Chapter 41: Reality Avatar I: When What He Has is Not Enough

"M -bzzzzzt- ew, can you he -bzzt- r me at -bzzzt- all?" Alpha's distorted voice calls to me from my right eardrum as I look down at the beast below and think about how I should approach it. "Y-Yeah, but you are starting to fade out there…" With a stutter derived entirely from my fear, I responded to the Goomba, and immediately hear a melancholy sigh. "Yeah, well be thankful I haven't been wiped from existence yet…I can see the light of your blade above the citadel, so I'm guessing you've gotten a good look at the beast…What do you see?" Alpha sounded really stressed out for once in his life, and as I worried about his and the other's condition down below I say to him to answer his question "Its Mr. Reality."

Following my own disbelieving tone with a nervous breath and a slight twist of the head towards the disarrayed town below, I see a couple of lightning bolts strike some hapless Toads that were trying to escape the slowly erasing city, and watch in horror as without any difficult the populace was wiped from existence with not even a ring of ashes remaining of their body. With a cold sweat dripping down my forehead, I try to shake off the sadness and empathy I share with the Toads so I can keep myself composed long enough to continue speaking to Alpha. Though with how long my pause was, the Commander was the first to continue the conversation.

"…I don't even want to know why he suddenly became this beast, especially since we are too busy trying to evacuate the citizens to 'safety'." Alpha put a rather gloomy emphasis on the last word in his sentence, which led to me raising my eyebrows in concern and asking him "What do you mean by that?" "Sigh…Look kid, I'm not going to explain this to you lightly. Truth be told, after a quick connection to whatever remains of the M.S.I. base, I learned that the entire planet has been inflicted by this storm. Think something along the lines of what the Dark King did before, but on a much more lethal scale. Either way, there really is no way to save everyone considering how random these lightning bolts have been, and well…."

Alpha takes a pause, lets out another stressful sigh, and finishes his sentence off as his voice becomes distorted by some lightning bolts striking the area around him "Mew, if you don't stop this beast quickly, we could be facing a Class Z apocalypse on a planetary scale here. Do you understand what this means? That means the absolute, definitive erasure of this planet's existence from the universe along with everyone who was on it, including, most likely, you. I know I'm putting a lot of pressure on you by mentioning this, but there really is no way to make this sound any lighter than it actually is. So…Get to work Mew, you got a planet's existence to save."

With Alpha shutting off all communications to give me time to focus on the battle ahead of me, I nervously lower my left arm down from the side of my head and laugh to try and calm myself down. "Hehehe…Yeah, not a problem at all…Just have to defeat a beast whose mere presence is erasing Plit from reality." After I raise my twitching right arm so the blade of my sword is held diagonally in front of my chest, I smirk while hiding my fear as much as I mentally could. "No problem…" I say with my words fading into a whisper and my expression becoming somber as I looked down at the beast, who continues to pay no attention to my presence.

"No, snap out of it Mew. You have a whole planet's worth of people counting on you to win this. You have to take their fear along with your own and turn it into motivation to stop this beast before he ravages the whole planet into non-existence…" I said to get myself more focused on this battle. I can't be allowed to let fear control me after all, for the moment I do I may as well just lay on the floor and wait to be erased. I couldn't even think about what would happen to one who was erased entirely from existence, both physically and spiritually, even though I had my own views to share on it. "Perhaps another day then…" As I swing my sword out beside me to disperse the flames in a thin, arc-like trail, I say in brash determination "Time to exterminate this beast…"

With a quick brandishing of my blade in front of my chest, I move all of my fingers so they are positioned into the rings of the triggers on my weapon's handle. As I prepare to pull them, I incite a creed to enhance the process that will imbue me with the combined power of the seven elements. "In the darkest of hours, at the crest of mortal depression, I shall be the savior that flies down from the lone morning sun. With wings of golden glory, with flames of molten purity, and my elemental powers wielded in the name of peace…I will be the one to protect the innocent beings of the universe, even if that means protecting them from themselves. Even with the appearance befitting that of a god, I am but a mortal through and through…So with the prayers of the people buried in my heart, I am ready to let loose the flames of the immortal protector…Trigger: Phoenix Form!"

