Chapter 43-
Gideon had often heard other veterans recall that the heat of combat seemed to slow down time; while he understood what they meant, he always experienced it differently. For one, most one-on-one engagements didn’t last long enough for his adrenaline to really pump, but when it did, he could picture the situation like a piece of music in front of him. Each note, each step, just had to be played; it was for that reason that he kept a blue bird caged up in his heart. He had never wondered, however, when exactly he locked it up.
His body flashed towards Noire, breaking away from the ground. Noire’s gaze remained cool, keeping his eyes comfortably on his opponent.
“Don’t watch the blade, watch his body movement.”
Gideon’s saber extended outwards, aiming to lop Noire’s head off in the blink of an eye. In return, Noire simply raised a hand, the tips of his fingers left exposed at the top of his glove.
There was no time to react, Gideon was already only inches away from the assassin, and moving too quickly.
As the blade met Noire’s fingertips, a white-hot glow appeared on each of them; the metal made contact and passed through like it was butter.
“W-what??”
Gideon nearly fell over, all of his momentum was put into that swing, and he had moved factoring in the weight of the sword.
With two brisk steps, Noire was safely out of danger; Gideon’s eyes shot down to his saber, which was now missing its entire top half. About an inch of the tip was left lying on the ground, the rest smoldering on the ground in a puddle of burning metal.
“Don’t get psyched out!”
He hadn’t fought unarmed in years, but things like this couldn’t faze him, not now. Without wasting a breath, he delivered a swift punch to Noire’s face, knocking him backwards. In retaliation, Noire stretched his arm forward.
“[MONOPHOBIA]!!”
A column of flame burst from his hand; Gideon felt the heat and rolled away in the blink of an eye. Landing on one knee, he took a quick stock of the situation; Eroh was further away than Noire, and was standing with a hand to his hip, as if he was a bystander.
“Is he waiting for an opportunity, or is he not planning on helping his ally?”
Rising to his feet and entering a closely-guarded stance, Gideon tightened his fists. As the fingers of his left hand coiled, he realized that he could not feel the same sensation on his right.
“My right hand is--!”
The instant his first punch landed, Noire had frozen it near solid. The situation wasn’t appropriate for a smile, but Noire would recall it with one. His Vocation, Monophobia, absorbed heat from nearby into his body, freezing almost anything he touched. Likewise, the heat could be released in short bursts, or focused into one part of his body; he wore fingerless gloves for just this reason, the small surface area of his fingertips was excellent for turning his heat to the offensive. Noire would need to absorb a tremendous amount of heat to effectively guard himself, having to spread it throughout his body, so he often relied on the first part of the ability to freeze his opponent’s attacks on contact.
Gideon didn’t waste time thinking about the intricacies or explanation of Noire’s Vocation; he had seen both parts of it, and that was enough to develop his plan. He rushed for Noire once more, hearing Eroh’s feet hit the ground as well. From the corner of his eye, he saw Eroh rotate around Noire to the left, so Gideon leaned himself in the opposite direction.
Eroh lifted a foot as he ran and smashed it into the ground, catapulting himself up and over Noire. His limbs posed cat-like as he descended to come down on Gideon, Noire lunged with fingers outstretched, tipped with white-hot disks of heat.
Gideon’s killer-instinct roared through his heart, the blue bird’s song. As he’d done many times before, he cast off his fear like dead weight and leapt forward to meet Noire. Eroh landed a foot behind him, having assumed he would back off for fear of Noire’s burning assault.
Noire waved his hands defensively before Gideon, who knocked one of them aside with a swift blow from his arm.
“What I’m about to do is reckless.”
He swung his leg into Noire’s stomach, staggering him. A moment later, Eroh was at his back.
Gideon smirked, a renewed glint in his eyes.
“That’s all I needed to know.”
He threw himself backwards, narrowly out of reach from Eroh’s claw, a trail of liquid poison falling through the air. Gideon fell downwards, chopping at the back of Eroh’s knee before he hit the ground. Eroh let out an awkward gasp as Gideon nailed his pressure point, causing his leg to buckle for a moment.
