Evil Takes Form:
"After I had initially talked to my brothers in the Dimension of the Lost, I knew that I had to do something," said Elkon, continuing his story. "I knew I had to make the necessary change the world needed, just as it was said I would do before I was conceived."
Nova Daisy stood, the palms of her hands resting on her upper arms as she listened to the words of a victim of her father's gross tyrannical ways. She suppressed all that she felt towards her father so that she could focus on what Elkon had to say.
"You should be well aware by now that humans have been abusing nature for quite a while, and not just for war and conflict," stated Elkon. "But using the elements of our world in war was crossing the line, and forcing me to do what I did was beyond intolerable. The time to make that great change had come, and I would be the one to usher it in. However, the idea that I eventually put into motion came to me unintentionally."
Daisy cocked an eyebrow up a bit with a modest display of confusion on her face. "How's that?"
"Shortly after departing from the Stone Shrine, I came across an abandoned pendant," Elkon said. "This pendant actually happened to be one of the many Pendants of Power spread throughout the world, but it wasn't just any Pendant of Power. It was the Master Pendant, one of the most powerful of the bunch ever created. Its abilities were split, some being known while others shrouded in mystery. I don't know what came over me, but a funny feeling registered in my body. It was a sensation that made me feel compelled to pick up the pendant, as if the gem itself was calling out to me."
"And so you took it with you. But did you ever wear it?"
"I took it with me, but I did not wear it. I took it under the impression that it would be safe with me and out of the way of someone who would otherwise use it for whatever vile malevolence they intended to use it for. I felt I had to take it, because if it had managed to get into the wrong hands, it would mean trouble for not just humanity and not just your world, but many worlds. I didn't think I needed the power boost from the gem nor did I think I could use the gem for myself until I noticed that it had very strange...properties, and that it was rife with impurities. It was these impurities the Master Pendant had that allowed me to tamper with and corrupt the elements, and, you know the rest. Why it was abounding with impurities, I don't know." He paused for a moment, thinking back to the events at his tower. "Why it elicited the effects it did on Grekka, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever. I wish I did, but with all the knowledge I had gained, I had also gained the truth that it is absolutely impossible to know everything. Even the knowledge I had and have now is on less than two percent of the universe at the very most. When I gave Grekka the Master Pendant, I intended for him to assist me in my plan, not for him to go ballistic in seemingly uncontrolled rage."
Daisy bowed her head. "I see..."
"As we stand here today, King Sarasa exhibits control over a vast majority of the eastern continent," said Elkon. "I don't believe he ever intended on stopping. When I was a part of his forces, their plans and tactics were geared towards using me in as many ways as possible. I was seen and treated as the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. When I managed to escape, a large gap was created in his military strategy. This allowed other nations a chance to fight back and regain control of their lands, but it didn't last for long. Sarasaland would eventually rebound and slowly regain its conquests. I expect he wants to expand into the West soon."
"Yeah, he probably will," Daisy murmured, thinking back to what Terran had disclosed to her. In regards to her father, Terran had said almost the exact same thing that Elkon was telling her now.
A short silence followed, a silence that felt like eternity and would have gone on for as long had Elkon not decided to speak up. "I have told you my story, just as you asked. So what response do you have to present?"
Daisy's eyes closed as she took a deep breath, the kind of breath that relaxed a person so much that that person could, for a moment, feel partial numbness overtaking their body. She was quiet for a little while, though Elkon waited for her to give her response without question. She slowly uncrossed her arms, returning them to her sides. When she reopened her eyes, her tone was muted, yet resolute. "You may be right. I understand everything that you're saying. Even though I never experienced everything that you had to experience, I can feel everything that you felt. It's hard to explain, and I can't grasp or make sense of how, but I know that I'm able to feel and understand your experiences as if I was there myself. How clear it is, I can't say for sure."
"...Yes," said Elkon. "Go on..."
"But even if I understand you now," Daisy continued. "That doesn't change my stance against your desire to end humanity."
"...Then you want to settle things with me?" Elkon asked. "Is that it?"
