The final battle nears, and a sole man rebels against the river.
Eunwol's eyes widen and Freud looks away before he could see his shattered look. Afrien's mind is heavy against his own in begrudging help, empowering Freud with the intoxicating strength of the Onyx dragons, quickly becoming too much for his frail mage body. So, Freud did what he could and he cast a spell, no it was too malicious and dangerous to be called that. A curse.
"Thank you." Whispers Freud to Afrien. The dragon only roars at the Black Mage, refusing to respond.
Dark energy rippled through the air as Freud chanted and fed his staff the power in the air. Raw-unfiltered-pure magic drawn straight from the temple of time, heavy and devastating. Blood trickled from his mouth and it felt heavier and harder for Freud to breath. But he ignored it, chanting while he wheezed. He evoked ancient magic, far different from sealing something, and he channeled the destructive untrammeled power through the seal stones, amplifying each other like waves of light bouncing off mirrors.
Afrien stiffens, his golden eyes flashing in the dark of the temple. FREUD, THIS IS MORE THAN WHAT YOU CAN DO!
Freud ignores him and preserves.
The Black mage thrashed wildly, trying to get out of the magic binding the energy that flowed through them that entrapped them in there. Freud does not pay attention and keeps chanting.
"FREUD!" Screams Eunwol, his soft voice breaking into a stabbing shrill. "FREUD!"
FREUD!
The Onyx dragon's and Afrien's strength are the only thing that keeps his body going and still living. His messed up magical current and trying to attempt the curse would have killed him already if it weren't for Afrien's strength. Time and space warps around the Black mage, twisting and churning in a disgusting malady of utter grievance and agony. Screeching time churns and goes backwards on the Black mage.
Freud is dying. He is singlehandedly trying to twist and bent an entire river against itself. Time is like a river-it is impossible to go against the current or make the direction of the river change. You can ride a boat to the past, but you cannot ever turn even a trickle of the river against itself.
But Freud is. Blood is gushing through his nose, his lungs are failing, his heart is weakening, blood trickles from his eyes and ears. His body is numb and heavy, his limbs weak, his breath becoming weaker and weaker as he tried to chant and breath at the same time. Heavy exposure to raw magic is crushing his body, killing it. But he still stands. Clenching the magic forcefully, taking in the essence of the temple itself he forces the magic still in the air and gathers its raw power and uses the magic to try and force time against itself. Not only is it killing Freud, it is killing the Black mage.
You're dying, we're dying. Mourns Afrien, last of the Oynx dragons. And then, the Black Mage starts screaming.
He is howling, horrible, almost as loud as Afrien's roars, but so incredibly human. Howling in agony of being ripped and twisted by time. His bones snap and splinter and then regrow and soon his flesh is too big for the small bones in the body, then his bones are too big for the small flesh. His body grows and shrinks and snaps and bends and contorts within the magical circle, never truly settling, unable to with the magic running through his body. It is torture. Pure magical torture.
"The spell. . .to kill even the gods. . .put the sun. . .rightful place." Pants Freud, feeling alive. His heart is beating like a drum, there is blood slick across the skin, and his hands shake like thunder.
The magic tears and shoots around the Black Mage, ruthlessly and dangerously. Freud watches it with wide eyes, feeling something deep and ugly rearing from his stomach. He is smiling. It is not a kind smile.
Afrien then soon offers his soul and his own magical core to fuel their fight against the fluctuating curse. Freud cannot see out of his eyes anymore, soon he will not be able to hear. He is already a half corpse, only running on Afrien's willpower alone. His magical currents are already straining like a tense rope trying to hold back a mountain from falling into a trench. Soon they will snap and his lifeforce will follow.
Oh Freud, oh Freud. We will never be alone, we will die together. Promises Afrien.
Gingerly he takes as little as possible and with everything else, he pushes with his soul and Afrien's the magic eating away at him. The time magic finally settles and throws the Black Mage into the time when he was a human. He shrinks and shrinks into a small human, a wailing baby. Then Freud's body gives out. He falls gracelessly and allows darkness to swallow him whole.
Eunwol is watching in shock, and Luminous had recovered gracelessly.
Afrien prods Freud's mind and roars a melodious, terrifying, mourning call. Phantom rushes in, last and horribly so. Luminous screams at him to heal Freud. Shocked he does so without a complaint. He steals Luminous's light magic, a shoddy and quick job, but slowly manages to try and heal Freud.
Luminous then teleports to kill the mage eyes burning in rage. But he trips, and falls. And their flesh met. They collided and fissioned. Man became one.
It was screaming and pain and starlight and everything was wrong. The temple was crashing down nothing was right. Screaming, screaming, everything was wrong. EVERYTHING IS RIGHT. TIME IS WRONG. TIME IS WRONG! WHAT DID FREUD DO? This is wrong, thIS IS WROnG!
Rhinne's seals shatter elsewhere in the temple.
Silence.
Her silver hair flows behind her, her golden circlet and the sand watch she held being the signs of her noblesse.
