What are you seeing?
A bird… flying free in the sky.
Do you want to fly?
No. I just feel ENVY of their freedom.
[ The Forest Guardian ]
Everything was falling down, covering the grass, the rocks, the ground and even the innocent animals. The trees are falling with bird nests in their trunks and branches, full of food, unhatched eggs and newly born birds. But nobody cares. After all, they're just small, insignificant critters.
Dozens of tractors were driving over the trees on the way, forming a large front of destruction, unstoppable and merciless. Right behind them were another kind of tractors, these responsible for collecting the tree trunks left behind and taking them away, creating a large clearing.
All these machines, as well as the men driving them, received orders from another individual a little far away in the area, holding a communicator and wearing a business suit. Beside him are two other men, apparently with high authority just like him. One is to the boss's left, a man with a demolition hat and a gray hoodie. The other is on his right, holding a rifle on his hands and using camouflaged hunting clothes.
Clearly all of them are working together in this clearing operation. They did not care that forest Nalamar is preserved by law from any kind of urban interference like this one. To them it's just business, a simple territorial expansion.
Now they'd cleaned a very large area, not including the small villages here and there. These village's citizens were gathered and imprisoned, forced to watch while their home and animals were being destroyed and sacrificed.
"At this rate we'll be finishing this in half an hour." The man with the hoodie informed his boss, looking down at a map of the area.
"Just perfect! I knew your services were worth the money." Said boss rested his arm on the man's shoulder, making him a bit uncomfortable, but he didn't complain. "What about our little guests back there, Kiko?"
By that he meant the natives, both indigenous and simple residents of small villages, all of them now locked up in steel cages originally intended to hold large wild animals, so not only they had to watch, they also couldn't even hope to escape.
Kiko, the hunter, walked to the multiple trucks with these cages on their backs. Teasingly he hit the rifle's pipe against the metal bars, successfully scaring the hostages with the sudden noise.
"Whatcha doing, boys an' girls? Surely not tryin' to get out, I hope. Otherwise I'd need to have my little buddy here have a talk with ya." He aimed his gun towards them, not really intending to shoot, just making it clear he wouldn't hesitate.
He received no response, no reaction. They kept silent, looking coldly at this hunter or at the floor while keeping each other close. Kiko was disappointed with the lack of reactions to his threat, but he thought nothing more about it and walked back to his group, then sitting on a tree stump.
However, since that man distanced himself, the hostages tried once again to get away by kicking, pushing and even headbutting, but to no avail thanks to the cage's robust bars and lock. Not even the strongest of them managed to cause the smallest of scratches on the metal.
Their hope was slowly getting shattered, surrounded by destruction and incapable of doing anything but struggle and cry. All of them asked: who could save them and the forest?
And then it came, a ray of hope shining in the skies...
Or, actually, an arrow. A single arrow of light came piercing through the clouds at a high speed to land precisely at the lock and break it very easily. The humans were shocked, but quickly recovered and looked at the villains, who didn't seem to notice anything. So they grabbed the arrow and used it to also break the other cages' locks.
Once freed, the natives decided to try and sneak on behind the boss for a surprise attack, intending to turn the tables and make him the hostage. However, before they could come close to them, a sudden thick white mist covered the area, thus limiting each group's vision. Confused, both parties looked around, searching for whatever caused the mist when a feminine yet brave voice echoed through the area.
"Wherever and whenever the rich take from others, I'll be there to expose them as robbers!" It came from multiple directions simultaneously, making it impossible to localize. While in this desperate scanning, Kiko saw an arrow coming his direction. It would hit him if he didn't block it using his rifle as a shield, though the arrow broke it in two.
While stunned by that, an unidentifiable figure fell from the skies right inside the three men's small circle, doing a sweep to knock all of them to the ground before disappearing. The demolition chief was trembling and nearly crying of fear, but the man in a suit just seemed really angry.
