Orso Fiction 025

Orso Fiction 025-Orso vs Orso
“Matt, sit back down.”, Alex said.

“No.”, Matt answered defiantly.

‘Matt, calm down.”, Alex said. “It’s not what you think.”

“You’re going to Zeke, aren’t you?”, Matt continued, unrelenting.

“Matt, this is unlike you. The Matt I know would be backing down. And you SHOULD be backing down.”

“And you shouldn’t be selling out to the one that held OUR FRIENDS LIVES at stake.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing.”, Alex said calmly. “You don’t know the whole situation. I do.”

“Oh yeah?”, Matt asked. “And what part of going to make business deals with the same terrorist who wants to break up the family, makes it okay for a member of that family to do it? We saw you talking to him at Panera.”

“You did, huh?”, Alex asked.

“Yeah. I heard what‘s going on.”, Matt said. “And I can’t let you go.”

“And you’re going to try to stop me?”

“If I have to.”

“You know how that will end.”, Alex said coldly. “I’m far better a fighter than you.”

“That doesn’t matter to me.”, Matt said defiantly. In that second, Alex’s mind was alight with suspicion.

“No…who else is out here!?”, Alex hissed. “Is it Brittney? No, it wouldn't be just one...You don’t have Bradley out here, do you!?”

“Turn around, and go back inside.”, Matt warned him. “I’ll follow you. We’ll sit down, and we’ll talk this out.”

“You…won’t get me to give up that easily!”, Alex snapped. He ignited his ring, indigo flames dancing in the night air. “You know I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I…don’t want this either.”, Matt said, igniting his own ring, his yellow flames dancing in time with Alex’s.

And so it began.

---

“Graaaaaaagh!”, Baldovino screamed, fighting at the restraints. “What the hell was that stuff!?”

Osvaldo standing a little bit away from him, put the last needle, now empty of the black liquid, on the table.

“Tell me, you old shit!”, Baldovino shouted. “What the hell did you just put in me!?”

He squinted, the light Osvaldo had placed directly over his eyes too bright to bear in the otherwise completely dark room. Osvaldo knew it was one of the projector rooms, that Osvaldo had converted into a lab.

“You, know, Baldovino…Out of the seven of you, I always disliked Faustino the most.”, Osvaldo said idly. “There’s not a hint of darkness in the boy. A drop of pure evil in him would simply…wither and die. Like trying to plant a seed in an inferno.”

“What did you put in me!?”, Baldovino shouted again, not hearing him, still thrashing against the arm and leg restraints.

“But, if we were to discount him, then you would be the least favorite.”, Osvaldo continued. “There’s just too much life in you.”

“Untie me!”, Baldovino shouted. “Let me go, you wormy little freak!”

“What the hell are you SAYING!?”, Baldovino screamed, not hearing him.

“Evil really isn’t so complex as some people seem to think it is.”, Osvaldo said, idly checking some things on the table. “At least, not for a scientist of my skill. Not to say it wouldn’t have some effect, if I used this on Faustino. With enough of it, it causes some pain, some weakness. It never really works like it should, for a person as pure as him, but it keeps them from doing much of anything.”

“Shut up and untie me!”, Baldovino screamed at him. Why was the light getting brighter!?

“Please, stop fighting. It’s death on the ears.”, Osvaldo said, annoyed. “Guerino fought like you did. It didn’t do him any good. Arduino and Placido, too, but not for as long. Severo was the quickest one to lose. I expected that. Alphonso…Alphonso didn’t fight, but he didn’t lose for a long time. That was unusual.”

“What are you talking about!?”, Baldovino shouted, urgency rising in his voice.

“When I think about it, its fortunate that Faustino’s in that chair to begin with.”, Osvaldo said, yawning a bit. “If he won’t be useful to me, he might as well not be useful to anyone.”

“Shut up!”, Baldovino screamed. “Don’t you dare badmouth Fausty!”

“Oh, you won’t mind in a second.”, Osvaldo said. “Do hurry up. I don’t have all night.”

