Chapter 6: Baptism by Fire
Sometimes he thinks of Chato Santana as an entirely separate entity.
They share the same past and childhood memories sure, maybe even the same interest and the same type of woman. But the difference is that Chato Santana was just a man, he was flesh and blood and bone and he bled red when they cut him. His blood flowed crimson when they shot him and Chato Santana died a long time ago. Long before his own blood started boiling under his skin. Long before he burned rival gang members alive. Long before he roasted those people in that prison yard and smelled the stench of their boiling organs from ten feet away as he laughed. Long before he murdered Chato Santana's wife and kids with his raging fury in their home. Long before he came back to life as El Diablo, the demon.
He isn't a man; he's a monster, born of fire and brimstone. Everything he touches turns to ash and coal and burning molten liquid. This curse was gifted by the devil himself as a joke towards humanity and towards mankind, which is why he took his name, cause if nothing else, he knew his destiny was to bring on the end of the world with his own two hands. He shouldn't be around others; he should be locked up inside an inescapable pit and thrown into the center of the earth, left to rot with the relics and the ruins.
He's the devil in human form and he deserves to be treated as such.
"Uhh—U-Uncle Diablo?"
Diablo gets yanked out his grim thoughts by a soft, inquisitive voice and looks up to see a pair of bright eyes peering innocently back at him.
"Dad wanted me to ask if you wanted the last candy bar. GQ's been eyeing it shiftily for the past fifteen minutes and we don't think it's long for this world," she leans in close to whisper surreptitiously to him. "He's had seven already." The both look towards the perp in question who immediately turns away when he catches them looking at him looking at them.
It takes Diablo a minute to respond, his mind is still fixated on the words 'Uncle Diablo' and for a second he thinks that maybe he heard wrong or whether the blast affected his hearing and he didn't notice until now. He glances at Lawton who's standing to the side seemingly involved in a rather intense conversation with June. He isn't looking in their direction; in fact he has his back to both Diablo and Zoe as if he isn't at all concerned that Diablo might accidentally burn his daughter where she stood. Lawton doesn't look the least bit concerned that Diablo could kill Zoe with a snap of his fingers, that he could decimate this entire building in a blink of an eye. None of them look concerned in the slightest and Diablo just doesn't understand it. Can't they see the monster that he is? Can't they see the monster that he sees every time he looks in a mirror?
"Uncle Diablo?"
He hears the words again and it doesn't sound any less strange the second time around.
"Don't you want it?"
"I already had one and dad said you didn't get any, so…" she says almost hesitantly, as if suddenly realising that this was the first conversation she's had directly with a member of the squad besides Uncle Rick and GQ. She scuffs the floor with the toe of her shoes self-consciously.
Diablo can't help it; he smiles a little and reaches over to take the offered candy bar.
"Thank you, Zoe," he says with a small smile, trying not to stare at the ghostly figure of another little girl hovering behind her from somewhere outside this earthly plane.
"You're welcome," Zoe replies happily, beaming as she turns around and skips back to where her dad is motioning animatedly with June.
Diablo stares at the candy bar in his hand for a long while. He can't even remember the last time he actually ate one, or even thought of one. This particular candy bar dredges up some dark memories from the recesses of his mind though. Chewy nougat with a nutty caramel center should never invoke such terrible and depressing memories but that's exactly where he finds himself, staring at the innocuous candy bar in hand and trying to not tear up like a rival gang's puta.
His daughter loved nougat. He remembers her asking him to buy some if he was going out.
He was indeed going out, not for chocolate but for blood.
His daughter never got her candy bar.
His home burned to the ground and his family expired in a horrific fiery rage.
"Psst, Diablo," he hears the voice whispering surreptitiously close to his ear. "You gonna eat that?"
He levels GQ with a penetrating stare, never once breaking eye contact once as he tears into the wrapping and takes one big bite of the chocolate bar. Too fucking sweet.
GQ throws his hands up with an annoyed fine and retreats dejectedly back towards the far side of the room. Diablo doesn't know whether to roll his eyes or laugh. He's met a lot of bizarre, eccentric people in his days, but GQ is by far the most peculiar. For one thing, even more so that Floyd and the rest of the squad, GQ shows absolutely no signs of being even remotely afraid of him. He stands a little too close for comfort, even when Diablo can feel the fury bubbling from under the layers of his skin. He smells his own rancid flesh burning and he knows other people can smell it too. But GQ just doesn't seem at all concerned. He's been scorched and singed from standing too close to El Diablo when he surfaces, but it doesn't seem to be stopping him from continuing to do so.
