By Chustang Sundust
Chapter 4
"Crash and Burn"
June 15.
Smoke lifted into the dark air, touched by a hint of roses on
the wind. Memories were burning in his mind, as the wind ruffled through
the flame-red hair, letting the strands whip freely. Pain as well. Leaning
against the dark building corner, he took a deep, raggedly drawn breath
to clear his ravaged mind of all thought. He just wanted peace. In the
cold cruelty of the rain, he found a certain freedom. The Sentinel III
streets were empty and silent before him.
The man's dark blue eyes were sullen and dull beneath his red
hair, and he listlessly blew a few strands from his face. On the wind,
he could hear the thunder building and breaking in the dark storm clouds
forming. Yet he could hear the voice again, the voice of his killer, echoing
again and again in his mind. The sound of the gunshot. The pain. He didn't
want to remember, but he knew it was hopeless to resist.
Gene Starwind, the broken outlaw, felt his feet move beyond his
control. In the dark of the rain, he didn't care what was happening to
him, or how something was controlling the movement. He didn't care he was
heading back to home, a place he'd really never had, or that he was holding
the caster. He didn't care the internal killing drive the force gave him.
He just didn't give a damn anymore.
Smoke in the Thunder
Driftin' on a late summer wind
Like a breath of Perfection,
It'll never be back again.
You can't go back for the things you left behind
The emotions are all in your mind
He couldn't deny what had happened. Gene couldn't turn back time, no matter how loud or angry his words were, no matter how hard he tried. Again, as he sank into a drone, listlessly walking down empty streets, they came back. The remembrances.
"Now. If you'd cooperate, I'd like to kill you."
It only took a second for the darkly cloaked stranger to whip
a bronze flash from his side and focus the object on him, jabbing Gene's
chin upward until his strained neck began to throb in pain. The outlaw
took a double take, eyes intensely surprised. Because, with a few licks
of dried blood like scars across its barrel, was his own caster. It's small
knife like thing (I don't know what to call it ^_^;;) cut at his chin,
and the blood shined in the hot summer sun. The man had him pressed against
the steel base like he weighed no more than a doll, and was pinching him
against it with only one hand against the base of his neck.
The man's fierce blue eyes seemed to crookedly smile, with
that recognizable steely flavor to them. He slightly tilted up his cowboy
hat, still clutching the impossibly real caster. "Despite what it might
seem like, death isn't all that bad you know, Gene," he said silkily, his
breath hot on his skin.
Gene, still panting heavily, just gave him a short-winded
reply. "How do you know my name?" he weakly demanded, clenching his hands
into fists in pain at his sides. "And how could you have a caster like
that? Mine is one of a kind."
"Well, let's just say… you know me and I know you. Besides,"
he said, giving a smile through his steel blue eyes, "it's really your
gun, as well as mine."
Gene narrowed angry eyes at the insolence he had received,
especially from such an annoyingly haughty person. While still pained,
he maintained his fire and spat back an insolent little spark himself.
"You're a liar, just a two-faced jerk who doesn't know when he's behind,"
the outlaw said, suddenly jerking his fist at the tanned face he could
see beneath the cowboy hat. It connected strongly, and the infuriated grunt
Gene gave droned out his foe's yell of surprise. But the success he achieved
came with one price.
The caster fired.
A hit.
He dropped.
A laugh.
There was only the blazing fire of incessant pain in his chest,
as he blinked to find death and a mirror staring back at him, only through
eyes so totally different and identical to his. Gene was looking up at
the black-coated stranger, who had a strange vial in his scarred hands.
Yet he didn't realize just what it ment, seeing who he did in that man's
face. It was impossible… The blue eyes gazing down at him, as he lay, dying
on the ground, were angry, pained, and apologetic at the same time.
"I'm sorry to do this, but I have no choice Gene. I can't
let the Pirates down, or let fate have its way. Only if you die, will everything
work out in my time," he breathed, eyes bizarrely watery. He lifted his
hand up against the ocean blue sky, revealing a vibrant green vial with
a small needle in the cork, which was glowing ominously. "It's really for
the best, what I'm doing now. But I have you kill you."
The man gave no more emotion, as he pinned the outlaw down
coldly by kicking him, and plunged the needle straight into his main throat
vein. Instantly, a fiery pain began course his blood like a poison snake,
slashing endlessly at every weak spot in his body. He could feel the poison
begin to cloud in his head, like a venomous storm gathering to strike.
Gene suddenly felt a force seemingly grab his mind and wrench it to its
control. Yet, it couldn't seem to control him completely.
Gene blindly pushed the man away, pulling the needle from
his vein as it injected the poison. Flickering his slurring vision at the
vial, he saw it was more than half empty in his hand. The outlaw gave a
shuddering wheeze as he smashed the vial in his fist, and groggily flung
it away. He shut his eyes, not wanting to hear what came next. Pain like
blades slashed at his heart.
Above him the gun clicked and locked.
He knew what was coming.
Jim Hawking no longer held a spark, an internal drive to lift
his life up. It was like his motor of life had just sputtered and died
beneath him, without a warning. Ironic, looking at that picture, everything
else sputtered and died around him now. As if there was anything really
to die anyway – things had been going downhill fine on their own, thank
you very much. And the fact that he was holding the key to his aniki's
broken past didn't make the situation better.
Running his finger across the broken glass, Jim could feel confused
eyes turning to the photo for answers. The young outlaw leaned back
against the door, with the glare of the street lamps streaming in the nearby
window through the blinds. Midnight was his perfect time to think. It was
too early for the hassle of a drunk Gene, too late for Suzuka, and Aisha
would be too busy dreaming about owning the Leyline to bother to do anything
else besides grab a midnight snack. But Melfina was quite another story.
Those amber brown eyes could never be closed to a person outside
her room. It seemed to Jim, seeing how each time he retreated to think,
or was up late working, she came to him, that she was awake herself. And
this particular, rainy and stormy night didn't restrain her from doing
so.
Mel, with her ebony hair glistening in the glare, sauntered silently
from the kitchen. In her slender fingers, she clutched a glass of
ice tea. The android didn't get a welcoming upward glance as she approached,
liquid brown eyes falling downward in bit of discouragement. "Jim?" she
softly asked, taking her place beside the blonde, whose marble blue eyes
were jammed in the depths of the photo. Melfina slid her arm around his
neck, drawing his head to her shoulder. "I thought you might be thirsty,
thinking like this, so I brought you something to drink."
The disheveled mop of blonde hair looked up to her with grateful
blue eyes, and Jim's lips lifted heavily in a sad smile. "Thanks Mel,"
he said quietly, accepting the glass, letting the picture lie in his lap.
He limply held it, but took no move to drink. Jim let his darkened blue
eyes cast downward to look gazes with the picture again.
"What's the matter?" she asked, finally recognizing the youthful
and smiling faces preserved for all time in that picture. The android tentatively
tilted the picture to face her, and her liquid brown eyes widened, seeing
the face of an eleven-year-old Gene. "What… Jim? Where'd you get this?"
she whispered anxiously, mind clouding with even more confusion. It just
didn't click in her mind, everything happening now.
"It's Aniki's." His voice iced coldly, and his fingers tightened
around the splintering frame, worn with years. Fury began to bloom in his
bright eyes, narrowing. "It's lying bastard Aniki's"
**************
Author's Notes
Come on people! Please review! The review bucket has been empty for a while and I feel like kicking it. Are you alive out there? The poem is mine, but I have this voice in the back of my head saying there's already a song called Smoke in the Thunder. Hmm. I really must be going crazy… Well, bubbye!
Chustang