Backup for any accidental exits

A few years after, Maeleach, still on her journey to find her purpose had thoughts plague her head about what the Poets have said:

*“This door will not fade even if we die, and it too will decide your fate”*

These words bothered her like a bug whizzing by someone’s ear, unable to be caught. For years, it haunted her. It felt like something was there but isn’t. She has always been reminded of her killings and her wrongdoings; a constant reminder that keeps her aware of what she has done…

Looking at the vast void in the so-called sky, it’s no wonder how hard it is for people to determine what is day or night if there even is such a thing as that.

Knowing what has happened in the past, she knew that it was a clone that opened the door and not her, so it may have something that affected her fate. Remembering what the Poets have said, *the inside of the door will determine who opens it.*

*“Maybe I was blind to realize it… that fate itself has already a path chosen regardless of what I’d do… It doesn’t care what choice I made….”*

Maeleach didn’t bother completing the sentence, she knew that it was inevitable and knows what would happen. But for now, all she cares about is finding her purpose that which she doesn’t know. The purpose she had been looking for seemed like a hazy fog, unable ever to be perceived nor interacted with. And as she tries to look further into the fog, all she could see are the remnants of what once was a golden opportunity, broken in the face of absolute solitude.

A woman trying to find her place in an ocean of strangers, attempting to claim herself amidst the loneliness. A lost soul. A ghost. A nobody. One who does not belong to anyone, not even herself. A person who does not exist. A human with nothing to gain, yet nothing to lose.

Walking back to her home she feels the same looming presence again, but this time it’s much longer and much more intense. This was something that needs to account for. Unfortunately, she didn’t have Never Be Mine activated at all times, thinking that her previous abilities are enough to stop whoever it is she is about to face.

“You were given 3 paths to your destiny….”

Maeleach was shocked, an echoey voice blares throughout the station.

“Two of them leading to punishment and one leading to salvation…”

Looking around, there was no one but her and this unknown speaker.

“But it seems like you have cheated your way through it…”

 File:La Muerte.jpg  A black ooze began forming on the floor, with it materializing into a humanoid figure, growing tall at a slow pace, gradually getting bigger until it stops at around 10 meters, its size looming over Maeleach.

The terror of the past, the destiny she is trying to escape.

“And I have come here…. To take what is due…….."

The voice was much clearer this time and it was bone-chilling. However, she is unfazed by it as she had come to terms with her death long before the encounter.

“La Muerte….” she muttered. Her fate was sealed, and her life is the price she would pay for all the things she have done.

“Death comes at any time… But I never expected you’ve prepared so much for my arrival,” the black figure said, its red eyes gleaming in the dark as it stares down at her.

She stood silent, she knows what will happen the moment she makes a move. But doubt fills her mind as she tries to fathom the creature in front of her.

“You do know the consequences of those who dare violate the rules. Children who do not follow shall be punished…” the voice whispers in her ear, but the body didn’t move, like its body and voice are two beings altogether.

*“The door…“* she thought

“The moment you entered through the door, you have already lost to them…. Yes, the Toenail that which you have received is indeed real and true. However, it too brought the consequences that lead you here…. No matter how much you try and escape, the shackles of solitude and bloodshed had already pinned you…. For a woman to survive the depths of despair and loneliness is impressive, but she is also the victim of her actions… Playing at the hands of fate… A fate that is death…” the figure said, its voice coming like a breezing wind, her body slowly turning into stone from the revelation, her mind being corrupted, slowly turning her into their puppet.

“....”

“It” was right. She is held by the shackles of her past, a slave to her dream, and is simply puppeteered by death itself. Ever since she was born, she was already fighting against fate, struggling to find her purpose and place in life, continuing to this day.

“So… are you willing to draw your weapon and face the inevitable? Or will you cheat your way through it once more? If you believe that your purpose exceeds that of reality and if you truly have faith in your dreams, then strike me down and prove to me that your struggles weren’t in vain, for that is the only key to finding oneself.” the figure challenges Maeleach to a final battle, as the woman remained still for a while.

