Part One

The Death God

The return

Splak remembered how she got to the sanctuary, although it was foggy.

She remembered the race, and how Spleek captured her. Her memory faded here, and then returned when she was saved by Sleek and Slak, her two butterfly friends. She remembered the saving of the brothers, Spook, Sluck, Splook and Spluck. 

She remembered the battle, with the death of Spleek involved. Then came the reality warp, which Sleek had explained as Spleek redoing reality in a different way, allowing different choices. What Spleek didn't know was it would have the same outcome, his death. Oh well. It was all over now, she thought.

Many things had happened at the sanctuary. Sleek had become a scientist who regularly studied whatever scientists studied, Slak was her best friend who came to her house every day, and the four brothers became engineers. Sleek and Slak had statues in the sanctuary, recounting the tales of their adventures. Sleek was the only one who remembered the non-reality warped version of the story, and he had it all written down, so he would never forget.

She heard knocks on the door, and knew it was Slak. She opened it to see she was right, but Slak was with someone else. "Sleek!" Splak said. "Hi!" Sleek replied. Sleek usually remained in his lab, creating cures for diseases and studying weird things or whatever. She greeted them both and invited them inside. "How's it going?" Slak asked. Just as she was about to respond, a cannon fired.

The downfall

Sleek was quick to act, ushering them and everyone in town outside and into a bunker nearby inside. He opened the unbreakable hatch and let everyone inside, before locking it. Splak sighed of relief of being safe before realizing Sleek had not followed into the hatch. "Sleek?" she called. There was no response.

She heard loud gunfire, and then a loud whirring. She stepped back from the hatch and ran down the steps. Just as she reached the bottom, there was a loud bang. She whipped around to see a large laser gun had cut a whole in the unbreakable hatch. Holding the laser gun was Spleek, grinning. He dropped the gun and walked inside. Sleek silently approached from behind him, wearing the gauntlets he had invented to fight intruders.

He bashed his fist into Spleek's head, but it went straight through. Sleek realized what was going on too late and as the illusion began to fade away Spleek shot Sleek with the laser gun, wounding him. He grabbed Sleek, and walked towards the other butterflies. He only grabbed Splak and Slak, however, and slapped something onto their wings. They tried to move but couldn't, since their wings were suspended.

"My last chance," Spleek muttered.

"What do you mean?" Sleek asked weakly.

Spleek didn't respond. Sleek grabbed something from his coat pocket and smashed it with his hand. One of his healing mechanisms, Splak thought.

He began to slowly heal, and sighed of relief. She was glad he was okay, but she didn't know where Spleek was taking them. She saw from the corner of her eye Slak take out a knife.

She watched as he brushed his wing against Spleek's to make sure there was no illusion. Then he quickly slashed at Spleek's wing.

It did good damage, as Spleek dropped them and fell to the ground. Sleek took the wing suspending device of their wings and Slak took off his. Sleek grabbed the laser gun and pointed it at Spleek. "What do you want? Why did you come back here?" he demanded.

"For another chance," Spleek sputtered. "To kill you all."

"Before the warp, I tried to help you," he said. "But you all tried to kill me. And you did. So after the restart I knew I needed to fix things. I tried to help you and you didn't accept my help. So the second time I wasn't nice." He laughed. "Sleek here was the only one who knew something was up. He knew everything had happened before. But it ended with Hades realizing I had failed. So he gave me one more chance."

"Why do you still care?" Slak asked.

"If I don't do the job, he'll kill me," Spleek said. "No matter what it takes, I must kill you here. If you kill me, there are no more chances. He'll kill you all himself. He'll leave us all dead in the underworld."

"Why don't we all team up to kill him? Then he'll be dead, and you're free," Sleek said thoughtfully. 

"You can't trust me," Spleek cackled. "You know you can't. I will kill you any chance I get. No matter what you say about teaming up."

Splak thought about this. I will kill you any chance I get. If he could, he would kill them all right now. Could he kill them? Were there any weapons? Well there was the laser gun and- the knife. Where was it? She saw it one second too late in Spleek's hand before he plunged it into Sleek.

