The Sound of Silence

[Albert Wesker]

Albert Wesker stared down the barrel of the gun he held, leveled and pointed steadily at the angry, twisted face of the old man, Xehanort. Everything had gone precisely according to plan; and furthermore, just as he had hoped, the old fool had been none the wiser right up until the moment it was too late to matter. The look on his face at the first sound of impact had been priceless. The look on his face now, held at gunpoint and lit by the blazing glow of mangled, burning wreckage, was worth far more than that.

"I suppose you think you're clever, don't you, boy?" Xehanort barked. His gloved hand lightly pressed against a bloody wound in his side; he hadn't escaped the crash without injury, uncannily sturdy though he was. "All part of some fool scheme of yours, no doubt...or just the ploy of some opportunistic vulture, perhaps."

"Does it really matter, at this point?" Wesker shook his head. A lazy, satisfied smile hung on his face, even as his free hand rose up to wipe blood from his temple. Even though he had arranged the incident in its entirety, made sure his seating arrangement was as safe as could be, and painstakingly worked to assure that it would be one he would survive, he hadn't gotten away entirely free of injury. He was bloodied and battered and bruised, his suit torn and shredded, but he was alive and whole, and mostly unimpeded by the extent of his injuries.

"Whether this was all planned from the beginning on my part, or simply capitalizing on an opportunity inherent in the chaos of such an event...one simple fact remains, you insufferable fool." He shifted his hand, the muzzle of his samurai edge pistol dropping an inch. "Only one of us will be walking away from here. Only one of us will manage to make the winning ploy here, and use the other as a piece of their schemes."

Xehanort's face twisted into an ugly scowl, bloodied hand dropping to his side. "Ha! You think so highly of yourself." His eyes flashed in a dangerous manner, the shadows dancing in his wake from the flickering firelight seething and roiling behind him. "Think that just because you set this up so you'd have the advantage it means you've already won." He threw an arm out to one side, a sheen of frost turning the air white. "There's no such thing as a guaranteed victory. Not in this situation, or any other."

"I don't need a guaranteed victory." Wesker just tilted his head slowly to one side, his eyes blazing red in the shadow he was cast in. "I can't win this engagement, anyway. That much is obvious."

A curl of one eyebrow was the only indication the old man gave of whatever thoughts went through his head. "Then you're an even more indescribable fool than I took you for at first," he sneered. It was a subtle thing, but his posture relaxed ever so slightly; tension leaking and bleeding out of his body and limbs. The outstretched, frost-coated arm turned slowly so that the hand hovered between Xehanort himself and the madman who held him at gunpoint. Frost coated his gloved fingers, a sphere of crystalline ice slowly spinning above his palm.

"I cannot win this particular engagement," Wesker said again, his lips curling into a devilish smirk. "A vulture, as you so keenly put it, does not need to win." He snapped his arm out to one side and fired a single shot, before diving in the other direction and dropping flat to the ground.

Lightning split the sky overhead, thunder following mere moments in its wake with a deafening crash, leaving the scene bathed in monochrome deafness. Amid the light and noise, there came a cacophonous string of destruction from the wreckage, blocked out by the fury in the skies overhead.

In an instant, Xehanort found himself floored by a wave of force like a giant hammer, thrown to the ground and left pinned there, pierced by countless shards of shrapnel, pieces of metal and wreckage from mere needle-like slivers to chunks the size of a sword. His eyes bulged out as he strained to lift his head, staring down at himself. Tremors and shivers ran through his body, his mouth hanging half open in something between a silent scream and a desperate effort to draw breath into perforated lungs. A shaking, quaking arm slowly raised up, wispy trails of frosty air clinging to the fingers.

A sturdy boot came down on the trembling hand, smashing it against the ground amid the swish of a ragged black coat. Standing tall, the face of Albert Wesker leered down with a grin plastered onto his face. "I cannot win what I have already won." Soft words, barely loud enough to register in ringing ears over the sizzling and hissing of heated metal in the damp air. "The moment you chose to talk rather than strike, I had won," he sneered, relishing in the moment and slowly lifting the pistol in his hand.

Xehanort's eyes flashed with murderous intent, fingers of his smashed hand curling and squeezing down in a deathgrip around the limb grinding them into the dirt.

"Defiant even until the last moment. How admirable." Wesker steadied his aim, taking his time to line up the perfect shot. "You can take solace in one fact, at the least." He tilted his head back, the firelight casting it into clear view. "I will make ample use of all of the information I dig out of that decrepit old head of yours. And..." A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "...I'll make sure that little 'daughter' of yours is well taken care of."

The golden eyes of the seeker of darkness snapped open wide to that, and the voice of the despoiled god rang out in mocking laughter, before the report of a gun sounded three times and ushered in silence.

Post Word Count: 1,000 // Total Word Count: 4,029
Post Character Count: 5,585 // Total Character Count: 22,659