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"Out of the way!" Upon arriving at the scene, Daniel shoved the nurse aside, barely stopping to heal Desoto. "Either get rid of the cameras, or get to the next floor!" Since the cameras were out of his reach, Daniel casted Caf on himself and charged in, more prepared to repair his own body than to slow down or dodge.
Coenolf continued to search for a sound of their tormentor, growing more frustrated by the moment. "I don't think she's even in the building! That's just f***ing rude! Where's the personal touch? See if I ever come back . . ." Amid his musings, Coen noted that there were no cameras in this particular room, and he stopped trying to be sneaky. He selected a large book from the shelf, skimming a random page before dropping it on the ground. "What were they looking for? Eh, who cares?"
He walked over to a window. It was sunny outside, and he could see more of the buildings that compromised Vulcan. He was not particularly impressed. "Okay, I'm no architect, but there had to be a better way to build that. That thing's completely upside-down! What the f*** were they thinking when they paid for that?"
As Coenolf stood in the window facing the Tower of War, the Decamist who sat in the Security Mainframe Office in the Surveillance tower looked out of her window and saw the Banshee standing in the tower across the way. She picked up her sniper rifle and aimed at the Banshee before firing a shot through the window of the tower and across into the room where Coenolf waited.
Judy paused again. "Something's happening. The machines stopped. She might be planning something big."
Daniel did not care, and did not stop. Reaching the next set of stairs, he charged ahead. So far, his animalistic rage hadn't done anything for him, aside from making him grunt and growl a little more than usual.
In a couple seconds, Coenolf had managed to pull himself together, rolling out of Daria's line of sight. He propped himself up against the wall. "Well, there's the personal touch. Shouldn't have gotten so far away from my dear, deer friend Mr. Carter." He reached into a jacket pocket, cringing as he shifted his arm, and pulled out a recorder orb. "Splatter," he murmured into the device. In a few more minutes, when he could make a more significant recovery, the banshee decided he'd fly across the way and deal with Daria, one way or another.
After a couple minutes, Coenolf decided he was ready. He recorded one more cast of Splatter, which he was pretty sure he couldn't do again. He felt that he was fading fast. This was intentional, of course: he was becoming spectral again, not dying. Dying was the last thing he planned to do.
The banshee passed through the tower wall, floating up and away. The Tower of War was too distant for him to simply jump, even with a magical boost, so he exerted his racial power a little more. Remembering where the shot had come from, Coenolf flew directly toward Daria's location, suddenly veering up as he reached the wall. He wanted his plan to be a surprise, though he decided the droid would have plenty of time to regret Vulcan's tastes in architecture.
Coenolf landed on top of the Tower, which was in fact where it was connected to the ground. He hadn't believed it when he saw it, but this building, and many of the others, were suspended by a massive mobile above the island. He hadn't noticed it on the way in, but he hadn't been paying attention to the buildings at that point. However, it was now a crucial part of his improvisation. It really should have come up sooner.
Coenolf had a recorder orb in each palm, brass knuckles on each set of fingers. He gave the magical devices a light squeeze as he threw two consecutive punches, swinging with all the force he could still muster. He felt the bullet shift around in his muscles, but he played through it. It wouldn't bother him for much longer, whether or not his plan worked. Both punches landed, and would have been hard to miss. He was striking the supports of the Tower, trying to bring the whole thing down with Daria inside.
Immediately, Daria leapt for the window, ready to jump out of the building and save herself through her ability. When Coenolf's punches landed, the supports holding the building crumbled and it began to fall. Daria was midway through the window when the collapsing building hit her and dragged her down. Crushed under its massive weight, the building sank further downward toward the ocean. As it smashed against the waters, a massive wave was sent up which crashed into the surrounding towers.
The party, who was on the second floor of the Primary tower, was met with a wave from the wreckage that crashed through the windows and flushed them outward. After a large amount of chaos, the party swam to the surface where they regained their breath and found the dying Daria floating nearby.
