"Not another," Kyle's voice trembled below his breath, as Alex's horse 'Thunder' slowed to a trot, approaching the fifth village. The smell of blood wavered down the valley, lingering a stench of death in their throats as the pair scanned the landscape in aghast. Rubble lay from where buildings once stood- now a completely leveled area. Corpses of woman, and children lay clustered in corners, with looks of pure terror in their listless eyes. The men all lay scattered about the landscape in pieces, a few of the dead had post mortem evisceration, mangled from the enema's boredom. A cool breeze gust though, moving the smell about, before leaving the bloodied mess in a breath of silence once more. Vultures crowed overhead, waiting for the new comers to become disinterested, and leave.
Looking away for a moment, Kyle had seen many post battles across the galaxies; being the last Green Lantern and all, but something creepy lingered in the air about the cause of their death… the shear magnitude of it. Its malevolence disturbed him to his core, leaving a foul taste on his tongue. Feeling empathetic warmth radiate from his power ring, he clenched his fist momentarily trying to shake off the feeling. "This is insane, Alex. I don't care what you say, that jerk of a father is going down big time."
"This wasn't my Father," Alex breathed, closely examining the body of a young man who looked barely old enough to defend himself with a sword, with blood still seeping out of his dismembered arm. Placing the back of his hand on the boy's cheek, Alex looked deeply into the child's lifeless eyes, "my father wouldn't kill villagers like this. It would be too easy of a fight, and he knows it. This was Luquahlian- they feed on dead spirits. They are Death Eaters from Ambrose's worlds. This boy's body is stone cold with no colour, but is still bleeding- they can't have been killed that long ago, so they should still be slightly warm at very least."
"Thank you Doctor Daniels. What would he do then?" Kyle asked sarcastically, forming a line of hippo sized ants to carry away the rubble to find any survivors. Alex picked up a nearby piece of discarded cloth, and placed it over the dead boy's face. Bowing his head in sorrow, he rested for a moment in prayer.
"I don't know," He admitted, finally standing up again, "my father would probably challenge the world. He would've forced me back here from Earth if I still had powers, to test out his new freedom. See, us Arkillian Dragons are Paladins, not conquers. We get kicks from beating the opponent, not winning the war. We get huge adrenaline rushes from it."
"An opponent with a taste for the fight," Kyle mumbled, motioning his ants to a nearby pile of rubble getting the bugs to search for survivors, "It would be like being chased by a steam roller if he wanted to fight you."
"This is true," Alex agreed, his hand covering Kyle's ring, giving him a stern look, "Don't waste your ring's power. There won't be anyone left standing here. Luquahlians can smell fresh blood running through your body. Dad wouldn't have known that the Luquahlians were here in time to save them."
"Ohh," Kyle breathed, humming the 'Twilight Zone' theme to himself. Alex wandered back to Thunder, and hopped back on giving Kyle a glance back, as if to offer a ride. Happy to use this as an excuse to take an aerial view, Kyle nodded toward the sky. Switching on his Green Lantern costume, he took to the air following the horse's movements with his power ring as Thunder set off once more.
There he goes, he thought, as they darted off toward a large castle in the distance. Hovering for a moment to take the monument in, he realized that the whole structure must've been made out of an almost marble like stone. His ring couldn't even recognize any of its atomic composition, let alone what it was. Little did it matter- the hue of ruby red glowed like a gem in the distance. He couldn't believe the colours that he was seeing. It was like looking through a ruby lens- the passion of a millions world's glory gleamed within every hue that shone back at him. Pausing to rub his callow eyes, it took him over a minute to adjust himself to the extreme beauty before him. Scanning the terrain finally, when his eyes had fully adjusted, he noticed that the battle damage line from the armies of Luquahlians come to a complete stop just before the last village before the castle- everything after was virtually untouched. Wow, that's promising! This sword that Alex is talking about must be pretty powerful to stop an attack like this in that kind of distance. Either that, or Desmond is one tough customer… or both.
Forming a pair of large dragon wings out of his back, Kyle swooped off toward the village, once more glancing back at the graveyard he now left behind. Something isn't adding up there. If they knew that Desmond could defeat them all by himself, then why did these creatures attack? There is more to this…
