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| Ashes: Chapter 1 | ||
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| He knelt down by the young girl, the red glow from his katanas high-lighting the
puddle of blood expanding out from the torn stump of her left shoulder, where a
cyberarm had previously attached. Her ripped clothes showed a body that
told of many hard years on the streets, the new gashes and bruises from the
Inquisitor's assault leaking blood over older scars.
He slid the katanas back into their scabbards, the scene darkening for a fraction of a second as their glow disappeared. As his cybereye adjusted to compensate for the lower light level, he issued a mental command to shut off the chip that had been displaying possible attacks and responses in an unknowing parody of the slumped figure who would never be a threat to anything. He pulled back the hood of his ghostsuit before gently picking her up and cradling her head against his chest. He smoothed her blond hair with gentle hands, hands he couldn't help but picture as they threw another girl in another city in another time. "It's too late Shad, you can't help her...let's go before the rest of them get back with their Powered Armour friends" said a gentle but insistent voice in his head. "It's always too late" sighed Shadow to himself as he cupped her chin in his powerful hand. The girl stirred slightly as if sensing what was to come. "Dad," she muttered almost inaudibly, "Dad, it hurts, please stop it hurting." "Don't worry, little one, I'm going to stop the pain" replied Shadow. Leaning over he gently kissed her forehead, then with a sharp movement jerked her head to the side, breaking her neck. "I'm going to stop the pain," he repeated quietly. He lay her back down on the ground, and quickly pulled up the hood of his ghostsuit so that his face wouldn't betray his emotions. Issuing quick orders, he watched as silent figures melted from the shadows and dispersed in several directions. "It's so much easier to hide emotions using the thought-commos," he thought to himself, "than to look in their eyes and pretend that you're not affected, that you're a ice man with no emotions. But that's what they need, they need a superman, someone to look up to, someone they can always trust, but someone they can secretly loathe for what they have to do. Otherwise the pain of all the death they deal and see will turn inwards, and destroy them before they even have a chance to grow up." Turning back to the dead girl lying on the pavement, he bowed in reverence to her spirit, now loosed from its mortal bonds. He hoped it understood why he had had to do what he had done, that it might forgive him and perhaps give him guidance at some later time when he needed it most. As he turned away he thought he heard her whisper, "Don't go...help me...please." But that had been another time, another place, another broken body to be laid alongside the others that littered his path through life. It hadn't been meant to happen, but he was trained too well, his body had reacted without asking his mind's permission. His body had forgotten that day, but his mind remembered: her large brown eyes filled with pain; her gentle face twisted by agony; her slight body lying at impossible angles. How easily the body forgets, leaving only the mind to remember what could have been, what should have been. He wondered if she was lying in a hospital somewhere remembering what it had been like to walk, to touch, to smile. Skills her body had forgotten that night, but her mind still remembered. "Who can I loathe," he thought to himself, "for it was solely my fault. The only person I can loathe is myself. I hate the Inquisitors and the Echo's for abusing their power, for using it against those weaker than them, yet I am what I hate, I have done the things that I loathe in them. Still, I must continue, for they must be fought. I have to give myself to protect those I have abused, and perhaps I can somehow appease their clamouring spirits." With that he stepped back into the shadows and disappeared, leaving no trace of his passing except the crumpled body, and three dead Inquisitors lying in the gutter next to their heads. |
| SEE ALSO: | << Ashes: Prologue | Index | Ashes: Chapter 2 >> | ||
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Ashes: Prologue Thought Communicator |
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