Evil in you

Supreme Power

Antii had never felt better in his life. Even when he was a much younger man he had never felt so exhilarated. Divine power flowed from the suit and into his body, surging energy making every fibre of his being quiver with readiness. His mind filled with holy belligerence and images of the brutality he might – and should – inflict. He knew what he was capable of. He could picture how fast he would be able to clear the house. He knew how to manipulate and use the intangible energy of retribution now lying coiled and waiting in his arms. It came to Antii easily and without him even having to try.

He wasn't to know that he was exactly the sort of person the Razem 5/7 had been designed for in the first place. The feelings and new, unexpected knowledge he was enjoying experiencing had very little to do with divine providence and a lot to do with the fact that, back in the good old days, just about any yokel who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time had been shanghaied and crammed into one of those suits. They were designed to take just about anyone and – with minimally invasive neural imprinting and chemical encouragement – turn them into what would hopefully be a semi-effective weapon. Cheap, mass-produced and nowhere near as impressive as some of the more high-end stuff they had used to rub shoulders with. Way back when, the number of these things that had been sent charging off across battlefields only to get mown down in droves was almost beyond counting. Now, here, there was just one, and Antii was wearing it.

The suit was what was telling his brain how to use it, and the drugs it was pumping through his body were what was making him feel so giggly giddy. His heart hadn't beat so fast in years. It probably would have given out, if it weren't for the suit keeping it so tightly regulated. Heart attacks were not a useful thing for disposable shock-troopers to have. His whole body trembled as a hastily synthesized concoction surged into him. He felt sixty years younger, not to mention completely invincible.

A sensor ping automatically went out from the suit and informed Antii that there were multiple targets closing in on the outside of his Lord's damaged house. Likely they had been drawn in the by the sounds of gunfire from what had been – they thought – a pacified location and also the subsequent silence of their comrades who had been there. This idea came easily to Antii, who had never thought anything like it before in his life. Likewise, his course of action was obvious and instinctual; bracing himself on the balcony he launched forward at breakneck speed. An impulse from the suit's Kinetic Manipulation Unit fired him from standing like a missile, a burst of energy accelerating him and the suit from nothing to an awful lot in no time at all. It switched outputs a split-second later to form a cone of intangible force ahead of him as he punched clean through the exterior wall in an explosion of ancient brickwork.

Those persons who had been converging on the house – heavily armed to a man – were not expecting this. As far as they were all aware their work here had been done. The reports from the house had been fairly clear cut the last they heard: target down, moderate collateral damage, hostages secured and no losses. That something should go wrong now when most of them had been halfway back to the staging point was not a good sign. Certainly, none of them expected the very thing they had picked the time of the attack specifically to avoid to come bursting out of the wall at them.

Antii turned through the air with far more grace than he thought himself capable of, landing perfectly a good forty or fifty feet away from the house and literally on top of one especially unlucky man who had just enough time to give a surprised squeak before he was folded up like a card-table beneath the considerable weight of the suit. The sound was unpleasant, brought what had been the cautious advance back to the house to an immediate halt. A second or so passed, and then all hell broke loose.

The forces gathered for the attack hadn't been the most organized group in the first place. They had been hastily drawn together, quickly armed and speedily given a crash-course in tactics and teamwork. This had worked wonders against an unprepared and defenseless house. It performed less admirably when everyone panicked. Crossfire was immediate, and so were the casualties. As they were arranged in a rough circle around Antii - some closer than others - when everyone started firing, the only target they all had in common apart from the suit was each other.

Those closest to Antii died first, and it had nothing to do with anything he did. When he started moving, a lot more of them started dying, and a lot more quickly. Whole human beings burst as solid but invisible walls of kinetic force hit them like freight trains. Bodies fell in screaming pieces as blades of air slashed through as if they weren't even there. Antii moved in a blur, kicks and spurts from the Kinetic Manipulation Module jolting him around faster than most could follow. What fire did hit him did nothing. His armour was proof against heathen weapons. He was invulnerable.

Antii was barely even conscious of what he was doing. His body moved with a will of its own. Ideas from somewhere else filled his mind and translated into actions formerly unthinkable. It felt as though something other than himself was guiding his actions. Something greater than him. His whole body sang with joy, his muscles trembling. He laughed. He couldn't stop laughing even as the blood vapourzied from his visor and enemies turned to mist before him. This must have been what it felt like to be an instrument of divine will. Antii couldn't believe it. It was bliss.

Then something hit him. It came from nowhere. He had been standing still for almost a whole second when his world went white. Everything turned to static and he felt himself tumbling through the air, alarms and warnings from suit blaring in his ears and brain.  A fresh cocktail of exciting drugs surged into his body to counteract the shock and the pain and his vision popped back. He was a fair distance away, on his back, in rubble. Righting himself was easy, legs swinging out and a quick burst of power to boost him back up onto his feet. Then he saw it.

Standing there, surrounded by more heathens - who were quite wisely cowering at a safe distance behind it - was another suit. A bigger suit. Where his Lord's suit was a slick and slim and divine, this other suit was blocky and bulky. A juggernaut. it bristled with weapons. A stout, smoking barrel jutted from one shoulder, clearly responsible for where Antii had ended up. The new suit held a slab of a shield and hunkered down behind it, other hand raising a multi-barreled cannon into which Antii could hear rounds already loading.

"You think you're the only one who can dig up one of these suits? How long did you think you'd have a monopoly on that sort of thing? Well you're fucked now. Do you have any idea how many of those things my model tore through back in the day? No? I'll give you an idea," the heathen suit said, voice booming from loud-hailers built into the breastplate.

But Antii wasn't listening. He had spotted something behind the heathen suit. With tear-streaked and soot-caked faces, he had spotted the Lord's children. Captive, bound, bloodied. Held at gunpoint by heathens. The sight made his blood boil. He trembled. It was unacceptable. It was an affront. It was another blasphemy in a day of the blackest sacrilege. It would not pass unpunished. Divine retribution was unstoppable. A price had to be paid.

Antii would see to that. He was merely a vessel now. Something greater would come through him.

None of them would be left alive.