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"Everything that has a beginning has an end..."
―The Matrix Revolutions
The first time the Core heard Anne's Voice, without relying on Andrias' senses, was when they were winning. Although winning is a stretch. A pyrrhic victory at best. The self-destruction of their lunar base, on one metaphorical hand. The complete annihilation of their enemies and any living being in Amphibia, on the other. A pragmatic decision.
As the satellite, fully connected and flowing with the weave of consciousness that was the Core, approached its celestial owner, the Stars appeared. Predictable. The Core released the experiments from the bowels of the moon base. The Stars destroyed the experiments. Predictable. These mooks never stood a chance against the Stones' powers. But they did their job of keeping the humans at bay.
The Stars gave everything they had. Pushing, shoving with all the Stones' might, in a futile effort to stop the moon's descent. Predictable.
What happened next, the Core didn't foresee. Andrias, sending his frobots to help the girls in their struggle, actually halting the moon's descent, before destroying the crown, his link to the Core. Andrias had betrayed them. Unexpected, but irrelevant. Even the part of the Core that was Aldritch, Andrias' father, had no feelings about this. The Core increased the power of the thrusters. They were at 50% energy usage and it was more than enough to regain their momentum.
Even better —Strength and Wit powers' began to falter. Predictable. Their bodies weren't as attuned to the Stones' power as Heart's. They gave up on their push. Amphibia grew larger as the moon inched closer; the Stars were losing their power, while The Core had the energy to spare.
Then something unexpected happened. Heart extracted the Stones' power from herself, as well as Strength and Wit. Then she did the unspeakable. She gave the Stones to Wit, then summoned two dark bubbles around the humans and sent them back to Amphibia! That's…
No. The mental weave of the Core's minds eased its waves. This was irrelevant. The impact won't destroy the Stones any more than it would destroy the Core. They'll simply detach their portable drone body and search for the Stones in the ashes of the planet. It might take months, or years. Time was unimportant. Eventually, the Stones will be found and the Core shall merge them with their drone body. No more Music Box as an intermediary. The power would flow through the mesh of minds, refreshing them, filling them with the light of a thousand stars. The power of the Heavens. All theirs. It was inevitable.
Another unexpected; while Strength and Wit returned to Amphibia, Heart stood her place. What could she… Ah. She's planning to use her own strength, her domain over Death, against The Core. It'll never work.
"You fool! You dare oppose a GOD?!" The Core taunted the small girl.
Then Heart spoke and she didn't sound like a little, scared girl. She had the voice of thousands, millions, speaking in unison, challenging the Core.
"YES. I DO."
The first time Anne heard her Voice was… Well, that was a tricky one. She's always been aware when she'd used it, and she's been using it for as long as she can remember —although counted times before Amphibia. A voice like her own but not quite. Like speaking through a megaphone and hearing yourself and thinking 'I don't sound like that, right?'
The one time she heard it for real was when she was fighting The Core.
It had all been so stupid. Magic powers, ancient prophecies, and the bond she shared with Marcy and Sasha. Anne really believed it, you know? That there was a destiny written for them; one in which they defeated an ancient evil and became heroes. Who the heck was she kidding? They were kids playing knights and dragons, and the dragon had won. Marcy and Sasha had given their best but it had worn them down. Anne, too, was beginning to feel the fatigue sink in.
But right then, when the moon kept approaching Amphibia at a terminal velocity, Anne felt a hint of… not hope, but something else.
When she'd asked Mother of Olms if they really could defeat The Core, MoO had taken her aside and said:
"I believe you do. In fact, there may be more than one way in which this story ends." She sighed. "But none of them comes without a price."
Then she told Anne about the Stone's true power, how to use it, and what it would mean for her. Could Anne really die? Her Reaper self would be fine, but her human half might find the Stones' powers a bit too spicy.
So Anne asked about the other way. MoO looked around and whispered.
"Child. You already know it."
Anne didn't know what she meant until her friends were losing and the whole of Amphibia faced their imminent destruction.
"Anne, what are you doing?" said Marcy scandalized as Anne gave her the Stones to keep.
"I'm going to end this," said Anne with confidence. "I mean, that entire thing is just a bunch of ghosts in a robot suit, right? And if I'm good at something, that's exorcizing. So that's what I'm gonna do."
Their friends didn't seem to hear, or simply didn't care about what she said; they weren't leaving Anne behind. In other circumstances, Anne would've been moved. Now, they were just in the way. Regardless, they couldn't escape the shadow bubbles she'd trapped them in.
Promises were made and reassurances were given. That she would return; that they'll be together forever. That she was going to be fine. Anne knew better. Marcy, Anne thought, did too but she said nothing. She pressed her hand against the wall of the bubble. Anne did the same from her side.
