Chương 66: 11685

Monan couldn't stop himself from laughing. That's all T'balt could hear following his outline. It was gilded in golden light and basking in the city's skyline. It was the first time in a long time that he felt genuine fun. The feeling and the adrenaline coursed through his veins. An onlooker wouldn't have even realized he was in a fight with his life on the line, being mercilessly pursued by his most hated enemy.

Monan had made the point of bringing T'balt out to the open of the cityscape, and now he was running off in that avoidant defense. But T'balt couldn't understand why he was grinning so much about it when all he felt was rage and fury. What he didn't understand, he brushed off as the insanity of man given too much power. Monan's sun-like light clashed with the watchful eye of the full moon as he and T'balt crossed fists, uncaring of the destruction that they caused.

T'balt chased him into buildings, and then he would light form out of them. Where Monan could squeeze through anywhere light could, T'balt would bash through with the full force of his hardened body. Monan let his light form take him through the air. T'balt jumped at him with impeccable speed, but only ended up flying across the street to another skyscraper, where he continued running.

"Stop running and fight me!" Every now and then, he would run by a small family barricaded in an apartment or ragtag community stored in a megamall. But he paid them no more mind than a fly on the wall, eyes locked on a single target.

"You're finally starting to get it!" Monan yelled in the air.

"It took you a while, but you're starting to act like a Redeemer now!" T'balt stopped peeking back at the panicking faces of those who had just had their home destroyed. He was terrified, not realizing what he had done. He saw a man hanging off a ledge in a hole he had made in an apartment building. Just when the man started falling to his doom, T'balt caught him and delivered him back to his family. They all looked at him, unsure if they should be grateful or afraid.

So he turned and jumped to the next building, ultimately knowing that their thoughts of him didn't matter. Monan peacefully landed near him.

"Don't lump me in with the likes of you. I'm trying to save lives, and you just enjoy stomping all over them," T'balt said. They were stopped on top of a building, privy to the fires, the destruction, and strange rocks brought about by Zero Day. It was just the two of them standing above it all. Monan sighed.

"I thought you'd realize the truth by now. None of them have lives anymore. No one does. Not even us." His voice grew coarse with the indignity of rising frustration.

"There is only beginning after beginning after beginning." He pointed to the tattoo on his neck.

"11685… I've saved them. I've killed them. I made them kill each other. They love you. They'll worship you, and then they'll shit on your grave. None of it matters when the clock hits zero… It's only us who remember. Only the Redeemers. That makes you a part of my family." T'balt paused, fixated on the number on his neck. Monan continued.

"Maybe when you hit a hundred. Maybe a thousand. But at some point, everything else will stop existing to you." T'balt's stare dropped to the ground.

"Does that mean… it'll never end?" Smiling, Monan shook his head.

"Every triumph will be undone. Every relationship will get erased. The world just continues eating itself, and we're caught where the mouth meets the tail."

"Then what's the point of going through it all, time after time again?"

"We don't have a choice. Endings don't mean a damn thing. So why not turn a long time into a good time, right?" T'balt clenched his hardened fists, feeling the abnormality in his skin. Like it wasn't his anymore.

"Me and you are not family. Just because we're suffering doesn't mean everyone else has to. To me, these people are still people, and they'll stay that way. I'll never forgive what you've done to them. And I'll stop you from harming them." Monan looked perplexed.

"You'll stop me?" Then, without warning, he flashed away, forcing T'balt to follow the lingering trail of light. It went back to the building where he had just saved a man. There were 12 people in there still reeling from the shock of what had happened to them, but it would be nothing compared to what would come next. Monan appeared to that with the light of an angel and discharged his light in all directions, piercing them all at once. It was a cacophony of blood and burning, and Monan only laughed. T'balt choked.

The depravity and guile of the man in front of him only fueled his rage further. And he had gone into that state of blinding fury. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Monan flashed away at T'balt's initial attack, still in a state of euphoric laughter with blood now covering his face.

"Then stop me!" He lit away, T'balt endlessly pursuing.

"Are you serious right now?" Cannon asked Sam, who was cross-legged in the middle of the floor, symbolically holding up a white flag. He was no longer interested in fighting and looked it. Cannon had gotten strange vibes from the man since they arrived. Like he was the one thing that didn't seem to belong. But after all the pain and the burns on his skin, many of which were caused by Sam, he wasn't the most trusting either. Sam shrugged.

