Chapter Twenty
It was my first mission. Two separate terrorist groups were holding a meeting to discuss merging together. Each of the groups was led by a council of twelve powerful immortals, and the idea was that without the leadership the two groups would fall apart. My mission was to eliminate all twenty-four of the immortals and any security that they might have with them. It was a simple in and out mission.
I was beyond nervous. I was glad the I didn't have to go into space combat, as I piloted the stealth fighter that I'd just learned to fly a few days earlier. They, the two dozen immortals, were going to be holding their meeting in the courtyard of a villa. The villa was on the outskirts of a city, who's name I was never given on Mavous, a large planet with a population a little over ten billion. There was enough air traffic that I was told my approach would go practically unnoticed and it did. The walls of the villa gave me enough cover that I was able to land fairly close. I wish that I could say that I had some great plan, but some would call my plan great in its simplicity. I was going to walk into the villa, make my way to the courtyard and politely ask the two dozen immortals to kindly surrender. When that didn't work I was to engage and eliminate them.
Without my armor on I crossed the distance, between my ship and the villa, at a pace that said I had a place to be, but that I wasn't in a hurry. I didn't need to set off any alarms and give the immortals a chance to flee. If I was stopped I would use my size and age to my advantage and claim to be an errand boy for one of the immortals. If that didn't work I would try to deal with the obstacle without needlessly killing them, but if i had no other alternatives then I was authorized to kill anyone that stood in the way of my mission.
I made it to a side door that was a lot less crowded than the main entrance without incident. The door was locked with a conventional bolt lock that needed a physical key. There were no security cameras in sight and although there was some foot traffic on the street that ran in front of the villa's main entrance, there didn't seem to be anyone on patrol. Maybe they were so confident in their own power that they weren't worried about a little breaking and entering, I said to myself as I got ready to pick the lock. Lock picking was one of the tasks to improve my shockhaven control that Master Jason had given me in the beginning of our training. It wasn't that I couldn't just remove the door from my path and its hinges, but again if I could make it to the courtyard without being detected it would make this all go a lot easier. So I used my shockhaven to convince the lock that the right key was in the key hole and opened the door quietly and easy.
The inside of the villa resembled more of an up scale family mansion than a terrorist headquarters, but at the time I'd never seen either, so I paid it little mind as I made my way through the villa. Using my haven awareness I mapped out the villa from where i was to the courtyard. With my haven awareness I easily avoided the staff, or other terrorists, with only my haven awareness all I could tell was that they weren't immortals meaning they weren't my concern. I made it to the doors of the courtyard without being seen and beyond them I could feel a cluster of power that had to be the immortals. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for the coming battle, pushed open the double doors and marched through.
What awaited me on the other side was not at all what I had expected. It was a beautiful garden with two long marble tables across from each other at its center. Vines with beautiful purple flowers climbed the surrounding walls on all sides. The garden itself was filled with bushes and flowers of every color imaginable and was separated by the white marble pathway that I was now walking on. I reached the end of the tables and stopped. No one sitting at the tables, which each sat a meter or so from the walkway, seemed to notice me at all. They were all looking forward at a man standing on a bench that was past the tables, at the end of the walkway.
"We must join together if we are to have any hope of overthrowing this tyrannical oppression. They limit us, force us to register our purity levels, tax us based on those levels, and use that money to fund private wars to further oppress our brothers. This must..." the man on the bench said, trailing off when he finally realized that I was there. "And who might you be?" he asked, and in an instant two dozen sets of eyes were on me.
He was more polite than I had expected from a terrorist leader, and although he was my enemy, that itself was no reason to be rude. "My name is Eathen Yeagher gentlemen." I said, addressing the whole crowd who was no doubt wondering the same thing as him.
"Well young Mr. Yeagher," the man began and stepped down from the bench. "Seeing as how you were not invited to this little meeting I must ask you to leave."
"I am afraid that I cannot do that." I began, stepping forward. "You see I am here on urgent business. By order of the Galaxy Police Force you are all here by under arrest on charges of treason and terrorism." I said. I expected them to laugh in my face, or be angry that a child was "pretending" to arrest them. The last thing I expected was for them to take me seriously.
"You have made a mistake in coming here." he said and the rest of the immortals rose from their seats to make a circle around me. "I don't know what manor of demon or twisted science you are" he continued, as he summoned a bladed staff. "But it is unwise to stand alone before so many immortals."
