As Lucy was about to begin her torture session, she was blinded by a radiant explosion light that rocked the ship. "No time to do this. Nvr, gather everyone!." She yelled in urgency, quickly running out of the brig and onto the main deck to see the temple in the distance had been blown to smithereens.
As Kiola's pirate crew were scrambling around to figure out what had happened, Lucy could feel it.
The monster that took her mother, the creature that was responsible for the end of the Iris, The hero her people so dearly worshipped...
Mollia was back.
With little time to think, the demon took charge and ordered the crew to directly pull the ship around to the temple. As the horsemen all arrived up top to see what was going on, they could already feel the pulsating energy that radiated from the temple.
"Lucy... I recommend we flee." Lamb said bluntly, her tone was more stern and less light heartedly timid as it usually was. But if her auntie was in there along with her minions, she wasn't about to let some rodent steal anymore of her loved ones.
She quickly grabbed one of the crewman, practically screaming at them; "GET THIS FUCKING SHIP OVER THERE OR SO HELP ME, I WILL KILL EVERYONE ABOARD THIS FUCKING VESSEL!"
With everyone now in a frenzy at her words, The Royal Fortune quickly flew directly over the ruins of the temple. "Anyone willing to fight to death is coming with me!" She yelled, a few fish like scales forming on her hands as she began getting herself worked up more and more.
Sure enough, both Avis and Vinea stepped forward with confident looks. "Yeah. Not letting my son die to some world ending bitch." Vinea laughed, reading his vines. Avis wistfully played a few notes with a slight grin on her beak. "I ain't about to let that gal' go for turnin' my sister into a vessel."
Nvr and Grey soon joined them, bowing slightly. "I WANT HER HEAD, MASTER..." The bio-weapon said with a creeping grin. Grey gave a thumbs up in agreement with his partner in crime and blood.
Lamb let out a reluctant sigh, motioning for the rest to stay. She was contracted to Lucy after all, and if it meant keeping her siblings out of harms way, she had no choice but to join. "Just know... If you get us killed, I will drag your soul to hell myself."
With the encouraging words, everyone leapt off the ship to go and confront the rodent.
[Seconds After The Radiant Light.]
As Ayre slowly opened his eyes, he was met by the sight of a figure in radiant white and gold armour. Brighter than any sun, he could only feel an intense fear wash over him. The woman he had been facing was someone else now.
Her real self.
Mollia glanced around at the wreckage of the Hikata Temple with a slightly soured feeling. Then, she noticed Markeeth freeing himself from the wreckage. He let out a whimsical sigh before noticing Mollia and the apparition of were-Rat floating beside her.
"Huh. Got your power back? That's Neat, cool and impressive." He gave a playful smirk as he picked up his now broken cane. He was lightly saddened by the loss, yet it didn't really matter to him. Next to Nothing did.
"You... You could have told me your friend could have fixed my broken heart."
"Well, I thought you two could do with a bit of time being powerless. Figured it'd humble you." He laughed, but as he turned back to face her, he realised something. "You're not talking 'bout your power, are ya?"
The paladin appeared in front of him before he could even blink. "Your god... Ennuiara, It called itself. She could have let me go and find Lily... Yet you chose to keep this a secret because?"
"First you wanted a body. Second you wanted to know what you are. Now you want Lily... You're so hard to please." He snickered as he casually brushed past her while dusting his hat off. But he quickly found himself back in front of the paladin.
"You want to know something about me, Zanir? I was always indecisive. The Rat knew what she wanted, but me? I never know. Yet... one person understood that plight. I listened to her orders and we beat the trials that came our way. But who was left in the end? Me."
"Look, I get it. You want something you lost, but that ain't how life works. My entire business is about giving people new endings in other worlds because they didn't even get an original ending in there's.
No one gets to have a truly happy ending, Mollia."
Something about that phrase angered her, maybe because she was subtly aware he was right... But she wasn't about to listen to his prattling anymore. "Then give me the ending I want. The one where I'm with Lily. The one where I'm a whole person. The one where I'm not a wish! THE ONE WHERE I CAN LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER WITH LILY!"
Rat was doing her best to remain silent, but even at her other half's words, she felt something else. She didn't feel Mollia's undying love.
Rat Felt Disgust.
"You still love her? After she whished for our weird existence?"
"Of course! We meant everything to her, why else would she go out of her way to wish for us?!"
"Because he got drunk and let her have it! She should have gone with some sort of OP ability, instead she whished for... THIS!" Rat yelled, pointing between the two. Markeeth let out a sigh, turning to look at the injured Kiola, unconscious under a statue of Ennuiara.
