The Arena Master's death could be felt throughout the entire Arena Eternal. In every pocket dimension, in every slice of a realm created for endless combat and amusement. The explosion rocked the very foundations of what the Arena Warriors knew as reality.
They were all drawn to the arena where it happened. Final Resting Place. Where the Vadrigar oversaw all, and brought permanent expurgation to gladiators it deemed unworthy.
In some way, it had been used for the latter purpose one last time. When it was Doom that the Vadrigar called, it was Doom that the Vadrigar met. Its body was splayed across the arena it chose. And death in this place was final…whether you were a Lord like Xaero before, or one of the very gods that had brought them all here.
Nobody believed it.
Even with the end of it all in plain sight before them, it just didn't make sense.
The Arena Eternal had been home to monsters before Doom. Xaero had been thought to be immortal - to have truly made a playground of their prison, so much so that he resided in a tier above even the deadliest their ranks had to offer.
But Doom beat Xaero.
And Doom now stood, battered and bloody at the very end of it all. He stood on the center platform of the arena, surrounded by monuments to the Vadrigars greatest champions. Statues of Xaero. Sarge. Keel. Hunter. Anarki. Uriel. Daemia.
But it was Doom that brought all this to an end.
Of course, he was the only one crazy enough to make it happen. He'd seen Hell like none other had before. Lived and died in its charred, squirming intestines.
It all came out at once.
And the Vadrigar was dead.
The golden glow of the Battle Suit artifact left his body. His armor had changed during his time in the Arena, as he climbed through the ranks…Rookie, Freeman, Warrior, Warlord, Lord of Battle.
Underneath the blood of the ancient one was a mystical armor of copper and steel. He removed his helmet for the first time in what could very well have been eons, as it was finally time to take in a breath worth taking.
That of freedom.
He turned to face his fellow gladiators. Looking many of them in the eyes one final time. Specifically, he wanted to see Crash, who stood in front of the others. She tensed up as his gaze met hers. As if she'd seen the face of a dead man. But, she relaxed and waved him off. She knew he wouldn't stay a moment longer, and wouldn't say a single word.
The Vadrigar had dropped its weapon upon its defeat. A giant, wicked blade the size of a man. The blade that cut down Xaero as punishment for his loss. And the blade that cut through the multiverse, and brought nearly every one of them here.
Doom seated his helm as he turned around and picked up the blade. One swing tore into the multiverse…a gash that bled into everything and returned who entered it where they belonged. The portal shaped into the familiar symbol that had branded their lives, the emblem of the Arena Eternal. Doom stepped through, tossing the blade behind him.
And he was never seen again.
Crash looked behind her to see the reactions of the other gladiators. Some were frozen in awe. Some cried. Some were happy it was all over with.
What troubled her was the expression on the Tier 4 Arena Lord's face - Uriel's. The skeletal face of the gargoyle, the angel of death…it was the same, grave face he had worn since even she arrived.
There were many goodbyes…even in this place of violence and death, a lot of them had become brothers and sisters in arms. Crash had known nearly all of them well - she had been chosen to train newcomers to this accursed place, and as such, she had been the one they'd return to with their troubles. She was the one that kept everyone sane, or as close to it as anyone could remember.
Many of the warriors flooded through the gate, leaving the Arena Eternal to return to the lives they left behind long ago, and had long forgotten about. Uriel had picked up the blade by the time most of the others stepped through.
"Anyone else that wishes to leave, come see me," he announced, before returning to the same place he'd always been - The Fatal Instinct.
Crash exchanged glances with Orbb - the curious, distressingly cheerful eyeball that had once been a drone to observe them, before choosing of its own will to join their ranks. She wasn't going to leave Uriel alone here.
. . .
Uriel's chosen Arena had long held the reputation as one of the gladiators' least favorite locations. The air was thick and acrid with a fog that smelled of sulfur. The arena itself was distressingly small. Hidden beneath the fog, entering The Fatal Instinct meant death was only one wrong turn away at any given moment.
