I got covid and that paralyzed my life and my fics, and made me accumulate work, so I have only recently been able to update.
Whatever, here's another episode of this thing. Thanks to those who are reading this and if you can please leave a review. That would make me smile. Love you guys who are reading this abomination.
The demon lunged at Mox and began to hit him, Mox was hitting him back, but the demon was very strong. Perhaps stronger than Lesnar was. Whatever this creature was, it was very dangerous. The demon grabbed Mox by the neck and although it struck him, Balor did not seem to feel pain. The demon was suffocating Mox.
Roman grabbed the demon from the back, and although it was tricky, he managed to get his attention, causing him to let go of Mox.
The auburn haired one took a while to breathe, as he caught his breath, he realized that Roman couldn't hurt that creature either.
Roman tried to hit Balor, but he stopped the blows from him with his hands, as if guessing the movements of the Samoan. Roman tried again and again, but the demon stopped all the punches from him.
And Mox also realized that the demon was not attacking Roman, he was only stopping or pushing to get rid of him. If that powerful creature wanted to, he could be suffocating Roman as well. It was obvious that he didn't want to hurt him, so maybe they could use that to their advantage.
Mox ran towards them and lunged at the demon, who seemed to sense Mox approaching, despite his back turned. He shoved Roman away from him and turned back, so quickly he caught Mox in midair, knocking them both to the ground.
Mox heard the demon growl with such rage that for a moment he was afraid. The demon began to hit him with such insanity that he seemed to want to end his life. The rain was beginning to clear, and the clouds were dissipating. Giving way to the light of the moon to illuminate that place, which was a quagmire, full of mud and blood.
"His strength is not proportional to his size." Mox grunted.
Roman lunged at the demon, and it shook him off, to go for Mox. Roman realized what was happening.
"Go away or he will kill you!" Roman yelled at Mox.
"And what about you?" Mox yelled back at him.
"He won't hurt me." Roman pushed Finn hard, crashing him into a tree.
Mox approached Roman. "Why wouldn't that beast kill you?"
"Because that beast was the one who brought me back to this world. He always wanted me alive." Roman replied by now pushing Mox away from Balor.
The demon was looking for Mox, but Roman stopped him and kept trying to hit him.
"Tell your friend to get away from here, and take Ali with you." Roman managed to say as he and Finn rolled on the floor.
Becky began to fear for her life, although Roman had commissioned her to take care of Ali's body, she did not find sense to do so. This man was dead anyway.
Mox, walked away from Roman and approached Becky. "You must go now. That creature is indestructible, we must kill it."
"Roman said that creature is Finn." She answered. "Plus, he said he needed it to bring this guy back. Which doesn't make sense because he's already dead."
Mox clenched his fists. Now Roman's words made sense.
"That's why the demon doesn't attack Roman. Roman said the truth, he did die…" Mox said desperately
"Of course not." Becky said angrily. "Don't you see him. He is alive!"
"Roman died, just like this guy you're looking after and… Balor, turned into that thing, brought him back to life. That is why Roman doesn't Balor to return to his human form, he needs him as the demon to bring his boyfriend back."
"You all are crazy..." Becky shook her head in denial.
"Perhaps if we restrict him, Balor can bring him back to life..."
Mox ran towards them, Balor noticed and turned to attack him.
"Why dont you leave?" Roman berated him as they both tried to hold Finn down.
"Because he won't murder you, but he's not going to help you either." Mox had to pause, this was very complicated. "If I help you restrict him, you could force him to revive your boyfriend."
Even the injuries Finn was inflicting on him in this handicap fight didn't hurt as much as the words Mox had just said.
"Ok." Roman nodded in relief. "Help me, I need to bring him back."
They both clung to the demon's body, Roman from the front and Mox from behind. The demon gave a heart-rending cry, trying to shake off both super soldiers. Roman and Mox, held on with all their strenght to stop him.
Tony was back, very carefully he approached Becky.
"Everyone is safe, it has been difficult to communicate with the villagers, but in the end we found a couple of people who speak a little of our language. They are helping each other. " Tony explained. "And they're looking for weaponry at the bad guys' base. They want to destroy that creature. "
"They can't do that!" Becky said desperately.
"When the villagers come, we must drive Mox away." Tony warned. "I don't want him to get hurt."
"They cannot attack him, that creature, he is our friend, he is a human like us." Becky insisted. "We must wait for Mox and Roman to stop him."
"They will not. You're seeing the power of that guy, even between the two of them they can't contain it." Tony was desperate now. "He's going to kill Mox... don't you care?"
Becky started hitting the ground. Finn was her friend and Mox was too, things couldn't be resolved this way. She saw the battlefield and the result was the same. Mox bathed in blood, Roman hurt and they couldn't stop him. At this rate, the demon was going to defeat them and then...
A tear rolled down Becky's cheek. "You are right, there is no other solution."
"We must warn Mox." Tony nodded.
And for the amount of time that had passed, since their kidnap, the first rays of the sun were lighting up the horizon. Villagers were beginning to arrive in vehicles armed with the things that they had been able to decipher their use. Ready to attack that creature.
