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Chapter 8 - Of Heros and Men - Part 3
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For the first time I realise the room is a little chilly, the weight of the suppressor field, the dim lighting, my slightly intoxicated self, it all leaves me feeling fixated. A moment ago that was anger, at the nonsense this man before me was spewing – but now I find myself fixed on his old, weary eyes, as he weaves a tale with a rigid candour and pained expression – as Chief Gros tells me the story of the hero Templar.
“It all started twenty long years ago. Before the war, before he was even called Templar. We were younger then, though I guess still older than you are – Fuck we're old…
I was already a chief mechanic but not of mechs or warships, rather fighter jets of the Abhialen-Self-Defence-Forces, and Templar; he was the best pilot in the force, maybe the best fighter pilot in the galaxy at the time, already at his peak. We got paired together when some enterprising officer realised how good we both were in our respective fields, and we've been like that ever since.”
“One day, we got approached to join a new group, something that'd change the course of warfare for the next twenty or so years – The Vijiak project. Me as a technical advisor, Templar, the very first test pilot. That was around five years before the war started.
For years, the project gradually progressed; with time, we had new test pilots added to the roster. The Scourge and Meteorite both got their start that way. Soon, the first Vijiak was ready for mass production.
That was the crossroads for us both, ya see kid? We had more than proven our expertise. We could have risen up the ranks, Templar could’ve become a permanent consultant or strategist, and I could have designed whole generations of machines had I wanted. But we didn't choose that. We chose a very different offer. War had begun, and we were winning, but winning wasn't enough.”
“The Caravel 1 and 2, the first and last of their line, both crewed not just by any Knight-Brigade group, but by the Brigade’s Commander, by the first and now only brigade that remains, one you don’t even realise you’re a part of. Templar, your 'hero', was the official leader of the most heinous, violent, debased force possibly ever seen, and he was by far the best within it.
Most Brigades comprised two, three, four or more Caravels, each carrying two to four mechs and special infantry forces. We were different: A lone Caravel, four mechs on it. Do you understand how crowded it was?
You think the less than sixty people we have here is a lot? Pah! One hundred, that was how many crewed the first Caravel, seventy crewmembers and thirty, a full regiment of the baddest, most debauched special forces assassins I've ever known. Vitka isn't even in the same ballpark as these guys once were.
With those forces, we would do and succeed at anything and everything. A one-hundred percent success rate.”
“We murdered politicians, enemy leaders. Ambushes, shooting down fleeing foes, destroying civilian supply vessels, burning farms and factories, decimating entire civilian populations just to create a distraction for a fleet to pull off some plan or another – And torture... we, ....We tortured so many.
We'd win a battle and take prisoners near weekly, sometimes every day. Never handing them to the proper authorities and never following any treaties or conventions. We tortured them on site until they told us everything they knew, from their mother's maiden name to the safehouses of their closest allies – And then we tortured them some more.
They seldom lived, we didn't have space or time for prisoners, so they always died in the most brutal and bloody ways you can imagine, no, in ways a child like you can’t even begin to imagine.
Templar... He rarely got his hands dirty, but he never looked away, never told us to stop, and never stayed our hands from outright execution. Back then, he had a voice, he was our ace and our captain – And he let us do it all, encouraged us to get more, to scrape every shred of info from their already broken, screaming minds!!”
“....Assinations, mascars, murders, women and children, innocents – Torture. That's what the Knights-Brigades were for and what we excelled at above all the others. That man you look up to was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of prisoners and thousands of innocents – crimes he can never repay – he, we were the biggest villains of them all.
Do you even comprehend what the hell his ace's title is for? He has a name, you know, a normal human name. It's not some state secret; his name is Ioudas – Boring, right?
His family, his parents were both high-ranked pastors in the E.N.D cult, madmen, so it was perfect, wasn't it?! A corrupt religious backing, standing for the exact opposite of a holy knight, a man with no ideals, no morals, no goals but the pain of others. They dubbed him 'Templar' as an irony, a name both our side and the enemy feared, a distorted version of those knights from long ago – A slight against an order that were once revered on Bhaile. Fucking brilliant.”
“And then, like all villains, the 'heroes' got us. The third year of the war, when it all changed. For two years, we'd been winning, not just independence! We took control of over sixty percent of Bhaile. They say we were weeks, maybe only days, from taking TSU headquarters.
