Any ounce of joy I had was gone. All that was left was a dark horror of anger from the depths of my conscience. It was a pent-up feeling. One that had been hidden away from me for a very long time. One that I only remembered earlier in the day in the Desert Kingdom with Belle and Alice, and then again right at this moment. I could recall a faint memory at this time. It was a clear memory, but I had been left to relive it in my current state as the tears began rushing down my face once again.
**A long time ago, at an unknown place**
When I came to, I was surrounded by trees and the morning dew upon a cliff. A young girl was crying next to me. She had platinum white hair, and her clothes were tattered immensely, like she had just survived an explosion or near-death experience of some kind.
I was holding her hand as we stood at a view of some city, her bare feet on the grass, white stained dress, and the smell of burning in the air as we witnessed the smoke out in the distance—her home...
She continued to cry and wail excessively as I felt anger boiling up in my chest at the ones who did this to her.
When I looked down at myself, I was also young. Probably the age of twelve—and this girl, ten. Her skin was like that of rose blush, and mine was tan like golden dirt.
I got faint glimpses of my hair wisping in the wind—looking almost... gray?
Who was she?
Where are we?
And was this my memory? Why had I not remembered any of this? Had this memory really belonged to me?
I continued to witness things like this, finding us running in the next part of it as if it had skipped here from my point of view. We found a spot to stop and rest near a huge oak. The grass was soft, and the morning rays peeked over the leaves above us. We were fairly deep in the forest and far enough away to where we no longer smelled the smoke.
There was a stream nearby where I had the young girl sit as she continued to whimper. I then ran over to get some water for both of us, but I didn't have anything to carry it back… I guessed I'd just figure it out when I got there.
When I finally arrived at the calm waters, I investigated the clear surface and saw my reflection… I knew I was a kid, but… who had this been?
Not only was my skin tan, but my eyes looked completely different in shape and color, vibrating a reserved maroon rather than the black that I had come to know. I also had a mole under my right eye and my hair… was a grayish color.
Was this really me?
As I continued to scurry around, I found a bowl-shaped piece of wood on the ground nearby. I took it and cleaned it to the best of my ability, using it to scoop some water to bring back.
Trying to balance the water that was in it, all my focus was now on this wooden bowl, not realizing there was a stuck-out root that lay hidden in the grass. I tripped over it, fell, and spilled the bowl of water just before me.
When I looked up slightly from where I fell, I saw a young girl's bare feet. When I lifted my head up some more, I saw her platinum white hair glittering from the pockets of sunlight above us through the trees. It was her.
She crouched down and picked up the wooden bowl I dropped, looking at it intently. Her eyes were a beautiful deep blue that seemed to reflect the world, as she observed the piece of wood I dropped, blinking with those wispy white eyelashes over her puffy eyes. It seemed that she had finally stopped crying.
As she finished observing the wooden bowl, she focused her deep blue eyes to me and I was mesmerized by them. I had never seen eyes as beautiful as hers before; pulling me in with each second she stared.
Innocence in her face as she grabbed the bowl, held on to it, and extended her other small hand out to me while I still laid on the ground in front of her. She made no sound. The only sounds were the stream and the rustling of leaves, and even the soft breeze through the grass.
When she finally spoke, all I saw was her mouth move. It was completely silent. But I think… I think she said the words Thank you.
***
**Present**
Before I realized it, my eyes were burning, and I could feel myself losing grip on my sanity.
Belle had just gotten stabbed. And it was a wound that I did not know if she could heal from.
I felt useless as my emotions rose to a point I could not control.
Behind her, Syemore was there, mangled and burned all over. The side of his face had been completely charred, utterly unable to open his right eye. The rest of his hair on that side was also burned off, revealing him partially bald, suffering from what seemed like a fifth-degree burn—or worse. Pieces of metal and armor still clung onto his naked canvas. The face on the left that controlled the Phantomdrakes—nearly charred off and barely hanging on, but the one on the right had still been intact.
My vision blurred in and out as I witnessed his face: one deranged eye with the other forced and burned shut. And he was shouting at me, but I could barely hear him; the sounds were muffled in my ears.
