Right of retribution, p.38
Right of Retribution, page 38
Each and every strike felt as if it reverberated against Warner’s soul. As if it were being flung about, like a windsock in a storm.
Getting to his feet, Warner snatched up a combat knife from Madison’s belt. Looking at Pattin, Warner found the man was in the middle of a reload. The two people next to him were doing the same.
Lunging forward as he dismissed the shell, Warner grabbed the man on Pattin’s left.
Ramming the blade home into his opponent’s stomach, Warner then shoved a massive wave of his angry, golden power into the man’s abdomen.
Shrieking and jerking back as his body became a living torch of white flames, the man held his hands up to his face for a second, then ran away.
The flames didn’t stop even after he broke contact with the blade, though. They grew brighter, in fact.
Tripping over a corpse, the man tumbled into a set of controls and knocked the whole thing to the ground.
Screaming and rolling around, the man beat at the flames.
As this went on, Warner snatched Pattin’s weapon from his hands as if he were taking candy from a child.
Holding the rifle’s barrel like a club, Warner smashed it across the face of the other man. With a sickening crunch, his head was spun around. The left side of his face folding inward in a massive dent and the rifle bending at the stock from the force of the blow.
Warner followed the man down as he collapsed to the ground and immediately stabbed him in the chest. Filling him with golden justice, Warner was satisfied to see the flames swell instantly.
Turning to Pattin, Warner felt his heart hammering in his chest.
This moment had been his goal all along. To bring to justice the one who’d harmed his daughter.
“Travis Pattin,” Warner said. “You will now pay for your crimes. I will end your life and send you onward to be judged. There is no redemption for you.”
Growling, Pattin’s eyes flashed.
Then they become dark pools of night.
His fingers became elongated into claws, his posture hunched slightly, and he took on the appearance of some shadow-like creature that didn’t belong in the light.
It didn’t set Warner off in the same way as the terrible creatures which he fought with the PID against, but Warner knew this creature wasn’t something that bode well for others.
An immediate and suffocating sense of fear ran up Warner’s spine.
A fear he’d been fighting even as he brought justice onto the world.
That he’d screw up and leave Maya alone in the world. Leave her to whatever fate she’d face without him there to help her. To protect her.
To be a father to her.
As if in response to this fear, the angry golden font of power inside of himself roared to life. Tearing the fear itself out of Warner’s mind and flooding it instead with the heavy and dangerous throb of righteous anger. The power demanded an action to be taken.
“I am His blade and He wills me! By the Originator, I will slay you!” shrieked Warner as his mind was drowned in holy fury. “Justice be served!”
Thrusting forward with the small blade in his hand, Warner plunged it straight into Pattin’s sternum.
The force of the blow propelled the man across the room, through the glass window, and straight through the air.
All the while as he arced down toward the ground, Travis Pattin screamed. Screamed as pure golden flames surged over his body. He was immolated, the crack and pop of the roaring fire almost as loud as the man’s scream.
Lifting his chin, Warner could feel the absolute rightness in what he’d done.
In killing all those who stood before him on this day, he’d moved the scale closer toward balance. Holding his arms out, Warner closed his eyes, lifted his face and basked in the moment.
The satisfaction of having delivered a measure of goodness unto the world.
There was a groan next to him, causing him to look down.
Madison the Troll was there, her hands pressed to her face. Blood was running down the sides of her cheeks and pooling beneath her head.
Staring down at the young woman, Warner flipped the blade around in his hand.
“I shall end you quickly, Madison,” Warner said, then dropped down atop her hips.
“No,” groaned the Troll, her hands coming away from her face to try and fend Warner off. “No!”
Slapping her hands away with his left hand, Warner got the knife around to where he could jam it home and end her life quickly.
“No, no!” Madison said, still struggling to get Warner off. Her hips thrust up at him and her legs splayed out wildly.
“It is for naught, scum. Your life is mine and you shall pay it henceforth,” Warner declared and then stabbed her.
Screaming and shifting to the side, Madison managed to somehow move enough that the blade punctured her lung rather than her heart.
At some point when he’d attacked Pattin, the power in the blade had run out though.
All Warner had done was shove steel into the Troll.
Pulling the blade back out, Warner could hear the wheeze of Madison trying to suck in a breath through a collapsed lung.
“Do not struggle. You make this more difficult,” Warner said with some annoyance. He didn’t want the Troll to suffer.
“No!” groaned Madison. “Please! Please!”
Warner slapped her hands away once again and then grabbed her by the throat, pinning her to the ground.
Flooding the blade once more with his power, Warner held it above the Troll’s heart and slammed it down into her.
But the tip of the blade stopped as soon as it made contact with her flesh.
Staring down into the frightened young woman’s face, Warner was momentarily struck by the feeling he had right now.
It was injustice, but not from Madison.
From himself.
What he was about to do wasn’t fair to the woman, who was now at his mercy.
Gasping for breath, wheezing, and bleeding all over, the Troll was a mess.
What am I doing? This isn’t right.
This is wrong.
No! It’s right. She should die for her acts.
