Geode didn't respond, glaring at Oz for a moment as if he'd been struck by a bolt of lightning. "You're not.. Gaians?" He croaked.

Oz shook his head. What would Gaians have to do with this? "I am no Gaian. Is that what you thought? What would they have to do with any of this? Are they the reason you conspire to destroy everything?"

Geode sighed and shook his head. "No. They were just a product of my mistakes. This world is a veritable hotbed of my mistakes. I'd made peace with it a long time ago, fragmented, and sealed away by those dreaded human sages. But since my revival..." Geode looked to Jenso and his eyes flashed a bright green hue. "Since you'd released me, I've come to understand that my loss was only temporary. Now that I've been granted another chance, I can rectify my mistakes, and start anew," Geode turned his head slightly away from the two heroes and examined the lifeless bodies of his golems.

"The elementals are dead, aren't they?"

Jenso gave Geode a confused look. "You made the Gaians..? And everything else?" He muttered. "Yes, I killed the elementals. They would have detonated the meteors and killed most of the people in our world. I didn't have any other choice." Jenso replied truthfully and calmly to Geode. "And...no, I'm no Gaian either." He admitted.

"No," Geode denied, leaning into his very words, "I did not. I would have never considered creating something that powerful. I would have never allowed power to exist without limits. It was my precious, innocent children. Pharie, Orobo, Kefaros, and Hyznea. The elementals I created to fill this world with life. The ones who created humanity over five thousand years ago." Geode's eyes narrowed and he straightened his posture. "It was their alternative to exterminating all life on this planet and starting anew. They created Gaia, a guardian who's purpose was to rectify any force that threatened nature." Geode turned his head to look at the golems around him. Memories came flooding back one after another.

"The Gaians were born, created by Gaia as a force to cleanse the world of anything she deemed ugly. At first, her efforts were wondrous. With a benevolent facade, she guided her people on a crusade, eliminating every last shred of evil in the world. She made humankind pure again. I was proud of my children. They had truly changed the world. But... It was not long before Gaia's Ki began to ebb for more purpose. She grew arrogant, and ordered her Gaians to attack the temple of the elementals. One after another, she ripped their Ki from their bodies, turning them into hateful, destructive creatures, bound to the mountain that I laid them on, making it impossible for them to escape. They were trapped, and thus, began the age of the Gaians, the most powerful creatures in this world." Geode turned back to Jenso, regaining his smug composure. "Of course, I couldn't let that nonsense carry on. Gaia became a threat to even... Me. So, I had to get rid of her. Fortunately, it wasn't very hard to do. I simply used the same method she'd used to steal the Ki from my elementals, and sealed her within the people she'd created. In one moment, she was gone. But, to my own dismay, I had merely created a more powerful foe." Geode looked to his golems again and spun around slowly, walking across the smooth, reflective floor of his domain.

"The Gaians took to Gaia's Ki, evolving immediately. Gaia's personality, her love and arrogance, survived somehow, taking shape in fragmented remnants. Within the familiars that Gaian's possess. And of course, her teachings still rang true. Their race knew only one truth. To exterminate anything ugly. To destroy anything that threatened the beauty of nature. Of course, mistranslated texts, generations of ignorant prophets, all that idiotic mortality- It made the Gaians into the very evil they were created to defend against. Ruthless, hypocritical savages. The Gaians were too powerful to simply wipe out, however. So, I needed a new ally to aid me." Geode spun around again and widened his stance, raising his hands high.

"The golems! I created them for the sole purpose of eradicating the Gaians. An endless, self-rebuilding army that fed on Ki, the source of Gaia's power, and obeyed my commands without any free will of their own. With the help of my 12 Gol-class generals, Ira, Ino, Imm, Ita, Iwu, Iei, Iha, Ike, Iqu, Iur, Ion, and IIV... I was able to banish the Gaians from the world they polluted, to an island out in the endless ocean. And with that, the world was ready to be cleansed." Geode's eyes hardened and began to vibrate. "Little did I know, Gol-Ino was affected by the Ki they had stolen from Gaia's people. It made him curious. It made him.. Free. When I announced my plan to use the power of the subdued Gaians to eradicate all of humanity, and restore my elemental children to their natural forms... Bah... I don't know why I fell for it..." Geode lowered his hands and bathed his body in dark energies. "They tricked me. They collaborated with humans who had evolved to tap into the arcane. Humans that had discovered a new form of magic that I had never even acknowledged the possibility of existing. Fate magic, and the dreaded Ying Yang Katana. The sages of Calombo, as you know it now, were able to lure me to my own demise by using their knowledge of the future to push fate into their favour. With the help of their great prophet, wielder of the Katana, I was outsmarted. Me! Outsmarted! The thought of it now befuddles me so!" Geode wept, feigning tears before clearing his throat, or lack thereof, and continuing.

