Chapter Text
Faint winds blew through the empty valley, the long and soft grasses of the field swaying ever so gently with the breeze. The water crashing against the rocky cliffs and the distant sounds of the city created a peaceful ambience, a natural lullaby strong enough to make his eyelids threaten to close. Chosen had been sitting at the cliffside for a while now, reflecting on the past as the presence of their former friend’s spirit lingered around the scattered rocks. Their hands grabbed at the blades of grass underneath them, prickly and itchy but not unbearable; uneven and concave from the laser blast that ripped through the pasture all that time ago.
Ever since the showdown—that was what Second and their friends named the incident—Chosen couldn’t bear to face those meadows, see the faraway forests and that distant horizon without thinking about their friend waiting for them. There wasn’t much they could do after becoming an accomplice to terrorism, and being able to move on would’ve been better had Dark been alive. Part of him regretted acting on his doubts; maybe if he kept how he felt to himself, his partner would have still been here, and life would have more vibrant colors. But now, everything seemed a little duller, more mundane. It felt all the same, and he thrived on change.
Perhaps it was out of denial, but Chosen couldn’t sit around and wait for Dark to come crawling back—they needed to find him.
He stretched, and Chosen stood from his seat. Crouching ever so slightly, flames erupted from the soles of his feet and the palms of their hands, and they thought of where to visit first.
“I want this whole building cleared of anything valuable. Computers, random gadgets—whatever you can get your hands on.”
Guards and soldiers swarmed the building, rifles loaded with ammunition propped closely to their chest as they flooded in. Every step seemed perfectly synchronized as they all rushed inside, and after the squads were finished sprinting inside, Victim took a cautionary step into the residence. Their arms rested at their side, hands balled into fists as they studied their surroundings, and four mercenaries trailed behind them with their own weapons.
After seeing news reports of a recent power struggle between two infamous stick overlords, more and more opportunities to learn more about how to harness such abilities presented themselves, and Victim was eager to capitalize. An animator’s tools were already being displayed as trophies on the walls of their office, but what was a pencil and an eraser to pyrokinesis? Besides, there was much research to be done—for a society so preoccupied with the existence of godlike stick figures, no one bothered to look more into just how powerful they really were.
When a few of the teams reported back to Victim with no signs of people, they decided to do their own investigation. They wandered the residence, glancing at some of the strewn out papers and random technology lying about as soldiers began to guard the door. Motherboards and wires were all over the floor, schematics creased and half-hidden under desks and chairs, and Victim curiously picked up what seemed to be blueprints of... a person?
Victim hummed. What kind of diagrams are these?
Mildly intrigued, Victim set the illustration down and loitered around the same room for a minute, analyzing the scrawls and scribbles on the papers pinned to the wall, all connected with red string like a scene out of a detective movie. While Victim wasn’t quite sure of what it all meant, they figured with enough clues they’d understand, and so they took a notepad lying on a nearby desk and sketched it out. There was so much to explore, so much to learn and take notes of—Victim took a moment to take it all in, the sheer amount of information all hidden away here.
If this one building stored this much info, how much was kept secret in all those other uninvestigated houses?
As Victim finished sketching it out, one of the mercenaries tapped them on the shoulder. “Ballista found something,” they mumbled to Victim, and Victim shut the notepad with one hand.
Victim followed the agent through a hallway, and eventually came to a spherical room with various technologies and machinery even they’d never seen before despite working in a top secret facility with high-end equipment. The tile was cool underneath their feet, the lights in the room dim but still clearly white aside from a computer with a black background and bright lime text. Upon further inspection, Victim saw it was a coding program left open with some kind of prompt on the screen asking to start a program.
At first they were tempted to hit “Y” on the keyboard, but realized that there was more behind the screen than this computer was letting on. Seeing it was just a console window, Victim minimized it, and their eyes widened when they saw all the files and other documents on the desktop. A slight smirk spread across Victim’s face.
Now this is something I can work with.
Reaching into their pocket, Victim pulled out a flash drive with a rocket logo on it, finding an HDMI port somewhere on the PC and plugging it into place. The moment they saw the pop-up window of a new device being added to the desktop, Victim started transferring whatever files they could find onto the flash drive. One after one, folders were cleared from the desktop screen, and the storage on the flash drive was being filled quickly. One particular project was taking a while to fully export onto the flash drive, and so Victim waited for it to finish.
Halfway through this long, arduous process, Victim’s earpiece went off, blasting static into their ear drums as they waited for all the files to finish moving from the computer to the flash drive. “Jesus!”
They winced at the sudden sound, nearly ripping the device from out of their ear when they noticed that all the others in the room were alert. The soldiers were starting to reach for their weapons, they ordered four of the guards to investigate the thundering outside while they checked the communication logs.
As the four took their rifles and stepped out of the room, Victim put two fingers to their ear piece and spoke in a low voice, “Team one? What’s happening out there?”
There were a few crackles from the other line, but they couldn’t make it out.
After more silence, Victim spoke again. “Hello? What’s going—”
Shouting and gunfire erupted from the hallway, the sound of bodies hitting the floor following suit. Everyone in the room turned to the long and ominous corridor, seeing the silhouettes of two stick figures cast as a shadow on the wall. Victim gasped as they watched the silhouettes move—one was holding the other by what seemed to be the neck and slammed them against the wall, a thud accompanying the visuals soon after. They didn’t stick around to see what happened next, immediately rushing to the computer to yank out the flash drive despite the transfer not finishing.
Apparently they’d missed something important, because when they looked up, the room suddenly grew quiet; a deafening, eerie silence that made Victim’s muscles tense, and a mutual dread hung over the agents’ shoulders. Anticipating any further movement in the hall, they all waited with bated breath, the trigger fingers of some shaking over the grip, ready to fire at any given moment.
It wasn’t safe to go out now.
They were cornered.
Victim tried to take a deep breath. They’ve never been out of their office. This was their first real conflict, and for the first time in a long time, they felt genuine fear.
A soldier hollered, and everyone whipped around to see one of the guards being flung out of the corridor and into the curved wall.
It felt like the entire room shook. Victim flinched at the sudden impact and took everything they needed, ready to bail and expecting the other soldiers in the room to follow them out. They looked back as they ran—why wasn’t anyone going with them?
Foolishly, Victim turned around and skidded to a halt when he saw someone in front of him. It didn’t take long to recognize who it was standing mere inches away from their face, and they yelped as fire emerged from their hand.
Victim swore they could see a glimpse of pointed canines when the fire burst.
“It’s the Chosen One!” they screamed, rushing back to the mercenaries for protection. The agents tending to the injured guard perked up at the realization and split off—some abandoned the medical assistance in favor of fighting—and, without thinking, began shooting at the hallway.
A wall of ice burst from the floor, blocking the doorway out of the hall and the subsequent fire. The wall glitched out of existence, and in those brief lapses of time where it vanished completely, they could all see Chosen with balled fists and a fiery look in his eyes. The ice wall fell, and he charged forward.
You better be afraid.
They continued to use their rifles, proving useless as Chosen dodged and weaved between every bullet. They charged their fist and threw a hook at one of the agents, hitting them straight in the jaw as at least four others rushed to apprehend them. A ring of fire erupted around them, driving away the guards, dropping the moment they stopped. Chosen crouched to the floor with one leg out, knocking the four over and taking back the one he punched before to ram them into the wall.
The soldier struggled to breathe as Chosen pressed their forearm into their throat, a form of energy harboring behind their eyes as they watched the troop squirm and felt them weakly scratch at their arm.
Almost like a wild animal, Chosen saw the red tracers of more rifles and whipped their head around instantaneously, dropping the person he was choking out and dashing toward the mercenaries. Victim could almost hear him growl as he tried to claw his way through the four agents protecting him, almost like he was after them specifically.
They could all see a laser begin to charge in their pupils and, with quick thinking, Paleo shoved Chosen’s head away from Victim as their laser vision burned a hole in the ceiling. Some of the lights flickered as the ceiling threatened to crumble in on itself, and Chosen stopped to headbutt one of the mercenaries. They fell to the floor and groaned in pain, and the moment there was an opening, Chosen lunged toward Victim with a snarl.
“Get out!”
Victim shrieked as Chosen’s mouth began to open, sharp teeth ready to gnaw at their arm. Luckily, someone pulled Victim away just in time and ushered them out of the room. There was a loud chomping sound right before they tugged Victim away, and Chosen turned to see everyone leaving.
As the agents fled, Chosen’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t enough to see them run—they could come back after all this was over. He needed to drive them away, let them know that this was his property now.
Chosen began sprinting down the hallway, forcing the group to hurry even more. Victim, in the midst of their running, ordered every guard outside for a full retreat, and suddenly the crowd in front of Chosen got a whole lot bigger. He crashed into a wall as the agents turned a corner, slowing him down as the others got out. Rubbing his arm, Chosen ran out of the laboratory, and saw as there was a whole crowd now aiming their weapons at him, as well as an attack helicopter lowering itself to the floor.
“You shouldn’t be here, you know.”
The soldiers parted to let Victim pass, and Chosen let them walk right to him.
“This entire forest is the Rocket Corporation's territory. What are you trying to hide, Chosen One—?”
As Victim got right in his face, they got socked in the jaw. Seeing Victim fall to the floor and rub their lower jaw with a groan, the troops all opened fire, and walls of ice blocked their bullets. Victim looked up to see Chosen walking toward them with a ball of flames in their hand, and the moment Victim felt the cold touch their back, they knew they had nowhere left to run.
Chosen raised their arm, the fire intensifying in their palms, when a ladder fell between the two. Victim rushed to grab it and Victim ascended, the helicopter from before making its departure. The ice walls fell, and the soldiers that surrounded them were running away.
He was tempted to let them flee.
With fire, Chosen propelled themselves into the air, charging up the lasers in their eyes and aiming toward the escaping helicopter. A hole was burned through the metal, and Chosen watched in fury as it began to spiral out of the air and somewhere into the faraway forest. Descending, Chosen dropped to their knees with a huff, resting their palms on the floor and feeling the cold grass from underneath them.
I need to clean up this mess.
Shaking their head, Chosen stood up and went back inside, going back through the corridor and stepping into the curved room from before. It was all a mess; debris and bodies everywhere, severed wires still sparking. That wasn’t the main concern though—the only thing Chosen was worried about was the computer, about all the information that was stolen from it. Chosen rushed to the PC, searching for and despairing over missing files and folders. Their eyes threatened to water and Chosen wiped any tears away, slamming the desk.
“ Damnit! ”
The entire monitor and PC rattled on the table, and Chosen watched as the display flickered and the few lights that were on shut off. Thinking he did something wrong, they backed away from the desk, slowly making their way to the entrance of the hallway when everything turned red. Looking around for cover, Chosen saw a large chunk of the ceiling in pieces on the floor and ran behind it, hiding behind the large broken off bits of roofing and drywall, holding their mouth shut as some kind of laser cutting sound was behind them. It sounded awfully familiar—where did he hear this kind of sound?
Hastily, Chosen pulled out their phone and thought to message someone.
cho:
Second, I messed up. Get Yellow here now.