Within the depths of a forest, its darkness hides many creatures. Suddenly Obsidian appears in the middle of the forest. He pulls out his phone and calls his client. “Amir, I'm done. That makes 14 minutes and 31 seconds.” Obsidian proclaims
“Nicely done, my friend. I’m impressed, never judge a book by its cover and such. I’ll show up personally to congratulate you.” Amir Caldor answers in a jubilant tone.
30 minutes later; Amir and a few of his men show up in an armored vehicle, specifically the lizard twins and another familiar soldier.
“Whoa My! What a mean-looking cover. Hope you didn’t wait too long, my friend.” Amir steps out of the vehicle.
Obsidian gets up from the rock he was sitting on.
“You reported my name to your clients? Correct.” Obsidian asks
“Of course, how could I not after what I’ve seen. In fact, you can get a little extra pay for doing such a good job. You and I should stay in contact; the Revoltors need strong allies.” Amir requests
Obsidian is quiet for a moment.
“Fine, as long as it improves my reputation.” Obsidian accepts.
“Of course my friend!”
The two shake hands.
Obsidian teleports into his ship, and he takes a seat in his captain's chair. Amir and the Revoltors watch Obsidian take off.
“I have a feeling I hit the jackpot. The chief commanders going to enjoy this.” Amir and his men return to their base.
A long time passes. Obsidian takes time to rest after a successful job. After he takes his medication, he returns to the lounge and watches a show on his laptop while drinking canned beer. After a bit, he gets a call from the cockpit of his ship. He teleports to his captain’s chair and sees it’s from Zi. He accepts the call.
“The Books need an audience, Obsidian”. Zi says in a serious tone.
“Great, this speeds things up”. Obsidian says proudly
“NEI---No, you idiot! Why did you steal a mission that was assigned from the books, every hunter worth their salt, knows that’s off-limits!” Zi is quite livid.
“From now on, you answer to me, ONLY to me. You want a job, I’ll give you a job!” Zi says like she’s disciplining a disobedient child.
“Fine.” Obsidian doesn’t bother to argue.
“I’ll send you the coordinates. Do NOT be late.” Zi hangs up.
(This worked out better than I expected. However, this could have consequences. If the Books are mad at me, then I can’t let them know what I’ve found.) Obsidian thinks to himself.
Back to the beginning of the assault, From Obsidian’s perspective, he summons his tanks and blows down the gate. He guns down, man, after man, with his twin rifles. He fights through powerful combatants that are no match for him. Obsidian’s mind effortlessly calculates and clocks every enemy fighting style, strength, and ability he notes as blessings. (A unilaw ice blessing), pierced through the chest. (A translaw wolf-man blessing), torn in half. (A paralaw blessing that inverts a person’s senses; useless), he’s dealt with quickly. He breaks into the main complex and destroys everything in his path. Summoning his twin blades and cutting down man after man. He reaches a makeshift blockade. He effortlessly cuts down the frontline.
Suddenly, he’s frozen in place. The boy with a bandana has an unnatural paralaw blessing, a psychic restraint. One of the stronger warriors, potentially a high-ranking officer, uses white tendrils to try and impale Obsidian. But it’s useless, Obsidian protects himself with a spiritual Translucent chest plate. Obsidian frees himself by simply overpowering the blessing’s effect and immediately teleports in front of the warrior.
He puts a palm on the strong warrior’s chest, “spacial separator”. Obsidian whispers and in a grid-like pattern appears on the warrior and splits the man apart. The psychic younger man runs in blasting his rifle, but an invisible wall stops his rounds. Obsidian scoffs and teleports a sword on the ground into his hand and impales the boy on the wall. Amused by the boy’s recklessness, Obsidian can see the boy's life flash behind his, he stares deeply into the young man's eyes. . (A young boy raised by a happy family. The oldest brother of three, and the family jewel). What a shame, such a sweet story.
