E. Revolution

-Final Revolution-

:Reality:


"Five thousand years ago there was constructive order and there was constructive disorder. Relation and non-relation were intertwined, such that everything was true, and everything was false. Only when humankind took shape did these things change; their inherent perception of Everything divided the world into right and wrong, chaos and order, good and bad. It is from this imposed Truth that the being known as 'Giygas' was born."

Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo stood on a smooth surface that stretched to the horizon. It was slightly curved. The sky that loomed over their heads seemed to be made of the same material, and different spots of it flashed with dull colors that had once been bright. It looked and felt like a storm, but it wasn't a storm, and there was nothing to be felt or looked at.

"Giygas was dischord in a human-built world of law. It begot destruction and chaos just as humans thought they begot creation and structure. They naturally feared it and sought to seal it away. And they did."

Paula stood in front of the other three with her hands behind her back. As she spoke her words became history and her voice became imagery. Ness was intimately familiar with this; Jeff and Poo were not. They refused, however, to feel confusion or fear. Paula spoke once more, and this time her words manifested as visual stimuli.

"Giygas was sealed in a pyramid of human design, where it slept for five thousand years. However, its prison was nowhere near eternal, and when its bonds were sufficiently corroded, it called out to someone so that it could be free."

Ness nodded. "My mother."

"And her mentor. And her mentor's student, who loved her deeply though she did not love him back."

The face of Ness' mother could be seen in the sky. Maxwell Labs was also there, briefly.

"Blinded by their own preconceptions, they freed Giygas from its prison. Of the three, only one did not realize the true nature of Giygas. He was too blinded by his own truth to see beyond it."

"Maxwell Labs," said Jeff.

"He tried to kill it, because he thought it could be killed. He finally realized that he had become like it, in the end, but until then he was as destructive as anything else could be. Whereas Giygas was born from fear of chaos, he, on the other hand, thrived on it."

Suddenly the world around the four of them collapsed and was replaced by a house with a white picket fence and a front and back yard. Toys were scattered everywhere. It looked like a sunny day even though the sky was still gray, and the red-and-green lightning still made noise. When the little girl in the yellow dress and her parents showed up, their laughter was muffled and distant.

"There are people who can break the walls of human reality even without knowing it. People like this earned the enmity of Giygas, for it knew that they could eliminate it and the balance that kept human reality alive. Those who knew this fact aimed to stop this from happening. The Great War between Giygas and humanity, between destructive order and destructive disorder, began just like this."

For a moment everyone saw brief flashes of a small child in a faraway land, playing with a wooden sword and dreaming of the day he was to be crowned king, but they were fleeting images that did not stay with them for long. Instead, the four of them witnessed a spectacle that was far more bizarre than anything they had ever seen. A little girl in a yellow dress fought monsters of all shapes and sizes, and the power of her thoughts set them on fire and melted them away. People older than her took her away to a place with white walls, where she grew and occasionally was allowed to go home again. A boy with a ponytail became her friend, and he too grew into an adult. The house with the white picket fence faded into nothingness and was replaced with a gigantic machine. Ness knew this machine, for he had seen what it could do firsthand. The mere thought of it gave him goose bumps.

"The Devil's Machine was going to eradicate Giygas once and for all by harnessing the latent powers of the human mind. In the end, only one was needed to power the machine. It was a foolish undertaking from the start."

Poo gripped the Jun Zhu Tan until his knuckles went white. "I remember that day. Paula volunteered to go instead of me. That means that I could've…"

"But you didn't. You weren't meant to. Instead, the entirety of humankind was almost killed."

A blood-curdling shriek pierced the air. No one had to see anything to know what it meant. Operation Giant Step attracted Giygas like a magnet. In the ensuing struggle between it and SANCTUARY, it killed Paula and part of it accidentally took her place.

Ness felt very nauseous all of a sudden. "The message in the tablet…it was for you, Paula, wasn't it? That's why they went after you first, all those years ago…Giygas thought it could preserve itself by getting rid of you."

Paula nodded. "But then you started seeing me in your dreams."

"I knew it," said Jeff solemnly. "That's why it attacked Fourside. It explains everything."

"Not everything," said Poo. "It doesn't explain why Paula never realized who she was. It doesn't explain why she had all the memories of the real Paula."

"That's because she is the real Paula," spat Ness. "I don't care what anyone says, you're Paula."

"I appreciate the sentiment," whispered Paula, and a wry smile crossed her lips. "But you're wrong."

For a long while, everyone was silent, save for the lightning in the sky. Then Jeff spoke.

"So…what's going to happen to us now?"

