Chapter Text
Squares could never before say, with absolute confidence, that there were times he hated his job. There's a first time for everything, though, isn't there? Unfortunately, "everything" can be literally anything, meaning that the saying also includes the dimensions and the very strands of order holding them together being haphazardly ripped apart and sewn together again in all the wrong places. This wasn't the first time it's happened, either, which is honestly pathetic. The fact that the literal Keeper of Dimensions is at the core of all the problems happening right now really rubs him the wrong way. The worst way, if you will.
The problem at hand was a group of idiot teenagers from opposite dimensions somehow subconsciously retaining both their bonds with one another and their memories of what happened when the dimension was first torn apart. And like the dumb emotional teen subconscious minds that they were, there was a longing for them to see each other again. Which somehow triggered a merge in dimensions.
Which has, in turn, led to the universe as a whole falling apart all over again, and for some reason, the very people who have triggered the event are now saying it's his fault for trying to fix the issue. The nerve of some people.
Why are these threats to existence itself acting as if he is the bad guy for wanting to dispose of them? They're not entirely innocent, not at all. You try to do your job the way you were taught to do it and get told by those very same teachers that it is, in fact, the dimensional parasites who are the innocent ones. For some reason. Makes absolutely no goddamn sense. Squares doesn't understand it, not at all, and if someone could explain it to him, that'd be great. But no one's going to. Not in any logical way, at least, void of all that mushy gushy nonsense that only stands in the way of common sense.
He's just trying to do what he was created for! That is it! That is literally it, but oh, how dare he try to keep peace in the dimensions when this group of small, insignificant, in-the-long-run-completely-and-ultimately-meaningless little kids wants to instead piece back the glass constructs they've shattered with what? Not with anything that will actually resolve the issues, but with the power of friendship~! As if friendship isn't what resurfaced this calamity in the first place. It's like fighting fire with fire. What naivety. It makes him sick. And they've dragged so many people into it, so many people into it. Yet another reckless, self-centered move. Can these people get any worse? At all?
"There can be fun and order! Those things can balance!"
And now they're explaining things he already knows to him. They are explaining concepts that he spent nearly all his existence learning, explaining the only things he truly understands as if he doesn't grasp it at all. As if he's a bumbling fool. As if he's a child. By an interesting and infuriating turn of events, they did, in fact, get worse! How lovely it all is.
"Affirmative! The balance you want can be obtained if you stop separating fun from order!" It can. Sure, it can. But not like this. What they are doing is crossing lines he didn't think ever needed to be drawn because god, how would someone ever be that dumb for those rules to need to be a thing? Well, they do. The extra rules CLEARLY NEED to be a thing now. It was a common sense thing before, but that's been out the window since this whole thing started. Can it not just end?
"Squares, their friendship goes beyond the dimensions. Even without their memories, their bond stayed! They wanted to see each other again! Don't you understand that...?" So this group of idiotic teenagers is willing to remain close at the expense of the balance of the universe? Touching! Truly touching. How incredibly self-absorbed. How incredibly wrong. Marle's heart may be in the right place, but they've swayed her a long while back and now...
"Ah, c'mon, lighten up a bit! Chaos can be fun, too~!" The Dimension Hopper. Clearly lost their mind a long time ago, and Squares doubts they will ever truly find it again. Did Ecolo ever have one to begin with? Who even knows? Either way, the opinions of a madman craving chaos to make things "interesting" cannot be taken into account. It'd be dangerous to even give the thoughts a platform.
The rest of the (very large) group's words all drown out in a sea of insufferable voices insisting that he was the problem for trying to literally save the multiverse. It combined with the disharmonic setting makes for a very... sensory-filled atmosphere. Overly sensory. Overstimulating. Overwhelming. There was so much going on all at once and he just could not take it. No one was listening. No one wanted to seem to take into account a word he said other than to refute it. Why was no one listening? Why was no one listening-?
Squares is a short fuse when it comes to stressful situations. A very short fuse. He can't handle too much input, and when the obvious signs of being overwhelmed by it all go completely unacknowledged-
"NO one is LISTENING TO ME."
-he snaps. He doesn't mean to, but he also doesn't care. They're being far more infuriating than he is right now.
It is frustrating. It is agonizing. It is as if the fabric of all the worlds are ripping at the seams and no one seems to care. Was this not his job? Was it not what Squares was meant to do? Restore order? "This is what I was created to do! If I can't make things right like Marle intended, then what am I even good for!?"
The question is hypothetical. He knows what he is good for, he knows what he must do, and he knows he has the strength to do it, which is precisely why he will. Right now. The barely controllable power that Squares had accumulated throughout the course of the entire "adventure" (or whatever these idiots wanted to call it, as if it was some noble quest, as if parasites could be noble at all) gradually, but surely starts to shake through the ground. Said ground begins to break, rattles the atmosphere around them. "THIS is my sole purpose! I need to get rid of you for everything to be okay!" It is the only way to make the worlds right again! This is all he can do to-
"Squares." Ugh. That Keeper of Dimensions. "I can't stop you, but I'll do everything I can to. If you hurt these kids..." He leans in a bit from where he's standing, voice hushing and lowering to an almost intimidating degree. It felt more like a warning from... experience than a threat. "...I can assure you that you will regret it."
Squares scoffs out of, if nothing else, anger and the want to get everyone to back the hell off. "As if I'm taking advice from someone who gave up on the universe because he just missed his daughter too much. You failed at what you supposedly do best, Keeper, and it's pathetic that I need to go around and fix the problems you ultimately made."
