Algernon Black

(Chapter 93) The Final Hour

After ten minutes of flying Luke figured he'd put enough distance between themselves and Orenza's team and headed for an open clearing.

"Lucy, I need you to do me the biggest favor now," Luke said, landing them safely. "I need you to be the one to face Algernon."

Lucy staggered backwards, but not because of the wobbly adjustment from sky back to ground.

"What? But he'll beat me in an instant," She clutched her commander's bracelet like she'd already lost it.

Luke's eyes rolled at her lack of confidence. "Battles aren't always won by the strongest. " He recalled something once told to him a very long time ago when the cuffs on his wrists belonged to his strange older brother with his strange sayings that made sense only now that he aged to be as old as he was then. "Power, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.

Lucy's eyebrows nearly touched as she failed to decipher her captain's meaning.

"You're more powerful than you think," Luke smiled. "And in your own way, you're the most powerful person on this team."

Lucy bit the inside of her cheeks, trying and failing to find the same faith in herself.

"There's less than an hour left in the game. It will take Algernon about 20 minutes to find you, longer if you can put more distance between yourselves, and then from there you just need to keep him from taking your bracelet."

"How?"

"Come on," Luke loudly droned. "You must have figured him out by now." He caught Lucy's wide eye clueless gaze and point blank laughed at her innocence. "Well if you haven't then there's no hope for us after all."

"Don't say that! Tell me what I can do."

"Take this," Luke said, handing her the flare gun. "I'm going to leave you here, and after I do I want you to release that into the air, then run as fast and far away from here as you can."

"You think he'll come?" Lucy asked.

"Is that the pink flare I gave you?"

"Yes."

"He'll come," Luke replied with brick wall certainty.

"But I still won't be able to stop him."

"I'm sure Algernon's already tired from his fight," Luke said, massaging his shoulders and preparing for another take-off. "It'll make it a lot easier to exploit his weakness."

"What are his weaknesses?" Lucy asked desperately.

Luke chuckled. "Oh, if only you could see what I see in you little Lahue you'd feel very different about your odds." Though he didn't think revealing her power over Algernon would do anything since she wasn't the type to weaponize another's emotions. Instead, he poked at her forehead where the beast of insecurity creased Lucy's forehead. "See if you can figure it out, commander," Luke said to a very unsatisfied Lucy before disappearing into the sky, intent on meeting up with his teammates at their pre-planned destination.

Lucy counted ever second after Luke left with anxious debate. After seeing what Algernon was capable of she couldn't imagine facing him in a fight herself. And debated not sending off the flare. It was unlikely he'd find her, but that would go against Luke's plan and she might lose the game for her entire team.

Lucy vainly thought for anything that could be a weakness of Algernon's, before coming up with nothing and shooting the flare high into the sky.

~~~~~

"Is he alerting everyone to his location again?" Amber asked, a member of Orenza's team. "Does he think we'd be stupid enough to play into a trap of his?"

Algernon noticed the pink color of the flare. "Either way we need to face them." He shot back, recalling rather excitedly Luke's earlier revelation.

"Luke is very good at schemes," Orenza said, with fingers to her chin. "If we aren't careful we might play right into his plans. But he's also a cocky idiot." She added, not as an insult but just a simple fact, which made it somehow even more insulting.

As they spoke a second flare went off, in the opposite direction of the first, a bright toxic green.

"Now he's just fucking with us," Amber said.

"No, he's running out of time," Algernon said as he saw the setting sun. "You both are, but he's challenging you and making you take the gamble." Or more like he's taking the gamble with me, Algernon thought watching the pink flare fade into the sky. "That at one end of those flares is his commander and the other his team."

Orenza hummed out an agreeing murmur. "He wants me to send you after one of those flares to split you from all of us, so he and his team can have a chance of defeating either you alone or all of us."

"What's the point of that?" Denis, another member of her team asked. "Either way if Algernon reaches their commander or him, they'll lose."

"If I find her in time," Algernon injected, suddenly vigorous for the hunt. "You all head in the direction of that flare," He told his teammates pointing at the green streak. "I'm going for that one."

"Be quick Algernon," Orenza said. "There's only another hour of sunlight."

Algernon eyed the already fading orange skyline and set off. Orenza was surprised to see him so invested in the game. She rested her hands on her hip, proud that maybe she had some kind of effect on his enthusiasm.

Her mood suddenly turned when she heard a grunt and looked down to Cecil laying on his back with his hair covering his eyes. He was someone she had known for quite a long time and someone also generally prone to a lack of enthusiasm.

"You're still conscious," Orenza remarked as Cecil barley looked at her through his hair. "But you didn't keep trying to fight."

"There was no point," Cecil mumbled through a yawn. "If he wanted to, he would have killed me in a second. No point in testing out what's already known."

"There are some things you don't know until you try, Cecil," Orenza said, offering her hand to help him up. "One day you might want to learn them."

Cecil looked at her hand and then away. He put his arm over his eyes to get more complete darkness as he got back to his nap.

"Or not." Orenza sighed.

"Do we even need to go after the other?" Denise asked as they followed Orenza in the direction of the green flare. "Algernon could solve this now."

"That is if there's someone at the end of that," Orenza replied. "We have to go to the other one to make sure."

"This screams trap." Amber sang out which was her nervous habit.

"Then cover your ears," Orenza shot back because the last thing she would be doing is lying down and covering her eyes like Cecil without giving her all first.