I summoned both my sword and my reploid armor before I spoke. "I can assure you that I am no demon, although I am a hybrid. From the weapons and threats I can assume that you have no intention to come quietly." I said, prepared to defend myself.
"You don't seriously think you can take on all of us do you?" one of the other immortals said stepping out onto the walkway. Several of his companions motioned for him to back off, but that only seemed to spur him on. "No, hybrid or not he is still only a child and should learn his place." he said to the others as though I wasn't even there. Then he turned to me. "Now kneel before your better and show your elders respect." he said. I made no move to kneel hoping that it would spur the disrespectful immortal into attacking me and in turn getting what he deserved. He raised his hand and I got my wish. "I said kneel!" he yelled and brought down a wave of shockhaven energy to try and force me down.
His power wasn't close to mine and with as wide spread and unfocused as his wave was I didn't even have to use my own shockhaven to stay standing. I remember feeling disappointed as I raised my left arm and brought my blaster forward. If I had spent my entire life training for this it almost felt too easy. I fired a blast more than powerful enough to break through any shield that some one that weak could manage to put up, and with that the battle began.
When I felt the twenty-some unfocused shockhaven blasts in my haven awareness I was glad that I had my armor on and only had to cover the exposed parts of my face with a shockhaven barrier The weak blasts hit my armor like water an rocks. Then the lead immortal closed in and engaged me in close combat. As skilled as I may have been in sword combat, I didn't regularly train against other blade weapons and the man with the bladed staff was pushing me back with a constant assault However, it didn't take me long to find the rhythm in his strikes and I sent my sword back to my sheath as he twirled the staff around like a baton.
This was where I would prove to him and everyone else here that we were not equals, I thought to myself. I timed it just right and I reached out and caught the blade-less end of the staff. Rather than fight for control of the weapon I raised my blaster and fired. the blast from point blank crushed his sternum and sent him flying back into the marble bench. He hit the bench with enough force to shatter both the stone and his spine. I was sure he wouldn't be getting up any time soon, but I was not there to cripple their leadership, so I threw the staff blade end first like a spear and ended a life for my first time.
There would be time for me to dwell on the act of taking my first life later. Two immortals had just stepped onto the path, and they were both wearing reploid armor.
"You are not the only hybrid here." One of the two hybrids began. His armor was red while his partner's was charcoal gray. They were
on opposite sides and closing in on me.
"Although you may be the only one who goes into battle without fully understanding their own abilities, the truths of immortality." the man in gray began.
They both came to a stop about five feet from me on either side and summoned swords in unison. They were close enough that if I attacked one the other could attack from my back quicker than they thought I could turn and defend myself. It was a good strategy, that showed that these men were skilled fighters, but I had been trained by the Masters all my life.
"This is your last chance. Surrender and you'll be allowed to live." the red armored reploid warned.
I bit back my retort and laughter. This was the first time I'd been allowed to leave the base and If I failed it might be the last time for a long time. If two reploids and some immortals were all that stood in my way I wouldn't fail. I settled into a staggered stance and beckoned the reploid in red armor forward.
"As you wish." he said and clenched his arms in and hunched over. At first I thought he was trying to channel a large amount of shockhaven energy for an attack, but then two giant wings sprang out of his back, as though they had come from within his body. They were the same red as his armor and were covered in feathers like those of a birds.
As if it were some signal, the rest of the immortals began sprouting wings of their own. I thought it was some strange technique that the immortals had learned and shared with each other. They all had wings of nearly every color, and while half of them had wings that resembled those of a bird, covered in feathers, the other half had wings that were more like those of a dragon fly, thin and transparent.
As confused as I was by their sudden additions I didn't ave time to think about the deeper meaning to them. In the seconds that I had spent stunned the two reploids had spurred into action. The one in front of me, the one in red, had jumped and was now coming down in an over head strike that would test my blocking abilities. The other, more pressing, issue was the hybrid in gray, who was coming in low and fast. It was a clever team tactic. While surrounding an enemy from the same short distance one would come in for an attack and take a longer route. Then his teammate would attack taking a shorter route faster. While the enemy was trying to block the first person who attacked, the teammate would land his strike killing their enemy. It was a good strategy but, with my haven awareness I saw through it before it was ever any danger to me.