"That very same prophet had managed to harness the void that I escaped from. He had stripped himself of his Ki, and turned into a monster beyond my understanding. Something twisted, and chaotic. He.. Ergh.. It blathered on and on about the fates when we first met. It spoke of the Gaians. It spoke of a duty. It spoke as if it knew..." Geode paused and gazed into Jenso's eyes frightfully. "As if it knew all that would, and had already come to pass. Fate, time, history, life. And... Hah... Well..." He shrugged his hefty obsidian shoulders and sighed. "I was sliced into five pieces, and sealed away with human magic. Hubris knows no ally, it would appear. But now, I'm back. And, well, it would appear that all of my plans are for naught!" Geode sighed and sat down in the center of the room. "If you are not Gaians, and they are truly extinct as my golems reported, I will never hear the voices of my children again. I cannot revive them. But that doesn't really matter right now, does it?"

Oz connected the dots. "With all the time you've had I'm sure you realize that your children - the elementals - created us and by so doing you, yourself indirectly created us. We are all part of your legacy and that of the elementals, your children. It is one long link that joins us all together. We are - for all intents and purposes - one great family." He shifted himself a little closer to Geode and left his arms wide in an unhostile position. "The good that there is in humanity carries on the uncorrupted task of the elementals; creating, improving and making abundance in life. Hell, I was part of a farm, nurturing life, enjoying my work. Even then not every branch on a tree makes good fruit. Inevitably rot comes but it just makes us savor the sweet of the good that much more. You cannot have the best in life without experiencing hardships, whether it come naturally or from the evil of others." Oz stopped his advance and sighed. He wasn't done yet, he took a seat on the ground and crossed his legs. Geode was a great deal more complex than he ever knew. After all, as far as he could tell he was the Greatest Creator and under this logic Oz held some respect.

"I hate to say this, I really do." Oz looked downcast at the ground. "But it needs saying. The world needs the good and the bad. It requires opposition. Without it nothing advances, no one grows stronger, no steel is shaped and no secrets are uncovered. Creator Geode, I think you need to see this world from another perspective. Care for the work of your children, their humanity. To simply wipe us all out would be to destroy everything they left behind, the world of life they had indeed created! They fulfilled the measure of their creation. Purging their work would be like erasing the fact that they ever existed."

"You have borne witness to what atrocities mankind has wrought and what evils we can do. Yet I have not heard you utter at all about the great people. About the inventors, the healers, the leader -- the good fathers and mothers. We have learned of the arcane that you hadn't even considered. But because you have been attacked and spited by a single group out of a massive world of people you deem it relevant to wipe out EVERYTHING!" Oz's face was flushed. He wanted to be respectful to the being responsible for his very existence but he was pissed. There was no doubt he had a right to it. Geode had just moments ago announced his intention to essentially kill everything. Oz held silent for just a moment.

"Creator. I am in your debt for life itself but I will not roll over and die. I would help you if your goals were just. If you were open to suggestion I would ask for help in keeping the darkness at bay without snuffing out the light just to stop it." Oz bowed his head briefly before looking back up and frowning at Geode.

Geode listened carefully to Oz, his eyes unchanging as they spun slowly in place. Galaxies, tainted with the atrocities of nature and man, stained with an endless array of stars that sprung out into the cosmos of his legacy. Oz's words were laced with humility, but despite that, he held the pride of his people. He didn't understand. Nobody could understand, nobody who was mortal.

"You speak a lot about topics that outweigh you, boy," Geode growled, keeping his posture rigid, "And assume me plagued with your incessant hope, those wretchedly flawed emotions that shunt progress and bury eternity in the pits of mortality." Geode paused and looked to Jenso. "I know very well that all that has come to pass in this world is at my behest, set in motion by my studious desires. But the proposition you bring fourth, the idea to nurture that which has befallen this world; it is the very same prospect, the same love, that my dear elementals offered selflessly to Gaia and the people of this planet. And what did that bring?" Geode rose his right hand, the core embedded within, up to show both Jenso and Oz the details carvings within.

