[Rogue One] A Blue Robin's Tale

7,

fuck it. Baze thought.Fuck the whole world.

If it was placed half an hour ago, he would have scolded directly, just like he did every time he faced someone who somehow existed in this world.He sat back, the goddamn sun making him uncomfortable.The middle-aged blood hunter who was smoking and resting behind him grunted dissatisfiedly, and moved a little bit for him.

Baze told himself that it was psychological that made everything so fucking bad.He's almost done it, until that fucking old man walks up to him with a fucking machete and a smirk that's even more fucking smirk for some reason.

"Feeling okay? Huh? I'm talking to you, brat," said the fucking old man.

Baze looked up at him, and gave a vague "hmm" in response.A ball of air was clenched tightly in his clenched right hand.

"You bastard who can't say thank you. I saved your life." The old man sneered, took out a dirty white cloth and began to wipe the knife.The strip of cloth had obviously been torn from the garment, and was almost stained the brownish red of dried blood—and now it had the blood of another hapless bastard on it.And that monster just tried to pounce on Baze and bite off his carotid artery.

Damn sunshine. The tip of Baze's nose started to itch, although he knew it was mostly psychological.He leaned back again, and this time there was a sudden void behind him, and the middle-aged man cursed and walked away.

"Boy, where are you from? I can't remember the names of all the little brats here." The fucking old man insisted, and Baze just wanted to get up and leave now.

"BazeMalbus. New York Bloodhunters Guild."

"You can speak human language," the old man stretched out a hand, "Saw Gerrera."

Baze looked down at the head on the ground that he had neglected for a long time, the head of Mr. Unlucky, and didn't shake hands.

The old bloodhunter named Saw fell silent.After a while, he suddenly asked, "Boy, have you been bitten?"

"No." Baze looked away.

"That's good. Young people nowadays like to be brave. They will be burned to ashes in the end." Saw stuffed the cloth back into his waist pocket. .”

Baze looked up at his leaving back.He guessed what the job was, and once the guys in white coats got out of the basket, the blood hunter had to wipe their ass immediately.

But that doesn't matter. Baze started to want to drink, he was eager to go somewhere for a drink right away.But that was unrealistic——he stretched out his fisted right hand, on which were a series of bite marks with deep bone visible, and the blood scab on the wound was showing an unfriendly color.

—He has to deal with this.

■

Baze propped himself up from the ground.

His arms were like two half-burnt matches, and the slightest pressure would snap in two.But he stood up with difficulty in the end, and there were brilliant light spots everywhere he looked, as if there was a giant beast roaring towards his ears, and it gradually stopped after a long time.

What happened just now?

He stood there in a daze for two seconds, then reached his waist to touch the goddamn walkie-talkie.The soldiers and citizens who fell to the ground together stood up and ran for their lives to the underground bunker behind him. A middle-aged woman's large box hit Baze's elbow, and he screamed in pain. The walkie-talkie was brought to the on the ground.

"Son of a bitch."

Baze bent down to pick up the square box, and suddenly felt that this string of words was very strange in his mouth.It's been a long time since he swears.At least not after meeting Chirrut.

He tapped the walkie-talkie a few times, and the thing seemed to be dissatisfied with his rudeness, and soon there was an electric sound.After tuning to the internal channel, there is still the current sound of the same frequency.

Baze took a step forward and started running in the same direction as he came and went.He vaguely remembered that the sun was still hanging in the sky before he passed out. If the time is correct, it should be morning.

But god damn it, he couldn't find the sun anywhere.

"Chirrut?" Baze called into the intercom, but there was no answer.

He stepped over the log and came out into the street.

None of the street lamps on both sides of the road were still working normally, and the whole city was plunged into darkness and silence, with the only sounds being mosquitoes and flies chasing the smell of corruption. Baze put on his night vision goggles, gun in hand.As he walked along the road, there were piles of charred corpses that no one had time to dispose of, and some even had no time to burn them.He wrinkled his nose and walked around the black cloud formed by those scavenging insects, but within a few steps he saw a corpse lying alone in the middle of the road.

It was a bald middle-aged man, his eyes were like dead fish, his jaw was half missing, and there was nothing left where the internal organs should have been.

Mr. Unlucky.

That absent-minded face has long been seared into Baze's mind, and he will never forget that "thing" that jumped up and bit his right hand for the rest of his life.For some reason, the corpse in front of him was exactly the same as the one he remembered.

"ChirrutImwe, I don't know what's going on right now...if you're not dead," Baze said as he stepped back and pressed the walkie-talkie to his mouth, "speak."

No one answered.

Baze turned around sharply, and the bullets spewed out from the muzzle, hitting the monster who was trying to sneak up on the forehead, and the splashed blood covered his goggles.

