A/N: Sorry, guys. I'm really sorry I had vanished for a while there. I had ... Well, no. I didn't have writer's block at all. I was just super lazy. XD

Yes, this chapter is only 3,000 words. I know. The other chapters were about 5,000 words, I apologize.

But what's 2,000 words?

I'll make up for it.

But seriously, does anyone else think that the inFAMOUS fandom is like, dead? That's one of the key reasons why I decided to update. Is there anyone out there? Is anyone alive and breathing?

-: Chapter Three: Truly Amazing :-

And I see amazing
And I feel it too
I wish you could meet her
'Cause she comes and goes and when you see her you'll know

Love
Truly Amazing
Love for the fallen
Truly Amazing
Heal the brokenhearted
Truly Amazing
Love for the fallen

And I know amazing
And I feel her too
I wish she could meet you
But if you dont have the time, she might run off and hide away

-- "Truly Amazing" -- POD

It was quite strange… walking next to Cole throughout the city. I didn't know whether it was the fact that he was some kind of lightning beacon, or that I was some kind of water tower. It was unsettling. The city streets were suspiciously silent, which made me uneasy. There was actually some one looking for me. Someone that needed me. Someone that would have went to great extremes to capture me. Maybe I was just overreacting. Dr. Hudson wanted Cole, right? It wasn't me that he wanted. Therefore, I had nothing to worry about, right?

I wouldn't be remembered if I had died now. I would be buried and mourned by a few… what more can I ask for? But I feel so tremendously alone, because I fear that my blood is not strong or good and my friends are few and embattled too. But so what? That is the answer. So what, what so, what so, what so, what so, so what. The world will spiral out from underneath me, and I'll find nothing to hold on to because I'm either too smart or too dumb to find God.

People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to annihilation. For in the books they write, they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead.

... There cannot 'be being' without the eclipse, the inward contradiction of non-being. But non-being which, according to the mystics, 'is so that being can be', presses on existence as does a vacuum on a membrane. Art brings vehement confirmation. At the heart of form lies a sadness, a trace of loss. A carving is the death of a stone.

In this world it is very difficult to know what to do. One struggles to know good from evil, but really they're so often so very much alike. I always think those people fortunate who are content to stand, without question, by the Ten Commandments, knowing exactly how to conduct themselves and propped up by the hope of paradise on the other. Cole was not a man of many words. He looked like he was the type to get things done and not squander on the time he spent doing so. He did not even bother to look at me. I looked in the other direction, trying to think things through.

Like Lydia Millet in Oh Pure and Radiant Heart said, beyond aspects of pain that are physical … sickness or injury or privation, beyond the so-called obvious, suffering can be a work of art. It can be made of buried and rising things, helpless and undiscovered, song of frustrated want, silence after desire. It can be the test of the self falling short, constrained, distorted, disturbed, or rebuffed, the vacuum left by longing, call without an answer. I had read enough books in my life time to nearly memorize things that broken people have said. My favorite author was Sylvia Plath. She was a lost soul and made her existence known through the use of her literature.

"Cole, can I ask you something?" I said, bringing my eyes back in front of me. The city was so dead. It was so far away from being brought to life again. "Are you a hero?" Yes, it was a stupid thing to ask, but I needed desperately to know. This man could have been my ticket to salvation; the person who—in the end—would save me from my own personal Apocalypse. He looked at me and kept up his steady pace. He was not going to let me slow him down, that was for sure.

"What kind of question is that?" he said sarcastically. "Who the hell do you think has kept this place from blowing straight to Hell?" Cole McGrawth looked plain without his backpack. He was fuming with rage... He had a tough time trying to hold his anger inside of him. Yes, I was nervous. You'll find in time that most people are. They simply learn better how to disguise it, and sometimes, if they're wise, how to use their anxiety to serve the public good. I knew how to hide being nervous. I found it paralyzingly difficult to make even the simplest decisions. So much hung in the balance, so many complicated parameters needed to be taken into consideration, yet always there was too little information, no way to know what outcomes could result. Life was a terrifying, invisible web of consequences. What mayhem might I unknowingly wreak by saying yes when I could have said no, by going east instead of west?

