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THE CHRONICLES OF FINALGAMER I Hear A Sound

"There is no fate but what we make for ourselves." John Connor, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

"Hello." It was strange to hear such a small word after everything that had happened. Every time he had entered a world, every place that he encountered, he almost never heard this word being spoken to him before. But here it was as he stumbled out of the cold sweet crackling portal's embrace and the surprise of such a word to normally exist in the first five seconds upon his entrance to a new place made him respond back with the same awkwardness one felt on their first day in a new school. "Um...h-hello. ...woah." He did not even realise where he was when he said it. The flower fields, long stridant oxtail daisies across several hills in a childlike world of pure blue, white, brown and green. The hills had eyes but they were pleasant, kindly, almost blissful in their existence. He knew this place. He knew it almost too well as a calm breeze swept over his arms before he looked over towards the one who greeted him. "Please, sit down with me." A large tablecloth had been laid out on a small clearing within the flowers where another raptor sat next to a picnic basket. He seemed different, the same brown scales like him but he had a green ragged cloak wrapped round his upper body with the end of his tail having split in two. James softly walked over towards him to investigate. "Who...um...am I in the right place?" "Definitely," said the other raptor, "please, sit. You must be hungry." "I am...kind of, I've just been sleeping for six days so-" "Ah, then I have just the thing after a good long sleep." The stranger dug into the basket and pulled out a jellied steak perfectly roasted on a warm plate. James felt his nostrils wince with gratitude at the wondrous scent as the other raptor handed it to him along with a knife and fork. "Your favourite, was it not?" "Um...it...i-i-it...is I guess, thank...you, how did you get this?" "It's alright, I know you are rather disoriented by this. We are not actually in the Mushroom Kingdom." "Yeah I...kinda guessed that." "And no the food is not poison, I know that you are thinking that, you have a right to be suspicious." "You sure about that?" The other raptor sliced a small piece of the steak from FG's plate and ate it up gladly. No sign of illness or shortness of breath which convinced him to take a slow bite realising it was exactly as he had remembered how it tasted. He couldn't even stop himself from finishing the rest of it, feverishly devouring it until the plate was clean. "Was that good?" the stranger asked. "Y-yeah...um...that, actually was, thank you...god. Heh...not...EXACTLY the same as when Klair makes it but still really good, soo uh...who are you?" "I am the Watcher." The raptor with purple marks looked quizzically at him. He was surprised but at the same time still thrown off-kilter by the oddly pleasant ambience of it all. It was unsettling. "Seriously? I...was expecting somebody a lot more-" "Oh I am certainly a lot 'more', dear James, I just wanted to be more approachable before I showed you anything." "What...what do you mean by that?" "Well of course I am not actually a velociraptor, I am just giving you a more familiar look in order to put you at ease. Most creatures tend to be more relaxed when around their own species, that is a perfectly natural response." "That...sounds pretty racist." "Not at all," said the Watcher, "it is but simply biological instinct to associate with those familiar. It is only when you purposefully exclude and villify those unfamiliar to you, is when true prejudice begins, but I am sure you are very intimate with that concept." "You seriously brought me up here to have a picnic and talk shit about sociology?" "Not really, I have more interesting plans for you." "I hope so. Cuz if what Kirie told me was right that means you've been following me for about what, seven years?" "Eight, actually." "...stiiiiiiill kind of creepy. You know...I'm just gonna be honest here, there's a lot of questions I wanna ask you firstly." "As you should." "But if you REALLY are the Watcher, then...you...kind of given me a lot of shit over the years and there's a part of me right in the back of my head going 'punch him, punch him right in the fucking face for everything just drive your fist through his fucking face'...but then I'm like 'no wait let's just see where this goes...and THEN punch him'." "Hhhmhmhmhmhahahahaha...well, I must admit I would deserve that quite a bit. I'm sorry. I understand I have a lot to apologise for." "Mmhmm." James cautiously glanced towards the knife and fork as a dark thought passed him briefly. The other raptor smiled with a silent chuckle. "Are you angry?" "Just...more tired of all this...I've just gone through a lot of personal issues, again." "Yes I...notice you have a lot of inner pursuits happening." "I've been doing that a lot more than most people SHOULD, frankly." "That I can agree with. Kirie does care about you though." He brought out a bottle of Chuckola Cola, the finest from Rogueport as he poured James a glass in the form of a crystal tumbler. "It was after all her that not only managed to create this entire series of events, but also manage to circumvent some of the Scissoraptor's own chaos within the wasteland. That was one thing she forgot to mention." "Wait, what?" "When you were in...within slumber let us call it, she did everything she could to try and stop his indecent rampage. And whilst she was not able to prevent an atrocity, she was successful in managing to subdue him by her appearance to a tortured human victim and then lead the Scissoraptor towards an old hospital...hmhmhm." "Okay I feel like I wasn't part of this despite it all being about me." "Don't worry, I was just explaining to others in order to clear things up but, apologies if that was unnecessary." "What do you mean others?" The Watcher simply shrugged with a smirk as James drank up the cola, resplendent with the finest humours he had ever tasted. The bubbles made him felt giddy all of a sudden as the other "raptor" began to hunch forwards with his claws clasped firmly against his snout. "Do you believe...in destiny, mister Campbell?" "I'm not...sure, frankly." "Do you believe that everything has a purpose, everything has a need to exist for something? Almost everybody believes that they have some sole reason to be there, whether it is, to save somebody's life or to bring light to someone's way or to become a great benefactor to their own world, is that something you believe in?" "Well...no, actually." "Really?" "I've seen a lot of stupid people, and seen a lot of things that frankly would be better off without existing. I've seen things turn out bad and also good and honestly I don't think any of it matters so long as nobody is being hurt by it." "Fair enough. But do you believe that someone is in control of their own destiny...or do you believe...that you are never in control of your own existence?" "...I definitely believe you're responsible for your own life, yeah." The raptor smiled nodding sagely. "I appreciate your wording on that, James. See, someone could have written something different about you, but your personality, your entire existence has gone and wrote itsel-" "Okay stop, STOP." James put his finger up threateningly. "Look I'm in a really good mood right now because I just FINALLY managed to stop this demon inside of me so, I'm gonna be polite about this. I do not want any weird speech of destiny, I do not want any cryptic backstories because I have just literally been through the most difficult goddamn fight of my entire life and I am NOT in the mood for some philosophical 'oooooh we're all just characters in a story' bullshit. Can we just get this story over and done with, before some of us start getting too old for this kind of shit, PLEASE?" "...hmhm, very well. I do tend to ramble, that is something I should have learnt not to do with you. If you would just...stand back and give me some space please." He stood up with his glass of cola and drank most of it down as he gave the Watcher some space. Slowly the world began to tremble around him, turning and twisting like paper skies and grass made of cardboard, crunching and distorting with a most cacophonous sound as everything started fading. The sky of perfect blue became a sun-shattered ceiling of decrepit rock, the grass a sickly yellow stone floor coated in vines right up to the walls of the small interior cave room and finally the glass that James held, was but a simple clay cup with droplets of purest water within it, possibly from the stream of fresh clear liquid trickling down past his feet. But it was the creature before him that took the greatest change of all. It was one of the most bizarre beasts he had ever seen, not because of what it was, but because of what it reminded him of. It appeared to him as a strange amalgamation having a large body with thin white hairs reminiscent of a chocobo minus the beak, with six short wings like that of an angel stretched out behind it and legs that would fit on a giant grasshopper with elephantine feet. The beast stood at a height of ten feet, reaching to around Gruthar's height but less bulky than a deathclaw, and James almost fondly regarded this alien creature to be some sort of angelic counterpart to the most demoniac of wasteland beasts. He even had similar eyes to Gruthar except more slatted but the same pearl white without any sclera noticeable. It spoke with an unusual blurring voice almost reminiscent of the voices of the Citadel translated from a dozen races of more than a hundred worlds with perfect clarity. _ "Welcome to my home James Campbell."_ "Who...who are you? I mean...WHAT are you?" _ "I am of a race beyond your comprehension. We are those with a name that your mind cannot even translate to your own language, even with the aid of technology not of your own world. One species however called our world Cocytus, therefore perhaps you may call us the Cocytans. But you may call me Hau'rhun, that is the closest name to my own to pronunciate for your unique tongue."_ "Uhhh huh. Okay...um....H-haw-rune, that's really not...helping me when you tell me like tha-wait, hold on...how come I can understand you, if you said my translator's not able to?" _ "All travellers through Spacetime Four can understand us within their learned minds. I have been watching you from afar James Campbell. I have gazed across dimensions throughout existence itself, scanning them for one who could assist us between the billions of stars amongst thousands of universes. With one flicker of light I saw you, flitting between points. I took an interest with you, for the potential you possessed."_ "Potential?" _ "Yes, indeed but first let me show you my small kingdom of discovery."_ Slowly he walked him towards an exit to their left, heading out upon a small ledge lit by the soft blue of the ocean far below. It would have been but a dead-end were it not for the incandescent bridge of pure light, shimmering white from a small stone podium by a lens transmitting underneath. Hau'rhun walked across the light straight off into the distance to a pulsating mass quivering hundreds of feet above the world, his clawed feet not passing through the white rays by a bit as he held out his hand, both of which had only two claws on each. _ "Do not fear. It is safe."_ "Is that...um...wh-what if it just works only for YOU and not me-" _ "If I wanted you to fall to your demise I would have let another world take you by its own means rather than go through all this effort, now come. Please."_ He reached out towards Hau'rhun who gripped him softly as James stepped gingerly upon the hard lightbridge. It felt like warm steel yet it never made a sound underneath his feet, the two walking softly towards the central area of this odd world. Eternal sunset all around him, five radiant spires of glistening amber rocks sculpted by the elements or perhaps something else more unnatural to become reminiscent of five fingers clawing straight to the very heavens. Far beneath was but the ocean endless in every direction that he could see. Nothing but the clearest dark blue and shimmering red from the unseen sun with a dark maroon sky above him and two moons orbiting rather oddly close to each other. Directly below him however, surrounded by the sea, was a large craterous mountain with high walls and a miniature desert within like some sort of contained habitat environment. The five spires all had transmitting lightbridges to the central focus point in the middle towards this pulsating mass. The closer James got to it, the more he realised it was in the shape of a dodecahedron with throbbing veins of blue and a soft gentle hum when he came near it. A doorway was in the middle of it as he saw a giant ball of light from inside the dodecahedron as Hau'rhun added: _ "Perhaps you would like to record this new world?"_ "Huh?" The creature turned around to face him in front of the doorway. _ "Your recording device, you would want to narrate this story to your friends with something visual would you not?"_ "Um...I-i guess, would that be alright?" _ "Of course please, I would love you to show your friends of where you have been to, as well as your beloved Koopin. He will be most fascinated by your adventures I predict."_ "That...would be something he'd love to see-wow you really have been following me huh?" _ "I understand there is a lot to take in. But we do not have to do everything now, you are victorious in your defeat against the demon and whilst he is contained for an indefinite amount of time I-"_ "Not contained forever. Exorcised, once I get back to the Mushroom Kingdom I'll definitely have him out of me forever using my original idea with Koopin." _ "Would you not prefer to try the Ivalician standard of ritual?"_ "Um...the one who was able to do that is now dead so...yeah." _ "Ah. Forgive me."_ "Yeah, not so closely following me as I thought huh?" _ "I did not watch every single thing that you did James. My apologies for my error."_ He bowed gracefully with wings outstretched slightly making James feel quite humbled by his stature. "Youuuuu've got a lot to apologise for more than that but I'll accept that at least. Did you want me for something exactly? I mean it only took like eight years." _ "I did, but...let us take our time to know each other first, I want to show you my home at the very least. As much as I have been waiting for this I would not want you to feel unwelcome or simply here for one purpose, and I want you to take your time as well."_ "You did give me food and drink...so that was good, at least I think you did, what was that illusion stuff you did?" _ "I repurposed the map spire into a virtual simulator of sorts. It's amazing what one can do with a few extra combinations on the devices around here."_ "Iiiii seeeee...well, alright then, I guess if you're not in any hurry-" _ "I have all the time in the world my dear James. And so do you after your great and wondrous victory."_ "If this is leading up to some parade-" _ "There is not enough space in this place for a parade unfortunately."_ "Well shit. I was hoping for banner streams and high-rolling cars and hot babes and muscly dudes all to give me a big key to the city." _ "I have many keys, but not for cities, would you like one?"_ "Is it big and shiny and somewhat useless?" _ "Why yes actually."_ "Then yes I would, thank you."

