Arc 4: What families entail
Road to a Hero:
Three chances in another world
Chapter 50. So long and thanks for all the trauma
The city burns a bright orange. The smoke covers the city making it difficult to breathe and the soot falling from the sky doesn't help. Rosemary battles Calgary by herself and is currently doing pretty well.
Calgary: “YOU CAN’T BEAT ME! I WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN!”
Rosemary: “Really? You can’t even go into the fourth stage now. And you can barely…stay in the third. As far as I’m concerned you lost the second the fight started.”
Calgary: “DAMMIT, DON’T YOU FUCK WITH ME! I WILL KILL YOU RIGHT HERE!”
Rosemary wipes sweat off her brow and shakes her body. Calgary tries to enter the third stage but to no avail, so he’s forced to go into the second. Rosemary was barley hanging on within the third, swinging her fist faster than his. He takes a step back. However, due to the pressure his body is under his ankle crumbles. He screams out in pain and tries to crawl away from Rosemary after being knocked away. He tries and tries and crawls and crawls. She slowly walks behind him, and once she gets up to him she grabs him by his collar and throws him into a wall. She puts her hand on his throat and grips tightly.
Rosemary: “What really happened the day the Golden Knights died!?”
Calgary: “I told you…we got attacked and Judge -”
Rosemary punches Calgary in the face, breaking his nose.
Rosemary: “TELL THE TRUTH!”
Calgary: “OKAY, DAMN!...it was the Sects leaders I think…Judge sold us out…and four scary guys started walking up. The leader…his gray slim wrinkled body…and that flat pale face…w…his nose looked like bats’... his teeth were all crooked and cracked…and he had a sharp tooth on each side of his mouth similar to a vampire from the fantasy books…and he was also bald…his image will be forever burned into my mind…”
Rosemary: “That’s so strange…that sounds like Prometheus and I think he’s the leader…but when I saw him he looked like a boney jester…now that you mention the teeth I think he had teeth similar, I should have been able to put that together. But vampires are fantasy, something in folklore and horror stories.”
Calgary: “That’s not all…They were all fucking terrifying…the skeleton had like a deer skull…with glowing green pupils inside a black eye hole. He had this aura…like he was death incarnate. And one of them looked like he had somewhat of a snake look. The snake-like teeth, his sunken eyes, white hair, and scaly skin.”
Rosemary: “I saw a guy similar to the snake…his name was Severus. But I didn’t see the deer skull one…I did see a human skeleton though…with similar eyes to what you’re describing.”
Calgary: “Oh and there was one more, a big slender bird-looking thing. It was normal armor but it had bat wings wrapped around it and this curved beak on the helmet.”
Rosemary: “I've seen that one. Prometheus, Lazarus, Severus, and Pandora. From your descriptions they’re similar but your version sounds more otherworldly. Like our versions were fake.”
Calgary: “That’s all I know…I swear.”
Rosemary: “I believe you…and now I really will be the last Golden Knight.”
Calgary: “WAIT, WAIT!”
Rosemary pushes her arm into the fourth stage and hits Calgary's face so hard that it caves in. She falls back, breathing heavily looking at her broken, blood-stained hand. And with a heavy sigh, a massive weight finally leaves Rosemary's body. Leo and Julius then walk up to her and nod. They begin to lead her back to Beauregard's room and walk back to the broken window.
Rosemary: “DEMA COME ON!”
Dema flies around and lands inside the castle, so they get on her.
Rosemary: “Shit…we’re we going?”
Leo: “Edward is near the shore so he should be fine for a bit. But we still need to help him.”
Julius: “And we don’t know where Gray is. Caesar led him off somewhere.”
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Rosemary: “Gray…we need to go to Gray. If Edwards' group lost then it would be a waste to go there, but if they won I'd assume they're safe since they're near the sea and not in the city. Dema should be able to track Gray…they’re connected in a way.”
Leo: “Good call, I respect it. Now let’s go.”
Rosemary: “Dema! Go find Gray okay?”
Dema squeaks and dives out of the castle, flying over the burning capital. It’s a horrible sight, screaming panicking people trying to run left. Lava seeps into every part of the city, permanently destroying it.
Leo: “Athens…is gone…”
Dema leads them toward the western side of the Athens wall. Rosemary looks around and notices Gray sitting beside Caesar's deceased body.
Rosemary: “GRAY!”
Rosemary jumps off Dema and runs up to Gray. She hugs him but he’s unresponsive, showing no emotion. He gets up, shakes his face, and slaps his cheeks. Suddenly his eyes brighten up and a smile forms on his face.
Gray: “I'm glad to see you're safe."
Rosemary: "What happened!?"
Gray: "Caesars responsible for all this, or the Sect as a whole is. And I...I took him out. We gotta go.”
Leo: “Get on.”
Gray: “What about Edward and Soku?”
Julius: “We’ll just have to go get them.”
Then a boom in the distance, a cannonball that fires right into the side of the wall, getting all of their attention. Gray runs to go see what’s going on, leaning over the wall to see two ships in the water. He looks even closer and notices Edward, Soku, and Peter waving them on.
Leo: “Who the hell’s driving the…DAD!?”
They all get on Dema and fly towards the ships, landing on the main ship. Leo walks up to the captain of the ship who’s sitting by the wheel drinking.
