Days Of Ruin6…Never Ending
I do not own Advance Wars or any of the series…if I did I would have developed more units and structures.
Within the dark world, he heard crying…it was not his…the sound was strangely familiar to him…it reminded him of someone…this was Tabitha's voice!
"…Tabitha?" His voice was faint but she definitely heard him.
He felt the darkness lift as the warmth moved further away. He refused to leave the warmth and brought up his arms to hug the flame closer.
"Eep! Wait! No!" Tabitha's surprised voice reached his ears.
"Please get off!" Tabitha slowly pried the leader's arms off her while blushing at the thought of what he just did.
"What did I do?" He asked while blinking, unaware of what he just did to her.
"…You hugged me…" Was all she let out blushing while trying to wipe the tears from her face.
"So that was the soothing flame I saw…" He whispered under his breath, unaware that Tabitha caught his words. He soon noticed what was wrong with the both of them.
"Why are you crying? …Wait… why am I crying too?" He felt his tears on his face and he soon remembered the nightmare he just had, a wave of intense sadness washed over him and his tears flowed out even more.
He felt Tabitha's hand on his and felt the sadness erode away from his body. He figured out that she had helped him survive that nightmare and soon pulled Tabitha into an embrace. She was shocked at his response and she soon returned the hug with her own.
"I don't want to be alone again!" She had said this with fear in her voice. He quickly gave a nod assuring his safety.
The two released their embrace and sat in front of each other, facing each other on their bedsides.
The leader thought deeply before breaking the embarrassing silence. "I need a name." He said, his voice still recovering from the paralyzing hold of the nightmare.
"I need something to be remembered by and I want you to call me by name instead of boss or leader." He stated, his voice was clearer than before.
He followed up by saying confidently "Why don't you give me a name? I'm sure I wont hate it."
"Sure." Deep inside she was really happy that he asked her to give him a name. 'Hmm...I want something not too long, hard to pronounce, or hard to remember.' Tabitha strangely felt her mind blanking out. She thought hard and found out how difficult naming was. She also noted at how her train of thought had changed just a few days ago.
'He changed me so much!" She thought back to how she would've done to him if her father were still alive, she stopped thinking about that and went back to the matter she was faced with. "…So I know that he likes black and is a unique person…that much I can gather…' Tapping into her limited knowledge of astronomy she just felt the associated words pass by until one caught her attention.
"How bout Zenith? Your nickname would be Zene!" She proudly started to explain why she ha chosen it.
She stood up with her hands placed on her hips and began her speech. "It seemed as if I wouldn't find a good name if I just picked a name based on the two words that describe you, black and unique." She sighed as if she had reached a dead end.
"You are an impossibility for the people, you have powers that outmatch even the best!" She emphasized the word "best" as much a possible as she spoke.
"You seem to like the color black that you wouldn't mind being surrounded by it so I picked space." She grinned as she sees him with his eyes closed nodding at her explanation.
"So I picked the highest point above me!" She smiles as she points her index finger at the top of the tent, obviously pointing at something much farther than that.
He smiled at how well the name she had picked fit so well with him and how the name seemed to honor the figure in his nightmare.
"I love it!" He beamed at the name she had just picked. It helped put him at ease whenever he remembered the nightmare and it also made him happy that she was the one who named him. He sat up and with Tabitha and they both left the tent to tell his men.
"I have an announcement to make! Everyone assemble quickly!" Zenith's voice grabbed the attention of even the farthest of his men. He felt so refreshed, as if a great weight was lifted off of his chest, he spoke with enough energy to surprise even himself.
Tabitha laughed quietly looking at how Zene held his chest in surprise. "I'm guessing you like your name, right?"
He smiled at her words and looked at the group of men assembled before the two.
"This girl here, Tabitha, has given myself a name…Zenith!" There were mixed reactions from the men. Some were sweatdropping at this 'important' assembly, some were happy that their leader found something to go by, and a couple were angry that the girl standing next to their leader assuming the position of vice-leader. Those who were angered by the complete stranger started to yell in anger at her.
