The Phenomena of Fireflies and Star... - Chapter 2: Chapter 2

September 21, 2023
Falco City, Neo-Manila
9:08 PM
Neon pink had never looked more dangerous.
In Malign's case, that meant that his telepathy had been elevated to eleven. The wheels that radiated around him glowed in fiery magenta, crackling with pure psionic energy. The same sickening glow glared from his eyes, which looked like otherworldly spotlights against the darkness of the rainy sky and the graying of his skin because of his power use.
He looked like a wraith as he hovered threateningly, glaring at them with relentless defiance.
A dark entity.
A demon.
In Alpha's eyes, the former Dr. Perez was as much a demon as his horrifying appearance suggested. After all, he was notorious for possessing towns and wide-scale psychic assaults.
Tonight, however, they finally had him cornered.
"Stand down, Malign!" Alpha commanded as he flew toward the psychic rogue, stopping at a safe enough distance. The rest of the Enforcement—Battle Cry, Sun Dancer, and Channel—flew in from their own sides, setting up a perimeter around the telepath. "This ends here."
The sound of the rain nearly drowned out their voices, and the constant patters of raindrops on Alpha's skin and his suit were close to irritating him. His golden cape was flapping rather violently, too. His black battle suit was damp and the protective pads—plus the golden energy regulators that resembled the Philippine sun and stars on his torso—added static weight. If he didn't have superhuman strength, the suit would've worn him down by now.
Alpha stayed composed, focused on his adversary. He was in the presence of a decades-old problem, and Malign was never the type to give up so easily, no matter how beaten up he got. Alpha couldn't afford to have Malign slipping away again this time.
"Never!" Malign lashed out, his wheel constructs flaring up, prompting the other Enforcers to assume a combat-ready stance in a blink. The renegade telepath's bass voice had a ghastly sizzle to it. A wispy echo. "Not to lapdogs like you."
"You are severely outnumbered," Alpha declared, keeping his voice loud against the sound of the rain and the obstruction of the wind currents. "Outgunned. You can't hurt us with your powers now."
The addition of special psionic scrambler helmets to their usual gear protected them from Malign's telepathic attacks. If he tried to read their minds, he would get nothing but a harsh white noise. Still, while Malign had grown dependent on his telepathy throughout the years, at the slight expense of his physical strength, he was still the best unarmed combatant among the Severance Seven. Not to mention, the most intelligent. A broken man with a darkened heart and a vast intelligence was a key ingredient for catastrophe. For madness.
"We don't want to have to kill you," Battle Cry added, her booming voice itching to unleash a focused funnel of her supersonic scream. The chrome pink armor padding of her battle suit glistened in the rain. "But we will, if you leave us with no choice."
Alpha took a quick glance at her, understanding her words. He had no issue with putting down superhuman threats whenever the need arose. In fact, they were trained to kill as much as they were trained to protect. Trained to destroy as much as they were trained to preserve. He had trained them too, and he had taught them what they now knew. He'd been operating for decades now, and death was an old acquaintance to him. If he had to, he would bring Malign down for good. He knew he would have to if Malign tried. The telepath was no easy target. Hence, his lordship over the Severance Seven, his own team of dangerous renegades who used their acquired powers to carry out the most elaborate and the most complex crimes.
Alpha simply wished he didn't have to. Killing was a grim ditch to fall into, no matter how used to it he'd gotten. Then again, he could need to, and that need outweighed any sentiment in his line of work. If he were to be honest, however, Malign deserved worse: reclusion perpetua and a ceaseless exposure to his natural weakness. Unfortunately, just like Alpha's, Malign's natural weakness had not yet been found.
"We both face great paths, you and I," Malign resisted, the wheels around him moving and pulsating as he rotated, looking right into their eyes as he spoke. "Both powerful. Gods among men. Monsters to the limited mind."
"And we are not terrorists," Channel responded, his weaponized gauntlets sizzling with energy and aimed at Malign's head. "Unlike you."
