by Andrew Jones
"Blaze..." Augur's voice appeared as his figure was shown in the reflection of the waterfall, "You've finally figured it out, or did you not?"
Blaze gasped as she looked into the waterfall, "F-Figured out what?" She asked as she tried to hold back her tears.
"Why Drenawx wanted me to dismantle you, of course. You remember that day, don't you?" He asked as he looked down at her.
Blaze looked down and sighed, "Yes. It continues to haunt my nightmares every night. But strangely, it was both the best and worst day I could remember."
Augur blinked his green eyes as he watched her speak, "... Every Synth has a purpose that serves their existence. But as I researched the matter, I felt like machines like yourself had no purpose in the world at all."
She looked up him, "No purpose? Aren't the machines the next race to belong in the world after Humanity dies off?"
He shakes his head, "No. Humanity was never supposed to die off. I'm... Still not sure why machines exist, but you give them some perspective, Blaze." He answered as he smiled at her, "You have shown the value of Humanity, the value Humans seemed to forget. You seemed to teach the machines what it is like to be a Human as you helped them escape from Drenawx, yet you also showed them why they cannot be Human."
"Machines can never be Human?" She asked, sounding a bit surprised in her voice.
"Machines are mere weak beings. They were built without emotions, of course, or the pure heart that Humans have that is strong enough to change the world. But as I watch you and Nova, Atreyu and Conrad- or Eerie, and also Lilith, maybe Machines don't have to be like Humans. You machines can stand up to yourselves and give yourself purpose." Augur explained as he knelt down to his knees to he could get closer to her, "But as I said, Synths all have a certain purpose in the world, a purpose big enough to change the world individually. It may not lie within the origins of any Human, but it is still as special."
Blaze looked up at him as she brushed some of her silver hair out of her face, "What's my purpose?"
Augur sighed as she spoke her question, "Your-... Emotions, they're unique for a Synth like yourself. But because of that, your body has been corrupted since you've been created. No other machine was corrupted, except for you. Before that faithful day, Drenawx ordered me to dismantle you time and time again. But I kept thinking up excuses to not put you down. I have to admit, I enjoyed your company, Blaze, that is why I couldn't do it." He mumbled as he sighed again, "That day, I guess I ended up finding out what love truly means. It happens quite often with Humans, but once you truly feel what I felt you know it is true love.
Blaze grew a soft red blush along her cheeks as she made her hand form into a gentle fist and held it up to her chest, right over her heart, "I... I think I know how that feels."
Augur smiled, "But that day, he threatened me. He threatened that he would dismantle you himself. But just as he said that he forcefully made me surrender myself solely for his experimentation on Ruse. By the time you entered the testing room, I had been consumed by my inner darkness..." He confessed as Blaze spotted a sparkling tear running down his cheek soon before he started to cry, "I didn't mean to hurt you, Blaze. I saw how you changed afterward. You used to be so quiet and innocent, but you've just become bloodthirsty emotional vengeful being..."
Blaze smiled up at him as she placed her hand on the waterfall. Augur looked up at her hand, seeing her smile. The same smile he had forced her to make that day they hung out together, arguably their last happy moment. He lifted his hand up and held it against the other side of the water, into her hand. He smiled as he sort of felt her hand on the palm of his hand, or at least he tried to believe he was.
"I love you." Augur said, but his voice had been fading away, growing quieter.
"I... Love you... Too..." Blaze mumbled as she held her eyes shut.
She had been laid down on the floor after she suddenly collapsed. Kryptonite was sitting next to her, doing everything he could to protect her. He gasped as he heard her voice, but he was excited to know she was all right.
"Lady Blaze!" Kryptonite shouted as he jumped up and down excitedly.
Blaze grumbled as she sat up and looked at Kryptonite. Her vision was still blurry, so she had to rub them to gain her full vision back.
"What happened?" She asked as she tried to stand up.
