Chapter Text
Ka-chnk.
Kris’s sword plunged deep into the floor. It was all they could do to support their weight with the hilt as they watched the form in front of them swirl.
“Did… did we do it?” groaned a tired, slightly gravelly voice.
“I think so,” whimpered a soft, gentle voice.
Their heartbeat pounding in their ears, Kris could hardly hear their friends’ voices. Their eyes were locked on the Knight’s dark armor. Reshaping, reforming, appearing and disappearing in seizure-inducing flickers that roiled their gut. Pitch darkness sloughed off their form onto the floor below, all the more disgusting as the world around them slowly brightened. The eye at the center of its chest, pierced clean through, strobed through colors like a wavering scream, heralding its imminent demise.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
Coughs racked their sore throat, staining the crossguard of their sword with stray flecks of blood. The world blurred around them. The sound of their friends’ conversation, the pinging of healing spells back and forth, all began to fade away. Damnit. They… They’d been so close. Maybe… maybe if they just gave the Soul to her…
A tentative step forward. The blur slipped over their eyes in a sickly, translucent film. A wave of dizziness struck them, making them tighten their grasp on their blade. They tried to pull it from the ground, hoping to use it as a walking stick. Just a bit further…
“Kris?”
They slumped, hitting the ground with a definitive thud.
“I think so,” said Ralsei, smiling tiredly.
With great pains, Susie righted herself. Mustering her courage and hopes, she formed a familiar orb of green sparkles and sent it Ralsei’s way, watching energy arc off it like embers. Ringing like wind chimes, it sank into Ralsei’s chest, pulling him to his feet.
She grit her teeth and grinned. “You good?”
White and gold light glowed around Ralsei’s form, centering itself in his palm and giving him an illuminating warmth. Moments later, the lights arced gently from his palm, twin beams wrapping around each other and bathing her in a calming radiance.
Ralsei took a cautious step towards her. “Are you?” he asked, holding out a hand in case she needed to steady herself. She accepted the offer without question.
“Yeah,” she managed. She turned, mustering her healing together again and blasting it towards Kris. It sank wordlessly into their back.
“Are you alright, Kris?” said Ralsei, noting how much their arm was shaking as it tightened around their sword’s handle.
There was a long beat of silence. Fear spiked in Ralsei’s chest. He gathered the glow around himself, channeling the light once more around his feet and rushing to gather its power in time for them, in case Susie’s heal was somehow not enough. It was the Knight they’d been fighting, after all; there was no telling how truly severe the damage was.
The harsh scrape of steel on rock snapped his attention to them. Rigidly, almost unconsciously, Kris nodded, their body pulling up even as their head hung low, eyes locked on the Knight. Ralsei couldn’t blame them for being slow on the uptake; having to kill the Knight was the last thing they’d ever wanted. Whatever pain they were going through must’ve been unimaginable. He let the light in his palm fall away, washing off him and dispersing on the floor.
“Let’s give them a moment, Susie,” he said calmly, managing a smile. She nodded.
Ralsei stepped away, moving to the edge of the platform where the three of them stood. The Divine Fountain, center of the Angel’s Heaven, glowed large above them. For what seemed like miles around them, he could see every Dark World they’d ever come across: the purple fields and red trees of Card Kingdom, Cyber World’s neon green outskirts and colorful buildings underscored by bright cyan roads, TV World’s distant beams of brown and purplish wood under a faint blanket of snow, the tall, cobalt blue cathedral-like towers from the Sanctuary with paths unlit by panes of foreknowledge, the vivid flora of the Flower Fields with their wide-reaching, strong viridian roots and vines. For every Titan they’d slain, another pocket of closed darkness had shown itself, and the golden brilliance of the Divine Fountain had deepened a shade. One by one, the light from the Soul had sealed them away, and one by one, light and dark came into balance together.
A flicker of movement caught his eye. “Susie! Look there!” he exclaimed, pointing a finger down at the Great Door between Castle Town and Card Kingdom.
“What is it?” she asked, jogging over to the edge of the platform and following the point of his claw.
“The statues that were there… They’re gaining color!” he cried, watching with glee as the field of gray figures steadily earned back their vibrance. In waves that echoed out from the bottom of the Divine Fountain, little by little, the once-petrified Darkners began to move. A piercing cacophony of stone grinding on stone rose up from the town, so far beneath them, but to Ralsei’s ears he’d never heard such a wonderful symphony. Excitement crept into his voice. “They’re moving!”
“Holy…” breathed Susie, eyes bulging out of their sockets. She rubbed them disbelievingly. “This isn’t a dream, right…?”
