Chapter 30: Gravitus Final: Ode to You
Gravitus attacked without a second thought. His rage channeled into a hard, violent swing of his scythe. The air quaked as a gash of black electricity ripped towards Kairi.
Kairi blinked and the next moment had glided to the right away from the attack. Her body left different colored shades in her wake. The energy felt like a breeze to her and at worse ruffled her hair.
She flew at Gravitus in another blink of the eye and thought of her weapon. But instead of the usual staff an energy blade extended from her hand and allowed her to cut the man from hip to shoulder.
Kairi pulled back in shock for a moment while Gravitus recoiled from the wound. With just the blade's tip Kairi had gotten halfway into his body. Gravitus put his hand on the wound and closed it. The he formed new scars by closing his fist tight and scrapping the skin with his fingertips.
He then lashed his hand out and flung an energy ball with a contorted form. Kairi sliced it in half with her bare hand without considering it for a second. Her body's instincts were kicked into overdrive, and it was as though she could see things coming a second or two in advance.
This was in part the power of the Neo Drive adapting to her body, but there was also Mew's training to consider as well. Kaiir opened her right hand and turned it around, observing the Neo Drive pulse on her bracelet. It all had happened so fast but there was no denying that this was no dream. She was wielding the Neo Drive.
Kairi squeezed her fist taut and rushed at Gravitus with a flurry of blade thrusts. She saw every strike but to Gravitus it all appeared as a blur. Each stab wound was as big as her fist, and contorted at the opening.
Gravitus merely grit his teeth and let loose a gravity bubble around his body. Kairi quickly shoved her hands against it and pushed it back. So he doubled-down the pressure, and the gravel on top of the Pyramid started sliding off the edge. Kairi spread her wings and kept pressing onward inches at a time.
Gravitus tripled the pressure and even Mew's body started to slide towards the edge. Kairi stayed right where she was and forced some of her energy into the gravity sphere, overloading it to the breaking point. Kairi moved a few feet back while Gravitus tumbled off. The sonic boom would've popped the ears of most normal Aurians.
Gravitus propped himself upright and his face was damp with swear, mixing with the blood Mew left him earlier. His face looked more fitting for the kind of man Kairi saw him as. But to the bitter end that man seemed dead-set on refusing that side of him.
"I gave you life...And this is how you repay me?" He growled in anger.
"That's all you gave me! You've taken so much more away!" Kairi raised her right hand and the Neo Drive fed the palm a heaping helping of energy, "You...are not my father!"
She fired just one small sphere and the shockwave from its release nearly knocked her back. It was power she was unaccustomed to. She quickly held her ground and fired a couple more spheres.
Gravitus tried to cut them with his scythe just to have a taste of the Neo Drive's power. But for every one he cut an explosion was there to greet his face and leave him empty-handed.
"Lets see what else this can do...!" Kairi tried experimenting by throwing her arms cross before her waist and spreading her wings up. Energy fired out and rained upon Gravitus as a series of beams.
He put his defenses up but the energy burned right through them and parts of his armor. Kairi then bladed both hands and slashed them up, sending a wide "X" through the center of Gravitus' body.
What was torn apart was swiftly pulled together, but Gravitus' eyes looked shook all the while.
Gravitus curled his hands around his scythe and vigorously lunged and swung forth with all his might. The sky warped in his presence and he had his mountain cleaving swing seconds from Kairi's head.
The pressure made her eyes widen but her heart stuck to its normal pace. In the blink of an eye she was gone and all Gravitus destroyed were some mildly irritating dust mites.
"Too slow." Kairi waited a couple seconds for Gravitus to turn around before punching him square in the nose.
With her knuckles burrowed into his face all it'd take is one thought, and a blade would run through his head. But it wasn't the time to end this.
"Mew would probably tell me not to let revenge consume me..." And she wouldn't. She could think clearly about things while Gravitus could not. He was like a mad bull focused entirely on her. He had played all his tricks and would have no way of throwing anyone else in harm's way.
"But this man ruined my life...And I'm going to make sure he knows it!" Kairi settled on blasting him with something resembling a shotgun spread.
