It's quiet when the light dies down leaving in it's wake a silence that could have suggested that the world turned to stone. Light emptied itself from the sky, breaking through the clouds in warming rays.

It was strange to see the sun after so long of the clouds.

The buildings were as they had always been: anceint structures built by people long gone from this world. Creeping wildlife made the abandoned cities their homes and the plants swalled the signs humanity, brick by brick, block by block.

The only sound was that of Squirts sniffling.

She had fallen to her knees, scrapping them through her worn out jeans. Big, fat tears rolled off her cheeks, soaking her collar and her nose leaked snot in an inconsoleable mess.

For a long time it seemed like no one was going to move: that they were slaves to time itself. It was a different kind of power that had nothing to do with mutant abilities.

Donnie was the first to move. He was cumbersome and wobbly, like all his limbs had varying weighted pounds on them and he hadn't noticed till he tried to move. His arms shook as he lifted himself up-- it took two tries to stay that way and another one to pull his body towards Squirt.

She fell into his embrace like he was someone to rely on, as if he had never left her with Oliver, as if they were real siblings and not just neighborhood kids that had no reason to even acknowledge each others existence.

"It's alright, Diana," Donnie whispered to her, "It's alright." Even though it wasn't. Even though the world had ended and it was his fault. Even though they were surrounded by Raiders who were likely to kill him in their next breaths because that was what they were trying to do before anything with Oliver had come up.

The world had ended. And it had been Donnie's fault.

He felt hollow: as if someone had replaced the fire in his veins with just air. He leaned his head against Squirt's just to keep it up.

He couldn't raise a skeleton even if he tried. He couldn't break the earth or call upon the hoards of the undead to protect them like he could in the past. But he'd fight everyone if it meant he could keep the little dumbass safe.

Damn, Oliver. Despite his four PHDs or whatever he was still a stupid idiot. What did he think was going to change with the deletion of his powers?

A shadow fell over the two of them. Donnie glared up at Nova daring her to do something, anything.

"What did she do?" The woman asked. she looked at squirt like she was an abomination, "What the Hell did she do?"

"Back the fuck off!" Donnie snapped at her, "Unless you want it to happen to you, too!"

Julia made a noise in the back of her throat. A warning, or a general distress. Donnie thought it sounded a lot like someone becoming unraveled from their core. It didn't matter. It was an empty threat and everyone in the street knew that.

"She controls time," Donnie said finally. "Moves people through it."

Lightning Storm stared at the spot his sister had been standing in, blankly. As if he was refusing to believe what was in front of him. As if she was going to pop back into place where she had been and hug him.

"She never came back." Lightning said slowly. "She never... She..."

He whipped around in a furious motion, with a growl in the back of his throat. He had a violent gleam in his eyes: Donnie had seen something similar before and last time he had raised the dead to raze the world.

This time he could only tense, only grit his teeth, only push Squirt behind him and pray that it would be enough.

Damn Oliver, he better be suffering in Hell.

Belatedly, Donnie realized soemthing else had triggered around him. Movement. Belatedly he realized that someone else was in front of him.

Rich caught Lightning right before he lunged for Donnie's throat.

"Stop!" He said, voice loud in the uncanny quiet, "Lightning, Stop!"

Lightning thrashed, "My Sister!" He insisted, "She never came back! I thought she left me there in that Hell with Zara! But all this time she had no choice!

"I waited for years to hear from her again! She should have been there! She should have been there when my powers came out! She should have been the one to tell me it was alright, I was fine!" He snarled like an animal. His face was a mask of rage that came only when one saw the thing they treasured the most get ripped away from them.

Rich didn't back down.

"It's over!" He yelled, "It's over!"

Squirt sobbed harder.

"Do you hear me?!" Rich demanded of them all, possibly the most amount of words any of them had ever heard him say, "It's over!"

"It's not over until--" Nova started forward but stopped suddenly when a another figure threw itself between them. Intelligent green eyes dared her to come closer, but Julia remained silent as ever.

"Your brother is dead, Nova." Rich said, shoving Lightning back. They were roughly the same height but it was clear Rich had more experience breaking up fights. Lightning hit the ground and whatever illusion had turned him into some great, fantasical leader shattered. "Your sister is gone, Lightning.

"Half the population has been eradicated, so neither of you are special! No body else has been trying to kill each other! Look at them! They are kids! What's happened has happened. Let it go."

"That brat could--" Nova hissed at Julia who stepped forward threatenly.

"Could do what?" Rich asked. "She could drag us to the exact moment where a man almost beat his daughter? We could stop the end of the world from ever occurring?"

"Yes--"

"And what if something worse comes along, Nova? What if aliens come and take over? What if Yellowstone errupts? What if there is a Nuclear War and we all die?" Rich needled at her, before turning back to the man on the ground before him, "If we do go back in time, and we stop all this from happening and by some miracle we don't die from karma, the kid never would have gone back in time in the first place. You would have created a paradox and who knows what could happen then? We could all be fine, or we could all die."

Lightning growled again, his blue eyes flashing, "I am willing to chance it!"

Nova broke eye contact with Julia, "I'm not!"

"And neither is everyone else here." Rich concluded to Lightning. "It's not worth it, Negative. So Let it go. Stop dewelling on the past. The only thing we can do it pray that they ended up somewhere safe, and that they will find a way back here, to this time."

Lightning said nothing, merely breathing heavily in the wake of Rich's cold harsh words.

Squirt pressed her head into the back of Donnie's shoulder. He thought she sobbed an apology somewhere in there, but it was lost under the weight of the conversation before them.

Rich was...standing up for them? Julia too? The whole world had ended and somehow, someway there was still a bit of humanity after all.

"There are more important matters to tend to now. With his powers gone, there is no control for our Zombie infestation. But at least no more will be rising. It's time we hunted them all down and rebuild the world. For that we will need the leader of the Raiders, Negative. Not a child who never learned to forgive himself for get his babysitter killed."

Lightning flinched at the words. "It was an accident."

"So was this. The kid is seven. She doesn't know an better. We leave them be." Rich said, commanding respect. "For better or worse."

Then, finally Lightning dropped his head and nodded in defeat.

***

The language is unearthly. It stresses sharp vowels and cuts off bits and pieces of phrases: like broken glass, cutting and shredding the inner ear of the listener.

It doesn't sound like a langauge he knows. Which is striking because he knows a lot of languages. Five to be exact. But this one barely sound like words.

More like sounds: white noise, background noise, something that he could listen to for hours and still not recognize afterwards. Sharp piercing accusing.

Or maybe that's the pain in hit gut. Where he knows he's bleeding out, from where Oliver-- fucking Oliver-- stabbed him. Somewhere between the awful grating noise he recognizes a sharp sound.

It's his name.

He relishes in the way it slips off Jax's tongue: natural, like it was made to be there, full of emotion, trusting to a fixed point. He could listen to it all day.

Felix fades back into unconsciousness as his body is dragged away from Jax, across the salt crusted wooden decks of the Valiant.

~Fin