"What the fuck are you!?" I thought I heard him say as the world began to teeter and I saw faint traces of what seemed like burning shadow emanating from me.
The expression on his face seemed like that of horror as he released Belle from the stab of his arm and grabbed her head with his other, dangling her seemingly lifeless body in front of me as she bled out profusely from her mouth and the center of her. This part to me had become even more muffled and my vision was beginning to fail me.
Belle...
I homed in and focused whatever sanity was left in me on her.
Belle.
Hot air left my mouth as I felt a guttering sound rumbled and shake everything.
No... No, no, no, NO!
My mind exploded as I roared, the sound like a beast in agony. I was no longer in control as I witnessed everything but felt I was in the backseat of a vehicle and there was someone—something taking the wheel. And I could do nothing but watch.
Right then, I was shrouded in a black flame that engulfed me from head to toe. My features became monstrous as my eyes widened like complete circles, devoid of clarity, and my mouth became jagged, cracking with each widening of my jaw as it felt like the mere doing so was ripping my head fucking open. Monster was too gracious of a term to call me.
When I roared again, the pulse was so powerful that Syemore used Belle as a shield from the blast of wind that its echo picked up. And I arrived all too quick, almost like a haunting whisper given form with a fist to Syemore's gut.
BANG!
He flew back, releasing Belle in the process as she tumbled some feet away; her blood staining the golden Aegis she rolled over.
I watched her with blank eyes as I leaned forward like I was about to fall and disappeared in a blurred motion.
Dashing to Syemore at a sonic speed, I met him where he was before he could even arrive to wherever he was headed from my strike—before he could even grasp what had just happened.
He was stopped by the swing of my kick as I cracked something in his back and his eyes turned white from the impact. Shooting back in that direction, he skipped atop the barrier like a ragdoll and managed to protect himself with whatever armor he had left; the pieces around us floated in the air for his ease of use.
I dashed again immediately after that, circling him at great speeds and amassing a black flame tornado. Then, from within, I shot out from different angles, leaving him no chance to block or recover whatsoever.
In an endless rotation, I struck him and he staggered uncontrollably—body flailing from each contact I made upon his disordered self.
Finally, from above, I appeared. My black-shrouded body suspended there in the air. The tornado still roared as the burnt pieces of armor and debris floating around us turned to ash. I pushed with my legs from nothing but the air back down onto Syemore with a mighty crash, causing a massive shockwave right on top of him.
BOOM!!!
An intense blast echoed from the top of the Valley Kingdom and the Celestial Dome. So strong that it opened a hole in both it and the Zion Orb barrier right below.
We shot through the sky above the city, frozen in time. My fist still locked on his cheek from the strike as I released it gently and we fell at eardrum bursting speed. I was standing over him like his mangled body was a board; the winds did not affect me.
I stepped to the side and fell further down, gripping his arm before going too far, twirling us both until I tossed him below atop a tall building where he plunged all the way down.
He obliterated each floor unendingly from his reckless impact, like gravity was stricter on him.
And I plunged next down that same path; through the newly made hole of the toppling building as crumbling piles of concrete, steel, and—unbeknownst to me at the time—severed pieces of body parts and flesh joined in from the chaos we wrought.
It all fluttered in the air as time still refused to commence, filling the skies with iron of debris and red vapor.
I landed with a muffled boom below as I rose ever so slowly. Syemore was nowhere to be found...
Then, flashes of light emitted, and beams bombarded me from the darkness all around me. I remained.
From below, a massive shark creature emerged, swallowing me whole as I did nothing to counter it. Only when its mouth closed did it begin to pulse and then explode, tossing chucks of shark meat in all directions, raining all over. Again, I remained.
Immediately, a strong wind picked up from beneath my feet sending me soaring back up from where I had come from, back through the floating debris and red mist.
When I was in the sky once more, Syemore welcomed me with an amassed cannon made of metal and debris, fused to his arms well past his forearms.
He remained there with wings spanned out, forged from the garbage of pipes, steel, and concrete as he graciously let loose its charge right onto my face.