Leo: “Dad?”
Lincoln: “Oh hey Leo, reunion later we gotta get out of here!”
Leo: “The hell happened to your face, what’s with the covering?”
Lincoln: “New technique, had to use it to kill that assassin that killed your uncle Froid.”
Leo: “Oh, HEY! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!?”
While they catch up Gray and the others run up to a recovering Edward and Soku.
Gray: “YOU GUYS MADE IT!”
Edward: “Yeah, all thanks to Lincoln.”
Rosemary: “So that’s the great Lincoln Valentine, I can’t believe he’s right there…nevermind that, SOKU YOU BEAT HIM!”
Rosemary hugs Soku, squeezing her broken bones.
Soku: “Yeah…OW, OW! STOP!”
Peter: “Lincoln told us he thought something was up, so he was gonna leave on his ship. Because of the volcano's lava, he had to pull around the other side of the island and he saw us on the bay!”
Gray: “Lucky, and the other ship?”
Soku: “One we stole from the pirates. Most of the Red Arrows are on that one.”
Julius: ‘We cannot sail to Greenvale. We will have to get off the boats back on the mainland.”
Leo pushes his father, smacking the booze out of his hand.
Leo: “YOU LEFT US! WE NEEDED YOU! You could have stopped Beauregard…AND NOW HE’S DEAD!”
Lincoln: “Oh nice you killed him. Guess you won the war.”
Leo: “Won the…WON THE WAR!? MY BROTHER IS DEAD, YOUR SON FELL TO HIS DEATH! Or he survived the fall and bled out, or he burned to death…it was terrible…AND YOU DON’T CARE!? ATHENS IS GONE, THOUSANDS BURNED ALIVE, AND MORE ARE LEFT WITHOUT HOMES!”
Lincoln: “It’s what comes with war. Oh, and I made a promise to Edward down there that I would help you guys in the Sect thing or whatever.”
Leo: “I DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT! I -”
Lincoln conks Leo on the head and begins to sail the ship back to Walgonias shore.
Gray: “There's gonna be a lot of people on the other side of this bridge.”
Edward: “Ugh…you know I might have to rest, I’m in a lot of pain.”
Rosemary: “I agree. Soku, Edward you need to lie down.”
Gray: “HEY! THEY’RE TRYING TO GET OUT OF HELPING!”
Soku: “Ooooh Rosemary, heeeeelp…”
Rosemary: “Gray!, don’t be so abrasive.”
Gray: “Bleh.”
Lincoln: “LAND HO!”
They park the ships on the beach and all walk off of them. They get to the other side and find a bunch of covered wagons.
Gray: “The hell’s happening?”
Gray runs up the beach to see what’s going on. Hundreds of refugees were covered in ash as well as luggage, bodies laying on the ground, and dead burnt bodies. Most of the people are getting in the wagon, being helped by men wearing knight uniforms.
Gray: “Shit…Sect knights.”
One of the knights walks up to Gray, and Gray readies himself.
Gray: “Look dude I don’t want any trouble.”
The knight takes off his helmet revealing himself to be Jong, back in uniform.
Gray: “JONG!”
Jong: “GRAY!”
Jong gives Gray a big hug, squeezing his back.
Gray: “What are you doing here?”
Jong: “Well I got a bunch of my men and we're gonna help you with the civil war! But when we got here we found a bunch of people in need of help and the damn volcano erupting!”
Gray: “Can you give us a ride?”
Jong: “Yeah sure, we were sending some fired knights to Greenvale so you can hitch a ride with them. Two already left but the last one is about to leave. It’s the one with the red top.”
Gray: “Nice, thanks man! GUYS COME ON FOLLOW ME!”
The Red Arrows converse with the knights while Gray's group gets into a wagon, ending their time in Athens and finally going back to Walgonia.
A few hours pass and the flames of Athens die down. Crawling on the ground, with more broken bones than solid ones. Burnt skin and a gash in his side crawls a lost and broken man. Breathe in, Breath out. Coughing again and again, crawling inch after inch, covered in soot. The disheveled woman looks up to see a figure clouded in dark smoke. The woman waves the smoke away revealing his form. The woman is dressed in the robes of the Sect, white mask and all. The woman takes his mask off, and she looks pretty normal, with purple eyeliner and navy blue lipstick. She looks into the sky and starts to laugh, then her skin starts to peel and blister, turning a pale white. Her body gets slimmer, becoming very boney, her eyes turn a sunken black, and her teeth turn yellow and curve.
She starts to chuckle, reaching her hand to the burned man's face and touching him. He feels his burnt skin heal, but the damage has taken its toll, permanently scarring his body. He feels the gash on his side has also turned into a jagged scar.
The woman reaches into her pocket, takes something similar to their communicator out, and holds it in the air, still touching the burnt man. Then the communicator begins to glow a dark red. The ground beneath them gets a big version of the Sects symbol burned into it, and it erupts in bright light. Then the woman begins to speak with a familiar voice.
Prometheus: “Come on Beauregard, I want to show you my home.”
Their bodies get enveloped and dispersed into the bright light, which gets sucked back down into the ground. With the only evidence of anything happening being the Sects symbol still left in the ground, which begins to get covered in soot and ash.
End of Chapter Fifty