But in the third year, it all changed, TSU finally caught up. A population, four times the size of our planet’s own, was bound to work out fighting robots pretty damn quick. We’d known that from the beginning, but greedily our king demanded we take more and more, drag the war on longer, for far too long.
The First Casnel, the Hero-of-the-East, the Ground-Types, the MBT, the Battle of Ghleach. At the head of it all was the Magi piloting a true Casnel – A demigod made by human hands, guarded by the Cheval de Troy, a ship made of enough Gobhnui for a whole flotilla of Casnels. An impossible-to-beat combination that’s never been repeated even to this day, a single unit turning the course of an entire war.”
“It had to be stopped and fast. Brigades were sent, and they failed. Entire fleets failed. It couldn't go on like that – So they came straight to the Brigade’s commander. They offered Templar whatever he needed to put a stop to the enemy’s warpath. A whole fleet would be at his disposal, anything he could possibly need to end our planet’s new nemesis. He turned it all down, taking just the lone Caravel and her four mechs. We headed for the most legendary ship in history. And we lost.
The three escort mechs failed within seconds of meeting the First Casnel. Templar lasted longer, but it was hopeless. The Crusade had been dolled up a little to play into the ‘blood-soaked knight’ motif, but it was just a Vijiak-Heavy back then. Templar was clearly the more skilled pilot, but the technological gap was simply too large."
"We retreated for the first time, the Crusade the only mech left, and in tatters at that. Even the Caravel had taken hits and casualties. A sane man, a sane crew, would’ve fleed, scorned the enemy's foolishness in not pursuing us harder and run away – But we were the first Knight-Brigade, the best brigade, the most powerful and feared. We had never failed before.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
The Crusade, that white knight you look up to, all you foolish apprentices of mine look up to? We threw it overboard, too damaged to be of use to anyone. We set the Caravel's generators past their limits and rammed the Cheval de Troy – we boarded it in a full-on kamikaze attack – one hundred of us, one thousand of them. This was the greatest ship TSU had; it would surely be filled with the very best of the best. It... it wasn't kid, it really wasn't...”
“I'd learn years later why. The crew that should’ve manned it had been wiped out before ever boarding; an emergency measure had been to give the ship to a whole academy's worth of cadets, many of them still teenagers. They were meant to transport it to TSU HQ, but it turned out they were good, outstanding even. Natural talent, magi powers, who knows?
So TSU decided to leave them aboard, 'A new generation for a new type of ship'.
Heh, they were good, but they'd never fought hand-to-hand before, and many of them had never even shot a gun before. We swept through room after room, gunning down freckled eighteen-year olds and even kids as young as sixteen forced into uniform.
They were carrying civilians. ‘Must’ve picked them up off a stranded ship or something... I pulled the pin of that grenade. I didn't have time to think. Gunshots everywhere! The door opened, and I just...”
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“Our side estimated twenty-five to fifty percent of the crew were killed by us that day, the most significant losses that ship ever took. Even when it finally sank months later, most of its crew miraculously escaped – but not that day, we killed a couple hundred unprepared cadets masquerading as soldiers – but we still lost. The numbers were too against us, they had the home field, and there were some actual adults mixed in. Our numbers began to dwindle.
Sometimes I think we made things worse. We taught those kids a lesson they'd never forget; we toughened them up, made them more wary, and showed them to stop relying on their technological advantage so much. Perhaps that's why no one else ever got close to damaging them the way we did.
The last I would see of Templar for some years was him charging into a room, a vest laden with explosives on. I presumed him dead. About ten of us were captured alive, the rest gone. That's when the real punishment we deserved began in earnest.”
“By rights, TSU still observed laws and treaties, but we were special; we were the bogeyman who had torn at their hearts for two years and the ones who had harmed their golden goose – We were conveniently 'lost' during the transfer. Ended up in no prison camp but rather a facility intended to futureproof the Union.
The ten of us were subjected to every kind of treatment imaginable: Experimental medications, hypnosis, tortures, lethal diets, even radiation poisoning. The others got it in their heads that I, as the oldest and highest ranking, should be protected. They did their best to volunteer and shield me when they could. Idiots them all…
One by one, we died, not even knowing what the point of it all was. Coming to the obvious conclusion that this was our justice for the terrible, atrocious things we had committed.
