Cackletta's memories rewind back to the moment of the Dark King's passing at the Elemental Overlord's hand. She believes that the Dark King had trust that she, Smithy and Dimentio would succeed in avenging him.
Now, she prepares to make her final move upon the Elemental Overlord of the present, and bring about a new age of eternal darkness.
During this time Alex, now 12 years old as of last week, is still loafing about in Mario's house doing little to nothing but relaxing.
On a whim he decides to head into town and say hi to Driad, who's training at The Master's dojo, and getting his butt kicked.
After Driad leaves The Master sits Alex down for a bit and tries to question him about his own training. Alex's admittance of laziness perturbs The Master, who berates him for being arrogant during peace time.
Alex doesn't believe he needs to train as he's already beaten the strongest evil that ever was. So he leaves the dojo, leaving behind a fake vow that he'll train anyways, while The Master calls him a fool.
Then Alex runs into Luigi doing some shopping. He seems to be in a very good mood. Though with the start of many new tales, that happiness was not to last for long...
Soon after reuniting with Mario and Driad, a shadow is cast over Toad Town thanks to a familiar battleship. The Blade, driven by the former Axem Rangers.
But now they've been given upgrades, becoming the AXEM RANGERS...X! Confirming that their master Smithy is still alive, the Axem Rangers X divulge that they're here for Alex, not revenge on Mario...yet.
Alex gladly decides to meet their challenge and laughs at their attempt to threaten them. Alex doesn't even bother transforming and effortlessly tosses the Axem Rangers around like children toys.
The Axem Rangers then boast a new, ultra powerful weapon that'll totally leave Alex on his knees. Alex stands completely still and gestures at himself for the Rangers to attack.
Pulling out their giant cannon ultimate move, the Axem Rangers fire a deadly red orb that traps Alex on contact. And now, stuck in this cage, Alex can't even free himself, and feels drained of his elements. The Axem Rangers close in, ready to finish the job...
Having evacuated the town, Mario returns upon sensing that something is amiss, just in time to save Alex from the Axem Ranger's attack.
Mario then quickly activates the Star Spirit powers and goes to work beating up the Axem Rangers one by one, only just barely failing to defeat Red.
Red decides not to take any risks and charge up the main cannon on the Blade to wipe out Mario and Toad Town for good. But just at that moment, a massive battleship appears over the Blade, lead by Alpha.
Gemini dives down with orders to capture Axem Red alive. Red taunts Gemini, recognizing him as the result of Smithy's "Project: Demonheart".
Gemini restrains his emotions long enough to incapacitate Axem Red and deliver him back to the battleship, where Alpha gives the kill order to destroy the Blade for good.
Then Alpha comes down to pick up Alex's orb along with Mario and the rest. Things are getting ugly, and Cackletta is for sure responsible for most of it.
Aboard the battleship Mario finishes recovering and meets up with everyone else in the central command. There Alpha runs by everything related to Smithy's revival, noting how he's working with Cackletta and one other person, specifically NOT referring to Fawful.
Alex is also stuck inside that orb and without knowing what its made of its impossible for Alpha to get him out. So they decide they need to find Smithy and force the information out of him, if they can.
But without Exor around there's no physical way to enter Smithy's factory like before. Alpha gets an idea to interrogate Axem Red for information. Gemini tries to come with but Alpha forces him to stay behind, worried that he's emotionally compromised.
Alpha manages to get Axem Red to start doubt his master's loyalty to his creations by citing how there was a bomb planted inside Red.
Alpha offers to let Red join the M.S.I. so he can be treated like a person, not a tool of war. He lets these thoughts linger for a while, and returns to the others.
A while later Alpha has managed to learn from Axem Red that Smithy plans to drop Exor 2.0 on the entire planet to split it in two...Supposedly.
But this isn't the time to second guess things. What matters is that in the moment of the sword's emergence, the way to Smithy's factory will be open again.
Alpha leaves it up to Alex to decide who the two-man team going on this operation will be. Alex is surprised, but honored. Remembering something Gemini once told him, Alex picks out him and Mallow to go after Smithy.
Gemini and Mallow scale Exor 2.0 to get to Smithy's Factory. There they run into a few of his revived generals and begin to combat them, with the threat of Exor's descent looming in the background.
At one point one of the generals starts mocking Gemini over his label as Smithy's "so-called greatest experiment", which pushed Gemini to the breaking point, and he mercilessly wipes the rest of the generals out.
