by Max Jager
"R-Ruby…" he stammered, "…Ru…by…"
He gritted his teeth when he, once again, received no response from her, and looked up at the sky as tears rolled down his face.
It was too much for him, and his mind had finally begun to crack.
He buried his face in his hands for a moment, before he screamed in inconsolable heartbreak.
"Ruby!"
Crisis City
On the north side of the city, Edo, the elderly leader of the Ice Lands, groaned in pain, for a large piece of his home lied on the lower half of his body. Blood ran down his face as he desperately struggled to free himself from his predicament. Unfortunately, he did not have the strength to do so, regardless of how hard he tried, and he tried ever so terribly.
Damn it…! he thought as he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes in pain, What the…? Just what in the world happened just now?
Realizing that he would not be able to escape his predicament on his own, he stopped struggling, and panted as he looked around at the surrounding area. He had been too preoccupied with his dilemma to pay attention to his surroundings, so when he noticed what the area that surrounded him looked like, he gasped, and his right eye began to twitch.
A multitude of large craters now existed throughout the city, and an unhealthy amount of dust floated in the air.
Multiple buildings had caught fire due to the lightning strikes, and Edo looked at one of these buildings in complete awe.
Wha…?
Speechless, he trembled at the scene before him, and grunted as he grew increasingly furious at the destruction that had been brought upon his homeland.
"…Who…?" he said to himself with rising anger, "…Who in the world would do something like this?"
Miles grunted in pain as he rolled Dante's body off him.
"Damn it…" he said, "…Dante…I know you're drunk and everything…but you have to pull yourself together…"
He panted heavily as he got on his knees, and opened his eyes to look over at Dante and Yuri. When he did so, however, his eyes immediately began to fill with tears.
No… No…!
Sadly, most of Yuri's body had been crushed by concrete, while a barely conscious Dante was covered in blood and gore.
Yuri… Dante…
Broken by the sight of his friends, Miles gritted his teeth in mental anguish, and let out of scream of pure agony.
"Ah!"
Gwen and Caroline, two of the women who had been dragged through the streets by a few Landians days earlier, now lied dead beneath the remains of their apartment complex.
Bruce and Wei, two of the men who had observed the abuse Gwen and Caroline received, grunted as they slowly crawled out from under a huge slab of concrete that had crushed both of their legs.
Meanwhile, the grandchildren of the elderly Amanda, another observer of Gwen and Caroline's suffering, wept loudly as they cradled the lifeless body of their beloved grandmother in their small arms.
"Grandma!" they screamed in horror.
On the west side of the city, Mary crawled on her knees through the seemingly endless land of debris. She coughed heavily due to the dust in the air, and closed her eyes as she covered her mouth with her hands.
My God… she thought with great concern, How could this have happened?
"Good…" she heard a voice say, "You are alright…"
When she opened her eyes, she gasped in great shock when she saw the possessor of the voice, Rachel, lying flat on her stomach and covered in bruises.
"Rachel!" she exclaimed as she looked at her fallen friend "Are you okay? We need to get you to a hospital!"
Rachel groaned in pain before she spoke.
"Don't worry…about me," said Rachel as she panted, "I'll be fine…"
"Good…" she said with relief.
Unfortunately, her relief did not last long. She gasped when she remembered she had not yet seen either Brayne or Abe since the unnatural disaster, and looked left and right to see if they were there. She gasped again when she looked to her right and saw that Abe was unconscious and had blood all over his chest.
No! she thought fearfully as she slowly crawled to his side, Abe!
When she was beside him, she trembled as she looked at his bloody face, and gritted her teeth as she looked at her beloved comrade with guilt.
Abe…she thought as tears filled her eyes, You… You protected me… You…acted as a shield…and saved me… Abe…!
"Abe…" she said with a weak, emotional voice, "You… You're… You're gonna be okay…!"
"Mary…" she heard a voice say, "…Don't cry… If you can still move…then tend to the others as best you can…"
Realizing that it was Brayne who was speaking to her, Mary turned around to identify where he was, and gasped in fear when she saw that his left arm was lying under a large piece of concrete.
"Oh my God!" she yelled in fear, "Brayne!"
Edo continued to struggle to free himself from his predicament, when he heard footsteps coming from behind him.
"Oh…" he groaned in relief, "Please… Whoever you are…please…please help me…! I'm…stuck…!"
The person who the footsteps belonged to, however, did not respond to his plea, and Edo screamed for the person's help once more.
