Chapter 7: Hello Darkness My Old Friend, We Meet Again
As everyone was walking into the main chamber in the Underworld, Stolas noticed the aura was strong in the area and leaned down to Dray.
"This is the area." Stolas whispered.
"Damn, and were being brought to their leaders." Dray said.
"I guess we have to deal with them first." Stolas said.
"The only problem is, one of them." Dray said.
"The Aparoid Queen." Stolas said.
"No? Echidna." Dray said.
"All of them." Aizen said.
Before they asked Aizen what he meant, they was guided into the chamber and they first saw the Aparoid Queen hovering over them looking down at them, and then below her was Echidna, The Plague Doctor, and Lord Shen.
"Aizen." The Plague Doctor said.
"Serenity." Echidna said.
"Ken and Eto." The Aparoid Queen said.
"Akira." Shen said.
"Mangle." Mangle said.
Everyone looked at Mangle with an annoyed look and then looked back to one another.
"You are bold to come down here." The Plague Doctor said.
"We believe there is a way to change our future, to stop Tenebris once and for all." Aizen said.
"Oh really?" The Plague Doctor asked sarcastically.
"It's true." Serenity said.
"In case you fools don't realize, none of us have any powers anymore. The son of a bitch took it from us." Echidna said.
"But that's the thing, we discovered a way to go around that problem." Aizen said.
"Save it, we don't want to hear it." Shen said.
"Besides, it's too late for you anyway. We have been waiting to get our revenge for a long time." Echidna said.
"Ah, crap." Dray groaned.
The Aparoid Queen flew over them and was about to land her body on them until everyone except Aizen moved out of the way and he was crushed into the ground.
"Agh!" Aizen groaned.
Echidna ran at Ken and Eto and swung both of her fists into their faces blasting them away.
"Shit, we need to attack!" Ken shouted.
Everyone began to fight other citizens in the Underworld while Aizen faced off against the Aparoid Queen and Ken and Eto faced off against Echidna.
Serenity ran in to help only to be knocked down by Shen who tried to use his talons to hurt her but she backflipped away and tried to avoid his attacks.
The Plague Doctor was going to help Shen but was tackled down by Akira and the two fist-fought for a while before The Plague Doctor kicked him away and tried to run off only for Akira to follow.
Serenity brought out a bone rib that she packed and swung it at Shen who avoided it and leaped over Serenity jumping on her face to knock her back and flew back to avoid her incoming swing.
Nearby, Aizen was still being pummeled down by the Aparoid Queen and managed to hide behind some rocks.
"Can someone help me!" Aizen shouted.
The Aparoid Queen pushed the rocks away and pummeled him down.
"Someone!" Aizen squealed.
"A little busy at the moment!" Ken yelled while holding Echidna's fist.
Eto jumped on Echidna to try to get her away from Ken but she was flung away.
"Fucking brat!" Echidna yelled.
Akira moved left to right to avoid the Plague Doctors fists before managing to shove him down and punch him across the face.
"Stop! We aren't here to fight!" Akira said.
"Then you should have stayed up there where you people belong." The Plague Doctor said.
Akira rolled his eyes and kicked the Plague Doctor before running over to help Aizen but the Plague Doctor caught up jumping on Akira knocking him down next.
Serenity ducked from Shen's attack and smashed her elbow into his face knocking him back.
"This is getting annoying!" Serenity yelled.
"Tell me about it!" Gin shouted while fighting off two Underworld citizens.
Echidna managed to grab both Ken and Eto's necks and throw them into Aizen and Akira.
All of them headed their way before Serenity jumped in.
"I have been waiting a long time for this moment." Echidna said growling.
Right before they went back to fight, they heard Iris shouting to everyone to stop.
"Please stop!" Iris yelled running in to stand in front of Serenity and face Echidna and the others.
"Who the hell is this?" Echidna said.
"Iris, get out now." Serenity said.
"No mother, this has to stop." Iris said.
Iris looked at their former villains.
"You fought my mother a long time ago because of whatever evil scheme you had." Iris said.
"Evil scheme? Oh no my dear, I wanted everything for myself!" Echidna said.
"That's an evil scheme! Look at what Tenebris is doing to all of us. We hate it. But I am questioning if you was controlled yourself." Iris said.
"Don't be ridiculous, no one controls me." Echidna said.
"But I bet they used to! I bet you weren't always this monster that you became from your distorted desires." Iris said.
Echidna glared at her not saying a word.
"And you, mister peacock-" Iris said.
"Shen." Shen said.
"Mister Shen, I bet you didn't want to rule all of Gielinor, I heard that you was once sick, and Armadyl thought of you as useless, so you forged your own path against the rules of your culture." Iris said.
"You don't know me." Shen said.
"But I know you must have hurt." Iris said.
Shen was silent.
"Miss Aparoid Queen, you wanted to take souls so you could have your own. I don't know who told you that you didn't have a soul but you are alive, you are aware, you have a soul like the synthetics down here with us. Look at the Geth, and the Alexandrian Robots. They are down here, they are half Sentient. If they are down here then for sure you have a soul too." Iris said.
The Aparoid Queen was silent.
