CHAPTER 37: From a branch...

"Fire. Warm, soft, comforting. I never knew it was the air around it that I was feeling. Its core, the most beautiful part of it, was untouchable. When I saw it for the first time, I gazed excitedly at it, and reached out, only to burn myself. The sun, however, felt much harsher, I could feel it beating down on me. I already knew the sun would be very flamboyant. Too flamboyant to even peer into. The sky. Even now, I can still see it from the holes in the rooftops as I speak. Its paleness, blurriness, and simple infiniteness. I had always pictured the sky as an empty void. Yet now as I look into it, it is so friendly and peaceful. Clouds. White. Huge. Huggable. I had always heard they looked like how a pillow feels. But that is simply not accurate. They can be sharp, wispy, towering things. They aren't just one color, either. Snowy, light gray, inky, even greenish. And when you see them at sunset..."

"Shut up, man." Alwin said as he readied himself for his next leap. They were in the middle of combat, and yet he had that audacity of daydreaming. "What's your point?"

Frilo gazed almost romantically at the open sky before staring down his opponent. "Just saying goodbye to the things I love. If this is my last bout, It's good to send them off. Before I never see them again." Frilo looked at the unconscious Holts. "I'm sorry, old friend. It's time to pay you back." As Frilo raised his body with a deep inhale, his eyes began to close. Again? Then Alex felt it. He was being watched. By… Frilo? Something strange was happening with his senses.

"H-How is he doing that... Wait, is it sonar?" Alex whispered to Mamba.

"No, it's-" A clap louder than thunder nearly burst their eardrums. Alex and Mamba could only duck for cover as the room and its walls were torn to rubble. Nothing was left standing. Spiraling down the halls, the two left only disfigurement in their wake. Mamba's wires whipped towards the blur. They were no match for the speed and precision of Alwin who had only a minute before been captured by it. He had learned and adapted. Mamba had two options: take Alex with her to assist Frilo in whatever way they could, or hide him away and keep him safe. The second option was what Frilo would've wanted. She grumbled in utter frustration, and turned to Alex with a pissed off look.

"C'mon, we're going."

"But what about Frilo? What about Holts?"

"We did what we could. Hurry. We're in the open. We need to get a roof over our head. Being exposed like this is dangerous. As for Holts, just leave him here. Don't want to leave him in the building for it to collapse on him while he's in this state."

"Uhhhh…" Alex bit into his lip. "Will Frilo make it?"

Mamba set her gaze to the ground "Not if anybody else butts in."

The booming of supersonic entities whizzed around, changing directions. As one boom came especially close, Alex looked to his side as the wall shattered, Alwin being tossed through it. As he stood up, Frilo knocked him down once again and picked him up by the collar of his suit, tearing it as he swung him back out of the self-made entrance. As Alex rushed past Frilo's back, a numbing pain cut through him. A gunshot. Through the slash in his chest plate. Alex ran forwards still. Mamba whipped out the wires once more to surprise the attackers. Three people. TA soldiers? Seemed like it. One fell victim to Mamba's electric trap. The others were quicker. A gunshot to the head wasn't enough to take the TA member down. Their suits were bulky and their helmets thick, unlike Alwin's, which didn't even have a helmet. Alex clutched his staff. He swung it, landing a perfect hit on the stunned soldier. Alex could tell the man or woman felt that through the armor. Just as he swung back to deal a second blow, the second TA member was shooting at him again. He could only allow his armor to take the shock as he threw scattered concrete debris at them to dive for cover. He put his back to the corner of the hallway intersection, but was hailed by new debris. The TA member had smacked the wall's corner, spraying chunks of brick towards Alex. He was knocked back before the enemy was right in his face. Alex tried to fight back with the techniques he was taught by Frilo and Holts, but the difference in experience was instantly made apparent. Each blow knocked the wind out of Alex, a blow to the head dizzying him. Each counter was matched with a different strike from out of nowhere. The staff was only made a liability as the TA soldier effortlessly dodged its attacks like an open book. Fuck this. Alex resorted to tackling the soldier to the ground. It just so happened that they were just as proficient at wrestling, too. Just as the soldier reached to extract their knife for the kill, electricity shot through both of them. What a nice person Mamba was. Alex used this chance to grab the gun in their pocket. He turned around on the ground and pointed the barrel straight between their eyes. *Click*. Oh no. No ammo! Alex screamed uncouthly and grabbed onto the soldier's full-faced helmet, clicking off the clamps keeping it attached to the suit. He flung it off, and started beating the woman with the heel of the gun. Again. Again. Again. When he was done, blood pooled on the floor around him, his gloves and forearms stained. Oh god. He just killed someone. He fell from his kneeling position to his side, and looked guiltily at Mamba, who had already taken out the first and third. His gut. His head. They throbbed… pulsed… with disgust. This was war. It wasn't badass. This was not a victory. This was foolishness. Tears welled up in his eyes. He had been spoon fed lies. He was glad to be alive, ecstatic about it, adrenaline coursing through his veins energizing him to a sickening extent. But what price would his life cost? Enough. Alex tried to shake the thoughts, but they still ran rampant in the back of his mind. He grabbed his staff beside him and stood up hesitantly.

