Into The Tainted Waters

Untimely Procession

The Progenitor just stands there, angry. "Sir, are you okay?" I ask him. "No, no I am not, there are things that are coming to be and will be that I fear" he says coldly. He walks over to the Speaker and passes his hand over his body. The Speaker dissolves in an instant. Caoimhe wakes up and walks over to me. "So, he's gone?" she asks me. "Yeah, big man himself killed him effortlessly" I say, pointing to the Progenitor. Taylor, Charlyse, and Viktoria also wake up and walk over. "Is it over yet?" Charlyse asks. "Is what over?" I ask her. "This nightmare, I don't want to live in it anymore" she responds. "Things are getting too intense, people dying, cities attacked, I wanna go back to before I knew this all existed" Taylor says. Viktoria just looks out of the window and sighs.

The Progenitor walks to the window and looks out at the battle raging. "They are retreating, the day is ours" He says with a smile. I look outside to confirm what he says is true, and it was. Everyone was calming down and the Cultists are in full retreat. "At least we won" I say with a grin. I'm still destroyed by the death of Nate, so this isn't a momentous occasion for me. I could tell Viktoria was even worse than me, even though she won't show it.

"What's gonna happen now?" I ask aloud. "Well, we rebuild" The Progenitor says "And we go on the offensive". Caoimhe shuffles her feet before speaking. "We'll probably fully militarize, and contact human governments to get an alliance" she says. "The Cult has already secured support throughout the Middle East and Africa, even some parts of East Asia" The Progenitor informs us. "Why would any country align themselves with these monsters?" Viktoria asks, still looking out the window. "They are poor, weaker, and have chaos running throughout them, I'm sure the Cult offered them a way out" The Progenitor says.

"We lost forty five thousand Sentinels in this attack, it will not happen again" the Progenitor says with a chip on his shoulder. "How do you know that number?" I ask him. "I can feel when my creations die, it's a curse" he answers. "What's gonna happen with the Speaker position?" Taylor asks. "We're going to impose a ten year term limit, and we are going to hold a nomination ceremony" The Progenitor replies. "The rest of the Council will choose nominees and I will choose from them" he says. "Now we must be going, we have to start rebuilding"

After a day of assessing the damage, my team and our animal friends meet at my room in the tower we live at. "Everybody ready?" I ask, fastening my tie. "Let's get down there" Michael says. We head down to the garden on the side of the tower and see Thor and Bacchus there. "You guys came too" I point out. "How could we miss this" Bacchus says with a slight smile. I walk out in front and get in position. "Alright, let's do this" I say to myself.

To the side of me is a casket containing Nate's corpse, and a hole dug in the garden. "I don't even know how to start this" I say. "There's too much to say about Nate, but I'm gonna try to sum him up" I say. "Nate, you were my friend, my teammate, my roommate, my wingman, and a pain in my ass" I say choking back tears with a laugh. "You made my life, and the lives of everyone here, so much harder" I say "But so much better at the same time". "As you lay in this casket, I wonder at what adventures we could've had, should your death not have happened" I say, barely making it through.

"You're going to a better place, one without strife or worry, one without death of sadness, one without us" I say. I see Viktoria and Michael crying into each other in the front. "You always knew how to lighten the mood with a joke or sarcastic wisecrack, but I cannot bring myself to tarnish your legacy with my terrible sense of humor" I begin to cry. "I am not only losing a friend and a teammate, but I am losing a brother, a brother that I never realized would affect me so much" I stammer out. "Goodbye Nate, see you when I get there" I finish. I join the audience and sit on the ground to watch as his casket is lowered into the ground and buried.

We make it to our separate rooms where we ready ourselves to sleep. I lie in bed and just look up at the ceiling. Caoimhe comes in, ready for bed and crawls in. "I know how hard you are taking this, but just know that I am here for you" she tells me. "Thank you" I say, kissing her forehead. "I'm not ready for tomorrow" I tell her. "I don't think any of us are, but rebuilding efforts start in the morning, we need to help" she tells me. "I know, but my brain hurts, I can't take this stress" I say while getting closer to her. "I can't let anything else happen to my friends, we need to find a solution for this insanity right after reconstruction" I declare. "Tomorrow, right now try to rest" She says giving me a kiss. I close my eyes and try to sleep, but only nightmares greet me tonight.