Objective: Go to the Fan Room

Antasma exited the vents and into an unfamiliar part of the ship, it had to be somewhere around the upper levels since he had had to crawl up the shaft to reach where his marker guided him.

The room he was currently in was gray and dark in coloration with metal pipes and various pumps that kept whatever went through those pipes flowing, a complete contrast to the white obnoxious neon rooms that he had grown used to ever since waking up on this ship.

This place had to be a maintenance room, or at least one of them judging by the massive size of this ship, it had to be expensive to build a vessel of this size, let alone maintain it.

Antasma noticed a door at the end of the room, conveniently labeled as the fan room and already opened. He could feel strong gusts of air blowing through the entryway as white light shone through the doorway. He squinted at the convenience, this had to be another trap right? Was Dreambert even trying anymore? Or was he just insulting his intelligence?

Antasma scowled at the supposed trap, what was even more frustrating was that there wasn't any way to avoid the trigger point, or to at least avoid whatever the stupid Pi'illo had set up, the rooms he got put in were all completely linear and boxy, there were no workarounds and he was just genuinely pissed at how much the Pi'illo prince wanted to embarrass him, even if it was just for his own entertainment.

He snarled, he didn't have a choice, so he'd have to just punch the hell out of whatever was going to spawn in and defy him.

Slowly, he approached the doorway in anticipation. He knew it was going to snap close at any minute and he'd have to face whatever was going to spawn in the maintenance room. It was most likely just going to be a bunch of foot soldiers, Futuristic Pi'illodium, and maybe a couple of Laughtron, but he'd just beat it all the same.

He was now in front of the entryway, surprised that it hadn't been sealed yet. The doorway was still open, its gaping maw beckoning him to pass through as he glanced behind the room. No way Dreambert didn't plant anything here. No trap? No secret explosive? No nothing? Did he open the door just to troll him and wasn't actually planning anything?

Antasma felt his eye twitch, he'd have to find out once he'd try to go through, so he faced the door once again, held his breath, and…

…

…

….

He passed through with no issue.

…

Antasma could feel his rage tearing at the seams, he was so furious that he began to silently choke on his own anger.

How dared he, how dared that stupid Pi'illo mock him for the millionth time, how dared he drag him away from his sweet endgame just so he could place him on his pedestal and bully him for his own personal entertainment?! Everything was fine for him while he was dead, he was just beginning to grasp the concept of happiness for once, only for that plush demon to snatch it away, HOW DARED HE. This was no longer a matter of pride or glory, or even vengeance. This was a matter of contempt.

Antasma could feel his palm bleeding as he clenched his shaking fist, it was taking everything within him to not make any verbal sound of anger as he didn't want to feed the Pi'illo anymore of his emotions. He knew that Dreambert was watching him and preying on his breaking point. He quietly snarled with distaste, somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that Dreambert had more planned for him than just a cheap joke, but he couldn't fathom at the unbearable foolery that the Pi'illo made of him. He would not let this go, he wouldn't let any other attempts go, he wouldn't let Dreambert go this time.

He shut his eyes tightly and breathed deeply, his anger starting to crack through his carefully and meticulously kept image. The lining lights on his armor were beginning to shift into blood red from his emotions as his magic started to fluctuate towards his rage. He couldn't contain it, but he'd have to, for now.

He felt the rage slowly seep out of his bloodstream as he opened his eyes, he'd have to focus on the current task aforementioned by his objective, which had now updated to a more interesting one.

Objective: Find Subject - DI22y and Extract the Module Chip

He sighed, another villain for him to kill, hooray. He rubbed and cracked his neck, he supposed that he had to get on with it then.

He glanced up and had to physically blink for a moment...before realizing the absolute fuckery of a "room" he was in. The Fan Room was beyond gigantic, this place looked like a completely different dimension, it was filled with hundreds of titanic sized hanging rotating fan blades and various floating maintenance platforms that glided about the place. If he compared this area to the previous places that he'd been, It looked absurdly huge and stupidly inconvenient, there was no way this ship needed this large of a fan room to keep the air flowing. The vents themselves weren't even that big. He peeked over the balcony that he was standing on and noticed that he couldn't see the bottom. Even with his advanced sight, the darkness of the chasm ate up the surrounding lights of the bright room and veiled the endless pit of its contents. He glanced upwards and received the same results. There were no visible platforms that he could use to move about the area, so it looked like he'd have to fly.

