“You’re still too slow,” said The Baggins, launching a bolt of dark energy at Cody. The boy barely managed to dodge and fell to the ground, catching himself with the help of his sword. He had never fought seriously in the snow before, and it was hampering his ability to keep up with the rapid and overpowering attacks that The Baggins used.
Before he could get away, another blast came at him. It hit the ground in front of him, spraying snow across his field of vision. A black glove appeared through the flurries and grabbed Cody’s collar, lifting him well off the ground.
“You’re disappointing me, Moon,” The Baggins said. “I expected much more from you.”
“Go to hell!” Cody shouted. He swung his sword at The Baggins’ head, but it was stopped midair by telekinesis. The attack was only a distraction, and while The Baggins was focused on the sword Cody kicked him in his exposed side. A wave of agony flooded over The Baggins, causing him to drop Cody.
The boy landed on his feet and immediately stabbed upwards towards his opponent’s chest. The Baggins knocked the blade away and struck Cody in the face with his bare hand. He threw another blast of energy down, but Cody rolled away and got to his feet. The Baggins clutched at his abdomen and glared at Cody.
While he was distracted, Cody swung his sword forward to send another wave of green energy at The Baggins. Without even lifting his hand up, The Baggins dispersed the blast and sent a pulse out that knocked Cody off of his feet. It was clear that The Baggins was losing his cool and was beginning to take things more seriously.
Cody began thinking of a new strategy. Any physical hits he could land would do significant damage, but he would need to get close enough to do so and find a way to prevent The Baggins from shielding himself. He thought of the snow which had blinded him earlier and created a wall in front of him. If he could use that to conceal himself, he could get close enough to make contact.
“It wouldn’t work,” The Baggins said. “Did you forget that I have the power to read your thoughts? No matter how you try to hide, your thoughts will give you away every time.” Cody stood motionless, trying to think of something to do. All the while, The Baggins stared at him with unwavering focus.
“Can’t think of anything?” The Baggins called. “That’s too bad, because you’re out of time!” He rushed forward and leapt into the air. Cody watched The Baggins fall towards him with churning spheres of energy in both hands. The boy jumped backwards as The Baggins launched his attacks where Cody had been standing. A curtain of snow and dirt erupted around them, and The Baggins lost sight of Cody. He scanned around for signs of thought, and only saw The Creator standing off at the side. His last attack had seemed to have done it.
“It’s over?” he thought. “It couldn’t be that easy.”
Indeed it was not. Behind him, there was a whirl of snow as Cody appeared just feet away. He swung his sword, intent on cutting clean through The Baggins. Had he moved a moment earlier, he likely would have succeeded.
The Baggins caught Cody’s sword in his glove and yanked the boy towards him. Cody’s eyes were clear and focused, and somehow his mind had become blank. Upon being caught, his thoughts flooded back and could be read. Cody thought that his lengthy time spent meditating would allow him to clear his mind with ease, and in doing so would make him invisible to The Baggins. It had almost worked, and The Baggins was well aware.
“Remarkable,” he complimented. “You nearly defied my greatest strength. It’s too bad you failed, because that won’t work again.” With tremendous force, he lifted Cody up and threw him down into the ground, causing the boy to roll several yards back before slowing to a stop. In the background, the Creator called out to him and ran forward. The Baggins stopped him.
“Don’t interfere, Creator,” he warned. “Your time will come shortly.”
The Creator watched Cody as the boy’s body heaved and coughed a splatter of blood on the snow. If this kept up, Cody could be killed in the next attack. The Creator kept up his guard and clenched his fist as he watched the battle continue.
Cody’s body trembled on the ground. His constitution had taken a terrible hit from that last attack. What was worse, he was out of ideas. At best, he could only hold The Baggins off. Without the extra power that the Creator had lent him during the war, there was no way he would be able to win. Cody tried to lift himself up, but his arms gave out and he fell into the red snow.
In front of him, The Baggins waited for Cody to stand. Seconds passed and nothing happened. He narrowed his eyes and cracked his knuckles.
“Is that all your body could muster, Moon? I feel insulted. To think that I was bested by you all those years ago, and Maro as well. For him to have died at the hands of someone as weak as you makes me question my abilities as a guardian.”
Cody’s body shuddered again. The Baggins paused, thinking that his words may have stirred the boy. Both he and the Creator watched Cody’s arm move and push up against the ground. Slowly, Cody lifted his torso up, keeping his eyes down at the ground. With jerky, twisted movements, he got to one knee and then managed to get on his feet. His body hung loose, unnatural. With his head still facing the ground, his body began to shake with laughter. It started out low, but then built up into a crazed cackle. There was something wrong with his voice, and as he threw his head back in mad laughter is was clear something was wrong.
The Baggins scanned the boy’s mind. Indeed, there was something wrong with him. His brainwaves had taken a complete reversal, and his thought pattern was totally different. It was as if he had in that moment ceased to be Cody Moon and become someone else.
With a jerk of his head, Cody was staring at The Baggins. His eyes had become crazed and bloodshot, uncharacteristic of the cool-headed boy who had begun the fight. “Yo, pops,” Cody said. “Long time no see.”
