Chapter 19: Vengeance
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any money from writing this. It is merely for my own entertainment. Harry Potter is the sole property of Warner Brothers and J.K Rowling.
"Everyone is happy to make the deal, but as soon as I come collecting..."
- Mephisto
┈ ┈ ┈ ⋞ 〈 ⏣ 〉 ⋟ ┈ ┈ ┈
"Well, what the fuck are we waiting for?!"
Johnny agreed wholeheartedly with Sirius' shouted statement.
Snape looked stricken. "I have already alerted Dumbledore, I suggest you get moving, they very well may be inside the hall of prophecy by now."
Didn't really know what that was, but by the way Snape said it, Johnny got the feeling that wasn't a good thing.
"Well, hold on," Remus said, re-entering the room after hearing the commotion. "What's this about Harry going to the department of mysteries?"
Several other members were jittery, ready to leave, but still allowed for Snape to answer the question.
"He has seen a vision of Black being held captive there by Voldemort," Snape explained, "obviously fake, and a trap, but nonetheless, he and quite a few other students have attacked Umbridge and left for the Ministry."
The werewolf's eyes widened, all wariness of being in the same room with Tonks vanished at this.
"Mad-Eye's not here, neither is Emmeline, Hestia, Dedalus, Dung, or McGonagall." Arthur pointed out.
"I'll send word to Alastor and the rest soon," Snape said.
"Enough of this," Johnny grunted, getting up. There was simply no time to wait. "They'll come when they can, let's go."
Sirius followed him, grabbing powder from a bowl near the fireplace.
"You don't even have a plan!" Molly said loudly, looking worried. "And Sirius shouldn't be going out and about like that at the Ministry of all places!"
"Get in, get Harry, get out." Johnny returned. "Simple as that."
"If you think being wanted will stop me from going there to save my Godson, Molly, you're sorely mistaken," Sirius added, and then without warning, threw the powder into the fire, shouting "Ministry of Magic!"
The flames turned green, and he and Johnny stepped in.
The Ministry was empty, why the fuck was it empty?
Johnny assumed they must have some kind of schedule and work hours, but arguably the most important complex in all of wizarding Britain and there were no guards at all? Even when he had gone for guard duty, there were night watchmen there. Johnny knew wizards were dumb and arrogant, but this was pushing it.
He was on edge, to say the least.
Johnny wiped the soot off him as Sirius walked further into the main atrium.
"This is bad," he said unhelpfully, "no guards, shit, we need to hurry."
More emerald flames appeared behind Johnny in the grate they had just exited from. Tonks stepped through, and then Remus, Kingsley and Arthur.
"Molly's waiting on Alastor and maybe a few others, before joining us," Arthur said.
The group headed off at a jog towards the entrance to the department of mysteries.
They all had their wands out, besides him, of course, and he realized that this was the second time he'd worked with the Order in a group larger than two before, a few hours earlier was the first.
"Might have to split up," Kingsley said, "cover more ground faster that way, we can go in pairs."
They passed by a huge group of golden statues and Johnny immediately caught up to Sirius at those words.
They went down a narrow hallway, and stepped into a lift. They just barely all fit in there together. Again, it shot down at alarming speed, causing his stomach to lurch. Once at the bottom, there was another narrow hallway, this time, leading to an obsidian door.
Johnny stepped through first, the others filling in behind him.
They were standing in a large, circular room. Everything in here was black including the floor and ceiling. Identical, unmarked, handle-less black doors were set at intervals all around the black walls, interspersed with branches of candles whose flames burned blue, their cool, shimmering light reflected in the shining marble floor so that it looked as though there was dark water underfoot.
"I don't suppose any of you know which door to go through?" Johnny asked warily. The room was creeping him out. It was dead silent and the flames flickered ominously. He nearly jumped when the walls started to rotate rapidly.
Tonks and Arthur exclaimed in surprise, and Johnny forced himself to close his eyes, the motion was making his head spin...
And then it stopped, or, it must have, because Sirius was nudging his shoulder, and when Johnny opened his eyes again, nothing was moving. The room looked exactly the same as it had when they first entered, but Johnny knew the doors had changed positions, though it was impossible to actually tell. Then he realized, three of the six doors had a fiery 'X' inscribed on them. He didn't notice them before because the room had started spinning almost immediately, but now Johnny felt silly for not, as they were a stark contrast to the blue flames lighting the room from where they were mantled. Even with that many torches, the room was incredibly dark.
