Chapter 27: Gravitus II: Out of the Shadows
Kairi ran at Gravitus with the silver at her back and the weight of the world off her shoulders. This speed she felt saw her crossing the gap to her foe in the blink of an eye and crashing her staff down upon the length of his scythe.
Vibrant light exploded forth like a star bursting to life. Kairi dropped right to the ground and swung her staff again as the scythe retreated.
Gravitus turned his blade slightly to snag her staff and lock the two together. The thimble wide blade was sharp enough to cut lightning. Gravitus held it tight in one hand and saw no cause to raise the other.
"This is a start..." He murmured with a grin, "But I want to see more. Show me the strength of our power!"
He turned and ground his blade down the staff, skinning the paint off and throwing sparks to the wayside.
The light show couldn't force Kairi's eyes shut as she triumphantly declared, "This isn't your power!"
With them flaring wide-open Kairi pushed her staff down along the length of Gravitus' weapon, both racing to strike the hands that held them.
"It's mine!" Kairi bashed her oppressor's fingers and his grip loosened, ending the stalemate.
She leaped and twirled around to build up strength. Gravitus smirked and swung his scythe up, putting the blade squarely behind Kairi's neck. Kairi had to make a split-second decision: Commit to the attack, or brace herself.
Her mind raced to choose but her body created a third option based on instinct. Her body felt lighter than air and next thing she knew she was back on the ground.
She took a second to catch her breath. Gravitus locked a curious gaze upon her while tugging his scythe down. Immense gravitational pressure skirted Kairi's left shoulder and gathered energy to thicken the scythe blade.
His curiosity desiring to be satiated, Gravitus locked his feet down and swung his weapon for Kairi's head. Kairi gasped and again that weightless sensation pulled her left. In that fleeting moment she saw nothing but white.
It was her. Her body, becoming white light. And Gravitus' attack flied right by, unleashing the gathered energy in a green scar that tore into the sides of the room.
Gravitus looked just as perplexed as Kairi felt as he lowered his hand and slid his grip back to the weapon's center.
This power Kairi had felt great, but it was unexplored territory for her. She couldn't rely on pure instincts to bail her out everytime...But if there was one power she was confident wielding, it was the staff in her hands.
"Remember your training!" Kairi grit her teeth and hunched down to strike forth with a lunge. Her speed caught Gravitus off-guard as she knocked his right arm skyward with an uppercut from her staff.
Then, in one fell swoop, she brought her staff to her other and was now in the perfect position to go for the man's chin.
Gravitus' expression stayed dauntless and he hammered the ground with the bottom of his scythe. A bubble coated lightly in green electricity expanded out to shove Kairi away.
Kairi swung the end of her staff down to slow herself. Doing so gave her an idea, courtesy of watching Mew fight. She holstered a good amount of light into the end of her staff and ran forward, forcing the energy to ignite in a flurry of fire.
She swung up to let it go, turning a spark into a wildfire darting straight for Gravitus. The man raised his weapon and parted the energy with insulting ease.
Kairi flung herself through the center of the energy and was already mid-swing for Gravitus' head. Gravitus flinched and swung his left hand out to grab the staff and throw Kairi smack down behind her.
Kairi quickly rolled to her feet and hunched down near the pillar holding the Neo Drive. She looked up and saw the energy holding Mew flicker out. Gravitus looked down at his hand then with a smile squeezed it tight to slam Mew back into the wall, then withdrew his hand to the shadow of his cape.
"Marvelous, simply marvelous..." Gravitus quietly swung his scythe to the ground and dragged the tip forward. "Gently" he slashed out to send a shockwave of pure gravity towards Kairi.
Kairi rolled under it and lunged forward, her body becoming light to speed between Gravitus' legs. He turned to meet her as she stood and swung, countering with his scythe.
He matched every attack with a one-handed swing and smiled all the while. But then he felt pressure at his feet, his body beginning to slide back centimeters at a time.
Kairi was attacking without any awareness of what she was doing. For every swing she took an azure afterimage aped her attack with nearly equal force. It lagged a millisecond behind, creating a harmonious dance of silver and blue. One image became two. Two became three. What started as centimeters turned to inches.
