This is checkmate.
I had all of my proxies wait on standby, watching from the roofs of the surrounding buildings like an encirclement of eagles waiting for their prey to become vulnerable. Because the moment Enzo's Angels flew off the building and were stuck in free fall motion, Absolute Adrenaline State would be rendered useless.
No matter how fast your Angels can react or move with Absolute Adrenaline State, what purpose would it serve once they're in a position where they can't control themselves anymore?
Falling from such a grand height, and being stuck in falling motion, would grant Enzo's Angels no room to move, react, or counter according to their will. Their bodies could only flap uselessly in the wind as they accelerated towards the floor.
But I would eradicate every single one of them before they could even reach the ground.
"Eliminate."
All of my proxies pounced forwards into a dive towards the falling Angels. With Flow State, Magnified in effect, their airborne strikes would prove fatal. I was not going to allow a single breath of Angel life reach the floor.
It would rain corpses.
Shrrk—!!
Jak—!
Thump!
Splurt—!!
As my proxies intersected the Angels mid-air, they struck with attacks meant to kill on the spot. It was raining blood over the streets that surrounded the building. Seeing the red and white begin to fall, Soho quickly took cover inside the building itself.
"You did it!!" She screamed.
White bodies were hitting the floor, splattering blood everywhere. With 90 of my proxies, I had made sure that Enzo's 61 Angels were already fallen before landing. And sure enough, they all laid motionless, spread across the pavement.
"Is it over?" Soho asked.
The question brought a glimmer of hope to me for a second. But it was quickly interrupted when the door to my room slammed open, and in walked a sight that brought me instant dread.
There was an Angel. Behind it, piling in the hallway, were even more.
"Huh…?"
On the ground nearby, my phone's screen lit-up with a text message notification.
[ FIRST: You forgot about these 13. ]
My heart clenched with immense pressure, as panic settled over my entire body. I was rendered paralyzed at the realization of my mistake. While I was so focused on moving all of Enzo's rooftop Angels according to my plan, I'd completely forgotten about the 13 already deployed to the ground.
Those neglected 13 Angels were currently at my door.
"Klyson…?" Soho was uneased by my lack of reply.
I was too hindered by my current predicament to even mutter a word. I stared at the lifeless masks of the Angels that looked down at me.
This is it.
I was so close to meeting Enzo's expectation, and reaching the winning condition, but it wasn't enough. While I thought I'd made the game-winning move, Enzo must have already been thinking way ahead of me.
The coin had landed on heads.
"Blitz," Enzo had whispered, hundreds of miles away.
In an instant, all the Angels rushed towards me with terrifying erratic motion. There, in my seated state, I contemplated the option in defending myself, activating Flow State to try and avoid the fatal attacks. But these Angels were imbued with Absolute Adrenaline State, and only Flow State, Magnified had a chance at countering that—something impossible for me to activate within myself, and only in my proxies.
There's no chance.
I was about to be struck with an instant-killing attack. In the split of a second, this cursed Fractless life of mine would be all over.
"Klyson?!" Soho was calling out to me over the phone, clearly worried.
I'd rather not have her hear me die.
I tapped my ear-piece, hanging up the call with Soho. As the Angels rushed me, I closed my eyes.
Stomp—!!!
The Angels suddenly came to an abrupt halt. I opened my eyes, shocked to find them frozen in place before my face.
At the exact moment I'd accepted my fate, the Angels had surprisingly come to a sudden halt.
"What…?"
They'd gone frozen in their attacking states, just milliseconds away from ripping my face apart. That was until they all, in unison, returned to a neutral, standing, idle position.
I was bewildered beyond comprehension.
What the hell just happened? Did Enzo spare me last second?
I stood up with trembling legs, having nearly met with death far too many times by now. With caution in my mind, I maintained my Flow State just in case. Seeing that the Angels stood still and unbothered, I decided to try and retrieve answers of my own.
"Why did you all stop?" I asked.
There was no response from any of them.
"Hello?" I waved my hand. It was just like when I tried talking to them on the plane to New Zina.
"They've always been like that, quiet and still. After some time, you get used to it. They really just aren't meant to talk to."
That's what Kyra had told me when I'd attempted communication with them for the first time.
"Is Enzo telling you all to be quiet? You know you can talk, right?"
Still, no responses. Then, it'd occurred to me—the way they stood idle, lifeless and immobile, looked exactly like how Sixth and Tenth's infantries did when their connections were cut from the hive mind during the Invidan War.
It couldn't possibly be because…?
My phone suddenly began to ring, rattling with vibration on the cold concrete floor. At first, I figured it might have been a distraction from Enzo to take my attention away from the Angels, so I let it ring without checking.
Bzzt! Bzzt!
But even after I didn't pick up the first time, the call came through again. It was a repeated ringing that wouldn't stop.
Must be Soho.
Keeping Flow State keen and active, instead of going to pick up my phone itself which was a distance away, I answered the call through my ear-piece instead, unaware of who was actually calling.
"Rainer."
The voice was deep and low. Even though I hadn't checked who it was before answering, I could already recognize who it was from the tone alone.
"Michael."
It was the General.
"You've become quite the disturbance since running away."
"You never called back then. So why are you calling now?"
"I didn't care much that a Fractless decided to leave after an already-failed mission."
"So you went and told the others that I'd committed suicide? Making up reasons of death just like you did with Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth?"
"It's because you're all the same. Failing to meet expectations, and performing under my standards. What difference would it make if I'd told the truth about any of you?"
"Maybe you'd still have possession of Gateway, Trajectory, the Task Force, and 87 of Enzo's Angels." I paused, looking at those who currently stood in the room with me. "I can make that 100 of Enzo's Angels right now."
"Do it," he scoffed. "They're of no use anymore anyways."
"How so?" I furrowed my eyebrows. I was growing confused, because I knew all too well the amount of destruction Enzo could still cause with 13 Angels alone.
"What use would a vegetative, mind-controlled, super soldier do without their respective commander there to instruct them?"
Vegetative? Mind-controlled?
I didn't understand the kind of example he was trying to set. "I don't know? Live their normal lives outside of the military?"
"They don't have normal lives outside of the military, Rainer. Their entire lives are the military. They are Angels through and through. They have no capacity to think, and no ability to move without the instruction of a commander in the hive mind. So when their commander is disconnected from the hive mind, what do you suppose they'll do?"
I spaced-out for a moment, staring into the dark, lifeless helmets of the Angels that stood around me, frozen and unmoving. The answer was right there, but I couldn't fathom to let it click in my mind.
"They won't do anything." The General forced it into my head. "They'll freeze. They'll go idle. They'll become equivalent to that of a corpse."
That was exactly what'd happened to both Sixth and Tenth's infantries when they were disconnected from their hive minds during the Invidan War. Both were forcefully removed from their hive minds through death by Michael's hands. And right now, Enzo's remaining Angels were frozen in front of me.
"Put them out of their nonexistent misery, Rainer. They're useless without their commander."
I'd stopped breathing by now, already assuming the unfathomable. "What are you trying to say…?"
"Enzo's dead. I killed him with my own two hands."