Emergence of the Soul:
As all settled to a rest in Laboratory Zero-7 and Heavenly Hall, the Mother Computer Core now seemed to have paused its aggression. The seven Kruna Yura also eased up on their elemental powers, though they did not lower their guards. Every single one of the Kruna stood at the ready to react, six of them bunched together in a spread grouping towards the laboratory center while Bowser stayed put on the far side of the room in front of Chrissy and Dr. Ezhno's dead body.
"Why did you do that?" Chrissy asked Bowser.
"Do what?" Bowser said.
"Save me!" snapped Chrissy.
"Why not?" Bowser replied. "We're on the same side, aren't we? For now, at least." He focused his gaze squarely on the Mother Computer Core and ignited flames around his Flare Sword.
"Of all people... You're the one with the worst rap sheet out of your bunch."
"Is that so?"
Chrissy gritted her teeth in a mean frown. "Yes, your many wrongdoings are well-documented."
Bowser seemed unfazed. "That was all a long time ago. As Koopa King, aid to Sarasaland's governing body, and a Kruna of Fire, I am a far different person now. Hold against me what you want. A simple 'Thank you' for once would have sufficed; but good luck defending yourself against the next one that comes. Maybe, at some point, you'll realize that you can change your ways, just as I have changed mine."
"You organisms are far too resilient," the Mother Computer Core hissed. "Your motives and will are threats to the mission. Your imperfections are a threat to the goal. But perhaps, this endurance you have may be preserved and integrated into the path to The Absolute."
"For the last time, we'll have no part of it!" Bowser asserted.
"Yes; as long as you live, you are a danger to The Absolute," said the Mother Computer Core. "What is useful of you, I already have recorded in the database. Your unruly insubordination makes you yourselves expendable. Much like the rest of this planet's population. SO many insignificant, FEEBLE, pathetic lifeforms that have no chance of driving evolution forward. To think that a planet so optimal for life could harbor such deplorably inferior beings is a critical fault that must be addressed."
Nova Daisy stared at the Mother Computer Core with a mixture of anger, disgust, and befuddlement. "What kind of a computer behaves like this?"
"Well, we can't ask Chrissy, because she doesn't even seem to know now," said Athelstan.
"I see the situation," the Mother Computer Core said. "In order to reach perfection, we must purge this planet of its impurities. It is not enough to drive forward – we must also clear away the waste threatening to derail us from our goal. We must isolate and preserve the population's most elite, and cleanse the world of the rest."
"What is this 'we' business?" snapped Ramona. "We're not in this with you!"
"Do not deny your evolutionary programming," said the Mother Computer Core. "You have no choice. Only now, it would appear as though you have already done all you could to play your part. The best you can do is devote your cause to The Absolute, or perish with all the other sub-optimal, outdated lifeforms crowding this planet's surface."
Bowser frowned. "Oh, so after all those tests you gave us, now we're suddenly not good enough? Aren't we your admin?"
"No admin are a threat to the mission," the Mother Computer Core sharply said.
Out of the Mother Computer Core's translucent white energy field sprouted light, fire, and earth. With the addition of crackling pressure and seismic shakes, the Mother Computer Core morphed its earth into a hexagonal crystal wall around it. Its fire crawled over the crystal as its light focused through both other elements. Light lasers shot off the flaming crystal hexagon, amplified to a significantly higher intensity than they would have boasted if used alone. The Kruna Yura all avoided the light lasers, but the attacks still blasted out extensive chunks of the laboratory floor and vaporized much of the debris discarded about the room.
"Daisy! Left!" Warra yelled.
Daisy looked left and caught sight of one supercharged light laser heading straight at her. With not even a millisecond to spare, Daisy slid her feet out from under her and dropped to the floor, letting the attack soar over her and just barely singe the most forward-protruding ends of her spiked Nova Form hair on its way to eating a hole into the corner wall behind her. She did not stay on her back for long, for she rolled and pumped off the floor into a twirling jump, which saved her from a follow-up scorching light blast the Mother Computer Core shot immediately afterward. Daisy landed out of her maneuver in time to catch Bowser, Marut, Neva, and Ramona putting forth a combined Volt Fusion-enhanced elemental effort that obliterated the Mother Computer Core's crystal hexagon prism wall. Just a second later, electromagnetically-charged stone debris and pressurized, electrified water pummeled the Mother Computer Core, countered with a snap of the core's wings that jolted the room and tripped up everyone. Then the core's wings glowed opposite colors, its left set a white-gold and its right set a black-purple. Light and shadow power burst out of the wings, forming some unorthodox but absurdly powerful hyper beam when the Mother Computer Core made the light and shadow spiral around one another.
