The Phenomena of Fireflies and Star... - Chapter 30: Chapter 30

"Hraaah!"
Max pushed Current all the way through the glass walls of the cylinder. The loud breaking of the walls was very satisfying to hear.
'I'm going to finish you here,' Max thought as the glass fragments broke upon impact on his skin. Current tried to claw at him, to no avail.
"Ha!" Max shouted as he shoved Current to the curved wall of the dome. The super-terrorist gasped at the impact, but his head snapped back into full alertness.
Max flew downward, dragging Current through the air and using him as a shield to break through the floors. The obstacles exploded like mines as Max pushed Current through them, blasting a hole through each floor until they crashed to the first. The tiles around them cracked and broke in the shock wave of their impact.
"Augh," Max uttered at the force of pinning Current down, swiftly charging up his fists and pummeling the rogue superhuman's chest. He shoved his fists down again and again, alternating, energized by the sight of Current's pained face.
Max had been keeping a connection with the visible light coming from the variant shards since their arrival, absorbing and releasing freely. As leisurely and passive as sunbathing, in a way. Almost. Neither detrimental to nor costly for his light-bending powers at all. Just in case. But merely seconds before Current had exploded earlier, Max had made sure to keep the absorbed light in. Quite an effort in such a minuscule amount of time, but a necessary one. The additional helping of electromagnetic radiation from the shards mixing with his own had given him enough power to assume his black form. A stronger form. More durable. Heated up by the absorbed light. From the shards, no less. Electromagnetic radiation of otherworldly nature and power. But at a measured amount only. A harmless amount. Still, he had absorbed enough. He could get back to absorbing later on, when he would need to again.
His new form may neither effectively counteract nor negate Current's energy, but Max could use the added protection. The black form should be strong enough to withstand Current's strength.
Max raised his fist one more time, charging up more power than before.
"This is the end for you," Max declared. Current glared back at him, frustrated at the defeat.
Max sent his fist down to Current's face, using up more strength than he'd ever had to.
His punch broke through the surface of the floor explosively. A ripple of darkness blasted out and expanded from beneath his fist, shattering the broken tiles and causing the ground to shake.
"Huh?!" Max realized in alarm.
'I missed!'
When the darkness cleared beneath him, Current was gone.
"My turn, bitch!" a thunderous shout behind him. Max braced himself upon feeling strong hands grabbing the back of his clothes. "Ha!"
He felt himself breaking through the air uncontrollably at an upward angle, disoriented by the throw.
"Ugfh!" he grunted, crashing through the glass wall of the cylinder and scraping against another surface. The impact and the friction sounded different. The flash of light in his vision registered in him alarmingly as the light coming from the pod of shards. Before he could think further, he crashed onto another wall of glass. The cylinder wall. He was right about the cylinder wall being made of bulletproof glass. It hadn't collapsed yet despite its holes and cracks. He wasn't quite sure about the glass walls of the observation rooms, though.
With a strong locking motion, he regained composure from the impact.
"Here I come, you son of a bitch!" Current hollered. Max braced himself as the super-terrorist approached, flying toward him like a blue cannonball.
'Malign could still be here somewhere,' Ames kept in mind, going up the next flight of stairs with the rifle leading the way. 'Like in Gonzales.'
Explosions continued in the distance, rocking the dome with powerful reverberations and tremors. Dust popped off the surfaces as cracks formed on them, bursting into existence with every audible impact.
He reached the second floor, coming out to the corridor. He kept the rifle trained forward as he scanned the surroundings. The situation was bad: furniture toppled over, columns and surfaces cracked at alarming levels of damage, and shattered glass on the floor. Everything was getting worse by the second, too. His every step had a crunch to it, likely because of the cement fragments on the floor, plus some glass shards.
Ames looked around, hoping to find Mortez somewhere. The wounded specialist hadn't made it downstairs. Mortez was a valuable asset to the Diameter and to Wang. That meant that he could know something that could help. Beyond that, he was no more than a victim of the elaborate twist of the reality they lived in. The same twist he had chosen to believe in.
'This should've changed his mind by now,' Ames thought.
A loud explosion of cement and metal stunned Ames, forcing him to hop back in surprise.
It was Current hitting the wall below the railing of the corridor. His body was shielded by the floor, but his head was an available target.
"Hrr!" a growl escaped Ames's lips as he regained composure, aiming right at the back of Current's head. He pulled the trigger.
"BLAM!"
The fireball of the gunshot dissipated, revealing an empty space, Current flying off to clash with Max again, and a goddamn miss.
"Goddammit," Ames complained, proceeding to run in his search instead, starting off on the path to his right. It led to the second-floor observation room, but Mortez could've hidden himself there. It's a good place to start. Ames ran forward as explosive impacts and collisions of figures continued in the background.
'Focus,' he said to himself. 'Fast and alert. You're not following his lead now. At least, don't be a liability.'
