Chapter 5: Break
He ran in blind terror from the evil who he now knew. He slipped as he ran, only to get back up and continue running.
"Help, someone!"
He saw his dad, who cheered, "Run faster, son!" before disappearing.
"Dad! Help, please!"
His mom smiled at him. "Keep running, dear!" she said before dissolving into nothing.
Alone. Once again there was no one but him and the darkness.
But there was something--someone else. One final light, shining before him.
"Cree!" he called. She was ahead of him, a distant, bright, beacon of hope.
The darkness grew behind him, swallowing everything in its path. But if he could just reach her, everything would be okay.
He could feel the evil growing closer, but he kept running, fixing his eyes upon her. But then--
"Did you think she would save you?" questioned the darkness within his own mind.
Chad looked to her, his final hope. She turned, slowly, gazing upon him with indifferent eyes.
He wanted to call to her again, but his voice caught in his throat.
She regarded him for a moment, then turned away and vanished.
Alone.
"No," he gasped, and fell.
---
"You seem awfully quiet today," Cree observed.
"Huh? Oh--I'm just...tired."
"Hm," she murmured sympathetically.
Chad readied himself for another attack, gripping tight the hilt of his katana. But Cree lowered her weapon, watching him.
"You know, Chad, I think you push yourself too hard."
He maintained his fighting stance. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you just do too much. If it's not football, it's drama club. If it's not drama club, it's violin lessons, or tutoring, or whatever it is you do in the 'Young High Society Society'"
"And your point is?"
"Finals are coming up pretty soon, and we could both use a little more time. Is it really necessary to train two-three hours a day?"
He straightened, staring at her, dumbstruck. He felt as if he were being strangled. He should have known....
"I mean, what exactly are we training for, anyways?" she continued. "We can afford to take off a few weeks, right?"
He sheathed his katana, then looked up at Cree with the expression of one horribly betrayed. He had piled all his hopes on her. He had believed that with her, he could win back his soul. What a fool he had been. He bit down hard on his lower lip. He would not let her see how much he hurt.
"What--what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said in a low voice that he attempted to keep steady. "I should go, I don't want to waste any more of your time." He headed towards the door.
"Aw, Chad, you know I didn't mean it that way."
He shut the door with a resounding boom behind him.
-
He ran. Through the dark, twisted corridors of the mansion, until he reached outside. Once outside he ran, through the dim, empty streets, past quiet houses. He ran until he thought he would collapse from exhaustion, and even then continued. Could he outrun his emotions? His anger and stupidity? He stopped, fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. "God, I'm such an idiot."
He could hear laughter in his head.
"I HATE YOU!" he roared at the darkening sky. The laughter continued. This was his fault; he was the one who planted the seed of doubt in his mind. But even as he lay the blame, he knew it to be a lie. It was his own stupid fault. "...I hate myself."
He sat there, alone in the middle of the street, vaguely hoping that a passing truck would wipe him from existence.
A soft sound woke him from his daze, and he turned abruptly towards it. A small figure was approaching--a familiar one. They made eye contact and immediately recognized one another.
The Australian brat.
Something snapped in Chad's brain. The next thing he knew, he had pinned the boy against a fence and was throttling him with the side of his sheathed katana. The world around him grew strangely silent as he watched the child slowly turn purple. Extinguishing this life came surprisingly naturally to him.
"I...will...kill...you."
Chad's eyes took on an eerie, crazed, light.
Chad was pulled away roughly, and the other boy dropped to the ground, wheezing for breath.
"What are you doing?!" Cree demanded.
"Getting revenge." He shook her off, barely even registering her presence. He would kill this boy. No one would stop him.
"You just tried to strangle a ten-year-old!"
"Stay out of this. It's none of your business."
"The hell it isn't. I didn't train you so you could go and do this."
He turned on her with cold eyes. "I don't need your training. I don't need you."
He regretted his words the instant he said them. Why did he say that? He stared up at her unreadable face. Was she angry? Was she hurt? He opened his mouth to apologize, to take it back, but no words came.
She fixed her inscrutable eyes on him for a long moment. Finally, she said, "Goodbye, Chad." She turned and walked away.
Why did those words hurt so much? He felt a horrible crushing within his chest as he watched her go.
Which was followed immediately by a sharp kick on his side, and he went down, hitting the pavement.
"Ha! Stupid, cruddy teenager!" crowed the boy as he staggered away.
That kid was surprisingly difficult to kill. Chad reached for his katana, then stopped. His motivation was draining and the darkness was pressing in; the horrible, empty nothingness. Why should he bother? It wasn't worth the effort. He lay on the street and slowly grew cold and numb. Feeling nothing was better.
---
"You lost your purpose during training. I shall have to steer you on the proper course."
Chad lay still, frozen and insentient. "No," he wanted to say, but lacked the energy for even that.
"Have you forgotten your revenge?"
...Revenge.
Using strength and resolve not his own, he got up. He picked up his katana and walked, slowly, mechanically.
---
Life no longer had meaning. He would get his revenge--he would destroy Moonbase, and then it would be over. KND Moonbase...he had almost forgotten about the entire organization. But now that he was focused again, they would pay. Everything was their fault, anyways. He remembered now--they had ruined his life.
Cree was just...a distraction. She trained him and he was now stronger, that was true, but everything else, the confused emotions, the fleeting contentment, went against his true purpose. He realized that now. Yet even as he told himself that, his chest clenched painfully, rejecting the thought. But he would ignore it, and eventually even that pain would go away. He was better off without her. Of course, he was never actually with her.... He put away his katana--out of sight, out of mind.
He would need a new weapon, a different one. One that he could call his own.
-
"Thanks, Mom, Dad," he called as he left his house, carrying a small arsenal of weaponry. They couldn't reply, but at least they still had their sight....
---
He took a path he had taken before, covering Germany, Tunisia, Brazil, but this time, he was the hunter, not the hunted. In his wake he left dozens of stupefied KND operatives, thanks to his parents' technology and his own modifications. He was rather proud of the stupifier grenade, which could take out all operatives in a thirty-foot radius. But it was all business, not pleasure. It would all lead up to destroying the Moonbase. Though he did admit to a certain grim satisfaction at taking down his former teammates. Hearing their screams of panic as he approached, then silencing them, afforded him a small feeling of triumph. Now they'd regret the day they made an enemy out of him.
It was an exhausting job, but of course sleep never came. However, the cold he used to feel day and night was replaced with numbness. On nights when he wasn't hunting, he lay in bed, staring out the window, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, just watching as it grew slowly, slowly brighter. Was he even alive at all?
---
---
author's note: haha, Chad stupified his parents! i can hear the social workers coming for me....
ok, finally, some plot! i was looking over the last few chapters, and it was like:
chapter 1: angst. Chad joins up with Father.
chapter 2: angst. Chad starts training with Cree.
chapter 3: Chad likes Cree, but is too stupid to realize it. oh, and angst.
chapter 4: do i even need to say?
anyways, yeah, the next chapter will be the last, i swear by my wacom tablet!
oh, and copy and paste the urls into your browser for pics:
anzwers.org/free/bizarro/images/chadsketch.html
anzwers.org/free/bizarro/images/crazychad.html