Bandit's Revenge

by Max Jager

  What a woman…

  He cleared his throat before he spoke.

  "Anyway, Scarlet…" he began, "I was thinking you and I could live in an apartment sitting above my restaurant."

  Scarlet smirked a bit as she put her hand on her brother's shoulder.

  "Yeah…no," she stated, "That's…probably not gonna happen."

  Surprised, both Bandit and Rachel stopped and turned to face her.

  "What?" asked Bandit with raised eyebrows, confused, "Wha…? You don't want to live with your big brother?"

  "Oh, it's nothing personal, Bandit" said Scarlet, "I love you. You know I love you…but...I'm twenty,just a year younger than Mary...who now lives by herself in an apartment… Do you see where I'm going with this?"

  Bandit had to think about it for a moment, but he soon understood what his sister was trying to tell him, that, even though she was his little sister, she was old enough to live on her own.

  He also understood, however, that his little sister did not possess a means of sustaining life on her own.

  "You can live on your own if you like," he began, "but…you don't have a job, Scarlet… How are you going to pay to live on your own?"

  Scarlet smiled as she wrapped her arms around her older brother's neck.

  "Simple," she said, "You're going to give me a job at your restaurant."

  Surprised by his sister's quick thinking, Bandit speechlessly looked at her, and Scarlet leaned in to kiss his cheek.

  "Don't look so surprised, Car," she insisted, "What else did you think I would say?"

  Bandit shook his head as he smiled at his little sister.

  He could not believe she had the same clever thought process their own mother possessed.

  She really is her mother's daughter…

  Both he and Rachel watched as Scarlet suddenly began to, for some reason, run away from them.

  "Where are you going?" he asked as he looked at her in confusion.

  "I'm gonna go see Abe!" she exclaimed, "I told him I'd meet him for lunch! Besides…I think it's about time you two talked about your love for each other! Later!"

  Both Bandit and Rachel gasped when she said that, and watched as she turned a corner and vanished from their line of sight.

  Bandit shook his head as he sighed.

  "Sorry about that," he said apologetically.

  Rachel smiled at him as she spoke.

  "Oh, it's fine. Actually…if I remember correctly, she tried to do the same kind of thing when we were kids."

  Bandit smiled as he chuckled.

  "Yeah," he said, "She did, didn't she?"

  Rachel nodded her head as she turned to look at him.

  So," she began, "you did it."

  Confused as to what she was talking about, Bandit raised an eyebrow as he looked at her.

  "You saved Red, after all," she specified.

  Bandit smiled as he nodded his head in agreement.

  "Yeah…thanks to you…and Scarlet…"

  He took a deep breath and sighed as his look of happiness slowly turned into one of slight guilt.

  "What's wrong?" asked Rachel, concerned.

  "…I was gonna kill him, you know…" he sighed, "I was going to murder my own brother…my flesh and blood…"

  Bandit looked down at his feet, ashamed of what he had intended to do to his own brother, his mother's child.

  When they had first fought, he had thought about killing Red for the sake of everyone in the Ice Lands. That, to him, had been a noble goal, one worth carrying out, and in their final battle, he had wanted to stop Red so badly, he had been willing to kill him then, too.

  But there was a difference between the two situations.

  The former had been a more dire situation, one where it logically seemed to him that killing Red was the only way to stop him.

  However, in the latter, Manna had been taken from the world, meaning that, despite Red's threat to kill everyone he loves, the chances of Red fulfilling his promise were fairly slim. But because he knew how capable his brother was, and because of his inward anger and frustration towards his brother, he had been willing to take his life, even though Red would have, evidently, been effectively contained in a prison or an asylum in his current one-legged state.

  He had allowed his fear and fury to rule his mind, and he felt an incredulous amount of guilt knowing that he would have taken his brother's life he had been given the opportunity to do so.

  Knowing that he felt guilty and ashamed, Rachel reached out and held Bandit's hand as she spoke.

  "But you didn't," she reminded him as she looked into his eyes.

  Bandit sighed as he looked at Rachel's sympathetic face, and his eyes widened when he unexpectedly found himself looking into her eyes.

  He had felt such pain, such torment, such mental anguish before, but now, as he looked into the eyes of this woman, this woman he had known for over a decade, he felt all of that inner torment within himself disappear in a matter of seconds.

  When he realized that he was starting to stare at her, he averted his eyes, but Rachel continued to look at him as he spoke.