"I've never seen you before," Current's voice echoed loudly, resonating all over the dome as he flew opposite Max. They'd been maintaining a circular flight path, observing each other and exchanging attacks. Measuring each other's calibers. It felt a bit like a downtime, actually. Max needed it. He wasn't as solid as he used to be. "Matter of fact, I don't even know who the hell those guys are. Except for the screaming bitch and that dancing candle."
"Just not a big fan," Max responded, keeping up with the movement and lobbing a black orb of concussive force from his aura toward Current. The super-terrorist countered the attack with a blue orb of electricity, causing an explosive clash of constructs.
"Oh?" Current's voice was mocking, close to laughing. He swung his arm upward, unleashing a curving streak of electricity toward Max. "Join the club!"
"No thanks," Max blocked the electric streak with a shield of his black aura before using his free hand to unleash a beam of darkness.
"Too bad," Current replied, crafting an electric shield and blocking the black beam. "But there's something about you that's very, very familiar."
With that, Max charged forward, smacking Current in the chest as hard as he could.
"Argh!" the super-terrorist gasped, trying to retaliate. "You cheat!"
"You kill," Max replied as he locked Current's head in his arm. He dragged Current into a swing through the air and threw him into the third-floor observation room. The rogue superhuman smashed through its metal wall, breaking through it. "You deserve worse. Ha!"
With a charged punching action, Max unleashed another beam of black aura, shooting through the large hole in the observation room's metal wall and hitting Current's chest. The super-terrorist was immediately reduced to a screaming, suffering mess upon impact.
"I'm going to bring your head to your mastermind," Max declared, amplifying the strength of his beam. "And then I'll collect his, too."
Ames stopped just outside the door of the second-floor observation room. There was neither a bloody handprint nor any telltale sign that someone had made it inside the room.
Nothing at all.
'Just where are you, Mortez?'
He checked the screen of the ID scanner, not finding anything that could allow him to enter.
"W-Who...," a struggling voice called out from behind Ames, triggering his instincts. He turned around quickly, rifle out and aimed at the ready. He couldn't see anything but mess. "Help..."
"Help..."
Ames eventually found where the voice was coming from and whose it was.
"Oh crap...," Ames exhaled in relief upon finding Mortez down on the floor, hiding behind a couch that had been toppled down. The injured specialist, whose face was now obscured by dust and blood, tried to call out to him again, hand outstretched and reaching out for him. Ames ran over to Mortez and knelt beside him. "How the hell did you end up here?"
"What?" Mortez stared at Ames hard, blinking through the blood that had slithered into his eye from a cut. "Professor Andrade?"
'You're exposing yourself now,' Ames thought to himself, shaking his head in the full realization of what he was doing. 'This isn't part of the plan, you idiot!'
"What are you doing here?" Mortez demanded.
"I'm saving your ass from your hubris," Ames replied, setting aside the rifle and using his phone light to see if Mortez was stuck on something. The bloody glass shard beside Mortez suggested that he had pulled it out. The sight of the puddle of blood on the floor coming from the specialist's side tugged hard on Ames's heart. He didn't even like this guy, but this wasn't a good way to go. "Now we're all fucked."
And Ames never wanted him, or any person, to die.
"It's too late," Mortez croaked, coughing out blood.
"I need to tip you over and patch up your wound, okay?" Ames told him. "Don't fall asleep on me. You hear me? Stay awake."
"Don't...," Mortez resisted, grunting in pain as he grabbed Ames's wrist with his hand. Through the faint illumination of the phone light, Ames could see the tears leaking out of Mortez's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"I couldn't let you make this get worse," Ames replied, resisting the choking feeling in his throat. He didn't like watching people die. Whoever they were. Unless they were a Seven. "That's why I came here. I saw something you couldn't. If this project, or whatever this is, pushes through, it won't be good for any of us. It's already terrible now, and you've barely started."
"I see it...," Mortez sputtered, face twisted in agony and regret. His sobs were guttural, almost delirious. "The guard got struck by an energy blast. He... He pushed me away. I took his gun. To protect myself. From Current. The guard... He's burnt. He's burnt, he's burnt, he's burnt..."
"Hey," Ames placed a consoling hand on Mortez's face. Ames remembered the young NAI he'd witnessed being electrocuted to death, and how the situation almost paralleled that was becoming too much. It already was. It had gotten worse. He felt his tears flowing down his face as he looked into the dying specialist's eyes. "Not your fault. And we need to get out of here. We need you. You've got to know something that can stop this. Please. I need to, uh... I need to turn you around and get you fixed up."
"Never mind that," Mortez gripped Ames's wrist even tighter, pulling him close so they were eye to eye. "Emergency Entry. One-Five-Two-One. In there. That observation room. Red button underneath the central work desk."
"What?" Ames was trying to make sense of Mortez's faltering speech.
"Kill switch," Mortez hissed, blood leaking between his teeth. "Connected to a remote power source. Connected to Division itself. It'll work. It... It'll destroy the shards. D-do it."
'A kill switch,' Ames processed, nodding compliantly. 'To destroy the shards. That doesn't end everything. But that should stop all of this from getting worse.'
