Thanks go to EpicSlayerGuy99, XelaZagity, GMLxAwesome, 10burgers, Wingah, TiredWhiteMayge, Zillowzest, DoctahSawbones, Acoolnamme, Night4099, lmao-imdeadaf, ZeraoraTheKnight, Mysterious Venus, Prominent, Guest, Zack Frost, Guest, HachiHachi808, stclog000, Kds147y, James, and H1s4a5!
Hey wow this one took awhile! Sorry about being a few weeks late, life's been crazy. Next chapter will hopefully be up on Thursday, June 22nd. I won't hold ya up any longer, enjoy the chapter!
Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale.
Anthony The Killer. Felt like time grinded to a halt when Anthony said that, like all of reality had to stop and give him a terrified look from the corner of its eye. Errorphim didn't get the memo though, he had the audacity to grin in the face of Chaos Incarnate. Unaware of his machinations, or perhaps believing that they would not come to pass so long as he stood in the way of The Killer. Anthony was not offended by this, he did not see it as defiance but instead as ignorance. In time, Errorphim would learn the meaning of the words he'd been saying. God, Light, Dark, blasphemy... Anthony would teach Errorphim those words, and then he would kill him.
"Anthony The Killer..." Errorphim mulled that name over, it tingled on his teeth and felt wrong for him to say. A cuss word, maybe a slur. Whatever it was, that identity was an irregularity to him. Something wrong, unclean. In fact, everything about The Killer before him was wrong. Still, the mad god's smile only grew. He held his arms out to his sides, Anthony wondered if he had already forgotten how easy it was for him to remove those arms as Errorphim went on. "I had no idea that The Dark that I wished to destroy had a face! An identity, a body for me to kill... I'm very lucky to have found you so soon after my revival, Anthony The Killer."
"Lucky? No, no... You're not lucky, Errorphim." Anthony's eyes narrowed a little, he was sure to contemplate Errorphim's statement before refuting it. His expression unmoved, The Killer shook his head before he went on. "The soldiers, the bureaucrats, the heroes villains and civilians who died before this moment came to pass, they are lucky. You, Errorphim? You are very, very unlucky."
That got the smile on Errorphim's face to wash away. His sockets narrowed, he looked one more time into the face of The Killer. How could it be that he looked so different from The Anarchist that Errorphim had left to die in that blast? The flicker of infinity he'd felt inside The Anarchist, the echo of his own Divine Will behind a chest that only appeared mortal, from a heart that would beat for eternity. Things that were once subtle and invisible to all but Errorphim, now they had risen. Anthony The Killer had risen, the void had risen. And staring into that void by looking into The Killer's bright red eyes, Errorphim had to reckon with the fact that the void was staring back at him.
"Unlucky? We must have different definitions of the word." The corner of Errorphim's mouth lifted into a slight smirk. The Light across his body shined brighter, and it made the shadows creeping in hiss and recoil. His sockets squinted with divine wrath now, power flickered over his finger tips but Anthony didn't react. Order's Mad God explained, "To be face to face with The Dark now, to have captured that festering filth always just outside the reach of my Light and to be ready to destroy it? I consider that quite lucky."
"Do ya now?" An injection of life in The Killer's tone, it came with a slight smirk and a raised brow on Anthony's face. A little bit of laughter rumbled in his chest when he saw the way that made Errorphim frown. The mad god was put of when Chaos Incarnate came to life, he didn't like seeing expression on that pale face and he hated seeing life in those scarlet eyes. Anthony hardly cared about what Errorphim liked, but still he took a deep breath. Tilted his head back, let his gaze drift up to those distorted eyes and mutated mouths coating the sky above. His expression relaxed back into something close to that lifeless state by the time he looked back to Errorphim, his eyes narrowed with some quiet contemplation while he spoke again.
"Y'know, when I was a boy, the sun burned my skin. I had to hide behind walls, under umbrellas, in the shade... Never really looked up at the sun and never really wanted to. The Light left me with horrible red rashes. I can still remember how they burned and itched and stung..." While Anthony spoke, his lips curled. Just a little, into a small, sweet smile. Nostalgia for a different time, or perhaps the joy that came with knowing that time had passed. Regardless, he moved his head slowly and looked across the Dark plain with those crimson eyes while he went on. "I remember that it felt like I couldn't get away from The Light. That I was something small, constantly hiding from a burning pain that was creeping in at all sides... It felt like the whole world was trying to kill me."
"..." Errorphim's frown deepened when he heard that. His eyes too drifted across the devastated valley that he and Chaos Incarnate stood in. The Light that he'd once shined down from above was blotted out now, replaced by shadows slithering in from every direction. Trying to get closer, looking to smother his own shine next...
"I remember every now and again, wishing that I could just put out the sun. Thinking that if I had the power, I would resist that burn. I would reach all the way up through the sky, I would close my fist around that fireball and I would stop it from ever hurting me again." Anthony The Killer smirked some, he could see the recognition on Errorphim's face. The mad god had only been a god for a moment, a blink. The Light was thrust upon him, but The Dark was something Anthony was born with. He crawled out of his mother a shadow, and now in spite of all The Light's efforts, he had grown into an all encompassing void. He tilted his head, and that smirk grew. Errorphim could see those fangs as Anthony's lips parted in his wicked smile... "Of course, I always reminded myself that putting out the sun would destroy the world. That everyone would freeze and die in The Dark if I ever did do what I really wanted... And then somewhere deep down, every single time, I would hear something inside me whisper: "Good.""
"..." Things were quiet then, for just a moment. The only sound was that wretched laughter raining down from above. And then... A pitter patter. Black rain, Chaos waters were beginning to sprinkle down from the Dark sky. Water from Anthony's fountain was beginning to pour over this world, a flood was coming and Errorphim hardly had time to build an ark. But the mad god resisted that thought, his sockets narrowed with defiance while his light burned those black waters to nothing before they could touch his divine body. And over the laughter, through the rain, he dared ask. "Well, if that's how you were then... What will you do now?"
Anthony The Killer's lips peeled back further when he heard that question. His eyes widened, their red shine cut with ease through The Dark and reflected in the black droplets pouring faster and faster from above. He threw his arm out to the side, clenched that crowbar tight between his fingers while Chaos waters trickled down his flesh. The answer was obvious, and Anthony was an honest man.
"Whatever I want."
Chapter 101: The Third Day
Or: Attack And Dethrone God (Part 3)
"Whatever Anarchy is, it's way closer to god than it is human or monster. I just don't know if he knows that."
Asriel stared with shrunken pupils at the TV screen. His eyes trembled, his brows furrowed but his lips did not move. He'd hoped for a long time, prayed to any god more benevolent than the two he was looking upon now that what he'd felt in Anarchy's soul back on Mount Ebbot had been wrong. The power, the weight, and above all else the overpowering Will. Asriel was familiar with divinity now, ascending to a higher state of being was not something he would ever be able to forget.
To hold absolute power in the palm of his hand, to feel it in his veins... He'd hardly had the time to experience it in the short time that he possessed all souls in the Underground, and Asriel recalled struggling with the infinite potential of infinite possibility. When reality is no longer a confine and instead a canvas, when wants can be made reality on demand... He had hoped that he'd been wrong, that Anthony really was just a powerful human and nothing more. But it was clear now, for better or for worse Errorphim had dragged out of him nothing short of divinity.
Fortune City, a world beyond Asriel's understanding. A reality above his own, on the other side of one way glass that Gaster had dared to crack. It seemed that world had gods of its own, and they did not need seven souls. They did not need unity. An old, powerful Darkness leaked through the cracks that Gaster had made, and Errorphim had made the mistake of challenging it. An old god, a god thought dead, a god that did not want to revive... Anthony The Killer was awake now, and he was angry.
"Yo, I'm uh... I'm, not really sure who to root for here, haha..." Monster Kid grimaced as he leaned forward on the couch, watching with anxious eyes as Order's Mad God and Chaos Incarnate faced off. His eyes narrowed while he examined the face of The Killer, something about it was different from The Anarchist and even Monster Kid could see it. His eyes were focused now, the pain underneath the madness looked to have been replaced by cruelty. MK's jaw tightened, his talons curled in and accidentally scraped up some of the carpet while cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
"... It doesn't matter." Asriel's deadpan tone drew MK's focus back to reality. He turned his head and frowned with worry as he looked upon the monster prince, sunken into the cushions and with hardly a speck of light in his eyes. Asriel blinked his eyes slowly, he didn't bother turning his head away from the television. But... Then he tilted his head. He leaned slowly, until his head was resting against Monster Kid's side. Then, quietly, he spoke again. "... I think we're watching the end of the world, Monster Kid."
"..." Monster Kid didn't know what to say to that. He could have said everything would be okay, sure, but there was a good chance that would be a lie. MK was optimistic, but he wasn't stupid. In his heart he desperately believed that Anthony would do the right thing and that Angel had placed his bets on the right man, but in his head he, like any other reasonable being, had some doubts. But he wouldn't voice those, either. There was little in this moment that was within his control, but still...
Asriel's eyebrows rose some when he felt MK's wing fall over him. It pulled him a little closer, covered him in its warmth. And, even though he knew few things could protect any of them from Order's Mad God and Chaos Incarnate now... The monster prince sighed with some relief, and relaxed underneath Monster Kid's wing. He felt just a little more safe.
"... I don't understand. Why are you doing this..? Why aren't you afraid of me..?"
"Because... You aren't evil, Anthony. You're just in pain."
"... You can't prove that."
"No, I can't. Only you can."
Anthony... The Killer..? Mako repeated the words in her head two or three times while she stared up at that screen. Her pupils had shrunken inside her sockets, her fingers trembled around the railing she held on to. This wasn't right, she could feel it in the twisting knot in her ribcage. The quiet, honest lumberjack with no idea how to take a compliment that she'd known and now the dead eyed grinning Killer she was looking at... Could they really be the same person? No, they couldn't be! It wasn't true! Mako's jaw clenched tight, her hands wrapped tighter around the porch railing she was leaning on. This isn't who you really are, Anthony! Don't say that!
"The soldiers, the bureaucrats, the heroes villains and civilians who died before this moment came to pass, they are lucky. You, Errorphim? You are very, very unlucky."
Stop... Mako pleaded in vain hopes that Anthony would hear her. She watched with wide eyes, looked for any sign of the man she knew and checked again when her search yielded nothing. She'd seen Anthony be cruel before, she'd witnessed both fights with The Angel and the entirety of this battle up to this very moment. Just a moment ago she'd watched Anthony disappear under the horrible red light of The Angel's halos again, she'd cried under the assumption that he was sacrificing himself to stop that seven souled abomination. She was relieved when she saw that Anthony hadn't died in that blast, but... This new man, this Killer, he was not the Anthony that she knew.
"It felt like the whole world was trying to kill me."
Please, stop..! Mako clenched her eyes shut tight, she leaned her head forward and she looked away from the abominations on that screen in the sky. Gods, she was supposed to believe that's what they were? Errorphim was a skeleton, he was like her. Or at least, he was supposed to be. But his body, it was twisted and wrong. Everything about him was... If she were to take in all the power of seven human souls, would she be turned into such a creature? Her thoughts drifted to the deep blue soul hidden in her brother's chest, and the blue shine that wicked god had used to toss The Angel around like a rag doll. Her eye sockets opened, she took her hands off the railing and rested her forearms on the wood instead. Looking into her open palms, Mako pondered the fragility of her magic body, and she knew that power was not meant for Monsters to possess.
"That everyone would freeze and die in The Dark if I ever did do what I really wanted... And then somewhere deep down, every single time, I would hear something inside me whisper: "Good.""
Mako winced, her fingers curled inward to form fists. Anthony, unlike Errorphim, had not consumed seven souls. He was not born weak and fragile, he would not crumble away under any beating or in the wake of any malice. So, the question was, what was this thing that Anthony was now? How long had it been there? The entire time Mako had known Anthony he had been gentle, she knew he was powerful and he knew she was fragile and still they had no problem coexisting. Because Anthony was a good man, Anthony understood what it meant to bare but not abuse power. Anthony was born to be powerful, but Mako had always believed that his strength was in his restraint. In his patience, in his Will. That was what made Anthony stronger than everyone else, not the crushing force behind his fist or the savage teeth in his shadow. Anthony's Will was what made him who he was...
Mako felt her brother's hand on her back, and it reminded her that she was strong, too. Her and Max, they held their own power, even if it didn't give them dominion over the fate of the world. And with that power, Mako lifted her head. She looked back into the sky and this time she didn't hold fear in her eyes when she saw Anthony there. With what strength she had, Mako dared to hope. Hope that Anthony's Will was truly unbreakable, that his soul was unshatterable, and that whatever evil he was about to unleash was not to destroy... But to protect.
"Oh my..." Was the first sound Frisk managed to squeak out. They were forced into a cage again, little and small for the time being in some Dark corner of reality. Sitting with their legs crossed, all that separated Frisk from the slithering shadows were a few metal bars. And though they could hardly see the worms wriggling endlessly over one another, they could certainly hear their hysterical laughter.
To most, this prison would have been horrifying. Left alone in The Dark with nothing but a little iron cage between them and a sea of gnashing teeth and hungry stomachs. But, Frisk didn't really see it that way. In their eyes, Anthony had put them in the safest place in the world. If that rotten Errorphim ever came to obliterate them, he'd have to cut through an endless sea of Darkness to find them. It was just like Anthony to be so coy about trying to protect them like this, he was so clueless that it was adorable.
That said, there was nothing adorable about The Killer displayed before Frisk now. The blue light reflecting from the screen floating in front of their cage was the only light Frisk had in The Dark. It reflected in their wide, scarlet eyes. It showed the lip parted smile slowly curling up their face. Was that really him? Their higher power, the one they'd pledged their loyalty to... Anthony The Killer. The sight of him was more beautiful than they could have ever imagined.
Frisk lurched forward when Anthony cleaved Errorphim's arm off, they wrapped their fingers around the bars and they pressed their forehead to the metal to get as close of a look as they could. Yes, yes! This was perfect! They knew they'd been right, they knew that they had known the real god all along. Anthony was right, Errorphim was just a seven souled imitation. Anthony was the true higher power. From another reality, with the fate of this one in the palm of his hand..!
"Yes, do it!" Frisk found themself crying out, much to the elation of the chittering maws just outside their line of vision. They could see it now, their true ending. The run they really wanted, by the side of the penultimate power in this multiverse. Their mind raced with the possibilities while their hand absentmindedly traveled up to their own neck. They drew their fingers over where Anthony had squeezed, they remembered how it felt to have his hands on them while they watched him smile with a newfound understanding. Their trembling fingers curled into the collar of their shirt while they smiled wider, crying out. "Kill him! Kill everyone! Make this reality your own!"
