A/N Hey everyone! I'm back with the second longest chapter ever in Nexus which I started right after I posted the last chapter which is why it took so long (along with some stuff I'm up to that kept me busy). Anyway, after this chapter I have the next 6 chapters fully written already, so it's going to be a rapid-posting week leading up to Thanksgiving! Alright, hope you enjoy the chapter! WARNING: This chapter is why the rating is M.
Disclaimer: I own none of the manga, anime, tv shows, movies, comics, and any other media you may recognize characters and settings in this story from. They are not mine.
Nexus HWR 11.0 Mine:
First Day on Nexus (FD + 0)
In the middle of a desert, a young teenage girl sat on her butt in the sand. She sat a hundred feet away from the edge of a huge crater in the desert, and she kept a cactus between herself and that area so she would not have to see the bodies.
Mine was panting, and she looked up at the three suns straight above her in the sky. They were beating down on her, and her lack of thirst made it feel even hotter. The young teenager had her Imperial Arms, a sniper rifle named Pumpkin, strapped to her back, and some blood splattered on her clothing. Mine blinked, then snapped her eyes open as fast as she could. She had seen a lot in her life, but that gray monster's red eyes, its powers and strength, she could not get over it. She imagined the man in glasses who appeared behind the beast, and then reimagined Doomsday's fist going through Hiro's body and crushing his skull. The old wizards, the little green Jedi, their deaths were so fresh in her mind, and so brutal.
Mine shook her head to get rid of those images she kept seeing even after her eyes opened. The sixteen year old girl calmed herself down since she did not know how long she would be there under the sweltering sun. After hours of sitting on a shaking planet and contemplating her situation, Mine heard a noise on the other side of the cactus, and she peered around it to see what made the sound.
She did not know why she was still in this area when all the other humans who appeared near her were killed. Mine looked around the cactus, wondering if one of those corpses from before was not actually dead. There was a person ahead of her standing at the edge of the crater. Mine's eyes opened wide at the sight of a boy she recognized, as he had been the one to save her earlier with the help of an older man. His hair may have been blond back then, but she recognized what he was wearing and put two-and-two together.
The girl walked out behind the cactus and started towards him, but the younger boy's expression was grim. He was staring into the crater at one of the corpses, and Mine suddenly recalled how enraged the kid was at the monster over one of the deaths that occurred. "I'm sorry," she began, and the boy at the edge of the crater just nodded, already having felt her approach behind him. Mine looked closer at Gohan's battered body, then she spoke up, "So you took care of it then?"
Gohan hesitated, then nodded again. "Doomsday was completely destroyed."
Mine let out a sigh of relief. Until that moment she had not realized it, but she was still very afraid that the monster would return for her. The girl stared at the kid who walked down the crater and reached for the floor. She stepped closer to the crater and watched as he picked up part of a green alien's body. The kid looked mortified as he tried picking up all the pieces, and he wound up dropping them all and gaining a frustrated look on his face.
Gohan lifted his right hand and pointed it at Piccolo's mangled body. "Goodbye, Mr. Piccolo," he fired a blast of ki that incinerated his martial arts master's body. After a few moments, Gohan turned to the girl at the top of the crater and forced a smile her way. "Hi, I'm Gohan. What's your name?"
"Mine," the older girl replied. The boy looked semi-calm, so she quickly continued, "Do you know where we are?"
Gohan shook his head. "A strange new world," he began. "And it's not safe to stay here, especially not alone."
"I can take care of myself," Mine snapped at the twelve year old. Gohan's eyes widened in surprise and he held up his hands defensively as she reached for her rifle. He thought she was going to point it at him for a second, but Mine just held her weapon in front of herself and continued, "My rifle Pumpkin came back to me, and it can get me out of any pinch I'm in."
"Can it?" Gohan whispered, his voice soft. He did not want to sound mocking, but in his head he thought about the moment he first saw this girl, when Doomsday was about to bite down on her head and she was screaming. Mine seemed to understand what he was thinking about and her cheeks went red, then paled a little as she thought about that moment and the terror returned to mind. "So do you want to come with me?" Gohan asked.
Mine snapped her head up in surprise. Her eyes widened even more as she realized that the kid said that so fast to keep her from thinking about Doomsday and getting more scared. What a kid, Mine thought, and she slung her rifle back on her back while starting to smile. "Actually I-"
Gohan's body tensed up and he spun to the right. Mentally he groaned, but out loud he said, "I have to go! I'll come back here if you stay and want to come!" Gohan shot off the ground engulfed in a veil of white, and he flew off at several hundred miles per hour. Dad's body is destroyed from that Kaioken while a Super Saiyan, he can't protect mom and Goten from that, thing, alone! Gohan did not know what he was sensing near his family, but he knew he had to get to them as fast as he could.
Not having Sensu beans or Dende is going to be rough. There are so many people who need help, and this world is too big to get to them all. I'll help as many of you as I can for as long as I can though, Gohan ground his teeth and his hair flickered blond, then snapped up spiky and he sped up three times as fast.
Mine watched as the white blur in the distance turned gold then vanished into the horizon. "Stay here?" She mumbled to herself. The sixteen year old girl looked around, then stopped when she was facing the west. The three suns were lowering in that direction, but below them on the vast sandy landscape something caught her eye. Mine's gaze dropped and she stared past the spiky cacti that were made up of four to five balls of spikes each, and each had faces on their top ball. She ignored the twenty foot long scorpion and the strange movement she spotted under the sand that made it look like there were moving sand dunes.
Mine looked past all of that, to a blurry sight in the distance that made her expression harden. It looked almost like a wave, and she knew that if she was in the ocean she would have to flee to avoid the tsunami coming for her. This was not a wave of water though, but a wall of sand, and the longer she stared at it, the more clear it became. It's getting closer, she thought. Mine looked down and she stepped over to a bloody corpse near her.
The teenager did not hesitate a second to reach down and rip a bloody gray cloak off of an old man's body. "Sorry, but I need this more than you," she said. The girl shook the cloak once, but most of the blood on it had dried after sitting out in the suns all day. Mine wrapped the cloak around her head, covering up her pink hair and the bottom half of her face. She glanced back to the west as a shadow cast over her, as that approaching wall of sand had neared close enough that it was starting to block out the suns on the horizon.
Everything around Mine tinted red, and the girl turned her back to the sandstorm. "I don't need your help kid," she said under her breath. Find water, then shelter from the storm. It'll be getting cold too once the suns go down. Mine chuckled darkly under her breath as she settled into survival mode. "A strange new world?" I've been through worse... An assassin is always prepared for death, but when it came, I was so afraid. Tatsumi, I hope you came to this world. I hope I am not alone here. Najenda, Leone, Sheele, Chelsea, Akame, I'd even be happy to see that pervy idiot Lubba. Well, maybe not Lubba. Mine smiled, though one would not be able to tell behind the bloody mask she had wrapped around her face. The former assassin of Night Raid walked off alone as the sandstorm caught up to her, but she was no longer afraid. This new world was her second chance, one Mine never thought she would have.
FD + 94
"Watch where you're going," Mine snapped, spinning around and glaring at the figure behind her. She had been walking down the street when this guy bumped into her shoulder, and he did not say a single word even as she stumbled to the side.
The teenager with black hair stopped walking, and he slowly turned his head to look back at her. "Sorry," he said, in the most unapologetic tone Mine had ever heard.
The look in the boy's eyes was dark. He looked around the same age as Mine, and she figured that whenever anyone took a look at those eyes of his, they let little stuff like this go. "'Sorry?' Is that all you have to say after bumping into a beautiful girl?" She lifted her head and looked down her nose at him, asking in a holier-than-thou tone, "What if I had dropped my things?"
The teenager with unkempt black hair lowered his gaze to her right hand where the older girl had two pink bags that looked full of clothing. He shifted his gaze to her body and noticed that her clothes looked very dirty. His eyes shifted to her feet, and by the look of the condition of her shoes, they were the ones she arrived to Nexus wearing. "Just get here?" He questioned the girl who was still frowning deeply at her, and was starting to get annoyed at how he was looking at her.
Mine's light red eyes opened a little wider as she realized why he had looked her all over. "You have a place to stay yet?" The younger teen questioned.
"I am not staying with you," the girl scoffed.
"Wasn't offering," the teen said without hesitation. While the older teen gained a flustered look at how composed he was, he pointed his hand down the road behind her, "When I first got here, they let me stay at that tall building down there." Mine turned and looked down the road to see what he was talking about. "It's a housing complex Naruto set up for people to use for free until they figure things out."
"What makes you think I don't have things 'figured out?'" Mine snapped at the boy, spinning back around to glare at him. He barely reacted other than leaning back a little, the same dark expression on his face.
He shrugged, then said, "I didn't think I was going to stay in Konoha either. It's nice here though, safer than wandering the land. Stay there until you leave, or find a place to stay if you find the place suitable for someone of your class." The girl gawked, and the younger teen in front of her almost cracked a smile. Staring at this beautiful girl, even if she was in dirty clothes, it reminded him too much of why he was so depressed though, and his eyes got even darker after the joke. He turned away from her before she could ask the question he saw she was thinking. "Sorry again about bumping you," he said, hoping the help he gave would be enough of a real apology.
Mine stopped thinking of a retort to that 'class' joke, as she was acting like she was better than him ever since he bumped into her. Admittedly, I could have watched where I was going too. And he did help me out; a free place to spend a night or two sounds great. "Hey," she called out, and the teenager stopped his walk away. He did not turn, but Mine called out anyway, "What's your name?"
The teenager tensed up for a second. Kirigaya Kazuto is dead. "My name's Kirito," he said. He took another step away, then stopped and let out a long sigh. "What's yours?" He called out, knowing the girl behind him was glaring at his back.
"Hmph," Mine humphed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. By the reluctant tone of his voice she could tell he was only doing it as a courtesy. She considered not even telling him, but then just sighed herself and turned her back to him. "Mine," she announced, then started walking for the housing complex Kirito recommended.
Mine, Kirito thought. He started walking the opposite direction as her, but glanced once over his shoulder as he did, Wonder if she's going to stay?
FD + 155
BOOOM! CRASH!
Mine snapped up from her seat. The girl looked around her classroom full of children, but also some teens closer to her age, and even a few adults. Everyone was looking up from their test papers, and the teacher in the front of the room wearing a Hidden Leaf headband shot out of his seat like Mine and a couple of others had.
"Iruka Sensei, is something-" a child in the front row of seats began. BOOOOM! Another massive blast filled the students' ears, and the classroom actually started shaking this time.
What is going on? Iruka thought. The Hidden Leaf chunin looked around outside the window and he saw smoke rising from a distance in the village. The last explosion that went off was closer to the school though, and he had a terrible feeling in his gut. Where is Naruto? Didn't he leave on a mission? Hopefully the other Kage can handle- BA-DOOOM! A flash of light shone bright not two blocks from the school building, then the sound came a second later, then the force from the blast shattered all the windows of the classroom.
"AHHH!"
"Eeeek!"
Mine leapt over her desk and over the front row of students who were getting under their desks. She landed on top of a bunch of shattered glass, but luckily she was wearing thick combat boots as usual. The girl had her Imperial Arms strapped to her back and wore a pink combat skirt to go with her short-sleeved shirt. She was prepared for anything, and while keeping her calm she landed next to Iruka and leaned down, helping her teacher back up to his feet. "What's the protocol for a situation like this?" She asked.
Iruka steadied on his feet, and he looked down at his arms that he crossed in front of his face when the windows shattered. He winced at the sight of two pretty big shards of glass jammed in him, one in each arm. The ninja quickly pulled the glass out though, then turned to Mine who asked him that question, then looked around the room at all the others he was supposed to be teaching. "Alright, I don't know what's going on out there, but I'm going to check it out." Iruka looked up to the top row after announcing it, and he called out, "You two with me!"
The two adults who Iruka knew were trained fighters but were in the class to learn ninja techniques nodded their heads at the ninja. Iruka turned to the shattered windows, but Mine grabbed him by the left wrist before he leapt outside. He turned to her in surprise at how tight her grip was. "What about me? You want them with you because they're men, and I'm just a girl?"
"No, I want you here to protect the other students, Mine," Iruka replied. Mine loosened her grip on the ninja's wrist, then Iruka turned to the other two who ran up behind her and shouted, "Let's go!" He snapped his head to the windows and leapt out with the other two right behind him.
Mine frowned that she was not being brought out there to help fight, but Iruka left her to protect the others and that was just as important she supposed. She drew Pumpkin and held the sniper rifle diagonally across the front of her body in a ready stance. "Everyone calm down," she shouted, and the panicking students behind her looked towards the line of windows. "Iruka-sensei and the others will figure out what's going on and come back to-"
More explosions went off outside that cut Mine off, and then as the girl opened her mouth to shout at the other students to get quiet again, something came flying through a window on her right at a hundred miles per hour. Mine's eyes bugged as unlike most of those inside the room, she was able to make out what just flew past her. She turned her head anyway though, and stared at the opposite wall where Iruka's body was imbedded. His face was stuck in a horrified expression, and there was a huge round hole shredded in the front of his chunin uniform that revealed his chest looked just as torn apart.
At this sight, most of the other students started running for the door. Mine did not even consider attempting to keep the peace after the sight of their teacher's corpse flew by her. She knew there was nothing she could say that would remove that image from the other students' minds. What the Hell is going on out there? Is it the NEG? I knew they wanted Konoha to join them, but I never thought they would go this far.
A student threw open the door not far from where Iruka slammed into the wall. As the door opened in Mine's peripheral vision, she heard the panicked screams at the door turn to shouts of relief.
"Hokage!"
"Hokage-sama!"
Naruto's here? Why would he- Mine's thoughts cut short as a figure leapt towards the window. As soon as she saw it she started lifting her rifle and shouting, "Naru-" She stopped though, no longer feeling the need to call for help from the teenager she thought was at the door. Mine sighed a breath of relief as there was another Naruto in the window. He must have clones through the city trying to get the situation under control.
As Mine was thinking, she saw the Naruto in the window looking straight across the room. She could see where his gaze was focused and the girl tssked under her breath. Iruka-sensei did talk about Naruto a lot. Always telling us when we messed up how even the Hokage started off by failing his genin exam several times. Probably would have quit this class without that motivation... Mine saw Naruto's face in the window change. For a second she almost thought she could see water in the bottoms of his eyes, but when he turned his head to her there were no tears. Instead, the teen was smiling, and Mine snapped her sniper up right as Naruto started to say, "Exterminate the Hidden-"
BANG! Mine fired her rifle and a thin beam of light narrowly missed Naruto who leapt up and backwards to avoid it. Someone behind Mine started to yell at her, and then they started to scream for a very different reason. The other one! Mine thought, spinning around and grabbing the butt of her sniper with both hands as she figured this shot was going to be a powerful one considering the situation. After all, her Imperial Arms, Pumpkin, grew stronger based on how much danger the user was in. Mine spun, and her eyes grew three times in size at the sight of the bloodbath behind her.
Naruto was spinning around Kunai in his hands and tearing through all of the students: children and adults alike. He had no discrimination in his slashes, even as the students screamed at him in confusion, shouting 'why' as they were killed. "Get behind me!" Mine yelled, to anyone who could still run. To save the others, I have to sacrifice them! She rationalized her decision, and screamed, "HAAAA!" The shaking sniper in her hand glowed bright yellow inside its barrel.
Others who were drawing weapons to attack Naruto with froze. They saw where Mine was aiming and though shocked, instead of shouting at her to stop, they all sprinted away from the door.
Mine pulled the trigger. The yellow burst of light that fired from her sniper blinded most everyone in the room. Yet when Mine fired Pumpkin, the sniper girl froze with a dropped jaw. Not only did the Naruto in the doorway form a Rasengan that he slammed into her attack, but out the corner of her eye she saw the other Naruto jump back into the window. While the Rasengan and her Pumpkin shot exploded against each other, Mine spun around. Clank! "Ah!" She let out a yelp as the tip of her Imperial Arms' barrel clanked against something else metallic. Her eyes widened and followed the path of a Kunai that she accidentally knocked away with her weapon. That was going to hit me in the neck! And I didn't knock it away, that was an accident! If I had tried doing that, Naruto would have aimed somewhere else, because he's just that much faster than me. I don't know why he's here or why he's killing everyone, but I can't stay here any longer!
Mine ran towards the open window, and Naruto smiled at her as she charged him. "Exterminate the Hidden Leaf Village," he said. Mine kept a straight expression on her face despite Naruto's terrifying words. She pulled the trigger as soon as Naruto made a movement, because she knew she would not be able to survive another attack. She could hear the other students dying to Naruto's other clone behind her, but she ignored them and pulled the trigger without breaking stride. The Naruto closer to the window looked surprised as Mine fired, as the woman never rose the rifle she was running with, shooting while it was pointed straight down at the floor.
The beam of light that fired at the floor blasted straight through it, shattering enough of the ground that Mine fell right though. The teenage girl still snapped her head back, and she stared up in terror as a Kunai flew right over her face. Mine hit the floor below and dropped into a roll. She ran towards the windows on the side of the building she was already running towards, and she leapt at them while twisting her body. Mine smashed through the windows with her Pumpkin pointed straight up above her. As she thought, there was a Naruto dropping from the windowsill above her, and she screamed, "RAAA!" A larger beam of yellow light flew out of her sniper rifle, larger than all the others, pushing straight through the ninja dropping towards her with a Rasengan in his hand.
Mine let out a breath of relief as a puff of smoke indicated that Naruto's clone was defeated. Then, the woman let out a loud gasp of pain as her back slammed into the ground. Her classroom was on the third floor and she had already dropped to the second floor before jumping out the window, but she was not ready for the impact with the ground when she slammed into it, her speed increased by Pumpkin's shot straight up. Mine groaned for a few seconds, then as the sounds of more explosions filled her ears, she rushed back up to her feet.
The pink-haired sixteen year old jogged down the street towards the nearest edge of the village. The south side of the city was not far from the ninja school she was learning in, and she ran towards it with Pumpkin held in both hands in front of her body. There was no time to think, but the fact that it was Naruto causing all this damage made everything so much worse. It meant that their great leader was not going to come and save them from this disaster. Why is he doing this? Mine thought, while out the corners of her eyes she spotted a figure covered in glowing gold energy leap over a building far to her east. Oh shit! I need to be faster!
Mine pushed down harder on her legs, running past people lying wounded on the street or staggering around in confusion as most people did not understand what was going on. The edge of the city was getting close, and Mine ignored all the people around her to just focus on sprinting straight ahead. The screams all blurred together in her mind, so the people around her screaming now sounded like her classmates. Iruka told me to protect them, Mine thought, and she bit down hard as their screams echoed louder in her head. Keep it together! This is not the time! The screams settled down to a dull roar, and Mine's thoughts and senses refocused on the environment around her.
The teenage girl grinned when she was only a hundred meters from a line of buildings at the edge of the city. Beyond them she could not see any other man-made structures, I'm home free-
"AHHH!"
"He's here!"
"Naruto wait! Don't- EEK!"
Mine froze. The hairs on the back of her neck stuck up, and she turned her head fast to the side. She looked back through pink eyes that matched her hair and clothing, eyes so full of fear as they spotted the glowing orangish-gold figure running down the street towards her. All the wounded, all the confused people she ran past without hesitation a minute ago, were screaming bloody murder as a glowing Naruto Shadow Clone tore through them at a hundred miles per hour. I couldn't save them! Mine thought, while spinning around the rest of her body and bringing up her sniper rifle so the barrel of it was pointed towards Naruto.
The Hokage stopped slaughtering the villagers around him, and he looked towards Mine with a smile on his face that looked as friendly as it was when the boy first showed up at her door to welcome her to his village. Even in that state, I can take one of… Mine's expression turned to one of fear, then horror as not one, but two other Shadow Clones wrapped in the Nine Tails Cloak appeared down the road at the first Naruto's sides.
Mine thought he would say something about how she took care of his Shadow Clone earlier, but instead, all three Narutos just said simultaneously, "Exterminate the Hidden Leaf Village." Behind them, Mine witnessed giant explosions ripple throughout all of Konoha, devastating the village worse than it already was. Flames rose high in the air and the sky was turning black from all the smoke. It sounded like there was a lot of fighting going on around her, but at the moment she was alone, facing three of the strongest ninja in the village.
Those three clones started creating a jutsu in front of the center one, and Mine panicked as she could see the energy start spinning around over the center Naruto's lifted right hand. That's going to kill me! He's too fast to run away from it! I, I can only, believe in Pumpkin! The sniper rifle in her hands started to shake. If it was just another gun, Mine would have been full of hopeless despair, but this was not an ordinary rifle. This was her Imperial Arms. The end of the barrel lit up yellow, and Mine's arms ached in agony as her weapon was shaking so hard that her bones were rattling. If there was ever a pinch she needed her weapon to get her out of, this was it.