Ralsei shook his head. “It’s real,” he affirmed gently. His breathing became labored as that very same reality crept into his voice. “It’s real. I can’t believe it… We… succeeded…”
Words began to fail him. Slowly, he turned himself towards Susie, who was marvelling at the waves of motion and color that filled the expanse around them, and defaulted to what he knew best. Barreling into her, he threw his arms around her waist and hugged her as hard as he could. His plush fur gave and gave until his wiry frame brushed against her scales.
“Oof! Hey, what gives!?” she chastised, feigning an attempt to push him off.
Ralsei buried his head into her side. “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted sheepishly. “This is the best I could think of.”
She squinted down at him, trying to keep up her facade. She relented quickly. Affirming him with an arm over his shoulders, she grinned. “Alright, fine. Just this once.”
‘Thank you,’ he thought quietly, relishing the moment.
It was hard for Ralsei to process the enormity of what had just happened, though he understood it perfectly. The Worlds were stabilizing. The overflowing tide of Darkness had been stemmed, and soon, balance would be restored. Little by little, as the Darkners regained their autonomy, Ralsei soon saw the first Lightner reemerge from the shelter they’d taken. Just one, in the castle courtyard. He was much too far to hear what they were saying, but they were gesturing around at the Darkners, walking up to some, asking questions.
A sharp poking at his shoulder got his attention. “Dude! Look at that!” exclaimed Susie, pointing back at the Divine Fountain above them. Ralsei watched with awe as its glow shifted around, wrapping around itself, the rainbow of colors shifting around into a single strand of a marvelous double helix. Opposite it, Light grew, entwining in brilliant colors around the shaft of Darkness, flowing down from somewhere high in the endless sky whilst the Darkness rose and rose. The Fountain seemed to bulge outward, the twin pillars within expanding further and further.
“Woah…” she breathed, clearly as entranced as he was. “It’s beautiful…”
“Isn’t it?” responded Ralsei softly.
Susie blinked a few times, rubbing her eyes. “So, uh… what does this mean? For everything? It kinda looks like the Light and Dark Worlds are… combining.” She whipped around to face him, shaking his shoulders. “Dude! You know what this means, right?”
He cocked his head at her. An idea crept into the back of his mind, a possibility where all that once awaited was disappointment, yet he found the prospect too good to express. “What does it mean, Susie?”
“If the Light and Dark Worlds are coming together, you can come with us! Next year’s Festival!” There was a little bounce in her step, like she wanted to jump for joy but suppressed it at the final moment. “Or, uh, any of the stuff me, Kris, and Noelle could do… skipping rocks, going to school… heh. You’ll be there, right?”
Doubts still lingered at the back of Ralsei’s mind. Even at this final and first hour, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was impossible. Perhaps it was nothing more than the fear he once held, that insidious fear of what crept just out of his sight, reshaping itself to fit a world where he had no brilliant words to fight as he held onto them for support.
The Prophecy was dead. The Worlds awaited.
“I’ll be there, Susie,” he managed quietly.
“Damn right you will,” said Susie, knocking him on the shoulder. A dark shadow flashed over her eyes. “...heh. Remember what I said, about leaving nobody behind?”
Ralsei cocked his head to the side inquisitively. “Are you proud of being right?” he asked, a teasing lilt sneaking into his voice but not overpowering it with irony.
“You bet your ass I am.” She smirked, exhibiting a classic Susie-ism by flipping her bangs in front of one eye to add a confident edge. “All of you are gonna be fine. Though… you think she’ll make it out, too?”
Her claw was pointed at the Knight’s form, laid down on the ground, sickening and warped. Even her face, free of its helmet, was deformed, but still recognizably the person who had been swallowed whole by the Darkness. The sight set Ralsei’s stomach burning, but he swallowed the worry.
“I hope so. There must be a way…” he assured unsteadily.
“Then we’ll find it,” asserted Susie, confidently as though all the Worlds were at her back. “You hear that, Kris? We’ll figure it out!” she called to them where they stood, idle just a few feet from her body.
A loud, wet, racking cough escaped them. Ralsei turned to face Kris, and upon catching the slightest hint of crimson on their pale blade, a deathly chill ran through him.
Was that blood on their blade?
Ralsei didn’t hesitate to gather that power around himself once more. A power, he noted, suddenly felt overwhelming in the face of the now-combined Divine Fountain before them. Was this the true power of Light and Dark together, even if used for something only so small as healing? It was almost a relief to have its surging energy leave him as the spell completed; he wasn’t sure if he was built to handle that power on his own.
“What was that for?” probed Susie, concern flashing over her features. “They’re okay, right? Do I gotta heal ‘em again, too?”