"A few days ago, I just thought you were fucking crazy," Mortez managed, letting go of Ames. "And then stupidly ballsy. But I get you now. Do the right thing. We couldn't. You can."
In a span of a second, Ames saw the gloss of life in Mortez's eyes fade away, leaving them wide open and devoid of direction.
"I'm sorry, too," Ames whispered, wiping the tears from his face with the back of his hand before gently closing Mortez's lifeless eyes. "Alright. Alright, alright."
Ames was shaking as he stood up. He hated it. He hated how pathetic it felt.
But he persevered, his breathing slightly trembling.
"Screw it," he said to himself, picking up the rifle from the floor. "One-five-two-one."
A loud blast from above sounding like a grenade blowing up on metal shook the dome a little. Ames almost froze at the sound. It was so close.
But he had to move.
And quickly.
"Ha!" Max's distant shout followed the sound of the blast. Ames turned to where the noise had come from. Through the holes in the cylinder, he saw Max up in the air, unleashing a beam of darkness onto what would most probably be the third-floor observation room. Most likely on Current.
"No...," Ames uttered, realizing the additional risk. He had to hurry.
Max charged through the air, through the hole in the wall, and right onto Current, proceeding to smash him repeatedly with fists coated with black aura.
Current's cries of pain were growing worse and worse, and Max knew that he couldn't afford to stop. Not now. Current's pain was only temporary, and all he needed to do was teleport and reform to be fully recharged and healed all over again. Max just had to keep Current at bay long enough for Ames to do whatever he was planning.
Unfortunately, Max had already lost track. He hadn't expected things to be this bad. He no longer knew what Ames could be planning. All he knew was that Ames was making a move. He had to trust that. Unfortunately, Current had already overcome his natural weakness, making him even harder to kill now than before. Max's black form was, at least, allowing him to maintain an equilibrium. Current wasn't the most creative superhuman when it came to his abilities, but his powers were basically cheating, and Max terribly needed to keep up.
"Where's Malign?!" Max demanded, clasping Current's head with his charged hands. "Where?! Tell me where! Or this will pop!"
Current's guttural screams were satisfying, but Max needed answers. Malign was still more dangerous. He always had been. As powerful as Current had gotten, he was still just a lackey.
"Where?!" Max repeated, adding more pressure.
And pathokinesis.
"You're gonna' wanna' tell me real bad what I wanna' know," Max taunted, using his pathokinesis to make Current feel massive amounts of pain.
"Hnnnnrrraaah!" Current's screams of agony worsened, and his inability to teleport only continued to aggravate his situation. "I-I killed him!"
'What?!' the words came to Max like a cold sea wave from nowhere. His powers faltered a bit as his mind processed the shock. 'Killed him?!'
"Liar!" Max bellowed, refueling his grip on Current's head with his black aura. "Where is he?!"
"I'm telling the truth!" Current shouted back, grabbing Max's hands and, strangely, pushing them harder against his own head. "Attack me all you want! I killed him!"
'He's not lying,' Max realized after pausing his pain inducement and feeling the pulsations of Current's pain and also his honesty. The honesty was undeniable. The super-terrorist was remembering what he had done with the murkiest heart. It was hard to look through the obscurity of how Current felt about it, but Max knew it was true.
"Why?!" Max pushed on, reactivating his pain inducement. "Why?!"
"He ruined everything!" Current's words struggled through his screams.
Max didn't know how to deal with the information. He floated off of Current, proceeding immediately to sweep the super-terrorist off the floor using black aura and lock him onto the wall at the end of the room with it. Max tightened his grip on the rogue superhuman. He deactivated his pain inducement but continued with using his pathokinesis to keep Current honest. Max wasn't going to let Current go. Not a chance.
"Malign?!" Current spat out, coughing harshly. "He couldn't lead us for shit."
"So you killed him?" Max asked, walking slowly toward his captive.
"Him...," a grim smile formed on Current's face as he stared at Max. "And all of The Legion. I baked them beyond satisfaction. Useless weights. That power in your fucking pod. I want it all."
"You're on your way to joining your friends," Max remarked, managing his own smile. This definitely wasn't what he had expected, but he wasn't giving up. "No heaven for someone like you."
Current's eyes squinted at Max in response.
After a while, Current's grim smile grew wider.
And then he was laughing.
A boisterous laugh of realization. His laughter was so loud that he almost choked on his coughs at the end of it.
"I knew you couldn't be dead," Current scoffed, his grin malicious and knowing. It was another cold and sucker punching wave of a sentence to Max, triggering a skip in his heartbeat and trapping him in a moment of breathlessness that felt like a minute. "I knew I recognized your energy signature from somewhere. Your fighting style. The pulsations of your pathokinesis. They make sense. Right, Alpha?"
Max had to think of something quickly.
He thought of a good enough name.
"I am Signos," Max snarled, tightening his grip on Current with his aura even more. "That's the last name you're ever gonna' hear."
