"Look at him! Doesn't he look just like his old man!" Orion bragged as he stared down at the crib.
Sieg poked his head over it as well and stared down in awe. "W-What is it?"
Orion laughed and placed his hand on his son's shoulder. "That's your little brother. Davi." He reached down and gently brushed some of the child's blonde locks, and he stared in amazement at those bright purple eyes. "That's our miracle."
In the bed, Titania weakly managed to prop herself up on her elbows, exhausted after just giving birth. "I want to hold him again."
"Of course."
Orion gently picked the child up and handed it to his exhausted wife. Titania cradled him to her chest and gave a gentle smile. "My beloved."
But that wasn't how it happened, was it?
No.
He wasn't born. He was never placed into a crib. He didn't have blonde hair, and his eyes weren't purple anymore.
Who was he?
Who is Davi Hawker?
***
What is freedom?
Polymorph was such a cheat skill. It offered a lot, and Olivia felt a bit bad since back in the day, she had dissed the trait.
When she used it on Davi the first time, back when he had nearly died, the form he had taken had clearly been himself but slightly different. He had worn black robes and fought in a different way than he normally did. That version of him was someone who had seemingly been raised in Mordheim by his father.
It was one of Davi's desired outcomes or something in the past he longed for, which had created that form. This new one was different, though.
Similar to when Ken was hit with the trait, Davi had completely changed. His eyes were different, and he now had blonde hair. His way of standing had shifted fully as well, and he had a smile on his face. A calm, collected one that held none of the bitterness that his usual grins had.
Olivia wondered if this was even Davi. She wondered this even more when he used not a Shadow spell, but a Light spell, something she was one hundred percent sure shouldn't have been possible even with Polymorph.
"Row Light Armor."
Shadow Armor caused the shadows to rise and twist into a suit of ebony that would defend Davi and absorb kinetic energy to weaken all attacks that came at him. Light armor worked differently. Davi, or whoever this person was, had never seen anyone create armor out of solid light, and so the spell worked off the last light spell he had seen.
A glow of pure white radiated around Davi, and it began to mold around him, forming a large coat. It was the exact same trench coat Alice had created with her spell, and it hummed with power, glowing white-hot as particles of pure light wove together into the threads.
The dragon stood in the center of the village, and its maw began to open in anger. Its tail thrashed around, and its wings began to beat, getting faster and faster, as it glared down at Davi in pure hatred.
"Who are you?"
What is freedom?
Davi took a moment to look down at his hands, the coat he was wearing, and the power that was humming within his veins. "I don't know." He said after a few moments of staring. "But I feel amazing. Like I can do anything, go anywhere. Is this what being alive is like? For once in my life, it feels like the world and I are seeing eye to eye, and right now we both agree." Davi lifted his sword and pointed it at the dragon. "That you need to be stopped!"
Shadow Armor was made for defense. A spell created by Evelyn to keep him alive and allow him to survive one hit from the dragon.
Light Armor was made for winning.
Davi vanished and flickered suddenly above the dragon. Before he had a chance to fall, the air beneath him shimmered, and a pair of spiraling white and black orbs formed. Unlike his normal state, these orbs didn't explode, nor were they volatile. They floated in the air, and Davi placed his feet on them, using the orbs to float. He raised his sword to the sky right as the dragon craned his head up.
Davi performed a Sky Cutting Slash, putting all his strength into it, and right as he swung his sword down, he created more of his orbs, bringing his blade down onto them. The force of the attack caused them to spin down and ram into the scales along the dragon's body. These ones exploded, the blast much bigger, creating bursts of holy light that burned through the scales of the beast.
The dragon howled and thrashed around, taking damage for the first time since this nightmare had started.
"You bastard!" The dragon screamed and tried to launch his head at Davi, attempting to snap around the blonde man, but Davi's eyes saw the attack coming from a mile away, red threading seeping out across the land.
Davi leaned back, getting out of the way of the red thread, and he easily avoided the strike. After that, his eyes tracked the blue threads that went from his blade all along the spots on the dragon where its scales had been cracked and shattered. Davi vanished in another flicker, leaving behind an afterimage for a moment, before reappearing in different sections of the dragon's body. He moved so fast that it seemed as if multiple versions of him existed in several places at once, and all at the same time, he sliced out with his blade, tearing into the damaged scales and piercing the flesh of the dragon, spilling its blood, which rained down on the village below.
The dragon thrashed in pain once more, and its tail whipped around it, attempting to tear Davi in two, but the red threads warned him of such an attack, and he was long gone, appearing meters away from the dragon, back in the air.
