Chapter 35: Chaos Alex IV: Engrave our Darkness Forever
The two fighters swing their blades out in full, clashing five times as shockwaves erupt from their strengthened blows. Fire spreads out in shockwaves and obscures the view of their conflict, but it is clear that neither fighter is giving in to the other. When Alex pulls his blade black his clone does the same, both of them charging forth with wings folded to attempt another strike at each. The swiftness of their movements allows them to pass each other in a second and slash, the clinging of metal repeated seven times over as they arc back around and rise up to clash even more.
As their zip lined movements are calculated by both parties, the young Overlord is also working his mind to try and find a way to deliver a decisive blow to his foe. He had plenty of room for error thanks to his souls providing him with fourteen shields against all manners of attack, but still he wanted to end the battle quickly. The one thing he wondered about was if his clone shared the same protection as he did in this form, especially considering that the inner guardians appear to not be present inside his body.
He brings himself around, ducking underneath another charge and spinning around to strike the vulnerable underside of his counterpart as he passes by. But the clone predicts his change in tactics and with a mental control over the air he creates a trail in front of him that carries him along at a faster speed to avoid the slash. Disappointment that his attack missed, Alex lets out a light "tsk" with his eyelids slanted in annoyance and immediately halts his flight. Floating in the air with his arms out held, the young Overlord gathers flame energy into his already ignited blade until the fire is as thick as that seen from an Olympic torch.
He then focuses to compact the flames into his blade, replicating an action Zeno Blaze just did earlier but decreasing the overall brightness as to not blind himself or anyone in the distance. He dashes at his foe as they stop the air propelling them and turns around to attack. The clone's sword is held upright in front of their chest, the black flames rising up as forming the head of a dragon that roars to call forth a bombardment of dark meteors from an otherworldly realm. As they rain down at him, Alex swings his sword around as swift as lightning, each rock feeling as thick as paper with how easily they are dealt with.
He can't do anything about the others as they impact with the planet and detonate in a series of dome-shaped explosions, but as he puts the sanctity of the world in his thoughts the young Overlord swings his blade out vertically, sends all the pent up energy out as a violent torrent of crescent shaped projectiles. But the clone dodges every shot by rising into the air, only to be met by an incoming barrage of electricity empowered beams. There are three of them in total, and as the clone flaps his wings he holds his arms in front of his body to guard against them.
Alex takes this as a sign that his counterpart has no soul shields, and as the beams collide a few small, static-y explosions occur in front of him, covering the clone from the young Overlord's view. As he grinds his movements to a halt, the boy waits for the aftereffects to die out. But his eyebrows rise as he sees the clone unharmed, the raising of his arms being used as a fake-out while he used his Earth based powers to create metallic spheres that absorbed the electricity for him to use. However, this is what Alex wanted, and as the energy spreads out into a field ready to fire he floats in place and snaps his fingers.
A waterfall gushes down from out of nowhere, reacting negatively to the electricity and causing the sphere's composition to break down into nothingness before it all explodes right on the clone. When the water vanishes the young Overlord blows away the ensuing smoke with a heavy gust of wind so he isn't ambushed before it clears. What he sees confirms his theory, with flesh wounds created by the burning of his flesh on the clone's body showing that he is at a handicap. With a confident grin, Alex readies his sword to strike again, but notices something off as more darkness from the sky drags itself into his opposite's body.
The wounds start to heal without there ever being a sign that he was damaged at all, and with an annoyed sigh that shows how well Alex is taking to this rather unsurprising revelations he thinks to himself, "You just had to make this accurate of a Dark King, didn't you Cackletta?" With the situation having changed the young Overlord chooses to go on a more brutal offensive, since one way to counter a regenerator is to deal more damage than they can heal. He quickly charges forth before the previous scars have been healed and slashes his sword diagonally in an arc, striking his clone viciously across the chest in three consecutive strikes, cutting open the body and digging in close to the black void that represents his opposite's heart.
But this only causes more darkness to be drug through the air to fill the body, the healing process increasing rapidly and leaving Alex's attacks moot. The young Overlord swiftly flies back as a quick sword slash from his clone flies close to his face, and he flings his left hand out and shoots out a vine from his palm that wraps around his counterpart's stomach. With a quick swing to the left the clone is flung in that direction, Alex commanding the vine to let go so his opponent is temporarily away from his range so he can have a moment to think to himself.