The demon threw Roman and Mox far away from him and roared again...
Roman saw in horror what was about to happen, he lunged at Finn and they both rolled on the ground.
"Finn... Finn, they are going to kill you!" Roman told him desperately.
Finn threw him away and now he fell next to Mox.
"Your desire to revive your boyfriend will end your friend's life. We have to make that demon to become Finn again." Mox stood up.
"You don't understand!" Roman said desperately. "If the demon leaves... I'm going to lose him."
And the desperation on Roman's face was evident, once again, trapped, with no way out without a happy ending.
That seemed to be the fate of both of them.
But before the villagers could do anything, a thick mist enveloped the entire place, so dark that nothing could be seen. Several minutes passed and the fog began to dissipate, the sun's rays also illuminated the whole place, it had already dawned.
Roman and Mox saw Finn's body lying on the ground, badly injured. He was no longer the demon. Roman ran to his friend and scooped him up in his arms. As the fog faded, the villagers did not find their target. The demon had disappeared and no one associated it with the poor man wounded on the ground.
Roman led Finn over to where Becky and Tony were.
"He is alive, but his pulse is very weak, he must be taken to the hospital where they are treating the other wounded." Tony started checking on Finn.
Roman nodded. Then he looked at Ali's body. There was no way to bring him back. They had been successful in this mission… but the price they have to pay was too much.
"I don't understand anything they say." Becky said sadly.
"They say we will return to America in the leader's super expensive plane." Tony indicated. "The villagers will help us, they are grateful that we liberated them from oppression. We will leave in the afternoon."
"The air forces will shoot down the unknown plane as soon as we cross the territorial sea, but if we survived all this nightmare, maybe there is hope." Becky smiled.
"We will make a stopover..." Tony indicated.
One of the fighters approached them. A fair-haired, jovial-looking man. "All this time we were hitting a super soldier who could have killed us... that¿s so cool..."
"You're crazy Adam." Tony wanted to roll his eyes.
"How did the others take it?" Becky asked. "The truth about Mox..."
"Eddie told them that if any of them opened their mouths, he would open their guts..." Adam shrugged. "And we all know that Eddie would. I guess they won't say anything."
"I wouldn't trust Chris." Tony pursed his lips.
"And neither do we, that's why he will go in the last group. We will go first." Adam smiled and put on a Pilot hat. "I'm going to be the co-pilot. We don't understand what the pilot says and I won't move from the cabin until I am sure that that guy won't make us crash."
"Are you sure it won't be you who will make us crash?" Tony said in a more jovial tone.
Adam started to walk away from both of them. "Don't worry, we will arrive safely. As soon as your boyfriend comes back, we'll take off. "
Tony sighed, watching their friend walking away.
"If he's still my boyfriend..." Tony sighed. "But what I am saying, he never was."
Becky wanted to say that he was wrong, but for some reason, she couldn't.
In a huge mausoleum behind the Royal Palace, Roman was standing, accompanied by two of the restaurant's employees.
"His parents… Ali's…" One of them was trying to communicate with Roman.
"That was his wish, to be buried next to them." Roman nodded.
Together they buried Ali and left Roman standing there.
The wind was blowing his hair, which was now very messy and dirty, longer. The sky was still cloudy, as if the whole place was in mourning.
"I swore I would get you out of here... and I have had to leave you in this place forever..." Roman muttered in pain. "That's why I always told Finn that we're not heroes. What kind of fucking heroes can we be if we can't save the people we love? We are a bloody failure, because we were created to destroy, not to save."
Roman closed his eyes and, for the second time since his resurrection, was carried away by his emotions. Ali had had that power, to make him want to love, to make him feel deep pain.
"These people thank us, but it was you who saved them." Roman wailed. "You dedicated your life to saving an island where you didn't even grow up, a people who never knew you. You wanted to do good, you were a damn hero and this was your reward… you were just as Finn described Roman, just like him, and like him, you were killed trying to save others."
Roman clenched his fists, he didn't want to cry, he wasn't going to do such a thing. But he wasn't going to forget either… he was so caught up in his emotions that he didn't realize there was someone else there.
"My dad was a hero, just like Ali... and just like Roman." Mox began to speak.
And the Samoan realized that Mox was referring to Roman, as a different person. He had finally understood that his Roman, the hero he loved, was not the same Roman who was standing before him.
"And he's dead right?" Roman turned and looked at him deeply.
"Yes…" Mox muttered.
"Has the world thanked you for his sacrifice? whatever it was." Roman said bitterly.
"No…"
There was a sad aura surrounding both men, they stayed still, very quiet for several minutes. It was something there, something they were feeling, a conection of sorts. But they were too damaged, too sad to recognize it.
"I am very sorry for what happened to your boyfriend." Mox broke the silence, and finally could see some empathy in Roman's blue eyes.
"And I am sorry about your loss too. I am sorry that you have to keep seeing him every time you look at me. It must be difficult for you."
