CHAPTER XXXVII: The Death of a Hero

"WE DID IT!"

Paula was hugging Ness as if never to let go, tears streaming down her cheeks. He was laughing like there was no tomorrow. Poo was doing a dignified, princely dance, and Jeff was pulling off a boogie nearby. They were all filled with an extreme jubilation--and who wouldn't if put in their shoes? They had just saved their planet from the strongest evil force in the cosmos!

"So, what do we do now?" Jeff asked, grinning so wide you would have to split it in fourths to get it through a door. "Giygas is dead--the world is saved! Let's go home!"

"Right on!" Ness laughed. "I can't wait to see my family again. What will mom say when she finds out we saved the earth?"

Poo sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. "I will go back to rule my people. It will be a happy conclusion to such exploits!"

"Who knew that a band of teenagers could pull something like this off?" Paula asked. "You were right, Ness. Prophecies don't lie! I...what the...?!"

She drew back, looking at her hand. It was slowly turning to dust, wafting away on a light breeze. Ness looked frantically around, at all his friends.

They were all disintegrating!

"What the...?"

Paula fixed him a look of sheer terror as her face melted into nothingness. Jeff and Poo slowly followed suit. Ness cried out--why wasn't it happening to him?

Then, from far to the north, he heard a monstrous, frightening roar. A roar that was so gut wrenching, that no creature from earth could ever utter it.

"Giygas..."

And he suddenly knew where his friends had gone--back to Saturn Valley, in the present. He quietly recited that last piece of Scarabian prophecy to himself.

" '...And lo, the hero will be thrust into the eternal darkness, facing the final evil of Giygasvormav, standing alone against the hoards'."

A chill wind picked up, ripping at his hair and clothes. he was suddenly very aware of his own mortality.

"Standing alone..." he whispered to himself. "Against the hoards..."

All jubilation, all excitement had been replaced by crystal-clear determination.

He drew his bat, walking north through the Tunnel of the Past, ready to face the final form of his destiny.

The vision he had seen in Magicant, as he was held under the Sea of Eden, had manifested itself. The giant, evil red mist floated amongst the wreckage of what Ness knew to be called the Devil's Machine. A sinister, fanged, ghost-like face seemed to appear and disappear at random across the face of the mist. He growled to himself.

This is it, he thought. This is what I came here to do.

To fight.

The mist converged into a man-shaped figure, roughly six-foot-five. Two glowing, hollow white eyes stood in its misty, yet solid head. One of its muscular arms lashed to form a blade of raw mental energy. Ness could feel wave after wave emanating from every pore of Giygas' body.

But there was something else he could feel. He could feel insanity. The quiet, assured voice that had come from the Devil's Machine was gone, replaced by a wild, incoherent unholy joy. There was no rational thought there, he noticed, no form of intelligence. Only need.

The need for blood.

Ness nodded to his enemy, taking a defensive stance, and the fight was on.

They charged towards each other, lashing again and again. Giygas' mental sword would have easily cleaved the Legendary Bat in half, had Ness' psychic power not been bolstering it. They struck at each other, neither gaining the upper hand. Ness tried every trick he had learned, every feint, parry, sweep, and lunge that had been ingrained into his conditioned muscles. He dodged left, and came around on his heel with a backhanded swing, he ducked under a piercing blow and clubbed upwards--but the Cosmic Destroyer was too fast even for Ness' fantastic speed.

Their weapons clashed in every direction, sometimes flying faster than a normal person's eyes could follow, and sometimes slow, measured strokes designed to catch the foe off guard. The young man, until this point, assumed their powers were about equal.

How wrong he was.

As Ness swung down, his foe vanished into thin air. He looked up frantically, a wave of terror running through him. His arms ached with want of rest, and his mind was awhirl with adrenaline-powered thoughts. His eyes widened as a smart shock at the back of his neck alerted him to his enemy's position. He backflipped in a quick arc over Giygas' head as the evil mist-man stabbed at Ness' unprotected back. The young man whipped his bat around, and clubbed the misty form in the head, scoring the first strike of the battle.

 

Paula slowly opened her eyes, looking around. Jeff was there, and Poo. And so was Dr. Andonuts, Mr. Saturn, and Apple Kid.

"Where are we?" She asked, her first thoughts on Ness.

"Saturn Valley," Poo replied. "And Ness is still back in the past."

"What happened?" Jeff questioned groggily. "The last I remember, we beat Giygas, and then we started melting..."