"I do," the Kruna of Earth answered. "But my master, Terran, believed in me, and said that my team and I would have to figure out what it meant to be a hero as we went through our journey against you. And he didn't mean that we had to figure out how to appear to be a hero or how to think or see ourselves as heroes, no, we had to figure out what it meant to be true heroes. And in the world we live in, with all that you and I both have had to experience and all that countless other people have to experience, with all that is wrong and all that needs to be fixed, true heroes are needed now more than ever. I trust and believe in him wholeheartedly, because he was more of a father to me than my actual dad. But I don't think knowing the meaning of heroism is as crucial to our mission as he said it was. Truth is, I don't think myself or my teammates can actually define what it means to be a hero, nor do we want to even try to. So maybe we won't ever know what true heroism really is. That's not what we're here to do. But we're on this quest, standing against you because the world needs us to." Her face perked up and her expression turned fierce. "So that's it – that's my answer!"
Elkon frowned, showing disappointment from Daisy's statements. "That's your response? You think by defeating me, by killing me, you'll restore order and justice to this land? No, you won't, because people of all walks and ways of life will continue their warring ways just as they always have. Because there will always be those trying to assert dominance and supremacy, there will always be suffering and pain forced upon others. I have experienced this first hand in ways deemed unimaginable. There is no possible way that you can put an end to that unless you put an end to all of humanity."
"I'm not here to defeat you or kill you," said Daisy, unshaken in her demeanor. "I'm here to say, there has got to be a better way to solve the issues of the world than yours. We shouldn't need mass genocide over all of humanity just to make the world a better place."
"Then I suppose you expect me to stand idly by until you somehow magically pick out and restrain all of the corrupt and unjust humans in the world?" asked Elkon. When Daisy nodded in response, a hint of irritation became audible in the space distorter's voice. "...Why should I?"
A short, tense silence followed for a few seconds before Elkon spoke again. "What's so compelling that I must put my trust in you? Why should I abort my way in favor of your way?"
"Because ending all of humanity...is just another form of giving up."
Elkon gasped, shaken by the Kruna of Earth's bold statement. And yet, he couldn't help but notice the validity of her words. How could she say something like that? he wondered. It's so absurd! But it's so...it's...is it truth? Has my mission been a facade? Have I already given up long ago?
"I'll tell you what I told Kokoro," said Daisy. "It's in my name. My master bestowed upon me the task of revitalizing a name with new meaning, a name that my father had ruined, and I must honor his final wishes by doing just that. I choose to define my name by the way I live and have lived my life. My name is defined by upholding an unfaltering will in the face of endless adversity, and it is my responsibility to not stop or give up! I will stand true to my name, and I will succeed! I can promise you that."
"After all that's happened, past and present, how can you be so sure?" Elkon asked, his voice beginning to tremble. He wasn't sure what to think or what to believe anymore. "How can you stand there and tell me that as if you know for a fact that you will? How do you expect to go up against these insurmountable odds and succeed? Do you really think you'll never stray from that mindset and self-belief? All the corruption and greed, pain and suffering, hatred and destruction in the world, and you expect me to believe that you'll somehow quell all of it? You know you will have to deal with your father sooner or later. You'll have to muster the mentality to stand against him to have any hope of bringing him down. Or better yet, how do I know you're not going to turn out like him even if you adhere to your values?! How can you be so confident and sure in yourself?!"
"...Because I understand," Daisy said, soft and true. "I can listen. And I can comprehend. I've been through despair too. You're not the only one..."
At that moment, memories of her past troubles began to flood through her mind. She remembered being a kid and the whole of Sarasaland turning on her, her strict and authoritative parents, Terran being dismissed after being around the castle for less than a year, her failed attempt at killing herself, and her failed attempt to flee with Terran under the cover of night. Her parents at that point began clamping down on her already limited freedoms, forcing her into over four mind numbing years of lifelessness and despair where it was her against all of Sarasaland, concluded by her father's decision to hand her over to Tatanga and his alien race to live a life as a human generator that would have likely ended in a very early death. Then Mario stepped in out of nowhere and saved her from that fate before she reached the point of no return, but it proved to only be a meager moral victory. She was left alone in the world with nowhere to go, and even when she made the decision to take residence in the Mushroom Kingdom, it never felt natural. Everyone was so different from her, and while she was welcome at kingdom-wide events every once in a while, she always felt left out, ignored, expendable...unnecessary. On so many occasions, it made her wonder again, almost too many times to count; why? Why was she here? Why not just give up and die? And yet somehow, something inside her just wouldn't let her do it. Something inside her refused to let her die, even though she hated herself and hated how she could never go through with the action. It's this will that has carried her through this daunting and harrowing odyssey from the get-go and that has brought her to stand against the reincarnation of the creator of space.
"I'm still despairing, deep down," said the Kruna of Earth, her voice somber. "I might have to despair for the rest of my life. I don't know..." Her mind was pulled back to her fight with Grekka. How easily that could have been me, she thought. If I were to give up... If I had ever let my hatred and pain consume me... If our roles were reversed, I would have had the Master Pendant, and the events that led up to this moment would have been exactly the same.
"But, I'm confident in myself...and sure of myself," Daisy murmured, growing solemn and steadfast. "Because for almost my entire life, I was the only one that could be confident in and sure of myself. I admit, I've questioned why I do many times in the past, but there's no doubt that I do. I am by no means the ideal kind of person or candidate to be seen as any sort of role model for the world, and that's fine as long as I stay true to who I am, not who someone else wants me to be. But if my faith in myself were to stop, if all of a sudden I gave up and let the will to fight on die, then I wouldn't be me, and I would fail against the odds, and I would become the true villain in all of this for letting everyone down. I sure wouldn't be the person my master had faith in for the limited time that he was in my life. My master entrusted me with stopping my father because I'm the only one who can. And because I can stop my own dad, I can take on the evils of the world. If I wasn't me, then I wouldn't stand a chance against him, and I sure wouldn't stand a chance against the other malevolent entities in our reality. That's why I'm asking you to believe in me, to believe in who I am, because no matter how tough it gets, no matter how much pain befalls me, no matter how stacked the odds are against me, I'll keep pushing, I'll keep fighting, I'll keep pressing forward, and I'll walk on. I'll do it all because that's who I am, and that's who I've always been."
Elkon's eyes flared wide open. The tension and angst in his face seemed to fade away. He did not respond immediately, but relaxed his eyes and spoke with calm when he did. "You gave meaning to who you are. If who you are inside you were to ever change, then you would be a completely different person altogether. You would not be Daisy Sarasa."
The Kruna of Earth's steely resolve was all Elkon needed to know that he had interpreted her correctly. Elkon continued speaking, several brief but noticeable pauses in between his sentences. "We are both humans, sharing the same world, from two very different lives and beginnings. When you started your campaign against me, you originally thought of me as nothing more than a threat to your world, a threat to your way of life. You assumed me to be evil, but you've since become aware of the true evils of our reality. You have the power, and you are wholeheartedly willing to put it towards the betterment of the common good. The sad truth is, there is a very real possibility that you may never actually succeed in quelling these evils. You and your world may be doomed to having to withstand these evils for as long as reality persists. And yet, you are certain that however slim that chance may be, you will prevail."
Another breeze shuffled through the Arena of Absolution. Elkon waited for the wind to die down before he said anything more. "You remind me a lot of myself when I was younger, full of hope and fearless of the future. Unfortunately, after King Sarasa took hold of me, I was never the same. I was so full of hopelessness, pain, despair, and I never saw anything other than that, so I never expected anything different from my life or the world, and only prepared for things to get worse. I only foresaw more pain and more despair for me and for everyone... But, for some reason that I can't even begin to explain, you give me the vision of a different kind of world from the one I have seen; who you are gives me hope for a different future from the one that our world was seemingly doomed to head towards."
