Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

November 11th, 2017
Somewhere in the Patagonia
Patagonia, Argentina, South America

The night was mostly clear above the large landscape of the Argentine Patagonia (asides of some random clouds passing by), with the stars reflected on the lakes of the large southern region; some owls, bats and other nocturne animals could be heard humming and moving across the silent – even sacred land (for them). At that point, nearly all human activity ceased asides of some pub with drunk people enjoying in a distant town, while everybody else rested for the mundane activities of the next day. One or two people randomly walked down the streets already wasted towards either their homes or hotel rooms while another couple weren't...

And only these people witnessed how high in the sky something entered violently in the atmosphere of the planet in a dangerous degree to the ground that could cause a severe damage to anything in a ratio of a few kilometres. These people were staring at the thing but without being sure of what it actually was, the very few ones who were in a... normal condition (?) saw what looked like a spaceship that got partly caught on fire with some parts getting detached from the sides until those got ripped away, falling to the ground in parts kilometres away from their location, probably somewhere in the middle of the fields or some unlucky home.

Far away in the distance an egg-shaped ship with a pointy (and severely damaged) nose finally crash-landed violently against the ground, leaving a long trail of destruction before it braked against a huge boulder that cracked and let some debris fall against the hard, metallic, steaming exterior leaving some dents on it; the tail that previously was on fire turned off after hitting the earth. Clearly the apparent forced-landing was mildly unsuccessful, yet it could been much worse than that.

Asides of the steaming sound of the metal cooling down, there was a brief silence for a few minutes until the sounds of loud bangs could be heard from where the door was: the borders at the exterior of the door seemed to be melted, as if somebody sealed it with people inside, the bangs became louder each time until it started to crack open; a couple of minutes later it was blown away as a lot of steam came out of the inside with the sounds of people panting tiredly.

From the inside came out this tall person-looking being using a couple of strange-looking yet heavy gauntlets –it had two yellow orbs on each hand: one at the back of the hands and another below at the height of the forearm plus one more on the palms– that seemed to be highly technological; the outfit was kind of strange: it was a mix of a black spandex on the arms and legs with a round-shaped shoulder protector made of a hard material while the zone of his torso had a resemblance to a Victorian military uniform: the head was nearly bald with some hair at the top, leaving a large space between his forehead and the hair that had a light brown-ish colour, hazel eyes and a fluffy beard.

Behind came out somebody else, a bit shorter with a similar outfit minus the gauntlets, instead using a couple of white gloves, a red uniform instead of purple with a green hand badge stitched on the left arm; short black hair, brown eyes and pale skin. The third person-looking being was probably the tallest, being green the colour of the uniform along the eyes and a mate-green hat that showed bits of a strawberry blond short hair. Then a last one came out, the second tallest person of the crash-landed crew: sky blue uniform, icy blue eyes and blond, short and curly hair with a cape attached to the shoulders.

Locally, they would be portrayed as four men who arrived from space, from which one of them (red) threw himself on what still looked right of the soil looking tired, the other (green) sat down close to the first and one more (purple) sat on a rock and opened his palm to pop up a holographic screen on an unknown language, the last one standing looked between devastated and tired, being the lonely member who didn't allow his legs to fall.

"For the love of Shah!" Green finally spoke out loud sounding distressed, "This is a whole bloody mess! We were so behind from the others already and now we got stranded in... another planet." He covered his face trying to calm down.

"We just arrived home and had to run away..." Red said, "The ship needed maintenance, we barely saw our families..."

"And we left a friend behind..." Blue finally spoke with sadness in his deep voice, squinting his eyes.

"We didn't leave him, he walked out and sealed the door!" Red spat with certain annoyance, sitting up, "We told him to come with us and he made us leave him behind!"

Purple was quiet on his spot looking to the holographic screen on the palm of his hand with bags under his eyes, apparently very tired while he checked on a database everything he could get from the planet asides of the current situation of their craft as Green didn't seem to be in the right place to do it himself; deep down as he heard his crew mates start to discuss even more in the background, he couldn't really blame them for their heated feelings. They had a long trip back and forth only to end up stranded somewhere else for only-Shah-knew-when and depending the materials they could get.

Luckily, he easily got access to something called "internet" – How archaic is the level of technology in this planet... – from one some random artificial satellite upon their location to get extra information of the essential points of the Earth and all its inhabitants... and there were several good news!

"Oi!" He spoke up to his mates still arguing to each other, "Chaps!" He called out again, ignored, he let out a deep breath and raised his leg up. The three men (idiots) stopped fighting when he stomped his foot against the soil due a powerful quake that shook the earth around and looked to their friend, separating from each other with fear when they saw the anger in his face, "Thank you." The three gulped, "Alright I have some good news and probably one or two bad news. What do you want to hear f–."

"Just tell them all." Red said, Purple gave a deadpanned expression.

"Rude... but okay. Good news is, as you might noticed, this planet got similar conditions to our planet with the difference of the density. Here is lower than in our planet, same as the atmosphere; the inhabitants are similar to our race, technologically they're really behind and by what I saw in this– uh, network humans calls the internet, apparently they're... isolated from the rest of the galaxy I guess." They gave a puzzled gaze, "Yeah don't ask."

"What are the bad news?" Blue then asked in a soft tone, he was staring at him but his gaze was... distant.

Purple bit his cheeks a bits. "Well, inside the bad news there are still good news: the ship isn't as totaled as I thought!" Funny enough, an already detached metallic panel of the space vehicle fell off against the floor raising some dust. None of them gave any comments nor even turned around, ignoring it as if that didn't happen. "But I think some of the materials we need doesn't exists in this planet..." They all gave a shocked gaze in response, "I... might still need to check at some stuff and see what we can use to repair the ship, if it will work or if we'll need to improvise due the technological level available."

There was a collective sigh before a silence, with Green going inside the ship passing a hand on his head over his hat and coming out shortly after with a box in a hand, then went to a side of the ship and pressed a small button behind one a removable (and also damaged, near to fall off) panel before taking a couple of steps back.

Boom!

The ship was gone and instead, there was a tiny capsule that got saved in the tiny box among several other identical capsules with different numbers and colours; he checked all of them, especially one that had written the word "shelter" in their native language. Once again there was silence with now gloomy faces, none of them knew what to do next nor where to go, being their solution to walk around for a quiet place to stay undetected knowing they might get in trouble with local authorities for being in the landing zone in case they decided to show up. Somewhere to repair their ship in peace, research, check the condition of the transmitters and hopefully send a message of help... and of course, have some rest from the trip they had.

Blue was distant for a while, his eyes fixated to a blank point.

"Did any of you receive a signal from–" Was meant to ask out of sudden, Green and Purple shook their heads, something that popped a defeated gaze upon his face, then turned around walked away next to the trail of destruction left on the soil with pain filling the air. His friends followed him then to check he would be alright.

Blue had a weird feeling in his guts, one he couldn't understand but that just felt... completely wrong, as if something really bad happened... Oh how nothing would've happened if he decided to risk his life and fight something unstoppable! He thought angrily with some tears falling down his cheeks, clenching his fists with impotence and walked until he reached a cliff, standing at the edge to the horizon towards, passing above a distant town miles away before raising his eyes to the starry night as he kneeled without looking away.

"Our galaxy is visible from here..." Said with nostalgia in his voice, still with tears rolling down, his hands didn't open up in any moment and his body started to shake angrily about to explode, then he punched the ground leaving a crack, "I hate this so much!" Blue yelled furious as his face turned red, punching the earth again, "We don't know what the fuck happened to him after we left! He was supposed to–" Green pulled him away from the edge that cracked and fell, trying to help him to breath before he gave him a hug with the others, "Why didn't he come with us...?! Why did he leave us...?! We could've helped him...!"

There was pain and confusion in his voice and a bunch of strong, mixed feelings he hated, but that were amazingly hard to avoid along the sound of explosions, windows shattering, the earth cracking and opening, the buildings shaking and breaking... all they could do was grab their hands and run towards their ship until... Orange stepped out without their realization.

And if we get fair, none of them actually understood yet what happened no matter how much they tried to; everything happened too fast, it started out of sudden and ended very abruptly.

"Easy mate... we're all feeling like you..." Green said caressing his back. "We all miss our planet and our friends, our families... we will go back soon with everybody... and you have to be strong for that. We'll see him again..."

It was a part of their lives: travel across the cosmos, help in other planets, constantly fight against big threats and being away from everything they knew at home including their respective families, yet this time it was... way harder than that. They barely escaped with a recently-landed ship, had to separate from their families before they all evacuated... they got lost in the middle of the space and finally ended up stranded there...

The four friends separated a while later once they felt Blue feeling a little bit better, looking back to the sky in direction to their galaxy right next to the local moon that got covered by a cloud passing by and heard the sound of sirens and lights in the distance, plus what locals would call a helicopter coming fast; at that point all they knew was the urge of fleeing before the authorities caught them there (and they preferred to avoid any problems).

Standing up the four of them ran into the woods together with no intentions of separate their ways no matter what, in the same way they did in their planet. None of them were open to lose another friend neither let them get caught, and as the gravity there was much less than what in their planet was, they ran several miles in no time.

All they had was their own backs...

And a very little hope to go back home.

Chapter Text

Can anybody fly this thing?
Before my head explodes
Or my head starts to ring...

High Speed - Coldplay

November 15th, 2017. 12:30 PM [GMT -3]
Estadio Único de la Plata
Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Fixing up a car to drive in it again,
when you're in pain, when you think you had enough...

The ambient that night was utterly fantastic: it started with a mild rain that added its something to their evening, the crowd completely excited with the last part of the song singing along out loud in what already felt a nostalgic night for everyone. It's been two long years of touring getting wrapped in an unforgettable night; Christopher Martin was pumped on his piano, enjoying the very last minutes of the A Head Full of Dreams Tour with all his energies singing the last part of Up&Up.

Don't ever give up...

He sang once with a smile as his head went through many memories in a single moment, from the very beginning of his road with his best friends to that very same moment, caught up by the joy and all the adrenaline all over his body to the very core of his inside... he allowed a little gap to think on all of that and look back for once in his life, with some of the people cheering in the background, the feel of love in the air and the sound of peace in the middle of the sound as his fingers ran graciously on the keys of his piano...

Don't ever give up...

It was the end, the last song of the tour just ended while his hands kept running upon the keys of the piano feeling so grateful for being there that night. Jonny Buckland started to ring his guitar as an outro towards the farewell to their energetic crowd, with Will Champion playing with the cymbals with a big smile looking at the frontman and Guy Berryman in the bass with a little smile upon his face, showing certain bittersweetness in his facial features.

"My friends," He spoke to the microphone with a lot of mixed feelings in his chest, being joy the most powerful of those. "This is the end of the A Head Full of Dreams Tour! Back where it all began: Buenos Aires!" He was breathless at that point, trying to put his mind together with all the rush in his head, "Thank you everybody all around the world! At home and abroad, for being the best part of our show, for being in the music, and for you keeping your and our head full of dreams!" The excitement rushing his veins made him want to cry out of joy. "This is the end of our first chapter! For now and on we'll be full of surprises. We love you, and pray for all of you with all of our hearts. We exist for 'cos and because of you! Goodnight, good afternoon, good morning wherever you are around the world! God bless you, be kind to each other, we're in this together, we're one big band! Everything is possible if you never give up and if you believe in love!"

He had a clear message for everybody, one he wanted to stay in everybody's hearts and souls.

Beliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieve

Will intensified his play against the cymbals with energy along Jonny and Guy with their instruments, at the same time there were fireworks behind the stage, the crowd roared along.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNN

His heart jumped excited and happy to hear the energy across the stadium as the fireworks intensified like his hands and his bandmates.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVEEEEEEE!!

The large crowd exploded with more fireworks along a lot confetti with the colours of the rainbow at the same time it was their moment to put down their instruments. That was the wrap of the amazing tour they had; Chris stood up and grabbed the Argentine flag in his hand, kneeling down and nearly kissing the stage excited as his friends got to the front row clapping, together they placed their arms behind each other and bowed as the crowd chanted Viva la Vida. Finally they gave a hug to each other, the frontman placed his white Love on the floor right up the sky blue-and-white and gave it a kiss before waving their goodbye of the night.

The band known as Coldplay finally ended the last night of the 2-years-tour across the world, the biggest they gave to that point. Even if they felt tired there was a happy ambient as they left to the backstage without stopping hearing the people chant and the music of the 'end credits' roll. Each of them went directly to take a shower in the bathrooms of the stadium and got to stay a while more in the dressing room, sitting in some couches before leaving back to their hotel. Guy kept his bass for another while playing some random chords, Jonny had some cake, Will was playing some mobile game on his phone and Chris ate some chocolate, grabbing a newspaper he bought earlier that day (better said the day before as it was past midnight already) from "El Clarin", his eyes fitted on the large title (his Spanish, although still sort of sucked, he could understand what it said):

"No traces of the mysterious aerial accident in the Argentine Patagonia"

His friends heard him say it not out loud, but as his voice was deep enough, it wasn't hard to not hear him mumble at times, calling out their curiosity - which was something he realized once he felt their stares on him. Clearing his throat, wishing his skills were good enough for a fair translation, and reading the paragraph first, he read it out loud struggling a bit:

"An accident that occurred near of the city of Bariloche still got its mysteries after an unknown craft or satellite crashed several kilometres away between some mountains, leaving trails of destruction and debris in several parts and even kilometres away from the city. Some witnesses that were awake at the time the crash happened maintained their version of the events and said that it-"

Chris stopped abruptly and squinted, pulling the newspaper back and forth a few times as he seemed to re-read the paragraph, to then take his phone and take a photo of it. He did a gesture upon his shoulder once.

"What?" Will asked curious. "Wait, aren't we going there the day after tomorrow- I mean tomorrow- I mean... you know what I mean, right?"

"Uh-huh," He simply replied, "And it says this... unknown craft looked like an... 'egg-shaped spacecraft entering back to the atmosphere-' what...?" There was silence as he was clearly confused, "Let me keep reading." He grabbed the newspaper again.

"Although the authorities responded quickly after hearing the crash and went to the spot that was nearly on fire, they said they found nothing but a trail of massive destruction such as burned trees, metallic dented panels and a large path of something landing forcefully against the ground; according to authorities, the object crashed against a wall of stone to finally stop. NASA radars didn't catch signals of any unknown object approaching to the planet-"

"Sorry for interrupting Chris," Jonny said, "But I don't really know what to believe coming from the NASA or some other space authorities. Maybe it's true and the craft or whatever landed managed to pass - somehow, undetected... or maybe they're lying. In any way, all of us know we can't be the only planet alive in the universe, that's very naive to believe."

They all agreed with that, it was pretty stupid to believe that in the vast cosmos they were the only planet with complex forms of life - at the same time it was pretty hard to believe for obvious reasons. The frontman got ready to keep reading, re-reading the first parts once again and what was next to have an idea of how to translate the rest (it was so hard to do it, his head felt like it was right about to melt while trying to find the right words to say), again he did a gesture on his shoulder, looking like he tried to ward off something.

"Experts across the world are gathering together to investigate the mysterious landing zone, its origin, where the craft is, when and what could've happened to the crew members - if there were any inside; some of the dented panels were taken as proof and will pass through several experiments to determinate its origin and components and determinate its composition."

Another break, another time to read the next part, scratching his head to put his thoughts together. Talking a foreign language was already hard, and translating from Spanish to English was worse; find the right words, try to remember if there is a translation or something approximated, and at the same time, it helped him to practice.

"A scientist said that they'd do an 'exhaustive investigation to determinate what could've caused the collision and how there are no traces of the object'. Although, in the middle of the veil of mystery around the strange phenomena, footprints were found. According the descriptions and the number it was stated that around four people were in the landing zone but nobody else was found in the area."

There were pictures of the footprints, showing these were just... flat, something he showed his friends, all of them looking at their own shoes to see if that was possible. As much as they knew even the flat soles had some pattern or designs but these... were straight up flat. No patterns nor designs but simply, boring flat footprints - and all of them were sure that even astronaut boots had lines on the soles.

"Due the strangeness of the events that happened in this region, the experts and scientists called this as 'The Meteorite of the Patagonia'"

The news ended there and there was a little silence in the room as everything seemed... completely weird and nuts, and it was really hard to believe that it could be some different form of life apart of theirs.

"I don't know if any of you know about the Meteorite of Tunguska," The green-eyed man spoke to break the silence and add something, his friends turned at him, "It was as an unknown event that happened in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, they didn't straight up investigate what happened but a few years later, whatever happened left eight million trees burned down and probably killed some people who were close to there; by the time they wanted to investigate the climate of Tunguska covered the place and it turned hard to determinate the origin... in either way, it's said it could be a fragment of either a comet or a meteorite but nothing, until now is actually certain."

That was a very interesting data, still it didn't explain how weird the event at the sound sounded, and they'd spend around a week there before they all left to their respective homes. Did that mean they had to get around a lot of scientists and some possible alien encounter during their time there - was that even possible? At least they hoped to get some peace there - hopefully even not be recognized there, they wanted a break and an extra week together before splitting again back with their families...

"Chaps!" They heard popping up their bubble, Phil walked in with bags under his eyes looking sort of rushed, "It's time to go. Excited?" He joked. The others chuckled in response. "Alright get ready..."

They noticed he was really tired when their friend rubbed the back of his head and his face as an attempt to keep himself awake for a little extra while, they all got up and headed to their vans with Chris next to Phil having this weird impression he would pass out in any moment - of course it got his concern, yet his childhood friend said it was alright. Once their stuff were ready they all got up in their respective places: Will fell asleep almost instantly, Guy looked all the way to the hotel, Phil was right about to fall asleep and Chris and Jonny were theorizing about the meteorite... and it included aliens.

It made sense the reason of why there were only trails of destruction but nothing found - maybe a high-tech race crashed after some technical failure; at the same time it could've just been some satellite or an empty pod that disintegrated the closer it got to the surface of the planet and some people thought it was something else; besides, how many were the odds of an alien spaceship crashing on the Earth? That would be just complete madness, as if there was some sort of chance of that actually happening.

When they arrived to the hotel, Will nearly fell off disorientated when he got down the van and managing to wake back up to head in, Jonny was still intrigued about the meteorite affair in the south writing stuff down on his phone while Chris went to the co-pilot seat to wake Phil up... he didn't look that right, and he knew he didn't have a decent night of sleep for a few days.

"Hopefully you're finally getting to rest tonight my friend." The ex-manager and creative director smiled a bit and rubbed his eyes with a hand as he got down with some help, feeling dizzy and needing to place a hand on his old friend's shoulder.

"I hope so, probably it was the stress of ending a 2-years-tour killing my brain again..." There was certain tone of joke hidden as they started to move, Phil leaned some of his weigh upon Chris's shoulder to get balance, "I really hope I can get some sleep tonight, waking up several times because of some weird, nonsensical and oddly realistic dream is pretty stressful..."

"Ha! At least you can sleep like a normal person." His childhood friend said with his characteristic joy at the same time he wasn't actually wrong, "Won't you need any help for that tonight? I may have sleeping pills, you know I need these but you might need them more than I do right now."

They walked in the elevator, Phil leaned against the wall of the small cubicle as the others looked at him asking if he felt alright, all he said was that if he didn't wake up for breakfast tomorrow was because he probably died. There were some laughs in response as they agreed to check on him before lunch knowing that he truly deserved some rest - none of them wanted him to leave the band again, he was the only person that could get them in the right direction and put some order when there was chaos (although, it was really fun to prank him sometimes).

Once they got to their respective floor, all of them headed to their rooms to clean up, change clothes and flop on the beds to finally, finally fall asleep (both Phil and Will instantly fell fast asleep and satisfied) without any real compromise for the next day more than slack off: it was the beginning of their who-knew-how-fucking-long break even if Chris already had ideas for something new already (as usual); they needed that break and they would take it.

.

The next day felt pretty calm for everybody: no interviews, no rehearsals, no soundcheck, no meetings, nothing scheduled... 4 out of 5 people were asleep for hours minus Chris, who woke up quite early, had breakfast and went out jogging around while his friends were still asleep and also took his time to find a quiet place to try to compose something, grabbing his guitar for that. Around 9:30 AM, Will and Jonny awoke for breakfast, having half an hour to do that before they retired the leftovers, at the time Guy was awake it was too late for him, needing to go to some café for that - fuck he would need help for that.

The only one who remained asleep that morning was Phil; at that point his phone had his notifications turned off to not be disturbed in an attempt to enjoying his day free... yet he didn't feel right: his cheeks were redder than usual with some sweat drops falling down his face, his body moved to a side and then the other with a sick feeling growing until he suddenly woke up nauseous, panting heavily - What the fuck is happening to me...? - and trembling... again one of those strange, lucid dreams after having none for the entire night, this time it made him feel sick, about to throw up even if his stomach had nothing inside.

He covered his mouth for a few moments until the nausea wore off, feeling once again dizzy almost as if he woke up after getting extremely drunk the night before; it's been nearly two weeks since he stopped being able to have a decent night of sleep and now it felt worse along the dreams he had. His friends knew about his recent lack of sleep and only Chris at that point knew about the lucid dreams - yet he didn't reveal anyone what these were... for an actual minute he wondered if dreams or nightmares could actually kill a person, to then shake his head and go to the bathroom.

One second he was getting his toothbrush, and in the other he found himself barfing in the toilet his gastrointestinal juices... Am I getting sick out of nowhere? He wondered, coughing after a lot of effort, Or is my body telling me something...? There were places he never wanted to see again, or go down to some parts of his memory lane, but his current situation brought him back to those early days where he was doing the job of a whole management team by himself... apart of the constant feeling of wanting to sleep and never wake up, in the middle of the stress there were times his stomach wouldn't handle absolutely anything (not even a cup of water) and throw it all up.

His arm trembled as he searched for the button of the toilet to make everything go away, taking out his face from the toilet and trying to sit down, cleaning his face and his eyes that had some tears... "Bloody hell..." He mumbled, waiting a while before trying to move again. Another while later his body felt better, still a bit weak, yet strong enough to stand up towards the shower, with all the sweat a good shower was indeed needed - Fuck it I'll get my clothes later... - taking off his pyjamas and grabbing his toothbrush with the toothpaste he got in the bathtub and turned on the shower in an attempt to also distract his mind, somehow.

And thinking about what recently happened, certainly a doctor would be needed to check if there was something wrong... the problems were: he would need a translator or something like that, see if he could get a turn somewhere and as fast as possible, and how to tell the others even if he didn't really want to concern the others about his current condition - actually he didn't want to tell them anything, if there was a chance he'd just leave without saying a word, do the check and go back before they could even noticed he left his room...

Once he got out already feeling better, he took his time to get dressed, check for the nearest hospital, download a translator app, check his messages where some of them were from his mum and others from his wife and children, and finally get out of his room silently. It was almost noon at that point yet he didn't feel hunger yet - Don't you even dare on trying to get something to eat only to throw everything up again. -, maybe it wouldn't be a good idea actually.

Silently he got out of his room and pressed the button of the elevator, waited a moment until the doors opened to walk in, then pressed the ground floor button and leaned against the cubicle looking pale, lacking of the characteristic rose tone on his cheeks... "It's day 1 of the break and I feel like shit..." He mumbled to himself as he checked the numbers going low until he reached the ground floor. Right when the door opened he jumped a bit, his four friends were also waiting to use the elevator... Shit.

"Oh, hey Phil!" Jonny said, "We were just going to check if you were awake."

"Oh, hello chaps." He said, smiling a bit hoping they didn't notice he wasn't alright, "Thanks for the concern." He got out the elevator before the door closed, "I... was getting ready to have a walk!"

Will raised an eyebrow.

"Right now?" He asked, his voice sounded between confused and suspicious, "We're leaving to have lunch, that's why we were going to wake you up."

"Oh it's noon already?" Fuck, "I didn't realize that..."

"Didn't you charge your phone or something?" Guy asked, sounding as suspicious as Will, "In any way, you aren't the fit kind of person, even less at this time of the day."

Chris was staring at him silently, as if he tried to read him.

"I feel like I need some air-"

"Are you okay Phil?" His best friend finally asked with a soft, concerned voice, "You look pale, did you sleep well last night?" It was hard to keep eye contact without him not noticing something wrong, "You know you can talk to us if you're not feeling right."

Deep down there was guilt growing.

"I just need some air, Chris..." Insisted, "I'll be back in-"

"Why don't you get lunch first before leaving?" The bassist asked curious.

"I don't like moving after eating, makes me feel uneasy..." The nauseous feeling came back, probably because of the tension of the moment. He couldn't avoid their stares. "I'll be back in an hour or so..."

At the time he turned around it was clear they all had their eyes on his neck. They didn't deserve to get worried in their first day of the break post-tour and enjoy before packing to leave to Bariloche... well that'd be for the next day, he still had some hours to pack. Rushing outside he walked towards a cab stop as the wi-fi signal got lost to hire an Uber driver, already writing down where he needed to go; he turned around with the feeling of someone following him but he saw no one - You're fucked, that's all... - acting suspicious.

Sighing deeply he kept walking towards the stop scratching the back of his head, the drunk feeling from earlier came back as he felt his head start to spin slightly, why wouldn't that happen if he nearly threw up his guts earlier? Thank goodness he was close, asking for a cab to the hospital with help of the translator he downloaded earlier and got up looking at his surroundings, for some reason the odd sensation of being followed didn't stop, not even when he arrived to the hospital a while later.

After paying the driver with a few dollars he had (and by the face of the man, he really got happy), got down towards the entrance feeling weak to ask for a turn again with the help of the translator and asking if they had any doctor who spoke English or at least somebody to translate what he needed to know before taking a seat to wait his turn... "I hope this won't take too long..." He said to himself out loud, sinking in his seat.

"I hope the same..." He heard behind him. Wherever he went he would always recognize that voice, and it actually scared him to realize he wasn't alone.

He turned around surprised, his brown eyes met a couple of blue as he got paler than he already was. Chris sat down next to him, wanting an explanation by what his face (which, even if it reflected seriousness, it didn't lose certain softness) could tell, Phil covered his face ashamed for being caught.

"Fuck..."

"Yep, fuck indeed." He couldn't help but chuckle softly, "Phil, what is happening? Don't you even dare on saying you're fine because you are here for a reason."

That was probably one of those few times Chris was the older brother instead, a random event that happened every once in a while. It was weird when it happened, sometimes he didn't like when it happened... and that was one of those times.

"It's-"

"It's not okay, Phil. What happened?" He tapped his fingers on his crossed leg without deviating his eyes from him, "You know you don't need to hide anything to us, we are your friends..."

He sighed in response.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to concern you..." He massaged his eyes for a minute, "I... threw up when I woke up..." From a serious stare passed to a concerned gaze, "That's why I didn't want to have lunch... I don't feel so good... and I don't know what could've messed me up apart of the fact that I had one of those dreams again. I'm sorry I really didn't want to concern any of you in the first day of our break."

Chris placed a hand on his shoulder as a sign of support.

"Don't ever hide these things from us again!" Once again he looked serious yet soft, he couldn't avoid it unless he was actually angry, "You are very important to all of us even if you don't want to admit it. If you have problems please talk to us, more than a band, we're a family and you'll always be our older brother..."

There were those times he truly hated being called the "creative director" of the band more than usual, thinking that his role was completely useless apart of filling some gaps here and there for events or live plays...

Then something happened and remembered they created that role as a stupid, almost childish excuse only to keep him close to them as an outsider inside, even without a real musical ability, he would forever be their beloved secret fifth member with the actual last word on everything that happened in the band: songs, names, stage ideas and even fights. Sometimes he didn't believe when they said they felt lost without him at the same time he deep down knew they were honest...

And he always felt grateful for being their friend at the end of the day.

It didn't take too long when he was called to be checked (and of course before that, there were some people who asked a photograph with Chris), asking to his friend if he could work well enough as his translator due his lack of abilities. "I'll try..." was his answer to then proceed towards the consulting room. Funny enough the doctor who checked on Phil was a huge fan who was at the last concert and couldn't believe that she would attend them, stating as well that she loved the cheeky ex-manager and she'd gladly check on him, and she gladly knew English.

Some of the questions were simple enough, like what he ate last night or if there was something that could cause him to feel bad; he said he didn't sleep right on the past week and a half, telling he thought it probably could be the stress of the end of the era - at the same time he wasn't entirely sure if it was that or maybe he got sick or caught something these days. Sure thing was it's been years since the last time he felt like that; the next thing they could do was get to do some tests to discard anything else, in the meantime he had some medicine for his stomach and a list of light meals he could eat and drink for the next three days asides of giving his phone number (Chris did the same just in case) and e-mail so they could send the results of the analysis.

They'd take an Uber back, but first they had their lunch (although it was nearly 3 PM) somewhere around where Phil had some chicken with smashed potatoes and some apple juice, finally starting to feel better while Chris ate some vegan food; the ambient was nice overall and the ex-manager started to recover a little bit of the blush of his cheeks and his energies.

Another while later they got back to the hotel but first, they decided to go to a park in their way and let the time pass by... that brought memories to both men from ten years ago when they met back in North London at the verge of Viva La Vida, Phil just came back from Australia after finishing his degree in psychology ready to start the residency, catching up with the things they've done the four years separated, finding out the shit they went through...

On a day like that day, he was asked to be back, at least as an outsider inside.

Walking across they sat on a bench in front of a lake with some geese swimming calmly, the ambient was nice enough to enjoy...

"It's a nice day today..." Chris said with a soft voice, "It's so different from England and more like LA..." Phil chuckled in response.

"It's sunny and hot, totally the opposite from last night."

"I was the one under the rain and you're the one who got sick." Both of them chucked at that, starting to the lake for a moment and seeing one of the geese stare at a random walker, "Hey Phil, can I ask you something?" His friend looked at him curious, "You said you've had nightmares lately, right? Would you tell me what are your dreams about?" He asked curious, turning at him and look right into his eyes.

The ex-manager opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out; instead he looked away back to the lake as he covered his face with a hand for a minute trying, apparently, to put his ideas together.

"Goddammit..." Mumbled, "It's uh... these are just bad, lucid dreams. Nothing special..."

"Do you remember these? I know dreams always means so-" The frontman was abruptly interrupted by his childhood friend.

"No, don't you even dare to tell me that dreams have a meaning because that's a myth!" Now his older-brother mode was back, "That is a myth, and I kept myself updated with the psychology manuals so don't come and tell me that. Okay?" Chris remained serious for a few seconds before cracking a smile and have a laugh, "I'm being serious...!" He couldn't avoid laughing as well.

"Alright mate, I got it..." He laughed again, "Yet you haven't replied to my ques-!"

A few minutes later they sat down on a swing tiredly and sweating; they heard this panicked scream before Phil gave him an answer and realized one of the geese went against that pedestrian who passed by the lake then get followed by the others, it was hard, they almost got bitten by a bunch of those hellish animals but they managed to (barely) save the person after find a way to distract them and flee; luckily their tactic of using something to distract their attention and hide behind a tree worked, to then walk away slowly and backwards to avoid more attacks. Once they got safe they told (Chris did) to the pedestrian how to act in case there was a next time; this person didn't know (at least) who they were, thanking them for the help and letting them go.

"Fuck! That was scary!"

Phil made a face that he was about to throw again, covering his mouth with a hand for a moment to then feel apparently better. Of course, of course he absolutely wasn't in the right shape to handle those things in his current condition... at least, the nausea passed.

"Shit..." The blue-eyed man looked at him worried, "I'm fine... I shouldn't have ran..." He took a deep breath to calm down feeling dizzy again.

"Hey I'll look out for a cab-" Phil raised a hand in response, as a way to try to make it seem as if he was okay, "Phil..."

"Just give me a while and I'll be alright..." He didn't look at his friend, yet he felt his eyes on him, "It'll be okay..."

There was silence for a while then, noticing how he's lost nearly all of the energy gained before, seeming very tired and starting to grow pale again. Indeed he was not in the shape that day, and he was worried that the... inconvenient made it worse than before. Chris frowned his lips a bit, seeing Phil lean against the chain of the swing tiredly, he really looked like he was about to pass out right there and it wouldn't be surprised, probably his blood pressure was low with all the things that happened in the day...

At the moment he was ready to get ready to not let him pass out, he jumped out with a mix of surprise and shock before he covered his mouth again with retching; his body seemed resented when it passed again, trembling as his eyes got some tears leaked as an effect of that failed attempt to vomit... another while later passed before he was back to normal, breathing heavily, Chris was very concerned without having a clue of what to do.

"Phil you're not okay." He said, this time more serious than earlier, "I think we should go back now to get a shower and for you to rest..." Of course he looked away, "It'll be alright, just..."

"I'm so sorry mate..." It was notorious a heavy feeling in his tone, "I'm feeling like a burden to you right now..."

"Hey, you're not a burden... you're just not feeling well. And it will be alright, we all have wake up feeling sick once in a while, don't we? It fucking sucks but... it is what it is." His friend helped him to get up, needing to lean on him again, "Come on, let's find a cab and head our butts back to the hotel. I hope Will won't kill us for taking too long..." He joked.

There they tried to find a cab stop around - hoping there was one close, luckily they got to one, helping his friend to get inside, "I feel so fucked..." Chris heard him mumble, patting his back with a smile as a sign of support. "Thanks mate..." Smiled a bit, having another in response before telling where to go. Some time later (after get caught in the traffic for a good while) they were back to destination, helping his friend get down again and walk to the lobby.

It was a long day, Phil wanted a shower and the bed feeling worse than when he left, Chris accompanied him to his room, in the same way that happened to the cheeky ex-manager when he tried to leave, they found their friends about to take the elevator about to get out to find them as they took too long to come back.

It's been a bit more than four hours since their departure.

The frontman placed a hand upon his shoulder as he quietly explained the situation to his bandmates, who were evidently worried by the situation, making Phil to feel bad again yet of course have their support - especially from Will -, wishing him to feel better and that he could count on them whenever he needed it.

And again, there was no way he couldn't feel grateful for being in his life.

Once they were freed, he walked into his room with his childhood friend who helped to get some of his clothes for a deserved shower; the ex-manager was quite silent trying to find something wrong with himself for a while, even if his head still felt dizzy and his body quite weak, overall, it was all right. No nausea, no wishes to throw everything up... a soft sigh of relief got out there.

"It's all right?" Chris asked, placing the last of his stuff on the bed. He nodded a bit in response, "Alright then..." He looked down for a moment, his stare got lost on a blank spot, he didn't see his friend do a gesture upon his shoulder. "Well, I guess I'll just..."

"You know I've had those... dreams lately..." Phil spoke out of sudden still staring at the floor, "I've told you early that they don't actually mean anything and that's bullshit... but..." His childhood friend sat down next to him, "Sometimes these dreams repeats, they're... overwhelmingly livid... and more than being just... dreams, it isn't just that, these have coherence. These feels more like... memories..."

"Memories?" He asked raising an eyebrow, doing the same gesture upon his shoulder, "How so?"

"I... I don't know..."

That was the weirdest part: it was normal to dream in first person, yet all of the ones he had more than being livid and lucid at the point he could remember these, the cohesion was something he didn't understand. Dreams were more of a jumbled mess of internal thoughts, memories and all-time experiences mixed but everything he saw in there felt... different and abnormal.

He had bits and bits and bits of jumbled information in those dreams that at the same time weren't nonsensical; the few things he remembered clearly from his dreams were him running inside a falling building and hearing his friends calling out his name while the earth kept on quaking catastrophically, shattered windows and the sound of explosions outside; another thing he remembered was a countdown in a hangar, the rest of that was completely blurred but sure enough was he wasn't alone there, yet he couldn't remember who were with him.

He also remembered a voice telling him to evacuate soon, screams of fear, a fight or something... then himself under a tree feeling tired, remembering his trousers tattered entirely... and the last three days he could remember a huge explosion before finding himself inside a green bubble...

But there was no planet anymore.

"And today I... finally had some sleep but... it was really scary..." Everything his friend did was listen in silence, looking a bit to a side a bit annoyed, the ex-manager didn't see that, then raised his head and sighed, "I know I was floating in the space in the... leftovers of a planet... there is kind of a gap in parts but... I felt cold suddenly, it..." His body started to tremble, "was way different from being under the snow naked, it felt like a billion needles stabbing on my body and..." He tried to calm down, the nausea came back, "I was choking..." There was nothing Chris could say, he didn't know what to do either, "When... when I was about to die... that's when I woke up..."

Then there was silence, Chris had no idea what to say nor what to do right there but just... digest the information, it was so weird and he didn't understand either. But it was all a dream, right? Just a bunch of bad dreams...

"I-I-I really don't know what to say..." Which made him feel bad.

"It's alright chap, I feel... relieved now I told somebody about it..." He replied looking at his friend with a little smile, "I guess I'll take one of your sleeping pills for this night..." He chuckled softly. "Go on and take a shower, you smell like a horse."

He gave a loud "Ha!" in response before leaving, reminding him for the billionth time to call if he needed something.

That's what he would do next time.

Chris then left back to his room, leaving him alone with his thoughts, going to get his shower, change his clothes and flop on his bed staring at the ceiling in silence... it felt nice to vent with him, even if there was nothing he could do to help. He sighed deeply and picked up his phone - Shit... -, there were loads of calls from his wife... - Just tell her what happened and don't be an idiot... - He hoped she could pick up and wasn't mad for not picking up, it was earlier in LA and he was sure she was busy...

And there was no luck on it. He really wished she wasn't angry at him for not picking up before...

He left a message to her phone after not having a response the tenth time, telling her the... events of the morning, probably skipping the weird dreams for nearly two weeks because that would be weird... at least he would have the chance to see her again the next day, they'd all meet directly in the south as a massive family trip (because it'd be unfair if only them went alone without them) for a week, then they'd all return to their normal lives (of course, Chris would keep composing as usual, already with ideas for the next era).

Everything would be totally fine, they would have a fun vacation together as the huge family they were, probably go camping, hiking (even if he would look like a pig); a lot of stuff to be done!

What could possibly go wrong?

Chapter Text

I’ve never seen such beauty,
I’ve never seen such clear skies
I’ve never seen such high hopes,
I’ve never seen such tired eyes…

Clear Skies – Keane

Tap, tap, tap…

The sound of footsteps running could be heard across the empty hallway with cracked walls and ceiling whenever the earth wasn’t quaking, the distant sounds of explosions echoed there.

Broooooooom!

The earth shook, the footsteps stopped until it was safe to move again and started to run; if it wasn’t such a critical condition, of course the elevator was an option to take to get to destination but of course, the red alarm was on, the constant earthquakes were too dangerous and the building would collapse any time soon already. Where was the crew? They weren’t responding to the signals sent, the last place to meet was their ship – they had orders to evacuate the planet no matter what: a big threat, bigger than anything they knew attacked.

Truly, it was a complete nightmare incarnated.

The quaking earth stopped after a full minute, the person, who was ducked stood up and kept on going in the way towards the hangar. It seemed that everyone already left towards either their shelters or their ships – the ones who were still alive or had injured friends, it wouldn’t either take long before the escape spacecrafts, hundreds and hundreds across the globe capable of carry thousands of people inside started to leave the planet until it was safe to be back…

Of course, if it survived the invasion… everything known about that was… it was a terrible being who came from far beyond to destroy them.

The sound of somebody somewhere in the building calling out made the person stop, hearing it again a few seconds later… it was the crew! “Hey!” Called, “I’m here!” Called again now running, it didn’t take long before the encounter: Blue gave a tight hug to his friend with the others, looking very happy to see their friend: Orange smiled happy before they all ran again to their specific hangar, ducking occasionally and avoiding the floor falling under their feet.

It didn’t take too long until they arrived there, with everybody preparing everything they could get for what would be a long trip. They were probably some of the remaining inhabitants left, the other spacecrafts already took off towards an unknown location across the infinite cosmos – somewhere with similar conditions to their current, now condemned planet… even the military already left as part of superior orders, even if their invaders weren’t that strong, their leader was a whole other story…

Orange got ready the launching countdown with certain… something inside, something he couldn’t explain nor understand, he felt… impotence mostly, the world was ending and they were fleeing from their own planet. His gloved hands closed with anger, then pressed a button that opened the gate of the ceiling: they still had five minutes to go. The ground trembled and shook even more than the other times making them go pale, a loud explosion happened pretty close to their hangar and a purple beam raised into the aquamarine-turning-orange sky, passing right next to their moon: more than a half of it vanished into nothing but dust leaving it into a permanent waxing crescent phase.

Then there was static, clouds of fuzzy images passing by until the scene went back to normal when Blue started to scream on the window. He couldn’t actually hear his voice on the other side, that was a fact, but his mind still heard him yell his name banging against the hard glass panel while the others tried to open the door, the countdown ended. The ship arose suddenly, making the crew splat against the floor, then it turned towards the sky…

And finally they flew away.

And out of sudden there were images fast forwarded incoherently until his view was upside down facing the sun…

And finally Phil woke up gasping for air, sitting on his bed covered in cold sweat product of the dream he had, he also felt… tears down his cheeks; his stomach this time didn’t feel awkward compared to the day before, now his lungs felt breathless and his body wouldn’t stop shaking like a leaf. It was just a dream again, one that ended with him in space. His eyes darted to every corner of the dark room and touched his body to know if he was fine or not, sighing relieved once he confirmed it was all right.

“Fuck…” He stood up and went to the bathroom to clean his face, his body felt stressed yet as long he didn’t throw up it was all right, “I look like a ghost…” He said looking to the mirror, his skin was pale like the last day – shit he looked horrible, sighing deeply he had the intention of get back to sleep-- “Oh fuck!” He fell off and got hit on the side of his chest and nearly his head when there was someone standing behind his back, but of course when he looked there was nothing to see. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, you’re losing your mind… Thought with his heart racing, at least he didn’t hit his head and end in the hospital again.

Slowly he started to move quite sore and carefully to not trip again like a fool back to his bed, turning off the lights of the bathroom, sitting and then lying on his bed, checking on the digital clock before his eyes closed and shut back: it was 5:25 AM…

Wait… wait!

Chris in that moment was fast asleep (as an unusual event whenever they weren’t on tour, which now was the case) after being up nearly the entire night – actually he fell asleep like an hour ago after composing another song that maybe would never see the light and inspiration could never wait because the idea would get lost in any moment; having his guitar next to his bed, some crumbled paper sheets on the floor with a half-sized pencil between his fingers,– showing he fell asleep mid-work as a usual Martin-style mess. 

It should be noted he maybe was drooling a bit having dreams about chocolate while mumbling, “I don’t know Blitz…” Fair to add he was also snoring softly, “I don’t know what’s going on…” It seemed he had a friend in dreams or something, “What do you mean…?” He turned on his bed, letting some of the crumbled pieces of paper fall, a couple fell on his guitar before reaching the floor, “Is that… actually possible…?” Then his pencil fell, “That… makes sense… I guess… this is… new for us…” And his body finally relaxed, “Hopefully we’ll sort it out with time… thanks mate…” Even if it was in a slightly uncomfortable position, starting to snore again for a while.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Chris wake up!” Phil called outside, “We need to leave to the airport soon!”

The banging barely woke him up, grumbling softly as he wanted to sleep for like once in his life yet Phil insisted everyone around three times to wake up before they completely decided to ignore him and fall asleep again; quite like a zombie Chris rolled once, then twice until he sat on the bed looking still half asleep, “Oh fuck… do we have to go now…?” His eyes nearly shut again, nearly fall to the front sort of brought him back to reality, “I’m awake!” He exclaimed disorientated, “Shut the fuck up Blitz…” He turned to a side to stand up and look up for his clothes, “I’m gonna talk to ya’ later, alright?” He smiled, rubbing his eyes surrounded by bloodshot for the lack of sleep, “I’ll see or hear you later, whatever happens first.”

He took a quick shower to wake up at least in part, get his clothes ready and his baggage before their ex-manager (who still acted as if he was) kicked the door to get them out: he had his passport, ID and all that stuff in hand to go, some money in hand to buy something to eat as breakfast – Gosh my head is spinning… –; then he walked out of his room, went to the ground floor being the first there, doing his check out and wait for the others half asleep.

