Chapter Six
Amarterasu clenched his fist as the helicopter careened over the city. He did his best to ignore Oscar Ernest’s whistling, though the assassin’s high-pitched tones made it difficult. Fires had started to break out within some of the buildings. Had his people started to riot? He didn’t even want to think about the state his city would be in following dawn.
“Kaneda, give me an update,” he ordered curtly.
“Radio signals are poor,” Bones replied, “Though it appears that there is large-scale fighting. The police are being overwhelmed.”
“Of course,” Oscar said matter-of-factly. “Those prim-and-proper blue-coats don’t know a thing about fighting! They’re afraid of blood!”
Amartarasu glanced out of the helicopter’s window and sighed. His entire city he had worked so hard to build up was simply falling down right before his eyes. For the first time since his presidency he felt almost helpless. He closed his eyes, immediately dispelling those thoughts from his head.
“Kaneda, when will we arrive at the Medical Centre?” Amartarasu said.
Kaneda glanced at a small holographic map on the helicopters’s dashboard, “About twenty more minutes.”
“Bo-oring! Can you go any faster, Kanny?” Oscar whined from the backseat.
“Maybe it would be faster if I threw you out…?” Kaneda mumbled, clearly annoyed.
Oscar laughed, “Oooh, scary!”
Kaneda angrily swerved the helicopter so that Oscar comedically fell out of his seat.
“Enough of this,” Amartarasu said, his voice final.
After a long and tedious ride the plane neatly landed beside a tall, pristinely white building. It was, to Amartarasu’s surprise, untouched by the riots.
Amartarasu stepped off of the helicopter, and walked towards the building, “Kaneda, stay in the helicopter, if anyone comes towards the building contact me immediately.”
“As you wish,” Kaneda nodded, then glared at Oscar, “Maybe you should leave as well.”
Oscar lightly stepped up to were Kaneda stood and smirked. “Nope, I want to stay right here, so you get annoyed~”
Kaneda’s eyes twitched in anger, as he tried his very best to keep his voice even. “I do not appreciate this, Oscar.”
“Haha! My plan exactly!” Oscar giggled.
Amartarasu tried his best to ignore the constant squabbling as he made his way towards the glass doors. As he neared the doors, he pushed them open. His eyes thinned as he noticed that the reception desk was completely empty. What exactly was going on here? He walked towards an elevator and pressed the button leading to the top floor, the floor where his sister was supposedly kept.
The elevator was cold and gray and smelled faintly of disinfectant. Amarterasu hated hospitals. They reeked of weakness, which disgusted him more than anything. He wished that the fake Izanami, the woman he paid to impersonate her at political meetings when it would be too suspicious for her to not be present, was in fact his real sister. It would make his life so much easier. Really, it would be worth it if only to never set foot in this building again. He had considered making the switch official before and doing away with his real sister entirely, but somehow had never gotten around to it. A sickeningly polite robotic voice announced they were on the correct floor, and the clean gray doors slid silently open.
He walked down the eerily quiet hallway, lit by fluorescent lights overhead. He knew the way to his sister’s room perfectly, despite the fact that he had only been here a handful of times. The fact that his slightly younger sister had been deathly ill, practically comatose, had been a secret he had carefully guarded in order to keep up his perfectly pristine appearance. Replacing her with a body double had been Kaneda’s idea. Along with Himiko, he was the only one Amarterasu had trusted with his secret.
The hallway seemed clean and undisturbed, but the silence in the hospital was unnerving. Something was clearly not right. He paused in front of his sister's room, hesitating to open the door. If she was lying there dead in her bed, he did not believe he would feel sad, but he might feel guilty. And it would be inconvenient to have guilt like that weighing him down at the moment.
He tried the handle slowly, and it gave way easily. The door swung open quietly, and Amarterasu stepped into the room he hated more than any other place in this city. He looked at the bed, afraid of what he would see. However it was as empty as everywhere else in the building, the bedsheets immaculately folded over the bed. A flash of gold caught his eye and he made his way across the room to the bare nightstand. It was a badge, the same one Kaneda had taken from Amido Amdhal. The emblem of the Children of Obscurum.
