The Eternal Imperium

Chapter 19: The Red Beast Emerges

Coco points her minigun toward Kreel as he stands nonchalantly 50 feet away from them. Having just witnessed him murder three members of Ace Ops in less than a minute did no favors to boost her confidence.

Kreel: "Well? Where is this confidence you all had? Oh! I know! It seems to have died with these three."

Benn fires a shot toward Kreel, who simply moves his head to the side as the bullet whizzes past him. Coco follows suit as she releases a torrent of bullets at Kreel. But Kreel remained still as, once again, Weiss was there to intervene. Sliding right in front of her father, she lets out a Force blast that sends the Dust bullets flying in random directions.

Kreel: "Ah. There you are, dear daughter. I trust you have my sword?"

Weiss: "No, father. It flew off from the blast. I don't know where it went."

Kreel: "Hm. No matter. Once we deal with this finding, the sword should be no problem." Catching the hook from Clover's fishing hook weapons, he yanks him over the two of them and slams him onto the ground in front of Coco and Benn.

Coco: "Clover! You alright?"

Clover: "That bastard just killed people I considered family. No. No, I'm not doing alright." He gets to his feet as he readies to fight.

Kreel: "*sigh* You know what? I'm actually not in the mood. Now, don't get me wrong, I would love to crush you three without any trouble, but in truth...it won't even be fun." Shaking his head, he drops his blade, which vanishes.

Weiss: "Father? What about the relic?"

Kreel: "We'll just grab it. With the three of them, what hope do they have to stop us? Especially when we have the full might of our fleet at our back. This little...skirmish was just that...a skirmish. Nothing more. Let's go." Kreel says, placing a reassuring hand on Weiss as she nods.

Turning off her lightsaber, the two turn around and begin to walk away. Coco, furious, points her minigun at the two, but Benn puts his hand on the barrels of her gun, pushing them down.

Benn: "They're right. We aren't going to win a one-on-one against them. They didn't even break a sweat. Let's just be glad we didn't die."

Coco: "No! I—...I can't just let them walk away with what we fought for! I can't let them win."

Clover: "You're going to have to because they've already won." Pulling out his scroll, he holds it up to his ear. "Marrow, bring the ship around. We're leaving."

Marrow(scroll): "Roger."

Coco: "No! I'm not letting all my friends die for nothing!!" Breaking free from Benn's hold, Coco unleashed a torrent of enhanced Dust bullets toward Kreel and Weiss.

Kreel rolled his eyes as, with one wave of his hand, he brushed the bullets aside. In his other hand, his black blade appeared as he, in an instant, closed the distance between him and Coco. Slashing down with his blade, he meant to end her life without a second thought, but instead of meeting her flesh, his blade met the shining light of another blade.

Kreel: "It seems we finally meet...Red."

Meeting the serious and determined eyes of Red. Kreel himself struggled against the blade Red wielded. Surprised to see that Red was wielding the Sword of Destruction.

Red: "You and your sick family are going to leave. Now."

Kreel: "Or what?" Comically amused by Red's threat.

The ground beneath them all began to shudder. Trees that were left standing after the explosion of Ulquiorra's weapon began to creak and groan as an immense gust of wind began to flow. Like the high-speed winds of a hurricane, Red released the full might of his semblance.