Catharsis

We ran back to the entrance of the mansion, which was also closed off by Frawa’s shield.

“How are we gonna get past this goddamn piece of shit?” Maria yelled as she banged her fists uselessly on it.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.” I motioned for her to stand aside, and she did. “I had years to theorize about Frawa’s nature, and I came up with a few hypotheses, which naturally, I didn’t have a way to prove, but I eventually came to an obvious conclusion, and if it works then this might be our way to defeat her once and for all.”

“Cool, what is it?” She asked.

“Frawa’s power is built on the emotional energy that gets drained into Obrillis’s sun, correct? She takes it all in and converts it into pure power, which is how all of this dark energy gets produced.” I explained. “I spent years tampering with this idea, and eventually managed to figure out a way to reverse this conversion, thus turning magical energy back into emotional energy. Watch this.”

I held out my hand to the shield, and as soon as I came into contact with it, the small area around my hand dissipated, and I suddenly felt a burst of anger rise within me.

“Quick!” I took her hand and jumped out right as the shield reformed.

“That…was impressive.” She said. “How exactly did you figure out how to do that?”

“Well, we obviously don’t have enough time to get into the specific details and technicalities, all I’m gonna say is that this took a lot of experimentation through trial and error, and a lot of time, which I thankfully had.”

“Right.” She nodded.

We then made our way to the back, from an angle at which we could see the roof, with Frawa holding a large orb of darkness, about to strike it on my past self. I remembered this moment clearly, it was what led to my return to Earth, although even now, I still wasn’t completely sure how that had happened.

Maria started going forward, but I held her back.

“Wait, hold on, we have to wait for me to get sucked into the orb, that’s how I make it back home.”

“Wait, really? How does that work?”

“Not sure.”

Eventually, the body of Arthur was sucked into the orb, which started to shake, sending waves of destruction all around it. The ground around us started to crack, and the air pressure threatened to knock us both off our feet if we weren’t careful.

“Now!” I signaled to Maria as loud as I could, as she could barely hear me despite us being right next to each other, as that was just how strong the air was.

We started running but she instantly stumbled due to her injuries.

“Go! I’ll catch up!” She said.

I nodded and went ahead of her.

“Frawa!” I yelled and jumped into the platform where my past self had been mere moments ago.

“You? You’re too late, your friend is gone.”

“Think again, and look at my soul directly!”

Frawa’s eyes widened with shock and recognition.

“Impossible! You returned here again? Why?”

“Why did you send me home?”

“Fool! It wasn’t up to me! Your soul was already barely hanging on to the void due to the manner in which it was summoned, and getting sucked into the orb most likely broke the connection. You were extremely lucky for that to have happened, or else your soul would have gotten extinguished. However, you threw that all away…for what? Vengeance? To prove a point?”

“No! It’s none of that shit! How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?”

“You little….” Frawa extended her hand, aiming to create another orb like the last one. Unfortunately for her, I was totally prepared for it this time.

I created an orb of my own, but it was white, pure white. I started draining all of the energy of the shield that Frawa had created all around us into it.

She noticed and scowled while strengthening her orb further.

The dark energy of her shield came into contact with my orb, each one shifting into different colours, while Frawa’s orb of darkness drained all colour and turned it into pure power.

“You think you can stop me with this?” She screamed furiously. “I am a God, boy!”

“I don’t give a fuck!” I screamed back at her, before throwing the completed orb straight at hers.

They both slammed into each other.

“No!” She backed away, trying to avoid being caught into their clash.

As the two orbs destroyed the surrounding air due to the pure pressure their clash caused, the colour forming my orb started flowing into Frawa’s, reconverting all that magical energy she’d stored inside that orb and returning it to its original form: Emotional energy.

Naturally, as soon as that happened, all the energy that had been combined together due to it being magical suddenly split apart, and with all the emotion free, both orbs disintegrated into nothing.

“Fool! It’s useless to resist! I can just create as many of these as I want!”

She started creating yet another orb thanks to the energy provided to her by the sun.

“Damn…” I muttered to myself. “As long as she has all that energy up there, it’s like she’s got infinite power….”

And then it hit me. I had a way to end it all.

I turned up to face the sun and extended my hand towards it.

“It’s too far, you moron!” Frawa snickered. “Is that all that you have left? A desperate attempt to tap into my reserves and steal them from under my nose? Did you really think that would work?”

Suddenly, a wave of emotional energy struck down on Frawa’s new orb, shattering it right as it had begun forming.

“What the-how?”

She was right. The sun was too far for me to attempt to interfere with. Luckily, I had something much closer: The energy she was bringing down from the sun. I managed to convert it back right before it merged with the orb.

A second wave flew down from the sky, but it was no use: I returned it to its original form and struck Frawa with it, to which she cried out in pain.

She crafted a spear of darkness with her rage, forgetting what I had just done. I returned the spear’s energy back to its original form once again, and she watched it fade away in her hands.

“No! What is this?” She cried out.

I then decided to try and do the same for my own body. I took all my remaining magical reserves and converted them into energy, and then hit Frawa with a laser blast made out of everything that hurt her: emotion, the ultimate expression of humanity. She screamed and clawed as she faded away into nothing.