She knew it before her weapon even fired. A look of regret and sadness flashed across Mine's face as she passed the threshold. Goodbye, Pumpkin.
"Rasenshuriken!" The center Naruto shouted while throwing his most powerful jutsu forward.
The spinning jutsu cut through buildings on either side of the street with the fast moving winds whipping around it. It crossed the distance between the Narutos and Mine in an instant, and then the girl's weapon fired. The beam of yellow that came out of Pumpkin immediately widened so large that the end of the barrel could not handle how wide it became, and the barrel ripped apart back towards the butt of it that was pressed firmly into Mine's chest. Her weapon's recoil was so hard in fact, that Mine got the wind knocked out of her, before the beam flying away from her pushed her backwards so hard that her feet came off the ground. Mine shot through the air backwards, while a widening beam of yellow light shot out of her shredding Imperial Arms that was shrinking with every second the beam continued to fly out of it.
A massive explosion erupted in the middle of the yellow beam, shaking the entire thing thanks to the Rasenshuriken that went off prematurely. The Naruto clones looked shocked, at least until they were hit by the blast and incinerated like everything, and everyone else on the street Mine just ran down. The girl flying the opposite direction thanks to the force of her rifle's blast screamed as she was approaching the line of buildings in the south she was heading towards before. With every last ounce of strength she had in her, she pointed her hands down a little, and the remainder of the beam flying out of the scraps of Pumpkin she had desperately gripped in her hands blasted her just high enough in elevation that she cleared the roof of the building she almost slammed into at two hundred miles per hour.
The rifle finally broke apart in Mine's hands. The girl's arms crossed in front of her as Pumpkin lost form and she had nothing to grab onto for dear life. The pressure against her chest faded as well without the butt of the sniper pushing into her lungs, and Mine started to descend past the line of southern buildings. She did a backflip as she fell, but still botched the landing badly when she finally hit the ground. Mine tried skidding backwards as her feet touched down, but instead she tripped and rolled head over heels half a dozen times, bruising and cutting herself up with every backwards somersault.
When Mine finally came to a stop, the girl let out a long moan of pain. After the single moan though, she pressed her palms down at her sides, as cut up as they were, and she pushed herself slowly up to her feet. "Good," she whispered, looking south away from the shaking city behind her she could still hear so many screams and explosions coming from. "I made it."
"Exterminate the Hidden Leaf Village."
Mine spun around, and at the top of the building she blasted right over thanks to the recoil of Pumpkin's very last shot ever, she saw the teenage Hokage wrapped in his cloak of aura. He was looking down at her with an impressed look on his face, and then he dropped so fast to halfway between her and that building that Mine could not move from all the fear she felt within her. Naruto smiled at her, "Just because you aren't inside the city anymore, doesn't mean I can-" Poof!
Mine stared straight ahead in absolute shock. The Naruto speaking to her vanished in a puff of smoke. She did not know what caused it, as she could still hear explosions going off inside Konoha, suggesting that Naruto was still alive somewhere in there. If he had to release his Shadow Clones though, maybe he's losing. Maybe, I don't have to leave… What am I thinking? Mine turned and she started running. Deciding not to wait for another Naruto clone to show up, she sprinted south as fast as she could, ready to go for as long as she could after what Naruto just started telling her. Even outside of Konoha, he'll still hunt me down. Pumpkin's gone. I can't control my chakra. I have no way of defending myself from him.
The girl kept running, and her eyes darted around as she got farther from Konoha and the sounds of the city in chaos became more distant. Defending myself from him, and from everything else out here. I've had Pumpkin since the First Day. Nexus isn't a place I can just wander around defenseless. I need to save someone. I mean, I need to arm myself… Mine slowed down, her chest aching from more than just the exhaustion affecting her lungs. I couldn't save anyone, but, but, I didn't really try.
FD + 159
Don't do it.
"Snff, snff, mmm."
You're barely making it on your own, you can't start looking after a little kid.
Mine stood fifty feet away from the largest oak tree in the forest, where a small girl sat with her back up against the trunk. The child wore dirty clothes and had some dried blood on her face over some old scratches she received on the harsh world. The little girl with long blue hair had her arms held together in front of her knees, and she pressed her face in between her legs while hugging them tighter. "Carla," the small girl whispered.
"Hey," Damn it! Why am I doing this? "Are you alright?" Mine questioned, walking towards the tree like she just got there and was not actually staring at the girl for the last five minutes deciding on what she wanted to do.
Wendy Marvell lifted her head from between her legs and wiped her eyes fast with her left arm. The sleeves of her shirt were long ripped off, just tatters around her shoulders now, while her small arms themselves were coked in dirt and some dry blood like her face. Mine frowned a the sight of the girl's body, When was the last time she took a shower? It's not healthy to live like this. "What are you doing? Why are you all alone out here?" Mine questioned harshly, looking down at the girl and hoping for a reply that she just got separated from some friends who were nearby.
Wendy sniffled, and she did not stand while she looked into the older girl's eyes. "Why?" Wendy whispered. She closed her eyes and coughed a few times, raising her hands to cough into. Her coughs sounded weak, but when she stopped, she spoke in a steady voice, "I'm just alone, that's all." She rose her brown eyes to look into Mine's, and she continued in as strong a voice as she could muster, "Don't worry about me, I can take care of myself. I have, for, so long now," Wendy's voice got quieter near the end of her speech that sounded less confident with every word.
She's been all by herself out here? Poor girl- Strong girl, Mine corrected herself, and a grin started spreading across her face. If she can survive out here alone, then maybe it's not such a bad idea after all. Yeah, that's it, she's the one going to be helping me, Mine smirked and she walked closer to the trunk and the girl who looked up at her nervously at that smirk on Mine's face. "Come on, let's go find a place to get washed up," Mine said, and she reached down a hand in front of the smaller girl's face.
Wendy stared at the hand held out in front of her, and the girl's heart started racing super fast. "Wh-What?" Wendy asked, confused at what was going on.
"You didn't hear me? I don't like repeating myself," Mine snapped, though after she said it, a warmer smile came to her face. "I'm Mine," she said softly, then after a second continued in a loud voice again, "Well, are you going to take my hand or just sit there staring at it all day?"
Wendy reached her right arm up slowly, and with a hand that had dirt covering so much of it that it was under every one of her fingernails, the girl grabbed onto the older teen's. Mine yanked up hard and Wendy almost yelped in surprise as she was pulled to her feet. As Wendy's face got closer to hers, Mine leaned back as the smell hit her. The former assassin said while using the hand she was not holding Wendy's with to pinch her nose, "I wasn't kidding about getting washed up. The first thing we're doing is-" Mine stopped mid-sentence, as the small girl holding her hand let go of it, and instead stepped forward another step and threw both arms around Mine's back and held as tightly as she could.
"Thank you," Wendy whispered. Her voice came through clenched teeth, as she could not open her mouth in fear she would start sobbing at the top of her lungs. The corners of her lips were pulled so far up, and her clenched eyes had tears seeping through the cracks as she said it again, and again, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Mine had never heard a more relieved voice in her life. The eleven year old girl holding her was trying so hard not to sob, but the tears of joy came out anyway and soaked into Mine's dirty clothes. And for the first time in days, the enormous guilt Mine felt weighing down on her soul lifted. The doubt in her mind vanished, and a genuine smile formed on Mine's face as she fought back her own tears. "What's your name?" Mine asked, grabbing her shoulders to pull the little girl out of the hug, though with difficulty like the child never wanted to stop hugging her.
"Sn, snn, I'm Wendy," the girl whispered in reply. She tried steadying her voice, despite the streaks of tears from her eyes down to her chin, and continued in a firmer tone, "I'm a mage of Fairy Tail." She turned sideways and showed off the light blue Fairy Tail emblem that was magically tattooed on her right shoulder.
This girl's a witch?! Mine thought, while keeping her external expression calm like she was not surprised at all by this. "Well it's nice to meet you Wendy," Mine said. She let go of the girl's shoulders and turned to start walking the direction she was heading before hearing the crying girl in the woods. She took a few steps, then looked over her shoulder expectantly at the girl staring at her back. Wendy's eyes opened wide, then the girl rushed up to Mine's side, and Mine kept walking. Mine stared forward and started talking about how they were going to go look for a lake or coastline to wash off in, but as she spoke, she saw through her peripheral vision the younger girl smiling up at her with so much optimism in her eyes.
I need to protect this girl.
FD + 246
In Mine's mind flashed an image. It was an image she saw every day, and she reimagined it now while her head was bowed and her eyes were closed. She saw a small figure covered head to toe in darkness, looking towards her with a wide, glowing-white smile on her face. The rumbling that shook Mine's seat came to a sudden stop, and Mine's eyes opened up while her head lifted. The girl sat in a small enclosed space, shoulder to shoulder with other people like her, other slaves.
The teenager's hands were cuffed together behind her back. The cuffs were made of steel and had glowing red lights on them that showed they were locked. Mine had a steel anklet on as well, this one to hide her body's energy from anything nearby that might be able to sense her. Mine gazed around the inside of the wagon at the scared faces of those sitting around her. There were sixteen of them in all, in a compartment made to sit eight comfortably. The slavers did not care about their comfort however, as one could tell simply by looking at the condition most of the slaves were in. Mine herself had kept her struggling to a minimum, after she figured out that the handcuffs could zap her full of electricity at any moment if her captors so desired.
The dark figure sitting across the wagon from Mine looked much worse than her. Panther Lily sat with his left eye closed, while his right was covered in an eyepatch to cover up his recently-emptied eye socket. The right side of his muscular chest had some deep gashes in it, and around the area where his right arm used to stick out of his body there were some loosely wrapped bandages. When Lily's left eye opened though, the Exceed still looked strong mentally. His fortitude had not shaken, and he gazed around the wagon's back like Mine was doing. Their ride had come to a stop which meant they would be unloaded soon.
Lily looked straight forward at Mine who looked back into his good eye for a few moments. They each recalled what they overhead at the port they docked at before getting loaded into this wagon. Leol sent Malko inland to sell us at a big city, Mine thought, while her ears perked up at the sound of things moving around outside of the wagon. There were voices, but they were muffled by the outside of the wagon, and overshadowed by the sound of other materials and supplies being dragged around. It seems like we are not the only things being sold today. Makes sense considering how full the cargo hold was. At least Lily won't have to drag their shit around anymore, though chances are our next owners won't be much better. Hopefully they will be amateurs though, then we can break out of here. Mine continued to look into Lily's eyes, almost like doing so would make it so the half-cat half-man would be able to hear her thoughts. Even after they took your arm and eye, you stayed strong. They couldn't risk taking anything more though or it would lower your value. I know though, all you need is one good arm to swing a sword.
Mine heard a sniffle on her right side, and she looked past the burly man on her right, to a small boy sitting between that man and a gorgeous woman on his other side. The gorgeous woman was so beautiful that even Mine found her heart fluttering a little at every look at her, even after she had been roughed up by Leol's crew over the last few weeks since she was captured. Mine ignored the woman with long black hair for a moment though, instead looking at the child who was captured with her and Lily. They had been three of the first slaves captured by their slavers; only one other slave was captured before them. The boy seemed to know someone was looking at him, and Romeo Conbolt lifted his head to look back towards her.
Romeo, Mine thought. She wished she knew what to say to the boy at a time like this that must be so terrifying for him. He was Wendy's friend much longer than I was. Both of them were, Mine thought, thinking about Lily who she could see out the corners of her eyes was also looking towards Romeo. No one in the back of the wagon was speaking. Speaking out of turn was cause for their captors to turn their torture cuffs on, after all. Mine looked at the boy who struggled to lift his shoulders, trying hard to bring his right up in front of his face just so he could wipe the tears out of his eyes.
On the seat next to Panther Lily, a ten-foot-tall humanoid cow whose arms, legs, and torso were ripped with muscles grunted as he shifted his right leg and caused pain to shoot up his body from the movement. Taurus had tried escaping, so his right leg was bashed by their slavers' captain, the lion Chimera Ant, Leol. It was only a few weeks ago, but their slavers threatened Taurus with much worse if he let his injury show today. They made the threat in front of the other slaves, so everyone had an idea of what was going to happen today, even if their captors did not explicitly explain it to them.
The back flaps of the wagon lifted up and all head turned to the light that shone in their wagon. The beautiful woman with long black hair lifted up her right arm to hold it in front of her eyes. She did not have her hands cuffed like many of the others, she only had a single cuff around her right wrist. The slavers only needed one steel bracelet to keep her in line though, as the bracelet was made of Kairoseki, or Sea Stone, the natural weakness of Devil Fruit eaters like Boa Hancock. "Get it moving," the seven foot tall, six hundred pound, dark-skinned slaver growled into the wagon. He reached forward and grabbed a small figure off the seat closest to the exit on Mine's side, then threw the small furry creature with only one bracelet on his right wrist like Hancock out of the wagon onto a sandy floor behind him.
Chopper hit the ground flat on his face, and the small creature skid forward a few feet getting sand in his eyes, nose, and mouth. Chopper lifted his head a little after a second, and he spat out some sand while lifting his left arm slowly and painfully to rub his eyes. Mine looked down with pity as she filed out of the wagon quickly with the rest of the slaves. They stepped down the two steps placed leading from the floor to the back of the wagon, and most of them just gathered around the floor in between many of their slavers who were standing around them. One of the slavers called out Lily, Taurus, and a few others' names and told them to come help move supplies.
The time is coming, but it is not now, Lily thought, while turning his body and walking obediently towards the slaver who shouted at him. A girl wearing a black maid's uniform on Lily's right followed after him. The maid with pink hair and blue eyes suddenly buffed up so that she looked more gorilla than person, though still with light skin instead of fur. Virgo walked away with her fellow Celestial Spirit Taurus and the four others to help their slavers unload some supplies from other wagons.
Mine did not watch Lily walk away with the other strong slaves. Instead, she stared at the small furry reindeer who looked so strange thanks to the Human-Human Fruit he ate. He's been here longer than any of us, but I can see it in his eyes, he still has hope. He thinks, someone is going to save him. Mine shook her head, then opened her eyes a little wider as a figure bent down in front of Chopper. Everyone else just stood around taking in their new environment, but the small boy with dirty, wavy black hair walked to the reindeer and leaned down in front of him. Chopper lifted his gaze some more to Romeo's back, where the boy's hands cuffed together behind his waist were opened up and reaching for him.
Chopper sniffled a few times, then blew out of his nose to get the sand out of it. The doctor then lifted his right hand, as much as it hurt him to do so with the Sea Stone cuff on its wrist, and he took one of Romeo's hands. Romeo lifted the pirate to his feet and then turned and nodded at the smaller creature. Romeo knew how it felt being the smallest and weakest well enough to not want anyone else there to have to feel that feeling. This creature was less than half his height though, and had been a slave longer than him, so along with knowing he had no right to complain to him, he also knew that things could be worse. "You okay?" Romeo whispered.
Mine's eyes darted around as she saw the younger boy start speaking. Stupid kid, she thought, looking out for the slavers who she memorized had the controllers to their torture cuffs. Malko doesn't seem to be here. Bastard's probably setting up an auction. I hope Leol's not satisfied with the amount you make on us, and he rips your lungs out through your throat.
Luckily, no one saw Romeo speak to Chopper, and the small furry creature gave the boy a nod in response as he did not want them to get in trouble. Romeo nodded back, then the kid started looking around to see where they were. The wagon was stopped on a sandy area behind a line of buildings that all seemed to face the other way considering there were no front doors on them. There were some back doors, and a few clusters of sketchy-looking people clustered around the back steps and alleyways. Romeo saw a couple of children in an alley between two one-story wooden buildings. Those kids were dressed in rags and looking towards them with scared gazes.
Mine's eyes lifted to the top of the tallest building, the one their wagon was parked right behind. The building was two stories tall, made of wood like the others, and although she was in back of it, she could kind of tell that it was a tavern of sorts. She tried listening in inside, but there was music drowning out any other noise she would rather hear. The back door of that building opened, and Mine spotted Malko inside it speaking to a man wearing a cowboy hat with the rim all around the outside and curved up at the sides. The lighter-skinned man did not seem happy, but Malko lifted a box that he opened the top of, and the other man stopped arguing, his eyes practically shining themselves at the sight of what was inside.
The lighter man looked outside, and Mine made eye-contact with him as soon as he looked towards them. She narrowed her eyes and wished she could hiss, because the man looking their way looked back at the box in Malko's hand, then stuck out his own hand to shake the slaver's. This is it, Mine thought, preparing herself for what was about to come.
After Malko sealed the deal with whoever Mine saw through the doorway, he turned out to call to his subordinates to get the slaves ready. All of the slaves were brought together at the back of the large building that there was no longer any music coming from. Mine was lined up with the others, and she could see Romeo only two spots in front of her. She grabbed the beautiful woman in front of her and slid past Hancock, then when she made sure no one was watching again, she moved in front of Taurus who did not say a word about it. "Stay close to me," Mine whispered, then continued quickly, "don't turn around." Romeo's head that started to turn stopped, and the kid refocused on what was straight in front of him.
"What's happening?" Romeo whispered fearfully.
Damn, he hasn't figured it out yet. "We're being sold," Mine explained in a soft voice. "Most likely there will be multiple buyers, but we're going to stick together, got it?"
Romeo nodded his head multiple times. The people in front of him started walking through the back door of the large building, but Romeo whispered before it was his turn to follow, "Don't leave me alone."
Mine's heart ached. Make him a promise! He'll feel better. We both will! But if I make that promise… The boy in front of her started walking for the door, and Mine stared at his back with dread in her eyes. I might break it.
"…Akari Yukimura," Malko finished introducing another of his slaves, but as he looked out into the crowd of around a hundred people and humanoid creatures standing in front of the stage, he did not see a single interested buyer. The bald, dark-skinned slaver ground his gold teeth against his gross yellow ones, but he kept smiling as he took another step down the line past the teenage girl with green hair who no one seemed to want to buy. "This here's a strong one! Not much of a talker though," Malko laughed, and he elbowed the muscular black man a foot taller than him in the chest. He made it look like a strong elbow, but the taller figure did not flinch from the blow.
Malko looked around, seeing if anyone would take some interest. He continued to smile despite the lack of it though and called out, "Thresh!" He walked past Thresh and on to the next slave, another teenager like the last two, only this one had six webbed-arms on his muscular body, and long silver hair that covered up his eyes while the green bandanna wrapped around his mouth covered up the other half of his face. "Mezo Shoji, another strong…"
Mine glanced down the line of slaves at the man getting closer to her every second. There were only four people to her right, and one of those was Romeo who came right after in the lineup. The stage they were on was in front of the large two-story building that, like Mine thought, turned out to be a tavern. At the same time though, the cowboy who Mine saw dealing with Malko worked as the town sheriff and had his office on the second floor of the town saloon.
At first Mine was confused, as she thought they were heading to a big city for the auction. When they were brought out front of the saloon however, Mine could see over the roofs of the line of buildings on the other side of the road. A few miles past those buildings, there was a much larger city in the middle of the desert they were in. The city had dozens of tall buildings with cranes on them, looking like they were all mid-construction. Mine originally thought that Malko brought them to this outer town because too many people in the bigger city would be against slavery and try to free them, but her hopes were ruined when Malko shouted out that these slaves were property of the King to start his auction, and no one spoke out against it.
I have been a slave for too long, Mine thought. I do not fully understand the political leanings of this world, but the King is the only one Leol answers to. The Chimera Ant King. Leol is terrified of him. If people here know who that is, and they know his power, then Malko has given himself an assurance that his goods won't be taken. Who would dare risk retribution from such a powerful figure for people they do not even know?
Malko glared around as he went through a few more names, and yet still no one rose a hand to make a claim. "What is this?" Malko snarled to the edge of the stage.
The cowboy-looking man standing there had a smug look on his face, and in a condescending tone asked, "What do you mean? Just because I let you hold your auction, doesn't mean the people here are going to start buying-"
"May I have a closer look at that last one?" a voice shouted. Malko's head lifted fast while a broad, gold-toothed smile spread on his face. The man in charge of the town spun in much more surprise, his eyes opening wide at the sound of that eccentric voice. The cowboy pushed some people out of the way as he marched back, then stared in even more surprise as he was correct in who he thought he heard shout.
A tall, lanky man with bright blue hair neatly combed to one side walked forward through the parting crowd. He had on a purple suit and darker purple pants along with a pair of nice black shoes. The man stood out from most of the other townsfolk who were dressed much more poorly, some even looked like they were wearing the same clothes they arrived to the world on. The sheriff looked towards this man and muttered, "Tsukiyama, what are, you doing?"