Mallow is left dumbfounded until Gemini, a little calmer, reminds him of their mission.
Mallow then uses an extra powerful lightning bolt to eliminated Exor 2.0. But now they're trapped inside Smithy's Factory, forced to press on to face the machine king himself.
Along the way Mallow can't help but notice Gemini's increasing discomfort and bitter words towards Smithy's creations.
Feeling he no longer can keep his past a secret, Gemini decides to confide with Mallow while they still have a chance.
Gemini was once a humble Koopa by the name of Koopis, living in Koopa Village with his friends Kooper and Kaylie.
One night he was abducted out of the blue by Bowyer and brought to Smithy's Factory, where the machine king ripped open his chest and replaced his heart with that of a demon's.
He was trying to bring out a Koopa's latent demon power, and until now had known nothing but failure. Koopis was his first success, but in doing so, Koopis began to mutate with demonic flesh and spewed electricity uncontrollably.
By a freak coincidence Koopis escaped and returned to his village. But now everyone saw him as nothing more but a monster and tried to kill him.
If Kooper and Kaylie didn't stick up for him, he'd be dead. But still, Koopis had to exile himself for their sake, as he may someday lose control of this demon heart.
Banishing himself to Dry, Dry, Desert, Koopis was ready to accept his fate when he was picked up and saved by Alpha. Alpha managed to peel off some of his demonic flesh and replaced it with machinery.
Koopis then changed his name to Gemini and swore loyalty to Alpha.
Now he has a chance to get revenge on Smithy and avenge "Koopis".
Mallow comforts him a little, though Gemini has trouble accepting it at first.
They then continue onward to meet with Smithy's lieutenants, Mack, Bowyer, and Yaridovich, the last obstacles standing between them and Smithy.
The battle with the lieutenants started to wear down on Gemini's patience, as taunt after taunt fills his ears and makes him succumb to his desires for revenge.
He brutally cuts down the lieutenants as Mallow watches on in horror, just barely managing to reach out and pull his friend back to sanity.
They then resume their advance to Smithy himself, where they find working on a strange containment device. When confronted about the nature of the device by none other than Alpha, who followed by via a microscopic camera, Smithy scoffs.
He then calls upon the "Jester", who ultimately exposes themselves as Dimentio via the box they use to transport the containment device away.
Smithy then tries to turn Gemini against Alpha by stating the Commander knew of their revival this entire time and didn't say a word to anyone, not even his most trusted "Lieutenant".
Alpha pleads with Gemini to believe he meant no harm by keeping information away, but Gemini is still so clouded by rage that he destroys the camera and turns his attention onto Smithy.
Smithy then starts deflecting Gemini and Mallow's attacks, showing off that his body has been greatly improved over last time. He will deliver death upon these two interlopers, and claim this world as a paradise for weapons at long last.
Gemini accuses Smithy of throwing away his pride as a weaponsmith to work with Cackletta. Smithy scoffs, and raises his hand to reveal a silver Jack of Diamonds. He is one of the four in the Apocalypse Royale, the Jack of all Trades, loyal eternally to the Dark King's will.
He, along with Cackletta and Dimentio, wrecked havoc on other worlds while the Dark King lingered at home.
Revealing this information doesn't change anything for Gemini. He will just be taking Smithy down for even more of his crimes.
A grand duel begins between the two living weapons and the cloud mage, as Smithy turns his hammer into a giant sword.
The clash escalates until the platform drops into Smithy's furnace. Gemini prods him to change his heads just like before, cause it'll make no difference.
However, Smithy unveils his greatest trump card. Shedding his current body, he appears as a human-shaped man mummified in metallic straps.
True Smithy then draws his sword and asks who wishes to die first.
Smithy starts to recollect the past. How he tried to evade being hunted down by the Elemental Overlord's forces by hiding in the ancient Toad Town.
There he made peace with the ruler at the time, and offered collaboration, helping them build weapons to combat the Koopa Tribe at the time.
Slowly building up the minions that would one day comprise his army, Smithy also wound up making houses and the like for the Toads to live in.
Soon they created the Imperial Toad Capital, a stronghold of peace for all Toads to live in, free from the tyranny of the Koopa Tribe.
But Smithy's addiction to weapons was overpowering. Even burning away his ability to feel by binding himself in metallic wraps, Smithy still craved war and weapons.