A longer pause followed, the reincarnation of the creator of space quiet and without movement. Daisy stood perfectly still, equally as motionless as him. The red and pink hues of the sky of the Twelfth Dimension had not changed tone the whole time the Kruna were there, as if the whole of the realm was timeless.
"You certainly are a curious individual, Daisy," Elkon finally said. "I think I will believe in you after all."
Elkon raised an arm high and swung it down in front of him. The Arena of Absolution jerked and began its descent back down to the fortress.
"Hey! The arena's coming down!" Marut exclaimed.
The Kruna watched as the Arena of Absolution slowly returned from high above in the sky. As it came nearer to its resting place, the elemental wielders could not help but notice something very strange concerning its descent.
"I sense Daisy...and Elkon!" said Bowser.
"Me too!" Marut hollered.
"I would hope it's safe to say that we all can," said Andrew.
"Why are we sensing both of them?" Warra wondered aloud.
Several moments passed before the arena had lowered all the way back down to the fortress roof. Sure enough, when the Arena of Absolution finally stopped in its original resting place, Nova Daisy and Elkon both stood ten yards apart from each other. The Kruna all ran up the staircase and onto the arena to regroup with their teammate.
"What happened?" asked Ramona.
"Should we be concerned that Elkon's still standing there?" asked Athelstan.
"It's alright," said Elkon. "I won't be here for long. All I'm going to do here is make a new choice." At the wave of a hand, a large portal opened up behind him at the far side of the Arena of Absolution opposite the staircase that led onto it. He then raised both his arms straight up as they began to glow.
"Wait, what are you doing?" asked Marut.
"I will give all seven of you a portion of my life force," said Elkon. "I pray that it may be a significant boost to the power of each one of you."
"Elkon..." Daisy murmured, showing a look of surprise. "That's not necessary."
"Yes, it is," the reincarnation of the creator of space replied. "It is entirely necessary. I have a debt I must pay back to you all for the troubles I have caused you." He smiled, subtle yet sincere. "It's the least I can do." A golden, wispy aura erupted from the glow of Elkon's arms.
"When you said that you're giving us each a portion of your life force, what exactly did you mean?" asked Warra. "How much?!"
Elkon closed his eyes, maintaining his smile. He didn't feel a need to answer that question. Daisy's expression was blank, as if she read Elkon's body language and knew what he meant. The rest of the Kruna looked at his arms, the aura around his upper extremities growing in intensity. A quiet ambience pervaded the atmosphere.
"You were the reincarnation of the creator of space," said Daisy. "How do you know you'll come back?"
Elkon chuckled. "But you see, I don't know, and that's just another facet of the beauty of reality." He opened his eyes. "We never know anything for sure."
The golden aura bolted to the solar plexus of each of the Kruna, momentarily imbuing all seven of them with a bright, lively glow as Elkon's life force was evenly divided and added to their own. Their bodies were jolted, tingling sensations and feelings of weightlessness overtaking the seven elemental wielders until Elkon finished transferring all of his life force. The glow around the Kruna then receded and the surreal sensations ceased, but each of them felt noticeably more powerful than before, if not substantially.
"Besides, I'm supposed to be dead," Elkon joked as he lowered his arms.
"According to the Comet Observatory, anyways," Daisy added.
"Regardless, one reincarnation should be enough," replied Elkon. "I shouldn't be reincarnated again. No one should, unless there was some special purpose they needed to serve that required such a condition."
"Unreal..." Andrew murmured. "This power boost-"
"Is insane," Marut finished, shifting his eyes between his arms.
"This is what a seventh of Elkon's life force feels like," Warra said in a near whisper.
"I wouldn't say my power doubled, but hell, I'll take it!" said Athelstan. "I think some of my elemental energy has been replenished too!"
"Yeah, I noticed that as well!" replied Andrew, creating a wisp of darkness in his hand.
"I suppose it's safe to say that's the case with us all," added Ramona.
Bowser gazed at himself, taking note of his amplified energy. He could feel his veins coursing with invigorated vitality, flowing with more efficiency than ever before. Although not mind blowing, the power increase could not be ignored.
