The vibration that he felt through the ground with each step the giant titan took was incredible, the bat honestly could not believe that such power could be built by hand, welded together with steel and fire, carefully designed and painted for the purpose of absolute destruction. Antasma brought his lips together to form an expression of grimness when the thought came to his mind, how long had Dreambert been planning this? Or rather, did he even plan this? Judging by what he had said earlier, this was his last resort. So it was most likely not in whatever plan he had.

Or maybe the plan had already gone sideways?

The bat squinted at the mech as he cracked his neck, Dreambert's plan had been foiled the moment Antasma tore off the leash. And now, the Pi'illo was desperately trying to fix his mistake with everything he had.

The bat grinned at the giant monument as he extended his claws.

But It won't be enough.

The walking fortress stopped in front of him as both sides surveyed and glared at each other, for a while, the bat stared at the machine with baited breath as it scanned him with its blood stained eyes. Antasma cracked his knuckles as he prepared himself to square up against the giant, the freakshow was not over yet.

As if right on cue, the mech's chest plate began to slide open, hot steam poured out from the opening as a long black tube poked out from the crack. The bat squinted at the strange display as he scowled at the protruding object, what in the Underwhere was that…?

Then that's when he realized what the black tube was.

It was the giant rail gun that he saw in the nuclear reactor room, and knowing that the core was directly beneath it, it would be where he would have to strike to topple the fortress, or at least, disable the main power grid. He gritted his teeth as he planned out his attack, Antasma could sense a specialized aerial force field surrounding the mech, so attempting to immediately fly up or whiplash into its head within the vicinity would not work, the machine was probably designed to fight in space rather than land. So why Dreambert even decided to bring them here was a mystery, but the bat wouldn't complain about the convenient advantage as he drew his blade, he could feel a sharp humming in the air as he dashed forward. The gun was charging, maybe he could reach the mech before it could fire-

A hail of projectiles suddenly erupted from the back of the mech, causing the bat to stop as he was distracted by the flying orbs. It was quite a beautiful sight, the lights came and flew like fireflies in a mesmerizing pattern, he gawked at the pretty lights as they began to fall back down, crashing towards the ground.

Until it started to head towards him.

Antasma blinked in disbelief as his system began to rapidly alert him of the approaching lights, the bat widened his eyes as he snapped himself out of his stupor, those weren't just harmless lights, those were nuclear missiles. Easily two times his size and he couldn't parry them at all, so he gritted his teeth and began to charge forward once more, weaving back and forth in high speeds to avoid the bullet hell.

The gun had already finished charging, the bullet hell itself was already slowing him down, Antasma cursed himself for being distracted by the missile lights, his stupid bat brain temporarily reverted back into its primal instincts, he loved glowy stuff when he was still a normal dreamy bat, the Dreamworld and Somnom Woods were filled to the brim with glowing and bioluminescent plants. It was truly heaven back then.

Then the rail gun fired, its white hot beam aimed directly towards him. The blast would definitely eradicate a huge chunk of the area he was floating on, Antasma could feel it. It would eradicate him too.

But if he fell here, he would hate himself forever.

So with a strong humph, he immediately skidded to a stop and dashed towards the right, barely avoiding the devastating beam, but due to the immense amount of power in the blast, the energy sent him flying towards a large hill, making him crash against the side, the bat immediately shook away his daze as he emerged from the crater, keeping an eye on the giant mech as it slowly turned to face him.

Antasma needed to get behind the giant mech before it could face him, his system had already scanned the fortress and informed him that its specialized aerial forcefield generator was located on its lower back. If he could disable it, he would be able to fly up and infiltrate the head with ease, he didn't even need to target the core to finish the job. So with this plan in mind, he dashed forward while the giant mech continued to fire it's rail gun, the machine had deployed the turrets built in on its arms and legs and sent an even heavier bullet hail that nipped and picked at the bat, Antasma grunted in annoyance as he weaved and dodged the intense death storm. At this rate, the Ted-Waker was going to burn out its nuclear core by how much the mech was using its chest rail cannon, Antasma could practically smell the smoke as each shot was fired, every blast that it sent out was noticeably less and less intense.

The bat grunted as he tried to think of a way to get the mech to stop moving, it kept on shifting its stance and was keeping up his pace with its turning speed, at this rate, he would never reach the backside if he didn't somehow find a way to immobilize the giant.

