Oath of the Survivor

Kyle spent more time after returning to Albaum than he’d expected, primarily wrapping up the repairs that C.H.A.D.D. designed.  Kyle felt that they had well and truly crossed the line to modifications, though he was willing to defer to the drone’s judgment.  All the rune-inscribed pieces of carapace from the Infernal had been put to use, and the results were better than he’d hoped.  Still, it took time.   On his way back to Albaum he neutralized a dozen encampments, but for every one that he put down it felt like he found two more.  After finishing C.H.A.D.D.’s upgrades, he was right back at it.  Kyle was waging a one-man war against the raider camps in the north, and as exhausting as that was, the results were worth it.  He’d set nearly a thousand captives free and directed them towards Nierburg, which to his knowledge was still the only large-scale Central Authority settlement around.

He’d encountered several other awakened over the last few weeks, but they tended to want to be the boss of their groups.  Two working together could lead to trouble, which is why Kyle found himself slowly approaching the next camp.  C.H.A.D.D. picked up two awakened presences, and quite a few unawakened humans.  His breath caught as he saw the familiar uniforms.  Mottled black and grey combat fatigues, with a good number of the men carrying the very same sleek black rifles that had caused so much damage to his drone companion.  Liberation. 

The thought set Kyle’s teeth on edge.  The last thing he expected was to see them so far away from Duilleag, and in such force.  The rational part of Kyle told him that this wasn’t a fight worth picking.  They had three major advantages compared to the raiders he’d fought so far, and discounting any of them could prove fatal. 

First, Kyle knew there were four awakened leaders of Liberation. That meant at least one of the two that C.H.A.D.D. detected was either Carlyle, Cornelius, or Valentine himself.  None of them could be considered run-of-the-mill by any measure, and he was confident that the fourth member of their leadership would fall into the same category.  Second, they were much better armed than the average group of bandits.  The combat rifles were an order of magnitude more powerful than the standard arms he had come across, and though he expected his armor to hold up well against them, a field test against a camp this size could be disastrous. 

Lastly, Liberation had training and discipline for its members.  This wasn’t suppressing a group of rowdy thugs; this would be full-blown battlefield combat.  These soldiers wouldn’t easily cut and run at the sign of danger, which meant Kyle had to be equally convicted in his approach.  With a sigh, Kyle started backing away.  There’s just no way this ends well for me. He took one step, then two, before he froze. 

His eyes locked onto a boy no older than ten struggling to carry a wooden crate full of supplies.  The kid was skin and bones, with visible bruises on his skin through the rags he was wearing.  He tripped, dropping the crate.  A nearby soldier walked over and kicked the fallen boy square in the stomach, knocking him back nearly a meter. 

Kyle was too far away to hear what was said, but he could clearly see the man and other nearby soldiers laughing.  Some didn’t seem terribly comfortable, though that didn’t matter one bit to Kyle.  They didn’t step in to stop it.  They watched the child struggle to stand up, with tears in his eyes.  The other people wearing rags kept their faces away, not wanting to draw attention to themselves as they worked.  They were broken.  Something inside Kyle snapped into place as his back straightened. 

“C.H.A.D.D., I can’t walk away from this.”

[I KNOW, DR. MAYHEW.]

“Not going to talk me out of it this time?  This is usually where your ‘don’t be a hero’ or ‘you’re not your grandfather’ speech comes in.”

[YOU HAVE MY FULL PERMISSION TO BE A HERO TODAY, DR. MAYHEW.]

