By: M Monroe Casey
Part One
Continuing through towards another specifically chosen moment in his lifetime, Marche Tadala swiftly brought another black metal booted kick to another undeserving dark silver metal warehouse door. Crushing it upon instant impact and ripping it off its hinges without much effort.
An action of his that was replicated across many different timelines that he existed in, thanks to one Dr. Chuck Smith and himself, he walked into the Renucchi Family’s warehouse in the southern edge of the southern quadrant of 1982’s Pyroclastia City.
It was only seven months to the ones who existed here normally since he left the armor broken behind but it was all perfectly perfect for him to skip ahead like he did. Repeatedly choosing these frozen moments in time for a very specific purpose and reason. He had to leave from Old Pyroclastia to come here. Right to the doors that he just kicked down.
Knowing he had to spend his second jump like that too, it was all because he couldn’t change more than he needed. A point that CJ just hypothesized as the two of them commented from behind the Windowsill’s rerecording gaze.
“That’s a good point, C. So far, he’s grabbed that super sword of his own, beat up Shata and the armor. I feel like he does keep on mentioning wanting to shatter the Lord Jadix persona, yeah?”
“Yeah… he’s like thought about it the most. That definitely seems to be the biggest goal.”
“Defintely babe. So, I guess what’s next?” Asked Monica.
“Well… as Hagro was saying before… he had the armor, the brukev, the sword and the beasts… well… the armor has been dealt with. The beasts came from the armor and a connection it had with them but now, that won’t be happening…”
“So… that leaves the sword and the brukev… Wait… wasn’t Hagro a demi-god too?”
“Yeah… so, I think that’s the next move. The brukev and sword must come last. Given the original timeline, it only makes sense… so… woah.” responded CJ.
“Okay. Well, I guess we get to see him try to stop a Spectrum fight now…”
“Yeah… this should be epic.”
Walking into the metallic silver “empty” structure, Marche halted as he looked across the room. Eyes staring down his newest targets. Two beings described in the “golden vision of Chuck’s glasses,” Alto Renucchi and Crusher were the other two living and breathing lifeforms in there with him.
Members of the revolution and teammates of his in the Old Past, Marche smirked at what was coming next. Signing back the deal and their partnership was over, he still kept the smirk on full display under the mask of his helmet. A helmet which held all his facial secrets besides those unsettling and powerful eyes that his enemies have come to fear. So, as they read his signing, they had no idea just what lay in store for them today.
Because truth be told, he never really liked the “elemental crime lord” and the “crushing monster of great power,” and now, he could finally do something about it.
Now, he could show them just how big the power gap was on their “team” and just what they meant to him. How, for many years, we wished to do exactly what he was about to do.
The black and white three piece suited one with dark hair and dark eyes then snapped his dainty and thin fingers as the muscle ridden four-legged and four-armed red horned monster then charged at him with a deafening roar and strength that has leveled nearly countless other monsters and caves of theirs alike.
Without a drop of intimidation in his body, Marche cracked his metallic gloved knuckles, chuckled and charged at him back.
Part Two
With four legs carrying it across the city block wide structure with ease, Marche prepped a left handed hook that he swiftly brought to the gut of the nearly brainless monster. A mutant species of a minotaur bull from Scania, Crusher got its name from literally crushing everything in its way. Including its own family, friends, lover and everything it once knew. All for the promise of power.
Basically willingly and happily selling out its own soul for a chance to let loose a little anger.
With this in my mind, Marche didn’t feel too bad for what came next.
Sourcing the strength in his legs into his full form, he followed through on the punch that was currently delivering itself to its gut. With a muffled grunt, he proceeded to launch his opponent across the concrete floored building. Straight through the wall disguising the real reason he came here. The Vat. Sitting on its platform in the far left corner, the ten meter glass ball was waiting to unleash its deadly airborne toxin when the moment proved itself right in a few years from now. Shattering the wall hiding all of that, his opponent didn’t just stop there.
This was Alto and Crusher.
They had this coming.
They deserved his full power.
Successfully launching “The Nearly Unstoppable Crusher” outside into the rain and into the nearby lake’s dark waters with only a single hit. Causing a tidal wave in the opposite direction as Crusher was still flying further off and away, his scream continued to carry him off into the distance.
All from just one punch.
Then as Monica and CJ sat with mouths literally agape, he slowly and menacingly walked closer to Alto as the scared and frail man began to slowly and anxiously attempt to put on his Elemental Gloves. Red gloves made from a special kind of magical metal, he could let loose any of the four elements like they were just as simple minded as his own underlings.
