Michaelangelo stood helplessly behind a forcefield as he watched Kiara face Chadwick all on her own. As he was watching, the forcefield opened up several times to let soldiers into it. It didn't look like she was doing much, but Michaelangelo knew all the portals and shields being used to move soldiers to safety were all Kiara's doing.
He had never really understood the power she held as the Dark Creator's magician until she destroyed all the clay beasts attacking everyone without having to even look at them. With every step she took, the undefeatable soldiers crumbled and fell to the ground like sand castles during a high tide. She was frightengly powerful, but what scared him most was how that wasn't even a measurable percentage of her power.
The only thing about her magic he could recognize was her perfect control over the immense power she was using. Only Kiara could do something so difficult and dangerous with such ease and elegance. Only she could maneuver such anger without letting herself succumb to the power within her- What was that? As Michael stood there, admiring Kiara, the ground began to shake.
He looked around and saw giant holes appear in the ground and in the air around everyone. One even appeared right next to him, but he managed to catch the poor soul who stood right above it. He peered down with Rebecca, but they couldn't make out anything in the void. It was just empty. There was no thing inside. Not light. Not anything. Halley pulled out one of her arrows saying, "Lumen." and they slowly put the arrow down the hole, but they couldn't see the light it was emitting.
Halley pulled the arrow up to see what was wrong with it, but there was nothing left of the arrow when she pulled it up. What was going on- Their attention soon shifted to a shriek from across the battlefield as a soldier lost his arm in a black hole that spawned right next to him. The shrieks went from bubble to bubble as people began banging on the forcefields, trying to get out. The shields meant to protect them just seemed like cages holding them captive.
Michaelangelo turned to Kiara to see what was wrong with her magic, and he saw her just holding Chadwick in her arms as she cried out. Oh no. A steady trail of a black ooze was leaking from her shadow to the bubbles, and was destroying everything in its path as it did. "Kiara! Kiara, stop!" Rebecca and Halley screamed to her as loudly as they could, but their voices couldn't reach her.
Michaelangelo tried calling out to Kiara as well, and as he was, he suddenly remembered a little girl he had met in a palace when he was younger. She looked so lonely, sitting there, crying all alone. He felt his chest squeeze as he saw her, and he reached out to her, hoping and wishing her smile would take the place of her tears. He reached out to the young girl sitting in the moonlight in front of the castle's pond.
With her black hair glistening in the twilight, he reached out to her and startled her a bit. "W-who are you?" she asked as she trembled. Instead of introducing himself, he asked her why she was crying, but she said she was "fine." He sat down on the stone bench beside her and told her how he really didn't want to go to the party, but his parents insisted he went with them. He always hated the boring parties filled with adults. He had always hated them until he saw the girl on the bench.
She giggled at his description on her, and he wiped her tears away with the sleeve of his shirt. "I'm Kiara," she finally said, "Nice to meet you." At that moment, his memory ended and all the bubbles burst around everyone. He looked up to see Kiara absorbing all the magic around her, and dashed over as she made a portal behind herself. She threw herself back into the portal, but Michael still ran towards her as the portal closed.
He desperately jumped in an attempt to catch Kiara before she fell into the portal, fearing he wouldn't see her again. Alas, the portal closed with him still in Wisteria, and Kiara was gone. He had lost her. Again.
"Are you okay?" William asked Michael as he placed his hand on his shoulder. He wasn' t. He had lost Kiara for a second time, and it was just as he finally remembered her after all this time. That's why her touch always calmed him down. That was why she could never do any wrong in his eyes. She was the one who saved him back then, and coincidentally, she had saved him again. However, as fate would have it, he never got the chance to thank her either time.
No! He was going to apologize this time. He was going to thank her this time. He had to. He just did. Michael drove himself close to insanity as these thoughts rushed through his brain. He even turned to William and asked him to locate her, but no matter how many times his baby blue eyes turned their jungle green, he couldn't find her thoughts. She wasn't anywhere on Wisteria. How was that possible? Where was she then?
