Foggy couldn't believe what he was seeing.
It wasn't that he was in his Sentinel's head; that was something he was growing increasingly comfortable doing. It wasn't the odd perspective from which he was seeing everything that he was seeing; that, he simply knew, was just the way that Matt saw the world. No, the thing that was most amazing him...the thing that was shocking him, even though he knew he shouldn't really be surprised by it...was how badass his best friend truly was. Seeing Matt fight, hitting and being hit, ignoring the bullets that were flying all around even though, unlike the Guardians, Matt wasn't being protected from the possibility of the next second being his last. Seeing all that, through Matt's eyes, feeling it as he was feeling it...it was overwhelming him. Focus, Foggy, he thought, hoping he was keeping the thoughts to himself, Matt needs your help. Foggy kept the rest of his thoughts quiet, processing Matt's senses in the hopes of getting that one all-important piece of information: the location of the Black Sky.
Matt stopped, letting the Guardians go ahead and take out more of the creeps with automatic weapons. It created an artificial break in the action that allowed him to focus on more important things. Got anything? he asked Foggy.
No, Foggy replied with a weary sigh. You're so close I feel that damn kid everywhere.
Keep filtering, Foggy, Matt encouraged his Guide, sometimes the smallest details mean the most...
Yeah, yeah, Foggy groaned, only half-teasing. His attention hung on a new sensation, and he focused on it, reaching out to see if he could dip a mental toe in the water before they fell down the rabbit hole. First floor, he told Matt, back of the building.
Matt took off, jumping down three floors and rolling into his landing before sprinting toward danger once more. Thanks, Foggy.
Be careful, Foggy warned Matt. I don't even want to think of the headache I'd get if you got yourself killed with me in here...
#
Castle appeared in the basement of the building, working his way through the lower levels, inch by delicate inch. His fingers started to twitch as he opened his senses, taking everything that he had learned from his wife to filter out the difference between the dark elementals of the black fog and the familiar energies of the magic he was so used to feeling. C'mon, he thought, where the hell are you...
It didn't take the wizard long to find what he was looking for. An old Asian woman turned the corner, flanked by a squadron of tough-looking thugs carrying automatic weapons. The thugs instantly fired on Castle...only to have their bullets deflected into the nearby cinder block walls. "You're in the wrong room, boys," Castle declared, causing the half-dozen men to disappear with a wave of his hand.
The old woman smiled. "Finally, a truly worthy adversary."
"Madame Gao, I presume?" asked Castle.
"So I am called here," Gao replied cryptically.
Castle raised a curious eyebrow. "That is not your real name?"
Gao nodded. "My true name, I think, is best left unspoken."
Castle then nodded, taking note of the comment and filing it as part of his study of his opponent's strengths and weaknesses. "Very well, then." He created an energy ball and bounced it in his hand, hoping against hope that Gao would be intimidated by the gesture. "Shall we begin?"
Gao, in turn, separated the two pieces of her cane. She took the top piece in her hand and threw away the bottom. Testing the weight of the wand in her hand, she smiled, apparently finding the device to be adequate for her needs. "As your people say," Gao declared, "may the best man win."
#
Dropping three floors in one jump had one singular disadvantage: Matt had gotten ahead of the three Guardian warriors, who were still clearing out guards two floors above him. Determined to get where he needed to go, Matt disappeared into the shadows, picking off every guard he could get from the darkness, then going after those who were distracted by the suffering of their fellow thugs above their heads. Six more guards appeared out of thin air, confused and obviously disoriented by the sudden change in their environment. Matt had them on the ground before they were able to get adjusted to their surroundings.
Disoriented by the instant fight, Matt accidenally ran into the middle of the main room and into a crowded sweatshop full of heroin and blind workers. My God, thought Foggy, who are all these people?
Gao's heroin processors, Matt replied. Apparently they blind themselves as a sign of devotion to that old woman's idea of a 'better tomorrow'.
Man, thought Foggy, that is one crazy old sociopathic bitch.
Matt allowed himself one small smile...but when he started to shuffle across the edge of the floor, it caught the attention of the cluster of workers closest to him. They started calling out to their friends, who stood up in waves and, turning towards the sounds of fighting, began to attack Matt as one giant mob.
One man against three or four, Matt could handle easily. He knew he could take on five or six, even ten on a good day. But a hundred people, even brainwashed and blind, rushing at Daredevil, was more than he could handle. Of that much, Matt was absolutely certain. I need a way out of here, Foggy! Matt cried out as one last act of desperation.
Unable to find any other way to help his Sentinel, Foggy dropped the mental wall he had erected to allow himself to focus on his partner's senses. Ryan, he thought, Matt's in trouble. First floor.
We're on our way, Ryan replied.
#
Castle was starting to get frustrated. While Madame Gao didn't have anywhere near his level of raw power, she seemed to be able to anticipate his every move. He threw an energy ball, shattering the pallets that the old woman was using for cover. Gao didn't seem at all thrown by the destruction of her cover; she simply rolled over to another section of pallets and pinned Castle down with a volley of explosively intense lightning bolts. "How old are you, woman?" he grunted.
Gao smiled from behind the pallets, her hands erupting in flames. "You have fought well," Gao called out to Castle.
Castle cast another energy ball. "I'm not done yet," he insisted, using a shield to deflect a fireball into a pile of storage crates, causing them to explode.
"Yes," Gao declared. "You are." She closed her eyes, calling for her piece of the Black Sky to come to her aid and...
Nothing happened.
Gao frowned at the ineffectiveness of her spell. "That cannot be..." She repeated the spell.
Still, nothing happened.
Castle couldn't resist. "Hmm..." he teased, "Maybe he's busy. Did he tell you to leave a message after the beep?"
