63 Luke

We were all gathering outside in the courtyard for the last time. We were finally leaving. When I walked out of the cell that had been my bedroom, I couldn't get over how empty it looked. All our possessions, gone. Every room empty. The cafeteria, empty. All the food had been loaded in the cart. We figured the Fire Nation would probably appreciate anything from the Hive we could bring them. After all, most of it used to be theirs. The cart was loaded, and the sun was just coming up. It was time. We were all gathered with Danev and Riu at the front.

"All right" Riu said. "Before we ask, I have to ask if you're leaving anything all behind because we're not going to back for a little while." That earned him a small chuckle or two across the audience. It wasn't enough for him. "I also ask, that if you have to use the restroom, go now because we're not making any stops." That got more of the result he was hoping for. The general mood amongst the Hornets, was, actually, happy. Most of all Riu. It was strange. For once, he actually seemed to feel back in control, like he was doing something not at the behest of others, but because it was right. I never knew how much that had the potential to affect somebody, but now, I had a good idea.

With laughter and chatter going amongst us, we left. We didn't care about being quiet or about waking people up. It was over. We were all together as a family and we were safe. We felt that safety as we walked through the smaller streets until we made it to the far end of the grain road. We all turned east and that was it, the inner walls right in front of us. We walked, there was no march or formation, just a walk. I stood near the front with Danev and Riu. They figured that Zar'un would want to see me to make sure all was as it should be.

With any luck, Miro and her gang would already be outside the city by now, headed for the forest. I look back behind me at the outer wall. I had faith in them.

As we approached the grain gate, we could make out the Fire Nation soldiers standing at the sides of the road, lining the rest of the way down to the gate. Probably to make sure we didn't try shit. That was fair enough, I just hoped that the rest of the Hornets would be just as understanding. I turned around and it appeared so. Nobody was showing any sign of nervousness. They seemed calm for the most part. As we passed a pair of Fire Nation soldiers, they would come together at our rear, standing in columns of 2. I wondered if these would be the same soldiers who would go to raid the Rat hideout. Boy would they be disappointed. But that wouldn't matter. That wouldn't have any effect on us if a few minutes time.

Finally, we could see the gate in front of us rise to an open position, the metal bars rising into the steel wall. Zar'un motioned for us to stop and he did. He was walking forward with two of his guards when I heard something. The sound of footsteps, coming from our right. An alleyway.

The Hornets, Zar'un, and the Fire Nation soldiers all turned to face the noise. I pushed myself to the front to see what was happening. And out from the alley came an all too familiar friend. No. Why are you hear. He was out of breath and saw that he had been running. 2 Fire Nation soldiers went to apprehend him when he got his first words out, "Luke."

I pushed forward, trying to hear him, but the Fire Nation soldiers were grabbing him by both arms to restrain him, but he resisted. He got out a phrase this time, longer than the first, but I couldn't hear it. He stomped his foot on one of the soldier's foot, loosening his grip and letting go of Reek who rushed. Forward right towards us Hornets.

"The fuck are you doing, Reek?"

Luke! The Rats, they're coming!"

Just then, an explosion sounded from behind us. When I turned, half of the Hornets were on the ground with multiple Fire Nation soldiers rising to get up, weapons ready. I turned back towards Reek and that's when I saw them, every Rat and Citadel appearing from the roofs, alleyways, and streets, bows drawn, weapons raised.

"Close the Gate!" I heard from the Fire Nation side of the road.

No. Suddenly, every Fire Nation soldier on the street was rushing towards the gate to get inside before it closed on them. They weren't the only ones. We made the run for it too, but it meant nothing. The steel portcullis fell straight down, blocking us off from the promised land. There we stood, Hornets and Rats with the rare Fire Nation straggler.

"What the fuck is this!?" Riu called above the ringing in all of our ears from the explosion.

From the roof of one of the stone buildings, archer on either one of his sides, came out Janick, a stick of dynamite in his hand. "Vengeance!" he called. And with that, everything went to hell.

I watched arrows get loosened, striking Hornets and Fire Nation soldiers down alike. I felt a small pain in my thigh that felt like the bite of some insect and nearly fell to the ground, but somehow kept my footing. It didn't matter. I saw bows being raised at me until I was knocked to my feet from an explosion that came from behind me. My ears ringing, I took my face out of the stone and was looking up at the charging army of Rats, coming to kill me when I was grabbed by the shoulder and rushed to the cart, using it as cover.

"What the fuck is happening!?" I shouted to Danev over the chaos.

"You were fucking betrayed, that's what's happening!" Danev reached over the side of the cart, pulling out a short sword, preparing for a fight. We need to get to the alleyway, use it for cover."