Britney, Kylian, Louis, Rebecca, Halley, and Brandon all came over and tried to brainstorm what could've happened to her, but as they did, a dark, elegant, regal lady walked up to them, alongside Crispus. "You won't find her," she said, "that monster is gone." Brandon was up in arms at the insult, but she simply told them to look around. "Could a normal person have done something like this?"
Michael looked around at the broken trees, pieces of the ground that jutted up out of the surface, and the puddles of mud all around. He, however, was used to this scene as he lost control many times before he met Kiara or the others. Where they saw destruction, he saw fear of oneself. Where there was a mess, he noticed the internal fight to get the magic under control. The terror of hurting someone without even realising.
She was just scared. That's all. She just took her own grandfather's life, and she had a mental breakdown because of it. She wasn't at fault, surely they could understand that. "Well I don't," the lady rudely replied, "It doesn't matter if that criminal was mother, father, or even one of you. Someone of her power level shouldn't be losing control because of something as stupid as 'fear'."
Michaelangelo's fist clenched closed at hearing those words, but Louis and Kylian grabbed him and held him back before he could put his hands on her. William then walked up to calm him down and whispered, "You may be right, but hitting the eldest princess of the South won't help your case." Crispus asked the lady to apologize for her harsh words, but Princess Mahogani claimed she was only speaking the truth.
Someone of Kiara's power level shouldn't lose control, but being the Dark Creator's magician didn't mean she was immune to fear. Michael knew Kiara was in the right, and he knew he had to convince everyone she wasn't dangerous. She did the same for him, so he had to do the same for her as well. He had to prove she wasn't a monster!
*****
The kids were all sent to the Palace of the Eastern Empire after they went through a series of tests to make sure they hadn't sustained any damage. Luckily for them, none of them had so much as a scratch on themselves. Even the soldiers who got limbs taken off by the black voids were in perfect health. It was as if their arms and legs weren't even severed in the first place.
Michael realised Kiara had reversed all the effects of her power as she absorbed all the magic around her, and dispelled it into the portal as she fell. He only imagined how painful it was for her to do such a thing as he stood in the throne room, awaiting the entrance of the monarchs. As he imagined the pain, he thought it would feel like his heart was being pulled out of his chest, stretched, and then shoved back into his body.
What scared him wasn't his imagination, but how he had a faint memory of him feeling that exact same agony. He closed his eyes as the monarchs walked into the room, almost as if to search his mind's memories without the distraction of the real world. He looked around his brain trying to salvage any and all memories related to that feeling until finally got it.
He played the memory in his mind, but he was brought back to reality with Britney's elbow in his side. The kings were talking about how dangerous what they did was, and Michael stood there, waiting to get scolded for a second time. He waited for the words, "Don't ever do that again." as they symbolised the lecture was finally over, but he instead was confused by King Cheyton saying, "You all have done the whole of Wisteria a momentous favour, and we thank you."
Thank them? B-but they broke their rules, went against them, and fought the leader of the terrorist group. Not only that, but it turned out to be the former King of the South, they would've died if it wasn't for Crispus and his army, and they lost the heir to the throne of the South in the process. What were they thanking them for?
"Even though," Empress Si-eun said, "You deliberately broke the rules we gave you, and fought the leader of a terrorist group by yourselves, almost died and lost Crowned Princess Kiara in the process, you still managed to defeat Chadwick Myra." "In addition," King Ackley chimed in, "The information you all gathered, as well as the testimonies from witnesses you found, will help our operatives find the last of the Saviours and destroy the group, once and for all."
King Winston concluded their shared speech with, "As a reward for your efforts, we are prepared to offer you eight anything you want." Anything? As in anything in the whole wide world? Michael's mind wandered as he thought of all the money and power he could get from the monarchs, but it soon shifted back to the memory he had. What he really wanted was to know the truth. Why did Chadwick go so far in order to kill him?
Michael's mind wondered once again as he thought of the different things his parents would have done or wanted to do to a six year old. Kill her? No, you can't kill a Creator's magician. Was that possible? Kill Kiara to take her power? How on Wisteria would they be able to do that? With PROJECT ANARCHY? What was that anyway? Was it a way to take the power of the Creators and rule over all? There were so many different things to think about, and he didn't know where to start. Maybe-
"Michael!" King Cheyton called, "Are you alright? You weren't responding." He was fine, physically speaking. He just got himself too wrapped up in his own head to realise it was his turn to ask the monarchs for his wish. What Michaelangelo wanted in the whole wide world was to know about his parents, Raphael and Doria Sullivan. Not only the circumstances surrounding their deaths, but everything about them.
