Chapter 142: Unleashed
Katrina took a step back from Adrian in pure shock,
"What did you say?"
"I'm saying maybe we should head home," said Adrian, "before things get even worse for everyone. We already lost more than what most people should lose, I don't want you or Damon to lose your lives over my selfish mistakes. So I say we go back, you and Damon take the spankings, and I'll face the chopping block...make things better for everyone since I'll be gone." Katrina paused, turning away from Adrian with breathing huffs, and out of nowhere she used her arms to angrily clear the hood of Weskers' car, scattering everything onto the cracked desert ground in her rage,
"YOU STUPID ONE-EYED PRICK!!" She screamed at Adrian, making him stand up, clearly taken aback by her outburst, "WHEN ME AND DAMON WERE TRAPPED IN THAT DIMENSION WITH THE KILLER CLOWNS (WHICH I AM TERRIFIED OF BY THE WAY), BOTH ME AND HIM LOST ALL OUR POWERS, AND OUR WEAPONS, AND DAMON EVEN DIED! I HAD TO WISH HIM BACK, AND EVEN AFTER ALL THAT, BOTH OF US WERE STILL READY TO FIGHT! FIGHT FOR YOU, FIGHT FOR CALVIN, WILLING TO GIVE UP EVERYTHING JUST TO HELP! AND NOW YOU'RE SAYING YOU'RE WANTING TO GIVE UP?!!" Adrian opened his mouth, but no words came out, he simply kept opening and closing it, like a fish out of water, trying to think of something, anything, to say, "...I was willing to fight and die alongside you Adrian..." said Katrina, letting a sob escape her throat, "...don't give up on killing Zeus...on avenging Calvin...on avenging Victoria...on me..." Adrian looked to Katrina, and something finally registered to him, something so obvious that he was even more ashamed of himself than before for not seeing it sooner; he wasn't the only one suffering.
"Katrina...I..."
"Just go!" She said, turning away from Adrian with tears streaming down her face, "If you want to go back then fine! But I am going after Zeus, with or without you!" Adrian was silent once again, and slowly but surely he approached Katrina, wrapping his arms around her and hugging the crying Goddess from behind,
"Katrina...Kat...I'm sorry."
"I'm afraid 'sorry' won't cut it this time, Adrian," said a male voice, causing Adrian to break the hug, and for him and Katrina to whirl around, seeing a man Adrian had believed to be dead,
"...Dad? You're alive?" There stood Richard Michaels, still very much alive, and just appeared right out of the blue in a white three piece suit,
"Yes, Adrian, I am still alive. What made you so sure I was dead?" Adrian looked down at the ground, then back at his father,
"The fire...they pulled your body from the ashes!"
"Just a John Doe I found in the morgue. I grusome yet effective suggestion from my cohorts." Adrian then felt a gun pressed to the back of his head, and from how his senses were spiking, he could tell it was loaded with light rounds,
"Hello Adrian," said a familiar masked man, "missed me?"
"Not really Salem, I was kind of enjoying your abscence..." said Adrian, turning around to see it was in fact Salem holding a large handgun up to Adrians' head, while Katrina had a dirty mohawked man holding a machete sized blade of light close to her throat, "...and you must be the motherfucker that took Katrinas' finger."
"How did you guess?" Asked the man, "Was it my ruggedly handsome good looks? My witty charm?"
"The stupid mohawk," answered Adrian with a raised eyebrow. The man scowled at Adrian,
"You sure you want to be disrespecting me, especially when I got your anal slut friend with a blade to her throat?" Katrina groaned,
"What, did Zeus tell you about that, Vaas?" She asked the madman.
"He sure did," he bragged, "he also told me to turn his pretty purple car into scrap metal with that cement mixer...with him in it. I just now realized that I should have probably emptied that mixer into his car also, to make sure he couldn't survive." Katrinas' eyes widened, and she looked down at the ground her eyes becoming shadowed by her hair,
"You mean to tell me...you murdered Jason Gat?"
"Well with how much his car flipped, I wouldn't bet your money on his survival," said Vaas with a shrug.
