22:00. (4)
By now, Theo was sitting limp in the chair. His head was hanging low, and it was as if Phantom's words were not registering. That didn't stop him from talking though.
"I wonder what it is you did to anger those who paid me… because this was an unbelievably cruel thing to make a man go through." He then held up a tool he used for eye gouging and started wiping it fiercely. "I mean, your kids were so young and cute, man. Your wife, she was so beautiful… I might even say she was prettier than Tia!"
Phantom chuckled and nudged at the air in Theo's direction. He was speaking as if he had nothing to do with what just happened, let alone being directly responsible for it all. He continued talking as he cleaned his tools as best he could, before finishing up and closing the duffel bag. He looked at Theo once more and walked up to him, raising his head by pushing his chin up and looked at the man's unfocused, almost lifeless looking eyes.
"Othello? Earth to Othello?"
Phantom even waved his open hand across Theo's face, and when he got no response, he sighed.
"Such a shame…"
He walked off and went back to the duffel bag, opening it up and after a brief search, pulled out a handgun.
"I'm supposed to leave him alive, but what's the point?"
"Wait Boss, you're actually going to kill him?" The muscular subordinate asked.
"Yeah? Didn't the client say he must be kept alive?" The woman previously referred to as Widow chimed in.
"That certainly is true, however it was only said to keep Othello alive to watch his family tortured to death. Nothing was said about what should be done afterwards." Phantom held the gun up and cocked it. "I'm taking him out."
"Seriously? Why?"
"Like I told him a million times, I like this guy."
Before anybody could talk back, the Phantom pointed the gun at Theo, who despite all appearances, was present and could hear everything.
'Fuck this guy… acting all friendly after making me watch all that. Fuck all his crew; I hope they burn in Hell. Fuck the Moon Clan… I don't know what I was expecting asking them for help, but they didn't even respond, despite my using the correct channel.'
Theo started crying once more, a fresh stream of tears making their way down his cheeks from his eyes. The Phantom noticed this, but all it served to do was make him nod, as if he was doing Theo a favour.
'I'm so sorry, Jessica… Ethan, Thandi, Zama… forgive me for being weak and not protecting you…'
Just then, everything in the room went dark, causing Theo to actually look around with his eyes.
'What happened? Why's it all dark? Am I dead?' Theo asked himself all these questions as if he was going to answer them himself. He closed his eyes, and succumbed to what he thought was death
"Your voice reached me, Othello…"
Theo's eyes suddenly shot open, and a bright white light illuminated the room. The light burned and crackled like the purest, most beautiful flames, and Theo couldn't focus on it for too long without his eyes hurting. Everybody appeared to be frozen in place as time seemed to have stood still. Theo, who still wasn't sure if he was alive or dead looked at Phantom, behind whom the light had formed. It then started to take shape, forming into a silhouette of some sort of humanoid figure, and where the eyes were meant to be appeared two eye slits which emitted a black glow.
"I must be dead…" Theo said, having suddenly regained his ability to speak, despite his being gagged.
"You are not dead, Othello. Not yet."
The being spoke with a raspy, almost wet sounding voice, which fluctuated from a whisper, to deep, grotesque tone; something completely at odds with the being's appearance.
"W… Who are you?" Theo asked, still in a state of shock.
"You have not time for such questions. I have slowed down time enough for us to come to an understanding."
"What kind of understanding? What the fuck is going on here?!"
"Do you desire the power to kill those who killed your family?"
That question alone made every single thought about whether or not he was dead and what was going on seem absolutely trivial. In that moment, all Theo yearned for was the strength to heinously kill everybody who was present in his house, and avenge his family. Their severely mutilated corpses in clear view as if to enrage him even more. The resignation and acceptance of his fate that Theo had felt just moments prior had been blown away, and replaced with wrath. He looked this white, flaming entity in the eyes and answered.
"More than ANYTHING."
"I have the ability to share my power with you, for a period of time."
All of a sudden, a stone tablet marked with something written in a language Theo had never seen before appeared in front of him.
"This is a contract. Sign it with your blood, Othello."
Theo looked at the tablet, trying to see if he could decipher even the slightest bit of the writing. He was interrupted however, as this entity suddenly screamed.
"STOP DAWDLING AND SIGN THE CONTRACT, OTHELLO!!!!"
