It had all ended so quickly. The explosions, the screams... The end of humanity.
The eternal night sky hung over the broken world like a blanket draped over the desolate land beneath it. Lifeless pieces of rock drifted around aimlessly, scarred with craters and fissures. Scraps of concrete were mounted on a few of them, a pitiful reminder of the civilisation that used to live on it. Others remained dirt brown, occasionally bumping into broken pieces of what used to be Mars.
Felix leapt from the portal and descended gently onto one of the floating rocks. A slightly familiar sight greeted him. The Guardian Council headquarters tapered upwards, gradually forming a needle which pierced the sky some two hundred metres into the air.
There was no other sign of the battle which raged only a few days ago, although it did not surprise Felix. The collision of two planets was a rather efficient way to wipe out all traces of anything that once happened, after all.
A tiny shadow balanced on the tower top, looking at the devastation ahead. Felix motioned for Marcia to remain on the ground, before soaring up to meet him.
Orpheus' arms hung loosely by his sides, hovering about a metre above the headquarters with his toes pointed towards the ground. The night shrouded his eyes, although his irises were pure golden in colour. His cloak buffeted in the artificial wind created by his swirling power as he slowly turned to face Felix.
"Feeling homesick, my love?" Felix started.
If Orpheus was surprised, he did not bother to show it.
"Huh, should've expected that you'd find a way out of that prison. Looks like I'll have to kill you myself," the Necromancer muttered. "I see you've copied my methods and possessed a body that isn't yours. Hypocrite."
"To be honest, I wasn't expecting to find you here in my home world. Didn't you say you were going to get rid of every version of me?"
"I have all the time in the world." Orpheus shrugged. "I just wanted to see this place one last time."
"Truly? Or is it because you can't bear to look at me again?"
The man swung around violently and pushed Felix back with a blue magic blast. Felix released a soft hiss, allowing himself to float back a few metres. Orpheus' power was certainly magnified a few hundred times, considering that Felix actually felt the sting of his attack.
"Stay. Out. Of. My. Head," the Necromancer snarled, leaping off the tower. A golden glow emanated from within his torso as Felix felt a small throb within his chest as well.
"You don't want to do this. It doesn't take a telepath to know that," Felix said. "Your hate is keeping you alive just to torment you, but it doesn't have to be this way. You shouldn't have to suffer for my sins, my love."
"Don't call me that!" Orpheus flung his cloak at the psychic. "Self-righteous prick. Nobody cares about your speech!"
Felix pirouetted in the air, avoiding the several dozen spirits bursting from the cloak. Cackles rang in his ears as the spirits of the damned gnashed their teeth at him. With a simple flick of his hands, a torrent of psionic energy burst out and disintegrated them immediately.
"I trusted you! I loved you!" the Necromancer screamed, throwing blast after blast of magic at the pink force field. "But you let me go! I would never let you go! Why? Why?!"
Felix grunted as Orpheus lunged forward without warning, seizing him by the throat and slamming him into an asteroid. The ground exploded as the vengeful man slammed his fist into Felix's face.
Red dirt slammed into Felix. He coughed raggedly, wiping away a trail of blood from his nose. It was only then he realised that there wasn't any light for as far as he could see, and the blow had quite literally erased an entire galaxy from existence. The man flicked his head around, his eyes wild with panic. Marcia, where are you—
"Leave me alone!"
Orpheus twirled his staff, summoning a storm of swords to hack away at the planet-sized serpents clawing at him. He took a moment to aim, before throwing his weapon forward like a javelin. The strangled scream of a woman rang out as the staff struck one of the creatures.
A figure fell off a serpent's back as the animal constructs reverted into magical energy, trailing behind the woman.
"Stay out of our business, girl." The Necromancer threw his hand forward, and his cloak charged towards Marcia. It transformed into a dark blue shield, trapping her in a separate dimension.
Blue energy mixed with gold particles as even more magic swirled around Orpheus. The outline of Janus became clearly visible in his chest, but it quickly spread out through Orpheus' body, donning him in some kind of golden armour. The man shrieked, releasing a powerful blast of energy.
Alarm rang in Felix's head as he stretched out a hand in an attempt to pull his sister to him, but his telekinetic grip only grasped on nothingness. It wasn't until the explosion went through Marcia that he realised that Orpheus had somehow used his cloak to isolate the woman from this dimension and prevent her from interfering.
"Die!" The gilded Necromancer breathed a brilliant sapphire flame at Felix, which was promptly swatted aside easily.
"Not without you, my love." Felix burst forward without a break, plunging his hand into Orpheus' chest.
"Not... happening..." Orpheus' voice trembled with effort as he forced Felix's hand away from his body. "I won't... relinquish this power..."
The psychic released his grip, using the momentum to spin his body around. His foot struck the back of Orpheus' head and sent him crashing into another asteroid. Felix focused his mind, projecting a psychokinetic grip directly at the Necromancer's heart.
"Guh!" He flinched as dark magic pierced its tendrils into his mind instead.
"Fool. I am a Master of the Dead." Orpheus surrounded him with a black shield of magic. "It'll take more than killing me to kill me."
Felix responded with an enormous psychic slash which shattered the charm instantly. Orpheus tumbled as the powerful attack left a huge gash on the planet behind him, but he was far from finished.
