Soul

~THIRD POV~

Lucas dropped his coffee as he watched the sight outside the café through the huge clear glass windows. The cashiers and the other customers froze too, their jaw dropped and hanging, not knowing where to go or what to do.

Were they even on Earth? Or was this really the end of the world?

Lucas narrowed his eyes and stood up seeing the hundreds of creatures targeting their area. He looked closely and saw that they weren't targeting everyone, but only one person. The blonde haired boy standing on the road. His eyes flitted towards the girl he was staring at and Lucas was hit by a wave of familiarity. 

"Ashe?" he whispered and proceeded to exit the café. The others inside stared at this man who had suddenly moved like he wasn't scared of all this. Lucas recognized the Inexas from the game. He had had plans to find their hidden lairs with Rose the next morning but viola, they had showed up right in front of him.

"There must be more…" he thought to himself, trying to figure out a way on how to control them. His eyes lit up and he felt his pocket and took out that golden card. Slyly, he walked out of the café and because of the immediate desertion of the citizens, he found an abandoned supermarket which was dark on the inside.

He slipped in and found a vantage spot before taking out the card and pulling up the system out in front of him. Sensing the Inexa energy in close proximity, the transparent screen suddenly showed an extra tab.

Lucas smirked and clicked on it. His eyes were fixated on the smallest Inexa which was about to devour the blonde haired boy. He waited for a while with the system still open in front of him as he watched what would happen. 

He saw Ashe stare at Adrien like something broke inside her. Lucas pouted in pity. 'I really wanted to get close to you, Ashe. You're really pretty, you know that?' he thought and glanced between the options in the system and the boy in danger. 

'Say, if I let the Inexa take your blonde haired boy, will you come to me?' Lucas chuckled in happiness. He was in ecstasy just by thinking it. Rose by day, Ashe by night. How amazing would that be? He would be the happiest man on earth.

He grinned from ear to ear as he turned on STAMPEDE option on the screen. He closed the screen and watched among the darkness of the supermarket. 

He was like Lucifer among the shadows. 

...…

At the end, Ashe decided to ignore both her heart and brain. She chose her soul. Because that's what made one human. Hearts can be replaced and brains can be altered, the MetaCode showed that now.

But the soul…the soul was divine and the biggest, most important thing humans couldn't recreate. She knew that what she felt for Adrien didn't originate from her heart or brain, but from her soul. The thread which connected them all, it connected her to Adrien specially.

But did he feel the same for her too? 

She remembered the kisses he had left on her neck. If he died now, those kisses will burn on her skin only with a painful memory. It would only become equal to scars. 

But if he lived…if he lived, she would find all the answers to herself in him. She knew it. Those green eyes, they held the secret to her soul. And she couldn't let it die just like that. 

'Adrien…I think I lo-' Ashe thought but her thoughts were stripped to half as the Inexa wrapped its snake legs along Adrien's legs. 

She closed her eyes and screamed, her arms stuck to her side and arms closed into tight fists, "Adrien!"

Adrien's sad eyes sparkled as he heard his name from her mouth. Death itself was curling up around him now, but still he didn't move. Just because he was waiting for this girl's words. 

"Adrien I'm sorry! I left you to die because if I killed you then Breakfire would be destroyed too! And the government wouldn't take over my dad's company anymore once Breakfire was gone. I was dumb, I was stupid. I thought you were all just folders back then!"

The sparkle in his eyes shut out immediately when he heard her cutting words. He frowned. "So…all this while. You were acting? When we asked about our families, you were acting. When you tried to make friends with us…you were acting," his voice broke and he loosened up, letting the Inexa curled up around him, lifting him up into the sky. Adrien still didn't take his eyes off her.

Ashe felt her heart scream as she saw this and ran forward, "Adriennn!! I'm sorry! I didn't know," she sobbed, "I know better now. Please, Adrien. Please be alive, let's talk this over." 

