Here's what happens next.

"X, this is Whimsalot. Richards escaped. Knight Knight and Final were able to disarm him, but he ran back to his car and drove off before the rest of us were able to get back to the apartment and stop him. Can you give us the address of his current residence?"

Crap. Sounds like they didn't have enough time. I tell them our location.

"Thanks. We'll be there ASAP. That is how you use that saying, right?"

"Uh, yeah, pretty much. Okay, we'll do our best to survive until you get here. Try not to worry too much about us."

"I can do that. See you later."

"You too."

I hang up. Wait a minute, what the heck was I doing telling Whimsalot not to worry?

"What did they say?" Azalea asks.

"They didn't get him and he's coming back. We gotta arm ourselves."

"Oh my gosh, he is? Oh no, we're gonna die, and I didn't even-"

"Azalea, don't worry, we got this. Listen, I'll go outside and keep watch for him, you search the place for weapons or anything we can use to defend ourselves."

Azalea speeds off to a different room while I go outside onto a balcony walkway and look down at the street. Wait a minute, Richards still has my watch. Let's see if the Shadow Guard picked up anything on his power. Calling them back again.

"Hello?"

"This is X. Richards has a light blue soul. Do you guys know what power that gives him?"

"Well, I think there was one type of human soul that slowed down the human's perception of time...was that light blue?"

Definitely not purple. Last I checked, that had something to do with lines. "Yeah, I think that'll do. Thanks."

"You're welcome. We'll be right there."

"Thanks, see you then."

Slows his perception of time...does that mean time moves slower in his head than in others'? That does sound like it would make him dangerous. Unless we could use our own powers against him...I mean, obviously we should do that.

Oh crud, there's his car approaching the parking lot. It's time. I run back inside. "Find anything, Azalea?"

"All I found is a few knives." Oh...honestly, being an Undertale fanboy, knives don't appeal to me.

"Okay, that's fine. We've still got our powers. Right now is the perfect situation to use your shield."

"But how? I don't think I can feel any kindness toward him when I'm so scared of him."

"Just listen. Right now, you're working to get a criminal arrested. Normally police officers and detectives get paid to do this stuff, right?"

"Yeah."

"But you, you're sacrificing your time and safety to stop Richards faster than they would be able to on their own, and not asking anything in return. Think about how many lives you may be saving by doing this."

Azalea closes her eyes for a second until her green soul lights up on her chest and her shield appears in front of her. This is just beautiful.

"There you go, now just hold on to that feeling and you'll be just fine."

Suddenly I hear the door slam open behind us. "YOU! You told them I was coming didn't you?!"

Azalea's shield flickers, but then steadies itself. I grab a knife from her hand.

"It's their apartment! If you're going to break into it, they at least deserve to know about it ahead of time!" I say to Richards, turning around to face him. Richards's soul is activated, and he's carrying what looks like a white, futuristic machine gun, but there's some sort of lens over the barrel(?). There's no way that's what I think it is...?

"I DON'T ****ING CARE WHAT THEY DESERVE!" Richards yells. "I was going to shoot you in the head when I ran out of use for you, but now I'm going make your death painful!"

I duck behind Azalea as Richards activates his weapon, and HOLY CRAP an orange laser is hitting her shield. Richards changes the laser to blue, then orange, and then blue again, until...he gets frustrated and runs straight at Azalea, smashing the weapon into her head.

Azalea is knocked straight onto her back and doesn't get up. I'm about to make sure she's okay, when Richards turns the laser on me. I freeze in place the best I can...the laser feels sort of warm, but it doesn't hurt at all.

"DIE!" Richards shouts, turning the laser orange. The laser starts to hurt, until I start running. Richards follows me with the laser, leaving burn marks on the wall as I circle him. Then he turns it blue, catching me off guard and burning me until I stand still.

"You will pay for hurting my girlfriend," I tell him. "And whatever else you've done."

"Why isn't this WORKING?!" Richards yells as he turns the laser orange and I start moving again, this time more on point with his switching. He then charges at me, but I throw myself to the side, and...fall on the floor.

Richards puts his foot on my chest. "Now I can finally...fry your head right off."

He starts aiming the orange laser closer to my head. I start shaking my head back and forth as fast as I can in this position, trying to not die and at the same time realizing how close I am to dying, and-

"Hocus..."

A dark blue, spherical object nails him right in the head and knocks him out.

"...pocus."

I look towards the door and see Madjick with both of his orbs hovering around his head and the rest of the Shadow Guard behind him. Knight Knight and Whimsalot come over to help me up while Astigmatism and Reaper Bird start to tie up Richards.

"Are you two alright?" Knight Knight asks.

"Well, I'm fine, but Azalea took a huge hit to the head and now she's out cold!" I exclaim.

"I can heal her," Whimsalot tells me, flying over to Azalea. "Just give me a few seconds and then you can get her out of here."

Whimsalot puts his hands over Azalea's head while green magic in the shape of moths flows into her. This causes her eyes to start to open.

"Ohhh...hot springs...huh?"

"Azalea, we did it," I say, running over to her. "We got him. We can go home now."

"What happened?" she asks. "My head hurts a little..."

"I'll tell you once we're on our way home. Wait, Astigmatism, he had a laser, and make sure you grab my watch off his wrist."

Astigmatism tosses me my watch and starts examining the laser. "Wait a minute...this must be the one that was stolen from the testing zone months ago!"

"We need to leave now," Final says...wait, did he just speak English? "The police are coming."

Knight Knight and Astigmatism strenuously lift the laser off the floor, while I help Azalea stand up and walk to the door. From there, we head down the balcony and the stairs as fast as we can until we reach the Shadow Guard's car, which is dark gray with very dark windows. We load the laser into the trunk, and then Whimsalot, Final, and Reaper Bird squeeze/melt themselves inside with it. Knight Knight gets in the driver's seat, Astigmatism takes the passenger seat next to her, and the rest of us load into the back seat; Azalea, then me, and then Madjick.

"The police aren't going to come after us, are they?" I ask.

"Hopefully not, they seemed pretty excited about catching Richards," Astigmatism replies. "And we made it pretty d**n clear to them that we weren't him."

"Okay, good," I remark. "Azalea, are you feeling okay?"

"I think I'm feeling better now," she answers. "Could you tell me about what happened again?"

I start giving her a recap of my encounter with the laser and how I almost got killed. Honestly, while it's pretty cool how I survived that, I don't think I want to be in a situation like that again. And I shouldn't anyway, because this whole investigation and capture thing is finally over.

Can't freaking believe I got this done so fast. I guess I'm just enjoying this more now.

If I made this sound like it's the last chapter, it's not. There will be a few more.

And I haven't been saying this much, but make sure to leave a review to let me know how you feel about this story. No matter what you have to say, I'd love to hear it. I may even respond to questions.

Next chapter, everyone makes it home safely...or do they?