Black golden energy sprouted from his back and reformed itself into two wings. Felix stared in both horror and morbid curiosity. The 'wings' were not made of regular feathers, but were instead composed of screaming skulls jammed together. Orpheus clenched his fists, and his golden 'armour' transformed into a spiky suit which resembled a biker gangster's outfit.
He roared, charging straight for Felix.
Felix leaned back as the wings sliced dangerously close to his neck. Pain seared through his body without warning. He looked down, finally noticing Orpheus' blackened finger digging into his side.
The man screamed, pulling himself away from Orpheus' necrotic touch before he could fully turn him into a zombie. He focused his mind, bio-kinetically fighting back the effects of the rotting spell.
The Necromancer did not let up.
Felix gurgled as water began escaping from his mouth. Orpheus gritted his teeth with malice, pooling the bodily liquid into a single point. He muttered an incantation, before sending the now-blackened water back at his foe.
The psychic yelped as the water splashed on him, melting away his psychic aura in an instant. It felt like boiling acid was being poured onto his whole body. Darkness covered his surroundings as the skull-filled wings left the Necromancer's body and trapped Felix in a cursed sphere. He fell to his knees, slowly suffocating in the demonic atmosphere.
"Writhe, you bastard. This is but a fraction of the pain I felt." Two points of dark blue lit up the darkness before the Necromancer showed himself. "I suffered for you!"
Countless golden gates opened, and Felix cringed under the sudden surge of energy.
"I spent a decade dying for you!" Orpheus shrieked as his eyes glowed a fierce golden.
Rainbow-coloured energy gushed out of the doors, plunging themselves into Felix's body. Psychic power burst uncontrollably as he felt his mind connect to every other in the millions of universes.
"Look at all these worlds, destroyed because of you!" Orpheus' voice rang out through the blur of the trillion voices of agony in his head. "Sooner or later, you'll always turn out bad. This is who you are!"
The psychic closed his eyes in concentration, bearing the total energy of a million universes on him. It felt overwhelming, but it wasn't quite enough to kill him just yet. Not when he had a universe-creating psychic's power in him.
Fausta's power flowed into his fingers.
"I won't let you hurt anyone anymore," Orpheus snarled. "I won't let you hurt me anymore!"
Felix snapped his fingers as reality shifted to his will. The light promptly disappeared as the universes collapsed into millions of black holes. It wasn't exactly the best change, but the energy of black holes was a lot more manageable than that of universes.
The black holes clumped together, bending to the power of an Eldritch God. Felix's eyes flared with power once more and the black holes promptly evaporated into nothingness. If it was their destiny to suffer under his fists, then may he be the one to end their misery.
Orpheus hissed as he drifted back from the blowback, the golden suit retreating from Orpheus' body and reshaping itself back into the silhouette of a book within his torso.
"I never wanted to hurt you," Felix panted in slight exhaustion. "I'm sorry, Orpheus. I'm sorry for letting you go. I'm sorry for all the pain I caused you."
Orpheus' expression softened for a moment, but vengefulness hardened it right back. He swiped his hand, summoning his wings back into his back again.
"I don't want your apology anymore," the man growled. "I want you to die!"
Felix released a blood-curdling scream as he felt a cold, clammy hand reach into the depths of his souls. Pink clouded his eyes as it groped around and began to pull them out of his body. He breathed heavily, focusing his power.
"Two... can play that game, Orpheus."
The Necromancer widened his eyes in alarm, only then noticing how deep the pink energy had infused with his own magic. Felix tugged hard on his soul, pulling it out of his body as well. His heart sank. He wouldn't be able to send Marcia back to his world if he died now, but he was already past the stage of no return.
I'm sorry, Marcia... Take care.
"I won't let go, Felix..." Orpheus struggled. "I have nothing else... to lose. I am already a dead man."
"Then I'll die in your arms, my love." A tear rolled down Felix's face. "Because so am I."
"I can't forgive you... I don't want to forgive you!" Orpheus yelled, his face slick with tears as well. "Damn you! Damn it all..."
The two men screamed as black scales rushed up their bodies, golden light pouring out of their eyes—
"Not yet."
Felix stared wildly at the figure who had somehow managed to sneak up behind Orpheus without notice.
"Marcia?" he gasped.
"What?" Orpheus struggled to turn back. "How did you... break out of the cloak?"
"You're not the only one who knows Necromancy, Orpheus." Marcia gritted her teeth in concentration as black particles swirled from her fingers. "And I'm going home."
Pink energy gushed out of her body and mixed with the magic. The edge of the golden book poked out from Orpheus' back. Marcia yelled with effort.
"What are you doing?" Felix gasped. "Sister, be careful!"
"Don't look, brother!" Golden light engulfed Marcia's body as a shockwave blasted her several kilometres away, but not before the Solstice was also pulled out of the Necromancer's body.
"Guh!" Orpheus wheezed, focusing his attention back on the man he once loved. "Just you and me now, Felix. I won't... yield."
"Then don't." Darkness clouded Felix's eyes as he braced himself for the last thing he was going to do. "Because I'll always love you, Orpheus. I love you in every world."
A brilliant gleam of light exploded from their bodies as their souls burst out, shattering their mortal vessels in the process. Trails of colour streaked in the darkness, forming a long arc like a rainbow of starlight. Amidst the discordant luminance were four blinking points of light, their trails entwining as they danced around each other, before slowly blending into the background.
And as the dust cleared, a blue flower fell gently onto the ground. Its glow flashed for a few seconds, before fading away.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGJ1ufRdn0X
