He appeared in the base of the Spire in a whisper of sound. He held the music box – the box that started it all – in his hand. A frown twisted his features, twisting and distorting them. His skin was already dark and craggy from all the dark and evil choices he had made on his journey's through Albion. He, briefly, thought about the choices he had made in the music box… the perfect world that he lived in overwhelming him briefly. He closed his eyes, regret, and nostalgia, invading each part of his mind. Thoughts of a better life… of a perfect life and waiting for his family to come home flashed before his eyes before he squashed with a mental fist.

He unclenched his own fist, opening it slowly. He frowned at his hand before shaking his head and made his way forward.

The Spire had changed greatly since his imprisonment. When he had first been imprisoned in the massive structure, it had barely been able to touch his Will powers and he had gotten used to the currents of Will energy running in the background of his mind. Now, was an entirely different story. He could taste the Will energy in the air, breath it in slowly, and feel the currents of power working through the Spire.

He stared at the large staircase that leads upward to a brightly glowing current of Will energy. Lucien would be there. He was sure of it.

He let a bloodthirsty grin pass over his features and set a foot on the first step. He slowly ascended, and as he took each step he had flashbacks of each time he had encountered Lucien.

From living on the streets with his sister… the sister Lucien murdered in cold blood with a bullet and when he tried to kill him as well.

The attack on the abbey in Oakfields and resulting end of the Hero of Strength's father.

The untimely capture of the Hero of Will and the almost bring a tower toppling down onto to him that would have led to his death.

His ten-year imprisonment and missing out on most of his new family's life and unable to watch his children grow into their adolescent years. That hardly even added to the torture he had when it came to the Commandant and its brutal teachings. He relished cutting down the puppet and remembered Lucien's rage at that.

He thought about killing the Hero of Skill, just for sending the alert to Lucien that he was nearby, but the assault on Bloodstone had kept that plan under wraps. And the Seer had warned him multiple times about how the end of the Hero of Skill would not be the most ideal of things if they wanted the Spire to work.

And the final nail in Lucien's coffin was the murder of his beloved family once again. Lucien had killed them personally – once again – going to his own home and making sure that his bloodline ended. He pictured little Edward and Lily along with their mother, and his wife, Alex, all dead in their modest sized home in Bower Lake.

He closed his eyes as the images ran through his mind and reached for the sword along his belt. Dauntless came free from the scabbard with a soft rasp and he held the beautiful, ornate looking sword in front of his face. The metal was polished to a sheen and he could see his reflection in the blade. He peered at himself for a moment.

Dark and cracked skin with thin, pulsing blue lines of Will energy ran across the noble profile of his face. Ochre, serpentine eyes were underneath a heavy brow with twin, demonic horns that poked out of his cranium. They curled over his close-cropped hair and a cloud of red energy appeared to manifest right in between the horns. Demonic, most people would call him, but he had given up giving a damn about such concepts of morality when Lucien had killed his sister, his family, and his dog, Prince. The most important things had been taken from him.

His wife and family that were completely unconcerned with how he looked and always saw him as their father and her husband. It was a small thing that he had enjoyed after a long time being away from them and enjoying the precious moments with his family before he had to go out once again into Albion to try and keep his family safe and out of the clutches of Lucien.

Never again, he vowed as he took another step. Lucien Fairfax would die this day and he – the Hero of Bower Lake – would take up the reins and find a way to fix this broken world. His family would be safe, and he would make sure to keep it that way with an iron fist if needed.

The glowing light of Will energy enveloped him and soon enough he found himself in a massive, circular chamber. A walkway extended outwards to the central area of the chamber where Lucien stood. Three branches extended out of the platform he stood on and lead to their own little islands. The Heroes of Strength, Will, and Skill stood on the circular platform and pure energy flew outward from them with the focal point being Lucien, a circular shield of energy flowing around him.

He approached slowly, Dauntless, held loosely in his hand. He reached the end of his own platform and heard Lucien speaking:

'Your power is astounding… twice you have cheated death… yet your powers are trivial compared to the powers of the Spire; which will soon be mine!' The old man looked at him from the circular bubble of energy and his tone became harder. 'Now… sleep,' he intoned. Magical energy laced his words and power pulsed outward from him.

Instead of worry about such things, he held up the music box that was in his free hand and it began to sing. The ancient relic pulsed in his hand, sending out its burst of energy. Lucien's eyes widened as he spied the music box that started it all. And then, he grunted in pain as a lance of multi-colored energy erupted from the box itself.

He started laughing: 'What are you doing? You think a mere trinket will stop me? You think anything can?'

He let his smile pass over his face. 'I do, Lucien. Watch.' The light that poured from Sister Hannah's chest weakened, flickering in and out of existence. Soon, it collapsed into nothingness and Lucien looked alarmed. The old man turned his head two the right, looking at the Hero of Strength. When his eyes turned back on him there was fear on his face.

'No! Stop! Think about what you are doing! I will put an end to chaos!' The light that suffused Garth winked out. 'Stop now, you fool! I order you to stop!' The light that enveloped Reaver dissipated as well and soon, the only line of energy was connecting the box and Lucien, himself. The white-haired man began to babble to himself, speaking indecipherable words before he began to scream.

