The Thunder Rolls

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“… t’would.. seem that the past never ceases to catch up to me…”

– “What happened?”

“I.. i-it’s… i- I’ll tell when it ends… I promise.”

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| There can be no Victory… The Darkness always returns… |

Those words echoed in our elezen’s mind as she stood still, her body on the very verge of collapsing. Shaking as waves of fear rushed at her heart before sputtering out to sounds of seething behind clenched teeth. Her one eye glaring daggers at the man who stood only yards away from her. A man clad in black and draped in red. His eyes practically glowing a gilded gold before those shining colors faded to reveal hazel and honey colored hues in the flashes of lightning that streaked across the skies overhead.

Pain, something that she had never grown used to, even as she lied to her comrades about it. It was always something she felt, the emotional strain… the physical reluctance to feel it again as it were always amplified to her. The smugness that lingered along the man’s face pulled hard at her heart’s strings. A look that she remembered all too well.

Thunder cascaded in a veritable symphony of rancor overhead, the storm over the La Noscean isles taking its hold firmly. The boom and roar of the clouds sent violent shudders through her bones, contesting with the quivering fear that rolled down her spines.

León.

As the levin lights flashed and danced across grey and otherwise dark clouds in the evening, more and more of his face were revealed. A sharp and squared jaw that were ever scarred on the left side,traces of fangs and claws that had caught him in ages past remained. A deep scar across the bridge of his nose and a light skinned spot on his forehead, right where she had shot him once… many… many moons ago.

Yet even with that mark, he still stands here before her. Alive as ever, a small laugh escaping him as he stared back. His voice rising above the thunder to speak. The voice was gruff, a low existence that drew with a hushed honey tinge that she loved once… many cycles ago.

“Surprised you still remember me.” A scoff. “I was hoping you wouldn’t. It’d make this meeting a whole lot easier, babydoll –”

– “Don’t call me that.” –

“Awwwh… Baby Slater’s all grown up now?” His voice cooed with a bordering chuckle. “I mean… you sure like you’ve grown up now. Taller, a look that could kill. Pointed ears too? Shite, baby you went far beyond what I expected to see all these years later.”

– “… Shut up.” –

“And she’s got some spunk! Good… Good, I like that. I like that you’re still the woman I knew. Even if you are a bit taller now.”

– “S-shut up! Why are you here. Answer me.” – The elezen hissed now, her words a bark against the cascades of booming thunder overhead. Bella stood with a jaw tightened and fists clenched at her sides, balling tight enough that they’d break bones and skin if it went any further.

“I’m here, baby, to make sure you don’t go any further. This… plan of yours? These ideas you got going on?” He smirked, gesturing to the device that wrapped around Bella’s right wrist. “These new things? You gotta stop darlin’… Cause if you don’t.”

“I’m gonna have to ki–.”

– “Then do it, coward.” –

León

seemed to pause a moment, the words, how curt, how dangerous they were. Even as he loved these moments, she caught him off guard but he never showed it.

“How do we find ourselves in these little… standoffs, darlin’? It’s gotta stop… Or we’re gonna go back to familiar ground.” He spoke light, his and her mind traveling back years to when they were younger. Of how he always would tread the dangerous line with the darkness that threatened to swallow any Ranger foolish enough to look over the edge…

Of how when he did step over that everything went black, and the skies over their home rained with the blood of their allies, and the cacophony of thunder that turned to the screams of their loved ones.

The skies above the two shattered souls were churning, bolts of lightning scattering across the skies as thunder quaked the grounds below enough to rival that of Titan. The waters of upper la noscea rippled with each boom as boots now slowly waded through, circling each other in a slow fashion.

Both Bella and

León

were locked, their eyes centering on the other as all the jokes, jests and smiles left the man’s face to be taken away by a cold yet subtly solemn gaze onward.

Slowly, beneath the rushing rain that puddled and pooled into the waters that surrounded the lost city of Nym nearby,

León’s voice rose in an eerily calm start, his voice low yet carrying a tune with it as he started to sing out the first few lyrics of a song.