The boy tries to come up with an idea on how to circumvent the healing, especially now that it was discovered that rapid damage would just increase the rate of which it worked at. As Alex blamed Cackletta's lingering spirit for assisting her puppet, his eyes turned to look at the glove that has been stuck to his right hand all of this time. He instantly thought of the attack that he used to stop the last Dark King's regenerative powers, the "Blazing Overlord Fist". But at the same time he also remembered the consequences that arrived from using them before and the warnings given to him about using the energy after a prolonged period of not releasing it all.
It had been two weeks since he had done the last thing he thought about, and he was deeply concerned about what effects the Anti-Genesis sphere may have had on the energy built up inside of his body. Discarding the attack as too risky of a gambit as of now, Alex turns his attention back to his clone as it recovers from his previous effort and charges straight back at him. A bundle of vines wrapped into a cylinder-like form spins through the air above him, the sharpened tips dripped in poison that would secrete into the young Overlord's body if they broke through the skin.
To counter this effort, the young Overlord figures out the path the vines will travel through and snaps his fingers, igniting the targeted area in a furious blazes that consumes the cylindrical force and turns it all to ashes in a matter of seconds. Though this leaves him vulnerable, Alex is willing to lose a soul shield as his clone brings his flame-coated sword forward in a sweeping arc. Or rather, that's what the young Overlord is confident will happen. But as the sword connects with his body and a green shockwave emerges from the strike zone, he hears a beastly wail instead of the proud growl he was expecting to come from the spirit responsible for this line of protection.
As the slash continues on its way a blue and white shockwave emerging in rapid succession, the cries of the spirits filling Alex's ears and forcing him to retreat before he has to endure the sound of another. It was clear then what the flames composed of, and that was an energy source similar to that which the young Overlord remembered the lord of Subspace Tabuu using against him via his Off-Waves. Though he didn't know just what exactly that foreign energy was, it was dangerous enough to get in contact with, and prolonged exposure to the flames at close-range would leave him defenseless in a matter of seconds.
So now it was time to change battle strategies, and Alex quickly responds to his clone's attack by holding his left hand up and using his willpower to summon forth a diamond roughly the size of his head, grasping it in his fingers and quickly flinging it out without taking pause to look at it. The object strikes the backside of his counterpart's right hand, harming it enough to force the sword out of his grasp. Though it would be far too easy for the weapon to be recalled after the damage to his bone structure was done, the young Overlord refuses to give him the benefit and rushes straight at him with his right fist held back once his sword is dispelled in a small flurry of flames.
He begins a relentless barrage of fists against his clone's body as it rises up to take notice. The first strike is an uppercut to the jaw, which knocks the head up and allows Alex to have an easier time hitting the rest of the body. A flurry of blows are pounded into his counterpart's chest before the young Overlord pulls his fist back hard and coats it in rock, bringing it forward to smash it right into the side of his clone's face to fracture his skull. This is followed up with a similar left hook on the opposite side of the head to damage the bones there as well. He knew that if he couldn't deal physical wounds, he would at least wear down his clone's stamina.
The breaking of the bones was merely used as a front to keep his counterpart from fighting back as he focused on repairing the damage. As Alex grits his teeth and launches a bullet-speed blow right into his clone's ribcage, he loathes the fact that he has to resort to such lowbrow tactics to get an advantage in this battle, but rationalizes that this isn't a matter of dignity at this point but rather a fight to secure the safety of the planet and finally end the threat of Cackletta by destroying her well-constructed puppet.
However, there comes a moment where Alex shows a hint of hesitation in his assault, at which points the clone swiftly raises one arm up and catches the next blow in his left palm. He then finally takes a moment to call back his sword in the grip of his other hand and lifts his head up to glare his counterpart straight in his awe-struck face. "Why do you try to hurt me constantly evil me? I will always reject the pain you bring because my conviction is stronger than yours…" The clone then says in monotone, a sure sign that despite Cackletta's spirit sinking into his body to initiate the change of forms his thoughts and actions were still his own.
But his remark brought a thought to Alex's mind as he quickly swerved his sword under his out held arm to block a slash from his counterpart. Attempting to weaken his stamina was pointless, because without emotions there was no reason for him to tire, and with his regenerative powers on top of the previous factor he would never experience agony. This was a rather thought out combination. Quick regeneration so the body wouldn't be destroyed by stronger forces, no emotions so he would never be conflicted or tired, and the flames powered by Subspace would be enough to shred through even the strongest defenses.
