Alright, this is the last chapter before the epilogue. It's only 2500 words, but...trust me, you'll want to take a moment to breath after it's all over. Good luck!
Light
"Rachel!" Sam screamed. "Rachel!"
He ran to the edge of the castle and stared down, but her body was nowhere to be found amongst the feuding masses below. He felt tears come to his eyes. He had lost her...he had lost her...she was...
"You'll pay for that." He said, trembling and standing up. "That is the last innocent person that will be hurt by you!"
The sword at his side suddenly lit up, the crystals on the side shooting a blinding light across the castle top, causing the King to shield his eyes.
"What is that?" He bellowed.
"The light." He narrowed his eyes. The King could only watch as the light escaped from its confines and swirled around Sam's body, seeping into him and boosting his power. The light filled his body, his soul, his mind, and his eyes. His glare was piercing and powerful and the King took a faltering step backwards. "This is it. The final battle."
Sam charged at the King, swinging his sword high, but the King leapt into the air, coming down and landing on his shoulders, kicking him to the ground. Sam hit the roof hard, skidding along it, pain shooting up his arms.
The King came down above him, sword down but he rolled out of the way, kicking the King in the back of the leg and bringing him to a kneel. Sam swung his sword but the King ducked and jabbed out at him with his own weapon. Sam dove to the side and pivoted, kicking him across the face. The King growled and rubbed his jaw before extending his hand and sending him flying backwards with a bolt of electricity.
Sam hit the barrier hard and fell to the ground where it ended, ducking down as another lightning bolt flew at his face. His head was spinning though...he had all this power, but could he do it? It still seemed like he and the King were, at most, evenly matched. But Sam wasn't magic! He didn't have lightning beams coming out of his hands...he...could he do this?
There was a loud thunderclap and rain began to pour down on top of him, plastering his hair and his clothing to his skin.
"You dropped something!" Somebody yelled and Sam looked up as a dragon was illuminated through the clouds by a lightning bolt.
"Sam! Get up! Keep fighting!"
No way...Sam gasped. Rachel?
Rachel jumped from the dragon's back and landed hard on the roof outside of the barrier, making a splash in a large puddle that had already formed there. Sam stared at her and smiled tiredly as Blaine, and Santana stepped out of the trap door behind her, both of them smiling at him through the bitter downpour.
"This is the end Sam, you can do this!" Blaine encouraged him. "He's the only thing left standing in our way."
"Come on! You've got this!" Santana cheered. "We believe in you!"
"And we love you." Rachel smiled at him. "You have to win this. For me. We're getting married, remember?"
Sam felt the light surge through him and he rolled to his feet and swung his sword, sending a blade of light at the King. His eyes widened at his new power as the light beam sliced through the King's right bicep.
"You're not the only one with pure power at your disposal." The King yelled, shooting a blade of darkness at him with a sweep of his own sword, but he was getting frantic.
Sam ran at him again, but had to skid to the ground as a blade of darkness flew over his head, sending up a sheet of water. He stabbed his sword into the ground and used the momentum to haul himself to his feet and into a run, swinging the sword around in a circle. Sam sliced at the King's mid-section, but missed and tumbled past him, rolling to the ground to avoid another swing of the King's sword.
The King hastily launched another electric attack at him but he deflected it with the blade of his sword and it flew harmlessly over his head.
"Why can't you understand, you can never win!" Sam yelled, clashing swords with him and leaning it to growl in his face.
"I can and I will!" The King snarled, pulling his head back and smashing it against Sam'sown. He stumbled backwards and the King took the opportunity to lunge at him. Sam jumped into the air and landed on the King's sword, pushing the blade down into the cement. Sam pivoted and kicked him in the face.
"No you won't, you're evil and evil never wins!" He growled.
"That's only in storybooks!" The King snarled, attacking with another blade of dark energy that stabbed through Sam's thigh. He gasped at the hit but didn't back down.
"Life is a storybook, the characters may be different but the rules never change!" He roared, blocking another hit with his sword. Sam took one hand off of his sword and punched him in the face. "And if I'm in a storybook, my ending, has nothing to do with you." He glowered at the King. "And everything to do with them." He gestured over his shoulder at his friends.