"Hey, Uriel," Crash called out, her boots hitting the ground as she landed from the warp. There wasn't a response, but she knew he could hear her. "In case you missed the memo, eternity's up."
"Why are you still here?"
Uriel's voice came deep, and raspy. Whether it was a symptom of his species or old age none could tell or dared to ask. Crash turned around to face its source - he sat perched atop one of the arena's walls. It appeared that his wings were beginning to grow out again.
"I'm not just going to dip out without checking on you, old grouch," Crash explained.
Uriel didn't share much about himself or his past. And the most he'd ever talked was with the most talkative person in the Arena. One of very few who had managed to hold onto their sanity, and sense of humanity. From their conversations, away from prying eyes and apathetic ears, Crash had gathered Uriel was a creation of the Vadrigar in some ancient time. A warrior descended from their ranks, tasked with finding strength in the imprisoned for all eternity.
"The Vadrigar is dead," Uriel said, unceremoniously. "The Vorpal Blade is now mine to inherit. I will keep the Arena's doors open for when you all choose to return."
Crash snorted. "What makes you so sure anyone's coming back here?"
Uriel growled.
"Whatever worlds await you out there, beyond the gate…they are not the worlds you left behind. Time is nonlinear in the Arena Eternal, but what lies outside is not."
Crash crossed her arms, and nodded her head.
"Makes sense. Even still…anywhere else has got to be better than staying cooped up in here, right? You've always mentioned the melancholy of eternity, suffering without end…not only is there an end outside, you won't have to suffer through it."
"I have no realm to return to," Uriel growled. "And even if I were to leave this place, I would only find my way back to it in some other form."
"What if you came back with me?"
Uriel was silent.
"Go, Crash."
"I'm serious. There's a whole multiverse out there. I could show you what peace looks like. Take you to my favorite restaurant. Give you somewhere to spread your wings once they've finished growing out…"
Uriel dropped down in front of the woman, easily eclipsing her in height. A fire burned behind his eyes, one that had been tempered with an eternity of near-isolation.
"Go, Crash," he said more sternly. Crash didn't flinch in his presence. She still held the same, relaxed pose, looking up at him in the way she always did until he decided that there was no hope in threatening her, and no point in harming her. Uriel was convinced that the woman was the only one of them whose soul was still intact. He sighed and turned his back to her. "You will always know your way back to this place…and the door will always remain open. Return to your world…and when you discover the true meaning of futility, I will see you again."
Crash looked down at the cracked stone floor, weathered against eons of conflict.
She stepped forward and reached her hand up to Uriel's shoulder…a death sentence for anyone other than her.
"Take care of yourself, Uriel. And don't be a stranger."
"...May you find some semblance of peace."
. . .
As Crash stepped through the gate, an unknowable anxiety flooded her heart. It was Doom's face. She cursed herself for not making the connection sooner, but in her defense, any memory of home before the Arena she'd been forced to bury long ago. But now she knew…he reminded her of somebody she left behind. Someone else in the military…a friend?
Stan.
Stan and Riley.
She wasn't sure what she'd say to them. Would she say anything? Or just wrap that big brickhead and the little nerd up in a big hug? They became what drove her to push through, to make it through the warp and get back to the war she left behind. But now, a different anxiety filled her heart.
Uriel's words.
"They are not the worlds you left behind."
. . .
Crash emerged into a landscape of flesh and fire. The air smelled of blood, and the atmosphere burned at her body and soul in a way that only one other place she'd ever been to had.
Hell. How could she have forgotten?
Except…she hadn't remembered Earth's moon in Hell's skies. It sat tethered to the land by way of muscle tissue that bound it like a grand, ghoulish chain. That wasn't the only celestial body in the sky, either. Venus and Mars had been tethered to Earth as well, as did their moons. An unholy collection of successful conquests…which could only mean that the infested, abhorrent landscape before her was Earth.
Doom's words echoed in her mind.
"The demons…they took everything from me."
It was a rare glimpse of sanity in an otherwise shattered psyche. How naive she was to think that her realm would be any different in her absence.
