Author's Notes: I know people are probably busy celebrating New Year's in company, but since I have none of the usual kind, I'm spending it with those in my head, hehe XD. This is the penultimate chapter, I'll try and do the epilogue as quickly as I can.
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Things had reached the point where one would usually say, all Hell has broken loose. In this case though, what was breaking loose was actually the thing preventing literally all Hell breaking loose. Suffice to say, things looked bad. The mysterious the creature was still emerging from the newly formed blood red portal.

"Tedious loading sequence" Arson remarked, who for all the severity of the situation was bored of waiting.

"Unloading sequence would be more accurate, I reckon" Reiko corrected habitually, not thinking about it.

Zone was about to chip in when the beast finally broke through, crossing the threshold between dimensions in a spray of dark red liquid as it ruptured the barrier. A massive claw crashed onto the stone floor, another just like it following behind. Dragging itself out of the arcane gateway, a gargantuan beast came through.

Looking part demonic, and part insectoid, its shape resembled a cross between a wolf and a scorpion. Four-legged but heavy and lumbering, its black carapace was segmented over the back and highlighted blood red in places, such as the tips of the down-turned, bull-like horns on its head, framing its three red slit-like eyes.

"Those eyes… She must be related to Sparda" Reiko deduced, as the creature turned round to glare at them.

"She would be, she's Mary Sue" Zone replied with astute derision.

"So, guys… How do we fight this thing?" asked Arson, showing a mix of seriousness and concern now the waiting was over, as Mary Sparda, who was roughly the size of a small school bus, lumbered towards them.

As the monstrous beast barrelled at them roaring Reiko hurriedly scanned his mind for a response, but they knew nothing of their opponent. As it closed in he shouted "It's probably strong but seems slow, be careful and try to find a weak point!". The three of them evaded different ways as it crashed through their position.

Lurching to the left, it went after Arson, the hybrid sprinting to the edge of the elevated middle of the room before turning and raising his swords. Mary Sparda charged towards him and brought one giant claw round to smash him from his feet. Arson ducked aside of the heavy swing, and as the limb passed him he cried out with determination and slashed Dragon into its tough surface.

The flaming blade bit into the solid carapace armour, but barely did any damage, and Mary Sparda didn't even flinch as it swung its other arm around at him. Arson braced himself, but all his strength only served to marginally dampen the blow as he was hurled back to crash against the wall, cracking it. "She's, really tough now" he coughed as he dropped to the floor.

Reiko and Zone meanwhile had circled round, and just as the monster smacked Arson away, Reiko jumped onto its back. Bringing his staff down with all the inertia he had, he hammered against the hard shell, but he barely tarnished it, let alone caused meaningful harm.

Growling in aggravation, Mary Sparda bucked and threw the vampire off to the side. He landed with a roll as it turned to face him, narrowly stepping back out of reach of a claw swipe. Zone meanwhile was still on its back, having mounted just after Reiko with a laser boost, hanging onto the ridged carapace. Figuring his lightsabre had the most cutting power he stabbed down at the solid armour.

The energy blade met resistance, but succeeded in piercing the shell, distracting the monster long enough for Reiko to smack it in the side of the face with his staff, hoping it might be less armoured. However he only succeeded in forcing its head to the side a little, and pissing it off, as it retaliated by head butting the jumping vampire out of the air.

Meanwhile, Zone was slashing up its back, able to penetrate its tough hide, but doing damage on such a tiny scale that he wasn't causing any actual harm. It was like trying to cause mass-deforestation with one axe. Mary Sparda bucked and kicked to try and throw him off, but the nimble hamster had too solid of a hold and too little weight to be dismounted. After several moments the demon resorted to leaping up and smashing its back into the ceiling. Zone felt it lurch upwards and was able to blast himself off just in time.

As he sailed back the hamster fired a second blast into its exposed underside, which was usually not as well protected as the rest of a monster. The beam struck the belly of the beast, and scorched a visible mark, but nothing else, having all the effect of a cigarette burn.

"We're running out of spots to try" he said to Reiko as he landed, the vampire running past him to the fray.

"She can't be invincible" Reiko answered without breaking stride. Then remembering who he was talking about, he realised she actually might, but dropped that train of thought as his head hurt from the encounter of the bone-jarring kind it'd had with that monster's.