Within a second, Gideon was back up; Noire had recovered, and came at him once more with his fingers.
“He can only freeze with direct contact!” Gideon had risked the fight to learn the limits of Monophobia, and his gamble had paid off.
With expert reaction and precision, they exchanged a flurry of jabs and parries, Gideon never allowing Noire to touch him, instead keeping his guard up and letting him make the advance. The fact that Monophobia was essentially restricted to his hands in this situation meant that Noire was forced to bottleneck his attacks into a very specific space, he just had to find a way to touch Gideon, as each time he threw out a strike, the captain would parry into his forearms and redirect it away harmlessly.
Gideon heard a sound and spun halfway to his side, dodging Eroh’s jab from behind, leaving the assassin wide open. The next thing Eroh knew, Gideon had grabbed hold of his arm and flung him to the ground, then turned to respond to Noire’s next assault. Gideon’s combat prowess was ridiculous; he was able to juggle fighting two trained assassins with superhuman abilities using only his bare hands. It was as if he was following dance steps, dancing perfectly in time to the beat of a song.
Noire gritted his teeth.
“We’re getting nowhere with this!”
It was too dangerous to use Monophobia’s flame so close to Eroh, but exhaustion was beginning to wear on him, each of the small hits Gideon landed on him in between parries chipping away at his stamina.
“Eroh!” he yelled, watching his ally receive a punch to the chest. “Back off!”
A spark ignited in Gideon’s chest; this was what he was waiting for.
Stepping back to gain distance, Noire reached his arm out. Before he could activate his Vocation, Gideon took a leap to close the gap, his hand swiping at Noire’s arm.
“[MONOPHOBIA]!!”
Flame erupted from his hand, directed away from Gideon and towards the warehouse. Suddenly, before any of them could process what was happening, the ground quaked.
An earth-shattering explosion rocked the street. The lamp Eroh had used Lullaby to cut down in his rage was a gas lamp, and the fall had ripped it from the ground, gas was still leaking from it.
A burst of air and fire enveloped them for a moment, and slammed them against a fence at the other side of the street.
Inside the warehouse, Gruse felt the explosion rattle several hooks and chains hanging down from the ceiling. She didn’t notice it, but the king had fallen over on the board.
Noire struggled to open his eyes. He felt a weight on top of him, and looked down to realize that Gideon had landed on top of him when the gas pipe exploded. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe, and a spike of fear shot into his heart. It was short lived, however, as he regained more of his consciousness and realized that all of the air had been knocked out of him.
From his place on the ground, he could see Eroh lying still, face down. With great struggle, he lifted Gideon’s body off of him and struggled to stand. Hands on his knees, he assessed the situation. His skirt was tattered, and there was an ugly scrape on his face.
“Both of them are still breathing, I can finish it!”
He took a step toward Gideon, and nearly fell over. He’d taken much more damage than he initially thought, and felt over his abdomen.
“Damn,” he noted. “I cracked a rib.”
In the distance, he heard sirens blaring.
“What-- who could have called the cops?! Never mind…”
If the police got there, it would likely result in a standoff with the rest of the team, ruining their operation. Noire realized now that he was faced with three options:
Finish Gideon
Bring Eroh inside
Ditch both of them
The third he immediately discounted; there was no way that he would venture out without the company of the team, now that he was with them. The other two options were both, objectively, the best ones to make, but his injury and the ever-approaching threat of the police meant he only had time for one.
Noire looked from Gideon’s body to Eroh’s.
As the sirens grew closer, he realized that there was a fourth option. In retrospect, he couldn’t say that it was better than the others, but defining a victory in the situation was impossible anyway.
---
Mello’s fist rocketed into Isaiah’s stomach. He choked out blood and was launched backwards and into the alleyway fence. His body slumped, he couldn’t breathe for a moment. Abruptly, his lungs were filled again with air and his heart was reinvigorated. His undershirt had opened up, revealing the metal plating he wore beneath his clothes.
Isaiah clutched his hand over his stomach, as if tending to a wound. With a sinking feeling in his heart, he realized that Mello had not hit hit armor, it was a direct punch to his gut.
“How did he--? There’s no way-- it’s like he passed right through it!”