With C.H.A.D.D.’s blessing, Kyle activated HASTE and sprinted towards the camp.  The time for thinking was over, the time for action had come.

~~~

Garth wasn’t quite sure what to make of the man before him.  He was loud, brash, and seemed far too direct to be any sort of competent leader.  One thing was certain, though.  This man was strong.  He carried himself well, sure on his feet despite his size.  The couple times Garth saw him set the axe down, he felt the impact of the heavy weapon as it rested on the ground.  To be able to swing something like that in one hand spoke to the sheer strength that Cornelius could bring to bear. 

Garth was among the physically strongest members of Central Defense, likely only behind Reynolds.  Even so, he had no doubt Cornelius was stronger than both of them.  That wasn’t to say that he thought he would lose if it devolved into combat, but he had no intention of getting into an arm-wrestling match with the guy.

They walked to the center of the camp where a large tent had been set up.  As they moved, Garth looked at the men and women bustling about.  From guard duty to weapon maintenance, it was clear that they were dealing with professionals.  This was a trained force, not a gaggle of hodge-podge deserters with delusions of grandeur.  Still, Garth was impressed.  He sat opposite Cornelius in the tent as more chairs were brought in for his team.  The large man leaned in, his smile broadening. 

“So, you’re the group DeRosa sent to handle the upstart to the north.  And probably also to report back on the condition of our camp, if I don’t miss my guess.”

Garth snorted at the blunt question, and saw no reason to mince words. 

“That about sums it up.  I’ll shoot straight with you here – you’re clearly part of something bigger than just this camp.  You don’t get discipline and function like this without a hell of a lot of training.  The councilman wants to know if you’re an asset that we can work with or a threat we need to deal with.  As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see a reason we can’t coexist.  For now.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Joseph visibly paling at the talk.  He expected Mary Ellen and Johannes were doing the same.  As for Terrance… he was taking it smoothly.  Too smoothly.  Garth’s thought was interrupted by the booming laugh from Cornelius, who leaned in with the same broad smile. 

“Like I said, I think we will get along just fine.  Let me bring you up to speed on what we know about the situation in the north.  We haven’t been impacted, but we’ve had a number of… recruits come from that direction, heavily injured.  Our thought is that I’ll join with your squad, maybe bring a dozen or so unawakened to bolster our numbers.  From there, we’ll see if we can draw the target out.  They’ve been reckless enough to attack large camps before, hopefully they’ll be dumb enough to attack us straight on.  If not, we can explore other alternatives.” 

“What other alternatives do you mean?” Garth asked, eyes not leaving Cornelius’.

“We can also bring a handful of unawakened prisoners.  Their ‘civic duty’ to the Central Authority can be as bait.  If our resident hero won’t fight us out of pragmatism, maybe having some damsels in distress will speed things along.”

“Out of the question.  We’re not using people as bait to draw out a potentially dangerous enemy.  Besides, if they’re as self-serving as our people and yours seem to think they are, that won’t change the calculus any.  It’ll just slow us down.”

The smile on Cornelius’ face twisted into a sneer. 

“Don’t you go getting all heroic on me, Boltsbury.  We both know the only reason DeRosa cares at all about this is because refugees are bad for his business. We’re in the same boat.  It takes a lot to feed and shelter these people, and their labor doesn’t really make up for it at all, at least not yet.  Controlled inflows are better for both of us, and whoever is making this mess is ruining the balance.  Now are you with me, or not?” 

Those words didn’t sit well with Garth.  He felt a sense of anger bubbling up, which he fought to suppress.  Not the time or the place, Garth.  Listen and report back.  DeRosa and Reynolds won’t let this stand. 

Garth responded, resignation in his voice.

“I’m with you.” 

The big man looked like he was about to push the issue farther, when the crack of gunfire and shouting erupted from outside the tent. 

“What the hell is going on?”

Cornelius bellowed.  The large man hefted his axe, blowing past Garth and his stunned team.  Garth quickly rose and followed him, keeping his eye out for a betrayal. Terrance was hot on his heels, the younger members chasing behind.  Exiting the tent, they were greeted by chaos.  A group of soldiers with military-grade rifles were firing at a figure in black, who was rushing from place to place, leaving broken bodies in its wake.  It was armed with a short sword – wait, was that a sword?  No, a club maybe?  Whatever it was, Garth knew it was bad news. 

He counted over a dozen of Cornelius’ soldiers unmoving on the ground, and Garth fully expected that number to rise.  Sparks skittered across the shiny black armor from time to time as bullets struck it, but they seemed to do virtually no damage.  The mysterious fighter was prioritizing taking down the gunmen, and narrowly dodged a massive swing of the battle axe as Cornelius closed the distance.  The figure jumped back a couple of times, raising its baton in a familiar fighting stance.  Garth jogged up next to Cornelius, mirroring the fighter’s stance with his own as he drew his sword.  The others fell into formation behind him, and a moment of stillness fell over the battlefield.  Cornelius was about to open his mouth to speak, when a different voice broke the silence. 

[MR. BOLTSBURY, YOUR ONBOARDING PAPERWORK IS STILL PENDING.  I MUST SAY, THE TREATMENT OF PATIENTS IN THIS CAMP REFLECTS QUITE POORLY ON YOUR WORK AS A RESIDENT.  WE WILL NOT BE PROVIDING A LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION.]

Garth’s jaw dropped as the unmistakable voice of C.H.A.D.D. reprimanded him, with no more fanfare than if it was discussing the weather.  Cornelius whirled on him, leveling his axe threateningly. 

“You were with this brat the whole time?”

“Funny, I was about to ask him the same thing.  What the hell are you doing in bed with Liberation, Garth?”

Kyle.  That sealed it, even if he couldn’t recognize the young Healer through the full faceplate he wore.  Despite the tense situation, he was about to break into a grin before he saw the pale expression on his squad’s face.  That sobered him.  At the least we need to get them out safely.  Forming a plan, he turned to the black-clad man. 

“Kyle, I thought you were dead.  It’s good to see you alive, although I think this whole thing is just a big misunderstanding.  Put the weapon down, we’ll do the same, and we can talk this out.”

“I don’t think so, Garth.  Either you haven’t seen what these people are capable of, or you have and don’t care.  In any case, I’m not about to let their abuses continue.  This will end here.  Besides, Cornelius and I have some unfinished business, isn’t that right?”

The big man’s smile returned, fiercer than ever. 

“You’re a cocky little punk, you know that?  If memory serves, though, the last time you ran away with your tail between your legs.  I’m not going to give you the chance to do it again, Mayhew.” 

He spoke the name with unmistakable venom. 

“Come on over here, and I promise to end it quickly.” 

Kyle for his part, held his stance.  The gentle blue glow escaped from under the armor, and Garth knew well that he was ready for action. 

Garth could feel the eyes of his squad fixed on his back, ready to follow his move.  What can I do?  The air suddenly cracked with a peal of thunder, the armored Healer rocking back as a bullet collided with his chest plate.  That was the starting bell, and chaos erupted.  Cornelius dove for Kyle, axe arcing to split him in half.  The unawakened spearmen charged while the gunmen lined their shots.  Garth knew sitting and waiting wasn’t an option.  He had to choose a side.  Resolving himself, only one thought crossed his mind.  I’m sorry.  Then, he turned to his squad. 

“With me!”

~~~

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