Author's Note:
Epilogue shall be up either later today or tomorrow.
Final Chapter: The Phoenix of Destruction
The temple roof has been scorched black in multiple locations by the crest of my flames, some cinders still burning lightly as I continue to engage the Reaper in combat. The illusion of Joe Dark had fallen long ago, his decaying body spread out near the edge of the rooftop as the dark particles from his body rise up into the blackening sky. I take my curved blade and deflect a blow from the Reaper's scythe, paying close attention to the being's left arm as he holds his gun below the swing and fires a deathly red shot my way. I counter the projectile with a swift movement of my left hand to the front of my chest, using a streaming net of electricity to absorb the brunt of the impact as the metal from the Reaper's scythe clings against my flaming blade and sends fire across the air as I am knocked back a few feet.
As I work up a sweat in the heat of battle, I pant a few times and brush a budding flame off of the side of my cloak without bringing attention towards it with my eyes. The Reaper recomposes himself, his tattered cloak swinging across the air as his arms move towards the sides of his body and he refills his gun's ammunition with one ghastly pull of the trigger. As the chink of metal against the metal alerted me of the bullet being loaded up inside of the barrel, I quickly flung my left hand forward and sent a rupture through the ground below me, which could easily be predicted by the large crack that was forming along the roof.
The Reaper flew to the right, his weapons being dragged through the air in front of him as I point my right finger at the gun's barrel above my sword's handle and launch a quick bolt of electricity while the being was distracted with my previous attack. After slipping between the metal lip, my projectile keeps bouncing back and forth along the metal interior until it slips behind the bullet and reaches the spectral gunpowder behind it and ignites it. Within seconds, as the Reaper reacts unpleasantly to the activity going on inside of his weapon and I smirk in the name of a confident victory, the gun explodes all at once as the being is forced to release his grip on it so the ensuing storm of metal shrapnel doesn't become impaled in the only flesh on his body.
As the Reaper escapes through the edge of the cloud of smoke he holds his ghastly hand into the air and draws forth a second scythe into his grasp, his irritation prominent in the way his eyebrow has been arched as he suspends his flight and turns towards me. "I must admit, I am both surprised yet annoyed over the fact that a mere human, even one with powers such as yours, has managed to give me such a hard time." He said in a hollow tone of voice as he swung his scythes towards the ground and caused a bit of dirt to rise up in miniature plumes upon impact. With my sword gripped in both hands as it was held out beside me, I close my eyelids for a moment and chuckle lightly at the Reaper's comment before asking him "And just why are you so annoyed by the fight I'm putting up?"
"Because if people like you are able to easily put up a fight against a bringer of death such as myself, then the point of my existence is invalidated. The last thing I want is to deal with more immortals in this universe, hence why your defiance is so detrimental to me, Phoenix of Destruction. Besides, even though you can stand against me, you lack the means of which to end my own existence…You will never escape this area, your life shall eventually be mine…" As the Reaper finished his sentence and readied his scythes, a powerful chill coated the air and coaxed out a series of goosebumps across my skin, and with one breath a ghastly fog emerges from between my lips.
I stayed calm though, reacting with one steady raise of the eyebrows before staring fiercely at the Reaper and rebutting his words with a bold declaration. "I'll be here for as long as it takes for my clone to stop the reality bender; however, you can be certain that I'll take care of you long before then, so come at me with everything you got!" As I too readied my weapon to continue the battle with the Reaper, I kept my hopes in my clone's victory against the alien, for while I wished to beat my opponent in battle I knew deep down that I was fighting a futile battle against one of the many fragments of Death itself.
Even with my body damaged all-around, I had all of my forms at my command to change into to heal myself up and keep dragging the battle on for as long as was necessary. In fact, with the Reaper's change in weaponry I considered going into my Wind empowered form if only to match his weapons. As I thought about the prospect for a few seconds, my fingers already began to move towards the grey trigger on my sword with the Reaper easily noticing my movements and slowly beginning to raise his right scythe into the air to attack me. But without any plausible explanation at the moment, the being stops raising his arm at the halfway point and immediately dispels his weapons by decaying their forms until they are nothing more than rusted mist that slips back into his sleeves. "Hehehe…" The Reaper closes his eyelid partially and lets a slow, eerie laugh echo out of his mouth.
