Clay was awake but then there was another form of danger that existed on Earth. Only this time, the degree was catastrophic.
Ninomae Ina'nis was levitating above the skies, her eyes in shades of pure savage white. The consternation upon the people's faces weren't discernible. The world was locked in a perpetual state of orange, black, and white. Every living and non-living thing was swallowed and suffered a monochrome reality.
Cars paused and animals froze. It was only through observing the situation for a few minutes did Clay realize this was almost happening on a global scale. A few seconds prior, he could only feel a sense of surging malice enter his heart. Not from him but from the aura Ina oozed off.
"What's happening to Ina? Kiara?" Calli called for the Phoenix but she was nowhere to be found in the building. She resorted to Ollie and Kobo instead. "If she's not here, can you tell me what happened?"
Ollie and Kobo were hugging each other by the corner of the wall, done with all things above them. Ollie's conceding smile wiggled like a wave at Calli's straightforward way of doing things. "I-I-I don't know but..." Ollie saw Jean awake as she stepped out from behind Clay.
Ollie and Kobo immediately recovered from their scared state, dashing towards Jean and sending her to the floor. "JEAN! You're okay!!! We're only victims in this situation! I don't know what happened! Ina just kicked her door down, smashed a wall, and floated in the center of the city!"
Clay had to save a conversation for Jean later about everything when all this was over. There was another pressing matter to attend to.
Zed tapped on the glass window in front of him. "Tsk. They're fighting over there. The three of them. I can see it."
"From the looks of it, they're only trying to calm Ina down. But really, why would Ina-" Calli stopped herself for a moment, recollecting her thoughts. "Clay... Remember that one time in the island where we saw Ina's memories?"
"We wouldn't talk about that since it's private but I guess that doesn't matter right now." Clay said. "Yeah, she said something about a book giving her powers and she would cause..."
Destruction.
This book was called the Necronomicon. A perfect name for such a mysterious book. Upon opening its contents and marveling at art I could never replicate, I was shown a prophecy. This prophecy yearned for destruction. A coming of a new world.
"You mean she's lost control because of something a book told her? Talk about taking 'nerd' to a whole new level." Zed wanted nothing more but to join the fight. However, even from this distance, he already felt a lot of pressure. The pressure of not being able to win.
"It's not just any book. It's a powerful one that causes the user to go insane should they abuse the book's text or mishandle it. A book of various gods and their horrors articulated thoroughly word-for-word aren't something an ordinary human can just read." Amelia said. "Considering Ina's always careful, those wouldn't be issues with her."
Clay remembered one more as if the memory stuck to him completely.
I had also been warned that if I continued reading, the voices encircling my sanity would deprive me of the blood that ran through my body. The life I possessed would be bereft of humanity and I would be given powers. I kept on reading, never stopping for a second as my curiosity grew stronger over my own well-being. What would've happened had I not continued? I would wake up again all by myself. Surviving only to communicate without a care. I would be a kid again and my life would resume in a boring glissade. I could handle my blood being gone or my humanity discarded. I wanted to become another being. What I wasn't prepared for was the fate this book had in store for me.
"This had been bound to happen..." Clay whispered.
"Whatever the case, we should stop her. Now." Calli commanded, getting Amelia and Zed tense but prepared for what was to come. "That means you stay here, Clay and Jean."
"What are we going to do here...?" Jean was shaking from head to toe. "I just woke up and this just happens so suddenly... W-what are we supposed to..."
The Earth was shaking.
Greetings mortals. The Primordial One desires to test you of this world.
"Primordial...?"
The turn of events you see before you are only demonstration of the book's warnings. Let it be a lesson for you who dares to read Necronomicon as if it were only paper and scribble.
On a day where the sun and moon would meet rather than divide, I would bring forth a calamity worthy to become a spell written in the Necronomicon. And I was prepared to face that day should it ever come. I was prepared to apologize for whoever I hurt. If it ever comes, I'd want someone to stop me.
"We should probably go with that kind of warning, master." Zed smashed the glass window, gesturing for Calli to join him.
Calli hugged Clay tightly. "Wait for me. Please don't follow."
"Calli-"
Clay didn't know what happened as he closed his eyes and fell to the floor.
