Right of retribution boo.., p.14
Right of Retribution: Book 3, page 14
Flooding out of him and molding itself into a slanted plane, it formed a barrier between himself and the bunker. It also covered Dayine and Inger as well.
When the bunker opened fire on them, spraying them liberally with machine gun rounds, they all struck the golden glow and slid off. Not a single round would reach Warner or his companions.
Even as hundreds of rounds bounced, slid off, and deformed against that golden wall, Warner and his two companions closed.
“They all deserve righteous cleansing!” shouted Warner as he grasped hold of Retribution completely. “Spare them not and give them their ends!”
To his left, Inger blazed with a golden light as bright as his own. Dayine, on his right, grew just as bright, though in her azure hue that was unique to her. Unmistakably to his eyes though, was that there were now golden streaks moving through her aura as well.
Warner didn’t even stop as he reached the bunker. Aiming for the faceless soldier manning that gun emplacement, Warner simply flew right into them.
Or more accurately, through them.
The speed and power of his flight had broken the soldier in half at the waist. Tearing him into two separate pieces. One half screamed as it hit the ground and began to flop about, and the other fell backward from the waist down and moved no more.
Slamming into the ground afterward, Warner bounced and then slapped into a wall.
Getting his feet under himself in a flash, he raised his sword and simply went for whoever was closest to him. A soldier with a handgun pointed his weapon in Warner’s direction.
The gun began to fire, the rounds splattering against Warner’s power and doing nothing at all.
Swinging upward from the side, Warner caught the man at the elbow. Severing it from the man’s body at that point, the hand and handgun tumbled to the ground.
The soldier had a moment to scream into their mask before Warner lashed out with his sword again. Their cry was silenced immediately as the tip of his sword exploded through their face and out the back of their skull.
Whipping the sword out through the side of their skull, Warner turned and looked for another opponent.
Inger was in mid-swing after beheading someone and Dayine was a step beyond her, backing several soldiers up into a corner. All three of them were unwilling to face her directly.
Beyond that, Warner could see the field of fire the bunker had held. Cambion soldiers were now rushing toward them since the machine gun had been made silent.
From them all, Warner felt nothing that would cause his sense of justice to shift to positive or negative. They were neutral or only very slightly to one side or the other of the scales.
Which was rather strange if they were soldiers, or so Warner felt.
Before he could actually decide how to handle them, they rushed into the hole Warner had made. Clambering over everything, they more or less ignored him, Inger, and Dayine.
Though they were quick to pounce on the soldiers Dayine had cornered.
“Will you be going into the building, Yellow Eyes?” asked one of the soldiers. Warner could see it was a woman who had red glowing eyes behind her face mask.
“I must,” Warner said, letting his golden sword sink down to his side.
“We’ll hold the roof and the door,” said the woman. “Please let those inside know that they should remain inside for the time being. We’re still working to maintain order.”
Warner didn’t reply to that, but he didn’t disagree with their wish. It would probably be best for those inside to remain inside. The streets were clearly perilous at the moment.
Glancing at Dayine and Inger, he saw they would go with whatever he said. They were looking to him for direction.
Turning, Warner headed to the back of the bunker. It was practically built on top of the doors that led into the Fed building. To exit the bunker, he entered the building.
Standing in the entryway, he saw a small enclosure facing into the building. On the other side were desks, tables, chairs, and corpses. Everything had been stacked up into an impromptu barrier.
They were holding this position while attacking the Fed building. Is that it?
“Looks like it was some type of breach attack,” Inger said from his left. “Though I don’t see anyone from either side. Did… the battle move?”
Moving forward once again, Warner began to take a path through the war-torn entry and over the barricade. As soon as he got to the other side, he could see that Inger was right. There were corpses of what appeared to be Fed agents laid out here and there. Interspersed throughout were the corpses of the soldiers in foreign colors.
“The agents at least made a good showing of themselves,” Dayine muttered as she joined Warner on the other side.
Nodding his head, Warner moved ahead again only to stop once he reached the elevator bay.
Ahead, just before the bay, was yet another checkpoint. This one was set up facing the elevators and the hallway that led to the stairs. It was obvious they were keeping anyone from coming down or leaving, but they also couldn’t go up.
Dayine and Inger leapt into action before Warner could process a response to what was laid before him. They dove into the enemy ranks and began slaughtering them while their attention was on their duties.
It was over in seconds, the soldiers laid low in pools of their own blood.
With a sniff, Warner walked over to the hall that led to the stairs.
Looking through the doorway, he realized that there were probably Fed agents in the stairwell or above. Holding out against enemies trying to push in.
Standing there at the door, he cleared his thoughts quickly.
“Hello, the stairwell,” Warner called through the doorway. “This is Yellow Eyes, we’ve cleared the entry and elevator bay of hostiles. The front of the building is also now clear and… held… by Cambion.
“Is Mark up there? Could I speak with him?”
“Mark?” called back an unfamiliar voice.
“Director Mark Ehrich,” Warner yelled. “Again, my name is Yellow Eyes, and I’ve been working in conjunction with him.”
