Sentinal

Before I begin, I just wanna say how much I hate today. Ever since I woke up this morning, I haven't been able to go ten minutes without remembering what happened a year ago. What happened to Malkator. God dammit, I hate this.

But moving on.

You already saw what Tony said. It was true. After I posted that fight, I left. I went walking and I didn't stop. I don't know why. I just had this urge to keep moving. I couldn't stop. I couldn't sleep. I just kept walking. I left the town behind. Then the roads. I just kept walking for days. Until the scenery changed. It wasn't a sudden change. It was slow, subtle. I didn't realize it anything was changing for hours. Then I started noticing it. The sky, the ground. Everything was gradually changing. Over the course of a day, the world around me had gone. I was on the Path OF Chaos again. That same twisted nightmare of a world I had barely escaped from a long time ago.

But I still couldn't stop. My legs kept moving, for a long time. I'm not even sure how long it was before I found my way to where they were. It was only then that I was allowed to stop.

Enhanced Daniel. Red Daniel. And Dark Daniel. All three of their bodies were floating in the air above the elevated stone path. Dark Daniel's sword was still stuck through his chest, and the Omnibolg was sitting on the ground beneath Enhanced Daniel.

"What is this?" I asked.
"This is the reason I've brought  you here," said a voice. I turned and saw him there.
"What do you want?" I asked the Sentinal. "Why are they like this?"
"So that I can consume them," he said, as if it was nothing.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I demanded.

He raised a hand to silence me, and began fiddling with the latches on his neck, releasing his helmet. He gripped it tightly, and slowly lifted it off his head. He then turned, and looked me dead in the eyes.

"What... the fuck?" I asked.
"Interesting, isn't it?" he asked.
"Why do you look like me?" I demanded.

Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely accurate. He looked like me, only his hair was a lot shorter. And his eyes were purple. And he had purple markings under his eyes, leading down to his chin. And his ears were pointed. But other than that, we were pretty much identical.

"I'm like them," he said, gesturing to the other Daniels floating a short distance away from us. "I'm you. Another universes version of you. I was trapped her on the Path Of Chaos several years ago. I was unable to complete my challenge.I died here. But the Path gave me a second chance. It revived me, as its Sentinal. I am now its servant."
"So why are you here?" I asked. "In my universe?"
"It's the Path's power," he said. "It can connect nearby universes, allowing me to travel between them. But that's just one of the powers it gave to me."
"What else can you do?" I asked hesitantly.
"You heard what I said before, right?" he asked. "About consuming them?"
"Yes," I said.
"That's one of my gifts," he said. "I can absorb alternate versions of myself, and gain their powers."

So hat was his plan. He was going to steal the abilitis of all the Daniel's who have been killed.

"It's a trick I've used before," he said. "I travel to different universes, and kill their Daniel's. Then, I devour them. However, the Path and I figured out a different way to go about it."
"You mean making me do the killing for you?" I asked.
"That's right," he said, smiling. "Congrats on figuring it out. We created a key in two pieces, and a key hole in another two pieces. The keyhole was hidden in plain sight."
"The alter inside the church basement, and the idol right outside," I said.
"That's right," he said. "Then you and Tony had to earn the pieces of the key. After that, it was just a small matter of waiting for you to figure out how the pieces fit together."
"And then it created that event of Dimensional Bleeding," I said. "And these three were pulled into my universe."
"Exactly," Sentinal said.
"So that's what all this has been about," I said. "This was all just some plan for you to gain more power."
"Pretty much," he said. "Now, if you'll just wait there for a moment..."

He began walking toward Dark Daniel's body. I charged at him, drawing Kyle's knife from my pocket. You know, I keep forgetting he gave that thing to me. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to use it. A long, purple sword appeared in Sentinal's hand, and the knife shattered as the two weapons collided. He then kicked me, and I was sent flying. I hit a boulder a few yards away and collapsed. When I got back up, Dark Daniel's body was gone, and his sword went clattering to the ground.

"Ah, now that feels good," Sentinal said. "I've never taken power from a Devil Killer before."

He turned and made his way toward Enhanced Daniel. I got back up and tried to stop him. He simply turned on me and said "Please stop."

I stopped in my tracks. I couldn't move. I didn't want to. Damn it, I had been charmed! I watched as he touched Enhanced Daniel's body with one hand, and it simply dissolved into some kind of purple energy and flowed into his mouth. I couldn't let him get Red Daniel too. This was just the Unnamed Child's power. I could resist it, with some effort and willpower. I struggled against the charm and managed to break free. I charged at him again, ad I tried to summon my sword. Nothing happened. It wasn't coming to me. I kept running, and he swung his sword at my. I ducked under it and punched him under the jaw. He stepped back, rubbing his jaw where I had hit him.

