November 12th, 2012
My next almost fifteen years were spent either running or hiding or a little of both. We were constantly moving between her homeland and my own, staying with relatives or booking under false names. We were so paranoid that our past was catching up on us and despite Emilia's attempts to help those who were like us, I was reluctant. Jonathan had taken refuge with a group known as the Royal Family, and I declined all offers of support. Who could we really trust?
Jonathan was the only one we kept consistent contact with, other than Emilia's family, but over the years our talks became less and less frequent. In our last one, Jonathan spoke of plans that would 'change the world' so to speak, and invited me to join him in his endeavors. I did trust Cooper, but time had warped his sense of judgement. I declined, and he never spoke to me again.
My last few years with Emilia were that of happiness. We finally decided to settle with her parents for a little while, raising our children, our two girls with a normal life in mind. We managed to do so in peace for a while, but Emilia was not satisfied with it. She wanted to give all who had been victims alongside us to live peacefully as well. A request which I could not fufill for her.
We set off for the next location with a new home in mind and we left our eldest girl behind with Emilia's mother, taking our youngest. Despite how much I wanted to leave her behind in safety, Emilia insisted we would be alright. We lived in Western Europe for less than a month, Emilia working to help those less fortunate while I did work here and there to blend in.
We had received a distress call of sorts from one of our old comrades, to which he needed help leaving the United States. I refused, like I had done in the past countless times, but Emilia trusted this man and wanted him to have the same peace we had lived with the past few years. She went to go on her own, but I went with her in the end, leaving our youngest with someone at the hospital Emilia had grown to trust.
I regret letting Emilia go everyday for what happened. We found the man, but it turned out that he was indeed within grasp of the enemy. They ambushed us and when it came to a fight, the one we were meant to be helping turned on us to save his own life. In this panicked state, my ability seem to fail me, and the future in front of me was blurred and hasty. We...we escaped into a house, but one of those who were chasing us blew it up from beneath us. Emilia was trapped beneath the debris.
I watched my wife die in front of my eyes.
She asked me to leave so that no one else would be hurt, but after watching the light leave her eyes, I waited for our attackers and killed them all. After that, I faked my death and vowed to never rest until we were all free from these monsters. By whatever means necessary.
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"This is the place?" A voice came from his right. Charles nodded, the crisp air biting at his skin. He had not been here for thirty years. In fact, he had purposely avoided this place for a good lot of his life. But now, he had returned with nothing in his mind but revenge. "It's... smaller than I imagined." Charles shot Alesina a look and she shook her head. "I meant no offence." Her Italian accent was well hidden behind her English.
"So much death." Nyatichi shook thon head, closing thons eyes. Thon only knew so much English, and saved thons words when they really counted. Lev scoffed.
"And there's about to be a whole lot more." Lev sneered, his eyes focused on a guard scouting the outside of the facility, his loud chewing growing more and more annoying. He spat a ball of tobacco onto the ground. Not only his Texan accent, but his Texan attitude was heavy and obnoxious. "Bunch of commie bastards. Prancing around in their skirts like they own the place."
"How many would you say are here?" Alesina peered through the falling snow, trying to count the guards on the outside. "One hundred?"
"Eileen has already confirmed one hundred and eighty-three on duty at the moment. That's including supervisors and non-trained... scientists. If you could call them that. She's already down there scouting."
"Unfair. Why does she get a head start?" Lev spun his dual-blade axes around, transforming them from one weapon to the next. Axes, to swords, to guns, then back to axes. "Don't send the women in to do the man's job."
"Watch your mouth." Alesina spat at Lev. He grinned back.
"Or what, you're going to nag me to death?"
"Or I'll cut your lips off and feed them to Branko." Branko made a noise at his own name, chuckling at the joke he half understood. He said something in Croatian and stood up.
"Cut head off!" Branko wielded his own dual blades, brandishing them at Lev. Lev gripped his own, licking his lips.
