"No, sorry. I'm way too old for you", I hadn't even finished speaking before she walked off to the nearest group of people to ask them the same question. They told her no, and she moved on. At the time, I thought she was a prostitute and asking people if they wanted to be her boyfriend was her way of offering her services. However, I later learned that this practice wasn't about finding clients, but caretakers, someone that protects them from anyone who might want to harm or abuse them in any way.
And in return, they would act as caretaker's "girlfriend," doing to whatever he desired.
However, from a distance, I noticed she wasn't the only one approaching people. There was a group of three individuals armed with machetes. I stood up, tied my food bag to one of my belt loops, and walked over to see what was happening. They all had a phoenix tattoo. Perhaps they belonged to Ash or another gang.
"I don't give a fuck, man," one of the gang members said to a migrant. "It's a thousand bucks to stay on the train, or else get the fuck out. What the fuck you want, you asshole..." Before he could finish his sentence, I grabbed his arm and twisted it to make him drop his machete. Once he let go, I kicked it off the train.
He then tried to hit me with his other arm, but I let go and created a bubble around myself, which he ended up hitting as hard as he could. He screamed and writhed in pain.
The other two closed in and attacked me with their machetes. My shield held against the first few blows, but my magic was draining fast, so I dispelled the shield right after it took a hit from one of the gang members (let's call him #2), grabbed his arm and twisted it to force him to drop his machete. He did, but at that moment, gang member #3 raised his machete and swung it downward. I dodged the attack, but #2 seized the chance while I was distracted to pull out a switchblade and stab me in the arm. I let go of him and stepped back. #3 attacked again; I barely had time to throw my arms up in front of my face and create a shield, which shattered instantly upon impact. I retreated a bit further, but the machete still managed to slice horizontally across my arms. I didn't need to look behind me to know I was dangerously close to the edge of the car. #2 picked up his machete from the ground, and both of them got closer to me. Blood was streaming down my arms. I felt exhausted.
When they attacked, I trapped #2 inside a shield and dodged #3's machete. #2 kept pounding on the shield to break free, but I had used enough magic to keep him contained long enough so I could defeat #3 with no distractions. And that's exactly what I did: I closed in on him, twisted his arm, took the machete, and I was about to shove his off the train, but suddenly, someone hit me in the back and knocked me to the floor; I immediately felt the hot metal burning me. I scrambled up and turned toward my attacker, who was the first gang member I had fought (let's call him #1). He hit me in the guts with his other hand—the one that hadn't been injured hitting my shield. I doubled over in pain as I felt some of my wounds reopen. #1 punched me in the face and knocked me down; I fell against the edge of the car.
#1 and #3 approached. I planted my arms on the floor to push myself up, but the heat of the metal sheet burned me through my clothes and my wounds stung so intensely that I screamed in pain. At that moment, I was kicked in the face, knocking me sideways. If #3 had kicked me with the other leg, I likely would have fallen out of the car.
#1 and #3 surrounded me, and without thinking, I cast a spell right in #1's face, causing him to cover his face with his hands and writhe in pain. #3 looked at his companion in surprise, and I seized the moment to shove him off the train.
I heard a faint explosion behind me and turned toward it. #2 had destroyed the shield I had trapped him in. He lunged at me, swinging his machete back and forth. I stepped back to dodge it and grabbed his arm just as he finished one swing and was preparing for another. I twisted his arm to force him to drop the weapon, but he slammed his entire body into me. I let go and took a few steps back, but immediately lost my balance when I stepped on the edge of the car. I started to fall but instantly created a shield large enough to stop me from falling. #2 carried forward by the momentum of his own charge and fell off the car. Fortunately, there were tall patches of grass beside the tracks that cushioned his fall.
#1 was sitting and covering his face with his hands. He was no longer screaming.
"Forgive me," I said and shoved him off the car. Then I sat down and examined my wounds. I had lost quite a bit of blood, so I took the bandages the doctor had given me out of my bag and pressed them against the wounds to stop the bleeding. Both the bandages and my hands quickly turned red.
I don't recall how long I had been working as a Hero—probably not long—but one time, we raided a gang's safe house. We had received an anonymous tip that numerous vans without license plates were arriving at the location, people inside there were blasting music all day long, and an unbearable stench was wafting from the property. We kept the place under surveillance for a while, and after confirming our suspicions, we stormed in. The gang members inside offered no resistance, but the moment we arrived, we were hit by a stench of flesh, blood, and rot. We arrested them all, confiscated their weapons and drugs, and searched the premises. At first, we found nothing out of the ordinary, but as we ventured deeper into the house, the smell grew increasingly unbearable. When I opened the door to one of the upstairs rooms, the stench intensified so sharply that I immediately turned aside and vomited.
