by Andrew Jones
"This is his inner darkness, we have to take it out before it spreads Ruse throughout this world!" Blaze shouted at Nova as the dark creature roared at them.
Nova grunted and looked down at her blades, "I can't... It's Atreyu..."
Blaze grumbled and punched Nova in the face and watched her fall to the ground, "Realize what the hell is going on! Atreyu isn't the Atreyu you thought he was! He is actually this, he was a formation of Ruse this whole time! He is not a Human, not a machine, not even a damn Synth, he had fooled us into thinking he was a Synth this whole time!"
Nova watched Blaze as she laid on the ground, she wiped away some of her tears as she looked up at the dark creature that was Atreyu.
"The Human heart is run by their darkness. Darkness is what powers Humans, it is the Human flaw, and it is what created their emotions!" Atreyu shouted at them.
"Girls, he's going stronger by the second!" Kryptonite shouted at Blaze and Nova.
Blaze nodded her head, "Leave this little shit to us, bear."
Blaze dashed forward into Atreyu and slashed off some of his dark mass. Nova watched the dark mass fall to the ground, but as it hit the ground it quickly crawled back toward Atreyu's distorted form and grew it back. Blaze grunted as she fell back to the ground. Nova dashed passed her as she jumped and twirled up into the head of the distorted form. She slashed his face, but then she twirled again in circles to deal several slashed into his face. But as she flew passed him after dealing the damage, she heard him growing back the dark mass she had slashed off.
"Ugh, he keeps regenerating his body!" Blaze shouted.
Atreyu laughed as he placed his giant hands on the ground and made the ground become consumed by the darkness he held. Nova and Blaze looked around as the ground begun growing arms. The arms attempted to grab each of them, but as it tried to grab Nova, she jumped quickly and slashed the hand that tried to grab her. Atreyu grunted from the pain and retracted the arm that was damaged. Nova looked at the rest of the arms and saw that one of them had grabbed Blaze and made it look like she was stuck in some kind of spider web ball. Nova frowned as she dashed forward and slashed each of the arms until she got to Blaze. She both of her arms and stabbed her dual blades into the hand that had Blaze in its grip.
Atreyu screamed as he released his grip on Blaze and retracted the rest of his arms. Blaze fell to the ground and looked up at Nova, nodding her head as a sign of thank you. But she quickly got up to her feet and dashed forward to Atreyu to deal attacks with her fast strategy. She was quick, but her quick attacks like that didn't deal too much damage. Nova noticed that none of her attacks had been doing any damage, so she looked around and saw her reflection within the waterfall just behind them. She rushed to the waterfall and saw her reflection point both of her dual blades at her, Nova did the same. She let her blades soak in the purifying water, but surely the water couldn't be as purifying as the world tried to convince her. She held the blades in the water for a short while before pulling them away and seeing them glow a bright light.
Her reflection nodded her head at Nova as she turned away and dashed toward Atreyu. She stabbed one of her blades into Atreyu and saw that the light had gotten brighter as it was inside the darkness of Atreyu. He screamed loudly as the dark mass had been melting off of him, but Nova used her other blade to stab him again. Atreyu tried to fight her off, but Nova quickly slashed into Atreyu as quickly as she could, dealing multiple attacks, so much she couldn't count all of it.
By the time she had melted away all of the black mass around Atreyu, he was back to his old self. His body was still engulfed in darkness and his eyes were still pure red. He was still consumed by Ruse. But as he had fallen down onto his knees, Nova aimed the tip of her lightened blade into his neck, forcing the tip of her blade to penetrate his neck slightly so he wouldn't be able to move.
"Go ahead, Nova! Kill me. It wouldn't help out your worthless world! You and your world have been dead for a long time, but you two will be destroyed soon enough!" Atreyu yelled up at her.
Nova sighed but she kept frowning down at him, "You planned all of this?"
He shook his head, "When I was separated into two beings, I had no plan. I didn't think I would meet you, the Nawx. But when I became my old self, I knew what I had to do." He answered her as he began laughing.
Nova looked like she was in pain, "Atreyu, this Ruse... How do you stop it?"