Baldovino continued to thrash, but felt, somewhere deep inside of him, that it was hopeless. He was trapped.

“Faustino…I wonder if he got his name from THE Faust…You know, the one that tried to make a deal with the devil…Oh, but that would just be too sweet a coincidence…”.

Baldovino felt his body become more and more still. The thrashing slowly subsided. He closed his eyes, the light growing too bright to bear.“

Are you ready?”, Osvaldo asked, a snakelike sound to his voice. “I’ve been sick of hearing you boys discuss a new life. All you have now, is darkness.”

Baldovino’s eyes slowly opened, the whites of his eyes now a deep black.

“I am ready.”, Baldovino said, in a voice much unlike himself.“

Finally.”, Osvaldo said, checking a gold pocket watch. “I knew I disliked you. Look how long you fought me.”

“I apologize.”, Baldovino said, in the same, slow, voice.

“No matter.”, Osvaldo said. “You may get up.”

Without a single wasted movement, Baldovino slowly ripped through the arm and leg restraints. He slowly stood. On his way up, he bumped the light that had been shining in his eyes, sending its focus to the corner of the room. There stood the five friends he had fought with for so long, their eyes black as death.

“This is where the battle really begins.”, Osvaldo murmured.

---

"You've seen this before?", Adelina asked, perhaps a bit more rudely than was wise. Sonia took her hand from Rosangela's forehead. The small girl rolled over, clearly in pain, hyperventilating.

"Oh yes. The girl is getting...much worse. The Orso are using a different poison than we believed. This one gets the patient exponentially worse as time passes...until the anitdote is created.", she said, having rehearsed the lines in her mind.

"You're...sure...it was the Orso?", Adelina asked, remembering their red-haired Sun Agent. She didn't seem the type who would have anything to do with poison. Using it, at least. Sonia glared at the girl.

"You dare call me a liar?", she asked, with a voice that cut the air. "I know my brother's tricks, little girl."

"I...apologize.", Adelina said quickly, hating it. "Is there another medicine we can use, to delay the effects?"

"Yes, I have one that would work to balance this poison out, temporarily.", Sonia said, slowly reaching into her pocket. "But you've forced me to question... whether or not you and your sisters can be loyal enough to me... to make it worth the trouble it takes to procure this medicine."

"I...apologize.", Adelina said, biting back her loathing of the woman who held the most precious thing she had in the world in her hands, and was so apathetic about whether or not it fell and broke.

"You swear, that you will allow none of your sisters to betray me?"

"I swear."

"And do you swear that you will do all in your power to get me both the Arcoferro and the Agent Rings?"

"I swear."

"And you know what might happen, if you break either of these promises?"

"I do."

"Good.", Sonia said. "Here is the medicine. Perhaps, when she is awake, you can have her drink it."

Sonia pulled her hand from her pocket to reveal a small glass vial.

A vial filled with a dark black liquid.

"Yes, Madam. I will deliver it, when she wakes.", Adelina said.

---

The air outside Century was still, the night silent, save for the nearly inaudible waves of the flames on Alex’s and Matt’s rings.

“I’ll try not to hurt you, Matt.”, Alex said. “I can’t promise any more than that.”

“I don’t think I have to worry about overdoing this fight.”, Matt said softly. He gently pushed his ring into his box, releasing his Sun Owl, Muffins. The bird perched on his shoulder, and looked at him, as though it understood what was going on.

“Shun.”, Alex said, releasing the Mist Wolverine from his own box. “We can’t afford to lose this.”

The animal looked up at him, questioning with his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that.”, Alex said, looking away. “Follow orders.”

Shun growled, and assumed a fighting stance.

“Muffins, this won’t be easy.”, Matt said gently. “But we have to stop him.”

Muffins hooted once, more determined than Matt thought any owl really should be, when told it would have to fight an ally. But then, Matt was new to the whole “fighting” thing, overall, so he could be wrong.

“Shun. Cambio Forma.”, Alex commanded. The wolverine growled as it assumed its scattergun form. Slowly, an indigo mist spread around Alex, and from his form, stepped six more Alex Carrolls.