Behind the storage container, Angelique remained as still as a statue, keeping his breaths shallow.
Mello took a step toward Isaiah’s position on the ground. His face was shrouded in the dim lighting; it was stone-like, drained of color, all except for his piercing red eyes.
A noise, a huge, thunderous burst resounded from the other side of the warehouse. Mello stopped dead in his tracks.
“Did you say that Eroh went out front?”
Myst hung behind him, keeping an eye on Isaiah.
“Yeah.”
“If Gruse stayed inside to guard, and Advent is in the back room…”
“Noire could have gone to help Eroh,” Myst suggested.
The pieces came together in Mello’s mind. Seconds later, he heard sirens blaring down the street.
“Damn!”
With lightning speed, he dashed to Isaiah, reaching his hand out to his forehead.
“[SPACEBOY]!!”
Mello’s fingers snapped, and a gray aura was released from his hands.
The instant he heard the snap, Isaiah’s mind was covered in a pale sheet. He suddenly found it difficult to think about anything, even the pain in his stomach. His vision was blurry and unfocused; he was barely able to formulate words in his mind.
“Let’s go,” Mello ordered. Myst looked almost disdainfully surprised.
“But Gruse and--”
“They know what to do,” Mello reassured him. “I trust them-- all of them.”
Myst simply let out a soft breath and accepted his words into heart, letting them sink deep into him. He knew he was right.
“Okay, let’s go.”
With that, they both took off over the chain link fence, scaling it in only a few bounds each.
---
“I want you to hand him over!” Noire yelled from the top window of the warehouse. His eyes were fixed on a squad of police officers positioned around a large, bulky automobile. “In exchange for my prisoner!”
The sergeant of the police squad entered the scene, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a thick mustache. Moving to the middle of the pack, he found the corporal, who had led the initial response team.
“Phillips!” he barked in a husky voice. Corporal Phillips whipped around.
“Sergeant Hanks!” he brought his hand to his forehead in a salute.
“What in the hell is going on today of all days?”
“We responded to a call from a tenant in the area, said they heard gunshots from the alley of the--”
“I know that!” It was Sergeant Hanks’ job to keep his subordinates efficient, down to their speech. “What’s the present situation?”
“We’ve apprehended one of the suspects who was reported fighting outside.”
Phillips pointed to the wagon, the back of which was barred off to hold arrestees in. A man with paper-white skin, dressed in fishnet clothing, gazed at them with a face that was stoney, yet somehow leered at the same time.
“Is he dangerous?”
“No, he was unconscious when we got here.”
“Unconscious?”
“There seems to have been an explosion, a gas leak from a downed lamp.”
Sergeant Hanks looked around the street, where pieces of black metal were strewn about.
“We’re negotiating a hostage right now.”
“A hostage?!” Hanks looked to the warehouse, running his eyes up its massive iron walls until he saw a man standing in a window at the top. “Who the… who in the hell is the hostage?”
The words hung on the tip of Corporal Phillips’ tongue. Hanks looked back at him in annoyance.
“Well?” he prompted. “Who is it?”
“It’s,” Phillips laughed nervously. “It’s Gideon Jepta.”
---
The first thing he noticed was the smell. Dusty, old, used, it reminded Gideon of a storage closet in some of the shabbier bases he’d been in.
Gideon Jepta could accept sleep, but only when he said so. If he was knocked unconscious, it was never for very long, just as he now found himself jolted to life by a sudden sense of panic.
“He’s awake.”
The orange light wasn’t too harsh on his eyes, it emanated from an overhead light and caught on particles of dust in the air. Above him, a pale-faced young man and a woman in a black shawl peered down at him.
Gideon kept his lips sealed; adjusting his body in a non-threatening way, he found that his arms, hands, and legs were bound.
“Can I sit up?”
Advent looked to Gruse, who nodded.
“He’s in range,” she assured him. “And the constraints are pretty tight.”
Cautiously, Gideon brought himself up and leaned against the wall.
“This is the same place, I’m assuming?”
“Hm?” Gruse thought the room was pretty nondescript, and figured he shouldn’t have known where he was.