From the way they talked to their favourite songs. He needed to know everything as the last Sullivan magician. That was the only way he could save Kiara.
*****
Michaelangelo found himself lying down in darkness. His eyes couldn't fathom anything around him, but he felt the tight blindfold responsible for his blindness pressed against his face. He figured out he was lying down on a metal table of some sort as the cool surface of it touched his calves. Shorts? Why was he wearing shorts in the middle of Autumn? He tried moving around a bit, but he felt smaller, and weaker.
He grunted and kicked his legs, the only part of him that wasn't tied down. He tried calling on Zeus to help him, but he couldn't reach his own Magi. How strange. Regardless, he kicked and kicked around until he managed to hit a metal tray by him down to the ground. The giant clang sound was followed by familiar footsteps walking closer and closer to him. Familiar footsteps, but he couldn't figure out who was making them.
The tray clanged quietly as different metal tools were placed back on top of it. He asked who was there, but he couldn't recognize his own voice. It sounded so young. There was no way that was him, unless this was all a forgotten memory. He knew this was a lost memory when a man responded to his question with, "What do you mean, kiddo? You don't recognize your own dad?"
He took that opportunity to say the blindfold was scaring him, and it worked! The man took off the blindfold, and there he was. Raphael Sullivan. Michaelangelo cried at the sight of his father's face. Those hazel brown eyes he had only seen in pictures were right in front of him. He asked Michael what was wrong as he kissed his forehead, and told him how he wouldn't let anything happen to him.
He stroked his curly dirty blonde hair, and his touch calmed Michael's nerves and worries. He felt as though nothing could hurt him as long as he had his father by his side. He then wondered where his mother was, and as he did, she walked into the room and yelled at dad. "Why did you take the blindfold off?"
He told her Michael's eyes were grey, symbolising the operation was a success, and she walked over to Michael to see for herself. He teared up at the sight of his mother and her freckled skin underneath her glasses as she examined his eyes. He giggled as she lifted his eyelids, but her piercing glare and emotionless dark brown eyes sent all those giggles away.
He had only remembered and seen his mother's warm, blinding smile. He didn't have any recollection of such a cold, brazen gaze. It scared him stiff, and he flinched as she placed her hand on his head and stroked his hair. "Whose hand feels better? Mine or daddy's?" Dad's hand was far warmer than mom's, but that response made her grab Michael by his hair and stare into his eyes with the most murderous intent he had ever known.
"Don't hurt him." dad pleaded, but she just glared at him, and shut him up in the process. She then released Michael's hair and told dad to prepare the necessary procedures as she walked away, and out of Michael's view. He carefully and gently closed his eyes and told Michael to relax as he said something.
Michaelangelo knew deep down his father had said something, but he couldn't remember nor hear what it was. This feeling of confusion quickly turned into unbearable pain as Michael felt electricity rush into him through his back, hands, and head. It then spread until his whole body was filled with electricity. He screamed in misery, but his parents didn't do anything despite his cries and pleas for help.
The pain increased with every scream and plead for mercy, until he felt himself begin to shut down. It started with him losing all feeling in his legs and that feeling worked its way up his body until it was only his head left. He felt the numbness encroaching on his head and slowly succumbed to it as it passed his eyes and almost filled his head. However, a feeling of warmth started from his hands and spread throughout his body before the numbing took hold of him.
He opened his eyes and saw five year old Kiara standing next to him, simply holding his hand. He grasped her hand as the world around them turned into a place of sky. At least, that was all he could see as the feeling went away, and was replaced by Kiara's warmth. As he began to feel more like himself again, she said to him, "You can't pay me back if you go to the other side so quickly you know. You have to repay me, Michael. Michael. Michael."
"Michael!" he heard Winona call to him as he slowly woke up in a car. She asked if he was alright, and he said he was as he remembered how he was sent to go with the Queen Mother after the monarchs heard his wish. They seemed quite indifferent on the matter, but he didn't care as long as he got the information he wanted.