He stretched body and attempted to transform into his bat form. He wasn't sure how he was going to fight the villain in that tiny body, but he'd figure something out.

He ordered his magic to change his form… waited…and waited…and waited, until he realized that nothing was happening, he scowled, what was going on? Why couldn't he change forms?

He snapped his fingers, clapped his hands, and even tried cracking his knuckles…yeah he didn't know why he decided to crack his knuckles, he just felt like it.

Either way, one thing remained clear. He couldn't switch forms. Antasma snarled with seething anger, was it the cybernetics that were preventing him to? The hunking metal that was embedded into his body, dragging him, restricting him, had now chained his body from the freedom of freeform?

Antasma started to shake again, first, Dreambert mocked and berated him for things he couldn't control and now, he took away the only thing that he could control?

All of the previous messages that he drilled into his brain had now been defenestrated. He grabbed the railing of the balcony and ripped it from the holder, then proceeded to toss it up into the air and punch the torn up metal as hard as he could. A loud bang could be heard as his fist collided with the bent railing and he launched the steel into the abyss below. He watched as the holder disappeared into the darkness, the object may have faced his rage but he was not satiated. He wouldn't be satiated until he punched that damn Pi'illo in the face.

He exhaled once more and regained his senses. He couldn't fly in his current form. Despite the fact that he was floating, his elevation depended on the ground he was standing on, so if the platform gave out underneath him, he would fall like normal.

Antasma scratched his head. There had to be some sort of flight function to his gear, there was no way he wasn't equipped with any of that. If he was supposed to be a pure war weapon, then he definitely had at least some sort of aerial booster. Antasma began fiddling around his cybernetics again, he wasn't going to be clawing his armor this time, lest he actually penetrate something vital, so he just started pressing random spots…until a new notification box popped up on the bottom right.

Tip: To engage the Flight System, think the word "Jetstriker"

Antasma felt his eye twitch, that is an incredibly specific phrase that he needs to remember. Not to mention the function was thought triggered, not intention triggered, which was a flawed design since there may be times when his thoughts may not be coherent enough to form the phrase. Nevertheless, he'd deal with it.

However, the moment he thought the word, he felt something slither and form a heavy weight on his back as he felt six new appendages extend from his rhomboids. He glanced back and was promptly shocked at the glowing bat wings that sprouted out. The wings were quite beautiful, mesmerizing even, he watched his magic pulse through the neon lined propatagium and thought back to his original set, this one easily out classed the other purely through its advanced functions.

Perhaps this life isn't so bad after all.

He poked and prodded the wings, it felt strangely leathery and natural, and despite not being made from the same material, it certainly mimicked the effect quite well. But what was interesting was that he could feel himself touching the wings as if it was connected to him and not just extensions that let him fly.

And that was even more interesting considering that there were six of them. He certainly didn't need six to fly, but whoever designed his armor added those anyways, talk about simplicity.

He shook his head and refocused on his mission to find this…Subject - DI22y.

He glanced over the balcony as he stretched his wings, it had been a while since he had flown, he wasn't sure if he remembered but he'd relearn it soon enough.

So with a deep breath, he launched forward and plunged.

At first he panicked, he was falling and didn't have any type of leverage to hold him from falling into the void, until he remembered that he in fact, had six gigantic wings. He squinted in concentration and spread them with ease, the moment he began hovering in place, is when it all came back to him. The air pressure, the wind direction, and the way he flapped his wings. It all came back, as quick as that. He immediately felt silly that he had even felt an ounce of fear from the experience, this was something he had done almost everyday in his thousand years old life, and just because he hadn't flown for…a couple of years? He shouldn't have been this afraid of doing it again, especially now that he had the opportunity.

He glanced up towards the floating platforms, he'd supposed that he would get back to it then. He could feel additional jets keeping him hovering other than his wings, perhaps the phrase fit it in a way, but really, he couldn't care less.

Antasma cracked his neck and flew back to the platforms, he landed on one of the moving structures and scoured the area. There was a large red button located in the middle of the place, its glow seemed to be beckoning him to press the activator. He stared at it with a poker face, this one was probably a trap, or maybe not. He didn't know, he couldn't tell anymore. Everything looked the same, this entire ship was a war machine, everything was the same.

He groaned, whatever, he'd deal with it, just as he always had.

