Chapter 14: End of Worlds?
Marx then teleported away with the crystal. Everyone were standing amongst the ruins of the great building.
"My crystal! Our world! We need to do something!" Adeleus shouted.
"We get that" Nate said, "but where'd he go and how would we stop him?" "He cannot die after all." Melanie appears from wherever she went when the fighting started.
"It should be obvious where he went" Melanie said, "to the Plane of Non-Existence."
"Wait, if he supercharged that black hole by dropping in the crystal…" Adeleus began
"Then we all will be destroyed is that correct?" Tox asked.
"Yep" said Adeleus, "The Plane of Non-Existence is a little too close to our world, whoops." "Hindsight is 20/20 I guess heh, heh, who's idea was it to have that there again?"
"It was yours sir" Melanie said exasperatedly.
"Oh, whoops" said Adeleus. Rik then suddenly asked,
"Well, what then? We need a plan and now!"
"Hey, keep yer cool" said Adeleus, "I have a sword that can kill any immortal."
"Really?" asked Rik, "why didn't you use it?"
"Well, it's not here!" Adeleus said, "It's hidden in another world."
"Brilliant," said Nate, "would have been great to know before hand."
"We simply do not have enough time to go on another retrieval quest" Tox said. Conker then came back from Nate's world.
"Hey, sorry I took a bit" Conker said, "your sister wanted to play twenty question, well more like a hundred and two." "Oh! Looks like I missed the action."
"Yeah you did, now we need someone to get a sword to kill Marx" Nate said. "I think you will have to do it Conker."
"What?!" Adeleus shouted.
"Look you may not trust him but I do" Nate said. "And besides Rik and him are the only ones with gems now." "Me, Rik and Tox will distract Marx while Conker gets that sword."
"This is dumb" Adeleus said, "but we are in a pinch." "Conker, don't screw up, if you do you may as well…"
"Bend over and kiss my arse good-bye?" Conker interrupted, "yeah I know thanks."
"Why you little…" Adeleus began quite angrily but the quickly changed his mood, "I mean, yes, of course, the sword is here." Adeleus waves his hand over Conker's gem revealing the sword's location to him.
"Before you go Conker lend me some guns will ya?" Nate said.
"Alright" Conker said, "here's a couple pistols, a good AR and a couple of submachine guns"
"That'll do, some grenades would be nice too." Nate said. "Good luck Conker."
"See ya when I get back" Conker said and he left.
"A'ight, let's do this" Rik said, "you ready Tox?"
"As ready as I could ever be" Tox said.
"I'm good to go" Nate said.
"Good luck" said Adeleus, "I would go with you but I must stay and address my people."
"Next stop, our final battle" Rik said.
"I would hope so" Tox said.
"Man, after this I am going to party until I'm drunk" Nate said.
"Amen to that brother!" Arin said walking into the ruined building suddenly.
"Whoa, almost forgot about you" Rik said. "Wanna join us?"
"No. way. hose-ay." Arin said. "I am retired and would rather not possibly die, sorry, just wanted to see ya off that's all."
"And I thought I was the coward" Rik said rolling his eyes.
"Rik," Tox said, "don't be rude, you were like that too once."
"Hey sorry" Rik said, "I didn't mean it Arin."
"It's cool Rik, after last nite I say we are about even now."
"Yeah" Rik said, "never drinkin that stuff again."
"Times wasting Rik" Nate said.
"Oh, right" Rik said, "see everyone later.. hopefully." They all teleport in a ball of light to the Plane of Non-Existence. When they arrived Marx was nowhere to be seen, and the black hole was in sight.
"Good" said Nate, "we must have beat him here."
"So should we stick together or?" Rik asked.
"Tox, teleport around and scan the area" Nates said. "Let us know if he is near".
"As for you and me Rik, we are going to look around a bit."
"A'ight" Rik said. Tox teleported away and Nate and Rik walked around. Rik could see many different structures and pieces of world under the stunning colors of the auras clashing above. This place is one that never fails to strike awe even in the most dire of circumstances. They round the corner of some ruin and to their surprise find the Doom Slayer himself. He was sitting among some rubble toying with one of his guns clearly bored out of his mind.
"Hey Doomguy!" Nate said. The Doom Slayer got up and put his hand up pointing at it, Nate slaps his hand,
"Yeah, high-five!" Nate said.
"Great" Rik said, "now we have a real powerhouse on our side, we can't lose right?"
"I would hope Rik" Nate said. Tox then teleported back to them.
"He is several dozen yards away from the black hole" Tox said.
"What is he doing?" Nate said.
"He was hopping on one foot cursing" Tox said, "It appears he had dropped the crystal on his foot."
