Chapter 323 - 323: Expected
"Captain Xander? He's still in a coma. I doubt he'll ever wake up. We can only hope he does," the Doctor answers, sighing. "As for the number of patients, there aren't many at the moment. Only Captain Xander is the one who is there."
"Only one patient is here?" Lucifer inquired, surprised.
"That's right. We only have him at the moment," the doctor answered. "But we do treat the ones that get sick occasionally or the ones that come back hurt from missions," the doctor replied.
"Is that so? That's good. You'll work with the Uprising medical team from now on," Lucifer nodded.
The team reached the Medical Facility of APF. According to Lucifer's wishes, Lucifer was taken to the room where Xander was being kept.
He stopped in front of Xander, who was lying on the bed, unmoving. There were machines attached to him.
Seeing Xander again, Lucifer remembered the day he had faced Xander. The fierce battle outside the facility was still fresh in his head.
"He's been like that for the last eight years?" he asked the doctor.
"That's right. We're keeping him alive. But we don't know if he'll ever wake up," the doctor answered.
As Lucifer didn't have Veracity here, he couldn't verify any answer, but he believed the doctor.
He checked the chest of Xander to see if there were any wounds after unbuttoning him.
"Wounds are completely healed. I can't even see a mark," he commented.
"Of course. We worked really hard to heal him. But we couldn't heal his brain. Unfortunately, we have no technology to bring him out of the coma," The doctor answered.
Standing under the room filled with lights, Lucifer found himself lost in thoughts. Xander was in a coma. He was half-dead already. And it didn't seem like he was ever going to wake up.
But they couldn't leave him free either. What if he did wake up someday when there's no security here? He might get free and create a mess in this place. But then again, he didn't feel like killing a half-dead person.
"Ayn, step forward," he told Ayn.
Ayn came forward. "What?"
Facing Ayn, Lucifer grabbed her hand.
"Unlock," he said softly.
The bracelet which was in Ayn's hand became loose and was finally free.
Lucifer took her Limiter off. He placed that limiter in his pocket.
After a moment, he started walking back and forth, trying to think of what to do.
"Alright. It's decided," he added as he stepped towards Xander, determined to do something.
He took off his right glove and decided to touch Xander's hands.
Standing near Xander, Lucifer was prepared to watch him decay. He wasn't clear if he actually wanted this since he felt that it was beneath him to kill a half-dead person now, but he didn't care.
He believed instead of living in risk of Xander waking up and destroying what he worked hard to protect; it was better to destroy him.
"What are you doing!" Ayn yelled.
Even the doctor was stunned. Xander's biggest fear was coming true. Lucifer was actually killing him when he couldn't resist.
"I'm giving him freedom. He has been living like this for eight years. Who knows, he might be like this for fifty years. And even if he wakes up, he'll just attack me," Lucifer said.
"How can you say that! He won't attack you! I can convince him!" Ayn insisted.
"You can't. The day I fought him, I saw hate in his eyes. He wasn't hesitating at all in trying to kill me. And it wasn't the same as I saw in other members of APF. It was a different kind of hate. Even though I can easily take care of him, I don't want to face him," Lucifer said calmly.
Without hesitating, he wanted to use his decay. As for Ayn, she wanted to stop him, but she couldn't do anything.
She could fight Lucifer, but she couldn't defeat him. The entire base was in his control. He could easily kill them all.
Her fist clenched firmly as she struggled to do something.
"Wait. I think it's not right." Another voice came at the moment Lucifer was about to touch Xander.
This time Lucifer actually stopped as he turned back. He glanced at Cassius, who seemed against him.
"What?" Lucifer asked.
" I think killing him like that would be wrong. How about we keep Uprising members here? If he ever wakes up, we can kill him," Cassius answered.
" We can't keep any Uprising members here since we'll be mounting an assault on the Capital City. If we keep a weak member here and he wakes up, the base will be attacked. Information will leak that the base was taken over by us. The capital city will be alert," Lucifer explained.
"And if we leave a strong Warlock here, we'll have less workforce. We can't waste resources like this, especially on someone so risky," he further said. Without turning back, he placed his finger on Xander's forehead.
He had thought about this a lot, and this seemed like the safest option, even if it was looking bad at the moment.
Watching Xander decay, Ayn closed her eyes and turned around.
She was in a moral dilemma. She couldn't resist for long though.
"Enough! I can't let you do it!"
She wasn't able to stop herself. No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn't let Xander die. He was her close friend, after all. The only reason she supported Lucifer was to save the lives of people, including Xander.
And she couldn't stop herself.
She raised both her hands. Her eyes shone in a mysterious blue light as the room temperature started decreasing. But before she couldn't even do anything, her body was sliced into two halves.
Blood came out of her lips as she dropped to the ground. Her eyes remained open even as she died. It all happened so fast that she couldn't even save herself.
"That's what I expected from you. Attacking me in the last moments from behind. I'm not that naive anymore," Lucifer said as he observed the body of Ayn.
He had already expected that Ayn would attack him when push came to shove. She wasn't actually going to join his side. He had understood it long ago.
The moment he showed the hypocrisy of Varant to her, instead of saying that Lucifer was right, she separated APF from Varant.
She kept saying that her side had nothing to do with it, taking no responsibility, and saying that it was him who was wrong.