Elemental Blitz

3

Rexx wakes up as his Elemental Ring, Kotos, sends a powerful vibration up his right arm. He raises it to look at it in the light of the Blood Moon coming through the windows of his cabin deep in the Red Forest. The red, blue, white, green, and silver jewels are all glowing with a light all their own. It is Kotos telling him that it senses Devil energy. It will usually show him a specific location, but now it seems that it is coming from everywhere. Something that Rexx doesn’t understand, nor does he care to contemplate. He lets out a sigh as he sets up and puts his bare feet on the warm wooden floor of the cabin. His snow-white dreadlocks hang down, curtaining his face, which sports a full white beard. The red light of the moon caresses his muscles and many scars on his ebony-skinned body. He stands to his full 6’6 height and turns his pearl-white eyes to the moon, which he hates more than any other. It is a constant reminder of the night his life ended. He reaches for the whiskey bottle on his nightstand and groans as he finds it empty. Looks like he is due for a trip into Redpole.

Redpole is the largest town in the western plains of the Sapphire Empire. Farming, fishing, and hunting are ways of life for its populace of just a little over a thousand. It also produces the best whiskey that Rexx has ever had the pleasure of drowning himself in. It is where he was dumped after his life ended. After he was betrayed by the woman he thought was his life. Kotos vibrates again, adding a jolt this time.

“I heard you the first time, old friend,” says Rexx, looking down at the still-glowing relic, “I just really do not care right now. Try me after I get a fresh bottle, or better yet, leave and find a new Bearer. Let me die in peace.”

Kotos doesn’t respond to that like Rexx knew it wouldn’t. It chose him as its Bearer thirty-five years ago when he was twenty-one, the same day he took his blood oath to become a Sapphire Knight of Empress Liluth TyVon. That day set his life on a new course; he became the Throne’s greatest guardian and the Devil Empress’s executioner, and he became Bloody Rexx. Then, on the night before his wedding to the woman who would become the next Empress, he became the Last Captain of the Sapphire Knights and the man who lost not only his Empress but her entire family. Almost her entire family. One lives, Eshoni TyVon, Liluth’s oldest daughter, his betrothed, and the leader of the rebellion that ended with the deaths of her entire family.

She had poisoned Rexx the night before their wedding after luring him away from the palace. As a Bearer, the magically enhanced poison did not kill him, but it delivered more agony than he ever felt in his life before putting him in a coma. Instead of killing him outright, Eshoni had him smuggled out of the city while she destroyed everything he held dear. Those she trusted with this task gave him a dose of poison every day of their travels, which lasted thirty days. Every dose was a fresh wave of agony, and they enjoyed every moment of it. When they reached Redpole, they paid an innkeeper to put him up for a month and dumped him in a room. When he finally recovered, it was all over. The Empress and her family were dead, and the Throne was abolished.

Rexx spent the next year trying to kill himself, but Kotos would not let him. He set himself on fire. He stabbed himself in the brain. He let himself be dismembered by brigands. He even cut off his hand with Kotos still on it. Kotos would not let him die. Eventually, he gave up and accepted his new existence. He built this cabin, and now he spends his days attempting to drink himself to death. Occasionally, he will do Kotos’s bidding and hunt a Devil, but only if it is in the most secluded areas of the Empire. He knows that he made a lot of enemies during his service to his Empress. He killed enough people to fill graveyards and left a multitude of families weeping. He fears no one, but he knows that some are foolish enough to seek revenge. He is even willing to let them have it, but Kotos is not. His friend will defend him even if he won’t defend himself, and lethal force is an option. He avoids these conflicts for their sake, not his own. He wants to die.

He walks around the cabin, picking up bottles, hoping to get lucky, but he doesn’t. All of them are drained. So, he picks up his tin cup and pours himself some water from the jug on the counter. Life just keeps getting better. He is still leaning there drinking. Kotos sends a vibration up his arm that blurs his vision. He chokes on his water and crushes the tin cup in his hand, which pisses him off because it is his only damn cup.

“What is your f*****g problem, Kotos?”

The answer comes in a vision of a city on fire with streets filled with Devils ripping people to shreds. Of robed beings in Devil masks using glowing red rings to slaughter their way through nobles. The horrors continue, and Rexx takes them all in without flinching. When it is over, he doesn’t say anything. He just stands there smiling. Kotos gives him another jolt in disapproval.

“Whatever, I think you know how little of a f**k I give about the Empire or its people,” says Rexx, his voice full of scorn, “This doesn’t f*****g move me.”

Kotos is silent, and so is Rexx for a long time afterward. Kotos vibrates lightly on his finger. It’s way of giving him a nudge. He ignores it. It gives him another and another and another until he finally smiles.

“f**k it, fine, you win,” says Rexx with a long sigh, “But in the morning. Whatever the f**k this is doesn’t look like it will be over in a hurry. I’m going back to bed.”

Kotos gives a vibration of acceptance and allows him to drift back off to a dreamless sleep as the world begins to burn.