The nicely dressed, very handsome man, walked right past the sheriff and did a small hop up onto the stage. Tsukiyama Shuu looked down at the shorter auctioneer to his right, and Malko gave a wave of his hand telling the man to go right ahead and take his closer look. "Why thank you," Tsukiyama said, then turned back to face the slave Malko just introduced. He stepped forward so that his face was only a foot away from the tall, muscular black cat's. The Exceed with the face of a cat and torso of a man glared straight back into Tsukiyama's eyes with only his left. Tsukiyama glanced at the eyepatch on his right eye, then down to where Lily's right arm should have been.
"Disappointing," Tsukiyama began while scratching his chin. Malko grimaced in anger that the Exceed's injuries were going to cost him a sale, until Tsukiyama continued, "But not a deal-breaker. I would like this Panther Lily," Tsukiyama said.
The town sheriff looked at Tsukiyama's back in shock, as did many of the other townspeople around him. "In fact," Tsukiyama continued. "I have come into a large sum of money quite recently, and have been wondering where I should spend it. Who would have guessed that such amazing specimens would be brought right to this tranquil town I like to frequent?" He chuckled, then tilted his head back and laughed more heartily. "Good sir," he turned to Malko, "how much is it for each of these creatures?"
Mine watched the man with bright blue hair carefully. What is he? Something's off about him, but, but the people here look surprised that he would want slaves. Is this an act to free us? We would only be so lucky. No, no something is very off about this guy. Malko explained to Tsukiyama in a voice loud enough that everyone at the auction could hear that this was meant to be an open auction, but there were minimums for bidding, and he gave the minimum amounts for the three categories of slaves: workers- the stronger males, servants- the weaker males, and maids- the women. Oddly enough, the maids were just as expensive as the workers, and Boa Hancock was singled out by Malko as being especially expensive, with a higher minimum first bid than any of the other slaves. Most people there understood why.
"Hmm," Tsukiyama hummed to himself, looking to be doing some math in his head while he looked around at the slaves. "In that case, I will take him, and him, and those two there, and her," Tsukiyama pointed at just about every slave Malko had already gone over. Malko and his fellow slavers' eyes grew large and their mouths curled up into grins. "Now, what about these others?" Tsukiyama continued, turning to the end of the line where slaves that Malko had never introduced were standing.
The handsome man strut down the line before coming to a stop in front of a teenage girl with bright pink hair. "That's a nice look in your eyes," he said, turning to her and leaning down so his face was in front of Mine's. He pulled back and asked, "Is there anything special about you?"
"She's a fighter that one, had-" Malko froze mid-sentence as Tsukiyama held up his right palm.
"Please, let the girl answer for herself," Tsukiyama said, lowering his hand and continuing to stare at Mine awaiting an answer.
Malko frowned that he was interrupted, but then he looked past Tsukiyama and snapped, "Go on Mine, answer him."
Mine ground her teeth while her lips were still sealed so that the slavers would not see it, then she calmed herself and opened her mouth to speak. "I am sixteen years old. Blood type B…" Malko frowned from behind Tsukiyama as the girl seemed to be speaking sarcastically by saying such useless things. He reached for his torture device, when the girl continued and made his skin cover in sweat, "I killed my first man at age twelve. I can snipe a target from any distance. If you put a gun in my hand, I would be a deadly bodyguard."
When she finished, most of the slaves in the line with her had their heads turned inwards and were gawking at the teenage girl who they suddenly felt like they knew nothing about. Romeo was even looking up at the girl next to him a little nervously. Malko reminded himself that he was the one in control there with Mine's torture device controller only inches away, and he calmed himself down thanks to its protection.
Malko called us "maids," but he plans to sell us as sex slaves. Everyone can tell, but by calling us "maids," less people will stand against it, acting like they don't know what's going to happen to us. I won't be a sex slave though. If I'm to be sold, my value will be as a warrior, and it will make it all the easier to escape…
"Oh ho ho," Tsukiyama laughed. "I will not be giving you a gun, but I applaud the attempt," he leaned in after speaking so that his head was on the right side of Mine's head. Tsukiyama whispered in her ear, "By the way, Mine is a delicious name."
Chills ran down Mine's spine and made her entire body tense up. She no longer wanted to go with this man, which made it even worse that as soon as he leaned away from her, he said that he would be taking her as well. Tsukiyama looked down the line at the remaining few slaves who he had yet to buy, then turned to Malko and finished, "Add her and that cow there, and that will be all."
Taurus grunted in annoyance at his referral as "that cow," but many others in line were much more unnerved by what Tsukiyama just said. Panther Lily froze as he heard it, then spun his head right and looked down the line a few people, past Mine who already started turning that way, to the little boy who was looking back and forth between the two of them with such fear in his eyes. Lily spun his head back towards Malko and Tsukiyama, and he called out, "That boy there is actually very strong."
Tsukiyama turned away from Malko who was in the middle of counting up how much Tsukiyama would be owing him. He followed Lily's gaze over to the small boy who looked more muscular than normal boys his age, but not by much. "I, I can also use magic," Romeo shouted. He did not want to be left behind, stuck with the devils he knew and the other few remaining slaves. He knew he would just be sold to someone else soon, and he did not want to be alone when he got there. "I can create flames!" Romeo shouted, as Tsukiyama did not look very impressed.
Mine bit her bottom lip. She wanted to shout something about how Romeo could be valuable. She had already had a plan in place for how she could get him bought before the auction started, but now she was not so sure it was a good idea. Mine watched as that Tsukiyama man considered it, and she could hear his voice echoing in her ear as he did, "Delicious." This guy, is he human? Mine hardened her expression and bowed her head a little so that her pink bangs shadowed over her eyes.
Romeo looked up at the woman next to him who told him they would stick together, but a look at her face at the moment made him fill with fear. "M-Mine?" He whispered. He thought she would try to help him, but the look on her face was of resignation, not hope.
A few other slaves started calling out to Tsukiyama that he should buy the others too, and the look of consideration on his face disappeared as he was not going to buy them all. Boa Hancock called out that he should buy Chopper, and another slave who was bought did not want to leave their sister behind, but Tsukiyama threw his arms out to the side and began loudly, "I am so sorry my new friends, but these are requests I can not perform! You see, I do have a large amount of money, but it is a finite amount. If I were to buy you all, I would not have the money to buy new outfits for those of you I already purchased, outfits that you are in great need of. I would not be able to feed you or give you drink on our way to your new home, nor would I be able to afford transportation back there. It is a shame, but this is where you will be parting ways."
The brother shouted out that he would not leave without his sister, and then his entire body started to spasm as the red light on his cuffs turned green. Tsukiyama sighed, while Malko lifted up the remote higher and glared around, daring another of his slaves to speak out again. He then whistled to the side and one of his fellow slavers jogged over with a new remote that he was working on. There were many different buttons on it, and the fatter slaver started explaining to Tsukiyama which slave was connected to which button.
"Please," Romeo begged in as quiet a voice he could muster. In the corners of his eyes he could still see the slave far to the end of the line opposite theirs convulsing on the ground, and he did not want Malko to zap him like he had many times before. "Please," he repeated, begging the girl next to him who would not even look down into his eyes. Panther Lily could not take it as he looked over, and he shouted again that Tsukiyama reconsider buying Romeo, only to be zapped by one of the slavers who started laughing as he struggled to keep standing, only to receive a higher voltage and collapse to his knees. "Lily!" Romeo shouted, both in fear for his friend, and terror for himself as his one beacon of hope could do nothing.
He turned back to Mine who was keeping her head pointed straight forward, keeping her eyes shadowed by her hair, avoiding his gaze completely. "Why won't you help me? Did I do something?" Romeo asked, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'm, so, scared," he whispered, his eyes darting around as he said it like he was terrified one of the slavers near them would see and start electrocuting him. "Mine, eh ah please, please don't leave me."
I swear I'll save you! Say it out loud! NO! You know from earlier, you were right not to promise him something you couldn't make sure of! Mine could hear him continue to beg even as Tsukiyama called his new property to follow him away. He had made his payments, shaken hands with Malko, and now most of the slaves would be going with him. If I don't though, she thought, looking to her right and down at the boy whose sobbing she could hear, but who was no longer making out any words to her. His head was bowed, his tears were dropping and hitting the floor, and Mine watched as his fists unclenched at his sides and his arms went limp. Mine's eyes opened wide as the crying started to stop. He'll lose all hope! "I'll save you," she whispered.
The other slaves around her had started marching forward, but Taurus looked back and at the girl who just said that. It was a baseless claim, and he pitied both the girl for making a promise she would never be able to keep, and the member of the Fairy Tail guild he considered himself kind of a part of. Romeo's head twitched as Mine said it, and he snapped his head up with eyes as wide as plates, tears brimming in the bottoms of them. Mine's hands were cuffed, so she leaned down and pressed her forehead into Romeo's. "It might take a long time, a really, really long time. But I'll come back for you. I'll save you, Romeo."
"Get moving over there!" Malko shouted, leaning away from the circle of men he was with who were all grinning and laughing about the money they just made. He waved around the remote in his hand, and most of the others still lagging behind on the stage got to moving.
Mine kept standing there though, looking straight into Romeo's eyes from inches away. She pressed her forehead into his harder and whispered, "You have to believe me, I will come for you. Wait for me." She stood up straight and turned away from Romeo.
Mine clenched her own eyes tightly shut once she turned from the boy, holding back tears she knew were about to form. Romeo stared at her back, his lip quivering, not knowing what he should say after she said all that. "Don't leave me," he finally said, but Mine was already taking steps away towards the rest of the boughten slaves. "Please don't leave me!" Romeo shouted, making all the slavers and townspeople nearby look his way. Even the sister whose brother was being carried off by a fellow slave who Tsukiyama sent to help had her mouth shut tight in fear that she would be zapped next. Romeo did not care about the physical pain as much though. Watching Mine walk away from him was a thousand times worse, "Don't leave me here! I don't, I don't want to be alone! PLE-AHHH!" Romeo screamed in agony as he was filled with electric shock.
"Shut up already!" Malko yelled over at the kid.
"Hey, he's just a-" some man in the crowd started shouting. Before his sentence was even finished he faded off, because all of the slavers near the stage turned his way and reached down to their waists where pistols and various weapons were resting.
"He's just," Malko began, taking a step between two of his largest men and glaring over at that villager who dared shout at him, "a slave."
Romeo kept screaming until his voice gave out, and the entire time, Mine walked straight away from him. The other slaves around her kept looking back over their shoulders, wincing, snarling in anger, but she walked straight ahead with a calm, serious look on her face. At first I was saying it so he would not lose hope, but, but if he really does not lose hope, then he'll be waiting for me. For as long as it takes, he'll be waiting. So in that case, I'll have to find him. I won't forget about what I just said, Romeo. I promise this time. I'll never forget for as long as I live.
Present
Mine stood on top of a hill twenty miles south of the Capital. The eighteen year old girl lowered the binoculars as she heard a voice in her ear. "Go ahead," she responded, putting a hand up to the ear that the small white communicator was in.
"Tatsumi is in," Lily's voice said. "They took the bait."
Mine grinned, but only for a second, then she regained a serious expression and nodded her head. "Roger that. Operation is a go." The communicator turned off and Mine took in a deep breath of air. She turned her head and stepped backwards on the hill, then looked down off the side farther from the Capital. The bright lights of the Capital illuminated the night sky behind Mine, giving her body a glowing veil to the thirty-plus soldiers looking up at her.
"What if they don't take the bait? What if we hand you over to them and they confiscate Incursio?!"
"That's a risk, I am willing to take. Mine, lead the others. You're strong, stronger than me. This is going to work, and we are going to get them out of there."
Mine clenched her teeth tight, then reached behind her back and pulled the sniper rifle she had strapped there out in front of her. Our fake slaver gets Tatsumi in. His Incursio is what makes him worthwhile as a gladiator, but until he releases it they have no idea how strong the gladiator they're bringing in really is. Once he's in the cell block, the mission starts, and he's already on his way in. Lily's watching from inside the Capital. Maka is… well, hopefully she's in a cell somewhere we can find. Mine grimaced more as her soldiers below her whipped out their weapons to follow her lead. We were too late in planning to get Tatsumi in before the Battle Royale, but now that we lost contact with Maka, we've hit the point where it's now or never. The longer we're out of contact, the more of a chance she's been compromised. Tonight is the night where it all ends.
Mine held up her sniper. "This is what we've been aiming for for months!" She called out in a yell-whisper. The men and women following her did not cheer in agreement. They would not dare, being so close to the Capital. Mine could see a few of them praying, others wiped sweat from their faces as they were terrified of what was about to come. She could not blame them. This was arguably the most-guarded city in the world, and they were about to break every law it had. "It's time, to show the Cooperative that slavery will not be accepted anywhere. It's time to show that to the King, to Meruem." Mine said his name and her followers' eyes opened wide, but she did not look afraid. That look of confidence on her face spread to each of them, quelling their fears if just a little. "Now," she said, turning around again and facing the not-so-distant city full of light, "let us begin."
The Capital
The Capital of the Cooperative, known throughout Aebrith solely as the Capital, was split into four Quarters of similar size. Each section of the city was constantly expanding, but at the moment each Quarter of the city was between a hundred and fifty to two hundred square miles large. The eastern Quarter was the second largest after the Residential Quarter in the west of the Capital. This second largest Quarter was known as the Embassy Quarter, where the presence of guards was much lower than in the southern Business, and western Residential quarters. The buildings in the Embassy quarter were also a lot nicer than most others in the city, though some company high-rises in the southern Quarter rivaled the grand hotels and accommodations for various countries' ambassadors.
The Embassy Quarter's elevation was higher than that of the Business Quarter, and much higher than the Residential Quarter that was the lowest in the city. The Quarter's raised elevation, accompanied by the heights of the tallest buildings in the Capital, meant the penthouses of many of these tallest buildings were inside or above the cloud layer. In one of the massive high-rises towards the southwestern side of the Embassy Quarter, three figures were shooting into the sky at ten floors a second. The fat pink alien Lord standing in front of two slaves was talking with someone over the communicator attached to his ear that doubled as a scouter as was obvious from the piece of transparent green glass that wrapped from the earpiece to over the front of Dodoria's face.
The slaves behind Dodoria were not looking at their Lord's back as he spoke to a different Lord over his scouter but were faced the other way. The back of the elevator they were looking at was made entirely of glass, giving the two a nice view over the Embassy Quarter and much of the rest of the city considering their elevation. After a few seconds of admiring the view, their visions were cut off by thin clouds that quickly became thicker as they shot even higher up into the cloud layer. The fairy Harlequin, better known as King, turned inwards and faced the girl next to him for a second. Elizabeth "Liz" Thompson turned as King did, and she made eye contact with the shorter fairy man. The fact that they were in the cloud layer meant that they would be nearing their destination soon, and neither of them were too eager to get there.
"Hohoho, haha, alright. Yeah yeah, I got it, I won't forget," Dodoria reached up and tapped a button on the side of his scouter. The call ended, then the heavyset alien covered in spikes that protruded out all over his body cracked his neck to either side. Dodoria wore stretchable armor that covered his entire body from his neck down to his feet, with brown spaulders that spiked out over his shoulders, and purple leggings that pulled tight to his skin and down inside his white boots. The front and back of the armor on his torso was purple too, but there were no sleeves on the armor, revealing his pink skin covered in spikes and his fists that were the size of his slaves' heads. Ding. "Let's go," Dodoria said.
The Lord walked forward without looking back, but his slaves knew well enough than to lag far behind him. Liz and King sped-walked to follow after their Lord who was much larger than either of them, and despite his fat figure, took long strides with every step. Dodoria did not have to walk far though, as the elevator let them out right into the giant main room of the penthouse they were going for. Liz grimaced, as she had seen the room once before and did not have great memories of it. King also had a semi-nervous look on his face, though his was because the slave girl with him had told him what to expect before they left, when Dodoria had gone to the bathroom and left them alone for a minute.
"Dodoria! You have finally arrived!" Zarbon called over to his comrade. The taller alien was not as large as Dodoria, but he was in no means lanky as anyone could see. His arms were exposed, as like Dodoria he wore a set of armor that had no sleeves. Zarbon's skin was light blue and he had long dark green hair in a braid that fell in front of his right shoulder and down over the brown plating on his chest unlike Dodoria's purple. Zarbon held up his right hand and called out, "Get Lord Dodoria a drink!"
Dodoria chuckled as he walked into the room, then shouted over towards the bar along the wall forty meters to his left on the side of the room opposite the nice sitting area where his friends were, "Bring me some meat too!" He laughed then walked over towards the comfy couches and large televisions where four of the old Frieza army were sitting. It was always good to have allies on Nexus, and knowing people's backgrounds made them easier to work with, especially when one used to be the other's superiors. Dodoria and Zarbon had the loyalty of many of the old soldiers who followed their former universe's overlord, and it was not hard to obtain when they were letting their "old friends" reap the benefits of being at the top of the Cooperative in its most luxurious city.
The three others sitting around Zarbon's sitting room were all wearing armor and scouters like the two Lords with them, though their armor had blue plating and their scouters' were blue too. There was Appule, a purple alien with a long ovular head covered in yellow spots, Banan, a light-blue skinned man who looked pretty human only with tougher skin and a long mane of orange hair that included thick facial hair, and Sui, a darker purple-skinned alien than Appule with a fin on top of his head so that he looked like he was part fish. The three all greeted Dodoria semi-formally, though they were pretty casual about it as well as none of them stood up to greet him. Dodoria did not care though, he just turned and snapped at the girl bringing him his bucket of raw meat and bottle of whiskey to hurry it up.
Liz and King stood right behind Dodoria's back, but Liz's eyes drifted to her left to see who the slave Dodoria was yelling at was. Liz's eyes grew huge at the sight of the girl, as Liz had not seen her in weeks, and though back then Liz thought she looked broken, she now knew the meaning of broken was very different than what she thought. "Maka," Liz whispered, unable to hold in the whimper she made at the sight of the girl she once looked up to, even if she never said it. Maka's eyes looked lifeless before, but as she scampered towards Dodoria, while trying to make sure she did not spill any meat out of the bucket that was shaking in her trembling hand, Liz could not see a trace of the girl she once knew in there.
Dodoria had started talking to Zarbon, but as he heard what Liz said, he turned to the girl coming their way and he laughed as he grabbed the bucket and bottle from her shaking hands. "Haha! Magneto's little bitch huh? What'd you do to it?" Dodoria sat down in the middle of the comfiest couch where the other men made some room for him, though Zarbon was still standing as he was when Dodoria entered the room.
Zarbon stood in front of the three flat screen televisions on his wall, none of which were on at the moment, and he chuckled at the question. Liz looked her friend up and down, while King had to avert his gaze after a few seconds of staring at the girl's scarred-up arms and legs that were exposed considering the tattered clothes she had on could barely even be considered rags. Zarbon spoke while Liz gawked at Maka's appearance, "Heh, I found out this girl was messing with Magneto, that she was not completely broken like she was pretending to be, the moment I first saw her during our visit to the gladiator cell block for the Royale's early betting." Liz's eyes opened even wider as what Zarbon was saying sank in. She was pretending? But, you, you still are right? Liz wanted to believe it. She was convinced last time that Maka was broken, so why would it be so hard for her to imagine that Maka could have tricked her new owner too?
Maka lifted her head though as Liz looked at her, and the two of them made eye contact. Maka looked terrified, and her eyes darted back and forth right after she made eye contact with Liz, then shot down to the floor, then lifted back up slowly with irises that shook in the middles of her eyes. She had a new scar under her right eye, so close that it looked like a blade was dragged right up the bottom of her eyelid before it stopped. "So considering how Magneto believed he had completely broken her, I began to wonder if she was truly unbreakable. The things he must have done to her, I was impressed at the will this half-breed of Meister and weapon possessed," Zarbon continued to speak to his comrades who ate and drank and listened to the strongest man in the room. Dodoria might have been a Lord just like Zarbon, but they knew it in their own universe and they knew it here who was the more powerful in the relationship.
Liz started to turn back towards Zarbon, such reckless abandon and fury in her gaze that King was getting nervous for his fellow slave, and a girl he had started to consider his only friend inside the Capital. As Zarbon continued, Banan noticed the girl's glare and his fuzzy orange eyebrows lifted up in amusement, but he was going to wait for Zarbon to finish speaking before mentioning the girl's rebellious look. "So," Zarbon continued, "after that day, I went back and took something from the cell block that I could use on her, for when the opportunity arose. And thanks to Lord Magneto's early demise, I got the opportunity I desired, and I discovered that even she could break." Liz's furious look started to become a little more confused, then Zarbon flashed her a smirk that sent every warning signal in her body off.
