Jacker's men's laughter could still be heard at the front of the village hall when Jacker's eyes locked onto the post.
The chains had come loose. The iron links lay on the ground in an uneven circle, their ends still smoking. Ash stood in front of the wooden post that was still burning, his body upright, his head tilted slightly forward.
His skin was intact, however, cracks split across its surface from his neck down to his arms and parts of his body, an irregular pattern like dry earth that had fractured.
From within those cracks, a red light pulsed with a slow rhythm. Fire still wrapped around his body, but it wasn't burning him. As if Ash himself was the source of that fire.
His eyes glowed solid red, no iris visible, only the same blazing red as the cracks across his skin. His teeth were clenched tight, his breath coming out as thick visible heat vapor in the air.
Jacker's mouth opened for several moments before his voice came out. "Everyone on alert, damn it!"
The shout finally came, hoarse and not entirely controlled, and all of his men stopped moving at once. Faces that had been full of laughter now tensed as their eyes found the figure standing at the edge of the field.
No one spoke for several seconds. Ash raised his head slightly.
"ROARR!"
The sound that came from his mouth thundered from within his chest and slammed against the surrounding building walls until the wood vibrated. Jacker's ears rang instantly. Several of his men stepped back one pace, involuntarily covering their ears.
Then the cavity of Ash's mouth began to glow from within.
An orange-red light filled the space between his teeth, growing brighter, brighter still, until his entire face looked like a furnace that had just been lit.
WOOSHHH!
A blast of fire erupted outward, as if pumped from within by limitless pressure, crossing the field in a long straight line and burning everything in its path.
Three people in the front row had no time to run and were instantly engulfed in flames.
Panic erupted at once, a barrage of gunfire unleashed from every direction, the bullets striking Ash's body and falling to the ground like pebbles thrown against a concrete wall.
Ash raised one hand to cover his face, not from pain but from a reflex below conscious thought, and behind that cracked and glowing palm, not a single bullet managed to pierce through.
Ash moved.
His speed made it impossible for ordinary human eyes to follow, only the trail of heat left in the air showed where he had come from. His hand swung once and a man who had been standing was suddenly split in two. Fresh blood scattered across the ground following the direction of Ash's swing.
His fist struck another man in the chest, and that man's body was hurled backward at an unnatural speed, slamming into the stone wall at the edge of the field. Blood spread wide across the wall.
"Switch weapons!"
Jacker's voice broke through the panic. Several people ran toward the equipment crates near the aircraft, prying open boxes with trembling hands, and pulling out different weapons, longer ones, with blue muzzles that hummed low when activated.
Plasma weapons.
Five people knelt in a single row and fired simultaneously. Blinding bright blue beams split the air and struck Ash in the chest at close range, piercing through until the blue light exited from his back. Ash staggered, dropping to one knee on the ground, bright purple blood spilling from the hole in his chest and flowing onto the ground.
Several of Jacker's men cheered.
Ash lowered his head, his breathing audible and heavy. His hands pressed against the ground, purple blood continuing to flow, pooling between his fingers.
Then slowly the flow diminished and stopped.
The hole in his chest closed from the edges inward, tissue growing back faster, until all that remained was a stain of purple blood on skin that had returned to being whole.
The cheering stopped instantly.
Ash rose to his feet, slowly, and as his head lifted, the cracks across his body blazed twice as bright as before.
Ash moved again and what happened next was too fast to follow. Thick dust billowed from the ground each time Ash leapt and landed.
Sounds of screams cut short, shadows moving within the dust cloud too fast to track. Pieces of bodies flew out from within that cloud in every direction. The rest ran in terrified panic in all directions.
They ran toward the forest, toward the aircraft, anywhere that put distance between themselves and the moving cloud of dust.
Among the tall grass on the western side of the field, Jacker crawled on his stomach, his elbows and knees working in turns, his large body never seen to move that fast before.
His breathing was short and uneven, his eyes fixed ahead toward his aircraft still standing in the field, its engines not yet running.
"Help, boss!"
The voice came from behind him, one of his remaining men, running toward Jacker with a wrecked expression on his face.
"Damn it, don't come this way you idiot!" Jacker didn't stop crawling.