“Purpose…. My purpose…. I don’t know it yet…” she muttered, lost in thought as she slowly clenched her stony fist together and prepares herself, opening her eye as it reveals a sinister look on her face, the like which would kill anyone just by glancing at them.

“The power of the infamous culprit… How marvelous…” the figure is taken aback by her sheer strength and the fact she managed to resist their power, “The Poets were true about the plan they had set up, there was no chance of defeating you at that state.” the figure said, surprised and impressed by her power.

The fight starts, with Maeleach using [Lycanthrope: Dead Men Tell No Tales] to surround them, [Stratum Echelon] to attempt to absorb their power, applying [P6’s Barrier] to each and that would spontaneously spawn, then using [Browbeat Badger] to seal them.

But as this happens, La Muerte had already appeared behind her, with the latter trying to use [Titin] to bounce off the incoming attack. However, La Muerte had pulled back its punch and went straight for Maeleach, carefully treading the ants to not activate the ability. In an instant, lots of black spheres appear, pulling her closer to eat. At a moment's notice, she unholsters the Nock Gun at her hip, shooting ballistic apes at them. However, as they come in contact with La Muerte she notices that they seemingly annihilate them. Maeleach tries using Bitter Solstice, wearing the bracelet as the light emitting formed a gamma-ray burst, shooting towards La Muerte.

Again, the same thing happened, but this time they summoned an animal to “bite down” on the light, akin to shadow puppetry. At the same time, they made contact with the ground, touching it and deconstructing it with their Antimatter-like properties. This spreading destruction approaches the residents, who were running for their very lives, running as the wave reaches them. Instinctively, Maeleach throws a rusting nail, creating a slime mucus that absorbs the antimatter, protecting herself from it. The unfortunate others who were caught suffered a lethal illness and seemingly died out of senescence.

“If the fight stays any longer, more of the civilians would be killed…” Maeleach pauses her thought, realizing what she had just said. Before, it didn’t matter to her if people die and were simply an excuse for self-defense, and this time was no different. To others, the term “self-defense” is all but a sham- an excuse for her to ignore people’s lives and focus on her goals. The justifications for actions could never be explained, either thru her isolation or her misunderstanding of good and evil, it all depends on the perspective of people.

Her fights with the Py’zhics and her final scuffle with The Poets are supposedly the end, and yet here she is, fighting the very embodiment of death itself, doubting if she could “kill” them without harming the civilians. So she started creating a plan, she plans on taking La Muerte to another dimension and settling the matter there, plain and simple.

The question is, how?

As she formulates the plan, she tries using [Combusting Rage] to distract him, thinking it would slow them down, but is quickly overpowered by their difference in speed and is knocked away to the far reaches of the station, striking her before she even launched the attack, with time and space itself bending, skipping, stopping, and speeding just their sheer speed. To finish the job quickly, La Muerte reached out their hand, the gravity pulling what seems to be air- no it was something else.

According to Sir William Crookes, the fourth state of matter- that being plasma- is created through the process of “ionization”, which adds energy to a gas so that some of its electrons leave its atoms. This is what Maeleach was witnessing; in her attempt to escape, multiple chains pinned her down, with some attempting to reach into her head and heart, surely her life ended here….

In her desperation, she tried using [Drowsy Siesta] to incapacitate La Muerte, but to no avail, her cheap tricks weren’t working against someone whose speed and power could not be measured.

*She wasn’t facing against an inanimate nor a Milieu Wielder….*

*She is facing the byproduct created by The Monty Hall Problem…*

*She is facing the very embodiment and concept of Death…*

***La Muerte…***

In her stubbornness, the culprit wiggled her body back and forth, aligning her mouth to fit a golden harmonica. Blowing down on it, deafening sounds were heard, breaking the chains that enslaved her body and freeing her from this imprisonment. However, La Muerte counters and petrifies the very ground in solid ice, with everything around them in absolute zero, the lowest possible temperature at the lowest entropy. The monster then opened its mouth, releasing a toxic and poisonous acid as well as a nest of insects that splatter around the culprit. Unfortunately, Maeleach reaches into her wrist and uses 4 Course Meal to purify the insects all the while brandishing Fraudulent Sibyl.

