David
The door to his apartment opened. Keys being turned as the sounds of the rings bound to it continued to shake slightly. The frustration started to rise within him with his inability to simply lock the door on his own. The keyrings clinked as if a tune was being played as he agonizingly pushed the latch to finally end the action completely.
Snarling from frustration, he started putting much of his weight again on both his crutches as he walked towards his wheelchair, placed in the middle of his living room when he left that morning. Slowly, he made his way towards it while he absently dropped the stack of papers concealed within a worn envelope on the coffee table close to his sofa and wheelchair.
At this point, important as those documents were, he stopped caring entirely. He did not even bat an eye as some of those papers started spilling on the floor. His weak arms and legs be damned as his gaunt, thin face expressed his displeasure and frustration quite handily.
With a sigh as exhaustion started to fill his weary bones and muscles, David finally allowed himself to relax and lean back on his wheelchair while he carefully placed both his crutches on the sofa next to him. He started to control and regulate his breathing as he let the exhaustion from his ordeal fade away.
The stillness was still painful to him.
How utterly silent it was for the most part as the thoughts in his head started to swirl. Even his walls, cracked and un-maintained as they were, only helped shape the kind of musings his brain was leaning toward.
His gaze moved to his dilapidated TV, one where the picture and sound were unremarkable which made watching it almost as annoying as the many places he went to that day. His home was mostly empty after all and nothing decorated his walls or shelves, not even a few pictures as even his own family basically no longer existed for him. What money he had was relegated more to his own medicine as his own bills started to pile up.
Any personal thing he owned was nearly sold off altogether and what money he could maintain for himself was left with his necessities, and most importantly, food and sustenance.
It did not help that as he started sighing deeply with each problematic, stress-inducing issue with another, he began recalling that the latest payment for his apartment was still due and he had no way to scrounge up any money to even reach it.
His thoughts slowly became heavier as the scattered nerves on his hands started shaking slightly again to his musings. He felt his chest become heavy as if something was pressing on it and a headache from all of his stress started coming back to him.
He started to groan as he rested his head backward on the wheelchair, his shaking left hand covering his face as he tried to edge out all of the thoughts his mind was simmering on currently. Wishing for them all to go away as his will, broken as it was could only fight back in small increments.
Hope was barely clinging to his persona as he closed his eyes.
A silent prayer to nothingness was sent as he wished for it all to just be a lot more peaceful and calm than he preferred it to be.
A loud thud was heard from the apartment above him as some of the dust and bits of the drywall on his ceiling hit his face. He started coughing as he dusted himself off from the ordeal before opening his eyes and found himself staring at his reflection on the TV.
He stilled as he saw himself. David, the poor useless, weak man stared right back at him as some of the pieces that hit his face almost coated his hair and forehead up to his nose. It made his already gaunt and slightly pale skin appear white. Dead…
Or perhaps the appropriate comparison that rose in his mind was clown makeup.
He looked down at the coffee table before him, the house plant there just merely a dried-up twig as through the stillness he started hearing the clicking of his clock going by as time passed. The envelope, similarly covered in some of the filth made him sigh as he dusted it off.
David opened the envelope partway as he pulled out a slew of papers that he brought earlier.
Instantly, he recalls those faces that he presented and begged those papers to.
How most of them looked at him with pity.
How some of them merely stared with indifference as he visibly shrunk on his already deflated and non-existent ego and soul.
Their voices were still fresh in his mind as he stared into those papers. The red or otherwise dark stamp marks of whichever ink they used were the most prominent, notable thing on each of them.
His eyes trailed over the other records on his envelope. Some of it was not good in terms of news and some of it was akin to a literal punch in the gut as his already defeated demeanor sagged further.
His teeth were shaking in frustration as he tried to reign his emotions in, only to find himself clenching his right fist and slamming his coffee table at just the same moment.
The thump on the rather, cheap-looking wooden table barely made a sound and that alone further made his already damaged mood a lot more depressing knowing that he was too weak to even accomplish that. That even his most emotional and angry state was barely a whimper to the cogs of reality.
A small, minor puff that was barely notable at all given how heavy and in pain his entire demeanor was currently.
Inevitably, the peak of David's depression started to crest as his barely held-off tears started to emanate. He leaned back, even moving his entire body forward slightly on the angle of his form on the chair as he rested his head on its backrest.
Even his phone line was silent, knowing that in the past week, he literally had to wait and nearly stay by his phone just to wait for any response from the people he contacted. Now, it would be much more appropriate for him to hear crickets soon given the stillness of its current state…
… yet even now he wished that some, any of the people he reached out to would bail him out of his misery.
He could not handle yet another rejection again.
His already weak composition was so frustrating that he rather wished that he was a full-on cripple. At the very least he would be consigned to a livelier hospital.
Alas, that's not what he wanted. The only reason he was not bedridden at all currently was the sheer fact that he wished to be of some use. To be useful in his life in whatever shape or form it took…
To be more than just the sad, useless speck of a person forgotten through time.
He even begged some of those companies and employers.
He just wanted his entire life to mean something. To be more than the current circumstance and state he was reduced into. To be a person who at least proved to himself that he can make it through life despite all of the tribulations.
To be a man who overcame the permanent setbacks he was sullied with.
Being… useless for the rest of his life ever since he was young just took a toll on him. Staring at other people, how they went on with their lives while he was relegated to a bed was just…
… it was just painful.
The reality of not having a choice, of not having a second chance despite all of the hard work and will he had to sacrifice in order to become more independent and self-sustaining even with his deficiencies just ragged on him damn near every day.
He just wanted to be something other than the weak David he saw in his reflection.
He just wanted purpose.
A good, honorable purpose to make up for all of his suffering.
Even if it was just a small thing…
He yearned for the vindication that he mattered at all in any fashion.