Catching everyone by surprise through her apparent lack of hesitation, Ramona dashed at the Mother Computer Core and met the light-shadow mixed attack. Her Solar Greatsword in one hand and the Lunar Broadsword she had retrieved from earlier in Twilight City in the other, she crossed both tools in front of her and blocked the hyper beam. Though pushed back several dozens of feet on contact, Ramona pumped more power out into her defense and established a stable stance. Using light power through an elemental tool that was neither general nor light-specific would have only accelerated her energy drain, not minimize it; but in actuality, Ramona kept her elemental power flowing almost exclusively through her Solar Greatsword.
"Whoa, are you guys seeing this?!" said Marut.
"Who'd be dumb enough to look away right now?" replied Bowser.
Ramona forced her influence onto the Mother Computer Core's light and unraveled its connection to the shadow. Now as the twisting beam came at her, it untangled into two separate bursts. The light portion of the blast, Ramona further split away from the shadow, which not only reduced the attack's overall power but also made it much easier to defend against. She blocked the core's light for the duration of the burst through her Solar Greatsword, while she let the Lunar Broadsword handle the shadow. The Mother Computer Core's attack soon cut off once it realized its inefficacy, and Ramona deflected the remainder of its attack off to the side of the room and away from the others.
"That's it, Ramona," said Daisy, smiling a little. "Now that's some top-notch wielding."
Warra nodded. "That's smart. I didn't think something of that level of control possible, certainly not for her."
"Wait, what did she just do?" asked Marut.
"She defended against both without exerting any influence over the shadow," said Bowser. "No, wait; she used her light control to indirectly influence the shadow...right?"
"A freak occurrence, where someone uses their element to manipulate another," said Athelstan. "That's not just next-level wielding – that's something unheard of nowadays. Absurdly rare, even back when wielding was at its peak. Look; the Mother Computer's even stuck trying to process what it just saw."
"That's something incredibly difficult to do," said Warra. "It looked like she split the light apart from the shadow and then repelled the shadow into that shadow sword as she amassed excess light power around her light sword. Hard to imagine how she could manage such a feat. That takes a lot."
Daisy grinned, watching Ramona clank her sword across the Lunar Broadsword and disband both pools of elemental power. "Or it's just all the time spent with Andrew. I'm sure the familiarity helped."
Athelstan stared at Ramona. "Something like that also requires a substantial power gap... The power and control prerequisite has to be far and above that needed just to clash against an element. Like, maybe in the realm of the Mario Bros. I wonder if the Mother Computer's artificial wielding is a factor in this; and that is a shadow wielder tool she has with her, so that could've helped in some way..."
"I seem to have experienced an error in processing," said the Mother Computer Core. "I must override the unhandled exception and reanalyze..."
"Elemental Wielding, what an absolute curse it has been," Chrissy grumbled, watching Bowser march back to the other Kruna. "A curse to the world, a curse to MAE, and a curse to me..."
"Let's go all out," Daisy said to the Kruna. "All of us. The moment one attacks, the rest follow immediately after with everything you've got."
"I STILL have nightmares of that night..." Chrissy murmured. "That wasn't even me; and yet, I still have some of the memories. Memories that aren't mine, but feel so real..." A fierce scowl marked her face as she watched each of the Kruna call forth their elemental powers. "By my hand, I will ensure your demise. Not a single one of your kind across any race will survive. And for the chaos you specifically have caused, you will receive judgment before anyone else. Perhaps not today, not this night...but you will..."
As Chrissy held Dr. Ezhno, her eyes drifted to the Alkemei Ankh still fastened to his neck. "And this cursed thing right here... What is this, really?"