"Liar," Current hissed. "I've been reading you for a while now. Letting you hit me. Whatever color. Whatever light trick. Your powers? Work the same."
'What?' Max thought in alarm. 'Letting me hit him?'
There came a flash of blue...
And Current was gone.
"No!" Max lashed out, disoriented in confusion as to how he'd been played.
Another flash of blue stunned Max's vision, and before he knew it, hands were on him.
Current moved swiftly.
Max was off his feet in an instant, pushed down headfirst onto the floor.
The sound of the door sliding open was an incredible relief for Ames.
'Central work desk, red button,' he chanted in his head as he hurried into the empty and dimly lit observation room. 'Kill switch.'
'Thank you, Dr. Mortez.'
Ames proceeded to the central work desk, which looked the same as the one in the third-floor observation room, heading straight to looking for the red button. The desk, however, didn't have any red button underneath it.
Loud blows started above him, each percussion sound coming with a shake. With every shake, a crack.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Ames chanted in frustration, feeling the racing beating of his heart at the threat waiting to explode above him. "How can a goddamn red button be so hard to find?!"
The desk didn't even seem to be hiding a secret compartment.
He'd done about two scans around the desk by now.
Ames's frustration grew at the sight of the base of the desk's trunk being welded onto the platform by its metal corners, which framed its hard wood surfaces, on three of its four sides.
'Welded on three sides only,' Ames realized, shoving the work chair aside. The side that faced whoever sat down to work on the computer was the unwelded side. 'Talk about subtlety.'
He knelt down on the platform, setting his rifle down and proceeding to feel the lowermost spot of the unwelded side of the desk's narrow trunk. There was no secret door or anything. No secret doorknob.
He had an idea in mind, something he had conjured on a whim. Then again, with the ceiling threatening to burst open any second. Any idea was good.
He knocked on the surface of the spot.
'Hollow wood,' he realized. 'It's here.'
He knocked upward, hearing the differences of the sounds as he knocked higher. The lowermost spot was definitely hollow inside. Breakable. A different wood from the rest of the trunk, but camouflaged. He clenched his fist hard and shoved it into the hollow spot. The crack was immediate and easy. His knuckles stung only a little bit. He punched the spot again, breaking all the way through.
"Gotcha'...," he whispered, grimacing as he pulled the broken pieces of wood off of their attachments to fully uncover the secret compartment.
A loud explosion of impact erupted from above, and a much larger crack began to form on the ceiling. Ames stared at it in alarm.
'I have to focus! I have no time!'
He looked at the open compartment again.
There it was.
"The red button," he gasped as he stared at it in momentary disbelief.
'Time to knock these lights out.'
"Adios," Ames declared, pushing the red button down and staring at the glowing pod through the glass wall before him.
Nothing.
He pushed the button down again.
And again and again.
He waited a few more seconds for anything that could tell him that he had succeeded.
No sound.
No puff.
Nothing.
The illumination of the segregated shards in the pod remained, brilliant as ever.
"What?" he quivered, immediately wondering if Mortez had lied to him. "Did he..."
A thunderous sound blew down from the ceiling as it burst, making Ames scream as he dived back and out of the way.
The sound of heavy objects falling from above and crashing onto the floor bounced around the room frighteningly, accompanied by the sound of dust puffing out.
Ames tried to see what had fallen, seeing first the gaping hole in the ceiling before lowering his gaze and finding Max and Current on top of cement rubble. They both looked hurt, but Current was on top of Max, domineering and ready to get back into battle.
"Let him go!" Ames shouted out, forcing himself up on his feet. Current looked up at him, eyes glowing in blue.
Ames glared back.
"I said, let him go," he repeated.
"Arrogant prick!" Current yelled, rearing up to lunge at him.
"No!" Max cried out, forcefully grabbing Current and pulling him down. "Hrah!"
A thick beam of darkness burst out from Max's hands, shoving Current through the workstations and then through the wall to the left, breaking it down. The beam went on for a bit longer, its screeching sound accompanied by Max's shout until it was finally gone.
Ames hurried to Max's side.
Max's color was returning to normal, revealing the state of his skin.
"Oh no, no, no," Ames rattled as he saw the cuts on Max's face. They were fresh, and they bled. He could see them healing, but they were healing rather slowly. Very slowly, actually. As conscious as Max was, he'd clearly gotten weaker. "I almost had it. I almost had it. I almost destroyed it. Can you move? A-Are you recovering?"
"Taking...," Max grunted, grimacing as he tried to sit up. He couldn't. He slumped back onto the debris, trying to catch his breath. Ames's heart was breaking off chunk by chunk at the sight of Max in the state he was in. "A lot longer than usual..."
"I tried," Ames sputtered out, breaking into sobs as his failure dawned on him. The button didn't work. He didn't know why. He didn't know anything anymore. He rested his head on Max's chest, wanting more than ever to just disappear. "I failed. I failed again. And now you're hurt."
"Hey, hey, hey," Max said, patting Ames's back. "We're here. We're here. Together."
