~*~

It wasn’t fair, and he often found himself still drawn to the Ravenous mask he once wore. Such power, the ability to be stronger than ever before, even moreso than some Uber Heroes. He knew it could no longer control his memories, his autonomy...

However, a mask still changes one. How would Gong know he could resist the personality the mask forced? The alterations to how he acted and felt. He needed to be a wise,thought out general, not a greedy corvid hunting his next treasure.

...But time is running out. The power and strength it could provide. He could still be on the front lines with this, making heavier plans.

He had been working hard alongside Calle the entire time, but always seemed to struggle. His behaviors were awkward, stilted, with a fear behind the mask of who he was, waking up in a new world without everyone he once knew.

There wasn’t time for that now, he was a tool to be used by the tribe. That was the reason he wore the mask given to him. That was why he took part of Calle’s power when she wore her own.

His goal was to be the light to the darkness.

So why did it feel like this job was not made for him? That he was mistakenly brought into it all?

His strength does not feel like the prophesized almighty uberhero that he had heard from the star.

...It cannot matter.

He is a tool for strength. That is all.

And now, more than ever, he has to fight. Take out more groups of Bonedeths and Akumapons.

It’s all he has. All he will be.

But, time was a bigger issue now. An awoken god was on the loose, a past Almighty constantly lingering to try and regain their “stolen” power, two armies against them...

Any small mistake could spell disaster. He couldn’t afford any distractions. Any failures.

Unfortunately, this has led to further isolation for the general from the others. He needs to work independently. 

--

Meanwhile, Covet has been making bigger moves against her mask. For now, she cannot afford showing it to the other three, though she’s more and more aware that they too, have gone against their archfiends. Showing her breaking through could alert the fiends, and-- with what she has seen them do to others, she cannot risk her family like this for now.

Her jealous outbreaks, her anger towards her son, finally. finally it had faded away. Covet wants to be herself again. She’s fighting more against it all. 

Recently, his need to be more useful while Spiderton makes new plans for the tank has led the demon to purposefully seek out the original Almighty, Suto. Of course he knew the god wasn’t exactly kind, but if he could get them on the patapon’s side more...It’d be useful to have two almighties, wouldn’t it?

Upon their meeting, the two actually seemed to have plenty in common. Wanting to be more than their purposes originally were for.

The urge to prove himself that he is strong enough to protect himself, that he is strong enough to protect Aiton is still strong. The worry and distrust of Calle’s group and the ever lingering danger of the Dark Heroes weighed heavy on his mind, constantly.

At any moment anybody could strike and ruin his hopes of ever getting things back to normal. Whether it be from the demons the patapons were trusting and housing, or an ambush by those that had betrayed and tried to murder Madfang...He wasn’t sure. But he needed to train, get stronger, get better.

Find a way to protect them all in this new world. Slinky, Naughtyfins, whatever she liked to be called moment to moment always told the yariton not to worry so much, that they would be ok. That the sun would shine eventually if they kept working to move forwards. Makoton disagreed. Things were more tense than they had ever been before, and if the three of them didn’t work enough to build enough defenses then they were as good as dead.

The fact she did not take him seriously with that drove him mad. Fine, he would train alone. He could be strong enough for all of them.

His rage and stress led the zigoton to a strange being, one that he had never seen before. One that seemed kind enough as they talked, admired his strength, and told him what he knew in his heart. That he was right to train so hard, that this was truly the end of the world and he needed to prepare.

It took more than a few meetings for his suspicion to finally die down, and for this mystery being to tell him what he wanted to hear. That any akumapon is a threat. That he was right in everything. This ‘Suto’ being seemed smarter than most, as they told him of the things they observed with the patapons, with him.

They promised he could trust them in this world. That he could be strong enough to keep his loved one safe.

That he was smarter than those patapons.

He was. He knew he was. But it was good to finally be validated in his paranoia.

Sonarchy felt disgusted. A god that once stood for peace in their kingdom now stood for decay. For war. For hatred. He could not look his mother in the eye when she gloated about her new weapon. He knew it was only the mask talking, but it still made something awful crawl under his skin. The bat knew it bothered Slogturtle and Buzzcrave too, particularly the latter. That man had stood for honor for so long, even in his mask. And this, this was one of the more dishonorable things to happen.

He did not notice the way Covet shook in her boots when no one was looking. The fear she was holding as her facade was starting to crumble. For now, she kept it underwraps, and this only proved to her that the Archfiends could not be reasoned with. Could not be stopped.

--

On the other side of things, the growing groups of ambushes and bonedeths delivered to their captured forts begun to worry Calle. Their numbers had been dwindling in the past, and this sudden spike of them only spelled something awful for her and laid out far too many questions all at once.

Luckily, the strange metal star that Mars occasionally looked after had been situated with them for a while at this point, and through talking with Mecha Hoshipon directly, the deity was able to send it off to scout for her tribe.

