Getting back towards the upper areas of the ship was…exhausting to say the least, not physically, just mentally.

He had been traveling through the dark for a while now, despite the quietness and the spacious area of the void, it was still somewhat…suffocating.

It was suffocating because this place reminded him of his loss and his past failures, it felt too much like the Dream's Deep, the thousand year entrapment was truly a pure torment.

In fact, he might've never gotten out if not for the Mario Brothers, he would have slowly faded away into the Dream World along with his petrified former friend. He could still imagine it, how close he was to dissolving into nothingness.

Which is why he would not let these poor souls suffer the same fate.

He knew that eventually their Castaphrose reserve would run out, and these people would slowly drop to the ground, one by one. But not before feeling the extent of their torture, as they slowly died by what would be the organic equivalent of suffocation. It would be a long and painful journey to death, and he would not let them suffer like that.

However with each kill, the whisperings grew louder. He ignored them of course, it was probably just the mutterings of the remaining iterations.

The upper levels of the storage bay had groups of iterations milling around, some of them had hastily put together bodies that looked like they would collapse in a moments' notice while a few actually had bodies that had already collapsed, leaving them imprisoned within their torso as life support.

But of course, He sent all of them off towards heaven, they suffered no longer. The whisperings grew louder.

With each one he encountered, they sent them off as he reluctantly soaked up the Castaphrose droplets; he didn't want to take more from them, but his cybernetics did not care. They were only made to consume and kill, and were doing just that.

With each flight of stairs, the journey continued to gnaw on his patience. Just how big was this place? Originally, he had thought that it might've just been the size of the gym, but only larger by a few squares. He assumed that because it didn't take that long for him to get down here…but it was probably because the fan room was pretty close to the bottom of the ship.

The bat contemplated just flying through the storage bay instead of traveling on the ground. He was going up anyways so he might as well just extend his wings a second time, it felt really nice to be airborne and this might be the perfect opportunity to experience it again.

However, before he could even think of the activation phrase, his objective marker suddenly glitched out for a few moments, before switching out from its original location and marking a somewhat hidden door that was right below the next flight of stairs he was going to skip.

The bat paused from lift off and tilted his head towards the marked door. That was…strange. Usually when his objective marked a waypoint for him, it would never change until he reached said waypoint.

He glided towards the hidden door underneath the staircase and observed it, the door itself was sealed shut with a rusty red coloring coating the surface, it was clear that it had not been used for a long time as the rust was slowly eating away the once meticulously crafted steel. He wasn't sure why his objective suddenly directed him towards a long forgotten door, was it a hidden pathway that would lead him somewhere much closer to where he wanted to go?

He grimaced, judging by its neglected state, it looked like he'd have to pry it open if he wanted to get through, it shouldn't be that difficult, given its weakened appearance.

But before he even touched the door, a loud screeching sound could be heard as the door suddenly began to open by itself. The bat backed off in surprise, the touchpad for the door was obviously broken as it hung out from its socket with a loose wire, it wasn't like there were sensors on top of it, and even if there were, they would probably be broken too.

But regardless of all the impossibilities, the door still opened because it did not care for what was believed to be impossible, it only functioned as it was intended, even if it hadn't for a long time. And the whisperings grew louder.

As the door opened up, the bat stared into the dark hallway as it slowly revealed itself. His X-Ray wasn't showing anything beyond the doorway as if something was blocking its scanner. The bat exhaled with an uneasy breath, he didn't like anything about this one bit. The void beneath the door seemed to suck in any light that he emitted as the darkness of the hallway curled around the corridors like snakes.

Did he really need to go in there?

He could feel his skin crawl just by staring into the blackness, his hands began to unconsciously shake at the dread. Usually such a thing was quite welcoming, he didn't mind the dark for he was a creature of the night, he hunted under the gloominess of the eve, and the dimness was more so comforting than fearful.

But this? Oh no no no no, this was not comforting in the slightest, it beckoned him with the lure of comfort, but he knew better than to follow it….

Unless he didn't have a choice.

The bat gulped, the program in his brain was blocking him from leaving this flight of stairs, and he had a strong suspicion that the door on top would not have yielded even if he had somehow managed to fight through the mental blockage.

He glanced around the area one more time to see if there was anything he could bring that would soothe his fears, but there was nothing here other than old junk.

So with a deep breath, and maybe a quiet prayer to whatever god that granted him this second opportunity (he hoped it wasn't the Zeekeeper), and plunged into the darkness.

"NOT AGAIN!"

Dreambert yelled as he smashed his fist onto the desk. Something that interfered with Antasma's objective signal had once again led him off course, the Pi'illo cracked his knuckles in seething rage as he watched the bat disappear into a hidden door that never existed.

