Pretty bright stars, how they call.
Dust and debris is my only companion,
In high heights they fall.
A blur I recognize, the blur I saw when I was saved.
The world still spins.
Mercury looks about the skyscrapers to his side as they watch from below, cackling and immersed.
With droopy eyelids, he sees the faint figures of those he cherished, watching him from above.
A platoon he once knew, but he barely knew them all. However, he recognized their badges, their uniforms; there was no mistaking it.
From the windows closest, he saw clearly. Kadir, Farhan, and . . .
The face is a blurred mess.
Did he ever leave me behind?
Each colorful window darkened. It felt like the ground fell toward him.
In his realization, a surge of adrenaline spiked his entire body. The shock was a liberation of one that replicated him.
He glided, colliding with dull walls—tall walls of hard brick that held his life.
Mercury hyperventilated, his renewed heart beating in an inhumane rhythm.
In his mind he screamed, but his body made no sound. His body hugged the nearby wall, hoping his hand could grip the ridges of each brick.
His nails spewed blood from pure friction, digging further into the grey walls. It left behind a sigil of rebellion in its red glory.
Mercury slowly descended the wall with precision. He gazed at the soldiers that watched.
Positioning, elbows open, he—
Bang!
Mercury cushioned his heavy fall with an elbow to an unfortunate soldier who stood cluelessly. The soldier was out of commission.
A bleeding Mercury stood up once again, feeling blood seep from the wires that hung out of his skin. His smile split wide, eyes reflecting something feral.
Everybody backed away, including a distressed Selune.
Yulou laughed, punching Watcher in the shoulder.
"The miracle lands . . . what a pitiful fall from grace," Yulou said.
Mercury took a step—a step that deafened the city.
The replicant scanned every one of them, as if seeing through their souls. Unluckily for it, some never had one.
Yulou marched calmly, facing Mercury.
As they stared at each other in an agonizing ambience, the fog settled, and the night began to fall. All that was visible were faint debris and the crowd of soldiers.
"Do you know what a fox does when it wants to be seen, Mercury? It grows a rose."
"I am the rose that cut off its own petals," Yulou stated. "You are the shears that make me what I am, Mercury."
Mercury's head twitched.
"You're the first thing I've met that could make me bleed beautifully," Yulou added.
Mercury kept his gaze.
Foxes, roses, and shears. We all just choose which mask we bleed behind.
Foxes hide behind scent. Shears hide behind silence.
Yulou's pitch-black eyes, more an outline in the darkness that contoured his angular face, watched attentively.
"Are you the rose, or are you the fox that hides to present it as its own?"
He sneered, patted Mercury on the shoulder, and walked away.
"And am I the shears?" Mercury asked.
He ignored him.
"Am I?" He asked louder, insisting.
Again, he ignored him.
Without facing him, he spoke, "You are, and you are one that will rust. But we all present ourselves with roses, hiding behind something we hate, so we cover it up."
As Yulou walked toward the crowd, he turned around as he heard a movement.
The replicant was nowhere to be seen in the mist of night.
He looked around until—
Pow!
A strike of a ferocious beast, with the stiffness of a machine, knocked him away, and he barely kept his balance.
He felt it this time. He could feel it deeply . . .
Yulou suddenly snapped his fingers and—
. . .
He stood in the dead of night, watching the crumbling replicant before him.
Interesting.
The rose suddenly snapped his fingers and—
ZOOM!
An ear-shattering critical blast landed in his solar plexus.
"Gah—" Mercury withstood agony in a blink.
He couldn't scream anymore. The soldiers cheered like cavemen.
Dozens of blasts collided with his body, mangling his wired flesh. His white shirt quickly turned red, as did his smile. His nerves screamed in antithesis.
How much longer . . . they're not even hurt, yet I am . . .
Selune moved up front, holding her arm up to ceasefire. They obeyed. She held the rifle like an automatic, charging it . . .
She smiled, looking down upon her inferior.
"How pathetic. You never deserved that salary."
Mercury laughed, coughing blood.
"Hah," clearing his throat. "Pathetic? I die with dignity, you die knowing you sold all your values!"
Selune looked at him with disgust. "Look at you, how far you've fallen."
