Clash of the Elements Summary

by mewmaster93

A summary of all the events in the series ordered chronologically from Part 1 all the way to the most recent story arc. Made to help people interested catch up in the lore without having to read the very old stuff that's...not so good grammar-wise. And maybe if interested, help them focus on what they want to read specifically. Warning: Will include many ideas from multiple series.

27. Part 5: The Hidden City, Sancturia

In the dead of night, a young girl wanders the streets of an unknown floating city, marking up properties with graffiti against a certain man.

When she goes to the city's abandoned temple, however, she finds herself drawn inside towards the back in particular, where she ends up exposing a secret tunnel further in.

Said tunnel take her to a series of altars and a strange, gas-filled orb. Out of a sense of curiosity, and desperate hope, the girl makes a wish upon the orb for help...Only to laugh it off awkwardly as childish, and leave the orb behind so she can run out of the temple...

Meanwhile on Earth, it has been a couple years since Mew sent Riku off into the stars. Ever since he's sort of gotten into a daily routine of getting up, checking his outdoor crops, petting billy goats, and watching the news...At least in the morning.

The news is rather depressing for the most part, much to his dismay, though it does provide good warnings about dangerous weather in other parts of the world.

He's tasked himself as a sort of weather man superhero who goes around stopping hurricanes and other deadly storms to give the people of Earth some peace of mind.

But as he goes out for another hurricane stopping journey he winds up getting a little lonely upon seeing friends and couples hanging out down below.

"D." taunts him over this, and try as he might to joke around his every comment Mew is definitely bothered by loneliness.

He returns home to finish his routine for the day and then hops into bed early. During the night, he has a dream about a strange female voice call out to him, though its cut off early.

He thinks not much of it until, when getting up for breakfast, he hears another woman's voice calling out to him...As the Elemental Overlord.

The woman's presence angers "D.", who calls her a sultry witch and tries to warn Mew not to get involved with her. But that's just all the reason Mew needs to hear her out.

The woman wishes to meet with him to discuss urgent matters, luring him in with sultry tones. Mew is up to the task however and she tells him to meet her at a city floating over the North Pole.

After getting dressed Mew flies towards the city. "D." keeps trying to warn him but he doesn't care, saying if this woman knows about the Elemental Overlord then its worth at least seeing what's up.

He ends up meeting the side of the floating hidden city with his face and then crawls up in through the barrier. To his surprise he's greeted by a bunch of well put together huts and a series of humans wandering about. Curiously, they were wearing clothes from all eras of human history.

He expects there's some deception going on but no, these are actually just humans...Or at least something very human-like.

The woman from before contacts him and tells him to meet her at the temple in the northern part of town, but urges him to take his time first and look around.

Mew immediately notices a lack of common technological advancements such as cars and phones around here. Nor is there any sense of unique flair to the city, just a bunch of knock-off brand names and buildings eerily structured the same as those on Earth.

He eventually makes it to the temple and finds its been tagged with graffiti. Having gotten a good chuckle out of it he heads inside, only to find it feels like a crypt more than a holy gathering place.

He meets the woman from before in person at long last...And has his breath taken away by her stunningly gorgeous figure.

After embarrassing himself in record time Mew tries to introduce himself proper. The lady then remarks on his appearance being "just like him" before choosing not to muddle his mind further and introduces herself.

She is Auris Aurora, and she welcomes him to Sancturia, the city of the Aurians.

While her name seems to ring a bell, Mew can't peg why. So he moves on to her and the city they're in.

She asks for his honest opinion and Mew tells it like it is, saying how he expected more mysticism.

Auris logs that comment away and guides Mew out of the temple and towards her home. Mew comments again on the graffiti, since Auris made it clear "Aurian" is labeling a species not a person.

Auris knows who did it and even IDs their motive, but doesn't say much more.

He moves on to try and peg her connection to the Elemental Overlord. Judging from her looks she couldn't be too much older than Mew himself, but she denies knowing of the Overlord via ancestors.

The question bugs him until they get to her house. Even if the insides are simple in design, Mew appreciates how welcoming the place is, far more than any house on Earth.

Auris grabs them some strawberry lemonades out of her kitchen, a favorite drink of Mew's to be sure. As Mew settles into her couch and takes a sip however, its clear Auris has some...rather forward intentions to be sure.

No sooner than Mew finishes his first gulp of lemonade does he find Auris slowly advancing upon him seductively, disarming him by preying on his adolescent urges.

She pins him down with both knees and her chest and prepares to grant him his innermost desires, should he be willing.

Mew ends up starting a debate between his common sense and his hormones, a battle his common sense winds up winning overall...Until Auris gently places his hands on her breasts, upon which hormones gains an incredible power boost and nearly pushes Mew to commit to what is essentially foreplay.

However their little fling is interrupted by the shrill voice of another girl calling Auris "Mom".

Turns out that Auris...has a daughter! And now, caught between a rock and his hard place, Mew winds up not really knowing how to exactly explain this unusual set of circumstances to this newcomer.

This tomboyish girl gets angry at her mom and then even more angry at Mew before storming up the stairs.

Auris then pulls back and giggles, having basically pretended to be attracted to Mew just for some brief amusement.

Mew understandably wants to just vacate the premises immediately but Auris changes tunes quickly, offering a sincere request for Mew's assistance.

Mew's sense of right and wrong pull him back in. And as an apology for teasing him so, Auris comes forward with the truth about herself.

She is the Sage of the Aurians, and the wife of the original Elemental Overlord.

Turns out Auris is roughly a little over two-thousand years old, and has been this young looking for just as long.

Mew's never heard of a wife, which is intentional on Auris' part.

Now she wants him to ask any and all questions he needs to get off his chest. The immediate thing Mew wishes to know is what an Aurian is.

While its common knowledge that there's nine basic elements, in truth there's a tenth one: Aura, or Life. Aurians can control it better than most.

Mew's bothered that he's been calling himself the Elemental Overlord when he's only mastered nine of ten elements, but Auris tells him not to worry over it. In fact, the original Overlord never even mastered darkness, so in a sense Mew's more of an expert than him.

Mew then asks about the city itself. Sancturia isn't native to this world, it came from another planet where the nine other element tribes once existed.

And the same science that keeps this city afloat is also responsible for keeping it hidden no matter how much humanity's technology progresses.

Its a necessary measure against races from other worlds too, as there are secrets within Sancturia that would be disastrous if they were to be obtained or unleashed.

And one such artifact is the reason Mew had to be called up here, as he deduces, much to her delight.

But its another Aurian who wants the artifact, not an invader.

And though Auris boasts the title of "Sage", she is not the governing power in Sancturia. The one who rules, and the one who covets power, are one in the same. And his name? Gravitus.

Once a man named Damascus who served Auris' father, Gravitus seized control of Sancturia two-thousand years ago following her father's passing. Now he wishes to claim the ultimate power of the Neo Drive.

Mew thinks the city's pretty quiet given a tyrant's ruling over it. There's a reason for that, but Auris wishes for Mew to decipher that on his own.

Ultimately the endgame for Gravitus is to gain as much power as he can to extend his reign across the universe, which he needs the Neo Drive for.

Mew thinks that everything he's heard sounds like the perfect setup for an adventure and offers to aid Auris without hesitation.

But Auris laughs at the idea that she needs help, saying that the reason she called Mew up...is to help her daughter.

Her daughter's at that terribly rebellious age and its not helping matters that her grudge is aimed at Gravitus in particular. Auris worries she'll go charging in after him soon enough.

When Mew asks how she knows, Auris smiles and bluntly tells him that she can see the future.

After Mew nearly collapses in recoil he asks for an explanation.

Auris pokes him teasingly for not picking up the hints sooner, like how she knew his name from the get-go.

Mew berates himself for being so horny and not catching that, but then is happy to see that they have a way of knowing how to beat Gravitus.

But Auris refuses to divulge what she knows. She poses a question about what Mew would do if it was obvious that his decisions would lead to no problems whatsoever for him.

She says that certainly, he could avoid heartache and pain and suffering...But then what would he learn from that? As much as pain hurts, sometimes its necessary to hurt in order to become a stronger person.

Mew gets what she's saying and agrees. Then Auris admits that none of her answers would've been useful to begin with.

At least now that Mew's here though, the odds of stopping Gravitus have changed from 1 percent to 20 percent.

Mew vows to change it to a one-hundred percent chance of kicking Gravitus' ass by the end of the week...Which is convenient enough, as Gravitus is gone until that point anyways.

Auris thinks this'll give Mew more time to explore Sancturia and come to understand the nature of Gravitus' rule along with its effects on their society. She'll grant him answers on occasion but would prefer he figure this out on his own.

Mew then heads out to look at the Pyramid of the Neo Drive at her suggestion.

However, he's unaware that for most of that conversation, Auris' daughter was listening in. Pissed off that a pervert like him is the Elemental Overlord, she sneaks out the door and goes after Mew.

Upon arriving at the Pyramid, Mew is happy to see that SOMETHING looks mystical around here. He only gets a brief scan of the place though before he's confronted by Auris' daughter.

He tries to apologize for fondling Auris' chest but the daughter is having none of it, as she plans to send him packing in a bodybag.

A crowd starts gathering around at the commotion going on and Mew tries to make small-talk with the girl, though she bluntly refuses him and calls him the "Pervert Overlord". Mew takes the name in stride and tries to deflect her attention elsewhere as he heads for the Pyramid.

But the girl then draws a bo-staff from thin air and threatens him, leading Mew to pick up that she's actually here for a fight. And that's actually kind of exciting.

The girl's trying to bluff him though, thinking someone like him won't dare hit a girl. But then Mew starts stretching his muscles, looking eager to fight.

He believes that battles need to be fought with the soul, so gender has no place here.

The girl gets frustrated with his attitude and prepares to strike. But first Mew wishes to know her name.

Declaring her name as Kairi Aurora, she lashes out full force and Mew cleanly dodges her attempt to behead him.

Mew weaves around a few attacks then taunts Kairi to use some of that aura he's heard so much about. He even offers her up a chance to get a free hit on him.

And she gladly takes that opportunity to coat her staff in a glass-like field of energy so she can smash Mew under the crotch.

Mew holds on tight and smiles, but deep down is feeling excruciating pain.

He then goes on the offensive, coming to recognize quickly that while Kairi can dish out damage, she SUCKS at guarding.

All the while he's playfully prodding her to show him what she's got. Turns out she's got a trick up her sleeve involving the bracelet on her right arm.

Slamming down on it causes her staff to detach into many parts like a whip and she gets to summon beasts made of aura, starting with a lion.

However in much the same way as he did before, Mew winds up just playing around with his foes, taking out the lion in a matter of seconds.

Kairi then summons a tiger and uses her whip to infuse it with more power and make it bigger...To no avail, as Mew douses the tiger in water and then tricks it into an electric mine to destroy it.

The crowed starts jeering at Kairi, pissing her off so much that she decides to put everything she's got into a bear, turning it into a towering ursine the likes of which makes even Mew pause for a moment.

As Kairi commands the bear to topple him into paste, Mew draws his sword at long last to effortlessly block the attack.

He then topples the bear over with a huge gust of wind so that it falls on top of Kairi and knocks her out.

Mew thanks her to the duel with no disdain in his voice and then prepares to head into the Pyramid. But upon hearing the crowd get aggressive towards Kairi, he turns around to see what's up.

Even the likes of children start throwing stones at her, causing her to freeze up and tremble.

When its clear Mew can't reason with them with his words, he focuses his power into his glare and tells them to get lost.

The crowd trembles but then leaves, grumbling to themselves.

Mew tries to offer Kairi a hand up but she just kneels there staring at him. Mew eventually shrugs and wanders back towards the Pyramid.

Kairi then scrambles to her feet and gets in his way once more, refusing to let him go inside.

Even when Mew tries to bring up her mother's request Kairi demands he go away, as his business has nothing to do with her or this city.

No matter what tricks Mew tries to pull Kairi keeps blocking his path until he finally relents with a compromise. If she lets him inside, she can tag along with.

She accepts that much, finally, but warns Mew against trying any funny business on her like he did with her mom.

Mew's attempts to diffuse the matter fall on deaf ears though, as these two unlikely partners make their way inside the Pyramid at long last...

The insides of the Pyramid offer all the mysticism Mew could've ever asked for. But as much as he'd like to learn more about how it operates, he's focused on his mission.

He tries to get some lessons from Kairi on how things work around here but she's clearly clueless about the inside of the Pyramid.

So he tries to get some information on how her bracelet works, which instead leads to her proclaiming that he's dumb and weak and his victory over her was a fluke.

What does get her to answer though, is when he asks about the crowd bothering her outside. Though she's reluctant to say so, its clear that she doesn't know why people hate her so much and that it bothers her.

The two of them head up to the first floor and find the room's aesthetics have changed to a sort of hot and cold theme, with a portal blocking the way to the next floor.

Mew suspected this would happen and is excited to see what kind of folk Gravitus is sending to stop him.

Kairi thinks its stupid to go into a portal for no reason but Mew does just that, pissing her off further.

They wind up on some desolate rocky planet in the middle of seemingly nowhere. Mew deduces quickly from the heat beaming on the other side of the planet that they're on Mercury.

Kairi finds that impossible because people can't breathe in space. For once Mew agrees, but there's little time to ponder that as they are approached by some company.

A man with habanero colored skin and a penchant for sweating a lot greets them. His name is Michael, the Planetary Aurian of the planet Mercury.

Though he sounds very tired he has no problem giving Mew a handshake, while Kairi just loses her shit at this guy's claim to fame.

The Planetary Aurians are supposed to be heroes of folklore with people inspired by their feats of courage and strength.

Michael is willing to humbly deny himself as being worthy of those claims, but Mew says otherwise, knowing that Gravitus wouldn't hire someone to stand guard who couldn't fight.

Ultimately there is some truth to that, as Michael mentions being called here by an alarm. However, he's not really the one raring to fight with all their might.

Inside Michael is a second person, a chilling man with snow-blue skin and cracked skin who stutters in every sentence he speaks and LOOOOOVES to stab people with his strange icicle lance.

His name is Raphael, and together alongside Michael they are the Temperate Twosome, Aurian Mercury.

Raphael gets in Mew's face with urges to skin him to the bone. Mew laughs at the possibility of a fun time and brushes him off, prepared to fight.

Raphael forces Michael to be prepared to fight using their same body, as he draws his lance, hitting Mew with a leaping surprise attack.

Raphael's quickly proves to be a much more capable and dangerous opponent than Kairi, nicking Mew across his skin with the deadly thrusts of his lance.

Mew avoids drawing his sword and fights with a flurry of different elements utilized in tricky, deceptive ways.

After a while of putting Raphael on the edge, Michael is forced out and attacks Mew with his fists. Though he doesn't like working alongside Raphael or fighting in general, he can recognize when he's needed.

