LAST MURDER

They were all there, every single one of those bastards stood under that tree. The audacity they had to even come here was beyond me, but it saved us the stress of hunting them down. Besides Silas, there was the Oppayean, who if I remembered correctly was the Time Jerker that killed that Nigerian. The girl in the hood that escaped my subconscious attack, Halo the Reaper and an alien that resembled a Kion but whose body looked like that of a greek god. 

 All the Troopers present and alive had their guns up, pointing directly at them. Silas walked out of the shadow of the tree with a smirk on his face. 

"Bring us the second Guardian and the witch called Lemon," he said boldly. "And nobody gets hurt." 

 "Why'd you do it?!" I asked him, ignoring every single word he said. "He was like a FATHER to you!" 

  My voice was drenched in rage and for some reason, Silas' smile showed that he was enjoying it. 

"Edward was a weakling," he replied, scratching on his stupid black and white jumpsuit. "All weaklings deserve to die." 

That was enough to break my cool-headedness. Throwing my blaster down, I formed my fingers into a gun and walked closer to the man. I was now a metre away from him with my finger gun pointed directly at his head. He looked at me without flinching, his hands deep in his pockets without a care in the world. 

"You sure you wanna do that?" He asked as he looked at me with lackadaisical eyes.

He whistled, pointing up which made us take our focus up to the sky temporarily. Above our heads were hundreds of black rods just waiting to fall down and impale us. He had us from the very start. I dropped my head, glaring at him with intense hatred. 

"You're not my Silas," I said to him. 

He chuckled, pulling out his hand from his pockets. 

"Surrender yourself and that bitch and no one gets hurt, false Guardian." 

"I'm going to have your tongue for that," I replied. 

There was silence for a while as we stared at each other without flinching. The air seemed stiff, the civilians were gone and everywhere was as quiet as a graveyard. Lemon and the other Troopers did not make any attempt to back down, and so did Silas teammates. Silas exhaled, shaking his head as he looked down. 

"On the authority vested in us as Troopers, we find you guilty of murder and premeditated manslaughter, and we place you under…" 

"I guess we're doing this," he said in the middle of my sentence. 

"...Arrest!" I finished. 

As soon as I said that word, a Trooper from behind exclaimed with a loud voice;

"Attack!" 

 And so it began. I shot my finger gun, sending a large energy sphere at Silas, coming at the speed of sound, but that girl in the hood that fought with Lemon was faster. She teleported and grabbed Silas just in the nick of time. 

Silas dropped the rods down, and like hail from the skies they fell down and pierced through graves, gravestones and our fellow troopers. Almost half of our men where wiped out because of those rods, the others protected themselves with force fields from Lemon, Laos and fellow Troopers. The Null Standing advance, coming for Lemon and I. 

One by one they dropped the Troopers that stood in their way. Heads blew up like a popped balloon and we could finally see who was responsible — the seemingly new team member who resembled a greek god. He had white bioluminescent hair that danced like fire and blue eyes that lacked an iris or a pupil. He had a grin on his face as he stared at his victims and watched their head blow up. Some dropped like flies as though something mysterious was killing them…it was obviously the Time Jerker. The others could not see him but I could see him as clear as day, pausing and resuming time while he stabbed the men in their guts and watcher their blood spill. Halo on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. 

 "You should be worrying about yourself!" Silas said, throwing a punch at me. 

 I swiftly dodged the punch in that split second and watched as his arm stop besides my head. I was about to grab it and throw him down but like a Porcupine, his rods pierced out of his fingers, enlarging very fast, they were aiming for my head. 

"Too slow," I said, dodging them and creating some distance between me and him.

 Lemon was not far off, fighting the hooded girl on top of a grave. Unlike last time, this time, Lemon was not holding back and so was the girl. We could hear them break the sound barrier with every clash of their fists. 

Laos was now face to face with the head popper. Iron arm against iron arm they fought, for some reason, the head popper could not blow up Laos' head with his mind. Laos punched his face with ultimate brutality, sending him flying and crashing into a nearby tree. Apparently, this guy was not as skilled in fist fights as he was in blowing up heads. 

But the time jerked had no restraints. He was still dropping the troopers like flies and only a few could actually evade him, but they could not pinpoint his location. I had to finish off with Silas and help them out. So I activated my system using Freeform. My eyes glowed blue making Silas feel uneasy and step back a little. 

"What's the matter?" I grinned sinisterly as I looked at him. "Don't tell me you're starting to have cold feet?" 

Just at that moment, every part of my skin became as white as snow and every single strnad of my hair turned light blue, and flickered like a blue flame. I had activated the Icebreaker ability which I unlocked a while ago in the Training Arena. 

