James left the island at five o’clock the next morning. Bethyinine didn’t really mind as she was going to pay Josephine another visit. In the Abyss, Benedict and his men were setting up fortifications around their landing site. James watched them from atop the Spire. Why hadn’t they made any advances yet, it had been several hours since they had arrived. James ran down the stairs, exited the Spire, and made his way towards the carrier. Some of the men noticed him heading towards the carrier and pointed their weapons at him. Benedict looked at them and lifted his finger. At once the men lowered their weapons as James approached Benedict.

Before Benedict could even draw his weapon, James threw the sword directly at his throat. He walked over and grabbed Benedict’s body, smiling as he did so.

”I wanted to warn you… something’s coming, but you never listened. You were always too arrogant, too full of yourself to bother with understanding what I wanted to tell you.” Benedict groaned as blood spilled out his mouth.

”Drown.” James whispered.

He immediately pulled the sword out of Benedict’s neck and watched as his body teetered back and forth. James glanced at the soldiers who looked on in shock at their director’s lifeless body. After a few more seconds, Benedict’s body fell backwards and pierced the thin veil of water which covered the ground. James watched as his body fell farther and farther down, he could see the small amount of light in his eyes start to fade. James smiled as the three men beside him tried to raise their rifles as their hands shook. He laughed at them and walked over to the one on his left and took the rifle from his hands.

He pointed the gun to the back of the man’s head and pulled the trigger. He aimed the rifle at the other two and simply tapped the trigger twice. James walked over to the cruiser, there were only three men outside of it, save for Benedict. James smiled and began to whistle his sister’s lullaby as he entered the cruiser. His whistling caught the attention of two men who immediately drew their pistols on him. James chuckled and simply threw the rifle at one of them. The other soldier fired two bullets in James’s direction. One of them missed while the other one hit him on his left wrist. James growled as a small part of his wrist shattered, he immediately turned to his attacker and threw the sword at him.

The blade hit him in the right shoulder causing him to drop the pistol. James walked over to the soldier, picked up the pistol, and pulled the trigger once. After that, James picked up his sword and continued to walk through the cruiser. Yesterday when the Bureau first arrived, James saw a total of thirty-seven men on board the cruiser. So far, he had killed only six of them. Perhaps he would let some of them live, though part of him had other plans. Three more soldiers walked down a hallway on his left. James quickly opened fire on them, yet he missed all six of his shots. Two of the three soldiers opened fire on him. The bullets hit him square in the chest, James yelled in pain and returned fire. Two of the soldiers dropped to the floor as the third shot back at him. James ducked behind the railing and fired one last shot back at his assailant. He looked up to see all three of the soldiers dead on the ground.

James took another step forward as he felt the cruiser shake a little. Perhaps those cowards have decided to run, took them long enough to realize that they couldn’t possibly win. James retraced his steps back towards the ramp which led back to solid ground. Now he was fifty feet above the ground, there was no possible way for him to get down safely now.

”Well, guess I have no choice other than to end all of these accursed bastards.” James told himself.

He ran back inside and made his way towards the bridge, taking down five men along the way. Once he reached the bridge there were only sixteen men there. Twelve of them turned to face him, their guns pointed directly at him. James chuckled and gunned down five of them as the rest opened fire on him. James ran behind a few of the nearby desks as the men ran out of bullets and were forced to reload. James poked his head up and downed two of them as the remaining men opened fire on him again. James whistled for a few seconds as the sound of bullets stopped. He got up and walked over to them, the men just stood there in panic as their eyes followed him.

James pulled the trigger five times and turned to the last four men in the the room. They didn’t look at him and rapidly started to push buttons and fiddle with levers. James threw his sword at one of them and pulled the trigger on the remaining three. He walked up to the control panel and pulled one of the levers back towards him. The cruiser slowly moved downwards as the Spire exited his view. The cruiser eventually reached the ground as James jumped out of the still broken window. There were only six men left, James would let his sister take care of them. He had already done most of the work, she could handle the stragglers by herself.

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”Wait, it’s eleven in the morning, she’s probably sleeping by now. Oh, this isn’t good, not at all.” James said.

