Fugitive (Draft)
Unknown Location:
"Zenith..."
Zel's hand smacks the top of the sinks bowl, heavily breathing, flames brightly bursting green around him. Crying Zenith's name through his head, he takes off his mask over his mouth, coughing up vomit in the sink as well. His body also slouches over, trying his best to stay balance. He battles his current rehabilitation, clinging to the memory of seeing his brother, overlapping it to the images of the one he protected years ago. Picturing the rain. Those thundering clouds... The crackling lights through the air striking his face. -
Appearing out of nowhere, turning and pressing Zel into the bathroom mirror, the mysterious figure held back enough for it would not shatter. "Pull yourself together!" The glass cracks just a bit upon the red eye demon's shout. "If you don't..." He then presses the button on his neck, face remaining shrouded in the flickering lights, hair falling to his back. "Everything I work so hard to achieve for us... It will fail!"
Eyes remaining empty, Zel still mutters in stagger whine. "... Zen... He's... He's out there! Need... Need me! -
Pupils gleaming at the words "Me" The figure shatters the flickering light bulb, along the glass bursting into small broken pieces, slamming Zel into it all, positioning him over the sink. And, leaning their lip to his ear, the figure crept out in cold breath, "Maybe... We should un-tinker your memories, for you to be a complete hollow shell like before."
"Eh!- Images of Zeniths despairing gaze at Zel, the day he demolished their home, flashes across his brain. This causes him to clench the jumpsuit he wore over his chest. "I can't forget again... Not Zen. Not Ella. Not Vile. Not you."
Looking into the remaining pieces of mirror on the wall behind him, eyes bleeding tears, Zel spot numbers of the same image. Iota's face. One of an old friend. Wielding a robotic eye, which glows brightly red, gears turning.
Acknowledging his reaction, Iota finally lets up the interrogation, reactivating his mask upon removing his hand. He then steps on the shattered glass making his way out of the bathroom, to one of the Sigma Flames main HQ, leaving Zel alone. He walks pass a large table, taking a seat in the chair on the far end, table decorated in high tech screening. Sliding and maneuvering his fingers across the object, Iota activates something in the background.
That very something pumps cold air clouds, breaching from beneath the ground as he turns the office like chair to face it. There, a thick glassed humanized tube stood tall, wires reaching from the back side to the top. And inside it, Juna. The girl believed to have been dead. Bubbling air in some sort of liquid, wearing a purple gleaming mask whish also had tubes lining to the top of the containment.
"Soon..." Iota speaks vaguely, pressing his hand against the glass. He eyed Juna as if she was someone that is dear to him...
In that thought, a portal like sound was made, causing him to turn back to the table, sighting Mu and Gamma, on the floor, unconscious, looking half dead.
"How unfavorable..." Iota lifts his beating comrades, opening another chamber from beneath the ground simultaneously, revealing Meniko. The second girl capture. Leg chain to a pin down table in the model of a mini home. "Heal these two for me." He commands her, opening the housed cell she remains in.
Watching them plop on the cell's carpet, her mind went from baffle daze to a more concern look, taking not a moment to refuse, considering her circumstances.
Furthermore, Iota shuts the cage close, pressing his fingers on the table beside him, conveniently answering a call-in time.
"Mu and Gamma have fallen. Not to mention Zel is currently unavailable. Problems after the rehabilitation. I feel he should be on standby for the time being. I'm sure that you were aware of this already... Father..." He eyes the interface he answered, sighting a man darken by the room lights, but having the sounds of beeping medical supplies creep out, along the pale stagger breathing.
*"Wise.... As always... Iota..."
Eyes glancing to the side of him, Iota speaks out. "Please... Hold your words. Every breath wasted, pushes back your recovery... You will be glad to hear I'm currently proceeding to phase three of the plans."
*"Even... Without.... The vessel?"* The figure cracks out, air pressure spewing out the mask he wore of his mouth.
Bringing the cage that contain Vile in, chained up more than Meniko, held in metal plated gear, Iota raises his hand from his side. "As you can see, I flawlessly capture the "Amplifier". I am positive I can do the exact same thing in retrieving that boy and the other target." He informs him. "Infact." In addition to the info given, Iota pulls a live video feed of both his subordinates in different locations. "I have Chi and Phi working on the retrievals as we speak."
*"Splendid.... I'll... Leave it... To you..."*-
The feed was instantly cut among hearing what he needed, isolating Iota to his own thoughts, deactivating his mask aside a speck of chuckling.
"Now to get the pieces in play..." Dispersing into small yellow particles, Iota vanishes from his position.
Ruby District; Ruined City, Keysie's Coffee and Treat Shop (Back to Zenith's point of view):
"Here's your drink ma'am. I was sure to let my uncle know to put less sugar in it, like you asked."
Bringing a white glass teacup from off the tray to the table beside the woman's cake, she smiles passively at me, thanking me in her own way, keeping quiet.
That being my last job for the day, I bypass the rest of the empty chairs and tables to the bar table where Uncle Keysei, the man who took me in a week ago, clean an arm full of dishes.
"Did she tip?" Keysei rose his eyebrow, pausing on the dish he currently washes, passing me a whisper.
"Heh. Not at all." I chuckle at the thought. Taking a coffee cake from the presentation rack near him, heading to the back of the shop.