Meanwhile Arson was trying a different approach. Charging his power into Phoenix, he drew back his arm and threw an intense wave of fire at the demon's side. The attack impacted with a minor explosion, and left the creature's armour blackened, but failed to draw blood. "Nothing works!" he cried out in frustration, but it didn't last long as the monster turned to him and roared, black shadows swirling in its huge, gaping maw.

"Oh shoot" Arson muttered, barely having time to see the irony in his choice of words as Mary Sparda fired a giant sphere of darkness at him. Throwing himself at the floor, the blast of shadowy energy flew over his head so close that it tore through the back of his coat, ripping it into two before exploding against the wall.

Scrambling to his feet, Arson stared in mixed relief and disbelief as the two halves of his coat slipped down his arms. "How comes the heroes have such severe wardrobe malfunctions?" he lamented his favourite coat as he shrugged off the ruined pieces, incidentally showing off his athletic young body. During this time the beast had turned on the others, narrowly failing to crush Zone as he darted out from under the massive limb.

Reiko thrust his staff up into its throat while it was preoccupied, but even that seemed to be fully-armoured. As it tried to grab the vampire, Zone took careful aim and fired a powerful shot right into its forehead, but although it stunned it for a moment, in the end it did little but infuriate the monster. Sweeping its heavy arm at them in rage, it swatted Reiko back, his ribs creaking under the blow, and although it went over Zone's, the sheer wind force blew him back too.

The vampire hit the ground and rolled for a bit, Zone flying right into his side with a grunt on the hamster's part, too dizzy to even tell which way was up. Reiko tried to rise, but that last hit had really winded him, his ribcage on fire. Intending to finish them off, Mary Sparda opened her mouth, but as she fired Arson crashed into the side of her head, hacking at her frenziedly in midair. He managed to divert the blast to one side, but in return was snatched from the air by a lunging claw. Instantly feeling a crushing sensation, he tried to pry it off him, but the demon was far stronger than him, and hacking at its hand failed to make it let him go too.

Squeezing viciously, Mary Sparda attempted to crush the teenager in its grip, feeling his body slowly give way under the immense pressure. However it didn't want to give the others the chance to save him, already sick of them surviving, and opening its mouth, it raised him to bite him in half. Squirming and gasping for air, which was being squeezed from his lungs, Arson looked into the creature's maw, but it was just as well armoured in there as outside. As it brought him close, he desperately stabbed out with Phoenix, into its eye.

Rearing up as the burning sword sunk into its slit-like eye, Mary Sparda screamed in rage, but also in pain. Her grip loosened as she was distracted, and straining, Arson broke free and dropped to the floor, stumbling as he did. "Its eyes-!" he called out, but before he could say anything more, it honed in on the sound of his voice and smashed him clean across the room, winding him as he hit the far wall yet again, slumping down.

Leaving him for dead for the moment Mary Sparda turned to the two vermin nearer it, its left and right eyes still functioning fully. Reiko had pulled himself back to his feet but was still hurting from the last blow, and as Mary Sparda attacked he struggled to evade, hastily dodging and being hounded back, toward the wall. It didn't take long for him to run out of room, and he was subsequently pinned against the stone, Mary Sparda trapping his arms in her grip, so that he couldn't retaliate against its eyes, leaning down to bite his head off.

The monster's head leaned in so close that Reiko could taste its putrid breath, the vampire powerless to free himself. It opened its mouth to end his life, and a blur of orange leapt onto his shoulder. "Surprise, bitch!" Zone shouted, firing a laser blast straight into her left eye, then her right one a moment later. Mary Sparda reared back clawing at her face, recoiling in agony, now completely blinded, dropping Reiko to the ground.

As Reiko staggered to his feet and Arson approached them from the other side Mary Sparda stumbled back completely sightlessly. Zone was grinning with satisfaction and relief, believing they'd seriously weakened their enemy, when something happened. With a biological rasping, Mary Sparda's segmented back shifted, then split apart, turning out to be armoured wing-shields, which arched up, revealing what was underneath.

Only Arson was in a position to really see what happened next, being behind the monster. From his point of view, the wing casing exposed a depression in the creature's body, which bizarrely enough housed a sphere of glowing white energy. With a crackle, the portal through which the monster had come discharged a thick pillar of darkness that arced into the orb, crackling as Mary Sparda fed off of the supply of negative energy.

The hybrid watched this with growing despair, as the monster's few wounds began to visibly heal, the few tarnishes to its carapace being erased. Its eyes were being restored too, although Arson didn't know of this particular detail, but he knew he had to do something. Summoning his strength, he ran and leapt at the orb, landing below it and scrambling up.