"You don't look so good." Winona remarked, but Michael just brushed the distorted memory off as a nightmare, since he hadn't been sleeping well the past few days. As they arrived at the Black Building, the Queen Mother reminded him how confidential everything he was about to see and hear was, and it all went in one ear and out the other since Michael wasn't even paying attention to her warnings.
Regardless, they made their way into the building and went to the fourth basement underneath the building, where a very special prisoner was being held. She warned him he wouldn't like the prisoner, but Michael almost flipped when he saw Richard Mustollini sitting behind a forcefield in an appropriate orange prison jumpsuit. It really complimented his blond hair and conniving, evil eyes.
After all, this was the man who killed Halley and Brandon's mother, and to think he actually believed he was remorseful for what he had done. Michael felt like the biggest idiot in the land for giving that man even an ounce of his sympathy. He should've been rotting in Quod Tergora Inpenetrabiles Decipula, so why wasn't he? "He was Chadwick's right hand man. With him gone, Richard, here, is the only person who knows everything about Chadwick's relationship with your parents."
Aaron already spilled everything he knew about the Sullivans, and it wasn't anything they didn't know, so they kept Richard in the underground basement to question him. Unlike Moore, he was extremely cooperative, and helpful to Winona. Especially when Chadwick was the main topic, but he wasn't what Michael was looking for. He wanted to know about his parents. What did the Queen Mother know?
"Raphael and Doria were both excellent magicians and even more spectacular members of the North's Royal Court. Doria was a household name amongst doctors as her breakthroughs in science moved the world a step further into the future. Raphael, on the other hand, was obsessed with Magis and magic itself. He knew everything there was to know about Wisteria, and spent his life trying to prove the existence of Mytherra."
Mytherra? The land of myths? Why would dad spend all his time trying to find a world that doesn't exist? However, that still didn't explain why they were killed.
"Doria," Winona continued, "had created a pill that completely nullifies the powers of a magician. Its use was discontinued after several Class Cs and under died due to the shock of breaking the connection to one's Magi. Regardless, their philanthropy made them famous and beloved by all, except the people who broke into their home and murdered them."
Michaelangelo knew that part of the story all too well, so he turned his attention away from the painful memory and to the "people" Winona mentioned. Weren't the Saviours the ones who killed his parents? "That's what everyone had thought, but apparently, Chadwick never gave Moore or Mustollini the order to kill them, so it may have not been the Saviours. Although they had made an enemy of Chadwick, he never killed them."
If that was the case, then where does Kiara come into this? If Chadwick never killed Michael's parents, then why did Kiara's name keep popping up? "That's your parents' fault, kid." Mustonllini said. "They wanted the almighty, immortal Dark Creator's magician as their test subject for their pills and experiments. All of their other lab rats kept dying, so they wanted a durable one. One like Kiara."
Michael lunged at Mustollini as he heard those words, but Winona held him back as he told him how he had to wait until they extracted all the information out of him before they let Michael, Brandon, and Halley have their way with him. His nerves calmed slightly at the thought of striking Richard down where he sat, and he sat down across the room from him as he continued his story.
"She may have been the ultimate crash dummy for them, but to Chadwick, that was his fourth child. He practically raised her as his own daughter, and he obviously denied them access to her, but your mom always had to get her way." What about the murder? "Huh? Oh, that? One day, an anonymous tip told Chadwick and I how Doria was planning to steal Kiara away anyway. A week later, a fire broke out and everybody blamed us for what happened."
They never received an order from Chadwick to kill him or his parents? Chadwick never killed his parents, but he did blow up his school and kill all those innocent people just to get to Michael! Why? Why did he want Michael so bad? "Their experiments." Winona said. She had reason to believe his parents were scheming behind everyone's back and carrying out experiments on human specimens.
Those same experiments were the reason they wanted Kiara. Chadwick chased after Michaelangelo, thinking he had the answer he was looking for, but Richard thought Chadwick was too into the case and pulled out of it shortly before the bombing. "If it has something to do with the princess" Richard asked, "Doesn't that mean they were trying to bring about some sort of power anarchy and upset the balance?"
