Thirst

It was currently year 2240 on Earth...

A few decades ago, a massive meteorite almost struck the Earth's surface. A group of brave heroes banded together under a powerful leader and managed to destroy it as it entered the atmosphere. The debris contained an energy that had a permanent effect on the earth, spreading it around the globe as they burned in the atmosphere.

Ordinary people began to develop abilities and it was eventually discovered that if you killed something, you gained access to its Soul.

Each Soul transformed into a Soul Gem after exiting its host, taking on many different forms. At that point, one could then either absorb it or let their soul connect with it in hopes of the gem converting to a weapon.

Both of these methods became common knowledge, but rumors floated around that spoke of other mysterious options that offered unknown results.

Because of this change, the world was thrown into virtual chaos. Many places were made lawless and bloodshed became commonplace.

...

In a desert halfway across the earth...

A man with black dreads, tan skin and a chiseled face complimented by a black chinstrap beard walked casually through the sand. His forehead dripping with sweat in the blazing heat.

Along his right eye was a faded scar that cut menacingly across it, splitting his sharp eyebrow vertically and stopping just above his cheek bone.

Black wolf fur attached to a black hood also lined the collar of his red coat which did nothing good for him in the heat.

Dangling from his neck on a gold chain hung a beautiful triangular shaped red ruby. Although his pants and boots were a bit dirty, they looked to be made of a fine material.

In his hand was a thick silver longsword that was as long as the arm that held it. Many chips and cracks lined its blade which drug through the sand behind him as if it weighed a ton.

'The city should be just up ahead, I'll be damned if I pass out here. Holy shit I need some water!'

Streaks of sweat continued to drip from his forehead. He knew that the desert was hot but the heat he had endured so far felt as he were walking through hell itself. As he thought to himself, a silhouette of a city appeared just up ahead.

'El Diablo, the city hidden in sand.'

Relief played over his face.

He had been traveling for 7 days through the desert with no water. The last water drop to wet his lips had come a few days ago after he stumbled upon a small water hole that was damn near bone try.

A wry smile cracked his dry lips but he didn't care, his luck had just taken a turn for the better. He broke off into a sprint, thinking about the haven that awaited him.

In less than a few minutes, he made his way into El Diablo....

True to the tales spread about the city, El Diablo was comparable to a ghost town during the day. The searing climate pushed majority of the residents back into the refuge of air conditioning, so there was hardly a soul outside.

Looking for the nearest bar, Reyes eventually spotted one and immediately threw himself through its doors. Brisk air greeted his face, bringing him great pleasure.

Many people were gathered inside but they paid him no mind. Slinging his weapon along his back while quickly tucking his necklace into his shirt before anyone could see it, he decided upon a seat, sat himself down at the bar and hailed for a bartender.

"What can I get for you today?"

A soft voice floated across the bar as a pretty young woman made her way over to Reyes and smiled. Appearing to be in her early 30s, she had purple eyes, tan skin, pink lips, long curly jet-black hair and a body that looked immaculate.

She stood there with her hands on her hips staring at Reyes with keen curiosity as she awaited his response.

"I need a huge ass pint of water with ice and make it snappy...I'll make it worth your while."

Licking his lips at the thought of finally tasting water, he threw a handful of credits onto the bar.

After the cataclysm, currency by the way of the dollar was replaced by a combination of metal called the Credit. Even though credits were easy to come by, there were actually things you could only purchase through use of credits.

Naturally though, the more higher scale currency took the form of trading.

Vital information, precious items, treasure, powerful weapons, and untouched Soul Gems all commonly took precedence over Credits when it came to purchasing things.

"Sure thing! Coming right up."

The bartender smiled at him and winked after spotting the number of credits he threw on the bar. She walked away and quickly returned with a big pint of water which she pushed in-front of him.

He snatched it up and greedily drained the whole thing.

"You see a guy wearing a full plate of armor lugging a big slab of metal standing about this tall?"

Holding his hand out next to him after finishing his drink, he brought his hand up to about 6'10, stopped and then gazed intently at the bartender.

The guy was about 5'10 himself so it was amusing to the bartender seeing him stretch to reach up so high.

