"You invited me to face each other, didn't you?" Apollo had told us.

I swallowed hard in an admission of fear and nervousness.

My current fixation was cast upon what I could do to stop all of them. However, what could I do to convince them to opt for putting their guns down and a saner course of action? I needed to come up with something, and fast.

"True. My apologies," Agape replied with smugness. "I see this king is in a hurry to get defeated and killed tonight."

"I'm not gonna get defeated by a power-hungry queen. I always win. Always." Apollo was far from impressed.

"I might be power-hungry, but I'm much better than you, Apollo," Agape replied daringly. "You're gonna lose many clone lives as of today. I've already spread the mosquitoes that will pollute your entire DNA base in this facility."

The way Agape was holding the remote control, with all that tension accumulated on her hand and arm, told me she was aching to push that bloody button already. I couldn't let that happen.

"What will your dear supporters say when all their babies are born dead or with severe malformations?" she went on with slyness. "You're gonna lose their support! And you won't be able to bring more clones to this world, which means that the more clones I kill, the fewer soldiers you have got."

"Your dirty little tricks won't stop me," Apollo replied as if Agape's words meant nothing. "Their DNA will be able to bear your mosquitoes' viral load."

"You don't know that!"

"I do! I know everything! I control everything! You cannot defeat God!" he answered with arrogance.

"You're not a god! You're just a human being like the rest of us!" Agape complained. "And I will make you pay for all the blood of traditional humans you have spilt over the last forty years! We will have justice, like it or not!"

They were too focused on each other and their argument. It looked like I had lost my chance to win, to haggle, to save them from themselves, or however I would rephrase it. They were too deep into their feud. My non-violent approach would automatically fail then.

Nevertheless, Agape was about to lose as well. Her idea to poison the DNA base in the BioBank's basement and the growing foetuses in the rest of that facility wasn't giving her the upper hand. Apollo didn't look affected. Momo didn't look like that either.

"Do yourself a favour: don't lie to yourself." Apollo's voice and pose were too casual for my liking. It was as if he had an ace up his sleeve. "This war is about revenge and power, just like the Prevalence War. Not justice. In the end, you want the same things I want."

"Then, I guess we're not so different, you and I," Agape replied teasingly. "But I already knew that."

The look of disgust on Apollo's face soon turned to pride. That argument felt heavy on my soul. I desperately wanted to find a way out of that impasse.

Yes, I considered that situation an impasse: two pro-murder titans were aiming at each other with their guns, while all their minions and/or supporters were also aiming at the members of their opposing groups, waiting for the right moment to spring into action and kill as many enemies as possible. Witnessing that long argument only made all of us edgy, which might lead to being trigger-happy soon.

I couldn't allow that to happen. If only I could create a distraction, for instance, so that I could get my friends and my reluctant boss out of the BioBank unharmed!

"I agree with you, Apollo," Momo said looking meanly and suddenly aiming her gun at me. "This is about revenge. Let's not lie anymore and sate our thirst for it once and for all!"

I gasped as I watched her tense right arm and hand as well as the cold-murderer look on her face.

"NO!" Agape yelled in panic. "Don't kill her!"

They changed their positions rapidly. As Agape faced Momo directly, giving her back to Sigi and me, and aimed her gun at her, Taro stopped aiming at both of us to aim at Apollo instead.

"Stay behind me, Daphne," Sigi whispered to me with worry.

"Sigi, we have to stop this. They're gonna kill each other!" I whispered back.

"There's no going back from this," he admitted with sadness as if he was afraid of hurting my feelings. "We can't stop them now. I'm sorry, but we won't be able to get them out of here as you wanted. Some of us will die here tonight and there's nothing you can do, Daphne. I'm sorry."

In the meantime, Momo and Agape had taken their animosity to the next level:

"Step aside!" Momo yelled. "I'll get rid of her for you. Wouldn't you like that?"

"Stop this. She's nothing to you now. Go back to Apollo's lap and keep asking him to pet you. You know he's gonna give you all the treats you want. Why lose time with a simpleton like Daphne now?"

"Because I hate her and what she's taken away from me! I want her to pay!"

"Apollo, please, do something. Keep your pestering little lap dog on a leash," Agape said nonchalantly, mocking both of them with that insensitive comment.

Momo had endured enough mockery for a thousand lifetimes, I guessed. I thought so because I heard a gunshot coming from where she was standing.

Deep red over pristine white.

I saw blood staining the white tiles on the floor by Agape's feet. I heard a weird gagging sound. The remote control fell from her hand. Her gun, too. She had no time to shoot it. Momo had been faster.

