Elite Force Alternate Ending

9

Noah stared at himself in the mirror, gently running his fingers over all the fresh, raw scars that now covered his face and neck. They felt out of place, and too obvious, and bumpy. The ones on his chest, however, were beautiful. They were smooth, and purposeful, and absolutely perfect. A small smile was brought to Noah’s face as he ran his fingers over his now flat chest, letting out a sigh of relief and joy. He smiled happily and rubbed his whole hands over it a couple times, nodding excitedly. He reached over to the shirt that Chase had lent him, which was a tighter fit. He pulled it on over his head carefully, slowly looking at himself in the mirror and letting out a shaky breath. He teared up, wiping his eyes to see himself better. Look at you, mister. You’re amazing. He nodded and took a deep breath before looking away and walking out of the room. He walked into the central hub of the basement slowly, being more careful as he still wasn’t fully recovered yet. He was so excited to show Chase his new body, and how he looked in his shirt. He walked over towards Chase’s room and took one more deep breath before knocking. “Hey, Chase?” He slowly opened the door and looked in, frowning a little when he saw it was empty. He backed out and looked around the hub again, which was empty at the moment. “Chase?” He started to look around, wandering to look into other rooms before heading to Kaz and Oliver’s shared room. “Have you guys seen Chase?” Kaz and Oliver looked up at him and shrugged.
“If he’s not in his room, then I guess he’s upstairs?” Oliver said. “But he knows he shouldn’t be.” 
“Be careful if you go,” Kaz chimed in. “It’s dangerous.” 
“I will be,” Noah replied, walking over to the hyper lift and getting inside. Once he made it upstairs, he stepped outside cautiously and slowly with his fists at the ready. “Chase? Are you up here?” When there was no response, he slowly walked out into the room, staying alert. Suddenly, there was a powerful explosion in the near distance, enough to shake the foundation of the tower and make Noah fall over. Once he got to his feet, every sound was distant, but widespread. Car alarms, fire alarms, every one was going off. Noah exhaled heavily and looked out the window, walking out slowly to the balcony and looking out across it. There was a large amount of smoke curling up from the old subway station, where the shapeshifters had made their base. Noah’s eyes widened. Chase. He launched himself into the air, blasting himself through the sky and ending up in front of the ruins in seconds. The subway station was destroyed down to its foundation, rubble everywhere and shrapnel jammed into the buildings and people who were unlucky enough to be around it. Noah ran into the wreckage, trying to look for a sign of life. He started to breathe heavily, his chest aching as he used his powers to blast through piles of brick. He found the bodies of Roman and Riker, next to each other, their faces burnt almost beyond recognition, with the contorted body of Reese nearby. He blasted through the brick to get to the center of the explosion, ignoring the crowd of people starting to gather around him as he dug through the rubble. He became more frantic as the absence of a body was becoming evident, giving up after a while and looking around. He looked at the explosion patterns in an attempt to see what had happened. He started walking towards the source of the explosion, digging through the destroyed bricks as he went. Eventually he hit a wall, and started digging straight down from it. He started digging more quickly when he found a body, trying to uncover it and identify it. He recognized Chase once his face was found, pulling him out and looking him over in concern. “Chase? Chase, wake up.” Chase’s body was bloodied and covered in dust from the collapse, and he was unconscious. His hands were charred to the point of blackening, and his arms were burnt. “Oh, god. What did you do?” He lifted Chase up as he stood, trying to be as careful as possible. He took off on the spot, leaving behind a crowd of stunned onlookers as he flew back to the tower and landed on the main floor. He ran into the hyper lift and waited impatiently as it traveled to the cellar, as fast as it was. Kaz and Oliver walked in, taking a second to process before running to grab medical supplies. Noah walked after them, setting Chase down on a gurney before backing up, tears springing to his eyes. 
“What happened?” Oliver asked, helping Kaz start to stabilize Chase. 
“I...I think he blew up the shapeshifters,” Noah stammered, struggling to maintain composure. “Everything was just...destroyed. All of the shifters were dead.” 
“Oh my god,” Kaz mumbled, shaking his head as he tried to process while working. “What was he thinking?”
“He told me a while ago that he had to do something to stop them,” Noah replied. “He knew what he was getting into, and he knew he wanted to die.” 
“He’s wanted to die for a while,” Oliver sighed, starting to work on Chase’s hands. “We just never thought he was serious before.” Noah stared at them in disbelief. 
“You never took him seriously?” 
“Well, no,” Kaz replied. “But if you knew Chase, you’d know that it’s really hard to take anything he says seriously. Ninety percent of what he says is just...worthless.” Noah shook his head, frowning. 
“I can’t believe you,” he said. “You’re fucking doctors.” 
“Look, we can go over this later,” Oliver said firmly. “Right now, we need to save Chase’s life.” Noah scoffed and shook his head, walking out of the room to go fume. He ran into Bree on the way out, who was hurrying to try and go see Chase. 
“Did you know Chase was suicidal?” Noah asked.
“I can’t do this right now,” Bree said, teary-eyed.
“No, stop,” Noah said, grabbing her shoulder. “Answer me.”
“Yeah, of course,” Bree replied. “He talks about it every time he gets upset, but he’s never serious. It’s just heat of the moment type stuff. He gets really anxious and just blows his top.” 
“Unbelievable,” Noah scoffed, shaking his head. “You’re his sister. Don’t you care if he dies?” 
“Of course I do,” Bree snapped. “How dare you.” 
“If you cared, you would’ve tried to help. He just tried to kill himself. He still might die.” 
“Yeah, and I’m trying to help,” Bree replied. “Will you just let me go in?” 
“Fine, whatever,” Noah sighed, shaking his head and letting her pass before walking into the central hub, sitting down at Chase’s workbench and letting out an exasperated sigh. He looked through Chase’s things, most of which were typical. There were pieces of scrap metal, a soldering iron, some wire cutters, some wires, and some assorted computer chips and motherboards. Then, hidden amongst the clutter, there was a flash drive. It was small, unassuming, and grey, just like most of the scrap on the table. Noah gently picked it up, looking it over to notice the engraving on the side, which was too small to read with the naked eye. He pulled Chase’s laptop out from the drawer on the side of the worktable, opening it up and sighing a little. Could he get in? He knew Chase was a master programmer and had security in every aspect of his life because of his anxiety. His computer was locked with either a password of at least twenty characters or a security question. He exhaled and opened the security question, which was simply “What makes Chase happiest?” with a box below to input the answer. Underneath the box, it read “Answer 1 of 1.” Noah let out a long breath and rubbed his face, trying to think of the best answer. Really, the only person who would know would be Chase. How could he answer? What would Chase put as the answer? When did he last update this? Noah became so upset that he started to cry, quickly becoming unhinged as he struggled to find things that would make Chase happy in the world. And he only had one chance to guess? What on earth could it be? “I’m sorry,” he mumbled into his hands. “I can’t do anything for you.” Then he took a deep breath, exhaling heavily as he came to a realization. He sat back and stared at the computer screen before hesitantly typing the word “respect” into the bar and hitting enter.