Titus Angelo landed on the ground after punching the last Unending into smithereens. He wasn’t even close to being exhausted yet, but he was still thankful that at least there was an end to the onslaught. Strangely enough, only a small percentage of Unendings were activated to attack him, the others watched on in their lifeless silence.

Pink smoke evaporated from their bodies, before fleeing into the shadows.

“Oi!” he yelled in frustration, taking a few steps forward as the smoke vanished from his sight. “What the fuck do you want from me?!”

Darkness and silence greeted him once more after he calmed himself down. Orpheus and Marcia were still nowhere to be found, presumably occupied by whatever illusion this place was showing them as well. As much as he wanted to help them out of their situation, he could not do it by himself.

Both of them had more history with Felix Pagonis. He never relished asking Felix for help, but this version of him seemed to be a decent enough guy. And if there was anyone who could help them, it would be him.

The entire area shook without warning, as though a huge bomb had just gone off.

“What the—”

A second explosion knocked Titus off his feet this time, accompanied by a cracking sound. The man scrambled back up, following the sound of commotion in the distance.

The voice in his head rang out again, except it wasn’t in his head this time.

Titus approached the crack in the air hesitantly. There was no mistaking it this time. Sounds of fighting were spewing out from the rift in reality, and that woman’s voice could be heard clearly now.

“This is the man who crippled his world? Pathetic!”

“Just give me the damn book!”

Pagonis!

Power charged in his fists as Titus began punching the crack relentlessly.

~ ~ ~

“Have you the will to see the end?!”

Felix’s eyes widened in shock as yet another planet covered the obsidian sky. He hissed, G-forces threatening to crush his body as he burst off the devastated red planet at a few thousand times the speed of sound.

Light blinded him as the two planets collided in a terrifying explosion.

The man continued to dart around, avoiding the city-sized meteors flung outwards from the collision. Psychic power covered his body in blinding light as he threw a punch at a particularly large one, shattering it into a million fragments.

Bloody hell, you’re really not making this easy, huh?

“There is no room for restraint! All of existence bows to my will!”

Pink bindings locked his limbs firmly in place as the woman materialised in front of him again. Felix struggled helplessly, his breaths getting more and more desperate as Fausta Pagonis charged a giant ball of energy in front of him. His heart raced in fear and recognition.

A powerful force field burst from his body instead; there was no escaping this.

“Let there be light!”

The energy ball expanded into an impossibly huge sphere of searing yellow light. Felix gritted his teeth, desperately pushing his shield against the literal sun thrown in his face.

Exhaustion surged through his entire body as he forced his psychic channels open despite the incredible heat. Closing them was death. He had never faced such a powerful opponent before.

The sun disappeared abruptly as Felix found himself on a beautiful open field. The tranquillity of it all almost made him stagger in shock. That was until the first shadow came into view over the grass.

“And now, this!”

Felix’s mouth hung open in horror as countless meteors rained from the sky like some sort of crimson hail storm. He stretched out a hand, locking his mind onto each and every single one of them. Psychic energy surged through his veins.

The meteors froze in place.

“Take your stones back, bitch.” The psychic threw his hand forward as the rocky fireballs flew back into the sky. A hint of Fausta’s figure caught his eye and he burst off the grass again, soaring straight for her.

Darkness greeted him once more as he re-entered the cosmic void. Light burned in his eyes as he threw a huge psionic blast at Fausta. The woman retaliated with the same attack.

The two beams of pink clashed for a brief moment before Fausta overpowered him easily. Felix grunted, allowing himself to fly back a few metres from the knock-back. Fausta smirked slightly as pink energy pooled in her palm again.

“You throw another sun at me, and I’m going to lose it,” Felix huffed defiantly, swinging a planet-sized psionic hammer at the woman. Fausta stopped it with ease and shattered it with a single squeeze of her hand.

“Such pitiful resistance. Yet, you still hold back.” Fausta’s eyes glinted, and two moons snapped into existence. The lunar twins fell into each other’s embrace immediately with the man still between them.

Strain screamed in Felix’s body as he pushed back against the two celestial satellites intent on crushing him.

“For aeons— In billions of worlds— have I measured your worth and found all of you wanting.” Fausta clenched her fists, telekinetically closing the moons on Felix. “You cannot be entrusted with the fate of your worlds. None of you can! Where is the god you are meant to be?!”

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Rage shot up Felix’s spine as unbridled power erupted from his soul. He screamed, in both desperation and primal fury, releasing his pent-up energy.

Magenta light cut through the moons and split them into pieces. Felix roared, slamming Fausta into what looked like Venus. He did not let up. Raw psychic power burst from his body, blowing away a quarter of the planet as it struck the woman cleanly.

But she simply teleported back into the fight.

A clammy hand seized his neck, and Felix stopped the blast in shock. The fabric of eternal night swept over him once more as Fausta stared him down, murder possessing her gaze.