"Death," He whispered audibly. A series of projections extended above his hand, unveiling battles waged between the elementals, while still retaining humanoid forms, against Gaia and her people. Destructive images, hundreds caught in the crossfires, and the arrogance of the god they had created. "Death. Death. Death, it always repeats wherever power lurks, death." The images changed, to Gaia facing off against Geode. Their fight waged untold destruction on the plains around them, revealing that the result was none other than the badlands outside of Orobo village. "Death. Death. More and more death. And what for?" More and more images flashed across the screen. Men and women wielding weapons made of green wood, facing off against golems in sheer numbers. A man who looked shockingly similar to Lark fought alongside a silver-haired warrior with pointed ears. "Destruction. Terror. Death. All for what? What for? All for what?" The images flashed faster and faster until they revealed Prisma's broken core, scattered across the silvered ground where Jenso had laid him to rest.

"Power. You humans, you lesser beings that have never kissed the void and known revelation though erasure, you cling to your hope and your morals. But all it does it prolong the inevitable demise of all you know. It keeps you from eternity, immortality, enlightenment."

Geode turned his projection off and lowered his hands, his eyes still rotating slowly.

"There is no light in what you do. Only lies. The Metalix knew that. I know that. But still, you idiotic flesh-bags are ignorant, proud, and selfish. All because you cling to worthless anecdotes and hyperbole beyond rational thought. It's hypocritical to no end." Geode's eyes flickered for a moment and he fell silent. "I offer a question, for you two," Geode finally said, after a short wait.

"I am a threat to your existence. I am a threat to your very way of life. I will kill everyone you know. I will destroy everything. Knowing that, would you attempt to destroy me?" He asked, quietly awaiting an answer from the two men.

Oz just shook his head with a sorrowful sigh. "You know only death, Geode." Oz tried to mimic what Geode had done, displaying small faceless figures above his hands as he moved them back and forth. He closed his eyes. A blissful dog, a happy family, a new child. It started to grow grimmer from there, a man holding a dying woman as a stream of energy poured out of her until she was nothing. The same man standing over a huddle of bodies, looking down and away. Then he found a new girl and held her close. The images faded and his hands went to rest on his knees. "You're wrong to accuse us of knowing no light when all you can reveal is death and darkness. You're permeated by it. You've become it."

Finally, but slowly, Oz stood up. "Why is it that you, who knows so much, who is so enlightened cannot show us any light?" He stepped back to Jenso's side. "If you have no revelation for me, then you know my answer. I will not roll over and die, nor will I watch as you annihilate everything. Your cold calculations are better fit for machines. We are not your machines. I don't want to end you. I don't know what it would do to our world. Yet you give us no choice."

Jenso took in all that had been said, and bowed his head slightly before Geode. "Wow...looks like I owe you an apology. I thought you were just one of those many evil people who wanted to destroy the world for sheer pleasure, and such. But I see now that there is far more to you. I am sorry." Jenso admitted, having respect for Geode now, as well. "Sorry, I'm not as good with words like you and Oz are, but I do feel like I should state my opinion." He added.

"I will admit, I wasn't aware that the elementals were once good beings and actually created life. I didn't know about their purpose and I thought they merely wreaked havoc from the get-go. I see now...you and your children have suffered a lot. I understand that. I'm sorry that I had to kill them, for the sake of our world. But surely you realise, that most of the misery and hardships you went through came from the god Gaia alone. It seems like she's the source of most of the problems, and may have misled the Gaians into arrogance and pride. After all, she was their god. Who were they to claim that she was wrong?"

Jenso muttered, and took a deep breath in and out. "Like Oz said, there will always be good and bad. This is what makes the balance in our world. Even good and amazing people have some evil within their hearts. But it depends on wether the good or bad side is stronger, which is what decides what person they turn out to be. The opposite can also be said. It's not because someone is evil for the most part, that they don't have a speck of good within." He added.

"I have met this prophet that you speak of, and he can indeed see the trillions of outcomes that can happen in the future. He can also see only a few at once if he has trained with the Ying Yang blade properly. Regardless...the man has been driven to insanity, and I think the Ying Yang blade is the cause of that. I know that I'd be driven insane if I could see trillions of outcomes at once, too." He stated, and took a deep sigh in and out. "I have seen the void. I died once, but a powerful ally of mine brought me back. I have to say...It's impressive that you managed to last so very long in the Void, which keeps pushing down on your ki and threatens to devour it entirely. I understand your way of thinking, I truly do." He said.

He placed his hand on Oz's shoulder. "But I will continue to believe in the good of this world, despite some of the evil that it contains. I will protect it until the very end, because I believe it is worth fighting for. You only see the negative, and fail to see the positive. So yes...since you threaten to destroy all we care about, we have no choice but to destroy you. Doesn't mean we'll enjoy it. I'd much rather knock some sense into you, rather then kill you, honestly."