The next one to come was Will who looked rested and better than him, joining to him on the sofa once he ended the check out, checking his phone in silence while the frontman was about to close his eyes again dozing on the couch… – “Yeah, you don’t look fine Martin!” – He opened his eyes a bit in response when he heard this youthful-like voice in his head, turning towards Will for a moment, “You know no one else can hear me if I don’t want to.”

“I thought you left Blitz…” He whispered low enough.

“And I’m already back, you know that… time-relativity-thingy, whatever!” The voice now known as Blitz replied with some giggles. Chris gave a little look on Will, “Can I talk to Will? I always wanted to talk to him…”

“Nobody knows nothing about you and they’ll believe I’m far more mental than what they already believe I am…” Whispered again, trying to get undetected, covering his mouth with a hand as his arm was against the arm of the sofa, again he looked towards the drummer for a moment, he didn’t seem to realize anything, “There is no way in hell I can explain about you without ending up in a mental asylum.”

“What’s a mental asylum?”

“What are you babbling about now, Chris?” Will asked without turning to his big surprise, yelping a bit, “Or is it because you didn’t sleep again?”

He went silent for a minute, only he could hear that voice giggling and then laughing as he did the gesture with his hand upon his shoulder as a way to tell it to shut up; it never passed over their attention, they knew he used to do that a lot but he would always put out a different excuse every time.

“I’m…” He dragged the word a couple of seconds as if trying to make up a quick excuse, “trying to put myself together… you know with so many ideas and stuff…” Again that gesture on his shoulder.

Will looked at him this time from head to feet, squinted a few times, “Right…” It was clear he decided to drop the subject not looking convinced enough by the tone given in the response, getting back to his phone and letting him let out a relieved sigh. Jonny, Guy and Phil arrived all together shortly after to do their check out, Chris rubbed his eyes in the need of coffee, having his friends getting closer to them to finally leave. The frontman went along the short-sized bassist and his best green-eyed friend in a cab (falling asleep in seconds against the latter, who also fell asleep) while Phil and Will went together in the other.

“How are you feeling right now Phil?” The voice of William popped his bubble of thoughts at the verge of doze off, turning around to face him, “Did you get some sleep?”

“Gladly I did, I feel better now…” Replied with a smile, “Didn’t feel nausea nor want to throw up which… I guess it’s a good sign.”

“That’s nice to hear mate.” Smiled softly, “When are you getting your results?”

“In a couple of days probably, they’ll send me an e-mail but I guess it was just the stress or something of the last two weeks.” There was a little pause, “So I’m really looking forward for this break…” He sank a bit on the seat with a smile, “It sounds lovely to have a massive family trip together before going back to normal…” Will sort of wanted to mention the (presumed) alien affair in their destination but he remained silent. “I just want to hang out and have a nice week!”

Well, he didn’t want to think about the weird news from the south and think that whatever landed there was either a satellite that disintegrated in its way back to the atmosphere or some space pod from somebody coming back from one of the many stations outside the planet rather than go ahead to believe in real aliens (of course he believed in Jonny’s words, but it still was too much) wandering somewhere close. Shaking his head a bit he wore off the thoughts as the way to the airport kept going for a few minutes until they arrived.

Chris looked like a complete zombie when he got out of the cab, wobbling back and forth due the lack of sleep, managing somehow to carry his baggage inside without help, followed by Jonny who was in a similar condition yet less and then by all the others; three hours left to go, everyone left their luggage ready to be delivered to the plane, got coffee for breakfast, the frontman still nearly fell asleep and often did that gesture upon the shoulder, red eyes yet he was in a good mood.

And after the breakfast he slept against Jonny once again (just a couple of hours of sleep and he would be back with enough energies) on a seat while he checked his phone like the others while they waited to leave. Phil wandered in some random corner of the Coldplay Twitter with a fake account to interact with fans and that kind of stuff without being spotted (there was so much going on there all the time, it was hard not engaging with the fans, even more with the stuff they could bring up), retweeting anything he wanted. It was his account after all, and then…

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or a hallucination or something but there popped a tweet of Chris with a fan in what looked like a town – Hmm? – He rubbed his eyes to check again if he wasn’t seeing wrong or if it was somebody who looked like his friend, doing some comparisons between the sleeping blond man and his uh… doppelgänger? Clone? What the fuck? And checking the time of the upload, it was uploaded at 6:30 PM of the last day… but they were at the hotel at that time… again he tried to find differences between the copy and his sleeping friend…

“Chaps?” Everyone minus Chris looked at him, “Am I hallucinating or the man in the photo is Chris?”

They all got closer to check, zooming in and out trying to find differences or if it was photoshop.

“Well, isn’t it a montage?” Guy asked both curious and confused, “Chris was with us all day yesterday and I guess that wasn’t taken here before our last show…?” There was a prolonged silence for a couple of minutes, switching views between their sleeping friend and the photograph of… whoever he was, “This is fucking weird… it seems… legit but… he can’t be here but also there at the same time…”

“Does it says the location?” Jonny asked, Phil shook his head and sighed, “Hmm, this is odd… maybe it’s one of the aliens pretending to be him?” Oh true, the only who didn’t know about the weird as heck news was their ex-manager. “You wouldn’t believe us if we explain you.” He raised an eyebrow, “It’s a long story.”

“We still have time for that.”

They sort of had doubts about talking about something unsure but talked about it anyway, about something that crashed in the south not too far from their next stop without leaving enough traces to know if it was some space pod from one of the spacial stations, a satellite or even a freaking alien spaceship due some stuff found in the scene. At first he was sceptical for obvious reasons until, somehow, he started to doubt…

“But do you actually believe that’s possible– I mean, if we were talking about actual aliens, how high would the odds for us to encounter them?” It was an interesting talk, at least to kill time, “We wouldn’t even know it’s them if, of course, they decide to merge with us.”

“Or maybe they’ll wait the right moment to impersonate us!” Jonny said in a quite dramatical tone.

“They already did with Chris without abducting him.” Will said in a humorous tone as they all turned to their friend who was still fast asleep against Jonny, babbling to himself in dreams as he cuddled against his arm. Funny thing was believe he would wake up, only to yawn and hug the arm of his best friend and keep sleeping; odd event, worthy to see. “Of course, if that picture is real.” He said taking a pic of that moment for the record, “This is worth millions…” Mumbled and smiled. Guy saw that and tried to repress a laugh.

“And we still have a fucking hour to go…” The ex-manager said quite annoyed, the others groaned with him.

The frontman remained asleep against Jonny, occasionally moving without waking up – it didn’t stop at all being so weird to see him like that knowing the way he was, and it sometimes took like at least just a couple of hours of sleep to keep going at his best… now, probably because of his age, he kept on somewhere in dreamland totally undisturbed; from time to time the guitarist heard him talk in a low voice to some person in his head.

That’s when the next conversation came up: did their friend need a psychiatrist? It was normal to talk to oneself as a way to process information or take a decision and stuff like that, but there were times it seemed he was talking to somebody else when he was alone – yes, they saw him do that many times, often gesturing as if he talked to another person that was clearly not there.

It weren’t times where he decided to practice for a speech for some award or something but have an actual chat with himself, or do that weird gesture upon his shoulder to wear something off, or dart his eyes also on his shoulder as if he told someone to shut up. It was weird, his excuses were another point… some days were this Oh I’m just trying to wear off my thoughts… with the gesture, or I thought I saw someone… with the weird stare.

Some days it felt normal, and some others were more frequent…

Those days were the latter point, they could hear him talk to this person he often called “Blitz”. And Blitz was the mystery of the whole point: he never revealed who he was meant to be asides of an… obvious voice in his head.

“Alright if it’s one of those days we’ll better talk to him because it’s often concerning to remember he does that.” The drummer said crossing his arms, turning to his still asleep friend. They all agreed it would be a good thing…

With time it was about time to leave, they had to wake their friend up and give him another cup of coffee he drank to the bottom before passing across the customs, sit down again for another ten minutes until they had to queue to aboard, needing to help their blond friend to get his stuff as he still seemed quite dozed off again… and finally aboard the plane in their seats, where the latter fell back asleep once he sat on his seat between Jonny (who helped him to put his seatbelt) next to the plane hall and Phil on the window, also about to sleep again.

Some minutes later they took flight, in around one and a half hours they’d get to destination; Phil fell back asleep with his mind completely black this time, Jonny watched a movie, Guy was having a beer and Will was writing something in his phone (every time he tried to peek out of curiosity he had a hand on his face pulling him away so he didn’t even try this time); the bassist had his earbuds playing some old tunes, turning outside every few minutes as if something would…

His eyes got wide opened when he swore something passed next to the plane at high speed, a red blur that passed so fast that it was almost imperceptible for anyone who wasn’t paying attention. He blinked in surprise, trying to process if he was drunk or if that was real–

“What the fuck is the problem now Berryman?” He yelped a bit when the drummer took off one side of his earbuds to talk, caught totally off-guard, “Did you see a ghost?” He turned at him a bit pale, blinking twice again, Will raised an eyebrow confused.

Guy turned to take the beer can and placed it a bit further from him without saying a word and sunk in the seat without giving an answer, looking now paler than usual, crossing his arms without looking away from the seat in front as if he looked either confused or traumatized; Will couldn’t help but roll his eyes and keep on writing his stuff – whatever it was.

He swore he saw a person flying past to them, an actual person flying right next to the window at high speed, the fact he was a bit sleepy for obvious reasons and also drinking a beer early in the morning (nearly… 9 AM) led to the big thought that he hallucinated a weird scene in his head and he had to stop drinking in that very same moment to get a little nap at least.

His mind didn’t let him think on anything else.

Jon by his side kept watching his movie quietly and pretty calm, drinking a cup of water as he occasionally heard Chris talking in his sleep in a low voice… at some points he tried to ignore that and focus on the film with some rate of success when it got interesting until he heard him talk again in a low voice in… some sort of another language this time, a foreign one he never heard about before which felt like a practice because he seemed to repeat some stuff clumsily until he got it right. That was new.

Landing time came close, the sleeping passengers had to wake up for that to happen which led to a disorientated frontman who slowly seemed to slowly recover the sense of reality and a creative director who had some fair sleep for once after several days for that hour and a half the trip lasted; once back to land passed through the Customs, picked their luggage, had a mid-morning snack, checked the flight itineraries and started to talk what to do now as their families would take another good while to arrive according to the data of the screen.

“Maybe we can go ahead to the hotel and come back when it’s about time.” The bassist said taking a sip of his coffee, recovered from the experience (?) in the plane, “It’s gonna take a few more hours for them to arrive, pretty much after noon, meanwhile we can check what to do and try to find Chris’ doppelgänger.”

“Wait, what?” The blond man asked obviously confused, everyone took a sip of coffee, “What did I miss?”

There was a collective “Uhh…” from the others to then proceed to talk all together  unintelligibly, their friend darted his eyes to each of them trying to get a grip of them explaining until he signaled with his hands to just shut up unable to understand the gibberish, which was fun as his head sometimes was worse than that.

“Sounds like a plan,” The guitarist said quietly, “Go to the hotel, prepare our stuff, check what we can do while we wait and try to find out about the ‘alien’ landing as well.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to get any close to there if we want to check,” their drummer spoke, “Knowing they’re taking samples to try to find more hints they won’t want anybody unrelated to contaminate the area.”

“Fair enough…” They all said at the same time, taking another sip of their coffee.

“Imagine finding one of the aliens and befriend them, that sounds bonkers!” Cheeks exclaimed with some giggles, his childhood friend just gave a slightly nervous laugh as he drank his beverage to (try to) cover that, doing that gesture with the hand. “Anyway, time to go chaps.”

The five of them emptied their cups and stood up ready to find some cabs, when they got outside they realised the exterior of the airport had a rustic facade on the outside at the same time it looked modern, reminding them to some of those cabins in the north; after finding available cabs, admire the beautiful view of the city and the nature surrounding them with the mountains, lakes and clear skies, nearly getting lost because they didn’t really know where they had to go, almost get mobbed by some fans and local press, they found the hotel and did the whole check in for them and their incoming families.

Nearly all of them had three beds, one for their respective couples and two for the children (Will had to ask for an extra bed); the only one who would had his own room there was the frontman (his girlfriend had to fly back to the US for some business) as Apple and Moses were coming with their mum – their stepfather would stay also for business plus it’d be awkward to share the bed with her for obvious reasons; and Guy would share with Keshia and Nico…

Anyway, the view from their windows was fantastic, with the building located by the shore of a large blue lake with the mountains in the distance. The climate was perfect to do anything, whatever they wanted… so it was not a surprise how certain blond man changed his clothes to have a walk right next to the water as much as it was possible…

“Hey, this place seems so… peaceful.” He heard in his head the voice of Blitz talking, “I like it… it’s similar and different from other places you’ve been… it feels unique, actually.”

“I know, right?” He replied in a soft tone now he was by his own, “I’m liking this place already, it feels quiet and I feel it’s helping me to breath…” He inhaled deeply, feeling the fresh air in his lungs, “This place even seems perfect to compose a whole album.”

“That’s all you can think about, isn’t it?” Chris chuckled in response, “Of course that’s all you do, why don’t we keep going with our lessons instead?”

“Later maybe…” There was something in that place that made his inside feel calm, and he liked that, “I want to enjoy this peace while it lasts…”

“Aye! The soul also needs peace, and I can see you are feeling it.” Another chuckle came in response completely light-heartedly, not only his heart felt light but also his entire body, “Hey I see Phil coming!” Chris turned around, indeed Phil was coming closer, “Ayo! Can I talk to him? Please?” Now there was no response, “Alright fine!”

“Oh, hey Phil!” The frontman said raising a hand to greet him.

“Hey Chris, may I join?”

He gestured him to join by his side for a walk, going in their way under the clear skies until they lost track of time, taking some photographs to the landscapes and other buildings that sort of reminded them home. An hour later they started to jog, with Cheeks’ face totally red and breathless while his childhood friend was fresh in the way, getting ahead by far a few times. Their last stop was at the verge of the end of the piece of land where they were located, one sitting on the grass smiling and the other flopping still breathless, both under a tree.

The sun was high in the sky, with the sunlight filtering between the leaves of the tree they were under, green hills expanded to the horizon, the mountains in the distance, the fresh, pure air… everything there yelled “nature”; once Phil recovered his breath he sat against the trunk to admire the full landscape from their low point of view, bending his legs against his chest and wrapping his arms around them, placing his chin on his knees… there was certain glint in his eyes, one that was hard to tell what it was, it seemed like… amazement.

They were in so many places all around the world before, every single place they were in was special, unique… every single place had its own magic and charm, some of them were simply unexplainable… it sort of brought certain nostalgia from the past, from simple days when everything felt easier and less stressing; it brought up childhood memories of a distant past somehow. He remembered a similar place, his mum took a photo of him sitting on some rocks that day… lovely memories he wanted to recreate with his children soon.

“You okay mate?” Phil signed when he realized he got lost somewhere in thoughts, not even needing to turn to know Chris looked at him.

“I am… just thinking that I need to improve my health or else I’ll get a heart attack.” Even though it sounded as a joke by the tone given, it was obvious how important it was, “If there is a zombie apocalypse I’d be the first to be eaten!” Which again felt true.

“Or if there’s an alien invasion…” Both of them laughed, with their view getting lost in the horizon again with no track of time, “Hey, now I realize, shouldn’t we be doing something right now?”

“…”

Nearly ten minutes later some people saw a yellow lightning (not literally of course) running down the streets towards the airport, some meters behind a breathless cheeky man had to stop to catch back his breath to keep going, calling his friend to wait for him. Some other minutes they arrived, with Chris still looking fresh while Phil had to lean and sit down, putting some effort to stand up and join to his friends, having Will asking where in the actual fuck went quite angry and why someone looked about to die.

Around fifteen to thirty minutes later the passengers of a flight from Los Angeles that made a scale on Panama finally arrived, the five men stood up searching for their respective family behind the gates which took another ten minutes until Guy stood up when he saw Keshia and his daughter Nico come out, going to hug her tight and happy.

Next on the list were Marianne with Ava, Juno and Rex, all of them going towards Will and give him a family bear hug that was warmly returned in a very wholesome scene that ended up melting some people passing by; totally opposite to what he seemed (big, scary and able to break a head with his drumsticks), he showed a fond love for his loved ones in the sweetest way possible, fixing up Juno’s hair, a bit of Rex’s clothes and finally give a happy kiss to his wife before leaving back to the hotel.

Another five minutes passed, Chloe came out with Violet and Jonah, both of them running towards Jonny, who kneeled down to receive them with a happy tight hug, his eyes were shining as bright emeralds, “I missed you so much…” He told them with a soft smile, standing up to hug his wife as well. It was a very sweet scene, the happiness in the air was palpable, hard to ignore for anyone around. Once they left back to the hotel, Chris and Phil remained waiting another few minutes until Apple and Moses appeared with Gwyneth, happy to see their father…

Then Phil was alone, waiting for his family for another few minutes a bit… worried, what if something happened? What if they were detained for some dumb reason? Were they okay? She said they were on their way yesterday with everyone – Oh come on, they’re fine, don’t be paranoid… – probably the long run behind Chris plus the hunger were doing something to his head at that moment. And he stank. – God fucking dammit…

He covered his face with a hand quite frustrated – pretty much as if he was in some strange roller coaster going up, down and upside down with all the weird things of the last couple of weeks plus those dreams he still couldn’t understand and the end of the tour and-- a couple of hands cupped his cheeks in a soft manner, he raised his head meeting a couple of green eyes…

Ah, there she was…

“What’s wrong, love?” The woman caressed his face softly, her voice had a German accent; his eyes caught a glint of happiness. Slowly he kissed her with a smile and a blush on his cheeks.

“I missed you…” He kissed her again in a lovely manner, hearing a couple of kids sounding disgusted and turned to them to see a girl and a boy, “Hello kids!” He said happily, both proceeded to hug him tight happy to see their dad. “I missed you all. How was the trip?”

“Long…” The girl said quite annoyed. She was mostly the copy of her mother with a slightly darker hair and hazel eyes, a bit plump-ish with the rosy cheeks on her face.

“Boring!” The boy exclaimed. He was more like his father, with the dark brown hair and eyes but without the cheeks and slim-ish.

“Emilia, Christopher.” Their mother said firm yet calm, “Let’s go.”

With that they all left together, with Phil helping them with everything he could looking really happy towards a cab; his kids were all over the place really happy and curious about the new ambient and switching between English and German from time to time, then got into the vehicle and headed back to the hotel, towards their room.

Of course, they were astonished with the view of the lake in front of their picture window, after that they all passed to take a shower (Phil decided to wait, his family needed it more with that long trip) until there was this point where he had a little moment with his wife, with her in his arms sitting on the bed facing to the outside.

“I really missed you Lara…” She cuddled closer to him in response, wrapping her arms around his waist; deep inside something felt calm, as if everything now was all right, not caring about the last days anymore, just the present.

“Me too liebster…” She replied softly, cuddling closer, “How are you feeling? I got concerned to know you haven’t felt right lately…” She felt him kiss her head calmly.

“I feel better, I guess I somehow was stressed or something.” He didn’t throw up in 24 hours so that was a really good sign, the nausea didn’t come back since early morning either, “Had to do some tests just to discard anything else, but I think I’m fine overall.”

“That’s nice to hear…”

Out of nowhere their children surprised them from behind to tell them to go outside with them for a(nother) walk by the shore...

That’s what they did.

Meanwhile…

Somewhere else we can see Green (wearing human clothes) with a backpack reaching a house hidden among the trees near to a cave; he stopped at the entrance, placing his hand upon a biometric detector to open the door, inside he found Blue on the living room having a beverage humans called “coffee” on a mug silently, quite distant even. It’s been a few days since their arrival and his friend still seemed low in energies.

“Hello mate…” He said softly, placing down his backpack and sitting next to him.

“Hi…” He said in a low voice. “Still no signs of him…”

Every single time he could he would be checking if they received some signal from their missing friend, at least a coded ‘I’m alright’ from some primitive place – anything! According to Green’s own calculations, their communication systems weren’t entirely damaged, unable to send an SOS call but to receive a message from other planets, even theirs but not from further.

“I know you’re worried for him, but you have to try to be strong…” He said placing a hand upon his shoulder, “I’m sure he would hate to see you like this…”

“I know, I know…”

The sound of steps coming close indicated they were no longer alone. Red came closer cleaning his hands with a handkerchief and sat down with them; there was a coffee jar halfway full (apparently, recently made) on the table with another mug, he served some to himself and started to drink it slowly.

“It’s been seven terrestrial days since we’ve been here and the transmitter is refusing to work…” Mumbled, then took a sip of his coffee, “The copper fibres are working fine, but the fuses we got are not good enough… at this pace it will be hard to make contact with the others.”

“I’ll keep looking for alternatives in the meantime, you can go ahead and rest…” Green told to his friend, “Thank you for covering me, I’ll try to keep going myself later.”

Red nodded and stood up, taking his mug with him and left to another room, leaving him and Blue alone again.

“This is such a mess…” The latter mumbled, “We don’t have enough spare pieces for everything and what’s available here it’s not being enough…” He sunk on the couch slowly, Green felt his heart sink, it was the first time he saw him so… negative, then took a sip of his coffee again, “We don’t know what’s up with our families, nor our friends, or our own planet…”

“Blue–”

“And finally the one who’s our oldest brother decides to abandon us and go missing…” At that point Green couldn’t help but hug his friend tight, some tears came out from his eyes, “I don’t understand… I still don’t understand why he left… we… I left my family to find him and… he… dropped us… we’re stranded unable to get help… and only Shah knows what’s next…”

Everything Green could do was try to comfort his broken friend, taking away the cup from his hands, hug him tight, caressing his blond hair slowly, who ended up sobbing with his face hidden against his shoulder for a long while, letting his heart cry out all the pain.

“Hey, there is nothing wrong in how you feel… I know you’re still confused and hurt, I am, too…” The green-eyed man spoke softly, “I miss Geordya and Emilianne so much as you miss Aleiza and Helene… Shah is taking care of everyone, that’s all I know… even him…” He hid his face even more, sobbing quietly while he heard him talk, “Everything I know is he left us to give us a chance to escape safe and sound, without the invaders following us, and knowing him I’m sure he’s safe wherever he is now…” Blue raised his face a bit to look at his friend, looking like a sad puppy. “It will be alright, we’ll be home soon… I promise.”

His arms wrapped around his waist and his grip tightened on his back as a hand kept caressing his hair, letting himself get comforted in the hands of the love of one of his brothers; there was an overwhelming amount of sadness inside finding its way out… in every moment Green told him it was alright to cry.

The ambient turned blue and heavy, the sadness impregnated on the walls while the aura intensified with a broken muffled sob while it was being also contained by a loved one who didn’t leave his side until he managed to pour out all of that pain at least for that moment.

So many things unsaid, untold and unknown, uncertainty for the things they’ve known to that point and even their future… through their minds a lot of thoughts passed by in a mere second, yet one was able to sort them out in its own way while the other had them stuck and accumulating.

The state of their families, the rest of their friends and acquittances…

Their race, their planet…

And hoping to find, eventually, Orange’s whereabouts.

Chapter Text

You were talking in your sleep,
Secrets you were meant to keep,
You should’ve kept them in your head,
But you just let them out instead…

A Dream Is All I Need To Get By – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

November 18^th, 2017.

Ah, the vast, cold and infinite space had a lot of mysteries awaiting to be discovered by humanity: planets, civilizations, the sense of life and even if there were actually gods or not. Outside the blue planet loomed many artificial satellites floating around, monitoring every single little thing people were doing, receiving, repeating and sending or resending information from one point of the globe to the other.

The Hubble Space Telescope monitored everything since the beginning of the nineties – nearly forty years of service and not too far from ending its useful time. Normally it would find a lot of stuff, like distant planets or galaxies, stars, supernovas in its process of implosion and once, a planet consumed by a black hole.

Yet, even with humans in its inside monitoring along the scientists on Earth, focused more on other galaxies hundreds of thousands of million years light nobody, not even the astronauts in the space stations nor the surface of the moon realized the approaching of a big spaceship hundreds of millions and billions of kilometres of distance: big and oval-shaped, with several round, dark blue windows around a black ring, thirteen yellow ovals that worked as the engines, the front had three giant, round windows with an aquamarine colour and at the very top (which was flat) there was a gate.

Through the largest window there was this tall female-like alien with purple skin, long silver hair and a couple of straight horns sticking out from the sides of her big head, her forehead allowed to see some veins marked on the skin; there was a couple of red dots as eyes, soft facial features with a small pointy nose with prominent lips; she was using a black  armour on her upper side with long and pointy shoulder protectors that had a brown colour and underneath a black spandex covering half of her marked legs, wearing a couple of boots in black, white and brown points. Several other alien beings, of different sizes, shapes, colours and forms were in front of control panels monitoring everything.

“So, that’s planet Earth…” She mumbled quietly with her arms behind her back, fists closed and a serious stare, “The computer detected the last ship that parted from that pity planet is hiding here…”

In one of the screens a close-up of the planet started to zoom on the southern part of South America (even at uncountable miles of distance), The few data gathered from expeditions outside from a couple of times showed how the earthlings were nothing but ants, and it would be so easy to destroy them all until these runts showed the hell back up… but a direct attack was not in their plans. Yet.

“Captain!” One of the crew called out, “We found traces of the last Solarian ship that departed before that one with the orange cape appeared!” She turned towards the crewmate with a glint in her eyes, “But… uh…” She looked straight to his eyes, making the soldier tremble, “We can’t find their actual position…” Again the soldier trembled afraid, then sighed relieved when she turned her view away, “We have a track of the possible places they might be, we uh… need will need to land and search.”

The now identified as the captain got closer to the large window facing to the blue planet with an evil glint reflected on her dots, her feet stopped touching the white floor and hovered in the air. Behind her there was an empty, round and big seat suspended in the air by a couple of metallic arms; she turned around a bit there with certain sadness and anger.

“First we’re gonna get ridded of those stranded Solarians, then take their rotten bodies with us.” She turned back to the Earth, “After that we’ll raid this planet and kill its population and finally we’ll sell it.” And the glint intensified when an idea crossed her mind, “Oh, better idea: we’ll find them, capture then and make them see how this planet perishes!” Now there was fire, “We’ll avenge our lord once we find them, and I, captain Ginyū promise that they will pay for their daring!”

Every alien in the room cheered and raised their arms in a signal of support, she quickly ordered to block anything that could detect their presence approaching the planet, raise a camouflage shield, they would still get a day or two to reach there but, there were others already closer to the blue planet that could help a bit to start…

.

12:31 AM [GMT –3]
Alma del Lago Hotel
San Carlos de Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina

Another day and the official first day of their family holiday together. Lots of activities, plenty of time to spend together in a familiar ambient that also looked and felt different in a good way. The five friends looked for different activities to do that morning, with Chris biking with his children, Jonny playing some football around, Will and his family went to swim at the lake, Guy… was in his own thing with Keshia and his daughter, and Phil went down for a walk with his family once again, enjoying his time with them.

Talking about Cheeks, last night he finally got a whole night of sleep after two long weeks of lucid dreams, as if the presence of his loved ones was enough to draw a line and let him rest in the way he needed. Occasionally the group met some fans while they did something and also some of the scientists that were getting ready to take a turn in the respective landing zone of the “meteorite” (which a few of them were also fans), each of them asked if they could go there to see the place, and as much as they wanted to teach them the place, access to public was strictly forbidden.

It was fairly disappointing, no one could lie about that, they were really curious to go and see with their own eyes what the fuck was going on but as the group was actually big, the negative was understandable. At least once they ended investigating the place would open for the public – which would take a good while, sadly; in any way, they enjoyed the morning until it was time to have lunch, having a good picnic in a park.

And now they were chilling while the kids were playing around.

Will was a bit in his own stuff while he checked his phone every now and then on Twitter using Phil’s fake account, getting some Wi-Fi signal from somewhere around and scrolling around the Coldplay circle because it was hilarious to see how they all lose their shit after only two days of the hiatus started. What a bunch of clowns…

Wandering from time to time, drinking juice and checking on the kids while Marianne chatted with her friends, laughing at memes, pretending to be Phil and other stuff, he raised an eyebrow a bit when a photo of Jonny with a fan popped up. It was from that day, quite early, he could swear his friend wasn’t even awake by the time the pic was uploaded but there it was. Nah, it’s probably him. He thought and decided to let it slide, this time it was not a doppelgänger, he was sure about that because they were right there and probably his friend just got to a walk early or something.

Also, from time to time he checked on Chris, who was sharing with the women pretty much everything he could just to see if he’d do that gesture upon his shoulder; momentarily his eyes darted to one side as if he looked to someone sideways by the side where the children were, rubbing his hand with his fingers and popping them a bit, seeming energetic and joyful. Nothing out of place apparently, at least until he said he would leave to exercise as part of a strict routine he had once there was time.

There should be a way to spy on him, he knew Chris was hiding something from them and he wanted to find out. Maybe he didn’t want to concern anyone so he remained a condition – whatever it was in secret. Odd coming from someone as open as him, understandable at some extent, yet they were their still their friends and they should be up to date with it.

“Do you think so?” Guy asked once they found themselves alone for a while, scratching his chin gently, “I mean, yes, Chris sometimes acts weird because he is weird, and probably we need to find him a psychiatrist but… what kind of secret would he keep? I mean, he’s not”

They immediately turned to Jonny, who squinted and backed a bit in surprise.

“Yeah I genuinely have no idea what’s going on either.”

All the eyes then turned towards Phil. He gestured in surprise with his arms.

“You know I’m as concerned as you chaps…”

The four friends started to think about something in silence.

“We could… you know, search and follow him?” Will suggested, they dismissed the idea.

“…”

Three doritos later they found themselves on a search for their friend to see what he was doing, a couple of miles away hidden among some trees they found him in the distance doing abdominals upside down, suspended on a branch, putting a lot of effort in his exercise… alright, that was new. Looking to each other they got closer as silently as the grass under they feet allowed them, hearing him count with some problems – completely focused in his activity.

He was very sweaty at that point, realizing he was using weights around his wrists and ankles, his face was red, part of his shirt was down revealing his musculature working out more than the usual; indeed, it was intensive, the upside down training was fairly new even for Phil who often was his training partner, although, apparently it wasn’t that new either. In any way, they were surprised.

“498… 499… 500!” He took a break there, still hanging and letting his arms down, “Impressive, isn’t it?” They heard, there was a little silence before they heard him groan, “Of course you can do more if you’re centuries older than me!” He exclaimed annoyed, “I’m only 40 years old!” He cracked his knuckles and bent his back to the front, his hands grabbed the branch and in a quick movement he was down, landing and crouching, to then crack his back and stand up, “But it does feels good to be active!”

“He’s talking alone again…” Jonny mumbled, “This is so weird… I mean, above of what’s weird on him…”

They kept watching, seeing their friend start to throw a series of kicks to the air a few times until he stopped mid-air – “Hmm? What do you mean?” There was silence, “What?!” He exclaimed surprised, losing his balance and falling back. They all raised their eyebrows, “You mean they’ve–” He then turned around in their direction, they hid as silently as possible, each of them made a sign to not make any noise. Again there was silence, when they slowly took a peek to see what was going on, Chris was no longer there– how?

None had a coherent explanation on how the bloody actual flying fuck he left that fast if they didn’t hear any movement – it made absolutely no fucking sense! Either, there was not really a specific place to look around, but surely they’d keep an eye to their surroundings and ask him what is going on once they found him…

And if the weird behaviour of their friend wasn’t enough, once they got back they found him there already as if nothing happened: recently showered, clean and calm, as if he already burned nearly all his energies for the day. Now there was a question (even if it was sort of clear): was the Chris they saw their friend? Or was that his double? It was the moment to find out.

“Oh, hey fellas!” The other four friends shared glances to each other, “What’s the matter?” Apparently he was trying to pretend they didn’t see him or something.

“Where were you?” The drummer folded his arms up to his chest with a suspicious look.

“I was jogging by the lake!” He replied, “Why?” He seemed… genuine, yet it was quite hard to understand why no one really believed him.

Silence came, none of them was sure if believe or not, there was already a background of times the frontman talked alone to somebody else and pretended to be alright with some other activity to (try to) justify it.

“Are you sure you weren’t doing abs upside down on a tree?” The bassist asked clearly suspicious, for a brief second Cheeks noticed this glint of – not surprise, but reservation. Indeed, something was under the rug. “Because we’re sure we saw you doing that before you somehow ran away.”

He kept looking to his corporal expressions, he didn’t seem tense but cautious about the situation by the position of his shoulders; that started to say more than what he actually wanted them to see, apparently.

“Are you sure about that?” The drummer asked again, Chris didn’t know about the double wandering, a thing Will didn’t seem to mind in that very same moment, “It’s too much of a coincidence to find your double talking to someone alone!”

“Double?” He asked then, genuinely curious, “What double?”

Jonny interfered the chat before the plot was lost, Chris denied everything as usual yet before they could split to their respective rooms, he told them he saw a studio somewhere the day before and he had an idea. Right when he ended his sentence his friends groaned and got quite annoyed to know he wanted to work on holidays talking all at the same time against the idea of recording something in the middle of their break.

“No, no! I mean, I might use the studio myself at some point but… I had another idea.” No one was convinced about whatever was coming, “Come on! It will be fun!”

They looked to each other again, at first after he said what he wanted to do, everyone refused – now believing he indeed was mental. Somehow after many pleads… it would be a thing, accepting before regret could hit.

At that point the others went to change their clothes, although, before they left Phil approached to his childhood friend to talk for a while. It was hard but he needed to know…

“I want you to be honest to me, I promise I won’t tell the others so please tell me, who do you talk to when you’re alone?” It was easy to see through him as he was crystal clear with anything he did, noticing a glint of caution again, “Did you hide a condition from us?”

He raised both of his eyebrows in surprise.

“Wait what?! No! I’m fine!” Well, he sounded fine, “I-I just like doing it– I know it’s weird– it goes beyond to what you’d think that’d be weird about me but believe me! I’m alright!” Now he sounded defensive. “It helps me to think–”

“To have an imaginary friend?” He folded his arms up to his chest, “Mate, I’m sorry if I sound like a pain in the arse but you’ve been doing that more frequently than ever this time and we’re worried.”

For the billionth time, the blond man tried to convince him everything was alright before being (pretty much) kicked out of the room to wait outside, then sighed deeply when he reached the point of realizing he wasn’t going to speak about it. Maybe he could try again in another moment knowing that Christopher wasn’t going to open up in case it was too serious, deep down, there was some hope to know at some point soon…

Hard to tell if he felt afraid of talking or if it was hard to tell them about his current condition, mental health was a big deal, whatever the problem was maybe he preferred to keep it for himself; and as hard it was to accept he wouldn’t open about the real reason of why chatting alone so often, just leaving to full interpretation that it might be a condition, in the end if he wanted to remain silent he was in his full right to keep his secrets.

The least he could do was probably wait patiently, until he decided to tell the truth.

.

Nearly four hours later…
Somewhere in the Patagonia

Going to the whereabouts of the alien crew, we can see them taking a day free for that day. It’s been nine terrestrial days since their wreck, castaways in a planet unable to communicate with others, struggling to rebuild their ship with the native materials – where some of these were harder to find or straight up expensive, they didn’t have any of the local money and, for some reason they were confused a few times with other humans that apparently had some resemblance to them.

Discovering the internet was a whole new thing as they learned more about humans and their (sometimes weird, sometimes not too much) traditions, about how their world was divided in ‘countries’ that became a whole new, yet confusing concept, wondering why would they create walls and borders if they all lived in the same planet, finding interesting the wide range of languages there existed across the globe, so many different cultures, traditions, food, animals and plants. Quite disappointing to know as well how a lot of that stuff was compromised…

Internet was also something that managed to distract Blue from the problems when he needed to stop overthinking everything, unable to calm down sometimes while others he would just be pending of any signal from space to see if there were any clues of Orange; music became, finally, his getaway from all the intrusive thoughts, finding so many stuff he instantly loved, with this genre called “alternative rock” fitting for his current mood; Red by his side became interested with the transports used by humans, those cars that moved with wheels instead of hovering, the first time he saw one he tried so hard to not draw unwanted attention as he felt curious about how worked and the internet didn’t entirely satisfy it. Oh, and music was also a huge liking of his, playing some tunes during work as well.

Green was mostly interested in the biodiversity of the planet, so many species in their fauna and flora, finding out some things weren’t so different from their home planet, he found himself mesmerized with the nature, finding beauty in every image he saw, and even within the forest they hid in. If it wasn’t that risky and humans weren’t so unstable as much as he saw, he would gladly help to develop lots of alternatives to help with the sustainability of the planet. Purple on the other hand was mostly invested in cultural diversity or anthropology as they called it, maybe he could try some of those human dishes, they didn’t see that different from their own food.

Everything was interesting in their foreign eyes, finding stuff that comforted their souls in those hard days, others that made them wonder why earthlings were so dysfunctional as a global society. Some of those places called “countries” seemed to be more functional in  certain terms of education and level of technology until they found some stuff hiding under the rug that didn’t stop being interesting. So much to dig in, and as the time they’d spend in the blue planet was unclear there was plenty of room to keep researching to know better and mingle with the humans.

In the middle of their wander across the net (specifically that portal called YouTube modified to their dialect in the written) now in a randomized search, they came across with a recently uploaded video that already went viral in this sort of chart from a channel labeled as Coldplay.

“Jonny goes Jazz, again (1)…” Purple said out loud, his friends turned to see him, “What does that mean?”

“Well…” Blue spoke a bit hoarse, “Jazz is a musical genre in this planet, but I don’t understand what does ‘going jazz’ would mean…”

“Maybe we should find out, shall we?”

Implicitly there was an agreement to watch the video, Purple linked his holographic screen to a wider one like a smart TV so they could watch all together, placing down their stuff. While the TV rendered the video for common captions in their native language which would take a minute or two, prepared something to drink, making some coffee (it reminded them to the sour beans in their planet which had an equal use as a beverage) and bringing a little pack of biscuits (golly, these tasted so good) on a tray that was placed on the small table in front.

With everything ready and sat, Red took a sip of coffee and started the video. The feed started with the camera recording nothing but a room full of instruments and other recording equipment, some noise of paper sheets came from behind and for like thirty seconds nothing happened.

‘Chris?’ They heard Guy off-camera, they paused the video in that moment while Red went pale for a while and the others gave him a glance. Once he felt better, the video kept playing. ‘Chris? Chris!’

Another moment of silence arrived for a few seconds until they heard somebody rush in, fall off and then finally pop in front of the camera as if nothing happened; Chris popped in with a smile, shirtless (nearly written shitless) showing a worked torso with a bandana wrapped around his head; the alien crew paused the video once again, turning towards Blue, who simply gestured to keep playing the video.

‘Hi! I’m Chris Martin from that tiny band called Coldplay,’ He introduced with a smile and a bubbling energy, ‘And we’re taking a break from that small gig we had. But of course that doesn’t means we didn’t stop searching for new tunes.’

The camera moved to a wall full of (dumb) names for songs like “I ship peanut butter and jelly jam”, “Ode to soap”, “I love cars”, “Sheep are from hell” among other stupid names from songs, noticing how some of these had random words written hilariously in several different handwritings letting everyone know he didn’t write those alone. The crew kept watching now quite curious.

‘But lately we’ve had some… problems with Jonny. I know some of you remember the first time he went… jazz.’

The scene changed to Jonny with several sheets on the floor as he was using an acoustic guitar trying to make it sound like jazz, using a hat similar to Green’s, bunny ears for some reason, a white sleeveless shirt, boxers and shorts. Funny combination for a random video that came out of boredom. Guy’s voice was heard again as the camera went closer.

‘Jon! What are you doing?’ He took one of the sheets, ‘’I want a super saxo solo’. Oh shit! Chaps! Jonny has gone jazz again!’

‘What?’ Chris asked in the background coming to them, taking one of the sheets as well. ‘’I’m not performing anything unless it’s jazz’. Oh not again!’

The scene went back to present time.

‘As you know, if one of us goes jazz, the band is completely doomed! This again is the darkest day in the history of Coldplay!’ Well, nothing would ever compare to the pain through X&Y, besides it’s just a prank, bro. ‘And Phil will kill us if we don’t solve this quick.’

The scene changed again, now with Jonny on a couch while the others were doing some random stuff, some giggles were heard every now and then as they were conscious on how stupid everything was. The crew by their sides were laughing a bit in a mix of cringe and amusement, now curious to know what would happen next; humans were both weird yet interesting and knew how to get some fun with stupid things…

‘Chaps? What’s going on?’ A voice was heard out of camera to then reveal Phil, the video got paused, all of them had their eyes wide open to then turn to Blue, who looked shocked.

They needed a little break from that, seeing their blond friend cover his face with both hands in distress with tears dripping from his chin; Green got closer to hug him tight, hearing him repeat he was alright, that it was nothing, a few minutes later he calmed down and tried to make the moment pass to keep watching the video. Once everything was back to be alright, in their places, they resumed the footage and tried to enjoy it.

The group of friends known as Coldplay minus Jonny turned towards the ex-manager with a sip of water in plastic cups holding a laugh, trying to keep the “professionalism” of their performance. A huge chemistry was evident among the five even through the stupidity of the skit, seeming to enjoy it together… it sort of made them think on themselves.

‘Well uh… Jonny went jazz again.’ The one known as Will replied.

Cheeks gave an overreacted answer and told angrily (more like holding laughs while trying to sound angry) to fix the problem or he would kill them for letting that happen again, then turned around and walked away having a note on his back that said “sexy hunk” until he met a mirror, stopping to spike up his hair and leave. The scene changed back to Chris explaining they would be discussing how to fix the “problem”.

The scene changed to a while later with Jonny performing a terrible saxophone solo on purpose judging by the amusement upon his face, singing random lyrics before keep going until something fell upon his head… it was a sheep plush. When the guitarist took it and saw it, he jumped and threw the toy away talking about Satan claiming his soul; the toy in question spun dramatically in the air and landed on a couch, facing directly to the green-eyed man.

‘Jon…’ The voice was made by Phil, who was faking a deeper voice, ‘I’m the spirit of the Jazz music!’ The crew laughed a bit.

‘Oh shit! The spirit of jazz music?!’ Asked trying to sound astonished, ‘What do you want from me?! Why do you look like those hellish animals?!’

‘My friend,’ The sheep said again, ‘I, the spirit of the Jazz music, came to tell you to keep going with whatever the fuck the genre of your band is… I foresaw your future if you try to do do Jazz alone… and it’ll end into disaster!’

The plush raised its front paws as some cheap special effects of lightnings and thunders were added, the guitarist fell back dramatically as well, overreacting everything for the sake of the cringe with a loud thud.

‘Don’t you dare to try jazz by yourself ever again… did you hear me?! The spirit of Jazz is always watching you. I will come back if you do awful saxophone solos again!’

After a bright thunder effect the sheep vanished (or better said, Chris grabbing it from behind the couch), leaving the green-eyed man with an epiphany or something like that, then shouted as if he reached illumination. The scene changed again to the four improvising a song that sooner or later would become into what we now know as Arabesque, finally the camera slowly moved away to a note that said The end, with the screen turning black and some credits rolling.

Indeed, they felt it as an experience, remaining silent for a while before bursting into a light-hearted laugh, talking about the skit and how funny it was regardless a few things that happened; again humans were a weird and interesting race. An oddity was no one really did research about them around their race, and probably was because the planet was aisled from the rest of the universe even if they learned the current civilization were trying to make contact with life outside the planet…

Deep down they wouldn’t be surprised if other races had reasons to not establish contact as the deeper investigated the more it was clear they were an unstable race, conscious enough to know right from wrong but still barbaric enough to engage into wars in many points of the globe, archaic to still use fossil fuels and massive destruction weapons made out of nuclear energy… well there was a long way to go still, a lot to stabilize, a lot of myths to surpass…

Yeah, the other races had reasons indeed, they weren’t either open minded enough to anything beyond that could threaten their knowledge and that stuff – weak, fragile minds in several levels. A wide range of points would be a whole mess to educate the locals according to all the data gathered to that point. To one side it was understandable, it was hard to break everything one knew about stuff yet it wasn’t a bad thing, clearly they could still believe in whatever they believed in, even they had their own religion just like many other planets across the universe.

