The Unrelenting Undead:
Daisy stared at Necropaladin, grim and surly in her eyes. She had just seen the fiend warrior practically get dismantled and then put back together in a matter of moments, but what really concerned her was the lack of blood loss and the lack of even any sign of pain. The incredulity in her face would've been enough to convince anyone who had just walked in on the scene that the situation had become gravely serious.
He's standing as if nothing happened, she thought. But what was wrong with his blood? It was solidified! Does that mean there's no pulse? What are we dealing with here? She clenched her teeth and fists. Damn it Elkon, you insane psychopath...
"I've never seen anything like this before," Bowser said, foreboding in tone. "Are these beings even alive?"
"They can't be – they don't have any cardiovascular flow," Daisy reasoned. "Quite frankly they shouldn't even have a heart – or any organs for that matter – if their bodies are that decayed. The fact that they have blood is nonsensical enough-"
"But for it to be solidified in a way to make it seem like it was never meant to move in the first place is just plain absurd!" Bowser finished.
"Precisely," said Daisy. "But dead or alive, Athelstan and Warra gotta take them down so we can get to the Stone Gemstone."
Necromancer stood tall, saying to the four elemental wielders, "Now do you realize the mercy that you will plead for at the hands of us is something you should not be so willing to throw away? You mortals should be glad you're still breathing, but no longer!"
The Necropaladin corpse launched himself at Athelstan with his scimitar in hand and initiated what seemed to be an endless series of sword swipes. Athelstan was able to counter by blocking with his halberd. He could not evade, for every swipe the Necropaladin made was diagonal. The fiend warrior's swings transmitted shear and compression forces into Athelstan's body with each hit the stone wielder blocked. Athelstan made sure he got his halberd up to defend against each swing and prevent from getting hit, though Necropaladin seemed content with just beating down on the stone wielder's blocks. None of the four elemental wielders seemed to be aware yet of what Necropaladin was trying to accomplish.
"See?" Necromancer called out. "Your brown friend is slowly meeting his death, and soon each of you will follow in succession."
"What are you saying?" Daisy shouted. "It's even! Athelstan's just fine! You're the one whose arm can get blown off by sneezing!" She looked on with confidence as Athelstan continued to block the incoming attacks.
No, Bowser thought. Athelstan is going to be cut down if he can't escape those strings of attacks.
Necropaladin continued the unrelenting assault, repeatedly making blade clash with blade. The fiend warrior did not seem to be slowing down or tiring at all, but Athelstan kept blocking each swing. The exchange went on for several more moments, Athelstan unable to create any distance from his opponent.
"Keep up the effort!" Warra urged.
"Now watch as your mortal bodies show who is really lacking durability," Necromancer declared.
Daisy's eyes perked up as she realized what Bowser had already figured out. Athelstan was getting tired quick – very quick. For as mighty as the stone wielder was, Necropaladin had been beating him down. The fiend warrior was not showing any signs of fatigue, and it was taking everything Athelstan had to keep up the blocking. Unfortunately, there was a second attribute to the situation.
"All the shock from the clashing blades is bypassing the Necropaladin and being transmitted directly into Athelstan's body," Bowser said in observation. "Necropaladin's dead body is mimicking a lifeless object in that any and all force caused by the conflicting weapons is being channeled through Athelstan's body, even though Necropaladin is the one on the offense! Athelstan has felt every hit that Necropaladin has thrown without taking direct contact from the Necropaladin's blade!"
"What?! Daisy asked in disbelief. At first, she couldn't comprehend what exactly the Koopa King was trying to get at. She then thought back to an evening when she was chopping tree trunks with a dull ax. Daisy had more than enough strength to make the ax cut through the trunks as if the ax was sharp. Frequently though, the blade would only chip into the tree trunk without going through, causing a massive rebound of the force of Daisy's swing to get sent right back into her body. The force from each of those failed strikes caused sharp and persistently dull aches and pains in her arms from her fingers all the way up to her clavicles. She then realized the same thing was happening to Athelstan, only much worse. "Oh, now I get it," she murmured.