"Someone's marked these doors with Flagrate," Remus said slowly, "to know which ones they've already went in, perhaps?"
"Hermione," Johnny breathed. It had to be her doing.
"There's quite a few more doors left," Kingsley said, "we can split up now and cover more ground."
And so they did. Remus went with Arthur, and Tonks with Kingsley. Johnny and Sirius went to the door closest to them, and pushed it open.
The room they entered was filled with clocks of every kind. Grandfather, carriage, you name it. Tucked in between bookcases, standing on desks. Their combined ticking was very loud. He and Sirius advanced forward warily. At the end of the long room was a giant crystal bell jar, which was the only source of light whatsoever. There was a sort of glittering wind billowing around inside it, and a small little hummingbird fluttered about, before returning to its egg. Johnny watched on with extreme confusion as the bird re-hatched itself, inside of the egg, looking like nothing had ever even come out of it yet.
"What the fuck..."
He eyed the desks nearby, some had nameplates on them. Lockley, Spector, Howlett... Files were scattered on the desks, words he didn't understand written down. A few were knocked over, and there was a small puddle of blood by one of them. There was a door past the bell jar, and they kept on moving. Sirius took one last look at it, before pushing open the door.
The next room made his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. What must have been thousands of crystal balls on shelves lined the room. They were a light blue color, only slightly giving off light. It was both strangely beautiful and ominous.
They walked forward, looking down each aisle as they passed. But they were empty and dark, cobwebs and layers of dust showed that this room had not been in use for sometime.
Each row was marked with a number, and it wasn't until around row seventy did he notice it.
A good amount of the shelves ahead were knocked over, glass littered the ground and a few wisps of blue smoke were rising. Guess he was wrong about nobody being in here for a while, then.
"They've destroyed so many prophecies," Sirius breathed, as they went forward. "Merlin, pup, what have you gotten into?"
Johnny knew he wasn't talking about him. "Prophecies?" He didn't like the sound of that.
Sirius nodded. "This is the hall of prophecies, uncle Cygnus talked about it sometimes, I never really believed him..."
Johnny didn't really know what to say to that, just the magical world being ridiculous again. Of course they'd have prophecies. "Let's just find them, if this is destroyed, then they've run into trouble."
His eyes caught the form of a body as he began to move, and Johnny went straight over to it.
It was a Death Eater, knocked out cold by the look of it. They were at row ninety-seven, and there was no indication of where the teens had gone, only that they'd put up a fight.
"What are the chances of there being more doors in this hall?" Johnny asked. "I think they must have fought their way out of here, but there's no telling where they could have gone next."
Sirius opened his mouth to answer, but a bright white ghostly looking Lynx pranced into the hall and straight towards them. It spoke in Kingsley's deep but stressed sounding voice.
"Ran into trouble in our room, a few Death Eaters, no sign of the kids."
The Lynx dissipated after delivering the message.
"Should we help them?" Johnny asked.
"Don't see how we can," Sirius replied, "the room changes too much, we'd have to guess. The Flagrate charm wont stay up for long on those other doors."
They were leaving, about two more rows down and something caught his attention again.
Whispering.
Johnny stopped immediately.
Voices were calling out to him, he could hear them more clearly now.
"What're you doing?" Sirius asked, looking wary.
"You can't hear that?" Johnny responded, not looking at him, but at the floor.
There, just barely missed by a falling shelf, was an orb, a prophecy.
"Sirius..." he said, hardly able to believe it. "This - this has my name on it."
Sirius' eyes widened. "But that's..."
"Impossible?" Johnny provided, there was something funny about using that word nowadays. It seemed like nothing actually was.
On a yellow label attached to the orbs' frame were the words: Idyll to Mephisto; Jonathan Blaze and Blackheart.
"Johnny..." Sirius began hesitantly. "I know you're confused, angry, even, but... but we need to find Harry and the others. I promise, later, we can figure things out together, but..."
Feeling empty and useless, Johnny picked up the orb out of its frame and muttered a soft "let's go," before backtracking out into the circular room, sure enough, they were just able to witness the fiery 'X's disappear from the doors.
Again, the room spun quickly, Johnny closed his eyes until it was over. They chose another door at random, and stepped inside.