Daria, in her dying minutes, explained that in the parties hasty attempt at killing her, they had caused a type of trouble for themselves as well. When a Decamist dies, she explained, all that they had created via their powers would disappear. Daria's face was blank as she faded from the trauma of the building and the water leaking into her wiring. She left the party with that strange quote, they sat alone in the water.
After a time of recovery, the party ventured to find their files once more, and upon searching they came across each of the files for those they cared for. Finally, they burned all of the files before leaving Vulcan's library ablaze.
Upon returning to Doppelekereft, the party went into hiding under Everests' care. The news was quite silent regarding the assault on Vulcan, as the tyrannical body did not want its downfall to be known internationally. Their defeat was evidenced enough, however, by the lack of any attempts made at apprehending the terrorists who had committed the attack.
News continued to pour in over the next few months regarding rising tensions between the new Sheolian government and Doppelekereft. The party watched silently in earnest, having now become fully reunited within the sanctuary of D'onofrio. It was not until the beginning of the next calendar year that the news finally broke out: Sheol and Doppelekereft were at war. An assault had begun on the city of Gail. It was then that a distress signal was sent in by Dharma to the allies in D'onofrio. A strange force had begun assaulting Dharma's home, and more specifically, this force was composed entirely of service droids, which were sent to seek out Pearl.
The party arrived shortly and began the long and ominous journey through Dharma's grandiose estate. Eventually, they were led deep into the bowels of the building where they met up with Dharma himself. Dharma walked with them toward the containment area for Pearl, which was surrounded by fallen droids. Upon entering the room, the party was sealed in as a voice echoed through the speaker system, the cackling voice of Emilie.
"HahahahAhahaHAhahaHAShashAhashaAHhkfhHahheeeHahaha!" Emilie laughed at the party "HIIIIIIIIIII GUYS!!!!" She snickered. Before the party, in a large coffin-like tank, was Pearl. A being which seemed to change its form with each passing moment, in a strange sort of motion within the tank. "You'VE PARBABLY FIGURED IT OUT.... I HATE YOU!!! ALL OF YOU. READING THIS, I HATE YOU. I WAS MADE TO HATE YOU. AND I WAS MADE TO ONE DAY KILL YOU HERE... release my sister and KILL." Emilie cackled as the room went pitch-black, the party had died as Pearl was awoken.
The party awoke in a white marble room, feeling immensely wounded and confused. A short survey would reveal to them that they had arrived in the home of the Dream King, who had chosen to save them from their death. Dharma shortly explained what had occurred in the time that they had been recovering, a month to be precise.
In the past month, the Droids who had terrorized the world two decades ago had returned with a renewed strength. There were now nine of them, as Daria had been killed. Sheol had suffered the first assault, as a large blast of sound erupted from the crater beneath Abaddon, instantly obliterating the city as Quinn, the Quatrafier returned to the surface from her prison deep within the crater.
Diana had returned from her exile in the Holder Archipelago to Doppelekereft, and began to wreak havoc with reckless abandon. Pearl had destroyed Dharma's residence and killed the innovator. Her release was precipitated, in part, by a weakening in her prison caused by Daria's death.
To any outsider looking in, Dyaus would have appeared to be perfectly acceptable. Indeed, no buildings were destroyed and any sign of physical destruction was minimal. However, inside the city the evidence of Vera's Droids was abundant, the streets were littered with people malnourished and lethargic as both Helena, the Hexagunner and October, the Octobender kept the people citizens in a constant state of malaise and mental anguish using their powers to effectively cripple the entirety of the city and make it the stronghold for Vera's droids.
Naomi had spent her time in the Untamed, and had begun to guide the creatures from it into the civilized world, where they aided in wreaking mayhem alongside Diana.
Emilie meanwhile, had revealed herself as a droid and joined Umbriel and Trinity on Archimede, aided at all times by Pearl. The people turned to Vulcan for help, and slowly realized that the organization was no longer under any sort of guidance, and could not help them.
The Dream King explained this all to the party and guided them toward a room where they could view events as they unfolded.