He floated towards the device and pressed it, he was absolutely not shocked when forcefields spawned around the platforms as a small squad of Futuristic Pi'illodium and a couple of Laughtron spawned, he was so exhausted.

After he flicked the remnants of the battle off from his claws, he proceeded towards the next platform and the same event repeated.

There were only four of those that had a button, and once he was done with all four, an antenna rose from each and began emitting some sort of electromagnetic wave, as if it was charging up for something. He watched as the energy suddenly burst from the rod and created some sort of..portal?

Antasma cocked his head to the side, what in the? Why was there a gateway to another dimension in the Fan Room? He physically stuck his lower jaw out, at the incomprehensible logic.

But before he could even take flight, a burst of laser suddenly shot out from the portal and nailed him right in the chest.

Antasma screeched in surprise as he was shot off from the platform, he deployed his wings in rapid speed as he kept himself airborne.

Then someone emerged from the portal, Antasma's eyes widened in shock as his system scanned the personnel.

It was Dimentio, or as his files also called him, Subject - DI22y.

He knew this guy, he had met the jester on several occasions, or rather the jester had met him on several occasions since he was a social recluse. The man had an over-gregarious personality that he simply did not share, he wasn't even sure why Dimentio was so happy about being in hell all the time, but he had become acquaintances with the jester since the little man kept tugging at his nerves whenever he left his cave.

However the man that he saw now was only a shell of the former soul that he had met in his afterlife, the jester had his head hung low as he twitched uncontrollably, Antasma couldn't see his face, but he could see the new additions that they'd implanted into him. The most notable thing about him was that his right arm was replaced with a large blade that was pulsing with his magic. He knew Dimentio had magic, he even called himself the Charming Magician, which was a cute name. But now the magician wasn't so charming anymore.

The rest of the jester's body wasn't looking so hot either, his legs and upper torso were encased with a cybernetic that looked similar to his, but much less refined. It had a lighter shade of metal, his usual yellow and purple harlequin outfit was missing, only a few strands of the poncho seemed to have stuck around his waist, the only part of his original clothing that wasn't gone was the yellow gem that was embedded into his chest. Antasma recognized it to be the one on his collar, he must have worn it when he died.

But now…that was not the case, Dimentio floated silently in the air as he continued to twitch, completely ignoring Antasma as he pondered on what he should do, should he approach him? Say something? Perhaps he would say something. After all, they did meet on somewhat of a good term, perhaps he could convince him into joining his quest, Dimentio wasn't a stranger to destruction, in fact he heavily suspected that he may have been a literal god at one point.

So he hovered closer towards the jester and cleared his throat.

However, just as he was about to say something, Dimentio suddenly snapped his head up and pierced his yellow eye directly at him, Antasma was startled at sudden movement. He moved back slightly as the jester kept his death gaze on him.

Dimentio looked like he would have fared better, compared to the first villain he had fought, he looked a lot less…infected, but that insanity didn't seem to leave at all. A part of his face was replaced with the same steel as the design of the armor looked a lot like Antasma's, but instead of it being on his jaw, it was around his temple. His right eye was missing, as per usual, his right eye was never there. But this time a black tube was dangling from the eye socket, as if it were suggesting that he had his left eye replaced before he tore it out again. His jester hat was fortunately untouched, however he looked just as filthy as Antasma did. Both parties spot an equal amount of green blood and mechanical grease.

But what actually scared him wasn't Dimentio's appearance, it was his expression.

Dimentio looked absolutely furious , beyond madness, Antasma never saw him this angry before. In fact, he had never seen Dimentio being angry, the way the jester's face twist ed alongside his fury was absolutely sickening .

What did Dreambert do to him?

However he never got an answer from that, as the jester only breathed out one word.

"YOU…"

He barely managed to parry the slash as Dimentio rushed at him with his blade outstretched, aiming it directly at his heart.

"Dimentio, STOP!" Antasma screeched as he barrelled away from the raging jester, he didn't know what had happened during the period that Dimentio was here, but clearly, they screwed him over badly.

Dimentio didn't seem to hear him as he sent a burst of rippling dimensional magic that he barely dodged. It seemed like that was the source of that laser beam. Antasma twitched his eye as Dimentio suddenly teleported in front of him and brought down another slash, it seemed like despite all of the cybernetics that were keeping him alive, he still had enough magic at his disposal. Antasma was sorely outclassed by the jester's power, mainly because he couldn't use his power at all.