The answer he was looking for was him. It was he who saved this place from its appending Hell. I looked into the sky, my blank expression turning into one of confusion. "God," I answered. I was trying to test him; to get him to tell me if he really believed that there was a 'God' in the world. There was a time when I believed in the story and the scheme of salvation, so far as I could understand it, just as there was a time when I believed there was a Devil. … Suddenly the light broke through to me and I knew this God was a lie. … I sensed it was a silly story long before I dared to admit even to myself that it was a silly story. For indeed it is a silly story, and each generation nowadays swallows it with greater difficulty. … Why do people go on pretending about this Christianity?

I am convinced that everything that is worthwhile in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and silencing them forever.

Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the church, his racks, his fagots, his dungeons, his tongues of fire—to defy and scorn his heaven and his hell—his devil and his God?

Apparently Cole, because he did not look too happy when I said that "God" protected the city. "Listen Lady, if there was a God, I wouldn't have these damned powers, Trish would still be here with me, Zeke wouldn't of betrayed me, and more importantly, I wouldn't have to take you on a tour around town! I'm just surprised the Reapers haven't come and picked you off yet!"

"I thought so. So you are my only ticket out of here."

At first, Cole did not know what I was talking about. It soon clicked to him. "Yeah, you and about everyone else in this city," he scoffed. I would love to believe that God exists, but I am a logical thinker who looks at the facts before making any decisions. The fact of the matter is there are no facts. What has God done for us lately? Where was God during the countless genocides that occurred this century? I have decided that God does not exist. God is just a myth used to keep humanity under control by different religious sects. Religion is just another word for control. Religion is power. Religion is money. It would be nice if there was such a thing as an omnipotent eternal being that really did care about us and once we died gave us a nice place to retire to. Somehow, it just seems like one big fairytale to me.

"Yes, this city is in shambles, isn't it? Cole... Then... If you are the one fighting to protect this city, then I want to be the one that helps you do so. My daughter lives in this city, and if this city falls, she falls." I could not have said that any other way. I did not want to believe that myself, but it was true. The truth often hurt, and it curdled up inside me like an unwanted infection out to steal my soul. I wanted to keep walking, but Cole put his hand out, keeping me from walking any further. I stepped in something a bit squishy. Something tar-like. I lifted up my foot and saw a black substance underneath my sneaker. I knew that wasn't there a moment ago... So something or someone was toying with us?

"Damn, don't tell me she can come back to life... What the hell is going on here?! First that damn doctor—now Sasha, of all people..." This didn't sound to good. Even though I gave the impression that I was unmovable... Untouchable... I was still very depressed and afraid for not only my life, but Cole's as well. My voice had gotten stuck inside of my throat and I croaked. Cole glanced at me, his eyes sending me a signal that said "Pay attention, and you just might live."

"Nérine, that's your name, right?" Cole yelled as he ran ahead of me. I struggled to keep up with him. I nodded my head, confused. "You're a conduit, and I know you don't know what the hell that is, so pay attention. There was this thing that blew up. You know about the explosion, right?" Yes. How could I forget about that damned explosion that had took my whole life away and played with it as if it was some kind of silly putty? "A conduit is a person who has powers like mine, or the ability to develop them. I don't know much right now, since everything has blown straight to fucking hell right now, but you either have the powers from birth, develop them, or they're "awakened" from the explosion."

"Cole... What are you...?"

"The Ray Sphere. It was a small little ball that those First Sons guys built that gave people special powers. At first, they started testing it on rats and crap, but when they started showing signs of getting special powers, they stopped and made sure none of those bastards live. And then they had me deliver a package. That package had the Ray Sphere in it, and if I would have known it was in there, I would have smashed it into a million pieces." Cole gritted his teeth, but he kept running steadily. "That thing killed everyone and gave me my powers." He paused, halting his running. "Don't even think for a second that all of that was my fault." I wouldn't. I could never condemn someone who was helping me of doing something like that.

"Anyway, like I was saying. This funny looking guy stole the Ray Sphere from John. Said he owned it or some shit like that. And then my best friend stole it from Alden—the funny looking guy—and I swear I would have killed them both. No, killed all three of them. Zeke, Alden, and Kessler..." With every word that flew out of Cole's mouth, he got more angry. But it was a silent anger. He knew how to control it, and I guess he had to. He had been living in a pain far worse than mine. "After that, Zeke tried to get powers like me. That jealous bastard... Of course it wasn't gonna work for him. But then Kessler got into his head and Zeke ended up giving him the thing..."

"Sounds like you have such nice friends," I said sarcastically, crossing my arms. I dislike having people 'confide' in me. Friends are useless things that can be thrown away and re-used. Cole gave me a weird look before he went on again.

"So Kessler ditched Zeke and eventually John and I found the Ray Sphere. I destroyed the damned thing, but John got caught up in the middle of it. Zeke's dumb-ass didn't realize that you have to be a conduit to activate it. I heard the thing could also give you more powers, but who the hell would want that? Let's just wrap up the whole story with saying that Kessler was me from the future, and he wanted to prepare me for 'The Beast.'" Cole rolled his eyes and leaned on the side of a building. "Maybe Sasha will tell me what The Beast is."

More than anything, I wanted to help Cole. I knew that there wasn't much I could do to help him, since he wasn't really telling me all of the story.

"So you think you're going to need help finding this 'Beast'?" I sighed. Never in a million years would I have imagined something like this to happen. Cole was obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions he thought were absurd. He lived attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions he despised, condemned, and knew nothing about. It was that permanent contradiction between his ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of his civilization which made him sad, troubled, and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict he lost all the joy of life and all feeling of personality, because at every moment they suppressed and restrain and checked the free play of his powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world we lived in now.

"I don't need help. I would be better off if you went out on your own."

"You know fairly well that isn't an option, McGrawth," I answered back cryptically. He kept his steady, un-sure stare at me. "I'd never make it out alive. And then your help would disappear, wouldn't it?" I think Cole didn't take that the right way, and he started to walk off without telling me again.

"Then do whatever you want," he spat. "I'm done showing you around. I told you what you needed to know, so go do something. Go be a mother or whatever the hell you were doing before you met me."

"What if this were Hell?"

Cole stopped, and turned around to face me. I had his attention. Now all I needed to do was lock it in. "Hell: The abode of condemned souls and devils in some religions; the place of eternal punishment for the wicked after death, presided over by Satan. A situation or place of evil, misery, discord, or destruction. This is our Hell, Cole. You can't run from it. You can't delouse yourself of it alone. While it sounds like you've had a harder time than I have, I've been through things and felt things that would make a grown man cry. Like it or not, but you're going to have to share that Hell with me now. We have our own, personal Hells—our Apocalypses—but this is a universal Hell—one I won't let you endure alone."

In the distance between us, this thing emerged from underneath the ground. Cole cursed to himself as I got a better look at the monster. It was some kind of bald... Grey-skinned thing that resembled a human. Fairly poorly, however. She had sharp claws and wore a long sleeve jacket that had a red hood on it. The lower portion of her body was covered in some kind of black... Tar... She turned towards Cole, looking almost robotic.

"Cole, you promised to meet me, remember?" Her voice was sweet sounding, but it had an evident hint of malice in it. "How dare you blow me off for this low-classed woman! I'll make you pay! But I love you, Cole dearest. It's nice to see your handsome face again even after all of these days..."

"Tch," Cole uttered, his hands lightning up. "We've been through this already, Sasha. I'm kind of in a hurry now, so I'll make this quick." Cole thrust his hands out and this magnetic electrical shield shot from his hands. It was fast; I almost didn't catch sight of it. This Sasha person that Cole was dreading to meet was caught off guard, being sent flying (more so floating) in the air. His lover? Apparently? She was flying towards me. What was I going to do?!

I was a conduit now, right?

The moister from underneath my feet was still there. The water in the air planted itself into the ground. The great thing about Cole? I could not dehydrate him. The water crackled around me like it was a whip, and then the water shot up my legs and into the palm of my right hand. I swung the water towards Sasha. She only seemed to bring him pain. I was successful in hitting her, but she disappeared within a tar-like smoke.

"We'll play later, Cole, mm'kay? Be sure to be at dinner by six, or you will regret it. Oh, what am I saying? I could never hurt my adorable little Cole..."

I had been imagining Cole as the chivalrous type—I thought he was going to run to help me and make sure that I was okay. I fell on my knees, my hands soaking up all of the water in the ground. I felt depleted after that little technique.

"Damn, so they're back, then. Or maybe the First Sons never killed Sasha off. She's one more thing that I have to worry about... Hurry up, Nérine, or you're going to fall behind." I got up quickly, energized and ready to run.

"Cole, sorry for my intrusion, but was that your girlfriend?"

"My girlfriend is dead," he spat, with no real emotion. "It took me a long time to get over it, but I started thinking. What good would it of been to keep sulking around? The only thing I have to do to avenge her death is to kick this The Beast's ass." Death. It was an entity that took something dear from both of us.

And it was something that could have brought us inevitably together.