"Look, why don't you two just chill, calm down and relax. This isn't a problem you can just argue about." He lowered his hands, hoping to stop the situation before it reached a boiling point. Yet his hopes were quickly dashed as Rat began getting louder, practically screaming at Mollia.
"I lived thousands of lives... I died thousands of times! I made friends, I made connections, I had a good life! But at the end of it all, I always had your plan at the back of my mind!
THE ONE WHERE YOU SWOOP IN AT THE END AND GET TO LIVE! What happens to me, huh? Am I just meant to fade away with a 'good job, Rat! Now go fade away into nothing as I enjoy my new life with the woman who created me'?"
"Watch your tone, Rodent." Mollia said in an almost hushed whisper, leaning closer to her counterpart as she clutched a sword made of pure, holy light. As Markeeth let out another sigh, trying to sperate the two with a wall of fire, the paladin leapt through the flames and cut into her other half.
Rat let out a piercing screech. It wasn't so much that Mollia was actually cutting her, it was that Mollia was trying to erase Rat from her own being. As the phantasmal were-rat laid defeated, she let out a cold laughter.
"That's exactly what I am to you... A tool... I hate Lily... I hate myself... But if I had to rank who I hated the most... It would be you, Me."
As Mollia went in for a final strike, Markeeth quickly leapt into action as he summoned twin swords made of a burning flame, blocking the strike. "You are not killing yourself, Mollia. Get a hold of yourself!"
"Good Idea." She smirked. Without so much as a second thought, she leapt back and activated [Time Stop]. In an instant, time had frozen to a complete crawl. And as Mollia slowly made her way back over to the simple Rodent on the floor, she had to consider something. Would it be truly right to kill herself...
Without letting it fight for its life?
With that slight bit of hesitation, she had ran out of time. As it began to resume, Markeeth quickly fired a volley of fiery arrows into her back. "Oh? So it's a fight you want? Fine then. Have it your way."
Without so much as a warning, Mollia stabbed her sword into the ground and unleashed her seven swords of light. Markeeth let out a slight growl, annoyed that he was going to have to go all out. The witch doctor grabbed a small voodoo doll of himself out of his pocket and engulfed it in flames.
"I suppose we're both going all in. How fun, exciting and amusing." He smirked as his body was engulfed in a rainbow coloured display of flames. When he emerged, his suit had become a flaming red.
His eyes, once nothing more then a sea of empty black had turned into a star purple spiral of life. The usual playfully smug look on his face was now a serious yet light hearted grin. Yet most strikingly was the seven tails of different coloured flames that had sprouted.
"I ain't facing, fighting or trying to kill you as Zanir Markeeth, Witch doctor. You'll be fighting Zanir, The cosmic Kitsune." He summoned a cane out of thin air, leaning against it playfully. Mollia was a bit embarrassed by the name, yet she wasn't one to judge based on names alone.
As a single piece of rubble hit the ground, the two leapt at each other. Mollia's attacks were the usual refined, practiced perfection they always were. But Markeeth's speed and dodging made it look like he was fighting a complete beginner.
Rat was silent as she watched her ex fight herself, it was a really weird day for her.
"I don't want this to take to long. So how about I just do a little of this?" He smirked before tapping his cane ever so lightly against the ground, firing a vaporising beam of flame that Mollia was lightly scratched by.
Mollia felt confident at her own strength, but as she went to swing with her right arm, she realised that Markeeth had taken it off in just one attack. With a quick rewind, it was no issue to get back, but the kitsune's onslaught was unrelenting.
It became clear that Markeeth was someone who actually outclassed her. She had no clue by how far, but it was significant. In a bit of desperation, Mollia decided to just kill him when time was stopped. Yet the doctor had already figured as much, constantly keeping a stream of arrows firing at her at all times, making sure she never had a window of opportunity.
"Y... You're half a person, bitch, a-and you'll die as nothing..." Rat called out with a smug look as she lied on the floor, not exactly bleeding out but defiantly injured.
"That's it." Mollia grinned. In that moment, the paladin realised that she wasn't one person. She was two halves. One was the heroic Mollia, The Hero who came to life because of a young woman's wish. The other was Rat, the version of her created from her own mind being locked away.
Both incomplete.
Neither seeing the other as a person.
Something that didn't have a drive other than something wished upon them.
Mollia quickly rewound her position in time, now appearing right next to Rat.
"Tu et ego idem... Ignosco tibi."
With a simple heartfelt whisper, the one half took the other's. It was if... No... Markeeth! Stop them! My power here is limited now! I DON'T CARE WHAT IT TAKES! STOP THEM FROM FUSING!
