The Five Evolution

『"The Chain keeps us together..."』

Gregory was seventeen now. He’d grown into his shoulders, as well as into a sense that the world owed him something for every slight he’d ever endured.

It was obvious to anyone by the way he spent ten minutes of his time screaming at his friends to move the cones while he smoked through a stick of cigarette.

Then spent another twenty minutes trying to dislodge one from under his truck when he grew impatient and drove over them.

Because of this, he was late picking up his girlfriend, Tina, and Tina was not his girlfriend for much longer. She dumped him that night for being "unreliable and scary when angry."

"That’s right Tina!" Sophia clapped her hands as though Tina could actually hear or see her. "You deserve so much better than that bullying, truck-driving piece of shit."

The rest all looked at her.

Amara held back a laugh as she smiled at Sophia. "I guess someone else is invested."

"Yeah, well, the only thing that would have made this better is if we were eating something." Sophia sighed. "Mama’s mouth needs something to munch while we watch."

In front of them the story continued.

Gregory drove back home furious, drunk, and high. He took a corner too fast and sideswiped a parked car. Immediately, the owner stepped out before he could make a run for it.

"Hermano, I’m going to need you to give me your details." The man gently pulled Gregory out of his truck.

Gregory flicked away the cigarette in his mouth. "I don’t have any details. I’m seventeen, asshole!" He swayed as he spoke.

The man tapped him on the shoulder and smiled. "No problem. I will just take your truck as a collateral." He hooked a towing chain to the under of Gregory’s truck and told him to get in.

"Wh—" He looked confused. "I’m not giving you my truck!" Gregory pointed at him. "You take our jobs, now you want our vehicles too..."

The man looked at the finger pointed at him and smiled.

Then without warning, he reached out and snapped it in half.

"Get in the truck." He let go of the broken finger. "We’ll drive to my auto shop, and I’ll collect your details there. I’m Ernesto by the way."

"Fuuuck!!!" Gregory held onto his finger. He was immediately sobered up. "I’ll call the fucking cops! You can’t do this to me!"

"That looked like it hurt," Raj observed.

"You don’t say..." Hiro responded.

Ernesto didn’t speak for a while. Suddenly, he banged his own head into the hood of his car, causing his nose to bleed.

"That’s drunk driving, property damage, and now assault." He wiped the blood from his nose. "Please call the cops," he said with a smile.

Gregory took a step back, unable to say a word.

"No?" Ernesto said. "Now get in the truck."

Gregory quickly got in the truck and they took off.

Flip.

***

"August, six months later."

Gregory got the old gang back together for a job. Gregory, Josh, and Darryl, back together again.

"So I’ve been scoping out that crazy bastard’s autoshop," he explained to Josh and Darryl as he took a drag of his cigarette. "He closes shop everyday around 7pm. We’ll be in and out."

"I’ll get my truck while you guys boost these," he dropped some photos of expensive cars parked in the autoshop on the table. "Nobody takes from me." He paused. "So what do you say?"

"Great..." Sophia rolled her eyes. "The three dumbsketeers are back."

Ethan folded his arms. "What are the odds."

Amara looked at him. "Could all just be a happy coincidence."

Below them, the scene played out.

"I swear, ever since I got that stupid detention three years ago, my life’s been nothing but downhill. I-I can’t even explain it..." Josh stood up. "So, yeah, I’m in."

"Or not..." Amara said quietly.

Darryl stood up as well. "I’m in too." Then he looked at Josh. "But dude, we’re seventeen. I think you’re being a bit overdramatic."

"I knew I could count on your guys." Gregory pulled out a gun from a plastic bag he kept under the chair. "I got this from my dad’s safe."

Darryl immediately flinched the moment he saw the gun. "What the hell man." His jaw clenched. "Why are you with a gun?"

"Just for our safety, bro." He returned the gun back in the plastic bag. "I promise, I won’t use it unless I have to," he assured Darryl.

Flip.

***

"November. Six months after the robbery planning."

Amara was suddenly floating above a high-speed chase below, with three people in a truck and one of them bleeding from his torso. Behind them, another car was in pursuit.

"Shit, fuck, shit!" Darryl held onto Josh’s bleeding side. "That’s a lot of blood, man!" He looked at Gregory who was driving. "You just had to go through his cash register also?!"

"How was I supposed to know it would trigger an alarm?!" Gregory swerved to the right. They were now approaching his street, and the car in pursuit stopped following.

Gregory glanced into the rearview mirror. "I think we lost them."

"Greg!" Darryl pointed ahead at the sinkhole that formed due to the leaking cracked pipe under the fire hydrant. "LOOK OUT!"