"I don't know anymore..."
"We haven't failed yet."
"Is that what I think it is?!" Current's voice disturbed the silence of the dome. Ames's blood boiled upon recognizing it, his sobs stopping almost instantaneously. In his periphery, he could see the super-terrorist approaching slowly from the distance. Current's electricity zapped any nearby conductor in the corridor. His steps were slow. Mocking. "A kill switch?!"
'Did he--,' Ames sprang up to his feet, glaring at Current, who was taking his time and enjoying his display of power. 'Son of a bitch.'
With a heavy breath, Ames removed his face mask and threw it away, baring his face for Current to fully see. For some reason, Ames was drawn to his faint reflection on the glass wall. He could see his own face, but there was one heartbreaking difference in the reflection looking back at him: wrath. From deep within his heart, he knew he had never looked more furious. And devoid of hope.
"What? You think I wouldn't know?!" Current hollered, a trace of laughter entailing his taunt. His voice echoed as much as it sizzled. Ames redirected his eyes toward Current. "I've been doing my own recon back and forth. Oh, and in case you don't know, I used to be an Enforcer. Wasn't exactly popular. I don't give a rat's ass."
Ames spotted the rifle by the work desk. He went for it and picked it up, his jaw tightening in bottled rage as he took aim at Current. He positioned the dot right on Current's forehead.
'If I'm going down today,' Ames thought vindictively. 'I'm taking you with me.'
"Ames, no...," Max called out, coughing harshly out of his words.
"I know how these people think," Current went on with his little speech, his head becoming a much bigger target as he approached. "Busted their little kill switch trick real good, didn't I? Humans. A failure of a species. I knocked the new Alpha out cold, too. Nobody in Division got wind of a single whimper. What's his name? Ah, Channel. A failure of a hero."
Ames pulled the trigger. He pulled it again and again.
The loud shots...
The fireballs...
He pulled the trigger repeatedly, keeping his aim steady.
The bullets merely bounced off of Current's face, his cuts healing in an instant. He barely even flinched.
Ames pulled the trigger one more time, left with no more than an empty click.
"You can't hurt me, child," Current declared, walking closer to the observation room.
"Useless," Ames complained, throwing the rifle aside and reaching behind him for something he'd taken from Mortez earlier. He pulled out the Starling9 handgun from underneath his sweater, turning the safety off and cocking it in one motion. He quickly lined the sights at the center of Current's head, pulling the trigger repeatedly, shots popping off in small fireballs.
This time, Current hurried forward.
The bullets still didn't work. Logically.
But Ames held his ground.
He had no more hesitation left inside of him.
He was done.
But he had to be done the way he chose to be done: as someone who fought for what was good.
"Ames, no!" Max cried out as Current closed the distance.
Ames uttered nothing the moment Current mockingly pressed his head against the end of the gun's barrel, asking to be shot one last time. There was no gasp. There wasn't a single word.
There was, however, one bullet left in the fifteen-round magazine.
"For a human, you're actually entertaining," Current said calmly, the smile on his face a measured weapon of intimidation. Ames found it unimpressive. He felt nothing for it.
He pulled the trigger one last time, watching as the bullet did nothing for his case.
Current barely even flinched.
"No!" Max cried out, but his voice was drowned out by the painful coughing that followed.
Max desperately wanted to move. He wanted to get up and fly Ames out of here.
But he couldn't.
His last aura blast had really cost him his energy, his strength, and any access to his second-exposure powers.
Storing more absorbed visible light from the shards was consequently out of the question, too. Besides, even if he could store more visible light from them, he currently didn't have the control to keep his storage measured. He needed to heal enough first.
He could feel himself healing, but it wasn't fast enough. Current had been analyzing him the whole time during their fight. His powers. His style. His energy signature.
Max couldn't feel Ames anymore, and nothing was more dreadful to him than the void that now motivated Ames. It was even darker and thicker and more potent than any emptiness that Max had ever picked up from Ames.
'And it's all my fault...,' Max thought, his chest feeling as if it were breaking apart and falling into a vortex leading to nowhere.
And now Ames had Current at the end of his gun.
"For a human, you're actually entertaining," Current remarked, daring to be shot.
"BLAM!"
The gunshot shattered the hopeless silence.
"No!" Max cried out, the strain in his voice breaking into coughs. He felt as if he was going to vomit his lungs out. He knew fully well what was about to happen next. "Don't hurt him! Take it out on me! Current!"
'Come on! Come on!' Max thought, straining to speed up his healing. 'I have to do something! Now!'
Current moved, and Max watched in horror as the super-terrorist swatted the gun off to the glass wall. The gun went halfway through the glass, leaving the whole sheet with a web of cracks.
Ames was off the ground in a second, being lifted by Current by the neck.
"No--," Max failed yet again, trying to tip himself over so that he could support himself enough to stand. He had to try. He had to stand.
Max could feel his own neck being choked as he struggled to move, his empathic link with Ames now in a crazed state.
