Battlezone Emperor

‘Slave. The awakening process has been completed, get out of the tube and line up with the rest of them.’ came the voice. It demanded immediate

Yalin had the sensation that his eyes had been recently glued shut. His hearing must have been damaged after all, he had just been called a slave. A worthless detritus in his society which he had spent half a lifetime building and another half of his life creating oceans of blood and mountains of bones to create his Empire.

What was wrong with his eyes. His ears as well felt stuck. His body stiff. Weak, he felt weak and small, heavily diminished.

His Empire. His Empress. His ascension. His death.

Slam!

‘Did you not hear me? Slave. Get out of the tube or we have direct authority from the Empress herself to terminate any subjects to refuse to listen. Doctors be damned. You need to get up and move. I said move, slave! ’

An alarm screeched on the wall causing a painful feeling in the ears of the man. He felt it caused an ache just behind his eyes, giving him the temporary feeling of a migraine.

He struggled to open his eyes, resisting the strong urge to reach up with his bare hands and force them open. Instinct alone kept his hands by his side, his posture straight and his chest out.

He spread his hands and half-fell onto the floor, one leg caught inside the heavy glass tube before an arm reached out and lifted him onto his feet.

A voice, close to his face whispered with fervent intent.

‘Damn it. Hurry up before one of the nobles turns up. I don’t need this grief. Not now. Please. Get up and listen or we’re both in trouble. One of them turns up and we’re both raw meat.’ Please. I’m not going to beg to a slave but you need to liste-’

Another voice called out from a short distance away. The ears of the man had a small amount of yellowish liquid slowly dripping out of them.

‘Awake! The slave needs to awake to his duty! Embrace the eternal Empire and the god that founded it. Awaken to your duty!’

Despite the temporary blockage in his hearing he forced his newborn senses to his current limits to snatch the conversation from the air. A part of his brain processes that any information would be essential to his survival.

‘Overseer! Does this one fail to meet the standards? Termination protocol dictates from the Empress herself that-‘

‘No, no. Blessed one. Please. This one will fight. He just needs a moment to adjust to his new body. It was the alarm that caused a minor shock. Give me a moment, I’ll talk to the new slave.’

Yalin struggled to open his eyes. It felt as though they had been covered with a thin glue that broke apart when he forced them open. The first sight to his eyes was a surgeon or what would have passed for one in feudal times.

It was hard to tell if it was a man or a woman from the voice as it sounded as though their emotions had been stretched thin, a dark black heavy covered with various dark brown stains and the face was covered in a mask.

Wait. No.

Familiarity with the appearance came unbidden into his freshly born brain.

He recognised it as being a pristine and new mask that a surgeon might wear along with a pair of hard dark lensed plastic goggles.

The contrast between a hard leather robe which looked similar to a plague doctor would have worn hundreds of years ago and the pristine new surgical mask along with hard plastic goggles made him think for a moment.

Yalin knew there was a word for that. It made his head hurt for a moment. A man in a white coat with several darkened stains was moving in his direction as an arm was raised in his direction.

His newly formed eyes registered the speed of the movement and tracked the hand as it moved towards him but his newly created muscles were unable to respond to the strength of his will.

Damn this slow body. You will respond to my will. My will be absolute.

Then he felt a red heat on his upper cheek. Again. This time on the other side. The sensation of pain was nothing compared to the sense of embarrassment that he felt. A sharp stinging pain which sparked a fire within him, if he let it rage it would become an inferno.

He had burnt his way through worse situations than this but this reminded him of his youth.

When he had an angry aunt and uncle who would hit his face to remind him not to talk back but only pay respect and hard work. No love. They had been killed by bandits who had attacked his village but he’d let himself watch them suffer and die.

Slapped. He had been slapped hard. Comparable to a new baby who had been born, he sharply breathed in before giving out a cough.

Despite the mild burning sensation he felt on the skin on his face he felt no immediate sense of danger coming from his brain. No, this was a different sensation.