"At least I soared once," Mercury added, tightly closing his eyes.
The gun vibrated. She stared, a faint grin veiled by her orders.
He saw her finger curl on the black trigger. He smiled, blood dripping from his chin.
"Don't hold back," he whispered. "Show me just how far this can take you."
. . .
TZROOM!!
An unearthly sound shook all buildings; the orb traveled faster than sound, glistening neon-green. A green hue sprinkled with dashes of other colors, like an abstract painting deciding one's demise.
The blast landed precisely in his face, dust clouds swirling around the impact.
Pushed aside, the fog made room for everyone to see the scene.
Mercury's face had a giant crater; only one eye remained, his white hair blown aside.
In his last thoughts, he saw clearly, too clearly. He saw his reflection in the eyes of every soldier.
Their eyes are mirrors. Everyone sees me as the same.
Blood leaked, bits of gray matter hung low, and tissue and bone peeked from carved muscles.
Mercury was dead. This time, there was no savior.
Yulou laughed, covering his mouth, unable to contain it.
Laughter tore from him like shrapnel.
Selune stared with wide eyes. "Did I do good, head bearer?"
. . .
Yulou stared with disdain.
He walked toward her, eerily calm.
"Wha—"
Pow!
Yulou struck her in the face with a swift knuckle, unhinging her jaw and mangling her smile.
Before she could react, he continued pummeling her, again and again. Blood seeped from her face; he showed no remorse.
. . .
Bleeding, she lay, her limbs splayed like a dead cockroach.
Yulou wiped his hands. "Now this . . . is what happens when you let your desires loose."
She was no longer. Her teeth had fallen out, her face bruised, but she couldn't complain.
He giggled. "How fragile."
However, something felt wrong.
The soldiers glanced around, unnerved. They sensed it too, yet still they raised their rifles toward an abyss.
Suddenly—
A low hum.
The walls behind Mercury began to tremble. Oh, how they trembled.
Every light in the buildings flickered alive, piercing through the fog.
A light of resurrection.
Even the dust whirled in his grace, stirred by the heat of his rebirth.
. . .
A miracle was born again.
From the hollow of his skull, a blue star lit. His fractures sealed in light, flame, and sheer refusal.
Mercury lifted his head. His face stitched itself with bright lights and wires, like a surgeon guided by a forgotten god.
The soldiers fell to their knees, trembling at the sight of divine intervention.
Yet Yulou and the watcher remained standing.
"You kneel before him? Here I thought you'd go further for me."
Mercury stood tall, taller than any man should. He marched forward, and then the bearer felt it. A ray of blue liberation in the shape of blades huddled around him like loyal ghosts.
The blue energy folded into edges, sharp like celestial shears, unfolding in arcs of light.
Mercury didn't speak. He felt it.
Solythe.
It was not power. It was defiance given shape.
One that replicants were never meant to know. Mercury did it anyway.
Yulou smiled, "Finally."
Behind him, black and red roses collapsed into one another, becoming his shield.
Roses of the dead meshed within each other, transpiring.
The street melted beneath the heat of Solythe. It burned away the petals of the rose, only leaving one behind. Each bit of debris turned to Mercury in its light.
In the heat, the soldiers ran away.
"Obedience made corpses of us long before we died." Mercury uttered.
Yulou watched the fleeing armada. He laughed.
Then—
The blast came from nowhere. The night itself vanished in blue. A streak of blinding light carved all in its path.
A rending slice of searing azure penetrated the nearby buildings, forming a torrent of scars on the dull architecture.
It was a scalpel of the divine, dividing the city's breath in half.
Yulou and Watcher swiftly moved out of the way.
Mercury slowly spoke, "I thought I died a man, but I became anew. I am a lie with a heartbeat."
Yulou sneered, "You've stepped past, but can you go farther?"
Veiling, Yulou's armor of black and red conformed into a barrage of roses, aligned around him like projectiles.
In a flash, a black rose shot past Mercury. His eyes followed it, and he knew the danger.
Something seems odd about those roses—they look . . . dead.
"I wouldn't get close to those if I were you," the head bearer said.
. . .
Then he saw it.
Boom!