The kitsune tried his very best to get over to them, twin blades in hand. Yet, an unforeseen variable... Lucy and her rag tag group had burst through the remains of the ceiling, smashing through the already ruined roof.
It was as if time had slowed down, Markeeth's strike missed from the distraction of her arrival. In the first instance, everything was about to end. In the next... A new piece of Divinity was born.
Rat and Mollia embraced each other, finally acknowledging the other as a person. They had finally ended the silly game of playing the hero and the villain. It was now her time to remain true.
In a quick flash, the two were gone.
As Lucy and everyone else touched down on the ground, Vinea, Grey and Avis quickly ran to tend to Kiola, Mammy and Ayre as Lucy went to go confront the stranger. "You, Kitsune, where is Mollia!?" She yelled, summoning her jade chains.
But Markeeth just stared at the space where the two rodents had been, not moving. "She's... Gone... Missing... Deceased..." He let out a slow laugh as Lucy slowly approached, her chains at the ready. With a whip of her chains, she pulled Markeeth back to reveal a long, nasty gash across his chest that looked like it was inflicted by a sword strike.
"Y-You were standing a second ago, w-what happened!?" Lucy yelled down at him, but as she reached down to feel the wound, Lamb used some Ego magic to launch Lucy across the room. "What in Mother's name was that for!?" Her anger was clearly rising, but she soon changed her tune when she noticed the large slash across the floor where she just stood.
"EVERYONE ON GUARD! MOLLIA IS STILL HERE!"
Yet as Markeeth was still barely clinging to life, he motioned for someone to get over to him and hesitantly, Lucy jumped across the room and tried to hear out what he was saying.
"I... Told you... Mollia is gone... Along with Rat... Two are One... One was Two... It's not hard to understand." He laughed, coughing up a bit of blood. Though knowing the man was going to die, he had valuable information... And Lucy had just the thing for the dying.
With a quick wave of her hand, she summoned a contract and speedran the terms and conditions. Little options remained for Markeeth. If whatever was lurking found its way back to the office, it would spell multiversal disaster. With his last few moments, he signed the contract and his soul became Lucy's... Not mine. The Demon who started this in the first place's.
The demon let out a sigh as she pocketed the contract, glancing around the room. She decided it was better to have Nvr be of assistance to the rescue effort, and as those four rescued Ayre, Kiola and Mammy, Lamb and Lucy were forced to head deeper into the temple to find Parfait.
As the two found themselves deeper and deeper into the temple, they reached the inner sanctum where a door with thousands of sigils carved in it was all but broken open. It didn't exactly bode well, but Lucy wasn't going to give up on her aunt.
Inside the sanctum stood a gigantic waterfall with hundreds of beautiful trees across a stone bridge that lead to a statue. A statue of Parfait herself. Lucy quickly darted across without a second thought, worried if anyone had harmed her. But Lamb was acutely aware of what kind of statue that was. After all, it was her specialty.
The demon saw two noticeably dressed people standing before the statue, as if they were trying to figure something out. Yet, with a simple slash, Lucy pinned the two to the ground with chains. Despite their yelling and squirming, Lucy ignored them.
"Auntie? Parfait? sigh Paradise, come on. I know it has been awhile... Are you truly that petty that you refuse to see me?"
As the demon continued yelling for her aunt, Eva and Ave were seemingly muttering something to each other. Getting annoyed at the lack of response, Lucy kicked the siblings and asked flatly; "You two were hunting Parfait, correct? Where is she."
"Hey... Read the plaque." Eva said, pointing with her head at the small stone plaque.
[Here Lies Our Angel from Above. Parfait Vincula. Rest Well.]
"No... That's a joke. It's a jest, she surely isn't-" Before Lucy could finish, a familiar feminine British voice called up from the top of the statue.
"Dead? Don't be a bloody idiot, Pan. You know how they say you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain? Well, I wanna take that trope and do something new. Come on, Warden? Rat got your tongue?"
With those few words, the demon froze, it was like her world was ending... Again. She knew the second she looked up, she knew exactly who's eyes would meet. And for once, she didn't want to look that someone in the eye. "Why are ya being a coward? It's me? You know, the one who killed your Mummy. The one who served you for years. The one who's so devilishly beautiful, you know ya wanna kiss her."
Lucy had never really got to experience many emotions, she mainly felt anger, she maybe felt content. But she had never thought she'd experienced grief again. Yet she was feeling it now. A crippling lack of self worth or self preservation.
The familiar figure let out a laugh before swiftly dodging as a gigantic tentacle sprouted from the demon's back, wildly swing around herself as more and more began to emerge. Perhaps she was feeling envy.
But that wasn't true and she knew it.
This was loss.
And it had probably manifested in the wrong place against the wrong person.