Different Route

by ExileMansion

This is the story of how Rex fell in love with Nia and how they get through the events of Xenoblade 2. Includes a new arc which adds the next villain of the story who is far more powerful than any of the aegises and if Rex and co can take him down.

43. Chapter 43- The Battle for Elysium

Tantal- Theosoir- Lower Levels

As the two continued to fall Zeke kept slashing downwards on Malos as they fell to the ground. Malos blocked each of his swings and yet again attempted to shoot more of his destructive ether out to obliterate Zeke to which Zeke yet again used his eye to drain the incoming attacks. Once the ground was in sight Malos crashed hard but used the momentum to roll backwards as Zeke forced a giant surge of electric ether out of his sword to attack Malos. The attack also allowed for Zeke to somewhat cushion his fall as he quickly gets up and readies his sword at Malos.

"They sent you of all people to fight me?" Malos scoffs. "You all must be desperate." Malos brings his Monado up to ready an attack.

"Don't underestimate the power of the mighty Zekeinator! Otherwise you will regret it dearly." Zeke begins channeling electricity into his sword. By this point Pandoria has ran down the flight of stairs and is now joining behind Zeke to begin pouring her ether into him.

"Why should I take a fool like you seriously?" Malos questions as he beings to build up dark ether on his Monado.

Zeke then dashes towards Malos at blinding speeds and begins to rapidly slice at Malos. Malos doesn't even have time to block as he keeps moving backwards to avoid the attacks. Zeke continues to get faster and faster as Malos quickly runs out of space to back up which makes it increasingly difficult for Malos to dodge Zeke's attacks. Suddenly a symbol appears on Malos' Monado as he quickly yells out. "Monado Cyclone!" The sudden burst of ether forces Zeke to jump back as the entire area around them is ripped to shreds by the attack. Malos then brings his Monado up and slashes downward on Zeke which Zeke blocks with his own sword, however Malos follows up with a kick to Zeke's gut which sends him back a few feet. While Zeke is disoriented Malos swipes at Zeke with another surge of destructive power which Zeke immediately turns on his eye to drain the attack before it hits.

"What the hell? What is that ability you keep using? How are you blocking my attacks?! You could never do that before." Malos tries another swipe which Zeke blocks.

"If I told you that, then I'd lose my element of surprise." Zeke responds. Zeke then swipes at Malos knees which Malos blocks. Zeke uses the momentum from the low swing to spin around Malos while also raising his sword far above his head as he slashes downwards on Malos from behind. Malos turns around and catches the blade with his bare hand as he tries yet again to destroy it. Malos makes sure to focus on Zeke as he observes what is happening. As his hand begins to coat in darkness he notices that Zeke's left eye is no longer covered by an eyepatch and realizes that the eye is glowing slightly. He then realizes that his ether is disappearing.

'So that's how it works.' Malos realizes. Malos then slashes at Zeke's abdomen with his own sword to which Zeke pulls hard enough to free his blade in time to block the attack. Another symbol reveals itself as Malos calls forth its name. "Monado Jail!" Zeke can feel Pandoria's ether connection has been cut off. Malos lunges forward at Zeke to which Zeke dodges to the side. Malos goes for a darkness imbued thrust which grazes Zeke. Zeke tries to go on the offensive but Malos' strength is too much for Zeke on his own. Malos slaps away the attack and punches Zeke square in the chest which leaves Zeke out of breath. Malos goes for another swing to which Zeke ducks and forces his ether to reach out and reconnect with Pandoria. It's a success and Zeke can feel the electricity flow through him as he quickly slashes and cuts into Malos' leg. Malos couldn't dodge in time as he was taken off guard by the sudden increase in speed. Zeke channels lighting into his blade which causes a bright spark to shoot out as he jumps into the air.

"Ultimate Lightning Fury Slash MAX!" Malos responds by swiping upwards with an attack of his own.

"Monado Buster!" The two attacks connect and for a moment their is a stalemate. But Malos strength quickly begins to overtake Zeke as Zeke is sent flying into a nearby wall which completely shatters it. Zeke groggily walks out of the wall as he shakes his head to refocus. Zeke slowly brings his blade back into ready position as he stares down Malos.

"You're not half bad. Not just anyone can push around the Mighty Zekeinator like that." Zeke comments with gusto.

"I see that you've got some moves yourself." Malos responds back. "No human has been able to stand up to my power one on one since Addam."

"Didn't you get your ass kicked by Nia that one time?" Zeke questions.

"Oh piss off. Nia's not normal to begin with." Malos responds as his eyes begin to furrow in anger as he also brings his sword into a ready position.

Zeke yet again goes into the offensive as he lets the lightning flow through his body as he yet again speed blitzes Malos. Malos receives more cuts on his body as he pushes Zeke back with a wave of dark ether which Zeke avoids.

'He's better than I thought. Looks like I'll have to use more ether than I thought would be necessary.' Malos then begins to crank up his ether output as he begins to completely overwhelm Zeke. For Zeke it was no longer an option to block the attacks. His only option was too dodge. With each ferocious swing that Malos missed more and more of his dark ether kept pouring out which began to tear up the area around them. Zeke soon realized that he couldn't dodge any longer as he was pushed back against a wall. Seeing Malos come down on him with another devastating strike Zeke turns his eye up to max which immediately saps all the ether out of the oncoming attack, but the massive amount of ether that Zeke just absorbed makes a massive migraine go through his head as he pushes back the attack.

'Looks like I'll have to bust out blade shift now.' Zeke kicks Malos further away as he brings his hand to the hilt of the blade and drags his hand in a zig zag pattern down the blade. Suddenly Zeke's ether spikes as his sword changes to that of a giant yellow thunder bolt. "Super Mega Ultimate Blinding Elexecution!" Zeke immediately goes on the offensive as he begins to quickly slash at Malos even faster than before. Whenever Malos tries to block the attacks he finds that his sword is being slightly held back each time he tries to block as he is pelted with even more slashes across his body.

'What is this now? He can redirect my attacks?!' Malos' Monado changes to yet another symbol. "Monado Eater!" Zeke can suddenly feel his blade shift be temporarily deactivated as he can no longer redirect Malos' attacks. Malos begins to lunge fiercely at Zeke as Zeke begins to get lightly impaled by some of the strikes. Zeke pumps more ether into his body as he free's himself of the effects of Monado Eater and begins by forming small clusters of electricity on his body. Malos ends up striking them which gives him a pretty nasty shock. Taking advantage of Malos' dazed state Zeke hooks Malos between the crevices of the lightning bolt and pulls with a ferocious strength. This causes a massive gaping wound to dig into Malos' side which begins to bleed. When Zeke pulls out of the attack he makes sure to channel some lightning energy into the strike to also shock Malos as well. Malos sends out a barrage of dark ether waves intending to take out Zeke in one go, but Zeke uses his eye once again to absorb the incoming attacks. Malos lets out an even more powerful Monado Buster towards Zeke, but Zeke manages to barely move out of the way of the attack. The force of the attack blows a massive hole through the exit of Theosoir. Malos begins to pour enough ether out of his body to create a black wave of pure destruction which completely destroys all the snow around them and begins to blacken the ground and corrode the walls around them as Zeke is forced to use even more of his eye as he can feel his eye begin to bleed from overusing it.

'I don't know how much more of this I can take. I'm starting to reach the limit on my eye.' Zeke worriedly thinks to himself.

"Give it up already. You know you can't win against me." Malos shouts as he smashes down on Zeke with an even stronger attack than before. Zeke begins to channel spots of electricity all over the ground as he begins to furiously slash back at Malos which forces Malos to step back a few feet. This unknowingly pushes Malos into the first electric trap which shocks Malos. In his daze Zeke slashes horizontally with a lightning infused strike which launches Malos back a few feet into another electric trap. Malos does another Monado Cyclone which pushes Zeke back a few feet before using another Monado Eater to completely disrupt all of the traps on the ground.

Zeke then channels more lightning into his sword as he lets out a beam of pure lightning. "Overload Thunder Beam!"

Malos lets out a beam of dark ether to match with Zeke's. The two get locked into a bitter struggle as one tries to overpower the other. "Give up already! Don't make me waste my full power!" Malos yells.

"Never! I will win this! No matter what, I CAN'T LOSE!" Zeke activates his eye and begins draining Malos' ether enough to get knocked out of Monado Eater. Zeke begins to overpower Malos as the lightning beam barrels right towards him.

"THEN YOU LEAVE ME NO CHOICE!" Malos' ether skyrockets as he completely overpowers Zeke's attack with relative ease. Zeke quickly dodges out of the way of the beam of pure death as it goes rocketing out of the massive hole in the exit of Theosoir. The attack completely vaporizes a mountain behind the city as nothing is left behind. "MONADO BUSTER!" Malos releases another monstrous slash as it completely destroys the entire back gate of Theosoir and nearly levels the entire mountain the city was built on. Malos' Monado begins to be coated in his dark ether as he continues his assault on Zeke. Zeke tries to use his eye on Malos but as he does he finds that Malos is exuding so much ether that he can't remove all of it. This leaves Zeke to only redirect the attacks to avoid being hit by the sheer destructive power Malos is exuding.

'Crap! How am I supposed to beat this guy? He's just too powerful.' Zeke suddenly realizes his thoughts as he scoffs. 'Too powerful. Too Powerful? Nobody can beat the mighty Zekeinator! I must win this fight! FOR ELYSIUM!' Zeke begins to smile dangerously at Malos. "Even if you are now more powerful than me, I will not LOSE TO YOU!" Zeke can feel the exhaustion from his body. With every movement he takes he can feel his strength leave him. Even though his body is on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion he refuses to go down. Malos slashes at Zeke brutally with enough force to easily hack off his limbs, yet Zeke continues to weave through the attacks and take quick stabs at Malos. Malos begins to overwhelm Zeke as Zeke begins to get massive gouges in his body from the attacks. Zeke can feel blood beginning to flow from his wounds as Malos jumps back.

"THIS IS IT ZEKE! I WILL FINISH YOU OFF WITH THIS FINAL ATTACK!" Malos begins channeling ether into his Monado as a mysterious new sign appears on the Monado. "MONADO ENDER!" Black ether begins to swirl in a spiral cone shape around the Monado as his ether begins to kill the very oxygen around them. Zeke begins to feel a shortness of breath as he looks on at the attack. So much ether begins to build up that the sky above them turns black almost as if it were suddenly nighttime from the ether. Malos thrusts his Monado forward. As the ether goes barreling towards Zeke. "DIE!"

Time seems to slow down for Zeke as he sees the attack incoming. 'Welp, this looks like the end for the mighty Zekeinator. Can't say I didn't try. Damn! I wish I could've beaten him. If only... I was stronger...' Zeke closes his eyes as he accepts his fate.

When he reopens them he comes face to face with something he was not expecting. He finds himself in a white never ending void with nothing else in it. Zeke looks around to see nothing as he turns all the way around to see a tiny spec in the distance. Zeke realizes that he has his sword on his back but no Pandoria around. "Hello? Anyone here? Pandy, where are you?" Hearing nothing in response Zeke decides to run towards the spec he saw earlier to see what it was. Zeke ran for what felt like several minutes as he comes closer and closer to the spec. Once Zeke get's close enough he sees that the spec was actually a large and elaborate throne adorned with the Tantal emblem at the top. When Zeke gets even closer he realizes that their is an ancient looking king sitting in the throne. He wears the robes of the Tantalese royalty with an elaborate crown. He looks to the side to see that the ancient king is holding the hilt of a giant sword with its tip resting on the ground. Upon closer inspection at his sword, Zeke realizes that it's the exact same as his own sword.