"Hold still!" he demanded.

His shadow came to life and wrapped itself around my torso. I couldn't do anything as he approached Red Daniel and absorbed him too. Shit. He had successfully gained the powers of all the other Daniels. How the fuck was I supposed to deal with that?

I didn't have time to blink before he was in front of me again. His shadow dissolved, and he struck me in the chest with all the strength of an Enhanced. I hit the ground a distance away. He started laughing.

"This is incredible!" he shouted. "All this power! Nothing can beat me now!"

He glanced at me, and began walking over.

"Especially not you," he growled. "I'm going to kill you, and then add all of your power to mine."

Dark Daniel's sword was lying a few feet away. I grabbed it as quickly as I could and swung with all my strength. The blade hit him in the face, but his blood hardened before it could actually do him any harm. He grabbed the blade and wrenched it out of my grip. He dropped it to the ground and charged at me, swinging his sword. I slipped into the Godsway quickly and reappeared further down the Path.

"How did-?" he asked, before noticing me. He began running toward me again, but this time thongs were different. Last time I was on the Path Of Chaos, I couldn't make use of the Godsway. But now I could. I could fucking teleport. I slipped into the Godsway before he could reach me.

I could feel it. Along with the pain that being in the Godsway brings me, I could feel something else. A connection. I was in sync with every world. Every domain. I was linked to all of them. I tried summoning the wakizashi again, and a smile spread on my face as I felt its familiar handle in my hand. I returned to the Path Of Chaos and faced Sentinal again.

"You had a chance to escape," he said. "Why come back?"
"Simple," I said, raising the wakizashi as it burst into flames. "I'm going to atop you before you can kill any more of us."
"You can't beat me," he said.
"We'll see," I said.

I warped behind him and slashed at him. He turned sharply and blocked my attack. He shot a bolt of lightning at me, but I warped away again. He noticed me a distance away, and sent a wave of razor sharp petals in my direction. I released a burst of flames that reduced the petals to ash before they could hit me. Sentinal was starting to get impatient. And what do people do when they're impatient? Apparently, they blow up the fucking floor. Yeah, he started attacking the ground with fireballs, destroying it. I managed to avoid most of the blasts, but one of them was so close that I was still hit by the force. My leg was pinned beneath a slab of rock. I was cornered.

"Say goodbye," he said, as he built up this weird weird peach coloredenergy in one of his hands. Don' recognize that power. He must have gotten it from another Daniel.

Anyway, I needed to do something fast. There was a boulder a few feet away. I've never moved anything that heavy before, but it was worth a shot. I used the Empty City's power and tried to lift it. I budged a little, but it was too heavy.  I focused harder, and managed to get it up a few feet.

"Pathetic," he said. "Do you really think that will help you now? You must be retarded."

And that's where I drew the fucking line. The boulder shot up into the air and fell back down on him. He raised him sword, and the rock crashed into the flat side of the blade. He stopped building up energy and focused on trying to support the weight. I concentrated harder, pushing the boulder down on him harder. I flung the slab of stone off of my leg and stood back up.

"You can't stop me," he hissed, lifting himself up against the weight of the stone. "I'm stronger than you!"

And idea came to me. Dark Daniel could alter the mass of objects. So could I. I was a Devil Killer, god damn it! I focused with all my strength and anger, pouring it all into that boulder. It began  glowing, and expanded. It doubled in size. Then tripled. It was taking all of his strength to keep it from crushing him. That was my chance. I gripped my sword and teleported right in front of him. The sword burst into flames as I plunged it into his solar plexus. I warped away again as the rock fell, crushing him.

"Nobody fucking calls me that!" I growled.

I turned and walked away. Yeah, I had just killed another of my selves, but that didn't concern me at the moment. He was a monster. He deserved what I did to him.

I stopped when I heard an explosion behind me. I turned to see the boulder scattered in pieces all over the place. He was standing again, but he wasn't himself any more. I could feel the Path's power filling his body, corrupting and transforming him. His body expanded, until his was twice his normal size. A second pair of arms sprouted from his ribcage, and armor formed over them. his sword, in his upper right arm, grew even larger. The Omnibolg rose from the ground and flew into his upper left hand, and Dark Daniel's sword flew to his bottom right. He sliced the palm of his bottom left hand with the Omnibolg, and his blood flowed out, and reshaped itself into a crystal sword.

"Oh shitfuck," I muttered.

The new Sentinal charged at me, and I tried everything I could to avoid its attacks. I through every power I had at him. Nothing worked. He was practically invincible. The best I could do was dodge his attacks.

That's when it happened. I'm still not sure what it was. But I could feel it. All of my power, every bit of Eldritch Energy I had ever absorbed, all flowed through my body, building up in my right hand. My hand began giving off a black glow. A black light, just like I saw in that dream. IT expanded, taking the form of a long sword. A sword made of the black light of Fear.