"I was talking to you," Malign remarked as he stopped his turn and looked Alpha right in the eyes. The telepath sneered mockingly. "Alpha Phenomenon. Division's only lucky that you've been a very obedient dog, considering how you're just as dangerous as me. Nature's intention."
Alpha didn't like the sound of that one bit.
He was no dog.
'You should've stayed good,' Alpha thought as he charged up the energy boiling inside of him. He willed his eyes to glow in their solar gold radiance, and the regulators on his suit and his cape glowed along, managing his use of energy. He focused the charge on his eyes. If Malign so much as attempted to strike them, a solid glare would laser beam the telepath out of commission. 'You and your crew.'
Down below, police cars and Division agents gathered, waiting patiently for their opportunity to strike.
"You are one wake-up call away from becoming the darkness they're forcing you not to be," Malign continued, scoffing in his speech. "I pity you."
'I didn't like that,' Alpha thought, the words mockingly echoing inside his head. He had fought so hard to be the hero everybody needed and wanted him to be, taking on every pain and every loss in their fullest forces. He had since tamed the darkness that lived within him, and he was proud of that.
"And you have ten seconds," he responded sternly, channeling his displeasure as finely as he could. He wasn't about to let that get into his brain. "Ten seconds. Surrender or be executed."
"Tough one," Malign commented dryly, shaking his head slowly as his eyes glowed even more. "You should thank your helmet."
Alpha nodded to Sun Dancer, who looked more than excited to wipe the sneer out of Malign's face. The young fire manipulator nodded back affirmatively, proceeding immediately to count down from ten.
"Ten."
Malign's gaze drifted toward Sun Dancer, whose indifference to the intimidation display before him was becoming evidently irksome to the telepath.
"Nine. Eight."
"Come on," Malign said, looking toward Alpha again. "Use your goddamn brain!"
"Silence," Alpha responded, clenching his fist and amplifying the energy inside him.
"Seven. Six."
Malign's confidence was starting to wane, and his malicious visage was beginning to show cracks of tension.
"This is a broken world, Alpha," the telepath pushed on, a hint of desperation in his voice. "Filled with broken people. You can't be too naïve, boy scout. You are one misstep away from their pitchforks."
"You could've been a much better man, Doctor Perez," Alpha said. "But you're a weak person."
The neon flames in Malign's eyes were really dulling out now.
"Five. Four."
Malign began looking around him insecurely, and Alpha could recognize the conflict going on in the telepath's head. Malign could try to escape and be dealt with using the hardest tactics. He could fight back and be inevitably beaten down or obliterated.
Or he could give up and lose.
"Three."
The telepath grunted in a visible spike of frustration as he bitterly lingered in the confusion in his mind. If Malign resisted, Alpha would do the right thing. He didn't want to, but he would if that meant saving people. Which it most likely would.
Malign was seeing that, too.
Regret was starting to register in his face, spreading out quickly.
"Two."
Alpha prepared himself to unleash a focused beam through his eyes.
'This is a mercy,' he thought, aiming for Malign's chest. 'I'd much rather you rot in a prison of your personal hell.'
'But if this will do tonight, then this will do.'
"One."
Alpha took a deep breath, preparing to fire. The other Enforcers sprang into action as well.
"I give up!" Malign shouted, breaths breaking out to heavy exhausts as he looked around him with a face of utter disappointment and frustration. His energy emission dimmed out, leaving behind smoky tendrils. The graying of his skin reverted to normal, just like his eyes.
Alpha paused, keeping his eyes latched onto the telepath, who could be planning a turn of tables. He would never shun that possibility when it came to Malign.
"Fucking dammit, I give up!" Malign insisted, his voice desperate. His insecurity in his actions seemed convincing, however, and so was his eventual lifting of his hands in surrender. "I give up. I give up."
Alpha didn't want to give it the benefit of the doubt, but he allowed his empathy to receive Malign's pulsations. For the sake of a clear conscience only. If Malign was planning something, Alpha would know.
'Interesting,' Alpha couldn't help but comment at his empathic read. He had his biases, but he had to be fair. He had a law to uphold. 'Malign's serious.'
