Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Logue opened her eyes, waking up from her sleep. Her sight dazzled briefly as the surroundings were bright in the daylight, initially struggled to capture the sight of her surroundings, but the view became clearer as her eyesight stabilized. She was on a hospital bed, dressed in a patient wear, hooked up to an IV, and monitored by a beeping machine wired to her index finger for vitals, enough for her to pay no attention to the rest of health care equipment sets placed unused at the corner of the room.

            Her eyes spotted a medical card the size of an A4 paper placed on the vital machine, and her name written on it ‘LOGUE ARES’, along with several details which she did not bother to look at.

            Ambient was very comforting, clean air with the breeze blowing gently into the room, green of leaves from a tree together with the blue color of clear sky and white from groups of clouds drifting slowly as her sight laid outside of the windows opened beside her bed. It was relaxing, resting on a comfortable bed, at a degree drifting her away from her worries and fear from before everything blacked out. Fears and worries? Somehow she just failed to recall the cause. Her memory was somewhat blurry. It felt as if she had slept for a rather lengthy duration, and attempting to recall for memory was exhausting.

She broke into a grimace as she tried to sit up. There are several spots of pain throughout the surface of her body. Ouch, ouch, ouch… she whispered, finally sitting up by slowly adjusting the strength usage as her body was also still tingly from lying for too long.

            A faint talking voice of a lady approached from behind the non-transparent closed glass door. It was getting more audible following the figure behind the glass became more prominent as it’s approached, revealing a lady-in-white's figure with brunette hair along with it.

            "Aaand..." the door creaked open as the said lady-in-white slowly poked her face into the room followed by her full appearance. A lady in her early thirty, tall, reddish-white skin, brunette shoulder-length flowing down her shoulders, and the radiant of her appearance gleamed brightly as though reflecting the sunshine itself, might ‘metaphorically’ able to blind a person who looked at her directly. "There she is. Bright and shine", she said gleefully upon setting her sight on the girl. Her light blue eyes looked directly at Logue, its charm felt as though was piercing into one’s very soul to melt it.

            Following behind her was a tall male in medical coat with a stethoscope hung on his neck, by head-to-toe appearance, a doctor, about the same age as the lady. Some of his hair were grayish in contrast of his age, his visage were as young as and as good looking as a man in his 20's, and his tall figure matched his broad shoulders, showing a form of physical fitness of a man in his age.

            He approached the bed and sat right next to Logue, slowly removing the wired vital reader and begun to read it directly and through stethoscope. "Breath in slowly, darling", he said in a gentle voice with a warm smiling face, and Logue reflexively did just that, then gently pulled down her cheeks for her lower eyelids' color. "Well, you seem to be in a good shape", he continued, putting away his stethoscope. "I'm guessing you have dozens to question for, but for now, let's get you cleaned, shall we? You've been sleeping for quite some time now", he said with such a gentle face that went fairly with his carved smile and soothing voice, partly relieving Logue from the swelling uneasiness in Logue's mind that yet to reveal itself.

Destan left the room for the two ladies right after asking Logue to get cleaned, and left everything for Lillian to handle womanly matters.

            Lillian, the lady, took the opportunity to introduce herself right after her husband left the room; her full name, Lillian McNall, and the doctor was her husband, Destan McNall, and they were now at their private home-clinic. She then helped Logue getting up from the bed, helped the girl to slowly stand beside it, asked if she girl felt any irritating pain, and whether if she had any difficulty in moving without aid.

            Logue answered simply about the tingly spots of pain on her body she felt earlier, with a surprisingly rough voice from being in bed for so long, and moved about slowly, answering Lillian's second question by just bodily movements as well as an indication to herself the possession of a still-functioning healthy body.

            Satisfied, Lillian stated that it was normal to feel slightly sluggish for someone that had been sleeping for days. She initially asked if Logue was fit enough to take a bath on her own, or if the girl preferred to be cleaned by wiping.

            She handed over a towel when Logue responded that she preferred a lovely bath, and showed the girl the bathroom built just right next to the room where they were, while she kept herself busy preparing a set of bandage dressings and medicines together with a set of comfortable patient-friendly casual clothes for the girl to wear afterward, a light green knee-length blouse with a pair of pants.

Logue sat there on the edge of the bed, loosen up her mind while Lillian attended to her dried wounds and bruises with a colorless medicinal cream and had her torso partly wrapped in bandages. The most prominent wound left was the one being on her right foot, a long stitches of wound, made her think that it must be the effect from some kind of painkiller drug given to her during her sleep, for her to even be able to move in that condition, although barely. She caught a glimpse of memory of her right foot's incident; her shoe was torn during the event, during a gruesome moment before passing out. She spaced out most of the time, simply hoping that whatever memory that was coming back to her was just a bad dream. She had naught to say during her time alone together with Lillian. Just sat still and silently grimaced from the pain every time Lillian rubbed medicinal cream on a spot of wound, especially those on the spots which she had not noticed earlier, until she felt the swelling awkwardness inside her, then took the initiative to start a conversation by inquiring for her current whereabouts.

            Lillian replied with a smile, but nothing was mentioned about their exact location, except she was being taken care of at a private home-clinic. She then reached for the girl's hair, had it combed neatly and pony-tailed, got Logue's face powdered, magnifying the lovability of a teenage maiden she was.