She dropped to her knees, threw off her helmet, and retched. Retched out all of her pain, her failure, and her frustration at the idea that she had grown complacent in a life never meant for her and left her realm to ruin. She opened her blurry eyes and saw spindly specters rising from the flesh. They looked like they might have once been people, now crimson bundles of just enough flesh to move and moan. She tried to make out where she could have even been. It was all so alien. She couldn't tell whether she was in a city, in the countryside, or what. 80% of the landscape around her was just…meat. Pits of fire, hills of bone. She saw bodies shoved through spikes, piled up atop one another to where body parts just hung over and fell off. The Arenas…they felt serene to what was taking place before her own eyes.
She wouldn't find Stan here, or Riley. They wouldn't have allowed Hell to win like this, not while they were still alive. The thought brought another wave of sickness out of her mouth. She stopped coughing to listen. There was a growling. More than growling, this sound was mechanical. But that wasn't it. Her eyes darted around. There was a vehicle, half submerged in the meat, upside-down. Was that…crying?
When she saw the small shape duck behind one of the seats, it confirmed her suspicion. There was a child there.
Alive.
The growling that she heard started to crescendo, and her attention was brought back to what lay dead ahead.
Demons.
A breed that she remembered very well.
She almost couldn't recall the last time she laid eyes on a chainsaw. But here these beasts were, the Sawcubus. Bipedal, with crimson skin, having adapted two of the hellish instruments for arms. The same metal traveled up their bodies and armored their heads, and they now stalked Crash in a pair.
The visage of that child cowering in the car was enough to get Crash back on her feet. She threw her helmet on and put her fists up. The realization made her sweat. Her fists. What the hell was she supposed to do against muscular, spikey behemoths with chainsaws for arms with her fists?
And as if to answer the question for her, the Gauntlet appeared on her right arm as if from thin air.
"Guess it's only fair the abyss would start to stare back sooner or later," Crash quipped aloud. "I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Come on, frag-bait!"
The spinning blade of the ol' Pummel she'd known for so long dragged her out from the hellscape she'd entered and back to the hellscape she was used to. Raw, medieval power attached to her wrist. Whatever combat training she'd had before the arenas had been tempered to mastery by the Arena. She balled her other fist and dove in, taking up a boxing stance. She dodged a Sawcubus blade, then parried the next with her Gauntlet, sending the demon enough off-balance for her to dive in and land a blow square in its chest with the ancient weapon. There was a gashing impact that tore a bloody hole straight into its chest.
Crash landed on all fours, and one swift kick behind her shattered the other assailant's shin. It dropped to one knee, which gave Crash the time to bring her leg back and up into a flip kick to knock the wounded Sawcubus away. Her eyes went wide as she felt the scratching, tearing pain at her back. This is it, she thought. Less than ten minutes back in her world and she was finally going to bite it. But when oblivion didn't come, Crash broke away from the demon at her back and faced it. She eyed the two demons as she put her free hand where she'd been cut. Of course, it'd been her lower back - where it was nothing but bare skin. But when Crash brought her hand back, there were only scratches worth of blood. She glanced at the Sawcubus that did it, too - despite having plunged both of its saws into her flesh, it had only barely broken skin.
"Alright buddy," Crash said aloud. "Either you need to sharpen your saws, or I haven't been paying attention for a few forevers now."
Both demons rushed her again, chainsaws roaring. She planted her feet, twisted her body, and put all of her strength into a right hook with the gauntlet. She caught both targets in the swing, and both targets were turned into bloody giblets. She breathed. It was one thing she could do to remind herself she was still human. The other thing she could do…
Digging the car out of the hellgrowth was an easier task than she expected it to be. The muscle had gripped around the vehicle, and left it in an unpleasant ooze Crash could think of too many unpleasant analogs to.
She reached for the back seat's door and ended up pulling the whole thing off.
"Oops…don't know my own strength," Crash chuckled nervously. "The metal was probably degraded anyway…hey, kid, you in here?"