Mew starts to notice how his reactions are changing in different ways depending on who is control. While Michael's out his vision is blurred and his movements sluggish, while Raphael's presence causes him to tremble and stiffen his attacks.

Thanks to his earlier duel with Kairi he believes this to be another trick to their Aura and quickly puts together how their powers work. But strangely enough, the two halves of Mercury don't have a bracelet.

Utilizing what he discovered to the best of his advantage, Mew eventually manages to knock Raphael out cold. At which point Michael decides he doesn't have to fight anymore and gives up.

Mew proudly lords his victory over Kairi's head, but she claims Mercury was nothing and she could've easily beaten him.

Michael wants to know how Mew managed to get around their Drive, which is what their powers are called.

It wasn't too hard. Once he figured out the two were manipulating the raw temperature of heat and cold, Mew just had to subtly surround himself with the same temperature whenever they swapped bodies so the heat and cold would be trapped and unable to reach him.

Michael praises him for figuring that out and then decided to explain his deal with Raphael. Turns out they were soldiers on opposite sides of a war, with Raphael having taking a very keen interest in him for some reason or another.

A great disaster happened that nearly wiped the two of them out, but froze over their entire planet. In the aftermath some wizard came along and saved them both by fusing them together into one singular body.

They've been this way for two-thousand years now and while some things suck for Michael, he's learned to deal with it...And Gravitus has been trying to work on a way to save him anyways.

This catches Mew off-guard, while Kairi just accuses Gravitus of using the two for his own ends and that he won't hold up his end of the deal.

Michael believes in Gravitus, though believes that perhaps there just ISN'T a way to save him.

He stamps Mew's hand so they can get through the portal and then thanks him for giving him a little peace and quiet.

He then warns that the other Planetary Aurians are more powerful than him, which excites Mew a little. Him and Kairi then return to the Pyramid, leaving Mercury to lay back and read for a bit.

The two continue on up to the next floor and along the way, Kairi gets angry at just how happy Mew can be all the damn time.

Mew defends it as him wanting to make every day a good memory, so in order to do that its always important to smile.

This freaks Kairi out for a moment, who mumbles to herself that he can't possible know about "that motto".

They keep going and find the next chamber in their way having pipes filled with various gases. Mew doesn't even hesitate to go into the next portal, but not without protecting him and Kairi with air.

Kairi follows him against her better judgment into the harsh atmospheres of the planet Venus. Fortunately she's saved by the wind Mew had set up before.

Mew takes a moment to try and learn more about Drives, commenting on how strange it was that Mercury didn't have a bracelet given how they seem to be a conduit to their power.

Kairi's shocked that he pieced that much together by himself, but rationalizes it as him making a lucky guess.

The gases in the air start to settle down a bit as a cloaked phantom descends, shockingly wearing the face of a little girl.

This is Aurian Venus, their next opponent. A polite little girl, she does nevertheless want to get right to the fighting.

Mew leaves it all up to Kairi and then wanders off to do other things, being one of the first people to explore this planet and all.

Thus Kairi draws her staff and reluctantly fights the Gaseous Phantasm, Aurian Venus.

Venus is able to control a multitude of gases pretty well, but primarily uses this power to make giant gas fists that swing at Kairi.

Kairi tries to strike out with full force but keeps getting knocked back by Venus' attacks, making zero progress while the girl taunts her quietly with laughter.

Kairi starts getting pissed off very quickly at this little girl, remembering how she's little more than another "Traitor" of the Aurians despite her cuddly appearance.

Venus uses her gases to create miniature suns too, which was the last thing Kairi expected to see.

She reluctantly admits that maybe she needs Mew's help, only to then slam down on her Beast Tamer Drive to add numbers to her side.

But when she pulls out her big guns, Venus just retaliates by hitting harder, melting through Kairi's toughest beasts until the girl is on her knees in defeat.

Venus gets ready to smack her down for the final blow when Mew suddenly announces his return calling for a time out.

He politely asks Venus to let him speak to Kairi for a moment, and she obliges. Mew then asks if Kairi's figured out Venus' deal yet.

Kairi just calls her the victim of one of Gravitus' experiments and a traitor, causing Mew to sigh.

He then calmly cuts right to the chase and asks Venus to explain the skeletons he sensed buried in the planet's surface.

There's a neatly organized gravesite a short distance away, which Mew takes to mean that Venus cared about those people a lot.

Venus settles down to explain her story to Mew. She was once part a colony of traveling space cowboys led by her mama and papa.

They came to this planet long ago to try and settle down, only for a powerful storm of cosmic radiation to sweep through, turning it into the inhospitable place seen now.

Venus was the only one who woke up. Everyone else had "lost their skin" and could "no longer move".

But Venus herself had no body to speak of either, yet she still existed. A strange old man came to visit her soul one day, and helped bind her to the cloak she wears now so she can still "live".

Then one day Gravitus met with her, vowing to give her a new body back.

Mew listens to the story closely and doesn't show his usual smile by the end. He looks Venus in the eyes and vows then and there that he'll be the one to give her her body back.

All he asks in return is that he learn Venus' real name.

Venus agrees, revealing her name to be Maria Argus.

Mew thinks Maria's a cute name for her. And now, thinking about it, since he's promising to get Maria's body back he should probably do the same for Michael and Raphael.

Maria giggles, and in doing so making Kairi's heart melt a little and wonder how she could've ever let herself get that angry at an innocent little girl...

Maria then puts a stamp onto Mew's hand with her gases and wishes him good luck.

The two then leave the planet behind, where Kairi immediately jumps on Mew for making promises he can't guarantee he'll keep.

Mew's happy to see her showing empathy for Venus' situation but swears that he doesn't break promises, but Kairi huffs it off and demands they move on.

However Mew's tired and wants a bit of a break, figuring he could take this opportunity to check out more of the town. He then hires Kairi as a tour guide, a job she vehemently refuses...Not that he's listening.

Mew has her direct him to a juice bar...eventually, after a lot of moaning on her part. He tries to make some decent conversation with her but she's not about to let the earlier incident with her mom go...Which Mew understands, though not like she's given him a chance to say anything in his defense.

Everything he tries to say either blows up in his face or she utterly refuses to answer. The only time the sour mood is broken up, or rather redirected, is when Kairi gets a soda can tossed at her by some riled up teenagers.

Mew has to hold her back from kicking their butts but she slaps his hand away in response, saying he's not involved in her problems and needs to butt out.

Kairi then covers her scar and murmurs about everyone being jealous of her bloodline.

Mew starts recognizing there's a lot of mysteries to solve in Sancturia and vows to uncover the truth.

They arrive at a place called "Sunbucks" and Mew groans before nevertheless heading inside to speak with the barista.

After a brief and flopped attempt at flirting, Mew notices the barista recognizing Kairi in a sour manner. The two ladies get into a spat until Mew gets involved to break them up.

He then orders his customary strawberry lemonade, nearly forgetting that he has to pay. He basically tries to commit fraud by having Kairi show him some cash so he can make a duplicate of it with his powers.

But then Mew gets a hold of Sancturia's cash, he finds himself face to face with a crisp five-dollar bill with Abe Lincoln's face on it.

When questioned on who this is Kairi answers properly...for the first half, before calling Abe Lincoln a famous Aurian who was born on Earth and became the President.

Mew has a TON of questions, and only muddies the waters more when he finds out everyone else on the dollar bills are famous Aurians too.

He washes his hands of that for now and vows to repay Kairi when he gets his wallet back, though she doesn't get what that means.

Now that he's got his drink the two of them part ways so he can explore around. He winds up running into a statue somewhere in town that seems to be depicting Gravitus.

But its been decorated with a ton of angry graffiti, which at this point tells Mew that Kairi is the tagger.

"D." pops back in again to comment on the man in the statue. "D." recognizes him as an Aurian from the old days, saying Gravitus/Damascus was once a servant of the Ten Sages, the reigning power at the time.

But that's all he will say. Its not much but it does get Mew thinking about Gravitus possibly having a grudge against the bloodline of the Ten Sages, which might explain Kairi being under scrutiny.

Mew's then soon bothered by an empty stomach from all the fighting, realizing that he's stuck without a place to stay. Sure he could go home but then he'd have to come back and forth and back and forth and really that's just a waste of time.

So against his better judgment he goes to the Aurora household and knocks on there, where he winds up meeting Kairi again and bugging her to let him stay the night.

Auris has to put her foot down hard on Kairi's rudeness, and afterwards, Mew is allowed in for dinner and rest for the night.

The awkward tension between Mew and Kairi lasts until a new face arrives in the house, a person who makes Kairi actually show happiness for once.

His name is Gabriel, a very big and strong man with a certain casual samurai theme going on. He's been gone for a bit and him and Kairi briefly catch up before the subject inevitably gets directed towards Mew.

Mew tries to keep his true identity hidden for now and just introduces himself as someone Auris called in for a favor.

Though when it comes time for dinner, Gabriel quickly deduces that Mew's not from Sancturia. Its Kairi, however, that runs her mouth to oust Mew's identity as the Elemental Overlord, which gets Gabriel curious.

Gabriel remarks on his job being a space cop, which is why he's gone for long periods of time.

Mew jokes around about him being Kairi's dad but Gabriel hastily declines, saying he could never treat Lady Auris that way.

Kairi gets mad at Mew's constant blabbering and after telling him he doesn't belong here, she storms off to her room.

After Auris and him tease Mew for youthful spats, Gabriel must leave for other business.

After dinner Mew finds Auris taking a smoke break in the living room. She asks him what he thinks of Sancturia so far.

Mew had jumped to conclusion and realizes Aurians are a little more magical than he had initially assumed. Auris tells him he still has a bit to learn though.

Then they move on to discuss society. Mew's a little more bothered by how much this place feels like Earth.

Auris doesn't necessarily call their society as it is now bad, more-so that it feels like a lot of what made them unique two-thousand years ago simply...no longer exists.

Its the fate of all societies eventually. The crawl of man and machine overtakes all tribal folk in time. Religion gives way to politics. Books lose out to the convenience of technology.

Yet ultimately one thing remains the same, and that's that somebody has to rule it all.

Gravitus has succeeded in turning Aurian society into a pale reflection of humanity, but why? That's for Mew to discover on his own.

Though Auris won't slip on giving answers there, Mew hopes to get some for another problem...How to deal with Kairi.

Auris is ashamed that she is the way she is, blaming her own failings as a mother for how she's turned out. She doesn't really have any answers for Mew besides reminding him to keep an eye on her.

Mew wonders if there was a way to keep her from going into the Pyramid. Auris murmurs a bit about destiny before wishing Mew good night and heading off to bed herself.

Mew tries to lay on the couch to rest but is awoken quickly by the sound of someone sneaking out. He decides to follow them, and winds up finding Kairi attempting to tag the Gravitus statue with more graffiti.

When he tries to get closer he's suddenly pinned by a katana to his neck, with a familiar voice telling him to come to the next floor of the Pyramid alone in the morning.

They leave without being sighted, but Mew got enough of a hint. It was Gabriel...the Planetary Aurian of Earth.

After quickly making it back to the house without being sighted, he lays down and prepares to think about the next day.

When morning comes he's quick to get out of the house before Kairi can determine he's left, skipping breakfast in the process.

He makes his way to the Pyramid and goes to the next floor to find no portal, but rather a garden of cherry blossom trees with Gabriel sitting criss-cross in the center.

His skin is now green, and he's decked in more obvious samurai armor with a katana sheathed by his hip.

The two waste no time mincing words about their true identities, though Gabriel's tone now comes across as biting towards Mew's presence here rather than the comfort he showed before.

Mew tries to determine what would make him allied with Gravitus but Gabriel keeps his lips sealed, demanding that Mew turn around and leave.

Mew stands his ground and says it wouldn't be fair to Auris if he backed down on his promise, much like how its not fair that Gabriel's kept the truth from Kairi.

Cause at that moment, Kairi had managed to catch up with them and learned the shocking truth that Gabriel is also a "traitor" working for Gravitus.

Gabriel can't believe this has happened and regretfully is forced to take drastic measures against Mew. He invokes the Rite of Singularity, tethering his aura to Mew's and ensuring that no one can interfere, lest the interloper lose their life.

Kairi begs them to stop, tearfully crying out to Gabriel in particular for answers.

But Gabriel remains resolute in his stance and readies himself to duel Mew to the death. Mew tells Kairi to go on ahead as he'll win this battle in due time.

Kairi quietly runs to the other side of the room, with Gabriel dismissively calling Mew a fool unworthy of the respect his title brings.

Mew draws his fists against Gabriel and swears to show him just how worthy of that title he is.

Gabriel quickly proves to be far superior to the prior two Planetary Aurians, parrying Mew's attempts to punch up while his power, the Nature Drive, disarms all but his fire element.

And Gabriel has a pretty nasty blade of his own. Even if his attacks fail to cut the flesh, it can cleave off a person's aura to weaken them regardless.

Gabriel insults Mew for not taking pride in drawing his sword, believing he considers it a tool instead of a partner, as he does with his own blade: Meiyo.

Gabriel has an assortment of techniques to deal with Mew at any distance, or force him to fight where he wants him to.

Mew eventually is forced to draw his sword just to hold back Gabriel's attacks, but the samurai fights through his defenses even still.

But throughout this clash of wills Mew has been picking up on a few of the gaps in Gabriel's technique, most notably how his own blood has managed to splash onto Gabriel's armor.

This gives Mew an idea on how to turn the tide, but first it requires him to get in close and let himself get cut so more blood gets splattered onto Gabriel's armor.

The fatal flaw in Gabriel's Drive is that it doesn't react to the presence of elements. Gabriel has to know he's in danger and activate it himself.

It seems because of that, he forgot that blood has a lot of water in it that he could have blocked ahead of time. But because he didn't, Mew converts the water in the blood that got on Gabriel into a powerful metal melting plant acid.

Not only that though, but Mew had slipped dirt and seeds into his blood so that when the armor melts down enough, he can easily constrain Gabriel with vines.

Thus Mew's finally free to pound on the samurai for a bit until he breaks free. Though at this point the two of them are at an equal state of body.

Gabriel and Mew put the last of their energy into one final stroke to decide it all. As the cherry blossoms fall around them, they lunge forward to decide the battle.

And Gabriel is the one who falls, though as Mew quickly comments he refused to cut any deeper than would be necessary to incapacitate him. He's not a killer.

Gabriel recognized in the moment their blades met that Mew had been holding back the whole time. Mew throws that same complaint back at him, as Gabriel was only using half his power that whole battle.

Even now though Gabriel refuses to break his code of honor and gives no answers. So Mew just decides its not worth his time right now and prepares to move on with Kairi to stop Gravitus.

