An Old Friend (Utterly Closed)

[Losvaise]

Losvaise looked intently at the email as he walked through the crowded street. His walk, his demeanor, everything fit into the city, yet someone still knew he was here. Only two days. Two whole days had gone by. His eyes darted to an alley and then back to the email in his glasses. His arm brushed a passerby as another new email came in. This one came from the merc corp. “IC 105 n1. F5-100-304-c.” Apparently his email had been added to the upper echelon finally. Even in semi-legal corporations things took forever. He also had a new designated email. The last four letters matched the on the previous email. NCCFST were the first ones, which meant absolutely nothing to him.

His pace quickened; he could see the coffee shop up ahead. There was absolutely nothing that said he should have even gone besides an email from some person he didn’t even know, but it used general terms from old mercenary code. He thought it was dead, being never written down and generally not passed down to the next generation. Yet another email appeared, this time from the agency. He read it even though he had no intention of exacting the contract it undoubtedly held. He stopped when he read it, causing the man behind him to run right into him. Los staggered forward and turned around. “Sorry sir.” But the man ignored him and kept moving. The contract was for one “Arcturus Faust,” said to be an extremely dangerous elemental beyond that of almost any in Orexia. This agency had no idea. The man’s picture appeared as an attachment. Yep that was him. Losvaise got up and crosses through the foot traffic to the other side of the street behind some sort of fruit vendor. This contract was for him and him alone. It had been sent to only him, and he knew exactly why. There was no one else here who had a chance of taking this man down. What they didn’t know was that there was no way he could take Arturus down either. This contract was suicide.

Los and Arcturus were partners some time ago. Considered the two best in the organization, the two could handle any type of op, be it espionage or full blown assault. Arcturus was a breaker elemental. The combination of speed and raw power was unbeatable. Their streak ended in space. Hired by the UN to take care of some overzealous metal elementals in space, the two boarded a trans-atmospheric airliner to the Delta space station. The majority of them were metal elementals, driven by some deep desire to bring pain to the world or some such bull. A full blown assault was unadvised due to the nature of the elementals. Any ships attempting to get close would immediately be crushed by the guard elementals on board the station. Deep space lasers would bounce off the literally perfectly reflective plating. The station was a beacon when they wanted it to be, but not at other times. Rumor was there was a dreamer on board. The best plan anyone could come up with was to send a small group in and take out everyone.

The plan was to include too many variables for the dreamer to comprehend, and come with multiple ships from different angles. Attacking from deep space with missiles, as well as with unmanned battleships would prove a good distraction. Even though Los and Arc did not know everything involved, they did know their part. When the two, riding in a mid sized stealth cruiser, got close enough, they would EMP the building and enter through a hole blown in the side by Arc. Using no electronics was supposed to be a difficult thing for this day and age, but not for Los who never used them anyway, and Arc who didn’t trust them. The EMP was strong enough to knock out all electronics in the ship and fry all of the computers. There was a standard rocket booster escape pod in the cruiser for when they got out. When safely out of range, they would activate the distress beacon and get picked up by a waiting battlecruiser.

The two navigated the ship past a piece of debris and accelerated toward the station. Los watched a missile turn into a quarter sized hunk of metal as Arc kept them on the path. The ship was almost silent, and invisible to the naked eye, and thermal. He checked his pistols one last time and placed them into their according holster. He looked up to watch the safety in the reactor core of a cargo ship full of explosives go off. The result was the largest explosion he had ever seen. The lack of gravity caused the pieces to fly in all directions, narrowly missing their ship and hitting a nearby cloaked ship. There was a flash of light as the station noticed the invisible ship and vaporized it with some sort of cannon. Arcturus evenly slowed the ship next to the hull of the station and Los put on his mask. Arcturus let out a *humph* sound as they looked at the lettering on the side. “New Zion.” They looked at each other and nodded. Los turned a key on the console and Arc closed his eyes.

All light stopped and crack ripped open the hull. Los slammed his gloved hand on the emergency pod ejection button. The front half of the ship mechanically ejected into the hole and the windshield blasted off. They leapt out past debris following the air from the landing bay, and made their way to the floor just before the auxiliary gravity and lights came on. Someone apparently started an emergency generator. The landing bay did not actually need a door or atmosphere to work properly, the metal elementals could open and close it at will. They ran to the bulkhead and worked together to open a standard wheel handled door. The next room was the airlock and the two hurried to close the previous door and open the next so they could stop breathing recycled air.

Los went in first to the hallway. With his mask off finally off he could see clearly and realized there were no bolts in anything. The door at the end of the hallway opened up. Los opened fire and landed the three round burst into the man’s chest. They broke into a run to the end of the hall way and peered into the room. It appeared to be some sort of reception area occupied by several intense looking elementals who proceeded to close the walls in on top of them. Arc broke one wall after another while Los fought the elementals, taking one down at a time and making Arc’s job easier. They fought through room after room, and after running out of bullets, fought with knives at close range. They finally reached the center where the reactor was (now back online) and opened the door. There were only a few rooms left, and this was the largest. Arc went in first and after entering stood up straight. Los followed him and saw what was happening. There were twelve elementals with old time M16s pointed at them. There was a dreamer on the ship, standing next to a battlescarred metal elemental on a piece of scaffolding. They were the only ones not on ground level Los noted.