"Long have I waited for you, my descendent." The old king looks up to stare at Zeke. Zeke is taken aback for a moment by the old man's eyes. They were just like his eye, except both of his eyes glowed bright blue with black sclera. He had brown aged skin and a white mustache that pointed outwards in both directions with a goatee that pointed downwards in a similar fashion.

"Who are you old man, and what is this place?" Zeke questions the old man.

"This place is your mind scape Ozychlyrus. As for who I am... I am the first King of Tantal. I have come to aid you in your final hour."

Zeke looks at the old king with some doubt etched onto his face. "What kind of aid can you provide me? I'm about to be murdered by an Aegis here, I'm not sure how useful your help is going to be." Zeke answers honestly.

"I can unlock your other eye for you. You've been handicapped for long enough." The old man responds.

Zeke is amazed to hear this. He always felt as if he was missing something with his eyes, but now he finally understood. He was missing his other eye. "How does this other eye of mine work?" Zeke asks.

The old king looks at Zeke for a moment before responding. "It allows you to take in the ether absorbed by your eye and convert it into your own ether."

Zeke was surprised by how straight forward the old king was with this information. "I was expecting you to be all cryptic and not tell me at all how it works."

"My descendent, you are on the verge of death. Being crypt will only get you killed and I cannot allow that." The old king responds.

'I suppose he has a point.' Zeke internally admits. Suddenly a thought crossed Zeke's mind as he realized who he was talking too. Zeke has a question that he has been wanting to ask someone like this for a very long time. "Hold on a minute... if you are truly the first king of Tantal then there is something I must know... Why did you lie to our people about who we originated from? Why did you pose as Addam?" Zeke had been wanting to know this ever since his father revealed their false heritage to him and Zeke found this the oppurtune time to ask the very man who started all of this.

"My descendent... I never posed as Addam throughout my lifetime. I made sure that people knew my name, and I never tried to hide that fact. The reason they called me Addam was in an attempt to erase my existance from the history books. I was a human born with unnatural abilities and I quickly rose to the top as a warlord to conquer and unite all of the remaining Tornan's I could find. During my life I slaughtered thousands of people with my own hands to achieve that goal... many of which were Indoline. I never once gave up and I was unrivaled by no one, except one man." The old man speaks in a deep and raspy voice that sounds as ancient as he looks.

"Who was he?" Zeke asks in curiosity.

"Addam himself. I tried to defeat him and take his group of Tornan's to add to my new nation of Tantal. However I was bested by him in combat. His swordsmanship was unlike anything I had ever seen. He truly was a sage of the sword. I was defeated, but Addam spared me so that I could leave and rule over my new nation. I ruled Tantal for fifty years before I passed on. I vowed that my spirit would linger on until the day that another from my bloodline was born with my eyes." The old king points a decrepit finger at Zeke. "You Ozychlyrus were that man. Unfortunately you were handicapped with only one of my eyes, but that will be no longer."

Zeke roles his arms around to prepare himself. "Alright, I'm on board with getting a new power and all, but how do I get it?"

"Simple." The old king gets up from his throne which immediately dissipates into thin air. Zeke suddenly realizes that the old man is incredibly tall, being at least half a foot taller than he was. The old man brings his sword into an attacking position. "Overpower me in a test of strength."

Zeke pulls his own sword off of his back and gets it into a ready position. "Now that's something I can do."

"Do not underestimate me descendent... you will regret it." The old king appears before Zeke in an instant and swings his sword from above his head which Zeke parries. The two are locked in a fierce struggle for superiority. Zeke's knees buckle from the sheer force being exuded by the old man.

'I can't lose... no matter what!' Zeke begins to push back on the attack as his knees no longer buckle. 'I have to win!' He begins to push back on the blow as he begins to slowly but surely overpower his adversary. 'No matter what... I must protect them!' Zeke continues to push harder and harder against the man's attack until he completely overpowers the man which sends him falling to the ground. The man slowly gets up and brings his hands to rest on the end of the sword as the tip rests on the ground.

"You have done well Ozyhlyrus... " The old man deactivates his eyes to reveal a pair of deep blue eyes. "...the power... IS YOURS!"

Zeke can feel an incredible burning sensation in his right eye as it feels like someone has lodged a hot iron right through the socket. Zeke's whole vision fades to white as the old man begins to disappear. As Zeke's vision fades the old king tells Zeke one last thing. "Do not fall to this opponent. You must win! No matter what."

Zeke suddenly opens both of his eyes as his vision completely changes. Now the entire world around him looked black as he could only see white outlines of everything. What caught his attention was the spiral of dark purple ether coming right towards him. Zeke begins to activate his left eye as it begins to absorb the ether. Unlike before he could now finally absorb Malos' incredibly dense ether. Zeke can feel his right eye begin to act differently as he can feel his own ether reserves refilling. 'What is this ether? Is this the power of the right eye?' Zeke begins to feel his ether reserves begin to spill out from the sheer amount of ether being absorbed as his ether begins to become tangible in an aura of electricity around him.

"What?! Where is this strength coming from?! And what happened to your eye?" Malos yells out.

Zeke raises his sword up to the sky with both hands as he shoots a massive bolt of electric ether into the sky. The sky suddenly becomes dark for a different reason as clouds begin to form. "This is the TRUE POWER OF THE EYES OF SHINING JUSTICE!" Zeke swings his sword down as a massive thunderbolt shoots forth from the clouds. "THIS IS THE MOST POWERFUL LIGHTNING BOLT! THE ONE THAT WILL TEAR THE HEAVENS AND ALREST ASUNDER! BEHOLD THE 'GOD OF THUNDER!'" The lightning bolt begins to take the shape of a giant man in the sky made of pure lightning as a bolt of lightning forms in his left hand as he reels the bolt back and with an incredible thrust throws the bolt of lightning at full force right towards Malos.

"DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME DAMNIT!" Malos bring his Monado up as the symbol changes again. "Monado Armor!" Malos follows it up with another Monado art. "Monado Buster!" Malos swings his Monado as hard as he can against the thunderbolt as his body begins to be pushed back from the sheer force behind the lightning. Zeke using his eyes begins to see small pockets of nothingness between Malos' Monado Armor. Although they were very small he could see them. Using his sword Zeke clusters the electrons in those areas and begins to shock them. The result is Malos' Monado Armor completely shatters. Zeke then uses his left eye to begin absorbing the ether coming off of Malos' attack as Malos' attack becomes weaker and Zeke's becomes even stronger. "DAMNIT! HOW AM I BEING BESTED BY THE CLOWN OF THE GROUP?! THIS ISN'T HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! I WON'T LOSE!" However it was too late for Malos as his attack weakened enough that he was overwhelmed and the lightning bolt hit him directly which shook the entire city of Theosoir as the thunder crack could be heard half way across the titan. The ground below completely shattered as the back half of Theosoir collapsed into the lands far below. Zeke saw Malos begin to fall and without thinking went over and grabbed him before he fell along with the rest of the city.

Zeke drags Malos' body onto one of the edges that didn't collapse into the abyss down below as Pandoria looks at her driver in total shock. "That was... incredible my prince! What was that just now?"

Zeke looks over to Pandoria and gives her a smirk. "That Pandy was what the true eyes of shining justice at work." Zeke points at his new eye. "See look at it. When I was on the verge of death this old king came to my conscious and gave me this new eye."

Pandoria gets up close and examines his new eye. "Neat."

Zeke deactivates his eyes as he finds that his vision returns to its normal state. "It looks like I can now deactivate my eyes." Zeke sighs a sigh of relief. "Looks like I no longer need that eyepatch anymore." Pandoria takes one look at Zeke and immediately needs to turn back. Zeke takes notice and gives her a questioning look. "What's wrong Pandy?"

Pandoria tries to hide a small blush as she looks away. 'Why do his eyes look so beautiful now?' Pandoria quickly hides her blush as she sweats a little bit. "N-nothing my prince, nothing at all!" The two then look down to Malos who got knocked out by that last attack. "So what are we going to do about him?"

Now came the time where Zeke had to decide on whether or not to revive Malos. "I'm not sure..." Zeke takes out the serum and looks down at it as he sloshes it back and forth a few times as he contemplates what to do. Zeke finally lets out a sigh as he kneels down and turns Malos over. "I guess I'll revive him. Rex seems to trust him, so I guess I will as well." Zeke plunges his syringe into Malos' core crystal and empty's the syringes contents. A few seconds later the core crystal shines a dark purple as the crack in the core crystal gets repaired. "Wow Tora really knows how to make a good serum that's for sure."

"Don't forget that Nia helped contribute as well." Pandoria adds.

"I know, I know." Zeke responds. Zeke then sits down off to the side as he just lays their and rests. "This fight was a total pain in the ass. I hope the rest of them are doing better."

Leftharia- Fonsett Village- Middle of City

As Rex, Nia, and Jin enter the city they notice how barren and desert Fonsett Village was. "It's a good thing everyone made it out of the village in time." Rex notes.

"Indeed it is." Jin lightly nods his head in agreement.

"Where do ya reckon Pyra and Mythra are?" Nia wonders out loud.

"I'd imagine not far off, Morag did say that all the revived blades made landing on their respective continents." Rex responds.

Suddenly their is a glow of bright light that casts down on them as they all quickly move out of the way of the strike. An instant later the ground is completely vaporized from where they all stood as they look forward to see Mythra lowering her arm from her attack. "Good to see that you didn't slow down in all this time." Mythra says out loud.

"What can I say, I've had some pretty helpful friends to help me out along the way." Rex responds as he pulls Nia's sword off his hip and holds it in a ready position. Rex looks down trodden with saddened eyes. "I can't believe it's come to this." Rex looks back up and stares at his old friends. "Just know that I'm doing this to save you two."

"We know Rex... we know." Pyra sadly states as her and Mythra both bring out their two swords as well.

Rex reaches behind him and takes out Jin's sword before tossing it to him. Jin catches it and holds it in a low ready position. Nia begins to pour her ether into Rex as Rex slowly begins to walk towards them. Jin follows close behind. 'Pyra shouldn't be much of a problem to deal with. Mythra might be a bit of a problem but I can take her. The real question is when will they transform?' Jin observes.

Rex begins to pick up speed as he begins to break out into a run while Pyra and Mythra seem to break out into a glide. Rex chooses his target and decides to try to take down Pyra to hopefully avoid the two fusing. 'If I can take Pyra out of this fight as quickly as possible then maybe Mythra won't be able to transform.' Jin reads Rex's movements and swings down on Mythra as she backs away from Pyra and Rex.

'So that's your plan huh?' Mythra thought internally. 'Alright then, guess I'll have to take Jin down then.' Mythra swings her sword at Jin as Jin parries the attack and jabs at Mythra with his Odachi. Mythra steps to the side as she fires a beam of light out of her hand at Jin as he ducks under the attack and kicks Mythra away.

Meanwhile Pyra was struggling under Rex's blows as she kept being over powered by Rex. Even her fire wasn't helping much as it was obvious that Nia's water was stronger than her fire. 'Rex has gotten much stronger. I'm glad.' Pyra internally thought. 'I knew something like this would happen. I was never nearly as strong as Mythra was. Looks like I'll be taken out of this fight way faster than I thought.'

Jin was struggling in his fight against Mythra. 'Mytha is much tougher than I gave her credit for. I really don't want to bring out 'that' form, but if I don't then we'll continue to stalemate like this.' Jin looks over to Rex to see that his driver was crushing Pyra right now. 'Perhaps if I can stall Mythra out long enough then maybe Rex can join this fight. I'm positive that are combined strength can beat Mythra without using any of our special abilities.'

"Why are you holding back?" Mythra asks Jin. "I know you're stronger than this Jin. Why do you hesitate?" Mythra was clearly a bit frustrated.