"This is much appreciated, Elkon," Ramona thanked with a bow.
"You're very much welcome," said Elkon, his face starting to lose vigor. "The portal that I have created will lead you away from this realm and to the outskirts of the Mushroom Kingdom. I'm sorry about Grekka."
"It's okay," Daisy replied. "It's okay. It wasn't your fault."
"Grekka was correct in his final words," said Elkon. "The corruption of the elements has stemmed from the overall corruption of mankind. In the coming days, you will have to confront malevolence, villainy, and hatred in order to truly instill a lasting order of peace and justice. You all will, but especially you, Daisy; and I believe you're well aware why."
The Kruna of Earth nodded in full understanding of Elkon's statement.
Sweat beaded on Elkon's head as he spoke. "In your travels, you will see that the dystopia that you exist in today is ever devolving as evils continue to try and contort it in whatever way they see necessary to elicit their personal prosperity. The safety and comforts of a well-supported suburban community mask its inhabitants to what may be occurring on the opposite side of the globe, where safety and comfort have never been introduced to the vocabulary of the people trying to survive in a chronically hostile environment. You all now carry a hefty burden, the consequences beyond grave and dire should you fail, should you ever give up. But you must not be discouraged from this seemingly insurmountable task, none of you. I've seen enough to know that you're all capable of accomplishing this, and I'm convinced that you're the most capable of any group of people. I entrust you all with the purification of mankind."
"We promise to use the elements in the name of order and justice," Daisy calmly declared.
Elkon smiled. "It's funny. As I stand here now, I wonder...if the necessary change I was supposed to make was to bring you to the call of duty, Daisy. I wonder if my destiny was to awaken you so that you could move closer to yours." He paused, shifting his gaze to the Koopa King. "You did good, Bowser. Very good."
Bowser gasped, surprised by Elkon's acknowledgment. He kept a collected composure, replying, "Thank you."
"Well...this is it for me," said Elkon, his voice fading. "I leave the rest to all of you..." At the conclusion of his sentence, he buckled and collapsed to the ground. The Kruna gathered around Elkon's lifeless body, all of them at a loss for words. It was not the ending any of them expected. They thought they would have been celebrating a victory over Elkon, but they were instead quiet and subdued. None of them would have been able to predict or foresee this turn of events.
"He wasn't bad at all," Daisy murmured, breaking the momentary silence. "He was just misguided is all. In the end though, he was vital. Vital to us all."
"What do you mean by that?" Andrew asked Daisy. "What happened up there when you were fighting him?"
Daisy didn't respond immediately, lost in thought for a brief moment. "I'll tell you guys when we get back," the Kruna of Earth assured. "I think we should all be grateful for this journey that we took on. I think it's something we all needed."
"I agree," said Bowser. "I very much agree."
"You know, it was pretty fun," said Marut, rubbing behind his head with a hand. "Definitely a welcome break from my life."
"I second that, Marut," Andrew replied.
"Definitely thrilling," added Ramona. "I didn't know whether I was supposed to be excited or scared!"
"You know, I think if I had the choice, I'd do it all over!" Athelstan thought aloud. "Maybe with a new challenge like having to run up against all the shrine guardians one after the other with limited recovery!"
Ramona hesitated before she responded at an accelerated pace with, "Well I don't know about any of that."
Everyone in the group laughed, prompting Ramona herself to laugh too. Daisy however, was not laughing with the rest of the Kruna. A stern look across her face, she blankly stared off into the distance.
"What's wrong, Daisy?" Bowser asked the Kruna of Earth.
"And why haven't you returned to normal?" Warra asked. "Why have you stayed in Nova Form this whole time?"
"Yeah, we've won!" Athelstan cheered. "Mission's over! Threat's gone! I think we all did an excellent job!"
"...I don't know," Daisy replied. "Something just seems...amiss. I feel the need to stay in Nova Form but I can't quite explain why. It just feels like we're being...watched."
"Nonsense," said Athelstan. "We're done here! You can relax!"