Agape's body lost balance and fell while the echo of the gunshot still reverberated in my mind.

"No!" I yelled. I ran to her, knelt right beside her, and took her face in my shaking hands.

Then, I heard some more gunshots being exchanged. Mayhem had broken loose once more. Clone cops had started shooting at my friends, who managed to reply with gunshots of their own.

Suddenly, I heard Momo screaming in pain, so I raised my head to look at her. She immediately fled limping away from us while the massive, chaotic shooting was taking place. I could only see her back as she did so. I assumed she had been shot in the leg. Probably Sigi had done it.

"Agape..." I said in a fragile whisper as I looked back at her with the music of gunshots as a background melody.

The bullet seemed to be lodged too close to her heart, so I feared the worst. I started breathing quickly while I pushed the ominous thought that I was about to lose her to the back of my mind as if I could bend reality with that.

While Sigi went running after Momo and my friends fought our enemies, I made her head lean on my left arm, and then I hugged her while pushing my right hand over the wound to prevent her from losing too much blood. She clenched her teeth with a wince when I did so.

I suddenly realised that Apollo and my doppelgänger had made themselves scarce and that Taro had been shot once in the shoulder and twice on a leg. He was doubling up with pain a few feet away from us.

The metallic smell of iron from her blood filled my nostrils while the warm and wet sensation of her blood tainting the palm of my hand sent my most dark and treacherous thoughts into overdrive.

"What I feared the most has eventually become real. Damn, I'm such an idiot," Agape whispered.

"Don't talk," I whispered back while tears ran down my cheeks and nose. "Save your energy."

Despite our inferior numbers, my friends managed to overpower our enemies. None was killed, just left unconscious.

Despite that, some stray gunshots had caused a fire due to the impacts on some circuit breaker panels on a nearby wall. Some sparks had flown out of control and ended up causing a large fire. Some curtains and elements of the furniture were paying the price, as well as some carpets, computers and other equipment.

But I couldn't focus much on the fire. The silence after that last bloody incident felt heavy on my shoulders. Cian, Ray, Gabi, K8, Eros, Kono and Taro didn't dare to say a word. I could only hear them panting due to the stress and effort of battle.

I saw K8 approaching us quickly from the corner of my eyes, and then she knelt in front of Agape and me with worry written all over her face, which was partially perforated by gunshots.

"We'll get you out of here and cure you," I whispered to her, trying to give her hope.

"Don't smooth it out for me, Daphne," Agape replied with a coarse voice. "Save your compassion for someone who deserves it."

"You deserve it," I whispered back at her with pride and a knot down my throat.

"You still don't get it, do you? There's only one thing that could overshadow my goal to defeat Apollo." She let out a groan. Her breathing became erratic; her smile, bittersweet. "You."

I froze.

"Or better said, loving you," she added. "That was the reason I've been so hard on you,... the reason why I didn't want you here tonight, damn it."

The gunshot wound over her heart bled more than just blood. Her true feelings were getting spilt as well.

"When I said I wanted to have children, I could only think about you. And K8." The look in her eyes became sorrowful. "I've been lying to myself, blinding myself with delusions of grandeur and power, to the point I've yelled and chidden both of you. I'm so sorry. I thought... I could keep you out of harm's way,... but you're a freaking trouble magnet, Daphne!"

She chuckled. It was true. My lips quivered nervously at that comment.

"I can't save you from getting in trouble," she went on. She coughed once, then. "I honestly thought I could do it – bring Apollo down... while making sure you'd be out of the way. I... I had always thought that my goal to dethrone Apollo was far more important than anything else... But I... I was wrong. I've always been."

"Everything's gonna be alright, ma," K8 whispered at her with blind hope. "We'll fix you."

"Just don't..."

"Save it for later, Agape." It was my turn to be delusional.

"Even when I'm dying, you're still getting on my nerves, kid. Who would've thought that having two pestering daughters would mean so much trouble!" She smiled and chuckled at me. Her teeth were stained with blood. Next, she went on seriously: "K8 was right. There is a spot of bright light inside of me. It's real love. I admire the way you hold your ideals dear, Daphne... regardless of how meanly some people treat you. Even when they try to kill you. That's..." She sighed.

"Dumb? Naïve? Stupid?" I replied in a hysterical, funny voice.

"All of a sudden, my name makes sense." She sighed softly. "Daphne, you're a better version of me. Let me go now. Just go get him, okay?" she said sternly. I bit my lower lip with anger.

