Angelo knelt in the debris-strewn street, cradling Bill's lifeless form as memories crashed over him in merciless waves. He saw Bill's first terrified reaction to Red's materialization, heard the echo of their charged conversation over pizza, felt the surge of pride when the rookie had saved his life during the terrorist attack. Every patrol, every lesson, every moment of their brief time together played out in crystal clarity, each memory now tainted with the knowledge that there would never be more.

"Three times you saved my life," Angelo whispered, his voice raw with grief as tears fell onto his protégé's peaceful face. "And in the end, I couldn't do a damn thing for you..."

The world beyond his grief began to intrude - Jill's fractured voice carrying on the wind. "Not like this... not another child... I didn't mean..." Her broken mumblings pierced through Angelo's consciousness like shards of glass.

Each word from her lips made his stomach heave, bile rising in his throat as white-hot fury began to replace his sorrow. His teeth ground together with such force that pain shot through his jaw, but he barely noticed. Red and Blue's usual chatter had gone silent in his mind - or had it? It was unclear. Everything seemed distant, muffled, as if he were underwater. The world blurred again, not from tears this time, but from rage so pure it threatened to consume him.

Jill spun to face him, her eyes wild with renewed madness. "This is what you bring!" she screamed, her voice rising to a hysterical pitch. "Everything you officers touch turns to death! You're the real monsters here! YOU MADE ME DO THIS!" Her aura flared back to its evolved brilliance as she raised her blood-stained scythe.

But the moment her gaze met Angelo's, she froze. Though he remained on his knees, still clutching Bill's body with desperate tenderness, his face had transformed into something terrible. The grief was still there in the tears that streamed down his cheeks, but it was overshadowed by an expression of such primal fury that it seemed to distort the very air around him.

"Monsters?" The word escaped through Angelo's clenched teeth, each syllable dripping with barely contained rage. "I'll show you a real monster."

His aura began to flicker erratically as nausea gripped him. Heat coursed through his body like hot oil in his veins, building to unbearable levels. With his arms still cradling Bill, the pressure of his rage demanded release. Six energy tendrils erupted from his body, their smoky forms whipping through the air with violent, unfocused fury, striking uselessly against concrete and steel.

Then, something shifted.

The change began subtly - his flickering aura taking on a different quality, like a candle's flame transforming into an inferno. The orange glow intensified, consuming the very air around him as the sound of his tendrils' impacts changed, each strike now resonating with physical force. Before Jill's disbelieving eyes, the ethereal appendages began to solidify, growing denser with each passing second.

"No... impossible..." Jill breathed, her perfect composure shattering as the truth dawned on her. Her grip tightened around her scythe with white-knuckled intensity, ready to attack—to stop this at all costs. However, the writhing mass of tendrils left no path to strike, each wild, unpredictable arc carving savage paths through concrete and steel like molten whips.

The appendages twisted with mechanical precision, as if guided by a mind consumed by fury rather than conscious thought. They bore the weight of physical mass behind them, transforming what had once been ghostly extensions into weapons of devastating force. A scream tore from Angelo's throat - raw, primal, filled with grief and rage and power. The now-tangible tendrils, glowing like molten metal, crashed against the street and surrounding buildings. Concrete cracked, steel buckled, each impact leaving craters and sending spiderweb cracks racing across the ground in expanding circles around Angelo's kneeling form. The destruction spread in an ever-widening circle as he unleashed his newborn power on everything within reach.

Jill stumbled backward, every instinct screaming at her to flee. She recognized what was happening - how could she not? She had undergone the same transformation, her own evolution born from the same bitter cocktail of loss and fury. But as she watched Angelo's transcendence, a chilling realization struck her: in her attempt to punish what she saw as corrupt authority, she had created something far more terrifying.

"What have I done?" The words escaped her in a horrified whisper as the Angel of Death rose before her, transformed by the very pain she had inflicted.

With infinite tenderness that belied the inferno raging within him, Angelo lowered Bill's body to the sidewalk, positioning him as if the young officer had simply fallen asleep on duty. Jill remained frozen, her eyes tracking his every movement like prey watching an apex predator's approach.

Angelo's expression transformed into something beyond mere coldness - a void so absolute it burned. He raised his arm with deliberate grace, and an energy tendril spiraled upward in response. As he closed his fist, the ethereal appendage underwent a stunning metamorphosis - condensing and crystallizing until it resembled a tentacle of flowing molten metal that pulsed with inner light.

"I see," he murmured, his voice carrying an unsettling calm as he opened his palm, watching the tendril dissolve back into smoke. "The power to forge energy into solid form... 'Forged Energy' then,"

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When he turned to face Jill, his eyes blazed with a hatred so pure it seemed to distort the air around him. "Two can play at your game," he declared. Forged Energy rippled outward, weaving itself into robes that glowed with an inner fire. The hood cast deep shadows across his features, while above his head, a perfect ring of solidified energy materialized - a halo that promised not salvation, but judgment. With a gesture that split the night itself, he conjured a scythe of pure Forged Energy, its blade drinking in what little light remained.

The Angel of Death and The Grim Reaper faced each other in the ruined street, a twisted mirror of divine retribution.

"You now gaze upon the messenger of justice," Angelo intoned, his voice resonating with terrible purpose. "You shall be judged. For your crimes, I hereby sentence you to death." The words fell like hammer blows in the darkness - no choice offered, no mercy extended. The Grim Reaper had proven herself beyond redemption's reach.

