Kismet’s Tale

      Mavin had seen what they do on those ‘memories’. The Person playing the electronic games with highly-detailed illustrations were always following a ‘route’ they took. The routes were drawn out, padded, and detailed. Each route however was lacking in proper action.

The Person found it entertaining. You could say that in their terms, they were still rookies that couldn’t possibly do what Mavin can do. Gaul was only an afterthought, he shouldn’t be even alive. Stefanie, she was supposed to be some poor maid dragged into this, and Edward, he was different in a way that he was employed by Stefanie instead.

Things have changed. And knowing that there was going to be a problem with how they would act. Mavin thought to himself that he couldn’t allow it.

He couldn’t allow them to drag it out. Let them waste their time, ignorant of what may happen, only to act when something happens. Inaction at the face of evil, was evil itself. He could let it play out, but what would happen to the hundreds, thousands, and millions of civilians? They were strangers to him, and all that Mavin could do was tell himself the hateful words of inaction.

It’s not my problem.

It’s none of my business.

Those words of inaction could lead through death. He hated the idea of it. Mavin saw his parents go after their death despite knowing that there was something that was going to kill them.

They had changed things. He saw clearly how they didn’t go down as he thought they would. That image still fresh in his mind, the parents who were his stars in the night, dead because of the demifiends.

Mavin could have stopped after the decimation of the demifiends. He could have just thrown away, and did what Mavin Tomas should have done, and spend the short but sweet time with Cecilia before becoming a wanderer.

Cecilia...Mavin hadn’t thought of her for a long time now. In a way, his heart had been roughed, shielded, and hardened because of things he had been through.

But he had changed things. It took the cooperation of the many people he had recruited, and gave a new path to take. If he was the benefactor who had saved them, then at this era, it was Aunger who had done what he should have done if he wasn’t mentally dead because of his healing factor. There were only a few that he had control of now. A few whose fate he rather not risk if he could.

Better to end the game before it could even start. If he could seal the artifacts, and then deal with the Witch. Then he might just give them enough time.

He didn’t have time to play it slowly like he did in the station. This time he didn’t have to worry about hostages or Wendy Otto being around.

He wasn’t planning to go wild. But the situation calls for him to take care of this problem before it becomes an infested wound.

Oh death, would you spare me over till another year? Mavin sang a song quietly, he wore the exoskeleton that reinforced his body. He didn’t need the suit, but he wasn’t dumb enough to go in their compound without the proper gear. He suited up, and went to the carved area on the back of the cabin where Edward was waiting, his eyes on Mavin and Gaul. Gaul carried his custom sniper rifle, and took a spot on the side which he then mounted the sniper.

Mavin found it interesting that Edward stayed muted. He just went in the pilot’s seat, and operated the controls. “Departing,” he said to the comms. Mavin carried a SMG on the side of his sword hand which was the retractable blade that he carried.

He wasn’t going to go there for a massacre. He was there to hurriedly take out the enemy, exfiltrate, and then get this over with. Gaul was focused, and hardened. He spoke to Gaul, and had discovered that Aunger had already sent him to missions before all of this. He was already a veteran of a war, and would have the rank of a Lieutenant.

Hardened and focused. Gaul was raised to be a tough bastard, and as much as Aunger liked to hide it. Gaul had been enchanted that he would retain his peak physical form.  It was a tradeoff, considering that most of the magiborne were unstable. He got lucky.

Miles away from the safehouse. Edward flew to the coordinates that Stefanie marked for her. It was twenty miles away from the city, and from the looks of the maps that Stefanie provided her, it looked like the compound was heavily guarded.

“Ghost,” Mavin heard her voice.

He responded. “Come in, Owl.”

“Approaching the area of operation, Griffon will be up in the air, while Wolf will watch your six. You’ll be on your own after you enter the interior.”

“Copy that, Owl,” Mavin affirmed.

They had started using call-signs since they were now facing a heavily guarded facility. He wasn’t worried about it during the assault in the broadcasting station because he doubts that they have the equipment to detect them. But this time he wasn’t going to risk that.

“Wolf, you’ll be my eye in the sky. Griffon, stay under the radar, and don’t let any of the SAM’s detect you. Owl, keep me posted, switch to radio silence, ping me when there is a need for it.”

Mavin took a step out of the helicopter and jumped on the ground without care. He landed on the ground. He scanned the area before raising the SMG on his left hand and preparing himself for one hell of a sprint.

“Owl, going in.”

“Jove bless you, Ghost.”

The radio went silent. Mavin sprinted faster, if he had a speedometer of a car right now, then he would just left 140 mark on it.

Mavin was fast, quiet, agile, and fluid that no one detected anything until he was ten meters away.

By the time they detected him. He already crossed their walls, and started running around their compound.

