Nealon dashed forward, thrusting his arm at Raven. He tried to grasp at something, her hair, a shirt, a finger, anything really, but though he was much faster than her, his hand never seemed to catch a glimpse. Just as his fingers closed upon the back of her shirt, Raven twirled around. His hand bounced off her spine, and before he could stop his legs or arms, Raven spun and grasped at his hand and sent him sprawling forward. Nealon’s own force propelled him, and with a light touch of Raven’s toes against his feet, Nealon fell to the ground like a ragdoll.
Still unaccustomed to his newfound body, Nealon picked himself up with difficulty. He saw Raven booking it in the other direction once again. With frustration, he began chasing after her, cutting the distance once again with his superior body.
The pattern repeated itself four times more than Nealon would have preferred, and at the end of it, all his body was bruised and full of ache. Even when he did catch her, it was not out of his own competence, but rather because Raven simply run out of breath.
“Why bother with this foolishness, Raven? You know this would have ended this way,” Nealon said, as he tightly held her wrists.
She looked at him in unconcealed contempt. “You’re going to murder me just to prove a fucking joke,” Raven yelled, raw and full of spite, “I know it. Not because I attempted to kill you, but because of the stupid fucking joke, a joke I should have realized the significance of in the first seconds we’ve spent in that room,” she said, tearing at his knuckles with her nails.
They broke against Nealon’s firm skin. Raven screamed. She kicked and wailed and widely swung at Nealon with all her limbs to no avail. She landed a hit on his groin but to no apparent effect, either. Nealon simply and looked onto her with a pitiful sadness that only served to throw Raven into a crazier fit.
“I will not die! I cannot die. I’m undefeated. I can not lose. I've never lost. I’ve manipulated nations, ruled empires, destroyed worlds. None of this makes any sens-” Raven began, but Nealon had no time left. He picked her from her waist and throw her over his shoulders. She kicked and twisted, broke her other nails on his back and tried her teeth at his rigid skin to no point.
Nealon ignored her wailing and sprinted in the same direction Raven had been running towards, away from them the Lab. While he was not the wisest of his siblings, he has still had a decent mind of his own. He had also taken over a body with its great processing speed, which, in the end, had allowed him to count the seconds that had passed. For anything to work, Nealon had to sprint for a long bit. The timing was to be perfect, there could be no error about this.
After five minutes of relentless running, Raven, through a combination of her throat going sore and her stomach threatening to throw up acid, had begrudgingly quieted down. Her clothes were soaked with sweat and her face slippery from behind pressed against Nealon’s oily skin.
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Panting heavily, Nealon set her down, taking extra care to not let her out of his grasps while doing so. “Come on, Raven, don’t make this any harder than it should be,” he told her.
Raven struggled within his grasps. “Why are you doing this! This makes no sense! I don’t understand!” she yelled, shaking her head deliriously.
Attention, a transport vehicle is arriving. Please do not cross the red line.
“Because, I have to,” Nealon replied.
“Lies! Lies! Not only do you have feelings for me, but you’re also going to have to die with me! Why? Why? Why?”
“Because,” Nealon began again, “I have to.”
“But you don’t want to!”
Nealon nodded.
“You’re not being controlled by anyone!”
Nealon nodded again.
“So this is your decision!”
Nealon shook his head.
“What does that even mean!” Raven screamed.
Attention, a transport vehicle is arriving. Please step outside the red line.
“I-I don’t have enough time to explain everything,” Nealon lied needlessly, the seconds ticking in his mind. He sunk his hands under her armpits and lifted her up, walking onto the train tracks.
“Explain something! Anything...” Raven said, her voice dropping as her feet went over the tracks.
He held her there, thinking deeply. He opened his mouth, but then bit his lips. His face tensed, pushed against something, succumbed, and then breathed out stiffly. His lips quivered as Raven read his expression.
Raven’s face sunk.
“I’m sorry, Raven, I can’t do that either. This is your punishment, for betraying me, for betraying all of us,” he whispered, and turned a limp Raven towards the oncoming train. He sunk an arm under her neck and another across her chest, holding her tightly against his body.
“S-stop it…” she whimpered.
“We promised you, Raven, we promised you…”
“Please. Not like this.”
“We told you, we would see what’s under the train tracks,”
“I’m...”
“And we told you, that we’ll take you with us. Me, at least.”
Raven began to tear at his forearm with her broken nails. Tears slid down her cheeks and onto his skin.
“I wish we could have…” Nealon started, but stopped once he noticed that Raven was not listening.
“I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die,” she repeated, as the speakers echoed their final warning around them. Her eyes had gone blank and her mind detached itself, and if there was anything in her body she could have excreted, she would have.
Nealon held back a cry of his own. “I’m sorry, I really am. This is too cruel, even for him.” He swallowed painfully, his saliva going down his throat like knives. “R-Raven,” he called out to her, his voice breaking. “Go ahead, Raven, ask any question. I’ll answer it.”
Life returned to Raven’s dim eyes. Her face spread wide, and her mouth opened. She did not have a question in mind, at the time she opened her mouth to speak, but by the time her mouth was ready to pronounce the first syllable, her mind had already thought through every possible question, every possible answer, and the significance of each one, and what Raven could deduce from those questions.
“Is Jack crea-”