On this day eleven years ago, the first album for Redherring., 001: Colossus of Destiny, Cleanse This World, released. So, I decided to draw something for this special occasion! ❤️
🪞🧨 * ﹕ㅤㅤ renaissance, rogue, no, salvador had hoped this night this night would end, but it had already been too long, too dark and there weren't even stars in the skies he could wish upon. but despite the exhaustion the last few nights had brought on their bodies, salvador and caio still went out there to protect and evacuate civilians to the current safe havens, and even the times they spent to supposedly rest were instead used to listen to both vigilante and hacked police comms in case people needed them back out there. and for almost half an hour, they listened to static as they waited and waited and waited⸻ unsure whether to feel relieved that no one needed their help, or be scared that the people out there who might've needed them had already been devoured before they could even ask for help.
then, a panicked voice, and they didn't need to hear the full thing before they were both on their feet, getting ready to face the night again. « residential area in the west end is currently in ruins. not because of the undead. but because of karma from the kickstarters. an apartment building just folded in on itself. cars are being hurled everywhere. he seems unstable. i repeat, he seems unstable. he needs to be stopped but proceed with caution. » the message had salvador stop all actions for a moment, in slight disbelief to hear murphy's callsign, to hear what had happened because of him. and then he moved quicker, every instinct in his body already pulling him toward the chaos and destruction. because karma wasn't just some random miracle to him, wasn't just another future headline. they had shared lockerrooms, training sessions and photoshoots, and so many shitty catered team dinners where pr reps forced them to smile until their cheeks hurt.
and salvador also knew what it looked like when someone cracked beneath the pressure of being a hero, knew how quickly people stopped seeing the real person underneath their idea once collateral damage started stacking up. if it could happen to dune, typhoon and maestro, then it could happen to murphy.
" we seriously doing this? " caio muttered beside him as another distant explosion rattled the street. " because this feels like the beginning of one of those documentaries where everybody dies. "
and despite the dire situation at every corner outside caio's apartment, every how tired and sleepless he was, salvador still laughed, still couldn't walk away from murphy, and if he had clean up one of his messes one last time then so be it. " yeah, well... those documentaries usually need really attractive corpses anyway. "
but his expression dropped as soon as the comms crackled alive again. « we've just detected horde movement detected near the residential area that was just affected by karma's miracle. repeat, massive horde movement heading toward the residential evacuation routes. » fuck. all the noise. karma's uncontrolled powers ripping buildings apart, car alarms shrieking, people screaming⸻ it would've been like ringing a dinner bell for those fucking zombies.
it doesn't take them too long to get to halcyon's west end, especially when caio could just create decoys to distract the stray undead with their noises. but then ahead of them, karma was long gone, but civilians still stumbled through the streets⸻ parents dragging children, bloodied neighbors trying to carry each other, apartment residents wrapped in blankets of smoke and dust. and beyond them, at the far end of the avenue, came the echoes of squelching flesh and rattling bones. and they didn't have much time left before it reached the crowd of people outside, but salvador inhaled slowly anyway, rolling his shoulders back despite how every sore muscle already screamed at him to stop.
" we buy them time, " salvador said in that practiced superhero voice he put on every time he gave an interview back when he was still renaissance and wanted to make everyone believe he can do anything.
and red herring stared at him for exactly one second before groaning dramatically. " i fucking hate when you do the hero voice. " but caio had always been just a heroic, just as brave, already facing the civilians then giving them the order to get into the houses and buildings that were still upright.
" wait till you hear my sexy voice. did an erotica narration for one of those audiobook apps once to boost my scores with the college girls demographic, " salvador half-joked, to lighten the situation up, mostly for himself, before he began to evacuate the civilians.
they spent the next few minutes doing just that, most people already off the street by the time the first undead launched itself at them. and salvador caught it by the throat, instantly absorbing its supernatural strength and twisting the momentum violently as he slammed it skull-first into a parked car hard enough to crater the door. and not too far from him, caio's decoys snapped into existence, throwing flashbangs and grenades at the horde, not strong enough to completely incapacitate or destroy the undead, but enough for them to lose some limbs and be slower. and whenever they got close to be lethal, caio made a decoy of himself to be devoured in his place.
and for a while, it almost worked. people got away. doors were slammed shut, and lights disappeared. but the undead just kept coming, too many for the two of them to deal with. salvador's breathing grew ragged and harsh, his fists slick with blackened blood, and his shoulder partially dislocated after an undead crashed into him hard enough to send both of them through a bus stop. a few feet from him, red herring was limping now, the decoys he tried to make flickering erratically in and out of existence from his own exhaustion.
then, one undead tackled salvador from behind. another immediately after. then three more. he hit the pavement hard, and teeth sank immediately into his side, and another grawed at his arm. there was nothing to do but scream as filthy hands pinned him and mouths tore into his flesh like starving animals.
" salv! " caio screamed.
and salvador turned his head just enough to see him collapse too, the undead digging into caio's flesh. still, salvador reached for him. hand dragging uselessly across blood-soaked concrete, fingers trembling, vision blurring, but trying anyway. " i'm glad i met you, " the actual words didn't come out, but salvador mouthed it anyway with the last of his strength.
and caio just smiled at him, using the last scraps of his energy with one hand reaching back at salvador while the other was reaching for the hail mary in his arsenal. their fingertips almost touched, but then caio triggered it⸻ an explosive caio had reserved for only the worst of villains. " see you in the next life, " caio said at the final moment. and maybe time was the biggest of all for now affording them enough, the explosive now used to give a quicker death and erased all of this motherfuckers.
with the two of them at the center, white-hot fire swallowed the horde, vaporizing the undead bodies and everything else in their immediate vicinity. smoke rolled upward into the endless night...
and for the first time since the city was swallowed in the darkness, the street finally became quiet.
🪞 * ﹕ㅤㅤ he didn't know what was happening outside this impenetrable dome of darkness, but for all intents and purposes, salvador felt like the whole world was in shambles. and he could be anywhere else right now to be what might just be the end of the world, yet he found himself here⸻ outside red herring's apartment, picklocking the door in the dark so he wouldn't have to announce his presence. so he wouldn't have to knock and awkwardly wait to be let in, so he could just walk in and pretend it was his own place. and salvador wouldn't say it was an attachment, developed since the older vigilante found him bleeding in an alley the second night he went out there to fight crime on his own, as he would rather fool himself that this was all about safety in numbers, that no one would like to die alone and he was the one doing caio a favor by being here.
so, he walked in. took off his broken helmet, stripped off his bloody jacket, and looked around in the dark for a sign of life. ❝ caio, are you home? ❞ he asked but his feet were already leading to the sofa, letting his aching body just collapse there after all the bullshit he'd been through tonight. or was it already morning? it was difficult to tell in an eternal darkness. a guttural sound escaped him as he shifted to make himself more comfortable, wounds already healed by another miracle, but phantom pains lingered, unsure what else he could do to soothe them. ❝ i'm just⸻ i'm just gonna lay down here. don't mind me, ❞ salvador grunted, his voice a little louder than before, just in case caio wasn't close enough, maybe in the bedroom, maybe in the bathroom, but he just hoped caio was actually here and not out there fighting for his life. @d1vert
