Wake of Destruction (2/ )
He stumbles through the portal and starts running. His Assassin has never found him immediately after entering a new dimension. It usually takes him months, years and on one occasion he’d traveled through two dimensions before they had ran (literally) into each other. His instinct tells him to put as much space between him and his arrival point as he can. Listening to that little voice that tells him to runhideduck has served him well in the past and he’s not about to ignore it now.
Pain shots up his side and his right leg protests loudly that broken bones are not meant to walk on let alone run. Trees blur and animals scurry away but he doesn’t take the time to process his surrounds beyond the knowledge that he’s in a forest, its night and he’s alone. Hearing voices in the wind, he abruptly turns and heads in a different direction.
He doesn’t stop until he can no longer hear the inhabitants of this new dimension. He’s been through this process so many times that he no longer has to think about it. Find water, food and shelter. Observe the locals before approaching them.
He licks his lips and sets about the tedious task of setting his own bone.
---
A week (by his count) passes before he decides to ventures closer to the inhabitants. A giant circle sits in a clearing next to a path that leads to the closest village. The village is inhabited by humans which, after all he’s seen, isn’t surprising. They speak English (which is) and as far as he can see, there’s no sign of the Partners presence. There have been dimensions he’s traveled to that either the Partners never went to or the inhabitants drove them out.
He’s back at the Circle, watching a group of humans, when the Circle makes a loud noise and starts to light up. Seven symbols appear one right after the other, before a puddle of water suddenly explodes from it. The humans had moved out of reach from the water and didn’t seem surprised.
He isn’t either. The key to survival is an open mind. So while it’s odd, it wasn’t something to get worked up over. Even when the demons walk out of the water, he isn’t disturbed.
The humans, on the other hand, are.
He hasn’t survived as long as he has by jumping into every altercation between humans and demons he sees. So he doesn’t interfere when the humans start to scream and run. He doesn’t move from his hiding place when the demons shoot their guns of blue light and really? Really?
He does interfere when a demon grabs a woman, presses his palm to her chest and she grows old. Before he reaches them he knows that the woman is dead. There are many, many demons that use humans as their food source and they each have different ways of feeding.
This was new.
He’s stepping over the withered husk before he realizes it and hits the demon. The clearing quiets as everyone takes in the demon that sails across to the other side and he takes the moment to wonder if he’d hit the demon harder than he’d wanted.
It doesn’t take long before the demons are concentrating their efforts on him. A sense of elation spreads though him as it does whenever he fights and he can’t help grinning. This is what he lives for. There are the battles when every moment may be his last; if he just isn’t fast enough or he blocks when he should have dodged. Knowing he could die fuels him and makes the fights just that much better.
Then there are the battles that are more like warm ups. Where he can take his time and taunt.
Just like this one.
They weren’t especially fast or strong. Stronger and faster than a human but slightly less so than a vampire.
Perfect for letting off steam and not re-injuring himself.
Until he gets hit by one of the blue lights. It doesn’t hurt so much as makes his entire body numb. He shrugs it off just in time for a demon to pick him up and slam him into a tree. It knocks the wind out of him and he kicks out, knocking it away from him.
The second shot makes him stumble. While the guns weren’t going to kill him, it was probably best to avoid them. Which was a good decision considering the third shot momentarily brings him to a knee.
It becomes a game. Avoid the blue lights and hit the demons. Five points if he makes them shoot each other…ten if he walks right up to one and avoids each blast.
It’s the simple moments in life that brings joy.
And it is fun. It’s also hysterical to watch predators when their prey fights back. Then again, he’s never been ‘prey’. Not really. Oh, he knows what it’s like to be hunted…to think he’s going to die. But he’s never felt helpless before. Even when he fights his Assassin. He’s fought hundreds of them but that one he’s never defeated. Even when they’re both broken and he loses the upper hand, all he can do is grin and think ‘I can’t die now. We have to do this again’.
