With the Apocalypse put on hold, Alfred decided to look for his family, anxiety seeping in due to the absence of feedback received when he called their phones.
With the roads in an unusable state, the duo chose to walk instead of driving or riding, the exercise serving as a test of just how much improvement their bodies had undergone.
A journey that would have taken an hour's worth of brisk walking had been reduced to a quarter of that, the parkour skills of the young master and the BERSERK skill- infused leaps of Alfred being responsible.
They saw a few people on their short journey, some trapped under pieces of rubble, others just muttering incoherent gibberish in dark corners but they closed their hearts to it all, focused on reaching the rest of the Reynard family.
*Boom*
Fully breaking the wooden door of his house of its hinges, Alfred burst into the living room, his impeccable butler's suit now with many scratches, tears and smudges on it, evidence of the mad dash he made to arrive.
"TIMOTHY, CAROL! WHERE ARE YOU."
"TIM, TIM WHERE ARE YOU!"
Shouting their heads off while searching the 5 bedroom house for any signs of life, they were forced to stop after a while.
With the Apocalypse turning all corpses to dust, they were left with no proof of their death, a bittersweet feeling since burial also served as final closure to some people.
Not wanting to see his butler and closest confidant of 11 years fall into depression, the young master came up with a crazy plan with no guarantee of success, but half a plan was better than nothing, at least in this scenario.
"Hey Alfred, how about you throw me in the air so that I'll look around for them."
"What!"
"It's really simple actually. Your BERSERK strength would launch me high in the sky, giving me a bird's eye view of the environment. Once there I'll slow down the time around me, giving me a longer timeframe to scan the surroundings."
"Young master, why go through such a hassle when we could just climb the tallest building around."
"Well it's simple really. You get to convert your anger and depression into force, and I also get to know my power a little better. Let's also not forget the sweet view I'll be getting. It's basically a win-win, well two win-wins actually."
Dumbfounded, Alfred was only able to let out a joyless laugh before offering his answer.
"Hahaha, you were always a weird one. Alright, but how will you be able to see everything clearly."
"Shh Shh Shh, Alfred. Less talking more throwing. The longer we talk, the more problems we'll find, now on three."
"One"
"Two"
"Three"
"YYYAAARRGHH"
Touching a button embeded at the back of his ear, a high tech screen appeared in front of him, measuring the peak height he had reached as well as the time taken to reach it.
"1 meter, 2 meters, 3, 4, 5.79 meters. Damn, stressed out BERSERK mode Alfred is strong."
"YOUNG MASTERR, FOCUS!", Alfred's roar reached the airborne man who gave a thumbs up for confirmation.
"TIME DILATION."
Mentioning the name just because he felt like it, a grayish sphere spread out in all directions, he being the centre as well as the only one able to see it, something he realised when Alfred accidentally kept entering and leaving it during the earlier monster slaying session.
"Huh it's just like I thought. My falling speed hasn't reduced so it doesn't really slow me down, it just slows others down. I wonder if there's a way to reverse engineer it. Shoot I've gotta focus."
*THUD*
He landed on the ground, enhanced body tanking it like a pro. Plus his unique job of being a self initiated secret service agent had put him through worse landings.
"Young master, were you able to spot them from above."
"No, and before you sink into depression again how about we head over to the church three blocks away."
"The Catholic one. I never took you to be religious, but maybe this is what I need. It's been a while since I prayed. Carol was the religious one. Always teasing about how she wanted to be a nun, said I stole her away from the sacred path. Oh Carol, my sweet sweet Carol, I miss you already."
"Hey hey man, you're only supposed to start with the sad stories and pity party when you know fir sure that they're dead, which we don't know, so don't start this whole pity party on me, you know I've never been a people person."
"Sorry you had to see that embarrassing side of me young master, it won't happen ag-"
"–Charles. When we're in front of your family call me Charles, that's the name they know me by after all."
"Yeah but that is not your real name is it, Charles. I didn't see it on that top 100 kill list and I know you killed about the same number as me, if not more."
"Alex, it doesn't matter. What matters now is finding your family. Besides whoever was writing names could have made an error or something."
"I doubt it, but just like you said it doesn't matter."
The duo sprinted, reaching the church in less than a minute.
Expecting cream coloured walls and terracotta gates to greet them, Alex was visibly shocked when he saw a big white ball in place of the church, though one look at the impassive expression on the face of young master,– Charles, showed that he already knew about it, probably the reason they were here in the first place.
"Charles d- do you know what this is."
"Not really but I have some theories, but you'll probably not like them."
"Theory A, this is one of the bases of the aliens that gave us superpowers, where they just sit and watch us, reality TV type sh*t, you know."
"Theory B, a research lab where the alien race brings people they kidnapped and perform dangerous experiments on them to see the limits of the average human."
"And Theory C, the one I'm really hoping it's not. This right before us is a breeding ground where they bring people, mostly females to serve as broodmares for them or their armies, like thise mosquitoes from earlier."
With a face as pale as a corpse, Alex stumbled back, hit by the weight of the possible options the white ball could be.
When he finally processed the third option rage overtook him.
How dare they lay their filthy hands on his wife of 17 years.
How dare they touch his precious Carol.
At that moment without knowing it he activated BERSERK, his rage fuelling and enhancing the skill more than ever, begging for an outlet to be released.
He gave it one.
The alien dome.
All sounds including Charles words faded into the background, his vision turning into an endless sea of red.
*Crack*
The alien shield had let out a faint crack, loud enough for only his ears but that was all he needed.
Another punch.
Then another, and another.
Soon his arms were moving on their own, guided by the sole feeling of rage that seemed to grow instead of weaken.
'Why the f*ck is this barrier so sturdy', he wondered, before another thought, more like a whisper entered his mind.
'Why hold back. Why resist. Loose yourself to endless rage. Let the world feel pain. Your pain.'
A whisper so sweet and innocent sounding that he didn't question it.
He just did as it asked, and punched.
He kept punching and punching until eventually his vision was shifted from red to black, the last word he heard were,
"DAD"