19.

Tony

Kaymaer roared, a sound that made me cover my ears in pain as it reverberated through the empty battle planet. His form contorted as he grew larger.  He was now bony, his skin stretched across his lanky frame. His skin was obsidian black, absorbing all light that came into contact with it. The three shards fused, into one bigger one and  went through his chest. The amount of energy he was releasing was so large, that it felt oppressive. I felt dizzy already and looked beside me to see Míriel unconscious. Zeus sat back, regrowing his arm and watching the battle that was about to unfold.

The shard in his chest disappeared and the oppressiveness faded. His father floated in the air, his body taking on an orange glow. His hair still shone white, his features returning to the first time I had seen him, but I could tell that he was different.  X seemed unfazed by everything that was going on. He just floated there, waiting. In a flash, Kaymaer was inches away from X’s face, but before he could do anything, a blast of white energy went through his chest.

He started to fall to the planet’s surface even he instantaneously regenerated and rushed back at X, only to get beheaded this time. His head grew back immediately, but this time he pulled back and hundreds of thousands of clones pour out of his body, with lightning speed. They surrounded X and lunged at him but he simply slices his hand through the air  and they burst into pieces, but it was all a distraction. As the clones float away, Kaymaer is revealed with a tiny orb in his hand.

“Antaroq Eznon Mordor!”, he yells, firing the orb at X. X stands there as the beam hits a portal and appears behind him. He barely dodges as the beam appears to be faster than it was. X raised a finger, his halo slightly pulsing. “Hypersphere”, he says and a transparent orb, at least two times bigger than the current battle planet we were on appeared, swallowing Kaymaer, and the beam. It hits the inside of the sphere and disappears.

“What...what is this?”, Kaymaer roared, firing blasts at random. He kept on getting more and more enraged, trying to escape.  X floated towards him and passed through the orb, his hand outstretched and a white sigil in his palm. “Its a four dimensional orb, don’t bother, brute force is useless.” He fell silent and his eyes turned a yellow hue. He laughed again. “The mind...you bonded with it, didn’t you?”, he grinned as the  yellow grew more intense. X stayed silent, still eyeing him.

Electricity crackled out of his body in torrents, as  he began to turn into a shadowy figure. “Well then, it’s time I went all out” All the lightning immediately got sucked back in and an explosion rocked the orb, destroying it in the process. X stood there, taking the attack unflinchingly. When it cleared, X was still floating, but his father was gone. A brilliant flash of light behind X  revealed his father with his palm behind X. I yelled for X to turn around, but it was already too late. “Shard of Chaos: Delirium.” A single red orb grew from the space between Kaymaer’s hand a d X’s back. It kept growing until it covered us too, the planets remaining , and soon, the entire system was covered by the red orb.

“Descend, spawn of Chaos!” Kaymaer roared and all at once, hundreds of millions of harbingers started coming out of the sides of the orb. They ranged from massive behemoths, that made planets look like basketballs, to human sized creatures that scampered towards anything alive, and mostly towards X. I picked up my staff, ready to battle again, since my wounds were healed. I needed to protect Míriel and Zeus as long as I could. 

“This is going to hurt, a lot.”, I said as the first wave of harbingers landed on the planet, lumbering at us will murderous intent. I spun the staff and got into a stance, charging up my energy for another sporadic burst. Three, two, one... The first harbinger leapt at me with an ear piercing shriek, but I just downed it faster than it could react. The other ones got more agitated and started to come in hordes. I conjured my maelstrom with Míriel and Zeus at the centre and led the harbingers elsewhere.

They were everywhere, and more were still coming out of the sides of the orb. They must be from all those universes that got corrupted. I stood, removing all my limiters and using my energy to push the hordes away for a while. Without wasting time, I swung the staff in a wide arc, erasing anything within reach. More came along and I was running out of fighting space. They kept coming closer faster than I could kill them.

Staff of Zurvan, first skill: Tidal Annihilation!”

I struck my staff onto the ground and a shockwave rippled through the entire orb, destroying anything left. X and Kaymaer were unaffected by the erasure, and so was Zeus and Míriel, thanks to the shard energy my maelstrom was made of. For a moment, I thought everything was fine, that I had somehow destroyed them all, but then, the orb just grew larger than before and more behemoths came through. There were too many to destroy, and I was getting to my limit, that last attack took almost all my energy. They ignored me this time and all went for X. Millions of them covered him and he just stood there. There was silence as they started coming for me too, hands outstretched. I was too drained to do anything, until they all stopped. Frozen.

“Enough.”, came X’s voice. The harbingers begin to stretch and they are drawn back to where X is covered by the hordes of behemoth harbingers. They too, start contorting strangely until they turn I to tiny strands of black that spirals into X’s hand to form an orb. X regarded the orb with disgust as the large orb around us gets torn and converted into the same black string that entered into the white glowing orb. He closed his hand and a white glowing sword extended from his closed palm. Kaymaer disappeared again, trying to attack from X’s blind spot. He appeared behind X and was about to run his hand through his chest, when X slashed the air in front of him and Kaymaer fell back, red glowing blood spurting from his dark figure. X turned around, catching him by the shoulder before he fell.

“I know you tried to save mother, why you did what you did, why everything turned this way. I’ve forgiven you, father.”, X said, the sadness on his face more pronounced. I had never seen him so sad before. I saw a tear escape his eyes as he held his father. Then his father drove his hand through X’s stomach. “Emotions make you weak Xassin, my boy.”, Kaymaer said half laughing. It will always keep you from your true potential.” He removed his hand and X drooped, motionless, I yelled at X to get up as his father created a jagged blade  and raised it high above X’s head, ready to strike. Now all I have to do is kill you and all will be Zoi. Finally!”, he said with a large grin and brought it down on X’s head.

“Yes, I agree, it does make me weak.” X said , catching the blade with his hand. “But, do not make the mistake of thinking that I’m weaker than you.” The dagger broke in his hand and X snapped his hand, sending us back to a different location that I had never seen before, buy seemed oddly familiar. I quickly found what made it seem so familiar, which was the eerie blue star, only this time, it was much bigger, extending from the horizon and taking up more than half of the sky. It also seemed to shift very quickly, like a storm. The more I looked at it, the more it seemed less like a star. 

“Where...are we?...” I heard Míriel mumble. Míriel. I had forgotten about her, being to engrossed in the battle, she was lying on the floor, and my maelstrom was gone. Zeus was still unconscious, but his arm had regenerated fully. I knelt beside her and held her shoulder. She was cold, very cold. I took off my hoodie, although torn and almost ripped to bits and put it on her, then I concentrated my energy and used it to warm her. She stopped shuddering after a while but she didn’t let go of me.

“I’m not sure...I think it’s one of X’s pocket dimensions, but I’ve never been here before.” I looked up to see that X had already fighting his father. They were basically just blurs now, moving so fast that even my enhanced senses barely kept up with them. X seemed like a completely different person now, even the Index was completely neglected. Then he grabbed his father and flew through the thing I thought to be a star. They disappeared and didn’t come out the other side.

Things were coming to an end soon, that was for sure.