The winds were still. The heat was mild and stagnant. Everything in the city, in this space, was as if time was frozen. There was hesitancy in the world when faced with this unknown entity. Where there was once a bright, headstrong man, there stood a diminishing flame of a human. You could see the darkness around them snuff out and envelope parts of Vincent. His arms were completely black, moving and twisting their shape as if they had no definite volume. They were made entirely of void—nothingness—going all the way to the shoulders. Dark mist flowed off of those arms, dissipating into the air as if it never existed. Finally, his eyes were the last place where the flames of humanity vanished. They were nothing but darkness now. No light existed in them. Even so, in his mind, he wasn’t completely lost to the void.

“So,” Archard said, carefully readying himself, “it seems even a broken tool like you can pull off some interesting feats.”

There was a bit of hesitancy in his voice, mixed with slight hints of unease. It was hard to pinpoint what exactly was going on within his mind, but at the same time, Vincent didn’t really care. And why should he? He was nothing.

“That’s right,” Vincent agreed. “I’m nothing but a broken tool.”

“Exactly!” Archard shouted, looking down from the top of Big Ben. “So why don’t you—”

Before he could finish his thought, Vincent transformed his right fist into a sphere. He slung it around him like a ball and chain, and his arm kept stretching outward as if it was made of rubber. The circular part of that arm collided with the base of Big Ben with extreme force, plowing through it like a bulldozer through snow.

The giant clock tower cracked and shifted off of its base. Within a matter of seconds, gravity began to take over and it started to collapse where it stood. Quickly, it tumbled downward and turned into a pile of rubbled brick and metal, with a few of the larger gears sticking out of the pile.

The pile of debris shook for a moment before it began to separate on its own. Like a bunch of metal filings being pushed away by a repelling magnet, everything in the pile moved away from Archard, who now stood in the middle of it all. Not even a single speck of dust was on his suit. The only thing that remained was the jolts of electricity that occasionally sparked across his body.

The Godfather walked toward Vincent, one step at a time. With each step, those sparks of electricity quickly jumped to each and every piece of debris around him. Those piles of dust and rock and wood and metal moved away from Archard, creating a clear path in front of him.

“Now that was a bit rude,” Archard commented. “I haven’t heard of a tool fighting back against its master. Quite sad.”

“Sad…” Vincent repeated. His eyes broke contact with Archard and looked up at the sky.

He saw the blue hues of the sky, but they were duller than he remembered. The yellows and oranges seemed like they were before. It was only the blues that kept getting drowned out. The more he looked up, the more his mind kept thinking about a particular image.

In the cloudless sky, he saw the interior of his home. It was so empty. It was so lonely. There was something about it that reached into the farthest depths of his emotional mind. Just thinking about how day-in and day-out he would be alone in that house wore him down. It was just a roof and a place to sleep. It wasn’t a home for him. It never felt like that. Anytime he would try to make it a home, it would only hurt him more. And then he would cry.

In the moment, thinking back to those moments, he wanted to cry right now. However, just as those feelings began to build to a crescendo, they stopped. The tears never fell. The nothingness in his mind took over and shunted the sadness away, bringing him back to a state of pure neutrality. As that happened, the sky turned grey. In fact, all the blue in the world disappeared before his eyes.

He looked back down and saw that the Godfather had only taken a couple of steps in that time. Archard lifted his metallic arm toward Vincent and a spark of electricity leaped from it. However, it broke apart the moment it came into contact with Vincent’s passive mental waves that emanated from him.

“Huh,” Archard said. “I suppose it’s not going to be that easy. Well then…” He placed his hands on the ground. Hundreds of small sparks snaked out to many different things around. “It seems like I’m going to show you what true power really is.”

Everything that was once on the ground sparked with electricity, giving off a barely perceptible light blue glow, and began to float in the air. Various gears, bricks, glass, and more of all sizes stayed suspended in the air at various heights. It was like they were held in the air by an invisible force. As Archard walked forward, he would push past some of the floating objects, moving them in the air like they were lighter than balloons. His eyes were nothing but pure blue, sparking with magnetic energy.

“This,” he said, his voice static, “is Absolute Magnetism. I command the magnetic charge of everything. Therefore, everything is an extension of me because I am magnetism!”

Vincent let out a sigh, causing mist to flow out of his mouth. “You say that as if I care. The only thing you’ll be is a blood stain on the floor.”

Archard laughed a static-filled laugh and brought his hands together. “Let’s see how much longer you can talk big. Absolute Conjunction!”

