"Hey, you guys, think I could somehow create a clone of Cinder?" Red Ape asked, holding up the metal helmet Fairy Queen had taken off of Cinder. During all the fighting, he had swiped it. "Bad guys do stuff like that, right? Like it's the trope for the super smart villain to make a genetic clone of their rival and then sick it on them?"
"That implies you're smart." White Lamb stated bluntly. She rested on Green Wolf's stomach and poked at what was left of the man's face. He hadn't budged or said anything after his 'fight' with Battery. She had no idea if he was even alive. If he was his life as the leader was over. A good portion of his face was caved in, and his eyes had fallen out. Not to mention, most of the front part of his brain was crushed, and his legs had basically melted off. "What would you even call her clone?"
"I dunno? Ember?"
"That's actually a pretty good name."
"So, am I the leader of Zoo now, since I'm the last adult left standing?" Red Ape questioned. He slid Cinder's helmet over his mask and pressed down on the button, causing the face mask to slide over his mouth and give him a distorted voice. "Because I think I can pull off the evil voice wearing this."
Doc let out a heavy sigh. "First, I was kidnapped by the Hero Branch when I was a young boy. Then, I was kidnapped by Grove and forced to work for the Wandering Coin. Now, here I am being taken away by Zoo. Feels like I downgraded... Why are you taking me, anyway?"
"Because we're science bros!" Red Ape said, holding his fist out for a bump, only to awkwardly remember that Doctor Blue was blind and couldn't see.
"We should leave before Demonica gets any ideas." White Lamb hummed.
"Way ahead of you!" Red Ape announced. "I call this one Buber. Like Uber but with bugs."
Doc pinched the bridge of his nose. He was glad that he couldn't see the 'ride' Red Ape had been creating.
In front of him, hundreds of bugs were twisting and fusing together into a large platform, which Red Ape forced him to step onto. White Lamb kicked Green Wolf's body onto it and stepped on his back as the bugs began to skitter away and carry them in the direction of the city.
Red Ape looked back at the large tower in the distance. "So, is this a win for us, or did we lose?"
"Our boss will never be able to eat solid food ever again, you tell me."
"Good point!" Red Ape hummed as he watched the tower. "Well, until we meet again, rival."
Inside the tower, Poseidon stood guard. She couldn't help but look around at the strange room they were in. It was just her now. Cinder, Paragon, and Wish vanished when they went into Paragon's fake world. Whatever this place was, it gave her the creeps.
The metal floor creaked, and she jumped back, turning around and forming a barrier around herself. Standing at the entrance of the tower, covered in scratches and sweat, Mayor Grove stumbled in. He would have had to climb all the way up—a task most people would have given up on.
Not him, though.
He was lucky.
"A—Ah, Poseidon." He cleared his throat and wobbled back up to his feet, grabbing at his tie. "How fitting that you're here. I assume Wish is currently engaged in a battle with Paragon to gain control of the full title of Lord of the Land and Life."
Poseidon narrowed her eyes and stood up slowly. "You shouldn't have come in here." She fired a wave of water bullets at the man, but all of them missed. Not because he dodged. He simply walked forward, heading for the stairs, and happened to end up in the perfect place to avoid all of them. "What the- Are you like Whisper?"
"Sadly, no," the mayor hummed. He reached the bottom of the spiraling staircase that went all the way to the top. "I couldn't be further away from her. After all, I'm only a mere mortal."
"What? Are you claiming that you're not even a Super?"
"That's correct." The man chuckled. "I have no power. I'm just a human. As average as they come."
"Bullshit!"
"It's true. I've just gotten lucky. No. Actually, that's a lie." His smile faded for a second. "I don't think I've ever had a lucky day in my life. It hasn't been luck. Let's call it Destiny. That works far better. I guess you can say Destiny wants me to win. In order for the story to happen, I must go on."
"What kind of plot armor BS is that!"
Her water swirled again and launched a powerful blade of ice. By pure chance, though, a bird flew into the hole, and the shard of ice impaled it, causing the attack to narrowly miss the mayor.