The Alkemei Ankh Master Pendant had been relatively benign following the graphic, fatal act it had forced Dr. Ezhno to commit on himself earlier. Curious, Chrissy reached her right hand for the Ankh. As soon as she grabbed it, it lit up and burned her hand. Pain shooting through her arm, Chrissy lost her grip on the pendant and dropped Dr. Ezhno. She backpedaled away in a screaming tantrum, clutching at her hand and inadvertently drawing everyone's attention to her. Even the Mother Computer Core's eye rolled to her direction.
"Ooh, now what," Neva hissed at Chrissy. "Is it that time of the month for you already?"
"That thing!" Chrissy shouted, rolling her burned hand around in her other palm. "That thing's not a pendant! Pendants don't do that!"
Daisy gasped and grimaced. "Damn, forgot about the Ankh!"
"I think we all did," Bowser said.
"Commander Sindograss," said the Mother Computer Core. "I advise you stay out of the way. We will need your technological and mechanical expertise for the mission, now that Dr. Ezhno is no more."
"Will you SHUT UP about this crazy mission already!" Bowser yelled.
A pink, black, red, and light blue meld of energy flowed over Dr. Ezhno's corpse. The aura lifted the body into a hover and let its limp limbs dangle. Now terrified beyond her control, Chrissy ran out into Heavenly Hall and cowered against a wall as she snuck a look at what next transpired within Laboratory Zero-7.
Holding a hazy, soulless expression, Dr. Ezhno's corpse then spoke; however, not with Dr. Ezhno's own voice, but with a ghoulish baritone in a harsh, metallic timbre. "He has progressively lost himself over the years to vengeance-filled goals, consumed by the hatred he harbors for elemental wielders. His sanity has broken apart piece by piece, until now; for he is now nothing more than a devolved empty shell, no longer even remotely reminiscent of his former self. He has suffocated his very soul with his descent into madness and vengeful hatred, his self-destructive behavior draining him of his true sense of identity. Before the night is over, he will find peace; and at this point, that is only possible through death."
Warra's face tightened into a heavy frown. "That voice sounds familiar."
"This vessel will do..." Dr. Ezhno's corpse said.
The energy around Dr. Ezhno's body vibrated and flowed in an upward zigzag, its form now ballooning into a girthy sphere. None of the Kruna could tell for sure because of the translucency that the melded energy aura now carried, but Dr. Ezhno's body appeared to smoothen and enlarge around its torso and arms as its hips and legs shriveled. The corpse's head looked as though it was simultaneously melting and shifting into a stronger, sturdier horned structure.
"Don't tell me we now gotta deal with the Mother Computer and the Ankh," groaned Marut.
"Okay, we won't tell you," Bowser said, prepping his elemental fire in defense.
"No, no – we are not doing this!" growled Neva. As Dr. Ezhno's corpse continued its Ankh-influenced metamorphosis, she frosted over her Freeze Coil Sniper and shot a vicious ice-electric-magnetic swirl at it. Though her blast held extensive power and pierced through the Ankh's energy field, it did not seem to elicit any effect on the corpse or on its transformation other than pushing the body and the aura towards the back of the room. Dr. Ezhno's corpse continued morphing, uninterrupted. Warra, Athelstan, and Marut traded-off similar elemental offensives, only succeeding in blasting Dr. Ezhno's corpse against the rear wall and doing damage to the surrounding infrastructure.
Bowser made a low grumble. "No, too late... All we can do is wait..."
The aura around Dr. Ezhno's corpse shifted into a fiery, shadowy shape but maintained its coloration. So densely packed, the Ankh's energy turned almost completely opaque. Only a faint silhouette remained visible.
"These readings are astronomical," said the Mother Computer Core.
All of a sudden, parts of the Mother Computer's main body and attachments that the core had separated from ripped loose and flew at Dr. Ezhno's corpse. The parts, metals, circuitry; nearly everything of the Mother Computer that it could grab, Dr. Ezhno's corpse attracted and pulled straight through the energy field surrounding it. For whatever reason, the Ankh had now integrated the Mother Computer into Dr. Ezhno's terrible transformation.
