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Children Are the Future In the midst of a ruined town, there was a large, rectangular building. It was painted a light-hearted blue, except that the blue paint was chipping off, revealing the grim dark brown wood beneath. In the common room, a group of young children played. Some ran around playing tag. Others played card games or board games. A few boys pretended to be superheroes, while several girls played their little hand-clapping games. It was a blissful scene one of prosperity. It was a scene that a person could only expect to see during the good times, when everything was going well. But not all was going well. Outside, in the parking lot and in the streets, about a dozen and a half men, women, and teenagers were locked in battle with a horde of demons. This was different from the games the children were playing. This was a battle to the death, and it wasn't looking good for the humans. They lacked proper weapons. Only about half of them had firearms, and even then, they were only small pistols. The rest carried either clubs, sticks, gardening tools, or they fought with their hands. One boy--he looked about Vincent's age--carried a woodman's axe. He dashed toward a pair of small demons and, with two swings, lopped their heads off. A larger demon approached him, slashing his claws. The boy swung the axe down, cutting into the demon's shoulder. Then, with a second swing, he cut a deep gash across its face. The demon roared in pain. However, from behind him, four small demons, each about two feet tall, jumped onto the boy and scratched at him. The boy yelled and flailed, but the miniature demons would not come off. Then, the large demon grabbed the boy the neck, choking him. With its other arm, it stabbed its claws into the boy's chest. He dropped the axe. Blood oozed from his mouth. "Lem!" a little girl shouted from the doorway of the blue building. One of the women heard this and immediately ran to the girl. "Amy! Get back inside!" she shouted. "It's too dangerous out here! You could've been killed!" "But mom!" the girl retorted. "You let Lem out to fight, and he did get killed." The woman's heart seemed to stop as she looked into the eyes of the girl. Tears streamed from both of their eyes. "Your brother gave his life to protect you," the woman explained. "Just like your father did, and just like how I'm risking my life for you. You children are the future. The world may belong to us parents today, but it'll be yours tomorrow, and we want you to live so you can enjoy it." "Mom..." "Amy, you're twelve years old already. You're the oldest of all the children here," the woman continued. "I know you're old enough to understand what's going on, that we might die and we'll never come back, but you must promise me never to tell the other children, all right?" "Mom--" "Promise me." The girl hesitated. "All right," she said. "I promise." "Amy, I love you," the woman said as she hugged the girl. "Never forget that." Then, releasing the girl, she spoke, "Now, get inside. Leave the fighting to the adults." Slowly, the girl stepped back into the building. The woman closed the door and returned to the ongoing battle, with tears in her eyes and hopelessness in her face. The sun was beginning to rise, painting the sky a rosy pink. A cool breeze threw up grains of white sand and gently tossed them into the clear blue water. They had landed on the beach from Vince's dream, but other than the sand, the water, the hovercraft, and Vince and his friends, it was completely empty. "Damn it!" he yelled. "I could've sworn, it was right here!" "Vince," Stephanie interrupted. "Maybe she's in town. Let's look there." Vince slowly nodded. The four then climbed back into the hovercraft, Vince taking the pilot's seat, Stephanie taking the passenger seat, and Robert and Alice climbing into the back row. They slowly rose into the air and hovered toward the town. It was the same town Vince had seen in his dream, but it seemed a lot different. Now, the buildings had heavy damage. Some were badly scorched. Others had completely collapsed. "The Demon Army's been here," Robert commented. Vince didn't reply. He was too busy searching the ground for any sign of Mindy. Stephanie did the same. Alice opened her mouth to say something, but Robert, pre-empting her, put his hand over her mouth. "Good Heavens!" Vince shouted. "That building! It was in my dream!" Vince quickly turned the hovercraft and sped toward a large, rectangular, blue building. As they approached, he noticed a movement in front of the building. Something was happening. Hastily, he stepped on the gas, and the hovercraft shot toward the building at a hundred miles an hour until they could see what was going on. It was a battle between a legion of demons and a handful of humans. One woman ran up to a couple of demons, swinging at them with a rake before. They pounced on her. After a few moments, they scattered, leaving her mutilated body lying in a pool of blood. "We have to help them," Stephanie exclaimed. Vince hesitated for only a fraction of a second. "Okay." The back doors to the hovercraft opened, and Robert and Alice leapt out, guns blazing. Almost immediately, several demons spurted burning