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He jumped.
Down, down the skyscraper. This would be where Caecius died. No amount of life force could pull together a shattered body with a brain splattered across asphalt. He watched as his hat slowly fell with him, though at a much slower pace. He was an anvil while it was a leaf. The wind murmured in his ears.
It was so quiet.
A purple and golden sky.
Blue- his hair whipped his face and rustled in the wind. Caw caw, he mouthed, seeing a bird. Clouds moved leisurely across the sky, at their own pace. Painted by the light of the sun, reflected and made into brilliant colors by the sky, they adapted to the time of the day; the mood of the earth.
Windows of buildings moved past him at a rapid pace, seeming more like mirages than real, physical buildings.
It wouldn’t hurt.
Probably.
—
Ever present—his smile stayed plastered on his face.
Et tu, brutus? There was no sting of betrayal he expected to feel, watching Doogile’s face flash across the screens, No.1 Ranker, Winner of this season’s Playoffs. His face stretched across buildings, just slightly obscured by his costume.
Hax barely recognized him.
Doog had come from the gilded halls, it was no surprise he would return. Golden boy.
It wasn’t like he had any right to complain. That title belonged to him once.
—
When i speak,
I don’t seem to breathe.
“Infoomi! I didn’t know you lived near here!” Hax called over the crowd of people. They paid no mind to him, busy bustling around, going from shop to shop like a homing missile. Or maybe a honeybee going to the best-est flower.
Why. Why? Fuck, I told you to stay away. Why the hell are you here?
His feet tugged him towards Infume. A white hoodie—familar now, with ears and a polar bear’s face on the body. It was winter. Infume looked like he would disappear amidst the snow.
What snow? There was no snow. The sky was clear, bright blue and sunny. Like Hax’s hair. His hair was tinted white now. From time jumping. What?
Red. Slightly. Infume. His face. It hit the center of his face first—nose, cheeks—, then it would radiate out and center there for a while—ears— before it would creep back towards the middle, like frost on a window pane.
“Uh, yeah, um,” Infume stuttered, putting his earphones back into his hoodie pocket, where Hax assumed he kept his phone. It would be so easy to rob him. “Wait no-“ Infume’s eyes remained shut for just a slight bit longer than necessary for a blink, “I’m just visiting friends. I live,” he gestured behind himself vaguely with his head, “a few minutes up.”
Oh. Okay. That was. Nice. Good, even.
“Do you wanna come with?” Infume broke the lull, then flinched back slightly, like he didn’t expect the words coming from his own mouth.
staining the pristine,
White,
Silence.
It took a while for Infume to register his own words, but when he did, the reaction was comedic—he grimaced and twitched, bringing his arms and shoulders up in a defensive posture—, so Hax couldn’t help but burst into laughter. He bent over himself, bracing his hands on his knees and he laughed.
“BAHAHAHA- sorry- pfft, did you even ask your friends beforehand?” Hax staggered, moving upright a slight bit more, while wiping tears from his eyes.
Magically, the flush on Infume’s face deepened into the shade of fine wine. Hax’s teeth ached to bite and tear.
“Um, they probably wouldn’t mind,” Infume reacted on autopilot, once again, rendering Hax speechless.
Oh, this guy was so stupid.
“Nah,” he waved Infume off, because he was the kindest and best person to ever live. Did he mention he was kind? “don’t hassle them over me. I have to get to an interview, anyways,” he turned away, putting a hand in his pocket, “See ya!” He put on the brightest smile he could. Maybe he could capture the same light Infume shone on him, even if just for an instant.
Alas,
The gold i keep
is nothing but gilded trash
Worth less than the subway rats
And cigarette butts
Left at the train station
—
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From where Icarus disappeared, Gienah— Phoenix—rose.
It was one of the most brilliant sob stories; Anthony, a meek and pitiful child, brought under the wings of Ranked to grow his own. The ultimate rags to riches story. They fashioned him into something akin to a god; decorated with gold tattoos and accessories; dressed in white, saintly clothing; framed by his brilliant golden wings.
Title: Gienah. Alias: Phoenix.
Ranked didn’t know his wings could be used for more than flying and looking pretty.
Wasn’t that odd?
Couriway hadn’t changed much at all. He still did (mostly) the same things, just without Ranked nipping at his heels.
(Icarus hadn’t stopped, unlike what Ranked liked to believe. He was just sneakier about what he did.)
(He still updated the group chat with patrol routes.)
—
He blinked back to find his teeth in someone’s jugular, vampire-style, if even more violent. Huh. How did that happen? Said person, now missing a part of their throat, looked decidedly like a person. Most probably because that was a person.
A person looked like a living, breathing (okay, maybe not THAT part) human being. Who knew?!
Revelations were being made all the time, if only for a genius like himself.
Now, where were we? (We? Who the fuck was ‘we’?) He was… inside a building.
A very-bad-at-resembling-a-building building, but one nonetheless. How quaint! It had mold at the corners of the walls, where the wallpaper was slightly torn and ragged. He had no doubt in his mind that if he peeled off more wallpaper, even more mold would get exposed.
Disgusting!
Looking outside, he saw it looked very. Outside. Resembling a Bob Ross painting, or perhaps another thing with trees, grass and the like. No helpful land-marking structures, as far as he was aware.
Blood flowed down his mouth, off his chill and trailed down his neck. It was still warm. He licked his lips, trying to wipe away the blood with the bottom of his palm, but likely only succeeded in making it smear more. The tangy liquid wasn’t bad tasting, but he wouldn’t go out of his way to get blood in favor of more easily accessible liquids that tasted better, like a smoothie.
