"Did we finish him off?" He heard Aria's voice, next to him in the command booth. The question wasn't directed at anyone in particular. It had simply been the first on what was on everyone's mind.

That included himself. But he wasn't just any crew member.

He was the commander, so he had to set an example for the soldiers under his command. He couldn't lose his composure. Nor give them false hope. Because if they broke, it could be a devastating blow.

"Patience."

A response to Aria, but, at the same time, it was directed at everyone else.

No one could know what had happened. The smoke obscured everything. They could only hope it had been worth it. The destruction and the soldiers they had sacrificed for the sake of trying this. To stop him.

So many lives... It would always weigh on his heart, like the memory of all those who had died on his orders. He was that kind of person.

But, if they had at least succeeded, in taking down that monster, then at least he could tell himself that it had been worth it on the longest, darkest nights.

The cloud of smoke dissipated.

He saw the monster. Its body was intact, but that didn't mean it was alive. It wasn't moving, so....

So nothing.

He hadn't seen it at first between the darkness of the night and the fire, which ironically had also hindered his vision. But it was moving.

The bastard had survived, apparently without a scratch.

No. That was impossible.

But it would have regenerated from any damage inflicted by the bombardment in the space of time it took for the smoke cloud to dissipate. Not too long.

That was just as bad. Or even.

He had to admit he'd gotten his hopes up, but this was the harsh reality. Daniel grimaced in disgust.

At the same time, he had to admit that he hadn't been too surprised, deep down.

In other words, so many had tried before him. And so many had died in vain. If it were that easy...

No. He couldn't give in to despair. This wasn't over.

He looked at something more important than his survival.

The enemy's appearance had changed. Therein lay the real surprise.

He recognized it instantly. From the reports of the attack on the capital.

The monster, even after taking a bombardment that could have brought a city to its knees, was rising. Slowly, but surely.

On a pair of gigantic black wings. With membranes like the wings of a bat.

The crew went crazy. On the verge of hysteria, talking over each other. But Daniel heard more than enough in that chaos.

"It can't be."

"Not even that?"

"He's a real monster."

They were right, of course. And they had every reason to feel desperate. But he couldn't let that happen. He had to stop them before despair took hold of them.

But, the truth... Suddenly his mind was blank. Suddenly he had no inspirational speech, nothing to turn the tables.

Daniel swallowed hard.

"Sir... How are we supposed to take him alive?"

Some among the crew fell silent, waiting to hear his answer. Noticing those who had, the rest soon followed.

Pinning their hopes on him.

Of course. He was the commander. That was his role. He couldn't complain about it.

Daniel cleared his throat.

"Fuck the orders! Let's end this here, here and now. I'll take responsibility.

It wasn't his best speech. For one thing, even if they would fight with the intent to kill him, that wouldn't be much easier than capturing him alive.

The failed bombing was proof of that.

It would have to do.

Aria nodded, turned around, looking in the direction of the controls again.

It would have to do.

"Sir..." Aria, again. What was it now?

He got the answer immediately.

The monster raised its head. And, despite the distance that separated them, for a moment he could have sworn it had locked its gaze on him.

Daniel gripped the seat in front of him with both hands, squeezing hard. To conceal the trembling.

That was silly, of course.

He had superhuman eyesight, all the reports mentioned it. But, at such a distance, it was impossible for him to see any of them clearly.

And even if he was, why would he look at him specifically? It was just his imagination.

Next to him was a blazing inferno and the corpses of comrades sacrificed for this maneuver that had proved futile.

In the midst of that disaster, without trying to escape the flames, the monster howled.

As it howled, its face, for a second?

He could have sworn it also underwent a transformation. Half of him dark, like the shadows of the night. Like that spawn that had fallen during the attack on the capital, thankfully, in a way. But just in the face.

The other half was nothing but bone. The skull exposed.

You might say it had been his imagination, this time too. But he knew instinctively that it had been very real.

