"Ms. Paragon, are you sure you can keep going?" A doctor asked, worry clear in her voice. "You've been up for over sixty hours so far; you should take a break."
"Not yet." Paragon wobbled slightly and attempted to stand. The hospital blurred around her, Destiny's eyes making everything zoom in and out at awkward angles. Her bird let out a squeak, and his claws dug deeper into her shoulder, but the pain was nothing compared to the splitting headache she had. "I'm not done fixing everyone yet."
She had been a hero for less than a month and was already on one of the most important missions of her life. Oleander City had several hospitals that were flooded with the injured. The villain known as Intake had gone on a rampage, attacking everyone in sight and even causing several gas lines to explode. Many people would have died, but she managed to save them by using her powers to regrow damaged cells and limbs.
It was starting to take its toll on her, though.
"Just a few more." Paragon gritted her teeth when she was forced to lean on the doctor to stay standing. "I just want to heal a few more people."
The doctor sighed but didn't argue with the younger girl. Instead, the woman placed a hand on Paragon's back and helped guide her through the hallway. The hospital was a mess with hundreds of doctors and nurses running around in a panic. It was so bad, in fact, the hero Ocean Empress was forced to interfere a few times and calm people down.
The doctor guided Paragon past all the chaos and to a rather quiet part of the hospital. "This next one should be easy for you. She has some bruised bones and cuts on her flesh, but no burns. Her nerves are a mess, though. We think she got hit by a power that mimics lightning or something."
"Wouldn't lightning leave her with a burn mark?" Paragon questioned.
"I also believe she's a Super." The doctor explained.
"How come?"
"When I tried to get an IV into her arm, the needle snapped."
Paragon nodded. "Yep. Looks like we got an unconscious Super." The doctor opened the door and helped the hero inside. Destiny looked around, craning his neck from side to side, allowing Paragon to see the room. It was a typical hospital room, and inside, lying unconscious, was a young girl around her age who had raven black hair and pale skin. Even through Destiny's eyes, she could see that the girl wasn't in too bad of condition. "It'll just take me a few moments to fix her up."
The doctor nodded and let go of Paragon, allowing the hero to get to work. "Her name is Hope Lauren. I've contacted her mother, who is on her way. We don't know how she ended up here since there was no ambulance. Some footage showed a golden blur, and then she appeared, so we believe another Super dropped her off. I let your mother know already, but Ocean Empress is too busy and hasn't done anything about it. By now, the Super in question is likely long gone."
Paragon didn't respond and, honestly, had tuned most of what the older woman said out. She was instead focused on the unconscious girl; her palm gently touched an arm. "Hope Lauren." She tested the name on her lips. Lauren was a very familiar name. Alexander Lauren was someone she'd be seeing soon to try and cure him of the Dead Virus. "So this is his daughter."
Hope was a Super. Paragon was sure of that fact. She was blind and so couldn't see, but her powers forced the image of a map outlining the girl's DNA into her mind. She saw every strand that made Hope, Hope, as well as the rapid amount of muscle growth and bone density the young girl sported. She was a Super, but a rather weak one. She did seem to have a useful power, though. From what Paragon could tell, Hope's cells were attempting to suck in sunlight and grow in power, but only about half of them were working.
She doubted this girl would ever amount to anything great.
With a soft grunt, Paragon pressed her hand down and forced her power to shift and mold. New cells were birthed into existence as she mended bones and flesh and repaired organs. It only took her a few moments, but in such a short amount of time, she repaired most of the severe damage. What wasn't healed was already repairing itself at a rapid rate, meaning the girl also had a soft healing factor.
Paragon's hand shook, and she removed it, letting out a heavy sigh. "Okay. She should be good now."
"Are you okay, Ms. Paragon?" The doctor asked in concern.
"Not really." Paragon sighed and shook her head. "I'll manage, though."
The doctor nodded and offered Paragon her hand. The healer reached out and took it, and the two of them were about to leave the room but stopped when a voice suddenly croaked out. "Why didn't you save him?"
Paragon froze, and she turned around in confusion. Sitting up in the bed was the girl. Hope Lauren. Only something was wrong now. Hope's skin had turned a nasty white, and her eyes were milky and dead. Her body was covered in cuts, all gushing out with an ugly black liquid, and clumps of her hair were falling out.