Diablo has seen it, the burns on GQ's chest and back. He doesn't know if they're from the detonation he set off or from the fires of El Diablo when he wrapped himself around the young lieutenant and protected him from the blast. But they were there, constant reminders of the dangers of not respecting the flames of diablo, but no one in this room seems to grasp that fact; not GQ, not Lawton, not Flag, not Harley who keeps draping herself all over him and kissing him on the cheek and hugging him from behind. Diablo thinks these people are the stupidest, craziest pandejos he's ever met in his life.
And he'd die for every single one of them.
Lawton's still arguing about something intense with June in the corner, he hears the words astronauts and cavemen being thrown around a lot and he has absolutely no clue what that conversation could be entailing. Zoe seems infinitely amused by the entire exchange as she glances back and forth between her father and the young anthropologist. KC is back in his nook looking mightily content and full, using a sharped metal chopstick to pick at the food remnants in his teeth. Diablo doesn't have to look at Boomerang to know that he's probably magicked a new six-pack of beer from the pocket of space and time in his ratty coat. A glance over at the Australian in question proves Diablo wrong. This time it's a crate of beer.
He's somewhat surprised by the lack of Harley anywhere in his vicinity though and a glance around the room finds her and Katana engaged in a conversation in Japanese by the entrance. Katana seems to be in the middle of explaining something and Harley has a wide, awed gaze on the sword in Katana's hand. Diablo has the demonic spirit of death living inside of him and he's pretty sure he would never want to be standing in the path of that particular duo.
GQ's retreated like a kicked puppy to Flag's bedside and occupying the seat vacated by Lawton.
Rick Flag is another enigma Diablo still can't figure out to this day. He hasn't show a scrap of fear for Diablo from the first time they met and continues to be completely unafraid and undaunted by El Diablo's powers and his fury. Diablo would call him stupid if he didn't respect him so much.
In the streets where he grew up, even as a child when these demonic powers were nothing but a scary story his abuela used to tell the children at night to keep them in line. Back then it was never about who you were, it was always about what you could do. If you could kill, you would survive. If you were afraid to take another person's life, that person would take yours without a thought. He was barely into his twenties when he spared someone's life, and because of it he almost became a statistic, he almost joined so many of his friends and family in the afterlife.
Getting shot was a terrible experience. In that moment, Diablo sympathised with Flag. But Flag survived even without making a deal with the devil and for that Diablo respected him more.
He was bleeding out and in pain, paralysed and dying, his rage and anger directed at his weakness rather than at the betrayal.
He saw the burning embers and scorching fires of hell right before his very eyes and a disembodied voice speaking to him from beyond the flames. He could only see vengeance and the cowards who wanted him dead and he said yes without a second thought.
He killed people. He killed people for El Diablo. He killed people for him. He killed because he enjoyed it.
He killed Chato Santana's wife and kids and for the first time, he wished he died the day he got shot.
And then this guero, Rick Flag shows up one day and doesn't know how to take no for an answer.
Diablo looks over to the bed and the still unconscious colonel occupying it. It's the healthiest he's looked since the whole fucked up situation started. Dr. Parminder and a couple of nurses had come over sometime after he nodded off again and removed the breathing tube, replaced it with one of those see through oxygen masks and deep down Diablo's pretty glad. He hates seeing the colonel so weak.
He likes Flag as he likes the whole team and he's not afraid to show it. He knows the feeling of loss and not being able to tell someone how much they mean until it's too late. It may be too late for Diablo to experience happiness but maybe it's time to stop being Diablo and be Chato Santana again.
"Yo, Diablo. You gonna eat that chocolate bar or you gonna stare at it all day? It ain't gonna turn into come hot mamacita if that's what you're hoping."
He hears the rumbling voice and looks over to KC guffawing in his corner. He realises that he has indeed been staring at the half eaten bar in his hand for who knows how long. Long enough to write an entire autobiography of his life in his mind anyway.
He pulls up the excess wrapper and folds it up on itself and tosses it in KC's direction. "You can have it."