And then there it was, a faint pulse. A unique pulse. He had felt it before, but never in such a refined pattern. In fact, he'd been feeling it for quite some time now. Only it was much clearer this time. No clouds. He had felt it in the fireflies. In the starlight. On that night in Blackbird Peak. But stronger this time.
"Any last words?" Current asked.
"Current, no!" Max finally managed to tip over, his hand planting hard on the rubble. "Let him go, please! Please let him go! I beg you. I beg you. Please!"
"Li--," Ames was struggling to say. Max watched as Ames's right hand creeped into the back of his pants, pulling out the pepper gun in a quick move. Current saw this coming, however, and grabbed the pepper gun off of Ames's hand. The super-terrorist crushed the weapon easily and dumped it to the floor. "Liwanag."
The surge of anger in Current's pulsations was sharp, protruding from the layer of arrogance he'd hidden behind hitherto.
'Liwanag,' Max remembered in a flash, overwhelmed with dread upon realizing Ames's mockery. 'Current's bitter past.'
"Liwanag?" Current hissed, a maelstrom of raging pulsations expanding from him. "You got it."
"Current, no!" Max threw out his hand toward Current in the futile attempt to blast him away, but the loss of support sent Max's face down onto the cement. "No!"
Current moved quickly, and Max crumbled on the inside as he watched Ames being thrown off to the glass wall.
"Max!" Ames cried out before the loud crash. Max reached out his hand, but Ames had already broken through the glass, flying through the air and hitting his back hard against the pod of variant shards. The pod's cracked glass walls blew out at the impact.
"Ames!" Max called out, shattered by terror at the sight of Ames's face distorting in tremendous pain. Max could feel it in himself, too. From where he lay, he could see the pod's metal links sparking with electricity. Ames's eyes rolled up, and he fell off the side of the pod, disappearing from view.
Max felt like he died on the inside at the sound of the thud. He felt that inner void ravage him after the pod fell off its pedestal, likely crashing onto where Ames would now be. Max felt it. He felt Ames.
He felt that stab of pain. He felt that desperation faltering. He felt that last recall. The last apology. The last word of gratitude.
He felt that battle for survival fading away, going away, pulsation by pulsation.
Pulse by pulse.
Until there was nothing to feel.
He couldn't feel Ames anymore.
And the void that had been consuming Max on the inside now drowned him in absolute darkness.
Where no one would hear him scream.
He wanted it to take him away now. He would go with it. Willingly.
He wanted it to take him away until he no longer existed.
His tears escaped him like the bleeding of a fatal cut: unapologetic, relentless, and maddening. They came out of his eyes like a sudden disemboweling, forcing him to believe that there was nothing left to do but to accept the death that awaited him at the end of it.
"This is the end for you, Alpha," Current said, his tone different. "But I understand you now more than ever. Why you disappeared. You chose to be a human. To live like one. To die like one."
Max lowered his hand and his head, his vision falling purposeless before Current's feet.
There was nothing left.
'This is all my fault.'
He heard the intensifying crackle of electricity. He could see the glow in his periphery. He could feel the electric sizzle. The heat. He could smell it burning the air.
He could feel something else.
Something approaching from the cylinder.
Like a wave. A small one.
It was a pulse. A single pulse.
He felt it coming closer and closer until it finally reached him. The pulse flowed through him. First, through his feet, and then to everywhere else.
To his heart.
He gasped, eyes widening in shock. He recognized the pulse from long ago. Decades ago. And from just moments ago, he had felt a pulse almost perfectly identical to it. While that pulse had been strong, this new one felt even stronger. He had felt it before on the Astronomer's Rock, from Dicoy and from himself. Now, from Ames. The longer the pulse lingered in Max's heart, the more he knew that he was feeling it from himself, too.
From himself.
For the bayside sunset glow.
For the fireflies and starlight that had borne witness to their pain, their perseverance, their joy, and their healing.
For all of those things that he had found in one person.
That person was Ames.
For Ames.
"I love you, too," Max whispered, responding to the pulse. It was as if the void inside of him was starting to crack, soft god rays pouring out from its darkness. "I love you, too, Ames."
'I love you, too, Ames.'
'And I loved you first.'
There was another pulse. An identical one.
Followed by another.
And another.
And more.
A constant pulsation.
"Hnnnnnrrrrrraaaaahhhhhh!" a persevering roar echoed throughout the cylinder from its unseen floor below. It was a battle cry, picking up strength as it fought through immense pain.
A battle cry from Ames.
Max caught the gasp of surprise and disbelief from Current as he looked toward the direction of the cylinder, his confidence waning fast, his electricity blinking out.
'A-Ames...'
'He's still alive!'
At once, the void in Max's heart exploded, unable to contain the light inside of him like darkness against the full glory of the sun.
He felt himself heat up. He felt his wounds close. Not as fast as they used to, but now he could fight back. At least.
He willed the electromagnetic radiation inside of him to return to normal strength, and from the glow of the variant shards down the cylinder, he quickly—and actively this time—absorbed the same amount of visible light that he had fully exhausted during his earlier battle. With that done, he locked the electromagnetic radiation within himself.
