Chapter 20 - Chaos

"Your undoing is about to commence…"

Bloom was jolted out of her dark solitude by a voice so loud it made her teeth chatter. Or was it voices? She barely understood the words as the layered sounds played out the syllables and diphthongs in her mind. She blinked and struggled to her feet, the heavy darkness making it hard for her to hold her bearings as to what up or down was. "Hello?" she called meekly. "Who's there?"

"I cannot be there… nor can I be here… Bloom of Domino. It is impossible for me to be contained in one place. Therefore I cannot be anywhere. Your kind think of me as a state of matter, a concept. But I can be unleashed to encompass entire spaces… it is a complicated matter beyond the understanding of many. My powers are horrible, terrible, and inevitable. And your undoing will most certainly release me upon the universe I've watched unfold before me…"

"Who are you?!" Bloom shouted, sudden fear boiling up in her as his words settled and made themselves discernible in her mind. "How can you let this happen? How does my undoing cause what you describe?"

Silence fell as the voices were quiet, as if contemplating. "I… Bloom of Domino, am Chaos…"

"Chaos…" Bloom stared into the darkness as she tried to wrap her mind about that revelation. "Chaos…" she murmured again. She allowed herself a sarcastic grin and stared off in what she believed to be another direction. "Why the hell do I find that hard to believe?"

Chaos disregarded her sarcasm and continued, "I was what first filled the void. It was a lonely existence until finally I withdrew much of my being to allow for some semblance of order. From me came forth the very components necessary to fill that order, to build up the universe in which your worlds and stars thrived. Life sprung, deities commanded, nature grew… it was beautiful to behold from afar. But I approach it from time to time, not of my own whim mind you… but when the veil between your existence and my own is made thin by natural and unnatural courses of events, I break loose upon your worlds. And your very existence is threatened." The voices somehow were filled with a sadness, a loneliness Bloom had felt within herself many times as she watched as chaos was unleashed in her universe. "So the gods made their stand against my uncontrollable chaos… they chose their guardians and gave them power over the aspects that could set me loose upon the realms… aspects such as hope, memory, being, identity… aspects identifiable with light, darkness, space, and time…"

"What has all this got to do with me? If you are chaos how are you talking to me? From what it sounds like as you get closer to any real thing it becomes more and more undone… destroyed…" Bloom looked down at her hands and frowned at her lack of them. "And if these damned guardians exist, how has chaos still managed to leak into the universe? Obviously someone isn't doing their job too well…"

"I can only approach you because you yourself approach destruction, chaos…" Chaos explained suddenly, cutting into Bloom's counts of disbelief. "And then you draw chaos to you, despite the attempts of the guardians to prevent its release. You've only held together this long by both my withdrawal and your own will and sheer determination. Which is why I've finally decided to allow myself to approach you completely, Bloom of Domino. You are a most interesting being… one rare and possible only once every millennia or so. My altering of your human events has allowed you to be as I have need of a rare creature like you…"

"You brought me into being? You're allowing all of this to happen to me?" Bloom felt horror begin to creep up within her and she struggled to keep composure. "You're horrible… I had a life! An existence! A duty to the realms…"

"By my doing you had all of that. Which is why I'm about to offer proposition to spare you… so that you may continue your so-called, self-appointed services to the worlds of magic you so dearly love…"

"What?" Bloom shook with rage as she spoke the word. She was a pawn, if she understood Chaos' meaning for her. About to be dispensed completely, unless she take up this horrid deity's offer. Her rage subsided into a heavier, throbbing feeling of guilt as she recalled her failing the universe. Bloom bit her lip as the pangs grew worse and she finally let her head bow. "What is it you offer then?" she asked resignedly. Her universe needed her. She owed them for being incapable, a fake for so long. She had a debt to pay and fading off into non-existence was not an option. "I guess I'll take it…"

"I've offered such to a few girls before you… none of which chose to give themselves up for the sake of their universe's existence. I have to warn you though… you'll be abandoning the life you knew, abandoning the ones who love you and know you. They'll never know what happened to you. But you will be preventing my being unleashed for millennia to come. It is a responsibility very few have taken up, but you need to be willing to join them." Chaos fell silent, waiting for Bloom's response.

Bloom thought about her friends, who must've been searching for her relentlessly. She thought about her parents who must've been worried sick. Of course she had duty to them, but of course their existences along with existences of billions outweighed their wanting of her. She bowed her head. "I'm your servant then…"

"The Dais…"

Baltor's voice startled Diaspro out of her mindless fiddling with Kerrin's necklace and she looked ahead. The darkness shifted and before them was a monstrous, rocky outcropping. The stone was unlike anything Diaspro had ever seen as it was impossibly black and swirled not unlike the metamorphic and igneous rock that generally made up new worlds. The whole place looked and felt primordial, so old beyond imagining it made her want to reassess what she'd been taught by her magical origins tutors. She cast a nervous glance down at the smooth stone in her palm and glanced at the Dais again. "There it is…" she mumbled.

"Time to finish your mission, Princess Diaspro." Baltor turned to her, his amber eyes glowing almost red in the shifting shadows of the dark. "Your purpose awaits…"

"My purpose…" Diaspro murmured, her thumb smoothing over the obsidian stone. Sudden panic overcame her and she suddenly found it hard to breathe. Overwhelming feelings of guilt, confusion, and fear managed to push aside her anger and hate for Bloom. Suddenly thoughts on the immensity of what she was about to do raced through her mind, clouding over her thirst for vengeance. Should she go through with this? Her mind scrambled to buy herself time before a final decision had to be made. "Perhaps this is wrong, Baltor."

Baltor raised an eyebrow at her. "Second thoughts? Wasn't quite expecting that from you Diaspro… in my prison you sounded so sure of your plan."