That's when Michael suddenly remembered the box he and Britney had found in the cellar. He tried to tell them about the cellar, but he held himself back because of Richard's suspicious behavior, and just mentioned a box he had found while at a cellar. Mustollini asked him if he knew of the location of the cellar, but Michaelangelo genuinely didn't know where the cellar was. The two times he had gone to it were by pure chance and luck.
No matter what he did, he could never remember where it was. Every time he needed it, it just appeared. Now about that box. Michael and Britney never got the time to see its contents between the trial, the kidnapping, and the battle. It was just sitting in his dorm, collecting dust. Winona instructed him to go fetch it, so they could review its contents, and finally fit this entire puzzle back together.
*****
"We have to be careful," Winona warned him, "We may have captured the remaining Saviours, but we still haven't found that group of deserters." She talked about the "monsters" Moore had warned them about, but he began to doubt the power difference between a Class SSS like himself and a Class X like Winona and Moore.
Kiara and William managed to subdue her quite quickly, and they managed to take Moore down, granted Brandon almost got hurt. However, aside from that, they were taken down pretty quickly, so how strong could they possibly be? Was society just overestimating them? These thoughts preoccupied his head until he got to his dorm room and went inside to retrieve the box full of answers.
His room hadn't changed much since he last saw it. Both sides of the room were relatively neat, but Kylian's side was a lot more subtly spectacular than Michael's. He didn't understand how he did it, but Kylian's touch made anything and everything glisten. Regardless, this was not the time to stand and gawk at his brother's perfection. He was on a mission to find this box … which was right next to his bed. Extremely stealthy location if you ask me.
Winona looked questioningly at the miniature box before Michael clarified how Britney shrunk the box, so they could sneak it out faster. As he was parting from them to go with Winona, he slipped it into Kylian's pocket and looked like he got the message. Satisfied, Winona turned to leave, and Michaelangelo went to follow her, but his leather book caught the corner of his eye.
He picked it up and examined the last present he received from his father, and wondered if he was like the person in his dream. If he was that kind and gentle, and if he was that person, was his mother the same? She couldn't have been. Not the way he remembered her. Sure, he didn't remember remember her, but he always imagined her to be warm and kind, like his dad.
Was everything he knew about them a lie? Did his parents really cause all of this? If that's the case, then Chadwick was right to try and kill Michael, but what about all those innocent people? Halley and Brandon's mom? Python? Britney's mom? Was he responsible for their deaths as well? He had to be-
"You, coming?" Winona asked as she stood in the doorway with an impatient expression on her face. Michelangelo shoved the journal in his pocket as her sudden question startled him. He was just daydreaming a bit as he was trying to grasp everything he had been told. That was the lie he told her. He wasn't grasping anything because he understood his position in all this. Or did he?
Regardless, she told him to hurry up. He pulled the journal out of his pocket as she left the room, and quietly asked the inanimate object, 'Mom, Dad. Who were you?' before doing something he had never done before. He willingly left his father's journal behind as he walked out of the room and locked the door behind him.
*****
Nothing. Michaelangelo thought about how Winona found nothing useful or anything she didn't already know in the box. They couldn't really go back to the cellar to find more either, so Michael was officially useless. That ominous PROJECT ANARCHY was just a bunch of empty books and papers. They thought they had hit the jackpot with the materials, but after running test after test and spell after spell, they were just ordinary empty books.
Why did his parents just leave empty books in a box marked PROJECT ANARCHY? Were there really more to the books? Or were they meant to throw off anyone and everyone who tried to find out what they were really doing? It didn't matter. There was nothing there, so it didn't matter. He told himself to get over it, but Michael couldn't stop thinking about how strange it was. There was no way those books were empty.
He thought of asking Brandon and Halley for help, since that was their area of expertise, but he didn't want to get everyone involved, especially since his parents could've also caused their mother's death. He had hurt them too much already. He had hurt them all too much, and didn't want to get them involved anymore. This was now his problem and his problem alone.