That's when Gabriel breaks character and yells at Mew a dire warning...If he brings Kairi to Gravitus, then it'll be the end of everything.

Only one with the blood of the Ten Sages can wield the Neo Drive. Surely by now Gravitus has worked out a way to work around that restriction, but he still needs Kairi in order to do it.

Now it really doesn't make sense why Gabriel would be working for Gravitus. Gabriel decides now to admit the truth to Mew...

He's lived even longer than Auris has. No birth name, no family to call his own...He had always been a servant of the Ten Sages.

But naivete allowed him to invite a devil into his heart, and in doing so nearly doomed the Aurians he had sworn to protect.

In recompense, Gabriel offered his life eternal in servitude of all future generations of the Ten Sages.

He lived through the times of the original Elemental Overlord and Dark King, and journeyed here with Auris after the passing of the last generation of the Ten Sages.

But he could do nothing to help Auris stop Gravitus' uprising. In his moment of triumph, Gravitus leveraged Auris' life against Gabriel to gain his allegiance.

The oath he had sworn has continued to be abused by Gravitus time and time again.

Auris has had many children over the years, and of their numbers a great many of them came to this Pyramid to rebel against Gravitus.

Gabriel could not raise his blade against them, allowing them to batter him, enraged that they were betrayed by those they saw as a father.

Yet what else could he do with the oath he was bound to? He refused to lay a hand on any of them, but in doing so...Let them suffer the greatest harm of all.

Gabriel had hoped that by fighting Mew alone, he'd spare Kairi the burden of learning what a miserable failure of a person he is.

But Mew tells him that its stupid for him to have tried to die rather than fight. Gabriel calls him a fool in turn, remarking how Gravitus' power is monstrous and Mew's venture to try and stop him will only end in failure the way he is now.

Mew doesn't want to be called a fool by a bigger fool and outright tells him his oath is horseshit if people have to suffer for it.

He tells Gabriel that right now Kairi needs a friend, not a guardian angel, and hopes that he'll think about that while him and her continue up the Pyramid.

As Mew goes to catch up with Kairi, however, Gabriel is confronted by another person he refers to as the "Disgraced King".

The King threatens to lop Gabriel's head off, only ceasing upon remembering that Gravitus enjoys using Gabriel for his amusement.

There will be a time for punishing Gabriel for his holding back later.

Gabriel laughs in return, stating how both the King and Gravitus shall face their end at the hands of the Elemental Overlord if they keep their arrogance up.

Yet the King doesn't believe so, and looks forward to making the Elemental Overlord squirm.

Mew catches up with Kairi in the pagoda on the other side, where she's fighting against her personal rage towards Gabriel and her continually growing frustrations against Mew.

Once she accuses HIM of being untrustworthy, Mew has no choice but to bust out his ultimate technique to settle her down...A funny face.

It does work, disarming her anger for a few seconds and allowing him to bring up the logical fact that if he was working for Gravitus he would've brought her to him by now.

Its convincing enough in her mind and with that, they decide to move on to the next floor.

The next floor has a bunch of casual commodities such a fridge and couch. Mew thinks this next guy will be friendly, and Kairi worries about meeting a second Mew.

Their next planet is obviously Mars and after the tense battle from before, Mew and Kairi are stunned to find only an arcade machine sitting in the middle of this red rocky wasteland.

Kairi assumes for a moment the next Planetary Aurian is a digital AI they'll have to go into cyberspace to fight.

No, instead it turns out to be an Arabian styled bare-chested man with a clearly lackadaisical view of life.

Mew and this guy, Seth, also known as Aurian Mars, quickly get along and decide to settle affairs by playing a good old round of Street Fighter III off this arcade machine.

Mew wins and Seth prepares to stamp his hand so they can move on...Only for Kairi to object by smashing the arcade machine to pieces.

She then gets in Seth's grill for being a disgrace to his rank. Clearly venting some anger from Gabriel, Mew asks Seth to humor her wish for a fight.

Seth REALLY doesn't want to be another woman's tension reliever and also doesn't think he's the best choice for that. But clearly its either fight to defend himself or let Kairi beat him like a sandbag.

So he draws out his nunchucks and takes his duty as seriously as he does as the Desert Whirlwind, Aurian Mars.

Mew sits out and decides to start taking a bunch of notes on how Kairi fights for later use.

It doesn't take long for Seth's ludicrous speed to piss Kairi off to the point of going for her Beast Tamer Drive.

Seth then has to contend with lions, tigers and bears while Kairi continues to get more and more pissed off over time.

That's a result of Seth's Drive, which amplifies the strongest emotion that those around him are feeling at the moment. Which somehow, Kairi hasn't reached a limit on.

When Seth starts getting cornered he activates the shotgun feature of his nunchucks to put holes in Kairi's beasts.

Despite that though Kairi does manage to eventually pin Seth down with her bear and prepares to maim him, even when he surrenders.

Mew gently bops her on the head with the notepad to get her to settle down, but it doesn't matter too much as Kairi's now high off her arrogance because she beat another Planetary Aurian.

Mew ignores her for now and asks Seth why he's working for Gravitus. Its actually a pretty simple answer: He pays well.

Mew can respect that a guy has to make a living and after getting the stamp off him, bids him farewell and apologizes for having him fight.

Once the two are back in the Pyramid Kairi's ready to go right to the next floor, only for Mew to seal the way forward with his elements.

He doesn't hold back in telling Kairi that she's not a very good fighter. Strong, certainly, but her technique is incredibly lacking. She nearly lost to the weakest Planetary Aurian, and that was WITH her unnecessarily pulling out the Beast Tamer Drive.

Mew makes it clear that the further they go along the easier it'll be for tougher fights to take advantage of her inexperience and they won't be as gentle with her as Seth was.

Kairi tries to bash the wall down so they can move on but it refuses to budge. Mew tells it to her straight that they won't be moving on until she learns a little more about proper fighting technique.

Kairi just doesn't get why Mew cares so much. Its just in Mew's nature to help people in need.

Kairi reluctantly decides to do the dumb training and the two of them plan to go back to Kairi's house to use their basement dojo as a training ground.

Unfortunately for Kairi, her mom isn't around to act as a mediator while they train. She keeps her guard up around Mew at all times in the dojo, but he doesn't seem to have any ill intentions despite them being alone.

Mew starts off by teaching her on the basics of her weapon type, noting the length she can swing her staff along with how the properties make it good against magic based attacks.

Kairi calls this all simple knowledge so Mew tries to go for something a little harder. He locks up her staff in a steel coffin and then forces her to fight with her bare hands.

But this go around Mew isn't standing around to be a test dummy. He dodges her swings with ease and calmly berates her for expecting everyone to just stand still and take her hits.

Once Kairi's worn herself out a bit Mew explains how the best way to disarm a tricky opponent isn't to attack, say, the neck or chest, but rather the face. There's a lot of vulnerable muscles that can't get stronger from training, such as the eyes and ears.

Next up, Mew wants to teach Kairi how to resist being grabbed, an act which she has great resistance towards even though she ultimately loses to Mew's sincerity in not trying anything funny.

But one bad comment about her pudginess later and Mew takes a knee to the face and has to apologize for his rudeness.

The lesson to take away from that encounter though is that Kairi needs to learn how to distribute her strength around in order to force an opponent to do the same, and then take advantage of that.

Mew stops lecturing her for now so she can teach him more about how Aurians fight, as he's still woefully ignorant about that.

Aurians learn from four combat styles: Offense, Defense, Projectile and Body.

Offense bolsters strength, obviously, by adding aura to pre-existing weapons and constructing weapons that can't be created in Sancturia such as guns.

Defense involves the art of surrounding one's body with aura, but Kairi clearly hates that one.

Projectiles were once a part of Offense, but are considered their own thing. Obviously its about making long-ranged attacks. The longest length the average Aurian can fire is a kilometer.

Then Body is about augmenting body parts with aura to increase durability, offense, AND speed. Its the hardest class to master.

Kairi obviously focuses on Offense, but Mew thinks she could afford to learn up on Defense while at school.

Unfortunately school's out for them already, much to Mew's surprise. He winds up finding out that Kairi's going to be in the 11th Grade next year, which makes her about the same age as him more or less.

Mew then goes back to weakpoints, guiding Kairi towards the purpose of doing so. The ultimate way to win a battle proper is to hit the parts of the body that will keep the opponent from being eye level with you. So knees and ankles are very good targets.

Kairi's starting to see a connection to all of Mew's lessons but refuses to admit it to him proper.

Mew decides to free her staff and have her practice on the training dummy while he goes to get a drink.

But as he leaves it turns out Gabriel had been watching for a while. After Mew blows his cover, he leaves to let the two hash things out a bit.

Kairi's stand-offish towards Gabriel, not that he disagrees with her soured opinion on him.

When Gabriel tries to approach Kairi thrusts her staff at his jugular and starts to threaten him. The ease of which Gabriel speaks, however, keeps her from doing anything but beg to know why he never told her the truth.

Gabriel was scared. Explaining his oath to Kairi, Gabriel admits that he's been a coward this whole time, and its done nothing but hurt the people close to him.

He does not want forgiveness from Kairi, but hopes that she'll let him help her train.

Kairi tries to put herself in Gabriel's shoes, wondering if she would've lasted as long as he has. But its so hard to trust him regardless of how she imagines the pain was.

But despite all her rage she just can't bring herself to strike Gabriel in any way that hurts. Because she doesn't want to lose anyone else, and even after feeling this betrayal she still loves Gabriel...

Gabriel accepts her answer and the two sit aside for a moment to discuss Mew. Kairi wonders if he really is a good teacher or not.

Gabriel had his doubts but is surprised at how well-trained Mew is. He'll stand by to correct Mew if he makes any errors, but as far as leading the tutoring goes? There's really no better option than him for her.

Until he gets back, however, Gabriel draws his sword and wants Kairi to land one hit on him to prove that she's learned something so far.

Mew, meanwhile, is sneaking off out of the house to go find out some more about how Gravitus handles things in Sancturia. Specifically, their education.

Though school may be out, he can still enter the building to check out their library, a proposition he cares little for even if its necessary.

After some unnecessary breaking and entering, Mew makes his way down the drab halls to the nearest library section and starts to look around.

He struggles to find the History section among everything else and winds up getting caught out in the open by some barely remarkable guy named Bobby.

He's a part-time substitute teacher in the summer time so he can help his credentials out in the future. He does manage to pick up the obvious that Mew isn't an Aurian, but Mew has to tell him his true identity as the Elemental Overlord.

The name of the Elemental Overlord is something of a legend around here, lost to history much like many of the tomes on Aurian history.

Sadly, that's what Mew had expected, though isn't sure if that act is Gravitus' doing or something else.

Mew enrolls Bobby's help to search for some more History books, where he winds up believing that history books on Hitler proves Gravitus is evil...Though Bobby corrects him, stating how its best to show people the good and bad parts of history so the same mistakes aren't repeated.

Their conversation winds up making Bobby realize that Mew's after Gravitus, stating how his own emotions on the man are a little...complex.

The two go off elsewhere to sit down and chat about that.

First off, Mew thinks he can ask Bobby why there's so much Earth stuff in Sancturia. Bobby's answer is more a theory, suspecting it has to do with the rules about Aurians living on Earth.

The stuff in Sancturia helps them get accustomed to Earth culture, in a sense, as in the past many Aurians nearly blew their cover going down unprepared.

Bobby likes what they have now but has always been fascinated with the lost Aurian history. Mew accidentally slips that only Gravitus AND Auris would know about that, but Bobby doesn't seem to flinch at this news.

Its common knowledge in the city that the two of them are immortal, though Auris gets more scrutiny for it due to her vocal denial of Gravitus' rule, which had earned the name of the "Heretic Harlot".

Gravitus doesn't get any scrutiny for his immortality because he's the ruler.

When Mew starts showing his dedication towards stopping Gravitus, Bobby gets frustrated at him being around and wants him to go home and leave well enough alone.

He doesn't hate Auris but like...Gravitus' presence has been nothing but good for Aurians. Bobby's been able to live a healthy life, has plenty of career opportunities, and still has his parents.

But Mew senses there's something bugging Bobby in the pit of his gut.

Sure enough, Bobby senses there's something off about Gravitus' beneficial nature. Specifically...how peaceful things are and yet despite that, Aurians are still being taught to fight.

Mew finally notices the lack of prisons in Sancturia and logs that in the back of his head.

Bobby wishes that Drives and weapons would just go away forever, as they seem useless now, especially his.

Mew disagrees, pushing Bobby to reveal his power...The Bounce Drive.

Its not a bad power, in fact Mew thinks it has a ton of uses. Mew believes Bobby, or any Aurian for that matter, can't readily discard their Drives. Its one of the few things that still makes them more than just regular humans.

Mew thinks he's gotten enough info for one trip and thanks Bobby for the talk. Bobby's not done though, but asks Mew to meet up with him again in a couple days when he's ready to talk more.

Mew agrees, then returns back to the Aurora household to continue training Kairi.

Kairi points out that he's been gone an hour for a dumb glass of water and though Mew makes a TERRIBLE excuse for his lateness, Kairi doesn't give him more than a huff of uncaring bluntness.

Mew immediately feints an attack that makes Kairi flinch.

The next lesson is all about getting her to learn how to dodge attacks instead of tanking them recklessly like she was doing before.

But in order to do that she's going to need to attune her senses to detecting another person's power, which Mew knows she's lacking in.

Its hard for her to close her eyes though to better her senses though, as Aurians can see aura through their eyelids.

Mew tries to work with it though and hits Kairi's staff for a bit until she understands the ripples of his power coming from every punch.

Once that's over with Mew starts attacking her more frequently and directly. Kairi has a struggle trying to get out of the way of his attacks.

Gabriel eventually steps in and catches one of Mew's kicks, remarking on how stiff Kairi's body is at the moment.

Mew thinks that's not going to help and wonders if they can help her calm down somehow. Kairi thinks it'd be easier if Gabriel was fighting, but Gabriel has very little experience in hand-to-hand.

Gabriel instead gives Kairi a quickly shoulder massage to loosen her body up, then allows Mew to continue his attempts at getting her to dodge.

She improves somewhat but quickly gets tense again. They can't keep massaging her shoulders though cause otherwise she'd turn to jello.

Eventually Kairi does manage a successful dodge and counterattack on Mew, knocking him back a little.

She feels proud of herself but refuses to give thanks to Mew for the aid...somewhat.

They keep the training up until dinner time rolls around, upon which all of them call it a night and decide to enjoy a meal.

The dinner time tension is still high but this time Mew tries to keep his mouth shut a little more.

Gabriel sparks a conversation with him first by asking where he was earlier. Mew reveals he went to what was essentially Kairi's school by accident.

Mew admits he didn't learn anything about her, except for meeting Bobby, who said he's a friend of the family.