"And you sounded so against it." Diaspro countered, her thought dawning on the conversation Baltor had had with Bloom about playing god. "You said deciding one's fate and taking life were roles belonging only to the gods and goddesses."

Baltor's eyes glittered as he narrowed them at her. "I said that to unsettle Bloom, to mess with her resolve. Look at us now Diaspro. We're about play the roles of god and goddess ourselves. We are about to remove a single wrinkle in the fabrics of our destinies to create an entirely new tapestry!"

"What if it doesn't come out ideal? What if Bloom is inserted again anyway? What's to keep her from being recreated? Or what if someone just as strong and bold takes her place? What if we unintentionally remove ourselves in the process? We could undo much that shouldn't be undone." Diaspro poured out the questions desperately, hoping at least one of them would stump Baltor enough for her to have time to think about things. But the look in his eyes told her that his resolve was set. "You've already thought about these…"

"No… we didn't…" Baltor said in a monotone. His eyes were definitely glowing red in the dark as they stared blankly off into the tenebrous void beyond Diaspro. "But we know we outdate that pesky princess, so there's no way we can be erased completely. And with fortune being on our sides thus far… there's no way this will fail."

Diaspro frowned at Baltor. "We?"

Without even a second glance at or another word to Diaspro, Baltor turned from her and approached the Dais. As he approached, his hand reached into his coat pocket and removed the two precious vials. "Finally…" Baltor said quietly, but his voice did not sound quite like his own. In fact, his voice seemed to be laced with the tones of two or three different voices. But before Diaspro could move, his fingers wrapped around the cap of the first vial. "… we will reign…"

Crack! From nowhere came a blue phanto-boomerang that hit Baltor's hands, causing him to drop the vials, which scattered across the ground of the rocky outcrop. Supposed-Baltor cried out and Diaspro flinched, half expecting the vials to shatter, but they stayed intact. She dove for the vials in an attempt to snatch them up before Baltor recovered, but was hit from the side by a blinding ray of light. "Down Diaspro!" Stella of Solaria bellowed as Diaspro went rolling across the rough rock. "We're putting an end to your insanity!"

"Get the vials!" Diaspro shrieked at Stella when she saw Baltor move for them. "Get those damned vials!" But Stella still stared her down, obviously thinking Diaspro was crying out orders to Baltor.

"Are you crazy, Diaspro? What kind of stupid pills have you been taking?" Musa cried out. She waved her hand toward Baltor and shot him off his feet, sending him halfway across the visible space. "Yo! Stella fetch!"

"I resent that!" Stella yelled as she flew for the vials, breaking free of her stare down of Diaspro. When she was just within reach of her target, a dark blur lunged at her, connected and took her clean out of the air.

"Stella!" cried out half of Bloom's posse. The other half were all like "What is that thing?" Then the whole lot of Bloom's rescue team were set upon by the summoned creatures of the dark. But Diaspro ignored them and struggled to her feet. She scrambled toward the vials herself, rushing past the distracted Solarian, when someone appeared in her way. Sky grabbed her roughly by the wrists and she ran smack-dab into his chest, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

"Let go!" she gasped. Pain sprang up in both of her wrists and she found herself shaking in response.

"Enough Diaspro!" Sky snarled, his rage all too visible in his once handsome features. He looked haggard and exhausted, as if he'd aged years in the past couple of days. His once friendly blue eyes now held a hatred for her that made her flinch. "If hurting Bloom is not going to make me love you, I sure as hell doubt destroying her will either. I've dismissed your antics before, but now you've gone too far…"

"You don't think I know that?!" Diaspro cried out, struggling against the vice-like grip of his hands. "I couldn't fucking let go because my whole purpose before this was you! I didn't know how to find a new purpose in life or how to go on without that damned plan my parents had for my life!" She glared up at him then. "All of a sudden the focus of my actions is no longer about my intentions of getting you back, Sky! Suddenly it's about me setting things right! So you'd be wise to let me go and prevent my actions from destroying life as we know it!"

Shock crossed Sky's features and Diaspro found strength enough to break free of his grip. She shoved past him and raced to where she'd seen the vials. But they were gone. "No!" Diaspro screamed, wildly roving the area with her gaze to find Baltor. She finally caught sight of him through the masses of writhing and fighting creatures, fairies, and Specialists. "Baltor, stop! We can't go through with this!"

Baltor turned and smiled wickedly at her, holding up two uncapped vials in each of his hands. "The universe will soon be victim to our terrible reign…" Baltor's voice croaked and growled with the voices of elderly females. His eyes were wild and his body shook violently as though it were at war with itself. "Long live the Ancestral Witches!"

"He's been taken over by the Ancestrals…" Diaspro realized. But she knew her realization was far too late. And she could only stand and watch as Baltor slowly tipped one vial toward another, an insane grin crossing his face as the feelings of horror and defeat instilled themselves in Bloom's friends.

"Don't do it!" Eilian cried from beneath the claws of a dark creature.

"Somebody stop him!" Roxy shrieked in desperation.

"No!" wailed Aetheria, her lament resounding enough to overcome the clashing of dark creatures and Bloom's rescue team.

"Bloom!" Sky yelled as he made a futile attempt to charge through the fighting mass toward Baltor.

But nobody could make a difference. The dark creature forces were too many and too strong. Baltor stood too far away for any of them to get even close. And the gods only knew what would happen if Baltor dropped those vials. Diaspro's plan was about to come to fruition. And she could only finger the stone Kerrin had given her as she guiltily watched Baltor pour the contents of the one vial into the other.

-Author's Note- And there's the mind-blowing, life-altering, irrevocably inevitable last chapter to my book Destruction. Hope you're all prepared for an epilogue! ~Kyree Winx~