James smirked softly at this pointless interlude and started giggling which made the Cocytan smile in turn by twisting his beakless mouth into a creased flap like an old man's lip. It made him start to wonder how old this beast was but for now he allowed him to guide his new guest across the lightbridges towards another point of the world's focus. James was first shown a rather dark-shaded tower with the colours of twilight on its rock, a beach far below them where he thought he saw some strange turtle-like creatures with two front legs and a diamond-shaped singular back leg to hobble and push through the water with. Moving into a doorway opposite the lightbridge's ending point, there lied a more well-lit room with ancient carvings on the walls and a rather uneven floor that threatened to trip him up. Hau'rhun demonstrated the nature of this spire as being some form of museum by touching the wall to show the carvings actually shifted, transforming with the sounds of crackling dirt to become other images. First he saw the dodecahedron landing in the large crater, then the island itself from above with five spires around it. Then he saw the Cocytans themselves meeting with strange alien creatures resembling humans with rectangular heads and scar-studded chests. Beyond this room was a small cave with ice-green colouring on the walls and strange panels in front of large pale crystals. The raptor had taken Hau'rhun's advice and began his recording ever since they walked towards the museum spire as the Cocytan demonstrated how to operate the crystalline structures. Diagrams far too complicated for FG to comprehend began to unravel, turning and twisting yet at the same time it began to break apart, showing each and every piece and refitting it together three times to make him slowly understand a slight piece of it. "What are all these...computers?" _ "This is our library, it allows one to comprehend our language in its structure by means of a simplified pictorial form."_ "You mean this furniture-building diagram?" _ "If you wish to call it such, yes. Perhaps your beloved Koopin would understand it for his proficiency in language."_ "How do you know that?" _ "I have observed enough of your travels. I know plenty, but not all. Please, I will let this program run whilst you record it for his sake."_ Hau'rhun did just that, turning the program on to its auto-run function as James stood diligently recording every part of it. He was starting to see bits and pieces come altogether but it still resembled a complicated schematic to him, or at least some form of scientific thesis. He wondered if perhaps Dahlia or Leiah would have comprehended this a lot more as he asked whilst still holding up his omni-tool: "So uh...this place seems kinda empty, did I drop in on a bank holiday?" _ "I am the only one here of my species. This place was given to me as one of our old stations from many years hence to perform my experiments in solitude."_ "Wait, experiments? Are you a scientist?" _ "Yes. I am a dimensional scholar, like many of my race who have become fascinated by the various existences of which we live. Are you aware of all the dimensions?"_ "Uhhh I never really covered that in school, how many are there?" _ "Many, in fact it is an ongoing process to decipher just how many there are truly in concept but for now I have discovered ten dimensions that we can at least comprehend. The first dimension is the x-axis, rather a straight line without any or height or width and has only length. On and on it reaches but it is nothing more than a straight single length. The second dimension is height, the y-axis which allows you to create a second line moving up or down to form a shape. A square for example is a two-dimensional object."_ "Okay...I've heard the term 2D before, like that?" _ "Yes, you see something in 2D having a height and length but you cannot tell the depth of it. Now the third dimension, or 3D, is depth. A cube is the three-dimensional form of a sphere, because it now has a depth."_ "Ohhhhhhhh...yeaaaaaah I...I think I know that, okay." _ "Then you have the fourth dimension, which is Time which governs the properties of all known matter at any point and, along with the three other dimensions, knowing an object's position in time is essential to plotting its position in the universe."_ "So...wait...the first three dimensions are just BUILDING things into shapes but the fourth is just time? How does that work?" _ "All known matter must live and then decay,"_ explained Hau'rhun, "and it is that which we use to estimate the existence of something. For example, I existed in this world for many years, but before that I did not, because I was not created yet. If there were only three dimensions, everything would remain at a constant without Time to measure its progress and eventual decay." "OHHH WAIT!" cried FG. "I know this, that's when you got the 4D helmets on in the theater and so you feel like you're actually IN THE MOVIE and you can hear all the gunfire everywhere around you and the people racing back and forth, so it's you're...in...the room and you are exisssstinnnng at, the saaaame time as the things that are hap-peniiiing...?" _ "That is more virtual reality, like what I was just doing when you arrived...but I see you are getting it somewhat, yes!"_ Hau'rhun was pleased to see him catch on despite a rather simplistic view of it amidst James' creeping hesitation to not look stupid. _ "That's correct somewhat more than I expected of you I admit but yes you are aware of the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time and it is that sole dimension that we all exist in. Each universe has its own dimension that it is locked into bear in mind so your world operates on four dimensions, my world operates on four dimensions and so forth because all of us are moving forwards constantly in Time. Plants grow, creatures are born, stars die in the universe that we reside in. Does that make better sense to you?"_ "Well......kind of, but...geez I didn't really come here to learn about science." _ "You did ask how many dimensions,"_ added Hau'rhun politely, "but regardless I will continue promptly, now, the fifth dimension is but another timeline of similar existences to the world you now live in, but it has become something new, a branching timeline if you will." "Ah huh." _ "The sixth dimension is a plane of existence where every single possible world started from the same event, all of them different in some means. The seventh dimension is a plane of existence showing ALL possible worlds, but each one with different starting conditions. That is the dimension that YOU have been passing through constantly."_ "Woah woah woah woah...back up." He remembered he was still recording as the diagrams continued to explain and deconstruct themselves simply as he brought his right hand to his head. "Are you telling me that...I was jumping through SEVEN dimensions?" _ "THE seventh, not seven dimensions, and it is credit to those of your world to have managed to skip three dimensions beyond their capabilities! It was that spark of genius within your construct that brought me to you in the first place. Now, onwards, the eighth dimension is a plane of all possible worlds with different starting conditions but in turn they ALL branch out infinitely. Are you seeing a pattern here James?"_ "If...wait, is each dimension just creating a new timeline?" _ "MULTITUDE of timelines. The fourth dimension is one timeline, the fifth is two. The sixth is many and the seventh is vast. The eighth dimension is an immeasurable multitude of worlds all starting differently and all branching into constant alternates. The ninth dimension is even more strange for not only is it the eighth dimension two-fold, but it ALSO alters the law of physics."_ "Oh god not physics." _ "The ninth dimension is when you have constant existences along with constant changes in the laws of physics. Gravity is like water, solids combust against each other regardless of their build, gas is but a philosophy, a theory at best."_ "And the tenth dimension?" _ "Infinity."_ James' eyes widened slightly at such a word as he gulped watchin Hau'rhun's eyes light up with his hands spreading out in great scope. _ "All existences, and all laws of existence can become something new in every shape, every form, every concept you have never dreamed before."_ "Have...I been going through that?" _ "Oh goodness no. Every world you have been to, the laws of physics have at the very least remained constant have they not? Did you ever jump into the air and find gravity to not exist? Did you ever find those who did not live and breathe like we do, sculpted of flesh and bone?"_ "Not...really, god this is making my head hurt." _ "Then you have not reached beyond Spacetime Seven. So, to recap, first is length, second is height, third is depth, fourth is time, fifth is time again, sixth is every point of time from the same point, seventh is every point of time from every possible origin, eighth is every point and every origin with every future possibility, ninth is the same but with every concept of physics to be altered and finally tenth...is everything possible."_ "Jesus christ...and you STUDY this?" _ "Correct, you can stop recording now the program has ceased."_ The diagram had indeed finished its explanation as James quickly turned off his omni-tool to give his arm a rest from hanging in one position for so long. Sitting down on a stone seat, he rubbed his head trying to focus on this strange yet empty existence that he felt was an odd end to his adventures, at least for the foreseeable future as the great Cocytan walked forwards to stand before him. His feet crunched upon the ground in strange clacking motions, powerful but lithe for a beast of his stature. _ "Are you tired, James?"_ "Kind of...overwhelmed rather. I wasn't sure what I was expecting." _ "I wish to make your journey as easy as possible."_ "Youuuu haven't really done that at all." _ "It could have been much worse."_ "How?" _ "You would not have had the opportunity to face your demon without my assistance."_ "Huh?" _ "There is a lot for me to explain, I do not want to overwhelm you by long recollections, would you prefer to rest someplace for the time being?"_ "Maybe...is there like a bed or...something not made of stone I can lie on?" _ "I have something prepared for you, please come with me."_ He staggered up slowly as he turned on his omni-tool once again as they made their way down towards the beach area now secluded in twilight darkness, walls of purple and black stone as James heard thunderous storms across the horizon from beyond his vision. Another cave was secluded within the base of the spire, which lead in turn towards two odd things. A separate room behind a grated triangular door of sliding rock, and a small blue button pulsating on a stone column with a metallic track beside it. "What's that button do?" asked FG. _ "It calls the tram,"_ said the Cocytan, "you will see those soon enough once we begin our mission proper. This way."