The undead

"NO!!" Splak shouted. She grabbed the laser gun and fired straight at Spleek. He pulled out a shield which reflected the shot towards Slak. She realized in horror at what she had done and dropped the gun. She grabbed the knife and hurled it at Spleek with all her might. The knife hit its mark and she looked around herself. Spleek. Sleek. Slak. All crumpled on the floor.

She needed to find a way to heal them, but how? She remembered Sleek's healing device. She flew to his lab and bashed open the door. He wouldn't mind, she thought. She quickly opened every drawer until she came to one that needed a code. Shoot. She remembered it was the same metal as the hatch. The laser gun broke open the hatch! She dashed to get the laser gun, but saw it was in Spleek's hands. He grinned. He fired and she bolted out of the way. Splak ran back into the lab, while Spleek kept on firing her way, slowly breaking the lab to bits.

In the lab, she found a solar gun. She pointed it toward the sun, and it soaked up all the sunlight, giving it ammo. Then she flew through the crack in the ceiling and began shooting lasers at Spleek. 

This time, he really did die, after every single laser hit him. You could tell. He screamed in pain, and fell to the ground. He dropped his laser gun, and his screams slowly died down.

Splak began crying. She wished Spleek hadn't come back. Now she had to witness all this agony.

She flew down to grab the laser gun, then turned around. The lab was a mess, and the only entrance now was the ceiling. Or firing the laser gun at its walls, which would cause more damage.

She flew in through the ceiling, and fired the gun at the coded drawer. It blasted open, and she grabbed the device. Pressing it against anyone's wings would heal them. 

She quickly dashed out to heal Sleek and Slak. She got there and immediately broke off a small piece of the device.

She remembered Sleek telling her that the device used on its own would drain all the battery. You had to break off pieces, and then heal with that. She broke another chunk and pressed it against Sleek's wing. She lightly placed the other one on Slak's. As she was doing this, she heard a scream.

The butterflies! She had forgotten about everyone in the hatch. As Sleek and Slak began to awaken, Splak ran over and saw what happened. A part of the lab had covered the exit, and they couldn't escape. She blasted the gun and the rubble was cleared.

She began to turn around, Slak threw his wings around her in a hug. 

"I'm so glad you're okay," he whispered.

She saw Sleek kneeling by Spleek. She ran over.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. "It's just a little weird to think that after all Spleek has put us through, he's finally, truly, dead." He stepped back, and then stood up. "Good thing you're okay. You used the healing thing?"

She laughed. "Yeah."

Sleek's face turned serious. "If Spleek is to be believed, we have Hades to deal with now."

Slak nodded. "We can take care of that. We got through Spleek, and he was a servant of that buffoon. We can kill Hades easily."

Sleek looked at Slak with doubt. "Hades is the god of the underworld. We are three butterflies. With Spleek, he's a butterfly too. Hades is a god."

At this point, the rest of the butterflies began to spill out of the hatch. Sleek became silent, for good reason, Slak thought. No need to get any butterflies worked up for any reason.

Slak, however, didn't take the hint. "GUYS, we have huge news."

Sleek looked at him angrily. Slak realized what he had done and laughed awkwardly. 

We can't get out of it now, Splak thought. They know something's going on. 

"Uh, guys?" Sleek said. All attention turned to him. Even the crying babies and playing children grew silent. Sleek began to get nervous. Never liked being the center of attention. Splak remembered.

"We might be pursued by, um-" Sleek was cut off by all the dead butterflies in the Graveyard rising up and beginning to moan.

The loss

Slak was the first to react, dashing over with his knife. It was covered in blood now, but he didn't seem to realize that lots of it was Sleek's. Splak shuddered. Spleek's too. 

A voice rumbled from the earth. "You can't defeat me," the voice spoke in an evil tone. It was followed by a laugh.

The skies became gray as all the corpses rose up, swinging their arms. All the butterflies stood up to fight, though it was hard seeing familiar faces in a trancelike state. As Slak cut through, and Sleek punched with his gauntlets, the body of Spleek rose up into the air and started glowing. Some of the butterfly children screamed, and Spleek exploded.

The voice continued to cackle as the battle raged on. Everything went black, including her friends, and she turned around.

Hades slowly walked towards her and whispered, "You can never win. You had your victories. You'll never witness it ever again."

She screamed as everything came back. Her voice was inaudible because of the cries of the corpses and the firing of guns. Then everything went silent as it all blacked out again.