"Why can't I hit you? Whisper was able to! You're cheating!"
"The issue is that you're trying to stop me. Whisper wasn't. She saw the Paths. If she admits it or not, it doesn't matter, but it's all been set in stone from the start. The ending to this tale." He began to walk up the stairs and reached into his coat pocket. He felt her trying to mess with his gravity, but he had a way to stop that. He pulled out a disk and chucked it at her. "Better block that if you don't want to die."
Poseidon saw the object fly toward her in slow motion. It began to beep rapidly. She had a choice to make. She'd likely tank the explosion and be fine. She could increase his gravity, stop him in his tracks, or block the attack. She'd be able to take the blast, but could the tower? If it tumbled and came down, what would happen to her sister when they appeared back in the real world? With a sigh, she created a bubble of water around the disk and froze it in order to stop the blast. It worked, containing the explosion, but it had done its job. She lost sight of the mayor as the blast went off.
The tower rumbled, but her barrier held firm. As soon as the blast ended, she pushed forward, ignoring the massive amount of pain she was in. She heard the mayor running as he made a beeline for the top of the stairs. She ran to the bottom but quickly created another barrier as he chucked another explosive disk at her.
She blocked it again, but the tower shook even more. It wouldn't be able to hold out. Even worse, the mayor seemed to figure the same thing out and chucked another one at a support beam. "Take one step forward, and I will bring this entire place crashing down!"
"Oh, screw you," Poseidon grunted.
She tried to take another step forward, but black blood poured down her mouth as she nearly vomited and collapsed to her knees. She had taken a strong blow from Wish, one that she hadn't recovered from. Her organs were a mess. She really didn't have the strength to fight like this. Especially not when the bastard was crazy enough to blow this entire place to bits just to get her.
She turned to look back at the spot where Cinder and Paragon had been. By now, the two were no doubt in the middle of fighting Wish. "For better or for worse. Good luck, Cinder. You seriously better not lose."
***
The plan had been simple: Weaken Wish enough so that Paragon could absorb her in the dream world. She had come up with the plan after Poseidon told her. Paragon mentioned that when Wish was first defeated by Mr. Larison and Myth, she ended up in the dream world.
During that point, Paragon had actually vanished, and no one was able to find her. As if she actually stepped foot in another world.
Honestly, she had been gambling on whether this would work or not, but she was relieved when she saw the pissed-off look on Wish's face. Cinder put on her best Victorian smile and ignited the fire around her. Her hair was already golden, and her eyes burned with a red flame. "Ready for a rematch, Wish?"
Wish's angry look quickly faded, and the girl sneered. "You already lost to me once? And that was before I got an upgrade." The girl reached up and stroked a pair of horns that poked out of her head. "I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm a hundred times stronger now."
"Still lost in the real world."
"Dumbass. I didn't take that fight seriously. I knew that if I died, I'd get a shot at taking my full power back." Wish glared past Cinder and directly into Paragon's eyes. The girl wasn't blind in here. "You've only doomed your little girlfriend here. Once I absorb you, Sky, I'll just turn around and absorb Cindy here and become the Lord of Life and the Lord of the Sun."
"You know the Emperor tried something like that as well." Paragon hummed. "He tried absorbing Max Lightning and becoming the Lord of the Sky. It didn't go well for him, though. I hear he was sliced apart by his own creation."
"Too bad I'm not the Emperor." Wish stepped forward, and her head spun as well as her body, snapping and breaking as it came all the way around. It began to stretch out almost like a snake, and her back tore apart as wings unfolded. "I'm much worse." The bones formed large plating around her flesh, and claws jutted out. A tail started to expand out of her rear, and she got nearly ten times bigger. The bones formed into jagged black scales that hummed with an evil heat.
"Did she just turn into a dragon!" She asked in shock. "That's so cool, and also so not good for us!"
Paragon blinked, a little taken aback. "We might have a harder time than we thought."
She didn't back down and stared up at the Wish dragon. "I'm not going to lose."
