"Why tell us all this, what do you gain from telling us?" with everything Alex had just heard, he understood his new place in the hierarchy of things, how insignificant he was, faced with this new reality, he wanted to know more.

"Because, you have been chosen to ascend, Protagonist." They were still seated in the air and the cup still flowing and creating bubbles. "Hold that thought old man, there's no way I'm letting him ascend with me." Marcus was pointing at Alex.

Confused by Valek's words once again and irritated by Marcus's finger pointing at him, " What the hell are you talking about, just tell me what I need to know." It was getting tiring feeling this way. 

"Marcus my friend, what you want and what you don't want is of no concern to me, but it seems the audience want some entertainment, so we'll speed up our little chat here." 

"Alex, back to your questions. Ascension is when a being from each lower crescent is picked by the Endless Unknown and is allowed to progress to a higher one, the beings picked are called protagonists, but as u have been the most interesting one so far, we call you The Protagonist."

He honestly didn't care about all that, what he wanted to know since he heard about the higher crescents was if it was possible for him to reach them and now that he had confirmed it, he had just one more thing to deal with and it was the man sitting next to him.

"It seems both of you and the viewers are on the same page, you will have your fight right now." The force that was compelling both of them to remain in one position was suddenly released and they dropped to the ground.

Marcus stretched his hands forward and a little flame flew towards Alex , he returned the favor by creating a gust of wind that blew the fire out. They both stopped and looked at their hands, something wasn't right, two of them were more powerful than whatever just happened.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, we're somewhere in the Endless Unknown, so your powers will be null here, the only reason you are both able to walk or breathe, talk less of creating those right now is because I increased your connection to it. You have to put all your might in every attack, if not it will amount to nothing, therefore there will be little messing around with reality here children, you'll have to do it the more mundane way." He was enjoying this, chuckling as he picked up his teacup with the overflowing tea and continued drinking.

They began to circle around one another, squaring each other up to find out the best form of attack.

The tension between the two was heavy. Marcus made the first move launching a volley of fireballs at Alex. Alex charged forward at top speed, paying little attention to the incoming fire balls. A strong wind was protecting his body and dispersed the flames as soon as they made contact. Seeing this Marcus rushed forward to and they met each other with a flurry of heavy punches, each one carrying all their might.

"Wooooah." Alex was holding both of Marcus's fists down trying his best to freeze them, but Marcus was letting out flames to melt the ice. "I will kill you here and now you bastard, you took everything away from me." The hatred in his voice was unmistakable, his eyes were filled with only one thing, hate for the man he was fighting right now.

"Do you even know why I did what I did and why I do what I do, it's because they are necessary, things that have to be done .

"Necessary, my ass." He flung Marcus toward the ceiling and jumped away from where he was a moment ago, spikes grew out of the floor and almost impales his legs, the spikes increased in number and began sprouting from different angles  in the floor and pushing Alex back who was tactically avoiding them.

Marcus was running on the ceiling controlling the spikes, trying his best to impale Alex. Just about five thousand meters away, he could reach him.

Alex put his legs in a crouching position, then like a jack in the box, sprang up with full force, becoming a human torpedo heading straight for Marcus. "Shit." He couldn't evade this , it was too late for that, his only option was to defend against it. He crossed his arms into an X and received the full force of Alex's Superman style punch. He was sent flying across the observatory. The impact from the punch was great as it left a huge crater in the ground big enough to fit an elephant and would have dealt a lot of damage if he hadn't hardened his body at the last moment. Alex dropped to the ground and was walking towards his enemy.

"Oh, for fucks sake" Marcus was laughing hysterically as he stood up, "You still think I fight you because of power, that I'm some evil bad guy who wants control over everything?, how quaint."

"Don't try to spoon lies here Marcus, nothing is going to save you, you were always power hungry for as long as I can remember and that's what lead you to that power of yours wasn't it , you wanted to be the one at the top, the only one, with no one to rival you, for that stupid reason, you killed and destroyed without giving a second thought to the consequences, but all that will end here and now, for I will make sure that the blood Sheila spilled will be the last that you spill and after that I'll bring her back." his voice was filled scorn, disgust and condemnation, there was no love lost between both of them and he planned to keep it that way.

The gap between them was reducing, and every step he took, he became more wary of Marcus who just stood there still laughing at what Alex just said. "Power hungry, me?, Even after seeing and hearing all this, you still think I did what I did because of power? How dense can you be? Look at that geezer over there." there was anger and disappointment in his voice as he pointed at Valek who was still sipping tea. 

"Nice, I'm being dragged into your little conflict, very interesting, now carry on." He was getting on Marcus's nerves. "There, you see, why does hierarchy exist, why do some have to be above others, and even those that are above are incompetent, for fucks sake, look at both of us, we're been used for their entertainment, we're nothing, we live without freedom and those below us live without freedom too, even people who live normally are subjected to control, be it by a king, a master or anything. Open your eyes man, everyone should live equally, without fear of being controlled." Pouring out his beliefs, he felt relief,

But these words angered Marcus, he was overcome by rage, how could someone live by such a nonsense ideology he wondered. "Thinking you killed Sheila because of power was a million times better than what I just heard, you mean to fucking tell me that you killed her over such nonsense?!!,I can't believe I was called naive by such a loser, with all that power and you have this nonsense ideology in your head. You don't deserve to live, you are deeeeaad!!" With that final scream he lunged forward at Marcus ready to deliver the killing blow.