Paragon gasped and stepped back and recoiled when she felt pain. Pain all along her foot. She looked down and saw her shoes were gone, and the hospital floor had changed just as Hope did. Broken glass and nails were scattered around, and they all dug into the bottom of her feet. Then it suddenly occurred to Paragon that she was seeing with her own eyes and not through Destiny's.
She reached up for her bird and nearly cried out when she saw its rotting remains on her shoulder. The doctor she had been talking to was gone, leaving her alone in this destroyed hospital room with the remains of Hope. Not just any Hope, but a Hope she knew. Her memories came flooding back suddenly. This wasn't the first day she had met Hope. It had played out like that at the start, but this shift was wrong. This was something else.
"Why didn't you save him?" Hope asked again, her voice coming out shattered and broken, and more black blood gushed down her mouth. "Why?"
Paragon let out a soft whimper and fell back, ignoring the pain from the glass and nails. "What are you talking about? I did save him. I couldn't. I tried. I tried over and over again to save your dad!" She felt tears in her eyes, and she was unable to stop herself from crying. "I did everything I could to help your dad! You said you didn't hate me for trying!"
"Not him. Mr. Larison."
Paragon felt her face go pale, and her body shook more.
"Why didn't you save him? Why didn't you try? Because you didn't like him? Because you hated who he was? Because you hated that I liked him? That I looked up to him? Why did you let him die?" Hope's corpse demanded. "Why didn't you offer him help even once?"
"I- I tried—"
"Why didn't you try harder? Why didn't you save him? Why didn't you heal him? Why didn't you fix him? Why did you let him die?"
"It's not my fault—"
"Why did you let him die?" Hope's body suddenly ignited. Nasty, foul-smelling red fire gushed out of her flesh, which began to crack and burn away, revealing bones beneath, and the blood that gushed out of her flowed harder, bugs and other small creatures crawling around in the fluids. "Why Paragon? Did you not love me enough to save him? Do you hate me? Do you hate me because you think I love Mr. Larison? Are you jealous? Do you not trust me? Do you not trust yourself? Are you pathetic? Did you want him to die? Did you want me to die? Why? Why Paragon?"
Paragon let out a loud scream as the fire spread out rapidly, and it grabbed at her, twisting hands gushing out of the embers. They grabbed her ankles, burning away the flesh and causing her to yell louder in pain and sob. She tried to fight back, but her body wasn't wanting to obey her, and instead she was dragged into the inferno, her own flesh peeling away just like Hope's did.
"Why, Paragon?" Hope grabbed her by the throat and began to choke her, the fire roaring out. "Why did you let him die? Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? It is, isn't it? Because now you think that you get me all to yourself. I bet you would have killed Mr. Larison sooner or later, wouldn't you? You hate him, don't you? Hate everything about it?"
Paragon gurgled and couldn't even sob anymore as the fire devoured her. Everything began to fade and crack, her body breaking apart.
'Oh, for the Almighty's sake, will you just stop already?'
Paragon gasped for air, her eyes going wide. She wasn't in the hospital room anymore and instead found herself back in her realm. Above her was a brightly colored sky, and all around her was a field of flowers. The air tasted rich, and the pain was slowly fading; her body was perfectly fine and undamaged.
'You're under the effects of an illusion.'
Paragon sat up in the field of flowers and grabbed at her head, wincing as the voice of the Prettiest Flower echoed around in her mind. "An illusion?" Then it dawned on her. Fairy Queen had kidnapped her. The villain who had the power to distort reality and create false images and memories. "Right. That makes sense. It was all fake." Paragon looked around the field of flowers she was in and nearly let out a squeak when she saw the Lord herself also within her world.
The Prettiest Flower was indeed pretty. A large throne resided in the center of the field, one formed out of various trees. A massive pink flower resided in the middle of it that was like some sort of lily. Coming out of the top of the flower, the upper half of a woman rose up. She was big, easily twenty feet tall, and well endowed. Her skin looked to be made up of grass and vines, various flowers growing along the woman's body, and she had long, flowing pink hair. It was truly like looking at a goddess.
'This isn't the first time you've seen me, you know.' The Lord said flatly.
"Yeah, but... Damn, I forgot how big they were..." Paragon muttered, her eyes lingering longer than they should have.
'My eyes are up here...'
"I've made my choice."