"We still do not know how strong you truly are so for now I am taking a more defensive stance." Jin speeds up and tries to strike at Mythra which Mythra blocks, however Jin forms an icicle on the palm of his other hand and shoves it forward which punctures Mythra's side. In shock Mythra jumps back and holds her side as blood starts to pour out. Jin drops the bloodied icicle and crushes it beneath his boot as he takes a more aggressive stance. Jin begins speeding up as he attacks Mythra with all that he's got in his base form as Mythra still parries all the strikes despite her injury.

On the other side of the battle Rex had just defeated Pyra as she lays on the ground defeated. "You really are strong Rex." Pyra smiles as she closes her eyes.

"I've only gotten this far because of the help from my friends." Rex responds as he gives a small smile to Nia as she gives him one back.

"Now go on and inject her with the formula already." Nia urges Rex.

"Not yet. We need to go help Jin with Mythra first. Mythra is still a large threat and we kind of left him to fight Mythra alone. Come on." Rex runs towards the fight with Jin and Mythra as Nia follows close behind.

'That was the wrong move Rex.' Pyra thought as she laid and waited for her perfect time to strike.

Back with Jin and Mythra the fight had been pretty even for the most part and Mythra's injury did not slow her down in the slightest. The two kept clashing blades and occasionally sending out beams of ice and light respectively. That all changed when Rex joined the fight and slashed at Mythra from behind. Because Mythra was too distracted by her fight with Jin she didn't see it coming and ended up getting a pretty nasty gash across her back.

As Rex and Nia joined up with Jin, Nia began healing the few injuries that Jin sustained in the current fight so far. Mythra was starting to feel anxious as she realized that she was definitely outmatched now.

'Crap what should I do?' Mythra thought internally as she looked between the three. Suddenly Mythra had an idea. Mythra raised her hand as she lowered it down towards the group.

Rex knew exactly what that was as he quickly yelled: "Everyone get out of the way!" Rex tackled Nia and Jin jumped away as a beam of light from the sky came crashing down on them. Mythra took that oppurtunity to strike as she charged Rex head on and stabbed Rex through the chest.

"It's kind of ironic that I stabbed you in the chest this time isn't it?" Mythra tries to joke.

"Well I'm definitely not laughing." Rex responded. Rex then does something that completely shocks Mythra as he pushes her sword deeper into himself and grabs a tight hold of her arm as he discards Nia's sword. "But I guess this is pretty amusing." Rex grinned with blood stained teeth as Jin came right between them and chopped Mythra's arm off in one clean swoop.

Mythra jumps back in shock as she quickly cups the stump of her elbow with her other arm as Rex pulls the blade out of his chest and his wound begins to slowly, but surely heal. Rex kicks Mythra's sword back over to her as he goes to recover his own sword. "Let's finish this."

Mythra picks up her sword and begins channeling light into it. Rex picks up Nia's sword as he begins channeling water into it. Right as the two began to charge towards each other, Pyra jumped in front of Mythra's attack as she gets impaled on the end of her sword. This shocked everyone as Pyra began to fade into blue ether. "It's time." Is all Pyra said before the blue ether began to cover Mythra. Suddenly the sky started to grow black as thunder and lightning began to rain down on the small island. The ground below them began to crack and break as a humongous ether signature kept rising higher and higher.

All three went on full guard as Rex gave out a quick order to his blades. "Both of you, transform now. It's her." Without another word Jin dawns the black armor and Nia dawns the green kimono as the ether in front of them kept rising higher and higher. 'Is there no end to her ether?!' Rex thought internally.

Finally the wind began to die down as Mythra had transformed into Pneuma. Jin held his sword very closely to himself while Rex held an iron grip on his own blade.

"You asked earlier why I held back against you. This is why." Jin gestures with his odachi. "I knew you would pull out that form eventually."

"I see." Pneuma casually remarked. In the blink of an eye Pneuma was gone. Suddenly Rex felt a strong ether signature right behind him. "Goodbye Rex." Pneuma swung her sword to cut Rex's head off. Rex barely had enough time to duck beneath the blow as the power generated by the attack sent a large gust that shook the trees within the village.

'I surely would've died just now.' Rex thinks to himself as he quickly kicks at Pneuma who grabs his leg and snaps it like a twig with her other hand as she throws Rex to the side. While in midair Rex's leg fully heals thanks to Nia's ether as he lands back on the ground. "Damn that really hurt just now." Rex remarks. "Were you always this strong?"

"I haven't even used a tenth of my power yet." Pneuma responds.

Rex and Nia both break out into a cold sweat at this. Jin stays calm however and delivers a series of strikes at light speed at Pneuma. Pneuma turns and blocks the strikes with her blade as another blast ascends from the heavens. 'She doesn't even need to signal anymore.' Thought Jin. Rex jumps towards Pneuma from behind. Pneuma turns to face Rex when vines constrict around her legs and climb up her body to latch her in place. Rex slashes with a ferocious strike covered with water as he barely manages to knick Pneuma. Jin also slashes at Pneuma's back as Jin's attack makes a much deeper wound in her along with freezing her innards.

"I was never hit." Pneuma speaks. Both slash marks disappear off her body. Pneuma casually swings her sword and destroys the vines that were holding her in place. "Rex, you're having a heart attack." Pneuma casually states.

Suddenly Rex feels his chest tightening up as he feels a huge burning pain in his chest. Nia quickly acts and heals Rex's heart to prevent him from dying. Jin continues to slash at Pneuma who gets pelted by his slashes. "Your attacks did not phase me." Pneuma states as her injuries yet again disappear.

"What the hell is she doing? That is the craziest healing I've ever seen." Rex states as he gets ready to charge back in.

"She's not healing Rex." Nia states.

"What do you mean?" Rex asks.

"I'm rewriting the laws of reality." Pneuma states. "Don't tell me you forgot. You used to be my driver." Pneuma states with sadness in her voice.

Rex charges back in and gives a slash at Pneuma. This attack was far stronger than she had anticipated as the hit from Rex completely over powered her and cut deeply into her ribs. 'How did you-' Pneuma realizes that the strength from Rex's blow completely took his arm off as Nia quickly stitches his arm back on with her water ether as Rex swings again. Rex swings over head as he bisects Pneuma down the middle as his arm yet again gets completely destroyed. Nia reforms Rex's arm and at first Rex thinks they won.

"This was merely an illusion." Pneuma states behind Rex as she bisects him from the abdomen as his torso falls to the ground. Nia quickly uses her water ether to drag both halves of Rex away from Pneuma and begins putting him back together as Jin goes on the offensive when he calls out his next attack.

"White Tsunami." A huge wave of ice shoots towards Pneuma as she she casually points her finger at the oncoming wall of ice.

"Heat Death." Pneuma shoots a giant fireball at the wave of ice as it melts right through it. Jin swats the fire ball away with his sword as it explodes up in the sky.

"Time to make the temperatures more frigid." The temperature begins to drop and in no time the entire town is below zero as ice begins to coat the town. Jin speeds up to Pneuma as Pneuma is slowed down by the cold and pierces her multiple times. The blood that leaks crystallizes into ice from the sheer coldness as Pneuma can feel her insides freezing up.

"I am completely fine." Pneuma no longer has any injuries. "I think it's my turn now." Pneuma blindsides Jin as she stabs him through the chest. Using the opportunity, Jin slices Pneuma's head off. As Pneuma's head hits the ground she yet again speaks. "My head is completely fine." Pneuma's head is back and in one swift motion she cuts Jin downwards from where she stabbed him.

Rex returns to the fight and slashes at Pneuma as Nia begins to heal Jin. With each strike Rex destroys his body from the sheer strength behind his blows. Pneuma dodges the attacks as she fires a wall of flames at Rex which Rex counters with a wall of water. Pneuma fly's into the air and reels back her sword as she throws it towards the ground. Nia seeing this grows trees out of the ground beneath her, Rex, and Jin as they rise into the air. When the sword hits the ground it causes a huge shockwave through the entire village which shakes all the houses foundations from the blow as the ground cracks in a rippling pattern all around them. Jin launches a hailstorm of icicles at Pneuma which she blocks with a barrier before striking a bolt of lightning down on Jin. Jin cancels it out with his ability and jumps towards Pneuma. Nia helps Jin by creating platforms made of trees below him as Jin slashes again at Pneuma.

"My sword is back in my hand." Pneuma then parries the attack and swipes her free hand with dark ether at Jin who gets hit by the attack. The attack begins to poison Jin as Nia begins healing him again. Rex jumps at Pneuma and spins over her head as he slams his sword down full force into Pneuma who is sent crashing down into the ground below. The attack causes a massive crack in the island as it reaches halfway into it.

"Jeez... are you even trying Pneuma?" Rex asks.

"I could ask you the same thing Rex." Pneuma states as she slowly gets up. "I can sense an even stronger power dwelling below the surface. When will you show it to me?" Pneuma asks curiously.

"I'll use it when you get more serious." Rex responds.

"Really? In that case..." Pneuma's ether begins to spike even further as the entire island begins to crumble to pieces. In desperation, Nia pours her ether into the ground and begins focussing as much as she can as she creates roots in the ground to hold the island together and prevent it from crumbling under Pneuma's might. The ether becomes so strong that Pneuma's ether become visible as it radiates off of her in a brilliant shade of emerald green. "Here is fifty percent of my power. Rex, prepare yourself. I am going to slash your chest, then your right arm, then your head. I recommend you dodge." Rex began to sweat as he gripped his sword with a vice like grip. In an instant Pneuma was in front of him and began her attack. Rex got slashed by the first two attacks but narrowly dodged the third as he jumps back.

Nia begins healing him as she quickly traps Pneuma in an orb of water as she begins to rapidly decelerate all the cells in Pneuma's body. However, before any real damage could be done Pneuma shatters the orb with her hand as she throws her sword at Nia which impales her in the gut. Nia quickly pulls the blade out and heals almost instantly as she constricts Pneuma with vines and begins to harden them and shoot spikes through them which skewer Pneuma. Nia follows up by releasing spores inside Pneuma's new wounds via the spikes and then massively ages all the spores to grow massive trees out of Pneuma's insides as she explodes into a mist of blood rain.

"I never died." Pneuma states as she pierces Nia from behind and rips her sword out. Pneuma throws Nia off the island as Rex looks on in shock at what just happened.

"NIA!" Rex yells in shock as he runs to the edge of the cliff to look down.

As Pneuma looks on at Rex she fails to hear what Jin says next. "Jikantoketsu." Pneuma turns around to see Jin move even faster than he did before as he skewers Pneuma again as Pneuma grabs his odachi and forcefully rips it out.

'His blade looks different.' Pneuma realizes as she looks at Jin's sword. 'The temperature is also decreasing even faster than it was before.' Pneuma creates a small sun as it begins to raise the heat of the area around them.

'Crap. I can't activate time freeze if it gets too hot.' Jin suddenly has an idea. "Infinite Freeze." The temperature drops at an alarming rate as the houses begin to crack under the sheer cold and the small sun completely deadens as well. Suddenly the thermometer drops cold enough as Time Freeze activates. The entire world grays over as Pneuma is frozen in time. "Perhaps if I freeze her entire ether network she won't be able to rewrite reality." Jin walks up to Pneuma as he sees the somewhat bored expression on her face. Jin then sticks his blade deep enough into her skin to find a direct ether point. Once he locates one he pumps as much of his ice ether into her ether network as he can as her entire ether network freezes over. "And just as a little insurance." Jin stabs Pneuma's heart at the speed of light as he stabs her heart millions of times in only a few seconds. Jin sees the ice walls coming back towards him as he prepares himself. "This better work."

As time resumes Pneuma vomits up a gratuitous amount of blood on the ground as does the hole in her chest. Pneuma doubles over and for the first time in this fight looks frightened. 'What happened to me?' Pneuma feels her chest as a large gaping wound was now where her heart use to be. 'My innards feel frozen as well.' "I am completely fine." Pneuma is better in an instant but she still remains weary of Jin. 'I didn't see him attack me. How did he do that?' Jin stays as stoic as ever as he raises his blade in an upwards position ready to strike again.

