135

 

135.  Pit Stop in Grey Hell

 

Vance's eyes adjusted to the moonlit expanse as Averyl, Wendy, Bruce, and Winslow stepped out behind him. Dust danced in the wind, and the sky was dark. Oil rigs surrounded them on all sides, and in the distance loomed the tall building that had once been the Zexaron headquarters – a neon beacon in the desert.

 

Eventually, Vance spotted a small figure up ahead. After a moment, Madeleine sauntered forward, clad in a yellow-and-blue striped long sleeve T-shirt and blue jeans. By all appearances, the ex-Zodiac was a short preteen girl with long strawberry blonde hair and freckles. Of course, the scowl on her face seemed as worldly and jaded as it always had.

 

"Madeleine..." Vance said. "I'm glad to see you're okay."

 

"I am." Madeleine sent him a glare. "But Eden's not."

 

As Vance froze, Madeleine moved past him and glanced up to Averyl. "You're late. Everyone's gone."

 

"Sorry," Averyl said with a shrug. "We had some complications."

 

"You sent her here to spy on Grayson?" Vance asked.

 

"Not just Grayson, but Frank and your dad as well," Madeline said. "No one knows that building better than me. I used to live in it...back when I thought that Grayson's way was the only way."

 

"So you don't trust him either, huh?" Bruce asked, sounding a lot calmer than usual. "He wanted us to believe you were the one who betrayed us."

"I did abandon my post," Madeleine said. "But I did it solely out of fear, Bruce. Grayson's out of control – he's been that way for a while, I was just too zoned out to realize it at first. He's the one who killed Roufas. Not Averyl!"

 

"You weren't even there," Bruce spat. "What do you know?"

 

"I know what Grayson's really after," Madeleine said. "He doesn't want to reset the universe, Bruce. He wants to become its new tyrant. I know that Roufas and Cecilia were the only parents you've ever known, Bruce. It was the same for me. I looked up to them, but I even looked up to Grayson even more. He was so strong, and he never had any qualms about killing anyone. I thought that as long as I trusted him, I'd be fine."

 

"Then why..." Bruce asked, "Why did you betray us? Why did you start working with Averyl?"

 

"Because I realized that Grayson doesn't care about me," she answered. "Or any of us. He put a Greymatter in me without even telling me, Bruce, then tried to teleport through me to get to Eden. He's no different from the researchers back in the lab – all he cares about is himself!"

 

"And who cares about you now?" Bruce spat.

 

"Eden," she answered firmly. "She taught me that there's always another way."

 

Vance shuffled nervously where he stood. Madeleine glanced at Wendy, then turned back to him.

 

"Didn't take you long to find a new woman, I see," she said.

 

"Excuse me?!" Wendy shouted.

 

"We're all here to stop Grayson," Vance hurriedly cut in, "and hopefully find out where Eden is. Are you with us, Madeleine?"

 

"For now," she said curtly, then turned and began walking toward the building. "Come on. I have a lot to show you."

 

Inside the pristine lobby of the Zexaron building, they found the front desk clean, save for the nameplates of two secretaries: Janet Wyss and Marianne Clemmings, which had been knocked over on their sides. Behind the desk was a room filled with cabinets and shelves.

 

This is where my father must have spent his last days, before he was suddenly transported to Enmetropolis, most likely by Grayson, Vance brooded, gazing over the piles of paperwork. When did Grayson first start influencing him? From even before mom's death?

 

"There's no telling when we'll run into him now," Averyl commented, as the group headed up the stairs toward the elevators. "Might do us well to come up with a strategy."

"A strategy for what?" Winslow asked.

 

"Fighting Grayson," Vance said. "Averyl's right. We're going to need to work together."

 
"I'm not doing shit," Bruce grumbled. "First, I want to hear Grayson's side of the story. He's saved my ass more times than I can count – I don't care what anyone says! I'm not gonna stand here and strategize with you assholes about how to kill him!"

 

"Then take a different elevator, if you don't mind," Vance replied.

Bruce scoffed. "Whatever. I don't wanna follow you kids around anyway."

 

And so, the Tiger walked down the farthest elevator on the right, while the remaining five moved into the first on the left.

 

Once inside, Vance turned to his four companions. "Here's what I'm thinking. Out of us four, Averyl is easily the strongest. So he should take the front lines, keeping Grayson at bay while each of us prep our abilities. My ability's come a long way since the tournament, so I want to wait for the right moment and surprise him as much as possible."

 

Winslow listened to Vance speak with increasing trepidation. "What do you expect me to do?"

 

"I'll be counting on you, Wendy, and Madeleine for support," Vance said. "Wendy, you should be able to use your axolotls to absorb some of Grayson's attacks and minimize the damage, right?"

 

"Of course," she answered confidently. "You don't need to worry about me Vance, I'll protect you."

"Madeleine, is there any way you can work behind the scenes to make sure Grayson doesn't have some extra escape routes planned, or other surprises waiting for us?"

 

Madeleine shrugged. "I can try. Sure sounds a lot better than having to fight him up close."

 

"So that only leaves you, Winslow," Vance said.

 

           

"Huh?"

 

"How do you think you can help out?" Vance asked. "I don't know how your training went. What have you got?"

 

"Wait a minute." Winslow began to think. "You're just going to try to teleport your fist or something and punch him?"

"Got any better ideas?"

 

"It may keep your body safe," he went on, "but it's still just a simple attack. You're creating a void within matter itself, just like a black hole. You should be able to do more with it."

 

"Like what?"

 

"If your voids are anything like black holes – holes that have lots of gravitational, kinetic, and other energies pulsating around them – they should also create electromagnetic fields around themselves," Winslow explained.