#
Ryan, Beckett and Esposito scanned the room, looking for any sign of the Sentinel. Beckett was the one to finally spot where Matt was being trampled by a mob of Gao's workers. "Over there," she declared, "I can see his boots."
The brawl felt endless as the three Guardians pushed their way through the crowds, throwing people on top of each other in their determination to get to their ally. Gao's workers were thrashing around in a rage: punching, kicking and grabbing at anyone who came into physical contact with them.
When the Guardians finally got to Matt, he was curled up into a ball, desperately trying to keep himself protected from the overwhelming onslaught. Only when he saw the telltale glow of the Guardians' auras did Matt finally relax, pulling himself out of the ball as Beckett helped him stand. "Thanks, guys."
"Where is he?" asked Ryan, all business. Matt tilted his head toward the door behind them. Castle, Ryan projected into the mind-link. We found him.
The wizard fell into the room, rolling in a continuation of the momentum he had started in the basement. Only when Castle came up out of the roll did he realized where he was. He dropped to a kneeling position and whispered a quick spell. '"That should keep Madame Gao from escaping," Castle announced, "but it won't hold her for long. Behind the door?" Matt nodded. "Open it," Castle ordered.
The door opened to an innocent-looking child of Asian descent, clad in only a loincloth. "He can't be more than eight years old..." said Ryan.
It was then that the Black Sky launched his attack. The child tilted his head up until his chin pointed to the sky. Tendrils of black smoke flew through the room, wrapping around every being it could come into contact with. Matt and the Guardians dropped to their knees as those tendrils started to wrap around their arms, legs...and necks. "Castle!" Beckett called out, gasping for what she was scared might be her body's last breaths of air. "Hurry!"
The attack was one that Castle had been prepared for, and he found himself able to ignore it, choosing instead to focus on gathering the energies he needed to collect from the world around him. "PARASITE!" he called out in a voice that came from his gift and not from his vocal cords. "BE GONE FROM MY SIGHT!"
The room instantly emptied. The child had vanished, along with the tables, the heroin, and all of the workers. Castle helped Beckett up while Ryan pulled Esposito to a standing position. The four Guardians took a moment, gasping for air through crushed windpipes. Is that it? Ryan asked the group through the mind-link. Is it gone?
Beckett soon realized who else was still in the room...and who hadn't stood up yet. She went to the clearly suffering Sentinel and bent down on her knees next to his side. "Matt?" she yelled, praying that the man wasn't in a zone-out or some sort of sensory overload. "Matt, what is it? Talk to me!"
Matt was on his knees, gasping for air. He clutched at his throat as if desperately trying to pull an unseen enemy away from his face, his eyes, his neck, his arms...
Beckett looked up to her husband. "He looks like he's fighting the Black Sky," she insisted. "Is it..."
Castle shook his head. "No, the darkness isn't there. I can barely feel it."
Esposito bent down next to Matt, touching his other shoulder...and immediately recoiling at what he saw. "We gotta get outta here, Castle," he declared. "The kid's gone after Foggy."
The group disappeared a second later.
#
Foggy was on his feet, his eyes still closed but his expression wild and desperate. He was watching his Sentinel die, he was certain of that. Worse, he also knew that there was nothing he could do to stop it. Foggy clutched at his neck in a panic, instinctively clawing and swatting at the tendrils of the Black Sky, hoping against all hope that his movements would do what Matt's couldn't, and save his life...
The connection died, and Foggy collapsed on the ground, vomiting from the pain and wailing from the grief that was threatening to consume his very soul. It wasn't just losing his best friend. It wasn't even like he had lost a brother or another member of his family. Foggy had lost a part of his soul. A piece of himself had just been ripped out of his body and violently murdered. He didn't just want to grieve. He wanted to end the suffering that felt like it was going to continue the rest of his days.
He wanted to die.
Out of the corner of Foggy's eye, he saw a pair of small, bare feet. He turned his head and looked up to find a small Asian child staring at him with a curious expression. And it was then that Foggy knew. He knew it as well as he knew the grief that was threateening to consume him.
This was the being that had killed Matt.
"You evil son of a bitch," Foggy growled. "If you were going to kill me, why not just do it.? Hell, why not just do it now? But why'd you have to do it? Huh? Why'd you have to kill...him...first..."
Foggy charged the Black Sky, but before he could get five feet the being opened his mouth and attacked. The Guide instantly felt the pain that he had felt his Sentinel endure, and he fell to his knees, this time clutching at real tentrils of smoke that were wrapping around his torso, his arms, his neck, and his head...
He was getting his wish.
He was dying.
Foggy closed his eyes, letting the darkness wash over him and take him away to the sweetness of oblivion. A pinprick of light pierced through the darkness. Whadya know, Foggy thought with a mental chuckle. There actually is a light...He felt himself being pulled toward the light, joy bubbling up in his soul as the light grew closer, and closer and closer...
It wasn't Heaven that Foggy found when he made it into the light. It wasn't Limbo, or Paradise, or the hereafter, or any other version of the afterlife that religions have named in the hopes of having a goal for the life after death. On the contrary...when Franklin "Foggy" Nelson reached the light, he was reaching into himself. Into the very core of his being. The light and the heart and the purity and the passion and the compassion...
Foggy Nelson hadn't made it to heaven.
Foggy Nelson had found his soul.
He took that light and pulled it to him, cradling it like a mother holding her most precious newborn in her arms for the first time. The light grew as a child grows, pushing away the darkness with a strength that the darkness, for all of eternity, has never found a way to overcome. Foggy gloried in that light, drinking it in like an alcoholic finding his way to the bottom of a tequila bottle.
And finally, when Foggy Nelson felt like he couldn't consume another drop of the power that was the essence of the universe around him, that universe exploded in a blinding flash of light.
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