After taking a few seconds to catch my breath, I entered the room and searched it, finding nothing. I opened the bathroom door and was immediately confronted by the source of the stench: heads, brains, entrails, bones, and rusted machetes lay scattered across the shower floor; dark blood stained the walls and pooled around the drain. I fell to my knees and vomited bile and saliva.
That image became seared into my memory. From that day on, I learned that—despite requiring not even a shred of magic—transforming people with families, friends, and feelings into heaps of flesh and blood is the worst spell imaginable. No one, not even Dark or any other villain, deserves to die like that.
Anyway, the bleeding had stopped, so I bandaged my wounds and prayed they wouldn't get infected. I had lost a lot of blood and energy, and my whole body ached, so I decided to eat the rest of my supplies and rest as much as possible. Yet, try as I might to relax, I couldn't stop thinking about those gang members. They had likely boarded the train because we were already in their gang's territory, which meant I would run into plenty more of them.
Flirty was right: the part of the journey we had already covered was the easy part. Things would get complicated from here on out.
In any case, the hours dragged on, and I remained exhausted and wounded. The sun scorched my skin, making me sweat out all the water I had drunk. I used bits of magic to heal myself when the pain of my wounds became unbearable, but I obviously needed weeks of rest to recover—and I couldn't afford that luxury.
Night fell, and the heat was quickly replaced by freezing winds. Some migrants took out blankets and jackets and wrapped themselves in them. All I could do was hug my knees and try to warm myself with my breath.
The Devil then began to brake.
I looked toward the horizon, and there was a station there. Several migrants noticed it too and stood up.
It was time to go down.
They got out of the car, jumping as far away from the tracks as possible to continue on foot. I waited for most of them to get off to avoid accidents.
"Be careful," I told them more that once because there were people who, in their eagerness to jump first, were trying to shove their way through.
People kept getting out of the car, and it wasn't long before shouts and gunshots could be heard in the distance. The police must have been close by and likely caught more than a few of them.
I immediately got out of the car and jumped away as fast as I could. However, I fell to the ground and screamed from the pain caused by my injuries. Then, I began to get up clumsily.
"Don't even bother, man," a cop standing there told me. He was pointing a P320 at my face.
All around me, migrants were running, and police officers were shooting at them or beating them—with several officers ganging up on them—after capturing them.
I had to do something, so I trapped the officer who was aiming at me (let's call him #1) in a bubble and ran toward a couple of officers who were kicking a migrant on the ground. I shoved one of them (#2) and trapped him in another bubble. The other one (#3) threw a punch at me, which I dodged, and I trapped him in a bubble too.
"Run," I told the battered migrant, gasping for breath. Those three shields had cost me almost all the energy I had.
The migrant stood up and ran.
I heard a gunshot behind me. I looked back and saw a police officer (#4) firing. He was right next to #1, who was hitting the shield enclosing him with the butt of his pistol and was on the verge of shattering it. I cast a small spell—using just enough magic to destroy the shield—so that the resulting explosion would knock out #4.
The problem was that I released #1, and he started shooting at me. I created a small shield that trapped both his hands, then ran in a zigzag pattern. Immediately, my wounds and lungs began to burn. I struggled to breathe, and all around me there were more screams, officers, gunfire, and abuse.
I tried once more to use that power of friendship that had saved me on countless occasions, but I immediately remembered my former team and felt betrayed and disappointed.
Officers were taking away dozens of detained migrants, who filed past with their hands bound and their heads hanging low. In the distance, I saw patrol cars and a cargo truck, where other officers were loading migrants on board as if they were mere merchandise.
The anger I felt at that moment was such that a surge of magic coursed through my body, and I used it to cast a couple of spells at the officers escorting the detained migrants. They fell to the ground, writhing in pain and covering their faces with their hands.
"Run!" I shouted to the migrants, and they immediately scattered in all directions. "Run!" I shouted again, and suddenly an officer yanked me by the shoulder and struck me in the face with the butt of his pistol. I fell to the ground, where three police officers kicked me over and over again as hard as they could.