He gazed at her back, his captain, or ex-captain. He didn’t know who she was anymore, communicating through the comms, back to her role for the time being.
There was still darkness, but the backup power kicked in for communications, and she was back to her role for the time being, or had to be. He didn’t know why her sister was here. Why did she suddenly attack him? He was sure he had covered his face, covered his tracks. But in one simple second, she was there, right at his throat.
He gripped his hand, which was still shaking. It seemed the adrenaline was gone for now, and now he was back to reality, his knuckles groaning in pain, the same hand he used to punch her.
100 points, on strength, and it was still not enough...
[STR: 134 > 234 (+100)]
I hope this much is enough. I need those points.
He thought, as he shook off her right hand, bandaging it tightly.
"You said she was your sister?" Ethan asked.
Karisa had already given her last orders, pausing the comms for the time being. "Yes," she answered, her words plain but cold, turning to him. "I know what you must be thinking, why would I say such words."
Ethan looked at her eyes, her spicy eyes, and couldn’t help but look down, which gave Karisa enough of an answer, and she sighed.
"Look, Ethan. I’m not going to explain my shitty family drama. I’m not going to tell you the whole story of why me, her own blood, wants to kill her. I’ll only tell you this: the mission demands it. The revolution demands it," she said, coming closer to Ethan, her hand on his chin.
She forced him to look at her eye to eye. His own reflection was clear in her crimson eyes. as clear as her determination.
A pause.
A few seconds later, he only nodded, scoffing her hand away. "I get it. I’ll follow your lead for now, but how do you plan on killing that... thing?" he said, showing his bandaged hand.
"By using me..." she said. "I called her here precisely for that."
"You called her here?!" a voice echoed from afar.
Both of them turned; it was Marcus. He had found his way back. "You called the Hound? What in god’s name is wrong with you!" he bellowed.
Slap!
Karisa simply slapped him on the cheek, with enough force that Marcus was knocked to the ground, then and there.
"Keep it quiet, dumbass," she hurled.
Marcus felt it, the burning sensation, looking at Ethan as if he were being bullied. Ethan only scoffed, his gesture showing that Marcus deserved it and more.
"Rebellion, huh..." Marcus said, gradually standing up, his hand on his cheek. "If the Hound is here, the rebellion is dead before it even began."
"You say that like all hope is lost."
Marcus started clicking on his wrist, as if searching for a name on the screen, and pulled it up like a hologram for him to see.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Olivia Kin Athena
Code Name: The Hound
Race: Half Human
Affiliation: Roman Empire
Division: Rogue Division
Rank: Centurion III
Level: 43 (Dangerous)
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ATTRIBUTES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
All stats Classified 🔒
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SPECIALIZATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Imperial Swordsmanship]
[Enhanced Tracking]
[Predator’s Instinct]
[Bloodline Awakening] (Partial)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TITLE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Hound
Athena’s Daughter
Lady of War
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
KILL COUNT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Beasts: 145
High-level Beasts: 3
Opposition forces: 140,093
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ethan gazed at the status bar, his blue eyes opening wide. In all his days, he had never seen someone so high level. He had thought the peak of the peak was around thirty, having seen highly regarded retired soldiers at that level. But here she was, at her prime, and with that much level.
"...How?"
"Yes, that’s who you were up against, buddy. Get mad. You were lucky you even survived that encounter."
"You little shit, that’s why you ran away, before I could tell you to run and spread out," Ethan scoffed.
"It wasn’t just me, Ethan. Your precious captain was gone before I was. That was the cue I needed."
Ethan looked at the captain, but she avoided his eyes altogether, the same eyes that had said, with clarity, that they needed to kill her. He felt his nerves go cold just seeing those nasty high levels, not to mention that kill count.
Ethan took another breath after seeing that information, then paused there, staying quiet for a few seconds.
So they needed to kill her.
Kill.
A nearly simple, four-letter word. Ethan had heard it plenty of times, kill the beast, kill the enemy captain, kill that criminal, but he had never heard "kill my sister." Now, it seemed, he had heard everything.
He turned to Karisa. "So... how are we killing her?"
"Ethan!" Marcus shouted.
"What?"
"Did you see the kill count? Did you see her level? There’s no one here who can damage her skin, let alone any weap—" he complained.
"We have a weapon," Karisa said.
Marcus turned to her. "Huh? What did you say?"
"I said we have a weapon that can damage her," she replied, her words as firm as her steps, as she walked toward Ethan. "And you will use it to kill her for good."
Ethan didn’t nod, didn’t say yes. He only sighed once more, but he also didn’t say no.
Outside the barrack, outside the building, Olivia gradually stood up from the ashes, dust, and debris. The chief and the mages ran toward her. One of the mages floated toward the smoke, toward her.
"My lady, are you oka—"
Boom!
The mage was thrown back by the debris before she finally came into view. "Never touch me... again," she said.
The mage, now on the ground, nodded as he stood up; the two still floating also nodded, taking it not as a warning, but as a lesson.
Olivia coughed again, still feeling that punch humming in her chest. It had been a while, a very long while, since she’d felt such pain. It was a sensation she’d missed.
"Blue eyes..." she muttered.
The old man, the chief, walked forward. "What...?"
"He has blue eyes, not brown. I was given the wrong information about his strength and his features."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Shut up," she announced, gesturing to one of her mages, who floated toward her, chanting words no human could comprehend. A green light encased Olivia, her breathing turning normal and her rough voice returning to its original tone.
"I need a full survey of everything in this sector."
"What! What gives you the right t—?" Barry asked.
"I smell it," she interjected. "I smell bullshit here. I was wondering why those geezers sent me here, no, it was you. You wanted me here."
The old man remained silent for a few seconds, adjusting his tie. "Me? Call you? Have you finally lost your mind? Why would I call you, who has given me nothing but headaches since the day you sat in my lecture!"
Olivia smiled. "Indeed. Fond memories, I suppose."
The three mages, and everyone else, were already surrounding the facilities, their tongues chanting once more.
"Ha, not you then. Your eyes still can’t lie to me. Maybe someone else, then. No matter who it might be, I don’t care, but what I do care about is that this sector will be mine, for the time being."
"Like I told you, you don’t have the righ—"
She took out a handwritten paper, not a hologram document, but a real paper document with a real signature.
"You see this? That’s a signature signed by a..."
"...Demigod," the old man, Barry, replied.
"You can still see, how reassuring. So you know how much power I have. For this mission, until I take out..." she said, reading the name, "...this guy, Ethan, and take revenge for scarring my chest, I’m not leaving."
The old man backed away a bit, confused himself, not knowing what was truly happening.
Karisa? What lengths did you go to...
He thought, but shut those words away then and there. There was a pause, a submissive pause.
"Okay, then. But this is still my jurisdiction. I can’t have my leadership questioned."
"Ha! Like I care about controlling this stinking sector. The only thing I care about is my mission and my sister. Now, where is she? I want her in my new bedroom. Pronto."
The old man sighed, not saying much after. He simply rolled up his sleeve and sent the message to Karisa.
She’s here now. Everything relies on you now. Best of luck.
Sent!