"You already found it! It's how you managed to melt away my darkness, obviously! I know light can defeat darkness, but... I didn't think I had so much darkness inside me. Had I been hiding this much inside me this whole time, or was this from when I was split into two and they both gained this much inner darkness..." Atreyu whispered to himself.
"Atreyu..."
Blaze scoffed, "Nova, just kill him. Our situation won't be better if he is around!"
"I didn't think I would have to kill him, I fought him so I could destroy his darkness and then... Maybe he'd go back to normal."
Blaze shook her head, "No. He is Ruse! It's what he is made of, there's no destroying it. You're the Nawx, so you have to destroy him!"
Blaze grunted as she tossed her blade on the ground, "Nawx!? What is that!?"
Atreyu laughed, "Kill me if you want, I've distracted you two enough to where the world could become fully created without you two disrupting it."
Blaze and Nova gasped as Atreyu spoke and laughed in a crazy way. He continued to laugh for a moment before Blaze scoffed and grabbed the blade that Nova tossed on the ground. She quickly stabbed the lightened blade into Atreyu's head and watched Atreyu's eyes begin to bleed red blood. But shortly after, he had shattered into fading dark mass. He had no embodiment, he was just made of the dark mass of the Ruse. But as she handed the blade back to Nova, the world began to shake again, only harder again.
"Shit! It's happening!" Blaze shouted as she grabbed her backpack with Kryptonite in it and begun rushing off.
Nova gasped as she watched Blaze walk off, "Wait!" She shouted as she looked at the spot Atreyu had died for a few seconds before hastily following Blaze.
Verse XVI
Sing A Song of the World’s End
The floors of the world began to crack, and the shaking of the world only made the cracking worse. The cracks have begun to grow bigger and wider. As the chaos had raged upon the world, the people within the balls of light began to gain embodiment. A bright light had blinded Blaze and Nova as they tried to pass through them, and they were quite shocked to see that the people had gained their bodies, but they were different than they were before. The people had gained a form of a Human, but they were a Human filled with only darkness, they consumed only a dark coloring and their eyes were the red color they had seen with Drakkar and Atreyu. As they came into reality, they let loose a fit of rage before spotting Blaze and Nova. They shouted once again as they slowly approached them, they were shaking as if they were only feeling the immense rage within them. They acted so mad, like all the memories of the happiness they had on their old world had faded away, or deleted from them.
Blaze and Nova backed away from them as they were all of a sudden frightened by this surprise attack. The world had gone from the serenity color of white to a heinous color of red where darkness and hatred filled the world's aura. Kryptonite was even scared, but his knowledgeable wits told him to observe the area. He quickly spotted a building that was actually constructed, unlike the rest of the buildings in the world that weren't even fully built as of yet. The building wasn't even damaged either, and the whole world looked like it was in ruins. This was definitely suspicious to Kryptonite, so he had to alert Blaze and Nova about it.
"Uh-... Girls..." Kryptonite muttered.
Blaze scoffed as she pulled out her spear, "Now's not the time, bear."
"Do we really have to kill all these people?" Nova asked as she held her dual blades softly, watching the surrounding dark people cautiously.
Blaze nodded her head, "They're a threat, Nova. It's kill or be kil
led. That's... That's how it was in our world."
"But these are people who were consumed by their darkness... They're innocent." Nova turned to her and explained, "And... If that is so than Atreyu and Drakkar must've been innocent too. Maybe they were consumed by their darkness forcefully, too."
Blaze sighed, but as she turned to Nova she saw one of the dark people try to attack her. She grunted and quickly dashed in front of her and stabbed the dark person. The dark person grunted as he looked down at his stomach and saw the dark mass that had been spilling from his open wound. Blaze frowned and pulled out her spear quickly as she kicked him to the ground. The dark person was squirming on the ground as dark mass had still been spilling out of his open wound from Blaze's attack, as well as his mouth, nose, and eyes.
"Just die already," Blaze whispered with frustration in her voice as she went and stomped on his face, watching his head shatter into the dark mass.