He doesn’t understand despair…has never experience that moment of resignation.
He wonders idly if that’s what the last demon is feeling as he stalks up to it and it backs away. Wonders, as its yellow eyes widens, if it is thinking of its own mortality and how easily its friends died. He wonders, even as his fist exits through the demon’s back, if he’ll one day look at his Assassin like that should he lose that fight.
Probably not…he’s never been any good at playing prey.
--
He makes his way to the stream and washes the gore off his hands. When he’s done he meets his reflection in the water.
He hates it.
No matter how many times he looks, the image doesn’t change.
He looks exactly same. It angers him because he’s been doing this for years and years and his own face taunts him.
He isn’t sure if he’d just stop aging or if it’s just slowed but it’s as though his face is trying to say ‘Nothing’s change and it never will’.
And he refuses to believe that.
--
Cronin, son of Ver’d, didn’t think much of it when he hears the faint echo of the Circle activating. His people were traders and it wasn’t uncommon for the Circle to be in use. It wasn’t until later when four members of the group sent to sell bladed weapons, came running back to the village, that he knew something was wrong.
His first thought was of the Wraith. Before they get into hearing range, he’s already directing people into hiding. The Wraith has not visited his world in the memory of four generations but from the moment the Atlantians woke the Wraith, many worlds have been Culled to extinction and he prays to the Ancestors that this will not be the end of his people.
It’s a shock when one of the blacksmiths tells them of a boy who killed the Wraith. When he is described, Cronin’s first instinct is that the boy is a Runner. It would explain the brutality used to kill the Wraith. It doesn’t explain the Wraiths’ apparent surprise.
They don’t venture out to the Circle until the next day… when they’re sure no more Wraith will come. Cronin has never seen this level cruelty before. He has fought the Wraith on other worlds. He has seen what they can do to humans and what humans can do to them. He didn’t see the fight but he can tell by the way that the bodies are thrown around its just-they gather the bodies to burn.
He is grateful for what the boy did but he hopes they never meet.
--
They do meet.
The second time the Wraith come through the Circle and he witnesses the boy fight. Even covered in dirt and rags he can see how young he is. It’s unbelievable that a child, and that is exactly what he is, could possibly be capable of such levels of destruction.
In the village, the boy would, perhaps, have just entered maturity but as Cronin watches him he sees a child playing a deadly game. And that scares him more than the way he kills because this boy isn’t fighting for his life or to protect others.
He’s doing it because he enjoys it. He kills with a smile on his face and Cronin would really like to meet the fool who taught this child to fight.
--
The next time they meet, Cronin deliberately seeks him out. It takes a while because he can’t find any tracks or evidence that boy exists and settles for wondering the forest.
In the end it’s the boy who finds him.
“You looking for me?” Cronin startles and turns around. The voice is soft and husky with disuse.
“I am Cronin, son of Ver’d,” the boy doesn’t offer his name but he does offer food. Perhaps this is just what he needs to discern if his people will have an opponent worst than the Wraith to fight.
--
Months pass and the demons come. He is always there to meet them. They never come in more than groups of six and he takes that to mean that they are all from different groups.
Life in this dimension was boring which he equated to being peaceful. When there were no demons to kill he hunted and rested. Sometimes he’d trade his kills for clothing and, on one occasion, a positively wicked knife.
He never spent much time in the village; the people were either terrified of him or worshiped him. Cronin was one of the few he voluntarily made contact with. The man wasn’t actively afraid of him but he didn’t think he was a gift sent by the Ancestors.
He was told that the demons were called Wraith and the Circle led to different world. At first he assumed that meant that it was a portal to different dimensions but the way it was explained it kind of sounded like it led to different planets.
He learns about Cullings and Darts and he has enough to deal with, without adding aliens into the mix. He’s still dead set on the Wraith being demons though.
This world was one of the strangest he’s ever encountered but some things were universal.
They called him Destroyer of Wraith.
--
Next
Interlude: Those Left Behind