Miscellaneous Stories: Xylo

1: The Ninja and the Light

The silent city stood still. Ashen clouds hung overhead, letting the heavy rain to fall and beat down upon the ground, buildings, and anyone uneventful enough to be caught in its assault. One such individual was a young tawny man, the lower half of his face covered by a navy-blue mask. His hood hugged his head and covered it from the drenching rain. The jacket his hood was attached to had dark blues which matched his pants. He was decorated with navy blue gloves with silver metal guards attached to the backs of his hands and shins that matched his arm gauntlets. He swayed as he walked, holding his bloodied left arm. Blood dripped down from above his closed right eye. Left. Right. Left. Right. He moved his feet. He slips on the wet ground and falls on his face. The rain beats down on him. He lays there for a moment. He attempts to lift himself up but falls again out of fatigue. He lays there once more before trying again. He succeeds, slowly rising to his knees and then his feet. He held his arm again and limped off his left leg and continued through the pouring rain.

"Whatever happened to you," he thought. "is your fault. You deserve all of this. And yet, it's still your job to protect each and every one of those people. 'Why?' you ask yourself? Because you are the vessel for everyone's burdens. No one deserves pain. No one deserves suffering. It's your job to keep it that way. But everything need to go somewhere, right? And that place is-" The man falls to the ground again. He tries to lift himself but couldn't muster the strength. He looked at the river of blood slithering from his arm to a nearby drain. The rain continued to thrash on him, the blood, the ground, the buildings... "Well..." he continued. "that place was you..." he whispers to himself as he closes his eyes.

A young woman flies overhead. She wore a white, skin-tight suit with a long white cape, black accents, and a black symbol of the sun on her chest. Her short blond hair was drenched from the heavy rain and her baby blue eyes shifted left and right, scanning the grey scene below. She was searching for something...someone? She then spots a dark figure on the ground, unconscious, bloodied. Her eyes widens. She zoomed down to where he was. She lands on her feet and stairs at him. She sighs and picks him up with her arms without a struggle.

"When are you going to learn," she says to him. "You belong here just as much as the rest of us and throwing yourself at danger like that without any help is going to get you killed."

She levitates above the ground and flies back to where she came. She looks at him again.

"Well, I guess that's just who you are, huh. 'The vessel for everyone's burdens,' right?" She asks as if expecting an answer. "You know that we're always going to say no. Like I said, you belong here just as much as the rest of us. And we're going to make sure that you're alive and well, also. We're all heroes and we protect and save those who need it...including you."

She continues to fly away. The rain becomes a light shower as the sun breaks through the dark clouds. The benevolent light bounces off and shimmers through the rain, as a pure-colored rainbow arcs the sky. The dark city becomes illuminated by the light. The city soon wakes up, ready to start a new day.