Paragon had brought her to this dream world before. It had been so beautiful, filled with a long sea of flowers and a sun that wouldn't stop shining. Paragon had been like a goddess during that time. Able to do nearly anything. Not anymore, though. Wish was in charge. Everything was dead, and the sky was blocking out the sun, leaving them in endless darkness. The shadowy dead field twisted and obeyed the girl's command as Wish roared out, now transformed into a massive black dragon.
Wish's jaws opened, and a wave of green liquid blasted out of her mouth. She grabbed Paragon and picked the girl up, jumping out of the way just in time. The place they had been standing broke away and dissolved as the acid ate away at the world.
"Geez. She really did just become a black dragon, huh?" She blasted fire from the bottom of her feet and sent herself flying in the direction of the woods. She dropped down and placed the healer on the ground at the entrance to the forest. "Run and hide," she said.
"What?" Paragon shook her head. "You're not going to seriously try and fight Wish by yourself, are you?"
"If she kills you, then it's all over," She explained. She reached out and gripped Paragon's shoulders. "You don't have as much control as you do normally, and she'd take you out in one shot. I can't fight her and protect you at the same time."
"Do you really think you can beat her?"
She turned away and gave a slight shrug. "I'm going to try. Besides." She turned back to look at Paragon and gave him a grin. "Remember what you told me when you first took me to this place? I don't have to worry about anyone in here. I can cut loose." She cracked her knuckles and dropped down to a crouch. "Do you remember the plan we discussed?"
Paragon nodded her head. "Of course I do. But do you even have a plan of your own?"
"Yeah. I'm just going to win!" She blasted high into the air, going up as much as she could. Fire streamed out of her hands and feet. She still couldn't fly, but this was a close second. Wish was already in the air, having tried to find them. "Hey, ugly! Up here!"
Wish's head turned to look at her, and the girl's wings flapped as she flew in the direction of where she was. Wish's eyes narrowed when it locked onto her enemy. The flame-based hero was getting higher and higher and soon broke past the clouds, truly testing just how expansive this dream realm was. "So, you're the one I'll absorb first?" Wish asked, her voice rumbling in the air around them. "No matter. At the end of this day, I assure you, I will be a Lord of something!"
All at once, she shut off her fire and began to fall back toward the ground. She spun through the air and rammed her hand forward as soon as she reached Wish. The dragon roared and tore its tail through the air. She pressed a button on her wrist, bringing up her shield just in time. Wish's tail slammed into her, and she blocked most of the blow. It was still strong enough to shove her back and send her flying through the sky.
As she dropped, she stopped her fall by firing a chain made out of fire out of her hand. It wrapped around Wish's body, and she launched fire out of her feet, swinging herself over the beast and tying the chain around Wish's wings, stopping her from being able to fly. She stood on the dragon's back, and they both began to fall to the land below. Wish's head twisted all the way around, the neck getting even longer, allowing the dragon to bite at her.
She blocked the strike with her shield and still held onto the chain as they approached the ground. Wish hissed, and her maws opened, firing out another wave of thick acid. She wisely decided not to test her shield's durability and instead let go of the chain and jumped off of the dragon's back as the acid fired through the air. Flames blasted out of her feet, shooting her back into the air. Wish's wings unfolded just in time to allow the villain to glide over the ground and take to the skies once more. As she fell, she created a bow of fire and launched her arrows out in an effort to down the dragon, though it barely slowed Wish down.
"Remember when we first fought, and you decided to randomly kiss me?"
"Are you wanting another one? Sorry, but I'm not really into crazy girls-"
"Aw! That's too bad." Wish flew over her and rammed one of her clawed hands directly into her back. She came down hard and slammed into the ground, groaning. She rolled over onto her back but didn't have enough time to stand up. Wish landed on the ground and placed one of her feet over her body, pressing her down into the ground. "I wasn't asking. Pucker up hot stuff." Wish went to open her mouth to spew out her wave of acid, but she managed to raise her hand first.