The direction of the conversation is steered by Gabrel towards the direction of Kairi's grades. Kairi has been maintaining an "A" average despite everything.

Kairi hates this getting out because of Mew's opinion on it. Even though he's surprised to learn she's a genius, she ends up storming off in embarrassment.

Thus dinner becomes awkward yet again...

Later that night Mew has another talk with Auris, who tries to offer Mew some wine as a test, which he refuses.

Auris thanks him for liberating Gabriel of some of his burdens. Mew doesn't think he did TOO much, yet Auris remarks how sometimes all it takes is a little effort to make great changes.

She then wonders how his hunt for info on Gravitus has gone. Mew thinks he's not getting enough of the full picture with all these conflicting messages.

Some people are grateful to Gravitus, others hate him. Auris remarks that many of history's remembered leaders are like that, whether they were "good" or "bad".

Charisma is a dangerous tool and Gravitus wields it as well as he does his power. Despite that, Mew is urged to keep seeking the truth.

After teasing Mew on his feelings around Kairi, Auris asks how her training is going. Mew's not feeling confident he can make a fighter out of her soon enough, hoping that maybe Auris can help tomorrow.

But Auris has her reasons not to fight, and wishes Mew good luck before heading up to bed.

"D." then bugs Mew after a long silence, remarking on the state of Auris' bracelet...Or rather, the lack of stones on it.

Mew doesn't think that's too odd given the Planetary Aurians, but "D." has another theory regarding her lies...She refuses to admit she's weak and feeble now, and is using her pitying gazes and sultry wiles to make Mew do exactly whatever she wants her to do.

Mew rolls his eyes and lays down to sleep. But not long after he tries, Kairi comes down in her pajamas for a drink of water.

She happened to overhear him talking to himself, so Mew has to hastily explain away "D." by claiming he's just talking about his dreams.

Kairi buys it only because she's sleepy and annoyed. She grabs her cup of water, then heads up to bed. Mew lies down, preparing for another day of fighting the Planetary Aurians.

The next morning Mew skips out on breakfast again to go tackle a couple more Planetary Aurians. Kairi quickly scarfs down her food and demands to go with him.

Mew knows she isn't ready yet but Kairi, in her own reluctant way, thinks she can learn more by coming with and watching him.

Mew accepts and they head out, meeting Gabriel along the way. Gabriel warns Mew that Jupiter and Saturn are a little different than everyone else so far, then heads into the house to wait for their return.

The trip to the next floor in the Pyramid reveals a bunch of weight lifting equipment and some incredibly heavy weights being lifted.

Kairi groans at the idea of facing another musclehead like Mew, which Mew takes in stride. The two of them head into the next portal but don't go to the planet Jupiter itself, but rather one of its icy moons, Europa.

Gravity's still harsh here but not to a degree that it keeps Kairi from moving.

Mew's then forced to pull Kairi down before they're both taking out by the descent of the next Planetary Aurian. A fine and muscular, bountifully energetic woman amazon greets them, referring to herself as Noel, a Galactic Patrolwoman.

She wastes no time with the greetings, leaving Kairi completely flustered that a woman could be so ripped.

Jupiter then asks who she'll be fighting and Mew steps up, saying he's got the strength of a million men in one. Jupiter laughs, thinking that won't be nearly enough to take her down, and rears her fists for battle.

The two clash head-on and immediately break apart a large chunk of the moon, drawing blood from their foreheads.

Thus begins his battle against the Bloodfist Demon, Aurian Jupiter.

Mew is barely able to keep up with Jupiter's inhuman strength as she matches him blow for blow while showing off some incredible boxing techniques to take advantage of his rash thinking.

When Mew starts trying to play to his usual tricks, she manages to see right through them and tanks through the attacks or ignores them entirely.

Forced to play to her game of fighting face-to-face, fist-to-fist, Mew starts trying to concentrate on dodging around her attacks and hitting whatever openings he can.

But her body is build like the goddamn moon and she refuses to crumble to a few measly punches. That's when she starts busting out her Drive and another secret technique.

Her Drive allows her to extend the range of her punches and kicks at the cost of using half their strength. But that matters little when she's able to double the size of her limb muscles at will.

Utilizing both these techniques, Jupiter eventually throws Mew AAAALL the way to the gaseous moon of Io, where the fight continues to escalate.

Mew finds sanctity in the fact that the change in environment allows him to switch up tactics a little and strike her from behind the cover of acid geysers.

She starts busting out triple sized muscles and their fight continues to tear this moon apart, summoning fiercer and deadlier geysers.

Mew eventually tricks her into a powerful volcanic geyser to knock her off her feet, where he assails her for a while and attempts to drag her back to Europa.

But Jupiter quickly gains the upper-hand back with physics defying punches that allows her to tackle and grapple Mew right back into Europa's surface.

Then she quadruples the size of her muscles and goes in for two blitzing punches to finish the job.

In a haste Mew turns his arms into adamantium to tank her punches, which reverberates out from behind his back and shatters the moon apart.

Mew managed to survive and delivers one quick blow to Jupiter's gut to win the fight.

Both fighters tuckered out give each other compliments for a great fight and then help each other up.

Mew then quickly tries to search for Kairi, finding her paralyzed on one of the fragments of the moon from the SHEER absurdity of the power she just witnessed.

Mew tells her she'll be able to fight opponents like that herself one day, and Jupiter chides him for being a moron about her feelings.

Nevertheless she stamps his hand and assures him that a friend of hers will fix the moon up like always.

Jupiter's reasoning for helping Gravitus is that she's able to pursue truth and justice by taking down the bad guys standing in his way.

Mew logs those words away and hopes to have a rematch with her one day.

Jupiter then asks him, on a very big IF chance, they run into her younger sister later down the line, to let her know she'll be coming to visit soon.

Mew and Kairi move on, while Jupiter collapses and chooses to leave everything up to someone named "Cat".

Mew takes a brief respite to get the kinks out of his muscles, during which Kairi wonders how the hell he is able to face such monsters.

Mew admits to having not done as much world-saving as he claimed in the past, which only confuses the matter further for Kairi.

Mew says that the strength he has comes from his heart and the ability to know that what you're doing is right. He thinks Kairi can figure that out herself one day, and hope she does.

They move on to the next floor and find it technologically themed. Its time to face the brains of Gravitus' forces, obviously.

They arrive outside the rings of Saturn and wait it out for their guest of honor to arrive. Which they do, via a spaceship and a beam of light.

Said person is a super energetic young woman with violet hair and an overzealous sense of justice. Boasting and bragging about stopping evil, she remarks how she knew her confrontation with the "villainous" Elemental Overlord would be soon upon her.

Mew's shocked to find himself on the opposite end of the law for once but rolls with it, matching her boasts of victory with some of his own.

Kairi just wants to get the hell out of here before she gets a headache but Mew forces her to stick behind and watch.

Saturn has their battleground all planned out and directs Mew to the rings of the planet, which are coated over into a rink through her spaceship.

She then raises a watch and summons a battle suit, proclaiming herself to be Galaxy Rider Saturn, the Techno Minded Mistress and superheroine of the stars.

Mew's grinning with excitement at fighting such an overwhelming opponent and engages in battle readily, the two of them sprinting around the rings of Saturn as the first blows are exchanged.

Mew can't even detect the materials composing Saturn's suit, the only thing he catches being that it doesn't run on electricity.

She whips around the field at blitzing speeds, forcing Mew on the defensively about similarly to how he dealt with Jupiter.

But with her brain being her strongest muscle, she's able to calculate out her routes many steps in advance and Mew's only barely able to land a hit upon her suit.

Saturn quickly busts out her power, the Containment Drive, to constrain Mew and stop his attacks. Though she's quick to reveal its name and such, Mew pieces together that there's more to it than she's letting on.

Turns out one of said secrets is its ability to contain force down to the atomic level, which allows her to generate high quantities of explosive heat on a whim by vibrating down to the atomic level via her suit's functions.

After hitting Mew with a Burning Finger, Saturn boasts that she's going to win handily and Mew's not inclined to disagree.

He starts trying to work out how to dismantle her battlesuit, manage to deliver the first cut to it with his sword. But it repairs quickly with nanofibers, with Saturn boasting it repairs and protects her from any outside harm.

This gives Mew an idea to start attacking her inside with earthquake punches. But his efforts only last a little while before Saturn uses the vibrations in her suit to counter his vibrations.

Saturn stands tall and triumphant, prepared to finish Mew off by forging a Giga Drill Breaker attack out of her air in combination with her suit's vibrations creating the necessary centrifugal force.

Yet this puts her exactly where Mew wants her. He pulls out an ace in the hole by summoning vibranium around his arms to deflect her drill's incredible force back against her.

Saturn goes nuts in a rather erotic fashion at the fact that Mew busted out a long dead metal to face her. She's ashamed that he wastes his incredible powers for evil ends, but still decides to call him a worthy opponent for standing tall for this long.

Saturn then activates her trump card "Protocol Neo", which causes her suit to burst open with a powerful silver-white aura and increasing her powers and speed immeasurably.

She uses this moment to bash Mew around for a couple seconds and then tries to finish him off with a Moonlight Butterfly, the spread of her wings parting the gases of Saturn in half.

She lands a clean hit on Mew's frozen body but at the last second Mew manages to throw a punch into her gut, breaking his arm but keeping her from dealing the final blow.

Saturn murmurs aloud, wondering if this defeat means her justice was wrong. Mew says no, saying that she just merely lost the battle.

She perks right up and decides to call this a learning experience, stamping Mew's hand and declaring them to now be rivals.

Though Mew's won here, he'll never stop Gravitus' plans for peace. She departs on her ship, leaving Mew confused as to how the heck someone like her would work for Gravitus.

He meets back up with Kairi and tries to feign having an injury so she won't make a comment, but she manages to trick him into raising said injured arm and chews him out anyways.

Mew assures her he'll be fine quickly and has them head on back to the house so they can resume training.

On their way out of the Pyramid they happen to run into Saturn right away. Turns out she's the one in charge of maintenance around here, which is what she had been flying around in space for until they interrupted her.

So she goes off to do her thing and Mew and Kairi leave back to the house. After getting Gabriel up to date on who they beat, Mew decides to teach Kairi all about aerial combat.

But there's just one problem...Kairi can't fly worth her beans. She's been constrained by the rules in Sancturia that prevents anyone underage from flying, lest they recklessly expose Sancturia to the world.

Mew, like always, thinks it'll be easy to teach her and at this point in time Kairi's not even inclined to disagree that his training has proved results.

It proves to be a pretty simple lesson overall though. Mew tells her that in order to fly, she has to concentrated on pushing her energy outward like a series of tiny jets. Its a careful process but once she figures it out, it comes as second nature to her and she's able to go flying around all of Sancturia with ease.

...Sooooo naturally she starts showing off and Gabriel's tasked with keeping an eye on her before she gets into trouble.

Mew, meanwhile, decides to rest and hopes to get his arm fixed up. He's greeted by Auris covered his face playfully with her chest. Afterwards she offers to help his arm feel better.

Her aura allows his muscles' natural healing to kick in at a much faster pace, which heals his sore muscles in a matter of seconds.

All she wants in return is to talk about his thoughts now that he's gotten as far as he has.

Mew wants to know what the deal with Saturn is, given she's working for Gravitus so easily. Mew doesn't believe that any amount of charisma would cause someone as justice loving to work for Gravitus if he's as big of a threat as Auris worries he is.

Auris remarks how its not a matter of what Gravitus has said, but what he's not saying. Every Planetary Aurian is oblivious to all the things he's been up to behind the scenes.

Mew wants clarification about what that means and Auris cites Gabriel as an example. The truth isn't that she is being used as a hostage to keep him in line...But rather, that Gabriel is the hostage being used to keep HER in line.

Mew grows a little tired of her being vague with her hints and quiet with answers. The further he's been going up the Pyramid the harder it is to trust that Auris has been telling him the truth about Gravitus. Its starting to feel like he's overthrowing a benevolent ruler.

Auris vows to give him not just one good reason to trust her, but two, and draws a sharp butcher's knife to her neck.

Without hesitation she delivers a clean cut across her neck. Despite Mew's efforts to stop her, it proves to be pointless. Though blood splatters on both knife and robe, there is no scar to speak of on her flesh.

"D." takes full glee in telling Mew that he told him so, as Mew collapses back onto the couch in disbelief.

Auris reveals that the full extent of her immortality doesn't just keep her from being old and withered. Her father's "gift" to her is truly eternal life. She cannot grow old, she cannot be killed, not unless every molecule of her being is obliterated.

Mew can only wonder how she wound up like that, and that is the second reason to trust her that Auris plans to reveal.

She only pulls back a tiny bit of her robe to reveal a gruesome dark crimson scar burned into her skin. Mew feels deadly ill until she conceals it. The scar has a name...The Anti-Genesis Theorem.

Its a magic formula the Ten Sages created as an answer to the Elemental Overlord. It is the complete inverse of the ten elements, and any beings who rely on elemental energy grow weaker in its presence. And when the formula is grafted into a person's body, it creates abnormal powers far beyond mortal comprehension.

Auris calls her immortality and clairvoyance both a blessing and a curse, but assures Mew that Kairi did not gain its power from her.

Mew's left to ponder on this for only the short time until Kairi returns, gasping at the state of her mom's robe.

Auris saves the situation by calling the blood a spaghetti stain, then returns to the kitchen without breaking her stride.

Mew staggers back to the dojo to resume training on aerial combat. Its all about teaching Kairi how to balance the momentum of her attacks with the momentum of her flight.

While she's busy working on that, Mew has a talk in his head with "D." about what he saw. "D." can't believe he'd still trust Auris at this point.

Mew still has his doubts about her but is willing to keep working with her for now. However, he realizes now that Kairi knows nothing about how far Auris' immortality goes.

He tries to strike up a conversation about how Kairi feels about her mother, but that just causes her to get flustered and storm off upstairs.

Gabriel deduces that Mew learned something he shouldn't have, and Mew has no choice but to tell him about the Anti-Genesis Theorem.

Gabriel believes Auris wouldn't have done that without good reason, but warns Mew against telling Kairi. Kairi knows about the normal immortality, just none of the other stuff that comes with it, such as the clairvoyance and inability to be wounded.

Its a burden Auris must deal with on her own. Hearing that makes Mew realize too that the subject of Kairi's father has really not come up so far.

It doesn't get far though before Kairi comes back with a drink of water. Mew promptly apologizes for his rude behavior and tries to let her hit him as compensation.

She restrains herself, wanting to do something that'll actually make a difference, like continuing her training.

However, Mew needs Gabriel's help for the next part, as he wants to learn all about Aurian Drives.

Gabriel starts off by explaining how aura is connected to an Aurian's body like a second bloodstream. But there's a gap that keeps the loop from completing, and its only able to be filled by an invisible spike present in each Drive.

