Sam was the first to recover and float back onto the stage, though his face was red from embarrassment.

He was the one who pushed for the competition, but his attack was also the least flashy of everyone's.

Sam even had the nagging suspicion that everyone lowered their attacks by a degree to match his level of strength.

Sam's technokinesis could not be considered weak but compared to John and the others, his legacies could only prove their worth in battles of wit.

That basically translated to him being The Weakest New Elder.

Thankfully, everyone in the stands were too busy cheering for Marina and laughing at John's shocked face to pay him any mind.

Sam would have curled up under a rock somewhere if he was the one being laughed at.

"Phew… at least, I can preserve my dignity as a New Elder…" Sam whispered relieved but also determined to grow his strength some more.

He was even aiming for the skill level to consider nature as technology like Zeel could do.

Even though ten years felt like a lifetime ago to him, Sam still found it hard to shake the shadow of Zeel from his mind.

In some ways, he still felt like that kid in high school that would secretly follow John and Zeel around to discover their mysteries.

--------------------

"I lost?" John asked, finally coming to terms with the fact that Marina had tapped his head to gain victory.

While losing was not a new experience for him, John had not really felt inadequate since Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth were exiled.

Losing was like a revelation of some kind…

"Ha… hahahahahaha…"

John suddenly burst into a joyful fit of laughter that brought an equally joyful smile to Sam's and Marina's faces.

Wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, John's smile grew brighter "Honestly… I kind of forgot what it was like to lose… it feels bitter… like Ella's cooking..."

"Then I will make sure you lose more often from now on…" Vishnu joked, appearing next to John using teleportation while also punching him on the arm as a joke.

"As if you could…" John replied arrogantly, but the arrogance was well deserved.

None of the other New Elders could compete with his battle prowess even with just one of his legacies, imagine the fact that he possessed them all.

Even Marina could only smile bitterly because she knew that outside of the stadium, she could not even raise a finger to John.

Fighting inside the stadium limited his abilities in many ways, so she could barely scrape a victory due to his carelessness.

Even now, Marina had a migraine from overworking her Precognition.

Sarah, Cindy, Ella, Lexa, and Henri floated onto the battlefield as the crowd cheered endlessly.

Out of everyone, Ella was the only person still recovering from the battle's effects as she puked all over.

Still, even as she puked her guts out, Ella had a pleasant smile on her face.

It had been a long time since any of The New Elders had this much fun without worries.

Though they never explicitly discussed it, they were all terrorized by nightmares of Mogador's demise and Zeel coming back to take vengeance on them, destroying everything they had built.

"Okay!" John shouted loudly, his voice silencing the millions in the stadium "Now it is your turn to fight…"

Cindy flashed next to John and plastered a wet kiss on his cheek. Somewhere in the crowd, John and Cindy could hear the kids shouting 'Gross…'.

Sarah was also about to walk to John's side for her share of the kisses but a vague whisper entered her ears…

The whisper was faint and illusory but a chill still froze her in place.

Marina, John, and the others started to float away, heading to the Elder chairs located above the stadium but Sarah remained rooted in her spot until the voices faded.

"Sarah…" John yelled from above "Are you coming?"

John's familiar, soothing voice snapped Sarah out of her trance, the voices fading to her subconscious mind.

With a small jump, Sarah also floated in the air next to her comrades, but with a slight flicker of codes across her pupils, Sarah floated back to the stadium's battlefield.

John, Henri, Marina, and the others finally took note of Sarah's abnormality but didn't think too deeply about the matter.

Vishnu teleported to the ground, intending to guide Sarah back to the Elder seats above, but his body froze when he noticed the codes flickering across her pupils.

Those codes were something he… no, not just him but all The New Elders were familiar with…

As if finding something amidst the shattered battlefield, Sarah came to a stop at the exact location Alice had buried a host of silver balls given to her by Zeel just moments before their untimely exile.

Sarah had no control of her actions, the layers in her mind were peeled back like the unraveling of a present on Christmas day.

The only problem was, the more of the tape and wrappings that were stripped away, Sarah could also feel her consciousness fading just as much, drawing closer and closer to oblivion.