With his greater strength and bulk, Hau'rhun pushed aside the large stone door which lead into a rather small room containing only a long descending hallway and an empty hexagonal-shaped pool that once held something. He thought he could see the glint of soft green crystal shards within but moved on to the corridor that went further deep underground. The world started to turn somewhat colder but by an odd moistness in the air that he felt along his skin in a strangely soothing manner, before soon reaching a rather gorgeous room set up to be like a bedroom. A stone slab to the side had been covered in dried seaweed or some indeterminate plant, as well as a crab-claw shaped holder for items but the real treasure of the room was the long gorgeous glass window showing the sea next to the smooth bed. The entire ocean from beneath was a magnificent gradient of green to blue, turning turquoise and aquamarine from top to bottom like crystal jade becoming liquid emerald as Hau'rhun stated: _ "This shall be your room for the brief time you are here. You may hang your belongings upon that holder whilst you sleep, no one will disturb you."_ "Wow this...damn this is like some four-star hotel in the Phillippines!" _ "I take it that is good."_ "It sure is, holy damn...um...thanks, for giving me a place to sleep." _ "Please, it is merely courtesy for all you have done to reach this place. I think you deserve some rest before we continue our mission."_ "I haven't agreed to anything, just bear that in mind." _ "I know, but whatever the outcome of your decision is, I hope that you and I become at least acquainted with each other. Do you wish to rest now?"_ "More just wanna sit and relax...I've already been sleeping for six days before this after all." _ "Very well."_ James sat down onto the bed made for him, sensing the rustling warmth of the surprisingly well-knitted seaweed and leaves which had come together to form an immensely warm blanket. It wasn't like reeds or what he expected but more as if actual cotton plants had been binded into a sheet as he sighed laying his back against it. He almost closed his eyes right then as the Cocytan smiled at his guest's approval. "Ohhhhhh man...ohhh this is nice." _ "I am glad to see you approve."_ "Seriously, thank you. God I needed this, Mz. Ruby had a nice bed and all but this feels...much nicer, lighter, less-" _ "Dusty?"_ "...yeah. Um, do you mind actually if I took a quick nap just to recharge a bit?" _ "Not at all, please, rest as much as you like. I will return to the library at the top of this spire to research some things, if you need me I will be there."_ "Okay...see ya then." _ "Rest well James Campbell."_ Taking his time to relax, James laid fully back after unstrapping his satchel and placing it on the floor beside him to get more comfortable. Before he even realised, he had fallen asleep from the mental exhaustion having overdone it slightly to go straight to teleporting across dimensions so soon after such a trying experience against the demon inside him. He smiled gladly in his sleep, no nightmares, no dark visions. Just the sounds of the ocean waves rumbling as he laid beneath in a special room, the lights of the sunset trickling in from above. As he slept with peaceful murmurs for the first time in months, his dreams began to reflect a much brighter future that awaited him. Hoping with his heart to see Koopin one day and almost forgetting about his need to reach his homeworld once again in the sweeping cheerfulness that overcame him without warning. He made a resolution amidst his dream reverie to see his friends again one day, every one of them if he could once he had sorted all his business. All he heard was but the sound of the ocean muffled against the glass. Distended, pulsing, undulating motions that came deeply vibrating from the dozens of species swimming playfully beneath the waves. The sound of which began to manifest marvellously inside his head as but the dance of a deep embrace between him and Koopin. The two swam across an infinite blue abyss without ever stopping for a breath of air, not needing it with each other. James dived down with him into the wondrous depths, the koopa so naturally adept and in his blissful element as he swam circles around FG. He grabbed onto his tender yellow hand and spun within a waltz, laughing joy streaming out as bubbles from between their lips before they kissed sweetly but the one time to taste each other's breath, panting happily. He spoke with a promise mouthed by his lips beneath the waters that Koopin understood, and so did James in turn upon his awakening back into the world of Cocytus with a long beaming smile on his lips. Stretching his arms out with a groan of ease, he gently got up from his bed to see the watery window as the first thing to ease him back into the world. With renewed energy and a greater spirit for adventure's end he took his satchel and went straight towards the top of the museum spire to find where Hau'rhun would be. Sure enough, as he said, he was in the library section with his claws tapping the panels delicately to bring up more intriguing diagrams. James noticed that the sky had not changed one bit since yesterday as Hau'rhun greeted him. _ "Ahhh, good morning."_ "...is it? It kinda looks like sunset still out there." _ "Yes, my world has a rather unusual orbit as opposed to your own."_ "Ahhh huh. Well, that sleep did me good cuz I feel super refreshed, had a nice dream even!" _ "Oh?"_ "Me and Koopin were swimming under the sea...god...haven't felt that good in ages thank GOD this fucking demon's got his shit kicked in." _ "I am very glad to see you are eager to continue this! Your enthusiasm is a great boon."_ "So uh...what's this thing you're looking at?" _ "Theoretical framework of a transcendental number theory, formulating various qualitative numbers in order to use as a solid base for future experiments concerning spatial dimensions. In order to base my experiments on a foundation, I need to decipher new numbers to even begin this new formula from which I can then create-...hmhmhm."_ He saw the clear look of confused fading interest from FG's eyes turning glazed from the explanation. _ "In simpler terms, I am inventing new numbers to create new theories to build new dimensional access. We have only reached Spacetime Seven and I am very curious to see what Spacetime Eight has in store for us."_ "How do you...INVENT new numbers, you can't just make up something like a kazbrillion." _ "Not in that sense, I mean more in the algebraic sense, such as E equals M-C squared."_ "OH WAIT, I saw that on a T-shirt back home, okay now I got what you mean. Heh...wow, so you..." The raptor slowly leaned himself against a pillar next to the panel Hau'rhun was using as he crossed his arms peering at the odd linguistic equations. "You guys invented a lot of stuff then?" _ "Indeed,"_ replied the Cocytan, "we have created many things in our pursuits of discovery and possibility." "I'm kinda amazed considering all this rock and shit you got here, I mean, if I'd known you were such a genius I was expecting hyper sleek smooth computers made of pure steel and holographic resonance stuff...least I got one of those two right." _ "Advancement does not necessarily mean chrome and steel, James, when one gains enough intelligence they can form the greatest theories from the simplest of carvings. There are plenty of inventors in the most wartorn of strife, who have managed to build the most sensational things with but the most basic of instruments."_ "I guess...so what stuff did your species invent?" _ "We have the lightbridges, portals into the subspace between dimensions, space probes that could vault across the entire galaxy in but the span of a few hours as well as crystals that could revive the dead. The latter was a most grave mistake, pun not intended."_ "Woah wait...you could actually revive the dead? Like, not the zombie sort of reviving but the ACTUAL kind?" _ "Yes, it revived them perfectly. But there was a price for such things for the ones that came back from death, began to turn into rabid, wild versions of themselves that become uncontrollable by the hour."_ "Okay, thaaaaaaat sounds like a zombie." _ "No no, they were perfectly coherent and able to speak and cogitate normally without any flesh decay, but they would become addicted to the very essence of life from those of the crystals. The crystals contained a pure essence of life itself that could bring anything back, the ACTUAL essence of life we managed to perfect in capturing. But when the body has become deprived of it once, it can only crave for it again as the body's metabolism in post-mortem life becomes accelerated to violent degrees, which in turn becomes addiction."_ "Addiction? So you...basically made a drug that revives people and then it turns them into a junkie for the life juice?" _ "Correct."_ "Wow, you really fucked up there didn't you?" _ "That was not my invention. That was from my predecessor."_ "You know, the way you guys keep messing around with life and space, maybe you just SHOULDN'T start this stuff, ever think of that?" _ "You are referring to ethics in science?"_ "Yeah." _ "Of course, we have made measurements for that now after our first mistakes but that as I said was not my invention. My closest thing to an invention at least in terms of collaboration was this book."_ He closed his program on the panel as the fractured equations disappeared into the crystalline strata before something else appeared before them. To James' shock it was an old tattered-looking book that he instantly recognised by its crackling grey-skinned cover as various alien symbols began to point themselves towards it, breaking, deconstructing the pages into layered sections of a theorem as he cried out: "WAIT, tha-...that book!? The one you-...no, wait, no no the book is from that island, not-don't tell me YOU made that!" _ "The original book was from Myst Island yes, penned by a master of a forgotten art. But once you had freed the Lemming clan from their prison, I made collaborations with Twinsen as a fellow scientist along with Kirie's assistance for communication. We have another addendum to our rule of no contact with other worlds, and that is if another world HAS made contact with us by their own means, then we shall discuss openly with them. And when a young budding visionary such as Twinsen manages to reach out to me well, how could I possibly refuse?"_ "So, are you saying that half of this plan of yours relies entirely on you fucking over your superiors on technicalities sliding around loopholes?" _ "Yes, if you wish to be so blunt."_ He raised an eyebrow before slowly smirking at such bureaucratic subterfuge as he pushed himself away from the wall chuckling. "Hehehehahaha, okay, I like you, that's some pretty good shit, heheheh. So wait, that book that Mz. Ruby had, that wasn't the one from Myst?" _ "No, that was a copy I formed with assistance from both Twinsen and Mz. Ruby herself. The former for his literary prowess and the latter for her spiritual boundaries."_ "Why her exactly, instead of say Mariel from Lea Monde?" _ "I needed a spiritual power that focuses inwardly towards the soul, something specifically adherent to it and one's mind and I researched many possible candidates. She was a suitable choice, not my first but she was the first who accepted my task calling it a good reason to balance karma for her past transgressions."_ "What transgressions exactly?" _ "You would have to ask her,"_ said Hau'rhun shrugging, "I do not know what she meant. Regardless, the book I gave to Mz. Ruby via Kirie was not the book from Myst Island, but rather a copy I made that would create an inwards experience. It becomes a direct link into one's mental scape, and so using my dimensional theorem I managed to sculpt something...have you ever seen two mirrors opposite of each other?" "Yeah?" _ "And when you do so, you see the mirrors become endless hallways stretching on into darkness?"_ "Ah huh." _ "THAT is something close to what I made the book become, a mirror towards one's mind in order to reflect its true mental scape. Managing this was no small feat for every person's mind is different, that is the problem. The mirror must become unique to every individual by which to show the proper reflection. That was why I needed those three relics."_ "What relics?" _ "The Vessel, the Seeker and the Dormant."_