He doesn't even get to revel in Ex's surprised, yet hurt reaction before Marle catches him off guard, too. "Squares! This is not his fault, i-it's mi-"
"This is ALL his fault!!" Squares points straight at Ex, but doesn't fail to break eye contact with Marle for even a second. "If HE hadn't let that tear in spacetime get as big as it did the first time, none of us would BE here right now and nothing would be wrong!! Who made HIM the Keeper of Dimensions, anyway!? Some employer...!"
"Squares!" Marle's voice is almost timid, as it tends to sound even in times like this where she yells or attempts to be assertive. She's just a soft-spoken person. A soft-spoken person, that is, who clearly has a knack for chaos as long as it's fun. Typical! Absolutely typical! "You're being so unreasonable right now!"
"I'm unreasonable?" A laugh breaks out of Squares. The terrifying laugh of someone who will never, ever change their mind, someone who finds it funny that people with good intentions try to make them. Squares has good intentions, too! How come no one could see that? WHY does no one try to understand that!? "You're the crazy ones! I try to do what will keep the universes from falling apart, but yeah! Of course! How dare I try to be responsible for your actions? My bad!"
"You can restore what you think is right without doing this!"
And just exactly how does she expect him to do that? Let chaos reign? Let the worlds merge fully and cause absolute anarchy? Allow this group of dunces to selfishly live with each other as the world around them falls apart? They just don't get it. They don't get it, and they don't want to.
A deafening ring flies through the atmosphere.
They never would care, would they? Just look at them. They don't care about anything outside fun, no matter what lies they spew to make it seem otherwise.
The light in the surrounding area is suddenly so... off. When did that difference happen...? Either way, it's still changing. The atmosphere is getting bright, so bright, too bright. The world is... changing. Squares is utilizing his power. It's such a chaotic transformation, and a wildly turbulent utilization of the energy, but whatever it is Squares is doing, it's working.
"Squares, you dolt, what are you doing!?" The insult has to have come from Ess. Who else could it have been? Even in times of the greatest fear of the unknown to ever happen, she still finds room for even the slightest tougher exterior.
Tee sounds just as terrified as the world starts to go completely white and the ringing drowns out the voices of everyone surrounding him, yet he still tries to negotiate. How quaint! How weak. "Is this how- how a mature person who CAN handle change would- would do things-!?"
"Woohoooooooo!! Things are CHANGIIIIING....~!" And... Ecolo. Yeah. They're still here.
But they can't get out, even as the Dimension Hopper. None of them can stop him now, not even that trio of girls who especially seem to think being nice to others will undo all the damage that's been caused.
"Ringo, Amitie, what's happening!?"
"I don't know!"
"Waaah!! I don't wanna disappear!"
They don't want to restore order. But Squares does, and Squares will.
"This can't be happening!"
Tee, still talking for some futile, insignificant reason: "Squares, your powers are unstable! You don't know how to regulate them and you don't know what you're doing! You're- you're not going to restore a-anything!!"
Not even the Keeper of Dimensions could stop him. Not even his creator could stop him from bringing back order.
And oh, he'd restore it. He'd show them.
"Squares, stop this, now."
"Please, Squares, this isn't-"
He'd show ALL of these parasites.
"T H I S I S W H A T I S R I G H T ."
...
...
...okay.
What the fuck was that.
All Squares remembers after the exchange was an inhuman surge of power followed by a total blackout. It must've been for an eternity, several, yet also must've lasted only seconds. Time in that unconscious void even for godly beings is perceived in a mortal way; it is not perceived at all until you've came to again.
And when Squares comes to, he's... right where he was earlier. How long has it been? He had no real way of knowing or of disproving any conception of time at the moment. It may have been eternities ago, seconds ago, no time at all may have passed between then and now; whatever the case, he's still here. He slowly sits up, groaning with the motion. His head hurts. Everything hurts. It's probably from all the exerted power from earlier. "That... ow." Ow indeed.
"...you're up."
Marle is here with him, kneeling in front of him as if she'd been waiting for him to arise. Odd how she's here while Ex, Ecolo, Satan (was that his name? The Puyo Underworld ruler or something), and everyone he didn't even target with the spell are no longer present. Not a matter to dwell on just yet, though. "Marle, what are you-?"
"You've been out for a while. I was starting to get worried... I'm relieved that you're okay, at least."
Marle gives a soft, sad smile, and Squares can tell almost immediately that Marle is not telling the whole truth. There is relief in her voice, that much is undoubtable. Her worry for him was genuine, but it isn't just relief she's feeling towards him at the moment. There is something in her expression, something melancholy, confused, that gives her inner feelings away. Marle is contemplating something. Marle is guilty. Marle is lamenting. Marle is... bitter. Likely with him.
That could only mean that, "It worked."
"It did."
"I restored equilibrium to the dimensions."
"Yes."
Marle could be so confusing at times, and this is absolutely one of those confusing moments. If this isn't one of those times, Squares evidently doesn't know her that well at all. Squares can't understand why she'd been against him before in their plight, nor can he comprehend why she seems so upset with him now. Squares was supposed to reestablish balance, was he not? Is that not the only reason for his existence? It's... why Marle made him, isn't it? It's... why...
...
Maybe he just never knew her to begin with.
Marle is odd. But one thing he is certain of is that he didn't do the wrong thing. Imagine. An overseer of the dimensions in charge of what's right doing the wrong thing. It'd be funny if Squares thought it was worth laughing over. He didn't.
"I had to do it, Marle."
She anxiously shifts in place. "Did you?"
"I did."
Squares -- slowly, shakily, and with Marle's almost reluctant help -- manages to get back on his feet. He looks out at the now peaceful void, relishing in the fact that everything is once again at peace. He really did do his job, and therefore the sacrifice that had to be made was worth it. One day, Marle will understand that.
"This... is the right outcome."