  "It's hard to…believe where we were…seven years ago…in the Ice Lands… Me…standing before my mother's corpse… You…crying by my side… And Red…holding Scarlet and weeping more heavily than I had ever seen him weep… I never meant to hurt him… I never meant to make him suffer, to make him feel pain, anguish, and torment... All I wanted to do was…protect you… All I wanted to do during our three year mission…was protect the people of Vast Expanse…and somewhere along the way…I became something…powerful, something…hell-bent on saving innocent people…but I also became something…sinister…something vengeful and…destructive… I used to be this…this kid that loved to cook with his mom, but…somewhere along the way…after…taking so many lives, even if it was allfor the greater good…I…lost sight of…who I was…of who I am…because the person that I was…the son and brother that I used to be…died when I took my mother's life…"

  Rachel looked at Bandit with sadness as she grabbed his other hand and held it in her hand.

  "I get it…" she began, "After everything you did…after e-everything that happened…you feel like…you don't know who you are anymore… But…I know who you are…"

  Bandit looked at Rachel in slight surprise as she continued.

  "You have done…so much… You have…saved the lives of countless people in this world…and you have changed just as many…for the better… The thing is, Bandit…even if you don't know who you are...I always will… It doesn't…matter to me what you've done, or…who anyone else thinks you are or aren't…because…to me…you're the man that I…"

  Bandit gasped as he watched Rachel's cheeks turn slightly red.

  "…You're the man that I…love…"

  The two of them looked into each other's eyes for what seemed like an eternity, and as they did so, Bandit slowly placed his hand on her cheek. Deeply affected by his gentle touch, Rachel closed her eyes as Bandit placed his other hand on her cheek, leaned in, and pressed his lips against her own. She was stunned by what was happening, that after all these years of knowing Bandit, they found themselves in this position, and she blushed very heavily, but before she knew it, she gave into her love for him, wrapped her arms around his head, and kissed him back.

  He had thought about her quite a bit over the past couple of years. He knew he loved her, but he had struggled in trying to determine whether or not he loved her platonically or romantically.

  Now that she had declared her love to him, however, he knew exactly how he felt.

  He loved her, and it ultimately did not matter to him if he loved her platonically or romantically. He loved her all the same, and despite having grown up to be inwardly afraid of letting people get close to him…

  …he knew he could not even begin to imagine living in a world where he could not be with her.

  December 7, 1854…

  The Land of Power…

  …
On this day…Red Blood was finally put in a place that would help him become the good person he was before.

  …On this day…Bandit Lane and Rachel Thomas finally completely submitted to their feelings for one another.

  …And on this day…

  …The Ice Lands…

  …were as peaceful as could be.

  After many years of torment, of suffering, and of mental anguish, things were finally starting to look up for Bandit Lane.

  Epilogue

  July 1, 1866

  Vast Expanse was a large, forest expanse teeming with wildlife and wonder.

  Flowers, fruits, and mushrooms of gigantic proportions grew all over, with some of the flowers and mushrooms being large enough to protect inhabitants of the land from rain, snow, and various other types of bad weather in the event they happened to be too far away from their wooden houses to obtain shelter. Incidentally, moss covered most of the mushroom caps, and coincidentally, half of the mushrooms caps in the land had broken off their stems due to the aforementioned bad weather. Additionally, a large, rushing golden river flowed throughout the land, and extended into Twilight Valley, the land of valiant warriors located directly adjacent to the mystical forest.

  A thirty-four year old red-haired man named Bandit Lane was in the middle of taking a brisk walk through the forest expanse. As he walked, he brought out a lighter, a double guillotine-style cutter, and a Corona cigar from his pockets. He used the cutter to cut the closed end of the cigar, the "cap", lit the other end, and placed the unlit end of the cigar in his mouth. After placing the lighter and cutter back in his pocket, he swirled the smoke around in his mouth before exhaling it, and placed his hands in his pockets as he continued to walk.

  He was thinking about his family, of his beautiful, beloved raven-haired wife Rachel, and his precious daughter Debby, whose name was an amalgamation of the two mothers of his life, Desire Blood and Ruby Lane.

  The three of them had decided to come to Vast Expanse on a vacation to get away from the hustle and bustle the Ice Lands possessed that Vast Expanse never seemed to have.

  They were not the only ones who had the idea, though; their closest friends had also had the same thought.

  Brayne Mercury and his wife Mary knew their little Lucy would most enjoy seeing the sights and smelling the fragrances Vast Expanse had to offer, while Abe War and his wife Scarlet decided it would be good not only for their children, their precious Simone and Amaranth, to spend this time away from home, but for they themselves to spend time away from the responsibilities they had at home. Being the leader of the mercenary guild was as difficult as ever, especially because Manna was longer around to make completing missions and tackling difficult assignment easier, so when his wife asked if they could join her brother and the others on their vacation, Abe practically, and nearly literally, jumped at the opportunity.