Nova answered her as she approached her, "You blacked out all of a sudden, what made you collapse?"
Blaze sighed, "I don't know." She answered as she rubbed her head, "Anyway, where's Lilith?"
"She's in the vault. She's preparing her light so we may take her out forcefully."
"She mentioned that there were two pieces of the light... Where is the other half if she is only one?" Blaze asked.
Nova tilted her head, "This... Was sort of surprising. She mentioned that Augur was the second half of the light within the heart of the people..."
Blaze gasped and frowned, "Is he here!?"
Nova shook her head, "No. She said something about him sacrificing himself for Drenawx's Ruse experiment? Well... The results of that experiment allowed him to take his inner darkness into it's full fleshed form- which ultimately turned him into Drakkar... Augur's soul rests within Drakkar."
"So... That means we have to kill both Lilith and Augur at the same time. But how are we going to bring Drakkar here with those Dragoonas of his? This will surely be a tough fight." Kryptonite shook his head and sighed.
"Yes. But it's something we have to do. If we don't do this, there will never be a New World and this corruption could possibly affect the other worlds like what Xanadu said."
"Corruption..." Blaze whispered as she looked down at the palm of her hand, the hand that had felt Augur's hand slightly in her dream.
Nova walked over to the vault that Lilith had been floating inside of. She held her eyes closed as her chest had lit up, representing that she had the necessary light within her. Because of this, within Drakkar Augur's light should be showing outside of Drakkar's chest. It will alert him that Nova, Blaze, and Kryptonite had reached the Heavens of the world and anticipate the final battle. He was surely on his way, Lilith said it herself that they should prepare for battle.
But something unexpected occurred. Lilith's vault had opened and she stepped out. Everyone looked at her as she materialized this thick black smoke from her body, which would surround the room. It wasn't the light she was supposed to unleash, the same represented darkness. Lilith looked up at them as her eyes did not any color to them. They were only white.
She laughed in a crazy way as she begun to float up off the ground, "You truly think you could defeat a God like myself?"
Nova and Blaze gasped as Lilith raised her hands and made all of them teleport out of the world and into a dark and gloomy world. It was dark, and there were graves surrounding them completely. Like this new world was just for the grave sights.
"This is the graves of all the Humans and machines! All of whom died in the hands of myself and Lord Xevadiah!" Lilith laughed in an even more crazy way as she spun around and disappeared into a darkened portal.
They all were silent as they split up to look at all of the graves. Nova went down a row of graves slowly, spotting some names that were familiar. She saw Drenawx's grave, as well as Atreyu's. She sighed as she knelt down and placed her hand on the grave. She tried to speak, but no words formed as her lips parted.
Kryptonite also went down another row of graves. Many of the names that were on the graves were familiar, names of the people he had become acquainted with as he adventured the land, before meeting up with Blaze. But he ended up seeing Aeza's grave and immediately remembered the incident he had in the past with his old partner. The image of Aeza, the ex-Queen of the teddy bear's being torn apart by the victims of Ruse. He looked down and away from the grave, he promised himself that he wouldn't cry for her anymore, for all of the dead teddy bear race, but sometimes he couldn't control himself.
Blaze walked in random directions throughout the graveyard. She saw t
he graves of Amaya, Jet and also Augur. She stopped at his grave and sat down.
"Heh, they really do have everyone in here, huh?" She whispered, as though she had been whispering to Augur.
But she stared at the grave sight, just imagining what could be right beneath her. Maybe his body had broken down and all that was left was the bones that made up his skeleton. She shook his head as she did not want to think of that. Instead, she looked down at the palm of her hand again.
"I'm corrupted..." She whispered just as she looked up at Augur's grave, "I'm sorry, Augur... I'll make all of this right. Just how you would want me to end it all."
