Ashe’s blood. The image of her head shattering like dropped china kept Sage frozen and numb. She wanted to go to her, to chase the wretch who had done it to her, but Sophia pulled her ahead. And now she was gone, too.
Sage plopped down into the snow, and ran her fingers up into her hair until it spilled out between them, like weeds between slabs of concrete. Ashe had been viciously executed and Sophia had faded away. Back... to Heaven? She hoped so. The weight of Ashe’s death gnawed at her too much to have a second friend to grieve over.
It didn’t hurt any less.
Flecks of gore and flesh and blood. Grey matter. All of it in a puff of pink, like a twisted rose in bloom. Ashe’s body hit the pavement. Damon had her friend executed right before her eyes. Because of Damon Dukes, and her own, blind quest for vengeance, the only friends she had were...
Gone.
Alone. Sage and loneliness were intimate companions, but this was... different, somehow. It was quiet, but not tranquil. There but not there. It ate at her! Her whole world fell away.
She began to weep. Bitter, heavy sobs racked the girl’s entire body as she sat, curled into a ball, in the snow. She cried so hard her throat hurt, but she didn’t stop. This was her fault. Sage did this. She justified tapping into her cryokinesis with this mad quest, but her hollow justifications didn’t halt the retribution.
In a sense, Sage knew she would be punished for breaking her oath. But she had thought - or, maybe, just hoped - that things would turn out... at least bearable.
Alexander looked on with eyes heavy with regret. His frown couldn’t have looked any more miserable as he watched the girl as she blubbered into her arms. He knew what it was like to lose someone close. The formerly well-dressed man closed his eyes and sighed. He knew damn well.
He began to walk toward her, with slow, deliberate steps. He felt no anger or hatred as he stood over her. His hand drifted over a familiar, gold-plated object, and he loosed the firearm from its holster.
Trafford stood before Sage, his hand cannon like a lead weight, pinning his arm to his side. For a long time, he didn’t move. The girl hadn’t noticed him, or if she had, she hadn’t bothered to do anything about it.
Ace knew the feeling. There was nothing left for her. She was already a user, he knew that much, so things probably weren’t too good to begin with. Still, she was innocent. A little like Alice, maybe. He felt a twinge of guilt the instant the comparison went through his mind. He looked down at her, his hand flexed around his gleaming weapon, but he hesitated.
She had nothing left. The redhead knew that much. His whole visage sagged as he raised the weapon, and every so gently let the end of the barrel rest against the top of Sage’s head. She didn’t even look up. A quick death was the only mercy left to offer the poor girl.
Sage felt the weight of Alex’s weapon press down on her head. So what?! Ashe and Sophia were gone! They were gone and it was Sage’s fault. She deserved this. This bastard would kill her while she was in so much pain, so be it. The cold-hearted monster would be consumed, too. Damon lied to her, there was little doubt he would lie to him, too.
Her sobbing quieted as she awaited the inevitable, her whole body drooping under the crushing weight of hopelessness. Sage had been nothing but a burden to everyone around her most of her life. Her sister, her friends, all of them worked so hard to make things better for her. To protect her. What had she given back? Her sister was better off with her gone. At least then she could go on with her life, without Sage to constantly hold her back.
The girl closed her eyes and bit her lip. There was silence until Trafford squeezed the trigger. A gentle click, and then-
BANG!!
Sage’s eyes went wide, and her head lolled from side to side, before she toppled over onto her side, her eyes open and distant as she lay unmoving in the snow.
Ace furrowed his brow. The girl shouldn’t have been so... intact.
It made no sense. There was no blood, and her head should have popped like a grape. Alex turned away from the fallen hybrid to gaze at the gun in his hand for a moment. Maybe the bullet was a dud?
The azure haired girl stirred, and fought to her feet as ice like broken glass fell from her head and her face, along with the crushed remains of the bullet that had sought to release her from this mortal coil.
“After everything you’ve seen,” Ace jumped at the voice, whirling around with both guns drawn. “After everything Damon Dukes told you, after all the people who suffered because of us!! And you would shoot me?! You would keep going?!”
Alexander watched her without the slightest hint of contempt. Instead, Sage thought she saw sorrow in his eyes. A trick. He just tried to kill her. “I... thought I cou-”
Sage cut him off. “I won’t be stopped!” she hissed. “Damon took away the only people who ever made me feel like a real person, and I’m not going to let him get away with that!”