Glass and asphalt clouded in debris, dust swayed in the harsh night winds.
The brick shot, planting into the roads.
Mercury dodged just in time, not sustaining any damage.
"The withered rose cries louder than any other in the field. The fox deems the alive ones too precious, so it finds purpose for the dead." Yulou said.
He stepped forward, toward a starstruck Mercury.
"I am a fox like all else, only hungrier."
Yulou watched the replicant's eyes. His pupils were abnormal—a flickering pattern of different shades of blue within each other.
Mercury stood still.
His Solythe whispered, humming while collecting his thoughts, and formed a spear with two piercing prongs.
He took it and grazed Yulou's neck with an effortless motion.
Then, Yulou grasped his neck with a gloved hand, slightly bleeding from the wound.
Applying pressure, he quickly healed it.
He giggled cynically. The shield of red and black coated his entire body, forming a faint sheet of withering bliss.
Silent, Mercury got up and created a splitting longsword that echoed in his palm.
He swung.
Yulou dodged.
The sword cut a whirlpool of agony into the asphalt.
Yulou grabbed a rose from his extra coat.
"That pace won't get you anywhere!"
He dug a sharp rose into Mercury's neck.
Without reacting, Mercury removed it, pitching it back to him.
With a twitch, he moved out of its path as it exploded behind him. The wind blew, fog scurrying to reveal the pure night.
In a surge, he blitzed to the fog.
Mercury charged.
Yulou snapped, signaling watcher.
Then, he threw a barrage of withered roses from the distant fog.
Mercury pounced, and—Watcher slammed his spine with a hammering fist.
He sank into the ground but grabbed his ankles.
When Mercury looked up, the Watcher's expression remained blank. His eyes revealed nothing.
The Watcher grabbed Mercury by the shoulder like a sick animal, ready to strike.
Mercury saw Yulou behind the large man.
Suddenly the head bearer spoke, "You killed Amira Bakir."
Mercury awoke. He cackled louder than Yulou ever did.
In a haze—a blue crescendo of unknown constellations forming around him.
Mercury grabbed the Watcher's hand that grasped his shoulder, nearly crushing it.
He was more silent than what opposed him.
Fury coursed through him.
With a swift, almost robotic motion—
He drilled his fist into his face.
But Mercury kept striking, carving his face.
As Mercury dug, Watcher had enough.
He bludgeoned Mercury.
He Dented his nose and embedding his knuckle into Mercury's cheekbone.
Mercury slammed into the floor. He felt it once more.
. . .
Suddenly, he was in a room of all white, again.
He saw a long desk and an empty seat.
Behind the desk sat . . . Cyrus.
Cyrus?
"You forget about me, boy?"
Mercury sat, exhaling.
"No, I haven't."
"Well, it looks like you forgot yourself. Remember your promise."
Mercury looked down.
Then, the old captain rose and—
Snap!
He landed a hook on Mercury's jaw.
. . .
The snap deafened him. He saw a blur, but quickly recovered.
As his eyes opened, he saw Watcher . . . ready to stomp his head.
In a blink, Mercury dodged the foot that dug into the road.
Watcher attempted an axe kick to his cranium. Then—
Mercury grabbed Watcher's large leg, landing a hard knuckle to the back of his knee.
Watcher ground his teeth.
With large hands, he tried to grab Mercury again, but learned from his mistakes.
Mercury slipped under his injured leg and kicked Watcher straight in his locked knee.
The giant fell hard, landing like a machine planted into the floor.
"You wear a mask of this country; my mask is the mask of revelations."
Mercury wasted no time.
He pummeled Watcher's face again and again.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He tried resisting, but Mercury kept going.
Sleek like a machine, but with the force of a blood-lusted beast.
Suddenly, a rose landed in Mercury's back like an arrow. Then another. Then a barrage of over a dozen, piercing him.
"When driven by an endless lust to cut all flowers in the field, one learns to see the dead ones." Yulou whispered.
He arose from foggy alleyways.
Mercury could feel it in him. One step away from dying again.
The blue light, glimmered faintly, though it nearly vanished under the crimson roses.
Then, all went dark.
. . .
But the world would never remain silent. It always cries, louder each time.
