"Edith? How do you feel?" Colin asks the moment Edith, Regan and J get back in the car and J takes the wheel again, starting the engine and beginning to pull away from the computer repair shop.
Edith brings her hand to her chest, feeling for her heartbeat. She takes a deep breath, exhaling with a smile before she meets his eyes. "My heartbeat is back to normal... The pain is gone. I feel..." she takes another deep breath in, exhaling serenely as the relief settles into her body. "Fine."
"Just fine?" Nisha eyes her quizzically from the front passenger seat. Colin managed to persuade her to take his place next to J under the ruse of it being so that he could be closer to Edith after they returned from fixing her implant. When in reality, he's just terrified of that psychopath.
Edith scoffs with a shrug. "What? I'm still pregnant. I'm not coughing up blood, so 'fine' is as good as it's gonna get," she lightheartedly chuckles and returns her focus to Colin. "And... your magic?"
As the car turns down another road, now one that leads towards the highway, Colin closes his eyes and his brows contort up in concentration, letting his mind run through his systems to recognize every little detail that feels different. When he opens his eyes, they briefly flash a bit brighter green and he sighs as they dim to their normal luminosity.
"It's back..." he says wearily. "Unfortunately," he murmurs before smiling at Edith and wrapping his arm around her and pulling her against his side. "You've no idea how happy I am that you're okay..." he plants a kiss on her head. "We're going to get home and everything's going to be fine. We'll start a family..." he says softly, but his smile starts to fade as he looks to Edith's other side to see Regan blankly staring out the window while rubbing his knuckles with his trembling hands.
He and Edith both turn their gazes to him and worry melts into their features. How can they keep forgetting that talking about going home and having a family must hurt for Regan? That was what he would have had if they hadn't lost Cree. He may still have Reela, but without Cree, it's just not the same feeling. It's unlikely Cree would have ever moved to Sage, but it was clear how deeply he cared for Regan and Reela. For them, he might just have suffered through it.
But now he'll be returning home without him. Even with Reela, he'll still be alone in Sage.
Edith and Colin exchange a glance and Colin nods to her. J is now driving them down the highway, weaving between other cars and motorcyclists.
Edith turns back to face Regan and carefully reaches down to hold his hand, getting his attention to divert from the window and onto her. "Regan... Colin and I were thinking. You know, about what we're going to do after we get back to Utopia..." she starts and waits to see if he's really listening. His focus seems to be divided between her and his thoughts, but that's probably the best she's going to get.
"And, well... As much as we love County Mortal, it might be a bit too dangerous, especially considering they're probably still rebuilding from the war. So we thought... maybe somewhere safer would be best for a child," she smiles up at him. "Somewhere like Sage," she lightly bumps her shoulder against his.
Regan stares speechless at her as he lets all of that sink in. The insinuation is clear, but the belief behind it is what he has a hard time grasping. "You... want to live in Sage...?"
Colin smiles at him and nods. "I mean... It does feel a lot like home. For all its flaws, there are times I miss Aramora. And besides, it's probably smart to live somewhere that we wouldn't have to go far if we ever need a reliable SRL doctor, especially if Edith's going to be having a baby," he says.
Again, Regan just stares at him. His eyes bounce between Edith and Colin as he tries to wrap his head around what he just heard.
"...You want me to... deliver your child?" he shudders. "Are you sure...?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" Edith chuckles. "We trust you Regan. You're family."
Regan shuts his mouth as he fails to find any words to express what's running through his head right now. Edith sees him struggling to believe it, or understand why they would want this, so she mimics Colin and wraps her arm around Regan to lean against him with her head on his shoulder.
He stares at her before glancing over at Colin with uncertainty, but the SRL just nods with a content smile. Regan slowly brings his arm around Edith and hugs her to his side, resting his head atop hers.
Nisha watches them in the mirror with a smile that is somehow both earnest and smug. Like she won a prize for being a good person and isn't sure how to express the way she feels about it without seeming like a cocky son of a bitch since that would contradict the point of the prize.
As she's watching them in the mirror, her eyes glance over to see a person riding a black motorcycle following behind them. They're wearing an all-black leather outfit and a full-faced black helmet with a tinted visor.
Curious, she tilts her head. "Uh, J. Has that motorcycle always been there?"
J just keeps headbanging to the music blasting through the radio, paying absolutely no mind to the Tus'Felnis. They can't even tell what song this is as it's literally just a bunch of screaming with heavy metal music.
