somewhere in the Swiss Alps
I remember ...
It was snowing. Not heavily, yet, but still heavily enough.
... my father told me, once upon a time, to follow my dreams. Just that. He knew, even back then, that they weren't easy dreams to live by.
By the time it really started coming down, he wouldn't have needed the clothes to stay hidden. Still, best to stack the deck.
He rose up to a crouch, shaking the by now snow covered tarp off, retrieving a set of high end IR goggles.
Carefully. He needed to move carefully, but still decisively. This was, in a way, what he'd been living for ever since ...
He took them seriously, though. Maybe because, in part, they were his dreams as well. His ... regrets?
Step after step, one flowing into the next, mind fixed with total focus upon the task. Entirely centered in a state of Zazen, slipping past the tingling of a warning ward.
The goggles went dark, but it didn't even phase him. He hadn't expected that to work, really. A disruption ward was pretty much standard fare in any of the scenarios he'd imagined, but he'd needed to check.
Wouldn't do to let an advantage go.
Perfect? I guess every child thinks that of their parents. Well, most children. He had his faults and was pretty open about them. Didn't stop me from admiring him, though.
There it was.
A faint outline in the white-out world he was stalking through.
Just where he'd expected it to be, and where the notes told him it was.
He gave me his name, his teachings, and left me with everything I could ever need when he died.
He closed his eyes and focused, feeling the raw, burning sensation of fire running through his veins, down one arm, to pool in its palm and bleed into the steel, lead, and plastic.
And a letter.
Howling wind dissipated the noise, but he still felt the vibration traveling up his arm.
He grinned.
It kicked like a mule.
And a journal.
The wind kept at it as he strode forward, with a vanguard of snow swirling around and past him into the building.
And then thunder spoke, clearly this time.
Again.
And again.
And again, as levinbolts and discharges shot towards him.
But they were hastily aimed, hastily loosed, and he was a white shadow obscured by a torrent of the color flowing in behind him.
And his guns.
Twin thunders, echoing in the usually still hallways of the mountain estate. Bullets biting into wooden walls, sparking off bronze finish, battering down half-erected shields before the ones that followed bit and blew holes through flesh.
Twenty.
He threw himself forward, underneath a halberd blade that swooped down from above, wielded by a willowy, white haired, empty eyed woman, even as his eyes narrowed behind mirrored spectacles and his nerves burned once more.
It tore the ether, winding its way into the blued steel, and creating out of seeming nothingness ...
Slides slammed forward of their own volition, and fingers depressed the triggers of weapons that should, by all rights, have been empty.
Guns were impossible. They were too complex, too ... modern. Armor was very difficult, but possible. Not really worth the effort, though.. Small things, not so much. Blades were surprisingly easy ...
Twin thunders spoke.
... and bullets were only marginally less so.
And a task. One I would have undertaken anyway, even if he hadn't asked me.
The girl looked young. Far younger than she should have been.
It wasn't as surprising as it would otherwise have been, given his research - haphazard as it had been - on the nature of homunculi.
That didn't matter.
What mattered was the look in her eyes. Fear, determination, puzzlement ...
Utterly and totally human.
He imagined he was quite a sight at that point, white clothes and coat smeared with blood - both his and not - a smoking gun in one hand and a gladius in the other.
He spoke.
His words made the spear of mystical energy she was about to unleash fizzle, and her entire body go stiff with shock and recognition.
Even if it isn't by blood, even if she isn't quite 'normal'...
"Hey, sis. Sorry I'm late."
... she's family. And I'll see her free of her destined Fate, even if I have to die to do it. My Justice demands it.
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm