by Samuel Small
They continued forward along the snow-glazed road in silence until they came to a junction. Jake knew the Republic was to the left, and Dante must have known too as he stopped and pointed to the right.
“The next big village is this way. I don’t know why, but that thing seems to be heading into places with a lot of people, and I’ve been getting pretty close to it these past few days. With any luck I might be able to head it off.”
Jake nodded then jerked his thumb to the left. “The Republic’s this way, and I’ve got that whole rebellion to deal with so…” he stopped, as Dante’s intense stare indicated that he wanted to tell him something.
“Under the event that you start thinkin’ with your pants and end up helping the girl… don’t go up against the Führer. In fact, be sure to warn her when you get there.”
Jake nodded and bid him farewell. He walked along the pathway for a few hundred feet, then for a reason unknown to him turned his head and looked back at Dante. In the distance, Jake could only see him striding with purpose toward his destination.
Not knowing what he’d do when he got there, Jake took a hesitant step in the direction of the Republic.
***
The obstacle before Jake was simple really, a mere entrance to an apartment building. It was what lay inside that was the source of his apprehension. Still, this was the best possible solution he had come up with so he balled his fist and knocked.
After a few seconds Major Miles opened the door, resplendent in full uniform despite the fact that he should have been relaxing at home. He looked at Jake, then glanced to either side.
“Jake, welcome back. You can leave your report on my desk,” he said, and tried to shut the door, but Jake gripped the handle and held it firmly. He looked intently into Major Mile’s eyes.
“I’m here on personal business,” he said. Sighing, Major Miles opened the door and strode back into his apartment without another word to Jake. Jake took a few steps inside. Ahead of him, Major Miles unclipped his comp and began checking it, although only for a moment before he returned it to his belt. Then he took a seat and motioned for Jake to sit across from him. There were a few chairs sitting directly across from a couch with a table in between. The perfect place for a meeting.
Jake took a seat across from Major Miles, who had relaxed his posture and spread himself across the couch with his arms draped along the top.
“What’s this about? The mission?”
“The rebellion.”
Major Mile shifted in his seat, sitting upright with his feet firmly planted on the ground, his hands folded before him. “In regards to what, specifically?”
“In regards to your involvement, Major.”
Major Miles opened his mouth to respond, but then shut it. His features tightened, then he spoke. “About my involvement with the rebel faction?”
“Yes. I want to know what you can do to stop it before it gets really dangerous.”
“Jake, I don’t know what to tell you. Everyone’s prepared to give their lives for this, myself included. There’s not much I can say or do to sway anyone’s opinion.”
“Prepared to die for it? Major, there isn’t much hope of you winning. Why, Führer Bellator alone could—”
Major Miles held up a hand. “I’ll handle Führer Bellator. You may not know this, but I served with him before he became such a big deal. He isn’t invincible, believe me.”
Jake wanted to retort, but the door behind him opened. He looked at Major Miles, who only looked down and shook his head. Company who didn’t bother to knock wasn’t usually a good sign. Jake began to stand up but one look at Major Miles stopped him. He stared at Jake intently, as if it was a matter of life or death that he remained seated. There were a few footsteps behind him, one set loud and purposeful as well as some softer, slightly hesitant ones behind it. Then a voice – a man’s voice, professional and suave.
“Hello Major.” The footsteps stopped just as they reached the chair Jake sat in. He felt eyes burrowing into his head, and a thin line of sweat began to drip down his brow.
“Smithers, this is Jake. Elizabeth, I believe you two have met.”
Immediately there was loud stomping and the menacing shiiiiing of a blade being unsheathed. Major Miles stood up and placed a hand on his sword’s hilt, just before Jake leapt up and did the same.
Before him was a neat looking man complete with a delicate pair of pince-nez balanced on the bridge of his nose. He had a hand on his waist, where a blade rested. Behind him Elizabeth stood, wearing a cloak not dissimilar to the one she wore when Jake fought her, although she no longer sported the mask, revealing her face to be tense with anger. She’d completely drawn her blade and was ready to strike. Jake grimaced and took a step back.
The two of them were blocking the only exit, and he wasn’t sure he could take on Elizabeth alone, not to mention this other guy. He was fairly sure the Major Miles wasn’t going to hurt him, but that didn’t mean that he’d help either. The last thing Jake wanted to do was tear up his apartment in a maelstrom of blades, but it seemed unavoidable.
“Relax just a moment,” Major Miles said from behind, his voice firm, “Jake just got here and he hasn’t expressed his intention yet.” It did little to relax the two in front of him. The man who Major Miles addressed as Smithers gripped the hilt of his sword firmer, while Elizabeth moved around uncomfortably. She bounced on her feet a bit, then spoke. “So are you saying you’re here to aid the rebellion?”
Jake did not allow his hand to leave his sword. “No, I’m not here to help you. I’m hoping that you’ll listen to reason.”
“Reason?” Smithers said, “what do you mean, ‘reason’?”
“I was hoping we could talk this out without resorting to violence.”
“What idealistic drivel!” the neat man shouted, “do you think we hadn’t thought of that? The time for talking is over and has been for a decade!”