It was becoming more and more apparent as Alex and his clone clashed blades that the young Overlord would have to resort to the "Blazing Overlord Fist" to truly annihilate his foe. But he was far too hesitant to resort to that option still, and as he drew back his body he spins it around in a circle, bringing his sword down like a guillotine to block another strike from his counterpart. However, he pulls his body upward and uses his weapon to vault over his clone, twirling around in the air to draw in flames into a tornado formation. He then slashes his sword out, sending the built up fire outward in a spiral that consumes the body of his opponent and burns them continuously as they turn around undeterred.
This is followed up by a landing on the air that splashes fire around like a ring below Alex's feet, his sword dispelling as he lifts his hands up and thrusts them out with the fingers rolled into the palm. The first fist sends forth a torrent of boiling water that washes away the flames and scathes the skin before being dispersed in all directions by an incoming torrent of wind blades. The clone takes damage from every attack and continues to push forward towards his counterpart. With sweat dripping down from a combination of stress and the rise in temperature, Alex's facial features sink slightly as he lets his palms out once more.
Vines shoot out near the wrists and wrap themselves around all parts of the clone's body, and as the constriction gets tighter the wiggling of the clone's arms can be felt within the fibers. With his great strength he is free within a matter of seconds and keeps moving to advance, but is quickly frozen in a cube of ice with a snap of Alex's left fingers. However this too is broken through with a flexing of the clone's arms muscles, only for him to be trapped in a boulder made of solid adamantium with a snap of the young Overlord's other fingers. Now certain that he was encased properly, the boy started to come up with a plan to keep him trapped that way forever.
But as his mind was wracked in an attempt to come up with a solution, he senses the temperature around him increasing rapidly through small holes in the gold's composition. It starts to melt quickly, becoming drops that splatter down towards the ground as a bubble of air surrounds the clone's body to prevent him from getting the molten gold stuck to his bones. As the air bubble vanishes and the clone creaks its neck around from the stiffness brought on by being trapped, he is struck through the chest by a quick bolt of lightning.
With a hole now burned through his cavities, the clone continues to advance with his body healing, undeterred still by the pain. Disturbed by having to see the flesh rebuild piece by piece, Alex looks away for a moment as he folds his arms to the side of his body and fills the area between the palms with flames compressed into an orb like form. When they reach the smallest size they possibly can be he thrusts his hands out, unleashed a close-range tunnel of flames that devours his clone whole. He doesn't call out the name of the attack, which goes far in showing how unhinged Alex is at this moment.
As his clone bursts through the flames with his sword gripped at the his hip, he delivers a hard slash outward, arcing it through the air from the top of the young Overlord's right shoulder to the left side of his hip. This motion cuts through barriers whose colors are yellow, brown and icy-blue in that order. When red fades away as well Alex stops his attack and retreats, the side of his pants getting cut through til the tip of the blade cuts into the skin. Grimacing in pain, the young Overlord quickly begins to fill in the hole by summoning leaf fibers to replace what was cut, but he can still feel the blood leaving his body as he pulls his sword back out.
Now for the next minute he would have to go on the offensive to play defensively until the second round of soul shields could spawn inside of him. "Gah…" He murmurs to himself as he realizes how foolish his thoughts were about his protection, which had been rendered nearly useless in the face of his clone's black flame sword. The young Overlord felt bare as he saw his counterpart staring blankly at him. It was a complete reversal of what happened when he fought Joe Dark, where the Dark King was the one who was losing his composure while he fought with a subdued feeling of confidence.
He was starting to have a hard time focusing as his options were becoming more and more limited with each passing second. It became worse as he realized that he never would've even gotten into this predicament is he didn't slip into arrogance against the Axem Rangers just one day earlier. No, none of this would've had to happen had he never became the Elemental Overlord. His life was in peril, his heart started pumping rapidly to keep up with the race of emotions in his mind, and the burden of his position started to work against him, weakening his resolve to the point that he starts believing that it would've just been better if Mario had never come for him.
That was the thought that breaks him from his slip into absolute despair, as he widens his eyes and takes a heavy breath in to get a hold of himself. He thinks to himself, "No. Mario and the others…Their bonds of friendship with me were something I always needed to better myself as a person" As he raises his left fist up near his face and thinks about their situations. "They need a planet to return to, I can never give up on myself no matter the grim circumstances." He then opens his eyelids right up and glares back at his clone, peering deep into his empty sockets to reach Cackletta's spirit within.