The dark mass, however, had these bizarre black tentacle or web like substance that would stretch slightly up toward Blaze, but as it failed to reach her, they fell to the ground and begun shattering into nothingness.
"Blaze! Watch out!" Nova screamed.
She jumped behind Blaze and slashed a few of the dark persons who were attempting to tackle Blaze. They all had the same tentacle-like substance reaching out of their mouths like they were trying to infect her with the Ruse. Nova and Blaze kept attacking each and every dark person in the crowd, but it seemed like the huge wave wouldn't decrease in numbers. After taking out nearly one hundred of them, they both begun getting tired and their attacks became less fast and strong. The dark persons began taking advantage of their low stamina and used that to tackle Blaze to the ground.
"B-Blaze!" Nova shouted as she rushed to the group who had piled on top of Blaze.
She stabbed each of the dark beings that had tackled Blaze, she stabbed each of them in the back of the heads where it had been proven to kill them. It must be the brain that was their weakness, not the heart like most beings. After clearing all the dark beings that were on top of Blaze, Nova quickly helped her onto her feet.
"Are you all right?" Nova asked.
Blaze nodded as she panted heavily, "I-I'm fine..."
Nova had a worried look on her face as she stared at Blaze, she knew something had to be wrong with her because she had never looked so weak. She had to help keep Blaze up on her feet as she had been leaning her whole body onto her, she would constantly groan and whine from the pain in an unknown location on the body.
"Ladies, we have another problem..." Kryptonite muttered as he used his little paw to point at a big puddle of dark mass.
The dark mass had been used to conjure up more of the dark beings, replicas of the people whose hearts had been consumed by their darkness and rage. Nova grunted from her frustration, but she knew they couldn't fight any longer, considering Blaze's condition.
"Kryptonite, we have to leave."
Kryptonite nodded his head and looked back at the building. It was taller than before, and it there was a huge clock on it as well.
Kryptonite pointed at the building and said, "Is that a clock tower?"
Nova glanced back at the clock tower, "Ah, good idea Kryptonite. We'll retreat there."
She quickly wrapped Blaze's arm around her shoulder and turned toward the direction of the clock tower. Toward the direction, they saw the cracks in the ground began to appear, it was a narrow path, and it was possible for the way to be blocked from a continuation of a crack that would block their way. But it was their only choice to escape from the immune dark beings.
"N-Nova..." Blaze whispered with a weak tone of her voice as she looked up at Nova, "Please, go on without me. It would be better for me to just lay here and distract them while you and bear go forth."
Nova shook her head, "It isn't time for your ending just yet, Blaze. You can push on a little further."
Blaze tried to speak, but the weakness she had prevented her from speaking at all. As she parted her lips, she couldn't move them a lot and she couldn't exhale the amount of air that was required to make a word formation. She felt like a weakling so she hung her head low and hid her face under her silver bangs, she was truly more embarrassed than anything. But that didn't mean that her condition was not troubling. She was a prideful woman, she became prideful of her strength and drove to become stronger than anyone else. Being in this condition made her upset and depressed, and that was quite obvious to Nova, she was aware of it.
"Kryptonite, go up ahead and open the door for us! Once we pass through, you need to shut it behind us and lock it!" Nova shouted at him.
Kryptonite nodded his head and jumped before he answered and ran toward the door of the clock tower, "Roger!"
Nova began walking, it was slow but it was effective enough to gain some distance from the approaching dark beings. They could hear the dark beings behind them; they were shouting and swearing at the two of them. They would sing the song of crazy folk tales or some crazy antic that had the lyrics of their disturbing daydreams. These people had truly gone crazy and seemed to seek the destruction of this new world. They yelled they cried, they laughed, and they panted for air as they ran toward Nova and Blaze. These were normal people whose hearts had been tampered with, whose emotions had been stolen away.
"N-Nova, they're getting closer. I can tell... Just leave me here, please..." Blaze begged as her voice was faint.
"No! You're coming with us!" Nova shouted at her as she continued to carry her toward the door.
Blaze chuckled as she coughed and looked at the hand she had coughed on, "You really are the Nawx."