If he could tell that Maka was faking, of course he knows exactly how I feel right now. But, but what did he grab from the cell block? Zarbon walked to the side of the televisions on his wall, and he reached a keypad on the wall that he typed a password into. "Observe," he said, then stood aside and held out an arm as the wall opened up behind him. Dodoria figured it would be worth it and got off his seat to get a better look, and the other three walked behind him towards the hole in the wall. Dodoria's two slaves followed along, and Zarbon kept his gaze on Liz the entire time so that he could watch her reaction. As he stared at her though, he called out, "Come over here Maka, I told you that you have to look whenever the wall opens."
Maka bit down on her bottom lip so hard that she started to bleed, then she trailed after King and Liz so she could look through the wall into the open space behind it as well. When Liz saw Banan's interested expression fill with disgust for a second, almost like the disgusting man himself was going to puke, before he regained a cocky and evil expression to match his comrades, she knew what she was going to see was going to be terrible. When she walked past Dodoria though so that she could see into the hole in the wall, her heart skipped a beat and sweat covered her entire body. King did not even know the person inside the cell in the wall, but the fairy still gagged and felt like his heart was ripping out.
Liz stared through the opening in the wall, where there was a small ten foot wide by ten foot long space. She could tell that the tiny space's walls, ceiling, and floor were supposed to be white, but they were more red as it looked like the room had never been cleaned. In the center of the boxed-off room was a cross of wood covered completely in dried blood. No one was strapped to the cross, though there were bloody ropes dangling off the sides of it and lying on the floor in a small puddle at the base. None of those looking into the area could see the ropes on the floor though, as there was a figure in their way, naked and on his hands and knees in the puddle of blood that seemed to be his own. The boy had a muscular body and a light skin tone, though like everything else in the room, his skin was caked with blood.
"Come," Zarbon said, and the boy's head shot up so fast it looked like his neck might snap. His eyes were huge, and they were so bloodshot that there was no white to them. He had only a few stray strands of white hair on top of his head, and it did not look like the rest was cut, but ripped out as he had scabs all over his exposed scalp.
"What'd you do to him?" Sui asked, actually confused as to how Zarbon could make someone look like this.
"I am so glad you asked, as this has been a pet project of mine for a few weeks now," Zarbon said with glee in his voice, while the boy on the ground scampered towards him like a dog, running on all fours and stopping when he was right in front of Zarbon's legs.
Liz thought she mis-recognized him at first, but the more she stared in absolute horror, the more she understood that acting like she did not recognize him was a defense mechanism because she did not want to believe what she was seeing. On Liz's right, over King's head since he was over a head shorter than her, she could see Maka's face looking distraught, pain in her eyes like nothing Liz had ever seen before. Am I, in Hell? Liz thought, turning her head slowly to look over at Maka, then turning back just as slowly to Soul Evans, one of her best friends, acting like a dog for an insane group of aliens.
"…After I ripped his hair out, he was bleeding so much from his head so I had to make sure he did not die. The doctor told me that he could even fix broken bones though, so that opened a whole new world of what I could do to him. After snapping his legs a few dozen times though, I realized that he was too strong for physical torture to really take a toll. Like Maka there, he had a very strong will." Zarbon's explanation was making Liz gag, but the girl's horrified expression was starting to calm down, as the words, This is Hell. This is Hell. This is Hell, kept repeating in her mind. "I did not yet have Maka in my possession though to break him with, and I did not want her to see him with a strong spirit when I finally obtained her, so I had to break him in other ways. First there was the sleep deprivation: there are speakers in the ceiling and strobe lights in the walls to make sure he could not get a single blink of sleep during the torture process. Then I finally got to the psychological destruction of his soul. Heh heh," Zarbon giggled as he thought back on it, then continued in a nostalgic voice, "It took most of my other slaves' lives, but when they were being tortured and dying in front of him because I knew he had not given in yet, even while he was screaming that he was done struggling, and I saw that look of absolute despair on his face, its beauty was incomparable!"
Dodoria laughed as that sounded like something he would like to see, and the other three laughed along with him until the room was full of crazed laughter. Liz's vision was starting to get blurry, but through the blur she could see the inside of Soul's cell. She imagined people being brought in front of that cross while she was strapped to it, cut apart in front of her while being told it was all her fault, even just imagining it was tearing pieces out of her. I didn't know. I didn't know, I couldn't know, things like this existed.
"Then when I got her," Zarbon said, shaking with excitement like this was the climax of his story. "The tipping point for both of them came at the same time! I got the girl from Magneto, and she kept pretending like she was actually broken even after I called her out on it! But when I got her back here, when I opened the door and she saw what was inside, the scream she let out, and the looks on both their faces. Ohhh," Zarbon moaned like he was in ecstasy. "It was all worth it. All the lost property and time I spent, all of it was minuscule in comparison to the payoff of seeing the two of them break at the same time. Him, seeing that I had bought the girl he cared so deeply for to this place, I assume he imagined for an instant that she was about to go through everything he did, and I watched as the remnants of his sanity shattered before me. All resistance left him, even as she shouted at him to fight, to move, and when her suspicions were confirmed, when she learned that he was dead inside," Zarbon did not need to continue, he just looked over towards Maka, and the others turned as well, to see Maka looking towards Soul with dead eyes that streamed tears to her chin before they dripped off on the floor.
"Stop crying," Zarbon snapped, seeing those tears hitting his floor. "And clean that up." He sniffed a few times and waved a hand in front of his face, before laughing and looking down in front of his feet, "As for you Soul, I think it's about time you clean up your cell. The blood of all those people you got killed is not going to clean itself. Maka, get the mop and some cloths. Snap snap," he said so that his slaves would hurry to it.
Liz continued to stare in horror straight ahead, until something passed through her vision and she turned to follow Maka with her eyes as the other girl walked past her. Maka walked by Soul, skittering a few feet away from him as she walked past, while the boy on his hands and knees lifted his gaze and watched her, then turned back to his cell that he had to clean. He looked back at Zarbon as if asking if it was okay to go back to his cell, and Zarbon smiled like a proud owner as he nodded and waved a hand off for the cell. Dodoria chuckled a few times, then out the corner of his eye he saw Liz standing there looking mortified. "Oi!" He snapped at her, and Liz spun to look at him as did King on her other side. "The two of you help them. This place better be spotless or I might just try out some of Zarbon's tactics on you."
The look of sheer terror that flashed through his slaves' eyes made Dodoria start cracking up, and he bellowed loudly as he turned to walk with the others back to the sitting area, "Actually! I think I'll do it anyway! Hohohh!"
"I am glad my art inspired you so," Zarbon said, doing a little bow as he was truly impressed with himself.
King trembled in fear as he watched Dodoria go sit down with the others. The fairy who looked like a young boy barely over five feet tall shook where he stood, and he crossed his arms in front of his chest like he was shivering from the cold, even though the penthouse was heated. He looked to Liz to see what she thought about that threat of torture, but he did not receive a look back like he did on the elevator. Oh no, Liz! His heart rate sped up, I don't want to be alone here! Don't break down on me!
Liz's eyes were glossy and unfocused, but they did stay pointed at the girl in rags with long dark blonde hair walking her way. Maka was walking towards Liz and King with some cloths in one hand that she was going to hand them. When Maka got to them, she handed King a cloth and also a spray bottle of cleaner from the bucket she was rolling along using the mop in her other hand. Liz lifted her right hand in a trance, then everyone in the room stopped what they were doing as a loud beeping sound echoed out from two scouters at once.
Zarbon and Dodoria shot out of the seats they just sat down in, Zarbon dropping the remote he had picked up so that he could reach for his communicator and press the answer-call button on the side of it. When he pressed the button, words appeared on the scouter in front of his eye, and both he and Dodoria opened their eyes wide at what they were reading. Dodoria spun to Zarbon in surprise, "A break out? How can this be?"
"It does not matter!" Zarbon shouted at his fellow Lord.
"Break out?" Appule asked, also standing now like the other two there. "What's going on?"
Dodoria turned to their three elite soldiers, "Some big commotion's going on at the gladiator cells beneath the Colosseum." Dodoria cracked his knuckles in front of his armor, then turned to Zarbon, "Figure we should get over there, huh?"
"Ahh," Zarbon sighed, calming himself down like Dodoria. "It is our job," he admitted. Zarbon turned to the other three with them, and Sui asked if he wanted them to come along. "No it's fine. The three of you watch my place while I am gone, and keep an eye on the slaves. Here," he reached down and took out a controller that he tossed to Appule. "You're in charge Appule. Don't burn the building down." Appule saluted him as did Banan and Sui, then Zarbon reached up and tapped a button a few times on his scouter, the display in front of his eyes changing each time, until he found the one that he wanted and held the button down. A loud clanking sound filled the room, then the glass windows covering the southern side of his penthouse dropped into the floor, flooding the room with cold air.
"Quickly," Zarbon said as he covered in a white aura and lifted off the ground. "I don't want the room to get too cold. I doubt this will take long," he finished and was already holding the button to close the windows again before he and Dodoria had even flown through the window.
The three comrades of the Lords laughed amongst themselves when the windows closed. "Turn up the heat in here," Banan called out, rubbing his arms as the room really did get pretty cold in a short amount of time.
They walked back towards the couches, and Sui said smugly, "This is the life boys. All the perks, none of the responsibilities." He hopped over the back of the couch and leaned back on it with his hands behind his fish-like purple head. "Does it get any better than this?"
"If only I lived in a place this nice," Appule said, looking around Zarbon's penthouse with envy. He glanced over towards the slaves who were looking their way, and he grit his teeth before yelling, "Get to it! I want this place spotless by the time Lord Dodoria and Lord Zarbon return!"
King quickly hurried into the cell that Soul was in, and all of them averted their gazes from the soldiers in the room. That's better, Appule thought, a cocky look on his face. He felt mighty powerful with the remote in his hands that controlled their fates, and he was looking forward to using it if any of them slipped up.
Appule walked over to the couches and started talking with his other comrades, while King stared down at the boy next to him in confusion as Soul's eyes darted up from the bloody floor he was staring at. He was in an indent in the wall, so those sitting on the couches outside of it around the corner could not see him, and he looked straight over at the side of Liz's head. Liz had a look of fear, despair, worry, sadness, so many horrible emotions spread across her face. She held out her hand again to grab the cloth and bottle from Maka, ready to get to cleaning, and Maka handed the cloth to the girl in front of her. Liz flinched, and her eyes became less hazy, focusing straight ahead on the eyes of the girl straight in front of her. Maka looked right back into her eyes, and Liz's grew wider, tears brimming on the bottom of them, because Maka's eyes had life in them. She knew she was not imagining things too, because through the cloth Maka was handing her, Maka's hand had wrapped around her own and squeezed.
No words passed between them. The soldiers sitting on the couches nearby meant that they could not say a word. But a glance to her right and Liz could see Soul looking at her through his bloodshot eyes, eyes that had recognition in them, eyes that recognized her, that looked almost happy to see her. Soul only almost looked happy to see Liz, because he still remembered what Dodoria just told her and the other slave boy who was standing next to him right now. Liz! LIZ! AHH! DAMNIT! You can't handle this! No one can handle this! IT'S GOING TO KILL YOU!
Command Quarter, Capital
The section that consisted of the northern fourth of the Capital, and was at a higher elevation than any other Quarter, the Command Quarter was made entirely of metal. The Command Quarter itself was like one giant personal fortress for the King. Over a hundred and fifty square miles large, made of metal more powerful than common steel, it was considered the most fortified place on Aebrith. Closer to the top of the Quarter, the giant fortress narrowed in a bit, but the top floors were still miles long and wide. On one of those top floors, Meruem turned to his doorway and said, "I already know."
Pouf froze with his mouth open, then closed it as he decided not to shout the report he had for the King if Meruem claimed to know what was going on already. Pouf calmed himself down a little, then began, "I sent Pitou to-"
"I know," Meruem repeated, and he walked towards the exit of his room with a straight expression on his face. Pouf felt his chest ache as he had the audacity to try and explain something that of course the King already knew. He believed Meruem just meant the general situation, but why would the King not have known what his reactions to that information would be? "It's fine," Meruem said as he walked past his overly-emotional Royal Guard. "I am heading out myself," Meruem added.
Pouf spun with wide eyes. "Your Majesty!" He exclaimed. "Is the Capital 50 not enough for this task?"
"I am sure they are," Meruem replied calmly. He lifted off the ground and started flying faster down the dark hallway outside of his sleeping quarters. Pouf flapped his wings to lift off and quickly dart down the hallway after his King. Meruem continued while they flew off through his giant fortress, "But what fun would it be to stay here while this goes on? Nothing has interested me in days, and I grow more impatient every second." The King's long, thick, green-and-black-striped tail waved behind him and his eyes narrowed in annoyance, though after a second he allowed his lips to curl up a small amount. "Perhaps this will bring me slight entertainment."
"King!" Pouf exclaimed. "Let us go then! The first time a large scale escape has happened in the Capital! I am sure it will be interesting!" Pouf had a bead of sweat on the side of his face, as he hoped but was not sure that the King would be surprised by anything they saw outside tonight. It is a strange feeling to hope that our enemies are stronger than our forces can handle, but if it is in order to please the King, any amount of death and destruction to the city will have been worth it!
Underneath the Colosseum in the Business Quarter of the Capital, all of the cells for the gladiators forced to fight for the Cooperative's amusement were opening up. The inhabitants of those now-empty cells were running wild through the underground.
In a cell with ten people in it, loud clanking echoed down the hallway between the cell blocks and all of the cell's prisoners got up to their feet. An old man in the back with white hair that fell behind him all the way to his waist was slow to get up, and he sighed as he saw looks of hope on the younger gladiator's faces. Rob stepped forward to get closer to the bars, and since the cell was a little emptier than it usually was, there was space for him to squeeze between two larger gladiators. The man was not as old as he was when he died, but after years of slavery and mistreatment, his shirtless body looked as wrinkled and brittle as it did on the day of his death.
Rob and the others in his cell heard loud shouting coming from down the hall to their right where the clanking noises were coming from before. The large man on his right over twice his height pressed his face harder into the bars like it would give him a better look down the hall. The muscular man in a white shirt that looked much to small for him was one of the final competitors in the last Battle Royale, a former apprentice Holy Knight named Twigo who still had some healing gashes and bruises from his defeat at Jiraiya's hands. Twigo grumbled as he pressed his left temple into the bars, "What is going on down there?"
"Get over there!"
"Cell blocks E through H have been opened!"
The prisoners snapped their heads the other way and watched as a cluster of Chimera Ants came running their way. One of the ants growled as he glanced at the sides of the hall while he ran, seeing the prisoners all grabbing the bars and shouting about wanting to escape. Grizzly roared in a deep bellow, "I'm electrifying the bars!" He pulled out a remote and all the slaves released the bars and leaned away from them.
Twigo pulled back fast, as he did not want to get electrocuted. He frowned deeply when he pulled away though, grumbling under his breath, "That damn idiot isn't here this time to keep grabbing them anyway." He was still in the infirmary when I was let out yesterday. After what Jiraiya did to him though, I'm surprised he was even alive. Twigo's lips curled into a smirk as he stopped thinking about a small blue-haired warrior, because an explosion went off in the direction Grizzly and the other guards ran which resulted in a chorus of cheers to ring out throughout their cell block.
Rob frowned deeper as everyone around him started cheering. Even the usually skeptical gladiator on his left side who was even taller than Twigo, a tan-skinned brute named Spartan, grinned after that last explosion. Do not get your hopes up young men, Rob thought pessimistically.
"What's going on out there?!"
"Something's coming!"
"Get us out of here!"
No one dared to get close enough to the bars to let them see down the hallway towards the source of the explosions, but all of a sudden some of the shouts coming from that direction turned into cheers. More cheers filled the cell block, getting louder every second, then right as Twigo opened his mouth to shout a question asking what was going on, a figure flew past their cage at a hundred miles per hour. He wore a full suit of silver armor including a helmet that covered up his face. The eye holes on his helmet glowed yellow, and he had a white caped that flapped behind him as he shot down the hall so fast that gusts of wind rushed into every cell he flew by.
Everyone in the cells spun the direction the armored man flew off, but a voice shouting right in front of them got Rob, Twigo, Spartan, and the others in their cell spinning right back forward again. In front of them was a figure none of them expected to see: a short teenage girl with long pink hair wearing a set of tight black clothing that pressed against her small chest, holding a sniper rifle and glaring into their cell at the lot of them with a harsh gaze.
"Get ready to escape!" Mine shouted into the cell at the men in front of her. Her eyes lingered on an old man with a white beard who did not look as optimistic and hopeful as the rest of them, staring at her with pity in his eyes for some reason. She tried to ignore him though and glanced out the corners of her eyes as ten men went running past her and shouted at prisoners in other cells. Some of the people running behind her were her own soldiers, but many of them the other gladiators recognized as their fellow prisoners from other cell blocks, bringing their hopes up even more that they were about to be freed.
The people in front of Mine were not cheering as loud as everyone else though, as she was darting her eyes around the inside of their cell with a deep grimace on her face. She turned her head a little and looked behind her, where a muscular figure covered in black fur stood across the cell block talking to the prisoners in the cell opposite Rob's. Panther Lily turned his head sideways, and he gave a small shake of his head no at Mine. Damn it, Mine thought, spinning back and glaring into the cell in front of her, making all the slaves nervous as they wondered if she was thinking about not letting them out. They only thought that until the low buzzing they could hear coming from the bars ever since Grizzly ran past, vanished without a trace. Seconds after the bars of every cell in Cell Block D became un-electrified, they dropped down into the floor. And then, most amazing of all, the torture bracelets they had on unlocked and fell off of their bodies, dropping and clanking on the floor.
Cheers echoed through the prison louder than ever, and everyone in the cell in front of Mine ran out. She continued to frown deeply as she looked into the empty cell though, These are the cells that Maka specified that her friends were in. But none of these men resemble the descriptions she gave. "Excuse me," Rob began, not running out as fast as everyone else in the cell. Mine lifted her gaze to the old man with long white hair and a beard whose eyes were pitch black, though somehow friendly, even if they did look pessimistic. "Are you looking for someone? You appear disappointed."
Mine frowned deeper and almost shook her head, but she decided there was no point in not trying. "I'm looking for some people I heard were here." A few others looked back as the girl said this, wondering if they could help their savior in any way. "Soul, Black Star, Tsubaki, ever heard of them?" Mine questioned.
"Ahh," Rob sighed, nodding his head as he did. "Unfortunately, young Black Star is in the infirmary after the last Battle Royale, and that sweet weapon girl of his is with him. A few of our fellow prisoners are with them as well."
"But not Soul," a voice said behind Mine. She spun around and looked into the cell that Panther Lily had run in front of. Most of the people inside it had ran out already, but there were still two figures in there. One of them was walking out from the shadows in the back, a dark expression on his face that was hidden partially by his large orange pompadour sticking out in front of him. Kazuma Kuwabara lifted his head and most people around Mine, though not the girl herself, flinched at the sight of his enraged expression. Kuwabara continued in a deep voice, "Soul's been missing for longer than that. The day after Maka was brought through here."
"You know Maka?" Panther Lily questioned the muscular teenage boy in front of him.
Kuwabara turned and looked up at Lily's face, then looked over at Mine's that was also full of recognition. It took him a few seconds to figure out what was going on, but when he did his eyes opened wide. "She's your comrade? Wait, so she was faking it?" The teen shook his head after asking the question, a furious look still on his face, though now it looked a little relieved too. "Yeah I know her, she was Soul's Meister. The two of them got in a fight and she transferred squads, and a few days later her whole team went missing. He'd been looking for her ever since-"
"Everyone with me!" a voice shouted at the end of the cell block opposite where everyone came in from. Kuwabara stopped speaking for a second, and everyone around them looked the same direction, to see the armored man with glowing yellow eyes floating in the air in front of the wall at the end of the cell block. Mine smiled a little seeing Tatsumi equipped with Incuriso, leading hundreds of people, but she quickly brought her gaze back down to Kuwabara. It was not all that impressive anyway, since she had seen him do it in a few cell blocks already. "It's time to free the remaining cell blocks!" Tatsumi yelled, then he turned to the wall behind him and pulled a fist back far. Everyone in the cell block who was watching this for their first time dropped their jaws, as the figure punched forward and the giant stone wall blew to pieces. The debris from the wall flew out from his punch into the next cell block where a bunch of guards were already waiting, and screams filled the prison as they were slammed into by the rubble and then trampled by a horde of prisoners trying to escape.