She sent the bubbles with their desperate friends back to Amphibia. Then turned to face her enemy —oh mama, that thing sure is big and not just in size. Anne sensed the rage of the souls that made the whole. It burned like the sun but in a twisted, demented way. But Anne worked with the power of her family and friends waiting for her return. Unlikely as it was, she should at least try to come back.
She summoned her golden Reaper armor made of skulls and her cape made of the night sky. Then she lifted her hand and summoned Rift, her trusty scythe. She paid no mind to The Core taunting her. She just needed one good shot.
She twirled Rift, slowly at first and quickly reaching hurricane speed. She called the shadows, and the shadows came, filling Rift with raw power. Then she brought the scythe back, like a tennis racket, before whipping it forward. It flew at a speed that rivaled the moon and was flying right toward it. It was a direct hit! The energy didn't become an explosion, but expanded in waves around The Core, turning it into a shiny blue ball. That's what you deserve, you stupid robot! Anne thought, thinking herself victorious.
But when the energy dispersed the moon was still there, falling to the beloved world that had adopted her. Even worst; Anne tried to recall Rift back to her but she couldn't. That made it even more personal. Nobody stole her scythe. She didn't have a choice but to land on the moon.
It was a horrifying view —a Hell of creaking, out-of-tune, living machinery in the semblance of a city. Ever moving, with the illusion of being alive. It ignited anger inside Anne that she hasn't known before.
She found Rift incrusted into a metal mound. She went to retrieve it, but as Anne pulled it out, she was pulled down. Hands, dozens of them, newt hands; the Core's souls, fused into a horrid amalgamation of tangled limbs and disfigured furious faces. Anne kicked the creature, taking Rift into her hands. She swiped it awkwardly and quickly. The blob of limbs was cleanly cut in half, but instead of turning into dragonflies and ascending, the two cleaved parts fused again into a single being. Anne's blood ran cold. It was the power of the Shadowfish she'd found in the castle basement. The ability to cheat death.
That explains a lot of things. The combined power of all these souls allowed the Core to will itself back into this not-death, not-quite-alive shape. They were past the point of being ghosts. They just existed.
Anne couldn't defeat them. Not with her powers alone. Even at her strongest, she was weak.
Maybe if she fled to Amphibia now she could open a few portals, evacuate as many people as possible, send them to Earth, and then… Then she didn't know. But she had nothing else.
She made a jump to take a fly but was stopped. A two-faced newt held her by the ankle with two of its four hands. It had a strong grip and kept her in place, as more hands sprouted from the ground and grabbed her legs and arms. She struggled to free herself, but the same power that allowed the Core to cheat death gave these beings an inch of power over Anne.
A trapdoor opened below her. Screaming and shouting, Anne was shoved down the narrow hole, as the steel walls produced more and more hands, gripping Anne in such a way she felt she was surrounded by giant centipedes. And there were also the faces; laughing, mocking her. Calling her a fool and a child. On her way down she was cut and scratched by the metal walls, leaving bleeding wounds.
This was Hell. It had to be.
And then she hit the bottom —a small chamber, barely big enough for her to lift her head, and only if she knelt. She tried to move but at every side, she found sharp metal that further pierced her skin. The trapdoor closed over her, leaving Anne in complete darkness. Inside the chamber, The Core's voice came from all places at once.
"Foolish girl," The Core laughed and laughed. "Don't you know I have beaten Death? I'm a God. I am Eternal. I am Endless!"
Pain shot through Anne's body. She'd lost. She'd given her best but in the end, she'd been defeated by that monstrous thing, and all her friends and family were facing a certain death. But even as defeat burnt shamefully at the back of her mind, she won't give up. There were other times Anne thought she was done, that she couldn't go the distance, but she'd always pulled an ace off her sleeve, a new trick, a new power, and it was all thanks to her loved ones. The Plantars, Sasha and Marcy, her parents, there was always someone to cheer her up. To tell her she could cross that last bridge. And right now they were waiting for her to return. She owed them to try.
Anne just needed a plan. She did the breathing exercises Marcy taught her to focus the mind, tuning out the pain and the rumble of the machinery around. And she thought... What did Mother of Olms say? Anne already knew how to beat the Core? Anne thought she meant through her Angel of Death powers, but that was a flunk. Then it hit her like a fist in the face.
Anne had put to use all the power she had. But not all the power she could have.
It's a secret she kept to herself, but ever since she'd unleashed her full Reaper power, and every time after that, she'd sensed there was more for her to grab. But there also was… something. A barrier, blocking her way. Like, you are training, yes? And you're using your muscles, but after a certain point your muscles give up and give the no-go signal to your brain, and if you keep pushing yourself forward, you'll end up straining yourself or worse.
