LEGION OF THE BLACK

Over the next two days, everyone on both sides was going through vigorous amounts of training and preparing. Weapons were finally all completed for the Wild Ones, and the two days were spent in complete training learning how to use them to the best of everyone’s abilities.

CC was teaching those who had chosen the Skull and Chains as their weapons, the Skulls had spiked attached to them so they would cause a mighty amount of damage. Jake was teaching those who had chosen axes as weapons, this included Mackenzie although she was already well skilled on using an axe so she sort of more assisted Jake rather than listening with the others.

Jinxx was teaching those who were using the clubs, kind of like the sort of thing a troll would wield, as a weapon, very useful for knocking people out. Andy was with the rest who were using spears which were mounted on top of the huge cross banners (which had the Legion’s symbol, a unique five point start, painted white on black fabric) with a skull staked through them, they could charge with these and ram them through people.

If Ashley had have been here, he would have been training this lot but sadly he was not. In the middle of watching that lot, Andy was also practising with the bow and arrows he’d made himself.

Over in the F.E.A.R. headquarters, the Shadows too were training with their staffs and even William himself was brushing up on a little practice as well as teaching Josh a little bit of black magic. When he wasn’t being taught or eating, Josh was down in the dungeons, putting Ashley through more and more torture, and the Deviant didn’t know how much more he could take and Josh got worse and worse every time.

When the night before the day of the battle came, after Andy was sure everyone was ready and they were all well fed, everyone was sent to bed as to be well rested so they had plenty of strength and energy for the following day. Andy, CC, Jake and Jinxx had a quick group chat before they retired to their silos to sleep. Andy however didn’t sleep and neither could Mackenzie, they were both too scared to sleep for the fear that tomorrow they would lose each other. They spent most of the night, talking.

“Baby… Whatever happens tomorrow, I will do my best to protect you okay? You’re the most important thing in my life now and if anything happened to you I would never ever forgive myself.”

Mackenzie smiled, “I understand that baby but you’re more important than I am, the others need you, Jake, Jinxx and CC and Ashley, I have no idea what state he’s going to be in when we find him tomorrow, if he’s even alive,” she saw Andy cringe when she said that, “I know you don’t want to think about that as even a possibility but the fact is it could be so… Ashley could very well be dead…”

Andy shook his head, “No! I’d know if Ashley was dead I’d feel it. He’s still alive and I know he is! Ashley is one tough guy! He can handle what they throw at him…”

Mackenzie sighed, “But for how long? If they’re torturing him in there how much can he take before it becomes too much? If you were the one in there and they were torturing you day in day out could you handle it all?”

A few tears fell from Andy’s blue eyes and he shook his head, “N-No. B-But we have to stay positive! W-We can’t afford to think negative!”

Mackenzie nodded, “I guess so…”

Andy wiped his tears away and turned away from her, “I just can’t bare to think like that. Ashley and I have been best friends for years; he’s like a brother to me, if I lost him, I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Will you two please shut up?!” Jinxx’s voice came up from room below, “Trying to sleep down here!!”

“Sorry!” Mackenzie giggled.

Andy chuckled, “Oops.”

“We’d better sleep or we aren’t going to have any energy tomorrow and we don’t want to be easy targets now do we?” “Nope!”

Andy grabbed the blanket and pulled Macca close to him, she rested her head on his chest and soon fell asleep listening to his heartbeat. Andy lay awake a little while longer, praying that Ashley was okay and that tomorrow everything went as planned.

Across the desert, in the F.E.A.R. headquarters, Ashley had just been thrown back into his cell after another horrific round of torture. At least the Shadows had thrown him onto the mattress otherwise he’d have been sleeping on the cold stone floor tonight.

“Ow…” he only just managed to curl up into a ball so he was, at least, a bit comfortable, but it really, really hurt, and tears flooded from his eyes.

His mind wondered to Andy and the others, tomorrow was the day of the battle, tomorrow it all ended, only one side could win and hopefully it would be them. He tried to move his hand to wipe his tears but he couldn’t, it hurt way too much, instead he just let them continue to fall.

“Don’t cry.”

Ashley jumped and that hurt badly.

“Ow!!! Fuck! W-Who’s there? Come out where I can see you!”

A figure stepped out from the darkness and approached the bars of his cell. The person was wearing a cloak with the hood up so Ashley couldn’t even see their face; however a few pieces of bright red hair were hanging out of the hood.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

The person spoke again, “I cannot tell you but you may find out in the future,” Ashley could now tell by the voice that the person was female.

“If I could, I’d help you out of here but you are too weak to move and I am not learned in the art of healing.”

“So what do you want then?”

“Just to give you some advice…”

If he could, Ashley would have raised an eyebrow but he decided to not take that risk in case that hurt too. “Go on…”

“Even if you win the battle tomorrow this is far from over.”

“What’s do you mean? Hey wait!”

Too late, the girl had turned and left.

“Well what was the point in that?” Ashley muttered to himself, “So much for advice.”

Ashley wriggled a bit and closed his eyes, waiting for tomorrow to arrive, waiting hopefully, for Andy and the others to come for him, and waiting for this to all be over.

“But will it be all over?” was his last thought before sleep washed over him.

Notes

Chapter 12 here hope u all like it .... Getting ever so close to the end now! :O xxxx