"Ghh...Gahh!" It hurt him, a lot. The wounds Mew gave him were still fresh.
"...Thanks Mew." Kairi closed her eyes for a moment out of respect then thrust them open fiercely towards Gravitus.
Gravitus closed his eyes and swung his scythe wildly around his body while the pain burned out. Kairi saw everything coming and moved to avoid it.
All she felt from Gravitus' swings was raw angry. Everything he had worked so hard to achieved via lies was being undone, and now he had been "robbed" of his life goal.
Kairi eventually just flew out of range of his attacks and let him keeping swinging for a bit longer. She had a brief smile watching him come to realization that he was doing nothing to her. He opened his eyes and they were glazed over, with his gums dried over with his blood. He put his left hand up by his shoulder and breathed in slowly.
"You...do not deserve...that power..."
Kairi propped a hand on her hip and closed her eyes to say, "You're probably right. I never would've even gotten this far if it wasn't for the people me making it possible."
"But that doesn't mean you deserve it either!" Gravitus scowled tightly as Kairi raised her hand at him, "You think everything revolves around you! But you never would've made it this far if it wasn't for others too! But god forbid you treat people as anything more than your tools and slaves!"
"Hahaha!" Gravitus simply cackled with sounds of triumph and Kaiir narrowed her gaze at him, "It feels good doesn't it? To have the ability to stand superior over those you despise? But I will tell you as many times as I can..."
Gravitus' body surged with energy and rocked the very heavens above, "The Neo Drive is my destiny, and I shall see it fulfilled no matter what it takes!"
Gravitus thrust a high-gravitational pulse from his body too wide for Kairi to avoid. She took it head on and it made her body quiver. Gravitus fired two more pulses in quick succession and rushed Kairi head-on. He grabbed her by the skull and opened up the hollow part of his body.
"But I thank you for demonstrating some of the Neo Drive's potential...It is more magnificent than I could have possibly-!" Kairi summoned blades from her feet and stabbed them up through Gravitus' chest, nearly grazing his neck.
With this support and wrestling her hands around his wrist, Kairi tossed him off behind her as though he was light like a pillow. Gravitus jerked back and swung his left arm out, firing a string of energy bolts.
Kairi turned sideways and propped a sword up to her shoulder so the energy was cleaved around her body.
She then slashed down and sent a wave of her own right back at him. Gravitus squeezed his hand but the energy would not collapse, giving him little choice but to dodge. He turned his head down and pulled his hand up.
Debris was wrenched off the sides of the Pyramid and tossed at Kairi. He then thrust spheres of gravitus at her and raised his scythe in the other hand. He dragged in aura not from himself, but from the people observing down below. It gave his scythe a dark neon shine and extended its length to fifty feet long.
There was a lot of clutter to cut through and Kairi couldn't make much forward progress in the meanwhile. She focused on what Gravitus had prepared and briefly shut her eyes in worry.
"I got to get that scythe somehow...!"
"KRRRRRROOOOOARRR!"
A sound like thunder tore through the sky, mixed with a beastly roar. Kairi opened her eyes and watched in shock and awe as a six foot tall tiger made of rainbow aura jumped Gravitus from behind and bit the scythe out of his hands. The creature's leg lit up like storm clouds and its fur looked like something out of mythology.
"I-Isn't that..." Kaiir swore she'd seen this beast before.
"Where?!" Gravitus, meanwhile, was stunned silent as the beast perched itself before him and cleaved his body across the wrists and abdomen with his own scythe.
The beast unburdened the weapon from its mouth then leapt towards Kairi with paws cutting the sky with lightning. Kairi edged away as the beast's eyes lined up with hers. But then it sat on its hind legs and purred like a domesticated cat.
"...It is you..." Kairi turned her head in confusion and moved in to pet the tiger on its head, "But how?"
The answer lied in the tiger's eyes, which were glossy enough to faintly reflect the symbol of the Beast Tamer's Drive that was in her pupils.
"Ah...!" Kairi slowly raised a couple fingers to her right eye, "T-That's..."
