"Contradiction"
1 day after Heart Detonation
Clearleaf Forest
Rayman, Ly, and Frank were each locked in combat with their darker selves. Ly and Dark Ly were moving closer and farther apart, alternating between kicks and fire. Frank and Dark Frank were moving in a wide circle, firing at each other between the other combatants. Rayman and Dark Rayman were locked in the center, each trying to force the other back. Dark energy swirled around Rayman and Dark Rayman's pressed-together hands.
Ly went in close, sliding underneath a fireball from Dark Ly, and performing an upside-down scissor kick, spring-boarding up with her hands as she did so. The first leg hit, but Dark Ly back-flipped and rushed forward, grabbing Ly's forearm. Ly stared into the black eyes of a face that looked like hers, and watched as the blackness seemed to leap out from them, consuming her vision.
Ly was running. Something was chasing her. Something that would kill her if it got to her. Ly's legs ached from running, but when she tried to somersault to gain speed, she couldn't. Ly couldn't jump at all. All she could do was keep running. Panting, she could see someone ahead. Rayman! His back was to her, but she had to get his attention. She tried calling to him, but she couldn't speak. Suddenly, a line of dark blue streaked passed her. It stopped at Rayman, and it took the shape of Dark Rayman. Rayman hadn't noticed. Dark Rayman turned to face Ly and grinned evilly. Then, he grabbed Rayman's head and hoisted him into the air. Rayman was struggling, and Ly was running as fast she could, but she didn't seem to be getting any closer. With horror, she watched as strange black lines flew into Rayman's body, until his entire body was the same black as the dark area that surrounded them. Dark Rayman let go, and Ly watched a red spark drop from his hand. As Dark Rayman disappeared, there was the sound of breaking glass as the darkness around Rayman's body shattered. However, the only thing underneath was fire, which spread to the rest of the darkness—and Ly. The last thing Ly saw was the burning body of Rayman among a sea of flames.
* * *
Frank angrily fired at Dark Frank, who dodged it easily and fired his own shots in return. Frank fired again, and the two watched as the bullets collided, forming yellow and blue explosion. The force of it knocked frank off his feet. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dark Ly back-flip and go in close, grabbing Ly's arm. Suddenly, he was pulled up by Dark Frank, who forced Frank to look into his dark side's hollow sockets. The darkness seemed to burst open, until it covered everything.
Frank was facing a giant Dark Rayman. He looked to his left and saw Rayman. To his right was Ly. Rayman jumped up suddenly and threw several punches at Dark Rayman. The giant counterpart staggered back in pain. Then, Ly jumped up, kicked, and threw a massive fireball. Dark Rayman roared in anger. Seeing his chance, Frank fired from the two identical massive guns he hadn't realized he'd been holding—too soon. Ready for the attack, Dark Rayman grabbed both the shots in his hands and threw them. Frank had thought that they would be thrown at him. Instead the two bullets hit Rayman and Ly, and when the smoke cleared, they were both on the ground. Neither of them moved.
* * *
Rayman struggled against Dark Rayman. The two leaned back and forth, power shifting from one side to the other. Around them, two different battles waged.
"My creations are stronger than your friends," Dark Rayman said. "They are faster, smarter, stronger, better. You will lose."
"We'll see about that!" Rayman gritted his teeth.
"I believe we already have," Dark Rayman looked to his left (Rayman's right). Rayman followed his gaze and saw Dark Ly standing triumphantly over Ly, who was on the ground, shivering. Rayman noticed that Ly's, the real Ly's, eyes were black. There was a loud sound from the other side, and Rayman looked to see Frank, who was slumped by a tree, twitching. His eyes had also become black.
"Frank! Ly!" He cried out. He suddenly felt himself falling. Dark Rayman was over him, shoving Rayman's body to the ground. The colors of the world seemed to swim, and then black appeared in their midst. The black grew, until it was all that remained.