I shot two blasts, both more powerful than the ones before, at the reploid in red. If he was at all skilled he'd be able to block them, but they would slow him down and give me some time to deal with the other one. I let the recoil from my blasts add to the momentum as I spun around and batted the sword thrust from the gray reploid to the side. Continuing that same move meant I summoned my sword to my hand and brought it down with crushing force. He brought his own sword up in time to deflect the blow. I used the rebound technique to maintain all of the power and spin back the way I came. as I spun I brought my blade down and under the guard of the reploid in red. With a twist of my wrist I brought my sword up and cut off both hands at the wrists where the joint made a weak spot in the armor. He screamed out in pain and shock as his hands, still gripping his sword hit the ground. Blood splatter filled the air and I was confident that he would either die from shock or blood loss, so I turned my attention back to the hybrid in gray.
I drove him back along the path with a series of back and forth slashes. They were predictable that he could block them, but with my one handed style and the rebound technique, blocking was all he could hope to do against the growing power and speed. I kept my haven awareness open to the whole courtyard as I drove the hybrid further down the path and into the center of the immortals circling us. If it would've just been the two of us fighting I would've stopped driving my rhythmic attack and exploited some of his openings. However this fight was not simply just between the two of us. With three of them down already I didn't know if this hybrid would try to grab a hold of me while I was delivering the finishing strike so that the others could finish me. There was no need to take that risk, so instead I tried to lure some of the others in by looking preoccupied with the fight I was currently in. It didn’t take long to work, two immortals had taken to the air and were coming in from what they thought was my blind spot. The fact that they thought the hybrid was enough to keep my focus, and that they could sneak up on me, was enough in it self to show that they were no where near my equals. I didn't have blind spots and as they closed in, one with a bladed staff the other with a sword both pointed at my neck, I focused the built up power to show the how much different we truly were.
I waited until they were too close to alter their course. I used the momentum from my last blocked strike to spin me around to face my would be attackers. I brought my blade across my body in one smooth swift arch from right to left, cutting the bladed head off of the staff and knocking the sword from the others hands. Then I discharged all of the energy that I had stored up in one crescent as I brought my blade back across in a diagonal slash from left to right. The brilliant white arch of energy tore through the two unarmed immortals and sent what was left of their broken corpses flying back in the directions from which they'd come, leaving behind several feathers that had been knocked loose and were now speckled red with the blood that still hung in the air.
Snapping out of the shock of seeing his comrades, and possibly friends, torn apart just a few seconds to late, the gray armored hybrid brought down his sword in an overhand strike. With my back still to him I raised my blade and blocked the strike. He pulled back getting ready for a thrust, but with a twist and a spin I drove the tip of my blade into his neck. Most reploid armor is built the same way and the armor around the neck is thin and designed for mobility and to give some protection from fragments and stray particles. It was never meant to stand up to a direct attack. If he hadn't dropped his defensive shielding to put all of his power into his attack, I might not have been able to get through his defenses with the angle I was at. As it was, he was bleeding heavily from the stab wound and would die soon enough if he didn't do something to stop the bleeding.
However apparent this might have been to me, the hybrid was battle raged and was intent on killing me or dying trying. He reached up and grabbed my sword with one hand while it was still in his neck. He raised his sword with the other hand in a way that said he'd never fought one handed before. I almost felt pity for him when I raised my left arm cannon that he'd somehow forgotten about. Almost. Pity bred hesitation and hesitation meant death. I leveled the cannon with his face and fired a powerful blast without hesitation. I saw the horror in his eyes before they, and the rest of his face, ceased to exist.
I Sent a burst of shockhaven to the ports on my boots and took to the air. Even with their wings I was more maneuverable by far in the tight quarters of the courtyard. The walls of the courtyard went up about five or six stories on all sides, and I flew straight up. The immortals nearly all took to the air after me as though I was going to try to run away. When I reached the top of the walls I flipped upside down. The immortals were still flying up, chasing after me. I picked the path that would take me through the largest cluster of the airborne immortals, sent a boost of shockhaven to the ports in my boots, and shot off towards them. Most of them hadn't even realized that I'd flipped upside down. The few of them that did barely had enough time to bring up their weapons. The first immortal was in the process of bringing up his sword when I swung mine, taking his head clean off. The next immortal in my path wasn't as lucky as the first. His death wasn't nearly as quick and painless as the first. I cut his wings off and he free fell the nearly forty feet into the stone table below. The next lost an arm, the fourth took a slash across the chest and a quick blast from my left arm cannon sent him crashing into the courtyard wall. I flipped forward, landed in a crouch and the force of my impact left a small crater in the dirt of the garden where I landed. Around me the bodies of the immortals that I'd cut down in the air hit the ground with a sound
of limp human flesh that I knew I could never forget.