Obsidian drives the blade deeper and walks away. But then he notices another presence. However, he doesn’t sense any spiritual presence. He can only feel the boy take up space. He walks past the boy, but then he realizes the boy is an empyrean! Obsidian looks back now thoroughly confused. But he realizes he’s wasting time. It’s been 2 minutes already. He walks down a hallway, planning on planting bombs around the place. Visualized, Obsidian sends out a pulse and gets a blueprint-like layout of the facility. Suddenly his concentration is broken, when he senses someone running at him, with tiny footsteps. It’s the boy charging at him, sword in hand and wearing the bandana.
Obsidian really wants to ignore the boy, but he simply can’t let him run at him, so he pulls out his hand cannon and shoots behind him. Obsidian sighs and turns around to finish the boy off. He looks into the hate-filled eyes of the boy. He can’t see the boy's life flash behind his eyes; but he sees the boy's deeper emotions: inadequacy and envy. Obsidian starts getting shot at. A smile crawls on his face. As he can sense some strong warriors in this group, he thoughtlessly kicks the boy and runs in.
Obsidian dispatches the admittedly strong group and keeps moving. He cuts through a few barracks, and the café, and enters the main complex, taking the elevator, but phasing through the bottom to save time. He swings through an opening and into a clean gray and bronze facility. As he enters the factory, ships, and mechs are hung up by metal cables, with ground assault vehicles at the bottom. The place is massive, and the bottom floor is deep below. He runs across the high-up runway, and before a group of workers notices him, he slips into the heart of the floor. He runs through at a blinding pace, instantly cutting down those in his way, until he reaches the generator room. He is met with massive pylons surging with power. He cuts down the laborers keeping things operational; their services are no longer needed. Obsidian summons four giant explosive devices and locks them down around the main pylons.
He teleports out, and before he takes his leave, he picks up some strange Movements below the lowest possible floor. Obsidian decides to investigate, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. A few teleports and portals later, Obsidian enters a mining area deep in the planet. The caves are mixed with metal and stone, and there are some unique laborers mining glowing crystals. Obsidian takes note that the workers are Xenos, different species, non-empyreans.
“Profane workers?” Obsidian uses a unique term for the non-Empyreans.
Obsidian notes that the crystals they are mining are not random. They are soul crystals, a very powerful energy source considered divine in nature. Obsidian decides to wander the mines a bit. He remains undetected, each step inaudible, especially amongst the drilling and machinery. The Xeno workers are being watched over by empyrean warriors, high-ranking ones as well. He finds a control room. He opens a small portal on the closed metal door and peeks in. It’s filled with officers and warriors.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Obsidian teleports in and snatches up each of the personnel, assassinating every one of them. Once they’re all gone and their bodies hidden, he enters the room and begins, hijacking the main computer, the biggest and most important-looking one. He summons a data strip and starts running through the information. He must crack through several security systems and firewalls. Which wasn’t difficult for him, but he does run into one annoying firewall.
After he gets past it, he gets to the real heart of the data. Some projects ordered by the king himself require tons and tons of these godly crystals. Obsidian doesn’t see any value in the data and just downloads the rest and teleports outside. With 7 minutes to spare, he runs into two devastator warships, blocking his exit and an army of warriors. Obsidian smirks and vanishes.
Obsidian, within his ship, fiddles with the data stick before putting it away. He receives the coordinates and boosts off.
Within a cold gray room, we find the only survivor of Ivan – IV’s re-purposing factory massacre, Prima.
“State your name.” says one of the men holding data pads.
“Prima Brytus.”
“Prima, you are the lone survivor of a Unified Revoltor assault, on Ivan-IV re-purposing factory; 12x9f---”
“It wasn’t Revoltors.” Prima interrupts.
The investigator pauses.
“Would you like to repeat that?” The investigator requests.
“It wasn’t Revoltors. It was a mercenary.” Prima corrects the report.
