[Rogue One] A Blue Robin's Tale

5

5,

When cleaning the battlefield in the morning, Baze found a walkie-talkie similar to his own from a blood hunter.

This young man, also from New York, graduated only two years later than him. Baze remembered his face. This kid was born with a good eloquence. A lot of money for ammo.Apart from his big talk, Baze really doesn't hate him that much.It's a pity that he didn't hesitate for half a second like Saw when he exploded his mind the night before, and Baze still couldn't ask his name.

The defenders carried the body onto a military vehicle.Soldiers, civilians; human beings, vampires; complete, half missing, at this moment they finally received some kind of weird and equal treatment.

Then Baze's eyes fell on the steps, but Chirrut wasn't there.

The places where he'd always found Chirrut in the past were empty, not even the birds.This was the first time in half a month that Baze felt that a catastrophe was imminent.He had no choice but to walk along the street in the direction out of the city with a vague impression.There are no civilians on the road anymore, except for military vehicles, there are burning objects everywhere, as well as soldiers who poured gasoline into them—they have always been so inefficient in the way of centralized disposal of corpses.

But when flamethrowers from the epidemic prevention department start to appear on the streets of a city, it means that the city has officially been abandoned by the Episcopal Church. Baze will never forget the group of demons hiding in the white chemical protective suits.They held the gun in their hands as if it were a large toy, and anyone injured, even a small scratch, would inevitably die in the flames.

Baze worries that Jada has suffered the same fate.But he was finally relieved when he found Chirrut on an emergency department box next to the checkpoint.

"I have good news." A smile seemed to grow on the priest's face.He spoke directly into a patch of air.

"So you must come here and tell me?"

Baze sat down on another box, facing those unfocused eyes.Beside them are a group of outlying citizens who are still taking chances, some are leaning against the edge of the tent and chatting in low voices, and some are queuing up for medical examination.The medical staff in white coats reassured Baze a little, at least Jada was safe this time.

"They said I should come and see, and I did. I thought they said the same thing to you."

Baze guessed that "they" referred to the group of priests who were always evasive with expressionless faces.Then he noticed that Chirrut had changed clothes.Perhaps because this one is also pure black, it is difficult to find any difference between it and ordinary clothes from a distance.This is a coat with a style similar to a windbreaker. The slit hem is much longer than before, and the red lining can still be seen vaguely; there are four or five ammunition pouches pinned to the iron-gray belt, and a bag is tied on the back. Taking the gun Baze had seen in the hands of other priests - it was ridiculous that they would allow a blind man to use a long-range weapon.

"What's with your clothes?"

"Smocks. This means the parish is officially at war."

"Didn't you take it seriously before cooperating with you?"

"We have no choice," Chirrut shrugged helplessly, "It's you Bloodhunters and soldiers who are dying all the time."

The fly in the ointment is that Chirrut buttoned the top button. Baze didn't know when he started to be afraid of the cold. He used to never show his neck because of the Roman collar. Now it seems that it was probably not an accidental act.

Baze hesitated to hold Chirrut's hands to keep him warm.

Two seconds later he forced himself to forget the thought with his face burning.

"Do you want to hear the good news?"

"Say, I'm listening."

"I heard that R2-D2 has officially failed as an antidote."

"You call that good news?"

"Of course. Then they will speed up the development of K-2SO."

"I don't quite understand what kind of prejudice you have."

After a while they listened to the morning news from Washington.

As usual, at the beginning, the news anchor, who was not awake, described to the audience that Washington was still in a mess, so don't come out of the underground bunker at will.Then came the official reports that R2-D2 had failed, and that it was going to be marketed as a psycho-comfort drug, which was ridiculously expensive. Chirrut said this way people would have more fond memories of the infected family members, and then be content to shoot them in the head three months later.The next piece of news was about K-2SO, and it was rare for the spokesperson to smooth his tongue.He first stated that the antidote is about to enter the clinical trial stage, and will become the most mature generation of antidote.But development of the antidote has been halted due to a lack of funding and volunteers for the trials.