On every side those worms cackled and wheezed, they writhed and wriggled but they never disturbed Frisk's prison even as the Traitor riled them up. It was their master's orders, and Frisk knew that. If Anthony had ever really wanted them dead he'd had multiple opportunities to make it happen in an instant, but the true form inside him wanted Frisk to survive. They were protected, they were on the right side, and they would survive to see the True Ending.
"... What will you do now?"
"Whatever I want."
Oooh, he's talking about me~!
Rip & Tear by Mick Gordon started playing.
Errorphim's sockets narrowed at The Killer's statement, he had grown tired of talking to this abomination. So, he threw out one hand, waving it in a sweeping motion at Anthony. With this motion came a wave of brilliant and brutal white light, which blasted out towards The Darkness before Order's Mad God with the utmost prejudice.
Anthony didn't flinch as that flare barreled towards him however, he'd felt its burn before and he wasn't impressed. In the same sweeping motion that Errorphim had made with his hand The Killer's own arm swung up, and shadow dripped from his crowbar as it cracked right into the tidal wave of ERASURE barreling towards him. Upon this impact, shockingly... The wave dented inward. Its forward motion stopped completely, and it bubbled out around that strike like a water balloon after being poked. Then, the balloon burst, and that crashing Light disappeared into the creeping Dark of this new world.
Errorphim's sockets went wide at this, he even recoiled while he tried to understand. With the shine of his ERASURE so suddenly snuffed out, Order's Mad God and Chaos Incarnate were once more looking one another in the eye... Until Anthony exploded forward in the blink of an eye, sending his fist firing at Errorphim's jaw. Errorphim snarled with irritation as his hand shot up in the path of that punch, and when Anthony's knuckles crushed into his palm it sent a shockwave firing past him. Still, he brought that strike to a stop, and for just a moment the two of them were in gridlock. Tendrils of shadow crept up Errorphim's hand from where he held that fist, and beams of light trickled down Anthony's hand from the very same impact epicenter.
For just a moment the two of them glared furiously at one another, before Anthony's leg swung at Errorphim's chin with jaw shattering force. The mad god beat his wings and fired backwards, Anthony's foot sweeping by mere centimeters from his chin and The Killer being forced to spin with his momentum. Meanwhile Errorphim's wings beat downward this time, firing him high into the blackened sky in the blink of an eye.
Order's Mad God took only a moment to scowl up at the giggling Dark ceiling over his head when he finally stopped his ascent, holding his open palm up and commanding a Godly Gaster Blaster to appear behind him while he did so. His eyes darted down to the scorched earth beneath however, and for just a split second he scanned for signs of Anthony The Killer... Before a pillar of Darkness fired up behind him and crushed right through the bottom of his blaster, sending it exploding apart in a flare of grey flames.
Errorphim turned towards that explosion, throwing up one hand to guard his eyes and watching through winced sockets as glowing red eyes appeared in the Dark. Then, Anthony plummeted down through the smoke, and with earth shattering force he sent his crowbar crashing down into Errorphim's raised arm. A grin split his face as a black and white shockwave exploded out across the wicked sky, blowing his hair back and sending Errorphim shooting diagonally down towards that raging Chaos geyser.
The force of his descent had Errorphim's wings curling inward, and he ground his teeth while he grabbed his elbow and looked at the forearm that Anthony's crowbar had cracked into. His bone had splintered and cracked, but white Light was rapidly burning away the shadows slithering through the fractures, sealing his bone and healing his arm. Hastily Errorphim looked up from his aching arm, and his furious eyes locked onto Anthony The Killer, who was barreling down towards him in a nose dive.
Errorphim's wings spread wide, and he grunted as his body was forced to an abrupt stop just feet before the swirling depths of The Dark. That was, until Anthony crashed into him, shoving him further back through the air with his impact. The Killer planted his feet on the corners of Errorphim's pelvis, grabbing ahold of his collar bone with one hand and using the other to yank up his crowbar. Before he could send it crashing down into Errorphim's cracked forehead however, Errorphim's digits snapped shut around his wrist and stopped the downward swing.
"You think your shadows scare me..?! You think I give a damn about your sob story?!" Errorphim demanded to know, His free hand reaching up and grabbing ahold of Anthony's face. The Killer just kept grinning though, even as his head was shoved back slowly in that skeletal grasp. Between his fingers Errorphim could see that wretched smile, and the only thing that appeared more sickening to him was the rushing Chaos at his back. He snarled, "I'm above your- Ow!"
Anthony's head tilted and his jaws snapped open and shut, crunching down on the palm of Errorphim's hand. On instinct the mad god yanked his hand away, giving Anthony the opportunity to whip his head forward and crack it right into Errorphim's skull. This threw the back of his head into the rushing waters behind him while his sockets blinked the stars he was seeing away, but before he could pull his head forward and out of The Dark's cold something reached out from within the geyser.
Little black hands reached out of The Dark, Errorphim felt childish fingers grab onto his head with astounding grip strength. His teeth grit as his eyes darted from side to side, and he watched in disgust and horror as humanoid shapes protruded from The Darkness. The upper bodies of children, little boys made entirely of shadow. All their bodies were the same shape, they were all detailed with the same scars and they all had the same overgrown hair. They all had mouths and eye sockets but no eyes, and they all screamed as they tugged and pulled on Errorphim's body. "It burns..! It burns! Put it out! It hurts, put it out!"
"Get off me!" Errorphim snarled, yanking the arm that wasn't holding back Anarchy's crowbar free of those many grasping hands. But more were coming, even more of those Ghoulings were latching their tiny fingers onto Errorphim's bright shining bones. Their Dark touch was cold, and their grip grew stronger with every hand that latched on. Errorphim was feeling more of those wretched waters washing over him, these brats were pulling him deeper into The Dark..! "Let go of me, filth..!"
"You might not care about my sob story, but boy does my sob story care about you!" Anthony The Killer grinned from one ear to another as those screaming, crying Ghoulings pulled hysterically on Order's Mad God. He too reached out, now planting his own hand over Errorphim's face and giggling through gritting teeth as he worked to shove the mad god's head into his Chaos. "Go on boys, PUT HIM OUT!"
Errorphim struggled and snarled as more and more of his body was dragged into those rushing waters. The current hurt his bones, and as more of his head was shoved inside he was deafened by the sound of the rushing water. He glared at Anthony from between his fingers, and judging by the giddy twitch in his eye The Killer loved the sight of that glare. What Anthony didn't love was Errorphim's jaw unhinging, and the searing light that tore out of the mad god's mouth and through his hand.
A beam of scorching ivory light exploded up through Anthony's palm, sending his fingers flinging aimlessly through the air and launching right up into the right side of The Killer's face. Anthony's one visible eye was wide, its pupil shrunk with the manic glee that this fresh agony brought him. The half of his mouth that wasn't engulfed in ivory flame was still pulled tight in that grin. This visual was all the more haunting when that boiling beam dissipated, and nothing was left of the right side of Anthony's head.
His head had been cut perfectly down the middle, Nothing remained of the right side of his skull other than the scarlet smoke billowing out from exposed jaw bone and brain tissue. Blood poured out of scorched black flesh, trickling down onto Anthony's shoulder and running down his bicep. And for just a moment, Errorphim was shocked by this visual. Monsters crumbled to dust, humans went limp and cold, mortals were supposed to die when they suffer such mutilation. And yet there Anthony The Killer was, above death but not above murder, his life totally undeterred by the obliteration of the right side of his head.
Errorphim had often likened human death to a doll or a puppet without someone controlling it. They laid still, went stiff in whatever position they'd been left in by the energy that released them. And yet here Anthony was, no strings and no hand up his back and alive all the same. Surely, Errorphim decided as the black hands of those screaming Ghoulings grabbed hold of his bottom jaw and pulled him more harshly into The Dark, this was the difference between mortal and immortal. It was the separation between god and man. He and Anthony were the power that puppeteered man and monster now, not just vessels for that power to play with.
Anthony The Killer was laughing in fact as bone snapped and stretched out of the half of his skull that still remained, it built upon itself under that scarlet steam and rapidly formed protectively over the bubbling and growing mass of his halved brain. Muscle fibers stretched and pulled over the bone, they reached down the opening from squirming top jaw to wriggling bottom jaw and wrapped tight. Errorphim could see teeth shooting out through new gums before skin bubbled and built at the front of Anthony's maw, rebuilding his lips and hiding his fangs... Just for his mouth to snap open wide and blast that hysterical cackle right into the mad god's face.
Streams of black water ran down Errorphim's forehead. They grew, merged together, and finally his entire head disappeared into the Chaos Geyser. Through the rushing Darkness, the only thing he could see were those burning red eyes staring back through him. Eyes in the void that he stared into, staring back at him... His fists clenched, and his rage built. These waters, this Darkness, it was filth. Those eyes and the abomination that peered through them, they were ugly. Anthony The Killer did not fit his grand design, and for that crime him and his Darkness had to be ERASED!
Anthony's eyebrows rose but his smile hardly faltered when he saw white flicker in the black, before in the very next instant a flare of incredible ivory Light exploded out of his vantablack geyser. A flash of brilliant power, it blew the Chaos Geyser apart. Waves of those pitch black waters crashed down onto the earth, sheets of rain were blasted high into the sky and then immediately dragged back down in a brief torrential downpour. Black puddles laid across the desert by the time Anthony The Killer crashed down into it.
He landed on all fours, holding his crowbar between his reformed jaws and clenching its filth tight in his fangs. His feet and hands clawed into the soggy sands to stop his backwards skidding, and his eyes remained locked on the crackling orb of ERASURE flashing where his geyser had just stood. Oh well, he decided as he threw his head back and stood to his full height. He could and would make another.
As he skidded to a stop however, Anthony spared a single glance over his shoulder. His eyes narrowed, and his grin dissipated as his stare landed upon the beaten and broken body of his Angel. Flat on his face in the dirt right behind him now, at least he looked like he'd found some relief from the pain in his sleep. A mortal man who stood among gods... Even a Killer could respect that. Some of the filth had been washed off him by the Chaos rain, but those black droplets were slowing to a stop now. Anthony's lightless eyes narrowed, and with fresh resolve he looked ahead into the dimming light of Errorphim's ERASURE.
"The Killer, huh? From where I'm standing, you look like you're trying to spare a lot more than you're trying to kill." Errorphim's voice called down from above. Anthony's eyes narrowed as he made out the shape of Order's Mad God in the dimming shine, he was floating down towards him on those six unearned wings. Arms held out to his sides and body crackling with despicable Light, Errorphim smiled mockingly while he posed his question. "Whatever it is that you are Anthony, it's above the ants that you protect. If you were really a god, you wouldn't care about the bodies I left broken behind you."
"Infinite power and no imagination. You're boring, Errorphim. That's what's really annoying about you." Anthony shook his head as Errorphim floated down to the ground before him. He still levitated just a few inches above the mud that Anthony's feet sunk into, it was obvious that he thought himself above the world that he had crawled out of. A bug, disgusted by the shards of the egg it had hatched from... There was comedic value in that, it helped keep the sky laughing. "You're right about one thing: I don't have a duty to these people. But I don't need one."
Errorphim didn't speak, instead just narrowing his sockets and lifting a brow bone as he listened to The Killer's rebuttal. He crossed his arms over his chest while his wings spread behind him, casting his Light down onto the puddles of Dark water laying here and there beneath him. A nice orderly wasteland, now blemished by Anthony's disgusting stain... Errorphim's jaw tightened, and The Killer went on.
"These people, Errorphim? They're MY people." As Anthony spoke, he gestured back behind himself. Towards The Angel, and far behind him The Gatherer and The Predator. Even further behind him, worlds away, all the people hiding away underground, evacuated from this awful place. Beyond them, Mako and Max in the home he built with his own two hands. Aliza in the apartment he assured she was able to pay for. Further back still, the home that Angel dreamed of returning to and all those who inhabited it. All the realities that had not seen Anthony's wrath, and what few survivors there were who had experienced his devastation. All his, for better or for worse. Their fates were in his hands, whether his grasp would be kind or cruel was entirely dependent on what Anthony wanted to do. "This timeline is MY timeline. This multiverse? It's MY multiverse!"
"So if you wanna destroy them, that means you wanna destroy my property." Anthony explained with the furious narrowing of his eyes. Unafraid of Errorphim's molten shine, he began putting one foot in front of the other. Red steam rose from his body, those black puddles trembled and bubbled as he stomped past them. Order's Mad God stood his ground, even as the air cracked and popped. Even as bits of code broke away from the sand and the mud, even as the sky cackled down at the ending world. And when Anthony The Killer stopped right in front of him and glared right up into those sockets, the pressure from their opposing powers made the earth beneath them crush inward into a shallow crater. Anthony exhaled scarlet smoke through his clenched teeth, and words followed them. "And that pisses me off."
For just a moment, nothing moved. There was little left to move, this world was all but dead. But... Then Errorphim's hand swung up. His pointed digits drove right up through Anthony's chest, and that boiling blood poured down his hand as he reached in to grab a bone. A rib, or if he was lucky a spine. Manipulate the skeleton hidden behind flesh, make his body tear apart from the inside out. Unfortunately, Anthony was unphased by this pain, and his own hands snapped shut around Errorphim's arm.
The Killer yanked himself forward with unbelievable strength and no sense of self preservation. Errorphim's hand shot out through Anthony's back, skin and muscle stuck to his hand. So jarred was Errorphim by this self mutilation that he didn't react quick enough, and Anthony's vicious jaws snapped open wide, firing a high pressure laser of those black waters right into the face of the mad god. Errorphim's head was shoved back by that blast of Chaos, if he had skin he was certain it would have been melted off in an instant under that water cannon.
As he felt the bones of his face start to crack and peel under the Dark pressure, Errorphim's free hand shot up and snapped shut around Anthony's throat. He shoved The Killer's head back, sending that water he was spitting firing high up into the sky and ripping his other hand out of the Ghoul's abdomen. That worthless red blood sprayed through the air, but Errorphim didn't let that convince him to let up his assault. His now blood soaked hand snapped open and summoned a crackling gold orb in his hand, but Anthony's knee swung up and crashed into his jaw before he could slam that orb into his chest.
Errorphim's head whipped back from the force of that impact. His grip loosened on Anthony's throat, and as that black geyser stopped spraying out of his maw Chaos Incarnate yanked both of his knees to his chest, shotgunning a brutal drop kick into Errorphim's sternum. A black and white shockwave crashed out around the two of them, and Errorphim was sent crashing back through the air.
The mad god flipped over himself once or twice before his wings spread wide and his feet dug into the sands, letting him skid to a gradual stop while his eyes darted forward to spot the wretched Killer that had sent him flying. He had to narrow his sockets as he looked ahead however; those black puddles were steaming a dark fog. It was filling the air, making it harder for his Light to cut through. And at the center of this twisting mist, a pair of burning red eyes stared. Anthony's body was just a black shape in deepening grey, and it was sauntering closer as Errorphim stood back to his full height and floated a few inches off the ground again.