After a couple more swings, Necropaladin finally stopped the onslaught and put away his scimitar. Athelstan, trying to handle the jarring dull pain that was coursing through his entire body, was unable to move. It didn't take long though for the pain to overwhelm him, and the semi-conscious stone wielder collapsed onto the ground. Necropaladin had beaten Athelstan without landing a hit on him.
"Hang on, Athelstan!" Warra yelled as he rushed towards Necropaladin.
Necromancer quickly flew forward in front of Warra, declaring to the water wielder, "No, you're dealing with me." The fiend mage jammed his staff into Warra's midsection and swung it around to pin Warra into the ground. "Now just stay here and view your teammate's extermination," Necromancer finished.
Athelstan was barely moving when Necropaladin shifted to stand over him. The fiend warrior then grabbed the stone wielder by the throat, picked him up, and placed a hand on his elbow, looking ready to snap his arm, if not rip it off entirely.
"That's it! I'm coming in!" Daisy yelled, preparing to dash forward and attempt a save.
Just then, a spinning ninjato came through the air and struck the Necropaladin in the arm, loosening his grip on Athelstan and causing him to drop the brown-clothed fighter onto the ground a few yards away.
"Impressive, Daisy," Bowser said in praise. "I didn't even remember you bringing any weapon or tool."
"No, that wasn't me!" Daisy exclaimed.
"What?!" Bowser asked.
A broad-shouldered but wiry and svelte man made a landing in front of Athelstan. The newcomer wore a black double tassel hat with dark green ends and trim over his black hair, his body clad in a dark green tunic and matching gloves, black pants, and boots, a belt, undershirt, and hip sheath all in silver. His brown eyes flashed as he summoned a gust of air to blow the Necropaladin away and off his feet. He then turned towards the Necromancer and did the same, but Necromancer quickly caught himself the moment he was sent hurtling through the air. The green-clothed man with the air symbol displayed on the sides of both sleeves of his tunic went to pick up and sheath his ninjato.
"How did you get up here without stone?" Bowser demanded to know from the new fighter. "And who are you?!"
"Wall jumping!" the green-clothed warrior cheerfully replied. "That steep wall to the gate was three-sided you know! As for who I am; I am Marut!" He turned to Athelstan. "You rest now, dude! We need you conscious to cleanse the stone element once we've beaten these two!"
Marut made a giant leap forward to land right in front of Necropaladin. The fiend warrior immediately responded with a kick, only for Marut to catch the flying foot with his hands. The air wielder then ducked underneath while still holding onto Necropaladin's foot and made a leg sweeping kick to the fiend's other foot to knock him to the ground and flat on his back. Marut then jumped and made a downward roundhouse kick aimed at the fiend's neck. Due to the decayed connective tissue of the undead Necropaladin, the attack resulted in the fiend's head getting knocked twenty yards away from his body.
"That was fast!" Daisy exclaimed. "He's as fast as I am – quite possibly more! It was like a green and silver blur!"
"I can also do this!" said Marut. Creating three tornadoes the size of his hands, he began juggling them by taking advantage of their rotational forces. "Pretty rad, huh? Watch this!" He dispelled two of the tornadoes can caught the remaining one on his outstretched tongue.
"He's acting like that in a fight like this?" Bowser asked in disbelief. "He can't be older than fourteen, he just can't be."
"I'm actually eighteen," Marut said with an obviously obstructed voice.
"Don't tell me," said Bowser. "Are you the air wielder who's supposed to help us with these shrines?"
Marut swallowed the mini tornado. "Yes!" he answered before the tornado he swallowed made him spin around in place. Once he stopped spinning, he stood there laughing at himself.
"Dear lord, preserve us all," the Koopa King said with a facepalm.
"You mean like strawberry preserves?" Marut asked with big eyes.
"WHAT?!" Bowser yelled. "ROSALINA!"
"I like preserves," said the green-clothed warrior. "Peanut butter and preserves sandwich."