Rosé eyes like points of white-hot light burned hot into Alexander’s flesh. What she was doing was wrong. It was evil and vicious and exactly the kind of thing she abhorred. But Damon was going to die. If whatever forces had punished her decided to make her suffer even more than she already had for killing him, she could accept that. And no opportunistic whelp was going to prevent her from avenging the only real friends she had ever made.
The report of the gun. If Alexander had his way, she was to have died as Ashe had. Flecks of gore and flesh and blood. Grey matter. A wonderfully sick intermingling of vital fluid and human remains.
The idea that Ashe died trying to help Sage find Sol, that she died because of her and Sage almost let her die for nothing, letting Alexander put her out of her misery. Maybe that’s what did it, maybe not. Sage wasn’t really very sure.
Something inside of her, right then. It broke. Gone. A dam made of glass, and with it out of the way, seven years of inexpressible fury and anguish and despair and frustration all poured out, all unfairly and unjustly aimed right for grim-faced Alexander.
An impotent howl escaped Sage’s lips, her internal tempest made manifest. Out in every direction from the girl at the epicenter, raged a wicked flurry, until Sage leveled her glare and collected her unfocused rage and unleashed it as a cannon.
Camouflaged by the natural snowstorm, a wall of Sage’s Frostbite barreled past Alexander’s defenses without the slightest trouble. He predictably went into a panic, swatting at the razorflakes, but this time, Sage didn’t run.
One after the other, javelins of ice materialized over her head and then propelled themselves at the disoriented heroin addict. In an absurd stroke of luck, Alexander bled his own power into the flakes that accosted him, causing an explosive chain reaction that reached its zenith just in time to screen the first of the spears that sailed toward him.
His Desert Eagles pointed skyward and barked their protests as bullets sizzling with energy changed course to strike the sinister icicles as they encroached, obliterating them one by one. Unfortunately for Ace, there were only so many bullets in a clip.
As Sage’s deadly assault continued, Alex desperately summoned the fresh powder into the air, where it whirled around him, completely encircling his figure. Trapped within his very own snow globe, he focused his energy outward, and the snow went from alabaster to aureate.
The spears made to pierce his veil - and his flesh - but a chain of explosions shattered them, and more snow was pulled from the air and the ground to shore up Ace’s makeshift shield. Sage continued her barrage, but to no avail. Her assault was hopeless.
Ace reloaded and took aim, just as two massive spears of ice burst out from the ground. His snow shield fell as he leapt out of the way- or, he made to leap out of the way, and found his feet cemented to the ground beneath him. His feet were encased in ice.
“Oh, shit!!” taking aim at both Frostroots at once, he unleashed a withering barrage of psychokinetically enhanced bullets, hurriedly obliterating Sage’s vicious assault. More of the twisting spears burst from the ground, but the ice around her victim’s feet suddenly exploded, and the man in the blood-stained suit catapulted up into the air.
Sage was not about to let him go that easily. Ace leveled his weapons at the girl beneath him, while, from high up above, rained medicine ball hail stones.
Before he could get a shot off, the first one sailed harmlessly through the air - right next to Ace. With a start, his head jerked skyward, just in time for him to block one of the massive hunks of ice with his face.
Rocketing back to earth, Alexander crashed into the snow, consumed in a massive plume of white. He had very little time for respite, however, as more of the frigid meteors smashed into the earth all around him.
The ground shook. Almost rhythmic thumping as the gigantic hail smashed into the ice and hard-packed snow. Alex darted back and forth, evading the celestial projectiles, his eyes fervently sweeping over the tundra, through the snowstorm’s obscurity. He didn’t know where that psycho bitch was!
A wall of that damned sharp snow barreled toward him. He anticipated it, and just before it washed over him, the ground before him rippled, and a wall of snow lifted up before him, tiny explosions searing the Frostbite as it reached out for him. Bony, frigid fingers consumed by the feeblest flame.
Arctic javelins came raining down on him like arrows over an ancient battle. He growled, surprised he’d fallen for such obvious misdirection. But there was more to it. Spears of ice shot up from the ground as a literal wall of ice accelerated toward him like a frozen tidal wave.
Timing carefully, he leapt over the crest of the wave, twisting and weaving around the spikes that thrust out from beneath. He looked up just in time to see another wall - this one of fog - sail toward him.
Almost outraged, he tensed up as the haze consumed him.
Sage could feel him within the mist. The tiny particles fell on and danced off his frame. He wasn’t moving. Watching. Massive, icy claws covered her hands, and the girl took off running through the obscurity, claws outstretched.