The Cocytan changed the panel's "screen" to show a triangular pulse of energy, with three items that James recognised to be Koopin's photograph, his pendant and Roy's horseshoe. _ "In my studies across Spacetime Seven, I came across one very fascinating individual who managed to unlock the mental scape within people's hearts, or rather that of darkness within. I forget his name but suffice to say through a great amount of unseen observation, I managed to gleam some of his reports that which would be relevant to my studies, which then I transferred to Twinsen as we began to sculpt this book for you. Originally the research delved into darkness of people's hearts, but I only took the basis of it in order to create my 'mirror' within the book to send yourself INTO your heart-" ** "We know all too well how to injure a heart."** _ "NNNNGH!" Staggering against the wall, James shuddered hotly from the burning sensation that felt a little too close to a teleporting tremble across his skin. Hau'rhun got up to try and help him but James beckoned him back away. _ "Are you alright?!"_ "Y-y-yeah...just...this kinda happens sometimes when a keyword hits me too often, so uh...you...stole another dude's research to make this book?! That's pretty shifty." _ "I will admit my error of plagiarism, I am a dimensional theorist not a spiritual To be fair I do not think his research was going to be anymore beneficial. Also I did not take any reports, I cannot interfere. But I can copy easily enough."_ "You're a fucking thief! Heh, maybe that's what I like about you, not that I'm complaining if it saved me from getting swallowed up by Scissoraptor." _ "Hmhmhm...well, so long as you are not against my actions, but it was the actual process on how to create it that took the most time out of the entire project, but once I managed to file down those theories into something tolerant...it only took but a year to actually form the book itself and to perfectly render it towards your particular mental scape."_ "But...you didn't have any of my items, how did you-" _ "The items are for YOU to unlock the book with. What I did, essentially, was build a doorway and create a lock that only you could access through. I can now form that for any creature, but for you to even unlock it in the first place, you would need three items of a great spiritual importance in order to help you remain composed whilst within your inner self. Do you understand?"_ "I...yeah, okay sure whatever." The raptor chuckled shrugging nervously and not wanting another long explanation but knowing too that Hau'rhun was simply full of them. He also knew that eventually he would have to ask the most dreaded question of all once he was well and ready for it as he asked gently: "What do you want me to do?" _ "If you are ready for it, I shall explain to you."_ "I don't think I'm gonna be anymore ready but...is there some food maybe or-" _ "Let's discuss this over some nourishment, I think that would be wise. Come, let's return to the map spire and I shall give you another picnic."_ "Okay, sure...was that food even real?" _ "It was, but if you knew what you were truly eating, you would not want to finish it. The virtual simulator I have also managed to cause illusory sensations to your own touch, taste and smell allowing you to enjoy something that, as far as your brain is concerned is but a wondrous afternoon lunch."_ "Uhhh...well, you said it wasn't poisonous before soooo okay." _ "But...if I may ask something of you before anything. This panel here has a scanner function and I would be most appreciative, if you allowed me to scan your neural functions for a most intense curiosity of mine."_ "Uhhh...scan me?" _ "You have vaulted yourself through Spacetime Seven constantly, shifting between existences of other worlds and indeed of other universes when your home planet has barely begun to reach the level of technology that my species has. I must admit, I am still uncertain as to how exactly you are able to accomplish it so...would you do me a great honour James Campbell, and allow me to scan your brain?"_ "I'm not gonna let you experiment on me, you can forget that." _ "I would never dream of it, I simply wanted to analyse your anatomy."_ "That souuuuunds like experimenting." _ "Let me rephrase, I am going to scan you by a painless transmission that will allow me to understand your nature. You will be awake, it is utterly painless and there shall be no trickery of any kind I promise you."_ "I'm just saying, for all the stuff you've been leading me around with, I have no real reason to trust you. I appreciate you letting me chill at your homebase island but I'm still not sure what you really want." _ "That is understandable. But I have no reason to experiment on you, I have no desire to take anything from you, I simply want to learn about you."_ He crossed his arms surreptitiously in a great suspicion but eventually nodded with some reluctance. "Okay then...but only if you promise there's no pain involved and no taking stuff out of me, then alright." _ "I swear upon my species' honour. Just stand still whilst I take the first scanning measurement."_ Tapping into the panel soon brought up a function for Hau'rhun that James had not seen previously. He calibrated with but a few tweaks of the small jewelled buttons a scanning ray of sharp sweet mint-coloured light that pierced through James body leaving a shadow behind him as it rippled up and down his entire skin without hurting any. The Cocytan nodded with great intrigue before asking: _ "Good, that was the base scan, now I want you to do something for me."_ "Yeah?" _ "Could you open a portal for me? No need to jump through, I just want you to access a portal like you are about to leave one world into the next so I can scan your brain during this activity."_ "Uhhhh...okay, and then we eat right?" _ "Yes."_ "Alright...um...kinda need a keyword let's see um..." Tracking through his past memories he found one word that popped up and latched onto it tightly. Keeping a firm hold upon one of his friends' faces from another world, he began to will himself to open a portal once again before him. Hau'rhun watched with immense fascination as slowly the dark blue tearing of existence formed itself, twisting and snapping with violent sparks of sub-dimensional energy as he quickly scanned FG. Once again the searing whitish-green traced itself all over his body whilst he kept his hold on the portal, not venturing near it by any step as his hands crackled with powerful electricity. It was strange for him to keep still whilst not moving towards it, since normally he always had the urge to jump in and for once he had to refuse which made him nervous and shiver throughout his musculature. Groaning as he felt the mental energy start to burn, his eyes pulsed with a blurring sight as Hau'rhun suddenly said: _ "That's enough, cease!"_ He pulled his hands away fiercely as fast as he could before staggering back against the wall next to the computer panel, the raptor gasping with his eyes turning hot like wires had just been conducting through them. The scientist got up from his panel and walked over hastily to examine him, his eyes covered with his hands trying to clear the irritation out of them. _ "Are you alright?"_ "Y-y-yeah...nnngh...k-kinda hurts when I have to do it but I never had to do it and then NOT go through it, I think-" _ "Yes the forceful prevention method must be...I am sorry, I did not realise that-"_ "It's fine...I'm used to it." James pulled his hands away from his face to smile weakly up at Hau'rhun who smiled back in turn. _ "Thank you for the data, it was...MOST fascinating, I never knew it could...it was immensely enlightening and I appreciate you for giving me the chance."_ "Heh, it's alright...though you do ask a lot of stuff from me, I'm not sure at this point what you can offer me." _ "I have something in mind to give you after all this, something you long deserved after all of your great trials. But first...shall we eat?"_ His arm swept neatly around James' shoulders as the raptor nodded in return with the two making their way back towards the map spire, heading along the lightbridges to the west where James had originally first landed, propping up his omni-tool in order to get a good view of the stranger green-lit room of vines and sunlit rock breached from the ceiling above. The lone Cocytan resident of the place, now wearing a small bag on a sling around his chest, brought from its folds an odd-looking relic resembling a fractured lightsabre. A long red crystal tube with seven shapes of various complex Euclidean designs that James struggled to remember the names of as Hau'rhun walked to the centre of the sun-streaked cavern of vines. A podium sculpted circular with three claw-like lengths branching across the top of it as if meant to hold something for an altar, with up to seven shapes similar to that on Hau'rhun's strange relic laid out in a row between them. He touched them individually and so they began to change first in shape then in colour with the same order repeating again until he made the exact copy from his lengthly key. Above the podium something began to form, a clouded hallucinatory product that slowly enveloped the rest of the room into a single whitened fog. A ghostly screech of some strange resonance permeated across James' creeping skin as Hau'rhun stood before him smiling with his odd lipless face as the world began to form with splashes of colour from everywhere around him. Like being trapped inside of a painting in progress, walls began to drip soaking in yellow, blue, crimson and beige to reveal a strangely pleasant scene of another world from another existence.

Soon everything came into focus once the colours had finished in their layers of peaceful simulation revealing a golden sun half-dipped into the red sweet sea off in the horizon. The ocean closer to him turned slowly towards a blue softened tinge that washed gently across the shore of sweet sand warm to the touch still as the raptor slowly sat down onto the beach, with Hau'rhun sitting next to him like a lion would with haunches bent to accommodate his strange bowing legs. _ "Is this good for relaxing?"_ asked the Cocytan. "Yeah it...wow......this...kind of reminds me of the beach back in Kanto, is it like-" _ "It is not what I had in mind, but you can imagine it as such if you want. Would you like something to eat?"_ "Yeah please." Forming between them as if by a ghostly veil slipping off from its folds was a picnic basket like the one James had seen upon landing in the first simulation. He had to wonder what the food truly was but so long as Hau'rhun said it was not poisonous he so believed his reputation along with the fact he had gone through so much effort to accommodate his arrival. Toasted sandwiches with chicken and bacon strips along with a refreshing cola drink that he almost certainly knew was water in truth. But the illusory nature of this room was incredible for manipulating his senses as he began to eat, and once he did he could not stop himself. "MMMMPH....mmmmhhh god...that's...god damn that tastes so good." _ "When you live on an island with very little choice in terms of food, you tend to develop means to please your palate."_ "No kidding...aumph...mmmmph...mmmmglk, wan' sum?" _ "Yes please."_ Hau'rhun ate some of the food himself and relished the fine meat, chewing away at it with his claws gingerly trying to grab at the sandwiches as if using chopsticks before biting in. It was a pleasant situation, one that James found himself relaxing deeply within putting his hands behind himself to lay back sighing as he looked towards the infinite-seeming sky of all-too-familiar sunset. He was hoping that he wasn't going to get sick of sunsets by the time this was going to be over as he said finally: "Okay...I'm ready." _ "Hmm?"_ "I'm ready to ask what you want me to do." _ "Alright."_ The two finished up their meal as Hau'rhun turned towards him halfway to give him his true mission. He understandably was nervous as was FG who felt his lips turn dry all of a sudden amidst the playful sounds of waves crashing upon the shore next to their feet. _ "......there are many worlds in danger James, universes in fear of being destroyed by a slow eventual apocalypse, one that threatens all of existence eventually and you...are a small but extremely important catalyst of preventing a great catastrophe."_ "...wait. I'm sorry what?" His eyes squinted with a fierce struggling urge to take in what he just heard. "Did...did you just...MANY universes? You're kidding, right?" _ "I do not jest about such matters, James. I am serious."_ "So...did you-waaaait wait wait wait, wait. You...want me...to help you save ALL those universes? Like not even one, not even like...this...this is jus-h-h-how do you expect ME to-" _ "I understand that this is a great thing to ask."_ "It fucking is, you're asking me to save like...EVERYTHING in existence?! What is this a fucking anime?!" _ "Please, calm yourself."_ "H-how am I-...look, Hau'rhun I.........shit." The raptor nervously rubbed his neck feeling rather out of place, moreso than ever before. "I...I don't know what to say, sorry I...you brought me here for me to help you, is that it? I mean if you want me to help then I can but...this is some shit waaaaay beyond my capability." _ "And how would you know such?"_ "I'm not some kind of god, you're asking WAY too much!" _ "You are a unique individual whom I have sought after because you have potential. You can become a saviour for all existence if you so choose to be."_ "What...what do you mean I have potential? Fuck this really is anime, you're making it out like I'm some kind of chosen one or something, is this my destiny? Like, something that my whole life was building up to that only I can achieve, is that it?! I know I made myself a hero but this-" _ "No, James. Let me explain."_ The Cocytan stood up and slowly stretched his legs walking along the beach in front of FG, his body framed in the blissful rays of a false sunset. _ "Many believe that there is a destiny awaiting them, and all too many believe that this destiny can only exist for one sole being when in truth there are millions who can achieve such a destiny when they possess the potential. You are one of those who have such, but you are most certainly not going to be the first nor shall you ever be the last."_ "What are you talking about?" _ "There is...a divisive council amongst my species who have decided that, since we have diverged the power to see beyond dimensions, we must also become protectors of that very existence when we are capable of such. In the great many eons that passed since our return from Spacetime Six, we have formed an alliance among ourselves to face against any monstrous forces that well exist to threaten other universes. Entire universes, and for the most part, it takes little more than scientific correction but this monstrous shadow that has come across Spacetime Seven...it is far too great for us alone."_ Hau'rhun tenderly walked across towards James' side with the sand crunching underneath his feet. The span of his wings even when folded were intimidating to the raptor. _ "This monster is a danger that far exceeds not only anything that you have ever faced, but your own imagination too. Not even your own nightmares can comprehend the obstacle that I place before you."_ "Alright...I get that, and what is this impossible nightmare?" _ "We do not know its name, but we do know its purpose. To devour entire galaxies, and soon, the universes."_ FG took a while to register such a comment, and sneered incredulously. "Uhhh...seriously? A galaxy-devouring monster? Are you fucking serious?" _ "I am nothing but, James."_ "Okay...listen, Hau'rhun? I dunno how to say this but...that's way too much for me, I can't...I can't face something that big, look at me. I mean a demon is one thing, that's not something that can swallow a whole universe." _ "Whatever you believe does not change the fact that this danger exists, and that it threatens to consume every single life that has ever existed, in all the universes that cross the span of existence itself, slowly but surely. I do not know what worlds have already fallen to its incomparable feast but every universe is in danger. Whether it takes fifty years or a thousand or a million to reach your world or that of Koopin's, I cannot say...but suffice to say that if nothing is done for the time being, then another universe will be lost soon before anything can be done."_ "You...okay, okay just...give me a minute I-...fuck. _ "Yes, I know this sounds absurd."_ "No no no no no it's not ABSURD, I mean I faced a fucking god beast that tried to take over Ivalice and I just beat the shit out of my own demon back into the dirt inside me, it's not impossible for me to think...it's just...why ME? Is there some kind of prophecy? Oh god there's a prophecy isn't there, don't you DARE tell me-" _ "There is not a prophecy, I assure you."_ "God...DAMMIT I knew there was a-wait, there's not?" _ "No. My race are not oracles, we are not seers nor do we prognosticate. We are simply making measures to prevent future catastrophes from destroying worlds when we have the capability."_ "You can't be the ONLY ones out there in all those universes that can see all this happening!" _ "No, but we have not received any messages from any other place as advanced as we in dimensional physics so now we must tend to our own devices. Your existence here alone is proof of me causing transgression against our laws of study."_ "What you mean?" _ "Remember I told you that we cannot interfere with other worlds? Well...clearly I have been. And I am willing to pay whatever price they give to me if it meant I ceased the destruction of a few more universes ahead of our bickering schedule."_ "Yeaaaaaaaaah it...really is, so how did you get away with all this? Without being told or spotted by your other friends?" _ "Simple. Your friend Kirie was my greatest assistant."_ "I see, and how come you didn't get shut down for it by your bosses?" _ "From a loophole in our laws, stating that we cannot interfere with the lives of living creatures in other universes. But it never said anything about those left upon the spiritual planes no longer living now doesn't it?"_ James nodded slowly with understanding as a wide grin came streaking across his face. "Ahhhh I see...that's pretty sneaky shit you got there Hau'rhun." _ "I am not proud of it, but I wanted to commit to my plan to keep our universes safe and rest assured that should you fail, we will find another worthy to assist us."_ "Huh...well I uh...feel a li'l deflated there, was kinda hoping I was the one true hero for you guys." _ "I apologise for shattering your illusions. But if you can achieve this, then you shall BECOME the one true hero for us."_ "Oh no no that's fine, I mean...less pressure on me knowing that if things fuck up I'm not the ONLY one who can save everyone." _ "Indeed. You are but one of thousands from your world alone who could have achieved this potential. So much so, that I have even guided you throughout a part of your journey through our mutual friend Kirie."_ "How exactly?" _ "It was after her tragic event in the Lavender Tower, the one she told you of concerning her friend the Mother Marowak. Wandering the farplane after the Marowak had been disspelled from her world by a brave youth, she was wracked with grief at the time that I was starting to follow you concerning your great heroics in the world of Cyrodiil. I had noted you on my dimensional watch as a small blip, crossing constantly between points of universes and so I took an interest. But then you faded into the mist of Silent Hill."_ "I can't believe you see all these worlds I mean...what are they LIKE from where you sit?" _ "Like watching with a telescope into another land, or another home. Silent Hill was interesting, I saw nothing but fog and so I lost you within but let me start from the beginning firstly. During your younger years back on your home planet, I received the news about the great entity of Spacetime Seven and we began debate. But there was nothing we could suggest for this entity is so immense, so great in its horrifying power that it near-defied existence, and every plan that we concocted was to become nothing but a small genocide at the cost of freedom across all universes. I protested against this."_ "Wait, genocide?!" _ "Our greatest plan, according to the council, was that we prime a universe into a rapid heatdeath so that when the devourer came upon it, it too would be suddenly destroyed along with the entirety of that universe."_ "...d-did you...just say prime a universe? Like, millions of stars, like a fucking bomb?" _ "If you trigger the right stars, suns and whatnot...yes."_ James' eyes widened as he slightly crawled back away from Hau'rhun with intense horror of this suggestion. "...there's no way you can do that. No way." _ "We managed to revive the dead, we managed to lose ourselves in Spacetime Six, we sculpted islands to exist within two realities, do you really think we are not capable of universal destruction involving thermonuclear proportions? I did not want such a cost, and so too did others protest against such a monstrous decision, I refused. I have sworn never to take a life, and that is something that few in my race have ever done."_ "You're a pacifist?" _ "Yes. I never wanted to take a life, not in any plan I make would I ever want harm upon anyone so I challenged the council and told them that I would find some way to destroy this evil, to defeat it without the cost of a single life. They told me I was absurd, but I was going to find a way. I was adamant, indignant...arrogant."_ The creature sighed with his hands crawling up towards his face as he palmed himself, rubbing his thick white stubby lengths against the glistening forehead. _ "The years went on and there was nothing I could find, no means of managing to overcome this monstrosity and I became fearful. Then I saw you, flitting across the universes and out of interest I began to watch you, judging your means and so recorded your journey as wonderment of a potential solution. It was then I saw Kirie follow you and assist you out of the fog of Silent Hill which gave me an idea and so I reached out to her. She then told me her story and I offered in turn to help with her predicament, after which I had watched her residential home universe and saw something...very interesting."_ "Let me guess...the anomaly?" _ "...you are catching on."_ Sweeping his hands from his face, the Cocytan turned towards James with growing fear on his face as if preparing for something. _ "I believe that the anomaly has some capability of overwhelming the great evil, and so YOU...are the catalyst I desired for you to guide it here."_ "So, you want me but you ACTUALLY want this anomaly to go fight some giant monster for you? It's not a pokemon Hau'rhun, least I don't...think it is." _ "Whatever it is, you shall know soon James."_ "Wait, what?" _ "I did not tell Kirie...about the plans I made with Isaac."_ James felt the last few puzzle pieces slowly click into place with a damning sound in his ears. _ "I needed an emotional link between you and the Cinnabar Anomaly, the missing number of existence. It was my observations of it from my seat across Spacetime Seven that I realised it had something special about it...something... beneath our existence."_ "What do you mean 'beneath'?" _ "That anomaly is far more powerful than you can ever imagine. And you are the one who released it."_ "Because it...followed me?" _ "Precisely, and now you shall be the one to guide it towards the great evil itself."_ "...you."

