Chapter Nine: Royal Flush

Nothing had changed in so long. He didn't know how long he was stuck there, watching his life on repeat in fast forward. It only seemed to slow down to regular speed when he made a mistake or it was a bad memory. He could have sworn he heard a voice mocking him during each mistake shown. The voice would say things along the lines of, "Oh, you messed up here too! And there, and there, and there!" He hated the voice. It seemed a mesh of all the vocals from his past, each one taking a turn in saying a word. He was stuck watching his life from beginning to end with no stopping. A few times he had to watch from end to beginning. He was beyond bored, frustrated, upset, or really any emotion. There was no point, there was nothing he could do to change what was going on in front of him. His chance to do that ended where the memories did, that horrible large explosion. He could still feel his ribs aching, even though they really didn't "exist" anymore. He couldn't smell, taste, or feel, but he could see and hear. It seemed like it had been like this for as long as he could remember, but he knew that was a lie. The images passing by him was proof of so. He was once the person in the memories. Those where the people who cared for him, who risked their lives for him, and they were the ones he let down. That was all over now though, all in the past that he wasn't fully certain ever existed. His least favorite part was coming up, he could see it begin to slow down more than usual. He saw the explosion happen, then pause. As if someone had taken a picture of a bag of flower being popped. It reversed back to the moment he had lifted his visor. Then it did something it hadn't before, the view swung around to face the female elf standing before him. The look on her face always pained him, reminding him of just who he left behind. Holly, his female officer that even though she upset him, made him the most proud. For a moment, he wondered how she was. Was she even still alive? He had no idea how long he'd been... "dead". His life seemed to fade away, as did everything else around him. A blank stock whiteness surrounded him.

"Heh", he grunted to himself, "I guess they found were to put me..." But nothing happened.

If he was still alive, he guessed he probably would have gotten annoyed. He was sure of that. For a moment, he thought he felt ground under his feet. He looked down, but saw nothing. When looking up, he got a surprise! Someone he had never seen before, was now standing in front of him. She was a head taller than he was, and six glowing wings came from her back. She gently placed her hands on his shoulders, and smiled.

"Time to come back, Julius. They've missed you and need you now more than ever." She said.

"Who are you?" He said, surprised to hear his own voice again.

She only smiled and shook her head. There was no time for talk. Root was about to say something when he felt something beat within him. It shook his whole frame, a heartbeat. He pressed his hands to his chest, then he noticed he had a body again! A beating heart, in a place he shouldn't even exist.

The last moments of Wisher's life flashed before him quickly, as all feeling returned to him. All around him, Root suddenly felt a chill, a breeze. He took in his first breath and closed his eyes. He tightened his hand around a familiar object. Without looking, he knew it was his trusted tri-barreled, water cooled blaster. He knew where he was, what was going on, and what he needed to do.

"Ok kiddo, I understand." He growled, and stepped from the shadows of the snow fall. This Jon creature better pray, cause Commander Root is back in the game.

Jon staggered back, he had lost a large amount of blood. The female elf wasn't moving, the centaur under her was semi-awake, the male elf was missing, and Ticket was probably dead. While in a fit of rage he had lost his chance, and now something new was pelting him. This time, it hurt. Who cared for a dead human female he had once called wife? Not him. These creatures would pay with their lives for what they had done to him! Several shots hit him again, each one more painful than the last. He turned to see where the shots were coming from, but as he did one hit him directly in the face. He roared with pain, it hurt so much! He squinted through the blood gushing from his forehead to see a new elf had come from the whirling snow around them. This one seemed different, he was simply walking towards him. Something about this elf's eyes sent a pang of fear through the very core of his being. He started to charge at the elf, wanting to just get rid of those eyes! Another round of shots to the face and neck hindered his attempts to strike out. Everything had begun to hurt and his instincts were telling him to run. Run while he still could. His slowing mind took a moment to think about, but delay cost him. Something hit his back, more pain. He couldn't take it, it hurt too much. Jon collapsed to the ground, his vision blurring and turning red from blood. Through his fading eyes, he wondered. Was that elf now smiling?

Foaly couldn't believe what he was waking up to. Root had came from nowhere and brought Jon to his knees in a matter of minutes. Their old friend seemed to have no mercy for the troll human hybrid. Jon was a bloody mass in the snow by the time Root was done with him. The finishing blow though, came from Trouble. He had recovered enough to stand and fire directly at the base of Jon's head. That monster of a man would not be getting back up any time soon. Suddenly remembering what sent him flying in the first place, Foaly checked on Holly. Her arm was health and it seemed like she was just resting. After looking around, he couldn't find any signs of Wisher.

Trouble looked at Root in disbelief. Did that really just happen? Honestly? Can he have a replay of it? Jon fell, and Root was standing there with his blaster smoking as the water coolant raced to do its job. What was even more surprising, was the Root grinned slightly as Jon passed out. A real grin from a REAL Julius Root!

"COMMANDER!" He yelled and ran over to him.

The worst attack on Haven city was coming to an end. Most of central Haven had been damaged or destroyed, the council was going to flip. The LEP rushed to help those who survived from the snow. It would take the LEP several days to locate everyone. The council was too busy attending to the current issue to deal with the commander who had returned from the dead. For several days, they had peace while waiting for their wounds to heal and for Holly to recover.

Holly heard voices she recognized. Her body had slight pains, but nothing a good shot of magic wouldn't fix. She knew she was back at her apartment, only her place smelled this nice. What others were doing there, she didn't know.