“You don’t want to talk because your ideas won’t stand up if they’re held under any sort of scrutiny, that’s the real reason isn’t it!” Jake yelled at the man. His pompous and arrogant nature lit a fire in his heart. “The Republic provides housing and food to everyone in the nation, something that would have been unheard of under King Arnold! Hell, the man’s greatest legacy is genocide! If you can think of a good justification for destroying this peace, I’d love to hear it!”
Smithers quivered for a moment, as if Jake’s words were a painful strike. Then he unsheathed his blade with a violent motion, staring at the boy. Jake wasted no time and pulled his own blade before him. “I’m exactly right, aren’t I? You want to resort to violence because it’s your only option.”
“You want to talk about peace and genocide? What about this girl’s family? The way the military utterly slaughtered them? Is that the trait of a leader?”
“That’s entirely different from the Pure Sol Genocide and you know it. Squashing the former royalty is to ensure that situations like this don’t occur. The pure Sol Genocide happened for no reason.”
The man shook again and displaced his neat hair. One tuft stood out above his forehead, and swayed as he took in deep breaths. Jake stole a glance at Elizabeth. Although she was still in a fighting stance it was much less compact and ready. He wasn’t sure since he only looked for a split second, but he could have sworn that her eyes were fixed on the ground before he turned to Smithers, who at that point was reaching the pinnacle of lunacy.
“You talk about the Pure Sol Genocide as if you have any idea what it was about! All you know is what the government has told you, not the truth of the matter—”
“If there’s a justification for slaughtering all of those people I’d love to hear it.”
The man pursed his lips into a twisted grimace, but before he could rant further Major Mile’s voice boomed out from behind Jake. “There is no reason.” Jake turned to him, shocked. He no longer had his hand on his sword, rather they were folded in front of his waist. His eyes burned with con
viction.
In his shocked state, Jake slowly lowered his sword. Almost unintelligible, he muttered, “but if that’s the case…”
“We only have the last will and testimony of the former King. I didn’t know him, but I knew people who served under him and they believed in him. He didn’t go into specifics for fear of endangering them, but he did insist that there was a reason for everything he did.”
From behind Jake heard some shifting, then the Major’s stern gaze turned to something behind him and the sound immediately stopped. Jake guessed that this Smithers person was going to scream some lunatic nonsense at him, but Major Miles managed to stop him with nothing but his gaze. As if the slight interruption never occurred, Major Miles continued.
“You’re knowledgeable about history, so I know that you’re aware of how prosperous the nation was under King Arnold. True, there weren’t many of the social programs you speak of, but that’s because the kingdom was so prosperous they were deemed unnecessary. The idea that the King was just a madman who snapped one day is a convenient lie for the current government to perpetuate but it’s nothing more than that – a lie. Leaders as intellectually sound as he was don’t just snap at the drop of a hat with no cause—”
“Then what was the cause?”
“As I said, he didn’t give specifics, but the gist of what we were able to gather was a conspiracy, one that threatened the sanctity of not just the Republic but the entire world.”
Jake clenched his fists and shook his head, as if Major Mile’s words were a stain that he desperately wanted off of him. “You can’t go and start a war like this over an assumption.” He looked up at Major Miles, determined. The man, who Jake had always known to be the pinnacle of stoicism, cowered. It was only a slight shift in his eyes, a little dilation, but it was enough to know that his words had an impact on him. “Tomorrow when the rebellion commences, I will protect the Republic. The current Republic,” he said, sheathed his sword, then turned toward the door.
He made heavy and determined strides. When he caught up with Smithers, he glared through him and the man crumbled under his stare, loosening his grip on his sword and trembling. He thought he would make it straight for the door without stopping but some instinct made him stop before Elizabeth. He stood face to face with the girl, who still looked at the floor without so much as attempting to take in Jake’s stern countenance, although if she did she would have seen his features soften. “Dante says not to go up against Führer Bellator. I agree with him,” he said, then walked past her and out of the apartment.
***
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
With heavy footsteps Jake walked around the city, vigilant and prepared to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Today was the day they were going to launch their attack according to the Lightning Gang, and the abnormally calm atmosphere of the city seemed to foretell its arrival. It was as if all the citizens already knew that something was about to happen. Sure, there were a few people milling about the street, but much less than Jake would see on an ordinary day. The citizens moved about with quick, determined steps, as if they were heading to their destination as quickly as possible.
It was possible that they simply sensed that something was going to happen. Jake intended to notify the government about the impending rebellion, but upon seeing his schedule he noticed that very few guards had been sent out on missions, and foot patrols around the city were nearly doubled. Somehow the government was well aware of what was happening today without him informing them.
Jake stopped his striding and remained motionless in the city streets. He was aware of people moving around to get past him, but he was too fixated as to what would happen next. Were they going to perform a covert assassination or something big and flashy, maybe hordes of rebels storming the administrative building? Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t worked under Major Miles for long enough to know which strategy he would adopt. Just to be safe, Jake decided to head toward the administrative building.
Just as he lifted his foot to continue moving, the world seemed to explode.
