Epilogue

“Man what a joke, Danny shot the princess herself the very heir of the crown and just a few days before her dad bit the bullet, he could have been the most infamous of assassins or maybe even a grand hero to the world, but alas…” An old woman rambled on, she was no ordinary person, she was Angelica Storm the infamous world renowned assassin, who even now that she can no longer walk properly still stood as one of the empires worst.

“Stupid boy”

The old woman spitted on a pot by her seat, she now moved on a strange car that served as her wheelchair a contraption that felt more a small tank or maybe a walking throne. “Alas he failed to kill her at the end, that’s the history of his life alright.” She was talking on at the graveyard were Danny Storm´s final farewells were done, there she was with only one other person, a man called Irvin Maximillian who listened to her in silence.

“I’m surprised he even had a friend visit him, where was it that you meet him boy?”

“At school where else could it be.” The old woman groaned, but seemed amused by his impertinence. “Haha, still I never thought that guy had the balls for it not after his dad ran off scared to the other side of the world, at least he died with some more vigor, but honestly at the end it seems there is only one Grand American Storm in this world.”

“That’s right he was nothing like you ma´am.” He was not beyond help; he could still have been saved by someone better than I.

“He sure wasn´t boy, people that aren´t up to standard will began to be cut down, even Salvatore had his live finished, Hahaha this empire is going to be like the old Wild West very soon, now that everyone has a fever for the throne. S you better watch your back too boy, but man at least I´m gonna have some fun in my final days.” Her huge carouse turned and began to drive away slowly as the old woman slumped on her chair with satisfaction, simply enjoying the pleasant sun with the cover of her hat. Irvin by his part remained in front of the grave taking a breath of relieve.

“I’m sorry, but I failed to give you any other path and you ended up doing what she wanted at the end.” Irvin took a finall look at the tombstone of Danny Storm. “I feel like I never could put it in to words just how much you worried me, after all you always looked like I used to back then…I guess I didn´t really notice it till now.” Irvin turned his back on the grave and walked away as well.

There is no use in apologizing to the death so I can only go on and make your sacrifice worthwhile even if only for my own goal.

“Time to go home.” Dino waited at the entrance to the old black creek cemetery after having bailed out when he saw the old lady come. “Yes this place isn´t very pleasant to be at never understood these places to begin with.” Irvin told him, looking very tired.

“They are for the living ya´know.” Dino said with his face hidden by his hood.

“Oh I know, but to me it feels like they can only chain us down, its best to leave what was left behind, behind.” Dino´s face was mostly back to normal and only one of his hands remained with red scales on its skin. “Like you´re one to talk.” Irivin stood silent and merely agreed by accenting his head.

“True, maybe it’s just that this place is very near to my home…” Dino stared up far beyond the cemetery and to the very end of the black creek where a huge manor rested in front of the sea and the setting sun. It was still very far away, but the two of them remember it well. “Yeah, we played as children in this sorry graveyard way more than kid should have.” Dino said with an embarrassed smile, honestly he found that memory very pleasant.

“I would have preferred to have visited your home at least once.”

“Yeah dad would have been pretty nice to you and you would have gone crazy with all of his machines, besides your house honestly creped me out.” The both of them walked through the graveyards gate.

“Yes, it was rather cold and way too big especially after dad left.” Dino answered scratching his nose.

“Jej, we stopped seeing each other a little after that, honestly now that so much has happened I kind of forgot that you really helped me out a lot back then, man. I mean you were really the only person I could be friends with everyone else just thought I was a freak, well except for her, but we all know how that ended.” Irvin shrugged. “I never understood why, there is nothing strange about you it was all simple genetic alteration if anything I still find you fascinating…” Dino slapped him on the back forcing him to hold his glasses in place.

“You are being weird again, though honestly, you told me something once… that what my father was doing was an embarrassment for a scientist.” Irvin smiled. “Yes and I think you punched me for it.” Dino laughed, but his expression became quite tender.

“Something about me, never getting to choose my own life, the truth is that before that I never thought that what my father was doing was wrong. I thought the pain and everything strange that began to happen to my body was just something I needed to overcome for him, but as cool and strong as I felt, I thought…If I never really wanted It, he wouldn´t have cared and I started to think that anyone else could have taken my place.” Irvin remained quiet as he spoke.