Amarterasu swore under his breath, and grabbed the badge, throwing it across the room. It hit a bland painting, causing it to fall to the ground with a loud shatter that broke the complete silence in the hospital. The fact that Feros Obscurum had taken from him not only his city, but also the only two family members he had left filled him with a deep rage. He knew exactly what he was trying to do, as he had done it before to crush his opponents. To break a man, one must take from them everything they owned and everything they even somewhat cared about until they were filled with a deep emptiness that could be filled with complete subservience. The reason Feros could see right through him was because they were the same type of person, one who craved, needed, complete power.
Amarterasu picked up the badge from the floor. He took a small golden knife from his pocket and, smiling, stabbed it into the nightstand, pinning the badge through its center. The cheap white covering cracked. He didn’t like the feeling of losing. He would make Feros pay for what he had taken from him, with interest.
These feelings coursed through his mind as he took the long elevator ride up. Destroying Feros Obscurum would take everything he had…all the political connections he’d made, the aces he’d hidden up his sleeve, the strategies he’d been saving for his darkest day. Yet it would be worth it, he promised himself. After defeating the man who had single-handedly taken over the Palace Needle, none would doubt his strength, and the weakness of the other politicians who had knelt before that madman like peasants.
The elevator door slid open, revealing the rooftop. More of the city was burning now, dying the sky a bloody red. Momentarily Amarterasu ignored the helicopter and strode the railing, gazing out over Neo Arachnis, at the flames that licked up the buildings and the flickering lights that still shone on. He stared hard at the Palace Needle, which shone amber in the firelight, like a great pillar of flame that pierced the heavens. Wind blew as his disheveled hair and smoke drifted past him from a thousand fires. His cuts stung and his limbs ached, but Amarterasu Cybers looked over a city as a man reborn. This would be his true ascension to the Arachni Union’s leadership. The common people would hail him as a savior, the upper class as a paragon who took charge when their own leaders faltered. Then he would truly reign as Supreme Leader over all.
As he walked back to the helicopter, he once again heard the sound of Kaneda and Oscar’s endless squabbling. “No, we can’t take off, Oscar, the President is still on the roof!”
“Of course! Wouldn’t it be funny to see him jumping up and down crying for us to come back? Hey, maybe we could try cutting him up with the propeller, too!”
“You’ll be cutting up enough stuff soon enough,” he said curtly, swinging himself into his seat and shutting the door. He could hear the sounds of sirens and gunfire echoing through the city. Neo Arachnis was a bomb ready to explode. He had to leave.
“Where to, sir?” Kaneda asked, starting up the engine.
Amarterasu closed his eyes, cutting off Oscar’s suggestion to go where the fighting was thickest. This plan would be risky, and it would involve billions of dollars and countless lives. Yet it was all but guaranteed to work. “Kaneda, me and you together will go to Nakori City. We’ll get a cheap hotel and watch for Feros’ next move. It may be that he’ll get himself killed and there will be no trouble at all.”
“Nakori?” Kaneda asked as he guided the helicopter around a crowd of smoke coming from a burning hotel building. “Are you sure, Amarterasu? That’s the Telsamancer family’s center of power!”
“Naturally,” Amarterasu smiled. “They’ll be useful pawns for my plan. I don’t expect this self-proclaimed god to go down easily, so it’s best to prepare for the worst. And as for you, Oscar…”
Oscar poked his head up at the mention of his name, “Yeah?”
Amartarasu sighed, “You know far too much about our plans. I cannot let you freely go wherever you like and risk you telling the opposing side. There is no other choice but for you to join us.”
Oscar laughed, “Oooo, I’m allowed to join in on the fun! Oh, but don’t expect me to stay around if I get bored!”
Kaneda’s face visibly fell as he realized that he was not rid of Oscar yet, however he quickly masked his feeling and turned on the engine of the helicopter. “We will arrive in about an hour.”
“An houuur?” Oscar yawned, “Can you drive any faster, Kanny?”
“I can, if you have a death wish.” Kaneda responded.
Amartarasu sighed, mentally preparing to ignore another bout of arguing. They never did get tired of it, did they?
****
Feros passed through the halls of the Spire, his two shoes clicking on the smooth marble floors. He heard the sound of distant screams and the sounds of terror. However, he could not stop himself from wondering…was this truly the correct path? could he have taken back his throne in an easier, and perhaps more peaceful way? He looked towards a huge, sprawling window, and felt a single tear fall across his face.
