A smile came to Parlando's face. This was a much more uplifting subject that wouldn't make people upset. There would come time for serious conversations about the future of humanity. Free period before lunch wasn't exactly the right time.
"I went there to see the garden once," Pearl told Anthony with a warm chuckle. "Nearly broke my neck looking up at the sunflowers- I swear their height puts the Jin family to shame."
He smiled at Kevin and finished the moss story.
"Well, we had fun destroying it afterwards. She turned it into a fireball- much more effective than the original lamp." Pearl chuckled. "I never knew striking metal against rock could start a fire. But I called her Fire Girl for a good reason. To be honest, I think fire is the most beautif-"
He stopped in his tracks as he heard loud crashing. Instinctively he braced himself, standing protectively between the other boys and the noise. He breathed a sigh of relief when his friend appeared. She looked ticked off though- had they interrupted something?
"You alright, Wildfire?" Pearl asked, calm but with concern in his eyes.
* Tags: Anthony, Kevin, Lawrence
---
"Yes mom!" Runt shouted over her shoulder at Olivia. The puppylike warrior hadn't exactly understood what needed to be done. She just knew she would do it.
... After this totally awesome buttkicking showdown of course!
Insult? Runt didn't understand the heck Xia was saying. Not because Xia was being cryptic, but because Runt herself was simply too simple.
Extra inches? What'd I say? Some height stuff..."Quit trying to confuse me!!" Runt laughed. "Turn off your smart person psychic powers!!"
She had no freakin idea whether her punch connected or not, but suddenly she flew backwards and landed on her butt. She hadn't thought about something important. Despite gaining super-strength, her weight was still the same.
"You SHORT little punk!" Runt shouted, then burst out laughing for obvious reasons. She just didn't make any sense. The girl crawled back onto her feet and charged forward, but tripped over the ruined floor. The floor
she had wrecked. Runt wasn't quite sure which way was up at this point. She was kind of upside down in the rubble.
"I can fight you from here," She insisted, putting her fists up- or down. "Come at me!!"
* Tags: Xia & Liv, other watchers
---
Satisfied with the situation, Alder let the storage door close behind him. His thoughts turned to the teenagers as he walked down the corridor. It was fortunate that Olivia, the brains behind the operation, was present as his voice of reason.
It wasn't that the kids were inherently
bad. Surprisingly, Alder did believe in humanity as a whole. He just... wasn't much of a parental type. All the commanders past had been motherly. They were protective mother to their trainees, to their soldiers, to all of humankind.
Or, at least, how 'motherly' was usually defined.
Alder felt a suffocating tightness in his chest as he pictured his own mother. Not the heartache of grief, rather an echo of old panic from his childhood days.
He remembered her in vivid images. The sharp eyes, glaring daggers of cold fire. The foxlike jaw, clenched in rage. Alder had learned to recognize his mother's anger even before the shouting began.
As brutish and violent as Alder could be, he hoped he wasn't becoming like his mother. Deaf to reason, blind to compassion. Life wasn't worthwhile without love in his heart.
Despite everything, He reminded himself,
I still love humankind.Those thoughts didn't sound entirely like him... but they were still somehow his own.
As the light left the final Hellborn's eyes, the heroine exhaled a breath she didn't know she was holding. A tranquil quiet had fallen over the fields. There was only silence where she once heard the echoing heartbeats of all humanity.
Silence. Not even her own heartbeat.
She was somehow not concerned by this. It was time to lay her fight to rest. This felt only natural, like heading to bed after a long, long day. Something to welcome and not to worry. An exhausted smile spread across her face- she had smiled more today than in her entire life.
Despite everything, humanity still stands.
That is all that matters.
My brother...
If I see you again, I want you to know.
I have no regrets.
You'll know where to find me.
She began walking, spear in hand. She knew exactly where she was going.
You know I always loved the sunflowers, Alder.
It was like a sword through his heart- so sudden and jarring, it took him a moment to comprehend what happened. All the other times, he was in an irrational rage when her flashbacks appeared. He had witnessed her die in so many ways, brought back by... her love and faith in humanity, or humanity's love and faith in her. Alder understood now.
This memory was different. He had never been able to reach anything that happened after... after the last demon was struck down. That was the moment humanity's spirit left her.
Alder once thought of it as abandonment. She had outlived her usefulness, and humankind didn't need her anymore. So they would discard her like a broken toy. He told himself this, using it as an excuse to hate everything.
Somehow, this excuse didn't measure up.
It was love, not hate, that led to humanity's victory. Their heroine was not an one-woman army. All of humankind, the fallen and those still living, all of them united together to make this possible. She was the vessel of their combined willpower- she was determined enough to handle the responsibility.
The Hellborn fought with hate. Humanity won with love.
It made Alder wonder about his own willpower.
The Commander calmly opened the doors to the kitchen, then locked them after he entered. Silent tears were falling from his eyes and he didn't know why. Maybe he left the onions out earlier.