“Well not anymore, I’m just me now and this is the body I was left with, so I hope we can make it come in handy from here on.” They walked as the sun finally settled, Irvin keeping his mouth completely shut.

If I only I could tell you I was just spitting out my own feeling about my life,, but I still can´t share this with you or anyone, or else that vision I saw back there could disappear.

They both finally arrive at their dormitory, the rather tall tree house in the deep woods of the school ground it was hardly the place Irvin would have wanted but the isolation it provided was still welcoming to him, the night already surrounding it.

“¡Alright I´m hungryyy! ¿Whose turn it was to cook again?” Dino asked while yawning while Irvin moved forward to open the door with his key, even if the light of the sun was gone. “Pretty sure is always my turn, at least if I want real food.” The door opened and Irvin stepped inside turning on the lights and feel a chill go through his spine when they turned on.

“Welcome home sweetie.”

Sitting upon a chair at the living room was a woman. A woman Irvin could recognize everywhere, his mother ,a dark figure with a cold an unnerving mask upon her face, she had welcome him cheerfully with a clap and his face stretched from terror as he tried to scream his words completely stuck.

“…Dino!” He turned back to his friend and his sight was robbed by an unbelievable white flash that came by their side swallowing Dino completely and making him vanish along with a sound of thunder that made his ears hurt.

“¡DINNOOOO!” He screamed for him again as he held himself to the door feeling a powerful gust of wind forcing him back. His friend was completely gone and half of wooden fence outside was completely gone leaving only crisped remains.

“Please closed the door it’s rather cold outside and we have much to talk about Irvin.”

General Aria Maximiliam clapped as she invited him back into his house, Irvin was terrified shaking while he held the handle on the door, but he slowly began to close it leaving himself locked inside with her.

“Yes, mother.”

“¡Raaaaaaaaagh!” Dino fell into the ground feeling his entire body be terrible burned, but he had changed its structure at the last second turning his skin into a coat of scales, none the less his entire body had been electrocuted and he could only wait to heal as he struggled on the ground below the jungle.

There was a storm above him as black clouds had descended unleashing rain from above and the bright flashes of thunders could be seen all thought the skies.

“Oh you are quite the interesting critter; I never had the chance to meet you before.”

An old woman with a tall steel staff at her side walked towards him, wearing a coat of black leather below her lab coat and with a pair of strange heavy steel boots. She had a wide smile of broken teeth and half her face had been burned terribly.

“¡You are the school´s damn nurse what the hell!” Dino jumped back on his feet his posture becoming like that of an animal. “Yes I´m Doctor Fringe or rather nurse now… Nurse Fringe.” She licked her lips unsure. “I don´t know it just doesn´t sound as good, but never mind that.” She smiled raising her staff which seemed to be releasing spark as she touched it. “Look at you, professor Saurus master piece, I really want to put you to the test and have a good idea of how well his work truly was, I always wanted to work with him you know.” Dino bared all of his teeth. “¡Don´t touch me!” In a furious rage the raptor charged forward with his claws and teeth, but the doctor stood unmoved like a tree and raised her metal staff towards the skies.

“¡Then lets test your endurance then!” As he came closer to her a bright light descended upon her, and his vision was turned completely white again.

Irvin shacked after hearing the sound of thunder crashing very close bye, but he simply regained his composure as he stared at the woman that sat back upon the chair, she had no emotions to show from her face so instead she welcome him with a dramatically clapping.

“I’m impressed truly; you barely joined the school and are already living out its potential.” She spoke jovial and proudly and he could only imagine her smiling behind that mask. “To think you checkmated the king just like that; is this pride what I´m feel for you? ¿Is is this a mother’s pride?” He fixed his sunglasses and answered back with a cold indifference. “I don´t believe you are capable of that, so no.” She put her index finger over the mouth of the gas mask. “You´re probably right, none the less you have grown. And wow I never thought you could even live to your age, seventeen, yes; almost an adult really, almost.”

“¿How did you even realize it? I leave no trace of my involvement.”

