Dismantle The Sun

Chapter 8

There was silence. The music died. A stunded, shocked silence that rang out even louder than the archaic blast of the amended pistol, constructed to fire bullets of lead rather than the more conventional lasers. Arthur, master of the quick reaction had pulled Merlin to the ground, thoughtlessly shielding him from harm against the silky smoothness of the polished pinewood dancefloor of the ballroom.

And then next there was chaos. A scream cut through the night like the violent smashing of glass.

Guests where screaming and running everywhere, tohrowing ove tables and crushing out of doors, occasionally crouching behind large potted plants, parts of costumes lay abandoned in the fururore. Feathers flew furiously threw the air, of all colours, but all Arthur could hear was Merlin's ragged breaths where he held him.

"Arthur" the lither man muttered, catching Arthur's attention as if it were a careless fish ensnared on a hook. The blonde man staired at him, as if he had never seen the other man before, an unbridled joy hidden deep in his concer eyes, a light that permeated its way around the darkness of fear and subtlet illuminated the captain's face with its unadulterated brilliance.

"Captain!" Leon shouted rom acros the room over the hubbubb of th crowd.

Arthur scrambled to his feet pulling Merlinalong with him drawing his small pistol fromwhere it was secreted at his waist. He quickly cast his eyes out around the room looking for the salient and caught a glimpse out of his eye of a man to his right. He spun around and raisied his gun - it was the waitier, or one of the waiters, approaching with the calmed train of an assassin.

"You!?" ARthur snarled brutally as concrete in the snow.

There was a dark laugh from the other side of the room. Not a peel of joy, but a hallowed cackle of abrupt darkness that infest the air with ring black malice.

"No, Arthur Rothwell, it 'twas I fired the shot!" hissed a voice made of smokeless evil, as osidian as the darkness. An audible gasp fly around the room, careening drunkenly like a dragonfly of surprise.

"Ben..." the blonde captain whisieprs, his eyes caught firmly on another man, identical to the first.

"Yes!" Ben revealed.

"I... I don't understand" Arthur replied, watching the first Ben out of the corner of his eye.

"I imagine that's a familiar feeling for you, Rothwell" spat one of the identical waiters. A minimal glance across the room Arthur saw the members of his crew cornered by advancing duplicates all with weapons drawn and tense stances - there were too many of them.

"Told you they were clones." he muttered under his breath to Merlin who rolled his eyes with flair.

"They're not clones. They're all jjst me." The Ben in front of his said with an insouicant shrug. In a flash Arthur had raised his weapon and shot the man clean between the eyes. Rather than falling to the group he faded cracking out of vision like a hologram. Another Ben laughed

"I told you clones was a silly idea" muttered Merlin under his breath. Arthur sparred him a dark glance, but even that sang a liberato of affection.

"How did you even become a captain? The only way you'd get anywhere is nepotism. Oh, but you don't have a father. So you'll just die, as nothing, here, killed: by me" Ben hissed, the temparature in the room felt like it dropped as he spoke and the darkness returned in swirls of jet mist.

There was a moment as still as the tideless oceans of the moonless planet môrpelagig, that sat shrouded in the eternal darkness of the still night, befriended only by the distant stars who kept guard of the secrets of her depths. And then, as if a tidal wave had scurried across the calm oceanic plains and beat itself against the hapless shore, there was a litany of chaos.