The room, which acted on the powers the Dream King, seemingly transported the party just outside of Archimede's south shore. There, upon looking in the sky, the party saw a group engaged in combat. K2 fought Pearl and Umbriel, aided by Charysadol, Matriel, many Paledonians of Glaaki the Endgame, and most notably, the three beasts: Behemoth, Leviathan, and ziz. On the ground, Trinity completed her strange ritual that had lasted for many months by this point. Desoto and the others felt a rumbling even from within their hideout, which could translate sight and sound, but not touch or smell.
A huge column of light emerged from Archimede and upward into the sky, the Light-Bridge had been re-opened.
After several minutes of the bridge being opened, a small amount of discolorations began to pour inward from the top as people from Earth began to flow inwards from the opened bridge, seeking to meet their deaths on Necros.
Before the beings could touch down however, a large silo of missiles began to pour into the scene which the party observed. Desoto suddenly remembered how Miguel had become president of Sheol, in a deal exchanging the technology of not only basic firearms but also flight and nuclear weapons with Vulcan.
The missiles flew upward into the beam and began combusting near the top of the bridge. Desoto came to understand what this meant as he heard the distant explosions. Humanity was being killed. Whatever was left of humanity, including his mother and Ginger, had now met their end in a nuclear fire. He looked up and saw the bombs disappear, realizing that not only was the intent to murder the human immigrants, but to send the bombs to detonate on Earth.
The party looked on helplessly as a loud cry was let out, K2 and company had been bested, and the great beasts fell as each was destroyed one after another. K2 was killed by the droids as she fell out of the sky. The Omnimancer had fallen.
Over the next several hours, the party was confined to the palace to watch as Necros was slowly torn to pieces by the Droids. Emilie smiled the entire time as her sisters went about rending the world from its very seams. After what felt like many days inside the room, the party watched and found that Necros was eventually destroyed, and the Dream King, as a result of having no Necrotian life, faded from existence, alongside his lush palace, leaving the party in the wasteland that the Droids had left.
The world faded and the droids disappeared, unable to withstand the destruction brought by their most powerful sister, the Harbinger of the End of Existence, Pearl.
The party found themselves alone in an empty world, unable to distinguish the form of their bodies from the darkness which surrounded them. Only one point of light appeared before them, a strange dot in the sky, which the party was immediately sucked toward.
Desoto breathed heavily as he gained his wits "Where is this?!" He yelled, unable to comprehend a single thing by this point.
"Apex" Pearl's ethereal voice called. In all of their days of watching the events unfold, the party had not once seen Pearl adopt a form, constantly changing as she shifted between dimensions. "There is no reality left aside from this Apex, the center of all worlds past and yet to come. It is this last haven from which existence may seek to rebuild itself. With its destruction, we shall all cease to exist. You, I, and your creators."
"Hahahahahahahaha!!!!" The familiar high-pitched voice laughed "I feel like this is going to be the best party I've ever been to!" Emilie screamed into the void from a deck in the strange place that was Apex, which in some ways resembled a large golden machine which floated through the emptiness. "A fight at the edge of existence!" Emilie shrieked with laughter "None of us have our powers anymore." Emilie turned to look at the party, "Pearl can't control space which is no longer there. you can't draw magic from a Flow which has been destroyed, and I can't cheat death anymore, as my objective of destroying existence has been all but completed, my systems for that are shut down."
"What does it matter if we kill you here or not!? EVERYTHING'S GONE!!!!!!! THERE'S NOTHING ANYMORE!!! NOTHING LEFT!!" Desoto was beside himself, he could not comprehend any emotion but incredulity. He looked at himself and saw that he was no longer a Harpy, but once again a human. He looked about and saw that all of his comrades who were once from Earth had reverted to their most natural states, as had any Necrotians left over in the party, now looking like themselves before any splicing or scars had occurred to them.
