Reminisces of a Wasted Life

by TailsLovesCosmo

As he waits for final judgement, Lucas, the former Dark Oak, looks over his wasted life, and finds much that he's ashamed of, but also a tiny ray of hope in the end. This is part of the After the Metarex series. One shot.

This is a companion story to the After the Metarex series. This is Dark Oak's story, and it's a one shot.

"REMINISCES OF A WASTED LIFE"

Lucas sat in the waiting room. He wondered how long he'd been there. It didn't matter anymore. He was dead, and awaiting his final fate. His crimes were horrible. He had destroyed countless planets. Most terrible, he had done exactly what he had become part machine to prevent. He had completely exterminated his own species. The Seedrians were extinct now. Cosmo had been the last, and he had pushed her to the point that she had been willing to give up her own life to stop him.

He thought back to the way it had all begun. A strange race of beings calling themselves humans had attacked his people. They were peaceful creatures, mostly interested in knowledge and nature and comfort. They had no weapons to fight the invaders. Then he had come. A strange creature, with three eyes, plus a fourth that floated about, observing everything. He seemed to only be about half there.

"You need weapons?" he said in a ghastly voice. "I think I can help you." And for awhile, they seemed to be winning. But then the invaders seemed to update their own weapons. Desperate, Lucas had turned to his lab. Perhaps, he had decided, he could manipulate his soldiers' DNA. It took months of experimenting, but at last he discovered a process to turn his men into great beasts. But the transformation had proved dangerous. His men grew sick. The change would leave them weak and shaking.

The pressure began to tell on him. He didn't sleep. Then one day, he was seriously injured. Hertia kept begging him to let her run tests on his injuries. Especially the severe blow to the head that gave him headaches afterwards. Headaches he had never told her about because she would have worried. "After the war is finished!" he'd insisted, not wanting to be out of commission while she ran test after test. Also, if he did have anything serious, he didn't want to be in the hospital for days or weeks. Not now. He couldn't leave his only son, Landar, in charge of the army. Landar was a good boy, but he wasn't ready to take command.

One day, he had come home to find one of his officers, Captain Pine, kissing his oldest daughter, Galaxina.

"What do you think you're doing?!" he had yelled, seeing red. He chased Pine down the street, waving a knife at him. When he had returned, Galaxina was crying. Her mother was comforting her.

"Lucas, you can't do that sort of thing!" Hertia, his wife, had said. "What's wrong with you?!?" Lucas noticed their other two girls were peering down from the second floor staircase.

"Go to bed!" he yelled. "And don't look at me like that!" Had he realized his behavior was starting to get out of control? Yes, certainly, but he hadn't cared. He convinced himself that he was doing the right thing.

Then the horrible day had come when Hertia had called a meeting of the High Council of the Green Planet. Her face was grey. She looked older than he'd ever seen her. Was that what had happened? Had he lost his love for her when age had taken her looks?

He'd noticed that Landar wasn't there, but his wife, Starla, was. She had been crying. Lucas' heart went cold. Even before Starla sobbed out the whole ugly story, he had realized Landar was dead. And another piece of Lucas' heart went cold and dark.

"It was too much for him!" Hertia told her husband. "Your experiments will destroy us worse than the invaders are!"

"Be silent, Woman!" Lucas had yelled. "This is men's work!"

"You said it!" Colonel Zelkova agreed. He was a moron, but he was huge and powerful, and completely loyal to Lucas. "Women don't know nothing but crocheting doilies!" He looked at Starla. "Do you think I should get a tattoo?" Starla hadn't dignified that with a response.

"Lucas," Hertia had said to him after the meeting, "please don't do anything foolish! Nothing will bring back our son!"

"Those animals have to pay for taking him from us!" Lucas had insisted. "What would you have us do?"

"We can leave our world, and find a new one," Hertia suggested. She held up a large jewel. "These sacred amulets will prevent us from succumbing to the final change, and also keep your soldiers from becoming beasts unnecessarily." A Seedrian pushed too far mentally physically and emotionally might find himself or herself suddenly becoming a tree. The transformation was normally permanent, although it usually only affected the very old and infirm.

"What?!?" Lucas had yelled, pounding the table. "You'd have us leave our world? Have all of our brave soldiers die for nothing? Have our son die for nothing?"

"Getting more people killed won't bring him back, Lucas!" Hertia sobbed. "I miss him too, but Landar wouldn't want others to die in his name!"

