The Weight of Exhaustion

Chapter Nineteen: The Red Steve

M will get the name M soon, but since he hasn't met Sabre yet, he just goes by Red Apprentice or just Apprentice.

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Even though the Red Leader forbade him from leaving the Red Kingdom, the Red Apprentice could never follow that one simple rule.

All the others he could do with ease; It was just that one rule that Red Leader wished he could follow like the rest of them.

Yet, no matter how hard he tries, he could not. The outside was so interesting, with so many other colored Steves and events going on that Apprentice really wished Red would allow the Red Kingdom to come out of hiding.

Even just overhearing gossip of the other Steves showed that so much happened ever since they hid themselves away. How much knowledge have they missed out on by hiding away?

They had a Rainbow Kingdom! Meant for all the colors! Even though he really wanted to, Apprentice never attempted to sneak into the kingdom. Even from a distance, he could see it was well guarded. Colorless Guards was a new thing too that he found interesting.

Sadly, he wasn't going to be able to go into the kingdom anytime soon. It's not like people were just going to allow a Steve to enter that won't show themselves from underneath the cloak he wore. For all they knew he could be infected with darkness.

There was also the fact there was a human in their world! It has been so long before a Player or a Human graced their world, even the oldest of the Red Steves were beginning to struggle to remember the stories told to them about the kind.

Red Apprentice has seen the Human too, yet he did not attempt to initiate contact. The Red Leader seemed to already dislike the Human before even meeting him, and he didn't want to be the one that made the Human—Sabre, if the words he heard were true—to discover the Red Steves.

Red Apprentice used every fiber of willpower  in his body to not check out every book they had about Players and Humans once he made that discovery. The books were few and far between, most burnt after their kinds' betrayal, but the Red Steve's weren't known for Wisdom for nothing.

He pushed down the anger at the thought of all of the knowledge lost because of the other colors deciding to burn the books. It was never a good idea to burn knowledge simply because of actions taken by other people.

Red Apprentice still read some books about Human's in between his duties, tucking the book into a book jacket of a different book so Red Leader didn't see what exactly he was reading. Red thought he dropped the interest with the Human, and he didn't want him to find out Apprentice didn't.

So no, he didn't really even listen to the Red Leader when it came to the Human or when it was about going outside of the Kingdom.

This time though, he really wished he decided to stay home, as he stared at the face of an enemy their kingdom thought was sealed away until it withered away.

The face of an enemy that the Red Steves told their children if they would not stay in bed. A boogie man, yet one that clearly has come to haunt them once more.

Apprentice searched their mind for any info on this long forgotten enemy, let very little came to mind. A creature that resides in the dark, weak to lightning and light.

"And what do we have here?" Soulless stared down at him, head tipped in fake confusion. "I thought all the Red Steves were gone, yet here you stand."

Apprentice hated the fact Soulless could tell what color Steve was even with his cloak on. He really shouldn't have checked out the odd lightning strikes.