Nisha rolls her eyes and turns around to look through the back window, but when she searches for the black motorcycle, it's gone. Scanning her eyes over the other lanes, she can't find it anywhere. There are a few other cars surrounding them, but that motorcycle is gone.
The furs on her tail stand on end.
Colin turns his attention away from Edith and Regan to eye the Tus'Felnis quizzically. "Nisha? Is something wrong?"
Her ears start flicking to the sides. "I don't know..." she huffs and her face twists into a frustrated scowl as she turns forward again, when she finds the person on the motorcycle.
They're standing in the center of the road in front of them.
Nisha's ears snap back and she gasps. "LOOK OUT!" She lunges over and grabs the wheel, jerking it to the side to avoid the person, who doesn't move an inch.
The car swerves and avoids hitting the other cars, but they end up directly in the path of a semi that rams into the side of the taxi, smashing the side Colin and J are sitting and sending the car flying, crashing the roof into the ground over and over as it flips down the road a few feet, finally stopping on the side of the highway.
Other cars weave around and others stop and the drivers get out to see if they're okay, but no one gets too close.
Edith groans and holds the side of her head, feeling blood trickling down her lip to her forehead as they are buckled into an upside down car. She hears the blaring car alarm ringing in her ears as the sound of smashing glass and metal still rattles her skull.
The moment the car swerved, Colin wrapped his body around Edith and Regan, which resulted in his back taking the brunt of the semi, but Edith can feel his heart still beating against her so she knows that at least his EPC wasn't damaged.
She turns to see as Regan scrambles for the door handle, pulling it open and having to use all of his strength to push the door out. He reaches for his buckle and releases himself from the seat belt, dropping himself onto the inside roof of the car before he starts helping Edith and Colin get themselves freed as well.
Once the three of them are outside of the car, Colin drops with a grunt, holding his shoulder as his back twists and sparks. Edith grabs his arms and tries to help him, when Nisha bashes her window open and crawls out, pulling J out after her and laying her on the side of the road.
Nisha presses her fingers to the side of J's neck and sighs with relief when she finds she still has a pulse. She's just been knocked out by the looks of it. The Tus'Felnis takes trembling deep breaths and looks around her friends wearily.
"Is... Is everyone okay?" she coughs out.
Colin grits his teeth as his damaged circuits jolt and wrack him with pain. He forces himself to nod. "I'm... fine," he turns to Edith and Regan. "You two?"
Regan swallows shakily and nods as well. Of all of them, he's the only one standing. Probably because he was the farthest from the initial hit from the semi. Edith was in the middle, so she is also able to stand as she took the smallest hits, but she's currently kneeled at Colin's side.
"I'm okay..." Edith takes a few deep breaths and shakes her head against the ringing in her ears.
Colin grabs her hand and checks her eyes. "...Both of you?"
Edith instantly snaps her hand to her stomach and holds, finding instant relief when she feels the faint heartbeat. Once Colin shielded her and Regan, her first instinct was to wrap her arms around her stomach. Her forearms are now bruised and bloody, but the baby is fine.
"We're okay..." she breathes out before glaring at Nisha. "What was that about?" she snaps, too shaken up to sound as angry as she feels.
Nisha hovers her hands over J's unconscious form with a faint green glow. She may be alive, but she'd rather not take chances that her neck might be broken or anything like that. Better safe than sorry.
"I... saw someone. In the road..." she looks around with blurry vision, seeing the mass of onlookers, some of them on their phones as they call the police. They're all too dazed to register the fact that they are currently wanted by the Imperium and thus having the police arrive would do more harm than good.
Regan focuses on taking deep breaths of his own as he also looks around the highway. All he sees is the crowd watching them. Panicked families and workers. Pieces of debris from the car are scattered across the road with shattered glass everywhere.
Nisha lowers her hands from J as she realizes the majority of her injuries are superficial and shakily stands up to walk over to Regan's side while Edith remains with Colin by the car. Edith watches the two of them look around, when they all hear the crowd in front of them let out gasps and begin to part.
From the crowd emerges a figure in black. Still wearing the motorcycle helmet. They slowly walk towards the group. They walk like a machine. Their movements are robotic yet human at the same time. Not waiting for the crowd to part and instead they seem to phase in and out like smoke passing through the crowd as if the people are air.