With some difficulty, she wiped some of my tears away with a thumb. Her touch felt oddly comforting. When she was done, her hand came to rest on my chest, and it slid down until it lay on her stomach. Her smile then became sly when she said:

"Besides, me, living in a world in peace? Nah. Fuck, that would be so boring, wouldn't it?" A burst of low, dark laughter briefly emerged from her cracked, mildly blood-stained lips.

I was about to say something when her eyes suddenly became non-responsive. The colour of the skin around them turned blueish, and her lachrymal let go of a lonely, small tear.

She was gone.

A painful gasp escaped from K8's lips while she brought her hands over her mouth and nose. I could not form thoughts into words at that moment. My mouth was ajar; my eyes, open wide in shock. My hand was still pressing Agape's wound as if I couldn't process what had just happened.

Yes, Agape's greatest fear had become real, and it was something I wouldn't have been able to foresee.

She felt I was like a daughter to her, just like K8, and feeling that deep connection had shifted her priorities. Her love for us, for me, had dethroned her bloodlust to see Apollo dead, to the point she had thought that it was better to get me expelled from the group. That way I assumed that she wanted to make sure I would have stayed out of trouble. And even when I had come back like a stubborn boomerang, we had argued some more, and she had forbidden me to come there that night. All that, for what?

I understood it then. For as long as the two things she wanted most would not collide and compete for her attention at the same time –dethroning Apollo and making sure the kids she considered daughters were out of harm's way–, she was sure she could handle it.

And last but not least, she had even saved me from Momo's rage to honour that emotional bond and how much it mattered to her.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Daphne," Eros whispered with sadness behind me.

I briefly turned my face to see him. That was when I saw Gabi standing right beside him, crying silently. My heart ached for him because it was crystal clear that he still felt something for her – maybe not a passionate kind of love, but love nonetheless.

Then, K8 threw her arms around me and Agape's lifeless body. It was comforting to stay like that for a long moment.

A volcano of burning resolve erupted inside me. I hated losing people I loved over and over. Such a feeling scorched me inside out while I cried in silence.

Then, I let go of K8's arms gently. Next, I slowly left Agape's body on the floor and wiped my tears with my hands.

"Momo is going to pay for this, I swear," I whispered to all of them with great determination and the residue of tears in my eyes. "But she's not dying. I will see her atoning for this crime or I'll die trying."

I had no time to lose. I had to find Momo and stop Apollo.

"Sigi has chased her up the stairs," Ray said with a defeated attitude. "I hope he doesn't murder her, although she deserves it."

"Let's go and find out," I whispered seriously. "Ray, Taro can't stand let alone walk. And Eros and Kono are wounded too. Get them to safety and treat their wounds, please."

"NO! I'm not leaving!" Taro complained, still trying to bear the intense pain from those nasty gunshots on his body. "I... I still have to..."

"Cian," I told him calmly, "make him understand, please. And take Agape's body as well. Once outside, call the emergency services so that they can put the fire out and take all these clones and androids to a hospital."

"What will you do?" Cian asked with worry.

"Gabi, K8 and I will go upstairs and look for Sigi and Momo. If we can stop Apollo as well, then so be it. If not... we'll see what we do then. Do you think that's wise?"

"Have you got a plan?"

"Not really."

"Then, fuck it. Go get Sigi and flee this place. It's not worth staying for either Momo or Apollo."

"We can't flee this place," Eros suddenly said with a panic-stricken expression on his face. He was trying to walk towards us at the centre of the basement, with great difficulty due to his wound.

"Why not?" Cian asked with a frown.

"We have to put out the fire ourselves... now – and fast!" Eros added with urgency while a deep frown of worry marred his beautiful facial features. "We can't wait. Otherwise,..."

"Otherwise, what?" I asked, frowning as well.

"We will blow up. Everything will blow up! The BioBank, the entire city,... everything in a 160 square miles radius!" His panic-stricken voice denoted an urgency that I had never heard from him before.

"What?!" I exclaimed just like the rest of the group.

"Hydrogen is what keeps the two strands of a DNA helix together," Eros explained. "It's needed to clone babies. This basement is full of hydrogen tanks... in industrial quantities. The equivalent to two megatons, to be precise. If they catch on fire..."

"They will explode," I finished his sentence.

"We're all gonna die. Thalis and the neighbouring cities and rural areas will be completely erased from the surface of the Earth."

Hello, my sugar cubes!

I'm back with the climax's dark shadows, action-packed scenes, and heartbreaking moments. :__(

XOXO

MS