The Fateful XIII
Chapter 32
Endgame
Whats up all?
I've been having some computer trouble as of late. I recently had some major Ad-ware problems and it made it really hard to write with all those damn pop-ups everywhere. The problem is solved now, but I probably would have had this done earlier if it hadn't been there in the first place.
Anyway, in case you didn't get the message from the chapter title, this is the last chapter of the story. Everything comes to an end in this chapter. Don't start rioting just yet though, there will be an epilogue after this that will finish up everything else, then after that, I'm gonna start up Fateful XIII: Rewind, the prequel that I've been yammering about since forever.
No matter though, the point is that the chapter is done, so go ahead and enjoy the last official installment of The Fateful XIII.
"The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live..." -Socrates, Greek philosopher of Athens
As one, Roxas, Xelskyr, and Hikari charged Kysrel; the dark keyblader stood firm and thrust his own blade forward. In one twist of his keyblade, he was able to block all three other keyblades, and then repel their wielders. It was then his turn to go on the offensive, so he charged forward, bypassing Roxas and Hikari all together and heading straight for Xelskyr.
The nobody was quick to react and blocked Kysrel. The force of the blow and the speeds at which Kysrel attacked alone were enough to force Xelskyr back, losing ground by leaps and bounds until he was pinned against the edge of their darkness encased arena. His somebody pushed him harder and harder into the wall, the dark energy burning his back and turning his skin raw.
Suddenly Kysrel flipped his keyblade over his shoulder and blocked a strike from Roxas as he attempted to capitalize on his attention being on Xelskyr alone. He lifted his right leg and kicked his nobody in the stomach, then twisted to the side, knocking Roxas' keyblade away from him and slicing into his upper right shoulder before landing on both feet a few meters away.
He turned to his left and his keyblade then clashed with Hikari's. The female keyblader made three quick strikes, all of which were repelled, then changed her strategy by trying to kick Kysrel's legs out from under him. He merely jumped over the low attack, front flipping over her and landing with his back to her. Without even looking, he kicked his right foot backwards and connected with the back of the girls head, sending her flying.
By this time, Roxas had recovered from the blow to his shoulder and was attacking Kysrel again. He began with a vertical slash which Kysrel simply knocked to the side, and responded with a horizontal attack, which Roxas barely ducked under in time, then a vertical slash, which Roxas had to use both hands to defend against. The younger keyblader jumped back a bit, retreating as Hikari jumped over him and attacked their opponent from the air.
Again the attack was knocked away, and Hikari was knocked back into the air. As she flew backwards, she threw her keyblade, which barely missed Kysrel as he sidestepped. He didn't notice however, that Roxas was behind him, and had caught the Threshold of Light in his free hand.
Roxas attacked with Hikari's blade, which Kysrel easily blocked, then stabbed at him with Oathbreaker, aiming to pierce his head. With a quick turn on his neck, Kysrel had dodged the blade and used his free hand to grab Roxas' wrist and flip him off his feet and onto his back. Kysrel thrust downward in an attempt to stab Roxas in the chest, but he was able to bring up both keyblades in and 'X' formation and block the tip of the blade before it reached his chest.
The teen quickly rolled away and tossed the Threshold of Light back to Hikari, who caught it and quickly entered a battle ready stance. Kysrel was ready to attack them again, but stopped when he noticed his shadow was growing larger in front of him. He turned around only to be met with one of Xelskyr's Nova Fist attacks in the face. The beam of bright orange and yellow plasma exploded on impact, forcing Roxas and Hikari to raise their blades to block out the dust and debris.
The Roxas and Hikari watched in a mixture of awe and horror as the dust cleared. Kysrel stood erect as he always did, completely unharmed by an attack that, by all means, should have sent him flying across the room. The dark keyblade master used his free hand to brush away some dust on his shoulder and sighed.
"After all this time...is this all you have? This is no fun at all," he said, actually sounding bored.
He began to glow in a dark aura, and his power was skyrocketing. His keyblade started glowing red and the buildup of energy seemed to be concentrated in that area.
"Oh well, I suppose I'll at least honor you with a flashy death," he said, pointing his blade directly at Roxas.
His eyes widened as he watched a small beam fire from the tip of the Dark Corruption. There was nothing he could do to get out of the way, it was coming at him too fast and all he could do was watch. Just when he thought he was done for, he felt something push him out of the way as he fell to the ground. He flipped onto his side and saw Xelskyr being pushed back as the beam collided with the broad side of his own keyblade.
Xelskyr gritted his teeth and dug his feet into the ground, trying desperately to finally stop and hopefully deflect the attack. He was able to accomplish the first part of his task, and finally slid to a stop, and now he worked on diverting the beam.
