197. The Earth Must Bleed part 12

November 20, 2004.

12:34 pm.

The Sun shone heatedly down across the Nevada Valley, drowning the City of Lights in desert gold. Vapor rose from the streets as tourists, citizens, and random wanderers alike walked the sidewalks and courtyards of the hot urban cityscape.

East of Las Vegas Boulevard and the heavier clusters of casinos, there stood a library. Four stories tall. Two basement levels and plenty of floor space. Cars were parked outside and a miniature park with quaint benches and a fountain or two rested alongside the main building. Parents watched their children play with a bouncing ball around the site as the day wore itself on.

There was a cold steel motorcycle parallel parked near the front entrance of the library where people swiftly entered and exited. The body wasn't polished. It was like industrial metal spat out from a factory. The seats were of a dull leather, and rusted metal chains dangled off the cross bars and joints.

Upstairs—through the dim glass of the building's third story windows—some movement could be seen inside the library.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

I followed Hull past rows upon rows of book shelves.

Silent.

Hands in my pocket.

I glared at the back of his head the entire time.

My jaw clenched.

I want my sword back……

I gazed around us as we swiftly traversed deeper and deeper towards the center of the building. Citizens, nearby university students, and old folks were busily engaged in reading, scribbling notes, rummaging through rows of literature. Nobody seemed to pay any single notice to us. It was the quietest and most relaxing part of Las Vegas I had seen yet.

Does this creep think he can waltz around in public so easily?

I glanced again at the stranger. His black leather and blue denim. His empty….empty hands of silver-plated fingertips. He looked as normal and as human as everyone else around me, although with a dash of badass added with every twinge and squint of his hard-as-stone blue eyes.

I guess he can……

I nervously bent my neck lower to hide my 'X' shaped scar. I had my shades pressed firmly over my black eyes and my dark ponytail hidden down the back of my jacket.

I only hope I can remain so anonymous too……

Creeeeeak!

Before I knew it, Hull had opened a dusty wooden door to an even dustier room. The lights were dim inside. There were no windows or openings in the walls of any sort to let light from the rest of the library into the chamber. It felt like a hidden vault all in itself.

Do we even have clearance to be in here?

Everything about Hull's body language shouted: 'Screw that'. He walked into the room, left the door open for me, and waited.

I walked in after him. Nearly sneezing from the dust that rose from my feet. It was dark inside. With a certain ancient brownness to the shadows. Like suffocating sepia. I felt like I had walked into a faded newspaper from a century and a half ago.

Creeeeak.

The door shut.

Darkness.

We were alone.

After a few seconds passed, I realize he wasn't about to turn on the main light.

So I took my glasses off.

With black eyes blinking nakedly, I gazed across the room and saw his form and figure like one would see a coatrack on the opposite end of a bedroom when waking up in the morning.

"In the life I live, I have barely enough time to do anything other than move," Hull said. "I'm like you in that respect, Mr. Noir."

My bare black eyes narrowed.

Don't start drawing comparisons, pal.

He walked past an old, wooden table in the center of the room and shuffled over towards a rack of extremely huge, hard-back books.

"All too often we find out in our violent, machine gun lives that everything we do or say is but an aftershock of history." He grabbed a huge, brown book. With very little strain, he lifted the massive article and hoisted it over to the center of the room. "We spend the extent of our days working to cancel out everything our mothers and fathers have erected before us to tear down. And everything we've established is ironically set for the same breakdown by those to follow afterwards."

THWOMP!

Dust flew and scattered.

I coughed.

Hull was unaffected. He stood above the table where the book lie and stretched his hands out. The silver tips sparkled and started to glow a pale gray. It was a dim light. Enough for him to see with, and still not enough to blind me.

I gazed at him. Still holding my guard up.

"The reason that you are here, Mr. Noir. The very same thing you are trying to help your friends back East with……it started over ten millennia ago. But only recently has the endless crises of eons made itself manifest in flesh. Such fragile, sacred flesh."

"……," my black eyes narrowed.

He glared back at me with unfalteringly blue. He opened the book wide with an archaic yawn of crackling papers.

"From Markovia……"

I looked down at the first page.

There was a yellowed, faded engraving print of a grand European castle positioned atop a row of forest-covered mountains. Spires lifted up and up and up into the sky with classical, baroque intensity. Beneath the illustration was a symbol. A coat of arms. The royal name splashing forth in regal intricacy.

'MARKOVIA'.

The coat of arms displayed a sword, a scepter, and what looked to me to be a…floating mountain. A dislodged piece of earth. A very wyrd symbol…something I would imagine seeing from a documentary about secret societies such as the Freemasons or Skull and Bones.

Mystic……Mystic Europe.

There were words beneath the emblem. Paragraphs. Written in languages and font I couldn't quite understand. But I could recognize.

Belgian.

And……

My black eyes narrowed.

Russian?

"Years ago, the last Royal Elementals finally began to vanish."

I looked up.

Hull kept staring at me. Unblinking. He firmly spoke: "They were the ultimate generation of their kind. The last to survive of three specially-chosen families who began long before most of history can remember."

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

Mesopotamia.

Ten thousand years ago.

A village rests within the deltas of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Sweating farmers with sun-red skin till the fields and gather livestock. Women gather by the riversides with their children with baskets.

In the distance, a temple under construction rises ever-so-slowly skyward. Birds cry out before flocking in huge droves over the land. A cold wind, and then a return of the hot and humid sun.

"They lived off the Earth. The world beneath them was the only thing they knew. It was civilization on the brink of looking skyward, and making eternal aspirations for the unattainable that would lead to millennia of endless warfare. Mankind did not suffer from a singular 'fall of sin'. Paradise was something to be lost day by day. Year by year. Life by life. In fact, there may never have been a Paradise. Human beings are so apt to dwell on invisible things. But at one time, we all only needed the Earth and each other to find meaning in."

A trio of children run up a hill above the farmlands. Two boys and a girl. Their dark skinned bodies sweat and pant as they giggle and chase each other among the high grass. The sun shines down on them. Bright. Clear.

"There was once a world that—with or without hardships—was void of perpetual suffering, poverty, and mayhem. It was a world where human kind was still an infant. Society was selfless. And 'God' was as real as the air you breathed or the smiles you shared, and certainly nobody invisibly important to swing a sword over."

The children run down the other edge of the hill. They tumble, sit upright, and laugh some more. One of them gets up and shouts in a lost language for them to go back up the hill and tumble back down again. Another one giggles and says something else with a coy smile. The third shakes his head, looks up to the sky………and gasps……

"But the World would have to grow up eventually. The Earth would bleed. The sky would turn read. In countless ways throughout the ages. And someone……some thing……some force from beyond had to prepare the once innocent world for what was to come."

All three children stand up. Their lips quivering in fear. They stare skyward at a bright light shimmering down towards them. Fluctuating. Pulsing-

FLASH!

The children gasp. They are no longer on the hill. They are lying in a triangular fashion across a plane of infinite brightness. White light is all around them. A queer sensation of weightlessness. Of emptiness and fullness all the same. A stagnant, stale pocket of the universe where time and space were illusions.

The children gaze up in one accord at a growingly bright light. And that light takes on a humanoid form. Androgynous. Powerful. Overwhelming.

The Being's eyes open up.

FLASH!

"The children were granted a vision. A taste of things to come. The Being gave them insight into the inevitable path that the Earth would tread. The wounds that were to be taken. The pain that was to be born in endless, endless labor."

