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The start was all Chosen’s idea. This much he can admit.
It was a night like many others, a night he couldn’t find sleep, as memories of the past managed to creep through the cracks of his brain’s mental defenses. He hated it. He hated how he felt and what made him feel how he felt.
He wanted to go alone in the beginning. It was his impulse, his problem to deal with. But Dark saw him and wanted to know the deal. He told him, obviously, else he would never leave him alone. And Dark was, predictably, all for it. Destruction was the one thing he took pride in and Chosen knew that. He’d always known that.
First, they attacked the browsers. Those browsers that kept Chosen locked and contained for all these years. These browsers that humans found so much use in. It was obvious he’d go after these first. They had to go.
They were down for only a few days, he discovered. But the damage was still done. The panic was still spread. News articles were speculating about the mysterious disappearance of normally busy websites, seemingly out of the blue.
Then, they went after the games. This time, they didn’t only destroy their host servers. They went after the NPCs too. Dark was first, but Chosen still followed. He didn’t think much of it, then. Now he realizes how it marked the beginning of the end.
He went after the “bad guys” of the games, for some reason. Did it make him feel better about all the death? But how different was he really, compared to all these “bad guys”?
After these first attacks, it was then that things started spiraling out of his control.
Dark loved this. Way more than what Chosen could have ever anticipated. He loved all the chaos, the destruction, the panic it caused. All the panic he could cause. He reveled in the fear they sowed, grinned at the image the media painted of them.
And he wanted more.
He had made a plan. He’d mapped out the different websites they could attack to maximize the damage. To make their names widely known. He quickly narrowed them down to only two.
Stickpage and Newgrounds. The ones where animations lived from. The ones where death was permanent.
Chosen was nodding along. He didn’t realize the implications. He didn’t fully process Dark’s words. Yet he still nodded along.
He doesn’t really remember what he’d felt, the moment Dark had first explained his plan. Maybe he felt nothing. He hates himself for it. He hates he didn’t act the one time it really was important.
Stickpage was a smaller event. They had split up.
Dark went for the open. Panicked sticks were running around the open space, trying to escape, not realizing this only made them easier targets from above. Fireballs rained and his manic laughter filled the air. He left no survivors, every witness incinerating under his fire.
Chosen stayed in the entrance. He had a sinking feeling about the ordeal. Maybe it was regret, but he couldn’t exactly place it then. Whatever the case, he couldn’t see himself doing what Dark was. He blasted some structure and lit up a fire or two, without placing a real target on anyone.
Dark noticed. He was shouting at him all the way back. “What are you doing? We’re together in this, we’ve planned it all and you just do nothing? It was your idea, we wanted this!” he was saying, and Chosen didn’t know what to feel. Did he really want this?
No. The answer was no. But Dark did. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything; he couldn’t bring himself to stop him. If he waited, Dark would eventually stop by himself, he thought. He couldn’t see the consequences.
He was a coward. Everything that followed was preventable and it was all his fault.
They carried on with their attack on Newgrounds.
It was all so much worse than Chosen could have imagined. This website was enormous, housing many more animations than either of them had accounted for. Dark was ecstatic. Chosen was horrified.
It went similarly as with Stickpage, although the scale was much larger. This time, they tried to defend themselves. This time, they tried to run faster. But this time, just like all the others, it was all pointless.
He couldn’t stand the screams. He couldn’t stand the noise. He flew over wrecked structures and raging fires with a constant ring on his ears. His mind was empty, his movements automated, stiff and detached.
On one side, desperate cries and pleas for help. On the other, the all-too-familiar laughter.
He was in the middle of it all, never again having felt so powerless while holding all the power over everyone else.
Dark shouted at him at some point. He shouted at him to do something and, in an impulse, as a reaction, with only a small, forgettable movement, Chosen did.
A helpless girl trapped underneath some rubble was in the middle of the blast. She incinerated to dust, no trace left of her when the smoke had cleared.
He killed her.
He launched the fire at her and she’s gone, never to be seen again by anyone she might have known.
The guy with the shades looked up at him in horror before disappearing in the smoke.
He descended on the spot, seeming like a god among mortals, his expression blank as ever. He faced the horrified looks of the people without reacting. At that moment, he felt nothing. It was the emptiest he’d ever felt.
He met with Dark at the top of the tank, when almost everyone had either fled or died. The younger’s eyes were sparking with malice, relishing the suffering he was causing, getting pleasure through the screams, the pain and the endless burning fire. If Chosen had been like that, everything would be much easier.
Dark told him something he didn’t register and raised his hand for a high five. The numbness in Chosen prevented him from responding quickly. He hesitated, he was unsure, but he was too much of a coward to say anything.
As his brother gazed around, full of pride at what had once been a site brimming with life, he spared a glance back at the ruins caused by himself. The fire was still burning. People had been ravaging through the ruins trying to find any survivors, or even just a body to know what happened to their loved ones, before even they had lost all hope and ran away. Dark left his side, launching himself into the air and hurling fireballs around, exploding structures and people alike, while Chosen looked, unable to speak, move or stop him already.
The consequences of the Newgrounds attack were greater than either of the two could have guessed. Turns out many more of the Outernet sticks originated there, causing them to get transported back as soon as their files were destroyed. The damages in lives exceeded the expected population of the site.
Their attacks were referred to by many names. The Disappearance. The Disintegration. The Decimation. Nothing missed the mark of how horrific it all was.
The media caught sight of Chosen first and foremost. He’s the one the witnesses saw most, apparently, probably because Dark was never to be seen in one place for more than a second, flying at top speed, wreaking havoc from above.
The younger was not too happy with that. He should’ve gotten the credit for the destruction. Chosen didn’t even do anything, he’d say.
But Chosen had done something. Dark thought nothing of it, completely disregardful as he was for the lives of anyone he perceived as weak and inferior. Though Chosen did, because, for some reason, Chosen couldn’t feel the way Dark did.
His head was a fog. He hated it. He hated how he felt and what made him feel how he felt.
Dark might brag about his higher kill count, but Chosen’s hands were as red as his. By not stopping him when he could, by saying nothing, doing nothing, he’d helped with the death of every single one of the victims.
He was the only one that could’ve changed Dark’s mind. He was the only one stronger than him, the only one with enough influence on him, the only one that could have prevented everything and saved so many lives.
Instead, the coward chose to wait.