After the darkness of the first room, the lamps hanging low on golden chains from this ceiling gave the impression that this long rectangular room was much brighter.
The place was pretty empty save for a few desks, and a giant tank of dark green water in the center of the room. As they got closer, Johnny realized that there were floating white objects in the tank, shimmering as they floated. But they weren't floating, and they weren't just plain objects either. They were brains. Swimming around in the water as if it was normal. In the corner of the room was an ancient yet futuristic chair with bright blue hieroglyphs engraved on it. It floated around a foot off the ground and vibrated slightly. In another corner was a sort of metal half sphere with a bunch of metal wires attached to small rubber tubes were coming out of it.
What the fuck?
His mind was temporarily off the prophecy as he took in the biological horror before him. What was the Ministry even up to here? What was the purpose of these things? It was so fucked up, and it kind of reminded him of his own government, though ten times worse.
To the left, there were three more identical looking doors, and Sirius swore once he saw them too.
"You don't think they would have gone further in, do you?" He asked.
Johnny shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea - that's the problem though, isn't it? We'll get lost in here forever if we choose wrong."
A few moments passed, before Johnny shook his head, looking away from the brains. "We can go back, if Kingsley and Tonks were fighting here or through those doors, we'd hear it." He could be wrong, of course, but they made their way back to the circular room anyway.
The room spun again as soon as they entered, but this time, a door opened. Initially, Johnny thought it was going to be an Order member, or even one of the teens, but it wasn't.
A large, hulking figure stepped out, spiky and with a tail. Charcoal colored with gleaming red eyes. It was Blackheart.
"Sirius," Johnny said, tossing him the prophecy, "get into another room." His chest was burning, Johnny's skin, melting.
"But-"
"NOW!"
Sirius rushed off into a random door as Johnny's head burst into flames.
"It's over," Blackheart said without any emotion, no taunting tone.
"Yeah, it is."
They rushed at each other and clashed violently. Johnny delivered a few hard punches to the face, and Blackheart returned in kind. He was still so stupidly fast, but Johnny was stronger.
He didn't want to believe Mephisto, that he'd actually return him to normal if he killed Blackheart, and yet he found himself doing it anyway.
It made him all the more angrier.
A dodge, a feint, followed by a bone crunching punch from Johnny.
A roll, and then a slash from Blackheart's tail across his chest, but he didn't scream.
Johnny never actively hated him, but he needed to die regardless. He'd hurt the Order, and countless other's if left unchecked. And even then, even with the rationalizing, Johnny knew it wasn't the main reason.
He wanted to be free. Free of his curse.
Johnny kicked Blackheart in the gut, dropping him to his knees, and he just kept punching and punching and the squelching sound it was making threatened to make Johnny sick, if he even could be as the Rider.
A sudden sharp pain in his side where Blackheart's tail embedded itself, Johnny let go, and this time he did scream.
Fire shot out of his hand, setting the tail ablaze, they were both screaming now.
He rushed towards Blackheart once more, tackling him into and then straight through the door he came out from.
Shouting reached Johnny's ears, and the sound of spells whizzing by, but he ignored it and returned to punching Blackheart in the face. The tail came back again - still on fucking fire - and stabbed him in the back, so dangerously close to going through him entirely. A chain shot out of his hand, and he tied it around the tail.
It burned, seared into Blackheart's appendage before he was forced to take it out of Johnny's back, but he wouldn't let go. It kept burning, melting away at skin until the chain slackened, and the tail was in half.
And then Johnny was back to punching, wrapping the chain around his fist. He thought of the prophecy, how he and Blackheart were involved.
Did he even know about it? Is that why he was here? If so, it made a lot of sense why he allied with the Death Eaters and got the demons to join up too. It lured Johnny in, forced him to get involved. But what about the war he was waging with Mephisto? Wasn't that why he was with them? That's what Johnny had initially believed anyway. If the former was true rather than the latter, it meant he was lied too, again, by Mephisto. The very thought made his blood boil.
Johnny wanted to ask him, he stopped punching and made to speak when Blackheart choked out two words.
"I'm... s-sorry."
His breathing stopped and head slumped over to the side. Blackheart's face was a mess of black blood and a shattered nose.
Johnny nearly slumped too. It was over...
"Johnny!"