            For a moment when Lillian was not looking, there were trickles of tear flowing down Logue's cheek from both her eyes. It was her physical memory in response to Lillian's warm hospitality. A physical reflex that responded to a moment that she missed so much in the depth of her heart, a mother's love, but she did not realize it yet, wiped them dry with both her palms and had her face powdered once more by herself.

            Lillian carried on talking about the night Logue was carried to their home-clinic by a man named Ash, how Ash buzzed their doorbell late at night carrying the girl unconscious in his arms with bruises and traces of physical trauma, not to mention both of them were covered in stains from dried filth and its wafting stench. Both Destan and Lillian gave them immediate cleaning up and treatment, although Ash refused any treatment for himself at first, insisting treatment priority for Logue before him on top of denying the fact; he too had several traces of injuries all over his body, one being at the jaw area from some strong physical impact, until Destan scolded him: "I know a patient when I see one, Ash! Now let me treat you. It will be quick, while Lillian look after the girl."

            Logue's mind was at ease, but still wonder what exactly took place in her temporary absence of memory, and her thought wondered also if it was possible to meet and thank this 'Ash' guy properly, if the man-in-question was even still here.

            She attempted, but somehow fail to recall any image in regard of the said man, except for a strange yet gruesome figure kept on appearing inside. The image was of a man with his visage hidden behind the curtain of shadow under a huge hood, basked in the twilight.

            Somehow, she began to feel the fear to even try to remember.

            Cleaned, bandaged, and dressed more casually, Logue climbed down the stairs from the second floor, accompanied by Lillian, connecting them directly to the living room downstairs. From the appearance, and a set of stairs to go to upper floor, it was at least a three-storey house with some of its areas renovated into a private clinic, including that one room she was in at the second floor. During her time upstairs, she noticed several more rooms at the same floor with inside them complete sets of medical equipments, but the clinic was empty, except for herself being the only one there for medical attention.

            Even climbing down the stairs was a struggle with her physical condition.

            It was quiet, the only sounds heard were the rotating ceiling fan in the living room below, and occasional newspaper page turns by Destan.

            "Look who's the little angle!" said Lillian, holding Logue from behind by the shoulder, gleefully showing off the now cleaned girl to her husband who was sitting on one of the couches in the living room, waiting for them. In the middle of the couches' positions was a knee-height table, on top of which a medium size packed backpack for a person along with several seemingly sensitive documents for traveling including passport, readied for one's departure anytime soon.

            Destan immediately folded the newspaper, putting it away to pay his wife the attention and responded to them with a tender smile. He got up, walked quickly to the kitchen and returned back with a tray of food.

            "Well now, I suppose you would like to have something for lunch?" said Destan as he stood, inviting them to the table at the other side of the living room. "I believe though you were hooked to multi-nutrients throughout your sleep, it is still normal for a human stomach to famish for real food, no? However, I was told to hurry and this is the best I could provide for you thus far."

            Indeed it was true. Logue was not hungry, but she could sense the crave to munch some food. She nodded lightly and quickly, not able to generate what to say at the moment, but the doctor seemed to be very understanding and gave out a light giggle in respond while putting the tray on the table, putting away the backpack and documents, and Lillian walked her slowly to sit on a couch.

            She found the meal was rather droolable. Fish chips smeared with mushroom sauce, salad, and a glass of yogurt drink, with a set of spoon, fork, and knife. Everything was in small portion, not too little, not too much, enough for a single person's appetite. But Logue could not grasp the idea of eating while the other two were only looking at her. "You are not joining me?" Logue asked, trying to break her curiosity.

            "Oh, we would've loved to, honey. But don't mind us. It doesn't look like it, but this is a clinic. you're our priority." Lillian answered. "Besides, we have had our lunch just before you woke up.”

            Logue hesitated at first, but her current appetite hankered for proper meal. She grabbed the fork and knife, sliced off the fish chip and put it in her mouth. Goodness! This is delicious! She stuffed her face with the foods and drink combined, at a point forgotten the pair were watching her, and snapped off her lust, slowing down her consumption. "Pardon me. I wonder what has gotten over me."

            "It's normal", Destan responded with a chuckle. "We've treated several patients that were in a knocked-out state before. We deliberately hooked them up to multi-nutrition that kept them healthy, just like you, but the supplement also improves their digestive systems, making them to crave for food after waking up, to avoid them from depending solely on supplements."

            Logue nodded, understood. It was embarrassing eating like this, she had never eaten anything in such manner in her entire life.

"I hope you enjoy your meal."

            All three of them turned, facing the hallway that leaded to the adjacent room, the hearth room. Ash stood there, staring.

            "Ash? You are early", said Lillian, turning to face her husband with a questioning tone intended for him, staring for an answer.

            "He’s just arrived", said Destan, replying his wife.

            "I'm actually rather late", Ash replied, walking towards them. "If you may?" He said, changing his gaze to the couple and back to Logue again.

            Both the couple nodded lightly, and walked away from Logue, leaving her a question to herself: ‘what is going on?’ from the shift of atmosphere, alone with Ash as the man sat down on a couch adjacent to her.

            "You guys may stay and listen. If you want", Ash said, not looking at them nor if he was even waiting for an answer.