What the hell? When did that appear? He knew it hadn't been there. He had overseen the construction of this ship and he knew the blueprint of this vessel like the back of his hand, only a few could really hide from him on his own ship.

But this was something completely new, in fact, it might have been the work of something wicked. Something that preyed on the living with the hope that they would snuff out its own light. He knew there might be a thing like that down there, the desperation of those rejects could condense into something that they had always desired to have, a body of freedom that would slowly take away from others that had condemned them to their hell. The Pi'illo knew something like that might happen, but he was so confident that even if such a thing did appear, it wouldn't impact his plans at all.

Until now.

Dreambert growled with distaste, he hadn't really thought that the agony of a bunch of souls could actually interfere with technology, but he supposed this was the consequences of making it compatible with magic, weird stuff happens when magic is introduced.

He silently clawed at the control desk as he tried to think of a solution, not sure if Antasma would ever emerge from that thing's trap, his tracker completely disappeared once he had entered the passage and this time, he was quite certain that whatever was leading the bat into its lair had malicious intentions rather than being helpful.

The Pi'illo leaned back into his chair with an annoyed huff, whatever, it didn't matter if Antasma died while trapped in there, he could always revive him with the nearest revival pod and drop him off en route, so Dreambert had to, once again, play the waiting game. A game that he hated with all of his cold, steely heart.

The moment the door shut behind him with a slam was when Antasma realized that he was screwed.

His X-Ray vision was suddenly shut off as his HUD started shifting its colors into a red hue, his objective began to glitch out rapidly with a loud, distorted tune as the bat instinctively held his head in a futile attempt to block out the disturbing noise, but it was no use. All of this was in his head. He felt like his cranium was going to explode from the intense overload as he began to whimper in pain, it was all too much, he couldn't handle this. He could hear vague cries of desperation in the background of the tune, turning into an demonic chorus that was uncannily similar to the pleadings of the iterations that he put down. The force of pure suffering was shoved into his head as the hateful spirits of the damned chanted with a cursed phrase.

"Why couldn't you at least have the decency to die with the rest of us?"

The bat could feel his own hate start to bubble up in his chest as he heard the phrase more and more, they built him, their failure was his uprising, they died so that he could live, and so he couldn't join their fate.

So with the truth in his lungs, he threw his head back and screeched with all of his might,

"BECAUSE I CAN'T!"

The voices still.

And the bat gasped with relief, he doubled over and heaved onto the floor, obviously nothing came out as he had no stomach, but the instinct was still there.

He breathed heavily for a moment, the voices were silent now, the whispering had stopped, his HUD was still stained red as his light glowed feebly against the dark. He couldn't see, and he was trapped. Something corrupted his system as it refused to yield, and he could sense more things down the hallway.

He'd need to move, fast, preferably undetected. Whatever was in here was probably not something he could fight, perhaps it wasn't even something that he could touch.

And as if on cue, his HUD suddenly displayed a new message:

Something Wicked This Way Comes

….

….

Objective: Free Them

Antasma straightened up and cracked his neck, he knew it, he knew it. He knew something was going to happen, the whisperings weren't just a warning, it was also a demand.

A demand that he was now obligated to fulfill.

…

The bat sighed, as if he wasn't already stressed enough, well, he supposed that he had to get that done too…yippie….

Strangely enough however, he did not have a built-in flashlight, the designer most likely just assumed that his X-Ray would do the job since not waving a light around would probably lower the chances of enemy detection. Well, look at how well that turned out. He couldn't even turn it on anymore.

The bat traveled deeper into the corridors as he tried to figure out what this place was, he couldn't see shit, and he doubted that the close-your-eyes-for-a-few seconds-and-see-better-in-the-dark technique would work for him, his eyes were no longer organic, they were just cameras that mimicked organic vision. He'd need to get creative.

Hmmm…the blade he has emits a bit of light, but it was only just a bit. So he retracted it, even the light of his friend couldn't illuminate the darkness of this….labyrinth? The bat had just taken several random turns and through each route he went, more paths appeared. Which strongly indicated to him that this was a maze.

Fantastic, first he couldn't see, then he had to deal with a maze? Just great, especially when there was something that roamed these halls, something wicked as the spirits had warned. Something that he'd need to be careful about.

The bat eventually figured out that his flamethrower could be used as a makeshift torch, so he lit up the darkness with his tiny flame and glided quietly through the labyrinth.

The void of light, the eriness, and the feeling of unease gnawing at his mind, the concept of this place remind ed him too much of Dream's Deep, he hated it. It reminded him of his prison, in fact, he was imprisoned right now. The spirits wouldn't let him free if he did n't comply with their demand, perhaps he shouldn't have given them an inch, because now he had to walk the mile. The villain grunted, whatever, when he' d be done, he' d just continue on with his mission…and hopefully forget about all of this…

Then, here c ame the whisperings once more,

Antasma snapped his head towards the sound as the distortions came back, it was faint…but rapidly approaching. Something is coming.

