A man comes running out the door of a burning, crippled, collapsing and unstable apartment building naked and into a field of screaming and dying fighters. Following him from behind is a caramel-skinned boy wearing a blue tracksuit top, greyish pants and resting a katana on his shoulder. The boy steadily and calmly walks in the direction of the man, tapping the head of his katana on the ground calling out for him
"Oh Baaaaaaaarooooooon! Where are youuu?!" He calls out to him playfully
"Come on Baron! You're supposed to be the strongest, aren't you?! Don't run away from me, if you do ill never know how strong you really are"
He says to Baron but receives no answer. Baron just continues to run, only hearing the sound of exhaustion in his own breath
"Huff, huff, huff, huff"
His heavy breathing wouldn't cease because his legs wouldn't stop. He had run, and ran and ran without even looking back once. He did not even know he was exhausted, neither did he know he was now ways away from the camp… Ways away from anyone coming to his side… ways away from being heard…ways away from salvation.
His legs refused to give in to their exhaustion. Fueled by his fear he ignored it, or rather… his legs ignored the signals his brain was sending. He just kept on running as he thought to himself
"There's no way! No way in hell I'm fighting that boy. He can't be ordinary, even if he has the power of the suit like me, he's just to strong. No, the boy is either a monster or a demon."
Baron, now in an area with pretty thick trees decided to slow down. As he did he decided to check to see if he had put any distance between him and the boy, he sees that there's no sign of the boy.
"Alright! I lost him. Maybe ill just keep running a little bit further, then ill hide and pick a spot to ambush him from that way when he passes I ca…"
"I. FOUND. YOU. BARON!"
The boy suddenly appeared before Baron. His fear in that moment hit its peak, causing Baron to trip over himself the moment he saw him. He was incapable of thinking quickly enough to escape the situation at hand and his exhaustion used that to shut his body down. After Baron fell, his legs wouldn't work anymore. So, he tried to crawl away from the boy. But he just followed him from behind playfully, indulging his futile efforts to try and escape. Almost like a child ready to kill a snail and rather than killing it quickly, the child torments the snail by playing with it and letting it see how far it can go since the child knows they can outrun it.
"You're a hard man to track down Baron and an even more difficult person to follow"
Baron crawls until his elbows start to bleed and can't carry him anymore. He then decides to crawl to the closest tree and rests on it.
"But how? How were you fast enough to keep up with me when I left the site before you and at full speed. I thought I put some distance between us?"
"No, you didn't silly. I mean, I was able to catch up to you by just walking here after all"
Barons blood curdles and his face starts to pour sweat
"Why? Why are you here? Who are you? What did I and my men ever do to you to cause a slaughter like this?"
"Oh! Did I not introduce myself? Ah! That doesn't really matter. Your going to be dead soon anyway"
"But what did I ever do to you?"
"Wow. Your surprisingly dense aren't you. Makes me question how you managed to make it this far…Just how many people do you think you've killed? Do you ever even remember your victims faces?"
"No! So, what if I don't?"
"Tsk! How sad. No wonder your so hated. If you can't even remember the people you kill… and their deaths really don't mean anything to you, it means you don't remember the woman you crucified. That woman struggled to keep herself alive until she could come in contact with someone willing to take vengeance for her in her name. with her dying breath she begged me to end your life! The woman I speak of… is the lady, Martin Muriel!"
"Wait…that name… no… your saying she was alive?! Impossible! I killed that bitch! She should have died"
"To bad for you. She, through the sheer force of will inside her… Mustered the strength to stay alive"
"When did this happen?"
"Her death and her final request? It happened 8hours ago at their clans camp"
[8 hours ago]
[Campsite wreckage]
[Site of Martin Muriel's death]
The kings of men arrive at the sight of a wrecked campsite. Most of the area has either collapsed or was burned. It looks as though all who belonged to this group were killed and crushed under the weight of the collapsing building. Those who did not die from the weight were held down in a spot and basically roasted to death by the fire that spread. As the kings of men look around they find nothing but charred corpses littered everywhere. Ethan happens to find a particular one that is most disturbing. From a few meters he sights a crisp looking hand sticking out from underneath the rubble. Thinking it was a survivor, Ethan rushes to it and begins to offload the rubble. Only to be disappointed by the site of a woman whose face was partially crushed by debris and her legs broken. It seemed as though she tried to claw her way out of the rubble but only managed to get her hand out before she suffocated and slowly roasted to death.
Far off from the others but not to far away, was Edward who was seen unsheathing his sword, he stuck it into the ground and sat down next to it, still holding onto the sword with his right hand. with him at the time was Cayafaz who stood next to him also resting his left hand on the top of hilt of the sword.
