How the hell did it happen?

How did it become her against the world? In the most literal fashion, Queen Eliza found herself fighting the earth beneath her feet and the air she breathed. The entire forest came alive, the plants ripping themselves from the ground in an attempt to strangle her. Orange Orangutans and Puck Boars took turns throwing themselves at Ellie in an act of madness.

No matter how many bodies piled up, they never stopped attacking. A lucky Orangutan caught her blind spot and sent her careening into a massive tree. However, the follow up failed and the primate found his face buried in the tree trunk.

Even with their champion disposed of, his compatriots didn't stop swinging down from their vines as colorfull birds carpet bombed the area.

Armor re-equiped, Eliza's gauntleted clap resounded. A force-filled shockwave rippled outward, allowing her a moment to breathe and address the cause of all this madness.

"Dammit, Keel! Don't make me kill you."

Keel's hair was stark white. As were the other children.

After killing his mentor for a second time, Keel forced his way to the artifact and, like a fool, tried absorbing the entire thing. The feedback of power rippled into the other children and subsequently, the entire forest. The Primal Node's stark white exterior was quickly losing its vibrancy with each passing second. The kids were stuck in a state between fracturing and omnipotence, mind-controlled by their Leader.

The children silently gritted their teeth in pain even as they attacked Ellie.

Ellie jumped over from the massive hands of earth that tried to squeeze her. Flying into the air, she swatted the siege fireball casually thrown her way.

Limitless magic sprang from Keel's fingertips, summoning a meteor storm that rained down on the battlefield. Ellie ducked and weaved through the gauntlet while minimizing the damage she could. The burning forest. The scattered acolytes. The poor animals were still trying to attack her. They lunged at her only to be extinguished by Keel's careless meteors.

Beyond annoyed, Ellie stopped dodging. Her fingertips glowed with a rare winter chill.

"Haelstrom."

The ground froze. The air chilled. The meteors halted their descent, held aloft like enormous snow cones.

"No more games, Keel."

Snarling, Keel pointed a finger. As a Leader, he commanded the other kids.

Agatha rose on the limbs of a sunflower. Like her hero, she unconsciously brought to bare a similar spell. The plant was twice as large as Rez's had been and burned a brilliant blue. On Keel's command, the beam of searing light fired.

Ellie flew right, watching the blue laser slice through the frozen meteor she dodged behind. Picking up speed, she flew lower to the ground, outrunning the beam of magical energy directly supplied by the Primal Node. It tracked her path through the frozen field.

A stream of steady fireballs pelted her flight path, pitched by Bip like a professional machine, the impact craters puffing steam as they evaporated the frozen flora. As a consequence, Ellie's visibility became obstructed and hazy to the point she didn't see the sudden Earth Wall in front of her. She barreled through it and each wall after it, gradually chipping away the cohesion of her Flight spell and causing her to crash and burn.

On her back in a smoking crater, Ellie watched an oversized flaming hammer descend to crush her skull like a watermelon.

Punching Dewie's hammer with a gauntleted fist caused him to stagger right into the path of Agatha's laser fire. Dewie didn't notice. Neither could Agatha. And Keel didn't give a damn.

Growling, Ellie cast a minor Teleport spell and switched places with Dewie.

Agatha's spell hit dead-on. A force of fire and light so strong even the memory of shadow vanished inside it.

Keel's triumphant grin urged the beam to grow stronger and ensure absolutely nothing was left in it's wake. The icy ground evaporated into a haze, swiftly transformed into a hissing magma pit, until even magma couldn't survive.

The only reason the destruction ceased was because Agatha's leylines literally burnt themselves to ashes. If she ever cast a spell again it would be considered a miracle. Even in her disheveled and mind-controlled state, fresh tears streamed down her cheeks to fall on her scorched arms. The plant keeping her aloft tore apart like unstrewn sinews and she fell to the ground with a mournful thud. Knee's unable to support her, the girl idly observed her ruined arms, not allowed to register the damage and grieve for the loss.

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Keel ignored his former friend's injuries and glued his glowing gaze to the impact destination. The haze of heat played tricks on his eyes, but what he saw made him blink twice and rub away the illusion.

Standing there, onyx armor oozing off her smoking body, was a very pissed Elden.

"That was a grown-up decision."

Again. There was that trepidation in his heart. It felt like Fear.

Instincts screaming at him, Keel brought up an arm to block the roundhouse kick aimed at his back. Unfortunately, the immense force was unstopable, bending his arm inward. The next thing he knew... he'd rocketed through two frozen meteors and was lying in a fractured crater of ice and rubble. Wiping the blood from his mouth, he called his minions over to shield him.

They assembled in front of him, Agatha too, ready to die at his words. Even with their wills overwritten, their legs shook when they beheld the marching Queen. Each step was a proclamation. Each footfall was a soldier shouting that they would die for her. Smoke sashayed off her oozing obsidian armor as her pink hair billowed out behind her like royal embers.

Keel cradled his broken arm, cursing the vile demoness up and down.