Gregory quickly spun the steering wheel in a bid to avoid it, driving over a warning cone and rammed into a building that formed an alleyway close by.

The truck crashed into a gas meter inside the building, and something tore loose from the impact.

A steel support had punched through the cabin and pinned Darryl against the seat.

The world went still.

Gregory’s ears rang. He looked over his shoulder. "Darryl?"

Darryl’s mouth opened. "Gr..." Blood spilled over his lips. "...Greg..." His head slumped sideways.

Gregory stared. "...No... no..." He grabbed his shoulder. "Darryl!" His breathing became ragged, then he looked toward Josh.

Josh had stopped moving. His eyes were open, but they weren’t seeing anything anymore.

Gregory stumbled out of the truck and staggered into the street. Behind him, gas hissed steadily from the shattered meter inside the building.

"Well, that went to shit fast," Raj said.

"What do you expect from a bunch of Ocean’s Zeros?" Sophia muttered.

Hiro ran his fingers through his hair. "I knew this was some final destination shit..." he said quietly.

Amara and Ethan just kept watching in silence.

Gregory looked around and spotted a teenage girl with her phone, recording everything. Her hair was black, broken only by streaks of silver, and a pair of headphones rested around her neck.

He rushed over to her, still dazed. "Hey! You!" he called out.

The girl immediately ran straight through the alley.

"Get back here!" Gregory sprinted after her.

He caught up to her and grabbed her by her wrist. "Phone. Now."

She tried to pull away, but Gregory shoved her back and her headphones fell.

"Let... me... go!" She struggled.

Suddenly, a single bar manifested across her forearm, glowing orange before cooling into black.

Gregory’s eyes darted to the Sigil and his jaw tightened. "You’re one of those Awakener freaks." He held her by her throat. "Even better. I’ll be doing the world a favor."

"Are you powerful, Gregory?"

The voice came from behind them, calm as ever.

Gregory turned, the girl’s wrist still in his tight grip, and his other hand still wrapped around her neck.

He saw the white-haired boy—no, a young man now—walking toward them with his hands in his pockets.

"What?" Gregory’s voice cracked on the word, just as it had four years ago.

In that moment of distraction, she kneed him in the groin and ran over to Kai, breathing hard.

"You..." Gregory said. "I don’t know how, but you did this. You did all of this!" He drew a handgun from the back of his waistband. "Two for the price of one."

He cocked the pistol. "You’re probably one of them Awakener freaks too."

Still staring at Kai, he fished a crumpled cigarette from his pocket, slipped it between his lips, and lit it with trembling fingers.

"I guess one punch wasn’t enough for you, was it?" He took a long drag. "It’s been a long time coming."

He started walking slowly toward them. Meanwhile, gas continued spilling from the damaged meter inside the building that formed one side of the alley.

Kai’s expression, just as before, was blank.

"Nothing to say?!" He pointed the gun at them with one hand, then with the other, he flicked the cigarette toward the broken window of the leaking building next to him.

The cigarette struck the ground within the building, and for the briefest instant, nothing happened.

Then the gas ignited, and in an instant, the building exploded. Flames and debris swallowed up the alley, Gregory caught in the center of the blast.

When the dust cleared, two giant hands were seen cupped around Kai and the girl, who was seated on the ground now, in shock.

Kai turned to her. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head.

He looked at her, at the bar on her arm, and the hands around them, which wasn’t of his doing. "What is your name?"

"Rachel," she answered.

"Rachel." He repeated it like he was confirming something he already knew. "I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to answer honestly."

She waited.

"Tell me... do you believe the world is as it ought to be?"

She took a look at the street, at the gathering crowd and sirens lights shining from a distance, then back at him. "No."

"Neither do I," he said. "I never have." He held out his hand. "Come, Rachel. We have work to do."

She took his hand and the hands around them faded away.

***

For several long seconds, no one spoke.

The flames continued consuming the alley below as sirens echoed from somewhere in the distance.

Smoke climbed into the evening sky, carrying with it the end of a chain that had begun four years earlier with nothing more than a pebble placed into a frightened boy’s hand.

Raj was the first to find his voice. "...No way."

Hiro stared at the burning street. "A friggin’ pebble..."

Amara looked back toward the smoke rising from the shattered buildings. "I don’t know what to say..." She swallowed. "This is the leader of the Apostles?" she whispered mostly to herself.

The Book’s pages began to flip. "We’ve got one more scene to catch." Its voice dropped. "The Climax..."

The world turned white. And with one final unpleasant sensation of being warped, they were no longer standing in an alley.

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