Well, this is the end of the main story. It's been a good run, but it's time for me to move on to my next project. Enjoy this chapter, because theres only one other left. The Epilogue.

Oh, and this IS the longest chapter I have ever written, at a total of 5,057 words. That's longer than my previous longest chapter which was 5,033 WITH bold text. The number above is without bold text.

Well, enjoy.

To those that read this before, I have edited Tal's age to be closer to a more realistic legal age for reproduction, so he is now set at twenty one. For those of you just reading this, just read the story. This doesn't concern you.

Chapter 12: Finale Part II

Everything was shadowing as I opened my eyes, surrounded by melted and warped metal. I blinked dust out of my eyes, watching for any movement as I rose to my feet. The room I was in was completely destroyed, with only the integrity of the rooms around me keeping the ceiling from crashing down.

A heavy haze of dust floated in the room, making it difficult to see. I had a vague idea that the dust was minute pieces of metal, scattered by the blast from the railgun. The same explosion had managed to mangle the metal of the walls quite a ways away, melting even more from pure kinetic heat.

The area around me had a very quite atmosphere, I couldn't hear a thing. Even the base's massive generators were silent. The base must have been evacuated, which would make destroying it much easier to pull off. I may hate most of these people, but I do have a heart.

Several lights had been destroyed by the explosion, while many others had suffered from the electrical discharge. Some of the lights remained active, while others flickered on and off. The effect was akin to a horror movie, albeit with much less screaming and dying.

I rose to my feet, experimentally sending a bolt of electricity through the air. It arced along the metal dust, sinking into the walls a moment later. Another moment later, it came arcing back out of the wall, along the metal dust, before zapping me.

I recoiled, shocked ever so slightly. I looked at the floating metal, reassessing it as 'hyper-conductive' mentally. If I had to give Infinus props for one thing, it would be their material development teams. Miracle workers.

I walked into the hallway, passing even more charred and crumpled metal as I walked down it. Even far from the railgun round's point of impact were several char marks and dents in the metal.

But those marks had a different texture to them, grainy rather than melted. They reminded me of rocket and missile explosion remains. So this wasn't over, yet. And I had a bad feeling.

Turning away from the dark burns, I gazed down the long, empty hallway. Most of it was deformed, misshaped, or melted. Reminded me a little of my own life. The analogy depressed me.

Shaking my head, I altered my focus. I tried to find any life forms left in the base, but could find none. The entire base was completely devoid of life. How could three people completely wipe out a large force in a matter of hours?

Well, that's assuming I was only out for a few hours.

While my internal clock may function better than a normal one while I'm awake, it shuts off while I sleep. Being unconscious has the same effect. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious, but I did have an idea of how long I had been wandering.

"Three hours, five minutes, and twenty two seconds…" I muttered, still wandering aimlessly. I had the vague impression that I had been going down, several dozen floors at least. How big was this base?

All around me, no matter where I went, were burn and scorch marks, along with cuts along the walls and bullet hole. Not to mention the mutilated bodies. And the blood. It was everywhere, including the walls and somehow the ceiling.

I looked up, examining the red roof. "That doesn't seem physically possible," I mused, bored out of my mind. I had absolutely nothing to do, except wander and think. And, unfortunately, I had a very deformed mental state, what with the torture and all.

Taking a trip through my mind is like walking through a forest devoid of trees. Not possible, right? Or like taking a trip through an ocean with no water. It just doesn't work. All three of these things are convolutions of nature, things that aren't meant to exist.

I, naturally, thought of my child, Raziel. A war zone was no place to raise a child, especially alone. Throwing some unstable powers into the mix pretty much makes it a massive gamble. My not being there would lead to many, man bad moments.

Hazle… I thought to myself. What have we gotten ourselves into? I had reservations about…reproduction for a long time. I myself could barely control my power at the best of times. And I was built with astounding mental control. But a child…

I turned my mind away from the thought, focusing on the task at hand. I would have to figure out a way to make the base's reactor go critical without blowing myself up in the process. I didn't want to become a martyr, but at the same time I had to dispose of any and all technological data stored in the base.