His luck though, seemed to have run out there. He eyed his keyblade nervously as he saw the near indestructible metal begin to crack and chip away under the strain. He cursed under his breath and thought frantically of a way to get out of this.
Unfortunately, it was all too little too late, and right before his eyes, his keyblade shattered. He made a desperate move and tried to twist out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough and the beam slammed into his right side. The resulting explosion blew him across the remainder of the room and into the 'wall'.
Roxas and Hikari rushed towards the crash site, navigating the thick, kicked up smoke and dust. As it began to settle, they could see easier, and saw the rough outline of the keyblade wielding nobody. When they arrived though, they were shocked at what they found.
Xelskyr laid there against the wall, his keyblade shattered in two, shards laying all around the ground. That wasn't what the two teens were looking at though. They were a bit more engrossed in the fact that Xelskyr's entire right arm had been completely blown off. There wasn't even a stub of the original limb, it was just...gone.
He groaned loudly as he regain consciousness from his short unconscious state. He attempted to stand, using the left hand to prop himself up and support his body weight. Roxas quickly reached over and helped support him as well.
"X-Xelskyr," stuttered Hikari, "your...your arm, its..."
He nodded.
"Yeah, I noticed," he said as he leaned against the wall, still sucking in air, trying in vain to ignore the pain.
"What are we gonna do?" asked Roxas, "we were getting our asses kicked before, and now you're out of commission. How are we gonna win without you?"
Even though the pain of losing his arm, he was still able to laugh.
"Who said I was out of commission, I still intend on finishing this fight."
"What're you talking about, your right arm is gone. How do you plan on fighting him?" protested Hikari.
"Don't worry," he said, waving off her worried comment, "for what I plan on doing, I don't need my arms. Just keep him busy a little longer, I'll take care of everything else after that. All I want you two to do is get to a safe distance after I've done what I need to do. It'll most likely be a hell of a bang."
Neither of them looked very convinced, but decided to trust him; after all, he still seemed to be the only person with the complete picture of what was going on.
Roxas and Hikari begrudgingly left Xelskyr to lean against the wall while they ran off to further distract Kysrel. Xelskyr stood there for a while and watched them go, not believing that just a little less than seven months ago, those two were just whiny, naive teenagers who had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
He almost laughed at how much they'd grown.
'heh, those two are alright...I think I'm actually gonna miss 'em.'
Outside the spherical arena that Kysrel had created, the battle raged in the Destiny Island town square. Rhys had returned with the Radiant Garden crew. Cloud, Tifa, Leon, Yuffie, Aerith, and Cid had all shown up. Cloud, Tifa, and Leon were all off fighting as a group, while Yuffie and Aerith were providing ranged support and the occasional healing spell respectively. Cid however, was getting on in years, and wasn't really up to snuff for up close fighting anymore, but he was still one hell of a pilot, so Rhys had -after a lot of convincing- lent him the Cypher.
The Fateful had shown up as well, fighting individually near their preferred environment. Nevax was taking care of all the aquatic based heartless by creating a mass of dragons made entirely of ice as he rode them around the ocean surrounding the island, slicing up all who dared oppose him. Ranxao was using the abundance of palm tree's to his advantage, and soon had an army of tropical ents to command. Venxdi, Xealx, Ahexcilm, and Hyrxs were all in the middle of the mess, ripping through the heartless with their own unique set of attacks. Tevesix had gone off to support Axel, seeing as the red haired nobody was one of his summons anyway.
Meanwhile; Ichigo, Naruto, and Aang stood back to back, almost completely surrounded on all sides by heartless.
"Well, looks like we're backed into a corner, any idea's guys?" asked Ichigo.
He heard Naruto snicker behind him.
"What's the matter Ichigo, getting scared?" he teased.
"Me? Pfft, not a chance Uzumaki, I'm more worried about baldy over there," he said, leaning his head over in Aang's direction.
Aang jumped in on the friendly banter.
"Heh, that's funny, I was about to say the same thing about you two."
"Well, all jokes aside, does anybody have any idea's?" asked Ichigo again.
Naruto shrugged.
"I say we just kill as many of these bastards as possible until Roxas and Hikari finish up. They're bound to be done eventually, so lets just have fun while it lasts," suggested Naruto.
"Hey, sounds good to me, but what say we make it a little more interesting?"
"What do you mean?" asked Aang.
"How about last guy to five hundred pays for lunch?" said Naruto.
"Fine with me," agreed Ichigo.
"Me to," nodded Aang.
"Right, then on the count of three," said Naruto, getting ready to count down, "One...Two...THREE!"
With that, the three charged out in three separate directions and began ripping through the heartless with renewed vigor. Unknown to them, on the other side of Kysrel's construct, Rhys, Julia, and Matt were having a similar conversation in a similar position.
