BATTLES: The Royal Invasion
Chapter 27

After walking for a few hours the both men felt that their legs can’t hold them anymore, but they were forced to continue their way under the burning sun of august to treat the wound that was draining John’s soul.

“Are we close?” said Deon who was breathing heavily due to the passed out extra load on his shoulder but Franklin didn’t know what to tell him after he examined the map minutes ago and it showed that they have a lot of walk to go and he didn’t want Deon to feel down.

“Why you didn’t answer me? How much to reach there?” said Deon looking for an answer for his question.

“We still have a long road to walk…like the half or something”

“Alright…we did a good job…we need not to disappoint our friend” said Deon enthusiastically.

“You’re totally right…there is no time to rest” said Franklin as he was looking at Deon who remind him by his younger self; a young man who have high ambitions and big dreams but a bad luck was like a wall in front of him that prevented him to reach his dreams. Franklin went years and years back remembering the days which he was young and hungry to build a success to himself so he established a small store that he called ‘The Destination’, he was selling grocery in that store that saw a huge success in short time because of his prices and good reputation so his business has grown faster than expected so he felt that his dreams of becoming the master of the world started to becoming true, this achievement which most people look at it as a small thing was for him like he was holding the world in his hand.

Franklin couldn’t hide the smile on his face when he finally managed to open a new branch of his store in a larger place that which helped him to offer more products to his costumers.

At that moment he felt it was the right time to propose to his love of his life who didn’t think twice about accepting.

Franklin felt that he was living in the heaven; his business grows larger every day, married to a woman that he loves and she loves him back and he became a father to a girl that have the face of her mother. But it’s life, and life never destined to be perfect and it’s not the paradise that Franklin was imagining he was living in. new competitors appeared with more money and more resources, more than the small chain he owns. No much time had passed before the new competitors kicked Franklin out of the competition and that had the bigger effect on him and his mental health and led him to be a slave to the depression and became vulnerable to diseases but what really was making up for him this loses was his supportive wife who didn’t left him despite all the hard times he had, even when the depression was too heavy on him that he couldn’t work she didn’t hesitate to work in two jobs to help her family hoping he might someday recover and depression clears off him but she never meant to live to the day she witness the recovery of her husband, she died in an accident while she was crossing the road. When he heard about it he felt like he lost a piece of his heart, he felt something that remind him by the loss of his business but it was a lot worse, it was like the time had stopped and his heart was totally empty just a blood pumping machine that had nothing to beat for a few minutes. But after a moments of totally separation from reality he realized that his daughter was crying and hiding her face against his chest afraid of a future she will live without her mother which forced him to fight against his demons and go out for work to make help his daughter to live a natural life like the other children do. And ironically the place he started to work for was one of the companies that took his business down and that was his only motive in this life until her death by the invaders hands.

A powerful explosion occurred that took him away from the deep sea of memories, moments had passed before the columns of black smoke had risen in the sky.

“What is this?” Deon’s voice was barely hearable to Franklin who was shocked by the explosion that was far enough to not get hit by any shrapnel.

“Could it be the resistance?” said Deon to himself trying to make himself hopeful in the middle of this dark situation.

Few moments had passed before Franklin and Deon saw humans so Franklin shouted like a little kid got a present that he wanted so badly: it’s the resistance…it’s the resistance…Deon, we should let them know we are here.

“I think it’s difficult now…everything is on fire” Deon yelled.

The resistance were fighting type of monsters that Deon and Franklin know very well; dragon-like monsters in size of a van and it was able to shoot fire spheres out of their mouths.

Their mobility was a strength against the resistance so it was hard for them to land a direct hit to this mini dragons by ordinary weapons so fire throwers was back to work again.

“I think the battle is over” said Deon as he was putting his injured friend on the ground so he can go to ask them for their help.

“Guys…guys” Deon was screaming by everything he got so they hear him and don’t left them behind unintentionally.

“Look” said one of the resistance soldiers pointing at Deon who running toward them.

“Who in the hell is this?” said another soldier stunned at what he was looking at.

But it seems that Deon didn’t just draw the resistance attention, but he also draw attention of unwanted creatures.

“watch out” said the resistance soldiers warning Deon from a fatal threat but it was too late, one of the dragons who managed to run away took Deon’s left arm with claws that can cut steel with ease and before Deon collapsed the dragon stabbed Deon and snatched him with its claws and flew away.

The resistance tried to fire at the monster but the bitter truth was said by one of the resistance soldiers; what’s the point? He is dead anyway.

They saw Franklin standing beside his injured friend so they headed to them and they found Franklin crying over his dead friend.

They took them inside one of the trucks and they were off.