“Frost, he’s bluffing. You really think this Terran has something up his sleeve?” the female soldier laughed. “Let me have at ‘im.”
The soldier whipped out her handgun, which dispensed a burning beam of light rather than bullets. She pulled the trigger, aiming squarely at Gareth’s forehead. A spark ignited in the air in front of Gareth before the laser could hit him.
‘He deflected it with his sword!’ Stefan wondered in awe as he stood behind his mentor, observing and learning his moves.
A bloodcurdling screech filled the forest as the female soldier felt to the floor, having been hit by her own shot in the throat. She rolled around in the snow, struggling for breath as she choked on her own blood.
Frost stepped back in horror. He ran behind a tree as his partner lay dying, desperately pulling out his holographic communicator.
“Major Antelius, this is second lieutenant Frost! Sergeant Rieck and I are engaging in combat with a male Terran. He is using Utrium, send back up immediately!”
“Hold your ground, second lieutenant.” His superior calmly ordered.
The second lieutenant darted out from behind the tree, seeking to avenge his partner. Holding his pistol with a single-handed grip, he ran to another tree. He fired two shots directly at Gareth, which the man easily predicted and avoided.
“You trained at the prestigious Heimat Academy, and you still fire directly at the enemy? How absurd!” Gareth said in contempt as he started to follow the alien warrior’s movements.
“Shit, he’s onto me! I can’t reach the others in time.” Frost cried, sending a blind shot in the direction he thought Gareth was coming from.
As his eyes scanned the location Gareth was last seen, he saw a figure running from vicinity. He knew Gareth was not alone but did not attempt to engage with them.
“Major Antelius, I confirm visual contact with the asset, please—
“Can you visualise this?” Gareth’s voice spoke from above him. He had silently caught up with him and was standing over his body.
“What—
It took only one shot to the eye from Gareth’s primitive pistol to end the soldier’s life. He shot the other eye for good measure. He quietly walked back to the mortally wounded sergeant, whose overcoat was now stained red.
“Titanian biology really is something, huh?” Gareth said. “If you were human, you would’ve died instantly. Now, to finish what you started.”
Sergeant Rieck’s hand shot up, trying to reach Gareth’s hand. Whether she was begging for mercy or futilely attempting to kill him didn’t matter. Both actions would be met with the same answer: a forehead shot from her own laser gun.
‘He’s so brutal…’ Stefan noted. It was like he was watching someone else in control of Gareth’s body. This collected, rational man was a monster before him.
“Stefan let’s move! There’s going to be more of them, and I can’t handle them on my own!” Gareth ordered. Startled, the boy followed him deeper into the forest.
Gareth found himself surrounded five minutes later by 10 more Titanian soldiers, each of the pointing their pistols at him.
“This isn’t the asset,” one of the soldiers noticed. “Was Frost mistaken?”
“The asset’s a young Terran, not this behemoth of a man. Where’s the asset, Terran?” another soldier demanded of Gareth.
The man smirked under his visor as two of the soldiers fell to the ground. Seizing their sliced ankles, they screamed in pain as four of their comrades looked at their downed colleagues. Two fast, merciful slices to the throat by sword ended their suffering. Stefan then climbed out of sight up the nearest tree he could find, as the only damage that the four soldiers focused on him were laser grazes to his hand and knee.
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Sitting atop a branch that was densely shrouded by the canopy, he had to take a moment to calm his racing heart and mind.
“I… killed people… I killed people for the first time…”
His enthusiasm for battle and revenge had caused him to become ignorant of the reality of death. He never truly understood how easy it was to take a life. But it was necessary. Gareth couldn’t fight all ten of them at the same time.
Using Stefan’s disappearance into the canopy as a distraction, Gareth took four carefully aimed shots. Four bodies came down to the ground right after.
‘Six down, four more to go. No, 12 more to go.’ Gareth noted, counting the eight other soldiers that had not arrived to support their comrades.