The children are flying.

Over planes.

Fields.

Battles.

Cities.

Slums and metropolises.

Wastelands and forests.

Cemeteries, hospitals, graveyards, schools.

Bodies and bodies and bodies.

The Oceans.

FLASH!

"And then they were shown……the demon……"

The children shake with fear.

They fly at a million miles an hour over waves of black obsidian.

The waves turn red.

And at the end of the echoing horizon.

Barred teeth.

Antlers.

Four flaring eyes of red.

And a shrieking, hot mouth of flame.

"RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWR!"


FLASH!

The children sit on the grass-laden field.

Panting.

Eyes wide and sweat slicking their skin.

"The children were returned to their lives. But they knew as much as the mystical Informer knew that the world was but a dream teetering on an endless, red abyss of Destruction. The Demon would someday have his way with the world. With his three-fold powers, he would consume the amplifying sins of the world and use them to rip the Earth asunder like a prisoner would waste a woman."

The children shudder.

A golden light spreads amongst them.

They glance up, shivering.

Three bright orbs descend.

Entering them.

Lighting them with a different shaded aura each.

"So the Being granted them three elements. Three powers to pass on through their future generations. Powers that would be harnessed secretly and refined with each successive offspring. And in the event that the Demon struck early, all three families would rise to the occasion."

One of the children, a boy, raises his hands and stares mesmerized at flickering flame dancing at the end of his fingers.

The second, a girl, hugs herself as a yellow-gold-glow shimmers from her eyes.

The third, another boy, shivers and looks down as black mist billows out from his shoulders.

They examine themselves and find ornamental markings burned into their skin, just above their hips and abdomens.

"Fire. Earth. And Smoke. The first three Elemental Families. Bearing the birthmarks of their calling, they lived on to spread their powers and essence through their bloodline. And when human civilization spread from the Fertile Crescent…..so did they."

A thin caravan of nomads walk across the sand dunes of ancient Egypt. A gritty wind blows in their faces. They cover themselves with shawls and stick close to the livestock in their progression.

At the head of the group is an old woman. The eldest of the family. She bravely pushes her wrinkled, worn self forward ahead of her offspring. Searching the desert landscape with dark eyes for some sort of oasis.

There is a shudder, and supernatural red flame billows out from beneath her shawl. She tries to hide it…and presses on against the sandstorm.

"The family of Fire migrated into Africa. Many of their successive generations would serve seats in the Egyptian Royal House. In Ethiopia. And in the many tribes spreading into the Serengeti."

A thick caravan of bodies and wooden carts and livestock cluster along the River Delhi. Homes are gradually built. Simple wooden skeletons at first. Then—onward into the growing civilization—brick and stone.

Above the gathering clusters, an aged man stands upon a hill with his successive sons and daughters. They point out across the land, mentally plotting households and buildings to be erected along the deltas.

The one man takes a deep breath. He looks down at his caked and dry hands. Tendrils of smoke trail at his fingertips……

"The Smoke Elementals headed East. Populating the Subcontinent. Southern Asia. And—over the course of millennia—a few of their familial strands would migrate even into the Pacific Islands."

Cold, frozen tundra.

Icy winds.

Overcast gray skies blowing, freezing, shifting.

A heavily bundled group of human bodies trudge through the snow. Mountains rise in the distance.

They gaze up into the frigid air.

Unfaltering.

A man in the centermost cluster of the group bravely drags a wooden cart full of provisions on his own. As his muscles strain against the cold, he grits his teeth and opens his eyes.

They glow with a golden yellow aura.

"The families of the Earth traveled West. Past the Caucasus Mountains. Into present-day Europe. It would be this family that would forever change the destiny of all three Elementals. For the good……but also for the bad. The carriers of Fire and Smoke lived as peacefully as possible on their corners of the Old World. They preserved their bloodlines by not engaging in any major conflicts or wars of their countless ages. But the generations of Earth…..were far too brash to not lend a hand in the anguishes of their times."

Across an elevated hillside, two converging armies of Greek soldiers charge each other. Infantrymen with swords and shields clash in a bloody fray. Shouts of war and agony fill the copper-rusted air.

Far away, with the City of Athens glimmering in the distance, a ring of generals stand atop a hill and overlook the battle. They relay messages with runners and smoke signals.

The centermost general stares with hard eyes. Eyes that—for a moment or two—glows a bright gold.

"They were there during the Peloponnesian Wars. They stood in the chambers of philosophers and rulers when Socrates died. They lived on through the reign of Alexander. And eventually took active part in the forming of the Roman Empire."

On a dark day.

Outside of Jerusalem.

Quietly weeping bodies gather on Golgotha.

Three figures.

Three crosses.

The centermost tilting His head to the sky with a final voice and a final breath.

Roman centurions gaze on. Stakes and hammers by their side.

One holds a bloody spear. His eyes thin as the cloud cover rumbles. There is a flash of gold light, and then his lids close as he tilts his helmeted head away.

"The Earth Elementals never meant to be despots. They never wanted to support the bloodshed of the empires they fought with. They merely wanted to have a place of high enough standing so that when the day would come that the Demon would strike, they would have the manpower as well as elemental strength to fight a unifying war against the grandest of evils. And one day, the first breath of the Demon came into being. Centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire…during the Crusades of Medieval Europe…the Demon's agent, manifested in a man, came into being."

CRACK!

The heavy oak door smashes open.

A final contingent of swordsmen shout in an Arabic tongue and rush the door to a dead-end chamber, undergroundr. They raise curved blades on the attack.

A throng of knights with chain mail and red cross emblems on their shields charge into the room. They slash at the defenders with double-edged swords.

Limbs and necks are hacked.

The defenders fall to the floor, clutching their bleeding wounds. One by one they lose to the invaders.

A tall, panting knight stood over the last man. He shouts in a Germanic tongue and brings his sword down through the victim's skull.

THUNK!

The head divides wetly in two.

The knight rips his blade out, kicks the body to the floor, and spits on it.

With the last defender dead, the knights look at the corners of the room. Large stacks of wooden crates full of golden trinkets, religious icons, and ceremonial objects were line up against the walls.

One knight turns and shouts out through the passageway door in Latin.

A man steps in. A monk. Unrealistically tall. Eyes a rich brown color. He drapes the hood off his balding head and approaches the room of carnage with an air of religious piety. He turns and mumbled at the knight in Latin.

The knight speaks back and points to the end of the room.

Gazing, the man approaches the crates. He opens the foremost one. His brown eyes light up with a sinful light of greed. He dips his pale hands in and pulls out a shawl. Jewish in design. Simple and yet……

He clutches hard to the fabric.

Smiling.

A row of teeth that deserves fangs.

A thin chuckle escapes the monk's lips.

The knights shift uncomfortably, but look on nonetheless.

"A monk on a bloody crusade to Zandia discovered what he believed to be the prayer shawl of Christ. And indeed, it was special. For it empowered the man with perfect health, long life, and near invulnerability. But the power he gained was not a holy one, but something of perversion. Something of demented greed and lust for blood. All the things that the Demon stood for. All the things that the Demon sought in an agent that would pave the way for his inevitable consumption of the World. The agent's name….was Brother Sebastian."

Sebastian stands atop a hill overlooking the craggy mountain slopes of Zandia. He folds his arms like a perfect dictator, grinning down as enslaved masses labor to build the first of many temples in his honor. Gone is the pious look and dress of a Christian monk. In its place, Sebastian wears a blood red body of armor. A cape dances from behind his shoulders. And fastened directly about his neck like a fancy noose is the prayer shawl.