Aurians are defenseless until they are eight years old. They are given their new Drives at the Archives in the North Side of Sancturia by Lady Auris, who would know best how to hand them out.

The Drive an Aurian receives is determined from birth thanks to a spiritual connection to the Aura.

Remembering what "D." said before about Auris once having two Drives, Mew decides to ask how come Aurians don't all just have multiple Drives.

Turns out while it IS possible for an Aurian to have two Drives, its a rarity and only happens with the utmost strongest of Aurians.

Fortunately the ability to wield two Drives doesn't change much biologically. An Aurian only needs one Drive to spark their ability to use aura.

This leads Mew to ask why Gabriel doesn't have a Drive on him. The circumstances behind him and the other Planetary Aurians are different from the rest, but by principle how their Drives function is the same.

Over time either via age or overuse, an Aurian's Drive will dissolve into their body. The Drives acting as nutrients and adrenaline being a type of enzyme, the comparison Mew makes surprising both Kairi and Gabriel.

Gabriel then teaches Mew about the tier systems in Drives. Tier 1 Drives being the weakest, and Tier 5 Drives being the strongest.

Gabriel cites the Planetary Aurian's Drives for reference, noting how his Drive qualifies as a Tier 4 one. But its not to say that the tiers decide who wins a fight. It just determines how strong the concept implanted into the Drive is. Tier 4 and 5 Drives are considered rare, as there is only one of each concept represented available at a time.

To Gabriel's best of knowledge, no one among the current generation of Aurians owns a Tier 5 Drive, not even Gravitus.

Gravitus, unsurprisingly, owns the Gravity Drive. Mew has a hearty laugh at how stupid that sounds, but then buckles down and realizes that gravity is a dangerous power to be contending with.

Now that he has all this info Mew is able to help Kairi figure out how to use her Beast Tamer Drive. First he wants to hear from her mouth about its limits, abilities, and the like.

Once she lays out the details with little confidence Mew realizes that Kairi only seems to be able to summon one beast at a time.

It'll be a hard deal to work with but he's persistent on trying to break her limits a little.

Mew decides to recreate their fight outside the Pyramid but this time, he's pushing her brain to figure out alternative ways to beat the moves he made.

She learns how to summon flying creatures to slice through projectiles or disarm traps away from her, then shift creatures around mid-attack to maneuver underneath opponents and catch them off-guard. Finally, Mew manages to push her to try and summon two creatures at once to take advantage of his vulnerable legs.

But putting all of this into practice, Kairi manages to disarm Mew and pin her staff against his face.

She's so happy to have succeeded, especially when Mew praises her for a job well done.

They decided to practice some more into the night, about when dinner comes around.

Breaking character, Mew politely thanks Auris for letting him join them in their family meals.

Kairi thinks Mew doesn't get along with his parents. Worse actually, his parents are dead.

It hurts Kairi to even think about not having her mom around, and she becomes increasingly baffled and confused at how Mew can be so happy all the time when he's living...alone.

Mew expertly drops the topic and asks her about her great interest in Earth culture, believing she wants to live down there someday.

Kairi has a freak-out and leaves the table promptly.

After dinner Mew tries to talk to her in her room but she tells him to buzz off. He apologizes, not knowing what he did.

In her bedroom, Kairi's squeezing her headband tightly and murmuring about Shina...

Meanwhile, in another part of Sancturia, Saturn wraps up her maintenance for the day and meets with a man hiding in the shadows...The same "Disgraced King" that troubled Gabriel before.

The two discuss Saturn's failure and the Disgraced King's confidence in Gravitus' inevitable victory.

The Disgraced King is Aurian Pluto, who vows not to lose to a "shadow of the past" like she did, preparing to face the Elemental Overlord when the two before him ultimately fall.

Saturn awaits what comes next, as it'll prove to be very interesting.

The next day Kairi awakens to find Mew not laying down on the couch, thinking he left without her. Turns out no, he was just waiting for her to get up and is currently chowing down breakfast.

Today Mew wants her to fight a Planetary Aurian, with Auris even vouching for his decision. Kairi's hesitant to try, but brings herself to give it a try regardless.

With Gabriel's warning of the last three being the most dangerous, they head to the next floor of the Pyramid. They wind up finding the planet Uranus covered in ice creams and laid out with sweets galore.

The culprit is another childish little girl dancing around without a care in the world. The only abnormal thing about her is her pale white skin and tendency to rhyme.

Kairi has to bring herself to attack a child, choosing not to underestimate her after what happened with Venus and Mars.

Uranus brings out some gum drop golems to trouble Kairi, which she dispatches with ease following Mew's advice.

Uranus seems to get annoyed and moves on to create some strange golems that don't seem so nice, and shocks Kairi by wishing for her creations to eviscerate her.

Thus unveils the true form of Uranus as the Dessert Demonness. Though looking like the same little girl, Uranus commands her creations with more meaner rhymes.

But through most of the training Mew gave her, Kairi is able to capitalize on Uranus' openings and secure a swift and decisive victory, even when the girl escalates things with a mountain-sized ice cream monster.

She knocks her out gently but then worries about her state of mind. Mew teases her for caring and she gets annoyed at him for thinking she cared so little about others.

Mew does agree that they should probably not keep Uranus here and prepare to head back when they suddenly have a run-in with Michael.

Michael, as it turns out, is Uranus' older brother, and her real name is Vivi.

Uranus used to once be a person who could use heat, like him, but the people who could use the cold kidnapped her and used black magic to try and convert her incredible temperature potential to their side.

They succeeded, all too well. The transformation of Vivi from hot to cold is what froze over their entire planet and put Michael and Raphael in the situation that made them Mercury.

Vivi is trapped inside of her own head, while her conscious self treats the world like a dream. Michael's been hoping for Gravitus to save her as well, and that's another reason why he trusts him so much.

Kairi feels pity for the two of them and hopes something will happen. Michael thanks her for caring, saying that she seems nicer than she did before, which embarrasses Kairi.

Michael takes Vivi in his hands and decides to watch over her until she inevitably wakes up again, back into her prison of dreams.

Its a somber moment for the two as they leave the brother and sister behind and go to the next floor...

Kairi's starting to get that the world is a lot bigger than she initially thought, and its not just her problems that matter.

Mew forces her to take a break while he tackles the next Planetary Aurian, cause they're too close to be taking risks.

The next floor is completely blank save for a giant golden gate blocking off a portal. Using the strange button on the side to get a V.I.P. Ticket, the gate then opens up and a person walks through.

What appears to be the next Planetary Aurian is a half-dragon half-human wearing a snazzy suit. She greets them politely, inviting them through the portal to the planet Neptune.

But its not what either Mew or Kairi could've expected. Instead of the gas giant they are greeted by a bustling casino full of multiple alien races gambling.

The woman escorting them then introduces herself as Priscilla Silverfang, taking them on a brief tour of Casino Neptune.

Priscilla explains the casino's primary function is to act as a melting pot for multiple alien races. Needless to say though that leads to some scuffles. But Priscilla proves her strength by taking down a couple rowdy customers with ease.

Mew's looking forward to fighting her but Priscilla brushes him off as not worth her time. Not to mention she's not the Planetary Aurian. That person...is the manager of this casino.

She uses their V.I.P. Ticket to take a special train up to the central building between the main casino and the parking lot.

Inside they find another woman calmly playing pool by her lonesome, dressed in a snazzy tuxedo.

She quickly trots up and teases Priscilla, before the two show no hesitation in kissing each other before their guests.

A whole new world is opened up to Kairi while Mew is surprised that the Planetary Aurian here is a lesbian with a wife.

Kairi can't believe that Neptune is a girl even with all the hints Neptune and Mew give her.

Mew wants to get right to fighting, and Neptune nods at Priscilla. Priscilla then takes Kairi elsewhere, the poor girl still flustered by what she had learned.

Mew hopes she'll be alright then focuses on Neptune. What she wants is sort of what Seth did. A simple game of pool, just the two of them.

Mew's not too familiar with the sport but is willing to give it a shot. His particular choice of pool stick among the many jeweled ones intrigues Neptune, who had been hoping for an opponent like him.

She introduces her real name as Belle, but insists that only two people can call her that. One is Priscilla, but the other one she keeps hidden for the moment.

Once the two start playing, however, Neptune surprises him by revealing that Jupiter, of all people, is her older sister.

While they play Neptune explains their story, as Mew realizes he never actually got it from Jupiter to begin with.

They were orphaned at a young age due to their parents dying, with Jupiter forced to scrounge for food and clothes to keep them both healthy.

Every day was a struggle, but Neptune could do little to provide for them both. One day though, when they went to the largest city on the planet, Neptune tried to wander out to find something unique to help them both.

But in doing so she was kidnapped by mobsters and taken under their boss' wing as a servant. To her surprise though he cared for her, providing her with clothes, food, and teaching her how to use magic.

She lived in this casino for six years separated from her sister. She longed to see her again, but had no idea where she was, and did not know what freedom was like.

The boss had her enslaved with acts of kindness, and as it turns out, he had dreaded plans with his casino.

Him and his crew were actually demons harvesting the greed off of their customers to fuel the creation of more, stronger demons in service of an unknown master.

Neptune tried to learn more magic in secret in hopes of beating the demon lord. When she was finally ready to put her plans into action, however, she had a surprising reunion with her sister, who had trained to become part of the police force over the past six years.

The two took down the demon lord together, and he cursed Neptune's betrayal, as he had honestly came to see her as a daughter.

After some investigations and the like the casino was shut down, but the funds in their possession couldn't be confiscated because as it turns out the casino was legally purchased. Instead, all that money was handed off to Neptune via a will the demon lord had left.

Neptune decided she wanted to open her own casino, as she liked the idea, just not the purpose it was used for.

It wasn't exactly going too well for her until Gravitus came along though. He made a good business pitch about his ideals for peace and then managed to provide good advertising for her casino in exchange for 10 percent of the profit.

Mew wants to know how Priscilla fits into all this, but Neptune refuses to tell her tale for her.

So instead, Mew wants to know what Gravitus' pitch was.

Neptune calls him a man with unbridled ambition and the will to make his dreams a reality. And so far, in the two-thousand years since he started his empire, he's brought hundreds of planets peace and prosperity.

Mew can't believe what he's hearing for even one second, as he's been described as a tyrant this whole time.

Neptune wonders how a tyrant could feed and clothe children, shield worlds from the horrors of war, or keep the tides from drowning civilizations.

She also cites that Saturn would never serve a tyrant, not for any reason at all.

Though Neptune owes Gravitus a lot, ultimately their relationship boils down to being business partners. Even if Mew DOES get to Gravitus and somehow kill him, she won't try and avenge him.

Despite hearing all this though, Mew still thinks something's not right and chooses to keep his opinions to himself.

During that conversation their game of pool had reached an end. Mew had managed to land a few balls in, but he's still the loser.

Now they can move on to the REAL fight. Neptune sinks the pool table into the floor and then uses a spell on Mew to triple his weight with none of the outside effects on his muscles or flesh.

She then unveils a large crowd of aliens gathered in the dome, declaring this to be a once in a lifetime show. She demands the crowd place their bets on which of them will win...And with an overwhelming majority, everyone is either confident in Neptune's abilities, or hate the Elemental Overlord a lot.

She then takes her pool stick and flies off the ground like she's riding a witch's broom, summoning a few pool balls around her, prepared to face him as the Gambling Empress, Aurian Neptune.

In the stands, Priscilla and Kairi emerge, with Kairi running up to the glass to see what's going on with Mew.

While she's distracted, Priscilla puts her claws to Kairi's neck and remarks on her being the "one". She then demands Kairi not move or speak, otherwise as the Scourge Draconis, she'll apply a sleep toxin to her neck. She plans to deliver her to Gravitus either way, regardless of the very slim chance Belle loses.

Mew is forced to be quick on his feet while the extra weight proves to be a handicap for a time. Fortunately his sword didn't get the weight boost otherwise he'd be unable to swing it.

Neptune flies around the battlefield, using pool balls, magic cards and many other tricks and treats to mystify Mew and gain a quick upper hand.

Mew eventually gets backed into a corner and appears like he'll lose. Kairi, recalling Mew's other advice, manages to sneak a hit in on Priscilla and lay her out on the ground to free herself.

Priscilla chooses not to make a fuss in a crowded area and accepts that Kairi's tougher than she let on. But states that she won't be able to save Mew now.

Nevertheless, Kairi screams for Mew to succeed and her voice seems to have resonated enough to push Mew past his limits temporarily.

Mew forces himself against Neptune's finishing attack and then socks her extra hard, knocking her to the floor, and winning the fight.

In the aftermath the crowd scatters, with Priscilla returning to the arena wheelbarrowing in a ton of gold and jewels.

Turns out the sole person who bet on Mew...was Neptune.

It was a win-win scenario for her. Either she wins and the fame brought about by defeating the Elemental Overlord brings in more customers, or she runs away with all their betting money by losing.

Mew thinks that's pretty shady but as Neptune remarks, its better the money be in her hands than that of warmongers. Ultimately she's not a pure soul, a greedy person at that, but if she can stop wars and slavery by robbing criminals of their hard-owned cash, then her greed is doing some good.

Mew accepts that answer, reluctantly, then takes the stamp off Neptune and reunites with Kairi, who is flustered over Mew's ignorance over hearing her voice.

They leave, while Neptune and Priscilla decide to do some love-making atop their treasure hill.

Kairi is left wondering a lot of stuff about sexual relations, and Mew decides to just keep her in the dark for her sake...

On the way down the Pyramid Kairi decides to split off to go have lunch somewhere. She tries to "hint" that she wants Mew to come with but he stays woefully ignorant.

In truth though he wants to go say hi to Auris about what Neptune had told him. Needless to say the situation has gotten more complex than what he had originally signed up for.

Auris admits that her and Gabriel are inherently biased against Gravitus, while the Planetary Aurians only know what Gravitus wants them to know.

So how can the truth about a "tyrant" who delivers a "tyranny of peace" upon two-hundred worlds be exposed? Why, by having the man himself admit the truth.

Auris says at the moment, despite all Mew's done, he only has a 25 percent chance of success.

So she tells him a couple details that only she can reveal at this point. One, is the origin of Gravitus' power lust. Since he was a servant of the Ten Sages, Gravitus felt his potential was being wasted. The moment he was freed, he seized the empty throne in Sancturia without hesitation.

But he has no limit to what he wants. He'll aspire to become the strongest so that he'll never be beneath anyone again.

Yet as Mew points out, he can't get the Neo Drive, remembering what Gabriel said about Kairi being the worthy one.

Auris can't say what it means to be worthy, only that the answer is closer to her than she realizes.

Now with this talk, the odds of winning at at 35 percent, but the rest is up to Mew.