"What are we even doing here? Can't we just go!? There's nothing here for us to salvage, nothing here we can use, no one for us to talk to, there is nothing! Huff, huff, huff"
Yelled Ethan feeling overwhelmed by the sight of the bodies
"Everything that was here is either crushed or burned"
A gentle and merciful breeze blows through the camp and most things that burned but were still standing fall. Edward inhales the smell of burnt corpses and the ash of their flesh. He takes in all of that in one deep breath and then exhales
"You know… not everyone here was burned… some might have had it even worse than others"
Ethan shocked by Edwards statement approaches him to know what would make him say that. The rest of the kings of men drop all their doing and gather behind Edward and Cayafaz. That's when they see it. a pool of blood so wide and so deep you would think it was filled with the blood of several fully-grown men. The blood poured like a stream from a white wall and unto the floor and into the small pit that was now a pool
Their eyes followed the blood and as they traced it back to its origin. They saw a woman, her body crucified to the wall with two long swords inside her shoulder. The swords had been shoved so deep that only the kilt couldn't pass through…though they must have tried. Her arms extended but her hands had been cut off from her elbow. Her legs had been torn off and from the look of it, it was not a clean cut. They must have slowly sawed it off as to torture her. Her body left open and exposed, completely naked. Her nipples branded with all sorts and her flesh still sizzling. Her breasts scared and carved into with small dull blades and some knives resting inside her. Her body was covered in smoke and ashes and so was her face, so she was barely recognizable. The only thing that they could recognize on her ash colored face was her lips and eye which were both swollen and bruised
"I wonder how long she's been dead for"
"However long she was dead for doesn't matter. The real question on my mind is how long she suffered. She must have gone through an un-relatable amount of pain before she died"
"I did go through an un-bearable amount of pain and suffering for a time. But I'm not dead just yet"
Said the woman they thought to be a corpse
The others panicked, their blood curdled and they forgot to even put up their guard. But Edward and Cayafaz remained indifferent. Both had blank expressionless faces as if they knew this would happen and Ethan, just dropped to his knees with tears about to burst from his eyes
"How? How could you be struggling to stay alive with this condition you're in?"
Isabel followed, saying to the lady with great pain in her voice
"It can't be real…it can't be possible…you should be dead… Why the hell are you struggling to stay alive?!"
The woman coughed up a little bit of burnt flesh as she tried to clear her throat in an attempt to answer Isabel's question
"I was waiting to meet human beings, who would look upon my condition and show human emotion to my suffering. Alas I have found you."
She said out loud feeling relieved but within her she had a different thought
"But it seems as though those two didn't feel a thing. They weren't even surprised when I spoke…then the dark one…there's something about his eyes. why does he look at me like that? I feel...i feel something inside that one. Are the two of them human? Could I trust them? Why are they looking at me like that?"
Suddenly Cayafaz speaks
"What happened to you, and how?"
"Though the story itself is long ill explain it to you. Do you have the time?"
Cayafaz speaks "It was something like this that made us come down here in the first place. We have the time"
"Alright then. As I'm sure you know, survivors from the previous death games were already grouped up based on the number of survivors they had when they finished the games. In this second death games we were told to move with our team, but nothing was said about being able to bring others into your team. I'm sure on your way here you passed through many territories small groups of survivors claimed and gathered in"
"Yes, yes we did" Said Maya
"There they rested and added more to their forces. Despite what everyone might have thought, it seems the desire to escape hell made people willing to cooperate and work together. Since they travel in groups of large numbers due to the size of their forces, movement is pretty slow but with their numbers they are able to overpower chimera and small threat demons. In the situation overpowering wasn't an option because of exhaustion they would hide their forces in darkness and our group emulated that"
"So, your group was one of those clusters of survivors? If so what happened and who did this much damage? If you were hidden in the shadows to avoid clashes how were you found out?"
