I woke up with a gasp, stretching my hand to the expanse of the air. Looking around I noticed I was covered with bandages, on a sick bed. Next to me was Lemon sleeping on a chair, she had bandages wrapped around her head and abdomen. My stupid powers had done it again. At this point I should be restrained and thrown into solitary confinement.
I exhaled resting on the wall nearby. What the hell caused all this? How long have I been here? Who was the woman I saw before everything went blank? These and many thoughts ran through my head as I stared at the ceiling. One thing was for sure…the X master definitely got away because of me.
"Shit," I said under my breath.
Just then Lemon woke up, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Did I wake her? Maybe I did. When she noticed I was awake she stood up immediately.
"You're awake!" She smiled, "I thought you were dead. I was so worried."
She sat on the bed after giving me a hug. I gave a short smile as I watched her dash out the trickle of tears coming down her eyes. She might have been a bloody assassin with no feelings in the eyes of the others in Cosmic Prime, but to me she was just a big softie. Still annoying as hell though.
I took a closer look at the bandages and her skin. She had bruises and some torn healed flesh resembling platelet crevices surrounding the parameters of her thorax bandages, which were also on her shoulders. I can't believe I did that to her. Shit.
"It's not your fault," she said after noticing me sulking.
"It is," I growled back. "I hurt you and let the X master escape. You made the right call, you should leave me after the case is closed."
"What're you on about?" She asked, "the X master didn't get away, the chief took him into custody weeks ago."
"Weeks?" I replied, bedazzled. "How long have I been out?"
"Three weeks," she replied. "Everyone thought you were dead, the doctors couldn't say what was wrong with you, so they concluded you were comatose. They were going to put you on life support next week."
I stared at her more confused than I was before. "What the hell?"
She watched me getting up, pacing up and down the room with my hand on my head. What the hell was she on about? Three weeks?! I have been sleeping for three whole weeks, what did I miss? What about my house and those food deliveries I ordered?
"I woke up after a day or two," she said. "Still badly bruised though. Doctors said I could go home, but gave me a prescription of daily check ups and bandage change. By the way, don't worry about the food you ordered, I ate them all. Speaking of food, you must be starving, let me get you some food."
"Is that Burga Queen I see down there?" I asked looking out the window.
"Yeah, that's where I'm going."
"Alright cool, let's go." I grabbed the closest jacket I saw. It was a white coat, hospital issue.
"Um, no Ezra. You need to rest."
"I've been resting for three weeks apparently," I replied. "I need to stretch my legs."
She looked at me for a while, then she exhaled. "Fine, just take it easy."
She put on the cardigan in her hand and pulled the door open. The doctors and nurses were startled when they saw me on my feet, most of them shocked and others looked disappointed. Obviously I was the spectacle for a gamble some were having, many made a bet that I wouldn't make it, others went against that bet and apparently got extra cash that day. I should probably sue that hospital.
We crossed the street over to the Burga Queen restaurant. I noticed Lemon's car parked by the side of the hospital, she finally got to ride it. I ordered a grilled cheese burger and a cheese cake and she ordered some fries. We sat next to a glass window with a view of the outside and the hospital.
"So, when are you leaving?" I asked, taking a bite out of my burger.
She exhaled, sucking the straw of her smoothie. "I'm not, I changed my mind."
"What?" I asked, dropping the burger and looking at her with a stern. "Are you insane? You saw what I did back at the store…I can't protect you if that happens again."
"You were never assigned to protect me, I was assigned to protect you from yourself!" She exclaimed, making everyone in the diner pause for a while looking at us.
"It's okay, it's okay," I waved with a smile. They resumed their activities.
"And I couldn't even do that," she said softly, with a sad, remorseful look on her face.
I sat back exhaling. "Can't leave me, can you?"
She raised her head immediately, with a brow up. "What?"
"Admit it, I'm too much of an awesome partner to leave, an irreplaceable gem."
I smirked, resting my arms on the top of the sofa. She looked at me for a while then she scoffed.
"You condescending imbecile, you're none of those things!"
"Don't fight it," I replied taking a fry from her plate. "You know you love me and can't do without me."
She chuckled, leaning forward with her hands on the table. "I know what you're doing and it's not gonna work. Besides, the chief practically screamed at me to forget about leaving when I brought the topic up."
"Come on Lemon!" I said, hitting the table.
"You cried Ezra!" She replied immediately. "Back in the manga store, while you were out of it, I saw tears come out of your eyes right before the explosion. And then there was the rolling and struggling while you were asleep, every single day, obviously having one of those nightmares."
"I cried?"
She nodded. I wasn't much of a crier. 'Men don't cry,' Silas once said. So there was no way in hell that was about to believe that I cried while I was going berserk. I looked at her in disbelief, then a sudden memory flashed through my brainwaves, it was that face, the face of the woman I saw back at the store. It was just for a moment but the headache the flashback left was quite painful.
"Are you alright?" She asked, standing up when she saw me squeezing my eyes and holding my head like someone having a headache.
"I'm fine," I replied, trying to hide the pain. The headache faded off and my eyes began tearing up involuntarily.
"You're not okay," she glared.
"What the hell?" I said cleaning my eyes.