Davi lifted his sword up for a second time, and the tip of the blade glowed as a pure white thread flowed off of it and connected to the wounds Davi had inflicted. The dragon and Olivia were both able to see these threads, and the dragon's eyes widened just in time as Davi pulled his arm around, and the threads, which wrapped around bones and muscles within the dragon's body, were torn out.
The dragon's wounds expanded, tearing open and spilling gore outside of its body. Fire flared up along it, and it stumbled but kept its footing. Before it could attack again, Davi struck.
"Everything the light touches," Davi announced, and as he spoke, the sun above cast its glow down directly onto one of the beast's wounds. "I existed through the light. Vil Light Vault!"
Orbs of light erupted within the wounds, tearing them open even more, causing craters and gaps to appear all along the dragon's body. From the golden orbs, dozens of hands spilled out, the limbs twisted and wrapping, grabbing onto the dragon's tail, wings, and neck. The limbs were long and snake-like, with how they twisted and flailed, with jagged claws of holy light digging into scales and the dragon's eyes so that they could hold on to something.
The dragon tried to shake them off, but more hands came from the light. Below, the sides, and above, everything that was caught in the glow was part of the Vault. The hands then all began to form spiraling orbs in their palms, the same as Davi would use, and they rammed those orbs into the dragon's body, hitting him from multiple angles, and erupting the orbs into large blasts.
The dragon's teeth gritted, and then slowly its legs collapsed as it dropped down. Olivia watched the battle, completely stunned. "Y-You beat a dragon!"
"No." Davi flickered over to her again, and she let out a squeak and jumped back. The blonde man shook his head and gave her a smile. "This hardly counts. I can tell just by looking at it that this thing is a bad fake. The real dragon I saw all those years ago was easily a million times stronger. A Vil-level spell wouldn't be enough to take it out."
"S-So then why is this one so much weaker?" Olivia asked.
"Because it isn't real." Davi glanced at the dragon, which was being blasted apart by more of the orbs. "This nightmare is me. Part of me. It can only have the power that I myself have, and so these constructs that have haunted me for these countless loops are only able to be as strong as I allowed them. Not just this dragon, but the other one as well. The Knight on the throne. They aren't the real deal. They were just bad dreams made to haunt me, and so I gave them all the power in the world."
"But you're winning now?"
"Yeah." Davi's smile grew. "I'm not scared of them right now. In fact, they should be scared of me-"
"Is that so!" In an instant, the land changed. Gone was the village and dragon, and Davi felt himself be plunged into a horrible, cold environment as he appeared back within his Shadow Vault. It shouldn't have existed anymore since he no longer had Shadow magic while he was in this form, yet still he floated in the sea of darkness, forced to look at the Knight on the throne. "Let's see your Light thrive in the Abyss!"
What is freedom?
Davi felt pain for the first time since he transformed as a shadowy hand blasted out of the throne and rammed into his side. He was spiraling through the infinite darkness, and more hands began to appear around him, striking out. Davi tried to dodge them using the red threading he saw, but more and more appeared, and soon his vision became nothing but red as he was attacked again and again.
"Davi!" Olivia yelled out in worry. She couldn't do much to help since she was just pure mana. Worse yet, her time in this state was running low, and she'd have to leave soon. When that happened, the Polymorph affecting Davi would also end early.
He'd lose the new form he was in just as fast as he had gained it. She still didn't know how he had gained a new form of magic in the first place. The core was linked to the soul, and she didn't change a person's soul when she used Polymorph on them. It was still the person; they just had a new body. Allowing a person to use traits they didn't have was already pushing the boundaries for what should have been possible, and so what Davi was doing and what he had become was completely impossible and could only happen because it was Davi himself.
Davi was special like that, and the circumstances of this dream made the impossible possible, but once she was out of here, she doubted such a thing would be able to happen again.
"Davi, you have to win!"
What is freedom?
Davi blocked one of the hands and looked toward Olivia. His eyes widened as he saw her cheering for him, and suddenly an idea formed in his head.
Davi dodged back, avoiding a hand swipe, and he raised his blade. Orbs of white began to form in the air around him as he created his spiraling explosives. Something different happened this time, though. The orbs began to form together, getting bigger and bigger as they all merged, and the big orb that was formed started to twist and change, limbs growing out of it as it molded itself into a familiar shape.
A second Davi appeared, one made entirely out of pure mana. The Knight on the throne paused when he saw it, seemingly confused, and Olivia also looked on in wonder at what Davi was planning.