In seconds my body becomes wrapped in illuminated, golden flames. I feel no heat exuding around them, for my nerves have been inflicted with an intoxicatingly peaceful chill that reaches down into my soul as the flames rise over my shoulders and wrap around my back and waist. My vision is taken away for a moment as that very fire bursts through my eyes and mouth. I feel no pain at all from any of this, and the transformation process takes but only ten seconds to complete. When it is done the wreath of flames around my body disperses with one wide sweep of my sword, leaving me with golden, amber-like eyes and a pain of Phoenix wings attached to my shoulder blades. The flames around my blade have grown brighter, and they illuminate outward like a newborn star.

I could only assume that the citizens saw hope in the light of my flames, and those thoughts were enough to purify my doubts and renew my focus on the battle ahead of me. "Come on then!" I yell out in determined fury, swinging my sword about in front of me to coat the air around my body in a thin, flaming aura before I charge forth at the head of the beast and bring my sword down quickly towards his scalp. When my attack collides with his black, scaly skin a flaming shockwave reverberates across the air at a width of fifty feet, but the hard sound brought on by the impact signifies that my sword is incapable of breaking through the beast's skin.

As I press my sword against the skin for a few more seconds just to make sure that I'm not mistaken about my prior assessment, the beast growls in annoyance and slowly lifts its head upward. In a matter of seconds I pull myself backwards only to find the serpentine eyes glaring straight at me, an unholy glow following its callous stare that pierces into my soul and forces me to hear the ghoulish cries of the millions souls of the damned. I flinched briefly, the grip on my sword loosening by a centimeter before I regain control of myself and the screams come to an end. However, the beast has now taken interest in me now that I struck him, as evidence by his widening mouth and the pale red and black energy pulsating between the roof of his mouth and his tongue.

"Shit!" I blurted out as I grit my teeth and flew back out of the range of the front of his mouth, as I sensed the energy being built up into that beam would prove to be more than enough to incinerate a small planet. The beast tried to turn his head to the right to follow me, but could only move so far before he became stuck in one place and forced to fire his mighty energy spread through the air. The size of the attack dwarfed the citadel itself in width, and broke through the sky at such a rapid pace that it was hard to believe that I even managed to catch a glimpse of it with a slight turn of the head. As the crimson glow was reflected off of my irises, I trembled slightly in disbelief before turning my head towards the side of the beast and increasing my speed in order to have enough time to strike him before he can react.

I deliver a powerful crescent slash against the side of his body, continuing through the air quickly enough that the flaming scar across the air is still there as I flip my body around and go back for another attack right above the previous one. Upon reaching what would be the neck of the beast, I see that its head is still in the same position and choose to flip my body around so my back is pointed at the ground. With a quick tug of my weapon the flames pull away from the blade, floating beside me like ammunition for a grenade launcher as they convert their forms into that of orbs embodying each of the seven elements.

From grass to fire each orb launches out and impacts with the underside of the beast's jaw, exploding in a fantastic way befitting their element. As I fly out from under the beast's mouth and the smoke from my attacks rises out around him, the head turns towards me and collides straight with my body, flinging me across the air the moment he stops moving until I break my unintended flight with a kick of my legs behind me. As an acidic smoke made of darkness seeps out of my chest and arms, my eyelids sink down slightly as I look out and see that none of my attacks have managed to do anything but be a nuisance to the beast.

"You have got to be kidding me…" To be honest, I was both infuriated and surprised by the beast's durability, especially considering how weak Mr. Reality normally was minus his powers. As the smoke left my body I held my sword out and charged forth once more, breaking the air around me due to how fast I propelled myself forward. Instead of attacking with my sword I folded my left arm behind my head, twisting my body in that direction as I neared the beast. With only an inch away I swung forward like a speeding bullet, the velocity of my flight adding strength to my blow as it collides head on with the beast and releases a powerful sound wave that sounds similar to that of a megaton detonation.