“Surrender, Terran!” One of the soldiers on the scene beckoned. “You’re skilled. We’d rather not have to kill—
“Shut up.” He said, suddenly appearing before the rambling soldier. He punched him across the jaw, sending him to the ground. The other soldiers took it as a sign to fire on Gareth. Although a couple of the bullet entered the skin of his right arm and ribs, he prevented more injury by picking up the still-living soldier he had maimed and used him as a shield. Rushing at the other three other shoulders, he used his sword-wielding hand to severe the arms and heads with impeccable speed.
“10 down, 10 more to go. I still haven’t—” he was interrupted by his own grunt of pain as he tried to loosen up his tight right arm. “—broken a sweat…”
It was no wonder that the Angels had not been able to completely vanquish humanity, let alone step foot in most parts of the north. They were not at all used to the terrain, no matter how elite their cadet academies were.
Stefan remained in the tree, cowering to himself. He was too afraid to strike again, to take more lives. He just wanted to stay there the rest of the night and let the danger pass by itself.
“Stefan, get down from there! We’re not done!” Gareth yelled from down below.
‘No point in staying quiet now,’ Gareth thought. ‘That makes it easier. No need to go to them.’
“I—I can’t!” Stefan cried.
“Those bastards won’t kill themselves! What happened to your ambition? What happened to wanting to get justice for your family? A man who cannot fight for himself can fight for no one!”
The invisible chains of fear began to corrode at the sound of Gareth’s voice. Stefan saw them again. He saw Ruben, Kallista, Joakim. They were right in front of him, reaching for his hand.
“Fight or be forgotten.” Ruben’s voice said.
“If I can’t protect you… only you can.” Kallista told her son.
“Get down, you pussy.” Joakim spat at him.
Watching Stefan struggle with his own conscience internally, Gareth had forgotten that they were not the only ones lingering in the forest. Four huge bodies appeared from his blind spots and tackled him to the ground. They tossed away his gun and sword and pinned him down.
“You’re working with the asset,” a soldier spoke to him. “You could’ve gotten away with being sentenced to slavery on Titan when you approached us. Now, you face death.”
“Oh, shut up already! You talk so much and do nothing!” Gareth roared, throwing his head back and knocking the soldier unconscious. He gathered as much strength in his body as he could to turn himself a minor degree, enough so that a hidden compartment in his suit of armor opened, allowing a knife to fall out. The visor of his helmet unlatched, and he grabbed the handle of the knife with his teeth. With absurd precision and speed, he whipped his head as far back as he could, flinging the knife into the air. The unexpected maneuver ended when the knife found itself lodged into a soldier’s chest. The other soldiers responded by pointing their guns at Gareth’s head.
‘If Stefan doesn’t get his act together, it’ll be the end of me. I really have gotten rusty.’
A loud snap sounded above the heads of the shoulders, and before the soldiers or Gareth could see what had happened, a long, weighty branch fell over them. The soldiers were knocked to the ground, their lower bodies trapped under the immense weight. However, they were trained warriors, such a weight could not hold them down forever. Before they could push it off their bodies, Stefan had descended the tree and slew them using a drawn-out, single slice to all their throats with his sword.
“Came back down just in time.” Gareth said, pushing the massive branch off his legs as his crimson armor grew even redder from the blood of his opponents.
“I—I didn’t want to do that, Gareth.”
“It’s not about wanting to kill, Stefan. It’s about needing to—
A soldier lunged in from out of eyeshot and took Stefan down. He pulled his arm behind him and tugged on it. Stefan screamed, but it was to no avail. Another shoulder had come in and punched Gareth’s exposed face repeatedly until his eyes became bruised, the Terran warrior’s senses unprepared given the sudden ambush. A popping sound came from Stefan’s shoulder, making him screech in agony.
“At ease, soldiers!” A young commandeering voice ordered. Maedoc Antelius, accompanied by the first lieutenant of his squad had arrived. The two subordinate soldiers pushed both humans to the ground mercilessly.
“I apologize for the injury, asset,” the major told Stefan. “This is only to prevent you from striking out during transfer. Providing care to you will be a bit of trouble since, well… your companion killed all my medically trained men and women.”