Alexander Strike enjoyed power.

Aaron never knew what he had. Silly boy. Power in spades, a never-ending reservoir, never to be used up. True, he and his waste of a counterweight were drained after using their powers; but only because they didn't know how to use them. They didn't deserve them.

Alex wouldn't return to Joseph yet. He'd wait for him to come running, begging for his newfound power. He was the master. He was the Enemy of Death.

Yet death itself followed in his wake, like a lost puppy. Aaron had always given Call the puppy eyes. It was sickening. Now he could feel those eyes watching him, but with far less adoration, gnawing on his nerves - and his conscience. While he own harbored no guilt for killing Aaron, (his only regret was not taking Call along,) empty rooms echoed with words he couldn't catch. He had once controlled air, made it whisper at his whim and make illusions from nothing, now he couldn't help but feel that he was the one being tricked.

He could see it in the corner of his eye sometimes - hair once light turned dark, gray skin, but pupils like white light. And a color somewhere too, that his mind could not perceive.

Alex was tending to the wounds that beastly wolf had given him when the sound solidified into words, and the light manifested into something almost whole.

"Let me leave." His voice came as though through a conch shell, flimsy but echoing. Aaron's spectral form flickered, coming almost completely apart where the Alkahest had been. Just a black hole, like chaos, a rift torn in what was left of his soul. His handsome face was set somewhere between agony and dead indifference.

Aaron's soul was a beautiful thing to behold.

And Alex hated it.

"I'm not keeping you here," he spat.

"You took my magic, you took my life, and now my soul has nowhere to go."

Alex grinned, conjuring chaos. Aaron went static for a moment. "You mean this magic? This power? You were wasting it."

"You dddddddon't deserrrrrrvve thhat!"

"No, I'm afraid it was you and your pitiful little boyfriend who didn't deserve it. Now, I think I do have somewhere for your soul to go."

He expanded his ball of chaos, letting it soak hungrily into the air. Aaron faded only to a faint light again.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Alex asked the phantom light before him. A pitiful shrieking noise was its only response.

Suddenly, his magic sprung free, spiraling out of control and savagely hunting for anything to devour. Alex let out a shout- why couldn't he control his own magic? The wall behind him crumbled, the ceiling shifted, cracks spreading. The building would collapse if he didn't control it.

"Come back to me!" He ordered it. Reluctantly, it cycloned back towards him and faded.

Breathing heavily, he fled the building as it groaned behind him. He hid behind the old shed where the Chaos-Ridden were once kept as a plume of dust and rubble exploded behind him. Aaron was nowhere to be seen. Alex let out a sigh of relief, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths.

"You don't know what you're doing."

Alex's eyes snapped open. Lo and behold, like a deranged angel in Bethlehem; Aaron had manifested again, perhaps stronger than before. His indistinct, shadowy features were twisted into something that almost resembled a smirk. Alex's eyes still wouldn't quite focus on him. Always indistinct, fuzzy, like a bad negative.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

"You can't touch a soul. Maybe because you don't have one of your own." Aaron's smirk deepened, looking more and more like a grisly impression of a skull.

Alex growled. "Just leave! Go haunt your boyfriend or something, I don't want you here!"

Aaron's features settled back into a melancholy frown. "I've always been good at leaving…"

"Stop with the pity party!"

"My soul is attached to Call, but the Alkahest, I think it's keeping me here."

"Nice try. I'm not throwing out my most powerful weapon."

"You got the power you wanted," Aaron's voice snapped. "Now you're a weapon. Besides, if you kill Call with it, then you'll have both of us haunting you. Call never shuts up when he's alive," Aaron said, and even dead, Alex could hear the admiration in his distant voice.

"And neither do you now." Alex scowled. "Fine. I'll destroy it."

Aaron dissipated, but the feeling of being watched didn't. Not until the Alkahest did. Eaten, by the magic it was meant to destroy, the magic he had stolen from its victim.

Alex had all the power he needed to kill Call without it anyway.