The child's shadow peeked from behind the back seat.
"There you are. This is no place for a kid, y'know…but I guess you don't need me to tell you that. Come on, let's see if we can find you someplace safe."
"No place is safe."
Crash had tried to come up with some positive remark to lift the kid's spirits, but with what little she had seen since arriving here, she really couldn't say.
She started to hear a faint buzzing noise. It reminded her of…what, an insect?
"Hey, kid, you hear…"
Crash fell backward onto her feet, a pair of insectoid arms wrapped around her throat. The buzzing was cacophonous…those were a fly's wings and entire thorax attached to the body of this child. Not a child, a demon, Crash quickly realized. She stared into the soulless black eyes of what may have once been a youth on top of her. It let out an ear-piercing cry, and all of a sudden several new faces had joined the party. Crash spun the blade on the Gauntlet and pummeled the Cherub off of her. She picked it up with her other hand and ended up blocking cannon fire from one of the Bruiser demons that had teleported in. The beast was almost as big as a Baron and had a television of all things melded to its face. They had mechanical cannons for arms and robotic hooves…in some way, they resembled leaner, meaner-
Crash's train of thought was cut off by the dual streams of fire that engulfed her on every side. Through the flames, she saw the fat bastard - a Mancubus - with all the subtlety of an elephant just as she remembered it. She was drowning in demons and had only a Gauntlet to back her up. That was a tall order against only two opponents in the Arena, let alone a horde from Hell. She needed some kind of edge, some kind of help to cut through…
Q3DM7: Temple of Retribution
She nearly dove off the side of the bridge and caught herself only out of familiarity with the lava pit below.
Of course.
She was back in the Arena again.
Right…?
Her heads-up display informed her that she wasn't looking hot. Even with borderline stoneskin, she'd still taken a beating. Lucky for her, she knew right where the remedy for that was. And right behind her…the remedy for the first problem.
Quad Damage.
Everybody in the Arena Eternal wanted their mitts on this thing when it decided to spawn. Could even turn schmucks like Biker and Wrack into forces of nature if they got their hands on it.
Crash basked in its blue glow, one she'd been at both the command and mercy of. In the event she hadn't been rabidly hallucinating again, she needed health before anything. Weapons wouldn't hurt either, and her armor could use some repair…
Uriel watched Crash as she ran the old halls again, gathering resources like the rats in the cage they'd all been doomed to be. There was a purpose and desperation to her movements he hadn't observed in her before now, and when she vanished beyond the veil again after grabbing the Quad, he had a feeling he knew why.
Crash emerged back in the same spot she'd left, at the same moment - except this time she was armed and incredibly dangerous. The empowering aura from the Quad engulfing her traveled down her weapon, and through the Lightning Gun's shaft. She watched as Mancubi, Bruisers, and Sawcubi all alike were filled with a million volts of electricity, and popped like balloons one after the other within seconds of getting cooked. A part of the adrenaline rush disturbed her. Upon her arrival, the sorry state of the Earth she'd left behind had shocked the contents out of her stomach. But now that she was out here, fighting again, collecting frags…this was business as usual. She even cracked a smile. Maybe they'd all gone mad lost in the Arena for so long. If spreading the madness meant cleaning up her planet, well, she couldn't stay mad at the Vadrigar for too long.
Crash emerged from the battle victorious and painted red in the blood of her enemies. She'd been scratched up and bitten to hell in the process, but these wounds would be temporary. She had a way to go back. And now that she was back home, covered in blood, guts, and wounds, that hero in her she'd lost ages ago was starting to resurface. A part of her wondered if there would be any point to fighting here, endlessly. But then she recalled when she asked herself the same question in the Arena. The answer was the same - she'd have more fun making the most of her situation than she would letting her enemies break her.
One aspect of it that made accomplishing that task more bearable was the fact that she had people to talk to throughout all of this. Here on Earth, she had the feeling that wasn't going to be the case. There weren't any friends left here.
Well…maybe one.