When the mist dissipated, the figure was now standing on top of one of their trucks. A nine-tailed fox covered by a smooth layer of white fur and a simple green tunic and hood. On her hands is a fancy black bow holding a light arrow like the ones from a little while ago. She smiled confidently looking at them.
"Who in the hell is this furry bitch?!" He screamed, closing his fists.
"Not hell, heaven. You may call me by the name I was known for; Robinhood!" With a long leap the fox landed directly in front of the trio, immediately kicking the boss and launching him away, then raised her bow and pointed that arrow at the other two. "Now, stop the tractors!"
"W-we can't! The team will only listen to the boss, and he's the one with the communicator." She briefly looked in that man's direction. He indeed had a communicator on his hand, now open to be taken.
"Take it." She commands, to which the chief asks "What?", only to be answered with cold "You heard me. Take it and make them stop."
Her voice scared him even more as a little incentive to obey her order. He quickly walked up to the boss and grabbed the communicator, almost instantly throwing it against a nearby rock, destroying it beyond repair.
During her moment of surprise Kiko pulled a survival knife from his pockets and ran at the fox, attacking her neck with the knife's incredibly sharp blade. However, nothing happened. Her body remained intact, just her fur a bit split sideways. Once she processed what happened, Robinhood reacted by delivering a strong kick to the human, sending him flying just like she did with that other one.
The chief instinctively threw himself to the ground in a kneeling position, arms above his head and lowered to face the grass. He kept repeating "I'm sorry!" for destroying that communicator.
She sighed, knowing it's useless to intimidate this man now. When she turned to the natives, they thought the same thing. The only option now is to deal with the tractors directly, somehow.
"Now, how do I do it...?" With crossed arms, the angel watched the continuous destruction still in action. Even with her divine powers, she couldn't save the forest without causing massive collateral damage to the area. Yeah, there's no way to possibly do it without more destruction in the process, except... "That's it! I'll call the big guy!"
She turned around, watching as the native humans slowly backed away. With no time to lose, Robin rushed straight through them up to the trucks from before, where they were held captive. After aiming her bow at the skies with a new light arrow, she shot it high and strong enough to pierce through the clouds and leave a luminous trail.
[•••]
The tractors continued their merciless destruction, instantly killing any plant, tree or animal that appeared on their way. The workers inside these machines also showed no remorse at all, only a blank, uninterested expression, while some few of them were having fun.
Not even after seeing the huge beacon of light piercing the skies made them stop or even flinch. All they did was stare curiously at it for some short seconds.
Consequently one of them, who stared at it some longer, hit the vehicle at a giant boulder. The sudden impact threw him at the steering wheel with barely any damage thanks to his sturdy helmet. He looked up to it, seeing it's way bigger and larger than the tractor itself. It had to have a bit more than five meters of width and three of height.
"What the... Where'd this come from?" Starts to back up and drive along the boulder to continue his job.
However, while he was driving by the rock's side, the earth began to shake violently. The man inside the vehicle instinctively held his seat and looked around, searching for whatever may be causing the earthquake. And just like he wanted, he found the responsible for it in plain sight.
The giant boulder lifted itself from the ground, which is causing these earthquakes. One at a time the human saw multiple other smaller rocks rolling the giant boulder's way, forming two thick legs, a waist, two very long arms with big fingers, and a head looking into another direction.
Now it's the man's body that's trembling, watching as this stone giant raised itself from the earth and caused so much damage with just its movement. He desperately untied his safety belt and left the tractor, running away as fast as he could.
The monster then turned his way, more specifically looking at the other tractors still on work, watching them from far away with his single, big shining cyan-colored eye. Suddenly the eye glows even more intensely, spreading this glow through its entire stone body.
And then, with an immensely strong attack with its fist, the cyclops shattered the earth and opened a huge ditch that expanded very quickly. This opening appeared right in front of the tractors right in time to make them fall in, stuck and unable to do any more destruction.
As for the runaway human, the opening got him stuck beneath a huge pile of dirt, except for his head and the right arm. He moaned in pain, realizing his current situation and starting to scream for help.