I didn't have an electromagnetic pulse weapon on me, so knocking out the computers would take days. Blowing the base up would likely take me out at the same time. I didn't have an explosive deice, so remote detonation was impossible.

I sighed in frustration, unintentionally sending a fire ball into the wall. The entire thing melted almost instantly, revealing a steel-esc metal frame. I narrowed my eyes at the metal, and it began to glow a slight purple.

Manipulating it with telekinesis, I ripped a small shard out. I turned it around and around, examining its odd hexagonal structure. A thousand tiny honeycombs, smaller than a grain of sand. The metal itself must have been able to take heat with little to no warping, as the shard was undamaged.

I noticed a small electrical charge in the metal, and grinned slightly to myself. This would work just fine.

I went about gathering as much of the support metal as possible without destroying the supports completely. I maintained their honeycomb structure as a precaution, not wanting to disable their ability to hold and transmit electricity.

The plan I had outlined was close to foolproof, but relied solely on the metal shards. If they ceased to function properly, I would be forced to level the base in its entirety. If that happened, I had a very low chance of survival.

While I may have a reinforced skeletal structure, along with a healing factor, I would not be able to survive something ultra-traumatic. Like the simultaneous rupturing of every organ in my body. Or permanent brain damage.

If you go in depth to the source of my healing ability, you would find that it is controlled through a generally unused part of the brain. It exists within most beings, simply inactive. It takes experimentation on that portion of the brain to enable it.

And as most things are, that portion of the brain is very susceptible to damage. Brain damage most often constitutes this portion. If it is damaged too much, it will shut off any and all healing effects until regenerated through medical treatment.

Now that I think about it, I've never looked in depth about into my healing ability. I suppose I have to explain the rest of it now. I'll try not to use terms that may harm your head, but no promises.

The healing factor does not simply regenerate destroyed tissue, it has a deeper focus. In essence, it stops any and all cell division within a subject's body. It also keeps the cells from dying of anything other than a deliberate attack on the body.

Knives, bullets, explosions, etc. Poisons are also held in that category, along with particularly nasty diseases. These things can cause the death of cells, and any of these dead cells are 'recycled' with newer material to create replacements.

The replacements, unlike natural cells, never actually degrade. Age doesn't affect them. Therefore, so long as I keep my ability active, I cannot die from old age. Immortal, in a sense. Ironically, I'm not concerned about how long I'll live, but how old I already am.

According to EVE records, I'm somewhere around twenty-one. Which I doubt, considering how long I was held captive by Infinus. I was somewhere closer to fifty. Possibly even older. Who knows what I got up to after that? Or before then?

A small ding brought me out of my thoughts, and I flicked my ears in annoyance. I would have dismissed the sound, but a sudden humming started to fly through the hallway. Someone had started the generators. Someone was on the reactor level.

Quattuor equitatus.

Dropping the huge ball of metal, I rushed down another set of stairs. If I was right, I would be able to find an elevator to the reactor level from that floor. It was so far down that stairs would not make it.

I was right, and a small elevator, meant for one person at a time, was waiting on the lowest maintenance level. I ignored the controls, which were meant for human use, and forced the door open with telekinesis.

The elevator, unfortunately, was broken. Sabotage. I shrugged, blasting the bottom out. Looking down, I could see that the elevator shaft went on for a very long time, to deep to see the bottom. "Well," I muttered. "I always did enjoy jumping."

Leaving no time to chicken out, I leapt into the narrow chasm.

The elevator shaft went on for a long, long time. So long, in fact, that I accelerated to speeds that would have liquefied a human. Poor brittle humans. The wind threatened to cut my skin, but a psychic wave kept most of the damage from becoming serious.

I managed to 'map' the elevator shaft out in my mind, displaying it in lines within my mind's eye. The effect was a long series of criss-crossing orange lines, going very far in front of me before merging into a small square that was the bottom.