"Let's go!" Panther Lily shouted, and he rose up a long red sword with his right arm that was made entirely of steel. The cyborg Exceed started running, and everyone around them ran with him.
Mine turned to Kuwabara before she started running, "When we freed her from the first slavers who caught her, Mine wanted to go back to the Resistance and make up with Soul. By that time though, you and your friends had already been captured. We almost got to you guys back in the Fire Nation, but Magneto sold you off to be gladiators at the Colosseum right before we got there. It seemed like that would be it, but Maka was determined not to give up, and said that with or without our help she was coming to get you. Tatsumi had always wanted to do this anyway though, and right there we started our plan. It was Maka's plan to attack Magneto's fortress and then let herself get captured after showing off so that he would want to keep her for himself, but it took longer than we had hoped for him to bring her to the Capital." Mine paused for a second and she turned her head as the back of the pack of freed gladiators were running by them now, and she could see her own comrades who were guarding behind the back of the pack of slaves approaching them. She tssked under her breath then turned fully to start chasing after Tatsumi, "Maka knew the risks, my only hope is that she and some of your other friends we came to save are in the remaining three cell blocks."
"Good luck with that," Kuwabara said. Mine stopped after running only a few steps, and she spun back around with a look of urgency on her face. She was ready to yell at Kuwabara to come with her, but the other teenager was walking in the other direction towards the backs of her comrades. Mine's comrades were walking backwards, aiming rifles behind them and firing occasionally at any guards who started charging from that direction, making the guards dive to the sides into cells to get some cover. Kuwabara continued as he walked between two of her friends, "But I can't leave this place. Not until I find that bastard."
Mine's fellow freedom fighters lowered their weapons a little as Kuwabara walked in front of them, but they snapped those weapons right back up as an entire squadron of guards in white uniforms came running over the rubble of the broken wall at the end of the cell block closer to Block E. They hesitated to fire though, and the guards running towards them slowed down as well, as Kuwabara did not stop walking in that direction. "The damn Lord who killed Yukina-chan," Kuwabara snarled, while holding his right arm out to the side. Lightning sparked around his right hand, and then a flash of orange light filled the cell block, followed by the formation of a long sword of spiritual energy. "REI-KEN!" Kuwabara roared, and he brought the hilt of his energy sword in front of his body to grab with both hands. "RAAA!" He charged at the guards facing him who rose up their rifles and started firing.
"Keep it moving!" Mine yelled at her fellow guards, some of whom she saw getting ready to charge after Kuwabara to help him. They spun to the woman leading them, and Mine had a deep frown on her face as she looked after Kuwabara who slashed his sword at the guards and made screams echo out from that way. She looked back at her fellow liberators and continued, "He's a fool, but he's giving us more time to free everyone else. Now get your asses moving!" She spun and started running without waiting to hear responses from her comrades. The second she spun, a dark look spread across Mine's face, Damn it. I am sorry if this is another friend of yours Maka. He's about to get himself killed.
Mine started to run, but she froze for a second as she remembered something, something that unnerved her. There was another person in his cell. She took a step back and turned her head right, while all of her comrades taking up the rear guard came running by her, looking at her oddly as they did not see what she did. Mine looked into the cell where Kuwabara was imprisoned, but there was no man inside it like she thought. She almost turned away, but she knew for a fact that her eyes were not playing tricks on her. She decided to look up for some strange reason, and her pink eyes opened wide at the sight of a wide circular hole on the ceiling leading straight up to the surface. Where the Hell did that guy go? Mine shook her head and turned towards Kuwabara again, but that side of the hall was too full of smoke and dust for her to even see the other teen. She turned and started running in the direction Tatsumi led everyone to, but she did spare the orange-haired teen one last thought. Good luck.
Gladiators' Infirmary
There was one building right next to the eastern side of the Colosseum, the only building within a half mile in any direction of the Colosseum's round outer walls. It was connected to the Colosseum by a small tunnel, and it was a small building itself, though with a giant entrance on the east side closer to the line of buildings a half mile away from it. That entrance had a staircase beneath it that seemed to lead straight into the floor beneath the solid ground clearing surrounding the Colosseum. That staircase was one of few that led below ground to the cells where the gladiators slept and spent most of their time, but above it was the hospital that the gladiators would be brought to after especially intense matches.
One of the guards stationed there was the Chimera Ant, Rhino. He was standing near the door of the room full of metal tables that the gladiators lay on while they were treated and after during their recuperation. Beds were too good for them after all, and only the ones who had fevers and chills from infections were given blankets. Rhino watched as the other guards with him ran off, then the Rhinoceros-human hybrid Chimera Ant stumbled to his left as the floor shook beneath him. "This is crazy," he muttered with a bead of sweat dripping down the side of his face. He had the head of a rhino with the horn and everything, but his eyes were closer together on the front of his face than a rhino's that would be farther to the sides like other herbivores. Rhino's eyes were near the center of his face on either side of the top of his large horn, marking him as a predator. The seven hundred pound creature stood on thick legs and had arms as wide at his sides. He wore a black muscle shirt over his torso that accentuated the muscles of a human that covered his gray body, and he had on a pair of white pants that matched the guard jacket he had on over his black undershirt.
Rhino shook his head to calm himself down, then he turned around and walked back into the infirmary behind him. A break out in the gladiator cell blocks? What the Hell are the guards down there doing?!
"What's going on?" Someone called over. The Chimera Ant turned to snap at the patient to be quiet, but when he looked over towards the metal table he thought the woman whose voice he heard would be lying on, he instead saw a young human woman standing ten feet in front of her table. He looked past her and saw others sitting up on their tables, and saw a few more pulling the IVs out of their arms.
"Stay in your beds," Rhino snarled. He lifted up a remote and everyone in the room froze.
A duck and a dog who had some nasty burns and bruises after the last Battle Royale and were on side-by-side beds stopped themselves from getting up. Donald frowned and his eyes narrowed, while Goofy gulped, and both of them had sweat on their faces at the sight of the remote that controlled their torture bracelets.
"Why?" A gladiator dared call out.
The gladiators in the infirmary were mostly ones from the previous Battle Royale which meant they were some of the strongest, and bravest. Rhino turned towards the brave man who shouted that though, and he pressed a button on his remote while pointing it at him. "AHH!" The man screamed in agony, falling back against the table he had stood up next to. He grabbed his chest in agony and slid down to the floor with his back against a corner to his medical table.
"Hey," a dark voice said behind Rhino's back. The Chimera Ant felt his spine tingle and his blood run cold. He knew the voice, and hearing that tone from a voice he could put a face to made his expression fill with fear. The gladiators in front of him would have looked smug and happy about that look on the usually cold-blooded, monstrous Chimera Ant, but they all heard the voice too and though not directed at them, it still scared the crap out of them. Rhino spun around fast and rose his remote, pressing the button on it as fast as he could.
"Ah hah, ah hah," Rhino panted in and out, and his mouth curled up into a victorious grin as he pressed the button before the person behind him attacked. The boy ten meters behind him was no longer on his operating table, and despite the wrappings all over his arms and legs, he stood on two feet with a pair of scythes in his hands. His dual scythes started shouting at him in his mind while Rhino chuckled darkly at the boy. "Too slow. Now you'll-"
"I'll what?" Black Star asked. Rhino froze with his mouth open. Black Star's head bowed when Rhino turned on the torture bracelet, but slowly he lifted it up and struck terror in Rhino's heart with his gaze. Black Star had small glowing red stars in the center of his pupils, and his smirk spread literally from ear to ear as he looked at the Chimera Ant in front of him. Tsubaki was not mentally yelling at her Meister because Rhino was torturing him, but because the look in his eyes was one she hated to see him with. Madness Takehold. Black Star, you know what this does to you. Rhino lifted the remote and held down the button on it to torture Black Star with, but the kid in front of him did not even flinch. "You think I liked all that pain?" Black Star questioned, cocking his head to the side in an insane way, before slowly walking forward while twirling the scythes in his hands.
Rhino and everyone else in the room stared at the kid in fear as he continued to walk forward. Black Star uncocked his head from one side and snapped it to the other before continuing, "No, I'm not stupid. I wasn't getting you to torture me for the Hell of it, I did it, so that I could build up my tolerance to the pain." Black Star marched forward, even while his body filled with so much pain that when he first got the torture bracelet put on, it would knock him unconscious after only a few seconds of being turned on. Now though, he handled it without showing an ounce of feeling it on his face. "In fact, most of my screams the last few times you heard them, was just me putting on a show so that no one would be any wiser."
Black Star licked his lips and as he stepped forward again, the room shook and Rhino stumbled backwards. "So I would actually thank you for all that torture, but my friends who you tortured, and all the others," Black Star's grin curled up even more somehow, so the corners of his lips were even higher than the tops of his ears. "They demand that I do this! HAHA!" He charged forward, darting left and right so fast that Rhino could not even see the kid except for the moments when he changed directions. Black Star looked to be teleporting closer and closer, and then Rhino fully lost sight of him. He heard gasps behind him though, and the Chimera Ant turned his head to see Black Star standing behind him with his back to his own.
Rhino's breathing intensified. His vision turned red and he heard his heart pounding in his ears. "You, little BRAT!" He spun around while swinging an arm down, but as he finished his swing, Black Star was no longer there with his back to him, instead Black Star was back on his other side, both of his arms crossed in front of him, Tsubaki's dual scythe form suddenly bright red. Rhino appeared confused to the half of the room staring at him for a few seconds, and then he opened his mouth to scream only for blood to splash out, while two giant slashes cut through his white jacket and black undershirt and rough gray skin and all the muscles and organs underneath his thick hide.
As Rhino fell, Black star put both of Tsubaki's hilts in one hand and lifted up his other that was covered in Rhino's blood. He held it up and caught the falling remote, then pressed a button on it that made everyone in the room gasp. For a second they all thought that this insane kid was going to torture them all, and then the clicks echoed through the room all at once, and twenty torture bracelets fell off the wrists of the gladiators gathered there.
"We're free!" Donald exclaimed, jumping off his table and raising a hand up in the air. "Cure!" A wave of green light washed over him and Goofy, and the duck who could have healed them at any time grinned as he was suddenly back up to full strength. Donald then turned and looked towards the boy who freed him, and though hesitant about trusting him, the insane-looking kid did just free him. "Black Star!" Donald shouted, and he pointed his finger up to call down a wave of green healing light that fell over the blue-haired kid.
Black Star no longer felt the pain from the torture bracelet that fell off his wrist, but now all the pain from the burns and injuries he sustained against Jiraiya faded as well. "Thanks," Black Star said, his mouth shrinking back down to normal size while the stars in his eyes vanished. He sounded a lot more calm, and a lot less insane, than when he was intimidating Rhino. The ground beneath the gladiators' feet shook and many in the room standing up on shaky legs stumbled around or fell from the vibration. Donald started healing others around him who needed it the most, while some others who were quicker to take advantage of their situation were gathering near the door out of their infirmary room.
"Are you alright Black Star?" Tsubaki asked her Meister. She was the one covered in Rhino's blood, but it was his decision to kill the Chimera Ant in cold blood and she wondered how he felt about it. Usually she could match her soul's wavelength perfectly to Black Star's, but in his Madness Takeover mode, she found it difficult to feel what he was feeling.
"Fine," he responded honestly. "I'm glad that I got to kill him after making all those threats I thought were kind of empty." He chuckled aloud and Tsubaki sighed at his immaturity. "But really, what's going on? Probably should have interrogated that Rhino bastard before gutting him."
"It sounds like the vibrations are coming from below us. In that case, I think there must be an escape going on in the cell blocks!" Tsubaki sounded excited, and both she and her Meister grinned at the notion of that. "Kuwabara?" Tsubaki wondered to Black Star as he turned towards the door of the infirmary.
"No way," Black Star thought back, and Tsubaki frowned sadly as she knew she was being too hopeful. "If he does get out, he's not running from this city. He's going to hunt down that creepy guy who killed his girlfriend, and I don't blame him. I know we won't be able to get him to come with us, and I don't plan and getting turned back into a slave now that I'm free. We're getting out of here, Tsubaki. You and me, me and you. Everyone else, they'll have to find their own ways out."
Tsubaki felt bad from the way her Meister was wording it, but she was usually the one who had to think more practically while Black Star rushed head-first into things, and she knew he was actually being smart here. "Hopefully Mario and Gon really did escape," Tsubaki mentioned as they stopped at the doorway where the others were all gathering. A few had gone ahead and scouted out the hallway, and Black Star could see down it those scouts calling the rest of them to move in. There was some blood on the scouts' hands, and Black Star grinned that he was not surrounded by weaklings and had a good chance of getting out of there. He nodded along with Tsubaki while heading out the door at the head of the main pack of formerly wounded gladiators. "There was a lot of confusion that morning we woke up and Gon and Mario weren't in their cell, but we never did get an explanation from the guards."
"Soul, Kiba and Akamaru, Mario, Gon, they all got taken or vanished from their cells. Wherever they are now, I just hope the breakout below has caused enough chaos near them as well that they can escape." Black Star hummed to himself as he jogged down the hallway and turned the corner to see a few dead guards where the scouts must have encountered them. They all started running down that way while Black Star thought to himself, Gray vanished, Rambo died, and Cloud escaped. Axel got taken by some other Nobody, Kiba and Akamaru by that creep who wanted dogs, Soul by one of those bastards who came to gamble on the fights, must have been a Lord. Kuwabara is still down there. It's only Mario and Gon who I have no idea what happened to. One night they're with us, struggling to keep going and wait for the time to escape, and then suddenly they're not! Black Star started frowning deeply, I had talked to Gon earlier that day about fighting him in the Battle Royale. I was looking forward to it, but then he…
"Door's right up ahead," a female gladiator said. She was one of the finalists in the Battle Royale the other day, the one who Black Star defeated right before going after Jiraiya, and Donald finally healed her. She was one of the scouts and took out the guards before the duck had even covered her in his healing magic, and she was the first one to call out Rhino when he entered the infirmary. Black Star watched her back as she jogged towards the doors, and he thought, If there's anyone I should try escaping the city with it's her. She's got the second best chance of actually making it out of here after me.
The woman he was thinking about was the first one to the doors, and she pushed them open slowly and gazed around outside in the darkness to see if the coast was clear. She pushed them open more while saying aloud to the people encroaching her back, "I think we're good." She took one step out the door, then everyone froze where they were, because she was gone. Only a few, Black Star included, had eyes that were able to see what happened because of how fast it was, and he was snarling in rage after witnessing it.
In the instant after she stepped outside, the strong female gladiator was flattened into the floor by the female figure now crouching in her place. She dropped from above and planted her muscular legs down so hard on the gladiator's shoulders that her body could not withstand the pressure and was crushed. The woman crouching on those muscular legs wore a blue coat with six yellow buttons on it in two vertical rows of three. She had short, curly white hair that only fell down to her shoulders, and she had a pair of cat ears sticking out of the top of her hair. Her ears were white like the hands sticking out of her blue coat's sleeves, and like the long thin tail that waved around behind her body as she rose to stand in between the gladiators and their escape.
All of the gladiators knew who this was, and many of them turned and started running back into the infirmary to find a different exit at the sight of her. Neferpitou, or just Pitou, otherwise known as the King's Eyes, stood before them with eyes that glowed red in the darkness and the look of a carnivorous killer on her face. She bared her sharp teeth at the prisoners, and asked in a high-pitched tone, "Where did your bracelets go?"
Black Star glared straight into Pitou's eyes with none of the fear of his fellow gladiators. I have never seen her fight before, and I know that she has watched all of my matches in the Colosseum. She's strong, he added to himself as he darted a glance below her to see what the gladiator woman he wanted to escape with looked like. He instantly regretted looking at the sloshy mess beneath Pitou, and he darted his gaze up with even more anger in it to glare at the Royal Guard with.
"Black Star, if you fight her, there is no way to win," Tsubaki warned. Black Star said nothing through their mental link in response, and Tsubaki started shouting, "Even if you beat her, you will have incited the King's wrath! His Royal Guards are all that matter to him from what our intel says. The only thing to do is run! Move as fast as you can and try to outrun her! We can do it together!" The idea of running left a terrible taste in Black Star's mouth, but a part of him had to admit that Tsubaki was right.
I will be the strongest, but, I am not right now. I can't take on the entire Capital on my own. I need to get back to the Resistance!
He is fast, Pitou thought while examining the boy up and down. Could he outrun me? Doubtful, but there is no need to take that risk. He fights based off his emotions after all. Pitou smirked, and the five people behind Black Star still staring at her did not like the look on her face. Two more of them decided to run after the others, but the other three were still there when Pitou lifted her left hand and curled her fingers in. Out from the sky dropped a figure, Pitou's puppet that she controlled with her Nen.
This was her signature move, one that Black Star already knew about. There was a little information on each of the King's Royal Guards, and that information came from a friend of his who often talked about the enemies he had faced once on his world. Gon said that he killed her, but that she was the strongest opponent he ever defeated. What new powers has she obtained since coming here that I don't know about? He frowned deeper and then his bottom lip dropped, because that muscular figure that dropped from the sky behind Pitou stepped up on her right side. As he got closer to the infirmary, the light from inside that was already illuminating Pitou started to shine on him too, and Black Star could see who it was that she had under her control. It can't be, Black Star thought.
The man looked human, standing on two muscular legs, with two muscular arms flat down at his sides. He had on only a pair of purple sweatpants, revealing his scarred-up torso that looked like it was stitched up in a hundred different places. The scars lines his arms and shoulders, his neck and face, the top of his bald skull too. Black Star felt his heart rate speed up as he stared at this man, a man he recognized from the First Day on Nexus, and from a few times after that as well. It was a man known well on Nexus, one who he had not heard anything about for over a year, one who he had always wondered where he went. Black Star looked at this warrior covered in scars whose eyes looked so dead, all three of them.
"Tien," Black Star muttered.
Pitou smirked like a devil in front of the Meister and his Weapon. The others behind Black Star heard the boy speak the name, and even as the bravest gladiators remaining, they all ran. Black Star did not though. He just glared into Pitou's eyes and questioned in a snarky voice, "Where'd you find his body?" Pitou's smirk vanished and she bared her teeth instead, making Black Star smirk, though his face looked murderous as he did. "So I'm right. I knew it. There was no way you could take him on." Pitou's red eyes glared more furiously into his, and Black Star continued, "If I had to guess, I'd say he probably kicked your ass. He's the reason half your tail is made of metal, am I right?" Black Star asked.
That seemed to be a sore spot, and Pitou yelled out as she shot forward. Black Star was ready for her though, and he hopped up right as she pounced at the spot he had been standing in. He pressed his feet against the top of the entryway he was standing in, and he unbent his knees so fast that he shot over Pitou as she flew beneath him, and she missed slashing up with her claws when she processed what Black Star was doing. He passed her, but she twitched the fingers in the hand she did not use to swing at him, and the man below where Black Star was now zipping over jumped up to get in his way. "I don't think so," Black Star said. He would have grinned as he twisted his body in midair to do a barrel-roll to the right and dodge the puppet, but he was too angry about recognizing the man that he did not feel like smiling.
I always saw that shadow behind her in the King's booth, and I think a part of me recognized him, but I could not believe he was there. He was not the kind of guy to side with the King, and he isn't, not really. "Black Star, I know this is hard, but you need to focus!" I know, Black Star thought, while gravity took him and he dropped towards the floor ten feet past Tien's back. As soon as I touch down I'm gone. I won't give her a second to catch me.
He's going to escape! A mischievous look spread across Pitou's face as she spun towards the boy about to touch down. "Don't you want to know what happened to your friends?"
Black Star's feet touched the ground. "DON'T LISTEN TO HER!" What is she talking about? "BLACK STAR LISTEN TO ME!"
Pitou smirked at the kid's back as he stood there motionless in the clearing between the infirmary and the line of buildings to the east. Black Star knew where his friends were. He stared forward with his hands tightened so hard around Tsubaki that she would have said something if she did not suddenly feel chills down her own spine even as a set of dual scythes. I know where all of them are, I do! Except- no! Gon, escaped with Mario! Despite how confident his mental shout was, Black Star found his head slowly turning, and he stared the distance to the infirmary doors where Pitou stood looking his way maliciously. The look in her eyes made his heart rate skyrocket, the smug smirk on her face, the lick of her lips that made Black Star tremble with rage.
"You can leave," she offered with a shrug. "But then, you'll never know what became of, Gon."
"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Black Star roared, spinning his body fully and raising his scythes in rage.