Baze looked up to see Chirrut's expression, but the smile on Chirrut's face had disappeared as expected. Baze felt that he should think of something to comfort his friend, although it was not necessary at all, because Chirrut was always able to get out of disappointment very quickly.

"The Lord will forgive them." After holding back for a long time, this was all he could say.Chirrut was taken aback when he heard this, and immediately raised the corner of his mouth.Only this time he smiled a little forcedly.

"Baze, you know," he said slowly, "they just gave up their only hope."

That afternoon Baze was amazed that he was stupid enough to worry about Chirrut's mood.

When he went back to the church, the priest was sour all the way, and then sat on the steps and told a lot of funny jokes, and he was the only one laughing.

"Another story came to mind." Chirrut seemed in high spirits.

"I can roughly guess what that's about." Baze wiped his face.

"Once upon a time there was a Mockingbird Lake."

Swan Lake. Baze sighed in his heart, what kind of imagination can make a person associate a robin with a lake?

"A princess was turned into a bluebird by a demon by a lake. Only true love can break the spell. Then a prince falls in love with her, and he promises to give the princess a grand wedding. The wedding That night, the devil's daughter Gray Mockingbird disguised herself as a princess to seduce the prince, but failed in the end. The prince found the real princess and they lived happily together."

However, Baze remembered that the version he had seen was a tragedy of a princess and a prince throwing themselves into a lake to die in love.

"Well, good ending. People always try to think of the good."

"Is there a bad ending?"

"No." Baze stopped the car just in time.

"Of course there will be." Chirrut explained seriously, "Any kind of ending will happen. Maybe somewhere the ending is that the prince and princess both die in the end-but I believe it is not the ending here."

Then he laughed, trying to keep his eyes in Baze's direction.

"Chirrut." Baze finally decided to ask that question, "Where did you read these stories?"

The priest beside him fell into a brief silence.

"Well... there used to be a public library near the church, and it had everything. Then the military turned that place into a sex library. It doesn't exist now."

"Are there many books in Braille?"

This time Chirrut thought for a longer time, and just when he seemed to have finally figured out how to answer this question, the horns hanging in the middle of the market suddenly blared long and piercingly.

It had been a while since Baze had heard such an alarm.This is a warning to all large settlements of the imminent broadcast of a live national radio broadcast.The last time the alarm was sounded was a few months ago, and the message was "The antidote C-3PO caused a virus mutation during the experiment. All citizens should move to the underground bunker immediately after hearing the broadcast and wait for the alarm to end."

It all started from there.

Chirrut looked alert like a cat with pricked ears.After the three sirens sounded, the whole city fell silent.

"Please pay attention to all citizens who are outdoors. According to the investigation and verification by the Eastern Episcopal Church of the United States, the virus has mutated, and vampires with complete visual functions have appeared across the country, causing more than 80 deaths. Please be vigilant and avoid it."

A stiff male voice read the entire passage three times accompanied by electromagnetic waves.As soon as the broadcast stopped, the bazaar below the steps immediately returned to its original lively atmosphere.

Baze's first action was to raise his wrist to look at his watch: it was 10 minutes to six o'clock.But there were no soldiers rushing over, and naturally there were no monsters breaking out of the ground, and nothing was making noise except a group of fanatics who had long lost their minds.The whole world is eerily quiet.

A bluebird poked its head cautiously out of Chirrut's cuff, and Baze recognized that it was Jyn, the only one who could get in.

"It's a bit unfair." Chirrut smiled bitterly.

Baze watched him stand up slowly, facing the direction of the setting sun, unable to see his expression clearly.The golden afterglow softened the lines of his profile a lot, but Baze could feel that he was afraid.

"I should go check it out," Chirrut said. "You stay here."

■

Baze probably knew what Chirrut was worried about, it was a part of their life these days to worry about civilians.But he soon realized that this time it would never be that simple, he had never seen Chirrut walk so fast - and then even started to trot, as if to shake him off.They ran wildly on the empty street, and the patrolling soldiers turned their heads and looked at them with strange eyes. Chirrut must have sensed something, his inexplicable "lord" must have told him something again.