And then he had come again. "Have you ever heard of a planet egg?"

"That's the life force of a planet," Lucas said. "At least, according to legend."

"Think of having the power of an entire world at your beck and call!"

Lucas thought about it. Then he started to research. He built a drill machine that drilled further down into the Green Planet than any miner ever could. For two days, nothing happened, then his instruments for detecting energy sources went crazy. "I've found it!" Lucas cried. "The planet egg!"

He harvested the power. Used it to stabilize the beast transformations. True, the plants around him began to die, but when the animals were all dead, he'd redirect the life energy into the Green Planet. He was in control. And what he was doing might be horrible, but it was for the greater good, wasn't it?

Then she had come to him that last time. "Lucas!" she cried. She looked terrified. "Lucas! All of the plants are dying! Something's horribly wrong!"

Lucas had smiled. He grabbed her arm, wanting to impress her. The way he had when they'd first been dating. He dragged her to the device he'd built to harness the awesome power of the planet egg.

"Look!" he'd told her. "The very life essence of the Green Planet! Limitless power! Power that can be used to destroy those animals completely!"

"What?!" Hertia cried, pulling away from him. "No! Lucas, you'll destroy our home!"

"I'm saving our home!" he'd insisted. He tried to get her to listen. She had to be with him on this.

But Hertia wouldn't listen. "Oh, Lucas! You've gone mad! Landar's death was too much for you!"

"You are my wife!" Lucas had yelled, suddenly furious. "You will support me on this!"

"Get your hands off me!" Hertia cried. She turned to run. He chased her down. "Let go of me!" she screamed.

"I am your husband!" Lucas roared. "You will do as I say!" A red veil seemed to fill his vision. There was a roaring in his ears that drowned her out. He slapped her. She fell to the floor. "I am king here!"

"Only because I agreed to marry you!" Hertia pointed out. She was right. And that thought infuriated him. His head pounded. Everything went black for a moment. He heard her scream.

Lucas left his wife sobbing quietly. The look she'd given him showed only sorrow and anger and shame. There was no love left between them. As far as he was concerned, their marriage was over.

He called his remaining troops together. "Today, we transcend our mortality!" he cried. "I will give you the power to destroy our enemies once and for all! Will you follow me into final battle?"

He was given a standing ovation. He looked at his troops. So few. The Seedrians were being exterminated fast. Didn't Hertia realize it was nearly too late to do anything?

The power of the planet egg worked better than he had hoped. His troops were no longer harmed by the transformation. They trained tirelessly, waiting for the enemy to return.

But Lucas hadn't expected his own wife to turn against him. He had known that she had gathered the last of the women, including their daughters, into a refugee ship, but he hadn't been aware of just how much she now hated him. Not until the missiles came. Not until the ground exploded, and his men died. Not until rocks showered down on his head.

The next thing Lucas knew, he was standing over him.

"Your body was seriously injured," he said coldly. "I found only yourself and four others still alive. You have internal injuries, but the special armor I've developed will keep you alive."

Lucas looked at himself. He was incased in metal.

"Removing that armor could be dangerous," he had said. "Your heart is badly damaged. Your lungs were burned. You might be able to live without that suit. Then again…"

It was then that Lucas gave in to the anger and fury inside of him completely. Hertia had done this to him. And she would pay. Oh, how she would pay!

That was the beginning of the Metarex. When he ceased to be Lucas and became Dark Oak.

The last of his men were confused, frightened. He knew he had to take control or they'd turn against him. "Hear me!" he cried. "I, the Dark Oak, swear that all will pay for our suffering! We will destroy the enemy once and for all!"

"The queen did this to us!" one cried. "My face! My beautiful face is ruined!"

"You're such a narcissist!" another complained. "I look like some sort of insect, but I'm not whining!"

And that was how Black Narcissus got his name.

The alien had vanished soon afterwards, not to be seen again. But first, he had given them one final gift: the knowledge of how to build intelligent robots. In his more lucid moments, Dark Oak would sometimes wonder what he had really wanted. If perhaps everything had been his fault to begin with. If he had all this knowledge and wanted to help, why hadn't he done so before all of this had happened? But that no longer mattered. Nothing mattered but revenge.