Gravitus' smile faded and he stamped his scythe down to force Kairi away. Doing so dispelled the afterimages but failed to temper her desire to keep on fighting forward.
Gravitus threw his scythe out spinning towards her, using gravity to turn it into a miniature black hole. Kairi grabbed her staff in both hands and saw defense as the best option. The scythe was relentless and not something she could slow down even by putting her all into it.
Gravitus held his right hand out above his head and ripped the scythe away in that direction. It then tore into the wall on its way back to Kairi. She bashed her staff into it to force it past, only to have to repeat the process when it flew on by again.
Kairi stayed still and braced for every impact. She turned to Gravitus and saw an opening. One more deflection was all it took for her to strike forth.
Her light enveloped body ground to a halt two inches before Gravitus, surrounded by gravity. Kairi was made to look up at Gravitus' smug face as he suspended his right hand over her, his fingers dangling like he had her by strings.
"Even light bends to the laws of physics..." He said calmly before shoving Kairi away with a flick of the wrist.
Kairi gleamed back and saw the scythe flying at her. She pulled her head back in an attempt to duck under it, only for the blade to scrape across the front of her face and chest. Then it hit her knees as she attempted to flip back onto her feet.
She wobbled upon landing, the skin on her knees looking a tad red. She then watched as Gravitus not only grabbed the scythe perfectly in the center, but seemed to drain it dry of a familiar white energy.
The weakness she felt wasn't from pain, but from his weapon harvesting some of her aura. It didn't make him stronger, but watching him breathe in deep through his nostrils was an utterly sickening sight.
"I relent..." Gravitus gasped with a mild degree of pleasure in his voice, "This is your power!"
"Grr..." Kairi scowled.
"But you need to be taught how to wield it, as you will the Neo Drive..." Gravitus said, his scythe held limber at his hip.
Kairi stood tall with her eyes closed and replied, "Forget it. I'm confident I can figure this out just fine on my own."
"Oh?" Gravitus murmured.
"What can I say?" Kairi snapped her fingers up before her chest and glared straight at Gravitus, "I had a pretty good teacher."
Gravitus grimaced and found himself surrounded by swords of light pointed at his body. They lunged in, getting caught up in his thick aura. He squeezed his hand to cast them aside, a couple crashing through the glass ceiling.
The glass shards reflected Gravitus smile to Kairi, and her glare to him. She widened her eyes to the limit and subtly snapped her fingers behind her back.
"Khhh...!" Gravitus grunted and started to lurch forward. The tip of a large blade of light protruded out of his chest, connected to the front of the pillar.
Kairi ran ahead and smashed her staff into the newly formed wound. She roared and heaved the man off the ground over her head. His will struggled against hers, and he barely managed to land his hands on the ground before his head.
Kairi ripped her staff free and thrust it towards a more solid spot. Gravitus grabbed the staff with gravity and dropped it to the ground, bringing part of Kairi down with it.
Kairi tried to life it up, but it wouldn't budge. Gravitus' nasty smile told her she didn't have much time to waste. So she dispelled her staff and leapt over the man. In the nick of time too, as Gravitus mentally commanded his scythe to attack from behind.
When a downward slash failed, it curved its flight and flung itself straight for her back. Kairi turned and thrust her palms up, the staff nestled against them.
The scythe hooked its blade into the space behind it then glowed heavily with Gravitus' aura. It dragged her straight down, putting her knuckles against the ground. Gravitus walked right up, pulled his weapon's handle to his grasp, then marked his triumph with a grin.
To add injury to insult he wrenched his scythe out from behind the staff and sliced across Kairi's chest. The force of the swing made her stand, and the bits of blood dripping from under her shoulder forcing her left hand to it.
"You may hate me, but remember that it is my blood that flows in your veins." Gravitus horded this fact over Kairi as a matter of pride towards himself.
Kairi squeezed her wound and blood dripped between her fingers. She then grit her teeth and threw her hand out to toss the blood into Gravitus' eyes.
"Ghh!" Gravitus growled and put one hand to his face to rub the blood out.
"Now!" Kairi jumped and smashed her staff into the left of Gravitus' face. As much as she wanted his neck to break she had to settle for forcing him around.
She then split her staff into its whip form and strapped it around his neck. He gasped as Kairi crossed her arms, tightening it up.