"You didn't have to knock him out."
"He wouldn't listen otherwise. Let's go."
~*~
"Ina! It's us! Wake up already!" Gura was already in her primal form wearing a flaming jacket Kiara tailored just for enhanced protection and power.
In blistering speeds, Gura and Ina danced through the gigantic debris with illuminations and explosions trailing behind their attacks. Along the way, Ina remained silent but consistent in her bombardment of long limbs.
"I'll punch you a thousand times if this shell of yours cracks! What's gotten into you anyway?! Your takodachis would be disappointed!" Ina slapped Gura away using one of her tentacles, sending the shark flying.
"Calm down Gura! Let's make a game plan!" Kiara's eyes could accurately follow their movements as they travel from one building to another, demolishing edifice by edifice. "I have to think this through..."
Calli, Amelia, and Zed appeared before the Phoenix, startling her into a fighting pose.
Kiara sighed after realizing it was just her friends. "Don't scare me like that."
Amelia stepped forward. "The voice told us this was just a warning from reading the Necronomicon too much. We're fighting on a time limit here."
"What do you mean?"
"Obviously, this is still dangerous and death is never out of the question but did you hear a voice telling you this is all just a test? All tests have limits. We just have to contain Ina and figure it out from there."
"Wait wait wait, you're not making sense..." Kiara waved a hand at her and closed her eyes trying to imagine her words come to life. "Or maybe I'm just dumb, trying to process everything you said..."
"We just came out of a nightmare and we're exposed to deathly situation."
After explaining everything, Kiara finally understood the context.
"But why would Ina keep reading that book if she knew of the dangers it would bring? It's like she wanted this to happen."
"We're not sure about that but knowing Ina's personality, there must be a good reason."
"If there isn't?" Zed asked.
"I hope it doesn't come to that."
"INAAAAAAA!" Gura was thrown to another building, toppling other buildings as a result.
"Well, whatever this Primordial One is, it's come at a very unpleasant time."
"I got a plan, it's just based on theory though," Amelia took a deep breath and relayed everything.
When Gura passed out after multiple homeruns of her body through different buildings, Ina appeared in front of Kiara and the others in a swift motion, the rubble beneath her feet quaking and flying above her shoulders.
"She's here-" Zed parried Ina's tentacle as he was brought above the ground and pummeled to the ground.
"Kusotori! Flaming Scythe!" Calli threw her scythe to Kiara who doused the weapon in celestial fire.
"Here's your order!" Kiara tossed the flaming scythe, its speed being carried by its circular motion.
As Ina was about to simply catch it and smash it to pieces, Calli popped out of the scythe and delivered its intensity towards Ina's head.
Instead of blistering heat and death sinking into her, Ina remained unfazed, smacking Calli away and releasing tens of tentacles to impale one of them.
"Move!"
Luckily, everyone dodged.
Ina hadn't noticed but there were already smoke bombs below her that Amelia placed that set the field under a fog, pausing her attacks from continuing.
"In the smoke!"
"What's your plan, Watson?"
"We lock her in place and give me time to see her past."
"Won't that take you long?"
"It'll be for me. For you, only a quick second."
"How do you plan on doing that last bit?"
Amelia clung onto Ina inside the smoke and used her pocket watch.
"This'll only take a few seconds!"
Outside of the fog, Calli, Kiara, and Zed remained clueless to what was going on inside until Amelia was tossed out of the smoke.
Kiara jumped and caught the detective in her clutches as they land on the ground.
"Well?" Calli smiled at Amelia's tenacity as she lifted her pocket watch.
"I saw what she did in the past. Don't worry. The solution's simple. She even wrote it down hehe." Amelia said with a missing tooth and a bloody nose from the attack Ina caused. "As a side dish, she told me this was for a good cause. She was just scared to open her mouth for fear it'd affect the world."
"But she did."
"Because it already happened in another timeline. Now, listen to what I have to say!"
"Spill it out. I'm dying to get a punch in. I haven't landed one yet." Zed said.
"We wait for the real Ina to appear. Which should appear about-"
As the corrupted Ina crept closer to them after the fog disappeared, she was stabbed in the back from a sword used by the real Ina.
Amelia grinned, "...Now."