Like a ghost.
Through their blurred vision, the Ghost slowly lifts their hand and it takes them all a moment to realize they're raising a gun trained on Regan.
As soon as Nisha realizes they're about to pull the trigger, she lunges at Regan and shoves him out of the way right in time for the bullet to hit the flipped car behind them. Edith yelps at the sound of the gunshot and hearing the bullet impact so close to her and Colin, so she grabs his arm and pulls him off the ground, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to move him away from the approaching person.
The people gathered in the crowd let out more gasps and some turn and run or return to their cars to take off and get away from the scene. But the Ghost just keeps approaching and lowers their gun.
Regan grabs Nisha's arm as he begins to back away. "Who... is that?" he shudders.
Nisha never blinks or lets her attention fall from the person in black. The way they move chills her. Like an empty machine with nothing in front of it but an objective to complete.
Not knowing the answer to his question, she slowly pulls her daggers out of their sheaths and yanks her arm out of Regan's grasp so she can position herself in front of him, but the Ghost now stops in the center of the road.
Their attention turns to Edith as she tries helping Colin.
The moment their focus is no longer on Regan, Nisha sprints towards them and strikes her daggers down on them, but the blades phase straight through their body. Nisha stumbles as her momentum is directed on nothing and she turns to face the Ghost again, but they're gone.
Edith helps Colin lean against the flipped car for support as his back sparks again. "Just hold on, Colin... We're going to be—" she's cut off with another yelp. She feels the hand roughly gripping her throat before she even sees the Ghost reappear in front of her, between her and Colin and they pull her away from him.
"Edith!" Colin jumps to rush to her aid, but his body jolts and sparks again which makes him collapse to the pavement with a furious pained grunt.
Edith grabs the Ghost's wrist and tries to pry them away, but they don't let up. She thrashes and kicks, fighting to break free but it amounts to nothing. In her struggling, she catches a glimpse of a familiar symbol on their black leather jacket. The symbol of the Imperium in crimson red. Another Hex serving The Director.
Who the hell is this person? They're not lifting her off the ground as it seems she's possibly a little taller than them, but their strength makes up for it in all regards.
"What..." she coughs as their grip on her throat tightens. "...do you want?"
They stare up at her from behind their opaque black visor and say nothing as they draw a knife in their free hand and start moving it towards her chest – her EPC, making her fight harder to get away.
Regan watches as Nisha lowers her stance and begins slowly moving towards the Ghost and Edith, approaching the aggressor from behind. She takes each step with more caution than the last, as each one brings her closer. She has to avoid crunching shards of glass beneath her feet or cracks in the pavement.
Feeling a burning need to do something instead of just watching how this plays out, Regan shakily reaches into his bag and with a trembling hand, pulls out Cree's handgun and aims it at the Ghost.
He can't shoot from this angle. The bullet would have a chance of hitting Edith. Considering how he has never used a gun before, the chances that he would hit his target are slim to none as he is probably a worse shot than Edith, but using the gun isn't his goal.
"...Let her go," Regan growls and tightens his fist around the grip of the gun to try to force himself to stifle his trembling.
The Ghost stops moving the knife towards Edith's chest and glances back at Regan, seeing the gun he has trained on them. With their head turned, Edith starts trying to reach for the release on their helmet, but they suddenly let go of her throat and she stumbles back.
In that moment, Nisha takes the chance she's given and leaps through the air with her daggers directed onto the aggressor like a lion on the hunt. The Ghost swiftly snaps their arm up to block the strike, but her blades don't phase through them this time.
Her daggers clash against their forearm with a metal clang.
She momentarily falters at the unexpected sound and collision and the Ghost snaps their other hand out to grab her and throw her back.
Snapping back into the moment, Nisha twists in the air and manages to land on her feet, skidding to a halt back at Regan's side, when she stops in contemplation again and looks down at the daggers in her hands.
Regan sighs with a shrug. "At least we know we can hit them," he glances at her as he lowers the gun, seeing her distraction. "What is it?"
Nisha looks from him to the Ghost and her brows furrow. "Their arm..." she watches the figure in black irritably roll their shoulders back as they turn to face Edith once again.
"It's... metal," she says quizzically.
"Metal?" Regan tilts his head as he slowly turns his attention back onto the Ghost as they resume approaching Edith, now pulling a second knife from their belt to hold one in each hand.