Fear combined with anger. Rage.

This was a sensation that he had known once as he would recognise an old friend. Gods, nobility, and monsters had fled at his approach once. Only one woman had failed to ever fear him. The woman who had become the Empress.

He held his voice tight within his throat. He would only speak when he was certain that his words would be firm. Lions chose to roar not whisper. Again, a part of his brain was warning him that initial appearances would be essential to his survival.

‘Overseer. He fails to talk. I need to file a report towards your immediate supervisor. Your slave batches are failing to live up to standard.’

Yalin heard a rush of wind and hot breath right next to his ear.

‘Now, listen to me you bastard. I don’t know what game you’re playing with me but you and me are a quick moment away from being turned into raw meat. Stop your little act and grunt a response. Quick, before we both get taken away.’

The man called Overseer stepped back and bowed once more to the figure in the leather coat and beaked mask. He kept his posture strictly down, keeping his eyes on the floor and not daring to raise them.

There was a bead of sweat coming from his forehead and under his armpits but he dared not move a single muscle. Not so close to one of the battle surgeons. He could easily become another test subject through a single word.

Sometimes, death wasn’t the worst option.

‘Please slave. Speak or we’ve both had it. Please!’

His eyes widened in response had Yalin opened his mouth and spoke and a sense of relief came over him. A pounding in his heart when he heard the words aloud with an underlying tone of strength. The slave spoke and he showed enough respect. They wouldn’t die today then.

‘Yes. Overseer.’

Raising himself up from his posture but keeping his eyes lowered down the man moved towards the freshly born slave.

The man in the stained white coat put his arm around Yalin, if he felt any discomfort from the liquid leaking from his ears and the covering of his slime, he failed to show his on his face.

‘Thank you. Oh Flame Emperor blessed be his name thank you.’

He pulled in the cloned slave closer to his body, better for immediate physical contact to strengthen the instructions process. One arm reached around the shoulders, he felt the amount of tense muscle beneath the skin.

‘Doctor. He’s fine. The process worked and he can talk. You can tell from his body the strength in his limbs and the wit in his mind. The strong ones take longer to respond doctor, he works.’

The man in the white coat gave Yalin a quick once over, his eyes taking in his strong physical form under the coat of mucus which was slowly running onto the floor. A sound was heard under the leather mask, a deep rasping noise.

Yalin didn’t know if the figure was aroused or angry but he didn’t have time to respond further before his attention was drawn away. His thoughts were still too random, his brain too fresh to fully take in enough.

He needed a little more time and space to fully get his bearings. After all, being dead took it out of a person. All he had seen was a blank void with nothing except his sole consciousness. Only through his strength of will he had kept his sanity intact.

A sudden sound from outside of the room as a woman burst in. The make-up on her face running as several tears came down her face. A garish deep purple lipstick covered her lips and a fan held a fan in one hand waving it frantically as though to cool down her temper.

For a second, neither the Overseer nor Yalin moved. The figure wearing the heavy hard leather robe immediately turned and bowed, seemingly stuck in position. He became as a statue, rigid in movement.

The man who was called Overseer had dropped to the floor in a state of grovelling. His head down on the floor, not daring to move, his white clothes further stained from the slime on his arms.

Keeping a rigid posture Yalin let his eyes run across his body, seeing now that a large portion of the slime had simply slid off his lower body and onto the floor. A towel or a wash would have been preferable. He forced his face to be neutral.

The fact that he was nude apparently made no difference to the inhabitants. For himself, he felt a fire inside his chest and the drumming sound of his heart. His limbs felt strong and ready. All he needed was a little time to himself to process his exact situation.

Information would help him with this. After all, he had only been newly born a few minutes ago. He tried to tone down the rage he felt in his eyes, not directly staring but after glancing at the garishly dressed woman and her ugly wig he turned his gaze towards the one with the leather mask.