None of us knew that Templar was still alive, that every time one of the treatments was successfully used on us, it was then perfected and used on him.”
“TSU weren't happy with just one Casnel and one magi; they would have more, just as greedy as our side had been for victory. They took his voice, infected his mind, and made him an esper. They were fools, thinking it perfected, that they could control a devil they had enhanced.
But no demon pact ever favours the human in the deal."
"One day, when just two of us were left, people stopped coming. No more experiments, no guards.... No more food. They had succeeded in their years-long project and forgotten about their remaining lab rats. Hugues died of starvation. I would’ve soon followed, should have.
Heh, they deployed Templar during the ‘Battle of Remembrance’, even recovering and upgrading the Crusade, giving it the Goibhniu armaments. They truly believed they had control of his mind.
Sixty seconds after launch, or so the story goes, he cut down the two squads he'd been launched with. One hundred and twenty seconds later, he had taken control of the ship. He came back to the facility and burned it to the ground, killing every last person related to the project.
More artificial magi are probably being made as we speak, but none will ever be quite like him, never again. And then he came for his troops, and all he found was me, his first and last companion…”
“We had missed a lot, disappeared for years – But we arrived back just in time for the Battle of Rememberence's fiercest days, a knight out of nowhere when the organisation needed him most. In lieu of the Bane of Konpei falling, Templar was promoted to the second ranked of The 5 Great Aces. After the Scourge disappeared a couple years ago, he was temporarily the first ranked.
TSU had succeeded; they'd made an insanely powerful pilot, then let it turn against their own throats.
We were given the last Caravel still in service, allowed to rebuild a crew, and given relative autonomy. But things were different. The revolution had failed, our organisation, our crew, but more than anything, he had changed. Suddenly, Templar started living as though to his namesake – Protecting the weak, accepting surrenders, taking in stray after stray.
But me? I can't forget what he really is, all the things he, we have done. He can't ever find redemption, REDEMPTION?! Him, Me?! NEVER!!”
“... So no, I won't call to him respectfully or sympathise with his cause. He's a monster, stronger and more capable of harm than ever before. I serve him because... because....”
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“Maybe at least, if not redemption, he can draw a line beneath the evil. Call time on his tab and never let it go any further... Maybe, maybe that's his goal now….”
“There are no heroes in a war, Kris, but there sure are villains. You hate your dad, right? For making the choice to ruin you and your mom's lives, but he was a hero to others. Even good choices cause hurt, you get it? Templar isn't even that. He ain't a hero, he just decided to stop being a villain... That, phew, that's it, that's all.... stupid kid.....”
Gros seems as though he has more to say, but instead, his head hits the counter with an uncomfortable thud. His ugly face begins to drool, and his eyes lose the very last of their focus.
I hadn't interrupted him once. He'd only stopped briefly to change from cider to a bottle of hard spirits from behind the counter. But for all that alcohol, he'd never lost focus while telling the story, as though it were a tale that could never be affected by mere sobriety, a tale I couldn’t interrupt or turn away from no matter how much I wanted to.
Now, he lay slumped in his own drool on the countertop. Like all his energy had passed instantly, his marionette strings cut all at once.
Was that all false accusations? I know some of it’s true. It's something cadets theorise over: The five-year gap where the ace Templar disappeared from the front lines. Some say he was on a secret mission deep behind enemy lines. Others pose outlandish ideas, suggesting he'd gone to 'the mountains' to train mind and soul alike.
And it is a generally agreed upon fact that Gros is Templar's oldest comrade. But the rest? All those terrible deeds, being an experimental lab-rat of TSU, never being able to pay for his crimes?
I stare at Gros’s face, head feeling hazy. It was only a month ago that I'd believed what he said, that all people are just human, hopeless, capable of as much good as bad. How stupidly childish was I to of thought finding Templar was any different, to have thrown my lot in with him on such a whim?
Of course I’d known Templar would have a history, a career, a life before what he is now – and I knew it wouldn’t be as clear cut as those books from my childhood – but this? Is this really what I’ve gotten myself caught up in?
What am I even doing with my life?
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