Chapter 39: Mr. Reality II: The Battle that Time Already Recorded

As I climbed the ladder nice and slowly, the area around me rumbled immensely, the lasers from the citadel whirring across the sky as the ones from Alpha's ship impact it. I flinch momentarily as dust and debris is shaken off of the wall behind me and falls on top of my head. A quick turn around revealed that the attacks were successfully cracking the front of the citadel. Still, I couldn't help but think of the damage Alpha's ship has to have endured by this point, yet at the same time I also worried about the heroes. Hopefully, they weren't getting too caught up in the crossfire as they dealt with the Heartless. With a steady look up at the rest of the ladder, I continue my ascension until my head peers out through the hole in the ceiling and I enter what I assume is the main control room for this citadel.

The first thing I notice is a gigantic, thick glass wall at the backside of the room that keeps in check a formless mass of pristine, glowing light in all of its purity with the help of some mechanical arms that try their hardest to try and condense the light into a spherical form. Standing in front of the wall is Mr. Reality, who currently has his limbless hand floating in place behind his back. I pull myself out of the hole, kneeling against the ground for but a moment as I stand up straight and draw my sword into the angered grasp of my right hand. With a scowl on my face and the flames on my blade igniting rapidly, I face the reality bender as he doesn't turn to acknowledge my presence and instead raises his right hand calmly beside his helmet and begins to speak.

"Welcome, Overlord Mewmaster, to my Reality Citadel. I would assume you enjoyed those encounters along the way…Especially that last one, considering the crimes those two hands had gotten away with in the past. You have to admit, it was rather nice of me to lure the Hands here so you could kill them for good, yes?" I didn't give him any response, especially since his casual attitude and demeanor really pissed me off given what he had done before. "…Silent are we now? That's interesting, especially since every other time you've at least said something to my usual comments. Or perhaps you cannot hear me amidst all the noise outside…Let me fix that for us real quick."

That foreboding remark, coupled with a few seconds of silence that was broken by a mighty snap of his right fingers, caused me to turn my head around quickly towards the window that rested behind me. As the M.S.I. battleship fought gallantly against the Citadel, the above it suddenly ripped open and a massive laser thrust out and crashed through the center of the deck, burning a hole through the ship that disrupts its levitation field and sends the large, burning remnant hurtling towards the ground at a snails pace, with everyone who was still alive presumably still in the commander center.

My immediate reaction after widening my eyes in shock was to try and tell into the communicator in my ear with a desperate cry of "ALPHA! Come in! Can you hear me?!" When nothing but static filled my eardrum my pupils shrunk and I slowly retracted my hand away from my ear while my facial features sink to show my abject horror at the situation. Seconds after my arm has laid against my hip, I see a gigantic, fiery explosion rise up through the air, the sound muffled by the layers of stone and glass in front of me yet the prominence of the battleship's destruction laying heavily on my mind.

For all I knew, Alpha…No, everyone, including Mario and the other heroes, perished in that explosion, which was a likely scenario considering how sudden that laser's appearance was. And yet, throughout this rush of emotions, I did not loosen the grip on my sword or fall to my knees in tears. That would solve nothing now. Instead, all that I witnessed merely served as a fuel to intensify my already volatile rage, and with a sudden swing of the body I directed all that anger towards Mr. Reality and screamed out at him at the top of my lungs "YOU SON OF A BITCH! Why did you have to kill all of them?! Your problem is with me, not them!"

The alien turns towards me slowly and arches his eyebrow in surprise, saying to me with a simple gesture of his left hand "Are you so naïve that you truly believe I would go that far? I simply removed the battleship from the picture so you would not be distracted anymore…I made sure to save this planet's heroes from harm. Of course, whether you wish to believe me after I destroyed the Princess' Castle…Well, that's something for you to decide upon, not me." "You shouldn't be destroying or killing anyone or anything anyways! You are missing the point here you goddamn alien!" The alien's lack of empathy in regards to the destruction he was causing…Well, I really do believe that it wasn't physically possible for me to get any angrier without becoming a mindless beast.

"Am I missing the point? If anyone is missing…Or rather forgetting things, it would be you, young Overlord…" With a slight grin on his lump of a face, the alien brandished one hand towards me while folding the other behind his back. I should have fried him then and there before he said anything, but there was still enough sanity left in my mind to realize that any sudden movements would likely be countered by his powers. I had to make sure his guard was down fully before I either used the Time Stone or attacked in any other way. Considering the talkative mood he appeared to be in, that opportunity was going to take a while to appear.

"Do you not remember what I said at the beginning of this all? I have purposely placed myself in the villain role, and as the big bad of this game of my own design it is my duty to give you as many reasons as possible to hate me. After all, what type of final battle would it be if it wasn't personal? I have threatened your friends and home, and you are sufficiently angered by my actions as you stand before me, yes? Then I have fulfilled my role well…Of course, between the two of us major players, it seems that I am the only one who is willing to follow the rules." The reality bender turns his body to the side at the end of his sentence and lets out a light chuckle as he shakes his head.