Alexander spotted her rushing him head-on and raised his guns. Then he spotted her rushing him from the right. And the left. And then from all angles. He didn’t bother taking ineffectual potshots as he nervously considered his options. Soon, however, he composed himself and shot a confident look at one of the charging Sage-shapes.
Sage continued her attack; his back was turned. Obviously he had made the wrong decision. The girl charged, and just as she leapt up through the air did she notice that the Northern Lights had taken on a yellowish twinge. Her eyes widened.
A thunderous explosion consumed Sage and Alexander both, and a dome of kinetic energy ballooned outward, consuming the immense cloud of fog and everything within. Alexander put one of his pistols away to adjust his tie, roughly loosening it as he blew the smoke away through sheer force of will.
A hand fished into his pocket and retrieved a smoke. With a flick of his wrist, the cancer-stick leapt up to his mouth, with just a little help of his mental talents. Illuminating it with a spark of ki, he took a drag as he calmly assessed his situation.
He shifted his feet and turned around, just in time to see a huge block of ice crack, then shatter. The debris exploded outward, before suddenly, unnaturally, altering course to lash out at Alexander, who easily blew the freezing clay pigeons out of the sky with his high-caliber handgun.
From within the Glacier raced the ice witch herself. Alexander trained his weapons on her, but she had already closed the distance. With a wide swipe, her claws raked across Trafford’s chest, shredding his flesh and his expensive clothes. He stumbled backward as Sage went for his face, but the butt of a pistol met hers first.
The princess recoiled from the sharp pain in her forehead, staggering away from her quarry. He leveled his guns at her just as a blinding white out completely ruined his visibility. He fired as Sage dropped to the ground, narrowly evading the energized AE rounds.
The storm did not abate. The howling winds grew more intense, kicking up the snow all around Trafford. Sage had taken to hiding in the elements for a moment, but she had no doubts.
This whole sector was her weapon and her strength. Even if the redhead had somehow managed to turn her weapon against her, she knew how to wield it better than anyone. The cold would claim one more.
Ace clenched his teeth tight and shivered violently. As much as he wanted to hug himself from the cold, he had to keep his guns up. Sage was there, somewhere. Frost was spiderwebbing on his weapons. The metal was so cold it burned at his hands. His mind went to his gloves for a moment, but he wasn’t about to put his guns down. Not until he could see her.
Sage watched him stumbling blindly. This was her world, and like the namek before him, nothing he could do would save him in this place.
Sage plopped down into the snow, and ran her fingers up into her hair until it spilled out between them, like weeds between slabs of concrete. Ashe had been viciously executed and Sophia had faded away. Back... to Heaven? She hoped so. The weight of Ashe’s death gnawed at her too much to have a second friend to grieve over.
It didn’t hurt any less.
Flecks of gore and flesh and blood. Grey matter. All of it in a puff of pink, like a twisted rose in bloom. Ashe’s body hit the pavement. Damon had her friend executed right before her eyes. Because of Damon Dukes, and her own, blind quest for vengeance, the only friends she had were...
Gone.
Alone. Sage and loneliness were intimate companions, but this was... different, somehow. It was quiet, but not tranquil. There but not there. It ate at her! Her whole world fell away.
She began to weep. Bitter, heavy sobs racked the girl’s entire body as she sat, curled into a ball, in the snow. She cried so hard her throat hurt, but she didn’t stop. This was her fault. Sage did this. She justified tapping into her cryokinesis with this mad quest, but her hollow justifications didn’t halt the retribution.
In a sense, Sage knew she would be punished for breaking her oath. But she had thought - or, maybe, just hoped - that things would turn out... at least bearable.
Alexander looked on with eyes heavy with regret. His frown couldn’t have looked any more miserable as he watched the girl as she blubbered into her arms. He knew what it was like to lose someone close. The formerly well-dressed man closed his eyes and sighed. He knew damn well.
He began to walk toward her, with slow, deliberate steps. He felt no anger or hatred as he stood over her. His hand drifted over a familiar, gold-plated object, and he loosed the firearm from its holster.
Trafford stood before Sage, his hand cannon like a lead weight, pinning his arm to his side. For a long time, he didn’t move. The girl hadn’t noticed him, or if she had, she hadn’t bothered to do anything about it.
Ace knew the feeling. There was nothing left for her. She was already a user, he knew that much, so things probably weren’t too good to begin with. Still, she was innocent. A little like Alice, maybe. He felt a twinge of guilt the instant the comparison went through his mind. He looked down at her, his hand flexed around his gleaming weapon, but he hesitated.