“It was just a whim, I went to give a good bye to Mr.Kojiro and stumbled upon one of his handcuffs and then it lighted up, a little light bulb over my head you see.” She patted her own head and quickly sat back deeper into the chair. “It had to be the same acid that took down old Hiroshi and it was familiar to me, you used a powerful acid one I know very well, after all it’s practically my natural aroma.” As she placed her gloved hand over the chair a green substance began to slip out of her wrist. “Really making your mother into an accomplice without even telling her, I suppose you robbed some samples back when your father took you away.” The chair brook down as she stood up, its entire half melting down.

“Now I´m going to have to keep your secrets or else they might think your poor mother arranged this assassination plot, even the student council was looking into you till I kindly told them to stop.” Irvin reacted at those words by scratching his neck tie.

“Thank you kindly, but I don´t believe that was against your intentions either.” She tilted her head, pretending ignorance. “¿Whatever could you mean?” Irvin fixed his sunglasses and walked forward from the entrance door. “You needed him gone as much as I did; your grand plan could never happen if he was on the way.”

“Hmm true, Shang Lí is still not exactly trust worthy and that warmonger of General Barracas isn´t very good at politics either, truly it seems your mother will have to raise to the occasion and take the burden of government all upon her poor self, but that also means there will be no interruption in finishing our grand arc.” She rose from her seat making an arc with her hands as she giggled for a moment and turned silent again.

“¿You are still going to do it?” Irvin spoke quietly his voice quivering.

“Of course the world is reaching a critical low of resources now and not even heroes can help at that, and the war the empire and the free nations have carried have left us all out of choices, therefore we need to evolve, the world is overdue for an unnatural selection, one judged by reason and one that will choose only those that the world really needs.”

“…” Irvin couldn´t say a word, he had heard all that she was saying a long time ago when he could barely understand it, when it didn´t even sound wrong at all, when it never made his body tremble.

“A world of only super heroes, the dream your father and I shared.” She put her hands together as she spoke in a giddy and happy voice

“Father Doesn´t wants anything like that…”His voice was trembling and angry.

“Sure he does, he loved heroes more than anyone even if he was born in the wrong side of the world, this is a strange time for a reason and we believed it’s because it’s just beginning.” Irvin began to breathe heavily as he grabbed his tie, he felt as if he was being strangled and it felt so terrible real.

“But at the end when we both had to think of the selection, we came apart in disagreement, but your father was always far too passionate and that passion drove him mad and because of that our family ended apart and you almost ended up dying as well, honestly I thought you were death…I really never thought I would see you again”

“Argg…” Irvin couldn´t breathe, even if there was no one there he was sure a hand was strangling him.

“Sorry, but I know now, just how pathetic we really are.” A tall man was crouched in front of him and young ten years old Irvin couldn´t understand why his father was acting so strange. The blond man in a long white lab coat had a strange look upon his face, he looked nervous and agitated, terrified and anxious as he looked around them with clear shame on his face.

“You are the key I´m sure of it, we needed you otherwise we would never be able to change the world.¡ Haha that’s right you are cursed, cursed by us!” The man in the white lab coat moved forward in a sudden and unexpected way and the young kid fell to the ground when he tried to crawl away from his hand. “¡If I get rid of you she will fail, you need to be stopped; the world has to be saved!”

The far bigger hands of the adult man reached his neck and began to strangle him. “¡I will stop her, stop her, stop her, she has to be stopped!” Irvin failed to speak as his face went pale. “¡You are just her tool, so you must be purged, I’m sorry, I’m sorry for forcing you to be born! ¡So sorry!” As his vision began leave and turned black, the child tried to fight back by kicking his father in vain.

“That’s enough”

A woman’s voice resonated on the wide room and the man let go off the child with a screech and then jumped away like some of sort of animal, on the doorway against the red light of the sun that passed through the windows there was a silhouette in pure black clothing and from her shape a green mist emerged and crawled through the ground like hand reaching forward, The blond man made a frightening sound and jumped towards a window of their tall home, the green mist reached it him in time making him scream just as he broke the glass and fell down to the seas below.

“Father..agg..” Irvin tried to speak as the mist retracted back into her mother´s feet and she walked forward to see outside the window where he had jumped.

“Ignore anything he might have told you; because I’m afraid your father is very sick now and he has lost his reason…let’s try to remember him as he was.” That was what she told him a few days later when Irvin finally told him what he had said.