“Your existence insults me, but I see who you are now,” Fausta spat behind gritted teeth. “You’re a destroyer. We are destroyers of our world. Saving is not what we do. Your sister is already dead, and it will be all your fault.”

“No…” The man trembled, his body trembling as rancour continued to goad the anarchy surging through his psychic channels. “More…”

“Games!”

Felix flung the woman away with a crazed roar and threw the biggest psionic beam he had ever thrown in his life. There was a distant scream of pain as the attack struck Fausta directly, slicing another planet in half as well.

His psychic senses screamed in warning as he swung around, facing the woman who had simply teleported behind him again. He closed his fists, telekinetically locking her in place just as he felt the same force tie him down as well.

“There he is…” Fausta was still grinning despite the psychic struggle. “There’s the destroyer of worlds—”

A strange cracking sound caught their attention. Felix stared at a distant star as realisation crept into his awareness.

That was no star. That was a crack in this dimension, and something was breaking through.

Fausta’s grip loosened a little as a figure crashed through the hole in reality, hurtling straight for her. The woman raised a force field, but the figure smashed through it anyway and kicked her out of sight.

Felix stretched a hand, catching the green cyborg before the momentum carried him away as well.

“Angelo? What are you— How did you get in here?” he asked incredulously, setting the man down on a random floating rock.

“Long story. I’m here; deal with it.” Titus brushed his clothes casually. “Lady trouble?”

“Sorta. She’s me in this universe,” Felix replied, keeping his psychic senses on alert. “And she’s a real bitch.”

Although Titus had probably struck the woman with enough force to decimate a small planet, it probably only felt like a mild itch to the immensely powerful psychic— No. Not just a psychic. Having more than five hundred years to grow her power, Fausta Pagonis was more akin to some sort of Eldritch God than a mere Esper.

And that meant she would be back in the fight at any moment.

“Sounds about right,” Titus chuckled. “What’s the squabble?”

“Her name’s Fausta Pagonis and she has the Winter Solstice,” Felix replied. “She was the reason for this universe’s collapse as well as the creator of the Unendings.”

“So she’s the one I have to beat the shit out of?” Titus punched his palm. “Good to know I don’t have to hold back anything. Need help taking the Winter Solstice from her?”

“Gods, I totally forgot about that,” Felix admitted grudgingly. “I’ve been too busy fending off her attacks to even strategize.”

“Then allow me to help. Be on your guard.” Iron Angel pointed at the small point of pink soaring towards them while dragging along another planet. “She really likes throwing planets around, does she?”

Light blue loomed over Felix as the planet soared towards him at an incredible speed.

Felix flicked his hand, pushing Titus away as he felt the planet’s gravity pull him towards it. Titus flew in a curve out of sight, while Felix threw himself towards his female counterpart.

“Dumbass!” Fausta shoved the man away from her body. She spun around at breakneck speed, flinging him at a nearby mountain with incredible force.

Felix’s body burst out of the other end of a mountain, before crashing unceremoniously into the blue soil.

He got up gingerly. His head was still spinning from the attack, but a small smile crept along his face as he silently slid the worn book into his jacket. His mission was complete. Now all he had to do was leave this place and rendezvous with Orpheus for the Summer Solstice.

“All that power and you choose to punch me— My book!” Fausta clutched at her empty pocket frantically. “You stole my Winter Solstice? You snivelling thief!”

Uh oh.

Felix took to the air immediately.

A psychic beam hit the ground where he was just standing, leaving behind a huge gash on the land.

The psychic willed himself forward at three thousand times the speed of sound again. The planet smeared into a blur as he exited its stratosphere in less than a second. He kept his psychic senses on alert, keeping a lookout for Titus.

C’mon… Where did I fling him to— There!

A small explosion caught his attention. Or rather, whatever was bursting out of a moon did. Felix stared in awe as the green speck flew towards him at a hair short of the speed of light from more than two hundred million kilometres away, propelled by nothing more than a single jump.

Felix flipped his body, avoiding Titus at the last minute just in time for him to crash into the woman behind. His power flared as trampolines of pink materialised again. Titus took the chance to leap off them, while Felix approached their opponent from the other end.

“Die!” The two men yelled simultaneously, striking Fausta from both sides. She screamed in pain.

“Insolence! I can create galaxies with a single thought!” Fausta released a burst of psychic energy to push them away. “Your power is insignificant. This is my domain!”

“You’ll need to expand it.” Felix waved his hands, praying that his plan would work. Meta essence flowed into the Winter Solstice as his body resonated with it.

“Behold, an endless void! Rift swallow you!”

“No, no!” Fausta’s voice was barely audible as an all too familiar darkness engulfed the universe, choking out even the sparse stars in the distance. “What have you done?”

“What the fuck is going on?” Titus asked, wide-eyed.

“I merged her domain with the infinite space between realms,” Felix explained hurriedly. “We must away before the void swallows us as well!”

The psychic hurtled towards the crack in reality, pulling Titus through right before the obsidian darkness swept past them.