He got on his hands and knees and dug his fingertips into the ground. With one exhausted wheeze he swung his right fist back and punched Kairi with a burst of gravity. The shockwave tore the tile off the ground around him and threw her into the wall just above the stairs.
Gravitus to his knees and expanded his weakly breath laughing. Kairi's weapon dropped into his hand, and dangled off the sides. Kaiir slowly stood up with an aching back and turned up her head to see Mew still unable to free himself.
"I choked my father to death when I was only twelve..." Gravitus spoke these chilling words in a cordial tone and levitated around until he faced Kairi.
She stared at him with a fiery glare and scowl of disgust as he spoke with an unperturbed smile, "I consider it to have been my Rite of Passage to prove that I was worthy of my power."
Gravitus dangled Kaiir's weapon before his face and his haunting, merry chuckle filled the dead air, "After all a judge must be fair. Even flesh and blood isn't exempt if their ill-will threatens the peace."
"You're twisted...!" Kairi growled.
"Perhaps your Rite of Passage will mirror mine," Gravitus began crushing Kairi's weapon between his fingers, "But unlike my cur of a 'father', I do not intend to die like a dog..."
Kaiir thrust her hand out and dispelled then called her staff back into her grasp. But crushing the weapon was just a bonus for him. When he squeezed his hand, it made the whole room quake.
Gravitus slowly backed away, and Kairi began her advance. She stopped on the first step forward as a brick nearly grazed the front of her face. Dozens of bricks shot from the walls like bullets, separating the two fighters.
Kairi closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. She could feel when and where the bricks would fly. Then she let her breath free and looked past them with her real eyes, focusing only on her real target.
Kairi shot forth as light then stopped to throw her staff in the way of a brick. She moved a couple steps forward and switched sides to protect it.
Gravitus flicked his wrist out and more bricks were added to the mix. Kairi grabbed her staff and swung it around, using afterimages to prolong how long she'd be protected. Even so a couple smashed into her arms and legs and left gravelly wounds in the skin.
She winced then widened her eyes and kept moving forward. She sped forth as a bolt of light then upon emerging sent her staff spinning around her body. An impenetrable wall to keep the bricks away.
Gravitus smiled and raised his hand high above his head. His scythe hung over Kairi until his hand dropped, where it then did too. Kairi commanded her staff to intercept the blade horizontally, stalling it from hitting her.
A few more steps took her out of the hazard zone and put her a few feet away from Gravitus. The man nestled his hands by his cape and chuckled.
"Now what will you do?" He murmured with intrigue.
"Now..." Kairi curled her fists and filled them with light, "I will prove how weak you really are!"
Kairi ran a couple steps forward and tossed miniature balls of light towards Gravitus' body. He flexed his fingers and caught the balls inches away, then used his other hand to start dragging his scythe back his way.
Kairi backflipped right over the scythe and threw a few more balls at the one closest to Gravitus' face, increasing its size. Then a snap was all it took to burst it wide-open and blind the man with scouring light.
Her opening received, Kairi dove straight down and smashed her light-infused fist across the front of Gravitus' face. The punch released a flash of light to prolong his blindness, giving her the chance to rip her staff from his scythe's control and bash him across the chest.
His armor dented, his mighty power useless to him. Kairi bashed him harder across the chest a second time, tearing away the plating and revealing the hollow confines within.
"Just like I thought. Empty..." Kairi reined in her staff and tugged it back like readying a javelin. It filled with light, transforming into a piercing spiral.
"LIKE YOUR HEART!" She tossed the javelin point-blank through Gravitus' chest and it penetrated through the back. In a second the man was torn off his feet and rammed into the Neo Drive's chamber. Though Kairi could not penetrate the pillar, there was enough of a dent to suspend the man in place for a few brief moments.
Gravitus grunted as his eyes were finally allowed to open and his body, weakened, dropped to the ground. He landed upon a foot and knee, scraping his right hand upon the kneecap as he started to push himself up. All the while he laughed, as if nothing could ever truly make his sanity break.
Kairi stared deep into the man's serene eyes and angrily yelled at him, "Are you satisfied now?!"
