Raven awoke back in front of the two doors labeled with positive and negative one. She quickly became coherent to the fact that she had not had a hole blown in her head, and also the fact that half of her suit was missing now. She groaned, stood, and covered herself with her cape.
Raven felt no injury from the last ordeal, but still had the images of Zero about to kill her in her mind. Those she tried to shove to the bck of her head and bring back the good Zero, or at least the Zero she thought she was good. That last incident brought up questions.
"Fuck it." She looked toward the other door. She hoped this would be a better experience and she opened it. The handle was not blazing hot, nor did the door rip off its mountings and suck her into an abyss. It just opened to a white cloud with a blue sky and a cool breeze.
"What the-?" she said as she walked in. This place looked like what heaven was supposed to be. But she new it was not, for she looked down and saw the city below, and she also saw what looked to be an angel sitting in the distance. She came closer to get a better look; it sat chained to a bench made of marble with two powerful wings coming out of its back. She noticed it had a striking resemblance to Zero by it's bodily features, only it had no scars or robotic body parts. He did have a black 0 tattooed on it's right arm, black gloves, and wore urban black-white-gray camouflage pants.
She couldn't believe it. He went from a demon to an angel. "Z- Zero? Is that you?" she asked as she came forward. He turned his head toward her. His eyes were deep blue, and glowed with a white light, even though what was supposed to be white in a normal eye was black. It was odd to look at, but the stare he gave her was one of love and caring. He stood slowly up and tried to walk over to her, but his chains caught and he stopped.
"It can't be you… you just tried to kill me," she said, her eyes starting to water as those thoughts came back. But it seemed her mind was still drained from that episode, so she stumbled over to him. His eyes widened with worry and sadness as she looked into them. She stumbled into his arms and began to cry again. He embraced her, and she let go in his chest. She lost all control of her emotions and just cried. Tears fell past their feet to the street down below.
"Raven," he said through a sort of telepathy. "Raven, there is no need to be sad. I am here."
She was crying on behalf of that, and on behalf of the fact that she had set that demon free from its cage, but this angel heard this in her thoughts and closed his eyes.
"Raven you must set me free now," he said. "I must stop this evil that has been set loose."
She tried gathering herself but then heard something in his chest: his heartbeat. For some reason this calmed her enough to let her powers regenerate to break the chains from this new Zero. She never let her head out of his chest. She stayed and listened to his heart as he held her in his arms.
She began to think of the Zero she used to know, sort of sarcastic and harsh, but still caring on the inside. These two extremes of good and evil she had just met made something deathly clear to her: "Evil was negative one and good was positive one. They add to make Zero. And if one gets out of control, the other must counteract it. But now she had set them both free; and she was afraid of what might happen.
She tried not to think too much, it hurt her head, so instead she fell asleep in this angel's arms and woke up staring into the real Zero's eyes.
"GAHH!" she yelled as she came to. It was morning and Zero was staring at her from about three inches away.
"Well, miss, any particular reason I wake up to find you in my bed with me in it?" he asked.
"Don't. Do. That. Again. EVER."
"You're entertaining when you sleep. It's fun to watch."
"Why are you watching me sleep?" She asked harshly.
"Hey, give me some slack here. You have a perfectly good bed in the next room, but choose to sleep in mine while I'm in it."
They sat in silence as Raven blushed a slight bit. That slight bit ignited the powder in a .50 caliber round sending the bullet downrange and the shell casing toward the bed. Zero caught it in his hand and scowled. "You really need to stop doing that."
Raven blushed again, sending a volley of .50 caliber bullets downrange and the casing into Zero's hand. He suppressed the laughter, but Raven read his mind. He was busting up on the inside.
He sat and looked into her eyes holding 4 shells casings in his hand. "Loveable yet dangerous." He kissed her on the forehead and got up to get a drink out of his mini-refrigerator. Another five bullets went off and he caught all the casings with his free hand. Now he just couldn't resist; he buckled over with laughter dropping the shell casings on the floor.
"Shut up," Raven said, holding back a smile.
Kind of short, but I didn't kill her off, and that's what matters. Sorry it took me so long, my life has been pretty shitty the past few months. I got a girlfriend who really didn't even like me in the first place, so she dumped me for another guy (who ended up rejecting her back; I got a little humor out of that) and for a solid two months I was totally into her, my first girl in 4 years, and she just destroyed my life.
But now I see that whatever bullshit is thrown at me, I stick by my favorite saying: "Stop your bitching and fight your way through it." It has got me through some rough times. But now I'm back bitches, and ready to rock.