Theo was suddenly jarred into action as he spat onto the tablet with as much force as he could. The wad of spit was red and hit the tablet with a rather loud splat. As soon as the spit hit the stone, the writing glowed white and the tablet disappeared. The entity looked at Theo and he could swear he saw it smile and nod in approval.
"Well done, Othello… I am known as the Fallen. I shall see you soon."
No sooner had this being called the Fallen introduced itself did it disappear in a bright flash. Everything in the living room then went back to normal, and almost instantly, the sound of the repeated gunshots filled the entire house. The Phantom stood with the smoking gun still pointed directly at the pulpy remains of Theo's head.
"Hmm…"
"What is it, Boss?" The muscular subordinate asked.
"Nothing, really… it's just I could have sworn that at the last moment, Othello's dead eyes were filled with… wrath, hope… I don't know. Anyway, it's just after midnight. Let's get out of here." He then looked at the goons. "You lot; you handle the cleanup."
"What should we do, Sir?" One of them asked.
"Burn the house. A bunch of you all vomited or bled in here, so eliminate all evidence of our presence with fire."
"Understood."
"Black Widow, Krazy Native, Mike D, you're all dismissed for the night. I'll contact you when next we have a job."
"Understood, Boss."
"Yes, Sir."
"…"
Phantom retrieved his weapons from his subordinates, slung the bag's strap over his shoulder, nodded at everybody, and was suddenly enveloped by some sort of black aura, before disappearing with a flash of light. Native looked at everybody who remained, and spoke.
"Alright, you all heard what the boss said. Widow, you can take down your webs, now. We all know how strong they are, and all they would do is hinder our effort to burn this place to the ground."
"Agreed." Black Widow said with something of a sneer.
"The rest of you will take care of –"
Native was interrupted by Mike D leaving the house. He raised his open hand, aimed it at the wall and after his palm glowed bright green, a skull shaped ball of similarly coloured… something flew from his palm and hit the wall, with the resulting explosion creating a big enough hole for him to walk out of. He didn't even say anything as he lowered his hand and made his way out from the smoking hole, disappearing into the sky with a green flash.
"Fucking weirdo…" Native muttered under his breath with a shake of his head.
He then walked out of the hole himself, crouched down, and then suddenly leapt up into the sky. He didn't fly away, he jumped away. Black Widow raised her hands with her palms open, and proceeded to suck all of the webbing that was in the house into her palms. Despite how much webbing there was, it all disappeared fairly quickly and once it was all gone, she looked at the remaining grunts and exited from the hole as well, before disappearing into the night.
"…n-none of those weirdoes used the damn door." One of the grunts stated.
"When have they ever?" Another replied.
"We don't have time for this. Let's get this place burned up, and get the fuck outta here."
"Hear, hear."
They all got to work, walking through the house, looking for and finding highly flammable materials before setting them up in strategic locations in the house.
"Man, tonight was BRUTAL." One of the goons declared.
"Yeah man, I don't think that this line of work is for me. This anything-goes type shit is too much for me to handle."
"Watching those kids get torn apart by Phantom while the other bosses watched on as if they were enjoying the show? Fuck, I couldn't take that."
"I got kids that age at home… I don't even want to imagine how that Theo, Othello, whatever his fucking name is; I don't want to imagine what he was feeling."
"Man, fuck that guy. He might have gotten his ass kicked, but he went to town on us. Fuck him hard."
The discussion continued amongst the grunts as they set everything up. One of the men, who wasn't in the room due to having been too squeamish, was now in the kill room, looking at the multiple corpses and blood all over the place. He looked at the children and sighed, offering up a small prayer for them, before looking over at Theo's corpse. His pure white suit had been stained with a few drops of blood that had come from his mouth when he suffered a beating, and he was still restrained by the strange rope. The goon's eyes rose up to look at Theo's head, and while he was expecting to see brains, blood and head goop after all the bullets Phantom put into Theo's head, what he found was a perfectly intact head. In fact, there was absolutely no evidence of there having been anything violent done to the head.
"Wait… what? Is this for real? Didn't that creepy guy shoot this guy's head to shit?" The goon then took a few steps towards Theo, before calling out. "Hey guys, how was this guy here killed?!"
"What do you mean? Phantom blew his head apart like a ripe watermelon! Why?"
"…because right now, this guy's head looks like a perfect watermelon that hasn't exploded or anything!"
"What? Bullshit!"
It didn't take all that long for the goons to all gather in front of Theo, and they all stared at him, completely confused.
"I don't get it… I fuckin' saw this cat's head pop! How is this possible?!"