The Lord growled and folded her arms, letting out a huff. Her pink hair flowed behind her, and more flowers began to grow across the ground. 'Honestly, you shouldn't be losing at all. You're a Lord, for Almighty's sake. How dare you make us look bad? Even with only a portion of my power, you should be one of the strongest entities in the universe.'
"If you want me to really be strong, how about you give me the rest of your power?" Paragon offered, trying to sound casual. She'd love to be as strong as Full Monarch, especially because of everything else that had happened.
'Haha.' The Prettiest Flower responded in a dry tone. 'You know the rules. Give me total access to your body, and I'll give you all that I have.'
"No, thanks."
'One day you'll have no choice.' The Lord sneered. 'I used Nier to create you. I hate being in the body of a man, and it was all too easy to mess with his thoughts and mind to trick him into creating the perfect body for me. I literally built you from scratch to be my host. The idea came to me once I saw the Brightest Star do something similar and create a child of their own behind their host's back. Big sibling was always smart like that.' The Lord giggled.
"I don't plan on letting you have control of my body anytime soon, so just knock it off, okay?" Paragon finally looked away and closed her eyes. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go save my girlfriend."
'Do you really think that idiotic host of my sibling is still alive?'
"Of course, Hope is alive," Paragon growled. "And don't ever insult her again, or I'll find a way to rip you out of me and shove you into someone like Myth or something. I'm sure he'd love to be a Lord."
'You wouldn't dare!'
"I'm just as petty as my father." Paragon chuckled. "Now stay in my subconscious where you belong." Her red eyes blazed out, and her hair glowed brighter as she forcefully shattered the world she was in along with the illusion. Once everything vanished, Paragon found herself no longer in a field of flowers or in the hospital room. Now she was in a strange stone room covered in monitors. It reminded her a bit of the room Avalon had tricked her mother into entering. His memory room. "Where am I?" She tried to stand but found she was stuck, strapped down to a metal table. The roof above was also covered in monitors.
"Wow, you managed to break out of my illusion. As expected of the master's daughter."
Paragon's eyes narrowed, and she turned, finding Fairy Queen. The woman stood next to her on the table and held a long black remote that only had a single red button placed in the middle of it. Paragon growled and tried to budge the restraints off of her, but it was no use. If she had been at full strength, she'd be able to do it no problem, but she had used up a ton of energy healing everyone, and all the damage she had taken still hadn't faded, leaving her in a vastly weak state.
"Don't bother fighting it." Fairy Queen reached out and almost lovingly stroked Paragon's face. "You're not going to be harmed, trust me."
"Why the hell would I ever trust you?" Paragon spat out.
"Because I'm your mom and your sister."
"That's disgusting."
"It's true, though." Fairy Queen let out a soft giggle. "After the Emperor turned me into this greater being, I used my powers of being a woman to create him as many soldiers as I could. I had dozens of different kids, some of whom I was even slightly fond of. Of course, he never cared about them and instead always focused on you, his true child. I'm honored that I got to help make you, and I'm also honored that he entrusted the final steps to me."
"You're crazy." Paragon fought the restraints once more, but they just dug into her flesh. "Once I get out of here, I swear I'm wiping you and Golden God out. All of you monsters that still serve the Emperor shouldn't be alive!"
"Hush now, sweetie." Fairy Queen placed a finger to Paragon's lips and silenced the white-haired girl. "This little rebellious phase of yours will all be over soon."
"Like hell it will!"
Fairy Queen let out a laugh. "What do you think makes a person a person?" The woman asked. "Is it how they were born? The life they lived? The shape of their soul? No. It's their memories. Memories are nothing more than a collection of data that shapes everything about a person. Avalon discovered memories can shape a soul, and by doing that, the soul itself will change the body. You're very special, did you know that? Because you're the first ever person that is going to become another person." Fairy Queen explained, and she gently took a few locks of Sky's hair. "See, the first Sky was Nier and Mana's daughter. After she died, he attempted to bring her back but could never get the soul right no matter what he did. His attempts just led to the creation of Hell Hound. He wasn't willing to give up, though, and he kept trying. That was where we came in. And Alpha, too, as much as I hate to give that bastard any credit."
Sky's eyes narrowed, and she jerked her head away. "I'm honestly not in the mood to hear whatever crazy shit you have to say."
