Explosions and screams of pain, cries for help and tears of loss. Chaos. That was the word that described the forest I was hiding in. A dozen hooded Templar fanatics lay injured or dead, scattered around the woods like litter. Yet, more of them show up to reinforce the hunt. But even in their backyard, I have the upper hand. This was my territory now and they were in my kill box. I quietly move through the terrain to get to my stash point. As I dig up additional supplies, I hear another trap being set off by the new arrivals. Blaze of fire ensues as they are set on fire, prompting them to start screaming in pain as the fire catches on quickly to other parts of their bodies and unwilling to be put out by every struggle they made. Some start running in various directions as panic sets in with the agonizing pain of burning flesh. The nauseating smell invokes fear and panic among the already injured as they frantically look around their immediate vicinity to check for any upcoming dangers. All this was happening right before my eyes, hidden in a safe place only a few feet away from the sight of terror as it unraveled before me. I patiently waited. These were only foot soldiers, scouts, amateurs. They weren’t real hunters. Mostly rookies or novices. Probably one or two veterans, judging by a small amount of leadership and search pattern orders being given out. I raise my blowgun to aim for one of the individuals that was giving out orders, desperate to maintain order and keep the group in order. Blowguns are more effective in this situation, less likely to give my position away. I aim and blow my first dart at the unsuspecting target.

“Arrrrrgh!’

It hits him with precision. He manages to pull the dart out to mutter a single word before collapsing to the ground. They always manage to pull off one word, and its usually the least helpful one in such a situation. Nevertheless, the one hooded fanatic with the leadership skills fell unconscious as a strong sedative kicked in, a special mix that was used to knock out Werewolves. This caused mass panic as various others flocked towards their incapacitated leader. I casually toss a Molotov cocktail bottle amidst them.

“Goodbye rookies…”

The mass screams would surely draw any reinforcements to this location. That would be my window of opportunity to escape Hunter territory. The plan was to move into Werewolf land and zip through between the Hunter and Lycan boarders to escape free into a new state. The organization is vast and they have other unknown organizations branching out across multiple industries and sectors. But even they cannot have installations in every state. I just need to find one that they are weak in. My first target was down south, head into Texas and then maybe lay low enough to sneak into a state where the organization has a weaker hold on. At least that was the plan. I was almost out of human territory heading in to Lycan Land when I was stopped by three hooded figures. Fanatics of the organization, zealots of the Knights Templar… The one in the middle stepped forward and pulled out a medallion the size of his palm, like I should know what it meant. It was a silver cross with oval edges and red jewelry that overlapped a shield. I looked at it and shrugged.

“Should I know what that means?”

“The shield of faith that extinguishes the flames of evil…”

“Great…. Then go do some evil fire fighting somewhere else.”

The three hooded figures where less than impressed I guess, as they stood motionless. We had a sort of a stare down as I slowly got ready to make a dash for it. But then the three pulled out swords from under their hooded capes. That was not what I was expecting. As I took a step back the hooded figure in front followed a step forward.

“We are the ‘Vindicators’. We have come to purify the evil that has gripped hold of you.”

“Well, as you can see, I’m pretty much myself and don’t need no fanatic exorcists to chase any demons away.”

“Come with us Jack Stein and you shall be treated with respect and dignity.”

Respect and dignity my ass. They God damn burn souls of people to graft weapons. I myself put down many Lycans and Vampires that threatened the lives of humans, but while their bodies have been corrupted by darkness their souls remained intact. I know that now. They should have at least let them retain their humanity in the afterlife, even if it meant dwelling the purgatory. They release the only remaining humanity from the torment of their bonds only to bind them to more torment for eternity? Bull shit. That is not respect and there is no dignity. I hesitated in harming these fanatics at first, after all they’re human. I never signed up to fight against humans. I signed up to save them from becoming like me. But then I realized that they were the reverse of what the werewolves were. The Lycans were damned beings, human souls trapped inside a corrupted body that could only be freed to rest once the body dies. These were corrupt souls inside human bodies, corrupting themselves from the inside out. They had lost their humanity, like Lucifer lost his faith and divinity to be cast down as the devil. That didn’t mean I would consider them viable hunting targets, as they are still technically human. But it did mean I didn’t have to feel remorse or pain in ‘vanquishing’ them either.