“One minute,” yelled the other person. They sounded considerably less tense and if anything relieved.
Well, now we just wait.
***
“Uhm,” Dayine intellectually said while they stood at the doorway.
“Uhm indeed,” replied Warner. He wasn’t really looking at anything, but straining to hear anything he could from inside the stairwell.
“That is… err… weren’t… you going to kiss me?” asked Dayine after finding the words she wanted.
Stunned, Warner turned to look at her. She was staring at him resolutely as if she wasn’t kidding. Her words were actually quite serious.
“You… can’t be serious,” Warner said after several seconds passed.
“I mean… we’re alone, kinda running on some adrenaline right now but starting to dip, nothing else to do,” Dayine reasoned aloud. The logic sounded somewhat wrong to Warner but he could imagine how she thought it was correct.
She didn’t adhere to Human standards, after all. This might be perfectly within the realm of what “makes sense” to her.
“I’m here?” said Inger in what sounded more like a question.
“Yeah, but you’d just turn around if I asked,” Dayine said, giving Inger an odd look. As if what she’d said didn’t even need to be questioned.
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” murmured Inger with a nod of her head. Then she promptly turned her back to Warner and Dayine, looking back toward the elevator bay.
The soldiers who secured the bunker didn’t come into the building, but were just outside the doors, now actively manning the machine gun emplacement.
Apparently, the winged ones line up more closely than I thought. I’m the odd one out I guess.
This just doesn’t feel like the right time at all, though.
“I mean, I guess I could take care of that now,” said Warner in an unsure tone. “It just feels like the wrong place, wrong time.”
“I promise I don’t care, it’ll be fine,” she assured him with an odd laugh and a hand gesture. “So… how about you just do what you said you would?”
Warner thought about that for several seconds, then realized there wasn’t a reason not to. With a mental shrug, he decided to go with it and then started to move closer to Dayine.
“Yellow Eyes? Is that actually you?” called a voice from inside the stairwell.
Snapping out of his thoughts and halting mid-lean toward Dayine, Warner then straightened up.
“Mark?” asked Warner, his thoughts about kissing vanishing in a flash. Turning away from the Angel, Warner went up to the doorframe. “Is that you?”
“Sure shit is. I take it you’re the one who came and rescued us?” Mark asked, his voice getting closer. “Does that make me a princess and you a white knight?”
“NO!” shouted Dayine with a voice that sounded like it was about to boil over with rage. “No, it doesn’t. It makes you the damned villain!”
The next second, Mark came through the door. He was wearing a ballistic vest that had Fed written in capital letters across the front of it. At his hip was a holster with a handgun in it. Additionally to that, he had an entire harness that had multiple magazines, grenades, and other things hanging from it.
Held in front of himself looked to be a shortened combat rifle.
I think… he was active duty at one point, wasn’t he? I think Gus mentioned it. He and Mark served together.
“Well, I dunno about the villain,” Mark said with a wide shit-eating grin. “But if I have three Angels coming to my rescue every time I have an issue, just call me Princess and find me a damn tiara that’ll fit.
“Cause I’ll be honest, it was looking a bit problematic for us there. The mercs couldn’t get past the machine gun and we couldn’t get down. It was all fucked without much of an option.”
“They’re mercenaries?” Inger asked, causing Mark’s head to turn so he could look at her.
“Yeah. They’re… well… someone I know runs them. Kinda a friend of the family at this point, I guess you could say,” Mark said with a chuckle. Then he glanced backward toward the stairwell, then back to Warner.
Mark reached into a pocket of his vest with his left hand and Warner felt a subtle wave of magic roll over them. It felt almost like some type of sphere.
“There, now we can talk freely,” Mark said, pulling his hand back out of his pocket. Whatever he had in there could stop the travel of sound. “It’s your uncle’s mercenary company. Incubus-Succubus, Inc. They’re all Cambion, all women. Tough as fucking nails, too.
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with some of them lately. Very reliable and totally worth whatever their cost is. Your Aunt Jezebel owns it. Decima is the commanding officer and runs it with Irene, Stacia, and Caer. Nasty fucking think tank right there.”
“Oh,” Warner said in an almost idiotic way. He knew his aunts had some type of security business, he just never knew it was a mercenary company. A lot of things suddenly made more sense as well.
“That’s why they just watched us,” Dayine said in a growl. It was obvious she was still mad at Mark for interrupting her would-be kiss. “They all saw us flying by, didn’t even bother to lift a weapon towards us. Just watched us go by as if it were the most natural thing in the world.”
“Yeah, no, can’t imagine they’d ever even point a weapon at your group,” Mark said with a laugh. “Decima would fucking cook their ovaries in a chowder and then serve it back to them if they did. I brought you up in passing once to her and she went full doting aunt in a snap.
“I plan on using that little get-out-of-jail free card whenever I fuck up. Never knew there was an off switch for her, but whatever. If it works, it works.”
Warner couldn’t help but grin at that. He could see Auntie Decima getting riled up with Mark. She was always fairly no-nonsense and Mark was almost entirely nonsense.