Yulou planted several projectile systems.
Suddenly, a dozen more roses struck Mercury.
Accordingly, Watcher stood up, mangled, then launched Mercury into the air, again.
Mercury succumbed to the empty night, but he saw them again.
The stars shone bright once more.
Then, an angelic voice that sounded like a choir, all too familiar.
Let it take over, maybe it's time . . . time to let it flow.
Before Mercury could process, the roses beeped, blinking red lights.
The bombardment of black and red roses awaited their last blossom.
. . .
BOOM!
Detonating, the blooming roses gave out.
The world stopped. Even the fog refused to move.
For a single heartbeat, Mercury's body was weightless . . . neither alive nor dead, only waiting.
Mercury was surrounded by a haze of smoke.
As he fell, Yulou laughed, while Watcher adjusted his fedora.
Then—
A rumble arose.
Mercury started levitating, like a cushion softened his fall.
Yulou frowned. Watcher looked down; he wasn't ordered to see what was above.
Mercury felt the soft winds, the dead of night, and the glistening radiance of every window piercing past the fog.
He sputtered, his body contorted, a spectacle in the air. He felt his body fracture; sears of blue light poked through his cracking flesh. The azure glow burned through every mask they made him wear.
For Mercury had accepted a new flesh, constantly evolving. He could feel beyond human senses and counted all the eyes that cried.
This time, he understood why it had finally chosen him.
. . .
Crackle!
Arrays of azure lightning sparked throughout the city.
Mercury was the eye of the storm, the eye that would make no other cry any longer. Thunder pierced through, lighting the day again, bolts heating the city.
Darting past Yulou, he hadn't smiled.
"You think creation is your blessing, replicant? But you'll know one day, we are all the same!"
Yulou stepped forward, into the storm.
The lightning orbiting Mercury routed; Yulou's mesh of red and black roses sloshed where only chaos sings.
Around Mercury, a cloud of thunder hugged him dearly as he looked barely awake.
Yulou stepped closer and ordered Watcher to come.
"Those born of construct don't destroy, replicant!"
Mercury didn't speak; he was in a trance of an endless hurricane.
"I've spent my whole life lying to the top, and I'm ready to die!" He continued, cackling.
Mercury's pupil darted, locking on Yulou's expression.
"Come on! You defied life, death, even yourself!"
Mercury kept a stone-cold face. His orbiting storm made way.
"I died once, then twice. What could I explain to a lying fox?" The replicant spoke cunningly.
Yulou's eyes widened.
Then, Mercury grabbed a bolt of lightning from his haze of storms, wrapped it in wires, and formed it into a javelin.
He pitched the spear. The wind broke the silence; the air deafened.
Just as the spear neared Yulou—
Stab!
Yulou patted his chest. Yet, he felt nothing, then looked around for the lance.
And he found it . . .
Watcher took the entire lance to his heart. A heart now broken, on longer corrupted.
His body gave up, never knowing freedom.
His mangled face laid dormant, even as his eyes teared. His mask finally broke, as wires leaked from his wound.
Blood didn't spill—only wires.
He never bled, and he never will.
. . .
Yulou watched the scene and kneeled beside him.
"You never broke my trust, yet look where it took you." He frowned.
Mercury walked in front of him, observing.
Yulou spread his arms, and a dead rose integrated into reality with a hard clap.
He brought out the rose, smiling as he offered it.
"For you, since you have brought the fox out of its den."
Mercury stared into the withering stomata, the perfectly folding petals. How could such a man have created this?
Suddenly—
The stomata summoned an icicle of red and black stripes.
Mercury narrowly dodged.
"An eye for an eye, eh? You would know a lot about that," Yulou mocked.
Mercury caressed his white mane.
"You never let me mourn my friends . . . so why should I let you?" He pierced.
I am a replicant, nothing more. An exceptional one.
Mashia was no more. Mercury followed soon after. A blazing typhoon of rotating lightning engulfed him. He screamed. Veins drove up his body. He felt it all.
"In search of creation, you destroy yourself. I remember those days," Yulou rambled.
Yulou marched. "Alright, that's enough—"
Mercury's muscles convulsed, and—
Bang!