Paula turned her head to the side, as if hiding her own guilt by looking away. "You will die in this place, and Giygas will have no one else to destroy it. It will stay here, away from everything. Then humanity will stagnate and die."

"I'm not going to allow that," said Ness, taking a step forward. "You said that people like us could change the way things are, right? Well, I'll change the entire world if it means getting you out of here!"

Paula's expression became pained, confused. "Why do you insist on saving something that can't be saved?"

Ness took another step forward. "Because I'm not afraid."

Poo joined Ness and drew the Jun Zhu Tan once more. "I'm still not sure about all of this, but the kid's right," he said coolly.

"Of course he's right," added Jeff sardonically. "It's what makes him so damn stubborn. In any case, we're not leaving here without you, Paula."

Paula closed her eyes and tears began to stream down her cheeks. "Then you will not leave at all."

She tried to say, 'I'm sorry', but her words were drowned out by the most terrifying roar Ness had ever heard.

Back on the ground, the five remaining survivors of the massacre that had taken place just a few hours before were sitting in a circle around a dwindling fire that had been cobbled together from some splintered furniture, a nearby tree, and a discarded motorcycle that, through some miracle, still had gasoline in its tank. It wasn't particularly cold, but it was quite dark, even though there wasn't a cloud in the sky and stars illuminated the wasteland like fireflies.

Tracy was lying on her back and admiring her bug's-eye view of the cosmos. "You know, I kind of find this relaxing," she said.

Orange scoffed. "There's a second moon in the sky where there wasn't one two hours ago. How can you possibly find that relaxing?"

"I don't know," said Apple. "I feel the same way. It makes me feel like nothing bad is gonna happen tonight. Like we're safe."

"I guess…" conceded Orange. The group fell silent.

After a few minutes of comfortable contemplation Frank sighed. "Well, I guess it can't be helped. I was saving this for later, but now's as good a time as any." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small, stainless steel flask with an ivory cap, which he unscrewed. "Anyone wanna join me? This is good stuff."

Orange raised an eyebrow. "Of all the things you could have brought from the base, you brought booze?"

"Hey, like I said, it's good stuff. Premium malt whisky. I figure we're in deep as it is, so what the hell." With that he took a swig and offered the flask to Orange, who shrugged, took it and drank from it. He was going to pass the flask on to Tracy when the reality of what he was doing sunk in.

"I guess you're too young to drink, aren't you."

Tracy glared at him. "Like he said, we're in deep as it is, so what the hell?" She snatched the metallic flask and unceremoniously took a long draught from it. Instantly she grimaced and began coughing, prompting Apple to take the drink from her and pat her on the back.

"Ack, that stuff's horrible."

Apple chuckled amiably and took a sip. "It's okay. I'm not too fond of it myself. What about you, Tony?"

The redhead was staring at the sky and barely even noticed Apple until he was offered the flask. "Huh, what? Oh, sorry about that."

"That's okay," replied Apple. "Anything on your mind?"

"Not really, I was just thinking…that maybe Jeff's up there."

Frank made a sound like a confused monkey. "Eh? Where? In the second moon, you mean?"

"Yeah."

The gangster sighed and rested his elbows on his knees. "At this point, I'll believe anything."

Tracy grabbed a nearby branch and threw it into the fire. "D'you think that's possible? That they're up there?"

"Knowing them?" Orange fixed his green eyes on the fire. "They've probably already been halfway to Hell and back. And if we talked to them now they'd complain that they should have gone all the way there."

"Yeah," said Apple. "And then Poo'd be all like," and he stretched his eyes and began speaking in a forced accent that mocked Agent Poo's. "I haa seeen fah wuss dan dis. Doan act so suh-prised!"

Tony began to laugh at Apple's performance. Soon after he was joined by the others, and they guffawed for the better part of half an hour before they fell silent. Tracy fell onto her back again and began staring at the dark silhouette of the second moon as it eclipsed the first.

"Ness…you'd better be alright."

The true form of Giygas did not have any discernible shape or form. When it attacked, it seemed to do so out of nothing. It was impossible to even imagine what it was like. The only thing that seemed constant about it was its inhuman roar.

Ness leapt to the side to avoid a tendril that was shooting at him, and used psychokinesis to block the chunk of unidentified matter that tried to hit him while he was in mid-air. He tumbled to the ground a short distance away and was back on his feet before a bolt of black lightning struck the ground where he was.

Jeff was running in circles and figure eights to make himself harder to hit, and fired his gun into the air whenever he thought he saw something that could conceivably pass for a target. So far he was having little luck actually hitting anything, and at one point he almost hit Paula, but the blast from his pistol was blocked by an invisible shield that enveloped the girl and deflected the blast. The shock that this produced made Jeff stop running long enough for something hit him square in the shoulder, dislocating it and drawing blood.