He saw the piles of corpses at the corners and alleys moving faintly, followed by several glowing eyes coming out from behind the dark bunker.The group of hairless monkey-like creatures twisted their limbs and slowly crawled towards him, drooling all the way.

They have learned to set traps.

Baze found himself surrounded, never before had he longed for an extra flamethrower in his hand.But no way, he pulled the trigger and started backing in the opposite direction.However, gunshots can always attract more vampires. As a blood hunter, the best way to commit suicide is to be surrounded by monsters alone in the dark, with extremely limited bullets.

Baze felt that the death he had been chasing all along was already standing at the door, raising his hand ready to knock.

"Stand back, you idiot!"

Someone yelled at the top of their lungs, and then a Molotov cocktail shattered in front of Baze, and then a second.Blood Hunter quickly jumped to the side, and the next second a large bucket of gasoline was splashed on the street.

"What are you still doing here?" The voice was very close, like someone talking with their head stuck in an iron barrel. Baze turned his head and found that it was an anti-epidemic soldier. He quickly recognized that the voice seemed to belong to the senior non-commissioned officer who appeared at the checkpoint in the morning.

The latter didn't intend to get an answer, and stepped into the fire like walking on the ground, the flamethrower in his hand roared and spit out the fire snake.Someone upstairs kept throwing Molotov cocktails down, and the street turned into a sea of ​​flames in an instant.

By the time they finished clearing the street, the fire was still burning.

Another anti-epidemic soldier ran out of the corridor, stood still in front of his boss out of breath, and saluted a non-standard military salute. "Sir—"

Before he could say anything, a gun barrel hit his helmet, making an unexpected and very pleasant echo.

"You almost killed me! Idiot!" The high-ranking soldier shouted, "I asked you to cover, do you understand what cover means? Our team has received military training, have you passed?"

"I'm sorry, sir." The West Coast accent hung his head gloomily.

"I just passed," he added in a low voice.

Baze tried to chime in, but the two of them seemed to quickly forget about his existence.

"Hey." He had to step forward, and got two glances through the helmet.

"Who are you?" The older one looked him over, "Jeda still has blood hunting, ha! What a big joke."

"I'm surprised there are still anti-epidemic soldiers left on the streets to help clean up." Baze gave him a blank look.

"Whatever you say. Our team is in charge of the funeral, the funeral of a city, you know? Jada is long overdue, given up by the Episcopal Church two weeks ago. But we have to stay and give her the fuck eyes closed—did I just say 'her'?"

He looked at his young subordinate, who nodded, then immediately shook his head again.

"In short, we have to stay in this ghost place until the last missile falls. I advise you to find a place to stay and don't get killed..."

"Wait a minute." Baze's scalp was numb, "Missile?"

"Missile." The soldier repeated in a steady tone, "command from Commander Darth Vader. The next bombing will be the last one, and the coordinates are the church. The movement of the 'Death Star' missile is not small, you should not have noticed it. ..."

Baze didn't hear him finish, turned around and ran away.He thought of Tarkin, the Brit who claimed to have worked in Scarif, and threatened to blow up Jada before he left.He also remembered the vision not long ago, and the fact that he had vaguely suspected just now was now confirmed.

To his Tarkin, to his Death Star, to his Scarif.

"Chirrut!" Baze yelled into the intercom in an almost growl voice, running over and over again.

"Stay away from the church!"

"I heard—" the priest's slightly smiling voice stood out from the electric current.

Baze gasped and stopped.

"My dear Baze, don't worry. We found the rest of the citizens and are taking them to the bunkers in batches."

"Why are you answering now?"

"There are a lot of people and I'm very busy."

"Where are you?" Baze felt his nose sour.

"The door of the church."

"I told you to stay away from that."

"Come on, come on."

Chirrut's crackling laughter came from the other end.

"Baze, I just thought of a really funny joke...."

"I'll talk about it later." Baze couldn't control his tone, he regretted that he seemed to be arguing with someone, "Listen, don't worry about other people. Get away from where you're standing right now, as far away as possible."

Chirrut was silent for a while.

"Baze," he said.

"What color is the sky?"

Here it is again. Baze was distraught, but still raised his head to take a look.

There is no sun, no moon, and no stars in the sky.The billowing black clouds danced like some kind of living thing among the looming blood-red patches.As if it had existed since the prehistoric times, the festering sky was oozing black and red blood.The longer I watched, the more frenzied the dancing steps of the evil creature seemed, and it leaped and shouted to sacrifice to its god in hell—with the light of all the world.

"Baze? Are you still there?"

Baze gasped for breath with difficulty, and he realized that he had been holding his breath just now.

"It's red..." he changed quickly, "it's blue."

"You mean red...?"

"No, no. It's blue. Sky blue." Baze tried not to let his voice tremble. "For God's sake, it's daytime."