The bottom was approaching a little to fast. Pulling out of my almost comical dive, I levelled out before blasting the entire elevator shaft full of flames and condensed air. The blast slowed me considerably, allowing for a safe landing and no broken bones.

The air down at the bottom was frosty, buried so deep in the Earth that little heat reached it. I felt sorry for any technicians who had worked here; they would have had to wear winter equipment to survive the arctic temperatures.

The hallway stretched of, with a slight downward slope. It faded of in the distance, which was easy if you account for the mist that floated through the entire thing, top to bottom. "This place needs some heaters,"

I could barely hear anything over the now overpowering sound of the generator, let alone footfalls. Knowing someone was down here wasn't enough. Not only did I have to find them, but I had to deal with them.

A psychic scan brought up nothing, not even a rat. Which should have been obvious, at that point. No rat could survive the arctic! But in all honesty, the fact that no life forms showed up was unsettling, since I was used to having an orange painting in my head every time I did this kind of thing.

I began to walk aimlessly towards the centre of the level, which contained a large room that housed the reactor core. The reactor itself was huge, extending more than a hundred meters below the top maintenance node.

The reactor had been developed with a failsafe, which would cause the entire thing to explode should the node be damaged beyond repair. This dissuaded any unstable maintenance workers from venting on the fragile core. The suicidal ones, however…

Absentmindedly, I almost walked right past the people I was looking for. A rough laugh separated me from my absentmindedness, snapping me back to reality. I spun lightly, my fur standing on end.

The one with the cloak was standing…no, leaning against a wall, right beside me. How had I failed to see him? Well, from what Phoenix had told me, he had a stealth device that could turn him invisible.

Not the only 'enhancements' he had, judging by the fact that he came up blank on my psychic searches. Cerebral implants to dampen the overflow of thoughts. Another type of invisibility for psychics. Wonderful.

He gestured at a doorway beside him, through which I could see the maintenance node for the generator. Beside that, I could also see the hulking suit of Tank, although it was unoccupied. I could guess that the Four wanted a final showdown. Why not?

I stepped through, aware of the man behind me. He seemed far too calm, almost as if he was waiting for a reason to pop. Constrained anger, constrained dementia. Yet somehow, his face revealed none of that.

In one corner of the room, a bald man with a serious amount of muscle was tinkering with a small gun-like object. In another, Kengou was using a small knife to randomly slice the wall to pieces. Psycho all the way, I suppose.

Both turned to look at me as I entered, and the bald man dropped the object he was working on, and sprinted over to his armoured suit. He disappeared behind it, and after a moment the entire thing started to move, at the same time compressing itself.

The effect would have terrified any normal person, as the ten-and-a-half foot tall suit began to turn itself around to face me. The suit itself was covered in exposed wires, not to mention the dozen or so guns. I would list them, but that would take hours.

Kengou pushed away from the wall, drawing his sword. The shining silvery metal gleamed in the foggy room, which was starting to warm with the generator active. He shook his head slowly, almost sadly.

"So, friend," he said, his voice low. "This is where it ends." The others nodded, looking almost solemn. Wait, how could I see the bald one? Odd… Kengou flashed the sword menacingly. "One must die…"

"We have a proposition for you. A fight to the death, one on one. If you beat us, we will set off the generator. But if even one of us beats you, you have to set it off. The winner escapes. Agreed?" I nodded, narrowing my eyes.

First off, Tank. The room was large enough for the two of us to face off without risking the generator, but at the same time we had to be careful. No point in fighting to the death just to kill everyone with a stray rocket.

The machine moved like a gigantic man, with exaggerated swinging arms that had almost no purpose other than as a robot stereotype. I never really got that one. But the guns meant business, so there's no more time for comic relief. Sorry!

He swung a massive arm around, unleashing a hail of bullets from two machine guns mounted on the arm. I stopped the bullets one by one with simple thoughts, and dropped them over to the side. Before long, I had a large pile of them, and already I had a plan to use them.