As Michael absent-mindedly walked down the street, he began to think about his dream again, but this time he thought of Kiara. It had been three months since she disappeared into the black void, so it wasn't like he could just go ask her why she was in his dream. It still plagued him, though. Was it symbolic? She had saved him from going berserk in front of Moore. Had she done the same for him when he was younger? Why couldn't remember her until he lost her?
"If you walk any further," Aunt Clara joked, "you'll end up in the harbour." He realized he had walked four whole blocks away from his aunt's apartment building, and to make matters worse, she and her fiance, Elliot, were walking right behind him the entire time. Talk about embarrassing.
He hugged her tight as she laughed at his clumsiness, so he tried squeezing her tighter to shut her up, but it made her laugh even more. She had always been like this, picking on Michaelangelo whenever she got the chance, but it was part of her charm, so he bore with her jokes until they got back to the apartment.
He hadn't seen them since the New Year, and decided to go visit on the last day of his midterm exams. Aunt Clara mentioned how much he had grown in the month they were apart, but it was her who was shrinking. At least, that's how it looked to Michael. "She's right, though. Not to mention your arms look a lot bigger too." Michelangelo examined himself, looking for these never before seen changes, but he simply couldn't find them.
He thought about what he had been doing for the last month before deciding it was Britney's fault he was stronger. Dating an assassin's daughter isn't an easy task, especially when her father is overprotective to boot.
Yang Yang Park, or sir, as he preferred Michael to call him, didn't approve of them dating after he caught them holding hands while in school before New Year's break. If looks could kill, Michaelangelo would've been a dead man with the way Yang Yang bore a hole into his head. He tried introducing himself to lighten the tension, but it made it worse.
Brandon and Halley warned him not to shake his hand, but the oaf held it out anyway, and Sir almost broke his hand. He may have been a retired assassin, but he was still once an assassin. You'd think Michael would've learned his lesson by then, but no. He actually took Sir's offer to go stay with him for the first three days of New Year's break at their family home. He didn't really have a choice though, since it was either he went or he broke up with Britney on the spot, and he wasn't about to lose her. Not when he just got her.
If you asked Michaelangelo to define Abyssus, he'd describe the three days he spent under Yang Yang's instruction. There was only one rule: listen to instructions, or else. "And if you break this rule," Sir declared, "You will never see my daughter again." Of course Britney protested the rule, knowing how grueling the tasks would be, but Michael confidently agreed and signed his death certificate in the process.
On day one, he was woken up at 03:00 and forced to jog alongside Yang Yang and Britney until 06:00. By "jog alongside", he severely lagged behind the two of them the entire time. 'How do they make it look so easy?' Michael thought as he let his entire body drop to the ground the second they got back home. However, Yang Yang never said he could just drop onto the ground, and so he was about to punish him, but Britney intervened and saved the poor lad's life.
Starving, his heart leapt at the sound of Britney's grandmother, Bao, saying, "Come get some breakfast." He sprung up at the sound of food, but Yang Yang took half of Michael's portion and fed it to their dog, Woof. He then proceeded to ignore Michael's depression at the action and simply commented, "You look distressed." He was distressed! He just fed half his breakfast to the dog after making him jog for 3 hours straight, but of course, Michael didn't dare to say any of that aloud.
After breakfast, Michael was instructed to help Bao with the dishes as Yang Yang and Britney prepared his second task. As they were washing the dishes, Michael offered Bao a seat in the kitchen as he washed. She took him up on his offer, and called him a "nice boy" before telling him how he would be a good match for her granddaughter, who "always had a hard time fitting in." He thanked her for the compliments, but she simply warned him, not to break attention while doing the next task.
What was the next task? Michelangelo sat down at the dining table before five of the thickest books he had seen in his entire life were dropped in front of him. Those books were the reason why Britney was so smart, but she was really smart. Like a lot smarter than Michaelangelo and most of AMA. The task was to simply read the books. That was all. They had from 07:30 to 12:00 to read the books, while Bao and Yang Yang went food shopping.
Michael heeded Bao's warning, and didn't break concentration as he and Britney sat in silence reading. However, after the tenth chapter of the first book, Michael's brain had reached full capacity, and his mind started to wander again. It wandered back to Kiara as he wondered if she was alright. No one else seemed to be worried, so he tried not to worry himself, but he couldn't help himself. And so he let his mind wander as the time melted away to 12:00.
