"I could ask you the same thing." said the woman with light brown shoulder-length hair and green eyes.
"Not really how I expected we'd see each other again." said the man next to her.
His skin was a bit darker compared to the rest of us and he had short brown hair and brown eyes.
"Catherine… Harold…" I said, "Honestly, I think the weird part is seeing you two together."
"Heh," said Lucas, "it's certainly been a while."
"Sure has." said Harold.
"..." said Christina.
"Is something wrong?" said Catherine.
"Oh, it's nothing." said Christina.
"Have we met somewhere before?" asked Catherine.
"You're probably imagining it." Christina replied.
"Well, why don't we exchange information?" I suggested.
We told Harold and Catherine what it was we were up to. As for those two, they were just going on with their lives until hell broke loose in our world. They saw the airship and remembering their previous adventures, they both used their powers to get on board, running into each other on the way.
"That's not all." said Harold.
"Oh yeah?" I replied.
"I might be imagining it but I'm pretty sure I saw pennies coming down from the sky." he said.
"Okay, this guy has lost it." commented Clara.
"So… HE might be out there." I said.
"Wait… what?" replied Clara.
"Life's just full of surprises, ain't it?" I said.
"Sure is." responded Catherine.0
"I don't think we have much longer left." said Christina.
"Yeah, I can feel it." said Lucas, "We're near the end."
We walked about further and reached a staircase that went down. By the time we reached the bottom, it felt like we had gone down a few floors. Up ahead was a large door that we quickly ran toward. It didn't take any effort to open it at all. On the other side, two people were waiting for us. Emils and that masked chainsaw guy.
"I knew you would come." said Emils.
"Heh." said the chainsaw guy, "Couldn't resist, could you?"
"I don't get it." said Kia, "What are you doing over there?"
"I should've known there was something off about you." commented Lucas.
"I figured it was time to stop playing around," said Emils, "this is where I truly belong."
"So that's how it is, huh?" I said, getting a cat-sword ready.
"Glad you're prepared." he said, "Don't disappoint me!"
Not long after saying that, he ran toward me and swung his fists. I barely dodged each strike and I tried to hit him with my sword. Somehow, he managed to dodge each of my strikes. Christina tried with her own cat-sword, but the results were the same. She wasn't able to land a hit. Lucas couldn't do it either. Then Clara, Jeff, and Charles all tried to shoot him with their guns, but he was too good at avoiding every attack.
None of Justin's attacks were working either. He wasn't able to get a hit in with his hammers, screwdrivers, saws, or anything else he could think of. Cerise and Mikaela were going crazy with their own weapons, but they were struggling like the rest of us. As for Kia, her lasers weren't hitting their target either. As for Catherine, she was creating armies of fake people to walk toward the enemy but none of them lasted long. Then there was Harold, who was using a bow and arrows, all of them missing.
"Dammit!" I exclaimed.
"Is that all you got!?" said Emils, "You're pathetic!"
"This is getting boring." said the chainsaw guy, "I'm jumping in."
"Sounds good!" replied Emils.
"Shit." replied Lucas, "We're screwed."
Having two opponents made things much more difficult. No matter how much we threw our own attacks at them, we would miss nearly every time, barely getting any scratches on them. Before we knew it, all of us were losing our energy.
"What's the matter?" asked Emils, "Tired already?"
"How… are you still able to fight?" I asked.
"Because I'm better than you." replied Emils.
"Come on," said Justin, "you've gotta be cheating!"
"Nobody's using any cheats," said the chainsaw guy, striking at Justin, "you all just suck!"
"If you weren't such a pain in the ass," said Christina, "I'd kick yours!"
Things were moving fast. Sharps objects, bullets, lasers… all kinds of weapons were going all over the place. It seemed as if we were doing more damage to the airship than anything else.
"Crap." said Lucas, "What are we going to do?"
"Is this as far as we'll go?" asked Clara.
"Who knows?" I said, "But… I don't want to give up… not yet…"
After that, I tossed my cat-sword at the chainsaw guy and his mask came right off. None of us were prepared for what we saw.
"What…?" I said.
"No way…" commented Christina.
"What what what what what what what what WHAT!!!???" exclaimed Justin.
"W-Why are there two of them!?" exclaimed Jean.
"Which one's the real one!?" exclaimed Mikaela.
"That one, obviously." replied Clara, pointing at my brother, who was standing right next to me.
"What's going on!?" exclaimed Cerise.
"So…" said the chainsaw guy, whose face is now visible, "now you've seen the 'real me', huh?"
It was Justin. He looked exactly like Justin. No, it wasn't that he looked exactly like Justin. He WAS Justin.
"This is messed up." commented Lucas.
"I don't know what's going on." added Kia.
"God, this is confusing." complained Iris.
"Well," said Jeff, "are we gonna let this stop us from fighting?"
"He's right," said Charles, "we still have some ass that needs kicking!"
Our battle continued, but our team's movements were getting much slower. We were struggling to keep up with our enemies. While I was distracted by fighting the evil Justin, Jeff and Charles were both fatally stabbed. Not long after that, Lucas and Iris had their heads cut off with a scythe that Emils was holding.
"Dammit!" exclaimed Clara, "Is this really as far as we go?"
I looked around the ship, seeing that we had caused a lot of damage.
"Guys," I said, "I… we've lost."
"Come on, Ron." said Jean. "We can't give up now."
"There's no way we're winning this battle," I said, "you must have noticed, right? There's no way you wouldn't have…"
"That's…" started Jean.
"Oh no." commented Cerise.
"Sounds fun." added Mikaela.
"It definitely won't be!" replied Clara.
"Are we all gonna die?" asked Kia.
"Well, shit." added the Justin from my world.
"I guess it wasn't enough." said Christina.
The ground below us started shaking.
"I suppose I should give you a 'present' before you all meet your ends," said Emils, "y'see, I have something in common with that chainsaw obsessed man over there."
He swiped his hand across his face and then he turned into someone we were all familiar with. Our longtime enemy, Miles.
"But… how?" I said, "You're supposed to be dead!"
"Yeah," said Jean, "you died… more than once!"
"I'm sure you've defeated a version of me," said Miles, "but the me you see before you know isn't the same Miles."
"Not… the same?" commented Cerise.
"Y'see, I come from another set of worlds," continued Miles, "much like that chainsaw-obsessed Justin over there."
"Could you please stop calling me chainsaw-obsessed?" said the evil Justin.
"Justin?" I said, "Why?"
"Me?" replied the brother from my world.
"Not you, the other one!" I exclaimed.
"The world is a cruel place," he said, "it's wronged me more than once, so I have every right to destroy everything!"
"But… you wouldn't turn evil because of…" I started.
"Stop." he said, "I'm not the brother you knew and if you keep talking like that, you'll end up like the version of yourself from my world."
"You can't be serious…" I commented.
"Believe it or not," said Justin, "there's also a version of you on the dark side… one that killed his brother too."
"No…" I responded, "that can't be!"
Justin and Miles just laughed, as the ground beneath everyone's feet crumbled. With the exception of the evil Justin and Miles, we all fell through a large hole. We kept falling and falling and honestly, I thought the descent was never gonna end.