For a moment, while she was unconscious, NiGHTS could swear she was truly dying. Being pulled to the Nightmaren grave, a place she never wanted to be in after rebelling. A fate her best friends saved her from, and now she stupidly wasted. Her life flashed, since her creation, to her adventures, to the Multiverse Initiative...
And then, before it could reach the bitter memories of her allies getting corrupted, NiGHTS woke up.
"Welcome back, sleepy head.", Amethyst greeted her; she probably had regenerated, after being poofed by stress, in the meantime the jester was unconscious. Helen and William were at her sides, each looking with disappointment and worry over NiGHTS.
"Star had to clog that.", Dipper explained, dryly. "You'll need alot of time, probably a whole day, to get back your strenght so...sorry, not participating."
"We could use some sort of elixir to make her better in less time.", Connie hopefully suggested.
"Kid, you know we got places to go.", Sans reminded.
"And where you'll all go?", Pearl asked.
"Destroy Zalgo.", Yellow Diamond, shapeshifted along with her fellow diamonds to a more presentable size, said.
"Avenge the lives he corrupted.", Stanford Pines added out.
"Hey, that's technically our job.", Pearl said. "And also, we work as a team, and we're getting a little fragile."
"And this is our battle as well. Don't forget you have territory, but we also have vendetta.", Sonic came in.
"Besides...Wendy? Soos? Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford?", Mabel said; she didn't really feel like consulting the others, whom she was very less familiar with. "Do you know where he is?"
"No.", the four of them said, nodding their heads negatively.
"But we'll find who might know.", Blue Diamond gently promised.
"No need too.", Frisk said, getting right behind her monster friends. They all were so happy seeing their ambassador again after so many years; Toriel, Papyrus and Asgore hugged her, Alphys shook hands and Sans and Undyne patted her back playfully. "I can tell you where Zalgo is."
"Go for it.", Undyne encouraged.
"Okay...Zalgo, for a long time, kept control of my mind.", Frisk said, the smile popping into a frown. "And while he worked, he talked about his plan of mass revenge. And my controlled self wanted to please him. She'd ask, "Where we will go once you fulfill your goal?". And he always answered: the Zalgo Dimension."
"That's the narcissist.", Pacifica commented.
"And then, where is he?", Sonic asked.
"I think we know exactly the place she's describing.", Cornet said, showing a hologram of a "planet", all dark and red, like it was the home of incarnate evil. "And it's creepy."
"Ew!", Ami and Yumi said.
"It's like evil itself lives there! And-", Coraline was commenting with disgust, before noticing with a gasp a shockwave travelling in the planet's surface. "Oh my god..."
"That is Zalgo's lair.", Frisk stated, pointing a tall, visible structure in the surface of the hologram. A castle.
"He still has the stones.", Pearl realized.
"You know we don't have much to work with, right?", Star Butterfly tried to remind off.
"Y-yeah...", Alphys said, with her typical stuttering. "S-she has a point-"
"He still got the stones...", Mabel theorized, before gasping, her old, big joy coming back. "DIPPER! You know what this means?!"
"...Not really.", Dipper confessed.
"Is that we can get the stones back...", Asgore smirked.
"And bring our friends back!", Connie nearly jumped out of excited hope.
"Yeah...easily like that?", Pacifica kind of snarled of sarcasm, not putting enough faith on this plan.
"Easily like that.", Sonic said, sharing a knowing look with Steven Universe's best friend.
"Even if the chance is too...slim. We have to try, for the sake of everyone trapped in that castle unwillingly.", Pearl thoughtfully said.
"Guys, if we do this, how do we know this isn't just gonna be like another failure like last time?", Star Butterfly said, her back (and probably of Mewberty's along) chilling with the dark days that were the few previous weeks.
"Because, you didn't have us to fix your mistakes.", Yellow Diamond sternly replied, crossing her arms and making the whole room turn their eyes towards her.
"Hey, listen here, Diamond Lady or whatever your name is. I don't know who you think you are, but everyone has tried there best in what we can do as of now, so if you were so hell bent on backing us up, why didn't you guys just swoop in and handled it, huh?", Dipper asked.
"Because unlike you're little team of six, we managed to help out more multiverses than you can count, so unless you want our help, don't get smart with me.", Yellow Diamond replied, hesitating just a bit of agressiveness. Dipper, after recieving this reply, could just look at Sonic, who had a defeat look on his face.
Meta Knight and the Delta Warriors, who were respectively drinking coffe and eating sweeties while watching the discussion, stood up. In particular, Meta Knight looked the one most pissed off, his eyes glowing with red fury as he removed the dirty cloak he was using to cover himself. Him and Kris extended their hands upwards, summoning the Twin Overlords, that came to them and had a high chance of chopping off the more multiverse-wide saving team.
But out of all of them, only the Stan Brothers and Soos looked shocked; the monsters looked surprised at most, Connie and Wendy had gleeful looks and the Diamonds, the oldest of them all, didn't look phased in anyway. Yellow smiled toughly.
