Six Moments Near Death
The memories come without warning.
A torrent of images and emotion from a future which has already been rewound, events which have already been rewritten - existing now only as fragments in the minds of a disconnected past.
When his ship reaches port, he finds the Family he has been a part of for so long in ruins. His helmet, visor perpetually down, hides the color draining from his face at the sight of bodies, blood and wreckage. He feels like he'll be sick any moment, his lunch threatening to rise from his stomach as he clenches one gloved fist at his side. Takes off running, head turning left and right in a frantic search for survivors.
He finds only gaping mouths, legs separated from torsos, bullet-riddled flesh, agony and silence. Those few from his ship - what remains of the Calcassa - give him a respectful distance as they too wander through the grisly scene.
D-dammit! His voice is muffled from within the helmet that serves as his only real protection against the radiation seeking to destroy his body. Dammit dammit dammit dammitdammitdammit! He wants to cry, wants to scream, wants to find some way to finally live up to his place as one of the world's strongest.
He finds himself hating the purifying technology of his helmet, tempted to yank it off his head, throw it to the side, and shout for whoever cared to listen that he'd take them on, take all of them on.
Even being the weakest of the strong makes him stronger than most - though this time, there are no senpai to protect him from his own mistakes.
He has no real fear of death.
Like the wind which eventually stills into nothingness, he knows someday that he too will become little more than a passing breeze. He has chosen not to take refuge underground, for the wind does not truly blow in such cramped, dark spaces, instead facing any who seek him out with a calm, cool precision.
It is not his own life he works so fervently to protect, but the lives of those he cherishes - the lives of his pupil, his comrades, his allies. The lives of hundreds upon thousands of strangers who will be greatly affected should his pacifier join those already stolen from their owners' dead and decaying bodies.
He inhales and exhales long, quiet breaths as he moves beneath the dappled shadows of the trees overhead. Even here, in the solitude of his home, he can feel the anti-trinisette rays bearing down on him like a plague. Robbing him of energy and life, bit by bit - weakening him day by day until the storm ebbs and dissipates into nothing at all.
That day looms closer, now: his limbs already feel weighed down by the movements that had once come so naturally to him. The nameless, faceless soldiers of his destruction appear more and more frequently, and he is not always so lucky to escape unharmed.
Before him is a shock of blond hair, blood darkening an already-dark camo print. Blue eyes - clear, bright blue eyes - look back at him over a broad shoulder and lips move in a silent order as his hands shake, the world flooded in a cacophony of sound.
The reflection in his pacifier's rounded surface is distorted.
Gunshots echo off the walls, bullets ricocheting and connecting, and Colonnello grabs his arm with a bruising strength - barking orders over the chaos and shooting return fire without even looking.
Just this once, he responds, just this once I'll make an exception and Colonnello's lips quirk into a grin.
Same old Viper, hey!
There's a shove to his shoulder before he can complain and he runs - pacifier tucked beneath his cloak, its power hidden from prying eyes by tiny chains of his own creation.
Behind him: gunshots, shouts, cries and laughter dwindling into silence. Silence that settles around him like a shroud, penetrating the veil of mist that conceals him from the world as he moves farther and farther away. It hangs heavy on his shoulders, pulls at the ends of his clothes, drenches him in emptiness, loneliness, despair.
Drowns him in a debt he has no means to repay.
He is, perhaps, one of the last to fall. There has been little, if any, contact between them for some time now, but somehow he knows. Knows that the power of their pacifiers has dimmed, dulled. Clouded over.
He checks the chamber of his gun - three bullets left, and no means of replenishing them. Stacked odds not in his favor, an impossible situation, more enemies than even he could hope to defeat at once.
Just the way he likes things: a little challenging.
Fedora shadowing his eyes, his lips curve into a smirk. Even with his skill, his prowess, his uncanny ability to always come out on top, he has no doubt that he won't survive this one. He would attribute it to the state of his body, to the parasitic rays leeching at his energy, if he cared enough to. But he has always believed you should take circumstances as they are, work around them, and bend them to suit your needs.
The polished metal of his gun gleams - a tiny sun reflected in the orange glow of the pacifier hanging low against his chest like jewelry. He'd long since refused to make use of Mammon's concealing chains. If anyone chose to target him, he'd proclaimed, it would be the last thing they ever did.
He tips the brim of his fedora back, runs a finger along one curly sideburn, and makes his presence known.
If he has no other options left, he'll make certain to take most of them with him.
The screens spread across the wall cast a ghostly electric light on his face, clothes and hands, the reflection in his glasses - row after row of glowing rectangles - giving him the appearance of an oversized insect. He watches with both admiration and interest - and perhaps even a slight sense of dread - as bullets tear bloody gaps in Reborn's immaculate suit. He has no great love for the others, though he has kept them under regular surveillance for quite some time. Some of them, he knows, have fought. Died in a futile attempt to protect the symbols of their broken curse.
Through it all, he has continued his work: focused solely on the box weapons, on theories, on half-hearted hopes he would have never expected himself to ever harbor.
He has remained above-ground, easily accessible to those willing to look, and the decision was a poor one: his body is decaying. Slowly, both inside and out, and he can feel the anti-trinisette radiation seeping through his skin, seeping through the lightning flame he has been using as a barrier.
For the others, there is a means and a reason to fight. For him, there is only a slow stewing and the agonizing wait to the day when his mind and body will be unable to continue functioning at all.
He has the patience, at least, to focus on his projects and observations - all the while pretending that he'll manage to survive where the others haven't.