Geode narrowed his eyes at the heroes' ignorant retorts. "Again, you assume too much of me. You know nothing of how I feel, or where I come from." Geode glared at Oz first.

"I have not become anything. This is what I am, superior. The elementals, the humans, it was all an experiment to advance my own understanding of the three energies that make up this world. You ask for a revelation? I shall give you one," Geode spat, raising his orb above his head and standing tall once more, "There is no light in the end. There is only void. The shadowed energies that pick and choose only the worth to control its power. The void is the ultimate god of reality, dictating those who are allowed to understand its fabric by one simple rule."

"Power"
"Power"

"Hypocrite that you are, you claim that I cannot be allowed to live if I am a threat, when the very same principal applies to the actions that I am taking this very instant." Geode's orb glowed dimly. "The extermination of humanity, it is not to purge darkness and evils. It is to create a perfect race, capable of judgement that is on par with my own. A race of ultimate beings that can advance my understanding of the multiverse. A race like the Metalix, who had evolved to eradicate their own Ki for the sake of peace, and progress. Even if it takes a thousand attempts, I aim to create that which can offer me unlimited knowledge." Geode's eyes flashed. "Light? Who could be bothered with such an irrelevant and meaningless lie? Professional cowardice, that is all you have claim to. You use your power to remain stagnant, and defend idiots. You use your power to hide from your own insecurities and bury your heads in the dirt like worthless stones. If I allowed your demonstrably inadequate intelligence to persist, your race will continue to be nothing more than a threat to my very being. Even if I cooperate. Even if I were to show your people love." Geode lowered his hands and glared at Jenso.

"Unlike you humans, I am not stupid. I do not deal in half measures. I do not subscribe to fantasy. I do not indulge in hope. There is no evidence supporting any of what you say. But for what I say..." Geode pointed up at the ceiling, and then to Gol-Ino, and then off into the south. "There is a mountain of evidence supporting what I say." Geode's demeanour calmed and he shrugged. "You have not truly kissed the void, you insignificant whelp. Your Ki is still strong. You are bound by it to be forever inferior. You are not a void creation, and you never will be. And even now, you continue to bury yourself, deeper and deeper. The man you speak of, the prophet you claim to know, you say he's gone insane? You blame the Ying-Yang blade?" Geode began to laugh, louder and louder until the hall was flooded with his cackles.

"He has simply gone insane! He has seen the errors of his ways!" Geode pointed at Jenso and smiled. "You buffoon! You ignoramus! You are the one who freed me from my cage, but it was no mere mistake!"

Footsteps echoed from behind Geode, and a figure stepped out from behind one of the golems. Geode smiled and spread his hands outwards.

"The void does not cause insanity. The void merely enlightens. A true creation of the void is not hindered by morals or idiotic principals," Geode barked, lowering his hands, "You did not free me by chance. You were manipulated to do so from the very start."

"I could have done it myself," Vale hissed with a light snicker, "But then, what fun would that be?"

Vale began to chuckle silently as Geode continued. Whispering things to himself as he stood, his cloak torn and his body scarred. His arm had grown back from his fight with Bruce, and his entire chest, mouth, and neck areas were stained with fresh blood.

"And now, you've delivered yourself to my feet," Geode mocked, clenching his right fist shut, "The ultimate battery, the weapon to be used against the Order of Chaos. Our Golden Hero." Geode chuckled and shook his head. "I've stalled for just enough time."

Jenso glared at Vale and got in a combat stance. It seemed like Geode had forgotten about his meteors for now, since he merely had been using it to stall. "I'm glad you're here, Vale. It saves me the trouble of needing to track you down myself." Jenso stated. He smirked confidently at the two before him. "So that's your big plan, Vale? You teamed up with Prisma, and he ended up dying. And now, you're using Geode?" He questioned. "Well, at the very least it makes more sense now. If you can get me into one of those golems, you could possibly get your vengeance against Yzeira. But that's not going to happen. The sad part is, you could have gotten your payback if you backed me up, and hadn't let that sword of yours control your life." He added. He didn't care much for what Vale's response was, or how Vale managed to put a false page about the 'Purity' amulets in Bobba's guide. Or how he managed to get his father to bring them up. He wanted to kill both of them now, for the good of the world. He knew full well that he wouldn't have stood a chance against these two if they attacked him at the same time, but he felt like he could win with Oz by his side.

"Enough talk. I've had my fill of crap." Oz took up his own strong stance. "Jenso I'm with you. I will augment your strike with my own."