"This one is tolerable.", Meta Knight said, his eyes now glowing in a more happy blue, as he made the Diamond greeting with his hands. Sonic just looked up from the map with a serious, determined expression to his teammates.
"Let's give that demon some hell.", Sonic announced.
MULTIVERSE: FINAL LEVEL
"Ok, so who never travelled to space?", Cornet Espior asked as she, Coraline and Ami and Yumi sitted on their respective places on the Amazons of the Galaxy's ship. Only Sonic and the Pines and co., out of everyone that was brought for the trip (excluding NiGHTS and Steven), raised their hands; Stanford shruged, not fully settling if being trapped in another dimension could be considered going to space.
"Why?", Pacifica asked.
"Don't you dare puke here.", Coraline replied, recieving as a answer a eyeroll.
"Approaching jump in three...two...one!", Frisk announced, pressing a button.
The Amazons' ship jumped towards a wormhole, and Sonic held into his seat the most strongly he could. Finally, what looked like a eternity of wind ripping their skins off ended, with the ship slowing down until it reached a world. A strange, terrifying world, covered in black and red, and that nearly looked like it was in a perpetual night. And they were just some meters near a castle.
"We're gonna check out the area! Wait a bit!", Connie said, as she and her group climbed out of the ship to check around. The rest who remained inside prepared themselves for the unavoidable, incoming battle.
"This is going to work, Sonic.", Pearl said, trying to choke hope back into the situation.
"Yes. It will.", Sonic reluctantly agreed, as he gently closed a compass that had the picture of the aftermath of his first adventure, right after he learned about the multiverse. "Because if it doesn't, I don't know what we can do anymore except run away."
"There's nothing dangerous.", White Diamond announced.
"In fact...besides your taken allies, he's all on his own.", Toriel sympathetically said.
"That's more than enough.", Frisk replied.
…
Inside the castle, all the living forms of one half of the multiverse moved like droids through the halls, the rooms, doing varied things. But the throne was actually empty; Zalgo himself was sitting on a more modest chair. The Infinity Gauntlet was fixed on his hand, and his entire left side looked...melted. Like that part was shoved inside a stove and burnt nearly beyond recognition.
He looked calm, but sad...it was like he lost, just like the heroes. Which wasn't wrong.
Suddenly, the peace of Zalgo and his new slaves was interrupted when a double white beam nearly got at him. They came from White Diamond's eyes, who tried to hit him with her own mind control beams, but failed. While Wendy, Soos and the Stan Twins focused on trying to bring sense to the slaves without the gauntlet, a swarm of other heroes came for the culprit.
First, Blue and Yellow Diamond ganged upon him, each using a hand to grab a side of his chin. Star Butterfly jumped in, and held thighly on the arm containing the gauntlet. This gave the chance for Meta Knight to make a precise cut right on the spot, like butter agains't a hot knife. The War Trio came in, along with the remaining Amazons of the Galaxy, and all of them pointed their weapons at Zalgo.
Sonic, with the knuckles he wore during his adventure agains't the Winter Gem, walked in along with Pearl and the Delta Warriors; all five of them just glared bloody daggers at Zalgo's pitful state. Coraline, with a hopeful smile, picked up the gauntlet and looked at it's backhand, only for her to gasp, "Oh no..."
All of them realized...there wasn't even a single stone in the metal glove.
"Where are the stones?!", Sonic asked, nearly screamed.
"Answer us!", Stanford demanded, pointing his own magnetic gun to Zalgo.
"You monster!", Stanley added out, pointing brass knuckles fists to the demon.
"I already fulfilled my revenge over it.", Zalgo explained. "Keeping the stones wouldn't do nothing but tempt me for further things."
"You traumatized trillions!", Star Butterfly yelled.
"You should be happy you're okay."
"Tell us where the stones are!", Pearl demanded.
"Reduced to dust."
"T-that doesn't make sense!", Star Butterfly pointed out. "How did you use them two days ago, then?"
"I used them...to destroy them. As incredible as it sounds, I nearly died...but now, the work is done. And it will always be done. I am..inevitable.", Zalgo replied.
"N-nononono!", Dipper said, beginning to panic and stress out. "Guys, check anywhere you can! He's gotta be lying to us!"
"He is one of, the most vile things in the multiverse, if not the one.", Frisk sadly stated, with heavy sympathy. "But he has the honor to never lie."
"Ah...thank you, Frisk.", Zalgo sadly smiled. "Perhaps I treated you too harshly...and never properly brought you back to you true family."
In a second, Meta Knight and Kris were screaming in blind rage. In another, before anyone could stop them, they stabbed Zalgo's back together with the Twin Overlord's, right on the seventh mouth he had. It bleeded like a waterfall as Zalgo felt to the ground, along with the half of the multiverse's lives he controlled.
"What did you two do?!", Cornet whisper-screamed, as the two realized what exactly they've done.
"I-I wen't for...", Kris stuttered.
"We both...went for the seventh mouth...", Meta Knight realized, being the first one to walk out of the castle, without purpose.
Out of respect, Frisk closed Zalgo's eyes, who were wide open in the moment of his unexpected death. Defeat, for the heroes, tasted even bitter now.