They would’ve actually discussed a lot about that if an alarm didn’t start to sound, the radar detected two unknown beings moving across the sky, totally unrelated to any living being in that planet. Clearly meant troubles, meant a huge responsibility upon their shoulders, meant they were followed… quickly they all ran to their respective rooms, changing their current clothes to the uniforms they used when they first arrived, getting also each one a mask with their respective colour and a hijab-like cloth to cover their heads and features.

None of the visitors liked the direction of the intruders, whose direction in that moment was towards the city of Bariloche.

.

Back with the guys…

They had a fun afternoon in the end with that dumb as hell sequel to Jonny Goes Jazz and being happy that their fans loved it as much as they enjoyed doing it, ignoring the fact it was trending both on YouTube and Twitter (Phil decided to catch up on that later)… they forgot how funny making a skit was, and how happy Mat was with the idea of editing it “as bad as possible” when they sent it.

Some people recognized them in their way to their current spot wanting autographs and photos, finding some tourists from other countries and scientists with their assistants getting ready to start their turn at their respective station near the landing zone; thanks to Jay, who engaged into a chat with a couple of them, he was told how the data recovered with several soil tests led to the result that it came from beyond. To that point they agreed that it was a siderite – a meteor composed mostly of iron and nickel but still it didn’t explain some things that felt out of place that required further investigation.

And now the sunset was making its way down behind the mountains, the sunlight slowly changed its colours from a bright yellow to a warm game of red, orange and violet bouncing on the soft walls of puffy clouds passing by and reflected on the irregular surface of the water, giving the whole view a perfect scenario for pictures (taken by Guy) and canvases. A view the Coldplay gang were enjoying by the shore of the lake somewhere in the city, sitting on a slightly high land near the water with some grass underneath.

Chris laid his head on Jonny’s crossed legs, with his friend stroking his curls a bit while they chatted with laughs and jokes; the ambient was just… perfect, relaxed…

“We should’ve came here a long time ago…” The bassist said, “This place is beautiful…”

“Yeah, people is also cheerful and warm…” The blond man said relaxed, still with the hands of his best friend still caressing his head, “It feels like home, but warmer…”

“Next time between or after gigs, we’ll come back here for a break until we’re sick of coming.” Phil said with a laugh, the others did the same.

Only a campfire and an acoustic guitar (or a banjo) were needed to make the atmosphere perfect for an upcoming night of fun, telling horror stories and eating marshmallows to pass to something less scary and more light-hearted before sleeping… yeah, everything was perfect in that moment…

Except..

“What?” The frontman said out of sudden, looking surprised.

“Chris? What’s wrong?” His green eyes asked confused, seeing his friend sit down a bit concerned.

“What do you mean…?” He ignored his friend, that act concerned his friends more, “What?!” He then turned to a side to the sky and stood up, seeing two things flying towards their direction, “Uh oh…”

Before anyone could ask again what in the actual god damn flying fuck was his problem, something – better said some people landed to their big surprise which grew exponentially when they realized none of them were… humans, in fact, one of them was a tall, slim woman with pale aquamarine skin and a hair of the same colour in a darker tone collected in a braid upon her shoulder, a small pointy nose, golden pupils with a little of make-up on her lips; she used this odd-looking armour with pointy yellow shoulder protectors, underneath apparently she used a purple body stocking, her arms were covered by light pink heaters like her legs.

The other one was slightly shorter, male looking, slim with a marked musculature; with an indigo scaly-like skin, his head was quite big with a couple of round bumps coming out of the sides while in the middle there was a line that divided it into two, his face was quite round with a couple of short catfish whiskers coming out of the chin while his lips looked like fish lips, giving an amphibian resemblance; he used a similar armour to his apparent colleague with protectors at the sides of his upper legs, latex trousers, white gloves on his hands with a yellow ring around his wrists and light green boots. Both had this strange gadget on their left eye, a green lent attached to their ear.

“Fellas?” Will spoke shocked, “Are you… seeing what I see…?”

His friends nodded slowly in response, completely frozen in their places; both aliens started to talk in a foreign language, with Chris paying extra attention, his chest breathed quite quick in that point, staring at the couple on guard, even more when he realized they were looking at Phil…

«That’s the Solarian who stood against our Lord...» The alien man said… Solarians sounded somehow familiar, «He looks different to the last time.»

Chris raised an eyebrow and turned to his friend, whose mind was rampant for obvious reasons, unable to move. He heard Blizzard sound confused and asking a lot of things at the same time, then he turned back to the foreigners.

«He looks so weak… not at all the same we met in planet Solaris...» The woman commented, then pressed a button of the strange gadget of her ear, seeing symbols appear. «Is this actually the same one? His power unity is way below to that day.»

The gang remained with their guard high, feeling their hearts racing fast-paced. “Chris I think this is a huge misunderstanding…” He heard Blizzard say in his head, “You need to tell them! This is a huge confusion they’re aiming at Phil!”

That of course scared him, making him jump a little and get himself in front of his childhood friend. He felt his hearth pounce nervously as the adrenaline rushed through his entire body.

«Wait!» All his friends turned their looks to him, «I-I think it is a huge mistake!» He felt their stares upon his neck, he tried to stay focused knowing they would bombard with questions in any moment, «A-all of us are from this planet, you must be confusing my friend here for somebody else…» He felt sweat drip down his face and neck, feeling tense, feeling his friends staring at him wanting answers… he felt a hand on his shoulder, turning around was Phil who placed his hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be alright…” He told him in a soft voice, his friend squeezed him in response and looked back to the apparent soldiers.

«Don’t try to fool us stupid Solarian!» She yelled, he didn’t like where it was turning, «We know he killed our Lord!» She pointed at the cheeky ex-manager, something that scared him more.

“Chris…? What are they saying…?” His friend asked worried, the grip he held on his shoulder tightened more.

“They… believe you’re somebody else…” He replied, in the background he heard that voice pretty concerned, “They insist you’re someone who uh… killed their lord…”

There was a collective “What?!” in response, hearing Blizzard telling him to run without looking back. He made a gesture to let him talk.

«We know you came to hide here you foolish Solarians! Did you believe you’d escape from the soldiers of Lord Blizzard?!»

“Lord what?!” Both Chris and the voice with the same name exclaimed with surprise, nearly falling back, “Lord Blizzard…?”

“Martin, what in the actual fuck is going on?!” Will asked now angry and distressed, being royally ignored, before anyone could say something, their cheeky friend started to seem uneasy, grabbing his stomach to then pull apart and throw up, “Phil…?”

He grabbed his head, seeing a lot of images passing by out of sudden and feeling pain in his body with the mere mention of the name without understanding why, some of the fuzziness of his dreams started to become slightly clearer yet everything still was confusing; this tall figure from the back passed in front of his very eyes, a tall silhouette surrounded by destruction.

As much as he wanted to see more, the most he could difference from the partial fuzziness were a (literally) white skin, a head with a couple of long, black bull horns at the sides while at the top of the head there was this green shining – something he couldn’t recognize, in overall it seemed that this being was using some sort of helmet but… it was part of the head, organic. Then it seemed to use a long, royal cape attached to those shoulder protectors that the couple of aliens were using in that moment…

Then everything passed too fast and found again floating upside down in the middle of the space, throwing again once everything passed…

«Fucking hell Zeenah!» Chris heard the man say annoyed while he aided his friend, «We’re wasting our time! That can’t be the same Solarian that killed Lord Blizzard!» Oddly enough, the voice with the same name was silent, «Just look at him!»

“We have to get the fuck out of here now they’re fighting…” Guy said, in the background the couple of aliens were now arguing, “And you fucking owe us an explanation after we’re safe!” Chris rolled his eyes as he helped his friend to stand up, hearing him cough, “We’ll be alright man…”

“Chris…” He said hoarse, “Please ask them this question…” He said what he wanted to know, his eyes narrowed in response, “I… I need to know…”

There’s where he heard Blitz talk again, “I don’t think that’s a good idea… Chris don’t ask them and leave now!” His friend pleaded again to make the question while the other told him to not do it, between the voice of his conscience and his childhood friend his mind went rampant for a moment before closing his eyes, “You’re about to commit fucking suicide and I don’t want you in the Other World!”

“I know…” He replied, “You’re so fucking unlucky to have an obnoxiously curious friend…” Then sighed, “If I die forgive me…” Some screeching noises intensified as his friends were so confused by why he now openly talked to himself, but it wasn’t time to ask. «Oi! My friend and I want to know something...» the two aliens stopped arguing to turn at their direction, «Was your Lord this huge being with white skin, an organic helmet with black horns and a green orb on his head?»

Again heard that being in his head talk, repeating over and over to be nothing but an awful coincidence – surely crossing fingers as well, the couple of aliens first stared at him before turning more threatening at him.

«I knew he was that filthy Solarian you liar!» She yelled furiously, making him step back in response with an “Uh oh…” «We came here for revenge!» She raised an arm behind her head, seeing what looked like an energy ball form at the top of the hand, the other one started to complain about her taking the entire credit, being royally ignored as she got ready to throw it.

Everything would move in slow motion from them as things would happen fast and a breakdown of events is needed: the Coldplay gang turned their backs to run away carrying their weakened friend, Chris gripped Phil’s chest and back tightly to help him move along Will, before putting himself behind to protect him from the attack. The alien woman angrily swung her arm to toss the attack towards them shouting a loud “Die!” in her foreign language…

Then there was a kick straight to her face that made her throw the ball to the sky, exploding far away from there, none of the running gang looked back, missing the fact they got saved. Actually, they ran blocks and blocks carrying their friend how they could until they hid, hearing then a battle unleash in the distance that made the earth tremble and shake, finding in the need to stop once their friend started to have nausea again.

“Okay I know this is not the right moment to ask but, what in the actual fuck is happening?!” Will shouted confused and angry to turn towards his blond friend, “How the hell can you talk to aliens and why do you even understand them?! And why does Phil looks like he’s going through a PTSD episode? Why does those aliens want to kill him?!And I need an answer or else I’ll lose my mind!”

They ducked when the earth shook again, cracking the nearby buildings nearly throwing these down; once it was safe, Phil had to stand towards a nearby trash bin to throw up, Chris went to help him to do that.

“I’m okay… I… my body it– uh… feels like it’s… responding…” Hateful, of course, clearly it had to do with those dreams or whatever these were now, “I don’t… understand either it’s– uh… it’s… painful…”

“You might be sensitive to catch memories from someone, somewhere else…” His childhood friend then said, they all looked at him, “Whatever happened, whatever the events passed to get into this point, somehow you’ve caught them… I think it’s all linked. It’s a rare event but not impos–”

“And how the fuck do you know these things Christopher?” Now Guy asked, interrupting his sentence, “First you talk alone out loud nearly all the time, now it turns out you talk alien language, now what? Are you going to say you’re an alien yourself?!”

Before they could get answers, he quickly got them out of the way of that alien man that suddenly hammered against the ground in an attempt to smash them all together, «You won’t escape from our revenge you filthy Solarian!» Chris rolled his eyes and replied it was a mistake, the response? «You ain’t gonna fool us bastard!»

Surprisingly, something kicked his face and crashed him against the ground; due the strength of the sudden blow, the alien kept sliding against the hard soil leaving a long trail of destruction until his body finally stopped nearly a kilometre away. The gang turned to whoever saved them, seeing Red floating a couple of meters in the air wearing a mask at reminded to the red alien of A L I E N S, but grown up apparently. Red landed softly as the others got on guard, raising his hands in a way to let them know he meant no harm.

“Chris?” Jonny spoke, “As you speak alien I think this is a good moment to ask who is he…”

The alien raised a finger on both hands to then signal them to leave without saying anything. The blond man then spoke in that weird alien language what was going on and how they would need help to keep themselves safe; Red didn’t give a response but got closer, making the group inch back instinctively as a reflect of self-defence while they saw him raise his hands up again to then point at Phil and gesture with the thumb behind his back as a sign to move.

That’s what they did, helping their friend to keep standing up and run somewhere safe. Red followed form behind as their bodyguard, meeting Purple on the way who smashed his entire body against the other soldier that went against them, boosted by his gauntlets; none of the aliens said anything but gesture no harm at all before helping them, when Chris asked them about the indigo one, he only heard “May Shah have mercy on his lost soul…”.

On the other hand, Blue and Green were in their job of stopping that other invader called Zeenah to prevent her of finding the human gang and keep her away from both the city and Phil, flying among the hills dodging, kicking and punching each other. Blue dodged a punch to his face and responded with a kick that fully connected against hers, kicking her away as Green hammered himself against her as a chain attack; Blue flew again towards her to keep going with the combo, to then being repelled with a sudden energy explosion that made them flew backwards. At the same time Zeenah, now covered in an aquamarine aura flew against Blue, Green managed to intercept her with an energy blast that nearly caught her.

Clearly she dodged, at the same time she tried to avoid another blow from Blue, whose arm covered in energy of his same colour like a blade as an attempt to end her life – not like they had some other options at the point where things escalated; their movements were frenzy, punctual yet not precise enough to cause more damage yet she had close calls several times including one to her neck.

The couple of Solarians were fast and experimented, yet the invader was sneaky as heck; sadly enough, there was no way to bargain for a truce as much as they saw – more after they realized those two were part of the group that invaded their home planet a couple of terrestrial weeks ago, space pirates, as much as they could tell. A whole empire of space pirates whose lord was apparently killed during the invasion to Solaris… which also led to very few clues of the events after their departure.

At some point they managed to break the gadget of her eye after they realized she would know where they hid with that thing, now she was “blind”, Blue and Green hid for a while to develop some plan, expecting for Purple and Green to come to their aid soon. At that point, the Coldplay gang finally reached the place where their families were; the first thing Phil did was hug his wife and children as tight as he could, feeling scared and obviously confused like the others… excepting, probably, Chris.

«Thank you for helping us...» He told the couple of aliens, «We would be dead now if you didn’t come...» He raised his hand as a gesture of good will, the couple of strangers looked to each other before Red took it and shook it, he smiled.

«We’re sorry for bringing up problems to you…» Purple spoke in a low voice, quite distorted, professional yet somehow familiar. Actually, everything in them felt strangely familiar. «Apparently they followed us, somehow. We promise to solve this and make it up.»

Behind, everybody looked at them; Will didn’t look away from Chris in any moment knowing he kept too many secrets. Yes, it was normal to not share every single thing of life and keep stuff away because everyone deserved to keep some privacy, but a completely different thing was talk alone as if he had some sort of mental disorder and even know how to speak an alien language out of nowhere. It went beyond understanding in any sense – bloody hell! His mind couldn’t even process what happened just a few minutes ago! There was no way for a normal person to think straight when everything known was just put in check with such a simple appearance.

That led to a simple question: What else did Chris know? The uncertainty kept chewing the back of his mind unstoppably, he needed to find out, he needed to make him spit answers to all his questions, who taught him to speak an alien language? How he knew what they said? Was everything they knew a lie? Was he even their friend all along? Was he even a human…?

Every thought he had was interrupted when the earth started to shake violently, Phil’s body started to react again with retching. They saw in the distance this pillar of light between the distant mountains, the couple of aliens yelled at them to duck and hide as the place turned into the closest thing to a war zone for a few moments before hearing this loud, guttural scream.

What the fuck is happening, you may ask.

Well my dear reader, going back to the battleground where Blue and Green were, we can say they might… pissed off a little bit of way too much more than they’d like to after managing to nearly beat her down for good. Asides of this woman being pretty attractive to any male out there in the vast universe, she really hated they “messed up with her beautiful appearance”. Vain? Too much, powerful? Yes, were they fucked? Completely.

Then her body passed from slender with beautiful, soft features passed to have a grotesque form: rounder, lizard-like head and face; her arms, torso and legs became fatter, and apparently, her powers increased.

“Mate?” Green spoke, “Are we fucked?”

“Well…” Underneath his mask he stared at her, “Pretty much I think–”

Broooooooooooooooooooooom!

Blue violently flew away backwards after getting a header against his chest, unable to see when she moved, same thing happened to Green, who didn’t see her come at all and getting this painful blow straight to his chin, nearly making his mask fly away but instead it just got cracked – apparently made of a hard material. Right when the brute force of the painful kick was meant to sent him upwards, a grip around the ankle prevented that only to be smashed over and over again against he hard soil before being spun and tossed uncontrollably.

Yes, that took them out of surprise as a… fairly bad one that couldn’t be kept away due her fast movements, at the same time her new speed took them out of surprise they knew they still stood a chance to win because, that body wouldn’t be able to keep moving that fast, right? Eventually, it would start to resent. Lucky for them she didn’t have her little device of her eye because she didn’t see Red come with a blow to her back, when she tried to attack, Purple popped right in front of her with an enhanced shot straight to her face that caught her off guard and threw her backwards, surprisingly for him, there was not a lot of damage done, and she was angrier.

Purple pressed his fist, the bars near the end of his gauntlets sparkled in electricity in sight of loading before it went against the invader, she crossed her arms and took the hit without really caring about the damage – confident she’d be able to take the whole thing, surprisingly she felt her entire body shake terribly with pain yet didn’t flinch, but stepped back as the hit taken was harder than the expected. That made her smile horridly as if she finally faced a good challenge, receiving then a kick straight to her face courtesy of Red summed up with another charged punch that now made her fly away furiously, meeting now a couple of faster Solarians moving furiously towards her direction.

She dodged (barely) the red one that came from behind and then the purple one by bending back with a surprising flexibility for such a grotesque body, she didn’t count, although, nearly get beheaded by an energy disk that caught a few strings of hair if she didn’t tilt her head to the front. In that little point her guard lowered enough to let Green swing what looked like an energy hammer that made contact with her back that sent her away brutally flying in the air uncontrollably, having issues to stabilize.

Less than a few seconds later, the undeniable realization that these inferior beings were quite an unexpected challenge; yes, they were sort of weak, yet they knew how to work together, chaining their attacks fast, hard and precise their abilities could give in order to give all the possible damage to the grotesque invader. Going up and down and left and right the woman had a large problem – not only to stop get beaten from everywhere but manage to find a weak spot to break their terrible chained attack. A little bit more and it would be the end of the line.

No… that couldn’t be the end. Her end.

“What the–?!”

She groared to the skies and let out a powerful energy blast that broke the chain of the Solarian crew, that had to step behind or get damaged. There was a collective “Oh shit!” as she then aimed to them without stopping the blast, destroying everything in the path; of course, that could be seen from kilometres away, there was no way they didn’t feel not just scared, but fragile and tiny in front of something as horrendous as a monster like her.

Three full minutes later, the blast vanished and the Solarians had to rejoin somewhere else to make up another plan before it escalated to something much more terrifying.

Even more terrifying for the humans, who were already praying for salvation.

“This shit is madness!” Will yelled with his mind racing, “How in the actual hell is this even real?! This must be a nightmare!” Everything his brain felt was pain – only pure and utter pain. One moment they enjoyed a break by the lake and another they ran away from fucking aliens! If he had hairs on his head, he’d pull them away already.

Chris opened his mouth to say something, yet nothing came out fearing that the drummer would punch him in response for knowing more than they thought; the scenario was indeed taken out of a wild dream – even wilder than his own without anything they could do to avoid defeat than leave their trust on the foreigners putting their lives on risk for it.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Heard from Blitz, “I have a feeling and you better keep an eye. There could be an impostor among us.” His blues then kept special attention around the shelter, Phil seemed to look much better and recovered enough standing with Lara, Emilia and Christopher were together with the kids and there was a relative peace for the moment… if we take out the fight outside that felt less, maybe it was reaching an end.

His eyes kept moving carefully through the shelter without saying a thing, with Guy trying to talk to Will more quietly, Jon kept close to Chloe and the children… he sighed deeply, still looking around silently. At that point his mind didn’t have any other thoughts, remaining blank for a while until a stranger came in and his instinct then reacted with a bad feeling; this person seemed normal overall, seeming lost yet something made it seem they were faking their reaction… then widened his eyelids once he realized the person was heading towards Phil.

It could be an actual fan, somebody else would think… this time he didn’t think so.

He quickly then headed to his direction taking care on not looking too obvious in his actions towards his friend, looking sideways at the person coming closer to his childhood friend. A movement of the arm made him pace rapidly before realized he actually ran towards them… and just in time to avoid an energy blast towards their direction that exploded and started to make the place collapse as he quickly called everybody to evacuate, grabbing a confused Phil by the nape of his shirt and Lara from her shoulder and force them to run.

There was no time to explain, just flee.

Neither the creative director nor his wife had a chance to even ask what just happened – forced to try to keep Chris’ pace for a few blocks until they hid under some debris, panting a lot, adrenaline rushing through their veins and their minds down into nothing but despair. The blond man stood in front of them checking outside for anything that could pass by while his friends recovered their breath still processing the situation. Before any of them could have the chance to ask, the singer raised an arm as a sign to not do it for a few minutes that felt like a lifetime…

“Chris!” Lara spoke, “What the hell just happened?!”

He turned to her for a moment and looked away focused in their surroundings.

“I guess one of those aliens found us… and they want to kill Phil.” Responded without turning at her, missing out an altered expression, “For some reason they uh… think he might be somebody else.”

She tried to say something, instead her mouth gaped several times until she found herself unable to say a thing.

“Christopher, what in the actual fuck is going on?” Phil asked, his friend turned to him about to speak but he interrupted, “I’m not talking about this madness of aliens fighting and stuff, I’m talking about you.” His voice was severe, yet firm. “I want to know you understand what they say because nothing of it makes any sort of sense! What are you hiding from us?!”

His friend went silent and turned away without giving an answer, as it if was some sort of hidden secret well kept for a long time, focusing back on the ambient like trying to feel it.

That, overall, felt weird.

He had the rights to have secrets, but that felt too important to be kept away. Deep down there was a mix of concern and anger that quickly faded away when he thought, Maybe he’s got a reason. That was all, maybe it was something they wouldn’t understand, yet still was odd to know he could keep that away…

“I think it’s safe to leave now…” The battle in the distance reached an apparent end at least for that moment, giving them the chance to move safely for a short amount of time.

With all the chaos swirled around the world none of them felt safe to roam, knowing also there was an impostor they had to avoid blindly – somehow it was a point where they couldn’t trust strangers if those invaders were able to mix with them that easily. The obvious question was how yet they had to keep in mind they’d probably wouldn’t know the answer; Chris’ blues darted again through the surroundings as the ex-manager and his wife followed him, the priority was to reunite with the others and avoid confrontation or interacting with strangers.

Things were, at that point, eerily quiet in comparison to the previous catastrophe, wondering if the alien crew managed to beat that scary woman, although the ambient made them feel it was just the prelude for something bigger than just that, the possibility was frightening to an uncomfortable extent – the roulette spun frantic that day and naturally was impossible to deduce where it would stop.

A loud grumble was heard, they stopped; the grumble was heard again making them stick their backs fearing an ambush – clearly Phil was the most scared as for a reason no one understood they wanted his head, at the same time he feared for his life, bigger was his anguish for dragging his friends and family into a problem he didn’t know how he got into. They were much more important than his own life.

The noise stopped, standing still against each other without moving for at least a couple of minutes in an absolute silence; when they thought it was safe to move they saw the pavement crack up in their direction as if something moved underneath, their first instinct was run in the opposite way – a beam of light that felt hot passed next to them nearly hitting the creative director in his chest, missing for a few inches – Shit! –, then another and another came in a barrage as blind shots.

Turning round a corner they saw Will in the distance wave at them which became a sign of relief as their legs ran faster towards him, who signalized a place they could hide; quickly they got into a (now) abandoned store as the crack completely missed them going in another direction. The three friends panted heavily in the back of the place, grabbing bottles of water from a fridge and gulped half of the liquid as fast as they could; Will checked outside carefully as the others recovered.

“Will!” Lara spoke recovering her breath, “What are you doing here? Where are the others? Why aren’t you with Marianne and your children?”

He turned at them, something seemed out of place for the two friends out of sudden.

“We split paths after the attack in the shelter,” He replied half-serious, half-calmed, “I told the others I would look out for you three.” Chris blinked once as if his mind carefully broke down some things he felt out of place, “We have to be careful with these… aliens, they might be able to find us if we’re not careful.”

“Tsk! No need to say it again…” She quietly mumbled.

Phil gave an eye to his friend, the slight visual contact was enough to confirm their minds were in the same channel. The earth trembled again, cracking down the walls and ceiling, some fluorescent tubes fell nearly hitting their heads until it passed again, their hideout now was in risk of collapse in any moment.

“Let’s get the heck out of here,” The drummer said, the three of them quickly got out as the singer rushed his friend in front of him. “We’ll better keep moving fast before Zeenah finds us–”

“–How do you know her name?” The British singer asked, now putting himself in front of his childhood friend with an arm, Will raised an eyebrow. “How do you know her name if you don’t understand alien language?” Both of his friends went pale.

“What? This is not the time for stupid questions!” He exclaimed, “Don’t be stupid, we have to hurry to reach our families!”

“Answer me!” Quickly replied, now even more eager, “How do you know her name if you don’t understand their language?! Or better said, why should I trust you not being one of those invaders if they could disguise as a human too?!” As crazy as it sounded, he did have a fair point to believe his friend could be an impostor.

“Come on! That one other alien said her name in that place with sand!” To that point, Will never called out with his last name, something he often did whenever he complains and something that didn’t pass away from their radar, “Stop being a moron and let’s keep moving.”

The drummer now seemed annoyed for losing too much time there instead of running, something behind him get into another corner caught their attention, yet he didn’t seem to notice their look as he was too focused on the current argument. Chris squinted his eyes now even more serious, looking straight to his eyes.

“What’s my full name?” Asked, Will raised an eyebrow, “Come on, what’s my full name? If you truly are Will you would’ve called out my name several times at this point.”

“What kind of stupid trick is that?”

“Come on, if you’re Will then you should know what my name is. It’s not a hard task...”

In some other corner nearby, somebody had to slow down and be careful with their steps as they grabbed an empty Heineken glass bottle in the way as a weapon, walking carefully towards the four friends, hiding by sticking their back to the walls. Uppering their with the improvised weapon took a look to the group, with Chris insisting to his friend to say his name – something Will was avoiding for an unknown reason for quite a long time, losing his temples and starting to get even angrier.

“Why are you acting so weird? Aren’t you the impostor and trying to blame me of being an alien?” The couple behind only saw each other argue in silence, turning their eyes back and forth.

“How would I be the impostor if I’ve been with them since the attack in the shelter?” He had a very fair point right there, “But we separated from you and the others, so how would we know you ain’t an invader pretending to be my friend? And you’re still avoiding to call out my name.” As dumb as the name fact sounded, surprisingly that was another point in his favour, “And the real Will would’ve already said it ten times after snapping.”

“You’re insane–!”

“–Who?”

At the same time Will ended up losing it with the intention of attacking Chris, the person jumped out of their hiding spot hitting the drummer straight to the face with the glass, which shattered into smithereens with the mere contact, things got flipped upside down: Will’s face flew away, just to reveal it was a strange mask and see how he changed his form to the purple alien from before – something that confused the singer because he heard the Solarians say he died, and the person who hit him was the drummer himself.

For a moment everything felt confusing (inside he was glad not trusting at all), two seconds later, Chris quickly retrieved the mask, placing it under his clothes and started to run with his friends.

“What the fuck just happened?!” Will roared confused as hell, “And why the fuck were you with that impostor, Christopher?!”

“You know? I’m so fucking glad I insisted with my name…! And I can’t believe I would miss you shitting on me!” He got a deadpanned expression in response, “What?”

A loud grumble could be heard again, the alien landed in front of them obstreperously at the point the earth shook briefly with an angry look, their heels stopped and turned around to flee, just to see the pavement crack open to their direction, Zeenah jumped out furiously, with her clothes torn widely, part of her armour was cracked or already fell, with broken parts like the shoulder protectors – still in her grotesque form, panting and groaning angrily.

When they tried to move, a light beam made them stay still, the absence of the Solarians was nothing but something simply terrifying as if they were left on nothing but their own. The air became dense at the point breathing felt threatening, everything they could do at the moment was stick closer to each other with the feeling of their inevitable doom.

«You all are so annoying...» The alien woman spat, «Now we’re finally get our beloved revenge!»

“Now stay still…” The other one said, raising a finger to their direction, the woman behind opened her mouth as it filled with a light, charging an attack.

“Chris, what do we do now…?” William asked genuinely scared, “You’re the actual expert for this case…”

“I… I don’t know…” That was the end of the line, it was the first time he got such a close encounter of that kind, “I’m sorry…”

Zeenah flinched her back, which made her attack get cancelled; right when the other was about to move, his body flinched several times until it fell to the ground with his back smoking, which made the alien woman turn to their direction. That moment of distraction was enough to get a good hit on her head that stunned her for a little while and see Purple (with his arms exposed, showing a human-like skin) land in front of them, quickly punching her face to give them time to flee – a chance they quickly took.

The woman tried to fight back with angry growls as Purple avoided, tired yet precisely to fight back with another punch maximized by his gauntlets: the bars lowered detaching some electricity, working as pistons for the knuckles to hit with more damage… and this time the hit was such he could hear a crack of her skull; even if the hit broke the sound barrier with a loud explosion, she didn’t fly that far, leaving a trail of destruction upon the pavement when she tried to break with her feet.

At least, her jaw was broken and her most powerful attack would not happen again, besides the way they dragged the fight pushed her to a limit. Right when she stopped, immediately bent down her knee with a closed fist to not fall entirely, panting heavily as trails of a dark blue blood dripping out of her mouth. At the same time she lifted her face towards Purple, he took a leap in the air to smash her against the ground; quickly as part of the reflex her legs moved to jump back, just to then feel someone behind her yet it was too late to avoid it.

Blue and Green appeared with their legs extended to the front to intercept their enemy, whose body was slower and dumber in their movements while her energies were low enough to get an advantage as a team.

Anyway.

The kick sent her back to Purple, whose punch was that hard at the point the right gauntlet (already damaged enough, both sides) shattered into pieces of metallic junk, exposing his bare hand, she bounced back to the other two Solarians, yet she was batted away with a ripped off lamppost courtesy of Red, hearing a loud groan of anger in response; without losing their time, Purple raised his other hand as the remaining gauntlet flew away towards the invader, grabbing her throat tight, sending her higher until…

BOOOOOOOOM!

It exploded, and it felt like they could finally breath again.

“Oh dear Shah…!” Green exclaimed, throwing himself down, “It’s finally over…”

“Okay but... what kind of monster was she?!” Red asked, “I knew the reptilian army were strong but– oh fuck! Oh dear fuck do we have to face more of these?!”

“Please shut up!” Purple yelled, checking the other one was actually dead as he managed to pretend the first time – somehow, not wanting to risk their arses again, he repeatedly shoot the dead body with his finger and incinerated it with a blast until there was nothing but ashes.

“Woah! That was very effective…” Red said again quite sarcastically, “Why didn’t you do that before?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Was the answer he got.

“Okay, I guess we can finally get some r–”

Splash!

Quickly the four friends stuck to each other when they heard that, pulling out their hands towards the direction of the sound, seeing the bubbles surfacing; a nearly hit nearly costed them their life (or a good time to heal) with a large blast towards the night sky that went so high it reached the space, flickering a couple of seconds until it disappeared again. The water was wide open, with a good part of it flooded outside and soaking them, letting them see for a brief moment the woman with her wide-opened mouth to their direction, with now white, glossy eyes…

The walls then closed, sinking her body…

And it was officially over. None of them said anything, totally muted with fear by that close call, standing right there for at least five minutes to process that the battle ended, clutching to each other as tight as possible. Trembling with their limbs shaking the four of them let go from the other in silence, in the same way, they all flew away back to their hideout…

On the other hand, the three friends and Lara reunited with the others, the first thing Will did once he saw Marianne was hug her as tight as his arms could along his children – shocked for the experience, Lara and Phil repeated the same with their children and locked themselves up in their room to have some rest (and a well-deserved shower); Chris, of course did the same with his family, trembling slightly before getting to his room for a shower in order to cool down his thoughts, leaving the strange mask he took upon his bed. Getting out – like half an hour later all he wore was a shirt and shorts, grabbing the strange mask again to give it a look.

“What did I miss?” He heard in his head, “I’m sorry I left out of sudden, my link to Coloratura got cut out.” There was no response, with him staring deeply towards the camouflage device, which was just a black mask outside while the inside had a neoprene-like texture that showed a technological pattern once exposed to the light, “Oh, that’s a hiding mask. I heard these were a thing in some other universes: simple, undetectable and fits to any race in the universe.”

“One of those aliens tried to fool us, pretending it was Will…” He took a brief pause, “The main reason I found out it wasn’t him is because he didn’t yell my name even though he pretended to be angry.” Then squinted a bit, “Even his voice was the same…”

“The only way to detect if somebody’s an impostor or not, is through their energies.” That caught his attention, “Yeppa, I think we’re ready to proceed to energy lectures, these people are dangerous and you’ll need to be wary of who’s a friend or a foe. Lecturing energies will allow you to detect negative emotions or who’s ready to attack…” There was silence for around a minute, “Y’know what? I’ll see what can I do to visit you and give a hand ‘round, maybe teach some cool tricks I know, what do you think?

“Meeting you in real life? Are you kidding me? Of course I’d love that!” He heard a cheer in response, “God, I hope we can meet beyond Coloratura, it’s gonna be bonkers! Oh fuck I’m so excited!”

“Ho-ho-hold your horses!” He barely knew what a horse was and mostly said it because he once heard Phil say that, yet he understood what the expression meant, “I promise nothing, these petitions are extremely rare so I don’t know if I’ll be able to go there.”

“I’m crossing my fingers, regardless!” The blond man raised his fingers crossed with a bright smile across his face.

Even if he was alone, he gestured his arms as if he hugged somebody with all of the warmth his heart could give; anyone could even say he looked like an excited child, “letting” go quite a few minutes after with a more relieved expression. His stomach growled with hunger, now feeling better from all the thrills of the day, hoping there was food in the restaurant after the… surreal madness of those aliens, real aliens – how crazy to see them in real life, yet for some reason, the coloured aliens were… familiar.

Scratching his head trying to remember he went to the door, something about them felt familiar but didn’t know what, asides of the odd resemblance to the second version of their Viva outfits… didn’t he see them before somewhere? Biting his lower lip he took the knob of the door to open it, there were a lot of things he saw from Coloratura in the past so he wasn’t sure if he knew them or it was just his odd imagination playing tricks on him.

Right when he opened the door, he jumped nearly three meters in the air when he saw Will outside, getting caught off-guard lost in thoughts.

“H-hi Will…” He said, “You scared me…”

His friend seemed quite… serious? Angry? It was quite… hard to tell for that moment due a deadpanned expression that kept away his true feelings; he turned his head a bit to not make eye contact, being one of those few times he felt intimidated by him in that way, knowing he was looking for answers.

“I see I did…” His friend replied with quite a suspicious tone, “But why would you get scared? Unless you’re… I don’t know, maybe... hiding something?” His tone now became quite aggressive, gulping a bit with nervousness. “Don’t you even dare to play fool to me, Martin,” Shit… “How and why you know their language? Are you an alien too? Is everything we know about you a lie?”

Chris gulped a bit, feeling quite… threatened at the point he stepped back, sign that made Will step forward. He was muted, he didn’t know how to tell him the truth without sounding like a madman – even if they had the craziest day, anything he said could be real yet… His eyes made contact with the drummer, whose eyes sharpened and fixated into his blues, making him unable to look away.

“I…” All the words were stuck in his throat, feeling choked up, threatened as if his friend was invading a personal part of his life.

“What? Hmm? ‘I’ what?” Cold sweat started to drip down his forehead, stepping back until he found himself in a dead end against a wall of his room, “Christopher A.J. Martin, I am asking for a genuine answer! Who else knows about this?!”

It wasn’t his intention to scare him that way, seeing fear in his blues wide open with eyelids trembling slightly; every time they got into some argument he would argue back until the affair was sorted out, yet now he seemed to be wanting to avoid it in any way – actually, he seemed to be… vulnerable.

By one side he felt bad for doing that, on the other if he had to push him for answers, that’s what he was going to do, unable to live with the uncertainty of something a close friend like him could know something as important – nearly impossible as an alien language, it was natural to mistrust and think that everything he knew about him was nothing but a lie to keep a cover of something else behind a curtain, a screen.

And naturally, all of those thoughts made him feel used, in a way that was hard to explain. Confusion, anger and a sense of disconnection to reality hit him hard since these… invaders showed up, only aggravated by the knowledge his friend had, that made him ponder if they were ever friends, deep down… and again, naturally that was the results of the long, odd end-of-the-day they had.

“Will!” A deep voice called out from the door, they both looked at Phil, “What is going on here?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out!” Exclaimed angrily, “Don’t you want to know too what Chris hiding? I can’t let this slip out just like that! This is not something you can let slide away!”

He opened his mouth to say something, yet he didn’t; he looked first at his bald friend then turned to his childhood friend. His mind wasn’t in the right place to pick a side, actually, everything he wanted to do was eat something, relax and sleep – I feel so old… –with his family.

“Let him go…” He said softly, Will looked at him surprised, “Let him go, Will… I know you have questions but I think all of us needs some rest before. None of us is in the right shape for answers…” Jon and Guy peeked from the door without saying a thing, “We’re all nervous and tired so… it’s for the best…”

The drummer first glanced at him, then to the blond man until he stepped back to let him breathe again, turning around with a heavy aura they both left the room and leaving Chris alone, now not feeling hungry anymore.

Once the door closed Will glared steaming to Phil, who didn’t flinch back nor feel threatened but tired. Neither Guy nor Jonny dared to step in the middle to ease the tension growing in the ambient, feeling like it’d backfire them in any second.

“Phil! What are you doing?!” There was no way he could let that slip away, “Why didn’t you help me?! Chris needs to explain us what the fuck is going on!”

He sighed quite heavily in response.

“I know you’re all confused but I have the feeling that Chris might not feel ready to tell us what he knows.” Will’s hazel eyes stared at him intensely, like desperately needing to hear more, “I’m quite sure he’s all startled like us, whatever is going on inside that head of his… I hope he can get the courage to tell us, but I’m not gonna force him to talk if he doesn’t wants to. All we can do is wait until he can open up, or at least… before this can get worse.”

There was no reply, relaxing his posture and closing his eyes, Will turned around and left to his room in silence; Phil squinted tired, “Night fellas.” was everything he told to his other two friends before he also left to his room…

None of them actually liked where everything was turning, and hoped everything would go back to normal for the next day.

.

Somewhere else…

The four aliens threw their bodies into the couches of the living room after taking a shower and treating their wounds, Green had a massive headache, Purple covered his palms and knuckles with some bandages, Red was lying half-dead against the seat while Blue was upside down in the same position, groaning in a low voice.

“That was such a close call…” he said, about to hit his head against the floor, “I’ve never seen something that scary as her…”

“None of those aliens were that strong when we were at Solaris…” Red said facing the ceiling, “Or is it because it was just our home…?”

“Maybe we were just lucky to fight low-tier soldiers during the invasion…” Green spoke, covering his face with a hand, “Or maybe she was an elite soldier? Did we become rusty fighters that fast?”

“Whatever the answer is, we have to protect this planet from further attacks,” Purple said, popping his fingers with the thumbs, “They’re doing a terrible mistake at aiming to an innocent earthling…” He took a pause, “We also need to drag the battle somewhere else next time, we put them under unnecessary danger.”

They all silently agreed, remaining that way for quite a while.

“Those humans from that video…” Blue spoke softly, “That Chris chap… he speaks standard alien language… he understands what we say… but he isn’t from Solaris…”

“Maybe he’s from the system of The Spheres, maybe from the tropical area of Floris or Calypso.” Purple replied, “There are only three races that looks alike to us in the entire universe to this point…” He took a pause, “I want to go back to Floris, that planet is so pretty… not for a mission, but with my family for a long holiday…”

“Sounds lovely,” Red then said, “I’d go to the Bongo Bongo amusement park in E.L. II; Nikko and Marts would love to get into the rides after so long, it’d be a treat with all the mess that happened… I wouldn’t mind to get on the roller coasters and throw up.” His friends laughed a bit with him.

“I’d go shopping to the City of the Thousand Planets,” Green said, “Geordya loves exploring new cultures and I wouldn’t mind new technology for our ship, so next time we get sucked by an abnormality and tossed to another planet it hopefully won’t get as wrecked like now… what about you?” He asked to blue, whose blue eyes connected to him.

“Those are lovely places to go,” said, “But I’d honestly go back to Silencia with Helene and Aleiza… I want to see the Xylobrites hovering the skies at sunset again…” The mention of the planet got their gaze on him, “It’s been a few years since the last time we were there…”

“It’s been so long...,” Purple spoke, “I heard that was the original name before the Irdok takeover. Other than that… I agree, it’s a lovely place to be at…”

Once again they went silent for another while, with their thoughts scattered here and there, to then just start to wonder once again how were their families, and the rest of their friends, acquaintances, what about their home planet – if it still existed… they had hopes their missing friend Orange was still alive, other than that, why did they follow them? Maybe they were behind his track and somehow they tracked him there, but did that mean he on his way? Or did he already arrive?

That brought more unanswered questions and uncertainty about their position in the universe and what would come next… how many other perils would they need to face until it stopped? How long would they be stranded? How long it would take to contact their fellow ones? How long it’d take to fix their ship…?

How much more did they have to wait to have some news about Orange…?

Those questions lead them, again to what their purple explorer said before: as long as they were on Earth, their mission was protect those humans from the invaders…

Especially, protect Phil from getting even more involved in the middle of a battle he wasn’t even invested in.

All of them retired to their respective rooms after that, leaving Blue laying on his bed, staring out the window to the night sky for a long while with many thoughts revolved as the stars flickering many years light away from their current location… somewhere among the stars, his family was awaiting…

And all he could do was clench to the hope of seeing his family again as he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

Give me your words, I won’t ever blink,
Right between the eyes I won’t feel a thing,
Because you haven’t told me anything,
That I didn’t already know…

You Haven’t Told Me Anything – Keane

*zip*

*thud!*

*sigh*

Another body of another invader fell lifeless onto the ground from the tallest building of the city as the remaining obstacle on his way to the epicentre of the catastrophe where  this strong, chaotic presence resonated across and upon his beloved planet; he sighed softly as he lowered his hand that had a thumb, index and middle finger open in the shape of a gun, and his shoulders relaxed now that the area was clear from more soldiers, allowing a brief break before reaching the bigger scene – yet the rest of his body remained quite tense. Some sweat drops slowly fell down his temples as he sat down upon some debris for at least a couple of minutes to recover enough from the thrills of the incoming battle, taking out a cereal bar from a pocket to reload.

At that point his loved ones evacuated the planet successfully, hopefully with their tracks hidden (their ship needed some maintenance, he prayed for his friend’s safety) to avoid any inconvenient with more enemy ships, confrontations in outer space could have some catastrophic results, especially if they decided to attack the spacecraft with the civilians. On the bright side, most of the army left on their respective vehicles which meant a defensive line in case of emergency and also a backup for the defence turrets. In the meantime for them, everything left to do was hide and protect everybody until the perpetrator of such heinous acts was defeated… or killed.

He swallowed hard with a sour, dry taste down his throat with the last thought as a soft yet dreadful breeze filtering among the shattered windows that smelled like evil and despair made his cape hover to a side for a few seconds before it stopped. Munching another bite his eyes lifted to the aquamarine skies covered in red and deep shades of grey as sorrow filled his heart. As much as he wanted to join his crewmates, he had a bigger role to accomplish as the new Supreme Major of the Solarian Army, but even with so, his loyalty to his friends was bigger than anything in the entire universe.

But this time, everything he knew was in danger and he had to assume his new responsibility.

Still, why did he feel so bitter and guilty about his decision to stay? Everything he did was act like a responsible adult with a burden upon shoulders exercising the humongous role of the Major and a soldier that vowed to protect his beloved planet and all its inhabitants at the cost of his life… and still his heart ached badly with the images of Blue banging the window of the ship repeatedly, screaming out his name over and over again – even if he didn’t hear it, he saw the words coming out from his lips and his brain filled the gaps, echoing throughout every corner of his mind.

That last bit of his food was hard to swallow as guilt crawled up on his neck with a cold sensation: yes, now he was the Major and everybody’s sake was in his hands, but what was the point if he left his friends behind? He couldn’t help but feel that he betrayed them, somehow, and still he hoped they would understand… or maybe they just wouldn’t.