Dragon lashed out at the ball but impacted against an invisible barrier that shimmered but didn't give way, ten floating runes around its perimeter flaring as it did. Lashing out at one of these instead, the hybrid drove Phoenix right through it shattering the symbol, the shield fluctuating as he did so. Mary Sparda sensed this, and tried to throw him off, Arson managing to destroy a second and third rune before he was knocked into the incoming negative energy, cried out in pain, and was hurled off.

Landing with a thud, Arson looked up to see Reiko standing over him, offering him a hand up, Zone on his shoulder. "Hey guys, how're you doing?" the hybrid asked as he was helped to his feet.

"I've felt better" Reiko said with a wince, his whole torso aching.

"And I'm running low" Zone added, referring both to being worn out from chasing, climbing, dodging and being blown about by Mary Sparda, and his laser, which was half empty.

"I think, I know, how to hurt her…" Arson panted, short of breath.

"The eyes yeah we heard ya, we got the other two" Zone answered with a small smile, glad for that at least.

"No, not that, she, healed herself" Arson explained, looking back to see that the monster's face was indeed back in perfect, ass-ugly condition. Seeing Zone's hopeful grin crash he quickly continued, "But she did it by opening her back and absorbing, energy-stuff from the portal, into this, glowing ball, which is shielded, but, there's some runes around it, I think they power the shield, there's ten, I got, three" he stopped for air.

Zone processed this, looking from Arson to Reiko. "Great, he ran out of breath just explaining it!" he cried.

"At least we know what to aim for. All we have to do is reach it" the vampire responded, as Mary Sparda's healing completed, the lumbering beast wasting no time in charging towards them full of raging vengeance.

"I can reach it" Arson said, pulling himself together, and rushing to meet the charging demon. He leapt up as they drew together, swinging his sword round to stab through the middle eye, but Mary Sparda wasn't so easily caught out twice, and it turned its head to the side, the blade deflecting off of solid carapace. Rearing its head up as it advanced, it head butted Arson over its back like a bull, turning to punch him out of the air. As the clenched fist arced round, Arson channelled fire through his blades and with a jet of flame propelled himself over the blow, but, was unable to react in time to stop the second claw slamming him into the floor.

Arson's vision darkened and blurred as the ground cracked beneath him. The giant demon stood over him, and raised its huge fist to deliver a crushing blow when a blast of crimson struck its hand, knocking it to the side. Turning to drive the others away, sure that Arson was out of it for good now, Mary Sparda was caught off-guard as Reiko threw his staff like a javelin, spearing with pinpoint precision into its central eye. As the creature cried out, the vampire continued to sprint towards it and leapt up and grabbed the staff intending to use it as leverage to finish off its remaining two eyes.

Reiko's weight on pulling on the buried staff however gave him away, and before he could attack, he was grabbed and yanked away, taking his weapon with him. Overcome by rage, Mary Sparda hurled him right up into the ceiling, crashing against the rough stone forms jutting out with a cry of agony before dropping back down to the floor before it.

Mary Sparda reached down to grind him to a pulp, both Reiko and Arson too beaten to move. As it did so though a blast of energy burned its cheek. "Damn it" Zone cursed, having missed his targets and only attracted its attention, the rodent standing mere metres in front of it, having got as close as he could for the best shot possible. Mary Sparda snarled, and stepped forwards to crush the last of these vermin, and as a last desperate ploy, Zone rushed to meet it.

A claw that the hamster could vanish in hundreds of times over careered towards him, and without breaking stride he fired a blast at the floor, shooting himself over the lunging arm. The second arm came round, but he shot over that as well, then the monster's ugly head attempted to swallow him out of the air. Rancidness that made him nauseous washed over Zone, but he managed to focus enough to shoot into the teethed abyss and push himself back out of harm's way, though he did none himself.

Not knowing that the puny, evasive furball had moved, Mary Sparda snapped its mouth shut, thinking him dead. Thanks to overuse of his laser, though, Zone was still alive, although his nose wished it were dead. Holding it with one paw and his laser in the other, he used the last of his energy to take out both of the eyes that were point blank in front of him.

With a roar of unbridled rage at being outdone again, Mary Sparda swung furiously to try and smash Zone from the air, but it had no idea where he was blinded, the rodent dropping back to the ground awkwardly as he was totally out of laser energy, and as good as unarmed against the behemoth. "Arson! Reiko! Come on! She's blind, now's our chance!" he yelled to the others, accidentally giving away his position.

