“Did you say goodbye to Emmy?” he asks hesitantly.
Damn, how can just hearing her name hurt?
“She doesn’t want to see me, Rio.”
“Do you want to know what her Wave says?”
It would just make it harder to walk away for “us.”
“No, I don’t. Just get here so we can go, okay?”
“Okay, be there in a sec.”
At exactly midnight, a brilliant light streams down into the forest. I tell the group we need to wait for Rio and they all agree. The Council will be slightly pissed but given everything we’ve been through, I think they can cut us some slack.
“Isabelle, you can go ahead of us,” Jay says.
“Aw, come with me,” she asks sweetly.
All of us make childish sounds and cheer them on. Embarrassed, Jay plays it off like it’s nothing, but I can tell he’s gonna give her his Rah very soon.
“No, it’s cool. We’ll catch up,” I tell him.
The two take off into the Light. Their bodies glow, become small beams of light, and then disappear.
A few minutes later, we see Rio flying towards us. I’m relived because I was about to give in and go see her, knowing that it would only make things worse. We wait for Rio to land so we can all take off into the Light together.
But Rio never lands because at the very moment his foot is about to touch the ground, a nuclear kind of explosion goes off in the sky.
The bomb sends us hurtling into the air without control. We’re blown miles away from where we once were. The sky splits wide open and millions of snowflakes fall down on us.
I look closer and realize it’s not snow falling from the sky, but Angel debris. The explosion had caused massive damage to the Angels in the surrounding area. We run back to the site to find out what is going on.
The Forest looks like an Angels’ mass grave. Their bodies lay lifeless and in pieces. The first living Angel we see is Jay.
His left wing has been blown off. His right arm hangs uselessly at his side. But the worst thing isn’t Jay’s missing right wing or his broken arm, the worst is the expression on his face. He is in utter disbelief. We surround our bleeding friend and teammate.
“What the hell just happened?” we ask.
Jay doesn’t respond immediately. It’s like he forgot how to form sentences. Finally he streams some words together and tries to make us understand.
“We went to the Light…found the Sisters…They had an orb, big, big, orb…Chance said Godfather told them the time is now…no more hiding in shadows…no more outcast…the age of the Quo has finally come…they got the Amulet and now they are free from their winged oppressors…they said ‘the winged ones will no longer be permitted into the Light.’”
Jay stops as if the memory is too much too relive. Ameana pushes him to keep going. His voice is frail from shock.
“Chance called the orb to life, it glowed. Then Choice harvested this massive energy of rage, she must have been saving it up for Cycles. And then Charity, she used her ability to boost the power of others, together they…they…”
“What did they do, Jay?” Miku asked, clearly afraid of the answer.
“They made a bomb a trillion times more destructive than the ones made by humans. They set it if off and…”
“How many Angels are hurt up there?” I ask him.
“You don’t understand,” Jay says, making eye contact for the first time. “Marcus, they’re dead,” he says.
“Who’s dead?”
“Isabelle. The Originals. The Paras of Daraquin. The Council.”
“The Council?” the Twins ask.
“Guys…everyone
is dead.”
************************
We ask Jay again because his answer is simply too difficult to digest. But no matter how many times or how many different ways, the answer is still the same:
“The Quo came in and just blew Angels up,” he says.
“And they said ‘Godfather’ told them to do this?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Where is he?” I order.
The team all start speaking at once. It finally begins to skin in: We have lost most of our friends, families, loved ones, and not to mention, The Council.
“Will Omnis come down?” Miku asks.
“Why? He never has before,” Rio says bitterly.
“I don’t know what Omnis is going to do, but I damn well know what I’m going to do,” I vow.
The rage that builds up in all of us is palpable. Jay, having seen the attack in person is growing more and more murderous by the minute.
“We need to go to Adam City, find the Sisters, and make them understand the power of Angels,” Ameana threatens with venom.