Set after Magus' defeat. Slash muses on this new turn the world has taken.
This night was enough to bring misery to anyone unlucky enough to venture outside. The moon was dark, and the wind brutally cold. It was more than enough to send any normal person seeking shelter.
Slash, however, was not a normal person. He had come to enjoy the cold. It helped to keep him from feeling the pains that still lingered all through his body.
Slash had spent most of his life in training. He wanted to prove to the humans that he was superior to them by destroying them using their own methods. Magic made their destruction too easy. He had, in turn, been defeated by the last thing he thought he would ever see: magic-wielding humans.
The worst irony of all Slash had discovered only after the battle was over and the humans long gone. After a life of neglecting his natural Mystic talents, his body was now unable to process magical energy.
It hadn't hurt him at all at the time, but any normal Mystic would have been able to deal with the aftermath of the battle better than he had. Even now traces of that energy lingered in his body, making his muscles weak and shaky when he tried to exert himself. He could hide the pain well enough, but he couldn't ignore it completely.
Flea should have been immune to such tactics. Slash had expected that Flea to have taken out their enemies and be waiting comfortably for his victory to be discovered. He was wrong. When he had found the magician, still unconscious, it had been obvious that they had found a way to deal with him as well.
For the first time Slash had gained a sort of respect for Flea. Not only had he realized that the magic attacks that had lingered in him after the battle would have had no long term effects for Flea, but he had somehow managed, though badly hurt and drained, to transform in order to search for Magus.
Here his opinion of Flea went back to condemning him as a fool. As far as Slash could see, Flea was still searching for Magus in between all of the spying he claimed to be occupied with. If Magus was dead then he was dead. Slash didn't really care. All that mattered was that he was no longer in power and Slash was now expected to take orders from another source.
Slash had to admit that Magus had been strong in spite of his focus on magic. He had at least managed to take those bothersome intruders along with him, even if it was at the cost of his own life. It was for that last battle that Slash found a moment to admire him.
With the moon dark he almost missed seeing Flea as he returned in his bat form. He made no sign that he recognized, or even noticed, Slash as he returned to his normal form and entered Ozzie's Fort.
Cold the night wind might be, but it was nothing compared to the display of indifference which the pretty Mystic regularly treated him to.
Slash felt his lips curl into a tiny, bitter smile. Flea wanted to bury himself in the past alongside Magus' ghost, so it was no wonder he detested Slash's presence. Slash had no use for the past. He would have forced Flea's mind out of the past as well if he didn't insist on being so useless.
Regrettable, but inevitable. Slash gazed out into the darkness, his body blissfully numb.