"Oh shit!" Silas said with fright in his eyes.

He immediately shot rods at me, but I stretched out my right arm and froze them before they could come anywhere near me. He shot more, and more, but I froze every single one. My transformation had the other Troopers bedazzled and the other members of the Null Standing surprised. Silas did not stop sending rods at me, enlarging the rod by every shot. But it was all futile. 

Just at that moment, the Time Jerker stood close to me and was about to stab me, thinking he had paused time and immobilized me, but his dagger broke the moment it struck my torso. I grabbed his had much to his surprise and began freezing it rapidly. He looked into my eyes with fright, breaking his frozen arm in order to get away from me. The moment he broke free, the time freeze stopped and all the others could hear was the Time Jerker screaming on the floor as he held his torn off arm. 

Silas hissed, now more afraid than he was before. He frowned looking at me, then he said. 

"You're not the only one with a trick up your sleeve." 

Almost immediately after he said that, he snapped his finger and and exclaimed;

"Shambles!" 

Shambles? I asked myself. I had definitely heard that word before. But there was no time for that, because the moment he said Shambles, Lemon appeared before him with his right hand on her neck and his left hand on the side of her waist. 

I gasped, stretching my hand out. 

"If you move!" He exclaimed stopping me in my tracks. "I'll pierce her to death!" 

Lemon struggled to break free from his clasp but could not. Silas was not that strong, there was no way he was stronger than Lemon, so I wondered how he held her down with such ease. 

"Pierce me to death?!" Lemon asked struggling. "I'm a Zoarite you fool, nothing can—" 

Before she could finish that sentence, Silas pierced through her waist a little, startling Lemon to a gasp. Her eyes full of suprise as her blood rolled down. 

"If you try anything witch, I'll turn you into a kebab before you can say uncle." 

What the hell was going on? 

"Let her go Silas, I'll do whatever you want." 

At this point, the battle had come to a halt. Everyone's focus was on Silas and I. Silas looked at me with a smug evil smile. 

"Deactivate your system, and surrender." 

I did that immediately and fell on my knees. 

"No, Ezra, please don't," Lemon cried. 

"There, I did what you asked," I glared at Silas, "now let her go." 

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," he replied. "It's not that easy kid. We're not done yet." 

He looked behind me, giving a nod. And out of nowhere, Halo the reaper appeared in my back much to everyone's surprise. He pulled out a strange mechanical collar and placed it around my neck, and the moment the collar clasped, a blue small light bulb in it turned on showing that it had been activated. 

"Mission complete," Halo said, giving Silas a thumbs up. 

Silas smiled, looking at me, then he began laughing as his rod pierced through Lemon's waist, making her gasp in pain. 

"What the hell are you doing Silas!" I exclaimed trying to stand up, but Halo pushed me down. "You said you'd let her go if I surrendered!" 

Silas grinned.

"Poor Ezra, still as naive as ever," he replied. "That's why it was so easy to frame you for my death." 

I could have cared less about what he had to say at that moment. My focus was on Lemon and how I could save her. I tried to activate my powers, my energy manipulation, my icebreaker, but nothing was working. It was as though everything had been deactivated. 

The collar! 

I looked up at Halo with bloodlust in my eyes. 

"What the hell did you do to me?" I barked. 

"Whoa," Halo chuckled, raising his hands up. "Don't bite me now kid, I was just following orders." 

Silas laughed once more. 

"Another partner gone," he said, "I guess you were never meant to have partners." 

He was about to give the final blow by piercing her neck when the girl in the hood appeared before him and held his hand. 

"What the hell are you doing?" Silas asked, as surprised as the rest of us. 

"She's mine!" She said, pushing Silas hands down and grabbing Lemon's neck. "I'm going to be the one who kills the silver witch and get Eldenstar's approval." 

The rest of the Null Standing gave a sigh of relief, laughing as they looked at each other. 

"Fine," Silas smiled, leaving the rod in Lemon's torso. "Knock yourself out." 

He handed Lemon to her and she grabbed Lemon up by her neck, punching her repeatedly as we watched. Lemon could not do anything to defend herself, she raised her hand to deflect the punches but the girl angrily pushed it down and kept on punching her, beating her to a pulp. Lemon was close to death and we could not do anything but watch. 

I was not calm about it. I kept on screaming at the top of my lungs, trying to break free from the collar and save her but Halo restrained me, forcing me to watch helplessly while they laughed. Then, finally, the girl grabbed Lemon's neck, raising her up above the ground. She was on the verge of death, and the hooded girl was about to give the death blow when something strange happened.