Adrien shook his head and stayed limp as the Inexa got ready to throw him inside its mouth. She couldn't stand like this anymore. She cupped her mouth and yelled again, "Adrien! You know I'm a person who doesn't believe in love and all that!"

He frowned at this random sentence, "Huh? How is that related?" he mumbled as he looked down at this frail girl trying her best to save him. Wait…if she thought he was a folder, why would she go so far as to stand next to destruction to save him?

"Adrien, well here it is!" Ashe screamed louder, at the top of her lungs. She screamed as much as her body allowed her to because this time, she wasn't going to hold back, "I love you, you dummy! I love you even when you're cold and arrogant and a complete piece of shit!"

"Ouch." 

"I love you right now and did for a long, long time. So please, live! So that I won't have to love you all by myself," her last words had turned into a whisper. She didn't hear any response from him and she knew that he wasn't convinced. But her heart was racing from the confession. It was threatening to eat her inside out. 

What had she done…

She sighed and looked up again, "Adrien, I—" the rest of the words flowed back down her throat as she saw what he was doing.

He grabbed a part of the snake's legs and bit it hard and tore a piece of its flesh away from it, his head jerking backwards, and sending bits of flesh flying through the air.

The Inexa screeched and flailed its arms. Adrien caught the momentum of the flail and jumped forward onto the Inexa's main body. Like a critter, he climbed down onto the Inexa's center and bit again only for it to scream louder.

Ashe's eyes widened as she stood in shock, looking at Adrien suddenly take action. He glanced at her once before returning to biting pieces of the Inexa with his sharp canine teeth. 

Lucas smirked as he watched and opened up Adrien's system stats. Wanting to give them hope, he took out his ability settings and chose Enhance. 

The same time he selected that option, Adrien paused and his back arched in pain. He let out a deafening scream as he felt electricity rush through his body.

Ashe couldn't do anything but stare. She thought he was almost going to die when he stopped screaming. A silence fell before he lifted his face up again. But this time, it wasn't his normal face anymore. 

It was reeked with golden veins that shone everywhere on his body. And his canines…they were larger and sharper. He looked scarier than the world's most dangerous shark. 

He growled and Ashe watched the two monsters fight head on. Adrien was an ant compared to the Inexa but in terms of power, they were pure equals now. 

Adrien's mind had stopped working and some instinct took over. He clawed at the Inexa's centermost flesh and ripped it apart, ignoring the creature's helpless screams. He lodged his hands inside the Inexa and groped around to find it. 

After a few seconds, his hand touched something icy cold which was lodged inside the Inexa's body. He smiled and wrapped around the Core. Pulling it out was followed with splatters of Inexa goo all around him.

He jumped down on to the road as the Inexa's legs went weak and it toppled down to the floor. Adrien lifted the Core above his head and dropped it so that it hit the asphalt with a crackle and thunder roared around it. 

And the Inexa which was once feisty and rampant was nothing but dust. 

Ashe was staring at Adrien the whole time. She looked up at him and saw his eyes. They weren't green anymore…but an enchanting golden. His face was scary. His gaze was scary. His aura…it was unfamiliar to her. She didn't know such a person was trapped inside him all this time.

She reached forward to touch him and he stepped back, growling. Ashe froze and her eyes moved upward as she saw the hundreds of other Inexas approaching. 'Not again...' she sighed in frustration.

"Adrien, let's run away!"

"Not so fast, my dear Ashe," Lucas chuckled and waited for his plan to finally activate. He gasped as the system screen next to him suddenly disappeared and the card too disappeared with it right in front of his eyes. 

"What?" he looked down here and there, trying to find the card but it was truly gone, "Where did it go?" He looked up at the Inexas and was partly relieved that he had already switched on STAMPEDE. But what confused him was that he finally confirmed that the card had a tendency to disappear on its own.

A few meters away from the supermarket, Ashe called out to Adrien to run. At the same time, she also felt something heavy appear in her pocket.