“So, what’s happening on your end?” Warner asked. “We came to check in and then to tell you what we knew. Because this… all of this… isn’t what you probably think it is at all.”
“You mean beyond a false flag attack?” Mark asked, looking like he wanted to suck on a lemon.
“Exactly,” Inger said.
“Damnit. As if that wasn’t bad enough,” grumbled Mark, then he sighed. “Just… how bad is it?”
“Well… we’re going to be fighting a nasty cunt that’s just as old as I am, which is whatever untold millennia that is, and she gains power the more we fight them so… probably pretty bad,” Dayine said with a shake of her head. “Pretty fucked, yeah.”
“Great,” Mark said, pressing a hand to his brow. Warner expected some type of comment, but Mark said nothing more.
Which meant his own side of things was pretty bad as well, Warner imagined.
Right now, nothing seemed to be going his way.
Fourteen
Letting out an explosive breath, Mark let go of the rifle in his hands and let it hang on its strap. Pressing his hands to his face, he slowly leaned backward until his back pressed to the wall.
“You’re… telling me that we’re going up against the incarnation of War itself,” he said through his hands. His voice sounded strained and lacking in strength.
“Yes,” said Warner. They’d spent only a few minutes giving Mark a complete rundown since he hadn’t asked any questions. He’d just stared at them without emotion and nearly a complete lack of life. “The more wars that are actively ongoing, the more powerful she is. So… so she’s quite literally trying to get the world to go to war with itself. Setting up false flag attacks all over and disrupting as much of the world as possible.”
“Well, she definitely did that,” mumbled Mark. “We were able to repulse the attacks for the most part as a country. We even had a number of people in the right places to get a handle on this fairly quickly.
“On top of that, some of our mutual friends were able to alert me and others to the situation. Warn us that this entire thing was actually just a ploy by the Council. I thought they were all working for the Silent One, but it appears they’re working for War.”
“I’m not so sure,” Inger countered. “I think perhaps the Council did work for the Silent One. At least, partially. Until some point when they split from him and now work directly for War.
“That or they were working for War the entire time and only held a false allegiance to the Silent One. That could equally be possible. It wouldn’t be surprising. War is… she’s a strange creature. One that always seemed torn by her own beliefs and wishes.”
“I… there’s something to that,” said Warner after a pause. When he’d spoken to War, he’d felt something off. Most certainly her personality, but at the same time, a great deal more than that. Everything she did hid much more. “I think in the past, long ago, she had a reason for doing what she did. A reason for why she betrayed the Originator.
“Or at least, she thought she did. Whatever… that doesn’t matter. What that reason might have been is long gone and all that remains is that twisted personality of hers. Her goal was to go to war with me, and anything else that might go with that, didn’t matter.
“She literally will go to war with me, without fighting me, for the sake of going to war with me. I can only think there’s some… underlying reason to that. Some goal that supersedes even her actual thoughts, short-circuiting her logic.”
“That’s a fancy way to say she’s nuts, right?” asked Mark.
“I think what Warner is trying to say is that her original goal still forces its way into her thoughts,” Inger offered. “But it’s completely twisted. In and on itself to the point that the goal will actually be her downfall.”
Warner nodded his head.
He suspected more than that, but he didn’t want to talk about it. He was actually somewhat afraid of the possibility because it directly involved him.
To the point that it might even have included the downfall of Warin.
Unable to stop himself, his mind bubbled with thoughts of War and what she was doing. As well as ultimately what her true design was.
What if this entire thing really is what I suspect? That from her initial betrayal of Runner all the way down to desperately wanting to go to war with me, this was all planned.
What if she had a hand in Baron’s death and Warin’s fall? If she was instrumental to my coming to power as I did because… because I’m not Warin.
Because I’m not just Retribution.
I’m Vengeance and Redemption as well. One aspect of which Warin never had access to.
She could just as easily have worked with Warin and gone to war with him, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to go to war with me.
Me specifically. She believed that I was fated for her.
The only thing different is that I’m also Redemption.
Is… this whole thing some ploy by her? To become as strong as possible, culminating in a war with me, just to… what… fight the Silent One? To battle him at the height of her power?
It’s actually timed pretty well, if you think about it.
She’d be as strong as she could possibly be just at the point that Runner and Ryker come back.
If she loses her war with me, becomes my prisoner, and is redeemed, I would… I would shield her from Runner and Ryker. Even if it meant going against them.
I’d redeem her, as that’s my goal and wish.
If she truly wanted to be redeemed, I’d almost have no choice but to work with her. To seek that end. She even said we could both win and that I’d redeem her.
Damn.
The one time I even hinted at talking to her about all of this, she changed and instantly fled.
I can’t… speak of this aloud though. It would put me at risk.
She’s insane and might believe that me knowing her real plan was a threat to that plan and kill me. You can’t count on insanity to be anything other than chaos.
“—makes sense,” grumbled Mark. “Well, at least for the US, we’re aware it’s all a false flag attack. It’s just a matter of mopping up Council forces and restabilizing.