More than being the new leader of an impressively big army (maybe the biggest in their corner of the galaxy), he was still the leader of that tiny group he shared with another four idiots that more than being friends, were his brothers. Indeed, he should’ve left with them as the family they became since the very first day of the academy and got assigned to the same group, yet now it was too late to regret from his choice: Mæx (the previous leader) was about to kick the bucket against this monstrous being that personally decided to destroy everything, and once his former superior was defeated, that would allow the invaders to give hunt to everybody else – which was something he couldn’t let happen.

So, everything left to do was either prevent or delay as much as possible the extinction of his race no matter the cost, by buying more time to all his peers to flee as far as possible.

Then, his mind already reached a resolution as he stood up with a sudden rush of determination overcoming all the doubts, another breeze arose his cape knowing something now undeniable: his life didn’t matter as much as the lives of all the others, as long as he could fight and widen the thin gap – if not defeat or at least damage enough the root of the evil upon his home.

Yes, Mæx would be mad to see he stayed, just like his friends; the army would need to vote (most likely) for a new leader unless one of the tricks of his pocket managed to work in the way he needed to help his former superior to survive (hopefully, Green’s prototypes for a funny gadget would work).

He looked up armed now with determination, the sun peeked within the fire and ashes as the rays of light reflected upon his eyes, feeling the tension raise in the air while the rest of the building started to crumble down.

Flexing his legs he leaped out of the building as it fell down, his cape opened and free-fell, then an aura surrounded his entire body, to then fly to the sun in direction of the current battleground…

Then quick flashes passed in front of his eyes…

And finally, Phil woke up panting heavily.

Cold sweat dripped down his temples as his hands clutched the bedsheets, shaking slightly at the dreams – or foreign memories from the unknown, invaded his thoughts once again. He jumped slightly when he felt Lara place a hand upon his, caressing the back with her thumb to reassure and calm him down. “Sorry love, I didn’t mean to wake you up…” He mumbled low enough to be heard. Another hand caressed his face in the darkness to sooth his feelings, then it went on his hair, caressing slowly and smoothly.

“It’s alright Philly, it was just a bad dream…” She spoke softly, “Do you want something to drink?”

“Don’t worry, I’m alright…” He smiled a bit, “It was just a dream anyway…” Even though the darkness was more prominent than the dim light of the outside, he knew she smiled with all of the love of the world. Her hand went back down to his cheek, “I’m okay…” She playfully booped his nose, he chuckled softly.

“Ich liebe dich Philly…” She said again, “Und gute Natch, I’ll protect your dreams…” They didn’t need light to see each other smile, cuddling together in their bed to sleep.

Thing was, only Lara managed to sleep again while Phil’s mind started to run in circles again with the puzzle that his dreams were, which now apparently were related to the stranded aliens and whatever the invaders wanted from them (him?). Naturally he had so many questions, too many to be fair; clearly one obvious thing was that in the vast universe of theirs there had to be to be actual intelligent life far, far away from their tiny little planet, with their own cultures, languages, shapes and sizes. Those unbelievable things they could only see around media and that only lived in their minds, the simple-shaped minds of the human race that still had a long way to go before reaching its full potential (before its mere stupidity could devastate the entire planet and all living beings).

Then, out of plain nowhere everything they knew, everything he knew was turned upside down with those invaders trying to murder him, the allies showing up and his childhood friend – Chris, knew how to speak their language.

That was another point he couldn’t ignore: Chris had the knowledge to be a bridge between them and the other parts, and maybe even a key to understand better the situation they inadvertently got in; maybe he could help to talk to the allies and find out of his dreams were related to their arrival as, in overall, those scattered pieces of memories (?) started around the same date as they crash-landed in the planet.

Thinking about it, it was too much of a coincidence. A big fat coincidence. Think that they could play a big role in a near future was pretty scary, so his mind went back to Chris.

Things quickly became even more confusing, did his friend lie about himself? Was he an alien too? He had no other hypothesis than believe that his childhood friend was indeed an alien as well, or else, why and how else would he know how to communicate in a fully foreign language? Their language? Yes, people said you never get to really know somebody as a whole and this time it was quite clear he didn’t know about him, so his mind split two possibilities.

One: If he was a real alien (or a descendant from any of his parents, which was a probability too as his second language) it would make sense he said nothing before due the obvious fact it sounded as nothing pure madness, to the point they wouldn’t simply believe him at all.

Two: Somehow he made contact with alien life. “How” was the question, with the “when” and “where”. Only Chris knew about life outside the planet and now it was uncertain if he would trust to tell his secrets after how Will faced him before (yet he didn’t blame his reaction, who wouldn’t be terrified those secrets?) so, who knew how long it would take for him to open up before something worse happened! Not even he, Phil, his lifetime best friend knew about it ― seriously, the frontman needed to give answers to solve some of the puzzles to have an idea of at least some parts of the events they got caught in…

“A crossfire…”

A war far away from their beloved blue planet unleashed and extended its boundaries to the territories of their homeworld, a bunch of (maybe he was wrong) space pirates hunting down the stranded group of refugees and threatening to destroy everything in their way for revenge… they wanted revenge on them, then, they wanted his head on a silver plate, mistaken by a disappeared look-alike.

That’s what he managed to understand from the whole incident at least.

Wandering in thoughts for another hour his mind finally hit the dream realm without his realization; instead of getting attacked by the foreign memories rooted like a virus in his brain again, he woke up in the middle of a grassland under a walnut tree, the starry night and a giant full moon. It was quiet, with a soft, warm breeze rooking the branches with a pleasant sound while it caressed his skin lightly.

“Perfect…”

Long enough passed without changes or unexpected twists, which meant he was having enough sleep underneath the tree — at least until the sound of footstep to his direction. Turning his head around, he met a couple of beige shoed feet with pointy ends, raising his view the person used a very old-fashioned Arabic-like baggy white trousers with purple folds, to then become blurry under a shiny moonlight. By a few strings of a long, silver colour dangling on the air, he could tell the figure in front of him was a woman, and before he could take a better look of the silhouette to understand the strange presence in front of him that seemed apart of the foreign memories, he woke up surrounded by childish giggles.

“Aw, Chris!” It was Emilia who exclaimed next to him, “You woke papa up!”

“What?! No!” The boy exclaimed, “She did it! Not me!” He pointed at his older sister while the parents laughed in response.

“Kids, go to wash your faces and brush your teeth, then we’ll go for breakfast, alright?” Their dad said in a fatherly tone, bopping their nose with a smile.

Both children nodded and went to prepare their stuff, Lara then kissed her husband’s cheek with a smile, he returned it on her lips with tenderness and love.

“Morning Philly.” She smiled, “How did you sleep? Do you feel better now?” He nodded and got closer, having a kiss on his forehead, “Don’t you need anything?” He shook his head slightly.

“Maybe just five more minutes if that’s not a problem…” They both chuckled, “Or is it there?”

“Well, as long as Emi and Chris don’t…”

As soon as she was elaborating the sentence they heard quick steps to the bathroom and the door slammed, followed by the annoyed complain of their older child. “Kids!” The parents exclaimed getting out of bed; fifteen minutes later they went down for their breakfast, each one with their own meals, and by the fact he saw none of his friends during their time in the restaurant deduced that everyone was busy with their activities. Not a bad thing, it wasn’t a requirement to do all together…

Then wondered about Chris, how he felt now with the aftermaths or if he would trust enough to explain himself at him —I know you can feel scared to talk, but you still can always talk to me when you need it…— to pour all his thoughts and give some parts of the puzzle.

Other than that everyone’s activities were diverse with their respective families during that first day post-attack, good enough thanks to the allies (a form to call the bunch of masked aliens) who drove the ugliest parts of the fight away from the city, several points of interest remained nearly intact, although others for caution were closed for a few days to ensure safety of the visitors. Up to that point there were no calls about Dave about the attack (maybe wording the event without sounding extremely unlikely or straight up mental was being really hard for the media) nor wanted to log on Twitter, knowing there were probably videos of the attack — well he hoped the fans still didn’t find out and were talking about Jonny Goes Jazz Again, even making memes because, why not?

Anyway.

About dinnertime most of them coincided at the restaurant of the hotel. Most of them because the only missing person there was no one but Martin himself to Harvey’s concern, who asked about him to Apple and Moses once they appeared with Gwyneth.

“He went to his room,” The woman replied, “He said he wanted a shower first, but I think he’ll get to eat there.” Darn it. “You know where to find him later.”

“Thanks…”

Right, of course he was avoiding them.

Pushing asides the initial annoyance regarding his childhood friend, he went back to his family, have a nice meal and distract his mind about the missing frontman and his behaviour regarding the whole event. He maybe would go to see him later to check if he was alright, with some luck maybe also have a little talk; maybe even ask about a sleeping pill and see if that could help to keep the lucid dreams at bay until the effects wore off. That’d give him enough sleep for a night.

Two tables in diagonal to his left near a corner, there was Will checking the entrance every now and then checking Chris crossing the doors — if that happened, of course. Some of his corporal expressions showed he was quite anxious, he wanted to apologize his friend —I hope you’re actually wanting to apologize for scaring the hell out of him— yet as much as he seemed to have hopes, the blond frontman didn’t appear. Will’s shoulders fell down defeated once it was time to leave back to their room. Marianne caressed his arm softly and gave a patient smile, kissed his cheek and left.

Once done with their food and returning to their room, Phil went to check on his childhood friend hoping for a response, maybe cross a few words and luckily enough release all the thoughts both had. When he reached the door of his room he signed deeply with is heart racing anxiously with the possibilities that things could easily go wrong; when he raised his fist to knock he paid some attention to some sound inside, then realize he was… talking… alone…?

“I’m quite better now…” He heard at first, “Yeah, kinda…” A pause, “I don’t really know… it’s been only a day since the attack and I doubt they’re ready to hear more…” Another pause, “I know I can’t keep hiding it from them but…” Again, another pause, “I know, I just don’t have the answers they might want, and explain about the astral plane, Coloratura… they’ll think I’ve finally lost my mind!” Well, the fact he was having a two-side talk alone in fact made him sound delusional.

“Well…” The co-manager mumbled to say.

“I understand you want to help and I really appreciate the concern, but regardless of the events, seeing an even of such magnitude doesn’t mean they’ll accept or even understand what I know — fuck! Not even I can believe it and I know you!” Phil widened his eyes in surprise, Chris sighed on the other side. “It’s easy for you because you were born with the knowledge of a whole bunch of civilizations outside your planet, across the stars, universe and even space-time! Even after— you know…” He trailed off to take a pause and sigh deeply, “But that’s not their case bud, nor mine...” One more time, a pause. While you already knew, for us humans is still only a theory that so many people won’t accept for whatever reason. I want to tell them, but I don’t know how…”

The wave of new information shouted out loud that Chris indeed knew something at the same time his theory about the alien origin was discarded, now knowing that his childhood friend did have some contact with superior life forms. Of course it brought even more questions: when did he establish contact? How did that happen? Where and what was Coloratura? And most importantly: who was this mysterious being?

Clearly he was having a discussion with them — somehow, he could hear Chris talk alone for an extra minute before he went silent and sighed deeply. Now he felt a bit guilty for letting his curiosity hear what was meant to be a private conversation, and maybe it would be the best if he left them be for a while, hoping to find a way to talk to him the next day once he felt a bit better, maybe more relaxed…

Yeah, that’s what he’d do.

Sighing in a low voice he silently took two steps back and decided to head back to his room massaging his temples overwhelmed by the whole outburst of information and the questions eating up his inside; things he tried to shove away before a new headache appeared, to then hear a door open. “Oh, hey Phil.”

He stopped and turned around, seeing Chris stepping out of his room with some bags under his eyes and a slight, awkward smile.

“Hello Chris…” He replied, turning around, “How you doing?”

“Same question about you.” Said his blond friend with a slight shrug, “I’m alright, as much as you can be after an alien attack.” The last sentence was filled with mild humour, “And you?”

“We’re two…” He went silent for a moment, unsure about what to say that didn’t regard his questions, knowing he was also under pressure. “I mean, yeah… I’m as fine as you can be after nearly be murdered by bloody aliens!” He chuckled a bit, humour was a good way to not overwhelm his mind again, “But yes, it’s all right.” His friend also chuckled a bit, “Also, do you have sleeping pills? You might know already why.”

The frontman signalled him with his head to go to the room, his childhood friend followed from behind with the constant feeling that he was the first person Chris had interacted with in the entire day, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he keeps trying to avoid questions. The awareness of his talk about the burden of being a nexus between them and the many events happening in the unknown was hard; as much as he wanted to know more, would that be the right thing?

By one side, he would know he still had support from at least one person at the same time the addressing could trigger a self-defence reaction as a sensitive — even personal matter.

Once in the room the ambient felt different, not bad, only different. It lacked his characteristic charm and energy, being quite an oddity from someone as goofy as Chris, who looked out for his jar of sleeping pills in the drawers among his clothes without attempting to set a chat of any sort, lacking of a topic to talk about; on the other hand, the ambient, wasn’t tense to saw that talking was necessary so… he was glad he wasn’t being pushed away — he turned around with the feeling of somebody else standing behind. Weird… he thought, still trying to catch something, the slightest kind of movement that wasn’t the frontman.

“What’s the matter Phil?” He turned around at his friend, who had the jar in a hand, “Is there anything wrong?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry.” He replied, “It must be just my imagination. I mean, who else would be here in this room if only both of us are here present?” He noticed a hint of surprise in his eyes, something he tried to hide.

“You’re right, unless there is a spectre wandering!” The frontman did a menacing yet corny gesture that made his friend laugh, “I mean, this place could be haunted and we have little to no clue about that!” Phil couldn’t really help but laugh, for a moment forgetting all the problems, “Who knows, though. Maybe it is… or maybe it’s not.”

“Maybe there is a friendly ghost called Casper?” Phil said, laughing a bit, “Who’s trying to save us from evil spectres?” It was nice to hear him laugh, so it was good to fool around together to wear off a bit of the problems, “That would be less surprising though.”

Chris served a glass of water with chuckles, giving it to his childhood friend with the pill, who took both things to swallow; then they sat at the verge of the bed together in a brief silence, now with the mood lifted up.

“So, how’s been the dreams?” Phil turned at him, “I mean, have they been that intense or…?

“It’s been alright, bearable at first until it flash-forwards, that’s when it becomes a whole damn mess to handle…” He took a brief pause, “Everything goes too fast before I wake up, and when I do, there you have me unsettled and confused as hell.” Once again another pause, “Then it becomes a fair challenge to go back to sleep knowing it’ll happen again as soon as I start to dream…” One more pause, “I think I have a grasp of why those aliens who saved us are here, but I haven’t reached the end of the story yet…”

For a brief moment there was silence.

“Knowing you’ve had those dreams since their arrival makes me think that somehow, it could be a warning of what’s out there…”

Phil turned at Chris, quite surprised to hear him talk about that affair — at least part of it, the thing that bothered him the most at nights.

“Do you have an idea of why is it happening?”

Sort of.” He replied, biting his cheeks with a pause, “It’s quite hard to explain and I… have some problems to word this right, but to try to be simplistic enough, I think you’re sensitive enough to resonate with others.”

Wording the concept was pretty hard as his ideas didn’t connect correct nor coherent enough to make it sound clear, so the closest concept he managed to bring up was working as a radio antenna: receiving a message from somebody else somewhere in the vast cosmos, and he was in the same frequency of that message of the universe, a host who could see why the allies were on Earth albeit, details scattered in pieces of a story that wanted to be told and known.

It made sense — sort of, enough to understand they had a role in the current conflict between allies and invaders.

“But that doesn’t explains why they want me dead.”

“They confused you for an alien with similar features, it leads me to believe that underneath their mask, they look human…” Phil widened his eyes in surprise and awe, “I don’t know or why is that possible but… I think they do look like us, the Solarians, as that woman called them.” For another brief while they were silent, “Hey, I know you’re all waiting for answers, I know you now are aware I’ve known this to myself for a long time, and maybe even think I have all the answers you want but, in fact, I don’t…”

“I know.” Chris turned at him, “I know you don’t, and that you feel pressed to speak up about it to the others. It must be hard for you to have your own secret blown over out of sudden and raise even more questions, but I understand you don’t know where to even begin or how…” Phil took a pause, turning to look up to his eyes, “And I want to tell you that if you need to talk about it even if it might be a struggle to understand, you can always talk to me.” His lips curved a genuine smile upon his face towards the frontman, “Or at least let me know when you feel ready to open up, I’ll be by your side to talk to the others…”

The crystal in his blue eyes said he wanted to cry, at the same time he saw genuine relief reflected behind. Chris attempted to smile but instead he did a grimace, before he could say something else, his lifetime friend wrapped his arms around him for a warm hug.

“Thank you…” He muttered with a cracked voice, “Thank you so much Phil…”

“It’s alright Chris, you’re my best friend despite everything…” Chris broke the hug, cleaning his eyes, “I guess I understand all of this is hard for you… but you’re not alone…”

His sight blurred a bit as a warning that the sleeping pill was making effect on him, meant, it was time to go back to his room for some sleep.

“Will you need some help to walk?”

“I wouldn’t mind some help to be honest… in case I fall asleep midway.”

His friend chuckled in response and helped him to go to his room, as soon as he got there they chatted briefly — until Will showed up, which made Chris run back to his corner of the building after a quick yet nervous greeting, a clear sign he still wanted to avoid contact or any chat that would inevitably lead to that one certain topic, and that he probably still was shaken by his reaction of the previous night. Phil allowed his bald friend to figure that out with one stare that made him look away in shame, to then cross his arms and leave.

Then everyone left to sleep.

And that’s how day 1 ended.

For the beginning of day 2, Phil mostly had a decent night of sleep thanks to that pill; by the time the effects wore off once again his dreams took him back to that wonderful grassland underneath the walnut tree, as the night sky was brighter than ever. Dreams didn’t need to make sense, yet it felt as if his mind managed to take him somewhere else where things were calmer and less stressful, then again the silhouette of the (allegedly) woman visited his resting spot.

His children woke him up before he could see her better, giggling energetically.

Along all the good things there was a bad one. By the time he checked his phone it registered a few several calls from Dave, which made him wonder what media said about the attack and if the (official) manager already found out. With that in mind he logged on Twitter to see what the fans were saying about it, talking mostly about a “terrorist” attack while others were confused about the videos roaming the net, where some showed a bunch of soldiers attacking while others showed what really happened — yet naturally that was bullshit for most.

Yes, there were a few many tweets asking about their whereabouts and their wellbeing — knowing they knew about the trip due that one photograph of Chris’ doppelganger, now also because of the national/international media… and also because of the fans that lived around the area, meant, somebody had to ensure on their official about their current status, but first he needed to be sure and see a version of the “official” claim.

“Terrorist attack in Bariloche, Argentina”

Well, on the bright side they took a realistic approach to the events as if a paramilitary group randomly decided to attack a pretty calm place with not much going on than people coming and going to places, instead of saying it was caused by a couple of angry aliens from the outer space! Anyway.

“Argentinian citizens got one of the biggest scares of their lives when a terrorist attack took place in the city of Bariloche, Argentina, in the afternoon of this past Saturday. Local reports of the police and other sources said the rebellious group was led by an unidentified woman with military skills, accompanied with at least a dozen of other soldiers.”

Photos of Zeenah were edited to make her look as human as possible; she still looked threatening in the edits, imposing her presence with the angry gaze and some thirst for blood. Whoever edited the photos did an amazing job at keeping the key parts of her personality with the conversion. His back shivered with the memories of her: the power, the presence and recklessness, the chaos and the desire of vengeance… if not because of the allies, they would’ve probably died.

“According to witnesses, the armed group was aiming against the members of the British band Coldplay, who were in the city for a break prior to the end of the A Head Full Of Dreams tour. Sources also claim the armed group tried to abduct the band while they rested by a lake, before being spotted running away from them, as the city became a battleground between the paramilitary group and the local police force, before getting aided by the local military force.”

The article mostly had edited pictures attached as the videos would be harder to edit. Some people saw them, he didn’t doubt Twitter had videos of them running from the real threat or hiding in the improvised shelter — some pics of them from the bird app were attached as well, now that he scrolled down. Either way the truth was too much to bear in reality, so one of the things his mind brought in consideration was that the videos of the true event were taken as some sick dark humour prank to rationalize the crazy event that occurred in that spot of the world where he and his friends were located and most likely prone to another “terrorist” attack against their wellbeing.

On the bright side — just to try to be positive about something, those conspiracy theorists would have some good fun for a long time.

“Thanks to the effective deployment of the law enforcement, the paramilitary group was successfully contained, albeit their leader died after a final, desperate attack after her army got reduced to nearly nothing in a kamikaze attack with her second in hand, which caused two more casualties as a direct result of the explosion. A total of twelve casualties were reported: eight from the terrorist side including the leader and the second in charge, three officers and a civilian during the shootings.”

His empty stomach spun now he realized there was much more collateral damage than just some destroyed buildings and debris, wondering if the twelve casualties were the real number or some made up cypher to fit the narrative of the article… either way, he swallowed hard with a bad taste in his mouth now with those thoughts in mind. Maybe he’d try to find a way to corroborate the data, or else he wouldn’t feel at ease…

“No comments were presented by the pertinent authorities more than their gratitude towards the people who helped to protect and save the civilians. The British band also didn’t make any comments until the writing of this article, who were seen enjoying their time after the attack”

That last one paragraph felt like some shade thrown, feeling a bit offended as if the band didn’t care about the affair — quite the opposite: he didn’t say a thing about it to not concern the fans, but now after reading the article and being aware that now the world knew what happened, he felt it was needed to update their status and log off again to avoid answering about the whole affair, fearing they’d bring up the real footage with their pertinent questions to hear his version of the story.

@coldplay: Hello everybody! I see a lot of people concerned about our wellbeing due the events from a couple of days ago, we’re doing fine and good! Luckily none of us got injured, and we’re safe and sound. Thanks for the concern and sorry for not reporting before. PH

Then in a contiguous tweet he added: Oh, and we hope you all liked our little treat with Jonny going back to jazz ;)

In the span of a second, many replies arrived: relief, happiness and a good bunch of positive feedback about their stupid internet short. That was enough to log off from Twitter for the day and start another activity with his family; so far the morning resumed in getting breakfast, a walk around the town, ask about the casualties (sadly, those things weren’t made out, so he made sure to reach his regards to the families and allowed them to know if they needed any help they could let him know), have a light lunch after feeling sick and have no traces about Chris again…

Surprisingly enough his kids made a plan to arrange a whole afternoon only for him to spend with their mum for some — uh… “fun”, by suggestion of, surprisingly, Apple — for some random and strange reason. When they asked for more information all they had in response was both children storm out of the room to their cousins’ room — meant, they said the truth and they wanted them to have some quality time alone.

And honestly, that was a really good decision, especially given the fact on how they really enjoyed to have some more closure to the other after those months away from home, with kisses, caresses, feeling each other’s presence. Any concern or negativity washed away down their backs the more their fingertips caressed the other’s body with such passion and delicacy, translated as well to their slow kisses after the first time they were done, in their perfect bubble during an interlude. He caressed her cheek with her on his lap as their eyes connected, without sharing words.

Have their moment and make love, indeed was something they missed a lot, and after ending their stuff, they went to have a date around by their own before going back to normality, having their children ask about their “day off” — which they omitted in part to pass it as nothing special, to finally have dinner somewhere else to change the routine a bit.

Oh and, this time again there were no traces about Chris.

That’s how day 2 ended.

The interlude within his dreams gave another break with the grasslands, and it was just… odd, how every time he didn’t dream with one thing, it was the other. And, the same woman always visited the tree where he always laid, and every time he was about to see her face he woke up.

Day 3 started with new news: somewhere past the Fawklands (1), an island close enough from their territory an unknown object landed, everything they knew is that it could be a satellite that disintegrated in its majority before hitting land due leftovers scattered around, while the rest either didn’t survive or fell in the water. Either way, it was odd that the astronomic services didn’t send any urgent messages about a falling satellite, knowing the damage it could’ve caused in urban areas and places nearby.

Other than that, they kept going with their activities, starting of course with breakfast with zero clues about Chris (even Phil was still surprised about it after the talk), yet they knew it was to avoid the issue; but to not divert from the main plot of this fanfic, it was another day where they shared together — especially on how hot it was outside.

Yep, day 3 was a pool party.

Three groups split from there: one side they had the women sunbathing, then the kids playing in the pool some games, and finally the fathers were keeping an eye on their children as they sipped some water (drinking was strictly forbidden during daylight) from a bottle. At first they tried to talk about literally anything else, it worked for five minutes until a long silence established among the group of friends, who stared to their children for two minutes, other five on their phones, and…

“Alright, fuck it!” Will finally exclaimed quite annoyed, “I know we’ve been trying to avoid the bloody subject but I can’t stop thinking about the alien affair.” All his friends turned in response now the silence got broken, “Those individuals were very keen about killing Phil. Does that mean there’s an alien doppelganger of him? Us?” No one gave an immediate response, “The only thing I got from Chris’ reaction is that they were looking for a lookalike, then I missed the rest.”

“Everything I also know…” The co-manager spoke, “…is that they were after somebody who killed their ‘lord’, and whoever did it had my traits.” As much as he wanted to talk about the things he talked with Chris, he kept it as a secret for the moment, “The few things I’m aware of, are chunks of missing information, and it’s scary it fits with — uh…” Fuck.

“With what?” The drummer inquired, catching something in the air out of sudden, sharpening his eyes suspiciously.

He shook his head in response, “It’s stupid, actually it’s nothing important…” He bit his cheeks a bit, “Not really important I mean…” Squint his eyes highlighted bags under his eyes, revealing he had issues to sleep. Compared to the other days, the bags weren’t as prominent as these were near the end of the tour.

“Oh, we see you haven’t slept as much as you hoped on this holiday.” Jonny’s voice him off guard, “If something’s happening, in the same way you always hear our bullshit, you know we can do the same for you, always.”

From the very bottom of his heart he would forever be grateful to have an amazing bunch to rely on; on the other hand, he always wondered why they always thought he was that important, everything he did was fill some gaps here and there. Still that didn’t change his mind about talking about his dreams, for a little while until Jonny staring straight to his eyes convinced him.

“Okay, so… it’s— uh… quite complicated, actually.” Phil said trying to put his ideas together, “I’ve been having some sort of lucid dreams lately. Strange lucid dreams to be more specific…” He trailed off a bit, “And this may sound crazy, but these have been happening since the meteorite thing…” His friends either nearly choked or spat their drinks, “Those invaders, their lord… I saw them in my dreams but they’re so blurry for moments. Something within reacts as if I know them, even though I don’t!” He gulped half of the bottle of water, “Even the allies are familiar, somehow… but every time I try to recall their faces I get blocked… some events are clear when I sleep, and it all fades away when I’m awake…” He took another pause and drink more, “I didn’t say anything because, why would I? Dreams are dreams after all, until…”

“The alien attack!” Guy exclaimed, “Your dreams were memories from a friend of theirs, if that makes sense…”

“Whatever happened to them, it was the last known person that was around their ‘lord’ before all parts split up.” Will added, “But if you’re receiving their memories, wouldn’t that mean…?

“The person they’re looking for is probably dead…” Jonny ended the question, “I mean, yeah. Otherwise, I don’t think there could be another explanation for those dreams/memories you’ve received more than the holder is gone. If this mysterious being was still alive, you wouldn’t be seeing them, especially as it never happened before.”

Well, he didn’t expect some pieces of the puzzle would pop up with the talk, as weird as it was the things exposed made enough sense. Many invaders behind somebody who was already dead — meant they still didn’t know that person was gone, and having Phil as a double. But how didn’t they know yet? And how did they find the rest of the allies there? The most the manager knew thanks to Chris was that he was compatible with a “signal” from far away, and that this missing being could be physically similar to him.

“This is all madness…” He finally said after a brief silence, “Everything, actually!” His mind felt about to blow up, “But I’m glad we’re talking about this, finally. It makes me feel better…” He smiled in response, his friends did the same at him.

“Now I wonder…” The drummer spoke, “If your copy or doppelganger, or whatever it is, was last seen with the leader of the invaders… does that mean you know how it looked like? Or if both are actually dead?” His friends turned curiously, “Or at least remember how their ‘lord’ looked like?”

Now they all turned to Phil, who bit his cheeks in response to try to dig in his mind for answers and well, if he could remember regardless of being awake. Things were much clearer in dreams whole details quickly faded away as soon as he woke up, the only remaining things left were the thrills and an uncertain feeling of hope and dread — until dread was everything left once the events flash-forwarded in high speed.

“I… don’t know.” He finally said, “Maybe if I focus I’ll get something?”

They only gestured him to go ahead and try, meant, the manager closed his eyes as the guitarist helped to empty his thoughts and focus on the real deal; maybe with some luck he’d get a conscious answers from those— Uh… memories.

At first the mental images were blurry, distorted with missing information in a different language he swore was English the times he dreamed, now sounding more like the gibberish dialect his friend could speak, with the many bits of scattered information a body — a tall being standing in a dark background formed, he faced what looked like the back. As more as he focused, the being became clearer: around 8ft and 6 inches tall, wearing an armour similar to the one Zeenah and her partner used (that’s what he could tell from the perspective as the king was also wearing a long king cape, attached to the long protector of the shoulders). One deep breath and this being became clearer as it turned around, making his body started to tremble…

From all the things he didn’t remember nor know, it was certain that this one was… an actual monster.

Nearly white pearl skin covered by an organic armour, such as a helmet-shaped head with two black bull horns at the sides, while at the top of the skull there was some sort of a turquoise gem-like… something stuck (maybe an equivalent to hair in mammals?). Still as part of the (exposed parts of) the organic armour, the wrists were covered with wristbands that had more of a grey-ish tone, that also possessed a turquoise oval stuck on them; shins as well presented the same features. Four fingers, three toes, all with black nails; another shiver rushed down his spine as soon as he remembered a couple of bright red eyes that cried for destruction and blood. From below the eyelids a thin line connected below the jawline, while a smile filled with evil intentions and pure chaos was curved in black lips, which added a lot to the already threatening presence of the (allegedly) dead lord of the invaders — was it even possible to kill a demon? His body kept trembling with the sign of death in front of his eyes, not doubting at all that whoever sent those memories felt the same.

“Phil… Phil! Philip!”

He opened his eyes startled, covering his face from the sudden bright light invading his senses, rubbing his eyelids and moving shoulders and head to wear out the shock out of his body. The horror and fear took a little longer to wear off, then walked under the sun to try to warm up as he felt cold, wanting to entirely wear away the negative feelings overwhelming his systems, and after a couple of minutes it felt enough, drinking more water.

“So?” Will asked

He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, processing some of the information.

“It’s terrifying…” He cleared his throat, “It’s not like a horrid being with grotesque features but more uh… well, there is something unsettling, something… threatening that screams death to the point you freeze…” He took a pause, “And if that being is dead as they claimed, I’d be deeply and truly surprised because I don’t see a way of it happening…”

Another pause, then gave all the possible details before they faded back to oblivion, and even if it didn’t sound as menacing as their minds pictured, still lingered an eerie feeling surrounding the persona of the tyrant that sent heavy chills down their spine; Phil held a little chuckle in response, now they know what he felt for that moment, even if it was likely they all different mental pictures of what he saw. Then, none of his friends said anything else, at least until…

“Are all your dreams in first person? Or do you see someone else’s adventure in third person?” The bassist asked quite curious.

“It’s normally all in first person,” His friend replied, “But I rarely get to see things in third view, and even rarely see anything I can reflect against.” The face of the others implied he needed to elaborate a bit more. “Anyway, can we talk about something else? It’s already making me wonder where the heck is Chris.”

“Such a shame Will scared the fuck out of him and left us unanswered.” The bassist poked quickly.

“I already tried to apologize!” The drummer exclaimed with certain annoyance.

They knew something bad would happen after he smiled, knowing he poked Will’s patience.

“Then, try harder.”

Will threw Guy into the pool, instant karma kicked in as the bassist quickly managed to grab his wrist and pull him with him victoriously. Both Jonny and Phil bursted into a laughter while the other two had a very pathetic brawl, trying to drown each other. Less than five minutes later they dropped they stupidity after seeing their kids ashamed as hell, pretending to not know them which, forced them to go back to normality until it was lunchtime, which made everyone split back in their own activities.

Afternoon passed without news, problems nor even signs of life from Chris. Things passed smoothly by, then at the end of the day each member was in their own thing before joining for a drink (although they had quite a few times the feeling for somebody observing them from afar) in the bar when the sun started to set. It wouldn’t be much, just some to enjoy themselves for an hour then have dinner, take their children for a sleepover so they wouldn’t be bored and by the end of the night, throw a party among the adults.

That was the main plan, yet amazingly (not enough, though) Phil decided to get some rest earlier as he felt dizzy (fuck, he wanted one of Chris’ pills but they still had no clues about him), intensifying on his way back to his room. His body felt oddly cold — similar to the cold at the pool with the foreign memories —What does this means…?—, somehow it felt like a warning of danger around, from a place he couldn’t identify no matter how much he searched; then a hand on his shoulder made him leap nearly half a meter in the air due the surprise.

It was Chris. The sensation eased quite a lot.

“Holy shit man, you scared me!” He exclaimed covering his face.

“I’m sorry Phil, is everything okay? It seems like something’s bothering you.”

He smiled a bit in response, rubbing his face to wear part of the surprise away.

“Don’t worry, I suppose it’s just my mind playing some tricks on me…” He replied, “I’m not feeling really well anyway so… I’m taking some rest for the night.” He massaged his forehead with two fingers, “Will you join the others at the bar? I’m sure they’re waiting for you.”

His friend remained silent for a full minute, considering the whole situation it should be too obvious he was pretty hesitant about being bombarded with questions of his soon-to-be drunk friends regarding his knowledge; something even said to their heads that chaos was ensued in some extent — for some reason.

“I guess I’ll think about it…” He replied with a soft smile, “And I hope you can join them later in case you feel better, P.” His words sounded more light-heartedly, his guts told it was just because it was Chris. “Anyway, have a good night and get that break from babysitting us. The two of them started to chuckle.

“See you later C.”

Both friends kept going on their way; unknowingly for the co-manager of the band, he missed to see his childhood friend flinching while walking away. There was a point where he sat alone in the hallway for a minute while rubbing his ankles in order to ease some of the pain away, a couple of other thing he failed notice were the covered knuckles and how worn out the frontman was. It’s for the better, he thought, I don’t want to worry him… Nor any of his friends.

He was fairly worn out, and how not to when for the last three days he spent his time under intensive training? The alien attack led him to allow Blitz give him an intensive training to try to push his limits and do much more than just escaping; it was both physical and mental, so once he wasn’t physically able to keep moving, his mind was the place to continue. His guts didn’t stop screaming about a storm incoming on their way and he needed to be ready to be… capable enough to keep his friends and family safe.

He wished though, to find the right words to explain people about it without sounding unhinged. No matter what, not even after the alien affair, he was fairly sure they’d think he lost a screw —Fuck that— because it was easier to deny the events —Maybe later…— and pretend it was all some sort of crazy fever dream they still didn’t wake up from —No… maybe tomorrow?—. Maybe they still were on tour with a collective sickness —Tomorrow night…— stuck in hotel rooms somewhere in the world trying to recover —I’ll tell them tomorrow night…— waiting for the results of a bunch of urine analysis —And finally teach them what I’m learning.

“Yeah… that’s what I’ll do…” He mumbled, the longer he kept the knowledge, the worse it could turn, “That’s the wise thing to— huh?”

He turned to the sides with the feeling of someone observing his movements, even if he was alone with the cameras —No… that’s not it—, someone was watching and no, it wasn’t Blitz. Maybe all he needed was dive in the pool to relax or go to the spa to relax his muscles and release the tension, that would help to recover and continue the following day.

All that sounded so tempting as his body craved for less activity for whatever was left for the day, so standing back up with a few problems, he kept his way out and turned around one more time, finding himself alone —But am I really…?— so, sighing deeply he kept on his way to the spa (he already had a shower, that’s why his body felt heavier) and relax.

Phil on the other hand entered in his room and had to take a shower to sleep, the children were all on a sleepover at Apple’s room (most of them were grown up and responsible to take care of the youngest). As soon as his head hit the pillow his eyes felt heavy, the restless accumulated for days on the back of his mind arrived in billions of thoughts that quickly shut as soon as his eyelids closed. Now there was nothing but darkness: a large, endless space of darkness and silence, peace without flashbacks, without noises nor anything to disturb his dreams…

Well, that’s what it seemed until he started to open his eyelids slowly and found himself trapped in a blue bubble in the middle of a void surrounded by debris — the outer space, he recognized. Debris and asteroids floated around, a mixture of rocks, vegetation and the leftovers of a civilization —Wait…— while the bubble he was in presented some cracks —This is…—; his body felt drained and tired, and most of his clothes were gone (excepting part of his trousers, which at that point were pretty much shorts, and a couple of white boots that had some ragged cloths) with signs of an intense battle, a sign that repeated all over his body with cuts, bruises and injuries, and his muscles felt tense while he barely had energy left to move.

Phil then understood he now was back to be the missing ally.

Orange sat inside the bubble and looked around with tears forming around his eyes, “Dear Shah…” He mumbled, “I have failed…” He looked all over the place to the shambles of once a beautiful planet, “I’m so sorry…” The conscience of the co-manager inside the alien felt the emotional pain growing in his chest by the loss of the planet, “I broke my vow… I couldn’t stop him in time…”

With whatever left of energy in his body, he lit up a white aura that kept the remaining oxygen of the bubble for himself as it popped off, with the weight of the tiredness burdening his shoulders. If he was lucky enough, there could be a space pod that survived and could use to go to a hospital planetoid, so once recovered he could start to search the whereabouts of the rest of his race to give them the news, reunite and solve what to do next, as it was fairly sure they might be wandering space in search of a new home for some time…

Wander through the debris felt devastating and painful to the core: everything they knew and loved was gone forever. Find a planet with similar characteristics would be a hard task to accomplish, terraforming wasn’t a thing they’d want to do unless the changes made were minimal. The crafts owned scientific resources to leap over any inconvenient regarding a hypothetical colony but, for everyone, it would never be the same. The next generations would have it easy to call their new planet “home” if they managed to find one soon…

And his name would be remembered as the Major who allowed Solaris be destroyed.

The warmth and oxygen kept inside the aura allowed tears to slip down his cheeks and float away turned into ice, tiny pieces of ice filled with all the sorrow of the universe of somebody who couldn’t protect his home. “I won…” He mumbled almost silently, “But at what cost…?” Phil could feel all the emotions flowing as his own, added to the fact that he, himself was sad with the whole view, so it was fairly easy to empathize with him…

Long enough the time passed as they (both, one inside of the other) kept wandering across the debris and pace rocks with no signs of a functional ship (some of the ones that survived were from severely damaged, to straight up ripped in parts) to finally leave and rest; Orange didn’t really know how his body kept moving despite the severe pain, the numbness of his muscles and the lack of energy, as if something inside fuelled his body — the hope of seeing his friends again, his crew and his loved ones…

His eyes saw something floating in the distance, something barely distinguishable from his current position that caught his curiosity (and Phil’s as well), but once closer to the unidentified object, his vision glitched and distorted, floating somewhere else from their last position but now in front of a nearly intact individual pod. It was quite burned, bumped but overall the large, round red wine glass was unharmed, and checking inside, the seat and the control panel below also seemed untouched.

Orange felt relief, only a bit more of time and he would be heading to a resting place, he had to be quick as the oxygen of the bubble was low as his energies — it was quite a miracle he managed to get so far to that very exact point. He was breathing heavily, his hands quickly looked for a button to manually open the door… but things started to get so dizzy and his movements became sloppy and dumb.

“I… I was so… so close…” He mumbled with tears, “I’m so… so… sorry…”

Right when he said that the aura disappeared, a painful stab from billions and billions of invisible needles made of cold attacked all over his body, quickly freezing him as it covered with frost and the little air remaining in his lungs also froze…

And Phil woke up breathing heavily, covered with sweat as his heart raced like crazy. His hands clutched the bedsheets as tight as possible, shaking terribly with tears down his eyes; that last part —It meant…— made him wonder: why were the invaders against the missing one if he was dead? How didn’t they know that?! Their lord was dead, so his executor, therefore it meant they had no reason to attack anyone, not even him…

“…”

Dead… he had to tell Chris about that, because that last bit was absolutely livid compared to everything else seen in dreams. Maybe they could figure out together how to reach the allies and tell them the situation…

 Then he flopped back on his bed staring at the ceiling with dread as the last bits struck him the most; none of them had a place to return, their friend was dead and a bunch of space pirates were tracking them and maybe the rest of the population as well in an act of retaliation for the death of their stupid lord — why would anyone even mourn the death of a demon, though? And how even stars away from Earth, things seemed to work similar in advanced civilizations: advanced beings with wacky forms, shapes and knowledge still behind rotten figures…

A gloom to dark perspective if he was fully honest with the entire situation, one that quickly emptied his heart with some sense of dread (that’s at least what he thought). Think about stuff outside their little planet with all the unknown dangers somewhere in the outer space was pretty frightening due how little they knew about… everything, humanity were still taking baby steps regarding that topic, even if so many things seemed so complex, for other races their stuff were beyond archaic.

Others stars from very far away held utopias and functional societies like the stranded aliens, it seemed that good and evil were universal but in the larger scale. Surely in the same way many different types of shit happened on Earth with ruthless beings throughout history but in a different scale — planetary even. Think that people from different races were up to follow a tyrant that most likely attacked many different planets for only-they-knew-why and even murdered countless innocent people across the universe… that made his stomach flinch in pure and utter disgust.

He had to tell Chris about it.

Chapter Text

Who’s gonna save the world tonight?
Who’s gonna bring you back to life?
We’re gonna make it, you and I,
We’re gonna save the world tonight…

Save the World — Swedish House Mafia

Phil changed his clothes until he saw the screen of his phone shine with notifications arriving —Oh God, why do I have a bad feeling?— from his friends (mostly Will and Guy) at the bar on their WhatsApp group chat:

Guy: “Hi Phil”

Guy: “Sorry for bothering you”

Guy: “We may got a problem down here”

Guy: “Remember you told us not to abuse drinks?”

Guy: “Well… we might have a situation.

Guy: “It’s Jay.”

Will: “We have no clue what just happened.”

Will: “But he’s behaving like a pain in the ass out of sudden.”

Will: “We’re trying to take him back to his room, but he’s refusing.”

Guy: “Holy fuck.”

Guy: “Phil come down now”

Guy: “WTF HE JUST INSULTED CHLOÉ?!”

Guy: “HE’S INSULTING US???”

Will: “Please come here now he’s throwing us shit!”

Will: “@Chris you too!”

Well, indeed his presence was absolutely required down there. He tried to ignore the increasing head pounce of his brain for the sudden wake-up, and now the nerves of having to deal with some bullshit, so he changed his clothes to go down there (why did he still had the feeling of something bad going on?), even using proper shoes instead of slippers (in case things turned for the worse), then head out of his room wondering Chris saw the texts wherever he was in that moment as Jay was also his best friend.

He made his way to the bar with a slight headache while thinking how to stop the madness going on, bumping against a janitor that gave him an odd, yet bad vibe. For some reason something was catching his attention. It wasn’t the accent of his voice, nor his look nor manners, he couldn’t really place what. The eyes, a bright amber pair on the other hand yelled “evil” loud and clear to his ear…

“I’m sorry,” He apologized to the cleaner, “I have to go…” He pressed the button of the elevator to shut the door, the stranger stopped it when it was about to close.

“I’m going downstairs, like you…” The stranger spoke with his odd accent, “I have job to do.”

Phil didn’t reply nor tried to make any contact as he pressed the ground floor button; looking by the corner of his eyes he checked on the man, still uneasy with the tingling sensation of his guts raising the warning the more they spent together inside the metal box. As soon as the doors opened, he sprinted out to the bar with his heart racing and his skin looking pale, trying to recover his breath, not daring to turn around with the fear of getting jumpscared — What the fuck are you thinking about, Harvey?