Rayman didn't remember getting up, and he didn't know where he was. He looked around, but all he could see was black. He then felt a drop of water hit his head. Followed by another. And another. Soon, it was raining. Lightning crashed, and Rayman thought that he could define where the sky met the ground. He didn't move, however. Lightning crashed again, but this time something had changed. There was a silhouette there. Rayman started running, hoping that he could find answers for what was going on here. Lightning crashed, and this time the silhouette was joined by a dead tree. Rayman ran faster, an uneasy feeling growing somewhere deep within him. He was closer now. Lightning struck again, but now the silhouette had changed. It was shorter and rounder, and it had no other real shape. Rayman slowed down. It should be here. He could make out the small thing in front of him. Bending down, he strained his eyes to look at it, but he still couldn't make out what it was. Lightning lit it up briefly and Rayman jumped back with a start. It was a tombstone. Then, his surprise gone, he went back up. Who was it a tombstone of? He waited for the lightning to come. After what felt like an eternity, the lightning flashed again. Rayman fell back and cried out. There was one word roughly scratched into the tombstone, as if with a sharp stick:
Ly
"Aaagh!" Rayman sat bolt upright. He looked around. To his left was Frank, unconscious. Rayman hurriedly looked to his right. Ly was breathing softly, sleeping on the dead grass.
"I'm back in Clearleaf Forest," Rayman said. He looked for Dark Rayman and the other clones, but they were nowhere in sight. He thought about what he'd seen. Was it a dream? Had meeting Dark Rayman been a dream? Shaking his head, Rayman stood up with some effort and went over to Ly.
"Ly," he knelt down and shook her lightly. "Ly!" Ly's eyes opened wide and she jumped.
"Ah!" she gasped. "Wha—Rayman? You're okay?" She sat up, placing one hand on the grass to steady herself. "...My head..." She rubbed her head gingerly.
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Rayman muttered. Ly looked up at him, and her expression turned to concern.
"Are you alright?" she asked. "Your eyes all red and swollen, like you've been crying."
"Yeah, I'm fine," Rayman looked away. "Do you think that Dark Rayman was really here?" Ly looked down at the bullet hole still in her leg.
"Yep," Ly muttered. "Otherwise this wouldn't be here." She pulled out some dead grass and wrapped around her wound.
"All things considered," Frank walked up, rubbing his eyes, "it's amazing you didn't die of blood loss."
"You'd think that you'd be a bit more apologetic," Ly glared. "Since you shot me in the first place."
"So would you," Frank argued. "But I guess trying to kick me in the head at 61 kilometers per hour doesn't amount to much these days, huh?"
"Well you can't blame me!" Ly snapped back. "You're a Hoodlum! What was I supposed to think?!"
"Both of you, stop!" Rayman ordered. "If Dark Rayman was here, then he only left us so that something else could pick us up! Frank, you've been doing things the longest, do you know of a place that we could hide?" Frank thought for a moment, then looked down at the ground.
"Anyone have a mirror?" Frank asked.
"A mirror?" Rayman and Ly echoed in unison. "Why?"
"Well," Frank looked around. "We can't get there without a mirror."
"I have enough magic left to warp the three of us somewhere close," Ly said, hoping to help. "Where do we need to go?"
"Ever been to the Bog of Murk?"
* * *
The Bog of Murk
Ly had teleported them into the ruined mirror path. It was only partially restored, and Frank pressured Rayman and Ly to move on, due to the memories it gave him.
"Through here," he said hurriedly. The trio stepped through into...darkness.
"Where are we?" Ly asked uncertainly.
"Something's not right," Frank muttered. "Ly, can you conjure up some fire?"
"Sure," Ly said distractedly. A sphere of warm light fell around the three as Ly formed a fireball in here hand. Rayman's eyes widened.
"I recognize this place," he said suddenly. "This is Razoff's mansion!"
"This used to be the Resistance base," Frank's voice carried a certain weight to it as he observed the room. "We left through that mirror to stop the Hoodlums from taking over the Fairy Council. But...something went wrong. I woke almost half an hour later, and the forest was ablaze. When I finally made it to the Fairy Council, we held out for less than 10 minutes. Then...my friends were all killed. Right after that, you showed up, and then the laser...They all died. The world died, and it was my fault! I led everyone to their deaths..." Frank's voice trailed off. Ly was surprised to hear who she knew to be the normally apathetic and sarcastic Frank to sound so...sad. Rayman hadn't realized so much had happened. There was a scuttle.
"Something's here!" Rayman called out. Frank had his blunderbuss out in an instant. The scuttling sound came again. This time, it was joined by more. At the edge of the light, a black, thin leg came and went out of sight.