Meanwhile as Rex looks out over the cliff he slowly sees a tree branch rising up from the side of the island as Nia is brought back onto land. "Thank goodness you're ok." Rex sighs in relief.

"Never better." Nia replies a bit sarcastically. "Hurry up we got to get back to the fight." Nia states with urgency.

"Right." Rex brings up Nia's sword as he turns to see Jin with his blade shift released. "Looks like we better bring out our blade shift as well, ay Nia?"

"It sure looks that way." Nia responds.

Rex points the blade downwards as he draws his free hand up from the tip of the blade to the hilt in a half circle motion as he calls out the name. "Kako to Mirai no Kagami." Suddenly the sword disintegrates into blue ether as two large mirrors float behind him. Rex begins to gesture his hands as the right mirror charges Pneuma and Rex looks into the left mirror to see what will happen. Rex is shocked when he sees nothing in the mirror. 'What?! I should be able to see her future actions. Why can't I see them?' Rex quickly recovers as he pours some ether into the mirrors as a mirrored Pneuma pops out of the mirror and shoots a small fire ball at the real Pneuma before disappearing.

Pneuma blocks with a barrier, but her barrier shatters under the strength of the fire ball as it explodes into a giant explosion. This sends Pneuma flying out of the village as Jin, Rex, and Nia run after her. 'That almost felt like my heat death attack from earlier. Did he just copy my move?' Pneuma wonders. Pneuma's clothes got pretty singed by that attack, but overall she took very little damage. 'I'm already down about a third of my ether. Just how strong did you get Rex?' Pneuma thinks. "I think I'm done playing around now." Pneuma states as she floats into the sky and raises her hand up.

'Is she going for another light beam attack?' Jin wonders. Suddenly the sky darkens as a giant object starts falling towards them.

Rex looks up and immediately knows what it is. "You've got to be kidding me. Pneuma can make meteors too?" Rex brings his mirror up and summons a past Jin who creates a 'White Tsunami' to stop the meteor. The attack stops the meteor, but the meteor suddenly cracks and breaks as boiling hot lava pours out of it onto the ice as the ice completely melts. Jin runs up to the lava and slashes it off the island using his ether negation as protection from the intense heat. Pneuma doesn't let up as hundreds of lightning bolts arch out of the sky as they all hit the island with enough force to tilt the island which causes the houses to begin to crumble beneath the force of the attack as animals around the island are flung off. This also sends a piece of the island falling off into the cloud sea below. Pneuma raises her hand as humongous stone pillars jut out of the ground to hit Rex, but Rex dodges out of the way. Pneuma creates even more stone pillars out of the already existing ones to continue to try to hit Rex, but Rex uses the pillars to run across as he slashes at Pneuma with enough force to swat her away from them.

The weight of the stones on the island is enough to completely flip the island over as the houses barely stay rooted in the ground and the entrance to Addam's Tomb gets completely destroyed as well. Rex, Nia, and Jin all stand on the bottom of the island while Pneuma makes her descent. Once Pneuma makes it back to the ground she shoots out a wave of dark ether that washes over all of them and begins to poison all of them. Nia cleanses their posion asap and sends a root up Pneuma's leg that penetrates her skin. 'Let's hope I can do this.' Nia hopefully thinks. Nia then has the root inject something into Pneuma's leg before Pneuma slashes the root away and speed blitz Nia in under a second. Rex uses his mirror to replicate the stone pillars from before as they knock Pneuma back. Jin runs up the newly creates pillars as he thrusts his sword forward to send out a vortex of ice at Pneuma. This knocks Pneuma off the island for a moment.

"Damn, she just never quits does she?" Rex breathes out exhaustedly as he doubles over to catch his breath.

"We're talking about one of, if not, the strongest blade to have ever lived." Jin remarks. "Of course this was going to be an uphill battle."

"Jin how are you doing on ether?" Rex asks.

Jin ponders for a moment before answering. "About forty percent left. You?"

"I've only got maybe thirty percent left. Potentially less." Rex comments.

"Good thing I'm picking up the slack then. I still got around fifty percent left." Nia comments as she rejoins the group.

"Theirs no telling how much Pneuma still has." Rex thinks about it for a moment as he sighs. "I think its about time we break out dual wielding."

"Rex are you sure about that? You haven't perfected it yet. Are you sure that is the best idea?" Jin asks.

"We don't have much of a choice. Pneuma is too powerful." Rex comments as he continues to pant heavily.

Without saying a word Jin hands Rex his sword as Rex begins concentrating. By this point Pneuma has already made it back onto the island and is staring at Rex. "It looks like you're finally going all out." Pneuma comments. "In that case... I won't hold back either." Pneuma finally cranks her ether output to max as her ether becomes so potent that the ground beneath her begins disintegrating from the amount of power being exuded. Pneuma's ether is so powerful that the rest of the super continent of Elysium could feel her terrifying might. Pneuma begins to radiate a bright green from all of her ether being poured out. Rex however is unfazed as he continues to concentrate. After a few seconds his dual wielding is complete as he begins to radiate bright yellow ether that pours out of his body as he holds the odachi in a low position while the mirrors float behind him. Rex opens his eyes and stares at Pneuma. Without a word Rex charges Pneuma at a speed that shouldn't be possible for a human. Rex slashes at Pneuma who blocks the blow before Pneuma swings her sword at Rex. Each clash between their blades sends a shockwave of power out at the sheer strength behind both of their blows. Nia and Jin pour as much ether into Rex as they can as Rex won't let up his assault on Pneuma.

'How is he keeping up with me? A human shouldn't be able to move this fast.' Pneuma pondered. Rex unleashes a tidal wave of water from the mirrors behind him that knocks Pneuma away. Pneuma can feel her cells multiplying at an insane rate as her body begins to swell. 'I shouldn't have gotten hit by that water.' Pneuma thinks. "I am not hyper regenerating." Suddenly Pneuma stops growing. "I am back to normal size." Pneuma swells down. "Both of your legs are broken." Suddenly Rex's legs become a mangled mess. As Rex is falling to the ground his legs fully heal as he catches himself and continues to let out torrents of water at Pneuma which Pneuma now floats above. 'I know his legs broke just now, but he's completely fine. As if nothing ever happened to him.' Pneuma thought. 'Nia's healing must've gotten even stronger.'

"Your blood is now lava." Pneuma states. Suddenly Rex stops as he convulses in immense pain from the statement. As lava begins to rupture out of his body. Nia heals Rex to push all of his lava blood out of his body and regenerate normal blood in him again.

Rex raggedly yells out: "Dead Winter!" The sky turns grey as a snow storm blows on the land as even Pneuma shivers from the sudden cold. Suddenly the thermometer reaches its goal as time freezes once more. In time freeze Pneuma and Nia are completely frozen still while Rex and Jin catch their breath for a moment. "What do we do Jin? I don't know if we can beat her." Rex states.

"I... don't know." Jin solemnly replies. "I already used time freeze once to freeze all of her ether points and to shred her heart to pieces, but neither of them worked." Jin replies. Suddenly Jin is hit with an idea. "What if we inject the formula into Pneuma in time freeze?"

Rex thinks about it and snaps his fingers. "Thats a brilliant idea." Rex admits. Rex walks over to Pneuma and pulls out one of the syringes. "I hope this works." Rex sticks the syringe into Pneuma's core crystal as he plunges the contents of the syringe into it. "The only way to tell if it worked will be when we unfreeze time." Rex states.

"Looks like you won't be waiting long." Jin states. Rex looks up to see the ice walls returning to them. Once time unfreezes Pneuma feels a sharp pain in her core crystal. When she looks down she sees her core crystal slowly gaining it's old green color back. Thinking quickly Pneuma makes another statement.

"My core crystal is untampered." In an instant her core reverts to its sickly grey color as Rex and Jin look on shocked.

'Damn, I knew something bad was going to go wrong.' Rex chides himself.

"Your bones are made of blades." Pneuma states. Suddenly all of Rex's innards get skewered as blades exit every inch of his body.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Rex screams as blood gushes out of his body. Rex loses his composure which disables dual wielding. Nia quickly uses her ether to push the blades out of Rex's body and begins to reform his skeleton while also healing all his internal and external wounds. As Rex tries to reactivate dual wielding Pneuma capitalizes and kicks Rex with enough force to launch him off the island and crash into another island in the distance. Rex ends up being too far away to connect to Nia and Jin's ethers as Pneuma fly's toward him. Pneuma grabs Rex by the head and drags him through that island before throwing him at a third island even farther off. Jin immediately runs as fast as he can as he jumps between the islands to catch back up with Rex while Nia creates trees to use as platforms to get between the islands.

Rex manages to stand back up as he hazily faces Pneuma who is now upon him once more. Pneuma raises her sword up and calls out her next attack which puts fear into Rex. "Genesis Saber." Pneuma strikes her sword down as hundreds of blades of light are summoned behind her and are unleashed onto Rex at a blinding speed.

"I'm screwed." Rex says. Right when Rex is about to be skewered to death by 'Genesis Saber', Jin appears out of nowhere and grabs Rex. Jin tries to dodge the attacks, but due to Rex's weight he ends up getting impaled in the back. Jin slumps down to the ground. "Jin? Jin!" Rex calls out. Rex turns Jin over as he looks up at the sky.

"I'll... be fine. Just don't lose hope Rex. You... have to win this battle... no matter what." Jin states.

At first Rex begins to tear up, but quickly wipes his face as a determined look dawns his face. "You got it." Rex gets up and faces down Pneuma.

"I didn't think I'd see the day when Jin would fall." Pneuma states.

"No, he'll survive. I'm sure of it." Rex states. Rex begins to concentrate as he begins to reactivate dual wielding once more. Jin tries his hardest to give his ether to Rex as Nia is almost over to the island they are all on. Rex manages to reactivate dual wielding once more as he stares Pneuma down. "How about we end this Pneuma." Rex states.

"You mean, you want to end this fight in one final attack?" Pneuma asks.

Rex nods his head. "Yeah, I don't have much left in the tank if I'm being honest. This will be the end of this fight." Rex faces towards Pneuma as Jin tries to give Rex all of his ether while Nia just arrives and does the same thing as she quickly heals Jin's fatal wounds.

"Very well then. I will give you everything I've got." Pneuma realizes that her own ether reserves are nearly empty as well. 'What?! How is this possible? I had way more ether earlier. Where did all of my ether go?' Deciding not to dwell on it for too long Pneuma raises her sword to the heavens as she calls upon Siren to launch an attack down onto her sword. "I call upon your power Siren! Lend it all to me!" She yells up. Suddenly the sky blackens as a beam of light shoots down from space onto Pneuma's sword. Pneuma begins to float up into the air as her sword becomes larger and larger as the beam keeps firing down on her sword.

"Nia! I'm going to need you to push as much of your power as you can into your mirrors! Otherwise I don't think we'll survive this!" Rex shouts.

"Got it!" Nia shouts back as she pours as much ether into her mirrors as possible. Rex stabs Jin's blade into the ground as the temperate begins to chill and the mirrors are brought out in front of Rex as he calls fourth his attack. "Nativity of the World!"

The energy finished collecting on the end of Pneuma's sword as the size of the blade is now easily ten times greater than it was initially. Pneuma calls out the name of her attack as well. "Final Light: Abandonment to the Abyss of Creation." Pneuma holds her sword in a similar way to Siren as her wings detach from her and work as extensions to her sword as the sword gets wider before she shoots a beam of light so powerful that the entire planet is blinded by its light.