The very same moment he entered in the bar he already had to duck to avoid a glass to his direction as security was having troubles to deal with Jon, who was still drinking while being sassy to everyone, which reinforced the theory that somebody might’ve drugged him. Who, when, how and why were the questions, as Jonny was a harmless person so whoever drugged his friend needed to face the consequences — he ducked again when another glass flew across the room almost next to him, something else was strongly wrong.

“Oh~! Hello there— hic! Phil!” The guitarist greeted with a defiant tone, strongly atypical from the person they knew. “Have our friendly cheeky man came for a drink?”

“Oh God…” He first mumbled, “Jon, drop your drink and let’s go.” Then said firmly, the guitarist raised an eyebrow. “You’ve drank too much and…”

“Shhh!” He quickly hushed, “I don’t want to hear it again! Don’t you think I would’ve realized if my drink was ‘spiked’ as everybody says?” The sassy Jon was annoying.

“Well, we do have reasons to believe it, mate. You’re not the kind of person who behaves like a twat!”

Jon mimicked him with his hand to mock as if he was saying nonsense, which got him more annoyed in response. Any attempt to talk to him led to the mocking hand mimic that didn’t take long to heat Phil’s head, hearing Will grunt behind him and Guy silently trying to figure out a solution while checking every now and then either his phone and the entrance.

“Oh, so dear Jay always have to be nice and quiet while everybody else does whatever they want?” His voice was sarcastic as his corporal expression complemented his behaviour, “What if I just got tired of all that? Huh?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” The co-manager exclaimed, already losing his temper. “I won’t repeat this again: leave that bloody glass on the bar or—”

“Or what?” He interrupted with an exaggerated grin, “Are you going to pull my ear to a hospital? Is that what you going to do?”

“Don’t make me force to hurt you, Jonny.”

Everybody turned around to see Chris approaching, now with clothes changed with some street clothes. The stare he had seemed tired, at the same time fierce and serious as he got closer to his friends to face Jon, whose green eyes glinted with a strange mix of joy and darkness, the latter being an atypical thing in his persona.

“Oh, come on Chrissy Chris, who are you kidding?” Asked the green-eyed man with condescendence as his friend frowned in concern, “You wouldn’t kill a fly even if your life depended on it!” His friend closed his eyes, “So what?”

The frontman sighed, still with closed eyes. “Please don’t make me force you, because I don’t want to be rude to you.” He replied softly but stern, “You’re my best friend and—” Jon started to laugh sarcastically, “Jon, please…” It intensified, “God dammit, Jonny!” As it happened pretty few times in present days, Chris’ face reddened now in exasperation, frowning more now with anger. “Jonathan Mark Buckland, you have been warned!”

The (sassy) guitarist didn’t get the time to reply when out of sudden his bandmate quickly ran to his direction; surprisingly his reflexes (drunk and allegedly spiked) instead of becoming dumber and sloppy, were faster as he managed to dodge his hand towards his drink, yet missed the second the other arm extended towards the glass and snatched it. His movements were faster than what they usually would see, so they really missed some of what happened.

As soon as Jay’s mind realized what happened, he threw his body back to flee, instead he fell with the chair entirely on the floor, something that stunned his senses for a quick movement before his hyperactive, stoned mind dodged his hand towards his head with a high speed movement made by the frontman, who contrary to the concerns of the guitarist (who was thinking that he was about to get punched), his real target was his ear to pull — yes, he would drag him to the hospital all the way there from his ear as if he was a toddler and not a man of the size of a lamppost.

Anyway.

The only thing in mind for the frontman was concern about the odd behaviour presented by his best friend, wondering what sort of substance did the filthy culprit pour in his drink and why, or how instead of weaken him, it made him painfully faster and annoying as his reflexes increased, making him quite harder to catch. The almost null coordination between the four friends made the effort even worse, leading the situation outside when the guitarist managed to escape as fast as possible, closely followed by Chris, Guy, Will and Phil —Shit I need to go on a diet…

The situation escalated even more when on the run, Jonny started to throw anything in the way to either delay or make them lose track of his steps, going from pebbles to cans, bottles, trash bags, a shoe — two shoes among the trash, broken frog feet for diving, googles, an oxygen can (?), a duck (??) that Chris dodged by a little bit but attacked Guy that was right behind him, then a cat (???) that again the blond man managed to dodge yet unfortunately scratched Will’s face out of protection, and finally some chalk that hid his steps for a moment, then vanished as if magic was.

“Fuck! Where did he go?!” The bassist exclaimed, cleaning his clothes from some feathers.

“Let’s split up!” Chris quickly ordered, “We have to find him as soon as possible!” He started to have a terrible feeling.

Phil by his side ended up far behind and lost track of his friend after falling due a rolled bottle on the way, moving on his own around the city to find Jonny, growling stuff under his breath with notorious annoyance and anger —Fuck dammit, Jon! When we find you I swear to God you’re dead!—. The whole situation was a mess, he wished no one to find out about it and even less the fans as everything was embarrassing as hell. Ugh! He didn’t even want to think about it nor what Dave could say if he found out.

He looked pretty much everywhere, in every corner and possible spots he came across where the guitarist could hide, ready to pull his ear towards the hospital (wherever that was) for some detoxing from the spiking (somebody had to go back to the hotel and bring the drink too for a proper analysis). He sighed deeply and kept running all over the place, ignored by the nocturne people and wondering, where was he? How far were they from the hotel? God, what even happened to get that bad? A sudden shiver went up his spine with a terrible feeling of something bad going on…

Then his eyes caught in the distance, a few blocks away heading to the forest…

“Jonathan!”

He quickly ran behind the guitarist, who as soon as he heard his voice started to run away. If he just brought his phone before leaving his room to tell the others, then remember they didn’t have phone signal and most WiFi networks were private so, he actually had to catch him himself. So, he ran again as fast as his legs could, absolutely done with the shit pulled out.

Little he knew that somewhere else in the city, Chris and the others managed to arrive to a clinic with their now unconscious friend, who was completely passed out after running half an extra mile until hitting a dead end where the frontman had to hit his neck with the side of his hand with a karate chop or else… well, the chase would’ve never ended (it would’ve, with everyone tired and Jay asleep vulnerable to pretty much anything).

Using his bad Spanish skills, he called for a cab nearby (in any way, they had no signal and the open WiFi services around didn’t work), having some issues to fit Jon on the back seat and then themselves (Guy quickly took the co-pilot seat to avoid arguing) and finally go to the hospital, where again he used his bad Spanish skills to give a decent explanation of the situation. After that, a group of doctors and nurses brought a gurney and took their friend for an analysis and detoxification…

“Phew… this is finally over…” Will mumbled, “What the fuck did he get in his drink?”

“We may find out soon,” Chris replied, “Someone needs to go back to the hotel to bring Chloé while we wait for the results.” He paused for a brief second, “And check on Phil as well, I think he stood behind and maybe went back to…” He trailed off and frowned with a dark feeling starting to grow in his chest, the drummer raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll go with you.” The drummer then said, Guy decided to stay out of a potential argument as some tension raised, seeing his blond friend widen his eyes in surprise, “Or do you have a problem with that? Unless, there’s something else in your mind.” Both noticed certain nervousness and surprise in his facial expression, one he tried to hide without success, “Where are you actually going, Martin?” Now he sounded serious and inquiring, “This is not a good moment to disappear again unless you give us a—!”

“Phil is in danger…” The frontman interrupted as his bandmate trailed off, “I know you want to know how or why I think so, but the truth is that I just have the feeling that we must find him before is too late!” His friend couldn’t help but stare as if he went insane, which he didn’t fail to catch, “Of course now you’re thinking I’ve lost my mind!” He yelled.

“What? No! I…!” Will couldn’t end the sentence as Chris turned his back to go, clearly feeling offended, “How do you want me to not think you’re insane when you haven’t explained us anything at all?!” He yelled, the frontman turned around to look at him, “I’m sorry for entering yelling to your room. I’m sorry for pushing you against the wall when I tried to get some answers, but we really need them. Whatever is happening we know you know something, and we want to know, we want to help too — even more because somehow Phil is involved in this mess!” He looked into the eye, “How in the universe can we ignore they’re threatening our friend?!” Chris opened his mouth to speak, he wasn’t allowed to, “I’ll go with you, Martin. Whether you want it or not, if Phil is truly in danger, he’ll then need our help! And I want to be there too…”

He couldn’t ignore the fierce and decisive bright of the drummer’s eyes, who really seemed ready to face anything on their way. Guy decided to dispatch his friends he’d stay with Jon and see if he could contact Chloé with the location of the hospital so she could also come to see him; the couple of friends nodded in response, then ran away as Will followed Chris, asking if he knew where they could search.

“I have a feeling of where…” He said, “But we might need a cab…”

“Why would we need a cab?”

Phil didn’t know how much he ran behind Jonny (?), every now and then his body forced him to stop running (again, he wasn’t as fit as Chris) to catch his breath, then keep moving behind his friend (?) on the loose, losing track of his direction quite a few times —When did he become so fast?—, then keep moving on, and on, and on… reaching the outskirts towards the forest. A chill went down his spine once the dark view loomed, again with a terrible feeling and unsure about its source (it either was the idea of needing to get in there or something far worse).

Even though he wanted to turn around and go back, he knew he couldn’t leave his spiked friend wandering around alone, much less drunk and drugged as anything, anything could happen in that state. That and that he could also get lost for that night, so as much as his instinct pleaded and screamed to turn back to his friends fearfully (still unsure of the source) he made his way inside.

The first few hundred meters needed a few stop as the terrain was unstable making a way up, wishing for a huge bottle of water with his mouth dry and sweating a lot like a horse; the next few hundred meters he didn’t stop mumbling and rambling under his breath on how he’d drag him back no matter how much he’d plea for mercy —You really shouldn’t had made me go there to stop your bullshit, Buckland!—, and by the final kilometre and a half he found his friend standing on a forest glade without doing anything else giving his back without a care. Phil huffed and puffed, cleaning the sweat from his forehead trying to recover his composure; Jonny seemed to ignore his presence at that moment, still with a quite sassy attitude.

“Alright Jonathan, I’m completely dumb with this!” He groaned angry, “We’ll go back to the city whether you like it or not!” He heard a slightly muffled giggle, ignoring the growing rage, “What is so funny to you?!” He wasn’t in the mood of tolerating more shit, running out of patience, stomping now to his direction, “I said, we will go back and—!”

One moment Jon was giving his back, on the other his hand was tightly holding his neck, feeling his feet no longer touching the ground. Phil felt his heart race against his chest anguished without understanding the situation, with everything happening too fast, seeing the guitarist put a hand on his face and remove it — he went pale when his whole appearance changed: now it was a man with a very long, white hair and bright red skin, with a couple of amber eyes highlighted, wearing a similar armour as Zeenah and her partner, but in black, white stripes and yellow protectors.

“How easy was to distract your friends with that drink, you know?” The invader alien spoke with the same accent of the man in the elevator, Phil squirmed trying to set himself free with no success, “It was even easier to fool and separate you from your Solarian peers! And I thought it’d be impossible!” He froze for a moment.

“You drugged my friend!” He exclaimed, trying to at least land a kick as a distraction, “Let me go you bastard!” The alien pressed his throat a bit tighter, he gasped for some air, “This is… it is… wrong…! I’m not—” He started to cough a lot in response.

“Shut up, filthy bastard!” The enemy growled, “You have no rights here to talk.” Phil had issues to breath, feeling the alien could snap his neck in any moment, “You killed my—”

“The real culprit is dead, you git!” He managed to exclaim, the grip loosed enough to breathe again, “I don’t know how… but whoever did it is—” He couldn’t even end the sentence after being thrown away angrily, rolling a few times with his body starting to feel sore. He got in four to stand back up as he coughed, to then feel a foot on his back to press down. “I’m not lying…! I just happen to… to look like…” Instead of being stomped on, he got kicked on his side that made him roll again, starting to cough more, “For fuck’s sake I’m not ly—”

Some torture rolled for a while as every time he tried to expose his side of the story, the silver-haired invader hit him as some sort of “punishment” for “trying” to “lie”. His body started to feel numb after a while, squirming in pain as he kept trying to maintain his innocence without any success, coughing a lot to the point the sour taste of blood reached his tongue.

Then after five never-ending minutes finally realized his words or any attempt of dialogue were worthless against someone who refused to listen; the kicks became harder each time to the point he started to wonder how many bones he broke, coughing hard a couple of times with a weak attempt to stand up. If one space pirate refused to listen and decided to close his mind to find a scapegoat to fulfil a stupid vengeance against someone who was already dead, the thought of an entire float froze his nerves.

None of them would forgive the Earth if they came, believing he was the missing ally once he was dead they’d go against the remaining Solarians in the planet while destroying everything in their way.

Regardless the hypothetic success of the hunt, that wasn’t guarantee at all they’d leave the planet afterwards. So there weren’t other options left other than give up and hope safety for his friends and the rest of humanity, his body was resenting the hits and all the pain so, it wouldn’t take long before succumbing to the injures.

“Just… do yourself a favour and kill me now…” He mumbled, “If you… and your friends want me dead so badly… then do it… and leave this planet alone.” The most painful part was knowing he was gambling the fate of the Earth, he clenched his teeth and did a last attempt to stand up feeling humiliated and defeated, “Your lord was a monster anyway!” The alien placed his feet on his back.

“Lord Blizzard was the greatest!” Exclaimed Jeice, pushing him down, “How could a stupid, inferior being like you kill him?!”

In the middle of the pain a spark of humour ignited in his mind.

“If he was the greatest…” He spoke groggy, “Why did he die…?”

Even if he couldn’t see the face of his executor he knew it decomposed to nothing but pure anger, clenching his jaws as tight as possible to the point his teeth nearly broke, raising his leg to finish him.

“Now you’re dead!”

Phil clearly expected the next movement to be the last one before his life shattered like a glass against the ground, something that could be so fast to the point he wouldn’t even realize, the unexpected twist though, was to hear a beep from the strange gadget on the left eye of the alien, who got a powerful kick to his face when he turned around. The manager saw everything with the shadows projected on the ground and how his executor got pulled away without recognizing at first the shadow of his saviour, who quickly kneeled next to him to help him sit on his knees and see that the person with him was Chris.

Before he had the chance to speak they also heard footsteps behind, once he turned around he saw Will quickly arrive and kneel down to check on him as well, looking extremely worried and scared as soon as he saw him beaten.

“Holy shit!” He exclaimed, “We need to leave now!”

He smiled a bit.

“I’m fine…” In pain, bruised, maybe a few broken bones but alive, “Don’t—”

“Don’t you even dare to end that sentence you twat!” The drummer exclaimed, quickly grabbing his arm to wrap it around his neck, lifting him up ready to run as soon as possible, “Chris, what are you—?!”

In the middle of the rush he just got to realize that his old friend was squared up in a way he never saw; Chris was tense, with his guard high and his shoulders completely up and his hands were white. On the other hand, the invader stood up cleaning his face as if nothing happened but with the gadget of his eye broken, detaching the object and destroy it with brute force.

“Oh, I didn’t think your friends would get here.” He said, “I made myself sure of that but, I think I underestimated your abilities, Solarians…”

“For fucks sake, we’re not Solarians!” The frontman exclaimed nervous like few times against others, “We’ve been trying to solve this misunderstanding you—!”

“Oh do you think that I, the red comet Jeice will believe this is all a stupid confusion?” The now identified alien asked sarcastically, Chris couldn’t avoid rolling his eyes.

“He won’t believe us…” He heard the co-manager say, “My lookalike or whatever is dead…” Both friends turned at him, “If we survive I’ll explain later…”

Well, that was a fair point, especially when Jeice moved at an unholy fast speed throughout the trees and the glad as a way to tell he wouldn’t let them go. Will saw Chris dart his head from side to side as his eyes moved at a fast speed as well following the movements of the invader, then a fast movement of the blond frontman avoided them from getting hurt from a coward backstab by punching his face (it all happened in a span of a second, the couple of friends barely had time to understand what started to happen) that quickly was returned with a powerful punch straight to the face; the blond man quickly raised his arm as soon his fist got his opponent to block a hit to his own face that made them both separate from the manager and the drummer, flying backwards a few meters, landing on their feet and quickly impulse against to each other.

As soon as Will realized his friend engaged a melee fight against the invader that had him distracted enough, quickly secured Phil’s arm behind his neck, his foot behind his ankle and run down the hill together to somewhere safe (his guts knew that Chris wouldn’t hold back the red alien for too long, so at some point they would need to hide and make their way to the hospital), knowing they’d need to gain some distance as soon as possible. On the other hand, he also wondered if the allies had an idea of what the hell was going on — they needed their presence as soon as possible, of course.

The frontman by his side moved as fast as his body could respond, feeling his bones shake after every hit taken from his opponent as his limbs moved automatically after every punch and kick thrown, trying to keep the invader away from his two friends in order to give a reasonable amount of distance to at least hide if things were down the sink. It was the first time he actually engaged in that sort of fight, even more against someone way over his capability.

A punch to his face, his hand pulling the long, silver hair tight to hammer his opponent against the ground back and forth and spin as fast as possible, to then toss him up the hill as he crashed against the rocks, seeing a light to his direction and deflect to the sky an energy blast with his arm with some difficulty; another set of shots came as an explosion happened in the distance as the invader rocketed to his direction with both arms extended to the front with his teeth clenched tight.

Chris crouched and waited until Jeice was close enough, to then leap in the air and avoid a kamikaze attack, he crossed his right arm with a closed hand as he placed the other upon the top with the index and thumb raised as a pistol in the direction of the invader: a beam of light came out from there in a quick succession towards his opponent, who even if he flew down at top speed managed to gain control and fly upwards; the frontman landed and kept shooting trying to hit the target, but it was harder to strike a flying enemy that moved faster than the human eye.

And even he saw his movements, it became a struggle to predict his next location as his body wasn’t that fast yet.

As soon as he realized another kamikaze attack from the invader he broke his posture and leaped backwards, a sheer millisecond after the dust of the earth arose and covered his vision; quickly raising again his guard and senses he paid attention to the spot where the alien crashed without neglecting his back, unable to find him after all the dust vanished…

Pop!

Crack!

Pow!

A terrible uppercut caught him off-guard as the invader emerged from under the ground, the blow was such that he got stunned with his eyes going white. A fast movement and the alien grabbed him from his hair and landed a powerful with the knee to the stomach that left Chris breathless, spitting bile and blood as his body became numb, twitching his fingers in pain. Another movement, the other grabbed his shirt to hit his forehead once, cracking a wound on his skin at the same time his nose started to bleed — slap! One, two, three, and finally a hit to his face that made him fly and fall on his back, rolling several times until hitting something hard.

As much as he tried to stand up, his body felt heavy, falling down upside down.

“You’re pretty good as a low scum, I got to say.” He managed to hear, “But not enough…”

Chris felt his shoulders heavy as his body was sore to numb; he grumbled and flinched trying to move while struggled to keep the track of reality, to not slip into the darkness of the mind. He sensed Will and Phil not too far from his current location and hoped they hid somewhere, something told him that Jeice wouldn’t be able to find them without that scouter of his eye… Also, where the fuck were the allies?

“Ayo? Chris?!” He heard to his ear, “What is going on?!” The frontman tilted his body a bit, with his head starting to buzz, “Were you fighting that guy alone?!”

“He… infiltrated to kill Phil…” He mumbled in a low voice, “He drugged Jon… and… pretended to be him…” Even though his body was numb he tried to force it to move, “I can’t… I can’t let him…”

“Woah, woah! Stop right there!” He had to obey due the situation of his body, “Alright Chris, just close your eyes, breathe and hear me out.” Again he obeyed, “I know this situation is completely different from our trainings as you’re fighting in real life instead of a mental realm, and I see you endured a lot to this asshole…” There was a slight pause, Chris smiled slightly, “Now, let your mind be silent to focus on your surroundings, to let yourself go and assimilate all the stuff you’ve learned so far.”

He took another deep breath and obeyed. At first it was hard to focus on getting his mind blank as he was really worried about his two friends, sensing that they were still in a place as the invader wandered around angrily; then his hand slowly extended upon the soil to feel his surroundings: the grass between his fingers, the sound of the wind and the distant sound of nocturne animals.

Then his body didn’t feel that bad, all the tension was leaving while his senses enhanced and relaxed.

“I must protect them…” Chris mumbled, starting to stand up again, “I must… protect my friends…” Even though he trembled, his will made him move, “I must… save… my friends!”

He stood back up with renewed energies, without caring that his body still wasn’t in shape to fight again, that protective spirit he owned pushed him forward. His blues sparked in pure determination — knowing that while the allies weren’t showing up (it was most likely they still were recovering from the fight against Zeenah), it was his duty to protect his friends no matter the cost…

Meanwhile, after running away from thirteen minutes throughout the forest transversally back to the city, as they took advantage of Chris’ distraction against the red alien, they had to stop behind some trees and bushes when Phil’s body started to become heavier and harder to carry, even for the co-manager himself. When Will placed him on the ground, his friend was struggling to breathe, holding his chest with a hand; Phil of course was exhausted after all the mayhem — even more after being beaten almost to death, flinching once or twice until he finally flopped his back on the soil.

“Give me a minute to recover…” He panted heavily, “I can’t feel my body…” Will looked to his sides, then to him.

“Where the fuck are the good aliens? Right when we need them…” The drummer commented annoyed, “We’re going to die if they don’t show their arses up here!”

“Chris is alone against that man…” Even though he tried to repress it, his voice whimpered, “He needs help…” Distress helped him to regain some energy to stand back up, “Or else…”

“I know,” Will said, “I wish we could do something to aid him, but…” He closed his fists with a miscellany of emotions overwhelming his mind, “There isn’t much we can do right now…” The co-manager could feel anger and frustration in the dim light of the night, squinting and lowering his head, “…and I have to take you somewhere safer before that alien comes back.”

The sudden sound of something zooming like a jet made them duck among the bushed as Will used his body to protect Phil in case it was necessary; then the sound moved away to the sky, meant it was safe (for the moment). Without wanting to lose any more time, the drummer took his arm and wrapped it behind his back once again to start running as their only alternative left.

Ten seconds later they heard a terrible crash-landing that made them turn around, seeing a huge wall of dust raising and expanding near to their direction, quickly that was their signal to run faster without caring about the repercussions that would cause to their bodies (mostly to Phil) with the feeling that Chris was defeated — meant, Jeice would pop out the least they expected. Which happened much faster than they thought.

None of them had enough time to turn around when they found themselves rolling down the hill disoriented, stopping after hitting the foot of a tree. Will got stunned for a moment before seeing shapes in the dark, on how the figure of the invader grabbed his friend from his neck tight with one hand, pinning him against the tree.

“Your friend was a good warm up.” He heard with a cough from his friend, “It was a very fun game, but I have something else to do, you know that, right?” The drummer groaned and tried to recover his strength to stand up, punching the soil, open his hand and try to stand up, “I’ll take your head with my captain and avenge our lord!” The darkness was cut when he saw his arm covered by a pale red aura in the shape of a blade, “Then we’ll kill the rest of your friends, your race and finally sell this planet after everyone is dead!”

Crack!

Jeice felt something hit his head.

Crack!

One stone came after another, then with the hand he was going to use to murder his victim as the aura suddenly disappeared, he turned and caught a rock (by the deaf sound it made in the dark); then there was the sound of it cracking, falling in pieces to the ground — meant it broke with sheer brute force. Will’s heart skipped a heartbeat in fear, especially when those amber eyes turned in his direction shining in the gloom. The dim light filtered through the trees showed his free arm raising in his direction with the index finger extended to his direction. Phil started to squirm and kick in fear.

“Don’t hurt him! Please! This is against me! Just kill me now and leave them alone!”

“Oh, this is funnier than I expected.” The invader said, “Look at your friend die.”

Everything went in slow motion for both the drummer and the manager, who was trying to breathe while he was screaming to his friend to run; Will on the other hand froze with his eyes wide open, unable to let his instinct take him away from what was in that very same moment the most dangerous place on Earth, hearing his heartbeats and breathing in his hear as the rest of the forest was drowned in a deafening silence. All he knew was his life would hit an end before he would even realise, that his children would be orphans of father and that his wife would be alone… Oh my dear Marianne, I’m so, so sorry… He thought as tears formed up in his eyes.

At the same time he heard a zip right next to his ear, a blurry figure landed a kick on the face of the invader, standing still in his place trying to process the information, to then realize: the figure was Chris, who landed a powerful flying kick to Jeice’s face with such force that he not only released the distressed co-manager but also missed his shot against the drummer, failing for an inch.

Chris on his side didn’t just kick his face, but quickly turn his body to a side to raise his other leg to give a powerful blow to the neck with his heel — and surprisingly it worked. Jeice didn’t have the balance nor got the enough energy to endure his attack, crushed then against the soil; not losing his time once again his hair pulled by the frontman, raising his body up to hammer him back and forth outraged —“Don’t you dare to touch my friends again, you bloody shithead!”

Back and forth, back and forth, Chris hammered angrily the red alien in a way he’d never think he ever would. Even though he was tired, at his verge, the peril this being represented for his friends was enough reason to get energies from thin air and keep fighting, now this being not only tried to kill one but both of his friends, which added a lot of fuel to the fire. At the same time Will took Phil to check if he could move, the frontman smashed the alien against a tree like a bag of potatoes, then quickly went against his neck to grab him tight and beat his face repeatedly.

“You piece of shit! Don’t touch my friends!” He shouted enraged hit after hit.

“How…?!”

Jeice grabbed his punch with a hand while Chris held a hit with his other hand, struggling to get advantage against the other with their eyes ignited in a wild fire, blood staining their faces, highlighting even more their wild emotions overflowing the air. Both Phil and Will were scared watching the scene, unable to really move their legs — pondering deep down if it was use to run, feeling the air become even more tense than before, seeing how the earth beneath the feet of the two fighters started to crack open and become a hole, at the same time an invisible force exploded with pure force, flying away for a few meters until both friends managed to hold onto a boulder.

“Chris!” Phil exclaimed, seeing from his place the two opponents quickly entangle into a chain of attacks and blocks against each other.

“How did you recover so quickly, scumbag?!” Jeice yelled furiously, “You were supposed to be dead! Dead!”

The frontman drove his punch to his neck, leaving him breathless, quickly grabbed his head again and pushed it against his knee to hit his chest.

“No one touches my friends!” He hit his chest again with his knee, “No one! No one you fuck!”

His voice echoed throughout the forest as the roar of a lion, hitting again the alien with his knee until he couldn’t continue, pushing his opponent away with another punch to the face, panting heavily, with his leg shaking weakly to then kneel down. He didn’t turn away his sight from the red invader, not even when he clenched the soil angrily and tried to stand up humiliated, standing on his knees and arms without turning his view away from the soil.

“You… can’t be… this… powerful…!” He heard him grumble in disbelief, “I…! I can’t be defeated by you!” His voice was quite cracked in anger, Chris felt the energy of the invader raise quickly, even more when he managed to stand up while on his side, all the rush of adrenaline that helped to move faded away, “I won’t be defeated by you!”

The sudden outburst of energy made him cover his face, and so Will and Phil.

“Blitz? Are you there…?” He quietly asked, Jeice raised his hand to the sky, an energy ball popped on his hand.

“I am…”

He went quiet for a few seconds.

“I’m fucked, aren’t I…?”

For five solid seconds he didn’t have a reply.

“Yes…”

Chris squinted, but his eyes quickly felt heavier than the expected.

“Fuck…”

His mind then went black, with the world shutting down.

It was all silent, all empty, floating somewhere inside an endless void that felt so cold but comforting. He didn’t feel pain, no thoughts were crossing his mind, he felt peace in that odd loneliness, wandering somewhere in that giant space even if he probably was in just one place, somewhere where Blitz couldn’t reach apparently as he didn’t hear his voice at all, not even faintly. Quietness, ease… not even the confused thought of being dead passed by to him, there was absolutely nothing, maybe not even himself…

Woosh!

Some light beam passed across the void of darkness, something that looked like a comet yet instead of lasting certain amount of time, it only lasted a second. Another one passed by from down to up, this time it had a bright blue light, tilting his vision it was all dark once again, fading as soon as it popped, then a pink one passed next to him and got lost on the obscurity as he turned around… then something flickered faintly: it was small, like a star being born, his eyes flickered with curiosity.

By that moment he was oblivious on what was going on, still oblivious about his location or even about what happened to his friends — and he didn’t remember what was happening, as if he was reduced to simple things or something like that. Other than that his curiosity led his body to go to the source of the light, another couple of comet-like things passed by going to the source of that distant star that slowly became closer…

What are you doing here? He heard in the silence. You shouldn’t be here.

You can’t be here yet, it’s not your time.

They still need you back.

You must go back, there is still a path you have to follow.

Even if many dangers and hazards lies ahead.

This is not your place, Chris.

By the time the frontman reached the newborn star, it was actually this small sphere that emitted a warm light that seemed to overwhelm his system and felt it was filled with energy, with life! With pure and actual life, as if it was someone instead of something.

The small sphere started to shine more as his hand got closer, with his irises starting to glow in a turquoise tone. He felt stronger and how that light filled his body to the deepest depths of his soul…

Then the light blinded his eyes.

Thud!

Will barely reacted when he rolled on the ground and a fist nearly smashed his face, instinctively his senses were reacting against the red alien after Chris was defeated once again in his attempt to save his friend; even if it could be a lost battle, he hoped to make some time to let the allies —Where in the actual fuck are they?!— arrive in their aid. A quick movement allowed him to stand back up as Jeice kept playing with his stamina, knowing that he could end him in a blink of his eyes but preferring to not do that yet —How did Chris keep it up with this bastard?!—, as he was still just fast even after showing signs of tiredness.

The drummer presented bruises and a nosebleed he wiped out as his hands entangled with the invader’s with a push brawl where none of the wrestlers wanted to give in; both of them looked straight to the other’s eyes clenching their jaws so hard that they felt about to shatter them. As frightening the situation could be, he didn’t allow himself get intimidated; Phil on the other side just saw the situation absolutely panicked yet unable to do anything.

“You really are a nuisance, filthy Solarian!” Jeice hissed furiously, starting to push Will back, “I suppose I underestimated you,” The drummer flinched when the alien pressed his fingers harder against the back of his hands, pressing his legs more against the soil as he started to sink in the soil, “But now, I will kill you two as slow as possible for making me angry!” Will did everything to gain terrain, but it was struggling against a bulldozer, “And I’ll enjoy every single second of it!”

A quick movement and a sharp pain crossed his face as the man punched him hard, throwing him to the ground.

“Stop!” Phil yelled in despair, “Please! Leave him alone!” His body fell when a sharp pain attacked his leg, mostly his knee.

The alien chuckled with an evil smirk upon his face as Will wiped some more blood from his face, still on the ground.

“What a stubborn cunt you are,” He mumbled, “We already told you this is all a sodding misunderstanding!” Even with the trembles of his body, he stood back up still defying, “Don’t you think that if my friend was the same person who allegedly killed your lord, would have fought you back?” It was logical and evident in his opinion, “Actually, if he really was that person you’d probably be dead now!” Far too simple, actually. If that Phil look-alike had all of that energy to beat the boss of the obnoxious piece of shit of the tomato guy, he would’ve been most likely dead already. “Why isn’t that clicking your head you stupid piece of shit?!” He pointed to his head with both fingers, “Think you fucking idiot! Think!”

His amber eyes were shining with a gloomy expression like a beast about to attack its prey as his arm covered again on that white aura. Will automatically rolled his eyes… apparently arguing with that guy was talking to an actual wall — Don’t fucking tell me.

“Everything I care right now is put an end to your pathetic lives!” Jeice hissed, Will couldn’t help but roll his eyes again, that popped a vein on his forehead, “Hey! I will end you—”

“My God in Christ would you please just calm the fuck down for a moment and literally think that maybe, just maybe there is something out of place?” Fear got replaced by annoyance at that point, “Are you entirely sure that you’re actually right about all of this?!” He opened his mouth to speak, “Come on chap! If he, Phil…” He signed his friend with his hand, “…was the same person who ended your lord, he would’ve fought back!”

“How are you so—”

“Come the actual fuck on!” Will practically shouted widening his eyes, “You say we are Solarians, but you’ve seen that we, humans look like them!” He was angry to the point he couldn’t help but making signs with his hands, “And, for the billionth fucking time… IF he, Philip Christopher Hammond Harvey…” He signed his friend again, “…was the person who killed your lord, you would be already dead! Is not that hard oh my GOD!” At that point he was really mad, Jeice tried to open his mouth again, “DON’T fucking do it because you know it’s true! You saw he was in a perfect shape when you lured him and he didn’t fight you back as this person who allegedly killed your boss did! Why is it so hard for you to click it?!” He sighed deeply after getting all of that out of his system.

“Are you done with the tantrum?” Jeice asked with arms crossed, patting his foot against the soil with an annoyed expression.

“Yeah, I think so.” Will replied.

Jeice got back to attack position, but the sound of something walking to their direction called everyone’s attention, turning all to the source: both the manager and the drummer froze in their place when they saw Chris walk to their direction, at that point dragging his body with blood dripping from several parts of his body — being the more notorious the one that fell down right on the front of his head.

It was both a miracle and a shock to see him alive, even if his body was badly wounded and barely having energies to keep on moving. Although he seemed conscious, his eyes lacked some sort of bright — as if he was something like a zombie, half open as if swinging between reality and unconsciousness. The red-skinned alien pressed his jaws as tight as possible due the massive rage and headache Chris’ presence caused him.

Clearly, he should’ve killed him.

Before he had the chance to say anything, the frontman frowned extending his arms to the sides, then threw them behind his back as he leaned forward and boom! A loud, sudden outburst of energy sent him against the red invader caught off-guard by an arm straight to his throat forward against some tree trunks that robbed air from his lungs; extending his hand at the height of Chris’ stomach his palm made an energy ball to blast him away, but with a quite erratic move he quickly dodged with a frontal flip and countered with a descending kick to his head, as soon as his foot touched the ground and Jeice bounced, Chris sent another kick to send him away.

Jeice rubbed his head as he sat on some debris after crashing against some rocks, with a stream of his own blood starting to fall from his head, staining his vibrant silver hair with a purple tone that made him angry. Raising his eyes towards Chris, he saw him extend his arms to the front and stick his wrists together with open palms, half closed fingers, then pulled his arms and hands to his side at the height of his waist in a quite significant pose from a certain wild jet black-haired man with orange martial arts clothes.

The alien clenched his jaws even harder and got in four as if he was going to take off from the starting line, starting to go to his direction at top speed then move all over the battleground, raising a wall of dust as a way to distract him from the next attack that would become the last from both. Chris didn’t move from his position nor flinch at all, standing in the same place with his eyes locked in the same direction where the alien formerly lied with a deadpanned expression, mentally absent but letting his full instinct take care of the situation, working mechanically.

At each second that passed the alien moved faster in order to confuse the frontman, knowing that their next movement would be the last, zooming all over the place leaving holes wherever he stepped on, without taking his eyes out of his target. For a moment he wondered why he didn’t move, to then think the lack of energy didn’t let him do move from his place, and he was so close to end everything! Once that dumb blond man was gone, he’d kill his other friends and take over that stupid planet…

Thing was, he did a couple of movements to pretend he was about to attack, quickly switching places from every angle possible with several positions to attack before finally get on his upper back, ready to take that rock out of his boots; this human (?) turned out to be much more of a pain in the ass than what he thought.

“I got you!”

When he was going to send his last shot at the height of his left side of the chest, Chris suddenly turned around with a blue ball of energy between his hands that seemed big, seeing a face of nothing but determination and an outraged glint in his blue eyes. Jeice couldn’t react in time as his guard was wide open, then the human pushed his hands to his direction.

“HAAAA!”

BOOM!

Jeice fully received a powerful, unavoidable blaster that came from the last effort made by the frontman that absolutely caught him off-guard, as much as he tried to endure and contain the attack, it resulted to be much more than the expected, feeling his skin starting to burn painfully to the point it became numb, to finally give in with a loud scream and the blinding light of the attack of a being he ultimately underestimated.

From the windowpane of the hospital, Guy could suddenly see a pillar of energy raise to the dark skies (little he knew what was actually going on) with such force that made the Earth shake for a few seconds until it started to vanish in a thin line, then for real. Back to the battleground the powerful attack left a humongous path of destruction as Chris stood still with his arms raised high to the front, still with his wrists together. Some steam detached from his fingers while it seemed that the attack somehow burned his skin as well, having some burns down his arms.

Phil and Will only stood still for a whole minute before they finally seemed to hit realization on what just happened, which was after Chris dropped his hands heavily to the sides and his knees failed, falling nearly unconscious. Even with the pain of his leg, the manager ran along the drummer to aid their friend, quickly getting to his side and passing their arms behind his back.

“Chaps…” He said in a low voice.

“You’re absolutely crazy Christopher!” Will couldn’t help but scold him, “I’m so happy you’re alive you idiot! Even if you still owe us answers.”

“William!” The co-manager exclaimed quite angry, “Let him rest and recover first, we’ll get those answers sooner or later.” He tried to help his friend to stand back up, even if his shape was not the best.

“Is not over yet…” Chris mumbled surprisingly, “What a fucking cunt…”

A loud explosion was heard in the distance, seeing surrounded by a white aura the red alien flying to their direction in a kamikaze attack; as scared as the couple of friends could be, they realized that their injured friend seemed everything but that, being surprised when they saw him smile a bit.

“I wonder what took them so long…” He smiled a bit.

“What?!”

Before Jeice could hit any of them, something like a boulder hit him hard against the ground while he rampantly greased the soil, as soon as he got some slight motion of the situation he quickly had to move away at the same time a huge amount of debris rose from the ground, dodging by mere instinct a huge metallic gauntlet belonging to no one else than Purple, who even with his face hidden away behind a mask, it was clear as water how outraged he was.

«You’ll regret for coming here!» The ally shouted with fierce in his voice, «Because I won’t let you leave alive!»

Quickly stretching his metallic hand he tried to grab the red alien, who pressed jaws while jumped apart from the grip attempt; in slow motion he saw the fingers close slowly, to quickly meet a second later his other hand managed to pull his arm and finally connect a painful blow to his face, but more than flying away once again, Purple didn’t release him, starting to hammer his body violently up and down everywhere, until finally being thrown away.

At that point his he ended up beaten, with his pride aching as those “pathetic” beings turned out to be more resilient that the expected — and the one he should’ve killed right away as soon as he turned out to be a nuisance for the plans of the night. The more he thought about it the more the rage filled his systems: how could a “human”, a pathetic inferior being turn out to be just so… strong like that?! His mistake (silently admitted) was underestimate and look down to that allegedly earthling, keep him alive would probably make him stronger, more powerful, something left crystal clear after that blast straight to his mouth.

His rage was the fuel to try to stand back up again, but it was interrupted when instinctively dodged again another attack from Purple. Even more hurtful to his pride was realize something unthinkable for a soldier under the command of his deceased Lord Blizzard: flee. Leave like a coward, loose the bunch of Solarians that were aiding those humans and retreat back to his crew; yes, he’d probably get executed for such a low act for an elite fighter, but he’d gladly take it, he’d never be able to keep living after that terrible humiliation from that—

POW!

Any thought left the chat with another punch from Purple, rolling on his back, feeling his blood in his mouth and his body already worn out after so much fight for the first time in his life, instead of dodging, he blocked with both arms a smash punch that came from the Solarian, but as soon as their bodies connected, the latter started to smash him like an angry gorilla at the same time his gauntlets started to electrify, sending shocks all over and, especially, his back, until he was upside down.

«How… can I… lose against… a bunch of inferior beings…?» He coughed, his amber eyes trembled slightly as all he could see was the shadow of his executor, «How?»

«I must say we’re surprised you managed to get undetected for so long, but now, this is the end of the line for you.» The purple warrior said firmly, «You’ll pay for all the sins you’ve committed across the universe, following a disgusting being.»

Jeice curved his lips in a grimace, letting out a soft chuckle that quickly escalated to a hysterical laughter, letting out every single emotion possible out of his body maniacally. He lost, he was going to die, he was nothing but a piece of shit in the eyes of his mates, but he didn’t care anymore…

«You’ll never understand the greatness of being part of the Blizzard army, you fool!» He didn’t care about his life anymore. «You think you won, but in reality… we’re just beginning… and we know where you are, we know where you hide, and this planet will perish soon with you!» He laughed again, his eyes managed to meet the place where the other three aliens were aiding the bunch of humans. «And for that human, Chris…» He opened his eyes wide open, «Tell him to get ready for what’s coming…» And his smile became inhumanly wide. «Because we want his blood too.»

A loud broken laugh came again, to then mix as a scream of agony that faded away in a matter of seconds after Purple’s gauntlet (turned now into an energy cannon) destroyed the red invader to nothing but ashes.

And underneath his mask, no one would see or perceive how worried he was about the situation, nor feel how a sudden cold feeling went down his spine with a horrid sensation that gave some sort of reason to that man: it wouldn’t be the last thing they’d see from them, even more worrying was that now they would target Chris along Phil now they knew he was an obstacle too — did they really truly know, though? He didn’t know to what extent the scouters actually worked, or if it was destroyed at some point of the fight. In one hand he was quite surprised to know that the human known as Chris pulled out a terrifying fight against somebody leagues above in both strength and experience, on the other the situation was desperate, knowing he and his friends had to flee from Earth as soon as possible.

The problem was, they couldn’t.

«This is insane…»Things were indeed getting out of hand much faster than they could solve their own problems, «What a drag…»

While he took flight at not so far height, on the other side the other aliens were being aided; Chris by Green, Phil by Blue and Will by Red, with the last one as the least injured one. Whatever Blue was using on the manager, it was helping him to lessen the soreness of his body, still in the need to take a medical check to discard any possible internal injure. But Chris…

Well…

Everything Phil felt was guilt even if it wasn’t his fault directly.

“I’m fine…” The frontman mumbled to the ally, “I’ll be alright…”

“Don’t you even say it again Christopher.” Will quickly warned raising a finger, “Because if you say it one more time, I swear to fucking God—!”

“Stop it!” The manager quickly interrupted, “Please, none of you don’t start this shit…”

“But…”

“Don’t, please…” His eyes quickly filled with water, looking away as soon as his blond childhood friend looked at him.

As much as the alien group tried to stop the frontman from moving, they couldn’t stop him from standing up while his body wobbled to the sides, crossing his feet clumsy and dizzy until managed to stand up, needing to separate his legs a bit to keep balance. Phil looked at him with a hand covering his mouth as soon as he saw the terrible shape his friend had, with all the blood, the stains and bruises gotten during the whole assault in order to protect him, looking pale like a ghost while his eyes lacked most of its bright. His shoulders were practically hanging his arms, his movements were slow and erratic, making him look a lot more like a zombie than an actual living being.

His childhood friend nearly died trying to protect him, without caring about his own well-being nor his own life.

The more he stared at his friend, the worse he felt.

Especially, when he seemed to regain control over his actions and give a warm smile upon a swollen face, holding kindness, tenderness and love in that smile — one that was more than special: something he hold for those he loved the most. The most heart-wrenching part in his honest opinion was when everything deafened for no reason, and the rest of the world slowed down as he couldn’t avoid eye-contact with the blond frontman; Phil didn’t know if he was hallucinating or if what he saw was true, but he swore Chris was silently crying, seeing his tears fall down his face slowly.

“You know…?” He said, “If it’s a matter of life and death…” He closed his eyes and gave that cheeky, Christopher trademarked and trustful smile, “I’d take a bullet for my loved ones…”

His heart skipped a beat, then it became loud in his ears and finally started to burn like no other time in his life as soon as he remembered many other times he’s said the same thing goofily — light-heartedly even several times in the past, but now with the severity of the situation he knew that those words weren’t just something said to the air, but an actual vow of protection no matter the cost. Realisation came next, widening his eyes as much as he could at the same time his mouth opened as if he was lacking air, tears streaming down his face as the rest of the world started to crumble badly.

He knew Chris absolutely meant what he said.