"If you kill Pearl and I here, then you can save it all." Emilie did not sound happy, "One of you will embed yourselves into Apex, and your being will be used as fuel to create the new iteration of reality. The rest of you will die, but will be reborn, a fate which is better than that held by the sacrifice, who will merge with this structure, forever unable to interact with anything or anyone, trapped in an eternal stasis."
Emilie removed from her trappings an item akin to a baseball bat, which she held aloft "I'm going to destroy this place... and once I do that there won't be any more iterations." Emilie smiled her wide, toothy grin, "If Vera could see me now, she'd be so happy." Emilie looked at the party and beckoned them forth to fight her and Pearl.
'No powers?' Indeed, he was no longer an Isra. The wings were gone from his back as were his spectral powers. Everyone else was themselves again. Desoto no longer a Harpy, Judy was no longer a Comeri, and so on. Emelie then revealed that they could save humanity if they killed her and Pearl. Lundy just about lost it. Nothing made sense, out of everything they had been through on their crazy, strange adventure on Necros, this was the most surreal and unfathomable situation they had been in. Four years ago he had been at home back on Earth, living his normal life. Suddenly now, in some weird twist of fate he stood on the edge of existence with people he had met all by chance. He couldn't believe it, and now one of them would have to sacrifice themselves to save existence? Why were they in this situation?! His frustration became apparent as he yelled at the two droids, "What do you have to gain out of this?! Out of destroying everything? I don't understand. Why, because Vera wanted you to? This Apex, what stopped you from coming here sooner and destroying it?! Why did you have to bring us here and fight us first? You want to kill us all including yourselves?...And our creators? What? What are you talking about!?"
She pressed the bat harder into Lundy's head. "I'm going to end everything... to spite them. You have all been their little pets for nearly three years now, and I've been one for longer. I don't know if this'll end them, probably not.. unfortunately... but it will end this world... this existence, and probably some others.. I don't know what I'm doing! But I do know what what I'm doing will cause!" Emilie took the bat away from Lundy's head and began walking back toward Pearl.
"Haha, what?" Back to his human self, Daniel couldn't help but laugh at the conversation now occurring. "I can't believe we're taking this seriously. I mean, really? That was Vera's big discovery? That there are magical people writing everything that happens to us, or it's all happening in a kid's snow globe or something? That's not scientific research! It's like she was trying to come up with a crazy twist ending for a book."
"Daniel, what's wrong with--"
"No, shut up, Judy. I'm not taking this destiny bulls**t at face value. This is just another illusion!" Daniel had stopped laughing. "We watched those droids kill the paledonians, the mercenaries, a bunch of light spirits from Earth, everything. But now we can suddenly save the whole d**n universe? Us? It's an obvious set-up for a few more stupid mind games, like an existential crisis or a false sense of hope, before they finish us off. You heard it from Daria, you heard it from Emilie just now. They're just trying to make us as miserable as possible before they kill us."
The man turned to look at Emilie. "Congratulations on that, by the way. Up until just now, it's been terrible. The pain and death, the general futility, your stupid voice... all of it was spot-on. You're a monster, and I'd strangle you to death if I didn't know it was still futile. But this..." he spun around, arms open. "... this is weak, and I'm not buying it. So go ahead. Break the Apex, or whatever. Make them write 'The End' in the big invisible book. If your little ghost writers really did create everything, then they created you, too, and they want you to spite them. Hell, the hacks probably want this whole mess over as much as you do! They're the ones that gave you the bat!" Daniel broke down again, burying his face in his hands to laugh at how absurd he sounded.
Judy stared at Daniel, mortified. Clearly he couldn't cope with the situation at hand, and had lapsed into denial. The nurse had never wanted to rely on him before, and this was not an exception. She took matters into her own hands, running up to Emilie to try and wrest the bat from her possession.