Pitou charged once Black Star was no longer facing the buildings on the outside of the clearing. As she reached her puppet, the three-eyed man shot off the ground and flew at her side towards the kid who was full of so much rage. "Wouldn't you like to know," she said while pulling back her claws. "You'll have to beat the truth out of me!"
Tsubaki did not even shout that Pitou was baiting them, because at the moment in the mental space she stood in, Tsubaki's usually sweet face had an unnatural look of anger on it. She screamed at the same time that Black Star did out loud, their wavelengths matching, as they roared, "PITOUUUUU!"
If only I could have seen outside of the truck on my way in.
CRASH! A twenty story building leaned far to its side as all the supports on that side of its base vanished. Every window inside the building shattered as desks and furniture slid across the slanting floor and smashed through the windows. Glass and debris fell to the street below where screaming people ran and hovercars swerved out of the way. The building kept leaning, then the remaining supports on the base still holding it up snapped, and the entire building started to fall. It fell across the wide street, but the building was tall enough that the top of it fell over the smaller building across the road from it. Eight stories of building slammed down on top of an office building and the ensuing explosion caused smoke and dust to billow down every block for two miles in any direction.
As soon as the dust cover rose, a figure in the base of the taller building that had suddenly lost half its support silently departed into the night. Under the cover of smoke and fire, the man flew ten feet off the ground, a shadow in the city that never sleeps. People running and screaming through the burning ash shouted even louder as something fast whizzed by them and pieces of it cut them up. The figure flying through the air had something swirling around him, little particles of sand that spun fast enough to cut through the skin of citizens running for their lives.
The former pirate turned slave, Crocodile, slowed himself down as he neared the end of the cloud he created. The Power Blocker should hide me once I make it out of the city, but they have ways of finding me while I'm still here. Crocodile landed and he jogged out of the street without a sand tornado coming out of his body beneath the waist. He ran out of the thinnest part of his smoke cover into a crowd of people who were running the same direction. He heard an explosion behind him and a small grin came to his face, As long as they focus on the larger group escaping, I'll be able to make it out of here just fine. Crocodile slowed his jog and a more confident expression came to his face. There was a calmer appearance to his walk, and he strut forward in a pair of casual clothes he snagged as soon as he made it to the surface.
Crocodile's eyes darted to the left as he started jogging again. The three Chimera Ant guards in white uniforms did not even glance his way though; he blended in too well with the crowd. He kept jogging down the road, thinking about which direction he should try to go to find an exit to the city. He did not dare to fly above the city skyline to search for the closest exit, as he knew flying that high would get him seen in an instant. The former pirate had to do it by ear, but he was getting confident that no one was going to notice him in a city full of people, aliens, and so many other strange humanoids that it was hard for him to stick out.
He was so confident already, that a store window on his right side made him stop jogging altogether. Crocodile turned and looked at the shop and the shop's owner who was standing outside looking towards the direction Crocodile just came from. Many of the others who were jogging the same way as him were stopping as well as they had outrun the dust cloud from the collapsed building, and with so many looking back and up at the rising cloud, no one noticed a lone figure slide inside a smoke shop on the side of the road. Crocodile had run to a less developed area of the Business Quarter, closer to the southern edge of the city that he did not yet know about. He ran that way because the other Quarters of the city were all higher up in elevation than the southern one, and he could see more straight past all the buildings to the south than he could in any other direction. His instinct was right, and he did not know but he was only three miles from the edges of the Business Quarter. That was not to say that there were not thousands of buildings outside of the Quarter, miles upon miles of houses and slums on the outskirts of the Capital's Business Quarter where most of the poor, lower-class citizens who could not even afford homes in the giant Residential Quarter went to work.
Crocodile stepped out of the smoke shop with a cigar in his mouth, and a pack of them tucked nicely into the suit pocket of the man his size he abducted on his way out of the Colosseum. After the torture bracelet came off of him, the bracelet infused with Kairoseki that was only taken off of him for his matches as a gladiator, Crocodile shot through the roof of his cell, turning all the stone and concrete into sand on his way up. The Sand Sand Fruit that Crocodile ate made him the living embodiment of sand, and with his power he turned the man wearing this suit into sand by draining the water out of him. Then he simply phased himself into the empty clothes and reformed his human body. The process took three seconds, quicker than it took the two people who were walking with the man to even turn around wondering where their friend had went, only to see a different man in similar clothes walking a different direction.
As soon as Crocodile stepped out, he lifted the steel lighter he grabbed inside the store and flipped the top of it open to release the flame. He lit his cigar and then turned and started walking inconspicuously towards the side of the city where there were less tall buildings, more open space, and a possible exit. Not much moonlight tonight, Crocodile thought, a smug expression coming to his frowning face. He puffed out some smoke in front of his face, and he kept walking past people facing the way he was coming from. Good for escape, but I'm standing out being the only one not watching the smoke. I should look more panicked. He looked over his right shoulder towards the billowing smoke cloud that was now being illuminated by several spotlights from hovercars around it. He sped up after looking at it, pretending like he was just another citizen wanting to get away from it as fast as he could and get to the safety of his own home.
"That was uncalled for."
Crocodile was jogging down a sidewalk when the voice spoke from the alleyway on his right side. He immediately leapt the other way halfway into the middle of the road where he turned and glared into the darkness of the alley. Even in the darkness, the white coats of the Capital guards were always easy to spot. This coat in particular looked strange to Crocodile. It did not have the same design as the others, nor did the man wearing it have on a white cap to add to the uniform. Instead, the man stepping out of the shadows had on a black top hat, to match the black suit he wore under his jacket that looked very similar to Crocodiles, only with a black tie over the white undershirt he had on. The figure was slimmer than Crocodile too, though they were similar in height.
The man stepping out of the shadows had his hands in the pockets of his long black pants. He had on shiny black boots, his black hair fell long and curly behind his back to his shoulder-blades, and he had a black goatee that he had shaved so that the sides of it curled up below the corners of his lips. The man had a white pocket square in the chest pocket on the left side of his suit jacket to complete the fancy attire he wore, though his black sleeves were pulled up his lean arms to reveal his lightly-toned skin from his elbows down to his wrists, as his hands were still in his pockets. His arms were not through the sleeves of his white jacket, it was just draped over his shoulders in a fashion that Crocodile recognized well. Crocodile got a good look at this man and he bit down so hard that his cigar snapped. "Destroying two entire buildings just to mask your escape. Your punishment will be, severe." The figure smirked and his dark eyebrows narrowed in like his eyes.
"You," Crocodile snarled. His arms rose up at his sides, and anyone watching this strange interaction from nearby started running away as small tornadoes of sand appeared over Crocodile's palms. "I never would have guessed," he muttered, "but once a Government dog, always a dog. Isn't that right, Lucci?"
Rob Lucci frowned at the insult, and he glared into Crocodile's eyes more severely. "The prison break is causing chaos in this city, but do not think you will escape while it ensues. I will carry out justice." Rob Lucci turned his body side-face and lifted up his arms in a fighting stance.
"Justice?" Crocodile scoffed. He threw his right hand forward and then his left behind it, calling out as he did, "Sables!" The small tornadoes of sand grew exponentially into real sand tornadoes that tore up the street and then sidewalk on their way to Rob Lucci. Crocodile glared forward at the point his two Sables slammed into each other, right where Lucci was just standing. "What justice are you talking about? Even I know that enslaving people and making them fight for others' amusement is anything but justice."
Crocodile frowned into his fast-spinning Sables that he was losing control of as it grew more and more, making it grow out of control at the same time. He frowned because he saw a silhouette in the sand, walking towards him slowly. The shadow was growing, and Crocodile's frown deepened. So he's a Zoan. It doesn't matter though. This is Rob Lucci. Don't underestimate him.
"You have been chained up for months Crocodile," Lucci said, and Crocodile grit his teeth at the sound of that. He watched as Lucci stepped out of the sand, his skin covered in yellow fur, his shoulders three times as broad, and claws extended from each of his furry fingers. The Cat Cat Fruit: Model Leopard, would not have been stronger in the hands of anyone else, and Crocodile knew that even as a Logia, he could not be too careful while facing this man. Crocodile's eyes opened wider though and his determined, defiant gaze became more defeated as both of Lucci's large paws covered in a pitch black veil.
A dark aura surrounded the Leopard-Man, and Crocodile growled as he faced him, "There's no way a man like you is just another guard of this Capital." Lucci started walking towards him, and Crocodile slammed both of his hands into the floor as fast as he could, yelling as he did, "Wasteland Cataclysm!" The pavement cracked beneath him. Everything started drying out, from the street to the sidewalk, to the buildings on either side of the road, to cars parked on the edges and people who were running for their lives. The floor directly beneath him could not hold his weight after a second of drying out, and then everything for a ten meter radius around him broke apart as well. Edges of the street lifted up, and the sidewalk beneath Lucci crumbled right before he was going to kick off of it.
Lucci did not fall with the road beneath him though. He kicked the air, "Geppou." He lifted up, then added, "Soru." Crocodile's eyes grew huge as Lucci appeared in front of him while he descended. So fast! Lucci held his paws out in front of Crocodile's chest, his wrists pressed together while his fingers pointed up and down, his claws curved inwards towards Crocodile's chest. Crocodile started turning to sand, but Lucci's tail whipped around his body fast with a coating of Armament Haki forming around it. His tail wrapped around Crocodile's torso and kept him in human form, and then Lucci smirked ear to ear with a mouth full of sharp teeth, making Crocodile's face cover in sweat and heart fill with fear. "Rokuogon!"
The impact was invisible, but behind Crocodile's back a force emitted so powerfully that the building Crocodile had started to dry out but never finished was hit by the blast from Lucci's attack. The blow was so powerful that a twenty meter radius crater blasted into the wall, bending steel and ripping apart everything else in its path. Crocodile's eyes rolled back but he could not be thrown into the distance with Lucci's tail around him. His head snapped back with his mouth wide open, spit and blood coming out of it as he gasped out in agony. Lucci's tail finally unwrapped and dropped Crocodile to the ground, and he fell slowly while trying to hold some consciousness. "You were weakened by your time in the Colosseum, but even if you had been at your peak strength," Crocodile hit the ground hard, and Lucci stomped a furry foot down on the side of his skull, crushing the road beneath them even more, while finishing, "a man such as yourself stands no chance, against one of the Capital 50."
In the underground cell blocks for the Colosseum gladiators, only two blocks remained to be emptied out. Cell Block C was the hardest to push through of all the ones they had entered so far. The guards had gathered there to mount a defensive, and not enough of the gladiators who were freed had the proper weapons they needed to be at all effective against the guards with their superior firepower. After the battle, many of the weapons the guards brought were now in the hands of gladiators, but the bodies on the floor were not just of the guards they defeated.
An old man reached down and he grabbed a rifle off the ground next to a fallen gladiator he recognized. The young man must have picked up the weapon himself earlier during the escape, but seeing as half of his face was missing, Rob did not think the young man would mind if he took it. "You did well," Rob whispered, lifting his hand and shutting the boy's one remaining, wide-open, eye. He stood back up fully and lifted the rifle to hold in both hands. It was a heavy weapon, and most who looked at the old man would be surprised to see such a feeble figure carrying it, but there was a reason he was in the gladiator cells and not a slave for some rich owner somewhere else.
Rob gazed to his right and watched as the muscular Spartan walked side-by-side with the man leading their escape. Spartan had a massive sword in his right hand, currently resting on his shoulder as they took a few seconds' break. They knew they had to keep moving to prevent being swarmed by enemies, but after the intense battle they had in Cell Block C, they needed time to catch their breaths and regroup. The pink-haired girl and tall black Exceed were running around yelling at everyone to get ready, while Tatsumi marched towards the wall separating this block from the next one. The doors were locked and barricaded from the other side, but this worked well in their favor as it let them know their enemies were worried about them, were trying to hold them back on defense instead of assault them directly.
"How did you get that armor in here?" Spartan questioned the young man inside the armor who defeated the strongest guards in the cell block who had defeated many powerful gladiators Spartan knew himself. "It seems to me that armor would have been confiscated and taken away from you long before you reached the cell blocks."
"It is my Imperial Arms, Incursio," Tatsumi explained to the gladiator at his side. "And until I equip it, it looks just like any other sword. By the time they realized how strong the weapon I held was, it was too late for them to stop me." Spartan grinned, and at that moment Tatsumi leapt up in the air and hovered high in front of the next wall they would be going through. "Everyone!" He shouted.
Twigo stopped tearing the armor off of a guard around his size and turned his head to look towards the leader of their escape. The former Apprentice Holy Knight could see that it was time and he decided not to spend time taking off the armored pants of the guard he killed, instead just strapping on the chestplate and arm guards he already had. Twigo put on the helmet then picked up a new sword to replace the one he got from the first guard he killed, this one a bigger, sharper weapon with a better grip for him to hold onto.
Mine and Lily looked in from opposite sides of the second floor of the cell block where they were checking all the cells. Some prisoners were hesitant to run out with the rest, fearful that the guards would kill them even without their torture bracelets on to keep them in line, afraid that if they were caught trying to escape the punishment would be a lot worse than if they stayed. Some even considered that by staying in the cells they would gain favor with their captors who would let them out because of it. Mine and Lily tried their best to snap those slaves to reality by yelling that they would all be punished for this, so all they could do now was escape with the rest of them, or die here. The idea of dying alone and afraid in their jail cells while everyone else escaped made these slaves get moving, but Mine frowned as there was no time to go check the last twenty cells on this row to see if anyone else was left. She looked across the gap between the sides of the second floor of the block, between which she could see hundreds of figures pushing towards the wall Tatsumi hovered before.
Lily looked back into Mine's eyes, and he nodded his head at her in a serious way. The tall figure with the face of a scarred-up cat hopped up on the railing, and he drew his sword, while Mine pulled out her sniper and set it up on the railing, pointed right towards the wall behind Tatsumi. "They're going to be waiting for us on the other side!" Tatsumi yelled. "But so our more of our allies!"
"Raaaa!"
"Free your fellow slaves!" Tatsumi yelled.
"RAAAA!" The chorus of war cries was louder this time.
"Kill the guards!" The cheer was louder than ever, and Tatsumi grinned from behind the helmet of his armor. "AND TAKE BACK YOUR FREEDOM!" The following scream of approval and bloodthirstiness and anger and rage was so loud that he knew all the guards awaiting them on the other side of the wall could hear it. Many of the men and women, Chimera Ants and mutants, demonic beings and aliens wearing white uniforms and pointing rifles or swords at the wall to Cell Block C found themselves backing up in fear. The entire underground was shaking from all the screaming on the other side of the wall, and what made it worse was that all the slaves in Cell Block B where they were waiting started roaring along with the already-freed ones on the other side of the wall, and they only got louder as the entire wall splitting the cells shattered in a huge explosion.
A figure in full silver armor flew through the debris that was not flying into B Block nearly as fast as he was. The rubble flew in behind him, as Tatsumi pulled a fist back and slammed it forward into the twelve-foot, tallest Chimera Ant who stayed closest to the wall when everyone else in his guard squad backed away. Tatsumi's fist slammed into the polar bear, bat, man hybrid's chest, and the armored glove of Incursio's battle armor flew out the other side of his body coated in blood. Red splashed out of the Ant's back and into the air, mixing with the debris that finally caught up to Tatsumi and slammed into any other guard who was too close to the wall when it smashed apart.
Mine grinned as she saw through the wall Tatsumi kicking ass, but a voice shouting in pain in her ear made Mine wince and spin around. The communicator she had on was connected to all of her original soldiers' earpieces, and she put a hand to her ear while shouting, "What was that?"
The same woman's voice who screamed in agony yelled out over the line, "There's a massive force right behind us! They're pushing through the last cell blocks fast!" Mine hopped up on the railing, picking up her sniper, and she turned her head to look back the direction they came from. Her eyes opened wide as as soon as she looked back that way, a huge explosion went off only one cell block away, throwing the stragglers of their escape group aside or blowing them away inside the explosion. The scream of her comrade filled her ear until it was cut off, and Mine felt a deep pit of dread in her chest as she looked towards the huge explosion filling the last cell block. In the center of the raging red flames in the middle of the floor, Mine saw several silhouettes calmly walking through the fire.
Everyone behind us… Mine thought for a second, but she hardened her resolve and spun the other way again. "Hold them off!" Mine yelled aloud, leaping over the railing and falling down to the first floor of the block below.
Panther Lily dropped down a few feet in front of her right as she landed, and the Exceed called to her, "Get ahead to Tatsumi. I'll hold them-"
"You're coming with me!" Mine yelled, glaring into Lily's eyes while others around them turned and pointed their rifles to the rear. Mine stepped towards the Exceed who followed the others with his gaze, watching them run off to near certain death. Mine got close to him though and he turned and looked down at her. "We need you Lily, I need you. You've been with me from the start. You're not getting out of this that easily." She turned and started running after Tatsumi into the farther cells. Lily frowned at her back for a second, and then he glanced behind him towards the cell back there where he could see gladiators running back to hold off their approaching enemies.
"Tatsumi! We're out of time!" Mine yelled farther into Cell Block B right as she got inside it.
Tatsumi slammed a fist into his opponent's and a shockwave rippled away from them. "Not yet!" Tatsumi yelled, and he pushed harder into his punch, knocking his enemy's arm away. He jumped and spun, slamming an armored kick into the temple of the man in front of him and smashing him through cell bars that gladiators were still standing behind. Tatsumi spun and he flew over as fast as he could to the control booth at the end of the cell block closer to Cell Block A. "There's one block left!" Tatsumi screamed, right as he slammed his fist through the controls and released all the prisoners in Block B.
Lily had started running after Mine, but he heard a chorus of screams behind him and spun with wide eyes. All the allies he just saw run past him were now running back forward, except for the ones lying on the ground unconscious or dying. "There's no time!" Lily yelled, as the sight of the figures in the last cell block became visible to him.
Tatsumi ignored the shout of one of his top soldiers, and he smashed straight through the wall to Cell Block A before all of the gladiators were even out of the cells in Block B. "Get ready to escape!" Tatsumi shouted, then he froze as he entered the air of Cell Block A. He froze in midair, as the debris from the wall he broke down fell around him. He gawked from behind the mask of his armor, and looked around the cell block in horror for the split second he was allowed. In front of every single cell in the room there were four or five guards, each of them holding rifles that they were aiming into the bars. "NO!" Tatsumi yelled.
A single figure in the center of the cell block's floor smirked and he threw his arms up above his head. The muscular man with thick earlobes, a scraggly white beard, and a long ponytail posed in a flamboyant position and yelled, "Fire!" Tatsumi reached an arm out, but he was too late to stop the onslaught. The massacre of every gladiator in Cell Block A only took a few seconds. The torture bracelets were already turned on, making it so that none of the gladiators could even try to dodge as they were too busy rolling around in pain on the floor. Their screams filled the entire underground though. Everyone fighting in the previous cell block spun towards A as they heard the screams of hundreds of men and women dying. The sounds of all those screams seemed to invigorate the guards, who matched the war cries of their enemies with ones of their own.
Mine looked around Cell Block B and saw the gladiators they just freed running back into their cells. Too many of us are unarmed. Too many were killed by those coming up behind us! We're boxed in on both sides!
"Everyone gather on me!" Tatsumi yelled. The horde of gladiators at the edge of Cell Block A, filling Cell Block B, and the ones who were almost of of Cell Block C, looked towards the center of Block B where Tatsumi hovered above the ground again. "I have a way out of here! And we're leaving in ten seconds!" This is bad. It almost can't get worse. The High Commander of the King's Army in front of us, several Lords of the Capital 50 to our rear. "Ten! Nine!"
Anyone still planning on fighting, anyone too far away from Tatsumi, and a lot of the people who ran back into their cells in Block B started sprinting towards the leader of the escape as fast as they could. They did not know what he meant by a way out of there, but they did not take what he said lightly. He got many of them through several cell blocks, he broke them out of prison and freed them from lives of enslavement. They had to put their faith in someone with the situation looking as bad as it did, and this man sounded confident in what he was saying. Tatsumi reached down and he grabbed something off of his armor that he held up while he descended to just above the rest of the gladiators gathering in the middle of the room.
An old man dropped the rifle in his hands and he ran towards the middle of the room with his fellow former slaves. Rob had a small smile on his face and hope brewing inside him. I never thought I would escape, just like the Tower of Heaven. Back then I never thought I would have the chance to escape either, Rob's smile grew more and he thought nostalgically, I wonder if Erza ever escaped that place. I hope, she found Fairy Tail.
Lily grit his teeth and glanced over his shoulder one last time towards Block C. He stared at two evil men standing side by side, hands lifted in the air, firing beams of yellow light from their palms and disintegrating his allies with ease. The fat pink alien and taller alien with long green hair turned their attentions to Block B, while Lily heard Tatsumi yell, 'Seven!' There's no point in dying here! It's time to go! He spun and ran with everyone else towards the growing pile of people clustered together right beneath Tatsumi.
Tatsumi lowered to the ground of the cell block, and the prisoners and his comrades made a hole for him. They gathered on his sides and behind him while he glared forward towards Cell Block A, and anyone in his way moved from it so that he would have a clear path towards the enemies who caused all that screaming from ahead of them. Most of them did not witness what happened in the next cell block, but they understood well enough and were ready to leave this place at once. Tatsumi shouted out 'Five' but his heart rate was skyrocketing as he looked at the hole in the wall to Block A yet did not see High Commander Ginyu or any of his guards coming through it. What are they waiting for? Is it-
Tatsumi held an orange cube in his hand that he was waiting to use until he finished counting. There were still others with them who had not reached him yet. They were fighting a battle, and just because he shouted that they only had ten seconds, it did not mean that everyone could just stop what they were doing and run to him immediately. Anyone still in a fight in the cell block froze though, both the gladiators and the guards. The Lords who just reached the hole in the wall between Blocks C and B stopped as well with eyes growing as wide as saucers. This is the worst case scenario! Tatsumi thought in panic, and he threw down the orange teleportation cube without waiting a single instant. He did this because standing in the hole to Cell Block A was not High Commander Ginyu, but the one the High Commander reports to. Standing there in front of a room of escaping slaves and those who freed them, was the King himself.
Embassy Quarter
"Maka," Liz whispered, leaning in towards the side of her friend's head as she did. She and Maka stood inside Soul's small cell, scrubbing the blood off one of the walls in silence. Liz could not take it any longer though, and she whispered, "Please, talk to me."
Maka kept scrubbing with her eyes pointed straight at the wall in front of her. "Be quiet Liz," she whispered in a hoarse voice. Liz's eyes widened at how scratchy her voice sounded, and her wide eyes watered up as Maka continued softly, "I don't, want them hearing us."
Liz gazed over her shoulder, and she looked at the other side of the small cell where Soul and King were scrubbing the wall on the other side of the bloody wooden cross in silence. Soul was standing up on two feet like a man now at least, but she saw him turn his head sideways and look her way with such fear in his eyes. That fear was not the same fake fear he had been showing Zarbon though, at least Liz thought it was fake. The fear she could see in his eyes was directed for her. She re-thought about what Dodoria told her and King about what was in store for her, and a gaze around the bloody Hell she was currently scrubbing reminded her that she was in store for worse torture than she had imagined possible.
She turned back to the girl next to her who could see what Liz was thinking about from the expression on her face. Liz thought she would see a look of understanding and fear from Maka too, but there was no understanding in the girl with darker blonde hair's eyes. Maka looked like she pitied Liz so much, and Liz could not figure out why this was as she looked into Maka's eyes. Wait a second, Liz thought, her eyes widening as she read Maka's expression deeper. She thought back on Zarbon's explanation of his torture of her friends. He said that the minute he showed them to each other, they broke completely, but, what if they knew that was his desired effect? If they knew that he thought it would break them, and they've been pretending ever since then, then maybe the torture stopped. Maybe, he never even got to torturing Maka, at least, not in the same way he did to Soul.
Liz's gaze snapped back and forth between her friends, and Soul gave her a nod like he understood why she was looking around. Soul knew that he had to act that way or Zarbon would hurt Maka. He had already seen countless slaves get murdered because he was too defiant, so even though it must have been degrading, he let go of all his pride and acted like a dog for Zarbon, to protect her! Liz's eyes got some water on the bottoms of them, And Maka knew, or at least she knows now. He would have had to keep up the act for Zarbon for a while though, as long as he was with them. Hopefully Maka could tell, or she may have actually been broken before Soul was able to tell her, able to reveal what he was doing. Water filled up Liz's eyes too much to stay resting on her bottom eyelids, and the tears started streaming down while her body shook in fear. I wish, Kid or Patty were here with me.
That's terrible! She yelled internally at herself, but her fear won over and she crossed her arms in front of her chest to hold herself. But I do! Even though it would mean, they would have to be in a place like this! I, I don't want to be alone! Maka and Soul had each other! It's not fair! I don't want to be tortured! I don't want to be all alone!
"Liz," Maka whispered. Liz spun to her with wide eyes as that whisper was louder than the first time Liz heard her speak. Maka threw her arms around Liz's body though and pulled her into a tight hug, making Liz's arms that were crossed in front of her body press into Maka's chest. Maka put her mouth right up next to Liz's ear and whispered while she held her, "We're here with you. He might take you back tonight, but we aren't far. Black Star and Tsubaki too. We're, all going through our own tortures, but we have to hold on." Maka squeezed tighter, while Soul clenched his eyes in anger and regret behind them. He cursed under his breath for getting caught, for getting brought to this place, because he already knew what Maka was about to continue whispering.
"The break out at the Colosseum," Maka continued, and Liz's eyes opened huge, while King spun around from where he was scrubbing next to Soul. The short fairy looked behind him across the bloody cross in the ten foot wide cell that was too small for even a whisper like Maka's not to be heard. "My friends are going to free Black Star and Tsubaki, along with everyone else there. They're proving it to the King, to the entire Cooperative, that they won't tolerate slavery. They aren't even part of the Resistance, but what they're doing might be even more important." Maka pulled her head back a little so that her face was right in front of Liz's, their eyes only inches apart. "I want to tell you that they'll save us too, but I don't think they can. Not yet anyway. But they'll be back for me, and for all the slaves in the Capital."
Liz's watery eyes were so wet, but they were no longer letting out tears. Liz hesitated a few seconds, then she slowly nodded her head at Maka who was awaiting something from her. I'll hold on. Kid, Patty, I know you're looking everywhere for me. I know you'll help these people Maka has so much faith in find me.
If only I had not been beaten that day, Soul thought, fists clenched in fury at his sides. Maka escaped without my help, but she let herself get caught for me! She came to this Hell for me! Soul grabbed the rag from the bucket of water at his feet, and he reached up with it clenched in his hand, red water dripping from it as he got back to scrubbing the walls. Soul put his washcloth to the wall, and then all of the remaining strands of white hair on his head stuck straight up. The naked boy covered in his own dried blood snapped his head to the side and stared outside of the opening in the wall into the rest of Zarbon's suite. NO!
"Did I just hear you correctly?" a purple alien with yellow dots all over his head asked, his voice nasally and accusatory in tone. Everyone else in the cell turned, and Maka's expression turned to one of pure horror as she was still in the middle of giving Liz a reassuring look with her hands on the other girl's shoulders. Appule grinned at their terrified expressions, and he started laughing while the other two aliens in the suite called over to the hole in the wall asking what was going on. Banan and Sui could not hear them over the televisions, but Appule's race's sense of hearing was much greater than he let on to his comrades or even to his superiors who were not interested enough back in their own universe to know that fact.
"Please," Maka whispered. The realization that she was caught was hitting her and she took a step closer to the alien to try and appeal to him. "Don't. If Lord Zarbon finds out…"
Appule stopped laughing and frowned down at the girl, a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face. He thought about how excited Zarbon was while showing off his slaves, how proud he was of the torture he had put them through. Banan and Sui were walking over as Appule's laughter intrigued them more than the news going on on television, and the two of them looked into the cell to see all the slaves looking at Appule in fear. Before the two could ask anything, Appule said in a nasally, but nervous voice, "Zarbon's slaves aren't actually broken."
Soul's eyes narrowed at the alien, and his heart rate accelerated as the idea of more torture filled him. What was worse than the potentially more horrendous torture than he had already endured though, was the idea that Maka was here with him this time. Maka was thinking along the same lines and they both looked terrified as the other men looked in at them. Maka spotted a look of pity on Banan's face and she locked eyes with the most humanoid of the three alien creatures. "I'm begging you," Maka whispered in a hoarse voice, "don't tell Lord Zarbon. He'll be upset with you too."
The blue-skinned alien leaned back and gave the girl a disgusted look that made Maka's eyes grow wide as she thought she had seen a smidge of humanity. "Yeah he might be," Banan admitted. "But he'd be a lot more pissed if he finds out you aren't broken and that we already knew about it." Appule's face lit up like he had not even thought about that, and he wiped some sweat off his face as the decision became clearer, though he still looked annoyed as this situation still put him in a predicament.
"You're going to regret tricking Lord Zarbon," Appule snarled. He stomped forward and every slave inside the box backed up except for one.
Soul stood his ground and glared into Appule's eyes furiously. "How can you monsters do this? Do none of you think what Zarbon is doing is wrong?!"
"I despise humans!" Appule scowled down at the short, bloody boy in front of him. He lifted up the remote in his hand to dissuade Soul from trying anything, and he continued while the boy and his fellow slaves all looked fearfully at the remote he held up, "So I would not care at all if Zarbon tortured them, but you aren't even humans!" Appule started laughing, then he pointed at Soul, "You're just a weapon like that girl there," he nodded towards Liz, then continued, "and that bitch of yours is half weapon too. And then there's the fairy! You think we care at all what happens to you?!" Appule stepped forward again so he was inside the ten foot by ten foot indent in the wall, and Banan stepped up on his left while Sui stood on his right.
Banan and Sui each lifted up their right arms that had blasters on the wrists, and with cold expressions on their faces they pointed those weapons at Liz and King. "Neither of you move now," Sui hissed at them.
King pressed his back up against the wall that he had wet with a washcloth. Dried blood that was made wet again was getting all over the back of his clothes, and he could feel the cold steel of the wet wall through the cloth, pressing against his back and making him shiver. What am I doing?! King thought, and his shaking stopped. Am I going to sit here and let that guy torture them? Appule pointed the remote down, and Maka and Soul turned towards each other with horrified expressions on their faces. Liz looked like she was going to throw up from guilt, thinking that they had gotten caught because her friends had wanted to sooth her own fears, and King's fists clenched tightly at his sides.
"Don't do anything," Banan started to warn, but King did not listen.
"Raaa!" King ran forward, swinging his arms in circles at his sides. His eyes were closed, and he spun his arms faster and faster, and then Banan lowered his right hand and put it to the Fairy King's forehead. The soldier looked to his right at the other two aliens who looked at him with wide eyes, and then all three of them started cracking up. Soul, Maka, and Liz all stared at King's back with stunned expressions as he started slamming his fists in at Banan's wrist to try and pry his head free. Banan's hand was too large though, and his fingers curled around King's head and lifted him up off the ground so his legs dangled beneath him. The short fairy kicked his legs forward, to no avail, and Zarbon and Dodoria's subordinates laughed twice as hard.
Banan finished laughing before the other two, and he whipped his arm back behind him, throwing King back into Zarbon's suite so hard that he slammed into the bar on the other side of the room. "Watch it," Sui warned his comrade. "You don't want to damage Zarbon's place, or Dodoria's property," he added, referring to the fairy Banan just tossed across the room.
"King," Liz rasped out, looking past the aliens in front of her who were turned around looking back into Zarbon's suit. Soul snarled angrily, but his gaze darted to the torture bracelet on his wrist that did more than fill him with pain when his owners were annoyed. The bracelet also nullified his power, and he could barely find the strength to clench a fist, let alone throw a punch at his owners who he knew were much stronger than normal men.
Appule stepped out of the small box in the wall, and he smirked over towards King who was lying next to the bar, some splintered wood above his head below the counter, but no other damage to be seen for Zarbon's place. Appule could see some blood coming down King's forehead though which made him frown, then smirk and shrug his shoulders. "Couldn't be helped. I'm sure they'll understand, considering these slaves all tried to make a break for it." He turned and smirked towards Banan and Sui who looked confused for a second, then as they caught on they smirked as well, while the slaves behind them looked even more afraid. Appule continued, laughing between words, "They, were trying to fool Lord Zarbon, while the others haha, they did not want to be tortured by Lord Dodoria, so ha, haha we stopped them and got them under control!"
King staggered up to his feet and glared into Appule's back so hard that the two aliens on Appule's other side stopped chuckling along with him. Appule thought their situation was getting better, so he did not know why the other two were suddenly looking behind him with such shock. King kept snarling though even as the first two stared his way in shock, until Appule turned around too and dropped his jaw. "Wh-Who are you?!" Appule shouted. The alien snapped his arm up and pointed King's direction, but the hand was also pointed a little to the fairy's right side.
King had some blood in his right eye so that half of his vision was blurry, but he rubbed his eyes as he turned his head to look where Appule pointed. As soon as he turned, he felt like he needed to rub his eyes again, because there was a person standing next to him who was not there a second ago. The woman stood there almost a full foot taller than King who had his jaw dropped as he looked at her, but for a different reason than everyone else in the room. She turned her head and looked down at the fairy who kept gawking at her as she made eye contact with her dark yellow eyes. Her eyes were thin with long thick lashes on them, her face had a pale complexion that made her look like quite the beauty, and she wore very little on her body to conceal her, assets. On her torso she had on a purple jacket with nothing connecting the two sides, though they managed to stay over her breasts that still showed a lot of cleavage. Other than the jacket she had on two purple boots that pulled almost all the way up to her knees, and she wore a pair of purple underwear with a golden heart in the center like the ones embroidered on the left side of her jacket. She had on pink lipstick, and on the left side of her neck, barely uncovered by a parting of her long black hair, there was a red tattoo of some animal that Liz spotted from across the room.
Liz knew something was up when this woman appeared like everyone else, but the sight of that tattoo made her heart race. Just like King! She thought, and the look of shock on King's face that everyone else thought was just because of this strange woman's sudden appearance suddenly looked a lot more like one of recognition to her. That tattoo he has on his leg, I never asked, but, but is he in a gang or something?
"Who are you?!" Banan yelled. He got over his shock and ran forward to the woman's left, while Sui ran forward to get on her right.
"It doesn't matter!" Appule shouted. The purple and yellow alien marched forward and lifted his right arm up with a glowing light coming out of the blaster on his wrist. "Take her out!"
"M-Merlin!" King shouted.
Merlin flashed King a smirk, then she turned her head and looked forward towards Appule. The two other aliens in front of her and on her sides were also pointing glowing blasters at her, and she continued to smirk menacingly as she lifted up her right hand. She pointed all her fingers up, then twisted her wrist in a single movement. An instant before the alien guards in the room fired at her, all three of them found themselves no longer standing in the same places. Banan was suddenly standing directly in front of Merlin, Sui was suddenly behind Banan, and Appule was behind Sui. Sui and Banan screamed in agony as blaster shots from their own comrades' weapons blasted through their chests, blood flying up in the air as all the slaves stared in shock.
"What the Hell just happened?" Soul muttered, stepping closer as if to get a better look. It happened so fast that he actually assumed it was teleportation, because one second the aliens were scattered around the room and the next they were shooting each other in the backs. Maka and Liz looked just as shocked, but King was starting to smile at the woman next to him as she kept her right hand lifted with her wrist twisted.
"Why, why you!" Appule started shouting. His two comrades fell to the ground in front of him, and he snapped his gaze from their bodies up to Merlin furiously. As he shouted at her though, his furious look turned to one of fear, as the blaster shots that he and his two comrades fired were hovering in the air above Merlin's head. Banan's shot that never went through his comrades, Sui's that only went through Banan's back, and Appule's that flew through both of his fellow soldiers, all three of the glowing white spheres of light hovered above the witch's head. "W-Wait!" Appule shouted, throwing his hands up in fear. As he threw his arms up, he remembered what he was holding in one of them and he held up the remote. "Stop!"
Merlin's eyes focused on the remote. Appule saw her smirk lower a little, and a crazed one spread on his own face. "With the press of one button, I'll kill them all! Lord Zarbon won't even care considering the circumstances! I'll-" Merlin curled in one of the fingers on her right hand, and Appule's remote-hand suddenly felt very empty. His jaw dropped, and his eyes snapped up to his lifted, remote-less, hand in terror. That terror only amplified as three balls of white light flew towards him. "Oh no, OH SHII-" The beams collided right on top of Appule and he screamed in agony inside the blinding blast that shattered the windows around the room.
The three slaves standing just outside of Soul's bloody cell in the wall gawked at the scene in front of them. Soul was the first to snap out of it though, and the nearly-bald weapon boy stepped forward, muttering, "Someone must have seen that, and even if they didn't, the King will know they're gone." He turned to Maka who shook her own head to get a hold of herself.
What do I do?! The breakout is still going on in the city. Should I, go join up with Tatsumi and the others? No, I'll only mess up whatever new plan they made after I stopped communication. The best course of action, is to find them after I escape. Maka looked back at Liz, then next to her at Soul, both looking worse for the wear, like herself. Can we really do it though?
"Hello King," Merlin greeted the short figure at her side who was smiling up at her ever since he called out her name. She smirked at the short fairy who started to look a little confused, then she questioned calmly, "Would you like to get out of here?"
Merlin dropped the remote in her hand, and at the same time, all the torture bracelets that kept slaves in check fell from the slaves' wrists. Soul rubbed his wrist, as did Liz, neither of them having seen the chafed, red skin underneath for more than three months each. King also rubbed his own wrist, then said as he looked up with a smile, "Yes I would!" Merlin chuckled at how enthusiastic he looked, but as she started to lift up a hand, King held up both his hands and shouted, "Wait!"
Merlin looked at the fairy in slight confusion, wondering what he wanted her to wait for before teleporting them away. What Soul said was very true, and she was not keen on waiting for the King to arrive. King looked over his shoulder though, at the people behind him who were staring at his back. Liz's eyes grew huge, and King said while looking at her, "I want to take these three with us."
"It's too big a risk," Merlin said. She looked over King's head at the others but shook her head even after seeing the sorry state they were in.
King saw the dejected, fearful looks spread on the other slaves' faces, and his heart rate sped up. He gulped, but then turned back to Merlin and crossed his arms, "I won't leave without them."
"Okay." Merlin vanished by herself.
King stood there with a defiant look on his face for another second, and then his jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out of his head. The other three behind King who were about to tell him how much they appreciated it, especially Soul who had never even met him before today, dropped their jaws as the fairy's friend abandoned him. The four of them were alone in a penthouse in the middle of the Capital, surely with people who wanted to re-capture them on their way, and they were all on their own. This realization hit King who threw his arms up, waving them around and shouting, "Merlin! Come back! Merlin!" He started panting after the second shout of her name, but there was no reply. Several seconds passed, then suddenly the woman was standing in the room again, right in front of King whose eyes lit up at the sight of her.
Merlin sighed, then lifted up her right hand and snapped her fingers. This time, all five of the people in the room vanished. Then they reappeared, and the four who never even had time to close their eyes let out yelps or shouts of shock as they were all of a sudden somewhere completely different. The trip was instantaneous, and Liz clenched her eyes shut because it all felt so surreal that one second she stood inside a penthouse filling with cold air from outside, and the next second she was standing ankle-deep in snow on a sidewalk on the outskirt of some city that looked nothing like the Capital.
"Where are we?!" Maka exclaimed, spinning around and looking at the city getting covered in snow with huge eyes.
"A few thousand miles away," Merlin replied casually while lowering her arms down to her sides. The others looked towards the woman, and their eyes widened as she was suddenly wearing a long purple fur coat. It made sense considering how scantily clad she was in the Capital, but all these instant changes to the setting and everything were making those semi-grounded in reality nervous, as grateful as they were. Merlin continued while the others looked down at their own bodies now in shock as they realized that Merlin was not the only one wearing new, warm clothes. "We are inside a Power-Blocker zone of the Northern Continent, as well as a smaller zone surrounding this city that is ruled by a newly appointed Lord."
The slaves Merlin just freed were busy warming up while they listened to her. Soul appreciated the white beanie that covered up his scabby, disgusting scalp, and Maka appreciated the sleeves and pant legs to hide her scars. Liz rubbed her arms inside the yellow sleeves of her puffy coat, and she whispered in a raspy voice, "Thank you." She could barely find it in her to say. All the fear she had felt for the past ten minutes that Dodoria was about to torture her as badly as Zarbon did to Soul and Maka, it was fading from her mind, though slowly. She only realized as the fear was leaving how terrified she had been, and as much as it upset her that she allowed herself to reach that point, the memory of the fear was almost as bad as the fear itself and she could not blame her past self.
King wrapped his arms around Merlin's side, and she looked a little annoyed so he backed up fast, though he still looked very happy. After the hug of thanks, King gazed around, then turned his attention back to the witch ahead of him. "What about the Captain, and my sister? Are they-"
Merlin shook her head no. She explained though, "The Captain said they would try out the Northern Continent, so that's where we are."
King looked around nervously. "Why did you bring us so close to the Espada?" He turned his gaze into the city and gulped.