Or not. Couldn't let him get off that easy, after all.
He looked up, Kingsley and Tonks were fighting with Death Eaters, Arthur and Remus too. He saw Moody and a few others in the background as well.
Tonks had called out for him, looking frantic.
"Watch out!"
Johnny turned in time to see a jet of green flying straight for him, and he ducked, the spell missing by hardly an inch.
He shot out another chain from under his sleeve, it wrapped around the sneaky Death Eater, before turning him to ash.
Johnny started to walk forward again, but he stumbled, falling to one knee. He was so tired...
Another spell was heading for him, Johnny didn't know if he had the strength left to move out of the way...
A brilliant blue shield appeared before him, making the white spell dissipate as it connected with it.
He looked to his left, a girl with sandy blonde hair was looking at him in shock, her wand out. Another Death Eater engaged her in combat and Johnny struggled to his feet, intent on moving in further.
A dark skinned boy he didn't recognize and Emmeline Vance were fighting together against a single, large blonde Death Eater, while each other Order member had their own singular opponent. Sirius tumbled into the room through the door, freezing at the sight of Blackheart's dead body.
Johnny paid none of it any mind. The rest of the fighting, the prophecy, killing Blackheart. He sought one person.
He found them quickly enough, she sent a red spell at a Death Eater that was fighting with Harry down in this pit, atop of which was an archway with a curtain.
The relief that went through him was immeasurable. Hermione was alive... and she looked at him, a smile on her face so full of happiness at his arrival.
But then his stomach dropped as a figure rushed in, low and feral looking, and Hermione turned too late. It slashed at her with its claws, a spray of blood shot out, and she fell to the ground.
Johnny was sprinting towards the figure, his body screaming at him. He recognized it to be a man, a very hairy man who was grinning at Johnny when he noticed him run up.
He was so filled with rage, even more than when he was fighting Blackheart.
"I'm going to kill you," he said to the man, who grinned in response.
"Take your shot."
Johnny yelled as he leapt at the man, tackling him to the ground. He raised a fist, but the glowing tip of a wand greeted him. It was glowing white, and fired straight into his side. Johnny screamed in pain and the man was able to shove him off. Johnny landed on his back roughly, and the man stood tall above him.
"I'll be rewarded greatly for this," he said, still grinning.
Just as he was about to fire off another spell, Johnny raised his arm and shot out a ball of flame. It burned the wand up as well as the man's hand.
"Fuck!" He shouted, staggering away from Johnny. A duo of red spells hit him in the chest, sending him flying into a nearby wall.
The girl with sandy hair that saved him before was there again, this time with another girl who had dark hair.
"Johnny!" Molly was by his side, he did not see her before, but was incredibly glad she was.
Molly waved her wand at him a bit, and a small amount of the pain subsided, becoming a bit more bearable. Johnny could feel some of Blackheart's slashes closing up a little.
He sat up suddenly, startling her a little.
"Thank you," he said, before getting back to his feet and motioning at Hermione with one hand. "Look after her." He then walked over to the pit, where the fighting was still ongoing.
"Give it to me," growled a voice in Harry's ear, "give me the prophecy."
The man was pressing so tightly on Harry's windpipe that he could not breathe. Through watering eyes he saw Lupin dueling with a Death Eater some ten feet away. Kingsley was fighting two at once; Tonks, still halfway up the tiered seats, was firing spells down at Bellatrix. Nobody seemed to realize that Harry was dying... He turned his wand backward toward the man's side, but had no breath to utter an incantation, and the man's free hand was groping toward the hand in which Harry was grasping the prophecy-
"AARGH!"
Neville had come lunging out of nowhere: Unable to articulate a spell, due to having his face kicked at hard by a Death Eater earlier, he had jabbed Hermione's wand hard into the eyehole of the
Death Eater's mask.
The man relinquished Harry at once with a howl of pain and Harry whirled around to face him and gasped, "STUPEFY!"
The Death Eater keeled over backward and his mask slipped off. It was Macnair, Buckbeak's would-be killer from Harry's third year, one of his eyes now swollen and bloodshot.
"Thanks!" Harry said to Neville, pulling him aside as Remus and his Death Eater lurched past, dueling so fiercely that their wands were blurs. Then Harry's foot made contact with something round and hard and he slipped. For a moment he thought he had dropped the prophecy, then saw Moody's magic eye spinning away across the floor.
