#deciidiingfactor

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After getting all your shit together you and Des headed to the location. A small village on the outskirts of the city. He seemed to like going with you to these lowblood protests, and it was nice to have some company. This time it was a larger area of the society that was affected. The entire village had its water supply cut off because the midbloods wanted them to give up some of their land, but they needed it. It wasn't a case of them being stubborn, even though they would have every right to be. It was their land. But the midbloods were just that bit more important, and more lowbloods have psychic powers, so they’re classed as the dangerous ones who need to be kept in check.

Everything is fine for a while, there are only a few guards keeping watch over the protest. It's only supposed to be a show of force, they wouldn't stand idly by while the higherbloods got their way just because they thought they could do whatever they wanted.

The one major flaw with this whole detail is that there's way less guards than there should be for this scale of event. And Psen isn't here yet, he got held up. He assures you he'll be along soon.

You have a bad feeling.

One of the guards disappears somewhere, and you can't keep an eye on them. You keep watch over Des as you do your little patrol, making sure everything is okay.

There's an almost blinding flash, a loud bang, and suddenly there are more guards. At first nothing happens, but you move to the front to see what's going on. You try and contact Psen or Kain. You don't even get to where you were moving before they start firing.

You aren't too worried, Des should be able to look after himself, right? Everyone else defends themselves in their own way, psychic users shielding the others. You have your own personal shield up, and you push up off the ground, using your psionics to hold yourself up since you can't reveal your godtier here. Since your deal with Kreed, the cost is almost agonising, a searing pain down between your shoulder blades, but you endure it. You launch yourself toward the guards and kick one backwards off the platform they were stood on to attempt to get their attention enough to get them to stop.

Everything was going alright, considering. Until something went terribly wrong.

One of the younger lowbloods apparently thought they had a knack with explosives. You feel the inevitable end before you catch any other sign of it. You move without thinking, forgetting to hide your wings as you make to grab the bomb off them.

You were still too late.

The faulty assembly of the explosive device, along with the hectic environment causes a reaction within seconds of them revealing the implement. One of your useless powers is being able to zone in completely on the thing that's about to kill you. Another is being able to predict how vast a fatality will become. You can already see the blast radius. You worry about where Des is. He probably hadn't even noticed you moved, but you're not even twenty feet from him. The next three hundred feet at the very least is about to be blasted into oblivion. 

Everything goes by in slow motion. It's still too fast.

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You’ve finally come back to yourself and you're sitting on the charred ground, wondering what you're doing here. It takes you several moments of vague glancing around to piece everything together. Your stomach churns. You can't do anything. You just sit there on the floor.

Eventually Psen turns up, landing right next to you and resting his hand on your head. You flinch. "Report?"

You can't speak.

"What happened?" he prods.

You try getting to your feet, finding that it's alot easier than you thought it might be. Emotionally you're numb, but physically you're absolutely fine. "I dunno," you finally manage.

Psen gets to assessing the scene, writing down everything he can see. He picks something up off the floor, turns it around a few times and comes back over to you. "Did the Empire open fire? Or have the lowbloods gotten hold of their pseudo-ammunition?"

You go to reply, then pause. You take the bullet from his hand and almost laugh. "Fakes. It was just a show."

You smile morbidly to yourself, and Psen gives you a look. "A show?"

You point over to where the blast originated, a significantly darker smear on the ground, mingled with the blood and gore you'd expect to find on a battlefield, not at a peaceful protest. "Homemade explosives. Someone thought they could play hero... It was all just a huge accident." He looks over your face for a few moments, then starts writing something down. Probably what you just told him, in more technical terms. "Des was here."

He stops abruptly, cringing. "Oh. Sorry. But, you know the risks of bringing people to this planet."

He's right, of course. You know the risks. And from now on, you'll be more careful. You don't want to lose anyone else. 

You still can't quite believe that he's gone.

... You definitely don't want to search through the organic rubble to confirm it, though.

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Kain called you into his office to debrief you, but you came out forgetting everything that just happened. You know you left, you know that Des was with you. But he’s not here. You sit in your office, on your sofa where he was staying when he was passed out. You lay down and try and remember what happened. You vaguely remember something. But it all feels so abstract. The harder you think about it, the more you’re convinced that it happened though.

Without realising it, you’re breaking through Kain’s mind control. Slowly, step by step.