John who stood by the water truck near the back approached one of the angered men and placed one of his hands on the man's shoulder and subjected his arm to a vice-like grip forcing him to fall on his back trying to regain the feeling in his arm.
The remaining angered man did not notice the fallen man a few feet back, and continued to call her unworthy of being a part of the group. This made something snap inside of Zene.
The group parted to the left and right leaving the lone angry man staring at his leader walking straight at him. Both men were furious but for different reasons, and as Zene approached he grabbed the man by the collar and threw him further back. This action surprised everyone, even John and the old Shopkeeper.
"You call her unworthy? She did more than you ever did in the few days she was here than you ever did on the entire journey! She, no, Tabitha did the impossible! She saved our asses when we tried to raid this factory! Without her we would have died at the first shot of the tanks! Tabitha saved all of our lives and she saved my life TWICE!" The words came out of his mouth laden with power.
Tabitha blushed at the words he spoke and figured it was time to stop. The poor man was shaking on the ground since Zene forced the harsh truth into his mind. She approached Zene and grabbed his lowered hand.
"Zene. Look. You already protected me, lets go get some food so that you can relax and think things through." Tabitha gestured toward the fallen man and once Zene understood what he had done he left the group for some food, but not before asking some of the men to help the downed man get some rest.
Zene and Tabitha headed for the Shopkeeper's supply truck hoping to get some food for dinner since Zene had spent most of the day in a nightmare.
"We only have enough to last us tonight. We have to leave this place and find some places with food." The Shopkeeper waited for the words to sink into the two before heading to the back. He soon came back with two dented cans for the both of them.
"I'll ask for just one clip this time, seeing that your little friend there prevented a one-sided massacre back there." The Shopkeeper accepted the pistol clip and returned with a knife and forks for the two.
"The knife is meant for the dented cans…oh and please return it after we get some supplies, not much demand for that knife since I gave you the last of our rations." The Shopkeeper said with a sigh.
Zene assured the shopkeeper "I'll find a way into the facility and scavenge enough supplies for all of us. So don't worry."
The two of them headed back to their tent to find John snoring in his massive bed.
"Wanna eat outside or inside with the snoring giant?" Zene always laughed a bit whenever he saw his friend sleeping but he held back since he didn't want to trouble the giant, much less a sleeping giant.
"Lets head to where you were in the morning. I want to see why you all grouped there." She pointed in the direction where she heard the men when she woke.
"I see, the door was locked when we found it and none of use had any of those fancy military identification cards for the card reader." Zene went to grab a couple of folding chairs for the both of them and was surprised to see Tabitha sliding a card back and forth through the reader. That wasn't the only surprising thing, what surprised him was the fact that her card operated the door and with each swipe the door opened and closed.
"You still amaze me…" Zene said as Tabitha noticed him coming back. She swiped the card once more to shut the closing door and sat down on one of the chairs he had brought.
"Oh I was just checking if the idiots had broken the door mechanisms out of frustration," She said plainly as she motioned for Zene to hand over the knife.
He watched her cleanly slice the top of the dented can off before resuming his thoughts. 'Well we both have things that others would envy and I don't want to be too nosy.' He respected her privacy and went to work, his job at opening the can was childish compared to how Tabitha handled the knife.
The two of them quickly finished their dinner before returning to their tent to sleep. Zene eyed his gas mask beside his bed recognizing the new dent in the canister. 'Should I apologize of thank her for what she did to me? …Nevermind…the point is that this day changed my life and I have Tabitha to thank for this.' His thoughts quickly faded as he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
A/N Originally i was thinking of using a name that translated to "black god" but i decided against that for various reasons, one of them was for being too long. Btw the name is pronounced like the words Dean, Gene, Lean, Keen, etc...