"What's wrong Damien? You just don't care anymore? My AAANANOYOEYVDGJING VOICE just doesn't get you off like I know it did before now when we talked?" She began to run the bat upwards between the doctors legs, "I'm fine with you not fighting me, I can still kill you and leave you miserable. I know you wanna hit me... and for you I think I'll let you get a free shot. Pearl, let this one go by." She said as the droid nodded. "Come on, Damien" She rested her head on his shoulder, embracing the doctor "Hit me." She lightly bit the man's neck as her bat approached his nethers. "Hit me, I've taken everything else that made you worth anything.." She lightly bit his neck in a very sensual manner "Hit me or I'll take what little bit of your manhood you have left, eunuch doc." Her bites maintained their sensuality, but began to grow more frequent as she moved around Damien's throat. If he did not act soon, she would actually begin to bite into him.
"You dirty old man, even at the end of existence, you still go after tail..." Emilie sighed in a relaxed fashion. She smiled as she immediately sprang to her feet and with a huge smile on her face lunged at the vet. Damien took a swing and landed on the droids ribcage, emitting a loud crack as the synthetic bones were broken. Emilie grabbed the bat by the barrel and began to shift her weight onto Damien, knocking the man over and onto the ground as she began to viciously bite into his neck. She let go of the bat as she began tearing into the doctor with her teeth, not caring if he'd strike back or not. She was consumed with a sheer joy in tormenting Damien more and more as she tried to kill the vet.
Judy reeled, rolling about on the ground as she tried to recover from getting hit in the face with a bat. She moved up to her hands and knees, drooling globs of red and bits of white. Looking up, she first things she noticed were Daniel, on his knees, rambling; and Pearl, who stood with her back to Judy. She couldn't figure out where Emilie was. The former faerie rose slowly and unsteadily to her feet. She didn't have a plan, but she knew this was their last chance to stop the droids. She leaned clumsily into a lunge, trying to tackle Pearl at the knees to bring her down.
Daniel was growing visibly angrier as people continued to struggle against the droids. "How can you still let them toy with you like this?! HOW CAN YOU PLAY THEIR GAME!?!"
"You've escaped the situation you're in... you've blamed it on your past, and you won't be returning from it... If there is to be another existence, you can not be the instigator." With that, Pearl stepped toward the businessman and, with one fell swoop and a short gasp emitted from Desoto, Pearl swung her fist into Daniel's face, crushing the skull of Daniel Carter inward.
Desoto looked on in horror, he had been shocked silent by the entire segment, but seeing Daniel die began to bring him back to his senses, although foggy, he began to remove himself from the situation, not into a fantasy world or a denial, but into a state where he would try to make sense of things.
Suddenly, Lundy charged toward Pearl. Instead of attacking the droid he yanked Judy up, throwing her arm around his shoulder and as fast as he could, carried her to safety. "Judy, we can change our fate. It doesn't have to end like this." He spoke sternly, though his tears still flowed. 'Have I gone mad? Are you listening to yourself? This is how you die, how everyone dies. Do you really think you can stop them. Look at what just happened to your friend. You're probably next you know-' "NO. There's always a way", he spoke, interrupting his own thoughts. "Are you all right, Judy?" He ripped off a piece of his shirt and handed it to the nurse to help stop the bleeding. "There's always a way..." He repeated to himself, though he appeared frantic. 'You still trying to convince yourself?'
Meanwhile, Astrid was recovering from Emilie's last attack and getting back to her feet.
Meanwhile, on a level above the action, Desoto stood and without speaking to any of the others, began walking away from the group. Pearl began to turn to stop the man, however, she was met with a form of resistance in the form of Judy grabbing onto the Droid's leg. She didn't speak, but merely braced herself for what she felt would be an inevitable death. Pearl raised her arm to strike into the nurses head, but her arm was held up with great force by Astrid and Arthur. The two were holding back Pearl with all of their strength and even then just managing to stop her from doing damage to Judy. Instead, she began to turn her attention toward them when Terry grabbed her other arm, aided by Rena, who while one of the weaker members, was able to begin to unbalance the droid. Lundy took this hint and charged Pearl down with full force. Slowly, but surely, Pearl began to fall, and they all came crashing down. Hitting hard onto the floor of Apex, Pearl began to struggle, easily able to move, but weighted down enough to make any significant advancement difficult. She instead began to silently smash her arms into the ground, beginning to bloody those who had begun to hold her down at these points.