A hand swept out as his body remained rigid, the sound of its voice was slightly ruffled but Yalin was able to detect a tremble in the voice of the figure. Male or female he was unable to tell but there was a deeper emotion inside him now.

Anger. Humiliation.

He was not livestock to be examined by a painted lady nor her servants.

‘My lady. We need to check the results before he is to be made presentable.’

‘….Ugly. Kill it. Now. Try again. I need clean beautiful fresh meat on display. Not this…ugly thing. The slime disgusts me.

‘…Please My Lady. The subject needs time to adjust his form. I need to perform several neural scans to ensure that we have full obedience. If the Empress were to find out the exact percentage of DNA we had taken from the cloned preserved corpse then there would be severe repercussions. Even the production of a single unit had been enough of a ris-‘

A figure dressed entirely in black with a hooded cowl stepped forward past the noblewoman and raised a hand before they made a hand gesture.

A preternatural awakening hit Yalin, he knew that movement. Gods be damned, he had founded the college of assassins himself as a side project during his lifetime. It appeared as though the organisation had survived his death but also become heavily weakened if they were to be ordered around by the corrupt nobility.

Purged through fire and blood. He’d tried to erase the mistakes of the past through his own creation. Self-contained war and human desire in one package.

His limbs felt dulled though as the slime weakened his body and slowed his sensations. Although his mind was able to process it was unable to translate directly into action.

Move. MOVE!

Before he was able to make a single move Yalin a single glint of metal flew towards his eye. His brain slowed down time enough for him to register it as a large thin dagger. The metal point struck directly into his brain as he collapsed into the floor, dying over mere seconds.

His last remnants of consciousness before his death raged at the fact that the speed and angle that the dagger was thrown at were entirely wrong. He had been killed by a failure of an assassin. Standards had truly dropped. Then he knew darkness and the void. Again.

The slime covering his body splattered on the flooring as the corpse of the cloned man collapsed in a pile of dead meat and flesh. The figure clothed in black swiftly moved other without sound, retrieved the dagger and wiped it on a sleeve before returning it to a hidden sheath on its body.

Nodding her head the noble woman clicked her tongue several times before she waved her fan. Her nose wrinkled in displeasure at the sight of the slowly cooling corpse on the ground in front of her.

With a wave of her hand the doctor unbended and stood up ramrod straight with near perfect posture.

‘My Lady. What do you wish?’

‘Doctor. You will make him beautiful before you dare to call me again. Are we perfectly clear? Or your precious funding will be reduced. I need a perfect specimen for the games, not this slime-covered monstrosity straight out of one of the clone vats. This one will not take kindly upon expressing my passion for your work to our beloved Empress. Are we clear?’

The Overseer wearing his stained white coat tried his best to keep his breath absolutely silent. Death was a necessity, not a privilege.

‘My Lady. Do you need any further alterations? We can alter the physical standards if not to your personal taste. I apologise for calling you before fully prepared. My excitement at the completion of the project surely outweighed my instructions.’

The woman looked disgusted but disdained from looking down at the dead body. She turned her head towards the figure dressed entirely in black and pointed her finger at the doorway.

The individual swiftly moved towards the exit, feet barely touching the floor and moving with a high degree of speed to match the silence. Then they stood there, unmoving, their action and speed would have passed unnoticed unless observed.

The Doctor simply cocked his head to the side and interlaced his fingers while looking at the corpse with an expressionless mask covered face. The man in the white stained coat called Overseer tried his best to breath but he felt sweat running down his back.

Neither of them saw fit to utter a single sound lest they in turn would be killed by the hands of the creature that the nobility called assassins. They were said to have a spark of the true Emperor inserted inside them at the moment of their birth.

A fragile sound of air shifting as the noblewoman pulled out a decorated, ornate hand fan and snapped it open before wafting it in her face as she took a long moment to examine the corpse on the floor. Her nose sniffed the air as she waved a hand as her face crumpled in disgust.