“He said I was a tool.” Irvin finally spoke to his mother who now stood in front of the broke chair in their apartment, he was no longer a child now so he forced his words to come with the two of them alone in the living room while a storm raged outside.

“Yes and I had hopped that you would ignore him, but you couldn´t right. You were a curious child just like us and soon enough you ended up forcing me to tell you everything when you were still not ready for it.”

“…”

“I don´t know where else we went wrong I thought you would agree with me, so I told you honestly what the world really needed for it to be saved.” Irvin let go off his tie as his breathing returned, his expression growing angrier. “Of course because I realized something, that there was nothing special about me… That I was just weak kid who almost died from a cold; so I knew there couldn’t be possible any place for me on that arc and Dino…”

Irvin stopped speaking and she put her hands behind her back and interrupted him with a strict tone on her voice. “Yes, Dino that was our mistake. He made you realize something didn´t he, we thought that as the child of Dr. Saurus he shared our values as scientist, but that boy, he did not he resent us even with all that his father gave him.”

Irvin smiled. “Nonsense he always spoke good things about his father and that made me really jealous, honestly it’s hard to believe I never thought he was such a monster behind closed door, but he always looked after Dino whenever I saw him, he was always there for him and that made me think you have been too terribly cold and I ended up thinking back at what my father said.”

“…”The woman remained quiet and he felt it familiar, she did once before the only time she ceased her cheerful act.

Back then when Irvin was but thirteen; he forced her to meet him.

“So then that’s the truth, we created you as an experiment to see if you could defeat Salvatore, the arc project can never be completed otherwise as Salvatore would see it coming without a doubt and regardless what we do, he will surely stop it.” Aria Maximillian talked slowly as she tried to calm down her son, his young son that held a gun against her.

“So that’s what he meant… I see now, but that can´t be right. There is no way I could ever fight him, mother.” Irvin spoke in tears with his hand shaking. “That´s right at end your eye never saw the future, it failed to replicate the implanted dna from Salvatore, all that that seems to have left you with is the rapid aging he seems to suffer from.

“So I’m a failure.”

“Yes, but I´m not the sort of woman to abandon her mistakes, there will be room for you I promise, but you must agree to remain here in silence, as there is nowhere else for you to go now… don´t become my enemy Irvin please, not after all this time.” She told him as coldly as ever and he couldn´t stop from pulling the trigger, but a green smoke was filtered out from inside her mask and covered her body completely before he did, the bullet never seemed to hit her it ceased to exist on that green mist.

“It seems this is what happened because of me trying to be something I wasn´t, sorry but you know too much Irvin, you are a liability I can no longer allow. So our little lives together…have to be broken now.”

Her body began to be envelop by a green substance it was thicker than air like smoke, but at the same time it seemed denser like a solid, the voluminous gas began to spread like a fungus outwards and the young man that was Irvin panicked, he had seen that only once before an he knew there was no escaping so he threw away his gun and ran towards the only place he could see, the fence of the manor that lead to the grand fall and to the bottom of the ocean. If he would die, he would rather die on his own that suffer from that terrifying poison, that was all he was thinking as he jumped from his own home through the same window his father had broken.

“¿Now then how was it that you survived? ¿I can´t make heads or tails of that?” Mother and son were once again one in front of the other after having tried to kill each other such a long time ago.

She tilted her head a little and asked him again. “Unless that man wasn´t really gone yet.” Irvin´s expression moved a little, letting show some concern against his will, and she caught the sign in an instant. “¡Of course you were saved by a hero!” She put her fist over her open palm with a cheerful tone.

“¿Who are you?” A young Irvin asked as founded himself upon the near shores of Isla Franca where a stranger had grabbed hold of him midair and let him descend with a long white rope, that resembled bandages more than a rope and now that man that had caught him finally descended after him with a long jump.

He was a strange man indeed one that barely looked like a man, a scrawny tall figure whose posture leave him hunched down his arms falling to the ground like a frog, a posture that wasn´t helped by the long white lab coat he wore, along with a tie that fell from his neck and into the ground. Young Irvin began to back away feeling afraid as it raised his face, he was completely covered in bandages his entire face along with his arms, Irvin could only see one of his blue eyes underneath the bandages.

“Worry not all who are afraid and sick, that Doc. Paradox will answer all calls.” The bandaged hunchback answered moving his long arm to his chest, Irvin stared at his one blue eye and felt that his throat began to clench and ended up walking back.