Disturbed by the sudden change in behavior that the being had took, I straighten my body and look at the Reaper in confusion, trying to keep my composure as I ask him "What's so funny?" "It seems my predicament shall be solved for me in the most sensible of ways…Tell me, how does it feel knowing that your copy has failed?" The Reaper's words took me entirely off-guard, and as I flinched in reaction to them I said in response "What do you mean by-" I was interrupted though, by the sudden, unhinging tremors that shook the area to its core. The air was also afflicted with these unending tremors, and as I looked around the roof began to deteriorate rapidly.
Looking back at the ghoul, I watch as he calmly yet eerily laughs in the middle of the air. "Do you not feel the tremors around you? The very end of reality has begun, brought on by your clone's own failure…And soon, everyone both mortal and immortal shall be wiped from existence, leaving me without a reason to worry about you anymore." "T-That's insane, you'll be wiped from existence too if that's the case!" I pointed out, stuttering as the Reaper calmly spoke to me. "Hehehe….Do you not understand? I am not of this reality…I am an aspect of Death born in the depths of the Midnight Channel, and therefore I will continue to exist in the original dimension as the spell on this area of the citadel vanishes without a trace. I will survive forevermore, and your consciousness shall slip away within a microsecond of your final moments. Hahaha…Til we never meet again, Phoenix of Destruction…"
As the Reaper once again referred to me by a title similar to the one he gave my replica, his body vanished from sight as the area around me continue to crumble away without any hope of saving it. I had no idea as to what was going on in the outside world, but if what he said was true then it was because of my clone that this situation was happening in the first place. I stood still amongst the endless tearing of reality, waiting for the moment when my body would fade away, knowing that I wouldn't even realize that this event had occurred once it does. The ground crumbles under my feet, and my body plummets down the empty abyss for what feels like forever. I watch the sky shatter into pieces as I helplessly hold my left hand into the air in hopes that someone would grab onto it and haul me up from this void. As it turns out though, nothing happens besides everything finally vanishing for-
-good….
I am stunned, my heartbeat picking back up again as I am suspiciously on my back with the cold wetness of dew drops rubbing against the back of my cloak and scalp with my left hand still raised towards the now sunny sky above. I thrust my body up as quickly as I possibly could, my eyes widened immensely as I look around and see that everything is back to the way it was before. Peach's Castle had been restored, and reality was back as if it had never been lost in the first place. I placed my right hand against the side of my head, a light throbbing sensation pounding against the skull as I take a few steady breathes and wonder what the hell happened for me to end up back here.
I lifted my head up and looked at the Light Citadel, which had most of its luster returned. However, I was unable to look at it for long as a bright light covered it and the building vanished from sight forever, my head being forced to turn itself to avoid being blinded by the radiating glow. As I looked back up a few seconds later, I saw a familiar figure flying through the air away from where the Light Citadel used to be. It was my replica, who was still alive despite what the Reaper implied would be the case. "He must have saved reality…But…Where is he going now?" As I was proud of my clone and a smile etched itself across my face, I turned my head around and saw his body moving over the forest in a direction I rather did not want to see him going towards.
As my smile turned into a panicked grin, I pulled my body up off the ground and quickly bolted towards the forest without a care spent towards my injuries. My clone was heading to Mario's house, and I greatly feared that after everything that had happened he would confirm to everyone that I was still alive. As I bobbed and weaved through the trees branches with only a couple lone pieces of bark scrapping against my vulnerable arms I said to myself "I can't let him reveal anything, because I'm just simply not done fighting my inner demons yet…And he still has the Gaia Temporis too, I need to retrieve that from him before the original Overlord's spirit finds me…It seems I may end up having no choice in the matter…" As I neared Mario's house beyond the thicket of trees, I slipped my right glove into the single pocket in my cloak, reaching for a miniature gun that I had put together with the help of some blueprints from E. Gadd's lab.
I crossed my eyelids together and leapt through the final set of trees, sticking my landing and making it to the front of Mario's porch as I turned around and looked up to see my clone descending towards the ground. I waited a few seconds to calmly catch my breath, and when I had done so I took advantage of the relic in my clone's pocket by uttering three words "Gaia Temporis, Freeze." With my voice reaching out to him along with the sudden stopping of time around us, my clone turns to me and notes my appearance with his eyes widening briefly in shock. I glare at him in slight annoyance, and after a few seconds I say to him "Mew, we need to talk."
