by Andrew Jones
"Kryptonite, this isn't you!" Blaze shouted as she began to stand up.
"Kryptonite is gone. He's given up his right to live for the sake of the future."
Blaze chuckled as she aimed her weapon at the mimic as well, "What? A future where the inhabitants are brainwashed? That doesn't sound like a very successful future."
The mimic frowned, "Lilith was created to bring order to the machines. She knows the formula to a true world. A life with no failure, no darkness. You are the antagonist in this, Blaze, admit it."
Blaze took a deep breath before striking at the mimic's spear, lowering it so she can have a clear way of hitting it. But as she managed to directly strike the mimic in the hit, she was almost grabbed by one of the arms on the walls.
"These damn things are annoying!" Blaze yelled.
She began jumping toward each of the arms, and cutting off each of them and letting the arms spill blood into the room. The blood would help take down the chandeliers. The chandeliers were hanging low on the ground, which Blaze used to swing herself into the mimic, grabbing onto it as it swung faster and faster around the room, and then throwing the mimic across the room as she was able to make it stop. Blaze quickly approached the mimic who was laying against the wall. The mimic had coughed up blood, just as Blaze stomped her foot on its stomach.
"Where is Lilith?" Blaze asked as she stomped her foot down harder against the mimic.
The mimic copying Kryptonite's voice, "I-I don't know..."
Blaze narrowed her eyes down at the mimic, not feeling any sort of sympathy for Kryptonite or the Synths of Nova and Atreyu. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath.
"You are no use to me then."
Blaze spoke calmly as she stomped her foot down as hard as she could, while she stabbed her weapon into the head of the mimic. She opened her eyes while the room filled with dead silence. The mimic had turned itself into Kryptonite. Kryptonite's stomach was flat, and hit head had been stabbed in by the weapon she held. She was speechless, seeing that she had killed her friend, but she knelt down to him and patted the teddy bear's head.
"I hope you enjoy your time in the New World, bear..." Blaze whispered with a pure softness to her voice.
The area around her began to static. The walls were a picture of static, but the floor was completely and purely white. Blaze heard some breathing, which made her turn around quickly. She saw Lilith- who was standing and looking as innocent as she had always looked. She looked down, preventing herself from looking into the static walls. Blaze took a step toward her, just as she jumped back from a whole graveyard had appeared around them. There were graves everywhere, and it was much bigger than the graveyard she had seen previously with the Cult of the Human-Eater.
"Lilith..." Blaze spoke softly as she took little and gentle steps toward her.
Lilith shook her head, "Don't come any closer, Blaze."
Blaze stopped, and she sighed. Looking down at one of the graves, she saw that it had the numbers that would identify machines or Synths. She glanced around at the other graves, seeing the same number organization that would identify.
"This is the Machine Graveyard. This is the place I... Hide my shame." Lilith spoke softly again.
Blaze quickly looked up at her, "Shame?"
"I was created for the purpose of protecting the machines and ensuring a future we could thrive on. But look at this... Look at how many machines died because of me!"
Blaze grunted, as a feeling of pain hit her in the chest, "You made the Armagna Network ensure you can protect the machines?"
Lilith sighed, "The machines were not created by Drenawx. We are the next inhabitants of the world after the Humans are to die off. The Human's genocide was the cycle of life, and our birth was just beginning. Drenawx took advantage and took one of the machines to experiment on, so he can create more machines and become what he called a God. The machine he kidnapped was you, Blaze. And with you, he created an enhancement, which was the Nawx."
"But why did Drenawx call you a God?"
"Even machines need someone who may guide them through the right path, Blaze. Just as Humans did."
Lilith slowly stepped toward Blaze and took her hands. She softly opened up the palms of her hands and laid down two dual blades, the blades that had belonged to Nova, and closed her hands so she may grab onto the blades.
"Blaze, I want you to find me in the castle and kill me."