Edith watches them in a panic and tries moving away, but with each step she takes, they phase through the air and reappear closer than before. Eventually, she realizes moving back isn't going to save her so she takes a risk by rushing towards them and grabbing their wrist, fighting to get at least one knife out of their hand.
While they're locked, Regan throws caution to the wind and sprints forward towards the Ghost. He grabs their shoulder and tries to pull them away from Edith but their strength is clearly far greater than his.
Without pause, the Ghost turns and slashes at him with one of their knives. The blade cuts across Regan's cheek, reopening his scar. Regan winces and goes to hold his face, but the Ghost doesn't give him a moment to before they completely let go of Edith. In the motion, they stopped fighting and Edith managed to snatch the knife out of their right hand.
They kick Regan back, shoving him to the ground. The glass shards scattered across the road cut through his hands but his focus is far from the pain, it's on this person towering over him with a blade in their hand.
Their right arm lifts towards the flipped car and a blade shoots out towards the totaled vehicle with a thin chain attaching it to their arm beneath the sleeve of their leather jacket. The blade imbeds in the side of the car and it suddenly retracts, ripping the door off the car and sending it zipping back towards the person.
They turn and guide the car door towards Regan, but in a split-second decision, he lunges up at the Ghost and grabs them, pulling them in the way to take the hit instead. Surprisingly, he doesn't phase through them this time. Seems they weren't expecting him to be so bold.
The car door hits the Ghost and they're knocked back, skidding across the pavement before stopping as their helmet is knocked off.
Regan instantly bolts for Edith and Nisha, checking to make sure they're both okay before Edith rushes to Colin's side where he's still thrashing on the ground from the damaged circuits throughout his body.
The Ghost shoves the car door aside as they begin to stand. No more helmet to hide behind.
Regan quickly brings the handgun back up and aims it at them.
When he freezes.
Every inch of his body goes cold. He's paralyzed in heart, mind and body at the sight before him. He must be dreaming. With the numbness coursing through him, he must be. He must be dreaming.
Because he's staring at the face of Cree Tyrell.
His mind doesn't register as he lets the gun lower back to his side. No one says or does anything. Nisha is at his side with her ears flat against her skull and the alert flicking of her tail has completely ceased. She's frozen with him.
Edith and Colin stare blankly at the Ghost – at Cree. So many things have caused Edith's EPC to burn with the force of her emotions, but it's rare for her to feel something so powerfully that she feels nothing at all. Ice fills her heart and makes her shiver, unblinkingly watching as Cree turns and retrieves his helmet.
"...Cree...?" Regan absently emits his name past his quivering lips.
It's him. Without a doubt, it's him. It's Cree. Cree Tyrell, the man he loved. The man Reela considered her father. The man he would give his life for. The man he watched die just a week ago.
His light brown eyes. His dark silver hair that had started getting a little long now has the sides shaved and the rest pulled into a small bun. Aside from his hair and clothes, the only real difference is the small scar in the center of his forehead that's almost shaped like a star.
The bullet that killed him.
He just manages to take a step towards him, when Cree snaps his gun back up and points it directly at Regan with a glare that threatens his life with every fiber of his being.
"...Don't move," he warns with chilling emptiness and hatred to his voice. "...and don't call me that." He slowly returns the helmet to his head without letting the gun divert away from Regan.
"It's Tyrell."
Regan absently shakes his head and opens his mouth to speak, but he finds no words. There's nothing he can say to express anything he's feeling. It's all numb. He's paralyzed and knows that everything he's feeling underneath the cloak of nothingness will eventually come out, and he's terrified of what might come of that.
Before anyone can even attempt to do anything, sirens blare out as the police finally arrive and pull up to the scene. Four cars surround them, and from one, Jane steps out and approaches Cree while looking around the highway at the broken glass, car debris, and totaled taxi. She has a long scar drawn across her throat.
She glares at Cree with an irritated scoff. "And I thought I was bad with collateral damage," she snides.
"Her majesty wanted a scene," he holds out his arms. "I gave her one."
Jane rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Your job is done. Let the professionals handle the rest," she goes to shove him aside, but she ends up phasing through him and fumbles, nearly falling over completely.
Cree snickers and swiftly turns away as the police start closing in around Edith, Regan, Colin, Nisha and J who is still unconscious. One officer stops Cree by grabbing his shoulder. "Excellent work, Ghost. Report back to Corbin now that—"
Cree rips his shoulder out of his grasp. "I know what I'm doing, so don't try ordering me around. I want compensation," he demands.