The Sentinal swung the Omnibolg at me, and the sword moved on its own. It rose up, cutting the Omnibolg. I swung the sword again, cutting through the crystal blade. Sentinal let out a mighty roar and lifting his remaining swords. He slashed them both down simultaneously, but I lifted my new sword to block the attacks. The swords were cut in two, just like the other ones were. I swung it again, cutting him across the chest. He roared again, and a bright purple light flowed from his hands. He was gonna hit me with some kind of energy blast, and I'm not sure if the sword would have hep against that.

Of course, he didn't get a chance to release it. Blood suddenly rushed out from the wound on his chest, and swirled around him wildly. His hands were wrapped up and tied behind him. He was bound by his own blood. A tendril of blood rose into the air and began shifting its form. IT grew arms, and a head, and began slowly developing more details. Long hair, a spikes coat, and his face... it looked exactly like Red Daniel .And when it spoke, it sounded like him.

"Finish him!" the mass of blood said. "I can't hold him forever! Kill him now!"

I didn't give it a second thought. I swung the sword, cutting Sentinal in half. His body collapsed, lifeless, and his blood fell to the ground in a large red puddle. I had won. The sword in my hand faded away to nothing.

I only had a few moments before things went bad again. I should have seen it coming. I had just killed the Path Of Chaos's Sentinal. Of course it wouldn't let me live after doing that. The ground collapsed beneath me, and I began falling into the void bellow.

I tried to escape using the Godsway. It didn't work. I couldn't teleport. I tried using the Intrusion's power to sprout wings. tat didn't work either. I tried using each power I thought would help me, but none of them worked. And then I figured it out. The reason I couldn't use my powers.

It was because I didn't have them anymore. That sword was made from al of my power. nd it had faded away. I didn't have anything left. Icouldn't save myself. I was gonna die. Either that, or I would just keep falling for the rest of eternityinto an endless void. Didn't get a chance to find out.

I suddenly landed on my back in front of the old church. A few feet away from my was a circle of glowing symbols. A familiar looking one. There was someone else there. A girl.

"You alive, dumbass?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "How did I...?"
"He pulled you out of there," she said, motioning to the doorway.

There was a man standing in the shadows. I couldn't make out anything about him. Except his hair. My god, it was long.

"Who are you guys?" I asked.
"I'm the Liar," she said. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm leaving."

She started walking away. As she left, the symbols stopped glowing. Of course. The Dying Man. A Fears presence is what gives those symbols their power.

So, I guess I owe you an explanation, huh?" the man said. His voice kind of surprised me.

I approached hm. As I got closer, I could see more of him. He was leaning with his back to the door frame. I could only see his left side from that angle. He looked exactly like me. Only... older. He was at least 30. Maybe 35. And he kept the eye that I could see closed.

"Another one?" I asked.
"It's complicated," he said. "I came from another timeline. Totally different from this world."
"How so?" I asked.
"Well, the main difference is that the Ace Of Chaos never existed in my world," he said. "So he never seduced the Vision. The Game Master never killed her, or went into his violent rage afterwards. Chaos Magic was never discovered. The Godslayer was never forged, and the Fears and their servants never ended up fighting over it. Hell, I was even born under a different name than you."
"So what is your name?" I asked.
"I'll get to that in a minute," he said. "You see, since the Vision never died in my world never died, she was around to cause me trouble. She started stalking me. One day she showed me exactly how I would die."
"What did she show you?" I asked.
"Car accident," he said. "I was riding my bike, and then a truck hit me. OF course, I managed to avid the situation when it actually came along. That's when I learned that she has the power to show people their future. She did it again. Showed me I would be killed by a robber in the dead of night. And it almost happened. He broke in, tried to kill me, but I was ready. I cheated death yet again."
"Wow," I said. "That's pretty impressive."
"It was know big deal," he said. "I knew how it played out, and I knew how to avoid it. So, after that, I started investigating her. I found a bunch of old books, containing a bunch of werd things. Magic spells, ancient histories, and infoon the Fears."
"So you were able to learnabout her?" I asked.
"Yep," he said. "Anyway, he showed me my death again. This time, it looked inescapable. A terrorist attack. A building blown to the ground, with me trapped inside."
"So all you had to do was avoid going in the building, right?" I asked.
"Well, the thing is, I didn't know which building it was, and I had business to take care of in several locations. I decided to just take my chances, and when a building was bombed wile I was facing off with this really annoying Proxy, I somehow managed to stay alive. I broke a leg and damn near punctured a lung, but I lived."
"Holy shit," I said. "You're an idiot, you know?"
"I am you, aren't I?" he asked, smiling.
"Whatever," I said.
"Anyway, while I was healing up, I decided to look into those magic books," he said. "They contained a number of magic rituals triggered by the presence of the Fears. I memorized a bunch of the spells, but some of them were a little... mixed up."
"Come again?" I asked.
"Basically, the pages were old and stuck together a bit," he said. "When the Vision came again, I tried to use her power to activate what I thought was a protective charm. Turns out, it was a time travel ritual."
"ime travel?" I asked. Of course. He said he was from another timeline. I guess it made sense.
"Yeah," he said. "I ended up getting sent 800 years into the past."
"800 years?" I asked. "Isn't that... when the Vision was..."
"Catching on?" he asked me, smiling.