He could neither conceal nor repress the shudder that shook him.

What was it, really? What was it?

Whatever it was, it shouldn't exist in this world.

"Soldiers...!"

——

The walls of fire were as high as houses, and writhed almost as if they were alive, drawing a great variety of shapes. One could almost see faces in the fire. And worse.

The ground, for a great distance, was shattered and unrecognizable.

Even the cracks that filled it, thin as broken glass, seemed to spit fire.

There had been a few vehicles on the street.

Now they were nothing but melted metal.

An inferno, everywhere, wherever you looked. And out of that inferno rose a demon, on black wings.

Desmond flapped his wings, taking flight.

Towards the bloody night sky. Towards the airship's hatch, which was still open after the bombing. He needed to get there before it was inevitably closed.

As if in response to his thoughts, the hatch began to close.

Too slowly.

He had plenty of time to get there. Once inside, he could take out the airship with ease. From the outside it would be a different story... maybe.

Desmond was approaching at breakneck speed. More and more and more.

Then he began to move away.

Not of his own volition. A helicopter appeared out of nowhere, ramming him. Desmond ended up lying on top of the helicopter, arms on the glass, wings stretched upward. Even bent, they brushed against the helicopter's blades, which whirled and spun dangerously close to him.

He imagined his head being severed and flying away, leaving a spray of blood behind.

For a moment. Just for a moment.

He returned a fierce glare at the helicopter pilot, who had stepped into his path. The co"pilot had clearly not agreed.

And how could it be otherwise?

It was a suicidal maneuver.

The pilot, who had rammed him, knew it too. You could see it on his face. However, he hadn't cared, he had done it anyway. He supposed because patriotism had blinded him.

What a stupid thing to do. To die for mere ideas.

Desmond scratched at the window panes with his fingernails.

"No one will remember you," he declared, though he couldn't hear him.

Once it was done, Desmond flew on, straight ahead, without hesitation. Faster and faster. And he managed to squeeze through the hatch, just before it closed.

It was a bit tight, for a moment he thought he would lose a leg.

If the helicopter hadn't interfered, being lucky enough to ram him, then he would have had plenty of time to get in before the hatch closed.

But there was no point in dwelling on it.

Desmond stepped out of the cargo area and made his way through the nothingness, looking for someone. Anyone.

To start the carnage that couldn't be stopped.

Yes. Now that he had come this far, now that he was inside, with them, there was nothing and no one who could stop him. The ship would fall easily.

Desmond couldn't get lost in the excitement of the moment. Forgetting that he had so much ahead of him, that finishing this ship wouldn't mean it was all done, it was just a step along the way, nothing more.

As big as it was, one ship was nothing compared to an entire city. But...

He would enjoy it.

They could consider themselves dead already, now that they were locked in with him.

——

"Sir..." Aria called out to him, again. Aria was the bravest person he had met in his long years of service, no doubt about it. And yet she kept calling out to him like a frightened child, now. As if looking for reassurance.

He couldn't blame her. In the face of an abomination like that, no one could keep their composure.

They had fought together, side by side, for as long as he could remember.

To him, for many reasons, she was more family than his own family.

He held any soldier under his command in higher esteem than his family. But, the point was...

"We're going to die here," he whispered to her. She deserved his sincerity, at least. Not empty words. "But it's up to us to decide how."

Aria looked back at him.

Slowly, and after a while, she nodded. Her face filled with determination.

——

They put soldiers in his way. To no avail, so in the end they resorted to a few bipedal machines. Three, in all. Thinking, surely, that they would make a difference.

They hadn't been able to stop him outside, in the open streets.

What were they going to do now, with so little room to maneuver?

——

As the black-winged monster approached, Daniel backed away. Putting his back against the console. He couldn't fly the ship on his own. But he did know where the button was to engage and disengage the autopilot, even with his back turned.

He had secured himself well. As he waited for his end to come.

The demon was approaching him step by step.