            "I'll go make some coffee", whispered Lillian into her husband's ear, but Destan gently pulled her in the arm before she could even budge and whispered back hers: "no, no. He insisted for us not to. This will be brief", then led her to the corner of the room to sit on a couple of office chairs to observe.

            With Ash sat near her, Logue could not stop to wonder if this is the 'Ash' guy that saved her and carried her here. They called him 'Ash'. This is the 'Ash' guy? She wondered. There was a single painful throb struck her in the head upon looking at him directly, like an intuitive reflex in the mind. Her head felt heavy before she even realize it, and reflexively supported herself in the forehead with her hand.

            Ash remained silent for a little while, staring at the confused girl. He took a quick-and-silence deep breath and then: “I’m sorry, I thought it’d be best to have waited for you to finish, but we are running out of time, You and I."

            “I beg your pardon?” Logue responded, dizzied from the throbbing.

            Ash took out a partially burnt light-blue document– or what is seemed like what was left of it–  out of his shirt pocket and put it in front of her on the table.

            Logue stared at it for a few second, it seemed rather familiar. It was a piece of a document-card, or at least seemed like what remained of it. One side of the edge was burnt, the other side was torn, the whole piece was covered with spots of dirt or whatever kind of indescribable colors of dried filth all over it, and a trace of it being ripped off from its remaining piece, believed to be an originally bigger piece than this. Another throb hit her in the head, somehow her mind was recalling something, showing her an image in her mind. It was the moment when she wrote her name into a similar-looking document. She bent forward, closer to it, inspecting it out of curiosity if it was the same document projected in her mind. To her surprise, her name was written on it just like the flashback playing in her head.

“It’s something I picked up at 'Sunny Star'”, Ash said, aiding her to remember.

            Logue gasped, her heart skipped a bit, her face turned pale as her mind was gushed with various of images from the moments before waking up here in the private clinic. For a moment, the reasons were unknown, but it slowly emerged, and the images were almost as visible as the reality. It hurt her in the mind and emotionally. The pain was almost physically real, the pressure from sudden stream of recalling memories suffocated her, and her head throbbed and felt as if it was going to explode. ‘Sunny Star’, the name of the orphanage. She remembered that she was admitted there not too long prior to it being attacked by a group of soldiers, the siege. She remembered herself being held captive along with the others from the orphanage mansion together with some other strangers seized from who-knows-where, and lastly the image of the hooded warrior basked in twilight. She unconsciously broke into tears, for a moment wondered herself 'why', reflexively covering her mouth, a habit she had not to be heard while crying. Her mind suddenly starting to recall and picture a lot of death, and kept on generating gory images and gruesome fears of death. “Oh no…”

From then Logue remembered; a man in a cowl with a broadsword, plunged himself in the middle of a squad of soldiers, painted the floor red with blood of the slashed and the stabbed, before coming for her with such speed not her eyes may capture. During the twilight, she was on the verge of giving up hope to live, witnessing the death of the innocents had buried her soul into the abyssal void moments of deathly fear. She remembered the deafening sounds of gunshots, how bullets were shot to the hooded warrior, seemingly hurt him greatly but was not sufficient in deadly form, how he emerged victorious against a combatant officer whom wielded nothing but a pair brass knuckle, came dashing right to her with the veins of Preservery art emerged with dimly glow upon his physique, and smashed her captivator in the face before blacking out.

            The next thing happened was a pair of hands embracing hers. Logue snapped out of the flashbacks by the warmth of comfort. At first she saw a cowled figure in a twilight background, hallucinating out of severe emotion despair, but then Ash's current figure came through her vision, melting her glacial cold wall of overwhelming fear.

            Logue felt her hearing was failing from the stress. She felt as if her surroundings were dead silence except for Ash's voice that echoed in her mind as he spoke, and as if there were only two of them conversing in a void.

            "I know I'm in no place to make such a request as this..." Ash said slowly, but she could hear it as clearly as a whisper into her ears, dissolving the stone wall of dread nestling deep within the girl's mind, and his hands held to hers tightly. "...but I need you to try and relax. Focus. Try to remember the last moments at Wharf Newland before I grabbed you."

            Logue's hands reflexively squeezed Ash's in return. Her breathing slowly stabilized during a moment of pause, and her mind went blank from trying to comprehend the warmth of comfort in her hands. But then, somehow it felt rather familiar in a negative way. Along with comfort, rose dismissive reflexes and thoughts.

            Her vision spun, sending her eyes blinking several times to brush it off. It was the stress. Beads of sweat dripped down her temples and trickled down her cheeks.

            All the blinking had done was just tossing her vision into the depth void of tricks. She was in a pitch void of nothingness except for a dark silhouette of a man in a black three-piece suit with his visage hidden behind the shadows, holding her in the hands, replacing Ash in the image.

            It was a tall man with a broad chest and shoulders. His leather-gloved hands held tightly to Logue's, black in color, and she felt dampness upon the surfaces of the leather gloves. She initially failed to tell what it was until she slowly pulled her hands aback, only to bear witness to trails of watery thick red on the surfaces of her hands. Blood! Panicked, she wanted to run, but her body was not moving from the trauma. She looked up to where the man was before, but he was now a few meters away from her, standing on a heap of bleeding dead bodies, and some of the them had their faces facing her. She immediately recognized a few amongst them, familiar faces; her neighbours, her friends, her acquaintances, her parents!