While I did see a point to his reasoning as to why he did such villainous actions, at least from his point of view, there was just no way I could ever justify murder, especially for such inane reasons such as the one he was giving me. "I did not cheat!" I say in rebuttal, hoping the sound of my voice will puncture through that thick glass helmet of his and get him to at least listen to my side of the story. "You take me for an idiot? I saw you meet with the original Overlord, who disguised himself as that Chronicler being, and who for the longest time proved to be incapable of being affected by my powers…And after that you acquired…Something that allowed you to change forms in the battle against Mario and Giga Bowser."

"…So he knows I got something because of my encounter with Alex, but he has no clue as to what that object actually is…" This revelation was either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what actions Mr. Reality took from here on out. I kept myself looking angry, and as I grit my teeth to match my rage I said to the alien "And so what if I did acquire something? Do you honestly believe that I would purposely break your rules just to win that last temple battle?" I stayed firm in my resistance, keeping my stance as the alien turned his head towards me and let out another, yet rather intrigued chuckle. Not surprisingly, this piqued my interest greatly, but instead of demanding an answer to his behavior I waited for him to explain himself.

"Things truly are different from the last time…There are many similarities, yet you yourself have become a much different person than the one I saw the last time. And despite reaching the point where my memories of those events end, I still don't know what caused this five day game of mine to repeat." The mention of a five day game being repeated unhinged me somewhat, replacing my anger with hints of abject confusion in both my eyes and pose. "What do you mean by that?" I decided to ask, and the alien turned his body around in full to face me straight on. "I mean what I said, in that for the most part, we have been reliving the events of a previous five day cycle."

"That's impossible." I said to him, barely able to comprehend the implications of what he was mentioning to me. "I do wish to agree with you on that…And yet while I don't know the circumstances behind the repetition of events, what I do know is that this sensation of déjà vu was something I could not ignore once things started matching up far too accurately…Interestingly enough, despite these events repeating, five days worth of history in the entire universe have been lost forever…They happened, but no mortal has the capability to recall those events no matter how hard they wish to try. Of course, you and I aren't mortal, are we now?"

"…While that is marginally true, I don't recall having any sudden flashes or dreams to any of the events that happened prior to this moment. For whatever reason, it seems that you are the only one who knows that the events of this 'game' have repeated." I said to the alien in as calm of a voice as I could muster. "That's curious, actually. You see, for my memories to suddenly end around this point, that would mean that both of us would have been in the epicenter of whatever event caused the game to restart…Hmm, so I guess this means that this mysterious object of yours isn't the thing responsible for this particular predicament."

After murmuring to himself for but a few moments, Mr. Reality snaps his fingers in front of his cloak and his eyelid perks up without warning. "I think I get it now!" He says in a jolly, realized tone of voice. He then lays his hands beside the rim of his cloak and begins hovering slightly above the ground. I lift my head up slightly to look at him, keeping my ever-present look of confusion on my face as the alien smirks and says to me "I do admit, it is rather brilliant now that I think about it." He then thrusts his hands in front of his chest, focusing them down my way and causing me to brandish my sword at him and say in bewilderment "Oh, so you ready to fight at last?"

"No, you aren't deserving of a battle with me. Have you already forgotten that you broke the rules of my game? You see, why I'm taking this pose is not to engage in combat with you, but because I'm preparing to warp reality to restart the game once more." As Mr. Reality gave his answer in firm defiance of my desire to fight him, my eyes widen slightly and I retract my right arm to say in stunned surprise "W-What did you say?" "It all makes sense now, don't you see? During the previous five day cycle, you must have also cheated to beat the Ignitor Cave. So when you came to this very room after my prior actions that time, I must have decided to punish you by bending reality so you would have to restart the game from the very beginning, only without any memories of the events. I also wiped everyone else's memories save for my own, but I made it so I would only remember things as time passed along not only so things would be more interesting as they passed on by before my eyes, but in case you did the same thing you did before I would remember the punishment and repeat things if needed."

"So you see, its not that hard to understand…Now stand still, this is going to take a while, and it will be more pleasant for us both if you try not to resist…" After finishing his sentence, Mr. Reality crosses his hands at the palms and seals his eyelid gently, his mouth beginning to move as once again I am incapable of hearing even a whisper from him. Though I ignited the flames on my sword ready to disrupt him with one attack, halfway through the raising of my weapon I stopped and began to think about all that he has said. "…Everything has happened before…And time has passed across the universe anyways…And unless I stop Mr. Reality now he will make everything reset once again."

The implications of this horrified and shook me to the core of my mind. If I did actually "cheat" the last time around, that means that Mr. Reality destroyed Peach's Castle and the M.S.I. Battleship once before, and merely revived everyone that died when he reset the game. And upon thinking about revived people, I realized that the Master was likely brought back to life once before as well…And that I fought and killed the Hands before as well, though I guess that second one would have brought a smile to my face had I not been worried about everything else. As the movements of Mr. Reality's lips slowed down without explanation, everything in turn began to slow down around me as I tried to think quickly about what to do to stop this all from repeating in full.