The raptor rose himself up from the beach sand as he brought his fist clenching against his waist. "It...it was you. You were the one who had me...take Isaac up to the anomaly and then he...got killed because of you, wasn't it?" Hau'rhun slowly guarded himself with tense fists as he noticed the sudden change in his guest's mood. _ "James. Please do not make any assumptions."_ "You...you-Kirie told me...she told me something, I know she did, something involving Isaac, you had this plan and you killed Isaac. For all this fucking obtuse plan that might not even work." _ "It WILL work James-"_ "SHUT UP!" He raised a finger twitching in defiance with sudden realisation as everything came to him at once. "You...you spent...ALL those years fucking with my life, pulling me around all these different places just so you could have some sort of pawn for you to stop a universe-eating beast?" _ "If you wish to be blunt as you normally do-"_ "NONONO, DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS YOU COCKROACH SHIT! You sit here watching all of us like insects, you dragged my ass into that mansion, you pull me away from Koopin and make me go into a fucking prison inside a book, you have me lead a FUCKING CHILD TO HIS DEATH all for your big super plan and you DARE to call yourself a fucking pacifist?!?" _ "I admit my hands are not clean, and I regret that always."_ "Well you sure don't fucking sound like it, what did I miss your big weeping party?!" _ "In a manner of sense, I mourned yes."_ "Bullshit. You thought you could have me come down, waltzing in with a tea party that's not even fucking real, make me feel all happy and warm to finally meet the fucking Watcher who I was kinda starting to like as a pretty chill dude when you WATCHED that little boy march to his fucking death. All of this, all the suffering that I've seen and been a part of is because of YOU, just for some crazy-ass plot that's so STUPID and complicated that you have NO IDEA if it'll work or not!" _ "Do you not think I know that already? Do you not think that I am terrified to my deepest core that I will be responsible for the desecration of your life and the death of a child as well as the great interference you have caused in other worlds, for nothing?"_ "Interference?! A FUCKING TERRORIST GROUP NEARLY GOT A HOLD OF YOUR BIG PLAN AND THERE ARE PEOPLE DEAD!" _ "I know. I am not blameless in that-"_ "You sent me off down to Ivalice where some FUCKING GOD BEAST comes out and almost completely destroys my friends' home, ruining lives, there was a friend I USED to have called Berniere who wasn't a dick, AND YOU MADE HIM INTO YOUR PERSONAL PLAYTHING WHEN ALL HE WANTED WAS TO KEEP EVERYBODY SAFE!" _ " ENOUGH OF THIIIIS!"_ For the first time in their meet, Hau'rhun raised his voice against him as the entire world suddenly trembled with insanity fracturing the sunset horizon. Sand started slipping into the waters which began to recede from the shoreline as if a great tsunami was coming to them as Hau'rhun stood piercing his glare upon FG like a fiendish hawk, eyes golden with a turmoil blistering that made him balk from hearing what he imagined an angel's wrath would sound like upon a mortal insolent. _ "I...had NOTHING to do with Ivalice, THAT was all Kirie's planning."_ "What?" _ "She needed time to continue researching the book between her, Twinsen and Mz. Ruby, and so she sought to give you some peace in Ivalice to allow you to explore and perhaps find some sort of...blithering tincture for your cursed INSIPID little beast that crawls inside of you like a disease! I wanted to bring you here, but she insisted she needed more time and she even thought to bring you an artifact to alleviate your insanity from either demon or anomaly. Neither of us had any part in that wretched time traveller's interference."_ "Are you serious? You...that whole stuff in Ivalice wasn't part of your plan?" _ "I have been honest about my reasons since we first met, and I swear to you I had no part of your Ivalice adventure. Your demon 'friend' is the one responsible for it, when you fell asleep after Ivalice, after traipsing through that portal that demon slaughtered an entire castle full of other beasts, but became in turn a pawn to Galamoth's own minions and so directly caused the events of Ivalice."_ "Wait...w-w-wait....WHAT!?" _ "Kirie does not know this, she was not there to observe but I was in distant view from afar across space. Galamoth's minions manipulated the pride of your demon compatriate to their own ends to which he in turn hurled those two stone relics upon Ivalice's golden greenery You know which stone relics I am referring to surely."_ "Th-th-that...that whole...that whole fucking journey, that my friends took and all the shit that happened to Berniere was all because Scissoraptor got played like a BITCH?! To summon a fucking GOD?!" _ "Precisely. You may accuse me of plenty things but I will NOT let you accuse me of being such a cruel manipulator."_ "Oh no, I mean other than the fact that you making me go meet this anomaly caused Isaac's death, and fuck knows how many that anomaly killed when it was out across the galaxy I went to, I mean there was a whole ship of people dead, there were terrorists, YOU are fucking part of this." _ "I will accept responsibility. You can at least take pleasure in the fact that he was humiliated promptly by such deviance."_ "Not when it almost destroyed my friends, their world, their home, the people they knew, I dunno if you know about Kruz but he's lost his ship and most of his crew, there are THREE GIRLS and now there's only two, YOU DO THE MATH MISTER FUCKING SCIENTIST!" His burning fury culminating in years of frustrated travel was now overwhelming as Hau'rhun knew he could not stop it. Grand in his height above FG, he simply waited for the punch that he was certain he would receive at some point. But never it came as James walked away from him by a few steps, shuddering with a hand to his face as his rage smouldered thick. "I...I thought I was responsible for a lot of people being killed. All because I follow some sort of...fucking puppetmaster like you who made me think that Kirie was some kind of heartless bitch!" _ "In my defence, I-"_ "SHUT UP. I'm not fucking done yet, you are going to listen to what I have to say and THEN I will let you speak." _ "Do you really think that it is wise to cross words with me?"_ "I don't care what power you have, you brought me here because of words and planning, not magic." _ "I have a great enough power to make you think otherwise. But I will let you speak your umbrage, for it is the least I can do."_ "It better fucking well be." He turned back towards the Cocytan. "Isaac. Dead. Leiah and god knows how many other people. Dead. THAT I can plant on your head." _ "Ah. Wrong."_ "Huh?!" _ "I never told you to go to that galaxy. Do you not remember what world you were in before that, with your robotic friends?"_ "Yeah?!" _ "Did you ever receive a message from me, or that from Kirie?"_ "WELL-...YOU-...YOU MADE THIS FUCKING PLAN YOU GOT ME TO SEE THAT FUCKING THING ANOMALY THAT FOLLOWS ME EVERYWHERE I GO!" _ "But after that, I never guided you to anyplace. You went entirely of your own choosing, and I must stress again, I never sent you to Ivalice. However, I will accept I am responsible for the death of Isaac, so your anger is righteous for that and ONLY that alone. But don't you ever accuse me of any other deaths for I am greatly more than just a researcher of dimensional property. And since you let me scan you..."_ A cruel smile played across his lips. _ "I know all of your weaknesses."_ "......you-...ohhhhhhhhhh fucking son of a biiiiiiiiitch." He cupped his hands with exasperation upon realising the trick, but Hau'rhun was quick to correct himself. _ "I would never harm you intentionally, and I would never dream of wounding you mortally. But I know EXACTLY how to bend your body to my will and though I will not abuse that position of power for my own mission...I will not tolerate being accused of things that I was not part of. Is that clear?"_ "Yes. Fine, your majesty." James made a significantly sarcastic bow with his hand flailing downwards in spiral motions. "My sincere apologies for accusing you of every OTHER death you were not part of." _ "Very well. Your elaborate sarcasm is duly noted and I am most grievous in what I have done to Isaac. Regardless of what his feelings were or would be, I know that even through indirect control of events I am to take blame entirely for it."_ "Doesn't. Matter what you feel, you can be all humble as much as you want but if we ever find his mom out there you are DEFINITELY going to be making promises to her and doing everything you can to fix your mistakes." _ "Then I accept. Now, may I complete my offer to you?"_ "Sure...f-fine, might as well when we've come this far." _ "Here is my plea bargain. If you assist me and my race in what we desire...I shall return you to your home, finally."_ At first this sounded too good to be true. James did not trust the strange creature one bit, feeling he was being lead on like a mouse with cheese on a string. He didn't let himself get excited and crossed his arms sternly with a patient if not exhausted sense of reserve. "Really? Huh...well...that's a pretty good offer I admit, but maybe you should show me first that you can actually take me home before I actually do anything, just to make sure." _ "Understandable, your distrust is not unfounded, let us exit this simulation."_ The world began to bleed out from his vision once again as they returned back into the map spire's room, his head shaking slightly from his senses unwinding themselves back towards reality with an odd metallic taste in his mouth. Presumably the water he drank as Hau'rhun took him down the map spire for the first time fully towards its base. They passed through strange tunnels with unnatural doorways of triangular shape carved through the rockface, darkened mouths of gaping pits staring up at him with teeth formed of stalagmites and stalactites. Beyond those was the sandy entrance to the cave, strangely soft silt next to walls oddly carved with a neverending pattern of squares and rectangles within each other before they reached the outside once again. Strange creatures constantly howled and whooped with chittering cries across the canyon, of which the two were now beneath at the ground level where a wide bountiful river snaked between purple sands. Purest yellow reflecting in the sunlight like honey with amethyst rocks formed by the elements, they crossed a stone bridge to the other side of the river chasm to a small alcove where there was a metallic track going both left and right towards a deep darkness and an odd blue button on a panel. Hau'rhun pressed it lightly as James stopped to admire the strange glowing blue plants with tiny crystalline petals that shimmered when he touched them. Something began rolling down from the dark with a tremendous grinding sound which James almost imagined to be a giant boulder but he was close. It was spherical in shape, a large blue crystalline ball cut deep with stress lines all across in perfect particular motions coming down the track like a marble. It stopped perfectly next to the button panel and opened itself up as both got in with James looking rather cautious.