            The man's visage was hidden still, but a wide sinister ear-to-ear grin was carved, being the only part fully visible behind the shadow.

            Logue recognized it, the moment when it all happened, the massacre, the murder... the one 'at fault'... "Joan Donn!"

Chapter 1 - Broken Peace

Chapter 1

Broken Peace

Ash hurried along the abandoned boulevard, breaking the silence in the deserted town with his running steps, along with the occasional noise of wind blows and the dreaded echoes of gunshots and explosions from distant battles from neighboring districts. All the running had consumed much of his energy, but he cared not of it, nor did he have any choice against it. Besides, operating a vehicle would render him from being spotted easily in such a location– a war zone. Best to avoid from attracting unwanted attention. Properties; buildings, houses, shop lots, and vehicles which he came across a few, were left abandon on almost every corner of the town where he could set his sight upon during the run.

He slowed down and began to walk normally across a long, straight street in a residential area, catching his lost breath, setting his eyes upon a series of luxurious double-story homes built on the slope at the very end of the street, quickly searching for a suitable spot for him to get a clear view of the rest of the city below it.

His vision locked onto a house, one that was built on a higher position in comparison to others in the vicinity on the hill. Ash hasten his tread, slowly accelerate to the point of dashing faster than he did prior and leaped with all his might, up to a few meters high. His target was reaching the roof of the house, but his jump began to slow down rapidly in mid-air, ended up reaching not the targeted roof but only the wall of the second floor, grabbing the exterior pipe lines and climbed to the top of it. Gotten soft haven't I... he thought, recalling how back in his most active days would have reached the roof just in one go. He stood there on top, the highest point in the district, gazed into the view towards the rest of the town downhill, breathing deeply, once more catching his lost breath while maintaining his relaxed manner. He saw smokes and several minor explosions from several spots within the town shipping port’s vicinity kilometers away, and could hear wailings of sirens from various local authorities’ vehicles, several gunshots, and battle cries. The views were burning red from the twilight, the day was ending, waking the darkness of night to take over. Still functioning streetlights were starting to automatically switch on. For once, he thought of how big the town was and chastised it for being so at such critical moment of when he needed to reach his destination in a hurry.

He flexed his muscles, comforting himself in his adorned battle outfit: a dark-black long leather coat reaching his calves, with a built-in cowl-big hood that covered his visage under its shadow, long sleeved, zipped and clip-buckled onto his upper body, making it the most of his torso’s guise, while his waist down was outfitted with a pair of black jeans and a pair of lightly grieved combat boots for his feet. A sheathed broad sword fastened onto his back, not the possessions that struck his fancy, nonetheless he had not a choice but to equip those just in case should he ever get caught into the fray, though he preferred not to get involved into battle in any possible way.

He ran his fingers through his short, spiky hair, un-doing the hood in the process, letting the somewhat calming breeze touched him directly in the face, granting a speck of peace into his mind before the chaos that soon to come.

His eyes gazed upon the rest of Wharf Newland below the hill. At the edge of the port town was the pride of the country itself, the 'Wharf Ship Port', a well known ship port that connect various ship trading routes between countries and influences, a country well respected also for its marine strength despite being a neutral country, yet to fall into the greedy influence of AE nor its rival. Setting sunlight shone upon the wavy sea, reflection seen as though it was a ruby-red filled sea.

            Alas, there they were, the pirate invasion, poisoning the majestic view. Few numbers of hostile pirate ships designed with the resemblance of those from the middle ages, especially the masts and the sails. It was not even a surprise for the pirate’s movements being unpredictable, lurking in the 'fog' in the ‘Null Zone’. However, what weird him out was; the fact that the pirates actually made it into one of the lands under Allied Empire’s (AE) influence of control, a breach that has never been done before ever since the world war, two centuries ago. He suspected the pirates might have acquired aids from the AE rebels for the breaching, and vice-versa, must have also aided the rebels in their rebellion movements at the AE outskirt country, Canopy. It seemed like the rebel had their base founded there, a country located at the outskirt of the AE’s influence, and it seemed to be the most unfortunate to be located at the furthest reach of said influence. From sufficient amount of info he had obtained, he understood that even the AE’s peacekeeper faction, the GF, had been mobilized… but it was already too late…

            Canopy had silently fell into the clutches of cornered rebels, which were hunted down throughout the neighboring AE lands for decades. GF had anticipated that they would flee to Canopy at the outskirt of AE’s land of influence, and was the closest to the Outland faction and would then escape to there, the hostile land. Should the rebels managed to flee to Outland, then they would remain undetected as AE had no jurisdiction behind the enemy’s border. It was a matter of time before the AE’s global police, the 'Lawbringer', to get hold of the rebel's position and pin down their positions subsequently, but the rebels were one step ahead: rebel runners were sent for infiltration to seek aid from nearest entity beyond the Null Zone, which turned out to be the Salvas Pirate. However, even if the rebels struck a deal with the pirates for supply aid. It didn't make much sense of how the pirate could physically arrived for military support without being detected neither by local authority nor the GF… unless if they were detected but somehow the info did not reach the GF. The Null Zone border had always been a tense warzone between AE and Outland, and was tightly guarded by both factions’ military forces. With how the chaos seemed, it was clear that the rebels wanted to claim the whole Canopy itself now, a whole country, though it was true that the rebel factions had always wanted to claim some of the AE lands in the name of ‘independence’ ever since the world war ended and fell into the grip of AE as the winner's prize.