"I-Impossible...!" Gravitus pulled himself together and could not fight back the bodily tremors born of confusion, "You used another Drive in conjunction with the Neo Drive?!"
Kairi pulled way from her companion and exclaimed "That's right!" as if she knew she could do this all along.
Infuriated, Gravitus swung his right hand out to declare, "Silence!"
He used gravity to crush the tiger down flat as a pancake upon the Pyramid. Kairi used his rage to run in and thrust her swords across his body, ending by cutting up to the right.
Gravitus thrust his hand against Kairi's chest to shove her away before the blades reached his neck.
He left a gift behind. A little of his energy, blended into her aura. It produced enough gravitational force to pull the rubble remaining across the Pyramid towards her.
Kairi felt its presence and dashed off, only to find it kept up with her speed. So she swiftly turned and widened her eyes. She summoned the power of Neptune's Drive without a second thought and the flung debris bounced back into each other, creating a large cloud of gravelly dust.
Gravitus ambushed her from behind cover with his scythe, but its glow betrayed him. Kairi, however, chose to float there and take the scythe straight on with her head. The dust blew aside, and with its her aura was exposed as shining with a bright and holy glow. Gravitus could not breech it, no matter how hard he tried.
Kairi backhanded his scythe with a bladed wrist and slowly faced him as he staggered back. He was hunched over with a crooked posture and growled in disbelief, "That's not your power..."
"That's right!" Kairi opened her eyes wide with a burdening glare upon Gravitus, and her aura spread like a heat wave. The man's face became drenched in a greasy sweat, forcing his eyes shut.
"This is the power of the people you deceived the most...Now taste it!" Kairi briefly swapped to Uranus' Drive in order to freeze Gravitus' sweat in absolute zero temperatures.
Everything from his eyes to his scowl was locked up, making it hard for him to even breathe. But he still wasted those precious breaths grunting and blasting pulses of gravitational force into Kairi.
She was repelled yet kept charging back at him, an unstoppable force devoid of an insurmountable wall to stop her.
Gravitus grabbed his face and blasted it with energy to shatter the ice then thrust his blood shot eyes wide-open. He started rapid-firing gravity pulses, each stronger than the last. Then he raised his hands to the sky and channeled energy into a barely functional sphere. Excess energy spasmed out and lashed against the sides of the Pyramid, pulling even more debris into the sky.
Gravitus threw that stuff at Kairi and she froze it solid with Uranus' Drive. But Gravitus kept at it, forcing Kairi to surround herself in a thick, icy prison.
Gravitus now had his sphere grown to ten times the size of his body, but it wouldn't be enough for him to just fling it. He first crushed the sphere down to half its size and the vacuum created dragged Kairi in closer to ensure she'd be hit.
Her cold cocoon started to crack, and then became completely split in twine. Kairi's wings spread large than they ever had before, thanks in part to Jupiter's Drive.
Their overwhelming size and beauty, along with their shadow cast in a pale gloom, intimidated Gravitus to the point of having him fire hastily.
Kairi then casually swung her right hand and contained Gravitus within a pillar of aura. Thanks to Saturn's Drive, Gravitus' sphere exploded on him without making a dent in the pillar.
But it was dispelled regardless so the blast would propel Gravitus away and Kairi could enjoy the growing anger in his eyes.
The man positioned himself upright and flailed his head around. He then thrust his hand up and blasted Kairi with a shockwave of pure gravity.
She hardly felt a thing. She propped one hand on her hip and slowly shook her head. Gravitus was staggering over from using so much of his energy throughout the battle.
He stood little chance from the start but now its was painfully obvious that even that slim possibility had been lost to him.
And it left him in a state of madness. His face even looked ready to crack. Gravitus was a monster, but he was still mortal. He still had limits. And with his vulnerability exposed, Kairi's nightmare was now cowering before her.
"Its over Gravitus...You have lost." She said in a stern tone of voice.
Gravitus squeezed the side of his head and raised his eyes. He growled in annoyance, "Who are you...to look down on me?!"
"You know nothing of endurance...Or pain...Or suffering..." His right hand was thrust behind him towards the sky, "Nor of what it takes...to be worthy of saving this ungrateful universe!"