“¿Wait you are?”

“Yes… underneath the disguise of the masked hero, is Alexander Maximillian… a monster who you knew well.” Irvin moved his hand to his tie reflectively… but the man kept his distance. “Yes a monster, who did wrong and so he ended in this miserable shape for his sins. Don´t worry I understand now that the only sinful ones were your mother and I, you did no wrong…no wrong.” Irvin kept his distance, but he was sure of it even if his appearance have changed completely, he was his father, but there was no reason to trust such a man either.

“So what you are a super hero of the united nations, that’s just disgusting.”

“Yes I took the mantle of Dr. Paradox and fight desperately to amen, but I cannot just forget and if she archives our dream I too will be a genocidal monster beyond any other. So I came back and kept an eye on you in case something went wrong…”

“You are just in time… apparently I was a failure and she has no more use for me so keep yourself away too.” Irvin walked back and the bandaged man walked after him with his arms and legs on the ground like and animal.

“We both need to live and you will never be safe in this Island, it’s a nest of vipers and it’s safer on the other side, where no one knows of us.”

“I’ve no reason to trust you either, you are not better than she is… I already know everything, that I´m just some sort of experiment for you people, that you are not even my father I don´t have any of your blood, you…freak. I don´t have the blood of either of you,” Alexander stirred as he stood up towering over his son. “Yes, we created you in our lab It couldn´t helped, but you do have your mother’s blood and I was still part of your creation, so I can´t truly run away. You need not to trust me as I did plenty wrong, but as a hero I couldn´t leave you behind it’s what a hero must do.” Irvin shook his head.

“So I’m just supposed to think you are a hero now just like that I bet no one outside even knows who you are...I don´t debt anything to you two, you didn´t even made me right…” He felt furious with the bizarre man that seemed to keep his eye cast down in shame, but he felt no pity for him. “¡You all insane because of Salvatore you all believe you can do whatever the hell you want in this island… Hell if he didn´t exist I wouldn´t even have had to be born!” As Irvin screamed his eye began to glow with a bright purple light and Alexander Maximillian retracted away from him walking in the floor like a monkey.

“I want you all gone; none of you deserve to exist.” His eye was shining so intensely its tone turned into a sharp white and Alexander stretched his long skeletal hand forward.

“You can see… so it worked after all…” He stopped his hand before reaching him. “We must leave right now you cannot let her reach you ever!” Irvin feel to his knee smiling with abandon.

“Hahaha...was that a dream…What is happening… what am I seeing?” Finally the young boy collapsed and the bandaged figure took him into his long arms.

“So the two of you are working together then.” Aria Maxilliam asked him again, his expression turning into a smile for the first time.

“Hahaha, no this is all my doing I betrayed him and run away, I´m no hero and I won’t pretend to be one like he does, but don´t think I can come back to you either.”

“Well I lose nothing by trying one last time do I; tell me Irvin would you like to help me with our dream now, even without his power you did live to our hopes and I’m truly proud of you, you were no failure at all.” Irvin remained in silence as another thunder made the skies scream. “Sorry, but I no longer care for praise like that, you will never see it happen that imaginary arc of yours won´t become real, because I will deny it completely.”

“Oh…then I suppose we have to continue what we were doing back then. Sorry.”

A cloud of green smoke began to surround her; a fog began to raise from her finger tips and being vented out from underneath her mask, the green clouds from back there, a disaster that simple spread in all directions causing the death of anything it touched.

There has to be a way, some form of escaping unharmed, some form of helping Dino.”

“It will spread forth, the disease I always try to hold inside me, it’s with a heavy heart that I have to expose you to it, but worry not you will not feel a thing as a simple breath will make all of your organs cease to function at once. It is a kindness compared to what will happen if you continue trying to live…” Her entire body banished within the mist that rose upwards in the form of a mushroom cloud, all that Irvin could steel see was the black gas mask that remained upon its center almost seeming like it was floating.

“¿You don´t have much to live right? That is also our fault and I rather not see the rapid aging make your organs decay I couldn´t bare it, after all I detest all that is sick and frail.”

