Ka got up again, reeling and confused, eyes darting between the End and her. The End looked towards him a moment before gesturing, "Sit ya ass down, you'll get your turn to talk in a minute," he said as Ka then found himself on the ground once more.
The End of Everything turned his attention back to Melinda with a soft sigh. "I did. I closed the Gate, and I knew how because I was the one who made them," he explained calmly, walking toward Melinda with hands now clasped behind his back. His footfalls made no sound, and left no evidence of his movement with no dust kicking up from impact. "There are many Gates, spread out into the infinite across every timeline and fracture of the Multiverse as it exists. This is but one, but if it had been opened successfully here...let's just say that's not The Perfect Ending that this slice of the Multiverse was meant to have; and me being me I cannot allow such a thing to happen to the world that contains you in it." Ka interjected a moment. this time without Malachi shutting him up and rather listening. "You...but, you are me!" "Yes, and? There are many of us, you know this, you ain't special. Ya ain't gonna be FUBAR'ing the futures of multitude jes' because of a selfish decision ya made in the name of The Others for your personal agenda. All because you got tunnel vision and cotton in your ears, boy. Now, hush before I make sure you have no mouth to scream with." Ka went silent. "Melinda Halliwell. The ever self sacrificing heroine that is doomed by her own narrative. The Shard of Cora. The Beginning of The End. You remember me somehow, don't ya, darlin'? Before that demon with a grudge twisted my face into your darkest Fear, before you knew what fear was. Remember, the failsafe." He addressed her as he stood before her, hands now clasped in front of his chest as he spoke to her with a broken kind of fondness. He reached for her hand, though would not touch her unless she closed the distance of her own free will. "Take my hand, and remember. It will all make a boatload more sense, and answer a LOT of the life long questions that have been plaguing you. Please?"
@winloseorcharmed
Melinda was both shocked and surprised at what was going on. Though the conversation was startling her. The older man's aura wasn't threatening, it was more welcoming than that. That's what she didn't really understand about that.
However, it was when he addressed her that startled her. "What are you even talking about?" She was perplexed. Yes it was a thing of convention with her family that she had a habit of scrificing herself but isn't that what they had taught her to do? Innocents had to be protected no matter the costs?
"Before I even consider taking your hand, what are you even talking about?" The woman was perplexed and it was causing that throbbing headache to start behind her eyes.
@noreletho
As the woman and the End spoke, Ka had been left unattended to. The End was offguard, the quarry concentrating on him; it was the perfect opportunity. Ka was back on mission mode and he had to destroy the gate. The Gate of Worlds. Ka shifted to bent knee to rise, but before even he could react of his own accord, the air shifted. The chamber had already been almost completely devoid of light, but now the darkness itself began to pulse and pull across its edges. The Maledict stood to his feet, then fell back into the darkness only to shift out of it next to the Gate. Void seeped from the figure of the Maledict and pulsed around him, enshrouding him as armor and an extension of himself, and his focus was on the Gate mechanism. The End felt the shift but at a tone too late as the Maledict reached within and without hesitation towards the mechanism. The turning point was now, the pitch had now shifted into the hands of the Maledict, and he knew the end was in grasp. Elsewhere, the Fenns were feeling the flux. Dori, Kain, Olkoth. Dori felt a great all consuming fear, Kain felt the hole left from his greatest loss now tug and tear itself impossibly wider. Olkoth near collapsed from the crush of absence. But, before the Maledict could finish it, the darkness appeared to hold its breath for the End. The End of Everything, the ultimate finality of the Entropy Death of this Multiverse point, now looked toward the Maledict and knew his time was come. "Melinda...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The air stilled, and the light Maledict seemed to swallow by being present now fell bright. Brighter, warmer than summer, welcome at first until it too began consumption of its own. Brighter, brighter, warmer, hotter. Maledict gave loose a convex howl as this brightness melted him away. And Melinda would know no more, other than it felt as though the very core of the Sun burst dead center of the chamber and bathed it in white hot fire. When she awoke, it was strange. She stood as she did before this Entropy. No gate, just scorched earth and cool dampness of a cavern chamber, and on her own. Silence. No breaths, no heartbeat, stillness. That was until she could catch a shifting motion in her peripheral. Where the End had ended, and the Maledict had been burned away, two still bodies. Black masses of Void that were vaguely shaped into humanoid shapes, one getting to its feet as the other could rise no farther but to bent knee. Melinda knew the one who stood, though his appearance now shifted like the darkness in the still room. This much taller, dark haired man turned to her with the softest gaze of crystalline light blue eyes. He sighed as he approached her wearing a gentle expression. "It's over now, breathe Mels. Today, you saved without sacrifice needed of you. Quite the glow up."