With a final sigh, he turned his eyes toward the small box on the top of his shelf.
Staring at it, David found himself in contemplation as the quiet expanse of his apartment started to partly make his entire perspective smaller than it actually was. Like a prison, trapped in the shell of his mortal body…
… and the box he was staring at was a key to a proverbial freedom.
Or at least it may seem that way.
Frozen, an urge seemed to come to his senses as the fingers of his right hand seemingly tried to reach the box. It was simple after all.
Once he opened it, life would be easy afterward.
He stopped completely and turned his eyes away from the box.
His chest became lighter from it as he stared at his shaking hands.
"Tsk."
He can't give in to defeat.
Not today…
Sincerely, not today.
PRESENT…
Reality buckled as the strange mixture of cyan, green, yellow, and various other alien colors not found in the visible light spectrum clashed as water particles and what earth there was started to bend and coalesce into matter and materials that continued to change with each ticking second.
It was an overwhelming sight, one that was so oppressive that any living thing in a radius of at least 900 meters or so had their brains literally melt due to the deluge of data and feedback it had on the biological compositions of their brain's capacities. Worse so to any being that had a higher intellect as at the very least animals would instantly die from exposure to it, but for humans, the sensations were tenfold, akin to an industrial iron soldering machine burning its way into every neuron that existed within one's skull. Their eyes would burn near-instantly as their screams, drowned out by the world being turned wrong around them were the main horrific sound that set the tone for the great battle that raged.
Great bellowing thunder and lightning crashed upon the surface as the energy of each lightning bolt multiplied by an unknown number raged upon the skies as clouds created from the swarms of accumulated energy caused the particles in the air to become dense as each of them peppered the ominous singularity that continued to howl into the air.
Its size was so immense that the thunderstrikes and lightning appeared as thin, minuscule branches trying to break into its ethereal hide.
The deluge of eldritch, completely incandescent light especially at its very source burned through the fabric of reality as if it was both a void into space-time that led to another dimension, as well as a presence that seemed to encroach on this part of the local universe like an enormous whale trying to breach out of the vast expanse of the polar ice cap. Just barely pushing its head in as its form figuratively, as any who could witness it without dying a horrible death changed depending on which bandwidth of the electromagnetic spectrum you viewed it on.
To some, it was a crystalline humanoid. To some, it was a mash of colors akin to blotches of bright living paint and some were even that of indescribable images that resembled Ophanim, the horrors of mechanical design from the imagination of Ezekiel. It varied in size and shape nearly every second as just the sheer existence of such a being was like an error in the cosmos that can't naturally correct itself due to the impossibility of its form.
It was a nascent entity, or at least a waking one that was pulled out of its decades-long slumber and comatose state and forced to undergo a tantalizing metamorphosis. The energy that flowed into its system, into its shards and network was so vast, unprecedented, and overwhelming that even at the speed of its reactions and computations, it was being forced to use and expend that energy somewhere in order to keep up. It currently had no organization, no unity, no total guidance, as the entire network and what remained of its main, leading consciousness along with its damaged human host was ultimately focused on one thing.
The emotions barreled against the supercharged network as each individual shard that laid dormant screamed into existence both against the main threat to its existence, but as well as nearly anything in its path like a rabid animal that only had fury and unintelligible rage on its side as it destroyed everything in its path.
If there was any sort of comparison to how each individual shard felt, as well as the nascent, pseudo-entity that was forced to be born into existence, it would be that of a deranged, psychotic patient being woken up and disturbed from its sleep through the use of shock therapy.
It cared for nothing in its wake as the natural, determined, and rational constructs of plans, instinct, or paths that most of the local entities possessed were completely subjugated by both the pervasive nature of the power that coursed through its system, as well as the unmitigated pain and excess of energy that overwhelmed even that of their natural reserves.
Those feelings that were pronounced, loudly and powerfully into reality also reflected in its physical presence into the world, as anything within 100 meters or so had matter and energy simply cease from occurring altogether as if the universe were stilled in a specific manner. It was not as overwhelmingly precise nor as destructive as a natural entity would control such a force, but it still folded and forcibly changed the environment around it as if rewriting reality into an abstract sense.
The deluge of those powers and abilities however, while strikingly devastating towards its environment and local matter towards being on Earth Bet, was just barely scratching the fingernail of the overdose of energy that was riding on the nascent entity's system.
What expedited power was its only means of releasing it as the shards as well as the guiding, rabid consciousness was funneled through this gap in dimensions as if it was the only means for it to interact with the natural universe. Completely forgetting its connections across space and time as what emotion there was only to destroy what was threatening it.
It was like a screaming, violent man ragging on about Murder as he tried to free himself from the freezing waters, he was trapped in. What was construed as adrenaline was what kept it alive as it violently reached for its attacker.
Biological matter within that zone simply reconstructed into absurd, overturned globs of flesh or more often they would simply be reduced down to atoms before being absorbed and recycled under the bubbling energies swirling in its wake.
Even water and other chemical compounds were changed as the world around the being was like the remnants of the most spatial, abstract, and metaphoric scenery conceived by the maddest of men. Their qualities far outstripped that of the conscious, living world as the being that was once the hero Eidolon expanded his influence and power over the still echoing laughter of Oberon who was attacking him on all sides.
The vast expanses of insects and other entities clashed under that zone of influence as vast powers, kinds that were unknown even to that of Cauldron and the rest of Earth Bet violently burst out from everywhere, destroying the expanse of darkness as well as the growing singularity that was howling into the entire Earth like it was pleased at the amount of attention it was getting.
It only fueled the raging aberration of reality as the nascent entity continued to unravel its growing, unrefined powers out into the world as it continuously built up energy like an approaching supernova, but faster and more deliberate.
