Chapter 7 - Post Battle

They walked in silence through the forest, dried up blood evaporating off of them. They walked next to the cracked road, through the woods next to it for 30 minutes before stopping as the road began to curve. Fise sat down, his back resting on a tree and his backpack next to him while Andrew took off his.

"Sh*t."

"What?"

Andrew picked up his backpack and showed it to Fise, pointing at a hole in it the size of his thumb.

"He shot through the backpack and," he opened it and took out a half-empty 2-litre bottle of water that had a hole through both its sides. "He hit our water. We only have 2 more and whatever there's left in here," said Andrew as he shook the bottle.

"No point putting it back," Andrew stated as he lifted the bottle and drank from one of the holes. He drank half of the remaining water before throwing it to Fise, who caught it.

"Drink the rest."

Fise drank from the other hole until there was no more water.

"Do we just throw it on the floor?"

"No, we must not leave any tracks. Surround it in your aura."

Fise surrounded the bottle with his aura and looked back at Andrew.

"Throw it towards me," Andrew said as he activated his aura.

Fise threw the bottle in the air and Andrew clicked his fingers, one pointing at the bottle, and a small ball of fire flew towards the bottle. It hit and the bottle was engulfed in black flames. It was completely erased before it reached the ground.

"We are going to stay here for another 5 minutes before heading out," said Andrew before rummaging through his backpack. Fise sat back and closed his eyes. He remembered the spike man, the man at the gate and the scout at the bridge. He remembers hearing the bones get crushed by the broken wall when he defeated the man at the gate, the blood and brain matter splatter against the wall as the spike man had his head opened. And he remembered how a few minutes ago the scout's spine splintered and snapped as he pushed his arm through, feeling his body move inside and slowly stop.

Fise felt something rise in his throat, before swallowing back down. He was a killer.

"Good. Nothing else seemed to have been damaged. We are ready to go." Andrew put on his backpack and looked at Fise. He saw his darkened expression and mild shaking and sighed.

"I know what you are feeling. This is the first time you killed, so you must be feeling pretty... complicated. Feeling guilt for what you did. Fise, I have killed 24 people so far, over the 5 years I have had my ability. I felt the same as you are. It might sound sadistic, but you will get used to it; you won't feel any remorse or guilt-"

"Andrew, I am not- that's not the reason I am so down. It's not that I am sad, no I am down because I am NOT sad, or feel remorse, or guilt. It's that- It's-" Fise had tears build up in his eyes making his vision blurry. He ducked his head and saw the tears drop to the ground.

"I'm... scared."

They stood in silence for a minute, the heaviness in the air stopping them from saying anything.

"I'm sorry, Fise. We aren't far from the orphanage, you can still make it back. I can go alone, you can just stay back and you won't get tangled into anything to do with Guarded again." Andrew said, guilt showing on his face. He had been stupid. He dragged a kid with him just because he was a Guarded. Just because he wanted to be friends.

"No. I can't go back." Fise wiped his tears and felt confidence rise up. 'That's right. I came with Andrew cause I wanted to interact with Guarded. Because I want to master my aura.'

"If what you said was true, next year I'll be taken away and made to slave away in the army. Because I have an aura. I don't want that. I want to be free." Andrew stared at Fise.

"Are you sure?" a few seconds passed.

"Yes." Andrew offered Fise a hand, which he took, and pulled him up.

They got their things and kept going. They walked alongside the road for 5 minutes before Andrew turned to Fise.

"Fise. You learned about Guarded, right?" Fise nodded.

"Then you know that we are fast."

"Yes. It's one of the things I remember well. They- We can reach speeds of up to 120 kilometres per hour right?"

Andrew looked at him before laughing.

"Really? 120 km per hour right? Hahaha! So this is all they know eh?"

"?" Fise was confused.

"120 km per hour is pretty slow. That's the usual speed for powerless Guarded." Andrew said."The usual speed is around 200 km per hour. Even more, if you have a power that can speed you up. But you can catch them since you can teleport."

'Teleport? I guess that is how it looks like to others.'

"Anyway, how about we go faster."

Andrew activated his aura and sped forward. Fise was surprised by his speed but he activated his aura and followed him. They travelled on the road, cracking the weaker areas of the misused road they stepped on. Andrew was right as they were travelling over 120 km per hour, probably 150 km per hour, eventually getting to the motorway that leads to Incip. They travelled for 20 minutes straight, making it halfway to the city before setting up camp on the side of the motorway. They went a little deeper into the woods on the side so they had more cover. They were somewhere in the countryside, travelling through some abandoned, overgrown farm fields. Eventually, they stopped and sat down, Fise asking Andrew something.