Branch C Ending
Final Verse
The Beauty In Distortion
The graveyard gave such an eerie feeling- a dead feeling, but it also felt like the spirits of the dead had been watching the three of them observe the gravestones. The whistle of the blowing winds sends chills up Kryptonite's spine. This was truly the sight of the end of Humanity- or the end of the world in general. The aura within all the spirits of the dead sent Blaze several different signals of emotion. Sometimes she would feel the sadness of one Human who killed themselves before letting someone kill them. Sometimes she would feel the rage and hatred of someone who vowed to get revenge on another, which fed her the need to stare over at Nova with the strong urge to kill. But at one point she felt this different sensation, a sensation she feels like she hadn't felt in so long. She felt an overwhelming jolt of happiness as she knelt down at Augur's gravestone again. The happiness was so overbearing that her eyes had been tearing up. She knelt down and placed her hand on his gravestone once again as she somehow felt his presence at that moment. Taking this hint, she closed her eyes slowly and allowed the happy sensation take over her body.
She felt coldness around her. It made her feel odd as her body began to shiver. Her eyes opened as they shined a brighter purple than ever in the result of the coldness. The area she has been taken to was a void of nothingness with a background covered in the color of dark blue. She felt her body began to move by itself as she traversed into the unknown lands. As she traversed more so, she found herself wrapping her own arms around her torso to contain some of her body's heat functionality, though it didn't really pan out as she had thought, she somehow believed it would work.
"Come closer."
A familiar voice spoke within the dark blue background. His voice was soft but it was also deep. It comforted Blaze enough for her to keep walking. The coldness consumed her more and more as her legs began to grow icicles as they stepped through the growing snow piles. She couldn't speak- or entirely think. She just wanted a way out of this illusion she was having. That is when she thought about why she was having these illusions. Was this part of her so-called corruption? But then as she thought about that, a strong breeze hit her, bringing forth an immense freeze that would be more painful than cold. She held her ground as she stood up to it and closed her eyes. But as the wind passed her, she collapsed onto the floor. Her skin had grown red and she could see her breath as she panted quickly. She was panicking, but she continued to try to convince herself that all of this was just another illusion.
A wave of winds spun around in front of her as Augur appeared before her. She looked up as her body had turned from its natural white color to the more bright red color, and then immediately into a bright blue color that would soon make her completely frozen if she didn't find a way out of there. Her eyes blinked slowly as she looked up at him. She found that she could barely move. The ice that was covering her body in a dramatically fast rate was slowing her down.
"I-Illusions... Again..." Blaze muttered from her parted lips.
Her pronunciation was way off because she didn't have the ability to move her lips afterward, or her tongue so she could form words. Augur knelt down in front her and sighed. He looked completely fine, his body lit up in a bright light within the overbearing and darkened frozen land. He leant his hand on Blaze's half-frozen cheek and caressed it. Her eyes blinked as she was able to feel the warmth sensation from his hand.
"This is no illusion, Blaze." Augur spoke as he continued to caress her cheek, "You're corrupted, and you are an advanced mechanical being. Because of your corruption, it manipulates your body and makes you think that you are being taken to a place like this. It's what your belief is that hurts you. This land shows the imagery of frozen lands, and the natural effect to that is coldness, which you are going through. It isn't an illusion, it is the corruption taking a toll on your body."
Blaze gasped as she tried to speak, but she was not able to even exhale enough air to create a blurred word. Instead, she just watched Augur.
"Just like how you image me in your so-called illusions. I know why you do... You are in denial of my death, Blaze. And I know for a fact that you want to be saved from yourself. You... You want me to come back to save you, don't you?" Augur asked her as he stood up and looked down at her.
Blaze watched him and just listened to him. She still couldn't move an inch because she was just about frozen in place. But because of him stroking her cheek and his words, she was able to produce a single tear from her eye. The tear ran down the cheek Augur had caressed, but as it reached the middle of her cheek it became frozen in place. Augur gasped as he slowly reached down and gently grasped the tear in the palm of his hand. He laid the frozen tear on the palm of his hand and watched the warmth of his hand melt the ice off of it until it became the little puddle from Blaze's eye. He smiled as he saw the sparkle from the tear shine out.