Kryptonite jumped up and down at the door as he waited for them. He would often shout at them to warn that the group of dark beings had been catching up to them. But Nova kept her focus on helping Blaze to the door. She felt like this was the right thing to do; after the death of Atreyu, she promised herself that she would try her hardest to save the people within the balls of light, the people who hoped and prayed for their embodiment back. But there was no way of doing so. She wanted to save someone because she knew she couldn't be saved. She would sacrifice her life to save Blaze even though she had her suspicions of her. Her heart would beat harder when she was carrying Blaze to safety, she liked that because it made her feel more alive and Human than she had ever felt. It was another sign that machines like herself were obsessed with Humanity, even when she wasn't thinking about the people or the separation of the Humans and the machines. She thought of them at that moment as equals and wanted to believe they just that, but whenever she would feel Human she would feel a dim light begin to appear in her heart. It was her desire to be something more than just a living being, a machine or a Synth who was simply created to defend the machine race existence. She had something in common with Blaze, her and Blaze strived for greatness and difference. They wanted to be different from the rest of the machines for different reasons. To feel more Human, or to stand out from the crowd, they didn't really know anymore. Blaze strived to have the right to feel her emotions, primarily love. And Nova wanted to have the right to believe in her dream of making a difference. They were both told that they could not achieve those because they were simply machines, but they were brave and courageous enough to reach out and chase those rights. Nova didn't realize that until now, and that was when she felt sympathy for Blaze who seemed like her heart had been lost for quite some time.
"Hurry inside!" Kryptonite yelled as he saw the two of them approaching the door.
Nova sped it up and carried Blaze inside the clock tower as Kryptonite quickly pushed the door shut and locked it. He had pulled out a special iron lock from his pocket so that they wouldn't be able to break the door down or force it open. He clapped his hands as he approached the two girls who had collapsed on the ground from their exhaustion.
"You two did great!" Kryptonite shouted and clapped his paws.
Nova nodded as she sat on the floor next to Blaze, "Yeah."
B
laze still had her head down low, "Why didn't you just leave me there?"
"Because... I couldn't." Nova answered with a soft voice.
Blaze frowned at her as she finally exposed her face, "W-Why?"
Nova looked down at her knees and fiddled with her fingers nervously.
Blaze tilted her head to the side as she watched her. She slowly reached her hands down and took hold of her hands softly as she looked up at Nova, "Thank you...
Nova looked up at her and smiled a little.
"Do... Do you want me to tell you what a Nawx is? What you really are?" Blaze asked as she pulled her hands away and laid back on the ground to get more comfortable.
Nova nodded her head, "Yes, please."
Blaze chuckled, "To put it simply; you're the Savior of Humanity. That is why I was not surprised when you saved me."
"Savior of Humanity..." Nova whispered.
Kryptonite sat on the ground in front of Blaze and allowed her to pet the top of his head, "I felt like she was something like that. You seem like you care about people more than a certain someone..."
Blaze's face grew red as she made a fist with her hand, and she then pounded her fist into Kryptonite's head with great force, "Shush..."
"Owwwww! What did I do?!" Kryptonite whined loudly as he rubbed his head.
"But..." Nova whispered as she thought deeply, not aware that both Blaze and Kryptonite looked at her immediately as she spoke, "How do I save Humanity? The world seems so lost, and the people have been consumed by Ruse somehow. Did Atreyu spread it throughout this world too?"
Blaze shrugged her shoulders, "Probably. He was made for the soul purpose, so it is a high chance that he did."
"I wish there was a way to save him."
Kryptonite looked around as he noticed that Evol and Densetsu had vanished. Without the sight of Blaze and Nova, he strolled toward a window that had glass on it. It was unopenable, but it served as a good way to take a look outside. He first observed the cracks of which had materialized hellfire within the large cracks. But the group of dark beings had increased dramatically, as they all wandered around aimlessly. Often they would all attack one of the dark beings, and that would cause a big fight. The result of the big fight would leave all of them dead, but within the dark mass they had bled from their wounds, more dark beings had been created like that was a way of multiplying the population of people in this world.