He raised his head with a narrow grin and inquired as to the nature of Kairi's bitter words, "With your determination...or your power...?"
"Both you fucking bastard!" She screamed with a gargly tone of rage.
Gravitus ripped Kairi's staff from his chest and she recalled it back into her hand, pushing it behind her back and keeping her guard up as the man continued to laugh.
"Hahaha...! You have your mother's determination...And all the flaws it warrants..." Gravitus stood tall before Kairi and lifted the left of his face with a sneer, "But your power? I am only partially satisfied..."
Kairi steeled her feet to the ground and tucked her staff up against her hip, ready to keep going, "Well I don't care! I'm ending this now!"
She pushed a couple steps forward only to hear the sound of bones crunching behind her. She turned her head back and a worried expression plastered her face as she saw Mew's chest being pulled away from the wall, separate from the rest of his pinned body.
"You have no power over me daughter," Gravitus' left hand began to squeeze shut slowly at a time, "Not so long as you cling to your sentimentality towards this boy."
Mew's ribs were indenting his skin as he growled out a yell of defiance, "F-Forget about me! Kill him now!"
"I-I..." Kairi stared at Mew for a few seconds then turned towards Gravitus. There were so many words she wanted to shout at him for his cruelty, but for now she stilled her hand and waited for his arrogance to give her an opening.
"That's more like it. Now we shall move on to the second phase of your test..." Gravitus raised his right hand to his face, the back poised towards Kairi to give her a crystal clear view of it.
"It has been a while since I've had to use this power...But this does feel rather apropos." The gadgetry within the back of his hand whirred and pushed open a circular slot on his wrist. Behind it lied an Aurian Drive, one as pitch black as space and littered with specks of white, sparkling dust for stars.
Kairi's pupils narrowed as a dread sensation filled the air. As she stared at the black stone she heard a loud heartbeat coming from afar, like the universe itself was throbbing with life.
"W-What is that thing...?" She asked.
"My first gift was the power to control the strongest of the four fundamental forces of nature..." Gravitus slowly drew his left hand up to his wrist, curling all but his middle and finger in.
"My second gift...Was the power to bend the incalculable depths of space to my whim," Gravitus hovered his fingers over the Drive and remarked in an enrapturing tone of voice, "So if you can even manage to scratch me...Then and only then will your power satisfy me, daughter."
His fingers dropped upon the Drive like a hammer. Kairi felt faint as the air she breathed became twisted. Gravitus pulled his arms down to his hips, letting out a long grunt that slowly turned into a baritone moan of excitement. Green electricity crackled throughout his body, snapping off of him and turning the walls it touched to dust in an instant.
"UuuuurrrAAAAAAAHHH!" The moment Gravitus squeezed his fists the electricity turned black as soot and the glass ceiling shattered. Kairi swung her arms up to deflect the shards but remained in awe of Gravitus' power. It just kept rising, like a geyser without a peak.
His power spurned the docile weather and forced all clouds across the planet to condense over Sancturia. The condensation within reacted poorly to his power smiting them, turning all of them dark gray, their innards rumbling with loud, tormenting thunder.
Gravitus levitated off the ground, his presence invoking the lowest of the low on the divine pantheon. Primordial fear stretched throughout the atmosphere as the planet was forced to recall the days of its manifestation into the universe. The water below the city lashed about uncontrollably, throwing the icebergs into disarray.
And finally the walls surrounding the highest tier of the pyramid were tugged towards Gravitus' power, where with but a simple breath, he sent their remains tumbling down the sides of the structure.
He held his head back and breathed in the chaotic atmosphere with a smile, then lurched it forward nice and slow to gaze down upon his frightened daughter. She was speechless towards what she witnessed. There was no manner of language on this planet that could describe the power Gravitus wielded.
"I don't usually enjoy demonstrating my power..." Gravitus' smile crept from cheek-to-cheek as he whispered with an indulgent sense of ecstasy, "But for once, this does put a smile on my face."
"H-How could he still have this much power?! It shouldn't be possible for an Aurian this strong to exist!" Kairi was caving in to her innermost fears and could barely maintain eye contact with the man, "A-And after I came this far, just to..."
Gravitus snapped his fingers to grab Kairi's attention back to him, then told her in a booming tone of voice, "Come and face me...And accept your destiny at your father's side!"
