CORE

In a black, endless void, the same as all the other empty horizons Hero had been present in, he awoke but was surprised to see nearly half of it had been taken over by a strange, red void as if something had leaked inside.

"At least it is something new," Hero said, closing his eyes and scratching the back of his head as he got up, he still felt his body and mind ache like earlier, though, weirdly enough he did not remember much, but its most likely a physical trauma response, he was sure he would remember sooner or later.

But as he opened his eyes, he saw another individual in the distance, turned around, their body was similar to Hero’s although, it was completely red, although from what little Hero could see, their eyes were still a shining white.

“Looks like you didn’t die, it's a shame really,” Jack said, crossing his arms before turning around to face directly at Hero, taking a few steps forward in the process as the two locked eyes.

"Who is he?" Hero thought as he slightly clenched his fist, taking a step back as he felt like a fight would break out.

"Who are you, and... Why are you here?" Hero questioned in a serious tone.

"To put it simply, that mad scientist put my Core in your body, essentially, you have Multi-Personality Disorder, at least that's how it looks outside of this place," Jack answered in a slightly annoyed tone.

"So that's what it did..." Hero said as he looked at his chest once more, where the Core had entered.

"Time is a lot slower in places like these, no matter how long we have a talk for, it'll end up just being a millisecond outside," Jack spoke as he took another step closer to Hero, the two standing 3 feet away from each other.

"You have an ulterior motive... I can sense it, I've asked this so many times, it feels like I am about to go insane but... What is it that you people want from me?" Hero asked in a slightly fiercer tone.

"I just want revenge on that scientist for backstabbing me and then using me as one of his lab rats, literally and figuratively, and once that's done, I'll leave your body, but if that doesn't work, it is what it is," Jack said, smirking smugly as he shrugged his arms.

"And how will I know you won't hurt anyone after that?" Hero questioned as he took a step forward.

"You can take back control, it's a lot easier than you think since you are the original Core of this body, you have the dominance to take back your control, and you can view what I'm doing since again, you are the original Core," Jack said before suddenly grabbing Hero by the collar rather aggressively.

"Let's not waste time, like I said, I want my get back, and it just so happens that arrogant madman gave me quite the vessel to use, and trust me when I say I will use it to the maximum," Jack said as he chuckled, with a hint of insanity as Hero sighed in disappointment.

"Fine..." Hero responded, still slightly skeptical, but nevertheless, it seemed like he had no other option.

And plus, I suppose he could understand.

Anyone could hate him.

Soon after, the red part of the void took over the black part of the void in an instant as everything flashed a bright red light.

Back to reality, inside The Castle...

The red ball of magic electricity burst through magical walls, ripping through them as The Scientist dashed back, his yellow magical aura leaking out as Jack The Ripper, within Hero's body, stepped out of the box.

"I admit, you're still as powerful as ever, it took both my and that brat's magic to break through it," Jack said, dusting off his clothing, rolling his shoulders as he then stared at The Scientist with violent intent.

"I'm flattered, truly," The Scientist replied with a smug grin as multiple malformed monsters sprung out of his magical aura from his back and arms as they all rushed directly for Jack.

"May The King have mercy upon your bitter soul when you are to be reaped,"

"I don't follow that thing like you do," Jack said as he swiftly stepped to the side, avoiding some of the monsters before blasting them with a beam of red electricity magic as he then swiftly slid right back to The Scientist, appearing in front of them as he delivered a devastating uppercut which blasted him straight through the window, cracking the glass as The Scientist flew in the night sky.

"Amazing indeed!" The Scientist remarked as Jack quickly jumped into the sky in hot pursuit while The Scientist sent out multiple squid-like monster projectiles that traveled at blinding speeds and like that of a homing missile.

"Have you forgotten?" Jack grinned wildly as a red magic aura enveloped Hero's body, and he then stretched out his arms, grabbing and touching the squid monsters whose navy blue color turned into a red hue.

The red squids suddenly turned around and charged right for The Scientist, who only chuckled as he avoided them with ease as he decided to dissipate his squid projectiles so as to not cause any more inconveniences like that.

"Scared?" Jack taunted.

Jack's Inborn Magic, has the ability to completely overwrite a magic attack and make it his own, although the amount of magic used to create that initial attack is the level of magic he will have to use, adding on to the fact that he would have to understand the fundamentals of the initial attack, thus making this ability quite difficult to wield.

"No, I think I'm actually quite intrigued," The Scientist spoke before stretching out his right arm.

"If we will be letting out our trump cards, then knowing you, I guess I should do so as well," The Scientist's right arm suddenly twisted and formed into one, large, monstrous hand.