Blaze gasped, "Why?"
"Because- even I know that the future of this world may already be broken. But if I keep this network going, I know this world will be sealed."
"No, Lilith... There has to be a better way to end this!"
Lilith shook her head, "Even if there was, I couldn't abandon my line of work. I don't know how to do anything else but stand in a vault and take control of machines. That's what I was made for, anything else is insufficient. I feel like I was built as the bringer of the end. The end of the world..."
Blaze looked down as Lilith had laid her hand down on top of Blaze's hand, resting it softly.
"I'll be in the room on top of the highest tower, waiting in my vault. I will try to keep back any and all interference as you make your way to me. So please, just do this for me..."
Just as Blaze was going to respond, she seemed to blink her eyes a few times. Her vision had shown that she was back inside the castle. There was an open door, a door that was not open when she had been in the battle with Kryptonite and the two Synth clones. Before she could go through the door, she glanced back at Kryptonite's dead body. She felt the pain she had previously in her chest, finally noticing she had Nova's dual swords in her hands.
She sighed as she spoke, "I'm sorry, Kryptonite... I'll make things right."
She nodded her head as she looked at him, then she dashed through the door. The door led to another hallway, and the hallway led down toward a staircase. A room that only consisted of a staircase, it struck Blaze as odd and suspicious, but she had to go forth. She dashed up the stairs, and as she quickly went up the stairs, familiar voices began playing in her head. Voices of Kryptonite, Amaya, Jet, Augur, and Drakkar. She shook her head and shouted as she would grab her head tightly.
"Shut the fuck up!" She screamed.
But when she screamed, she heard a creaking of an opening door. She opened her eyes, as they began to flood with tears. The opened doors showed Lilith in her vault. She had her eyes closed still, and she just stood there with the innocent aura she had always had about her. Blaze walked toward her and gazed at her. Spotting the liquid's movement inside the vault that surrounded her, and the few little bubbles that would form as she breathed in the water.
Blaze grunted in immense pain while falling down to her knees. She grabbed onto her chest tightly and shouting in pain.
"Chip, what's going on!?" Blaze yelled.
"Signs indicate that BLAZE-0X119 is in danger of becoming contaminated. Leaving this scene is recommended." Chip spoke.
Blaze leaned her elbow on the glass door of the vault, pulling herself up, "N-No... I have to do this."
Blaze breathed heavily, groaning every so often from the pain she had been feeling in her chest. But she had to take this opportunity, or it may not come again. She looked down at both of her hands, as they held the two dual blades. With another scream of immense pain in her chest, she forced her arms to extend and stab the two blades into Lilith. Lilith's eyes opened, as her jaw dropped from the sudden pain. She looked down at Blaze, as Blaze would fall down to her knees again.
"T-Thank... You..." The soft voice of Lilith spoke, as she groaned and closed her eyes again.
The lighting of the castle shut down, and the room had become dark once again. But the dual blades had still provided a dim light blue light that Blaze would use for sight. She couldn't move, she felt as though the pain had been increasing ever second that passed. She grabbed her chest and began pulling, pulling off her skin as she would scream frantically in pain. She tore her skin off and tossed it to t
he side, watching below as blood began to pour out of her, as well as black material that had entwined with her blood.
"W-What's going on!?" Blaze shouted.
She drew her hand inside her chest and ripped out some of the dark mass that had been clutching onto her her mechanical parts. Augur's spirit appeared in front of her- he looked calm as he watched Blaze tear out more of the black mass from her insides. Blaze began tearing off all of her skin on her arms, as she would become more and more obsessed with ripping out the black mass.
"Damn it, Augur! What the hell is happening to me!" Blaze screamed as she began to become tearful.
Augur frowned as he continued to watch her tear herself apart in order to remove the black mass. But the black mass continued to regenerate inside of her each time she'd remove more. She was scared, and she had been shaking ferociously. Blaze had never been this scared before, and she knew that her time had been up.