"Blaze... To make you any better, you must realize that none of this is real. I am not alive and I cannot save you. You have Nova and Kryptonite who are out there right now waiting for you to save them. You have become the savior of others now, you've become that strong since my passing." He explained as he continued to stare down at the teardrop in his hand, "You have so much darkness inside you, but you somehow find your way toward the light... That is not because of me, that is because you are a good person deep down, you're still that sweet and quiet girl I met back in Drenawx's laboratory."
He slowly grabbed onto her hand gently and pulled it upward. Blaze could feel his warmth melt the ice away in her hand. The teardrop was poured down onto Blaze's palm and as she felt it warm up her hand, even more, Augur laid his hand down on his hand, against the teardrop.
"Deep down you know how to stop all of this. You are the corruption of this world. And even though we cannot see each other anymore after this, I remain inside your heart, dancing with your soul..."
Blaze watched him as he shut his eyes and sent a wave of warmth and light into Blaze. She was finally able to blink, and slowly afterward she was able to move her body. He had somehow broken off the frozen barriers that had kept her content. After breaking all of the ice off of her, she found that Augur had disappeared, and from what she had previously said he was gone for good. She sighed as she closed her eyes.
And as she opened her eyes back up, she appeared back in reality to Nova and Kryptonite trying to wake her up. Nova held her shoulders from behind and shook her hard while Kryptonite jumped in front of her and shouted in her face.
"H-Hey!" Blaze shouted as she rubbed her head from an awakening headache she was growing from their efforts.
Kryptonite gasped, "She's awake! Now we can plan how to escape from this realm!"
Nova sighed as she turned away and walked a few steps away from them, "I don't exactly know if there is a way out of here."
"What do you mean?" Kryptonite asked as he finally stopped jumping in excitement.
"I-... I don't know. I just have a feeling about this place. Like it is inescapable..."
Before Kryptonite could respond, the ground begins to shake ferociously. Blaze quickly jumped up as she was alarmed by the bizarre incident. Within the ground's shaking, the gravestones began to crack. The cracking eventually broke the gravestones into several big pieces of which would evidently awaken the spirits of that grave sight. As the shaking stop
s, the realm was shaken by loud voices shouting at the three who stood above ground. In mere seconds, an arm raises from one of the grave sights. The arm looked to have been damaged severely, as the skin had been peeled off and the bones were shown just under it. The same goes for the other grave sights where their spirits had awakened and begun digging themselves out of their hole.
Kryptonite was frightened by the scene, the scene of the spirits somehow returning to their dead bodies.
"What's going on!?" Kryptonite asked as he shouted in pure fear.
Nova grunted as she held onto both of her dual blades, "They're... Returning to their bodies?"
The spirits within their dead bodies begin screaming from their pain, the pain they had to live before they died and retracted from those bodies in hopes of finding a suitable body to find in the New World. But they were all surprised to be back in their old bodies as most of them crawl out of their holes and look directly at the three.
"I-It was you!" One of the undead people shouted as they point at the three.
One of the machines who crawled out of the hole shouted as well, "Y-Yeah! If you h-hadn't taken us out of that laboratory, none of us would've died!"
Blaze grunted as she stepped behind Nova.
"It was you three who brought upon world's corruption! The world was going to become the New World at some point. But you three gone and fucked that up!" Another undead person shouted.
Nova grunted as well as she held one of her blades forward for her own protection as the undead surrounded them, "N-No! What we were doing was to protect Humanity! That is what I was made for!"
Some of the undead people laugh at her response, "But now you plan to destroy our light? And to kill off our God, Ciphereverie? You are what will be the end of Humanity!"
"No!" Nova shouted as she appeared to be conflicted with this argument, she tried her hardest to save Humanity, it was what she thought was the reason she was created.