He's decided that he's not really fan of chocolate anyway. He notices GQ looking at him with such an intense glare of betrayal and laughs.
"Gracias mynachos," KC says and Diablo is too amused to want to correct him.
"Don't like chocolate?" Lawton asks as he sidles up, whatever debate he was having with June apparently concluded. June glaring daggers at the back of Lawton's head from the far corner of the room was evidence to the contrary.
"Nah. Decided that it's not really my thing. You and June okay? Colonel's going to be sad if you and his cariño don't get along."
Lawton scoffs once. "Margaret Mead over there just doesn't know what the hell she's talkin' about."
"How do you even know who Margaret Mead is?"
"In case you haven't noticed I have a school aged kid who needs help with homework sometimes. How the hell do you know who Margaret Mead is?"
"Despite what you may think, I do read, ese. And in case you haven't noticed I'm pretty sure help is the last thing Zoe needs when it comes to homework. Especially from you hermano."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure I've already heard that one from Flag. How's he doing?"
Both of them glance over at Flag, watching his chest rise and fall with each shallow breath.
"Still the same. Colonel's sure taking his sweet ass time waking up."
"You know these white boys, absolutely no sense of punctuality. Even G. I. Joe Rick isn't exempt from the rules looks like."
As if Flag had been secretly listening in to their conversation or something in his gut was stimulated by the criticism, he chooses that exact time to stir.
Everyone convenes on him almost automatically at this point.
"Flag? You with us, man?" Lawton says, hovering close over Flag's bed.
The Colonel's eyes crack open almost painfully slow as it takes him an additional few minutes to readjust his bearings. It takes him a couple of seconds more before he realises that he's finally free of the breathing tube and he subconsciously takes in a bit too deep of a breath, sending him into a painful coughing fit. He barely makes a sound besides the deep, wet rumble of the mucous build up in his lungs. It sounds as painful as it looks and he curls in on himself.
But everyone is there reaching out trying to comfort him, Zoe in the foreground latching onto his hand like it's her most favourite doll.
"It's okay, Uncle Rick," she says and Diablo realises that she's the only person in the room who truly knows the feeling and has the experience of taking care of another human being, if what Lawton's told him about his ex-wife had any steam. Lawton only knows how to take care of his daughter, KC, Katana and Harley—well, should speak for itself. GQ seems like the only thing he knows how to nurse is a tub of rocky road ice-cream. As for him, Diablo barely remembers the feeling of being an actual human until recently.
There's also June who's right by Flag's side, stroking his hair back gently and wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead.
Flag's got way too many chica's converging over him than is necessary.
"You back on planet earth with us, Colonel?" he asks as he bends down closer to Flag.
Flag cracks an eye open to glare at him, he's still struggling not to choke on the breaths he's taking and Diablo sees his lips move, but no sounds come out. Although he didn't need any sound to know exactly what Flag just said.
Fuck you.
And for the first time in what feels like weeks of anxiousness and worry, when in reality it's been barely four days, Diablo thinks that Flag is definitely going to be okay.
Which in hindsight, he should have known wouldn't bode well with the rest of them freedom-wise.
Amanda Waller comes and she's only missing her white horse.
Even the devil latching onto his very soul cowers when she shows up at the door.
"Good to see you all spruced up, Rick. As I said, finding someone willing to take over the care and feeding of these criminals would have been a pain in my ass. I appreciate you saving me the trouble."
Flag rolls his eyes but says nothing.
"As you may already know, all but two of the targets in this attack have been neutralised. They're not going to go on to be a pain in mine or anybody else's ass any more, least of all yours, Colonel. And you have your team to thank for that. The mastermind is currently in our custody, being interrogated for information while he waits for a fair trial under the laws of out United States government." – Diablo's pretty sure he's getting anything but a fair trial – "As for Agent Caldwell. He's…being dealt with."
Everyone in the room collectively agreed that they don't even want to know what that meant or the implication. They were criminals and killers, but Amanda Waller is evil on an entirely different level. Politicians in government office who just happen to have a rogue group of criminals to do their dirty work level and that fact was both disturbing and scary as shit.
Except Harley. Harley wanted to know every dirty, grimy detail; description of what exactly was being dealt, how many times on which body part and how much loss of bodily fluid resulted from it.
