CHAPTER 27

You wake up smelling charcoal, a smell you haven't recognized in quite some time. You sit up. It's dark outside—the only light spilling in comes from the stars. Pamen lies beside you, unmoving. You seem to be on a clifftop, stiff stone supporting your weight. You roll over, peeking your head over the side of the cliff.

The crater is much bigger than you imagined. It stretches out for miles. Inside what remains of what you assume is Andem is a pulsing sort of sac. It's cracked as if you ran strips of dynamite across the crust of the Earth and all at once set them off. White to green back to white-the light spills into the atmosphere above. You stand to your feet and almost fall back, feeling dazed and confused. Your team display shows that the others are still alive, their life signs show they're unconscious. Their location is still a mystery. Footsteps behind you tense up your whole body. You turn around to see Cross standing right behind you.

He glares at you—a horrible stare, "Well, I'd love to say that this is surprising seeing you here, but we both know that you can't leave things well enough alone, can you?" He asks, his voice a sword against stone.

"Was that yours?" You ask, standing fully and taking in a deep breath. Everything inside you still feels so weak, but you stand at odds. You imagine a sort of crooked smile come from his face, but know even if he wanted to he'd be unable to make the gesture.

"You mean my son? He's quite the charmer, ain't he?"

"Your...son?"

Cross looks downward and then back up to you, "You don't think I gave birth to such a beautiful boy?" He offers a small laugh. "Looks more like his mother anyway."

"You're crazy," you say. Slowly you bring your pinky to your palm. Your trim glows red and you dash at him, feeling the strength coursing through you. He raises an arm and the blue crystal in his chest—the Queoquartzite—begins glowing and he pushes once against your chest, shoving you back, sending a trail of dust to fly upward. "What...is this?" You ask.

"Physical strength means nothing if you don't have the courage to use it." He walks over closer towards you, stopping right before your face. "But you weren't ever brave, were you?" He bends down slow and brings a fist down to your head, it sends the helmet slamming down to the ground and cracks the screen. You're disoriented as he nears close to you, and with methodical precision, "I know who you are. You see, it bothered me endlessly" he picks you up by your collar, "you were the first thing that I saw when I woke up. I'd known of you, Mr. Duschand—and I know that he's in there somewhere, so don't you worry—but it's you that caught my attention."

"Wha-?" You manage to get out before you're hoisted up further and tossed through the air off of the cliff. The world is spinning around you before you stop all at once in Cross's grip. He'd followed you down and grabbed you before you hit the ground. You're dizzy as your vision straightens.

"Back at the Capitol I knew something was off. Mr. Duschand has been missing ever since our last fight, there was no way he could have returned from where I sent him, and yet there he was standing right in front of me." He drops you and kicks your side, knocking you to your side. "Lo and behold I see what's going on," he walks closer to you—clutching your stomach in pain is your only response. "That's when I fully realized that there was something else—someone else inside me too. I felt angry with you, more than I've ever felt for anything in my entire life."

"I-"

"YOU DON'T GET TO SPEAK." His voice cuts your soul. You reach for your WaveBlaster. He grabs it first, hovering back up to the edge of the cliff. "Well there is the tool of the hour. It's a shame I had to crush your friend's old ones, but I'd only then got the most glorious idea that required one of them." Cross says, a terrible humor snaps to his voice like a magnet.

You don't know what to say. Is what he saying true...that there's someone else inside him—that he's just like you? All you can do is watch with unadulterated horror as he admires the gun in his hand like a small child.

"You must be so confused," he says, turning his head ever so slightly, "to think that you'd end up here of all places."

"I don't understand," you say firmly.

"Why did you do it?" He asks. When you don't give him an answer, he strikes louder, "Why the fuck did you do it?!" There's a bright red glow from his eyes, but then they fade. "You...don't even remember, don't you? That's it then? No! It's not good enough!" He screams, slamming you hard to the ground. Immediately you're dragged back up, "So sorry about that. They got really angry with you and I couldn't hold 'em back. I thought things were different. I'm really in love with this feeling," he says, in everything but smile.

"You wouldn't let that slip if you didn't want me to ask, am I correct?" You yank off the now-broken helmet and toss it aside. He drops you down and you land somewhat balanced.

"My, my. Look whose human thought processes saw them to the truth. Yes, but I didn't bring you here to reunite. Think of it as a tease and nothing more. I brought you to give you a demonstration."

"Of what?"

He holds up the WaveBlaster in one hand while taking his other to his chest, ripping at the Queoquartzite. He breaks off a chunk with a grunt and shoots off into the sky, traveling down towards the crater.

You run to the edge of the cliff, watching as the lights in the crater begin to glow brighter. Behind you the ground shakes. You turn and see Pamen behind you, his body distorting as if he were a television receiving static. You activate your speed and lower your gravity—you need to stop whatever he's doing. You back up some to give yourself a running start, but as you do a massive light shines brightly into the night sky. It fills the planet with light all around you.

Looking back, Pamen seems to have disappeared without a single sound. Cross reappears right in front of you, you're too shocked to move, "How many do you think there were?" He asks.

"What?"

"That detestable creature of the dark. How many bodies do you think it had on this planet before I just wiped them clean?"

"Wiped them clean?!"

"Modifying your weapon allowed me to tune it to a very specific wavelength, the one of your friend—that is, if you were really friends yet," he says. "This planet is really something special, you know. It's core is very reactive to certain stimuli, it can even act as an amplifier for weapons like yours."

"That light in the sky...that's not Pamen, is it?" You ask.

"The very one in the same. Pamen's right on Sayar's front doorstep. So, when I just activated it's universal extinction code by using their singular existence against them, the whole shebang goes sheboom."

Universal extinction code. The way he so casually tosses it around as if it were a newspaper he'd read before. And then it hits you the reality of what just happened. Pamen was gone. There was no rain, no tears. There weren't even any final words. You didn't even know the first thing about him and now you never would.

"Now what?" You look at him. "Are you here to break me? Make me cry? That isn't happening, because you're going to be stopped. Maybe not by me—hell, most likely not by me. I'm not trained for any of this, but you're not going to get away with this...even if you kill me."

"Kill you? I don't want to kill you. Don't you see? There isn't any way in the world I could ever do that. I can't live without you, and you without me...but you'll soon figure that out. We should get going, your friends should be arriving soon once they see the light show."

"And you think I'm letting you leave that easy?"

He cocks his head ever so slightly, "It's as you said, you aren't trained to fight. You can come with me awake or unconscious, it doesn't bother me personally, but I'm sure they'll get a kick out of hitting you a bunch."

"And where are we going?" You ask, realizing your situation.

The red eyes stare into yours and the almost-smile forms, "Don't you ever stop asking questions?" It hits you seconds later that he hit you. A harder-than steel punch that sends you backwards. You're immediately supported by him behind you—his speed is incredible. You feel his hand at the back of your head and in another moment your world goes dark.

"I'm going to make you remember."

"I'm going to make you remember...everything."

"Everything about what you did."

"I hate you."

"I love you."