And there was a presence too. Someone else in the metaphorical room of her brain, guarding that barrier, shaking its head 'no'.
Anne had ignored it because, honestly, it freaked her out. There was someone else living deep inside her psyche! Plus, she'd never needed that much punch to pack before.
Well, she needed it now.
Anne closed her eyes and reached inside herself.
She pictured the inside of her mind as something familiar. A water well, like the one they had in the Plantars' farm, except no water it had but a black, goo-like substance. Liquid darkness. In her mind, Anne reached for the well. She looked around. She was alone.
"Hello? Anybody here?" she shouted to the plains and the hills she'd imagined.
Nobody answered.
Did she imagine the presence after all? She looked inside the turbulent substance of the well. This was her. Or part of her anyway, the non-human part. With one bold finger, she stuck her tip in the liquid. It looked like goo but felt like slime.
As she stuck her finger in, the ooze waved, way more than what her finger could have caused.
"Hello? Did… are you down there?" she said to the black substance.
She got bold and stuck a hand in it, energy running from her arm through all her body. Dark as it was, she saw something moving swimming deep under the waters.
"OK, I definitely saw that. Sir? Dude or whatever. Come over here, I wanna talk."
The ooze bubbled but that was it.
"Fine, don't answer. Just listen."
Anne sat down at the well's stone border, giving her back to its waters.
"We never talked, but I've always known there was something else in me. Something not exactly right, but not bad either. Only these past few weeks I've been sensing you. I wonder if it was the same for you, whoever you are. I mean, we're practically strangers, connected by this well. This power that I never wanted. But I'm not mad!" She rushed to add. "It worked well for me. Well, for the last year it has. Before that, It kinda sucked. But I'm trying to put that behind me. Sorry, I'm rambling.
"My point is, my point is," said Anne, and tried to think of a good point. "It's not enough. This power, the part that belongs to me? It's not enough to defeat that godmachine. I know I reached my limit. So I'm asking you for your power. All of it. I… have the feeling my human half won't stand it."
Anne stopped. After everything she'd done for others, she was allowed a moment of doubt.
"And I'm fine with that," she finally said. "So that's the deal. You destroy the Core for me using our combined powers, and then you can keep mine if you want. Deal?"
There was a rustling and a splash behind her. She turned around. There was no one there. But when she looked into the waters she didn't see her reflection. There was a cloaked figure looking at her. There seemed to be nothing inside the garment, except for two bright stars for eyes. It had no mouth to speak, yet it did, with a voice that sounded like her own but with a deep echo that seemed to stretch forever.
"YOU UNDERSTAND," the creature said, "THAT SUCH AN ACT WOULD REQUIRE ME TO TAKE OVER YOUR BODY. THERE WON'T BE TURNING BACK."
Anne stared at those bright dots. She felt fear, deep and primal, like looking into a bonfire and feeling your brain ignite with the knowledge that, controlled as it was, it was still potentially fatal. Wait, is this how everyone feels around her? Wow. Deep.
Anne gulped. She'd imagined there was no hope for her, but hearing it out loud gave her the chills. Not that she had any option.
Anne nodded yes. The creature lifted a black, cloaked hand. Anne lifted hers too. The thing brought its hand up. Anne caught the drift and reached for the waters, and when it was about to touch the ooze, the thing's black hand lifted and grabbed her by the wrist. She fell hard into the well and continued to descend, deeper and deeper into the darkness.
All the same time, the world around the well turned gray as the well broke apart, its dark waters flowing freely from the underground, flooding the hills and the flatlands and darkening the skies until there was no light left.
In the real world, the real Anne opened her eyes, as the darkness around her seemed to deepen. She felt movement, and when she looked, she saw the shadows, tendrils of darkness, part of the void, creeping in through the cracks in the machinery. It flowed through the cracks like water, but once inside it gusted like the wind. It began to make circles around Anne. Soon, the chamber flooded with the substance; the shadows spun around Anne, stuffing her into a bubble. She saw faces, skulls, in the black matter, closing on her. When it pierced her skin, Anne screamed. Her muscles, her very bloodstream were being filled with the substance. Anne yelled and cried until her face was covered too, the tendrils digging inside her face and into her skull, rotting inside her very brain. And that was it. Where once stood a teenage girl now was a sphere of darkness. Pure void. At this point, Anne wasn't sure if she still had a body.
Thinking positively, nothing hurts anymore so, perks.
That's when the alien presence made itself known, with a voice not like hers at all. It boomed like bricks falling over the marble floor.