The levitating scrap on Vincent’s right and left side suddenly rushed in to smother him. They seemed to all converge on two separate points around him as if he was the anchor point. Without time to dodge, he raised both of his arms and caught the pile of debris, stopping it in its tracks. He could see that they still continued to crush themselves trying to get closer to him, but nothing could penetrate an area where his void-arms were.

Still holding those growing piles, he looked up at Archard and said, “You’ve already tried this before, you know.”

“Don’t speak too soon,” Archard replied. He then stuck both of his hands out in Vincent’s direction. “Absolute Attraction.”

Just then, Vincent felt a disturbance on the fringes of his mental waves. Looking behind him, he watched several pieces of bent metal and broken glass fly toward him. In one swift movement, he leaped backward while letting go of the piles of debris he was holding up. As his body twisted around to face his new threat, the two debris piles smashed together with a screeching sound.

As the oncoming threats approached, he allowed his void-arms to become fluid, dangling beside him like black whips. He flung his arms forward and they extended out to meet the approaching shrapnel. He swung those arms around with such speed and force, knocking dozens of those pieces of wreckage away.

Once the assault was over, he snapped those black whips back into a more rigid form, looking just like his original arms. He turned back around, faced Archard, and said, “Are you finished with those weak attacks?”

The Godfather simply laughed. “So, your arms are malleable, huh? Because they are made of nothing, you can make their forms into anything. Very interesting!”

“And I can do a lot more than—”

“How fitting of a power,” Archard interrupted.

Vincent narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, after all, you are someone with no ambitions.”

“What are you talking about? I have plenty!”

Archard’s smile widened. “Like what? Being the Chosen? What a load of shit! You don’t care about any of that. The only reason you’re going on this journey is because it’s something that gives you purpose. You only see what’s directly in front of you. The moment something gives you any purpose, good or evil, you sprint in that direction. You have no dreams! You have no ambitions! You are nothing!”

“Shut up!” Vincent yelled, his mental waves staggering for a moment. There was a fiery red rage building inside of him. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m perfectly content with my life and I do have a purpose. I’m going to save this world and I have the support of everyone. I’ve always been supported by those close to me!”

“Is that why your parents abandoned you?”

Vincent’s black eyes widened. He took three steps forward, the fire in his heart burning even hotter now. “Archard!” he screamed. “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to end you! I’m going to…”

But just as that anger passed a certain threshold, he felt his mind suppress those flames. The emotion of anger was forced back into an equilibrium. In fact, it felt as though it was gone. He couldn't get mad if he wanted to. The only thing left was a cold nothingness.

As those emotions drained away, he watched the red suit that Archard was wearing turn grey. In fact, all the red in his world disappeared, replaced with shades of grey. Two emotions were gone and so were two of the world's colors; thrown down into a blackened abyss.

What’s going on with me? he thought.

But before he had any time to contemplate what was happening, Archard made his move. The Godfather raised his arms to the sky and said, “Absolute Repulsion.”

The ground beneath Vincent cracked and a portion of it detached from the rest. The section that he was standing on flung itself upward like it was shot out of the cannon. He could barely keep his balance as he and the chunk of concrete were launched into the sky.

He was dozens of feet above the tallest remaining buildings before he even made a move that wasn't a reaction. He aimed his fist down at the chunk he was on and allowed his arm to grow almost twice the size of him. He brought it down and decimated the chunck, scattering it into hundreds of small pieces.

And then he fell back toward the ground. As gravity continued to pull him down, his arm returned to its normal, void state. He collided with the ground, creating a small indent. Even though the impact was great, he felt no pain. His nerves were chilled to a near standstill. Without pain, nothing really held him back from getting right back up.

Vincent used his void-arms to prop his body up, sweeping his legs underneath him to get his balance back. He walked out of the indent, with cuts and bruises starting to show all over his body. But he didn’t even seem to notice. Half of his bones could’ve been fractured and he would’ve had no idea. A cold body feels nothing.

“You’re a tough nut to crack, eh?” Archard commented. The electrical and magnetic field around him continued to thrum. Sparks of energy jolted all throughout the floating debris.

Vincent looked at Archard with black, dead eyes. “I suppose so,” he said.

“I have to say, I was not expecting a tool to be this troublesome. Your mental waves have been much stronger since you began Awakening.” Archard smiled with electrically devious intent. “I can’t allow this to go on much longer.”

Archard’s mental waves poured out of him more and more. They shook the ground and all that was in the open square. Comparing the vibrations of his waves now to before is like night and day. As they crawled across Vincent’s skin, it felt like his skin was constantly being hit with static shocks. It seemed like the Godfather was finally giving it his all.