Mew decides he needs to make some moves now and has a plan.

He goes around Sancturia and asks a ton of Aurians what they feel about Gravitus and his policies, writing down the answers until his notepad is nearly full.

For the last page he wants to talk to Bobby specifically, remembering that he had important things to discuss when they last met.

He luckily catches him just getting out of some summer school stuff with elementary kids and plans to tell him what he's been up to.

But before the questioning can really start Kairi rolls up, having waited long enough for him to get back home.

Bobby recognizes her after a time, as she looks more mature than the last time they saw each other. He heard the trouble she's been getting up to over the last year.

Kairi tries to brush that all off by bragging about her accomplishments in beating some of the Planetary Aurians.

Mew groans while Bobby berates her for rebelling against Gravitus that much.

Bobby tells her she can't fight Gravitus. Its not about fighting him for Kairi, she wants him dead.

Bobby says that'll accomplish NOTHING, and she'll just die for some stupid revenge.

Kairi yells at him that she needs to kill him and it doesn't matter what it means for anyone else.

Bobby then screams that throwing her life away won't bring Shina back, and Kairi goes completely mute. She stutters towards Mew, finding herself in an awkward situation, and then runs off looking frightened.

Bobby then gets pissed off at Mew for getting Kairi involved in this mess, but Mew honestly didn't know revenge was on the table here.

He then asks Bobby who Shina is, and he explains...

Shina is Kairi's older sister and Bobby's best friend. She was a bundle of endless energy who was very selfless and helpful, and loved Kairi very much.

Yet one day Shina just...vanished without a trace or a clue.

Kairi's been without her sister for two years now, and its affected her greatly. Bobby seems to have taken it poorly too, its clear he loved Shina.

Bobby wonders how he could be so pathetic, just letting life move on like nothing terrible happened. He asks Mew if he's weak, but Mew can't really answer that honestly.

Even if Bobby had tried to hold Shina back, she would've left anyways to save her sister.

Bobby knows Mew's right, but hates to admit it. All he can do now is beg Mew not to let Kairi suffer the same fate.

However, Mew thinks otherwise, and hands Bobby the filled out notepad, telling him there's still a chance for him to make a difference.

Leaving him with those vague words, Mew decides he has to return back to the Aurora household to talk with Kairi. Along the way, he wonders how his brother Riku might be doing...

He knows he's not the best person to help Kairi out, but he's damn well going to try. He can't just let her hurt like this.

He's all alone in facing her grief and it doesn't really start off well, but Mew tells her that she can't just face her grief alone, or hold it in forever.

He sits outside her bedroom door while she gets angry at him for even ASSUMING he knows what her pain feels like, because he doesn't even care that he doesn't have a family.

Mew reveals he does still have a family, somewhat. His brother, Riku, though he only knew him for a day, it hurt to see him go off do handle his duties as an Elemental Overlord.

So while he's never felt the pain to the extent Kairi has, he does know what its like to lose family, and wouldn't want anyone to suffer that.

She's not alone right now though. She has her mother, Gabriel, and even him, if she wants. He doesn't press it any farther than that, and leaves back downstairs.

There he runs into Auris, who stops any attempt on his part to sympathize with her losing a daughter.

She cuts right to the chase, denying "D.'s" attempts at subterfuge by stating how she never brought Mew here to be her tool of vengeance.

Auris curses herself for not being a good enough mother to protect her children from all manner of harm. She taught them all she could, but there comes a point where they have to be entrusted with their futures.

She asks Mew if she can be called either good or evil.

Despite everything, Mew thinks Auris is a good person. That's what his heart and eyes tell him.

Auris thinks he's blind, just this once. She claims the existence of her children are living proof of her failure as a person. She loved them as much as she could, but there's just some things she can't provide help with.

Mew understands that that is why he was brought up, to help out with Kairi where Auris could not.

There's more to it than that, and Auris pulls out an orb that causes Mew to hear the echo of his own voice in his head.

This orb is an emergency call artifact that her and the original Elemental Overlord had put together, just in case she needed help.

The voice Mew had heard before coming to Sancturia, as it turns out, was Kairi, begging for help.

Mew's shocked and has to have some space to think this through, which Auris chooses to respect.

Over the course of the night, Kairi continues to have panic attack after panic attack over her feelings towards Mew. She can't stop seeing him as another Shina, and feels Mew is trying to replace her in her head.

The next day, Mew is practicing in the dojo until Kairi comes down. He tries to be nice, but she immediately attacks him, showing on mercy as he goes on the defensive.

She's tired of his bullshit and tells him that she never wanted his help. She wants him to go away and leave her alone.

But Mew refuses to yield on any promise, even if it pisses her off so much.

Kairi can never understand why he cares so much about this city of assholes, or why he helps a total stranger like her. He can try as much as he wants, but he'll NEVER replace Shina.

But that was NEVER Mew's intention to begin with.

Kairi loses all strength to fight and drops to her knees. Mew hopes she'll be ready to talk now.

She assumes he'll ridicule her, like everyone else.

It finally gets down to the crux of the matter...That Kairi wishes Shina had taken her away from this dumb city and its dumb people.

Ever since the day she disappeared, everyone suddenly turned on Shina, calling her a traitor and loser.

It got to Kairi quickly, and she filled the absence of sisterly love in her heart without righteous hate. She started using her strength to punish everyone who crapped on Shina's name, even the adults.

And it felt GOOD.

But no matter how much she beat people up, it was never going to bring Shina back. And it was slowly starting to feel like maybe everyone was right, that Shina DID fight Gravitus and died...

Mew agrees with what Bobby said in that Kairi's revenge is just going to get her killed.

But what choice does she have? Gravitus is the only one who knows the truth.

However, Mew didn't do all this training so she could lord her power over others.

Kairi screams that everyone deserves it for what they've done. And Mew's having NONE of that.

He gives a speech about how while yeah, Aurians, much like humans, can be stupid and ignorant, but that doesn't make them evil because of what comes out of their mouth.

The best "revenge" against people like that is to be the better person. And to really nail it in, Mew tells Kairi that if their situations were reversed, its doubtful Shina would go beat people up.

Kairi's forced to admit he's right, but it makes little difference to her because she doesn't give a FUCK about her fellow Aurians.

Mew doesn't want to go around making friends with these people but to just...lay off them so they can show their true colors. And if there's assholes after that, just ignore them.

She can't understand how someone like Mew can exist. But to Mew, he can only describe himself as one of Kairi's friends.

Kairi wonders when she lost her innocence and kindness, but Mew doesn't think she's lost either, given how she treated Venus and Uranus.

To diffuse their tension, Mew hopes they can get some training in since they still got time...Or so he assumed.

Suddenly a powerful wave of power flushes through Sancturia, coming from the Pyramid.

They both head outside and find that Gravitus has returned earlier than expected on his spaceship, and he declares his intentions to make his people take the next step towards evolution.

Basically daring Mew to come and greet him, he sinks into the Pyramid via a beam.

There's really no more time to wait and plan out an attack. Gravitus has forced their hand, and worst of all there's still one Planetary Aurian standing between them and the top.

Hyping Kairi up for the final battle, Mew and her dash off to the Pyramid for the final battles.

The two of them storm the Pyramid and make their way to the penultimate floor. There they find the remains of ruins, and the last portal.

Taken straight to Pluto, the two cautiously approach the final Planetary Aurian. The Disgraced King, Plutonian the Third.

Sitting upon a dirty golden throne, the man with elven features takes no time in calling the two beneath himn, and dirtying the name of those they had fought before him.

When Mew calls out his arrogance and what right he has to it, Pluto scoffs and prepares to detail the story of his upbringing and what brought him to this moment.

The planet was once grander than even Jupiter in size, with a kingdom that far surpassed many in the universe. But it was ruled by a tyrant, Plutonian's father.

Pluto had chosen to live a life of empathy towards his people, his father calling kindness a waste on the weak. Yet defying those words, Pluto took to learning dark magic to overpower his father, leading a rebellion of his people against him.

Pluto took the reign as the new king, and filled with a desire to help others secure peace, wanted to spread the wealth of their kingdom to other worlds.

But his people, having toiled under the tyranny of his father for so long, wondered what other planets had ever done for them.

Pluto agreed, and allowed them rest for the moment to think of what peace is like.

Yet as centuries passed, his people only got lazier and lazier. Losing what qualified as respect for their king, the people denied his wishes, and it began to get under his skin.

He began to create soldiers of minerals to mine from the planet and help other worlds. Yet the supplies were thinned from during his father's time, so he worked to try and expand them.

He came up with two magic swords, one that grows whatever it slices, and another that speeds the time of whatever it slashes. He had planned to grow the planet to even greater heights so there'd be more minerals to harvest.

That was not to be though. A group of miscreants broke into his palace and cursed his swords, reversing their purposes as a prank.

Thus when Pluto plunged his swords into the planet, he inadvertently doomed it. The planet began to shrink, slowly but surely.

The pranksters laughed at him behind his back, which proved to be the breaking point for Pluto. He took his swords and slaughtered the instigators, then with his body drenched in blood, chose to use their corpses as examples to the others and their lazy attitudes.

Yet it was far too late for his rage to change anything. Seeing the sorry state the planet would soon be in, his people abandoned the world on spaceships while he shot them down with chains of hatred.

Soon enough the planet's gravity was so thinned that the buildings crumbled off and floated into space as debris. Eventually, there was nothing but the barren wastes around him now, with the planet a pale reflection of its former glory.

Pluto sat alone in the ruins of his former kingdom, stewing in bitter hatred of his traitorous people. He reflected upon his father's words, and realized he was RIGHT. He wasted his kindness on weak, pitiful souls.

He did not fail as a king, for he had not been one during his reign. A proper king shows no mercy, shows no weakness. And if the gods would grant him a second chance, he would prove himself superior to all kings.

Over the next centuries of solitude he was greeted by a Sage that gave him the power of a Planetary Aurian, then met with Gravitus, showing him the strength of his resolve.

Ever since he has been the right hand of Gravitus.

And now, he will fulfill his purpose by killing Mew and capturing Kairi.

Despite Mew's objection Kairi wants to fight Pluto together. Mew sighs and agrees, saying that together they'll likely win quickly.

Pluto draws both his swords and crawls off his throne to fight them.

The two sloppily attack in tandem, with Mew doing his best to try and do most of the work, annoying Kairi after all that talk they had earlier.

Mew senses something is wrong with what Pluto is doing, as the king barely puts up an offensive and seems to not care about defending himself.

Mew tries to jump him from behind but when he does strikes his aura and bounces off.

Pluto then quickly works his dark chains and swords to separate the two, followed by mocking Kairi's eagerness in order to make her act rash.

Quickly binding her in chains and suspending her in the air, Pluto draws his blade at Kairi's body to hold Mew back long enough for him to invoke the Rite of Singularity...on her.

Mew's body gets cold and he tries to bluff Pluto into letting Kairi go so they can fight.

Pluto wonders how a hypocrite like him can make demands of a king. He tells him to rejoice, for he no longer has to play a hero in this sordid tale he invented.

Pluto calls Kairi nothing more than a prize in Mew's eyes, then remarks on his inability to invoke change in his world despite his god-like power.

Mew gives no answer, because its not worth discussing this with a corrupted failure of a king.

Pluto lays it out like it is, that Mew treated this whole trip as little more than a game in hopes of claiming his "princess" at the end. But there is no happy ending awaiting him. Pluto is the author of many ends, and Mew shall merely be another footnote in his path to glory.

He then reveals a terrifying truth...That Gravitus promised him that once he gets the Neo Drive, Pluto can rule over Mew's Earth as its new King.

As Mew grits his teeth, Pluto makes him one offer out of fairness. If he turns tail and runs, then he'll at least get to live a few more days stewing in regret.

Mew refuses to disarm his sword and thrusts it at Pluto, prepared to do everything he can to free Kairi and kill Pluto.

Pluto says there's no hope for him. The Rite prevents Mew from landing a hit on him without losing his life. And if he tries to cut Kairi free the Rite will trigger as well, since the chains bind her so tightly.

On top of that, that's assuming Mew could deal with Pluto's Drive, which is blessed by the divine to make him completely untouchable.

Mew doesn't believe anyone is invincible and prepares to face him.

Pluto draws his swords back out of the ground and declares his refusal to yield, for it is his duty as a King to remain strong against everything.

Mew tries to approach Pluto to check if the Rite truly works that way. The cold grip of death on his heart pulls him away before he lands a hit, and Pluto follows up on his hesitation by battering him with chains.

Pluto's dark magic has no connection to his aura, therefore, he's free to strike him as much as he wants. Pluto calls the Aurians fools for not abusing the Rite's rules to conquer armies with ease, but is glad to use its power to his benefit.

Mew gets gored and slashed by the chains and Pluto's swords. Every slash of Pluto's time sword causes his own personal time to slow, meaning his perception and thus reaction time becomes increasingly slower.

Recognizing he's being pushed into a corner but refusing to lose, Mew starts to slowly reach for the white trigger on his sword.

But Pluto hastens his slashes, putting Mew in a state where one second takes days in his mind. Pluto plans to take his sword of size to his heart, which will cause it to shrink and flood his chest with blood. But for Mew, it'll take YEARS for the pain to kill him.

Yet as Pluto moves to finish him off, Mew just barely manages to get his finger onto the white trigger. His body becomes consumed with Light, and he vanishes from Pluto's sight.

Pluto freezes as a diamond katana is put close to his neck, turning to find Mew now in Light Form.

Mew goes silent and sheathes his katana very, very slowly, the magic of Pluto's swords undone on him.

Mew uses blades of light to retaliate against Pluto's chains while light begins to glow out of his hilt.

Pluto continues to mock his futile resistance and tries to attack him, failing to land even a single hit as Mew either dodges or counters with light blades, never leaving his hunch over stance.

Kairi begins to awaken and, awed by Mew's new power, sees the state she's in and worries that Mew is going to try something dire to beat Pluto.

She remembers what Mew said about her staff and starts using what little strength she had to try and use it to break free from this magic.

Pluto mocks Mew for thinking about giving his life to save hers, calling his boldness little more than a last minute bluff of courage.

Mew remains silent, the planet beginning to tremble around them, much to Pluto's concern.

Mew's lack of response begins to enrage Pluto, who demands he acknowledge him instead of looking down upon him.

Then Pluto turns paler than before as he gazes up at the stars, noticing that Mew is drawing the light in from all around to power his katana.

Fearing that Mew plans to reap his soul, Pluto backs away and draws a sword at Kairi's neck, threatening her life should Mew not comply.

Yet right at that moment, two things occur to shatter his arrogance for good...

Kairi breaks free of her chains, and in that moment, Mew charges in, cleaving Pluto down his body with all the light he could muster in his blade.