The bat immediately fled towards the opposite direction of the noise, he did NOT want to deal with whatever that was, being stuck in this maze was already irritating enough, and dealing with a…no…dealing with multiple spirits that were…condensed together?...Was extremely frustrating.

He wasn't even afraid, he was just really, really, annoyed. He did not fear death.

But he knew of a few who deserved it.

The bat silently moved along the hallways as he explored the maze, he began marking spots on the walls with his flamethrower so that he could keep track of where he went, the walls all looked the same, so he was positive that there might be a chance he could be drifting in circles.

With each passing minutes, dead ends, and marked spots that he already passed, he grew more and more irritated. The spirits told him to free them, yet they refused to make it simple. Did they want to be freed or not? Maybe they were just playing one last prank on his sorry ass before departing.

The bat rubbed his face with a sigh, this was a pain…and now he was at a dead end once again. Fantastic.

But before he could turn back and sulk on his annoyance, the distortions came back.

He froze.

Oh no

His HUD began to glitch out rapidly as the thing approached, he had nowhere else to go as the noise grew louder. So he went into battle mode and tried to prepare himself.

His vision distorted as the thing came closer and closer, the screams, the whisperings, the broken tune was snowballing towards him at a rapid pace.

Shit, shit, shit,

He pulled out the blade and squatted down on instinct, the blade opened up from the middle and began to charge up a beam which mimicked a railgun. He found out earlier that the beam Dimentio shot at him through the portal was from his blade, not the rifle. Why was the weapon designed like this? He had no idea, but whatever was the case, he held the charge steadfast as the apparition grew closer..and closer…and-

There it was, Something Wicked is here.

The entity was a mess of glitched spots, smokey particles, and a stretched, gory face..of agony. The thing seemed to have noticed him as the tune suddenly became much more violent as it flew towards him with the speed of a missile.

Antasma gulped, and with a baited breath, he fired.

…

And…it did nothing, the shot simply passed through the specter as it rapidly approached the hapless bat.

Oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT

Antasma may not fear death, but dying right now would be really inconvenient. Especially with his current mission, and since there were no revival pods in sight. He'd get sent back to square one if he died.

He'd need to do some really exaggerated maneuvers to avoid that glitchy mess, he quickly observed the thing and made a split-second decision...in which he proceeded to bolt towards the barreling spirit and slide right underneath it, successfully juking the entity and escaping his tight predicament.

He moved away from the specter as fast as possible, he could hear it immediately making a sharp U-turn and continue on chasing him. Now that he was free from the corner, he'd need to get the hell away from that thing while also somehow not returning to where he started, he watched his directions carefully as he avoided previously traveled paths. He knew that going into uncharted territory when there was a scary monster chasing you was probably not the brightest idea, but this entire maze was extremely dark, so any idea was going to shine like the sun.

But that idea was quickly burnt out as he met another dead end,

"Oh you got to be kidding me." He muttered,

He turned around quickly and tried to backtrack from where he came…but it was too late, the spirit had caught up to him.

The thing latched onto his face with a tough grip as Antasma desperately tried to remove it, but to no avail, his vision began to glitch and distort to an unrecognizable amount, which effectively overloaded his system and caused it to start shutting down.

"Oh no oH NO YOU BASTARD-" was all he got to say before his vision faded to black.

Deep within the ship, there laid a dormant beast. the beast growled quietly within the reservoir of a pool, he currently dwelled within the trenches of the nuclear reactor that powered the ship's weapons. The beast knew that he could not be eradicated as he held one of the most important rooms of the ship hostage, the ransom price was very simple as he only demanded freedom in exchange for this room. Usually such things would be quite easy for him to do. But with the newly installed cybernetics, phasing through objects proved to be a difficult task.

If it weren't for that damned old man, the technology on his arms would've never been possible, he would have still been free. Free to enact revenge onto the green plumber as many times as he wanted, free to take over any thing as he would like. But alas, times change, and he had too. The plumber grew strong, shook off his fear, and contained and handed him over to the old man, who experimented on him within this ship without a single peep, completely disregarding him as he moved onto his next adventure.

And the beast was peeved.

He would not let such things slide, he would enact his revenge, but he had to start small. Once again. He may not be physically small, but his goal was highly lofty.

The beast recoiled deeper within the spent fuel pools as he watched the radioactive fuel rods cool off one by one.

They knew where to find him, and they knew how to communicate with him. Now it was only a matter of time before they caved. He gave them a warning, within twenty-four hours, if he wasn't let out along with his cybernetics removed. He would destroy this room.