blood and collapsed to the floor. Steph turned to look at Vince, then leapt from the hovercraft herself, her staff in hand. Vincent quickly found a clearing and landed the hovercraft. Kicking the door open, he let the magma transform him. Then, the Dark Fiend of the Inferno entered the fray. With a flying kick, Vince knocked down a demon. A fireball incinerated three more. Alice and Robert, each holding a pair of particle blasters, blasted demons away while making their way to the human warriors. Stephanie fired a few Holy shots, blowing apart a few demons. One demon, who had gotten close, leapt at her, baring its claws. Steph quickly stepped aside and slashed at it with the blade end of her staff, then blasted it apart with a Holy beam. Another demon charged at her. Steph was quick to move her feet, but suddenly, pain flared up in her leg, and she staggered. The demon arrived, but then, Vince caught the demon and threw it to the floor, then crushed its head underfoot. "How's your leg?" Vince asked. "It'll be fine," Stephanie replied. "Better than it was a few days ago." Suddenly, they were swarmed by a few more demons. Vince moved to attack, smashing the skull of one of them. "I fought to save you," Vince remembered himself saying, "but I guess I'll keep in mind what said about the demons..." Vince punched into a demon's chest, smashing through its ribcage and tearing out its burning innards. "They're demons!" he remembered Stephanie's voice. "They're already dead!" Vince grabbed a demon by its arm, turned him around, then, with a kick to the back, he tore the demon's arm off. "Mindy's here!" Vince thought. He jumped into the air and kicked off one demon. As he landed, he smashed another two into the ground. A sweep kicked knocked down three more. Vince grabbed another demon and used him as a club, smashing several more demons until the club tore apart. Then, the Inferno Fiend leapt high into the air and threw down a volley of fireballs. Several explosions tore apart the concrete ground and burned away a few dozen more demons. At that point, the surviving demons began to flee. Particle blasts shot through the air and picked off a few of them as they ran. When the demons were finally gone, Vince collapsed to his knees, panting, sweating. The red armor softened and became magma. As it drained away, the Dark Fiend body became Vincent Zeng's human body. Alice and Robert ran toward him, along with about half of the humans who had been fighting. "Vince, are you all right?" Robert asked. "Thank you for your help," one man said as he helped Vince to his feet. "Thanks," Vince said, now standing. "Where is this place, anyway?" "This place WAS the town of Pedos," the man replied, "until the demons came. They destroyed everything." He pointed to the blue building. "That's the only thing we have left, the Community Center. That's where we live now." "We?" "The survivors," the man explained. "There are only forty of us--well, thirty-eight now--and twenty-four are still small children." A woman spoke up. "We've been here the last few days, fighting against the demons," she said. "It's probably hopeless. The demons just keep coming and coming, but we're going to fight anyway. We're going to do anything we can to protect our children, even if we die. If it keeps them alive, it's all worth it." "Hmm..." Vince wondered. He remembered Tina. He remembered Mindy. They were children that he, too, had wanted to protect. "All right, I'll stay here and help then." "So will I," Stephanie added. "Thank you," the woman said. "Hey, I'm hungry!" Alice loudly complained. "Do you have any food?" That remark evoked much laughter among the people of Pedos. "So you haven't had anything to eat for the last four days?" the man asked. "Well, I had some berries," said Alice as she greedily stuffed bread into her mouth, "but it was barely anything. Vince and Steph and Robert haven't eaten anything." Vincent, Stephanie, Alice, and Robert stood in the kitchen of the Community Center, along with several of the Pedosians who had been with them before. In gratitude for the helping them, they offered Vince and his friends some food--mostly bread, crackers, and dried meat and fruits. "Again, thanks a lot for the food," Vince said. "We've been starving." "Sorry I couldn't give you any more," the man interjected, "but we have so many people and so little food, we have to ration it." "It's okay, Kanin," Vince replied. "It's better than nothing." On the way in, the man had introduced himself as Kanin. He was the acting leader of Pedos, mainly out of convenience, since no one else had really tried to lead. "Mom?" came a voice from the doorway. A young girl wandered in. "Mom? Are you here?" Everyone in the room looked toward the little girl, and Vince felt the mood of the room suddenly grow cold. "Have any of you seen Mom?" the girl asked. "I'm sorry, Amy," one of the women said hesitantly. "Your mother had to make a trip. She won't be coming back for a while. You--" "You don't have to lie to me!" the girl shouted. "I'm old enough to understand!" Then, with a quieter voice, she added, "I know she's dead. I'm all alone now." When the girl burst into tears, the woman quickly led her out of the kitchen. "Who was that?" Vince asked, after a moment had past. "Amy Lune," Kanin replied. "She's the oldest of the children here. Her father died when the demons first attack. Her brother and mother died today." "Oh," Stephanie gasped. "Poor girl." "She'll have to get used to it," Kanin said. "I hate to say it, but with the war just starting, there's going to be a lot of bloodshed." A woman burst into the kitchen, the same woman whom they had talked to just before they brought Vince and the others into the Community Center. "Kanin!" she shouted as she gasped for breath, tired from the sprint. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but the demons are attacking again." "Damn it!" Kanin yelled. "Those demon attacks, they just keep getting more and more frequent." He walked over to the counter and picked up his handgun. "Okay, Darria, I want you to alert the others. We'll have to go drive them off." Darria was Kanin's wife, as Vince had found out when she had introduced herself along with Kanin. "I'll help, too," Vince exclaimed. "So will I," Robert added. "Me, too," Stephanie said. Alice still had a piece of fruit in her mouth. "Okay, I guess so," she mumbled. By then, however, Vince, Robert, and Stephanie had already run off. "Hey, wait up!" Alice cried as she swallowed the fruit and picked up her guns. For the second time that day, it was mayhem in the parking lot of the Pedos Community Center. Demons ran around, claws swinging, bodies burning. One woman whacked at them with an iron rod, trying to keep them away, but one of the demons leapt onto her and clawed at her flesh. Then, with sharp teeth, it peeled the skin off her face. The front door of the Community Center burst open, and out came Kanin and Darria, firing their pistols. Alice and Robert came next with their particle blasters. After them, Stephanie emerged, throwing a cluster of feathers at a team of demons. Finally, the Dark Fiend of the Inferno came out, stopping only to close the door behind him. Finished with that, he joined the fray. A small, two-foot demon with long, slender arms and legs leapt at him, but he replied with a kick, sending the miniature demon flying across the parking lot. A well-placed fireball blew it into pieces. Another demon tried to jump Vince from behind, but he quickly twirled around and smacked its head with a flaming gauntlet. A second punch made the demon double over, and a quick kick to the head left the demon with a weird bend in its neck. It stopped moving and fell to the ground. Elsewhere, Robert displayed his usual dead-accurate gun skills. Every demon he destroyed with a single well-placed shot. Once, he even managed to use a particle shot to knock one demon into another, dealing damage to both. Alice, on the other hand, was not so accurate, but she made up for it by firing rapidly. Most demons that tried to approach her had to get past a shower of particle blasts. Only one demon managed to reach her, but Robert immediately blasted it away. "Thanks," Alice said with a smile. "No problem," Robert smiled back and gave a thumbs-up. Stephanie made use of both Holy magic and staff fighting skills. First, she killed a demon with a Holy shot. When another tried to jump her, she impaled it on the bottom end of her staff, then threw the body to knock down another charging demon. Then, she made a quick prayer and concentrated on a spell. The Scales of Justice appeared atop her staff, and she fired the most powerful Holy beam to annihilate another cluster of demons. The Inferno Fiend surrounded his entire body with a living flame, then charged down toward a pack of demons. Ramming them, he knocked down several of them aside and scattered the rest. Letting the flames loose in a shockwave, he sent several more demons flying through the air. A demon with long, sharp claws lunged at him, but Vince caught its hands and gave a quick double-kick. The force of the attack tore the demons hands off, and Vince used the demon's own fingers as a bladed weapon. A demon charged. Vince slashed through its head. Another demon attacked. Two swings of the demon claws tore the demon's body into ribbons. Then, the Inferno Fiend skewered the disarmed demon with its own claws. "That was easy," Vince said as the remaining demons fled. He spoke too soon, however. As the demons left, a figure walked toward them. Looking at his unhelmeted face, Vince could see he was undoubtedly human. Like Vince, he wore red armor. Unlike Vince, it neither had dragon designs nor was made of metal. Vince had seen that texture in one other place. His armor had been made from the hide of the demons. Yes, the warrior wore demon-hide armor. Slowly, the warrior raised his sword, a 4-foot longsword, and assumed a battle stance. There were no demons in sight. "But... you're human," Stephanie said. "Yes," the warrior responded, "but my allegiance is to Hades." "A human fighting for the Demon Army?" Vince asked, disbelief in his voice. "There are many humans fighting for the Demon Army," the warrior explained. "I am simply one of them. We are called the Inferno Knights." Suddenly, an orange glow surrounded the Inferno Knight's body. Then, the glow expanded to become a thin layer of flame. "Surrender yourselves in the name of Hades," he shouted, "or I shall slay you all." |