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"Now now, little ones, don't run too fast, you might trip! Be careful." An older man in his 50s was cautioning a much younger Maria and Clara while they were playing in their manor.
"Yes, Manong Jimmy! We promise we'll be careful!" They assured him.
Jimmy had been the family's guard since the kids were newborns. He was basically a second father figure for the girls. Always looking out for them and always making sure they were okay.
He was the one who had introduced them to Filipino Martial Arts.
"Alrighty then, I'm gonna go and prepare your snacks!" He said, smiling the usual gentle smile he would give the girls.
Cut to the present day.
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Right as they reached the gate, noticing it was cracked open, they heard a commotion inside.
"C'mon, don't make this any harder than it has to be. There are ten of us, all level 5, against just the two of you. We all know how this is going to end," an unknown man yelled, his tone urgent and mocking.
It didn't take much to guess their intentions. Luna signaled for the group to stay quiet as they began to sneak inside. The house had a long driveway lined with hedges leading to the front door. Hiding behind the bushes, Luna activated his Stealth skill. Though these men clearly had ill intentions, he didn't yet feel that was reason enough to kill them all, that is until...
"Yeah, I promiseeeee! Just the tip!" chimed in a bald man.
Luna recognized them. They lived in the neighborhood and ran in the same circle. He'd often noticed their eyes following the two sisters back in college, especially when Maria and Clara walked past them in the hallways. The men would be lounging on the floor, their gazes fixed on the sisters. One of them had even once grabbed Clara's rear end, yelling "WORTH IT!" as she beat him in response. Luna also spotted another man in the middle whom he'd never seen before. Listening in, he quickly learned who he was.
The bald guy pointed to the man in the middle. "You see, my brother here just got out of jail. He's a bigger pervert than me, and he hasn't tasted a woman the whole time he was inside."
Maria and Clara gripped their Itak Tagalogs tighter, knowing a fight was inevitable. There was no chance they would give in.
The man in the middle stepped forward. "My name is Eduardo. As you can probably tell, I'm not a very patient man. If you both keep refusing to strip, I'll rape one of you while these nine take the other. You'll watch each other lose your virginity right here. So what do you say? Or else you'll end up like your dumb security guard." Eduardo pointed his Itak Tagalog at a corpse on the ground.
The body was Manong Jimmy. He died trying to prevent the men from breaking past the gates after they pretended to be survivors needing help to get in.
Maria, the more hot-headed of the two, couldn't take it anymore. She glanced at Clara, who understood immediately. The next second, they both charged from the front door down the steps toward the group of men, ready to fight to the death.
Eduardo smirked. This was within his calculations.
He knew about the sisters' fiery tempers. If they barricaded themselves inside, breaching the sturdy front door and barred windows would cost time and energy. And if they drew zombies, maybe even evolved ones, it could get messy. This was better.
As Sura and the others waited behind the shrubbery closest to the men, they burst out simultaneously. Luna struck Eduardo in the back of the neck with the butt of his Itak Tagalog, knocking him unconscious.
"CHAIN LIGHTNING!"
Apple didn't hesitate. Having invested most of her points into INT and being higher leveled, she easily incapacitated five of the men, leaving each with only a sliver of HP—not enough to kill them, but enough to take them out of the fight.
Sura and Mabini took two others by surprise and knocked them out as well. Boni, with his low AGI, didn't even get a chance to attack.
"Luna!" the Dragon Sisters exclaimed, recovering from their shock. Their momentary relief faded as grim reality returned. "Manong Jimmy, he… Even as they were about to kill him, he still begged them to have mercy on us."
Luna hugged them both as they began to sob, clinging tightly to him.
No matter how aloof they seemed on the outside, toward those they cared for, they showed a warmth that sharply contrasted their fierce personas. "They deserve to die! Those bastards deserve to die!" Maria cried.
Luna held them tighter, rubbing their backs in comfort as he looked at the tied-up thugs with merciless eyes. "I know," he said quietly.
Sura noticed his expression and couldn't help but feel grateful she'd been summoned by Luna and no one else. He was quick to adapt, deeply loyal, and kind, yet to those who deserved it, his resolve was absolute. She knew these men were finished. She just didn't expect how.
As the ten men began to wake, fear filled their eyes. One way or another, their end was near.
Luna looked at his party, making deliberate eye contact with everyone except Sura.
"One way or another, I'm sure you guessed it would come to this," he began. "In this new world, humanity's darkest side will show itself, some of it far worse than what these men have done."
The others gripped their weapons tighter. Apple clenched her fists, steadying her breath, as Luna continued.
"See, even the most vile monsters look pitiful when caught by someone stronger. The cunning ones will play on your pity, and if you let them go, they'll come back to kill you, or to hurt those close to you."
Hearing this, the thugs began shaking their heads, pleading silently with their eyes.
"I'm not going to force any of you to kill, but if you can't show m---"
Before he could finish, Apple interrupted.
"CHAIN LIGHTNING!"
An arc of electricity chained through five of the tied men. One tick of damage was all it took. Five charred corpses slumped to the ground before the spell could leap to the rest.
"Apple, you…" The group was stunned. It had happened too fast to process.
Apple bowed slightly. "I will not hesitate. I won't risk losing my brother or my new friends. I promise I won't be a liability, but an asset to our survival. I won't bully the innocent, no matter how strong I get, but I won't be naive, either."
Luna walked over, placed a hand on her shoulder, and nodded in approval.
The rest followed his lead. Luna, Sura, Mabini, and Boni, who borrowed an Itak Tagalog, beheaded the remaining four, making their deaths quick and painless.
Maria and Clara walked toward Eduardo. They crossed their blades at his neck, watched the panic and tears in his eyes, and sliced his head off in one motion.
Blood sprayed across the whole team.
It was a baptism into the new world.
A baptism of blood.