As I stood up and looked around I saw that the collective attitude of the immortals had shifted. They knew that I wasn't running away, and that I wasn't leaving until they were all dead. They knew that if they stayed on the defensive, that I would cut them down one by one. I saw it in their eyes as slowly, one by one, they came to the conclusion that the only chance that they had to survive was to work together. As I saw their determination to live I knew that I couldn't give into it. They were my enemies and however moving I found their determination, they were still my enemies and their success meant my death.
I rose to meet the screams and blades of two immortal charging me head on. They came at me with inward horizontal slashes. I blocked the one on the left with the tip of my left arm cannon in the same way that Master Jason would've. At the same time I blocked the other slash with my sword. Then almost as one they came down with twin vertical strikes. I blocked both of their strikes with my sword over head and as one they tried to push me back. I held strong and didn't move other than to raise my left arm cannon and shot the one on my right. He flew black and I let the other immortals sword slide harmlessly to the side. Before I could do anything, two more immortals came up on either side with thrusts of their own. I sent my blade back to my sheath It was unnecessary given the gap of power between us, and as they were closing in on me it was becoming too difficult to use in the close quarters. I had spent enough time training with Master Jason to learn how he was able to block my sword strikes with nothing more his bare fingertips.
I batted the thrust from my left to the outside with the tip of my blaster and caught the thrust from my right between two fingers. With a push, followed quickly by a pull, I brought the blade of the immortal on my right into the path of the downward slash from the one in the middle who had just recovered his footing. I jumped back before two more immortals tried to pear me from either side. The five of them were huddled so close that I had to take advantage of it. As they all recovered their stance I summoned the large marble table from it's resting place to a foot or so over their heads. I should've used my shockhaven to block the gore that splattered out as the weight of the huge stone table crushed the five of them into little more than soup. The loud splashing thud was followed by a silence as the plan of working together to kill me was literally crushed, and the immortals spread out to avoid becoming targets.
The shift in the attitude reminded me of a saying that Master Miller had told me. "On the field the battle is fought, but in the mind the war is won." By breaking the idea that the could over power me as a group, I had destroyed their moral and I could tell that they were afraid Over half of their forces were dead or dieing already. That with the addition of their only sound plan of attack gone, they were already beaten, but didn't want to admit it.
"This is over. You cannot possibly hope to win." I said, trying to reason with the remaining immortals. "Surrender now or you will all die here, in this courtyard." I didn't think that they would actually surrender, but given the situation I at least wanted them to know that the choice to die fight was theirs to make.
As if he was waiting to answer me for his reappearance, a very pale hybrid in red armor stepped forward. Although he should've been unarmed in the most literal sense, he was holding a sword in each hand. "Under the rule of your Galaxy Police Force, treason and terrorism are both punishable by death. Either we can stand here and fight with honor, or we give ourselves to the mercy of your merciless government." As one the immortals raised their weapons. "Our choice is clear." he said.
As moving as his speech was, it changed little. He may have somehow re-attached his arms, but he'd lost enough blood that the idea of him actually putting up a better fight was a joke. I closed the distance between the two of us, and he brought up both of trembling blades up in defense I attacked with a series of right hand finger strikes. I wasn't going nearly as fast as I could've been, but it was enough to drive him back. The scene in the courtyard was very different from when I first walked in. The once smooth path was now a mess of broken stone, blood puddles, fallen feathers, and random bodies or parts of them. I had mapped them all out in my haven awareness, but the hybrid apparently had not, so he lost his footing and fell. Determined not to let him die, one of the other immortals leaped forward and tried to spear me with his bladed staff, from my left side. I turned to face him, caught the staff just below the blade with my right hand, and then drove it into the chest plate of the fallen hybrid. I let go of the staff just as the immortal realized his own weapon had been used to kill their last hope. With my right hand free I reached up and choke slammed the immortal, who was still holding his staff. I crushed his windpipe with the slam, but after seeing the hybrid re-attach his hands, I wasn't leaving anything to chance. I brought my blaster to the side of his head and fired. If he could come back from that, then I was in for a much longer fight than I had planned on.
As I stood up another pair of immortals closed in on me from either side. They stopped out of reach, took up defensive stances and held their ground. As I waited to see if they'd attack, two more immortals took up positions in front and behind me, then waited. It was the smartest tactic they'd used. They'd wait for me to attack then come at once and hope that I couldn't block them at all at once. Sound, but only if I moved to attack them. I reached out in my haven awareness to the still standing marble table. I summoned the table into four equal pieces, one over each of the immortals heads. None of them were expecting it and even if they were, each piece was easily over two tons. The best the could've hoped to do was dive out of the way. As it was, they were all crushed by the weight.