As if he was in no hurry at all. But he knew he could go from walking calmly, as if taunting, to shooting off like a bullet.

That's why he couldn't even blink.

Why hadn't he hit the button already? Maybe he was trying to find the right words. To give more meaning to the last act of his life.

Nothing was coming to mind, though.

Daniel swallowed hard.

So he said the first thing that popped into his head. Nothing particularly meaningful. Just like his life, which suddenly seemed so trivial to him.

"Go to hell, you monster!" And then he pressed the button.

The aircraft began to fall.

His heart dropped to his feet at that moment, but not for himself. He had already prepared himself. It was for the others. Because he could only hope that at least everyone in the cockpit, Aria included, had managed to evacuate the ship.

Just hope. He would never know.

He would die here, with this demon.

The demon used its wings and grabbed onto a table to regain the balance it had lost when the fall began. Then it looked back at him, who was gripping the controls so tightly that his trembling hands were white.

The demon... smiled at him.

"Thank you for making my job easier," and that was what he said, fearlessly, as they fell through the dark, dark, endless night.

That was all.

——

-Thank you for making my job easier," Desmond said, staring at his opponent without appearing to be afraid.

Because he didn't understand.

Because he really didn't feel a shred of fear. Not anymore, anyway.

He had to admit that, at first, when the ship had begun to descend, his stomach had lurched. He had felt a moment of wild, almost instinctive panic.

That was the key word. Moment.

It had hit him hard because human beings were meant to crawl on the ground, not fly through the skies.

But he was no ordinary human being.

He had wings.

Being in free fall was something that only applied to humans. Using the wings to regain his balance, no, to change his way of looking at the situation, the panic was gone.

It wasn't like he was falling to certain death. He was flying.

The guy in front of him, whose name he didn't know and didn't care to know either, gritted his teeth, biting his tongue.

As if his answer had made him mad with rage.

Desmond lunged for that soldier as the ship fell, propelling himself forward with his huge black wings. Said soldier must not have been someone of high rank, as he was alone here, as if to serve as a distraction. But he didn't care about rank. He made no such distinctions.

They would all die. Period. Sooner or later.

The soldier pulled out a pistol, pointing it at him.

Ha. He could save himself the effort. He was a dead man.

He pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit. Good aim, despite the current circumstances.

But the real surprise was that it didn't just hit him. It penetrated skin and flesh, piercing his shoulder cleanly.

As a result, his flight path was altered.

In other words.

He ended up going far away from the soldier and slamming into the glass beyond the controls of this thing. The impact against his back was softened by the weight of the wings behind him.

The glass didn't crack one bit, he noted absently.

-Bastard! -But, though he was angry, what came out of his throat was a laugh.

-Die, demon!

The second shot missed, however. By a long shot. Desmond hadn't even moved from the spot, by the way. It was simply that it was impossible to hit every shot under the circumstances, no matter how good a marksman he was.

Without the help of some magic. Of course.

He took flight again and this time crashed straight into the son of a bitch.

Grabbing him by the throat, he took him towards the wall on the other side of the room, flying at high speed.

The gun was fired four times, until it was empty.

The first three shots were lost in the air.

The fourth simply tore a chunk out of his ear. And then the pistol, empty, became useless. Because the soldier wouldn't have time to reload. Even if he did...

Desmond slammed the Imperial soldier against the wall with such force that the pistol flew from his hands.

He gasped, reached for it. Uselessly.

It rolled on the floor and was lost under a table.

This could not be considered a victory.

He was only one soldier, and he had slaughtered dozens, today alone. But Desmond still felt very excited, having him defeated and at his mercy. As if he had won an important battle.

It was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant.

It was welcome, as far as he was concerned.

He dropped one of the hands he had on the soldier's neck, and lifted him with the other, just like that, as if he weighed nothing. With the soldier's back still against the wall.

-Tell me. Is this how you thought this would end?

The soldier kicked. Resisting uselessly, as he was running out of air. They were all the same when faced with death.