“The explosion couldn’t have knocked me out for more than five minutes, and I spaced your friends so that they’d take more damage than me.”
“Friends?” It was Gruse’s turn to look to Advent, not because she wouldn’t say they were friends, but because it had never occurred to her before.
“Did any one of them die?”
Advent scowled.
“No, neither of them are dead,” he sounded annoyed, his voice more gravelly than usual.
“So what’s your plan?” Gideon remained almost unnaturally cool. “Are you ransoming me or something?”
Gruse looked to the door behind them.
“Hopefully.”
There was a wistful look in her eyes, for a moment, here mind was somewhere else, far away.
“If something happened to one of them…”
Gruse let out a cough, abruptly snapping back to the room.
“Look here,” she was suddenly much more authoritative. “You’re going to hold still here, alright? I don’t care about your war-hero status, if you try anything funny, I’ll obliterate you.”
Something perked up behind Gideon’s eyes, but he made sure it was hidden.
“Obliterate me?” He looked from one to the other. “I don’t see any weapons on you, do you both have Vocations as well?”
Advent and Gruse tilted their heads back in bewilderment.
“How do you know that word?”
Gideon had the upper hand now.
“Today is not the first time I’ve seen one,” he explained coolly.
“And where else did you encounter a Vocation-user?” Gruse pressed him.
“A man named Warren Roseraid.”
“W--” A chill ran down both of their spines. “Warren… Roseraid?” Advent managed to get out.
“I fought him.”
“You-!” Gruse couldn’t believe her ears. “You fought him?!”
Gideon chuckled. “I lost, but I’m still here.”
They watched him for a moment in stunned silence, as if he was going to do something phenomenal once they’d learned this. No, it was more like they were recontextualizing him.
“So,” his voice was almost smarmy. “It doesn’t matter how strong your Vocation is, I think I’ve gotten through the toughest of them.”
Gruse’s eyes tightened.
“You see that table?” She leaned her head to the left, where a table sat in the room.
“Yeah.” Gideon watched closely, he needed to know what he was dealing with.
“When does it stop being a table?” She returned her gaze back to him.
“Huh?”
Without warning, something flew through the air, too fast for him to process, and the table shattered into three pieces.
“Is it still a table?”
---
Noire hadn’t known what else to do.
When the idea popped into his head, it took up all available real-estate. One part of him was too exhausted to think of anything else, and another part of him said that it would be more effort in the long run.
“That’s what I’m doing now, isn’t it?” he thought to himself. “Making things more difficult, because I didn’t want to go by myself.” He let out a sigh. “Mello and Myst have already taken off, anyway. I guess that’s for the best.”
The officers were discussing what to do, swarming around like little blue ants. He’d already made his demands. From here, he was just trying to preserve the lives of his teammates.
An officer came to the front, Noire believed he’d just arrived on the scene a moment ago. He was carrying a megaphone in one hand.
“You want this man in exchange for your hostage?”
“That’s what I said!” he hollered back.
“Is this your friend?”
Noire stopped.
There was a peculiar silence as every squad member had gone quiet, listening to Sergeant Hanks’ negotiation tactics. This was a classic move, something to get the kidnapper to open up to him, to make them easier to talk down.
“I told you what I want!” Noire shrieked. “That’s it!”
Hanks took a deep breath and kept his nerves about him; he’d need to keep trying to get through.
“What’s your name?” he called into the megaphone.
“You heard what I wanted!” Noire shouted back. “I’m not interested in these questions, just give me him, and I’ll give you Jepta!”
“I just need you to know that you don’t have to be doing this. We can supply you with money as an alternative, anything you want!”
Noire imagined his patience as an hourglass, each grain filtering through the small center to pile up at the bottom. The same way some people seemed to make time go by faster, this exchange had accelerated his hourglass quite a bit, until the last grain found its way to the pile. He gritted his teeth and turned to face the scaffolding that led to the hallway.
“Get him out here!”
---
“I guess it’s one table in three pieces.”
Gruse didn’t look amused.
“If you want to play like that, just forget about it, it was just to demonstrate to you.”
Gideon sensed something bubbling inside of him.