This is just. This is correct.
With that thought, the sense of injustice from himself vanished as if it had never been.
“Please,” Madison whimpered.
No. It’s not just. It’s not correct.
She… this could just as easily be Maya. Without someone to guide her.
No.
I can save her. That is just.
And just as quickly, the sense of injustice from himself came back. It reaffirmed his thoughts and strengthened his resolve.
“You will serve me for a time, Madison,” Warner growled, the blade rising up slowly. “Until your debt is paid. Do you understand? You must balance the scales in your soul.”
“I understand,” said Madison in a wheeze. Her eyes were wide with fear as she stared up into his face. Her hands locked to the wrist of the hand that held her throat.
Before his very eyes however, her nose and face were healing. The skin knitting itself, the bones shifting back into place.
There was a sudden roar that came from outside the broken window. One that made Warner’s skin crawl.
Frowning, he held onto Madison for another second.
“You will serve me, Madison Elsh,” Warner stated again his hand flexing and then releasing her throat. Standing up he looked down at her. “Remove any evidence which would tie you to this place. Do you need medical assistance?”
“No. I’ll be fine. I’m… healing up fine. Trolls are good at that, ya know?” Madison said, getting to her feet. She wobbled for a second and nearly pitched sideways before she stabilized herself. “I’ll be fine.”
“Good. Clean up or collect anything which would tie you to this place. Right now. We’re leaving momentarily,” Warner commanded.
Striding over to the window, Warner surveyed the field and the stands.
The audience acted as if they were in some sort of wild, mad craze. People were literally attacking one another.
Transforming into monsters, throwing magic, or simply going insane, they were all losing their minds.
No small number of people were actively in the middle of murdering someone else, or worse.
There was no stink of injustice coming from these actions though. There was no culpability or ownership of these crimes.
At least not from those who were performing the violent acts.
“We must talk about what happened here, Madison,” Warner stated. “I believe that this situation is far more problematic than either side of the conflict thinks.”
Watching all that was happening in the stadium, Warner felt defeated. As if his actions taken only moments ago amounted to almost nothing
That his deeds were worthless in the face of what was happening here and now.
“Sure. No worries. We’ll talk about whatever you want,” Madison said, her voice coming across much more cleanly and more firmly now.
“Excellent,” Warner murmured. Reaching to his waist, he pulled off the belt. Followed by the armored vest. He stripped himself of his equipment so he’d leave everything here he didn’t need. “This world needs the hand of justice. Now more than ever. I shall give it that. Even if it doesn’t know that’s what it needs.”
The lights suddenly went out inside the room. Display, monitors, everything powered by electricity failed.
There was no power at all.
“Time to go,” Warner murmured, staring out at the center of the stadium. Toward the field itself.
Flaming even now was Pattin’s corpse. Sitting somewhere around the fifty yard line, he was quite clearly dead. However, the grass around him remained untouched.
I wonder if this’ll be on the news at all. Or how they’ll handle this.
In fact… it’s probably best if we pretend we don’t know what’s going on at all.
Turning around, Warner marched past Madison. She was just finished pulling off her equipment and removing her bloody clothes. They were piled up at her feet.
She was wearing nothing but a bra and her pants right now.
“Come. Don’t leave your bloody clothes here. It is time for us to depart and leave nothing behind. This whole event just became some sort of hellscape. We must not tarry. I expect we’ll be forced to hide our knowledge of this as well and proclaim ignorance,” Warner said, walking right out the door.
“Uh, right. Yeah,” Madison said, falling in behind him. “What… uh… what are we doing?”
“Leaving, did you not listen as I spoke?” Warner replied. Moving back toward the stairs, Warner began taking them down at a sedate pace.
The power was out, which meant cameras weren’t working. He could get back to Aelia without having to worry about being spotted.
“I mean, yeah, I get that part,” Madison grumbled. “But I mean… where are we going? The Para Guard is outside. We heard it on the radio. Everyone was told to get out on their own.”
“The Para Guard?” Warner mused aloud.
Must be like the National Guard.
“And how were you getting out, Madison?” Warner asked, descending another flight of stairs.
“I dunno… hit things until I got out,” muttered the Troll.
“Hm. For now, you shall remain at my side. We will get out of this, one way or another,” Warner stated.
Truth be told, he didn’t know how he was going to get out with Aelia and Madison, but he was confident he’d manage it.
That or Daria would show up and whisk him away. He wasn’t going to count on that, though. Counting on that sort of rescue was a great way to get in trouble.
Coming down the last flight, Warner paused momentarily as the shouts and screams from the stadium proper grew louder for a moment.
It was followed by an explosion that made everything shake and rattle.
“What the fuck?” Madison asked, looking around.
“This too does not concern us. Our goal is simple. Return to our starting point, wait for them to locate us, and then escape,” Warner muttered.
“Okay. Uh, what’s our starting point?” Madison asked as they crossed the tunnel and into the hallway.
“A sexual encounter in a room we are not supposed to be in,” Warner explained.
“I… what?” asked Madison, following close behind Warner.