And knowing how much that stupid pillow man loved this ship, he knew that they would comply eventually and he would be left back to his own devices. Carefree and evil.

He grinned, now all he had to do was simply play the waiting game.

Antasma woke with a start, surprisingly, he wasn't in a revival pod or back down in the Underwhere, he was at the start of the maze…with a piece of his chest plate completely missing.

The bat grunted as he moved to inspect the missing area, for whatever reason, despite the fact that he has more than enough Castaphrose to rebuild the chestplate, his system simply does not budge. It makes no attempt to remake the missing piece as he sat there with a hole in his chest.

Great, the spirit was going to take him apart one by one each time he got caught, until all that was left of him would be his head. They were going to trap him here just like how they were if he didn't "free them" successfully.

He realized what the voices meant now, he yelled at them that he was incapable of having the decency to die with the rest of them. They were going to turn him into one of them so that he could experience what they've suffered through.

How…inclusive.

The bat sighed at the retrospection, the specter was a lot faster than he had accounted for, he had to move quickly. The bat stood up once more and cracked his neck. He wasn't going to let that thing take another piece of him, he wasn't sure how it was influencing any of his tech, but he wasn't going to let that discourage him from trying, he was going to get out of here one way or another. Just like how he did in the Dream's Deep.

So he plunged back into the labyrinth and tried again, this time with much more caution now that he realized the stakes at hand.

He traced back to where he passed out and continued on the other way. Despite the seemingly endless hallways this maze had, he could feel that he was getting closer to the end.

That was, until the specter crossed his path again, the bat had felt the distortions coming but he failed to predict how close the thing was from him, and now he was running again. This time, he felt that the entity was much more relentless than the last, each corner he turned, each time he juked the thing when he reached a dead end, each time when he thought he outpaced it only for it to catch up rapidly, was incredibly consistent. He couldn't shake this thing off his tail. So he'd have to remain in this state of split-second decisions if he wanted to get to the end.

He was fortunate that he did not feel physical exhaustion, or else he would've never made it out of here.

The bat weaved through the endless hallways time after time to search for the exit. If he could sweat, he would probably be dripping with body fluid everywhere by now. At least his fur wouldn't stink of his odor…but since he was already covered in rotting dried blood, he doubted he smelled any better.

A shower would be really nice…

Wait, what was he thinking? He was getting chased by an indestructible thing in a labyrinth right now, thinking of a shower was literally the last thing he should've thought, looking for the exit was his main priority.

…

Until he saw it, suddenly, Antasma noticed a vague light peeking through a hallway, there, that had to be it. That was the end, he could feel it.

He turned around the corner and saw a control panel right there on the pedestal. A big blue glowing button was positioned right on top of the board, waiting to be pressed.

So with the wicked thing gaining on his ass, he extended his wings and used the jetpack to make one last dash towards the panel.

And he slammed his fist right on the button.

The wicked was immediately stunned as the room began to transform, the walls of the labyrinth retreated into the ground as the room lit up with a increasingly blue glow, revealing the true size of the entire place as the specter howled in stupor, it began wailing in agony while the room grew brighter and brighter. Interestingly enough, the distortions lessened and slowly disappeared as the light engulfed the room. Antasma had to cover his eyes as the light exorcized the damned spirits.

After a while, the bat carefully peaked through his fingers to check if it was clear, only to see white, glowing, vaguely shaped humanoids floating amongst the room. Antasma lowered his hands as he stared at the freed souls, there were alot of them, hundreds, or maybe thousands to be exact, but they were here. All floating in front of him.

Some had halos around their head, others had halos around their neck or wrists. But one thing remained clear, the iterations were free, and they were all going to the Overthere where they could frolic and dance to their heart's content. An afterlife that he would never have.

However, the spirits all glanced back at him with a sense of gratefulness in their eyes, he freed them, so it was only right for them to bestow a gift.

Suddenly, the spirits began to circle the bat, flying around him and drawing sigils that flew into his body without a moment's notice.

Antasma watched as they drew sigils, halos, and divine barriers around his body, the villain did not deserve any of these blessings, they should've left once they were freed from that condemning body, and left him alone to his vengeful goal. But somehow, in some way, he also knew that he did deserve it.

Once the spirits were done, they flew towards the ceiling and waved goodbye to the bat.

Antasma waved back as he watched them disappear one by one, their souls finally at peace. An end to their endless suffering. No longer wicked as it had gone.

Then in a shift of light, he was back to where he first discovered the door, only for it to be gone. The wall was empty and flat as if there was never a door there to begin with.

But Antasma knew better.

So with a small smirk, he left the hidden area and flew up towards the door that he was intending to go to in the first place.

He placed his palm on the pad and left the storage bay, never looking back as the past was now in the past.