"Ly, can you make that thing brighter?" Rayman asked.
"I'll do better than that," Ly extended the fire, increasing its brightness, and then shot it the now revealed candles in the room. The room was flooded with light, and several mutated creatures screeched.
"What are they?!" Ly recoiled in disgust.
"These things shouldn't exist!" Rayman looked at the malformed creatures.
"Oh, they're not going to," Frank was furious at the creatures for making a nest in the former base. He held down the trigger for as long as possible, then fired. The larger shot hit the creatures and reduced them to ash.
"That shouldn't have happened," Frank noted.
"It's the light!" Ly realized. "They can't touch light! That's why their at the edges of the candlelight!" Frank and Rayman looked at her, shrugged and then started creating as much light as possible. Frank fired shot after shot, Ly extended the fire to anywhere possible, and Rayman grabbed two candles and was sending his fists out into the creatures with them.
"This place used to have electricity!" he told Frank. "Where's the power?" Frank thought about it.
"There was a generator in the basement near the arena!" he told Rayman. "I think the switch is there, too!"
"Understood!" Rayman, using the candles as both weapons and shields, ran through and down into the basement. There were a few crashing sounds, a click, a whir, and then light was restored to the house. There was a deafening screech as the creatures fell away to dark ash, which then too, disintegrated. Rayman returned, a little bruised, but otherwise unharmed. Frank sighed, and Ly smiled.
* * *
Frank, Ly, and Rayman sat at a small table.
"So, for a recap," Frank summarized, "a laser blew up the Heart of the World, Dark Rayman is back and has an army of near-indestructible Dark Hoodlums, and, when taking everything into account, we aren't entirely sure if André's actually the one behind this."
"Yep," Rayman leaned back, exhausted. "That just about sums it up. Why isn't the Bog of Murk dead, though?"
"The Bog of Murk didn't die, because the world's nether-regions didn't depend on the Heart in the first place," Frank explained. "That's why they've always been so chaotic, and why, for the most part, their denizens didn't really care what happened topside. The only time that they got into the fight is if they got involved."
"Okay," Ly jumped in, "but here's an important question. All the denizens of this world were turned to stone. Why are we still normal?"
"Being a Hoodlum," Frank thought aloud. "I technically was created, and never meant to exist in the first place."
"When you put it that way," Ly said, "I was created by Polokus, and since I wasn't really in the world originally, I couldn't claim to come from it. So...why Rayman?"
"What if..." Rayman thought. "What if when I was sent to that other world, or dimension, or whatever, that messed it all up? Since I wasn't from that world, whatever happened there wouldn't have affected me. However, since I crossed dimensions into that world, and did so again to get back, that might've nullified my 'citizenship,' as it were, in this world, making it to where I was from neither, and negating any effects of being part of this world or that one might give me."
"So, in other words..." Frank said. "The reason that we weren't petrified was because we weren't technically supposed to be here to start out with, or, in Rayman's case, he went in between two worlds so much that he was 'erased' from both."
"Seems awfully convenient," Ly muttered. "But, it does help us. So, I guess that this makes it three people against the world?"
"We'll worry about that tomorrow," Rayman yawned. "Saving a ruined world really tires you out. Let's get some sleep."
"This place isn't quite as safe as it once was, Rayman," Frank cautioned. "We might have to sleep in shifts in order to prevent being snuck up on."
"I can't say that I like him much of the time," Ly said, ignoring the look from Frank, "but Frank is right. It'd be better if someone was watching."
"As long as I don't get the first shift, I'm fine with it," Rayman said. He then turned serious. "Tomorrow we start from scratch in rebuilding this world. I've started out in bad spots before, and you know that Ly, but never like this. No matter what happens, we all have to trust each other and watch each others' backs. We don't exactly have a long time to fix this, so we need to make this count. Got it?"
"Yeah..." Frank said. He seemed distant, but Rayman couldn't figure out why.
"I'll take the first shift," Ly told the others. "You two get some rest." Rayman noticed that Ly also had something on her mind. He'd have to ask her what was going on later. The memory of the tombstone flashed through his mind. Rayman secretly promised himself that he wouldn't let that happen. Not again. Following Frank to the bunk room, Rayman lazily fell on one the beds and was asleep soon after.