The beast's head is actually forcibly swung to the left by my attack, clearing my flight path forward as I proceed to leave the creature behind and continue forward for but a few more seconds until I start curving upwards to slow myself down. A quick spin leaves me positioned above the beast as my wings flap slowly and I wave my hand around due to how sore my knuckles had become from delivering that punch. Of course, my joy turned to sorrow not a moment later as the beast's head twists itself around in a circle and repositions itself straight ahead of its body, and there were no signs of fatigue as it reared its face up high and let out another ghastly roar.

The moment the beast's facial features spread outward I sense something amiss in the air besides me and instantly move to the left in order to dodge a lightning bolt that tried to smite me from the darkened clouds. It was but one of many bolts though, and the process of swerving between their random drops was only helped by my connection to the air around me, even if it had become distorted by the beast's existence. It really put me on edge knowing that this lightning was something I couldn't guard against, since one wrong move would leave me without a weapon or an existence.

As I turned and flew on my back to better gauge when the bolts would come down, I made certain to be careful of running into the beast as it raises its wings into the air to try and slow me down. I weave around the membranes, making it to the right side of the beast as a strange smog is pumped out through the bloodstream of the wings. This smog didn't share any recognizable traits with the toxins I was familiar with, and with how unpredictable the beast's actions could prove to be all I could really do was stay clear of the cloud as I continued to engage the monster in combat. With the black cloud of smog homing in and moving towards me, I kicked the ground mid-flight and rocketed upwards, re-igniting my blade after so long as I stared up into the sky and with my arms at length with my sides I moved left and right to dodge the lightning bolts that fell down to smite me away.

When I reached the height I wanted to I stopped in place and brought my sword in front of me, gripping the handle in both hands and raising it high above me as I channeled the hottest flames I could muster in the clutch of my blade and looked down at the beast, who paid no attention to my movements as the cloud it releases rises upwards towards me, a pale, heartbeat like light radiating inside of it all of a sudden as I cleave the air downward, releasing the flames in the form of a wave as long as the beast's body while letting out a ferocious roar. The wave travels downwards, and I hold my body in place while panting lightly due to how much effort it took to release those flames.

As it moves towards the smog, I am suddenly struck with a foreboding feeling of discomfort in my head and stomach, which causes me to lift my eyes up to look away from everything happening below as my pupils shrink and I sense a grim presence residing in the rising cloud. It was far too late to do anything to stop the inevitable though, and as my attack passed into the cloud I immediately lose focus on everything around me as I hear an echoing scratch inside of my own head. A feeling of pain so powerful that it was if my head as made of glass and was being scratched by a demonic nail shot through my brain, ricocheting across the nervous system as goosebumps rose up across my skin and I pounded my hands against the sides of my head to try and get the pain to stop while I leaned forward slightly and heard many different screams blended together in an unholy fashion.

By the time the pain had ended, blood slowly trickles out of my left nostril and I find it difficult to even raise my head up, only doing so because I could sense the cloud edging ever closer through the air and wished to return my focus towards it even though my vision became blurred from that nightmarish spectacle. My flame wave had vanished, having seemingly been absorbed into the cloud as the light inside it left without a trace. As I leaned my head back and bit my lower lip I thought of only one logical explanation for what just happened. The cloud took advantage of my mental link to my elemental attacks and used it to attack my mind from within as it caressed the flames in its confines.

"Ok, so avoid the cloud…Not a problem now that I know what it does…" I recover from my brief period of pain and with a wobbling right arm I take my sword in hand and fly backwards a few feet before flipping my body upside-down and kicking against the air to bomb past the cloud of smog and make it closer to the beast. I throw a wave of flame out towards the head to hopefully grab its attention once more, but the impact does nothing more than make the beast wag its head around as if it had an itch to scratch. Since attacks on the scaly skin weren't doing me much good, I decided to swoop down and go for the glowing belly of the beast.

After making it so my own belly was level with the pristine floor below and after swerving left and right to dodge the lightning bolts that attempted to fry me out of existence, I swung myself around in a 180 degree circle and looked up at the ghastly underside of the beast. With blade in hand I swung it out back and forth in a sweeping motion, twisting my body occasionally to keep up with the momentum of my blows as I cut across the gut and left burning gashes in the flesh. However, as the flames burn through the glowing skin, a ghoulish cry bursts through the seams of flesh and signals the advent of a million miniature yet skeletal hands breaking through the cracks I created.

