(Takes place between during chapters 19-20 of the Ridonculous Underdogs)

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"Since the beginning of time, before the event you have come to know as the Big Bang, there have always been 6 singularities, 6 forces of ultimate power. Then the universe exploded into existence with the Big Bang and the remnants of these systems were forged into concentrated physical forms each with a consciousness of its own. These beings have come to be known as the Cosmic Elemental Masters. Each being has mastery over one of the 6 elemental forces of the universe: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Lightning and Metal. These beings are the most powerful in all of the universe and cannot be defeated by any normal being lest their existence be wiped from the face of the universe upon contact, and the only being capable of defeating a Cosmic Elemental is a Cosmic Elemental, or one with the powers of a Cosmic Elemental. Many eons ago, a great war was raged between the Daagons, the inhabitants of the cosmic ocean Varuna and their ruler Hiidrala, and Metallum, the Cosmic Elemental of Metal. With them were their greatest protectors, the Wind and Lightning Cosmic Elementals known as Tatsumaki and Kaminari. The two clashed in an epic battle that scarred the very universe itself, but before a victor could be decided Metallum betrayed Kaminari and attempted to take both their powers for himself in order to conquer not only Varuna, but the entire universe itself. In the face of this betrayal, Tatsumaki and Kaminari agreed to combine their power to face Metallum and end him, and in doing so they performed an ancient ritual known only to the Cosmic Elementals: Elemental Fusion, in which they would fuse into one new being altogether with both of their powers but at the cost of their fusion being permanent. With this they forged a new being with a new elemental force: Tempestatis, the Cosmic Elemental of the Hurricane. The battle was fierce and ravaged the universe, but the the end the battle was lost. Metallium was badly injured nearly beyond recovery but he had triumphed. With his dying breath, Tempestatis made a vow: even if it took him thousands upon thousands of lifetimes, he would see that Metallum would fall for his betrayal. However, that is not the whole story. What very few are aware of is that there are two other Cosmic Elementals who refused to take part in the war, two who refused to take sides because they were unsure of how the evolution or mortals would turn out in the end. These two were known as Illuminare and Tenebris, the Cosmic Elementals of Light and Darkness. As the war between their fellow Cosmic Elementals raged on and ravaged the universe, they had retreated into the shadows to observe how the mortals would react. They had wondered if the mortals of the lower realms of each universe were creatures that were truly deserving of the protection of the gods. I have observed the dealings than I would care to count. Mortals thrive, they quarrel, they perish, and they repeat this same cycle time and time again on an endless loop. At that time it seemed to me that for them to keep doing this would be the height of futility. I had even gone so far as to wonder what sense there was in protecting such flawed beings when they would consistently repeat the same tragic mistakes time and time again without showing any signs of developing, and ponder if it were to be more merciful on our part to put an end to such hopeless cycles once and for all. However, after the fated battle between Metallum and Tempestatis had at last come to a close and the mortals began to rebuild the remains of their civilizations across the universe, that was when Metallum appeared and offered a solution to their dilemma. They would pool their power into one point and create a warrior that was mixed of both light and darkness, intended to follow the spirit of Tempestatis for as long as he reincarnated through over one hundred lifetimes in over one hundred different races. Now the mission of the Warrior of the Hurricane has become much more grave, and if both Metallum and his warrior of darkness are not slain then the legacy of the Cosmic Elementals will be forever tarnished and lost to the memory of time."

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Adam opened his eyes and found himself in a black void 'This is another dream about him isn't it? Well forget it, this is something that I should've done a long time ago. I'm not here to waste any time, go ahead and show yourself Mal."

Sure enough, Mal appeared before him, appearing as he had in the void between dimensions, lacking the sinister shadowy figure that always spoke for him "So you decided to come back then did you?"

