"You…participated in the Grand Conflict?" Edwin made his guess.
"Correct. And if my intel was right…" Dirac kept staring at Edwin in a sympathetic look. "…so were your father."
That specific word made Edwin's heart sank – it represented a concept he had forgotten through all these years without a home.
"As I've been getting at, boy, we are not so different after all: same scars from the same event." Dirac began walking closer to Edwin. "I assume you, too, don't want to be treated the way the rest of the world treats us, right?"
It was just a wild guess, that this hideous murderer, killer of innocents, might know a lot about him.
But Edwin have realized the truth: this man knows him better than anyone that ever existed.
"So that is why I'm asking you to join us," continued Dirac as he held out his right hand, his voice began filling with enthusiasm, "to gain a chance of fixing everything! The irrational hate has infected the core of this wicked world!"
Carried away in his speech, Dirac's hand waved, his voice growing louder…even tears began forming in his eyes. Instead of backing off in alert, he felt his soul attracted to him as he listened whole heartedly. Finally, someone began understanding him; at last, someone shares the same hate towards the unfairness and cruelty of this world;
Finally, someone was going to make a change.
so that's why we need to pull it up by the roots!" Dirac waved his fists in the air, his voice resonating between the walls of the concrete buildings. "We are the most powerful beings on the planet…we are never meant to be persecuted! We will fight back by resetting this damned race – by annihilating those self-centered weaklings."
Dirac paused, slowly bleeding off the excess enthusiasm in a deep breath. The world suddenly felt awfully empty when the silence of the night took over again.
"Another fully operational antimatter bomb is buried somewhere beneath us. With my command, this dreaded city of be turned to ashes," said Dirac, "it's a warning. A warning for all the mass-cleanse to come. This is a mere start – a skin test for the true 'Remedy'."
◆ ◆ ◆
Closing his eyes, Dirac smiled as he enjoyed the proud sensation of delivering such a flawless speech. Knowing that he had said all there was to convey, he was certain that the boy was convinced and was infinitely gratuitous to him. Afterall, he was the first in his life to understand him so well.
Until Edwin's raging fist buried itself into his cheek.
The burning pain sent Dirac staggering backwards. He held his jaw and yelled in anger, unconvinced that he was ambushed by a mere brat.
"I guess my words aren't as convincing as I thought!" he shouted in anger.
"'To ashes', you say?" A deep growl came from Edwin, tightly holding his fist. "'A skin test'? You call mass-murder and destroying everything we are used to a 'Remedy'? Quite joking!"
The last sentence came out as a roar. Dirac sneered and spit forcefully, all the while shaking his head, disappointed at the boy's naiveness.
"Then tell me, Edwin," questioned Dirac, "what are your counter arguments?"
"You are right about the hate towards us, about the despicable treatments we got. But…" Edwin lifted his head up, his furious sight locked onto those of Dirac, "…when I came to my senses, I realized: you are not the first one to truly understand me!"
Edwin closed his eyelids to squeeze out the tears. Even though he pretended to be cold and indifferent on the surface, he still desired love and attention. While he did want to end the world as he knew it, the cost of it was far too great.
Edwin remembered it all, despite acting like he barely cared: every "good morning" from Dan, every hot dinner on the table, every cheesy joke from the old uncle, every bit of attention he received from him…
And every laugh and taunt from Tracy and Emilio.
These people may not have known his past, but they all share one thing in common: they knew what he needed, whether it was friendship, fatherhood, or just plain happiness.
Not more bloodbath.
"You are still holding onto something and someone, aren't you?" shouted Dirac, the mechanical devices on his arms glowed red, signaling their running at full capacity, "like a baby clinging to the nipple of a feeding bottle! You need to abandon it to grow!"
"Then make me, you bloodthirsty prick!" Edwin went into his battle stance.
"Time for some education!" said Dirac, joining his hands in front of him.
Suddenly, the sky began growing brighter and brighter, turning the dark screen of the sky whiter and whiter. Was it sunrise already? Edwin quickly denied this guess as he saw the source of the light: a sphere of energy jumped wildly as it grew larger and larger in front of Dirac's palms. It pulsed and flashed like a caged beast, eager to burst out and hunt for blood.
"To hell you go!"
The sphere extended sideways before quicly straightening out. The plasma beam shot in the direction of Edwin, turning everything in its path into clouds of atoms, as if everything in the path was deleted from reality. Edwin was able to teleport away in time, but was unable to avoid the deafening roar and unbearable shockwave from the blast, which flung his body into the air. He managed to land on his feet, but the dense cloud of dust made it hard to breath, as he coughed heavily and slowly opened his eyes.
The hellish landscape horrified the young teen. The inferno comprised of molten metal and red-hot rocks dug a giant ditch that stretched a hundred meters in the direction of the blast. Where it reached the buildings, the cylindrical tunnel burrowed across at least two buildings, its walls glowing in a dim red.
Edwin did not need the horrified screaming from around him to know that many innocents just perished in front of his eyes.
"If you can't help it, then I'll cut these ties for you!" Dirac panted, with the heated air refracting and twisting his image. "Until you realize how meaningless it is to protect them!"