With the power of fire, water, earth and wind at his disposal, he conquered the crime scene of Pyroclastia City in the 1980’s while developing a nickname as “The Elemental Knight.”
Building him a reputation that somehow topped him burning down countless populated warehouses, apartments and houses alike.
Because he was also the one who had access to “The Vat.”
Designing the toxin himself, it was designed to break down the bone structure and marrow of any living being, deaging them by twenty years. A tactic which was originally designed to weaken just about any opponent, it could be used to commit horrible acts if used against the wrong targets.
For example, a target under the age of twenty.
Something that Alto even almost happily bragged about being able to do.
Knowing that he had all of this and how he didn’t care about the morality of it all, Marche tried to reason with Hagro the first time that they shouldn’t ally with these two mercenaries. But the “Pompous Tadala” never would listen to the Silent one.
(Let’s see you join the little team now…)
Finishing equipping his equipment, Alto let loose a massive burst of sharp wind laced with some small sparks of fire but as Marche just proved, he was leaps and bounds above whatever they could throw his way.
Unphased, he got closer and closer to his opponent.
Relentless brown eyes seen through the helmet’s eye slits that were rocking Alto’s terrified core.
Eyes that house a deep and terrifying power and one that just kept on getting closer and closer, despite each wave of wind gust he threw.
Gripping onto his opponent’s gloved knuckles, he then squeezed down, crushing them in his grip. Showcasing the type of strength that transformed this “man turned monster” into this now terrified weakling, on the verge of tears.
With a yell of pain, Alto then dropped the broken pieces of technology to the ground as he muttered to himself in his shrill and terrified voice before he passed out in sheer panic, “… you are not… the Marche… I know… who… are… you…?”
While Crusher finally finished crash landing in the rolling plains of the Southern Hills in a churned chute of soot and pain, Marche replied.
(I am who I want to be).
Scooping up the broken gloves and tossed them into the vat, he then closed the top and turned it on through the stereotypical red button. Not opening up the vents to release it to the world, he merely walked to the back door entrance and entered inside the ball of death. With the gloves incinerating in his vision, he could then feel the deaging effects begin.
Purposely weakening his own bones by five years, Marche stepped out of the device as he turned it back off. Then before he walked out, he stopped for the one last check to be made in this stop. Turning around and slamming his right fist into the vat, he broke it too as nothing was left standing in his path here.
One displaced and terrified opponent, one horrified and fainted one, one warehouse with a giant hole in it, one pair of what used to murder gloves and one broken vat of what used to murder gas too. All of it was now broken at his hands.
Feeling a little weaker now, it was time to act before his strength possibly began to come back.
Maybe it wouldn’t come back at all but that didn’t matter.
He didn’t need it all and he couldn’t wait any longer.
Walking out of the warehouse and into the streets to the north, he began to run at eighty percent speed towards the Royal Palace in the foggy distance.
Part Three
Hagro Tadala once again found himself alone in the halls, this time wandering to a very important meeting of the Pyroclastian Executive Council.
The small group had to discuss the upcoming plans for the rapid expansion of the empire while their own family “finished” debating it all. Being the ultimate deciding vote, their consensus mattered more than the rest. It was currently two versus two though with it being Udo and Bnonoa against Marche and Hagro. Unsurprisingly, Hagro was on the side of aggressive expansion.
The other three and the small council were already there but none of them knew of his secret plans.
Yes, the arrival of a Future Marche thwarted his armor ideals but it was not all over yet. He simply could not give up when he came this far.
Those feelings of guilt that he felt from seeing him like that was so foolish.
It was not only his fault that Marche turned out like that.
Sure, he was a member of that transformation and he did not try to stop him.
Sure, he fueled the fires of rage in these last few months and trained him how to destroy without mercy and use pure efficiency while doing so.
Sure, he convinced Marche that it was Udo’s fault that the human girl, Veronica, did not love him anymore.
All of that was true but he could not be solely to blame. Marche was an adult and he made his choice… right?
Muttering to himself, he stopped abruptly as he wrapped up the internal monologue outloud, “Then, why can I not let the guilt go?”
Before he could answer his own question, a metallic black gloved hand from behind planted itself on his left shoulder. Finding himself not alone in the hallway now, he froze in place. His long back robes weren’t ready for what came next as he knew it instantly. Recognizing the same armor from not too long ago, he groaned before his consciousness was immediately torn away from their former one plane of mental existence.
“Oh no, not again…”
Transporting them both to another off-world battlefield through a muttering of the famous and necessary magical phrase uttered by hundreds of demi-god hopefuls before, Marche Tadala forced his brother to fight his inner demons.
All of them.
At once.