Ralsei stepped forward, reaching a hand out to Kris’s shoulder. “I don’t… I don’t know. I can’t sense any damage dealt to them, but…” His eyes latched onto the hilt of their sword. A bright crimson splotch rested on it, just above their hand, stained similarly red.
Fresh blood.
“S-Susie! Give it all you’ve got!” he panicked, suddenly terrified. Had they been hurt too badly by the Knight while dealing the final blow?
The panic spread to Susie’s eyes, widening them with desperation. “Shit! Kris, you’ll be okay! Just stay still!” Ralsei watched her healing shot flicker a sickly color, her fear likely threatening her control. Without hesitation, he ran to her side, coursing every little good feeling he could muster into himself, hoping to provide her a boost. The excitement of what was to come, the desire to save Dess from what seemed like a doomed fate, the love he felt for his friends who’d helped him break the stated laws of reality. The Prophecy was dead, he reminded himself. There was nothing to fear.
The healing sparkles, regaining their verdant ardor, gained a shell of Ralsei’s golden light, strengthening the spell beyond what either he or Susie could do on their own. ‘Please, be enough,’ he prayed, closing his eyes and thinking it as hard as he could as he felt the sparkles project forward from Susie’s hand, out of both their grasps. He didn’t know what he was even praying to; if the Worlds had been changed of all their laws as he knew them, what could he rely upon but his own hopes and faith?
In place of the chimes that accompanied Susie’s normal healing spell, it sounded as though an angelic voice rang out enrapturing tones as the healing struck Kris all at once, coating their body in green and pale gold twinkles.
“Are you alright, Kris?” he asked tentatively, stepping forward again.
“You hurting anywhere?” added Susie, stepping up behind them, readying herself in case they toppled. It was another thing Ralsei admired so much about her: she never let blind ambition get in the way of catching those who needed help.
The sound of Kris’s sword against stone shrieked in their ears. An uneven step forward, just a bit closer to the Knight’s body. A sudden glow bathed both their forms in sickening scarlet, emanating from Kris’s chest.
“Kris?” repeated Ralsei, trying to suppress the encroaching dread that threatened to drown out the positivity he’d only just spent.
With a shaky breath, they righted themself. For a moment, all was still, as they seemed to regain their composure. Susie tentatively lowered her arms.
“You okay, dude?”
Their hand flexed around the hilt once, then again. Like they were keeping themself focused.
“Kris?” asked Ralsei, one last time.
The creak of metal was all that announced their sudden fall. They crumpled to the ground, their armor dully thudding against the earth. Just beyond their reach, arm outstretched, was the Knight’s core, pulsating in twisted colors.
“KRIS!” shouted Susie, diving forward only a moment too late. She grabbed them and turned them over onto their back. Their chestpiece was riddled with irregular crimson stains that tapered into painted rivulets down their torso, likely from the blood they’d been coughing up. “Kris, hey, say something! Kris!”
Ralsei watched, taking a moment to shake off the spike of abject horror. “Kris!” he called after a delay, running to their side. “What happened, Kris?!”
Susie grabbed him by the wrist immediately. No time for questions. “Quick! We gotta heal them again!”
“Got it!”
The two of them repeated the same ritual as before, only with even more fervor this time around. There were no sickly colors or dulled lights, only arcs of brilliant relief escaping their palms and stretching throughout Kris like golden stitches ready to be tightened. No margin for error. Susie watched the arcs tense and recede beneath their skin, though not without tearing their chestpiece off to get a better look.
What awaited her and Ralsei beneath the metal made bile rise in her throat. The dark blue spandex they wore was covered in a grimy, pitch-colored film, writhing over itself like maggots in a corpse. A red glow rose from their chest, muted by the inky mire. Her gag reflex was barely contained by a swift hand to her lips and a painful, burning swallow.
“What… what the hell is this…?”
It took all of her energy to tear her eyes away from them and up to Ralsei, who was standing stock still. She couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. “Ralsei, what… What is this? Do you know?” He was unresponsive. She reached up and shook him, hard. “Dude, you gotta know something! C’mon!” she pleaded.
“Susie,” he murmured, his gray eyes wide. “I don’t–”
Suddenly, his eyes shrank to pinpricks with terrified recognition. His head whipped towards her. “Get away from them, now,” he growled.
“What? But if–”
“NOW!” he shouted, startling Susie to her feet. “You–you can’t touch them! Get away!”
The furious timbre of his yells made Susie back away, apprehension and concern mixing with the fear his voice had only induced once before: the first time a Titan appeared. His certainty was overwhelming. “What– Ralsei, what’s wrong with them?!”