When the power and backing they had wasn't enough to get their way.

All of them.

Desmond was another monster, so he wondered how he would face his own death, when the day would inevitably come. He concluded that he would see it then.

He was a killer, so he had many such scenes to take example and inspiration from.

He smiled cruelly. And he squeezed the soldier's neck even tighter. His eyes began to bulge out of their sockets, saliva escaped between his teeth.

The soldier was still resisting, of course. But his attempts were getting weaker and weaker.

It had been hopeless from the beginning.

He should have known how this would end even before Desmond walked through the door. Yet he was still resisting as if he hadn't seen it coming.

As if he wanted to live.

As if he believed there was still a chance, however small.

People had to believe in that, didn't they?

In chances.

He thought about snapping his neck like a dried branch, ending this nonsense right here, right now. End all his dreams of opportunity.

But it didn't.

In fact, he did the opposite. He relaxed his grip on the enemy's neck. To allow him to speak.

-What is your name?

The soldier clearly hadn't expected it, judging by the look on his face. Which was fair enough. He hadn't expected it himself.

-What?

-What's your name? -Desmond repeated, slower this time, as if he were speaking to someone who was mentally challenged.

The soldier gritted his teeth. For a moment, he thought he would spit in his face. But the moment passed and he did nothing.

-Kill me already.

Oh, you wish, he thought.

-But I want to know your name first. I'll find out one way or another, you know. -To waste your enemy's time was a strategy, but in this case, what was the point? He was going to die anyway. He would never know if he got it or not. "And when I'm done here, the next thing I'm going to do is go after your family. I'll kill them all.

Halfway through, so much fervor came into his voice that some saliva flew out of his mouth. Completely unintentionally.

He didn't understand why he was so furious, all of a sudden.

It didn't make any sense. But he supposed a lot of things about him made no real sense.

-Monster...

That didn't make sense either. He shook his head to the side, laughing, eyes narrowed. The trajectory of the airship was still directly to the ground.

But they both seemed to have forgotten about that, at this point. They carried on as if nothing was happening.

-Me? A monster, me? -he said, as if he didn't understand. "My family was killed by you people, when I was a little boy. It's just... giving it back to you. Pain for pain."

That's how the human race worked.

Something in the enemy soldier's gaze changed, but that spark faded quickly. Spark of what? He couldn't tell. It had been too quick.

Fleeting like human life.

-The only family I have escaped from here while you were wasting your time. -He confessed, at last.

And the bastard laughed. As if he had somehow won.

As if he could make fun of Desmond, when he was broken and defeated. Well. He was as good as dead, so he had nothing to lose. That last defiant act cost him nothing.

And, pathetic as it was, it was pretty much the only thing he could do.

But he hadn't given it much thought. He had given him the information he needed, in the end. And he would make good on his threat, even though that guy sounded pretty sure it was already too late.

He always kept his promises.

And what was a threat if not a form of promise?

-So all I have to do is hurry up and kill whoever it is before they leave town. -He shrugged. "Thank you.

He snapped his neck in less than a second. In less than a second, he went from alive to dead.

How fleeting. How pathetic.

Desmond discarded that sack of garbage, that empty shell, tossing it aside. Since the ship was in free fall, the corpse didn't stay where it was, but kept falling.

Yes. Falling. It was falling. He had to get out of here, fast.

Desmond threw himself against the cockpit glass, right in the center. The same spot he'd hit when the soldier shot him in the shoulder, in fact.

But this time on purpose, with much greater speed.

And not from a short distance, but the greatest possible distance. From one end of the room to the other. With all that...

His impact did nothing.

He tried a few more times, but failed to break it.

-What is this damn thing made of?

He realized that maybe, maybe, just maybe, he would have managed to break the glass in time if he had started immediately after the fall began.

But it was already too late. It was too close to the ground.

Therefore, the Imperial dog's life had served its purpose. To distract him. Well, regret always comes late, but in this case it was especially useless.