At the same time the frontman slowly turned around to leave, his brain tried to adjust back to reality and hear faintly Will screaming his name at first. The whole world moved so slow and his brain went from a deafening silence to a loud ringing noise at the same time he tried to run towards his friend, stopped by his friend and one of the alien allies at the same time upon their shoulders he finally saw Chris throw his body to the front in slow motion, hitting the ground in unconsciousness before everything went back to normal and he fell on his knees crying as hard as he could.

He was scared, he felt lost, devastated and disconcerted. None of the situation was his fault, but it felt just as if it was, if anything happened to his friends or family he’d never be able to forgive himself knowing that the invaders could use any of them as bait against him. The only sure thing out there was knowing there was no way out of the crossfire they’ve got in, especially himself, the invaders didn’t believe he was a human being and not a Solarian, why would they agree to change their mind? Everything they were looking was a scapegoat, and he was the perfect choice for them whether he liked it or not.

The next he knew was he saw Chris being lifted by two of the allies upon Will’s shoulder, who was trying to contain his panic attack, next thing was hearing him screaming his name, and finally, everything he saw as a pitch hole of black.

Chapter Text

I just got lost,
Every river that I tried to cross,
Every door I ever tried was locked,
Oh and I’m just waiting ‘til the shine wears off…

Lost! — Coldplay

Everything felt heavy in his body by the time he started to regain consciousness from all the stress caused by everything that happened before his mind shut down, the thing that felt heavier were his eyelids by the time he tried to open them, wanting to sink back to the deepest depths of the darkness that could help to regain energies. It’s been a bunch of stressful days anyway, after all the effort done with every cell and fiver of his body pleaded for a day off.

Wake up… This soft voice murmured, Wake up… It repeated tenderly. A voice he never heard in his life that sounded both male and female, with a sort of parental care. They need you back little one… It murmured.

“I don’t want to get up…” He replied lowly, “I don’t feel so good…” A quick beam of light cut the darkness for a mere moment, “What...?” Another one passed closer to his eyes, “I…” Then, a speckle of light shone in the distance, raising his hand to reach it.

They need you back…

Phil suddenly woke up, jumping on his gurney after his mind suddenly reconnected with reality, at first completely disoriented until all the memories from last (?) night hit his head like a truck, then flopped back as soon as pain arrived, hissing and flinching —“Oh fuck!”— for a full minute before it started to decrease —“Why did I do that?”—. He had to close his eyes for another minute until it was enough to focus in his current location.

Letting out a moan he tilted his head back to the sides still attempting to locate himself in space and time — trying to recall everything that happened before his brain had enough and shut down with all of that stress ending him. Ignoring the beeps next to him and eyes still tightly shut, he had to rub his eyelids with his fingers to adjust to the painful amount of light that entered in the room while the previous events remained distant from his confused brain, as if everything that happened was nothing but a fever dream; his eyes slowly opened again with every shape of the room being blurry, until it all became clearer and indeed, he was in a hospital room.

Deep down something inside him still wished that everything that’s happened was just an odd fever dream from a random tropical illness he might’ve caught somewhere outside without a warning, it was infinitely better think that instead of what was really going on, realizing then his left hand connected to serum while the index finger connected to the electrocardiographic machine along some more cables on his chest, underneath his hospital gown.

Taking a deep breath he sat back on the gurney, massaging the bridge of his nose as an attempt to make the memories flow: the last dream, the texts from Will and Guy about Jonny out of control, him out of control in the bar, the chase, the alien ambush… he remembered how that asshole pretended to be his friend with a disguise after he was left behind during the chase, confessing afterwards he drugged his friend and how easy was to separate him from the others.

The loud, fast beeps of the screen didn’t even call his attention with all the events that quickly came back to his mind: the constant running, the angst, fear, despair, that awful horror of seeing how Will nearly got killed trying to save him — His eyes then opened widely to the point of nearly popping out of its sockets with mouth agape: Chris arrived when he was about to get killed the first time. He fought with all his might without caring about his own life several times, remembering each time he fell and got back up without understanding where did he get so many energies for that…

Then that last image of Chris came to his mind: bruised, both of his arms and the palms of his hands showing burns, how he barely could carry them afterwards; the bruises, his clothes tattered beyond repair; a swollen, bloody face and a smile upon his face. At that point his entire world deafened again and the memory played again in slow motion, he remembered that specific smile that was entirely sure of what he wanted to do, what he would do…

I’d take a bullet for my loved ones…

His ears were as deaf in the same way before he passed out, not hearing the moment when an inhuman scream came out of his mouth while his body felt every single thing from that cluster of emotions, now that realization of the entire picture of this problem with the aliens hit him like an actual truck: fear, dread, uncertainty and even hopelessness filled his senses to the point all of the pressure went to his stomach. He felt bad, horrible, and guilty of the entire situation even if it wasn’t his fault at all! None of it, none of the attacks made (and that will be) by the invaders were caused by something he did, but a problem dragged by the stranded allies.

Then, why did he feel so bad? So wrong? So… guilty?

Behind the breakdown a part refused to stop (over)thinking — even if he needed to calm down, think on how, when and why did all these problems bounce in his direction, why they were so stubborn on accepting that whoever killed their stupid lord was dead as well, why they kept denying his notorious innocence even after pointing out a few several many times the dumb logic followed. There were many others that looked like him across the earth, so why specifically him? He cried harder and coughed already breathless, the cherry at the top of the cake of mayhem was realize the levels of shit it reached: they knew who and where he was, how he looked like, his friends… they could blend between humans in disguise — fuck! Even hide the right amount of time from the allies’ radars! Jeice had plenty of time to plan everything and play his cards before they finally arrived to his aid.

He was caught in the middle of a crossfire, and now in extension, his loved ones as well.

By the time his mind started to decrease its speed Phil finally realized several things: one was the pain the breakdown caused to his body, with the most affected areas being back, stomach, neck and head; second was this nasty smell of vomit; fourth was the feeling of dizziness back and finally the realization of being surrounded by several people, being Lara, Will, Guy and Jonny along a doctor that retired a syringe from the vial along a nurse.

“Wh… what happened?” The manager asked wobbling a bit to the sides, seeing everyone so worried. Lara quickly hugged him as tight as possible.

“You had a mental breakdown, Mr. Harvey.” The doctor replied, “I had to put a small dose of sedatives to decrease the intensity of your emotions,” He covered the needle with its cap, then placed it in a pocket, “Do you remember anything before you passed out?” The manager slowly nodded.

“Where’s Chris?” He asked before the doctor could say anything else, trying to sit down yet being laid back again by Lara, “But I need to—!”

“He’s out of danger, love.” She replied softly, “In intensive cares—” She hushed her husband when he tried to sit back, “Chris is alright, stable, out of danger and resting.”

He looked at her right to her eyes, finding calm momentarily. If not due tiredness he’d 100% allow another breakdown ignite a stronger sense of paranoia after the many realizations from before; he knew the person containing him was his wife and that they were together — even without solid proof more than a warm feeling in his heart. Words weren’t necessary, the warm touch of her soft fingers upon his hand, caressing the back slowly with love was enough to trust her word.

The doctor speaking caught back Phil’s attention as he explained his current state which… was actually pretty good (considering all the damage taken), in fact he was told the injuries that supposed to be more of a threat to his life were already treated (it were the allies, unsure if that happened before or after he passed out) and that none of them represented harm to any of his organs, so he allowed a sigh of relief come out.

Chris on the other hand… well, he had a good bunch of broken bones as well as a good amount of blood loss that (very luckily) got recovered after a transfusion (some fans popped as soon as they heard about the news to help, too; apparently the allies healed somehow the most delicate injures as after checking for internal bleedings to check if an urgent surgery was needed (well, surely, he did need it by the terrible shape he had), yet wondering why they didn’t fully heal them. The doctor (Emmanuel, or doctor “Lemon”) also told him he’d stay in observation for some more time — especially after the breakdown and violently throwing up, which now explained the awful smell, frowning in evident disgust now he realized the smell was still there.

After a janitor cleaned the mess and also get cleaned by his wife (his friend staying outside during that time), the least he could do was cling to Lara as much as possible; after she ended the clean-up, his friends sat around his gurney with happy expressions as well as concern. Phil still needed a little while before starting to socialize again with them, now it was time to cling to his wife as tight as possible with love; one deep breath, a little massage on the bridge of his nose to ease the sensation of fogginess of his head…

“Hi lads.” He finally greeted.

“Hi Phil!” Will replied, “Did you know that you scared the absolute fuck out of us?!” He asked angrily, “Not only you, but that twat of a Martin as well!” Phil sighed deeply in response.

“How long have I been out?” He asked with a groan.

“Nearly two days,” Jonny replied, “I regained conscious near the afternoon the following day feeling like shit and Will told us everything that happened.”

“Chris fought an actual bloody alien from outer space.” Guy spoke sounding casual, “How the actual fuck?!” He asked dramatically.

“Talking about it,” Phil spoke again, “I had the intention to talk to Chris before I saw your texts—” He interrupted himself for a moment to look at Jay briefly, his friend faked dementia and looked away, “—because I uh… connected with the memories of this person the invaders were searching for and… at this point, they’re just trying to find a scapegoat.” He paused for a moment, then his brain remembered he never told his wife about those dreams. His eyes widened and looked at her, she only smiled and rolled her eyes.

“They already told me everything, Philly.” Lara quietly replied, grabbing his hand with tenderness and love, “Go ahead.” He couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Du hättest es mir sowieso sagen sollen (1)...” She mumbled lowly. He just blushed in response, then cleared his throat.

“Well, it isn’t just that I think their lord died —don’t ask—, but they no longer have a planet to return.”

That pain in his chest wasn’t his, but it felt as his own when he proceeded to tell them about the last dream before the madness unleashed. Everyone in the room were shocked while hearing the livid dream/memory pass, being beyond evident how the situation was far too fucked up — mostly knowing it was so evident they weren’t open to accept any sort of excuses, then what? Four or five people against an entire army? Accept their eventual downfall?

The four of them couldn’t help but let out a collective groan with a notorious annoyance on their faces.

“We need flipping Chris to explain us how the fuck he’s got those powers.” Will spoke again but now with impatience, “He can’t keep on hiding these things from us now everything’s going straight down to a shithole and our imminent death! He can talk and understand the aliens, we need to know more of their story and find a way to solve this mess!” Naturally he was as frustrated as the others, being in a situation nobody asked for.

Another sigh from the manager, who rubbed his face trying to keep himself together.

“Did they say what took them so long?” He asked annoyed, “Wait, what kind of stupid question am I making…?”

“One of them tried to tell us when they brought you two here.” Guy said, “They’re trying to learn how to communicate but struggled to get things right so Willy and I kind of tried to sort out what they wanted to say and…

“The green fella said they got the ship in their radars,” Will continued, “The problem was that they missed track of the red guy when they got there plus, apparently the red guy destroyed his ship after arriving, and they were quite far away when he fought Chris.”

“Yeah,” Guy continued, “And also he made us understand that they realized what was happening after they felt this sudden outburst of energy coming from where you were.”

Phil thought about that powerful blaster Chris threw Jeice right in his face in the very last moment, the one that tipped the scales in his favour and ultimately helped the allies for a victory. It was still scary to think he saw his childhood friend in that way, fighting with nails and teeth until the very limit of his own wellbeing and life.

The others read his thoughts, but no one really wanted to say a thing about it.

“Did any of this shit reach the press and Dave?”

“We lied to Dave and said that Chris and you got injured due an avalanche.” Lara replied, “He wanted to come or make us go back home because of how fucked up it’s been everything since we came here, but I told him that none of these options were possible. You two were unconscious, and it’s just way too dangerous for him to come.”

“At this rate, there won’t be a safe place anywhere anymore…” He replied gloomy.

None of his friends dared to reply the statement with a bittersweet taste in their mouths as the conversation ended up dying. Phil sighed again and tried to rest his back and try to relax again at least a wee bit, which became the group’s sign to leave him alone and allow him some more rest (and give privacy with his wife), so one by one retired with a “goodbye” and left.

They left the room, but not the building as they made their way towards the ER wing while discussing what would happen next now this mess was beyond repair, with the dangers of another attack being nothing but imminent and have so many questions yet so little answers; with Chris and Phil out, Will felt his shoulders weight a ton as well as the responsibility of protecting his friends was overwhelming, yet he didn’t allow his friends to see that.

They needed (he thought) right now an anchor to survive the upcoming hurricane.

His thoughts, although, were interrupted with nurses running up and down the halls as if there was some sort of incident, to then realize the source of their panic was coming from Chris’ room. Alarmed the group of three ran to their friend’s room, trying to ask anybody for what happened to him but without response, which led them to quickly storm into the room just to find a bunch of people and the doctor standing still, in absolute shock.

“Chaps…” Will spoke after a solid minute, nearly speechless, “Please don’t tell Phil about this…”

All of them stared flabbergasted right in front of the undone bed where Christopher was lying earlier and should be resting, leaving behind bandages, patches and even rests of the casts that were around one of his arms and a leg.

The only thing left asides the hospital stuff was this small, yellow sticky note on the windowpane with Chris’ handwriting; Jonny then stepped in its direction to reach the paper and read the small not.

“What does it say?” Guy asked, “Is somebody asking for a ransom?!”

Jonny just turned at them, flipping the note to their direction:

I left for a walk, will be back before sunset. Love, CM

Somewhere kilometres away from the hospital and the city, after taking a shower, change clothes and buy hiking equipment plus food and a big bottle of water, Chris wandered across the land through a hiking path before detouring to the unknown. As much as he knew his friends wanted answers to everything that’s happened (and what to expect for the near future) lately — especially on his knowledge on alien language, now his powers — there was this strong part of him that was concerned, anxious and stressed by the idea of exposing a side that used to be only his; a very private part from deep down of his intimacy.

Even after witnessing this whole bunch of shit flying all over the place between the allies and the space pirates, he was fairly scared that the gang would diminish whatever he had to say, his experiences and/or knowledge of the situation, even if he knew as much as them. He was fairly scared to talk about it, about their reactions and afterthoughts — or how it’d impact their friendship! The idea of exposing such kind of secret overwhelmed his thoughts as soon as he woke up and found himself quickly overthinking, and even if it was the worst possible moment to flee, he needed to put his head in order.

So, he took a walk.

Now, part of his thoughts luckily flew away with the wind and the open spaces while this wee amount of anxiety kept him prepared for all the possible questions and scenarios that could potentially come out after his return, being as well the justified anger for disappearing without a warning (Hey! At least he left a note) and wanting to avoid the inevitable talk about his powers.

The truth (in his opinion) was: none of them would want to believe his version of the events nor accept that, oh surprise! He was as human as them! Why would they believe that after showing superhuman abilities and advanced regeneration skills? Why would they believe him after saying that he just obeyed this voice telling him to wake up?

He was as lost as them.

It didn’t matter he already had contact with a superior form of life that taught him the many things he currently knew, the presence of other forms of life across the universe either much better or worse than humankind, or whatever else that came with it. He was as confused and scared as them, lost, confused — even angry for their obsession of using Phil as their scapegoat (still didn’t know how the story ended, the events made clear they didn’t care about getting the right Solarian), as if now their only purpose was kill him.

It was unbelievable worse to consider they knew the doppelganger or whoever it was could be somewhere else or even dead, if Phil was the one, they looked for, Jeice wouldn’t have stood a chance as his friend was allegedly to be that person who killed his lord. Besides, he, Christopher Martin did a lot more damage by showing his knowledge in alien language, now being there more reasons to believe they’re also refuged Solarians — he paused his steps on the track as soon as that came up to his mind. Did he accidentally condemn his friends as well? Would any of that not happen if he just pretended to not know anything? Play as the fool and show that way that Phil was innocent of what they accused him of?

Those thoughts started to haunt his mind for a while until he realized how these questions would just remain unanswered. Maybe yes, maybe if he played fool and said nothing, they’d truly think it was the wrong place to look in the same way that maybe everything was bound to happen due the presence of the Solarians on Earth. He’d never know for sure, so as hateful as uncertainty could be, everything left to do was take a very deep breathe, let all the concerns go and keep on going.

So that’s exactly what he did: breath, shake his body and keep walking.

The sounds of nature helped to ease the remaining traces of anxiety with the chirping birds, the trees moving slowly with the breeze and the distant hum of something he couldn’t recognize properly; wild flowers, some dandelions and small animals roaming inside his energy radar the more he advanced in his improvised path, careful with his steps to avoid anthills before going up the hills and beyond. Some more walking done later he started to climb a rocky wall with bare hands —This is more challenging than flying—, embedding his fingers deep in the rocks while leaving the marks on it as he did his way up for several minutes to at least, fifteen minutes until he reached the top.

It was worth it, feeling satisfaction with the view of the distant city with the view from the top.

“We live in a beautiful world,” He sang lowly, “We live in a beautiful world…”

He sat near the edge and immediately transported his memories back in time, the first time Don’t Panic (or Panic, as its first name) was written around twenty years ago came to his mind in a similar place located in Wales, from one of those times he accompanied Jonny to visit his parents: they wandered uphill next to a road when the band still lacked a drummer and were Big Fat Noises (he covered his face in shame, remembering how lousy they were with the names for the band); Jon would often stay behind unable to keep his pace (never been a fit person and back then, smoking wasn’t doing bad to his lungs) while he was reaching the top.

Sometimes when they did their trail, he’d hear his friend groan and yell stuff in Welsh so he’d teasingly reply in Latin. Simpler days, simpler times when all they had to worry was survive University and break into the industry while being naïve about its implications at large scales, dreaming to be as big as those who influenced their lives.

Then one day at the top of the hell after turning by the umpteenth time to the town, something clicked in his head and brought up not only the beauty of the world surrounding them, but a song that quickly appeared and became what later was the opening track for Parachutes, climbing up a tree to fully enjoy the view along those ideas floating around his head, ideas he tuned as a radio signal and made sense after reaching the correct dial.

Nowdays smartphones were such a useful device for multimedia, back then he wished he had a camera in his backpack to take a picture of such a wonderful view from the top of a tree — unlike how in present moment he took one with his phone of the city of Bariloche. Young Chris always carried a tape recorder, a pen and a notebook; adult Chris only switched the recorder for his phone.

In case you wonder: yes, he didn’t resist the urge of drabbling a song.

An hour quickly passed by under a tree pouring all the possible ideas with scribbled, messed random ideas coming and going to nearly everywhere: from frenetic lyrics to more insightful ones, to a glimpse of a possible space opera, a song about daddy issues and this angry gay anthem in early stage he called Pride. Once he ended that stuff, he placed everything back on his backpack and took out some snacks; a couple of sandwiches, some energy bars and a bottle of juice, cleaning his hands with some of the water of his bottle before eating of course. He sort of regretted not getting some coffee and waffles from a nearby café, though. Later, maybe. He thought.

“Lonely, why so lonely…?” He sang remembering this silly demo from a band that formed with them, “Why are you hiding, all the time…?”

The sound of what he swore was as snort, then laugh made him quickly tense his entire body and stick his back against the tree like a covered soldier as the rest of his body tensed ready to fight or flight. His arms wrapped around his backpack tight, now with the sound of his heartbeats right on his eardrums; he didn’t dare to go out and look who was there, nor felt a single soul nearby other than small animals and insects scattered around the local flora, and it was very unlikely that it was another person as he detoured pretty far away from the main hiking path, the only person there in that very same moment was him— unless— what if—?!

Fight or flight instinct quickly kicked in as he stood low and ran as fast as he could on the opposite way from where that noise came from, for a few minutes his legs didn’t stop nor dared to look back as he kept going throughout the trees and some bushes that left marks on his body he didn’t mind at all, focused on getting as far away as possible from the possible threat that was roaming; five minutes later that felt like ages he finally decreased speed and hid again among a tree and some bushes without caring under what he could be laying, breathing in an out quick to the point he felt he was about to pass out, staying still like a statue.

Blitz told him those strange gadgets attached to the ears of the invaders allowed them to detect, locate and measure energy levels as they didn’t have the natural ability to detect energies unlike the Solarians (apparently for what he could appreciate). Chris did quickly hide his as soon as he stood low trying to calm down for around ten minutes without moving, nor flinch, paying entire attention to all the energies around a few kilometres trying to keep himself aware of the possible danger —Flying is not an option, I can’t risk myself on leading them directly to Phil—, not hearing anything anymore —Was it just my mind? Am I becoming crazy?— nor being able to detect anybody —I swear I heard somebody!

It took a total of 20 minutes to finally find calm after all the stress that suddenly rushed throughout his body, allowing adrenaline to get released in the form of a headache and heavy breathing, unsure on what the actual fuck happened, because he actually swore he heard an actual person (or alien) around — that’s why he ran! Or was his mind tricking him? Was the whole situation starting to drive him insane?

“You probably went nuts a long time ago and you’re just finding it out now.” He muttered, “There’s no one chasing you now Martin, if they don’t know how to read energies it’s pretty likely they don’t know how to fully hide it, just enough to pass undetected…” He took a pause, “No one is chasing you; no one is following you… no one is…”

His voice stopped when he suddenly thought about something odd that’s been going on lately and still didn’t know what it was, or how. Certainly, things were strange as hell due these events with the aliens and now he heavily questioned about the current state of his sanity, even before the current ongoing event with the aliens, his friendship with Blitz could all just be this funny thing his mind made out one day he was bored as well back in 2000-something something. And as much as he wanted to believe it that wasn’t the actual case, but something else.

Since he arrived to Bariloche, already before the first alien attack he had some odd impressions of this random sporadic sensation that, in fact, somebody was indeed following in secret his steps, yet every time he’d try to dissimulate his curiosity while turning around to check who was it, none of the people he’d encounter on the streets seemed to care about his presence (something he considered positive, of course), and sometimes that feeling came when he was entirely alone (Blitz would often joke it could be a ghost) yet still nobody to be seen, nor a sound.

Looking back at these times now he thought about it in more depth, now he realized that quite a few times the corner of his eyes would catch roaming around an old friend of his — Tim Rice-Oxley from the band Keane, actually. He was sure he saw him around Bariloche looking at things every now and then, or at least a person who looked a lot like him; it’s been a long time since the last time they saw each other, the last he knew was that he did some music production works here and there after Keane split — but that wasn’t the point. The real thing was that every time he wanted to check on him, say hi and maybe invite a coffee… he was gone.

In a first thought it could almost be a sign to regain contact and maybe think about a future collaboration between bands (in case they ever planned to come back) now as Coldplay was open to suggestions, both could probably come with the best song ever both lyrically and musically wise, and experiment what could come out. On the other hand even if he toned down his ego a lot from what it used to be, it was quite certain it’d end in some sort of war between songwriters and possibly between frontmen as well, although he genuinely praised Tom’s vocal range as better than his own (he heard his entire solo album about a year ago and had to share one of his singles, the one for his little daughter).

Well, it wouldn’t be impossible, most likely uncertain.

Those thoughts helped to ease his scarred mind as he focused a lot more on the questions about sighting Tim around, managing to ease his breathing, slowly regain control over his numb body and finally lean against the tree he was behind of. He closed his eyes and sighed again with a headache coming up to his head trying to focus more on the sound of the birds and the symphony of nature, still with his heart banging against his chest, something that sent a shiver down his spine until a final sigh allowed all the tension get released properly.

Whoever or whatever he heard did scare the hell out of his body.

His best option to fully calm down then was gush down some cold water, get in lotus position for meditation, breathe deeply and close eyes to meditate, to become one with the world and allow the leftovers of anguish vanish like the sand in the wind…

Then there was peace.

Often there was too much noise in his mind, but meditation was a good way to put them on hold and allow some peace to rest; now after releasing the adrenaline out of his body he managed to put thoughts in the right spot to be in sync with nature and let himself go.

Well, it actually meant his soul detached from his body as it ascended, standing up right next to where his physical form stood as some birds started to approach now he didn’t mean a threat to them (and would never) as some other smaller animals like rodents; he smiled in response with the view, to then sigh again, close his eyes and focus on something else. His soul then unfolded now in an upper plane similar to the real world but more distorted; repeating the process he kept unfolding his soul passing through different realms each time: one of these was this huge field plagued with flowers of different shapes, sizes and species from across the entire universe to the point some were as tall as trees or as small as ants, reigned by the many smells — mixed in an unique way.

The Reign of the Smells he called it.

Another of those realms was a constant distraction: a realm where his touch enhanced and made whatever he touched a lot more stimulating than it would be in reality. The World of Sensations was like some sort of trap for those ascending higher, an obligatory yet hard to ignore path to take, a trial for those who wanted to go to the top in the seek for mental peace. Visually the realm of Sensations would be similar to the real world, most of these looked like the real world, always from the spot where he parted. He really understood what people with sensory overload could feel due his travels through those places, one for each sense.

One of the next places he had to visit (forced, of course) was mute. Identical to the real world but silent… or at least that was what he thought the very first time he went there over a decade ago: the birds and the trees were silent, but as soon as one starts to pay attention there is the sound of a river running, waterfalls, the sound of ice breaking down somewhere and even the distant, crackling noise of the burning sun that illuminated the Earth as well as many other distant stars. It was a symphony of sounds from far away beyond their reach as well as silence, often broken by the sound of the winds in desolated planets like Mars, or the furious roar of a volcano in a distant moon outside the Milky Way.

The world of Sounds was, in his opinion his favourite second place to meditate, somewhere to think for a lifetime until the very end of the time without spending more than an hour in real life… although, even if he knew he could do that, he never did it due to feel overwhelmed about how relative time was. The idea of living a life in a few minutes was far too scary to think about…

Yet still, that realm wasn’t his objective.

He went higher.

Twelve were the realms to go through before reaching the top: at first, ascending was a very hard task to achieve the further he went, each world more ethereal and unique, and thicker in density to enable the unfolding of his soul, yet as everything in life, with enough practice and a lot of patience he managed to get a grasp on it and master the travels across the Astral Plane.

Now he was standing in this dark void upon a solid soil of nothing, reigned by an absolute silence with nothing on his view other than just an empty space at the top of the Astral Plane… and that was its charm — part of it, actually. In the moment he started to walk to an uncertain direction, his footsteps resonated as if he walked in a small, empty hallway; an empty world was tasteless, right? Well, after nearly a minute he stopped with his being starting to resonate: speckles of light flickered in the dark as trails of light did the same, dancing gracefully all over the place before these exploded in a precious shade of reds, oranges, green, yellow, purple and blues while the black hole above and underneath his feet painted with flickering stars, while his horizons with many more flickering lights on and off.

The place was called the Nest of Life. He preferred to call it Coloratura.

Oh, what a beautiful place it was! As well as the hardest point to reach among all the realms of the Astral Planes. Each time he entered he wouldn’t forget the very first time he went that high, jumping into there like a dolphin above the surface of the sea: it lasted a few seconds before falling not only to the previous realms, but fall so hard down below back to the real world with the bonus of having spent two weeks in a coma, when that sighting only lasted at least five seconds or just a little bit less. That happened way back in 2004, just some time before the release of X&Y at his former house in London, having Gwyneth hugging him tight as soon as she realized he was wide awake again (he didn’t tell her what happened right away, nor later actually).

It took around two years between a lot of trial and error until he became capable to maintain himself stable to stay there more than a few seconds. Each time he arrived his grip to that realm became tighter, becoming able to stay there more than a few seconds until he finally reached full control of the time he’d be separated from his body. Time was now his: eons could fly away as his conscience could gain all the knowledge of the multiverse, becoming wiser and learn about everything he wanted… instead, he’d just sit on the dark void and stare at the beauty of that infinity of the horizon with the many flickering lights that were so… mesmerizing.

Going beyond his current point was always too scary to do, sometimes he was scared to wander away to other places far away from his own reality to the point his conscience would nerve find its way back, that idea never failed to send chills down his spine.

Sometime later, in one of his many visits at that point, suddenly and somehow realized that Coloratura in fact was known as The Nest of Life for a reason: the lights from beyond were distant stars and planets being born, living and dying all at once. Stars that existed, were existing and were going to exist in a never-ending cycle that looped on itself all the time. Some more time after, he learned that it was a nexus between the past, present and future not only of his universe, but of what’s known as the multiverse.

How did he know about that? Well…

“Chris!” He heard a familiar voice call out his name from behind.

As soon as he turned to face the source of the voice, he found himself trapped in a very tight hug that made his back do a loud popping noise.

“Hi Blitz…!” He greeted barely breathing — better said, about to lose a lung. “Glad to see you too…!”

He got released by his friend who was a head and a half shorter than him; Blitz had this future white skin that even looked synthetic as well as a skinny yet notoriously built complexion with these strange organic orbs popping out of his shoulders with a deep blue tone, as well as a pentagon-like one right between under his chest and a slightly defined pectoral. His arms were covered with organic, deep blue protectors as his legs had shin pads that reached slightly above his knees as some sort of organic armour, while his upper legs were a slight shade of grey as if it were trousers. Three fingers as toes with black nails both on the former and the five fingers of his hands, a long-segmented tail that had the base in grey, the segmentations in white and the sharp point at the end back to grey. Kind light blue eyes, a line that went below his lower eyelids to below his jaw as well as an oval-like something at the top of his head that kind of worked both as hair and a helmet at the same time some small protuberances gave more of that look, a couple of small protuberances that worked as his ears, and a very happy smile curved on his black lips.

The sole presents in Coloratura sat on the void while watching the horizon with the flickering lights of the multiverse, silent for a few minutes partly lost in thoughts, mesmerized by the spectacle offered by the realm until somebody would say a thing.

“Okay so…” Blitz spoke, “I lost connection with you after you passed out the second time. Is there any news? I suppose you’re still alive — wait, are you dead too?!” He asked, “Oh no! That motherfu—!”

“Mate, I’m alive.” Chris replied before his friend could start to ramble, “I managed to defeat that invader and holy shit! It was so fucking nuts! You should’ve seen it!” He quickly exclaimed excitedly.

“Then tell me everything!”

The frontman proceeded to tell him everything that happened to his alien friend excitedly, feeling actually proud of himself in the same way the alien seemed really happy with eyes beaming excited by everything Chris said.

“Okay so, now you’re not in the ‘hospital’ anymore, right?” Blitz asked, “How did you recover so fast? I have understood you don’t have regeneration skills.”

“Well yes, but actually no.” Chris replied, “I mean, regeneration for us is a very slow process that can take months depending on how bad the damage was so, technically we do?”

“But not as advanced as other races, am I wrong?” The frontman nodded, “Uh-huh, and then? You said that guy may’ve popped your bones and stuff, and that you woke up in the ‘hospital’, right?” He nodded again, “And then?

Chris blinked twice.

“Then what?”

“You said you woke up and left like a day and a half later, how did ya’ heal so fast? Oh?! Maybe you’re an alien too!”

“What? No!” He exclaimed, “Well, technically to you I’m an alien but no, at least not that I know of. Isn’t it a chance that maybe, just maybe this entire Ki control thing abilities might have something to do?” His friend placed a hand under his chin to think about it, “Or… I don’t know…” His friend looked at him curiously, “I… I heard something-someone tell me to wake up but… it was unknown. It was a voice I never heard, it was both male and female and it told me to wake up!”

“And you did—”

“It felt so weird!” Now he sounded between surprised and frightened. “It felt as if it was a part of me, but so foreign at the same time!” He rubbed his hands nervously, “I don’t know what it was, just know that whatever it was, it healed me because when I woke up I was fully recovered! And that… all that I wanted was flee as far as I could…” Some tears fell down his face. “Blizzard, I’m scared…” He mumbled after a brief pause, “I ran because I knew they’d want answers, they’d want to know how I healed so fast, because they would bombard me with questions I can’t answer!” He covered his face, Blizzard raised an arm and the void became a grassland, right next to them a river flowed under a warm, cream sky with two suns. “I’m so bloody overwhelmed about this entire shit I-I really feel I’ll lose my mind! So…”

“You ran away…” The frontman nodded slowly cleaning his face with fresh water. “And you know you’ll have to face them eventually, like every problem out there—”

“Of course I bloody know!” He exclaimed quite angrily, “I know I can’t keep avoiding the bloody truth for the rest of my life and even less now we’re most likely going against the clock due those cursed space pirates!” He jumped out of his place and started to walk back and forth, red of rage and shaking slightly, “What in the actual flying goddamn fuck are we gonna do if they come with an entire army?! I barely managed to defeat one, the Solarians also had problems to defeat Zeenah, and that Jeice chap managed to infiltrate in this planet and remain undercover for God-knows-how-long before attempting to kill Phil!” He was nearly crying very startled at that point, showing how afraid he really was. “There is barely time to train my friends, they know the Solarians are stranded on Earth, they’re probably coming with their entire army so… it’s us against hundreds if not thousands.”

Chris threw his weight back on the grass and covered his face to cry in silence with evident fear, the outlook for the near future was dark by the uncertainty caused by affair between the space pirates and the Solarians. It was hard for Blizzard to see his happy-go-luck human friend so desperate — especially hopeless; the last time he saw him in a similar way was three years ago after he split with Gwyneth, something that was hard to explain but knew it affected him badly to the core.

Now it was similar, but way different at the same time.

The alien got closer to his human friend, placing a hand on his shoulder as a sign of support, feeling so bad to see him that way, so different to his cheerful behaviour.

“Alright, I promise I’ll try everythin’ to pay you a visit my friend-o.” The British frontman looked up to his alien friend surprised. “What? Y’all need some real help to deal with this shit! The least I can do is give a hand out, you know? Your friends are also my friends so, if I’ll protect you, then I’ll protect them too! Besides, if I manage to get there it’ll be easier for you to explain from scratch everything to them!” He curved a smile, “How does that sounds for ya?”

Blitz quickly became concerned when Chris didn’t reply at all for like an eternity that lasted at least two and a half minutes until the response he got was as tight, happy hug holding many emotions at the same time, but mostly: a little ray of hope at the end of the dark tunnel he’s been inside for days.

“Thank you, thank you so much Blizzard!” The afforemented patted his back, “You don’t know how this actually means to me!”

“Well, this is what friends do, innit?” The frontman couldn’t help but chuckle softly in response, “Alright, is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

The environment changed back to the dark void filled with distant stars and the nebulous lights dancing above them, both sitting back on the emptiness. Chris now had a relieved expression upon his face as he rubbed it with both hands to wash away the leftovers of despair to not end up losing his grip on Coloratura (he could express strong emotions but only up to certain point before falling back to his realm) by accident; for a moment he remembered the snort sound at the forest yet a side of his brain kept thinking that the madness was taking its toll on his mental health already — it wouldn’t hurt to ask if anyone was around a while back as things fluctuates so weirdly up there, right?

“Okay I sort of still feel neurotic about many things but I do need to ask,” Chris said quite fast, “Have you seen anybody wander up here lately?” Blizzard raised what should be his eyebrow. “I know this might sound straight up crazy but I have the feeling that there is somebody crossing to my universe from here.” The alien opened his mouth to say something, immediately the frontman got mad, “I swear to God that if I was high again you’ll definitely notice it!” The alien closed his mouth. “Anyway, have you seen somebody else up here lately? Most likely, maybe another human.”

The lack of eyebrows made Chris see he raised an imaginary one with the question in fact before think about it, placing his thumb and index finger under his chin while the blond frontman stared curiously at him for a good while waiting for an answer. He started to drum his fingers on his arm as Blizzard remained silent for a few minutes without saying anything other than an “hmm” every now and then; then the frontman started to play with his feet a bit anxious already.

“Well, to be honest you’re the only human I’ve seen in any of the twelve realms these last few hundreds of years.” He replied after nearly ten minutes, “I mean, the ability to come this high isn’t easy, not even the gods can come this far — actually many of them thinks this place is a myth.” He paused and scratched the back of his neck for a moment, “There is the chance that there might be others who can come this far from many different parts of the multiverse, even if mastering the ascension can take years. I think I already told you so, you’re one in a billion who made it in record time!” His eyes beamed, “Compared of course to celestial beings.”

“Yeah, I know! You said it took you over a hundred years to get here.”

“Yeppa, and you made it in four.” His smile beamed, “Maybe somebody else got as lucky as you and mastered it in record time, too!” He exclaimed, “But maybe the fluctuation of time makes it hard to get to coincide with them.”

“Well, you might be right my friend…” Chris replied more relieved, “And maybe I should also calm down and… you know, breathe… I’m beyond stressed with this mayhem so…”

“It’s alright, beyond understandable — I mean who wouldn’t be feeling stressed with space pirates wanting to commit genocide just because they say so?” Chris gave a deadpanned expression, when the alien started to get nervous his friend started to laugh, “Oh you son of a—”

Both of them went silent for a solid minute turning to the infinity with a confused expression, the next moment the alien quickly wrapped his arms around Chris and hid him under his body right when a large shockwave shook across Coloratura from across the time-space strings: an outstanding couple of energies and a third, evil one caught them hard as the alien held his human friend between his arms. The latter of course shivered hard as soon as both energies struck them, being the very first time he’s ever felt something that big — like a whole galaxy bursting out, way bigger than the power of the three pirates and, even dared to think it could be even bigger than the deceased leader of the pirates?

The outburst was really strong to the point that even his alien friend had issues to stay strong and not fly away to the oblivion or fall back to their own realities; ten or fifteen seconds later (that felt more like an eternity) it finally passed, leaving the couple of friends completely startled as the couple of energies vanished until the usual peace of the place came back, yet both of them stood still and together for another whole minute.

“Oh my friggin’ stars!” The alien mumbled, “I haven’t felt that energy in years!”

Chris separated from his friend panting quite afraid and extremely confused, as if the entire situation regarding his reality wasn’t enough.

“What was that?!”

“I… somebody was fighting other two people?” He replied scratching the top of his head, “I’ve felt one of them before, a few years ago — uh… four years ago in your human time?” He tracked off for a few seconds, “Right uh— last time this happened to me I couldn’t stay here longer, this energy was fighting against somebody leagues above but within the chaos I had to be back to my body.” His human friend was staring at him silent and still startled, “Chris…”

His friend was pretty close to a whole breakdown that would ultimately send him back below, so the least Blitz could do was give him a tight hug as an attempt to comfort him as much as possible.

“Blitz, I…”

“Hey, go back to your body and catch a breath.” He said breaking the hug to look at him, “I understand you’re extremely overwhelmed, that’s why I want you back down. I promise to give an update as soon as possible and remember: I’ll be there anytime soon!”

The British frontman blinked after suddenly snapping out of thoughts (something he didn’t realize), panting slowly out of sudden and unable to hide some tears that just showed his true feelings once again.

“Thanks Blitz… I really don’t know what I’d do without you right now…” He had a pat on his shoulder again, “No, I really mean it. I don’t know what I’d do without you so… thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Martin.” The alien replied friendly, “You’re my best friend so, the least I can do to help is try to get myself there, alright?”

“Alright, thank you.”

One last hug before parting ways back to their own realities, one that felt warm for the two friends that needed a miracle to the current events before everything went uncontrollably down to a sink (instinctively both held the silent feeling tingling on the back of their heads that it was the case). The last thing they did was give each other a handshake (Blitz squeezed Chris’ gently), wish to see the other later and basically pray for their plan to turn out alright for whatever was going to come anytime soon.

Both sat back on the infinity of Coloratura closing his eyes, back to lotus pose.

One moment he was up above, the other he was back down below in his own realm and body; when he opened his eyes a bunch of small animals ran away back into the wild, mostly some birds and probably a few rodents that quickly got lost somewhere among the grass. Other than that, he couldn’t help but let out a large yawn as if he woke up from a long night of sleep that actually lasted about ten minutes, meant he still had some time to slack off before returning, even if regardless all the things he talked with Blitz, still didn’t feel in the right mood to go back.

The main thought that roamed his head while he ran his fingers within his hair strings was how badly he needed the physical presence of his alien friend. If he was entirely honest with himself, there was no way his friends would believe anything he said, negation still felt strong on them — how none of those things wouldn’t be terrifying honestly? The whole situation flipped their dynamic upside down as they found out stuff they shouldn’t have — things that were his, and he kept wondering if it was a mistake to show his alien knowledge or if none of that even really mattered.

He wasn’t either keen to uncertainty at all, as an already anxious type of person, since the attack made by Zeenah all he could think about were the several thousand different ways they’d fuck him off if not the many other thousand ways of how they could strike an attack without having an pale idea on how to stop or avoid them, they had very settled their aim on Phil no matter what they did to change that.

So yes, his mental health was somewhere below the ground. And how wouldn’t when they were threatening to kill his best friend due mistaking him as another Solarian, even if there was some solid proof that he wasn’t?

A very deep, slow inhale was enough to condense all the intrusive thoughts in one place, then all the tension released after exhaling slowly; so to keep his mind a little bit distracted he kept inventory of his remaining supplies: some gulps of fresh water that soon would need a refill, a recount of the food bars (he bought a handful), the first aid kit, a Swiss knife for anything that could happen, another portion of snacks and recall about some useful tips Jonny gave long ago while talking about his experiences with the boy scouts in case of emergency. These things helped to quiet down the remaining noise inside his head, which finally filled with the sounds of the nature, connecting with the surroundings.

Finally, he kept wandering further away from the city, somewhere far away wherever his feet and the invisible path he followed could take him.

Maybe keep wandering could eventually help him out to put his mind together…

Yeah, maybe it could.

On the other hand, though, back to the city we can see Will trying to keep a grip of whatever was left of his mental sanity after not being able to find Chris anywhere in the entire city, with no calls nor messages explaining what in the actual fuck he was doing, added on the things he never explained regarding the aliens — at that point as soon as he showed up (he thought), he wouldn’t hesitate to break his nose and basically the rest of the shit out of his body.

Gwyneth had no clue where he could be at, he didn’t report anybody about his plans, whereabouts nor anything at all; they didn’t ask Apple and Moses either, assuming they would’ve told their mom about it at the same time they might didn’t know anything at all, so it was better not to worry them too. For sure, it was one of his fits, he had several ways on how to throw a childish fit and disappearing was one of those things — not a regular one, but still one of those.

Oh and of course Phil didn’t know anything just yet.

They all gathered together on a bench at a park after asking everywhere if somebody saw their (most likely, dramatic) friend, yet the only traces they found about him were at a sports shop with hiking equipment, which meant that he was already away. Most likely far away, which became the inflection point to stop the search for a much-needed break where the trio flopped on a bench at a park. The weather was just perfect to do anything they wanted, yet in that moment while watching all these people play and enjoy as if the end of the world was coming became enough after a long morning.

“I swear to God I’ll murder that man as soon as he’s back!” Will mumbled with annoyance, “From all the possible times he could leave, why it had to be now we’re in an actual crisis?!”

“Because he’s under pressure and knows you’ll punch his face,” Jon replied, gulping some water, “I’m sure he’s afraid.”

“Wait, you’re blaming me for this?!” The drummer asked in disbelief.

“Sort of, yes.” Guy replied.

Will gave this deadpanned expression for around half a minute, Guy slowly hid behind Jon to use him as a human shield as there was a growing anger on the drummer; who stared directly to Jonny’s green eyes, and he was staring back without an expression.

“Look, we know you’re anxious to get answers to save Phil, and maybe another six billion of thoughts in your head at the very same time we talk.” Jon spoke softly, “We do too, Will. We want to know as well what is going on and what he knows, and I’m sure there are so many things he’d like to tell us.” There was a pause to sigh as his friend kept staring, “I know Chris, I know that inside of that crazy head of his he’s trying to put himself together somehow to tell us what is going on, to give us at least some sort of explanation and maybe, maybe how to avoid something bigger about to happen!” None of them broke eye contact, “He’d never let something happen to his loved ones, and I’m sure this entire situation with the pirates trying to chop Phil’s head is got him pulling his hair as well. We’re certainly running out of time, I’m sure he does know that too, and as the wielder of the secrets from space, he’s probably trying to find how to tell us the truth.”

“Jonny, you can’t—”

“We’re as anxious and confused as you, mate…” Guy took the word then, peeking from behind his taller friend, “And even if I never got to really understand Martin’s head most part of the time… I sort of get him.” Will raised an eyebrow, “The three of us most likely have our own secrets that no one but us — and I mean, intimately-wise knows, something so ours that the idea of somebody finding out makes us not just uncomfortable, but exposed. And I believe that even if we didn’t directly get into his privacy, the situation accidentally blew those things out, and he’s still struggling with that idea really hard.”

“And of course,” Jonny continued, “barging aggressively into his room demanding answer for something we clearly shouldn’t have known made him shut in—“.