He is the first one to make a comment after that, after straightening his body he takes a couple steps forward and holds his left hand out beside his hip, saying to me gently yet nervously "A-Alex, what are you doing here?" "I came back for my Gaia Temporis, since clearly that reality bender has been dealt with." I held my left hand out in front of my body, wiggling the fingers upward a couple of times as I waited for my replica to hand over the relic without so much as a tussle. He blinked his eyelids a few times, those moments obviously spent in thought before he slips his right hand into his pockets and pulls the relic out, all the while saying to me "Yeah, I guess that's only fair…Honestly, after you came to my rescue back at the Light Citadel, I think you deserve to have this back…"
He then flings the Gaia Temporis back into my hand, and with a firm grip around the spherical surface I tuck the relic away into my single pocket before looking at my clone with one eyebrow raised and asking him "And just what is that supposed to mean?" I knew the answer already, but wished to hear it from the mouth of my clone. He smiled for a moment in an attempt to hide his nervousness, but quickly departed from that expression as he chuckled and said "Well, after how sour our prior meeting was, I thought you weren't really worthy of having the Time Stone's powers, so I planned to keep it for myself…But honestly, you seem to be doing just fine with your whole 'inner demons' ordeal, so much in fact that…Well…"
My clone paused for a moment, his head tilting downward to the right as he took his opposite hand and rubbed the back of his scalp nervously for a moment. As I raised my eyebrows in anticipation for the continuation of his sentence, my replica looked back up at me and with a kind-hearted smile he says "I was just thinking…Perhaps you would like to consider coming back with me so you can be part of this world again? Be part of a family with me, Driad, Mario and Luigi…Or even better, we can team up and take care of the Chief of the F.B.I. back on Earth, if that would make it easier for you to live here on Plit…Alex, I'm not going to tell them about you unless you want me to, so this decision rests entirely on your shoulders, not mine…"
My clone's offer was genuine, and I could see it all in the way he innocently stared at me with a smile on his face and his right hand held out in front of his chest. But everything he said was just a big reminder of what I foolishly let him know about throughout his short time on the planet. I shouldn't have told him the truth about my past, for the matter of the Chief is something I wish to deal with myself, there is no reason for Mew to ruin his life getting involved with what is my own fight. I turned my head to the side and solemnly shut my eyelids partway, feeling sorry for my clone's enthusiastic desire to ignore what the world truly was just so we could live a life in peace.
"Hey wait a second…Why do you have your right hand in that pocket there?" Mew's sudden, somewhat concerned inquiry got me to snap out of my current emotional state in order to look up and realize that my arm was still inside of the cloak pocket. With my fingers still wrapped around the gun, I pulled it out and held it out beside me with a casual stance, looking straight at my clone as his eyes widen and he stutters out a response "W-What are you doing with that gun?" He clearly didn't recognize it, which I found rather odd considering the fact that he was at E. Gadd's lab a while ago. I decided to make up a reason on the spot while keeping my composure.
I looked at my clone first and foremost, waving the gun around as I shrugged my shoulders and said to him "I found a neutralizing gun that I was planning on using in case you tried to resist giving me back the Gaia Temporis, but seeing as you gave it back I'll just have to put it back where I found it later on." After my false explanation had been given with my clone calming himself down and seeing no reason to be concerned about my gun for the time being, I walked over my clone, stopping two feet away from his body and holding my left hand out so I could pat him twice on the shoulder.
He was surprised by my show of affection, and after turning to look at my hand he looks at me while I falsify a smile and say to him "Mew, I'm really glad you've made an identity for yourself and have found a place in this world amongst my old allies…But I will have to refuse your kind request for the time being, because I'm just not ready to settle down when I still have much left to conquer inside of myself…And really, I'm sorry that I got you involved in my own affairs, but not as sorry as I shall be after this moment…If we ever meet each other again, I hope you can bring yourself to forgive me for this…" As I ended my sentence on a melancholy note, Mew looks at me with a look of utter shock, but the widening of his eyes becomes permanent for ten seconds as I take control of his mind and tell it to knock him unconscious.