"That's good. That's good."

Baze's imaginary Chirrut was smiling.

"I've known for a long time that Apocalypse simply—"

A dazzling light tore through the entire darkness. The sky before Baze's eyes stretched, twisted, and fell.He stood in the middle of the street, watching the dazzling silver-white object streak across the sky, like a child waiting for a shooting star all night on the hill.

Then there was the huge arc, the kind invisible to the naked eye, but Baze saw it.Close your eyes and bend down in time, so as not to burn your eyes by the heat wave and be overthrown to the ground by the shock wave.

The streets behind him were still burning, and the sky was a chaos of red and black.

"The sky turns blood red and the ground turns scorched earth."

It took him a long time to find the strength to pull himself up.

■

Baze admits he's always wanted to go back to Jada.This is almost a lifetime dream, if someone asks him what his life dream is, he will answer truthfully, but unfortunately no one has ever asked like that.

There is no need for a reason, and few people have come up with a reason to live. Baze just feels that he lives for this.He's breathing, his heart is racing, and it's all about getting to Jada one day.It's programmed from birth.He drank bad beer in the bar with people every night, and he never cared about hanging out with so-called naughty people, because usually only those people would sit in their seats and listen to him talk about life after three rounds of drinking Ideal, and a shout or two at the right time to set off the atmosphere.

"That son of a bitch BazeMalbus has blown the heads of ten thousand vampires, his bullets don't have eyes, don't hang around in front of him unless you want to be a sieve."

At that time, he often had quarrels with people, mostly because of some illogical and trivial matters.When both parties reached a consensus and began to swing their chairs, they both knew that they were doing it deliberately to find a fight.The life of Bloodhunter is depressing and difficult, and the gang in the dark alley is even more difficult.After the two waves of people were bloody, they got together again. I don't know who paid the money to change to a bar and continue to drink alcohol.At one point Baze even spotted a few cops mingling in the group, brandishing wine bottles, with dark ties up on top of their heads.

Everyone always thought BazeMalbus was fucking awesome, he hung out with the scum, talked about everything, and never skimped on bullets when he had to kill something.He can be the leader and go all the way to Jada, rain or shine.

Most of them later died, were eaten alive, or burned.Whether those who survived still believed that way, Baze didn't know.But he knew very well that no one would believe what kind of coincidence he had met Jada, let alone how many times he had put a pistol to his throat on the way here.

He signed up after treating the wound that day, thinking with a clear head that it would be best to get all his wishes done before he got out of the basket. Saw led the team, accompanied by a group of freshly graduated rookie blood hunters, and they chased along the direction of the experimental subject's escape.All the way south from New York, maybe the last real chance to go to Jada.

Nobody knows him, he's safe. The impression Baze left on new friends is that he doesn't talk much, has a low-key style, and is used to being alone.He is alert to everyone around him, paying attention to their every move.The little slick guy who died in Jada later teased him that he was worried that someone would kill him and take his gun—actually Baze would have liked someone to have done that sooner.

For a time he thought of death as a quick fix for reducing suffering and hurting others.But at almost every moment he touched the trigger, the thought always popped up at an inopportune time: we must go to Jada.

Later he meets Jada.After laughing at himself, Meng woke up completely.It's no different here, a dead city where half the people have ridiculous fantasies and half the people choose to lose themselves.

So he planned to find an excuse to "sacrifice heroically" with no bullets in the first action.But when he realized it, the last bullet left for him had already been shot at a certain vampire.

He belatedly realized that the vampire had no intention of attacking Chirrut, whom he was desperately protecting—they were of the same kind, and vampires generally did not harm the same kind.

But the bullet has already been discharged, and it cannot be allowed to fly for a while.

Sometimes he would suddenly think of a complicated formula taught in school, and he couldn't remember all the formulas at that time.He drafted on the last few blank pages of the Bible, and based on the size of the wound on his body, the time of infection, and the location of the bite, he calculated the time it would take for the virus to finally occupy his brain.

57 days and three hours.He can only count up to this step and cannot be accurate to the minute and second.

So there was only one idea left in Baze's mind:

Be sure to protect Chirrut.

■

Baze searched all the buildings around the church.

He went to the cemetery first, where he killed a vampire who had lost half of his body and was holding on to his ankle with a dead gun.The latter left a deep, long gash in his thigh, which he didn't have time to stop to bandage.

As he passed the edge of the woods, two birds flew towards him, singing more shrillly than ever.Those were Jyn and Cassian, the original owners of the names of two brave young men. Baze finds blood on Jyn's wings, but not his own.

He went to the former library - which was later converted into an arsenal.All the explosives there were detonated without exception, and the power of the 'Death Star' missile was forcibly increased by three or four times.There is no doubt that the bombing of Jada has been on the military's schedule for a long time.