"Let's go." Alex said, his voice struggling to deal with these pent-up thoughts. Then it hit. Like a truck, like a wave, like a ripple in reality. Gut clenching dread. Another Plague? No. This dread was enough to make both Alex's AND Mamba's knees buckle. It was like the lights had seemed to dim in Alex's vision. This presence. This disdain. This sheer darkness, blacker than any shadow cast upon the world. Midnight was here, roaming. Mamba started laughing, saying something about how she shouldn't have come. She was losing it. He was, too. So unfair. So unfair! Why did they, how could they? The idea of even harming Midnight became incomprehensible to Alex. Alex was on his knees, gasping for air. Breathe! Breathe! Please! I CAN'T BREATHE! The air. Thick. Poisonous. Molasses. Alex was unaware of the saliva running down his chin. He inched his head and looked up. He was there. HE WAS THERE! MIDNIGHT! Those eyes! Deeper, darker, and bluer than any ocean or lapis! The hair! A long velvet black with highlights just as blue as the eyes! The skin! An elegant fine white so rich and flawless! Was he a god? No! Their looks paled in comparison. They would be humbled and ashamed of themselves. And his expression… Calm. Dead calm. Seemingly relaxed, but definitively... alert. Almost sad, mournful in a way. His heart… Alex's heart. Alex clutched the left side of his chest. No beat, no pulse. He had forgotten to breathe. Alex inhaled sharply, and coughed on his own saliva. He stared back into Midnight's eyes, which were glaring into his. He had lost this battle, and Midnight didn't even have to do anything. His vision. His perception. Shifted to the side. He had been pushed. But by who? He couldn't hear, feel, or taste. From his side, he angled his eyes downwards towards the spot he was just in. Mamba. She had gathered her courage. Alex was so grateful. He would've died by the monster's hands if not for her. He could only see her beginning to whip all of her wires towards him in a way he had never seen before, a true act of desperation. Pins and needles. One small black spire shot through her body. Multiple pikes emerged from everywhere on her skin. It was like watching roots overgrowing soil. A sick, skin-crawling display. The pikes flattened into blades, and the next was too gruesome for Alex to watch. Blood spattered everywhere. A human in a blender. That's what it was. The modified human's bones, skin, and muscles were like steel. Yet they seemed like gelatin and cardboard with how the black substance treated what remained of Black Mamba. Shouting and figures, from across the hallway. More Brotherhood members. Alex's voice yelled out so croaked and hoarsely.

"No! No! Go back! Go back! Run!" Alex cried out. The members ignored him. They fired away, hundreds of bullets raining, some hitting Alex. They were irrational out of fear. The substance simply spread out in front of him, creating a curved shield that ricocheted the bullets off like absolutely nothing. He was in front of them before they reacted and a shockwave sounded. All cut down into pieces. So effortlessly, as if they weren't even worth wasting attention on. Midnight stood over their corpses, motionless. Alex couldn't decipher why. Then Midnight outstretched his hand, the black inky substance shaping into something. Flowers? Though it was pitch black, Alex determined the type it was. White lilies. A popular funeral flower. As he laid the bouquet down and removed his touch, its pitch blackness burst with the life of color. As the ink hardened into a crystalline structure, colors faded into light like some sort of chemical reaction. That's exactly what it was. So beautiful, the lilies made from crystal were. But it only enraged Alex. Parts of the lilies were soaked in the marsh of blood Midnight himself had created. Despicable, contemptible. He mourns, yet he was the one who killed them in cold blood. Alex's hatred ran deeper than his fear. He sneered red-faced as he took a knee up and burst into action. His legs, they carried him so fast. His arms, they were ready to rip him apart. Alex's palm collided with the side of Midnight's face. Oh, how satisfying it felt! But the full impact wasn't there. Midnight moved his head at an amazing speed, and swung around to take Alex by his outstretched arm.

"You should've lied low."

With an acceleration Alex had never experienced before, he impacted the solid concrete floor. Alex felt his organs shift around in his body as he was plowed into the concrete. For a second, everything blacked out. He came to just as he was being thrown through a wall. And then another one. And another. He was completely disfigured. As he was tossed towards another wall, he remembered Alwin. The movements, the maneuvering, the weight shift. He remembered, and he learned. Alex whipped around, somehow managing to land feet-first onto the wall, with the same, springy, elastic movements, Alex catapulted towards Midnight, one side of his stomach exposed. This was his chance! One clean hit this time! Alex slammed his fist into Midnight's side, a pressure wave dispersing. A clap of sound shook through the air. Alex's first supersonic hit. Bones crushing. Shattering. Alex's face turned from joy to peril as they were his own. Midnight had blocked. A thick, flat disk of the substance barricaded the weak spot last second. The substance could pass through anywhere on Midnight's armor? Time slowed to a near halt as the horizontal Alex moved his head to his side to look up at Midnight. He was raising his hand and accumulating the substance around his fist to make a large, heavy-looking blade. A guillotine. His guillotine. And he was right on the chopping block. Fuck. Alex hoped, prayed his midair velocity could help him make it out on time. The slash came so fast he didn't have time to think about it any further. The weight of a world. Alex's head hit and rolled quickly across the ground as his body collided with the wall in front of it. Alex could only stay alive for a few more seconds. His final thought: too late. He didn't make it. If only he had a few more seconds, minutes, hours. But it didn't happen. Alex's eyes faded into an unmistakable hollowness. Alexander Quinton was dead. Midnight's earpiece went off with the sound of Chandler's voice.

"All targets are clear in section 4. The supplies are destroyed, too." the voice cackled through the static.

"All targets clear in the final section. All sections completed. The mission is a success! Let's head to the capital now."

With his body, Midnight left only an apology and a willow branch.