"Spare me the menacing threats, I'm only here now because I have something to say to you. I should've said this to you a long time ago but I didn't because I was scared, but I'm not scared anymore. For so long I let my fear and hatred of you force me not to trust anyone, I refused to trust not only the people I held most dear, but also myself. I kept telling myself that I could never be a hero no matter how much I wanted to believe that I could, that if someone like me holds hatred in their hearts then they could never be a hero. And over time, I stopped wanting to be a hero because I believed my words to be true. I've done all I can for the sake of others, I've protected those who couldn't protect themselves, I protected them even when they refused my help, I did what I could to bring out the best in people, to make friends out of everyone I met was just a secondary sort of thing, and I just saw faith in everyone that I met without even trying to do any of that. But Cody was right about what he said before, no matter how many people I've had faith in it doesn't make up for the fact that I've never had any faith in myself. I made constant promises to Carlos, to Bridgette and to all of my friends that I wouldn't let myself slip down the path of vengeance, and yet all this time I never bothered to make that promise to myself, the most important one of all. I see you right in front me, and I here what you have to say, and it's nothing. I'm not the same empty weak hearted little kid that I was all those years ago, if I was then I might let you tempt me because that would be the easy thing to do. I'm done taking the easy path, and I'm done with empty. I'm done with you too. You let vengeance consume you years ago, and now I'm done letting vengeance consume me. This is something that I swear, not to Bridgette, not to Cody, not to Alejandro, not even to Carlos. I just swore this to myself, like I should've done in the first place."

"...Well it's about time you got the guts to do that." Mal breathed a sigh of relief and frustration as he ran a hand through his hair "I was wondering when you would grow enough balls to do that."

"Excuse me?"

"Look I don't have a lot of time to explain before he finds me but what I can tell you is this, that shadow figure that's been following me around all this time-"

"It's been possessing you like when Jellal got possessed by Ultear posing as the ghost or Zeref or when Rogue got possessed by whatever the hell that shadow thing was, yeah I kinda figured that out."

"You did? How?"

"Evil shadowy figure speaking for you was one thing that triggered my suspicions for a long time but I was too young and naive to see past the fact that you killed my parents." this caused him to flinch "Yeah save the angst for later. Anyway Fairy Tail references aside, I kind of figured that something was off about that but I didn't know what, but when Aurora told me about the Cosmic Elementals I knew that had something to do with it. The only question is, which of those 6 could manipulate shadows like that? From what I've been told it doesn't look like any of them would have any sort of abilities like that."

"Exactly. I don't know where he came from but what I do know is that that thing has to go down and soon, the longer he has a grip on me the more powerful he gets."

"Yeah well keep your pants on, I'll figure this out and then I'll kick this shadow guy's ass all the way to kingdom come."

"Of that, I have no doubt." and with that, Mal disappeared.

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Adam opened his eyes and looked over to find Bridgette sleeping peacefully beside him with her head using his shoulder as a makeshift pillow, and he just leaned back and pulled her close, his mind wandering 'Yeah you got that right Mal, I'm not gonna fail. Not ever again. No more doubting myself, no more fearing the what ifs, no more being afraid of letting my vengeance consume me. The people in my life like the beautiful woman in my arms, my little brother, the memory of my mentor, my honorable ally seeking redemption, and all of my other friends, they are what gives me the strength that I need to move past vengeance. I'll take Metallum down and then I'll take this shadow guy down, and as for Mal… Well we'll have to go from there. But in any case, from now on I'm not gonna stop fighting and protecting until I know that my friends are safe.' XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hours passed, and the sun was rising over the skies of Canada.

Aurora was meditating in front of the Waterfall of Light, and she didn't even have to open her eyes to know who was there "I imagined you would be coming back Adam."

Sure enough, Adam stood behind her equipped with his Hurricane Gauntlets and his Wind Stormer boots "You and I need to talk."

"I thought I suggested that you and the others take a few days to relax and unwind after the events of the war with Vilgax the Esoterica."

"Yeah you did, until last night when Mal appeared to me in another dream and I put my hypothesis to the test, in which I had theorized that the shadowy figure that always appeared with him was been possessing him for years. What's the deal with that Aurora, what are you not telling me? Is there more to the Cosmic Elementals than you're letting on?"

"...So you figured it out, I had anticipated as much. Very well." Aurora exited her meditative stance and turned to face him "Come back to me later on when Mike returns later today, I believe that it's only fitting."

"Fine, I guess that makes sense but this is the only time I'm letting you stall this situation you got it?"