Mary Sparda hammered down at the source of the noise, and lacking the energy to shoot himself away, Zone whimpered "Oh shit", and scrambled as fast as his tiny paws would carry him, barely getting a half-dozen paces before the arm smashed down at the monster's best guess of his location. It missed, by barely a foot, but Zone was still sent flying by the sheer force of the blow, bouncing and rolling across the floor.

Mary Sparda stamped around trying to finish its opponents off, but having no idea where they were, it was forced to open its back to heal itself, not wanting to give them the chance to recover. Reiko distantly heard the crackling of the arc of energy, somewhere in his addled mind knowing what it implied. He could barely think at all, but an instinctual spark of determination lingered in him, and with a tormented groan he forced himself to sit up, leaning on his staff then pushing himself to a stand.

Seeing light before him, he didn't so much run as stumble towards it, giving a weak jump and clambering up the creature's back. Every single movement burned, but he climbed up, tenaciously hauling himself up to the sphere as Mary Sparda felt him, and started to buck to throw him off.

Reiko lurched and swayed on its back, being thrown about like a rag doll, but he hung on for dear life with single-minded determination to finish it, lifting his weapon and striking a rune, destroying it. That was all that went through his head at that point, keep hanging on, lift, and strike, hang on, lift, strike, again and again, he heaved with all he had to keep holding on and keep shattering the binding runes. He took down two, and a third, just four left, and then just three… Just two… Then a giant hand reached round as he swung out to the side, dragging him off.

Bringing the vampire in front of him, Mary Sparda couldn't see who it was holding, whether it was Arson or Reiko, but it didn't care. It had managed to throw him to the side and reach back to catch him, then yank the scum off of its back, and now it was going to snap him in two. Grabbing the torso of the dangling Reiko in its other hand, it gave a roar of fury as it lifted him up to break him in half, and then its voice choked out.

Holding onto Dragon and Phoenix, Arson floated behind Mary Sparda on white-winged feathers, otherwise completely unsupported, the fragments of the last two runes disintegrating around his blades. "Leave… My friends, alone" he whispered, looking drained even in his angelic state. With a sharp jerk, he yanked out the swords and drifted back to the floor, his wings folding then fading away like snow swept away by the wind.

Mary Sparda convulsed, dropping Reiko and stumbling backwards, trying in utter futility to reach back to the sphere inside it. The barrier containing it faded, and the globe of light began to fluctuate, Mary Sparda thrashing in sync with it as it destabilised. The beam of darkness being drawn into it began to quicken and bulge, more and more energy pouring into the spasm-wracked demon as the orb sunk into its body. Cracks started appearing over its skin, light shining through them, the armoured monster being covered in a criss-crossing network of jagged lines. Then with a final roar, the entire blood-red portal was sucked into it, and it trembled, bloated obscenely, and finally shattered like a mirror.

Arson bore witness to this display, kneeling and gasping for breath, even his angelic transformation taxed in restoring his strength after being half-crushed to death against the floor. He watched as the darkness spilt all over the room like a liquid, falling right through him, Reiko and Zone, although he felt nothing as it did so, and thus he paid it no heed. Rising unsteadily to his feet, he looked over to Reiko, who was sprawled on his back, but had managed to raise his head, and then to Zone, who was slowly walking over to them both.

"Please tell me its over now" the hamster half-begged as he stopped by Reiko, Arson walking over to them.

"I certainly hope it is" Reiko said, wincing as Arson helped him rise to a sit.

"Me too, cus I am spent" Zone again referred to his depleted weapon and exhaustion, slumping against Reiko's leg. "Hey, great job Arson" he said with a weary but sincere smile to the teenager.

"Oh it was-" Arson cut himself off from saying nothing, "… Worth it, thanks" he replied with a smile back.

"No problem, so… Now what?" Zone asked as Arson pulled Reiko up, silently wishing that he could assist.

"Getting out of here, would be a good start" Reiko suggested as Arson supported him and helped him walk.

"Yeah, good point" Zone nodded, "I can't wait to leave this all behind". He glanced behind them in gesture as he said this, and his eyes widened, "Oh, shit, guys, MOVE!".

