Chapter 35:

"The Final Solution - Part 4"

Beyond Birthday stumbled once as he bolted up the flight of stairs, then shouldered open the metal door to the roof. It slammed against the back wall and created a loud bang which he knew was loud enough to wake the dead. He huffed from the sudden exertion.

The helicopter Alex used to flee the hospital Light Yagami was taken to after Beyond Birthday attempted to assassinate him sat on the roof and Alex was in the pilot seat. He hadn't yet started the engine.

Suddenly, Alex saw him, no doubt hearing the door, and pulled out a gun from a side holster. He fired.

Beyond Birthday jumped out of the way as shots soared in his direction in quick succession, and he somersaulted from the initial blast just narrowly. He then scurried away much like a tiny mouse after seeing a cat, avoiding the next volley of bullets. He even felt the whisk of one bullet as it buzzed past his face and heard the clank of it as it penetrated into a metal air shaft close to him.

He finally got out of range when he reached the rear of the helicopter. He let out a huff of relief and a few deep breaths. His heart was racing with almost an erotic thrill.

He had felt the rush of being close to death before. The exhilaration of avoiding those bullets excited him and gave his skin goosebumps. And he laughed to himself, looking like some insane flasher in a speedo. It was funny in its own rite.

But this is when Alex started up the engines and BB flattened quickly to the ground as the rear tail rotators nearly sliced his left arm off.

He couldn't let Alex escape, not after what he had done, and BB knew what his old Wammy House friend would do if he was given the opportunity to be the next L. He had wanted to prove he was better than L in Los Angeles, but his own naiveté got the better of him, and it cost him dearly. He would not allow another "him"—and even greater evil—to infest this world.

Alex was very smart, but often intelligence alone didn't win wars. In his encounters with Light Yagami, BB knew the only true way to defeat an enemy was to outwit him with common sense. Instinct was the way to win over an arrogant opponent. Outsmart them.

There were people who used their own brand of justice and morality to rule the world, BB thought. And Alex would be another Kira, not an L. Alex would hide under the guise of law and order claiming every action he took as L will be justified to solve a crime—like all sociopaths. It took one to know one.

L had stood up to Kira and he paid the ultimate price. Alex was a perverse version of L and would decimate his legacy. He had had to be removed from succession permanently and BB vowed to finish what he started in the chapel that resided on the orphanage grounds.

He knew what Alex truly was back then. In fact, Watari knew but chose to ignore the signs. It took himself and the Good Doctor to handle things. But the Good Doctor had to pay for his crimes and Beyond Birthday handled that himself.

He ran to the passenger side of the helicopter and yanked the door open, but he was immediately met with resistance and fired upon and a bullet lodged into his left shoulder. He recoiled and dropped the headset he was carrying to the ground and it rolled close to the edge of the building.

But then Alex's gun jammed. He kept pressing the trigger, but it only clicked. "Damn it!"

Empty, jammed—whatever. BB fought the pain in his shoulder and clamoured into the cockpit and grabbed Alex. And they struggled, their hands pressed together, fingers locked, like two Titans in an eternal battle.

Beyond Birthday thrust all his weight onto Alex despite the pain he felt, adrenaline giving him a supernatural push, and Alex pushed back. Teeth gritting, voices snarling, even spittle flying, all to get some sort of a greater edge on the other. But they were like two equally matched fighters in a ring, neither one giving the other an opportunity to get a oneupmanship.

Beyond Birthday's back forced the yoke to move and the helicopter turned slightly to the left, lifting inches above the ground. The aircraft skidded and bounced, and BB felt he had a somewhat peculiar sense of control over the helicopter as the yoke became wedged between his butt cheeks as he fought with Alex. With every movement he undertook from left to right, the aircraft followed.

"You're a fake!" Rue said. "You're not real, Alex! You may have all his memories, but Crusade told me everything. You're not the Alexandre Monet I once knew!"

Alex produced a hidden strength and push BB's hands back forcing Beyond Birthday to compensate and bring in any reserves he had. They came face-to-face and Beyond Birthday thought he saw the Devil himself in Alex's eyes. Almost as if someone was controlling Alex from within himself.

Alex smiled broadly, even sinisterly. "People change. But this is my body and all of me remains within thanks to Crusade. Crusade revealed the truth to me and he gave me back my life. I even have the bullet you shot me with still lodged into my brain. But He generates my lifespan. I will admit, you killed me, and my old life did end in that chapel. But I was brought back. And with a new purpose."