White light erupted from the old man and he felt himself go almost blind from it. Soon the light ended, and Lucien stood in front of him. The music box stopped glowing and he put it into the fold of his jacket.

Lucien coughed. 'You consider that –'

He gave the old man no time to speak. That night played through his head and he remembers Rose. The man had hardly given his terrified sister time to speak and plead, so he saw no reason to give her murder the same treatment.

Dauntless spoke for him when the blade found a new sheath in the old man's stomach. Lucien glanced down at the blade that stabbed him, his mind refusing to put two and two together. He leaned in close to him, staring into the dying old man's eyes.

'Lucien – be like your family, and just die,' he spat, and then he pulled his sword free. The old man fell to the floor, blood pumping slowly from his wound. His rich clothing was soon soaked with the life-giving fluid. He made sure to dig his foot into the man's wound, watching as his face twisted into pain. 'The beautiful thing about this… is I know you will not be coming back.' With that, he pushed the old man over the side of the platform, watching as he disappeared into the blackness with a yell.

He listened to the old man's screams for as long as possible, closing his eyes and savoring the sound. Reaver's silky voice soon broke him out of basking in the sound.

'Oh, I thought he would never shut up.' He faced the Hero of Skill slowly, tilting his head at him. Reaver had his charming smile over his face. With two quick steps, he was in front of the Hero of Skill, his large hand over the man's jaw.

'You should do the same.' He stated as he squeezed his hand and felt Reaver's jaw break under his hands. The Hero of Skill flailed around as he released him. He wiped his hand on the front of his jacket, gazing down at the Hero of Skill. 'That was sending him after me. Be happy that I am in a generous mood today because I would gladly send you into the pit after him, scum.'

Leaving the immaculately dressed man, floundering around on the floor, he made his way to the center.

'Lucien's… dead?' Hammer spoke up from where she stood. She stared at the pool of blood that signaled the end of the last Fairfax and the completion of their mission. She hardly gave Reaver a passing glance. There was hardly any love lost between the pair and if she pitied him, she gave no sign. 'What do we do now?'

The air around them silent with finality and then a voice spoke from all around them.

'Now… you get your reward.' Theresa appeared in a bright thing of magic. She surveyed him with her fey eyes. 'Your gift from saving the world from a madman's selfish gain. The Spire has been activated by your actions and it can make a wish. Yours. Take my hand.' She held out her hand and he stared at it carefully.

Take it, little Sparrow. A voice whispered in his head. He started, the voice was his dead sister and slowly, he wrapped his fingers around the seers.

In a brilliant flash of light, he was transferred elsewhere in a place of endless light with him and Theresa as the only sources of life and color in this strange place. Theresa glanced at him carefully, her head slightly tilted at him as she considered him.

'Now you have a choice, Coram.' He was startled when Theresa used his birth name. It had been quite some time anyone had uttered it. His family is one and those precious few that he had mentioned it too. He had been going by the title of 'Chosen One' for ages now. And now that Theresa used it, everything just came back.

His entire family had been murdered and once again he was alone in the world. Truly alone this time. When Rose had been murdered, he at least had Prince with him. Now that his loyal canine had fallen, he had no one besides Theresa.

The seer moved, reaching into her robes and produced a deck of cards. The tarot cards looked as pristine as ever, even with it in the folds of Theresa's robes for as long as he could remember. She shuffled them once and then began to pull from the deck itself. She produced three cards and each of them floated in front of him.

'Three of them represent things that the Spire has enough power to accomplish.' She pointed out the first card, a man standing among a mass of people. 'The Needs of Many: thousands of people died in the construction of the tower and with your wish, you could bring them all back. A selfless gift, of course, and one that will make the people love you.'

She pointed out the middle that had a large heart blossomed on the front of it. 'Love, or the Need of One. Lucien did not lie when he said he killed your entire family. In his need for the line of Heroes ended, he went after your family just to make sure that nothing could challenge his rule if his desire for the Spire succeeded and with this choice, your family, and your dog will be returned to you. A rather neutral choice, because the people of Albion will understand that one's family is important than people they hardly know.'

The final card had a chest full of gold on the face of it. 'And, of course, wealth. With this choice, you could buy anything that you would like. Food, drink, and any other thing that has a value could be bought and you would never struggle again. But this is a rather selfish choice if you decide to think of your greed. The people of Albion will outright despise you if you make this choice since they will only be jealous of you and your greed.

So, hero? What will you choose?'

So... I have been looking back on all my stories recently and realized just how bad some of my older work is/or was and decided to try and do a bit of rebranding to them. 'Villian' was something I had thought up when I was just starting to write and it has not aged well at all. Hell, all of it just makes me cringe now, so what you see before you is definitely something that is rather new.

I decided to just do away with all the Theresa/Hero of Bower Lake because with age, I have a no found appreciation for all kinds of pairings, instead of pairing the Hero with other people I had a fascination with and just turned it into an 'Endgame' story with the choice at the end used as a base for whenever I have the time to dive into the Fable world once again.

I had thought to make the Hero choose at the end, but decided against it and left it open-ended.

For now...