The Custodes

Chapter 38 - A Worthy Opponent

Nexus

Thirty minutes earlier

The forest was silent. The faint breeze swirling through the brush wasn't strong enough to form any sort of sound, and the single occupant of the golden hued, sun-washed clearing had breath too faint to disturb the peacefulness held within it.

Nexus lay slumped against a tree trunk, the outcome of his fight with Quinn and Daigo laid bare for all to see. His limp, charred, boil-ridden arm hung by his side, still clinging onto his stump through the use of Nexus' powers despite the limb being completely severed. Lucky for him his powers were able to stay active while he was unconscious, otherwise his arm would lay beside him on the grass while gallons and gallons of blood spilled from the wide-open stump.

Nexus' body twitched ever so slightly. Blood had stopped spilling from the wound on his face and most of his other injuries, but they had left long, crusted bronze streaks and splatters in their place; which stained Nexus' already torn, singed or otherwise obliterated clothes.

Quite frankly, there wasn't a human alive who looked to be in a worse state. Yet somehow, he managed to cling to life.

Nexus' eyes slowly peeled open, forcefully severing a solid trail of dried blood that connected two of his eyelids together. The man's vision was horrendously blurred, to the point where he couldn't even make out the ground in front of him, but his lack of sight didn't prevent him from feeling the pain that surged back to him the instant he regained consciousness.

It took all he had not to cry out in agony. It was nothing like the sharp, slicing pain that he'd felt when the injuries had been inflicted - instead it was a dull, slow, scraping pain that seemed to ache intensely with every beat of his heart.

Nexus raised his hand, attempting to rub some of the blurriness out of his eyes, only to recoil in shock as he discovered that only a single finger remained attached to his palm. His hand shook as he stared at it, unblinking and horrified, and his vision slowly began to focus on the four short stubs where the rest of his fingers used to reside; the blood and tissue being held idly inside by an invisible force-field.

For one reason or another, he couldn't seem to remember where on Earth the injuries had come from. He tried to raise his other arm, but found the limb refused to obey him - instead sending a blast of searing hot pain from just below the shoulder for his efforts.

Nexus was almost scared to look, but with a shaky intake of breath he mustered up the courage to peer down at the out-of-commission arm that hung beside him, not knowing what to expect.

And as soon as his gaze locked on the black, broken, crispy skin stretching out from his elbow, all the memories came flooding back.

The ambush, Daigo's double betrayal - first to Quinn, then Nexus himself - the fight, losing his arm to that damn fireball, crippling Daigo and then finally, the stand off with Quinn herself.

Which he lost.

It took him another few seconds to remember the stand off in full detail. He'd been cocky - more so than usual - and thought that once he stole away Quinn's oxygen he'd be safe to just watch the life leave her eyes. And then, in her final moments, he could let the façade slip away. Tell her how sorry he was, how he wished it could've turned out differently. How he hated himself for what he was doing.

And how he loved her.

How he really, truly, deeply loved her with all his heart.

But that's not how it happened. It was one of her spells - of course - but somehow it rendered his choke hold completely ineffective. He had never expected her to be capable of such a thing, though looking back on it now he despised himself for not taking it into account.