Griffin Tail

Fourteen: Blood

Content warning: battle and description of injury

The war has begun.
A week has passed since it had been declared, and already many lives have been taken, many others injured. Both sides saw their soldiers' souls taken away like falling leaves carried in the brutal wind.
Nobody asked for this. Nobody wanted it, especially not Scarlet Gilmore.
Danny had left her early on Wednesday morning, taken by the Hunters to join them, along with Brian and many of Scarlet's friends, neighbours and customers.
The small town of Senfora had become an eerily quiet ghost town. All those who remained stayed indoors out of fear.
Scarlet was sat in the basement of The Cup, listening to a portable radio. The woman speaking provided Scarlet with biased information about the attacks and battles around the world; it seemed the whole planet was working together against the Abnormals.

Many Abnormal bases had been located, though breaching them seemed to be a challenge, but the humans eventually made their way in, no matter how much of a resistance the Abnormals raised. The humans responded the only way they knew how: with heavy weaponry and even more violence.
   The world out there was turning itself inside out, to Hell and back. War, Scarlet realised, is nothing at all like what you see in the movies. It is far, far worse.

The woman's voice from the radio cut off all of a sudden. The shock of silence startled Scarlet. She suddenly became aware of the ground vibrating.
From above ground, she could make out the sounds of vehicles driving past- a lot of vehicles.
Scarlet ran quickly up the stairs from the basement to the ground floor, stumbling her way to the door. She stepped outside.
Tanks, armoured trucks, soldiers clad in uniform.
The trucks were large with bold writing on the side reading "SPECIAL WEAPONS". Scarlet could only wonder. Those soldiers wore grey and white camouflage and carried peculiar guns and a curved blade at their side. All of them heading down town with one shared purpose: to kill.

"Wh-what's going on?" She cried out, grabbing onto the soldier nearest to her.

The man shook her off. "Stay inside, ma'am. Things are going to get dangerous."

"I don't understand. What's happening?" She insisted.

"Don't you listen to the radio? We've found an Abnormal base in Senfora Forest. Get back inside!" He turned from her and carried on marching with the others.

Scarlet's face became ghostly pale. She stepped back inside pressed her back against the cold wall. More than ever she wished Tris was there with her. She hated being alone, especially now that the fighting had come so close home as to literally be at her doorstep.
Scarlet retreated to her basement and tried to get the radio to work.

Meanwhile, soldiers swarmed the forest like insects. The ground shook as it resisted the force of the heavy vehicles ploughing through tree upon tree.
The crimson-dressed Abnormals watched from the safety of the school grounds as men in white marched meaningfully towards Griffin Tail's force-field.
Despite it being transparent, the white army stopped as if they saw it as a brick wall.
Then they broke out the heavy artillery.
In truth, the Abnormals knew that the shields would not hold off the Hunters for long, but only delay the inevitable.
Seventeen minutes, they counted. In seventeen minutes and forty eight seconds, the Hunters engaged with the First Wave frontline soldiers.
Among them, Blythe Sun and Trinity Warsong.
On the training field surrounded by students, they worked as a powerful unit; but out there on the battle field surrounded by enemies, they found themselves struggling.

When the first Hunters charged in their direction, Blythe made sure deal the first blow, narrowly avoiding the enemy's flashing sabre that flew towards his throat. Trinity, right behind him, shot a dazzling streak of golden energy from her palm, into the unsuspecting face of the Hunter nearest to Blythe. They wasted no time thanking one another before engaging with further Hunters.
One man in white got too close, and Blythe's hand morphed into a sharp blade which tore through the man's chest. His life evaporated before his corpse hit the ground.
   Back to back, the two life-long friends pressed through the confusion of death.
The countless attacks blocked by Blythe's transformed arm were beginning to take their toll, and Trinity's foes were getting too close for her to safely launch an energy beam.
   It wasn't just the two of them struggling to hold off the Hunters; the rest of the First Wave were being forced back too.
That's when he saw the curved, silver blade rip through Trinity's chest, tearing her life apart. Blythe's ears suddenly filled with the awful sound of a banshee's scream, a shockwave generated from Trinity, causing the Hunters and Abnormals alike to go sprawling across the ground.
For Blythe, Trinity is a line that must not be crossed.

Flushed red with fresh rage, Blythe instantly got to his feet, began pummelling and relentlessly slaughtering the men in white, coating them in sickly red. He fought for his fallen comrades, knowing all too well that he would not last much longer. Gunshots whistled by his ear, narrowly missing his head. He turned towards the sound and –

– abrupt light flashed before his eyes, followed by an instant of pitch darkness.

Blythe suddenly found himself surrounded by lush grass, blue sky and violet trees, the chaotic war scene a distant nightmare.

"What the hell just happened?" He demanded, looking around in frantic confusion.

"I just saved your life, that's what," Atori Webber stood beside him, wearing the same crimson uniform as Blythe, but without the mud and tearing. "You're welcome, by the way. Now go, they'll be waiting for you in the medical bay. We're pulling the First Wave back."

A dark portal appeared in front of Blythe who stood his ground stubbornly. "I'm not going anywhere without Trinity, where is she?"

Ato sighed. "Blythe, my powers aren't meant to be used like this I'm doing all I can–"

"Well it's not enough!" Blythe snapped. "I'm going back out there to get her. Now."

"No, I can't let you do that. I'll pull her in as soon as I find her."

"Listen to me, Webber," the silver haired boy stood eye to eye with Ato. "You'd put your life on the line and risk everything for that girl, Tris, wouldn't you? So why the hell won't you let me do the same for Trinity? She's dying out there, man!"

Ato chewed this over for a moment. "Give me two seconds to sort something out..." Then he vanished from Blythe's sight.

He reappeared behind one of the violet trees, talking to somebody Blythe couldn't see. He kept making hand gestures as if he was frustrated. Then after a long moment's pause, Ato teleported back to Blythe, another two figures at his side. One of the two was perfectly identical to Ato, though wore a shirt with torn sleeves and a loose tie rather than crimson uniform, and the other was a cat-sized, dragon-shaped ball of fire.

"I'm coming with you to retrieve Trinity," Ato explained, then motioned to the boy stood beside him and the dragon at his feet. "This is Irota, a shape shifting Geist who will be carrying on my job whilst I'm helping you. And this is Kasai, Tris' familiar. He's coming with us."

"Fine," Blythe didn't bother to ask questions or argue. "Let's just go already."

Ato nodded, the space beside him shimmering as he opened the portal onto the battle field, giving Irota a serious look before the three of them jumped through.

[End of chapter 14: Blood]