Red Moon Nightmare: Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Zero quickly got dressed and ready to go with his weapon. Enraged, he tore apart parts of his hotel room, unable to control his anger towards Brad. He dashed out the door and headed down to the lobby. By the time he got to the front door, the Red Moon rose in the sky, but no demons appeared in the nearby area. Zero didn’t really pay attention to the lack of demons as he went outside, and looked around before running to the right towards the school. The streets of the city were void of all demons even though the Red Moon was up in the sky. Zero didn’t really notice anything as he headed for the school. As usual, the front door was unlocked, so Zero simply walked right in. On the wall there was a picture of an arrow pointing left on the wall. Zero noticed a few other arrows pointed straight ahead. He followed the arrows taped to the wall until he arrived in the gym, which was still being rebuilt. Zero could hear very faint noise coming from somewhere, so he headed into the sports locker rooms, which were still pretty much destroyed from Zero’s fight with the Red Moon Brute. The noise he heard earlier grew in volume as he noticed the door leading out to the football field was unlocked. “Brad is right through there. Well…here we go.” Zero said, walking into the door that led him out to the football field. The first thing Zero saw when he entered the football field were Red Moon Demons. Every demon lurking the city were all in the stands of the field to watch Zero’s showdown. The lights weren’t on, but Zero could see the eyes of all the demons, and Brad’s glowing red eyes. Once Zero walked to the ten yard line, all the spotlights turned on in the football field. Hundreds of demons were in the stands, waiting for things to get bloody. Brad was sitting on the field goal post on the other side of the field, and when Brad let out a whistle, all the demons quieted down.
“So…Zero. You have arrived. On time, I see.” Brad said, drinking a cup of coffee. “I’m not here to play your games, Brad! You know why I’m here!” Zero answered, still angry at Brad. “Right. You came for the girl. Do not worry. She is safe…for now. Look to your left.” Brad says, pointing to a cage dangling up above the crowd of demons. “She’s safe in that cage for now, taking a nice, quiet nap. She’ll be demon food soon enough.” Brad added, taking another sip of his coffee. “You shouldn’t have gotten her involved. This is just between you and me. Man to man.” Zero said as he walked to the twenty yard line. “You assume that just because you can handle a sword like a pro makes you a man? Don’t make me laugh. All you humans are pathetic. Simply pathetic.” Brad answered. “You’re human too, Brad. You know it for sure.” Zero exclaimed. “Fool! I am no longer a pathetic human like the rest of these fools living in this city. I have reached a point far beyond human standards thanks to the almighty Book of Fear!” Brad said, jumping off the goal post onto the fifty yard line with a strange dark aura surrounding him similar to what happened to Mr. Shadow before Zero fought him.
Zero walked to the other fifty yard line, taking out his sword as Brad glared at him. “Draw your weapon, Brad.” Zero said, but Brad only laughed. “Who needs a weapon when you have a magical book with tons of dark, magical powers?” Brad answered as the Book of Fear floated down into Brad’s hand from high up in the sky. “Get ready, Zero. Tonight marks your final chapter. I’ll finish what Mr. Shadow started.” Brad said as the dark aura around him grew stronger, and he seemed to be gaining physical strength by simply holding the Book of Fear. “I activated something before you arrived. As long as I hold this book, I’ll grow as strong as a Red Moon Brute.” Brad said, continuing to grow stronger. “Brad, too much power has its consequences. Mr. Shadow learned that the hard way.” Zero says, trying to show Brad reason not to gain too much power. Brad didn’t listen though as the power he gained reached a certain point where he was as strong as a Red Moon Brute. Soon, the Book of Fear glowed black, and began to speak. “You choose to become the experimental design of that foolish human’s experiments? If you request it.” The Book of Fear said telepathically to Brad as it floated up in the air. Brad felt weak, and fell to his knees. A strange black circle surrounded him, starting to turn his skin pitch black. Two demons went down and restrained Brad so he wouldn’t become an enraged monster too quickly and rip everything apart. Brad’s eyes turned a glowing yellow color, and soon fully turned into what he asked. Another Red Moon Brute.
