Epilogue: Keeping Promises
by
Mauser
The smell of diesel fuel filled the humid night air. With the Plunger settled at the bottom of the sea, there wasn't any reason why the fumes should be flowing through the night air...but Aleutian knew why.
He stood about twenty yards from the opened door of Mathias's house, his duffel bag behind him about five yards back. He had his black fedora in his hands, but he still wore his aviator jacket. The glimmer from the quarter moon shown its low, pale light through the door, exposing his black coat on the wooden floor.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked himself as he reached into his right jacket pocket. "Yes!"
Aleutian's fear of an empty house going to waste was founded. He'd seen what happens to homes that were once called sanctuary to his long dead friends. He had gone back to one and seen that it was cleaned out. So, he cleaned out Mathias's right away; almost. Aleutian only took what really mattered to "him."
As he did so, he'd sent Sonic to grab his coat and hat. "You coming with us?" Sonic asked before he and the rest of the Fighters departed.
"I don't know yet," he replied softly to him.
And now, he stood before the house that he grew up in for most of his life. The joys, the pains, the frustrations; it all resonated in this house. But now it was an empty nest, and Aleutian didn't want to ignite old painful memories when he would come back to it.
With the lighter he retrieved out of the his pocket, he unshielded the wick and flicked the flint that ignited it. Touching the felt hat with the dancing flame, he watched the fire spread around the brim of the hat. Putting the lighter back into his pocket and switching the burning hat to his right hand, he swung himself to the left and kicked back to the right, sending the fedora inside the house like a frisbee. The hat bounced off the floor and slid into the diesel soaked jacket, erupting it into a fierce fire as the fuel was ignited.
Aleutian slowly walked backwards, passing his duffel bag, and falling to the ground as he watched the fire engulf the house. The inferno spread from the front living room to the rest of the house in a matter of minutes with the orange glow lighting up the surrounding field. As the fire grew hotter, thermals kicked up hot embers that rose up with the black smoke into the night air.
He crossed his legs beneath him and gazed at the burning house with a dazed look, watching the happier times of his life burn away.
"What have I done?" he painfully questioned himself about his past in the sanctuary of his troubled mind.
"What you believed in!"
The loud voice that boomed over the crackling blaze made Aleutian look up from his crossed legged position. Locke's face traced with the orange glow of the burning house, his eyes even but his expression wasn't.
Aleutian stood up and stared hard in his father's face, tears streaming down from his own. "What are you doing here?" he spat out angrily in a trembling voice.
With his hands beside him, Locke looked straight into his son's eyes. "Coming to thank the one who raised my son."
Aleutian stiffened his jaw, only staring at his father through the dancing flames.
Locke than took a lasting breath, his eyes never leaving Aleutian's:
"May I stand with my son in his darkest hour?" Locke asked in a soft and sincere voice.
Aleutian's lips shuddered and within two steps, he closed the gap between them, digging his head into his father's chest, and squeezing his arms around his sides. "I'm sorry Father!" Aleutian wept out forcefully into his father's chest. "I'm so sorry, Father!"
Locke felt the hard shunts of breaths in his chest as he held his crying son in his arms. At that point: the war, the quest for destiny, and the prophesies were all forgotten. His son needed him, and he was too selfish for so long to figure that out. With his realization, Locke embraced his son ever tighter.
And so began the time of healing. It took a death and a fire to start it, and for Locke, he had to answer for that price...not his scarred son.
"I should've never of done this to you all. Never!" Aleutian whimpered out, his voice succumbing to his tears. "I never wanted it to be like this!"
Locke held his son tighter, feeling along his dreads. "No, it is I, who shouldn't have done what I did to you," admitted Locke in a sincere voice. "I should be wearing those scars, not you," he choked out, squeezing Aleutian's head harder into him, feeling with his hand the scars across his face, watching as the fire engulfed the whole house.
"What have I done?" Locke questioned himself harshly. But then the words that he told Knuckles crept into his head, but with a different, and meaningful variation...
"He needs me...I need him."