Pat.
Pat pat.
Patpatpatpat.
....
SMACK.
Dio awoke in pain, his ears ringing, eyes stinging. The world was blurry and spinning when he tried to sit up, and then lay back down again in the gravel. As his focus came back, the sound was still muffled, and the perpetrator was in full view. He crouched over Dio, gently moved the bangs out of his eyes, and sighed.
"I worry about you," Cynbel said.
Dio groaned in reply, which wasn't enough for Cynbel. He continued to pat his face as gently as he could, over and over, but his giant hands weren't very gentle. Unlike the other royals, his hands were calloused and rough; he was big and tall. Perfect for a soldier, but lacking the elegance and grace of his birth.
"Where...am I," Dio asked quietly.
"You fell from the sky like a star, but you were covered in metal. You scared me," Cynbel replied.
"Metal..ungrhf."
Dio sat up again and looked at his hands, but the stolen power of Bruno was gone. His pale palms were sweaty and pieces of gravel were embedded in them.
"Damn! Damn it all!"
Cynbel stood up and offered his brother his hand. Dio grabbed it, but instead of being pulled upward by Cynbel, Cynbel's hand cracked, and he fell to the ground, tears welling up in his green eyes. He couldn't let his soldiers see him cry. The suddenness of the injury startled him more than the pain itself.
"No! No, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to," Dio screamed.
Many soldiers surrounded them in their black and red uniforms. Everyone was confused about what to do. A royal hurting another royal? Who do you shoot? Do you shoot? They decided to ignore Dio completely and help Cynbel instead. They helped him stand back up and walked him over to a grey stone bench.
Cynbel's regiment had taken over an entire city block. Snipers were on the rooftops, defending the perimeter while Cynbel was going to plan his next move. That was, until his little brother broke his hand. The electricity in the city was fading in and out; the natives weren't surrendering as planned. The destruction of parts of the city's underside meant they had even less time.
It was a hard night for Cynbel.
"You know it was an accident, right?" Dio asked.
"Yes."
"Good. I'm afraid your men will shoot me in my sleep."
"They won't. Since you're well enough to make jokes, focus on the mission at hand," Cynbel said.
Dio raised his hands in exasperation and huffed. His skin was turning redder and redder from the cold, and with the heat of battle over, he was more preoccupied with finding a shirt.
"The mission! You know this mission is—"
"Of utmost importance. Our Lady would never send us into harm's way without good reason."
Invoking the title of their older sister got Dio to shut his mouth, but it twitched, the words left unsaid trying to break free.
"Do not waver! You are involved in this too, using that wretched compass to lead us here," Cynbel said.
"That's quite cruel. You know I'm good at what I do. It's impossible to get lost with me around," Natio said.
"If only there was a way to lose you," Cynbel grumbled.
After they had wrapped his broken hand and put it in a makeshift cast, Cynbel led Dio to the front of the formation. As they walked down the city block, neither of them wove through the crowd. It mimicked the Red Sea, with the black and red uniforms of the men and women sent to die. Dio was impressed with how Cynbel's men moved aside for him; Dio trailed behind him.
At the front of the formation, all was quiet except for the sounds of falling glass. The entire street was decimated, blocking off a chance to go north with crumbling buildings. Dio could barely see in the dense fog a leaning skyscraper missing its top half. It was held up by the remains of a shopping center.
"Why don't we move this?" Dio asked.
"Turn left."
"Oh."
The severed upper half of the skyscraper twinkled in the night. A ship had struck it, sending it crashing down and killing those who hadn't evacuated in time. It was upside-down and rested against the remains of a smaller building: a café. Bodies were stuck at the bottom of the wreckage. Blood seeped through the shattered windows and into the streets. The mist made it hard to see the top part of the fallen skyscraper where the citizens were hiding out. They had the higher ground and had no problem fighting the invaders until help arrived.
"Where are the ships?" Dio asked. "They can blow that thing away!"
