"Hello?" Zero's voice echoed into the endless darkness that enveloped him. "I can't see a thing, hello?" His eyes strained to adjust, and his Dragon Sight worked overtime, battling the thick darkness reminiscent of the Void. "Okay, I don't feel dead, though. Is this what death is really like? A boundless void of nothing but my own thoughts until my mind descends into madness?"
Frantically moving about, Zero sensed his body making contact with a surface. The gravity around him fluctuated, making his flailing arms constantly throw him off balance. "Is this the end? Endless flailing and wandering until my body grows cold, numb, and succumbs to the enveloping darkness, merging with it as my Soul becomes lost in the ether? Oh, there's a doorknob here."
Zero turned the handle and stepped forward, plummeting from the sky. The ground below, a mix of red and orange sand, lay beneath him, bathed in a mysterious green hue. A wide grin spread across his face as he accelerated in his descent. The drop measured at least five kilometers, and when he glanced back, the doorframe began fading, swallowed by the dense orange clouds above.
Turning back around, Zero angled himself toward the ground, diving headfirst with an ever-widening smile. As he gazed into the distance, seven shards of golden light emerged from all corners of the area, hurtling towards him. They appeared distant, almost imperceptible in the misty haze created by the swirling sand around him.
"Well, at least we know that part of the plan is working," Zero mused to himself as he observed the shards converging toward him. He rotated his body as the ground approached, flipping over to land on his feet. Just as he was about to touch down, he teleported in place, halting all momentum and landing gently on the soft sand.
Surveying the desolate surroundings, Zero noted the vast emptiness. He lifted his nose, taking in the scent. "I guess it smells like before, though I can't really remember. I should have asked Conri all this time to teach me what he taught Maeve." He shrugged and started walking. "I'll have to ask him when I get back, if he's still alive. Maybe I'll find him here."
Zero halted, his excitement palpable, as he began dancing in place. Thoughts of those he had known who had passed on filled his head, igniting a nearly endless hope at the prospect of seeing them again.
He went to walk again but stopped, his head rotating to where his Dragon Sense was calling him. It wasn't toward the shards of light but just to the left of them. His eyes adjusted, and what he sensed came into focus. A figure dressed in red cloth with gold chains wrapped around it, tying it to their body. The cloth covered their entire figure from head to toe, trailing in the sand behind them.
Zero let out an exhausted sigh. "Okay, this shit again." He turned around and began waving his hand through the air. "Hey!" He waved frantically. "I don't know which one of Virgil's children you are, but it's me, Zero!" He pulled up his other hand and waved it too, calling louder. "You don't need to come check on me; I'm just gonna keep walking!" Turning around, he started walking again. However, as he turned, another figure, also covered in the same colored cloth and chains, appeared. "Oh, hi there! How are you?" He took a step back, only to bump into another figure, one he recognized immediately. "Hey, you're Pohlepa! Wait, she said we can't call you that, Grid…no, Greed! Hey, you and Aladdin's friend he told me about share the same name. Small world. Wait, I don't think that really applies here."
Zero was trying to bide his time, waiting for the shards to return to him. Virgil's children were incredibly powerful, and he still wasn't truly back in the right mind after his fight with Nix. He had killed himself, threw his own body into the moon with such force that it tore the flesh from his body and chipped his bones into dust. As far as he knew, it worked. But until he got back…an idea suddenly dawned on him. "Hey, do you guys know if I blew up the moon or not? And what about Nix? Does she come here too, or does she, like, I don't really know what to say."
"You're brazen coming back here in such a manner," Virgil's voice filled the air, and the two figures near Zero moved toward him as he walked forward. "It's good to see you again, Zero, and yes, you did succeed in blowing up the moon. As for Nix, she has returned to the All Tree." Virgil's gaze locked on Zero. It hadn't been that long, but Zero had forgotten how intense his eyes were. The kaleidoscope of reds contrasted his faint blue skin. His dark blue hair had grown longer, now cascading down to his shoulders. His attire remained the same, a white undershirt covered by a long black cape-like jacket and matching black pants with knee-high white-heeled boots. His aura stung the inside of Zero's body, penetrating deep inside him, grasping at his heart with every beat. "Tell me." He lifted his hand just as the shards of light were about to press into Zero's back, stopping them in their tracks. They shook violently in place, trying to reach Zero, but Virgil held them in place with just a raise of his hand. "Your soul there, I haven't met someone who can break it, let alone walk around without it. Let’s start with why did you break it?"