However that didn't mean that his own arsenal wasn't present either, he parried, blocked, and dodged Dimentio's attacks while he dispensed out several variations of his Burning Thunder module that did numbers on the uncharming magician.

Antasma sucked in his teeth as another blast hit him square in the chest, he was pretty sure that Dimentio's aggressive behavior wasn't his own fault, however, the possibility of him betraying him, especially when he had attacked him before he had shown his face , was hitting too close to home for him.

Did he have some sort of agreement, or was he really out of it?

Whatever the case was, reasoning didn't seem to work, he wasn't even sure Dimentio could hear him judging by his frantic movements, the usually joyful, yet calculative jester was replaced by a raging, snarling bull that muttered in gibberish as it swinged its horns in a rapid spree. Antasma choked silently, this man was probably the first person to pull him from his depressive shell, no matter how resistant he was, and now…he had to end his life a second time.

He clenched teeth in grief, there was no way Antasma could save him from his own brain, so he might as well put him out of his misery.

However as Antasma planned out his next attack, Dimentio suddenly snapped his fingers and spawned in multiple clones of himself, whom all rushed at him at once and swung their individual blades in different synchronizations that overwhelmed him immensely. Some of them had their blade replaced with a rifle that shot out dimensional bullets in rapid speed.

Antasma could not do anything, he tried to parry or fly away from the incoming crowd, but the small army was relentless. He couldn't tell which one was the real Dimentio as all of them slashed or shot with an equal amount of unyielding strength. The bat could feel his armor being torn off at a high speed as he watched his health deplete chunk by chunk. He couldn't keep up, he was stuck and dying quickly, he needed to get out of this spot right now.

Then a familiar voice popped in his head,

"I've installed a physical signal jammer in your system, you can use it to vent off enemies if the fight gets too overwhelming for you..."

The signal jammer, yes YES!

Antasma immediately redirected his remaining Castaphrose reserve into the signal jammer as he felt a heavy weight build up in his chest, then with a audible triple beep that only he could hear, a purple aura expanded out from his body that disincorporated Dimentio's clones and pushed the jester away from him.

The magician stared at him with a wide eye as he floated a little away.

Antasma exhaled and lashed at one of the spinning pieces of the broken platform that Dimentio destroyed while pursuing the bat, and threw it at him with a strong swing.

As expected, he watched the jester wound back his arm and prepared to slice the chunk, Antasma used this opportunity to distract Dimentio as he used his own module. He slowly moved behind him in slow motion and delivered a swift strike right at his back. Dimentio screamed in pain as the jester immediately teleported away from him and reappeared near where the portal was summoned, the man was breathing heavily as he held his chest and twitched with pure bitterness. The jester must've been heavily weakened from their fight, he had used a variety of strong versions of his modules that did pack a punch, quite literally.

However the magician seldom retreated as he snapped his head up and scowled with anger.

"New tricks up your sleeves, Blumiere?" he snarled.

Antasma tilted his head in confusion, who is Blumiere? Was the jester mistaking him for someone? Did he look like this…Blumiere? He hoped not.

"If this is the way to go…then I'll tear that heart OUT OF YOU." Dimentio screamed.

Antasma was stunned at the sudden shift of tone of the jester, which was enough for him to lower his guard…

And for Antasma to realize that the blade had swiftly run through his sternum and was now embedded in his chest.

The bat was stunned from the attack as he recoiled slightly in shock, Dimentio was right in front of him as he stared at the nightmare, just silently, waiting for him to fall.

What the jester wasn't expecting was for the nightmare to immediately snap back from the fatal wound and grip his right arm in a death grasp, he watched as the bat wound back his left arm, and proceeded to pummel the magician with all of his might.

Dimentio tried to pull away from the surprised second wind, but he couldn't as the nightmare held him in place and landed blows after blows into the jester's skull and effectively stunning him in a painful stupor, trapping him in a prison of his own making.

Eventually the bat let go of the jester's arm, tore off the blade from its hinges and threw the magician into one of the spinning fans, effectively destroying the machinery and sending him into another sector of the Fan Room. Antasma breathed deeply as he slowly removed the blade in his chest, dropping the weapon into the void and following the jester into another arena.