"Think Mew, what could you do to stop this from happening?" I inquired to myself inside of my head. As that thought echoed, I lifted my head up and looked at Mr. Reality's face. His lips moved slowly, but I was positive that he was saying something. So why couldn't I hear anything? …The helmet shouldn't be muffling his voice that much, which means that something else is effect. I thought about everything I had seen of the alien up until this point in time, hoping to make a connection between his actions and determine from there if there was a way to counter his powers. After all, without a way to stop his powers, even if I went into combat against him he would be able to stop me with nothing more than a simple gesture.

…Wait a second. That's it! That's the one thing I should have noticed from the start, the one flaw in his reality bending powers that without it, would have allowed him to simple end things with a gesture right now instead of talking the way he was. As my eyes widened and a smirk crossed my face, unnoticed by the alien, I reached into my left pocket and drew the Time Stone into the grasp of my hand and held it straight up above my head. With it grasped tightly so nothing could break it free, I thought back to what Alex had told me. "The Time Stone can't let you willingly go back in time, but it will always let you freeze it…" After opening my lips to reveal a joyous grin, a small light emerges from the stone of bronze and black, covering the entire area in a light-blue field of energy and causing Mr. Reality's lips to freeze mid-sentence.

With all the time in the world now given to me by the Time Stone, I tucked the object away into my pocket and quickly flew up so I was right in front of the reality bender. There was no way for him to be aware of my presence in front of him, and that pleased my greatly. With my lips curling into a smile, and my thoughts rushing with a feeling of ecstasy due to how great it will be to finally give the reality bender a piece of my mind for all he has made everyone endure I said to myself "This punch is going to be for everyone that's been killed, manipulated, and suffered because of your twisted game!" I remove my sword from my hand, pulling my fist far behind my head as I grit my teeth and prepared to break through that glass helmet of his.

However, as I began to thrust my fist through the air, a flash passes through the room and dispels the light-blue field of energy, and with his eyelid creaking open suddenly Mr. Reality notices my attack and stops moving his lips so he can block the impact of my blow with a sudden raise of his hands. As my fist impacts with his palm, his entire body is pushed downward through the air, though he catches himself with a gracefully swing of his hands that creates a cushion of wind above the ground. As he stares up at me in wide-eyed, utter confusion, I hold my arm out slightly before lowering my body to the ground and expressing the same confusion over the matter, though I don't let that be known via my facial expression.

"Why did time unfreeze?" I thought to myself as I quickly drew my sword for battle, knowing that Mr. Reality would likely strike against me now that I interrupted his powers. The only answer I could give in response to my own inquiry was "Could it be that my attack disrupted the time stone's powers because it relies on me to completely focus on it? Or maybe physical aggression breaks the stone's influence…" As I stood there, twisting my head to think about it, Mr. Reality called out to me and said "W-What did you just do there?" For once in his life, he was unhinged by my actions, and his agape jaw and sweating forehead showed an inner fear towards my powers.

After standing upright with a smirk of confidence on my face, I pulled the Time Stone from my pocket and flipped it once through the air, making sure that the reality bender paid close attention to the object as I took grasp of it once more and swung my arm in front of my chest. "I took control of this situation, that's what I did." "T-That's impossible, there should have been no way for you to get as close to me as you did…EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" The alien lost his composure slightly, and as he brandishes his right hand out towards me I chuckle and pulled my head back with glaring at him slyly "Its not so fun on the other side, is it now? Very well, I will comply, since there is nothing you can do to stop it with your powers."

"You see, throughout this game of yours and the battle we had prior to it, I noticed something. You always moved your mouth, yet no noise came out of it. With reality still bending to your will, I realized just now that you are unlike most other reality benders. Instead of manipulating the universe around you with but a simple gesture and thought, you have to indicate what you want to be changed through your mouth, meaning that time has to be spent before your powers go into effect. Of course, you wouldn't want people to find out what you plan to do ahead of time, so you likely have manipulated reality beforehand to make it so the only person who hears your reality bending commands would be yourself! See this in my left hand here? This is the Gaia Temporis, which I simplified to the name of Time Stone. With it I froze time while you were in mid-sentence and went on the attack. And you want to know something else? I think I know why I was able to change forms now in the Ignitor Cave…Because the Time Stone projected a temporal field that negated the effects of the Midnight Channel! Don't you see now? You can't affect me with any of your powers while I wield the Time Stone, and now that I have realized this I think its time for me to turn this around and take you down once and for all!"

Mr. Reality floated in place, horrified by what I told him with each passing second, until finally the end of my sentence gave him a moment to tremble and say to me "The T-T-Time Stone? So that means that…" With a quick shake of the head, the alien pulled his hands in closer to his body and faced my pleased expression with one of urgent determination, spawning distorted orbs of energy into the front of his palms before declaring to me "You fool! Do not think that you have gained the upper hand just because you have stopped me from restarting the game for the time being! I can still use my powers in combat, and before you can even blink I will have you on your knees and that Time Stone of yours flung across the room! Do you hear me Overlord Mewmaster?! I shall not let you win this game while you wield that relic!"

Next Time: The Unforeseen Consequence