"Die, you fucking monster!!" he yelled as he triggered the blast.
FEUUUUM!!!
The beam engulfed me and shot clear across the sky of the Kingdom, shattering the inner Zion Orb barrier and bouncing off the Celestial Dome behind it as it coursed throughout the city.
When the blast petered out and finally subsided, Syemore shuddered as he still witnessed me there, once again unscathed. "How… How do you still remain? What in fucking Keeper's name are you?" He shouted demanding an answer even though I was incapable of giving one.
We floated in the sky over this silent Kingdom, carried by nothing but our sheer auras as the crumbling buildings his blast struck suspended in incomplete, frozen animation.
Right then, black wings protruded from my back with a mighty swing, spanning wide a few feet from each side.
The citizens caught within our destructive orchestra decorated the streets with their red iron—floating still like seeping steam. And us: a sin and a broken Maven, the only moving pieces on this game board that not even time was allowed to play.
My mind was gone, and all I could focus on was my unending rage directed at Syemore. Rage for what he had done to my light.
The pieces of his cannon fell apart and fell to the city below, revealing his burned and scarred arms.
In a tempest of hesitancy and frustration, Syemore crashed out, "I'm done with this Kingdom! I don't care anymore! All I want right now is for you to die! I want you to die! Die, die, die!!!"
Completely unhinged and well past the point of sanity, Syemore grabbed the remaining face on his right chest and began spreading open its eyes and mouth. The red glow from it began to intensify as it even seemed to groan by his pull.
Right then, everything around us had begun to distort. Everything from buildings to people, to even the sky above. Everything had started to lose shape and become corrupt.
And I was too far gone myself to care about any of it.
"If I die while this spell is still active, the whole Valley Kingdom will be frozen in time forever. So go ahead, monster. Do your wor—"
BANG!
I jabbed him in the face so hard that it cracked several bones. He flew far across the Kingdom through the sky, struggling to stop himself.
From the pieces of debris and leftover armor on him, he began to shift it all to his back, spreading it to his wings and growing it more to stop the momentum.
When he managed to halt himself, I appeared again with a spin kick to his side, cracking multiple ribs and other bones in his body, shooting him across to another part of the Kingdom. And we kept on like this until he was beyond recognition.
At this point, he suffered multiple fractures and had one of each: an arm and a leg, completely broken, and even more bones shattered from within. He was a fucking mess.
Barely holding on, he spread his wings and used every bit of strength he had left to speed away from me.
As I followed, he amassed missile launchers from his wings, sending another flurry of them to me in the sky as we began to trail over the inner barrier where they landed and crashed. I didn't even bother dodging them as they rained upon me.
We continued our deadly game of tag until Syemore gained some distance between us. He then managed to barely heal his arm and leg so that he may cast a desperate spell. A spell he had never tried before.
He made a hand sign and chanted,
"Full-Body Light Magic, plus Grand Time Magic: Ether Chaos Blade!"
He had no idea what kind of spell he had cast. The incantation had come to him like a gift from the Keeper as he began to pull a massive, intricate blade from space and time itself. Awakening right before my feral eyes.
The massive blade hummed as he held it there. It had its own aura. Similar, almost, to mine…
He swung the massive blade at me desperately, right down onto my neck as it sang upon impact.
CLANG!
Even as a monster, my shadowed face expressed a look of bemusement, and I flew down onto a building in the Kingdom, crashlanding on its top floor.
CRASH!!
I lay in a bed of crumbled roof and wall before I realized it. I was on my back, staring out into the open roof.
When I got up, I looked to my side and saw the hand of what appeared to be a child's...
And for some reason, I had enough of a conscience to reach out to it and pull it out from the rubble. However... as I did, the body it should have been attached to was not there...
My wild eyes shuddered at the sight of it.
Did I...
I looked across the floor, and the rest of her body was under a pile of wreckage, face down. I walked slowly over to her and removed the crumbled wall that had fallen over her and she flopped over.
When I saw her eyes, they were wide open and the orange color in them had left.
Death had found her before I—
Do this...?
Nothing here was suspended or froze with time. It was as if when I had made contact with it, the Time magic that shrouded it dispelled and was back to normal.
