+++ Jonathan Jones +++

Jahellios System

New Krakow

FS Zoeker

This man…he was insane.

I ducked down into cover, as a barrage of yellow bolts of energy rained down on me. Even Juliett ducked when her nano shield swarm was partially melted by the attack. While none of us was injured, he certainly spooked the both of us into reconsidering a direct assault.

“Well, how the hell are we doing this?” I took a peek. The man out there, standing in the middle of the starboard deck, was spamming out these yellow bolts of energy as lead rained down on his shield. I sighed, he must be quite overconfident to pull this stunt off.

“I think, I’m going to try to duel him with my System Arts,” Juliett said. “I haven’t really tried it out much, even when I had it since the collapse, but, I suppose today’s the chance.”

“Do you think it would work?”

She didn’t nod for a yes. “We’ll see.”

I sighed, pulled out the last flashbang that I held, pulled the clip, and tossed it into the direction of the System Arts user currently rampaging on our ship. Naturally, all of us ducked down in response, and I bet even he did, as the barrage of his spells stopped the moment it exploded.

With that, I rushed forward, with Juliett close behind me. Controlled bursts from my SMG sprayed at him, forcing him down into cover, as he tried to restart his defense spell or whatever. When I saw him close by, he seemed to be an old man in his late forties, or perhaps he just seemed younger than how he should have looked. I didn’t hesitate to lunge forward and take my stun pistol, which I held as my tertiary weapon (after my pistol).

Three bolts of electric energy slammed into his shields, partially stunning him. I took the opportunity to bash his face with my SMG’s butt, before firing a few more bursts of shots into his arse. His flickering shields blocked it before his hands were aimed at me. A yellow bolt was launched from it, just as Juliett pushed me out of the way.

I slammed hard into the deck, but my immediate concern wasn’t the old man, but Juliett. Her Avatar Model…her torso was half-blown, and there were sparks everywhere. She gave me a painful smile.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, standing up just as quickly. The fact that she was moving as if nothing had happened was already uncanny to begin with. But the fact that she seemed to have felt the pain…god. Why’d she choose to simulate that? I picked myself up and began raining bullets at the old man, who began to duel Juliett with his own glowing sword. Must be a classic spell of System Arts. That was all I could discern from this, considering that I saw Louise rocking the same damned thing earlier when she was slaying swathes of this man’s goons.

We began swarming him, just as Juliett traded parries and counter-parries with him, with both glowing lights of blues and yellows pulsing from them as each of their strikes slammed on each other. On the side, I took potshot after potshot at him in each moment that I could take, whenever Juliett was on the other side, but it seemed that his shield would continuously block it.

“All of you!” The old man spat. “Mercenaries! Foreign mercenaries! You dare to disrupt New Krakow affairs! Who are you to do this to us? Who paid the three of you?!”

“Shut up, sir whatever,” Juliett spat back, as their glowing energy swords clashed hard on each other. Both of them began pushing it desperately at each other, and I could see Juliett’s grimace at how hard she must have been pushing it. Truly, System Arts must be quite damned powerful…this man, he was resisting Juliett’s strikes. A literal Avatar Model made out of powerful nanomaterials.

“You’re not even human, are you?” The man smirked. “How interesting. Perhaps the first humanoid machine?”

“It won’t matter, you’d be dead tonight,” Juliett hissed to him. I fired off a shot at the old man’s yellow sword, slamming it off from blocking Juliett’s sword. She slashed and slashed at him, but he dodged it as if it was nothing, before blocking her third strike. At this point, I could already see Harold’s men rushing toward us after the last of his goons was cleared off in their side.

The old man then gave a powerful slice against Juliett, slamming her off a few meters away. Then, he held his hand up, and it glowed yellow, aimed at Juliett. Harold and his men scattered, as a rapid barrage of yellow energy bolts slammed into the decks, even I, already on his rear, dropped into the decks to cover myself, as explosions rocked half of the Zoeker.

