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22. EXT. OUTER SPACE – CONTINUOUS

Habagat rises into the darkening dusk sky, the crimson stain of sunset fading, giving way to night.

The flesh of his hands burn. He can smell the stench of them, hear the sizzle of skin. The black heart bathes him in its virulent light, and it almost seems as if the gathering dark encroaches itself upon Habagat’s senses. Gravity seems multiplied a hundred-, a thousandfold; but the champion strains, he struggles nonetheless, gritting his teeth as he forces himself to pick up speed, shooting upwards.

Finally, after what seems a frayed, tortured eternity, Habagat manages to achieve escape velocity, all the while battling the weakness and the agony, which yearns to swallow him in its black maw, in the bottomless well of its voracious hunger.

He dreams, often, of flying through the vastness of outer space, of the cold, absolute silence of it, a serene, peaceful respite.

But this… this is a vicious wracking of limbs and muscles, of will and fortitude.

In his dreams, he gazes around in wonder, in awe of some immense cosmic beauty.

Instead, oblivious to his surroundings, he flies, as quickly as he is able, towards the sun.

His consciousness is a very questionable concept at this point, but he continues, and when he thinks he is close enough, he draws his arms back (and even this simple task is now some Herculean effort that sends coils of adamantite razor wire through his muscles), and throws the black heart towards the vast furnace that is the center of our solar system, where lakes of fire engulf it, incinerating its malignancy in an instant, all its compounded evil now simply fuel for a much greater, generative, and benevolent fire.

And finally, finally, Habagat loses his tenuous grip on his consciousness, releasing it as he did Zcerneboch’s heart, and the champion floats there, in the cold, absolute silence, his suit shredded, tattered.

He floats there, the most powerful man on Earth, perhaps in the cosmos, insensate, and unprotected.

23. EXT. PALAWAN – CONTINUOUS

Back on Earth, Mang Tonio smiles, silently thanking Habagat for his intervention, unknowingly breathing deeply of all that is left of Zcerneboch.

In four days’ time, the old man will be dead from radiation poisoning.

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