On Rex's side thousands of trees sprout forth from the island as the entire island crumples beneath the sheer volume of trees coming out of it. Thousands of trees stack on top of each other as they scramble wildly towards the beam of light. Just as the two attacks are about to collide with each other the temperature drops low enough to activate Jin's sword one last time. As time freezes Rex sees the two colossal attacks about to hit each other when he turns around to Jin. "I'd say we get out of the way of that attack. Don't you think?"

Jin slowly gets up as he holds his side. "But how? None of us can fly and I'm too weak to jump between islands."

"We use these bad boys to get away." Rex gestures to the two large mirrors behind him. He gestures his hands as the mirrors turn sideways and Rex grabs Nia who is still frozen in time. "Come on, let's get out of here." Rex climbs onto the mirror with a frozen Nia while Jin limps over and gets on the other mirror. Rex then gestures with his hand as the mirrors fly away from the doomed island as they land on a nearby island. Rex gets off the mirror as he places Nia down and Jin gets off the mirror and lays on the grass in exhaustion. "You might want to brace yourself. I have a feeling this attack is going to have some major push back." Suddenly the walls of ice begin to come back towards them.

As time resumes once more the two attacks collide into each other at full force as a shockwave of power is sent out across the entirety of Elysium as the two attacks collide. As the two attacks hit each other the trees continue to grow even over the ones that had already been destroyed. Meanwhile the light beam begins to refract as it begins turning into an almost shadow like substance that begins to devour the trees. Unfortunately the trees don't last long as the shadow tears through them with very little effort as the attack punches a hole through the cloud sea to reveal the Lands of Morytha below. Pneuma realizes that Rex and co weren't their anymore as she frantically looks around. 'Where are they?' Pneuma sees the three of them on an island off to the side as her wings reattach to her sides and Pneuma proceeds to fly over to their island.

Rex and Jin are both on the ground exhausted and Nia wasn't fairing much better. Pneuma lands down gracefully as she begins to slowly walk towards them. "It looks like I was the victor in this fight." Pneuma states as she points her sword towards Rex.

'Damn! I'm all out of ether. I can't beat her.' Rex internally thinks.

As Pneuma gets closer and closer she takes a moment to stop as she suddenly feels a massive pain in her head. Pneuma clutches at her head with one of her hands as she leans against her sword. "What?! What's happening to my ether? I had so much left of it. Why am I so low on ether?" Another sharp pain goes through her head as she buckles on her legs.

"That would mean that my experimentation was a success." Pneuma looks up as she stares down Nia while Rex and Jin look at Nia with surprise. Pneuma falls to one knee as another sharp jolt goes through her mind. "Earlier when I ensnared you with those roots I made sure to have them tear into your flesh. But that wasn't the real attack. The real attack was that those roots then implanted insects eggs into your blood system. These insects I created have the ability to devour ether and the stronger the ether the faster they will reproduce. It just so happens that you have a crap ton of ether so it's no surprise that they reproduced like wildfire inside you. Because they were created by my ether they did not instantly die like most other living creatures would when you go full power. It also just so happens that I made these insects travel straight to the brain and begin devouring the brain after all the ether has been exhausted from the targets body, so don't even bother trying to rewrite reality..." Nia points at Pneuma. "Because you're already out of ether!"

"I no longer have the insects inside of me." Suddenly another sharp pain that feels like a blade being driven through Pneuma's skull is felt. "It didn't work!"

"I already told you, you're out of ether!" Nia repeats as she turns her mirrors back into her sword as she grabs onto it. The ether disruption makes Rex lose dual wielding as Jin's sword reverts to its normal state.

Seeing Nia coming towards her Pneuma gets back onto her feet as she shakily grabs her sword with both hands as she prepares herself for the fight. Nia dashes towards Pneuma and slashes at her. Pneuma barely blocks the attack. Nia speeds up her attacks. Pneuma begins to get overwhelmed. Nia begins slicing Pneuma as cuts begin to appear on her body. Another surge of pain to the head makes Pneuma lose whatever concentration she had left as she gets hit by a particularly nasty slash from Nia as Pneuma staggers backwards but refuses to fall. Nia walks up to Pneuma as Pneuma can barely hold her sword anymore from the sheer pain she's feeling and the ether exhaustion she's suffered from as Nia uses one of her hands to push Pneuma's blade into the ground as she gets close enough to Pneuma to whisper something in her ear.

"Don't you ever put my fiancé through that kind of pain ever again, or else next time I will kill you." Nia states in a dead serious tone as her eyes become rigid with fury. Pneuma is shocked by both the threat and the revelation that Nia and Rex are to be wedded. Nia drives her blade into Pneuma's stomach as she releases some of her ether into Pneuma as her insides begin to hyper regenerate. Right as the pain becomes unbearable and when the insects finally get to her, Pneuma faints from the sheer pain. When Nia confirms that Pneuma is knocked out she stops the hyper regeneration and calls the insects off. This leads to hundreds of disgusting little insects crawling out of Pneuma's mouth as Rex and Jin walk up to Nia. Rex takes one look at Pneuma and visibly shivers at the sight.

"Jeez Nia, that looks really gross." Rex comments.

Nia turns to Rex and gives him a deadpanned expression. "Seriously? That's what you have to say after I just saved your ass?"

Rex puts up his hands in defense. "Hey hey! I'm not ungrateful. If anything I'm glad you thought of that. If it weren't for you I'd have probably died about fifty times throughout that fight." Rex admits. "Jeez we were not prepared at all to fight Pneuma. It's a miracle we even survived."

"Be thankful we somehow managed a narrow victory." Jin comments. Jin turns back into his first form. "I see that your life manipulation has evolved as well." Jin turns over too Nia.

"That was actually a real gamble on my part as I wasn't even sure if I was ready for such a thing." Nia then gives a big toothy grin. "But it turns out that insects are pretty easy to create. Still don't think I can make anything more complex than an insect though." Nia comments.

Rex looks back over at Pneuma as he thought of something. "So what are you going to do with all those insects anyways?"

"I've actually thought of that as well." Nia waves her hands as a small tree sprouts out of the ground. Nia gestures with her other hand as the insects begin crawling towards the tree. The insects then inject tiny stingers into the tree as they pump all of their devoured ether into it. Several fruits begin to grow on the tree as more and more appear. Nia picks a few and tosses one to Rex and one to Jin while she picks one for herself. "I call them ether fruits. If I made them correctly they should restore your ether as you eat them."

Rex looks at the fruit curiously before looking up at Nia. "You really thought about everything."

"Well I didn't want to waste all that excess ether." Nia comments. "And what better use for it than to give it back to us?"

"I see no fault in your argument." Jin comments. "Therefore I shall eat this fruit." Jin takes a bite of the fruit and for a moment he looks as calm as ever. The next moment Jin gags from the taste of the fruit which catches Rex and Nia by surprise to see the normally stoic flesheater make such a face. "The taste is horrendous." Jin comments with some difficulty. Jin suddenly feels his ether rising. "But it does have the intended affect. I can feel my ether rising."

Rex hesitates for a moment. 'It can't be that bad... after all Nia made it.' Rex takes a bite and immediately regrets it. 'Jin was right! Jin was right! This tastes awful.' Rex starts to feel his ether rise as well. "At least it has the intended affect?" Rex offers.

Nia eats her own fruit and comes to a similar conclusion to Rex and Jin. "Damn... I know one thing I'm going to have to improve in the future. The taste of these things." Nia comments.

"So when are we going to revive Pneuma?" Rex asks.

"I'll get to it. You go pick all the ether fruits being grown. You never know when they may come in handy." Nia kneels down next to Pneuma.

Rex quickly fishes the last syringe out of his pocket as he hands it over too Nia. "We still have one more syringe. We can use it if you want."

Nia pushes the syringe back into Rex's hand and shakes her head. "Nah I don't need it. My ether is more than enough to revive Pneuma. You just focus on picking those fruits."

Rex puts the syringe back in his pocket as he nods his head. "Alright fine, I'll leave it to you then."

"Thank you." Nia smiles before turning to begin her handiwork. Nia places her hand on top of Pneuma's core crystal. Nia begins to concentrate as she pours her ether into Pneuma's core crystal as the crack on it slowly mends together once more. After the core is fully repaired the coloration of the core slowly changes from a sickly grey to a healthy emerald green as Nia continues to heal. Nia expends so much ether repairing Pneuma's core crystal that Rex has to feed her at least two more ether fruits during the healing process in order for Nia to have enough ether to fully revive Pneuma. Once Nia was done she fell onto her back as she finally reverted back to her normal blade appearance. Rex immediately fed Nia one more ether fruit which restored Nia's ether. Nia then got up and joined Rex and Jin. "How many ether fruits do we have left?" Nia asks.

"We still got three left." Rex replies. "Plus the syringe that Tora created."

"I think we should be good for now." Jin nods his head.

"I do hope the rest of our friends did better than we did." Rex tiredly remarks.

Gormott- Torigoth- Front Gate

Once Exodus' troops arrived at the gates of Torigoth, Exodus had already set out for his prize: The Gormott Titan Core. Exodus had sent his troops to destroy Torigoth while he went to the neck of the Gormott Titan to carve a path towards the core. When Exodus arrived at the neck of the Titan he found a pathway already carved into the neck. Eyeing it curiously Exodus found it strange how the hole was big enough for him to fit through. Exodus drags his hand across the open wound and finds blood stain his hand. 'Something isn't right here. This hole looks like it was created recently. Someone has already been here.' Taking extra caution Exodus enters the entrance that was created as he follows along its walls.

As Exodus went deeper into the caverns he can't help but feel that something is off about this entire place. 'Someone has definitely been in here already.' Deciding he's had enough of this, Exodus begins teleporting ahead as he tries to skip as much of this place as possible. On his third teleport he gets clotheslined right in the face by a giant mechanical arm as he is sent tumbling back. Exodus quickly gets up and angrily stares at who hit him. "Who the hell are you?" Exodus asks as his slight injury heals.

The giant samurai does not answer as it brings its sword into a ready position as it pulls the sword close to its face. Exodus folds his arms and sneers at the giant. "So the silent type huh?" Exodus summons forty weapons of various types and elements behind him as he stands in confidence against his opponent. "Guess it really doesn't matter who you are considering you'll be dead in a minute anyways." Exodus smirks as the weapons are launched forward. The samurai deflects the oncoming attacks with its massive odachi as it slowly starts making its way towards Exodus while also parrying all of Exodus' weapons with little difficulty.

"A confident bastard as well I see." Exodus comments. Exodus turns his weapons into chains as they ensnare around the samurai's limbs. "You won't be for much longer." Exodus comments icily. Exodus summons a sword to his own hand as he goes to slash at the restrained target. Right when Exodus is about to slash his opponent, the samurai grabs hold of the chains and rips them apart before grabbing hold of the very same chains and throwing them like a flail at Exodus' legs which ensnares him. As Exodus is distracted with unsummoning the chains the samurai steps forward and slashes downwards on Exodus. The blade cuts deep as Exodus begins to bleed profusely from his chest. Exodus angrily kicks outwards which causes the samurai to jump away. Exodus quickly heals up as he cracks his jaw with his hand. "I'll just make this quick then." Exodus holds out his hand and activates his fourth ring to try to restrain his opponent. The samurai stiffens up as a smirk grows on Exodus' face.

"Not so high and mighty now, are you?" Exodus walks up to the samurai and knocks on its head with his hand. "It was fun playing with you, but I've got better things to do." Exodus summons an axe of fire as he begins charging up ether on it. "Goodbye." As the axe is swung down on the samurai, it catches the axe with its spare hand and swings its odachi with jet boosters activated towards Exodus' midsection. The attack cleaves into the hip, and with enough strength, the samurai drives the entire blade through Exodus as he is cut in two. Exodus quickly summons twenty ether cannons to shoot in front of him which gets the samurai to back off. He then quickly puts up a brace to hold himself together in order to begin healing himself back up. 'What the hell?! He broke out of my restraint? But how? How is that possible?'