"It's the prophecy," Poo sighed. "Remember? The one on the wall in the Pyramid when we went to get the Hawk Eye? The one that talks about the Chosen One facing Giygasvormav all alone. Ness is the Chosen One, we all knew that. I'm surprised we didn't see this coming."

"So...Giygas is still alive?" Apple Kid inquired in a fearful tone. "Oh, great!"

Paula sat down, a brave, determined look on her face. She closed her eyes, a gust of wind flaring around her. She pointed one finger towards the open air, and a small, blue-rimmed window opened up. After a few moments of red fuzz, they saw a strange sight--Ness and a man-shaped red mist battling fiercely, their weapons--the Legendary Bat and a long, psychic blade--flashing and railing against each other.

"Giygas..." Dr. Andonuts whispered.

Paula nodded grimly, crossing her fingers, praying for Ness to be okay.

Ness hit the ground, coughing up a bit of blood. He wiped his mouth, and set his jaw, examining the cut along the bottom of his ribs, and rubbing the place on his jaw where the devastating punch had caught him. With a howl of defiance, he ran at his enemy, lunging at Giygas' gut. The evil being sidestepped, and slammed his fist into the young man's unprotected back. He hit the ground with a grunt, spitting out gray pebbles as he fought tooth and nail to get to his feet. He rolled ahead as his enemy's weapon planted into the ground right where his head was.

Ness gained his footing quickly, spinning on his heel, and lashing out. Giygas danced back, those cruel, evil eyes locked with his. He reached out, gripping the front of Ness' shirt. He wailed, sending the full, crushing force of his mind directly at the young man, tearing away part of the collar of his shirt, and sending him flying down the path. Ness hit the ground, and slid for about ten yards before he slammed into a rock outcropping.

The young fighter stood slowly, holding a long cut on his arm. He wasn't doing to well, and he was bleeding from dozens of different places. He wiped his bloody lips, smearing the red liquid onto his arm. Giygas launched towards him, coming at him with astonishing speed. Ness leapt above him, staring down at the Cosmic Destroyer, charging his psychic energies.

"PSI Rockin' Gamma!" he yelled, directing it straight down at his foe. The following explosion sent him flying straight upward, hurling into the steely clouds above.

"It..." he rasped weakly to himself. "It wasn't enough...I'm...too weak to keep fighting..."

He was filled with unending dismay as he plummeted downward to meet his doom. All of his friends, all of his family, everyone he had ever known, loved, cared for...they were all going to die because of him. Because he was too weak to save them. Strong as he was, Giygas was infinitely stronger. The blood was pouring like a red ribbon as he fell farther and farther. The smoke cleared, and Giygas was staring up with those thoughtless, white eyes, getting ready to slice his young enemy in two.

"Everybody pray!" Paula was yelling, getting onto her knees. She bowed her head, praying for Ness to be safe, praying for Giygas to be defeated. She prayed for everyone they had ever known to lend a bit of their power to the cause. Poo and Jeff knelt as well, and so did Dr. Andonuts, Apple Kid, and all the Mr. Saturns of Saturn Valley.

Their prayers stretched across Eagleland, from Onett to Fourside, and beyond. Everywhere, the people they had known felt a strange feeling. Ness' mother and sister (and even King, the family dog) knelt to pray with all their hearts. Paula's parents looked to the sky, and began to pray deeply for the safety of their daughter and her friends. The Runaway Five, on a tour in Summers, suddenly stopped their concert and asked the audience to pray for the safety of some boy named Ness. Monotoli and Mr. Everdred felt a warm lift in spirit, and they bowed their heads to pray sincerely for their old friends. Even Picky, Pokey's well-behaved brother, felt a deep concern for his forgotten neighbor, and bowed his head in remembrance.

Those prayers formed a living entity, a power that was packed with the hopes of everyone living on Earth. That entity flowed into the past, bleeding slowly into the still-falling form of Ness, the Chosen One. His eyes slowly opened, and his brows knitted together. His grip on the handle of his bat got just a bit tighter. He looked down as Giygas began to swing, and brought his own weapon up, blocking, kicking off his enemy's head, and landing in a weakened, yet ready stance.

"Let's go," He said quietly.

He dashed forward, slicing madly, scoring a hit that was rewarded with a roar of pain and rage. Power flared around Giygas' body and he charged, weapon stretched out. Desperation flared in those white-hot eyes as he tried to skewer the Chosen One once and for all.

But Ness would have none of it. He got down onto one hand, and kicked up, catching the mist-man in the jaw. Giygas, surprised by the sudden surge in power, flew into the air. He kept flying until he was amazingly small, only about the size of a fingernail from where Ness stood ready. The young man could feel the psychic powers radiating around his enemy. He was getting ready to fire...and the hero was just as ready to respond!