Beyond Birthday continued to fight, but he was shocked by the revelation.

"There are things in this universe that others couldn't possibly comprehend that only a select few, like us, witness. The Death Note, Shinigami, Astral Gods—otherworldly powers. Humanity is coming to a crossroads. And if their mindset isn't changed to accept new realities, it will die out like the dinosaurs. You and I are the wave of the future. We are the one's who can alter its course. We know better."

"Humanity can change," Beyond Birthday said earnestly. "And maybe Kira is on to something. The Death Note is a dangerous tool in the hands of the wrong person, but in the right hands it can change the world. I realize now L was too close-minded to understand the Death Note's potential."

"So, you accept Light Yagami's vision of the future. How pathetic!"

Alex smashed an elbow across Beyond Birthday's face, forcing a momentary weakness, and then clutched a hand around BB's throat, forcing him back.

With red pupil-eyes and clenched teeth, Alex pressed hard. "The wave of the future is paved in elitism! Once I kill you, I'll go after Yagami. The Evangelist wants his Death Note. He has quite a collection. The Evangelist and the League of Darkness will not stop until the entire world is under their control. The world will be changed, Rue, but not like people like Light Yagami. He has no true vision with killing criminals. Kira can be so much more. If Light Yagami only sees himself as a marauder of justice, than Kira is obsolete! A true visionary must be the god of the new world! And the Evangelist is that god!"

Alex strangled Beyond Birthday further. BB struggled to pull his hands away, but Alex's grip was like steel and he felt his throat being crushed. He now knew how Raven must feel whenever she tried to use her voice after her throat had been slashed by an assailant years ago. And now he also realized how wrong he had been in using that pain within her to attack the twelve victims he used to send Kira a message, slashing each of their throats in a similar manner.

He had saved her that day after the attack, killing the assailant—he had just happened to be right place at the right time, in Los Angeles. Later, she became his ally against Kira. And he loved her.

And that gave him strength. He wanted to see her again. I will not die here!

The helicopter kept moving as the yoke was pushed. Beyond Birthday straddled Alex, but there was nowhere to manoeuvre in the seat as he struggled against Alex's grip. He knew he had to take control. Time was running out. The building was going to explode soon.

Just then, Alex head-butt him in the face, and it weakened Beyond Birthday further. Alex threw him to the side and out of the helicopter, where BB rolled, and was nearly cut to ribbons by the tail rotator as it came near him. He managed to get to safety.

He coughed and sucked in air, and tried to examine the situation quickly.

Alex would escape if he didn't act fast!

He looked over and saw the headset was still intact on the other side of the helicopter. He had brought it for a reason, but it wouldn't do him any good if he couldn't get to it.

Alex gained control of the helicopter and now brought it to bare. He lifted it up off the roof, using its rotors, turned it, and thrust it forward like a gunship. He laughed in the pilot seat as he forced BB back and towards the edge of the opposite roof.

Beyond Birthday looked down from his vantage point and knew the fall would kill him. He was more than two stories high and the ground was pure concrete. He saw the police rushing away from the building and Light Yagami was with them. His enemy, now his ally against a common foe, may survive this, despite his prior efforts to invoke revenge against the man who murdered L. But his antipathy towards Yagami had subdued greatly after what they had gone through and had morphed into a form of admiration. That didn't mean he wouldn't make Yagami still pay for killing L later.

Or Alex for his own crimes now.

He turned back to the helicopter. Alex was cackling like some sort of possessed madman.

Beyond Birthday saw an opening and he ducked underneath the helicopter, and ran to the other side, veering left to avoid the tail rotators. He was beginning to think that these tail rotators had a personal vendetta for him since he and them kept encountering the other. He went for the headset, but then had to roll away as Alex manoeuvred the helicopter, bringing the tail rotators to bare towards him.

Beyond Birthday moved quickly. The helicopter was too bulky and cumbersome when it came to the speed of a human being and he avoided the shifting of the aircraft and came up with an idea to level the playing field. He saw a fire extinguisher just outside the roof door on a hook and ran for it, getting there without incident. He checked the gauge and saw it had enough contents for his intended use.

In the meantime, Alex had reloaded his gun, and now pointed it at him, one hand gripping the yoke. Alex fired at him. Beyond Birthday avoided the shots easily and went for the passenger side of the helicopter.

