Thirty Minutes Earlier

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

A hunter must wait for it...

The hunter watched the area ahead of him through the field of shrubbery and underbrush. He had been watching this spot for an hour now and he knew that his patience would pay off in the end.

The hunter had scouted this location and the signs of a large boar stalking the area were clear...from the placement of its droppings to the markings on the trees. So he waited for the boar to come back to it’s stomping ground.

The hunter did not need to wait long. The boar wandered in, snorting and snuffling as it heaved its surprisingly large weight around. It was large, massively tusked, or so the hunter thought and of course he had a very experienced eye for these things. Setting his stout bow, he lined up his shot, the it he had been waiting for and aimed for a spot low in the boar’s shoulder area.

*Twang*

The arrow flew true and silent through the air as if it were blessed by the Gods. Cutting straight toward his intended target...or it would have had he held the bow straight. Instead the arrow flew far to the right and thunked into a tree. Perhaps a mortal blow for the tree but the boar that looked around for a moment was not even surprised and soon lost interest.

Konji, no longer the hunter but only Konji, blinked stupidly from behind his carefully set screen of foliage and tried to figure out how his shot had gone so astray. He didn’t wonder this outloud as the boar would charge him if it realized where he was so instead he picked up his equipment and hightailed it out of there.

He managed three steps before his fourth broke a rather large twig. The sound of which echoed through the woods and caused him to stand quite still. Konji stood still for only a moment because at that very next second the boar he had meant to kill crashed through the foliage behind him. He ran, and he ran very fast because he had little choice to do anything else besides perhaps pray, but Konji felt he could handle doing both at once. The boar chased him, dead set on first goring and then eating the false hunter. Konji was fleet footed, dodging around trees, leaping over debris and crashing through the underbrush as quickly as he could, the boar at his heels and he would have been caught had he not been quick enough to scale a tree to a decently high branch. It also had helped that he had flung his bow and a nicely woven basket, which had been filled with blood red berries, in terror at the oncoming beast.

He sat in the tree for five minutes before another noise drew the boar’s attention and it lumbered off with an annoyed snort.

“A perfect shot foiled by my cursed luck. If only I had not been so boisterous around the witch doctor... “ Konji said once the boar was a suitable distance away. Konji of course was not a hunter; he was a gatherer who felt he should be a hunter. He was lean but thin with the dusky skin of his people and numerous braids in his hair. It was due to his build and ability that he had failed to kill the boar and not because of a curse. Though a curse made him feel like it was not his fault that he often failed. “It has even cost me my basket and the fruit of my labors. Now I must go back to Soong Jauo with nothing. The shame this curse has brought me is nearly intolerable.”

Konji climbed down the tree easily and with little obvious effort. He thought about going back for his basket and bow but heard the boar rooting about the area. So he began his short walk home. Soon he came into sight of the small village- a rural one indeed- of Soong Jauo.

Soong Jauo consisted primarily of straw roofed huts, which varied in size depending on a family’s numbers and the villager’s station in the community. The huts were set in a square with a wall built around the perimeter and each was built on raised legs. There were two gates set in the wall, centered at the south and the north. The real hunters stalked around it, warding off danger from all sides and keeping keen eyed watch.

Inside the wall and the square of homes was the meeting area and dining hall. The hall was a large and long hut with walkways set around it and stairs that led down its sides. On the walkways were set barrels of fruits, grown vegetables along with baskets of fresh picked herbs. On the opposite side were hung great slabs of meat that had been prepared for cooking that very day. Boar and chickens took up many of the racks. Near the hall were pens of chickens and a short distance from that a training area for the warriors, with targets for archery and sparring circles.

Konji looked out at his home and at the north entrance, which he was now approaching. He cursed inwardly at his terrible magic induced luck as he saw Liri, a hunter and a woman who of course spent most of her time mocking him. Now she would destroy him since he hadn’t even brought back any berries. Konji’s luck of course was even worse as it was the changing of the guard and Liri was with her fellow mocker, Siriac.

Both of the guards were athletic and well built, Liri both lean and strong while being a being of sensual build. She had all the things Konji wanted in a woman. A full set of breasts, which appeared even larger on her slender toned form and Goddess she was beautiful. Exotic with wide beautiful eyes, which were like pools of hazel green. He would consider her to be perfect if it were not for her attitude problem. Siriac was the average hunter, strong and built from rock.

