Go Your Own Way

Dexter frowned. "I think it's time that you told us who sent us here." 

The wind from the portals rippled Darius' trenchcoat. "He's right, boss. We should know."

Max nodded. He looked over at Maggie, sent to her I never wanted this to happen. 

She looked back at him with sad, tired eyes. I know, but it did.

The final chamber in the Temple of the Seven-Petaled Lotus looked like a vast hangar bay, all steel and starkness. Except for the seven portals, folding and swirling like rainbow liquid origami. 

"It was Control."

Wraith sneered. "Why should we trust-" 

Callan interjected. "Why should it matter? We're here, and this is the right thing to do."

Aqua, looking so young amongst the other warriors, asked, "But how do we know if it will work?" 

Maggie replied, her voice soft, "We don't, sweetie."

Dex sighed. "Fine. Let's do it." Wraith nodded. 

Max took a final pull from his cigarette. "There's likely to be fighting on the other side."

Wraith slipped her nunchakus from her belt. Dexter hefted his bat. Darius pulled his bible from his coat pocket. Aqua tightened the buckles on her gauntlets. Callan began summoning the Tiger energy within him. Maggie unsheathed her katana. She watched Max step on the butt, turn towards the bending pattern of light behind him. 

? she sent. Joy and Pain were still holstered. 

I'm tired of the guns he sent back, the thought weary. 

And they each stepped into a different portal.

 

Momentually

"No!" Max shouted, jumping over the fence and sprinting over to where Goner had fallen. 

The LEGACY cell team was waiting for someone to do exactly that and took the opportunity to fire.

Slugs nipped away at Max's heels, forcing him to dive for cover. Something that he didn't want to do. He crawled up beside a parked car and did a quick glance to see Goner still lying there in a pool of blood before several rounds of bullets forced him down.

"Bastards!" Max shouted. He stood up, bringing up his guns and ready to rain death on any LEGACY shirts he saw.

Frank broke cover when he saw Max. He came around a corner, barreling towards Max at full speed, hitting him and enveloping him like a football defensive line. Two bullets hit Frank in the chest, but that didn't stop him. 

"Sorry Max," Frank said as he rolled off and fired back several rounds to buy more seconds of distraction. Frank was a member of LEGACY at one time and knew some of the tactics. "He's already dead."

 

The End of the Beginning...

Max lay on a mattress on the floor. Maggie hovered over him with a damp cloth tending to his wounds. He was feverish and delusional at the moment in his world of pain. He didn't know what happening to him but he could feel immense pain. He could feel a warm liquid spreading through his shirt, he knew that it was not water.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"You are here," she answered him as a mother with a child.

"Where's here?" he questioned.

"Here in the now," she answered.

Outside the sound of combat was close. Machine gun fired like a symphony in the night, playing music to which no one really wanted to listen to in the first place. It was hot and Max could see that not only was she covered in sweat, but it looked like she had bathed in blood as well.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing that concerns you at the moment," she told him. 

Max tried to lift his head to see what was going on, but he found that task next to impossible. 

"Am I okay?"

"You are fine, darling," she answered.

Max knew that she was lying.

Wink

Morganfokker slid the open folder towards Adella Cube. Adella looked at it and her eyes widened in mock surprise with a hint of knowledge.

"When Mrs. Henricks asked Max to draw a picture of his home, this is what your son came up with."

She glanced at the picture that Max drew: it depicted a multi-coloured gateway shimmering in the mirror and Max had drawn himself looking in and what looked like to be millions of images of himself looking in other directions.

"Mrs. Cube..." Morganfokker began. 

"That's Ms.," she corrected. She glanced over at Max who was sitting there looking at his sneakers. She could see that he was ashamed, as if he was caught with his hands in the cookie jar. "Max's father disappeared a while back.

"Well, now I am beginning to understand why he is borderline EI," Morganfokker said. "I would like to see your son for more testing. Not that it's mandatory, strictly volunteer. I want to get deeper into his pysche."