Zero's shoulders relaxed, and his entire demeanor changed. "Pardon? Oh, my Soul. I had to split it up. It's a Dragon's Soul, and this Human body couldn't handle it."
"And do you believe that it can handle it now?" Virgil asked.
Zero shook his head. "Probably not, honestly. My plan was to just launch myself into the moon to stop Nix's darkness spell. Then I was gonna come here and get my Soul, and I thought someone here could teach me how to not explode when it's inside of me. Then I was going to go back, and with my Soul, I was going to break the strings she had on me from when she transformed me into a Human. But I actually just smashed her into the moon, so I already broke the strings she had on me. I guess now I'm just here to grab Oduduwa, Máire, and Varin."
Virgil was humoring him at first, but when he said the name Varin, it struck a chord. "Varin? What is your desire with her?"
"I don't desire anything. I just made a promise to bring her back home, which reminds me, can I have Vol back?"
Virgil tilted his head, his eyes widening before erupting into laughter. "HAHAHAHAHAHAH." He knelt down, hands grabbing his knees. "AH HAHAHAHAHA, YOU, YOU, AHAHA HAHAHAHA, AHAHAHAHA!"
Zero rubbed the back of his head nervously, pulling on his hair as Virgil continued to laugh. "Uh, thanks?"
"Haha, you, Zero, ah ah, you are more brazen than I could have ever imagined. What a delight you are!"
"Thaaannkk yoooouu?" Zero responded. "I was kinda being serious. I can always come back after I get done talking to Death."
Virgil's demeanor completely shifted. He leaned up and turned to Greed. "Take your siblings and go find Lust. Play for a bit while Zero and I talk."
The figure standing about thirty meters behind Zero vanished alongside Greed and the other on Virgil's left side, each with a gust of wind, mimicking Zero's teleportation and catching his attention.
"That's new, or did they just not do that before when we fought?" Zero asked.
"No, that was added later, thanks to you. Teleportation, quite the useful tool," Virgil replied. "I made some modifications, though. They don't need to see the spot they can teleport to with their eyes, only their minds."
"Hey, I can do that too, kinda, not really. I teleported Maeve, who was really far away from me, and myself, at the same time, by the way. I teleported us to the middle of the ocean when Vol was disappearing into the sky."
Virgil stared at Zero with a small smile in the corner of his mouth. "Noted." He leaned to the side, taking another look at the shards of Zero's Soul still hovering behind him. "Shall we see if you can take it?"
Zero bobbed his head. "Oh yeah." He turned around. "Hit me!"
Virgil nodded, and the shards channeled their way into Zero, lifting him off the ground and into the sky. The moment they were inside, his chest began to glow red, then white, and his entire body exploded in a cloud of ash and smoke with the seven shards hovering inside, shaking frantically in all directions, trying to find Zero.
"Hmm," Virgil stated. "I wonder." He turned his attention from the cloud and to the left a little, where Zero had fallen from before. He waited a moment, counting in his head, each second that went by until Zero came tumbling back down from the sky. "Forty-five seconds, not bad."
Zero fell from the sky and, again, teleported just before the ground, landing softly. He turned to Virgil. "Okay, don't let it hit me." Zero looked up as the shards rocketed toward him, but with a simple wave of his hand, Virgil caused the shards to vanish from existence. Zero looked at him and smiled. "Thanks, buddy. Hey, why are you being so nice?" Zero leaned in, getting uncomfortably close to Virgil's face. "What's your game?"
"Down, boy." Virgil pushed him away. "If you must know, you intrigue me, amazingly so, and if you are to waltz around my domain like you own the place, you might as well have a chaperone."
"Oh, this is your place?" Zero looked around. "There’s alotta sand."
Virgil nodded. "Yes, the Sands of Time are plentiful."
"OOOOOHHHH, is that why hourglasses have sand in them?"
Virgil wasn't sure what to say at first, but he didn't have to, because someone spoke for him.
"Ah, Zero, so you have finally arrived." Death's voice shook the entire area, kicking up sand, causing gravity to distort, and the world seemingly inverted for the briefest of moments. "Welcome to my Empire. I have been waiting for this moment for a very, very, VERY, long time."