"Of course."

"And by the way, one other thing."

"Oh yes, I almost forgot." she materialized a magnificent looking sword in her hands and held it out to him "Azmuth finished the modifications to Ascalon and delivered it to me last night around midnight. Along with being able to tap into the forces of the universe itself, it now taps into the forces within the user and amplifies them several times over. To put it simply, it taps into the Cosmic Lacrima within your body and allows you to channel the energy through the blade as part of your attacks. You can use wind and lightning based sword techniques, as well as the new fire techniques that you acquired in your final battle with Vilgax. And instead of granting armor to you like it did to Sir George and other previous wielders, it reinforces the Hurricane Gauntlets and Wind Stormer boots you now wear, as well as the final piece of your armor I will send you to acquire in a few days time."

"Uh huh. Now for the other thing, what's going on with Patient 0?"

"I don't know why you keep calling him that but the squire of the Forever Knights is still resting after receiving his injuries while protecting Sir George."

"And his arm?"

"Unfortunately restoring it is beyond my power, such is the price of being a knight who is willing to give everything to protect his king. But perhaps you can give him some semblance of having a normal life."

"We'll see about that soon enough."

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The sun was shining over Ocean Falls.

Winston, now clad in normal clothes such as a red collared shirt and a pair of blue jeans, with some bandages covering the stump where his arm used to be, looked around the town with eyes filled with curiosity "This is…"

"Not what you expected?" Adam turned to face him, now wearing a light blue quarter zip and a pair of khaki shorts "Yeah don't expect too much, I doubt you'll see anything here that you wouldn't see in any other normal town in Canada. Aurora and I thought you could use a little bit of fresh air after everything that you put yourself through."

"I see." Winston looked around "It does come off as rather typical, and yet at the same time it gives me a sense of peacefulness and serenity. I feel…"

"At home?"

"Yes. So what do I do now? Now that the Forever Knights are nearly eradicated, now that the Esoterica and the Diagon are gone… now that Sir George is gone?"

"That's up to you to decide." he looked up at the clouds "You know cloud watching is something that I always did when I was little just to take my mind off of things. That one up there looks a lot like Cody, and that other one reminds me of Alejandro."

"...When I look up at the clouds, I see my mother and father who gave me life and brought me into this world. Whenever things were hard or sad, I would always stare up at the clouds. I would just stare at them and let my imagination run free with the wind. I would always daydream about the place where I was born, about my family and what they would be like. Those dreams were what helped me to endure my loneliness and the pain of not knowing what it was like to have a home or to be part of a family. It was the only way I was able to accept being truly alone in the world."

"I see."

"I don't really know anything about my family or where I came from, all I know is that when I was a child scrounging through the trash just to survive Sir Cyrus found me and offered me a place in his order of knights. It was brutal and harsh in every sense of it, but it was the closest I ever came to feeling as if I was part of a family. It was the only place that I felt like people truly accepted me."

"And that's why you put up with all of that abuse?"

"I don't know if that's the word I'd use, but yes."

"...You know I had always known that despite the crap the rest of those guys put you through you had a better heart than any of them. Sir George knew it too."

"I had asked him why he held such interest in you, he said that he saw in you what he had seen in me. The heart of a true knight who just needed to understand his true place in the world, and then he would achieve true greatness."

"Yeah I guess so, all I really know is that I wanna protect the people I care about. Sir George was a good man and a great knight, far beyond anything a hero could ever be. Yeah. He was a good man, a great knight, far beyond anything a hero could ever be. I learned a lot from him in just a few days, and he taught me a bunch of really cool things like what exactly my purpose is and what I can do with my life. I've always said I'm not a hero, but now I know what I am. I'm a knight, a knight that protects his kingdom and all who live in it. And for the first time in a long time… I'm not scared of myself anymore."

"He also mentioned something about you having to face a great challenge of your own, one that would push you to the brink both physically and emotionally."

"...Yeah I do, and thanks to his teachings combined with those of my late mentor Carlos I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, like I can finally learn to let go of my fear and doubts and move on. I can never even begin to repay either of them for that."

"I see."