Fairy Queen clicked her tongue. "He needed to create a new body. To the Master, it didn't matter what his daughter looked like so long as it was her, and so he decided to create the strongest being he could. His first project failed when he tried to mix his own DNA with Full Monarch's. Merging two Lords just didn't work, and every time he tried to use Lord DNA, it would always fail, so he needed to do something else. He needed people that were Lord-like. The kids of Lords. That led to him using Hell Hound, who was the reanimated corpse of his daughter, and Alpha, his adopted son. Both of them had the DNA of two different Lords within them. He used them both in order to create you and even used my own and Golden God's DNA. All of this was placed into Mana's womb, where you slowly grew. Ironically, none of his actual DNA made it into you, but the biology of yourself doesn't really matter. What truly matters is the soul inside of you. One that was created to resemble his daughter's soul, using the imaginary energy Alpha produced to shape it." Fairy Queen trailed a clawed finger down the side of Sky's cheek. "You were literally bred from the ground up, every drop of your DNA being selected. Still, though, you're not quite the real Sky yet."
"And I have no plans to be." Sky hissed out. "He doesn't actually care about me or his daughter. He just wanted to prove he could bring the dead back to life. Instead of raising the kid he could have had, he became so focused he let me slip away and be taken. He doesn't deserve to be my father. None of you are my family. Not you. Not Battery. And not the Emperor."
"Once the video starts playing, your tune will change." Fairy Queen chuckled. "This room was built by Avalon. It's his memory room. It'll force memories and thoughts into your head. Your soul resembles the first Sky's but is slightly off due to the life you lived. Once it is altered and shifts from the effect, your new memories will have your soul change, and that will cause your body to also be altered. These monitors are loaded with all the memories the first Sky had, as well as other memories Nier selected, such as Hell Hound's life and some other key choices. His hope is once you've experienced more memories, your mind and view will change. After all, you're the way you are because you have sixteen years' worth of memories of being Sky Sini, but if you get twenty years' worth of memories of being Sky Nier, will you still be Sky Sini? Even I don't know."
Sky sneered and shook her head. "It's not going to work, you know."
"And why not?" Fairy Queen's grin just grew. "You know you guys lost, right? All the heroes are in shambles, and you Lords were defeated. The Rulers won. It's only a matter of time before the Emperor turns on Lucifer and Legend and finds a way to wipe them out. Don't worry, you'll be on the winning side."
Sky let out a chuckle. "Hope isn't done yet. I know her well enough. She's not going to take this lying down. She's not just going to save me; she's going to save everyone else and put a stop to whatever it is you have planned."
"Aw, sweetie." Fairy Queen quietly shook her head and turned, heading for a wall near the back, which began to grind open for her. "This isn't a fairy tale. See you soon."
As soon as Fairy Queen stepped out of the room, the woman pressed a button. The monitors all whirred to life and began to buzz loudly. Their glowing screens blasted out, and Sky gasped. Her eyes burned, but she was unable to look away. This wasn't an illusion, and she couldn't fight it either. Memories and thoughts, scenes she had never seen before, and emotions never felt by her began to flood into her. Lives began to go by in a blur, and everything began to crawl to a stop. The room spun, and everything started to fade as she felt herself being forced through the eyes of someone else.
A bright white light hung from above, and she heard crying. Her crying.
"Congratulations, Nier." Sky could barely focus her eyes; they were squeezed so tightly shut, and the air burned her lungs as she cried. "It's a baby girl." Despite herself, she managed to barely crack her eyes open and saw the smiling face of Nier above her. Her father.
All the memories of the previous Sky were being forced into her, starting with her birth.
In a way, she was being reborn.
She was about to watch it all happen in real time. From the start of the first Sky's birth up to the point where she died at the hands of the Beast. She was about to relive it all.
"Hope." Sky tried to focus, but it was impossible. Her thoughts weren't her own. They were being jumbled and mixed in with that of a baby that could barely process anything. "Please. Save me."
Her hero would come.
Sky knew she would.
She just had to stay sane until Hope Lauren came to the rescue.
"I'm counting on you."
***
"So, are you going to give me your name, or what?" Full Monarch asked awkwardly.
Hope stood there for a few moments before shaking her head and letting out a soft chuckle. "Right. I guess I should, shouldn't I? In a way I'm like your sister or something? I mean, we're both the Lord of the Sun?" She rubbed the back of her neck, feeling awkward. This was sort of a big deal. After all, she was meeting one of the greatest heroes ever, but in a way she had already met Full Monarch. Actually, she had lived life through his eyes due to Avalon, so it really didn't feel like this was actually their first interaction. "Hope Lauren. My name is Hope Lauren. Oh, but my hero name is Cinder!" She placed her hands on her hips and attempted to puff out her nonexistent chest.