"You're a plague, Killer. You and all the filthy DoubleKids you brought with you." Errorphim spoke through a scowl. Over each of his shoulders a Godly Gaster Blaster manifested, the shine of lasers charging in their maws stopped that Dark smog from creeping in any further. This did not deter Anthony The Killer however, he was not impressed. Even the sun was just a tiny Light in an infinite void of Darkness. And if Errorphim wasn't aware of that yet, he would be in time. The maws of those blasters creaked open while the mad god declared, "But I've got the cure."
"Plagues clear out the populace. They make city streets go quiet, they turn villages to ghost towns. They ERASE life. You're a plague, Errorphim." Anthony's voice slithered out of that twisting mist, his glowing red eyes got closer and closer to the visibility that Errorphim's Light granted. But, as he sauntered closer, the bubbling puddles that he wandered by splashed. More figures in The Dark crawled out of those little pools, tiny black hands. More of those Ghoulings were clawing their way out of the vantablack, and their empty void eyes and emotionless expressions remained locked on Order's Mad God as they crept out of Anthony's Dark sea and onto the land. Errorphim's eyes darted between them, his brows twitched with fury before his glare darted back to The Killer, who was emerging from that mist and flashing a sharp toothed smile. "We... Are an infestation."
In the very next instant those blasters fired and those twisted children broke into a sprint. Twin beams of light converged and exploded against The Killer, engulfing him in white flames and the smoke of his own obliterated flesh. Errorphim shifted his focus the moment Anthony disappeared into that smoke, his eyes darted to the closest Ghouling. It screamed as it sprinted towards him, and his hand once more opened to reveal an orb of golden light. That orb of JUSTICE fired out of his hand and right into the chest of that Ghouling, knocking it off its feet and dragging it high into the air before exploding to golden embers and black droplets.
Errorphim threw his hand back then, opened his palm and summoned a scarlet saber in his grasp. The ground rumbled and exploded open in spikes of bone, the children of Anthony's Darkness were being skewered left and right but still more of them scurried over the bodies of their brothers. Those that made it through were sliced without prejudice, cleaved to pieces by the red light that Anthony had allowed Errorphim to steal. The mad god shouted out over the children screaming "Put it out!", "Your shadows don't scare me, Killer! Fear comes from a lack of understanding, but I know exactly what you are!"
Two of those wailing brats dove at Errorphim, but with the brutal swing of his DETERMINED saber he cleaved the both of them in two. To his surprise, however, their bodies immediately broke down. They returned to the water of that black ocean, and that water flew forward with the momentum the Ghoulings had gained in their sprint... Before it rippled and opened, and Anthony's hand fired out from within.
"Knowing your gonna die alone in the void, knowing mom's gonna beat you bloody when she gets home!" Anthony cried out as his hand once more latched onto Errorphim's face. His body flew through the portal of his Darkness, and he planted his feet once more on the body of Order's Mad God. Errorphim hardly had time to react before he felt Anarchy slide the wretched metal of that crowbar under his ribcage, and Chaos Incarnate had already shoved down on the metal's lower half before Errorphim could stop stumbling back. The right side of Errorphim's ribcage was pried open like a basement door by that crowbar, his agonized roar was muffled in the palm of The Killer as his ribs flew through the air. Anthony screamed and cackled, "There's plenty of fear to be felt in certainty, Errorphim! If ya haven't learned that yet then I would LOVE to teach you!"
Anthony's hand slid down Errorphim's face, and he grabbed ahold of the mad god's chin instead just before another laser of white hot death exploded out of his jaws. With that hold on Errorphim's chin The Killer kept that laser pointed up into the sky, and he yanked his crowbar back again. Errorphim was stumbling and flailing, but it did nothing to loosen Anthony's grip. He smiled and laughed and smashed that twisted Inheritance down into Errorphim's body again and again and again. Behind them now, those twin Godly Gaster Blasters were overrun by Ghoulings. Children of The Dark climbed over one another, crawled onto the dragon skulls and pulled on tooth and eye socket. The blasters were dragged into a wriggling Dark death, and then those screaming shadows set their sights on Errorphim.
Unfortunately for those Ghoulings, another blast of ERASURE exploded out of Errorphim. It crashed out in an orb of shining death, vaporized all the shadows in its wake. Apart from Anthony, who loved the way it tingled and kept his grip on Errorphim's throat through the flashing and the flailing. Blast after blast of ERASURE fired again and again, blowing apart any Dark constructs as soon as they started to form and tearing at Anthony's forever rebuilding flesh.
Finally, a massive skeletal hand of orange energy grabbed ahold of Anthony's back and ripped him off of Errorphim. That hand whipped him to the side and away from Errorphim, who planted his feet in the sand and turned his body towards The Killer while green light healed his cracks and pixels reformed the ribs that Anthony had pried off his body. The mad god's face was twisted in a snarl now, it was quite the opposite of The Killer's giddy smile. He stomped his foot into the disgusting earth, and from the soggy sands a wave of scarlet blades were exploding up and out towards Anthony while Errorphim shouted, "I have a beautiful, orderly vision for this reality! But you, you stand in its way for what?! What vision do you have, Killer?! What grand design could a madman possibly dream of?!"
"Y'know, the longer I think about it the more I understand that there's always been a vision. There's always been a plan." Anthony walked forward towards those crashing blades as he spoke. He didn't need to fear them, nothing could hurt him anymore. It was raining Darkness again, the eyes were crying black raindrops and the mouths were drooling black slobber above. More of those pitch puddles were forming over the sand and more of that grey fog was filling the air. The world was getting Darker and Darker as The Killer went on, "All the little ones, the bystanders. The dead men, women, and children who's names and faces I never bothered to learn. Killing them didn't even feel like taking lives, it felt like stomping out little embers. Little... Lights."
Suddenly, the sand beneath Anthony The Killer exploded open. From within, the pitch black shape of a Scorpion's pincer. It crashed forward, blew through those scarlet blades cutting through the earth towards him and continued on a collision course with Errorphim. The mad god's wings hastily blasted downward, firing him into the sky and over that pincer, which blasted by beneath him.
Errorphim sailed high into the sky before his wings spread wide and stopped his ascent, and his shining eyes darted to Chaos Incarnate down below. He could see the stacks of black smoke, the growing pools of Dark water, the shadows pouring down from above... His glare locked on to the glowing red eyes staring up at him from atop that now unmoving scorpion pincer, and his palms snapped open to reveal crackling orbs of JUSTICE.
Before Errorphim could throw his hands down and unleash a barrage of his twisted JUSTICE on The Killer however, one of the mouths on the sky gagged. Its lips parted, the eyes around it all rolled back, and with a scream one of Anthony's Wyrms fired out past its lips ! The Dark serpent hung down from the Chaos clouds, its massive head swung down on its long body and its jaws snapped open right behind Order's Mad God. Errorphim only had time to look over his shoulders and into the throat of the beast with wide eyes before a tidal wave of those black waters blasted out of its throat, firing through the sky and engulfing him in its brutal pressure.
Errorphim's body was shoved down from the sky by that blast, it wasn't long before he was crashing face first into the dirt. He could feel the cold water peeling away at his bones, trying to put out his Light. But he held on, he dug his hands into the dirt and he resisted the pressure of Anthony's Chaos until finally that liquid laser died down. When it did, and the water stopped pouring over him... Errorphim found himself gasping, on his hands and knees. He was on a small island of burnt sand, surrounded by a pitch black lake that rumbled with the black rain pouring down onto its surface.
Errorphim could see his reflection in the water, distorted by the power crackling on its surface. And he stared for just a moment, trying to understand... Before the waters burst open, and a dog sized centipede comprised entirely of black chitin tried to snap its mandibles down on his hand. Errorphim nearly hissed at the sight of this disgusting insect, yanking his hand back away from it. He clenched his fingers into a fist then before sending the same hand it had tried to bite crushing down onto its head, sending its brains spewing out of its eyeholes.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" The voice of The Killer drew Errorphim's attention back over his shoulder, and he glared from between his wings at the red eyed shadow sauntering through the mist towards him. More creepy crawlies were slithering out of the water onto his little island now, bones kept jabbing up out of the sand into the underbellies of bugs and worms and Ghoulings alike to stop them in their tracks. All the while, Errorphim floated back to his feet and turned to face Chaos Incarnate while Anthony went on. "I didn't understand it at the time, but the murder was never senseless."
"All those people didn't die for no reason, they died to fit my design. I had to put out their Light." Anthony's eyes were wide, his shadowy figure threw its arms out to its side. In the mist, Errorphim could see more shapes coming into view. Some humanoid, some monstrous. Goat royalty, skeletons, fish guards, puppets, robots and even a few large masses of vines. How many timelines had he destroyed? How many worlds had went Dark? A smile ripped up the face of that red eyed shadow, and it proclaimed the obvious truth that it had taken so long to understand. "I want a Dark world, and people have to die to make a world Dark. But once I kill you, I can make this reality as Dark as I want!"
"Kill me?" Errorphim repeated in a furious disbelief, his hands clenching to tight fists at his sides. He'd turned to face Anthony by the time purple light flashed between his fingers, and as the grey fog rolled in over that pitch black lake and brought those familiar shadows in with it, Order's Mad God whipped his hands out to his sides. He threw the both of his arms forward then, and violet strings fired out from his fingers. They slashed out in a sweeping motion with the swing of his arms, and their searing light cut right through the shapes of dead men women and children. Errorphim snarled as he watched those burning strings close in on the red eyed shadow standing in the mist, "I'm never gonna die again!"
Before those strings could cut or restrain The Killer across the black lake however, his shape disappeared in the smoke. The mist was getting thicker and thicker, and Errorphim's teeth ground together when he watched his PERSERVERANT strike cut through nothing at all. Those shining red eyes had disappeared into the Dark as well, leaving Errorphim to whip his head from one side to the other in hopes of spotting that wretched Ghoul. But, it was no use. Even the gold shine of his accurate eyes couldn't spot Chaos Incarnate. Furious with this shortcoming, Errorphim threw out one open palm to the face of a sobbing Ghouling crawling over the bodies of its bone-skewered kin to try and kill Order's Mad God. Golden light blasted out from Errorphim's hand, and that boy's smithereens were sent splashing back into the vantablack lake that he'd crawled out of.
"You dream of a cage, Errorphim. You wanna crush infinite possibility down to a single outcome." Anthony's voice called out from somewhere in the Darkness, But Errorphim still couldn't see him. The black waters didn't move, the sky didn't stop laughing, the mist didn't lighten. And the face of Order's Mad God continued to twist, more and more rage fueled his Light while The Killer continued. "But me? I think this reality is too restricted as it is."
Errorphim roared then, he turned and whipped his hand out in one direction. Over his head a Godly Gaster Blaster appeared, and it nearly immediately sent a white hot laser blasting in the direction Errorphim had thrown his open palm. That blast cut through the mist and crashed right into the surface of the lake, but the water did not ripple. It did not bubble or boil. Seeing this made Errorphim's browbone twitch, and in the next instant more of those blasters appeared above, each of them screaming more Light down into The Dark and not one of them locating The Killer.
"My vision for this reality is cold and Dark. No kings, no gods... Just strong, and weak. Put out the Light and see who lives and who dies in The Dark." Errorphim snarled when that voice called out again. Massive spikes of bone were appearing in the sky above and plunging down into the lake, but each and every one of them vanished beneath the surface. Just how deep was this wretched puddle?! "Strength... That's what's real, Errorphim. A simple world with simple lives and simple deaths. No more lies, no more promises, no more pain. Just the inevitability of death and limitless fun before it gets here."
"I want to make this reality a kingdom, I want the perfect world! But you?" Errorphim's palms opened, and scarlet blades appeared in both of his hands. He could hardly see five feet in front of his face now, the smoke was suffocating. Still, the ivory shine of his aura kept it at bay, and while bones and blasts fought aimlessly outside of his vision Order's Mad God prepared for Chaos Incarnate to strike. His head continued to whip from one side to another at every flicker of motion in The Dark while he accused, "You're describing a playground!"
In the next instant, the ground under Errorphim exploded open. The mad god's head whipped down to spot Anthony The Killer snatching ahold of his ankles and smiling up at him. Chaos Incarnate had shot up to his waist up through the little island, and that disgusting Dark water was seeping up around him and overflowing onto Errorphim's perch. Order's Mad God scowled, flipping the points of his sabers down and yanking them up to plunge their burning light into Anthony's forehead. Anthony just tightened his iron grip, hastily speaking. "Playgrounds are a lot more fun than castles!"
Errorphim shoved those sabers down into The Killer's forehead so hard that they shot right back out the back of his skull, but Anthony's smile didn't waiver and pain didn't flicker in his eyes. Then, in the blink of an eye, Errorphim felt his body be ripped down by that relentless Ghoul grip. He was dragged through the dirt, but where he expected more earth, he found himself plunging into the cold Chaos of Anthony's Darkness. That island broke apart and was devoured by the water, and to his shock Errorphim felt himself being dragged at mach speed deeper and deeper into an oil ocean.
Finally those hands released his ankles, and Errorphim's rapid descent came to a quick stop in the deathly still water. In the Dark, his aura provided dim Lighting. He could hardly see five feet in front of him as his head whipped back and forth to try and spot The Killer that had dragged him under, and everything he could see was a lifeless grey. In that moment, he was alone in a void. Looking in every direction and hearing the water swish by with every rapid movement of his limbs, the only thing Errorphim managed to spot was a red discoloration. A different fluid waving in the water, he figured it was the blood that had poured out of the holes he'd stabbed into Anthony's head.
Suddenly, that blood veil exploded open, and through it shot a pale fist. Errorphim hardly had time to widen his sockets before Anthony's fist crashed into his jaw, shoving his head to the side and making the lights go out in his eyes. Then, the force carried through, and Order's Mad God was sent shooting back through those black waters. His wings curled around him, dragging behind as he was driven deeper and deeper into The Dark.
Finally, Errorphim's eyes flickered back on and his wings shoved out to his sides, forcing his momentum to a stop. Then, his jaws snapped open, flashing a crackling orb of lethal Light. It vibrated with condensed power, before exploding into a lightspeed laser that cut straight through the Dark lake. A lake that, as that beam stretched, appeared to be a lot closer to an ocean. The spear of Light shot for as far as Errorphim's accurate eyes could see, but it never hit ground or surface. The blackness stretched on and on and on...
As Errorphim shut his jaws and that illumination faded however, he did see two things in the void. Twin Wyrms, parallel to that beam that he'd spat up and shooting through the inky black at incredible speed. The moment that Light faded and they vanished once more into The Dark, Errorphim realized he was a beacon. His shine was the only thing in an empty void outside of those abominations, and that meant every one of them could see him in and he couldn't see any of them. With that in mind the mad god looked up, slamming his wings down and firing himself up through the Chaos.
