Tale of The Shadow - Complete!

Chapter 13

Echo's eyes widened as he lunged forward catching Crosshair who's legs gave out.

“I'm sorry, please forgive me-” Crosshair cut himself off, coughing violently. 

“Oh Cross, what are we going to do with you? When are you going to learn to take care of yourself?” Echo grumbled easily scooping up Crosshair with Doom nodding in approval as he turned and led the way to the house. The two soon entered the living room where three anxious batch members waited. Echo helped ease Crosshair onto the sofa knowing there was a story to tell before the kids appeared. 

Doom actually left which surprised the others but not Crosshair who remained silent, his eyes blinking slightly as he set up what looked like a hologram which would speak for him.

A much younger Crosshair appeared as the hologram, he looked barely the age of ten. He wore a smile on his face while he held tightly to who they all knew as Lula, the teddy which was a comforter to them all. 

“I'm speaking for my future self who may have found themselves in a type of situation he can't get out of as it was predicted by the gods. We want to share a truth to you about why we run instead of staying and the truth is, if we are wronged by those who have intentions to break our happiness. Our heart suffers, I don't mean figuratively, I mean actually. Slowly over time, our organs will shut down and the heart will come to a conclusion that there is nothing to hold onto anymore. This will then accept the invitation from our soul and brain before it shuts down. In the present day, the longer I stayed by the sides of the ones I loved, even if they didn't mean it and had their own demeanour of breaking it, I would have died and none of you including those who passed on would be able to come back. So for the sake of the happiness of you all, the reason he stayed away was to protect you all and if he had kids by this stage, it was more important that he stayed away otherwise his powers could have backfired and he would have lost everyone leaving him trapped and isolated. 

Now I'm not saying what my future self did was right but I know that sometimes there isn't a choice in life to save everyone so it's better to just punish the one who caused it all and in this meaning, I mean myself. 

So I'm here to say if I ever did anything to upset any of you, sorry isn't going to cut it so I will take whatever punishment you need from me. Crosshair where are you?”

The hologram of Crosshairs younger self looked off to the side before he turned back to the message, “Bye for now, good luck for the future” with that said the hologram shut off and the four older members of the batch looked directly at Crosshair who was trying his very best to remain awake. 

“I can't say anything…to make up for it…but…” Crosshair cut himself off violently coughing, he groaned feeling solid pain through his throat before a door opened revealing Omega and a little boy who looked around in curiosity until his eyes landed on his mother. Immediately he ran for Crosshair who shook his head stopping him in his tracks, the little boy turned around with a grin and carefully scouted out the four batch members who watched him. 

“What's your name, little one?” Wrecker questioned, he kneeled down in greeting. 

“Havok!” the little boy excitedly exclaimed, he reached for Wrecker who scooped him up only to listen to him ramble. Havok giggled at the attention as he stole Tech's goggles making the engineer unable to see. Echo immediately took them back, handing them over to the engineer while Havok gave him a loopy smile. 

“Mama?” Omega's words turned attention to the young girl who had wandered over to Crosshair who had slumped against the sofa he was sitting on. His eyes were half open, returning to a yellow colour as he tried to heal his exhausted body.