The wind blows at his tall and menacing figure as he stares out at the seas beyond Zandia…

And sneers……

"As soon as the Church heard of Brother Sebastian's turn, they sent a contingent of the Crusading armies to eliminate him and retrieve the prayer shawl. That very army was led by the strongest and most elementally inherited member of the Earthen families."

At the shores of Zandia, hundreds of ships unload infantrymen with swords, pikes, and spears. They march in formation to the shout of well-armored captains on either side of their flanks. Leading the charge—dressed tall and heavy in a silver coat of armor emblazoned with the image of a floating mountain—is a tall Priest. Blue eyes glaring under a mat of blonde hair. He holds a shield with a cross on it. His hands grip tightly around a longsword. He shouts at his men, aims the sword forward, and leads the advance.

Shouting soldiers answer his call. The earth thunders with the hundreds upon hundreds of marching, armored feet.

They head in a mass of metal and flesh towards the rising slopes of Zandia.

"And on that day, the fall of the Elementals would tragically begin. For the Priest did not know just how powerful the Demon's Agent had become. In councils prior to the Crusade, the Priest met with the families of Smoke and Fire to suggest an all encompassing attack. And when they disagreed with the tactic, he made the folly of going on his own. Six thousand years of generations preparing for the counter attack against Evil had been thrown to waste in one vainly brave attack."

The battlefield.

The Crusaders line up in thick lines on the Southern Half. Clad in glinting silver armor. Red crosses. Gold and red flags dangling off their spears and pikes.

On the North Side, the Zandian armies—former Crusaders stood to answer the invasion. Their armor is of a dull, red-painted metal. Their blades are crooked and mercilessly sharp. They let forth a bloody chant and shout in one lusting voice.

"SANGUEN! SANGUEN! SANGUEN!"

The Priest stands before the Crusaders. His blue eyes thin as he stares at the assembled army. His face in disbelief. And then……he gasps.

Brother Sebastian steps to the front line of the Zandian defenders. His cape and shawl blowing in the wind. His red armor and red sword seemingly aglow in the center of the field. He snarls with a white brim of glistening teeth and raises his sword with a shout.

"SANGUEN!"

The Priest frowns. His eyes glow a hot yellow. He raises a hand and shouts to the rear line of his men.

The archers march into place. They arm their bows with armor piercing arrows.

Another shout.

The archers aim towards the sky in an angle.

Brother Sebastian screams. He charges forth. The Zandians thunder down from the Nothern Side of the field.

A few dark-gray clouds scattered between the earth and the sun, and in the glint of bright gold-

THWIFFFFFFT!

A sea of arrows flies up, outward, and down into the Zandian bodies.

TH-TH-TH-THUNK!

The front row of charging men fall in bloody, screaming pain. Arrows protrude from their bodies.

But Brother Sebastian knocks the projectiles flying down at him away with a wave of his red sword. He shouts and grins in bloodlust as he continues leading the Zandian charge.

The Priest aims his weapon at him from afar and shouts a command.

The Crusaders shout back.

And…they charge forward.

Two thundering masses of glinting silver and dull red surge into each other on the plains of Zandia like two multicolored seas converging on a galactic shore.

The impacts of blade to bone to armor to blade again sound off through the air like wet, molten rain. Soon blades are swinging, glinting, twirling. Shredding skin and bone and flesh and sinew. Cries of the fallen. Of the victorious. Of the strugglings. Sparks and body fragments. Sweat and crimson.

All under the apathetic, pale sun.

The Priest hacks his way through two Zandian shoulders, grits his teeth, and rams through a row of men with his heavy shield.

Sebastian effortlessly cleaves two crusaders in two and stomps across the field.

In the middle of the dripping battlefield, the two meet. Almost surprised to see each other face to face in the carnage.

The Priest wastes no time. He twirls his double-edged sword and rushes at Sebastian.

Sebastian grins, grips his sword with two hands, and holds it out at ready-

CLANK!

The weapons deflect.

The Priest hobbles back.

Sebastian swings.

The Priest ducks, jabs forward, and brings his blade on the upswing.

Sebastian effortlessly knocked the sword to the side and raises a free fist. He grins. Red energy courses down from his neck, charges up in his arm, and explodes outwards.

Wide-eyed, the Priest tries to shield himself-

CRACK!

His shield explodes from the cross out.

The Priest stumbles back, panting.

Sebastian marches across the battlefield. Leering over the Crusader. Chuckling evilly. His brown eyes flash red as crimson as soldiers continue fighting and hacking and slashing all around them.

The Priest sneers back. He clenches his fists. His eyes glow a bright gold as he summons the Earth Elemental within him.

Sebastian pauses. His red eyes narrow.

The Priest lets out a shout and lifts a glowing shield-arm up.

CRUNNNCH!

The soggy ground beneath Sebastian rises to the air and explodes.

POW!

Dirt and soil fly everywhere.

Sebastian flails in the air over the battle and lands hard on the ground several feet away. His sword is lost.

The Priest gets up, hacks two charging Zandians to the bloody death, and then charges Sebastian……shouting.

Sebastian gets up. His eyes flash red. There's a gust of demonic wind lifting up his cape, and he charges his wrists with red energy.

The Priest jumps over a pile of carcasses and swings his blade towards Sebastian's torso.

SWOOOOOOSH-CLAMP!

Sebastian blocks with his bare red hands. The crimson energy shields his skin as he shoves against the Priest's blade and starts jabbing, swinging and swiping at him with red claws of demon energy.

The Priest hobbles back, ducking, side-stepping, dodging the blows.

A few of the battlers watch wearily as the two opposing leaders determine the route of the confrontation.

Sebastian keeps approaching the Priest, laughing maniacally and swinging superpowered fists of red crimson.

The Priest jumps back and raises his sword to defend.

GRIP! THWAP!

The blade is wrenched from his grasp.

The Priest stands defenseless.

Sebastian sneers and reaches for his neck.

Eyes glowing gold, the Priest shoves his arms towards the former monk with a scream.

Two pieces of earth beneath a pair of Zandian soldiers unearth and sail towards the demonic leader.

Sebastian blocks them with red glowing arms.

The Priest picks up a nearby scabbard and dives at the villain.

Sebastian holds him back and charges a red hand to plow through the Priest's face.


Snarling, the priest brings a string of rocks and pebbles sailing down on a collision course.

Sebastian narrows his eyes, rears his fingers, and—SM-SM-SM-SMACK!—demolishes the row of projectiles before finally digging his claws in.

THUNK!

The Priest jerks. His golden eyes wide. His mouth hanging open.

Some of the ailing Crusaders stand shocked in the middle of battle.

The Zandians snicker and roar in pleasure.

Sebastian's red eyes narrow as he burrows his hand through the Priest's armor and deeper and deeper into the general's heart.

The red energy pumps into the Crusader's heart. And his life peels away.

His eyes thin and—as Sebastian lets go—he falls to his knees…and then onto his back.

THWOMP!

"The last Crusader to oppose Brother Sebastian……was defeated."

The Priest lies on his back. Coughing. Sputtering blood. The gold in his eyes start to fade. But they hang on. They hang on.

The Crusaders back up and start to retreat in peril.

The Zandians chase them across the bloody battlefield.

In the meantime, Sebastian paces around the Priest's lingering body. He licks the man's blood off his fingers, smiles, and picks up his red sword from beneath a fallen soldier.