"Blaze. It'll be a little longer until you can join me and help me create our world." Augur announced, sounding a bit disappointed.
Blaze began to sob as she noticeably tore half of her face off, exposing the black mass that had covered the layer under her skin, which evolved her eye color on that side of her face and changed it into a red color.
"I'm sorry, Blaze. But this is it." Augur spoke as he turned away from her, disappearing into a bright light.
Blaze screamed as she reached out to where Augur was, letting the black mass cover her open wounds. But as she accepted the fact that Augur left her behind, she let her head hang low. The room was silent apart from the sounds of her cries. She destroyed the Armagna Network, but she was still contaminated by Ruse, something she had forgotten about. She could not sense Chip inside of her any longer. At that moment, as the black mass began to completely cover her entire body, she realized that she was alone once again.
Branch C – The New World
Verse I
The Divergence’s Last Chance
Ace shook his head. He held his eyes closed before they were watching the presentation that was being shown to him on a projected screen. The projection had been of what had occurred within Branch B of the timeline, the branch Ace himself extracted from the timeline after the distortion forced him to seal Branch A. It seems he was disappointed by the work of Xanadu.
He stood up out of his seat and stepped toward the projected screen, as he would lay his hand on the projection. The image of the sobbing machine known as Blaze was shown on it after Xanadu had to push pause on it due to Ace's orders. He observed the situation, being alarmed by what the black mass had produced in such a fast manner. Never had he seen it regenerate so quickly.
"Xan." Ace spoke before turning back to him and beginning to shout, "H-How could you let this branch destroy itself!? Were you even putting any effort into maintenance!?"
Xanadu gasped and looked down. He had been ashamed because the distortion and the corruption of the branch had reached a limit he, himself, could not control. He wasn't as powerful as Ace was, no matter how much Ace would try to convince him otherwise.
"This... This is what the machine's true fate? Built to replace the Human race, but they weren't even powerful enough to last long at all..." Ace sighed as he walked around the room.
They had been sitting in the same white room with the large table that spread them apart. To Ace, it was called the Corridor of Observation, a place us Divergence would observe and evaluate a branch's progression. But branches were always much longer than this one, evidently from how it had broken apart from its originality. According to Ace, this branch struggled to keep apart reality and fantasy, as the two had seemed to collide more than once.
"We will need another's take on this..." Ace muttered as he pressed a red button that was on his side of the table.
As he pressed the button, a beeper went off, which alerted the person he wished to speak to. Within a minute or two of pure silence, the doors opened slowly and a woman stepped inside. Xanadu wasn't familiar with who it was- she had her wavy red hair in a ponytail, she had these big glasses on which made her look like a genius. But she had white trench coat over the casual clothing, which marked that she was of a higher rank than Xanadu himself. She stepped inside the room after she closed the doors, and sat in the middle of the table, just between Xanadu and Ace.
"Xan, this is Shalya... Shalya, I need your input on this Branch-" Ace began to explain.
Shalya shook her head as she laid back against the chair, crossed her legs and her arms in an unimpressed manner, "No need to explain. This work has been the talk of the facility for quite some time. I know all of it."
"I see. Even the occurrences of the recent Branch B?"
She nodded her head, "It isn't often that a branch is granted another chance. Most Timelines we analyze are quite normal- you know, a family has a baby and that baby goes on to be a President, or a King, or even a damn Dictator. But in most cases, those said Dictators go down. It's repeated throughout history. What you have here, Xan is truly special. I've never seen people who've truly treasured life so much that they'd give their lives- their own free wills just to live another normal day."
"I agree. A Timeline like this one will only prove to be beneficial to not only us but you, Xan."
Xanadu narrowed his eyes as he looked down the table at Ace, "Why me?"
"Because, if you were to save a Timeline as precious as this one, your reputation would no doubt be improved."