Behind the battleground, the Creator watched in horror as Cody’s transformation unfolded. It was not the first time he had observed something like this happen, but he certainly hadn’t expected it to happen now.
“What’s happened to you, Moon?” The Baggins demanded. The boy swung his body around, taking his sword back in hand as he did.
“What’s the matter, pops? Don’t you recognize me? You ought to, since I’m your little boy after all. Pride and joy, remember?”
“Have you lost your mind?” The Baggins asked.
“No,” Cody answered, gripping both hands on his sword. “I just found control again.”
His eyes flashed and a black aura enveloped Cody’s sword. There was no doubt now: Cody was gone, and there was someone else standing before them now. He swung the blade, sending the black wave burning through the air towards The Baggins. Confronting it head on, The Baggins shot a burst of his own out. This time, Cody’s energy easily cut through his and continued onwards. The Baggins leapt away, only to discover that the false Cody was already behind him.
Another dark slash came out, which The Baggins was forced to block at point blank range. The force was enough to push The Baggins backwards with Cody making his way closer still, a deranged look on his face. The Baggins found his footing and launched a psychic push against Cody, who was helpless against it. He rolled back in the snow as The Baggins rushed forward again. The crazed boy kicked up a cloud of snow and jumped into the air to come at The Baggins from above. As he descended, the force of gravity became accelerated. The Baggins had captured him.
With even greater force than before, The Baggins slammed Cody into the ground at his feet. His sword fell away from him and the dark aura surrounding it faded. As he struggled on the ground, The Baggins approached Cody and pinned him with his boot.
“You must have been left very disturbed by our battle, Moon,” he said. “Otherwise, I can’t imagine how this personality would have developed inside of you. Did you miss your brother so badly that you created a persona of him deep in your mind?”
“You got me, pops,” the false Cody said, seeming to ignore his captor. “Go on then, finish me. Kill me, you
coward! You’ve got a job to do, don’t you! You’re trying to save the world, right? So kill me!”
The Baggins stomped on the boy’s stomach, causing him to cry out and lose consciousness. He loomed over the boy’s body for a few seconds, realizing the repercussions of his actions on Cody. He deemed it to be inhumane, even for him, to allow the boy to continue to live in such a state. The Baggins raised his hand up and generated another sphere of dark energy. The glow shone on both of their faces as The Baggins bid his rival goodbye.
There was a rush of footsteps behind The Baggins. He turned to see the Creator rush forward before Cody, his hand over his heart. The Baggins turned his attack towards the Creator, but it was too late. The Creator’s plan had already been set in motion by Cody’s defeat.
“For this life,” he said. “I release!”
As Adam and Dee ran down the hallway towards the fourth building, they felt a tremendous force pulse over them. For Dee, it was enough to make her stop and drop to her knees.
“Are you alright, Dee?” he asked, helping her up.
“I don’t know, I just felt this overwhelming pressure,” she said, clutching her chest. “It knocked me off my feet and knocked the wind out of me.”
“So you felt it too,” Adam said pensively.
“What was it?” she asked.
“If I’d have to guess, I would say it was a release.”
“What do you mean?”
“When Legends descend from Aeris to come to the mortal world, they have to seal their powers, because otherwise just being around them would have detrimental effects on everyone. The only way that one can break his seal is in order to save a life.”
“So what does that mean?” Dee asked.
Adam looked back down the hallway. “It means that Cody and the Creator are having a more difficult time in their battle than they expected.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Wrath of God
The Baggins stood still as the Creator’s light emanated from all around him. His physical form hadn’t changed much, but his skin had become much paler and his hair faded to a pure white. Even his eyes had shifted from a human green to an opaque gray. His clothing had also changed into a white robe and sandals, and a shimmering staff had appeared in his hands.
Before The Baggins could even make a move, the staff was thrust up into the air. A light shot up, and then the sky above them seemed to change, as if crystallized, taking on a strange, fractured texture. This change spilled out around them, encircling both of the remaining combatants in a half-sphere. As this happened, the crystalline form cracked away, leaving only white emptiness beneath it. By the time the process was completed, The Baggins and the Creator were standing in a vacant white plane with no apparent matter around them. Even the ground, along with Cody’s body, had disappeared.
“What’s the meaning of this, Creator?”
“I am finally regaining control,” the Creator said. His voice echoed now; it was almost monotonous and seemed much more confident than it had been as the battle began.
“Do you mean to say that you’ve been holding your true powers back this whole time?”
“Obviously not,” said the Creator. “I simply did not have the opportunity to use them until now.”
The Baggins thought back to the events that had just played out, and drew the disturbing conclusion for himself. “Do you mean to tell me that you stood by and waited for me to slaughter that boy just so you could use your powers? And you still call yourself a benevolent god? You are a hypocrite without equal!”
“Cody would understand, and no one would fault me,” the Creator said without emotion. “I am merely doing what I have to in order to restore order.”
“And what is this?” The Baggins asked, gesturing to the blank world around them. “A prison?”