Mox just nodded. "Now, I know you are not him. He was wrong, the way he thought he could save everyone, just with sacrifice and good intentions... he was wrong."
Roman sighed.
"But you," Mox pointed at Roman and kept talking. "You are right, in everything you said, we are not heroes, we were not created to save anyone, not even ourselves. And now, we both have the same problem. We both have a huge desire for revenge. And our enemies seem to be associated."
And for the first time, Roman took the time to really look at Mox. Not like the street fighter, or another powerful supersoldier, much less like the ex-boyfriend of the former occupant of his body. Roman saw Mox for what he was, a deeply wounded man, someone whose life had taken everything from him.
Two men who died and were reborn, now being different, without naivety, without a desire to be what they were not meant to be.
They were the same now.
Roman just nodded.
"He is very weak. I managed to stabilize him, but he doesn't wake up." Tony was checking on Finn.
"The first time he transformed into that... the Shaman said that he was asleep for a week." Roman broke into the compartment of the plane where Finn was resting.
"A week..." Becky sighed. "It's too much, we will leave in a few minutes and in a couple of days we should reach Utopia."
"The first time he became the demon, he used a lot of energy to bring a corpse back to life…" Roman had gathered his emotions. "This time he couldn't. He will surely wake up much earlier."
"Sorry but, I can't belive that." Tony said and walked towards Finn to secure the bed and his body previous to the plane taking off.
Becky got close to Roman and muttered."I believe you. Tony is a scientist, is not easy for him to accept whatever happened yesterday."
"You seem to be the smart one of your group." Roman muttered back. "I'll go take a bath."
With that said, Roman walked into one of the private areas of the huge Airbus, on the upper floor.
Being the leader's plane, it was very ostentatious. The downstairs area, which was a suite with a bathroom, had been adapted with two beds and medical equipment to move Finn. The upstairs suite was equally equipped, had two beds and a bathroom as well.
Tony finished securing Finn and returned to Becky. "Roman Reigns is still alive. Dean Ambrose's one and true love. The whole planet knows that story."
"I'm so sorry Tony." Becky pursed her lips. "Even I must admit that that story was too intense... I guess we can start calling Mox by his real name now."
"My name is Jon Moxley." Mox entered the compartment. "And that guy, that's not Roman... he died."
"Seriously?" Tony arched an eyebrow. "That story is absurd. Roman just suffers from amnesia and perhaps some kind of personality disorder. But he never died."
"You saw this little guy turning into an allmighty and destructive creature, who seemed to feed on the lighnings and darkness. This guy would have destroyed us all, if not for whatever that made him return to his human form." Mox almost rolled his eyes. "There are inexplicable things, Tony. You sleep with one of those anomalies, by the way."
"You are not an anomaly, what happened to you is science, not folklore." Tony insisted. "And as for what we slept or not together... whether Roman's story is real or not, he's back."
Becky sighed. "You know what? I'll take a bath, I don't want to listen to private conversations." That said, the redhead went to the bathroom of that suite.
Tony sat on one of the beds. Mox sat down next to him.
"Tony, I knew Roman, I knew him very well and that blue-eyed guy is not him." Mox continued his explanation. "And I'm not Dean Ambrose, either. Roman and Dean died on Utopia. That guy doesn't even look like Roman. And out of respect to Dean and Roman's story, no one shoud be comparing them. Is even offensive to compare Roman with that guy. So please don't do it again. Not in front of me at least."
Mox placed a kiss on Tony's lips. The doctor smiled at Mox with evident distrust, but resignation.
"You smell like shit Mox..."
"That has never bothered you."
They both kissed. Tony wanted to believe that maybe this was a good thing. That all this mess had made Mox really give up on Roman. But was it possible to give up something as huge as the feeling that Dean and Roman shared?
The plane began to take off and everything began to move.
"I must keep an eye on Finn." Tony held onto the bed.
"I'll go take a bath on the other floor. Becky always takes a long time there." Mox winked at Tony.
And as if the movement of the plane was nothing, Mox walked upstairs to the plane. The advantages of being a supersoldier.
Roman was going to bathe, but really, he just took advantage of the one moment he had found to be alone. And now he was leaning against the cold tiles of the bathroom, stark naked.
He closed his eyes. His life had been so short, too short. He did not remember more than a year of it.
But... what else was there to remember? The life of the man he refused to be. He wasn't Roman, he didn't feel like Roman, not like that man Finn described over and over again.
God, that guy even seemed pathetic to him.
However, wasn't it more pathetic to have no identity? Running away from someone he didn't know, refusing to be who everyone was yelling at him that he was.
Trying to remember, trying to couple his post Utopia self with that of the Roman that everyone remembered.
Trying to be that Roman.
Trying to be who he was now.
But… who was him now?
And what if Roman, the hero, the one who died to save the city who now hates him, is still inside me? If he's still a part of me, I just have to stop rejecting him and...
The shower door opening brought him out of his musings.
Roman opened his eyes and standing in front of him was a very naked Jon Moxley.