When one being wants to be bestowed the physical powers of a Pyroclastian Collossi god, Dark or Light, they must go through a trial of sorts. That is the process for one to gain the powers to run as fast an earthly car or lift up a building. They first must prove themselves worthy to be able to do things like that by competing in a “Spectrum Fight.” Pitting every part of their personality in a war against each other.
Something that the original Hagro did in the Old Past.
One of the parts of the whole process that changed him the most.
With Conqueror Hagro winning it all to become his darker alter-ego, Lord Jadix.
This trial started off in a way that Marche read all about. Knowing exactly what to expect. Then, much like the rest of the jumps, he then began to enact his master plan.
With the start of it placing their original consciousness in a frozen state in the center of the shadowy and dark rocked battleground, it would then begin. The more power they possessed, the more potential options and fragments of their soul to be involved in the conflict.
With Hagro’s Spectrum Fight including exactly nineteen different split versions of himself, they were scattered across the desolate and creepy landscape. A singular spotlight shone on the frozen statue in the center. The greatest target for them all. The first one there to dethrone the original brain was the replacement. Or the “new real Hagro.”
Without a second to spare, they began to stare around at each other before the complete and utter mad dash at the frozen one began. With Quick-Striking Hagro leading the charge, a clamp then abruptly came from the rightside shadows behind them all. Dragging him into the darkness as desperate nails scraped into the thick and hard rockbed. Trying to hold on for dear life.
With a thud and a yell heard from beyond where any of them could see, Bold Hagro then charged next, only desperation fueling him now, overpowering the confusion and fear.
The same two meter clamp rocketed out from the darkness and dragged him back next. With a scream as well and the same thud sound, the other seventeen looked around in fear. The sound of more thuds could be heard from where their eyes couldn’t reach.
Thud.
For there was somehow another soul in there with them. Something that seemed truly impossible before this moment. He was somehow “crashing a Spectrum Fight.”
Thud.
One soul crazy enough to weaken itself just for a chance to win this incredibly difficult fight.
Thud.
With a chuckle, Marche stepped out and into the light as he cracked his metallic knuckles. .
Without hesitation, he clamped onto Angry Hagro’s left leg and reeled him too. With a punch to the face of the caught fish in his hook, Angry Hagro quickly met the same fate as the first two. Launching off into the seemingly endless chasm on either side, complete with a frustrated scream fueled by sheer and utter panic.
Part Four
One by one, each of the Hagro’s began to charge at the original in the center of the room while his clamp pulled them back away from their goal. Each one in their simple black shirt and white pants, was ripped away from there and the platform as a whole, down into the darkness below. Each complimented with a scream of terror as it happened.
In a world off the Windowsill’s gaze, Monica and CJ switched the view of theirs back to the modern moments of the Old Past. Moments still unaffected by Marche’s revenge quest but little did most of life know, these would be events that would remain unaffected by that same quest.
For the tree was still falling.
In fact, “Crowopolis Falling” was an inevitable piece of the Cosmos’ legacy.
Maybe in other timelines, the tree wasn’t there. Maybe it was replaced with something else but the results were always the same. It was falling and it was going to take its rightful place in the center of the Main Ring. What it contained or what happened when it arrived changed through each iteration but its landing never changed.
Watching the trajectory on their live updated Cosmos map, they saw it aiming for the center of everything as Monica commented first, sipping on her fresh and hot mocha.
“So, it looks like Crowopolis was once a part of a different planet but it purposely broke off to contain the Doom Tree or its rightful name Brinay. At least, that’s our last two timelines. I wonder if it will change with Marche’s actions too.”
“It doesn’t look like it. That part has no pending notes. It is purely unaffected. Mon, what notes do you have for Brinay?”
“It just shows it was once a tree planted in the Castle Johnson lawn. But it was there that it learned how to not live by the rules of others. Then it was transplanted to Tirado, specifically the city of Crowopolis, but they broke off and took to the skies to contain the threat as we talked about. You know, the whole ‘murder tree’ thing.”
“Wait… what? A tree learned?”
“Yeah, C. When I was there the Count wanted us to teach and help the trees grow in both body and spirit. Don’t ask.”
“Okay… Honestly, that just makes sense knowing the Castle.”
“Yeah… I feel like it must have been from that same group. From when I was there in 1982…”
“Everything is coming down to that year, Mon. The revolution, the tree, everything…”
“Yeah, weird.”
“Definitely. So, it was planted and given an ideal to destroy, absorb life and conquer all hope. But who could have taught it that?”