Errorphim rose at mach speed, he shot higher and higher. But, no surface appeared. He couldn't find any Light beyond his own. Soon enough, he started to wonder if he was even going up. Was he driving himself deeper into the Darkness? Had he gotten turned around? He didn't have much time to contemplate this, had only a moment to liken this moment to his lifetime lost in the antivoid before the jaws of a Wyrm crashed in from the side and engulfed his Light.
Errorphim felt massive fangs and a disgustingly huge tongue crush down onto him, and that Wyrm barely had time to smile at the taste of The Light it was devouring before that Light exploded out from inside its head and vaporized its skull. An orb of shining ERASURE crashed like an atom bomb detonating deep in the ocean, it blew apart the water and for just a moment created a sphere free of that disgusting oily liquid. Order's Mad God hardly had a chance to breathe though, because just seconds after creating that supernova The Killer shot down through its shine.
Immune to The Light's burn, Anthony cackled as he swung his crowbar down between Errorphim's wide eyes. The impact sent a crash of black lightning cracking through the orb of ERASURE just before Errorphim was sent blasting downward and out of the safety he'd created for himself. He felt himself plunge back into the water, and his eyes snapped open just in time to see a wall of smiling worms mere inches from his face. Their bodies slammed into him, he felt their wretched maws clamp down on his arms and legs. His ribs, his sides, in that moment Errorphim thought he might have had an idea of what getting devoured by piranhas felt like.
In the next moment though, cyan light flashed around every last worm trying to devour him, trapping them in PATIENT energy and bringing their onslaught to a screeching halt. Teeth grinding with fury, Errorphim ripped his arms up out of their grasping jaws. Once again twin sabers of DETERMINATION appeared in his hands, and he cleaved downward, slicing through a dozen of those worms in one motion. In the next instant, his arms were swinging in all directions, cutting that horde to ribbons and flooding The Dark with their black blood.
Errorphim's wings beat then, shot him up and out of that bubble of worm chunks. Once he was in clearer waters he heard a scream rumble through the water, and his head whipped around to spot another set of Wyrm fangs crashing down towards him. Before it could engulf him however, the Wyrm felt something else slam into its side and snap its own jaws shut around its massive throat. Now in the jaws of a Skelewyrm, Anthony's Wyrm was dragged back through the water and away from Errorphim, screaming all the way down.
Errorphim was about to beat his wings and launch himself upwards (or at least, what he assumed was upwards) again, but before he could, Anthony fired through the water once more. He flipped forward as he shot at Errorphim from behind, yanking his knees to his chest before blasting a brutal dropkick right between Errorphim's shoulder blades. The mad god was shot forward and Anthony once more vanished in the inky black while Errorphim flung and flipped through the void.
Errorphim's wings and arms spread wide to his sides, stopping him upside down and facing the Darkness that The Killer had disappeared back into. Opening his hands, the DETERMINED blades he'd been holding fired off to his sides, plunging deep into The Dark and hopefully skewering some of its abominations on their way down. Then, golden lights flickered, and orbs of shining JUSTICE began appearing all throughout the black waters. More and more bulbs of Light were flashing to life, many exploding apart immediately against whatever creature they were blindly manifested against or inside of.
Regardless of the ones that exploded, those shining spheres provided enough illumination for Errorphim's accurate eyes to see The Killer shooting through the water towards him. The way he moved in the water was unnatural for a human; with his arms flat to his sides, he almost slithered through The Dark like his Wyrms did. With expert agility and high speed he darted between the golden light Errorphim dared shine in his Darkness, and the only feature Errorphim could make out in the Chaos waters were his shining red eyes.
Grinding his teeth with restrained fury, Errorphim flipped upright just in time for Anthony to smash into him. Their hands locked together, and they smashed their foreheads against one another as they launched back through the black water, more crackling gold spheres appearing around them. Anthony yanked his head back while he threw his knee up, smashing it into Errorphim's jaw and sending the mad god's upper body whipping back with the impact.
Anthony kept his grip on Errorphim's hands, floating up over him some with the motion of his knee. Immediately he extended that knee, sending his foot smashing down into Errorphim's collar bone with a stomp. Then, he yanked his foot back up, and slammed another stomp down. And another, and another, and another. All while he kept a tight hold of Errorphim's hands, his unblinking red eyes staring down into his face just before his foot crashed down on it.
Finally, Errorphim's own grip on Anthony's hands tightened, and with the motion of his wings he spun in the water, dragging Anthony with him before releasing his grip and whipping him downward. The Killer flung down into the depths, crashing back firsts into a crackling orb of JUSTICE that exploded when he made his impact and threw him forward, right into another orb that exploded all the same. For a few seconds The Killer was ping-ponged between explosions, before a final one blasted him down into the Dark depths and away from those spheres of JUST light.
Once more Errorphim's jaws opened as he glared down into the depths that The Killer had vanished into, revealing another crackling ivory orb. This time it grew and grew, until its vibrating power was trapped between his jaws. Just as he bit down however, Anthony fired up out of the depths at shocking speed, slamming shoulder first into the waist of Order's Mad God and forcing him to lurch forward over his shoulder. That tidal wave of white Light exploded through The Dark behind them like a jet engine as they fired upwards with Anthony's impact.
They fired higher and higher and higher, until finally, suddenly... The Darkness cracked open, and Order's Mad God and Chaos Incarnate blasted up out of that black ocean and into the sky above it. They launched through the Dark mist as that wave of ivory death slowed to a stop, and the moment Errorphim's jaws closed Anthony reached up, grabbing ahold of his collar bone and yanking himself up to eye level with the stunned god.
Errorphim was still blinking and readjusting to the air and the light, not to mention reeling from Anthony's brutal impact. His eyes refocused just in time to see Anthony yank his crowbar back, and with a brutal CRACK! that unholy metal smashed into his forehead once again. Black and white energy exploded out from the brutal impact, and Errorphim's head whipped backwards, dragging the rest of his body with it. The mad god careened across the skyline like a comet, his shine reflecting on the deathly still of the black waters beneath.
Finally gravity got ahold of Errorphim, and Errorphim got ahold of his senses. He flipped as he was dragged down towards the shore, and when he crashed into the glassed sands he did so on both feet and one hand. His wings spread wide and his feet and fingers dug into the dirt, dragging his momentum to a brutal stop. And once it was over, and he was able to inhale the scorched air and take a look at the dimming world he'd returned to, Errorphim dropped to one knee and let his wings fall limp at his sides.
Wincing at the pain still throbbing in his skull, Errorphim reached up slowly and placed a hand on his forehead. His teeth grit when he spotted bits of bone crumble and trickle off of his head, leaving a crack between his eyes from those brutal crowbar strikes. He pulled his hand away from his face and looked at it, those Dark waters were still dripping down his body... His hand clenched into a fist, and white Light flared off of him, scorching that water off of his bones. Green light followed, patching the new crack in his forehead.
Errorphim's focus drifted back out to that lake of Darkness then, and his sockets narrowed. Anthony had plummeted down from the sky, dropped like a stone to the surface of the water... But he didn't plunge into it. Instead, he landed on his feet, and the surface tension did not give out. His knees bent and he leaned forward some with gravity's pull, but then his muscles relaxed. Without haste, he lifted his head, straightened his knees and then his back. He stood tall, and Errorphim's jaw tightened as those glowing red eyes locked onto him... Then, Anthony lifted his foot. He took one step, and the surface tension still didn't give out. Then, another step unhindered. And another. Over and over, one foot in front of the other, Anthony The Killer walked across the surface of the water towards the shore.
"There is fear... In certainty." Anthony's voice called out through his expanding void and to the star that he looked to blot out. The lake did not so much as ripple under his every step, he walked effortlessly on water towards the mad god climbing to his feet on the shore. Even though black rain was falling from above, the surface did not shift. The rain vanished without resistance into The Darkness. From nothing came all things, and to nothing all things would return. At least, that's how it was where Anthony The Killer was born. And though this world was made of code and was born from data and not Darkness, he supposed he could turn it to nothing all the same. With that in mind, Anthony The Killer smiled.
"So you and everyone else should be very, very afraid."
The music faded out while Max contemplated lighting a cigarette. If there was ever a time for one, he felt certain the end of the world was in fact that time. But, he was standing right next to Mako, and she hated when he smoked. Max didn't have to think long before coming to the conclusion that a cigarette wasn't worth dying with his sister pissed at him, so instead he just kept his hand on Mako's back and kept his eyes on the sky overhead.
Real strange, watching the pasty lumberjack he'd known to be a friend at one point walk on water. Made Max wonder if he'd of had a chair at Anthony's Last Supper. He knew Mako would have, she was important to him and she had believed in him. Maybe Max was jaded, maybe it was wrong of him to give up on Anthony like he had. Even now, as he watched Darkness drip off The Killer's skin, he didn't take any pleasure in knowing his suspicions were being confirmed. In fact, in a perfect world, Max figured all of Mako's beliefs in good would be right and all his pessimism would be wrong.
But, whatever Anthony was, it was more than Max or Mako could have known. Max would admit he had no idea there was something like The Killer inside of the woodsman he'd known, and even with the doubts he'd had about Anthony he still thought he hardly seemed like himself with straight hair and a crowbar in his hand. Mako had been right about one thing, Anthony was gentle. To have spent years minding his business, building and farming and never hurting a fly, all while this monstrous power squirmed inside him... Maybe Mako was right, maybe Anthony was a good man. But The Killer was not, and that's who they were stuck with now.
So this is how the world ends. Not with a bang, or a whimper, or resistance or dignity. Just a trillion ants watching two dickheads fight over the magnifying glass. Their hills destined to be kicked over, their tunnels fated to be pissed in, their lives certain to end. Fear in certainty? Max didn't feel very afraid at all. If he was a more optimistic man, if he was as much like Mako as he wished he was, he might have believed that meant there was a way out of this horrible situation. But he wasn't and he didn't, so instead he just stood there. One hand rubbing Mako's back to comfort her, the other reaching up and grabbing ahold of his necklace through his shirt. He thought quietly, ... I wonder how mom's doing right now.
Mako could feel cold sweat on her brow, but still she watched the sky with a tense expression. Everything about Anthony was different, from the smaller details of his appearance to the way he carried himself. His manner of speech, the posturing... Anthony had known for the entire time Mako had known him that he was the most dangerous man alive, but he had never acted like a higher being because of that. He still cussed and conjunctioned and licked blood off his hands... It was enough to make Mako wonder if this new attitude was what Anthony had truly been all along, that everything she knew had been a facade...
But that couldn't be true, because Anthony was an honest man. Mako knew that to be true, even as she looked upon the abominable thing that he was now. So, what was The Killer? Where had it come from? Mako had been racking her brain, she'd asked herself this question many times. Went over her memories of Anthony and tried to gather all the tidbits she'd learned about his origin... Finally, her thoughts stopped on his parents. His mother, Mako had learned how that story went by watching Anarchy's battles with The Angel. A horrible woman who abused her own child, she had beat Anthony during his most vulnerable years. She was the reason for his scars and beyond that his more quiet and gentle nature. Anthony had said it himself when he maimed The Gatherer, "To understand power, you have to learn what it means to be powerless." Anthony knew exactly what it was like to be defenseless against another's cruelty, and though his mother's abuse had twisted him Mako didn't believe that alone would create such evil inside of her friend.
"I was born in a bathtub, Xander. My mother screamed into a night that laughed back at her, unmedicated and in agony. She was frail, she was weak... Her reward was a son that looked identical to the man that left her alone in that cruel Darkness."
And that had stumped her for some time. Her thoughts kept coming back around to the mother, she kept trying to figure out a different angle and a different way to understand the impact Delilah had on her son. And that was, until Mako remembered that it took two to make a child. And though he spoke with ease about his mother, and was even willing to put her in a more sympathetic light when he told the story of his own birth, Anthony had not often spoken of his father. And when he did...
"His blood runs through my veins, whether I want it to or not."
Mako's sockets went wide; it felt in that instant that she'd found just the piece she needed to finish the puzzle. The father, the one that Anthony was supposedly identical to. With a mother that was frail and weak, the power and The Darkness that Anthony claimed to have been born with could have only came from one place.
"The weight of his evil was passed on to me."
One interaction, Mako recalled what Anthony had said. He'd only spoke to his father one time, and in that time his father told him to kill his mother. His mother, who The Gatherer had described as a "Ghoul loving"... Well, Mako didn't want to finish that statement, but she did think it was particularly cruel to abandon and then orchestrate the murder of someone who supposedly loved him. The Angel's grandmother, and whatever he may have taken from The Predator and The Gatherer... Anthony very likely had his life the most defined by the malicious machinations of his father. Could malice like that really be passed on genetically..?
"I feel what he felt: that desire to kill and maim, the one that I have focused on you and you alone."
According to Anthony it could. Mako remembered the pill bottle in the bedside table up in Anthony's barn bedroom, and more recently the words he had said to Errorphim about putting Lights out. Years, resisting a pitch black void that lurked in the unbearable weight of his own soul... The pills, the hyperfocus on destroying The Angel and even the knowledge that all that he was would die with Angel. For a long time Mako thought that meant that Anthony would let himself die, or maybe that he would just go sit on some far corner of this multiverse and never move again. But, now she feared it had meant that without The Angel to focus his Darkness on Anthony would disappear... And only The Killer would remain.
"The urge to conquer and lead, that I put aside when I crushed Chaos Crown into Worthless Metal."
Mako felt stupid then, she wondered if everyone was stupid. Had Anthony really been fighting a war on two fronts this entire time? Mako remembered that nasty Traitor then, and the way they tempted Anthony. Maybe they'd discovered this internal war before anyone else, but how could someone be wretched enough to want Anthony's Darkness unleashed? Maybe Frisk didn't understand the full gravity of the situation, or perhaps they were so delusional that they didn't care. Regardless, they told Anthony they loved him and he hurt them for it. And from the sound of it, that's exactly what his father did to his mother.
"Even the thought of creating more to take my place, to spread my cruelty beyond myself through the hands of children and disciples... Has occurred to me."
But, regardless of everyone else and regardless of what lead to this point, they were here now and Anthony The Killer was unleashed. That void was pouring out of Anthony's infinite soul and it was closing in around Errorphim, and the sight of her friend walking on water towards that mad god made it more than clear what had happened to Mako. Anthony could not win the war on the outside without forfeiting the one he was fighting internally, that had to be it. He had unleashed his Darkness to destroy Errorphim and save those he cared about, but that begged the question...
Would he be strong enough to imprison The Dark inside of him again after letting it out?
Frisk had seen gods rise before. One god in particular, thousands of times. Regardless, the seven soul process used to create makeshift divinity was old news to them. There wasn't anything special about Errorphim, Frisk believed his power was unearned and fake. He could absorb all the souls he wanted, but he'd only ever be the pathetic worm that Character left to die in the void.