"There'll be plenty of the 'strawberry preserves' for you in the afterlife," Necromancer said. The fiend mage struck his staff into the ground, creating a long crack that extended from the staff to just underneath where Marut was. Sensing something strange about his opponent's move, the air wielder stepped to the side just as a wall of piercing light energy shot out through the crack. The light radiated a half mile into the sky for several seconds before fading out. The crack in the ground closed back up as Necromancer pulled out his staff.
Marut jumped into the air and came down fast, aiming to slam his foot down on the Necromancer, but Necromancer countered by thrusting his staff into Marut's torso and forcing the air wielder down into the ground. At that moment, Warra came charging in and attacked with a spin kick that knocked back the fiend mage and prevented any follow-up strike on Marut.
Warra helped Marut to his feet, and Daisy went to pull back the still semi-conscious Athelstan. Necromancer had stumbled backwards a good ten feet when he got double-teamed by the fighters of air and water. Warra jammed his foot right into the left side of the fiend, then Marut gave Necromancer a combo that began with a sharp spinning uppercut followed by a back kick and finished with a two-handed palm strike right into the fiend's chest. Necromancer got sent skidding along the ground and almost came close to sliding off the plateau top into a several hundred foot drop. Not surprisingly, the Necromancer got up and showed no signs of pain.
"It's just as I thought," said Warra. "These undead beings can't sense pain. They're just going to keep getting back up and attempt to wear us down."
"Well, not the warrior guy," Marut corrected. "I knocked his head off!"
"Marut!" Daisy called out.
Marut turned to see Daisy pointing at a headless Necropaladin standing on his feet and holding his decapitated head in his hands.
"Okay, I guess you have a point," Marut said to Warra with worry.
Necromancer lifted his staff and pointed it at the headless fiend. The staff head gave off a faint pink and yellow glow and lifted the fiend warrior's head out of his hand. The head of the Necropaladin was raised onto Necropaladin's neck and sealed back on, briefly emitting a circular beam of pink light around where his head had originally snapped off. Once again, the two undead fiends stood ready to fight.
"Did you see that?" asked Marut. "The Necromancer flashed his staff and the Necropaladin's head was returned to his body!"
"It appears that Necropaladin is actually under the influence of Necromancer," Bowser said. "In fact, Necromancer may have full control over Necropaladin. To whatever degree it may be, there's some sort of link between the two."
Warra nodded. "That Necromancer also seems capable of performing some sort of healing spell that he keeps using on the Necropaladin. However, he doesn't seem to be able to heal himself."
"Doesn't matter if he can heal himself or not," said Daisy. "He still seems to have the same sort of immunity to bodily harm that the Necropaladin has."
"Not only that, but these guys are not limited at all by physical energy," Bowser added. "It's like they have absolutely nothing to run on, yet they're still moving around regardless."
"We have to beat these guys to a pulp," Daisy concluded. "Literally. Neither seem to be slowed down at all by any sort of damage or injury, even when dealt the most severe forms of mutilation. So we just have to destroy their bodies entirely so that they literally can't do anything. Otherwise, they'll still be conscious; and given what they've shown us so far, they'll still be ready to fight whether or not they're missing limbs."
"Really? Is that what this is coming down to now?" Bowser muttered in question. "What a crude way to win."
"Hey, we have a mission to do and that means we need to win battles like these, no matter how gritty and imperfect they may be!" Daisy asserted. "Besides, these hard fought victories are the best kinds of victories to have!"
Necromancer and Necropaladin both closed the distance between them and the wielders of air and water, and just as they always have, they stood like they had not even so much as lifted a finger. Warra and Marut hunched over and got themselves ready for more action.
"I have an idea," Warra said to Marut. "This shouldn't be too difficult to do because their bodies are fragile enough for it to work. But you need to distract them. Both of them."