The Scientist's Inborn Magic, the ability to create malformed monsters was merely a byproduct of his real ability, to overhaul and restructure his limbs into a larger, twisted, grotesque version by using the twisted property of his magical aura.

He twisted back his monstrosity of an arm and slammed it right toward Jack as he elongated it, strengthening its length further.

But Jack responded quickly, raising his leg and imbuing it with his magic as he then drove through the center of the arm, ramming through its near-endless length as chunks of magic and flesh burst away until soon, Jack finally caught up to The Scientist.

"How very idiotic," The Scientist said as the chunks of flesh suddenly transformed into monsters, all of them flying towards Jack instantaneously, while Jack had thought of using his Inborn Magic to counter this, he decided that there were too many, it would certainly be draining for his own magic.

"You win this trade, necrophiliac," Jack said, slightly grinning by pure instinct as he narrowly dodged the bullet-like monsters that came his way, while also destroying and severing some of them to make things easier.

However, much to Jack's luck, amidst that chaos he had found a perfectly circular opening to where The Scientist was, and it seemed like he noticed it too.

"Not so fast," The Scientist said as he outstretched both of his arms they then transformed into large fleshy tentacles that ripped through the air in hot pursuit of Jack, who raised his hand to let out a beam of red magic, but he stopped just before he did so as he felt something taking control of him.

"It's a trap," Hero spoke, the eyes of his vessel turning white as he noticed the tentacles were in fact much larger appendages compressed to a small level, destroying them would cause an eruption of what could be described as an endless wave of monsters.

"...I knew that! But so what?!" Jack said in a furious tone, the eyes of Hero’s body turning red once more and his unhinged smile growing wider as his eye squinted before charging straight for The Scientist, who looked rather surprised.

However, that look of surprise turned into a disappointed yet partly proud grin as Jack, in quick succession blitzed through the tentacles, disregarding everything around him as he tore through them, but as The Scientist continued to look on smugly, they realized their plan backfired as Jack simultaneously started to rip through the larger appendages that sprung out of the tentacle parts he had already severed.

"You're done for, maniac!" Jack yelled out as he rushed toward The Scientist at an incomprehensible pace.

"Such speed..." The Scientist thought, genuinely intrigued and shocked.

"Indeed... He was the perfect vessel,"

But elsewhere, in the 'void' below Area 2...

"Good lord, any chance of surviving this?" Sherlock spoke out, panting as he continued to shoot down a row of monsters, with a single bullet as it curved and zigzagged, but they just seemed to keep on growing in groups no matter how mu

"Nope, I've tried breaking through the walls of this place, I may be the fastest but realistically I'm one of the more magically weaker Guardians," Justice said, smirking with a hint of nervousness until that grin faded away as Justice took in his surroundings, and the dangerous situation.

"...This is really bad, at this point the horde is gonna grow so massive to the point we'll be crushed to death," Sherlock said, lowering his gun and releasing his magic to rest for a moment.

But, he stopped thinking as he then heard mumbling next to him, and as he turned his head he saw Justice, his eyes down and staring at the black floor before looking back up at the hordes of monsters.

"...Not as bad as that place," Justice muttered in an eccentric tone as he took a massive step forward, he felt his acceleration increase as he suddenly dashed through and ripped the endless hordes of monsters, taking Sherlock by surprise as he almost blew his gun away from the initial shockwave.

"What in the...?" Sherlock said, before cutting himself off as he smirked, gripping his gun tightly as he then aimed it at the monsters as Justice continued on with his rampage.

"We may just have a winning chance now,"

"But so late, Justice?" He said as he continued viewing Justice, noticing his white glowing eyes had gotten a strangely orange hue.

"You tried locking it up didn't you?" His eyes narrowed as he sighed.

Back on the surface of Area 2...

The Scientist held Jack by the throat, as they both dangled far up into the endless night sky of Area 2 while being surrounded by multiple fish and squid-like beasts.

"...Just how did he do that...?" Jack thought, weakened.

"Even though I cut the flesh into particles, he was still able to create monsters from them...?"

"So he did get more powerful..."

"Summoning monsters on a near-atomic level..." The eyes of Hero's body suddenly faded away from the red color as Hero's eyes closed, essentially passing out.

"I would say if you had any last words, but that would be cliche, correct? Plus you seem sort of dead now," The Scientist said, raising his other arm as he shrugged.

"Well then, without further ado, allow me to placate you," He said, his yellow magical aura irradiating from his body as he used his other hand to charge up a large, yellow ball of electric-like magic.