“If I’m a hostage, you can’t really kill me until you have a confirmation that you won’t get what you want.”
Gruse, the jailkeeper, had had it with Gideon’s smile, or the little lilt in his voice that not even he seemed to realize was there.
“You probably get a lot of people blowing you up, don’t you?”
“Hm? I don’t know what you mean.” Gideon needed her to reveal her hand. In response, Gruse just turned away and smiled to herself.
“I won’t let him out-talk me,” she thought. “If I turn away assuredly, then I can just bluff my way to winning.”
Advent was ready to burst. He was on the team for the usefulness and versatility of his Vocation, not trained for or accustomed to many of the situations the others would find themselves in on a mission.
“Just who do you think you are?” he asked sharply.
“Me?”
“Yeah!”
“Well, I’m Gideon Jepta.” His answer was markedly short, as if it explained everything else.
“And who is that? You think I know everything about you? I don’t know a thing about you!”
Gideon blinked a few times, not sure if he was serious or not.
“You don’t know anything about me?”
“No.”
“You’ve never heard of me?”
“I’ve heard of you.”
“For what?”
“Nothing, really. You tell me.”
“Is he serious?” Gideon was almost convinced that Advent was lying out of some kind of contrarianism.
“I’m the one who led the regiment that ended ended the Andeidra-Demeena War, for one.”
“You ended it?” Advent scoffed. Gruse looked at him cautiously.
“He isn’t going to say it, is he?” she bit her lip instinctually, as if she could bite his and prevent him from saying any more.
“I was responsible for it, my regiment collapsed advanced into the city and President Perren killed himself in his mansion.”
Advent laughed hysterically.
“You think he killed himself?”
Gideon was taken aback.
“What’s he--?”
“You really think that?”
“Well-- What are you saying?”
Gruse jumped in.
“Advent, I think you’ve said enough--”
“Perren didn’t kill himself,” he was almost hollering at this point. “He was killed!!”
Gideon’s heart stopped.
“W-what?”
“President Perren was killed by our leader,”
“Advent!” she grabbed his shoulder, but it was no use.
“Mello Drameda!”
“Advent!” Gruse shook him, finally breaking his eye-contact with Gideon.
“What?!”
“That’s enough, what do you think you’re doing??”
“I’m just putting him in his place, I’m letting him know the truth, don’t you think everyone deserves that?”
Advent turned his attention back to Gideon.
“Don’t you think you deserve to know that?”
A dark, black, burning sensation smoldered away inside Gideon stomach. He could feel each individual beat of his heart. The burning intensified, and rose to his chest; he became acutely aware of how close it was to his heart, like it would burn it all up.
“That’s not true!” he protested. “Who even are you? Who are you talking about?”
Advent scoffed again.
“He was a government agent, you know? Oh, sorry, I guess you weren’t aware. You don’t seem to know that much about what your government does, if you really thought you were the one responsible for winning the war.”
“But they gave me-- they gave me the feather…” If it weren’t for his restraints, Gideon would have clutched at his heart, the same place above which he wore the Gold Feather, the highest military honor for commanding, the one given to him with the note that read:
“For exceptional service to the country and people of Andeidra, for ending our bitter war.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean.” There was a deep, cascading sadness in his voice.
“Our leader was an assassin hired by your government, right?” Advent enlightened him. “He entered the capital, infiltrated the President’s mansion, and killed him in his study. Afterwards, it looked like a suicide. All of it done on his own; that’s why we rally behind him, and not someone who just walks around assured of his own greatness all the time!”
Gruse had kept silent.
“Advent,” she put her hand on his arm once again, wrapping it around and squeezing tightly. “I think you’ve said enough.”
Abruptly, they heard Noire’s voice from outside.
“Get him out here!”
They both perked up a bit, processing the words for a moment.
“Well, let’s get him up.” Gruse grabbed Gideon’s left shoulder, Advent taking his right. “And remember, if you try anything funny, you’re dead.”
She didn’t anticipate needing to use her Vocation, Gideon was not in a state to argue at the moment.
---
Sergeant Hanks stood stalwart. From behind, an officer approached him and tapped on his shoulder. Without breaking his gaze, he asked what it was for.
