Upstairs, the Doctor hadn’t moved an inch, standing in front of his chair with his hands behind his back while facing the open doorway. He had a wide prideful grin on his face, as the sound of his house breaking apart had stopped, and it seemed the fight had been concluded.

Behind him, the empty syringe laid on the windowsill, drained and used more perfectly than he could ever anticipate. He had done the impossible, he unleashed God's fury onto his own people.

To his delight, through the door walked in Meditat with a confident posture, his hands closed in a fist and his head tilted down as it looked like the champion had arrived. He breathed heavily repeatedly, approaching the Doctor as his cape waved behind him.

Overjoyed, the Doctor clapped twice, applauding “Good job, I never knew just the extent to which you’d be able to use your abilities, but it seemed that hardly held you back!”

As Meditat approached him, following through the door entered Furcifer, to which the Doctor lowered his hands, and the joy he felt was slowly crushed. It wasn’t helped then when behind Furcifer, Tachyon also walked into the room, followed by Eidolon and finally Intrepid, as they all followed with exhausted but survived bodies.

“What…wait…no…that doesn’t make any sense…this shouldn’t be possible…what did you do? What’s happening…no…this isn’t right…,” contemplated the Doctor in clear distress, grabbing his hair and pulling as he seemed to be in amidst a breakdown.

Behind him through the windowsill, the amassed mob strolled up to the house, having reached it at last and beginning to enter. The flood had come at last, as the team was working on very minimal time.

Meditat stopped in front of the Doctor as the rest of the team did too behind him, and Meditat glared at the Doctor before interrogating, “What is the cure?”

Baffled and tormented, the Doctor shook his head in denial. He then gulped, trying to recover himself and grasp for any entitlement he had remaining. He raised his head and let go of his hair, chuckling to himself as he was able to successfully find strength.

He then taunted, “What cure? I don’t have any cure, why would I make a cure? I don’t know what went wrong, but no matter, they can infect all of you soon. Heh, I still win, this was just a negligible hiccup.”

His tolerance broken, Furcifer extracted the blade from his right gauntlet and began marching up to the Doctor, who stumbled backwards in shock and fear before falling backwards on his room chair, which drifted backwards before bumping into the table.

In his demonic voice, Furcifer malevolently menaced, “Tell me what it is, or we’re going back to what I said I’d do before.”

Terrorized by the horrific interrogatory tactics of the ruthless leader, the Doctor held his hands over his face and confessed, “I’m being serious, really, I don’t have a cure, I never made one! But I-oh, yes, I have the blueprints for it, I mean I needed to know how to make one if it ever somehow infected me, just in case. Here, here.”

He then held his hand up, and a holographic screen projected in front of his palm, which displayed an impressively complex chemical structure.

From below the group, the sound of growls could be heard in the direction of the front entrance, and footsteps followed as it seemed the horde was making their way in the house.

His ego reinvigorated by the trumpets of victory, the Doctor then mischievously sneered, “But unfortunately, this won’t do you much good, as I said I never actually produced any, so I guess you get to fall knowing the truth but never being able to use it for anything!”

Instead of falling into despair, Meditat stepped towards the Doctor, peering at the screen intently and studying the structure. He read the blueprint, analyzed it, and quickly memorized the structure before standing back up straight and stepping back.

Sounds of groaning and growling began to get louder as well as the hum of an elevation pad ascending, as the horde seemed to be on their way up.

Tachyon glanced back at the doorway, and he quietly murmured, “Uhm…guys…,” as in front of him he could see several figures rise up to their floor, groggily groaning and observing the hallway.

Focused instead on the diagram, Meditat held his hands out in front of his shoulders, and determingly declared, “I can fix this, I’ll set this right.”

Furcifer faced Meditat befuddled at first, only to see him suddenly boost straight upwards, crashing through the roof in a blue streak. Eidolon and Intrepid also raised their heads to watch Meditat soar up while Tachyon mentioned, “We don’t have much time,” as several people began dragging themselves towards the bedroom.

In ascendance, Meditat concentrated on his hands, which began to release blue flame forward at an angle that converged together. In the blazing clash, flashes of light flickered in the fire, like sparks of a fire, and within the sparks a lime green liquid began to form in the air.

Encasing the green liquid more flames covered it in a cylindrical shape, which was constructed into a large white canister with a transparent window that provided a view of the liquid inside, which filled the canister.

Continuing to rise, Meditat then generated more flames over the canister in greater abundance, creating a cone shape as Meditat devised a large construct that held the canister, shaped like a white space capsule.

Above the neighborhood rose the blue beacon, and surrounding the beacon more replicas of the capsule were generated, four of which surrounding the beacon which spun around faster and faster.

Concurrently all capsules then flew in opposite directions of the beacon, flying for tens of miles far past the stretches of the neighborhood. They all landed simultaneously, all releasing a ginormous green explosion that swarmed the area like a nuke, spreading in an instant and covering the land in green particles.

On the second floor, Tachyon raised his fists as an elderly man lunged at him, and midway through the lunge the entire house was hit by the massive green wave. For a few seconds, vision was completely blinded by green particles, but they soon began to disperse as the smoke of the explosion vanished.

