CHAPTER 43: Thank you, Captain!

Aldebaran's body collided with LeRoy's giant staff as he made an attempt to block. This only caused him to go flying across the great open hall and slide across the ground, streaks of blood following in his wake. The man's head rose to see the Captain of the Seven plagues. In an instant, a giant wave of gnawing, biting air exploded into the room, freezing and condensing ice crystals onto the vast walls and ceiling of the place, creating a luminous icy cave as the moonlight from the opening refracted off of every crystal that formed. The glow of this newly formed cavern only accented LeRoy's shimmering turquoise eyes and the vapors emitting from his breath. His eyes looked down on the man with an enfreezing judgement. As Aldebaran attempted to breathe in the algid air, his lungs became sickled and itchy as the moisture in his lungs froze into jagged crystals. He coughed and wheezed out blood, his face turning an unhealthy purple and his hands a frostbitten, mummified black as the enraged but silent LeRoy walked towards the next victim of his true wrath, each step crackling with dried ice crushing beneath it. Giant clouds of fog escaped his immense lungs and wisped away with each breath, floating down to the floor as bits of ice. Frost accumulated on LeRoy's greyed cheeks as the strange vents in his spear's head pumped out a constant flow of deep-frozen air. The frost even coated his hair and eyebrows, turning them from a brown to an icy white. Some kings wore crowns of gold, others wore crowns of silver. This man, he was crowned with the crystals of blizzard ice, yet showed no signs of harm. How? Not even a Violeta, who can survive in the harsh vacuums of space, could stand comfortably in this sheer cold. Even with the antifreeze genes he had inherited from his father, his human side had to breathe air. Violetta's are immune to the very same technique that a few gifted GMHs can utilize to incapacitate others of their kind, but this man needed no deceptive "presence" to intimidate. His threat was very real and unflaunted. An unmoving, ever-present, unforgiving winter. Chandler, on the other hand, had known to get the fuck away and outside his complex. LeRoy… he was a man with a wicked smile always plastered on his face for some reason or another. Only this time, there was no smile. He had only heard the stories from the more veteran plagues about the times he enacted [Trial by HellFrost]. All the other times he was just waving that stick around to create small gusts of wind in comparison. LeRoy swung the spear back, ready to turn his enemy past tense. As he released a strong-armed swing, glacial air pounded the entirety of the theatre, shattering countless behemoth pillars and collapsing the second row to the ground with a great crash. The man was nowhere to be seen amongst the rubble, which oddly enough had also fallen halfway on Phantom's left-behind shirt and coat, sullying it even more.

"Damn that half-Violetta bastard. Their stench infuriates me to no end. So that's the man they called 'White Shadow'." LeRoy said before entering from the hole to meet his friend. "How are you feeling, Chandler?"

"Pretty useless, if you ask me. I couldn't do shit. But thanks for coming back for me."

LeRoy flicked him hard in the forehead, the mere residue from the cold burning his skin.

"Don't say things like that. I know you're only half-joking when you talk about that shit. We're here for you, too, you know. We're the Plagues! We'll never leave each other behind. I chose you all for a reason, and I've already lost enough Plagues! So pick yourself off your damn back and come with me. I'll help you get ready to speak to Maleadora regarding the revival before I have to go to fight in the capital. Damn, and here I thought I could relax before the big event. Don't be so impulsive next time!" With an estranged smile, "Though something great did come out of this. We can finally get Alwin back, and now have a cure for death. Good job, Chandler."

Chandler could help but smile as he made his way slowly up to his feet "Yes Captain, thank you, Captain!" To most, LeRoy may seem like some crazed and creepy psychopath without a heart or soul. But to the select few who accepted him, he was family.

"Now, let's-" LeRoy's words were stopped abruptly as a shockwave erupted. He looked down to see a massive hole and a giant ethereal fist in his stomach. LeRoy's blood had spattered outwards several meters. The creature's faceless head opened up to release an ear-splitting low howl. The strange ghost-like entity had remained motionless for the entirety of the two fights, yet it was moving now?

"HOH SHOIT!" He screamed with a furrowed face as the Chair of Fidelity took over and elbowed the thing across the face, pushing its arm out.

"Isn't this his pet?! Go scurry away already! Don't touch me!"