As his eyelids close shut, I pull my arm away and watch as his muscles become limp and he falls backwards without so much as a word. Within seconds of my action being performed, Mew collapses against the ground with a quiet thud, his arms held beside his hips as his face shows no emotions. I take one step forward, looking down at his my clone's unconscious body with a solemn frown on my face and a single teardrop flowing out of my right eye all on its own. The attempt to inflict guilt upon me was futile though, for now that I had gone this far I had to finish what I started before my clone woke up and saw me still standing above him. There would be too many questions and emotions to deal with if that were to happen…
I kneeled down, taking my left hand and applying the bare skin of my fingers on the crest of my clone's forehead, closing my eyelids and focusing as hard as I could on the innermost confines of his memories as yet another tear forces itself through the crease in my left eyebrow. "God forgive me for what I'm about to do…" I said quietly as I began to flush through the memories of Mew's journey here one after the other, sealing them away in the deepest reaches of his subconscious so he would never again recall them unless I willed it to happen. As each one flashed on by against my closed eyelids, there were a couple of ones that were rather poignant in their appearance, particularly those related to my young friend Driad.
The tears came through rather quickly afterwards, as I sniffled and said to myself in a guilt-ridden tone that was reflective of what my clone would say if he could feel his memories being forgotten "I-I'm really doing this…I'm really taking this away from Mew…After…After all he went through I'm going to take this way…" I tried to shake my head, but it refused to budge as I thought to myself soon afterwards "I-I have to do this for Mew's own good…He can't be a part of my troubles…I-I'm doing the right thing here…No, no I'm not…But it can't be helped now…I-I've finished…" Opening my eyelids to be welcomed by the blurry vision brought on by the teardrops, I slowly withdraw my trembling hand away from Mew's forehead. Even though his memories have been sealed away, I have made sure that his current personality will remain the same, something I did to owe up for what I have done in whatever little way I could manage to…
However, as I dug into Mew's mind, I also noticed the light energy reserve from the Overlord's citadel floating amongst the inner workings of his subconscious. Fearing that the activation of that form would reawaken his memories, I sealed the reserve away behind an emotional barrier that would only break if my clone experienced a period of prolonged yet immense sadness. And even if he activated his Light Form after breaking that barrier, he wouldn't remember a thing…It was all for the best…That's what I had to keep telling myself as I wiped my tears away on my right sleeve and got back onto my feet. I took the gun in my right hand and looked at the controls. Remembering what I saw on the blueprints, I operated the device so the coordinates would be set for the outside of my former house.
As I did so though, I bent forward slightly to peer at the text just to make sure that everything was in order, only to be great by an unholy chill in the air that vanished within a millisecond of its appearance. The subdued laugh that followed it lingered for much longer, leaving me to slowly raise my head as I sense a rather dark presence in the immediate area. I turn my head around, trying my hardest to seek the source of the eerie sensation only for nothing to come up. "W-What was that? …And why did it feel so similar to that of the Dark King's presence?" As I created questions that would never be answered by my own observation, I looked up and saw a bright light descending from the sky above.
It was the original Overlord's spirit, which levitated in the air twelve feet above my clone's body as I could feel an irritated aura exuding from the formless being. "…What have you done here, Alex?" He asked with little patience in his tone of voice. As I looked up at him with a bit of fear and sadness in my eyes, I said to him "I…I used my powers to modify Mew's subconscious so he'd forget the events of this journey…I also removed his Light Form and was planning to send him back to Earth right now." "…That is not ethically correct, and not something I approve of…However, seeing as I was not in your body when the event occurred, I shall let your misdemeanor slide just this once, with but a warning that there will one day be consequences for your decision…"
The spirit sternly gave me his message, and I solemnly replied by saying "Yeah…I know that…" With a guilty turn of my head to the right, the spirit lowered himself and I looked back his way. "So, where have you been all this time?" "Everywhere, my young successor…After the reality bender separated me and the Genesis Samurai's spirits from your body, I wandered about the spiritual plane, watching and guiding the young Mew from afar while tending to other affairs to ensure that reality would not be permanently wiped out. Luckily, thanks to some words with the higher-ups, pre-emptive measures have been taken in other timelines in order to make sure that this event doesn't cause reality to be destroyed in them as well."
"Well that's good to hear…Speaking of which, what causes reality to be destroyed in the first place?" I decided to ask my spiritual guide, and he quickly yet solemnly answers the question "The parasites I sealed away in the Light Citadel called the Parakali possessed the reality bender and used his powers and innermost desires to try and recreate the universe by erasing the old one." "I…I see…" Admittedly, hearing the Overlord reveal this secret to me was a bit unnerving, especially since with the Parakali, Apocalypse Royale and the Dark King's spirit all being held secret from me despite the Overlord being one with my body, I had to wonder if there wasn't anything else he was hiding from me, specifically when I thought back to the tablets in the Origin Temple.