"That's such a cool name!" Full Monarch had stars in his eyes.
"Right!" Hope giggled and jumped up slightly. "I love the name Cinder. It's so cool."
"I like the costume also!" Full Monarch laughed.
"My costume?" Hope glanced down and raised an eyebrow at what she was wearing. It was her suit. As in her first proper hero suit. The costume Myth had made for her.
The outfit had a zipper on the back and was a full bodysuit, starting from the feet and covering everything but her head. It sported red gloves as well as red boots, but most of the costume was a blue color, the same as the jacket she had worn. On the chest piece, there was a large symbol of a star made out of silver fabric, and all along the suit, it sported faint silver lines. She also had on the first helmet Mr. Larsion had created for her, her old backpack, and the shredded remains of her cape, which clung around her neck. "Oh my God, I missed this suit! This really was my most badass, iconic look, huh?" She flexed and opened her fist, summoning up a wave of swirling fire. "Hell yeah! I'm rad as hell. Um, why am I dressed like this, though?"
"Maybe it's just what your consciousness wanted?" Full Monarch shrugged and turned to look back at the campfire. He suddenly had some wood in his hands, which he tossed into the flame, causing it to grow. "Why don't you take a seat, Cinder?"
"Sure thing?" A log appeared on the other side of the fire, and Hope made her way to it and dropped down. She looked around at the black, inky void that she resided in now. "So is this like my mind or something?"
"Or something." Full Monarch rubbed his chin and sighed. "It's actually my mind."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Hope asked. "You've been dead for a while, haven't you? How can I be in your mind? Am I actually dead?"
Full Monarch snorted. "I already told you, no. You're not dead. This is a very unique situation that we find ourselves in." The man hummed and stared down into the fire, a sad look on his face. "It's only because of Jack that I'm able to be here. It won't last long, though. Soon I'll fade away and cease to be."
Hope gave a faint nod. "I figured it'd be too good to be true to have you stay around. So, what is going on exactly? Why are we here, and what do you need from me? I've seen enough tropes to know you have something you want me to do before you fade."
Full Monarch let out another small chuckle. "Let me try to figure out how to explain." He rubbed his chin again and hummed. "I guess I should start with telling you how I became so strong and what led to this moment. See, I wasn't actually born special. Believe it or not, I was your average Lord of the Sun and Cosmos user. What made me unique, though, was that I was the first to wake up the Lord that was within me. Until I came along, all the Lords were asleep and dormant, their powers being hindered, and the humans they resided in could only use a fraction of their true energy. After me, though, the Lords all woke up, which is why you and the other new Lords have been able to talk to them so much and get new abilities and forms. Do you know what caused the Lords to wake up, though?"
"I don't think so." Hope frowned. "It happened in your fight with Lucifer, though, right?"
"It did." Full Monarch clasped his hands together. "I wasn't actually the one who woke the Lord up. It was Nier..." The man let out a weak sigh. "There's a taint. The curse of the Rulers. It clung to some of the Lords, who unknowingly carried it since the Ego of the Lords were asleep. For most Lords, nothing happened, and the taint stayed with the Lords, but when it reached Nier, the taint decided to detach itself from the Lord of the Land and Life and fully awaken in Nier. The Dead Virus killing him triggered it and caused it to wake up. A Ruler awakening so close to a Lord soul forced the Brightest Star to stir and woke them up, which in turn caused the other souls to all wake up as well. That's what led to Lords fully returning. I had nothing to do with it. I just benefited from it because mine was the first to wake up." Full Monarch explained. "It's also because the Lords were able to stay dormant and asleep for so long that I was able to make my plan work and talk to you the way I am now."
Hope made a face. "You mean you knew you'd end up here speaking with me?"
Full Monarch shook his head. "No. That's actually a pure coincidence. In truth, I never thought you'd get both halves of the Lord of the Sun and Cosmos back, but because of Jack, you now do." The man clenched his hand into a fist. "You know how Lords usually have two sets of powers? Their Lord powers and their Super powers?"