And in time an envoy of the Elemental Overlord appeared, questioning if they had seen any followers of the Dark King.
Fearing he'd be betrayed, Smithy lashed out, but ultimately wound up killing the leader Toad, his best friend at the time.
Damned if he stayed, damned if he didn't, Smithy personally banished himself into a weapon realm of his own creation to create weapons in peace.
Only when Cackletta approached him after many years did Smithy feel a renewed sense of purpose. Seeing the ravages of war caused by the Elemental Overlord and Dark King's conflict, Smithy desired nothing more than to create worlds of weapons to replace the current mortal life. End the mortal desire for war, by creating war.
Gemini thinks his motives are terrible and again, changes nothing. He desires his death, and begins lashing out with everything his got while Mallow backs him up.
True Smithy has the ability to keep up with the two in their Star Spirit forms, but what really starts to turn the tide in his favor is when he distracts Gemini by taunting him.
But he pushes it a bit too far when he claims he plans to turn everyone in Koopa Village into demons, INCLUDING Kayle.
Gemini becomes so angered at this point that his demonic heart starts overpowering the Star Spirits' protection, turning him into some mixed abomination that desires nothing but Smithy's demise.
Gemini fights on the outside and inside against his demonic heart. He realizes that all this time, his demon side was rooted into his brain, struggling, grasping for revenge. But its not like Gemini didn't want revenge himself.
He reconciles his conflicts with this demonic heart and just barely manages to regain control of his body. But the deed has already been done. Smithy lies at his feet, killed during his uncontrolled rampage.
Smithy spends his final moments reminiscing about the Dark King's kindness, wondering if what he sees is even what truly happened. All he can trust is that the moment of their meeting spurred him to try harder to create weapons, but maybe, just maybe, he had lost sight of his ambitions to greed long ago.
He answers one of Gemini's final questions, revealing that Alex is trapped by the Anti-Genesis Theorem, a magical spell meant to counterattack the existence of the Elemental Overlord. Somehow, Cackletta had gotten a hold of this.
But he knows nothing about what the device he made can do, nor where Dimentio is. In exchange for answering this question, Smithy asks Gemini an important question.
"Did you do good, as a weapon?"
Gemini reluctantly nods, giving Smithy a chance to die in peace, and letting go of both of their pain in the process.
Gemini then turns on his communicator and confirms with Alpha of Smithy's passing. Alpha says that they'll find a way to get them out of the factory later, as they have to focus on hunting down Dimentio as soon as possible.
Gemini and Mallow says they'll work on escaping on their end. Mallow and Gemini have one last talk about Gemini's feelings, where Gemini thanks Mallow for sticking by his side to the bitter end.
The two head out of the furnace.
Dimentio then appears and gives Smithy a eulogy, citing it to be his "one good deed" for a lifetime.
Back at the battleship Alpha is prepared to seek out Dimentio, ruminating on how close he is to banishing his own demons.
Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi discuss their distrust of Alpha. Mario finally breaks the silence on Alpha torturing Alex a while back, and Luigi is JUST about ready to break Alpha in two because of this.
But Mario restrains him, because they still need him to defeat Cackletta and Dimentio.
After some time of relaxing, Alpha manages to find out where Dimentio is hiding and tasks Alex with picking the next pair to go after him.
Luigi and Driad are picked, which delight Dimentio, who appears in the battleship and whisks the two away to his dimension.
Luigi and Driad awaken within a black and white dimension where life seems to have stilled. After establishing communications with Alpha, they determine that they're where Alpha had originally planned to send them.
Luigi and Driad then advance towards the brief flicker of flames in the distance. Along the way the flower asks if Luigi knows Dimentio.
Luigi's reluctant to get into the details, but does explain the kind of threat Dimentio poses to everyone. The conversation sparks some bad vibes within Driad, who starts cursing about disliking sacrifices.
He's been this way ever since the Genesis Samurais died for nothing, and hearing the tale of Bleck and Lady Timpani just further enforces that in his head. He just doesn't want to see people die when they still got people who care about them.
Luigi suggests Driad talk with Alex about that, and Driad agrees that a talk between them is long overdo.
The two keep moving on and eventually find a ruined castle. Dimentio greets them at long last, saying he's chosen the remnants of the Void as their battleground.
He taunts Luigi by calling him "Mr. L" then invites his guests to follow him into the castle.