So Konji walked toward the gate and the inevitable.

“Look, Siriac! It’s Konji the berry hunter come back from another glorious hunt,” Liri shouted with a grin, resting her bow against the shoulder of her leather hide shoulder guard. She rested her free hand on a nicely curved hip. “I wonder how difficult his battle with the bushes and the trees was today?”

“Hah, I bet the shrubs put up a fierce struggle, perhaps snapping a branch back at his face,” Siriac answered, grinning just as broadly. He was a man with a broad face, with a wide nose and missing teeth. “But where is your bounty oh mighty berry hunter?”

Konji glared at the both of them as he stalked past them into the village.

“Where is your basket Konji?” asked Liri, an elegant brow raising as she followed after him. “You have been gone most of the day and you come back with nothing? Not even your basket?”

“I ran into a bristle backed boar and lost my gathered fruit,” Konji answered, looking at the smirking dusky skinned woman. “I killed it but not before it ate the fruit, and before you ask the curse that you both know I am under caused me to lose the body.”

“Oh yes, the curse...” Siriac said, keeping pace with both of them with his voice taking on a tone of mock sympathy. “The curse by the foreign voodoo priest who no one knows or remembers.”

The three of them were walking toward the dining hall through the many people that crowded the village center. It was a small village but there were many people in it. A product of over population and no regulation on families someone from the Western World would say. Children raced about carrying toys and the people held tools and baskets and food.

“He was a Witch Doctor, from a further north village- not a voodoo priest,” Konji said as he rounded about on the guard. “ He cursed me for besting him in a test of wit.”

“Yes, yes, Konji. We all know the legend,” Liri said, the sarcastic tone to her voice was cutting. “But it is all bullshit.”

“I am not lying! I am one of the cursed whose lifeline was marked with bad luck,” Konji said, anger creeping into his voice. “I am as mighty a warrior as you will ever see.”

To this Siriac laughed, he laughed so hard as to have to clutch his sides in what looked like the most severe pangs of agony.

“Oh just tell the truth, Konji. You were surprised by the boar and ran,” Liri said, grinning again. “Throwing everything you had at it and probably ran all the way back here. That is why you have no berries… the boar ate them all!”

Konji glared at them and as he tried to think of a biting response, Siriac was called over to a small group of villagers, and he began to stumble across to them. Still laughing though breathlessly, he managed to make it halfway when the first whistling sound cut through the air above them.

Looking around as they were, not one of the villagers and certainly not Konji expected an object to lance over the village and land in front of Siriac, or more appropriately on top of him.

The object, which turned out to be a mortar, exploded on impact, tearing Siriac apart as it launched him up and back. Blood flew out in an arc from his torn open burnt body, and if it had been in slow motion Konji would have been able to see just how the man fell apart. The force of the explosion knocked both Liri and Konji backward onto the ground. Siriac wasn’t the only one as a second mortar hit the group he had been heading toward, blowing them up and out in much the same way, and more continued to fall. The air was cut by the shrill whistles, and once the people broke free of their surprised stupor the screams of the living mixed with the screams of the dying. The bombardment blew great chunks out of the hall, thatched roof sending grass and straw into the air in a thick burst. An explosion rocked the side of the hall, its force blowing a chunk out of a walkway and sending the barrels of berries and fruits tumbling down to splatter on the ground. Houses were hit and bodies were launched through the air, from children to the elders, none were spared. Within minutes the attack ended and broken and bloody bodies littered the ground. Those unhurt had spread out for their homes.

Preoccupied as they were with the mortar barrage no one had heard the harsh braying of automatic weapons as the stunned guards were gunned down. Through the gates drove two old rusted jeeps. They were solid puke green with patches of rust decorating the metal. They were followed by men in worn fatigues; dark gold and green who carried AK-47’s. They looked worn, threadbare and their jeeps were older than some of the trees in the forest but their guns were beautiful in a deadly way. Gleaming in the sun from a thick coating of oil and clearly well cared for. The men waited for no order and fanned out. The heavy braying filling the air again as they began to slaughter the people.