His hand glowed bright and he wrenched it down with a roar. He then stood in silence, and smirked as the winds turned turbulent. Kairi watched as fire quickly rained from the sky, bringing with its bits of metal and glass upon Sancturia.
All of this had a source in the form of a gigantic satellite that was being dragged down from space by Gravitus' power. It was coming in fast, leaving little time to evacuate everyone in the city.
With an undue serenity as his body was bathed in red light, Gravitus gave Kairi an ultimatum, "Choose, daughter! Shall you take the satellite head-on...Or kill me as Sancturia burns?!"
Kairi closed her eyes as the heat rose fast and declared to Gravitus, "To hell with your options! I will choose..."
Her eyes opened with a black symbol for "Gravity" appearing in her pupils, "My own path forward!"
She swung her right hand up and wrapped the whole satellite in her aura, stopping it in place. Then she squeezed her hand shut, crunching the whole thing down to the atomic level so Gravitus could no longer use it.
Gravitus gawked at the improbability of what he'd seen and looked back at Kairi. She put her hand back on her hip and said in a more firm tone of voice, "It. Is. Over, Gravitus."
Gravitus propped a hand up by his chest and started to pant. But instead of the expected outburst, his face suddenly shone with a smirk.
He stood tall and proposed something with completely unwarranted confidence, "You won't kill me."
"What are you talking about?" Kairi said in a baffled tone.
"You forget...I'm not just the leader of Sancturia. My own people may have betrayed me but there are hundreds of worlds out there that are grateful for the peace I have brought them. If you kill me, those worlds will be thrown back into chaos, their people taken advantage of by those cowering in the shadows."
He extended his hands out beside his body and slowly shook his head, "You cannot simply slay the messiah and expect things to end cleanly, my dear, foolish daughter."
"...Nobody's going to miss you. Give people enough time to see the truth and the name 'Gravitus' will disappear from the history books forever." Kairi asserted without hesitation.
Can you really say that with confidence? Gravitus pointed a single finger at her and remarked with a chuckle, "The Neo Drive is powerful...But it alone cannot stave the vengeance of a hundred worlds."
"He may have a point..." Kairi narrowly glared the man in the eyes and held her head up to look down upon him, "If I didn't know he's just trying to worm his way out of this!"
"I won't be alone anymore. If your followers are desperate enough for vengeance, then everyone in Sancturia will stand together and fend them off!" She proclaimed to dispel any grand notions Gravitus may have had of making her yield.
Gravitus curled his fingers inward and his hand retreated to his side as a scowl crossed his face. He muttered under his breath, "Such unjustly naivete..."
Then raised his voice in anger to lambaste his daughter's decision, "So you will willingly sow chaos into this world once more?! You are too young, too sheltered, to understand the consequences of your actions!"
Kairi did not flinch as she endured the tantrum of the tyrant dethroned, "To think that my own flesh and blood would fall to the hubris that all who call themselves 'heroes' do...You have labeled me the villain of your story, and so that gives you the right to ignore the pain of the common folk?!"
Gravitus raised his head and let out an unhinged roar, "I was born to bring peace to this universe! It is I who am worthy of the Neo Drive, not YOU! And if you kill me...everything that comes after is on your head."
"Maybe you should have thought about that before you raped my mother you son of a bitch." Kairi responded coldly to every bit of rage then stared bitterly at the man's face.
"But I'm not going to kill you yet...There's still one thing you have to answer for."
"...What?" Gravitus growled.
"What did you do to my sister Shina? And don't lie to me, I want to hear the truth and nothing but the truth!"
Gravitus suddenly widened his eyes and pulled his head back, placing one hand upon his forehead as he started with a quiet laugh that got progressively louder.
"That's right...you have a sister..." It came about as a sudden revelation to him but to Kairi it reeked of callousness.
"Answer me!" She proclaimed with little patience towards his shenanigans.
Gravitus put his head back in place and stared at Kairi with a smile, "I had almost forgotten all about her...Now it all makes sense why you want me dead..."