“So that’s the real Chernobyl terror, at least I get to see you for real now mother…A year at best is how much I have to live that is what my father told me…so be at ease I will still be around to see your dream come to nothing.” Irvin took of his sunglasses as his eye began to shine in a purple light. “Hmmm…that is…” The cloud surrounded him like a whirlwind and stopped, spinning slowly with him at its center, not a single part of that gaseous mass touched his body.

“Yes, of course, this is how you manage to defeat him… We never failed when we make you, wonderful Irvin you do belong in our arc after all.” The gas mask emerged from the thick smog looking at him from far above. “¡Nonsense I have it with that utter madness, there is nothing that special about this eye It wasn´t me who defeated Salvatore, I couldn´t have done a single thing on my own!” The whirlwind stirred as he spoke towards her with anger, his eye glowing into a white color.

“¡Everything in this island is a cheap joke… and your thinking has no true to it, there is no such thing as a person that can´t be of use to the world… and if you who couldn´t even find any value in me, you have no right to choose the value in anyone!”

“So you think me unqualified for choosing, yes he said the same thing and about himself as well, but at the end its simple the time of choosing is now and if no one else can I will have too, but you could been the one chosen as well, with your eye it is more than possible.”

“There is nothing to choose if I were to decide who in this world should be allowed to exist…that thought it’s easy. ¡You and every single person who feel that this empire has the right to stand do not! ¡Your existence is harmful to the world itself and so it will be cleansed…making it ceases to be! Yes…I will kill you all”

“You will not stop me from saving this world, all you are doing is throwing a tantrum, what good will then be to the world if the empire ends, it will simply fall into a deeper state of chaos and the world won’t survive that anymore, it’s already too weak to do so.” The mask floated down and the gas began to crawl back around it slowly all getting back inside of her black clothing and in turn her form could be seen again.

“¡I’m a villain it doesn´t matter to me, I will just make sure you and every one of you who share the same dream as Salvatore, ceases to be Hahaha! ¡I’ll make you all remember that you are still nothing but humans, all of you as fearful and weak as the rest of us!”

“I see so you have lost your mind as well, but I can´t quite kill you, not now that is obvious that our work did bear fruit.” Aria Maximilliam put her hands together. “I’m going to forgive you and see how well you do in your studies from now on; it’s clear that being a villain really is your calling so it may be interesting for me as well.” She said happily as she walked close to him and his shining eye. “I´ll ask you again a year from now, till then try to make a good ruckus for your mother as well.” She gave him a slight slap on his shoulder as she walked past him, he remained unmoved the light on his eye banishing. “But at the end what matters is the world and not us, so let’s make a cease fire for now Irvin, after all there is plenty of other madmen you were speaking about right? Many more than need to be erased.”

“...yes and that would help you as well. ¿Right, mother?”

“Sure it will…but my hands will be tied so be careful, you know that Isla Franca is utterly mad and you won´t destroy it as you are now, even with that glow on your eye.”

“…”

“Have a good final year; we will finish our conversation once you are an adult and then if you insist in making me to be a villain, I will at least let you rest peacefully my son.” Her word banished in a quiet whisper and Irvin found himself standing completely alone in a desolated and ruined room, the walls and floors had rotted and lost their color starting to collapse, the room now seemed to have been long abandoned and left to root, the lights no longer working. Irvin stood in silence till the sound of thunder made him react and ran towards the exit as fast as he could.

“¡Dino please… be alright!” He rushed almost crashing against the door, his composure till now, collapsed like the simple façade it was as he ran afraid into the stormy night outside.

The dark cloudy skies were lighted again by white thunder as a woman summoned forth its strength, Dr. fringe grinned pointing her staff forward, lighting coursing through it as another white light was released forward charging the air, she cackled and a lightning bolt crashed scorching the grass with a loud roar, but someone jumped right in front of the light before it reached the downed Dallas Dino Saurus.

“¿Huh, why are you interrupting us?” She spoke not with anger, but with clear confusion towards the person that had saved her target.

Yong Lí had jumped between them shielding them both with her huge transformed arms as she planted her foot strongly on the ground and jumped forward with only her hands turned into those of a dragon, the old woman made a tired expression and banished with a white flash just as her claws reached her.

“Well I guess I´m going now; I just had to keep him busy for a moment anyway.” She appeared once more deeper into the wood the ground around her electrified it had been like her whole body had become lighting itself and moved further away.