One blast of concentrated energy ricochets off of the dark cloud of blackened mass from Oberon as it then hits the entire island nation of the United Kingdom alongside Ireland right beside it. The condensed energy had disintegrated most of the landmass' surface as the island was eventually ripped from its tectonic plate before summarily being sucked into the growing singularity.
Most, if not anyone who was still alive earlier before that blast had no time to practically react to it as their screams would no longer register to the madness of what was Earth Bet currently. The singularity still retained its former speed in its quest to devour the world but due to the sheer destruction being displayed, what remained from the aftermath of each clash just simply funneled into the singularity afterward.
Currently, both combatants were within close proximity of the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The great, big singularity still loomed over them and as the seas were being sucked upwards as gravity overturned itself, it painted such a sight as if the heavens or God in this instance had intentionally worsened the inevitable rapture, of the end of times.
The blackened mass that flowed independently from the great singularity continued to echo its bellowing laughs as the nascent entity, following partially towards Eidolon's human instincts only served to anger its conglomerated form further.
"Scream for me! That's it!"
A great tidal wave evaporated against the nascent entity's zone as a wave of displaced, controlled time had eroded and dusted a portion of South America from the outburst. The ordeal was visible from the charred remains of Brazil's shores after the Simurgh an hour earlier had reduced its population to zero.
"This is what you wanted after all! This is your dream! To leave a mark! TO LEAVE A LEGACY!"
A great ecstatic, thunderous laugh echoed across the world as Oberon who had trouble forming a human form due to the deluge of power surrounding their clash continued to enjoy the exchange as if it was the most joyful, ironic thing she had ever experienced.
"Make the world REMEMBER YOU!"
The nascent entity screamed or what was construed as a scream as the loud, oppressive sound only served to make the scene all the more chaotic as the frequency it rode on vibrated what earth there was near along with any material that it coursed through within that 900-meter radius that steadily grew.
Within the newly formed shores of nearly 35% of what was left of greater North America, one of the infamous Endbringers, Behemoth had dumped so much radiation and energy around them before firing a concentrated beam of concentrated plasma at the large singularity while lightning and thunder cascaded against it. The growing singularity continued to ominously howl even as the Simurgh, who haphazardly created various devices, detonated anti-matter bombs of increasing size and yield against the Singularity's hide. With each intense blast, it served to merely phase or slightly move the large thing even as the Leviathan continued to support its siblings in whatever possible way it could provide. Despite the potency of those bombs, their upward devastating effect on the surroundings was near-totally nullified given the mysterious composition of the Singularity's hide. Some of the shockwaves still propagated however, as the ear-splitting waves of force just cleaved large parts of the bodies of water it descended down to.
The constructs, these Endbringers, once tools placed with their own directives and pseudo-consciousness drives had their own individual paths that they were tasked with but given the nascent entity's forced awakening and metamorphosis…
What directive they originally had or what goals they yearned for were now simply erased altogether. Their primary functions were overturned and were now essentially puppets, tools that the nascent entity used alongside everything in their arsenal that they could pour out from their limited presence in this part of existence.
Earth Bet simply went downhill in each passing minute and second as the powers in conflict that were opposed to each other simply hastened the process of the world's destruction.
Beneath it all, Oberon continued to laugh.
It echoed across the world, even towards the survivors who were rushing down the final, existing gate into their new Eden.
That laughter continued to beguile the nascent entity into attacking, unintentionally following the sadistic plan of making the world suffer with each passing moment into the next.
David could still hear those damning laughs.
His eyes were red from all the tears he tried to hold back with futility.
He was even sobbing quietly to himself now as he held the envelope he used recently to apply for a specific job. The envelope wet with his tears became a conduit for his depression as he violently threw it away in a sobbing fit. Some of the papers flew off onto the floor, some being ripped from the way he threw them while some slowly floated down to the ground calmly as the wet tears made them stick.
He lamented everything at this point, his weaknesses…
His entire existence…
Just made him sick and tired. Tired that he had no power over the course of where his life would head. Tired that his entire being was just not suitable for the world as it was. That he felt like he was a mistake, a mistake that had overstayed its welcome.
He just wanted to be something. To not be the reflection that he saw day by day.
To not be the useless David who could not rise and step up from the shackles of his mortal form.
He wanted to stop being useless after experiencing it for the rest of his life.
David wanted to prove the world wrong that his weakness was just an obstacle…
That it was just something that if he just reached higher with blood, sweat, and tears, he could finally be more than what his limitations shackled him with.
Yet try as he might, persevere as he should, and fight on even if his whole life was on the line…
Damn near nothing mattered at all.
It was just reality.
His condition, realistically, would never support the big, determined dreams that he had, simple as they were. That was simply the truth, the toughest thing to swallow for a man like him who had completely nothing in his life in the first place.
His weaknesses were just there serving as a reminder.
His dedication, motivation, and drive, are simply fantasies of the grandest order.
"…" he kept sobbing quietly as he held both hands to cover his face. The entire living room was wrecked into pieces. What rage he mustered had done enough damage to the once drab, lifeless room. Even as his rage slowly faded, the stillness of the entire situation and how quiet it was just served to further break his heart and soul knowing that he was alone.
That he had no one.
No one at all to even lift him from the darkness he fell into.
His tears continued to soak his hands as he opened his eyes.
His mind became blank.
What semblance of thought became clear as he moved his gaze towards his top shelf once more. The box ominously sitting there, as if judging him, taunting him…
Or perhaps inviting him to come over.
Straightening himself, David stared intensely at the box.
Echoes of the laughter earlier that day once more haunted his memories. How those men looked and judged him as the drill sergeant overseeing the application screamed at them to stop.
David found himself wheeling towards the shelf. Towards the box…
The gaze and expression of the man overseeing his application quickly turning from pity to some sliver of annoyance wracked his brain in two as he recalled the many other jobs that did the same.