"Did they say why?" GQ asked, interrupting Harley right in the middle of her question-statement on whether Agent Gumby went number one or number two during the interrogation. He's standing at attention by Flag's bed, his arms clasped behind his back.
"The reason you already know, Lieutenant Edwards. For Al-Baqhari his was vengeance for his wife and child, or so he says," Waller and Flag share a silent look. Flag even looks mildly surprised when Waller's gaze falls on him, signalling to Diablo that as usual, Waller probably know a lot more about the going-ons that people think, which again is both disturbing and scary as shit. "As for Agent Caldwell, fact is it just came down to money. They gave him money, from the sounds of it, a lot more money that than the government would ever squeeze out and he served you up to them on a silver platter."
"So…" Lawton says, Waller's silence signalling that she'd said all she'd come to say. He and the rest of the squad share a look between each other. They all knew this moment was coming, it was inevitable, but maybe for a second, they were all just too caught up in the happenings to realise how painful saying goodbye would actually be.
As if on cue, Zoe latches onto Lawton, burying her face in his chest with a distraught "No" and Lawton's looking like he's trying hard not to cry himself.
Flag has an expression of regret and shame etched onto his face as he looks away, looking too apologetic for something that is absolutely beyond his control. Diablo knows that, as does everyone else. But they also know Flag and the way he'd heave the brunt of the responsibility onto his shoulders, especially after the events that have taken place over the last couple of days. Maybe he feels like he owes them for saving his life. They did save his life, but he saved theirs first.
"It's fine ese," Diablo tells him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Flag doesn't meet his eyes. "We've done the mission. Now it's your mission to get back up on your pasty ass and be leader of this squad again. You leave Lawton in charge any longer he's gonna let it go to his big head."
"Hey fuck you, Blindspot," Lawton says. He has an annoyed look pasted on like a mask but Diablo can tell that he's trying not to show how much he's devastated on the inside. Zoe still has her face buried in his chest and Lawton is latching on like he's committing every single moment of that hug to memory. Diablo doesn't blame him, who knows when he'll be able to see her again.
"I'll give you a moment," Waller says before she steps out and for a split second Diablo thinks even she looks apologetic. But then he comes to his senses and thinks that maybe it's just gas.
The room is silent when she leaves. No one really knows what to say or how to react. They all knew this moment was inevitable, but there's really no amount of preparation a person can make before getting hauled back to jail. Especially after the couple of days they've had. Especially after coming to see the people in the room as something more than just team mates.
"Fuck this shit! It's not fair."
Diablo looks over to where GQ just put his fist into the wall behind Flag's bed. Tears immediately spring to his eyes and no one is sure whether it's because he's upset over what's about to happen or he did more damage to his fist than he'd admit. No one would blame him if it were the former.
"We knew this was going to happen, guys. We're just the government's very own bloodhounds. They haul us out to play and fuck some shit up and once we've done our job it's back to the kennels. I don't know why you're getting so emotional about it," Harley isn't saying anything that they don't already know or anything that isn't the absolute truth, but Zoe lets out a small sob from where she's still perched in her father's arms and Harley's face immediately softens. She reached over to ruffle her hair a little but doesn't say anything else. She knows the feeling of getting ripped out the arms of a loved one.
"There'll be other missions, mate. Besides not gonna lie, I'm getting a bit nostalgic for the cuisine back at Belle Reve," Boomerang adds completely unhelpfully but does succeed in lightening up the mood slightly. If just for KC licking his lips as his reptilian eyes followed Boomerang and saying completely as-a-matter-of-factly, "You're right. I do miss the cuisine, matey. Haven't had me any good Australians in a long while."
Even Boomerang looks slightly concerned.
"I just want you to know that I'm going to miss you guys. These past couple of days have been the best days of my life and I hope you don't forget me. Like, you guys are seriously—"
"Get a fucking grip, GQ. We're going back to prison; we're not fucking dying no need for the sappy eulogy." KC again comes in as the voice of reason in the group.
Diablo would never admit it but he feels himself getting slightly misty eyed as well. GQ wasn't wrong in that aspect. He was going to miss this. All of this. Hanging around with these guys in close quarters, being able to look over to one side and see someone he trusted to have his back and in turn someone he'd be willing to take a bullet for. A position pre-squad Diablo would never have envisioned himself in. Then looking over to the other side and see another person who simultaneously annoyed the shit out of him, but whose presence gave him a sense of comfort and safety he hadn't felt since El Diablo killed his wife and kids.