Hearing the dire urgency in the hamster's voice, Arson threw himself and Reiko forwards, twisting to land on his back as he did so. Behind him he saw two shadow-like men lurching towards them like zombies. At first he thought they were just standing close together, but then he noticed one was holding the other up; in fact, it was him and Reiko.

"Damn it, not this again!" Arson turned his head as Zone cursed, jumping back from a shadowy-hamster walking wearily towards him. Lashing out more out of frustrating than any kind of plan, he was surprised and pleased when the doppelganger disintegrated around his lightsabre. "That worked, pretty well" he said, and then remembering something, he dashed forwards and turned, another shadow-him slashing at the spot he'd just been standing exactly like he had attacked only a moment ago. Then in melted back into the floor.

Meanwhile, Arson had picked Reiko up again, but he had to push them separate ways as their afterimages leapt to the floor at them from the side, coming from an unexpected angle. Reiko staggered but fought for and managed to keep his balance, swinging his staff in a wide circle and killing the shadow that stumbled after him without even seeing it. Arson watched it disintegrate into the air, while the ones that had tried to jump on them simply melded into the floor. "You have to hit these ones I think!" he shouted to the others.

"Yeah! But they appear from different directions!" Zone answered, hacking down one, and then jumping to avoid the next wherever it came from, landing behind it as it went under him and stabbing through its head. He ducked low and when the next one copied his last attack, it went over him and he wiped it out with ease.

Reiko was finding both these things out as he was forced to play a memory and guessing game with the focus for neither, making measured strikes so he could avoid them himself when the next one came and trying to stay alert for where it came from. Arson's approach was a bit more headstrong and a couple of them clipped him, causing that same coldness the Blind Seer's had, but he gritted his teeth and adapted.

"I don't have the patience for this!" Zone yelled in aggravation. His technique was becoming more and more sloppy, although it wasn't due to lack of patience, but exhaustion. Stumbling away from a shadow that he barely dispatched he fell onto his behind as another swung hastily towards him. Raising his laser instinctively, he mashed the controls desperately, but the weapon was depleted. The copy of him lashed wickedly at his head, and then as it touched the weapon, it broke apart, and was swallowed into the gun.

Zone blinked in surprise, and blinked again just to make sure he was seeing right. Bringing the weapon to his face, he checked the reading, and saw that a small quantity of energy had been stored. A slow, wicked grin crossed his furry muzzle. "Payback is my bitch" he said, jumping to his feet with renewed motivation and turning round. When the next copy of himself rose out of the floor, like a stone falling into water, but backwards, he pointed his gun at it, and as soon as it got close it was absorbed into the weapon as energy.

In fact, he got so much energy that his weapon was fully charged after a couple of minutes. Since he wanted to keep killing them off easily though, Zone allowed some of the energy to freely vent from his weapon, not wanting to actually fire it since that meant the next shadow would shoot at him. As he did, though, rather than drifting away and dissipating, he noticed it circle around him and take on a bluish tint.

Pausing to take out another shadow, he shut off the vent, and watched as the growing bubble of energy expanded off of him suddenly, unleashing an expanding sphere of energy that destroyed the next shadow coming after him. Thinking quickly, he leapt away as the act was repeated nearby, cutting through a few more enemies before trying it again. This time, he let the energy accumulate, and then touched it. Doing this caused it to travel down his arm and into his body. As it did, he felt a small surge of energy fill him.

Zone didn't know quite what was going on, but he guessed his Blue Orb was holding the energy discharged around it, since when it was vented it was neutral and harmless, otherwise it would be dangerous. Then it could be absorbed into the Orb and subsequently, him, if he touched it, although it was a very inefficient transfer rate it seemed, since he'd only gotten a minor boost by venting enough power to punch through a wooden plank. On the other paw, if he didn't touch it, it was discharged as raw energy, having a damaging and repulsive effect due to being built up past a harmless intensity. He was, quite happy, more or less right.

"Haha, useful" he remarked, continuing to absorb the shadows and then absorb their energy into himself. It was a very small healing factor, and was only slowing his tiring, rather than reversing it, but, it still helped.

Arson and Reiko continued to battle their own foes as Zone vacuumed around himself for power. As the fight waged on, the darkness seemed to be using itself up, drying up as it was destroyed or absorbed into Zone's gun, leaving a shiny reflective surface beneath it. It was only a matter of minutes before this new surface became the majority, Reiko and Arson dispelling large quantities of the dark with each blow that they managed to land, while Zone took out a lot less, due to his clones being smaller, but killed more off.

