Chapter 48
Cold, Sweet Revenge
Erin approached the door to General Lune’s room with strong steps. Despite all the wounds and exhaustion weighing her down, the redheaded assassin moved like she was full of energy. The truth was that her body was practically screaming in pain from all it had gone through, but sheer determination and willpower kept pushing her forward. She wouldn’t allow herself to rest until she had finished her business with Lune.
It didn’t take long for her to reach the door to the office. She gripped the doorknob tightly, as she slowly opened it and walked inside. She looked around the room and wasn’t surprised to see it decorated with expensive-looking furniture and other objects. Fancy paintings lined the walls, most of them depicting Lune himself in various glorified situations, and there were all sorts decorations covering table made from exquisite and expensive metals, with large jewels sunk into them. At the end of the office was a large desk that had been decorated with intricate carvings and a large leather chair behind it. The room reminded Erin a lot of Gibbot’s mansion, with how much wealth was being displayed.
There was a person sitting on the chair behind the desk, but their back was turned towards the intruder. Instead of looking over who had just walked in, they seemed to be more interested in watching some movie on a large TV that was on the wall.
“Is that you, little Ray?” the familiar voice of Lune called out, not even bothering to look behind him. “Did you take care of those pests that came here uninvited? The noise was so bad a few times that I couldn’t hear the dialogue! Is there no good help around here anymore!?”
Erin felt her blood boil with rage. She and her friends had risked their lives in coming here, and The Four War Maidens had faced them with their own lives on the line. The utter disregard to the people around him made the general an even more despicable person than before.
“Ray’s not coming back. She’s dead,” the redheaded assassin said as calmly as she could, causing Lune to turn around immediately. “And you’re next!”
“What the-!? How is this possible!?” the general asked in a panicked tone as he stood up from his seat. “What happened to The Four War Maidens!? They were supposed to stand guard! What are those idiots doing!?”
“You shouldn’t be worrying about them right now. What you need to worry about is yourself,” Erin said as she began to slowly move towards her target. “You’ve done quite a lot of bad things, you see. And now is the time to pay for everything you’ve done.”
“Y-Y-Y-YOU FOOL! DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH WHATEVER YOU’RE PLANNING TO DO TO ME!?” Lune screamed while trying desperately to hide his fear. “I am not just some small time magistrate, like Gibbot! I’m an actual general! I respond directly to one of the three warlords of the Western Continent! The moment you so much as touch me, is the moment you sign your own execution! All of the armies of the world will be coming after you! There isn’t any hole dark enough for you to hide in! You will simply-!”
The general’s rant was interrupted, as Erin suddenly ran up to him and punched him right in the face. Lune fell to the floor, clutching his bleeding and broken nose, while overcome with disbelief over someone having the nerve to actually hit him.
He looked up to see Erin stare at him with a cold look in her lone eye. This wasn’t someone scared of anything he could throw at her. There was simply a desire to cause him as much pain and misery as possible.
“Do you really think I care?” Erin asked coldly, making the general shiver. “Let me put this as simply as possible for you. Tonight you are going to die here and there is not a damn thing that you can do to save yourself from that fate.”
“O-Okay, I can see that there happen to be some… issue between the two of us,” Lune said in a trembling voice, finally realizing how much the redheaded assassin hated him. “But I’m sure we can solve this without anymore violence, okay? I can offer you pretty much anything you could ever want! Do you want money? Power? Or-”
A kick to the face cut off the general’s offers.
“No. No offers. No pleas. No more talking,” Erin said while gritting her teeth in anger. “Just shut up and get ready to die.”
“Gah! I tried to be nice and reasonable! Tried to make you a good offer!” Lune cursed as he grabbed a pistol out of his jacket. “GO TO-!”
The general tried to point his gun at the assassin, only to have his hand cut off with one swift movement of Erin’s blade. Lune watched with wide eyes as his hand fell to the floor, before screaming in pain and holding his bleeding stump.
image [https://i.ibb.co/cTjDNWw/Ch-48-Pic-1.jpg]
“Do you even remember all the people that you’ve killed!? People that never did anything wrong!?” Erin yelled in sheer rage. “The people of Rockmoore Town!? The people from the slums of Grand Ravine!? DO YOU REMEMBER ANY OF THEM!?”