"I'm begging you…" he said with an increasingly weak voice, "Listen…I'm the leader of the Ice Lands… I have power…and connections… I'll give you anything you want… I'll do anything you want…so please…please…just…rescue me…! Please…!"
Sadly, Edo once again did not receive a response from the person. This time, however, the person walked into his view, and stood before him.
"Oh, thank God…!" he exclaimed with joy as he looked up to see the face of who he thought would be his savior, "Thank you so much! I promise you… I promise you won't regret…!"
His eyes practically bugled out of his head, and his jaw dropped as low as it possibly could when he caught sight of the man who stood before him.
It was the last person he ever expected to see.
"Cr…Cr…"
"Red..."
"Are you okay…Brayne…?" asked Rachel weakly.
"Oh…don't worry…about me…" he said as he struggled to lift the concrete off his arm, "I'll be…fine…"
He was lying, of course, in an effort to spare Mary's feelings. In reality, he was pretty sure his arm had been crushed the minute the concrete landed on it.
Damn…it…! he thought with frustration, What a pain in the ass…! Ah!
He grunted as he got a good grip on the concrete with his free hand, and yelled angrily as he slowly lifted the concrete off his arm, and threw it a few feet away. He screamed as he held his crushed arm in excruciating pain.
God! he thought as he gritted his teeth, Damn it! It hurts like a bitch!
Once he managed to get a hold of himself, he panted in pain as he looked over at Mary.
"Mary…are you…alright…?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"Yeah…" responded Mary, "but you're not…!"
Mary was about to crawl over to him, when he used his hand to signal to her that she should stay where she was.
"Don't bother…Mary…" he grunted as sweat dripped down his face, "There's nothing you can do to treat…this… I'll have to go to the hospital for this…so don't worry about me… I need you to stay where you are… I don't want you to move around much… I know you're a strong woman…but you and I both know…that…you're the…least powerful of us…so I want to make sure…you're absolutely fine…before you start trying to move around a bunch… You already exerted yourself crawling over to Abe… Stay there…and try to wake him up… We'll need him… I have a feeling…that whatever…whoever…did this…"
"…will not be an easy foe to defeat…"
Conflicted, Mary did not know what to do, when Rachel spoke.
"Listen to him…" she said.
Mary looked over at her, and watched as Rachel gave her a small smile.
"H
e's strong… He can handle himself… Worry about yourself…okay…? You wouldn't want him to feel bad about you not listening to his attempt to protect you…so stay where you are…and don't worry…"
Having felt guilty before, Mary reluctantly acquiesced to Brayne's plea, and stayed where she was. Sadly, this did not take away the incredulous level of uneasiness she felt about this whole thing.
Who…? she thought as she looked at her injured friends and the rubble around her, Who could have done this…? Who would do such a thing?
Who?
Tears streamed down her face as she placed her hands over her mouth and tried to stifle her crying.
How could anyone possess this kind of power?
"Hello, Edo…" said Red indifferently as he looked down at the old man, "So, you're still the leader of this land, huh?"
Edo began to tremble with fear as he spoke.
"Wha…? What are you doing here…?"
"Such does not concern you," said Red as he cracked his knuckles, "Now, about that favor…"
He can't be serious! thought Edo as sweat dripped down his face, He doesn't really think I'll do anything for him, does he?
"What I want is no small thing, Edo. It is something very…significant… Something that will change the entirety of the Ice Lands… Something…that this land desperately needs..."
Edo gulped nervously before Red told him what he wanted.
"I want to rule over the Ice Lands."
Edo gasped in complete shock, and looked at Red as though he was crazy.
"Are you nuts?" he yelled in utter disbelief, "You want to rule the Ice Lands? What kind of fool do you take me for?"
"Interesting," said Red apathetically, "You just told me you would do whatever I pleased if I saved you. Now…what kind of leader would lie like that?"
"Screw you!" yelled Edo angrily, "I don't care if I'm under this concrete for the rest of my life! This is my home, and I have led it the best I could all these years! You're a murderous and psychotic terrorist who should be locked away in the darkest chambers of hell, and there is no way in hell I would ever…allow you to rule over this land!"
Deeply irritated, Red closed his eyes as he cracked his neck, and Edo watched as he raised his foot over his head.
"You better watch yourself," he asserted, "This isn't a game or a joke. This is your last chance…and make no mistake, I will not give you another. Give me what I desire…"
"…or I will kill you where you lie."
Edo took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and thought.
"I don't have all day," said Red fiercely, "Make up your mind…before it ends up becoming filth that lies under my heel."