CHIIIIING!

He marches up to the Priest. He raises his sword.

The Priest looks up at him.

A final strobe of his golden eyes.

And……frowning……the Priest hisses in Latin.

Final words.

"With his dying breath, the highest ruling descendant of the Earth Elementals planted a curse on Brother Sebastian's head. A curse that was filled with all the power invested in the hundreds upon hundreds of generations proceeding the general's tragic life. A curse filled with the vengeful spirit of the Earth itself that could not be denied."

Sebastian's eyes narrow.

The Priest's lips stop moving at his last syllable.

The gold fades in his eyes.

He slumps down to the earth.

Snarling, Sebastian raises his red sword to cleave the insolent Crusader's corpse in two.

And then……a gold aura explodes from the general's dead body. It sinks into the ground, charged up, and blasts directly outward in a wave of thermal energy.

FWOOOOOSH!

Sebastian and dozens of Zandian soldiers are sent sky high as thunder explodes across the land. Those fleeing from the battle and pursuing those fleeing can not help—if but for a moment—to turn around and look in awe and fright at the supernatural devasation.

In the meantime, Sebastian lands hundreds of feet off. Bones in his body breaking. Bones in his body—like all trivial injuries of his invulnerable person—will soon heal with demonic fervor. But as he lies there, coughing up blood, he can't help but feel.

A weight upon his life.

"The curse……the curse was that every generation of Sebastian's to follow……every man that would carry on his infernal name…..would be limited to only one hundred years of immortality. And at the end of such a century, the very own son of each generation would rise up and kill his father to claim the right to bear the power of the shawl."

THUNK!

Sebastian blood's elderly eyes bulge.

He lets out a mute scream of pain……then slumps to his knees at the entrance to his Zandian palace.

THWUMP!

A dagger rests in his back.

Blood trickles and collets around a pair of boots. Feet belonging to a tall, middle-aged man of handsome features and red-brown eyes.

The son of Sebastian Blood.

He stands above his father. His hands dripping with red. His face deadpan……cold.

And ever so slowly melting.

"With each passing generation……with each century that followed……the curse showed itself to be true. And not merely a coincidence."

THWUMP!

The son of Sebastian Blood, now an elderly man, screams as he plummets over a cliffside in Zandia. His body breaks and bleeds to death against the rock bluffs of the seaside below.

Standing atop the cliff—his back to a two-hundred-year old Zandian village—is a second son. The descendant of his deceased father.

He looks down at his elder's battered corpse……and smiles in the ocean wind.

"With each successive rule……with each bloody overthrow…..the generations of Sebastian Blood realized that their immortality was just as limited as their quest for power. And the world would never be theirs unless they could somehow end the curse that bound them to their own evil."

A man wearing the red cape and shawl stands in a cave beneath the mountains of Zandia.

Deep pits of bubbling red liquid hiss and steam around him.

He lifts his arms before a huge congregation of red-robed followers and shouts at the top of his lungs in Latin.

The body of devotees join in. All in one accord, they raise their palms to the ceiling of the cavern, produce a dagger, and slowly slit the skin of their palms.

Blood dribbles down……joins the pool……and fills the air with a sinister, copper smell.

And they all inhale.

"Finally, four centuries ago, one of the descendants decided to take it upon himself and his future offspring if need be to route out and eliminate all the remnants of the triad Elementals. To accomplish this, he collected all of his faithful followers and founded a religious sect determined on eliminating the last spiritual stronghold against his powerful expansion in the world. With the Elemental Families gone, his power would be endless. And the terrible Demon that fed him the waves of Destruction would become lord over all. The name of this sect……this operation……is the Church of Blood."

THWISSSSH!

THWOOOOOSH!

Arrows sing through the Serengeti air.

Three herdsman turn around.

TH-THUNK!

THUNK!

Arrows skewer their necks.

They fall down in bloody heaps.

The oxen they had been guiding by rope leash bellow and charge off towards the desert horizon.

One man spins around, gasping.

His mahogany brown eyes widen.

A red-caped figure flanked by four robed archers charge at him.

The elderly tribesman tosses off his cloak, crosses his arms, and summons up a wave of magical fire at the last second-

CHIIING!

THUNK!

His body jolts.

Brother Blood skewers the dark-skinned man with the length of his red sword.

A pause.

He yanks it out.

Blood spurts out of the man's body.

A flash of red flame……and then nothing.

THWUMP!

The tribesman falls to the ground, dead.

"One by one. The Church and its leader hunted down the family members of the Elemental Protectors."

CHIIING!

A Chinese swordsman runs to a stop on the Great Wall. Panting. His black hair disheveled and hanging about his armored shoulders.

Brother Blood perches on the edge of the Wall. His red sword glinting. He glares at the Asian from under a menacing skull mask and leaps with a bloodlusthing shout.

The swordsman blocks Brother Blood, parries, and slashes his blade at him.

Brother Blood kicks him off and then proceeds to attack with a flurry of jabs, swipes, uppercuts, and twirling slashes of his sword.

The Chinese swordsman backs up the length of the Wall until he nearly stumbles down a flight of stairs.

He grits his teeth.

Concentrates.

A burst of smoke energy flies out of his mouth and surges at Brother Blood.

Blood jumps out of the way.

A cloud of smoke billows where he just was……and then the smoke parts as four arrows stream through from four hiding archers.

The swordsman gasps.

TH-TH-THUMK!

The arrows pierce the asian man's chest.

He gurgles blood, stumbles, drops his sword, and collapse to his knees in front of Brother Blood.

The cult leader smirks. His eyes flash red as he screams and slashes the swordsman's head off.

THWACK!

"The Elemental generations of the Smoke and the Flame were helpless. They knew little of the Church of Blood or its insatiable witch hunt for the innocent. The worst case scenario was happening. Two thirds of the original humans assigned to protect against the Demonic entrance were eliminated. The last ones to remain were the descendants of Earth. The distant offspring of that same Priest who failed in his Crusade to stop Brother Sebastian, but somehow succeeded in creating a violent, static flux. For the pattern to be stopped…..the golden warriors had to be slaughtered. The Brother Bloods were going to see to that."

A woman in dark cloaks runs through the streets of Venice.

She's sweating and breathing heavily.

Panic seeps across her pale face.

She runs around gathered artists, merchants, sailors from the nearby ports.

She runs alongside a canal with blue, lapping waves.

She turns and looks behind her.

Three robed figures with rapiers are in hot pursuit.

She gulps.

She turns and looks ahead.


She gasps and skids to a stop.

FWOOOSH!

Brother Blood leaps down from a balcony. He grins at her from beneath a skull mask. CHIIIIING! He produces the family blade.

The woman steps back. The robed figures gather behind her.

At the last second, she tenses up. With a frown, she clenches her fists and summons a gold aura.

The buildings start to shake.

The street splits in two.

Rocks and stone start to levitate.

Brother Blood takes a breath and charges with his red sword swinging.

The robed church members attack from the rear.

They converged on the woman just as she screams and unleashes a wave of dirt and thermal energy.

POW!

"All of the Earth elementals in Western Europe……died. But the curse did not end. And even Brother Blood and his descendants knew that somewhere, somehow, a piece of the Earth family survived. And indeed they did. The relatives that Brother Blood slaughtered in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire were decoys. Self-sacrificing loved ones to those who truly carried the bloodline of the last surviving Elementals."

Off the plains of Siberia.