He quickly opened a portal and stepped through only to be knocked to the floor. James looked up and saw one of Benedict’s men clothed in a mock hazmat suit. He then looked around and saw that Bethyinine was being held at gunpoint. His face turned pale and his pulse quickened as fear tore apart his mind. He tried to scream but his throat wouldn’t let him. The man in front of him had already put handcuffs on James who was too busy staring at his sister who was currently being held at gunpoint.

“How are we going to get out of this mess now?” James asked himself.

His sister started to hum her lullaby but was quickly silenced by the soldier in front of her. James thought for a little while as to how he was to escape his binds. When he tried to remove his right arm, the man in front of him simply took the blade away from him.

“You’re better than that, right?” He asked James.

James didn’t respond and merely frowned at his captor. Sadly, that was the only idea that he had on hand, which meant that he had to go back to the drawing board. James simply stared at his captor who merely looked at him and smiled.

“This is for your own good James.” He said.

Silas titled his head, not a single member of the Bureau had ever referred to him by any of his actual names. A glimmer of hope began to form in his mind. It lasted for all but a moment as it was soon swallowed up by an overwhelming sense of dread.

”Oy, you bastard, How, much has this situation escalated?” James asked.

”The name’s Maurice, as for this particular conflict, I’ll only give you one word: sundown.” his captor who was named Maurice answered.

“Well then, if that’s the case then why bother with us? You more than likely have bigger fish to fry if that old protocol is in play.” James replied.

“What makes you so sure of that Silas?” Maurice asked.

”Just ask Benny, or rather, go and ask his corpse why don’t ya!” James answered.

Maurice just looked at him and then at his comrade who was holding Bethyinine at gunpoint. The two of them looked at Bethyinine and then at James as they exited through the portal which James had made, leaving James’s sword on the island. Bethyinine immediately rushed to her feet and freed her brother as tears formed in her eyes. James looked at his sister and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes.

”What did you just do?” She asked.

”Honestly I really don’t know, though I do know one thing.” James replied.

”And that is?” Bethyinine inquired.

“We need to see Luxcious, right now.” James said.

He quickly opened another portal and the two of them stepped through. This time they were in Luxcious’s office instead of the street outside. Luxcious looked up from his desk at the pair and hastily put away his quill.

”Is something wrong?” He asked.

”Mind pulling out my ledger good sir?” James replied.

Luxcious nodded and immediately handed James a book bound in silver dragon scales. Silas opened it and skimmed through hundreds and hundreds of pages. His blazed past thousands upon thousands of protocols and contingency plans. Finally, he found the one that he needed: Contingency Sundown. It had been a while since he had even heard of this particular contingency, let alone see it with his own eyes.

“Contingency” Sundown

Congratulations, if you’re reading this then you’ve failed. Your sister brought you back much earlier than expected. And you probably had to kill your coworkers too. Now the only thing left for you to do is wait till the end comes. Hope you have enough money to see hundreds of thousands of operas, fool!

James immediately closed the book and handed it back to Luxcious. He then sat down on the bed and began to weep for he knew what he had just done.

”I have truly doomed us all…” He whispered.

Benedict could barely see as the darkness continually threatened to consume him. He begged for it to spare him, as it slowly began to take over.

”Perhaps there’s some mercy in these creatures after all.” He told himself.

His body continued to fall downward until a bright light filled his eyes as solid ground graced his feet. Yes he was dead, but only in body, for nothing had claimed his soul, not yet at least. Benedict looked around him, the world was a barren white void. A true limbo if such a thing were to ever exist at all outside of the human mind. His eyes faced forwards only for a speck of black to quickly appear and disappear out of the corner of his eye. He looked in the direction where the anomaly had appeared only to be met with a creature of surprisingly human proportions. On closer inspection however, it seemed to be an exact copy of him, wounds and all. This doppelgänger just stared at him, its cold white eyes pierced through him completely.

”What the hell are you!?” Benedict yelled.

The doppelgänger simply looked at him and let out a cackle which echoed throughout the world around them.