             By how the events appeared to flow, the land will imminently be swallowed whole by the time GF arrives as it was already swarmed with rebels, pirates, and resisting local military.

            Ash let out a sigh, his objective however paid only a minor interest in the conflict itself, and only cared about the scale of collaterals in future to come. His concerns were locked tightly towards his current goal; the safety of the orphanage near the center of the town, a place where he would usually go to relatively frequently along with his daughter to find comfort and peace. The orphans, the nice men and women he knew there, he could not muster such strength to abandon them and ended up returning back there just to make sure they were safe, or at least to offer any aid he could lend his hands for. He had the premonition weeks before the current event; during the worsening political turmoil and detection of the rebel bases in prior months, and quickly had himself working on investigation, only to come across the intel of the incoming pirate interventional military threat despite the blocked entry routes. Canopy was at the verge of war.

            Soon after acquiring the intel, he quickly acted by smuggling out his daughter out of country along with the old couple, Jonathan and Marianne, his neighbours, to care for her during his absence, and several others he could get his hands on in his immediate vicinity. Even the escape was considerably difficult since most of the traveling portals, be it land, sea, or air, were subjected to lock-down to the point of 'none shall enter nor exit' after the complete sealing.

            Not too long following the external sealing, local authorities discovered and pinpointed several states and specific districts as the locations of the rebel bases, and started to carry out the internal sealing, blocking all major routes and most minor ones they could find that connect districts and cities. Then, the local military initiated the 'sweep' movement, said to hunt down every bit of the pinpointed rebel and to smoke them out of their hidings.

            Delle, a local policeman, also one of Ash's close acquaintances from the orphanage had volunteered to provide aid at the start of his investigation, but Ash declined and had him to look after the orphanage and work on their escape– in case of trouble– instead. Besides, having a good policeman to ensure one's safety is more convincing. Especially in dire times.

            Or so he thought...

Ash had no communication device in his possession except for a two-way beeper that was kept hung onto his waist. Cell phones or any other registered devices might render him vulnerable to being tracked by military intel-unit interception during his investigation. He could not risk that.

There was no text received from Delle's beeper for the past month except until recently– two days ago– a textless distress message beep was sent.

This can't be good. Where the hell are you, Delle.

            Everyone in his immediate vicinity was smuggled out. Now it was time to head for the orphanage. Unfortunately, the objective was located at Wharf Newland, one of the pinpointed locations  in Canopy.

            This might prove as an unwanted difficult mission indeed.

He leaped downwards from the roof, headed few meters below hills to the other side of the town, resuming his run along the deserted neighborhood. The sounds of explosions and gunshots getting louder and clearer by the second as he headed further into the sealed area, and so was his fear of the orphanage’s safety. He kept on running, the views were only of those damaged buildings and smokes in almost everything in the vicinity. Some even got obliterated and leveled to the ground by what it seemed from explosion or artillery shell attacks.

At a point, he stopped running, began to walk slowly to search the proximity, and ended up walking on a pile of scattered rubbles from destroyed building. The neighborhood was deserted, some of the buildings were destroyed, and reeks of smokes starting to fill his nose. Again, he ended up walking on a main street, with both sides, left and right, abandoned vehicles, most were covered in dust, and most were destroyed by various forms of firearm attacks. He reconned some vehicles and buildings nearby were left with trails of great-but-tactical destructivity, much like those from vehicle-mounted repeating machine guns', assuming a battle took place not too long ago with the deployment of some powerful fire-prowess.

Much was the same until he made a turn at a junction towards the dedicated road built solely to reach the mansion, surrounded by grassy fields, and faintly inclined upwards geologically.

Goodness... there he was, standing in front of what was left of a destroyed steel gate entrance of said mansion. Brick walls that ringed the mansion were partly destroyed along with traces of bullet holes and explosions. A siege.

 Almost everything beyond it was in ruin. What left standing was some ripped garden floras. Ash walked through the hollowed wall onto a pile of rubbles, stepped on somewhat of a remained from a ripped green metal signboard. He recognized it instantly: a piece of the orphan mansion’s signboard, he was standing at the very doorstep of his objective that lied in ruins, and he was searching the very neighborhood he loved before he could recognize it. His arrival was too late to even witness the event that took place.

He headed towards the mansion, about twenty-meters from the front gates, entered it from a hole blasted on its side and made a round of search, only to find not even a presence of a breathing soul. It was pillaged thoroughly, traces of struggles covered the area, several spots of blood painted the floor and walls, bullet holes bored the walls, but still nothing, not even a dead body. It was silence, accompanied only by the sounds from nearby battle along with the crunching glass and concrete under his boot steps. Up he went to the first floor, followed by the second floor and what was left of the attics, then descended back to the ground floor, calling out names along the way but to no answer.