“Fine! I get it, alright?!” Will exclaimed annoyed at the poke, “I know I shouldn’t have confronted him that way but…” His friends both started to pay more attention, “There were so many things in my head at the same time: fear, confusion, uncertainty… you know, that moment when something breaks your entire reality for the worst?” He rubbed his face, both friends noticed some tears wiped away, “I know the first attack was disruptive as fuck for everyone, and what I think is… I let myself sink in despair.” There was a brief pause, Jon placed a hand on his shoulder. “I was so afraid; my mind wouldn’t stop looping what happened until I finally realized that Chris knew a lot… and in my fear and despair…” He covered his face with a hand, rubbing his eyelids with his fingers before he got his hand all the way up to his head as he arched forward, “I want to stop feeling like I screwed up so badly to the point I doomed everybody here, because I can’t stop wondering how different things would be if I didn’t give into the impulse…”

Will was the type of person who’d always speak out loud the good things when happened, and the bad things if needed, but randomly the way he felt. The thing with his feelings were mostly his, the times he’d ever let out his true feelings were in very specific moments to a tiny amount of people where his wife Marianne and Phil were in the list. The times he’d let others see underneath the surface were few, it wasn’t the first time for Jon and Guy to see him pour out all of his feelings, but it was a clear sign on how overwhelming the situation was to handle; Will was emotionally-wise the strongest among them, that’s why Chris often referred him as an anchor.

The drummer on the other hand felt overexposed, once he started to pour these thoughts out, a part of his wanted to stop talking but at the same time, good god! The more he faced his feelings the better he started to feel, as if a huge burden was being lifted off from his shoulders as all the regret from messing up with Chris, that one sensation of paranoia caused by the previous attacks, the fear for what was coming for all of them, his family and Phil… well, watch Chris fight alone an actual flipping alien and nearly die in the process, the issues of the allies against Zeenah and her partner, and the deep sense of dread that caused have their days basically counted or how those bloody space pirates didn’t even care if they got the “right person” to “avenge” their lord, only using his name to try to start what would turn into their extinction…

How badly he wanted to apologize properly to his blond friend, a something he haven’t had the chance to do yet. Not even during their run to save Phil from Jeice.

Both of his friends understood his feelings and tried to reassure him, validating these thoughts to ease his fears at least a bit, then hugged him tight in order to show their support — seeing how much weight he had upon his shoulders. None of them wanted to let him carry the load alone, and their drummer friend felt a lot better as well as his shoulders felt a lot lighter. As hard as it was to understand, now he knew better that the mess they accidentally got in was beyond their reach, and how even if Chris opened up, there wouldn’t be much difference other than probably more pieces to solve.

“Alright chaps,” He said at first, then took a brief pause, “It’s time to tell Phil the news. As long as Chris is away, we need to stay close to everybody. I don’t even know how we’ll tell if somebody is an enemy that wants to do harm but… I think it’s for the best to hear our guts and stick together as close as possible, then when he comes back, we can hopefully make a plan.”

“We have your back Willy.” Guy said patting his back, “We’ll find a way out.” Jon also patted his back with a hand.

And William felt grateful to have their support, from there they left back to the hospital with arms behind their backs as brothers.

And Chris kept wandering further away lost in thoughts.

At certain points his heart wouldn’t stop racing like crazy while trying to fix the mess inside his head, not because of the long walk but for being against the clock with the crossfire; it wouldn’t take long before those pirates arrived and he was yet to find any possible solution that didn’t involve death nor risking his life to the edge like before. He couldn’t really rely on the arrival of Blitz to scene as it was the most uncertain thing out there, as different the fluctuation of time could be between their universes there was nothing guaranteed anyway.

The more he knew he had to be back before (or after) sunset was what stressed him the most. The idea of telling them what he knew knowing they’d want more information he didn’t have was nothing but pure stress – hell they probably were even waiting for a miraculous answer once he was back, which put a lot more pressure upon his shoulders. He didn’t have anything else but try again to dialog with those knobheads, even if probably wouldn’t work at all.

So then, what were their other options? Get an army would bring a lot more death and of course, he’d be treated like an actual madman or get locked away — or both, both were more likely. He’d want to get some help from the other alien refugees as it was their fucking mess anyway – yet something in his guts said they were probably uncommunicated, or else they probably would’ve already left, like on E.T. (he chuckled softly with the reference), then what else? He barely managed to actually handle one space pirate, let alone an entire army!

He stopped his track in front of a wall of rocks he didn’t doubt on starting to climb to burn more of that anxious energy in his body while still looking for an answer, even expecting it to fall from the sky (or space at that point) but of course, none of his doubts were solved during the ten minutes the climb lasted; he still held some hope on getting Blitz to aid them as soon as possible yet there was no way he could rely for too long on it, on the other hand he little to no hopes of a reasonable end between these pirates and him with his friends regarding to whatever the fuck happened with Phil’s doppelganger.

Then he reached the top, and as soon as he peeked the entire picture started to feel different: among the trees that went through the mountains he realized that a lot of people had been there recently due the many human footprints on the ground; once he started to advance, just several meters away the shape of the trees started to change suddenly as well as the landscape to show how the place was a lot more destroyed until there was mass destruction: smashed trees on a burnt path on the soil as well as a large trail of an unidentified flying object crash-landing as hard as possible; around the trails were a lot of yellow tapes as well as abandoned scientific instruments, pieces of metal, several numbered places plus other abandoned stuff.

He kept walking following the large trail that at first were bumps, until it ended against a large boulder that had a huge hole in the very middle as if something impacted really, really hard against it – like a punch even.

The scene suddenly made sense once the pieces fell together and realized he was at the very place where the allies landed. Meant as well: the place of the Meteorite.

“Of course!” He couldn’t help but exclaim in a self-depreciative mode, running his fingers through his hair, “How didn’t I realize before?! Of course there was a reason of a meteorite happening.”

A few questions raised: did the aliens have the technology to hide a whole spaceship somewhere that fast? Where were they? Somewhere close or far from his current location to avoid the research teams? Where were the research teams? It’s been over a week since the “phenomena” happened as well as the area should be closed to public access, although with all the madness from the fight against Zeenah at first, then Jeice, maybe for their own safety they decided to leave. The area probably became dangerous to work around, maybe it would be good to check on the news after he was back; other than that, it seemed that maybe human activity ceased recently (with “recently” he actually meant a day ago).

Shaking his head a bit, he started to look around quietly, kneeling to feel the soil and find it crystalized due the infernal heat it received due the burning metal after entering to the atmosphere.

A part of him wondered how bad their ship ended to leave them stranded on Earth, how much damage it received and if they would be able to fix it anytime soon or resign to wait for help, or find a way to communicate with their fellow ones. He didn’t know their background (clearly), yet his guts were often right when he had a supposition of something (sometimes it was good, others were bad, and when something was wrong, he was often right) so he didn’t have much doubts.

“If bigger parts of the ship detached, the research team probably took it away already,” He mumbled grabbing a bolt between his fingers, “If they didn’t make the tests yet, they’ll be surprised…” His fingers fidgeted with the dirty tool for a minute like a kid, “At least you managed to hide your ship, and yourselves…” Then he stopped, caressing it slightly. “Is it really as bad as it seems for you?”

He squinted, the only nexus to get a story put together between their odyssey to the small, blue planet known as Earth and the memory pieces coded in Phil’s dreams was himself as a translator. And he knew he was running away from his key point in that story to put all the pieces together, maybe even to find a solution all along.

Blitz and him gambled the idea that the Solarians hid away from the city either to avoid unwanted attention or to keep the invaders away, something that clearly didn’t work for too long after that painful misunderstanding of the first attack —Should I have remained silent instead of translating?— so, they were most likely away but at the same time, maybe not too far either —That doesn’t explain what took them so long to help me with Jeice, unless they were looking somewhere else?—. He wasn’t entirely sure; they were pretty good hiding their presences.

Being at the place of the meteorite made him realize it was a good place to start to search for the group in a few kilometres around, probably using his flight ability. He was tired of not having the necessary answers his friends needed, and it was their mess, they had to help them to solve the incoming apocashitstorm with the pirates whether they wanted or not.

No, he didn’t blame them for dragging something as fucked up as a war. Just like refugees they ran away from their home to somewhere better, safer. A lot must’ve happened between their escape and their arrival, each person had a whole story behind their backs. Yes, he was angry because they could’ve at least stood overnight until he and Phil woke up to explain what the hell all that darn nonsense against Phil was about. Or better: popped back after recovering from the battle against Zeenah and give some proper explanations. Yes, he knew they might needed to be cautious on how to proceed in such a different planet from theirs, but at that point his stress was such to the point he didn’t really care about that, he desperately needed to find them as soon as possible — wherever the hell they were.

The main leads he needed to locate the allies (like their footsteps) were most likely lost with all the human activity around as well as the time that passed already; he had their energy firms recorded in his head to recognize any of them in the distance, feeling that they were somewhere not too far but well-hidden to avoid others.

His radar though, didn’t catch anything at all inside its radius other than animals, maybe insects as well but no traces of the energy firms of the allies so, he had two theories: they were either hiding their presence to avoid getting spotted by the pirates — no doubts their shelter maybe had that kind of technology, or simply were away in a different location out of bounds.

“Fuck!” His head started to pounce again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! Fuck!”

He’d rarely be mad these days as something he felt intensely to the point it made him sick to the core, but now — good God, now he was beyond pissed. He didn’t blame them for bringing their issues, but not giving answers was insupportable, putting so many doubts in his mind as well fear.

For a moment his options were get further away in his walk, fly or let his emotions explode widely to catch their attention or whatever.

Instead, he took a deep breath to let out the unholy amount of stress and picked the first option before his mind slipped back to madness. He wouldn’t get anything right with those emotions overwhelming his system, as much as it was nearly certain he’d really get angry as soon as he found them.

“Wherever the hell you are, I swear to God and whoever is beyond Coloratura that I’ll find you!” He mumbled lowly within his teeth, “You four owe us some answers and a sodding explanation to this shit because we’re sick tired of this!” He didn’t realize he held his fists tight, “And if I have to fight you to get that, then I will!” He kept mumbling while walked away.

Whatever was needed to find a way to protect his friends would be done, even if that meant getting answers by the force. His mind wasn’t in the very right place to think about consequences other than getting back to the hospital, so what? He’d do it again and again until they had the balls to face the problems they caused. No matter how much it wasn’t their fault, they still owed them an explanation.

In the same way he owed his own version to his lifetime friends.

Maybe they were as afraid as him and his friends. Angry, confused, afraid and desperate like them, remorseful for bringing up their problems to Earth, probably even more for getting everyone in a problem that didn’t belong to anybody else but them that now was out of their reach. Hell, maybe they didn’t even know how to approach due the whole language barrier and possible reactions about it — just like him and his own friends! That’s when all his anger died down and his steps stopped, feeling a cold breeze within the forest that sent a chill down his spine as soon as he realized that none of them were different from him, regardless of their different origins.

On a second thought, there wasn’t a lot to complain about while being in a similar position as them. Keeping secrets from his friends, being actively afraid of everyone’s reaction to his knowledge, the fear of being called a lunatic and several other thoughts wasn’t as different from not having answers from a bunch of stranded aliens that didn’t speak their language nor know how to approach without feeling threatened.

Essentially talking, they were like migrants from other countries that ran away from home after war did its chaos. People that had lives, families, traditions and customs; people who had their everyday life cut short by an unexpected tragedy, that forced them to flee somewhere safe but getting lost in the process, like the people on high seas.

People with hopes and fears, with nothing else awaiting them back home.

“Everyone is an alien somewhere…” He quietly mumbled as soon as he hit that realization; it was the first time he ever thought about its own meaning in more depth, even if he already knew its extent. Now it hit differently, “Even me…”

There wasn’t a lot to complain about, knowing both sides were at fault on something, recognize that thought as it should was liberating at best from the burden upon his shoulders as well a good reason to not get so aggressive once he found them. Just sit down, talk and listen.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ll do…”

His head tilted to the sky for a minute, then kept walking away.

That’s how a few several hours passed until it was nearly sunset with the changing colours of the sky, birds flying in circles around their trees in some strange kind of ritual to sleep while chirping loudly, people getting out of their jobs back home and the other way around for the night shift… and Phil finally leaving the hospital as the results of all his analysis turned out alright — as soon as the doctor said he could leave, that’s exactly what happened.

Now all he wanted was get back to the hotel with his family and push aside for at least one night the whole alien affair before it could take another toll on his mental health. And yes, the others told him about Chris; yes, he wanted to punch his face for leaving in the worst possible moment and no, he didn’t feel like talking about it that night. As curious as he was for more context, it was wiser to take a break for that night as his sense of self-preservation was stronger.

“So,” Guy said, “You prefer us to inform about whatever he tells us tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m not really in the correct state of mind to keep thinking on all this mess — I mean, nearly getting killed twice makes me want to stay with my family” He replied rubbing his eyes with the index finger and thumb, “I think that wouldn’t do us harm to all of you too for tonight.” His three friends turned at him as well as curious as Lara, the co-manager couldn’t help but sigh slightly, “Alright, you know what? Before any of you get the wrong idea, I’m not entirely trying to avoid this, I’m suggesting that it’d be the best if we all take a break from this shitstorm for a little bit, then come back after resting, alright? All of us needs it, and I’ll tell Chris as soon as he’s back.”

None of his friends gave an answer right away, staring at him in silence as they were considering the idea of a night off.

“Alright, you have a fair point.” Guy said, now with the attention of his friends towards him, “This entire mess is far from our reach which is stressing as fuck and fairly enough, going in circles around it over and over again won’t help without some proper rest.”

Another brief silence presented around the group.

“True though,” Jon agreed, “It won’t do us harm to focus on our loved ones today and find answers tomorrow. Whether we all say it or not, we’re all drained in every sense of the word.”

Will stood in silence for a minute as his eyes examined every one of his friends with crossed arms; his thumb caressed the tattoo of his arm where he had Ava’s handprint slowly, instinctively before giving an answer.

“Alright, fine! You all have a point.” He finally said, “About Martin, I promise I’ll apologize properly to him before kicking his bloody arse for disappearing!” His friends couldn’t help but laugh, something that cracked a smile on his face, “And what if we go somewhere nice to have dinner? I think if we’re getting a short break, we at least deserve that, don’t we?”

The idea was well-received among his friends, starting to name some random places they saw around while looking for their blond friend as they checked for an Uber to pick them up.

The end of the world was, of course a concerning matter, and it also meant they had to spend all the possible time together with their families (not thinking about the worst possible outcome, more like seize all the possible time while looking for a solution) before it all went south.

Then there was the sight of something lurking in the horizon, reflecting the dying rays of light that caught everyone’s attention: a big — massive saucer-like white ship with black underneath, many small, round windows made itself visible when it arrived closer to the city…

And it started to make Phil shake terribly.

“Ch-chaps…?” He stuttered with unresponsive legs, “Pl-please tell me this is just… a nightmare…” Instinctively his eyes also allowed tears go down his cheeks.

His wife took his hand to hold it tight trying to contain all of that fear, his friends couldn’t do anything else other than watch and wonder before hitting realization about the situation.

“Phil,” Guy spoke softly with a dry voice, “Have you seen that ship before? In any of your dreams?”

He didn’t reply at all, nearly deafened from the chaotic environment formed by the arrival of the ship, which detached from its wall six long legs in the shape of crab legs, landing on the other side of the city; his eyes though didn’t move away from the presence of the large craft that belonged to the one that haunted all his dreams for days. His friends quickly realized they got the right answer.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” Jon asked facing Will, who was as shocked as Phil to say anything at all, “Will? Phil?”

Lara pulled her husband’s arm in an attempt to bring him back to earth, but as much as she tried to cause a reaction, there was none. And as much as the co-manager wanted to do something his body didn’t respond at all to any of his commands, standing frozen on his feet while his mind remained unable to process the ongoing event.

“This… isn’t real, is it?” He asked horrified, “This is just… another nightmare, right?”

“Oh Liebster…” His wife mumbled holding his hand tighter, “Das ist mher all real (2).”

From the top of the ship, a large number of aliens of different sizes, shapes and colours, wearing variants of the same armour wore by Zeenah and Jeice; the police force was doing everything in their hands to evacuate the city as many citizens as possible as the Coldplay gang felt their feet stuck to the ground — all of them needed to turn away to find their families (was it the best option, though? If those pirates most likely knew who they were).

The problem was that there wouldn’t be a safe place anywhere anymore.

So, before anybody could open their mouth again to say whatever thought went inside their heads, this purple-skinned being emerged slowly from the top hatch with crossed arms: tall, still purple with two straight black horns at the sides of the head while the skull seemed to be shaped like a brain with veins. It was what earthlings would define as male; his armour was black with yellow shoulder protectors as well the sides of his upper legs.

The Coldplay gang stood still in their place as the pirate landed gently on the roof of the ship, uncrossing his arms to reveal a microphone in a hand, clearing then his throat with certain arrogance. A large holographic screen shown in 360 degrees popped as well, showing him to everyone.

“Listen up you filthy beings!” He shouted out loud with, of course, a foreign accent, as well as a terrible white noise echoed across the town, making everyone cover his ears (yes, it included the aliens), “Oh, sorry.” He tapped the top of the mic to check it, “Is this working? One, two—” Another loud white noise screeched, people still heard him scream, “Who the fuck is messing up with this right now?!” Then he did another brief soundcheck, “Ah finally.” There was only silence after that. “We are part of the almighty forces of Lord Blizzard, and I’m the captain of the special forces—” Whatever seriousness that built up after he started his threats broke again as soon as he started to make some weird poses, before giving his back and bend his body forwards, showing his arse and his head between his legs as if some Tokusatsu pose was meant to be “—Ginyū!”

A ground-breaking silence invaded the entire city, more than one person was quite confused about what it was meant to be, others scratched their backs of their head (even around the alien army), and at some point, there was a random, distant cough that attempted to break a bit the awkwardness of the moment. Other than that, even the pirate crewmates remained silent for a little while before starting to clap awkwardly, as if it was the best presentation they’ve seen in their lives; for the rest of the world, whatever seriousness their arrival had already faded away after the technical issues… and the captain knew that.

Phil by his side, was screeching lowly.

“My army and I have come to this tiny planet behind a group of Solarians that have been hiding around here.” He said placing an arm behind his back, starting to move back and forth, then gave his back as the holographic screen changed its images to show the face of the co-manager in HD four times, something that shook him to the core. “This is the one who killed our Lord…” The image of the manager swiped to a side and showed, with the screen starting to rotate, the images of Will, Jon, Guy and Chris, “And those are the people protecting our target.”

The group was pale as paper sheets.

“There is no way this shit is actually happening…” The bassist mumbled with visible anguish, “Why they don’t want to understand we’re not them?! We’re not THEM!”

None of his friends replied, being all stuck in disbelief.

The rest of the population that were yet to be evacuated as soon as possible (both civilians and protection forces) from a soon-to-be battle ground, on the other hand, mumbled many different things in Spanish and other languages, knowing it was impossible to keep playing fool after the mess of the last week regarding the aliens targeting Coldplay members — something that brought the gang to the very edge of their emotions, in fear of being pointed as the culprits of something completely out of their reach and maybe, the downfall of human race.

Oh, and Phil was half a step away from another meltdown wondering, how did what should have been a quiet family holyday turn into a livid, actual never-ending nightmare?

“Now, listen up inferior beings!” The captain exclaimed quite passionately, “We, the almighty Blizzard army will wipe out this entire planet to reach him—” The screen then only showed Phil again, at the same time it broadcasted Ginyū pointing at his photograph, “—and avenge our fallen lord! Unless…” They felt a shiver down their spines, prelude of something really bad incoming, “You give us a help…” Up to that point, the co-manager felt about to throw up with all his nerves about to explode.

“Bollocks!” Will exclaimed with his head spinning, “He’s unhinged!” He had to allow himself breathe before nearly passing out, feeling his chest oppressed.

“Everyone here is, right now, unhinged, William…” Jonny replied softly, unable to look away as well the twisted spectacle. “We need to leave, now.”

The group knew they had to start running away and hide from what soon would become a battleground; a mob subdued to mass hysteria in order to save their own lives and (maybe, just maybe) the planet — even if the alien was, most likely, lying about forgiving humankind in exchange of a life.

They knew people would do anything for survival, and that was one of the most dangerous traits of the human life.

Their bodies finally started to give in to their commands, taking one step behind in order to run completely wary of their surroundings, being a high priority now keeping themselves away from their families with the fear of risking their lives for something that wasn’t even their problem, and never should’ve been.

When they were about to turn around and flee wherever their feet could take them to make any sort of emergency plan in order to survive the incoming raid, they heard the alien speak again.

“Oh and…” He paused a bit to clear his throat, “To give the Solarian fugitive another reason to give up, you better come up here if you still want your friend alive.”

The screen showed that from the top hatch a very tall blue alien with the same black armour started to come out slowly — dramatically even, holding in his left hand somebody tied up with metallic wires all around the upper torso, gagged with some sort of thick, blue goo while squirming a lot that was put on their knees, with partially torn clothes, and partly conscious.

Phil on his side felt his entire world shake and shatter to the ground as soon as the blue alien pulled tight the blond hair of the man to show a bruised face: a black hole around right, blue eye, a cut on the bridge of the nose that showed it was swollen as well, and two trails of dry blood that came from the side of the head and what looked like a dry nosebleed…

And that person, in fact, was no one else but the missing Christopher Martin.

Chapter Text

They say that I must learn to kill before I can feel safe,
But I, I'd rather kill myself than turn into their slave…
Sometimes I feel that I should go and play with the thunder,
Somehow, I just don't want to stay and wait for a wonder…

In The Shadows — The Rasmus

“CHRIS!!”

Phil shrieked aloud in despair at the image of Chris letting out a muffled whimper when the taller blue alien pulled his hair tighter to keep him down on his knees; only his legs were free from those wires, other than that it didn’t seem that there was no chance to flee by himself. As much as his friends and wife tried to bring their friend back to solid ground by holding him between three people, Phil squirmed and shrieked with fear from the deepest depths of his soul, falling into a crisis that became worse with every passing second, blinded by tears and deaf by his screaming.

That was beyond devastating for his brothers and wife as it was one of those few times they’ve ever seen him desperate and hopeless for a situation — well, it was quite clear they’d never see something like that ever again regardless of how good or bad the situation ended.

The situation escalated way faster than expected, from having plans for the night to the need to run and hide and have a friend held hostage in exchange for his life. He felt disoriented after all the screaming stopped, nearly about to pass out due to the strong impression and all the stress from the last few days, yet his first instinct was trying to move forward, an act he couldn’t make as all his loved ones were holding him tight.

“Chris needs our help!” He shouted again, out of his mind. “We need to save him! Please!”

Among all his friends, Will was the one holding tighter from behind with a strong bear hug, swinging between fear, anger, concern and horror, then times more when a large group of people started to gather around with a quite threatening aura.

“Phil we must go now!” He shouted, “We won’t be able to save Chris if a mob kills you first!” They heard the people talk among each other as the co-manager finally stopped squirming, seemingly now aware of the looming danger, “Run, Phil! Run!”

His fight or flight instinct kicked in and did the latter right when the people started to advance in their direction, running away as fast and far as possible from what now was an angry mob, sorting one, two, six, ten and many more growing obstacles such as cars, barricades, people throwing themselves against them and so on, mostly aiming to reach the co-manager.

Everyone, of course, did everything to keep Phil safe from all of them, trying to lose them somehow, which happened after an explosion broke into the sky, followed by several others as a sign of the alien crew arriving to give a fight; that distracted nearly everyone and allowed the group enough time to hide in a nearby place where the drummer pushed a door to force it, then as soon as all his friends were in, he quickly closed it again and pushed something in front of it to keep it shut.

Quickly everyone advanced further inside the place crouched to avoid views from the windows, trying to cover with some tables for a better, temporary hideout, sticking their backs to the counters of a shop they got in. Lara hugged her husband tight, caressing his hair as the co-manager had issues breathing properly in nothing but pure shock, while the other three friends took a peek every now and then with the sound of chaos increasing outside, as well as screams and some occasional explosions.

“If we and Chris survive this shit, I swear to god I’ll personally kill him!” Will groaned in a low voice, massaging the bridge of his nose trying to ease some of his anger.

“For once since all this alien shit started, I painfully agree with you.” Guy added, “First he speaks alien and refuses to talk to us, then turns out he has powers, later ends up running away and finally gets held hostage?!”

The earth quaking once again made them cover with their hands on their heads; some pieces of dust detached from the ceiling close to them, and quickly stood when right after some voices passed by. Some silhouettes passed through the windows and loomed for a brief while, nearly even holding their own breathing to avoid getting heard; in the case of Phil, Lara held his mouth tight with a hand to prevent a scream of fear get out as she hugged him tight with the other arm, feeling her husband crying as her hand was becoming wet. Her heart nearly shattered when he slowly turned, and even in the half-light that came from outside she could see one of the saddest expressions he’s ever done in their entire life together.

“Alright.” Jon spoke after a couple of minutes without activity passed, “This is not the right moment to discuss about Chris.” His usual, soft-spoken tone held a hard determination and reason among them, naturally all the attention switched at him. “I’m as mad at him as all of you for not saying anything at all! But right now, we must focus all our attention on keeping Phil safe from an angry mob and keep ourselves safe.” He took a brief pause, knowing he was pointing the obvious, yet feeling that it was important to do. “We cannot get back to the hotel, or else we’ll be running a huge risk of dragging our family into the crossfire,” They all silently agreed with a bittersweet sensation, “Our best shot now, is running towards the woods to get some distance from all the people, then try to make a plan to save Chris’ arse.”

For a good minute, there was silence once again among the bunch of friends.

“Well, you’ve got a point, Buckland.” Guy replied, the earth shook once again as some debris detached again from the ceiling, “All we have left to do is hide Phil from them, right?”

“Yeah, but how are we going to do that?” Will asked, “We can’t magically switch his—” His mind remembered about that weird mask that Zeenah’s partner used to disguise as him, “Wait a minute…” He frowned slightly, “Lara, you remember the alien disguised as me, right?”

She turned at him with curiosity, then her mind hit realization. The other two were out of the loop while the manager remained completely silent.

“I do remember,” She replied, “But what’s your plan? Where can we get one?”

Not an actual sound came out of his mouth when he opened it to say something as the idea suddenly turned out really fuzzy; his main idea was to use one of those masks to mislead their moves from the space pirates for enough amount of time to get somewhere else (the woods, as Jon suggested) to craft a better plan, but she had a fair point to ask where to get one.

Well, it was possible there was a handful inside the ship, but then the problem turned into how to break inside with the mob and surely, the space pirates, to then how to avoid (potentially) disguised pirates that would surely want to fulfil their purpose as “avengers”; the only person he knew could quickly find out any discrepancies was Chris himself, something that made Will growl with annoyance.

His brain tried to cog more in some attempt to bring a temporary solution to their situation, remembering that briefly on the hotel bed, his friend had right there the same mask that the alien used before to pretend to be him, then for a minute he contemplated the idea of splitting up so a group would take care of Phil while one of them would go back to the hotel and take the infiltration device, but quickly found some more flaws: who’d go alone there? Wouldn’t it be more dangerous to get either mobbed or killed in the process? By the time they got the mask, what next? How would they communicate when with all the chaos the communication systems probably went down (right when he thought about it, all the lights outside turned off, leaving them in plain darkness)? Setting a meeting point was chaotic, going to the hotel was dangerous enough considering the high chances of getting their families involved, and all these things made his head start to heat.

“If we survive the Armageddon, end of the times, apocalypse or whatever is happening now, I promise I’ll murder Christopher.” They held their breathing again when some lights went inside through the window glasses as they laid low, trying to stay as hidden as possible until there was a close explosion somewhere that nearly brought down the walls. Mentally, he was reaching a limit, yet he still tried to figure a way out. “Brothers and sister, this place won’t last long; we must keep moving right now and find another temporary shelter. We cannot let ourselves be seen, and it’s too dangerous to split ways, it’s just a matter of time for them to enter in this place and entangle to a fight.”

The plan quickly became flee to a different place that could seem safe enough to gather more stuff for self-defence purposes, mostly to a hardware store they knew was nearby; so, holding each other’s hands, as soon the next lights left and a wall fell off, they all quickly ran away trying to avoid as much attention as possible, getting spotted three blocks later and starting another stressful chase until, now thanks to the darkness they all managed to lose people’s tracks, then keep moving until they reached the aimed store and broke in right in time, closing the door again with heavy tabletop to avoid anyone getting in, keeping themselves low behind a large counter in front of one of the windows.

They left Phil (unresponsive and silent since they left the other place) in a corner where no one would see him from outside in case someone peeked with their torches; the gang then proceeded to gather all they could, including some knives from the adjacent house the store belonged to (Jon left a note on the fridge telling the owners they would pay everything they stole as soon as the chaos ended and if there was still an Earth), as well as glass bottles, shovels, some gardening stuff — hell, even some flour from the kitchen as a distraction in case of emergency.

Defending themselves from the aliens would be harder than using rudimentary weapons, but as long as they had something to defend each other from fellow human beings. No one would let anyone get to kill their beloved friend just because some dumb as shit alien pirates said so, even less without fighting or at least, do the attempt; and of course, Lara was 100% ready to take any risks if that meant protecting her husband a little longer.

Oh yes, she was readier than ever to protect the love of her life no matter the cost, so if that meant killing to save, well, she was whiling to take that choice! How wouldn’t she help the very same person who saved her life just by meeting each other? Phil had always been that significant other to her, shining his special kind of light upon everyone, something that made everyone love him, something that brought joy when everything was dark. And even if they were in a similar place when they met, it was he who shone a light on her.

If that meant intoxicating some darn space pirates with insecticides (Guy found a whole box and several types), to keep them away from hurting her beloved husband, then she’d do it regardless tof he cost.

They got their hands on some cloth bags to place their sprays as well lighters to improvise a flamethrower now and then, and a torch just in case although they agreed to try to not do that; other than that, they also had hammers, axes, improvised shields with metal sheets they managed to improve a little bit with improvised handles that would help to defend themselves enough against other human beings, and some others (hopefully) against the pirates, and as well an improvised armour with whatever they could wear, including construction helmets. With it, they had a decent line of defence for Phil.

“Ready to kick some arses?” Lara asked, raising a sledgehammer on her shoulder ready to go.

“Eager to show those bastards we’re not cowards!” Will replied readier than ever.

“We won’t let them get Phil without fighting!” Guy replied with a confident smile, ready to kick some arses, “Do you hear us, Harvey?” They all turned to where their friend was, “Phil?”

There was an initial disbelief once they realized he wasn’t in his spot anymore, and took them a full minute to actually process that at some point during their distraction he silently snuck away without any warning; panic took another minute to arrive, starting to search inside the entire place avoiding all the possible exposition that a two-story house could, to finally find out that, in fact, Phil left them behind.

Rightfully, it brought them another wave of panic.

“Oh fu—!”

Phil on his side quickly threw himself to the soil to avoid an explosion nearby, then quickly stood up to keep running in the direction of the ship — the only source of light that didn’t belong to fires from some of the buildings.

He saw a lot in the short amount of time he ran away from the hardware store: emergency services trying to help some people under the debris, some corpses and people mourning, as well some others trying to behead him that he managed to avoid; quickly running through a wall of dust he disappeared from the view of some people, giving enough time to hide and let the danger pass, to then keep moving around as fast as he could, without any clear thoughts than the urge of both running away from his friends and wife to keep them safe enough from all the chaos caused by the pirates and, second but not less important: save his friend (somehow).

No, he didn’t have a plan. Not even remotely.

No, he had no clue on how to save Chris and get close, nor any clue about anything except panic and fear.

At that point his mind was completely clogged, nearly reduced to some of the most basic human feelings and instincts: fear and survival.

Instinctively he moved forward when his guts demanded that, avoiding somebody with a stick that blew his cover and started to yell to bring attention to his spot to either other angry people or the space pirates, something that made him run away sideways from his path to the alien ship. Gunshots, close calls and a pirate with open arms landed right in front of him and quickly wrapped arms around him as he couldn’t react in time, feeling a crushing pressure on his entire upper torso as well the air starting to lack in his lungs.

That was until, among some weird alien language the grip managed to get released with a strong blow by one of the allies; despite of the pain, the growing confusion due to the lack of oxygen that went on for a few seconds and the sense of weakness, Phil kept moving away further into the chaos towards the spaceship until he had to hide somewhere again in order to recover his breath.

His vision blurred for a brief minute as well he nearly saw black due to all the stress his body was going through, breathing heavily as he wouldn’t stop sweating due to the crazy run done towards the alien ship as well due to adrenaline, still without an actual plan in mind —What kind of plan can I even make? —while the entire world was falling apart; he wanted to scream and shout but all of that despair was somewhere deep inside his chest buried underneath thick layers of anxiety. His body started to tremble, then tears dripped down his face feeling quite alone —In this situation, that’s for the best— and lost, hugging his legs like a child trying to calm down, breathe and maybe, think.

“Hello? Hello, hello?” It was the pirate leader again, a loud buzz deafened for a few seconds the entire city again, “Okay I think this thing is working. Alright so, Solarian, Solarian. Where are thou?” He couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and take a peek, seeing the big screen on again, “We’re waiting for you to bravely come. Ticking, is the clock—” He couldn’t help but cringe a bit with the… well, poetry? Rhyme attempt? In such a terrible moment? “Thou, your friend shalt pay the time to come.” He saw again the blue alien place a hand on Chris’s shoulder, but apparently, he grabbed it tight as his friend flinched with a muffled scream. “You have 60 minutes to appear, or we’ll kill everybody here!” The transmission cut off; he felt a growing void in his stomach.

Despite his uneasiness after the threat, and the fact the danger would grow more eventually, he swallowed hard all those things growing up inside, then kept going forward; right when they started to move, he felt someone pull him down hard, hearing voices behind him as well more people started to come; he didn’t understand what was going on until they all just flew away from his back without understanding how nor why, all he did was quickly run away then… why did he see an old friend standing right in front of everyone when he turned around? Whatever the case was, it gave him time to keep running and hide somewhere else.

On the other hand, going back with the Coldplay gang, Lara knocked down a pirate after intoxicating them with a spray right to their mouth, a strong hit on the head with an improved sledgehammer and a final blow from a laser gun given by Will.

It took them less than ten minutes to get their gear improved — as if they were in a video game, the sprays worked well enough to stun them for a moment, given by the apparent fact they underestimated their rudimentary weapons, the insecticides (as funny as it could sound) worked to weaken them enough, then knock them out and loot some of their stuff and weapons.

“What a bunch of sodding tossers!” Will exclaimed angrily and kicked one of the unconscious (?) pirates in anger after hearing the update from the captain, Lara quickly checked the fallen alien, as well as the others, “Any of them got disguising masks?”

“Nothing here.” Guy replied first, quickly scanning and fidgeting a random gadget before scrapping it.

“Neither here.” Jon replied as well, removing the strange device they wore on their left ear, “How does this thing work…?” He wondered lowly.

“Verdammt noch mal! (1)”, The woman shouted angrily, hitting the pirate on the chest, “Nothing on this one either!” She couldn’t help but give some other swearing in German quite outraged.

Going against the clock they kept moving around as they managed to beat more of the invaders in the look for the disguising masks (Jonny kept that curious gadget with him), naturally, everyone was becoming more aggressive, rampant and quite reckless when it came to fighting either against fellow humans or alien pirates, knowing they were completely against the clock to find get at least one mask, find Phil and make out a plan to save Chris.

They knew where their best friend was heading, the problem was where he was at that very same moment; all the chaos led to different directions to head to, which made things quite a lot more complicated than they should.

They were mostly alone as the allies, as much as they could see in the dark sporadic sparks of vivid colours, were going here and there trying to contain a part of the large army that didn’t seem to reach an end anytime soon, so the question quickly became: how long would they endure fighting like that? Many fell down, yet many others remained up, as well there was the pirate leader doing nothing along with some others while holding their blond friend hostage, showing how they’d beat him now and then onscreen to put more pressure on the manager.

For Will, a question lingered: why wouldn’t even there be a chance that the pirate leader released the lower-tier warriors to weaken the Solarians, then proceed to release his stronger subordinates? He couldn’t help but frown with a low growl of annoyance, feeling his head pounding as he checked on another body for a mask to snatch without any success. Was there a chance they also foresaw a possible liability with the use of the disguising masks? His frown deepened grimly in the dark, half of his head exposed by a small fire near them as he held a dead pirate by the neck.

“Shit!” He mumbled, “We need to keep moving and use the time the allies are trying to give to us!” The drummer commanded, “Keep looking for the masks are making us lose time, we’ve wasted nearly ten minutes way too fast, and at this rate, they might find Phil faster than us.” Guy and Lara got ready their gear to keep fighting, this time, the bassist had this techno-axe-like weapon while the angry German woman spun her sledgehammer, “Phil must be somewhere around him and—” His attention diverted to Jon, who wasn’t paying attention, “—Jon, what in the actual fuck are you doing?”

The other two turned at the guitarist, who was fidgeting with the gadget that all of those pirates wore on their left ear that had that piece of coloured glass attached on their left eye; none of them still knew what it was for, yet it seemed quite important. They didn’t know how, but apparently, he was attaching it to his ear by how he was toying with it.

“I want to understand how this works,” Replied, he could hear a faint cranking sound of something getting adjusted, as well as the soft, cushioned inside pressed gently around his ear, “Oi, I think I made it!”

“Jon…” Guy was about to say.

The guitarist pressed a button on the gadget thing and it turned on, starting to beep with some symbols and numbers showing on the screen that seemed to be like a scanner or a scouter. As soon as he placed its view on Will, it quickly analysed him in the dark, surrounding his body with shapes as well as a circle was on him, that then detached to some numbers that were in an unknown language, and underneath showed what he intuited was his heart rate. As soon as he used it far away, to somewhere he didn’t see anybody, the scouter detected all the people moving as the data showed in that lens…

Then he started to hit a realization.

“This is some sort of scouter,” He said softly, “I don’t understand what the numbers are for but it can detect people.” His friends winced a bit in surprise, “It doesn’t show anything specific — I mean, it shows you where are people hiding, but it’s only their shapes, and I think that…”

“They haven’t been able to spot Phil for that reason!” Guy quickly exclaimed in a eureka moment, “But… most people are moving oppositely from the ship, right?” He asked, Jon quickly started to scan the area.

“Sort of, others are moving towards the ship, maybe search parties either to find and save more survivors—"

“—Or capture or kill Philly…” Lara added with a gloomy stance, then held her sledgehammer tight, then stole as well from one of the fallen pirates one of their scouters, struggling a bit to get it in place, “Worauf wartet ihr alle?! Lasst uns Phil jetzt finden! (2)”

The other two remaining friends quickly stole scouters too, having help to get it back in place at the same time, Ginyū announced throughout the speakers that Phil had 20 minutes to give up before they proceeded to wipe out the city (then, the rest of the planet). The four quickly started to scan their surroundings in search of this sole living being moving towards the ship, being that the very same direction they headed to.

Effectively, Phil stopped somewhere not too far from the spaceship, hiding inside a building after avoiding as many people as possible — his heart racing against his chest faster than ever to the point he felt about to throw up several times, which didn’t happen (happily). From wherever he was, he had a clear view from the top of the ship where Ginyū stood; the captain walked from side to side while Chris remained on his knees facing down, with the tall, blue-skinned pirate keeping guard on him.

“What am I even supposed to do?” He wondered lowly.

Nothing about the situation had any guarantee that things were going to turn out mildly alright, neither the possibility of saving Chris either alone or with the help of the allies nor his release in exchange for himself. He wanted a prismatic to get a better view now the giant holo-screen was turned off, as well as he tried to spot an alternative entrance with bare eyes without success; at the same time, of course, a lot of other negative feelings piled up quickly the more he didn’t find anywhere to sneak in, feelings that he didn’t feel had time to properly address due the stress of the situation.

The more he tried to make some sense of the cosmic mayhem brought to Earth, to their simple and rudimentary forms of life, the less sense things made, to the point he knew (bitterly, in his honest opinion) he was against the ropes, waiting for some miracle to happen — even if that meant magically waking up from that nightmare and find out it was all this crazy fever dream that attacked before the end of the tour. Wake up from a nightmare within a dream, find himself in Buenos Aires waiting for the last show (or probably, having fallen ill after ending the last show) surrounded by his friends in a hospital expecting to recover soon.

Yet he knew that wouldn’t happen.

He laid low again and tried to recover his senses to think about anything else that might help without really caring about the consequences later; deep down his guts knew there was a lot more to come anytime soon, most likely for the worse if things kept dragging on, and it was just matter of time until it all went out of control from what the Solarians could handle.

Oh, his thoughts about the Solarians were completely mixed up to the point it all turned out to be a lot more confusing than what he could process, torn between sympathy and rage; he lived their story throughout his dreams (from the point of view of somebody else, somehow) before their arrival to Earth so he didn’t blame them for being wanted, on the other hand he assumed it was normal to feel mad for not having any approach from them since the very beginning (Chris’ little secrets only added some fire to the volcano), even after two murder attempts.

Still, if none of that madness that was wildly swirling around them fell on him, there was no way he’d know how to react to their presence (in general); they owed their side of the story since they first showed up, now they were all going blind throughout a tunnel and that was infuriating! He clenched his fist tight just thinking how maybe the so-awaited story could’ve shed a light in the dark —Why couldn’t you just stood with us after the second time?!—, or maybe not —Why is all of this is even happening?!—, maybe he was expecting too much of a situation without another exit than endure the situation long enough.

*POW*

He threw a strong blow to somebody’s face as soon as he felt contact on his shoulder, then heard a groan of pain that came from a person — Guy, to be more precise. Phil froze at first as the bassist stood back up holding his face with a hand —“Ouch?!”— with some help of Jon, then get attacked by some German swearing accompanied by a tight hug from Lara as he kept trying to process what was going on. He did have a hard time trying to process the situation as he saw them armed with alien gear in such a short amount of time, feeling his head clucked.

“No, lads you need to find a safe—”

“There won’t be a safe place anymore if this keeps rolling on.” Will quickly interrupted stoic and firm, “Don’t even try to tell us to leave you behind, because that’s not happening.”

The manager opened his mouth to speak, yet the only thing that came out of his mouth was a soft huff as his back sledge against a wall notoriously drained while covering his face. His friends approached him to comfort him, yet a voice cracked the air again: “Filthy, lower scums! You have 30 minutes before we riot!”

“I wish I could break his stupid face!” They heard their manager groan loudly, “I hate that bloody cunt with my life! I’m so done with this shi—!” Lara quickly covered his mouth when they heard steps around, right when he was raising his voice, ducking and getting ready to fight in case they got heard. He shook his head a bit to take off his wife’s hand, then covered his face again. “I’m so done with this shit…”

“All of us are fed up with this crap, mate.” Will replied again, kneeling and placing a hand upon his shoulder, “But whether you like it or not, we’re here to cover your back.”

“Sie sind uns sehr wichtig... (3).” Lara said again, “That’s why we’re here right now.”

The manager felt a knot in his throat, with a something that wanted to get out yet couldn’t as much as he tried; then it was obvious he wanted to cry, yet neither tears nor a whimper came out, as if something was keeping these things inside no matter how much he tried — and well, to be fair there was no time for that just yet. All his friends gathered closer both to provide some sense of comfort as well to craft a plan — even if it would end up being dangerous and not having the right amount of time for something better, being the main source to get there; they now had some alien tech in hands, what they needed to figure out the most was how to reach the rooftop with their own devices.

That, at least was the plan as they didn’t realize somebody was getting closer and closer to their current location while avoiding view. The gang was pretty focused on the details without paying much attention of what could go wrong as they only had one shot to go before everything went down the drain, so, when they started to hear footsteps their first instinct was to keep themselves low and get ready to take down whoever was showing up.

The only thing they didn’t expect, was to see Purple there without his giant gauntlets (apparently), the dim light filtering from outside showed that part of his mask was cracked, yet not broken. And still, his presence didn’t make the Coldplay gang put down their weapons as none of them were sure if it could be a trap or not, so the alien raised his hands near the lights of the ship to show he meant no harm and showing human-like hands; Phil on his side felt a rush of blood to the head, in the need of throwing his hands straight to the collar of his uniform in rage, yet his body was numb for some reason.