"How about another wager, eh? I'll up the ante, make it $10,000 this time. $5 grand seemed too weak last time. You were barely at 50 heads by the time I had cut off 80. I've seen Eileen cut more than that quicker and she's a girl." Lev grinned, watching Alesina's rage grow from the corner of his eye. "How about it, bucko?"
"Deal!"
"I don't care how you kill them." Charles grunted. "Just leave
him for me." A flare popped from the otherside of the facility. "There's the signal. Let's go."
"Nyatichi, fly me in. I'll cover the entrance. Eileen will meet us at the gate. The rest of you, do whatever the hell you want. This is your game, Taylor."
Nyatichi nodded, thon body already forming into that of a large eagle. Thon gripped Alesina by the shoulders, lifting her into the air. Charles, Lev and Branko ran after them, Nyatichi dropping Alesina at the front gates. As she hit the ground, a burst of gasses erupted from around her, Eileen (with gas mask on) running to her with key card, removed eyeball and a severed hand in tow. She skittered at the number pad, swiping the card, pressing the thumb up to the pad, the eye to the scanner and pressed in a combination of numbers. A green light confirmed their entrance and the enormous gates jittered open. Alesina thrusted her hands forward, pushing the gasses through the gate to any close-by guard to be immediately knocked out.
Charles, Lev and Branko had caught up by now, gas masks on and weapons wielded. Lev was the first to 'break the ice', throwing one of his axes at a oncoming guard. It pierced the forehead and shattered the skull, blood splattering everywhere. He gave a maniacal laugh, morphing his other axe into a hand gun and shooting at approaching guards as he retrieved his axe.
"There's nothing I like better in the evening than a f*cking hot bowl of communist brains." He shouted, smearing the blood splatter on his face and ran at the panicked guards who had turned tail and ran.
They found themselves running into the chest of Branko, who, with his wielded swords, cut three heads off at once. With their deaths empowering him instantly, he shouted in rage, smashing the last twos' heads together. Their skulls collided, blood splattering upwards and outwards.
"Four!" Lev shouted at Branko, pointing his gun at an incoming guard. "Five!"
"Seven!" Branko roared, punching his fist through another guard's head, and using his other hand and sword to slice off another head.
Meanwhile, from above, Nyatichi had landed on top of the facility, hiding thonself behind an air-conditioning unit. Thon fired a round into the sky, attracting the attention of three nearby guards. Nyatichi ran in, skidding underneath one of the guard's feet and appearing behind him to jab him in the neck with one hand and pull in another guard with the other. With a few more twists and jabs, thon was surrounded by three guards, all unconscious and reluctant to wake up for the next few hours.
"Clear." Thon said into the radio on her wrist, continuing on down roof stairs.
"Roger that, Nyatichi. Taylor, Lev, Branko, push forward into the facility! Eileen, once they are through break the security system. We need those electric doors disengaged if we want to get past the main foyer." Charles nodded, dodging the bullets and attacks as if they were choreographed and he had practised this dance a thousand time. Lev and Branko however, continued to mow down the guards until there were none standing to oppose them. Eileen disappeared, cursing under her breath.
"A task like that is so easily done, this will not prove satisfactory." She sighed, slipping past the main doors to find the control room. The security of the entire facility made her laugh. She was able to break through their digital guards without even blinking and now their physical force was being beaten by 5 (albeit heavily trained) assassins. Hilarious.
The rest of the outside guards had fallen back inside, the bland cement walls now painted red with their blood, Lev and Branko using their weapons as the paintbrushes.Now inside, Charles ignored the attention of the guards, making his way through the facility to its deepest core. He only stopped to take out the annoying guard here and there or wait for Eileen to open the next door, having already found the security room and taken control.
Alesina however, made her way lower, into the experimental wards. Once the guards dead and 'scientists' knocked out, she found dozens of prison cells with Atlanteans hooked up to machines. Though she didn't know the specifics of what machine did what, it wasn't hard to figure out; a scientist in an opposite, oblivious to Alesina, turned a dial on one of the machines, sending volts of electricity into a woman's body. Alesina felt a hot rage building up within her, horrified with the treatment of these innocent people.