I dropped her arm next to her as a hair on her face drooped from its landing, her blood spreading everywhere, puddling beneath my feet.
It was then and only then did I feel pain, and it exploded like an eternity's worth of suffering in my head.
This was not my own. It was this girl's. It was all the people who died amidst our battle all throughout the Kingdom.
I dropped to my knees and my shadowed, burning hands slammed over my head as I began to let out a cry of sheer and unforgiving agony.
I thought I was going to die from the pressure. And then voices... voices echoed over the pain.
All their voices. Just before time stopped. Just before death.
I'm sorry... They said. I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!
Fuck.
What are you sorry for? I'm the one... who killed you.
As my roar bellowed in this silent space, Syemore crept closer in the sky with that fucking blade.
"My, my… How the Keeper watches over me…" he said hoarsely as I continued to suffer. "He must want me to fulfill my duties here after all,"—observing the mysterious blade in his hand—"Looks like we both had awakenings just now, but it seems you cannot control yours… a pity, really. But in the end… as well demonstrated by the princess of the Valley firsthand..."
I trembled as he mentioned her amidst my pain.
And he dared get dreadfully close just to say, "We are all at the mercy of fate."
Then out of nowhere. A voice… a very familiar voice…
"I couldn't agree more…"
Syemore whipped his head in every direction, startled by it and where it came from.
It was then, through all the noise that he appeared. Back facing, right in front of me, opposing Syemore now.
All I knew was that it was a male in a black cloak. His hood was off, but I couldn't quite see who it was as my world shuddered and blurred all around me.
"That's a nice lookin' sword… I think I'll be taking that," he said.
Then, with one movement of his fingers, two golden pentagrams formed around the blade Syemore held. And with one snap of his fingers, it vanished completely, leaving only particles of gold light in its place.
Syemore watched in shock as the blade he had awakened with was taken within moments of him summoning it.
"No!" He yelped. "You will not take this away from me!"
He formed his hand sign and chanted,
"Full-Body Light Magic, plus Grand Time Magic: Ether Chaos Blade!"
But nothing happened.
"Yeah, no. You're never going to summon that sword ever again," the mysterious male said tauntingly, "It belongs to me now."
He waved his hand again, and one of those same gold pentagrams formed to the left of him. He reached his hand into it and slowly began pulling that very blade out. It hummed as he whipped it to his side emanating its ominous aura.
"If the Keeper was truly 'watching over you,'" he said. "He wouldn't have sent me."
At last, Syemore finally realized who the male was as he trembled at his presence. "You… You're him! You're S—"
SLASH!
With one quick cleave, he sliced Syemore in half. The strike from it forbade him to recover.
It was a blade that went beyond magic—a blade forged by light and then darkness and passed through space and time itself, now in possession by a nameless man in black...
The male snickered. "Ha! What a rare blade! I'm glad I got to retrieve this," he said as he turned around and hovered the blade over me—as if to knight me. "Anyway, this is all I can do for you before they realize I'm gone. If it's not Asura or anyone else from the crew, you can always trust your big bro to get you out of a tough spot."
The edge of the blade merely tapped my shoulder as he ended, "Now finish the job... little bro."
I don't know why, but after he met that blade to me—just as Syemore had struck me with it and I gained temporary consciousness—when this male tapped my shoulder with it, I felt sanity rush back to put me in that driver's seat. And I was in control at last.
I inhaled so deeply like I had not been breathing. The black, flaming aura that seeped out of me still poured but only from the neck down.
When I tried to find him, he was gone.
If it's not Asura or anyone else from the crew, you can always trust your big bro to get you out of a tough spot.
I thought it had been a dream, but the proof of his being there was my consciousness and Syemore suspended before me in two halves, unable to piece himself together.
It couldn't be...
I finally rose to my feet and had hardly noticed Syemore cursing at me—insanity finally embracing him past the edge he was well over.
"I think it's time we end this for good, don't you think, Syemore?"
My wings expanded and I flew toward him, grabbing both halves of himself and flying up—upward into the sky.