“It is a means to contain the violence,” the deity answered. “You and Cody were already drawing enough attention, but now we are in a separate dimension. There is no need for me to hold back here.”
“You can create these spaces at will?”
“It is one of my many talents, the Pocket Dimension. I may create as many as I see fit, and can do whatever I want with them. They may be as small as a single room, or as expansive as a galaxy.”
“Or a universe?” The Baggins suggested. The Creator didn’t answer him. Instead, he gripped his staff again with both hands and prepared to carry out his task of ridding the world of The Baggins.
“I don’t know what it was that prevented me from destroying you 1,200 years ago, but I’ll be sure that I don’t fail this time.”
“Do you consider yourself justified?” The Baggins asked. “From the beginning, I have wanted nothing but the truth for the people of the Other Universe.”
“What truth would that be?” the Creator asked.
“That you are a deceiver, a false god. No true god would ever allow the suffering you have, nor send a boy to die just so that he might become a sacrifice for you to unlock your powers.” Deep purple clouds of energy formed around his hands, and The Baggins prepared to fight his oldest rival to the death. “No true god would ever allow someone like me to have ever been born in the first place!”
The Baggins propelled himself forward through the empty space towards the Creator. The deity scoffed at his challenger and reappeared directly in front of him, blocking his path with his staff and forcing The Baggins downwards into space. The tip of the staff glowed with divine power and the Creator pointed it downward. A tremendous blast shot out of the staff towards The Baggins, seeming to burn through the space that they floated in. Correcting himself, The Baggins launched a psychic attack of his own at the divine blast and held it off. It continued to churn downwards onto him, but The Baggins held on until it had dissipated.
Above, the Creator glowered at The Baggins. It must have been dumb luck that allowed him to survive, and he would not fail the next time. The Baggins flew upwards so that he was level with the Creator again. “You’re going to need to do a lot more than that if you expect to put me down for good.”
“I’m more than capable,” the Creator said.
“I’m not sure I believe that,” said The Baggins. “If you’re so keen on keeping order, you would have wanted me gone a long time ago. Instead, you knowingly kept me alive and in exile. There had to be a reason, and I can’t think of a reason you would need me to stay alive. The only logical answer is that you had simply been unable to kill me 1,200 years ago.” The Creator narrowed his eyes further. “But that doesn’t make sense, after all. How could the true master of the Other Universe be unable to control something as simple as killing someone like me?”
“That’s enough.”
“Why, am I questioning your faith in yourself? Could I be making you angry, Creator? That shouldn’t be possible either. You should be free of those emotions, since you put the burden of those onto someone else as well. Are you just full of contradictions or am I merely seeing things.”
The Creator slammed the bottom on his staff onto the incorporeal ground that he stood on. Clearly The Baggins had made his point.
“There’s no point in dragging this out then,” said The Baggins. “I’ve been waiting for 1,200 years. I want to know once and for all: can you kill me?” He surrounded his right hand with dark energy, and prepared to make another charge at the Creator. The Creator accepted his challenge and held his divine staff out in front of him. This time, he didn’t hold back any of his powers. The Baggins flew forward, intent on making his blow connect with the Creator. He came within feet of the deity when the blast of light was unleashed.
“Lux Ultima,” the Creator called. The light erupted from the Creator’s staff with such deafening force that it encompassed both of them.
The exterior of Nijo Castle was still as the snow continued to fall heavily over the city. Above the Ninomaru complex, there was a crack in space. Light poured out of this anomaly as the sky continued to fracture in a spherical shape around the castle.
Then in a sudden motion the entire sphere cracked and shattered. The flash of light that followed was only visible for an instant, too quick for anyone not paying attention to even notice. It was Christmas Eve, after all, and people’s attentions were elsewhere.
In the courtyard, the shattered pieces of the pocket dimension gradually descended to the ground and broke apart into endless particles. The Creator supported himself with his staff, regaining his strength from the tremendous expenditure of power. If front of him, The Baggins’ body had reappeared in front of Cody’s. He was on his knees, his head slumped forward and still. The left half of his mask had been shattered, and his pale, sun-starved face lay exposed to the winter cold. There was no will left in him to keep going.
“Are you content, monster?” the Creator whispered. He exhaled and stood upright again to look over the scene. There was noticeable damage to the courtyard, but it was nothing that he couldn’t fix while his powers were still active. Cody too looked like he was stabilizing, and the strange activity that he had exhibited earlier seemed unlikely to resurface in the immediate future. The Creator stepped closer to Cody to ensure that his wounds were not severe but after a few steps he froze in place. The Baggins’ head moved.
“Impossible,” the Creator whispered. Defying all logic, The Baggins lifted his head up and glared at the Creator. His true left eye was visible now, a white pupil with black sclera staring boastfully back at him.
“I’ve won,” he said with a laugh.
“Have you? You can’t move, I imagine. You’ve expended so much energy fighting with Cody and I that you’ve exhausted your mental capabilities. Whatever focus you have will have to be conserved for just keeping your body alive. You can’t continue to fight, and you haven’t killed me.”
The Kyoto Ordeal (Tales of the Other Universe Book 1) Page 30