"Hello?" Zero's voice echoed into the endless darkness that enveloped him. "I can't see a thing, hello?" His eyes strained to adjust, and his Dragon Sight worked overtime, battling the thick darkness reminiscent of the Void. "Okay, I don't feel dead, though. Is this what death is really like? A boundless void of nothing but my own thoughts until my mind descends into madness?"
Frantically moving about, Zero sensed his body making contact with a surface. The gravity around him fluctuated, making his flailing arms constantly throw him off balance. "Is this the end? Endless flailing and wandering until my body grows cold, numb, and succumbs to the enveloping darkness, merging with it as my Soul becomes lost in the ether? Oh, there's a doorknob here."
Zero turned the handle and stepped forward, plummeting from the sky. The ground below, a mix of red and orange sand, lay beneath him, bathed in a mysterious green hue. A wide grin spread across his face as he accelerated in his descent. The drop measured at least five kilometers, and when he glanced back, the doorframe began fading, swallowed by the dense orange clouds above.
Turning back around, Zero angled himself toward the ground, diving headfirst with an ever-widening smile. As he gazed into the distance, seven shards of golden light emerged from all corners of the area, hurtling towards him. They appeared distant, almost imperceptible in the misty haze created by the swirling sand around him.
"Well, at least we know that part of the plan is working," Zero mused to himself as he observed the shards converging toward him. He rotated his body as the ground approached, flipping over to land on his feet. Just as he was about to touch down, he teleported in place, halting all momentum and landing gently on the soft sand.
Surveying the desolate surroundings, Zero noted the vast emptiness. He lifted his nose, taking in the scent. "I guess it smells like before, though I can't really remember. I should have asked Conri all this time to teach me what he taught Maeve." He shrugged and started walking. "I'll have to ask him when I get back, if he's still alive. Maybe I'll find him here."
Zero halted, his excitement palpable, as he began dancing in place. Thoughts of those he had known who had passed on filled his head, igniting a nearly endless hope at the prospect of seeing them again.
He went to walk again but stopped, his head rotating to where his Dragon Sense was calling him. It wasn't toward the shards of light but just to the left of them. His eyes adjusted, and what he sensed came into focus. A figure dressed in red cloth with gold chains wrapped around it, tying it to their body. The cloth covered their entire figure from head to toe, trailing in the sand behind them.
Zero let out an exhausted sigh. "Okay, this shit again." He turned around and began waving his hand through the air. "Hey!" He waved frantically. "I don't know which one of Virgil's children you are, but it's me, Zero!" He pulled up his other hand and waved it too, calling louder. "You don't need to come check on me; I'm just gonna keep walking!" Turning around, he started walking again. However, as he turned, another figure, also covered in the same colored cloth and chains, appeared. "Oh, hi there! How are you?" He took a step back, only to bump into another figure, one he recognized immediately. "Hey, you're Pohlepa! Wait, she said we can't call you that, Grid…no, Greed! Hey, you and Aladdin's friend he told me about share the same name. Small world. Wait, I don't think that really applies here."
Zero was trying to bide his time, waiting for the shards to return to him. Virgil's children were incredibly powerful, and he still wasn't truly back in the right mind after his fight with Nix. He had killed himself, threw his own body into the moon with such force that it tore the flesh from his body and chipped his bones into dust. As far as he knew, it worked. But until he got back…an idea suddenly dawned on him. "Hey, do you guys know if I blew up the moon or not? And what about Nix? Does she come here too, or does she, like, I don't really know what to say."
"You're brazen coming back here in such a manner," Virgil's voice filled the air, and the two figures near Zero moved toward him as he walked forward. "It's good to see you again, Zero, and yes, you did succeed in blowing up the moon. As for Nix, she has returned to the All Tree." Virgil's gaze locked on Zero. It hadn't been that long, but Zero had forgotten how intense his eyes were. The kaleidoscope of reds contrasted his faint blue skin. His dark blue hair had grown longer, now cascading down to his shoulders. His attire remained the same, a white undershirt covered by a long black cape-like jacket and matching black pants with knee-high white-heeled boots. His aura stung the inside of Zero's body, penetrating deep inside him, grasping at his heart with every beat. "Tell me." He lifted his hand just as the shards of light were about to press into Zero's back, stopping them in their tracks. They shook violently in place, trying to reach Zero, but Virgil held them in place with just a raise of his hand. "Your soul there, I haven't met someone who can break it, let alone walk around without it. Let’s start with why did you break it?"