They'd most likely be sent out on more missions and the camaraderie between them would always be there but he doesn't think it will ever be quite the same. One the other hand, he hopes that they'll never find themselves in a situation like this again.
Katana hasn't moved from her position by the door, head bowed, doing a near perfect impersonation of Flag not meeting their eyes. On the other side GQ is cursing up a storm in various languages and using many pop culture references that Diablo doesn't really understand. He's saying things about fisting a selected group of people with something called an infinite gauntlet and hammering it in with a meowlnir. But it's GQ, his eclectic and some might call strange personality is what makes him a perfect fit with the squad so Diablo just rolls with it.
Flag hasn't said anything or even lifted his eyes off the spot in the corner where something obviously very interesting is taking place inside his head.
Diablo reaches over and places a hand on his shoulder, "Hey, it's fine, man. We'll deal like usual."
Finally Flag glances up to meet his eyes and even though he isn't outright crying, the emotions on his face and the dampness of his eyes are telling about the guilt he's feeling. It's obvious he has so many things he wants to say, but he swallow with difficulty, his throat this raw and swollen from the breathing tube and the only thing he can do is mouth 'sorry'.
Diablo hates apologies. Apologies are just excuses people get to fall back on after they've knowingly hurt another person. You can kill someone and tell their family sorry and even if the family somehow finds it in them to forgive you, the fact is the person is still dead and sorry remains a five letter word that has done absolutely nothing.
But Flag's sorry is different because he has nothing to be sorry for. He isn't guilty of getting shot and having them all get involved. He didn't ask for any of this to happen so Diablo doesn't interpret his sorry as an apology for them getting sent back to jail. Diablo can see the other words Flag obviously wants to express but can't; sorry for not being able to change your situation. Sorry you're being asked to lay down your life for people who don't care whether you die. Sorry for not being a better leader.
It's all ridiculous because even Diablo knows that it's their own decisions that put them in their situation. They're in jail because choices they made. What Flag and Waller gave all of them is a chance to be more than that, more than criminals and killers and monsters. Maybe it's even a chance to start making amends. If it even is at all possible.
Lawton kills people for money, given he only kills bad guys, but it doesn't change the fact that he has blood on his hands. But Lawton is also a doting and caring father whose daughter looks at him like he created the sun and the moon and makes the stars shine in the night sky. She still looks at him with affection and love despite everything he's done. That fact itself is worth more than all the money in the world.
People look at KC and only see the monster. The dangerous predator. The ugly animal. But KC is one of the gentlest souls Diablo has ever met and he's proud to call him a friend.
It's easy to look at Harley and call her stupid and crazy but Diablo sees something completely different. He sees intelligence people usually overlook because of the way she dresses and how she acts. He sees someone who loves too much and loves the wrong kind of people. The first time Harley hugged him and planted a kiss on his cheek Diablo didn't know how to react, much like when Zoe walked up to him and called him uncle and gave him that candy bar. Because the only difference Diablo sees between Harley and Zoe is their situation and the people they have around them. Zoe's surrounded by love from her father, perhaps from her mother and stepfather as well despite what Lawton insists. Love and concern from Flag and now love from this group of dysfunctional criminals. Harley loved someone who didn't love her the way she deserved to be loved but she keeps on persisting. In that sense, Zoe and Harley have the same type of innocence and Diablo would raise hell on earth to protect that. He knows his wife and his children would be proud of him for that.
Boomerang's the craziest motherfucker Diablo has ever met in his life, but there's no one he'd trust more to have his back in a fight. Plus he hates to admit it but that pink unicorn is pretty fucking cute.
Then there's GQ and Katana, straight laced subordinates for all intents and purposes. But the day GQ showed up out of the blue with some CD's (pretty pathetic white boy taste in music quite frankly) and when he kept showing up even though Diablo kept on telling him to piss off, little did Diablo know that that was the beginning of a really strange and unusual camaraderie, maybe even something he'd call a friendship. And Katana, Diablo doesn't really know Katana that well, even to this day, but her sheer presence fill him with a sense of security he never thought he'd ever feel in this lifetime. Not only does he know that Katana can fuck some serious shit up, but deep down, he also knows that if it would one day come to that, Katana's the only one he can really count on to take that step and end it. He would never wish it on her conscience though so he keeps that thought tucked in the back burner at all times. For a group of criminals and a Special Forces guy, the squad and Flag were too fucking soft to muster up the will needed to stop El Diablo.