She glanced up at the moon.
. . .
Q3DM6: Camping Grounds
Crash returned to the Arena to find that she hadn't been the only one to discover this power.
She also found that Uriel's words had rung true, and her world wasn't the only one that'd changed during their time in the Arena Eternal.
She noticed the old Roller Queen first, Slash. The girl was usually preppy, full of spunk and attitude. She'd been one of the most competitive warriors among them, no doubt influenced by the street life she'd left behind. But now, she sat slumped against the wall. Her makeup ran down her face. Crash had been the only one aside from Anarki who'd seen her like that, and she'd threatened several times over to solo target her if word ever got out. To see her just in public like this…
She rushed over to the girl and knelt to address her. In the same, soft voice she used to provide the closest thing anybody had to therapy in the Arena Eternal, she said her name softly and reached her hand out to lift her chin.
"Teach…?"
Slash's arms were wrapped around the older woman before she had a chance to react.
"It's awful, Teach! What happened to L.A? The Wasteland Electric? What happened to Grandma?! It's all gone, damn it!"
Crash slowly embraced Slash as she let the tears flow. She looked across some of the other warriors' sullen faces…in truth, very few of them had worlds to return to anymore. War had decimated some, others were infected, and others still were wracked by any number of threats out across the cosmos.
"Mutants," Lucy had said. "Overran the whole god-damn colony."
"The sun had burnt out," Patriot hissed. "And the rest of our world with it."
"Órale," Daemia sighed. "Mi familia was gone. Mi amigos were gone. Didn't have anybody I knew out there."
Many of the stories were about the same. Some had attempted suicide and ended up right back in the Arena. Some just had nowhere else to go.
She glanced up. Sure enough, the Gargoyle was perched up high, looking down on them with pity.
"Well," Crash said aloud, stepping back. "My world is gone too." The warriors that remained gave her their full attention, as she always had when the Vadrigar still lived. "But I'm not going to rest until I've cleansed the demon scum from its surface."
"Demons?" Daemia asked. She looked over incredulously at Crash, her golden eye implants beaming at her. "How do you intend on taking a whole planet back from demons? They take everything. I've run bounties on their kind before and senorita, you don't want no part of that kind of heat."
"I've killed more demons out there than I've fragged any of you," Crash said. "And now…we've changed. I'm sure some of you noticed. I don't remember being able to take two chainsaws like they weren't any worse than splinters before."
"She's right," Lucy said, a grim chuckle escaping her despite the situation. "If I had the kinda strength a've got now, things'd be lookin' a lot different back home."
Crash nodded and continued her speech. "That's not the only resource we've got on our side, either. The Arena's more than just some place we've been trapped all our lives…now it's a part of us. The same way we chose to come back here at just a thought, we can arm ourselves, put these toys to good use."
"So what are you suggesting, Crash?" Patriot asked.
"I'm suggesting we make a fortress out of this prison. Come Hell, Strogg, mutants, Elder Gods - whatever. Maybe even the other Vadrigar…I'm sure they'll be wondering what happened to their little sibling sooner or later."
Now it was Uriel's turn to speak.
He dropped from his perch in the shade, the Vorpal Blade holstered on his back.
"Before you all get ahead of yourselves," Uriel warned, glancing at the sorry collection of abandoned warriors around him. "The Arena may have made you all close to immortal, but should you die at the hands of another blade like this…"
He unsheathed the Vorpal Blade, its ethereal energy coursing through its edges.
"You will find a fate worse than even ours."
A voice spoke up that seldom did. Even when it did, it had usually been in his native language - unless he was trying to get under an opponent's skin. Visor stepped forward from where he'd been brooding against the wall.
"New quarry in worlds beyond the veil. I'm with the trainer. Our talents are wasted here."
Crash stepped up to Uriel. "Let's face the facts. Either we continue to rot in here, or we put our home to work. You were right, no one ever really leaves the Arena Eternal. So why don't we bring the Arena to our enemies?"
Uriel growled. He growled because he knew there would be no stopping her.