Because even if he could turn back

(again)

he would have done little differently. He couldn't have afforded to ignore the soldier after being shot. Yes, it had been in the shoulder. But it could also have hit him in an important place.

And then he would have gone down with the ship anyway, while his power was busy regenerating him.

Bringing him back to life.

That's the way it is, he thought, bracing himself for impact.

——

The black wings were still on his back. They hadn't disappeared when he lost consciousness.

He had a vague feeling that something about it should worry him. He wasn't sure what, but he could think about it when he was out of danger.

He pushed his way through the wrecked aircraft, the smoke and flames, and out into the night flying through the hatch.

-There it is!

They were everywhere, the soldiers of the Empire. And they weren't alone. War machines of all kinds. The mechanical spiders, whose monstrous form towered even over the buildings. In comparison the whole city looked like a child's toy.

Desmond grimaced.

Of course they were waiting for him, and they had him surrounded.

What had been so discreet about the ship's crash landing? Even if it hadn't made any noise, which was impossible, the bonfire it had become would have attracted enemies anyway.

The voice of the soldier who cried out had been full of fear. But he was no longer the only one in fear. Desmond's heart trembled, seeing himself between a rock and a hard place.

A rain of steel descended.

Desmond wasn't so superhuman that he could dodge shots coming from all directions. That curtain of steel swept over him and knocked him down like a wounded bird.

He fell to the side of the ship, his face dangerously close to the fire. He had been lucky there.

Nothing but luck.

As a child, he had nearly burned to death. Along with most of the people in his town, who had disappeared from this world without a trace. As if he had never been there. Today a new city stood on the ashes and rubble of that one. As if trying to paint over that tragedy.

The thing is... He had been about to die there, and now he would die the same way, anyway?

Weakened, dying, and alone?

Waiting for the end?

No. No.

He refused. He fucking refused.

He put strength into his body, trying to get up. The night was filled with gunfire, the smell of burning and blood. Everything was shaking, and it wasn't because of his condition, he realized.

He had not fallen into the fire after being shot down. But he was not spared from burning.

But what burned him was not natural fire, the one that was devouring the ship, little by little.

But the blue fire that rained down on him, from two directions. The fucking mechanical spiders. Of course, he had no chance to avoid the attack.

Desmond lay back, writhing on the ground.

He thought the agony was such that he couldn't even scream, but he did. He screamed as if he were being gutted.

Wait, wait.

Didn't they want to capture him? They needed him to get Abigail to agree to their demands. However, it seemed they were seriously going for his life, now.

He couldn't die here. No. No way.

Somehow, still burning, Desmond found strength within himself to flap his wings. Lifting his body on the brink of collapse into the bloody night sky.

Above even the mechanical spiders.

The fire wouldn't go away. His regeneration had a lot to work on, and this was just one more added problem.

All the damage... it seemed to have... overtaxed him. With the pain, it was hard to think. But...

One thing was clear to him.

He'd told himself that he wouldn't back down. That he wouldn't stop moving forward until no one moved. That he needed to be the warrior he once was.

A machine that was afraid of nothing, because he had nothing to lose but his miserable life.

All for the sake of winning this war. To put a definitive end to the conflict. And then be able to enjoy a normal life with his loved ones.

He had become a weaker and more insecure person.

He hadn't cried in ten years. A whole decade. But in less than a year he had broken down like a small child too many times. That wasn't right. Not if he wanted to do this. And he knew, he knew he had shed his last tear in that place, when he realized he had lost "something". It had to be like that.

Albion didn't need a domesticated dog, it needed a wild wolf. But...

He couldn't die here.

He had to remember why he had come this far in the first place. And he remembered, he listened to the voice of his heart, instead of bloodlust.

In other words.

He took flight, burning like a meteorite, leaving behind him a trail in the night sky.

Fleeing the city, searching for some source of water before the blue fire consumed him to nothing.