She had nothing left. The redhead knew that much. His whole visage sagged as he raised the weapon, and every so gently let the end of the barrel rest against the top of Sage’s head. She didn’t even look up. A quick death was the only mercy left to offer the poor girl.
Sage felt the weight of Alex’s weapon press down on her head. So what?! Ashe and Sophia were gone! They were gone and it was Sage’s fault. She deserved this. This bastard would kill her while she was in so much pain, so be it. The cold-hearted monster would be consumed, too. Damon lied to her, there was little doubt he would lie to him, too.
Her sobbing quieted as she awaited the inevitable, her whole body drooping under the crushing weight of hopelessness. Sage had been nothing but a burden to everyone around her most of her life. Her sister, her friends, all of them worked so hard to make things better for her. To protect her. What had she given back? Her sister was better off with her gone. At least then she could go on with her life, without Sage to constantly hold her back.
The girl closed her eyes and bit her lip. There was silence until Trafford squeezed the trigger. A gentle click, and then-
BANG!!
Sage’s eyes went wide, and her head lolled from side to side, before she toppled over onto her side, her eyes open and distant as she lay unmoving in the snow.
Ace furrowed his brow. The girl shouldn’t have been so... intact.
It made no sense. There was no blood, and her head should have popped like a grape. Alex turned away from the fallen hybrid to gaze at the gun in his hand for a moment. Maybe the bullet was a dud?
The azure haired girl stirred, and fought to her feet as ice like broken glass fell from her head and her face, along with the crushed remains of the bullet that had sought to release her from this mortal coil.
“After everything you’ve seen,” Ace jumped at the voice, whirling around with both guns drawn. “After everything Damon Dukes told you, after all the people who suffered because of us!! And you would shoot me?! You would keep going?!”
Alexander watched her without the slightest hint of contempt. Instead, Sage thought she saw sorrow in his eyes. A trick. He just tried to kill her. “I... thought I cou-”
Sage cut him off. “I won’t be stopped!” she hissed. “Damon took away the only people who ever made me feel like a real person, and I’m not going to let him get away with that!”
Rosé eyes like points of white-hot light burned hot into Alexander’s flesh. What she was doing was wrong. It was evil and vicious and exactly the kind of thing she abhorred. But Damon was going to die. If whatever forces had punished her decided to make her suffer even more than she already had for killing him, she could accept that. And no opportunistic whelp was going to prevent her from avenging the only real friends she had ever made.
The report of the gun. If Alexander had his way, she was to have died as Ashe had. Flecks of gore and flesh and blood. Grey matter. A wonderfully sick intermingling of vital fluid and human remains.
The idea that Ashe died trying to help Sage find Sol, that she died because of her and Sage almost let her die for nothing, letting Alexander put her out of her misery. Maybe that’s what did it, maybe not. Sage wasn’t really very sure.
Something inside of her, right then. It broke. Gone. A dam made of glass, and with it out of the way, seven years of inexpressible fury and anguish and despair and frustration all poured out, all unfairly and unjustly aimed right for grim-faced Alexander.
An impotent howl escaped Sage’s lips, her internal tempest made manifest. Out in every direction from the girl at the epicenter, raged a wicked flurry, until Sage leveled her glare and collected her unfocused rage and unleashed it as a cannon.
Camouflaged by the natural snowstorm, a wall of Sage’s Frostbite barreled past Alexander’s defenses without the slightest trouble. He predictably went into a panic, swatting at the razorflakes, but this time, Sage didn’t run.
One after the other, javelins of ice materialized over her head and then propelled themselves at the disoriented heroin addict. In an absurd stroke of luck, Alexander bled his own power into the flakes that accosted him, causing an explosive chain reaction that reached its zenith just in time to screen the first of the spears that sailed toward him.
His Desert Eagles pointed skyward and barked their protests as bullets sizzling with energy changed course to strike the sinister icicles as they encroached, obliterating them one by one. Unfortunately for Ace, there were only so many bullets in a clip.
As Sage’s deadly assault continued, Alex desperately summoned the fresh powder into the air, where it whirled around him, completely encircling his figure. Trapped within his very own snow globe, he focused his energy outward, and the snow went from alabaster to aureate.
The spears made to pierce his veil - and his flesh - but a chain of explosions shattered them, and more snow was pulled from the air and the ground to shore up Ace’s makeshift shield. Sage continued her barrage, but to no avail. Her assault was hopeless.
Ace reloaded and took aim, just as two massive spears of ice burst out from the ground. His snow shield fell as he leapt out of the way- or, he made to leap out of the way, and found his feet cemented to the ground beneath him. His feet were encased in ice.