As the thoughts started to sink in, our long quiet stalemate slowly came to an end. I pulled my hands away from my sides to reveal a blade in one hand. The self-called ‘Vindicator’ took a glance and stared right back into my eyes.

“The famous ‘Alpha Blade’. We’ll be retrieving that from you too.”

“Retrieve? This was never yours to begin with.”

“Jack, do you understand the potential that blade holds? The amount of good it will bring to our cause? That blade alone has enough value in it to vindicate your tarnished name. Release it to us and we can make all this go away, even offer you to join our ranks.”

I couldn’t help but smile, smirk more like. It was laughable. All this time, they were still after my blade. I remember the first time the science division took a look at the blade for the first time. They asked me for days on how I forged the weapon. They immediately tried it out of course but all the results were below expectations. Hundreds of Skinwalker Alphas were caught and brought back alive. They were slaughtered like cattle for their silver bone fragment. I almost felt sorry for the bastards. It was sickening to see the degree of bull shit they were willing to pull to recreate what they wanted. But at the time, my hatred towards these beings overshadowed this and I tolerated the act. In the end, they deemed it not replicable and gave up, at least that’s what it seemed like. But, turns out they still had their eyes set on it.

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What I didn’t tell them was that the Alpha Blade was made from a claw of a specific Skinwalker Alpha and then fused with the silver bone pieces on to it using galvanizing techniques. It took me months of crazed research and trials to unlock the secrets of the claws and bone fragments to properly fuse them together as one. Also finding the specific Alpha was a task that proved to be tough. During all my time hunting the Skinwalkers I never came across the same type of Alpha again. It was larger than most alphas and had long blade like claws. But it also had distinct skin patterns on its face, like a tattoo of sort and most importantly it had very distinctive orange silver eyes. I came to understand that normal Alphas have silver eyes but those with special traits had silver eyes mixed with different colors. My target zero had greenish blue and the one I killed to make the Alpha Blade had orange. I haven’t met any others with such traits after, but something told me that there were others. When they brought in all those captured alphas, I looked carefully but discretely, to see if any of them had that trait in their eyes. But they were all ordinary silver eyed Alphas, some looked to be those that have just became an Alpha. They were desperate to find how I made the blade so much that they went to extreme lengths. But they failed in the end and I doubt they’d succeed for a very long time.

I stared at the Vindicator and into his eyes. There was confidence and faith in those strong stares. He was completely into his beliefs as a Templar. Fanatics. To them religion is just an excuse to grant them justification for their actions. But they pretend that it means a great deal to them. They believe it so much that they start to believe in their devotion as real. They cling to it as if their life depends upon it, not knowing that it will eventually corrupt them from the inside. That was what killed the templars all those centuries ago and it is what’s killing them today.

“I am going to go now and I’m taking my stuff with me.”

“That’s too bad, because you won’t be going anywhere except to our detention facility where you will undergo the process of vindication by rite of cleansing.”

“I don’t think so.”

With that I lunged forward raising my other hand to reveal a small hand grenade. I had deliberately pulled my Alpha Blade up front to steer their eyes onto it and hiding the fact I had a hand grenade tucked into my palm like a baseball in the other hand. But by the time they realized my motives it was too late. I threw the grenade towards the vindicators and closed my eyes shut. The grenade exploded into a bright blaze of light. The grenade was in fact a flashbang. I moved quickly with the image of the three vindicators back stepping away from what they thought was a grenade. I keep the image in mind as I swing my blade while closing my eyes. Just as I open them to see clearly, my blade slices through one of the vindicators, bleeding him on his right arm,

I had landed myself amidst the three hooded vindicators as they rubbed their face with their hands in agony from the affects of the flashbang. As my blade sliced through the right arm of one of the vindicators I twirled the blade to a reverse grip and pulled my arm in to stab the vindicator in this right shoulder blade. The silver blade of the Alpha Blade cut through human bone like butter as it did with any other entities. That was what made this weapon so unique, moonlight endowed weapons had higher effectiveness to other worldly entities but were essentially the same to humans. But this blade had deathly effectiveness to every target regardless of their identity. As I incapacitated one of the vindicators I quickly swung around to slash at the other vindicator on my left as he was just about to recover from the affects of the flashbang. It sliced through his neck but wasn’t deep enough. As the Alpha Blade scratched the surface of the vindicator’s neck it drew blood. Surprisingly the blood squirted out like a fountain contrary to the light scratch it engraved on his neck. The vindicator gripped his neck in surprised, screaming in agony. That would not help stop the bleeding though. As I quickly turned to stab the vindicator now positioned just behind my left shoulder my blade was quickly blocked by the long blade of the vindicator’s sword.

