Getting back to base proved to be much easier than leaving.
He was able to slip back in unnoticed and headed straight to his room. He could hear voices coming from the common area so he assumed that the others had returned from their mission. Not feeling the least bit up to socializing, he headed straight to his room and locked the door.
Zero could still see the image of the father's face inches away from his own - begging and pleading with him not to take action against the military. He knew that if he could, Oliver would have already done so. Honestly it probably was for the best, he thought. If he did do something and got caught then that would be the end of him.
His military service was currently his only lease on life.
None of the others had seen Zero return as they were locked into conversation with the recently returned Four.
The common area consisted of 2 couches, a few chairs, a large coffee table with a glass top, a nice large television, and even a gaming console or two. It wasn't often that the whole team was around at once since it was often they were sent on missions alone or in pairs based on their skill set. Everyone sat around asking Four about his several month mission. Four sat in one of the chairs with his legs crossed in the chair and wearing an oversize sweater that seemed to swallow him.
"So let me get this straight. Everyone walked around with finger related codenames? And yours was the BIRD?" Five seemed hardly able to contain himself as he chuckled to himself.
"Yeah.." Four replied back in a quiet tone. "It was pretty annoying honestly."
Four: The youngest member of Midnight Squad at about 15 years old. His ability, 'Mind Over Matter' allows him to directly influence animate and inanimate things around him. He currently is the only known esper Reaper to make an appearance. While ranked almost last on the team, this is only due to the lack of offensive ability. Four is top ranked when it comes to having a full grasp on their ability and its inner workings. He often is sent on solo missions.
One leaned back in his seat. "So was it much of a struggle for you?"
"No, not really. Well. Actually maybe a little." Four answered. "I had to be careful about whose mind I influenced and for how long. I had to make sure that the organization was still moving in a natural manner or else someone would get suspicious. Not to mention that in order to get all their bases mapped out as well as the full inventory of their firearms I had to wait until the last minute before the attack started. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to go between bases or have an excuse for them to stockpile weapons."
Two sat off by himself with his arms crossed, listening intently. "Hmm. Well, if anyone can ride the fine line between disaster and success it's you."
Four half smiled. All this talking was starting to wear on him. He kept thinking about how nice the solitude of his room would be about now.
"Oh, speaking of disaster, where's Zero at? Haven't seen him since I got back." He asked of the group.
"He's probably sleeping in his room. He's on recovery after a mishap during his presentation for Command. Shouldn't be out for more than another day or so though."
Five pursed his lips as he seemed in thought. "A cannibal Reaper. The world is bizarre enough without new types popping up. I heard even the Major General got blindsided. Have you read the report yet, Captain?"
Everybody went silent.
Two glowered at him. "....was that your attempt at a joke, Five?"
"No, what do you - oh! No no no! I didn't mean….you know what I meant..seriously guys!" Five rambled about flustered.
One simply laughed to himself. "It's fine, Five. Ignore Two."
"Um." Four interjected. "Why was Zero giving a presentation exactly?"
Three leaned forward and propped her chin on top of her clasped hands. "Oh you know how it is whenever there's a new top squad member. Same ole same ole."
"A new member?"
That's when everyone paused because they realized the same thing.
They were so excited that Four had returned, that they never told him about the former Zero's death.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Zero didn't want to keep dwelling on Nora and her dad. Everytime he thought about them the anger just bubbled back up and made him question if he made the right choice by not acting. He didn't want to talk to the others about it since he wasn't supposed to leave base in the first place. The last thing he needed right now was more trouble.
He felt lost.
There was only one person who could understand the mental and emotional turmoil he was going through - the other Zero. He decided to open the journal back up and see how his predecessor came to some type of peace with all of this.
Zero pulled the journal from under his pillow. He panned through a few entries to see if the last Zero ever revisited the situation with the homeless man. He needed direction more than anything before he ended up making a terrible choice.
After flipping through weeks and weeks of entries, he wasn't finding anything more about that day in the city. Just more about missions and training and other unhelpful nonsense.