"They're to the south. Reinforcements from a neighboring nation, Pelagia, have arrived. We need to hold the line. Also, we can't risk it."
Dio craned his neck to look up at his older brother, his lips tightening.
"And why can't we kill these mutts?" Dio asked.
"Apparently, there is an underside to this city that we have... accidentally bombed," Cynbel admitted. "It is integral to the city's structure. Any further bombardment could send the entire city into the ocean."
"Hah! Sir Perfect is no longer perfect."
"This city will sink, and I hope your laughs will be drowned out with them."
"Rude."
Cynbel motioned to one of his soldiers, a lanky young man who looked no older than sixteen. His job was to be his shadow: to speak only when spoken to, to sit when told, and to rise when needed. Unlike the others, he wore less armor because he was a battery. A battery kept just for his lord, and only his lord. He lived a life of luxury that most other batteries would never experience.
As he rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, he remembered he needed to send money back home to his family. When he took the knife out of his satchel, he thought about what he would eat when he visited his parents. The battery closed his eyes and shuddered when he cut his arm horizontally.
Cynbel held his left hand over the battery's arm, and it swirled and morphed. A long, thin line became thicker and thicker, eventually turning into a bow, and the battery was his constant stream of arrows. With his bad hand, he pulled out an arrow, gritted his teeth, and took aim.
"Men, I want you to watch. We don't need to bomb them out. We can scare them down," Cynbel announced.
Cynbel released his blood-arrow with a grunt, his aim being true. It flew in an arc, trailing a thin, bloody rope behind it. The rope grew and expanded, then split into two long ropes, all connected to Cynbel's hands. The blood arrow flew into the open office window and stuck to a desk, anchoring it to Cynbel. The ropes adhered to the exposed window frame and went taut when Cynbel pulled.
A thin strand grew out from the rope on the left, and another, tiny strand from the rope on the right. They connected and thickened, forming a solid plank. Over and over, the strands crisscrossed the ropes, connecting the building to the street.
When Cynbel was done, he released them, and the blood froze over, thick with ice.
He turned to look at his battery.
He was pale, breathing hard and dizzy. His eyes flashed black as he used his ability, and in a few seconds, the color returned to his face.
"How is your battery still alive? Mine aren't as strong as this one," Dio lamented.
"It can regenerate its blood. The gods have shown me quite a blessing with this one."
The battery quickly wrapped his scarred arms with one of his disinfected bandages without any help, long used to it.
"Dio, go up the ice bridge," Cynbel commanded.
"...really?"
"Yes. You borrowed that strength from that woman, yes? Go up there and flush them out. The rest are coming with me."
"Thank you," Dio said quietly.
Cynbel turned to look at his men and spoke from his chest, his loud, booming voice echoing in the dark. His green eyes turned a somber black when the switch inside of him was flipped.
"Follow me not just to my victory but ours! We will claim what is ours by birthright! We WILL find the truth of the beginning! This is our beginning!"
Cheers and whistles rang out when Cynbel walked through the crowd again, and everyone saluted as he passed. When he was at the other end of the street, he belted out a warrior's scream. The soldiers ran with him around the bend, the long way around the crumbling buildings. Dio ran in the opposite direction, up the ice-blood bridge on his mission of fear.
The higher he went, the more shouts he heard. He could peer down into some of the skyscraper's rooms, seeing the fearful looks of city residents hiding inside. One window was open, and when he approached, they all ran away, scattering into the dark.
"Hello there," Dio said, wiggling his fingers as he waved.
He jumped off the bridge into the dimly lit modern office, more foreign than the one he had at home. His fingertips gently caressed the unfamiliar black office computers. The flickering lights were beneath him instead of above because the skyscraper had tumbled over, leaving it upside down. Glass crunched beneath his feet as he looked for new victims.
He didn't have to look very long.
A small child was hiding under a desk. Dio squatted, looked him square in his tiny, brown eyes, and smiled.
"It looks like you need some help getting up. Here. Take my hand," Dio said.
He held out his hand, and in confusion, the child reached out to take it.