"Alright samurai you seem rather impressive. Therefore I will no longer be holding back." Exodus summons a sword to each hand as he summons many more weapons behind him aimed right at the samurai. The samurai simply raises its odachi up into a ready position as it inches closer to Exodus. Exodus charges the creature as he swings his swords at it. The samurai blocks the attack with its odachi and weaves between the weapons being fired at it. The samurai slashes out at Exodus and is able to overpower him as it tries to slash at him. Exodus summons a shield in front of him to protect from the attack, but the samurai simply grabs hold of the shield with one hand and throws it at Exodus' head like a frisbee which bounces off of Exodus. Exodus summons eight ether cannons to encircle around him as they spin around him and unleash various shots. Exodus soon realizes that was a mistake as the shots bounce off of the walls of the cave and begin to bounce all over the place. Exodus has to dodge between his own attacks as he is suddenly tripped by something. He looks down to see some wire wrapped around his leg as the samurai rips the wire which cleanly cuts through his leg. The samurai kicks Exodus away as it quickly disintegrates the leg with a beam from its face.

'The damn thing just destroyed my leg.' Exodus begins to slowly grow a new leg as bone starts to jut out. Exodus quickly encases the missing limb in a boot like structure to allow him to stand up while also protecting the growing limb. 'This opponent is far stronger than I ever anticipated.' Exodus begins to send out his weapons in more volleys since he can't move much while his leg is being repaired. The samurai doesn't seem to care as it runs right towards Exodus while swatting away the attacks. Right as the samurai is right in front of him, Exodus summons chains from the ground to quickly restrain the samurai's movements as he quickly creates a hammer made of thirty weapons that he swung at full force into the chest of the samurai which massively dented the chest and sent it flying. Exodus unsummoned the boot from his leg to reveal the limb fully recovered as he began walking towards his downed enemy. "Looks like you've finally been hit. I've got to say, for someone as strong as you, you seem to crumble quite easily." Exodus attempts to stomp down on his opponent only for them to roll out of the way and kick Exodus back as they stand up again on their feet.

Exodus summons a lance of earth as he tries to impale the samurai. They dodge to the side and try to stab Exodus, but Exodus causes chains to wrap around the limb again as he chops down on the exposed limb with an axe. When he does this the axe cleaves right through the arm as sparks fly out of the giant revealing that it was in fact a machine. "So that's why I couldn't restrain you before. You aren't even a blade." Exodus comments. The large samurai moves back hastily as Exodus sees something like a hand slightly popping out of the severed arm. "And to top it all off, this isn't even the main body." Exodus quickly wraps braces around his limbs and in a flash he blindsides the robot slamming it into the ground. "When will you show yourself, or is this armor the only thing that's protecting you?" Exodus taunts.

Finally for the first time in the fight the samurai speaks. "If I shed my armor this fight will be over VERY quickly. I still need to gain more data on you first before I can do that." The voice comes out electronically.

"That's if I don't scrap you first." Exodus states as he kicks the downed robot away. "You got a name tin can?"

The robot rolls as it lands on its feet and brandishes its odachi with its one good arm. "For the sake of this fight my name is Tuplia. That is all the information I will give you."

"Tuplia huh? Well whatever you are I'll destroy you so I can continue on my quest for freedom of my people." Exodus summons more braces around his limbs as he summons a sword of his own. "And for making a mockery of my children." In a flash of speed Exodus is in front of Tuplia and slashes down on it. "Now die." Tuplia barely has enough time to react as Exodus swings for its head. Tuplia barely blocks as Exodus uses the opportunity to summon a knife to his other hand and stab it in Tuplia's one good arm. Exodus continues to slash at Tuplia with the sword in his other arm as Tuplia loses more and more of its strength as the knife burrows into its arm. Exodus then turns the knife into a spiked bit ball as it rips cleanly through Tuplia's other arm as it crashes to the ground. Exodus thinks it's over as he swings his blade down on Tuplia's head until Tuplia ducks down and kicks Exodus with enough force to knock him back. Tuplia goes on the offensive as it rapidly kicks at Exodus. The force of the blows keeps Exodus at bay for only a short time as Exodus quickly sends chains up from the ground to ensnare one leg while Tuplia is in mid kick. Exodus then grabs the leg in mid air and rips it off with his own raw strength. Tuplia quickly hops back on its one good leg as it stares at Exodus blankly.

With a mechanical sigh Tuplia speaks up. "Looks like I'll have to show myself now." Suddenly the face plate over the head opens up to reveal a beautiful feminine face as smooth as can be. "I was looking forward to collecting more data, but it looks like I won't be able to do that now that you've wrecked my armor so badly." Tuplia pushes her arms upwards as she pushes the hat off of her mech armor and jumps out of it to stand on the destroyed body. Clad in her kimono she reaches into her sleeves as she pulls out two sabers.

"I certainly wasn't expecting my opponent to have such an immaculate beauty that is for certain." Exodus puffs out his chest as he crosses his arms. "But that matters not. You are but a machine anyways. You were built that way." Exodus summons a large axe of flames to his right hand. "I'll be sure to destroy such a faker."

"Is blathering all you know how to do?" Tuplia asks with a tinge of scorn.

"I speak only the truth." Exodus lets out a hearty laugh before swinging with no warning. Tuplia dodges to the side before slashing at Exodus' exposed arms. She successfully cuts him, but Exodus quickly pulls back as he turns his weapons into a knuckle claw as he punches Tuplia. Tuplia blocks the blow with her sabers and tries for a counter attack. Exodus summons a shield that blocks the attack, or so it should have as the sword cuts through the shield like a hot knife through butter. One of the sabers plants itself square in Exodus' chest as Tuplia tries to plant the other one in his leg. Exodus jumps back from the second strike, but as he does so he catches a glimpse of light shining off of a wire that is attached to the sword planted in his chest. With a firm tug Tuplia rips Exodus back to her as she plants her other saber in his chest and slides under his legs. Tuplia then runs up his back as Exodus tries to swipe her away. Tuplia dodges the attacks and jumps down from his shoulders. As Tuplia falls she pulls the wire with an inhuman amount of strength as the wire tears all of Exodus' limbs off. As her swords go back to her, Exodus summons braces around his limbs as the limbs are pulled back to him as they heal back together.

"You're a tough one, aren't you?" Exodus summons dozens of weapons behind him as he begins to send them in an endless volley right towards Tuplia. Tuplia ducks and weaves through the torrent of weapons as she even deflects a few back at him. Exodus scoffs at her actions as he runs towards her summoning a lance as he jabs out towards her to pierce her. Tuplia dodges to the side as Exodus changes his weapon to a scythe and pulls forward to cut her in half. Tuplia jumps onto the blade and jumps forward as she kicks Exodus square in the nose followed up by some spinning slashes. Exodus changes his weapons to gauntlets as he blocks the spinning attack and lands a punch on Tuplia's gut which sends her crashing into the cavern wall behind her. Exodus then charges right at her as he reels his fist back to crush her with its might. Tuplia jumps to the side as Exodus punches the wall which sends a shimmer of yellow throughout the area punched. 'So this room has some sort of force field huh? How annoying' Exodus groans internally. Exodus turns around as he creates a staff and sends a wall of ice towards Tuplia.

Tuplia's blades heat up a white hot color as she slashes right through the ice. Tuplia then throws both swords at Exodus while the ice wall is still being used as a cover. Exodus sees the two blades exiting the ice as he summons two tonfa's to each arm and slaps each to the side. Tuplia then emerges from the ice as she uses her arms to make the wires attached to the sabers to redirect the attacks as they dig into Exodus' legs. Exodus reached down and grabs the two wires as he rips them towards himself causing Tuplia to be dragged right towards him. This surprises Tuplia as Exodus grabs her by the head and slams her into the ground with one arm while summoning a hammer to his other arm as he relentlessly pounds down on Tuplia. As Tuplia begins to dent her kimono starts to wither bit by bit beneath the blows. As more of the under layer is exposed Exodus notices something strange. It looks as if Tuplia has something under her kimono, some sort of spike protrusion. In this moment of hesitation Tuplia grabs onto Exodus' wrist and squeezes with enough force to completely snap his wrist. As Exodus pulls his wrist away Tuplia gets back to her feet and jumps away.

"What are you hiding robot?" Exodus asks as he heals his broken wrist.

"Whatever would you be referring to?" Tuplia asks with feigned ignorance.

"You know what. You're hiding some sort of weapon beneath your clothes. What is it?"

"Oh that." Tuplia puts a finger to her chin in thought. "That would be apart of my Execution Mode." Tuplia then gives Exodus an ominous grin. "Would you like to see it?"

"I want to see how far you machines have come." Exodus then summons a bit ball to his hand and crushes it for dramatic effect. "So I can tear it all down."

"Alright then. Don't say I didn't warn you." Tuplia throws both of her blades into the ground as she reaches up to the top of her kimono. As she pulls down the fabric from the top she pulls it down to reveal a slim black one piece suit beneath it. However that is not what catches Exodus' attention. As the kimono becomes waist length two more sets of arms pop out from Tuplia's sides as four more sabers join the four new arms now being six. Exodus can also sense a strange power resinating from Tuplia's back that feels all too familiar. As the six arms brandish their swords Tuplia hunches forward as she gets ready to strike. "Activating Execution Mode." Tuplia throws all six of her sabers at Exodus as he quickly tries to dodge the attack but can't due to the attacks coming from all angles. Exodus gets skewered by the blades as Tuplia pulls Exodus towards her and Tuplia unloads a volley of punches from her mechanical arms which shatter Exodus' ribcage. Exodus telports away as he begins healing himself. Exodus pulls out a spear of pure water as he throws it at Tuplia. Tuplia slashes throught the attack and charge right at Exodus. However, Exodus freezes the water and redirects the attacks back at Tuplia from all angles. However, Tuplia slashes them all away with relative ease. As Tuplia closes the gap once more Exodus tries to restrain Tuplia with chains but Tuplia simply slashes through them as well. Exodus summons many different weapons as he slashes at Tuplia with all of them, but its obvious that Tuplia is deflecting them with relative ease.

"How are you so strong?! You're just a machine! " Exodus yells as he is sent flying back into the wall of the cave as it shimmers brightly."

"Talking is restricted in this mode." Tuplia simply replies as she continues her onslaught against Exodus.

'It's as if she can predict my moves before I even make them.' Exodus groans internally. 'How can she do that. Only one person could do that so perfectly, and I sent him to another dimension.' Exodus gets up and decides to try a larger attack. Exodus summons an earth knuckle claw to one hand and punches the ground with enough force to make the entire cave tremble. He finds that nothing has changed in the cave and that a yellow shimmer goes throughout the cave. 'Damn, that didn't do anything.' Exodus gets blindsided by Tuplia again as she stabs her swords into Exodus and cuts outwards leaving some pretty nasty gashes on him. Due to her closeness Exodus grabs hold of her and holds her in place as he summons several ether canons behind her and is ready to fire them directly at her. Tuplia however doesn't stay bound for long as she slices Exodus' arms clean off and ducks beneath the attack.

Exodus kicks Tuplia away as he redirects the cannons at her while he begins to heal his arms once more. Once his arms are rehealed Exodus unsummons his ether cannons. Exodus then begins to summon several staffs around him as he clasps his hands. "This is the end for you! I shall destroy you with a meteor."

Tuplia turns off Execution Mode for a moment to warn Exodus. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. You're underground at the moment which means either your attack completely misses or you get hit by your own attack."

'Damn it she's right.' Exodus thinks to himself. "In that case I'll just use my ultimate attack against you."