“Only the Dead have seen the end of War… does this speak truth? Have I created something that will never end? I have done this for the greater good… however how shall I know if this is correct?” Feros paused his monologue to gaze at a group of people destroying a large statue of a past leader. “This destruction is my soul. My soul has turned into oblivion itself.”
He turned away from the window, facing a seemingly endless hallway. He had killed many people only a few hours before, yet he knew not one person’s name. If they had not died, what would have happened? The thought sent a shiver through his spine, he never had felt that what he had done was wrong, he had never believed he had any flaws. However, most of all, standing there in this huge Palace Needle, being the new-found absolute leader of the entirety of Neo Arachnis, Feros Obscurum had never felt so completely alone.
“What is this...” he quietly said, as the emotions settled around him, for this man who believed himself to be a god, had never longed for someone as much as he longed for the goddess of life, Nanirr, to be in his presence once again.
He distinctly remembered the feeling of her silky hair and the slight curve of her smile when she looked into his eyes. He had hardly appreciated her during the time they were together, to him she had been merely a way of gaining power. A means to an end, like everyone in his life had been before. But now, he felt a pang in his chest when he remembered her. He yearned to feel the touch of her hand once more, to laugh at the incessant flush of her cheeks, and to read with her those books of ancient philosophers as they had done so many years ago.
“What is the meaning of love? Is that what this is?” He thought, beginning to walk down the hallway, his footsteps ringing through the empty hallway. The darkness of isolation closed in around Feros as he walked. He had expected revenge to feel sweet, for this empty feeling in his soul to vanish as soon as he once again had the world resting in the palm of his hand. And yet, he felt more pain than ever before. Destruction had no meaning, he realized. “If I feel no desire for death and domination,” he whispered, staring beyond him into the quiet abyss of loneliness, “Why do I continue to live? Could it be that love is what I have been searching for all along, only to have it ripped away from my hands before I realized its true value?” Feros let out a mirthless laugh at the poetic irony of his life. Whether he was a man or a God, a beast or a savior, none of this mattered if his life continued to be nothing more than endless eternal suffering and striving for what he could never obtain.
A nameless cult member silently appeared behind Feros and fell to his knee. “My lord, we have obtained the President’s sister as instructed. Shall we send out a message informing President Amarterasu about our intention to hold his sisters hostage?”
“Perhaps happiness is only an illusion, and the truth of life is suffering,” considered Feros. If love was always fated to come to an end and bring with it terrible sadness, and love was the only source of true meaning, he would bring this truth to the world. It was only fair, after all, that mankind shared in the fate of their god. Feros slowly turned around, feeling a rush of satisfaction in his chest at seeing his pathetic underling on his knees where he belonged. If he had ascended above humans and was still such an imperfect being, they were truly worthless.
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“No,” he said softly, “Do not send out any message. Take me to her.”
He was led to a small room which was empty except for a small bed upon which lay a young woman, Izanami, apparently in a deep sleep. Her long wavy hair fell around her, so pale it looked almost silver. She was beautiful, Feros admitted, almost ethereal as Naniir had been.
“I have reached my conclusion,” He said, lightly stroking Izanami’s hair. “The existence of humanity is futile, destined for nothing but suffering and death. Look at you, forced to live a worthless life yet not allowed to die. Perhaps it is the truth that I am no different.” He smiled, and the look on his face was the one of Feros the conqueror from those ancient days when he had been called the God of Death. “This is why I shall lead humanity to understand the pain of our existence. That arrogant president shall come to realize the truth of the world he lives in. I shall crush everything he holds dear until he and his people join me in this abyss of endless suffering which is our rightful state!” Feros let out a crazed laugh, throwing his head back. What had he been thinking? That the people of Earth would welcome him with open arms? No, they had long forgotten the hell on earth that he had saved them from, the tyranny of Ferdinand and his followers, the Lights. Just as they had joined with the idiot Frutrruschuk to cast him out into the stars all the centuries ago, even now they swarmed around men and women with little sense and less morals, simply because they possessed an abundance of wealth. It was time to settle the score.
Feros swept out of the medical room, cornering one of his white-robed followers. “Send for the Magnus Videns,” he commanded. “I will await him in my chamber.”
The man nodded, submissively. That was good; he knew his better. Most humans were not intelligent enough for power…you needed only to look at last night’s banquet to see the results of such a form of rule. The man who received the power to reign as if he were a heavenly deity…that was true power. “Yet it is a lonely path,” Feros thought to himself as entered the elevator and began to ride it up to the tower’s heights. “Would that I could share my burden. Oh Naniir, your touch is well-missed.” Yet the goddess was lost to him, suspended above the world forever within the sea of stars.
***
The office formerly belonging to the ruler of the Arachni Union was a barren room, more suited to that of a prisoner than a king. Only the crystal desk seemed worthy of a monarch…the black chair which the man Amarterasu Cybers had sat upon was forgettable, a passable seat for a low-ranked minister but entirely unsuited to an emperor. This palace would need to be redone…all who entered it would have to know they were in the presence of a deity even before they laid eyes on him. The view, however, was one that deserved awe. It was a strange city, this “Neo Arachnis”. In his era towers were a thing for kings or for watchpost garrisons…never in his life had he seen a city composed entirely of them. And those lights…what power fueled them? Had a cosmic being other than Naniir lent their power to this land, or had humans learned to harness arcane energies unknown to his age? This world was unfamiliar, and it put him at a disadvantage. No matter. He would master it soon enough.
The door opened and Magnus Videns Cyrix Metallik arrived, with a friendly wave quite unsuited to the situation. Feros did not know what to make of him…Metallik did not show proper respect. In the old days Feros would’ve sent him to the gallows for daring to speak to him in such a familiar voice. But he seemed useful, for the Children of Obscurum greatly respected him. Feros also sensed a warrior’s strength within his body…he would’ve risen high in the army, had he been born in another era.
“Hey, what’s up?” Metallik asked. “How are you liking the Palace Needle, boss?”
“It is not to my tastes, but that is irrelevant,” Feros spoke curtly. “Magnus Videns, the time has come for me to consolidate my power over this realm.”
“Ohhhh yeahhhhh bro!” Metalik shouted.
Feros sniffed his nose, Metalik had been drinking far too much booze. He observed him as he passed out.
****
Oscar Ernest was extremely bored. He hadn’t killed a single person for the entire day, which he’d spent most of sitting in a helicopter. He lightly drummed his fingers to the beat of a song he was listening to in his headphones, however he had the music playing so loud that Amartarasu and Kaneda could clearly hear the bass.
“Turn that awful music off, you immature bloodthirsty brat!” Kaneda growled irritably, from the pilot's seat.
“Ooooh, was my music hurting your ears, Kanny?” Oscar said, mockingly, before resuming his position.
“Amartarasu, may I quickly dispose of him? The door is a very efficient way.” Kaneda asked, genuinely hoping Amartarasu would consent.
Amartarasu sighed and shook his head, he too longed for the end of the constant arguing. But, alas, Oscar was their only source of power, no matter how unreliable he was.
“Seeee~ you have to keep me around!” Oscar shouted, a look of victory on his face.
“You little-” Kaneda began another insult when he suddenly gasped. All around them were small, but heavily armed, helicopters. “We have a problem.” He said, gritting his teeth.
Oscar’s eyes shone as he noticed the helicopters, or more accurately, the people inside them. “Leave it to me!” He yelled as he ran towards the door.
“Stop. What exactly are you planning to do? You’ll just get yourself killed, and that won’t help anybody.” Amartarasu said, stopping Oscar in his tracks.
“Just relax, President! Me and Kanny will have them all dead before you could even eat a slice of pineapple pizza!” Oscar laughed, pushing past Amartarasu’s arm.
“Hey, you idiotic psychopath! Do I not get a say in this!?” yelled Kaneda furiously.
“I do not eat pizza…” Amartarasu said under his breath, his face comically blank.
Oscar leaned out of the helicopter. “How many do I get to kill today?”
Kaneda quickly scanned the heavily armed helicopters and their black-armored occupants. “Twelve,” he said without looking in Oscar’s direction.
Oscar laughed. “Doesn’t this bring back memories, Kanny? Just like the old days, right?”
Kaneda grit his teeth.“That’s in the past,” he snapped at Oscar, jerking the helicopter sharply, causing Oscar to almost lose his footing and fall into the depths of the city below. “If you bring it up again I really will kill you.”
Amarterasu stared at the two with barely concealed shock. “Oh you didn’t know? We used to be best of friends-” Oscar started, before Kaneda cut him off with a sharp kick, having gotten out of the helicopter’s pilot seat.