"I finally got you." The real Ina claimed, seeing the corrupted one fade to dust.
The world regained color once more.
~*~
"I'm sorry for causing a big mess to happen."
"You better be you little octopus, my career as a reaper wouldn't be destroyed this easily by some lame book-" Zed said.
"I'm not an octopus though," Ina laughed reluctantly.
"But it's crazy you let something like this happen just to find out if you can overcome the greater dangers of the Necronomicon." Amelia admitted. "I must say, you have more balls than the rest of us girls combined. Not bad for someone who draws and sleeps all day."
"I knew I'd be in danger when I kept reading so I placed my own writings in the book as a self-defense mechanism to escape a manipulated state should I go insane. That isn't the only reason. I kept reading the book because one day it told of monsters entering this world in the far-flung future."
"You mean, what happened today was just an introduction of what's to come? You wouldn't have known if you didn't keep reading?" Ina nodded at Calli's comments. Calli heaved a sigh, overlooking the damage Ina caused to the city. "I could use that plane ticket to Arlington right about now."
"Where's Gura by the way?" Ina asked.
"You swatted her like a fly around the city for half an hour. She's probably passed out right now."
"Oh. Sorry..."
Little did they all know this was just the beginning.
It was a win for life.
For now.
~*~
Holomyth, Clay, Jean, Zed, Kobo, and Ollie ate inside McDonalds amidst the damage caused to the city.
They sat at a table, eating away at the free food they kept at the back kitchen prior while a random janitor was sweeping away at the floor. The rest of the restaurant was wrecked, literally.
The citizens couldn't understand what happened as they were frozen in time and hypothesized it was the work of aliens.
"I can't believe you knocked me out," Clay rubbed his head.
"I was doing what I thought was best." Calli calmly munched on her burger.
"You could've told him to do something inside the building to contribute." Zed grabbed a french-fry from Kiara.
"To what? Update my schedule? What appropriate timing to assign to your assistant."
"We all have a job to do in our lives. We should be loyal to what we're supposed to do-" Kiara thwacked Zed on the head.
"Quiet, you."
"Ina, remind me next time to exclude you from superhuman softball and baseball events." Gura grumbled through her Coke float.
"I'm sorry for hiding this from you but I just didn't share what I'd read so I could keep you all safe. I'm just glad things worked out well and my intentions are known."
"Can I get another happy meal please!" Amelia shouted for the cashier.
"Did you forget? The food's all free at the back of the kitchen. Everyone's panicking to rebuild their houses and the city's state." Ollie said in between bites of her burger with Kobo.
"We should definitely repair all this soon." Clay said.
"Then Arlington?" Calli said beside him, a smile on her face.
He reciprocated her smile. "Repair the city. But yeah, then Arlington."
~*~
Clay had finally stepped up the courage to visit his parents' home to ask about all there was to their history. From the time they left him to seeing him grow into a person they didn't know anymore. In the end, Clay concluded things with his family, saying he would only visit if it was important. He also visited the houses of the students he'd almost killed in the past to repent for his actions. Not only was he grateful he could take the next step forward, but he also had someone beside him to share his growth with.
As for Jean, Clay and her decided they'd bond as brother and sister. Though they weren't tied by blood, they found common ground and happiness in each other's company whenever they hung out. Turns out the one who put Jean in a nocturnal dimension was Death himself after finding out Calli would be with a human. Calli grew enraged at that nonsense and scolded her uncle for going way out of line.
Zed, after months of training under Calli's instruction, decided to roam the world by his own and learn new things with a fresh-coated perspective towards all things life and death. He would return by Christmas Eve and confess later to Kiara (and was promptly rejected). He'd take note to make the confession more organized and appropriate next time.
Amelia is enjoying every single day being with her friends and while her time in this era could end anytime due to unseen circumstances, she wouldn't want to waste her days thinking about such things and focus on building her fanbase. Ina and Gura would continue being the best of friends during their streams and Kiara would dote on them as if they were her own daughters in their free time together.
Calli would take a break from streaming and joyously agreed for a vacation with Clay and their relationship deepened. There was no talk about marriage or anything beyond that point. There would only be life and death with these two.
It was simply dead gorgeous.
G O O D B Y E !