One-Shots [Boboiboy]

Break the Cycle [Part 4]

Maybe he wasn't thinking. Maybe the situation was more severe than he thought. But as things could go, nothing could escape Tanah's eyes.

He was fairly certain that Petir was going the extra mile to make his death look unintentional, that he had fallen in battle and not committed suicide in a room with a razor in his hand.

He'd known Petir ever since they were children. He knew when he was hurting, laughing or even crying. He just didn't want to tell him.

At the time, when they were still fourteen, Daun had gained his second tier on a tight mission. Though it went unnoticed by the electrical elemental, Daun's increase in power was significant and visible, even able to overpower Petir in hand-to-hand strength.

Gempa realized that's the exact same time where Petir's self-abusive routine started. He skipped meals to prevent himself from growing excess fat. He shut himself out from the rest of the elementals and entertainment. It was what devoted him into training himself to the absolute limit, despite having no progress due to the limit set on his powers.

How can Petir think Gempa won't notice? Did he really think he could hide the fact that his muscles were burning with agony after every day of extensive training? Did he think he could ignore the guilt that was eating him alive when the rest of their team accomplished a mission flawlessly after Petir suffered a pathetic defeat?

No.

He can't.

It was a mission to subdue to rival gangs. They were having a shootout in a public area, and Petir had slipped out to deal with it by his own. If it wasn't for Api browsing through his phone and accessing the live news feed, they might not have known.

Tanah had managed to arrive in time, just as he witnessed Petir being the mutual target due to his interference. But unlike usual, he just stood there, frozen like a statue as the bullets came flying down.

The saviour of the day was Cahaya, who obliterated the bullets before they could hit Petir. The lightning melee seemed surprised at their debut, but said nothing more. Perhaps even harbouring disappointment at his foiled suicidal attempt.

Tanah had chided him out for being so absent-minded, but what he didn't realize in the past was Petir's mental state was worse than he had presumed. Yet he had actively ignored it, forcing partnership as if he was a toddler. Not only did he harm Petir indirectly, he had turned a blind eye against his sudden abnormal attitude in battles.

What could he say?

He's a failure of a leader.

* * *

"I can't summon Halilintar," Gempa forced through. "We had him eradicated. Deleted. Thrown off the face of existence. Is there any other way? Even if we could, is there a safer way?"

Solar glared straight into Gempa's eyes. "It's the only way. There's no method to extract a form permanently. It's either you directed the energy somewhere else or you just forced him back, and only a certain trigger can reactivate it. The second factor might be the key, but we just need to find the trigger."

"He's Anger, right?" Blaze said. "Well, making him angry doesn't work. I tried it and it failed miserably."

His elemental equivalents turned to him, expressions equally bamboozled. Leave it up to the prankster to agitate everyone and live.

"I know you said Halilintar was created first," Solar started. "But from what? Anger? You said he turned into a, quote on quote, 'mindless drone.' What does that mean? What actually happened?"