After almost three minutes of continual firing, the machine guns finally ran out of ammo. Which would have been good, had it not forced the man to switch to firing a rocket launcher at me.

I dodged the explosive projectile, diving to the side. Unfortunately, I threw myself a little too hard, resulting in the impact driving the air from my lungs. I gasped for breath, flipping over to land back on my feet.

But it seemed that the missile ha other ideas, as it arced back around to follow me. I dodged to the side again, this time more carefully, before grabbing a handful of bullets via telekinesis, and scattering them in the rocket's path.

I got lucky, and the rocket ploughed through the floating bullets before exploding, scattering or melting the rest. The untouched pile remained, and I was sure I could count over twelve hundred bullets. More than enough to pierce the mech's armour and hit the man inside.

Picking the bullets up, I made a veritable wall between us. Tank seemed to notice that I was cooking something up, what with the floating bullets and all. He tried to hit me with another rocket, but I simply countered that with another bullet.

I let the anticipation bake for a moment, before launching twelve hundred bullets at once into the armoured suit that was Tank. I heard a series of dull thunks, and the suit sank to the ground, sparks flying off it in every direction.

One down, two to go.

Next up, Wraith. He really didn't look like much, with very little in the way of muscle, and only a knife for a weapon. But invisibility… I would simply find a way to cope with that particular advantage.

Wraith seemed to read my thoughts at that point, as he smirked. For a moment, just less than a split second, he disappeared. When he reappeared, he was at the opposite side of the room.

"We all got upgrades, friend." He said. "Mine happened to be the world's first man portable relocation device." He laughed. "AKA, the teleporter." He vanished again, reappearing on the generator node.

I shrugged, it made little difference. I would win, one way or another. One obstacle would not make a difference.

He jumped forward, his knife flashing in the dim light. Due to my compact size, attacking me with a knife is very, very stupid, and your chances of hitting me, pretty much zilch. This guy wasn't even fast enough.

I dodged easily to the side, giving him a smug grin. He took that minor defeat in stride, and again tried to cut me. This time, I simply threw him into a wall with telekinesis. Following that, I blasted him with electricity.

He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

And finally, the final showdown. Me and Kengou, one on one. This time, only one would leave the ring. Which reminds me, in a fight to the death, how exactly would the loser be able to destroy the base when they would be dead? Some people need to think some of their thoughts through.

We circled each other for a moment, and I conjured up a hovering orb of electricity. I seem to be developing an ironic affinity to that stuff. The ball began to orbit around me, sparks flying off its surface. Like a guard dog.

Kengou seemed to stiffen at the sight of the electricity, before relaxing slightly. He had a sad gleam in his eyes while he watched it circle me. "Oh, did I hit a nerve?" I taunted. Uncharacteristic of me, but still. They owed me that.

He growled, launching himself towards me sword first. He caught the orb with the gleaming blade, causing the encapsulated electricity to burst outward. Most of it arced away harmlessly, while other streams arced straight along Kengou's sword. I could see it shocking him. I deflected any bolts that came anywhere near me.

Kengou's momentum was completely stopped by the electrical explosion, And he dropped to the ground. He spun, attempting to hit me with a backhand swing. I dodged backwards, and his sword left a large cut in the floor. What was that thing made of?

I tried to use telekinesis to hurl him against the wall, but he somehow managed to position himself to kick off it. He managed to get above me, and he almost flipped over into a vertical slash. This time, I was forced to jump to the side.

I growled, yet at the same time I was laughing inside. A sword? Really? How do you expect to beat me with a sword? It doesn't seem physically possible, what with my amazing close and long range attacks. Not to mention telekinesis.

This contest was starting to bore me. I suppose that an assured victory would do that. Either that, or the fact that he had terrible form. Hacking and slashing like a barbarian. Uncivilized people with civilized weapons. Not a good combination.

Using telekinesis, I grabbed him by the throat. I lifted him almost a foot off the ground, and he started to grab at the non-existent hands compressing his trachea. After a moment, his sword was discarded.

