digibutter.nerr

[Super Ultimario]

((See page 3. A lot of this, except for of course this description of the place and the fact that the huge crystal no longer has Ulti in it, are kind of irrelevant.))

A previously unknown, somewhat small cave could be seen. Inside, one could see many large crystals, most of which were shades of blue, but there was the occasional green or purple crystal. In the middle of the cave there was a small body of water, which was a bit odd considering that there were no leaks in the cave for water to drop through and no apparent connections to other bodies of water. The water appeared to be crystal clear, clean, and pure, simply H2O without any visible contaminents. There were no fish or other creatures inside of it, the water was very still without any kinds of waves or ripples. There was a path of less jagged crystals along the middle of it, they could be used like stepping stones to go across. Most notably, in the back of the cave there was the largest crystal of them all, a shining, very light blue one. It seemed to emanate its own light, and was the dominant light source despite the sunlight just outside the door. Inside of this huge crystal, there was a human-like figure, with what appeared to be a large sword extended in its right hand. Little could be seen of its shape or color beyond that, due to it being in the very back of the cave and the bright light surrounding it. All of these crystals and the quiet, calm water made the entire cave seem to be silent, surreal, it felt almost frozen in time.

[Jayson]

Jayson stumbled into the cave and walked up to the blue crystal, which somehow captured his attention from the start

as he got closer to it he could see the figure trapped inside of it

"huh, fancy that"

[Ultimario]

Everything seemed to freeze in place, as the light from the light blue crystal seemed to get darker. The eyes of the figure inside seemed to glow bright white-blue.

A barrier of jagged, large crystals (about 10-12 feet tall) sprouted up from the ground in front of Jayson. They were nearly unbreakable, but they could be jumped/flown over or teleported through.

A voice seemed to echo throughout the cave, with no apparent source.

"Halt. Who goes there? What is your purpose for coming here?"

[Jayson]

he tried to look around for where the voive was coming from but gave up and answered

"I'm Jayson and...I dunno, I was bored?"

[Ultimario]

"If you have no sufficient reason for coming here and disturbing my rest, then leave."

With that, the figure inside the crystal thought silently to himself: Well, if there are other beings here capable of language...this may be the place. But I can't be sure...my destination isn't the only place hospitable to life...and besides, even if it is the place it may not need me yet. But while I rest, I grow more powerful, so it's likely a good idea to continue building up strength for when I am truly needed...for something more important than merely the boredom of a small child.

[Jayson]

he folds his arms

"Fine then! You can sit there in your stupid crystal all by yourself!"

[Ultimario]

"I've been in here for...a very long time. It's not easy to keep track of time when you're partially asleep and the only way to judge time is by a little bit of sunlight. I'm fine with being alone. Now then, are you going to leave?"

[Jayson]

Yes I am! I'm not going to stick around with someone who is mean to me!

[Super Ultimario]

"..."

One could feel the sadness inside of him. It was the sort of held-back regret that for some reason could be felt, was perhaps intensified by being held back. Obviously, the figure didn't intend to come off as mean...but was holding back any kind of emotion that could lead to foolish decisions, such as releasing himself when uneeded, when he could be building up power for when it was really needed. It was almost as if he was sacrificing himself for others...perhaps even restraining himself from others...in spite of his emotions, doing what was best for this realm regardless of the emotional pain it could cost him.

[Jayson]

"Goodbye!"

he turned around and began to leave

[Ultimario]

The figure made no effort to stop him. Unknown to anyone else, a silent, psychic conversation was beginning.

"As usual, Ulti, even a little child still has such a profound effect on your emotions. You've always been the weak one, even after such a "heroic" effort to weaken me. Even now, I feel your negative emotions strengthening me further. All this effort to make yourself stronger and make me weaker is nearly undone in just a few minutes. By a child."

"..."

"You know what you should do? This is just a little piece of advice: Maybe this place should be more well-guarded. This plan of yours would work better if there were no distractions. I say you completely cover this entire place in crystal, with no openings at all."

"What good would that do? Nobody would ever be able to let me know if anything bad was happening. We'd be stuck in here forever, I'd never be able to get unsealed and help anything."

"Exactly. We both know I'm far stronger than you and always will be, despite your efforts to change that. So, by permanently sealing us both in, you'll do everyone a big favor."

