much.

It was all just too damn much. He couldn't function anymore. She was never there, even after he had sacrificed so much for her. She was always off doing who knows what with those "Guardians" she summoned. Leaving him there to take care of the disgusting vermin she called a child. He never asked for this. All he ever wanted was to live a peaceful life with her, make her happy. He gave up his freedom for her. He gave her his life, his very existence. And she repaid him with this.

He had tried to kill himself before. It pained him to no end to know that he could never actually go through with it. Every time he brought the blade to his skin, every time he raised the bottle of pills to his lips, every time he secured the rope around his neck...he just couldn't do it.

It started out as uncontrollable sobbing. Each time he tried to do it he couldn't stop crying long enough to cut into his flesh or swallow the pills or step off the chair. He would have to put it aside and curl up on the floor, hating himself more the longer he lay there choking on his own tears and mucous.

Then he grew angry. Each time he couldn't bring himself to do it he would curse and scream and throw objects around the room. All that accomplished was a mess he had to clean up so the brat wouldn't hurt himself.

It grew to a point where he knew she would leave him there with the kid forever and things would never return to the way he remembered. He sat in the corner of the room, hugging his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth, his face sticky with the remnants of tears he had shed earlier.

"I can't do this anymore," he muttered, trying to ignore the coughing sounds from the kid's room, "I can't stay here with all this..." He struggled for an appropriate word for what the room was to him. His eyes searched the space he once thought of as heaven, a place he used to find asylum but now only found a cage. A red cage to imprison him while his dear wife was away. The word suddenly appeared in his mind like a beautiful white light breaking through the walls of the room.

"Impurity." He closed his eyes and thought long and hard about the impurity of the world his dear wife had created. Her "Guardians" were nothing but corrupt bullies, pushing the Elsen around, growing content with their power. He remembered a time when they seemed kind, when they said they wanted to nurture the world his dear wife envisioned. He knew he had to be the one to do something about it. He was the only one who had the power to do so.

"How?" he mumbled to himself, pressing his face into his knees, "How am I going to do this?"

"I can help you." His head snapped up to see who had spoken but he was no longer in the room. He sat instead in a black nothingness, alone.

"Who's there?" he called out, "What do you want?" The voice spoke again, seemingly from the inside of his head.

"It doesn't matter who I am. All that matters is that I can help you. You are lost, angry, frightened. You wish you could disappear, but not before the ones who caused your suffering suffer in return. I can tell you, young savior, there is but one way."

"Tell me!" he cried, "Please, tell me this way!"

"First, you must defeat the Guardians of each zone. They are impure and must be terminated to purify the world. The road to each of them is long and arduous. Do not lose sight of your goal, even if it seems too difficult to achieve."

"What then? What must I do to end it?"

"Deep in the place you once called home is a large switch. If you have reached this switch, you have earned the right to pull it."

"What does the switch do?"

"It shuts everything in this universe, everything you know to exist, off." He thought on this for a few moments. That is what I wanted. It is more than what I could ask for.

"How will I get there? I am sure to be recognized."

"That is for you to decide. I can make you appear as anything or anyone." He considered this. He could choose a form for himself so that no one would recognize him as the Queen's husband. But what form? He thought back to his endless days in that room, caring for the sick little whelp. He remembered a comic book he had given to him to keep him quiet. What was it called again? Panic in somewhere...But the characters were the important things. He remembered two main characters: the hero was a boxer and the villain was a batter. A dry smile spread across his lips. Of course...

"I wish to become a batter," he told the voice.

"It shall be done." He looked down at his body. He was now dressed in similar attire as the villain from the comic, complete with a hat that hid his face if he kept his head lowered and a baseball bat with the name Harold written on the side. A twisted laugh bubbled up from inside his chest.

"I am the Batter," he said to no one in particular, "I must purify the world."

"To aid you in your quest, I have arranged a puppeteer for you," the voice informed the Batter.

"A puppeteer? Is that necessary?" It was not wholly uncommon in this world for someone to be led by what they called a puppeteer, a being outside of the known universe who could see and hear everything but could not speak to anyone. Their existence was usually only known to the being they were controlling the movements of. It was the existence of puppeteers that led to the peoples of the world to refer to their world as a "video game" and the puppeteers as "players".

"This being does not know your past," the voice assured him, "They do not know anything about this world or you."

"Good. I suppose a little extra help wouldn't be a bad thing."

"I would suggest you let out any lingering emotions now before you meet your puppeteer." The Batter thought on this a moment. Did he have any lingering emotions?

"That impure bitch," he hissed, proving that he did, "She'll pay for what she's done. Damn brat's not even mine, the filthy whore. Did she expect me to believe it was my kid? After I hadn't seen her in months? She'll suffer like I did." The Batter felt his eyes burn with fresh tears as he thought about how excited he had been to be a father...before he discovered that the child was not his own. It hadn't taken him long to figure it out, though he denied it until he saw the child's face. It held no semblance of him, nor did it seem to recognize him as its father. The Batter had felt so detached from the ugly little thing. Yet his dear wife shoved all responsibility at him, insisting that since he was the "father", he had to keep it from dying while she was off living her life.

"Not mine not mine," the Batter spat, wiping the tears on his sleeve, "I'll kill him after I kill you. I'll shut the whole world off. I gave you everything. I have nothing...nothing left." He sat huddled in the nothingness, painfully aware of whatever the voice was with him, watching him cry like a pathetic child. He shook himself, calming down enough to rise to his feet. He sniffed and wiped his face once more.

"Okay," he said, "I'm ready."

A/N: This sucks, I know. I'll try to make it better for you.