Lightspeed: Drug Detectives

Chapter 43 (Act IV): Laid To Rest At Last

Well, hello there, everyone! Welcome back to another chapter of my second novel, "Lightspeed: Drug Detectives"! My name is Ariel Axilas, and I've been your beloved protagonist for the entire duration of this adventure thus far! Well.....barring one or two chapters, but we won't talk about those! Last time, my badass posse and I—consisting of myself, my best friend Erica Shields, my on-and-off boss Marle Atkins, and the Paragon Herman—celebrated our ultimate victory over the Celestial Syndicate by having a triumphant victory dinner on the rooftop Blu Pool Bar. And I just have to say.....their cocktails are absolutely heavenly.

I thought it was going to be all sunshine, smiles, rainbows, and positivity going into it.....but in reality, it was quite the rollercoaster. Among other things, we briefly reflected on the deaths of core Paragons Dr. Duncan Drevis and The Crawler again, while Marle informs us that the head of the Celestial Syndicate—Angelo Acosta—ended up killing himself with a cyanide pill while enroute to the Crime Lab for processing and incarceration. I was taken aback at first at how Marle seemed to feel bad for Angelo's death, but she quickly revealed that she wanted to bring him to the Mastermind Conspiracy even though he's not a cop.....because she wanted to torture and kill him that badly in retaliation for everything he's done to hurt the people of the Dominican Republic.....including his own daughter, who fled the country as a whole to go to America, briefly formed a partnership with the Paragon James Markovsky a.k.a. Powerhouse, and got killed by America's law enforcement.

I can't deny it.....maybe Angelo really did deserve that kind of fate and he instead decided to take the easy way out. But with his passing—as Herman notes—the country is likely to be just a little bit safer. Not only that, but we've officially avenged the Syndicate's runaway heiress Isabela Acosta entirely, following James's adventure with her. She can rest well now, knowing that her family's dark and drug-addled legacy has been destroyed for good.

It soon turned back to positive, though, as Herman called for a toast commemorating our victory. Erica dropped her cocktail glass, so I let her hold mine 'cause we're best buddies like that. The chapter basically ended with that toast, as well as a brief recap from me on who we are and the message that this mission was supposed to send. But before we all go back to America and resume our normal lives, there's one last thing we need to do.

This time, before leaving the Dominican Republic for good, we finally take some time to pay our respects to an aspiring superhero who only wished to help the world.

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-Playa Punta Torrecillas, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic-

It's decently late into the night at this point, so any regular patrons who are likely supposed to be inhabiting this beach are probably now back at their houses, resting up and shit like that. Tomorrow's the start of another work week, anyway, so I wouldn't really blame them.

I, the superheroine Lightspeed, am standing multiple feet away from the shore, watching the Paragon Herman and the Mastermind Conspiracy head Marle Atkins gently place Isabela Acosta's body back-first on a floating pyre and ensuring that she's in just the right position despite how poor of a condition her body is now in. We've done the best we can; both of her eyes are closed—she just looks like she's sleeping peacefully—and what remains of her arms are neatly folded over the area between her chest and her stomach. Herman's also in the process of firmly wrapping Isabela's body in a big cloth to protect it from any unforeseen environmental complications.

Marle has a spare bow and exactly one arrow with her, though they're both sitting idly at her right side at the moment, soaking in all the sand in the immediate area. She informed us—while we were enroute to the beach—that she found the equipment in Isabela's old room shortly after the Mastermind Conspiracy's attack on the Celestial Compound started; it kind of puts me at ease—because now we know that not everything associated with Isabela is gone—but it still pains me to know that she'll no longer be around to use it.