But just before The Scientist followed up with a devastating blast to the head, Hero's body suddenly outstretched its arm and started choking The Scientist, surprising them as the ball of energy they had charged up dissipated as they released their grip off of Hero's body.

"Bad move," Hero said, a clear smirk on his face as he suddenly sent a devastating punch towards The Scientist's face, causing them to be knocked to the ground, at least that is what would have happened if The Scientist had lost balance, along with the fact he nullified some of the attack's damage by summoning a small wall of flesh on his face just in time.

"I'll just knock you out too then," The Scientist said, rubbing the side of their face where Hero almost hit it to make sure there were no wounds.

"But I won't play childish again," He said in a cold, gripping tone, suddenly raising his hand and making a hand sign as Hero leaped back, expecting an attack judging from what The Scientist had spoken.

"Magic Ultimatum: In The Name Of The Flesh," The Scientist spoke out...

Down in London, people were enjoying the night as usual, people laughed, drinking booze with old mates, and chattering all night long.

However, in what would only be described as 'abrupt', ending the tranquility a large shadow had covered London, not all of it, but a fairly large portion of it.

This caught the attention of all the residents, and as they looked up to see what was causing this strange darkness...

But there the moment they did, a collective feeling of terror and fright overcame the crowd as they witnessed what looked to be the upper half of a demon made out of screaming flesh and dried blood, molded together by what could be described as stitches made out of even more flesh...

Without a second wasted, The Scientist in its flesh demonic form raised its gigantic arm, swinging at Hero as they intended to completely pulverize them with one deadly slap.

"I have been watching your abilities while he was fighting, I've got a good hold on what you can do now," Hero commented as he narrowly avoided the arm by dashing through the space between its fingers, while simultaneously utilizing Jack's magic, putting it in an unstable form as he used that electric-like state of the magic to cut through a large portion of The Scientist's flesh hand.

"Inborn Magic... I wonder what mine could be," Hero thought as he ran up The Scientist's flesh arm along with the monsters they had summoned after Hero slashed them to bits.

"He most likely can't summon as many monsters, it must take a lot of magic to even hold up this form..." Hero said, quickly turning around before making a hand sign.

A non-hostile explosion of red magic came out of Hero, upon coming in contact with the flesh monsters, their body suddenly turned into an even redder hue as they suddenly dug down at The Scientist's arm, slashing and devouring down a large portion of it before they were forcefully compressed and ripped into pieces as they fell.

As Hero continued running up The Scientist's upper flesh arm, he noticed that the regeneration of the lower flesh arm was massively slower.

"It's not mastered, is it?" Hero thought as he turned back to his front, but was shaken to see the demonic face of The Scientist's flesh body had gotten closer to him, but he sensed a lot of magical energy within that head.

Hero's face toughened up as he quickly sent a blast of magic mixed with his and Jack's to the head of the Flesh Demon, however, it counterattacked with two beams of magic from its eyes, and the two attacks clashed ferociously.

However, Hero got the short end of the stick as he was overpowered and thus blasted away, sinking deep into thick, moist layers of The Flesh Demon, equivalent to drowning in quicksand as the walls of meat slowly closed in on The Hero...

"Idiot," The Scientist shouted, laughing from within the flesh mass which echoed throughout The Flesh Demon.

"Now that I'm done, I'll be able to experiment with your vessel further..."

"Oh well, goodbye, an old and new friend, I admit, it has been fun..." The Scientist shrugged, sighing out of satisfaction.

But suddenly, something ripped into where he was hiding within The Flesh Demon's head, and there was Hero, his eyes red, signifying Jack had taken control as he had a wicked grin on his face.

"Not so clever, eh?" Jack said as The Scientist looked on with a surprised face, but before they could let out a word they were immediately grabbed by the neck, with Jack's grip tightening in almost an instant.

"You knew pretty well I could rip through that flesh of yours like butter, the moment you absorbed that brat into your Flesh Demon, it was all over, in fact, I think it was over the moment you summoned one of these things! Don't these techniques take nearly all your magic?" Jack said, grinning as he raised his other arm before punching The Scientist out of his Flesh Demon as it then prolapsed, and melted into what was a goop-like substance.

Jack quickly rushed out of what remained of The Flesh Demon, dashing towards The Scientist in hot pursuit as he grabbed them by their lab coat's collar.

Down in London...

The people slowly but surely started to calm down, the massive demonic-like flesh monster had disappeared from the sky entirely, to which the crowd was relieved.

However, that was the least of their problems, as this wave of relief was stopped abruptly by something crashing into one of the nearby buildings, causing minor damage as it created a humongous dust cloud in the area...