Malign was barely focusing on Alpha, glancing alternately at the Enforcers that boxed him in.
"I give up, I swear...," he repeated, trying to manage his rather heavy breaths. "I swear."
Alpha noticed the Enforcers looking at him for confirmation. He had no choice but to do as the law required, as prepared as he was to finish Malign right then and there.
He put his attention back on the psychic renegade, whose hands remained up in the air.
"Arrest," Alpha declared, letting out a heavy breath. He forced the buildup of energy inside of him to go down to a reasonable level. He kept it active still, just enough to defend himself if things turned awry all of a sudden. "It'll be arrest."
From a camouflaged pouch at the spine of his suit, he pulled out the e-cuffs. The standard-issue handcuffs with unique built-in syringes were programmed to administer the power suppressant formula the moment they locked.
"I am not required to read you your Miranda Rights," Alpha said to Malign as he floated forward, brandishing the e-cuffs. He stayed vigilant as he floated around Malign and positioned himself behind the super-terrorist.
"Just get it over with," Malign sputtered bitterly.
"You're dealt with this time," Alpha replied, reaching up to grab Malign's raised wrist.
A puffing sound popped the moment he grabbed Malign, causing him to look up.
'What is that?' he froze, a spike of alarm inside of him as he recognized the green smoke that had puffed off of the telepath's wrist. He knew of one member of the Severance Seven who emitted that type of gas. A hallucinogenic gas.
He followed the smoke as the puffing continued downward quickly and deactivated the illusion bit by bit, finding himself staring in a stupid suspension of instinct at someone else's back. Not Malign's. A green-haired woman's back.
They'd all been hallucinating Malign this whole time.
The surprised gasps of the other Enforcers snapped Alpha back to alertness from the aftershock of the hallucination.
'It's a trap!'
"Emerald!" Alpha shouted out, unable to shield himself the moment Emerald squirmed off of his grip and kicked him right in the chest.
"Gah!" he spat out in reflex in the sudden sting of pain in his rib. The force pushed him off meters away, and he rushed to regain composure.
The e-cuffs had fallen off his hand.
'Dammit!' he thought, still trying to fight against the lingering force of Emerald's strong kick. He saw her proceeding to deal with the other Enforcers, taking them on in a vicious exchange of blows. Emerald's skills were very evident in the ongoing fight.
Alpha finally managed to regain composure, preparing to lunge forward.
A quiet gasp escaped his lips at the feeling of his helmet being aggressively pulled off of his head by somebody behind him.
"Ha!" he shouted, shoving his elbow to whoever was behind him. To his alarm, his elbow got caught in the firm grip of a hand.
"Hello, Alpha," Malign's ghastly voice spoke from behind Alpha, just before he felt a full hand plant down hard on the top of his skull.
"No!" Alpha shouted in resistance at the sudden burst of heat inside his head. The heat was worsening by the semi-second, followed by very sharp pain. His grunts were almost involuntary, brought about by the loud and blindingly painful throbbing in his head. The throbbing came from what felt like wires. Malign's fingers. "Ackh..."
He wanted to ask for help, but he could only choke as he felt his limbs harden and freeze. He could only watch voicelessly as Emerald jumped from one Enforcer to another, attacking and retaliating with strikes expertly.
Succeeding in removing their helmets, too.
"You didn't really think that I would give up so quickly, right?" Malign taunted, leaning over to the side of Alpha's face. In his periphery, Alpha could see the haunting silhouette of the real Malign coming into view, but all he could really see was a dark figure with a pair of magenta eyes emanating the unnatural heat of psionic energy. "I mean, it's not like you haven't been dealing with me for decades now. That would be so inexperienced of you."
He wanted to move. Squirm away. He couldn't.
The telepath was already inside his system, suspending him high up in the air in a mute struggle to win.
"But you're not inexperienced," Malign's words felt closer this time. More intimate. Like vibrations going directly into Alpha's ear. "You're very, very powerful."
The worsening heat inside Alpha began to synchronize with his own. He could feel its throbs accompanying the flux of his own energy, mimicking it.