And Zoe. Dear sweet Zoe. His wife and daughter would have really loved her.
And then Waller appears at the door once again. "People," she says, her tone icy but he eyes warmer than any of them would have expected.
Zoe cries as Lawton hands her over to June. He looks away, no wanting his daughter to see his own tears. That gets GQ going again as he curses up a storm a second round.
"We'll take care of her," June says, hugging Zoe close to her chest. "That's a promise. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."
Lawton just nods, throat too tight to speak. He reaches towards Flag for a handshake and Flag grasps on immediately, they thumbs interlocking in a familiar way. "You take care Flag, and take care of my baby."
Flag nods, gripping Lawton's hand tighter.
Lawton plants one last kiss on Zoe's forehead and immediately marches out, pushing past Waller and not looking back once.
One by one, members of the squad approach the bed and say goodbye to Flag, June and Zoe. GQ has his back to them and Diablo can feel the fires of rage radiating off him. He's uncharacteristically silent but Diablo can't really blame him. They're not the ones watching people they care about getting hauled back to the pits. If it were the other way around, Diablo's pretty sure he wouldn't let Flag, GQ or Katana get taken away without a fight, but only because none of them deserved that. They on the other hand, they're criminals and murderers and the bad guys, they deserve everything they were being dealt.
So why does the thought of leaving the safety of this room and the safety of this squad feel so devastating to his soul?
Boomerang leaves Flag a beer before he marches out, his coat sweeping dramatically. Harley drapes herself over Flag and plants a kiss on his cheek before doing the same with Zoe and June, except she plants a kiss square on June's lips and just spares her a wink when June stares back wide eyed and slightly confused. It causes Flag to smile a little and Harley beams.
Once by one the squad marches out, shoulders square and heads held high. It's the first time in their life that they think they deserve to.
Eventually it's Diablo, GQ, Flag, June and the still weeping Zoe still left in the room.
"I'll keep an eye on the squad," he says. It's the first time in his life he thinks that he truly has the place to say those words and mean it. That he finally found a place with people he genuinely cares about and would die for. After Grace and his kids, he didn't think that day would ever come again. But he looks Flag in the eye when he says it and even though Flag still looks broken up about not being able to keep his squad out of prison, for not being able to convey just how much he appreciates what they've done, he looks Diablo in the eye and nods.
And Diablo thinks it's the proudest he's ever felt in his life.
They're all going back to jail, their next taste of freedom as uncertain as their own future. But at least he still has the squad and they have each other. Even though they won't be together, even though they probably won't see each other until the next mission, at least they still have the memory of this moment and the knowledge that somewhere in that hell of a building, somewhere out in the real world they've been able to get a taste of again, there are people who think about them, who consider them worthy of being called friends.
That there are people out there who would care if they died.
That knowledge brings more comfort than any of them would have expected
Diablo walks out of the room without a glance back. He walks past the rows of special agents and military people who stand off to the side but have a different look in their eyes when they look at him, when they look at all of the squad members as they pass by. He thinks the look could even be labelled 'respect' and he finds that fact alone infinitely hilarious.
But it doesn't matter.
Diablo walks down that hospital corridor with his head held high, for the first time in a long time, not feeling weighed down with burden and guilt and shame.
He walks out with Chato Santana on his mind and in his heart, but El Diablo in his soul and for the first time he thinks that yeah, he's got this.
tbc.
One chapter to go people, and I intend to go out with a bang. But since we already had our bang, I intend to go out with a satisfying sizzle. Sorry for the longer wait this time, this chapter was kicking my ass. Maybe because I didn't intend to write a Diablo POV, it pretty much just happened, so I hope I did it justice.
Also to the couple of reviews I hadn't gotten to, I'm sorry. I'll get to it soon I promise.
If you would like to get in on the astronaut vs caveman conversation, I suggest you look at the clip on Youtube in which Angel and Spike argue intently over this subject. This was inspired by that hilarious scene.