Jack flew down, landing perfectly on the second floor of a building he struck The Scientist into, and as he stood up straight, the dust clouds before him disappeared simultaneously as The Scientist lay there, defeated and unconscious from the initial attack, but not dead.

"This marks the end of your career," Jack said, raising their hand as they charged an unrefined ball of electric-like magic.

But as Jack tried to fire it at The Scientist, he could not help but feel something in his vessel, something that did not allow him to.

"What?" Jack thought, astonished as he could not even move his arm much less fire the ball of magic.

"Why is it...?" Jack stood as frozen as ice but not on his own according.

"Is that idiot taking control? No... It's impossible to do things like this without fully taking control,"

"This could mean one thing alone..."

"This reflex and instinct is directly built within his body-!" Jack thought, furious as he yelled bloody murder, however, when he tried to force the attack out on The Scientist, he was suddenly stopped when someone put their hand on his vessel's shoulder.

"Lights out," Justice whispered as he propelled a harmless burst of magic into Hero's body, forcefully pushing Jack's Core out of Hero's vessel as another hand, which was Sherlock's, grabbed it before it flew away as Justice then sent a fairly large beam of light towards The Scientist's body, killing and vaporizing them instantly as what was left was merely dust.

Hero stumbled as he took a step forward, that initial blast of magic was a bit pushy, but he was able to balance himself before he fell.

"You guys are you already back? Where were you?" Hero questioned, a slight smirk growing, as he sighed with a look on his face both relieved and surprised, turning around to look at the two.

"Big champ here and I was able to deduce we were actually just below Area 2, thanks to the ruckus I'm guessing you caused up there," Sherlock said, grinning back as he pointed to Justice then upward.

"Ah, right, what should we do of this building? I was not able to take control, trust me I could but... For some reason, his anger and ferocity in that moment outweighed my power to take control..." Hero said, scratching the back of his head out of slight guilt.

"It's not your fault, I could pay for the damages... Though it really depends," Sherlock responded.

"Anyways, you wanna get going now, Hero?" Justice said as he pointed backward.

"What about Holmes?" Hero responded as he took a step forward.

"I'll be staying behind, of course, have to make sure this place is protected thoroughly, and don't worry about Ripper over here... I always find my ways to deal with criminals." Sherlock gave a thumbs up in approval along with a slightly smug grin.

"Then so be it," Hero said, smiling back as he nodded.

"Cheers, and thanks," Sherlock said, waving goodbye as he walked over to the large hole they made through the building, and jumped down, landing safely on the ground.

"Do you know where the Rift Platform is?" Hero asked as he grabbed onto Justice by the shoulder.

"Always do," Justice spoke as he grabbed Hero by the collar as they flew off into the night sky, in which Hero looked down on London as they slowly flew above.

"Do you think we'll be able to reach it far in the journey? If the guardian of Area 2 is this strong then who knows what could happen next," Hero questioned in a doubtful tone, which was much to Justice's surprise that he would ask such a question knowing him.

"Pal, you're talking to someone who is light itself, damn right we will," Justice responded as he snickered...

Hero and Justice stood before the Rift Platform, which was, rather expectedly, behind The Scientist's castle.

And so as Justice and Hero walked over to the platform, they unleashed their Cores as they hovered in their hands, illuminating the darkness.

"Prepared for the next level of this hellish game?" Justice asked as he raised his hand in the air.

"No other choice, It is a game we started," Hero said as he too raised his hand in the air.

Simultaneously, the two plunged their Cores to the ground, rifting and bending the dimension as they felt their body enter a new one, both on a physical and spiritual level...

There was darkness once more.

He wished to wait but something within him simply could not wait any longer.

Before he even realized it;

He had started to grow attached to the dark void...

Hero sprung to life, flipping back up as he took a deep breath, before turning hs head immediately to the right to look at Justice, who had also woken up from the Rift Transportation, but he had a shocked look on his face, as he was staring on at Area 3.

And when Hero turned to look at it, he found out why Justice was so surprised.

"...Now just how many renovations have they made?" Justice said in an annoyed yet intrigued tone as he and Hero looked at what was supposedly an infinite amount of buildings, both normal and upside down, reflecting and revolving off of each other like a mirror.

"Is this even an Area?" Hero questioned.

"There's no other way around it," Justice said, as he sighed.

"...I will be honest, I feel as though my knowledge of The Guardians and Areas won't help any longer, as it is outdated, not even I was expecting this big of a chance,"

"Nonetheless..."

"This is indeed Area 3,"