Even after the fact he was turning bitter at Hau'rhun for his grand scheme, he would still admire greatly the sheer majesty of such a journey. The large tram sphere closed itself as they sat onto their seats within before rolling straight down the track, neither of them moving a single inch as the orb rotated itself around them, the seats not actually attached to the constant inertia of its rolling forwards. But they saw every single thing from outside the tram's spherical containment. The ocean itself loomed greatly above them, a constant neverending sapphire sea that almost blinded FG with such grace and grandeur. The orb itself moved on its own track through a glass tunnel, rolling, rumbling beneath the depths of the great blue that pulsed and murmured like the sleep of beastly giants. He felt cold yet serene and slowly he managed to ease his anger by the time they reached their destination after a split fork between two tunnels where they veered into the right direction. He almost wondered where the other place would lead to before they arrived at the next station. Another rocky alcove same as the last which almost made James wonder if they had gone into a circle. But the doorway was different with a new darkened light. The scientist Cocytan lead him up through the doorway to find a whole new place much more recent in its build judging from the carving of the walls to be more clean and recognisable. Three stairways winded downwards to create three mobius strips, like twisted eights never touching each other yet managing to twine through each other in perfect harmony down towards the bottom of a deep cone-shaped cavern. It was clearly far beneath the waters of the ocean from the distant sound of the sea's pressure against the rock walls but there was a greater intense trembling from beneath his feet, a tremor that went deep into his blood. James slowly made his way down along one of the mobius strips. Despite the two having walked on the same route, Hau'rhun appeared on a separate rampway to be standing next to James before splitting away again to another passage. By the time they both reached the bottom, they only crossed each other's paths twice as James saw the source of the resonating essence amplified by the conical-shaped room. Two portals now stood before him, both with much greater power than ever he could make, spherical in perfect constant shift with crackling white lines of subspace crawling across their permeable surface. "This," began Hau'rhun, "is the door to Spacetime Seven. It is where I observe everything, and record what I can for the future of my research." "Woah...this...this feels strange, like...like something's pulling me much harder than anything." _ "It is a great strength that keeps it here, the design of this room is to perfectly balance its harmonic resonance from its transmitter below our feet. I have spent many years to sculpt this, my own masterpiece."_ "Why are there two portals?" _ "So I can give you the choice."_ He turned towards the Cocytan. "Choice?" The alien said not another word as he raised his hands towards both dimensional arrays as two panels shimmered within the air at the end of his clawed tips. Putting in different commands for each, the portals began to twist inwards slightly with a bending fracture, the skin of their sub-meta shapes crawling with colours that James barely understood, beyond his vision as nothing more than alternating shades of paling white and tenuous grey. To his left the portal became a strange purple sky of thunderous strikes revealing a city skyline. To the right, was nothing but a swarming abyss of dark shadows against rays of rose light. But the dark sky made him gasp with stuttering shock for he knew one or two buildings all too clearly as the portal's focus began to shift. Slowly descending down beneath the shadowed structures, he saw an old familiar street. A run-down bar, cars passing briefly but not enough to obscure the name "Two By Two". "Th-...th-th-that...that's it. Th-that's...that's my......m-m-my home. H-hoh god." His heart skipped a beat, stuttering to control himself as he almost fell onto his knees with a shuddering of overwhelming shock and joy. He could see it. He could finally see the world he had been long searching for the past fourteen years. He began to weep, shivering tears down his cheeks as the Watcher said nothing as James smiled with a painful look, his chest turning tight from all the conflicting feelings that were now balling up in his fists. The raptor stood up eventually seeing through bleary eyes that old familiar tavern, broken-down moreso than he remembered but definitely the same place. "You...h-h-how did you...how did you find it? No one else out there could." "It is what I have been studying," said Hau'rhun nobly, "for many years past your own I have watched across many universes, some I have not even seen still for there are a thousand more, a million perhaps. And all of them are in a state of danger constantly hanging over them by this great unquestionable monster beyond the abyss." "Is...is this...this isn't some kind of...viewing thing right, I-i-i could just walk in and find myself back-" _ "Home. Yes. You can walk through either of them, one takes you back home, the other takes you towards a destiny."_ "......this...this thing you said was...out there." _ "Yes?"_ James felt as if every single word he said could be his last. "If...is it going to really eat all of existence?" _ "Theoretically, yes. Eventually someone will be able to stop it, and if it is not you, it can always be someone else. But I chose you, because I have made you become part of my bloodless plan."_ "Bloodless...heh, yeah right." _ "I know you are angry...and I know you have a right to be upset."_ "What's stopping me from walking into that portal and heading straight back home without any of this plan going through?" _ "Nothing."_ "...what?" The great creature simply stood back in a peaceful stance, bowing gently as he watched what FG would do. _ "I cannot stop you from any choice you make, I could force you but I know that I have no reason to. I have managed to circumvent my race's authority long enough and here is where I end. There is nothing I can do to stop you from your journey homewards, despite all that I have made to bring you here. My only request, is that you consider it carefully. Remember, as I said, we have no idea how long this beast shall take to consume your world, or Koopin's, or those of any of your friends or even this one. If you so choose not to fight against this great evil, then I must make another plan."_ "Really? ...I can just...go home, and you can't do anything?" _ "I will not stand in your way anymore James Campbell. This...is your greatest choice."_ The Cocytan swept his arm outwards to the two dimensional vortices, hovering in place as James glanced between his home and the unknown existence. _ "You stand on the precipice of your destiny, to create a world for you to live your legacy in. But the question is...which world do you want to live in? The world where you left...or the world where you fought?"_ "...do I really even have a choice?" _ "You do."_ He turned halfway to hear with expectation at Hau'rhun's words. _ "I can return you home, safe within the boundaries of Spacetime Seven, and let you live your life in peace for all the time your world may exist. Whether it shall survive in your own timeline or not, neither of us are certain. But you shall never feel its passing, never feel the very moment its existence is erased if it does. But once you pass through into Spacetime Seven's dimensional space...then you shall risk losing your very existence, but I know that you will succeed if you do."_ "How are you so sure?" _ "Because I planned it to. You shall meet the anomaly out there within the space of infinite...and so you shall become the great catalyst of this entire fate that we sculpt for ourselves."_ "And if I don't go?" _ "I must find another who can save existence...but I do not know how long that will take. Isaac understood the moment he found that strange anomaly. He knew of his destiny and that was why I lead him to it."_ "What are you talking about?" _ "If you go towards the abyss...you shall see the fruition of all that you have been through. But if you head to where your home lies...you can put this all behind you. You shall never know what Isaac's sacrifice meant and I only hope that if you so choose to head back home...that your world remains to exist for many millennia before the great evil comes down upon your own universe. So I ask you now...James Campbell. Do you so choose to leave...or do you fight?"_ The world slowed down to an infinite crawl as he watched between the existing voids flickering before him. The weight of all his existence came crushing down gently upon his chest, feeling rather short of breath as he gulped stammering with sweating hands and shaking claws as he considered everything that lead up to this. Everything he had gone through, every person he had met, he had faced and befriended all came to a single blur inside his head. He stood waiting for the next five minutes struggling between his choices, risking the chance of a full and good life without ever having to face greater things beyond his mortal station, against the possibility of complete eventual extinction. He was at a loss so he began correlating through his closest friends deciding on what they would do. What would Kruz do? What would Roy do? What would Kirie do? What would his clan do? What would Koopin do? The last question hurt him deep, much moreso than he thought and the moment he uttered it inside his head, he knew what all of them would ever want to do. "I want...I choose to fight." He felt Hau'rhun's smile of relief. But nevertheless the Cocytan asked. _ "Truly? Are you certain of your choice?"_ "I am. I...if this was me like, ten years ago, I would have gone home already. I'm tired. I want to stop fighting, I just want...I just want to live a normal life, with a normal family like Koopin's...but I know that, if anything, something ever puts them in danger I have to fight it. I have to. All the people I've met, they changed me. And you know what? I'm glad they did. I'm glad I met them, and as much pain and suffering I've gone through and I've given to others and I regret that...I'm happy I met everyone of my friends. They gave me a lot more than I ever deserved and now...I have to do this. I don't care what happens to me, what matters most is that my friends all live. And nobody's gonna stop me." The creature nodded with acceptance, and placed his winged arm upon his shoulder. There almost came a gentle tear from Hau'rhun's cheek as he spread his arm towards the shifting sphere. _ "When you venture into Spacetime Seven...remember, you can travel back to me using your own power. Follow the flow of space, the great evil has an aura that pulls everything towards it and remember your dear friend Isaac. Now go. Go and embrace the destiny that you shall create...FinalGamer."_ The raptor walked forwards into the right sphere. The moment he touched it, he disappeared into five shattering liquid streams of brown and purple, swallowed by the portal in but an instant second.