"Yeah. So you wanna go and grab some lunch? I know a great deli a few blocks away that makes a kickass corn beef sandwich on rye."

"...Sure, I always did love a good club sandwich."

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Sunset came, and things were dying down.

Adam placed some flowers down on Carlos' grave "Hey Carlos, it's me again. I've been through a lot of stuff over the past few weeks, but I think it's what I needed. After all of the insanity of fighting with the Ninja Turtles, Ben 10 and Kung Fu Panda, I think I finally freed myself of my fears of vengeance. It was actually thanks to Sir George, the leader of the Forever Knights in the world of Ben 10. He taught me how to be a knight that protects his king, that follows his path to the very end, and how to go beyond anything a hero could ever be. But now for the first time in years… I'm not scared of myself anymore." he glanced back briefly "You get all that or do I need to go through another rundown Mike?"

Sure enough, Mike was standing behind him "No I got all of it. It's been awhile."

"A few weeks or so as far as I know." they had a quick bro hug "So what do you think, do I look like the pinnacle of a knight in shining armor now?"

"Gauntlets, metal boots, martial arts gi, I'm still getting an anime vibe."

"Dammit, you always have to be strict with your anime comparisons."

"Well it's what I do." Mike studied Adam for a moment "You seem so different though."

"Again, knighthood does it to you."

"No enough with the jokes, I'm serious. I've known you since we were little kids Adam but at this point it's kind of hard to recognize you. Your face, it's changed a little bit and I don't need to be able to sense Ki to know that your power is leagues beyond what it was the last time we saw each other, but that's not it. It's your attitude, you seem so much more confident, sure of yourself, and you don't have any more doubt."

"I've been through a lot over the past few weeks, met a couple of my idols from various different cartoons, and a bunch of other stuff. But before any of that there's something that you should know… I told Bridgette the truth about Mal."

"...Oh. I figured you would. Did you tell anyone else?"

"Yeah, a few people before her. I told Gwen, DJ and Noah, and I gave them all Dragon Fangs too."

"Uh huh. And what did they say?"

"They were supportive."

"I figured as much."

"Which brings me to the most important thing. I want to tell Devin and Carrie about Mal, or rather at least Devin. Carrie is a maybe. Devin already knows about ⅓ of the story, he's known all this time that I've been hiding something yet he's remained patient and respected my privacy and my trust in people. He's been that way for almost 6 years, and he's one of the reasons I was able to trust people again. Mike, I owe this to him at the very least."

"Adam, I never wanted you to take on a burden as heavy as this. Keeping everything that's been happening with Mal a secret was your idea, I mean I didn't want people to know but you were the one who swore yourself to secrecy of your own free will. If you want to tell Devin the truth about Mal then you've earned the right."

"Thank you. And you know, Mal appeared to me a couple of times in my mind over the past few weeks."

"...And?"

"Well the first one was kind of a prelude to Metallum so I didn't think that much into it and it wasn't that important."

"Uh huh."

"Then when I was fighting Vilgax, long story that I'll get into later, he appeared before me and snapped me out of my funk and hit me with some kind of fire powers." he materialized a flame in his hand "Whatever he did to me I can control fire now too, and before he disappeared he told me to keep an eye out for some kind of shadow or something."

"What about the third one?"

"That was in a dream last night, he was giving me another warning about the shadow, but this time he was different."

"How so?"

"All of the other times he's appeared from when he killed my parents to me meeting him in that dream about Metallum, he's been accompanied by this disturbing shadowy silhouette figure that always spoke for him, but this time he was on his own and he spoke for himself. He looked like he was benevolent, protective and concerned, remorseful even. He said to me that the shadow thing had a grip on him, and the longer it he did the more powerful this thing would get. And then we talked a little bit and then he disappeared."

"...And what do you think about that?"

"What I think? What I think is that there's a lot of stuff about the Cosmic Elementals that Aurora didn't tell us before, and now you and I are gonna go and find out what. Let's grab Bridgette and the others and go do some good old fashioned interrogation." he grabbed Mike by the shoulder and the two of them blitzed away.