He went to the monastery, no.

He went to the bell tower, no.

He went to the square ruins, no.

In fact such a search is pointless, since everywhere is burning.

The two birds followed him along the way, and sometimes birdsong would sound near some ruins, and Baze would run over to check immediately, but often all he found were dead bodies or wreckage.

He tried calling on the walkie-talkie several times, but there was no response.The entire Jada was deathly silent, and no second heartbeat sounded.

When Baze turned his head, he found that his blood was dripping everywhere around the church along the road, and later he began to use the blood to judge whether he had searched a place.But until the blood stains spread to every corner, he still had nothing to gain.

Until one time when Cassian flew over and pulled the corner of his clothes, he followed him and saw a silver-white shimmer between the broken bricks that had been ignored many times before.He moved the bricks and drew his cane.

Only the cane. Baze didn't know whether he should be happy or despaired.

Jyn and Cassian finally stopped searching too. Baze looked at the dazzling firelight of the church, and walked over with difficulty dragging his injured leg.He heard two birds circling above and kept calling, and secretly lamented that this requiem was more beautiful than any other ballad.

The bird flapped its wings and flew to the church, as if leading the way.

He walked toward the burning church, up the crumbling steps.

so be it.he thinks.

The sound of birdsong gradually faded away amidst the thick chant of the raging fire.

He heard someone in the fire calling his name softly.

"Baze!"

It sounds like Chirrut's voice.

He took another step forward.

"Baze, is that you?"

He stopped abruptly.

Chirrut's voice came not from the fire, but from behind him.

Baze turned his head and struggled for a long time to distinguish the small figure from the dim background.

ChirrutImwe sat on a collapsed boulder by the side of the church, with no traces of being bombed except for a little gray face-a look of high energy made people very angry.

"Baze." Sensing Baze's presence, Chirrut grinned and showed his white teeth, "What are you doing?"

Baze strode straight over and hugged him into his arms.

"Uh... let go, I can't breathe!" Chirrut was taken aback by the bear hug without warning, but Baze knew that he was faking his suffocation.

"Wait, what are you doing with night vision goggles on? It's daytime for God's sake."

Only then did Baze finally remember that he had been wearing those damn night vision goggles.He took off his night-vision goggles, and the first thing he did was look up at the sky—the dark clouds were gathered in one place, gray-black, and the golden sunlight appeared and disappeared between the clouds.

It's just that the lenses are covered with scarlet plasma.

■

Chirrut got his lost blind stick.It is said that because it was difficult to walk without a blind stick, and worried about encountering a vampire, he was buried in the ruins for a long time. Baze imagined that scene and was amused.He asked Chirrut how he escaped the danger, and the other party replied lightly: I will listen to you.

"So next," Baze tied the bandage around his leg, "where should we go?"

"To Washington." Chirrut replied, "We're going to Dr. Erso, and others."

Baze loaded his gun with bullets.Then Chirrut took out a revolver bullet from nowhere and handed it to him: "Sorry for wasting your glorious bullet, I found another one from a dead Bloodhunter, it should work?"

Baze took the bullet and looked at it for a while, stuffed it into the reel, and handed the gun to Chirrut.

"I think you should have known."

"Well, indeed." The priest gave a wry smile "but it's really unnecessary."

He said and returned the gun to Baze.

"You can't hurt me after all."

"Of course." Baze shrugged and put the gun away, vowing inwardly not to touch it again.

"Let's go."

When he came back to his senses, Chirrut had already walked a long way away tapping his blind stick, and his steps were as light as the night they first met.

"Slow down, I can't keep up with you!"

"It's okay," Chirrut laughed cheerfully, "you can always find me, Baze."

"Follow the bluebirds, just follow them."

FIN.

end

"Code name?"

Bodhi glanced contemptuously at the people in the cabin.Everyone shut their mouths in cooperation, except Krennic, who was tightly bound, complained endlessly under the tape.

"You kidnappers, let me go!" He struggled back and forth in position, and Galen had to turn around and make a silencing gesture.

Bodhi cast a helpful look to the co-pilot Cassian.

"Do we have a code name?"

"Just say anything." Cassian spoke under his breath, looking no less relaxed than Bodhi, who was the only pilot.

"You gangsters!" Krennic suddenly yelled, "you stole the K-2SO sample and you want to drag me? I'm quitting, I'm not going to Scarif... ..."

Chirrut cut a new piece of tape and handed it to Baze, who used it to seal the mouth of the former archbishop without hesitation.

Trembling, Bodhi picked up the microphone again.

"Rogue..." He looked at Cassian, who motioned for him to continue.

"....Number one...?" He caught Jyn's supportive look.

"Yes, yes, uh. We are..."

"Rogue One."

The End.