Nihilist

"We're not done yet," I call to the bodies gazing over my shoulder, watching me close the tabs that slaughtered every file digitally stored in the heart of Delta. The decades they spent to steal the lives of the innocent for their own reign has eradicated before their own eyes. A bright, blue flame fades to a dark oblivion with the souls of their slaves as their digital network rests in the grave I kicked them in. What remains of the Legion, the minds who built the virus, watch me rise with new life as I finish what the world wished to start. "We've erased everything they had. All the research, all the tests, all the work they went through when the crown was held."

"They've been doing this work for decades. How do you know they won't keep going anyway?" A muffled male voice responds, his eyes carefully moving behind a mask of metal. I reach my soft fingers over the silver metal of my own mask, a hint of red marking the cheeks of a kitsune head, and slide it into a small backpack over the glass of a tablet.

"As I said, we aren't finished," I watch a leaf spiral through a sunbeam beyond a broken window, "We move on to the second phase of our plan. Delta has been turning inked tides ever since the riots had even started. They've been ruthlessly searching for innocence to steal, and now that their sovereign has been caught, they're working even harder to keep their work going."

A man spinning a blade in his hand comments. "They were, until you found this place." I turn to him, my face worn from reflecting heavy emotions.

"It wasn't this place, Red," I answer back to him, "It was what we found inside."

Everyone watches me pull out the same picture they've seen before. A laminated image of a young girl smiling her heart out to the ceiling when I first discovered her. I found a dozen more around it, waving next to broken glass and stained carpet.

"Before this, you all were scavenging the streets and hiding under the surface. Why?" I ask the group.

"We were leading the riots. Caging an animal as merciless as Autumn isn't enough for us. That woman has hunted thousands, it's only fair she meets the same fate. Our words of rebellion went silent until you came to bring them to life," the woman across from me answers. I let a soft smile reshape my firm look, but brush it off with the topic at hand.

"Delta is the last thing that stands as hers. Once that tower falls, that is when her life is over. We can't stop her breaths, but we can end what she's still breathing for. We found these pictures over those markings downstairs. A few weeks before, we watched another news report about a missing child that looks just like her. Her older brother went missing, too. Do you know where he was?" I ask, my arms outreached. The thin air pinches every mouth in the room, and it takes a moment of silence for a whisper to break free.

"Working for Delta," the woman answers.

"As a little more than a janitor, too," I run over to the window, pushing the boy out of the way to point at the corpses below, "Those foxes were fresh when I first discovered this place. He brought her to Delta so they could do the same to her as they did to them!"

"They're trying to resurrect her work," another boy who has yet to speak finally steps in, "Now that she's gone, her fight to keep the crown lies in Delta."

"They're doing that how they know best, too. They want the stars under their feet. They're working as thieves to the divine, using innocence as a sacrifice for control beyond orbit. It took a lifetime to end the war that Autumn birthed. If Delta resurrects her efforts to be more than human, who knows if we'll live to see the end," I explain.

"We don't need another celestial experiment gone wrong," Red nods.

"Then we need to get to this one," I tap the picture with my fingers, "We need to get to her before she turns into one."

"What's our plan?" the woman crosses her arms.

I look to the boy I pushed standing next to me, his eyes drifting over everyone.

"If the Crow sings a hymn, he should have gotten me into the list of a little party Delta will be carrying on later tonight. They'll be celebrating their new find, ignoring the animals outside their doors, and holding a masquerade ball to hype themselves for glory. I'll have my disguise ready," I answer back.

The woman furrows her brow. "You're going alone?"

"I'm not alone when I know you'll be watching me. You've always been here for me, all of you, and you're the family I had always wished for," I tell them.

"We've been in this fight for as long as the earth has spun, and now our work lies in you," Crow shrugs.

I turn to him, my eyes soft and beaming through the harsh metal I stare upon.

"The last time you lie your eyes on me is the last time you have to fight for your freedom," I turn to everyone else, "When our names are weaved in Autumn's last breaths, the stolen souls of the innocent will be freed to roam as stars."