I… I did it. My first kill… and my first massacre on the same day.
Ajax rushes towards his next targets after killing the final woman on the second floor of the first building he targeted. There is still two more groups of terrorists who he cannot allow to carry out their plans.
His current speed is far above that of an Olympic sprinter, about as fast as a hummingbird’s top speed. Every step he takes cracks and splinters the ground that he sprints across.
He reaches the stairs towards the ground floor. He leaps from the top step towards the bottom step, and continues sprinting without stumbling even slightly. He has improved significantly in terms of his agility and spatial awareness. It surprises him how much he has already acclimated to his new powers.
He had used those powers to reap lives without any effort at all. How easy it was to steal the warmth of their bodies.
Hm. Do I need to do anything about the bodies I left behind? They’re frozen and a couple already shattered when hitting the ground. Burial or cremation… Cremation… No, I suppose they won’t be able to get an ID off the bodies no matter what I did. The cops here don't seem to have sophisticated stuff like fingerprint software or facial rec…
However, for all Ajax knows, they could have magical equipment and artifacts that record and classify biometric data just as easily as back home. Yet, the city still uses wanted posters for criminals in large amounts and newspapers and books aren't quite as cheap as back home. Ajax will only need to get used to this world’s scientific and technological quirks.
Do the city guards have some way to track criminals that doesn’t require people to recognize faces, track fingerprints, collect hair and blood samples, or is it that…
Regardless of his own musings, Ajax decides to not do anything about the bodies he’s left behind. As far as he can tell, they should have no way to discover his identity and even if they somehow find a way, he’ll just need to tackle it then.
Regardless, he’ll need to do his own research about the practices of the city guards at a later date when he has the time available, unlike now. From what he’s seen, they are a likely corrupt, powerful force that would try to get in his and Shaula's way in the future. He’ll figure out their moves at the earliest convenience.
Ajax opens the lobby door of the apartment building and steps outside. He takes a quick survey of the surroundings. The epicenter of the fire bombing still chars the ground black some distance away. He can see the people he had brought away slowly being cared for up the street at the main road. There are many more people there and some actual guards finally choosing now, after the massacre, to see if they can do anything.
The incompetent fucks… where the hell were they when this all was happening?
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He scoffs seeing their blundering figures messing things up and getting in the way of the healers who are behaving like paramedics here. There is anger between one guard and a human healer who isn't immediately giving in to their need to gain authority over the situation. Ajax can't interfere with all that yet.
He takes a deep breath and runs towards the next building. He turns his ears towards the inside of the lower floor hallways. There are several heartbeats walking briskly within the hallways, all on the same floor, likely floor two or three. He needs to move fast as this second group of targets received a head start since he was dealing with the other group of terrorists first.
I’m going to need to kill them too, huh… Fuck. Whatever, I’m already this far. There’s no stopping now. Not with what's at stake.
Ajax reaches the second building’s ground floor entrance, unbothered by anyone who would try to watch his blurry movements. He continuously steals warmth from the air around him as well as through the ground directly beneath his feet. He needs to have a reserve of power for the next group as well.
He uses some of this energy to slow his perception of time. He wants to be able to do some thinking about this important moment in his life, a moment he never thought he would experience while living on Earth.
His first time killing another person, not even in self-defense, but in a premeditated manner. He was not someone who would join as a soldier even in his dreams. He never had any interest in taking life, let alone the lives of other humans. Back on Earth, he felt nauseous thinking such thoughts.
He can only say he was blessed that he was never faced with a situation where he would need to kill someone in self defense, until today.
Yet, he understands that Shaula is different to him in this area.
He had once listened to her speak about her dreams of personally killing those who had wronged her and her family in the past. It was the day she found the tent city she had lived in during the 11th grade demolished. He had visited her and found her crying on a public bench.
On that day, she told him and only him about her dream, her sole most important dream, in between her tears. Her thoughts were quite vicious that day. He had remembered how she spoke about killing the mayor of New Amsterdam City who had enacted sharp anti-homeless policies while simultaneously rolling back social services that the city provided.
Then, she declared with rage in her voice that she would kill every last cop she had seen helping throw away people’s possessions into city dumpsters. She wasn’t too happy with the city garbagemen who were collecting whatever the cops gave them either.
He approached her vengeful and murderous thoughts almost clinically, trying not to put himself in her shoes. He listened to every word she spoke that day without judgment and understood the reason she was so angry with them. He learned a bit about who she was that day. She hadn’t been speaking in anger, in passionate outrage or anything like that.
She was simply telling him her thoughts, intentions and even her future goals. If she were given the opportunity to actually succeed at killing her enemies, she would not hesitate to pluck the lives of those who had wronged her like grapes from a vine.
He did not know if she was truly capable and if she would feel guilt or remorse, even for killing her enemies. He had often wondered this when she mentioned her dream to him.
However, he had dared not ask her.
Yet now, how does he feel about the killing he has actually done?