“Amarterasu, sir, have you piloted a helicopter before?” Kaneda asked urgently.
Amarterasu smiled arrogantly. “I bought this helicopter. I should think I know how it works.” The thought of that stuck-up president actually driving his own vehicle was quite hilarious to Oscar. He rather hoped he crashed it.
“Alrighty then, Kanny, let’s get started!” Oscar licked his lips in anticipation of the bloody fight that he couldn’t wait to start. He felt a thrill of anticipation that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Oscar nimbly stepped to the edge of the helicopter’s open door and pulled himself up until he was standing on the long nose of the helicopter, his dark hair blowing in the wind. Kaneda silently followed him. Oscar’s smile grew wider as the sleek black helicopters around them trained their guns on the two men.
“I hope you know this is the absolute last time I’m doing this,” Kaneda said suddenly, turning to face Oscar.
Oscar smoothed down his pinstripe suit and slickly pulled out two sharp knives, laughing wildly. “You’re such a bad liar! I can tell you’re even more excited than me, aren’t you?” He met Kaneda’s eyes, staring at him with an evil glint.
“You insane psychopath!” growled Kaneda. “You don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do.” And yet, Oscar noticed Kaneda’s usually flat expression break into a slight smirk as he drew a single small pistol with a smooth, practiced movement. Kaneda’s eyes took on a crazed gleam as he took in his opponents. Oscar continued to laugh, knowing that he had been right. He stared down the six approaching helicopters, and grinned at his own reflection in his knife. It had been a long time since he’d pulled off a job like this one!
Oscar leapt, knowing exactly what Kaneda would do. This was just like that stunt they’d pulled together in Gardist six years ago, only there had only been five helicopters that time. As he flew through the air he heard the bang of Kaneda’s gun and saw a bullet slice through the air, penetrating the glass of the foremost helicopter and impaling the pilot through the head.
The helicopter lost control right as Oscar fell onto its’ cockpit. The copilot glanced up at him, horror in his stupid-looking face. What a beautiful expression! That one would have to go in his scrapbook for sure. He messed around in his suit pocket for his phone…
“OSCAR!” Kaneda yelled from the president’s helicopter. “Stay on target!”
“Sorry, Kanny!” he said, giving the beleaguered assistant a mocking salute with his knife. Then he leapt off the doomed helicopter, using it as a platform to reach the next approaching one. The pilots, dumb idiots as they were, did not expect such a clever move. The next pilot gave another pleasant shriek as Oscar slammed into the door, grabbing onto it and gently wrenching it open with a nice little move called the “Lock-ripper” he’d picked up from his time in the slums. The door was ripped open…and a second later, so was the pilot’s throat.
The copilot gave a wild yell and drew a gun, but a quick toss of a knife took her through the eye. Oscar retrieved his knife, noticing that the cockpit was rapidly becoming quite full of blood, a great improvement to its’ usually-bland design. Through the window he saw Kaneda’s bullet’s take out another helicopter’s crew.
There was a shifting sound as the dead pilot’s body fell out of the open window. Oscar chucked the copilot out along with him, then took the steering yoke. He could’ve wedged the door shut again with something, but didn’t because he liked the feel of the wind on his face…and besides, how could he yell at Kaneda from inside a cockpit? Call him on the phone? That wasn’t as fun!
A hail of bullets shot from one of the surviving helicopter’s guns, and the president whipped the helicopter away…badly. Actually, most of the bullets struck, slicing through the passenger doors and likely ripping up all those extra-comfy leather seats. It had been a really easy shot to dodge, too…Amarterasu Cybers really was lame, wasn’t he? Maybe that was why he was a politician, not an assassin like himself.
Oscar could see that the helicopters were getting more cautious now. That was good…he hoped they’d be more interesting to kill. Would the president survive for that long, though? This was why he hated bodyguard duty…why shouldn’t he be able to go all out without caring about anybody? Maybe he’d be able to kill that prissy little president, too.
“Hey, you!” Kaneda shouted from behind him, “Stop daydreaming and lets get this over with! We still have two more helicopters to go.”
Oscar’s face split into a crazy grin, “Get excited, Kanny! Oh, but maybe this time you should actually try to enjoy yourself for once~” Oscar jumped onto the helicopter’s roof with ease and stood in the middle of the spinning rotor blades.