He pierced Yulou in the gut.
Yulou spat blood as Mercury drove him upward.
Blue flames circled, an ouroboros of flame encompassing himself.
Mercury held up Yulou in the air, the ground was a blur.
He started pummeling him, pulverizing his organs, attempting to mangle his face.
Not all punches landed.
Yulou had instantly constructed shreds of forcefields over areas struck by his fists.
Suddenly, Mercury charged, shoving him towards the ground.
He blew away in the wind, but he didn't fall.
Instead, he learned . . .
He learned how Mercury managed to levitate.
Yulou gleamed, gliding in the air.
"Now you see why I wanted you to live? You defy all that defines this horrible nation! No, not even the nation—the whole world!"
The wind blew in their faces. The crack of dawn began to rise.
Just like Mercury hadn't followed life's conventions, the day and night cycle in most realms hadn't either.
In their collected fury, they screamed at each other.
The dull buildings felt alive again; their lights blinded them, but they pushed past it.
Mercury's lightning roared, while Yulou's amalgamation of roses bellowed.
Together, they charged, pulverizing each other again.
Mercury was no ordinary replicant. Yulou was no ordinary man.
Clashing, they bled. Their blood covered the dull buildings in stunning works of abstract art. Their solythe stenciled history into the walls.
As they discovered humanity in caves, they would now discover modernity on the walls of industrialization.
They continued. Teeth had flown. Faces were swollen. Lights kept shining.
They rammed each other like they were born in blood, letting go of all rationality.
Because whether lying or dying, they felt more alive than any other moment in existence.
Yulou mumbled while spitting blood, "This is what we live for, eh?"
Mercury dug into the head bearer's neck with his nails. "This is what we die for!"
Yulou let go, biting into Mercury's neck, severing wired tendons.
They grabbed each other and crashed into buildings with families, people, and tears of all emotion.
Blood splashed on the buildings, both of thier bodies were slowly wearing out.
In a last-ditch effort, he pulled out a switch from his pocket.
When Mercury noticed . . .
It was too late.
An army of mindless replicants swarmed from the windows that cheered for him.
Mercury and Yulou jumped from the buildings, crashing into the ground. Supports on their feet were knocked off, and they crashed, choking each other as they drilled further.
Their broken bones, torn ligaments, and dismantled tendons persisted.
The replicants followed as they dived, targeting Mercury as he mauled Yulou.
They all cackled in agony in the end. Blood and wires sprayed throughout the ground's crevices. No matter man or machine, tenacity defines them.
Debris crashed downward, smoke hazed the air, drilling past the haze of industrialization, accepting the creation of dawn.
Their confined hole underground kept building. Energy charged between them like a volvern.
"Grahhhhh!" Both screamed. Blood trailed their path, to their conclusion.
As pressure built, the crater heated like a furnace. Their solythe built a storm of blue, black, and red.
It intensified . . . none could stop it.
For the first time, Mercury did not resist what unfolded.
. . .
The sound was ear-splitting; all within the vicinity felt it. They accepted it.
A giant rose peaked at the summit of eminence in stripes.
They were nowhere to be seen—they had become one with the rose.
The rose screamed louder than they did, awakening the people to what lay behind the thick fog.
A sun that determined today and tomorrow.
No matter the loss or the victory, the sun will always shine. The dull buildings were ruined, and so was authority. Survival is all that remains.
Mercury's arm clamped around Yulou's bleeding throat.
They soared the skies beside their rose. They laughed in their demise.
Each replicant clung to Mercury, tearing through metal and flesh.
Blood sprayed the city. Mercury was nearing. He smiled as Yulou stopped laughing.
Then they both closed their eyes.
The rose's final petal turned bright blue.
Nearing, his blue light surged—he was about to detonate—
Then everything stopped. The world stopped spinning.
Just for a moment. The last thing he saw—
A reflection of Sara in a river of white grass, smiling back at him.
The next instant, the world exploded in white. A white dream that echoed.
This was not the last miracle that lived. Only the loudest one.
But somewhere beyond the white, something endured.
Savagery like this is never birthed in storms. It is born in waves.
. . .
Somewhere beyond the white, something watched, patient.
. . . . .