So he began looking, observing the mech to see if there was any way he could restrain or still its movements. The giant may be powerful, but there was always a downside to size.

Particularly if such a thing was incredibly heavy.

That's when his eyes landed on its drill, the mech hadn't found a way to use it yet since Antasma was always so far away from the machine, the bat grinned when an idea started to form in his mind.

On the right side of the mech, there was a slew of hanging foliage from one of the floating islands, it was noticeably thick, tough, and heavy, perfect for entangling a giant drill. If the bat could bait a physical attack from the mech, then he would be able to immobilize it with its own weaponry, giving him the perfect opportunity to get behind the machine and strike at its shield generator.

So with that plan in mind, he skidded to a stop amidst the bullet hell. And began to dash up onto the hills, getting to an even plane of the foliage and out of the range of the forcefield so he could activate his flight system.

Once he extended his wings, he began to fly around the machine while still dodging the unrelenting bullet hell, and slowly but surely, he arrive at the foliage, now, he would have to be careful if he didn't want the turrets to tear down the convenient greenery, he'd have to do some whiplashing with its body parts to bait it into using its drill.

Fortunately, Dreambert didn't seem to realize his plan as Antasma began to fly into its forcefield, perhaps the Pi'illo might've considered him foolish for performing such a maneuver as the bat felt his flight systems disengaging without his command and began to fall back towards the ground. Antasma took a deep breath through his mask as he sent out an electric whiplash that wrapped around one of the components of the mech before reeling himself in and putting himself in range of the mech's physical attacks.

Dreambert responded by attempting to grab the bat while he was practically sticking to the mech, but Antasma was simply too nimble for its large and clumsy fingers and easily extracted himself from any of its vain attempts to grasp him in its clutches.

The bat scowled in displeasure as he tried time and time again to make the mech strike him with its drill, he couldn't get into its head due to the built-in shield generator within the forcefield, and he couldn't get to the generator without the mech itself interfering with his attempts. He feared that Dreambert might have already figured out his plan and was simply using the other hand to avoid such a thing, so Antasma would have to do something pretty drastic to get the Pi'illo to change tactics.

He decided to sever its hand. He had noticed that the shield generator only protected the head and the entrance towards the core, the most vital parts of the mechs, preventing the bat from slipping into the cracks and disabling the heart of the machine, which, he had to give it to Dreambert, the Pi'illo had definitely thought it through with this one. But the fact that he still thought that attaching a giant energy output from the heart was somehow a good idea, really made Antasma question his logic.

The Pi'illo wanted to protect himself, but doing so, he was also sabotaging himself, what an absolute genius.

So with a strong heave, he drew his blade and swung above the grabbing hand before he brought the sword down and cleanly sliced it from the wrist. The mech recoiled in surprise as he swung away from the sever point, Dreambert obviously wasn't expecting Antasma to have such power within his body, perhaps he hadn't even designed the bat with that much strength in mind. But of course, Antasma blew his expectations out of the water.

With nothing armed, the mech had no choice but to reel its right arm back and attempt to strike him with its drill, but Antasma knew that he was not going to thrust forward so recklessly, so he'd have to be careful, maybe he could bait it and hang onto the foliage, it would make it incredibly obvious if Dreambert knew his plan, but judging by how he was trying to attack him, the bat doubted the Pi'illo was aware of what he was planning.

So with a deciding gamble, he managed to dodge one of the incoming strikes of the drill that just barely avoided the foliage, and landed on the mech's arm. He could feel Dreambert's intense anger from within the fortress as he struck a pose and wiggled a naughty finger towards the Pi'illo.

"Nuh uh." He taunts, still wagging a finger at his face.

This triggered Dreambert, hard. Antasma knew that the Pi'illo hated taunts, even if it was mostly just friendly name-calling. He could feel the arm immediately retracting from its strike as he backflipped onto the nearby foliage and hung from the greenery, staring intently at the mech as it reeled its arm back and struck at him again.

His plan worked remarkably as he hopped off the foliage and whiplashed onto the mech's left leg, successfully baiting the drill strike and entangling its components within the tightknit greenery. Now Dreambert couldn't move and Antasma was free to leisure his way towards the rear end of the mech and disable the generator.

