SHADOWs of GHOST: Oneshot Collection (Fortnite)

The Escape

Written from a creative writing class prompt. Set before The Tide Rises.

~•~

Everything was going great until midnight.

Well, perhaps great wasn't the correct term. The circumstances beforehand weren't great at all, really. It was great in the sense that they were alive, at least, and maybe that was all that mattered.

Well, to Jules, anyway. Midas could care less about threats or consequences; he believed he could handle any circumstances, and perhaps for the most part, that was true. If anything moved, he was ready. If anything breathed, he was ready. In the instances that he wasn't ready, however, he could turn his body to gold in the blink of an eye and deflect any possible damage. That was why he decided tonight would be the night he finally broke free of his current circumstances.

The Device had failed, The Agency was gone, and SHADOW had taken over and forced him and his sister to convert to their side. So what? None of that mattered, because after he escaped their clutches, he would return with an army and take back everything he had lost. SHADOW didn't stand a chance. He was the fearless leader of GHOST who picked himself up whenever things went wrong and came back stronger than ever. Nothing was ever a match for his agents.

...his agents.

A grimace crossed his face. His agents were left abandoned at The Shark without their leader. He had no way to get back to or contact them as long as he was imprisoned, but even after his escape... they wouldn't trust him, would they? He had been ordered to shoot at the helicopter they sent when The Device had failed. They wouldn't have known he was forced. He was wearing SHADOW's colors, for heaven's sake. At GHOST, he was surely labeled as a traitor. Him and Jules.

But if he scraped up an army and defeated SHADOW once and for all, they would see differently again.

He had to get out. Their lives depended on him. His life depended on this escape.

All he had to do was wait for a guard checkup. SHADOW had ensured that the door locked from the outside now, so a guard was his only hope.

He waited. And waited. There was no way to check the time, and so it dragged on. And on.

And on.

There were footsteps fast approaching. Finally. There was the click of the lock. The doorknob jiggled and turned. Midas stood against the wall next to the door, and when a henchman walked in, he lunged forth and grappled a hold on him, one arm around his chest and one covering his mouth. The henchman let out a cry of surprise, squirmed and struggled against his grasp... and within seconds, his entire body had turned to solid gold.

Midas took a step back and examined his work. The guard was nothing more now than a cold statue; he was, more or less, dead. Midas had killed many, and only few were by his literal hands. He himself was cold, and he had no time to mourn over an enemy's loss, anyway.

The henchman had dropped a pistol onto the ground in the struggle, which Midas grabbed and turned to gold as well before slipping out into the darkness.

He had anticipated the arrival of more henchmen once he escaped, but he hadn't anticipated that within only seconds of stepping out, he was cornered by at least seven. The Agency's wreckage left the entire property as a wide open space. There was no way to escape the eyes of everyone all together.

Midas focused his energy on himself for a moment. He tried to clear his mind, but his thoughts were racing. He needed to focus, or he would perish right then and there.

The gold on his arms spread up to his shoulders, up to his head, over his entire body, and he was now a statue himself—only, he was one still with humanity.

He fired at every last henchman he saw with the pistol. Their bullets deflected off of him. It wasn't long until he had finished the group, or what remained of them fled the scene. But it wasn't over. They regrouped and tried to push him back into the corner.

So he ran, he ran because there was nothing left he could do and he could feel his energy depleting with each swift step across the grass and the concrete. Turning others to gold was nothing but a chore for him, but turning himself ate up every last ounce of his energy the longer he held the form.

He ran until he reached the stairs that descended in the lower part of The Agency. There was a secret passage somewhere in the vents that would take him to the edge of the moat, where he could swim away and never look back. Where he would go, he didn't know, but as long as it was away from this hell, it didn't matter.

He slammed a door shut behind him, but when he turned, there was someone there.

It was one of the alter egos, Journey's specifically: it was Hazard, with her hood over her head and her green eyes shimmering in the darkness of the basement. She snickered at the sight of him. "Where are you going so fast, goldie?"

Midas gritted his teeth and mustered enough strength in his weary arms to aim the pistol at her. His golden form had started to weaken. He couldn't hold it up much longer. "Away from here," he rasped. He closed his eyes from the strain of his powers, collapsed against the door, and let his body return to normal. But he kept the pistol in bb huhhmbbb the air. "Don't move. I'll kill you. I will."

Hazard clicked her tongue and shook her head in a pitying manner. "Aw, sounds like that threat was hard to get out. Is someone tired? And I thought the leader of GHOST didn't get tired."

"Shut up," he growled. He focused on his breaths, trying to steady them and find some strength within himself to move. Hazard's footsteps approached him, stood in front of him... and she grabbed his wrist. She pulled him up, stood him straight, and looked up into his eyes. Midas's grasp on the gun loosened. It fell to the ground.

Her expression had softened, however, from a mocking smirk to a contemplative, conflicted frown. "Shoot me," she said after a deep breath. "Somewhere you won't kill me, and I swear you better not kill me because I'm your last hope. Get out and go as far as possible. We both know GHOST doesn't stand a chance."

Midas tilted his head. "Are you here to help me or mock me?"

"Why not both?" She laughed. It was a nervous laugh. "Look. shoot me so nobody suspects anything about me. Don't look back. Keep running."

She picked up the pistol from the ground, shoved it into his hands, made sure he had a firm grip on it, and backed away with open arms. "Go ahead."

It was Midas's turn to contemplate—he almost didn't want to shoot. She was helping him. A soldier of A.L.T.E.R, a longtime rival, was helping him. "...why?"

She shrugged. "Because the war sucks. And if you happen to make it back to GHOST... put in a good word about me to Brutus, and only him, will ya?"

Hesitantly, Midas scanned her body with the pistol, picked a spot... and he complied.

He shot, ran, and didn't look back.