Chapter XI (11): The Proposal

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."

–Aristotle

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Elizabeth

Three days, for three days, the Baron was locked up into his room. Alien had me, and Thread Walker try to check on him. When I would check on him I'd hear the Baron sobbing but when Thread Walker came back she seemed to be concerned.

She'd ask the questions about the Baron whenever she could. Sometimes when we would check she'd sit in the hall. Everyone knew now that the Walker was hot on the Baron.

We were all at the table, not even touching the food prepared for us. The soldiers had these days off and everything was heavy on us. I felt like I did when my family died. Él Doug finally said,

"What are we gonna do if the Baron committed-"

He was interrupted before the word 'suicide' slipped from his lips.

The steak knife hissed into Thread Walker's hand in a throwing position, protectively she hissed,

"Don't you dare-!"

"Thread Walker!" I panicked, my hand on the the steak-knife my fingers nearly wrapping around it, "Drop it!"

Alien saw my hand fingering the knife and he reached across my other arm and forced his hand on mine, looking into my eyes he said,

"Relax."

At the table Weyha darkly said, "Hey, could you pass me a knife Thread Walker?"

He controlled it electromagnetically and took it from her, saying,

"It must be addressed, Thread Walker!"

"He'd never-!"

She stopped at the sound of steps coming down the stairs. They were slow and weak, then the door opened. We were in silent shock as the Baron took his seat.

His face and body was pale and gaunt. He looked sick, really, he looked like he hadn't eaten in the three days. We watched as he came in, sat down, and began eating and drinking; slowly because he hadn't eaten in three days.

The first words from his mouth;

"Is he embalmed?"

Alien spoke up, "He is Baron."

He tore his eyes to a picture in pain; unable to look at us or even speak.

"After the funeral he'd probably want us to have a party to his honor."

Él Doug foolishly said, "What about all the-"

He was cut short before he could say 'civilians' Weyha giving him a jab in the face, putting him to the ground. Everyone except Alien, Wehya, and the Baron jumped in our seats. The Baron laughed weakly but stopped himself. Él Doug got up, sat down, and shut up.

"Is he going to be buried in the same place?" Weyha said.

"Yep."

Alien said darkly, "There's something else Baron."

"What?" He replied like a lungless skeleton.

"Angel's girlfriend with child."

The Baron sulked down into his chair like a dead body and we gaped in shock. My lips quivered, tears ran down my face and then I got into the fetal position; sobbing. I had killed a man with a family! Both the Baron and a literal family.

Obsidian Owl said to me trying to comfort me,

"It's not your fault AllFall."

I rose quickly from my chair about to yell, scream, and argue but I fell back into my chair. She said the words again but it's all my fault. I finished him myself. Her next words seemed to lower the room's temperature twenty degrees,

"Besides, this sort of thing is going to happen isn't it?"

Only if you knew that I might have to turn you all in one day.

The Baron's motionless body spoke;

"I'll tell her, in person."

"Are you sure that you are going to be able to do that?" Wehya questioned.

"Depends..."

"On what?" Él Doug said confused.

The Baron straightened himself in determination and rested his eyes on Walker, he waited a moment and finally said,

"Sarahlinn?" The room froze like 'OMG he just said her real name', she sucked in a breath, "would you like to be a Baroness?"

Alien tried to interrupt and say, "You don't know wha-" but I, out of nowhere struck him in the face with a jab, sending him to the ground. Everyone's tension released and everyone laughed but him, he glared at me with utter contempt, as if saying "You will be his undoing." He doesn't know that I killed Angel though, and that I am a secret agent, but it told me one thing; there's much that I don't know.

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The Black Baron

Being engaged really helped someone with their confidence. We were all riding together and then I arrived at a nice white home with a actual confederate flag (not the navy flag that we know as the popular flag) in the yard, stabbed into a American flag. I shook my head and smiled. Angel, committing crimes out in the open on his lawn.

I got out first and approached the door, he even had stars and bars put on the doorposts. I guess he liked my history lessons I dug up from the governments black out box. The stuff that they didn't want us to know. Surrounded minority's of minds buffered away by the status quo. Such things surrounding the Civil War, Northern racism, the Red Scares, and the governments method of programming people among other things.

At the door, I rung the doorbell. I waited as nothing seemed to happen but then the door swung half open. A attractive blonde woman in a white tee and pajamas answered the door, said ominously, "Who are you?"

She was probably fingering a gun or something so I said,

"I am the Black Baron ma'am."

"Oh," she seemed to relax, "Angel has told me a lot about you."

Hope filled her bloodshot eyes,

"Where is he, have you seen him?!"

When my throat caught and my lips quivered she put the pieces together. Grasping her stomach she croaked out,

"Oh, I see."

"May we come in ma'am?"

She looked to the huge SUV that we came in but said yes. I signaled everyone to come and the woman opened the door wide for us to enter.

"Were you followed?" She droned but then chuckled at herself,

"Sorry, I ask Angel that all the time."

Before I assured her I noted the laser pistol in her hand but she didn't seem like she was going to use it.

"If we were followed my friend with the WristPad has a drone in the air, and our suitcases aren't filled with flowers; I assure you. Your safer than our self-incriminating president right now ma'am."

She smiled to that, "Feel free to make yourself at home, and don't feel nosy either."

"Good afternoon," Alien said, "I've done according to all you warned me about ma'am."

I looked at him, "You know her?"

He smiled like his words, "I told you about her Baron. Remember? She's the reason why Magmantis didn't like our friend."

I stuttered, "Really?"

He nodded, "(Mmm-hmph)."

This was when AllFall came into the door.

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Elisabeth

I struggled to get myself over the doorposts. "The doorposts to the dead-man's lover's home," I thought. I came in with a tingling feeling in my feet, like I was walking through AoDD's blood as he reached helplessly at my ankles to stop me.