The witch's pitch black soul feels a chill upon being noticed, which reaches out to her vessel and causes it to flinch and freeze in place unexpectedly. "You know, evil me…" Alex says in a sharp tone that mocks his counterpart for the nickname he has been using this entire battle. "You may think I'm a pariah, but at the end of the day if I win I WILL actually have friends to return to. Friends who are kind and compassionate. However, IF you manage to kill me and everyone else all you'll have left is the spirit of a 'mother' who sees you only as a means to an end and seven insane copies of the proudest group of warriors that I will forever have the honor of having inside of me. Honestly, that bastard witch you call your parent should've never created you in the first place if she couldn't realize this simple fact…"
For the first time, Alex said something that actually got his opposite on edge. The once emotionless being grits his teeth and stares at the young Overlord, tightly gripping his sword as Cackletta works hard on the inside to suppress her puppet to no avail. "What the hell…NO! NO! This can't be happening…I designed my child to be without any emotion to balance the seven deadly sins…How could rage be forming now?" As she mutters her concerns to herself within the black void of his vessel's mind, the clone charges at his "evil half" and yells out in violent rage, "YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
It was clear what had set him off. The mere mention of Cackletta in such a negative way at the end of Alex's sentence forced an emotion to be born within him. But this now made it easier to predict his movements, and as the young Overlord forms a grin on his face he quickly ducks his head down to avoid a furious slash, dispelling his own blade and quickly moving through the remaining flames to deliver a few punches square into his opponent's gut at lightning speed. When the clone flinches from these blows, Alex brings his hands together and lifts them up to perform an uppercut straight into the neck region.
With the air circulation briefly cut off by the amount of force applied to the pressure point via that blow, the clone lets out a dry sounding cough before the young Overlord grabs him by the neck with his right hand and lifts his entire body up to look straight into his frenzied eyes. Letting go momentarily to wind his fist back, the clone attempts what should've been done earlier on and pulls his sword back ready to thrust it out and stab it through Alex's heart. But as the killing blow is brought to full the young Overlord grins.
The time had passed thanks to the moments he spent riling his counterpart, and a simple stab wasn't going to burn through the new soul shields like the slashes did earlier. With the emergence of the green shockwave comes a "Hmph" from Acia Rose in the clone's eardrums. While his evil half wondered how this could be possible, Alex thrust his fist out faster than he could hope to react to. The face is struck hard, the knuckles digging into the skin until the young Overlord decides to knock his counterpart away with a mighty burst of wind.
Laying flat against the air as he is blown away, the clone's feathers slip off the wings until Alex appears above him and slams the backside of his right fist straight into his gut to send him hurtling downward. However, this is then followed up by the young Overlord holding his left hand up and summoning forth seven glowing orbs of differing colors, each infused with their own elemental properties. He flings them downward, each one spiraling towards their target in sequence and leaving behind a vapor trail that connects back to their creator.
Each shot connects with the clone and explodes, sending him down faster and faster until he reaches terminal velocity upon the fire shot colliding with his body. After that he hits the ground like an anvil, his body forcing itself through the layers of dirt and rock underneath and cracking the surface around the hole he makes. Alex can't tell how deep he is going, but as he finds himself pleased with his effort he flips his body back upward and redraws his sword knowing full well the battle is not quite over. He can feel the darkness building up underneath the planet's plates, and as an abundant amount of it rises out of the hole the clone was knocked into a lump starts to rise out of the surface of the crater.
Suddenly it bursts open like a super-volcano, a dark sphere of energy with a pitch black core spreading out in a radius of approximately twenty miles while massive chunks of land get flung around in all directions. The one that goes towards Alex is cut down instantly, and as the separate pieces fall back towards the ground the young Overlord holds his sword out in front of his body and turns his head to the right to see his clone now floating just a few feet away from him. His body was excreting darkness at a rapid rate, his eyes releasing sparks of that very energy as his scowl could not become anymore prominent. It was clear that his body was suffering a meltdown thanks to his ungodly levels of anger on the outside, but on the inside the spirit of Cackletta was working to regain control of her puppet before things got any further out of hand.
It was unknown as to just what she was doing, but as Alex turns his body around ready to combat his opponent, the darkness surrounding the clone simply vanishes without a trace and he returns to his emotionless demeanor as if he never exited it in the first place. He also dispels his sword, his eyes looking on at the perplexed young Overlord and saying to him in monotone, "I see that you are still alive…Evil me…I underestimated how stubborn you truly are…" With his right arm brandished beside his body, pitch black flames start to form in the hand that crawl up the limb in separate streams before connecting to the shoulder and sinking in to return back to the fist. Alex can hear the pulsation of darkness beating within the flames, and as he looks at his clone's arm he comes to a startling revelation about what he is planning to do. Sensing the seven elements imbued within the black fire, it was clear as day that his opposite has about ready to perform what he himself has been hesitant to do…
Next Time: The Bullet that Slays God