His objective lied in ruins, frustration dwelled into him and the only importance at the moment was his composure. His mind was in a state of which he knew maintaining his calmness was a paramount and an ideal act.

Not even the orphanage was spared. Such collateral.

The original plan was to quickly escape the area with as many people he could get his hands on. But since the plan failed to even start, and he was alone, he thought no harm in doing further investigation at neighboring proximity just at the junction where he made the turn to the mansion earlier, back to one of the destroyed and deserted parts of the town.       

A moment of silent walk took place. He rummaged through random piles of rubbles from flattened buildings along the way in search for anything at all to keep his mind occupy... until he heard a faint echo of a loud shouting expression not too far away from his position, mixed together with the sounds of growling heavy vehicle engines and cracking sounds of crushing rubbles in its tracked path in the background. Soldiers and trucks... he guessed as he began climbing to the roof of one of nearby still-intact buildings, curious about the activity especially the loud commanding voice, finally decided on a course to run, treading hastily on one rooftop to another, following the engine sound, witnessing the view and the condition of the rest of the town along the way. Further parts of the town towards the other end of the outskirt were less affected by prior attacks, many buildings in the vicinity were still intact, and some were even in good shape.

The grumbling engine sounds slowed down. They were stopping, and so was Ash in response as he crept from one rooftop to another, with speed but silently, towards the source of the sounds.

 He crept from one rooftop to another, with speed but silently, towards the source of the sounds, especially curious about the loud shouting voice in particular.

He peeked downward from a rooftop of a small building few blocks away, and saw a group of local authority. Three of them–by the ‘more majestic’ differences spotted on their uniforms–were officers and the several other infantries carried assault rifles and SMGs, together with protective gears; helmets and Kevlar. They were surrounding of what it seemed was a rounded up group of helpless townsfolk.

The hell, Ash whispered.

The situation seemed off: one of the officers was speaking loudly with his helmet taken off and he held it by his side, seemingly demanding for something but it was unclear what, as his echoed voice dispersed in the air by the distance. Ash switched his observation into the group of townsfolk. They looked slipshod and were trembling in fear, which was the weirdest part there was; since they were supposed to feel safe in the presence of authority. He tried to look for anyone he knew among the crowd, but it was hard to recognize the townsfolk as they were at quite a distant, plus the bright-red setting sunlight was limiting his eye sight.

Seemingly losing his patience, the officer approached one of the townsfolk. He dragged out a teenage girl away from the group and placed her facing one of the other soldiers that then pointing his rifle to the confused and frightened girl. Some men from the group tried to pull the girl back to them, but the officer hit them hard with the butt of his rifle, followed with combat-booted kicks, and even brandished his helmet, crippling his victims who dared stood against his mean. The officer put on his helmet, then demanded again – this time, with an artificial voice, filtered through the helmet’s mic – to the frightened crowd in a loud, angry, and threatening tone. As the group’s men could not stop what had befallen them, women and children were crying out of fear and hopelessness as they could do nothing but to only watch.

Shit! They gonna kill her! Ash did not linger to guess what would. He dashed and leaped from one roof to another, approaching the local soldiers from above, swiftly and unnoticed.

The officer signaled the gun pointing soldier to open fire.

Ash drew out his sword, pulled up his hood, and threw himself into the middle of the group of soldiers, right behind the gun pointing one. With the hood put on and the setting sunlight that put a limit to visibility, his features appeared hidden behind its shadow, nothing was left exposed except for his lower face by the nose level and below.

Surprised, the soldiers had not the time to react but to point their guns to Ash. The one behind him–one with his gun pointing at the girl–turned to see what was going on, but the last thing he had a glimpse upon was Ash’s blade as it sliced his helmeted head, literally cutting off the entire upper half of it. Ash grabbed the dead motionless body, threw it to a soldier nearby.

Panicked as a dead body flung towards him, the soldier hit it out of the way, but the next very thing coming was Ash's blade piecing him in the mid section, made him the second to fall without fully grasping the situation.

Ash quickly moved about to reach another target near him, hacked and slashed his way through, one after another.

“Archstride alert! Archstride alert!” shouted an officer alarming the others nearby. His voice echoed through the helmet with an artificial electronic voice, filtered through the helmet.

They scrambled their formations to face the Archstride threat, few of them remained firm, stood their grounds and started to shoot hail of bullets, a common strategy for a group of non-Archstrides in case they encounter an Archstride. This strategy is always used to corner Archstride enemies in sheer numbers, which the subject will have difficulty to reach from one target to another.

Ash dashed and leaped, avoiding the line of fire from hitting him, slashing and piercing his way while drawing the firing line's attention away from the civilian group behind him.

 Ash's sword once more brandished to cut down another one, but this time his target did not even move a pinch. His sharp blade was on the verge of hitting the victim, until it was parried at the very last moment by a swift-and-vicious blow to the blade, sending the sword strayed from its cutting path.

Damn! Careless, am I not...? He taught as he leaped away, comprehending the sudden change of impression, intuitively felt the raising difficulty from it, gritting his teeth in minor frustration in response.

Ash then noticed that the target was one of the officers. In trance earlier, he failed to notice not only his target did not make any prominent movement, but also had not any firearm nor any prominent weapon equipped on him like the rest of the footmen, except for a set of brass knuckles already worn on his gauntleted right hand, the one weapon that struck fail his prior sword strike.