"Aaaargh!" Max bellowed as he forced himself up. As he turned into his black form. He shoved his fist straight onto Current's throat, stunning the super-terrorist and leaving him in a state of open-mouthed gagging. Max swiftly sent an orb of black aura right into Current's mouth before kicking him in the face, sending him off his feet and down onto his back. Hard.
"Ackh!" Current choked, his hands groping his throat frantically and his eyes wide open in panic as he struggled to sit up. "Damn you!"
With a scream of despair, Current disintegrated into blue orbs, his voice reverberating all over the room.
'Current's not dead,' Max knew. 'He'll be back.'
'I need to get Ames out of here now.'
Max flew off the floor, hoping to get to Ames.
"Huh!" he gasped, disoriented in shock at the sudden tug on his jacket collar. He felt himself being pulled back hard. He felt the back of his legs being tripped up until his body faced the ceiling.
'No! Dammit!' Max thought, bracing himself for impact as a blue ball of electricity came down upon him, smashing him squarely in the chest.
"Hnnnnnrrrrrraaaaahhhhhh!" Ames screamed, awakened by the sudden stab of pain from inside him. He had felt a snap within himself, and the sound of it had acted like a shot of adrenaline, forcing him through a hot white wall of bright light and back to full consciousness.
There was still a strange glow around him, and from the glow came indiscernible humming patterns, going through waves he couldn't follow. The light had a heat to it, and the heat was growing stronger, picking up strength by the second.
Loud and explosive sounds of impact and solid matter breaking off came from up ahead. A bit slurred, but audible.
There was a wetness on Ames's back, trickling down the sides of his body. The same wetness was on the back of his head and on his face, and it came from many places. Places that stung. He could feel the wetness in his mouth. It had a metallic taste, and he could feel its moisture far up his nostrils. He lay face down on the floor, his arms outstretched before him. They didn't feel terrible, but everything else did. There were stabbing, throbbing pains, sharp like knives to the skin, coming from inside of him. They held him hostage, threatening to torture him with agonizing pain if he tried to move. He felt as if everything inside him from the chest down was not in the right place. He could feel the stabbing, grinding stings with the slightest of movements.
But he was too afraid to look.
He grunted hard as he tried moving his arms, and he could do so liberally with only a bit of pain in them, but everything else flared up in torturous sensations that struck his insides all at once.
He had to move. He had to survive.
He looked up, feeling a burning sting in his nose, accompanied by a sharp, blinding pain that made him scream.
"Aaghk! Ackhh! Fffuck!" he cried out, feeling the piercing sensation in his face. From where he had lifted his head, he could see what the wetness was. It was blood. Thick crimson blood. A puddle of blood had formed underneath him. He couldn't maintain his position, and he dropped his head back to the puddle, dipping his cheek into it the way he wished he hadn't.
His eyes caught sight of something within arm's reach. It glowed in the strangest, most captivating colors, which danced to the humming sounds around him.
It was at that moment that it all surged back to Ames.
The discovery within his reach was no other than a shard. A variant shard. A powerful weapon.
'Max!' he remembered next, just as a loud crashing sound burst from the first-floor observation room before him, making him look toward it. Its glass wall shattered, fragments descending onto the floor and breaking apart to smaller crystals. Ames closed his eyes and mouth protectively, feeling tiny fragments brushing against his skin for a couple of seconds.
'I need to help!'
He opened his eyes, pulled into panic at the sight of Current and Max on top of rubble. As it appeared, they had violently made their way down to the first-floor observation room by crashing through its ceiling. Current was on top of Max, electric orbs around his fists as he hammered Max with them again and again.
The way Max looked burned itself in Ames's mind.
It was an image of perseverance.
But it was also a look of unmistakable vulnerability.
An act of strength in a moment of weakness.
As powerful as Max was for being the last one standing in their side of the fight, he wasn't the same as before.
He didn't deserve this.
'And I'm still not dead,' Ames thought, his eyes finding their way to the shard again. He reached out for it, and his hand hovered above its glowing body, which had been liberated from its now shattered vial. He could feel the energy emanating from it.
He could feel its heat.
He could feel the power.
"What power did you want then, Prof?" Ames remembered being asked one day. More than a month ago, for sure. Judging by the forwardness of the question, it had to be Nigel's.
Ames also remembered his answer.
He slammed his hand onto the shard, grabbing it as strongly as he could.
Max couldn't fight back. His powers were waning again. He'd recharged too prematurely. All he could do now was hope that his black form wouldn't deactivate. He kept his arms over his face, focusing all of his power in soldiering through Current's attacks for as long as he could until his strategy changed.
But Max knew he was weakening. Soon enough, he wouldn't be able to hold Current's attacks back. Soon enough, he'd fail again.
'Ames...,' he thought tearfully, desperately, looking over to where Ames was.
And his fear escalated beyond his restraint...