The girl was pretty, and weirdly the pistol in her hand seemed to compliment her. Vase shaped figure but attractive. Something about her told me that she wasn't a super.

Then her gaze froze on me, and dropped to my feet. She looked at them in horror, she grasped the pistol tighter. Everyone thought she was looking in the ground in grief.

"So he's dead?"

No-one answering her, answered her. Wehya tried to reassure her that the sniper would be found, but she cut him off-

"That's not necessary," there was kinda a shift to the air, and she added, "I was a Red spy into the CIA and then the CIA sent me to kill Angel, but I shot my husband in the face and he my heart."

"Husband?" Walker repeated, confused.

The woman chuckled weakly, "It'd be a death wish to get married lawfully, get a marriage license? Not going to happen."

"You," the Baron said, "are aware of his-"

"Cannibalism?"

"Yes," he said, embarrassed.

"He doesn't like to call it that, he likes calling it a 'problem'."

I was about to exclaim the question, "He's a cannibal?!" But Alien grabbed my arm and whispered, "Sometimes dear, AoDD would lose control of the beast inside him. Angel being with this blonde is an anomaly; due to the fact that something in the monster targets certain things in a blonde woman's blood."

"So he could've ripped this woman to shreds at any moment in sleep?"

He nodded, but the conversation with the woman continued on without us and she said,

"Well, feel free to look around. I'm leaving with y'all correct?"

"Yes," the Baron said, "we have enough bags at the door to pack up the entire house."

We set off to work as the woman watched us rip away her home. I could hardly touch anything, I felt like a home invader, having killed the guardian of this house myself. The Baron was holding a book,

"What's this?"

She looked up from a picture frame she was soaking in at a armchair, "Angel's diary, he'd want you to have it."

She said it in a way that made him uncomfortable for some reason. We packed everything up and Él Doug said,

"We ready to go?"

"Basement?" The woman droned.

"Che-" Alien said but stopped short, he said with a sudden urgency, "My drone has been shot down by a P.I.K.E.!"

We all froze, but I knew what a PIKE was. It was a laser guided rocket that can be fired from a underslung grenade launcher. It's effective usage is over a mile and a half, it's been a prototype since 2016.

Él Doug cursed in accordance to the moment.

"Their gonna try to box us in." Obsidian said.

"How do you figure that?" Walker asked stupidly.

She looked at her as she replied, "Because that's what you would do."

"Enough wasted time," Wehya said as he pull his ghost mask over his head, "time for the bachelor party."

We all grabbed the suitcases that we carried in and, holding a button, flipped the suitcase off to hold the top of a G36C. We pocketed the nades and clips of magazines from the suitcase and Obsidian asked,

"So what exactly are we going to do?"

He replied free from fear, "We're going to give 'em hell..." everyone looked at him, as if NOT wanting to hear the next words, "and FLUFFY."

"No," Alien droned with a pale face, "we're not."

"What's Fluffy?" I asked.

"Alien doesn't like Fluffy." The Baron said.

"And Fluffy doesn't like Alien." He droned in reply.

"That's because," Obsidian chastised, "you dropped a Predator missile on him."

"He, I mean IT, tried to eat me! I would have done us al-"

"And," the Baron said, "kill Sarah in the process."

"Look," Wehya said, "shut up, he's coming. No more debate."

The woman assured us, "I've got it from here."

The Baron looked at her cross-eyed, but she nodded. He gripped his gun and looked to us, all of us masked, all of us ghosts.

"So," he asked Wehya, "bum rush?"

We all put sunglasses on dramatically, not entirely because we looked cool but because the police can take someone's retina in ones eyes from a clear, digital photo and find ones identity. Waya cocked his gun and began loading his grenade launcher as he strode toward the door. We all flanked the Baron as he followed going into a steady jog. Sunlight enveloped us and a black un-labeled SWAT van was burning toward us. I've ridden in those before, the Angels of light are coming. My worst nightmare.

Wehya launched his grenade and began reloading; civilians screaming, it landed and took out the front right wheel of the truck. MasterLock and Obsidian began hotwiring a car, but with MasterLock all she has to do is touch the ignition after touching the door. I launched my grenade and it blew a hole in bay of the truck.

While I did that Obsidian got into the car and threw a knife into the gas pedal; directing the car toward the SWAT van. She jumped out, one of her dark forcefields absorbing the impact harmlessly. The car hit another like a ramp, causing it to corkscrew into the van; clobbering into it just like the movies.

We all advanced cautiously and coming upon the wreckage the trucks tires were still spinning, civilians running for fear, there were no bodies, and no blood. Sick realization hit me,

It was remotely controlled; thus, that means they have an engineer.

Alien being a keen strategist picked it up,

"It's a decoy!"

Then on the far wall of the street a white siloleuette came in and out of view in a matter of seconds. In those seconds was a thump of a underslung grenade launcher and the nearly silent hissing of a rocket. I screamed,

"PIKE!"

However, I jumped face first into Obsidian's shield and the rocket popped harmlessly into her shield she threw up around us. I got up embarrassed but everyone kept silence as we thought. It would be an enemies doing to see if they could separate their opponent. The Baron then asked,

"Your fields block out sound correct?"

"You ask that all the time Baron." Obsidian said.

"Their testing us, gauging our responses." He glanced back at Alien, who was using this time to type on his WristPad, "Alien, what have you called?"

"Me? I'm playing Fruit Ninja brother."

"Alien..."

"Dozen flies, 3 Preds, and a Reap."

"Good."

The Baron's raspy voice sounds so OP.

"To Fluffy, Rope-a-dope."

Someone close to me gave me a seven-second rundown on the plan.

"Aight," the Baron said and Obsidian lowered her shields, "RUN!"