"Unfortunately for you, this isn't your story." The King snarled at him and Sam's eyes flickered to Rachel. The King took advantage of the upset to knock his feet out from under him and pin him to the ground, the tip of his sword at his throat.
The King drew the sword back and stabbed it directly into Sam chest.
"Sam!" Rachel screeched.
Sam felt a ringing in his ears. Spots erupted in front of his eyes. He couldn't hear anybody, he couldn't feel anything. He knew his sword was still in his hands, but he suddenly felt numb. Nothing but cold...that had nothing to do with the storm.
He could hear his own blood rushing past his ears.
"Get up."
Sam looked up and found Kitty and Finn standing before him, both of their hands extended. He dropped his sword and it clattered to the ground beside him. Kitty and Finn pulled him to his feet and he stepped forwards, the fuzzy shapes before him coming into focus.
The King's final words were still ringing in his ears as Kitty and Finn each rested a hand on his shoulders.
This isn't your story.
This isn't your story.
This isn't your story.
Sam closed his eyes tightly and then snapped them open again. The King was gloating towards the others. Rachel was sobbing into her hands and Blaine and Santana were holding her, glaring up at the King with a blind fury he'd never seen before in them. Sam was proud to look at them. Proud that they were still ready to fight, even as tears leaked from their eyes. To protect Rachel, where he no longer could.
This isn't your story...
"That's where you're wrong." Sam spoke finally in a deadly monotone. "This has always been my story."
The King turned slowly.
His friends looked up at him in surprise.
Sam raised his palms and unleashed a massive beam of light that sent The King flying into the force field. He grunted as he hit the ground.
Sam could feel Kitty and Finn walking on either side of him, giving him strength, and the others; his parents and Brittney's and the Nurse and Bruce, just outside of his view.
Waiting for him.
Sam walked purposefully forwards, shooting beam after beam of pure light at the King's trembling form. Finally, Sam stopped right in front of him, lips a firm line of determination.
"But it's never been mine alone." He spat, raised both hands, and fired a clean bolt of pure light energy. Right into his head.
Rachel stared as the barrier faded away to nothing.
"Sam!" She cried, leaping to her feet and running towards him. She saw his knees buckle and she dove to catch him before he hit the ground. His clothing was covered in blood. She wasn't even sure how he was still alive.
Santana and Blaine ran forwards with her, but stayed just off to the side, watching, tears streaming down their faces.
"Sam, no, don't die on me, you can't die on me." Rachel whimpered frantically, stroking his hair. He smiled up at her, looking dazed, but, maybe for the first time in his life, truly happy.
"I did it..." He whispered, staring up into the sky.
He flashed back to that night, so long ago, in Blaine and Rachel's home. He'd decided then and there that he would stop the King. He'd known from the beginning that he might die... and he wasn't really surprised... but it was okay...because he'd still managed to stop the King.
"Yeah, you did." Rachel whispered. "You killed him, so let's go home! Let's go wherever you want, and let's get married Sam! Married! And we'll have kids one day, and we can tell them about how close you came to dying, but that you pulled through!"
"Rachel..." He whispered and she pursed her lips, eyes red and puffy as tears splashed down onto his cheeks. "I love you." He said. "I love you more than I've ever loved anything, and I am so, so proud of you. But you have to keep going okay? Without me...For me, okay?"
"Sam, I can't! I told you, I'd die if I lost you!"
"Well that's not an option." Sam whispered. "Look around you Rachel, look at all of the great people you met on this journey. Maybe I started that for you, but now...now you've got an even greater destiny!"
"Sam!" She protested but he laughed breathily, looking up at her.
"I'm the King's grandson Rachel. You're my bride. Do you know what that means?"
She shook her head.
"I leave you my Kingdom, Queen Rachel." He smiled. "They could use you. Your kindness...your justice...your strength. Your love."
"No Sam, I can't, I can't do this without you." She whimpered.
"Yes." He smiled. "You can. I know you can, because I'll be with you every step of the way. In your heart."
"Sam...I..."
"Goodbye, Rachel." He smiled, took one final deep breath, and closed his eyes.
"I love you..." She whispered.
She looked down at her fiancé's body, cradled lovingly in her arms.
"Sam?" She shook him. "Sam!" She shrieked, burying her face in his chest and sobbing into the material. "Don't l-leave me! Please!" She sobbed.
She lowered him gently to the ground in front of her and looked down at him.