The sound of heavy footsteps landed behind the man who had been shouting, followed by the sound of a scream cut short, making Jacker press his face into the ground and hold his breath.
He rose when he was close enough to the aircraft, running in a crouch. His hand grabbed the earpiece from his coat pocket. "Start the engine! Now! Take off immediately!"
The aircraft engine roared to life when he was only a few steps away. The rear of the aircraft was still open, his last remaining subordinate standing there reaching a hand toward him.
"Let's go, go! go!"
Jacker grabbed that hand and climbed up.
Then shoved.
"BOSS?" The man fell backward, thrown from the aircraft and dropped to the ground, just as Ash emerged from behind the cloud of dust at a speed that sent small stones on the ground flying from the pressure of his steps.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The man was terrified, Ash grabbed his leg and hurled him into the air without hesitation. Above him, Ash saw the aircraft rising, and he leapt spontaneously, his hand swinging toward the aircraft's fuselage, and his fingertips grazed the iron wall at its underside but were not enough to hold the aircraft back.
The aircraft flew away quickly.
Ash ran after it for several steps, his head tilted back, his blazing red eyes following the dark grey shadow growing smaller in the sky. Slowly his steps decelerated, then stopped in the middle of the open field.
The sound of the aircraft's engine shrank to a distant hum, before disappearing entirely.
Silence settled except for the sounds of groaning and weeping scattered across the field. Ash stood still in the middle of the field, the cracks across his body still glowing but dimmer than before, his breathing rising and falling heavily.
Suddenly something touched his foot.
Ash looked down.
Elira lay on the ground with one arm stretched forward, her fingertips touching Ash's foot. Her body wasn't moving much, only her chest rising and falling with great effort, each breath sounding like something that had to be fought for.
Ash knelt at her side. His hand, still cracked and warm, moved toward Elira's face, but stopped several centimeters before touching, as if some part of him still knew that his hands could cause harm.
Elira opened her eyes.
She looked at Ash for several seconds, her expression unchanged at the sight of the red cracks across her husband's skin, the glowing eyes, or the fire still wrapped around his shoulders. The corner of her lips moved slightly upward.
"Ash ...," her voice came out quiet and heavy, but clear enough to be heard in the silence of that field.
Ash couldn't answer. His mouth opened but no words came out, only hot breath.
"Lyanna and I ...," Elira paused, her chest rising and falling once with great effort, "will go to a beautiful place. Don't worry."
Her hand moved, slowly, searching for Ash's hand. Her fingers found the back of her husband's warm hand and held it, a grip that wasn't strong but felt gentle.
"You are a good husband." Her eyes didn't blink, looking directly at Ash. "An extraordinary man. 15 years, not once did I ever regret it." She stopped again, her breathing growing shorter.
"You are not a monster, Ash. Never forget who you truly are."
Elira closed her eyes, her hand falling to the ground. Ash sat still with his body trembling.
"ROARR!"
A sound came from Ash's mouth, however, it wasn't like before. Not the thundering and burning kind, but something different, deeper and more broken. The cracks across his body dimmed one by one, the fire at his shoulders shrank, went out, shrank further until it was completely gone.
His hands, now returned to normal, reached for Elira's body, lifting her from the ground and holding her close, his face pressing into his wife's disheveled hair that still smelled of earth and blood.
Ash did not release his hold as his body slowly returned to what it had been. He remained there, kneeling in the quiet field with his wife's body in his arms, sounds escaping him in sobs he could not hold back.
***
Inside the aircraft, Jacker sat in the rear seat with his back against the cold iron wall. His hands were still trembling as he set his pistol down on his lap.
"Where are we going, boss?" The pilot's voice from the cockpit came out carefully, like someone who knew their question could land in the wrong place.
"Isn't it obvious!" Jacker's voice came out louder than he intended, then he swallowed. "Home. Where else."
Silence filled the aircraft cabin aside from the sound of the engine.
Jacker stared at the aircraft ceiling, his lips moving. "This is bad." His voice dropped to a murmur. "This is really bad." His hand wiped his face from forehead to chin.
"Damn it, this is very bad."
***