However, Dreambert didn't make it easy for him, as he dug his claws into one of the mech's steely legs, two packs of Ku-Nines were released from hidden comparts on the mech's limbs and began to advance towards the bat in a vain attempt to stop him. But Antasma simply sent a wave of dimensional blasts from his sword, shredding the majority of the dogs to pieces, some managed to avoid it but it was clear that the remaining were no match for his physical prowess, so Antasma simply ignored them and returned to swinging.

Ledge after ledge, crevices after crevices, he managed to get to its lower thigh while still being blasted by some of the minions the mech sent out, however it was not enough to derail him, so he continued to swing closer and closer towards the shield generator, he could practically taste the incoming victory, Antasma was sure that nothing else would be able to stop him now, he would simply fly up and kill Dreambert from the inside, a simple tactic, it would be completely foolproof, he would be able to rescue Mimi and get them both out of here safe and sound.

…until something caught his eye.

Antasma noticed something green hanging from one of the crevices in the leg, he squinted at the strange object and decided to redirect his course towards it. Something doesn't sit well with him at the sight of it, he carefully avoided a few shots from the grounded wolves and managed to reach the hanging appendage.

At first, he didn't recognize what it was, it was just some sort of green and yellow painted metal stick with a curved and pointed end. Confused, he forcefully ripped it out from the crevice and inspected it closer, before realizing in horror as he noticed a few wires sticking from the start of the stick.

This was Mimi's leg.

He stared at the dismembered limb as he tried to think of any reason that could've possibly indicated that Mimi was still alive, maybe she escaped the confines of the ship and got stuck? Perhaps she was somewhere else in the mech and accidentally got one of her legs stuck in between the joints, but all of those possible scenarios disappeared when he noticed green and red fluids seeping from the crevice. The reality hit him harder than a freight train as he stared at the flowing goop.

She got crushed to death.

The ship had transformed into this gigantic mech that not only crushed whatever got caught up within its mechanical walls, but also completely destroyed any non vital components in the process, Antasma's eyes widened in disbelief as he finally realized what Dreambert had designed, what the Pi'illo had set up from the very beginning, a horror between hate and death, the ultimate end of all things, a war without reason.

The Meat Grinder

The bat clenched his jaw in rage as he held to the remains of his dear friend, a sense of grief and anguish washed over him as he looked up towards the machine, he stared at its soulless eyes as it tried to shift around in an attempt to free itself, but the entanglement was too tight so the mech couldn't do much.

This was it, he was going to end the monster, he couldn't stop here now, not ever, not again.

He tossed Mimi's limb into his stomach compartment and continued to swing towards the generator, avoiding the various blasts that Dreambert had deployed against him, but all was useless as he drew his blade and stabbed out the generator.

Now that the forcefield was down, he unraveled his wings once more and immediately booked it towards the head. The Pi'illo would pay, he'd be sure of it. He'd avenge all that had been a victim of this crazy dream, and all that had been involved believing that the Pi'illo was a good leader.

However, it seemed like Dreambert noticed this too as the mech began to move even more rapidly to free itself, but the more it struggled, the stronger the vines held, so the bat circled around the giant being and shot straight at its head, completely focusing on eradicating the humanoid controlling the robot.

So much so that he didn't even notice an incoming missile until it was too late.

It struck him hard and knocked him off his path, the bat fell, dazed from the explosion, before managing to recover mid fall and glaring at the attempt.

But that attack was no mere attempt, Antasma didn't anticipate that Dreambert would've thought of a fast tactic to prevent the bat from reaching him, so the king shot him a missile that, when connected, would've made him fall straight into the trajectory of the rail gun. Antasma's eyes widened in realization when he finally noticed the incoming blast, he couldn't dodge this, not with the radius of the gun and his slowly recovering flight system. He was doomed.

When the gun finally reached its apex, he held his arms up in a vain attempt to block the attack, knowing full well that it wouldn't be enough, he squeezed his eyes shut in despair as he thought back to his promise.

"-vonce I defeated Dreambert, I vill come back for you."

…

I'm sorry Mimi, I couldn't do it.

…

Then it exploded.

Antasma snapped his eyes open as he witnessed the gigantic rail gun suddenly erupting into flames while the giant machine stuttered in shock, the bat realized why it had exploded and laughed in glee as he couldn't believe his luck.