Damn it, what is he, a god damned demi-god?! I thought System Arts was something wacky, but I didn’t know it was this wacky! I raised my head, as almost everything aboard the Zoeker seemed silent. The starboard side was now filled with smoke, and when I stood up, there was no one but me and him. He was standing a dozen meters in front of me, still admiring his art, when he turned to me.

Me…who only held an SMG, with one last thirty-bullet strong magazine. Completely incapable of System Arts. Without even an idea of how to counter him.

Seemingly without allies left.

Without retreat.

I laughed at him. This…this may be the end of the line for me. Only one pulse of his System Arts, and I would be dead. I thought I was capable at close quarters combat, but it seemed that we mere plebeians, non-nobles without this kind of ability, would be no match for whatever kind of a monster was in front of me.

“Alright…I see how it is,” I continued cracking a laughter at him. “Tell me, who the hell are you, and why do you want to do this? All this? For what?”

“I can ask the same from you, kid,” he replied, as his eyes glowed. “I am Count Wilhelm Filken. Not that it matters to you. You’re a dead man walking.”

I cracked a smirk at him. The only smirk I could give. “Dead man, huh?” I looked back at what I truly had in this pointless life of mine. Fighting, after fighting, after fighting. Filled with nothing but sins and the burning drive for revenge and answers. What did I have in life, truly? What did I have to lose? “You’re not too wrong at that.”

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“You defended her, the daughter of the Duke. The same Duke who dragged this world into ruin, into war. And who dragged countless people, like me, into ruin,” he snarled at me. “And you dare to defend her. But alas, you failed. She will die. And my honor…yes, our honor. It will be restored. At last.”

Restored? I see, so that must be what this was. A quest for him and his men to restore their honor. How? By serving the whims of whatever Colonial Governor this planet had, and murdering their perceived oppressor. Of course, even after three decades of their downfall, I imagine, to this day, the people of New Krakow, including him, still look at House Fleur as the source of their misery.

Perhaps, House Fleur itself committed a grave crime to him even. So this was his path then? His path to revenge? And with it, his path to redemption?

Heh…how stupid. And pathetic.

There would be no redemption for doing revenge.

He must be delusional.

“Is that so? Failed, huh?” I laughed again, though it came out more as a pathetic wheeze than anything else, as my ribs felt too damned painful to laugh well. “You see, the thing is, again, you’re right. I’m a dead man walking.” I looked at him, as my eyes turned empty, and my expression turned neutral. “But don’t you think…that perhaps, it’s not the best idea to duel a man who has nothing to lose?”

“That so? Heh, come at me then.” He taunted, and I took the bait.

I had nothing. One last magazine. A body that screamed in pain. No System Arts. With all of my allies unavailable. I hoped they were alive, perhaps with just a minor concussion, but I wouldn’t know.

For now…it was me, a being without honor, against another honorless man.

Alone.

I charged forward, with nothing but an SMG in hand, as he held his palm up. But this time around, I wouldn’t be so stupid. I prepared for it, firing my gun in a three-bullet burst before ducking to the side, and rolling myself on the decks. Just as quickly, from my other hand, my stun pistol opened up on his face, as three of his bolts missed me.

Each of them lightly stunned him, and he had to grit himself. In that split second, I fished out my last grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it as hard as I could straight to his face. I rushed up into cover, as a powerful blast punctuated my stunt, most likely disfiguring whatever defensive spell he had erected for himself. Immediately, I wasted no time, and rushed forward through the holes of the superstructure, through the fires and smoke that raged, in order to attack from another angle.

This time, there was nothing but coldness. The fires didn’t bother me, and I rushed through it, as all pain or fear disappeared. It was as if everything turned into a trance. This…indeed, this was my favorite when fighting. Nothing mattered anymore, but only to kill the enemy that I had. Years of experience fighting in Loran bled through every moment, as I lunged at him from the burning fires as he tried to reorient himself from the blast.