They attacked world after world, stealing the planet eggs to increase their power. Trapped in their armor (or at least so they believed, and no one wanted to risk removing his to see if the stranger had been lying,) they became colder and more mechanical in thought. Lucas had grandiose dreams for a future in which all life would live in harmony. With, of course, plant life ruling benevolently. But as species after species refused to obey, his dreams became twisted. Anyone that wouldn't accept him as king had to die.

At last, after years of searching, they located the refugee ship. Dark Oak sent his strongest machine, Scar Ship, to destroy the ship. He sent Red Pine to see that his wife and daughters were brought to him.

"Sir," Red Pine said, "I'm afraid there's been unforeseen problems."

"What are you saying, Pine?" Dark Oak had demanded.

"I'm afraid your daughters were killed by falling rubble," Pine said, "and Queen Hertia cannot be removed from the ship. The final change has come upon her."

So Dark Oak entered the ship and saw his wife for the very last time. "So, Hertia, you're a tree now."

"So, Lucas," came a soft voice in his head, "you're as much of a monster on the outside now as you are on the inside."

"Do not mock me, Woman!" Dark Oak cried. "This is all your fault!" He removed his helmet, the most he had dared at that time. One eye was now an electric scanner. "Look what you've done to me!"

"Look what you've done to me," was her response. "I am dying now, Lucas. And I can sense our girls are already dead. You cannot frighten me."

"Sir!" Pale Bay Leaf cried. "I found a little girl trying to hide!" The child lay senseless in his arms.

"No!" Hertia cried. "Please don't hurt her! Lucas! She's your child! She's the last! The very last of the Seedrians! Please don't hurt my little Cosmo!"

"So, you had one final child after attacking me," Lucas said. "Don't worry. She will become queen of the New Empire!"

"She will curse you to your face, Lucas!" Hertia said. "Please, let her go! She can't possibly harm you!"

"She is the last female," Dark Oak said, turning to Red Pine. "Thanks to this bungler! Eventually, her seeds will restore the Seedrian race to their glories!"

"No!" Hertia sobbed. "NO!" Something inside of her seemed to snap. Hertia spoke no more.

They returned to their ships, Dark Oak taking Cosmo with him.

When she finally came to her senses, she was terrified. "Galaxina! Galaxina, where are you?!"

"Dead," Dark Oak said simply. "They're all dead. You're alone, little one."

"No!" Cosmo cried. "You're…you're the Metarex! The ones that were chasing us since before I was born! Mother said you were monsters, and she was right!"

"Your mother never told you about your father, did she?" Dark Oak asked.

"She told me enough!" Cosmo sobbed. "She told me you killed him!"

"Cosmo….I am your father!" He removed his helmet.

"NO!" Cosmo screamed. "You're lying! Why are you lying to me?!?" Her mind couldn't deal with this.

"Cosmo, do you want to live?" he demanded, taking a step towards her.

"Y-yes!" Cosmo said in a tiny voice. She started shaking. "P-please don't hurt me!'

"Then listen and listen well," he said. "You will be my eyes and my ears. I have heard that there is one that might stop me. A being called Sonic the Hedgehog. He lives on an insignificant planet named Mobius. Apparently, Mobius has magical artifacts called chaos emeralds, that give him unbelievable powers. I am going now to battle him and take the emeralds."

"Wh-why are you t-telling me this?" Cosmo asked.

"Because you will remember what I have told you about Sonic and the emeralds, but not that you were captured or made into my spy. I will see through your eyes, and hear through your ears, everything you say to him and his friends. I feel in a sporting mood, so I will not use my full power against him until I see exactly what he is capable of doing."

"I-I won't work for you!" Cosmo sobbed. "That would be wrong!"

"Then shall I kill you…slowly?" He raised his sword.

"NO!" Cosmo screamed, falling to her knees. "I'll be good!"

"Of course you will…my daughter! Hahahahahah!"

Lucas cringed. What had been wrong with him? He'd found a child he didn't know he'd had, and tormented her when she'd just lost everyone that mattered to her! Any sentence the judge gave to him would be too kind. He deserved to be slowly tortured to death. Except, of course, for the fact that he was already dead. No, he had been dead at least since he'd turned against the woman that should have been the love of his entire life.

At last, he remembered the final battle. He had transformed a final time, and intended to destroy all of the planet eggs he had, knowing that the resulting explosion would probably destroy most, if not all, of the galaxy. Then he saw her. Little Cosmo, heading towards him. Watched her transform before his eyes, first into an adult Petalis, then into a tree. She immobilized him somehow. Her potential was incredible! She could have one day surpassed him.

