The trip wouldn't take long for everyone. Not from Central HQ. Mere hours from the simulated morning within the building, not that the Cosmic Patrol ever rested. Not truly. Endless paperwork and reports, both from their own forces and local enforcement. Endless pages of useless information sent by political bureaucrats trying to bury their misplaced funds and misdeeds. He had to stop thinking about it before the thought of endless paperwork made him sick. Instead, he decided it was best to put his nightmares to rest now before they hindered his attempt to escort Anisa to the arena. This was her mission. He was a tool and useless if he couldn't be there. Allowing his mind to slip, he could hear Tai trying to greet him only for his voice to grow in confusion and panic as Sai slipped into the deeper layers of his mind. As the boy's voice vanished into the void, he stepped into the empty cavern that he had known all too well. The pit of his despair and the essence of his pain.

Shawn faced against Cosmic Phoenix... but he was different this time. No... that was to be expected. The masked monster who dominated his life. "Alright, I don't know what you are doing or what name you are using, but either way, you are my foe. So why don't you spit out answers for me." As he spoke to the figure, the helm almost seemed to light up, the coloration change doing nothing to stop him. A scarlet crest upon the helm he knew all too well, half gold and half silver, though the lighting could be the cause of that illusion. The long coat ratty and burned, the edges seeming to glow with embers, hid most of the armor. Gaps between the plates shimmered with power. "Silent as always. But that's to be expected isn't it?" The figure walked towards him slowly, another warning that he knew all too well. "That's fine. You can go slow or fast. I'm going to get past you today."

He charged the figure, knowing how this went. The timing was predictable, like a machine. A step forward into a hardly moving gut punch, but one that Shawn could feel even as he moved around the blow. Every kick and step was pulled but the sheer force and pressure was undeniable. The flames burned cold, but there was no denying them. Every strike put a hole into the dark shadows of his mind that filled back up in mere moments. He stepped around each attack, careful to keep a rhythm, but today was different. There was no cavern. There was no tunnel. There was no door or gate. There was nowhere but here. Why? What was happening? This was just that. A memory. A mask. His walking coffin. Why? The figure spoke with his voice but his mannerisms and tone was mixed, "There is nothing left. You took too long. You lost your way. And now you are here. With me..."

Shawn laughed, "Oh, come on... You can't honestly believe that. Nothing about the Cosmic-" he had to use a quantum snap to dodge out of the way and his attempts at humor began to melt, the massive beam from his handgun sailing into the darkness before being consumed by it. No more holes. Just infinite darkness. "Okay." He began to weave through the shots, having to use quantum snaps to reverse some of them at the last moment while the Cosmic Phoenix Imperator began to zero in on his technique and moves. Shawn couldn't be sure but he swore that it kept drawing closer and closer to him. His heart seized in his chest and his mind began to race, the shadows growing stronger and stronger.

"That's right. You aren't much, are you? A pretender in this domain. You don't get to use his memories anymore. You don't get to use his name anymore. You can't change the path the world travels and your name will fade like the ash of those he has burned to the stump." The Imperator drew his distorted cutlass, beginning to swing it with great precision, the edge capable of shaving skin from bone barely missing him as wave after wave of energy left its edge, limiting his moves as his beams drew closer as well, making him feel pressed in from every side. Even his quantum snaps were starting to fall behind this endless onslaught. He couldn't even breathe without risk of harm. Before he knew it, even the Leonas, his transforming battle machine, was looming and firing blasts that narrowed his avenues of escape. "Is this clear yet? Do you see how small you are? A legacy handed to him in his darkest hour, one that the cosmos would not survive if he had not filled. One you are not strong enough to oppose or deny. A hollow shell with no spirit or soul. Nothing strong enough to oppose these flames and the weight of history."

He couldn't handle it. It was on instinct alone that he was able to survive all this, and as he glanced up to see the charging beam of his own creation, he felt his heart stop. The Imperator's words weighed in the air. It was so much. Decades of battle and war and a mind built to block it out. To power through. A mind... built from suffering.