"LET US BEGIN."
Anne felt the material that was, for a lack of a better word, the new body she was part of bent and took shape. Its real shape, the one of the creature's true nature.
It tried to move its body but the chamber proved to be even smaller than before. But that was just a small setback. The creature touched the roof with its hand. The metal began to rust and crumble, finally turning into dust and leaving a small opening. More than enough for the creature; its shape was malleable enough to fit into the aperture. It made itself like a snake and slithered its way up, rusting and eating away the metal of the Core's entrails. And as it ascended, it grew in size as it became more accustomed to this physical form.
Finally, it emerged to the surface.
Back in Amphibia, a crowd had amassed. It was composed of three armies, the Plantars, Sasha, Marcy, Olivia, Yunan, and even Andrias. They gathered to watch the moon as it inched closer and closer to crash into their beloved world. Fear was abound. And worry, because Anne hasn't returned.
"What's happening? Anne said she would take care of it," shouted Sasha to Marcy, trying to make herself heard among the mass.
Marcy was devastated, but more collected. "Sasha. If she's not... if she's not here yet maybe she-"
"No! I told her to come back. If anyone can beat that thing is Anne."
Sasha was clearly in denial. Marcy was ready to set her straight but Sprig's voice broke through the crowd.
"Wait, something's happening on the moon's surface. Something came out from inside!"
Hop Pop asked, "What is it, boy? Is it Anne?"
Sprig pointed his telescope to the moon. The celestial object was so close to Amphibia that he could get a good look at its surface. From inside the Core had sprouted a well, and it was massive. 300 feet tall at the very least. It was not water but a pitch-black substance. Sprig thought immediately of Anne.
"I don't know," he said, jumping on Frobo, "but I'm gonna find out. Frobo, let's go."
Frobo activated its jets and took off into the sky.
OK, by this point Anne was sure this wasn't her body anymore. She had no eyes to see yet she could see everything in all directions. She had no bones to move yet the body she was part of flowed freely, a spring of darkness reaching into the sky. Perhaps it was muscle memory, or perhaps it was the will of the other presence, but the liquid turned into a solid substance. Its shape was one of a giant cloak. Its insides brimming with the light of a thousand stars shining inside it, and two giant suns as its eyes. It was the presence's true form. And Anne's. She had certainty now, she could say it.
Death. She was Death. All this time, the alien, weird, powerful part of her she didn't understand had been Death. Leveler of mountains. Destroyer of Armies. The Final Reality. The last thing everything in the Universe, even the gods, must face. That was her. Or rather, she was part of it. The only thing off about its appearance was the hands, which resembled two blue gloves, like the ones Anne's mom had gifted her to hide her powers. It felt fitting.
"What's the meaning of this? Who are you?" asked the Core, sounding insecure for the first time.
Like a slumbering titan, Death took its time to speak. It sounded like the voice of Anne combined with another thundering voice deep as the sea.
"AN OVERDUE VISIT."
The Core had to be stopped, Anne understood that. But the priority should be halting the moon's descent into Amphibia. Somewhere inside the combined being she was part of now, she still had a degree of, if not control, influence.
She made Death move. It opened its arms wide and made a call, summoning the shadows under the tiniest leaf and the darkness from the deepest void. And they came. They gusted around the moon and enveloped it in a sphere. The celestial object hit the edge of the sphere, stopping moving at once. In its desperation, the Core increased the thrusters' power to its limit, but even then, the barrier stood impassable. Just for good measure, Death made a swipe with a hand, moving the shadows at its command, spinning them into a drill-like tendril. The drill dived forward, dragging a screech out of the Core as it pierced the moon, dusting the metal around the impact zone.
Death made another swipe and another and another, trusting each shadow limb into the moon, stopping it from moving at all, and rendering its thrusters a powerful yet useless instrument. Well, that takes care of it, Anne celebrated as her thoughts became dizzy. That bit of influence she'd used had taken a lot of her. It was not only her body she'd lost. Her mind and soul were being absorbed, slowly fading away. Eventually, only Death will remain. She was strangely fine with that. She had only one thing left to do.
Death made a move; its body, more a cloak filled with stars than a body with muscles and bones, slide forward, the ground rusting as it moved, demolishing whole buildings at its pace. It stopped in front of a tower, the tallest on the whole moon's surface. At the top of the obelisk, a giant eye watched down the scene with curiosity. Death summoned the shadows again, this time to its side. The resulting object looked nothing like Anne's scythe, this one being a one-piece weapon, all black from the shaft to the blade. Death lifted the scythe in a slow, controlled motion, before letting it fall with incredible swiftness for a giant. It slashed the obelisk in half. The metal cover felt, leaving only a bulbous mass of souls, a deformed creature, made of a thousand faces and a thousand hands, just the size of the demolished building. It looked ready to lunge forward when a sparkling blue dot shined on one of its faces. The color spread through the mass of tangled limbs, their faces cracking before exploding. Dragonflies emerged from the dust cloud and flew into the sky, free and uncontrolled.