“I do! I do! I’m sorry!” Lune apologized while weeping openly from fear. “I’m only a member of the military! All I do is what I’m told to do! I never wanted to hurt anyone! Please!”
Erin didn’t even need the visions that started to appear in her mind after cutting off Lune’s hand to tell that he was lying. All the horrible crimes that he had done were simply for his own pleasure. He had never taken others into consideration and only saw people in terms of how much use they could be to him.
In short, Lune was nothing more than a monster that deserved his punishment.
However, while Erin wanted nothing more than to cut the general into pieces, she had to hold herself back. She knew that her friends had far more resentment towards him than she did. The redheaded assassin could only hope that they would arrive there soon, before she lost control over herself.
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Just as she was starting to lose control, a familiar voice called out from behind her.
“Hey, Erin! We saw that you managed to beat Ray!” Ryle yelled as she, along with Lexton and Arkay ran to the office. “Pretty damn impressive, but are you-?”
The blonde stopped herself upon seeing the man on the floor in front of Erin. She immediately recognized the person who was responsible for the death of her younger brother.
“Hey… Erin, is that who I think it is?” Ryle asked with wide eyes as she stared at Lune.
“Yeah. It’s Lune,” Erin answered. “Glad you guys arrived here in time. I was starting to lose control of myself.”
The redheaded assassin turned around and walked past her friends, who were all simply staring at Lune with wide eyes. Just as she got past them, she looked back at Ryle and said one thing.
“He’s all yours.”
Almost as if on command, Ryle, Arkay and Lexton walked up to the general, who was still sobbing over his lost hand. He looked up to see three faces staring at him with barely contained anger. It didn’t take long for Lune to realize what they were after.
“I-I get that you all might be a bit upset with me and I’m sorry for whatever I might have done to you,” the general tried to plead for his life. “B-But I’m sure we can make a deal! All you need to do is help me and-”
A kick to the jaw from Ryle cut off Lune’s bargaining.
“Not gonna work this time, asshole,” the blonde said coldly, before turning to her two companions. “So, who wants to go first? Arnie?”
Upon being called, the cat boy stepped up to Lune. For such as a gentle soul as himself, Arkay had a shockingly furious look on his face. He took out his knife and held it tightly in his grip.
“Kid, I can give you anything you want!” the general pleaded. “Just name it and you’ll have it! I swear!”
“Can you bring me my parents that you killed?” Arkay asked as a couple of tears fell from his eyes. Upon hearing the question, Lune went completely silent. “I thought so.”
Without any warning, the cat boy plunged his knife into Lune’s shoulder, causing him to scream out in pain. The pain was soon intensified by the electrical shock that ran through his body, courtesy of Arkay’s magical weapon.
Now it was Lexton’s turn to get his bit of revenge. He walked up to Lune and stared at him with cold, hateful eyes.
“It wasn’t enough for you and your goons to persecute and abuse my kind, but you even went so far as to jail my father! All just to get your hands on our knowledge in regards to runes and enchanting!” the kobold yelled. “What the hell do you have to say for yourself!?”
“F-For love of God, that wasn’t my fault! It was your fault!” the general yelled in desperation. “If your kind hadn’t been so freaking stubborn and had just given us what we wanted, we wouldn’t have-!”
Upon hearing the excuse, Lexton pulled out a small vial from his jacket. This was something he had been saving up just for Lune specifically. It was very potent acid that would leave some very bad burns on anybody that was unlucky enough to have it poured on them, which was something the kobold did to the general without hesitation. Lune screamed in agony as the acid burned the right side of his face.
“That won’t be enough to kill you, but it will leave you with a nasty scar for the rest of your life,” Lexton said coldly as he stepped back. “Not that it’s going to be all that long.”
Lastly, it was Ryle’s turn. She walked up to the man responsible for the death of his younger brother and stood over him, staring down at him like a piece of garbage.
“Okay, what did do to you!?” Lune asked desperately. “What the hell could I have done to you to piss you off this badly!?”
Asking that question was a big mistake, as it only served to make the blonde even angrier than before. She grabbed the general by the throat and lifted him up. He was starting to struggle to breathe, as his throat was being constricted by Ryle.