And in doing so, his heart beats his last, and he collapses to the ground with a smile.

Kairi quickly runs over and tries to rustle him awake, but its too late. Her aura is nowhere near good enough to heal him, even if he was alive.

He gave his life for hers, because of HER mistake.

And worst of all...Pluto is still alive.

It drains him of all his remaining black magic, but Pluto manages to heal himself up enough to stand.

He drags himself over to Mew's corpse, prepared to "honor" his sacrifice by staining his own blades with the blood from his heart.

Kairi then blocks his blades with her staff and starts striking back against him, pushing him away, but failing to land a solid hit thanks to his Divine Drive.

She yells at him for mocking Mew when he doesn't understand anyone who isn't him and his fragile ego.

Finally declaring Mew to be her friend, Kairi's staff starts to resonate with light mysteriously and breaks through Pluto's Drive, allowing her to bash him into the ground.

She leaves him to bleed to death and prepares to leave with Mew's body, where she'll then head to the top floor and kill Gravitus.

Pluto finds the idea of Gravitus dying laughable, especially as Kairi could barely beat him on her own.

Suddenly, a ball of light drops from the sky and lands upon Mew, acting as a sort of jump start to his heart. He gasps awake, treating this like a normal occurrence.

Pluto demands an answer as to how he's alive.

Mew had gambled everything on a theory...He left behind a little bit of elemental energy when he emerged into Light Form and kept it floating above him at all times. Thus, if the Rite DID take his life, the energy would drop onto his body and feed him enough to bring him back to life.

Mew thinks it was fair game, seeing how Pluto cheated the rules too.

Pluto mumbles at him to savor a few more minutes of life, for Gravitus shall reap it soon enough. He then finally collapses.

Kairi's of course pissed at Mew for worrying her so much. Mew plays it off coolly for the most part but does acknowledge that he's sorry for worrying her.

With the last Planetary Aurian defeated and nothing standing between them and Gravitus, however, Mew wants to take a breather in the Pyramid.

But Kairi's worried about how Mew handled that fight, struggling to bring herself to confront him on that.

Mew takes a rest on the final staircase while Kairi gets in his face about not understanding how he is the way he is.

Since they don't have any idea if they'll make it back or not, Mew wants to get a few things off his chest and hopes she will too.

He starts off by admitting that Kairi is his first friend. Sure, the Planetary Aurians would be nice to hang out with but to Mew, a friend is someone you can talk to about anything.

He's not really close to humanity. He loves them, certainly, but there's a lot of fear on his mind about what would happen if he got too close to them.

Losing control of his power, putting them in the line of fire against another villain...Its why he was happy when he came to Sancturia, as he met people that were closer to him in power. Or so he thought...There's only a handful of people like that.

Kairi cites the strange angelic power he used as the reason why but while Mew laughs at that, he does note that he doesn't want to use his Light Form all the time.

Mew admits that he is a bit of a battle junkie, and over the last two years he's been feeling withdrawl while following a normal daily routine.

But he doesn't want to fight just cause. He wants a fight to be fun, or mean something. But its impossible for a fight to be both, and he apologizes to Kairi for holding back to satisfy his cravings.

But he felt like if he didn't do it, it'd be like abandoning his humanity.

Hearing him admit that makes it all come together in Kairi's head. Mew's kindness and fighting nature aren't contradictions. They're two halves of who he is.

He's been very honest about his feelings, but Mew admits "Not really" with some laughter in his voice.

And she's in the same boat. So Kairi comes right out and says that she doesn't want Mew to fight Gravitus, cause he's going to die.

Mew knows that's a risk but he has to take it. He's got no delusions of being immortal or the like, but he'll try his best.

Kairi doesn't think that'll be enough and offers to help him fight. But after seeing what happened with Pluto, Mew forces her to watch from the sidelines.

Mew does have an idea of what she can do to help, and asks her to tell him more about Shina.

Kairi talks a lot about some important memories the two of them shared over the years, including a promise she had made under the stars for the two of them to go live down on Earth together.

It helps explain her knowledge of certain things and also why she has that headband dangling around her neck. That thing was Shina's last gift to Kairi. Unfortunately its rather small for her now...But the word "Hope" etched in Kanji helps her move forward every day.

Now Mew feels more motivated to win, as he's caring Kairi's hopes on his back.

And he promises that, despite not being Shina, he'll help Kairi honor her memory by taking her down to Earth himself.

Before they go up, however, Kairi worries about what the others were saying about her and the Neo Drive. Mew says they can sort that out later.

Except...he has a very bad feeling about what he'll find up top.

At the very top of the Pyramid they find the Neo Drive contained within a chrome power. But its power is so great, its leaking out into the atmosphere of the room.

Standing before it is Gravitus, who turns to greet them, revealing an onyx, robotic body very unlike what his statue depicted.

He calls it the result of a run in with a "would-be king" but otherwise moves on to speak lowly of Mew, comparing him to the naive Elemental Overlord of the past.

But Mew surprises him AND Kairi by asking to hear the seals' pitch he gave to the Planetary Aurians.

Gravitus decides to give a speech about the concept of heroes and villains and how their existence has irreversibly damaged the peace on so many worlds.

They twist the concepts of good and evil to suit their needs and lead the people beneath them like the false idols they are. And when heroes and villains clash, it is the people who suffer the consequences the most.

The first proof of that for him was the time of the Elemental Overlord and the Dark King. When those two ruined the universe with their scuffle, while the Ten Sages also played with their own people as pawns.

He loathes how people are forced to latch onto heroes and villains because their roles appear so simply defined. A hero brings salvation. A villain demands obedience, but rewards it by allowing them to survive.

Its fear that heroes and villains manipulate to herd the people like cattle. And with so much fear, there's no true hope for peace.

Gravitus wants to free the people from their false idols so they can learn to find the strength within themselves to achieve their dreams.

The speech resonates with such sincerity and lacks much malice that even Mew is hesitant to go against him now.

But he has to, because something still feels off when comparing Gravitus' speech to the state of some of the Planetary Aurians or the conditions in Sancturia.

He wishes to ask a few questions and Gravitus is willing to hear him out.

He first wonders how Sancturia's changes fit into his plans.

Gravitus remarks how its about "purpose". Back in the day, the Aurians were little more than sheep in a flock, coerced into believing they were a part of something greater.

But he's liberated them from those corrupted teachings. Now they are free to choose who they want to be without fear of being restricted.

He wants Mew to see Sancturia as a preview of what he's accomplished on all other worlds, and shall continue to strive for in the future.

He calls such a universe beautiful, a universe where freedom reigns and peace is omnipresent...

Yet if peace is so important to Gravitus, then why must his people still learn how to fight?

The answer is quite simple. "Actions speak louder than words", he remarks, pointing to the irony that humans invented that phrase given how little they follow through with it.

Right now yes there is no place in the universe for peace without violence. Surely there will be some who deny his peace and will target his people to hurt him. So they're still allowed to fight simply so they can protect themselves.

What really gets to Mew is Gravitus stating how the Elemental Overlord believed the same.

Now its getting really difficult to stand against Gravitus, even with Mew's gut feeling that something is really, really wrong.

So pressing forward, Mew asks what he wants with the Neo Drive.

Gravitus first explains more about what the Neo Drive entails. The Neo Drive is in a class of its own, a Tier X Drive.

The "X" has two meaning. "X" can mean the multiplicative factor, or in Roman numerals, ten. Because those who wield the Neo Drive have their base power multiplied by ten.

He doesn't hide the fact that he's after more power, but states its out of necessity.

There are those out there with power even beyond that of the original Elemental Overlord...those who made him bend a knee and serve them.

Gravitus plans to be the one who shall eliminate them from the cosmos forever, only then can true peace be a reality.

Mew wonders how he can be so certain of that to which Gravitus states that it was because he was born.

He's endured many tribulations since he was born. His power was so great his mother died from childbirth. He survived the beatings and hate of his father. He endured being denounced as an individual by the Ten Sages, who treated him like a slave.

He knows he is absolutely worthy of the Neo Drive, even if not necessarily by his bloodline. But that's just been another test for him to overcome.

And there's no doubt in his voice. Gravitus sincerely believes everything he's saying.

After all these questions on Mew's part, Gravitus wants to ask one of his own...What HAS Mew accomplished as an Elemental Overlord, exactly?

The answer is simple: Nothing.

Mew tries to say otherwise but he's not fooling Gravitus, who has been monitoring some of his activities this whole time.

Gravitus wants to him to shed his desires to be a "Hero" and instead join him to achieve a greater purpose, freed of such a wretched title.

Mew trembles at the thought, but his concentration is broken when Kairi suddenly steps forth and says Gravitus is full of shit.

He can talk all he wants about caring for others but he only cares about himself and what he wants.

Gravitus says he'll deal with her in a moment and resumes extending his offer to Mew.

Mew agrees that Gravitus has a valid point about how there are a lot of heroes out there who don't do enough to help the common folk. But that doesn't necessarily make them bad. Heroes CAN still inspire greatness in others.

Gravitus does admit his argument is valid, but thinks the odds are too slim to warrant taking a chance on. Its better to let the common folk be given the chance to become great on their own merits.

Even if Gravitus does have his points, Mew can't escape the feeling that the man is hiding his true nature.

Gravitus takes it to mean "No" from him and finds it a pity that his heart has led him astray.

Mew doesn't feel threatened by him, as he can't even get the Neo Drive to begin with.

But that is simply not true. As Gravitus states, Mew didn't even do anything to deny him the Neo Drive. After all...He brought his daughter right to him, pointing at Kairi.

Mew goes cold while Kairi loses herself in disbelief.

Mew grits his teeth and demands Gravitus stop joking. But Gravitus is not one for jokes. Kairi is the culmination of all his years of patience and research.

Mew refuses to believe for even a second that Auris would have ever bore his child willingly.

But according to Gravitus, she did. She knew she deserved to be punished.

Mew almost loses himself to anger as he goes into Light Form and charges Gravitus with the intent to cut his head off.

But with a mere flick of his fingers, Gravitus holds Mew in place with his Gravity Drive.

He does not understand why Mew could hate him, when he's done nothing to personally warrant it. He then casually breaks Mew's arms and legs before pinning him against the wall above the staircase.

He then approaches Kairi, commenting on how she has his "eyes". He reaches out to her, telling her embrace her destiny.

She tries to deny it, forcing Gravitus to explain how it could only BE her that wields the Neo Drive.

As it requires the blood of the Ten Sages, Gravitus only had Auris at his disposal. However, without another member of the Ten Sages to impregnate her, the blood would become dirtied with his mixed in.

...Or so he thought.

The Anti-Genesis Theorem purged the impurities from his sperm while keeping the reproductive materials intact, thus allowing Auris to birth children perfectly pure with the Ten Sages bloodline.

Then, combining his raw power with Auris' mastery of aura would produce a child worthy of the Neo Drive.

But it took two-thousand years for the perfect candidate to be born – Kairi.

After all this time of desiring revenge, now Kairi finds herself backed into a corner by that very man claiming to be her father.

He attacks him in a rage and he flicks her to the ground with little effort.

Gravitus understands what its like to be angry, deprived of purpose. But she doesn't have to feel alone anymore. He's here to guide her proper.

When she doesn't respond, Gravitus draws his scythe and chooses to use a little more force to get her to understand.

He cuts her beloved headband in half, the wind from the blow knocking her down.

However, when she rises to her knees she noticed a peculiar object had been hidden in the back of the headband...An Aurian Drive.

And with it, a note...from her mother.

In it, Auris expresses just how much she truly loves her, and that Kairi's never needed to prove anything to her. She shall always be her daughter in her eyes.

Mew tries to get Kairi to run, only for Gravitus to continue crushing his bones.

Kairi retreats into her heart to find the strength she needs to press forward. She realizes she can't keep relying on Shina to help her. She has to grow up, and be her own person now.

She slams the new Drive, the Angel Drive, into her bracelet and transforms into her own variation of Mew's Light Form.

Gravitus grins, for Kairi having two Drives is even further proof that he is right.

Kairi draws her staff and declares that she'll be the one to kill Gravitus...THAT is her destiny.

Kairi learns how to utilize her new Drive mid-battle thanks to Mew's teachings.

Gravitus takes things easy at first, not wanting to overwhelm Kairi with his incredible power.

But right now it appears the two are about even in strength, but when it comes to technique Kairi is proving to be his superior.

Once she starts learning the ins and outs of the Angel Drive she's able to land some strong hits on Gravitus while evading the swathe of his scythe.

His scythe has the power to reap aura and add it to his own.

Gravitus congratulates Kairi on pushing him this far, but has no fear of dying at her hands. But to ensure that she makes no sudden moves, he continues to apply pressure onto Mew to hold her at bay.

Then, while she's still, he reveals a secret. He too...has a second Drive.

Activating the Space Drive causes the weather across the planet to warp and bend to his will. He shoves the walls off the room with but a breath and rises into the sky above Sancturia, beckoning Kairi to continue their fight now.

Kairi's frozen stiff by his ridiculous power.

Mew has been freed, for the moment, but notices how much Gravitus' power has spiked.

Even though he's sore as all hell, he still sounds confident he can win.

Kairi demands to know why he doesn't want them working together THIS time, but Mew just wants her to trust him this time.

Gravitus has already beaten him once though, so Kairi insists on helping him.

Mew smiles, calling her cute before knocking her out with a punch to the gut.

He accepts that he's risking a lot here and then rises to confront Gravitus, who is amused that he'd still try and go a second time.

Gravitus claims he will defeat Mew without moving from this spot.

And try as he might, Mew allows him to prove his boast with ridiculous ease. Gravitus gladly twists him, cuts him, then impales him with his scythe, declaring himself to be the future as he sends Mew crashing through the floors of the Pyramid.

As Mew's corpse lays near-death and bleeding, "D." speaks to him, granting him a chance to get angry so he can "save" his body.

However...this was just as Mew planned.

Mew finally calls "D." on his bluff and realizes that "D." can't take over his body by force unless his mind is weakened from stuff like rage.

So Mew is not the prisoner here, "D." is. So unless "D." wants to die, he'll give up his power to Mew willingly. Otherwise, Mew will just let them bleed out.

"D." realizes Mew's been planning this for a while under his nose, which Mew confirms with his grin.

"D." accepts the bargain only because he finds it amusing that he'd be outsmarted like this. Plus, seeing Gravitus get torn to shreds might be fun.

Mew emerges back to the top of the Pyramid just in time to save Kairi from one of Gravitus' stray displays of power.

Now he's in Dark Form, AND in control.

Kairi's in awe of his power, and has only one thing to say about it...Kill that son of a bitch.

Mew then rises to meet Gravitus again, calling him by his slave name to taunt him.

Gravitus tries to crush Mew again but fails this time...As darkness has no mass.