“Sergeant, two people have emerged from the alley, one of them looks confused, but they were the source of the gunfire.”
“Are they in custody?”
“No, sir, they know the hostage.”
“Theirs?”
“Yes, they’re friends of Captain Jepta’s. One of them is Professor Blackwell, from the Academy.”
Hanks finally looked at the officer.
“Well, then, bring ‘em up!”
---
Gideon felt hazy as he walked across the scaffolding, so many feet up. It was like walking through heaven, he couldn’t even really feel his steps.
At the end of the scaffolding, Noire turned around to see the three of them approach.
“Noire, what’s your plan right now?” Gruse asked, as he took Gideon by the collar.
“I’m escalating things,” he replied. “You two are free to leave if you want.”
“No way!” Advent sounded practically indignant. “Besides, I have to make sure nothing happens to the files.”
Advent looked to Gruse, wanting her to back him up.
“I’ll be honest, if you want me to, I’ll escape if it gets that bad,” she forewarned him.
“Good,” Noire responded, turning back to the window. “I just wanted to know that you two aren’t burdened by this.”
He leaned Gideon out of the window with himself.
“He’s right here! He’s right here, officer, I’ve got him!”
Sergeant Hanks took a step back, instinctively.
“Alright, sir!” he shouted through the megaphone. “If you hand him over, nothing bad will happen to you! I just need you to make sure he’s safe, okay? There’s no need to do anything rash!”
Noire threw Gideon to the floor of the catwalk.
“Hand him over first!” he hollered.
Hanks could see his wild eyes, even from so far away. He turned halfway and looked at the police van, not letting his face betray his nervousness. Eroh hung behind the bars, looking as calm as ever. Something in his stare was deeply unsettling to Hanks, like staring into the raging sea at the edge of a cliff by the city.
“Can you just give us a moment?” Hanks shouted. “We need to make sure everything is okay with your friend!”
From his place on the floor, Gideon could see out the window, down into the street. His eyes drooped, not out of exhaustion, but apathy. A foggy haze had clouded over his mind, he didn’t know quite what to think. Suddenly, his eye caught something down below, two figures had just joined the crowd of police. He would have known them anywhere.
“Isaiah! Angelique!”
They were safe.
Without warning, as abruptly as a twig snapping, he was reinvigorated with life; his soul was set on fire once again.
“For them!” he thought. “For my friends!”
The large window had several holes cut from its form, the result of years of wear and vandalism. One piece of it was laying beside him, a shard of glass.
With a start, he popped up to his knees, flipping the shard over with his bound hands and grabbing it with his teeth.
“Eh-- what?” Advent and Gruse weren’t prepared for his sudden show of force.
“Victory has never been decided by sheer force or numbers-- it has always gone to the one with the greatest resolve!”
Gideon held his arms up, palms toward him, and, with the shard of glass between his teeth, slashed his wrists open.
Noire shrank back.
“W-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!!”
Without flinching, Gideon spat the glass out, blood streaming down his arms.
“You better get some help fast,” he snarled at Noire. “Or else your hostage is gonna bleed out soon.”
The commotion caught Hanks’ ear, and he threw his attention back up to the window.
“What in the--?” he was barely able to get out the words before a new figure threw aside the man he’d been negotiating with. A young man in a hood shouted down at the observers.
“He’s bleeding! He’ll die soon!!”
“Advent, what are you doing?!” Noire roared. He couldn’t let either of them endanger themselves, not here.
“Did you hear that, Sergeant?” an officer yelled. “Jepta’s wounded!”
It took every shred of strength Hanks could muster not to panic.
“Did you hurt him?” he cried into the megaphone. “Sir, I just need to know if you hurt him?”
Advent ran down the catwalk, Noire extended his hand after him.
“Wait!”
Gruse looked outside; officers were running towards the building, now that they couldn’t see anyone in the window. She cast her eyes down at Gideon. It was only for a moment, but he looked back up at her with a kind of mania in his eyes that she had never seen before, a righteous, almighty madness that threatened to encircle her and drag her in as well.