He propped his hand out towards her coolly and remarked, "But you're mistaken if you think I killed her."
"What?!" Kairi narrowed her eyes and her body exploded angrily with her energy.
Gravitus propped his hand up and remarked, "I am not lying. Though, I shall say I did have a hand in her disappearance."
Kairi tensed up as Gravitus continued, "Lets just say that there were certain obligations she needed to fulfill unrelated to the Neo Drive. But all I did was help push her in the right direction."
Gravitus extended his hand towards her and remarked in a smarmy tone of voice, "But if you spare my life, I can tell you where she is."
Kairi was trembling from head-to-toe and squeezed her eyes shut. She gently raised her head and thought to herself, "S-Shina's...alive?"
"What shall it be? We can make it a nice family reunion..." Gravitus' honeyed words were met with a firm glare from Kairi's end.
"Forget it. You told me everything I need to know," Upon her mentioning that Gravitus' last shred of confidence dropped right off the face of the Earth and he shook with a scowl, "Shina's alive, which means I can find her on my own! You're no longer needed, Damascus."
Gravitus squeezed his fists and threw out one last verbal lashing towards his daughter, "Do not mock me! You only believe things to be so simple because you've had a taste of power! But the universe is vast, and there are things out there that an untrained youth such as you could never best, especially not with MY power!"
Kairi closed her eyes and said, "You just don't get it do you? This isn't your power, its everyone's!"
She then whipped her right hand behind her back and squeezed it tight, filling the confines of her fist with an exuberant amount of aura. She stared deep into the frightened, maddened look of her mortal enemy and proclaimed at the top of her lungs, "So if you want it so badly...THEN TAKE IT!"
She then lashed her hand out and a cone of deep, sparkling energy exploded forth from her palm. Gravitus was quickly consumed, devoured by the energy he wanted so badly. He crossed his arms and his shields were peeled away through many blinks of an eye.
His eyes were forced open as the vast energy pushed him away. Everything about it was calm. It felt like he was floating among a starry sea. As the light began to overwhelm him completely, his resisting grunts died down and he lowered his arms down to his sides.
And, for a brief second, he cracked a smile and whispered to himself with the joy of a child, "Marvelous..."
The energy quickly shot his body into the depths of space, where the cold vacuum could dispose of his corpse for all Kairi cared. When it was all said and done, the only thing in her line of sight was the bright blue sky and the sun's rays beaming down into her eyes.
She shaded her eyes with one hand and slowly caught her breath. Pushing out that much energy all that once was physically exhausting, and yet it felt like she still had half of the Neo Drive's power available to her.
Kairi raised her other hand before her chest and summoned a bit of that power into her palm. The energy reflected into her eyes, drawing her in with an enticing allure.
With this power, who knows what I could do...? Her heart thumped loudly against her chest. But then she squeezed her hand shut and shook her head, letting out a kitten-like peep.
She then took one last look at the sky, Gravitus' last cry of desperation echoing in her head for a bit before she silenced it and said, "Finally, its over..."
But victory had to come with a price. She leaned her head over her shoulder and looked atop the Pyramid. She floated on down to where Mew's corpse lied and was shocked at how unperturbed it was. The rest of the Pyramid around him was in a pretty beat up shape that she had to be careful where she stepped.
She softly stopped to the left of him and got on her knees. She looked at her hands again and thought to herself in a melancholic tone, "Maybe if I use the Neo Drive I could...I could..."
It wasn't a bad idea to try, but something was telling her that it was just her being optimistic. She closed her eyes, let out a dry sniffle, then shut off the Neo Drive with but a thought. Only a single tear crossed her cheek as she looked Mew in the face and placed a hand upon his chest.
"...Goodbye Mew. T-Thank you for-" Her hand moved up, then slowly back down.
"...H-Huh?" She kept her hand down and saw as Mew's chest rose then descended. And underneath that skin and bone was a small, if not lively heartbeat.
Kairi thought she had done something to restart Mew's heart without even thinking about it. But then she started to hear a sound that showed just how long Mew had been alive for.
"Zzzzzzz...zzzzzz..."