In response, Vincent’s emptying mind vibrated with more hollow intensity. The voids that consumed his arms started to crawl past his shoulders and up to his neck. It stopped just before they reached his head. His mental waves swelled to an even greater degree. Those cold, unfeeling waves clashed with the electrical, prideful waves that came from Archard.

What emerged was a warring tangle of energy and nothingness. Cracks and crevices emerged from the ground that was underneath where these clashes occurred. Although they were brief, the clashes exploded like firecrackers. Sparks and small pieces of debris flew from all different parts of the space between the two combatants. The amount of energy that was concentrated in those small pockets was so great and it dissipated so quickly, like lightning in a bottle.

The aftermath resulting from that was a battlefield thrumming with mental energy. The air was both cold and electric, showing the duality of the men present. With a pause, like a calm before the storm, Vincent and Archard readied themselves.

Archard was the first to move. He commanded the still-magnetized rubble to repel, attract, and conjoin. Vincent, with his instincts shaped by his cold mind, ran toward the Godfather. When a piece of metal or stone would approach him, he would use his void-arms to bat it to the side or slam it to the ground. The closer he got to Archard, the denser the storm of debris got.

“You really are powerful!” Archard laughed. “I knew I picked a good tool when I met you! A shame that I have to put you down. But at least you’re making this fun!”

Vincent paused, almost getting hit in the back by a large rock. “Fun?” he whispered to himself.

Was he enjoying the fight? Was there any sort of joy to be gained from what he was doing? He barely had the capacity anymore to think about such things. Even when thinking about the opposite of joy, he found that he lacked the ability to wield such strong emotions. There were no connections in his brain that could process that; it was almost entirely made of voided nothingness.

The more he thought about it, the more he forgot what it meant to truly know joy. As that happened, he saw that the rest of the colors remaining in the world started to fade from his eyes. At first, it was the yellows that adorned the wondrous things in the world, like the shining sun and the floating dandelions, that abandoned him. Then, since all the blues and reds were gone too, everything that fell between those colors also disappeared. The only thing left for him to see was a menagerie of greys between white and black.

And with that, there was nothing left for him to feel. He was left in a world without color. It was a world without the burden of emotions, but was he truly free?

Unrestrained by anything, Vincent used projection to release a bust of mental energy, dropping all the magnetized debris in his immediate vicinity. His mind was free to vibrate as one with nothingness, drastically enhancing his mental power. In that short second, Vincent managed to overpower Archard’s mental waves in the immediate vicinity around him.

Without a moment to spare, he focused a lot of his mental waves into his right arm. Thrusting it forward, he forced it to transform and grow as it rapidly approached Archard. Like a giant claw, his void-arm grasped the Godfather in its clutches and lifted him into the air. Seeing as nothing can escape the void, he was forced to struggle there, unable to press against it or free himself.

“Wha-what is this?” Archard asked, his breath staggering out of his compressed chest. “How can you reach me?”

“Because I’m free,” Vincent emotionlessly answered. He closed his hand tighter.

Archard started to scream out in pain. “You can’t do this! This can’t be happening!”

Vincent squeezed even harder. In response, Archard let out a massive burst of mental waves, but they couldn’t compare to the cold density of Vincent’s, especially the waves concentrated in his arms.

Archard continued. “I’m commanding you to stop!” He inhaled sharply. “Please, just stop this. We can work together. Together we can be powerful and rule this…”

He stopped altogether when his eyes met Vincent’s. He let the thought linger in the air. It was a solemn few seconds, where the sounds of once-magnetized rubble falling to the ground filled the space.

“I see,” Archard said. “I’m beginning to understand now. It’s unfortunate how long it took me to. Who are you?”

Vincent said nothing. In reply, he simply continued to stare at Archard. There was nothing left for him to feel or say. So why reply? Actions speak louder than words, and so he squeezed his hand more, slowly crushing the body of the Godfather.

Archard, seemingly knowing his time was up, looked at Vincent and spoke his last words. “Look at how tall you stand. Those are powerful eyes.” He let out his final breath. “How lonely is it up there?”

Vincent closed his fist into a perfect sphere, crushing the body of Archard, reducing him to blood and bones. Once he released his grip, a scarlet mess fell to the ground, lifeless. If someone did not know that the pile was once a mighty mob boss, there was no way to tell. It looked no different than the pile of corpses Archard left behind in his wake. After all, in death and death alone we are all equal. Once you die, you are just blood and bones—broken and powerless.