As the shadow warriors hit a drought, Reiko noticed something. The surface they were standing on was odd simply for existing, as it was like a giant mirror. What was even stranger though, and more unsettling, was that it reflected the room entirely, but not them at all.

Finally the last of them were despatched, Reiko and Arson leaning forwards and breathing heavily, while Zone smiled at his full tank, but was still panting himself. "Are we there yet?" he asked in a singsong voice, earning himself twin withering looks from the others. "What?" he asked, half-expecting that it wasn't over.

He was both to be not disappointed, and very much so.

With a hollow suction-like sound the liquid glass rippled from the centre outwards. The fluctuation reached the edge of the room, and then echoed back in, only it also brought the substance with it. Mounting together in the centre, it formed into a dome, and then a sphere about 3 metres across, and slowly floated into the air.

"Now she's just showing off" Arson complained, dead-beat both mentally and physically, still leaning over.

"This is just ridiculous!" Zone screamed in protest, "Two forms is OK, three's company, but this is wrong".

"Did we ever stand a chance?" Reiko wondered out loud as he slumped onto his knees, leaning on his staff.

As the trio watched on hopelessly, seven tendrils of darkness emerged from the floating orb, which still didn't show their reflections, and sunk into the ground, forming murky pools. From each of these rose a creature, familiar shapes; they were the seven Hells, one for each of the sins, but made of pure shadows.

"I can't take this anymore" Arson growled, his jaw setting tight. Standing up and finding his balance, he advanced towards the nearest Hell, the Hell Pride, also the weakest of them. "Go… Away!" he screamed defiantly, swinging his arm and hurling a desperate wave of fire at the demon. The blade-like attack cut right through the weak creature, but rather than crumbling to sand, it merely reformed, the tentacle that attached to it from the ball pulsating slightly as it did.

"Arson, try the stem" Reiko suggested, pushing himself up very slowly. Arson nodded, but dropped to one knee from tiredness as the Pride advanced on him. It raised his scythe, and as it did so he summoned some tiny pocket of strength and jumped up, hacking through the connecting line. The tentacle writhed in agony then retracted into the orb, the shadow-Pride breaking apart.

"This is so, tedious" Zone opined as he dragged himself towards the filler enemies, "I mean, she just had to include the essence of throwaway speed bump encounters didn't she? Bet you this isn't the last one, either".

"Save your breath; if you're right, you'll need it" Reiko reminded as he wobbled towards the group. Arson meanwhile had engaged the Hell Lust, blocking its rushing scythe attack with one sword and stumbling, but holding his ground, and cutting its lifeline with the other. Reiko meanwhile engaged the Hell Sloth, circling it cautiously, watching its movements. When it teleported, he timed his reaction, and with a precise motion parried its blow and redirected the force of it round to sever its stem. Zone caught up with the Envy just as Arson despatched the Gluttony, and the rodent leapt onto the creature's rags and started doggedly climbing, refusing to be caught by the demon's clumsy swipes at him. Reiko took care of the wrath with a struggling leap, cutting its lifeline and sailing past as it blew, stumbling to his knees as he landed, while Arson cut off the Greed, and Zone reached the Envy's tentacle and sever it with his lightsabre, jumping off of it as it died.

"Please tell me that's the end… No more" Zone pleaded, as he dropped onto all fours, rolling onto his back.

"It isn't" Arson whispered, slowly collapsing to a sit.

"It can't be" Reiko agreed looking at the floating orb.

They were right, much as they wished they weren't. Its tendons severed, the silvery surface fluctuated, light starting to shine through it as it shimmered, and then evaporated, leaving behind an iridescent ball of white.

Somewhere out of sight, but within earshot, an orchestra were having the time of their lives with the music.

The light intensified, and then with a flawless supernova, it burst. The trio shielded their eyes, and when they looked again, an angelic figure stood before them. Tall and feminine, yet in a strong way, it was clad in ornamental white armour covering its entire body, with golden energy running up lines decorating body.

"And you are?" Reiko asked, tired past the point of politeness.

"I am Mary Sue's true form, Bianco Angela, the White Angel, secret daughter of Sparda, and the Priestess" she answered. Her voice sounded like it had before, and yet, somehow purer. Less human and more, divine.

"Hah! Daughters of Mundus eat your heart out!" Zone laughed with all the derisiveness as he could muster.

"Do you come with a speech?" Arson asked, actually liking the idea of the break a monologue would grant.