Mew then starts dodging the debris Gravitus throws around and gets up close and personal with his face, grinning from cheek-to-cheek.

Finally, its time to confront the emperor of hundreds of worlds, and cancel his warped future.

Mew wails on Gravitus both physically and mentally, calling out his bullshit about wanting peace yet not doing anything to help his comrades.

He boils down all of Gravitus' motivations to simply wanting control over others, and that all his peace-talking is simply born of his megalomania.

Mew keeps pounding into Gravitus' skull that he needs to take responsibility for his actions, while Gravitus retaliates that Mew is a being of chaos who only ruins the world.

Mew thinks he has a good excuse given the demon in his head, while Gravitus has no one to blame but himself for his behavior.

Gravitus even goes as far as to believe that Auris deserved her fate because of how great her sins are, but Mew doesn't give a shit about that cause that's no excuse to fucking rape anyone.

Even "D." is mortified by Gravitus' sanity during all this and wants Mew to crush whatever heart he has left.

Mew has a better plan of attack though and drags the "emperor" down the Pyramid closer to his people.

Gravitus tries to instill calmness in his people only for Mew to keep wailing on his face some more.

Gravitus keeps his assault up, caring little about a bit of property damage while Mew strives to not involve anyone in the area as best he can.

Eventually Mew fakes taking a "fatal" hit and drops to his knees, allowing Gravitus to lord over him, and then using his arrogance to make him spill his guts about his true intentions to his people.

Gravitus is more than happy to do so to prove to Mew once and for all that he understands what his people want.

Gravitus gives a speech to the Aurians brave enough to stand in this area, telling them how he plans to obtain the Neo Drive and then with it, empower his people to join him in the stars and reclaim the peace that has long since been lost.

He's left with murmurs and silence. Mew claps for him, while Gravitus justifies the lack of response as them taking time to register this news.

However Mew knows the truth that he refuses to accept, that he is so detached from his people that to them, he comes off as little more than a mad metal monster, especially with the damage he's caused to the city.

Gravitus thinks it matter little, given how few Aurians this is.

That's when Mew reveals his trump card...Bobby.

Bobby has been standing nearby, just where Mew told him to in the notebook he left behind. Bobby used his Bounce Drive to "bounce" the message Gravitus gave all across Sancturia.

Now NO Aurian doesn't know about his plans.

While Gravitus starts to break his facade, Mew takes back his notebook and slaps Gravitus with the opinions of his own people. He makes it painfully obvious that Gravitus' plans backfired the moment he provided so much to his own people.

He wanted everything, but his craving for power and domination over others could not intertwine with his "wishes" for peace. Thus he created a society of healthy people who'd rather not risk their lives to lose what they have been blessed with.

Maybe there'd have been a chance if the people trusted Gravitus, but he's been nothing but an enigma to them this whole time.

Gravitus put in no effort to connect with people on a personal level because all he craved was power, and he wanted it sooner rather than later.

Mew bluntly tells Gravitus that a true leader is someone who lives with their people, not gazes down upon them coldly from a lofty throne.

Gravitus gets enraged and blasts Mew out of Sancturia with one condensed gravity blast, only for Mew to recoil back and smash Gravitus right back up the Pyramid, forcing him to accept the truth.

Mew then holds nothing back and starts eviscerating his body until ultimately, noticing that his innards are hollow.

And curiously, they are shaped like another person's body.

Gravitus chuckles, stating how if his plans didn't work out with Kairi willingly joining him, then he had planned to stuff her into his armor the moment she claimed the Neo Drive.

Mew nearly breaks his jaw out of disgust.

Gravitus, however, chooses not to let his destiny die at this juncture. Left with no other choice, he raises his hand, prepared to turn the "first key".

Mew thinks he's going crazy and just trying to bluff, only for a key unlocking sound to echo across the universe.

He tries to demand answers from Gravitus, who explains it simply as he can...

The nine Planetary Aurians were cursed long ago so that when all nine are defeated, the nine planets will align before the sun. With the power of his Space Drive and Gravity Drive, he alone can turn the sun like a key, with the planets acting as the teeth.

This unlocks a seal that has unleashed a great and terrible power upon this solar system, thanks to Gravitus activating a warp gate to redirect it here.

"Conveniently" though the shields that would protect the Earth aren't working.

Mew prepares to kill Gravitus but if he wastes time trying, the energy will destroy the planet.

Mew rockets off to space to confront the gigantic beam, pushing everything he's got, even using the moon as support, in order to stop it.

He succeeds, but is almost exhausted by the effort. And in the aftermath, Gravitus stabs him with his scythe and drains his remaining aura to refresh himself.

He then sends Mew hurtling back to Earth, snapping his spine in two the very moment he drops in front of Kairi.

Mew collapses before her, and it appears as though he'll die here. Its a fate he's not happy with, but chooses to accept it regardless.

He tried his best and that's what matters. He really only has one big regret...He had wished he could've gone on a date with Kairi.

Mew then thinks he can just sleep this pain off, and closes his eyes. A very Mew response, even at the very end...

With his last breath Mew tells Kairi to go kick his ass.

Gravitus returns, happy to know that Mew's discord shall no longer spread.

He gives Kairi one last chance to go along with him but she refuses on principal.

Thus, he gives her no other options, and uses his powers to start dragging her towards the Neo Drive and accept her destiny.

At the ground level in Sancturia the citizens are abuzz with everything that's been going down. A lot of people are processing the information with fear and hate, choosing to deny accountability for their hand in singling Kairi out as a bad person.

They even try to justify the pandemonium as something Mew pulled off to sow distrust towards Gravitus.

Its not until Bobby loses it on them that they bother to listen to anyone but their own damn voices.

He's pissed that everyone here would actually have the balls to throw the Aurora family under the bus just so they can buy a little peace of mind.

He reminds them all what Shina did for them and how horrible its been to ostracize her for a goddamn act of selflessness.

And the notebook he got from Mew proves a lot of them have their doubts about Gravitus but are simply too cowardly to speak up.

However, now is the time for them to do something right and make their voices loud and clear about what they want.

With one huge rallying cry amplified by his Drive, Bobby raises his fist and gathers his aura into it so they can deliver one final message to Gravitus...That Sancturia belongs to THEM, not him.

Gravitus is mere seconds away from victory, until all of Sancturia launches their aura into a combined attack that disrupts his attention.

Then Kairi runs for the Neo Drive and, with the voice of her ancestor calling her worthy, manages to obtain it and activate it before Gravitus can reclaim his hold on her.

The Neo Drive's power simply manifests as a pair of majestic rainbow butterfly wings behind her back. Rising confidently to confront Gravitus, she's prepared at last to avenge her mother's honor and put an end to his reign.

Gravitus has not lost his confidence fully, for he is still the strongest Aurian that has ever lived, while she is merely a bratty child.

He WILL make her understood what power truly is.

Kairi starts using the Neo Drive's power to hurt Gravitus with ease. Gravitus mounts a defense both physically and verbally, swearing on his name and power that the Neo Drive is still his to command.

Kairi uncovers that the Neo Drive can utilize the power of other Drives she's witnessed, making them much more powerful in the process.

She thus decides to use the power of the Planetary Aurians whom Gravitus decided to deliver righteous retribution upon him.

Gravitus starts to let his sanity slip and reaches for the heavens, dragging down satellites to crush Kairi under its fiery debris, lest she let Sancturia crumble instead.

But Kairi stuns him silent by using HIS power, the Gravity Drive, to crush the satellite down to a harmless orb of metal.

He then declares that she is naive, and killing him will only bring chaos across the universe. And she may wield power, but she knows nothing about using it.

He is the only thing holding many dangerous species from targeting Sancturia, and tries to use that logic to make Kairi spare his life.

However Kairi plans to kill him anyways, but not before he answers what happened to Shina.

Gravitus laughs, having forgotten his other daughter until now. He reveals that he did not kill her, but did have a hand in making her disappear.

Now he can use his knowledge of where she might be to leverage for his survival.

That proves to be a huge mistake, as by confirming that Shina is alive, that's all the info Kairi needs. Now she can kill Gravitus without hesitation.

He demands she stop being naive and accept that the Neo Drive is HIS power.

Kairi corrects him, stating the Neo Drive is EVERYONE'S power. She then gathers all the aura she can from across Sancturia and blasts Gravitus with it.

Gravitus embraces the warmth in this power, cursing that it cannot be his as he's sent flying towards space, destroyed.

She had achieved victory, but at what cost?

She returns to Mew's fallen body, ready to carry him to a place where he can be buried respectfully.

However...the body starts snoring.

She pounds on his chest in tearful anger to wake him up and then starts yelling at him for faking his death AGAIN. This time though Mew swears he didn't do that.

She continues to get angry at him and prepares to beat him with her staff until he learns a lesson, only stopping when Mew continues to plead that he didn't plan anything, honest.

But the fact that she's alive means they've won, and everything turned out just fine!

...Except Mew's spine is still broken in half, so Kairi has no choice but to carry him down to Auris' for healing.

And along the way, Mew decides to explain a little bit about that demon inside his head.

Turns out "D." had been a little nice for once and healed Mew's body up so he could survive Gravitus' last attack. But he states not to let this be a common thing.

Kairi rushes Mew past a bunch of Aurians gathered outside the Pyramid and brings him home, where Auris is more than ready to help him.

Kairi goes to her room for the moment, but is worried that Mew won't make it.

Auris gives her reassurance and then gets to work on Mew, laying him on his stomach and pulling out a knife. She makes a clean incision into his body and then uses her aura to fortify the gaps in his spine and accelerate his ability to heal.

But she warns him not to get do anything reckless for a couple days.

Mew wants to talk about Gravitus being Kairi's father now that that's all over.

Auris admits she purposefully hid the truth for so long from Mew not for his or her sake, but Kairi's. As Mew was able to form a genuine bond with Kairi and get her to learn how to trust in people again.

It was that personal growth she experienced that made her worthy of the Neo Drive.

Mew is annoyed though that required him to die, to which Auris says that no he didn't need to go that far, he's just a reckless moron.

And if he tries anything like that again she'll show him Hell.

Her scary expression makes the message loud and clear for him.

Kairi then returns, having cleaned up her appearance a bit after her clothes got damage from that battle. She even decided to keep her hair down, which Mew likes, making her feel awkward.

The two of them take the night to relax, while Auris ventures out into Sancturia under the stars.

She meets with Gabriel, who knew she'd be here.

Gabriel had been gone for a bit to distracted the likes of Saturn and the others from seeing what happened to Gravitus. Auris considered it a necessary move in order to help the universe move forward free from Gravitus' influence.

But that still leaves Sancturia without a ruler.

Auris says she's still cleaning up after her father's mistake, but Gabriel disagrees, stating how what happened with Gravitus is not his fault.

Gabriel also says how despite everything he did, Auris' father loved her. Auris needed no re-confirmation of that, but thanks Gabriel anyways.

She then has Gabriel kneel, using a knife to cut off part of his hair, and declaring him to be freed of his oath.

Gabriel doesn't know how to respond to this. Auris says that he's paid long enough having to work for Gravitus.

Gabriel gives his thanks, but cannot stop himself from calling her "Lady Auris".

Now that this matter is settled, however, the two of them are worried that Gravitus broke the "first seal".

There's really no choice now but for them to obey the flow of fate, and in a couple days he will return to break the other seals holding him back.

Auris chooses to return home and rest, but before she reaches her bedroom she's suddenly blocked by Kairi. Kairi hugs her tight and apologizes for being such an ungrateful daughter.

Kairi then delivers the news that Shina's alive, which doesn't surprise Auris for obvious reasons.

Auris goes to bed soon-after, dreadfully awaiting two days from now...

The next morning there's a crowd outside the house wanting answers for what happening yesterday.

Mew has a plan to get the news out as quick as possible and recruits Bobby for one last broadcast over Sancturia.

Mew tries to take the burden of the speech but everyone's demanding Kairi explaining things.

Even after all the poor treatment she received her fellows Aurians had actually proved crucial in saving the day. What Mew said about kindness proved true in the end, and she wants to return that in kind.

But first...she starts off with a massive apology for how violent she had been.

She also states how she cannot replace Gravitus, even if she's been proven worthy of the Neo Drive. She offers to help as best she can though.

This still leaves the people wondering how they'll lead themselves going forward.

Auris steps in for Kairi and calmly tells her people that nothing has to change just cause Gravitus died. What they have works for them. But if they require change, then they can make that change themselves.

Its a simple but effective speech, and gets the people to start speaking of what they need to do next.

Once the crowd clears enough Mew and Kairi chat about what Mew plans to do next. With the world saved once again Mew plans to just go home and relax.

Sancturia's just a quick flight away so its not like he's saying goodbye.

Kairi's having trouble saying what she wants to until Auris prompts her to go after him, saying how they can worry about Shina in a couple days.

Kairi almost accidentally shouts a confession of love she catches up to Mew, but thankfully his thickheadedness makes him interpret that as her wanting to come back to Earth with him now.

Its totally fine since school's out anyways and she wants to train more and NOTHING else, honest.

Even if she's stronger than him, she can still afford to learn some more.

Mew stops here right there to correct her. He's still the stronger one between them.

She gets flustered because she expected something else out of him.

Kairi reminds Mew that SHE killed Gravitus. But Mew argues that she only pulled it off because of his efforts wearing him down.

Kairi calls bullshit because she fought Gravitus at full power.

But in Mew's head, his Dark Form is greater than the Neo Drive.

Kairi's pissed that he can't actually admit he's weaker than someone and prepares to sock some sense into his head.

Mew drops off Sancturia and floats out of place, teasing her about her wanting to go on a date with him.

Kairi laughs at that possibility and chases after him into the horizon, for the start of a new day...

However, unbeknownst to them...Gravitus is still alive.

Stranded, broken on a lone asteroid in the Milky Way, he is greeted by Joe Dark, who thought he sensed Whiter's power out here.

However, upon recognizing Gravitus, he prepares to finish him off for good this time.

Joe Dark fires a shot that obliterates Gravitus' hand and chest, but doesn't finish him off. Before he can manage to complete his task for good, Pluto arrives and rapidly attacks Joe Dark with his time sword to keep him from moving.

Gravitus wishes Joe Dark stay alive, for he still has his uses.

Pluto then helps Gravitus stand, wondering what their next move shall be now that the Neo Drive is lost.

Gravitus quietly draws his scythe and stabs Pluto through the gut, draining him of his aura to heal himself.

Pluto feels betrayed, but as Gravitus puts it, he was planning on killing the villainous king the moment he got the Neo Drive.

Once Pluto collapses, Gravitus lets out a sigh of relief and looks at his reformed hand, a seal breaking off it.

Now two keys have been used.

The last...he leaves in the hands of the Phoenix of Destruction...

Part 5 END.