Anthony, however... Ooh, seeing him bend reality to his will was a religious experience for Frisk. The world was darkening around him constantly, just from his presence. They remembered what it had been like in Waterfall, trying to pry Anarchy away from Angel. How foolish they had been then... Regardless, that moment where he was unleashing his DETERMINATION and the cavern was crumbling. They wondered if that's how it felt for Errorphim, they wondered if a being as arrogant as Order's Mad God could understand that the world was collapsing on top of him and he was powerless to stop it.
Frisk found themself running a finger over their bottom lip while they watched Anthony The Killer crack a smile. His tongue had tasted like blood when he kissed them, they kinda liked it. Of course Frisk remembered vividly the image of The Anarchist looming over them after he bashed his crowbar up into their guts - which wasn't a euphemism, but had the potential to be - and let them crumble to the ground. They thought for a moment that he had tricked them, given them a taste of their own medicine, but he had denied that. "I did whatever I wanted"... And what he wanted was to jam his tongue down their throat, grab their ass, and then knock them out in the least gruesome way he could. Comparing that to the other poor fucks Anthony had left in his wake, how could Frisk not assume he had an affinity for them?
Even earlier today, he had their throat in his hands. He'd tried and tried to kill them, to 'do the right thing'. But he couldn't, because it wasn't what he wanted. What Anthony wanted was a Dark world, and a fun puppet to play with. So sure, maybe he'd tried real hard to fight his nature. Maybe he thought Frisk was a 'bad person'. Maybe he even let out his true power for the sake of saving Angel. But now that he was Anthony The Killer, Frisk felt certain that he would see things clearly. The influence of Angel's lies and all the silly rules Anarchy had made for himself, Anthony didn't have to abide by any of that anymore. He could do whatever he wanted.
An Angel, a Predator, and a Gatherer at Anthony's back. Errorphim wondered, did that mean that The Killer was protecting them or that he'd turned his back on them? Oh well, it didn't matter. They had all fallen, all who opposed Order's Mad God would fall, including Chaos Incarnate. That was certainty, and that was the reason that Errorphim believed Anthony should be afraid.
With that in mind, Errorphim stomped his foot down into the sands he'd created. Immediately the earth exploded open, and a massive bone was sent crashing up out of the ground and right towards Anthony. It blasted from dirt to water, stretching endlessly and crashing through those still waters towards the one walking on their surface. Unfortunately, before that freight bone could crash right into The Killer, the waters beneath it exploded open with jagged fangs. The maw of a Wyrm snapped shut around that bone and yanked down just in time, pulling that ivory pillar down under the water mere feet from where the Wyrm's master stood.
Errorphim's eye socket twitched with frustration as he glared at the unbothered Anthony, who flashed him a smile. Then, suddenly, The Killer pushed off his front foot. Free Your Mind by American Pearl began playing as he fired forward like a bullet, pushing off that water with so much force that the still lake exploded up in massive waves. And in the very next instant, Anthony was right in front of Errorphim with one fist cocked back. He grinned from one ear to the other as his knuckles shot right into the mad god's jaw, throwing Errorphim's head back and making his face contort around Anthony's fist.
The force carried through then, and Order's Mad God was sent firing back through the air. He flipped back and spread his wings wide after sailing a dozen yards, landing on both feet and one hand to continue skidding backwards. As soon as his vision refocused, he spotted The Killer darting forward through the black mist at mach speed. Anthony lunged forward and cranked back that crowbar, swiping at Errorphim's head just for the mad god's hand to dart out and snatch ahold of his wrist, stopping his strike in its tracks.
Errorphim pivoted then, pulled Anthony to the side and off his balance with the grip he had on his wrist while he cocked back his free hand, straightening his fingers. He sent that hand shooting forward in the next instant, and his jagged digits cut right through flesh and bone, driving through Anthony's worthless flesh until his now red fingers were shooting out between Chaos Incarnate's shoulder blades. But Anthony didn't cry out even with that mad god wrist deep in his chest, he just grinned as blood poured down his bottom lip. Then, his knee shot up into Errorphim's elbow, and a CRACK! resounded as the mad god's arm was snapped upwards in a sort of upside down V shape.
"Augh-!" Errorphim cried out in agony, before his jaw tightened and his sockets winced. This moment of hesitation proved to be all Anthony needed, because he immediately bent at the knees and jumped straight upwards. This sudden motion yanked Errorphim's hand out of his heart and off of his wrist, and Anthony flipped over the mad god's head before spinning once he was behind him, whipping a kick at the back of his skull.
Unfortunately Errorphim dropped down to one knee first, planting his good hand in the sand and commanding a pyramid of calcium to fire up around him. Anthony hastily leaned back after completing the rotation his kick brought on, landing on the ground before the pyramid and immediately jumping backwards into the black smoke. Those bones sucked back into the earth in the next instant, revealing Errorphim's gold glowing palm pointed out towards The Killer.
Energy cracked, and orb after orb of JUSTICE was shot at high speed into that wall of Darkness that The Killer had vanished back into. With his broken arm still hanging limp, Errorphim narrowed his sockets and watched the light of his blasts dim and disappear as they fired further back into the growing void, never hitting their target. The mad god growled as he lowered his good arm, grabbing ahold of his other wrist and wincing as he suddenly snapped his broken limb back up into place. Green Light washed over his elbow after that, rapidly healing all the damage The Killer had caused him.
Errorphim's eyes scanned the thickening mist for any white hair or glowing red eyes, and it was only one or two seconds after his search came up fruitless that Anthony lunged out of the smoke behind him and latched onto his back. Errorphim barely had a second to start flailing before Anthony's iron grip hands snatched ahold of his collar bone, and he cried out in pain and disgust when his jaws snapped down on the top of his skull. "Augh! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
The only answer Errorphim got was Anthony's semi-muffled cackling against the back of his skull, which went well with the crushing pressure and sharp pain of those fangs crushing down on his head. Meanwhile, the brutal force behind Anthony's hands yanked up and down on Errorphim's collar bone, making him cry out in agony as it snapped and cracked. It was at that point that the mad god really started flailing; he spun around and swung his arms up to try and rip Anthony off his back, but Chaos Incarnate punched and swatted those hands away whenever they got near.
Orbs of golden Light appeared around the two of them, crackling and remaining stationary until Errorphim would flail just the right way and put Anthony between himself and the bolts of JUSTICE. Then, the blasts would immediately dart in and explode against Chaos Incarnate, sending chunks of his flesh flinging through the air but never breaking his grip. All the while shadows crept through the aura protecting Errorphim's dome, and those vicious fangs forced their way further and further down while the mad god screamed, "Get off of me you freak..!"
Finally, Errorphim's hands swung up and grabbed ahold of both sides of Anthony's head, and the mad god immediately yanked him up and over. It hurt, but he dragged that vice maw off of his dome and dragged Anthony with it. Ripping him off his back, Errorphim threw Chaos Incarnate straight down into a brutal spike of bone, skewering Anthony right through the heart and pinning him to the earth.
Anthony hardly noticed, and his unrelenting hand darted up the moment Errorphim tried to pull away. He cackled through the blood spewing up over his lips and down from his nostrils as he snatched ahold of Errorphim's bottom jaw, forcing him to stay leaned over and pulling back his free hand. With cruel force Anthony whipped his fist up into Errorphim's face once, then twice, then thrice. All while holding him by the jaw.
Every punch caused a shock wave, every punch caused cracks in that skull that immediately sealed in a green shine. Until finally, Errorphim threw his arm out to the side and opened his palm, summoning a scarlet saber in his grasp. He instantly cleaved downward, slicing clean through the arm holding him and the one punching him. As Anthony's limbs tumbled to the ground Order's Mad God stumbled back, and he snarled as he watched new arms instantly shoot out from the bleeding and boiling stumps his blade had left behind.
Errorphim planted his feet to stop his backward stumble and dragged back the steaming DETERMINATION of that crimson blade, immediately lunging forward to try and drive it into Anthony's skull. He hastily swung his legs up though, ripping his body effortlessly off that spike and launching himself up and over Errorphim's stab. By the time Chaos Incarnate landed crouched behind Errorphim the hole in his heart had already closed, and he threw his left arm out to the side, his crowbar once more appearing in his grasp.
Errorphim spun around, slashing back at Anthony at the same time that he swung that cruel steel. A Clang! resounded as their weapons struck one another, black and white flashed through the dying world around them while blade and bar were thrown back from the force of their impact. Errorphim's free hand immediately shot out, and from his finger tips burning violet strings fired out towards Chaos Incarnate.
Anthony's head lurched forward and his jaws snapped open, chomping shut around those strings before they could spread out to grab ahold of his limbs and his throat. Hardly minded the way his teeth scorched and his tongue bubbled under the burn of that purple Light, Chaos Incarnate yanked his head back with enough force to rip Errorphim off his feet and throw him forward. His foot shot out at the same time, and a black and white shock wave exploded through the sand around the two of them as The Killer buried his foot in the sternum of that mad god.
Errorphim lurched forward, his body crumpled around that brutal kick and his pupils shrunk in his wide eyes. Anthony hastily yanked his foot out of that ribcage and planted it in the ground instead, swinging his entire body's weight behind another brutal crowbar strike in one fluid motion. Errorphim's hand launched up before that strike could land however, his digits snapped shut around The Killer's wrist before his jaws snapped open wide, revealing another crackling sphere of ivory death.
Anthony barely had time to widen his eyes before that blaster crashed into his body. He felt it burn through his flesh and cut through bone and organ as it engulfed him, dragging his body back through the air and launching him back into the twisting smoke at mach speed. Errorphim watched with glee as that black mist was split open by the might of his laser, now he could see clear as day Anthony's smoldering body tumble into the sand. The Light of his blast slowly dissipated, and Errorphim exhaled white steam as he gradually stood up straight and clenched his fists.
"You can bite and claw all you want, but you will never be anything more than a disgusting, shadow dwelling freak!" Errorphim shouted furiously as he opened his spare hand and summoned another scarlet blade in his grasp. That smog rapidly closed around the body of The Killer, but Errorphim held his ground. His wings spread wide and he planted his feet then, crossing his blades in front of himself while he went on. "A savage abomination like you could nev-!"
In an instant, a blade of shadow stretched out from that smoke at sonic speed. Errorphim hardly had a moment to blink before that unstoppable edge cleaved by the side of his skull, splitting open his cheek bone. A drop of shining ivory essence dripped out of that cut, it curved down Errorphim's cheek while his teeth grit and his eyes twitched. He slashed upwards with one of those scarlet blades and cleaved that shadow in two then, and it dissipated into nothing... Only for a dozen more black blades just like it to fire out of the mist after Errorphim.
The mad god's wings beat and dragged him backwards, and walls of green Light appeared in the path of The Dark, only for those points to stab right through and continue their path undeterred. Errorphim hastily threw up both blades, crossing them together to block the next shadow slicing towards him. But that Dark point was unstoppable, it effortlessly cleaved right through those sabers and Errorphim gasped in agony as it drove right through his chest and out his back.
In the very next instant the other shadows reached him, and suddenly the body of Order's Mad God was jolting back and forth as those blades drove into him. Through his ribs, into his legs, he had to whip his head to the right to keep one from going right through his forehead. And the moment those points shot out the other side of him, they split into cruel hooked shapes and stuck to Errorphim's body. Then, while the mad god was still writhing in agony, they began dragging like chains back towards the wall of mist that they'd erupted from.
"Erg..! Let go of me, filth..!" Errorphim winced and ground his teeth as his body hit the ground and dragged across the sand. He struggled and pulled on those black chains, but their pull was relentless. He was rapidly approaching that smoke, and he watched as the black gas began to swirl and shape. Its form became more defined, and Errorphim's brow bone twitched with disgust as he saw a mouth manifest in that Darkness. The rest of a head was forming around it, and in a matter of seconds Errorphim found himself being dragged towards the smiling, chomping teeth of a giant Ghoul head.
the chains dragging him lead right down that abomination's throat, and as its mouth crunched open and closed - devouring buckets of sand while it awaited its meal - the mad god could see hundreds of giddy red eyes staring back at him from within its maw. Oh fuck this! He thought near immediately, wincing as he dragged his skewered arm up over his head and commanded a massive Godly Gaster Blaster to manifest overhead. The beast's maw snapped open wide, and immediately white hot death exploded out past its jaws and into the giddy face of that hungry Ghoul head. It's Dark flesh ripped and burned to nothing under that laser, and white flames severed the chains dragging Errorphim, letting him skid to a stop.
While black and white smoke coiled into the air before him, Errorphim snarled and flexed his wings, launching himself back up right. He clenched his fists and bent his elbows as the might of his stolen souls flared, and suddenly ivory Light exploded out around him. His aura flared into a roaring inferno, melting the chains still hooked to his body to nothing and sealing the holes they'd left behind near instantly. He floated a foot or so off the ground, and the fury of his multicolored eyes watched that twisting smoke carefully.
So when that smoke exploded open, he was ready. Errorphim whipped his head to the right, letting Anthony's fist sail right over his shoulder. His wrathful glare darted into the elated eyes of The Killer as he dragged back his arm, stabbing his fingers forward at Chaos Incarnate's chest once more. This time however Anthony was prepared, his own hand shooting out and planting itself on Errorphim's forearm. He yanked himself up with Errorphim's own limb, flipping right over the mad god's massive frame and yanking his knees back to his chest. Errorphim didn't even have a moment to turn his head before Anthony's feet blasted into the back of his skull with a gruesome shotgun dropkick.
Order's Mad God was sent flinging face first into the sand, and Anthony flipped in air and landed crouched while Errorphim skidded at mach speed. The Killer cracked a smile at the sight of Errorphim eating dirt, he didn't recall all the times in his childhood that he had to do the same. He was taking his time now, standing up straight and beginning a casual walk after the mad god he'd given a faceful of sand. Black steam was smoking off of Anthony's body hear and there, the whites of his eyes were filling with a pure and perfect Darkness. The mist swirled and writhed, but there was no wind. The world was growing completely motionless, a clear sign of its impending death.
With every step Anthony The Killer took, sand turned to crumbling red numbers under his feet. Code was breaking down under the weight of his might, he was atomic death. An unstoppable cancer, finishing up with one organ and getting ready to move on to the rest of the body. So maybe he was a little like a disease after all... Oh well, he'd know for sure after he obliterated this pathetic skeleton.
Errorphim didn't wanna be obliterated, though. So, after skidding to a stop, he whipped his body up to its knees and spun around, furiously dragging his hand through the air between himself and The Killer. His fingers shredded through the fabric of this reality's mathematic spacetime continuum, leaving five lines of green code shards. Those shards turned to red, and then they fired forward at sonic speed.