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Aurora looked up and found Adam, Mike, Bridgette, Cody and Alejandro standing in front of her, the former equipped with all of his armor, as well as Ascalon strapped onto his back like Shatterstorm had once been "That was sooner than I had expected."

"You've never known me to be very lax." Adam pointed out dryly "Alright Aurora enough screwing around, what's the deal with the shadow figure that's been with Mal? Where did this thing come from, what are you not telling us?"

"...I suppose you should know. Let's just be quick about this, the Big Bang Theory is on in 10 minutes."

"Nice to see you have your priorities straight."

"Jokes aside, it is time I tell all of you." Aurora sat them down and began to recount the story that she had neglected to tell them before "Adam, when we first met I had told you that there were six Cosmic Elementals: Tatsumaki of the Wind and Kaminari of the Lightning, the two who fused into Tempestatis of the Hurricane, as well as Kaiyo of Water, Terrae of Earth who later became known as M'Baku, Urere of flame, and of course you've already met in person and fought against Metallum of Metal. That's what is known to most who actually are aware of the existence of the Cosmic Elementals. However, what very few of those people are actually aware of is that there were a total of eight. The other two did not participate in the Cosmic War as the other six did, but they were still known to be the two most powerful of them all, potentially surpassing even Metallum after he stole the other Cosmic Lacrimas from Terrae and Urere. The other two Cosmic Elementals were known as Illuminare and Tenebris, the Cosmic Elementals of Light and Darkness."

"So why didn't they take part in the war?" asked Bridgette.

"Because they were unsure of how the evolution or mortals would turn out in the end. As the war between their fellow Cosmic Elementals raged on and ravaged the universe, they had retreated into the shadows to observe how the mortals would react. They had wondered if the mortals of the lower realms of each universe were creatures that were truly deserving of the protection of the gods. I have observed the dealings than I would care to count. Mortals thrive, they quarrel, they perish, and they repeat this same cycle time and time again on an endless loop. At that time it seemed to me that for them to keep doing this would be the height of futility. I had even gone so far as to wonder what sense there was in protecting such flawed beings when they would consistently repeat the same tragic mistakes time and time again without showing any signs of developing, and ponder if it were to be more merciful on our part to put an end to such hopeless cycles once and for all. However, after the fated battle between Metallum and Tempestatis had at last come to a close and the mortals began to rebuild the remains of their civilizations across the universe, that was when Metallum appeared and offered a solution to their dilemma. They would pool their power into one point and create a warrior that was mixed of both light and darkness, intended to follow the spirit of Tempestatis for as long as he reincarnated through over one hundred lifetimes in over one hundred different races. However, Metallum betrayed them both and stole one Cosmic Lacrima from each of them, and with the, both at his disposal he used his own enhanced cosmic power and malicious influence to shift the balance of this being closer to the dark side and then transferred the spirit of this shadow being into Mike's body and mind, where it latched onto the personality with the most potential for darkness."

Adam shared a look with Mike as they both quickly caught on "You mean Mal."

"Yes."

"So then…" Mike's voice was soft "Mal was never really evil after all."

"No. Metallum is the driving force behind it, as is the shadow that controls the darkness manipulating Mal at the moment. Defeating Metallum is only the first step, after that you must slay the shadow that currently binds Mal." this was followed by a long

"...Which one is worse?" Adam was the first one to speak after a few moments "Is this shadow thing more powerful than Metallum is right now?"

"That is hard to say, however at the moment Metallum is the greater threat and so he will have to be dealt with first. After all, now he has the powers of Metal, Earth, Fire, Light and Darkness at his disposal. If he is not stopped them all of existence will fall by his hand."

"Uh huh. So where do we start?"

"Before anything else, there is one last piece of armor for your quest to knighthood that must be acquired in another one of the 10 dimensions that you have yet to journey to. I believe that you will find this one quite interesting. Also, if all goes well then Mike will awaken the Cosmic power within his own body, making him a valuable asset in the inevitable battle that has yet to come."

"So what exactly are we looking for anyway?"

"Before I tell you that, there is something that you must know about the world to which you will be travelling. In this world, dragons once thrived, but now they are all but extinct. In one place specifically there is a graveyard for dragons who had once fought in a great war against a horrible monster now lay in eternal slumber. This dragon's name is… Acnologia."