Bad memories pop up for Luigi the further they got into the castle, not helped by what he finds at the end. Dimentio appears to have revived Count Bleck, and put Mimi and O'Chunks under his control.
Luigi attacks Mimi and O'Chunks while cursing Dimentio out, and Driad is left to tackle Count Bleck.
But ultimately the trio wind up being apparitions of deception made by Dimentio, who parts the walls of this fake castle and greets "Mr. L" with some mean-spirit banter.
Luigi, now enraged, prepares to put the jester down for good.
But before he can do so Dimentio traps them both in a box and forces them to listen to a tale from the past.
Dimentio tells the tale of Blumiere and Lady Timpani, and the tragedy of the Dark Prognosticus. After detailing their entire story of love, from discovery to loss, Dimentio laughs at the irony of how it ends...
For ultimately, Dimentio was the creator of the Dark Prognosticus, and manipulated events to create a self-fulfilling prophecy while ultimately weaseling his way into Bleck's forces to ensure the grand finale.
Learning that everything Blumiere and Lady Timpani did to reverse their tragic fate was all for naught, Luigi and Driad break out the Star Spirits' power to free themselves and prepare to fight the jester.
Then, with a lovely poem, Dimentio introduces himself as the Dark King's Unrestrained Joker and greets them in combat.
During the fight Dimentio reveals the truth behind the "Mr. L" moniker, trying to wrench doubt between Luigi and Driad.
But it doesn't work, not that it matters much to the jester. He still manages to get under Luigi's skin by listing off his faults and weaknesses, though Luigi is not amused.
Its only when Dimentio accuses them of being the same that the jester unleashes his greatest secret: Behind his mask is...Luigi's face, and he refers to the Luigi before him as his "past self".
Dimentio is allowed to explain his connection to Luigi's appearance. He talks about a potential future, in which Luigi is renowned as a great superhero called "Mr. L". Standing up to the likes of the Neo Koopa Clan and King Boo Alliance, Luigi was a great hit with the commonfolk, even if a lot of them knew his identity.
He even married Daisy, and she was about to have his child.
But on one fateful die the Shroob army, reformed under the leadership of the newly anointed King Shroob, returned to the planet and began ravaging it with their unstoppable armada.
Their first target wound up being Sarassaland out of revenge towards the man in green whose tears ended their first invasion and made them a laughing stock.
Daisy died, along with Luigi's child.
Luigi snapped.
He led a one man assault on the Shroob fleet, tearing his way through multiple spaceships until he found the leader, killing him effortlessly and his heir along with him.
It then became apparent that Luigi's insecurities, fears and the pain of loss was too much to bear. His mind snapped further, as he wrestled control of the entire Shroob armada and chose to burn it all down, the entire world.
Every one of his friends and allies tried to stop him, but couldn't. Even Mario, his brother, was weaker than Luigi. But by the time Luigi held his dead brother in his hands, he realizes how far gone he was.
Broken, beaten, and bloodied, Luigi wound up having a psychological breakdown and warped time and space so hard, it sent him hurtling to the past of the Elemental Overlord and Dark King. Now amnesiac for a time, Luigi wound up donning the mask of Dimentio and becoming the man seen before him.
Dimentio then covers his face back up and tells Luigi that there's no fighting the future. Even if the jester were to die here, his existence is assured.
So he surrounds Luigi and Driad in copies of himself and tells him to fight for his terrible future, a future filled with despair.
Luigi is hesitant, but Driad tells him that Dimentio's past doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be Luigi's future. Luigi needs to fight with everything he's got to make a better future.
Dimentio laughs at the futility of their battle and slowly wears them down with his clones. Driad comes up with a plan to weed out the real Dimentio and because of it, Luigi smashes him in the face with all his might.
Dimentio falls, feeling empty inside, realizing that he had accomplished nothing in this life of his.
In his dying moments he looks at Luigi and tells him that the two of them are not the same. Ultimately, he never knew who he was at all.
Luigi's left wondering if this is even true or the jester unable to help himself from being deceptive one last time. Nevertheless, he lays Dimentio to rest.
With his last breaths, Dimentio doesn't bother spoiling where Cackletta is, saying that it won't matter soon enough. The witch's plans shall be the end of all life in existence...a threat worse than the Void ever could hope to be.
Alpha and Mario are the last ones around able to stop her, Luigi and Driad won't be able to escape until Dimentio's timer goes off on the exit.