"Andrew I think we need to, uh, go back."

"What for?"

"Well..." Fise looked down and grabbed a bit of his ripped shirt, moving it around. "My clothes were destroyed in the fight. They have a lot of holes in them, it's like I'm wearing nothing."

"Don't worry, I brought extra clothing."

Andrew reached into his bag and fumbled in it before bringing out a black T-shirt and shorts. He threw them to Fise who caught them. He quickly changed into them before thinking of what to do with his old clothes.

"Andrew what should I do with these?"

"Wait a minute." Andrew also changed into the same outfit.

"We are going to destroy them."

"What? But-"

"Every purchase that the orphanage made, clothes, food, etc. were recorded. And it won't take long until they find out we are gone. We have until, maybe tomorrow. They probably think that you are still sick after they healed you in the pods, your body getting used to being okay. But when any medical staff go to find you, questions will arise. One thing leads to another and the guards posted at the gates of Incip will see us, 2 children with no guardians, arrive at the city and BOTH of us would be sent to the army. If we do get sent to the army let's hope its the good one."

"What do you mean the good one?" asked Fise, confused. He didn't know there was more than one army, he didn't even know there was an army. He was taught what an army is and does but never told there was one in the country. He should have figured it out but he didn't really give it much thought. However, when Andrew mentioned the army he believed it after piecing some facts together. Of course, the country has an army. He even thought about it earlier.

"Fise, I'm surprised that you didn't learn about the war yet."

'War?' thought Fise. 'There's a war?'

"This is from what I know and there are a lot of missing details but, there is a war between The Company and The UN, what's left of them."

"What's the company, and the UN?"

"They didn't tell you this?"

"Umm... No?"

Andrew sighed.

"To put it simply..."

Andrew explained the world in the 1910s, explaining the countries around the time, mostly because Fise didn't know any of them. He explained World War 1 that led to the treaty of Versailles, then World War 2 which led to the making of the UN, then the Cold war, how America and Russia were the most powerful countries at the time, then he went on to explain the internet and 2000s.

"Then the Fall began and everything came crashing down. After a century and a bit of global stabilisation, here we are. Now I told you that so you can have some background. After the fall, when the Internet was connected again, people learnt that their countries were being very unfair, treating people unequally and such, so they began to revolt. The countries then suppressed them by force, knowing that listening to them would lower the amount of money they got and increase the amount they spent. Then they tried to make a worldwide ban on the internet. That was when the largest conflict in human history began."

The sun was shining brightly, the woods were filled with life as birds and insects all called out. Andrew paused for a bit; he had been talking for 30 minutes straight explaining everything important and getting points across. He looked up trying to see anything above the canopy but only witnessed the partly cloudy sky.

"It's most common name is world war 3. The internet all banded together to change the world. This was probably helped by the fact this wasn't the first time the internet got together for a single goal. The countries of the world all had to change their governing a bit due to the absolutely gigantic backlash. Well, most countries. China, having been suppressing internet access even before the Fall, had almost no backlash. They even took the chance to take Korea. And there were countries that didn't exist anymore. More than half of Africa is now empty since all the shrouds had already taken care of everyone there, along with the war-torn middle east. Russia has reduced in size by half, Siberia becoming a restricted zone. Due to the high amount of shrouds and wraiths that area is now the most dangerous area on the surface for anyone, Guarded or not, to step in. Now, after the internet got back to relative normality, something happened in America. A company by the name of 'James Lake' slowly bought most of the businesses in America, and eventually got most of the businesses in the world. They then began doing something bizarre. They started to make propaganda and got more and more of their people in high seating jobs of the US government. They pieced everything together and then proceeded to send the whole country into a civil war over weapons by dispersing the army and slowly taking away more money in tax and taking away weapons, people decided to get some by force. They knew that by taking America out, they wouldn't have a lot of problems fighting the other countries." He took some air in.

"The very small military groups around the country were easy pickings. Now it's a war between the army and the people, with no help from the government. This is considered the start of the real Third World War as what was left of the UN declared war on the Company. After a few decades, China is under Company control, along with some areas of Europe, America is still in a standstill. The most contested areas being Hook Stations along with the Moon, due to the moon elevator."