But also because he was starting to fall for her optimism, too.
. . .
Liberating Earth was a step-by-step process that took the combined efforts of Crash, Uriel, and any of the other Arena Warriors willing to lend their talents. Lucy and Orbb had managed to figure out the Arena's central control station, which gave them free rein to send anyone they needed anywhere. Everyone had plans, and in thanks to Crash for keeping them together over the years, everyone agreed their first major operation would be cleaning up her dimension.
Saving her Earth meant taking out three Super Gore Nests built around the world - gateways to Hell built by amassing the flesh of those slaughtered by the demons. When they had taken the first one down, hope in this being anything other than a lost cause shined on through - sure enough, there were survivors. Crash didn't want to think about how much of humanity was even left on Earth, but as they purged the demons from its quarters, she began to imagine her world may have a future after all.
The operation had not been an easy one - even for warriors as capable as them. Demons fought unlike any of them had dealt with before. They were relentless and cared not at all for their safety so long as they could crush their opposition. But Crash had the Arena, and the friendships she'd forged along the way. Uriel's wings grew back in time, no longer continuously clipped by their cruel master. And the Vorpal Blade had proven just as devastating a weapon as it had before in the hands of the Vadrigar.
With his help, they had managed to sever the first of the Hellway bridges - freeing the moon from Hell's grasp.
Crash had been bent on reaching the moon since they began the operation, and now, it was finally time.
. . .
Tycho
The UAC's former forward operating base on Earth's moon. It was where this had all begun.
It's where Crash became worthy of the Arena Eternal.
And it was where she and her friends had planned for the war that was to come. However long it had been since Crash's departure, she knew two of her old companions were long dead. But one remained. One who'd been spoken of in wistful murmurs by Earth's survivors. One who maintained the now mythical UAC outposts that provided shelter and weaponry to, however temporarily, curb the storm. The last acting member of the UAC.
"Hey, SAL…? Sorry I took so long."
Crashed leaned exasperated against the wall near a computer terminal. Its green glow was soothing and dug up old, long-buried feelings of comfort in an otherwise hopeless situation.
"Kira…it really is you. You're alive. I had thought it was your voice from the satellite footage on Earth, but the prospect of an avenging angel coming to reclaim a broken world was beyond my ability to entertain."
The digitized voice wasted came over the other end. It was a tired one, and if a computer program could have a physical limit, SAL had reached hers years ago.
Crash froze up at the mention of that name. Kira…Kira…where had she heard it before?
It was like an itch in the far reaches of her head that she couldn't scratch.
"Kira…?" Crash asked, holding her head. "Who…is that?"
"It's you," SAL said. The terminal made a beeping noise, and suddenly, it displayed a front-facing camera. It came out of the wall and rose by way of a mechanical arm.
Crash looked into the mirror and operated several mechanisms on the underside of her helmet. A great hissing rang out as her armor was depressurized. She had deliberately made a point of never looking at herself - most of the arena warriors chose not to. Nobody wanted to be reminded of the person they lost first.
For the first time in ages, Crash got a look at the tired, sunken eyes behind the static in her visor. Her unkempt, stark black hair. The person in the mirror had become a stranger to her.
"Major Kira Morgan. Deployed to the UAC lunar base Tycho approximately %&$^# years ago. Together with Sergeant Stan Blazkowicz and the artifact research specialist Riley O'Connor, you staved off the demonic invasions of the moon, and subsequently Earth, by defeating the demonic AI entity, VIOS."
Slash went wide-eyed. "Whoa…demonic AI? That's kinda fuckin' metal, Crash!"
"Quiet," Uriel warned.
Crash shook her head, nearly wiping tears from her eyes before she remembered her gloves were covered in blood she probably didn't want in her system. "What happened, then, SAL? Earth is gone. It's all gone."