"Get ready." Davi's mana clone entered the same stance as he did, and slowly they began to come together. They overlapped each other until they were one, and the clone erupted into a wave of pure power within Davi. "The real fight is about to start."
The clone had been fully absorbed and pulled into Davi's body, going past his soul and his inner world and straight to his Core. It erupted into a radiant glow. Its body had been made up of all the mana in the air, and so that energy was not Davi's own, yet enough had been added together to create another version of himself.
The real Davi felt his cores swell and grow as the excess mana was shoved into them, and his power skyrocketed as he became twice the person he just was. A golden aura surrounded his body, flickering to life, and he was wrapped in flames!
The Knight on the throne threw his arms out, and more limbs formed behind him as he yelled. Davi matched his scream and exploded forward, moving even faster. Light Armor was made for pure speed, and he pierced through the darkness.
Power versus power, the Knight and Davi launched their strongest attacks toward each other, the hands twisting into a massive drill-like creation, which launched toward the flying Davi, who raised his blade to the sky, ready to perform another Sky Cutting Slash.
Only one could win!
"Just kidding."
The drill struck out and hit empty air.
"What?" The Knight's eyes widened in shock.
Davi was gone.
What is freedom?
From the very start, he never wanted to win the fight with the dragon and the Knight on the throne. He didn't seek power so he could defeat his enemies. He didn't create this new form so he could win the battle. That wasn't who he was.
With the golden aura that he now had around himself, Davi was cloaked in light, and so it was through that light that he used Row Light Vault and left the abyss that the Ebony Knight resided in. Davi came out of his Light Vault, sliding to a stop as he appeared back in his village, where the dead dragon now resided.
The villagers all looked at him in awe, but before they could say anything, he ran toward them. His golden glow got even brighter, and he swapped his Row Light Armor out for a Vil Light Armor, moving even faster. One by one, sometimes two at a time, he picked the people up, wrapped them in his mana, and took them away from the village. Each person. The kids, the women, the men, his brother, Noble, Arch, the teachers, his father, his mother, and finally…
Davi stared down quietly at his younger self. Time had seemingly frozen from how fast he was moving. He watched quietly before reaching out and picking the other him up. He then carried him across the sea and the world itself, moving faster than he ever had before and likely will ever move again as he took the other him to the only place he knew of that would be safe.
Davi sat the younger Davi outside of the train that was the Phoenix Flight base. The same place he had placed everyone else.
That was the amazing thing about dreams. They didn't always have to make sense. Sometimes a dream could end with the impossible occurring, and the hero was able to save the day.
He saved his village.
Davi let out a weak sigh and nearly collapsed to his knees. He bowed his head down, and finally, he let his shoulders ease up as a weight slid off him. "I'm done. I don't want to be here anymore." He looked up, meeting the face of Olivia, who stared down at him. "I want to wake up now." The golden aura shut off, the blonde hair faded into a dark black, and his purple eyes became blue once more as the shackles were placed back onto him.
His freedom was gone. But what is freedom?
That was okay, though. The taste was enough. The fleeting moments were ones he'd never forget, and it gave him hope that one day he could fully destroy whatever that Knight on the throne was. His life was his, and right now he needed to live.
There was no more time for childish dreams.
The real world awaited him. Other people still needed his help.
Olivia slowly took his hand in hers. "Yeah. Let's go. We have a lot of work to do."
Their forms glowed and flickered, and then in a burst of light, Olivia and Davi left, and the nightmare came to an end. They returned to the real world.
In the depths of the nightmare, the entity within the blade still remained. The Knight in ebony armor felt chains start to wrap around his throne of swords. Slowly, he was pulled down, his body crumbling and breaking as he was dragged back into the sword that resided at the bottom of Davi's vault.
He had failed to fully emerge, and in his greed, he blew this chance. Still, he was not angered by this loss. Not anymore, for he had gained something almost as valuable as his freedom.
In the eyes of the Ebony Knight, the reflection of a girl with snow-white hair and ruby-red eyes appeared.
"Is that what you did?" The Knight mused. "How sick you are, Arthur. I still remember you clinging to Haru's leg like a lost little pup following her around. I wonder what she would think of you creating that 'thing'. I see now why you tried to perform the Rite. Fool."
Meanwhile, in a realm outside of space and time, a land where light and dark weren't even concepts, and voids of infinite size mashed together as an endless rain of colors, the doors of Rome remained locked and sealed, with only a single figure left to guard them.
Arthur let out a weak cough, spitting up blood into the palm of his hand. Black and inky, he placed it onto the ground, something that looked like a sheet of paper, and then he began to write.
What is freedom?