The new sector was much more contained than the first area, there was a gigantic dripstone-shaped fan in the middle of the room with smaller ones surrounding the walls. These were spinning much faster and producing stronger air currents that would normally suck in any airborne critters and machinery, but the two flying soldiers were unaffected by it.

Dimentio managed to stop himself from getting shredded by the gigantic cone shaped fan in the middle of room as he rebalanced himself in the air and glared daggers at the incoming nightmare. Half of his chestplate was missing as red and clear liquids flowed through the cracks.

Antasma released another breath, a part of him still wanted to reason with the jester, but it was growing more and more apparent that there was no hope of saving his mind. He was too far gone and there's nothing the bat could do. If the nightmare still had an inkling of his own power to spare, he could've pulled the jester out from his insanity and saved him from his own delusion, but alas, there was nothing Antasma could do.

Dimentio scowled and stretched out his right arm, which was missing it's typical blade, Antasma squinted at the strange pose, what was he-

The bat suddenly heard his system beeping out a warning of an incoming attack, he dodged on instinct and the blade that he tore out from his chest earlier spun back and narrowly missed him as the sharp metal reunited with its owner. Antasma breathed deeply, it seemed like Dimentio wasn't capable of recreating his weapons or armor like he could through Castaphrose healing as his bleeding chest hadn't been staunched yet, and his chest plate showed no sign of refabrication.

Dimentio's breathing got heavier, a pained expression was presented on his face, but it seemed his rage overpowered the inner suffering as the jester proceeded to stretch out his other arm and replace it with the dimensional rifle. The magician was now armed with weapons, quite literally, and pointed the blade towards the bat.

"I will…" the jester coughed as blood spurted from his lips, "... end your game."

Dimentio clashed his weapons together in an intimidating act and pointed his rifle at the bat

"AND I WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOU WON'T EVER SEE HER AGAIN."

Then two soldiers clashed.

Dimentio sent out whirlwinds of reality shredding moves through his blade while he bombed Antasma at a close distance with his rifle. In response, the bat parried and dodged his attacks while he burned, electrocuted, and slashed at the jester with everything in his arsenal.

Antasma watched as Dimentio's health reduced with every blow he took, the jester was desperate, there were a couple of times that he unsheathed his left hand from the rifle to spawn in a huge amount of clones of himself, but most of the time, he barely used his magic at all and only fought with what they attached onto his arms.

Dimentio had lost himself.

Antasma flew around him like a weeping angel, each strike from the jester growing more and more desperate as they orbited the giant fan, dancing around this deadly carousel.

At this point the bat wasn't really attacking him anymore, Dimentio was dying, he could see his blood flowing down his sides as his health was practically depleting by itself, it was a slow and painful death, yet the jester did not yield.

Of course he didn't yield, he never yields. Not when Antasma gave him the stink eye when he didn't want to be disturbed, not when he actually bit his hand when the jester tried to pet him, the magician does not yield.

So he might as well make him.

With a well timed parry, Antasma took advantage of the stunned jester and gripped his neck tightly, in response, the magician immediately impaled his blade into the bat's arm and tried to sever it from his body, but Antasma's cybernetics were much more advanced than his and the sharp metal only got stuck instead.

However this didn't affect him as he continued to push Dimentio towards the center of the room, directly at the high speed spinning fan blade. The jester seemed to realize what he was doing and was valiantly trying to push back against the bat's death grip, the magician formed tiny magical boxes that emitted constant explosions at his feet that mimicked jet power and was desperately pushing against the unstoppable force, or at least, enough for him to slow down, right before the deadly fan.

Dimentio grit his teeth as he pushed against the bat with all his might, but the nightmare simply remained unfazed,

"I'm not going…to let you win…again.." he choked, "Not from…what you did.."

Antasma held him tightly, completely disregarding the words as he stared into Dimentio's hateful eye, searching for any remaining pieces of himself that would stop him from doing this.

"Not…from your lies.." he snarled.

Antasma never lied, thus, Dimentio is not here.

The nightmare broke his gaze and lowered his head, he was gone, and there was truly nothing he could do.

"I'm sorry, my friend," he spoke with finality.

Dimentio's eye widened as he realized what he was going to do.

"No no no no nonononononoNONONO STO-"

With one last push, the charming magician, the master of dimensions, the former destroyer of all worlds, was turned into nothing but a red mist.

And the world shifted to white, once more.