William and his family were packing whatever essential items they could before abandoning their house and running away till the military got tired of chasing them.
William had no idea where they should go since no place was really safe, and even the one they were staying till today was a place he found by pure luck. There was no guarantee he would be able to find such one again.
Nathasia's mind was distracted as she packed her stuff, thinking about Marcus' or to be precise Damien...the Crimson Devil, thinking what was his real story since what she saw was nothing similar to what she heard about him.
Sure, he was unbelievably powerful, but his character still seemed that of a human without killing people left and right. If he even spared them after knowing his identity, she was sure people were mistaken, and there was more to what happened during the Great Calamity.
But now she was afraid of what was going to happen to him as she heard the military was here looking for him and she was only just a side mission.
The second worry was where she was going to go now and after abandoning her lovely home and how long they would have to run.
"Let's go, Natty. Quick!" Liana pulled along Nathasia, who was getting lost in her thoughts.
Only half an hour had passed, but the three were able to pack whatever was required to let them survive for a week without anything.
But just as the three got out, a huge truck was waiting in the distance, and standing before them were twenty soldiers and two men and one woman in a uniform that only Ascended ones wear.
One of the men came forward and spoke, "I am Ripley, and all three of you are under arrest for killing Colonel Sanders and his men. Men, arrest them."
"No! You can't do this to us! Your soldiers were the ones who tried to kill us!" William indignantly shouted, but the soldiers had already handcuffed his hands, including Liana's and Natty's.
"Papa!"
"Hey! Leave my daughter alone!!" William fumed as he tried to knock away the soldier handcuffing Natty with his body.
*BANG!*
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})William's eyes widened as his mouth stopped moving, and Nathasia was blankly looking at him, her eyes trembling.
Laina had her jaw slack as she saw a spray of blood coming out of William's head, her thoughts in total disarray.
*THUD!*
The next moment, red blood dyed the ground as William succumbed to the ground with a bullet in the back of his head.
"PAPA!!"
"WILLIAM!!"
Nathasia and Laina hysterically shouted as they tried to crouch down near his body, but the soldiers were holding onto Laina and Nathasia's arms tight enough for them to be unable to take a step forward.
"You BITCH!!" Laina shouted with a pained expression at the Ascended woman since she saw her shooting William.
The Ascended woman had an impassive face as she lifted her hand again and aimed at a shocked Laina.
"NO!!"
*BANG!*
*THUD!"
"NOOO!! MA!!!" Nathasia felt her world crumbling seeing her loved ones dying one after the other, and this shock was too much for her mind to bear, knocking her consciousness out.
"What the hell are you doing, Agent Bella? Why did you kill her parents?" Ripley asked with a frown.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})Bella shrugged, "What? We only need the kid. The other two are just extra baggage which would anyway be disposed of, and they are already guilty of many murders of our men. I would be surprised if they get any other punishment other than a death sentence. Rather than that, I made things easy for them and less nuisance for us."
"But we could have used her parents as leverage to use her. You do know why we were looking for her. It's not only because of her potential powers but because she had made contact with the Crimson Devil."
Bella casually waved her hands, "It's no big deal. I will torture her and bring out the information you want. I am sure a girl wet behind the ears would easily break. Now load the girl in the truck, and let's move!"
Ripley shook his head and felt a bit of pity seeing Nathasia's pale face and the two dead bodies.
Suddenly the bright sky began to get cloudy as the sun was getting hidden by dark clouds.
Ripley and the others froze their steps as they noticed the unnaturally rapid changes in the sky, wondering why the bright blue skies were becoming so dark and cloudy within just seconds.
*RUMBLE!*....RUMBLE!*....
Not only that, they also heard the rumbles of thunder in the sky, which were getting louder by the second, and the sound of the thunder didn't seem like the usual ones but frightening and ominous ones...a sound that could make one feel the chills.
But one thing they noticed was that the dark clouds were gathering together at a place a few miles away from their place.
*RUMBLE!!!*
*CRACK!!*
This time they heard the loudest thunder they had ever heard in the distance and even streaks of red lightning making crackling sounds!
"The Crimson Devil!...it's him!" Ripley shouted in a tone of disbelief, recognizing those red streaks.
Everyone else shuddered at the mention of that name as if they suddenly lost all the strength in their legs. They desperately hoped that Ripley wasn't foolish enough to make them rush to that place where the dark clouds were converging….because that would be utter suicide!
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})Water droplets began to drip from the sky as Ripley wiped away a droplet that fell on his face.
Nathasia stirred open her eyes, her vision blurry as she tried to bring her thoughts into order, hoping that what she just experienced was just a bad dream.
But seeing that she was on the back of a truck and her parent's bodies lying in the cold ground made her feel like she was still in a nightmare.
"Papa...Ma…" She couldn't help but keep sobbing bitterly.
*RUMBLE!!*
But the ominous-sounding thunder startled her as she noticed that the skies were dark and the skies were drizzling.
However, in her sadness and despair, she didn't think much about it.
"What the hell is happening over there?" Ripley mumbled as he slowly took out his walkie-talkie, "Command, come in. What's the status of the Alpha and Gamma team? Over."
"..."
"Command, come in! Over."
However, no matter how many times he tried to communicate, he was not receiving anything back, even in other channels.
"For some reason, this is not working...I feel like things are going to get bad...we have to—-"
*RUMBLE!!!*
Suddenly the ground below them vigorously shook as all of them fell on their butts, and a crimson circle of energy began to spread out from a distance, bringing about ripples of destruction in its path.
As the crimson circle continued to move at a rapid pace, everything within the circle crumbled and turned to dust, including various tall buildings, became powder right after the crimson circle rippled through them.
Even though the crimson circle was spreading out from a far distance, it was rapidly heading towards where Ripley and the others were!
"Shit! We gotta take cover!!!"