“I don’t know C. We never did figure out who the First Roommate was. It had to be them…”
“Hmmm…” Pondering through the list of Monica’s castle roommates, the Windowsill’s gaze switched over to Jealous Doenca in the “1666’s 1981,” as his name popped up in an update.
With Hagro’s newest distraction, he wasn’t able to make it to the meeting tonight with the others. A meeting where he learned of the location of one of the remaining two super swords, the sword of rebirth, LightBlaze. A meeting that helped him keep it under wraps and hidden from those who wished great harm upon all. Using the last shred of his old self to do it.
But without that preventive measure now, a different attentee of that meeting was later jumped and attacked on the way home from that meeting, after being tasked with keeping it a secret. All for that piece of vital information. To gain the life bringing and changing weapon. One year before his fateful activation of the machine in the presence of Runner Doenca, a.k.a. Santiago the II or Santi.
With a devious smirk from the blonde haired, blue-eyed menace, Jealous Doenca or Doenca the God-Like then in real time began walking towards his northern cave lair once more. The severely bludgeoned man left on the street behind him. No remorse given for those weaker than him. The plans for his star-destroying machine in one pocket and coordinates to his very own mountain-chopping super weapon in the other. Stopping to write their notes, the two of them then compared what they had written so far.
“Okay Mon… so, it’s in the 1666’s 1981 that Jealous Doenca is now after LightBlaze with his machine. We heard it in the ‘Second Sight’ though, the others wanted to do stuff too.”
“Yeah babe. Jealous was going to burn all the stars which shined brighter than him but not sure why he still wants the rebirthing sword then. It’s weird…”
“Yeah then the other three… Eternal or Smart was building that crown but we saw later how he was taken out and assimilated by Peaceful or Sixth. Who was defeated and assimilated by Santi. Who was defeated and assimilated by… ?”
“I can only guess Marche by that black armor…” Muttered back Monica Dancer.
“And the snow white sword… that was Freezecry… so it would make sense there….”
“But Marche isn’t a Doenca… how could he assimilate one of them?”
“He has to be connected somehow… okay… the other one then… who wants eternal life.”
“God-King Doenca or Hopeful Doenca.”
“Do you think, Mon?”
“Yep. He was the one who froze that planet you found before. Remember what he wrote, ‘why cure weakness when I can cure death itself…’ He has been waiting for this for years…”
“Even before the rewrites, this was always his plan. So, we literally have multiple inevitable forces colliding at once.”
“Woah… babe… hold me, my head hurts…”
“Always, my love.”
Kissing the top of Monica’s tree-bark brown hair, CJ then resumed the image on the screen to find it back at full velocity. Then, as the Windowsill’s gaze returned to the stunned and frozen Hagro, the conflict inside of his own mind raged on.
Hagro after Hagro fell off the platform’s edges as Marche was taking no prisoners in this fight. None but the original could be left standing. Then, as he continued his work, the next update came up like a combination of clockwork and magic.
Reading the name on the screen, they hit the remote button without a “second” to waste. Bringing the crystal clear image to a one Hopeful Doenca as he was pondering his own existence and planning his next steps. Pacing back and forth in his own frozen cave in the north.
“None of them know but I do. I know who the original is. I was there. Jealous too. We were the first two. Born from his grief and his hatred. Given a second chance because of him and now, with his memories and the sight I had before, I can do whatever I choose. I know the others move against me but that does not matter. They can move against whatever but it will not stop what is coming next… their destiny. The way they hurt each other. They way they hunt each other. They want it. They need it. They crave it… they need immortality. The truest hope there is… It is from me. It is me. For I am hope. For I am the only hope.”
Looking at each other knowing that he was about to solve a question of theirs from only a few “moments” ago, they hushed down to hear him mutter the name that they already hypothesized and completely forgot from the previous recordings.
“Marche Tadala, our creator, gave us this second chance and I can not give it up. Not now… not ever… they must know and when they are given that greatest gift they can only thank one name above them all. The one who eclipsed his creator. The diseased clone who outshined the original. Me. God-King Doenca… For I am the Ultimate Doenca.”
With a shutter at every time his sheer intensity said his own title, Monica stopped it there as they wrote it down. Reconfirming their theory that is what happened to Santi. Leaving only Doenca the God-Like, God-King Doenca and Marche still standing as the heads of the Dissemination Trees. With the biggest conflict still to come. For as Monica pointed out as they brought the Windowsill finally back to the still-frozen Hagro, there were three forces in a developing headstrong war and two world-shaping super swords to still possibly go around amongst them.
Part Five
Unable to know the consequences of his chain-and-clamp based history breaking journey, Marche Tadala kept on wailing on the Hagro’s with only two left now in the Spectrum fight.