Behind me, I heard an unfamiliar female voice. "Alright, that's enough! Both of you!" I spun, dropping Kengou, when I heard the whine of a railgun charging. A young woman was standing there, with a railgun pointed at the generator node.

I growled, trying to focus my psychic power on her. She shook her head. "The round is primed. If I remove my finger from the trigger, we all die." Even with that warning, I tried hard to move the gun from where it was pointing, to no avail.

"Volt! What are you doing?" I heard Kengou call out from behind me. 'Volt' shook her head sadly. "Look around, Ken." I did just that, and noticed the damage to the walls of the room. It was covered in bullet holes, sword slashes, and electrical burns.

"Look at all this! This is all we amount to, weapons!" As she spoke, tears started to form in her eyes. "That is all we are good for, killing and murder. People like us are too dangerous to live." She pressed the railgun harder against the node. "So I'm going to end it all now."

"This world doesn't need people like us! One day, all wars will end. We will be cast out because we don't have any other skills. We don't have a place in that society! We are abominations of nature, above and beyond what we used to be. What we are supposed to be."

"This world needs heroes. Are we those heroes? Look around you, and you will find the answer. No. We are…monsters, incapable of living in piece. And there is no honour in this constant fight."

"No one who has ever killed should be considered a hero. Those who resolve conflicts without fighting are true heroes. Those who end fighting before it is lethal are heroes. People who do the little things that are unseen by the big picture, those are true heroes."

"People who don't ask for a reward, or fame. Those that fade into the background, not expecting to be rewarded or noticed for the things they do to make everyone else more comfortable, safer. Even for just a few short moments."

"One day, the world will realise that. But until then, this is the way it must end." Tears were now streaming down her face, completely unchecked. "I'm sorry, but this is the way it must end. This, is my final mission."

Something slammed into me just as the railgun fired, and around me everything went white.

Ethan

We were watching from a safe distance, on a building near the train station. The Infinus building was tall, despite being a front. Flashy, flashy. The last thing we expected was an explosion.

The entire building lit up from within, before bursting outward. Beside me, I heard Silver mutter something about a 'none nuclear generator', but I passed it off to watch the fireworks. Pieces of the building had flowered out, crashing into nearby buildings.

Even worse was the tremor that followed. A huge earthquake, shaking the ground hard. The area around the building seemed to collapse, and a secondary explosion blasted the weakened rock up and out, creating a huge hole in the ground.

The explosion may not have been nuclear, but it was still huge. And Tal had been in the middle of it.

Tal

I was thrown to the dusty, rocky ground, remarkably alive. "How in hell?" I wondered, although in the background I could see a massive explosion. Teleportation?

I looked around, finding a small, flaming crater surrounding me. Near the edge, the Black Latias was on the ground, breathing labouredly. "So you saved me," I muttered, before noticing that she was hurt.

I rushed over, almost out of reflex. It wasn't pretty. She was having a lot of trouble breathing, and a look through my psychic filter didn't help either. Her body seemed to be rejecting the teleportation, causing a severe breakdown in her cell structure.

She might live, but it was a long shot. And I would have to heal her. She started to gasp for breath, and I knew I would have to act very fast. And I could not make a wrong move.

I settled down beside her, with one paw touching her flank, and closed my eyes. After my first attempt at healing, I had learned how to draw the damage into my own body, bit by bit, so that my healing factor could neutralize it.

I felt several dull aches all over my body as I started, before the pain began to intensify. After a moment, it felt as if I had been lit on fire, while at the same time, my lungs began to shrivel, if only momentarily.

After what seemed like a few minutes, I opened my eyes. The sun was in an entirely different position than it was before, leading me to conclude that yet again I had been out for a few hours. Usually it's experienced the other way around.

The Latias was standing over me cautiously, as if she was afraid I would bite her head off. Tempting, but no. When I opened my eyes, she smiled warmly. I noticed that I was still on the ground, but I hadn't moved much through the entire healing process.