Terror finally broke through Jill's paralysis. She spun and fled, but Angelo's pursuit was inexorable as fate itself. His evolved power let him close the distance with terrifying ease, each step carrying the weight of inevitable judgment.

Their scythes met in a shower of sparks and screaming metal. "NO!" Jill's cry held the desperate edge of prey realizing escape was impossible. Angelo's gaze bore into her with the weight of mountains, as an enormous gauntlet of Forged Energy materialized around his arm. The construct closed around her throat with crushing force, lifting her into the air as life itself began to fade from her eyes.

In desperation, she clawed at the energy construct with her void metal gauntlets, seeking to drain its power - but the Forged Energy remained solid and unyielding. Only a wild slash of her scythe finally severed the gauntlet's grip, sending her crashing to the ground. She barely rolled clear of Angelo's retaliatory strike, scrambling to her feet with a shriek of pure terror: "Get away from me!" she yelled as she got away.

Energy tendrils erupted from the ground before her like the teeth of some ancient beast, forcing her to hack desperately through their writhing mass. Angelo gathered his power without a word, unleashing an energy wave that turned night to day. Jill spun to face it, arms spread wide to absorb the attack - only to watch in horror as the energy solidified mid-flight into a massive tendril that slammed her aside before coiling around her like a constrictive serpent.

Angelo approached with measured steps, each footfall marking the countdown to her execution. In a final burst of desperate strength, Jill conjured a storm of metallic projectiles that shredded her bonds - but Angelo was already airborne, his scythe describing a perfect arc through the night. Their weapons met one more time in a clash that shook the street. For a moment they stood locked in deadly embrace - until crystalline sharp tendrils of Forged Energy erupted from the underground behind Jill, punching through Jill's body like she was made of paper.

Blood fountained from her lips as her scythe slipped from nerveless fingers, the weapon crumbling into smoke as it fell and hit the ground. Her aura guttered and died as she met her executioner's gaze one final time, acceptance replacing terror in her eyes. Then she crumpled, nothing more than another soul claimed by the Angel of Death.

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His newfound power finally ebbed, his aura flickering and dying like a candle in a storm. As distant sirens pierced the night, Angelo's legs gave out beneath him. He crashed to his knees among the wreckage of Wine Street, his body a canvas of cuts and bruises beneath his shredded uniform.

Medics swarmed around him immediately, their voices a distant buzz as they worked to stabilize his injuries. Through the chaos, his gaze drifted inexorably to where another team of medics huddled around Bill's body. They were drawing a sheet over him with practiced efficiency, and before his face was covered, he saw Bill's smile one last time - that same earnest smile still etched upon his features, now frozen for eternity. That expression, once so full of life and admiration, now served as a crushing reminder of Angelo's hollow victory. He had evolved, had claimed vengeance, had grown stronger than he'd ever dreamed possible - and none of it meant anything in the face of that still-smiling visage.

Chief Ramirez's car screeched to a halt at the scene, its emergency lights casting alternating shadows across his horror-stricken face. The tableau before him was a nightmare made manifest - Angelo on his knees, surrounded by medical personnel, with two bodies lying in the street like discarded dolls. The only small mercy was that one of those bodies belonged to the Grim Reaper rather than his young officer.

With leaden steps, Ramirez approached Angelo's hunched form. The young man's shoulders shook with silent sobs, his gaze fixed on the ground as if it might swallow him whole.

"Are you alright, son?" Ramirez's voice carried none of its usual gruffness, replaced by a gentleness that somehow made everything worse.

Angelo's shoulders shook as he stared at his bloodied hands. "I evolved..." his voice cracked with bitter irony. "I got stronger... and he still..." A ragged breath tore from his throat. "Chief, I- I couldn't save him. Bill, he- he just wanted to help me, and I let him die!" His fists clenched until his knuckles went white. "What kind of mentor am I?!"

"Angelo-" Ramirez started, but Angelo wasn't finished.

"He believed in me!" The words erupted from him like physical blows. "Right until the end, he kept saying he believed in me! And I failed him! I FAILED HIM!" His voice rose to a hoarse shout that echoed off the ruined buildings.

Ramirez knelt beside his broken officer, removing his hat with trembling hands. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of command decisions that would haunt him forever. "No, Angelo. The failure was mine. I knew..." He had to pause, steadying himself. "I knew about the Grim Reaper."

Angelo's head snapped up, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on his face. "What...?" The single word carried volumes of disbelief.

"I thought I could use you as bait," Ramirez admitted, each word seeming to age him further. "Set a trap for the killer who'd been taking my officers by spreading those rumors... And in my arrogance, I..." His voice finally broke. "I got that boy killed. His blood is on my hands, not yours."

"Chief..." Angelo's voice was barely a whisper.

"You might blame yourself for tonight," Ramirez said, his eyes glistening with unshed tears, "but I'm the one who's going to have to tell that boy's mother why her son isn't coming home." He placed a heavy hand on Angelo's shoulder. "That burden is mine to bear, son. Not yours."

The sirens continued their mournful song as mentor and superior sat in shared grief, each carrying a weight that would never truly leave them. That night, two souls were claimed by the Angel of Death - mother and son, united in tragedy. The grieving parent who became a monster died by his sword, while the earnest rookie who dreamed of being a hero died as his shield. In the end, they were not so different - both lives cut short by the unforgiving hand of lady justice, their stories forever intertwined in the dark legends of Novaria's streets.