"Straight Flush, you suck at this." Holly knew that was Mulch. Sounded like they were playing cards in her head.

"I quite, this game is too simple for me." She knew that would be Foaly, he had survived too.

"You're no fun pony boy" Mulch again. "Hey, want to play?"

"No thanks, my coffee says no too." Trouble, he was ok. She was so busy targeting Jon she forgot to check on him again.

"And how about my troll-mud man kicking buddy?" Mulch said again, in probably his most teasing voice ever. "You've got something in common with Butler now."

"Diggums, I swear, if you don't get those cards out of my face, Short will have a large mess to clean up."

Holly took a moment to let her mind work over what she just heard. It couldn't be, it just couldn't. Then again.. today was already filled with bizarre things. It could just be possible. She had to wake up and see, or else she'd never forgive herself. It took a moment for the room to focus once she had her eyes open, and she sat up gingerly. The boys were sitting around her kitchen table, a pile of opened drinks and snacks cluttered the center of the table while cards were falling over the edges. Root had Mulch by his shirt collar with a fist ready. Foaly was helping himself to some carrot flavored snacks from the center of the table while Trouble was guarding his drink from the soon to be fight. They all froze when they saw Holly sitting up and watching them. If rank was still important in her mind, it was gone now.

"Julius!" She cried while getting up and hugged him tightly. Burying her face in his shoulder.

Root grunted in surprised, he had not expected her to react like that. In hindsight, he probably should have expected it. To everyone else's surprise in the room, he hugged her back. If he had learned anything from watching his life go past countless times, it was that he needed to show more affection towards those who cared for him. Mind you, he wouldn't be going all hugs and cuddles to the others.

Life slowly began to return to normal for the group. Well, as normal as it could with Haven being a wreck as it was. The council was suspicious of Root's sudden return at just the right time, but they needed the extra help with the crisis. He was given the rank of Second Commander, since Trouble still held his rank for dealing with the situation as he did. They were ordered to keep his method of return to themselves till things calmed down enough they could discuss it. To them, there was never such a creature so powerful that it could bring the dead back to life. Also with no body to examine, this new species may as well had been made out of air. With Root's home and belongings auctioned away, he was forced to live in an apartment building that wasn't far from Foaly's home. Morning calls from the genius centaur were not a rare thing for the commander, although he would have liked them to be. Foaly had been keeping Artemis up to date on what happened and how the repairs were going. Artemis in return was helping the LEP gather information on Jon. He knew a bit too much, but where he got the information they couldn't find out. Chop was mind whipped and released back on the surface.

"Wow, sorry I missed all the fun this time." Artemis said, almost sound truly disappointed he was not included on the adventure.

"On the bright side, we got Julius back. Although the medical staff is examining him from head to foot." Foaly chuckled. "It's good to know he hasn't lost that temper of his. Work would be boring again if he did."

"I'm both surprised and glad he's back. Perhaps I should have went after genies instead of fairies. Speaking of which, how is she?" Artemis asked.

"She disappeared the day of the attack. Even with most of the snow cleaned up, we can't find any trace. It's almost like she never existed..." the centaur said, his mind going back to someone else who disappeared without a trace.

Artemis noticed Foaly's slight mood change, but decided not to ask. The centaur often talked about what bothered him when he wanted to, no reason to pry. The continued the talk about researching Jon to get off the topic.

"Jon Algerbech, forty-one years of age, Caucasian male. He made a living as a photographer since he was twenty-two. One of those could have been well known names, but was over looked kind of people." Artemis said, giving Foaly the short version of his notes. "Got married at the age of twenty-five to a Marie Sonnet. She died only four years after their marriage, due to some unknown disease. The local news paper says that her husband took any jobs he could to help pay for the hospital bills, but in the end the doctors ran out of possibilities and time. Marie passed away while her husband was on one of the jobs, a wildlife preserve wanting to show off their species."

"So then this guy heard from somewhere that genes were real and somehow caught one?" Foaly speculated.

"That part I can't find out. No one from the local area remembers when he moved out to the middle of nowhere with his new pet. The locals said that they could see him from time to time after her death, but then he started to take on jobs that had long travel times and was never home. Suddenly one day a few months ago, he moved." Artemis reported. "He probably picked up Wisher on one of those trips, but there were no records from any of his fight tickets that he had anything in the cargo hold. Just his camera bag."

The facts continued to pile up, but clues of how this human got access to fairy knowledge were going cold. As they talked, Foaly had a short video clip from the attack replaying on a side monitor. Holly and Foaly are down, the monster that was Jon was moving towards them. Wisher runs over to them, and as Jon strikes, there is a bright light, then she and Jon's arm are gone. The plaza's camera was half covered in ice, but there was no denying it. She was there, then just... gone.

Holly was sitting at her kitchen table, tackling a large pile of paper work from LEP. Since most of the building had been crushed, almost everyone was forced to either work at home or help clear away rubble. Since her back hurt still, she chose the first option. She was lucky that she got to choose the first option, many others were forced to help clean up since there was such a large mess. They had dismantled the digging machine and had a team of dwarfs repair the hole, that was the first thing that was done. Haven was locked down for a day, as the officers took on the grueling takes of collecting the casualties. The city would be even less crowded now, finding the bright side in that was a little difficult for her. The group had promised to play cards again once the whole mess had been cleaned up, she was looking forwards to that.