Unable to do anything about her body, Sarah felt a thug from her subconscious and she was suddenly in a dark void that she could instinctively identify as her mind.

--------------------------

"wha-"

Sarah's questioning was cut short as a tall, silver-haired, ruby-red-eyed, figure appeared next to her.

Almost instantly, she knew that her story would not end well…

"Hi…"

The Idea of Zeel left behind by the original greeted a frightened Sarah.

"Zeel?" Sarah asked, gritting her teeth and staring him in the eyes with a defiant gaze.

"Idea of Zeel left behind to keep your mind from unraveling… that's me…" Idea-Zeel replied nonchalantly.

Sarah was about to continue her brave façade, hoping that John and the others would find a way to free her from this mental prison, but something Idea-Zeel said caught her attention.

"Unravelling?" she asked frightened.

Idea-Zeel didn't immediately respond and instead waved his hands, causing an image of a present being unwrapped to appear inside the void.

"This is how your semi-human mind processes consciousness…"

Idea-Zeel then began to point "The present is what the original me created to hide his trump card…" then he pointed at all the additional layers wrapped around the present "Those layers are essentially you…" then he pointed at the center, indicating whatever was inside "Inside is a program to set certain events in motion…"

Sarah watched horrified as layers were stripped from the present and her body grew fainter in the void "You're going to kill me? Sarah? John's wife… what will everyone think about this…"

"Honestly…" Idea-Zeel shrugged "I doubt the real me would even care… besides, you can't kill what's already dead…"

"What do you mean?"

Idea-Zeel rolled his eyes in exasperation, similar to the original Zeel when he was talking to someone of 'lower' intelligence…

"Let's go over it again…" Idea-Zeel said pointing at the unraveling present "I created the box… at the center is a program and you… 'Sarah' is just the additional wrapping around the present... What does that tell you considering this is your mind and you're supposed to be the core of it?"

Sarah's tears started to fall in earnest and her eyes lost all light as she came to a realization "You're saying… I'm dying?"

Idea-Zeel rolled his eyes "… 'Sarah' is dead… she died a long time ago… the day I erased her mind after the battle with the Mogadorians at the high school…"

"You…" Idea-Zeel pointed at 'Sarah' "…are what I created to hide what I did from Alice… you were a program that became an idea and had its strings cut, then much like Pinocchio … you wandered around thinking you were a real girl… so no, you're not dying… you can't kill what was never technically alive…"

Sarah giggled softly with hopelessness in her eyes "You're a fucking monster Zeel…"

Idea-Zeel sighed "To the original me… there are only two types of people in the Multiverse… my True Enemies and the enemies I create to fight my True Enemies… since your friends met me, they have always been on borrowed time… Death comes for all in the end…"

"You must be sad to feel so alone…." Sarah whispered, watching as the present approached its final phases of unraveling.

"I don't experience emotions the same way humans and Loriens do… I barely have my emotions even now… I do love Alice though…"

"It won't work…. Alice will leave you when she realizes what you are… A monster through and through…"

"I never pretend to be anything other than what I am…" Idea-Zeel muttered, his body also fading similar to Sarah's.

He wasn't made to last either.

"You know, I really did try to be normal with you guys, but when I destroyed Mogador… you all shunned me and hence we could only become enemies… don't worry, your family will follow you soon…"

Sarah trembled at the thought that Idea-Zeel's schemes would also extend to her children, but she was assured that John would protect them.

"I hope you experience the pain of losing a child!" Sarah cursed as her body finally faded into oblivion.

"If I ever had a child…" Idea-Zeel smirked "I would just use it to create another Enemy…"

Then Idea-Zeel also faded into oblivion.

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Author's Name: The_Young_Flash

Discord: https://discord.gg/tPwgVgU

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Fandom: https://crawfords-multiverse-of-madness.fandom.com/wiki/Zeel_Crawford

Note: Ever watched an awesome movie/anime/series that just didn't have the proper ending? Then this is where you belong, as I intend to give all movies/animes/series the proper ending they deserve. Nothing will go untouched.