Zero's shoulders relaxed, and his entire demeanor changed. "Pardon? Oh, my Soul. I had to split it up. It's a Dragon's Soul, and this Human body couldn't handle it."
"And do you believe that it can handle it now?" Virgil asked.
Zero shook his head. "Probably not, honestly. My plan was to just launch myself into the moon to stop Nix's darkness spell. Then I was gonna come here and get my Soul, and I thought someone here could teach me how to not explode when it's inside of me. Then I was going to go back, and with my Soul, I was going to break the strings she had on me from when she transformed me into a Human. But I actually just smashed her into the moon, so I already broke the strings she had on me. I guess now I'm just here to grab Oduduwa, Máire, and Varin."
Virgil was humoring him at first, but when he said the name Varin, it struck a chord. "Varin? What is your desire with her?"
"I don't desire anything. I just made a promise to bring her back home, which reminds me, can I have Vol back?"
Virgil tilted his head, his eyes widening before erupting into laughter. "HAHAHAHAHAHAH." He knelt down, hands grabbing his knees. "AH HAHAHAHAHA, YOU, YOU, AHAHA HAHAHAHA, AHAHAHAHA!"
Zero rubbed the back of his head nervously, pulling on his hair as Virgil continued to laugh. "Uh, thanks?"
"Haha, you, Zero, ah ah, you are more brazen than I could have ever imagined. What a delight you are!"
"Thaaannkk yoooouu?" Zero responded. "I was kinda being serious. I can always come back after I get done talking to Death."
Virgil's demeanor completely shifted. He leaned up and turned to Greed. "Take your siblings and go find Lust. Play for a bit while Zero and I talk."
The figure standing about thirty meters behind Zero vanished alongside Greed and the other on Virgil's left side, each with a gust of wind, mimicking Zero's teleportation and catching his attention.
"That's new, or did they just not do that before when we fought?" Zero asked.
"No, that was added later, thanks to you. Teleportation, quite the useful tool," Virgil replied. "I made some modifications, though. They don't need to see the spot they can teleport to with their eyes, only their minds."
"Hey, I can do that too, kinda, not really. I teleported Maeve, who was really far away from me, and myself, at the same time, by the way. I teleported us to the middle of the ocean when Vol was disappearing into the sky."
Virgil stared at Zero with a small smile in the corner of his mouth. "Noted." He leaned to the side, taking another look at the shards of Zero's Soul still hovering behind him. "Shall we see if you can take it?"
Zero bobbed his head. "Oh yeah." He turned around. "Hit me!"
Virgil nodded, and the shards channeled their way into Zero, lifting him off the ground and into the sky. The moment they were inside, his chest began to glow red, then white, and his entire body exploded in a cloud of ash and smoke with the seven shards hovering inside, shaking frantically in all directions, trying to find Zero.
"Hmm," Virgil stated. "I wonder." He turned his attention from the cloud and to the left a little, where Zero had fallen from before. He waited a moment, counting in his head, each second that went by until Zero came tumbling back down from the sky. "Forty-five seconds, not bad."
Zero fell from the sky and, again, teleported just before the ground, landing softly. He turned to Virgil. "Okay, don't let it hit me." Zero looked up as the shards rocketed toward him, but with a simple wave of his hand, Virgil caused the shards to vanish from existence. Zero looked at him and smiled. "Thanks, buddy. Hey, why are you being so nice?" Zero leaned in, getting uncomfortably close to Virgil's face. "What's your game?"
"Down, boy." Virgil pushed him away. "If you must know, you intrigue me, amazingly so, and if you are to waltz around my domain like you own the place, you might as well have a chaperone."
"Oh, this is your place?" Zero looked around. "There’s alotta sand."
Virgil nodded. "Yes, the Sands of Time are plentiful."
"OOOOOHHHH, is that why hourglasses have sand in them?"
Virgil wasn't sure what to say at first, but he didn't have to, because someone spoke for him.
"Ah, Zero, so you have finally arrived." Death's voice shook the entire area, kicking up sand, causing gravity to distort, and the world seemingly inverted for the briefest of moments. "Welcome to my Empire. I have been waiting for this moment for a very, very, VERY, long time."
