I opened my eyes to find I was lying in Olivia's lap. This was all too familiar.
"Olly...you're okay." She was sad, and I could tell. I went to touch her face, but remembered I didn't have any arms. "She did it, Olly. She stole your Fold of Life."
"So does that mean...?"
She nodded. "You're small and un-beasty again." She cried into her hands. "I'm so sorry, Olly."
"No, no. It's fine. If I die, at least this would feel better than last time. Heh..." I coughed. It hurt to move. I think I may have broken a few...what did Roseanne call it? A few "skeletons?"
"Now that's power!" She was still flying above us all. Looking around, I saw that almost everybody had faced the same fate as Fawful. Almost everybody was dead.
We had lost.
"Now it's time to finish you two off! You two have been a pain in my side ever since you were first folded!"
"Just...just do it then," I said. "At least we'll go down heroes and you'll be sad and alone."
"What? Alone?"
"Look around, Black Rose. Nearly everybody was killed. This is why power is for the people chosen to wield it and them alone."
She looked around at the fallen, brave warriors. She smile faded into a frown, and she landed on the ground.
"Don't you see? This is the same thing Dimentio, Bowser, Fawful, me, and others had to learn the hard way. I was trying to warn you the whole time. Even when I spied on you the first time."
"Spied? Does that mean you were-?"
"I was the Queen, yes." I coughed again. "The 'Olly' you had captured was actually my sister."
"I was just making fun of your hair..." Olivia admitted.
"You wanted so much power, and now look what you've done with it. You've destroyed everything. The Tower of Darkness, our army, even your own troops."
She picked up one of her Goomba followers and looked at them with a sad expression. "So, that's why you told me about the Beast Form..."
Olivia helped me sit up. "Black Rose..."
"It's Sandra."
"Sandra," I corrected, "this is what too much power can do to you. I was strong enough to fold reality itself...and I almost killed my sister."
"I could use an ability even Olly didn't know, and I did end up killing him." Olivia looked at the ground. She still felt bad about that, I saw.
"Sandra, look. When I warn people, it's not because I'm being shellfish. I want to make sure people don't do what me and the other villains have done before." Olivia signaled a hand towards Dimentio for me. "Take...Didi, for example. You made his best friend betray him, and he took out that anger and pain on everybody else in his home world AND in this one."
Sandra looked at Dimentio lying motionless on the ground. Olivia moved her hand towards Bowser.
Bowser was in his shell, leaning against a bit of the ruined wall from the Tower of Darkness. He was protecting Kemek, Peach, and a few Goombas with his shell shelter. He was still.
"He loved Peach and is a great father," I explained, "but when he was rejected too many times, he also took out his pain and anger on others." Olivia touched me gently with her hand. "And then take me. I thought my father hated me, and I wished to protect Olivia to the point of killing my own father, who cared for me so." I shook my head. "You should have listened to me when you had the chance. But now, it's too late to go back."
Olivia held out her hand to Sandra. I smiled and waited for her to accept it. She reached for it, but then scowled at me.
"You really think I'm that gullible? I knew what I was asking for when I started on this path, and I will not stop until I get what I want!" She took flight once more. "Say goodby to your sister, because this is going to be the last you'll ever see of her!"
She charged up a beam and Olivia brought me into a hug as we both closed our eyes...