While this happened Konji had gotten to his feet and now stood stock still with wide eyes. He was spattered with blood and offal and did not seem able to move. He couldn’t even begin to understand what had just happened and would have died had Liri not grabbed him and pulled him toward another entrance. In his stupor, which had begun to break he noticed how well the female guard’s muscles moved under her smooth flawless skin.

Together they ran while behind them the villagers died. They made a few feet before the men dressed as soldiers saw them and gave chase. Running as fast as they were able they managed to reach the gate but a second jeep stood in their way. Three men rode in the jeep, two in front while one man stood at the back of a heavy machine gun, belts of ammo hanging from it and with fresh rounds ready to be fired.

Both began to back up as fast as they could and Liri was in the process of turning when she was smashed in the face with the stock of one of the rifles. Her nose crushed in and as her head snapped back, blood rained out in thick drops. Konji’s eyes opened wide and with his mouth hanging even wider open he watched Liri fall backward to land near the gate. The drops of blood fell to the ground and as they did the soldier in the front rammed the butt of his rifle into Konji’s stomach with a savage crunch that signified breaking ribs. A breathless cry escaped his mouth while he folded over. The gatherer managed to stay up on his feet mainly due to the rifle now lodged in his gut. The other soldiers, numbering ten or so surrounded them quickly and only then was Konji allowed to fall on his face. That was not the end of his torment as a few well-placed kicks from steel-toed boots made his situation all the worse. He curled up in a ball and didn’t notice that the men had snapped to attention. A shorter man, an officer who was clad in cleaner fatigues with a number of colored ribbons and tassels had arrived on the scene. A grin crossed his face as he surveyed the two of them. Gunfire mixed with screaming echoed behind them.

“So, two of these scum thought they could run?” said the man, his voice an oily nasal. He watched Liri begin to get to her knees, still dazed by the savage blow. “Pointless to try and escape Captain Ezobar and his Ravagers. Though what can we expect from honorless heathens such as you?”

Captain Ezobar stepped into the circle of men and knelt first beside Konji who had turned to turtling as his only defense. “You see, no fighting spirit...is there any question as to why we need to wipe this stain from our beloved Soong Jauo? And if there was any...then this weak bastard as well as what they did to us through their cowardice should rid us of all questions.”

With that said the Captain grabbed Konji by the hair and pulled his head up then slammed it to the ground. He repeated this twice with a look of distaste on his face, a look that said he wished he had a wet-nap. That look stayed on his face as he watched Konji re-curl himself up into his defensive pose before it all but fell off as he turned to regard the nicely curved form of the kneeling guard.

“Of course...there is something to be said about savage women,” he said, standing up and moving so that he was in front of the dazed woman. “Vile heathonistic bitches, but beautiful and wild...begging to be tamed by warriors. Hold her!”

After to men took hold of the woman’s arms, Ezobar pulled Liri’s head back, looking into her hate filled eyes with a sneer and a short barking laugh. “I think we have found the entertainment tonight men.”

All around him the gathered soldiers laughed, harsh and short with a few cheers rippling through the small gathering. While they celebrated and the Captain was enjoying the cheers his treat received, Liri drove her knee up into his balls and knocked him to his knees. It was all she had time to do as another soldier came forward and rewarded her for her defiance with two sharp backhands that sent drops of blood lancing out once more. Liri remained on her feet only by the strength of the two men holding her.

“I said hold her you fools...” the Captain said from his spot on the ground and without warning slammed his fist into her stomach, knocking the wind out of her and bending her forward. Again she was kept on her feet by the soldiers holding her arms and now her legs. Standing up slowly he leaned in closer till his mouth was beside her ear. His voice a lecherous whisper, “For that insolence I will give you what you don’t deserve but I know you want...To be tamed by men...That is what you want, isn’t it? To be raped like the animal you are...to have your last few moments devoted to pleasing your fuckin’ betters with all the Gods have given you?”

“N-Never...you are...s-scum...” Liri managed in a breathless whisper slowly lifting her head. Her second show of defiance earned her another hard backhand across the face.

“You have no choice, cow, none at all...we will choke the life out of you if we wish and we will not use our hands.” The captain answered, standing once more. He looked at all his men. “In fact, why wait for later...let’s celebrate now!”