He opened his eyes, which was glowing a bright green. He turned his face, revealing that his other eye wasn't there at all, replaced by a long, vertical scar.

"My universe never had an Ace Of Chaos," he said, "Because I am the Ace OF Chaos. When I went back in time, I created  new universe, in which I existed in the past."
"So, it was after that that you and the Vision...," I started.
"Got together?" he asked. "Yeah, pretty much. But when, it gets even more confusing!"
"Does it?" I asked.
"You see, Time Travel isn't the only way to create new timelines," he said. "Every time the Vision, or a Scion, or someone else who has seen the future decides to change things, they cause I split in the timelines. They create one time line where things stay the same, and one or more timelines where things stay the same. So from that one timeline I created, millions more ended up branching off from it."
"So that's why there's so many universes so close together," I said.
"That's right," he said.
"You're Marshall, aren't you?" I asked.
"That's right," he said. "As I said, I was born under a different name due to the difference between our universes. While you and many of the parallel yous are named Daniel Ferris, I was named Marshall Smith."
"Thatn that thing," I asked, gesturing to the magic symbols on the ground. "That's like the one you used to revive the last time?"
"Yes," he said. "The Liar owed me a favor, so I asked her to set up and activate the spell for me."
"I see," I said.
"Now, moving on to you," he said. "You're powerless now, correct?"
"Wha- how did you-?" I stammered.
"I can sense energy, and you have absolutely none," he said. "You're not a Devil Killer any more. You're human again."
"While I was in the Path Of Chaos, my power turned into a blak energy sword, then faded away after I beat Sentinal<" I said.
"I know," he said. "I saw it. I've never seen a Devil Killer use that power before."
"I don't know how I did it," Isaid. "It just kind of happened. Do you think I'll ever get my powers back?"
"I don't know," he said.
"So I'm back to being human again...," I muttered.
"Now, about your destiny," he said.
"What about it?" I asked.
"My descendant told you, didn't he?" he asked.
"Oh yeah," I said. "Me and ParaDan. One of us is going to defeat the Fears, while the other..."
I stopped for  moment.
"The other will have to sacrifice them self," I said. "It's gonna be me, isn't it?"
"I don't know," he said. "But with out your powers, the odds of you being the one to reaign victorious over the Fear have decreased significantly."

He stayed quiet for a while. I'm guessing he was giving me some time to think. IT was a couple minutes before he spoke again.

"So, here's my question for you," he said, smiling. "What will you do?"

I thought a bit more. Then I looked him in the... um... eye... and told him.

"I'm going to keep fighting against them," I said.
"Oh?" he asked.
"Even if I have to sacrifice myself in the end, I'm going to do as much harm  to them as I can before that time comes. Even if my powers are gone, I can still be a thorn in their side."
He started laughing when I sad that. "I was hoping you'd say that," he said. "I guess we are the same person after all!"

He suddenly keeled over, and his body flickered,

"Oh yeah," he said. "The resurrection spell is temporary. That means I'm gonna die again in the exact same way."
"Wait, you mean-?" I asked, but before I could finished, he looked up at me again, revealing that a mask had appeared on his face, with the number 1 on it.
"I'm gonna blow up now!" he said, as the number changed to 0.

His body was engulfed in a small explosion, and I had to shield my eyes from the blast. When I looked again, his body was gone.

"Sorry about that," his voice said, as an ephemeral image of him appeared before me. "That never gets any less painful."
"Wow," I said. "So that's what, the third time you've exploded?"
"Yep," he said. ""You should get going now. Tony's worried."
"Okay," I said.
"Oh, and one last thing," he said. "There's something important you need to be aware of."
"And what's that?" I asked.
"Mana," he said, "Has a mind of it's own."
"And what does that mean?" I asked.
"You'll understand soon enough," he said, as he faded away.




So, I left, reqrouped with Tony, and we'll be moving out soon. I also have to shut this blog down. I'm going on a little hunt, and I'll need to drop off the radar for a while. This is goodbye. For now.

Don't worry. I'm not running away. I'm running toward them. Like I told Marshall, I have every intention of fighting against them. But first things first.

I. Want. Nachos!