Her eyes narrowed and she ruffled her nose in annoyance, "Is he...snoring?!"
She pulled her hand back to her knees, clenching them both into fists. She then slowly stood up, trembling from head-to-toe with anger. Her forehead throbbed as she squeezed her eyes shut, and summoned her staff in both her hands.
Then without a second word she stabbed her staff down beside Mew's right ear and the loud noise thrust his eyes open. He jerked his head around a bit and proclaimed, "Huh?! What?! What's going on?!"
As he found Kairi's staff pointed directly at his face his skin went pale and his pupils shrank to the size of dots. Kairi wrenched her hands tightly around the staff and remarked with a burning glare poised at his chest, "You faked your death again?!"
"W-What? No...no I didn't!" Mew replied, trying desperately not to smile as he put the end of her staff against his chin.
"Do I have to kill you myself just for you to get it?!" She yelled, clearly guided by pure emotion.
Mew widen his eyes until they looked ready to pop out and declared, "You're the only one who thought I was dying! I swear, this wasn't a jape!"
"Promise?!" She declared.
"Promise!" Mew hastily replied.
Kairi squinted her eyes, dispelled her staff, then plopped right back onto her knees and threw her head back to let out a long, agonizing sigh.
"I swear to god this better not become a routine with you..." Her words were angry but her tone was a tender mix of relief and fighting back tears of joy.
"...Are you crying?" Mew said while tilting his head to try and see.
Kairi thrust her head up with her cheeks bright red and proclaimed, "N-No! I-I-I don't care that you're alive! Go back to being dead!"
Mew let out a jolly laugh and her face froze up with embarrassment. Mew then smiled and said, "Hey! The fact that I'm still alive must mean you did it right? Gravitus got the boot, you got the Neo Drive, everything worked out in the end yeah?"
Kairi pouted, turning her aside to mutter, "Y-Yeah..."
"Told ya so." Mew turned his head back and whistled innocently as Kairi gave him grief.
"Oh like you knew everything would work out ok!" She was half-tempted to punch him in the chest for his nonchalance but held back at the last moment.
"Truth be told I should've finished Gravitus off sooner but...Eh, hindsight's a bitch," Mew then started lifting his head up and remarking, "But hey! Now we can go home and-"
His entire face grimaced and he plopped right back to the ground with a painful scowl, "Ack! Right! Spine's still broken in half...!"
He plopped his arms close to his hips and said in a brash tone of voice, "Welp, we got no other choice. You'll need to carry me back!"
"What?!"
"Well god Kairi what am I supposed to do?! Wobble my way down the Pyramid?!" Mew shuddered at the thought.
"..." Kairi stared blankly at Mew's face then scooped her hands underneath his back and started to lift him up, "Like this?"
Mew grimaced and hissed "Closer! Closer!" as his back was being bent down towards the pain spot. Kairi slid her arms in closer and while it wasn't the best setup, at least this would keep the pain to a minimum.
Mew held his head up and Kairi looked at him to ask, "S-So which way should I go?"
"I don't know, but it'd probably be better if we got to your mom as soon as possible."
"So, slide down?" Kairi said as she walked towards the edge.
"Yeah sure, just make sure to hold on-" Mew and Kairi's hearts skipped a beat as the edge of the Pyramid top collapsed upon its own weakness and the debris barreled down the side. Kairi cautiously edged back and Mew scratched the side of his face to mutter, "Ooookay then..."
"Stairs?" Kairi inquired.
"Stairs." Mew dully remarked.
As she turned and made her way over there, tip-toeing around the big hole in the ground, Mew chuckled and remarked aloud, "You know forget the date, we're practically on our honeymoon the way you're carrying me right now!"
Kairi stopped, turned towards the hole, and effortlessly raised Mew over the hole. Mew flailed his hands around and hastily proclaimed, "Kidding! Kidding! P-Please don't drop me!"
She lowered him back down and silently made her way over to the stairs. As she began to long trip down, she looked down at Mew and asked him in friendly tone, "So...A demon in your head?"
"Oh yeah..." Mew responded, "Ok see, it started a little over two years ago..."
Next Time: Aftermath