Infinite DC: Infinite Darkness

Part Six

To have William back just to watch him die again was unacceptable for Boss Johns. Blinded by raging grief, he retaliated against the Mud Demon that claimed his son's life. He fired round after round on the creature, not realizing that everyone else had been pushed back into the mercenary station while he remained where he was. He would have joined his son's fate had the elder Riddick not grabbed him and brought him inside the station.

Not everyone made it inside, regrettably.

Santana and some of his crew perished along with two men from Boss Johns' crew: Moss and Lockspur.

Dahl and Diaz, both the second-in-command to their respective captains, were the only pair to successfully make it inside the station with the other survivors. Diaz was himself enraged by the lost of Santana, his best friend. "I'll kill every last single one of those suckers!" he avowed.

"What good it'll do you, if you get killed yourself?" Dahl rationalized.

Elder Riddick gazed in her general direction, relieved to see that she made it in with the rest of them. A Nordic bounty hunter of German descent, Dahl was like a taller, buffer version of Fry, particularly as Riddick saw them standing side-by-side for the first time. Both women had the same bob-style hair that slicked back in their sweat-drenched state. The only real difference between them was Dahl's short temper.

As the walls off the station buckled from the creatures demanding to get inside, Jack suddenly confessed to the group, "I'm not a boy."

"What?" Fry turned to him, frowning.

"I'M NOT A BOY!" Jack repeated with more vigor and tears. "I didn't want you to leave me there...back at the ship...that's why I didn't say anything...."

Fry noticed the elder Riddick smirking over Jack's tearful confession; another future factoid that he knew about but kept to himself, either to spare them or to amuse himself – or both. It angered Fry to think how he toyed with their fates in such a way. Was Johns even meant to die on Not-Furya to that Mud Demon? Is she meant to die herself?

She only felt some semblance of agency by confessing herself, "When we were crashing in the Hunter, I was going to blow the passenger cabin...sacrifice everyone while they were in cyro." She glanced again at the elder Riddick, fuming. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

The elder Riddick neither confirmed nor denied it.

He didn't have to. Even through his stoic demeanor and those welder's goggles of his, Fry could tell that he knew her secret. She wanted to punch him in the face but held back. In spite of their current predicament, Fry felt somewhat relieved after confessing, presumably as much as Jack did. If they were going to die, they would die free of the guilt that weighed on them.

Hard, raspy coughing directed attention to the cot where Mandy settled Clarence, whose condition was not improving. His skin was paler than it was before, he was sweating profusely, and his breathing was arduous. "Kid should be getting better – not worse," the baffled elder Riddick observed.

"I told you – his immune system is different because he's not from the same world as you!" Mandy scolded, tears streaming from her crystal blue eyes and running her mascara. She crouched beside her dying friend, devastated at the thought of losing him. In what could be their final moments together, she whispered to him, "I'm sorry, sweetheart...I'm sorry I wasn't able to protect you...I'm sorry I couldn't protect your world. You lost everything because of me – your family, your friends...more than a sweet lil' fella like you should ever have to lose."