Dimentio fades away, and Luigi and Driad have one last talk with Mario before shutting off communications and choosing to rest.
Back on the battleship, Alpha makes his final preparations to go after Cackletta, while Mario has a talk with Alex about trusting Alpha.
Alex doesn't seem all the bothered by what happened back then, surprisingly, and asks Mario to try and go back to his happy-go-lucky self just a liiiittle while longer.
Mario feels a little cheered up from this talk and decides to tolerate Alpha for now.
They prepare to go to Cackletta's location, which Alpha knew all along, not that Mario's surprised.
Alpha uses the battleship's cannon to blast a hole to their destination, and forewarns Mario ahead of time that they'll need their Star Spirit forms to survive this dimension...
They arrive inside of a ship that looks like its been untouched for a very, very long time. Mario immediately assumes this is Cackletta's base...Alpha shows him otherwise.
By pulling up some very old video feed, Alpha reveals that this ship was attack by a deadly swarm of black creatures with yellow eyes, and the crew lost their "hearts" over it.
They continue out of the ship, which is revealed to be split in half, and hovering within a twisted, endless realm of pure darkness.
Alpha explains that they never would've been able to get here like this if it wasn't for the Star Spirits' help, in a way thanking Joe Dark for pushing them this far.
Alpha and Mario descend further into the realm, where they encounter its inhabitants, the same shadowy creatures that attacked the crew of the ship.
The "Shadows" are vicious, but Mario and Alpha are able to fight them off for a time and open the way forward to a different part of this realm.
There they find more destroyed landscapes, which causes Mario to worry about what could potentially happen to the Mushroom Kingdom.
Alpha has thought about that too, but doesn't believe they have to worry about the Heartless. The evidence lies in their hunger upon seeing the two of them. They clearly haven't been allowed to go out and feed on "Hearts" in some time.
This also leads Alpha to believe that there used to be someone who fended off the Heartless. A being similar in purpose to the Elemental Overlord, perhaps.
Leaving these theories be for now, Alpha tells Mario to press on. Fighting more Heartless, the two head towards an abandoned castle glowing brightly in the distance.
On the way Mario questions Alpha's distrust of others. Alpha then lets it all out, stating that its easy for anyone to become corrupted, so why should he trust them with important information that might someday save the world?
He cites that not even Luigi and Peach are an exception, as they got corrupted in the past. But when he goes as far as to say he'd kill Peach if she fell to darkness, Mario clobbers him and tells him he's had enough.
The two have a brief scuffle with Mario victorious, as Alpha finds he cannot bring himself to hurt the incorruptible purity of the Mushroom Kingdom's hero.
Finally Alpha admits that Mario is the sole person he trusts fully in the whole world, and it pains him that he's angered him so much, even if he rightfully deserved it.
Mario relents on their battle for the time being, as they have higher priorities at the moment. They continue onward to the castle to finish Cackletta off.
The castle belongs to a land called "Radiant Garden". Uttering its name sends a shiver up Alpha's spine, as they feel they've uncovered something they shouldn't have.
They are then ambushed by a mechanized Darkside piloted by Fawful, who's determined to make a final stand here and now.
However, Mario and Alpha take the Darkside down and have Fawful completely at their mercy...Only for Fawful to start speaking normally, addressing Alpha as "Commander".
In a ludicrous, convoluted period of explanations, Fawful is revealed to be Alpha's sleeper agent that has been following along with Cackletta's plans in order to divulge info to feed back to Alpha.
Everything including the Dark Star revival was all part of the plan, and Fawful thanks Mario for foiling his plans all this time.
Fawful then retires to Serena Beach, (hopefully) never to be mentioned again.
Alpha has determined something important from this encounter and now sounds confident that they can stop Cackletta for good. Him and Mario enter the Radiant Garden Castle, where Cackletta surely hides.
Along their way through the castle they come across information regarding the place that not even Alpha knew about. Mentions of an "Apprentice Xehanort" and the "Princess of Heart" especially grab their attention.
They find a broken heart-shaped moon on fire in the room leading down into the deepest reaches of the castle, and believe it to be an ill-omen of things to come.
On the last step before finding Cackletta, the two run across a desolate dark-blue armor, believing it to be the remnants of the last warrior who fought against the Heartless.
Then, at long last, in the deepest part of the Realm of Darkness, they find Cackletta hovering in front of the device Smithy created.
She greets them warmly as a taunt, and Alpha doesn't care.