"We still have *cough* much to discuss!" White Shadow was standing behind the creature, his blackened hands dangling limp. "I need to speak with Tangente about designing a cure."

"Sure! In fact, we don't need to go all the way to Tangente for that, I've got the cure right here!" LeRoy waved his spear. "Things will get real quiet in the head for you once this medication hits! It's fast-acting, too!"

"Hmph. What *cough* about you, Chandler? Are you willing to allow me to *cough, cough* have a little talk with him?"

"Why would I give it to you? Why not ask Maleadora? She's much better at that kind of stuff than Tangente or Arewara."

"She already turned me down. Even after I worked for her. I don't know if Phantom had a play in her *wheeze* decision or not. He wanted me to find a cure originally. Now he seems like he just wants to kill me. Can you believe that?! He just wants to euthanize me to stop my pain and my shenanigans."

"I wonder why?" LeRoy interjected.

"Shut up, Kingslayer. How many bodies do you have to your name? And you, Diamondback, are disgusting. The buildings you downed and the city blocks you destroyed. And you guys are calling me heartless?"

"That's not entirely true." LeRoy replied, calmly but firmly as he clutched his stomach. "He balances his evil with good. Chandler has a lot of kindness in him, and you know that! When he saw the streets of the Ethiopian cities he lived and visited filled with trash, he scoffed at it. But the day after finding some, he would always come back with Alwin and Arewara's machines to help him to clean up the mess. He would post job opportunities and hold meals for people who were struggling as he did. He paid out of pocket for all of this. He even snatched up a recruiter's position so he could accurately and confidently choose and prepare the next generation of our soldiers while giving some people in need the chance they deserve. He even convinced OMA to host economic and educational seminars free of charge to the citizens of Ethiopia as a token of goodwill. Nobody told him to do any of this, but he went above and beyond. Now, even as we prepare to topple this country's leadership, he is devising ways with our leaders to rebuild this country under TA rule as smoothly as possible. He has been through the depths of this country, and has had a chance to meet a great variety of its people. He knows what they want and what they don't. The point is, he does way more things than he gives himself credit for, and tends to overfocus on the things he did wrong. Especially in this distressed state. Granted, I'll have a nice long talk with him when this is over about detonating a [Magnum Rise] in a city, but the fact you were trying to use that against him after all you've done shows what type of person you are, you dick. He did that because he's not in his right mind, you do it because of half-assed reasons and then call it a day. Also, who said anything about being heartless? Guilty conscience much?" LeRoy turned his focus to Chandler behind him. "Chandler, are this fortress's defenses operational?"

Chandler smiled.

"They sure are. They just need a large enough power source…"

LeRoy chuckled mischievously.

"You gave this structure the thing, didn't you?"

"You bet I did."

On the plane, Midnight talked to the new guy while Tangente was on the phone joining them. They had finally sent in a replacement for William Barasta after all this time. The Day of Choosing had presented itself a winner, and the new "infant" Plague had finished his training and briefing. Here he was, a man in a nice tuxedo vest and British flat top with a chiseled jaw and stubble of his face. The shape of his eyes were more droopy and laid back than the rest of the Plagues, but the man's lavender eyes themselves were curious if not playfully dangerous.

"Are you sure we can't call in Peacemaker or the BookKeeper? Hell, if the Trifecta's number one could only spare five minutes of his time-" Midnight pleaded

"No, they are very busy. Besides, they're not in situations they can easily opt-out of. They are exploring the Zones right now."

"What are they even looking for in places like that?!"

"Parts of our old ship, the Iceberg, and the other Circles we don't know the location of. Speaking of which, we just discovered traces of Maleadora's Cult in the 'Isle of Tombs' Zone. We can't get to it, though. That place is what the Bermuda Triangle wishes it was."

"So once you piece together a working starship, You can just wormhole anywhere in the universe?" The new Plague inquired.

"Sort of. We can have access to any one of the Gates. They're huge structures placed across the universe created and maintained by three powerful entities called Portalmasters. You just link your system up to the gate you want to warp through, and if the Gate's still operational, it creates a wormhole to and from temporarily. And boom, you can warp! Anyway, good luck! Just five minutes until your aircraft reaches the capital! Prepare for one hell of a view!"