Stuck with what he could control and not thinking what he couldn’t, he was unaware that somewhere else in this same timeline, two clones of his own accidental creation moved to destroy or sully all of life.
Without a knowledge of that day though, he couldn’t rewrite it. His master plan was already underway as well. This was exactly all he could do, let the rest come as it may.
Born from a power sourced in the greatest grief one could have, the Doencas were here now to wreak havoc upon all. It was that kind of grief where you betray everything and everyone who ever loved or cared about you, the worst of the worst. Living with this grief for a little while, he was unable to control it one night as he decided to try his hand with a magical spell to remove it from him. To forget it all and everything he did in the revolution. Like how he drove a sword literally through his own brother. Over something as dumb as pride.
Hooking onto Wrathful Hagro’s left shoulder, he heaved him back towards himself and brought a powerful right fist into the left shoulderblade of his opponent. Hearing a cracking snap, the phantasm of the brain unable to feel pain, then disappeared in front of his brown eyes as only Conqueror Hagro remained now. Eyeing him up from across the battlefield. The original in the middle separating them.
As he charged him too, he wrapped up the idea in his brain.
Remembering almost everything from the night he became the man who learned to hate.
Alone in his sleeping chambers one late autumn night, he tried the spell but instead of working how he intended, it merely disseminated those feelings from his body as he became more numb then. Literally shedding them into their own bodies while he lay unconscious from the exerted effort. Two new beings different from his own in body, mind, personality and spirit.
But little did he know, those two feelings that he lost would form a whole new unknown problem that he could never outrun.
The first two created were Hopeful and Jealous. Two of the feelings that shined the hardest amongst it all. His jealousy of Udo and his hopefulness for being reunited with Veronica Dancer. The human woman from Earth who stole his heart.
All of those fateful years ago.
Meeting her on a mission to Earth in the year 1979, they bonded and fell in love but it was when he told Udo of his love with this twin of Monica, he was then forced to make a decision. For she wasn’t Pyroclastian and she wasn’t of royal blood either.
All she was was a university student from Arizona. There was nothing special about her, she wasn’t even magical or anything. A point that Udo made many times as he scolded and scorned his brother. Knowing he couldn’t choose for him though, the guilt and mind games were on full display as the oldest sibling of the Tadala family forced him to pick where his loyalties lie.
He had to choose between his love from a different planet or his own legacy.
Unable to commit to his heart out of a complete and utter fear of the unknown, he had to leave her behind and try to move on.
That’s when he met Hia.
Falling for her too, quickly and strongly, she left him too, after giving birth to their son Augustin. Taking him with her and away from him too. But this wasn’t for something like what he did to Veronica. This was merely that she wanted the throne and Marche knew Udo. He was her stepping stone to his brother. Leaving behind his real and legitimate love based upon the advice from the same source as his newest pain too, Udo.
But just like this whole rewrite wasn’t too late to solve those wrongs in the revolution, it wasn’t too late to solve that wrong too. To show Veronica just how mistaken, cowardly and confused he really was before. That nothing on any planet or any timeline can truly separate two “stars that were meant to fall in love.”
Part Six
Reconfirming his motives once more, Marche looked to end this fight now.
Bringing a fist to the back of Conqueror Hagro, he then proceeded to do just that.
Dropping him to the ground with a thud in the now quiet arena, those two were the only ones standing and the only ones who could lay witness to what came next.
For it wasn’t enough that Marche just bested nineteen almost demi-gods.
He had to destroy their whole arena too.
Because in his own words… (it was the only path).
Sourcing all of his current strength once more into his left handed punch, Marche used his opponent like a drillbit to split the entire rock in half. Shattering the existential fragment of existence upon impact while it too shattered the very rock they stood on.
Obliterating it all like an imploding dying star, Hagro was then woken up and freed from his trance in a split second. Without a change in personality, his Spectrum fight had come and gone now. He wasn’t changed or enhanced at all.
He was just his normal and unchanged self.
Waking up in the hallway, Hagro turned around to look back at and across to Marche as he walked away. Another piece of the “Lord Jadix persona” completely ruined.
Calling out to his brother as he walked away, the two of them began to briefly reconnect in the most normal way that they had in years.
“Marche… I am sorry for everything, okay… but why are you doing this?”
(Thanks and you’ll see).
“What do you mean? What is next?”
Sourcing Freezecry for the third jump, he walked up to the edge of the portal before he replied.
(We live in a world we design).
Then, swallowing him up, the portal closed as rapidly as it opened with a hushed and confused Hagro left standing in the wake of everything that just happened.
The End
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