 

***

Gaul watched on his scope how their Boss started running faster than a car. How he took a single leap, and started battering everyone inside.

Gaul had heard from his stepfather that it was all due to the Boss that he was around. How he would have drowned in that gutter if it wasn’t for him. He wasn’t forced here either. He chose to be part of this because he knew that there was something going on that needed help.

Father Aunger was already gone from the world. And although he had let Stefanie take the same path as his, there was no doubt that they were given a choice first. They allowed themselves to stay while the rest of his brothers and sisters left after they matured. Of course, they simply went to other industries, and were helping them, but not as directly and covertly as they should have.

It was understandable for them not to help when they didn't even know this benefactor was who was sleeping decades away. Would he even wake up? Knowing that, who in the right mind would stay? Gaul couldn't blame them. In the end, Gaul felt rewarded, seeing the Boss alive and breathing.

He had heard tales. He knew some of the history of the Boss and how he got into this. To him he was someone who had defeated the demifiends, and even stopped a being that could have wiped out the Old Empire. Obviously far stronger than the magiborne, the hounds, and him. He was just above them in strength and the reason for that was something that even his Stepfather hadn’t talked about.

Gaul heard that he took out the station that was holding Miss Wendy Otto. But seeing the Boss, running around, slamming down magiborne as if they were kids who didn’t hit puberty, and manhandling them like they weigh nothing made Gaul ask himself if there was even a need for his support.

Nonetheless, he had already shot down some of the buggers that were trying to snipe the Boss’s head. And even with that, he saw the boss swing that sword casually, blocking bullets, and even slicing limbs with it. He was a whirlwind that evaded, and used the areas around him as a weapon. They tried to be tactical, but the Boss simply dove in, and outmatched them in terms of strength and reflexes.

He had disabled the anti-air guns and the surface to air missiles within five minutes of his entry. Hell, Gaul was more worried about the suit he was wearing. The Boss was about to enter the interior of the place when he was suddenly pushed back like a rag doll, his body slamming ten meters across the doors of the entry point.

Gaul took a shot, but the bullet didn’t meet contact. He felt his body frozen for a moment as he saw how the white-haired ‘Witch’ stared at their general direction.

“Griffon, evasive action, no!”

“Roger,” Edward responded, tilting the helicopter, a frosty beam of light would have skewered them.

“Griffon, Wolf,” Boss said. “Stay away, I’ll deal with her.”

“Roger that, I’ll watch your six, sir.”

Gaul refocused his eyes on the Witch who wielded the Kismet’s Tale on her hand like a pair of bracelets. She pulled every concrete, and metal around her using her sparks, but the Boss was unaffected, though he did throw his SMG, seeing that it was controlled by some sort of magnetic force.

Boss wasn’t someone who would talk. The dance started. The Boss easily evaded her attacks, parrying what she threw. She responded by overwhelming him with projectiles. But the Boss made use of his arm to reflect the hits, while he moved around the projectiles, and smashed against her wall of defenses.

“Wolf, take a shot now,” Boss ordered.

Gaul took a crack shot which the Witch hastily blocked. That was enough for the Boss to rush in, and swing that blackened blade of his that was made from what his Stepfather called the ‘the black iron’.

The Witch tried to block, but the layers of shield that she had were easily shattered. The Boss tried to close in, but the Witch drew her sidearm, in which the Boss swiveled his head to the right, and landed a punch on her stomach that threw her four meters away from him.

The Boss landed on the ground. He stood muted and watched as the incoming projectiles tried to split him apart. The dance wasn’t over yet, and although Gaul has a shot. He kept his trigger finger hovering. They were facing a Witch, and if what Stefanie had told her was true, then there was need to be careful.

 

***

 

Mavin started charging again. The Witch panicked, but he was sure and ready when to strike next.

“Damn hound!” the witch cried. Mavin blocked the first two projectiles, while he swung his retractable sword, splitting the two. It was then that he was close that he could take a swing at her.

“DAMN YOU!”

She released a burst of energy. She tried to use the artifact embedded on her hand when Mavin took a fast swipe that cut off her hand.

Out of desperation, she raised her magnum, and shot Mavin right in the headgear. The straps of his headgear flew, and as the violent aura that masked the face of his attacker was gone.

Mavin Tomas stared blankly, unamused at the true face of Minerva Glasgow before striking her down without mercy. Mavin Tomas took her hand that was embedded with the artifacts. Mavin spoke the words of power, the same words he spoke when sealing the Imperator’s Crest.

Unlike before he wasn’t falling apart because of the lack of one boon. And what she held in her hand was incomplete.

The sparks were drained from her. And the artifact that  was part of the Kismet’s Tale , simply fell off his hand, disintegrating.