"Will he be okay?!" I yell.
"Only time will tell, he's in critical condition right now," responds Tyson.
After Will gave out, Miranda and I brought him back to our headquarters as fast as we could. He just went into the operation room, carried in a stretcher unable to respond to my countless cries.
Ever since the first day I've met Will when we were kids; he's been a goofy, carefree guy. I liked that about him; we kept each other in balance. But, during that last mission he was completely different. That expression he showed me before he fainted radiated something along the lines of: only one of us has to die here. Please, please don't die on me Will. We have our whole lives ahead of us. You gotta see me achieve my dream. Please, please don't die on me Will.
That's when it happened. All the monitors turned on and a person wearing a skull mask appeared on the screen.
"Hello? Hello? I hope this is going to the right place. Hey! Hold it up properly, get my good side. Ok I'm going to start now. So, my name is Skull. I am currently the head of the allied rebel forces. My goal is really simple; I want to completely, utterly destroy Amphibia. Congratulations on getting back Thedas! You've worked really hard but I'm sorry to say that you have to work a bit harder. I've single handedly taken back Thedas! I know you're probably losing your head but please continue to listen. Soon I'm going to proceed on to my final mission but before that I would like a little skirmish with the numbers. I wanna show you guys that I'm the real deal. So come on along back to Thedas. I'll be waiting. P.S. if you don't show up, I'll burn this city to the ground and kill every single person here. No pressure," says Skull.
**********
We're just outside the gates of Thedas. We as in Miranda, Marcus, Tony (number 3), Bianca (number 4) and I. Marcus was enlisted for this mission as this is an emergency situation and his services are needed.
Marcus is acting weird, usually this guy can't help but glare at me. Now, he won't look at me at all. I know this is impossible to believe but he genuinely looks scared of me. He looks at me differently now, like I'm a monster. Just what was his punishment? How did he turn out like this?
Our group enter Thedas and carefully start inspecting all areas of the city. When we get to the middle where the explosion occurred just earlier that day, we see him.
Skull is sitting casually on a chair right in the middle of the city where the explosion took place. He gets up as soon as he sees us approaching.
"Welcome to my city! I don't want to waste any time; I want to see how strong the numbers are! Are you guys as strong as the previous numbers, I wonder?," Skull questions.
Previous numbers? There were numbers before us? I made a mental note to myself to ask Tyson about this after this is done. No, I'll ask Dr. Animus directly. I have to get to the bottom of this. It feels like the numbers are being kept in the dark about certain things by Dr. Animus and the higher ups. Alright, I'll do that but now I have to focus on Skull.
Skull blows a whistle and about a 100 or so rebel soldiers come out into the middle of the city. They each hold out a skull mask just like Skull's and put it on. The real skull goes and joins them; putting the whistle in his pocket.
"Who's the real skull, I wonder?," they say.
"It's me!," one shouts.
"No it's me!," another announces.
"Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!," they chant.
This is stupid. Will and I took care of 200 soldiers right here earlier today. Now there are 5 of us and only about 100 of them. I smile to myself, Skull is going to get stopped here. Then all of this will be over; the rebel groups will lose their idiotic leader and crumble before us.
The group of skull heads stop chanting and without warning, charge at us.
We rush to intercept. As soon as we collide, the enemies' numbers dwindle exponentially. All is well until I receive a punch to my gut. That's when I knew what true pain was. I fall to the ground, clutching my stomach and just lie there. I hear four more furious blows and four more bodies dropping to the ground. We had already lost. There's nothing more we can do; all of us are immobilized.
The remaining group of soldiers clear away and take off their skull masks. Skull remains where we lay, defeated.
"I'm disappointed," Skull says, "I'll let you guys live for today. The next time we meet, you guys are either on my side or you're getting killed by yours truly. You have until then to decide if you want to live. We will meet again, very soon I assure you. Until then, take care and you can have Thedas back. This city will be gone when I eradicate Amphibia anyways."