He rose higher into the sky until his eyes could no longer see his daughter as any bigger than an ant. And that is what she felt like. A minuscule, powerless, ant.
"How can I beat him now...? He's more powerful than everyone..." Kairi was feeling the weight of Gravitus' power crushing her from all sides. She needed a sign of hope, no matter how small it might be. And for her, that hope came from a familiar source.
"Unghh...That sucked..."
She spun around immediately and found Mew pulling himself up off the ground. He was still in his other form, but definitely not in the best of shapes. Yet even with the skies on fire with lightning and gloom and doom present in the atmosphere Mew cocked a smile and strolled on up towards Kairi.
"But hey, at least all that showboating distracted him long enough for me to break outta there!" Mew wagged his finger towards the man in the sky then hung it low, murmuring in a faint tone of worry, "Oh...That...might be a problem."
Kairi swung her hands down to her hips and proclaimed at the top of her lungs, "Might? Might?! This isn't the time to joke around! How are we supposed to beat him now?!"
Mew barely looked at her as he waved his hand out and said, "Relax will ya? Its not the end of the world...yet."
This could've just been Mew being Mew. Or, he could actually have a plan. He planted his hands on his back and did a stretch to get his cracked spine a little more in order. The bones snapped back into place and he recoiled with a grunt of pain.
"Augh, that smarts..." He then propped his head back to look at Gravitus.
Kairi shook her head and wondered aloud, "Do you actually have a plan Mew?"
"Yeah. I do," Mew thrust a finger up briefly at the man and remarked, "You gotta keep remembering...Nobody's invincible. Nobody."
"He's speaking so confidently but..." Kairi's gut turned a little and she laid a hand on her chest, "Why does that fill me with dread?"
"If you know his weakness then lets work together! Maybe if we do-"
"No can do," Mew shook his head and turned slightly to face her, waving one hand up with a smile, "I gotta be the one to do it."
Kairi furrowed her brows and mumbled under her breath, "I knew it..."
She then swung her hand out and yelled, "Why can't it be us?! Why do you always insist on doing it alone?!"
Mew faced her fully and swung his hands around by his head with a forced grin as he replied, "I got my reasons! You gotta trust me on this one ok!"
"Gravitus defeated you once already! You need my help whether you like it or not!" Kairi asserted herself right in Mew's face but he still acted his goofy self.
"I appreciate the offer but this is a one-person job Kairi!"
"Do you think I'm not strong enough?!"
"You are! But its not about strength!"
"Then what?!" As Kairi demanded to know she suddenly found Mew's hands planted gently on her shoulders. He looked deep into her eyes and cracked a smile as he tilted his head to the right.
"You look cute with your hair down like that."
"...H-Huh?"
Intense shock passed through her body as a punch was delivered straight to her gut. She let out a quick gasp and staggered over, her vision and thus her consciousness dwindling into darkness.
Mew's hands were there to catch her under her arms. He slowly bent down and sat her on her knees, taking care not to be inappropriate. He brushed her hair out of her face and whispered to her with a smile, "Now you can get mad at me for punching you."
He stood right up and propped his hands on his hips. He looked to the sky and saw Gravitus floating there, expecting someone else to arrive.
"...Haaaa, its now or never Mew..." Mew closed his eyes, reflected a little bit about his short time in Sancturia, then propped one hand on his katana. As he pulled it out he zipped off the ground to meet the iron king face-to-face.
"Remember me?" He cracked a smile as he calmly raised the tip of his sword towards the man's neck.
Gravitus glanced at him then looked down. When he raised his head he kindly gestured his hand towards Mew and remarked in a humored tone, "Is this meant to be a joke?"
"Nope. I'm your only opponent now," Mew cracked a grin and nudged his head towards the ground, "Kairi won't be knocked out for long. In fact once she wakes up..."
Mew twisted his hand around the handle of his katana and turned his body sideways, the glimmer of the blade reflecting off his eyes.
"You will be dead."
"...I'm almost tempted to laugh," Gravitus shut his eyes and brought his hand down to his hip, "And what makes you so confident that this won't be a repeat of before?"
"Hehehe. No spoilers. You'll just have to wait and see!"