The golden fire seeped out and took shape, forming into a giant backpack that opened up above her. The acid began to spew, and the bag rose up, wrapped itself around the dragon's snout, and sealed shut, blocking it off. She raised her other arm up and used the shield as a makeshift blade, ramming it down onto the hand that was pinning her. The metal heated up from her fire, allowing her to slice through it, and her flames ate away at the rest of it, blowing the limb to bits and causing the dragon to shift slightly. Wish forced her mouth open, destroying the flaming hand that was grabbing her, and sprayed out acid once again, but she was already moving away.
"Sit still!" Wish growled, already regrowing her missing limb. "I want to drown you in my fluids!"
"Pause! You can't just say stuff like that girl!" She called out. She ran across the ground at inhuman speeds. They were in the field of dead flowers, so she had plenty of room and places to go. "I will say, though, I wasn't expecting the whole dragon form. It's pretty cool. Honestly, though, acid is never the way to go for a real dragon." She turned around once she had some distance and watched as Wish ran toward her. Every step the beast took practically shook the dream world that they were in. "Everyone knows fire is what a dragon really uses. I don't have a dragon, but I do have something pretty cool that I can show you."
Her golden fire came back. It ignited around her body for a second, lighting it up before it expanded and grew off of her. Just like when she created the backpack out of fire, she commanded the flames to take shape. They twisted and molded together directly behind her. Mr. Larison had his weird astral avatar form, where he would create Giant limbs, and she had copied that once before. She created her own astral avatar forged from fire. Something Wish had seen already.
The golden flames took shape into a massive, forty-foot-tall backpack. The backpack had large arms and legs that came out of it, and it flexed, showing off its guns. She stood all the way on top of her creation and folded her arms. "Get ready. I'm about to pull off a move from my favorite fighting game!" Her backpack placed its hands together at its side, causing a large ball of golden fire to appear between its palms. It stepped forward, shaking the ground, and launched its arms out, sending out a massive golden beam of energy.
The black dragon's eyes narrowed, and Wish opened her mouth, shooting an equally impressive beam of compressed acid. Both attacks met in the middle and blew the ground around them to bits as they clashed. Slowly, though, the fire began to overpower the acid, eating away at it and pushing forward. Wish howled in pain as the attack washed over her and the fire blasted through her mouth. Part of the villain's head caught fire, and it whipped around wildly. The backpack took a step forward and put more power behind its attack, causing the massive energy beam to grow in size.
Dozens of meters away, Paragon made a face as she watched the goofy bag begin to burn Wish into ash. "I still don't get why she has a weird obsession with backpacks." In the fight with Lucifer, Full Monarch had created a bunch of animals made out of fire, so it was possible, though it was still a pretty goofy idea all things considered.
Despite the pain and burning sensation, Wish forced herself through the golden fire. The dragon slammed forward and clawed out, cutting into the backpack. The energy beam died out, and the backpack dropped to its knees, clutching at its stomach, which gushed out random school supplies that were also made of fire. Wish glared only to realize at the last second that Cinder no longer stood on the backpack.
Up in the air, Cinder began to fall to the ground, having jumped off of her giant bag a while ago. The girl brought her hand up and saluted. "Your sacrifice won't be in vain, Baggy. I'll see you on the other side."
Wish's eyes narrowed as the bag began to swell up with a golden energy. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me-" The backpack exploded with a mighty force, unleashing all of its energy and scorching the ground. Cinder brought her shield up, using it to block most of the force of the blast, which sent her flying back for over a mile. She slammed across a pond made of blood, skipping across it like a rock, and reached the other side, smashing through the ground and forming a mini-crater.
"Let's not do that again." She groaned. Even though Baggy's explosion had been her plan, she hadn't expected to be flung so far back. She wasn't holding any of her power back in here. In the real world she constantly only used about thirty or forty percent of her power to not hurt her teammates, but in here, against Wish, she truly got to go all out. Speaking of Wish…
"I will turn your mug into my cup!" The dragon roared and came stomping out of the mushroom cloud that had been formed by the blast.