Arms trembling, he indicated the floor around their feet. “That.”
The swampy pools of darkness that had drained off the Knight’s emaciated form surrounded Kris’s legs, slowly creeping up around them and onto their body through the gaps in their armor. Viscous, vile sludge, whose meaning was clear. If she didn’t act fast, they would be submerged in it. Just like the Knight had been.
“That’s not… The Knight, it’s not… still going, is it?” heaved Susie.
Ralsei shook his head somberly. “It… it’s worse. I’ve only got one thing I can try.”
Suddenly, the room surged with an intense heat. Walls of fire encircled both Kris and the Knight each, cutting them off from him and Susie. A rank stench filled the air, all rot and grease, as the weird substance burned.
“Ugh!” spat Susie, slamming a hand over her nostrils to keep the vomit-inducing smell at bay. Still, its foulness coated her tongue, leaving her to taste slimy decay. “The hell is that?!”
Ralsei didn’t seem to hear her. “Get ready to grab them! We’re going to pull them as far away from the Knight as possible! On three!”
Given no choice but to obey, Susie readied herself to lunge.
“One!
“Two!
“THREE!” cried Ralsei as the wall of fire between her and Kris vanished. Susie grabbed them and pulled with all her strength, their body giving with the stickiness of the sludge before finally escaping with a disgusting pop. As soon as they were clear, the wall of fire sprang up, covering the puddle before it could spread any more.
Noting the slight burns at the end of Kris’s hands, Susie immediately readied and fired yet another healing spell. Mercifully, it actually seemed to do something, vanishing the dark, melting skin and replacing it with a firm, untarnished cyan. Yet the sludgy film over their torso remained.
“Shit, shit, Ralsei! What do we do?! It’s still here!” yelled Susie in a panic.
Ralsei seemed to wither on the spot. “I… I don’t know,” he confessed. “Now that they’re disconnected, they… they should be fine. For now. If it touches them again, however…”
A storm of questions swirled in Susie’s head. “Focus! C’mon! We gotta think of something!” She staggered to her feet. “Anything! What even is this stuff?!”
A lightbulb seemed to click in Ralsei’s head. His sharp horror transformed into a pained grimace as he muttered to himself frantically. “Wait… Wait, no… no… please, no… it… it can’t be… Anything but that…” he stammered, barely audible to Susie’s ears, roaring as they were with her own heartbeat. It sounded almost like he was arguing with someone, though nobody was there.
“Can’t be what?! Spit it out!” she hollered, her voice cracking. “What do you know?!”
Slowly, painstakingly, Ralsei turned to face her. “...The Knight, she… she became this way because she was trapped in the Darkness for so long…” He swallowed, tears streaming down his cheeks. A wet, pitiful laugh escaped him, signaling the utter despair that came crashing in with his next words.
“...It’s happening to Kris, too.”
Susie stared at him, eyes going wide. That couldn’t mean what she thought it might, right? “You’re… you’re not making any sense, man… they’ve been here as long as we have, right?”
Ralsei hung his head low. “The Knight stabbed them. That’s why they… coughed up so much blood. We healed their body, yes, but… pure Darkness isn’t something that can be purged so easily. If it could, we… we would’ve just won putting all our power into healing spells,” he said numbly, robotically, like he was reciting a scripture that didn’t exist. “And if they stay like this, eventually, they… they’ll…”
Become distorted, was the answer Susie knew but dared not say, lest it be spoken into existence.
Face falling into a placid, sad smile, he closed his eyes. “...There’s only one way forward, Susie.” He wiped his tears away with a sleeve, making Susie’s heart ache to run to his side and do it for him once more. “We have to end this.”
“End this…?” she breathed.
“Kris’s Soul,” explained Ralsei. “We can use it. Save them. Save the Worlds from destruction. All we have to do is…” He buried his face in his scarf. “Seal the Divine Fountain.”
Dread spiked into Susie’s chest. “What would that… you mean… getting rid of the Worlds? Everything we just brought back?”
Pulling a rigid, forced smile up from behind his tented hands, cheeks matted down from tears, he shook his head. “Not get rid of, precisely… only separate.”
Susie flung herself towards him, desperately hoping to deny the meaning she could feel emanating from his words’ force. “What the hell do you mean, separate? You mean just like it was before, right? Like it was before everything… everything went wrong? When we were having fun together, saving the world? That’s what you mean, right?!” she begged, grabbing the collar of his robe and yanking him close to her face. “It’ll all be just like it was. Right, Ralsei?”
Ralsei pulled himself away. He smiled sadly, the bags under his eyes from days of sleeplessness weighing him down. “I wish it were so, but… there’s only one way the Soul can help us now.” His voice shattered into squeaks and groans, but still, he spoke on.