Until it was leading the beat.
His hand shot up, aiming forward outside of his control. He tried to break free, tried to move out of the psychic's control over him.
There was nothing.
His body wouldn't cooperate.
His hand began to glow, and it was aimed right at his teammates. At Channel. Emerald was dealing with the other Enforcers relentlessly.
"Show them...," Malign whispered. "Show them how strong you are, Alpha."
'No!' The voice in Alpha's head that he knew was his own was screaming as hard as it could, but Malign's influence had already established dominance. 'No! Don't do this! Please!'
'No!'
Alpha felt his energy being redirected into his hand in a matter of seconds. He watched helplessly as the glow of his hand grew thicker and thicker, almost like a golden sun taking form.
"Show them...," one last whisper.
The energy buildup inside him blasted out of his hand, compressing immediately into a thick pillar of light and force strong enough to punch a perfect funnel through a cube of titanium the size of a house.
He watched in horror as the beam smashed right onto Channel's chest, burying the look of pain on his friend's face in a bath of light. Emerald jumped away in time as Channel's energy absorption and redirection powers activated, manifesting through his arms and blindly channeling the energy out to Battle Cry and Sun Dancer.
'Goddammit, no!' Alpha kept pushing in his mind, his desperation growing exponentially. Battle Cry and Sun Dancer were hit pretty badly, and he watched as they descended to the earth below.
Channel's pain, despite the defensive and counteractive nature of his powers, was at an excruciating level. His struggle was worsening with each second.
'Channel!' Alpha called out in his mind, trapped in his petrified state. 'Come on, man! You can handle it! Handle it! Handle it!'
"Let's see how much power your protégé can handle," Malign hissed. "Light him up."
'Light him up...,' Alpha realized something. It came up at the back of his mind, ringing just loud enough for him to hear.
'I can turn into light,' he remembered. 'All of me. Light.'
'Living light.'
He tried pushing against the influence again, much harder than he had ever done before.
Much harder. Until it felt like his brain would split.
'You want light?' Alpha resisted. 'I'll show you a light you can't control.'
His choke turned into a long grunt, and with more resistance, he began to scream.
'Living light.'
His scream of defiance caught Malign off-guard, and at once, he felt a burst of energy from inside him. An inner supernova of light and energy. He felt that click inside his brain like a switch being flipped, and before he knew it, he felt all of his power pouring through every pore of his body and his suit until he felt weightless.
Until he was light.
Sentient, but too bright and too molecularly intangible for even Malign.
He broke free from the telepath's strong psychic hostage, and the laser beacon that had struck Channel blinked out, leaving behind a strong smoky odor.
'Now, you can't control me.'
He threw himself back, feeling his atoms adjusting to the finest obstacles as he phased through Malign's body. He could feel the telepath's energy as he phased through. It was so potent that it was almost liquid.
Making it behind the disoriented Malign, Alpha willed himself to return to his normal physical state as authoritatively as he could.
He did. In no more than a second.
"Got you now," he was the one whispering this time. Malign didn't even have time to react.
Solidifying completely, Alpha swung his fist hard onto the telepath's head. The impact sent Malign crashing down to the ground below, his psionic glow flickering as he descended.
Alpha hurried toward Channel, hoping to come to his friend's aid.
What he saw before him made him stop in his flight.
Channel's posture was strong as he hovered in the distance, the light that had smashed onto him now reflecting on his skin and his suit, seeping into his pores, and flowing into his nerves.
Becoming his own.
Emerald floated behind Channel, hands on his head as the green smoke of her hallucinogenic gas floated into his nostrils.
'Oh no,' Alpha realized, witnessing the intensifying glow of Channel's eyes.
"You are looking at Malign right now...," Emerald spoke right into Channel's ear, her eyes mockingly aimed at Alpha. "Go ahead. Avenge your leader."
"Channel, no!" Alpha lunged forward, aiming for Emerald. In the distance, he could see Battle Cry and Sun Dancer flying back in for a surprise retaliation on her.
As for Alpha, it took him less than a second to know he wouldn't close the gap.