Agent Poo was using the Jun Zhu Tan to great effect defensively, but was unable to counterattack, and he knew it. He parried something that came flying at him with the flat of the blade and tried to catch it in mid-air using psychokinesis, but whatever it was, it was able to break free and fly away before something else came at him and he was forced to defend again. Deep down he knew that eventually he would tire, and Giygas would not.

This is hopeless! Ness struggled against a wall that was trying to crush him, and he eventually pushed it away using psychokinesis and brute strength. He had barely caught his breath when the very ground below him began to quake and crumble. The gaping maw left by the sudden depression seemed to go down indefinitely, and Ness was left hanging on the edge of it.

The only one who can save us is Paula…

"Paula, listen to me!" Ness called out to her though he couldn't see where she was. "I don't care what happened to you! You are not Giygas! You can fight this!"

Paula sniffled. "I can't do anything. Not anymore."

"Yes you can!" Ness finished pulling himself up and rolled onto his back. "This isn't the Paula I know!"

"You don't…you don't know anyone named Paula…it was all just an illusion…"

"No it wasn't!" Ness got on his feet and began running towards a figure clad in pink that he could barely make out in the distance. "I know you! Ever since I met you you've always been there for me! Whenever I was close to giving up, you gave me the strength to keep fighting! I wouldn't be alive now if it wasn't for you, Paula!"

Paula wiped the tears from her eyes. "Ness…I…"

"You asked me to find you…in my dreams. Somewhere there's a part of you that knows this isn't right. I know there is. I…"

He was going to continue, but something smacked into his side and he fell to the floor. His rib cracked painfully and, despite the darkness that made it hard to see, he could tell that he was bleeding. Acting on instinct, he launched a wave of psycholuminescence that did nothing other than provoke a shriek of rage from Giygas. Something—a huge tentacle—tried to whip at him in response, and Ness knocked it away with telekinesis, but he miscalculated and the tip of the tentacle flew into the air, straight towards Paula, who merely stared at the projectile, knowing it wouldn't harm her. She only flinched when the air around her was suddenly displaced and Agent Poo stood before her, deflecting the tentacle with a flick of his blade.

"You know, I'm supposed to be your bodyguard too," he said, without facing her. "As well as the Professor, I mean."

"You didn't have to do that," complained Paula. "Nothing would've happened to me."

"I swore to the Professor that I would protect you, many years ago. That's what I'm doing right now."

Poo hadn't even lowered his sword before an invisible force dragged him into the air and flung him a good distance away, where he slammed into the floor and lost his grip on the Jun Zhu Tan.

"Poo!" Jeff ran up to the Agent and hefted him onto his shoulders. "Poo, you okay? Speak to me!"

Poo mumbled something about protecting Paula before he fell unconscious.

Jeff let out a scream of rage and began firing at the air around Paula, hitting nothing. When he saw that this wasn't working he ran up to her and grabbed her shoulders.

"I don't know what's eating you, but you'd better snap out of it! Even if you aren't the original, you're still Paula and you're still important to us! Now come on!"

Something sharp pierced Jeff's back. He coughed up a river of sticky, red fluid, and fell so close to Paula that his blood splattered on her shoes.

"Jeff…no…"

Ness limped up to Paula. By now he was dizzy from blood loss but still sober enough to speak.

"You're the only one who can stop this. Paula…"

By then Paula was crying freely, and when Ness collapsed into her arms she began to sob.

"Ness…I'm so afraid…"

Ness used his blood soaked hands to caress her cheek.

"Don't be afraid. I believe in you, Paula…."

His hand fell to the floor. Paula grabbed it and began shaking it, but Ness was too far gone. She grabbed him by the shoulders and buried her face in his chest until she felt she was pressing so hard she was hurting him. Then she got up and screamed.

The sky shattered. Light began pouring in as explosions rocked the core of the second moon. Paula produced as much psychic damage as she could before falling to the ground.

"Hey, look at that."

Frank glanced upwards and was surprised to find that the second moon was lighting up.

"What…the…hell is that?"

"I'm not sure," replied Apple. "But it looks like it's…cracking open?"

"It's shattering," clarified Orange. "It's shattering into a million pieces. I wonder what it means."

"It's their doing, probably." Tony flicked a rebellious red bang behind his ear. "If they really were up there, then…"

He never got to finish. The second moon exploded and its fragments hurtled towards Earth and became shooting stars when they burned up in the atmosphere. A strong wind began to blow.