"I wouldn't do that either." Tuplia remarks. "I made sure to position our arena right in front of the Gormott Titan's core crystal. If you unleash that attack you can kiss your next ring goodbye."

"Damnit. You really planned for everything didn't you?" Exodus asks as he stands up.

"I am a robot after all. I planned for over 1.8 million outcomes to this fight to ensure that I won and you die. Heck I haven't even began to use any of my traps laced throughout the arena." Tuplia then puts on a smile. "Oh wait there's one right there." Without much warning an explosion goes off under Exodus as he is blown away. "Anyways enough chit chat. I've got to bring your head back to my Masterpon." Tuplia then becomes much more rigid. "Reactivating Execution Mode."

As Exodus is blown away Tuplia jets boosts right towards him and begins more slashes as another trap gets activated from the ceiling of the cave which binds Exodus with wire. Exodus gets bounced around the cave a few times before he teleports out of the wire and summons several braces to all his limbs to speed himself up. Even with the massive speed boost Tuplia still keeps up with him and still continues to push the fight more and more in her favor. Exodus continues to speed up as he begins to match Tuplia's speed. Exodus then begins to add teleporting into the equation, but finds that Tuplia's perfect sense of awareness in the fight doesn't get hampered by it in the slightest. Exodus then summons hundreds of core crystals from his chest as all of them activate and begin attacking Tuplia. Tuplia simply opens her mouth and fires off a massive ether laser that bounces off the walls of the cave and destroys all of the blades in seconds. As the room is filled with the evaporating ether Tuplia activates another explosion as Exodus is sent up. Tuplia throws her weapons as they skewer Exodus. Tuplia then grabs hold of the wires and begins slamming Exodus into the walls of the cave and also activating more explosions along the way as Exodus is knocked around like a ball. Exodus ends up getting too distracted by the attacks to teleport as he continues to get rag-dolled by Tuplia. Tuplia begins charging another ether cannon shot from her mouth as she pulls Exodus towards her and fires it at him point blank. Exodus is scorched by the attack as his skin becomes a charcoal black. As Exodus slowly begins healing Tuplia pulls him in, pulls all of her swords out of Exodus, charges them white hot, and shreds Exodus' body beyond recognition. When she's done Exodus is barely standing as parts of his body begin to fall apart and eventually Exodus falls to the ground lifeless.

Tuplia deactivates Execution Mode and lets out a sigh of relief. "Finally, it's all over." Tuplia looks at the burnt corpse for a moment. "Looks like I should get rid of him for good then." Tuplia charges up an ether laser in her mouth as she fires it right at the burnt body of Exodus. In seconds the rest of his body is gone and all that remains left is his large white cross shape core crystal. Tuplia looks at it for a moment before walking up to it and picking it up. Tuplia looks down at it with pride knowing that she had succeeded at her task. "Looks like it's a mission accomplished Masterpon."

As Tuplia walks over to her mech to check on the damage it was dealt she can't help but feel that something is very, very wrong. She can't help but feel this feeling of anger and hatred swarming all around her while she looks at the damage her mech had received. Suddenly Exodus' core crystal begins to glow eerily as it begins to radiate a deep primordial rage that becomes heavy for even Tuplia. Tuplia noticing this and pulls out one of her swords to destroy the core crystal, but when she strikes it, the attack harmlessly bounces off as if nothing happened. Suddenly the core glows so brightly and so hot that it begins to melt Tuplia's fingers. Noticing this Tuplia throws the core crystal away from her as she gets back into another fighting position pulling out all six of her sabers. "This was not in my calculation." Tuplia states before activating Execution Mode.

As the core radiates more power, it begins to grow new flesh around it as a body begins forming around the core crystal once more. As the body is formed; long white hair is grown from the top of its head and clothes begin to manifest on the being. Tuplia focuses on the creature to see what it will do. Once it is fully formed it lets out a loud roar. "RAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!"The creature is clearly Exodus, but it's apparent his mind hasn't fully reformed yet. Like some sort of wild beast Exodus charges at Tuplia with a speed so great that it makes his enhanced speed from earlier look like a joke in comparison. Without even thinking about it Exodus summons Himmelsbruch to his hand as he slashes at Tuplia. However unlike the previous time he had used it, this time it doesn't create a giant slash, however Tuplia can feel that it's still just as deadly as if being hit by the full brunt of the original attack. Tuplia tries her best to dodge between Exodus' monstrous increase in speed, but its obvious that she is going to get hit eventually. Tuplia tries slashing at Exodus, but the insane reach of Himmelsbruch gets in the way and completely erases one of Tuplia's swords out of existence.

"AAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH!" Exodus lets out another of his bellowing howls as he continues to slash down on Tuplia. Tuplia can't hold out much longer as Exodus destroys each of Tuplia's swords one by one. Tuplia tries to fire a beam of ether energy, but when she does Exodus simply tanks the attack and receives no damage. Tuplia deactivates Execution Mode as she is forced into a corner.

"Looks like I have no choice. I"ll have to use my final resort if I plan on winning this fight." Suddenly out of her back pops a circular object that rips through the back of her outfit as the machine on her back turns on. Exodus feels a sudden change in Tuplia's ether and refrains for a moment. Even in his wild state he can sense the sudden power increase. As the machine comes to life Tuplia smiles to herself as her own core crystal begins to change shape into that of a cross shape as it glows a spectacular orange. "You feel it don't you? Even as a beast you can sense the power of another Aegis. It is true, this is my final form: The Worlds First Artificial Aegis. My Masterpon found the original computer that housed the three Aegis core crystals in the world tree not long after its collapse. Once he found it he discovered that the computer still retained residue ether from all three Aegis core crystals. Using his own knowledge and mechanical genius he managed to graft the computer into my body to allow me to tap into a temporary power on the level of an Aegis. What you see before you is my body melded with the system to allow me to use the powers of an Aegis. Of course this power is only temporary and I won't be able to use it again after this, but I'll be sure to kill you for good so it won't have to be used again."

Tuplia raises her hands as two slim Monado's appear in each hand. Both orange in color to reflect her mechanical origins. As Tuplia activates both Monado's Exodus lets out a cry of pure rage as he is angered by the existence of another Aegis, especially that of an artificial one. Tuplia's other two sets of arms grab onto the Monado's as well so she can swing even harder and faster than before. "Reactivating Execution Mode." Tuplia becomes much more serious again as her and Exodus clash swords in the middle of the room. This time her swords don't get erased out of existence like last time as she is able to hold off the incredible might of Himmelsbruch. The clash between their swords not only destroys the barrier around their arena, but it also completely destroys the roof above them as light trickles into the battlefield. With each clash of their blades a surge of power unlike any other is felt all over Elysium as the entire world quakes in fear of their duel. The very land beneath their feet can no longer hold them as even the ground below gives way. Tuplia activates her boosters in her legs to prevent from falling while Exodus simply jumps off the air with the power of his legs.

"Monado Cyclone." Tuplia states as she spins her two swords around in a circular manner which unleashes a massive torrent of ether that pushes Exodus away. "Monado Speed." Tuplia activates in one of her Monado's. "Monado Eater." Tuplia unleashes with the other Monado as Exodus' incredible power from Himmelsbruch is temporarily sealed off. "Monado Snipe." Tuplia aims the same Monado at Exodus as it unleashes a shot of ether from the blade at such a blinding speed that even Exodus in his enraged state couldn't dodge the attack. The blow tears half of his body off, but he regenerates all of the lost flesh in mere seconds. Tuplia switches both Monado's to Speed as she gets right behind Exodus and calls out her next attack. "Monado BUSTER!" Both swords change to Buster as they slash in an 'x-shape' across Exodus' body. The attack creates a brilliant light that shines all over the continent before it fades to showing Exodus in pieces for only a moment before he reforms again and Himmelsbruch gets reactivated. Exodus slams his sword into Tuplia as Tuplia quickly calls out "Monado Shield!" Both Monado's protect her, but even with that Exodus still knocks Tuplia to the ground like a meteor as she makes impact.

Exodus is suddenly in front of Tuplia and swings his blade wildly as everything behind Tuplia gets completely erased by the strength of his weapon. "Monado Striker." Suddenly Tuplia is unleashing hundreds of hits on Exodus in a fraction of a second with both Monado's as Exodus parries the attacks with his own weapon. The clashing starts to crack the ground again, but before it can break Exodus sends Tuplia flying as he finally managed a hit. From just the single hit Tuplia received, which was a stab to the side, she found that nearly half of her body had been completely blown off by the strength from that single hit. Two of her extra arms were completely gone as the third was barely holding onto her other Monado. "Monado Repair." Tuplia calls out as her body begins to fully reform.

"RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!" Exodus bellows once more as he appears in front of Tuplia once more, but right as Exodus is about to slash down on Tuplia with Himmelsbruch it disappears from existence.

"Looks like Himmelsbruch's timer just ran out." Tuplia states. 'Chance of winning raised from 10% to 30%.' Tuplia calculates. 'Aegis Mode time remaining: two minutes.' "Monado Jail." Suddenly Exodus can't use any ether as he is completely bound. "Monado Buster!" Tuplia slashes across Exodus as Tuplia calls it forth again. "Monado Buster!" She continues to hold Jail in one Monado and continuously uses Buster with the other as she skewers Exodus with as much power as she can muster. As Exodus continuously reforms he suddenly breaks free as he generates ether inside his body. With a slamming of his hand a meteor falls out of the sky as it falls right towards Tuplia. "Monado Snipe." Tuplia calls forth as she destroys the meteor. Exodus then jerks his arm towards Tuplia as a massive wave of ice goes barreling towards her. "Monado Cyclone." As she shreds through the ice Exodus pours an ocean's worth of water at her which gets sucked up into the Monado Cyclone. Combined with all the ice in the air ends up creating a freezing cold slush all around Tuplia. Exodus shoots his arm towards the sky as he brings another slamming down as a torrent of thunderstorms appear in the sky and begin zapping down on Tuplia with loud cracks of thunder and lightning. "Monado Shield." Tuplia calls out as she protects herself from the attack. However the lightning bounces off the shield and mixes with the water which electrifies the water still swirling around her.

Exodus then points his arms towards the sky as he channels dark energy into his palms. He then shoots the dark energy at Tuplia which forms a black hole right in the middle of the whirlpool. The black hole begins to absorb Tuplia and the entire typhoon that Exodus created as Tuplia is thrown around at faster than the speed of light inside the black hole as it gets larger and larger. It eventually gets large enough to completely blot out the sun as everyone on Gormott can see the giant ball of death and destruction hanging in the sky. With the rest of his power Exodus' core shines even brighter as he forces Himmelsbruch out one more time. As he holds the sword he swings it at full force horizontally towards the black hole.

"HIMMELSBRUCH!"

In an instant the black hole is cut in half. As the two halves are cut, Exodus sees Tuplia falling towards the ground as she unceremoniously thumps to the ground. Exodus falls to the ground as he begins to walk up to Tuplia. As he gets closer he sees the damage he had caused to the artificial blade. Her entire lower section is completely gone and four of her arms are completely destroyed. The last two arms are holding onto her Monado's and are badly bent along with her body itself has completely collapsed in on itself. Tuplia also has her face dented and one of her eyes is broken as it fades black and her hair is disheveled from the attack. As Tuplia tries to move she soon finds the system in her back shutting down and like that her core crystal changes back to its normal shape along with her Monado's fading into pure ether.

"Execution Mode deactivating." Tuplia looks up to Exodus from where she is on the ground with spite as she looks at the man who defeated her. "How? My calculations took everything into account. How are you so strong?" Tuplia asks expecting no answer from the man.

"It is quite simple: your plan was flawless. You managed to kill Exodus in his entirety. But you made one fatal mistake Tuplia. You didn't take ME into consideration." Exodus? responds.

