Vergil could barely focus. His memories were clawing their way back to the surface, and he couldn't stop them. Her words were reminding him too much about the past... and it was there...
He was standing on a shore... a beach somewhere. He was tired. Rex and Kalis were there as well, panting, as if they'd just outrun something. "We have to... we have to warn them!" Kalis was saying. "If they conduct their descent their troops will pick up the virus too, and they'll spread it across the planet! I know they're our enemies but... we can't let them turn this war into a pandemic! We have to warn them!"
Rex placed his hands on his knees, and nodded. "Yes... yes you're right. If they contract the virus, it'll be all over! This war won't even matter! But... but be careful, Kalis! I'm afraid... something within me... is making me very uneasy..."
"I will!" Kalis said, nodding. "Open channel to Admiral Schreiber's flagship!" Kalis yelled, and soon, his communications device sprang to life, and the face of Admiral Schreiber, commander of the Alliance's fleet, could be seen sneering.
"You two again?" he asked. "What is it this time? Come to beg me to stop our offensive? Finally surrendering, are you? Realized the futility of your position?"
"No! Admiral Schreiber, we just left Hafta, and there is a plague rampant in its borders! Your recruits are being turned into monsters! If you land the transports, you'll infect everyone! The disease will spread! There will be no stopping it! Do NOT land in Hafta! I repeat! Don't land!"
Schreiber continued sneering. "Well... this is an unusual development, isn't it?" he asked. "Thank you, for bringing this to my attention. I have a simple solution to prevent this virus from ever spreading beyond Hafta."
Kalis's eyes widened, and he looked up to see Schreiber's fleet hovering overhead. "NO!" Kalis shouted, turning his head upwards to scream as a bright flash emanated from the center of Schreiber's ship and streaked downwards.
"No!" Rex gasped, realizing what was happening. "No he can't!"
The glowing missile left a burning trail in the sky before it impacted with the ground, shaking them to their cores. And then the sky burned. The nuclear warhead went off, thundering its blast outward in a force that sent Rex and Kalis backwards in their tracks, unable to resist the power of a thousand suns exploding in front of them. Everyone on the beach was thrown backwards as the mushroom cloud grew.
"NOOOOOOOO!" Rex cried, powerless to do anything to stop this. Millions of men, women, and children... vaporized in an instant... and it didn't end there. The nuclear bombardment continued, Schreiber relentlessly pumping nuke after nuke into Hafta. "NOOOOOO!" Rex cried again, sinking to his knees in anguish as the screams started filling his mind... the screams of the dying... those burning, their flesh stripped from their bodies in searing heat as they called out for help... for someone that would never arrive... it was too much, and he held his head in agony, unable to stop their screams. The red gecko collapsed into the sand, Kalis standing over him, looking worried and trying to get him to move into the ocean, to get away from the spreading blasts.
"We have to escape the radiation Rex! Come on! All of you..." Kalis turned to look at Vergil now. "Get back! Into the sea! Get back!"
Vergil blinked, his lower jaw trembling. The pain... the death... it was terrible... he'd sensed it back then... just as painfully as Rex and Kalis had... it was the worst feeling in the world. He couldn't recall anything that felt worse than tens of millions of lives snuffed out at once. He closed his eyes, trying to block it out, and focus on her hand rubbing his cheek. "You don't understand..." he said softly, shaking his head sadly. "You were right..."
He stood up slowly, as if doing so were an effort. "We can't bring them along... I got Tony killed... worthlessly... he was killed in such a needless way... none of them... can stand up to Kalis. He'd kill them all with a thought... what's the point of having them with us? I'd only watch them die before me. He's too... powerful. Tony couldn't survive a simple accident... what chance do any of these non-trained, non-psionic, everyday people have against him? If he ever caught us... he would torture them beyond their endurance... they would die horrible, miserable deaths. And that would be my fault for bringing them along. We've already lost one, and Kalis wasn't even here. Varanus wasn't even here... it's over." He shook his head again here. "They'll all... die... and I can't subject myself to that. We need to press on alone... without them. You defeated Rex... but what chance do they have?"
He was trying to sense Tony again, but his mind was too distracted. He couldn't focus... other things in his mind were vying for attention, including his memories, and he didn't look at Triste, but gazed past her shoulder, out into the distance at something else far away.