“I see. However, that is not important. Do not speak unless requested.” The investigator warns
“But it IS important, it’s the truth”. Prima says annoyed
“Prima Brytus. Do not speak unless you are to answer a question. We have no need for your opinion.”
“How is it an opinion, it’s a fact. Thousands of workers and warriors slain by one man, their family should know what happened.”
“It seems you do not understand. The public does not care if it was the act of a lone hired gun. That wouldn’t elicit a favorable reaction. The hired guns are a necessary part of the monarchy’s control after all. Even worse if others catch wind of this *mercenary* who took on an entire Monarchy facility by himself."
Prima sits in silent shock. He’s being manipulated, right in his face. If they’re controlling what he says now, he can only imagine what else they manipulate. He sits back in his chair, resigning to questioning, but not letting himself be defeated.
the investigator clears his throats “What was it like, during the assault.”
Prima sits glaring at the investigator. But he answers regardless.
“Like a hell, blacker than the void itself came to swallow us whole.”
Obsidian ship arrives to the planet within the coordinates. He arrives at the Hired Guns Library of War and enters the two massive doors. When he enters, he’s met with a large scenery of dark blue and brass columns and brown walls. There’s a decent number of people moving in and out, with more interesting characters in the crowd. Zi walks up to him. She is not amused. She gestures for Obsidian to walk with her. They walk until they get to a grandiose lift, where a mysterious flaming skeleton, with a horned dragon head waits. He sports full black attire and a very unfriendly look.
“We will see the books now. You will show them the utmost respect.” The man says in a deep, grave tone.
The three enter the elevator, and the flame head enters a unique code that makes an interesting chime, and the elevator descends.
“Who’s this.” Obsidian whispers.
Zi leans over.
“Spectra Hail, chapter 1 page hunter, he’s the Book’s one messenger,” Zi answers.
“So, he’s, their lapdog.” Obsidian whispers
The elevator takes some time, and Obsidian finds himself transfixed on the sway of the skeletal tail, a fire burning on the end of it. Then, a loud thud signals they've reached their floor. The lift door opens, and they walk down a brass hallway. They reach two massive doors. A floating ball-shaped droid comes down from the ceiling and scans Hail. The two massive doors open slowly, and they enter a massive, but dimly lit courtroom. There’s a massive podium in the back of the court, and four large panels lining the top of the podium. The dark black is suddenly filled with a series of dim lights, making loud mechanical noises when activated. The panels reveal themselves, hiding the identities of the higher-ups. Then the last light reveals a giant shadowy figure whose silhouette seems to have his feet propped up.
Obsidian is a little taken aback. The shadow figure seems a little unprofessional, and more importantly, a giant. A species of xeno incredibly rare. Only two planets are known to have them. Also, Dominick is there. Sitting in the jury stands, casually smoking a cigarette. Obsidian and Dominick gazes meet, but then someone gets everyone’s attention.
“The books will now have this audience.” A judge announces
“Obsidian Praw, rank of chapter 8, you are being tried, for your disrespect of our system. You have taken a mission 6 ranks above your own, a mission such as that is restricted to your likes, what say you.” Says one of the top brass, in an arrogant tone.
Obsidian stares, with a puzzled face, trying to figure out which one said all that as their silhouettes don’t move. He decides to stay professional.
“I believe someone of my caliber has far surpassed the simple rankings you all set in place. I completed that sortie in under 15 minutes, 10 spent picking fights I didn’t need to.” Obsidian defends.
“Oh, he thinks he’s a tough guy. Well, here what we say is that you have that license, so you follow our rules.” A different more urban voice speaks his piece.
“He should be stripped of his license. He’s had it for one week and already proven to be an unruly menace.” A more bloated-sounding voice speaks their piece.
“I thought as a hired gun, I’d be able to have as much freedom as I wanted. If that’s not the case, I’ll be happy to do things my way.” The way Obsidian speaks makes his words sound like a threat.