From behind there was a giant bang, as if an entire building was razed to the ground. Despite being fairly certain that the explosion occurred at least a mile away based on the noise, Jake felt heat race up his back. He turned and saw flames in the distance, high up on one of the buildings. The prison.
Without thinking Jake ran toward the scene, all too aware of the weight of the sword on his back. When he got there, he hoped to God he didn’t see Bolt or Thun.
When he arrived he saw that the entire street was engulfed in flame. It was as if the conflagration spread from the prison across the entire neighborhood, but that wasn’t possible. The buildings were too spaced out, and Jake was certain he had only seen the prison inflamed in the distance, not these other buildings. It was possible the rebellion had a fire user among their numbers, but if that were the case why would they attack a random street like this, and the prison of all places? To free prisoners who weren’t even guaranteed to assist them or…
A sudden instinct of danger pierced Jake’s mind and he rolled to the side, just in time to feel a scorching heat shoot past him. He turned to look at it and a large fireball, about three square feet, whirled by. It collided with the ground and burst into embers, setting the grass growing in the cracked concrete into flames. Jake turned forward where a figure, distorted by the heat shimmer of the fire, casually walked toward him. Its arms were outstretched in a grand greeting, and embers swayed behind it like an entourage.
Coming into view was a man wearing the Republic’s prison uniform. Jake recognized the rebel he captured just before the Void Incident immediately and his eyes widened. The man caught on to this and let out a devious smirk.
“Good to see you haven’t forgotten me. The feeling’s mutual.”
But this wasn’t possible. The prison was made out of a special technology that prevented those within its walls from using their Sol. He wouldn’t have been able to break out and light the building aflame unless…
Unless someone let him out.
Someone with a key to the prison.
Someone high-ranking.
A Major.
Jake felt tears burn his eyes, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the intense heat radiating all around him or from the realization that the rebels were just as dastardly and insane as he should have assumed them to be this whole time. Major Miles was just another rat like the rest of them. The ragged man put his hands down and began gathering swirling and twisting fire into his palms. It burned with a bright white, and the image of the man before him began to once again to shimmer in the heat. Jake tensed his body and readied to dodge the imminent attack.
As expected, the man shot his hand out in an exaggerated motion. The fireball soared through the air and Jake jumped to one side. It crashed, and embers caught his pantleg but did not ignite the cloth. The man stood passive and smirking, obviously toying with Jake.
There had to be an optimal strategy for this opponent, but Jake was hesitant to initiate his default tactic. Generally, it was better to just close the distance and chop him up, as most Sol users weren’t adept at close-range combat. After all, it wasn’t necessary to get up close and personal when you could shoot fire from your hands. This guy wasn’t ordinary, though, and Jake thought back to when Major Miles pinned him against a building. He managed to shoot up a giant wall of fire from a close range, one that Jake needed to be very wary of. Although the memory that he had fought Major Miles threw up a whole slew of questions racing through Jake’s mind – like why they fought, and wasn’t Elizabeth the one to take him out?
Jake shook his head and his opponent gave him a confused look at the odd gesture, but that didn’t matter. None of that mattered right now. What he had to do was take out the foe before him, then head for the administrative building as that would almost certainly be their target. That was where Führer Bellator resided, after all. Jake adjusted his sword so that it was angled in the
perfect position to stab into his opponent, then charged.
Before him, the man spread out both arms and a web of fire sprung up between them that began to spit out tiny balls of fire. They weren’t as large and dangerous as the one that the man had just unleashed, but they would damage Jake if he wasn’t careful. He shifted his direction from side to side as the many glowing orbs of heat whirled past and crashed into the concrete behind him.
Despite the fact that Jake’s strategy was working so far, he was a little concerned. The man’s face exuded confidence, indicating that everything was going according to his plan. Jake thought him to be a very high caliber fire user, and he had seen him create a wall of fire as high as a building, but what was with these paltry attacks? Just as Jake was about to dismiss the question by thrusting his blade into the man’s chest, the Sol user turned his palms to face the ground, dispersing the web of fire. With a start, Jake realized what he was going to do and jumped back just before the glowing flames rose and threatened to consume him.
It burned and forced his eyes shut, singeing his skin despite the fact that he wasn’t even touching it. He couldn’t see the inferno, but he was sure that it had to be as high as the one the man made on that day. It roared as it pushed air in all directions, which forced Jake to cover his face, then he felt the heat recede. He removed his forearm from his eyes and saw his opponent, his hands in his pockets, smirking at Jake. He was mocking him.
Jake yelled in rage and prepared to continue his assault, but the wall of fire reared up once more, only not so intense that it completely compromised Jake. Just as he was trying to think of a way around it, another stream shot out of the wall, and although it wasn’t aimed at him it formed a straight line along his left-hand side. There was another loud popping sound, and another wall shot up to his right.
Then reality dawned on him. Jake spun around and tried to run, but it was too late. The last wall of fire appeared and boxed him in. He gripped his sword tightly and looked about, wondering from which angle the next attack would come from. Maybe he’d just collapse the whole makeshift structure and finish him that way.