But he couldn't let her know that. "Foolish child!" he had said. "Do you really think you can stop me! Surrender, and I will allow you to rule by my side!"

"I'd sooner die!" Cosmo had told him. "I'm not afraid of you anymore! You have to be stopped, and if it'll take my death to save my friends, then I am willing to die! Tails and Cream and Amy and the others have to live!"

"They're animals!" he had argued. "They destroy our kind, and kill their own!"

"And how is that any better than you, maniac?!?" Cosmo had demanded.

He realized that Cosmo was weakening him enough that Sonic and Shadow, in their super forms, could destroy him. Could ruin everything. "Don't you understand? I did this for your mother and your brother and your sisters!"

"How can you say that, after what you did?!" Cosmo cried. "I cannot forgive you!"

"You're weakening fast!" he pointed out. "In a few more moments, I will destroy you unless you vow allegiance to me!"

"I will never serve you!" Cosmo declared. "And you would kill me anyway, now!"

"You can't do this to me!" Lucas cried out, suddenly desperate. The animal boy that claimed to love her was about to press the triggering mechanism on his wave motion gun. He was not yet ready to free himself of her and defend himself. "I am your father!"

"No!" she had sobbed. "You are my enemy, and if I am going to die…I will take you with me!"

Then he saw them, Super Sonic and Super Shadow, streaking through the sky like comets, and then…

And then…

And then the pain in his head was gone. He could think clearly again. "Hertia was right!" he realized. "I let my anger turn me into a monster! I destroyed all of my people! Even my own family!" He started to cry.

Then he saw her. Enwrapped in a soft light.

"Lucas…"

"Hertia! I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Come with me, Lucas. Come into the light."

"Do I…still have a chance with you?" he asked.

Hertia sighed. "Lucas, your crimes were many, and heinous. You must stand in judgement. I will speak for you at your trial, but that is all I can do."

Lucas nodded. He had performed countless atrocities, and he needed to be punished for them. "I am ready," he said.

"First, look," Hertia said, pointing. Lucas saw Super Sonic and Super Shadow. What were they doing? Then he realized. They were trying to revive Cosmo.

"No!" he sobbed. "What have I done?!?"

"Her body was vaporized," Hertia said sadly. "They're trying to save her, but they don't have the power. But if you add what remains of Dark Oak's power to theirs, then perhaps…"

"But…isn't she already dead?" he asked. "Can we bring her back?"

"Will you try?"

"Yes!" Lucas cried. "With my last ounce of strength, I will all of the power of Dark Oak! Sonic! Save my daughter!"

There was a flash. But instead of Cosmo, all that appeared was…

"A…a seed?!?" Lucas said. He turned to Hertia. "Wha-what…?"

"We must go now," Hertia said. "I must take you to the waiting room, then return for Cosmo's soul."

"Her soul?" Lucas repeated. "Then, we failed?"

"Look," she said. And he saw Cosmo approaching Tails. Was it possible?

"That's why you came for me first," he said softly, taking her hand. "To give her time." He sighed. "I'm ready to go. But, you will look at her?"

"I will guide her," Hertia said, "but she must make all decisions for herself."

"But she's so young…"

"Trust her, Lucas. She is the future of the Seedrian race." She took him into the light. To a gargantuan, cold, grey building. The courthouse of the next world.

She left him in the waiting room, promising to return for his trial. He had no idea how long he'd sat there on the hard wooden bench, with leering demons taunting him. "You'll be ours soon!" they threatened.

"Lucas of the Seedrians of the Green Planet!" came a voice at last. "Also known as Dark Oak of the Metarex!"

"I am here!" he sobbed.

"The judge will see you now!"

Lucas stood. Chains were snapped around his wrists. They seemed to be made of molten lava, and they burned, but did not consume him. So this was what eternal torment was like. Lucas was prodded by the demons to walk down a long corridor. At last, he found himself in a gigantic courtroom that seemed larger than the largest city. All around, he saw his victims. They were screaming for blood. His blood. And he couldn't blame any of them.

"Be strong, Lucas! I am always with you!" Lucas looked into Hertia's eyes. They were sad and angry, but, deep down inside…the love was still there.

And her love gave him courage, as he faced his sentence.

THE END