Something that terrified him.

Gradually, no one burned corpses on the street, no patrols passed by, not even a single bird followed. Baze suddenly began to suspect that Chirrut had led him into a place cut off from time and space, where he looped endlessly.

When the black figure stopped abruptly, Baze had already been thrown dozens of meters away.He found that the only checkpoint connecting Jada to the outside world was at the end of the road ahead, and all the soldiers were holding their guns, with their backs turned to them, motionless.

"Chirrut...?" Baze tried to call out

The small figure in front did not respond. Baze wondered if he would start praying inappropriately again.

He just took two steps forward and stopped.

All of a sudden, the entire tranquility was torn to pieces by the deafening gunshots. Baze clearly saw the group of soldiers being swept away by a wave in an instant.It was a wave composed of an astonishing number of blood-sucking monsters, overwhelmingly rushing along the direction of the street.They must have heard the sound, smelled the fear, or they just saw their vulnerable prey from a distance, and were amazed at the many conveniences that the new gift of vision brought to hunting.

Chirrut turned his head sharply: "Run."

Baze stood where he was. Chirrut didn't move a step, so he wasn't going to run either.In fact he never ran away, though it would have been more ridiculous to fight back in such a situation.Time seemed to be slowed down, but Baze knew it was a trick of the adrenal glands.He saw that Chirrut was still urging him to run, the shadow between his brows deepened every second, but he still stood there without moving.

He watched as the group of inhuman creatures swooped in, charging at Chirrut.

Then they go around.

"Baze!" Chirrut yelled.

"I'm here." Baze replied subconsciously, and the surrounding time suddenly returned to normal speed.He saw Chirrut sprinting towards him as if he had finally located it, surrounded by thousands of hungry monsters.It's a bit like a [-]-meter race. All athletes try their best to run to the same finish line. No matter how many competitors there are, there is only one gold medal.And when there is still half the distance to the finish line, there will always be one who runs the fastest and leaves the others far behind. At this time, it can be judged that the gold medal must belong to him.

Before Baze could get ready, Chirrut knocked him to the ground like a missile.The moment Baze hit the ground on his back, he suspected that his spine was broken, and then Chirrut pressed his whole body up, his chin resting in the socket of his neck, and his arms tightly strangled his shoulders.

In all directions are white torsos that exude a stench, like a rotting forest that can run, surrounding them.

At first Baze didn't dare to make a sound, and Chirrut lay on top of him like a weight, motionless.It wasn't until the large army of vampires had passed that Baze dared to raise his head and look around, and turned his head to face a mouth that was dripping with saliva.He lay back immediately, but the monster had obviously noticed the strangeness here, a pair of snowflake-shaped white pupils scanned back and forth from top to bottom.

"It's about to figure it out. Think of a way." Baze squeezed out a sentence between his teeth.He could feel Chirrut shaking all over.

"Shut up." A dull voice came from the left, "Corpse can't talk."

Then the vampire began to growl.

Chirrut raised his head, and just as Baze guessed what he wanted to do, there was a sudden chill on his neck, followed by a dull pain.

This is probably the most unforgettable experience in Baze's life.In front of a vampire, a priest bit his neck severely.

ChirrutImwe, really have you.

This bite was not light at all, Baze even suspected for a moment that he was going to lose that piece of meat.He'd wager that being bitten on the neck by other vampires was pretty much what it felt like, maybe not as painful.Fortunately, the monster left with a grunt, or else Baze would have felt the viscous red liquid flowing down his neck very soon.

Chirrut buried his face in the crescent of his neck again and didn't bite him again for hours. Baze wanted to laugh a little, and then he remembered that corpses can't laugh.

They remained in this position without saying a word.It was obvious that Chirrut was much more scared than Baze, and it took him a while to stop shaking and his breathing to calm down.After another few hours, Baze suspected that he was falling asleep, but the strength of his shoulders did not relax at all.