“Oh, shit!!” taking aim at both Frostroots at once, he unleashed a withering barrage of psychokinetically enhanced bullets, hurriedly obliterating Sage’s vicious assault. More of the twisting spears burst from the ground, but the ice around her victim’s feet suddenly exploded, and the man in the blood-stained suit catapulted up into the air.
Sage was not about to let him go that easily. Ace leveled his weapons at the girl beneath him, while, from high up above, rained medicine ball hail stones.
Before he could get a shot off, the first one sailed harmlessly through the air - right next to Ace. With a start, his head jerked skyward, just in time for him to block one of the massive hunks of ice with his face.
Rocketing back to earth, Alexander crashed into the snow, consumed in a massive plume of white. He had very little time for respite, however, as more of the frigid meteors smashed into the earth all around him.
The ground shook. Almost rhythmic thumping as the gigantic hail smashed into the ice and hard-packed snow. Alex darted back and forth, evading the celestial projectiles, his eyes fervently sweeping over the tundra, through the snowstorm’s obscurity. He didn’t know where that psycho bitch was!
A wall of that damned sharp snow barreled toward him. He anticipated it, and just before it washed over him, the ground before him rippled, and a wall of snow lifted up before him, tiny explosions searing the Frostbite as it reached out for him. Bony, frigid fingers consumed by the feeblest flame.
Arctic javelins came raining down on him like arrows over an ancient battle. He growled, surprised he’d fallen for such obvious misdirection. But there was more to it. Spears of ice shot up from the ground as a literal wall of ice accelerated toward him like a frozen tidal wave.
Timing carefully, he leapt over the crest of the wave, twisting and weaving around the spikes that thrust out from beneath. He looked up just in time to see another wall - this one of fog - sail toward him.
Almost outraged, he tensed up as the haze consumed him.
Sage could feel him within the mist. The tiny particles fell on and danced off his frame. He wasn’t moving. Watching. Massive, icy claws covered her hands, and the girl took off running through the obscurity, claws outstretched.
Alexander spotted her rushing him head-on and raised his guns. Then he spotted her rushing him from the right. And the left. And then from all angles. He didn’t bother taking ineffectual potshots as he nervously considered his options. Soon, however, he composed himself and shot a confident look at one of the charging Sage-shapes.
Sage continued her attack; his back was turned. Obviously he had made the wrong decision. The girl charged, and just as she leapt up through the air did she notice that the Northern Lights had taken on a yellowish twinge. Her eyes widened.
A thunderous explosion consumed Sage and Alexander both, and a dome of kinetic energy ballooned outward, consuming the immense cloud of fog and everything within. Alexander put one of his pistols away to adjust his tie, roughly loosening it as he blew the smoke away through sheer force of will.
A hand fished into his pocket and retrieved a smoke. With a flick of his wrist, the cancer-stick leapt up to his mouth, with just a little help of his mental talents. Illuminating it with a spark of ki, he took a drag as he calmly assessed his situation.
He shifted his feet and turned around, just in time to see a huge block of ice crack, then shatter. The debris exploded outward, before suddenly, unnaturally, altering course to lash out at Alexander, who easily blew the freezing clay pigeons out of the sky with his high-caliber handgun.
From within the Glacier raced the ice witch herself. Alexander trained his weapons on her, but she had already closed the distance. With a wide swipe, her claws raked across Trafford’s chest, shredding his flesh and his expensive clothes. He stumbled backward as Sage went for his face, but the butt of a pistol met hers first.
The princess recoiled from the sharp pain in her forehead, staggering away from her quarry. He leveled his guns at her just as a blinding white out completely ruined his visibility. He fired as Sage dropped to the ground, narrowly evading the energized AE rounds.
The storm did not abate. The howling winds grew more intense, kicking up the snow all around Trafford. Sage had taken to hiding in the elements for a moment, but she had no doubts.
This whole sector was her weapon and her strength. Even if the redhead had somehow managed to turn her weapon against her, she knew how to wield it better than anyone. The cold would claim one more.
Ace clenched his teeth tight and shivered violently. As much as he wanted to hug himself from the cold, he had to keep his guns up. Sage was there, somewhere. Frost was spiderwebbing on his weapons. The metal was so cold it burned at his hands. His mind went to his gloves for a moment, but he wasn’t about to put his guns down. Not until he could see her.
Sage watched him stumbling blindly. This was her world, and like the namek before him, nothing he could do would save him in this place.
![[Image: Sage.jpg]](http://rebecca.florizone.com/sig/miscsig/Sage.jpg)