Both he and Britney were quizzed on what they were supposed to have learned, and while Britney passed with flying colors, Michael's assessment was somewhat like a dumpster fire. He had broken one of Yang Yang's rules and fallen asleep without permission, and for that he had to face his punishment. Halley and Brandon had come over to hang out with Britney, and they also got to witness Michael get tied up in the middle of the backyard.
His arms were bound to two pillars, and all he had to do was free himself without the use of magic to end the punishment. He tried using his body weight to rip the ropes, but he was too weak to do so, and ended up spending the rest of his day up there, until Yang Yang let Britney untie him for dinner.
"So," he asked the sore boy, "Have you decided to give her up?" Britney got up and almost exploded at her father at hearing the question, but Michael simply said he didn't. He loved Britney and wanted to do everything in his power to show him that. If he had to be tortured like that for three days straight, he would take it all without a complaint, and so he did.
However, at the end of the third day, as Britney was saying her goodbyes, Yang Yang didn't seem too against them, and everyone took that as, "He's been accepted by the devil himself." Michael didn't feel as though he was good enough yet, so he and Britney agreed to train together after the break, and the fruits of his training were showing when he visited his aunt.
"Michaelangelo Augustine Sullivan, you crazy bastard." Augustine? He hadn't heard his middle name in so long, nor his birth name. They sounded so foreign to him. He tried saying his own full name aloud, but as he pronounced the first syllable of his given name, he felt his entire chest implode on itself while his head felt like it was being stretched.
He grasped his chest as he fell from the sofa where he was sitting and onto the floor. Aunt Clara and Elliot rushed over to him to check on his state, but the pain subsided quickly and he apologized for worrying them. He lied about being stressed lately and left to go get some air. In reality, he was scared. He was terrified he would hurt the people he loved, so he ran away, hoping to find the answer by himself.
He mentioned he was going to the convenience store around the corner, and they asked him to get them some ice cream on his way back. He didn't plan on actually going, but he found himself in front of the shop anyway and decided to go in. He bought some snacks in addition to the ice cream, since his family always enjoyed the strange combination of vanilla ice cream and sour gummy worms.
They're so weird. He giggled to himself as he walked out of the store with his items and stared at the stars in the clear, cold winter sky. He tried to be philosophical with his staring by comparing his existence to that of stars, but he soon realized he was talking to himself, and probably looked strange doing it too.
He closed his eyes to call on his Magi when a man walked up behind him and asked, "Do you know where the convenience store is? I'm new to the area and I heard there was one nearby." Michael loved helping people, even strangers, so he innocently gave the man the directions he needed before he thanked Michael and called him "Axel". Michelangelo tried to summon Zeus at hearing his given name, but someone else came up from behind him and held a cloth to his face.
He never really made out the faces of his captors as he passed out.
*****
He didn't remember much after he was knocked out, but when he came to, Michaelangelo was sitting in an abandoned warehouse, tied to a chair. He looked around as he slowly wiggled his arms loose just like Britney had taught him, but as he was almost free of his constraints, three people walked into the room. A lady, a little boy, and Richard Mustollini.
Why? How? When? What? All these questions swirled around Michael's head, but he didn't know where to start. Mustollini walked up to him, and asked, "What do you want to know, Axel?" How did he know his name? And how was he there? He was supposed to be in Winona's basement! "I am still being held captive in that disgusting room. What you see before you is nothing more than a hologram. I am speaking to you, Axel, through my dreams thanks to this little boy's power. Pretty neat, huh?"
To answer the first question, he reminded Michael how he and Chadwick were friends with his parents before they were enemies. Michael knew they were friends, which was why he got more and more confused when he tried to figure out why Chadwick would want him dead. He was only a child when everything happened, so why?
"I'll tell you why," Mustollini declared, "Why do you think your parents wanted Kiara anyway?" Why? "They wanted a more durable test subject after their last one failed." Their last test subject? Who was that? Didn't they die? "They didn't die. Because they're sitting right in front of me." What? "You, Axel. You were your own parents' lab rat. You are PROJECT ANARCHY."