Everything has stopped. Everything but the heroes. Slowly like a bird unfurling their wings, Rhinne travels through frozen time to reach them. She heals Aran, who was fighting against all the desperate minions of darkness, clawing eagerly to get past her and into the temple, she fights them off singlehandedly, her strength being rapidly sapped.
They have swarmed her, millions of them, trying to tear past her. Aran does her best, but millions against even the greatest warrior is too much. Her body is broken and bleeding, her arms and muscles are torn and cut, her left leg has been broken in two places. But she still fights because she believed in her friend out there. When Phantom came by she told him to check inside, still too prideful and unwilling to let anyone take her post as the protector of the inner temple. Protector of her friends. Rhinne allows the warrior to collapse in exhaustion and relief of being unburdened with the thousands wishing her dead and nothing to keep her alive but a single polearm and her ambition.
She sleeps peacefully as time reverses her wounds and her body. Rhinne enters the inner temple. Luminous is now a different person, collapsed like a fallen angel on the red staircase, like a broken dove floating on a river of blood. Phantom is desperately trying to heal Freud, but something is wrong. Every time he heals a part of Freud, the wounds just return, endlessly, repeating forever and forever. He will not heal, time will not let him heal.
Rhinne floats behind Phantom and reaches and sorts the malevolent mess that is stuck deep inside Freud. She loosens the horrible knots of magic gone wrong and smooths his spirit and his body. He now lays, pale and sickly with crusts of drying blood, but unmistakably alive. Phantom stares at the floating goddess beside him as she turns to face Eunwol.
Eunwol is remembered. But he was not meant to be. She looks away and ignores him. It's the best she can do. Then she casts time magic to reverse Mercedes's injuries from mostly singlehandedly fighting the Black mage. Finally, she floats up the red carpet to the form of Luminous, sprawled onto the floor.
But he is no longer Luminous. While only his hair had grown longer, something had changed within him that made him no longer Luminous. But what, they did not know. Rhinne bends over, like the heavens would to greet the world, and kisses him softly on his forehead. She recedes and Luminous awakens, but he is no longer Luminous. He is now a transcendent.
"Rhinne," breaths the light transcendent. His eyes have changed, one blue another orange. Tears flow from his eyes. "I have sinned."
Rhinne does not reply to his words, but only speaks like the goddess she is, not offering any mercy, but only justice. Her voice is melodiously and twinkles like sound of bell chimes. "You shall be put under punishment within your human shell, suffer the deeds you have done brother."
"I shall accept." The pure white soul sobs, and sinks to his knees and lowers his head, offering his pride, exchanging his curiosity away. His atonement for everything he had done. Rhinne only touches a finger on his head, and his image melts away like sun melting away the ice. It is only retribution from the world in the form of a tired woman.
Phantom and Eunwol stares at the divine being, soft in form, but her power was monsterous. They stared at the goddess floating before them, like a being of justice, who was saving all of mankind. They could only revel in her power and submissively lower their heads in her presence.
"I am awake. . .my lady." Speaks Freud. Rhinne's magic has healed him to his prime form. His ashy skin turned into a healthy color, the blood had been wiped away, his breath and his heart pounded strongly.
"Freud." She speaks his name like a judgement.
"Freud are you alright?" asks Eunwol worriedly, his voice soft and anxious. "You did something, something wrong."
"I think so. Everything is alright, everything has only been a dream." Grins Freud softly, tears forming on his face. "We defeated the Black Mage! And everyone's alive!"
Afrien leans closer to the small body, embracing the small man with his mountains of scales. Rhinne stares at the magician. "You have broken two of the taboos of this world. Kao, the first was fittingly punished, but you, what will be your judgement?" Freud pales.
"What do you mean, your ladyship?" asks Phantom, glancing between Freud and the goddess. "Of what taboos do you mean?"
"He has sent his consciousness back in time, and reversed the flow of time in this place. A cord of twisted time itself was embedded into his body. I have only released the pressure of it. It is unremovable." She tells them, her voice echoes through the marble walls and pillars, condemning Freud. "He will not die nor will he live. The twisted time within him allows him to manipulate time to his use, but he has paid the ultimate price of the taboo so only living endlessly will he find comfort in. Freud cannot leave this very room nor cast magic for his sin was done in this place, once holy, no longer."
"What about Afrien?" asked Freud softly, fearfully, nervously brushing his hands against Afrien's glossy black scales. Freud felt like crying and screaming. He could no longer feel the current of magic that ran through his veins. Only his worry for Afrien pushed him on. "Will he too, be punished for a sin he did not do?"
"He has helped a sinner, so that his condition of now will never change. Time will freeze only on his physical form but not his fate. Afrien will die, missing pieces of his soul and his strength." Declares Rhine, staring at Afrien sorrowfully. Afrien will no longer have the strength to be the King of the Onyx dragons, and his only legacy lives with a pitiful dragon for its' bane.
I thank you for the little grace you offer me Afrien tells the goddess, accepting the punishment. There was little he could do about it, but Freud still felt his sorrow.
"What happened to Luminous?" asks Phantom cautiously. Rhine looks terribly sorrowful at the mention.