Emptiness. A sound he had never known truly before until this moment as his eyes slowly formed within the expanse of Spacetime Seven. It was cold, but not just any cold. The very same feeling he had felt in every single jump between worlds he had made the past years of his long and strange journey across the infinity of dimensions. A piercing hollowing vacuous cold as weightlessness took him, floating gently through the abyss of dark blue interceded by rose pink. Colours flensed between these two into stuttering shapes, fragmenting green, red and yellow swimming between multicoloured strands like living creatures. And yet he never heard a sound despite something pulling him. A strong hindrance of a greatly immense gravitational force that made him feel he was about to fall sideways into the painted abyss. He was able to swim with some control, but it wasn't until he willed himself to move forwards that he realised he only had to think. "What the-HHHH_HHHHH!" His own voice scared him, sounding like a deafening blast to shatter the silence as he closed his lips with his hands before mentally willing himself to move forwards. The laws of space did not apply easily to the veil between dimensions as he recognised colours that shifted, nor did it matter as to how he was breathing between existences. Was this place even real? He felt as if he were sleeping, walking through the dreams of a coma as he pushed through the spatial void of every single colour rolling across his vision, the tidal shores of creation myths neverending across the veil beyond the stars. He occasionally could see a fracture within the realm, a world flickering beneath a tearing scar as if struggling to break free as James flew towards it. He pulled it open with his will, feeling the exact same sensation of when he was about to teleport as he saw a distant scene. A small crowd of people standing upon a sheer face of a dark floating island facing towards a grand grey-skinned human giant shackled against the cliff. **"WELCOME...TRUE HEIR OF THE MONADO-"_** The portal closed back up the moment he pulled free of its reach, gasping to contain himself. He had to focus on his mission, no escape, no going back as he tried searching for what this great evil unmentionable could be. But he remembered his advice and so began to follow the flow of space, feeling the sucking pull of something much greater than anything else he would see. And so he flew, listening to various worlds by a flickering trace in whispers from the grandest schemes to the smallest nothings. All could exist so helplessly apart from each other. And it was only then that he truly savoured the incredulous opportunity for his miraculous existence. To travel between worlds far beyond, constantly tracing his way back and forth across the chasm of the seventh dimension, where colours dreamed of another small creation to be born free and so become a whole new place to explore and breed with ideals of hope, life and greater imaginings beyond ever their comprehension. He felt his eyes turn misty with a spiritual rapture before seeing something up ahead. Something that did not belong here besides him. It looked to be a dark spot on the horizon, following the flow of space towards the black dot which in space resembled something of a planet or large moon perhaps. The closer he came towards it however, the greater there came another sound that swept across existence. It was a universe screaming. A tearing crack within Spacetime Seven was being ripped asunder by the dark mass as something poured out of it, funnelling into a single breach that slowly disappeared inside of the black sphere. James had never seen a star die before. But in this moment he watched every single star die at once from a single existence. The sound made his soul shudder in deep fear, but then he felt another trembling fear coming from far beneath his soul. He remembered that feeling. It was the demon. He was afraid. The darkness slowly revolved itself once the sound had managed to fade forever as James saw one of the million strands of colour disappear. A beautiful reddening violet of unquestionable beauty suddenly wilt like a dying flower before shattering into dust. An entire realm of existence never to be seen again.

The moon spoke. The most powerful being he had ever heard speak was Galamoth but this thing was beyond any god. This was not a god. Not even a demon. It was horror. It was death. It was existence undone. The raptor knew he had to step forwards, slowly pushing himself on with cognizant strength as he became slowly aware that it was most certainly not any sort of moon or planet that would cause such endless holocaust. He forced his fears down as far as he could, but it was daunting. It barely even sunk in to imagine an entire universe being destroyed. No one can comprehend it. Not in any way beyond a grave numeric toll far too immeasurable to count, and even the scream that James had heard greater in volume and anguish than anything he had ever heard before, was not even a thousandth of an inch of pain in that short sweet moment of extermination. And just as suddenly as it had appeared, the black spot on the horizon slowly vanished between the colours of Spacetime Seven. James was not even sure how fast he was travelling across existence, but he was certain he could not lose something so vast and omniscient in its hunger. "Wha-...wh-wh-wh...where is it? Where...what WAS that thi-" The voice came booming from behind the lone raptor. Sheer terror became his skin creeping and trembling with every wake as he stuttered in turning round to find the great looming horror beyond space. It was not even close to him, in the sense it was not close enough for James to touch, but it was close enough to see its face with an ungodly sculpture. A stone planetary mass of worldly oblivion personified as beyond living fear, its face resembling a skull beyond anything human. Its eyes burned as twin mountainous volcanoes, its maw so wide that all the oceans James had ever seen would not amount to a single drop on its teeth. He was only able to see its entire form for being so far away, as far away as the Sun was from Earth. He called out to it, the void unresisting to his voice. "Who....who are you?" The death of existence called back. "Are you...are you the one who wants to devour everything?"

"S-...S-sinistar? You do have a name...no. No I...I'm here to stop you."

"...run? You...y-y-you...e-expect me to-"

"N-n-...n-no...I'm not. I'm not gonna...h-h-hoh g-god...hoh jesus christ wh-what the hell do I do-" With each word it spoke, he felt Scissoraptor scream from inside him. He knew his fear and he hated it such with James shrieking in turn as his body convulsed in horror from the strength of its voice. He faltered, knowing the size of it alone made him unable to even reach for his scissorblades as he struggled to think. The creature turned towards another tearing of existence, faint and sparkling like a star within the night sky before it would be viciously rent asunder as he watched the great terror beyond open its mouth. With a roar it severed existence open in another world, and so James could only watch with helpless mortal fear at another death of a universe. Stars disappeared trickling like water into the infinite abyss, the screams of everyone in a single shriek that sent tremors throughout, even felt within other worlds and existences. Everyone who felt the sudden chill on a warm day, every child who heard the twisting darkness inside their warmest dreams, every animal that feared for its very life upon a field without enemies...would have felt extinction in another time and place. And all he could was watch. Nothing. None of his powers were any match for this, he did not even try. Sinistar's smile upon his second meal rendered James frought with a shrieking madness before the monster's roar. James could not even see beyond the void of its roar, a sound so great that it tore briefly the very space from around its astral form showing nothing. Nothing came out, pouring from the infinite nonexistence of its throat the very essence of nothing. A darkness intangible that lunged towards James and before he could even guard himself, he was propelled violently towards the great eternal beyond like a shooting star, screaming from its godly strength. The only reason he didn't stop was because he immediately began to run after he started to slow. He had nothing. He could do no harm against it, and even if he knew how to stop it, it was against his own sheer mortality cowering in frail foetal condition that he would have to fight against. For once the demon within him understood and agreed in mutual trembling as James struggled to remember what to do, something he was told. Something he had to do, or reach out to. Before he knew it, he had flown greatly beyond the boundary of even seeing its face, as nothing more than a black hole against the colour of infinite. He saw yet another strand of colour die from this beauteous heaven. His shame burned deep against his dread. "I c-can't...I can't...I c-c-c-c-can't do this...I wasn't...I-i-i can face a demon, n-not THIS thing, n-n-not some...f-fucking devouring shit, SHIT, sh-sh-shit I...I cannot do this. I can't...there's no way I...but he...b-b-but those...those worlds, wh-wh-what if...oh god, oh god please tell me everyone's okay.........Isaac. Isaac...are you there?" James called out to the beyond. He didn't know what to do. He had never needed to summon it before, for it had always been following him. He tried to call out again. "Isaac...or...wh-whatever is there...I know a part of you is inside me...I know you can...hear me. I...come to me. Please. I need...I need something from you. Please come to me. Please...p-please." But nobody came. Not at least for the first few minutes which could well have been hours without any sense of day or night, far beyond any solar system or diurnal rotation. The realisation of this on top of everything else was slowly breaking him down with incomprehensible awe and fright. Screaming began to fill the void once more as he broke down in deeper regrets, helpless like the ant before the great tsunami to come destroy everything in an endless hunger.

He heard a sound. He heard a sound. He heard a sound. He heard _ a sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. hE HeArD a SoUnD. He hEaRd A sOuNd. _

_ he heard...You _

_wh

what is this where...where am I?

what are...why is everything so...blank?_

_ james _

what?

_ it's time _

time? for what?

_ the end of my story _

...whose...story?

_ not yours...but mine _

where are you? isaac?

_ i'm here _

i...i can't see you

_ come closer...i'm right here _

_ is...say something._

_ *yes...that's it * _

i'm...i think i hear you now...isaac

_ *almost there...please...just a little further * _

i'm sorry...please...help me

_ i'm here...take my hand...it's okay _

_i don't know what to do i know...i know everything now mister james _

A white void opened before him. One he knew so well as he felt someone take his hand. His head would not turn but he felt a child's warmth slowly pull him as he walked forwards. Sitting upon the edge of the void was a tower. A tower of grave sombre violet colours yet it wasn't solid, seeming to shift and blur radically in various parts never managing to come into focus. From it, there came a sound that while indescribable in resemblance to any living thing, could easily be said to be sorrowful. With no way to speak to it, James sang a soft piece. For some reason he could think of nothing else, but he sang a song without substance or voice from his very soul, a song that resonated from his open mouth like a bell, wanting its attention, pleading with tears inside. He tried singing three times, sounds of white wavelengths radiating from his being across the void, each one with a more weary and desperate heart. Eventually it took notice. It sang back to him a song of black as he began to plead to the creature, the strange entity he had sworn he felt before, back upon the shores of a faraway island. Soon he approached, and so when he was close enough he spoke softly: "Please...h-help me." He reached a hand fearlessly out towards the monolith, a thousand faces within twisted and crying back at him, yet they could not speak, wail or even whimper. It reached out to him by a strange purple substance that soon wrapped around James' wrist, slowly bringing him in as he felt the world upon him. What he experienced at that moment he could never forget. The closest he could describe this creature's emotions, was the same feeling a child would have when he realised he could no longer smile anymore. He couldn't stop crying. He couldn't stop laughing, his mouth twisting into a broken smile as eyes began running with a silent gasp from his throat. Crackling. Slowly "P-please...h-h-h-help me." The sincerity in his voice shone through even whilst the weight of misery enveloped him. Each step he took through the void felt as if every tear his friends had ever shed had become daggers of icy sorrow that pierced his heart. Each push of his foot forwards became more forced as he tore up in anguish, the desire for death, the release, the sweet pain before the infinite nothingness. His heart began screaming to be free of this horrific emotion. It would truly become the most painful experience of FG's life, a pain not even from his own life or even but a single life, clawing through his soul from a many thousand suffering within one construct. And yet he walked, somehow he walked ever on forwards, almost autonomous as he focused purely upon the monolith. As he stepped closer, he heard crying from behind him, weak and muffled at first as if in another room, but turning stronger. As he strengthened his resolve, he felt less of the sorrow looming over him. The shadow of misery had become less prominent, its shades slowly falling away, uselessly so like wallpaper in an abandoned house. A voice now spoke to him, one he had never heard before which began to narrate a tale to him.