“You… YOU BASTARD! YOU ACTUALLY HAVE THE NERVE TO FORGET ABOUT WHAT YOU DID TO ME!?” the blonde roared in anger. “Does the name Zachary Rafford even ring a bell!? As someone you made a deal with!? Someone you betrayed!? SOMEONE YOU HAD KILLED!?”
“I… I can’t… remember… everyone!” Lune managed to choke out despite being strangled. “Do you think… I bother… remembering… everyone I… meet!?”
Upon hearing the general’s answer, Ryle slammed him to the floor. Lune coughed up blood and one could hear his bones breaking from the impact.
“Wrong answer, asshole,” Ryle said, before turning her attention to Arkay. “Arnie, you think you could light him up for me?”
The cat boy only gave a nod in response, as he summoned flames on his hand and shot them out at Lune, whose clothes immediately caught on fire. The general began to scream in horror as he tried to desperately put out the fire with his arms.
However, this was not the end of what Lune’s three executioners were planning to do to him, as Ryle once again moved in to attack. This time, the blonde used her whip to wrap it around the general’s neck, before using her weapon to throw him through the window.
Lune managed to let out one final scream, before hitting the ground and losing his life.
It was done. The group finally had gotten their revenge. Despite this, there was no joy, cheer or celebration. Just silence, as Erin and the others looked at what remained of their hated enemy.
“Is… Is it over now?” Arkay asked, breaking the silence. “What do we do now?”
“I’d say the first thing for us to do is to get out of here,” Erin replied. “While the soldiers of this base might be distracted for now, it won’t take long for them to-”
Almost as if on cue, they heard the sound of troops approaching the door. Lexton and Arkay quickly went to take a peek and see what they were dealing with. To their shock and horror, the force sent to apprehend them was quite big.
“Okay, I’m not going to sugarcoat this at all. We’re screwed,” Lexton said bluntly. “Not only did we see at least a dozen armed soldiers, but they also had a battle armor with them that’s pretty much covered in weaponry.”
“That… Sounds very bad for us,” Erin stated, as she tried to think of a way to get out of their predicament, while Ryle went to take a look at the oncoming force. “Arnie, do you think you could take over the battle armor and use it to attack the other soldiers?”
“I… It might be risky, but I’m willing to try,” Arkay answered. “If I use my invisibility spell to sneak behind them, I could possibly have enough time to take it over with my technomancer ability.”
“That’s way too risky. You’d be going on a suicide mission,” the redheaded assassin said sternly. “Not happening.”
“B-But we might not have any other-!”
“Don’t worry, Arnie. I’ve got an idea,” Ryle suddenly said while looking at her companions with a smirk. “You guys just wait by the window, while I get this done.”
Despite not knowing what their blonde friend was planning, the others did as they had been told and got close to the window. The confidence Ryle had spoken with had somewhat convinced them that she did indeed have an idea, so they were now waiting to see what she had planned.
Ryle herself got ready to put her plan into action. She pulled out her whip, before suddenly kicking open the door. The soldiers were taken aback by this for a very small moment, having not expected one of their enemies to come charging at them like that. Despite being able to regain their composure very quickly, it was too late for them. That small moment had been all Ryle had needed.
She quickly swung her whip at the battle armor. It wrapped around a rocket launcher on its shoulder, where she then sent the last electric charge her weapon had into. The shock caused the weapon to explode, which not only took out the battle armor but some of the other soldiers as well. The troopers were now in complete panic, as fire and smoke from the explosion had taken over the hallway they were in.
However, knowing that this would only hold them off for a moment at best, Ryle put away her weapon and ran towards her companions. None of them managed to say anything, before getting picked up by the blonde, who then jumped through the window and protected herself from any damage from the fall by using her ki.
image [https://i.ibb.co/sQk2pWW/Ch-48-Pic-2.jpg]
“Holy freaking shit, Ryle! Would you mind and warn us next time you’re going to do something like that!?” Erin yelled angrily as she was being carried by the blonde. “You scared the crap out of me and I’m pretty sure Arnie and Lex have both fainted!”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby! I got us out of there, didn’t I!?” Ryle said back as she kept carrying all of her companions. “With the way I’m going, we’ll be out of here in a matter of seconds!”
Erin hated to admit it, but her blonde friend’s plan had worked and they soon made their way out of the base. However, as they were escaping, the question Arnie had asked earlier came to her mind.
Now that Lune was dead, what was next?