At the sight of Ames slamming his hand onto a variant shard.
"TZZZZINNNNKKTT!"
A piercing sound interrupted the dome as Ames's facial expression changed from struggle to deep, unbridled terror.
"FTOOOOOM!"
There came a sudden manifestation of radiant arcs of otherworldly energy all over the cylinder floor.
Current stopped his attacks and looked toward the cylinder in alarm.
"Oh, god...," Current gasped, abandoning Max to go after Ames.
A sudden burst of wind followed a surprisingly fast silhouette, and in a blink, Current was gone. The explosion on the wall at the right side of the room made Max look toward it.
There, in a black suit and gold cape signature to an Alpha, was Channel.
The New Alpha.
Max could only stare at him for a while, noticing how he now looked much, much stronger.
The Alpha role suited him.
And he was holding Current by the throat against the wall.
"Sorry, I'm late," Alpha said, glancing at Max before shoving Current through the wall and breaking out into flight.
"Aaaaaarrrggghhh!" Ames screamed. It was guttural. It was raw. It was familiar. Max looked toward the cylinder again and watched in horror as Ames slowly began to float, glowing shard in hand, body convulsing and cracking and twisting in pain. Energy arcs reconnected the other shards to the one Ames was holding. "Goooaaaaaagggghh!"
Max gasped in the breathlessness of the terror and the insurmountable pain that Ames was feeling. This was more than just empathy for Max. These emotions were also his own. The man he loved was now afloat, caught in an equilibrium of life and death.
Ames's screams sounded as if his throat would burst, and they echoed hauntingly all over the dome.
Max watched wordlessly as Ames's convulsions stopped and he fell back to the ground, landing hard on three points with what appeared to be a spear of reconstituted shards keeping him still. A small crater formed underneath Ames, and he looked back at Max, in shock at what had just happened to him.
Ames looked well. He looked like himself, like how he had always looked, but stronger and fully recovered from his injuries.
It dawned on Max immediately.
"Initial exposure...," Max uttered in realization, forcing himself to stand up and falling back down on all fours. He couldn't stand. His muscles trembled too much. "He survived."
The door leading into the room blew open, and Max looked back at it, finding Alpha falling down underneath a visibly shaken Current, whose attention was now back to Ames.
"I'm going to kill you!" Current's wrath was much more palpable now, and he took off, charging toward Ames.
"Ames, look out!" Max cried out.
He looked toward Ames again, mouth gaping in shock at what he was seeing.
Ames, with a defiant look on his face, adjusted his grip on the variant spear and shoved it into his chest.
Max couldn't even whimper.
"Ackh!" Ames gasped in shock. Max felt it, too. He felt the sudden flash of pain.
And then he felt the magnificent explosion of power.
"Ngggaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" Ames screamed in a storm of pain and unchained power as his arms stretched out to his sides and his head looked up.
Current stopped in his tracks, pushed back by a force he couldn't penetrate.
Pulsating auras of unrecognizable colors burst from Ames's chest, wrapping him up and warping around him as they lifted him up to the air, growing in intensity by the second. Ames's body was now a cruciform epicenter of unusual power. Max ducked his head as the cylinder's glass wall shattered, its fragments flying inward and pausing in mid-air before revolving around Ames. The octopus-like machine, the fallen pod, and the pedestal were torn apart, flying off fragment by fragment and joining the current of the powerful whirlwind around Ames, whose screams were sounding less and less human as seconds passed. His voice boomed, his scream like a dragon's roar. His cruciform posture in the air converted the otherworldly auras into what seemed like solar flares of fiery, electric, and intimidating neon pink color.
Current was stuck in his spot, futilely pushing against the powerful wall of Ames's maelstrom.
"Hnnnnnreeeeeeeh!" Ames's scream was now of hard resistance. His head lowered, revealing a pair of electric pink eyes contrasting the shadows that now formed on his body. It was a hauntingly familiar image to Max, and he watched the phenomenon with restricted breath. Ames's eyes glared down at Current with a flaming boast of unstoppable wrath.
"Oh god...," Max gasped, eyes locked onto what Ames had become.
All Max knew was that Ames definitely did not feel human anymore.
Max had never seen an evolution quite like this before.
Ames crossed his arms, absorbing the flares of energy as he took a fetal position. Max braced himself for whatever was coming next.
"I'm going to kill you!" Current resisted still, roaring back at the storm before him.
Like an ominous omen of catastrophe, the powerful maelstrom ceased. The objects caught within it paused in their tracks for a good second before dropping onto the ground and smashing to pieces.
Max could feel his balance wavering at the sound of crashing debris.
Before Max could do anything, Ames wildly stretched his arms and legs back out as he returned to his cruciform pose.
At first, there was a small pink spark on Ames's chest...
Followed by a massive explosion of destructive energy the shape of a titanic magenta orb with Ames at its heart.
The orb expanded out of control, consuming everything in its path.
Including Current.
Max watched speechlessly as the growing sphere of destruction drew near, dominating the space.
Coming for him.