FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 36: Blur (Epilogue)

Beta-Reader: Ant0nius

It all unfolded within a rushed sight.

Like a blur.

Fighting has always been tough. I never once expected this last bout to be any easy or even similar to anything we dealt with before now. We were confident- We were so confident that the Prima forms would have been overwhelming for the Emperor. That it would have been the edge that we needed to win.

In a sense, this was indeed the advantage we all needed to win. But it wasn’t as important as we deemed it to be early on. The combined strength of the Crests still struggled against such a focused embodiment of Chaos.

Something was lost within the Emperor since the last time we met, he was less careful- less aware of what he was doing. He acted, he moved, he wildly struck. Yet, He was no longer holding back… ignoring the tear happening to his own body.

It was acting on its own, naturally driven by the essence of disorder pushing him left and right, to react and act against anything that it deemed a threat. From big to small- from small to big. The monstrous entity didn’t falter, nor he held back from pushing everything it got within a desperate gamble. And we were all on the edge.

We couldn’t stop, we all had to move. Even those that favored long-range attacks couldn’t wait in a position for too long unless they sought to be attacked by a random tentacle or something worse. It was a blur of lights and darkness itself. It was an uphill battle, but we were winning. Just… not as fast as Earth needed.

The Emperor’s arrival didn’t just cause us to be fighting for a couple of hours, it was the planet’s own turn to fight back. The planet struggled against the roots that were shredding into its own existence, corrupting or shattering as it trailed down to the core.

Slow but steadily, the digging ultimately reached the last layer, finally stabbing into the core. The battle was soon won, one last attack shredded into the remnant of the Emperor’s physical entity and destroyed his chance to persist in this reality.

It should have been our victory, but something had gone wrong. Ships rushed to retrieve us; the rest of the Colony Ships had been mobilized four hours earlier than planned to allow humanity to evacuate as the damage to Earth was done. The planet was close to collapsing thanks to the battle. Everyone had to be ready to leave- it was panic and hysteria. There were stampedes, people died, and some didn’t make it.

It was a blur.

I remember Addie and I being the last ones to rush into the ship, we were so close to making it, but then something hit me. I wasn’t sure what it was, only that the ground collapsed beneath me, and the attack disarmed me of my sword as I fell into the deepest pit of the world.

Adela screamed my name, but all I could hear was a soft cry, I couldn’t make it back up, I was too exhausted to employ any magic in my. And without my sword, I lacked a focus to even cast what I desired.

My consciousness faltered during the fall and I thought that would have been the end.

Something disagreed with my delirious assessment.

Minutes of darkness left me in a dreamless world where my mind grew number and number. Was this death? No. This couldn’t be it. Not when I would end up waking up in the bed located inside a hospital. And I could remember that I was there because… of the accident.

My mind could tell even then something important was missing. Faces were missing. Smiles were missing. Love was missing. All that was left in me was anger. I was angry, and this costed me even more than I deserved.

The Gods had ultimately decided to not let me stay. I couldn’t understand why back then, but I would later discover, as I was summoned back to a much different Earth where the fruits of our labor created a flawed society.

Neo-Earth, the Gods ‘rewarded’ the good-will of humanity and primekind by creating a world for us all. It was like Earth but with two to three new continents which would allow all survivors and their descendants to exist beyond the decimation of Old Earth.

It was a win over Chaos… and yet, I had been thrown out because of the power I had. Not just the magical energy, but the sway of camaraderie I held with the others. I was, in their eyes, the second coming of the Emperor if I found their work too ‘flawed’.

“-And that’s where we are now,” I tiredly concluded the tale, looking up at the two individuals that had asked to know the full details.

Hope Ravenhurst, Kayin and Grace’s oldest daughter, gawked at me for a while, her brain trying to correlate the many details this tale had compared to what my Journal offered back then. Meanwhile, Naerie Xiong, Ambar and Pulsar’s only daughter, had merely nodded as the only clue of surprise within her usually stoic expression was how her eyes had widened a tiny bit at the narration.

“Uncle, you… you’re so awesome!” Hope exclaimed giddily. “Like, I am not like my sister when it comes to epic action stories, but this one hit very deep. Especially the… love bit.”

I could only offer a smile to that, the girl quite surprised to know I may have entertained a relationship with her mother before she settled with Kayin. I was surprised it happened, but I guess that she had to move on somehow and the pain couldn’t stop her from being happy. It was something that caught off-guard when I finally remembered things but… It was understandable and I was glad she found someone to spend her life with.

“So, you are still going with your plans now, uncle?” Naerie inquired. “It would be easy to just call them and set things up-”

“I think visiting them personally would be better,” I interjected, smiling kindly at that offer. “I appreciate the effort, Naerie, but sometimes people should not be given a shock like this over the phone.”

The red-haired Bear Prime nodded, seemingly understanding where I was coming from.

“And I think we should get going now,” Another voice said, and we all turned to see that Kate, now happily married with Bengala and having created a family with her two children, had gotten her gear set up. “Hope, it would be best if you don’t delay this for too long.”

The girl pouted. “I just wanted to train as a medic-”

“Fighting will only help you heal more people, we have been through this already,” I hummed calmly. “Plus, it will give you the chance to grow through the help of Love Magic.”

“...I am not that ‘small’.”

“You are the one that told me that, kid. Now, get your bags ready.”

Hope just groaned, but failed to hide the giddy smile at being given the opportunity to get the hot bod she had been trying to get for years. Magic is truly odd at times.

_ And right now, we were going to have the strangest adventure yet. _

_ -------d-d-d-d-------------- _

AN

And the second story in this trilogy is thereby wrapped up!