The little demon appears right in front bloody wall, dressed in a painter outfit and a clipboard. He seems to be filling up some form on the board, examining the red dye wall.
-Hmm, just like I thought. We have here ourselves a serious case of bloody wall. And the cost to this eggshell white color is through the roof, and don't make me mention the cost to fix up the cracks on the wall.
The demon scribbles some more on the paper and after a while he smiles like he is proud of what he has done, showing off the result of it (a budget sheet with a several fuzzy lines and at the bottom of the page 3 detailed drawn gold bags).
-TA DA! Here's the budget, not too shabby if I say myself. Huh? What happened here? Didn't you see last chapter? Are you retarded? I don't have time to talk to you, I have to gather supplies for this.
*****
The moonlight illuminates the area where the blood was spattered. Kyle is trembling on the ground, covered in blood and completely scared. The beast man in front of him was too intimidated for him to stand up.
-J-j-j-jay…S-s-stacy…
The beast man slowly turns around, and as he faces Kyle he sees a huge circular wound on his chest. Looking into his animal like face, Kyle realizes that he's unconscious and bleeding from every orifice. As their pursuer takes one more step, he collapses. Behind him, Jay and Stacy are embracing each other with their eyes closed, right next to someone unfamiliar. This stranger suddenly get on one knee, starting to cough up blood himself. Jay gets up and tries to help their savior.
-Sir, are you ok? Thank you for…
Just as Jay touched him, he was immediately pin down.
-Where is he?
-Wha- Who are you talking about? I can't breathe…
-Let go of him. You c-
-Where is the owner of that jacket? He would never leave this behind. WHERE IS LEO?!
-Wait, wait.
-I saved you from that beast only because it seemed he would kill you and then I would not get my answer. But I will do whatever it takes to get the Leo whereabouts of you. I… cough, cough
Suddenly, Jax collapse right over Jay. The runaway trio was speechless with everything that happened. Before they took a moment to just realize what happened, they heard people coming.
-Jay, we have to go.
-Kyle, help me put this guy on my back. Stacy, you go on Kyle's back.
-But Jay, why should we take him with us?
-Didn't you hear him? He knows and is concerned about Leo, and is about the same age. I'm guessing he is his brother Jax. We can't leave Leo's brother here. We will leave the city now, we are going to the old man's farm.
Kay helped out putting an out cold Jax on Jay's back. Determined, they leave before they had more unwanted company.
*****
A recognizable face of a certain Nation squad leader was horrified, and trying to escape from the place where he was, crawling.
-No, no, no… I want to live, I WANT TO LIVE!
He hears the steps getting close, he knows his time is coming to an end. His legs are mangled due to his fierce opponent, his body covered of multiple wounds and the cold air surrounding the area makes unforgettable each strike.
-Please, please…
The Nation squad leader has no ceasing tears flowing from his eyes, which slowly freeze as his target approaches. His blonde hair is dyed with some red blood, his arms are all burnout from the cold with dark blue coloration, and the previous ice demonic arms emerging from his back. However Leo didn't seem to be conscious and advanced without a care. Around them, the bodies of the rest of the Nation squad are spread, with traces of Leo's attacks.
-Arghhhh…
One of the Nation henchmen was still alive, but not for long. Without looking Leo waved his left arm, making his left back ice claw to crush him. Only a pudd of blood was left on the gelid hand.
-YOU MONSTER! You will feel the Nation wraith!
Leo seems unfazed by his words, and calmly walks to him.
"Why did this have to happen? We didn't know that a fucking monster like him would be the target. I will lose my life witho-"
Leo clapped his hands, and his demonic hands smash the man in front of him. Leos smiled as the hot blood gush hit his face; his vision starts to blurry, all the power he used is not something his body can handle. He staggers a little but in vain; Lights out for the 'Ice Drifter', the final piece among the massacre scene he provided. Just as the silence took place, an annoyed merchant genius takes Leo by his shirt collar and drags him out of there.
"We leave this guy some time alone and this is what happens. This kid gets in all kind of troubles, and look at the scene he left…why me huh? Why does my fate does this to me…And now that I know of this one, I don't know where Jax is. Damn"
Lost in his melancholic and self-pity thoughts, Kai pulls Leo out of the streets leaving behind a trail of gelid yet beautiful destruction behind.
*****
Jax opens his eyes, still dizzy of the overuse of his ability. He instantly remembers the last moments before passing out and gets high alert. Jax notices he is on a barn, and he was left on a straw bed. His neck has some bandages, as someone had nursed him.
-Glad to see you are awake now.
Jax looks to a cheeky Jay and sees once again he is wearing Leo's jacket, and grabs him by his shirt, in a threatening way.
-I will ask you one last time: where is Leo, the owner of that jacket?
-Calm down, please. You are hurting me. You are Jax right? His brother.
-How do you know that?
-He told us about you, a gloomy guy who would search for him anytime. I guess he was right, you are uptight.
Jax let go Jay, loosens up a bit of his tension and starts to feel the drawback damage of his own ability. He notices the presence of Stacy and Kyle, who look scared of him.
-Don't worry about anything now, they are still suspicious of you. Get down and rest. Your brother is on the other room, you can see him later.
Before anyone could stop him, Jax run to the door and enter in the other room. There he saw an exhausted Kai sitting leaning on the wall on one side, and on the other side a water stone tank. Inside the tank, Leo was submerged in ice cold water and surrounded by a dark blue essentia. Jax as he got closer, noticed the signs of the overuse of Leo's ability across his body: both Leo's arms and chest were dark due to the icy burns of the drawback.
-Hey Jax. Nice to see ya. Hihihihi.
-I knew it! You were in danger, weren't you? Why didn't you stay low as we told you to? Who did this to you?
-And I knew you would be like this, that's why I told the brats to keep you in the other room until I got there.
-Sorry big bro Leo. He just rush out when I told that you were here.
Jax turned his attention to Kai, and decided to ask him the questions.
-You seem tired Kai. Where are we?
-Of course I am tired! I drag Leo from that battlefield to this place and then I made an essentia transfer to him, to open up his clogged essentia channels. We are lucky that this bastard is a water elemental type, so it is easier to apply an old patch supplier technique I knew. However this drains out almost my whole essentia pool just to restore a quarter of his essentia level.
-Yeah, you are a cool guy Kai. Who knew you would have some patcher skills. Hihihihi
-Don't laugh! You are always putting us in situations like this! And to respond to your other question, you have to ask the kids, they were the ones who came up with this place.
Jax looked back to Jay and the others, and they flinched.
-T-t-this is the house of our father. He died last year, and we used this place as our home base. It's right outside the city.
-What happened to your father?
-He…
-He was caught helping an injured rebel, so he was imprisoned. Then he was tortured as he didn't say what he knew about them. Our father was someone kind, and he always stood up for what he thought it was right. That's the main reason we decided to fight alongside the rebellion.
-We try to help the rebels across Serpens city, but we are too weak to fight with them. We were going to give up, but Lima give us an opportunity to make something we believed in. She used this city's victims to turn into informants and made a network of it. And now the people we swore to protect gave her up…and she's gone.
Silence took over the room and remained like that for some time. Leo was the one that got up from the tank.
-Leo, stop moving! You have to remain still for you to recover some more. We have to get out of here.
-Yes, we have to get out of here. There's something I need to do before we go away.
-What is that?
Leo puts on his shirt, gets back from Jay his coat and goes to the door. There he looks back to them.
-That kid is right, we have to stood up for what we think is right. I'm going to save Lima.
*****