The Awakened World

Part 7: Preparation

Brian's eyes darted around. The forest was quiet, serene even, but he knew that his opponent could strike at any moment. He took a long breath and focused his senses. As expected, he couldn't sense a strong enough presence to locate his foe, but it helped him calm down. Let's be rational about this," he thought to himself. "First things first, I need to minimize the amount of directions I can be attacked from." Brian started to move carefully, all the while observing his surroundings. Soon, he came across a large rock. "Right, if I back against that wall, I'll have a much easier time to discern potential attacks." Soon, Brian had his back against the rock and started to wait. Soon, he could sense a faint presence, however he couldn't gauge the distance nor the direction. Brian readied his defences by creating multiple layers of air shields around him and started to look around to prepare for the attack that was sure to come. However, the attack came from a completely unexpected direction. Before he could do anything, the enormous rock behind him started to levitate and flung forward, hitting Brian. The force off the impact was huge; the rock hit his shields and practically exploded, sending Brian flying in the air. He somehow managed to land on his feet but was too dazed to do anything. The assailant used this to their advantage and started to fling the pieces of the rock towards Brian. The first impacts sent him stumbling backwards, but soon Brian regained his footing and started to manipulate air currents to direct the rocks away from him. The attacker was unfazed by this, and they jumped towards him launching a barrage of unarmed strikes. "This is bad," Brian thought to himself as he struggled to block the incoming strikes, "At this rate, she's going to wear me down, I need to make room for myself." Brian charged all the air amount him and launch it all outwards, creating an explosion centred on himself. His opponent was sent flying but managed to land gracefully. "Alright, I guess you pass," the attacker, Minerva, said in her usual deadpan style as she straightened her jacket. "Though honestly, your way of fighting is still a bit rough. For example, any normal awakened would have been at least knocked out by that rock earlier. Really, the only reason I consider you ready is your frankly unfair amount of power." The woman then checked her watch. "Good timing, too. Let's head for the briefing." Brian looked around: the earth was shattered; multiple trees were cut down and there were pieces of rock everywhere. If there was anything he had learned during his three months of training, it was that a battle between awakened was never very good for the immediate environment.

After a short walk the pair reached a run-down little shack. It looked innocent enough, but in actuality it was an elaborate entrance to the bunker that housed the local resistance. After using the elevator disguised as a fireplace, they soon reached the meeting room-come-briefing room. Brian sat down and looked around. He hadn't heard anything about the operation yet but judging by the fact that only a few resistance members were present it wasn't going to be a very large one. Brian sighed in relief. Even though he had been training hard and was fairly confident in his skills, especially after taking on the most skilled fighter in the resistance minutes earlier, he was still very nervous about the whole thing. Soon Jupiter took the stage. "Alright then, everyone save for Mercury seems to be present. I shall begin explaining the operation." During the time he had spent in the bunker Brian had gained a better understanding of the personalities of the awakened staying therein. As such, he wasn't very surprised to hear that Mercury had skipped the briefing; skipping meetings appeared to be somewhat of a calling card for the laid-back van driver. Apparently Jupiter, the rigid and precise founder of the rebellion, had tried to make him attend, but after a dozen or so times of Mercury being a no-show, he decided to give up and just give him the orders on paper. "We have heard reliable reports that tomorrow the awakened known as "the Benevolent" is going to hold a sermon in a nearby slum," Jupiter said with a stern expression. This lead to murmurs and whispers around the room. Even Brian was familiar with "the Benevolent"; in fact, he was somewhat of a local celebrity. Soon after the awakened had seized control of the entire world, all religions were turned into tools of subjugation. The awakened were painted as "the chosen ones", the ones who were going to save the world; a good and faithful person would listen to the will of God and try to serve the awakened as best as they could. "The Benevolent" was particularly infamous, as he would often humiliate or even execute regular people during his sermons to demoralize the populace. Jupiter raised his hand and soon the murmuring stopped. "I know that you have strong feelings about this target, but I implore you to stay professional". Jupiter paused to scan the audience. Apparently satisfied, he continued: "As I said, he is going to hold a sermon in a nearby slum, most likely to quell any possible dissidents. It's going to go as usual: they're going to gather random citizens from the street for the sermon. This, however, provides us with the opportunity to assassinate him." Suddenly, everyone in the room perked up. It was obvious that the non-awakened members were very keen on the idea.

Two hours later Brian was sitting inside the white van: the logo of the band on the side of the van had been covered with the logo of a generic cleaning firm. Brian shifted his position. The combat gear he was wearing was far from comfortable. Mercury, who sat beside him looked very relaxed and was listening to music, while Brian felt anything but relaxed. Their target was already beginning his sermon inside a church just around the corner. As expected, two armoured cars and a dozen armed members of the militia were guarding the entrance. Inside there were six more, alongside two awakened guards. "So, this is considered a light guard, huh?", Brian thought to himself as he looked at the well-armed escort. Jupiter had said that the guard would be much lighter than usual because the Supreme leader himself was visiting the sector. Brian recounted the plan in his head again. First, the guards outside would be bombed, after which the resistance members who had posed as regular citizens inside would use a flashbang. While everyone was disoriented, Brian, Minerva and Mercury would storm in. The next part filled Brian with trepidation: according to the plan, the non-awakened would take care of the evacuation while Mercury and Minerva would handle the awakened guards. That left Brian with the target himself. When he had heard this, Brian had been surprised. He would be the most important player in his very first operation. During the briefing he had been too shocked to say anything, and after it he had received hopeful looks from every non-awakened resistance member in the room, so he didn't dare to say anything. Even Minerva, the usually stoic warrior, had given him a playful wink.

Brian started to tap his foot nervously. All the confidence he had gained in his faux-battle against Minerva had disappeared long ago, replaced only by anxiousness. Mercury looked at him and removed his earplugs. "Well, aren't you nervous. Look, you have no need to worry, this is a very simple operation and there aren't really that many things that can go wrong." Brian calmed down a bit. During his training sessions he had grown rather fond of Mercury, despite his laid-back attitude and general laziness. Or perhaps it was exactly because of it: Mercury was the only one in the base who smiled all the time and interacting with him was usually very pleasant; you could say that he exuded an aura of calm. "It's quite hard to calm down, since I'm the hero of the show," Brian said and cracked his knuckles. Mercury nodded. "I understand, the first mission is hard for anyone. But you have three months of training behind you and you even have ridiculous amount of power compared to everyone else." Mercury shifted his gaze towards the guards. "The old man clearly likes you, he wouldn't send you to your death. I mean, he even gave you a name that corresponds with your manifestation". Brian's code name was indeed Vulcanus, the god of fire. Brian tilted his head and looked at Mercury, curious. "That's right, actually. My name is tied to my powers, Minerva's is tied to her academic background and Jupiter is Jupiter is due to the fact that he's the leader. Since you're a musician, why aren't you Apollo?" Mercury shook his head. "Well, you know that Jupiter isn't overly fond of me, right? Well I wanted to be Apollo, but he decided it would be funny if I was called Mercury 'coz I drive a van." The expression of displeasure on Mercury's face was so unfitting that Brian chuckled, to which Mercury responded with a snort. Soon Minerva walked up to the car and entered the back, closing the door behind her. "Alright, it's just about showtime. Masks on," she said and then looked into Brian's eyes. "You'll do fine. I'll take care of the guard quickly and join you, so don't worry." She patted him on the shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. "She really is nice, once you get to know her," Brian thought and pulled the baklava over his face. An explosion rang out, followed by gunfire and screams of pain. It was time. The trio burst out of the van and headed for the church.