A powerful flash of light burst from Channel's chest.
'Ah, fu--,' Alpha couldn't finish his thought as a powerful laser beacon smashed onto him with an unbridled force.
A mere intake of breath was all he could manage before the light engulfed him completely.
The darkness that had come after the light was all that remained.
For a while, that was all there was.
"I've been a soldier all my life...," a familiar voice drifted in from the darkness. It was comforting to hear, but it echoed eerily. Still, it wasn't all too bad. Alpha recognized it all too well. "This 'family of soldiers' tradition. I don't want it to be our family's story."
"What are you saying, Papa?" he heard his own voice follow.
"What do you want to be when you grow up, Anak?" his father's voice asked. "Because I don't want to be the one who tells you the answer."
"Hmm, a teacher?"
"A teacher, huh?"
"Yes."
Light began to break through the darkness ever so faintly, and Alpha could feel raindrops popping on his skin. Underneath his back was a cold wetness, and around him was a sharply chilling breeze.
"That is a different kind of heroism, but it's heroism all the same."
'Papa,' he thought nostalgically, realizing he had just dreamt of his father again after a long time.
When his eyes opened fully, his vision danced around at first. It took him a while to process what was going on and where he was. He could feel his energy sparking back up, but slowly. It was slower than it normally was. He tried to move, and he heard a series of crunches underneath him. It dawned on him that he had landed on a street.
He grunted as he forced himself to sit up. His strength was slowly creeping back up to normal. Slowly. Very slowly. He could feel it pulsing through his veins, but it wasn't as strong as it normally was. Looking around him, he couldn't make out his location. There were only trees and dim street lights located far apart from each other.
"W-Where am I?!" he groaned hoarsely as he helped himself up to his feet. He had made quite a crater around him. It was about two feet deep.
'We're gonna' get pressed for that,' he thought. 'Public Relations is gonna' be ticked off.'
'Really. Where the hell am I?' he wondered as he searched for any signage that could help. He couldn't find any. The rain wasn't helping, either.
He could see the silhouette of one signage, though. It was rather far.
"I need to tell the others that I'm still up," he whispered to himself. Regaining better frame of mind, he looked down at his e-bracelet.
It was broken.
They wouldn't be able to track him.
"Ah, crap," he cussed, tapping on the screen of his only link with the others. It blinked only momentarily before it burst. "Just great."
'The signage,' he realized. 'That's a good place to start.'
Eyes on the silhouette in the distance, he floated quickly toward it. He floated so fast, the beads of rain on his skin slithered backwards. It was a bit of a jumpstart, however, and Alpha couldn't shake off the feeling that he'd been weakened. The mere use of his flight was taking quite a lot of his energy. Quite a lot.
It really was a signage. Reaching its location, Alpha was glad to find its lettering clear. It took a while, however, before his vision steadied. He held on to the sides of the signage to stop his sway.
"Gonzales University of Arts and Sciences," he read. "Fifteen kilometers back."
"South Dama De Noche District. You are here."
'Damn!' he thought, looking behind him. 'I got thrown off far.'
A strange vibrating sound crackled in the night sky. Alpha looked up, staring at his comrades as they flew above. They seemed well.
'Is the fight over? Did we win?'
Alpha's first instinct was to fly up and accompany them. However, something was holding him back. Something aside from the fact that he couldn't fly without draining himself. It was holding him back really strongly.
'It must've been the dream,' he thought. 'Why now? Why revisit me this time, Papa?'
The question went on and on in his head, and it danced around the thought that was telling him to at least try to join the others in their flight. It was beginning to wear him down. He had to be up there.
But for some reason, Alpha didn't want to. Even if he could. This wasn't a new taunting thought, but it had never been stronger.
'They can't find me now...,' Alpha thought to himself, still trailing his team members with his eyes as they flew away.
The Enforcers flew with the familiar calm of a crisis averted. They didn't seem to be in any rush or panic. They didn't seem to be retreating, either.
'They can't find me now,' Alpha thought to himself again. 'Right?'