The new Red Moon Brute was released from the strange black circle and it immediately smashed the two demons skulls with its elbows. Zero stepped back a few steps as the Red Moon Brute spotted Zero, and started to walk towards him with an enraged look on his face. “I guess there’s no more use for talking now. Brad’s a Red Moon Brute now. A far stronger one than the original. I’ll have to be really careful this time around if I intend to survive…if I manage not to get slammed by that thing like before. One hit, and I might die for real this time.” Zero thought as the Red Moon Brute quickly charged at Zero without hesitation. Zero dodged, but while the Red Moon Brute was charging, it slashed a part of Zero’s left arm with its claws, causing Zero to stumble back a bit. The pain was nothing like he felt before, mostly because the attack was far swifter than the original Red Moon Brute’s charging. This Red Moon Brute destroyed a huge chunk of the wall it crashed into, and kept going a bit longer, further destroying the locker room before running back, uppercutting Zero, grabbing him by the neck, then finished it’s attack by smashing Zero into the forty yard line, leaving an huge crater from the impact of the attack. The Red Moon Brute grabbed Zero out of the crater, and threw him through the wall, through the locker rooms, and into a hallway in the school. Zero got up, badly bruised and injured by the various attacks thrown at him by the Brad version of a Red Moon Brute. “Man, this guy is really strong. He’s much stronger than the first one, and more tactical than before.” Zero thought, ripping a piece of a broken wall out of his left leg. He could hear the heavy footsteps approaching, and he knew that the Red Moon Brute was ready to charge, so Zero got out of the way before he saw something speeding towards him, smashing the nearby lockers in the hall, breaking out of the school with its attack, ripping apart a tree with its charging attack, followed by a long flurry of slashes to chop the entire tree to bits. “Well, I guess I was lucky not to be hit by that one.” Zero said, running down a hall, thinking of a way to beat the Red Moon Brute.
“How did I kill the first one? Maybe if I follow the same basic idea, I can beat Brad.” Zero thought before the Red Moon Brute’s big hand busted through the wall, and grabbed Zero. Afterwards, the Red Moon Brute threw Zero high up into the air. When Zero started falling, the Red Moon Brute smashed Zero into the pavement with its fist.
“I’m getting destroyed right now. But how did the first one die?” Zero thought, remembering the night he fought the first Red Moon Brute. “Wait a moment. Water is the answer. How am I supposed to get water, though?” Zero wondered as he climbed out of the large hole in the pavement from the Red Moon Brute’s last attack. The more Zero attempted to fight back, the more injuries he got from fighting the Red Moon Brute. Zero lured the Red Moon Brute into the locker room where he found out the original one’s weakness, and turned on all the showers to get the floor wet with water so the Red Moon Brute would slip if it charged. Although, it appeared that it was smarter than the first one, and it didn’t charge. “This isn’t good. I forgot that it might have Brad’s mind, so it isn’t stupid.” Zero thought, but the Red Moon Brute charged anyway, only slightly slipping, giving Zero the moment of an opportunity to attack. He jumped up into the air, and thrusted his sword into the Red Moon Brute’s chest, but it didn’t die. It stumbled a bit, and removed the sword before hitting Zero through the wall into a classroom, throwing his sword into the chalkboard. “This guy will end up destroying the entire school at this rate. I did manage to damage him, though. He must be more armored than the first one.” Zero thought, getting up and grabbing his sword.
Zero heard the heavy footsteps of the Red Moon Brute approaching, so he decided to get out of the room before it charged. He ran back to the football field where the Red Moon Brute was originally created from Brad as a human. He noticed the strange black circle left a strange set of marks on the field, but Zero’s primary concern was finishing off the Red Moon Brute. The Red Moon Brute charged at Zero again, and successfully grabbed him and went crashing into the wall, but before that happened, Zero took his sword, and stabbed the Red Moon Brute in the back before hitting the wall, causing it to cough up black blood before falling to its knees. All the pitch blackness of its body disappeared, and the Red Moon Brute soon turned back into Brad, badly wounded from Zero’s attacks. “Well…that nightmare’s over.” Zero said with a sigh, sheathing his sword. “You’re wrong. It’s nowhere near the end. The Red Moon Shadow has something planned in the cryogenics lab in the city. You don’t have much time left.” Brad said in a normal voice as if he had been snapped out of his command. Zero nodded, and dashed off, heading for the cryogenics lab as quickly as he could to stop what the Red Moon Shadow was up to.
After running through the city, dodging demon attacks outside, Zero arrived at the entrance to the cryogenics lab on the other side of the city. Some of the area seemed to somehow be frozen in some type of weird ice, but it was completely black. Zero noticed mysterious claw marks on the walls outside the cryogenics lab. “That demon was here…these claw marks are a clear sign of it.” Zero thought, looking in front of him to see the front door of the cryogenics lab was clawed apart until it was open. Since the door was already open, Zero decided to simply walk inside. In the first room, everything seemed to have been frozen solid somehow. Zero looked around and wondered why everything was frozen solid, but he decided to pay no mind to it as he skated through the frozen rooms of the cryogenics lab. After going through many frozen halls, Zero found a strange room with a lot of cryogenic tubes. There was a cold chill in the room for some reason. Possibly because of all of the cryogenic tubes in the room. Zero looked around the room for any signs of the Red Moon Shadow, but he found nothing. Although, when he walked over to some computers he felt a slight amount of warmth coming from the monitor, noticing that the computers have recently been used. “Something’s wrong here. I have the strangest feeling something weird is going on around here.” Zero thought, walking towards one of the cryogenic tubes. Zero tried to look to see what was in the tube, but the frost fogging up the glass made it impossible to see what was inside it. After that, Zero heard the noise of somebody using a keyboard, so he turned around and saw the Red Moon Shadow putting in some type of code into the computer system by using the keyboard.
“So, you finally decided to show your face.” Zero said, unsheathing his sword. “Foolish human. I came here for my own purposes.” The Red Moon Shadow replied. Zero remained cautious, awaiting a possible attack from the Red Moon Shadow. “My plan is rather simple. But, I will let you see it firsthand. Behold, the true brutish power of the Red Moon Demons.” The Red Moon Shadow said, pressing the enter key on the keyboard. After the key was pressed, seven cryogenic tubes slowly opened up, letting out an icy mist as the tubes opened, blocking Zero’s vision of the horrible event that was about to befall him and all of Star City. Zero could hear deep growling coming from what was in the mist. After that, he heard seven sets of loud footsteps stepping out of the seven cryogenic tubes. When the mist cleared up, Zero saw not one, not two, but seven Red Moon Brutes that looked exactly like the first original one. “Say hello to the Red Moon Brute clones. Seven exact copies of the first original Red Moon Brute you killed back at the school. I had Mr. Shadow extract a quick genetic sample of the original Red Moon Brute to create these seven exact copies. At first, they were unstable, so I had to put them in cryogenic sleep for a few weeks. Now look at them. Perfect specimens.” The Red Moon Shadow said. “No. I nearly died just killing one of them. I can’t fight off seven of them myself.” Zero said, stepping back a few steps. “Exactly why I created seven of them, so you would be unable to stop all of them. Now my Red Moon Brutes, lay waste to Star City. Unleash your true power!” the Red Moon Shadow commanded as the Red Moon Brutes fully woke up and busted out of the cryogenics lab in an extreme rage. The Red Moon Shadow followed the seven raging brutes out of the lab with a cruel, heartless laugh. Zero knew for sure he was powerless to stop seven Red Moon Brutes before they destroyed the city, but he didn’t care. He knew he had no choice but to fight off the seven demons even if it killed him.
Outside, the Red Moon Brutes began the destruction of Star City with smashing buildings, throwing vehicles, and crushing trees. The clones were creating mayhem throughout the city. Zero ran out of the cryogenics lab to see destroyed vehicles, broken pieces of buildings, and crushed trees all over the city. Seven loud, bloodthirsty roars echoed through the entire city as the seven brutes continued their reign of destruction. Although, the brutes began their destructive attack a bit late as the sun started to rise and all the demons disappeared until the red moon rose once again. On a rooftop, Sean Andrews, the reporter from the news, was watching all of the action with a telescope. “So, there are bigger demons as well. This story is gold if I can get a camera crew out here.” He thought, putting his telescope in a large case that also contained his camera and other news equipment. “That Zero kid is a bit suspicious as well, running around at night. Just why does he carry around a weapon in public?” Sean wondered as he started for the stairs to go gather a news team to go spy on Zero. Hopefully to find some answers. While Zero was on his way to school, he remembered about the bus driver he helped at the abandoned bus station. “Maybe I should go check on him after school…” Zero thought as he walked, looking over to the still raised Star Bridge. “If we didn’t speed through the bridge, the demons would kill us. I did what I had to.” Zero said. School went by slowly for Zero since the only thing on his mind was the seven Red Moon Brute clones destroying all of Star City, along with whatever the Red Moon Shadow’s plan was. With all of that on his mind, he also wondered where the Book of Fear was located. Whoever had it was doomed to be controlled like Mr. Shadow. Zero thought deeply about where the Book of Fear was hidden as school dragged on, and the mysterious Book of Fear’s location was yet to be discovered.
In the abandoned cryogenics lab, Zac was waiting for Brad to return, not knowing of Brad’s defeat. “Just where the hell is he? Brad better not be holding out on our deal. I really hate having to wait for the shadow to come at dusk.” Zac thought as he waited around for Brad to return. At lunch, Zero decided to head off for the hospital to go see the bus driver he saved from death a while back. Although, when he asked the receptionist about the driver, she only mentioned he left about a week ago. Zero thought the driver safely recovered from his injuries and went to hide from the demons at night. Zero only wondered what the bus driver’s fate was. Although, before Zero could focus too much on it, he saw a strange island in the far distance away from the water. “Something suspicious is over there. I have a strange feeling of it.” Zero said, dashing towards the docks to find a boat to reach this strange island.