"I suppose I do not mind a quick warm-up. I haven't used the Space Drive for a couple centuries now," Gravitus smirked and casually gestured a hand up by his hip, "And yet I will defeat you without moving from this spot."
Mew narrowed his eyes and slashed his blade out twelve times in the blink of an eye, sending light slashes out with each cut. The energy bent around Gravitus' mass and sliced through the clouds behind him.
Mew charged in and slashed down on Gravitus' face. The man grinned and widened his eyes to shove Mew a hundred feet away in an instant. Mew grit his teeth in a smile and with a muzzled groan he dashed forward again.
He slashed at Gravitus' stomach then quickly attacked him from behind, pincering him between two crescent slashes. Gravitus squeezed his pointer finger and the energy was crunched down into a eye-sized spots.
"Here I go!" Mew shoved his katana into the sheathe and boosted forward, leaving a sonic boom in his wake. Dozens of towering slashes converged upon Gravitus' location but he held them off with only his aura.
Mew wasn't done yet. He did a quick 180 and swung his katana out of the sheathe, delivering one massive slash of light upon the rest. The energy pressed against Gravitus' body and pushed an inch of the way into his aura.
Gravitus gripped the front of the energy and the squeezing of his fingers collapsed all the light into the palm of his hand. Mew folded his wings into his back as he started to feel the pull of Gravitus' power, and stood his ground.
Gravitus snuffed out the light in his palm and then slowly opened his fingers up, remarking in a stoic tone of voice, "Now its my turn..."
"Alright. The moment of truth...!" Mew bit his lower lip and got a little antsy waiting for Gravitus to flex his muscles a bit. But he was vastly unprepared for what the man's power truly entailed.
The fabric of space around Mew right shoulder distorted, his limb being caught up for a brief moment. Then the distortion squeezed, twisting Mew's arm around like a fresh lemon. In an instant he felt his bones break, and pints of blood was wrung out of his veins.
Mew recoiled, his expression squirming as his arm was left as a wrinkled, dark violet mess, with the fractured bones protruding out of the back of his elbow. He dropped his sword and stumbled back, his heart and brain on fire.
"T-That the best you got?!" He proclaimed as his body burned bright with light.
The glow around his wings became twisted up in black energy, and the second after the wings were flipped upside-down. A loud snap led Mew to believe they were broken off of his back. No. It wasn't the time for that yet.
First, Gravitus grabbed his wings with his powers and treated them like handles to pull at Mew's back. Mew grit his teeth and lurched his head up, stretching his neck as Gravitus split his back wide-open, exposing his spinal muscles to the harsh atmosphere.
Then, Gravitus ripped one wing off and forced the other to wrap around Mew's neck. Mew coughed up a lot of blood as Gravitus squeezed without a hint of mercy. True to his word, he hadn't moved a single inch forward the whole time.
With his foe entirely at his mercy, Gravitus raised one hand above his head and Mew was pulled in line with it. He then cracked a smirk and remarked, "Your time has long since passed, Elemental Overlord."
Mew widened his blood filled eyes and gripped tightly around his wing, struggling to break free.
"I...am the future." Gravitus cast his hand down all the way and sent Mew's broken, battered broken body hurtling back into the Pyramid. He easily broke through all the floors, where the rubble in his wake buried him in a heap at the bottom.
Mew's passing shocked Kairi's eyes wide open, and without any understanding of how much time had passed she leaned in over the hole with her palms grasping desperately at the ground. What she knew...was that something was wrong.
"M-Mew? MEW!" Her screams echoed down all the floors, but would never reach their destination...
Buried under a mountain of stone mixed in with his own blood, Mew's eyes closed and he saw nothing but the emptiness within his own mind. His consciousness felt faint, and cold. But to the bitter end, that demon in his head had to have the last laugh.
"Hah hah hah...You don't want it to end here." "D." hovered over Mew, a grinning mouth without a body or face.
"And it doesn't have to..." His jagged teeth formed an upside-down crescent, "Just get angry...And I'll take care of aaaaall your worries..."
Mew slowly turned his head to face the formless darkness. His mind was weak, and even this representation of his consciousness was beginning to fade out.
But then, a subtle smile crept across his face, and he pushed his hands off the void to force himself to stand.