“It can only separate us forever.”
“HELL NO!” shouted Susie, scaring Ralsei back a step. “That’s not going to happen. That will never happen. No matter what, we… we’ll find a way. To heal them. Kris will be okay. Dess will be okay, even looking like that. She’s not dead yet,” she raged, breathing heavy and furious. “And you. You’ll be okay. With us. None of this ‘separation’ bullshit. So shut up and help me think!”
She watched, hawkishly, as Ralsei’s lips parted into an expression of pure anguish. “But there’s no choice, Susie… If we leave the Divine Fountain as is, then… then it won’t stop with Kris. Everyone, every single Lightner, will be at risk of overexposure. And if the Worlds are joined like this, nothing… nothing could stop another Roaring. The Prophecy could come back into effect,” he lamented. As he spoke, the crimson glow from Kris’s chest intensified, the Soul beginning to escape their body. “Look… even the Soul can tell what must be done.”
“What… did… did any of what happened not matter to you?!” she cried out in disbelief, trying to shake Ralsei with her words as he slowly pivoted towards the Soul, floating calmly above Kris’s putrid body. “What happened to there being a way?! Are you gonna give up, just like that?!”
Seemingly transfixed, Ralsei stepped forward towards the Soul. “I’m not giving up, Susie,” he laughed mirthlessly. “We have the solution. None of us need to die. We can all live. All I have to do is…” His chest heaved with a silent sob, even as his hand extended out towards the Soul. “Seal the Fountain.”
“You can’t…” she breathed, the settling shock stifling her oncoming storm of emotions.
He turned to look at Susie with the most contorted, broken smile she’d ever seen. “I’ll be okay, Susie. I’ll be a hero. Everyone will be safe. Lightners and Darkners. Safe. Just… separate.” His head swiveled back towards the Soul, which his hand was only inches from grasping. “It’ll be over soon. Please, let me… let me say goodbye, knowing we won. Knowing the Prophecy is gone. Please.”
A loud, electric hum filled the air. Despite his insistence, Susie could see the pain he was under, so deeply it made her want to keel over. He truly believed it was the best way. It seemed like the only solution.
But who was Susie if not a rule-breaker?
The hum grew into a swarming buzz, drowning out even the crackling flames of Ralsei’s fire spells. Her axe shook. Thoughts of every defiance, every little thing she’d seen him do to break away from the mold, every little way she’d seen their adventures change all three of them and every Darkner they’d met for the better filled her mind, until her axe could bear no more. With a deafening shriek, a maximum power Rude Buster escaped her axe, zooming through the air right between Ralsei and the Soul. The sight of the fur on his fingertips, at most an inch from the Soul, being cleanly sliced off shocked him out of his trance.
“Wanna know what I think?” she said, lurching towards the Soul. “I think you’re a damn coward. Turning tail and running from your problems now, of all times? Tell me, are you really okay with that? Going back to that lonely world, away from all of us? Don’t make me laugh.” Hooking her axe over her back, she affixed him with a burning gaze. “You’re not a hero. If I let you seal that Fountain, you’re gonna destroy everything.”
“This isn’t destruction,” he insisted. “This is for the best. I’ll be fine. I’ve been alone before. I was alone for so long, in so much pain. Because of things that no longer exist. But, Susie, if I know you’re safe, if Kris is safe, if everyone’s safe… I can do it,” he determined. “That’s a hero. That’s who I am.”
Susie laughed raucously. “Safe? Really? You keep saying that, but does that matter? You won’t even deny that you’ve changed. Because of us. Lightners. And you’ve changed us, too. Every single Darkner. Or don’t you remember?” She bared her teeth at him. “Maybe I’m not some ‘hero.’ But someone out there’s gotta do the right thing, and if nobody else will, it’s gonna be me,” she snarled, readying her axe. “Let me have the Soul. I’ll make it so that this Fountain can never go away. Lightners and Darkners together, always.”
Ralsei bit his lip, anger welling up inside him. She’d really endanger everyone, just to make them be less alone? Even now that he’d be getting the result he’d always longed for, all that time ago? “...I see,” he whispered through gritted teeth. “If you’re going to risk everyone’s lives, then… I’m afraid I have only one choice.” His scarf unfurled around him, extending to its full length. A streak of red-hot flames coated its edges as he readied for battle. “I’ll start by saving you, Susie.”
As they stood, weapons at the ready, the Soul hovered between them. It seemed nothing would happen if it weren’t directed.
Well, there was only one choice to make.
Decide the fate of the Worlds.