Where the ice met the colder concrete forged by empires of old and new.

A coach rides to a stop.

Lavishly dressed monarchs stand before the sweeping entrance of a palace.

The coach opens and a slightly less regally dressed family steps out.

All blonde.

Blue eyed.

Thin and frail in build.

And seeming to have a golden aura about them.

The monarchs smile and embrace the newcomers.

"The last of the family sought asylum in Russia. And always they would be on the go. Spending years in one remote part of the huge expanse to another. The czars accepted them as eternal guests of their royal households. And what was once a family of European warriors throughout the ages became lost in the regal, bureaucratic shuffle of monarchs, diplomats, and ambassadors. But their powers did not fade. The power of the Earth remained in their blood. And it always dawned upon them that someday, somehow, Brother Blood and his murderous generations would one day catch up with them to end the curse once and for all. And if that were to happen…..there would be nothing protecting the world from the forces of demonic destruction."

In the northeast part of France.

Bordering Luxembourg and Belgium.

A horse-draw carriage carries a blonde princess through an elevated, forest road.

She gazes off towards the side. Dressed in frills and lace befitting a belle. Her lips part in wonder as she observes the mountainsides and the green forests unfolding before her. And a huge castle built in the midst of it. Spires stretching high towards the blue, crystal clear sky.

"To safely preserve even the thinnest remnants of the family's blood, the czars helped the Elementals spread themselves throughout Europe. Marrying into dukes, counts, and royal families. And the biggest and most ornate coupling of all…..was between a young daughter of the Elemental Family…..and the monarch of the small country of Markovia."

The princess daintily approaches the center of the castle's courtyard, escorted by well dressed servants.

Shadowed by the music of bards.

Haloed by the gasps and giggles of handmaidens and ladies hiding behind the nearby hedges of the royal paradise.

A tall man well above the princess' age stands before her. At the sight of the girl, he smiles, bows, and gently offers a hand.

The princess blushes. But she maintains her dignity, curtsies, and takes the hand of the Prince of Markovia.

Her future husband.

"King Viktor Markov I. A man who separated himself from France during the Jacobin terror of the Revolution. He gave the maternal passage of the Elemental family a safe haven. Markovia would be the home for the absolute last generation of those gifted with the Powers of Earth. And such a tiny, prosperous country would be a home and a safe haven for nearly two hundred years."

In the royal gardens of Markovia……

In the shadows of the castle upon the mountain.

Outside the villages.

A King and Queen dressed in nineteenth century, regal attire watch as their children laugh and play amongst the flowers and hedges.

The Queen sits down on the grass, her wide skirt spreading. She cutely summons the children to her and holds her finger up. After a beat, her blue eyes glow a hot gold. Her fingers dance.

Soil from the garden lifts up, forms into the air, and produces the shape of a fluttering butterfly.

The little children giggle and clap their hands.

The Queen smiles and makes the earthen butterfly 'flutter in the air around them.

The King shakes his head, smiles, and folds his arms as he watches.

"The Markovs lived in peace. In harmony. Safe with the powers being passed along through the queens. And even safer with the kings and their alliances to neighboring nations. They had no enemies in all of Europe. No enemies except one……"
POW!

BAM!

Shells explode across the no-man's land.

Soldiers huddle in the trenches, clinging shakily to their rifles and bayonets.

Biplanes zoom overhead, daring to soar over German and Prussian territories to drop handheld bombs.

Dead bodies are draped over the rows upon rows of barbed wires lining the trenches. Gas masks dangle off the faces of the living and the dead.

As the shelling continues, a shadowed soldier marches through the trenches. Flying mud from nearby explosions litter him wetly as he sops through the cold and dank earth of France. He steps down into a literal burrow in the ground where supplies are kept and candles are lit. Wounded and gassed men lie moaning on white cots. Catholic nurses tend helplessly to them as they cough up blood and grip eye sockets that refuse to work.

A group of officers are gathered with a few royal physicians to heal a commanding officer. A blue-eyed, blonde prince of Markovia. He lies on his back. Sputtering. Convulsing. His eyes are turning gray from a gas explosion to his upper body. His life seeps from him.

The shadowed soldier steps forward and leers over the body. Tall. Menacing.

The officers and physicians look at him. Panting.

They blink in confusion and shout in French at a nun.

Two nurses hurry over to guide the shadowed stranger out.

But he knocks them back.

They gasp.

The officers stand up straight, fingering their revolvers.

The stranger lets loose a glistening grin. He removes his uniform's hat. Red-brown eyes glisten with bright crimson.

SLASH!

He rips his uniform off with an unsheathing of a red sword. A crimson cape dances on his shoulders. A prayer shawl……

The officers shout at the man in a mix of French and Belgian. They raise their revolvers.

Brother Blood lets out a shout and blurs at them.

SLASH!

THWACK!

Two arms and a head are cleaved off.

Blood.

Screaming.

Brother Blood hacks the rest of the officers in twain.

The nuns scream and stumble to run out of the burrow.

Wounded soldiers on the nearby cots gurgle and shake helplessly in horror.

And Brother Blood marches towards the young, Markovian prince.

Snarling.

Smiling.

Licking his teeth.

The half blind, convulsing blonde looks up at him. Twitches. Gasps……

THUNK!

……and loses his neck.

"Brother Blood had found the Elementals. The incessant warrior spirit inside the bloodlines brought the passionate Markovians to the surface during World War I. It would be next to impossible from then on to forever hide the last family of the Earth. And by the late 1930s, Brother Blood's hunt had come to a close."

The lights are out at Markovia Castle one fateful night.

Not a single bulb or candle is shimmering.

And yet, there are flash-strobe auras of silver blighting the land. Brightening the mountainsides. Illuminating the forests beyond and below the royal summit.

A lightning bombing of northern Europe.

The blitzkrieg.

German Lutwaffe soar overhead in thick squadrons of bombers. They pelt the northern hills of France and the slopes of Markovia with relentless, fiery explosives. Thunder starts to spill across the land as red blazes form in the distance.

Sirens mounted on the wall of the castle are wailing……wailing……wailing.

The moaning of an electronic ghost.

And a fiery glow gets closer. Closer.

Surging.

A single, helmeted servant bravely rushes out onto the open courtyard of the Palace.

He runs to the edge of the road leading into the castle square.

He peers over the guardrails and down into the country side.

The winding road leading up to the Tower is flickering with torchlight. A dead give away to both bombers and locals alike that……

A shady group of invaders are approaching.

The servant gasps. Under the thunder of the shelling that is coming closer and closer, he turns and scampers back into the castle.

"Brother Blood was too busy leeching off life forces of those dying in Hitler's prison camps. But he did manage to conspire with Baron Bedlam of the neighboring territories to arrange a coup in the capitol of Markovia. The King's men and soldiers—as sparse as they were—had gone to the nation's villages during the air raid to protect Markovia's people. The castle was defenseless……"

Baron Bedlam grins. He leads the torchlight progression with a shout.

Dressed in black, under the guise of night, and totally ignorant of the approaching blitzkrieg…Bedlam leads the torch-laden charge into the gates of the castle.

Markovian servants rush out with make-shift weapons to protect the monarchy.

But Bedlam and his force easily riddles them to death with machine guns and bolt action rifles.

Bodies fall to the floor, bleeding across the torchlit courtyard.

And the forces rush into the Palace.

Bedlam first.

Tossing torches into rooms and treasuries.

Ripping furniture and cabinets apart.

Searching……searching……

For the Royal Family.