She tries to make the distance for her to use the full extent of her abilities, then uses Stone Shelter so she could release her true power. La Muerte carefully tries to attack her, but hesitates, thinking that she has a plan up her sleeve if they were to follow her.

Due to this hesitation, La Muerte is impaled by countless concept-negating fiberglass shards momentarily afterward, noticing that even a slight bit of error can make them be caught off-guard, taking every advantage Maeleach has just to gain a slight bit of leverage. Despite their immeasurable agility and strength, Maeleach is the very first one to ever catch them off-guard.

Instead, La Muerte changes the surrounding temperature to magma and fire, making Maeleach fall into a puddle of molten liquid. To protect herself, she surrounds the area with [Dead Men Tell No Tales], summoning the ants which are instantly killed and are turned into these black humanoid soldiers, carrying their master to the surface. However, La Muerte, who is from a distance, launches a current of water, creating a magma tsunami of sorts. The soldiers began adapting to it, however, proving the grim reaper’s attack to be futile.

*“Was she holding back this whole time? No, that shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility, she is indeed doing that…. But to what extent? For now, the best choice is to prevent her from doing that”*

***In the meantime….***

Maeleach’s glass shards worked as a distraction to keep them busy alongside the soldiers acting as her shield, throwing a barrage of them in her wake as she hastily speeds up and uses [Scarper Vanish] to traverse into the timeless void and ambush them there. Unfortunately, the difference in their speed is still massive. Seeing that Maeleach had probably gone far away, La Muerte witnessed the rift in the timeless void and catches the girl’s foot, disabling her to escape.

The reaper pulled the girl towards them and places their hands on her chest, gripping their very soul, and began draining her life energy, her perception is warped as well as her biological structure decaying.

“The energy that created the universe, condensed to form everything that exists from the densest to the most refined. It is within the conscience, within the body. However, death coexists with all of these. As all things come into fruition, so will they come to an end,” La Muerte said, pulling away her soul.

However, what they didn’t know was that the culprit had to wait for this moment.

Maeleach was grinning, she knew that death would rip out her soul and she also knew that he knew she was holding back. Unfortunately for them, she had plans set up for when this happens. First, she used [Holder Aprons] to lock the soul in place and return the energy to her using [Thale’s Theorem].

La Muerte tried pulling back, reforming itself, and attempts to teleport, but Maeleach grips on them tightly, preventing their escape. However, several spears made of bones and blood attempt to gush out of Maeleach’s body with La Muerte distracting her with a familiar fragrance, which can woe someone’s morality and turn their beliefs upside down.

As she was distracted, the black soldiers arrive at her aid, stabbing the reaper from behind with their swords. Overwhelmed, La Muerte makes a desperate move, he created several weather phenomena to knock away the culprit, creates a field of fungi to disable Maeleach’s sight, and manipulates her mind and morality so that she would eventually let go. Unfortunately, she used [Ebbinghaus Delbouef] to counter the weather and the fungi, and resists the fragrance by using Cartesian Diver to reflect it. La Muerte tries to attack again with electricity and vibration, but Maeleach uses Lenz to slow it down, easily rendering it useless.

“Tch..” the reaper snarled at Maeleach, its body protruding veins invading the woman’s nervous system to attack her and, through there, manipulate her pain receptors, knowing that going for her soul and possessing it would prove to be futile. Inside, multiple protractors were deflecting each one of the veins. Though none were able to possess her body, others attempted to invade her dreams or put her to sleep, but they too were in vain.

*“...”*

The reaper grunted, scowling at the culprit, and transported the two of them into a void. Her plan may have failed, but through here, she could go all-out without a problem. The problem is that she currently doesn’t know how much of that power this space could take. So instead, she began on the defensive and distances herself from La Muerte. However, the reaper summoned black crystals from the ground to stab her, shot out multiple strands of black hair, and holds out their hand, telekinetically keeping her in the air to receive the full brunt. Howbeit, Maeleach countered the attack with [Highest Summit] to crush the crystals and [Great Cuisine] to keep the hair in place, both negating it and the one that is keeping her in mid-air.