Shards of debris fluttered off him as we ascended, flying back to the shattering Celestial Dome high above the Kingdom.
Apparently, the blade he was struck with completely nulled his magic entirely. Unlike the Arc Slayer that only did it temporarily, and in sections. That blade was a lot like me—leaving a permanent scar.
"You fool. Even if you kill me, Eclipse of Chronos is still in effect. Kill me all you want, but unless you are able to undo the spell—it will linger even after my death," he said, a futile attempt to still be the last one laughing.
"You know... you're kind of an idiot now that we get to have a decent chat..."
He didn't quite understand until he heard the soft fluttering of black flames on his right chest, burning and dispelling his magic at long last.
"I see... so that's what your power is. If I had known from the start... no... I don't think I would have prevented this ending even then..."
I said nothing as continued to fly upward. There was a long moment of silence as I let him brew and accept his loss.
"Seems the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree… I am a failure just like you, Father," he said under his breath.
When I flew past the shattering dome, for a quick moment I scanned for Belle.
She was still there, lying atop the barrier. Though, if I did not hurry, the shatters will reach her and she will fall. Her bleeding had also come to a halt. And I wasn't sure why or how, but it just did.
I still had time. I just had to hurry up.
I'll be with you soon… Princess…
Dashing past, the Kingdom yawned beneath us as I flew higher and ever higher past the clouds.
The citizens, mages, and everyone else back below began moving from the last moment they remembered before their frozen stasis.
The Phantomdrakes, as well, had long past dispelled ever since Belle had blasted Syemore, burning the left face on his chest. They disintegrated, releasing all whom they swallowed, leaving many unconscious in the streets or wherever else.
The flight was long and tedious, but this air... this air was refreshing to say the least. When we stopped a great distance away from the Kingdom and the clouds, we were just outside the exosphere, where finally, I released both halves of Syemore there.
Barely with any breath, his skin forming frost and being swallowed by the stars, he uttered his last words the best he could. An intimidation of sorts, even in his severely weakened state. "This is not the end of your struggles," he said. "I am but one Maven Lord, and there are many who share my beliefs—Maven and others alike... You will face countless enemies much more powerful than I… they… yes, they will finish what I started… and your life will be nothing but suffering."
I simply smiled back at Syemore as we parted and I floated back down to our world, the opposite direction he was going. "Let them come. The Valley will win."
Syemore attempted a vicious laugh but coughed hoarsely instead.
I raised my hands in his direction, palms spread out, and eyes focused. From my palms, a black orb emitted, pulsing and gathering; continuously becoming more and more as the black aura emitted from me had filled it. The black flames began to disappear, my dark wings, shrinking, and all the power I had was now in one single, condensed spot.
"If not the Valley," I said. "Then it will be me."
He spouted his final words, "I truly hate... you Valley worms... You especially... mangy... mutt."
I unleashed the untapped power onto Syemore and a black beam emitted. The blast was so huge yet so silent, even if one had been staring at the sky, they probably wouldn't have noticed—unless they were truly paying attention—as it hid past the blue of the world.
It wiped him from the face of existence, scattering his disintegrated remains out into the stars and the darkness beyond.
I tilted my head back and fell into the blue, closing my eyes to rest for but a moment before I reached my princess—my light.
Found you...
At this time, the winner atop the Valley Kingdom between the Blue Phoenix, whom everyone placed their trust, and the Black Wolf, whom they all came to hate… was Greed, the Acting Captain of the Black Wolves.
***
**Somewhere far away**
A man in a black kimono sat crisscrossed on the floor of a wooden porch outside an empty old-style house. His hair was long and black, tied up in a ponytail with a long white strand of his bangs hanging over his face.
Smoking from a long pipe and blowing it out exaggeratedly, he said aloud to himself as he stared at the sky from a great distance, like he had been watching something there for quite some time.
Unseen to most people, he saw traces of black vapor past the blue of the sky, remnants of a black beam that emitted just barely out in space, distances away from where he was...
On the back of his kimono was the symbol of a wolf as he puffed out a plume of smoke and smiled.
"Nice job… you damn brats."