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What he did next wasn't out of instinct. There wasn't any tactics involved. No grand plan or intent. There was only that raw pure desperation that he knew too well. One that even as he is now, he understood. He used his talents with the quantum snap to move directly into the face of the Imperator, striking with every ounce of energy he had at the face of the figure, the gold cracking away and revealing the left half of the face. Shawn's scarred corpse stared back with dead eyes. Practically decaying as the Imperator stood there, unimpressed, but the assault stopped for a moment. The other half of the mask began to crumble away as the heat began to rise from the helmet, the eyes burning with a dark crimson flame, one the color of blood. As he spoke the flame poured out of his mouth with each word. It was as he saw the dying figure that the pause consumed his entire thought.

"Even with symbolism so simple, even now you can't possibly understand. You are no one! You have no claim to this place! You are a forgery and a ghost!" The Imperator loomed, many times larger than he remembered him being, but moving much faster than he had until this moment. His gun and cutlass discarded as he himself began to use quantum snaps. Every blow found its mark, knocking him around the endless abyss with ease. He could feel miles of the endless abyss sailing past him before his body was driven into the invisible floor before he was cast once more across their endless arena. Every attempt to evade or even snap out of the way was met with being read like a book. Each blow a reminder of what he already knew. The real Shawn wouldn't have broken a sweat with him. Would have dissected him effortlessly both mentally and physically. That even if he knew where to strike, it wouldn't mean anything to a man like that. A man who refused to accept death, even if his life had long since left him. He was not capable of this. This brutal rage against the dying of the light. A man literally too angry to die. It didn't matter what he remembered, this blind thirst for life wasn't him.

That's why I don't turn to sacrifice anymore. It blinds me. No matter my goal, I always end up hurting people... and myself. I refused to acknowledge the truth.

Sai grabbed the fist of the Imperator and used its force to empower an elbow to his burning face before grabbing it. The Imperator didn't recoil but instead grabbed his wrist. A mistake as he began to lash out with kick after kick to the being's gut. Grabbing one of his legs with his other hand, the Imperator turned quickly, trying to throw Sai by his limbs, to drive him into the ground, but Sai took the hit to roll the figure into a throw to the ground. Sai placed his hands on both sides of the figure's face, even as the flames leaving his mouth burned his hands. "It is okay. It is okay to feel pain." he rolled off the figure a moment later, starting to walk into the seeming abyss. The Imperator drew his gun and aimed it at him, "There is nothing wrong with wearing a mask, but Cosmic Phoenix is no more real than I am. Just a ghost marching to his own grave. So thank you. Because be he Cosmic, King, or Emperor you have given me food for thought." He could hear the gunfire but it didn't matter. He didn't see a path, but he could hear Tai's voice.

Eventually, the darkness pulled back like a curtain and Sai stepped once more into his office, Tai having a look of sheer panic on his face but Sai motioned him to quiet down. "What were you doing? Where did you go?"

Sai laughed weakly, "Don't worry too much. I'm just looking for answers. I've been..." he paused and laughed a little before he rephrased things, "Shawn would do that a lot. He called it delving the mines. You live your life long enough on the frontlines of an endless war and you have to confront yourself every now and again. If you don't you stagnate and bury the very core of who you are. So I went digging for treasure."

Tai huffed, looking as cute as his mother while expressing his own well deserved frustration, "And did you find anything useful while you were diving into the depths of your soul?"

Sai nodded, "Yeah, actually. Apparently... our friend has issues." Tai looked at him in baffled disbelief as though he had watched a man crawl into a furnace for an hour only to come out and say 'fire is hot', but Sai motioned him to calm down again, "I mean that he is wearing that helmet for his sake, not ours. If he takes it off, it will break his focus and his mission. If we want answers, we need him to drop his guard or this act will never end."

Tai sighed, "Do you have any ideas on how to make that happen?" Sai shook his head, but didn't seem worried. It would happen, he just needed a look in the man's eyes and he would know. He just needed the one good look.