"What?"

" You have seen the moon right? You can see a thin line of it stretch out of it into space, from the MSP. That's the moon elevator."

"I also don't know what the MSP is, or Hook Stations for that matter."

"I guess we are pretty far from the line. Hook stations are like airports, you know about them right, but they send ships into space through vacuum tunnels lined with magnets, basically a giant railgun. They shoot the ships towards one of the skyhooks, which then launch them to the Moon, the MSP, moon spaceport, being the main way to get from here to anywhere in the first half of the solar system. The skyhooks are orbiting the Earth at a low altitude, acting as a catapult to throw ships to the moon easily. They orbit on some of the lines of latitude, first one from the North down being the arctic circle, and the last line is at the Antarctic circle."

Fise was amazed. He didn't know about any of this. He saw the moon a few times when it was out in the daytime. He wanted to know more about this, and the skyhooks and the war.

After a few more queries Andrew stopped him." Let's stop there, we will talk later, right now I want to do something." He stood and motioned for Fise to do the same.

"Fise, I promised you something. I said that I'll help you with your aura, to train it, and I'll do that."

Andrew walked a bit away from their camp and activated his aura. He then stood still as an aura punch flew out from his aura and snapped a thin tree in half.

"In the fight with the scout, you could have used aura punches. You wouldn't have had to get closer to him and end up getting on the edge of the bridge and then riddled with bullets. Aura punches are very useful for trying to get opponents further away. Also, they can be used as extra damage. In a barrage, you can only punch so much and deal so much damage, with aura punches you can double or even triple your damage. Come here, activate your aura."

.....

"Sir, we got him." said a woman with short, black hair to a muscular man with a clean cut.

"Good. Finally, he is back that dumbass. Bring him to me."

The woman left the room. The man turned around his chair to face away from the door, looking at the computer screen in front of him with all the work he had done, mostly reading and signing documents along with writing reports. He heard footsteps at the door and began to speak.

"Hello, Ben. You took your time returning to the outpost, didn't you? I hope you didn't think of abandoning the group, we may have to cut your pay depending on how you did." he joked. He knew Ben was the second strongest physically in their group. He said all that as a small joke, knowing that Ben was completely fine.

"Now-"

He started to turn the chair around when he heard footsteps come towards him and stopped. He was halfway turned and saw the woman come up to the desk, placing something on it. She held her hand there for a moment before taking it away and looking at her leader. "I brought Ben, sir." her tone was steady and her face was calm but her hands were curled up in a fist so right it could crush steel.

Silence.

The leader stood and picked up the object. It was something similar to a dog tag, but with no chain, B. Conner written on it, a half panther and leaf at the bottom, the Forest Panther's symbol. He looked at it for a long moment before tightening his fist. The metal bent as the man's aura began to wildly burn around him. He kept his hand tightened as he calmly turned to the woman.

"Did he do this?"

"Most likely. However, sir, we did find something strange."

"What?"

"The area around the site seemed to have had a fight in it, with crushed and exploded cars. These may be explained by both their powers. But what I find weird is that there are melee attack traces, such as holes in the concrete and bent railings, which our target wouldn't leave as he would have already got Ben if he was in range. From what we recovered it looks like there was another person that did this, not our target. But then Gareth checked the orphanage and it seemed that our target was not there, he must have left. There are no tracks of passage anywhere along the river, but the bridge. We concluded that there must be another person with him, most likely another aura user."

The man sighed. 'This is more complicated now. I need to get to Incip. We can't stay here, I need to talk to the boss personally. That reminds me...'

"Did you get them?"

"Yes sir, me and Gareth went in the morning to get one. His level is: IC."

"Good. I'll take him. Tonight I'll be going to Incip with him. You will go and take care of him and his friend, take Gareth with you."

"Got it, sir."

"Now excuse me, " He slammed his tightened fist down onto the desk and a sharp sound echoed. "But I'll go get ready."

He left the room and the woman looked at the desk. A sharp spike was impaled into it, some letters on the side spelling out B. Conner. She grabbed it and pulled it out as she activated her aura. 'Gareth would stay out of this, he wasn't the smartest. I'll make him stay up the road, knowing him he'll probably tell them our abilities before we fight and talk during our fighting.'

...

