201. Love Fall
In a more secluded corner of the hangar, Friederich led Lupus aside for a private conversation. There was so much he needed to tell her, yet so little time.
“Make it quick, Friederich,” Lupus said, crossing her arms defensively.
“I’m glad you are alive and well,” Friederich began, steeling himself.
“Quit the formalities. Tell me where Rhok Wagner is,” Lupus cut him off.
He startled at her tone and thought, "This isn't the Lupus I met in Hasenwald…"
His boots clapping on the steel floor, Friederich stepped closer to one of the functional viewports. His finger pointed towards the dark leviathan in the distance, the Santose V battlecruiser, its lights flashing in the void.
“He’s there,” Lupus stated, then stomped off towards an Armatus mobile suit.
“Wait!” Friederich shouted, his body blocking her path.
Lupus’s brow knitted. “What?”
Frustration laced his expression, and he drew his lips into a thin line. He didn’t know where to begin. His mind scrambled for a way to tell her the truth, yet he found the words wouldn't flow.
“Lupus… about Jack…” he initiated, his tone hesitant.
Her long, rabbit-like ears twitched at the name. “Why?” She asked, confronting him properly.
“He’s not dead.”
“What are you babbling about? I saw his corpse, Prime Guardian,” Lupus argued outright, annoyed.
“He’s not just Jack Squire. He never was. ‘Jack Squire is a mere shell.’” The moment the words left his mouth, Friederich realised he had worded that horribly wrong. Her eyes twitched, teeth bared. Lupus’s fury was palpable.
In a flash, she snatched him by the collar and lifted him into the air. Friederich grunted, grabbing at her hands. “Wait, wait, wait! His real name is Zetius! He’s alive!”
“Liar! Listen to yourself!” Lupus retorted, hissing through her teeth. “You think I'm not an arcanist, Guardian? There is no such thing as a resurrection spell!”
They locked eyes. Clearly, she was not going to listen to what he had to say.
A shudder went through Friederich as he thought, "Such a vengeful look in her eyes. What happened to her?" He extended his hand, his index finger pointing out the window again.
“He’s out there, Lupus. The Umbral have been defeated. He won us the war,” he insisted.
“No! No! No! It’s all a lie… My… my husband…” Lupus mumbled, trying to piece things together. Her hands dropped, and Friederich landed on the ground, gasping for air and running his hands over his throat.
“Believe me, Lupus. Why would I lie to you?” Friederich said between coughs. “Soon, you’ll see for yourself!” He raised his voice, but he wasn't sure if she was listening.
“What about Rhok Wagner? Is he still alive?!” Lupus screamed, her voice raw with emotion.
“I don’t know… I think he is…” Friederich muttered.
Lupus hurried away almost immediately, climbing into one of the Armatus. After a few moments, she took off at full throttle. He could only watch.
"Gaia... such a dark aura..." Friederich remarked internally. This wasn't how he had imagined it at all. His hunch was correct; this wasn't the Lupus he knew. Moreover, he was deeply concerned about his friend.
Zetius.
Just as Friederich was about to turn on his arc comm, a massive explosion erupted nearby, sending him tumbling to the floor.
“Hey, you two! No more chatting, this ship is imploding! We have to move!” Jovian poked his head in from the doorway, shouting. But after seeing only Friederich, the colour drained from his face. “What’s going on here?” he mumbled.
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***
Meanwhile, onboard the Santose V…
Lupus was pinned down by the weight of Zetius, whose red eyes regarded her with profound dismay. She studied his face, despite the blood and dirt. He looked much younger, more vigorous than her husband, Jack Squire.
He was that boy from the digital ink. She remembered it now. The image had been his true self all along. Her husband was not only gone, he was a fake; he was never real to begin with.
Questions arose in her mind.
"What if he were nothing more than an illusion?"
That thought shook her to the core. It ate her alive.
“Is Jack still in there? Even an echo of him?” Lupus kept asking herself. His gentleness, the way he smiled, and his trademark husky voice were all gone. It was like she couldn't feel him in there. Lupus kept searching and searching, but the answers she was hoping to find eluded her.
“W~why did you have to kill him, Lupus?” Zetius shouted, his trembling fist dropping to his side.