"Ha," laughed Nate, "okay we better try and meet him halfway." They walked across the ruins of the worlds clashing together. They walked past decrypt looking castles and ruined relics of machinery of some kind. Eventually they could spot Marx in the distance flying with the gem. Nate holds his arm in front of Doom Slayer,
"Do not do anything" Nate said, "I have a little plan." Nate then tells Tox what to do in a low whispery voice and Tox nods as Marx descends dropping the crystal to his side.
"Well, it looks like you three have arrived" Marx said. "And you brought that space suit guy too, not that he would do any better than the rest of you."
"I know you're an ugly demon now," Nate said, "but would it kill you to have an ounce of humanity?" "You are a pretty one note villain right now."
"Yeah?" said Marx, "well you're someone who is about to get their maw ripped out."
"Maw?" Nate asked, "oh yeah, I'm a fox"
"Yeah," Marx said, "you were supposed to become a dumb animal, not a wise guy one that walks like a man." "Enough though, you may begin your futile attempt to stop me now."
"After you" Nate said.
"Oh no" Marx said, "I don't think so, I would be at the disadvantage striking first." "You take the first shot."
"No way" Nate said, "I would be open for a counter attack."
"What if you counter-attacked my counter attack hmm?" Marx asked angrily.
"Still would be at risk" Nate said.
"No you- wait" Marx said. He notices that Tox is no longer there, he looks beside him and realizes that the crystal is gone. "Oh I see what you have done now, you think you are so clever don't you?"
"Well it worked didn't it?" Rik asked.
"Yeah" Nate said, "anyhow, about that first shot." Nate then takes the AR off his back and begins shooting at Marx.
"Ah! Hahaha, an assault rifle?" Marx asks, "please that feels like you are shooting peas." Then Doom Slayer took out a rocket launcher from where however, Rik could not tell. The Doom Slayer shot Marx with about 5 rockets but like last time Marx just reformed himself.
"Augh, I have had enough of you!" Marx shouted, he flew towards the Doom Slayer to pounce but Doom Slayer was ready for anything. He dodged to the side and as Marx flew by Doom Slayer grabbed his tail and swung him into ruins smacking him back and forth. Eventually Marx broke free from his grasp and flung him in the air and smacked him into a building causing the whole structure to collapse.
"Think he will be okay?" Rik asked.
"Maybe," Nate said. Then Marx flew away searching for the crystal,
"Where is it?!" Marx shouted. "You cannot hide it from me you damned lizard!" Nate then started shooting at Marx to possibly distract him.
"That's it!" Marx said, "go my minions! Possess the fallen and stifle them in their futile efforts!" Shadowy creatures then appeared and began making the dead arise, some were gladiators armed with swords and spears. Others were soldiers from wars of some kind with guns.
"Oh boy, more stuff to kill" Nate said.
"Oh boy? More like aw crap!" Rik said. The possessed soldiers began firing and Nate crouches in front of Rik with a shield protruding from his touch bracer.
"Okay Rik," Nate said, "I am out of power for this thing almost, on my go you duck and cover behind the rock over there." "I will handle the guys with guns, focus on the ones without guns okay?"
"Sounds good to me!" Rik said.
Then when the soldiers ceased fire for a moment Rik ducked and dodged behind a rock. Nate meanwhile brandishing a knife and a pistol jumped up on a possessed soldier and shot him in his head. He rolled and stabbed another one in the leg and shot another possessed soldier till he fell. Nate then rolled over the kneeling soldiers back that he stabbed previously and stabbed the back of his neck while narrowly dodging another about to shoot him. Nate stabs the soldier and shoots another behind him.
"Whoa" said Rik watching from behind the rock. Rik then saw some of the gladiatorial possessed approaching, Rik chucked knives and killed two of them. The one with the spear stabbed at Rik, Rik dodged and rolled behind him and slashed at his back. The possessed gladiator then retaliated slashing Rik on the shoulder, Rik then threw another knife ending the possessed gladiator.
"Good job Rik" Nate said, "oh look out!" Rik was about to be taken by surprised by another possessed gladiator with a sword. But Nate grabbed the possessed gladiator by the wrist and punched the underside of the arm in a way that made it bent. Nate then lined his arm length with the possessed gladiator and used his other arm to send an elbow into the base of the possessed gladiator's arm. This knocked the gladiator back and allowed Nate to take his sword and slash him with it.
"And that is how you disarm an opponent" Nate said, "any questions?
"Now you're just showing off" Rik said. "Come on we need to find Tox and see if the Doomguy is alright."
"Yeah but you were hit" Nate said, "you should take care of that."
"Yeah I know, I'm good enough with this healing magic to take care of this." Rik uses his restoration magic to heal the cut.
"What about your head?" Nate asks.
"I'm not good enough to completely heal that" Rik said.