An hour passed as Fise tried to throw a single aura punch and failed. He could form one but couldn't make it fly out. He took a few hours to be able to form one and the last hour trying to make it fly out. Andrew gave him a tip.

"Move the aura punch to your fist, then punch with it and at the same time push the punch out."

He walked forward and threw a punch in front of him, an aura punch flying out and travelling passed Fise's target tree and into one of the trees behind, snapping it in half, making it land next to other snapped trees which were broken during examples.

"Your turn."

Fise concentrated, closing his eyes. He felt his aura around him, focusing it on his right hand. He readied his fist and punched out. Nothing happened.

"You need to concentrate on the punch the whole time. Start to punch slowly and then work your way to faster punches, so then you can concentrate on the faster punches. Sorry, it's hard to explain, I'm not a very good teacher."

Fise partly agreed; Andrew was great at teaching history. He concentrated on his hand again and got ready to punch, this time slowly pushing his arm out. The extra aura around his hand seemed to get weaker but didn't dissipate. He did it again and this time it seemed stronger. He did it again. And again. He started to slowly speed up. When he got to the point where he could complete a punch in a second, his aura started to get weak again so he had to repeat it at the same speed again and again. He slowly worked his way up in speed until he reached a normal punching speed for a normal human.

He readied his fist and looked at the tree. That annoyingly no-damaged tree. He concentrated and punched. This time, something came out. A blob of Fise's aura. It flew towards the tree, getting slower, smaller and weaker as it got closer, before dissipating half a meter away from the target. He smiled, seeing his progress and got back to practising.

...

The man travelled through the forest slowly, a child about 12 years old behind him.

"W-where are we going sir?" he stuttered.

"To Incip." The man replied to the boy, turning around to look at him. Seeing his confusion he clarified: "A city not far away. Had lots of people, and it's going to be your new home."

"I-it's going to b-be my home?"

"I just said that, yes."

"The whole city?" he didn't stutter this time.

They walked through the forest, away from the stale bunker hidden deep in it. They could see overgrown grass of the neglected far fields. Soon, they started to walk through them.

"What's your name, boy?"

"I-I don't really have a n-name."

"Really? Did they not name you?"

"No, t-the orpha-orphanage doesn't name children."

"But I know some got names."

"They rem-remember their old n-names."

"Then what about those children who don't remember, how do they get names?"

"Well, th-they get some from their frie-frie-friends."

"Then why do you not have a name?"

"I-I. Don't have any frie-frie-friends." He said silently. The grass ended and they could see a cracked road. Walking towards it the child asked: "Si-sir? What is your name?"

The man looked down at him and continued walking.

"My name is Andrei Hunting."

The boy looked up at him.

"C-can you name me? Your name s-sounds so cool!"

"Okay boy. Let's see... how about Joshua?"

The boy thought for a moment then looked back at him.

"Yes! Thank you!" The man nodded and beckoned him to keep going.

'So my name is Joshua. Joshua Hunting."

...

Fise kept training. He would concentrate on his fist and punch, again and again. He finally reached his normal punching speed. But he kept on doing it, again and again, to make 100% sure he could do this. Eventually, he felt ready. He turned to Andrew and saw him stand with his back to a tree, the ground under him dry.

"Andrew, I think I can do it! Watch this."

"Will do-"

Fise concentrated on his hand, the sun above close to the horizon. Was it already getting close to 6 pm? Doesn't matter. He drew his fist back and looked at that tree. That tree. The one he had been struggling to splinter it in half and see it fall as it creaked out in agonising pain.

'Why do I hate this tree? It's just a tree, but I want to punch it so bad!'

He concentrated fully on his fist and began to punch. In a split second, it was done, and the aura punch flew out. It quickly travelled through the air. 3 meters. 2 meters. 1 meter. Half a meter- and it hit.

The wood tore as it contacted, expanding out and tearing it up even more. Leaves fell and the tree croaked. Fise hadn't managed to smash it in half, only splintering it enough that he was sure it was going to fall. But then he saw something on the side of the splintered area. A small black flame.

'Andrew? Why would he try to help me? Out of pity? No! I need to try again.'

Fise began to turn around to face Andrew,

"Andrew why did you-" he stopped as he saw, from where Andrew was before, an arm with black fire burning at the fingers sticking out of the ground. Fise stared at it bewildered before it quickly began to sink.

"ANDREW!"

Fise jumped forward trying to catch it but only caught dirt.