“You are just too flashy; everyone could see this weird storm floating only in here. Get lost or else you will have to answer to my father, because I´m sure you don´t have the teachers association permission to attack your students like this.” She smiled only with the half of her face that still could. “I guess so, I don´t want to deal with your father either, besides that woman told me to not takes his sons toys away, anyway and honestly even for an old friend this is way too much effort for someone my age…” Yong stood in position with her huge arm ready in case she needed to jump and reach her again.

“¿His toy?” The old woman smiled at her. “Yes and you better watch your back too, apples don´t fall too far from the tree, lass.” Dr. Fringe raised her staff and banished in a flash of white lighting leaving behind a trail of falling trees with fires starting on their leaves, the thunderstorm began to grow distant and quiet. Yong lowered her guard and ran back towards Dino. She grabbed him to raise his head, most of his coat had been burned but he still breathed his face slowly turning human as he barely managed to answer her.

“I thought you didn´t care…” She grew upset even with her worries. “We are still teammates till everything end, besides I don´t think you are monster…you are not like Irvin I believe that…” Dino smiled with his sharp teeth. “Yeah I’m not like him I can´t even get angry at my dad… but he is still right, we need to do this.” It was clear to her that he would make it if anything he was looking beyond her with fury. She pulled him over her arm and helped him stand up as the two walked under the dimming rain.

“I will try my best.” She said staring at his closed eyes that his bangs where hiding.

“Dino…Are you…alive?”

Irvin call for them walking desperately through the rain till he finally landed upon his knees in front of his friend and she had to stop her march. “Let me down now, it seems everything will be alright now.” Dino told her and she quietly agree and let him fall to his knees as well.

“Guess she came out then. Bet it was really scary.”

“It was, it absolutely was, I’m so glad you are alive. He looked down to the ground below him as tear feel from his eyes, Yong looked at him, silent as it was the first time that she saw him without his sun glasses and notice that his eyes were of a different color, that surprised her, but not as much as the tears that feel from his face.

“¡Same here man, same here.” He said with that careless smirk of his, Irvin thought didn´t dare to see him in the eyes. “I am willing to sacrifice everything, to kill her dream… you both don´t have to…and I may end up sacrificing you both as well, because I can’t stop, not anymore, not ever!” His eye began glow and Yong clenched her fist by instinct till Dino reached his hand over his shoulder and the light banished.

“You don´t need to say that man, we almost died like a dozen times by now, too late way too late, besides you weren´t wrong I do have a bone to pick with those empire assholes, they hurt two of my friends after all.” Yong stood quiet with her arms crossed, she had many question, but they could wait if anything she felt like she was seeing something she shouldn´t have, but this involved her now so she didn’t divert her eyes from them.

“Same you promised to save my family, you don´t get to back down after making me fight fucking Kojiro Adachi, so I´m not running off now either.” She said, but not very forcefull.

The rain ceased as strangely as it had come and even the jungle of the island seemed peaceful if for only this moment.

“¿Why are you doing so much for me Dino? I never did anything for you, I never helped you back then I was too busy with myself…”

“Nah, it was the same with me… That’s why I’m going to make sure to be here this time, no need to hold back pal I can take whatever they at throw us….at least that is something this body can do, we will get back at them.” Dino´s hand turned into a fist, his hand covered in scales. “Honestly if we are both like birds of a feather, no one else is gonna get us.” Irvin looked back at him with a cold expression.

“But we are all equals on this, so if you feel you cannot go through with something, don´t hold back, you two can kill me if I lose my way.”

Because at the end, I’m not sure of what my eye can see. That what it´s showing me is anything but madness and if there is someone I don´t want to sacrifice it’s you Dino, but I cannot trust myself anymore.

“Well that was my plan since the beginning.” Yong shrugged but she seemed content enough as she looked down at the two of them. “Guess you are a bit more human than I thought.”

“Hahaha don´t sweat it that´s never happening, I still trust ya´ that said what’s with the eye thing?” Irvin reached out to his eyes realizing he no longer had his sunglasses. Yong looked at him expectedly and so did Dino, as his eyes began to glow again with a warm purple light while Irvin smiled warmly in a way he couldn´t even remember to have done ever before.

“From this point on the three of us will share the same fate.”