"You're right, Leader! I can't sustain this forever," Riku roared, his voice cracking with desperation. "But I can keep it up long enough to bury you!"
"Is that so, Riku?" Helios's voice was a jagged rasp. "Then show me. Show me everything you have."
Above them, the shadow-clouds churned violently. Obsidian blades began to rain down like a localized hurricane, aimed squarely at Helios and his silent army.
"An interesting move," Helios murmured, his manic smile never wavering.
The Knight Lords and the General moved with mechanical precision, raising their shields to intercept the barrage. Some were struck, their armour splintering, but they simply stood their ground as red Spiral Power knit their forms back together instantly.
"Why don't you come out and play, Riku? Or are you afraid of your own Nightmare?" Helios's mockery echoed through the monochrome world.
"You bastard! Who's afraid of you?" Riku's voice screamed from the void. More swords materialized, swarming toward Helios, but he wove through them with a grace that shouldn't have been possible for someone in a state of madness.
"He can still think," Ray whispered from the sidelines, his eyes frantic. "Madness should have turned his brain to mush, but he's calculating every move."
"Riku's realm is destabilizing," Rio noted, watching the obsidian mountains flicker. "He's running dry. Should we step in?"
"We should," Sara said, her hand hovering over her pocket watch, "but part of me really doesn't want to help him out of a mess he started."
With a sound like shattering glass, the Land of Shadows cracked. The obsidian sun went out, and the training room bled back into reality.
"Oh... so the little rabbit can't run anymore," Helios chuckled, his black eye locking onto Riku, who was now kneeling on the floor, gasping for breath.
"Damn it... why now?" Riku hissed, clutching his trembling hands. "I can't lose like this."
"Who said you're going to lose?" Helios appeared in front of him in a flicker of red light. "To lose, you have to be alive. Dead people don't care about the score."
Helios raised his blade and, in one fluid motion, swept it across Riku's neck. His head left his shoulders.
The room fell into a deafening, horrified silence.
"Sara! Do something!" Nova shrieked, his voice climbing an octave in panic.
Sara didn't hesitate. She clicked her watch. The world blurred, colours bleeding backwards, sounds rewinding into a chaotic garble. Time snapped back to the moment just before the kill.
"...because you're going to die and dead people don't—"
"Stop him! He's really going to kill Riku!" Sara screamed, her voice breaking the timeline's flow.
Helios didn't finish his sentence. Instead, he spun and hurled his sword directly at Sara's head. "So it was you," he spat, his voice trembling with unnatural rage. "You're the one who keeps rewinding whenever I kill this useless thing."
Ray's mechanical octopus arms snapped upward, forming a steel shield that caught the sword with a deafening clang.
"How does he remember?" Sara gasped, her face deathly pale. "No one but me is supposed to remember the erased timelines!"
"What do we do?" Nova yelled. "Riku is our only heavy hitter, and he's spent!"
"Nova, get Luna and the others to safety! Now!" Sara took command. "Rio, Ray—stay here and support me!"
"Right!" the team shouted.
Rio summoned his artifact—a plush, oversized pillow.
"Seriously? Your summon is a pillow?" Ray deadlocked him, his six mechanical arms whirring.
"Coming from a man with six metal tentacles, that's rich!" Rio snapped.
"Are you finished talking?" Helios interrupted. Behind him, the iron gate groaned. "Don't forget. You aren't just facing me. You're facing my army."
The Knight Lords surged forward. Sara slammed her thumb onto her watch, slowing time to a crawl for everyone but her team. She lunged for Riku, while Ray's mechanical arms unleashed, searing yellow lasers that cut through the advancing skeletons. Rio hugged his pillow, which defied gravity, allowing him to float out of reach of the General's blade.
"Sara, you finally stepped onto the board," Helios laughed, his voice sounding like two people speaking at once. "You should have just left this trash to me."
Sara gritted her teeth, slowing time again to drag the semi-conscious Riku toward the exit. But as she moved, a hand clamped onto her shoulder. Helios was standing right in front of her, unaffected by the temporal drag.
"How... how are you moving?" Sara's ability flickered and died, the watch in her hand turning cold. "You shouldn't be this fast!"
"Time control," Helios mused, tilting his head. "An interesting toy. It works on fools, but a level of control this pathetic won't bind me." He leaned closer, his black eye consuming her vision. "Who are you to try and stall the Sovereign?"
"Helios has never seen a time ability before!" Sara gasped. "Who are you?"
"Sara! Stop chatting and help us!" Ray yelled from across the room. "These knights won't stay down, and Rio is—"
"Wait! I'm doing something!" Rio interrupted. He squeezed his pillow, and a hazy mist rolled toward the Knight Lords. Suddenly, two of the undead soldiers turned on each other, their blades clashing in a confused frenzy.
"Forget I said anything," Ray grunted. "Rio is actually useful."
"A Dream Walker," Helios observed, his voice tinged with genuine recognition. "It's been an age since I've seen your kind."
"Answer me!" Sara shouted. "Who are you?"
"I am Helios," he replied, his smile widening into something jagged and wrong. "And yet, I am not Helios. I am both, and neither."
"What does that even mean?"
Before she could process it, the General threw a fresh blade to Helios. He caught it mid-air and delivered a brutal diagonal slash. Sara dived, but the tip of the sword traced a red line across her cheek. She scrambled to her feet, grabbing Riku and retreated toward Ray and Rio.
"We have Riku! Let's get out of here!" Ray shouted.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Helios's voice was right behind them. The Knight Lords had formed a perfect, suffocating circle around the group.
"He was waiting," Sara whispered, her heart sinking. "He baited us all into one spot so he could finish us together."
"Is he really trying to kill us?" Ray's voice shook. "No one in a state of madness has this kind of tactical mind."
"His eyes are solid black," Rio added. "That's the mark of a complete fall."
The Knight Lords stopped moving, their swords poised like a forest of steel.
"If you try to run, I will end you," Helios said. The madness seemed to settle into a cold, terrifying lucidity. "Let me tell you a story. It all started when a child was born—Helios, of course."
"Why start there?" Sara spat, trying to hide her trembling hands. "This will take too long. If you're going to kill us, just do it."
"Let me speak," Helios hissed. "Where was I? Ah, yes. Helios was born to two of the most talented Seekers to ever live. They never realized their own potential, but that raw talent was passed to him. It made him a beacon. A target for the Fallen who crave a way back into the light. He was... the perfect vessel."
Helios took a step closer, the black smoke from his eyes swirling around the group. "But the Fallen weren't the only ones watching."
Would you like to hear the rest of the secret about Helios's birth, or should the "Old Man" finally make his entrance to stop the slaughter?