“Ugh!” Lupus groaned and quickly shoved him away. She sprang to her feet, her boot stained with the flesh and blood of her enemy.
But for whom? she wondered. Was it for herself or for her fake husband?
Remorseful, she spared a lingering glance at what she had done. The warm, headless corpse of Rhok Wagner lay just a metre away.
She had unleashed this carnage out of vengeance alone. She had succeeded in her mission. Yet, it brought her no sense of accomplishment. Instead, it left an even deeper void in her heart.
“Lupus!”
The soft murmur rang out, snapping Lupus back to reality. She saw the lioness emerging from the darkness and approaching.
“My baby…” Lupus mumbled in surprise, her voice trembling as tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, my baby...."
A single tear streaked down Lupus’s cheek as she rushed in and pulled the child into her arms. She embraced Frain tightly, her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm sorry, Frain... for leaving you." She regretted not coming to Frain sooner, but there had been no other option. "But you understand, right? You made your way home, and the Hoffmanns have been treating you like a real family? Lumie and Lumus..."
"Yes, they have. They are kind to me," Frain interjected, wrapping her arms tightly around Lupus in return.
"Thank goodness," Lupus murmured in relief.
They parted only briefly. Lupus inspected Frain’s body thoroughly. Her expression grew more worried when she spotted red bruises and scrapes on Frain's skin.
"You should have stayed there. Why are you here? Look at all these wounds," Lupus said before beginning the Iasis healing spell. The soothing hum of the spell was accompanied by a flash of light.
“Thank you, Lupus…” Frain nodded, seeing the forced smile on Lupus's lips.
“Come with me. Come to our home,” Lupus proposed gently, her maternal instinct taking over as she took Frain by the wrist.
“But… Zetius…” Frain hesitated, sparing a glance at the quiet man. Zetius just sat there, shellshocked, his gaze fixed on the dripping pool of blood, his long bangs covering his eyes.
Failure and forlorn.
“Just leave with me,” Lupus urged, her voice hardening as she tugged with more force.
“I can’t leave him… Zetius is our Jack, Lupus,” Frain argued.
“No… Silly, that is just a boy. Our Jack was much older, remember?” Lupus winced at the words that had just escaped her lips. She regretted it immediately; her mind wasn’t right.
Frain stole a glance at Zetius one more time and bit her lip. She couldn’t leave him after all this time, after all the things Zetius had done for her. But Lupus also needed her. All the thinking gave her a throbbing headache.
“Can’t you see that he’s much younger than you?” Lupus persuaded, wrapping an arm around Frain’s shoulder.
“But…” Frain resisted, digging her feet into the ground. Lupus’s lips parted in surprise.
“Go…” The soft, bitter voice reverberated from Zetius. He tilted his head toward the light, a fake smile painted on his face. “Protect her, Frain.”
“Stay safe, Zetius,” Frain said bitterly.
“I will… I will,” he returned somberly, his voice almost trembling.
With that, they climbed into the cockpit of an Armatus mobile suit. As the hatch door swung closed, Frain’s gaze lingered on him. The thrusters flared blue, and the steel giant flew away.
Lost in wishful thinking, Zetius struggled to reason with himself. Wars raged in his head, worse than the one he had just won.
"I did what I think is right. Lupus needs Frain more than I do. Lupus is just lost. Frain will guide her back, won’t she?” he mumbled in the cold chamber. “This… this was just a mistake. We can fix it, right?”
The whirling questions bombarded his mind like mental missiles as he pondered aloud. He didn't realise it, but once the numbness subsided, he'd find himself in pieces.
At the centre of the lonely chamber, Zetius sat in the pool of blood, his mind drowning in a treacherous sea. The deafening silence echoed in his head like a morbid tune on a loop, a numbness spreading across his soul. The high waves drifted him further and further from the shore. Despite his brain racing for a resolution, he couldn't reach it, no matter how hard he tried.
“I tried. Gaia, I tried to make things right,” he lamented. But it had all ultimately failed. His world was crumbling before his very eyes.
His final words, the ones he wished he had said earlier, he uttered while sparing one last glance at Rhok's body.
“I’m sorry…”
But a corpse cared not for the words left behind.