Shrapnel that ranged from microscopic to pea sized raced towards Anthony The Killer, but he didn't bother trying to dodge or defend. He didn't have time, and he kinda wanted to see how it stung. So, he smiled wide and he held his arms out to his sides with what little time he had before impact. And then, his flesh was shredded. Chunks of him were ripped away, billions of little holes were punched, he was mutilated in the blink of an eye. Certainly, a mortal man would have been reduced to a red puddle trying to endure this attack.
But Anthony The Killer was not a mortal man. Every hole that was punched, it instantly refilled. Chunks were ripped away, but no one would ever know it because they were immediately replaced. And Errorphim's eye twitched as he watched Anthony's giddy expression, his teeth grit as he heard The Killer cackle despite the cycle of shredding and healing his lungs and throat were going through. No blood was spilled, wounds sealed too quickly for a single drop to escape. Immune to death, immune to destruction, immune to mutilation... For just a moment, Order's Mad God felt like that twisted puppeteer again, and Anthony looked a whole lot like Character.
So indignant was Errorphim that he roared like some savage, mortal beast as he shoved his body to its feet and spun around to face The Killer. That barrage of code shards had came to a stop, and the unharmed Ghoul was still smiling as he started wandering towards Order's Mad God again. Eyes half lidded, body so relaxed. Like he knew something Errorphim didn't, like his plan and his grand design was in motion and Errorphim was just another piece for him to play however he liked. And that infuriated the mad god, so in an attempt to wipe that smile from Anthony's face his wings beat, firing him forward at The Killer with a righteous wrath fitting for a god.
Unfortunately, Anthony was unsmiteable. His head whipped to the side to avoid Errorphim's heavy fist, and then flung backwards to duck under the slicing chop that came after. Errorphim pulled back his other hand then, straightened his pointed fingers and drove them down towards Anthony's chest, only for Chaos Incarnate's hand to dart up and catch his own. Their fingers intertwined, and Anthony's head tilted up enough to flash that wretched smile at Order's mad God while his other hand snatched ahold of Errorphim's free hand.
"You..! Filth! STAIN!" Errorphim roared as he and Anthony locked up, shoving his hands down with all his might in an attempt to make The Killer bend a knee. He had the high ground, his wings helped him loom over Chaos Incarnate, who was already leaning back when he caught Errorphim's hands. The face of Order's Mad God twisted with fury, his pupils shrunk and trembled with a pure madness that Anthony adored. And if he had a tongue and saliva, Anthony was certain Errorphim would have spat while he shouted. "I will NOT be mad a fool of by another insolent, disgraceful, greedy child! I AM THE JUDGE, I AM THE PUPPETEER, I AM GOD!"
"YOU! ARE A TINY LITTLE DWARF! WHO NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT HIS FLASK!" Anthony challenged with a giddy smile, shoving his own hands upwards and watching with glee as Errorphim's expression twisted with shock and exertion. Slowly but surely, he pushed those massive skeletal hands upwards and began straightening his own back. All the while, black mist was swirling around the two of them. Code was peeling off the ground around them and breaking away, black and white electricity was cracking off in random directions and the air was popping. The red dots in Anthony's pitch black eyes trembled with euphoria while he shouted. "AND YOU'RE NOT COMIN' BACK THIS TIME, DWARF! THIS TIME YOUR DEATH'S GONNA STICK!"
Errorphim's eyes darted between his hands, sweat broke out on his forehead and his teeth ground as he felt himself being steadily shoved backwards. It wasn't long before he felt his feet plant back in the ground, and then he could really feel all the weight baring down upon him. That mist was closing in, the shadows were creeping closer... So Errorphim roared once more, and once more he dragged power out of those stolen souls. In the next instant, a tower of boiling ivory Light exploded up around him, engulfing The Killer and firing high into the sky. The shockwave shoved that creeping smoke back away, but Anthony's grip did not release. The Light couldn't hurt him anymore.
Lightning struck all around the two of them in seven different colors, electricity cracked off of that white pillar and lashed out at the smog starting to roll back in. The sky was screaming with laughter now, that mist writhed and swirled with Dark shapes just barely hidden in its mass. Errorphim's feet were being shoved deeper into the sand, just for another black and white shock wave to blast that sand into crumbling code. All the while, Anthony's grip only tightened. More and more power poured out of him, Errorphim was starting to feel like he was standing under Niagara Falls.
So, his skeletal jaws snapped open to reveal yet another crackling orb of Light, and he fired a scorching laser point blank into the face of Chaos Incarnate. But The Killer's maw opened too, and from within the steel melting pressure of a black geyser fired straight ahead into that laser. Another shock wave came as the blasts collided, more code pealed away and the world died faster. Lightning was striking multiple time a second, and The Dark was boring down upon Errorphim's tower of Light.
Laser and geyser struggled back and forth while reality crumbled around Order's Mad God and Chaos Incarnate. But gradually, no matter how desperately he struggled, Errorphim's knee was being forced to bend. His tower of Light was cracking, shadows were slipping inside. And when his jaws were finally forced to close and his laser stopped firing with Anthony's geyser, Errorphim grunted as he crashed knee first into the dirt. His wings shifted and started to rise as he snarled up at Anthony, "Damn you, Killer..!"
Anthony's answer was laughter, and before those wings could rise to try and fly Errorphim out of this predicament, little black hands reached out and snatched hold of them. On the other side of that crashing Light there was nothing but pitch black Darkness now, and from that Darkness Ghoulings were reaching through to put Errorphim out. Their limbs scorched and they died in the Light after a few seconds, but they were infinite. They were an infestation. So new hands always reached out, and hundreds of fingers grabbed ahold of each of Errorphim's wings to try and drag him into the writhing Darkness. The children screamed, "Don't fly away..! DON'T FLY AWAY!"
"Let go of me..! I won't be tangled in strings ever again!" Errorphim could deny it all he wanted, but the tower of his Light was waning. His body was being shoved back into the Darkness, shadows were creeping up his body from the grasping hands of those dirty children. And Anthony adored the fear in his eyes when Order's Mad God looked frantically up to him and shouted, "Anthony, you idiot..! If you kill me, Chara dies too!"
"You think I give a shit about Chara?!" Anthony's smile tore further up his face, his head whipped down and he shoved his forehead into Errorphim's so that the mad god could see the honest amusement he derived from that pitiful plea for mercy. His chest rumbled with laughter, and that laughter echoed in the ocean of Darkness that Errorphim's body was being gradually dragged into while The Killer went on. "I don't need to keep promises, I don't need to be honest ever again! I'm the one who's free of his strings, Errorphim! YOUR SUBJEGATION HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN!"
The music faded out while Mako stared with wide eyes and shrunken pupils, her mouth agape in horror. It put tears in her eye sockets, watching Anthony smile as he so effortlessly renounced the qualities that she respected him for. His honesty, his integrity, his kindness... All gone. Forsaken, in favor of a Killer's cruelty.
For a moment, she felt totally helpless. She knew this wasn't the real Anthony, she knew he had lost himself in his infinite power and she knew he wasn't going to be able to get back. There was nothing she could do, she was too small. Insignificant. Just a little skeleton with little dreams for a better world... Mako had believed, desperately in fact, that her small acts of KINDNESS meant something. That her care and her comfort, from the littlest bugs all the way to the god she'd spent years living with, all amounted to a better world. That perhaps there was some greater domino effect, that her MERCY would set some cosmic energy in motion and that all that built upon her goodness and the goodness of others would eventually tip the scale in favor of a KIND world. But, for just a moment, she had to believe otherwise. She thought herself an ant, and that screen in the sky looked a lot like a magnifying glass hovering overhead.
But... Then she remembered the littlest bugs. The tiny black maggots she would find once in a blue moon in Anthony's barn, or even the one she had touched while it was in the palm of The Anarchist's hand on the day they first met. The way it had curled up, cocooned, and then hatched anew just from her touch... The white added to its black and white form, the wings it flew away on... Mako blinked the tears out of her wide eyes, and she lifted her head to look out to the world around her.
This forest was silent when she found it. No, not found it, was called to it. Appeared in its woods early some morning as the sun rose and the Light coexisted with the tree-cast shadows. But, once she got here, she found herself stumbling over life with almost every step. Little critters, animals that hide from Anthony but so willingly approached her. The rabbit that had screamed and tried to escape Anthony's grasp, only to relax the moment she put her hand on his arm...
Mako's head lifted, she looked back to the mad man trying to drown a Seven Souled God through that magnifying glass overhead. And then, with renewed resolve, she thought one last time about how she could help her friend. And the answer came near immediately, with a memory of the possession Anthony had left her.
"... To remember you by..?"
"No. It's so you know I'll be back."
So suddenly that Max jumped, Mako yanked her body up and over the railing she'd been leaning on. She flung right over, landed on her feet a few feet down on the snowy grass and then immediately started running down the length of the porch. Her elder brother's eyes widened, he managed to stammer while he watched her turn the porch's corner and direct her sprint towards the driveway. "W-wait, Mako! Where are you going?"
Mako didn't answer, she was so focused she hardly heard him over all the laughter she heard through that screen. The beam of that magnifying glass was starting to focus, and this might have just been a little anthill but it was her home and she cared about it regardless. So, her feet pounded on the ground, her shoes kicked up gravel. Her pupils were a focused crosshair shape, and they peered through the gently falling snow and to the shut barn door she was barreling towards.
"Mako!" Max called out again as he rounded the house's corner far behind her. He reached out as he ran, but Mako was too fast. Maybe it was a benefit of having such a light body, her little legs took steps so fast that Max had little hope of catching up to her. His brows furrowed with confusion when she stopped at that barn door and squatted down, grabbing hold of it and using what little might she had to start dragging the heavy sheet of metal upwards. He called out over the metallic rumble, "What are you doing?!"
Finally that door flew upwards on its own momentum, catching on the rails along the roof of the barn and stopping. For just a moment, everything was slow for Mako. Her magenta eyes glowed in that Dark barn, they glossed from one side to the other. She could see Anthony everywhere in that structure, sitting at his work bench or relaxing in that chair by the back door or climbing the ladder that lead up to his room. And though all those memories stung her heart now, she remained focused, and her eyes landed on the sapphire shield mounted on the wall.
"He promised I'd see him again, so I will!" Mako finally shouted an answer back to Max, not so much as looking over her shoulder to him while she scurried over to that shield. She paused in front of it, and she almost gulped as her eyes inspected that Deltarune branded on the shield's front. The symbol of The Angel, treasured by The Anarchist and threatened with destruction by a Seven Souled God... Mako The Skeleton, small and weak and fragile, reached out and took Anthony's shield into her hands, yanking it off the wall in his stead.
She stumbled back a few steps once its weight fell upon her, but she did not drop the sapphire shield. She got her footing and she inhaled deeply through her nose as she once more looked at the Deltarune... She had the shield, now what? How could she reach Anthony with it in time? Max reached the entrance of the barn while she contemplated, but he dared not step inside its Darkness. Instead he loomed in the doorway, his shadow stretching out through the bit of Light that flooded in through that doorway and kept Mako visible just before a wall of Dark. "Mako, why do you have that? What are you gonna do?"
For a long moment, Mako didn't answer. She stared into that shield, and she searched her brain again for any possible solution. She didn't have superpowers, she couldn't teleport through time and space, she didn't have some big space ship. All Mako had was a history of hospitality, a life lived with mercy and friendliness that she believed many had desperately needed... She suddenly perked with a new idea, and her head whipped back towards the entrance her brother was standing in. She stomped hastily out of that Dark barn and back into the Light, and she answered while she walked past Max. "Everything I can!"
"Wha-? But-!" Max was at a loss for words, he lifted his hands like he was trying to grasp for some understanding while he turned to face his sister. Mako had stomped right out into the center of the driveway in front of him, but he didn't understand why. What did she hope to achieve, what was she trying to do? It frightened him, he didn't want her to somehow involve herself in this danger. Mako was his family, she was the most important thing in the world to him, and he would give anything to keep her safe. So when she threw that shield up high over her head and shouted to the sky, Max felt his heart drop into his shoes.
"GAAAASSSTEEEER!"
Badster knew his DoubleKid experiment would go off the rails into some insane stuff - in fact, he'd counted on it - but this was on an entirely new level. Anthony The Killer, killing a Seven Souled God. He figured things were about to get even more strange, the multiverse was about to get even more twisted up and turned on its head...
But, he did not feel comfortable with this. He should have, this was his mission. Had been since he first shook Anthony's hand, really since he pulled the first DoubleKid into this reality and twenty of his counterparts followed suit with twenty other children. And yet, as he stood on CORE Alphys' platform at the center of her Hollow Spire, he did not feel accomplished. He did not feel success... But instead, concern.
Was it for all the tiny screens? All the little timelines, full of panicking humans and monsters? Had he finally found some scrap of conscience again, after all this time? No, that couldn't be it. All those infinite masses, they were just numbers. Names and faces that he'd known and seen a billion times. Their panic didn't matter, because their well being was not of any value to him.
His own well being, then? Perhaps he feared for his own life in this Chaotic new world that The Killer promised? No, that couldn't be it. He'd lived the last three years just one slip up away from total annihilation. Even if The Killer did not see the same value in him that The Anarchist did and Badster was obliterated by that Dark god, it made no difference. His work was done, his mission was complete. His life, like those displayed on all the little screens surrounding the one large screen showing Anthony battling Errorphim, was of little consequence.
Then, perhaps... Was it, Anthony? Badster could see it as plain as everyone else, The Killer was a far cry from the quiet, motivated man that he'd taught carpentry. His master was an interesting man; honest to a fault with care placed in things that Badster almost never saw value in. It had gotten on the bad doctor's nerves on more than one occasion. Why would someone with such power withhold it? How was it that Anthony burdened himself with such responsibility? Badster couldn't understand it, and there was little in this life that Badster couldn't understand.
"... You should call me Anthony from now on."
Badster's sockets narrowed some while he stared into the pitch black and glowing red eyes of The Killer through that screen. For some reason, his thoughts drifted back to the concrete the two of them had laid to be the floor of Anthony's barn. The hand print Anthony had left while it was still wet... And the handprint Badster had left right beside it. With that in mind, Badster slowly lifted his right hand. He stared hesitantly into his hole punched palm, and he dared to ask the same question that Anthony had asked him nearly three years ago. ... Are we friends, Anthony?
"GAAAASSSTEEEER!"
Somehow, through all the noise of all those screens and all the sound made by two gods battling, something got through to Badster. A voice, a familiar one at that. It made him blink his sockets, it made him lift his head and look away from his hand. He glanced briefly to CORE! Alphys, but she was so busy sweating and clawing her couch while she stared at the battle unfolding that she hadn't noticed. So, Badster blinked again, and began looking back and forth.
"GASTER! ANSWER, PLEASE! I NEED YOUR HELP!"