"Aye aye, cap'n!" Marut exclaimed. He proceeded to gather a large mass of air around the plateau, throwing off the pressure gradients and causing the wind to pickup and gust like crazy in random directions. He kept pulling in air and releasing it in a cycle that made the air around them act possessed. The broken pieces of rock and boulder from earlier rolled around like bowling balls. All the while, Warra kept his eyes closed in focus. Then without notice, the wind shifted into two updrafts aimed at both Necromancer and Necropaladin. The gusts of wind lifted the fiends up off the ground and sent them high into the air. Then Marut resumed the chaotic winds to juggle them while they were airborne. The two fiends tumbled through the air without any control of themselves. By sheer coincidence, a massive chunk of the landscape that was zipping through the air of the broken land came into view and struck both the fiends in midair.
"Well, that was pretty convenient!" said Marut. "Thanks, corrupted desert!"
A well-timed swipe by Necromancer of his staff sent a wave of light energy aimed at Marut and Warra. Marut had to cancel his gust juggling to counter the incoming light wave with an air sphere. Necromancer and Necropaladin both came sinking out of the sky and back onto the plateau, maneuvering themselves so that they could land on their feet. Not a half second after they landed, Marut was already on top of them, ninjato in hand. With formidable speed, Marut began his chain of attacks. The first downard ninjato swipe got blocked by Necromancer's staff, the second swipe caught Necropaladin's scimitar, the third and fourth were aimed at the dirt to kick up dust and debris, and the fifth knocked the staff out of Necromancer's hands. Necropaladin took a horizontal swipe but could not make the move in time to catch Marut before he leapt into the air and made a series of somersaults to turn into what was basically a revolving blade. He struck Necropaladin on his chest and landed in front of him to attempt a follow up attack, stopping and jumping backwards instead when he saw that the fiend warrior attempted to impale him with his scimitar.
Marut's feet skidded across the ground from the evasion before stopping his momentum, but before he could blink, Necropaladin got in his face and slammed his elbow into Marut's sternum. The painful hit dropped the air wielder to his knees, at which point the follow-up downward punch made contact on the back of his head. With Marut face down on the ground, Necropaladin got ready to thrust his scimitar into the green-clothed fighter's body. The scimitar struck the ground, the stab too slow to catch Marut, who managed to roll along the ground and out of the way just before the blade could make contact with him. His roll transitioned into a series of acrobatic somersaults and flips that put him a good ways away from the fiend warrior.
"You can dodge all you want, but you will soon be the victim of fatigue and submit both this battle and your life," Necromancer echoed.
"This battle will be over long before that happens!" Marut responded. With his ninjato, he made a slashing motion that produced a slicing wave of air aimed at Necromancer. Necropaladin jumped in the front of the swipe and batted it down into the ground with his blade. Necromancer stepped out of the shadow of Necropaladin and aimed his staff at Marut. The staff head crackled with energy, but before any further reaction could be made by anyone, a massive, continuous blast of water six feet in diameter struck Necropaladin head on and completely overran the fiend warrior. Necromancer had dodged the blast in time, realizing that he had just fallen prey to a ploy.
"You were using diversion tactics?!" Necromancer yelled at Marut.
"Guilty as charged," said Marut.
After a few moments had passed, the column of water stopped flowing, and the origin of the attack was in clear sight. It was a very tired and very short of breath Warra. Necromancer stared down the water wielder and took notice of the extreme fatigue Warra displayed.
"It appears that last blast drained you of a great deal of energy," said Necromancer. "You may want to be a bit more conservative with your water in this dry environment."
"It did; I'm completely spent," Warra confirmed. "But your partner there looks like he's in far worse shape; that is, he would look like it if you could find him."
"What?" Necromancer asked as he turned his head. He Necropaladin reduced to a wet pile of fleshy soup where the fiend warrior formerly stood. "What did you do..."
Warra smiled, short of breath. "I used my most powerful attack – the Aquavado, a hydrocannon – to pulverize that fiend into oblivion. His fragile, undead body could not withstand the unforgiving pressure of the water, so that is what remains of him; or rather, what doesn't remain of him. You can't reanimate or repair him now that he has no body."
"You..." Necromancer grumbled. Scorn and anger filled his voice, the first actual showing of emotion from the fiend mage. Warra laughed softly and took a few more breaths before he fell over and passed out.
"Warra! Get up!" Daisy shouted, running over to the fallen water wielder.
"He'll be fine," said Bowser. "It's Marut we need to worry about; he still has to deal with Necromancer."
"Brace yourself," said Necromancer. "This is the last round, because I intend to finish this now and eradicate you all."
"Not a chance!" Marut firmly declared.
"Observe," said the fiend mage. He began spinning his staff in place as the staff head and bottom end lit up. Necromancer then threw the staff directly at the anticipating Marut. The staff sliced through the air with furious rotation, creating the sound of a saw blade and emitting "swords" of light four feet long from both ends. Marut leapt high up into the air to avoid the rapidly spinning weapon and used his air abilities to slow his descent to a float once he reached his apex. Unfortunately, he looked down to see the spinning staff had followed him up. Quick thinking and reflexes allowed him to move just out of the way of the incoming staff, but once the staff missed again, it stopped in its trajectory and headed right for Marut for a third time. Again, Marut moved out of the way, and again, the staff made a sharp cut through the air. The staff kept coming for the air wielder, forcing him into various aerial maneuvers to dodge as he heard the buzzing sound of the light blades with each passing. Marut whipped his body into a handful of rotations to create an instant deflective twister around him to bat away the staff. That almost sent the staff crashing into the ground, but it was able to rebound before it hit the surface and shot back up into the air. The light blades on each end had made clean slices into the plateau on its go around.
The still descending green-clothed fighter caught a glimpse of Necromancer, who had been manipulating the staff through arm movements. As the staff made its way towards Marut again, he made an aerial backflip to evade once more and in exchange sent a massive swath of wind from his ninjato straight at the fiend mage to knock him off of his feet. Almost instantly, the staff's light blades dimmed out and the weapon began to lose its spin. Marut caught the staff and used the air to switch the speed of his descent from slow to very quick. He did not land on the ground, but rather touched down on one foot with staff and ninjato in hand and used that foot to propel himself with blinding speed towards the recovering Necromancer. Marut was up on Necromancer in a second and delivered a high velocity bicycle kick, only for Necromancer to catch the incoming foot. He took the momentum and used it to spin Marut around with the intention of slamming him into the ground and likely crippling his opponent through the combined forces, but once again Marut was able to counter. The air wielder jammed the staff and his ninjato into the ground to stabilize himself so that he could yet again transfer all the momentum back into the leg of the foot that Necromancer had a hold of and whip his leg to send the fiend flying across the plateau. The accumulated momentum combined with the extra speed and the torque absorbed from the lever action was way too much for the decayed corpse to handle, causing his body to rip from his arms and go flying through the air with blistering speed. Necromancer attempted to catch himself in the air before he was sent hurtling off the plateau, but his fragile body could not handle trying to go from over two hundred miles per hour to zero in a quarter of a second. Necromancer instead ended up ripping his own body to shreds, bringing about his own demise.
"Whoa, did Necromancer seriously just do that?" Daisy asked, trying to grasp what just happened.
"He didn't have much of a choice," said Bowser, a few beads of sweat on his head. "At the speed he was going, he would've been traveling almost parallel to the ground and without a doubt would've been sent crashing into one of the mountains. There was no chance at all he would've slowed down before then. He would've been pulverized from the impact. These fiends were powerful, but their frail bodies were a crucial flaw. I reiterate everything I said earlier; what a way to win..."
"Wow, what a battle!" exclaimed Marut. "All those high speed moves have strained my joints a bit." He chucked the staff off the plateau and pried off the bodyless arms from his leg with his ninjato.
"Not bad at all, Marut," said Bowser. "You were pretty good."
Marut trotted up to the downed stone wielder. "Are you alright, bro?" he asked.
"I'm alright," Athelstan grunted, smiling as he slowly got to his feet. "My whole body's ringing...but I'm alive, and I can move. That's all that matters."
"Lookout!" Daisy shouted at Marut. The earth wielder dashed towards the hostile and still moving undead arms Marut had pulled off and landed heavy punches on both of them, flattening the limbs. She then jumped out of the way for Bowser to throw two highly heated fire balls to incinerate the arms.
