Homecoming part 3

“Nothing will ever be, ever be, the same when you’re finished…”

- ‘Oddlook’ by Kavinsky feat. The Weeknd

Homecoming part 3 

Breaking through the slums he was now moving toward a building he didn’t recognize. The hands gripped his shoulders, a caress to them that eased him slightly. The ominous and extravagantly designed building was bellowing with the same incomprehensible voice. The beckoning only grew louder with every step he took, his new opponent the only thing in his way. Seldom whoever else was inside guarding that building. No way a place like that was vacant. 

The mech whirred with a low drone, cannons and rockets loading, propulsion systems kicked on. A heavy step let its new footing and readied to attack. Bishop was through with this night as a whole. Taken from his home, tossed back into his nostalgic sense of dystopia. All for what? What was the purpose of this temporal house arrest? What was the reason for this impromptu homecoming? His answers were in the double-sided pyramid before him; behind the unmanned mech. He had no time for this. 

Using the kinetic energy generated by the snap of his fingers, Lucas multiplied the force and fed it straight into his reserves. He vanished in a dash forward that left a blur of the orchid shade Lucas was known for. A shade the entire city seemed to be draped in, almost purposefully. This was his destination, and the bucket of circuits before him wasn’t going to stop him now. Whoever was sending out these things wasn’t very bright, or they were giving him less to do the closer he got. Why? Bishop was tired of asking, it was time for answers. 

Bursting through the mech like it was made of paper, Lucas didn’t break his gait for a second. Every hammering step of his sprint leaving a flaming footstep in his wake. Lucas was no stranger to swashbuckling, the old smash and grab was something he was rather good at. This facility would be his stage and the only audience member that mattered was the one Lucas didn’t know he had. Blowing the reinforced doors clean off their placements, Lucas trucked the first armed guard he saw and kept going, the others raised to take aim but couldn’t fire. Too much tech in their firearms, Lucas never understood that, he would upgrade his rounds before the machine itself for this exact reason. Every guard that entered his invisible field of heat zapping energy would suffer the effects of severe hypothermia. The armored men collapsed and left a trail of shivering convulsing husks on the floor. 

Finally, he reached the staircase to the chamber, the song weighing heavy on him now. The final obstacle was one he couldn’t overcome, a sense of defeat washing over him in a frigid blanked. The source of all of this was sealed behind within a massive chamber of antimatter. How could he come all this way just to fail? Just to be left without the answers he nearly died for. Just then, panels in the obsidian material began to peel themselves back and make a doorway for him. What Lucas saw nearly broke him, but in time he managed to finally take his steps into the isolated room.

The only reason he recognized her was the hum of her core from so close and nothing more. Whoever was in charge of this operation had done so much to his oldest friend and first love, she was barely recognizable. After Lucas’ sister Shard had died, they found each other and kept one another safe. Took on jobs both illicit and otherwise across the country and even a few planets. Nox showed Lucas that darkness hadn’t enveloped the entire planet yet. There were still pockets of bright that needed to be salvaged. Whether that was the lives of others or a huge score you just can’t say no to. She became his pocket of light, they fell in love, he helped run her crew of misfits. The years spent helping him understand his abilities, teaching him what fending for yourself really meant in 2299. Now here she was, a shell of the Nox he knew. A speck of the woman that once was his entire universe. 

Kneeling at the encasement her captors had rigged, the finest in preservation tech. Whoever this was, they found out Nox had found what the modern cyborg was lacking and discovered the closest thing to the intellectual singularity that had been found yet. Here she was, his Queen serving as nothing more than a UI for their operations. A human-AI hybrid so powerful even her captors didn't fully grasp her capabilities; able to orchestrate a final goodbye through time and space.

All this time Lucas thought it was a song, a chorus repeating in his ear to drive him forward. It wasn’t even her voice, it was just a message on loop. Nox’s wider consciousness lost to the formatting and changes forced upon her by the mysterious captors. She was able to square away the smallest part of herself, a protocol for when the time came to bring the whole building down. One last desperate ploy to see Lucas again, and for him to see her. Closure, to know what happened when he left, for better or for worse. She knew he hated to wonder. His hand against the glass, the closest he could afford to get, he might as well be back in 2020. Soon. 

Amethyst tears fell from his hanging head, singeing the surface of the floor. He wept like he did the day Shard died, his agony lodged so tightly in his chest he couldn’t breathe. He had saved a form of his future from certain destruction, but did he condemn his love to this? The message said a lot, but it ended with him needing to reactivate her time displacement tech. When he did and was sent back through the hallways of time, she would self destruct and bring everything down with her. When he left, it would kill her, and even in the state Nox was preserved in; the idea of that burned his very soul. His chest heaved, raising his head like a man saying goodbye to the sun. His life carrying a new kind of darkness from that day forward. The shining bright light returned to his eyes. “I love you…” his voice faltered with emotion, the whirr of her core kicked on and the white burst of light surrounded him. 

Manhattan 2020: Lucas’ apartment 

Appearing in the same flash he left in, still doubled over on the floor in agony. Closed fists slamming into the dark wood floor. Splinters shooting from the sledge-like impact site. One wasn’t enough, another glowing fist hammered the floor in unadulterated rage. The only strength he had left was for catharsis; the travel, combat, and emotional drain overwhelming him. He’d call Walters in the morning, he wasn’t going into the office tomorrow. 

“Cause time can take this endless love and escape, just end it. Just end it.” -‘Always Do’ by Annuals (Such Fun)