Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm

"Nope," I said with a shake of my head. "Because that would be asinine, right?"

"The Horsemen are nothing but a made-up myth from a long ago religion. They have no basis in reality or fact," he continued.  And just like that, he failed my test. Good thing he wasn\'t one of my men, or else I would have simply turned around and walked away.

"Understood," I answered with a nod of my head. I wasn\'t going to debate fact or fiction when he literally had a God standing in front of him. His journey would be a long one, that\'s for sure.

But luckily for me… he was neither my circus nor my monkey.

"How about we get out of here?" I suggested with a big smile on my face. The Healer was saved, met the love of her life, and everyone that once took pleasure here was now dead. I had gotten my revenge. There was nothing left for me now.

"Let\'s not be too hasty," said Liu Wei, coming out of the shadows. "I have one present left for you before we get going."

I looked at the man walking toward me, never once noticing the body he was dragging behind me until he deposited it at my feet.

Looking down, I stared into the eyes of Alpha. He looked back at me, a cute mixture of rage and confusion on his face. Black veins covered his skin as Liu Yu Zeng\'s poison flowed through his veins. He was completely unbound, and yet he didn\'t move a muscle. I looked at Liu Wei with a bright smile on my face. "You shouldn\'t have," I gushed. He simply shrugged his shoulders with an indulgent smile on his face.

I crouched down so that I was closer to the Alpha\'s head and whispered into his ear, "Now look at what Death dragged in." I rocked back onto my heels as I chuckled at my own joke. "But seriously, did you see this coming? Because I certainly did. I even warned you. What were my words again? Ah yes… you will never break me. Now, tell me, do I look broken to you? And if you didn\'t break me, do you really think that I would turn around and walk away without some type of revenge?"

The Alpha simply stared at me, never once bothering to speak. "Cat got your tongue?" I asked, turning to look at Hades, who was still trying to get the Healer\'s attention. "Nope, apparently not. So why won\'t you speak."

"Because even though the cat didn\'t get his tongue, Disease did," joked Liu Yu Zeng, smiling at me. "I am pretty sure that it is nothing more than a stump in his mouth right now."

I paused at that. I was more than willing to let one of the guys take this kill from me, but knowing that they didn\'t… well, now I had all sorts of feels.

Like the feeling of wanting to hear him scream, too bad that won\'t happen now.

Now that pretty much all of the joy had been taken out of the kill, I released my purple flame. The Alpha\'s mouth opened in pure anguish as the flickering fire started at his feet and made its way up the Reaver\'s body.

A strangled sound escaped him before it quickly turned into a whimper. Apparently, he could still scream after his tongue was removed. I would have to keep that in mind for the future.

The twelve of us, including the cat, stood around the Alpha, quietly watching him burn until there was nothing left but ashes. The Healer still passed out in Rip\'s arms. When the ashes blew away, I turned my attention to my men.

"Ready?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not yet," grunted Rip, "She is going to want everyone released," he pointed out, tilting his head in the direction of the cages. My shoulders slumped at his words. Fucking Hell, he was right. She was going to want to save everyone.  Oh well… that is just one of the many reasons why I love her.

"Fine," I whined, turning to look at Wang Chao. "You are a metal power user, right? Want to open the cages for me?" Wang Chao looked at me, startled, before slowly nodding his head. "You forgot, didn\'t you?"

"Sorry," he grunted. "It is not my go-to power." With a wave of his hand, he unlocked almost half of the women\'s cages. I nodded my understanding. But I wonder how forgiving he was going to be once he and the others learned the truth about the matter. Oh well, that was going to be an explanation for another time.

"I can help," said one of the soldiers behind Bai Long Qiang. "My name is Chen Bo Jing, but my teammates call me Lao Tie. Metal is my main power," he continued to explain as he came to stand beside me.

I smiled up at him, and he started to go from cage to cage, dissolving the locks as soon as he touched them. I was so used to how the guys wielded their powers that I had completely forgotten what it looked like when an actual power user activated their powers. It was slow and painful to watch.

"We are going to be here for hours," groaned Liu Yu Zeng, hunching his back and dropping his head. "And that is only if he doesn\'t burn out before getting everyone out of their cage."

"Yup," I answered with a sigh. Maybe I should just leave everyone here and let the Healer and her men deal with everything. This was really not my scene. Liu Yu Zeng picked me up and put me back on top of my cage so that I had a comfortable place to sit down while I figured out my next move.

I would have created my throne, but I wouldn\'t want Bai Long Qiang to have to face the fact that reality was a lot different than he believed it was.

Liu Yu Zeng leaned against the cage, watching Cheng Bo Jing move from cage to cage. The women took their newfound freedom in one of two ways. They were either laughing uncontrollably as they stepped out of their prison, or they stayed insides, curling up into a ball as far away from the open door as they could.

However, shit really didn\'t hit the fan until the soldier started to open the fighter\'s cages. Maybe there was something to the Alpha keeping them away from each other except when they were in the pit. As soon as more than one cage was open, the two fighters rushed each other, trading blows like their life depended on it.

I let out a sigh and hung my head. This was really not going how I had it in my head. How the Hell had men become the rulers of the world when they were this stupid? They just got their freedom, and the first thing they did was not take off running but start fighting. What the fuck?

"Stop!" commanded Wang Chao as more and more men joined the fray. Even the dude who was setting them free was not spared a punch or two. At his words, all of the men stopped what they were doing, frozen. "You are free; go do what you want."

He unfroze one man who was about to get punched in the face, but instead of listening to sound advice, he turned to the man in front of him and punched the frozen man in the face. I am pretty sure that that counted as a cheap shot, but what did I know?

"Stop!" came another shout, this time by Bai Long Qiang. "Do you not understand what is going on?"

The fighter turned to look at us, a small trickle of blood leaking from a cut in his lip. "I know," he sneered, stalking toward us. Clearly, this man was mentally unstable because even if you couldn\'t count, a child would understand that they were outnumbered. And yet, he still approached.

"What do you know?" asked the man in love with the Healer. I had no idea what his name was, but I was definitely on his team.

"I know that the only way to make money in this fucking world for those of us without powers is in the rings. And you fuckers just destroyed the one that paid the most," sneered the man. He walked straight up to Liu Yu Zeng and me and started to get into my man\'s face.

I get that he was the smallest of the four, but the guy was a killer. Clearly, the human was not thinking things through.

"Then where is all this money you earned?" asked Liu Wei, adjusting his glasses and coming out of the shadows to stand on my other side. The man jumped as if he never saw Liu Wei coming and then looked frantically around.

There were those brain cells kicking in.

Too bad it wasn\'t soon enough to save him.