"Yeah." Hope nodded and looked down at her own hand. "I don't have any Super power, though. Just my Lord powers. I never awakened as a Super. Not yet anyway." It'd be real handy to get another power-up and a set of new powers... especially with everything else that was going on.
"My power as a Super is Imaginary energy." Full Monarch's words nearly made her do a double-take. Blue energy crackled out of the tip of his finger. "It's a one in a trillion power that I happened to be born with. I'm just really lucky in a lot of ways. With Imaginary energy I can create any source of energy, including something that doesn't actually exist, so long as I can imagine it. I didn't actually know I had this power until after I became a superhero and fought a certain villain. Using imaginary energy, I was able to do the impossible and split the Lord of the Sun and Cosmos in half. I sliced the Cosmos half out of the Ego and tore it out of my body."
"Why would you do that, though?" Hope demanded. "What could have been important enough to force your hand?"
"I needed to reach 'him'." Full Monarch explained. "It was the only way I could save him. I... I'm not a god. I'm not the best, and I'm not the greatest entity in the world, no matter how much people kept insisting I am. I'm still a human. I still make mistakes. I still do things selfishly. In my final battle, I took the Cosmos half and further split it into two halves. Half went to my daughter. I placed it into Jill. It was my final gift. The other half was mostly destroyed and crumbled due to negative Imaginary energy, but what was left of it, I shoved into Jack. I wanted to save him and fix his corrupted soul. I know it was selfish of me to give him so many chances, but I couldn't help it. I used the remains of the Cosmos half and made a blueprint of my own soul and placed it into him in order to reverse the effects of the Ruler shard within him. That's how I'm here now. I'm just a collection of memories and thoughts that are in the tiny fragments of the Cosmos half Jack ripped out. Those fragments merged with Jill's half and are now within you, which is how we're talking in the first place."
Hope let her shoulders sag a bit, and she let out a sigh. "And now Mr. Larison is gone." She muttered. She had been frozen, but she saw it all. Battery had torn the Cosmos shard out of him, which led to his corruption restarting. He was a Ruler now. A full one. "Damn it."
"It's not over yet." She snapped her head in the direction of Full Monarch. The man had a grim look on his face but still managed a smile. "Jack can still be saved."
"He can? How!"
"The same way he was last time." Full Monarch folded his arms. "This isn't the first time he transformed into his Ruler form. He did that as well back when I fought him. That's why I had to tear the soul in half and shove it into him. By putting myself into it, I was able to halt and reverse the effects. I kept him sane and forced him back into his human form, but eventually I wasn't able to hold back the wave of darkness or speak to him anymore since I kept getting smaller and smaller the closer to death he got. When he finally did die in his battle with the Beast, I was nearly shattered fully and took everything I had to stop him from changing then and there. It doesn't help he stopped caring about his life and allows himself to die as much as he wants. Still, if I was able to save him once, I'm sure it can be done again through the same method." He looked back at Hope and smiled. "After all, you're the new Lord of the Sun and Cosmos. That's why I'm here. I want to ask you to save him. Please."
Hope nodded her head faintly. "I would have done it no matter what, but why do you care about Mr. Larison so much?"
"Because he's my... Because I failed him once, and I'd like to not do so again." Full Monarch said after a few moments.
Hope glanced down at her hand again and watched the fire flicker over it. "Can I really save him, though? I feel stronger, but not by that much."
"That's because you're sadly not the full Lord of the Sun and Cosmos still."
"Seriously!"
"It's unfortunate, but you'll never be." Full Monarch sheepishly rubbed his neck. "I told you, I accidentally shattered most of the half I gave to Jack. You have one hundred percent of the Sun half, which you were able to repair, but you only have sixty percent of the Cosmos half. You'll have to repair it yourself if you want to get to full power."
Hope sighed but nodded. It could never be easy. Still, even with the portion of the Cosmos that she did have, she gained a big boost in power. She was excited to truly test out how strong she was now. "Well, you can count on me. I'll be sure to save Mr. Larison. I still need to have some serious words with him and punch him in his face after all!"
Full Monarch's smile returned, and he glanced back down at the fire. "Well, make yourself comfortable. We have a lot to talk about before I fade away."
"We do?"
"Yeah." The number one hero smirked and pointed his thumb at himself. "This is the least I can do. I'm going to tell you everything I can. I think it's time you finally learned what truly happened fifteen years ago, in my fight with the Emperor. The fight that led to my death."