“Jonathan. You always seem to get into those stupid killing trances, don’t you?” Mr. Von Wicht said as he looked down at me. “Normally, you would almost always run and are overly cautious at times. Almost as if you’re fighting to preserve yourself just long enough for some other grand plan of yours. But when every avenue is closed, you turn into a killing machine.” He leaned forward to me. “Say…what drives you to it? To cast all sense of self-preservation, as if nothing matters?”

I didn’t have any answer for him to listen to, and I merely kept my mouth shut. But my mind only came up with one conclusion.

Because I’m a dead man walking.

And dead men walking had no need to fear for their lives. If I wouldn’t be able to achieve my only purpose, of finding my father’s final destination, then there was no point in continued living. Only the act of dragging those who wronged me in that last moment into the pits of hell mattered.

I should have died in Loran. Lubola. Escuardo. Now…here.

My SMG’s stock slammed straight into his face. A rapid burst of bullets sprayed straight into his gut, as he tried to recover, but his torso was already bleeding by the time his shield reappeared, only to disappear. He tried to cast it again and again, but I could see horror grow into his eye, as he looked at me, his body now turned into Swiss cheese. A bleeding Swiss cheese.

I pulled the trigger, but there was nothing but empty clicks. I didn’t budge, merely standing, for him, almost like a dead monster from the fires of hell itself, as behind me, almost everything burned. I pulled out my pistol, my weapon of choice to judge those that was almost no different from me. I approached him, as he tried to escape, as if that would make it possible to weasel his way out of here.

Instead, I kicked him onto the floor, and blood appeared from his mouth before I pulled him up into the railings. I stared him into the eye, as he blurted out his last words in the most painful way possible.

“Why? Who are you?”

“You won’t restore your honor by making the daughter pay for her father’s crimes, Count,” I said to him, as I placed the pistol on his neck. “Thus, the only judgment for a criminal like you is death.”

“You don’t seem to be too different.” He gave one last smile as if attempting to bite back at me for one last time, his bloodied teeth appearing for me to look at. But I held no reactions.

“You’re not wrong, Count.”

I pulled the trigger.

Then, I tossed him straight down into the raging currents below, watching as he fell, and disappeared to the darkest depths of New Krakow’s ocean. I should be dead there too. I thought as I laughed. It was as if I saw my own mirror again! Yet…I was once more standing here. Alive!

For what?

When the only possible judgment for men like me was that kind of death.

I truly am despicable.

I laughed, and I laughed and laughed, all while I heard voices behind me. I didn’t know what it was. Perhaps it was the voices of the dead. Of the lives that I had killed in this long, sin-filled life that I had. Were they laughing at me? At how hypocritical I was? At the fact that I was still alive? At how I seemed like a true lunatic?

It was grating to the ears as if my ears were broken glass. Their laughter increased and increased, as I laughed as well, as if to taunt them. If they would laugh, then so would I. And so I kept laughing.

Until I felt a weak tap behind me.

“Jonathan…” Her voice. It was soothing. It was as if an angel whispered in my ears. I snapped out of my deranged laughing fits, as I realized that everyone had now gathered behind me. Louise, Harold, his men, and Juliett. All of them. Many of them were badly injured, even Harold seemed to have suffered from burns, and Juliett herself still had that nasty hole in her torso.

But they were all here. Looking at me.

“Jonathan, it’s over. It’s…it’s over. It’s alright now.” Juliett said. “Calm down, please. You did well.”

I breathed out raggedly, and I wasn’t able to speak to them, as pain flared up in all parts of my body. Before I knew it…I had already collapsed into Juliett’s arms, as she caught me. If she hadn’t, I imagine I would have pathetically flopped into the deck and splattered my brains or something. But none of that happened.

She was here. For me. Somehow.

Everything…everything…it was painful…and I wanted nothing but to close my eyes.

And I did, as I felt myself being dragged away from the rain. All as my consciousness faded. The only last thing that I heard, was a small feminine whimper.

“You shouldn’t fight like that…Jonathan.”