Genesis | Book One, The Genesis Series

THIRTY-FIVE

The back of Kai's lips bared at his teeth as his shaking fingers clasped around the hilt of his blade. His mind spun as his vision struggled to focus. He was disoriented, caught off guard, but he should've expected it.

Ajax stopped at nothing, so it only made sense that Matthews didn't either.

A seething anger pulsed through his body. He'd barely known Echo before his untimely demise, yet he felt this hole in his gut. No one deserved to die like that. He wanted to mourn. He wanted to exact revenge on Primus for every death they'd caused.

Back at home, he'd always wondered whether or not his father would escape from war alive. For the longest time, his greatest fear had been the faces of two sullen officers at his door.

Oh, how the tables had turned. At the moment, his greatest fear was if he'd and his friends would escape this battle...this war... outside of a body bag.

Death had arrived early for Agent Owens, and it was now on his heels. It was on all of theirs, catching up to them ever-so-slightly. He couldn't sit around feeling sorry for himself or his team. He needed to avenge his fallen teammate at all costs.

They'd successfully made it through this wave of super soldiers, but there were more coming. Each wave would be stronger and more devastating than the last, but he'd make it through it. All of them would.

At least, he hoped they would.

His eyes settled on Elliott. He normally referred to him as Dr. Matthews, because at one point, he'd respected the man. That respect had evaporated into nothing. The man remained in the middle of the battlefield, with that smug face he always wore.

Kai's blood boiled at the sight of it.

Reactivating his bio-shield, he brought his sword up in an offensive position. He was prepared to charge into battle once more. But was so focused on getting his revenge on Elliott, that he'd forgotten who was standing right next to him.

Before the boy could move towards his target, Ajax materialized before him, kicking him in the stomach. He hunched over as a dry cough flew from his lips, accompanied by a few sprinkles of blood.

"Can't get rid of me that easily." The man taunted, swinging his energy-charged blade at the boy's legs. He was obviously intending to sever one of them.

Judging from how his skin had handled the man's energy blade in the past, he figured that letting it touch him a second time wouldn't do him much good.

Operating on impulse, he hopped off of the ground as he found himself flipping sideways in midair. Using the momentum to his advantage, he stuck his leg out as the sole of his foot caught the temple of his opponent. Disoriented, Ajax staggered sideways as Kai landed on his feet.

Attempting to follow up on his surprisingly acrobatic attack with a sword slash, he swung his blade downwards in the direction of a fallen Ajax.

Unfortunately, his blade failed to make contact with the man before he teleported once more. Kai's sword struck the metallic surface, scraping it.

Unable to recover before Ajax materialized beside him, his skin registered a blunt impact across his left cheek. Ajax had struck him across the face with the hilt of his blade once again. This time, however, the weapon's hilt had been charged with energy, leaving a small burn mark along Kai's cheek.

Blood flew from his mouth. He winced a little, but shook it off as he recoiled with a jab from his shield. Ajax infuriatingly teleported, appearing behind him once more. Kai was only able to turn around halfway before Ajax's foot collided with his chest.