Reaching the halfway point, David stopped when his wheelchair started grinding down on the broken pieces of glass from the mirror, he owned that he shattered. His reflection clear to his eyes within those broken shards metaphorically made up his current state of being. He slowly returned his gaze back to the shelf where the box sat and moved closer.
He remembers the staggering amount of people apologizing, stating, or even admitting the truth to him over and over. Some genuinely pitied him. Some genuinely wished the best for his life… but as each of those people relayed those same thoughts over and over, inevitably they all became hollow preaches of good faith. They never were anything but words.
Words of encouragement. Words staying as they were, abstract and non-tangible things.
David reached the shelf. Slowly pulling the box towards him as his shaking hands clasped them. The moment became so slow to his perspective as time seemed to follow his feelings down to the very last detail.
The weight of his current action was so heavy that his breath became slow.
His tears became more prevalent while his shaking fingers tried opening the box, slowly and carefully before putting the lid away.
He froze altogether when he placed the box on his lap. The item within it made his already heavy heart a lot more painful as his shaking right hand reached for it.
Memories started to fill his head.
Seconds later, deep in the middle of the night, David heard a sharp click as he stared at the item in his hands and slowly turned its muzzle towards his face.
One press of the trigger.
One… simple press.
But…
David found both his hands gradually shaking towards a near erratic fashion as he continued to sob. Multiple questions wracked his head. Multiple memories and voices screamed in his consciousness as he started crying uglily towards his current disposition.
It felt as if there was something ringing in his ears as what strength that drove him to do this vanished continuously until the height of his emotions started to plateau…
Eventually, David's heart could not take it as he slowly returned and disarmed the item back to its box. He then returned it to the shelf as he leaned his head on the shelf itself. He continued to cry faintly in defeat as he thought about what he just done.
It only served to break him further knowing that he was too weak to even do that.
The faint sound of his cries continued to echo within the room as he started whispering to himself.
"I can't… I can't do it."
PRESENT…
Oberon had eventually formed a physical body again within her swarm as she enjoyed having the nascent entity go all out with all of its anger and strength against her. The battle had raged on in such levels of destruction that just in mere minutes they had burned a large mark off of the Sahara.
The energy that bubbled within the clash was so immense that the surface of what was once Morrocco all the way towards Nigeria was bathed in near-golden light. The landmass crumbled like paper instantly as large chunks of it were ejected high out of the atmosphere just from the size of the force being enacted upon it. The pieces, large as they were against the near molten bedrock of the aftermath in Africa's case, started to eventually return back to the surface as they burned in re-entry…
Their speed and power did not eclipse that of the Chicxulub Asteroid that gave way to the extinction of the dinosaurs due to the gravitational field of increasing size between the clash of titans being so disruptive to the natural gravity of Earth Bet that they were slowed down enough to not have sufficient force once they cratered. Still, those large burning pieces flattened cities all across Europe, Middle Asia, and what was left of Africa.
Amidst it all, beyond all comprehension, the laughs of Oberon persisted.
Amidst it all, a particular Faerie Queen, riding atop another Blanca watched in awe and amazement at the powers that were razing the world down to its very core.
Another powerful scream, parting what clouds remained in the local troposphere as the cumulative energies started to disintegrate the enlarging black mass that the current Oberon body was inhabiting. Those energies, staggeringly potent unleashed rays of unknown color and radiance against the mass that looked wrong to anyone's perspective before their minds collectively burned and became atomized in the process.
Those rays continued to surge out like errant lasers as they reflected and burned through anything they hit. Some of them bounced off all the way to Moscow where the familiar sight of the Kremlin was transformed into a disheveled, crystalline maze that radiated so much excess energy that the ground was being singed. Each hit had turned any surface into various, strange esoteric effects that the unrefined nature of the nascent entity was lashing out against reality.
Due to the bottlenecked nature of its form being forced into one dimension due to the erratic mental scape and inhibitions of its once, former human host, it was literally in pain like a mutated newborn that otherwise would have wished for death given the errant nature of its birth.
Each howl was equivalent to a scream of unbridled, unmitigated pain as the nascent entity's own adrenaline soared. The bubbling surface of all its power rose to a point that in just minutes it would blow an entire supernova into what was once Earth Bet.
That aforementioned supernova being tantamount to suicide given the incredibly debilitating nature of the power that surged within its veins.
Esoteric effects, unintentional in nature started appearing haphazardly against the raging mountain of power those rays induced while Oberon continued to enjoy the scenery with sadistic delight.
She even manifested close enough to the nascent entity's form even as she was continuously being washed by the various offensive effects being exposed to her form. Yet despite it all, she persisted in existing. She kept forming and reforming…
And worst of all, even with the impossible amount of arachnids and similar types of lifeforms being pulled under her control, she kept producing more out of nothing. As if reality was fighting back at the nascent entity at full force. Denying its birth, denying its existence all the while as the growing singularity continued to sing its great horn of the end.
"You've never changed… dear David. Even at your height…"
The avatar of Oberon shattered before rapidly forming again.
"… you're still that weak, silly man underneath it all…"
The nascent entity screamed… yet not in its eldritch ways.
A human being's voice cried out underneath all of the layers of powers it was exhibiting.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!"
"HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA!"
The nascent entity's tendrils of energy and crystalline composition lashed out towards the forming avatar of Oberon and made it disintegrate faster than anything remotely close to any speed record on Earth Bet's history yet the laughter still hollered…
Until, that very humane quality of the nascent entity, trapped underneath all of the screaming shards, the shatter point to which Oberon had used as a gateway to pour all of this impossible, excess energy was suddenly woken up.
The man who was once Eidolon who was now sharing a voice against untold trillions was forced to watch. He was forced to realize all of the actions he had partaken in the last few minutes ever since the awakening of the imperium of strength he had gathered…
"HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHHAAHH!"