To punctuate his statement he tore the little clothing Liri wore off with an exaggeratedly hard yank. The woman struggled incredibly hard now but she was held fast, exposed before all the soldiers who grinned and cheered. The Captain caressed along Liri’s jaw line with a grin even a lech would find discomforting. “I will take the first turn.”

As those words left Ezobar’s mouth a golden doorway opened behind the jeep in front of the gate. From it stepped a man all in black, with a leather mask on his face that left his mouth and chin, which at the moment was unshaven, revealed. Over a dark gray, close fitting uniform he wore a black leather trench coat with a gunmetal gray belt around his waist. On his chest set over a lighter gray triangle was a crescent moon placed in a circle of black. This man wore black leather gloves and combat boots. He scanned the scene before him with hard black eyes while his fists clenched tighter.

“Oh I don’t fuckin’ think so,” he said, drawing from inside his coat a small stack of white cards, business sized with edges that gleamed in the light. “This god damn shit is done.”

“Who the hell are you!?” Captain Ezobar said, hastily pulling up his pants. “Some kind of freak? Or just an idiot in tights?”

Konji looked up, gazed around at all the soldiers and then without any real realization at the man who was dressed too odd to be accepted as real. No one paid him any mind and let the gatherer sit up to watch the spectacle.

As Konji tried to clear his head so he could comprehend what was happening, the costumed man had said nothing, simply raising an eyebrow while he spread the cards out in his hand. With a movement too fast for Konji’s or the soldier’s eyes the man had thrown the cards he had been carrying. They sliced through the air clean and quick, one cutting through the side and throat of a soldier. A second two plunged into another’s eyes and three more found their mark in the foreheads of three more men. They had punched deep into the head through the skull. The cards’ flight had been so quick that the men stood on their feet for a moment before collapsing. Only the man whose throat had been slit wide open reflexively grabbed at the gaping hole in his neck, though he bled out in a hard torrent. The blood sprayed out onto the remaining soldiers and by the time they realized what had just happened the man in leather was already in motion.

Half the gathered men turned to look upon the newcomer with eyes wide with shock and sudden surprise as he wasn’t there. Without any warning the soldier who controlled the heavy machine guns head crushed in as if stomped; teeth, blood and fragments of bone bursting out. A fleeting glimpse of a shadow and suddenly a man lifted in the air, as if a string connected to his back had yanked him up. At the same moment he left the ground his chest caved inward with a thick stream of blood burst out of his mouth. He was flung away while a second man’s head was severed from his body and another soldier’s stomach was punctured straight through with his pulped organs pushing out his back. Even as the offal landed the stock of a soldier’s rifle was jammed back into his face, crushing his nose to pulp and burying itself into his head. Finger’s squeezed reflexively in death and sprayed a single burst of bullets that tore through two more of the remaining men. One of the last whole man’s crotches tore upward as if kicked, a ripping sound like a phone book tearing in half accompanying the rending tear that led into the unfortunate soldier’s gut. And as his hands went to what had been his genitals the last soldier simply fell apart, body pummeled and nearly bursting.

Konji and the Captain who had been spared all damage from the bloody mess shared a shocked look. Around them the bodies of all twelve men landed in bloody torn apart heaps. Gun’s landing beside them to be used no more today. The blood pooled out and the Ezobar looked around slowly in astonishment, only stopping when a bloody black gloved hand tapped his shoulder. Behind him stood the man who had just taken apart his men, the black clad stranger.

Konji didn’t take in the sudden reappearance of the stranger as his attention was for the moment on one of the cards, which had lodged in the ground. He pulled it free, the edge slicing into his fingers causing him to drop it. The gatherer was in shock and though he knew his hand was cut he ignored it for the time being to study the card upon which was written a message, though he couldn’t make out more than the last two lines, which simply stated: I’m what children see when they first imagine death. And under that: Your Move.

Ezobar turned around to look at the man who had just tore through his squad. “W-who are you…?”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” the man said with a raised brow, the gesture missed due to his mask. “Fuck, you have no idea at all.”

“I’m everything you wish you could be… I’m the Midnighter, and after I clean up this mess, me and you are having a long talk.”