"It's fine," Merlin countered, waving off his concerns with her hand. "Besides, the new Lord of this city is not an Espada at all. He is a shinigami like the High Lord. His name, is Ichimaru Gin."
King sighed in relief, then he turned to the people behind him who still looked to be settling down to the idea that they were truly out of the Capital. He smiled at them, but as he received a smile in response from Liz, he saw a deeply troubled look on the boy's face next to her.
"What about," Soul mumbled. The others looked at the boy who lifted his feet out of the ankle-deep snow to see he had on some big black boots, as he had wondered how his feet were staying warm in all that snow. He lifted his head, and though he did not want to sound ungrateful, he still finished his question, "Black Star, and Tsubaki?"
Maka and Liz both looked saddened by the mention of those names, but as King opened his mouth to ask, Merlin answered without needing to, "We can't risk going back for every slave." She saw the teen open his mouth again, so she continued, "I won't risk it again." Soul froze with his mouth open, and finally he closed it. He could not demand anything of this woman who just saved him, as much as it hurt him to think about how he was leaving his comrades behind. There were so many friends back in the Capital, but Black Star and Tsubaki, he had known them most of his life. I'm sorry, he thought.
"They'll be alright," Maka said, a small smile on her face that was getting pink from the cold wind that just hit them. She looked out into the city full of tall gray buildings ahead of her, and she continued while her friends looked towards her, "Tatsumi will save them." They looked at her in more confusion, and Maka continued in a confident tone, "Tatsumi leads the group who freed me from my first owner when I got caught. We were so far in the north that I never expected to be freed, but he didn't care how far north we were. He did not care how fortified the fortress was, and right now, he's beneath the Colosseum freeing Black Star, Tsubaki, the rest of Delta Squad, and all the other gladiators."
Merlin sighed and shook her head, and Maka spun to the woman with a smile on her face. "You think it's impossible huh?" Maka asked. Merlin looked at her with a questioning gaze, and Maka continued, "Well you aren't the only one who can teleport. I know it," she said, and she looked back into the city ahead of her, imagining the faces of her friends in the slave-liberation group. "They'll succeed!"
The Capital
"SEVEN!"
A figure floated through Cell Block A drawing the attention of every guard about to charge to the next block where all the escaped slaves were gathered. High Commander Ginyu lifted his gaze, then took a knee and bowed his head to the Ant King, floating through the room calmly, as if there was not an unprecedented prison break currently in process. Pouf flapped his wings to follow the King, though he kept a ten meter distance between them to stay out of the King's way.
"SIX!"
Mine ran through the crowd of gladiators and freedom fighters in Cell Block B. She could see Lily a few feet away pushing past others to head towards Tatsumi like she was doing. They were surrounded by people they had helped free, or people who had come with them to help in their mission. Mine followed Tatsumi's shouts all the way to the center of the crowd, and in front of him there was an empty path leading to the broken down wall separating this side of the room from Block A. "What's going on? Why are we leaving early?!"
"FIVE!"
Lily got up on Tatsumi's other side, and he looked at the boy in full silver armor in confusion as well, wondering why they were not going into the next room. He had hoped to free everyone, but the Exceed could already tell they were surrounded and did not speak up like Mine despite his anger. Behind them, Rob ran forward with Spartan on his right side, both ready to get as close to Tatsumi as possible as it seemed like he had a way out of there. To the far left of them, Rob watched as Twigo slammed a guard's head into the wall between two cells, then the armored man spun and started running towards the group where the rest of them already were gathering. We're really going to make it out of here, the old, hopeful man thought.
Tatsumi opened his mouth to shout another number, but then someone landed in the hole in the wall he created, on top of the collapsed wall's rubble pile. The green Ant had such a calm gaze, it almost looked bored, and Tatsumi felt his entire body rush with trepidation. He knew this was bad, and he threw away the countdown altogether. Meruem watched the figure clearly in charge of this prison break raise a hand with an orange cube in its grasp. Teleportation cube. Meruem adapted to the situation.
Mine and Lily saw the look of sheer panic and dismay on Tatsumi's face and they started turning their heads towards Cell Block A. Silence fell so fast that every person there could hear their own pounding hearts in their ears. Then they couldn't. Tatsumi threw the orange teleportation cube down fast, and it shot towards the floor while Meruem continued to stand there staring at them all. For a second, Tatsumi thought he had made it. His mind could process fast enough though that he knew it was not so. The cube was still a foot over the ground, when Meruem flashed out of Tatsumi's vision, and then reappeared almost immediately, standing in the same place, only with his hands held in front of him.
The Ant King somehow still looked bored as he stood there, holding four dozen hearts in his palms. An orange light surrounded Tatsumi's vision and he vanished, the sight of the Ant King implanted in his mind. He disappeared from beneath the Capital, and appeared thousands of miles away on a field that had five thirty-wheeler trucks on it. On top of each of the trucks were metal towers with blinking red lights at the top, keeping everything inside the area the trucks were wrapped around off of anyone's radar. Tatsumi appeared there in the center of all those trucks, surrounded by fifty people.
Many of the gladiators still in the cell blocks had not made it close enough to Tatsumi to be enveloped by the teleportation cube's light, but those were the lucky ones. Mine and Lily were frozen where they stood, wondering if they really saw what they thought they thought they did in that final moment in the Capital. Tatsumi's body enveloped in light and his Incursio armor vanished from his body. He stayed standing in place, even while Mine and Lily spun around looking in horror at everyone around them.
They fell to their knees or staggered forward with confused and shocked looks on their faces. Every one of them grabbed at their chests, where only now did they start to realize why it was they could no longer hearing the thumping in their ears. I'm, so cold, Rob thought, falling to his knees as his vision started to get hazy.
"Hey! Stay with me!" Mine yelled, dropping down to her knees next to a woman she remembered freeing before, who had thanked her for rescuing them. She grabbed the woman by her shoulders and shook her around, but the woman lifted her gaze and stared into Mine's eyes with such terror that Mine's heart broke. As her heart broke, she lowered her gaze to the woman's chest and confirmed what she thought she spotted in Meruem's hands in their final moment in the Capital. WHY?! Mine thought, clenching her eyes shut and gripping the woman's shoulders so hard as the gladiator's eyes closed.
Lily did a full spin where he stood, and he watched as every person they had saved, and every person in their liberation group save three, collapsed to the ground. On the outskirts of the area where their truck drivers and a few others in their group were waiting, the ones who were not strong enough to take part in the raid but still wanted to help started walking forward with horrified looks on their faces. The sight of the group appearing scared a few of them because the amount of people who returned was only a little more than the amount of their comrades who had left. They started calling out the names of the liberators who did not return, who were not collapsing to the ground like the others, while others ran towards the ones who did collapse and shook them around with tears in their eyes.
I failed, Tatsumi thought. Tears formed in his eyes as through his peripheral vision he watched as so many friends died. The King, he's- I couldn't even see his movements. A monster like that, he can do whatever he wants! He let us live, because, because it doesn't matter to him whether we live or die! He knows I can't do a… Oh. Tatsumi had started to shake in anger and regret, but he stopped all of his movements, and his breath caught in his throat.
"AAHHH!" Mine screamed in frustration, grabbing at her hair and yelling at the top of her lungs. When she finished, Mine lifted her gaze to Tatsumi, tears in her eyes. "Tatsumi," she said, "we couldn't do, a single thing! We couldn't even get Maka out of there!"
Months of planning, it was all for nothing! Lily clenched his fists in rage and frustration, and he let out a yell similar to Mine's. Our entire slave-freeing group! Everyone was killed, and the ones who weren't will be enslaved to stay in the Capital, and we've proven we can't get them out of there! We're all that's left! Lily looked around as he thought it, but as he darted his gaze around in anger, his eyes slowly widened at the sight of Mine standing up with a very nervous look on her face.
"Tatsumi?" Mine whispered, as she stood up fully next to him.
She reached a hand out for his side, and Tatsumi whispered in a raspy voice, "Don't touch me." Mine pulled her hand back, feeling afraid to her core at the tone of Tatsumi's voice. She looked at his face, and Mine's body started shaking in fear as she saw the tears in the bottoms of Tatsumi's eyes. "I'm sorry Mine. I'm sorry."
He kept repeating it, and now everyone around them was looking in just as confusedly as Mine and Lily. "What? What is it?!" Mine shouted at him.
Tatsumi kept staring straight ahead, so Mine ran around him to look him straight in his eyes. Tatsumi was not moving a muscle. He stared straight ahead, and his eyes ever-so-slowly lowered to make eye contact with Mine. The despair in his eyes mixed with all the regret from their failed mission, it was already almost too much for her to take. "I'm sorry," Tatsumi whispered, then he bit his bottom lip and the tears started falling from his eyes. Everyone walked closer to their leader, fear in their eyes amplifying as he whispered in a hoarse voice, "I think he killed me."
At that moment, a drop of blood formed on the left side of Tatsumi's neck. Mine's eyes grew as wide as saucers, then she and everyone around Tatsumi watched in horror as a line of red formed around Tatsumi's whole neck. Tatsumi could feel the skin of his neck getting wet, and he knew he had moved too much. His hands lifted up and grabbed his neck on either side, trying to hold himself together, but just touching his head moved it, sliding it just enough that neither his cut trachea nor the slashed esophagus inside his neck remained on-line with each other. Blood splashed between Tatsumi's fingers, and his legs collapsed while his hands continued to hold the top of his neck in place for an extra second, making there a visible space between Tatsumi's torso and where his hands held his head.
He fell to pieces in front of the woman he loved whose body got covered in blood as the top of his decapitated body spurted blood pumping from his still-beating heart at her. Mine's entire vision became red and she could not tell if it was from Tatsumi's blood in her eyes or if it was just reality around her turning red. She reached a hand forward towards Tatsumi's head with his eyes still open, looking up at her, and when she saw her hand, covered in red, moving in time with when she tried to move it, she understood that this was truly reality. And she screamed. "EEEEAAAHHHHH!"
Embassy Quarter
"What do you mean she just appeared?!" Zarbon screamed. He had Appule lifted by the front of his cracked armor, and he let out a furious yell before slamming his other clenched fist forward.
"Lord Zarbon! WAI-" Zarbon's fist went through Appule's burnt head and out the other side covered in purple blood.
Zarbon spun around and the pink alien at his side did the same, and the two Lords bent the knee to the figure behind them. "We're so sorry, King," Dodoria began with sweat all over his face. "We'll go retrieve them right away!"
"You wouldn't find them," Meruem said while looking Dodoria in the eyes. The fat, spiky, pink alien opened his mouth to argue, but decided against insinuating that the King was a liar. Zarbon almost sighed in relief that Dodoria was not so stupid as to do that, but he was still nervous that the King was about to kill them. Meruem looked away though and continued, "I am not upset with you. It is not your fault that your slaves escaped. After all, you were responding to orders to help quell the revolt, and you both did fine jobs."
The aliens sighed in relief and almost thanked the King, but he continued too quickly, "You are dismissed."
Zarbon and Dodoria closed their mouths. Zarbon looked around his penthouse, but decided not to mention to the King that it was his own place he was being dismissed from. He and Dodoria just bowed their heads to the King again, then flew towards the glass-less windows on the north side of the suite. Zarbon grit his teeth in anger at whoever stole his slaves and smashed up his apartment, while Dodoria also growled at the loss of his two favorite slaves.
As the two of them flew out of the penthouse, two other figures came flying through the cloud layer up the side of the building. Zarbon and Dodoria glanced behind them, and Pouf and Youpi looked their way. The winged Royal Guards made eye contact with the flying Lords, and the Chimera Ants glared animalistic looks at the aliens. Instead of glaring back, the two Lords bowed their heads, then turned and flew off faster, more annoyed expressions on their faces than before.
Youpi and Pouf flew the rest of the way to Zarbon's penthouse, and they landed inside behind Meruem who was looking towards a bloody cross in an indent in the wall. "King," Pouf said, announcing his presence to the King who he already knew could sense him there. "What are your orders? Should we begin the hunt for them?!"
"No," Meruem responded. He examined the room with slight interest in his gaze, then continued, "I sense no trace of their trail. Whoever the teleporter was who I sensed from below the Colosseum, they were very good. They chose a moment where I would have had to decide between letting one group of slaves escape or the other." He turned and looked at the Royal Guards behind him, "We will have wanted posters made for them and distributed, but other than that I have little interest."
Pouf looked surprised, while Youpi appeared just confused. "Huh? But, the one who freed them, she broke laws inside the Capital?" He said it like it was absurd for them not to go after them right away. The laws in the Capital were established by the King himself. For someone to break such rules, it was blasphemy and should be dealt with with extreme prejudice.
Meruem frowned at Youpi's question. Youpi leaned back as he did not mean to insult the King, but Meruem was not frowning because he was annoyed at Youpi for asking it. "Are such trivial matters truly what the King is meant to deal with?" Meruem growled. A dark aura exuded from his body and his Royal Guards leaned back more at how upset he looked in that moment. "Escaped slaves? I do not care about this at all. Such matters are only important to a King, who is in control of everything, everywhere, and I am not yet that King!"
As he shouted the end of his sentence, the last remaining Royal Guard floated up and through one of Zarbon's shattered windows. Pitou glanced around the room while she and the muscular puppet behind her hovered in, and the other three inside it looked her way. The dark aura around the King faded, and Pitou bowed her head to him while Pouf and Youpi looked at her in surprise. "The last of the revolters have been subdued," Pitou said with a fist over her chest, and she bowed her head to the King.
"What happened to you?" Youpi scoffed at the woman whose clothes were all slashed up and who had sparks coming out of the metallic part of her tail.
She looked up at him with red eyes and a hiss, then seethed through her teeth, "I do not know what you were doing, Youpi, but I just came from fighting Black Star." The other Royal Guards had been to enough Battle Royales and gladiator matches to understand that even one of their own might have some trouble with that fight, but by Pitou's being there they received an answer as to who won the fight. Although she looked a little damaged, the puppet behind her with an emotionless expression on his scarred face did not have a single wound to speak of, though there was blood on the corpse's fists.
As the Royal Guards had that short conversation, Meruem continued to think on what he just said in a dark tone. Pouf glanced back at the King nervously, then the other guards turned back to Meruem as well. The King stood there with a dark, serious look on his face, and then suddenly his mouth curled up into a smirk. The bloodthirsty, animalistic appearance to the King's face made each of the other Royal Guards smirk too, though Pouf still felt very nervous as he smiled with the King. "What is it, King?" Pitou asked, her eyes still red, though a wide sharp-toothed smile had spread across her face.
"I have become so bored," Meruem said, though he continued to smirk as he said it. "If a mystery like this is all the excitement I have to look forward to, if easily-foiled prison breaks are all my duties amount to as King, then I would rather die than spend one more second being King. This type of rule is not meant for the King." The guards looking at him went wide-eyed, their smiles vanishing at the self-degradation the King was speaking. He only grinned more though, and he chuckled darkly while muttering, "I know now. Yes, it is time." He thought about news he received hours earlier, in the evening of what was becoming a very long night, and how he had wondered back then if it was finally time to begin.
"King! It is so soon!" Pitou exclaimed.
"What happened to waiting until after the final Battle Royale?" Youpi added.
"Are you sure we're ready?" Pitou asked.
"If we are not, then we will die," Meruem said. His grin only spread wider though, and an aura burst from his body so large that it encompassed the entire building he stood in and many of the others around it. The dark purplish-black aura felt so dark, so evil, so furious, and so confident that the nervous Royal Guards all found themselves smirking just like the King again. "But this is not yet my kingdom! It is finally time, to become the true King! Because I AM THE KING! Even if it is too early! Even if I may fall in my attempt!" Meruem's walked towards the shattered windows and his teeth shone in the light of the stars and faint crescent moons above. His eyes darted up, and he stared up as if he were looking straight into someone's eyes. "I must do this," Meruem finished, "and it will satisfy my craving for stimulation, it will make me King, it will make me the strongest in this world!"
A/N Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, even if it was a dark one. A lot happened, but it was called Mine because of the flashbacks and because she was one of the main characters of the chapter in the present. We finally see what happened to her after that flashback in the first chapter where she, Romeo, and Lily were caught by slavers and Wendy got turned into a Heartless. If anyone else remembers back in chapter 5 I think, there was a short part in a chapter where the 7 Deadly Sins were introduced, and Merlin mentioned then that she was going to go after King which was why she was not with the Sins when they met up with the main group. She finally comes to save him and takes a few of King's friends with her. Others are left behind though, and even more are killed when Meruem and his forces put a stop to the slave revolt. Rob Lucci, Zarbon, Dodoria, a new group of enemies emerge, named the Capital 50. TATSUMI! Rob and Spartan? Appule?! So many sad deaths? XD Hope the descriptions of slavery and torture were not too much, and once again thanks everyone for reading. I'll put a list below since there were a ton of characters in this.
7 Deadly Sins: Twigo, King, Merlin, Meliodas, Elaine, Holy Knight
Fairy Tail: Gray, Erza, Rob, Wendy, Lily, Carla, Romeo, Virgo, Taurus
Rambo: Rambo
Final Fantasy: Cloud
Naruto: Naruto, Iruka, Kiba, Akamaru, Konoha
SAO: Kirito (Kirigaya Kazuto), Asuna
Akame ga Kill: Akame, Najenda, Sheele, Chelsea, Leone, Mine, Tatsumi, Lubba, Pumpkin, Incursio, Imperial Arms
DBZ: Gohan, Goten, ChiChi, Goku, Tien, Zarbon, Dodoria, Ginyu, Appule, Banan, Sui (Banan and Sui were the Frieza soldiers Gohan and Krillin killed right after landing on Namek).
Hunter x Hunter: Gon, Meruem, Pitou, Pouf, Youpi, Chimera Ants, Leol, (though Rhino and Grizzly are some Chimera Ants I made up :p)
Game of Thrones: Malko
One Piece: Rob Lucci, Crocodile, Spartan, Boa Hancock, Chopper
Soul Eater: Death the Kid, Patty, Liz, Soul, Maka, Black Star, Tsubaki
Kingdom Hearts: Donald, Goofy, Heartless
Yu Yu Hakusho: Kuwabara, Yukina
Tokyo Ghoul: Tsukiyama Shuu
Boku no Hero Academia: Mezo Shoji
Assassination Classroom: Akari Yukimura
Hunger Games: Thresh
Bleach: Espada, Aizen, shinigami, Ichimaru Gin
-And I think that's everyone, but if not let me know in a review and I'll tell you where I got the character from (since they don't belong to me).
joebob323 chapter 67 . Oct 30
Oh no. I can already see the distrust brewing in the group. Kirito has trust issues, Luffy can't unite with his crew, Gray has lost an arm, Goku and Timmy are out of commission as of now, Usopp can't trust Riku, Riku feels guilty for letting Sora down and suffers from split personality disorder, Most of the rest of the crew is left behind, and Kairi is in the middle of the enemy base. Great! What did I miss? Oh right. Juvia and Killua will be having slight cravings for blood, not much of a problem right? _
Thanks for the review! Lots of trust issues with our heroes (who will be back next part of this chapter so don't worry!), and they have been separated, though at least half of them managed to stay together? At least one positive in all the chaos! Where are Goku and Timmy? Answers to this persisting question will arrive THIS CHAPTER on NEXUS: HEROES WILL RISE! XD
Limit-Breaking chapter 67 . Oct 30
I have to say both of these stories are very good and i will admit it takes a long time to read them but it's so worth reading. Also Please bring in super saiyan 4 im just dying to see that transformation in this fanfic.
Always happy to have another reader! Glad you enjoyed the stories so far and we'll see about SSJ4... XD Thanks for the review!
Guest chapter 67 . Oct 30
it's me and what a another awesome chapter, natsu takes down sozin, I think azula knows sozin died sense read she left the city and I wonder if well see her again, one more question for azula, is she married to yonji, and for killua glad he didn't die, but poor black canary, foly, and dunn, well at least superboy is still on his feet, I'm also surprised to see ulquiorra's first appearance, and zoro finally meet up with his captain. love this chapter see you later and have a good day.
Hey there Me! Thanks for another review! News of Sozin's death spread pretty fast so even if she did not know while she bailed on the train, she would have definitely found out fast. Azula is married to Yonji, tried to mention them saying "husband" and "wife" a couple times to make that clear. Dinah! Foley! Dunn! Don't know if you meant Ramirez is still alive, since he did vanish during the fight with Ulquiorra, but if you meant Superboy then I guess that's right too, though we did not see him last chapter. Glad you enjoyed the chapter and I hope you liked the new one! Thanks again to everyone who read, reviewed, faved, and followed this story! Well, 'til next time!