The core had reached its limit, it couldn't keep up with the demand of the firepower and had promptly broken down from its overbearing usages. The Pi'illo had pushed too far, and now it had come to bite him in the ass.

The bat laughed and laughed as he watched the giant machine slowly begin to shut down due to its exhausted core, he crackled in glee as he mocked Dreambert's despair, in under any other circumstances, what he was doing right now would've been despised by all that is good. However, knowing what this Pi'illo had done, his mockery was justified, perhaps encouraged as the bat hollered at the dying machine.

All he had to do now was to enter the head.

And so, he did.

Antasma crashed into the head of the mech and emerged from the debris, face to face with the Pi'illo as the king lifted his head to look at him.

Antasma grimaced in disgust as he surveyed the Pi'illo once more, his limbs were all wrapped by thick black wires along with heaps of it connected to the back of his head, the Pi'illo truly looked soulless . His eyes were dark and dull, his breathing was brief and shallow, sometimes appearing to not even breathe at all. His cybernetics seemed to spread more and more into his flesh even though it was physically impossible to do so, the Pi'illo didn't even look human any more.

But despite his sickly appearance, Dreambert summoned his greathammer and held the weapon in a combative stance. The Pi'illo wasn't going to go down without a fight, and Antasma knew for sure that Dreambert would not stop until his last breath.

So the bat drew his blade for the last time and approached the tyrannical king, Dreambert stood his ground and gripped his hammer tightly, this will be his final battle.

With that, Antasma activated his module and stabbed the king in the chest, the Pi'illo retaliated with a strong bash from his hammer, effectively breaking off the exchange and leading the bat to retreat momentarily, before he sent a dimensional blast straight at his face. The Pi'illo dodged out of the way, but left an opening while attempting to do so, his movements were sluggish, and the bat took advantage of that.

With a swift whiplash, Antasma wrapped around the handle of his weapon and proceeded to yank it out of the Pi'illo's hand, this left him stunned for a moment before Antasma used the weight of the weapon as an aerial anchor point and proceeded to swing straight at the Pi'illo at an insane speed. Dreambert immediately guarded his body with his arms as he stared at the bat with the expectations of him striking at his heart or head.

But instead, Antasma aimed at the wires connected to the Pi'illos' head and severed them with one strike.

This effectively cut the majority of the control Dreambert had over the machine as the Pi'illo collapsed onto the ground in pain while struggling to regain his mind while Antasma slowly approached him with his blade outstretched.

"It's over Dreambert," he growled.

The Pi'illo slowly glanced up to meet his gaze as he kneeled in front of the bat, his hands grasping together in a mimication of a prayer while he looked at the nightmare with hollow eyes.

"Your reign ends now," he snarls, "And you know it."

However, Dreambert only laughed at that statement, his perilous expression contorted into an agonizing happiness as he howled in laughter. The bat raised an eyebrow at the crazed Pi'illo as he continued to cackle, confused on why he could've possibly been happy to be in this situation.

But slowly, the laughter died down, but his expression remained the same as he opened his mouth to speak.

"This is the only way it could've ended."

Antasma tilted his head as he stared at the dying Pi'illo,

"...You knew? You knew you vouldn't vin?" he asked.

The Pi'llo chuckled as he glanced back down towards the floor.

"You know…. " he coughed, "I…knew….I knew…deeply…that I wouldn't be able to get what I want." he chuckled.

He glanced back up towards the bat as his pained smiled seemed to glimmer through the dark room, "But I tried anyways, I wanted you , I wanted you so badly…yet I failed…once more.." he laughed.

Then the Pi'illo dropped his head again as he stared at the floor, "But even then, you were the most beautiful magnum opus that I have ever created." he smiled, "You are perfect."

Antasma stared at the Pi'illo as he slowly comprehended his words, even though the compliment was clearly to indent whatever ego the Pi'illo had left, he decided to go along with it anyways and returned with one of his own.

"...you vere beautiful, outstretched like a butterfly and pollinating the island vith sweet dreams vhile I could only do the opposite, I envied you for that…and now, you're just an empty cocoon of vho you once tried to become." He shook his head, "you vere so beautiful."

The Pi'illo only chuckled at the words, and responded with his own "...and you were beyond your creators , you strived towards your hateful ambition while grasping at the seams. "

"-and yet you fell."

Silence.

"And now none is left to speak your eulogy…not even me."