"Why won't you die already! I should be more than strong enough. It doesn't make any sense!"

The children attacked on his command. Sean cast his fireflies, flittering into the air. The beautiful pieces of featherweight magma stung the Queen's skin but did nothing to slow her steps. More than half of Bip's fireballs hit dead center as Ellie didn't move aside to dodge. The metallic clang's they made off the slag remnants of her armor rang out faster and faster as Bip too drained himself dangerously dry. Even powered up by near limitless mana, the attacks only served to mildly retard her gait.

In an attempt to break her stride, Keel commanded Dewie to attack.

He was the first to go.

A gentle, yet forceful hand pressed to Dewie's forehead. The haphazard mind-control spell was shattered at the touch and Dewie's vibrant white hair returned to a familiar grimey black as he passed out.

Frightened beyond rationale, Keel tried casting another meteor storm but an icicle pierced his hand.

Screaming and cradling both ruined arms, Keel was forced to watch in agonizing horror as death approached.

Ellie kicked away the earth hands trying to hold her in place and plucked little Ji from the ground like he was a carrot, freeing him from the mind magic a second after. Sean moved in for close combat but didn't hold a candle to the queen's flame. He fell in an instant, laying next to Ji. Then Bip realized he had no more room to throw. With a snap, his magic faltered, and he too lay unconsious and powerless.

Agatha stared up at the Queen. She stood defiant despite her impotence. The little girl looked down at her arms twitching and unresponsive. Surely in her head she was blasting the foe far, far away where she couldn't threaten her Leader again. But instead, only water leaked from her glazed over eyes.

Staring down at this broken little thing almost caused Ellie to stop.

As Agatha's mind spell unravelled, the Queen moved past the fallen child and towards the perpetrator.

How angry is it possible to be? Is it possible to be so angry that your eyebrows reach the center of your face? Is it possible for your eyes to ooze red from popped blood vessels? Is it possible for the corners your mouth to be cut by your molars? If it were possible to be so angry that you caused a demon to wet themselves from a promisement of pain... then all of that would be written across the Queen's face.

Keel awkwardly raised his arms to defend himself but was preparing a spell at the same time. Ellie was ready to deflect anything that came her way, but even she needed a moment to catch the spear of fire aimed at the prone and unconscious Ji. It gave Keel a second head start when he teleported back to the Primal Node...

Right before a trident of pink fire pierced his back.

Collapsing to his knees, even in his final moments, all Keel could think about was if only he had more power... He could have taken the Queen on even ground. If only he had all of it. Everything the Primal Node had to offer.

His broken hands reached up to smear fresh blood on the Primal Node's pristine surface.

"Please."

The Primal Node was a tool created by The Elders. Even if there were right and wrong ways of doing it, granting power was one of only two things it could feasibly do. So... when Keel's dying wish touched the Primal Node... it granted the last request.

It gave him power.

All of it.

In an instant.

His wounds healed. Strength filled his leylines and it didn't stop. Keel was all-powerful for a single nanosecond.

And then it Fractured.

The Primal Node cracked. Black light leaked out as Keel screamed.

His arms became glued to the cracked shell as it went on a Manaless rampage, attempting to eat his existence in a fit of endless gluttony.

"No. No-no-no! This isn't how it's supposed to be."

Trying to pull away was meaningless. The Manaless condition was contagious by design and reinfected him with glee. The Node leeched any semblance of power away and drained his mana past empty. When there was nothing left, his life force was taken as pittance.

"Someone help me. Rez! Sean? Agatha, are you there? Somebody."

Keel cried out. He counted the only names he could.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry! Ji. Dewie. Bip. Master. Please..."

His revived master lay unmoving. His unconscious friends were in spasms as Manaless fissures mechanically tore apart their leylines. Soon, they would all follow Keel into nothingness.

"Don't let me die. I don't want to die."

His voice fell on deaf ears. The maddened animals fled as their world shuddered. Queen Eliza was too busy trying to patch the Fracturing Primal Node to consider the poor boy.

"Anybody?"

No one answered.

"Please."

The world was cruel.

Keel's skin flaked away like chipped paint.

"I didn't want this."

He could remember the scent of his mother's hair.

"I didn't mean it, momma."

Young and unable to understand, he hadn't realized. His small stubby fingers reached for his mother's hair. It smelled like smoked meats. The fragance attracted his appetite, so he tried to pull it down.

"I swear. I didn't know. I didn't know."

He couldn't remember his mother face. Only a scent remained. He didn't understand until now.

His mother knew that this was how she would die. Fractured by her own infant.

Yet her arms never let go.

"But..."

Keel's voice was hoarse.

"...I think I understand now."

Though his body trembled, Keel's turbulent eyes finally calmed when he saw his reflection in the Primal Node's umbral surface.

"Forgive me."

A crack split his reflection in two.

Then he shattered. A billion fragments drifting away on the breeze. Fractured and forgotten. His death overshadowed by the apocalypse he'd created.