Cackletta immediately begins detailing the truths behind the Realm of Darkness, explaining everything she gleamed about the Keyblade, Kingdom Hearts, Sora, the Heartless, and the Nobodies, from a journal she found long, long ago.
The most important thing to take away from her tale is that this place was sealed up by the "higher-ups", meaning its the one location they do not look at. Thus, she's been able to work on her plans in peace here.
Alpha says she won't get away with reviving Joe Dark, and Cackletta laughs.
Why, after all, would she bring back a failed creature like him?
She calls Joe Dark a base creature of emotion and is glad he died. It proved to her that only her method of bringing back the "Dark King" was worth pursuing in the end.
She then explains in-depth how long she'd been manipulating the events of the planet's history to get to her desired destination. Every plan had a contingency in place to ensure that she'd never lose. Ultimately, she'd either acquire the Elemental Overlord's powers herself, or have a new Dark King.
Even the revival of Tabuu was her doing, as a means of furthering her plans even more.
Alpha and Mario then start fighting Cackletta while she taunts them over the futility of their goals. After all, she'll just keep coming back to life over and over and over again. And now, close to victory, Cackletta decides to reveal the truth of her continued lifespan.
In essence, Cackletta has consumed the souls of the living for two-thousand years to keep herself eternally young. Then, she worked on a second spell that would allow her to revive on the off-chance she was killed in battle.
But her plans were nearly foiled by four heroes of legend, who used the Crystal Stars to seal her darkness away and kill her.
That's right. Cackletta was the Shadow Queen of Rogueport legend. A fitting title, for her rank in the Apocalypse Royale is the Queen of Shadows.
Alpha is mortified at the amount of lives Cackletta sacrificed to keep herself alive, but of course the witch cares little about any of that.
She WILL create a new Dark King, HER Dark King, and fulfill the ambitions of the original by destroying all life in existence, just as Dimentio warned she would.
Cackletta starts ranting about moral alignments and the flaws of each and every one, stating that this world is cursed to obey them in spite of their flaws. And a flawed system is an outdated system. So she plans to burn it all away. This is the truth the Realm of Darkness has taught her.
Mario and Alpha rightfully call her insane but she continues to ignore them, moving on to talks about the Seven Deadly Sins.
He mentions how the Sins are counterparts to each of the seven elements the Elemental Overlord wielded, and that the Dark King's true nature did not lie in darkness, but Sins.
He succumbed to Sin, and that's why Cackletta has no interest in reviving him.
Alpha judges her for all her crimes and Cackletta mocks him for wasting thirty years of his life on some fruitless grudge.
The battle continues until Cackletta pierces Alpha's will with a single question "Just what have you accomplished on your own?"
Cackletta says that Alpha is fueled solely by revenge and nothing good has ever come of that. In a way they are mirror images of one another, just that she can admit her faults, while Alpha cowers behind them.
Alpha vehemently disagrees, stating that Cackletta is so insane at this point that she believes herself to be perfection, that her genocide will be righteous.
Alpha then goes on to speak of his own flaws, how he's gone too far to accomplish his goals, and showing regret towards what happened to Alex specifically.
But ultimately he always fights for the safety of the planet, while Cackletta fights only for herself. She doesn't know what its like to make a sacrifice for selfless reasons. She'd rather just live forever, cowering from death. So Alpha will finally be the one to inflict the fear of death onto her damaged soul.
Mario and Alpha work in tandem for the first time while Cackletta deliberately tries to unnerve the Goomba with talks of his mentor, Commander Zeta, whom she killed.
But her taunts simply work to steel his resolve, reminding her how that "flea of a Koopa" was the greatest man he ever knew, and today he WILL be avenged.
He busts out his final Senki Soni Style: Avalon's Concerto, shedding off the limiters on his arms until only thin metal remains, each wielding an ion energy blade.
With Mario's help Alpha is able to channel all his energy into a single attack to strike Cackletta down the middle, seemingly putting her to rest for good.
Cackletta's mind suddenly recoils to the past, reminding her of her last words with the Dark King. In her mind she remembered him coldly brushing her off when she tried to make him happy, but the Dark King only had eyes for one.
Cackletta's ambitions were always driven by jealousy and hatred towards the Dark King, whom she tried to love, only to receive scorn in turn. Yet still, even now, she could never stop loving him.