She watched me as I did, then she said;
"There's no way I'm leaving you now, not like this. We need to find a way to decipher your nightmares and find out what your brain is trying to tell you. Maybe Tonji would know how we could that, let me give him a c—"
Her attempt to call Tonji got interrupted by the incoming call from the chief. She clicked on the green button on her Bandphone, taking the phone off her wrist and placing it on the table with the holoscreen on display. The Chief's head appeared.
"Lemon, where are you?" He asked.
"Uh…Burga Queen, why?"
"Is Ezra with you?"
She rotated the Bandphone so that the holoscreen would face me, I waved, taking a bite off my burger. Then she turned the front of the holoscreen back to her.
"General Luther is on his way to you right now, word came that Ezra's is awake. Luther's coming with an army to detain him, find a way to get out of there!"
"Roger that boss," she replied, pressing the end call button. "You heard that right? We need to leave."
"I'm not going anywhere," I replied, taking the last bite of my burger.
Lemon's face said it all, she was puzzled. Sitting back down she slid into the booth, looking at my face intently.
"Did that explosion fry your brain or something?" she asked. "They're going to DETAIN YOU!"
"Running away would only delay the inevitable," I replied, sucking the last of my smoothie.
"You're going to be court martialed Ezra, and put in solitary confinement."
I wiped my mouth clean and rose up like I was acting a part in a gangster movie. Dusting the crumbs stuck on the white jacket I took from the hospital. I stared back at her with an unfazed look, and she was smart enough to quickly realise what it meant.
"You want to be detained, don't you?" She asked.
"Dangerous things," I replied looking out the window and watching the Troopers line up and point their blasters at us, "need to be kept far away from anyone's reach."
Luther burst into the restaurant and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"Get on the ground Ezra!" He yelled, "arms above your head!"
I did as told, going down on both knees with my hands on my head. Lemon gritted her teeth, about to reach out for the hand blaster strapped by her side. But I stopped her, looking her straight in the eyes as I shook my head.
Luther's men dropped me on the ground violently, cuffing me with inhibitor cuffs, then they pulled me away while two others tried to prevent Lemon from tagging along. That was a mistake on their path, she knocked them out swiftly, walking over their bodies to follow the men carrying me, but Luther stopped her before she could walk out the doors.
"Stand down soldier," he said, blocking her way with his cane.
She glared at his bald chubby head, pushing the cane off her chest.
"You know he didn't do anything wrong," she said to his face. "You're just doing this out of spite!"
He stared straight at her eyes, forehead against forehead.
"Stay out of my way, Zoarite," he said. "Or I'll throw you right into confinement next to that thing you call a partner."
I was immediately taken to the central precinct, where i met with two other Generals— General Picard and General Andrew, practically the assholes of the whole Yolo Central district. These were the people that were going to be judging me at the court? Damn! I definitely had no chance of getting out of this one.
They took me to the courtroom, and after a biaz procedure of a closed trial, I was sentenced to three months of solitary confinement in the Hexagon.
The Hexagon was an impenetrable underground prison where the worst of the worst criminals were put. Twenty feet below the top prison where the not so dangerous guys were put. Two guards escorted me into the elevator next to the warden's office, and pressed the last button on the elevator controls.
Twenty feet down, we walked out the doors along a grey painted hallway. There were glass cell doors left and right, and you could see the prisoners in each cell as you walked past. They were quiet, wearing a pissed off face as they watched the guards and I, I'm definitely sure I was the one who put at least forty percent of these guys in here.
The guards threw me into an empty cell, then they walked away, dusting their hands. The moment the doors of the prison cell were closed, there was no way in hell that anyone inside that cell was going to escape, for three particular reasons; one, anyone inside the cell gets their powers suppressed by the inhibitors used to create the walls and ceiling of the prison. Two, the door could only be opened from the outside, with a single swipe card held by the warden himself. And three, the moment you manage to possibly escape, you would be shot instantly by the Blaster guns positioned close to the cameras up on the wall.
I exhaled, lying on the flat bed next to the wall. This was probably for the best, I don't go berserk and no one gets hurt, everybody wins.
"Do you really think everyone in your life is going to be alright with this decision of yours?" A voice asked.
The voice, it sounded so close and gave me goosebumps. I stood up looking around, didn't find anyone. I looked out my cell, at the other inmates to confirm if any of them said anything, but they weren't even paying attention to me. I sat on the bed taking a deep breath. Then I chuckled.
"Haven't been here less than a minute and I'm already going crazy."
"Oh you're not going crazy," said the voice.
This time I saw its owner. A man with a green mask, dressed like someone from a LARP tournament wearing a short brown jacket over a white shirt, white trousers, brown boots and a leather holster with weird swords. There was a logo on the back of his jacket that looked like green and grey wings, they looked familiar. His whole appearance looked faded like a hologram, no, like a ghost.
Naturally I panicked. Screaming as I jumped on the bed, because in my point of view, a ghost just appeared before me…I was being haunted. But from the camera's point of view, I had gone crazy screaming at the empty air.
"Whoa, whoa, calm down kid, I'm not gonna hurt you."
"Who the hell are you?" I asked. "How did you get in here?"
"If you'd just calm down, I'll explain," he replied.
I stopped panicking, taking a long look at him. Then I came down the bed slowly, inhaling and exhaling, pacing three to four times. And then I sat, still awestruck by what I was staring at.
"Okay," he exhaled. "First and foremost, I am your father, Ezra."