What? Michaelangelo was the reason for all of this? That explained everything. Why he really went into hiding, why he lost control of his own body at times, and why Chadwick wanted to kill him. It was all his fault, but it wasn't. He thought about it more and stared at the two people by Richard before realising they were Class Xs. All Class Xs had the same air around them. Scary. Intimidating. Stifling.
Why should he believe a word he said? There was no way he would have known everything if he left the Saviours, unless- The memory of Moore's warning played over and over in his head until it finally clicked. They were the ex-Saviours. The ones who left the group and took half the group members' life with them. The Class Xs of the old Saviours, and Mustollini was their leader.
Michaelangelo ripped the ropes that bound him and kicked the chair at the little boy as he tried to call on his Magi, but he couldn't and no one tried to stop him either. "Look," Mustollini said, "I don't want to fight you. There's just one thing I need from you: your middle name, Axel Sullivan." Michael's full name? If Mustollini was who Michael thought he was, he'd rather die than tell him. "So be it." he replied as Michael dropped to the floor.
He screamed in agony as he held his leg. He looked down and expected to see his shin broken in half, but it looked perfectly fine. He tried to figure out what was happening as the pain became more and more unbearable. "Tell me your name, Axel." Go to Abyssus. At uttering those words, Michelangelo felt both of his arms twist and snap off from his shoulders. There was nothing he could do to hurt them since Zeus wasn't responding.
"That's what your mother's pills do, Axel. They temporarily break that telepathic connection a Magi has to their magician, but that provides more than enough time to kill its victims. Now," Richard raised his hand as he continued speaking, "Either you tell me what your name is, or you get to know what it's like to have your neck and spine snapped simultaneously."
Michael trembled in pain at the thought of experiencing even more than he already was, but he wasn't prepared to hurt his friends again by giving into Mustollini's torture. And so, he closed his eyes as he prepared himself to feel deathly malady, but Mustollini just laughed at his resolve. He laughed and mocked how he was ready to throw his life away for some kids he won't see again after graduation, but that wasn't the case. Kylian, Halley, Brandon, Louis, Rebecca, William, Kiara and Britney were his family.
"Britney?" Mustollini asked, "As in Nayeon Park? Soo-young's daughter? This might be easier than I thought." He smirked amidst Michael's confusion before telling him something that would "change his mind." What? They were alive? Park Soo-young and Princess Celestia were both alive? "Yup," Mustollini declared proudly, "So let's make a deal. I return both of them to you in tip top physical condition, and you give me your middle name. Simple."
Was it that simple? It made sense Mustollini was the one who kidnapped Celestia, but he wasn't sure how he got a hold of Soo-young. Or if he was even telling the truth. But what if he was? There was only one way to find out, but what would he do with his middle name? Destroy the world? Destroy Kiara? Or what if he wanted to protect her from PROJECT ANARCHY like Chadwick? Then giving him his middle name would let him unleash whatever Michael was, and destroy it before it could hurt anyone.
"So, Michael, what's your real name?" His name? Michaelangelo's chest and brain tightened as he uttered the words: Axel Augustine Sullivan. The ground started to shake underneath them as Michael's irises disappeared and his eyes were replaced with a blinding grey light and as sudden as this occurred, it ended with Michael sitting on the floor his head hanging. "My, my sis," Mustollini exclaimed, "Your doll is exquisite!"
*****
Aunt Clara sat on the steps in the cold, winter morning waiting for Michaelangelo to get home. Elliot placed a blanket over her shoulders before telling her "not to worry. He'll be back soon." She was still worried about him, but her worry faded away at the sight of Michaelangelo walking back to the apartment after being out all night.
He walked lifelessly over to Aunt Clara, and didn't lift his head even as she spoke to him. "Hey!" she yelled from close range, "Hey! You okay?" No response. "What's wrong?" No response. "Michaelangelo!" He lifted his head with his normal, jovial smile. He was sorry he was late. He just had to work some stuff out. "That's great," Elliot added, "But are you okay? You must be freezing." He wasn't freezing. It wasn't only the cold he couldn't feel. Axel couldn't feel a thing.