I stood, shaking my tired and stiff muscles to loosen them up. No use getting a sprain over something so minor. Wait, can I even get sprains? I could probably pull a muscle, but could I get a sprain?

The Latias cleared her throat. "While I'm grateful for your help, I must go now. My sister approaches. She brings your entire group with her. Perhaps we will meet in the future, but until then…" She turned to leave.

"Wait!" I was barely aware that I had spoken until she turned around. "Why did you save me?" She shrugged. "You know my sister, and you have a good heart. Don't waste that." She turned away again, and started to move away.

But she appeared to realize something, and turned back around. "Oh, and hurry home. Bad news may await if you take to long." I cocked my head, confused. "What do you mean…and how do you know?"

She sighed, slowly, almost painfully slowly. "I have premonitions from time to time. And one of your loved ones is in danger. And this time, it is from a foe you can't fight. Radiation will be their undoing. I'm sorry I can't do anything more for you."

The comment astounded me. Radiation? How could that affect me? How was it even factored into my life… Aw, shit!

Ethan

"Don't worry Ethan, I told you before, I sensed a teleport in that base. He may have gotten out! We just have to keep searching!" Rose was trying, but she wasn't helping my growing depressed mood. What if he hadn't?

Life was just a game of 'what if?' anyways. Luck never factored in, just chance. No karma either. I hate karma, especially considering the fact that it never works for the good guys. Really, when does karma ever work for good guys?

Take Infinus for example. They experiment on both their own kind and Pokémon, and they get paid! We do what's right, and nearly get killed every time! Karma is just an illusion, create by idealists. Or maybe both luck and karma exist, and I'm just so unlucky that karma works against me. Or maybe it only affects reincarnated forms of people. 'What if?'

My hopes had dimmed, what was once a fire was now a cinder. Considering we had been searching for hours, and soon we were going to be swamped by soldiers. After that, we would have no chance of finding Tal.

I would rather not abandon him out here, what with the unforgiving landscape, unknown amount of food, and of course lack of places to make a home. I would find him, even if it took me forever. Even if I only found a corpse.

"He should be right over here… Yes! There he is!" Rose shouted out to us, somewhat ecstatic. I never knew she liked Tal so much. I sprinted over a low hill, stopping at the top. Tal was at the bottom, in a small crater. He seemed lost in thought.

"Tal! Are you okay?" He turned around, a sad expression on his face. I had a bad feeling about that, but what could I do at the time. He moved slowly, almost dragging himself along the ground. "Bad news?"

He nodded sadly. "Yeah, something like that. Let's go home, alright?"

Tal

The train wouldn't be fast enough. The trip here had taken almost five days, during which time we had been cramped into the tiny train car. I did have to give the train company props for their toast, though. That stuff was amazing.

I had my doubts, but it was still the fastest way back. Ninety kilometres an hour was faster than Rose's limited teleportation ability, which maxed out at around five kilometre jumps, plus rest. My best bet wasn't good enough. My only hope was luck.

The town was silent around us as we headed to the train station. The explosion seemed to have scared everyone into their houses. This whole place was deserted, empty. The houses seemed so old, forgotten remnants of some sad time in history.

Luckily for us, the train had just arrived when we got to the train station, giving us ample time to board. Jack and Alice went their separate ways, leaving us on the platform. I had a feeling that I would see them again someday. Until then…

"Hazle… Wait for me…"

Heh. I lied. I still had one cliffhanger left up my sleeve. But, yeah, the only chapter left IS the Epilogue, which will function similar to a normal chapter. Just because I can.

To any fan who has stuck with me from beggining to end, heres to you buddy!

People, the lack of reviews has forced my hand. I will not be posting the Epilogue until I have atleast 10 reviews and 1000 views on this story. Good day. UPDATE: I should have tried that before, because my views just skyrocketed! 31 views before 1:00 today! That's amazing!

Until next time, this is WEAPON, signing off.