"King Viktor V had ushered his family into the last chamber of the Castle where they would be safe. He forced his wife, Queen Katrina, to take the one-way escape route that would take her through the ancient tunnels of the mountains and off towards the region of France still safe from Nazi Germany's advances. The Markovians—once surrounded by friends and allies—were suddenly engulfed in animosity and death. There was no choice. Viktor gave his life to fend off the ravenous Baron while his wife escaped."

The woman clings a crying, infant boy to her chest in ornate swaddling clothes. Tearfully, she pleads and clutches to the King.

But Viktor forcefully shoves her into the passage way.

He kneels down, panting, and gives her a lasting kiss.

She sobs and backs into the dark corridor.

SLAM!

He shuts and locks the fake wall in place behind her. He turns and whips out a royal sword…facing the pounding doors as the invaders rush in.

Baron Bedlam emerges first. Smiling.

The King shouts in French and curses him.

Bedlam merely shrugs, smirks, and whips out a revolver.

BANG!

Inside the passageway, Queen Katrina shakes. She clutches her crying infant to herself and tries to silence her with her own tears. She murmurs in a Russian dialect, passed along by her mother and the mothers before her. Slowly, somberly, she turns about and hobbles down the dark passageway with the child in her arms.

"Katrina had in her possession the last princess of the Markovian family. Her name was unknown at the time, for the little girl was barely a week old. But in exile or not, she was heir to the throne. A throne that no longer had its castle. For later that evening, the blitzkrieg consumed what was left of the castle and the countryside. There was nothing in the end for Baron Bedlam. Markovia had been desolated. And what Brother Blood desired, he got. Or so he perceived. For the Queen and the Princess survived. And they scattered far west in secret transit the same way many close relatives of the Markovians had fled beforehand when the War and Brother Blood's wrath grew hotter and hotter. Westward. To America."

Katrina huddles inside a cramped, ship's cabin. She surrounds herself with cloaked immigrants. Coughing. Hugging themselves in the cold.

Outside the portholes, the Atlantic Ocean bobs up and down. The sky is gray, like the smoke clouds of burning French villages.

The people are lucky to leave France—and the War—behind them. And yet they submerge themselves in their misery. For the oceanic transport brings very little promises when the destination is a huge empire that hasn't even bothered to enter the conflict against the Axis.

Katrina opens her cloak some. Her disguise. Her impoverished alter-ego. She soothes the stirring infant in her grasp and rocks her. Hiding back her tears. Her apprehensions. Her sorrows.

"It was supposed to be the land of promise. Of freedom. But all that Katrina and her baby princess needed was sanctuary. And a huge, huge countryside to hide themselves in. Full of deserts. Forests. Rivers. Full of Earth. The Elementals would lose themselves in the wasteland. And Brother Blood would be none the wiser."

Modern day.

A year and a half ago.

A desert canyon stretches to the horizon.

Stone-amber land going as far as the eye can see.

Dirt and dust shifting all about.

A thin figure stands on the edge of the precipice.

An almost emaciated scarecrow of a body against the setting Western Sun.

Golden hair waving in the wind.

Thin arms hugging herself.

Clutching to a worn, tattered backpack.

Breathing.

Sighing.

Existing……

"Three generations later, she was born. And who exactly her father was and whatever became of her Earthen mother may never be known. But out of that desperate, lonely nomadic dissemination of the once-royal bloodline, Tara Markov was cast into the wasteland of her desolate future. Maybe the mothers before her who carried the Elemental Power taught her not to trust the world. For somewhere—somehow—there would be a Brother Blood seeking to sink his teeth into her and end her precious existence."

She huddles in a cave as it blows with gales outside in the cold desert night.

A tattered blanket is all the girl has.

She clutches it to herself.

Arms covered in long sleeves of a tight white shirt under a gray tank top.

Legs curled under blue shorts.

Shivering.

Trying to hold the tears back.

Her body shakes and a piece of her shirt rides up her tummy.

Exposing the birthmark just above her abdomen.

Eternal.

Branding.

"She was haunted. For she never truly understood the ten thousand years of harnessed, Earthly powers endowed to her. She lacked the meditation to control the gift she would some day depend on to save all existence if need be. Earthquakes followed her everywhere she went. The ground split open and threatened to swallow her in her sleep. And worst of all……people got hurt. People went through suffering. Merely because she existed. And this shut her away into an isolated bubble. Like icy glass. Not so much afraid of the world as she was overwrought with guilt over her inevitable threat to the existence of it."

She cooks a hunted jackrabbit over a fire on the edge of a canyon. Gazing up at the clouds as the smoke from the stew rises.

A cold wind blows at her. She gazes off over the nearby mountain range. Her blue eyes blink. She sets the instruments of cooking down and scampers up a southern ridge of mountains. She reaches a summit, and looks out.

Her blue eyes squint.

And—from afar—she can see it.

Land where the moisture graced the hillsides.

A huge Bay stretching around a huge City.

And in the center of the Bay.

A Tower.

Gray and glinting.

Shaped as a 'T'.

And she runs a hand through her silky blonde hair.

A butterfly pendant glistens in the Sun.

And her lips part.

With awe and curiosity……

"The last princess. The Maiden of the Earth. Who could imagine the loneliness? The loss? The helplessness she must have gone through? All of those years of living alone in the wastelands, seeking to find herself and afraid of what may be revealed. And yet she persisted. And she certainly showed the golden shades of her Elemental. In the face of other depravity. And even when the dark powers of the Demon seeking to claim the Earth sent his spirit to root her out."

She hugs herself, gazing out across the mountain ridges.

When a huge rumble swims through the earth.

The girl turns around.

She gasps in horror.

A mound of dirt rises up.

An explosion of soil and rock.

A huge, arachnid tail emerges. Then—with a shrieking noise—a horrendously gigantic scorpion burrows up from beneath the earth's crust. With rows of amber-angry eyes, it raises a pair of huge pinchers and stabs its tail down at the girl.

She leaps out of the way.

Dust flies and rock crumbles.

The girl slides down into the canyon and runs for her life.

The huge scorpion chases, its mandibles warbling as it shrieks in evil spirited bloodlust.

The girl looks far ahead of her.

In mid-sprint, she sees a rock bridge stretching over a canyon just before a dead end in the carved earth.

She grits her teeth and—with eyes glowing yellow—heatedly dashes towards the bridge in a desperate attempt to lure the huge arachnid beast into a trap.

And overhead—barely within her peripheral vision—five teenage superheroes rush to the scene atop the ravine's precipices.

And on another ledge of rock a slight distance off.

Alone and unseen.

A dark figure in black and brown metal mesh glares down at the fiasco of destiny.

His emblazoned eye thin…

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

I stared at Hull.

Silent.

Still.

His face is aglow with the faint silver glinting off his fingers. Gray sparks flicker and he walks towards me slowly. Hard blue eyes remaining fixed.

He finishes his historical recount: "When Terra joined the Titans, she was not just a random child with amazing superpowers. She was the product of countless millennia forging Earth Elemental powers that were bestowed upon human kind unimaginably long ago. She is quintessentially Mother Earth incarnate. Or at least…..she was. Before her tragic apprenticeship with Slade ended in her freezing in stone."

"…….," I took a deep breath. I folded my arms and leaned my gazing head to the side.

"You seem dubious." He gestured at the dusty books all around us. "Do you wish to research for yourself and find what I've just told you? I seriously doubt you or I have the time. What with our date with Anderson this evening."

