The day came. 500 soldiers. They stood in formation, shining in their polished armor. Most were Type 3s. The elite guard around the podium were Type 4s.
The Princess stood on a podium, reading from a scroll. She spoke about "Unity" and "The Grace of the King."
Ruther stood on the edge of the roof. He looked down at the soldiers. He looked at the Princess.
Then he looked at Toby, who was shivering next to him, clutching a shard of mirror so tight his hand was bleeding.
Ruther closed his eyes for a second. He remembered the song.
He opened his eyes. He raised his hand.
"NOW!"
Toby and the others didn't scream. They threw their mirrors into the air.
Angle!" Ruther shouted.
They tilted the mirrors. A concentrated beam of sunlight hit the soldiers' eyes. The formation broke.
The sun hit the spinning glass. The Glass Mark took hold. It grabbed the reflection of the shards and twisted them into reality. One mirror became ten. Ten became a hundred.
The air above the soldiers shimmered. Thousands of jagged, crystal shards materialized from nothing.
"SHOOT!" Ruther commanded.
Gravity took over.
It didn't sound like war. It sounded like a hailstorm on a tin roof. Clink. Crack. Thud.
Glass rained down. Shards pierced helmets. Needles of crystal found the gaps in the neck armor. In seconds, the golden formation turned red. The screaming started.
As the glass shattered, it turned into a fine, glittering mist.
Soldiers clawed at their throats. They tried to breathe, but the dust shredded their lungs.
"Ambush!" A captain shouted. "Earth Marks! FIRE AT THE ROOFS!"
The roof vibrated beneath their feet. The kids' teeth chattered uncontrollably.
The soldiers slammed their hands onto the street. GROAN. The earth screamed as the cobblestones ripped loose, floating in the air like meteors.
With a roar, they launched the rocks upward. They flew faster than arrows, humming with kinetic energy.
Ruther ducked. "STAY LOW!" he screamed.
But some stood up to run.
Toby stood up.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Toby, get down!" Ruther shouted, reaching out.
He was too late. A stone the size of a fist caught Toby in the throat. There was a wet crunch. He fell backward off the roof.
He didn't scream. He hit the pavement below with a heavy, final thud.
Ruther froze. His hand was still reaching out.
"No..." Ruther whispered.
More bodies fell. Small bodies. Fragile bodies. They hit the ground and didn't get up. The Red Rain wasn't just soldier blood anymore. It was mixing.
Ruther’s face twisted.
He drew his knife. He didn't climb down. He jumped.
He landed on a soldier, driving the knife into the man's collarbone to break his fall. He rolled, dodging a spear, and ran. He ran for one thing.
The Princess.
She had a bodyguard. A massive Type 4. He was swinging a claymore, cutting down two kids who had tried to rush the podium. He split one boy in half.
Ruther screamed, sprinting full speed. He threw a handful of crushed glass dust into the giant's eyes. The giant roared.
"Rat!" The bodyguard roared, raising his sword to Ruther.
Ruther didn't stop. He slid between the giant's legs.
He slashed upward. He hamstrung him.
The giant roared, his leg collapsing. He fell to one knee.
But then the bodyguard caught Ruther.
The giant kept squeezing until Ruther's ribs cracked.
The giant squeezed harder, he smiled.
But the snap never came. Ruther was slick with blood. He twisted, sliding out of the giant’s grip.
He scrambled up the kneeling giant’s back and drove the blade into the gap of his neck armor.
He ripped the knife out, his face drenched in hot blood. The giant collapsed.
The Princess screamed when she saw him.
He grabbed her by the hair.
"NOW! THE UMBRELLA! NOW!" Ruther roared, his voice cracking.
On the roofs, the survivors stopped attacking. Andree saw Ruther. He signaled the others.
They focused on making a Dome
On the roof, veins bulged against their temples. Blood dripped from their noses.
But they didn't fall.
A massive, thick sphere of crystal materialized around Ruther and the Princess. Stones bounced off the crystal. The Earth Soldiers hammered it, but the glass held.
But the soldiers didn't just target Ruther. They shifted their aim to the roofs.
Some took stones to the hands, shattering fingers. Others took them to the stomach, spilling their guts onto the roof tiles.
"HOLD!" Andree shouted.
A kid on the roof took a rock to the head. Instantly, section of the Dome above Ruther shattered, raining shards onto Ruther's shoulder.
And a stone got through crashing on Ruther's leg.
He started limping
but he didn't stop.
Ruther dragged the sobbing Princess toward the sewer grate.
He pushed her down into the darkness. He looked back one last time at the street through the transparent wall.
He saw Toby’s body lying in the mud, trampled by the soldiers. His eyes were open, staring at the sky he never got to fly in.
Ruther bit his lip until blood ran down his chin. Then he jumped into the darkness, closing the grate above him.
They ran for days in the dark. Until they reached it.
A home on the borders of the city. A house inside the sewers that most people didn't know existed. But for the street boys... it was home.
Ruther had built it with the blood of his friends and his sweat. With the tears of gone friends.
With the innocence that was stolen. With the tears of a childhood that was taken.
It was hell. But for all of them... it was Home.
They tied the princess to a chair.
"What do you want from me?" the Princess shouted, struggling against the ropes.
Ruther stopped pacing. He looked at her. "What?" he scoffed. "You are speaking to who with that tone? 'Princess'?"
He walked closer. "Your soldiers killed my friends for fun. And you... you don't like being kidnapped in the fanciest chair we could give you?”
Ruther leaned down, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You know, Princess... my friend, Lucas, was sleeping one day. The rain fell on us that night. It was cold. So cold."
"That next day I woke up next to a corpse. Because he was sick. And when we asked the soldiers for medicine... THEY LAUGHED."
The Princess tried to look away, but Ruther grabbed her face. "AND YOU NOW DON'T LIKE WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOU?"
"What has happened to you?" Ruther roared. "NOTHING!"
"Nothing!" he spat. "Compared to Chris. Chris... who was used as a target for knife throwing practice."
Ruther tightened his grip on her jaw, forcing her to look into his eyes.
"Should I continue, Princess?" he whispered.
“Should I?”
She screamed.
"SILENCE."
The Princess gasped.
she stopped screaming.
Ruther walked to Andree. "Report, Andree."
Andree looked down, his voice shaking. "Half of us, Ruther."
Ruther didn't flinch. He nodded slowly. "I expected more."
Andree snapped. He stepped forward, getting in Ruther's face.
"More? We are speaking about lives here, Ruther!” he pointed at the tunnels. "You said that if we do this mission... that none of us would die after that!"
"After that," Ruther corrected coldly. "Not now. We just took our first step."
"Towards what? More death?"
"No," Ruther said. "Towards life."
He grabbed Andree by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Andree. What could you have done better today?”
“Search in the garbage that was poisoned? Or should we lick the shoes of the soldiers for a piece of bread?"
Ruther pointed at the Princess, tied to the chair. "This is the only way we can have our freedom. And freedom is paid for with death."
"I know," Andree whispered. "But... not half of us."
He looked around the sewer. It was a hospital of horrors. Kids suffering from serious injuries. Legs cut off. Gouged eyes.
Others were vomiting blood in the corner. Andree rubbed his face. "What's next, Ruther?"
Ruther looked up at the ceiling of the sewer, toward the city above. "Now," he said, "we wait."
"We wait?"
"Yes. We have the Princess. The King will be angry. He will lash out."
"We wait until the King starts killing the people above ground. The grownups. And at that moment... they will have no choice but to join us."
Andree looked at him. "And then," Andree whispered.
"And then," Ruther said, "we can take what is ours."