"They have no quit in them at all!" Bowser exclaimed.
"Talk about your restless spirits," said Marut as Daisy went to grab and toss Warra up on her shoulder. "I was definally not expecting that!"
"Uh, definitely?!" Bowser said.
"Yes!" Marut replied, oblivious to the correction.
"They were simply spirits that had somehow regained control of their aged and decrepit corpses," said Athelstan. "But their abilities must've been morphed and enhanced somehow through their time in this dimension, as if they were slowly taking in the atmosphere of this realm as part of their being. Most of their power and energy attacks were light-based, so they must have possessed some control over light from when they were alive and retained it through death."
"Strange move to put light wielding fighters in the Stone Shine," said Bowser. "But I suppose this was the only place where he could've gotten away with doing so considering the fact that they were undead – whatever that even means."
"Goodbye..." Daisy said to the sky as if she was talking to Necromancer and Necropaladin. "I hope you find solace in your rest. You two must've been a part of this dimension like the rest of those wandering souls were. I sympathize with your struggles, whatever they may have been."
"What are you doing trying to justify them?!" asked Bowser. "We were 'mortal scum' they were just trying to kill moments ago! Seconds ago if you count those arms!"
"They must've had reason!" Daisy shot back. "Something serious must've happened to them to warrant fighting for Elkon."
"I suppose next you're going to try and justify what Elkon's doing?" Bowser asked with a reddened face. He pulled the Dimensional Mirror out from his shoulder pocket. "Athelstan! C'mon and let's take care of this Stone Gemstone."
"Heh, Stone Gemstone," Marut pointed out with a laugh.
Bowser and Athelstan walked up to the pedestal on the backside of the plateau and stopped a good ten feet away from it. The Koopa King held up the mirror, making sure the lens was in line with the gemstone.
"Just aim your elemental energy through the lens," Bowser explained. "But not your actual element; just your elemental energy. I don't want the world to succumb to destruction because we tried forcing rocks through glass."
"Alright," Athelstan replied. He put a hand up and let the remaining portion of his stone energy flow through his palm and into the lens. The lens magnified and charged the energy as it flowed through and onto the gemstone. An astral clone of Rosalina appeared before them and watched the purification of the stone element. Within a handful of moments, the corruption of stone was reversed and the Stone Gemstone gave off a reassuring sign. However, the landscape had not reverted back to its original form like it was supposed to.
"Very well done, all of you," said Rosalina. "Unfortunately, even though this shrine is purified, it hasn't done anything to undo the damage here or the dimensional rift."
"So this place is going to remain like this forever?" Daisy asked.
"It appears so," Rosalina replied. "The fusion of this area with the Dimension of the Lost seems to have placed this region in a space independent of the world around it. We should leave here as soon as possible, while we still can. There's no telling what kinds of other special properties this place will develop as a result of what has happened here."
"Well, this place is really not a great vacation spot now!" Marut said with his arms behind his head.
"This is forbidden territory from now on," said Bowser. "When our mission is done, we'll have to inform the public that they should avoid this area."
"It is likely that eventually, this realm will break off from our reality and expand into a new dimension altogether," said Rosalina. "If that happens, the Stone Shrine will follow as well, meaning that anyone who wants to come to the shrine for whatever reason will have to travel between dimensions. But we cannot be concerned with the state of this region; you must continue with your quest."
"Should we be concerned about the souls that exited through the portal earlier?" asked Athelstan.
"No; they have not been spotted around the world anywhere," Rosalina replied. "We cannot conclude where those spirits have gone or why they were transported."
"Elkon must've gathered them somewhere to do something," said Bowser.
"Whatever the case may be, you all must head to the Earth Shrine next," said the Elder of the Cosmos. "I've sensed that the dark figure now known as Elkon is heading in that direction, and it is also the nearest shrine from here. Head east from this point to the town surrounded by evergreen marshes. The shrine will be in the outskirts just to the north of the town of Maralah. It will take about five hours to get there. And do watch for any signs of the corruption of the earth element."