I frowned.

"You think I'm wasting your time? Whatever the case is, you don't believe me," he said. His blue eyes narrowed. "And I know it, Mr. Noir."

I blinked.

I scratched my head with a metal hand.

I nervously pointed at him and mouthed something.

He nodded. "I am empathic. I can sense people even when I can't see them. I know when they are hiding something or not trusting or simply out to betray the rest of those surrounding them in the bloody arena we call 'life'. It's a side effect of my powers. I am sensitive to……life energy, for I suppose you can all it as such. My body is a living, walking energy core….capable of storing a limited amount of matter converted into streaming electrons which I must take apart and then piece back together quark by quark at a moment's notice."

In the dark, he flicked his right arm to the side. Silver-tipped fingers sparked.

FLASH!

His sword appeared.

SHVVVVVVvvv-CLACK!

He spun it to a stop, gripping the circular hilt.

"Bluescythe…," he gestured with the sword, "…is half of my arsenal. I have spent a long, long time forging it into something stronger than even adamantine. Not an easy task, I assure you." He looked at me. "The rest of my weapons cache comes from whatever I can pick up. A good sized room stockpiled with weapons is about my limit. Right now, I have enough weapons 'stored' inside of me to support a third world country's army. And what I use up by the expulsion of blades, firearms, and ammo…..I replace along the way. You can only imagine the sort of preparation I needed to make in stockpiling for my participation here. All that you or the other combatants have seen is but a taste of what I can unleash if I need to."

SHVVVV-FLASH!

He disappeared the sword and stood empty handed before me.

"All that stands between my fluctuating energy core and the naked air outside is what you see before you. This shell….this….this hull of a body…," he lifted his hands and flexed his silver-tipped fingers. "…I must keep it in good care, for a breach of the energy inside my hull would be most detrimental to the entire continent." He lowered his hands and spoke with a serious squinting of his eyes. "A detonation of my inner being would roughly equal three hundred Hiroshimas, give or take."

I blinked.

"I do not tell you this so that you may feel threatened. I began to exist for a very specific reason. A reason that changed as I gradually evolved. As I became the person you see and hear speaking to you. I tell you of my powers because I want you to know the extent and fervor to which I will go to enter Anderson's Vault. And hopefully you can feel convinced that such an earnestness is not aimed at stealing Terra's statue from you or those girls attempting to beat you to that very same goal."

I leaned my head to the side.

Perplexed.

He took a deep breath and said: "You may go ahead and 'speak', Mr. Noir. I'm empathic. I can sense emotions from life forces, but not actually thoughts."

"……," I hesitantly raised my hands. And I gestured:

'What is it that you are after?'

And indeed, he understood me.

And he responded:

"Does it truly matter? I let your actions speak for yourself, Mr. Noir. And I've given you the grace of both seeing my actions and hearing my words. And the fact that I haven't tried to kill you yet should hopefully give the message that I have no intention in thwarting you or your allies' plans. I think it shouldn't have to concern you what I'm after for here in this pathetic City."

I frowned.

I hand-signed:

'I do not owe you anything, jerk.'

"Why the hostility? If you keep from getting in my way, then I shall keep from getting in yours," he half bowed with a dangling rattle of his chains. "It is as simple as that."

My teeth showed.

My hands blurred: 'No, it is not! You are more than just a mere opponent of mine. You are a murderer. A cold-hearted killer. If I need to, I shall and will get in your way. You are not my boss, you homicidal moron.'

Hull merely blinked his hard blue eyes at me. And he slurred: "You would know a homicidal spirit when you see one, wouldn't you, Mr. Noir?"

I froze.

Swallowing.

He went on: "Are you and I truly so different? In the long run? When all we have in this black, black universe is just ourselves to be judged and—"

I held a hand up in a simple fashion of telling him to 'SHUT UP!'

He was silent.

I sighed.

A beat.

I gestured: 'I will not allow anymore needless deaths in this pathetic charade. If I see a chance to stay your sword arm, I will.'

"I kill because I need to," Hull grunted. Frowning. "The lives of the many are far too numerous in multitudes to care about sparing the life of the few."

My lips part in horrid disbelief.

I hand-sign: 'What could anything that you are doing possibly be for the good of the many?'

"If only you knew how much danger the 'good of the many' is in, Mr. Noir," he said in a breathy voice. "And how much danger the 'many' themselves are in…."

"……."

"Total…..utter….annihilation of all existence," Hull spoke. Glinting blue stones. "The Gaia Sphere."

A chill ran through me.

But it wasn't my metal arm.

The Gaia Sphere?

Why do I have the distinct feeling that……

I rubbed my forehead above my dark optics.

Exhaling painfully.

……that I have heard that before?

"The Earth Elemental lingers as we speak, Mr. Noir," Hull paced around the dusty old book room and spoke to me. "Her spirit is alive, but frozen in stone. She is sought after by many. But now she is in the hands of one. Dagger will—if he can—tap into the Earthen reserves hidden in her statue. You must certainly know what I mean."

I stared at him. And then my lips parted.

My god.

No way……

"There is yet someone stronger than Terra. Stronger…..in that he doesn't exist yet."

He?

My god……how could you possibly know all of this!

Where is the Messenger!

Where is-

"If you are to find Terra, I suggest you do so quickly. I will assist you if need be when the time comes and the Vault is open. But from then on, I must go my own way. I must go and prepare for the Gaia Sphere. And certainly we will meet again when that dark horizon comes."

I hand signed something: 'Can I ask you a question?'

"By all means."

'Are you human?'

"Are you dead?"

I was silent.

He stared at me for a moment, then flicked his arm at me.

FLASH!

Swoooosh-Clutch!

I grabbed Myrkblade in two hands. Blinking my naked black eyes.

He points at me with a silver finger: "Finding Terra is more important than ever any of us can comprehend right now. Let whatever motivates you motivate you. Just….find her. Save the Earth. Keep the Demon at Bay, obsidian one….."

And he walked towards the door. Opened it to the bright library interior beyond. And exited.

I stood there in the dark.

Sighing, I slipped on my shades and twirled Myrkblade.

Great, just what I need.

I sheathed my weapon.

CHIIIIING!

Another lecturer.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

I was walking.

Somewhere.

Staring down at my boots.

Hands in my pockets.

Blake Glover told me that Red Aviary was seeking either me or Terra next. Or perhaps both of us.

It was part of the ring of Destruction that was to inevitably consume the Titans, in that—for some reason—Red Aviary seeks the utter annihilation of all that's good and heroic in that City by the Bay.

How is it that Robin died in a single blink of an eye and Terra's complexity is the sort that requires a billion eyes blinking everywhere at once to get even a fraction of the picture that's at hand here?

Jinx, Pulsade, and 'J' are using Wildebeest because they want Terra.

Hull is here for one thing or another, but it's obvious that he's trying to protect Terra too.

Dagger has Terra, and god knows what he's doing to her poor, stone body.

The Messenger……why is he ever in the middle of all this? What's so important about my dimension that keeps dragging him here?

And Killer Croc……aww, screw that.

I sighed and dug my hands deeper into my pockets.

I barely recognized that the ground passing under my feet was suddenly carpeted.

Air conditioning cooled my body…

Red Aviary wants Terra.

And supposedly he wants me.

But if that was the case, shouldn't I be dead already?

Terra has already been seized. Dagger has her. Triangular holds the stone rook.