La Muerte kept their hands together and creates an orb, magnetizing the skewers she threw, gravitationally pulling her along in it. Nevertheless, she used [Worthless Time] to overwrite his dimension with hers, and rendered the orb useless. Though this did not stop their assault, opening portals to countless Earths and launching them straight at her. Fusing the stars through nuclear fusion, it emitted large amounts of radiation, illuminating the endless expanse of nothingness with a pure white glow. Maeleach got down and braced for the attack, but the reaper wasn’t done. The black puddles underneath her formed into grey-colored sand, leaking with napalm.

Wanting to ensure her death, La Muerte sealed her off in ectoplasmic prison and layered it with infinite pocket dimensions, manipulating the size of it to seal her in. However, Maeleach had already her assault in motion. First, she used [Thale’s Theorem] to control the probability of his attack, negating both the seal and the dimension she is in; second, she used [Cartesian Diver] to reflect the incoming sand and the oil explosion as well as the gamma radiation; and third, she used [Boloid] to overwrite the dimensions they are controlling. Proving the onslaught to be ineffective, La Muerte suddenly began to reduce the damage she resisted and reflect it on her.

However, she nullified the attempt and went straight for them, summoning [St. Mary]’s crosses and fires lots of holy magic whilst keeping her distance given the current speed disadvantage. The reaper notices this and went back in time to kill her, duplicating itself to delay Maeleach in her chase. But natheless, the culprit was unaffected, despite the latter’s power being stated to be inevitable. Moments later, it returned with an infinite battalion of La Muertes.

“I suppose… this is the end….” one said, a slight disappointment in their tone of speech.

“Guess so…” she responds, glancing down at the nothingness only to see more of them.

“For a person such as you, it sounds insincere..” the figure taunted her.

“You could say that…” Maeleach responds, with her foes unleashing a wave of death-like energy and enveloping the entirety of the void while Maeleach stands unfazed and charges at them with [Provision's Great Cuisine], summoning skewers as they rush towards her. Some of the La Muerte instantly “died”, whilst the others were using every conceivable power they could imagine: causality, concepts, holy and unholy, threads and fate, yet none of them work.

As she attempts to find the real one, she is stopped by the battalion. Though she countered it with her skewers, the energy formed into a blade and combated her concept-negating weapons. She then goes underneath to use [Combusting Rage] to act as the projectiles, [Stratum Echelon] to absorb the incoming barrage, [Cartesian Diver] to reflect the damage, [Lenz] to multiply each attack, [Boloid] to create a dimensional barrier to keep her safe, and [Holder Aprons] to keep them in place, “locking” death itself. However, the clones negated her resistance as well as the infinite layers that come with it, knocking her towards the other horde attacking her. Whilst she is staggered, the La Muertes began to pummel her to the “ground”. A short while after, Maeleach muttered three words:

“Annherfynol, Di-baid, Cyson”

The language was a bit strange. It wasn’t English that she spoke, but rather Welsh. Having her mother’s name and her ancestry to be of Welsh descent, she studied the language and soon developed a technique with a name. As she utters the words in her mouth, she is surrounded by the incoming wave of death.

Before they knew it, Maeleach was already above them and in an instant, destroying all of them at once. Her speed surprises them and makes them teleport away instinctively.

Immediately after, she charges toward them. Maeleach uses [Lycanthrope: Stone Shelter], [Nighthog Watch: Worthless Time], and [Lenz] in combination with one another to reduce their speed, with the latter being startled by how creative and shrewd she is at using her abilities, notably complementing her increased super intelligence.

With this knowledge in mind, La Muerte decides to finish the fight as quickly as possible, the avatar contorting into a somewhat abstract form, appearing less and less humanoid. They then began to tear apart the timeless void within Maeelach’s ability, and form it into a blade, to negate her immortality and regeneration. The resulting attack caused the void to crackle, breaking it.