Shortly after the meteor shower there was a wave of light. It was a curious thing, like a transparent blanket that snaked its way towards Earth. It flickered irregularly, and for every time it seemed to blink out of existence a sensation not unlike fear came over the group of people huddled around the burnt-out campfire.

After a few minutes the aurora pierced the atmosphere. What was once a distant-looking trick of light and physics became an all-too-real thing that floated ever closer to the ground with each ripple.

"It's going to reach us soon, isn't it?"

Tracy was the first to say what everyone was thinking and was afraid to acknowledge.

"Very soon," replied Tony.

"…I knew it."

"This is the end," said Frank. "This is the end of the world."

Apple looked away from the light and at his longtime friend.

"Orange," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Um…I just wanted to say…thanks."

"For what?"

"Everything."

Orange slipped his sunglasses back on to hide a tear. "Me too."

Frank swore to himself. "Hell of a way to go. In a wasted city surrounded by three geeks and a little girl." He took out a cigarette and lit it.

"I hope I reincarnate as a pro wrestler. That'd be nice."

Tracy tugged on Tony's sleeve. "Hey, Tony? Would you mind holding my hand?"

Tony smiled. "Sorry. I'm not into girls."

"…please?"

"…yeah, sure. Why not."

The two held their sweaty hands together as hard as they could and did not take their eyes off the light until it had enveloped them.

Inwardly, they all began to pray.

The Earth looks strange from up here concluded Ness as he hurtled through outer space. This was the only thing he could think of at that time. His wounds were gone. He wasn't breathing, but he felt he didn't need to.

Eventually he stopped moving and came to rest in a piece of Universe somewhere over Fourside, his home. It looked like a speck of dust from this vantage point, but it was definitely Fourside.

When the Chosen Boy reaches the point, he will find the light.

Ness saw the sun looming from behind the Earth, bathing it with golden rays. It was so bright that it hurt him.

The Passing of Time will shatter. The Nightmare Rock will reveal the Path of Light.

Two chunks of rock floated in front of him, blocking out the sun. Time froze for Ness, and he could see a clear path leading to Earth between those two rocks.

The sheer power of Ness' will propelled him towards the space between those to rocks and towards his home. While in motion he was overcome with a deep sense of peace. He could feel Paula, Jeff, and Poo trailing behind him. Every question he had ever asked himself suddenly had an answer, clear as spring water. He felt reborn. He felt that everything was reborn.

And then we will begin the Revolution.

When Ness awoke from his slumber he found that he was lying on top of a hill facing a large, open meadow. The morning sun shone in his eyes, but he didn't mind it all that much.

There was a slight rustling to his right, and he turned to see Paula getting on her feet. She wobbled, as if she had never used her legs before. Ness thought that perhaps she hadn't. He cried out to her.

"Paula."

"I'm here," she said. The two stood to face each other, then rushed into each others' arms and shared a warm embrace.

"I feel…different," she said weakly. "I feel like a new person."

Ness chuckled sagely. "Like a human."

"…yes."

"Me too."

Jeff made his presence known soon afterwards.

"Wow, that was some trip! Hey, where are we?"

"Who knows," replied Kai Poo, who joined them as well. The Jun Zhu Tan was gone from his side, lost forever. "But we're alive, so that counts for something."

Jeff surveyed the area around them. It was green as far as the eye could see. There were a few trees scattered here and there, and a jungle snaked majestically up a mountain in the distance. The smell of seawater wafted through his nostrils from somewhere far away.

"So, does this mean we did it? We defeated Giygas?"

Ness smiled and shook his head. "We don't have to think like that anymore. Giygas…was like us. It needed us to exist, just as we needed it in turn. That was the way we had built our reality. But now…"

"Now," interrupted Poo. "We can do whatever we want."

"Sort of."

Paula pointed a slender finger towards the horizon.

"Ness, look…are those…people?"

A swarm of people, people that had been reborn, was running towards them. Most of them were cheering. All of them were happy.

Jeff took off his glasses and looked at his reflection in the lenses. He was pleased to see that his eyes were bright blue again. "So this is what you call enlightenment," he whispered to himself before putting the lenses back on.

Poo approached Ness from behind and put a hand on his shoulder. "They're all here because of you," he said. "You were the one who made all of this possible."

"Maybe," replied Ness. "But I wasn't alone." He tightened his grip on Paula. She hugged him back.

"What do we do now, Ness?" Asked Paula.

Ness let go of her and took a few steps forward. Paula, Jeff, and Poo grouped together behind him, eager to follow his lead.

"Now? Now we start a revolution," he said, and the four of them marched towards their brethren with open hearts, ready to begin anew.