The heavy weight over his body made it really hard and painful to breathe while all of his strength was being put into screaming and trying to dig himself out. If nobody comes to his rescue, he'd surely die.
To his salvation, the weight was soon lifted, and once he turned to his savior there was only the stone giant grabbing the dirt on his hands and placing it away, thus saving his life.
"Stonerus only protects, never hurts." It said with a masculine, intimidating voice, exactly what's expected from a giant monster with now eight meters.
However, even though he saved this human, Stonerus' size and appearance caused an immense wave of fear to him, enough to run away once again as fast as he could, being hurt as he was.
Now that this problem is solved, the giant turned to the light beam from before and started walking towards it with very slow steps. Each one caused a small earthquake, making the remaining trees to shake and birds to fly away, and leaving behind huge craters as footprints.
The fox in the distance waved at him, calling Stonerus over to her location. She expected the natives to run when the cyclops came into vision, but to her surprise they barely had any kind of reaction to his presence, which is understandable seeing as he saved their forest.
Once Stonerus got there, he knelt down to be face to face with his furry friend on the truck, who climbed onto his shoulder and sat down with crossed legs.
"Sorry for disturbing your sleep, buddy."
"Stonerus doesn't care, he'll always come to help Mitsuki and her friends." He tried to make a smile unsuccessfully, though the intention was clear to the angel, who smiled back. "Can Stonerus help more?"
"Well..." She looked over her shoulders, scanning all the destroyed trees and the three men she dealt with, who are now being held captive by the locals. "We can make sure those things don't cause any more harm. Also, we should deliver a friendly message to our buddies over there!"
He nodded, then walked to the vehicles stuck in the ditch. One at a time the giant demon grabbed and smashed them with his own hands, making it so nobody could ever use them again and keeping the forest safe from possible damage caused by these left alone.
Then he came back. The boss and his partners were clearly scared for life when the demon looked at them very closely. He could eat them right now, if he wanted to. "Never harm the forest or its inhabitants. Stonerus won't say it again."
Using a sturdy rope taken from their equipment, Mitsuki tied all three men together. And after that she immediately brought them away, planning to make them "mysteriously" appear behind a cell with evidence of their crime. A little different from her usual actions, but it seemed fair.
Later that day, after the deed was done, she and her stone friend returned to the Nalamar forest. More specifically, to an area hidden among the various trees around, a place where they go a lot to relax together.
Stonerus was now laying on the ground, while his nine-tailed friend was sitting on the branches of a large tree. Everytime she wasn't doing her job as the Robinhood of modernity, Mitsuki used the opportunity to be with him for long hours, sometimes entire days, where they tended to watch Stonerus' birds flying around and playing with them.
Interestingly, this is what made him become the Envy in the Seven Poisonous Sins: freedom. Being an artificial demon made of the Underworld's hardest rocks he didn't have much freedom, as he always had some order to follow or being on standby in case of new ones appearing. He is envious of the freedom birds have, being able to fly through the sky without limits.
Mitsuki sympathized with that wish. After all, she's an artificial angel, created from the soul of an already dead human. Needless to say, this soul belonged to the original prince of thieves, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, back to life and his job of charity. But it also took away her own freedom. As a human she, or he, did all that to fight nobilities and their unjust system, but now that she's the Charity of the Seven Holy Virtues she feels like these robberies are an obligation.
Anyhow, these two are very similar to one another, it seems.
"Hey, buddy... What do you say about coming along for my next big scheme?" She looked down to the cyclops, meeting his curious gaze. "It's a bad guy, who keeps all his goodies inside a secret bunker. I found its location, and might need some extra hands to grab them.~"
"If Mitsuki needs help, Stonerus will gladly do it!" He gave a quick thumbs up, trying to smile through his big eye.
"That's just perfect! I knew I could count on you, buddy!" She got up, stretching out. "I can't wait to see his reaction to seeing you, haha!"
[ Next sin… ]
Sometimes love is not everything.
Sometimes we just need company.
Nobody deserves to have a broken heart like she did.