Shawn found himself again at the quarry, but the air was different. He noticed a figure at the far edge of the man-made ravine with long red hair the flowed as if they were in a gentle current far under the sea. As he paused to ponder them, he was struck by a powerful blow. One overflowing with outrage and anger. As he collided with the stone wall, he turned and saw the distorted but familiar figure. “Nox… what happened to you?!?”
His nemesis didn’t respond, instead launching into the first direct conversation they had had their entire lives, “You murderer! You psycho! Mindless tool of death!” He unleashed ruthless blows. None of his usual flair or melodrama. No mockery of Shawn’s own fighting style. Just brutality. “You killed so many! Forced your selfish sense of justice on the larger world and set a pattern of mindless devastation for countless who followed in your wake. The zealous outrage of those who wish to define what is just! Spreading like an oppressive blanket across the cosmos!” Shawn’s entire body was crushed in one of Nox’s distorted hands before he was hurled across the quarry. “You mock me with your existence! Even when I tried to slay you, you are too self-righteous to simply die! You are the blackest of stains. A broken man trying to save the world when he cannot save himself! Violent and blind to the damage he causes!”
Shawn shouted, “That wasn’t me! That was the damned crystal. Whispering lies in my ears. Grooming me into-“
He was struck hard in the gut again, “You felt nothing! No guilt! No remorse! Your only regrets were the bodies that didn’t stay down when you walked away!”
“That’s not-“
“EVEN NOW you want to speechify, excuse, and lecture! Never an apology. Never giving a damn or accepting the cost of your own actions! You are a coward who would rather strike the person instead of the problem.”
Shawn felt time slowing to a crawl, he could feel himself on the edge of awareness and something emptier. He heard a voice just on the edges of his awareness. A fatherly figure. ‘You rest on the edge of oblivion. You have lost so much, seen even more. Accepting these consequences are fitting for the end of the Cosmic Phoenix. His time is up.’
He felt himself torn. The mask he wore before felt like a prison now. Heavy armor locking him away from the people he cared about. Shielding the world from his damage and him from the darkness that was hunting him. Behind that mask he could face each day of pain without cracking. He wanted to let go and give into the darkness. To finally be free from the pain.
As the shadows overtook him, he felt something holding him in this moment. Something weathered. Something powerful. Something honest and pure. And the more he focused on it the stronger it seemed to get. It warmed him but he didn’t have words for it.
The next blow was caught. And the one after that, each one causing Shawn to slide back but his stance was firm. Soon he dove around the next punch and elbowed Nox in the gut before uppercutting him. He shook his hands, a small sprinkling of blood coming off them as he did. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done. To you and everyone else. And you aren’t wrong. Groomed to kill what someone else told me was evil. I’m every inch the villain you claim me to be, hiding behind a false banner of justice.”
Nox continued his assault the grew more and more desperate as his blows seemed to be losing their effect. “Then have the decency to die!”
Shawn continued to deflect the attacks and sighed, “I can’t. I am every inch the villain you say, worse than anyone else, and that’s why I can’t die. It wouldn’t be right! I would just be running away again.”
Throwing one of the heavy cranes at Shawn, Nox shouted, “You are lying! Too scared to die!”
Shawn jumped on the crane in mid flight and rode it to the end of the canyon. He began speaking to himself, realizing the rage of his wayward foe wasn’t one he could reason with. “I am not new to this weight. This darkness in my heart. That constant pull into the abyss. To accept death. Always hiding that burden so others wouldn’t worry. Carrying the weight of every death with me like an albatross. A life of quiet suffering.” As he stepped past each of Nox’s attacks he continued to feel something burning in his heart. “But that’s just fine. I die a little every day, but so does everyone. I’ve seen hell and those who suffer within it. I’ve comforted them and lifted them out while I stayed. Because they were worth the pain.” He felt a genuine smile cross his face, “And so are you, Equinox!” Shawn took the brunt of the attack, holding off on deflecting until the last moment, striking Nox hard in the face. As he stumbled back, Shawn followed him back, staying right in front of him and shouting, “Let it all out! Keep going until there is nothing left in your heart. I can take whatever you have! Once the wound finishes bleeding, we can talk this out, for the first time in twenty years!”
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As Nox continued to swing, battering his foe, their smile never ending even as their blood paints the sands. He shouted, “Why are you doing this!?!? Run! Die! Fight! Do something!”
Shawn laughed, “I am. I’m breaking through the wall between us. Because people like us are fighters. When all other options fade and we are caught on the edge of oblivion, we can’t help ourselves. We don’t even know why. Do you think you survived the first attack, let alone twenty years of fighting me by chance?” Nox hesitated for a moment, “You survived because you refused to stop fighting to live. Just like me.”
Nox heard a voice, one warm and compassionate, ‘Leithan Garmyon, Equinox, The Phoenix King. Your anger is just. Your fury righteous. Still, your foe asks for redemption. Connection. Is there mercy in the king? Is there an era of peace? Can you ever become the man you once strove to be?’
Nox’s life flashed before him, seeing a bit of himself in the man’s smile. The man he once was before they had crossed paths. His old crew. A team of engineers, mercenaries, smugglers, and black market doctors. A bunch of people forced from common society out of desperation, necessity, or a knack for the brutality of life. A crew he had called family. The blood they shed that once weighed heavy on his heart until all he could do was smile and laugh through it. Power was the rule. The law. Freedom was paid for in blood and they were free. Eventually, the blood hardened a shell around his heart.
Were his hands no more bloody than the man he was striking? As his anger began to exhaust, he began to realize that as rotten as this man before him was, he was not the black hole of evil. No more or less evil than he himself had become. He had only grown bitter over being on the losing side. To have the loss of his freedom celebrated. Trivializing the lives he had taken by removing his freedom.
As he felt his anger begin to fade, he felt the creatures that had consumed his body beginning to come to life, showing him every memory of anger he had left in him. Anything to keep him furious. A flash of silver light consumed him and they were gone. He watched Shawn look to a nearby cliff in surprise, but he only caught the faintest flicker of red hair vanish past the edge.
Nox fell exhausted against the wall, no energy to even stand, his vision blurred. He saw a figure sit next to him, “Don’t talk, Nox. Just rest. We can hash out our drama when you have caught your breath. But for what it matters, I am sorry for your loss and my part in it.”
Nox sighed, “You did what you felt was right, brainwashed or not. Just as I lived my life selfishly for freedom. We are both monsters.”
Shawn shook his head. “No, we are fighters. We look at the dying of the light and refuse to allow it to fade without burning ourselves first.”
Nox nodded and the two men reflected on their exhausted feelings as they sat in the location where their greatest wound to each other was committed.