"The transcendent of light will accept his own punishment from the universe. When he will return. . .depends on his innocence." She tells him, her mournful gaze resting deep. "I was only allowed to intervene because of Freud and Afrien's great sin. If they had not sinned time would have not been twisted and I would have not been allowed to intervene." She turns to face Freud, "Blessed and cursed child, you shall guard this place till the end of time, if there ever was any."
"I will atone." He tells her, ignoring Phantom's protests and Eunwol's small gasp.
"I cannot restore your soul, and you shall suffer for you shredded it off." She warns him. Then slowly her form shrinks and weakens like a heat haze. Her eyes become lidded and her voice is weak and sleepy. "When my child comes protect and teach them, Freud. . .that is my request for you."
"I. . .accept." Freud smiles, his smile warm and beautiful. He smiles at his two friends, staring at him in utter betrayal. His smile dies and he stares at them, heartbroken, the ending was still the same for him. He would leave them again. Afrien's sorrow and his support was sent through their link. Freud basked in his emotions for a bit while sending his great love for them through their link.
It seemed time never changed, no matter how much Freud wanted to change it.
He smiles, sadly, happily, "I love you."
This only took me like forever to write hahaha. Freud is obviously very powerful, he uses time magic as a medium, considering there really isn't mastery of time magic (Zero does not count they are Rhinne's children they are a special muffin). And since time loop aus are in the latest fashion, why not? While this was supposed to be a series of drabbles I just two shotted this and screamed 'DONE' and ran off. As how the exact attack was carried out is vague as heck and even contradictory in some parts of maple story I just based this off of Shade/Eunwol and Luminous prologues because maple cannot keep it backstories together, dear god, whoever wrote the storyline for maple story must've went 'screw it let's just redo everything and ignore we already have a standing timeline already'. Uh, the major notes. . .
One is that Freud had managed to go back in time before the day of attack. We see as going back in time is actually possible and in Ellin forest(the theme dungeon) there are actual cases of time travel. But there is punishments, like being erased from time or losing your existence or something around like that, again referring to Kao or a.k.a. you (ish, eh).
Two is what exactly is punishment with messing with time. Eunwol sacrificed his existence just to activate time seals, imagine what would happen if you tried to turn time back on itself. . . Not only would you be trying to reverse time, you'd need a very large amount of energy to carry out such magical task. It would kill any normal magician, but Freud has Afrien and he is noted to be one of the most powerful mages. And of course, the punishment should be much harsher, right? I know living forever sounds more of a gift, but being trapped in the same room forever, living but unable to leave the room forever would be sort of like torture. Oh, not that it was mentioned before, but Freud still needs to state his needs, drinking, eating, etc. but if he doesn't, he'll feel pain but he won't die.
Three the confusion that is Phantom. I mean what goes on in Phantom's backstory over there? Like what? Only referred in his questline and in Black heaven I honestly am going off the Wing master webtoon (the official webtoon but the rate Maple screws things over what is canon anymore) and this is also noting that I have not been able to play Phantom and his questline. Since there is no ice curse happening, Phantom killed both Orchird and Lotus in revenge, but since the spotlight never got to him, I'm just putting it here in the notes. But what I do know that Phantom has a vague backstory like all the other heroes. Honestly even Mercedes we don't know anything about and she has a pretty straightforward backstory. Who was the queen before her? Why is she such a young queen? How come there's like only 10 elf npcs?
Four what happens with Luminous and Black mage. I mean we've actually never really encountered the Black mage in game spare for the backstories with the heroes. We've heard rumors and only in Heroes blockbuster does he speak for the first time. So let's say we actually do somehow get a boss battle with Black mage (hope not, I think, that means the end of Maplestory) what exactly will go on with Luminous and Black mage? Like what? I mean Luminous + Black mage=White mage? Also it could be Luminous + man= White mage. Man+Dark powers= Black mage? Black mage + Luminous=Dual power White mage? I'm guessing it'll go that way. . . .but honestly it's only just a theory. A really lame theory.
Five Afrien. The dragon needs more spotlight, Mir too! I hope I hope conveyed their deep relationship through their internal monologue.
Six the ending. I know it's lame it sucks and Freud just is there to protect the temple of time and crap, but overall the major threat is gone. And without Black mage the rest of the forces will crumble easily. So overall a better ending than what goes on in the future where heroes clean up after everyone. Well I know that there would be another 'bad' guy or whatever, but for now I ended the story cleanly (uhh not really) as I could and no longer 'Freud is dead and we're not and we got a Freud clone' story going on. Sure they have to take care of the leftovers but besides that Mapleword will finally recover and Evan will be born 500 years(I think) later in a probably peaceful town if another Black mage jr. doesn't pop up.
Seven again the ending. I know it's lame and sucks but they're all alive. . .I think. I really didn't think things through when writing this did I?
Eight the soul. What does the soul really effect Freud and Afrien? Think Harry Potter and the horcruxes.
Nine what will happen to Freud and Afrien. Well hmm. . .maybe I'll write a bonus about their relationship.