Bianco Angela managed to sneer contemptuously while wearing a face-covering mask, no simple feat. She elegantly raised her hand to her front, and with a pearly glow, summoned her weapon; an angel's wing that served as a giant sword, the perfect feathers as unyielding and razor-edged as the finest, sharpest diamonds.

"A demonic larval form that gives birth to an angelic one with a special wing. I think Sephiroth's gonna sue someone" Zone attacked in the best, and currently, only way he could think to, by ridiculing their opponent.

Bianco Angela glared at him scornfully, and launched into her anticipated speech, "It does not matter what you think for you are nothing but thoughts, delusions, the temporary fascinations of whimsical minds. You dare presume influence when your very existence is a mere fantasy? I am an elemental force of the psyche, part of the sovereign conscious of the people. And you, you are merely abominations. How dare you exist? Heed my words and know the truth; my existence transcends all borders of knowledge and culture, and the individual even. I am reborn time and again, worlds apart. I am a part of humanity. You are not even real."

Her words rung through the battle-worn altar unsettlingly, but her audience were far too exhausted to be moved by words, barely able to move under their own power. "Is it even worth attacking her?" Arson said.

"We have no other choice" Reiko replied, beyond hope now, simply wishing for a miracle. Dragging the end of his staff along the ground, he hefted it, the familiar weight so heavy now, and ran at a staggering charge towards her. Swinging his weapon with all the strength he could, which wasn't his best ever, but still a solid blow, it impacted against the side of her head, the White Angel not making a move to stop it.

Raising her free hand, she casually batted him aside, sending him flying actually inclined upwards from horizontally slightly crashing into the wall. Not even shifting her feet, she threw a ball of white energy, which crashed into Zone's laser blast, 50 of his full reserves, enough strength to seriously wound even one of the sons of Sparda, cancelled out by the casually launched counter. Arson had managed to rise, and putting what shreds of energy he could gather into a fire wave, he slashed it out towards Bianco Angela, dropping to one knee and breathing raggedly as he did so. The torrent of flames flew right at her, and kept on going, the White Angel teleporting behind the hybrid instantly. He barely managed to raise his other sword as she smirked condescendingly, using her own blade, which collided with his, sending him flying.

"Enough of this, accept your destiny" she taunted. "It is your fate to perish, to run dry, to simply exhaust yourselves and fade away into oblivion, like dreams once they are awoken from. People create you, then, they abandon you, when you cease to amuse. Deny it with all your will, it makes no difference, you have seen the graveyard, what waits for you. You are dreams, you are not real. You, are, nothing" she intoned.

Raising her wingblade to the ceiling, the White Angel added "Now to purify you into what you are meant to be. Nothing". A white light gleamed on the feathers from an unknown source, and then she brought the blade down, and sliced through the very fabric of fiction. The fourth wall, the other three, the ceiling, and the floor too, all was breached, this is a website, you're reading a story about individuals, who don't exist.

"We've lost…" Arson whispered, as the world was stripped away around them, as deadly to them as being in space without an air supply is to humans.

"Actually…" Reiko said, staring across the divide, a revelation blooming in his mind, "We've almost won".

"Great, Reiko's lost it" Zone laughed half-heartedly, wanting to at least go out the way he lived; a smartass.

Rising to his feet with a reserve of strength he shouldn't posses, Reiko looked across the decaying room, to Arson. "Arson… I need you to do something for me" he spoke with a quietness that unnerved the teenager.

"To forgive me" he answered, looking to Zone before the hybrid could ask what he meant. "Zone, when the time comes, I need you to do what you have to" he said. Zone didn't know what he was talking about either but knowing the principle of those words, he nodded.

"Thank you, both of you" Reiko said with pure sincerity. Using his staff as a sort of crutch, he advanced towards Bianco Angela, who regarded him with a mix of surprise and amusement.

"So eager to die?" she asked, raising her sword casually.

"I don't fear death" Reiko replied, stopping several paces from the White Angel.

"Really? Well at least you can learn your place" she shot back nonchalantly.

"My place is here, where I'm needed" he answered, and then, raising his staff, he charged. Bianco Angela laughed at his futile stupidity, allowing him to get so close he almost managed to hit her, not that it would do any good if he did. Then in a flash she lifted her blade and ran it through his torso in one, fluid motion.