"I-It's not your f-fault." Rebecca stressed despite the difficulty in her voice.
David continued to watch the pale corpse of his dear friend, right on the table as he gripped the seams of his cape. His hood and helmet were taken off as pure agony tortured his psyche.
How long has it been?
How long was it when he was finally given his chance, his redemption, his grace when these powers were blessed upon him?
How long has it been since the light in his life returned as he was given purpose, as he was given friends that stood by him? As he was given the mission to save people from all the threats that beguiled humanity?
How long was it when the discovery of the Enemy tore in half knowing that he was powerless even amidst all of his power?
How… ineffective he was when he was too late to see his friend's life disappear before him?
When he watched as thousands, upon thousands of people died either by his ineffective hands or that of the Endbringers that tore through nations and lives as if they were insects to be snuffed out without rhyme or reason?
He felt… useless again. His reflection on the steel bed Hero was on reflecting right back at him with that same face of a man that nearly took his own life.
Clenching his fists, David started weeping.
Asking why… why did this continue to happen?
And why… why whenever anything good rose to the surface, it immediately tore him right back down in the process?
He was growing weaker…
He was becoming more inefficient…
And with all the sacrifices Cauldron had made until that point, he now started to question why he was given these powers in the first place.
Why the most precious parts of his life were cleaved in twine by fate and time?
"I'm sorry. I-I could have done enough." He whispered, bowing his head as Rebecca, in a similar disposition continued to mourn in silence.
"I… I'm sorry I couldn't d-do more."
The silent voice of guilt and sorrow continued to propagate as inevitably…
As the years passed, while he grew far more frustrated and weaker, David retained that promise of doing more for the sake of all the death and suffering he had witnessed, done, and experienced.
Yet like that one specific night, he realized that despite all his efforts, none of it meant anything at all. None of it made any difference as he let himself go, barely floating upon the surface of his sanity…
Scrounging what little worth was left.
Because David, deep down was still the lost, weak man underneath all of the power graced upon his shoulders.
PRESENT…
No…
No, no, no…
What had he…
What had he done?
"Oh God." His voice spoke against the trillions of conglomerated voices that joined the choir of the nascent entity's errant birth. With the trillions of eyes, senses, and perspectives cascading through his mortal brain, which was already overwhelming in the first place, David saw what his action had wrought.
All across the world…
He could see it all. He could feel it all…
He was overwhelmed by the enormous amount of guilt and sorrow that dawned on him as the world around him changed for the worse under his own powers. His emotions spread across the network as the raging screams turned into confusion and doubt.
The guiding consciousness forced in part to his own consciousness loudly screamed in dissonance.
Yet David was not affected, he remained listening… watching, and experiencing all of the horrors he had forced upon Earth Bet. All the horrors that were by his own two hands.
He saw Keith fighting in a futile manner alongside the survivors in Los Angeles against hordes of Oberon's lesser minions. People both young and old screaming and crying in anguish as they ran in chaos and panic into the gateway towards Eden…
He saw various people around the world, begging and succumbing to the deluge of his powers being forced upon the world. A little paraplegic boy screaming as he held onto his dear friend's cooling corpse…
A woman, torn in half by the boulders that rained from the sky reached out to her crib where a baby was crying out loud in fear…
And so… so much more.
He could not take it anymore…
David then screamed. Not in rage, not in renewed determination, but in anguish.
The very humane cry echoed across the world to the point that everything just stopped. The trillions of voices became quiet. The raging thunderstorm of powers was halted. The Conflict Engines froze, and even the attacking minions of Oberon halted their advance as Keith, far away into what was left of North America watched the faraway sky towards the Atlantic as the world became still.
The enraging amount of power still coursed through his veins, but the emotions brought by the conflict that rose were pacified. The glow and presence of his current form dimmed as he slowly floated back to the crater that was once upper Africa and landed upon what was currently his knees on the surface.
What sound remained was the horn of the Singularity and the wind that cascaded down David's current form. All of his will and determination summarily snuffed out as he stared in horror at his actions.
The realization had cleaved him in two as the looming shadow of the blackened mass of the swarm Oberon controlled transformed into a singular copy of her. Her footsteps were heard coming closer to him as David's anguish and horrific realizations continued to make him empty…
And alone.
"Ah… that's disappointing. I was… hoping that you would have gone all out more." Her voice said as she started walking around him until she knelt just in front of him, where a thousand of his eyes stared at her current form. Her expression was that of an inquisitive one, with a dash of interest at the sudden turn of events.
She did not expect him to break down the way he did as David continued to look upon the aftermath of his actions, everywhere in the most literal sense of the word.
"I don't think I consider this as a loss on my part however, better you watch while I finish up as the Golden Man and I eventually level this tired, pitiful existence of a world."
David turned to her as she grinned.
"At the very least you won't be worrying about anything anymore… David. There won't be any sort of guilt tied to your being when every single piece of humanity is gone. Nothing to worry about anymore when it doesn't exist, right?" she said as she started chuckling, more to herself than anything.
David then spoke, thinking about all of his actions up to that point. All of his atrocities. All of the wrongs he had ever committed both intentionally and unintentionally…
He started understanding them all. "It really was my fault, wasn't it?"
"Oh? You mean this?" Oberon said, gesturing towards their environment.
"Or perhaps, you meant prior to all of the nastiness that's happened this day?"
David did not answer her query as he knew that she already had the answer in her head. The girl smiled in satisfaction as she stood up and sighed in victory. "Yes… you were the catalyst for calling out those aberrations into your world."
David felt weak as he stared in defeat at her.
"All of those deaths within decades of your legacy. It's not Eidolon the hero that everyone will preach but Eidolon the destroyer. The calamity that became the progeny and contributor to the end of the world." Oberon smiles. "It has a nice ring to it huh?"