  Bandit chuckled as he thought about all of his friends, about how happy he was to spend this vacation with them, and smiled a relaxed smile as he looked up at the clouds in the sky.

  Meanwhile, not far from where Bandit was, another red-haired man walked through the forest expanse.

  This man, however, did not quite have the cheery disposition of his fellow vacationer.

  Like Bandit, he also had his hands in his pockets, but unlike Bandit, whose mind was lost in the thoughts of his friends and family, this man's thoughts did not wander to his own wife or to his beloved little Cerise, Rose, and Christian.

  Rather, this man's thoughts wandered on that of the past, of the family he had before he met his loving wife and started a family of his own.

  It was not that the man did not love his wife or his precious children just as much as Bandit loved his own. It was just that the man could not help but think on the past, of his father, mother, brother and sister, and the tragedy, the multiple tragedies, that had befallen them.

  He had been so angry for a long time in his life. He had been so full of despair and torment, of suffering and of anguish. He never could have imagined that his life would become the way it was today, that after everything he had done, all of the mistakes he had made, and all of the people he had hurt, including those who loved and cared for him the most, that he would be where he is today, taking a walk through the forest while on a vacation with a woman who adored him far more than he thought he deserved to be adored, and children who looked up to him and loved him more than he could possibly have hoped for. His life had been so full of tragedy and sadness, but now, it was full of life and light, of joy and laughs, of meals made with love, of bedtime stories, of birthday parties, of school projects and sports games, and he just couldn't believe how or why life had decided to give him such wonderful things that he never thought he deserved or was worthy of having.

  But in the end, it did not matter. It did not matter what he thought he deserved or was worthy of having. It did not matter what he had done in the past, all the mistakes he had made and the people he had hurt.

  Life had given him a second chance to do things the right way, and while he had absolutely no idea why, he knew he needed to make the most of what had been given to him.

  Moments later, the two red-haired men heard the footsteps of the other, and looked at each other from the corners of their eyes.

  The birds chirping in the trees surrounding them took flight as their eyes met, as though they knew that something, anything, could happen between these two men, and that it would be best to leave them be.

  The eyes of both men widened upon seeing each other. They had not seen each other in so long, not since Bandit last visited the crimson-haired man who stood before him in Edal Asylum ten years ago. Despite their immense surprise to see one another, however, neither of the men stopped to say anything to each other. They were both fully aware of who the other was, but they continued to walk right past each other, that is until, for some unknown and unspoken reason, both of them stopped within arm's reach of each other at the exact same time.

  The two men stood so close to each other, yet neither one of them made a single movement. They simply stood where they were, and as they did so, they quietly thought about each other.

  The crimson-haired man thought about how much pain the other man, his brother, had once caused him by killing their mother, about how he had blamed the man for changing everything for the worst in the past, about how the man had torn his leg off his body without a second thought in their final battle, which was why he now had a prosthetic leg attached to his body.

  Meanwhile, Bandit thought about how much pain Red had brought to not only him, but to the people he loved and cared for. He knew his brother was a better person now, thanks to the treatment and therapy the asylum had thoroughly provided him, but it did not change the fact that his brother had taken away his wife's parents, the family of his friend Abe, and a woman he had grown to love just as much as his own mother, as well as the lives of a great amount of innocent people. He knew his brother knew better now and could be trusted, but he could not shake the feeling that he had to do something about him, about the brother he had fought with so hard and fiercely long ago, the brother whom he had once wanted to kill, and who had once tortured him and wanted to kill him.

  But before he could think of what to do, he remembered something, something his brother had said to him so very long ago, something that he considered the nicest thing his brother had ever said to him.

  "I love you. I know it may not seem like it all the time, but…I do love you…"

  Upon remembering such a thought, Bandit obtained clarity. He quickly knew exactly what he needed to do in this situation.

  Without a second thought, he grunted as he turned his head slightly to look at the back of Red's head, and smiled a quick yet joyful smile before he began to walk away.

  All the while, the crimson-haired man looked at his brother from the corner of his eye, and grunted as he smiled a relaxed smile before walking in the other direction.

  It was a short and seemingly imperson
al moment, one that lasted no more than forty-five seconds, but it was all they needed.

  Despite all they had been through, despite all the pain, suffering, torment and anguish they had caused each other in the past, and despite the fact that they had tried to take each other's lives in the past, a grunt and a smile was all they needed to make sure the other knew one thing: that no matter where they were, even if they were entire realms away from each other…

  …they would always be brothers, and they would love and care for each other for the rest of their days.