This time she saw Spleek being dragged away so forcefully she saw scrapes on his wings. 

"PLEASE HELP!!" he screamed as he was dragged. "HELP ME!!!"

He then went up into the air, like he was being controlled by someone. He screamed over and over, while cackles filled the room.

"HELP!!!" was his last cry before everything returned again. Splak was traumatized, and tried to run before things blacked out again, returning her to this show with Spleek.

This time, they were playing darts. They threw darts at him over and over, seemingly coming out of nowhere, until he was covered. He screamed, and they laughed.

Splak shouted, but nothing came out.

Spleek looked at her, and she saw the tears streaming from his eyes. He screamed and screamed so much she couldn't help but run. She ran far from this dart game, until her vision returned. 

Splak saw a corpse in front of her, so close she could smell its putrid breath. Slak stabbed it and asked, "You okay?" 

She shook her head no but her vision blacked out again. This time she felt a tug on her wings. She looked and saw strings.

She saw a crowd, laughing and joking as she was raised up and down presumably Hades, clapping when she fell. Things blacked out for a second, until it returned and she was in a puppet show with Spleek, as the puppets.

Just because he was screaming didn't mean she forgave him, and she showed it by kicking him. He doubled over. The dead clapped, assuming it was part of the show, as she attacked him. Hades laughed. At the end, she got a standing ovation. Then things came back again.

When she returned, there was a different setting. She wasn't imagining this. It was the ring of fire where they had their final battle with Spleek pre-warp. At least she thought. It was modified, with boulders and obstacles, but this was it.

In the middle was Hades. He was shaking with laughter. Spleek was on the ground, struggling to get up. Splak realized when she was kicking him, it was all real. He was bruised and scraped, and she saw the same scratches on his wings she had noticed when he was being dragged away.

Hades said, "You all act like gods. How will you do against a real one? Like a penguin in the sand." He laughed. He raised his hands, and Spleek rose up, screaming.

"You worthless idiots." Hades smiled. "You have absolutely no idea what you've done." Splak realized that only Slak and Sleek stood beside her. Sleek was staring at Hades, Slak had his wings ready to attack, and Splak felt anger surge inside her. Not even Spleek deserved to feel so much pain.

When no one responded, Hades smiled again. 

"You've brought the apocalypse."

The ruins

Everything rushed back and she saw the sanctuary in ruins as the dead charged their way. Splak spotted Spook on the ground and rushed his way in fear.

He was dead. No doubt about it. He wasn't breathing and looked like a mess. Tears welled up in Splak's eyes. He didn't deserve this. No one did.

After a moment, she pulled out a marker in anger. After Spleek attacked her, she had fought back with markers, and because Sleek thought that was funny, he developed a marker that could shoot lasers, work as a knife, and write like a marker. He called it the Omnimarker. She ran over to the battle, firing lasers at the dead. She slashed at any dead corpse she saw, afraid it might rise up with Hades. But not Spook. She tied him to the floor. She didn't want to fight him.

Then, Hades himself finally rose from the ground, bringing the dog Cerberus along with him. Splak panicked and remembered the safety precaution box in the bunker. It had meat! She dashed to the bunker and fired her Omnimarker, clearing the debris enough to get inside. 

Part of the bunker had collapsed, so she had to sneak around. Then she saw it. The box stood under the rubble, and she whipped out the raw meat and flew back.

She saw Sluck firing butterflies armed with cactus towards Hades.

Even though Hades had just shown up, the cactus seemed to have done something, as he was cut in multiple places. He looked angry, and when the next butterfly came his way, he grabbed it with his bare hands, which had to hurt, and ripped off the cactus. The butterfly, who she identified as Struck, flew in fear as fast as he could as Hades threw the cactus towards Sluck. Sluck fired a cannonball which attached itself to the cactus and hit Cerberus in the middle head. He roared and Splak remembered the meat. She tossed two to each head.

They ate it with delight and looked at her for commands. She awkwardly pointed to Hades, who didn't notice what was going on. The three-headed dog pounced on their former master. Hades pushed the dog away and gave it meat of his own. Hades smiled and looked directly at Splak, and pointed towards her. Not only was the dog running towards her, but so were the dead. However, Sleek fired his teleportation cannon at Cerberus and the dead, and they all teleported to Antarctica.

