The 400 Year Eclipse

"Thoroughly. All of my good has been overshadowed by history's tendency to account for the bad. You may never know what I've done that is good, and I don't think that is for you to know. What matters now, is that your accomplishments, your journey to me, it all depends on your affinity for this Wrath. How far will you let it take you? Perhaps... too far? Not far enough?" He asked.

The ground sunk underneath the both of us, creating a waterfall that surrounded us in a circular shape. It all came pouring down, slowly filling up the ground underneath us. I reminisced about falling into the Wrath, about how the further I went downward, the closer I went to losing my mind.

"How important is this fight to you, Sky?" He asked me.

I narrowed my resolve, focusing my eyes on my older body, and summoning a golden saber in my hands.

"This is the most important battle I've ever had. I will not depend on anybody else's power here. I will defeat Quake," I told him. The older version of me nodded, and the water simultaneously stopped flowing. The waterfall paused, the ripples paused, and the world seemed to pause.

"You will find unique power locked within your mind. It is time you wake up, and remember who you are. You are not the victim of this world, this world is the victim of you- of us. Do not let anybody trap you in a corner. You are the savior of this world, no matter if others want to accept it or not. Your Wrath is the key to their happiness. It's time you learned what it means to be a true leader, Sky Asterio," The older version told me.

He flipped a coin, some sort of weird shape was on the front, and he caught it, flipped it over to the back of his hand, and showed me.

"As with all things, there are always two sides to every coin. On one end... you have the bottomless pit of Wrath we both possess. And, on the opposite end... is the capability to love, and show it. The Incarnation of Wrath is an ability, unique to all Pure Asterios, that allows for complete and utter control of the strands that inhabit our body. You've noticed it by now, the variation in strand colors. White, Red, Purple, Gold, and Black. Wielding the Incarnation of Wrath, you will be able to distinguish between what each of these colors is good at," He told me.

"Huh? They're good at their own thing?" I asked him again, and he nodded, summoning one of each color that danced around him.

"Red, the strand color that carries your body's will to others. This strand color was first present flowing in your body when you fought those White Stones. Purple is the best for enhancing your body's physical prowess. Gold is the best for using the Strands as your own personal tool... you must exercise the strands as their own beings... and when you do that..." The older version of me snapped his fingers, and black strands exploded from his body, forming a saber that violently flew against the stopped world around us, and in a messy variation of the cylindrical appearance I was used to.

"Once you acknowledge the black strands, they join you, they work with you... and sometimes, they beat you. The Incarnation of Wrath prevents this, which is why Pure Asterios are so good with them and have the upper hand in so many scenarios," He explained.

"Black Strands... what about that rainbow color? Eirikr had it the first time I saw him," I told him, and he smiled with his arms crossed.

"I'm afraid that one is something I can't explain yet. You do not have enough hatred in your body to summon that. But, you will get there in due time... and you will know what it is for," He told me. It was sort of ominous... but I just silently nodded my head and looked toward the waterfalls.

They began to flow again, and the black coloring in them started to flow all around the older version of me. It seemed symbolic, that all of the clarity I could ever need just arrived in the best form possible.

"You said that the Black Strands can beat a person... how? How can I see that happening? What does it look like?" I asked myself again.

He summoned a whole scene with black strands, one with his body from all that time ago, when he was holding Cole down with Black Strands, and walking over to a girl who closely resembled Providence.

"Sometimes, Black Strands feel the need to make themselves into a being as sentient as the owner. Sometimes, those Black Strands can turn a person who is good into a person gone bad. Sometimes, those Black Strands can revive entities from the Old Game. And other times, the Black Strands can corrupt a person so far that they don't even resemble who you've grown to love anymore," He told me. Chills shot up my spine as I thought about what took over Dani.

"Let the Black Strands take you over. Dabble into the infinite darkness that is our Wrath. Maybe then, you will be able to understand what it was like to be hated for all that time. Hate is one big Circle, Sky. And... if I had to tell you one thing, is that the circle ends. It will not end with you, and your life is necessary to the next generations. They will end the circle, and you will be at peace," He told me.

The ground started to raise up again, the waterfalls flowing even faster, and the water growing higher than the floor could rise. It was up to my knees, and as I stared at my older self, he smiled back at me, holding his fist up.

"To you, four hundred years in the future, I grant you the one power that put me ahead of the competition... a power that allows you to access this world at will, and summon the abilities from it. The Incarnation of Wrath, and the ability to become the Apex Predator of Earth," He told me.

A golden light illuminated the Black Strands flowing into my left arm, and once it touched me, I found myself waking up.