She rolled over, got back onto her feet, and lifted her shield. The fire started to slowly swirl around it and burn hotter. It formed into a massive disk, and she swung her arm forward, firing it out. The same attack she used on Mars King's body when Paragon first took her here.
The disk of fire expanded, growing bigger and hotter, and Wish stood up just in time for it to hit her. The dragon was still in the middle of recovering and wasn't able to move out of the way fast enough. It cut straight through Wish, severing her legs, and most of her body was ripped in two. The villain crashed back down and screamed once more. Cinder yelled too and fired herself into the air, then blasted her flames out of her hand and slammed herself directly into the head of Wish, breaking through most of the skull.
Half of her body sank into what she assumed was the creature's brain. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists as the fire began to flow over her skin. Every part of her became cloaked in fire, as if the sun had taken on a human form. She had done this once before in her first fight with Wish. They say that Full Monarch was always cloaked in a bright blue fire that covered his flesh entirely. Her fire was golden, and she couldn't keep it up for long; in fact, it only flickered on for a second, but it was more than enough.
Her fire reached the same temperature as the sun and expanded out in a massive orb, burning every drop of Wish away and ripping apart most of the ground beneath them. It was so hot that it even managed to catch the air itself on fire and send out an ocean of heat waves in all directions. She had been leading Wish away from the forest for this very reason. The orb tore Wish's atoms to bits and turned her less than dust, brightening up the black sky, and then, in an instant, it was all gone.
Cinder breathed heavily as her fire went out. Her hair faded from blonde to black, but she shook her head and steeled herself, forcing her form back on. "H—How do you like that? I call it going supernova. I literally became a mini-sun. Can't do stuff like that in the real world since it would kill everyone around me for a few miles. Not you, though. You can come on out. I've dealt with you enough times to know that's not how it ends."
The darkness came back as the fire around them faded. Slowly, a large hand rose out of it as the black dragon reformed out of the planet's ground. It let out a loud chuckle and cocked its head to the side, glaring down at her. "I didn't scatter any of my cells. How did you know I could revive myself in this place?"
She snorted and stared up at the beast as it glared down at her. Her arms ignited with fire, and she gripped down on her shield even harder. "Paragon told me how this place works. When she's in charge of it, her real body is somewhere else, dreaming up this realm. I figured it'd be the same with you since you're now the one in charge." Also, there was no way the universe would throw her a bone and make the fight end that easily.
"If you know that, then you know that it's impossible for you to win." The dragon chuckled. "I can revive an infinite number of times no matter what you do to me."
She was acting tough, but the truth was, she was low on power. Using the supernova and Baggy were extremely draining. Using both back to back and keeping her Lord form up was asking for trouble. Her blonde hair was flickering, changing from black back to blonde, but she refused to let the power fade. Her eyes kept burning with the fiery red glow of her Lord form.
Wish stared down at her with a cocked head. The dragon almost seemed to sneer at her. "You're out of options and tricks, Cindy. I've seen through you. This won't be like the last fight where you keep pressing me."
"I'm not out of this fight just yet-"
"I think you are."
She gasped as the ground around her suddenly rose up and blades of thin bone stabbed into her arms and legs. They tore through her and spilled her blood, causing her to drop. The ground surged up like chains and pulled her down, and the dragon lazily placed its foot on her head.
"Did you really think that you stood a chance in here? Within this place, I truly am God!" The claws of the monster stabbed down into her back and pressed down, nearly snapping her spine and causing her to scream. "I was playing around before. The moment we took the battle to this place was the moment you lost. I control all that you see. I could attack you from any direction at any time, and there's not a damn thing you can do. I can come back any number of times that I fall; I am unbeatable!" Wish's claw fully stabbed into her back, and she was lifted up. Wish flicked her wrist lazily, but that was more than enough to send her flying off of the claw.
She hit the ground and rolled across it, going far. Every time she bounced off of the ground, the rocks cut away at more of her flesh, biting and gnawing at her as if they were alive. She finally came to a stop, but Wish was already on her. The dragon came down from the air and smashed its paw back down onto her. Bits of acid dripped down the beast's maw and splashed down onto her flesh, burning tiny holes into her body.