After Hades realized this, he went back into the ground. The first battle was over.

Splak saw, from the corner of her eye, Spleek begin to rise up, coughing up blood. She dashed over with her marker and pointed it towards him. "Don't move," she said.

He laughed and moved her marker away from him. "Thanks for kicking me," he said.

"YOU DESERVED IT!" she shouted, shoving the marker near his face.

He realized she was genuinely a threat and said, "Please get that away. I want to talk with Sleek. Not you. Hades brought me back on accident."

She felt that, somewhere deep inside, he wasn't lying.

Splak lifted the marker and said, "He's by the Graveyard. As if he would want to pay you a visit." 

Spleek thanked her and walked that way. He greeted Sleek kindly and Sleek looked the least amount alarmed. They had a friendly chat, seemed to agree on something, and about 15 minutes later, Sleek went to the middle of the debris with news.

"To all butterflies!" he shouted. "I will be going on an expedition to the underworld to kill Hades!"

"I will bring with me these butterflies, if they choose to come," he continued. "Slak, Splak, and," he nodded at Spleek, "Spleek. He is on our side now, but we will be on our guard."

Spleek nodded, and Sleek asked, "Would you like to say anything?"

Spleek tapped the microphone for effect, and said, "Yes, thank you. You folks know me as evil, but today, my ways change. We have the same enemy, Hades, so I am teaming up with you to bring him down!" The butterflies cheered. All except for Splak. She didn't buy his baggage.

Sleek said, "The expedition will start tomorrow."

Great. Splak would make sure that Spleek had no chances to kill them. And if he even tried, she would fire so many Omnimarker lasers he wouldn't feel them at all.

Tomorrow, huh? She wondered how that would go. It would be wonderful.

Part Two

The Expedition

The Castle

Now first to find the underworld.

Splak would take a million years to even find where the underworld was.

Luckily, Sleek knew. He developed an UnderworldCompass™, which directed them to the underworld easily. They followed it's guide and eventually found what looked like a grove of rocks, and the compass exploded.

Sleek immediately got out a shovel, and Spleek prepared to lay back and watch the butterflies work. However, Sleek tossed the shovel to Spleek and said, "Get digging."

Spleek sputtered, "Why me? I can't dig, I have a wing condition where-"

Sleek gave him a healing piece.

Spleek sighed and started digging while Sleek took notes, and Splak gave Spleek a motivational Omnimarker tap every time he stopped. Slak stood there pretending to be thinking so he didn't have to do any work.

After about an hour of Spleek digging, eventually he hit rock. "This is a path to the underworld," Sleek said. He blasted it with the solar gun and they hopped inside.

Through the dark cave, they went, sometimes passing some skeletons or two (one was a butterfly skeleton, to which Splak nearly fainted).

They kept flying and finally came to a stop when Spleek found the entrance to the central cave.

They looked ahead in both disgust and amazement.

A large palace building stood before them, above the hills. They flew above and saw another river leading around the castle as a moat. The drawbridge was held by weathered chains and two large statues of tortured humans lay on either side. The entire thing felt dark and spooky. Sleek blasted the portcullis and they walked inside.

The courtyard felt empty, because there was no one there. In the middle was a dead tree, surrounded by candles. Splak shuddered. They walked into the next room.

From there, there was a staircase that led into the main chambers. This was it.

The assault

Sleek had a plan.

First, we had to break into the vault. Hades had Greek fire there. His plan was to release the fire and blow up the palace.

Spleek would go inside the main chambers with a vat of Greek fire and hide it there. When the explosion came, it would blow up that vat as well.

Then, the full assault on Hades would begin. Sleek would alert the butterflies to send backup. There was something else he would do he didn't tell them too.

Good plan. Now for the execution.

Sleek managed to pull up a map of the underworld and determined the vault was in a separate citadel near one of the cliffsides. They flew there and Sleek broke open the hatch. They took a few trips bringing the Greek fire back to the courtyard, and Sleek set up the fuse with the bombs. Spleek, as he was the darkest butterfly and could blend in, snuck in the Greek fire to the main chambers. Sleek set the bomb in the lower chambers and lit it. They had about one minute to escape.