“That was not a clever thing to do Jack. You have now put yourself at the top of our wanted list. Even if you escape here alive, you will be hunted wherever you go where ever you hide and who ever you ask help to.”

“Not if I hunt you down first.”

With that I gripped hard onto my knife and pushed against the vindicator’s moonlight endowed sword. One thing I knew for certain was that my Alpha Blade was a very powerful weapon that could cut through even the strongest of metals. Including moonlight endowed silver. As I pushed hard my Alpha Blade started to cut into the vindicator’s sword. Just when I was about to cut clean through and slice at the vindicator now standing alone, he quickly pulled away to distance himself from me. By this time one of the other vindicators was kneeling on the floor trying to cope with the pain and bleeding while the other was completely down and seemingly going into sock as his body started to shake and blood pooled around his neck. I stared at the remaining one vindicator as he slowly pulled back his hood to reveal his face. A dark brown skinned man, probably middle eastern decent stared at me with a concerning look.

“My name is Ezekiel.”

“Of course, it is.”

Why am I not surprised. I thought it would be some kind of a Biblical name. To be honest I thought it would’ve been one of the names of the angels. Kind of disappointed in some sense. I shrugged and then without hesitation dashed towards Ezekiel with my Alpha Blade. I had cut halfway through his sword already and a blow powerful enough would break it off completely. Ezekiel noticed my intentions and backed away. But my dash and swing was a second faster as my blade made contact with Ezekiel’s sword. The ringing clash of blades emitted a strange resonating ripple as the sword’s blade broke away. As the blade of the sword broke away and my Alpha Blade now swing through the air without obstruction I was quickly falling through towards Ezekiel, and he saw the opportunity to retaliate with his broken blade. But he was too excited at the notion of payback to notice my other arm swinging towards him with my axe in hand. I twirled my torse to create momentum for my axe as it hacked into Ezekiel’s left shoulder. With little time to react to my surprise attack Ezekiel literally rammed into me causing my axe to miss its target as I was shoulder tackled back with enough force to knock me off my feet.

“Arrrrgh!”

“humph!”

I got the wind knocked out of me as my back hit the floor hard with brute force. I lost grip of my axe as my wrist hit a rock or something as I landed on my back with Ezekiel still holding on to me now in a full take down tackle. As Ezekiel struggled to pin me down with himself on top I quickly twirled my Alpha Blade in reverse grip with the blade facing inward. Swinging my arm in towards the vengeful vindicator I managed to stab him in his thigh. Though I hadn’t had enough force into the stab, the blade itself was sharp enough to plunge straight into Ezekiel’s though and cut into his bone. This was enough as he screamed in agony, rolling off me to hold his thigh with my blade still plunged inside. I slowly staggered up and picked up my axe. I looked around to see the other two vindicators now completely on the floor flat and motionless. Judging by the amount of blood pooled around both of them, they were dead. I dragged myself forward now sight fixed onto Ezekiel still screaming and somehow managing to crawl away. I came and stood right on top of him as he turned to look me up in my face.

“J….Jack…. I…. promise you… you … will die.., a p…”

He stopped speaking as I hacked into his skull. No need to hear the final curses of a fanatic that was here to deal with me in the first place. I reached down to pull out my Alpha Blade from Ezekiel’s thigh. I looked at the blade for a second as Ezekiel’s blood rushed off to the sides of the shining silver blade. I swiped it once in the air to shake off the blood and sheathed safely away. I walked over to pick up my bag of supplies and started to walk off towards my next target location. Hope it’s the last time I see one of those fanatics again. It was not something I particularly wanted to do. Hunting demons and evil entities is one thing. But humans is not on my list of enemies. But that didn’t mean I would shy away from an incoming death threat. Once I looked for a place to rest my soul and finally see my Sarah once more, but not like this. Besides, with all the dark bullshit I’ve done, I doubt I’d see her again. Probably go straight down to hell for it. If that’s the case, I’d take down as much of these monsters as I can with me. Earthly or unearthly.