She was reminded of her battle with Intake. How helpless she had truly been in that fight. Despite the bad memory though, she laughed.
Wish stopped and glared down at her. "Did you go insane? Huh? Your brain get fried or something? Stop laughing, you dumb bitch!"
Her laughter only grew stronger as she was shoved further into the ground.
Wish growled and applied more force, shoving her body deeper into the ground. "Say it. Say that I'm stronger! That I've beaten you! That I've done what the Emperor never could and won in a battle with the Lord of the Sun! Quit laughing and say that I beat you!" Her head was thrown back, and she was laughing her ass off as if the most hilarious thing just happened. "You're about to die! What could be so funny! Stop laughing!"
She reached up, still chuckling, and wiped away some tears in her eyes. "Sorry. It's just that I find it so funny that literally every villain I've fought has made the same mistake." She stared up into the dragon's eyes, her fiery red ones causing the beast to step back. "You always forget to pay attention to the person on the sidelines."
Pain. White-hot and blinding. It all came from out of nowhere. That was the only way Wish could describe what she just felt.
"Seriously. What's with you, bad guys, thinking that we heroes will play fair? Did you really think Paragon wouldn't try and get revenge on you after what you did with her sister?" She slowly stood up, grabbing her damaged gut. "I hope you suffer. I hope it hurts."
Wish felt a wave of agony smash into her from all sides. The dragon felt its eyes go wide, and it gasped as the scales around it began to drip down its form and it started to melt. It was breaking apart, and Wish stared down. Her vision twisted and changed. A sword was stabbed directly into her throat.
Looks like Wish really wasn't that godlike.
A few moments earlier...
"If it's anything like mine, then it should be over here..." Paragon walked through the dead forest. All around her, she could hear the sounds of Cinder's fight. The girl really wasn't holding back and was using everything she had to put Wish down. It wouldn't keep the false Lord dead for long, though—not as long as her core was intact. "There you are."
In her world, she kept it here. Deep within the woods was where she allowed her actual body to reside. Or at least the mental avatar that was her body. She would sleep, take control of this world, and make copies of herself that were stronger than even her sister. If Wish truly was like her, then it'd be the same.
Though the world was dead and gray, everything was how she left it. The forest opened up, and twisting branches formed a wooden slab directly in the middle. She had based it on an old fairy tale. Wish's body was on the slab. The girl's snow-white hair was braided back, and her arms were folded over her chest. Her eyes were closed, and it was hard to tell if she was dead or alive. She wore a long black dress, one woven from dead plants.
The dead ground was particularly strong around Wish, dried-out husks of plants rising up like phantom hands as if to stop anyone who got too close to the sleeping girl.
Paragon crouched down and placed her palm on the ground. Even from where she was, she could feel the intense heat wave that Cinder had created. She wasn't as strong as Cinder. She knew that. She might not ever be. She just wanted a portion, though. A sliver of the girl's true power. "Just give me enough strength to put an end to this nightmare."
She didn't have as much control over the realm as she normally had. In fact, she barely had any—just enough to cause the plants to break away from the part of the ground her hand touched. She felt something brush against her palm, and she raised up the blade of Nier as it came out of the ground, which allowed her to summon it. Avalon's words still rang through her mind.
"Give me the power to be a superhero!" She ran forward and swung the sword out, cutting through the vines, and she jumped up onto the table where Wish's sleeping form was. She twisted the sword around and brought it down, stabbing it directly into Wish's neck.
Wish's eyes snapped wide open, staring at the sword in her throat. She gurgled a bit, and a look of pure rage came onto the Lord of Life's face. Her power swelled up, and Wish tried to scream, but it was more of a gurgle as blood gushed down her mouth and neck.
Paragon's yell mixed with Wish's as she drove the blade forward. Bones formed into blades and stabbed at her, but she fought through the urge to jump away and twisted the blade! "This is where you die!"
Wish's head flew into the air, severed from her body…