The last three immortals rushed me together once the dust settled. I drew my sword as the first of the three immortals came with a rising diagonal slash that I blocked easily enough. When he pulled his blade back to go for another strike I tilted my wrist forward and slashed both of his forearms. He dropped his sword and with a thrust, I put the tip of my blade through his heart. The next immortal was behind me with his blade raised high, thinking that the first would've given me more of a challenge. If he had been just a bit faster it might have worked, but before he could bring down his blade I spun with my blade out, cutting both of his his arms off at the shoulder and his head at the neck.
As his body hit the ground with several thuds I looked at the last living immortal. To his credit he was still holding his sword, although he and it were both shaking with fear. "You do know this is pointless." I began. For some reason, after killing twenty-three immortals, I fell compelled to limit the blood shed. Maybe I thought on some sub conscience level, that saving one life would atone for the ones I'd just taken, or maybe I was just tired of the slaughter. "If you surrender now, you may yet live." I didn't think the Galaxy Police would just let him go. Especially after armed resistance. However, they would want to question him at least, before they sentenced him to death. Looking back on it now I didn’t truly know how hard they'd ask. "But, if you continue I will kill you." I said.
"Demon child." he said, then sheathed his sword. At first I thought he was actually surrendering, but then he started to shine brighter and brighter in my haven awareness. He shot haven blast after haven blast at me from his palms. The first blast I blocked with my armor alone, was surprisingly powerful and the second was even stronger. I put up a barrier for the third and they just kept coming. As the blasts continued to grow stronger, he continued to shine brighter and brighter, both in my haven awareness and in my natural sight. He was actually glowing red and screaming. I started to deflect the blasts instead of absorbing the full force of the blasts. Then both my haven awareness and my natural sight whited out and a blast of force more powerful than anything I'd ever seen broke through my barrier and hit me exploding in a flash of white. I was knocked from my feet and into the wall behind me.
When my eyes finally adjusted and I climbed out of the wall that I'd been knocked into literally, I looked around the courtyard. The final immort
al had exhausted his shockhaven in his attempt to kill me. Feathers were still falling. Some of them were naturally red, but most of them had been died that color with the blood of the fallen. The rest of the courtyard was a mess from the massacre Dead bodies lay in grotesque positions where they'd fallen in battle. Fragments of those who were crushed were scattered indiscriminately throughout the courtyard. The once beautiful garden was now a scene of death and the ground was tacky with the blood of the immortals. I felt it my duty to honor those who had fought and died, so I took in every detail of the courtyard. "Find peace." I said and bowed my head. As I stood there in silence, one of the blood died feathers fell before my feet. In a way I felt bad for not burring the fallen, but I knew that I couldn't. This was a war against the idea of terrorism and treason and it was images like the courtyard that would detour anyone who saw them from attempting the same. Still I wanted to do something to show my respect for the departed. I knelt down and dug a scoop of dirt and placed the feather inside and buried it in place of the immortals themselves.
I sent shockhaven to the booster ports on my boots and flew up and over the walls of the courtyard, away from the villa and towards my ship. Discretion was really no longer necessary, since there was nobody left to warn. By the time that anyone made the connection that I was related to the slaughter, I would be far out of the system. The mystery would add to the fear and in reality, even if somebody saw me flying away and reported me, it wouldn't matter. I was on a government sponsored mission to kill suspected terrorists, but the public would never know the truth. They would be told some lie that everyone would know was a lie. It was all part of the plan to make me into even more of a mystery. It wasn't the face of a child, my face, that would bring fear to those who would stand in opposition to the Galaxy Police Force. The greatest fear of mankind was the fear of the unknown, but they had to be given a reason to fear it. In other words they have to be shown that there is something out there to be afraid of, but not know what it was. I was that unknown and they would all grow to fear me.
I landed next to my ship, that was surrounded by a group of on lookers. I paid them no mind, as I summoned my flight helmet and opened the cockpit. There were whispers from the people, who had given me and my ship so distance, as I climbed in and closed the cockpit. As I cleared the atmosphere I tried to organize my thoughts and put together everything that I had pushed out of my mind during the fight. I had a lot of questions, that I knew I couldn't answer myself so I tried to organize them as I entered the coordinates in the warp drive for the return trip. As the drive powered up I tried to clear my mind and enjoy the emptiness as I left space.