Knowing that Rockman was on his way to see me, I opened my eyes again. Moments later, he entered the storage room.
"Good news, we just left the space station."
I was about to tell him I already knew that, but he continued before I could: "Bad news, we are the only survivors."
No kidding. But Rockman wasn't done: "The three of us, and one more man. He even told me to give this to you."
He gave me the dagger that Quinn gave him. Snow White's dagger.
"Generous as it may be, it won't do you any good." he said, "Can you use any of the weapons here?"
I picked up one of the staff-weapons that I found, but Rockman stopped me: "Too heavy for you."
He opened on of the boxes, takes something out and gives it to me: "Here, this should do."
He gave me what looked like a hand-gun. Though it had two buttons, and I wasn't sure which button did what.
"Press this button..." Rockman pointed, "... to activate it, and press the other to shoot. Shoot once, it'll cause pain, possibly paralysis. Shoot twice, and they die."
I pressed one of the buttons, and got spooked when it... expanded, and made what sounded like a threatening roar. I pressed that button again, and it regained its original form.
"Are these the only survivors?" Quinn suddenly popped into the room.
"Yes." Rockman replied.
"What's wrong with her?" Quinn pointed at Snow White.
"It would take too long to explain." Rockman said, "I have other things to do."
"What other things?" Quinn wondered.
"They are fighting a battle inside that space station." Rockman explained, "One side are people who want to re-program, brainwash, or assimilate us. The other are a group of feral people. Whichever side wins, it won't be beneficial for us."
"So what do you plan to do?" Quinn asked.
"There is one very easy way to destroy the base." Rockman said, "And I intend on doing exactly that."
Without another word, Rockman ran out of the room. Quinn tried to follow him, but Rockman was too fast for him. Quinn gave up quite fast, and ran back to me and Snow White.
"He just... disappeared around the corner." he said, "How did he do that?"
He scratched his head thinking about it. Though as he scratched his head, he lowered his hand to his neck, as if he was still suffering from that pain he felt there earlier. Quinn noticed me looking at him scratching his neck.
"It's nothing." he said, "Think I wrenched my neck when I..."
He couldn't finish his sentence, and having witnessed the event wherein he wrenched his neck, I don't think he had to say any more.
"I better see what that blue guy is up to." he left the room, and I shut the door behind him.
"I don't know what Rockman is up to." Snow White's voice said in my head, "Hopefully, we'll find out soon."
I took that as an invitation of hers for me to sit down again, and see what was going on elsewhere. So I put Snow White's dagger into her hands, and took my seat again.
Through Quinn's eyes, I saw him running back to the ship's bridge, and looking outside. There, we saw a smaller vessel leave from a hangar somewhere in our own ship, and head toward the space station. As it left, Quinn looked at his timer. Still fifteen minutes left. Quinn knew that it was more than enough to return to the storage room, and hopefully enough room for Rockman to do what he had to do. Being inside his head, I found out that Quinn was thinking exactly what I was thinking, that that smaller vessel we saw was controlled by Rockman. It made me wonder whether there were others at the base who could see him coming.
"Only one way to find out." Snow White said.
We switched to a point of view of the individual on the station that was nearest to us. Oddly, that individual seemed to be flying in space. There were several more, we sensed, so we switched to another one. There was another individual on the left of the first one. And another to the right. We tried looking inside the head of someone further and... what we saw made no sense. We saw that we were inside the heads of people inside spaceships, and from this one perspective, we saw three more ships in front of us. Though these ships looked more like fighter-jets. But the strangest part was that we didn't see a control console, or the hands controlling the machine, as if the mind we were in was the machine. But how was that possible? The mind-reading machine only works on organic people, and yet here we were inside the heads of fighter-jets. Unless... Is this what Rockman meant with assimilating people? Turning them into machines? Was this the fate that awaited me? Was this what Tuxedo Kamen saved me from? Tried to save everyone else from, but failed?
"Wait, maybe we can use this." Snow White said.
From these people's eyes, we could see that smaller vessel arrive. And as I thought, Rockman was in the cockpit. But as he flew over the station, other fighter-jets started leaving the hangar-bay.