They fly out in a swarm towards me, and as I raise my head in fear at their sight I position myself upward and use my blade to try and break the hands that flew my way. But as the blade passed through their form and continued towards me unabated my eyes widened in panic due to how quickly I came to realize that there was nothing I could do to stop them. They gathered around my body, crawling along my skin and into my orifices nice and slowly as their slimy coating seeps into my pores and numbs my nerves. In a matter of seconds, I can't feel anything but the cold grasp of death and fear, and only my eyes remaining untouched by their violating fingers simply so I can see where they are dragging my body off to.

I see the ground in a matter of seconds, and is gets farther and father away from me as I begin to get wrapped up by a impious mound of ghastly flesh, the hands slowly pouring themselves out of my orifices while dragging out whatever bodily fluids they can to exhaust me and make it harder for me to resist the assimilation into the beast's massive gut. My eyelids begin to grow limp, and having long lost the ability to feel my sword I have no idea if its still there or not. I have nothing but this nausea and grief plaguing my body to comfort me as I'm dragged further in. And even those were fleeting emotions, for I was constantly reminded of what would be lost in the outside world by my defeat here today. All those poor people relying on me to be their savior, and they can't even be freed by the cold grasp of death simply because of the fact that they were not even going to exist in the afterlife once this beast was through with their planet.

As I slowly closed my eyelids and began to accept the inevitability of my own demise, a tearful voice echoed inside of my own memories. "Please Mew, I…I just don't want you to die…I don't know what I would do if I lost you too." It was Driad, whose voice acted as a reminder to me of what I would end up losing if I surrendered right here and now. "That's right…I made a promise to Driad to make it back alive. I can't go back on it, not after he has lost so much already!" With a brave, echoing thought to refuel my lost determination I thrust my eyelids open and began to increase the heat around me to inhuman levels. With an aura flaring up the likes of which I never unleashed, the flames wreathed around me to the point that my entire body glowed a bright, golden color.

The skeletal hands all but disintegrated in the presence of my pristine aura, and I burned through the flesh as if it was nothing more than paper. With a big gaping hole giving me an escape, I regained the ability to feel my surroundings and immediately held my blade diagonally beside my right shoulder as I charged forth out of the regenerating gut as a rain of ectoplasm fell down around me and splattered against the ground into the form of a gooey puddle. I swooped out from under the beast's head as the creature lifted it up high and roared in pain from my previous endeavor. While the beast cried out I lifted my glowing body into the air, taking all the flames from my aura and pouring them into the blade of my sword.

The flames extend out far beyond the length of the blade, where they become a pillar shaped beacon of golden hope that cracks through the clouds above as I slowly reel my sword behind my head and widen my eyes furiously. "I won't let you take away everyone I know and love you gruesome abomination! With the hopes of the populace along with my determination filling this blade, THIS WILL END YOU!" I begin to swing my sword across the air, cutting a descending crescent arch into the clouds before the tip of the flames falls forward and moves towards the beast. With a mighty roar I complete the swing of my blade in front of me, the glowing of the flames nearly blinding me as I release them in a mighty burst of solar level energies.

The cascading wave cuts through the air until it reaches the beast itself, at which point the flames travel along top the head and back of it and causing the beast to freeze momentarily in place as the fire scorches its body slowly. As the flames combined together in place so they become pillars of energy above the beast, they all suddenly explode and shroud the place whole in a plume of smoke. Panting heavily after unleashing that attack, I stare towards the smoke with a bit of a smirk on my face and a laugh slipping through my lips, with my sword still held adjacent to my body and a cold sweat dripping across the entirety of my skin.

"Got him…" I had full confidence in what I said, and for a time there were hints that my attack had actually vanquished the beast. The lightning bolts had stopped, and the atmosphere didn't feel as thick with despair as it did long ago. However, as a lucid, piercing red glow shined through the smoke a single, gaping roar unleashed enough wind to blow the smoke aside and reveal a nearly unharmed beast behind it. The only thing I managed to do with what I felt was my strongest attack was creating a glowing red gash alongside the targeted skin of his body, and that very glow faded away as the skin regenerated and the beast lowered its head back down to glare at me with a hungered sense of intrigue beaming out from his pupils.