Noire watched Gruse sprint past him, her shawl flapping in the air. Where she went into the office hallway, Advent descended the stairs.
“No, no, NO!!” Noire couldn’t stay here anymore, he heard the door of the warehouse be thrown open and took off running after Gruse, abandoning Gideon to lay peacefully on his knees, a burning satisfaction in his eyes.
When Noire got to the intersection at the end of the catwalk, he paused and took one look at Advent as he reached the bottom of the stairs to the ground level.
“He needs help!” he yelled at the officers.
Advent was too blinded, blinded by a strange willingness to help his enemy. Noire saw it before he did.
“ADVENT!!!” he screeched, stretching his hand out unconsciously. He felt as if his lungs were going to explode, like his body wasn’t big enough to hold his anger and despair.
Gunshots resounded throughout the warehouse. Only three were needed before Advent fell to the ground. Three pops signalled to Noire what had happened.
“I…” he couldn’t even formulate thoughts. His hands shook, he’d lost control. A torrential amount of fire and shadow swirled together in his heart, gathering and condensing into a hateful sun, all in under a second.
His teeth chattered.
“[MONOPHOBIA]!!!”
The staircase and catwalk, even the walls stretching down the hallway, were frozen solid in an instant.
“AAAAAAAAAGGHHHHH!!!!!”
Noire’s rage was unimaginable. Down the staircase and into the ground level, a hurricane of fire burst from his hands. The three or four officers who had entered the building first were incinerated almost immediately.
On the floor, Advent felt the life seep out of his body.
“Oh… Oh…” he mumbled. His vision grew blurry, all he could feel was the immense heat.
“Is that Noire?
Hm…
Hey…”
On the ground beside him crawled a small cockroach.
“Hey, little guy…
Cockroaches like you can survive in pretty harsh conditions…
I bet you could even survive this fire if you wanted to…
… … …
Alright…
I’ll be gone in a moment, would it be too much to ask for you to stay alive?
I’d just like to know that after I’m here… The bugs can get some use out of me…”
Noire collapsed backwards into the hallway wall. He gasped for air, his face sweating; the fire had burned up a lot of the oxygen near him. When he was finally able to raise his head, he saw Gruse, standing at the end of the hallway, which was itself covered in ice.
“I wonder what you think of me…?” he wondered. “Now that you’ve seen a bit of who I am?”
She ran down the hall and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Her expression was stoic, but kind. Nothing had to be said of what just happened, it wasn’t the time for it.
She helped him as he staggered down the hallway. When they got to the last door on the left, he left her support and leaned against the wall beside it, then stood up straight.
“I’ve got it… In here…” he said in-between heavy breaths.
Gruse pushed open the door. Inside were a few file cabinets and a box, which Noire opened after quickly inputting a number into the lock.
Within it was the mask of Taylor Holmes’ face, kept there to preserve it properly when it wasn’t being worn.
“Good,” Noire managed to get out before closing the box back up again. “You’re safe, but I won’t be able to show my face anymore.”
Gruse nodded, holding back her tears.
At the end of the hall was a small, square-shaped outline, barely noticeable unless one knew it was already there. Pressing her fingers to the right side of the outline, Gruse pried open a hidden doorway, just enough for them to slip out of.
Closing it back up behind them, they descended a spiral staircase to the ground level, where another hidden doorway opened up to the back-alley.
“Hold this.” Noire handed Gruse the box and walked to the chain-link fence. He swiped his fingers over it and melted it in seconds. Gruse walked ahead of him, stopping when she realized he wasn’t in-step with her.
“Noire? Come on!” she urged him. “They’ll be here any second!”
He was a step over the threshold through the gate, his breathing had eased.
“I know,” he replied in a heavy voice. “I just want to remember for a second…”
“What are you talking about?” she was even more urgent now.
“What things were like this morning… I just want to think about it one last time…”
Gruse became quiet. Her jaw quivered, and she shut her eyes, turning around.
“Okay,” her words wavered in the air. “Just don’t forget to step forward.”
In a second, Noire became immensely calm, as if he was in the eye of a storm. With one one last thought cast to memory, he walked through the gate.