"Mister Plague Doctor-" Iris began to say.
"Save it." The Plague Doctor said.
"That's the point, you wanted to save all of Gielinor from their so-called plague that you thought killing them was the answer. Everyone gets sick or causes a plague, but throughout history, people overcome it no matter what." Iris said.
The Plague Doctor went silent.
Aizen sighed.
"Corvus, she's right." Aizen said to the Plague Doctor.
Aizen stood back up.
"You wanted to cure people by killing those that were plagued or sick to get rid of the sickness of our planet while I wanted to rule the planet without care of any plague. We was both in the wrong." Aizen said.
"I suppose we were, but I wanted to save people." The Plague Doctor said.
"You went about it the wrong way, but it's okay. I forgive you." Aizen said.
The Plague Doctor sighed.
"I guess we have no reason to fight." The Plague Doctor said.
Ken and Eto looked at the Aparoid Queen.
"You invaded our galaxy because someone told you that you had no soul? Who told you that?" Ken asked.
"I do not know how I was made, I just woke up and became the queen automatically of our race." The Aparoid Queen said.
"So you think you was just made that you have no soul?" Eto asked.
"My workers are drones, they serve me. Who doesn't say I was meant to serve as a puppet." The Aparoid Queen said.
"That's the thing, you aren't though. Your drones are alive. You are alive." Ken said.
"You're right." The Aparoid Queen said as her Aparoid workers spoke to one another amongst the crowd.
"We will permit you to be here." The Aparoid Queen said.
Akira rubbed his head while looking at Shen.
"Listen, I'm sorry for what your parents did to you. I bet it wasn't easy growing up. But to take over Gielinor of all planets?" Akira asked.
"They was weak and easy to control until Aizen came in and began to control each Kingdom to foil my plans." Shen said.
"Why control a planet though?" Akira asked.
"To prove to my race that I'm not to be shunned away due to my illness, I overcame it but I wanted to get back at them. To get back at Armadyl to become the new god of our people, except my race went extinct from in-fighting." Shen said.
"So you had no other purpose but to prove to yourself that you weren't useless." Akira said.
Shen just nodded.
"You aren't useless, heck look at what you accomplished, you're intelligent. Even skilled with a blade." Akira said with a shrug.
"I suppose you're right." Shen said tapping his chin.
"So you going to give up?" Akira asked.
"You win, all of you win." Shen said.
Echidna sighed.
"When I was a child, my parents studied rituals to grow in power but told me I wasn't ready. I grew jealous and did it on my own, but the darkness made me happy, the dark side comforted me and I felt like what I was doing was right, my mind went blank with the lust of power." Echidna said.
"So that's why you went mad with power and created the Daemons." Serenity said.
Echidna nodded.
"To create an army to defeat Ardyn, yes, instead I corrupted him. But deep down during that time, I knew there was no going back once I began this path. I wanted the entire galaxy in my palm." Echidna said.
"You could have asked for help." Serenity said.
"That's weak." Echidna said.
"It's stronger to ask because you defeat your own pride." Serenity said.
Echidna looked down not knowing what to say.
The upworld and underworld citizens began to look at one another and began to speak to one another in a calm way.
Iris walked up to Echidna and to everyone's surprise, she hugged her.
Echidna's eyes widened.
Dray passed out and no one caught him.
Echidna's body began to crack and the dark side within her began to fade away, her skin color was changing.
"I forgive you." Iris said.
Dray got back up.
Echidna's body began to manifest to look, quite normal in fact. Her hair became a golden color and her height decreased to a normal height, she looked like a normal and beautiful human.
Dray again passed out and no one caught him.
Echidna looked at herself and smiled.
"Back to what I once was." Echidna said with relief and gave Iris a tight hug.
For a few minutes, everyone began to talk to one another.
"So does this mean we are welcome?" Aizen asked.
Echidna and the others nodded.
"Is it okay if we ask help for forgiveness?" The Plague Doctor asked.
Aizen nodded.
"We will help you." Aizen said.
"I won't." Mangle said.
Cosmic whacked her head.
"Ow!" Mangle said.
Dray got back up rubbing his head.
"Are you done?" Cosmic asked him.
"I think, I think I need time to absorb all of this in." Dray said weakly.
Serenity patted Iris's shoulder.
"I'm proud of you." Serenity said making Iris smile and hug her.
Akechi stood behind some people watching and listening and then lowered his head before walking off.
Eto looked at Stolas.
"So, what do we do now?" Eto asked.
"Give me time to see what can be done and I will ask for you all to gather here so we can talk." Stolas said as he began to get to work looking at the aura.
Eto nodded and walked over to Aizen to tell him.
"So does this mean I'm the King of the Underworld again?" Marik asked.
Everyone turned their heads glaring at him.
"I take that as a yes." Marik said proudly
"May I beat him up now?" James asked.
"Yup!" Serenity said.
"Wait, what?" Marik asked.
"Anyone want to help me out?" James asked.
"Me." Karura said.
"I'm on board." Bakura added.
"Traitor!" Marik shouted.
"Damn right, now hold still." Bakura said.
The next thing you hear was a loud whacking sound.