The Core went rabid. It yelled, insulted, and begged it to stop. But there was no stopping the inevitable. The blue light infected the ground, the buildings, and the whole surface, changing its color from rusty orange to a ghostly blue. The souls were expelled from the moon, one by one, turning into dragonflies and flying into the sky. It reached the point where the sphere's sky shined with the light of the dragonflies, flying in circles around the moon.
With the souls gone, the whole structure began to rust and crumble, since the only thing keeping it together was gone. The moon's original stone surface began to reappear as the metal dusted away. It finally returned to its original form, albeit smaller and more full of holes than it once was. The only thing remaining was a single metal eyeball, barely attached to the surface by bolts.
"No, no! How could you," it spoke but it wasn't the Core's voice, it was Aldritch's. "You stole my destiny. My legacy. The empire I built. You destroyed it all." He spoke furiously, and then he begged. "Please, you can't do this to me. I'll give you anything. Money, power, knowledge. You can't do this to me. I am Aldritch, ruler of Amphibia, the eternal empire. I am immortal. I've beaten you before and I'll beat you again. I have surpassed death!"
Both Anne and the other presence —that is, the actual Death— took this personal.
"YES YOU DID," said Death with its dual voices, "FOR FAR TOO LONG."
Death gave another cut with the scythe, slashing the eyeball in half. Aldritch's soul gave one final hateful scream as it became peaceful dragonflies. They joined the horde in the sky.
It's time for them to go, thought Death. It made another hand sweep and the sphere and the tendrils disappeared. Only the vast Universe stood in its way. The dragonflies took off, but before going away they went down, back into Amphibia, and darkened the sky of the world with one last fly before dissolving into light.
Everything was calm. In general, in the Universe, inside Death, and inside Anne's fading mind. She felt drowsy. She could go to sleep now and never wake up and that would be fine. She did it. She'd won. She saved everyone. Now she'll be absorbed, and Anne Boonchuy will be no more. Only Death. It was fine.
Slowly, Anne let the sleepiness take over her as she faced the eternal slumber.
"Anne?" Sprig's voice woke her up.
Death turned around. A tiny frobot (Frobo, Anne remembered) with an even tinier frog (Sprig!) was suspended in space, just staring in awe at the being in front of him.
"Anne… is that you?" Sprig shyly asked, fighting the growing fear inside his chest.
Anne's brain cells began to ignite. She can't leave Sprig alone. Come to think of it, she can't leave Sasha or Marcy or the Plantars or her parents. She fought too hard to win this battle and she won't be seeing them again? Her mind became clearer and more focused on remaining independent but Death kept trying to absorb her. The being's whole form began to tremble as a battle was fought inside its combined mind.
'YOU MADE A PROMISE, YOU MUST FULFILL IT.'
Death screamed inside its mind, making a good point. But Anne didn't give a damn.
'I don't care!' she snapped back. 'I don't care about that promise. I'm not ready to die!'
And with that, her mind went blank. The being dissolved into shadows, banishing from sight.
Sprig panicked. "What the? Anne? Anne, where did you go!" He screamed into the uncaring void of space.
No one answered.
The pain Anne felt was indescribable. You know when you get hurt and a piece of your skin gets ripped off? She felt like that but in her whole body. It was such an excruciating pain, to be torn apart, that she would've passed out if it were physically possible. Then the pain stopped. And when there was one, now there were two. Anne had a moment to look at the floating cloak, stare at its stars for eyes before a white light enveloped her.
Far away, Anne woke up. Just Anne. She was dotting her Reaper armor and could feel the power —her power— coursing through her. She could sense the other presence —Death— but it was quiet and distant, like a faraway mountain.
Anne found herself in a garden, in a place without sky or ground, just landmasses floating in the void, filling an endless alien Universe. There was a house in Anne's garden. And inside the house there was Domino.
From the beginning, Anne knew this wasn't her cat. Especially when it talked.
"Hello Anne," said Not-Domino in a quite collected tone. "Grab a seat. We have much to discuss."
Anne sat down, not because she was told, but because this being was powerful. Much more than the Core, maybe even rivaling Death.
But more than that she sat because she had questions, and she knew this creature could answer them.
If Anne had known how complicated her life would become, she would've kept the questions to herself.