"Well we aren't here to discuss Katrinas' dead lover," said Richard, "we're here because Zeus wants them to be audience for the Halo." Adrians' breathing deepened, his rage boiling to the surface as the more Richard talked, the more things began to grow clear,
"YOU were the associate I was never supposed to find out about...you burned down the house, slaughtered my hive, killed my..." Adrian shut his mouth and his eyes, tears beginning to flow once again, but they shot open when Richard spoke once again,
"When Zeus came to me, gifting me with his power, he helped me to see my supressed memories, and why I could never truly accept you as my son." Richard then placed a palm to Adrians' forhead, "Embrace eternity." Richards eyes then turned black, and Adrian was forced to see an image; a dark hallway with a closed door at the end, a light emitting from the cracks between the door and the frame, with Adrian stepping closer, and closer, reaching out, twisting the knob ever so slightly, cracking the door open just enough to peep inside, seeing a wedding dress on the floor, a nude man on top of an equally nude woman, making love in the bed, his face hidden in the side of the womans neck, and her face turned towards the door, eyes closed in ecstasy. Upon seeing her face, Adrian tried to step away in shock and horror, turn away while averting his eyes, but the person whose memory he was witnessing kept him focused, watching the scene, the scene of an unknown man making love to Victoria Michaels.
Adrian then heard Richards' voice surrounding him,
"You see Adrian, I could never accept you as my own child, because you aren't my child. You never were."
"Then who the hell is he?" Adrian asked the disembodied voice, "Who is my real father?"
"The fucker priest that married us!" Adrian then saw darkness, and instead he saw a crib, "Since you weren't my child," continued Richard, "It made it so much easier for me to do this." Adrian saw his hands being raised, one reaching for the crib, and the other holding a syringe, containing something Adrian was all too familiar with,
"Blacklight...you infected me with Blacklight, when I was an infant?!" Adrian was then brought back to the real world, and sent to the ground as Richard shoved him away,
"Don't give me that attitude! I gave you strength! I gave you speed! I made you grow up big and strong!" Richard sighed, "Granted, I didn't unlock the Blacklights' full potential in you just by injecting it." Adrians' mind was racing, as he began to put together the pieces of the puzzle,
"How were you intending to unleash my full potential?"
"By having you come into contact with another that had the Blacklight, namely Elizabeth Greene."
"But Mercer freed her..."
"And then killed her," said Richard with distaste, "then he ups the ante and decided to unleash your power himself!" That's when Adrian finally understood, going from resting on his elbows on the ground to kneeling, his remaining eye becoming shadowed with the rage of realization,
"Alex Mercer didn't give me the Blacklight Virus...he awakened it!"
"Yes..." confirmed Richard, "...but I was supposed to be the one to give you that power! Me! Not Mercer! Not that terrorist! That murderer! He turned the one I was supposed to grant god-like power to into a monster!" Adrian was silent, for only a moment, but to him, and Katrina, it seemed like forever,
"...What difference...would it have made...if it was you who unleashed my power instead of Mercer?" Asked Adrian, already knowing that Richards' answer would be nothing more than bullshit.
"It would have made all the difference Adrian," said Richard, "because I am not a murderer like Mercer was." Adrian stood up, his eye no longer shadowed, and instead of its' fierce green, it was not its' firey orange, his Sacred Gear being summoned onto his arm,
"That's where you're wrong, Richard," said Adrian, his tone turning demonic, "you killed my mom." Katrina, having never heard Adrians' stray devil tone, gasped lightly, unadmittedly scared of her friend,
"Adrian?" Boneshell then appeared over Adrians' body once again, and he began to approach Richard, who laughed mockingly at Adrian, masking his nervousness,
"C'mon Adrian! Have you not heard what I said? Zeus gifted me with some of his power!" Richard then raised his arms, encasing them in Blacklight tendrils, and his arms morphed into razor claws, with red and violet electricity coursing between the claws, "If I recall, Zeus annihilated you in Slenders forest when he wasn't even trying! Do you really think you stand a chance against me?!" Adrian stopped, and smirked,
"I do," he said, "because I'm not the one who has been backing up since you started talking." Richard then realized that Adrian was right; when the young one eyed devil began approaching him, he had been backing away from the advancing devil, getting further and further away from Salem, Vaas and Katrina. Adrian then cracked his neck, and he let his heart grow cold, allowing his inner stray to take full control, and the boneshell began to shape itself, growing horns, a snout, razor claws, his wings spread and were encased in boneshell as well, and even grew a boneshell encased tail. More surprising, Adrian began to grow, until he was at least ten feet tall, and now looked more like a one eyed skeletal dragon!
"Now, Richard," began Adrian, "I think the question is this: how good are your chances?"