She collapses on the ground in a broken heap and laughs at Alpha's futile efforts yet again. She'll keep reviving, over and over, until the day all life is extinguished. Her new Dark King would soon be born, and she'll live this life long enough to see him snuff out Alpha and Mario's lives.
But Alpha delivers the news. His final attack injected nanomachines into Cackletta's blood stream that'll be carried with her every time she dies and revives, triggering a burning sensation that'll kill her again. Over and over, until all the souls she devoured was extinguished from her decaying body.
Cackletta pauses, for once in her life unable to act arrogant.
That is, until the device begins to stir, opening up to reveal a body...That looks eerily like Alex Whiter.
Cackletta had used the Realm of Darkness' connection to the Seven Deadly Sins, the feather she plucked off Alex, Subspace energy, along with the Dark Star, Chaos Heart and energies from the Dark King, to create this clone of Alex.
With her last breath Cackletta implants a desire in the clone to kill all things, telling him that the world is irreversibly corrupt and needs to be wiped clean, propping herself up as a messianic figure.
The clone desperately whispers for her "Mother" as she fades before his eyes.
Alpha and Mario cautiously prepare to confront the clone when all of a sudden, the Dark Star bursts from the clone's chest and assumes direct control.
He then casts Alpha and Mario aside with ease and charges towards the exit out of here.
Alpha feels a sense of dread, as since the clone carries Alex's genetic signature, he won't be detected as an anomaly on the other side.
The Mushroom Kingdom is now defenseless against Cackletta's last will...A will, of chaos and destruction.
The Dark Star emerges and immediately starts testing his powers on the M.S.I. Battleship, with the remaining soldiers mounting a defense to buy time for Alex to be freed.
Meanwhile, however, Bowser and Kamek have entered Star Haven off a hunch Kamek had regarding Cackletta's presence.
Turns out he had a right to be suspicious, as the Star Spirits, Geno and Twink are all trapped by Cackletta's dark magic. After Kamek breaks the spell Bowser wonders what the heck's going on.
Eldstar explains the revival of Smithy and Dimentio and then the current situation going on down below. Bowser immediately demands they hand over the Star Rod so he can take care of the problem or, at the least, buy some time.
Geno is hesitant, but knows they have no other choice. Though he wonders how Bowser could even wield the Star Rod to begin with.
Eldstar blabbers on about the Star Kids and the like but Bowser just drowns most of it out before impatiently telling them they don't have time for this nonsense.
He's given the Star Rod and immediately heads down to confront the Dark Star again, enjoying the battleground he's set up for the two of them.
Peach is shocked that she has to root for Bowser of all people to win, but right now they don't have much of a choice. Its either he wins, or the Dark Star destroys everything in sight.
Bowser gets to work pounding the Dark Star with brutal attacks, the Star Rod weakening the creature's ability to fight back in this clone body.
The Dark Star seems to getting further control over the clone's elemental powers and turns the tides a little bit, but Bowser is having none of that.
He keeps beating the Dark Star so hard that he loses control over the body's consciousness, awakening the clone's mind once more.
And the first thing the clone does is rip the Dark Star out of its chest and declare it to be "evil". The Dark Star panics, stating that the clone can't live without it. Yet, in spite of this, the clone does indeed live on through its own force of will.
Bowser now is on the receiving end of a beatdown, as the clone's abhorrent nature makes it immune to the Star Rod's power.
But Bowser has done enough to buy time, as Alex breaks free from the sphere and goes on the offensive against his clone.
The clone, now to be labeled Chaos Alex, surveys his surroundings and calls the real Alex "evil me", for he is a force of destruction that has ravaged the world.
Chaos Alex seems innocently ignorant of his actions against the world, which Alex bluntly points out. But Chaos Alex shows that he is incredibly deluded thanks to Cackletta's will. He sincerely believes that he is the real Elemental Overlord, while Alex is the Dark King.
Alex refuses to play his games and draws his sword, telling Bowser to fall back and rest up, thanking him for the aid.
The two then begin fight, with Alex having trouble thanks to just coming out of the Anti-Genesis Theorem orb. But the clone knows how to use all the elements almost perfectly.
Alex tries to keep up with his wits but frustration grows quickly looking at this mirror image of himself, so he activates the Conduit Forms...As his clone does the same.
The sphere Alex was trapped in scanned the souls of the Genesis Samurais too, creating sinful copies inside the clone so he can use his own Conduit Forms.