...She was thankful, deep down knowing that Sonarchy had sent the star. She had long since caught onto his ‘traitorous’ habits to the other Dark Heroes. Calle could only wish him well for now, with their communications cut off for the time being. 

Once Mecha had returned, the news made Calle’s blood feel cold. A revived god. A new army. A full force attack by the Archfiends to try and stomp out the flame in the patapons and zigotons that had been fighting back. She couldn’t let this happen, something had to be done and soon, before anything could happen.

This, Calle felt, would be where Spiderton would come in best. He had been working on canons, on tanks, on plans this whole time, looking for the best way to bring himself to use.

One blueprint she felt, would be invaluable to the worry at hand. One of his recent tank designs. A big thing, with more canons that she thought a tank could hold on it. If she could get him to scale it up...Get more builders on board...

Right. It would work. Even if it took some time, they still had time for now.

In a lot of ways, they were a lot like the ex-queen. manipulated, lead astray, and turned to the wrong ideals because it was what they assumed was right to keep themselves safe. However, she still knew deep down that it was still different. They were forced to follow a leader, and she in the past had been a leader similar to such things.

He could not fix it this time. He hide in a vain effort to appear dead to all those that survived. Hero saw the rise of the uberheroes, of Calle’s growing strength.

They could handle it. He, he was not needed. Hero would leave and train himself to be better, to become stronger. To prove he was worthy of returning one day. But not now, not while he had ruined things so strongly in his eye. Not after the world egg.

No. Hero would leave. He had to.

And when Silver Hoshipon found him, in the middle of the bridge, contemplating this, he shouted for him to leave. That he did not trust the star, for he had also come from the same box those cursed Archfiends left from.

Silver admitted, yes, he was acquainted with them. He knew of them and their goals and he also had his part to play in all of it. But not the part that Hero thinks of him. He wishes for a peaceful new world for all, not an end to everything that once was. A little suffering was needed, it always was, but that light and dark still had to come together in the end. It could not stay one way forever.

The star stated too, that Hero was needed. That he used his power to protect the patapon from the stone so he may crown him as the true uberhero the tribe needed. To be the true hope of this world, for he had come so far to bring the new world closer to the truth.

Hero felt sickened. It all felt like more manipulation. Like Ormen had done in the past. Like he had done to himself convincing himself to open that box.

He did not need another prophecy. Not now, not ever. He could prove himself in other ways. He was not the chosen one, not this time and he could not hide behind such a thing.

And so, the Hero fled from the star, leaving the old creature one prophecy short, something Silver could not stand. But Hero knew this time, he fully had control of his choice. He was not going to screw this up.

And even, if not directly helping, he would do what he could.

For now, he would warn the karmens of the state of things. Perhaps, now that they too were free, they would be able to come up with plans of their own.

But, when a kingdom falls, typically so does its god.

This. This has never stopped the archfiends in the past. Before they were sealed away they could destroy and take forms incomprehensible to those alive, but they were not yet strong enough for such force. They would have to start a step below, by reviving the god that once ruled alongside those in Covet’s army way back when.

...with their own twist, of course. Ysanke was not a cruel god, she disapproved of far too much for her own good. With the bonedeths, the Archfiends were able to raise their aggression and loyalty to them easily enough.

And so, the same was done to Ysanke, now a towering bonedeth god (albeit, without all of the power of a true god) to help gain an upperhand while the archfiends regained their strength for the true ending to this world, and the true start of their own.

At first, she wanted to be angry, call out this disrespect, but deep down the ex-queen knew they were right to take away her leadership. She was no longer deserving of such a title. Worse so, she knew the cordial and curt reactions of the zigotons was only due to Calle and Gong requesting that the queen be given a second chance. That Gorl had manipulated and caused most of the issue, even if that was only partially the truth in the end.

Eventually, the glanced and whispers the moth heard became too much, and Kharma left zigoton territory, far off their old island and to where the original ship had crashed with the patapon some time ago. Perhaps here, she would find some peace or growth away from everything drawing her to her past.

And this, is where the ex-queen found the karmen tribe, healing from the damage Ormen Karmen had done to them as a leader, becoming mostly a forest dwelling community focused on environments and building. They took in the queen without a second question of her origins or story, just seeing someone lost and inneed. 

This strange innate kindness had quite the effect on Kharma. It had been a long time for her, since things had been truly peaceful.

It seems to them, this world is due for a restart. All life must be erased to make way for the new wave of life. Without a world egg, it’s forever doomed to walk this cycle of dark and light. The Archfiends would prefer a new world of dark. Where it’s valued to be crueler than most.

Within their confinement of that box came a little hope in Silver Hoshipon. Though he agrees, a new world is bound any day now, he believes that light should always exist to give purpose to both sides.

His goal has and will always be to prove that the lives here are worth keeping in whatever comes next. Whether the Archfiends agree does not matter.