"Eileen! Open the prison cells!" She hissed into her radio, the doors opening instantly on command.
"Per our agreement, after I open these doors, amalgamate my company with Lev and Branko, my compensation shall be the 10,000 dollars." Alesina would have objected if she hadn't smashed through the glass, wielding a shard of glass as a weapon and slicing through the man's neck like paper. She then put a foot through the equipment, the Atlantean's body relaxing as the electricity finally left her. Alesina was going to kill every one of these bastards and no machine was going to stop her. She placed a finger on her pulse, the woman still alive thankfully, and pulled the radio in her wrist up to her mouth.
"Taylor! Status!"
"About to destroy this mother f*cker." Charles slammed the door behind him, finally in the office of the man he had sought death upon for all these years. "I'm going to make you wish that you had never been born, you disgusting worm." The man stood up from his chair, wiping his hands on a towel on his desk. He was tall, his hair dark and his eyes cold and grey. He smiled as if he had won, but Charles knew much better than that. "Kozyrev."
"Mr. Taylor!" Kozyrev's accent was thick and obviously Russian. "How have you been? How is your wife? Well, I assume?"
"Smug son of a b*tch." Charles spat at Kozyrev's feet. "You better pick some better last words before I cut your head off."
"Don't be so hasty, Mr. Taylor. Tell me, when was the last time you had a fist fight where you didn't know the ending?" Suddenly, the future around Charles had disappeared and his head was clear for the first time since he had come to this wretched place. He searched the room, his eyes closing on an open box on Kozyrev's desk. Inside it was a red stone, the size of a baseball, which felt like it was pulsing with energy. "Anti-Atlantite. This should make this a fair fight."
The door behind Charles swung open, two larger guards stepping in the doorway. They were both taller than him, one armed with a set of daggers and the other with brass knuckles. Charles laughed, wielding his own weapon - a dagger.
"I don't need to know the future to know you're going to die soon, Kozyrev." The guards were the first to react, the one with the knives charging forward with them brandished. He swung once, twice, both to which Charles dodged on a hair's breadth. The other guard threw a punch, landing hard on Charles' side, feeling his ribs crack under the force. He heaved, but with his right hand, sliced upwards as hard as he could, cutting the guard's arm and smashing his chin with his fist. The guard blacked out for a moment, stepping back and letting the dagger-wielding one forward. Charles dodged the first swing and cut at his left hand, the guard wailing and loosening his grip. A kick in the chin and then the wrist made the guard let go of one of his daggers, but with his other hand he managed to slice at Charles' chest. The cut wasn't deep enough to his bone or muscle, but blood began to dye his vest red.
He mustered up his strength, dodging blows as the guard with the bronze knuckles swung at him. The first, second, and third punch all missed their intended target, but Charles felt the third collide with his chin. The guard sneered, hoping he had taken Charles off his guard but instead the blow had left the guard open, ducking under the next fist and thrusting one of his daggers into the guard's chest as hard as he could. When he still felt life underneath his skin, he stabbed with his other hand. The guard fell back and Charles fell with him, abandoning the daggers and rolling out of the way as they hit the ground together, the dagger-wielding guard stabbing the now-dead guard instead of Charles. With his foot, he swept the guard down to the ground, knocking the other dagger from his hand, yanking it off the ground and stabbing him directly in the heart. The guard was dead in an instant.
"Well done." Kozyrev clapped. "You've done well for a washed up soldier. With a dead wife."
"You shut your mouth. You shut your f*cking mouth." Charles panted, his own and the guards' blood splattered over his face. "It's your turn to die."
"Not today, Mr. Taylor." Kozyrev pulled a gun from his jacket, pointing it directly at Charles' head. "I think I've let enough of your kind live for long enough. After I'm done with this place, I'll destroy it. Then, I'll hunt down every single one of your kind until the world returns to the way it was. Even my own kin. Nobody should be able to toy with the elements, or control time. Nobody but God. Your kind is an abomination and I won't rest until you're all wiped from this planet."