"That little blue man you just saw could use your help." Snow White whispered into these... people-jets.
And as she suggested, these jets started firing at the enemy fighters, while two of them provided cover-fire for Rockman. Knowing him, he probably already knew what the friendlier jets were, and wouldn't be entirely surprised why they'd help him. After a lot of zigzagging and shooting through these fighters, Rockman finally managed to arrive at a hole in the space station's surface, where he fired a few shots. With that done, he raised his vessel up to fly away. I thought to myself that this was great, Rockman succeeded. And as I was about to jump in joy... sparks erupted from one of his wings. It quickly spread over his entire vehicle, until it exploded. That was another man who saved our lives. And he died. Soon enough, there was another explosion, from inside the space station, and soon, all turned black. Instinctively, I tried switching back to other perspectives, but there was nothing there.
"Do not worry." I heard Snow White's voice talk, but... this time, it wasn't inside my head. I opened my eyes, and saw her looking back at me, smiling.
"The enemy lair is destroyed." she explained, "So is the machine. We can't see what others are seeing anymore."
That explained that, but why was she so happy? Lots of people have died.
"Many may have died saving us." she told me, "But they will be remembered."
Lots of good that would do us, I thought to myself, as I looked away from her.
"Look at me." she told me.
I did exactly that. Just looking at that pretty face of hers, it was enough to make me forget all my troubles. For a short while.
"They died so that you may live." she said.
Me? What makes me so special?
"I've looked inside your head." she said, "There is something about you. Something..."
She didn't finish her sentence, as the door to the storage room opened. There stood Quinn.
"Hello." Snow White said to him.
As a reply, he picked up one of the staff-weapons and activated it. Snow White began asking him what he was doing, but got interrupted when his eyes started glowing.
"You are the one who was inside our heads, were you not?" he spoke with a distorted voice, almost like he was possessed by a demon.
Immediately, Snow White took a defensive position, holding up her dagger, and standing in front of me, like she was shielding me.
Quinn (or whoever he was) laughed: "You just brought a knife into a gun-fight.
Gun... I was reminded that I had a weapon of my own. As fast as I could, I activated my own gun, raised it and fired at Quinn. A lightning-bolt shot from the gun and hit him. As it hit him... I needed a moment to fully comprehend what happened. It was either too fast, or I didn't want it to be true. Shooting Quinn caused him to fire his own weapon. And while I didn't actually see it hit anything, the fact that Snow White was lying at my feet, her belly scorched, and bleeding... it gave me a very good idea of where the blast went. Too good an idea. She laid at my feet, squirming in pain, while I stood there, at a loss to do anything. Quinn, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do. He fought against the pain I caused him, and tried standing up again. Immediately, I fired my gun at him again. With this, he stopped moving altogether, and fell down, lifeless. Frightened at what I had in my hands, I threw it away, and turned all my attention to Snow White. She looked at me, with those marvelous eyes of hers, as if she wasn't at all angry at what I caused to happen. She raised her hand, reaching for mine. I knelt down to hold her hand, but she only wanted me to hold it open for her, so she could give me her dagger.
"Take this..." she said, with grave difficulty, "... for your... protection... and... to re... remember me by."
That's when all life left her body. I can still see those eyes of hers staring at me. Can you even begin to imagine eyes like hers, soft and loving, and yet so devoid of life at the same time? It's a something nobody should ever have to see. So lost was I in this, the very next sound I heard spooked me. Wanting it to stop, I looked around to see where it came from. It seemed to come from Quinn. I searched his body, and found only his timer. It was getting closer to zero. I didn't know what to do with it, but I wanted its noise to stop. So I pressed the only button this machine had. What happened next was something I didn't expect at all. Something shot itself from the device, and formed a sort of circle in front of me. The same sort of circle that was used to kidnap me and my classmates... whom I hadn't thought of until now. They too were on that station, so they too had died. I was feeling worse and worse every second. I couldn't stay there much longer. I jumped into that circle, not caring where it would take me, if it would take me anywhere at all.
THE END
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