Someone needed his help? That couldn't be right - Badster hadn't helped anyone other than Anthony in decades. It had to have been a different Gaster, right..? Badster had all but decided that was the case as his eyes scanned all those little screens, until his gaze settled on one in particular. Then, his sockets went wide, and he watched as Mako shook that shield over her head and screamed with desperate tears in her eyes.
"HIS SHIELD! ANTHONY NEEDS HIS SHIELD, I HAVE TO GIVE IT TO HIM! PLEASE, YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN GET ME TO HIM IN TIME!"
Slowly... Badster took a step towards that screen. His eyes narrowed a little, his brows furrowed and he tilted his skull to one side while he watched that little skeleton call for help. His help. There were tears in her eyes, but something about her looked brave. Brave? No, stupid. Badster should have thought she was an idiot. She was little and weak, she would be obliterated in an instant if she went to that timeline. The Killer probably wouldn't even recognize her. Still... Badster's eyes slowly glossed back to that main screen, and he found the image of his handprint beside Anthony's at the forefront of his mind again.
"HE'S YOUR FRIEND, ISN'T HE? WELL HE'S MINE TOO, SO PLEASE! LET ME HELP HIM, PLEASE!"
Badster remembered that day at the beach alright. He hadn't been shown KINDNESS like Mako's in a very long time, he couldn't remember the last time someone was so happy to see him. She had so effortlessly offered her friendship... And Badster had accepted it. Now, she was asking for his help. She needed his help. And, Anthony...
The letter. Lexi had made Anthony write a letter. In case he died, or... If he was 'going to go away', if he wouldn't ever see her or Angel or even Badster ever again... Gaster's entire life had been searching for knowledge. Disproving mystery, trying to learn anything and everything. And yet, as he felt a tremble in his hands and forced his fingers to curl in to form fists, doctor Wing Ding Gaster was certain he never wanted to know what Anthony had written on that paper.
Errorphim was painfully aware in that moment just how many times he'd thought "This can't be happening" in his lives. When his Frisk started killing his friends, when he ended up as that half melted zombie outside of his timeline, when he was trapped in the antivoid, when Character quite literally ripped him limb from limb... And now, here he was. Being dragged into the void by screaming children and laughed at by a mad god. And apparently, his subjugation was just beginning.
For a moment, with The Dark closing in all around him, Errorphim thought himself helpless once more. It was a feeling he was used to - he had been born weak, and Anthony had been born strong. Fear and cowardice felt like a part of Errorphim's DNA, and the desire to torment the fearful and the cowardly was most assuredly built into Anthony's DNA. All but his torso and head had been dragged into that wriggling black chaos now, and a dozen of those little hands had planted themselves on the sides of his head, pulling with all their might. But... There was more than just Error inside Errorphim. And somewhere deep inside him, seven human souls didn't want to die.
So, new Light cracked through the creeping Dark. Cyan, orange, blue, purple, green, yellow, and even red lightning cracked so suddenly out of Errorphim's chest that even Anthony recoiled. Those bolts fired past him, slicing clean through The Dark behind him and leaving seven streaks of Light illuminating the shadow. Then, Anthony's pitch black eyes and glowing red pupils darted down to the flashing power in Errorphim's ribcage.
DETERMINATION, JUSTICE, BRAVERY, PERSERVERANCE, INTEGRITY, KINDNESS and PATIENCE all decided in that moment that they didn't want The Killer to rule this reality either. So, seven Lights all flashed and flared and combined into a vibrating orb of crashing power between Errorphim's ribs. Then, just as Anthony's intrigued eyes started to narrow and his jaw started to clench in a frown, a wave of rainbow power blasted out of Errorphim's body and exploded right into the chest of The Killer!
The heat of that blast melted his flesh, the force of its impact ripped him back through the air and forced him to release Errorphim from his grip. The shining Light of those souls scorched The Dark and made its pitch black walls recede, it made those Ghoulings hiss and let go of Errorphim's body. The moment that they released him, Order's Mad God beat his wings and launched himself back up into a floating position. He clenched his fists at his sides, and his teeth ground in a furious grin while he kept that laser focused on the backwards skidding body of The Killer.
A torrent of white energy swirled around that mad god, even as his laser started to die down. Every now and again a crackle of soul colored electricity would flicker in that ivory power. The world was still almost entirely Dark, but Errorphim could see the ground beneath him. He could see a short perimeter around himself. And at the end of that perimeter, still smoking and laying flat on his back, was Anthony The Killer.
"... H-ha..! Haha! Well would you look at that!" Errorphim exclaimed with a shaky grin, trying to sound happy even though cold sweet was still on his brow bone. His breathing was still heavy, but Order's Mad God threw his arms out to his sides. His eyes went wide with glee and relief as he proclaimed. "Even these moody souls recognized you as filth, Killer! They'd rather me destroy everything than know that you'd live to torture this reality!"
That was certainly one theory, Anthony thought as he sat up with closed eyes. He tilted his head from one side to the other, made his neck pop while he dusted the smoldering soot of his own obliterated flesh off of his already regenerated chest. His theory, however, was that the souls just wanted to prolong the fight. Like most of the little ants watching at home, they probably didn't want to see him or Errorphim win. They were hoping, praying for a third option. A hero to swoop in at the eleventh hour... Anthony smiled, and he opened his glowing red eyes. But nobody came.
"It doesn't matter who's side they're on - all eight of you are gonna die." Anthony assured as he got one knee under himself, planting his hand in the sands at his feet. Errorphim narrowed his eyes - The Killer was a red eyed shadow lurking just barely in his line of vision. A creeping Dark death, just waiting to emerge... Order's Mad God couldn't be sure the souls were going to bail him out like that again, he didn't know if they could. So he clenched his jaw and he stood spring loaded while he watched that smiling shadow rise to its feet and throw its arms out to its sides. "There's a Killer in town now Errorphim, and not even you have the power to get rid'a me!"
Anthony wasn't too happy about the souls interrupting his kill blow, and he figured that meant it was time to stop playing with his food. Kill Errorphim, and then what? Should he kill the other members of the Fortune City Four? Didn't really sound all that fun to slaughter them in their sleep, maybe it'd be better to wait until they were strong enough to try and fight him. The evacuation zone, then? Maybe just send some Wyrms there, figure out who's strong enough to survive that and let them try and live in The Dark for awhile. In fact, he would probably start sending worms and Wyrms everywhere. Darkness was everywhere, the void was limitless. So, he'd probably give The Dark the go ahead to go on a multiverse wide rampage. Worlds going Dark left and right, everyone alive scrambling to survive... It'd make this whole reality just a little bit more like Fortune City. Yeah, that sounded nice.
So, Anthony The Killer summoned the wicked metal of his Inheritance in his grasp again. Why had he waited so long to let this power loose, again? Oh well, it hardly mattered. Besides, it felt right now. He put one foot in front of the other, sand crumbled to code with his touch. There was something bugging him, a nagging discomfort somewhere in his soul. It was little, probably nothing. He only really felt it when he thought about what he was going to do after destroying Errorphim... Probably a sign to focus on what's in front of him. The Killer was certain he could never lose, but he still probably shouldn't be counting his chickens before they hatch. Yeah, that was it. That worried feeling would disappear the moment his challenger died, The Killer was certain.
Errorphim watched carefully as that abomination started to saunter towards him. He had to be ready this time, he couldn't slip up again. This time, he would obliterate that wretched Killer and all those who sought to oppose him. He opened his palms, and white Light crackled between his fingers. Either The Dark was getting ERASED or the Light was getting put out, but one way or another a god was gonna die tonight. Not one person could stop that, Errorphim was cert-
"ANTHONNYYYYY!"
... Who the fuck was that?
Errorphim's eyes glossed to his left, his browbones furrowed at the sight of another little Light in The Dark. He followed that desperate scream all the way across the glassed, crumbling sand, and when he spotted a little skeleton in a blue wig of all things, his jaw dropped some. A monster? And a tiny one, at that! Not to mention the fact that she didn't look natural. A glitch of some kind? Made sense that she'd have some association to these wretched DoubleKids, then. But what on earth was she doing here, interrupting the most important battle to ever happen?!
Even though he was the one being called out to, Anthony looked twice as appalled as Errorphim. His eyes widened slowly, and in an instant that little ache in his heart ignited in a burning, shame filled inferno. His entire body had paused, for just a moment his brain short-circuited. The second coming of a god of Darkness, and he was brought to a screeching halt by... By..! Under his breath, Anthony whispered the answer to himself as he slowly turned his head to his right. "... Mako..?"
"Anthony, you don't have to do this alone! I'm here for you!" Mako The Skeleton, alone in The Dark with Order's Mad God and Chaos Incarnate, did not hesitate to shout. Even though all she had was the dim white glow coming off her bones and all she could see of her friend was those glowing red eyes and that ghastly shadowed shape, she still stared into those ruthless Killer eyes and threw that blue shield up over her head with both hands while she proclaimed. "Look, I brought your shield!"
Anthony's wide eyes glossed away from Mako then, it felt to him that the entire world was moving in slow motion. And he watched as Errorphim scowled, starting to lift a hand. Who was this annoying interloper? How had she even gotten here? Well, the mad god decided it didn't matter. If she intended to assist The Killer, then Errorphim would obliterate her. As ivory Light started to flash in Errorphim's hand, Anthony's burning red pupils shrunk with terror, and his head turned back towards Mako.
Mako's sockets went wide when burning Light ignited in The Dark, and her head whipped to look from Anthony to Errorphim. Yeesh, that guy definitely looked scarier in person. She'd been so focused on calling out to Anthony, she hardly even noticed the mad god her friend had been staring down. She'd needed to try, she hadn't had time to worry about the danger. She knew she was fragile, she knew she could be destroyed walking this devasted, Dark plain. So, when she watched a beam of Errorphim's ERASURE fire out towards her at a speed she could hardly comprehend, she knew it was over. She was dead, and she didn't even have time to think about what that meant.
FLASH!
Death didn't really feel like much. Kinda just felt like running into a wall, and then falling backwards forever. Well... That didn't exactly go as planned. But, Mako figured it really wasn't much of a plan. Grab a shield, teleport to the most dangerous place in the multiverse, and then scream and wave the thing around? Yeah, that was probably dumb. But, it was all she could do. Try to reach out, try to help someone she thought needed it, and hope it would have an impact. Maybe her death would give Anthony some clarity, maybe without her around to look after Max would be able to pursue a successful life on his own. Mako hoped they wouldn't be too sad without her around... Look at you, Mako. So worried about everyone else when you're the one who's dying. Ha... Maybe some people really can't change.
"Nng..! Fuckin'..!"
Mako peaked a socket open when she heard that. At first, she saw about what she expected. A white void in seemingly every direction. But, then she tilted her head down, and the both of her eyes widened when she saw who was shading her from this Light. Anthony The Anarchist, one arm wrapped around her to keep her from falling into the crashing white death and the other holding up the sapphire shield she had brought him. That shield withstood the roaring ERASURE engulfing them, it cast a protective Darkness over Anthony and Mako and it assured that neither of them were wiped from existence.
"A-... Anthony..?" Mako managed to stammer as the Light around them started to die down. She blinked her wide eyes a few times as she looked at him, pitch black sclera and glowing red pupils. Stained with blood and soot and death, but protecting her nonetheless. It was so sudden that it jarred her; one second she's about to be obliterated by a wave of Light twice her size and the next she's safe in The Dark, held like she was weightless in just one of Anarchy's arms. Her head was spinning so much that she asked an admittedly dumb question. "You're, here..?"
"... Of course I'm here." Anthony answered eventually, but he'd needed to hesitate and think before hand. Why was he here, exactly? A moment ago, he was certain that everyone who wasn't him could die horribly and that it would be amusing to him. But, the moment he saw that Mako was in danger... It felt like sense was returning to Anthony, and he narrowed his eyes with quiet shame while he remembered all the happy memories he had seen on that dusty TV screen. It felt like he had forgotten all of it until just now... His eyes lifted, and he looked back to Mako while he explained himself. "You needed me."
As that Light was finishing its dissipation, Mako blinked in awe of Anthony's response. After a few moments of staring up at him, she looked to her own hands. She watched the way that her bones glowed gently in Anthony's Darkness, and the way The Dark didn't react. It didn't squirm or scream or try to put her out... That wave of ERASURE faded away, and Anthony set Mako down on her butt while he knelt in front of her, one side facing her and the other facing the shield he still held up to protect her. He shook his head and tried to refocus on the danger at hand, gesturing to her furiously with his now free hand and interrupting her contemplation by exclaiming, "But, that doesn't matter! What are you doing here?! Do you have any idea how dangerous-?!"
Mako's eyes locked on to the hand Anthony had extended, and though there was blood under his fingernails and his skin was covered with dirt and sand, her own pure unsoiled hands shot up and grabbed ahold of his. This sudden motion made Anthony's eyebrows furrow, he recoiled a little as he looked to the hand Mako was holding in both of hers. Then, with the whites of his eyes still black and his pupils still that eerie red, he looked back into Mako's eye sockets and witnessed the shining magenta of her own pupils. She dared to ask, "Does it burn?"
"Huh..? Well, it..." Anthony furrowed his brows, and with Mako he looked back to the hand she was holding. The dull glow of her boney fingers reflected on his pale white skin, but... It was warm. Pleasant, even. Calming... Anthony blinked slowly, and when he did twin black tears thoughtlessly escaped the both of his eyes. Those tears trickled down his cheeks and cupped his face with perfect symmetry, and when he looked up at Mako again she saw that his sclera had returned to its original white color. "... No. It's, warm..."
Mako smiled at Anthony's answer, she felt tears welling up in her own eye sockets. All around them, The Dark was receding. More of this dead world was being revealed, that black blanket was pulling back away to reveal the smoldering sands and the crumbling code. The sky was still made up of horrific glitched faces, but they weren't cackling so loudly anymore. just a little giggle, like they were endeared by something. Behind Mako, that lake of Darkness still stretched. And somewhere out across the sands, The Angel, The Predator, and The Gatherer all still laid defeated.
Lips parted and frowning, Frisk leaned forward and squinted at that screen. They were trying to understand just what was going on, a moment ago they were sure they'd won and now..! Why was The Dark receding, why wasn't Anthony destroying that little blue haired thing?! Frisk's fingers wrapped tight around the bars trapping them, and they snarled more to themself than to the quiet worms now resting in The Dark around them.
"And who the fuck is she?!"
Mako would have liked to have had a speech prepared, but she couldn't think of anything meaningful to say. The fact of the matter was, all of this was far beyond her. She couldn't understand what it was like to be born a Killer, so she just squeezed Anthony's hand in hers and hoped it would be enough. She didn't know what it meant to wield incredible power, all she knew was modest and humble and small. Still... Here she was. At the end of the world, holding a god's hand in her own, bringing the battle for the fate of the multiverse to a screeching halt. So, even though she didn't have the right words to inspire those stronger than her and she didn't have any power to lend, she looked to Anthony with forgiveness and care in her eyes and she hoped that would amount to something.