"You're an abomination." Charles spat at him. "Destroying an entire race? Who's playing God now, you sick, twisted f*ck." Kozyrev smiled at him, cocking the gun.
"I really don't care what you think. You're about to be dead anyway." Suddenly, the window behind him shattered and through it, an enormous eagle screeched loudly, its talons sharp and aimed directly at Kozyrev. In surprise, he pulled the trigger, missing Charles' head but the bullet lodging into his shoulder. He yelled in pain, falling to his knees as the giant avian collided with Kozyrev and forced him to the ground.
"NO! HE'S MINE! LEAVE HIM!" Charles shouted at Nyatichi. Thon stopped screaming, blinking at Charles then stepping off of him. Thon had started reverting back to thons human form and with a nod, disappeared out the door. Charles panted, stepping off the floor and picked up the gun that Kozyrev had dropped. He stepped over the broken glass, and stood above Kozyrev, checking the bullets he had in the mag. Seven. "I've waited a long time for this."
"Once you kill me, then what, Mr. Taylor? What will you do? Try to find peace? Your kind killed all of that the day that that Royal Family b*tch River Beleren put that crystal into the air. Its barely been a month and look how much of the world you have destroyed. Your family is probably dead and in ruins somewhere, along with dear Emilia." Charles shot a bullet into Kozyrev's kneecaps each, causing him to scream out in pain and groan in angony. His breathing had grown louder and he laughed. "Have you even been to Paris yet? London? The world is doomed. Why can't you see that?"
"You've been destroying lives for thirty years, Kozyrev. What makes you any different?" Charles let off another round into his elbow and one into his hip, Kozyrev letting out another yelp.
"I'm working for the greater good. Who are you and your little gang of merry men working for? You only seek to satisfy yourselves." He wheezed, coughing and tasting the blood in his mouth. Charles shot him another two times in his shoulders then pointed the gun at his forehead. Kozyrev grinned. "Give it six months, Mr. Taylor. You'll be eating your words and you'll have wished you have listened to me."
"
SHUT THE F*CK UP."
"I'll see you soon." Was the last words Kozyrev uttered before the last round was shot, directly into his forehead. Charles took a moment to look at the damage that had been done, screwing up his face and punching Kozyrev's dead face until the pain would go away. But it didn't. Emilia was still gone and all of their pain and suffering had come from this man. Who had felt no remorse or guilt, even until the end.
"You let it get personal." Alesina's voice came from the door. Charles got to his feet, kicking the man's head one more time before wiping the blood from his face. "That's not what the League is about, Taylor."
"Shut up." He said, closing the box on Kozyrev's desk, pocketing it and passing by Alesina without even looking at her disappointed face. "Let's get out of here." Alesina narrowed her eyes and followed him down until they were back into the main foyer. The guards, every single one of them were all dead and in the middle of the scene was Lev, Eileen and Branko, piling up bodies into piles behind them.
"Forty-two." Lev had finished counting his own pile. Branko chucked at him.
"Fifty-one!" He laughed, holding his hand out for money. Eileen shook her head, gesturing to her own.
"I have counted fifty-nine, I believe that makes me the victor this round."
"Pay later, we take the prisoners and we go. This place is disgusting." Alesina scowled at them, like a mother scowling at children.
"Leave them. They can find their own way home." Charles spat, walking past her and making his way for the door.
"How can you say that, Taylor? These people were exactly like you! Don't you want to help them?"
"No."
"Why not?!"
"Because I
don't CARE anymore." He shouted, looking angrily at the rest of the League. The foyer was silent for a few moments before he continued out the door and back out into the cold. Lev shrugged, shaking his head.
"Whatever, I'm out. See you f*ggots later." He gave a wave, abandoned his pile and followed Charles out. Branko followed, not saying a word. Eileen huffed, kicking over a body as she too, left.
"I'll just retrieve it from your bank accounts later, then."
Alesina sighed, turning to the only one who had remained. "C'mon, Nyatichi, let's do what we came here for."