"You bastard!" Blood rushed up Edwin's head, making him forget all the injuries from the previous fight. The hot-blooded teen tightened his fists and locked his eyes that glowed a ghostly blue onto the target. In an instant, he was gone from where he was and reappeared behind Dirac. Edwin drove his heels into the chins of his target, who merely staggered a bit. Dirac turned around in anger, evidently a bit stunned by the speed at which Edwin teleported. Just when he turned around, Edwin disappeared in a blue flash before reappearing above him, sending a solid kick towards Dirac's head. The blow grazed the target, yet was enough to send Dirac a bit off balance. The sequence continued, with Edwin constantly flashing in and out of existence around Dirac. The provoked boy shouted with rage. Edwin felt his head exploding with adrenaline – all he wanted was to beat the man in front of him into a pulp. He was enjoying every kick, every punch, every chance of inflicting pain onto his enemy.
"That's enough!" Dirac yelled in frustration. Suddenly, instead of blocking the incoming attacks, he turned around and whipped his fist into apparently nothing but air. The next moment, Edwin teleported to where Dirac aimed at. The blow struck Edwin perfectly on the nose, as if he was purposefully trying catch the punch.
"Experience wise, you are a millennium behind me, brat!"
Edwin was sent flying into the distance, the powerful impact sending blood spilling out of his nose and mouth.
"Such monotone fighting style…even a pig could tell your pattern!" Dirac walked towards the teen on the floor, then kicked him down the ditch he dug with his plasma beam earlier.
Edwin rolled to the ragged bottom of the trench, which no longer glowed red-hot, but the remaining heat was enough to burn his skin. Edwin ignored the burning pain in his palms and got up. Dirac jumped from the edge above him and landed in the ditch.
"Is that all you've got, brat?"
Without a word, Edwin ran towards him. Dirac also ran head on, preparing to finish his opponent off. Edwin soon switched from running to teleporting, eliminating his distance with Dirac in a flashing speed. Dirac extended his hand, firing a blast at the approaching Edwin. The boy dodged with ease before teleporting behind Dirac. He turned around and saw Edwin grabbing onto the wreckage lying on the walls of the ditch. Dirac immediately fired more beams towards where he was, with the boy dodging by teleporting from one side to another, flashing between places like a ping ball.
"What are you, a fly?" Dirac shouted angrily, "say goodbye to your air superiority!"
He tapped the devices on his forearms and pointed his index finger above his head. A small sphere of plasma materialized on his finger tip. Suddenly, countless tiny spikes poked out of it, forming what looked like a white sea urchin. Each of these protuberances stretched quickly into a separate plasma beam. A million white lines radiated from the white sphere, cutting everything alone their ways. Then the entire thing began rotating quickly. Like a disco ball of death, it casted the deadly white light everywhere in the vicinity. Edwin jumped around the ditch. A slight touch with one of the millions of energy beams would have been lethal. He panted heavily as he tried teleporting outside of the ditch, but a slight graze of a beam at his back sent him screaming in pain. With all his rationality kicked out of his head, he covered the burnt skin and fell back into the bottom of the ditch.
"Feeling better back on earth?" Dirac taunted, the energy sphere disappearing from his finger tip, "you really think you could gain a height advantage?"
"No," Edwin said, strenuously getting up, "but a speed advantage will do."
"Huh?"
Before Dirac could think through, the region around them suddenly got darker, followed by an increasingly louder rumbling beneath his feet. He immediately looked up. The building, with the huge circular hole still on it, was collapsing towards him, like a giant palm sealing a fly's doom. Dirac tried running away, but enormous concrete debris were raining down from all sides.
"You used my attack to cut the foundation of the building?" asked Dirac, in a surprised and defeated expression. Edwin responded with nothing but a resentful look, before disappearing in a blue flash. Of course, his teleporting out runs the collapsing building.
The angle between the wall of the collapsing building and the base of the ditch decreased at a lightning speed, smashing everything under it into bits. With a loud bang, the huge building kicked up a huge cloud of dust and flames. The ditch was nowhere to be seen, for it was completely filled with an ocean of shattered glass, cut cables, bent steel bars, and shattered concrete blocks.
Edwin landed next to the edge of the ditch; his legs no longer capable of supporting his injured body. The boy collapsed onto the ground; his face stained with his own blood. He cleared his mind and laid down, coughing as he tried to get rid of the dust that he breathed in. The blurred sigh of his, was filled with the flashing of yellow flames and white sparks jumping out of the debris. Around him, people's shouting, the cracking of burning debris and the sharp scream of sirens filled the space around him.
Is it…all over? Edwin sat up and thought to himself. He rubbed his eyes, only to see the hellish landscape around him. People in ragged clothing ran around trying to dig their belongings or family members out of the ruins of their homes; women and children yelling for help behind a wall of fire. Crying never ceased, pouring endless grief into the infinitely dark night.
Then, the police and ambulance sirens became the dominant noise. Edwin sat up slightly as help finally arrived. He dragged his exhausted body towards the direction of the rushing footsteps.
"Please, help…" Edwin's lips moved unconsciously. "It hurts…please help me!"
His eyes were filled with tears. All these deaths, injuries and chaos were driving the young boy crazy. His eyes have seen horrifying bloodbaths, his body have experienced indescribable pain. Now, all he wanted was to be consoled, to rest on a soft bed, to sleep for as long as he wanted…
He wanted the solid and warm palm of Dan to pat his hand, telling him that everything would be okay.
He reached out his hand towards the armed policemen.
And they, too, reached back…
…with the searing pain from a fired bullet.