Its owner was lying on his side, bleeding from the head, and his attacker was now bearing down upon Harry and Neville: Dolohov, his long pale face twisted with glee.
"Tarantallegra!" he shouted, his wand pointing at Neville, whose legs went immediately into a kind of frenzied tap dance, unbalancing him and causing him to fall to the floor again. "Now, Potter-" Dolohov slashed his wand in the air, sending a purple spell at him.
Harry yelled "Protego!" and felt something streak across his face like a blunt knife but the force of it knocked him sideways, and he fell over Neville's jerking legs, but the Shield Charm had stopped the worst of the spell.
Dolohov raised his wand again. "Accio Proph-"
Sirius hurtled out of nowhere, rammed Dolohov with his shoulder, and sent him flying out of the way. Harry was filled with such strong relief that he let the prophecy slip out of his hands from the half-done summoning charm. It rolled along the floor towards where Sirius and Dolohov were dueling furiously, before a gloved hand picked it up gently from the ground.
It was Johnny, his head ablaze and skeletal.
None of the Death Eaters saw it, only Harry and Neville were paying any attention to Johnny.
"Get out of here," he said, "we can handle the rest."
A spell bounced off Johnny's right shoulder harmlessly, and Harry looked to see Lucius Malfoy coming towards them, looking enraged.
"Give me the prophecy!" He shouted.
Johnny regarded the orb in his hand for a moment, before rearing his arm back and throwing it clear into the archway's curtain, where it disappeared and did not come out the other side.
A white spell hit Johnny in the stomach, and his skeletal face contorted in pain and let out an unearthly howl that would haunt Harry's dreams for the rest of his life. Johnny rushed for Lucius, but a large figure tackled him to the ground and was raining down blows.
Harry seized Neville by the shoulder of his robes and lifted him bodily onto the first tier of stone steps. Neville's legs twitched and jerked and would not support his weight. Harry heaved again with all the strength he possessed and they climbed another step-
A spell hit the stone bench at Harry's heel. It crumbled away and he fell back to the step below.
"Come on!" He shouted, still trying to heave Neville, but Harry was so tired...
Someone came to Neville's other side, wrenching his arm around their shoulders, it was Tracey. Greengrass came from behind them, providing cover as he and Tracey were able to lift Neville higher and higher up the steps to a door. The one below was blocked off by a creature's dead body. His relief was so strong at her arrival.
But Neville's legs kept kicking at them and he was slipping from their grip. He heard Greengrass grunt and hit the steps hard behind them, and when he looked back for a moment, he could see Zabini knocked out down in the pit, blood pooling around his head. Tracey's face was filled with tears.
What had he done? He'd dragged them here to their deaths... for nothing. Moody was hurt, Tonks had been sent sprawling horrifyingly down the stone stairs by Lestrange. He had seen Hermione lying in a pool of her own blood, Ginny and Luna were unconscious, Ron was a giggling mess, and now Tracey's friends were hurt, possibly dead, because of him.
"Dubbledore!" Neville said, his sweaty face suddenly transported, staring over Harry's shoulder.
"What?" He asked, confused, angry.
"DUBBLEDORE!"
Harry turned to look where Neville was staring. Directly above them, framed in the doorway from the Brain Room, stood Albus Dumbledore, his wand aloft, his face white and furious. Harry felt a kind of electric charge surge through every particle of his body - they were saved.
Dumbledore sped down the steps past Neville and Harry, who had no more thought of leaving. Dumbledore was already at the foot of the steps when the Death Eaters nearest realized he was there. There were yells; one of the Death Eaters ran for it, scrabbling like a monkey up the stone steps opposite. Dumbledore's spell pulled him back as easily and effortlessly as though he had hooked him with an invisible line.
Multiple Death Eaters engaged Dumbledore at once, and he battled them swiftly. Each of their spells were batted away, and though they were good duelists, they were nothing compared to Dumbledore. Two were knocked out almost immediately; Rookwood and someone else. One's spell went wide and nearly struck Lupin who had returned to fighting.
Moody was crawling over to Tonks, trying to wake her up, Kingsley and Mr. Weasley rejoined the fighting.
The spellfire was more controlled now due to Dumbledore's presence, and even though he had the support of a few Order members, he did not need them. Within perhaps three or four minutes, Dumbledore had almost all of the Death Eaters defeated and rounded up.