He was referring to the one on our side, but it was maters away with no cover whatsoever nearby. I grabbed the side of the cart, grunting as I attempted to push it. Danev caught on quickly enough and began pushing as well. Some of the other Hornets saw what we were doing and Sar'di, holding a bow, rushed behind it, using it as cover as we pushed the cart. I looked over and saw one of Sar'di's arrows strike home, hitting a Rat square in the neck, sending him off the roof of the building he was perched on. Behind, Fire Nation soldiers were engaging the Rats in hand to hand combat. They were better trained, but outnumbered. The soldiers cut down 2 or 3 of them before being overwhelmed by bodies and arrows. The soldiers were dead. It was Rats against Hornets now. Exactly what I had wanted to avoid.

The Rats saw what we were doing and began shooting at the cart. Danev and I, pushing it, were close enough to use it as cover. Sar'di returned fire well enough until an arrow in the knee brought him to a kneel, and a second through his eye ended his life. Danev and I left him behind, still pushing the cart. We were getting closer to the alleyway. If we got the cart there, we could get out of this hellhole.

That wasn't how it went, though. The arrows kept coming at us while explosions still riddled the plaza. I figured they were aiming for masses of people, not a moving cart. It was going fine until a fire lit arrow hit the supplies at the top of the cart, quickly ignited all the food and weapons above. "We had blasting jelly in there, right?" I asked Danev next to me who was huddling behind the cart. In a heartbeat, he grabbed me and tackled me out of the way. The explosion behind us left a ringing in my ear first than the worst explosion. It was still ringing when I looked up and saw what the streets had come to:

The Rat archers on the roof had been killed, the last one falling from the ceiling with bow still in hands. I saw one of the Rats, Sarik, stab Ladle, who had been trying to defend himself with a stick on the ground, through the heart with a sword, laughing all the while. I saw Goni swing a club at a smaller Rat's head who I recognized to belong to one of Reek's friends, Lean. The club knocked him down, only for Goni to pick up his light body and use it for a shield from Sarik who stabbed straight through Lean's small body, still reaching Goni who was behind. Goni, enraged, grabbed for his own knife, stabbing it into Sarik's shoulder, who plunged the sword even deeper until Goni's blade found Sarik's neck. Sarik released the sword, dropping Lean's impaled body and Goni before falling himself.

Janick, out of explosives, jumped down from the roof, regrouping whichever Rats were still alive to kill us all while we were down. He charged, and whichever of us were still alive were his targets. I looked for Danev but couldn't find him. What I could find was a Rat charging me with a sword raised over his head. I jumped to the ground, sliding a few inches and kicked at his feet. He stumbled but refused to fall. It gave me the time I needed to rise to my feet until I felt something enter my side to see it was a Rat's spear. The same Rat had sword exit through his throat and dropped to the ground in front of me. Riu stood behind him and pushed me out of the war, stabbing his sword through the other Rat's chest. The blade went in with the glint of the morning sun but came back out a deep crimson.

'Where's Danev!?" he asked me, putting a hand on my shoulder as I was struggling to keep the blood from my side wound inside of me.

"I don't know!"

"Get out of here and find- "He didn't get a chance to finish. I saw the sword leave through his chest, through his heart. The sword left, and lifeless body fell. Janick stood behind him, an inhuman grin on his face as he wiped the sword off of Riu's fallen corpse.

"Man, oh man." He said, pacing towards me. "You really should not have trusted me. I was walking backwards and felt myself trip over the body of someone's corpse. Who, I couldn't say. He raised his sword but was interrupted as the swing of a sword when across his stomach. It was no deep cut, but Danev stood in front of me, holding his own blade over Riu's body. He looked down at the corpse of his closest friend, the man he had considered to be his brother and turned towards me. "Go! Get out of here!"

I did. Still clutching to my side, I did as he told me to, stood up, and ran, not daring to turn and look at the battle between Danev and Janick behind me. I didn't know where I was running. I ran through a small skirmish that was still going on between a Rat and a Hornet. The Hornet who I didn't take the time to recognize gained the upper hand, stabbing the Rat through the leg and swinging his sword in a fluid motion across the Rat's neck, sending him to the ground. I turned around to see a second Rat approach him. 'Watch out!" I called to him. It was soft, but it was enough. The Hornet, dropped to a knee, turning his torso, slashing his sword across the man's stomach, releasing his captive guts onto the ground. When the Hornet stood up, I thought I finally recognized him until a Rat's spear took him in the side, sending him to the ground. The Rat turned towards me, pulling his spear out of the Hornet's body until a pained grimace rose to his face. When he turned around, I saw him too. It was Trap, holding a bloody knife that he had just used to stab the Rat. The Rat kicked him backwards, sending Trap flat on his back.