However, Maeleach managed to survive, as she used Enclosure to nullify the attack and Lenz to redirect.

“One who has lost their way will surely meet destruction,” one of them said, the voice growing louder and much more corrupted.

R*emembering her moments with the Toenail and how it gave her comfort, she began remembering her past.*

*As a child, she was always cared for by her foster mother. But due to her being unable to speak, she can only teach the young Maeleach through weird writings, items, and symbols as she cannot afford money to educate her and had to rely on the things built on the station to do so.*

*And ever since her passing, Maeleach was always alone. She had no one to teach her but herself, she raised herself to become a person but ended up going through this bloodstained massacre just to find a piece of her long-lost memory…*

*It was a tragedy…*

*But for the others… It wasn’t just a massacre…*

***It was genocide…***

As the army of La Muertes attempts to create a much more powerful blade that can negate concepts and warp reality, however, Maeleach retaliates and uses [Fine Tuning] to turn this almighty sword into nothing more than a stick, rendering it useless. She then followed it up with [Blessing of St. Mary], holding out her palm and summoning countless crosses, unleashing limitless amounts of holy energy. This attack destroyed the timeless void easily but is rebuilt again by Maeleach, showing her dominating control over the fight.

“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That there are dues needed to be paid… right? Unfortunately, you were talking about your debt, not mine…” the girl said.

La Muerte, the very embodiment of death began to shake at Maeleach’s taunting, with the latter approaching them with the intent to “kill”. As a last-ditch effort, they tried removing her story, but it was ineffective. Some tried to brace themselves for another attack, Maeleach was already behind them.

The chills were sent down throughout every corner of their very being, with them unable to realize that they’d been struck by her skewers. This attack staggers La Muerte, as their powers have been completely negated and have been rendered useless to her overwhelming power. They soon deduced that the void is being kept together in one place, seeing a cave towering above the swaths of nothingness. They then attempted to end the battle by brandishing their black tendrils at Maeleach but fail to notice the inevitable outcome of the fight. They realized that she was pretending to be weak, acting like the attack she took was severe when, in reality, was far more durable than their attack. To her, it was insignificant- ***worthless*** even.

The overall attack causes the timeless void to simply cease while La Muerte is forced to witness the massacre before their very eyes. Endless universes, countless realities, infinite dimensions, all simply contort and bend to her power. Genuinely, they knew that this is not her full strength and could've gone their way to destroy infinite space-time continua had she truly wanted to.

*Concepts? Reason? Reality? They don’t mean a thing! It’s all pointless to someone who doesn’t know them. Like a blind idiot god, asleep at everything, ignorant of the very fact of their existence.*

*Much like her, everything is temporary and will soon meet its end. Her power represents this side of hers. Having belonged to no one, and having nothing in return.*

*The very embodiment of loneliness, having no one, even herself.*

The Culprit stands confidently and eerily with her summons, appearing behind her like an army. As she confidently approaches the hopeless avatar, slowly but surely moving towards them, with each step increasing the tension.

Against the Culprit, those who dare challenge her will meet certain destruction. Fear that struck the hearts of the many, and fear that will not stop until it reaches the light of day. For one is finding their purpose, stopping at nothing to get it.

Maeleach looks down at La Muerte with a cold but saddened expression, proceeding to destroy death itself, the very concept and embodiment of death, which is, ironically, being killed, showing the massive gap between them. Maeleach felt reassurance and left the timeless void shortly afterward, walking back to the station and casually bringing back the destroyed galaxies, black holes, and space itself back in its place.

Walking away, Maeleach finds experiences an epiphany and is at a loss for words. The feeling of loneliness sets in once again, and finding an enemy that knows her brings some company to the table. She doesn't want to fight, but rather, live in peace and harmony. To belong and to be loved, not be hated.

However, she thinks she'll never get to that paradise. Simply left out here in the darkness.

All alone once again, but struggles to find herself as well. It's this struggle that pushes her to where she is now.