"Well seeing how you have made it this far you're not bleedin anymore" Nate said. "But there is still a chance that there is some trauma, you should be takin it easy."
"I'm fine though" Rik said, "I think my healing magic stopped any of that tramwhatever."
"If you say so" Nate said, "come on let's go." They go to the ruins of the building and check to see if the Doom Slayer was okay. Of course it hardly even scratched him, he just got up and brushed rubble off himself and gave a thumbs up.
"Okay" Nate said, "he's okay, now to find where Tox went".
"I hope we get to him before Marx do" Rik says.
"Yeah I hope so too" Nate said, "Conker better hurry up and get that sword already." Rik, Nate and The Doom Slayer transversed the uneven and broken floating pieces of land.
"How far did Tox go?" Rik asked. "That crystal is big enough so he can't be too far off."
"I don't know" Nate said, "perhaps he is on one of the small floating chunks of land floating around here." "I will use my grapple hook and look around, don't wander too far you two." The Doom Slayer jumped down some kind of hole possibly thinking Tox went under the ground leaving Rik on his own. Rik walks over to some collapsed rubbles and sits down.
"May as well just rest for a bit" Rik says to himself. He looks up at the distant galaxies and the clashing of the colorful auras. Rik looks into his gem and pulls out a strange looking box with a lense. Rik pressed the button and there was a snap sound. And then a blank paper popped out of the slot.
"Okay?" Rik asked to himself, after a moment an image began to appear on the paper. Rik shakes it and then the image is fully revealed.
"Whoa, that's cool" Rik said, "and I though paintings looked realistic enough". He snaps a few more pictures and then puts it away. Suddenly Rik felt as if there was something behind him.
"I'm gonna look around and find Marx is behind me aren't I?" Rik asked.
"Yep" Marx said, "so you enjoying the sight seeing?" "Take it all in because it will be the last thing you see."
"My hairy-" Rik began to shout before Marx took a swipe. Rik dodged backwards and Marx lept forward to swipe at him again but Rik hit the ground and rolled.
"You are quick but you cannot dodge forever!" Marx said. Marx then fires some kind of fire energy out of his hands, Rik ran and took cover behind a rock. Rik takes out some knives and began to chuck electrified knives at Marx. They hit but it does not seem to do much seeing how he just laughs like a maniac. Rik pats his sides and realzies to his horror that he is finally out of knives.
"Okay, today can officially bite it" Rik says to himself. Rik only had his two daggers now for stabbing, he knew he could not take Marx head on so he just stayed behind the rock. Eventually Marx came over to the rock and began to gloat,
"What's wrong little doggy? All out of bite?" Marx raises a claw and tries to strike Rik but Rik dodges and slashes Marx on the side.
"Oh, please keep up the struggle, this has been oh so entertaining."
"Why are you even fighting me?" Rik said. "I thought you wanted the crystal back!"
"I do" Marx said, "but I thought why not eliminate the weakest one first?" "You."
"Hey! I'm not weak!" Rik said, "you are just takin me for granted."
"Oh, is that so? Marx said. Rik then reaches into his gem and grabbed something dangerous looking. It was some kind of catapult launching device and it was heavy, Rik could barely lift it, he was not sure what this thing would be launching but he fired. What happened next left Rik's ears rigging and himself feeling almost blind, he was close enough to be singed quite a bit from the explosive flame.
"(Cough) (Cough) Wow I didn't think it would be something like that." Rik stands up and brushes himself off and tried to walk away but a shooting pain in his leg stopped him.
"Ow!" Rik said, he kept walking with a limp but he just couldn't keep going. Looking down Rik could see some bits of rubble lodged in his leg, he tried his best to pull out the rubble and heal the wound with some restoration magic. After a moment Rik was able to improve his condition but it still hurt.
"Gah, where is everyone? Didn't they hear the explosion?" Rik wondered. Rik looks back at the fiery remains and sees Marx slowly walking unscathed.
"Not good!" Rik shouted as he tried to hobble away as fast as he could. It was no use because Marx flew at Rik and grabbed him by the throat.
"I told you," Marx said, "you are indeed the weakest, say goodbye you mutt!"
"No!" Nate then shouted running up behind Marx. Nate unloaded several bullets from his machine guns into Marx's back. When that failed Nate grabbed his sword and cut off Marx's arm, unfortunately Rik fell on the edge of the broken piece of world and fell off the side.
"Oh no!" Rik shouted, "no,no,no!"
"Riiiik!" Nate shouted as rik fell for seemingly hours, everything then went black as Rik heard a cracking sound. He was not sure if that was him that made the sound or a branch because when he opened his eyes again he was in a snow covered forest…
End of chapter 14
Chapter 15: The Power Within
Writing now! Stick around after this chapter coming up for the Epilogue!