"Workaholic much?" Andrew commented with sarcasm.
"I think you're just being a bit foolish," said Bowser. "I mean, unless Rollodillo, Dino Piranha, or, God forbid, Whomp King, actually somehow managed to make it out of that tower – let alone find their way here to this fortress – then I don't get why you're so unsettled, Daisy. And even then, those guys were not that big of an issue! Just go back to base form already and relax."
"I don't know," Daisy muttered. "Maybe when we pass through the portal, but for right now, something just feels very eerie."
"Suit yourself," replied Andrew.
"I...have...the power!" Marut echoed. He hurled a large gust of wind up into the air with velocity he would have been unable to muster prior to receiving his portion of Elkon's life force. His updraft rippled through the air above the fortress before dissipating at a markedly higher altitude.
"Melodramatic bastard," Bowser joked. Everyone burst out laughing.
"I wonder if I can one-hit kill Piranha Plants now," Marut mused aloud.
"Not likely," Andrew replied.
"You're not giving those plants enough credit, Marut," said Warra.
"How big of a tornado I can make now?!" Marut hollered in excitement.
"And we're moving along now!" Bowser flatly exclaimed, walking towards the dimensional portal.
Suddenly, a bright pink light illuminated the battlefield. The shining was followed by a barely audible humming akin to that of a low-powered laser. The Kruna all turned to see what may have very well been the last thing they wanted to see; the Master Pendant hovering behind them. Before anyone could react, the gem bolted towards Elkon's corpse and latched itself onto his neck. His body began to rise high into the air and glow as it was simultaneously imbued with energy and dismantled before everyone's eyes. The chunks of Elkon's corpse morphed and reformed into a vicious, ghastly cloud of energy.
None of the Kruna would have been able to predict the horror show that soon became visible. The humanoid Revenant that emerged from the cloud bore a strong resemblance to Elkon, but instead of legs, he had large, segmented wings in pieces that seemed to be bound together by nothing but energy. The gunmetal gray body oozed pink and red energy in fluid-like wisps. Blood was a prominent feature, leaking from dozens of areas of his body, including the eye sockets of his head that were emptied and now filled only by bright blue orbs. Where his legs formerly were, his torso tapered down into an immobile and symmetrical eight-fingered claw.
The magnitude of power involved with the Master Pendant's reanimation and transformation of Elkon's body somehow pulled the sun up into view over the horizon, causing the appearance of an early morning blue and gold sunrise over the Twelfth Dimension. With a wave of his now clawed hands, the portal back to the Kruna's home dimension dissipated. An intermittent moaning could be heard coming from the reanimated corpse as it let loose a blood-curdling roar akin to that of a dying vampire and stared down the elemental wielders in preparation for combat.
"Well, Daisy, I guess you were on to something!" exclaimed Bowser.
"I'm not gonna say I told you so!" responded Daisy.
"That Master Pendant is definitely not just a piece of jewelry!" Marut hollered.
"No piece of jewelry glows and floats around doing what it just did to Elkon's corpse," Bowser added. "I don't care how high you are!"
"That gem has made a vessel out of Elkon's deceased body!" said Athelstan. "And it's cut off our way out of this dimension!"
"We'll make our own!" Andrew assured, sharing a look with Ramona. "But first, we have to get past this thing!"
"What an abomination," Ramona said, legs trembling.
"Yeah," Warra said under his breath. "I can't believe...he's this powerful."
"But we're powerful too!" asserted Andrew.
"C'mon everybody!" Daisy yelled with a fist raised to the heavens. "All of us!"
The earth wielder did not need to say anything more for her teammates to understand what she meant. The Kruna spread out along the staircase side of the Arena of Absolution. Warra drew his twin daggers, Marut pulled out his ninjato, Athelstan unlimbered his halberd, Bowser flared his claws, Ramona brandished her rapier, and Andrew unsheathed his twin forearm machetes. Daisy tightened her wrist weights as the Kruna all readied their elemental energies to stand against the Revenant.