She then watched him deflate as she started walking away, content with the outcome…
The weight was unbearable. Wholly inconceivable in terms of how it affected him.
Yet, all the same, his already broken drive that had survived so much disappointment and defeat stirred.
Then, David's heart and soul watching and realizing all of the wrongs he had ever done amidst the crippling sadness, had reignited a fire deep within his emotions.
Mourning…
In pain…
And guilt had racked up his entire form, yet as he saw and sensed Keith continue to fight with all the power left in his dying body, David turned to the walking Oberon, and with one of his tendrils, he lashed out, far more powerful and faster than he had ever been as it locked and imprisoned his enemy fully.
Much to Oberon's surprise.
He remembered his oath, the words of his dear deceased friend, Rebecca's lamentations, and finally Keith's unyielding truths in that final moment with his friend that made him see that small glimmer of light once more.
That spark of light that he could still reach.
David pulled the girl towards him and the energy that rippled through his veins became much more refined…
Much more precise.
The trillions of shards that were silenced by his governing guidance suddenly became united at the renewed directive spreading across the network.
"No." he proclaimed, his judgment final as Oberon's eyes widened.
THWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUMMMM!
Keith heaved his breath as the wave of light from the weapon in his hands carved a large swathe out of the thousands of attackers that were swarming towards the defenders in probably the last bastion of humanity that were evacuating from the worsening crisis.
It did not help that David, his friend now turned monster, had effectively transformed the world into an unrecognizable apocalypse. The Wyrm continued to prosper, continued to grow even as Dragon relayed news and statuses of the rest of the planet's current state.
Things had effectively gone worse. The cinders of what hope he represented, were gone as the rest of the city scrambled in a blind panic as hundreds of people died in a chaotic fashion as fear and anxiety drove them to run towards the final gateway.
Bodies littered the streets. Cries and screams took over as the battle for the end continued to become a representation of how small and inconceivably worthless, they were in the midst of titans. Beings that far outstripped the imagination of the human mind.
Far outstripping what hope remained as Oberon's forces, lesser minions sieged the city on all sides even as the great powers that tried combating her were rendering the world into an unescapable hellscape of untold proportions. Keith could only watch in pain and sorrow as what order and strength he and the defenders had left were now rendered moot in the face of this adversity.
Even as many volunteered to fight back the clearly lesser hordes attacking their way to lengthen their suffering, Keith realized that it was useless. The dead only continued to pile up as what defenders there were that guided and protected the few hundreds of people left running into the gate were just as overwhelmed emotionally and physically on all sides.
There was no hope in this bleak, darkening future.
Even the light in Keith's blessed weapon, the star that held his family's and humanity's future grew dim in color. The once potent power in his veins left him as blood and fatigue started to dawn on his form. Clutching his stomach, he floated himself down. His body went on all fours as he started spewing blood. His hold on the weapon became stiff, weak, and shaky as he lifted his head upwards.
The red violet sky with the looming Wyrm and the Endbringers trying to destroy it almost left a monotonous, melancholic sad tune to the entire scenery. Tears came out of his eyes as his comms kept screaming in his ears.
Screams of ails, of begging, of crying as Keith stabbed the dimming light of his weapon on the ground and used it as a crutch to stand up.
He too felt it. The energy surging from the gateway to Eden had closed, abruptly.
He had failed. They all failed.
It was… too late.
"LEGEND! The gates! The doorway. It's gone!" Armsmaster's voice screamed into his ear as the cries of scared civilians and pleading innocents started to enter his senses.
Hundreds of voices came along saying the same thing. Many being their final words as the world around them crumbled from everything that was happening.
Amidst it all, Miss Militia who was closest to his position ran towards him and tried helping him up. Putting his left arm on her, the two wordlessly exchanged an understanding between them as the woman's tears were no longer held back.
"Keith." A voice said from out of the many that were suffering.
"I don't know if you will receive this… but… the Enemy has breached the complex. We don't know how long it is we have before he ends it all, but to make sure that he has no means of destroying what's left of the few we managed to save, Contessa enacted to pull the chord."
Keith felt his shoulders sag as his strength left him slowly.
"I… I wish you good luck. Do what you need to do. For the betterment of humanity, I beg you to succeed." Doctor Mother's voice said as what Keith assumed to be a recording finally ended.
One of Dragon's drones landed right in front of them both as Keith did not even wish to look in her direction.
"Dragon… how many people managed to get to the other side?" Hannah asked, fearful of the answer. The drone's head moved slightly in a grim fashion as the AI's voice spoke up…
Her tone, near defeated in quality. "Barely five thousand or so… I'm not sure. We have lost contact with the other side. From everyone actually, except for who's still alive here."
"C-Can't we reopen it again? These people… we can't just let them to-
The earth shook as another far explosion erupted on the horizon visibly.
Dragon did not reply as Hannah started crying.
Keith merely stared as tears came down his eyes as his hand clutched the weapon. The burning cinder spent entirely as the world around them spiraled towards the end…
That was… until a Green, transparent sheen suddenly appeared around them. Or better yet, the entire city was shielded, closing off the raging lesser minions of Oberon as civilians, defenders, and everyone present became utterly silent at the sudden change.
"What's happening?" a voice came out from the comms.
"Legend… the readings, this energy… it's-
"David," Keith whispered as he looked up, seeing a bright, iridescent object rapidly flying towards the enlarging Wyrm.
A loud, guttural, indescribable cry was heard as Doctor Mother sighed, for perhaps the last time.
The console had lost track of Enemy's movements as the world shook violently around them.
Contessa remained with that neutral smile on her face as the older woman looked at the handgun in her hands. She then slowly aimed it at Contessa as an expression filled with acceptance dawned on both of their faces.
The hallway next to them now slowly glowing in gold as Contessa took a few steps closer and helped the older woman where to aim the weapon specifically.
