Red sat in the room in silence, waiting for Zara to return. He wasn't sure what she had planned, but it was nothing like he expected. After a minute, she returned, but this time she was not alone. A man trailed into the room behind her. Red recognized him as one of the rescued sailors. What was he doing here? The man's eyes landed on Red, and they widened. Before he could so much as open his mouth, the man came rushing forward.
The sailor kneeled down and said, "Please accept my gratitude. If not for you, I would never have gotten the chance to see my family again. You saved my life."
"What?" Red's mouth fell open, "You're welcome…I guess. I didn't do much of…"
"Oh, there is no need to be so humble, young sir. We were told all about how you risked your life to get us back here safely. It was your plan that would let us return home. I will be able to see my family again…" the man looked up, and there were tears in his eyes.
"It's alright," Zara stepped up and patted the man on the shoulder, "We'll do what we can to get you home."
"Thank you."
Red just stared open-mouthed at the scene before him. One by one, Zara led each of the rescued sailors into the room. They all reacted similarly to the first man. There were tears in their eyes as they spoke, thanking him for their lives.
After the sailors, Zara brought in her own men. They were far more reserved than the untrained sailors had been. However, each one of them still thanked him for their lives. They were glad to be given the chance to fight for Valencia once again. Lastly, Zara brought in Silas.
"So, she tells me it was your plan that got us out of that situation…honestly, I don't see how that's…"
"Silas," Zara cut him off.
He coughed, "Well, Valencia is thankful for your actions."
"What?" Red stared at him like he was mad.
The soldier rolled his eyes, "Yes, kid. What you did was far more than you could possibly imagine. Although I'm still not sure how much you could have contributed."
"Alright, Silas. Thank you," Zara ushered the soldier back out of the room and shut the door behind him.
Red gave her a side-long look, "What exactly was the point of that?"
She took a chair opposite him and sat down, "I wanted you to understand what it is that you did. Your actions got all of those people to safety. They'll have a chance to see their homes and their families again, all because of you."
"Okay," Red shrugged, "I get that. Trust me, I do, but that doesn't change what happened."
Zara shook her head, "On the contrary, Red. It changes everything. Whether you want to admit it or not, you chose to place that bomb, and it saved those people. You knew that if you succeeded, all of those people would come home alive as well. You weren't in that position against the pirate because of something dumb, or as you said, because you wanted adventure. Your actions directly saved all of those people. That is what I want you to remember whenever you end up in a situation like that again."
"What will the result of your actions be? Is another pirate dead? Yes. Was he deserving of death? That is debatable. However, what is not debatable is that you were in that situation because you did something good and not because of some stupid reason."
"But it was a stupid reason…" he trailed off.
"Perhaps, but sometimes stupid decisions can lead us to good outcomes. I thought your plan was stupid, and I was stupid for going along with it. Well, it worked out, didn't it? You thought you made a stupid decision, but guess what, all of these people are alive because of you. If you hadn't gone, they'd all likely be dead right now."
"At the end of the day, Red. Sometimes, we have to make decisions that hurt ourselves even though they will help others. I make that choice every time I pull the trigger and kill another person. It is one more death on my conscience, and that is fine, that is normal. It is good that you are worried about this, and you should never stop worrying about it."
"However, you need to also remember that your actions today affected far more than just you," Zara finished.
Red nodded; he wasn't sure how else he was supposed to respond. To some extent, he understood what Zara was saying. But, at the same time…he didn't even want to come close to that rabbit hole. He had told her as much.
She smiled, "Focus on the future when it comes. You seem to spend too much time thinking about tomorrow rather than today. It is perfectly fine to live in the present and focus on the now."
"Alright."
Zara rose, "It will take some time to get used to it, trust me, we all know from experience. But let's focus on the present. Derrin told me about what happened with your sword."
"He did, now did he?" It made sense. If Derrin didn't know anything about it, then the next bet would have been to go to Zara.
"He did indeed," She paused then and turned back to look at him, "I am going to be honest with you. I don't know what it means or what the reason could be."
Red sighed, "Well, it doesn't matter anyway. It was a waste of time to bother worrying about. I'm better off focusing on my current assets."
"Actually, I think you are underestimating what you can do with your blade."
"It's not a blade, if it were, there wouldn't be this problem now, would there?" He grimaced.
"Every ability, every aspect, every part that comes with your powers is meant for something Red. I mean that. When I first got my abilities, I was left underwhelmed. My powers weren't flashy and barely seemed to do anything. My family all have flashy powers like lightning, it was easy to feel like I was useless."
"Oh, pray tell, what exactly could I do with a sword that is nothing but an illusion? It defeats the whole purpose of having the weapon in the first place."
"Does it, though? I can think of numerous scenarios where you could use that to your benefit. It is the perfect bluff, and for someone like you, that seems exactly like the sort of thing you would utilize."
Red thought about that for a moment. He really hadn't considered much of his blade since the failure. After that, he had only been focused on engineering. However, he could see where Zara was coming from after giving it some more thought. There were definitely possibilities for him to utilize the sword without it being real. He was already thinking of replicating what had happened when Derrin's sword had passed through his own…only in reverse.
He wasn't exactly a hand-to-hand combat fighter. But, given the right circumstances, he could totally catch his opponents off guard. It was a trick that wouldn't work twice on the same enemy, but that didn't matter. One thing he had learned thus far was that in combat, one mistake could be a decision maker. He had learned that very thing after the pirate's death.
"I see that you are taking what I said into consideration."
Shaking his head, he replied, "I guess."
Zara laughed, "Whatever you say. Also, you should get your gun fixed. I still don't want you going out, especially now that I have actual soldiers. That being said, it was foolish of me not to consider the possibility of you getting into a fight."
"Well, I never thought otherwise," Red called as she exited the room.
"I'm sure you didn't."
He stood there for a while thinking about their conversation. His thoughts finally began to organize themselves after the chaos following his first killing. A strange thought seemed to come to him as he stood there. Red wasn't certain where it had come from or why.
Choosing who to kill is what makes a Guardian.
The thought almost didn't feel like his own. It had a strange quality to it. It felt more real than his own scattered thoughts and more tangible as well. It was almost as if it wasn't his own thought at all. Instead, it was the thought that someone had placed in his mind. That didn't make any sense, though…
He sighed and moved to clean up the shattered core in the corner of the room. Maybe Zara was right. Killing the pirate had not been just because of some dumb decisions on his part, and even if it was, people were alive because of those decisions.
That being said, he had realized something during their conversation. It had been simmering in the back of his mind for a while, and he had just now fully registered it. His biggest problem with the entire situation and the future was not actively making the decision himself. It hadn't been his intention to kill the pirate, but he was dead now anyway.
In the future, Red was not going to let that happen. If he was going to kill someone, it would be on his own terms. He was not going to let another fluke force him to take another life. However, if he wanted to ensure that would happen, he had a lot of work to do.
Firstly, he needed to get his other shockblaster fixed. In the current state, he would be lucky to even survive another encounter. After that, he wanted to see if Derrin could teach him anything else regarding combat. He was Red's best chance at learning to fight with his strange illusion sword. Then, he needed to finish some more gadgets like the light explosive. Those had been critical in his first fight, and what went wrong in the next,
Despite all of these things, there was one that stood out above them all. He had an option right in front of him that could allow him to change everything in a fight. Instead of letting the enemy force him into his path, Red wanted to control the fight. He had just the thing for it as well. It had been put off long enough.
It was time to begin his prototype shielding device at last.