"Nah, I don't think so." Mew crossed his arms and turned his back to the demon's offer.
"D.'s" smile turned into a sour frown as he growled in confusion, "No? Then you will die. Do NOT be a fool this time!"
"Why do YOU sound so worried?" Mew leaned his head over his shoulder and mocked "D." by rolling his hand around in the air, "Once I'm dead it'll be easy for you to possess my corpse, yeah?"
"D.'s" expression flattened and he remained oddly silent. Mew turned his head back and remarked, "Oh, could it be because...youcan't?!"
Mew turned and snapped his fingers right in the demon's face, causing them to slither back into the darkness. "D." propped up a grin and chuckled, "There is no mortal body that I cannot possess."
"Then do it," Mew leered at him and slowly withdrew his hand, "I'm waiting."
"D." remained motionless in the darkness, his own appearance fading in unison with Mew's. Mew closed his eyes and crossed his arms tightly against his chest.
"If it was so easy you would've done it years ago. But you can't. Because my mind's been too tough for you to break." With that rather eager boast Mew opened his eyes and glared the demon right in his non-existent face.
"All this time you had me thinking I was your prisoner...But you're the one who is trapped!"
"D." began to growl as Mew refused to relent, "So here's my deal. You give me access to your power, no strings attached, or I bleed out right here and take you down with me."
The demon's scowl scrunched up as he begins to realize just how much he underestimated this "fool", "How long have you been planning this?!"
Mew cracked a big smile and held his head high in superiority over the demon as he remarked, "Rent's due bitch. Either pay up or go belly up."
The truth came crashing down like a ton of bricks. Ironic, considering the predicament the two were in. The demon growled and hissed in denial, but then settled down into a fit of dry laughter.
"Heeheehee...I suppose these last few years have been worth it just to see how deranged you truly are..." "D." had a genuine smile on his face as he muttered in mild disgust, "Using your own body as a hostage to make my relent..."
"There'll be a price to pay for outsmarting me, of that you can be rest assured...And when I come to collect, I shall do so with interest..."
Mew drew his hands out and said, "Hey see! That wasn't a bad joke!"
He then extended one hand and remarked in a cheeky tone, "Maybe I'm rubbing off on you after all."
"D.'s" expression flattened as he murmured, "Maybe it would be better to die..."
Nevertheless, his darkness stretched out through the empty void and snagged Mew's hand. They gave each other a firm shake, and as their forms stabilized the demon had one last thing to say.
"I suppose this could be a little fun...Watching you tear that lunatic to shreds..."
"Oh trust me..." Mew said as his irises turned pure yellow, "I've been setting up one HELL of a show!"
A couple minutes earlier...
Kairi trembled at the edge of the hole. She had already thought she lost Mew once, and now it seemed that this time was a much more permanent affair...
"That was a decent distraction..." Gravitus' calm voice lingered behind Kairi as he descended a little lower to ensure that he'd be heard.
Kairi's hands trembled into fists and her tear-dripped face rose in anger. She stood up and turned around, the man callously discarding the atrocity he committed in order to say to her, "Are you ready to fight now, daughter? Or do you require another nap?"
"You just keep taking things away...!" Kairi drew her staff and flew straight for Gravitus, smashing him as hard as she could across the face while exclaiming, "I'll never forgive you!"
Gravitus' head turned slightly but his smile stayed undisturbed. Kairi widened her eyes and Gravitus raised a hand to her face. With a "gentle" push a shockwave erupted from his hand and sent her hurtling down into the hole that Mew perished in a moment ago.
"...Hmm, sometimes I don't know my own strength..." Gravitus lowered his hand to his hip and slowly descended towards the Pyramid.
He suddenly froze in place. The air around him got much colder, and the disturbance in the clouds ground to a halt. He turned a little to the left and felt something on his cheek. It was a bead of sweat, which he drew onto his finger to observe it slide off.
"Now that is interesting..." Gravitus squeezed the sweat into his palm and heard a subtle noise similar to a sonicboom going off within the Pyramid. Something was rising to the top. Something sinister...
"This couldn't possibly be..."