The officer still had not make any prominent movement except very calmly taking out another set of brass knuckles out of his jacket pocket and worn it on his gauntleted left hand. Very calmly, almost taunting-like.

Just the very clash Ash wanted to avoid… Archstride…

The area was silent from the absence of deafening gunshot. Both Ash and the brass-knuckle officer traded glares, measuring each other.

            Ash tightened up his grip upon his sword, wanted to make the preemptive move, but he hesitated. His judgment was clouded by the surroundings; the hostages and the outnumbering soldiers, and Archstride officer.

The soldier squad took seconds of their time to quickly refurbish their ammo magazines, some even swapped their arsenals into bigger and deadlier ones, breaking the silence with the faint sounds of weapon slides being racked.

            The momentary calm ended when a soldier squeezed hard a trigger, fired a grenade shell from the underbarrel grenade launcher, aimed directly towards the tar street under Ash’s feet.

It took him less than a mere second to sense the shot projectile, Ash quickly made his move to jump out of the way.

            The grenade blasted a tiny crater in the tar, but Ash got away a few meters from the explosion radius, covering his face with his left forearm, avoiding the blistering shards of blasted tar from hurting him in the face.

            He wanted to make a counter strike, pulling back his sword, prepared to negotiate his way by dashing into the middle of the crowd.

But the brass-knuckle officer came charging towards him with blinding speed, intercepting Ash’s intention with a volley of punches along with suppressive fire from the soldier squad from various possible angles.

Ash blocked and dodged the brass-knuckle’s blows, but the bullets made the situation too much of a handicap for him to handle, crippling his movements, and some even wounded him on several spots.

He managed to feebly trade several blows with the brass-knuckle, but red liquid of blood was starting to show and trickle from his armor.

Shit!

His situation worsened with more explosions from grenade shells interrupting his movements. Every time a grenade explodes, the brass-knuckle came amidst the distraction to deliver few punches he could hurl.

Ash had no choice but to take a few steps aback at a time, blocking and dodging, to a point he narrowed down his options to just quickly perform a series of zigzag jumps between two three-story height buildings in the immediate ground, towards the roof of a taller one between the two.

The brass-knuckle persistently did the same, intercepting Ash’s action in between the zigzag jumps, until he ended up at the roof of the shorter building right-next-to and under the one Ash stood atop on. He looked up and chuckled in fervor in the heat of battle, confidently leaped onto the taller roof, and charged straight towards Ash.

"Artlac, you idiot!” voiced the earpiece nestled in the brass-knuckle’s ear. It was the voice belonged to the one of the other officers below. “He’s drawing you out from the line of fire!” shouted the officer on ground, into his earpiece.

Hearing it, then only the brass knuckle realized he was fighting a harder fight, lured into his enemy’s playing field, into a one-on-one combat. Ego aside, he started to realize the raw physical strength gap between him and his opponent, clearly proven now he had no suppressive fire to aid him on top of the roof.

He tried to leap back, attempted to withdraw to where the other soldiers were, but Ash intercepted his retreat before he could make his move. As he turned, Ash was a step ahead in front of him, followed with a series of sword brandishes and thrusts. The brass-knuckle dodged the first few blows, and parried the next ones with his weapons. Each time he successfully blocked an attack, he could feel a great impact from it, hurting his hands in the process on top of gradually draining his stamina.

What the freaking hell with this guy?? He was wounded and cornered. How did the tables turned?! He knew he had to somehow retaliate soon before he truly drained out of energy, and saw an opportunity when Ash swung his sword with concentrated strength. Artlac dodged the attack, with his body span and his right arm extended outward. With the spin momentum, he hurled a punch directly to his enemy’s face.

It was a direct hit, a powerful blow right to Ash’s jaw. A blow strong enough that Ash’s movement was put to a pause as he endured the pain with blood dripping out from his mouth due to injury. He felt the impact flowing through his head and the banging aftermath inside his head was overwhelming, causing him a considerable difficulty to keep his bearing.

Artlac paused as he successfully landed a hit. Should he had hit a normal person with such a punch, it would have shattered the whole head in the process. Confident, he was sure the hit would at least immobilize his foe, though the foe in question was still standing, he thought his victim was unconscious since there was no movement.

In trance, he thought of his next move; to pay back all the tiring effort he had put to evade and repel from being attack. But something was not right, his body would not move, and slowly he felt a strong surge of pain. His mind went blank as the pain appeared more and more prominent by the second. He looked instinctively upon his abdomen, and– to his surprise– there was a huge horizontal cut on it. Blood spilling out from the wound, and his whole body trembled from extreme and sudden pain, a cut he sustained without him noticing somewhen during the brawl. He was too in a trance and was too focus on fighting and did not realize a critical hit landed on him. His instinct of a human being began to think of nothing but to stay focus to endure the pain. His teeth were gritted, veins were emerging at the surface of his face, and he breathed in-and-out heavily through his mouth and nose.

He looked back up to his front where his opponent stood, but Ash was nowhere in sight but a very meter in front of him with his sword positioned to strike. But in all that chaotic mess of thoughts, he saw it, and he realized; it was not due to the lack of strength output in his punch that the enemy was still standing, but it was the art of Preservery, a healing type discipline that caused anastasis, mending the suffered wounds by excessively forcing regenerative cells to work hundreds of times faster.