—
A punched out sound, coming from. Him? With context, it almost sounded like a laugh, rusted and barely recognizable from misuse. He remembered-
Something. Memories came and went, fleeting as warmth during winter. It didn’t used to be like this. That much Hax remembered.
Where warmth once stayed, chill now premiated. His arteries and extremities. Cold cold cold. The comfort was back, now, making his heart seem to swell, the heat even reaching the tips of his fingers.
It would fade soon, like all good things.
He smiled, anyway, to make the feeling last longer. He’d always been selfish like that. Infume had his forehead in contact with the table, still giggling and laughing. It made Hax want to laugh again, too.
They were shot weird looks by the patrons in the cafe. Power brewed and stirred in his gut.
Not yet. Not for this. Temper, temper.
Gun discipline, or something. Hax needed to work on his trigger happiness. Well, the equivalent of it, in the form of his ability, which really wasn’t very much like a gun at all.
It was so tempting, though.
Not while he was still here.
—
Caecius, former top Ranker, was dead. Boreas was alive. They had no connection, as far as the general public was concerned.
Ignorance was bliss.
While a manhunt for Boreas intensified, the bounty on his head jumping up continually, a parade for Caecius was being planned.
Every few days, Hax could see another zero being added in real time. Ten became a hundred became a thousand became ten thousand became one hundred thousand. It wasn’t that serious, really.
Caecius was the best parts of winter; huddling around the hearth for warmth, celebrating holidays and festivals to make spring come faster. It was only natural his death would spark an indulgence in the same feelings, no matter that it was the peak of summer when he died.
Delay the announcement with the backlog of interviews and photoshoots until winter neared and the death could be monetized flawlessly, blended into the winter spirit.
After long enough, it would only be natural to buy something commemorating the late Ranker during winter.
Despite his declining mental state during the latter end of his career, he was still a history-defining Ranker, who saved more lives than he could ever know. Ranked was on great terms with Caecius—no matter what his postmortem testimonials would say.
Quiet admissions, recorded in secret with the knowledge that they would be released after death—connected to a dead man’s switch.
Those recordings were made while he was slowly going insane, didn’t you know? How could you dare slander his reputation like that?
Scrutinized, down to the wording and turns of phrases. Dated using sound quality and hushed conversations in the background.
When did our precious hero go crazy?
Golden boy.
—
Caecius was stuck neck deep in a puddle of thick mud. Metaphorically. Quicksand would work better for this analogy, actually, because the harder he tried to fight, the tighter their grasp on him seemed to be. The more they tightened their shackles around his limbs.
Without his charismatic personality, he would’ve been turned into a human stick long ago—limbs cut off, leaving only his head attached to his body.
Or maybe not. Who knew?
Probably not. He was strong, that much he was sure of. To cripple him to such an extent would be a whole ordeal, and the more public an incident was, the more likely it would get out to the public.
There was little worse
Smile often. Laugh more. Everyone loves your laugh, he was told.
He despised the shape of his smile, hated the grating sound of his laugh, and loathed who he had to become.
Golden boy. Hound dog. Weapon. Paragon. Scapegoat.
So many choices, all of them disgusting to voice. Caecius existed to drive away the darkness. He was a lighthouse in the middle of a blizzard, meant to serve the everyday civilian.
When had that changed? When had he turned into little more than a puppet?
Innocence didn’t equate to moral righteousness. How had the goal shifted from protecting to coddling? Why was everyone trying so hard to preserve the ignorance of the masses?
It was bliss. Didn’t you want them to be happy?
He would rather be able to take charge of his own future.
Hackingnoises used to be something more.
—
Cogito ergo sum.
This had to be some after-death, his mind held in stasis, unable to accept his body was splattered across concrete. There was no way he survived the fall, he had planned his death so meticulously to make sure of that—that Ranked wouldn’t be able to drag him back from the void he so wished to return to.
There is something
Just a little detail
Barely out of place
Return? The world around him flickered. Darted in and out of existence. This wasn’t real.
Concrete walls and stained glass windows became a lattice outlining the structure. Blink, and everything became physical again. He dragged himself off the sidewalk, using the dumpster as a hoist.
From the bottom half of his chest, everything seemed numb. He had made contact with the ground head-first, he’d felt the crack of bone and shattering of his skull when his body hit the ground.
No illusion had managed to fully capture the feeling of using his powers, but if he was being held captive by his own mind, there was no telling what could happen. Using them in his current state was nothing more than a death wish, anyways.
Painfully, he forced himself upright, gasping shallowly so as to not disturb his cracked ribs. If this was real, he was just given a brand new chance by the Universe herself. If not, Hax needed to re-join his comrades in the Void.
What better way to assess the situation than to gather more information about his surroundings?
There was always a better way. Hax’s decision making could be absolutely abysmal at its worst. No half-baked ‘plan’ of his could be trusted.
Up and out of the dimly lit alleyway, Hax found himself groaning, shielding his eyes from the sun. He was in a shopping district. One he didn’t recognize on sight, which didn’t narrow things down very much because Ranked business was kept away from civilians, mostly. It was harder to glam things up with mass amounts of injured eye witnesses.
No one paid him any mind, though they did give dirty looks to his torn and ragged outfit—the remnants of his hero costume. No calling for medical help, asking him if he’d gotten into some kind of scuffle, as if someone coming out of an alleyway battered was normal.
There is a question,
A simple query,
That has plagued my entire life thus far;
Am I human?
It was snowing. The cold seeped into his flesh and became one with him. It was his element. Hax would heal soon.
A moment of silence for the beloved hero, Caecius, an announcement blared out. A blanket of quiet settled over the still hustling mob.
One, two three, his favorite song was blasted from the speakers. Hax felt sick to his stomach.
Chatter resumed, almost drowning out the music. He could still hear it playing—a phantom pain.