The helicopter shifted abruptly, and finally, the tail rotator got its pound of flesh and clipped him in the back, slicing open a sizeable gash, and Beyond Birthday cried out in pain dropping the fire extinguisher, it rolled out of reach.

Beyond Birthday dropped to his stomach. Blood began to pool beneath him, and he was almost frozen to the spot as searing, god awful agony rippled through his body.

Alex laughed.

Beyond Birthday hissed through his teeth as his pain seethed with white hot pain. He thought almost burning to death was the worse pain he had ever felt, but this was far beyond anything he could imagine. Despite it, however, he could still move his limbs, and he crawled out from underneath the helicopter, before Alex decided to crush him with the landing hear, and out into the open. The helicopter lifted and moved, the passenger side was now in perfect sight with him and he saw Alex pointing his gun across the cockpit, smiling like a devil.

"The time has come for you to finally die, Rue," Alex said, over the whopping of the helicopter blades. "It's payback for what you did to me—a bullet for a bullet. And L will finally get justice!"

Just then, as if some unknown force decided to intervene, a heavy gust of wind blew across the roof, whisking through Beyond Birthday's hair. It forced Alex to drop his gun with the sudden jerking of the craft, the instruments going into alert, as the helicopter suddenly shifted position. Alex had to take full control of the yoke to stabilize the aircraft to prevent it from falling off the roof.

With the situation changed in his favour, Beyond Birthday mustered all his remaining strength, fought the pain that was screaming inside him, and pushed himself to beyond his limits, and went for the fire extinguisher. He grabbed it, and then pulled the pin and fired the foam into the open cockpit, dousing the instruments, and Alex inside. Alex's hands went up to protect his face.

The helicopter stopped moving, stable on the roof, and Beyond Birthday jumped in. And he went for Alex again. And this time, nothing in the world was going to stop him from taking Alex out.

Partially blinded, the foam stinging his eyes as he tried to open them, Alex thrust out his hands to no avail to avoid a barrage of attacks. Beyond Birthday punched him repeatedly in the face until he was virtually rendered inert. Alex's head collapsed to the side as he lay back in the pilot seat, almost unconscious.

Covered in foam, the likes causing all sorts of added anguish as the sodium potassium bicarbonate, a form of baking soda, penetrated the gash in his back, acting like salt in a wound, Beyond Birthday pushed passed the pain, exited the cockpit, stumbled once like his body was starting to give in, and went for the headset. This was the moment he was waiting for and his own final solution to his dilemma.

He ran over to the pilot side, opened the door, and jammed the headset onto Alex's head. The moment Alex's head was inserted, the proximity detector instantly activated with red indicator lights on the side.

"You were always a masochist, Alex," BB said. "You were slated to replace L after he died, but I knew the truth about you. That's why you needed to be removed from contention. And that's why your reign of terror needs to end here and now. You'll never replace L. No one can ever replace him, not even me. I know this now. I'll be my own person for now on. I'll challenge Kira, but in my own way."

"No," Alex moaned under his breath, his voice gurgling with swallowed foam.

Beyond Birthday slid him to the passenger seat and he clambered into the pilot spot. He wiped off the gauges, took the yoke, powered the engine, and smiled, as he lifted the helicopter off the roof. He shouted with glee and then laughed wickedly and devilishly, finally putting his flight simulator use into practise. It was the first time he ever piloted an actual aircraft.

And as the helicopter lifted into the air, he knew he would be higher in the heavens than Light Yagami would ever get, for he was the god of his own fate now—no longer controlled by obsession to be better than another. He knew the Shinigami controlled Yagami and it would be his eventual demise. Kira would eventually fall to his own design.

Beyond Birthday couldn't see his own lifespan, but that didn't matter. He would live his own life as he saw fit and end it on his own terms. And he didn't see it ending any time soon.

There was nothing he couldn't do now.

The helicopter moved up and away from the building. He had to veer it away from the impeding explosion, or the aircraft would get caught in the updraft.

Suddenly, Alex began to panic, his hands flailed about, and whacked Beyond Birthday in the face, as he attempted to remove the headset. Beyond Birthday held the yoke steadfast, but as Alex pulled at the headset, BB eyes widened—knowing the outcome.

And all Beyond Birthday he could do was laugh.

To be continued...