"There isn't a bone in my body that desires to hurt a teenager and the great Cannon Valkyr. It may be the end of the world, but I'm not a savage. The whole fight rubbed me the wrong way since the beginning, to tell you the truth." He let the armor around him disappear, showing off his spray-painted leather jacket. That, he took off by hand, leaving a ragged, collared shirt, white and wrinkled. Cannon thought for a moment and then decided to sit as well.

"I understand. Mankind is under attack by vicious demons, and here we are fighting each other."

"Cannon, are you really just going to sit down and talk? He was just trying to kill us," Acelin said, antsy.

"Why not? Beats the alternative. Besides, there's a lot I'm confused about as well."

"It's fine, kid," Sam interjected.

"Cross my heart. I'm done."

"He crossed his heart. That means he'll die if he's lying."

"You don't seriously believe that," Acelin said. Cannon shrugged.

"Ok, fine. But what about Ellie? She's still out there fighting." Cannon peered back at Sam.

"You have my permission. I'm not a big fan of the goth bird either."

"Go on," Cannon said.

"You'll move faster without me. When you find her, bring her back this way, and we'll deal with the ex-girlfriend if she's still around." Acelin peered back and forth between them both, still untrusting of the situation, but at the moment, Ellie was in clearer and present danger. So he took off through the wall he was pointed to. Cannon crossed his arms, trying his best to look quizzical. But he had already started liking Sam a while back.

Maybe it was the flattery, but the guy jumped in to save his friend and fought with some principle, not participating when it was 2-on-1. He thought it a shame they were on opposite sides. So, to say the least, he was relieved they wouldn't have to kill each other.

"Truthfully, I doubt I understand much more than you. Just a month ago, I got surrounded by Redeemers and ungodly creatures. Demons and sorcerers and time travelers. It's all so bizarre. The only one who could make sense of it was T'balt. He said the end of the world had come, and I know how to survive it. I supposed that was enough at first. Much of what he said turned out to be the truth. He could predict the future. I saw it with my own eyes. It was like he could read minds.

So when he said that Monan was going to kill us and we had to go to war, I thought there was no other way. But even still, it's hard to believe a single man is capable of such evils."

"Evils like what?" Sam asked.

"Slaughtering women and children, making a man murder his lover, threatening to kill children. The list goes on…" He could see the realization light in Sam's eyes. The man paused a moment, letting his eyes go red.

"Are you sure about all that? If it's so hard to believe it's true, typically that means it isn't."

"No. I believe it. T'balt's said it, and so far it's tracked. I'll believe him over anything else."

"T'balt must be a standup guy to catch the trust of someone like you."

"I've always respected guys that put in the work they're expected to get out. He works hard. He doesn't have a choice. That determination is hard to come by. The guy wants people to rely on him, but he relies on them even more, without realizing it. Only together could we make it this far." Sam got lost in thought.

"Monan was once the same."

"Really? You knew him before?"

"He was a lonely guy ever since high school. Always stuck to himself. Used to get bullied all the time for it. It's just how it is when you don't have a clique. But then he started working out and got bigger than the bullies. Then he'd make sure no one around him got bullied again. Adults thought he was a troublemaker, but everyone knew that he had our backs. By the time we graduated high school, he was a polite guy, if not a little socially awkward. Then that one midnight… He's just this now."

Cannon sat and listened like he typically did. Sam stared at the skull of the Seraph, which stared back at him with empty and soulless eyes. The world around it, a dilapidated mess.

"He had a kid, you know. It was just from a passing fling. He always worried about being a good dad. He lost his job and thought he was going to be a deadbeat. I was working to get him out of all that when this stuff happened… but he really cared about that boy only a month ago. The kid's dead now. And when I told him, he literally said that he didn't care…" He sat quietly for a moment and then sighed.

"That man is beyond me right now." Cannon didn't know what to say. It wasn't a scenario he could relate to. The only one who possibly could was T'balt, and they were currently trying to kill each other. He wondered who T'balt was before everything. It wasn't something the Redeemer had ever gone into. The only one who knew him was the girl with the scythe. And she had turned on T'balt just as Sam was turning on Monan.

"Do you think he ever tried to save him?" Cannon asked. Sam's eyes widened, considering the idea, but he would have no clue how to answer.

"Only a Redeemer would know." Just then, Acelin returned as a light above them. He looked panicked.

"What's the matter?" Cannon said.

"Is Ellie alright?"

"I can't find her. Either of them."