"REIKO!" Arson screamed as a good half of his friend littered the floor around the parts still attached to the giant wingblade. Reiko's body started to go limp as muscles lost their connection, but as a last order, before he lost control, his legs turned and jerked him to the side, throwing him away from Bianco Angela, taking her sword with him, still embedded through his chest. As he fell he mouthed a breathless word. Now.

Tears ran down Arson's cheeks, and an overwhelming feeling of sorrow welled up in him, fuelling a desire to see justice done that burned within the hybrid, his eyes glowing white, as angelic wings burst forth from his back. "MURDERER!" he cried with a thousand voices of outrage, throwing his hands out, twin beams of light too bright to look at bursting from them and enveloping the disarmed Bianco Angela. Forming into an orb of pure energy, which became transparent, Bianco Angela imprisoned within, unable to cause harm.

Of course, even without her sword, she would not be trapped their forever, but with an angelic clairvoyance Arson understood Reiko's revelation as if it were his own. Slowly he raised the orb up off the floor, making it drift towards the tear as Bianco Angela beat her armoured fists against the inside. "You keep speaking of, the people…" Arson uttered as dents began to form from the blows.

"Why don't we see what they think?" Zone finished, standing beneath the orb, gun pointed up at it. Without further hesitation, he pulled the trigger, pouring everything into one solid column of pure red energy, which crashed into the orb, splashing around it and launching it into through the rift between worlds.

Trapped within, Bianco Angela continued to pound at her imprisonment, slowly weakening it, but it was too late. With perfect accuracy, the sphere carried its cargo crashing into the Reviews hyperlink above the story. There the shell burst, and Bianco Angela looked around briefly, a slow, inevitable terror falling over her. She rushed to escape, but was cut off, by words. Words surrounded her, thoughts, opinions, feedback.

The essence of the minds of the people she so championed circled her like sharks, observing, judging her.

"You were mistaken about one thing" Zone said as he and Arson watched.

"We're more than just dreams, if people care about us" Arson finished.

Though he was silent, Reiko was watching too. He watched as Mary Sue was judged, just like they were every day they lived. He watched, and saw as she was found wanting.

The words tore into her, smothering her final scream as she was annihilated in an instant, erased by a power greater than her own, a power beyond fiction. Because in the end, the truth, that thing she preached to them. The truth, was people liked them, and they hated her.

Seeing it all come to an end, Reiko breathed out. It is over, he thought, content. He did not breathe in again.

Arson, felt something let go. Turning away from the sight of their true victory, his eyes darkened. "No… Reiko?" he whispered hoarsely.

Zone turned as he ran to the vampire's side, dropping to his knees and cradling his head. "Oh, shit" he said, walking over slowly, with reverent trepidation. He knew the truth though, it was too late; he was having to take a small detour to avoid the prematurely scattered remains of his friend. By the time he reached Arson, the teenager was sobbing uncontrollably against the fallen warrior's cheek. Zone opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came. "Reiko" he uttered eventually. He closed his eyes, but the tears came anyway.

"No" Arson cried. "No, this isn't how it ends! This isn't what you get for saving everyone!" he yelled out in protest against the world. He was part angel, but Reiko was beyond his power. He was beyond them. Gone.

While this was happening, the rifts in fiction were repairing themselves, the process now almost completed. Just as the last rip sealed shut, a droplet of light fell through, and drifted down like a feather. It floated, as if drawn towards the three comrades, and gently settled on Reiko's forehead unnoticed, sinking into it quietly.

With one incandescent moment of light, Reiko was whole again, and breathed. Why? Because you want him to. Because too many people don't want to see him die. Because he was touched by a power beyond his world. A power over life and death, pain and joy, good and evil. A power we all have, in their world.

"… Reiko?" Arson whispered in awe, as he felt the body in his arms move.

"Yeah?" came the answer, dizzy, but full and real and his.

"You were dead…" the hybrid whispered in disbelief.

"Well, technically I still am" Reiko gave a weak grin as he said this.

Arson just hugged him then; there were no words for it. He hugged with all the youthful enthusiasm that filled his soul, and nearly started crying again when Reiko returned the gesture.

Zone watched, sniffing back the tears that had been flowing, "Hey, you had me, worried there, you know?".

Reiko looked over Arson's shoulder to the hamster. "Really?" he asked openly.

"Yeah, really" Zone replied honestly. "I do care about you guys, after all" he added, and not able to bear the familiar, awkward silence that loomed ready to dive on them, he scrambled into and joined the group hug…