Only one couple were still battling, apparently unaware of the new arrival.
Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: He was laughing at her. "Come on, you can do better than that!" He yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
A second spell shot out, but Sirius was shoved out of the way and off the archway onto the floor below. He landed harshly, and yelled in pain. The spell hit Johnny instead, who had leapt in the way at the last possible second to save Sirius. Most spells did not work on him, but this one was able to shove him with force...
Straight through the curtain of the veil.
Everyone was looking towards the archway even as Bellatrix screamed triumphantly and attempted to run for it, even Dumbledore, who had the rest of the Death Eaters tied up.
Johnny did not reappear on the other side, did not try to continue the fight. Harry thought for a moment that he would jump out and attack Lestrange, but nothing happened.
Dumbledore fired a spell off at Bellatrix, but she deflected it with a cackle and escaped through a door.
Sirius was getting back to his feet, holding onto his left arm and wincing in pain, but looking murderous.
"GET BACK HERE YOU BITCH!"
But he turned to look at the veil, and was suddenly struggling up the stairs towards it. Harry let go of Neville, Tracey making a noise of surprise as he did so, and rushed towards Sirius with Lupin in an attempt to restrain him.
"There's nothing you can do, Sirius." Lupin said.
"Get him, save him, he's only just gone through!"
"It's too late, Sirius." Harry said pleadingly.
"We can still reach him-"
Sirius struggled viciously against them, but they would not let go.
"There's nothing you can do, Sirius," Lupin said sadly, "nothing... he's gone."
Sirius sagged in their grip, and after a few moments, they released him. Lupin knelt down next to Sirius as Molly came forward. With a wave of her wand, his arm seemed to be fixed.
He stood up slowly, shakily, and wiped the dirt off his knees.
Before sprinting off after Bellatrix.
"Sirius no!" Lupin shouted, he and Harry running after him once again. Dumbledore following close behind.
Harry was the closest to him, and thus was able to see Bellatrix wave her wand and tip over the tank filled with brains. Immediately, he and Sirius were caught in a deluge of the dark green water. Once the brains were out, their tendrils tried to latch on. Spells from Dumbledore and Lupin were able to keep them at bay. Sirius was already at the door by the time Harry got to his feet again.
He could hear Bellatrix's sing-song voice calling out and taunting Sirius.
"Awww, is my little cousin upset that I killed the muggle?"
"SHUT UP!"
Harry had never seen Sirius this mad before, not even at Kreacher. Harry knew that he and Johnny had grown close, but to see how much their friendship meant to Sirius made the pain of Johnny's loss all the more powerful.
They went back into the circular room, Bellatrix cackling all the while. She had gotten into another room as the one they were in had started spinning.
"Where's the exit?" Sirius shouted as Harry got in.
Somehow, the room listened, and a door opened up on its own.
Harry chased after Sirius, Dumbledore and Lupin close behind as he ran into a corridor towards the lifts. His lungs were burning.
"Sirius stop!" Harry shouted. But Sirius was hitting the button repeatedly to call another lift, and one came faster than Harry could get over there. Sirius slipped inside and shut the grate just as Harry arrived.
"Don't do this," he pleaded.
But Sirius just stared at him. "You'd do the same if it were me." And then the lift went up.
The bad thing was, he was right.
His scar burned, and Harry groaned, falling to one knee.
"Harry, where's Sirius gone?" It was Lupin, he sounded frantic.
"Down the lift," he struggled out, "but listen, he's here."
Dumbledore arrived too, looking worried.
Harry's scar seared now, and he clutched at it.
"Are you alright?" Lupin asked. "Whos' here, Harry?"
"Voldemort," Harry said, "Voldemort's in the Ministry."
A/N: I know I set up Tracey, Daphne and Blaise going with them to the D.O.M in the last chapter, but as I began to write this I realized that recreating the entire chapter from the book but with three added people would be quite the chore to write, so, I instead did it from Johnny and the Order's perspective. I feel like things were rushed, but I've never been particularly good at drawing things out with multiple big paragraphs, so apologies for that. I'm still on the fence with Blackheart's death, but I do truly believe that Johnny would be able to take him out that quickly at their third time meeting, and for what I have lined up in the next one, hopefully his quick and savage demise will be easier to swallow.