"So it's agreed then, the one with the most kills by the time Roxas, Hikari, and Xelskyr get outta there is the winner," said Rhys.
"Sounds pretty good to me," agreed Matt.
Rhys laughed.
"You sure you're up for this kid, I mean me and Julia have been doin' this sort of thing for a while now."
"I wouldn't underestimate him Rhys, remember, you saw how good Roxas and Hikari are, and they're no older than he is," said Julia.
Matt grinned.
"Yeah, listen to the lady. I'll be fine, you just worry about yourself; I can't guarantee I'll be able to save your ass if you get in over your head."
"Jeez, cocky little bastard," Rhys muttered as the three of them ran off to fight as well. All of them; the Fateful, the crew of Boeotia, and the heroes of Light, both old and young fought for their lives and the lives of all their loved ones. None of them could fail because failure here meant the end of everything they ever cared about; failure here meant the end of all things.
Roxas and Hikari were knocked back for the fourth time. The duo had been attacking from every angle, and still every time, Kysrel had beaten them back. Roxas recovered from the counter-attack first and went on the offensive again. He attacked with a horizontal slash, which Kysrel deflected with almost no effort. He followed up with two attacks, one was a vertical attack in a downward motion, the second followed the first almost immedeatly and was a horizonal slash; the first attack Kysrel leaned out of the way from, and the second was deflected, and Oathbreaker was knocked from his hand.
While Roxas reached out to try and catch his wayward sword, Kysrel thrust his blade forward and very nearly pierced it through the boys chest. At the last second however, Hikari rejoined the battle and blocked Kysrel's attack while Roxas recovered his keyblade and they were able to double team him once more.
The pair jumped back, creating distance between them and the fallen keyblade master. Roxas looked over his shoulder at Xelskyr, who was still pretty much slumped over against the wall.
"Yo, Xel! A little help would be much appreciated!" shouted Roxas.
The one armed nobody looked up groggily.
"Ah shut up! Just gimme another minute to recover; hold up a little longer!"
Roxas growled in frustration, but never the less, rushed forward with Hikari to continue to fight Kysrel. Xelskyr looked on at the battle and winced at how bad it was going. Roxas and Hikari both had several flesh wounds across their torso and arms. He also noticed Roxas' movements were getting a bit sluggish, suggesting he may have a concussion.
The nobody looked down at his missing limb and sighed. He had been planing on ending the fight much earlier than this, but the fact that he had saved Roxas from that beam and lost his arm and his keyblade, he didn't have the energy on hand at that moment to do what he'd been planing to do. Though he could feel that he was close to what he needed now. All he needed was to get close; once he was within arms reach, he could finish this.
'Alright Xelskyr, man up! Let's just get this thing over with,' he thought to himself.
He gritted his teeth and pushed up with his remaining left arm. Pain immediately rocketed though his body as his open wound was agitated by the movement. He almost fell again, but dug his fingers into the wall and held himself up. After a minute or so, he was on his feet. He slowly trudged further into the arena with a bit of a limp.
Roxas and Hikari looked over and saw the nobody finally on the move, and jumped back and landed at his sides. They both looked to him for instructions.
"What's the game plan Xelskyr?" asked Hikari.
"Just cover me while I get in close. This has got to work, I've only got enough energy for one burst of speed and one more Nova Fist. After that, I'm out," he warned them.
They both nodded and crouched down into identical fighting stances. Xelskyr began the countdown.
"Ready...set...GO!" he shouted.
Immediately, Roxas and Hikari shot forward, followed shortly by Xelskyr, who hung back slighly behind the two. He summoned his last Nova Fist in his left hand.
Kysrel watched the three charging forward like lemmings off a cliff, and smirked. He pumped a frightening amount of darkness into his free hand and fired forth a swarm of dark energy blasts. Roxas and Hikari moved to defend Xelskyr's advance and began deflecting them in a mad rush of slashes and swings. The second they were clear, Xelskyr picked up his speed and ran straight past the other two keyblade wielders. Kysrel swung his blade horizontally in a wide arc, and a wave of dark energy flew forward at the dark keybladers nobody.
Xelskyr, despite his burning legs, jumped and front-flipped over the attack, and while he was upside-down in the air, fired his Nova Fist into the ground, causing it to explode and rocket him higher into the air, coming down right at Kysrel. The nobody roared as he fell in decent, his fist raised, ready to strike his opponent.
At the same time, Kysrel thrust his keyblade up into the air. Roxas and Hikari watched it all in slow motion as Xelskyr literally fell into the blade, and was pierced through the stomach. Xelskyr let out a few sickening gurgles as blood was pouring out his mouth; his arms began shaking as he raised them and grabbed ahold of Kysrel's arm. His breathing became strained and shallow, and his eyes bulged until it seemed they would pop out of their sockets.