"That...actually makes sense. Perhaps...temporarily doing what you suggest? That way, when enough time passes and I'm a lot stronger than yo-"

"Ultimario! Think for a second! Since when has he ever acted in your favor? Or for the good of anyone but himself, for that matter? Doing what he says will always be a bad idea, even if it doesn't seem that way at first. You know him...he's smart enough to have some sort of backup plan for if he's locked away forever. With you out of the way, there's no stopping him. Why else would he suggest something like this?"

"I see your point, but we've gone to incredible lengths to prevent him from having any kind of Plan B before we locked ourselves in here. And there's no way he could have escaped, it's pretty obvious that only you and I can get out of material like this. And even if he had partially escaped, we've got such a psychic connection that I'd clearly find out about it. What you say makes sense, but it's just impossible."

"Listen to him. I'm good at what I do, but I'm not a god or anything. I can't get out of a situation like this, we all know that. Maybe I'm trying to redeem myself a bit, by helping him seal me away. Maybe I can't control myself, so I'm staying away from the rest of the world"

"How can you possibly "redeem" yourself? How can you want to? You're made up of his freaking negative thoughts. How can you have positive ones of your own? You're called Dark Ultimario for a reason, you know."

"Dark is not evil. Besides, I may be made up of his negative thoughts, but that doesn't mean I'm just that. I mean, think about it: He's not negative-thought-free, now is he? He's not exactly a saint. Same for me. I may be mainly evil, but I do a few good things now and then. I'm not a demon."

"You're right. You're not a demon. You're worse. The only reason you have positive thoughts is so that you can appear to be nice and get armies on your side. So you can be a villian with good publicity. So you can feign honor for a few seconds to get somebody to hesitate in killing you, then stab them right in the back. Just like Ultimario not being a perfect saint makes him even better than one. He doesn't have infinite mercy so that he doesn't fall for your tricks most of the time. He doesn't have perfect sympathy so that he can do something that hurts somebody else, for the greater good. He has some moral problems of his own, so that he knows what the villian feels like and can actually save them from their downward spiral instead of just killing them."

"...You really belive what you're saying, don't you? That Ultimario is something better than a saint, that's so well-flawed that he's perfect, while I'm completely 100% evil? When will you learn that nobody is perfect, that nobody can be completely one thing or another? There is no real "good" and "evil". There's only choices that benefit one person more than another. I just happen to typically choose myself to get the benefits. And, of course, the moment I decide to help out somebody else, you just have to suspect something."

"How can you possibly think of yourself as anything but utter hellspawn?! You plunged an entire dimension into darkness! You're a complete monster and you know it!"

"As I've said before and will continue to say, dark is not evil. Besides, plunging a dimension into darkness is not such an evil thing to do. I merely wanted to unite the land under one ruler, one language. No more bloody wars."

"...I don't know...I just can't trust somebody who's tried to kill me so many times, somebody who's my exact opposite in ever possible personality-related way. For now, the sealing will not come undone. If there is some significant reason, some catastrophe going on, I will have to unseal us. The emotional pain has only begun...Dark Ultimario will slowly grow stronger over time, the whole point of this sealing is nearly coming undone. There is only one thing to do now."

Ultimario broke out of his extremely long mental conversation and decided to ask Jayson what was going on in the world. The cave grew brighter again and the jagged crystal barrier wentback into the ground.

"Jayson. I want you to tell everyone about this cave and tell them to bring any kind of information about attacks, invasions, catastrophes, or basically any kind of bad things happening, and have them tell it all to me. Additionally, gather as much information about that kind of thing yourself, as well. I need to be sure that there is something going on before I become active again."

[Jayson]

Jayson turned around and folded his arms again

"why should I?"

[Ultimario]

I suspected as much. Ah well, I should be able to attract attention to a single spot without many problems.

Ultimario then grew entirely bright white/blue and let out massive waves of psychic energy that you'd have to be a complete idiot not to feel. They would attract the attention of anyone feeling them to come to this cave. Soon enough, he would find out what was going on in the world, and whether or not he dare risk freeing Dark Ultimario.

[top minion tails]

*someone else entered the cave* This has got to be where I felt that shockwave coming from...

[Ultimario]

The figure inside of the giant crystal spoke again.

"Hello.

Would you mind telling me what is going on right now? You know, attacks, invasions, plagues, unnaturally large storms, the moon turning evil, the sky turning red, those kinds of bad thing.

...And this is the Bitlands, correct?"