It was now truly interested in me. It no longer saw me as just a mosquito biting away at his skin, but rather a mild threat to its existence that could no longer be ignored. With a furious, air rupturing roar, the beast swung its wings out wide and began to take flight much to my horror. The claws trailed close to its body without the restraint of limbs to keep them at their current distance. The beast flew at me quickly, grabbing me with its upper left claw and holding me in tight by wrapping the sharp points of the claws themselves into my backside, a scream of pain going through my lips as the crushing weight of his grip pushes blood through my body.

The creature holds me up in front of his face and opens its mouth up wide, the moisture from its salivating growl flying through the air and onto my face as he prepares to bring me inward and devour me through the mouth this time. As the three rows of teeth begin to lower, and the agonizing grip of fear begins to crawl into my punctured backside I work quickly to try and escape the grasp of the beast. First, I spread ice out from the puncture wounds in my body to make the claws easy to break off of me with but a thrust of my back muscles. Then I coat the rest of my body in ice to make myself slick and thus capable of slipping right out of the beast's claw.

Once I have flown out of the mouth the moment it chomps down, I heat myself up to regain my flaming aura and draw my sword back into my right hand, my backside still throbbing in pain from being punctured yet my face refused to flinch even once from what I was experiencing. The beast put me back in its sight, the acidic saliva that I was thankful didn't touch me dripping from the crease of his lips as he growls hungrily and opens his mouth to let out a blood curling screech. Without warning, the colors around me suddenly break apart like glass, my eyes widen subconsciously as I could feel the life seeping out of my body and my determination breaking in the face of utter despair.

My heart beats like a steady drum, my brain succumbing to epilepsy as the world around me seizures entirely out of control and deprives me of any rationality. I can't tell what anything is anymore besides the fear in my heart and the pressure of the air around me. I was mortified by what I felt and saw, the convulsing of my mind leading me to vomit uncontrollably through the mouth while I lost the grip on my sword and my hands were magnetically drawn to the sides of my head. I kneeled down, my mind praying for liberation from the pain. And to answer my cry, the beast finally shut its own mouth and the distortion of the world ended around me.

I was still stuck in the pose the beast's roar left me in, but I was finally able to muster up some rationality and pull my head up slowly. My brain still beat in pain, and though my vision was blurry I was able to see the beast staying motionless in front of me. It was rather unnerving to see him there after everything else, and despite the numbing of my muscles I drew my sword back into my right hand and slowly lifted my body upward. Though my muscles were numb and my body was damaged greatly by everything that has happened so far, I knew I was obligated to continue the fight against this creature no matter how far he drove me towards the jaws of death.

…But truly, the beast did not take into consideration such thoughts of mine, and without warning I am suddenly cut deep across my chest at three different points diagonally. My shirt is cut through along with my skin, and an indescribable amount of blood gushes out through the wounds left by the scratching of the beast's claws. The blade of my sword is broken in two by his attack as well, and with my body slowly slipping unconscious while my eyes twitch in disbelief I fall down with my back pointed at the ground. The blood trickles in the air above as its released slowly from my body, and my limping arms rise upwards for but a few seconds as I lose the grip on my sword and the two pieces fall down to the left of me.

I fall against the front most roof of the citadel, feeling nothing but the blood of puddle I am now resting on. The wounds are slowly being healed by whatever energy remains in my Phoenix form, just to ensure that I do not die here and now. But it didn't matter…With how much blood was lost from my body, even if I tried to go back into battle I would be in no condition to do much of anything. Not to mention the fact that my sword was broken in two, leaving me with no weapon to defend myself with. The Time Stone rolled out of my left pocket, but miraculously did not get tainted by the blood that was slowly drying up around my figure. With my arms and legs laid out beside me like a rag doll, I could do nothing but stare up into the dismal, darkened sky as lightning bolts rained down all-around and continued to erase the planet from existence. The beast that I tried so hard to defeat crashed on the ground a fair distance away from me, its snarling head gazing down upon me…It was a nightmare of the grandest design…And I would know that simply because I have experienced this exact moment….Once before…

Next Time: ….