Blood Obsidian

Issue 47

Hope falls silently in the dark ... - Part 5

Fast-floating with the addition of Alden's weight, and that of the flying platform, was more than Caitlyn had ever attempted to carry. The fall slowed, but not enough to stop them both crashing to the floor. Luckily, she managed to angle them all so that the flying platform took the brunt of the damage, but it still knocked the air from her lungs. What it had done to Alden remained to be seen as Caitlyn tried to regain her feet.

A fist struck her, and she heard Alden squeal in pain. She had broken his arms with her first strike, but, even so, she had felt attacks from Fiend before and this felt feeble in comparison, even with his damaged arms. Still more powerful than a non-super could hit, but nothing compared to Fiend's normal strength. In fact, Alden struggled against her, not to fight, but to get away from her, crawling backward on the ground, away from the damaged flying platform.

"No. No! Get away! You're a monster!" Alden's face looked odd, even with the infrared vision. Lopsided and twisted. "You're all monsters! Monsters everywhere. Everywhere!"

Caitlyn changed back to the green-tinted night vision and could now see Alden far better than before. The face twisted, not because of the fall, or from any damage she had caused, but because the mask that he wore had slipped, revealing part of his normal, real face. Patting aside his injured arms as they struggled against her, she ripped the mask from his face. Nothing was as she had expected.

She wrapped his arms tight to his body, using the suit, extending it around him, and lifted him with ease. Something was wrong here and, even as she carried him out of the dome, back through the tunnel and out into the night, Alden continued a stream of babbling nonsense. He sounded more insane than ever except, now, he struggled less against the binding from her suit.

Outside, she ripped down part of the chainlink fence that surrounded the facility and wrapped that around him before taking a closer look at her captive. His eyes were almost as wide as the mask he had worn, pupils pinholes in the white. Sweat poured from him, coating his face, and he shivered constantly, even though the night was relatively warm. He was nothing like the man she had met in the hospital, or at Ald-Tech headquarters, reduced to a gibbering, sweat-soaked fool.

The mask. She held it in her hands, ignoring the noises coming from Alden as she examined it. She felt certain that, before, when Fiend had attacked Alaina and then when they had fought in the warehouse, Caitlyn could swear that what she had seen was no mask. Like Professor Halstrom, the synthesised Black Element had transformed Fiend.

The grey face, with grinning, bright fangs, bulging yellow eyes, pointed ears and elongated head were all the actual, transformed Fiend. The skin, grey and scaled. Long, claw-like fingers were real fingers, not gloves as Alden appeared to wear now. In fact, Alden didn't even look as muscular. Other than he had, somehow, learned to control the transformations, remaining in human form, Caitlyn couldn't think of an explanation for the differences. Unless ...

Unless Alden wasn't Fiend. Unless this was all some elaborate ruse to frame Alden and make the world believe that the billionaire CEO of Ald-Tech had gone mad, kidnapping people, planning to kill his own board members. Of course, it would explain why everything had felt wrong for some time during the investigation. Why it had all felt a little too easy. Alden, no matter his frame of mind, would never have left so many clues pointing toward him. He was far too intelligent for that.

Which meant that Fiend, the real Fiend, was still out there. That Aunt Mary and Rayna were still not safe. That Fiend still held Alaina somewhere. At that thought, she remembered what she had told Aunt Mary and Rayna. Telling them to run back to the city without protection was the dumbest thing Caitlyn could have done. No doubt the real Fiend had watched this entire play and now knew that Caitlyn had deduced Alden wasn't the villain Fiend had made him look.