"About a week ago, we heard a rumor about a group that was going around. A group of survivors ranked number one based on their performance in the first death games, a group known as"
Edward lifts his head up and says
"The voices of Baron"
"Yes, the rumor said that they had spies in every camp. Some who pretended to defect from Baron's group and some who were selected from the other camps. They were the ones feeding info back to Baron in exchange for favors and protection for when his group would eventually raid. He would steal weapons, food, girls for sex slaves and boys to. He would kill some men and force the others to work for him. This was the rumor going around and it had started to spread after baron had slaughtered the first group of survivors. We weren't too concerned by this rumor, we decided to have faith in our comrades and teammates so we wouldn't fall to chaos and ruin. My husband, leader of our group did take some measures in case the rumors were true…but it wasn't enough"
"The spy was still able to send Baron info…he must have been someone you least expected. Any idea who it was?" Isabel asked
"Yes. A boy who worked for my husband. The two were always together and he was my husband's personal…"
"It must have been painful for you to find out he was the traitor" Maya said as she placed her hands on her chest
"But how did you find out?" Isabel asked
"When the attack started… it was like the night was what was attacking. They came like ghosts. We hid in the dark barely using any light to avoid being spotted. Lights were only used indoors and windows were boarded to avoid being seen. But the spy fed them the information and our location. They blended with the darkness far better than we did and struck from the shadows. Before we were even aware that the attack had started several of our men had already fallen. My husband and I were together and we rushed out to fight that was when their lights came on. We saw them approach from the south, my husband wasted no time and took-action. He called for his boy…but when we saw him he was running into the arms of the enemy…taking cover behind their troops as he cried and said 'forgive me'. Disgusting"
"So, you were surprised attacked, and in that attack, you discovered your traitor. Then what did you do?"
"My husband rallied some fighters with him and told me to go find our children. My two sons and my daughter who were doing security. My husband's orders are absolute so I did as he said and rushed to the children. When I got there, they were surrounded by some of Baron's men and heading their attack was one of Baron's generals. I along with some fighters I brought with me quickly dispatched of them and their general. We made it back to my husband… at least what was left of him"
"Baron killed him?" Asked Cayafaz
"No. he simply made him incapable of fighting. In my shock two sluts that worked for baron grabbed my children and pulled them over to the enemy side. I tried to get them back, but no matter how many soldiers I cut down I still couldn't reach my children. Eventually the slaughter stopped, Baron had told his men to stop and approached me himself. He offered me an official challenge and promised that if id win he would give me back my children and husband, but if lose he would break me"
"You didn't see that it was a trap?"
"I didn't care! *as she screams and struggles blood pours out of her injuries* He had my husband and children. What exactly where you expecting me to do. For the most part, when we fought nothing suspicious happened. No tricks, no lies, no ploys. We were even equal in combat ability from what it seemed...but then I noticed. Though it wasn't exactly a trap…the battle was more of a ruse, a distraction to keep me preoccupied while his soldiers could play with my children like their new toys or trophies! They were sexually harassing my sons and daughters while I fought Baron… i… I can still hear the voice of my baby boy as he begged them to stop, but those damn animals wouldn't listen"
"If you don't like us touching you why are you hard?"
"You got a pretty long one on you for a kid don't you think?"
"Want us to put it in your sister? Want to do her at the same time with us?"
"Those animals tortured my children and I was so focused on one of their kind I didn't even notice what they had done to my children"
"What about your husband?"
"They toyed with his body while he was down. Eventually, he died of his wounds before the fight between me and Baron had ended… after seeing all of that I managed to knock baron back and tried to rush to my children…but as I reached out for them. Both my arms left me…They were cut off by Baron's concubines and flew into the crowd of men who cheered at my dismemberment. Before I realized what had happened I was kicked in the stomach and pinned to the ground, then he came and towered over me with a twisted"
"To bad. You went out of bounds meaning, you broke the rules. You lost woman and now*cracks his knuckles* I get to break you"
"That was when he proceeded to mutilate me and crucify me to this wall from which I could not escape. After his soldiers took their time and their turns raping my children to the point they couldn't even speak anymore*sniffles* they had become numb and were paralyzed by shock. Baron then made me watch him rape all three of them at the same time, while raping them he took a part of their bodies, right or left leg, arm, hand, knee, he would snap it like a twig…then my children would scream in pain. My first son had a heart attack from all the suffering, he foamed from the mouth and died shortly after. My second bit on his tongue accidentally and died…the only one who lived through Baron's torture was my daughter"
"I can only imagine how horrible it must have been for her" said Maya
"I beg of you. Please, I do not have much life left in me…in fact, I sense I will soon die but, I can not die without asking of you this request."
"What is it?"
"I do not wish for you to save my daughter… I doubt she can even be saved after all she's gone through or that she's even alive. But, will you please take vengeance for me in my name!? Please I beg of you! For the sake of my husband, for the sake of my children, for my sake! I beg of you and humbly ask of you, please avenge us!"
After she makes her request, the others firmly grip their weapons and their fists. You can see the conviction on the others faces and all of them have decided to go, their all revd up and set to head out but, they wait on one man to give them the go ahead.
Edward gets up. His top flowing in the wind. He pulls his sword out of the ground and looks up to the woman. Then he asks Cayafaz
"What do you think?"