Chapter Text
The story broke like thunder across Europe and the U.S.
“ERCOLE VISCONTI ARRESTED IN CONNECTION TO 1972 SEA FOLK MASSACRE”
“FUGITIVE WHITE SUPREMACIST HID FOR 50 YEARS IN AMERICA”
“GRANDSON’S TESTIMONY LEADS TO JUSTICE AT LAST”
A storm of headlines. News specials. True crime podcasts and primetime documentaries. Caleb’s name was briefly redacted, but once his involvement became public, he was no longer the troubled kid who’d punched a boy at summer camp.
He was the key witness, the one who pulled back the curtain.
The one who ended a ghost story.
Ercole Visconti was extradited to Italy within two weeks. The footage of him being taken into custody—blindfolded and scowling, face still red from coffee burns—circulated everywhere. He refused to speak during the transfer. But he smiled once, looking straight into a camera.
No one missed the hate behind his teeth.
The trial began in Genoa.
Caleb flew out with U.S. law enforcement, escorted, protected. He gave his statement in a secure courtroom. He didn’t cry. He didn’t shake. He read it clearly, voice steady:
“I am not here to ask for vengeance. I’m here because I was almost made into him. Because others still might be. And because his victims deserve more than silence.”
But the biggest revelation didn’t come from Caleb.
It came from documents unearthed in the investigation—Ercole’s immigration paperwork, forged and incomplete. And one line buried in an old social services report from 1983:
“Adopted American child, unnamed biological origin.”
It turned out Ercole wasn’t Caleb’s grandfather by blood.
He had adopted Caleb’s father at a young age—likely as a cover identity after fleeing Italy. He never told Caleb’s parents the truth.
The man who had almost corrupted him was never family.
Just a squatter in his lineage.
But wait, there was more.
To Caleb's surprise, he saw a face near him he'd never thought he'd see in Italy, or anywhere for that matter...
It was Elio Solis, the very boy who Caleb harmed just a month ago, NASA badge on his jacket, and that same weird, glowing stone necklace he always wore to make contact with the Communiverse, but what was he doing here?.
Turns out, there's more to Ercole's crimes than meets the eye.
"Before we move to sentencing, Your Honor, the court must consider new evidence—linked to a more recent double homicide committed on American soil in 2019. The victims: Marco and Selena Solis. Parents of the young man seated in this courtroom," the Prosecutor said and continued.
"Witnesses at the scene described a masked assailant, short, balding, heavyset. For years, the case remained unsolved… until ballistic forensics tied the bullets to a weapon found in Mr. Visconti’s hidden property in Carver County, California."
Elio stiffens. His breathing quickens. Caleb turns to look at him—stunned.
"And we have one final witness. The child who saw the shooter with his own eyes."
All eyes turn to Elio. He slowly stands, swallowing hard. Walks to the witness stand.
"Do you swear to speak the truth?" the prosecutor asked, to which Elio replied "Yes!"
"Do you recognize this man?" he aksed
Elio looked at Ercole for a good while, it was like looking at the devil, Elio finally spoke again.
"He was wearing a mask. But not on his eyes. Not really. You remember someone like that. You feel them. The way they breathe. The way they walk. The hate coming off of them like heat. It was him. I was six years old… and he looked back at me before he disappeared into the dark."
After the trial, Caleb walked with Elio, not as a bully looking for Prey, but as a normal person willing to reconcyle
"Hey... sorry we messed with your little communication device and harmed your eye..." he said nervously.
But Elio was still smiling, he replied "I'm over all that now, it was an accident, I was a little too possessive at the time, but me and Bryce now do it together, I had a feeling you didn't take his breaking up very well"
"No... I didn't take it well, but i'm willing to fix it back up and get it all together, I think this whole ordeal taught me many lessons."
They steped out of the Genoa courthouse, when they then saw waiting by the steps was an old man, but not as old as Ercole, in his mid-60s waiting in the courtyard, in a priest’s collar, a warm smile on a weathered face. His hair was silver, curled at the edges, and his hands were clasped peacefully.