“If we are in the middle of coitus in a location where we should not be, then they are less likely to question what is going on with us,” Warner murmured.
“Oh. Okay. That makes sense,” Madison said. “I think.”
Reaching the storage room where he’d left Aelia, Warner opened the door and walked inside.
“St—oh, Warner,” Aelia said, rising up from where she was sitting. “I’m so glad to see you. It sounded like—”
Aelia’s voice fell off as Madison entered the room behind him.
Closing the door, Warner considered what to do.
“Madison, give me your shirt, then barricade the door,” Warner said then held his hand out to her.
“Oh, right, yeah,” said Madison. She handed him her bloody shirt and then walked over to a very heavily loaded shelf.
With ease that made it look like it weighed nothing more than cardboard, Madison dragged it over and placed it in front of the door.
“This is Madison the Troll. She serves me now, as her penance,” Warner explained, coming over to Aelia. “The Para Guard is outside the stadium, everyone in the stands is killing each other, and Pattin is dead. Madison worked for the enemy.”
“Now I work for Yellow Eyes,” Madison said from the door where she was shifting another shelf around. “I guess we’re gonna have sex in here so they don’t question us too much.”
Aelia raised her eyebrows at that, looking back to Warner.
“She misunderstands. I don’t think she’s incredibly bright,” Warner murmured coming to stand next to Aelia. “I told her what our cover story was. Sex in a place we should not be.”
Making an “oh” face, Aelia nodded her head, then shook it slightly. With a sigh she looked back to Warner. “Right. Let’s… get rid of that shirt and your own shirt, too. We can break Bodil’s rune to do it. Then we just wait, I guess.”
***
Sitting between Madison and Aelia, Warner continued to stare at the door.
For the last three hours, they’d listened to the sound of gunfire, screams, and shouts. It sounded almost as if there was some type of war going on out there.
Except that they hadn’t heard anything for at least ten minutes now.
“Haven’t uh… haven’t heard anything for a bit,” Madison muttered. She had her hands on her knees, sitting there in only her bra as if it were completely normal.
“Yes, it does seem to be coming to an end,” Aelia murmured. She’d taken charge of Madison very quickly. The young woman deferred to Aelia completely.
She’d had the Troll replace the shelves with some tables and chairs to block the door with. Her argument at the time had been that it was something far more likely the three of them could move, rather than the shelves.
“Uhm, what should we do?” Madison asked.
She was a very unsure young woman who didn’t seem to know what to do with herself.
I hope she’s better in a fight than she is at waiting.
“Exactly what we talked about. Just relax, Maddy. We’ll be fine. Just remember, we were in here having a three-way when we heard everything happen. We’ve been sitting here in the dark ever since. We know nothing about what’s going on out there,” Aelia murmured.
“Yeah. Three-way, dark, don’t know anything,” Madison repeated.
After Warner had dismissed his power, the remaining light in the room vanished and the darkness of the room was complete. They’d been sitting in the actual dark ever since.
“Uh… was I in the middle or—” Madison stopped talking, leaving her question open.
“Huh, they might actually ask that. The cops do like to throw sideways questions, just to see what falls out,” Aelia muttered. “You were in the middle the whole time. You can’t remember who was elsewhere because we swapped a lot on you. We picked you up here at the stadium. Hadn’t met before this. Warner is circumcised.”
What? Weird.
I wonder if cops really do ask oddball questions like that.
“Got it. Right. Yeah. I’m the middle, swapped on me a lot, I got picked up here, Warner's cut,” Madison said. “Okay.”
Warner couldn’t detect any deceit from Madison. She seemed genuinely accepting of what she’d been told to do.
If he had any doubt that she might betray them at all, he’d have already removed the threat.
Injustice or not, he had to protect himself.
Because that was protecting Maya.
There was a clack of the doorknob as it was turned.
“Here we go,” Aelia murmured, then she took in a breath.
“Hello? Is someone out there? Stay out! Don’t come in here! We don’t want to hurt you!” Aelia shouted.
“Ah… hello?” called back a voice. Then it was muffled and said something to someone else. “Just a second, ma’am. We’ll get you out in a second. How many are in there with you?”
“There’s…there’s three of us. Is everything okay out there? We… we were in here and it sounded like a bomb went off,” Aelia said.
Decent actress.
“Yes, ma’am. Everything is fine. Just… stay there. We’ll get you out shortly,” replied the muffled voice beyond the door.
“Wonderful. Now we just wait, tell them our story, then go home,” Aelia said and sighed softly. “Let’s pick up pizza on the way home. I want pizza night again.”
“Uhm… can I have one with meats on it?” Madison asked. “I’m really hungry. Warner stabbed me and broke my face. I get hungry after I regenerate a lot.”
“Of course you can, Maddy. But you’ll need to talk to Daria first,” said Aelia giving Warner an odd look. “You can talk to her while I get the pizza.”
Epilogue
Walking beyond the inner military perimeter, Warner felt like he could finally let out a breath. Could let out a sigh and not make eye contact without being judged for doing so.