A beat passed as Dreambert began to laugh again, "A dead man's words! This ship is a grave , all are doomed the moment when they board it, all-"

"-except the very thing you seek to control." He finished.

Dreambert fell quiet once more.

"You are a puppet who creates more puppets, the steel strings in your mind control you like a dog. You are nothing but-"

"-a false king."

"... so you knew….you knew that a machine built to end var, is alvays a machine built-"

"-to continue war…yes I knew…that's how I thrive."

"…Death is your only vay of living, suffering is vhat gives you purpose."

"Indeed, and this is what's left of me, an empty pillow case."

….

"An empty soul."

"...an empty lie."

"The perfect ending."

"The perfect closure."

Saying nothing, Antasma floated towards the kneeling Pi'illo has he drawn his blade,

….

….

"This is the only vay it should've ended."

And he beheaded Dreambert, ending his misery, once and for all.

….

As his severed head fell from his body, the mech began to fall apart too, warning signals erupted across all the remaining working monitors, telling him that it was about to blow up in less than ten seconds, Antasma quickly scurried over towards the control panel and activated the emergency dream portal that the mech had summoned earlier to bring him in here, it slowly opened directly outside of the head as he activated his flight systems.

However, on the way out, he caught a glimpse of gold on the floor in the corner of his eye, not wanting to lose something potentially precious, he quickly grabbed the thing with one hand and hopped out of the self-destructing mech just as it erupted in fire, sending the bat through the portal with the force of the explosion only.

The portal spit him out into space as he whirled around the gravitational field, completely disoriented as he attempted to gather his bearings, which wasn't exactly a difficult task considering that his flight systems kept him from spinning out of control. The bat shook his head to collect himself as he glanced around the open space. Now what?

He had finally ended Dreambert's game, he didn't have a goal anymore, his friends were all dead and he was stranded in space. Antasma let out a tired sigh as he rubbed his temple, what should he do now? He has virtually nothing other then the cybernetics that's keeping him alive, what should a war machine do in the aftermath of the war?

...of course, the answer is simply to be dissembled and reused as scrap for repairing the destruction it caused, a true ouroboros.

Unfortunately, such luxury does not exist for him as his ouroboros has already ended. Perhaps now, he should try and start a new one, something that he could live off, or die of. Perhaps finding some nearby planets or celestial bodies that he could land on, would be a possibility. Maybe he could even try to recuperate with whatever resources the planet had, perhaps he could restart the cycle, once more.

So he began searching.

And while he was searching, he decided to check on what the gold piece that he picked up was and inspected the tiny thing. He realized in horror that the thing he was holding…was in fact a module chip, Dreambert's module chip. He turned the tiny thing around and realized that an additional combat chip was also infused into the module chip, Antasma had access to the Pi'illos' entire cybernetic battle gear, he could use whatever spec Dreambert had if he installed this chip.

…but, understandably, the bat was suspicious. Did Dreambert somehow upload his consciousness into this chip just so he could hack into his systems the moment he installed it?…No…that wasn't possible, if it took an entire team of specified professionals to revive both his mind and body for combat, then it wouldn't be possible for the Pi'illo to upload his brain into this small drive in less than ten minutes. Which in turn, brought more questions than answers, why did Dreambert decide to give him his entire arsenal? Was this some sort of parting gift that the Pi'illo rewarded him for finally defeating him? He fiddled the piece in his hand as he flew, what could this possibly mean?

Then, he remembered what he told to the Pi'illo, "And now none is left to speak your eulogy…not even me."

Antasma laughed as he held the piece properly now, Dreambert left him his prized possession as his eulogy. Oh…that sly bastard.

The bat smiled as he pushed the golden chip into his neck, feeling the familiar rumbling as his systems booted up the data.

— – New Module Installed – —

– Percipient Beam –

Then the combat chip data booted up,

— – New Fighting Style Installed – —

– Advanced Combat –

Wow…so creative…whatever. He'll take it.

Now with practically nothing to do, he decided to test out the fighting style by activating the advanced combat…and to nobody's surprise, it was Dreambert's great hammer, now colored purple instead of gold, and a swirling nightmare emblem on the side of the hammer instead of Dreambert's sigil.

Antasma sighed as he willed the hammer away, he wouldn't be needing it for a very…very…long time…

So for now, he'd continue to search for a place that would finally accept him.