"Can't say that I have, but if you'd like to look for him, I would definitely wait until nightfall with all that cold weather gear if I were you. Everyone comes out during that time anyway, so I'm sure you will find whoever you're looking for if you wait to begin your search."

Pausing for a moment, she smiled at him.

"What is your name by the way stranger?"

"Reyes."

After stating his name, he pointed at his empty pint in silence.

'A little on the shorter side of men I tend to like, but he doesn't look half bad.'

As her thoughts wandered, she obliged and refilled his pint with water.

Even though she was beautiful, when it came to women, Reyes just didn't bother. He only wanted power, as strength was the only universal language that everyone understood.

"Thanks for the drink."

Nodding to the bartender, Reyes grabbed his pint of water from the bar and decided to move over to a more secluded spot tucked away in a corner. With his sword resting against him, he dozed off to get some rest.

A few hours into his sleep, someone jabbed him awake...

Opening his eyes, it was of little surprise to him when he found a group of people with red bandanas covering their faces standing before him eyeing his sword.

"Wakey wakey, eggs n bakeeey! Now lookie here son. You can either give up all your gear ya got there the easy way or...we can take it off your cold lifeless body right before ya turn into Soul."

The one speaking to him looked to be the strongest out of the bunch.

He wore a brown cowboy hat and a brown leather vest embroidered with a fist. Along his back was slung a long rifle that looked like an 1860 Henry Repeater. At his sides, the butt end of two revolvers peeked out from the holsters on his waist.

Everyone that stood with him had a similar loadout to their leader, all of whom took a threatening step toward Reyes.

"Let's be honest here, if your crew thinks you can take anything by force with those little pea shooters...probably would just be better off shooting yourselves."

Reyes said, coldly looking up at them while taking a long drag of his water.

As he was gulping water, the leader whipped out one of his revolvers, took aim and fired. 3 Orange orbs of light pierced through the pint of water and sent Reyes's head snapping backward, spilling water all over him.

"Haha, looks like you got em boss."

The revolver that the boss had pulled out was glowing with orange symbols making it easy to tell this wasn't any normal type of weapon once it was fully displayed.

"Of course I did. Now grab all his shit."

Just as one of the underlings was going to grab the sword as commanded, they froze in shock as Reyes's head snapped back forward with his red aura enveloping it.

No visible signs of damage were visible on his face. Instead, he just looked very pissed off. His eyes locked with the boss's, squinting slightly while he clicked his tongue.

Before the boss could register what had happened, his vision suddenly jerked toward the ceiling and went black. His severed head rolled across the floor leaving the underlings staring at Reyes in shock.

All they managed to see was a blur. In a scramble to try to figure out what happened, they looked down at the sword to see if there was any blood on it. There wasn't a single drop on the blade, so they just stared at Reyes in confusion.

"If you all are wondering what I used to kill him, it was my bare hand."

With an evil grin, he slowly brought his hand up into the light. There was blood completely covering his hand from finger to wrist.

The blood reflected the light from the room and cast a red glow along the floor, which made things even more menacing to the remaining crew.

"Please spare us, we were just following orders!"

"Let us go and we won't dare cross ya again!"

"Ahhhh...Ahhhh shit!"

"Boss dead man! He dead!"

They all fell to their knees begging for forgiveness.

After pausing for a moment while sighing to himself, Reyes finally spoke.

"Yall are lucky I'm here looking for someone because if not, I would have killed every single one of you. Now get the hell out of my face and if I see you all again before I leave this city, I will make sure that his death looks like a cakewalk compared to what I'm going to do to you all."

Stealing another glance at their leader's body, the underlings turned and high tailed it out the bar.

Getting up from his seat after cleaning the water off of himself, Reyes walked over to the bloody corpse and held his hand out above it. Immediately, the corpse along with the weapons he had turned into a tiny grey sprit shard which he absorbed into his body.

He felt his energy gain a small boost, but it still wasn't anything substantial.

Everyone else in the bar hadn't paid any attention to what happened. Everything around the bar continued on as if nothing took place. Taking his seat again, Reyes leaned back and dozed off with his feet propped up on the table in front of him.