 

"And you can manipulate those?" Vance considered. "What would you be able to do with it?"

 

"Create an extremely powerful electromagnetic pulse," Winslow theorized, "which might even be capable of neutralizing pure psynergy."

 

Vance's eyes widened. "Is that really possible?"

"Electromagnetic pulses interfere with other electromagnetic fields around them. Everything has an electromagnetic field, even this planet, and experiments in nuclear EMPs have caused pulses of massive range and altitude. If combined with psynergy, it could interfere with someone's aura, I think."

 

Vance nodded. "That would be useful not only for fighting, but jamming Greymatters as well."

 

"Exactly."

 

As the party continued to converse, the elevator rose up. Once the doors to the top floor opened, they entered plain hallway that led down to Grayson's office. Aside from a neatly-organized desk, a large swivel chair, and a few fake plants, there wasn't anything else to look at. The group waited for Bruce to grumpily rejoin them from his elevator, upon which Madeleine walked over to a far wall and tapped the door there. It swung open.

 

"Frank must have snuck in here before he escaped," Madeleine said. "I thought about rescuing myself, but he somehow found a way to get free on his own. Oh, and that portal in there leads to Yamato."

 

"What?" Vance said, struggling to keep up with all the information.

 

"This is Grayson's private room, where most of the important records were held," Madeleine said. "But Grayson imprisoned Frank in the basement. That's where he always experimented on Naomi. "

 

"She was totally under his control, wasn't she?" Vance thought, letting out a guilty sigh. "No wonder she always seemed like such a psycho."

 

The group continued into Grayson's secret room. Four Regeneration Tanks lined one side, all empty except one that contained the severed head of an old man, preserved in psynergized gel that had long since coagulated within the shut-off machine. The top of his head had also been removed, and the flesh around the skull that remained was only loosely connected to decomposed muscle, ragged and flattened like a forgotten rubber mask.

 

"Who the hell is that?" Winslow and Vance both asked at the same time.

 

"Phileas..." Bruce moved over to the tank, eyes wide with awe. "The Rat, the sixth Zodiac. We only ever called him Mephisto, though."

 

"I thought the sixth Zodiac was Mephistoclessia," Vance said, turning to Averyl.

 

"Mephistoclessia was the body of his late wife, which he lovingly used as a puppet," Averyl explained, as he joined Bruce next to the tank. "We all know what happened to her...but I never knew someone managed to get to him as well."

 

"Grayson probably killed him," Winslow shrugged. "I mean, that's how it looks, at least."

 

"Says who?" Bruce barked. "He could have been trying to bring him back to life."

 

"The lacerations on his flesh indicate that his head was opened up..." Averyl analyzed. "And although his entrails are strewn about the gel, I'm failing to find any brain particles."

 

"He's right." Winslow smushed his face up to the glass, peering into the tank. "Bruce, come on, there's no way to deny this now. Grayson took out Phileas' brain!"

 

"Why, though?" Vance asked. "How could that help him in any way?"

 

"Phileas has the power to assume control over other bodies by devouring them," Bruce said. "Meanwhile, Mephistoclessia could attach her psynergy to people's body parts and control them like marionettes. They were the perfect pair – so before she died, he ate her, so that they'd never be apart. At least, that's what Roufas told me."

 

"Gross," Winslow commented.

 

"I don't know," Wendy fingered her bottom lip. "Seems kind of romantic to me. After all, they became one...forever, right?"

 

Vance let out a sigh and changed the subject. "But no one knows what Grayson's ability is, huh? Didn't you people ever think it was weird that he was the only one who never let you in on what he could do?"

 

"We thought we knew what it was," Madeleine spoke up. "He can hypnotize people...but it's more than that. He can force them into a sheer stupor by overloading them with his psynergy – or, like he usually does, he can gradually infect them, leaving them more or less in control all the while, as if nothing's wrong. The chance is so slow and incremental that no one ever notices, until one day, the amount of him in them becomes the majority. Then, they're all his."

 

Winslow shivered. "And he did that to all of us, too?"

 

"Yeah," the Ox replied, after a sigh. "I didn't realize he'd influenced me as well until I spent some time away from him. Now I understand why he was so excited to have me work on the Greymatter."

 

"You made the Greymatter?!" Vance shouted. "What were you thinking?"

 

"It sounded fun!" Madeline shouted back. "Grayson told me he'd give me funds and resources to make the ultimate virtual reality game I'd always wanted. Something like Second Life, you know, connected to a network, but with limitless possibilities. So I drafted up the blueprints, and he insisted that psynergy be the main component."

 

"So that he can send his ability out," Vance interrupted. "Like a virus."

 

"To purify the human infection," Madeleine laughed. "It sounded so cool to me at the time. Yeah, he wants to destroy Earth. And who could be better at destroying it than Earthlings themselves?"

 

"All so that he can access to the Space-Time Continuum?"

 

"That," Averyl added, "and so he can stop the Church. Namely, his father – Zeigfried Harknett Abaddon, the man responsible for the angelic blood that courses through his body."

 

"What?!" Bruce roared. "How do you know that?!"

"Zeigfried came and interrupted our battle after the tournament," Averyl said. "After watching them talk, it all started to make sense. That's why he's so strong...he's the son of one of the seven beings who God tasked with enforcing all his holy laws."

 

Vance stared at Averyl, understanding exactly what he was truly trying to say.

 

"And what's the other half of him?" the teenager ventured.

 

"Demonic," Madeleine said finally, eyes widening. "That has to be it...I can't believe it was that simple, in front of our eyes the entire time. He's the Grey Son – born from equal parts light and dark, but never fully accepted by either one. That's why he wants to kill everything...he's always been alone."

Next: End of the Road