Chapter Twenty

In the flickering glow of the laboratory lights, Sabrina sighed. It had been many hours since Dimitri had stormed off. Since there wasn't a clock in the lab, she had no idea of how much time had really passed. Ametsu was leaning in the corner of the room, looking distant as Sabrina paced around. Sabrina didn't know what to do and kept squeezing her bag.

Ametsu finally spoke out. “I lied to him,” she mumbled, “I screwed with his memories.” She leaned back and huffed against a wall. “His anger wasn’t necessary at all, but he had a point.”

"Screwed with his memories?" Sabrina asked, approaching Ametsu, "You mean you didn't actually know him through childhood?"

She shook her head, “Not at all. I did it so I wouldn’t look suspicious. I actually tampered with many people’s memories, including people who thought to be my parents.”

Sabrina looked down, "I guess that would make someone feel used…" Looking up and seeing the look of hurt on Ametsu's face, she realized that was the wrong thing to say. She shut her mouth before she could accidentally say anything else that could be hurtful.

Ametsu nodded, “Look. Forgive him. I don’t know if Dimitri’s alive or not, but forgive him. We can’t afford fights like this, not during armageddon.”

Sabrina nodded, shuffling her feet awkwardly in the silence. After some time had passed, she felt brave enough to speak again. "So what do we do now? Dimitri and Blanche both left, where do we go?"

“I can’t say for sure, but…” Ametsu handed over a stiff, iridescent feather, “You’ll need this.”

Sabrina accepted the feather, examining it. It was shaped like a normal feather, but appeared to be made of some sort of hard material. The strangest part about it was that despite its stiffness, it felt light in her hand.

With this, there was a harsh knock on the lab entrance. “If it was an angel, it would have destroyed the place already. Open the door.” Ametsu demanded.

Trusting her word, Sabrina stepped warily toward the laboratory door and opened it. The glowing neon lights clashed harshly against the blood red sky. It was a young man-- almost like a kid, appearing much younger than Sabrina, but he had a grave look on his face.

"Hello?" Sabrina said, thoroughly confused.

“I’m Dr. Kenneth’s assistant, Mackenzie,” he claimed, “I want to report that we have a newer, safer base than this lab.” With that he tried to find a small flask by rummaging around the room. Finding it he poured a decent amount of alcohol inside. “We’ll need to move post haste. I trust since we have a literal God on our side, we should get there in one piece.”

Sabrina blinked a couple of times, her brain taking a moment to process all of the information she had just been told. Slowly, she nodded. "Alright then, let's get going."

“Follow,” Mackenzie demanded, “Follow.”

Ametsu kept as far away from him as possible. “Shield me, Sabrina.”

"Aaaalright?" Sabrina replied

“I don’t like him, Sabrina,” she added.

Sabrina nodded, leaning over to Ametsu privately. "He does seem shifty, but let's play along for now."

“He smells like my sister,” Ametsu said. Abruptly she snatched Sabrina and placed her directly in front of her, using her as a literal shield. Sabrina sighed. This was going to be a long and awkward trip.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Let us dance for God has let us go. The pure white queen has saved us all. Glory to the white queen, for she had banished the black queen.”

Celebrating the end of the battle that was plaguing Earth, the children of their God had shunned her along with her father Terminal.

“Good riddance the Black Queen.”

They were celebration and prosperity across the land we call earth. As their guard went down, the Black Queen was angry, waiting and planning for her return. She wanted to make sure they would never push past her destruction again. To her, it was no longer destroying what she had created, only destroying everything in her path. Her planet, her sun, her moon. The Black Queen promised herself that if she loses, she’ll win.