“An illusion”, Matt murmured. He knew Alex could do them, of course, but he had never really looked into the mechanics of the skill. He had simply thought “I can’t do them, I’ll leave the theory to those who can” A mistake, he thought, now.

The seven Alexs all quickly scattered, dashing each way, circling around Matt, jumping over each other, until it was impossible to determine which was the original, if, indeed, the one from the center had been the original to begin with. Matt’s jaw dropped slightly, growing more and more hopeless by the second. A reassuring hoot came from his right.

This confused him. For two reasons.

The first was that he had been previously unaware that Muffins, or indeed any owl, was capable of making a hoot sound reassuring.

The second was that, for all the times for an owl to create such a sound, this appeared to be one in which an owl’s services would do little to assist him.

Muffins, surprisingly silently, took off from his shoulder, and flew at one of the Alexs. He passed through the boy, or, rather, one of the illusions of the boy. This somehow disturbed the image, and the Alex Muffins had attacked was no longer realistic looking at all. Now, it slightly resembled a heavily pixelated, translucent version of the Second Mist Officer, as if someone had begun to build his likeness in Minecraft, out of nothing but colored glass blocks.

Matt raised an eyebrow. He didn’t know that Muffins could do that. To be fair, he wasn’t aware of…really, anything, that Muffins could do. He had mostly treated him like a pet, avoiding conflict as much as possible.

“Can you do that again, Muffins?”, Matt called. The owl loudly hooted, in that bizarrely reassuring way. It jetted at another Alex, causing it to pixelate out. It repeated this twice more, so there were only three realistic Alexs left. Suddenly, bullets of Mist Flames shot at Muffins, grazing his wing, causing him to crumple. Matt looked over to see all three Alexs holding Infuria Logica up, so it was impossible to tell which was the one who shot the gun.

“That’s a new trick.”, Alex said. “When’d you pick that up?”

“I…I don’t even know.”, Matt said, unsure of how much machismo to display after this showing. He settled for none.

“Matt, you’re not cut out for fighting.”, Alex said. “Please, just turn back around. I made sure that shot won’t really hurt Muffins. Just, please, leave. If Muffins can break my illusions, I can’t just escape the way I wanted to, slip around the back while illusions distracted you.”

“I can’t turn back.”, Matt said. “This is too important.”

“Matt, how long have you been a member of the Orso?”, Alex asked, his voice growing a bit colder.

“I… less than a year?”, Matt answered, walking toward his owl. “Why?”

“And has it really been so wonderful you’ll risk your life to make sure one person doesn’t leave?”

“I…I guess…so…”

“That’s fool talk, Matt.”

“No…No it’s not.”, Matt said, finding a strange conviction in his voice, as he picked Muffins up, cradling the bird in his arms. “This family…It’s a good thing. I don’t know much about it, and I’m not the most impressive member, but I know that. Maybe I’m not like you, and always on top of everything…or maybe I’m not like Mike, and awesome things just randomly happen all around me…and maybe I’m not like Nick, who can stay confident enough to cause trouble all the time without fear of retaliation…But I think I know….what I have to do now.”

“You lost me.”, Alex said, interested despite himself.

“I didn’t confront you earlier…because I was afraid. Afraid of what you might do. Afraid of causing a problem, when there are already so many.”

“So?”

“That was what was holding me back, Alex.”, Matt said softly, holding Muffins tighter. “That fear, it was like a ball and chain, on each of my limbs, holding me down. But I think I get it. Something Zach told me, ages ago…”

---

“You just want to look after your friends, right?”, the tall bespectacled boy asked, watching the horizon. “That’s all I ever tried to do, myself.”

“But you make it look easy. Everyone loves you. When they see you, they all think ‘Oh, there’s Zach. He’s always happy, and now we’ll always be happy, while he’s around’. It’s harder than that.”, Matt replied, looking down.

“Matt…What does this family mean to you?”

“It’s…I dunno. It’s a bunch of people, mostly revolving around you, somehow.”

