You Are Nothing

I appeared quickly into the real world again, standing in front of Cole from about fifteen feet away. The Retriever was primed, ready to attack me at any given moment.

"You didn't even hear what I just said? About you being such a failure that it's probably better for me to kill you here and now, so nobody else can suffer what you put them through. I see it all, Sky Asterio, I see your suffering... hell, you were a part of me for a very, very long time," Cole told me.

Yet, it wasn't Cole talking... it was me, from four hundred years ago. Somewhere along the way, he corrupted into the person he was today... I guess four hundred years can do that to somebody, but when he spoke to me, it felt like his words deflected off of me, and I didn't take them personally anymore. He knew everything about me, sure, but he couldn't remember what he just told me.

Maybe his System had Corrupted... maybe, all along, the person Zeal feared awakening wasn't me, but was this person.

I stood tall and proud, with wide shoulders, and a new motivation to continue the fight, no matter what was said to me.

"I won't sit here and give you the rundown about how wrong you are, Cole, I'd rather just kill you," I told him. A black saber appeared out of my right hand, and as soon as it came up, The Retriever launched itself at Faith, who was still behind me.

I couldn't grab on in time, but before it punctured her body, a beam of blue strands blocked the weapon and disintegrated it before it could do anything.

Both Cole and I were staring in awe, and broke our distraction at the same time, running toward each other.

Cole summoned The Mahina Blade to my surprise and ran at me with the intention of cutting straight down.

I dodged the hit as he swung down to the ground, rose my blades to my shoulder, and slashed his left arm off with ease. While it was flying in the wind, another blue stream of strands impacted his stomach with a force so diabolically strong that his teeth flew out of his mouth, his ribs popped out of his back, and his eyes turned white in shock.

I continued the onslaught, summoning Alexia's ability to shrink his right arm out of existence. The powered-up form of this ability from Alexia, which used to be called Strand Incarnation Mode, was now in the palm of my hands.

[Lifespan Reduction: 15 Years]

When Cole's right arm shrunk, my black saber slashed straight into his stomach but didn't go anywhere past the center of his chest. I turned the saber, exploded all strands near his body, and pushed inward while letting the black strands corrode his body.

They appeared like tattoos, just like the ones all over my left arm, and they seared his skin. It only took a moment of time, but Cole regenerated all of his wounds and sent the mace head over to Faith.

I turned my back, using Alexia's ability to shrink the weapon before suffering a hit to the back of my head. I couldn't have something to protect now... but I couldn't help it!

I lifted my head to check on Faith's status... but she wasn't there...?

The only thing that remained of her body was a beam of blue strands fading away into the smoke.

I pushed ice underneath my body, backflipping over a strike to my head with Cole's mace head. As I was in the air, I summoned Providence's Spikes and sent them straight down to Cole.

He ran in conjunction with the spikes and their speed, letting them hit the ground with a force strong enough to push dirt everywhere.

Once one hit him in the face, he staggered for a second, which meant he was open for an attack.

I appeared underneath him with Boo's ability and punched the bottom of his jaw. It went through his entire jaw and shook the dome violently as the shockwave emitted.

Cole flew into the air again, and I followed the pattern, using Carl's gun to give myself height, Dani's Rapier to throw into his body, and Amera's chakrams to pull myself into his position.

I kicked his chest as I closed the distance, watched him crash into the ground, and cocked my fist back again.

Mom's ability to hold people down with the strong force of gravity kept him in place, and sped up my punch, increasing its power, and letting me land a solid hit on Cole.

When I punched him in the face, his jaw shot to the side, the ground was punctured thoroughly, further than my eye could see from the darkness, and magma spurted from the hole I put into the ground.

It violently rose up, blocking Cole and me while we both stood on opposite sides.

The small flares of his blue eyes appeared through the magma while it spit up onto the surface.

"Sky Asterio... the only man on Earth strong enough to punch a hole so deep into the Earth's crust that he reaches the core... with that destructive power... you might finally match mine," Cole said.

He punched the ground, and a hole six times bigger than mine appeared, and more magma came up in holes all around the field.

"You do not try to scare the most powerful man left on this planet with strength when he is more powerful than you could ever imagine. You are nothing but a weak child, Sky Asterio, and you do not have the strength to beat me.

"Strength... that's all you talk about... it's like the only thing with merit to you, Asterio. I have to ask you one last question before I... no... we kill you..." I told him.

A beam of blue shot out from the sky above him, and it was traveling all across the dome, circling the position behind him.

"Is strength what matters in a battle... or can it be other things? Like intelligence...? Strategy...?" I asked him again.