Alex and Chaos Alex go through all of their forms, with a spiritual battle being fought between the Genesis Samurai and their counterparts the Sin Samurai.
Each element is represented with a different sin, though not all of them line up perfectly. Nature is Gluttony, Earth is Pride, Sky is Envy, Electricity is Greed, Water is Lust, Ice is Sloth, and Fire is Wrath.
Ultimately Alex prevails against all seven bodies thanks to his allies' aid, and seems to break Chaos Alex's mind in two.
But in doing so, Cackletta's spirit emerges from the body and forces control to access Chaos Alex's greatest form...Chaos Phoenix.
Alex goes into Phoenix Form and fights his equal head-on. Their clash begins ravaging the planet, as Chaos Alex throws everything in his power to destroy his "evil self".
Alex can't maintain his Soul Shields for long, as the corrupt energies within the Chaos Phoenix form burn right through them.
He fights at full power, hesitating to activate the Blazing Overlord Fist after what happened last time.
Cackletta's spirit taunts him for having nothing to rely on now, that he won't be bailed out like before. His immaturity and weakness will spell the world's end, and the end of all other worlds.
Alex boasts that it doesn't matter if he wins or loses, because at least he'll have had those friendships, while Chaos Alex will just create a worthless, empty universe where the only people alive will be him and his puppeteer of a "mother".
Chaos Alex suddenly experiences rage, which Cackletta didn't think was possible, and attacks Alex viciously.
Only with some timely intervention does Cackletta manage to quell his spirits and get him to focus all his sin soul fire into his own ultimate attack...The Satanic Sin Bullet.
This is an attack that can be fired multiple times over without harming Chaos Alex's arm, and its possible for it to brush aside multiple Soul Shields with one shot.
Alex grits his teeth and evades the bullets while closing in to keep attacking with all his strength. But he realizes he has no other choice but to rely on his ultimate attack if he wants to win.
Alex grits his fist and remembers everyone he's met up until this point, then, upon uttering the names of his parents as the password, he deactivates the glove and prepares to launch one final Blazing Overlord Fist to end it all.
Empowered by the wills of his friends and the union of the souls inside of him, Alex launches through a few of Chaos Alex's bullets and punches him square in the chest with the Synchronized Overlord Fist.
Every one of his friends sense that something is amiss, like a life had been lost...
In the aftermath of the explosion Alex and Chaos Alex are trapped within a void of nothingness together, their minds now linked on a conceptual level.
Here, Chaos Alex expresses a sense of ego for the first time and starts berating Alex for still being the "evil one". Right now, Chaos Alex can see past the deception Alex puts on at all times, and knows what he TRULY is underneath.
He's a coward, a liar, and a destroyer waiting to happen. Alex's brand of justice is a selfish one, and he only chooses to say things that'll serve his own ends. His promise to Tabuu, for example, was a cover-up for the fact that he was scared to die. He only told him what he wanted to hear so he could live. He had no intention of hunting down Master Hand.
Alex calls him a liar, but Chaos Alex retorts that he cannot tell a lie, because they are both born of the same mold. HE knows Alex better than Alex ever has. So long as Alex lives, someone is bound to die at his hands. Whether good, or evil, or anything in-between. Innocent, villainous, none of it matters in Alex's eyes.
He only looks out for number one: Himself.
His ideology is to kill, or be killed. And really...with the power of the Elemental Overlord at his fingertips, what's stopping him from just killing everyone and being done with it?
Cut down to his soul, Alex doesn't have any response to Chaos Alex's words. Chaos Alex vanishes, telling his "evil self" to just go and die for the good of the world.
The fires of the Blazing Overlord Fist vanish, and the sun returns to the Mushroom Kingdom.
But Alex Whiter...is nowhere to be found.
The following night, a mysterious figure walks through the forest and picks up Alex Whiter's fallen glove, while the "higher-ups" watch on, and comment on the absence of darkness being filled by a greater evil down the line...
Part 2 End.
Extra Chapter:
On Alex's Earth, a man known to his subordinates as "Prometheus", wanders through a high-tech facility. His firewalls are breached by a mysterious entity, who shares a familiarity towards Alex Whiter with this man.
The two choose to work together, Prometheus stating he's not unused to working with beings from other worlds.
Over time Prometheus receives Duon and Galleom, along with the pieces to recreate the Anti-Genesis Theorem. He plans to use them against Alex Whiter, should he return, calling him a "disobedient child".