I rushed forward, grabbing the dead Hornet's sword, hoping to get a swing at the Rat's legs. He noticed me and swung his spear, knocking me on my back, stealing whatever breath I had. Trap was attempting to rise to his feet and was now facing the Rat when the entirety of the spear went through his body. The Rat lifted the spear to the now brightening skies, Trap's small frame still wrapped around it. He brought the spear tip close to him, planting a foot against Trap's dying body, choking on his own blood, kicking him off his spear. At the same time Trap fell to the ground, I swung the sword I was holding at the Rat's feet. The sword went nearly through his entire right ankle and he fell to the ground in a scream of agony. I didn't bother to stick around. I threw the sword to the ground and ran. I ran until what had been a small pain in my thigh suddenly became much worse. I felt to the ground on my bad sighed and didn't even hear myself scream from the pain, the ringing still drowning out all other noise. I crawled the rest of the way into the cover of an alleyway where nobody could see me or hurt me.

A burst of pain came again from my thigh and for the first time, I actually looked at it to see an arrow had gone nearly through my entire leg. It was in deep. I felt my vision going black but hit my head against the back of the alleyway to get myself back into focus. I wasn't going to take out the arrow here. Too much bloody loss. I grabbed the arrow by a spot on the shaft close to the entry wound and pulled the rest of the arrow in the other direction. It snapped, and I managed to take off the majority of the arrow.

I looked to the wound in my side and saw that it was bleeding, badly. I wanted to puke when I saw the puss already coming out from the wound. I put both my hands on my wound, trying to keep as much pressure as I could on it. I felt my vision go black a second time, but this time, I couldn't fight it. I blacked out.

When I woke the dust had settled from the fighting and the entire grain road was a mess of craters and corpses. The bleeding had stopped, and I could no longer hear the noise of the fighting. I crawled out into the open road, looking. Looking for anybody I knew, anybody who could kill me. Anything. Once again, I passed by Riu's body, but there was nobody to accompany him. I put all my weight on my one good leg, standing to get a better view. "Danev!" I called. "Danev!" "Da- "I felt a hand close around my mouth and felt my heart jump. The adrenaline had come back along with my focus. I turned around to meet the threat of whoever it was behind me. It was no threat.

"Reek?"

"Holy shit" he said. "You're alive?"

"I. I guess? Is anyone else still alive?"

"I don't know. If they are, they won't be for long. Come on, follow me."

"Follow you?"

"We're leaving the city, right now."

"Wait, Reek. What the fuck happened here? Where's Miro."

Reek turned around and looked at me. There was a hurt in the eyes. The hurt of a beaten dog. "Miro." He started. "Janick killed her. He killed her in the middle of the night. I knew he liked her, but I guess he hated you more." He said, somewhere lost between a laugh and a cry. "Fuck. Let's just leave."

"No, I. I don't think I would make it long." I said, showing him the hole in my side and arrow in my thigh.

"Oh shit." He said. At first, I thought he was talking about me, but he was looking behind me. I saw what he saw and felt my breath catch. Reek grabbed the closest weapon, a spear on the ground and started forward, ready to land the killing blow. I used what will I had left to stand up and get in between Reek and Janick, who was lying against the side of a stone building, clutching a wound that appeared to go through his side. "Wait, Reek!" He tried to push me aside, but I stood my ground, as best as I could. "Wait!"

"Wait? Wait for fucking what? Him?" he asked, pointing the tip of the spear to Janick's dying body. He's the reason we're fucking here. He's the reason everyone on this street is dead.

"Okay, look. I understand! I want him dead too, but he's already dead. Look at him! I want him to die as much as the next man. All this shit is because of him, I know, but if you kill him like this, with him at your mercy, defenseless, it's going to kill you."

"And how the fuck would you know. Who have you killed?!"

"I haven't. I-I just know. Just, don't kill him like this. He's already dying." I turned back to the body of Janick, staring at me, spitting out his own blood and guts on a regular basis.

"I have more reason to want him dead than anyone else living in the world, but it's not worth it. He's not worth the nightmares he'll give you because you killed him while he was already down."

Reek looked at me, the hate visible in his eyes, the look somebody had right before they killed a man. He raised his spear and I thought for a moment he would kill me just to get to Janick, but the look of hate in his eyes left him. He sighed and dropped the spear, kicking it aside across the street.

"Damnit!" He shouted to nobody in particular. I was still looking at the street around me, at the piles of corpses, still trying to piece together what had just happened. Still trying to figure out what had gone wrong and why so many needed to die.

Reek turned back to Janick. "Are you proud of yourself, cunt? Did you get what you wanted? Well whoop-dee-fucking-doo! You did it! You killed the Hornets. And it didn't cost you shit, did it? You didn't give two fucks about the Rats, you just wanted to kill, didn't you? You killed Miro and now you've killed everybody who ever believed in you."