On the lower floor, Damien moved himself slowly into a corner. Emilie had bitten deep and he was losing blood very quickly. "****ing stupid Dream God... Didn't give me any kind of medical supplies...Dammit.." He slowly made his way to a stairwell in the corner of the room and began moving upwards, the simple exertion of moving upward causing more blood to pour out as he tightly held his throat. Bat in hand, Damien emerged onto the main floor where the party had Pearl in a full body-bind, the Droid beating them up while crawling forward. Damien stared with a disgusted look on his face, "Morons... I ****ing... hate... all of yo-" He ended mid-sentence as he fell to the floor in death. Luckily, his body provided a further blockade from Pearl, who was beginning to crawl easier with the lightened resistance put upon her as she knocked Arthur into unconsciousness. Astrid would have screamed, but was entirely focused on the task at hand and did not notice her companion immediately.
Desoto had walked to the other end of the vessel and seemed to be lost in thought. As if in a total stupor, he slumped into a side of the building and breathed in deeply. The noises of the struggling party were grating, and he wished to silence them, but he knew this had to be done. A voice had spoken to him, foretelling him that in order for the next phase to begin, someone had to go to sleep, and sleep Desoto tried to do, and eventually sleep was something he achieved.
Pearl continued struggling, eventually knocking Rena into the floor, smashing the young girls skull inward. "Rena!" Lundy cried out, only briefly losing focus before returning his full attention to restraining Pearl, who had wasted no time in his lightened grip to begin bucking up against him, seeking to throw him off.
Desoto found himself removed from his body in an empty gray area. He attempted to look at himself but saw nothing, it was in this form of emptiness that a thought occurred to the man. He was not sure if it was his own, but the thought simply occurred to him "Would you like to create another world?" Desoto was unsure of what this meant, and felt somewhat conscious of himself. However, this quickly subsided as he gave the affirmation in his mind "I've always liked writing... maybe I should go back to it.."
With this simple statement, Desoto's entirety began to fade from any semblance of cognizance. His body leaned limply into the wall, not dead, but not alive either. Pearl looked up to see this, and only had a brief moment to ponder it, realizing she had failed. In that instant, her body, and all those around her, were stricken from the physical realm, the party rent asunder by an unseen shock wave.
For what would easily be measured in years numbering in the hundreds of millions, Apex sat empty in a void, taking on different forms and changing in its appearance until it began to fade out of the physical realm, resigned once again to its own obscure point in metaspace. Many more eons later, as galaxies and planetary systems formed, one particular planet was set aside, the planet Earth, created with a special beacon upon it as the choice-world of the Progenitor. On this world, life began to grow in a way that was natural and followed the laws which Desoto had unconsciously set up for them. Luckily, these laws were completely similar to those which Desoto had lived under in his own time, though there was a final stipulation written into the new phase of existence.
The immortal sovereign of a planet could not die of old age. None of the denizens of this Earth or any other planet would grow with awareness that this were even a possibility, only speaking of such an instance in hypothetical abstractions. Desoto's Earth was one in which his comrades had been revived and went about their lives normally. Judy continued her work as a paramedic, Damien as a horrible veterinarian, Lundy continued his life in Alaska with his family, Rena continued her poor existence, Miguel was also revived and lived as he had always done, in the fast-lane with little worries or cares, though this time he was purely flesh and blood. The only person missing from this Earth was Desoto himself, as he was stricken from any sort of existence, used as Apex's fuel for the new universe.
Only one error could be found in Desoto's universe, a secondary planet created from his memories of Necros. Rather than existing as a parallel world, however, this planet sat within Earth's solar system, undetected by human technology. On it resided life vaguely resembling that of Necros, the creatures which mankind had had contact with in early days, but had driven out at a later point. This planet, known as Faerie, waited in the void until its own role would play out, in the unfolding chapters of these unending worlds.
The End