—
| Song Link |
—

“Three thirty in the morning…
Not a soul in sight
The city’s lookin’ like a ghost town
On a moonless summer night…”

As he continued, his voice soon became modulated, masked behind magitek speakers as red colors rushed along his body. The growl of a wolf echoes throughout the air as Red armor covered his person, chasing after the coursing colors. | Embrace the Danger | Betrayer | E v o l v e d | growled out the device on his own wrist as the eyes of his helmet flashed violent colors.

“Raindrops on the windshield
There’s a storm moving in
He’s heading back from somewhere
That he never should have been…

And the thunder rolls..
And the thunder rolls…”

Quickly, between the flashes of levin overhead, his clawed gauntlets rose up, flaring out iron nails as he closed the long distance before him. Splashes against the water came as his metal boots rushed through. The snarls of a hungry and near rabid would followed behind his voice as the words continued.

“Every light is bruning
In a house across town
She’s pacing by the telephone
In her faded flannel gown…”

Bella slowly shifted her footing, as her own fists came to bear. The rain soaking into her clothes. Shoes soaking beneath the surface of the rippling waters, digging slightly into the gravely bank below. Even with one eye she could see him clearly, rain dripping down her bangs slightly skewing her already broken vision.

The device on her wrist did not activate yet, no. She remained in her soaking clothes, letting the wind and rain have their way against her dark and scarred skin. Bella waited longer, his words echoing into the storm filled evening.

“Asking for a miracle..
Hoping she’s not right
Praying it’s the weather
That’s kept him out all night..

And the thunder rolls..”

León’s footsteps hardened as he rushed forward still, his boots coming down into the water one final time to leap skyward, his claws reaching to his sides to pull free blood-red daggers from their sheathes. Fingers spinning the blades between them before catching and gripping them firmly as he flew past the apex of his leap, coming down to bear them first onto Belladonna.

“And the thunder rolls…”

Yet as he descended Bella’s one eye pulsed a icey blue color that washed over the dark green hues she had. Her voice escaping through her parting lips high and mighty, weighted with a defiant rage against the man she once loved so long ago. The crash of metal and colors of blue and gold rushed along the elezen’s left arm as she raced it higher firing her fist toward the oncoming daggers with all the burning strength she could muster from her quivering heart.

“The thunder rolls”

An armored fist rose to crash against the sharpened edges of the daggers, creating a washing wave of sparks that careened and collided with the pouring rain. The colors of gold and blue course over the elezen’s body, armor appearing in the wake of the wave as the device on her wrist explained out between the beats of their song | Heed the call |  Ranger | S A V I O R |

“And the lightning strikes
Another love grows cold..
On a sleepless night…”

Bella’s voice grew modulated in the chorus as she pushed back against the oncoming blades. Try of a hawk coming to bear as her force shoved the daggers to the ground, sending

León

back a few feet away. With a snarl, he rears his head up to see the blue warrior before him. As he did, the memories of ages past, their love, their loss and his betrayal rush to him before he could rise properly to his feet.

Without the mercy of waiting, Bella charged forward. Her right hand palm coming forward to crash like a wave of wind against his helmet, sending him upwards away. The red armor colliding with ancient stonework behind him with a metallic crunch.

“As the Storm blows on
Out of control
Deep in her heart
The Thunder rolls…”

The elezen’s voice carried the chorus onward as the man slowly got his bearings straight.

León

reaching for his daggers on either side of him before pushing himself up with an audible smirk in his lyrics as the daggers rose to level with Bella’s visage. He’d shake his head as a shoulder rolled, stretching his reach just a moment.

Bella remained light on her feet as she shifted to a more ready stance, one hand tucked to her side as the other extended forward with her arm. With a low exhale between words and the rumble of verse on the tip of

León’s tongue, the most subtle of beckons came with the quick curl of four fingers.