"…Anything else you want to let me know about?" I sternly asked with my head turned away from the spirit. "Yes…The reality bender wiped away all other traces of the Parakali from this universe, so the only one that exists is the one in his mind." I could tell the Overlord knew what I was really asking from him, but was being elusive on the subject either because he wasn't allowed to speak of those things or he refused to say anything. With a light sigh, I turned my head towards the Overlord's spirit and said to him "Ok, then can I ask you something that piqued my curiosity just recently?" "Absolutely." He said without hesitation.
"What is up with Mew having a light energy reserve inside of his mind? I thought there were only seven elements, so why did you lie to me on that end?" "…Sigh. Understand where I am coming from when I say this, Alex, but there are many things out there that can't be revealed so easily as you wish for them to be. But as far as the Light Citadel goes, I can shed some information on that. You see, while I control the other seven elements, my primary one has and always shall be the light in its purest magnificence…However, I could not let that power be so easily accessed compared to the other seven, for if such pure light is corrupted without a balance then evil shall truly reign over the universe…Therefore, it was necessary to take as many measures as needed in order to prevent anyone impure from reaching the energy reserve."
"I set up a whole manner of traps and obstacles to deal with every type of foe imaginable, and even if they somehow managed to make it to the end, anyone judged unworthy of the power of light would become infected by an unrestrained Parakali parasite and be forced to wander the world forever. Anyone judged worthy though would forever be protected by their possession and be given the light energy reserve to protect the balance of light forevermore. And no, I did not set up things so it would only work for my successors…Anyone worthy enough would have been able to take the energy reserve besides you and Mew." As the Elemental Overlord finished his explanation, I just tapped my left fingers against my chin and said to myself "I see…Well, I got no more questions to ask you right now."
I say that simply because of the fact that my clone was starting to move, and I needed to hurry and return him back to Earth before he woke up and saw me. Without another word, I nodded my head towards the Overlord's spirit as he slipped back into my body. With the coordinates set, I aimed my gun at Mew's body, and with my only shot I would open up a portal that would remove him from my sight quite possibly forever. I trembled as my fingers went near the trigger. I have pulled triggers many times before, but never has one been as hard to pull as this is right now. But I had to do it…I had no choice in the matter now…
I take the shot, a distortional bolt of energy flying through the air and phasing right through my clone's chest until it hits the ground below. A dark-blue portal opens up, and my clone's body slowly falls through the gap that was created. As his figure became smaller with each passing second, the gun short-circuits in my hand, and it is only via the protection of my glove that the sparks don't single my skin. It was still complete, and I decided I would find a way to get rid of the device later. As a single teardrop falls from my eye and through the closing portal, I silently turn to the left and close my eyelids, and with one word I break the spell constricting time and walk away from Mario's house before anyone comes and sees that I had been there….
…...
….The birds are chirping cheerfully, and the bright rays of the morning sun are slipping between my eyelids and waking me from my rather cozy nap. I open my eyelids up and take in the fresh mountain air through my nostrils, enjoying the pleasurable sensation as I lift my body up off of the wet grass and feeling a bit of pain in my backside. "Augh…I must have been laying down incorrectly…Oh well, nothing a brisk walk and some stretches won't cure…" I say to myself as I swing my stiff arms back and forth while alternating which hands are wrapped around my elbows. "Bleh, I can't wait for that picnic in a few days…Its been really boring around here lately and I'd really like for something different to clear away this feeling of stagnation…"
As I mused to myself and stood up straight, I suddenly felt a drop of liquid trickling down the side of my right cheek. It was weird to feel that as I knew that this drop didn't originate from my tear ducts…I wiped the drop from my face with a graceful draw of my left hand across my face and held it up to eye level before it could slip between my fingers. "Wonder where this came from…" I thought about the origin of this droplet for a bit, only for everything to go silent and a genuine teardrop began to trickle out of my right eye, and my happiness was suddenly replaced with sadness that I had no way of understanding just why it was there…All I knew though, as I stood there by myself, was that it felt as though I had really let someone down today…And I couldn't even remember either the name or face of the person in question…I continued to stand there, and subconsciously I said to myself… "I…I didn't mean to fail you…Little brother…"
Part 3: Reality's Game.
THE END