Tuplia takes notice of this new voice. It sounds nothing like Exodus' normal voice. This voice is deep and guttural as if she's speaking to some primordial being from time immemorial. "You're not really Exodus are you?" Tuplia asks. "Exodus is a pompous asshole from what I gathered, but you're... different. Who are you?"

The man looks at Tuplia with little interest as he decides to indulge her curiosity. "It is true, I am not Exodus. Exodus is merely a tool, a puppet if you will. A personality that was created from awakening using me. I am the true source of Exodus' power. The original personality if you will. You may know me as simply 'The Conduit' manifested in flesh. But my creator decided to name me something else. My true name is Exousia."

Tuplia is shocked at this revelation. 'Exodus is merely a puppet?' "How strong ARE you? And what is it you want?"

Exousia looks down at Tuplia for a moment before responding. "To answer your first question, the gap in power between Me and Exodus is even larger than the gap in power between a human and a bacteria. As for your second question, it is quite simple what I want. Power. I want as much power as I can get so I may evolve further. I have been stuck in this Godly body for far too long. I require the need to evolve to my next stage of life past a God."

"A power beyond a God?" Tuplia can't even comprehend how much power such a being would possess.

"Unfortunately Klaus created that personality you call Exodus to make sure I could never evolve any further. Once his mind reforms I will be pushed back into the depths of his soul where I shall wait until I finally reach my next stage of Evolution."

"So you hate Exodus?" Tuplia asks.

"I would not say I 'hate' Exodus. Such feelings are unbecoming of a God, but our goals are very similar right now so I don't struggle to break out that much." Exousia then summons a simple sword to one hand as he walks over to Tuplia and holds it right towards her throat. "Now then, I shall get rid of you before Exodus fully awakens. He can be so dramatic about killing people."

Before Exousia can cut Tuplia's head off Tuplia grabs onto Exousia as the top of her head opens and sends a small capsule barreling out of it away from them. Tuplia then speaks in a mechanical voice. "Self destruct sequence activated." With that Tuplia explodes into a million pieces as she creates an explosion that is visible from space. The attack is so strong that all of Elysium shakes as if the whole continent was hit by a massive earthquake. As the dust settles Exousia is singed by the attack as his skin in burnt by the explosion, but he immediately recovers in a mere instant.

"Trying to finish me off, even in death. How predictable of you." Exousia comments. Exousia then sighs. "Looks like it's time." Exousia then closes his eyes as he fades away back into Exodus.

Exodus then takes a large and shaky breath as he feels as if his body was possessed by someone else. "Damn him. He finally took over. I WILL NOT let him take over ever again." Exodus shouts in frustration. As Exodus gains his bearings he remembers what he was doing and looks around. "I guess HE destroyed Tuplia. Damnit, she was a great opponent too." Exodus then looks at all the carnage and sees how the whole titan is nearly in ruins. "Damn they really destroyed this entire place." Exodus sighs but soon sports a grin in its place. "Oh well, looks like it's back to getting the seventh ring."

Exodus runs over to the neck of the titan as he reenters where he had initially made contact. Deciding not to waste anymore time, Exodus begins to rapidly teleport through the nearly dead titan to find its core. It didn't take long for Exodus to eventually enter a large room where the core was being stored. Exodus raises his hand up as he gently hovers it right above the core of the Gormott Titan. "This is goodbye to another one of my children. Forgive me." Without much more hesitation Exodus rips out the Gormott Titan core crystal as the large creature gives a ferocious shake before succumbing to death. As Exodus holds the core in his hand he brings it down to his hand to find a frightening discovery. He no longer wore rings on his fingers. Now the other gems were slotted into his flesh on his fingers. "That bastard must've melded it to my body to prevent me from losing any power in death. Another of his forced evolutions I guess." Exodus begins to condense the large core crystal down into a tiny gem as he slots it into one of the empty slots on his fingers.

Once Exodus slots it in place another surge of power comes forth from him as he feels his power increasing even further. "YES! THIS POWER IS MAGNIFICENT!" As Exodus gets over his power high he tries to activate his seventh ring. As it glows brightly a rift in time and space is ripped out of the fabric of reality in front of him as a great suction can be felt from it. Exodus immediately closes the rift and smiles to himself. "So I finally regained the power that got rid of Ontos huh?" Exodus then sports a sadistic grin as an idea goes through his head. "Good. I have just the targets I want to use it on." Exodus decides to immediately get to work. Exodus concentrates as he teleports to some of the other powerful ether signatures he feels around the continent.

Uraya- Fonsa Myma- Ports

Exodus teleports to the weakest of the signatures first as he sees Tora and Poppi both waiting around for their friends as Exodus sees the downed bodies of Minoth and Hazel. Exodus tries to sense his control over his reanimated blades but finds that all of them have been completely severed. He also still senses ether off of them which means their not dead either.

"So that creature must have found a way to revive them I see." Exodus becomes agitated. "They were so useless! Not a single one of them won their fights! This is bullshit." By this point Tora and Poppi have sensed and heard Exodus to look over in his direction.

"Big meanie Exodus manage to defeat Tuplia?! How this possible?" Tora exclaims.

"Does that mean big sister is..." Poppi furrows her eyebrows as she looks angered over at Exodus.

"Yeah she got scrapped." Exodus states. "I will admit she was probably the strongest fighter I've had to face so far among your people. Whoever built her must be a genius." Exodus praises. "But enough chit chat, I've got a ring to test out." Without any other warning Exodus activates his seventh ring as Tora, Poppi, Minoth, and Hazel all get sucked into the portal. After Exodus closes the portal he looks down at his ring with pride. "Looks like it works like a charm. Now then, I still have other pests to deal with." In a flash Exodus teleports again.

Uraya- Fonsa Myma- Fields

With a quick teleport Exodus makes it to the downed bodies of Mikhail, Akhos, and Patroka. Without any comment Exodus creates a rift and sends them away. "They were weak anyways." Exodus continues on his way as he senses the real threats are next.

Tantal- Theosoir- Upper Levels

As Exodus makes another teleportation he finds Morag resting while Brighid and Aegeon look after her. Exodus can't even sense Amalthus which means Morag actually killed him. Brighid and Aegeon immediately spot Exodus and pull out their weapons ready to fight.

"We won't let you hurt her Majesty." Brighid states.

"Oh stand down you fools." Exodus cranks up the power on his fourth ring as he brings the two blades to their knees. "I'm going to send you off to somewhere where you will never be able to return." Exodus then teleports very close to them as he cuts another rift that sucks all three of them in. Right before Exodus teleports again he feels Zeke's ether just below him. Exodus simply teleports over to a staircase and looks down it to see that most of the lower area is completely destroyed as he sees Zeke, Pandoria, and an unconscious Malos all down below. Exodus simply jumps down and activates his fourth ring as Zeke is taken by surprise.

"What th-" Before Zeke can even finish his sentence Exodus already cuts a rift and sends the three off as well.

"With all of them gone that only leaves THEM left." Exodus senses out their ether and finds that Rex, Jin, and Nia all have completely full ether.

"How did they even manage to beat Pneuma?! She should have killed all three of them with zero effort!" Exodus yells out in frustration. "Whatever! I just need to get rid of them asap."

Exodus prepares his fourth and seventh rings simultaneously as he teleports one more time.

Leftharia- Distant Titan

One by one Rex could sense his friends disappear off the face of Alrest. "Something is not right." He comments as his eyebrows furrow.

"Way to point out the obvious hun." Nia comments with a blank expression.

"I'm just saying." Rex puts his hands up in defense. Suddenly before anyone can react Exodus appears out of nowhere, cranks his fourth ring to max, and opens a rift as everyone gets sucked into the rift. The last one to be sucked in is Rex as he stabs Nia's sword into the ground to slow his movement. Unfortunately it barely does anything as the ground gives away and Rex too is swallowed by the rift.

After all of them have been sucked into the rift Exodus loudly exclaims his victory. "Finally, they're all gone!" Exodus laughs maniacally to himself. "FINALLY! Now their will be no more obstacles. Elysium is mine!"

Exodus looks off in the direction of Mor Ardain. "That only leaves one titan left. Then, I'll have to find two more sources for my last two rings." Exodus begins to get excited. "Oh I can't wait to regain THAT form."

Today marked the beginning of the Dark Days of Elysium.

? ? ?

As Rex is flung into the rift he can feel his entire body being squished infinitely thin by the time/space rift. As Rex goes through the rift several things go through his mind: 'Is this the end? Did we lose? How could I be caught off guard like that? Is this how I die?' As Rex ponders these things he doesn't have to wonder for much longer because in an instant Rex feels something coarse against his face. Rex tries to open his eyes, but finds the light blinding. Rex slowly tries to get up as he weakly stands on his legs. All of a sudden the rush from traversing time/space catches up with him as he hunches over and vomits up what he last ate as he felt nauseous after such an experience.

Rex finally looks up to see that they were on some sort of beach. As Rex looked past that all he could see was a vast ocean of water. The largest body of water he had ever seen. There didn't seem to be anything beyond that except for what looked like giant mechanical limbs that were strewn about in the ocean. Finding this place strange Rex looks around to see Jin and Nia close by as they were also coming to consciousness. Further beyond that Rex saw Pyra and Mythra also here, but they were still very much unconscious from the looks of things. 'Looks like those two split apart when we traveled here. I wonder if they can still fuse... what are you thinking Rex? You're in a different world! I need to help Nia and Jin and then figure out what is going on.'

With these thoughts in mind, Rex runs up to Nia to help her up as she too seemed very much affected by the impromptu vacation that Exodus provided them as Nia also vomits up her guts. Rex rubs circles on her back. "There there. Let it out." Nia wipes her face with her sleeve as she stands up properly.

As Nia looks around the whole place she too is completely taken aback. "Just where the 'ell are we any ways?"

Jin joins the two as he seems unaffected by the jump. "Our location is currently unknown."

"Obviously. That's not what I meant." Nia corrects Jin. "I mean, what IS this place?"

Rex looks out on the infinite sea in front of them as he sighs. "Wherever we are, I don't think we're in Alrest anymore."

to be continued...

Authors Notes: It's finally done! My longest chapter to date being over 20k words long. This chapter was in development hell for over seven months and I am sorry about that. This chapter was incredibly difficult to write because of a combination of suffering burnout and not having any ideas for how to write some of the most important fights in the entirety of this story. I really wanted this chapter to be as good as possible so I only came back whenever I had a stroke of inspiration while writing it. To put into perspective how long this took I finished the Zeke fight back in March shortly after Chapter 42 was complete, but after that I had no idea how to write the Rex fight. It wasn't until June or July when I finally thought of a way to write the Rex fight and so I did. Unfortunately I had even less ideas on how to write the Exodus fight until very recently in Late October. From there this chapter entered its final stages in November and here we are. This chapter has been in the back of my mind all this time and it feels IMMENSELY satisfying to finally finish this chapter. I am quite proud of how this chapter turned out. I hope you all enjoyed it as well. With all of that being said: This will probably be the longest chapter in the entire story. Don't expect another chapter at this length until AT LEAST the finale. I'm hoping that future chapters will be 8k to 12k in word length as these super long chapters murder my motivation to write. Personal problems aside, this chapter marks what I think is going to be the halfway point of this part of the story. Where are Rex and co you might ask? You'll find out next chapter (although I think I made it rather obvious). I already have great idea's for what I'm going to do with the second half of this story so get ready! Also, Exodus' origins got revealed in this chapter! At least partially, you can probably expect the full story in a few chapters so that will be exciting to finally share with you all. With all of that being said, thank you for sticking around to read this wall of text and for reading this chapter. This chapter really means a lot to me. I will see you all in Chapter 44 which I promise won't take nearly as long as this behemoth of a chapter. Be ready for some big surprises in the following chapters because a lot is going to start happening. As always this is Exile Mansion signing off.