-Musical Cue-
-Next to Normal: Light-
"...Please." She cried, voice breaking with grief. "Please?"
"We need some light..." Santana sang softly, sinking to her knees and resting a hand on Rachel's sobbing back. "First of all, we need some light."
Rachel turned to stare at her with teary, bloodshot eyes.
"You can't sit here in the dark, and all alone... it's a sorry sight." Santana held Rachel tightly with one arm. "It's just you and me. We'll live, you'll see." She rested her head on Rachel's shoulder.
"Night after night." Blaine sang, stepping forwards through the rain and kneeling on Rachel's other side, resting a hand on her knee. "We'd sit and wait for the morning light, but we've waited far too long, for all that's wrong to be made right."
Rachel looked at him, tears streaming down her face, hair plastered to her head in the rain.
"Day after day..." She sang. "Wishing all our cares away... trying to fight the things we feel, but some hurts never heal."
She looked down at Sam's closed eyes and Blaine and Santana both took one of her hands.
"Some ghosts are never gone. But we go on..." She stood up. "We still go on."
Blaine and Santana both held her hands tightly as she walked to the edge of the castle tower and looked over the edge. Brittney, Quinn, Mercedes, Tina, Puck, Kurt and Marley all stared up at her.
"And you find some way to survive!" She sang, shaking her head. "And you find out you don't have to happy at all..."
She looked back at Sam.
"To be happy you're alive."
"Day after day!" Marley belted.
"Give me clouds and rain and grey!" Tina sang.
"Give me pain if that's what's real!" Quinn sang.
Kurt nodded, holding her hand and looking up, joined her.
"It's the price we pay to feel!"
"The price of love is loss..." Brittney and Puck looked up into the rain, staring at the figures atop the castle.
"But still we pay!" Puck continued.
"We love anyway!" Mercedes joined him.
"And when the night has finally gone, and when we see the new day dawn." Blaine spun Rachel around to face him, smiling teary-eyed. "We'll wonder how we wandered for so long, so blind!"
He looked up at the sky. The rain had stopped and the clouds were slowly begun to drift apart, the sun peeking through.
"The wasted world we thought we knew, the light will make it look brand new!"
"So let it..." Quinn joined him, carrying on as Blaine fell out. Something inside of them started to glow, green and light blue, illuminating them.
"Let it." Brittney and Santana sang together, looking up at the light. They both began to shine dark blue and silver.
"Let it." Marley bit her lip, emanating a yellow light.
"Let it." Mercedes moved closer to Puck as she sang, glowing purple.
"Let it shine!" Puck belted, lighting up in a flash of maroon.
"Shine!" Tina joined him, shooting out a pink light.
"Shine!" They all belted out. As they sang beams of light shot from their bodies all over the battlefield towards the sky. "Day after day!"
"Day after day..." Rachel echoed, nodding. A soft, warm, red glow began to form deep in her chest.
"We will find the will to find our way!" Blaine and Santana grinned at one another.
"Knowing that the darkest skies!" Puck and Quinn sang together.
"Will someday see the sun!" The others finished.
"When our long night is done..." Blaine sang, smiling. Santana joined him. "There will be light!"
"Will be light, will be light." Rachel nodded affirmatively. The light inside of her began to grow, brighter and brighter until it overpowered all the others. She looked up to the sky and her light shot up into the clouds, forcing them apart.
"There will be light!" Everybody sang together. The light from the sky funnelled down towards Sam's body. They stared in awe as he began to float into the air.
"Then we open up our minds, sons and daughters, husbands, wives, to fight that fight." Sam began to spin as the light from the others covered him, almost shielding him from their view.
"There will be light!" The light began to swirl and Sam began to spin around inside of it, hair flying haphazardly in an unseen energy.
"There will be light!" His wounds slowly began to close, the blood wiped off of his skin in the vortex.
"There will be light!" His clothing repaired itself and he was righted in the air so that he floated vertically.
"There will be..." The army gawked as Sam's eyes flicked open and he touched down on the rooftop. He smiled at Rachel and opened his mouth. The four of them on the rooftop were enveloped as the light expanded towards the rest of the kingdom.
"Light!"
Wow. Fuck yes. Love my life.
Review please! The only thing left is the wedding and the epilogue! They'll be together.