"Ugh, forget this!" Zero chucked the journal across the room. *THUD*
The journal slammed into the opposing wall and dropped to the ground. However, Zero noticed something strange. A folded up piece of paper had slipped out of the journal as it had soared through the air and was now resting on the floor near his bed.
He reached down and picked it up. It was clearly a page torn out of the journal itself. He carefully unfolded it so as not to rip it. Why would he rip out a page to only just slip it back in, he wondered to himself.
It was a journal entry that he had written. More curiously it was dated about a week after his entry explaining what happened in the city.
"Was he thinking about getting rid of this page?.."
========================================================================
6/13/2037
The nightmares won't stop. I can't even remember the last time I had a full night's sleep.
I just keep hearing the gun shot and that bastard's smug voice afterwards. It just doesn't make any sense! We didn't ask to be this way. If anything, WE'RE the true victims here. Our lives were ripped away from us and we had to endure the trauma of being a walking killing machine with no control over our body. Only able to watch the horrors unfold day after day after fucking day.
The rage doesn't seem to go away. That man deserves justice. They all do. They have no problem just taking our life away as if it's just in their nature. All for the sake of their convenience. So that they can live their comfy life to ignore all the problems that are still going on outside their safe little bubble. Problems that we're going out and dealing with head on. But they don't care about that.
If the government or the military won't do something…then I will. Sadiki has a bad habit of leaving his key card lying around when he's training. If I can get my hands on that I'll be able to get out of the base and find my way to the city. I can just use of my masks from my collection to hide my face. They'll never know it was me. If no one will carry out justice…then I'll be the justice.
I don't care anymore what happens to me. I won't standby to watch another one of us shot down like a damn dog. Who knows how many others have already shared this fate.
No more. No. More.
I'm taking care of this tomorrow.
========================================================================
"He was going to take action. He was actually gonna do it. Wait, what ended up happening??" Zero quickly flipped back in the journal to find the entry for 6/14/2037 to see what happened.
But it was gone.
There was also no entry for 6/15/2037 either. It started back on 6/16 with him just talking about random stuff. Nothing related to the statements made on the ripped out page. He grabbed the book by its edges and shook it up and down, but no other ripped pages fell out.
Zero knew that there was no way he ended up going through with it though. Otherwise he wouldn't have seen him on the battlefield 3 years later when they fought. So why didn't he go through with it, Zero thought. And why didn't he just throw this page away if he didn't want anyone to know about it?
"There's something I need to check."
*Knock* *Knock*
Three sat outside Zero's room as she waited for him to open the door; but after a minute passed by, there was still no answer.
*Knock*
"Hey, Zero, everything okay?" She called out to no avail. "Guess he's still knocked out." Three shrugged her shoulders and walked off. However, what she didn't know was that Zero wasn't even in his room anymore.
He was next door in the mostly empty room. That belonged to the former Zero.
Zero stood by an open box that he had emptied most of the contents out of. He could hear Three calling for him next door, but he had more important matters to attend to.
Laid out in front of him was an array of masks that he had found packed away. There were a few blank ones but then there were quite a few that had designs painted on them. In the same box he found a small case of painting materials. It appeared that Zero was into designing his own masks.
He looked down at the masks and picked up one that had a crudely painted question mark on the front of it. The others were finely painted with some very detail, but there was something about this one that called out to him. It was as if someone had dipped their hand in black paint and wiped it on the mask in the shape of a question mark. It was rough and a bit messy. But it called to him.
He picked it up and held in with two hands as he stared into the narrow eye holes.
That's when his thoughts began to race. Nora's excited grin as she jumped up and down crossed his mind. Her tightly grabbing onto his hand. Her face as she looked up at him while hiding from Sadiki. The hateful sign outside the restaurant. The raging crowd at the President's speech. The desperate look on Oliver's face. And the line that stuck out the most from the former Zero's ripped out journal entry.
He brought the mask up closer to his face until it was level with his own. He stared deep into the dark eye holes and into the chaos that waited beyond it.
"If no one else will carry out justice, then I will."