Chapter Text
Thunder rolled over Quesadilla Island and the lightning struck with such strength that you’d expect the ground to crumble beneath the bolts. Rain poured down into the battle arena, growing heavier by the second. But Etoiles paid no mind to the shift in weather. For if there were even one imprecise swing of his scythe, one wrong shift of his foot, even one breath held too long… any falter at this point could cost him this fight. He couldn’t even see straight anymore.
All he knew was to follow the dizzying flashes of eye-straining green.
To let every swing follow through with exact accuracy.
To throw down healing potions as the slowly nauseating smell revived him.
This was no longer petty fighting. The victor of this fight would determine the safety of the island. Because if the French Beast could not defeat the codes, who could?
As Etoiles sprinted across the stadium, jumping over rubble and relentlessly swinging at the two code monsters flanking him, he couldn’t help but think (though he cursed the thoughts for breaking through at such a tense moment). Did all of this really have to fall on him? He knew he was a strong fighter, he couldn’t not take immense pride in being a try-hard. Yet, he couldn’t help but wonder why it had to be him .
His blade tore into the code monster that stood two inches from his face. A buzz on his communicator, another “downed” message.
Was there not anyone else who could do this? He knew his friends, they were strong. Why him?
He sunk his scythe into the ground and laid the code to rest.
Why him?
His mind was drawn back into the battle as the code slashed at Etoiles’s back. He washed out any doubts in his head as he launched another healing potion into the ground, barely acknowledging the searing pain.
He knew why he had to do this. He was already too far in.
The fight finally came to a momentary halt as Etoiles thrusted his blade into the second code monster, black ooze with a fluorescent green glow spilling out. Etoiles breathed a quiet sigh of relief, and naively hoped that would be the end of it. He turned back to the cage in the side of the colosseum and felt his heart sink as it did with every passed glance to the barred room. He could still see Pomme, locked away in his sight and just out of reach. He noticed something new, something he hadn’t seen while rushing past the cell. He could barely see but he caught it as another bolt of lightning crashed down close by.
Pomme had been crying enough that her makeup smudged. The red and blue marks that adorned her cheeks had been ruined.
Because she was locked there. And because Etoiles was the chosen warrior.
You’d think a detail this insignificant would not be spared a passing thought. The sight should’ve passed as swiftly as the lightning.
And Etoiles knows that the code wished it had.
A new fire emerged in Etoiles’s mind. Though this was no flickering candle.
This was a forest fire… and Beboú has said sometimes you need to burn the forest to save the trees.
Etoiles threw his backpack to the floor and dug out a pickaxe. There weren’t any codes at that moment, he could get Pomme out. And if he knew anything about the other islanders, he could just pry open the colosseum entrance and he would find Pierre or Antoine or Bad or Baghera if they had any clue where she was and Pomme would be in safe arms. She could escape all the chaos. Even if Etoiles couldn’t just yet.
Etoiles would let the moon sing her phases in full to him, a lone audience to her symphony, if he knew his daughter was safe.
Etoiles took his pickaxe and drove it into the bars. Over and over. The grating sound of metal colliding with his pickaxe was music to his ears. He kept his eyes on Pomme. Her expression kept shifting between relief and terror. Relief that she’d get out of the barred enclosure. Terror at how fast her dad was breaking through the bars.
“Je vais te sortir d'ici (I’m going to get you out of here),” Etoiles said amidst the cacophony of destruction, “Je promets (I promise).” Pomme nodded and the smallest smile crept up on her face.
And that was all he needed.
With one final swing, Etoiles finally broke through the bars. He dropped his pickaxe and ran to sweep his daughter into his arms. Pomme hugged him back with strength that Etoiles didn’t even know she had.
“Tu es en sécurité (You are safe), Pomme,” Etoiles whispered. He made sure his daughter was safe. “Je vais demander à Pierre de te sortir d'ici, d’accord? (I’m going to get Pierre to get you out of here, okay?)” But before she could answer, a voice echoed through the arena, far from where Etoiles and Pomme were standing.
Etoiles’ blood ran cold as he recognized the voice. It couldn’t have been…
How was that voice so far away…
This shouldn’t be possible.
He made sure his daughter was safe.
His…
His “daughter”?
“Papa! Ce n’est pas moi! (Papa! That’s not me!)” Pomme's voice cried out from the center of the colosseum.
Etoiles was frozen. His feet were cemented to the ground. He couldn’t even turn his head away from his daughter. Or rather, he couldn’t turn his head to see his daughter. This was not happening right now. Was this island… No, was this universe so cruel that this was what it had to come to? Etoiles wordlessly released Pomme or whoever he had been holding and shakily turned on his heel. And just as he thought, Pomme, or something that looked uncannily similar, was standing in the middle of the stadium, fear plastered across her face.
“Pomme?” Etoiles called out. He didn’t want to think about the impending hell his mind was going to be put through.
Pomme, or the girl the thing? he had just set down ran ahead of him towards… its twin? Her copy? Etoiles followed hastily behind, not wanting to know how this would end.
As Pomme and Etoiles made it to the middle of the stadium, he could only now see just how fucked this whole thing was. The girls looked the same. From the top of her hijab down to the pleated skirt and brightly-colored sneakers. Baghera lui a donné ça… (Baghera gave her those…), Etoiles thought.
The two girls stood next to one another; the young siren from the middle of the arena on the left, the uncaged girl with an iron grip on the right. They both stood with pleading expressions of terror, both begging for their father to make the right choice.
And just as Etoiles realized what that choice would be, a book dropped at his feet. The universe taunting him once again. He opened it with such hesitance that you’d think it was made of glass. The book read:
"C'est à vous de décider, Étoiles. Tuez-en un." ("You must decide, Etoiles. Kill one of them.")
Fuck.
Etoiles looked at the two girls facing him. At the choice that had befallen him.
Etoiles picks his scythe up off the ground. Has it gotten heavier? He felt like he could barely lift it.
And he chooses…