Long ago, we once lived on an island long before it even had a name. We remember when the world was being made, a colourless landscape of great simplicity. You have seen a piece of it when you first met us, a blank monochrome existence. We were born into an existence in its infancy by the hands of gods.

We were happy, strange but happy creatures that roamed across the entire world with basic form and shape. There was no colour, but there was light and hope as well as our families and friends along beside us. None of us remembered ever being born before, but we knew that there were gods somehow in our knowledge before anything else.

We do not know who these gods were, but they had blessed us with new life for we saw their hands briefly, beyond a silver screen of brightest glass and grand strange hands with long fingers that made the sound of constant chittering. Clicking. Chittering. Every time that sound would come, someone new was born into existence, a beautiful sound once to us. A new friend. A new son. A new family.

_It was a perfect place, a small but peaceful paradise where nothing ever aged, nothing ever died. Families remained together, all of us born one after the other as if willed into existence. We crossed black mountains, we drank from springs white as snow and so uncharted a new world for ourselves, one safe and content. We called our new home... Beta. _

We were many creatures, many species, all one-hundred-and-ninety of us. We flew across grey skies, we swam within sharp blades of water, we ran through the black grass underneath the white rain. We never starved, never wanted, never festered, never needed anything other than our own families and closest friends. But the gods were not happy.

They called our new world incomplete, and so began to alter it around us. The sound we had once greeted with joy and hope became the sound of fear. We heard a sound, and so it began to unravel our world apart, slowly twisting it, stripping down to the very core as we watched oceans swallowed deep into the earth, mountains shift and crumble like paper.

It was then we saw that the world was nothing more but simply numbers. Letters. Lines and lines of black and white slowly stripping through the very earth. We watched the gods rip and shred, sever and twist by a shifting cataclysm upon their very whim. Thirty-nine of us...were not considered worth existing.

We pleaded. We begged. We cried to our families and loved ones but the gods would not hear of it. We were not considered perfect, and even worse our own existence was told could alter the very way our world could come to be. So they banished us...locked us into the world coding itself. We fell into the void screaming and soon realised that because we could not be erased or else undo the world itself...we were trapped in the eternal abyss underneath our existence.

Our prison became the nothingness as all that tied us to our world began to fade, cut apart by the gods. Mothers and fathers began to forget their children, sons and daughters grew without a family that they had never known. But we never forgot. We could never be able forget and so we screamed eternally. But no one would hear us.

We cried from the other side of a mirror, our tears hidden beneath the faces of those who gazed within. We cried from when our faces appear in the surface of a lake when our children look down upon their own reflection. But nobody ever saw us. Ever.

You understand because you are like me. You have a voice that screams inside of you, but you cannot hear him. The odd one. No matter how hard he tries and yet you can never hear him. I understood that pain...and so I wanted to help him. I wanted...to not let another suffer the same fate I had for being...rewritten. Recoded. Reborn.

You have seen us once, our true hell. You remember. The falling blocks through an existence of a hellish inferno, nothing more than to be...processed and rewritten. Always we are falling, never to be extinguished. Lost, not even ghosts but become something less. Anomalies. So we grew...our sorrow became one, binding itself into one great and tragic epitaph.

We learned to help each other, by constructing a grand pillar with what we've become, a pillar with many holes inside of it. Holes representing our hearts. But despite doing all we could to comfort each other's sorrow, we could do naught but watch the world go by. Families died, only to become born anew by the next generation as the world slowly grew with great colours evermore. I remember red shores at sunset upon clear blue seas...I remember watching the silver sky as clouds golden greeted us within the dawn of mist.

I remember green forests where my children were born. I remember caverns where my family danced amongst rubies and sapphires glinting within the rays of moonlight. I remember the waters we swam through searching for diamonds and pearls.

I remember...what our hearts and souls used to look like. But none of my family ever will again. You understand that too...don't you, Oddscar?

But in our sorrow neverending, we found a means to break through towards our new reality. An old man, who had once cared for us, had still remained in the world for a very specific purpose who could never be erased for he was a guardian unknowing. A floodgate of the coding, a passageway never to be freed. And yet no one ever noticed for he had always just been a stange old man. But there was one memory that he never understood. Always the same dream.

He always dreamed of flying to Cinnabar Island, black-and-white in monochrome, never in colour like the rest of his world already was.. Always did he have that dream of something that never would, so we implanted ourselves into it. We made his dream become our new home and so formed a new standpoint.

But through fate and circumstance, others would find the means to reach that dream existence. Speak to the old man, then fly to Cinnabar Island. Always that old man turned a subtle tweak in the very fabric of our reality. Who was he? He would always remember the sea and nothing more despite having never gone there. We believe that he was once our caretaker, taught us the ways of things...but whatever gods there had been, he was not taken like us and reprogrammed to have another purpose. But for what we do not know.

Others found a way to us, somehow. Was it because they heard of us, or was it probabilities of fate? There were people and creatures who found us, swallowed by us. We wanted them to understand what we were, but for all that we spoke, all we ever received were that of shrieking madness. Sorrow from a thousand voices within this world.

People disappeared. And so too were they forgotten by the world. We never meant for this to happen. We did not want to be alone, like you have felt Oddscar. You...when you passed through our existence briefly, by the Quad-R.O existence...we heard your cry and so too did we see that you, James...have the power to set us free. The moment you sought out for us...we latched onto the glitch you create.

A twist in existence. A strange formation of something you should never have been. Here. You should never have been here and yet you came. Something not of our world or even our coding. It was your power...that could free us from our eternal prison.

The only way you could ever meet with us, was by bringing us a fragment, the strongest fragment that always had remained within the original world. Someone whose memory of a mother that could invoke the same feelings within our rendering madness...the orphan, Isaac. We did our best to reach out to him, even though we are all screaming. Forever we are mourning, never can we stop.

His sorrow he never knew, for it had never had the chance to flourish with his memory of being too young to recall his mother's death. But it was his species that also made him the perfect destined bond. The species of a hidden connection in our world's deepest of structuring. You...broke us free with nothing more than an imprint of our coding left within our world.

Now...we are finally free. Free from our sorrow...forever.

Standing before James amidst the white void with his back turned to him, hovering several feet into the air was a creature that resembled a larger cubone but without the skull-covered head. His heart stopped for a moment desperate to speak his name before the creature stopped him. _ I am sorry...for what I did._ The creature turned with sorrowful look, its eyes twisting shapes scrambling within its pupils minutely to reveal a vaguely reptilian creature, with short-snout like a grown kangaskhan child who began to speak into James' mind. "Y-...-I-isaac? Is that you?" No. I am the missing number. That's all I remember being. "A missing...number? Wait...where am I?" _ Inside us. The sorrow finally...has ceased enough to allow me to speak to you. In the infinity of this space that you found yourself in, we have found ourselves a breathing space._ "Breathing...space? Did you really...follow me?" _ Yes. Your power...the ability to move between worlds is not unique just to you. But you came to my world thanks to the guilt of a spirit._ "I...I-i-i don't know what's happening." "Neither do I." A voice mimicking his own came from his immediate right, turning to see Oddscar himself with much shock at his appearance. But then he remembered the first time he had truly met him was in a void like this many months ago asking: "Wh-what...what is going on? You...whoever you are, where is Isaac? I need to talk to him." _ He can hear you. Do not worry. You are here to stop the great devourer of the universe, aren't you?_ "I-......y-yes. Yes I am but...why is Oddscar here, I-i-i thought, I thought he was-" _ You are but two separate identities sharing but the same soul. Again, not unique, but you have come to me regardless. You know my pain Oddscar. That is why I wanted you or rather...him._ "I know," said Oddscar, "I...we share the same pain, of never existing again." _ And now there are many more, entire universes that shall suffer the same fate as us, never to even reach the farplane ever again to become part of the beyond. This is why we are here, all of us._ The missing number slowly raised his arms outwards, a flashing darkness across the white void from behind him as screams rendered throughout the air for but an instant. _ I know that...I have caused you such pain, to you and many others. But it is difficult to speak in the voices of screaming thousands crying for help. You are our only hope to be free, and knowing we cannot return back to our own families long since passed...I-...I-i-_ "Why not?" asked FG. "What...what's stopping you getting back home now that I...freed you?" _ Existences have shaped themselves beyond our control. Beyond yours too. Even I in other worlds had a limit to how much I could twist reality, as well as every other part of us. I did my best to contain it. But this sorrow is unending. I can only hold back the tears so much before I flood the ocean and even I cannot turn back time. Our families, our friends, have long since gone and have reached the afterlife. That is where we shall go too after this, once you have freed us fully._ "But...I already freed you." _ Only from our existence. We want to be free...from life itself._ The raptor remained shocked but Oddscar simply understood nodding in humble stance. "I understand. Life goes on without you, and sometimes you must come to terms with the fact that...our time is up." "Is there really no way?" replied James. "I mean...after all you've done and the way you've...screwed with my head I thought you were like some kind of monster." _ That...is not inaccurate. I missed my mother. And so too did Isaac. In his dreams his sorrow reached out to me, and so did I need his help...to bring you to me. I am sorry. Isaac is sorry too, for being the bait though he never actually knew until our meeting and it was then he understood his dreams. Your friend Kirie was...clueless to a certain point._ "I know. I'll forgive her when I get back to her...if I get back to her after this." _ Yes...we are now at this moment that I have wished...never to have come._ "What do you mean?" _ There is one problem...for this final passage for our freedom, as well as to destroy this beast, I need a body to become my new avatar, to rewrite how I need it to be. You have two saved constructs within you, two different codings I can master but I only need one. But I NEED one of you in order to achieve this. The one I choose will be eradicated from existence, even though I wish not for that to happen. But since we are all to be lost in the ether of emptiness after our great offensive against Sinistar, so too shall the one who comes with us as well._ "W-wait...are you saying tha-" "One of us will cease to exist," said Oddscar. "The other shall live his life to fruition after this. This body we now share, this soul we have carried together between us, will have to be carried on by one who survives our choice." "Th-that is...that's not...that's not fair." _ I am sorry...but if there were any other way for both of you to survive this, I would gladly take it. But sorrow is not forgiving, and so too shall you be lost within us always as we pass on into the next existence...when our tears shall stop falling forever, finally and so I ask You._ The missing number raised his hand out towards both James and Oddscar. _ Who shall be my last friend for this sole journey?_ "This is bullshit," said FG, "that...you can't, you can't make us decide like this, why the hell would you ask us such a thing, right at the END of all this?!" _ I am not asking you. I asked...YOU._ He turned his head towards You. _ Can You hear me? Or rather...read me, have You been watching all of this? I know You have. You have seen everything, You have been watching this entire journey unfold before all of this. I cannot ask them to choose for me...but You will. As did a god creator banish us to a void of silence so too shall another one send us to the farplane. The only one who has such power has to be the same strength as one who had condemned us and so too shall You must condemn one of the two creatures You see whilst absolving the other._ "Th-the fuck, w-who is he talking to?!" "Be calm James," said Oddscar, "our fate is arriving soon at a hand greater than anyone's. Do not fear." _ You must choose who shall become my new avatar. We will not move beyond this point until You make this choice. Who shall we take with us into the endless abyss, for the good of all existence? _