Kysrel smirked at his nobody's suffering.
"That was a foolish attack Xelskyr, I expected better from you. Still, I'll enjoy it all the same as I watch you die," he said, almost letting a giggle of excitement sneak in.
His smile disappeared as he heard Xelskyr mumble something, but couldn't quite catch it.
"What was it that you said?" he asked suspiciously.
He looked up at him, wearing a confident smirk of his own.
"I said...I wouldn't worry...about m-me. It's all...a-according to...p-plan," he said as he suddenly began to fade, not into nothingness, but into Kysrel's keyblade.
Kysrel was confused for once, but soon forgot about it when a sharp pain began to slice into his mind. He grabbed onto his head with his free hand as he screamed out in pain; breathing heavily as the agony only increased.
"What...WHAT DID YOU DO!?" he shouted in rage.
Xelskyr chuckled weakly as he continued to be absorbed by the keyblade.
"Funny thing...about d-darkness. I-its pretty...strong...u-until light is...t-thrown into t-the...mix," he stuttered out between coughs and sharp breaths.
"WHAT ARE YOU YAMMERING ABOUT YOU FOOL!?" he roared with a sensation that his head was being ripped in half.
"Isn't it obvious," came Roxas' voice.
Kysrel looked over at the brunette with an enraged face.
"Your keyblades ability is to absorb the power of those it kills, and Xelskyr is the container of the last fragments of your heart that ever held any light. Now that he's dying, that power is being absorbed by your keyblade, and light is being funneled into your heart again. With the amount of darkness coursing though it, that light is going to slowly de-stabilize it, and if I'm right, this is all going to end in one hell of a bang. His plan all along was to be killed by your keyblade; he wanted you to kill him," explained Roxas, wearing a confident smirk on his face, when in reality, the full weight of the situation was sinking in; Xelskyr was dying, and Kysrel was now a ticking time bomb.
"I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" screamed Ksyrel.
No one really ever figured out what he was planning to do next, because as soon as he finished that sentence, his body began to bulge outwards and twist in ways that made the two younger keyblade masters stomachs turn. He writhed in pain and dropped his keyblade, and Xelskyr fell to the ground in a heap, though he did manage to roll onto his side and yell out one word; "RUN!"
They didn't need any more incentive than that. The two teens turned tail and ran like they were on fire, and a chill ran up their spines when they heard a scream of rage filled with bloodlust. They looked over their shoulders and saw the disfigured form of Kysrel regaining his composure and running after them. Before he could get very far though, he fell over when Xelskyr grabbed onto his leg.
He continued to scream out in anger even after he fell over, and began to try and claw his way forward. Xelskyr however, just sighed as he almost felt pity for his psychopathic somebody.
"Jeez...what a sore loser..." he muttered.
He looked over at the other end of the arena as Roxas and Hikari used their keyblades to force open the wall of the sphere. Once they were clear, he let go of Kysrel's leg; he wouldn't last more than a few more seconds anyway. Once free, Kysrel charged forward in vain, while Xelskyr just continued to lay on the ground, the Dark Corruption still piercing his stomach.
"...at least I can die with some dignity," he said, closing his eyes.
He waited a few seconds, then the screaming stopped. There was no bang or loud noises; on the contrary, it got very quiet. For a while he wasn't sure what was going on, all he knew was he couldn't really feel...anything. All the feeling in his body left him, and it seemed as though he was just floating.
For the first time since...well, the beginning of his existence he guessed, he felt something. He felt...peace.
Roxas and Hikari had just rolled to a stop after they jumped out of Kysrel's dark spherical arena. They quickly rushed back onto their feet, completely disregarding the heartless that were surrounding them. Everyone who was fighting looked over at them as they ran like they had seen a ghost. The ones nearest them were about to ask for an explanation, but were cut off when they both shouted out the same thing at the same time; "GET DOWN AND COVER YOUR ASS!"
The message only served to confuse them even more, but when they saw the dark sphere in the middle of the square begin to fluctuate and bulge out, they got the basic gist of their meaning and began scrambling away and trying to find cover.
The two teens looked over their shoulders at the sphere, and were blinded by a bright flash as it was blown apart. The light grew and grew and both of them knew they weren't going to be able to outrun the obvious explosion. They reached the end of the street they were running down and jumped though the shattered window of a damaged shop, rolling under the counter and hitting the wall on the other side.
As the explosion rolled towards them, Roxas wrapped his arms around Hikari and held her tightly; both of them closing their eyes tightly and praying they would survive as the explosion rampaged down across the island, and finally collided with the store.
BOOM! Cliffhanger, HAHA!
Too bad guys, you're going to have to wait for the epilogue to see what else happens. You guys are probably pissed, but come on, I've gotta keep some surprises for the epilogue.
Until then, see ya 'round.