The prove of Preservery art usage was shown clearly on Ash's body; faintly glowing veins expanded from his heart position to throughout his body, seeking any immediate damage for it to make amendment for and the glow were showing as if emerging from his armor itself, the effect from 'Abstenik'.

The brass-knuckle gathered all of what was left of his remaining strength to at least block the incoming blade, resulted in both weapons clashed, but the blade passed through his weakened defense and cut him down.

His enemy fell decapitated, blood gushing out from the huge cut from the slash. Ash turned and rushed back to where the battle had first started. The brawl had much delayed his rescue attempt. He did not anticipate an Archstride to appear so soon. To his agony, the military squad had begun to shoot at the rounded civilians, killing a large sum of headcount at a time, person after person. He could hear screams of death coming from the group, loud but fading per passing moment. His movements were momentarily but literally paused as he could only watch the civilian were diminishing in numbers too quickly, even quicker than him brandishing a blade. Even if he went rushing down below, he would not be able to save anyone on top of jeopardizing himself in the process.

Ash’s attention caught upon an officer– the one that gave the order to shoot the girl earlier. He was hastily escaping the scene with his one hand dragging the teenage girl by the hair with him, forcing her to run to keep up with his hasty walking pace. The rest including one remaining officer stayed behind, commencing attacking position.

Seeing all those, Ash rushed on the roofs towards the officer and the girl. Infantries remained below him opened fire towards his position above. The infantries’ attacks were more patternized; they used grenade launchers more frequently, and spread even further from one another to widen the effect of outgoing attacks, and to avoid being easy targets from splash-type attack– just in case– as a standard battle pattern against an Archstride-type threat. But little did they realize, Ash kept on running, ignoring the threats they posed below as they anticipated Ash would come rushing to rescue the civilian. But instead, Ash hurled himself near the fleeing officer, quite a distance from the other infantries.

The fleeing officer heard the radio chatter installed in the helmet screamed in regard of his jeopardized position. Realizing his objective to flee was in peril, the officer drew out his combat knife sheathed on his waist. His other hand– that was dragging the girl– pulled the her by the hair, and the blade was directed to be placed onto the girl's neck, with the intention of holding her hostage. But he did so without realizing his actions were outsped as Ash charged toward him with the speed he could not comprehend, grabbed him by both his wrists as he turned to commence his part of the threatening.

His movements were immediately seized by the wrists from the powerful grip, and bore witness with his very pair of eyes; the extended glowy veins of Preservery art in the middle of wounds amendation process, slowly restore the appearance of his captivator as though before the whole clash started.

Panicked, the officer tried to thrash-about his way loose, but the hostile grip upon his wrists greatly strengthen in return. At the first few moments, it was nothing he could not withstand, but the grip was getting even more powerful thereafter, to the point of slowly crushing the said wrists. His grunting steadily turned into a painful scream parallel to that event, mindlessly cursed and called for immediate assistance through his helmet-mic as his wrist bones slowly snapped from being crushed. Both his hands, aside the torment, were still persistently holding firm onto his objectives; the knife and the girl. He mindlessly rocked his body to all possible directions, but was proven utterly futile.

The officer was getting frantic by the second. In desperation of his remaining rationality, the officer launched a headbutt with all his still-existing strength, aimed straight at Ash's face.

Ash saw it coming, but the battle had terribly worn him out from organizing any reaction of self defense, and the helmeted headbutt hit him hard straight in the middle of his face.

He gritted his teeth, endured yet another painful blow. With his head leaned aback from the impact, he counter attacked with his own headbutt with it, crushing the officer’s helmet in the visor, then immediately released the officer’s wrists as the victim's clutch loosen upon the knife and the girl, and the motionless body fell to the sidewalk with blood flowing out of the partially crushed helmet.

The opening from the crushed part of the helmet exposed its wearer's crushed face, as well as revealing the components install inside; bluish color projection lights from the 'Heads-up display (HUD)', and was letting out a series of blipping sounds and indistinct crackling chatter voice at the other side of the communication.

Those aren’t from these guys…

Ash though, laying his eyes towards the swift approaching infantries. He reconned contact has been made to the rest of them nearby and had their situation reported, and a high probable that it was from acknowledged reinforcement respond.

Released from being hurtfully dragged around, the girl fell to the floor right next to the motionless bleeding officer. One of her feet was bared, bruised and bleeding as the other pair of footwear got torn from being dragged. Her shoulder length blond hair was a mess from being tugged, her bruised face bore the look from mixture of negative emotions– prominently fear and trauma– and her eyes were red and swollen from crying but without the presence of sound except sobbing and heavy breathing. She bit her lower lip, not saying a word nor looking elsewhere other than the floor, with her hands pressing her head from the sides, reactively trying to protect herself, an effect that lingered from prior event.

Threats were closing in fast, and Ash was not in any desire, or more importantly, in any advantage to persevere anymore combat. He quickly grabbed the girl, carried her on his shoulder, and hastily fled the area with a considerable depth of hope that the enemies did not find the vicinity familiar more than he did.


Decorative Picture. Source, Nazgul from LOTR series, copied from google: