Winter break, the only thing keeping me from finishing the flashbacks sooner.
Lync: Yes, I would like you to get out of my head right about now...
Volt: If you don't hear from me for a few months, blame this person. *points at Dream*
Shadow: Come on, Volt! You still have a little more time!
Lync: So...this isn't the last chapter?
Dream: I never said it was. Let us all press on!
Mylene: Has anyone seen Yumeí?
Lync was lying on the floor of his room, thinking. Thinking about loss.
He'd lost his parent's appreciation (not that it mattered to him anymore, just one more thing to put on the list) Elrin's company, a place on his home planet, Altair, Alice's trust, and now a teammate.
Volt's words were still echoing inside his mind: "But this new mission of yours is wrong. It involves the destruction of innocents. It's not cool to punish people who did nothing to harm us. I won't do it!"
"Innocents..." Lync whispered. His pessimistic side was telling him no one was truly innocent. But Lync's reason countered his pessimism, reminding him that Volt meant innocents of their missions, those who had never been involved with the Vexos conflicts.
The word innocent was almost alien to Lync's mind. It had been so long since he'd ever needed to apply the word. In retrospect it was ridiculous, because he was most definately not in the innocent catagory while nearly everyone else he knew of was.
"Bitter Irony," he said. "That's what this is."
Thoughts whirling in a disorganized frenzy, Lync began to ask his questions aloud to better find the answers he was seeking.
"Why does Al-" he broke off, then restarted. "Why does Vestal, New Vestroia, or Earth need to be destroyed? It's like Volt said, most of the populations are innocent. And it's not like I wanted to go back to Vestal anyway...Yeah, the resistence handed our butts to us-more than once-but even so, killing them off is a bit extreme for us Vexos. Okay, maybe not Mylene, but-"
The truth hit him like a slap in the face.
"It's not us," he whispered. "We didn't make the decision. Zenoheld did. We're just following his orders. He's the one who wants three planets blown to smithereens."
Lync paused and did some mental math, his alarm rising as the numbers rose to an overwhelming height. One planet meant billions of inhabitants. Three planets meant trillions-maybe even quadrillions or quintillions-of inhabitants. And Zenoheld wanted each and every one of those living beings destroyed.
Thinking numerically helped Lync realized exactly what scale of war Zenoheld was waging. The destruction rate using the alternative system would be massive. If he achieved his goal, the blood of every single life taken would be on his hands. And the hands of the Vexos.
Lync sat up and looked at his hands. They were small and nimble, but surprisingly capable. Using his skilled fingers, Lync could pick locks, commit his thoughts to databases or paper, and make careful creations out of nearly any given material. They weren't hands for killing. They were hands for making and gaining.
Lync's heart froze in his chest. He suddenly thought of Elrin, and the situation suddenly escalated.
There was no way he could let Zenoheld kill his little sister. As sure as his name was Lync Volan, that would never happen.
Dream: Ah, it's FINALLY done.
Volt: Please write this slow. I don't want it to be my turn.
Ash: *evil grin* Actually Dream, it wouldn't hurt to hurry this up.
Dream: You've been talking to Tabitha again, haven't you?
Ash: *shrug* The other side of me still doesn't like being called 'blackbird'.
Volt: I'm not apologizing.
Mylene: Am I the only one who is worried that Yumeí vanished?
*THE EARTH ABRUPTLY STOPS SPINNING AND WE ARE ALL FLUNG INTO SPACE*