“She’s waiting by the window
When he pulls into the drive
She rushes out to hold him
Thankful he’s alive…”

León’s voice carried out again, unshaken, unwavering even after being sent reeling against the stone pillar. His grip freshens itself along the daggers’ handles, his smile still ever audible as the lyrics came forth. The memories of them together, on a stage, or off of it, hand in hand… years ago they were but still remained fresh in his mind as they day they were made.

Why was he here… what brought him to this point… to drive all of this love away, to drive that blackened knife in to the heart of his home that one fate filled night. Their Darkest night..

“But on the wind and rain
A dangerous new perfume blows…
And the lightning flashes in her eyes
And he knows that she knows…”

It didn’t matter anymore. The whispers of the lingering black rushed to his ears and drove themselves further in as he watched Bella beckon him forth. The rain pelted their armor, painting their figures in the dark moonless night easily as the faint lights of the camps of Bronze lake and elsewhere lit the evening skies albeit barely. The only other light that reached them were the frequent flashes of lightning with their rumbling thunder.

León

rushed forward, his daggers tucked to either side of him as he raced towards Belladonna. Closer and closer he raced as his voice reached the chorus again. In their warring song, Belladonna and

León

had shared this moment of fate once before. And history simply repeated itself again and again.

In a lead to the chorus, the man lets out a snarl as he plunges himself forward, pushing himself as the Bloodied Mongrel opened it’s maw to unleash the voice it held within.

“And the thunder rolls..
And the thunder rolls…”

The red armor thrusts their dagger forward, pressuring the one of blue to strike back as it came. Yet, it didn’t. Bella shifted, her right foot pulling back to make

León

miss his target by only inches.

It was here that Belladonna’s voice took the chorus, her voice strong as her left hand rushed from its tucked position, her mailed fist crashing against the temple of the red helmet. The crash rang loud as thunder rolled overhead. The elezen shifted again as

León

was knocked off-kilter, her right hand knocking his forearm upward while he raced for her.

She had a year to dwell on his last appearance, his last grasp at her from the past that only lingered. It was true, she had been moving forward. It were an attempt to make something that made up for those she left behind, and for those that could still be yet saved.

She was tired of this… this past coming back to hurt her. She needed to hurt it back… there was no other way.

“The thunder rolls
And the lightning strikes
Another love grows cold…
On a sleepless night.”

As Bella pulled the man close, her hand reaches to take a hold of his collar and yank him even more off his feet. As his body reeled back, she stepped forth with her right foot before sending her left knee into his back, the sound of a metal plate crashing against the soft of a man’s spine crunched beneath the thunderous cacophony that roared above.

The flashes of lightning grew ever more violent as she pushed him into the air with the force from the blow. While he were airborne, his voice went silent. A quiet surrender of the song to the woman he had once betrayed, the woman who now hated him for it… for everything and beyond.

Belladonna shifted on her right heel, spinning to land her left leg down and send her right spiraling out to roundhouse kick

León

away and into the waters ahead. As her leg careened through the air, a shriek of wind exploded from the space cut in two. Sigils on her right leg pulsed a golden sheen beneath the flashing lightning before expelling themselves through bolts of electricity that chased after the red armor’s frame.

“As the storm blows on
Out of control
Deep in my heart…”

The elezen remained tall, her breath held while she sang out to see the song to its end. Her right hand open and spread at her side as the left came to rest near the helmet. The crash of lightning and thunder to her seemed something akin to the rancor of an audience before a stage. Slowly now, Bella in her armor proceeded to bend, offering nature’s audience a respective bow while the lightning flashed again and again. The center of the storm hanging overhead now.

León

stirred only slightly between the flashes of levin before outright vanishing. The shadows that lingered behind the light having been creeping over his form before enveloping him and pulling him back into the abyss of nothingness.

As Bella stood from her bow, she turned to see her defeated opponent. Except he wasn’t there, laying still in the flooding waters, no. His red armor was tough to miss, even in the walls of rain. Off in the distance, she could see the figure of blood red standing on a cliff’s edge where the shadows stopped and showed him, watching her.

“Deep in my heart..”

“The Thunder Rolls…”