Behind the purple-dressed alien, they saw a slightly taller silhouette getting closer, revealing to be Green with his mask in the same state as his companion, one quick glance at Purple was enough to make Green raise both hands as well with the same intention, to then do a sign of plead, then do some signs that they wanted to communicate to them.

“I don’t care if you can understand me or not.” Phil finally broke the silence; rage was felt in the air even if he kept his voice low as he held his fists tight, “You owe us a fucking answer!” He held his teeth tight to repress a loud yell, “You caused all this trouble with your problems, and now our planet, my friends and my family are in danger!” More than one felt sadness in the air, coming from the two beings from outer space, “Everything you had to do was talk to us instead of hiding away! You could’ve even approached to that fool of a Martin and tell him everything you’ve gone through lately and then he could’ve told us!” He was making an unholy effort not to snap badly right there and compromising their position, “Maybe things would’ve been different if just…”

“We… are… sorry…” All of them heard in a strange accent that was (most likely) struggling with the sentence, something that caught everyone’s attention towards Purple. “We… did not want… problems… and we want to help…”

This silence lasted a little less than half a minute, yet felt like an actual eternity due to the exchange of looks between everyone present, then passed the glance to Phil, and finally led it to Will, who sighed in response, holding the bridge of his nose for a brief moment and try to not lose his temper right behind his older brother.

“Alright, this turned out fairly awkward.” He mumbled, sharing another glance to his friends, then turned back to the pair of aliens. “You seem to understand what we say, right?” Both aliens nodded in response, “Then give us a hand to get up there, our moronic friend Chris is running out of time and we still need some closure to our rescue mission—.”

Tick tack! The clock is ticking!

More than one bit their lower lip or a finger in order to not start screaming out of rage and near despair, reaching this five-minute timeframe they had to overcome quickly before the captain decided to give the order to purge everyone and everything.

“I don’t know shit anymore.” Phil then said with his voice raspy and drained, “We’re running out of time to end this madness and I can’t stop feeling cornered like an animal by everyone—” Something felt bitter in the throat of his friends and wife, feeling that he wasn’t just talking about the aliens, “—I cannot find sense to anything that’s happened, it’s just pure and utter mayhem and I feel there’s no exit to this, no matter what we try… it feels like a dead end.”

His friends, of course, tried to reassure him as much as that last thing he said was a general feeling at that point; they also knew Phil was sort of holding his paranoia to not run away both out of fear and distrust, something they tried to not point out for his own sake. None of them realized on the other hand, the two Solarians talked in a low voice, nor did they see when Green started to pat his body in search of something.

“You still have 15 minutes to give up!” They heard.

“Ugh…” The manager groaned again, “My head hurts so badly. I need an aspirin…”

No one kept paying attention to the two Solarians who were discussing in a low voice in their native language while the others were searching for some medicine either in pockets or somewhere around their current location (a shame they didn’t hide in a pharmacy), something that brought another groan in annoyance.

They kept silent for a long minute when they heard someone wander outside, which became a clear sign of their need to start moving again anytime soon to a safer place (Jon already started to scan the area with his scouter, finding, in fact, some people near their area).

 Green by his side kept patting his body for another minute, until he finally took out a black box from a pocket that he opened and lent out to the gang; the person who took it by being closer was Guy, who had to squint his eyes to focus better on seeing what he had in hands before using the screen of his phone and see that it was a bunch of intracanal earbuds. The bassist raised an eyebrow a bit, then looked at the green-dressed alien who gestured him to put them in his ears; he obeyed, taking a close look at it, seeing that both sides had a power button he pressed, then placed them deep inside his ear.

“Can you understand me now?” He heard then, something that sort of scared him, turning quickly first at Jon, then at Green, “Do you understand what I say?” He just noticed the alien making gestures with the interpretation.

“Well, I think so?” Replied quite hesitant, turning back to Jay once again, who raised his eyebrow confused. “What is…?”

“Pass the translators to your friends.” Purple said then, Guy still felt in shock as he now turned to Will, “Please, and tell them they need it so we can communicate.”

Guy first opened his mouth to say something else, then quickly reached everyone’s attention to tell them they needed to wear the earbuds. At first, they were hesitant, but his insistence made them do it; one by one, they wore the small contraption in their ears.

“Alright, so, does everyone understand me now?” They heard Green now speaking English, something that surprised everyone as well as they all turned to Jon once again, “Alright, first of all, we’re sorry for bringing our shit from Solaris; second, I’ve been working on these translators for days after the first attack so you would understand us and we would be able to explain more properly what’s been going on.”

“This whole surprise attack, although, wasn’t within our plans.” Purple added, “At least not this soon. We were expecting it in a couple of days, actually.”

They got interrupted a bit by the captain, who announced they only had ten minutes left. Phil felt the headache worsen a lot more with stress to the point it started to pounce hard.

“Alright, enough!” The manager couldn’t help but massage his temples with pain, as well as trying to not snap even harder, “Before we absolutely derail from, you know, the actual issue upon us, do any of you have a plan to solve this madness?!”

It was a while since the last time the earth shook and quacked, the building threatened to fall entirely upon them as the sound of helicopters could be heard coming in the distance, as well as gunshots, a new wave of screams and something exploding, being a clear sign that things would start to escalate once again.

There was no way to explain how much it added to the guilty feeling of the manager.

Things though, didn’t end in anything else but a new wave of what possibly were the local military forces arriving to try to help without hope — not knowing the real danger of the situation. Oh no, the situation quickly escalated to hearing voices outside of what their translators helped to realize it was a bunch of pirates sending threats as well as laughs of mockery, which led the entire group to get ready to face anything at that point, minus the pair of aliens, hearing them discuss about something again yet they didn’t pay much attention.

Their current shelter started to shake and threatened to crumble, they all kept low trying to remain hidden the more it threatened to expose their current location; Jon kept looking around the area and realized there were still some pirates (he could tell because the lectures came from the sky and some places above them), hard to say if humans were around too; they had no more time to do anything else other than stay there hidden, switching places would only make them lose critical time, either that or start to execute the plan.

The sound of chaos outside, though, forbade them to hear anyone approach yet didn’t escape from Jon’s radar at that point, making signs to his friends to get ready to fight at the same time, Green started to look out for something around his pockets along Purple, something everyone decided to ignore due priorities.

“My brother in Sha, please don’t tell me you didn’t bring the teleporters Jaeon!” They heard Purple exclaim quite angrily, pressing his fists to make his gauntlets pop out of nowhere.

“I did! I’m 100% sure I did Wielt!” Green (or now, Jaeon), replied still looking frantic around his pockets, “It was the first thing I got ready!”

“Alright, then I’ll change my question: do you have any teleporters left?!”

The earth shook once more, now part of a wall fell, which left them a lot more exposed to a group of humans and a small bunch of pirates that were still there, ready to shoot all at the same time and take out a collective, muttered “Fuck” out of them; everyone got their weapons ready while the green-dressed alien opened his jacket to pull hands inside, seeing the group now going directly against them.

“Finally!” He exclaimed out loud, raising a small ball that started to have a pale blue glow around, “See you later—” The gang heard what seemed to be a bloody swear because that part didn’t get translated.

Right before their shelter got destroyed by shots and blasts from both sides and all of them together in the same place, Jaeon (or Green) threw the ball against the ground and it basically acted similarly to a smoke bomb: it exploded, but instead of throwing smoke, it surrounded them in that pale blue colour that intensified, then they disappeared from view.

By the time the gang realized, all of them were located somewhere in the outskirts of the forests, sort of far from the mayhem, seeing amidst the darkness pillars of smoke rising to the skies, as well as helicopters flying in that direction that didn’t take long to fall.

*Barf!*

None said a thing until they heard Phil throwing his guts out (metaphorically); the violence his body was retching made clear that everything he felt was coming out from the deepest depths of his being, already physically and mentally unable to handle the apocalypse anymore. He threw once in anger, twice in despair and a third time in spite of himself, without caring if the events were the result of an unexpected ricochet effect where he consciously knew he had nothing to do, nor his friends, nor anybody else in that planet that was a human being. His friends tried to contain some of the pain, his rampaging emotions and everything else, but at that point, all he wanted was to give up to the enemy for the sake of his loved ones.

He cried out loud, letting all of that sorrow that built up since the very first encounter pour out of his system in an attempt to find a light in the middle of the dark, wanting to wake up from that nightmare-ish fever dream that was and felt far too real, wanting to wake up and see that they were still in Buenos Aires about to end the tour without all the unhinged alien plotline going on.

Better said, the plotline where a bunch of asshats decided to pick on him for the sake of it.

His friends of course were trying hard to reassure him whatever they could to not let him lose hope entirely, even less when they heard the echoes in the distance on how there were only five minutes left before the whole issue escalated to the rest of the planet. None of them, sadly, knew what to say after that. And to be fair, what could even be said in such a hideous situation where every road taken led to nowhere but a dead end?

Nothing.

Everything, then, they could do was be there for him before the end of the world; starting to feel the pain of not being there with their families to at least try to protect them from what was a secure death in the hands of the alien pirates, and it felt like everything was too late to be done at that point, with no other exit than death itself.

“Oi, are y’all done already with all the self-pity?” They heard Purple call them out.

Will genuinely couldn’t help but build himself up, looking notoriously mad for the interruption, at that point he wasn’t up to take anything else from anyone, without caring what could happen next. Even if they just helped them to get away from the danger, that fact didn’t take away that he was still rightfully mad by everything they’ve brought to their planet, even if these things were brought by accident.

“I really can’t give less than a toss that you’re stronger than me, but I’ll blow up your bloody face if you won’t help us!” That was one of those rare cases where Will would truly show he was mad, as he was often tame at that, with passive-aggressive comments and sarcasm, but now he was full-blown in rage. “We have enough of this too, this whole alien insanity is driving us absolutely bananas already, and we had a plan to end this shit without your help! Please leave us alone if you’re not going to provide anything else!”

The two allies looked at each other, seeing the drummer tearing up a bit but wiping it away; his friends placed a hand on his shoulder to show their support.

“So, you don’t want to hear our plan?” Green asked, although, his question was genuine.

The entire group turned at them, even Phil whose eyes were in bloodshot due the tears as well as looking really pale to the point anyone would’ve said he was a spectre. Purple raised his gauntlet, and at the top of it, showed a holographic screen that had a map of the current state of the city, with the details both in Solarian language and human English.

That was the sign to gather up.

“Alright fellas, here’s what we’re gonna do."

Chapter Text

The colors conflicted, as the flames climbed into the clouds
I wanted to fix this, but couldn’t stop from tearing it down,
And you were there at the turn, caught in the burning glow…

Burn it Down — Linkin Park

.

At the top of the ship looming ominously unharmed upon all of the chaotic mess, Chris laid low lost in thoughts, with his eyes fixated somewhere on the rooftop trying to find shelter away from all the horrors that were happening around him, to flee away from the sound of screams, gunshots and the nasty smell of dread soaring to the skies, as well the haunting smell of smoke and dust; he already tried to retreat his soul to Coloratura by closing his eyes and try to drift away, wanting to alert Blitz about the sudden issue and maybe, get some sense of safety.

Yet he was unable to.

As much as he tried to isolate his mind from both thoughts and external stimulus while closing his eyes several times, the whole situation managed to crawl back and find how to overwhelm his senses more than before. Each time he was about to reach the state of transition between reality and the Twelve Realms, some of the sounds of the battleground would throw him out of it, if not the Captain announcing how humanity had even less and less time to get Phil’s head on a silver plate — as well as sending orders here and there to his lackeys, or the blue-skinned alien that acted as his bouncer attempting to crush him every now and then.

It wasn’t the first time he couldn’t help but let out tears stream down his cheeks, with so many feelings about to explode inside his heart, not knowing when everything went south, nor how these pirate wankers arrived undetected or how they managed to sneak out of his radar. He had several many questions that easily took away most part of his peace of mind; how were they hiding in the woods? When did they arrive? Were they waiting any mistake from their behalf? Making more plans on how to reach Phil until they caught him?

He never expected the sudden encounter in the forest when he reached the furthest spot across the mountains he could by feet, even less being tired enough to lose against his current warder, who moved like a lightning like the red-skinned man from two nights ago; he could see his movements during the fight, he saw every single punch and kick during their brawl, but his reflexes weren’t as fast as his view, and if there was one reason to have remained alive, was because of the intervention of the Captain.

“Ah, gotta love the smell of death around!” He heard Ginyū say, he didn’t move nor flinch, nor wimp, remaining deadpanned. “Such a satisfying essence at night, like some fine wine.” A thought that briefly flashed across his mind was the surprise of now knowing wine existed outside Earth. “Speaking of which, after rioting this planet, we’ll take all we can.”

The mention of the planetary wipe out made his eyes open widely, and as much as he tried to keep his fear as low as possible, the way his breathing changed its pattern was enough to reach their attention, having the captain grab the root of his hair to lift up his view.

“I must admit you’re quite a surprising being, human.” The captain spoke softly, pulling his hair tighter to the point he flinched, “You managed to defeat some of my best soldiers, and even my second in command, Jeice, by what we got that night.” He released the grip, Chris felt his body about to fall due the tiredness and before it could even tilt, the purple-skinned alien wrapped an arm around his neck and grabbed his jawline, pressing his fingers tight to make him look to the battleground, “Don’t you see your own potential?” His mind suddenly didn’t understand, “Don’t you see you have the power over these inferior beings? The potential to take what you want, whenever you want.”

Among all the tears that were coming out of his eyes due the pain, Chris tried to understand what was the pirate trying to tell him, unable to do it without feeling confused. Was that an offer to join them after all the stunts they pulled them through? Why would he want to become part of a group of merciless murderers like them, the ones who targeted Phil despite his evident innocence? The way he tried to flatter his abilities, the way he tried to sweeten his voice and stuff made him feel pure and utter disgust from the deepest dept of his own self; maybe in another time with the right people, he’d be flattered to be acknowledged, perhaps accepted to refine his abilities properly with physical beings.

Yeah, he knew about his abilities, he knew he could have the power to put the planet on his feet if he was constant with his training to finally achieve peace by taking down all those barriers that kept humanity away from stopping wars and contamination; of course, he knew these things, about his growing ability to keep becoming stronger to reach that specific goal. But it was never about that, it was all about protecting his friends, his loved ones from any danger (like the pirates) that he started to push his limits to the max and break it to keep on forward…

But the pirate not only made him feel disgusted about this, he was deeply offended too.

Bam!

Did he really believe some nice words and a little stroke to his aspirations would change his side like nothing serious was going on?

Confusion arose when he gave this quite strong headbutt with the back of his head straight to the Captain’s face — mostly hitting his nose, who didn’t expect such kind of sudden reaction; it was just a mere second where the shock made him release Chris, yet it was enough for him to get away from his grip by rolling away. Even after spending a good while on his knees, the sudden rush of adrenaline was enough to help him stand back up, but nearly falling due the lack of arms; his body quickly moved automatically when the blue alien started to attack him, while his superior held his face trying to stop a nosebleed, groaning in pain and anger as he realized he underestimated the human.

Even without his arms that supposed a huge handicap, Chris managed to keep a track of every movement and dodge —At least he’s not nearly as fast as Blitz— a good majority of the attacks, allowing hits to the elbows at most, then send kicks back, while trying to think fast how to get away from that mess. His former captor spun a kick from the left against him that he blocked with his right leg, then with a quick movement he spun his body and sent a back kick to his face, which was blocked with an arm, and then another quick movement, and the alien missed Chris’s other leg against his skull, hitting him hard enough to headbutt against the ship’s ceiling and thus, break his scouter right away; he didn’t end there, using the back of his head to gain some impulse and take distance away while the other pirates stood in disbelief.

“Hmm?!”

POW!

He quickly blocked with one of his legs a punch of one soldier, who he quickly dismissed by hitting his punch with a knee and another kick, then did a backflip to avoid a different one, to then act in autopilot against several different soldiers that wanted his head on the spot, moving back and forth, left and right and up and down. His body basically danced along the many soldiers against him, managing to dodge, block and attack with his legs, and the more people arriving, the more intense and chaotic the dance became — to the point they’d end up hitting each other.

It was so chaotic to the point one of them accidentally released the wires around his arms.

“You useless idiots!” The captain shouted at the top of his lungs with pure and utter anger, gripping his fists so hard that his nails nearly caused bleeding against his palms, “Alright, fuck it!”

Like an angry cat, Ginyū charged against his prisoner on the loose, who quickly managed to avoid (by inches) a blow straight to his face, as well as more attempts of hits now he was (mostly) free; yet in his current condition (majorly worn out) he had the lower hand as his energies wouldn’t last too long, so it was imperative run away and hide somehow, and of course, remove that goo out of his mouth.

A punch to his face blocked by his now-freed arm that quickly was returned with an ascendant kick that was stopped by the captain’s arm against his knee, who also quickly pulled it down, then abruptly shoved his arm to break his defence and try to hit him again with the other arm with an uppercut that the frontman dodged by very little and forced him to take distance with a leap back, yet as soon as his foot touched the metallic surface of the ship, he nearly lost balance due the abrupt movement his body made to avoid his former bouncer against him —This is going to hurt in the morning…—, spinning in the air once before his body moved again to dodge the captain’s —Fuck damn it!— hammer attack.

Another leap back, the blue pirate managed to hit the lower part of his elbow in a sudden movement he couldn’t avoid that hurts like hell, yet took advantage of it to grab his wrist with the other hand and stun him with a powerful headbutt charged with energy to protect his forehead — the sound the impact made was one of a gun being shot, it was so hard that his bouncer’s forehead broke and started to bleed and made him take several steps back.

Shit! — Chris started to feel his body reaching a new limit as soon as his vision blurred for a single second, a second that costed him his newly reached freedom as the Captain took that very same moment to stun him with a new hit to his face that nearly sent him off the roof, then one, two, five pirates quickly got a painful grasp around his body, pressing his arms and shoulders as hard as possible, kicking his legs and pulling him back to his knees.

He tried to fight back —Fuck! No!—, to get lost from their painful grips —Let me go!—, trying to set himself free without avail, until his former bouncer wrapped arms around his tight to the point his bones nearly snapped.

Oh, and Ginyū was notoriously pissed.

“You’re so irritating!” He scoffed, placing his hand around his neck something that made the frontman start to tremble in fear, “I gave you one chance to live. You have potential, even much more than what I ever imagined,” The grip slowly became tighter, “You have that power to take and make the world vow to your feet, to rule it however you want!” Chris tried to open his mouth regardless of the goo upon his lips keeping him shut, staring straight to the Captain’s eyes, “But now, you blew your chance to survive—” If the frontman could speak, he of course would’ve vocalized his doubts about the truthfulness of that statement, “—and you and your friend wasted both my patience and time!” Tears started to drip out of his eyes with fear and sorrow, as oxygen lacked more and more due the strong grip around his neck, unable to turn away from these red eyes. “Now, make us a favour and die!”

The first time he thought he’d lose his life happened back in 2005 during a flight to Egypt, when the airplane had to land during a nasty sandstorm and the visibility was highly reduced for a safe landing, back then he feared he’d never see his family again — with Apple being nearly a year old; that one event was nowhere as appalling as the last events caused by the Pirates, neither close with his death match against Jeice, and definitely, not as bad as his current situation where the air lacked more and more, and his vision started to blurry.

He knew the Captain could just snap his neck and end it right away but, he seemed to enjoy his misery more than what he should’ve.

Each thought that passed right before his eyes lasted only a second, yet it was all livid: happy memories with family and friends, childhood memories, teenage memories, good times, bad times… it was all there, including the last set of events that led to that moment, pondering every wrong choice since the beginning of their livid nightmare. And even if these things took a second to sort out, in the uncertainty of his end there was something he realized: maybe it was all bound to happen, regardless of his choices.

And still…

I… am… so sorry… He thought with eyes barely open, glancing to the night sky, I’m so sorry… for running away… when you needed a friend…

Right when he thought he reached the end, the grip around his neck stopped and his head fell down, barely being able to breath due the snoot and the goo on his mouth, without being released by the pirates, trying to get as much air as possible through his stuffed, broken nose, seeing blurred shapes for another minute, hearing a brief, muffled commotion among the soldiers that he couldn’t catch due a painful ringing in his ears, then seeing three shapes: two of them seemed humanoid, so he inferred it were two pirates, the third one in-between both soldiers seemed more human, and when his vision managed to recover, he begin to whimper and squirm once he realized it was Phil.

Panic and fear arose again, and he had no forces to fight at that point.

“I’m here now.” The manager said with a stern voice, “Let my friend go, and leave this planet out of this feud.”

Ginyū glanced at him, then turned around to face Chris’s former bouncer, who was still holding the former tightly, and also raised a non-existent eyebrow. The Captain groaned, then turned to the manager pretty much irritated.

“Who do you think you—?!”

“Some sort of look-alike to whoever the fuck killed your god-damned lord!” Phil quickly spat with anger, clearly tired of the same accusation every single time. “I have nothing to do with the Solarians! And whatever the fuck you’ve all thought because of my moronic friend right there—!” He pointed at Chris, “—I don’t know either!” Regardless of whoever understood what he said or not, it was clear how angry he felt, and instinctively everyone took a step back.

“Alright—” The Captain tried to say.

“Shut the fuck up!” The manager interrupted again, “There’s been like dozens of different ways this entire nightmare-ish mess could’ve been sorted out! You can even compare my DNA with the Solarian DNA or whatever! Or, I don’t know, probably stopped for a fair minute to think that maybe, just maybe there could be a reason why I haven’t fought back yet?!” So much was pouring out of his system at that point, including pointing out such a blatantly obvious point.

“Well, I—” Oh no, once again he was interrupted

“Oh no! You zip it right there!” He yelled out angrily, “What other proof do you need to leave us alone?! Don’t you think that if I had powers just like everyone around you, I would’ve fought back? Come the sod on, the three, three soldiers that’s seen me unharmed haven’t seen me fight back! I would’ve been fighting all of you right now if I could but I’m not! I’m fully healthy, not all bruised and weakened!” The more he dwelled into it, the more his sanity faded, “What other proof is needed to stop this bloody madness and believe us?!”

No one realized how Ginyū’s face turned more purple due the not-so-good lighting with all the things Phil pointed out. The pirates by their side didn’t expect an argument, but a fight.

Chris by his side felt like about to pass out.

“Quit using your mental tricks you—”

“Filthy Solarian?” It was the umpteenth time he’s heard the same, especially in that night. “My brother in Christ, I would be speaking merely alien language if I was a Solarian!” The Captain opened his mouth, “Don’t even ask me how that idiot does—” He pointed at Chris, who took the insult yet with a slight flinch. Of course, he saw it coming but that didn’t mean it hurts less, “—because I didn’t even know he could until recently!”

The least expected outcome (mostly for the pirates, not so much for the frontman) became the argument between the manager against the captain for making his life a living hell for the past week, having everyone switching their view back and forth with confusion and interest about where things would turn out.

The conversation was nothing less than heated, with the manager releasing everything he had inside against the captain, shutting down every attempt of his to label him as the missing Solarian. The situation for the rest was bemusing — mostly for the pirate crew, as they never witnessed somebody arguing that way and with so much passion against their captain until that point, and Chris felt even more afraid of his life. Not because of them, but because he knew Phil would definetely not spare his life once he had to sit in front of Will, and possibly Lara as well, if they didn’t die first.

And things didn’t take long before escalating further up, with both sides staring to each other straight to their eyes with nothing but pure and utter despise, showing how none of them would back down at that point — understandably, though. The breaking point reached when Phil reached a new limit after arguing with a purple wall for the umpteenth time, now with his hair fully messed up, matching with his own rage, and nothing prepared all the presents for the manager throwing a punch right to Ginyū’s face.

Two things went down at the same time: one thing was the manager feeling that he punched a thick mass of steel due the intense pain that went up his entire right arm, then to his spine to the rest of his body, and the pain was such that he felt his other arm tickle up to his knuckles. The arm he used to blow the punch felt intensely weak, vibrating hard due the intense pain that brought numbness. On the other hand, though, Ginyū allowed himself to get punched in an already desperate attempt to “expose” him as the missing Solarian and have that final-say so the whole mess would finally have a reason to be… with the (very) expected fact that he didn’t feel anything at all.

The many years of fights and conquests allowed the captain a long range of thoughts pass through his mind in a span of a second while Phil’s knuckles were still against his face: Ginyū was shocked on not feeling the slightest speck of pain — not even soreness, it was more as if a kid hit him with a foam stick: it was soft, harmless, and that was it. His eyes darted everywhere as quick as possible, seeing all his subordinates expecting anything to happen; he couldn’t understand how he was in the wrong after all the investigation they did, after following the pod from the remains of Solaris, after losing track of it and find the rest of the stranded Solarians in that tiny, space rock he was at the moment.

Oh no, he couldn’t have committed such kind of mistake, right? It couldn’t be that these Solarian-like beings were telling the truth from the very beginning, which meant something that felt horrid to admit in every single way for someone as proud as him.

In his honest opinion, being in the wrong was worse than being dead.

After that second where all these things came to his mind at the same time, amongst the many stares from everybody — including the captive blond, he threw himself backwards as if that blow was the hardest one’s he’s ever received in his entire life, quickly being caught mid-air by some of his henchmen, including Chris’s bouncer, which allowed him freedom (finally).

From there three different things happened, all at once: one was the captain screaming to his crew ordering them to catch them after “proving” his point; the two pirates that brought Phil quickly unveiling themselves as Green and Blue charging against the group, and Chris quickly tackling down Phil, rolling on the rooftop a few times. Ginyū and the former bouncer were about to go against the duo, yet something that felt as a strong electric shock down their entire bodies pinned them down.

It was a mess, to say the least. Chris rolled upon Phil to avoid a new alien against them with a new rush of adrenaline pumping energy, managing to quickly kick them and pull his friend up, then throw a quick energy shot against some of them — yet still, they were more every time; from the corner of his eyes, he saw somebody charging against the group that made them pull away, he tried to take a better look on who it was —"Leave! Now!”— he heard a deep, male voice scream towards him. At this sign, he threw Phil off the rooftop and quickly hugged him mid-air, to then spin so his back would soften his friend’s fall.

The fall fell eternal for Phil, so much that he closed his eyes so he could maybe, just maybe not feel the pain and the (most likely) several broken bones he’d get; he couldn’t help but hug his friend either with his remaining arm, feeling even more tears down his eyes as everything reached a new point of no return, not knowing if it was the end of human race, and everything they knew…

He didn’t feel anything else; he didn’t know if his existence vanished like a lightbulb hitting the ground and shattering into smithereens, nor if he was actually dead or alive until he opened his eyes. Naturally his mind didn’t process what was going on as most of his surroundings was dark, and wondered for a moment if he, indeed was dead, somewhere in a limbo; or at least that was his major doubt until a sharp pain crossed his right arm when he tried to move it, it was the same arm he used to punch the captain, screaming in nothing but pure agony, driving his healthy arm to hold it as if it was about to fall.

Well, at least he knew now that he was alive, and along that, he realized he was upon something soft and warm — even with the pain he realized he was on top of Chris, which quickly made him focus his attention on him to try to wake him up.

Even with the darkness, he managed to focus a bit better to see that he still had some of that goo on his face, one he managed to remove with a rag made of his own clothes and some hard work as it was refusing to be removed.

“Chris, please wake up!” He repeated over and over again, ignoring the pain on his arm yet unable to ignore the anxiety growing up in his chest, “Goddammit, Chris! Wake up!” Even though they were quite afar from the battleground by what it seemed, he was scared that maybe they’d find them again, “Please, wake up now!”

*tap*

The hairs on the back of his head arose, sending a shiver down his spine that indicated something potentially dangerous right behind them. He was afraid of turning to the point he couldn’t help but tremble a bit, slowly, trying to find some strength, he slowly turned around, and his eyes opened wide as a new wave of fear arose: this fear was beyond his own comprehension, beyond anything he’s ever felt so far; it felt unknown and primitive, with his fight or flight response out of control to the point everything his body could do was freeze.

“You…” A low, almost inaudible whisper came out from in between his lips, “You can’t…”

This shorter being with grey skin that had a scary resemblance to that awful lord that started all the madness they went through, was standing several feet away from his current position. Even with the dim light of the moon, he managed to make out shapes of the unexpected newcomer, whose jewel-like parts of his body reflected the moonlight, and what looked like a halo above the head that reminiscent to an angel —Wait, what?—. Among the dim lights, he also made out a couple of blue eyes that owned a sharp look that even seemed threatening, and somehow, instinctively, his body moved into a defensive position.

“Get away from us!” He shouted terrified, as soon as he managed to open his mouth, “Get away from me!” It made no sense this being was back from the death itself. And he didn’t catch the genuine confusion in the newcomer.

Chris, on the other hand, started to regain conscious back, disoriented of course, but at least awake; he sat on the soil holding his head with a loud groan that brought attention to the two, and before Phil could say anything…

“Chris!” The newcomer screeched, rushing past Phil, who was even more confused and shocked about that, “Oh my bloody stars! Are you okay?!” The frontman couldn’t help but groan quite dizzy.

“Blitz…?” He replied still disoriented, “Is it you like, the actual, actual you?”

“Yes! It’s me! I’m right here with you!”

Why, how and since when did these two know each other? How was it possible? Chris didn’t realize at the moment how a new wave of negative feelings built up on his childhood friend.

“I… am I dead?” He heard him ask, then. “If you’re here, then…”

“No, you’re not dead, but you nearly did!” Phil finally snapped out of his trance, being beyond pissed at that point; so many things, so many emotions he hasn’t been able to correctly sort out with his childhood friend bursted out like a shaken soda bottle, “Christopher A.J. Martin, you owe us a bloody, sodding explanation of what in the actual flying fuck is with you!”

The frontman was silent for a moment, “I know…” He placed a hand on the newcomer’s wrist to stop any attempt to interrupt what was coming.

“I know you’re alive but I swear to God I want to murder you!” The manager shouted with nothing but justified rage, “My brother in Christ, you messed the absolute shit out of me and the others with this clusterfuck!” His voice didn’t take any long to crack down, the frontman had some help to stand back up without looking at his childhood friend. “Why couldn’t you just sit down and explain what in the actual fuck is going on with you?! I understand you were afraid, but in the moment when we needed answers the most, you ran away and hid like the Solarians! And then turns out you became a hostage for whatever reason and used you to get my head!” Chris didn’t retort, taking all the punches as he knew he was in the wrong. “We needed you! I needed you! And you left us to figure this shit out by ourselves instead of at least sitting with me—!”

He became a sobbing mess as soon as the frontman wrapped his arms into a tight hug, without being able to hold his own sobs either, feeling genuinely guilty for putting his friends down so much stress, uncertainty and pain, feeling that a part of his (little remaining) energies went on try to contain his older brother, repeating “I’m sorry” over and over again.

The newcomer only watched the scene in silence.

“I know I should’ve said something but… I was genuinely terrified to talk about all of this.” The frontman said with shame, his voice still cracked and trembling slightly. “It all overwhelmed me really bad and… I was afraid of all the questions that you all probably had,” He took a slight pause to breath and keep his ideas together, “I was afraid that none of you would believe me anymore if I said that I didn’t know what was going on either, I tried to figure out all by myself to come back with as many answers as possible, and then those wankers arrived and…” He trailed off for a few seconds, “This is all my fault—”

“Chris, we’ve discussed about this already.” The newcomer interrupted quite abruptly, Phil couldn’t help but turn at him, “This would’ve most likely happened regardless of your level of involvement in this clusterfuck, because of the Solarians being here.” Both friends were close to pass out now that the adrenaline wore off one more time — “Oh shit!”.

He quickly grabbed both, using both his hands and his long tail to help them sit down, Chris held his tail tight while Phil was helped to be sat down due his severely injured arm —“Can I check your arm?”— as soon as did so, his hand automatically moved and deflected a bunch of laser beams that made holes on trees and the earth and put Phil back on guard, yet with the frontman only stood back up using his friend’s tail (at that point, his legs were made of jelly), hearing a bunch of people coming out of the woods.

“At least… they’re alright…” Chris mumbled.

From among the darkness, four people emerged: Will, holding now a gun; Jon, holding a sniper riffle while wearing the earpiece on his eye; Guy, also with a gun, and Lara, who held an actual chainsaw, all of them aiming at the newcomer, who seemed unbothered about all of it.

“Wait!” Chris quickly jumped in front of them, nearly losing balance, “He’s by our side! I know him personally, and he is my friend!”

The air changed from tension to pure and utter awkwardness as they all pulled their weapons away, with all the stares being now upon the ashamed frontman.

“Oh Lord.” Will mumbled.

“Well, yeah… I know I owe an explanation and I’m sorry for taking too long — and an apocalypse to explain but, there’s some context that’s kind of hard to explain correctly without sounding as if I went totally and utterly nuts but, to make it short: fellas, this right here is Blizzard—” Phil genuinely felt about to pass out again, “—but you can call him Blitz.” The aforementioned peeked from the back of his friend and gave a cheeky smile while waving his hand.

Of course, Chris felt genuinely awkward and concerned by the complete and utter silence that fell among, occasionally broken by the mayhem in the distance…

And he was especially concerned because of the increasing rage coming from Will, whose silence said everything he needed to know.

“I really, really don’t know how, and why exactly I want to kill you!” The drummer muttered exasperated, to the point his head pounced. “What in the actual flying, goddamn, flipping fuck, Christopher?!” He now yelled, even the alien felt terrified, so much that he hid back behind his friend, who took a deep breath before giving his answer.

“This is pretty much why I couldn’t say anything before,” He replied, “Because there’s no easy way to explain it, but long short story is that Blitz is an old friend of mine, and he can take care of everything himself from here and on. He’s here because I asked him for backup so…”

The alien got out from behind him, clearing his throat a bit.

“As our stupid friend says—” Chris naturally felt offended, yet didn’t say anything while the others couldn’t help but chuckle, “—, this entire mess will be over soon. Just give me a few minutes to wipe these suckers out of this planet’s surface, and then we’ll have the talk you’ve been longing for!” Everyone turned at Chris.

“Trust him, he’s taught me everything you’ve seen me do so far…” He said confidently.

His friends at first didn’t really say a thing, then gave each other a look, and finally allowed the newcomer to go; Blitz was ecstatic —“I promise I won’t let you down guys!”—, and a quick yet perfect moment arrived for a showcase when a group of five pirates managed to find them. It only took a blink of an eye when (nearly) everyone only saw a flash of light after the newcomer raised a finger to their direction, then in the next second, the entire group fell lifeless with some steam coming out of their bodies, and only Chris saw the several many beams that attacked the group from every single direction In the blink of an eye.

And then, they felt hope…

Blitz exchanged another look to the group, looking very confident — even having this cheeky, excited grin on his face, the others started to cheer him up in response to “go to kick some butts” as hard as possible, and with that, he raised a thumb.

“Wait, Blitz!” He already left when Chris called him out, “You forgot to heal us…”

“Wait, he what?” Phil asked confused.

“He was going to heal us before the others arrived… and he forgot.”

He felt a slight shiver down his spine as soon as his senses got a catch on the awkwardness raising again, and among that awkward environment, he could feel Lara’s (yes, it was her now) threatening aura raising. He was afraid of turning around, and he could see a dark aura behind her even if her entire posture was calm — silent rage was something to never underestimate, even Will was afraid to the point all the rage that was about to explode was completely outmatched.

“You better explain yourself, Christopher.” She said in a stern, yet terrifying tone while getting closer to her husband. “Sonst wirst du sehen, wozu ich wirklich fähig bin... (1)...”

Everyone took a step back, except the frontman, whose feet were stuck on the earth. And Phil, because his wife was holding his healthy arm.

“Yeah, uh… I know I owe a huge explanation and stuff—”

“Ich hoffe, die Erklärung ist diesen Scheiß wert! (2)” If not because he was very dehydrated, tired and about to pass again, he would’ve probably wetted his trousers. The manager yelped when he felt her nails digging his skin, “Oh, I’m sorry Philly.”

“Alright,” Jon spoke. “We all agree we’re mad at Chris for not telling shit—” No one saw him blush due the darkness “—about whatever the fuck is happening, can we all give him a chance to explain himself briefly now that we’re all gathered here without having to deal with the wankers?”

Everyone didn’t do anything else but agree in unison.

“Alright, I’m sorry for being on the run for days.” Chris finally said, genuinely ashamed, “I know I owe everyone a huge explanation, like I told Phil already.” He took a slight pause.

“Of course you do, holy shit!” Will interrupted as Chris was pointing out the obvious, which got his nerves again, “I swear to God almighty that I seriously hate you, and I don’t even know why exactly!” They heard him groan loudly, “If I wasn’t so glad that both of you, and all of us are still alive, I would actually kill you with my own hands! FUCK! It’s even a miracle that we’ve made it this far!”

“I know.” As much as he wanted to apologize over and over again, he knew it wouldn’t be the best thing to do in his position. “Again, I know I owe a lot to all of you for all that’s been going on for days, but as I told to Phil, the truth is that I was afraid!” It’s not that he wanted to avoid things again, it was that they needed to hear him, “I didn’t have all the answers you all wanted and/or know, or how to explain these things without looking unhinged! And I was afraid too, because, believe me or not, all of this shit is as new as for you all!” He trailed off a bit, the others couldn’t help but look to each other with more questions. “I know I fucked up a lot these days, I know I fucked up way too much with my silence, and I admit that I was even trying to solve all of this myself.” He covered his face, feeling some tears coming out and his voice breaking apart, something he couldn’t hold. “You’re all fine if you’re still mad at me, that’s understandable… I’m just so sorry for letting all of you down…”

He tried hard to keep himself together, but all the rush of the day, his emotions and his tired body only allowed one thing: falling apart in quite desperate sobs to his knees, unable to hold it anymore. He felt so tired and done of the situation, but feeling his friends nearby, feeling the lights of the pirates fading away like candle flames in a span of a second and finally feeling that it all was reaching an end… there was no way to keep it together anymore.

And his friends started to finally, truly understand all that’s been going through their friend’s mysterious head. Yes, they were still mad. Yes, they would press for more answers later. And yes, Will desisted from punching his face, instead, he got closer and gave his (personal opinion, dramatic) friend a tight bear hug, being followed by the others on that notion that only brought a harder sob from their friend.

“Yeah… I’m sorry for the way I treated you in your room.” Will said, Chris lowered his sobs to hear him, “I know this is all partly my fault and… I was scared, too. Shaken by the first encounter, all these questions I had, the revelations of not being alone… and the ‘secret’? you.” There was a brief pause, sighing deeply and then continue: “I’m still mad, not going to lie, but I’m glad you’re still alive, moron.”

The frontman hugged him tighter in response as a sign of peace, something that was reciprocated by the drummer, with the others separating to give them their space for a minute. All the chaotic environment from before was fading away and deafening in the distance as a sign of the falling pirates, whose screams of fear and shock were audible for a little second before it vanished. They all felt how finally it was all reaching an end.

“You really called an exterminator, Martin.” Guy spoke with crossed arms.

“Kind of,” He replied with a groggy voice, cleaning his face with what was left of his clothes, “We’ve discussed about this a lot and, we were aware that an attack could be inevitable...” There was a pause, “The original idea was that… maybe we could’ve pretended that he was their Lord from Hell and dissuade them from keep going on with their bullshit, but…”

“They were earlier than expected.” Jon added.

“Yeah…” Chris replied, “Uh… he’s been pissed about all of what’s happening, because of their stubbornness and their evil intentions…” There was another pause, “In fact, none of us wanted to reach this point, but they’ve left no choice, sadly. Blitz is a mostly a non-confrontational and pacifist being, but this utter bullshit only pissed him off over and over and well, there you have him…” He sensed their many questions, but he was too tired to even think on replying. “Anyway, we should be heading back… our family must be sick worried about us…”

That last bit felt like a call to go back to normality, which for a brief moment felt something pretty odd considering the madness, but now? Yeah, they were desiring to see their loved ones, give them love and probably not leave their sides for about a year or so; that past week was nothing but a nightmare rollercoaster that was finally reaching the end of its tracks.

Jon helped his best friend to keep himself up, Chris was completely torn apart, yet somehow still alive and awake even after the breakdown, which ended draining whatever little he kept of energies. They’d probably figure how to find the Solarians later, after having some well-deserved rest and probably a couple of extra days to recover. In that moment everything they could think of, was to look out for an outpost to check around if there were any news about their families, so they started to walk back towards the city.

Except that Chris suddenly stopped Jon on tracks, with the former starting to follow something with his eyes quite frantically moving all over the place, to then separate from his friend and seem to be following something that moved around. Before anyone could give a proper question, they started to hear something coming towards their direction at top speed.

And before they could even react to that, something — someone crashed against the soil, bouncing a couple of times and then lay on their back nearly motionless. Jon turned on a lantern from his earpiece and reveal that the person was the captain himself, completely bruised and beaten down, barely breathing at that point. The group quickly got defensive, with weapons up in front of both the manager and frontman, with the former quickly feeling rage, and the latter looking shocked and confused.

“You piece of shit!” Phil shouted at the top of his lungs, “This is what you deserve for everything you’ve done!”

The captain didn’t reply, trying to at least sit down while shaking his head and coughing some blood.

“Indeed, you’re right.” They all heard from behind, seeing Blue slowly landing a few feet away from them, which made the group turn around — except for Chris, seeing his mask partially cracked, yet not broken. “This wicked being will be punished for all his sins…”

No one realized how Chris’ eyes were opening wide slowly as he caught something they didn’t yet, unable to not stare directly into the captain’s eyes.

“This is finally ending…” Lara said softly, gripping her husband’s hand tight. “Do you have anything else to tell him, Philly?” Everyone turned at the fallen captain, still ignoring the frontman, and with a purple light surrounded Blue’s extended hand.

The most that the manager could think about was how maybe, in a different time he’d be more merciful and forgiving, but after all the things the pirates forced him through, all that pain, consternation, uncertainty and fear only created a void where all he could feel was apathy and tiredness, besides, what else he could say? Forgiveness was not in his mind, nor anything else at all.

“Everything I feel I can say is… you should’ve dropped the act after I punched you.”

The next three seconds were probably the most confusing moment of his life so far, because out of a sudden, he first felt someone tackle his shoulder so hard that he thought it broke too, hitting his wife as well to a side, along a loud scream from who seemed to be the captain; second, he heard a loud thud at the same time he held his wife’s hand, and last, well… it was an even confusing moment when they realized a second body on the ground with a giant, diagonal slice on the back that bled non-stop, and it took a few extra seconds to finally start to process who it was.

“Chris…?” The manager said, getting closer to his friend, in shock and denial. “Chris, what…?”

The captain clenched his fists hard in anger, hitting the soil on his knees.

“You bloody, killer theft!” He exclaimed towards Blue, barely managing to stand back up, the group didn’t realize yet that he was speaking through the translators, “How dare you to use my body to kill innocent people?!”

The group had a really hard time trying to process the bombshell thrown at them, being already completely clogged with their agonizing friend, trying to aid him however they could, even using their clothes to try to stop the bleeding as much as possible.

“Tsk!” The alien that looked like Blue spat, “Finally got part of the trash out.”

Phil’s ears disconnected from his brain and nearly everything around as he held his friend’s hand between his, expecting to feel his usually warm presence as a miracle, but instead, his skin was feeling cold, the smell of blood was quickly becoming thicker to the point it was the only thing he could catch — “Chris? Please come back…—. All that guilt came back, but worse — “Chris, please… don’t do this to me now…”

It all had to be a nightmare, right? It couldn’t be one of those cliché movie scenes where one of the characters died right after finally reuniting with their loved ones.

It all had to be just a wicked, twisted nightmare he still needed to wake up from, right?

Nothing but a twisted, hideous nightmare…

He shook his head to keep that memory away, it wasn’t the time, it wasn’t the…

You know…? If it’s a matter of life and death… I’d take a bullet for my loved ones…

And then, he saw a couple of dull blues after Jon’s flash of light laid on his face.

Phil felt his entire world crumbling down…

And finally, everyone who was paying attention to their surroundings could hear a broken scream of nothing but pure pain and anguish.