They didn’t look at each other or say anything, but knew what the other thought. They were probably going to die.

[Losvaise]

Los tried to see inside the café from where he was standing but could not get a good look through the people. He switched his glasses to scan for elementals and looked. Looked like there two on the street in front of him, and one inside. Whoever it was, was large. It had to be him…

He casually entered the traffic and made his way to the other side and walked past a window to get to the door. There he was. Los and Arc’s eye’s met through his sunglasses and Arc smirked. Los remained stone cold as his vision was briefly interrupted by a wall. He opened the door and walked inside. He took his sunglasses off as he made his way two table to the immediate right, and sat down opposite his old comrade. “Hello Losvaise”

Were they going to die? Standing there at gunpoint? Los hoped Arcturus had something in mind, because he did not. They shouted commands at them in a foreign language. “Legen Sie Ihre Hände dar, drehen Sie herum und sagen Sie Ihre Gebete.” Los truly did not understand so he allowed a confused look on his face and stole a glance at his partner. Arc glanced at him too and began to close his eyes. Los knew what was coming and took a deep breath just in case.
The metal elemental standing on the second level then said something, which Los did understand. “Eins……..Zwei……”

He was cut short however because the ground just below the troops below him cracked open. The troops fell into the crevice and Los bolted to the right and reached for a knife. Arc moved to the left and began concentrating on the scaffolding. The dreamer bolted and the metal elemental quickly raised his hand up and not long after, a series of spikes began coming out of the back wall. Los dodged a particularly large one and threw his knife, landing a perfect hit in the jugular. Los smiled and looked behind him. The smile was wiped away as he watched Arcturus’ blood drip onto the ground. A six inch in diameter spike was protruding from his abdomen. The damage was immense; he was not going to live. Arc was unconscious and there was no way Los could take him back, so he left him and went to go get the dreamer. He quickly scaled a ladder onto the scaffolding, retrieved his knife, and ran after the elemental. A tear streaked down his left cheek as he cornered the elemental and drove the blade between their ribs and into the heart. He looked deep and hard into the multicolored eyes until the light left. The man’s last look was not of pain, but of sadness, mirroring Los’ own look. He pulled out the bloodied knife and listened. There was silence. Dead silence. It was something he had never heard before.

His footsteps echoed through the metal halls as he walked back to the reactor room. It was offline now, it was probably linked to the dreamers vital signs. That meant everything was going to turn off soon and he had to hurry. He lifted up Arc’s head and looked into the dead purple eyes one last time before taking off. He cleared his mind and ran. The lights began to dim as he easily navigated the halls back to the ship. He pulled his mask on and entered the airlock. The last of the lights faded out as he floated toward the ship and to the back where the escape pod was. He latched it down, fired the manual emergency detach and braced himself as the rockets vaulted him out of the station. His mind was still blank as he put batteries in the beacon. Five minutes later the NCC Valagra arrive to pick him up. Not long after he was on board, the ship fired on the station, doing substantial damage and making it irreparable.

That was the last he had seen of Arcturus, but not the last he had heard of him. It was common knowledge that Arc’s body had been reclaimed, battered and beaten from the havoc cause by the battle cruiser, and used for experimental purposes. They had replaced almost every part of his body his super light, mechanical organs, and his bones with carbon fiber. They rebuilt his nervous system with that of a metal elemental. The men lobotomized him, adding in the specific organ of a metal elemental. His muscles were redesigned to provide fast response time, strength and endurance. His face was the same, but nothing on the inside was familiar or natural. Now that man was sitting across from Los, staring him down. Los was supposed to kill him? With what?

“Arcturus Galvanis Redford…” Los raised his eyebrows, “You look good.”
Arcturus laughed “Thanks, you don’t look too back yourself.” They both fell silent as the waitress came up. “So wad do ya want?” “Nothing.” Los replied, never taking his eyes off of the man across from him. The woman walked away and Arc began. “Do you know why I am here?”
“No.”

They looked at each other.
Arc was a child prodigy of the mercenary corporation, so every thing was as Los expected. His demeanor was predictable, his body language, but he had changed. The look he had seen in space was still there. They were vacant, sunken. Los couldn’t kill him. It wasn’t possible. He would need to be back on the space station to suck the air out of his lungs.
“You are supposed to kill me aren’t you?” Arc said.
“Yes.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“More favorable circumstances.”
“They will never be in your favor.”
“I know.”

Silence again. The one person in the world he missed was sitting right in front of him, but he couldn’t have him. He practical brother was now his biggest enemy. He wondered how Arc saw it. The only way was to just do it. He could have Arc followed, find out where he slept, and use a bunker buster bullet and elemental sensor scope to kill him through the wall. The bullet would activate when it made contact with living flesh, and detonate inside him. That’s what he would have to do.
Arc put his hands on the metal table and shattered it, causing shrapnel to fly out, but for some reason they went out in only two directions. The pieces impaled the waitress to the wall on one side, and sliced holes in the wall on the other. Los jumped to his feet and dodged a ludicrously fast punch from Arc. He ducked to the right and kneed Arc in the back of the knee, causing him to stagger. Los shoved him forward into the wall.

Apparently it was going down here and now.