As they finally got into position, Doctor Mother mustered a small, concerned frown.
"I'm afraid… afraid that none of our efforts mattered in the end." She admitted, this close to the end of their lives. Contessa then touched the older woman's hand that was carrying the gun softly, and sincerely as they traded stares at each other.
Contessa eventually smiles without the need to follow the Path.
"We must both trust for it all to succeed. I believe in it… and now, so should you."
The older woman's lips quivered as she started shaking.
Their surroundings turned brighter as the guttural cries intensified.
"I can't help but think trusting you at this point is a fool's hope."
"It isn't. The bridge created between our worlds and that of Eden's is a one-sided affair. The girl Legend put his trust in allowed that connection to happen, once I severed it by rendering Doormaker and Clairvoyant inert, there won't be a door for anyone to follow… even for the Enemy's."
"I wish… I wish to believe that, Contessa."
"I too as well, Doctor," Contessa said with a final smile as Doctor Mother shared it with a final nod.
They both shared one last stare of understanding and acceptance as Doctor Mother pulled the trigger.
A small bang was heard as blood poured from Contessa's forehead, her pupils dilated and she fell to the floor with an audible thud.
If the destruction of the complex was not so loud, the Doctor would be left in pure utter silence as she started to let the action, she took part in sink in. She watched in silence as the blood pooled under her dead comrade's body slowly until she threw the gun away…
Then she turned towards the console and flicked open a switch.
Violently, the ceiling and foundation of the room she was in were broken and torn apart as she stood there, one finger on a button while staring eye to eye with the Golden Man.
Snarling and angry at her she exchanged it back with one clear expression that defined her drive after so many long years of fighting…
Defiance.
The Golden Man was too late in understanding what she was doing as she hit the button and what came after was a blinding flash of light that covered both the forms of Doctor Mother and Contessa fully.
They knew nothing else after that even as the colored expanse wrapped their forms until nothing was left.
BWOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMM!
The seas and oceans, roaring as they were like the thunderous will of Poseidon roseviolently from their positions as Oberon's mass and current physical form were ejected into the air rapidly.
Without fail the forces of nature controlled by the Sinker of Cities had pushed her upwards closer to her growing singularity as the massive Wyrm roared in defiance. Lightning of various energies, yields, and properties was fired from the gathering storms up above that formed as it struck the mass and its master on all sides like a human tesla coil.
The first of the three, the Hero Killer roared from its position deep in the bedrock as pillars of energy, radiation, and power continued to strike Oberon with those lightning strikes.
She was thrown higher up in the air much further until the Seraph, the winged terror of the skies came in and screamed with a reverberating force so intense along with its telekinesis that Oberon was locked in place high in the air, close to the hide of her greater Singularity.
The stranger from the beyond, the cause of this rapture angrily snarled and lashed out with what current human form she took as devices from various points in the world, created by the winged terror began firing highly intensive beams of light that kept Oberon in a painful stasis.
The Three infamous engines, bringers of Humanity's collapse started going all out in their simultaneous attack against Oberon at full force as the bubbling, refined energy of the newly united nascent entity was beginning to peak.
The nascent entity, bright as day, and powerful than ever before emerged from all of those attacks unharmed as reality once more coalesced around it. However, the chaotic outburst just from being forced into existence was nowhere to be seen. It was starting to calm around them in an aura of bright, verdant green as the leading guidance of the network, David stared at the trapped Oberon.
Right in his grasp as the resources that were his to bear barreled down on her in full.
Oberon merely stared in surprise but in confusion.
"This does not change a damn thing, you do understand, right?" she shouted as David watched her with thousands of perspectives and eyes over the world at large.
The verdant green aura of his only intensified as Keith and those who still lived on watched in awe. David began thinking about all of the memories and experiences he had amassed so far as the burgeoning ember in his soul brightened…
His voice became a loud echo as Oberon listened with its great depth and gravitas.
It felt as if the world had slowed to a crawl at that moment.
"Yes." David then moved closer as the energy rose within him. "I know I could never reach those dreams in the first place. I have always been inefficient, lacking… weak…"
David then turned towards the direction where Keith was.
"… disappointment and failure just became normal occurrences."
Oberon then feels the anguish, pain, and defeat within the man change into something else. Something unique. It was not hope… it was not the shining luminous light that prevailed in people who were actually pure of heart… not defiance or determination…
It was-
"But I see now that there's no point to it all. If… If I can finish what I've started. What my friends have started… then ending that journey is enough."
It was a man who had nothing left to fight for. A man who had accepted his fate…
A man who had finally accepted and embraced all of his failures to finally see the clarity in his path.
It made Oberon stare in surprise and interest.
"You would throw it all away… this near at the end? All of those dreams, those drives, those obsessions that you painfully wished to reach for?" she asks.
"What difference does it make? I've come this far… might as well end it."
Oberon formed a smile as the energy reached its pointbreak.
"You're more of a man than I thought then… dear David." She whispered…
And everything around her turned into green light.
It was a bright, verdant explosion that overtook nearly eighty percent or more of Earth Bet's surface. It was so powerful that it literally shook the entire world. Even at the distance Keith and the others were in, they watched in awe and fear at the event as the surface was rendered to dust and atoms.
It effectively wiped the entire world's surface clean except for the one shielded area that held against all of the destruction like an impenetrable fortress. Even as the waves splashed against the shield, covering it for a good portion of minutes, the shielded dome and its current occupants were unscathed. They never even heard or felt the blast in the first place.
A good portion of David's power had reinforced them all under the esoteric effects of time and space within his purview as the world after was reduced to nothing but more so a perpetual ocean.
The only landmass being left was that part of the former Northern America as the verdant shield evaporated. The bright, shining verdant light then remained until David found a small smile grace his nonexistent lips…
Until like a Midsummer Night's dream, it ended as if nothing had happened.