"H-Hey! I'm going to start making you pay dammit!"
This shop he forces me to work at has been gaining less costumers by the day. He tells me that it's because I don't smile... But I feel it's because he decided to open the shop here in a city abandoned by all civilization. A desert town. It gotten even worse here too, seeing that the district leader Dalon is now dead.
"Aye, while you're back here, you should consider throwing out the trash for me." Keysei barges in on my pleasant time laying on the sofa in thought, resting his hand on the open-door rails, holding up the sheets that block the entrance as well.
"Don't you have to sell in order to have trash?" I joke, partially upset that he interrupts my end shift with more chores.
"Good one, I'm laughing my ass off. You still need to throw away old food genius. Get up and take the trash out." I seem to strike a nerve, gaining a much colder response than what I expected from him.
Hearing him out, I let out a brush of rough air, getting up from the comfort of the Sofa, going out the door he entered from, pulling back the curtains to the lady I gave a drink to exiting from the bar table. Maybe after paying him.
"Holy crap!!" I hear him enthusiastically shout, holding up money high up in the air. "She gave us a tip! A tip!"
I couldn't help but bulk a small bit of laughter, taking the trash from a small bin behind the bar table.
"What a miracle." I sarcastically pump his behavior up. Knowing well that whatever she paid wouldn't be enough to pay next month's bill.
"It really is!" He cries. "She paid us five thousand. It's enough to pick us up for three whole months, maybe to fix up the shop a bit more even!"
"Five thousand?" I drop the trash bag to the ground, going to Keysie to gain a better view at the money. And there, in the palm of his hand, was five-thousand-dollar bills. I never knew such thing existed. "Who the heck was that woman?" I question, looking for her shadow to pass by the window. Though she may have disappeared from the area by now.
"Whoever she was, I owe her a grand... If she ever visits again, be sure to give her anything she wants. Treat her like royalty, even if she commands to sit on you!" He laughs.
"Um... How about we just give her coffee on the house whenever she comes by." I suggest the idea, taking the trash bag I drop earlier back from off the ground.
"Hey actually..." My attention break from away from the trash to Keysei, hearing his voice creep to a much serious tone. "Ella... How is she recovering? Don't you need to pay some of her medical bills... This should be enough to cover-
"I'm sure she's fine..." I lower my view to the ground, shuffling the bag in my hand as I remanence on Ella's condition. "Her girlfriend seem to be doing her best to pay it all on her own."
"I take that you visit her recently?" He continues to gaze me down, looking to debate against what I spoke.
I played ignorant to what uncle Keysei sung, twisting between my fingers, the bag of trash that I still haven't been able to take out.
" You could say that..."
lately, these past two weeks, I find myself watching over Ella from the far, unable to see her in aid of Yellowstone.... I can only stay here peacefully because of the city unawareness of what happen there.
"Well," Keysei scratches the side of his face, giving his best thoughts on the matter. "Once you get a chance, pay her a visit. I'll hate to be keeping you for too long... Your grandmother must be worried sick by now..."
He mutters the last part to himself, giving me more guilt instead of encouragement. I could instantly recall my grandmother fading life in my arms, all while coldly gazing at nothing. Another victim to my hesitation... Being shielded by others. even though I should have been fighting alongside them... And then there's that. I... I never got to apologies to her. Our last words to each other were nothing more than silence...
"Um." When I came to my senses, Keysei tilt his head to eye view, crossing his arms over each other. "Are you okay? You look a bit out of it."
"I-I'm fine." Even though I was not, I brush off his comment about my grandmother as is, clothing my depression with a small smile.
"Alright." He lets out in a sigh, placing the money giving to him in an empty drawer, making his way to me, placing his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, get some rest after you take that trash out. I'm sure you'll need it for tomorrow."
In a way, this was his own style in telling me to overstay my welcome and ignore all the dooming facts ahead. Look to the future; Is the aura he gave off, passing me to the staircase beyond the curtains I enter through.
When he steps out of the room, I sight a picture of him and his daughter, taking a photo beside my mother and Zel, above those curtains. Back then I wasn't even thought of... Dad didn't kill anyone. The family was... Peaceful. -
The second I lift the curtains of the door to step into the next room, I hear a gun clack back, feeling a warm piece of metal press on the front of my forehead, locking eyes with the threat. The lady who drunk coffee calmly out the teacup giving to her, gapes at me having a horrifying gleam in her eyes, those of a menace, glowing in a familiar emerald pattern.
"Take even a small step, I'll blow your brains clear out."-
Not letting a single second linger on, having a gun directly in my face, I swiftly knock her hand upwards, seeing a flash, hearing a shot fire, it hit a pipe on the upper floor, bouncing off and scrapping the side of my face. Then, taking the moment my guard fell, that woman loops around to my back, timing my disobedience well. The lady clacks the gun in her hand again. This time having the end of the barrel on the back of my skull.
"I won't miss... The second shot."
She had me where she wanted, no longer able to escape. Even if I tried to vanish into the floor's shadow's, I wouldn't be able to outmatch a speeding bullet. So, I did the only logical thing in this matter; Raise my hands to surrender.
Going off the sound of the bullet, Uncle Keysei could be heard as well, rushing down the stair way.
Capture on the floor, hands point to the ceiling's blinking light, including the petrified look in my uncle eyes, one thought came to mind; Who is this woman?