"Wrong again! Wrong again! Stupid boy!" Vale cackled, plugging his nose, "I don't want to catch it, no no! Not now! Genesis Orgin Deity, please, if you could, if you would?" He begged, bowing and bending his knees.

"There will be no fight here," Geode said, confidently, "I've already won." Geode rose his hand and emptied the room of oxygen in one swift move.

"Vacuum."Geode hummed. Vale gasped and fell over, pulling at his neck for a few seconds, before turning his body towards Jenso, and smiling.

"Just kidding," He muttered, flipping back onto his feet and crossing his arms, "I don't need ..o b..at.." It was happening quick. As the room emptied of all oxygen, air, and atmosphere, Vale's voice was choked out. Even if he didn't need to breath, sound wouldn't travel any longer in this room.

Vacuum was all Oz needed to hear. He projected an airtight dome over himself and Jenso. This was going to be one awkward fight. "We won't last long in here if he keeps this up. Our air supply is finite and if he uses void magic on my shield, bye bye bubble." Oz knelt down on both knees, bowed his head, closed his eyes and rested his fists against one another in his lap. "Looks like this is the way it's going to have to be, Jenso. I'll give you everything I've got. I'm sorry but unless he stops suppressing the air it's going to be like this. Give em' hell for me." Energy began to wisp off of him, lighting up his clothes and wafting around his hair as if gravity was no longer a law. He slowly lifted off the ground, moving to the edge of the bubble. He still knelt.

The last few things he spoke sounded like a chant of some kind. "I am to bear the brunt of evil; I am to be a pillar to the world; I will go beyond.." Oz was cut off as he drifted from the air bubble, a small shield still surrounding his knelt form. The bubble over Jenso tightened and condensed. It was following him. Oz was separating himself from Jenso to give him a better chance at victory over Geode's effective tactic. Oz just kept hovering like he was frozen in the personal barrier at the edge of the chamber. He exuded a brilliant light despite his stillness. There was something going on with him.

Jenso nodded at Oz. He turned towards one of the nearby walls and launched a flame dragon punch into it with his left fist. He aimed to smash an opening into it in order for the air from the outside to seep in. He hoped Geode's technique was only limited to the room they were in. "Let's kick their asses man!" He shouted back at Oz.

Geode's eyes narrowed, and he rose his hands towards Jenso. "Cease that at once," He roared, increasing the volume of the mist around his body. It flung forwards, threatening to engulf Jenso's barrier with him still inside. Vale made his way across the room slowly, until he was standing in front Oz, peering at him awkwardly.

"Eh? What kind of magic is this? Barriers?" He hummed, reaching towards him slowly.

Jenso turned towards Geode and smirked at him. He took deep breaths for a moment after his strike. If it weren't for Oz's barrier, he would be in the process of suffocating right now. He dashed further to the left to avoid Geode's incoming mist wave, as Ki coated around his fist. "Nah, I don't feel like it!" He sung in response to Geode. He launched an impact punch image made out of pure Ki from his right fist as he punched, aiming for it to power through the mist and smash into the crack in the wall that he'd created.

The wall cracked more and more as Jenso punched at it, but he was working his way through at least 5 meters of solid stone. At the rate he was going, it would be a while before he broke through. Geode's mist faded for a moment, but began to encompass him entirely, growing and attempting to lock him in place as it drained his Energy.

Vale finally touched Oz's barrier, waiting for some kind of reaction to take place before he attempted to break through.

Jenso glared at the dark mist as it surrounded him and closed in. If he kept doing what he was doing, his energy would be drained long before he would be able to escape the room. "That's it...I've had enough." Jenso spoke coldly, as Pij emerged from his chest. The barrier around his body expanded to fit Pij as well, as she flew to the top of Jenso's head. Jenso rose his palms as the bird landed on them.



He roared, as a powerful white flash erupted from his body and concealed Jenso from plain sight for a moment. As Jenso reappeared, he now had large white flame wings on his back, and white talons on top of his fists. The power of his Ki had skyrocketed significantly. Oz's barrier held strong, both by it's sheer durability and because Jenso had incredible control over this form. As such, his flames did not extinguish. His white burning pupils still remained as well. He stared straight into Geode's eyes, almost looking like some kind of fiery demon.

"Behold, Geode. The power you dread so much."

Jenso stated in a booming and threatening tone, turning towards the cracked wall immediately. He flew forwards at it at great speeds, and coated his wings in a powerful layer of Ki.

"Phoenix Drill!"

He roared, uniting his wings as he spun around rapidly, holding them around his body as he looked like a fiery drill, aiming to drill straight through with extreme force. The drill itself gave off intense heat and flames as well, which would allow it to melt the stone as well.