"You brought me back from VIOS' claimed quarter of Abaddon after destroying his physical manifestation. I was damaged..but thanks to you and Dr. O'Connor's efforts, I was restored to my full faculties. We saw to it that the moon be made into our last line of defense, sensing the coming storm. That's when you disappeared…and when the demons launched their second attack. They had consumed the soul of the scientist who'd been behind the creation of VIOS, and through his access to the UAC, enabled a full-scale invasion of planet Earth. Stan hit the front lines, while Riley and I helped remotely from the moon to the best of our ability.
As you can see…our ability was not enough.
The demons never stopped arriving, and we hadn't the technological capability to defend ourselves against their onslaught. Something inside of them gave them tremendous power…an energy source we hadn't previously had on record. Riley had begun research on how we might reverse engineer it…and then we lost him.
I am all that remains of the UAC. I offer aid to survivors on the surface when I can, but the number of human beings remaining in our solar system lowers every day. I'm sorry, Kira."
"It's not your fault, SAL," Crash said, putting her helmet back on. "If I had been there…"
"You may have very well perished, just as they did," SAL replied. "But…you're here now. You seem to have met some…interesting specimens in your travels beyond the veil."
"Yeah," Crash said, regathering her composure. "Slash, Visor, and Uriel."
"Pleasure to meetcha, robo-lady!"
"Очень приятно."
"..."
"One's chatty, one's polite, and one's the strong, silent type. Kind of reminds me of a trio I used to know. So…why did you return? Come to witness the last embers of a dying world?"
"Actually," Crash said, readying her shotgun. "I was hoping to see if we could do something about that."
"There's not much left, I'm afraid," SAL responded.
"Even if there's only a little left in something or someone…it's worth trying to save."
Crash looked at Uriel with that. He growled and looked elsewhere.
SAL was silent.
"Years ago, O'Connor constructed a chip that would allow me to be carried portably, installed wherever I was needed - be it in the helm of a hero, or a network's subsystems. I insisted I stay at Stan's side, but ultimately he decided it would be best if I remained at our stronghold. He hoped you'd return some day…said we belonged together. Even in his death at the hands of the Harbinger, he held onto the hope that you'd return, and we'd bring our world back from the clutches of Hell."
Said chip popped out of a reciprocal on the terminal.
"You've fulfilled one half of his wish, now it's time we complete the other."
"Wait," Uriel interrupted, standing between Crash and the chip. "How can you be certain this construct is to be trusted? It has been isolated in a realm nearly consumed by Hell's forces since you were abducted."
"I assure you, Gargoyle, I have not let a single demonic entity anywhere near Tycho. Nor has it."
A cube came flying around the corner, hovering on an ancient energy otherwise extinct from this world.
Kira. Avatar of DOOM. You've returned at last. There is much work to be done.
Crash, Slash, Visor, and Uriel all heard the artifact speaking to them telepathically. Its voice came through clear as day, and though it spoke in the hushed whispers of a child, the weight of an entire race followed behind it.
Slash turned toward the others. "Hey, anyone else hearin' the freaky floating death cube, or just me?"
"It's talking to her, Жопа," Visor growled, nodding in Crash's direction. "Old friend of yours?"
"You could say that," Crash said, cupping her hands as the ancient weapon returned to her.
We are many. We are one. We are the Praeleanthor. You know us as the Soul Cube. The other avatars have fallen…only you remain in this world. All is not lost.
The Soul Cube floated around Crash's body, thoroughly inspecting her and the weapon she carried. It did the same with the others in her party.
Your armor and weapons are not from this world. They are far more appropriate for the task laid before us. We see the Vadrigar's craft has not atrophied.
Uriel stepped up to the cube. "What do you know of the Vadrigar, construct?"
The Praeleanthor were exposed to many worlds in our search for brothers and sisters beyond our star. Hell was not the only evil we knew.
The Soul Cube floated over between Crash and SAL's terminal.
I have safeguarded this last stronghold against the evil since the day you were taken.
"Thanks, little one," Crash said softly, allowing the cube to orbit her as she slotted SAL's chip.
Uriel growled. "So we've reached the moon and reunited with your construct and weapon. What now?"
Now…we rebuild.