Xanadu sighed, "I see. But Ace, I was going to request for this Timeline to be sealed, completely."
Ace frowned and crossed his arms, "Explain..."
Xanadu stood out of his seat, "S-Surely a Timeline like this can be dangerous. And I'm not only speaking for my own safety, but for the safety of the other Timelines, as well as our facility. What is occurring in this Timeline is something we have never seen. It is truly corrupted-"
Shalya interrupts, "Indeed, but this can be a significant chance for us to find the true source of this corruption, and maybe put an end to it for good in the future."
"Corruption cannot be stopped, Shalya. It is formed from the Paradoxes of the Timelines- the mass that creates these worlds, these people, and the made-up history. Some people are good, some are not. That's the general case in hand. However, there is something else going on here, because I can see through everyone in this Timeline, and they all have good intentions." Ace explains.
Shalya whispers as she goes into thought, "It's like they've been possessed by a malevolent force..."
Ace nodded his head, standing out of his seat. He made his way to the projection screen and pressed on it, bringing up a touchable keypad within the picture. A pop-up appeared that had requested Ace's input.
"W-What are you doing?" Xanadu asked.
Ace pulls up a screen of the Branch, showing that the Branch had broken apart to form Branch B towards the beginning of the Branch. "Towards the beginning of each of these Branches, it seems that it is normal. But sometimes through, it becomes corrupted more and more... Maybe we should create a new Branch from the midpoint of Branch A, start right when the corruption starts."
"That sounds like a splendid idea," Shalya mutters.
"Shalya, I want you to help Xan out. This is the Divergence's top priority now. We must make Branch C into a success, or the risk of contamination of the other Timelines increase dramatically."
Shalya nods her head, shortly before Xan hesitatingly nodded his head. He was a bit nervous, because of the fact that he had to work with Shalya, who would most certainly criticize his work. But she was only there for support, so he was still strict about this being his project alone.
"Now- it seems we need to direct our main attention toward someone anew. I feel we should look at Drakkar more. In our attempts to rid him early in Branch B, it showed that the Branch's progression turned in a different direction, and in a more unstable direction. He seemed to have a kind heart, until he was possessed, from our hypothesis." Ace explained, just as he turned back t
o the two.
Shalya raised an eyebrow, "That's quite a surprise. He must also suffer from an unintentional necrophilia. Though, this could promote a promising end."
"Then it's decided." Ace spoke, before glancing over at Xanadu, "This is your last chance, Xan, don't fail this again."
Xan sighed before he nodded his head and gave a more determined look, "I'll do everything in my power to see this through to the end."
Verse II
Armoraga Machina: The Age of Machines
The area was seemingly peaceful- nothing out of the ordinary had been occurring. Just outside Amaya's Village, Xanadu and Shalya stop as they would glance at their sign that hinted of the gates into the village was up ahead.
"Shalya, this direct approach still seems like it would be against the rules," Xanadu muttered as he followed behind her.
Shalya shrugged her shoulders, "It is not cheating, Xan. I've just bent the rules a bit. Remember, I am of a higher rank than you, think of my tactics if you ever want to last."
Shalya scoffed at Xanadu as she approached the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper had been sleeping on the job, but the gate was only operable through the other side. Shalya bit the bottom of her lip as she gazed around the area, looking for a way in.
"Hey, we can't just sneak in! We'll become too suspicious!" Xanadu quietly yelled at her.
However, she decided to ignore him and climb up the side of the gate where a large mountain overshadowed the area. Xanadu wanted to climb up the mountain as well, but the rubble slipping off the mountain caused enough noise to wake up the gatekeeper. He pulled his head up and spit on the floor, getting all of his left over drool out of his mouth. He finally glanced at Xanadu, grumbling from his sleepiness.
"What do you want?" The gatekeeper spoke harshly.
Xanadu raised an eyebrow at the rude man, "I-... Uh, I'm a stranded person, just looking for somewhere to crash for the night."