When the beam of black energy came at him, he cocked his own hands back.

"PSI Rockin' Gamma!" He yelled, throwing his palms forward, lashing his power through his hands. The energy discharged was devastating, ripping up rocks and the remnants of the Devil's Machine as it went. The two beams of energy clashed, forming an orb of sheer destructive power at the center of the fray.

Sweat started popping out on Ness' brow as he fought to gain the upper hand against this freakish enemy. The two blasts of psychic energy wailed against each other in a battle of pure mind power. He could feel desperation in Giygas' mind, but he didn't dare let that get him excited. He did his best to concentrate on the glowing beam of red-and-blue light flaring from his hands.

Suddenly, the beams both were dispersed, leaving a vast silence, and a very weary Ness, in their place.

The silence was suddenly broken as Giygas, dropping from the sky, drove his sword full through Ness' chest.

He screamed, brown eyes wide, more blood spilling out of his mouth. He clenched his eyes shut against the pain, struggling to fight back, but he couldn't move. The Legendary bat dropped from his hands, and landed with a clatter on the gray, rocky ground.

"NO!" Paula wailed as she watched the gruesome act. "NO!" There were tears in her voice. "NO!"

A huge unearthly laughter bellowed forth, and Giygas' evil, yet insane voice poured forth. "I am eternal!" He wailed in triumph. "The world is mine to command, and I will feast on the souls of this realm!"

"N...no..." Ness whispered, his body numb, his left eye twitching. He couldn't move, could barely breath. "No...please, no...I'm...sorry...Paula...I'm...finished..."

"NO!" She wailed into the window, throwing her thoughts out into the endless void of time. "No, Ness...you can't die...Ness...I love you!"

His eyes slowly focused as he heard those three words, those words he had longed to hear for over a year now. He growled, a small amount of energy flowing back into him.

"You won't get Paula," he said quietly. "Or this world...not now...NOT EVER!"

His feet carried him--and Giygas--into the air. Ness stuck his hand directly into the face of his foe.

"You wanted me?" he asked, a ball of energy forming around his hand. "YOU'VE GOT ME! PSI ROCKIN' OMEGA!"

The flare of energy was short, but the power discharged could only be called omnipotent. Giygas flew through the air, his sword sliding out of Ness' chest. The evil being sailed across the landscape, Ness hovering after. The mist man fought to be rid of the power ball that was slowly killing him as he flew across the sky. With an insane roar, he rolled off of the energy wave, facing Ness.

"I don't think so," The young hero raged. "Take this!"

He charged his power, his mind--indeed, his entire soul--into the Legendary Bat that was somehow in his hand. Lifting it above his head, he cast the glowing weapon full at his opponent. The wooden projectile slammed into Giygasvormav's chest, taking him into a cliff face, pinning him there.

With a desperate roar, the form of the Cosmic Destroyer Giygas slowly melted away, sifting into the winds of time, the mist catching on a breeze, and flying away to parts unknown. Ness sank to the ground, his strength leaving him. He fell onto his face, a small pool of blood forming under his chest wound.

"I...did it..." he whispered as he melted away from the past.

Paula rolled the still form of her fallen companion over, cradling his head in her lap. His brown eyes--hazy, and un-focusing--stared up at her with a wan smile. She smiled sadly, wiping blood away from his mouth with the hem of her skirt.

"How..." he began, speaking past the lump in his throat. "How did I do? Did...we...win?"

"No, Ness," Jeff smiled, wiping a tear away. "You won. Giygas is gone, and the world is saved."

Ness grinned as best he could, laughing quietly. "Jeff," he said. "You were always there when I needed you...and...ugh...you were...a great friend...I'm glad we...were able to...travel together..."

He turned his face to that of the concerned Prince Poo. "And Poo..." He started. "You'll...be a great king...and a powerful warrior...and you were always a shoulder for all of us to lean on when we were weak..."

Poo spoke quietly, tears on his cheeks. "Spoken like the hero that you are," He said. "Thank you Ness..."

"And Paula..."

She pulled her hair away from her blue eyes, watching him, wiping away the tears that wouldn't stop. "Yes...?"

"I...I love you."

He breathed out a long, sorrowful breath, sinking into her lap.

Giygas had been defeated, and the world had been restored to peace.

But it was a double-edged sword.

Ness, the Chosen One, savior of the Earth, was dead.


Part 38