Truth was, Mako didn't really need to say anything. Anarchy knew why she was here, he saw the worry on her face when she first arrived and the relief after he saved her. She saw that he was slipping away, and she came to save him... Not many people had done that for Anthony before. Mako had rushed to an almost totally certain death just to help him, even after he left her behind to kill Angel. Even though he'd turned back, tried to pursue the death and devastation that she was hoping he'd never return to... Anthony's fingers carefully curled, and he held Mako's hands in his own while he spoke over a shameful lump in his throat. "... I'm sorry, Mako. I thought I would be able to control myself, but I..."
"It's okay, Anthony." Mako didn't hesitate to say, and Anthony lifted his hanging head some when her hands pulled free of his own, only to take hold of his cheeks instead. Mako smiled at his surprised expression, and she blinked away some of the relieved tears filling her eye sockets. She could see it plenty clear now, the harmless lumberjack she'd come to know. Her thumb ran along the scar that curved up the underside of Anthony's chin and onto his jawline, she'd never seen it before. Must've been hidden under the beard he recently shaved. Her voice was a little shaky too, but still she assured. "Whether it's Light or Dark, you never have to face it alone, okay? I'm here for you, you'll always have the support of the people who love you."
"... Love... Me..?" Anthony's eyes widened slowly. His hand carefully reached up, rested over the hand Mako had put over his jawline scar. And again, his thoughts drew back to the umbrella Lexi had used to protect him from Errorphim's vicious rain. The flames Xander had breathed to protect him from Errorphim's armies, the wings Angel had used to carry him through Errorphim's assault. And now... The shield Mako had given back to him, so that he may protect himself and those that he cared about. Mako smiled knowingly, nodding her head while she saw the recognition start to appear in Anthony stunned expression. Then, The Anarchist shut his scarlet eyes and took a deep breath. He allowed himself a moment to contemplate what all of this meant to him... Then, his eyes reopened, burning with DETERMINATION. "... Alright, lets do this."
Maybe Errorphim should have capitalized on the little moment The Killer was having with that skeleton, but frankly things started getting better for him the moment she showed up. The world wasn't pitch black anymore, and Anthony seemed to have relaxed right with The Darkness. Errorphim wouldn't admit it out loud or internally, but he didn't much like his odds against The Killer. The Dark was wearing down on him, killing him slowly... But The Anarchist? Errorphim smiled as he watched that Ghoul stand with his shield finally back on his arm. The Anarchist I can handle.
"Having second thoughts about accepting your immortality?" Errorphim crossed his arms over his chest, sneering as Anarchy turned those burning red eyes over his shoulder to him. With his wings spread wide behind him, Order's Mad God was floating a few inches off the ground again. As though he was too good for the ground, as though he hadn't been kneeling in the dirt basically begging for his life just minutes ago. Errorphim exhaled white mist through his teeth, and his sockets narrowed with lethal precision while he went on. "I'll make sure this reality forgets all about you after I destroy you."
Anthony's eyes narrowed some while he listened to Errorphim's words, but the corner of his mouth curled up some. What was that thing Nephilim had said? Hoping that this multiverse could forget and move on from people like him and Errorphim... Yeah, that sounded alright. But, for now, he had a god to kill. So, he turned to face Order's Mad God again. With Mako behind him, he held one of her hands in his and rose his shield on his free arm.
Mako peaked out slowly from behind The Anarchist. With skeptical magenta eyes she looked into the face of Order's Mad God, and when Errorphim's eyes darted over to her she flinched. He smiled wider at that, and then Anthony shifted his footing, putting himself even more so between her and Errorphim. Mako gulped quietly, but in spite of the cold sweat on her forehead she didn't let go of Anthony's hand. She said she was here for him, and she meant it. Even if it meant she had to stare down a god with him. Still, she felt she should admit. "... A-Anthony, I'm scared."
Anthony's eyes narrowed a little when he heard that, Errorphim watched his frown deepen. But, he didn't let go of Mako's hand either. Instead, he slowly inhaled a deep breath through his nostrils. Then, he exhaled slowly in the same manner. Scarlet flames ignited over his left eye as his expression intensified, and he lifted that shield higher. Errorphim could only see his furious glare while he answered Mako with a voice that was both gentle and resolute. "You don't have anything to be afraid of, Mako."
Mako's brows furrowed a little, before rising with a red updraft. Scarlet light ignited around herself and The Anarchist, an updraft of DETERMINATION was rising around the both of them. A scarlet pillar was rising high into the sky, but... There was no crash, there was no storm. The world didn't react, either because it was already dead or because it wasn't frightened. And Mako could feel the heat of The Anarchist's soul, for a moment she was worried it would melt and destroy her. Monsters couldn't handle DETERMINATION like his, they couldn't handle malice like Anthony's. But no burn came. Instead, standing with him in that crimson tower, Mako The Skeleton felt warm. Comforted, even. Safe...
Her eyes drifted up from her hand in his, and she looked to Anarchy's scarred back. His skin was tinted scarlet in this light, so were her bones. His hair, tinted in the same way, lifted gradually in the heated winds to point upwards. Mako smiled a little when she looked up and saw that her own blue hair was lifting in the same way, but Anthony giving her hand a gentle squeeze drew her eyes back to him. Behind the two of them, that black lake was bubbling. The waters were rumbling quietly, before the surface split. Twin serpent heads rose up behind the both of them, the massive heads of Anarchy's Wyrms were accompanied by dozens of the smaller, eyeless and grinning worms slithering up onto the shore. And all those abominations had their focus settled right with their master, they all had a single goal that Anthony The Anarchist didn't hesitate to share.
"We won't let anybody hurt you."
I fuckin' hate the rain. Hate wet grass too, and backyards and broken bones and busted deck railings and cloudy skies and above all else I fuckin' hate Fortune City. But, lo and behold, there I was again. Flat on my back in soggy grass, gettin' drenched under sheet after sheet of cold ass rain. I was pretty sure in that moment that I never actually left. Who knows, maybe that whole Undertale thing was a hallucination brought on by Killer beating me within an inch of my life.
But, when I lifted up my left arm and got a look at the scarlet scars running up it, I knew that wasn't true. I sighed, and it created white fog in the cold. Then, I sat up. Looked over Granny's backyard, noted the fence gate that glitched between open and closed, and then looked back up to the broken railing that I'd tumbled over to end up in the grass in the first place. I died here, y'know. It was no wonder I never left.
Begrudgingly I climbed up to my feet, before looking down at myself. Clothes were still shredded from fighting Errorphim. I reached up, running my fingers along the scar Chara left in my chest... When I finally decided to make my way up onto the deck, I didn't bother climbing through the hole in the railing. Wasn't in a hurry. For once I took the steps, they creaked a few times under my weight. I was heavier now than I was last time I used them. No point in climbing through the railing, didn't wanna risk making the problem worse now that I finally understood I couldn't fix it.
I wandered up the steps. My hair drooped down onto my face, it dripped more water down my nose and cheeks. Inevitably, my heavy feet dragged me to that sliding glass door. My eyes reflected green and red as I lifted my stare to peer through the glass. There was Granny, sitting in her chair in the living room. Ignoring me... My eyes glossed to the door handle then, and I squinted... Before sighing. "... What's the point?"
It was always locked, I wasn't allowed back inside. Come back to the backyard that I died in all the time, but the house I lived in was off limits. I was never strong enough to pull the door open, and I knew I didn't have the strength to yank it open now. So, defeated, I turned around and fell back against the door. My Deltarune brand pressed against the glass while I slowly slid down, eventually sitting on the wood deck with my back against the door. My eyes narrowed painfully, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, pulling them up to my chest. I lowered my head when lightning streaked across the sky, casting an imposing shadow off my body and into that home just before the glass went totally dark.
"... Y'know, sometimes it feels like ever since you died, I've just been waiting to see you again." I confessed, even though I knew she wasn't listening. My tired eyes watched water droplets build on the surface of the wooden deck before me before inevitably slipping down through the cracks between planks and disappearing into the darkness below. "It's like some part of me believes that if I do enough good, if I help enough people and keep trying to be better, that somehow..."
My hands gripped the knees of my pants, I clenched my eyes shut and lowered my head to try and steady that tremble in my voice. But it was no use, that lump only got heavier in my throat while I went on. "It's stupid... You're not coming back, and now Lexi and Xander are hurt. Chara's gone, Anny is..."
My fingers curled into the fabric of my pants, I buried my face in my knees and I tried to hide from the world. The pouring rain, the glitching fence, that black glass behind me. I was so tired of coming back to this place, again and again and again. Felt like I was tired of most things these days. Tremors started to run through my body while I clenched my hands tighter and buried my head deeper, I knew what came next. "Karma, right..? Yeah, I guess thinking I could make up for everything was stupid too..."
There wasn't much point in sitting here much longer. Granny wasn't gonna let me in, and as soon as I lifted my head somebody was gonna die. That's always how these visits ended, and I was so sure that's where things were going that I didn't really notice the rain stop. I didn't notice the wood planks turn to woodchips under me, and I didn't really notice how quiet things were until the forth or fifth creeeaakk.
"Hm..?" Slowly, skeptically, I started to lift my head. I squinted my eyes, blinked away some water and some tears, and then realized I was looking out at the playground again. My eyebrows furrowed, and I glanced hastily over the both of my shoulders. No house behind me, no backyard. Just a playground, a swing set... And a little albino boy sitting on those swings with his back to me. "Anny..?"
It took some effort, but I pushed my hands into the woodchips and shoved myself slowly up to my feet. Then, tilting my head and furrowing my brows with visible confusion, I started to put one foot in front of the other. Those woodchips crunched under my weight, it took me less time to cross the playground than I remembered. Made sense, my legs were longer now. I was bigger now, admittedly probably too big for this place...
"This isn't..." I mumbled more to myself than Anny as I stepped up beside the swing he sat on. I turned my head, let my eyes gloss over the space I was standing in. Coulda swore the jungle gym had more rust on it, and that slide's color looked a little more faded in my memories... My eyes glossed back over to Anny; now that I was by his side, I could see that he was holding a flower between his pure ivory fingers. It was a dahlia flower, its bloom of deep purple and blue petals spun slowly as Anny carefully rolled its stem between his fingers. I stood in silent contemplation of this peculiar behavior for a moment, before finally opening my mouth to speak again. "... What are we doing here, Anny?"
"I brought us here." Anny's voice answered me, and I was honestly a little surprised that his words were so straight forward or that I even heard them at all. I was still half-waiting for something to jolt me out of this place, that's always how it ended when I woke up in Granny's backyard. But nothing like that came, and instead I watched Anny lift his head and look out across the playground with those bright red eyes. "I grew up here. Guess I just wanted to see it one last time."
"Grew up here..?" I squinted suspiciously at that - it was weird phrasing. Regardless I lifted my head and followed Anny's gaze, all the way to the fence at the far side of the playground. Now, when me n' Anny spent our days here, that fence was always overgrown with grass and bramble. The trees on the other side were thick and leafy, it was impossible to see to the other side. But now that bramble was gone, the foliage was smaller and younger. So unblemished was the chain link that for the first time in my life I realized there was a gate on that end of the playground too, and when I saw what was on the other side of it I immediately knew why me and Anny were the only kids who ever visited this place.
A path stretched through the smaller trees, up over a hill and all the way to the backyard of a large house at the top of the hill. Not just any large house, either. An orphanage. I almost didn't recognize it without the boarded up windows and faded police tape. See, Fortune City only ever had one orphanage, and all the people who lived anywhere near it were slaughtered one long night years before I was born. My lips moved slowly while my shrunken pupils stared, and I barely whispered. "... Dead Street..."
"Right over there." There was a little smile on Anny's lips as he lifted his hand and pointed one tiny finger right up at that orphanage, I thought he looked a little nostalgic. He went on while he looked over the old (or, newer than I remembered it) building thoughtfully, "That's where I spent my childhood. Those were good times, I think. But, eventually I grew up, and it was time to leave that place behind."
I listened to those words quietly, furrowing my brows and narrowing my eyes. I turned my head slowly from one side to the other, and I scanned the playground again. I wasn't sure I'd seen any place in Fortune City look so new, certainly not on this side of the fence anyway. I quietly put a few puzzle pieces together in my head, before glancing skeptically back to the little albino boy sitting on the swing.
"Growing up is a funny thing, huh Angel?" Anny turned his head towards me and he looked up at me with that small, knowing smile. His gentle voice went on, even as he watched the way I squinted at him. "You spend all that time trying to race to the end, and as soon as you get there all you can think about is where you started. But I guess you'd know a lot about that, huh?"
For a few long moments, I stood there in silence. Staring down at his face, examining his features closer than I had before. he stared right back up at me with patience and without worry. Maybe he thought I was contemplating his words, but when I finally spoke I proved that there was something else on my mind. "... Your hair is straight."
Anny's eyebrows rose a little when he heard me say that, before furrowing. He tilted his head innocently, like he hadn't the slightest idea what I was talking about. He didn't flinch when I reached out and grabbed a lock of his ivory hair, just kept spinning that dahlia flower. If I was a florist, I might have known that specific breed of dahlia flower was known as a "Miss Delilah". It was mutated though, Miss Delilahs were supposed to be a brighter color. Anny's eyes glossed back from my fistful of his hair to me, and he arched a brow. "Hm?"
"Your hair is straight." I reiterated, hardly loosening my grip on the albino's hair. My free hand had clenched into a tight, trembling fist. My teeth ground together with the anger that my discovery brought, but Anny wasn't phased, even as I explained. "Anny's hair was wavy and kinda curly when he was a kid."
"... That's true." The little albino boy on the swing smiled, but it wasn't the smile I recognized from little Anny. There was no purity, no KINDNESS, no care. His half lidded eyes glowed red as he stared fearlessly into my emerald glare, and he stopped spinning that flower between his fingers. "He inherited it from his mother."
"..." The corner of my mouth peeled back, baring my teeth in a snarl. Not letting go of his hair and braving that kid's creepy stare, I came to a conclusion about three years late. "You're not Anthony."
Apparently, that was all I had to say. The moment those words left my mouth, the shape of that boy shifted. His body shimmered as it changed, like he was some mirage. A fake vision, imaginary water in the desert. And when that shimmer faded and the mirage disappeared, I was still holding a handful of white hair alright. But I had to reach higher to hold onto it. Red eyes still stared back at me, but a white goatee surrounded that creepy smile. The Killer sat on that swing before me, holding a delilah in one hand and the swing's chain in the other. And he smiled a little wider, revealed his sharpened Ghoul fangs while he confirmed sarcastically.
"Took you long enough."
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