Kairi closed her eyes and had braced for impact. But the landing was soft, and warm to the touch like skin. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself surrounded in a foggy veil of pure darkness. Her heart skipped a beat until she realized that there was nothing frightening about this darkness. It wrapped around her snug like a blanket and kept her safe from harm.
That was when she looked up and saw the familiar sight of Mew's face from below. But he was not only perfectly fine, he was somehow even stronger than he was before.
"M-Mew...?" She asked.
He turned his head down and his glowing yellow irises flashed at her for a moment. Her heart fluttered as he gave her a grin and said, "Geez I turn away for one second and you go and trip down this hole."
Kairi puffed her cheeks in a pout and her eyes watered with tears of joy. Mew turned his head and chuckled, "You didn't think I was dead again, did you?"
He put her down where she originally was and she turned around to look over his body. He was in his normal clothes again but his hands and feet were shaded black with small jagged protrusions. The darkness around him was like a miasma, but nothing she had a reason to fear.
Mew innocently rubbed the back of his head and remarked, "So uhh...I may have forgotten to mention that I have a demon rooming in my mind?"
"...Mew." Kairi murmured.
"Yeah?" Mew replied.
Kairi took in a deep breath and felt no regrets saying what she was about to, "Kill that son of a bitch."
He just floated there and stared at her with an utterly baffled look on his face for a few seconds. Then he cracked a smile and declared with a firm nod, "You've got it Kairi!"
He then rocketed off into the sky, leaving Kairi to turn around and watch. But she didn't feel too bad about this. Cause she knew that Mew wasn't just fighting this battle alone...
Gravitus steadied himself as Mew stopped the same distance away as he did their last confrontation. Now Mew wore a big ol' grin similar to "D.'s", and the demon's visage faintly appeared at his back as the two voiced their greeting in unison.
"Hey Damascus. Didja miss me?"
Gravitus's fingers curled into fists and Mew watched as the man's tone of voice grew with irritation, "How fitting that a cockroach festers around a cockroach..."
He then raised his head and mockingly addressed the boy's change in appearance, "Nothing has changed except the depths of evil in your heart. If you think you can beat me by stooping to such lows..."
"Oh I ain't just gonna beat you. I'm gonna kill you. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it now, Damascus." Mew hunched over slightly and smiled some more.
Gravitus furrowed his brows and muttered under his breath, "How dare you use that name..."
He then raised his left hand and with a bored expression remarks, "I have grown tired of your constant meddling boy. This time I'll be sure to leave nothing behind..."
He clenched his fist tight and Mew just stood there grinning from ear-to-ear. Gravitus turned his fist around and then squeezed it again, but nothing changed.
"Hahaha. And here I thought Mr. Big Bad Space Emperor would've been a little smarter than this..." Mew pointed at his head and relished in rubbing this in Gravitus' face, "Darkness has no mass, dumbass! Your powers have no effect on me now!"
Gravitus opened his hand and his expression soured as he lifted it up, "There are hundreds of other ways for me to crush you, Elemental Overlord."
He easily ripped up the debris from the Neo Drive's chamber and surrounded Mew in a ring of stone, forcing it all to collapse upon him before either party could blink. Dust rose in a plume, then scattered to the winds as Mew still stood there, surrounded by a set of phantom limbs that pushed the rocks back.
"Sorry bud..." Mew stood up and loudly cracked his knuckles one fist at a time, "But I'm gonna be the one doing all the crushing here."
The phantom limbs shattered all but two of the rocks and narrowed his eyes at his opponent. The misery inflicted upon Auris, Kairi and Gabriel fueled his rage, and made the darkness around him flare up like a black wildfire.
"Payback time you son of a bitch...Destiny's been cooking up this beatdown for ya for the last two-thousand years!"
Mew flung the rocks straight at Gravitus and the man retaliated by applying crushing distortions in their path in an attempt to break them. Mew leaped from shadow to shadow on the rocks, and emerged from the last one staring down Gravitus with a massive smile on his face and his eyes wild with excitement.
"Your future's been canceled!"
Gravitus' eyes widened as his body erupted with his mighty aura. At long last these two titans would clash, and only one could come out alive...
Vs. The Lord of the Aurians and Imperial Monarch of a Galactic Empire: Gravitus!
Next Time: Unraveled