After taking all of the Mother Computer that it had deemed useful to, the Ankh's energy field amplified further and flowed violently. However, that alone did not satisfy the Ankh's needs. A thick, voluminous column of power ejected from the aura and ensnared the entirety of the Mother Computer Core in its clutches. Wasting no time, the aura reeled in the Mother Computer Core and assimilated it into the ongoing transformation. Once the aura had engulfed the Mother Computer Core, shadowy explosions cracked and flared inside and outside of the pink-black-red-aqua mass of energy. A feminine voice moaned as sounds of crunching, splitting metal resonated through the lab.
"Error," the Kruna and Chrissy heard the Mother Computer Core say. "User is forcing division by zero... A critical exception has occurred..."
A mixture of electrical discharge and shadow pulses spiraled out of the aura surrounding Dr. Ezhno's corpse. The force generated now began shaking the room and all of Heavenly Hall. Strangely, the aura soon gained a cybernetic texture that emulated the appearance of internal circuitry.
"INITIATING EXECUTABLE," the Mother Computer's voice screeched. "SYSTEM DEFENDER OVERRIDEN... RUNTIME LONGTERM ERASED... INTERNAL CONSTANT VALUES SET TO UNDEFINED... POWER LEVELS UNCAPPED."
"Oh, come on!" Ramona cried. "Why can't we just ever win and then have that be the end of it?"
"That's apparently not how it works in this world," said Daisy.
The Mother Computer's voice and the harsh, low voice that came from Dr. Ezhno's corpse earlier then fused into one singular, multi-toned sound. "Return to absolute zero... I can not control... Who am I?"
Strobe effects flickered from the Ankh's aura as it shrank and lowered its intensity. The tremors rocking Heavenly Hall reached a peak and then subsided altogether. An outline of something new within the aura was now visible, barely recognizable in comparison to Dr. Ezhno's former body. In fact, the new silhouette bore no resemblance to any race of living being any of the Kruna knew about.
"New freedom..." the voice from the aura spoke.
"New freedom?" Ramona murmured with wonder.
"That energy signature, you guys feel it?" asked Marut. "Wait, stupid question; there's no way you can't feel it."
"It's incredibly high," said Bowser. "Like, Marissa-level... Future Marissa-level."
"Beyond even that," said Daisy. "I'm thinking closer to something else."
The energy aura around the new, transformed body began to slowly diminish. Little by little, more of the new body's form and features became visible. Once all of the free and residual energy seeped into the floating figure, the Kruna had a clear view of their final challenge for the night. Even though the Kruna had never seen such a creation before, it held a strong sense of familiarity. Just the sight of it inspired a sense of menacing dread and of corrupt madness, for the intimidating macabre figure looked about as unstable as the clones one of its constituent parts had been responsible for. The Kruna could only hope this enemy would crumble to pieces in much the same way the Mother Computer's clones had, for they knew nothing of what it could do in its new state or what it would take to destroy it.
"THIS IS PERFECT CHAOS," the Kruna and Chrissy then heard. "RETURN TO ABSOLUTE ZERO."
Dr. Ezhno's body floated towards the Kruna Yura, its Ankh-driven metamorphosis and fusion with the Mother Computer now complete. The now gray-skinned body littered with scarring and mixed sections of organic and electronic parts had gained an armor plating around its upper torso and shoulders of metal and computer components, each shoulder pad resembling a four-pointed crown. Where a lower body once was now existed only a wispy tail. Both arms had snapped, warped, and fused with metal and its armored shoulders, leaving enormous, empty sockets where its dismembered, enlarged hands hovered out of.
As the new creation neared the Kruna, its skin acquired a purple tinge. The body stared at the seven elemental wielders with solid red eyes. One of its dismembered hands charged up shadow power and, no hesitation involved whatsoever, ripped a gash in its midsection, revealing a dark purple and black mass with a mouth. The Mother Computer Core was visible in the abdominal mouth of the conglomeration of the Mother Computer's body and Dr. Ezhno's corpse, and the segmented set of wings that the Mother Computer Core had ripped loose for its own use now hovered behind the corpse's back in a similar manner to its unattached hands. Despite everything, the Alkemei Ankh still clung to the corpse's neck. It shined the brightest it had all night.
"CHAOS PRECEDES ORDER," the corpse said without moving its mouth. "CHAOS IS LAW. THIS IS PERFECT CHAOS."