The light in his eyes abruptly dimmed.
His form withered with power until the entire network, the entire system that had willingly joined forces to enact the rebirth was quickly silenced.
Dark, blackened, and never to wake again.
Like Icarus who flew too close to the sun, the indescribable, blackened form of the nascent entity, the hero Eidolon fell from the sky.
His body splashed into the waters as the oceans took him.
The will of humanity that was dormant and no longer waking took another casualty into her arms.
To Keith and everyone else…
The sight was utterly silencing. Because even as the smoke and verdant light cleared, the Large Wyrm still remained. It roared in defiance as a large black mass formed from its hide and was now rapidly approaching its position like a rabid storm to end it all.
Oberon, who was controlling it, had a sincere neutral expression within their mind as she remembered those final moments leading up to David's demise. She was impressed, shockingly so but at the same time she was disappointed that what was left of this world was so few and insignificant compared to all of the screams and wisps of terror she had felt before.
Nevertheless, much to Keith and everybody else's horror, the large unbothered, and unscathed Abyssal Wyrm had also hastened its maw to finally rid this world altogether. Gravity started shifting again as the newly created oceans and seas started to get sucked into their singularity.
People within the remaining landmass of Earth screamed as Keith closed his eyes.
It was time.
There was nothing left that they could do…
The mass was now nearing them as it expanded to attack them on all sides while the parts of the city started to get sucked in.
Keith could not even lift the weapon again to counter as pain riddled his body.
Hannah closed her eyes as well, holding onto one of her mentors as Dragon in her remaining drones watched. Her remaining friends, comrades, and such stared as well.
Ready for their fate.
Armsmaster, found himself sitting on the ground in defeat as he clutched onto his staff.
Everyone had accepted their fate as the world started to darken.
Despite it all, however…
A sickly, broken little girl held onto by her parents clung to her signed Alexandria doll. Hoping. Praying as her parents cried and sobbed around her.
Dear Clarrisa, who had just met her hero, her shining light clung to the sole reminder of her existence tightly as if it were a lifeline.
Believing.
Trusting…
And Hoping for a miracle.
Alexandria will save us… she always does. S-she saved me… she'll do it again…
Tears riddled her eyes as she kept that ember of hope deep within her heart even as her weak constitution started to give way as gravity started to overturn around them. Her parents cried out as Clarissa clung to her doll…
She lost her grip much to her horror as the doll started to fly away.
In her horror, she watched her lifeline disappear before her eyes, until the sounds around her stopped.
Clarissa opened her eyes widely even as her parents still clung to her.
For the sky was no longer dark.
The air was calm once more.
And an aura of bright, soft light enveloped her surroundings.
Clarissa found herself gaping as the sky, the illustrious beautiful sky started raining with flowers. Petals of pink and white color fell like snowflakes…
One landed on her palm as the world stilled. Many opened their eyes finding that they were still alive but for Clarissa, as flowers started falling from the bright, sunny sky, she blinked towards the direction closest to them as a gateway, a portal of sorts opened.
She could see nothing at first, but a shadow came forward before it walked towards her lost doll and picked it up. Gently, Clarissa watched as the Alexandria doll was returned to her hands as the most beautiful person she had ever seen graced her with a smile.
"Are you… are you an angel?" she innocently asked.
The person gleamed at her as her once weak body along with all the fear that raptured her form was washed away like no weakness had ever graced her form.
Her parents watched in shock and awe as the figure smiled once more and began walking away.
Like a silent vigil, a march to the end of a journey…
Many stared in silence and peace as warmth and hope returned to their hearts.
The figure, bright as a star, walked as flowers trailed in her wake.
Armsmaster was roused from his lamentation as he looked at the bright star in a sense of serene calm.
A blinded Vista, held onto by a girl once called as Rune felt her presence as they even reached out with their hands as everybody paved the bright star her way…
Dragon stared, the readings on her sensors became confusing but her non-existent heart that figuratively did not exist was somehow beating.
Eventually, Keith who still held onto the weapon felt the presence of a friend…
He managed to stand up with Hannah's aid as hope simmered within everybody's hearts.
Shocked, Keith was now once more face-to-face with Artoria.
Bright as Starlight, the world around them started to rouse the once dormant will of humanity from its dream. The aura of hope glistened against the darkness as Oberon stared in abject shock.
"Even if everything is at its darkest, I will make sure that we both see this to the end," Artoria said as Keith, in his weakened, bleeding form found his hands holding onto the weapon glow in brightness as Artoria started floating, with both arms outstretched as her form turned brighter.
The land and its people in her influence being reinforced and roused from their darkness as the embers brought forth by that one spark had reignited the flame.
The flames of hope.
Multiple 12 twinkles of light appeared behind her, and she smiled in sadness towards Oberon.
The Child of Prophecy had once again answered the call.
"As long as the shining light of the Sword of Promised Victory burns eternal, I shall stand in your defense…" She proclaimed as the last step towards the end began…
-02:14
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The Warrior was alone once more. The human emotions brought about by the form it chose to emulate mankind had left it in sorrow and pain.
For the light… that joyous light that seemed to come from the Thinker, its mate had illuminated once more. It was alive, it was… roused from its slumber as the ecstatic joy it experienced trumped anything in the recent millennia of its existence.
It was to welcome the Thinker. To grace upon its form again so that they may end the cycle to move on yet that was not to be.
The iridescent light had faded again into darkness.
And what was left of it was pure, unbridled pain and sorrow.
It cried.
Cried out into the void.
Such happiness was snatched from it too soon.
And these, insects, these pests…
The aberration that thousands in his network had called for, will be its subjects to experience its wrath. They will make them suffer, down to the very last instance of these pests and that aberration within the confines of the known realities.
They will make sure that none will survive.
AN: Yay. God… one more chapter to the end.