In front of Tachyon stood the elderly man, but rather than chasing him savagely, he instead stood perplexed, his head tilted as though he had no idea where he was. He looked at his hands, then at Tachyon, as behind him a few other adults stepped in, also with the same befuddled gazes, none of them aggressive.

A hum began to grow louder from above, which Tachyon turned to along with the whole team who faced the hole in the ceiling, watching as from the sky descended Meditat carefully, holding his arms out for a cautious landing.

He gently glided back down to the ground and lowered his arms, raising his head and facing each member of the team with a light nod of reassurance. He noticed the few confused civilians, newly cured with no recollection of what had occurred to them.

Meditat then faced the Doctor, and stretched his hand out to him, declaring “You’re coming with us now.”

Straight into the void the Doctor gazed with a defeated expression, his ego shattered as for the first time he felt truly lost. His mouth gaped open and his senile eyes stared forth, his white hair pulled and messy.

In that same expression, the Doctor ended up outside his house, out in the street. He then raised his head, staring at the back of the Box, which was parked on the street filled with confused people speaking to each other and glancing at the commotion.

Behind the Doctor stood Tachyon and Eidolon, and at the back of the Box a large door dematerialized, providing wide entry into the back where there seemed to be an isolated room with white padded walls with a single cushioned bench by the wall and hovering toilet seat beside it. On the other side of the white room was a wall of blue energy bars, and past it was a closed door leading into the rest of the vehicle.

Tachyon then tapped the Doctor’s back, pushing him forward as a holographic blue ramp projected on the cell, which the Doctor was forced to walk up with his hands behind his back, restrained in a metal block that seemed to act as a handcuff.

Monitoring the escort, Intrepid watched Tachyon and Eidolon bring the Doctor into the containment room with her hands behind her back. She then faced behind herself with a gentle smile, gazing at the two men behind her, Furcifer and Meditat, who stood side by side also monitoring the capture.

Furcifer caught Intrepid’s gaze, and he then explained, “You and the others get in the pod, we’ll catch up in a second.”

Intrepid nodded her head in acknowledgement, and casted a warm glance at Meditat before then turning back around to watch Eidolon and Tachyon step out of the Box, letting the ramp vanish and the door materialize, closing off the Doctor.

After waving her head at the pod, Intrepid led the other two down the Box towards the front entrance, taking their leave as directed, leaving the leader with the last teammate alone.

Both Furcifer and Meditat watched the Box for a few moments in silence while civilians moved off of the street, still in discourse but their voices inaudible. The two watched the rest of the team walk up the ramp with eased bodies, calmed after the intense mission.

“You know, this might sound wrong, but you remind me a lot of myself,” claimed Furcifer in a relaxed tone, to which Meditat faced him with a slight head tilt.

“I wasn’t referring to our moral standings, that is probably the farthest we stand from each other. But then again, I was raised and engineered to be an assassin for their war, you raised and built yourself to be a hero for your home. But I guess the one similarity between those upbringings is that we both were raised alone, and had to make a life for ourselves. But that made both of us strong, strong enough that people will look up to us, even maybe glorify us in a way we don’t understand while we have trouble with the most fundamental social situations. But if we let ourselves find the people we can connect to, we can overcome those inner problems, and maybe even become those people we're looked up to be, heroes like they say, a term even I admit feels a bit too fairy tale-like, but I digress,” Furcifer explained before then glancing at Meditat.

“Meditat, I didn’t want you to join us because of your status nor abilities, I’d prefer not to be a celebrity and there are probably Exhumans out there who can cough nuclear blasts who I could’ve chased, but those weren’t factors,” Furcifer continued before he lightly bumped Meditat’s chest with his closed fist, and followed, “I chose you because, under that mask, you’re a good man. I see it, they see it, and I hope eventually you see it too. We don’t want you just as a member of our special operation team, we want you as part of our family, one that can grow together and have each other. And even if you don’t see it, I think you’re a perfect man for that life. One day, Meditat, you’re going to have your own people, and you’ll be the one calling the shots. And when that day comes, I know you’ll be a great leader. Not just as a warrior, but as the head of a family.”

Meditat nodded his head, and lightly quipped “Well, thanks, but being a leader looks stressful.”

That one comment made Furcifer chuckle out loud, and began strolling towards the Box’s front entrance, followed by Meditat. He then jested, “Well, why do you think I evaded being one for a year? Now let’s go, the first rule as a leader is that they are never early, that just means you’re late.”

Up in the black infinity, glittering the endless expanse were so many possibilities baked into each and every white dot, possibilities of peace without burdens, possibilities without pain of a cruel environment. And yet they were so far, so unreachable, that it made little sense to dwell eternally on what could have been possible to reach those other worlds, as no thought could be strong enough to make that a reality.

What good was it to dream when they’d never be anything more, to fantasize when they’d never come to fruition, never to save oneself. What was the point in knowing what could be if it would never, a question that could drive one into insanity of knowing just how much they could’ve had which could potentially be infinitely better than what they have?

Rather than seeking the stars as unobtainable fantasies that would never deliver what was desired, they could instead be beheld as the beautiful sight they were, viewable down from one’s own world, gazable amongst one’s own people whom they do have around them, living only miles away rather than copious light years far.

In doing so, the stars could be not an expanse of intangible alternatives, but rather an admirable expansion of one’s own home.