With that said the Midnighter turned and stalked off, coat flowing out behind him before he suddenly was gone from sight. Throughout the village screams again began to fill the air, punctuated once more with the braying of rifles and cracks of pistols. Captain Ezobar and Konji looked around stupidly, blinking and barely moving while the fighting went on around them. Within moments of its start, the screams and the gunfire ceased and the Midnighter came strolling back, his clothes bloody and a smirk on his face. “Now that the foreplay is over, let’s get down to the serious fun.”

While he had been gone Captain Ezobar had managed to draw his side arm, a Desert Eagle, which he now aimed at Midnighter. Wasting no time he fired off one shot, and one only for Ezobar was the finest marksman in his squad. The shot would have been a guaranteed headshot had the costumed bastard not shifted to the side making the killing shot fly horribly off target. Ezobar had only a moment to react to this turn of events before the Midnighter was upon him, a gloved hand grabbing the gun and turning it back hard, twisting and snapping both the Captain’s fingers and his wrist.

“Uh uh, no more of that,” Midnighter said over the screams of the injured man whose pants had finally fallen, as well as those of Konji. “Your men are dead, every single one of them.”

“Impossible…my men…” Ezobar managed in a wheezing stuttering voice, looking at him with unbelieving tear-filled eyes. “There is n-no way that you k-k-killed all my men…no man can do such a thing so easily…s-so quickly…”

“I can…now tell me, what’s a better message… your eyes in a box or your whole head?” Midnighter said, bending his hand back further with a slight smirk. “Which do you think will let your genocidal bastard boss know I’m coming to end this?”

“G-genocide…? N-no…we were attacked! T-these scum…k-k-killed the general!” Ezobar managed with a hurt anger in his voice. “They deserve this!”

“You were attacked? Oh come on…” Midnighter said, with a hidden raised brow. “These people?”

“All of these people…scum…rebels. Slaughtered the general and his guards…they all must die for that!” Captain Ezobar said, beads of sweat running down his face. “They are animals…trash.”

The Midnighter turned the gun down further, pulled the trigger and shot the sweating shivering Captain in the shoulder. The man’s screams resumed and doubled in volume as he began to thrash around, which did nothing to help him. Konji for his part had moved to cover Liri’s body with his own.

“Let me get this straight…you are slaughtering these people because some rebels killed this fuckin’ piece of shit general of yours?” Midnighter asked, sighing softly. “I just stepped in a civil war didn’t I? Fuck…

“Well…This will take a few minutes longer than I expected. First things first…”

The Midnighter grabbed the Ezobar by the head and held him up on his feet. He shifted his thumbs over the man’s eyes and began to press, not too hard at first so the Captain could pay attention to his voice. “I was considering skull fucking the life out of you but I’m married and that could be considered cheating so I’m going to press my thumbs through your eyes and into your brain.” With that said he increased the pressure and with the squishing sounds of the Captain’s eyeballs bursting, blood and fluid sprayed out in short arcs around his leather-clad fingers. The man’s screams grew louder and the skull broke inward and those same thumbs plunged into his brain and silenced him forever. Sliding his thumbs free the Midnighter let Ezobar’s body drop and stepped back.

“This shit will never come out…finest Italian leather in the world and look at it…fuckin’ waste….” Midnighter said in little louder than a mutter. “Well…can’t be helped…I’ll change at the carrier and see about this civil war bullshit I dropped myself into.”

“Door”

“Door.”

“Door!”

“Goddamn it! DOOR!”

“It isn’t going to work, you know,” answered a voice in Midnighter’s head.

“Apollo? What’s going on?” Midnighter asked, tilting his head slightly. “We under attack?”

“No, we aren’t under attack. The door won’t work for you,” Apollo said, his tone cool. “Talked to Angie and she agreed with me that this was a good idea. For now you are locked out.”

“Locked out! Are you fuckin’ kidding me!?” Midnighter yelled, seemingly at no one at all or at least no one the confused Konji could see. “I just stepped into a civil war or something very close to one and I would like to finish this up very quickly! Why am I locked out?!”

“You know exactly why you’re locked out,” Apollo answered, his tone even colder now.

“Is this about before? Shit, Apollo, I didn’t mean you were getting fat! All I said was you might rethink the pants you were wearing,” said Midnighter, holding his head in his hand. “Are you seriously going to do this to me now?”

“Yes, have fun,” responded Apollo.

“Apollo…”

No response.

“Fuck…”

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To Be Continued...

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