“Caleb Visconti?” he asked gently.
Caleb turned, blinking.
“I know who you are,” the man said. “I’m… Luca. Once, a boy in Portorosso. Now, a man of God. I saw him—your grandfather—when he was still loud and cruel. I lost many friends because of him.”
Caleb lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Luca said, reaching into his coat. “But you were handed the wrong book.”
He placed something in Caleb’s hands.
It was a Bible. Worn but clean. A ribbon marked the Book of John.
“I’m not here to convert you,” Luca said. “Just to offer something… honest. Something he couldn’t poison. Read it or don’t. But know this: evil wants to inherit people. But it only ever gets us when we let it.”
Caleb held the book to his chest.
“Thank you.”
After arriving back home, Caleb saw Bryce waiting at the airport, with a smile despite all that had happened, no doubt he heard the news and was ready to build bridges back just as much as he was.
"You proved it, and you earned it. Want to hang out?" he said with a smile.
Caleb stood fot a few seconds before said "Yeah, i'd like that... I'm sorry, seeing how well you guys are getting along, it kinda taught me a lesson in real frienship, not through power, but with compassion... can I be friends again?"
Bryce replied "Absolutely my man, and with Elio on board, we'll be a better trio than the Dream Team!"
Caleb rolled his eyes goofily "That was so 4 years ago man, get with the times" but he still showed a face of sincerity and a little bit of good humor in him.
"Heheh, I know... but still, I think this is the start of a new chapter in our friendship." he said.
Bryce bumped his shoulder. “Let’s never go camping again, though.”
Weeks passed.
The headlines moved on.
But Caleb didn’t.
He grew.
He began spending weekends at Bryce’s place, where they set up an old ham radio rig Elio gave them—one tuned not to Earth frequencies… but something stranger, the air filled with cicadas and the occasional burst of static from the ham radio set on the ground.
Caleb sat on the steps, lemonade in one hand, bible in the other that he reads in his spare time, legs stretched out, and for the first time in a long time… he wasn’t tense.
There was no dread in his shoulders. No phantom pressure behind his eyes. Just quiet. Just breath.
Beside him, Elio and Bryce were laughing over some garbled message Glordon had sent through the Communiverse frequency—apparently something about "cosmic noodles" and a planet made entirely of moss.
It made no sense, and it didn’t need to.
It was weird, it was nerdy, it was safe.
And it was his now, too.
A month ago, he wouldn't have imagined this moment. Back then, he’d been angry, hollow, and too proud to admit he was drowning. He thought strength meant holding everything in. Pushing people out. Letting Ercole’s voice echo in the silence.
But now?
He looked over and saw Bryce, leaning over the radio dial, his head nodding to Elio’s commentary like they’d been friends for years.
And Caleb wasn’t jealous.
He was included.
Elio had been the real surprise. Despite everything—his fame in the science community, the alien contact, the museum tours—he was chill. Nerdy. Easy to talk to. Kind.
The first time Elio handed Caleb a schematic for his new signal booster, Caleb had blinked. “Wait… you want me to help you?”
Elio shrugged. “Sure. You’re good with radios, right? And honestly? You kind of helped save the world—from one of its worst ideas. That’s worth a seat at the table.”
So Caleb took it.
Now he sat in the fading sun, the sound of otherworldly beeps and Earth-boy banter in the background, and smiled.
He wasn’t trying to be anyone else.
He wasn’t living in someone else's shadow.
He was just Caleb—not Ercole’s grandson. Not the bully from Camp Carver. Not the lost cause.
Just a kid.
With friends.
With forgiveness.
With a future.
And somewhere, deep in the void of stars, a signal pinged back from Glordon with a silly greeting.
And Caleb answered:
“Message received.”
The world felt wide and strange again—not dangerous, but full of possibility.
No more masks, alien or otherwise.
No more legacy.
No more bullying.
Just the present.
And for the first time in a long time…
Caleb was free.
THE END