"What kind of 'compensation'?"
He looks over at the group again for a moment as they all just watch him in complete shock and silence. He grabs the officer's arm and faces him again.
"Let me kill him," he growls. "Corbin only wants the baby. The rest are useless to her. Let me kill that royal 'Lost Descendent' prick."
His words enter Regan's mind, but he fails to grasp just what they mean. It doesn't click in his brain. To him, those were just words that meant nothing. Empty sounds to fill the screaming silence. Not that Cree just said he wants to kill him.
Now it's the officer's turn to yank his arm out of his grip. "Not going to happen. You know The Director wants him alive too. Just take your payment and get out," he snaps and marches past him to approach the group.
Regan watches Cree shake his head and let out a quiet growl before he turns and begins walking away from the scene. Ignoring everything else around him, even as the officers begin to grab his friends to arrest them one by one, Regan rushes after him. Nisha tries to follow, but an officer grabs her and begins fastening handcuffs to her wrists.
Regan doesn't pay any mind to the officers letting him pass and he keeps heading straight for Cree. Nothing else in this moment matters. He follows him a bit further down the highway until they reach the edge of the bridge, where Cree stops.
"...Cree...?" Regan shudders and stops a safe distance away from him. Cree slowly turns to glance back at him, and even with the helmet on, Regan can feel that piercing glare still burns into his soul. "...Ty..."
Cree shakes his head. "...Corbin can't protect you forever."
Regan blinks back tears once his eyes start to blur. "Ty... please..." he chokes over his words. "...please don't leave me again... I need you. Reela needs you..."
For a moment, Cree freezes and just stares back at him.
"...Reela...?"
For just that second, that brief moment, the emptiness of his voice wavered. It was a split second of remorse. However brief, it was there.
Regan tries reaching out for him, but his hand passes straight through and he's given no time to act before Cree reaches up and presses on his neck, rendering his body invisible before stepping off the bridge and vanishing like the wind.
And once again, Regan is alone.
This is a dream. This has to be a dream. Or a nightmare. Something. Anything because this can't be reality. Should he be happy? He watched the man he loves die in front of him and now he's back, alive and well before his eyes.
But he's helping The Director. The woman who killed him to begin with. He's working with Jane. Cree would never partner up with the monster who killed John.
Not willingly.
He feels sick but relieved. Joyful but furious. Hopeful and hopeless at the same time.
Footsteps approach him from behind. "Alright, Angevin. You may be royalty but you're still an enemy of the Imperium along with your little friends. So either surrender your standing against Director Corbin or come quietly to face justice for your crimes against Eutria," the voice of an officer orders with a deadpan expression directed on Regan.
But Regan just stays standing there as he fights the emotions that begin to rise with the dwindling of the paralyzing ice that had wracked his heart. But he can't keep it contained a second longer.
He turns to meet the officer's eyes with a shattered glare through narrowed slivers of the blackened void as he lets go of the wheel and lets the Dark take control.
The moment the officer registers what he's looking at, Regan snaps his hand out and grabs him by his throat. He lifts him off the ground with one hand and pulls the officer's knife off his belt to stab it into his stomach before tossing him back to the pavement.
The officer lands on his back and Regan simply makes his way over, kneels at his side, and slits the man's throat before standing and turning his voided glare onto the numerous officers who are still arresting his friends.
He tightens his grip on the knife as he approaches.
One by one, the bodies fell. It was all a blur filtered by the ink surrounding his vision. A haze of black and violet mist and shadow, cloaking the Dark's hand as it guided Regan to cut down everyone in sight who wore the symbol of the Imperium.
But Jane got away.
Once there's no one left to slaughter aside from his friends, he throws a hand back on the wheel to take control back from the Dark. It resists, but in the moment when his desperation overtakes his senses and backs his adrenaline-fueled strength, he proves more resilient than the entity in his head.
His vision returns to normal but it's blurred by tears and the blood splattered across his face, hands and clothes. As soon as he is back in full control over his body, he drops the knife and falls to his knees.
He feels Edith's arms wrap around him and she says something to him, but his ears are ringing. His body is trembling.
Covered in blood and surrounded by bodies wearing Imperium uniforms, Regan begins to sob.