“Not happening. Unlike you I’m not an insane bloodthirsty psychopath.” Kaneda said, though Oscar noticed him suppressing his very own crazy smirk. This was about to get fun.
Oscar launched himself off the helicopter, quickly falling through the air towards the huge gray helicopter beneath him. “Any time now Kanny!”
Kaneda grumbled under his breath, “Impatient brat…” Kaneda pulled a rocket launcher off a rack at the back of the helicopter. He flung it over his shoulder, and shot a huge rocket towards Oscar. “You better not die by that, psychopath, or else I’ll kill you!”
Oscar smirked as he fell onto the rocket. He slowly stood up on the moving rocket, as easy as if he were standing on solid ground. Oscar slowly shifted his weight so that the rocket swiftly shot downwards, towards the helicopter. Right before the rocket exploded into the helicopter Oscar performed a backwards flip off of the rocket, and fell back into the air.
“What do you think you're doing?” Kaneda snarled at Oscar, as he pulled out a huge harpoon gun from the seemingly never ending supply of weapons in the president’s helicopter. He shot it towards the tail boom of one of the two remaining helicopters, with a slight flourish.
Oscar grabbed onto the bottom of the helicopter as it was swiftly dragged backwards through the air by the huge harpoon. He swung his legs onto the landing skid, and perched there, a maniacal gleam in his eyes. “Bring back memories, Kanny?”
Although Kaneda hated to admit it, he had been having stupendous amounts of fun, throughout all these years nothing was quite like fighting. His eyes gleamed as his normally serious face broke out into an insane expression. As the helicopter neared where he stood, he jumped through the glass of the cockpit. He glanced at a nearby window as Oscar swung himself through, shielding his face with his hands.
“Let's get this party started!” Oscar shouted cutely, eyeing the five soldiers inside.
Kaneda slid his left black leather glove off his hand, revealing a half cyborg hand. He flexed his cybernetic fingers once then nodded towards Oscar, before running towards an scruffy old man. He punched him squarely in his jaw, flinging him to the ground.
“Oooh, scary secretary alert! Wouldn’t want to get you angry~” Oscar laughed, the sound bringing to mind small, plump robins twittering in the early morning breezes of spring, with a soft sprinkling of rain falling on the earth, creating a refreshing sparkle on the bright grass.
His laugh was cut off as a bullet whistled next to him, directly into the forehead of the soldier who had raised a knife to stab Oscar in the back. Kaneda smirked. “Thank me later,” he sneered. Without looking, Oscar threw a knife.
“Someone’s a little too crazy to think straight, huh, Kanny?” mocked Oscar, as the soldier who had been preparing to fire his gun at Kaneda fell to the ground, blood streaming from his neck. Suddenly, the load ring of an explosion rocked the helicopter, causing one of the bodies to slip out of the open door. Kaneda jerked his head towards the door, just in time to see a missile connect with the President’s helicopter, sending it spiraling out of control. He robotically disarmed one of the remaining soldiers, crushing the gun in his fist and punching him so he was sucked out of the doorway, allowing Kaneda to reach the doorway.
“Finish this, Oscar,” Kaneda said with a chill in his voice, jumping from the helicopter. This side of Kaneda was exactly what Oscar had been waiting for. Oscar whirled around and sliced the neck of the last remaining soldier, before throwing his last knife into the head of the pilot. The air was spiced with the exhilarating scent of blood. Oscar wished all of life was this simple. Oscar lazily strolled to the doorway, beginning to hum his favorite song again. The scene that awaited Oscar outside brought an even bigger smile to his face. The president’s helicopter had been badly hit, and was just barely staying aloft as smoke billowed from the cockpit. Kaneda was standing on top of the last remaining enemy helicopter. His dark hair had come out and was flying wildly in the wind. He held out a soldier by his neck, the metal of his exposed arm reflecting a kaleidoscope of colors from the surrounding buildings. Even from the distance he stood at, Oscar could see the unnatural red gleam of his eyes. In a split second, Kaneda roughly threw the soldier from his grasp, sending him spiraling into the city below. He plunged his hand into the helicopter, and Oscar felt a thrill run through his body as it exploded into a beautiful eruption of fire.
Oscar sighed, a smile on his face, and ran a hand through his hair. It was always up to him to clean up the mess.