If Triangular is so easily at the mercy of the Destructive Parasite, why hasn't Red Aviary climbed through the bureaucratic cobwebs of evil and devoured her already?

Or perhaps Terra is dead. And this entire adventure into the vault is a wild goose chase just because Glover was so vague to have told me 'go to Shepherd Plain'.

I groaned.

I rubbed my temples above my shades.

Teeth clenched beneath my increasingly chapped lips.

But if Terra was dead—then a really bad scenario according to Hull would be in effect right now.

Some……some Demon would be threatening the world.

God, where have I heard that before?

And if Terra is dead, and Red Aviary has already killed her……

Then perhaps Red Aviary would be this Brother Blood?

From the sounds of it, the guy and all his fathers before him are the ultimate essence of Destruction.

They bring an end to themselves in a cursed fashion that mirrors the way they seek to bring an end to the living, thriving world.

And here I was……all along……

Helplessly assuming that Red Aviary could very well be……

Just possibly be……

I shook my head.

My eyes shut beneath my shades momentarily.

And I sighed. Partial relief.

It can't be, Ana.

He's probably dead by now.

From the last I saw him, he could very well have imploded.

His passion was too much.

Too much……

You know as well as I do whom he chose to follow in the end.

I knew that it was always just you and me, Ana.

Just you and me……

I opened my eyes and resumed staring at the carpeted floor.

In the cool interior of…..somewhere.

This Hull guy is a phony.

A murderous, homicidal phony.

It's enough to believe that Terra may be some long lost princess of a desolated, European kingdom of yesteryear.

But……

Elementals?

Christ's prayer shawl?

Church of Blood?

If it was all important, the Messenger would have told me.

Yes……

The Messenger……

He would have told me.

I……

I trust him……

I bit my lip.

A hidden breath.

And then I nearly bumped into a strong arm facing straight out at me.

Palm first.

"What are you doing here?"

I blinked.

I glanced up.

"……."

Oh. Right.

I had somehow walked my subconscious feet into Pompeii.

I stood in the center of the casino's first floor.

A very familiar bouncer stood before me. Frowning.

Familiar because…

I smirked.

He was the one whose crotch had become intimate with my foot.

And at sight of my grin, I saw a trace of fear resurface into his eyes. He mumbled, stood besides his fellow bouncers, and murmured: "You're h-here awful early, aren't you Wyldecarde?"

"……," I glanced up at a clock.

Three Thirty p.m.

I looked at him.

Glaring.

A beat.

"Y-You need to see Jacob Anderson, right?"

"……"

Slowly, I nodded.

He gulped. He motioned towards an elevator.

I half-bowed, and followed him as he took me there.

He pressed a button.

DING!

The elevator doors opened.

I walked in.

He regained a brave frown as he leaned in and said: "This will take you straight to the floor where Anderson's office is."

I nodded back at him.

"No screwing around on the way there," the man uttered and pointed up at a camera with a red light on the metal side panels of the elevator car. "We'll see everything if you try to break into our treasury or some shit. Got it?"

"….."

I raised my metal hand.

I cracked the titanium knuckles.

He shook and sweatdropped.

I formed my hand—slowly—into a thumb's up.

A menacing, dark smile.

He gulped. "Allright then. Since we're in agreement….." He eagerly hobbled backwards out of the elevator doorway.

DING!

I was closed in.

I rested back against the metal wall and sighed.

Staring down at the slab of a floor.

A beat….

'Snkkkkt!'

I jump.

There's a crackling in my hidden earpiece.

My lips part.

The Messenger!

Eagerly—like a puppy rushing up to the front door as the master returns—I dug a finger into my ear canal and adjusted the frequency on the communicator.

'Snkkkkkt—Wooh boy! Mr. Wizard I am NOT. You still there, tall-dark-and-dashing?'

I smiled.

It's good to have friends……

'I just got back from doing a lot of homework. I'm sorry I couldn't be there to meet you in the Boy Cave, Noir. I hate to keep a handsome man waiting.'

I rolled my black eyes.

I leaned against the wall as the elevator started to hum and vibrate.

And…..

I simply waited….

The Messenger's electronic voice spoke to me:

'I did some further snooping here in Pompeii after you walked away from the fights. And I found out a few crazy things. But one of them craziest of all.'

I raised an eyebrow into the naked, claustrophobic air.

Curious….

'Killer Croc. He is definitely working for Jacob Anderson. The dumb brute is a pawn. And to make things even less sexy, they've got the reptilian rook hooked on Dragonflare.'

My lips part.

Dragonflare……

'I smell the Dagger at work here. Something tells me that it is only a matter of time before the Parasite himself catches up with this dry, desert corner of Triangular and sooner than we know it we'll be dealing with the Hand.'

A shiver up my metal arm.

I wince and weather it….

'Whatever it is that Jacob Anderson's gonna send you on an errand to do, Noir, be watchful. Killer Croc is a wild card set to crush the Wyldecarde. Oh, and that blue-eyed-hunk-of-a-skull-basher too.'

I simper.

'You weren't accepting candy from dark-haired strangers while I was gone, were you, Noir?'

I bit my lip.

'Hey. I can't blame you. The guy's a cryptic, walking pinup for both Freud and Skinner to make love to. But whatever he may have told you, what's important now is this City……this Vault……that statue of a girl……and some smoke and mirrors Reaper out to get the Balance of Morals really……really screwed.'

I took a deep breath.

Shuddering.

'You have to trust me, Noir. Like you always have. Or at least I hope you have. Been seeing other annoying, asian kids?'

I couldn't help but smirk.

I do trust you……

'Well, just to make you jealous. I did a little fraternizing of my own while you were gone. And I think I met a certain someone who's willing to ignore the roost-ruling of Jinx and Pulsade just long enough to give you and I a break from psuedo-villainy.'

I blinked.

Say what?

My mouth dropped.

You mean……you met with the munchkin!

'Wyldecarde, retire your goggles for now. It's time for Noir to take the stand. Hehehe. Snkkkt—okay, you little muppet! Now!'

CH-CHTINK!

The entire elevator jolted.

I leaned against a side with a metal arm, gasping.

The vibration stopped.

The movement of the car came to a standstill.

I exhaled.

The Hell……?

Sparking sounds.

I looked at the elevator panel before me.

The buttons and numbers flickered as the light behind them died.

And then—in hilarious perfection—a string of eight or so lights stayed lit against the dulled rest of them. The buttons formed a curved line. An obvious letter.

'J'.

I smiled.

I looked up.

The camera light flickered from red to green.

A beeping sound.

The 'J' vanished, and the third tier basement level buttons lit up.

Cht-Tung!

Whurrrrrr.

And I descended to the dungeon levels of Pompeii.

I took a deep breath.

Smiled.

And unsheathed Myrkblade.

CHIIIING!

I felt like two, invisible wings were sprouting out from my shoulders.

In the feathery forms of two unseen friends.

One mute.

The other who couldn't stop from talking his ass off.

'I think you've got a bunch of cute, Mexican chicks to save before showtime, buddy. Go show them that not all dark and scary people are as evil as they are benevolently badass.'

The buttons on the panel flickered as a distant hacker shaped the lit panel into a text like 'smiley face'.

I shook my head.

Maybe I'm not so alone in chaos as I thought, Ana.

The elevator reached the basement levels.

The car came to a stop.

The lights flickered out.

'Go get 'em, tiger. And be careful.'

I took a deep breath, gritting Myrkblade tightly by the hilt.

I always am.

And the doors opened.

DING!