“Well, that’s true.”, Zach said with a laugh. “They’re all here because I am…but it’s not like that’s the only reason. We’ve all gathered, in an attempt to make each of our lives better, by helping each other out. Maybe it sounds weird, but I think we could manage some kind of peace, if we all saw each other as brothers and sisters.”

“So you see everyone in the family as a real sibling?”

“Yep. I wouldn’t be who I am without them. Every one of them helped me overcome my fears. I look happy all the time…well, mostly because I am. Because I’ve learned that I have nothing to fear. As long as I can endure it with my friends, there’s nothing I can’t do. And all of them know the same thing. No matter what they face, I’ll fight it with them. That’s what a good brother would do. I let go of fear, and found my salvation.”

“That sounds so lame.”

“Yeah. A little”, Zach said. Then he punched Matt in the arm. “But it works.”

---

“That worked for Zach.”, Alex said, a bit colder than he meant it, remembering Zach’s stance on infighting. “But what makes you think you can do anything special, just because you’ll be more confident?”

“I…I don’t know.”, Matt replied. “But… I feel something. Something big.”

“What are you talking about?”

Deep in Matt’s arms, the flames on Muffins’ wings began to flicker strangely.

---

Within the base, Sabra Bushey jumped, surprised by the sensation. Allison Boyd, Jess Biemiller, and Paige Lewis looked at her strangely.

“Oh no…”, Sabra groaned. “It’s happening…”

“What’s happening?”, Paige asked.

“Call Nicole Roberts!”, Sabra shouted, jumping up and beginning to run. “Tell her that it’s starting to happen!”

The Sun, Cloud, and Rain Agents looked at each other, all highly confused.

---

“Alex…”, Matt said, as he felt droplets of rain hit the top of his head. “I won’t let you trample on the Orso’s pride. I understand it now. Zeke is trying to break us apart, can’t you see that? Zeke wants to break the Orso down, so that there’s nothing left. That’s how he wants to torture Zach. He wants him to come home to an empty base, a base that everyone abandoned. And you’re falling for it.”

“I’m doing the best I can.”, Alex said, resisting raising his gun on Matt. “I’m doing what’s right for the family.”

“HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!?”, Matt roared, taking Alex by surprise. The flames on Muffins’ wings flickered, stronger this time. The sparkles, within the yellow flames, began to fade away.

---

“Shitshitshitshitshit!”, Sabra said, flying up a flight of stairs as fast as her legs would take her. “Not a good time for this, Matt!”

---

“Matt, if you don’t calm down, I’m going to shoot.”, Alex said. “And these things hurt. You don’t want that…”

“Pain is nothing.”, Matt said, not realizing how incredibly crazy he was sounding right now. Power was rushing through him, and everything seemed…different, somehow. “Honor. Honor is everything.”

“Who the hell told you that?!”, Alex asked, stunned by Matt’s personality’s 180.

Muffins, inside Matt’s arms, began to fight to be released. Matt loosened his hold, and the bird turned to face Alex. The flames on his wings were slowly, barely perceptibly…changing.

---

“Maaaaatt!”, Nicole groaned, running up a flight of stairs, having not bothered to explain to Paige, Jess, or Allison what was going on, and simply telling them to try to keep up with her. They were behind her, trying to do just that. Taylor Houston caught up to them, having received the call Paige sent her, in hope of an explanation. Mike Fornaro, looking for something to eat, was standing on the stairs, and got caught by the storm of girls running up.

---

“Just what is going on with that owl?”, Alex wondered. “I’ve never seen that before…”

---

“It’s slipping…”, Sabra thought, panicked. “Why? Why is it slipping? Is he fighting right now? Why!?”

---

Alex raised Infuria Logica, aiming perfectly at Muffins.

“Step back!”, Alex said, a little off ease, watching the animal’s strange behavior. “I’ll shoot!”

Suddenly, the owl shot at Alex, who instinctively pulled the trigger.

Ten bullets of indigo flame shot at the avian missile…

…and a wave of orange flames met them.

-

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