Janick, blood still coming from out of his mouth, smiled. "Fuck you, Reek. I knew you were a traitor. All you had to do was march in a stupid line. We'd be alive, and all those Hornet fucks would be dead. Even you." He said as he looked towards me.

This time, I turned towards him. Reek got his questions out and it was time for me to ask my own. "Where's Danev?"

He laughed. "What? That stupid Hornet I killed. Yeah. He's dead. Just like Riu, and just like you. All dead."

"I'm still alive, Janick. Not even you could kill us all."

Then I made a mistake. I turned my back on him. I doubted the capacity for killing he still had in him. I didn't have time to turn around before I felt Reek knock me out of the way, rush in front of me and not I second later, I saw the knife that went through his chest where it should have been me.

Janick, the disappointment on his face, pushed reek aside, pulling out his knife, lurching towards me. I stumbled back on the ground, felt my hand fall over what felt like the hilt of a sword, raised it, and saw Janick fall on its point as he attempted to stab me where I lay on the ground. The sword went straight through his heart. I waited a few seconds, still shocked by what had happened and let go of the sword. He fell to the ground next to me.

I quickly pushed myself away from the dead body, looking across the street and saw him, Reek, lying on the ground, clutching his chest. I quickly rose, ignoring the pain all over my body and slid next to him where he lay on the ground, putting pressure on the entry wound. Reek looked up at me and smiled, as though amused by my efforts to help him. "Don't bother. It went through."

"No. No. Fuck that. You'll be fine."

"Don't bother. I'm happy where I am."

"What the fuck? Why did you do that shit?"

"Why'd I save your sorry ass? It's like I always said, I owed you."

"Fucking stop with that. You've been saying that since the day we met. Why?"

He chuckled, coughing up what look to be some intestine and a shit load of blood. "Because. You did. Today. I always said you stopped me from doing something horrible, becoming something, I wasn't." he laughed again. "Believe me or not, I had this dream, the day before we first met. I was standing over the body of some dying man I didn't recognize, ready to kill him when somebody with your face stopped me. You said the exact same shit and I only realize what it was today, when you said the exact same words."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Yeah, I'm just fucking with you. I just said that shit to make you feel like you owed me." He laughed again, not getting much of a result this time, but merely coughing up a large chunk of blood that spattered of my shirt.

He chuckled again. "Sorry. I just ruined your shirt."

I shook my head. I wasn't going to let him die here. Not like this. "Come on, we're getting you up." I tried to lift him, but I was too weak, and he was locked on the ground. He scoffed. "Don't worry about me, Luke. I'm fine here. I-I. Thank you.

"Why are you thanking me now?" I asked, my vision blurring from the tears now beginning to form. I knew he was said. I think I knew before, but now that he laid here, his voice sinking and his blinks growing longer, I knew it was over for him.

"Everyone always told me that everyone in this city was a killer. I didn't want to believe that. I wanted to think that I could die without every killing somebody. Because of you, I can. I don't want to be a killer."

"You're not", I said, choking on holding back my own tears. "You're not a killer." I didn't bother to wipe away my tears. I didn't care how I looked to anyone, I just wanted to be here for my closest friend, for Reek.

He chuckled one last time followed by a dry cough that even sounded painful. "I'm sorry for being a dick to you for a while. I just, hated the idea of us being on separate sides, but we never were. We were always still friends. Weren't we?"

"We were." I said, wiping away the tears on my face. "We are friends."

He smiled up at me one last time. "Thank you, Luke. Thank you, for being my friend." And with that, he closed his eyes. His head fell to the ground as the life left his body.

I wanted to do something more. Maybe say one last prayer to whatever spirits were listening but felt a cold gloved hand grab my shoulder. "We found another one." I heard a deep voice say. I felt the man's other hand grab me from around my waste. I turned trying to free myself, banging a fist on the man's chest, but only hit hard metal. The man heaved me onto his shoulder as though I were a sack of potatoes and walked me down the street, to where, I didn't even know. I saw Reek's body one last time on the ground as we walked away. Next to Janick's body sword in his chest, eyes open, dead writhing in pain, Reek looked at peace. As though he had come to terms with it all. I luxury I didn't have. I looked up from where he lay on the ground. The dust had begun to clear and now, I could make out the chaos of the world around me. Craters from the explosions made up what was left of the road, buildings were still aflame, and bodies littered the ground, most of them I recognized. Trap, Lean, Ladle, Janick, Riu, and Reek. All dead. All of them. The only life I had ever known, the slums disappeared behind me as the morning fog clouded the battlefield and the steel portcullis of the military district fell back into place, locking my old life away. I didn't know what would happen to me now, but I knew that no matter what did, nothing would ever be the same.