Damn it… thought Edo with sorrow, It looks like I have no other choice… There's only one reasonable thing I can do in a situation like this…
"Okay…" he conceded with a heavy heart, "…Okay…"
Red put his foot down beside Edo's head, and waited to hear Edo tell him he would give in to his demand.
However, instead of doing that, Edo spat blood on his foot.
Fool, thought Red, unaffected by Edo's utter disrespect, Like I need him alive to rule this land.
"You know," he began, "It's actually quite…amusing. I attacked this city with the sole intention of intimidating you into giving me this land, but…that tactic seems to have failed. Your really are incredibly stubborn, Edo… You always were… Looks like I have no other choice…but to take this land from you by force… Ah well… Fine by me."
Edo closed his eyes as Red once again raised his foot over his head.
"Now you can go to hell and burn alongside that bastard I once called my father."
He quickly slammed his foot down on Edo's skull, crushing it, and causing blood and parts of his brain to ooze out of it.
Afterwards, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Now it's done, he thought as he lifted his foot off Edo's skull and placed it back on clean ground, Now that I've eliminated the past…
He clenched his fists as he looked up at the sky.
I…will be the new leader of the Ice Lands.
As he looked up at the sky, he heard the sound of several feet walk into the area from behind him, and lowered his head when he heard them speak amongst each other.
"Hey, look!" he heard one voice say, "There's somebody standing over there!"
"Hey!" called out a second voice, "Are you okay? Who's tha…?"
Red closed his eyes when he heard the voice gasp in shock.
"Oh, my God!" it said, "That was the elder's house…and by the looks of it…he's…"
"What happened?" cried out a third voice, "Did the lightning strike his head?"
"Was he hit by a piece of concrete?"
"Wait a minute…" said the first voice, "That guy's foot is covered in blood."
"No way…! Do you think…?"
The second voice grunted when the possessor of the voice realized what might have happened to the elder.
"Did you…kill him?"
Without saying a single word, Red slowly turned around to face the people who had stumbled upon him, and spoke with more indifference than ever.
"So it's you…" he said as the three people he faced looked at him in shock, "Well…it really has been a long time… You look quite lovely…Rachel…"
The possessors of the three voices, Brayne, Abe, and Rachel gasped when the man referred to Rachel by name.
He knows Rachel, thought Abe in confusion, but…how?
"Rachel," began Brayne as he looked at her with great concern, "Do you…know him…?"
Rachel's eyes widened in complete shock as she looked at the man who stood before her, and she trembled as she took a step back in fear.
"C…" she stammered, to no avail.
Thank God Brayne told Mary to stay where she was…!
She was overwhelmed with shock and awe, and this really caught the attention of her friends, for they knew Rachel to be perhaps the strongest and bravest woman they had ever known.
"Hey," said Brayne with concern, "What's the matter, Rachel?"
He watched as nervous sweat dripped down her face, and gulped when he understood what her reaction meant.
Oh God… he thought, disconcerted, Rachel never backs away like this… This guy must really be bad news…
"Rachel," said Abe as he put his hand on her shoulder, "please calm down. You obviously know who this man is, so can you fill us in on his identity? Who is he?"
Rachel gritted her teeth in fear before she spoke.
"This man is…Red Blood…and if we don't stop him…"
"…he may end up killing us all…"
Red Blood
Abe fiercely gripped the sword he had strapped to his waist as he looked at Red with the intent to kill.
Why? he thought, Why on Earth is he…here?
Damn it! thought Brayne as he cracked his neck, If even Rachel is scared of him, I bet this guy is more powerful than anyone we've ever faced…! Ah! What a pain in the ass!
Rachel looked at Red sternly as she took a few steps forward, and crossed her arms as she spoke.
"What...are you doing back here?" she asked with rising anger.
Red grunted as he smiled a small smile and crossed his arms in amusement.
"Aw," he mocked, "I haven't seen you look that mad in a long time. What's with the angry face, Rachel? You're not happy to see me?"
Red chuckled as he looked at her smugly, and Rachel gritted her teeth in immense anger as she cracked her knuckles.
"You better stop acting so damn smug!" she yelled as she looked at him with murderous intent, "What the hell are you doing back here? Are you the one responsible for devastating this land? If so, why the hell did you kill the leader of the Ice Lands? Just what game are you playing anyway?"
She was positively furious as she looked at her enemy with eyes filled with rage, but Red was not affected by her anger in the slightest, and calmly put his hands in his pockets as he spoke.
"Why would I tell you anything?" he asked apathetically, "It's my concern, not yours."
Rachel grunted as he continued.