Lying on the ground, you can see the stars in the night sky. After watching for a long time, you will find that they are indeed slowly moving along with the autobiography of the earth.Except when Baze closed his eyes when he passed a vampire, he kept his eyes open in boredom.Keeping eyes open helps people to ignore some things, such as the air getting colder and colder, such as a warm current blowing on his neck, such as the fact that the body in his arms is not very warm.

Baze didn't even know when he put his hand on Chirrut's waist.Maybe the gesture made him look less awkward, or maybe more awkward.But around here, as far as he knew, no audience would care what he was doing now.So he just stuck to that waist and slowly tightened his arms until the seam was tight enough that the person lying on him would not be able to breathe freely.He vaguely felt Chirrut's weak heart beat faster, but then he only felt the heart in his chest was about to jump out.

He knew Chirrut could sense it too.The latter just chuckled lightly, then fell silent again.

This time Baze knew he was praying.

■

"Probably when I was… 17 years old." Chirrut began to unbutton it from top to bottom.After removing two Bazes, I saw the shocking scar: on the neck near the collarbone, the shape of a pair of teeth marks and the traces of tearing could be vaguely seen.

"Saw saved my life. But he was afraid I would turn into something like those monsters, so he locked me in the basement of the monastery."

"But he found out you didn't."

"Yes, he first found out that I wasn't dead, and then that I wasn't blind or insane, so he let me out."

So later he learned that Chirrut would make that look when he was blind. Baze thought.

"Does anyone else know?"

"Except for Archbishop Krennic at that time, everyone else in the church knew. There was also a virologist, Mr. Galen Erso, who also knew." Chirrut paused, "He told me a lot about viruses, including how they are It can mutate at any time, the last stage of the mutation is loss of vision, and the infected person can only maintain sanity for three weeks at most. You should have known this long ago since you went to seminary."

"Galen?" A bluebird with flapping wings appeared in Baze's mind.

"He understands some simple Braille and helped me translate a few books, although at that time I was long past the age of reading fairy tales." Facing the faint morning light, Chirrut smiled recalling the past, "His Daughter, Jyn Erso, was a brave little girl. And her childhood sweetheart, Cassian Andor, the youngest garrison in Jeddah history. That kid could shoot at six. And..."

He stopped suddenly.

"I'll tell you about that later. Have you thought of a name?" He pointed to the new bird.

Baze came back from a sudden realization.He looked at the scattered white figures in the distance, carrying relief supplies from the ambulance.

"K-2SO."

Chirrut, unsurprisingly, smiled as before.

"It's a good name."

"I thought you'd give a different opinion?"

"No. It's a good name indeed."

They sat next to each other on the highest steps of the church, blood and corpses were everywhere as far as their eyes could see, and among them were priests in black—they were cleaning the battlefield, and the hem of their clothes was stained by the night's catastrophe. A metallic texture with bloody rays of light.Sometimes they all stop together to offer a silent prayer for the dead. Only then did Baze remember about the walkie-talkie, and he handed the unknown boy's walkie-talkie to Chirrut.In addition to communicating with nearby communication points, the walkie-talkie can also be used as an internal communication tool for a blood hunting team.

Now it is probably equivalent to a dedicated line for the two of them.

After that, Baze didn't speak for a long time, he kept staring at the ambulances, and then he told himself that they were not ambulances after the morning fog cleared.That is the truck of the epidemic prevention department.

Of course he didn't tell Chirrut that the group of people in the distance were not medical staff, but soldiers in white chemical protective suits.

What they moved down was not relief supplies, but drugs.

"Baze, you answer my question first." Chirrut said suddenly.

"what?"

"What color is the sky?"

"Huh?" Baze thought to himself what kind of question it was.He looked up, and it was pale blue that stretched as far as the eye could see.

"Light blue."

"That's good."

Chirrut leaned closer to him, a faint smile played on the corner of his mouth.

TBC.