"So you mean-"

"Yes, you will be travelling to Earth Land, or more specifically Fiore, home of Fairy Tail."

"...And just like that I think my life is complete, so we're fighting Acnologia?"

"No, but the threat you will be facing is far greater. Previous kings investigated the graveyard of dragons time and time again, and they chose to erect the Domus Flau on the mountain above it in order to create the sacrifice. 100 years ago, a particular staff had been discovered in the deepest depths of the tomb of the dragons."

"So what then, did this thing belong to one of the dragons?"

"I don't know the specifics but it more than likely belonged to a person. Over the years this staff has absorbed the residual sorrow and anger that lingered in the tomb, so much so in fact that it took on a new crystalline form. This staff is known as the Dragon Cry, and it is said to hold in it enough magic power to eradicate an entire continent, but the truth is that in the wrong hands it could destroy and entire world. There is one who seeks to take the staff by force and use it for his own nefarious purposes, and he is not stopped then both that world and all of the 10 dimensions will fall. Which is why I shall be accompanying you to that dimension personally."

"Good to know." Adam turned to face the others "You guys ready for another hell of a wild ride?"

"That we are." Alejandro strapped on a pair of black gloves "Just try to be as reckless as you were before."

"Hey when have you ever known me to be reckless? Don't answer that, but anyway with any luck we'll be kicking ass by sundown."

"I have no doubt in my mind that you will." Aurora opened a pink colored portal with a have of her hand "When you reach that dimension, we must meet with my informant. He will give us more details on how to locate the Dragon Cry."

"Gotcha. Alright then, let's go off one one hell of an adventure!" and with that, he jumped straight into the portal, with all of the others right behind him.

A/N:

And with this chapter, Mike makes his return to the story. I didn't mean to push him aside as much as I did but I wanted to give Adam, Alejandro, Cody and Bridgette more development both in character and in terms of power. Plus I gave him Fire powers like Natsu, Light powers like Light powers like Sting/ Alejandro, and even Shadow powers like Rogue.

Let me just be clear that Mike/ Mal's Light abilities are based on Cosmic Lacrima as a basis, whereas Alejandro's are based on pure energy manipulation, or Chi or Ki (like in DBZ) or Spirit Energy (like in Bleach/ Yu Yu Hakusho) or whatever you wanna call it. The point is that they're different and that naming the techniques after spells from Fairy Tail is just for fun.

For the most part, aside from the revelation of there being two more Cosmic Elementals, this was meant to be a bit of a breather chapter. I figured that with all of the craziness and action over the course of the last few original chapters (Lord Dregg & the Newtralizer, preparing for Metallum invading Earth, battling Vilgax and the Esoterica with Adam awakening his initial (self-dubbed) Cosmic Knight form for the first time, facing Long and KePa, battling against Metallum in the Cosmic Ocean of Varuna, and finally the final showdown with Vilgax, Diagon and the Esoterica), it was time to give my main characters some time to finally cool off at least for a little while, hence why this chapter was shorter than the rest.

I included Winston from Ben 10 in this chapter because I always had a soft spot for his character, and I thought it would be nice to see him and Adam have a little heart to heart about what he's going to do now that he's lost an arm and his days as a knight were over before they even started.

Just so you know, the next chapter will be a crossover with an anime instead of just a cartoon, and it will be one that I can imagine a lot of people will be happy that I'm including.

Hey by the way, I've been brainstorming ideas for the third story of my Total Drama trilogy and going over a bunch of Total Drama All Stars fics like this one on Deviantart by JasperPie. That fic involves a Noah x Dawn shipping, but since I'm already pairing Noah and Emma I came up with another idea: What do you guys think of the idea of a Brick x Dawn shipping? Think about it, both really good characters that people love but are seriously underrated. One of them has already appeared, and I'm thinking the other one will appear later on in this story.

Just a heads up, this will be my last update until after Thanksgiving, and after Thanksgiving passes I plan to do my monthly update of my Naruto story, so until next time and happy Thanksgiving.