“Why you---” the bloated voice is cut off by a gesture from the shadowy giant.
“Obsidian Praw, I hereby grant you the rank of chapter 3. Your license will be changed, and you will get the freedom you seek.” A mysterious androgynous voice comes from the giant.
A collective gasp Is heard from the top brass and Zi.
“That is absurd”, “This must be a mistake”, “Why would you take his side, sir?” A collective complaint is heard.
“Spectra, escort Obsidian, and his reader. My verdict is set.” The figure waves spectra away.
He bows and guides the two. Dominick exits the stands and follows them onto the elevator. Obsidian glares at the figure. (Who is this guy, and why would he let me off so easily?) he thinks to himself.
Obsidian slowly turns as he walks away.
“I can’t believe he let you go, and he rewarded your recklessness! This is ridiculous, I’ve never seen something like this, and I’ve been a page hunter for as long as I can remember! What the hell!!!” Zi rants angry, confused, and shocked.
“They call him Black-Book Freddy, right? I don’t trust him.” Obsidian glares forward.
“Why do you say that?” Zi asks, confused
Obsidian looks at Spectra, who’s burning a hole into Obsidian with his side eye.
“Don’t worry about it.” Obsidian keeps his thoughts to himself
“Ay, I got a bone to pick with you.” Says Dominick patiently, waiting for his turn to speak.
“I know you told the books about me.” Says Obsidian
“Huh—shit—how—I mean… nooo.” Dominick stumbles over his words.
“I don’t particularly care now, but if leaving you alive becomes a mistake, I will kill you”. Obsidian warns
“Obsidian, stop speaking with this man.” Zi jumps into the conversation.
“What! Come on, YanYan. You still don’t forgive me.” Dominick says, defending his dignity.
“Don’t call me that, you con-man, I hoped I’d never see your face again.” Zi pulls him by the tie.
“Oh, come on, I keep trying to apologize, but you won’t listen.”
“And I never will.”
Obsidian tunes out their argument as Spectra’s glare remains fixed until the lift finally stops. Spectra guides them out into the main lobby, where he ushers them to leave.
“I need to keep going up. That Freddy has information I want.” Obsidian says sternly
“Yeah, whatever. From now on, I pick your missions. Meet me in Great Smolder in the ninth. I’ll give you a selection, but you only pick from my selection, got it.” Zi puts a finger in Obsidian’s face
“Fine.” He says sounding defeated.
Obsidian turns to Dominick. He teleported a case of cash into his hands. “Here.” He says.
“Hmph, I got demoted cause of you”. Dominick says, annoyed as he takes the case.
“Not my problem.” Obsidian starts walking away.
“It is too your problem! Hey! Don’t walk away from me. You got to fix this!” Dominick yells pointlessly
Obsidian returns to his ship, and on his way through the city, he passes a mysterious man, way taller than him and sporting all-black western attire, with a large coat hiding most of his figure. The sound of his spurs is the only thing Obsidian can hear. He fails to make out his face as the top half is pitch black covered by a large circle-brimmed hat. Obsidian glares at the guy as he walks past. He feels familiar, really familiar. Obsidian decides to teleport to his ship instead of walking and takes off into the void once more.
From deep in Phoenix Order-controlled space, a mysterious man in all-white armor, and a black and white coat over his shoulders sits in a naval commander’s chair.
“Sir Poltergeist, we got a report that a spacial user decimated a re-purposing factory in the Shattered Nebula.” A warrior brings a report.
“He’s reported as a serious threat to the Eternal Monarchy if left unchecked.” The warrior finishes
This Poltergeist sports an intimidating helmet painted with black lines coming from the eye holes, like tears. He sits hunched over in his chair, resting a very long sword in its sheath on his left shoulder.
He breathes heavily, with a hint of anger.
“We shall pursue.”
“Yes, sir!”