Equilibrium Fan Fiction by Coolhand This Lonely Tumult (part 1)  Part One | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Part Two   Part One. The Redemption.     The physical shock of having his forearm blown off had made the man pass out instantly. Now he’d recovered and was staring at the shattered limb with horror, groaning in pain and dismay. Partridge and Mary stood over him, looking down. Partridge wasn’t sure what he felt. Before now, in his countless combat engagement, he’d never felt anything when confronted with injury, be it injury he had inflicted or otherwise. But now... He’d done that. The agony and distress on the man’s face was a result of what Partridge had done. There had been no choice. The man before him would have killed Mary, or taken her hostage to hand over to the TetraGrammaton. Maybe done worse before she left his company. Save your sympathy. He isn’t worth it. But I still feel. Why? "Where’s Jurgen." he asked, ensuring that his voice held none of the turmoil he felt. "You-took-my-arm!" hissed the man through gritted teeth. "Do you want to keep the other one?" Partridge racked the pump on his shotgun and pointed at the remaining limb. "Ok, ok. Largo’s got them all in the old Financial Admin building. Four blocks from here." "I know it." said Mary. "How many guards?" asked Partridge." "Twenty. No more." "Armed?" "Yeah." the man dragged in an agonized breath. "Well armed. They‘re being held in the basement. Ah, man that hurts!" "Do they know about me?" "Yeah. Largo knew we were stalkin’ a Cleric. That’s why he sent so many men." "That’s all I need." said Partridge. Paused. Turned to look at Mary. He knew what he had to do. But for some reason, he didn’t want to do it. His eyes held the question, and she saw it. "If he lives," she said, "he can take the TetraGrammaton right to us. The risk is too great." Partridge nodded, gritting his teeth. He shouldn’t have hesitated. Why did he? Because…I wish this wasn’t necessary. Why? "No!" screamed the man, and Partridge pointed the PA-04 and fired. They walked through rubble, keeping as low a profile as they could. Partridge was outwardly calm, but inside he felt racked and storm-tossed by emotions he didn’t expect to be feeling. He kept seeing the blood, seeing his bullets tear gaping holes through bodies that felt and breathed, could laugh and cry. Each impact struck home with such force he almost flinched. "Errol?" Mary voice. Concerned, soft. "Errol, are you ok?" It must have been apparent in his face. "I’m….uncertain." he paused, then said. "I did what needed to be done. Back in the ruins. There was no choice. But I still feel…unsettled." "You don’t like killing, do you?" "I’ve never had to like or dislike it. It was always simply an act. It was the same as lifting a cup, or driving a car. I had no reaction to it. Until now" "You were never really human until now." she replied. She put a hand on his shoulder, and said. "When you’ve truly tasted life, tasted what it is to really feel, you realize what you take away from someone when you kill them. That’s what it means to be human. And even when you have no choice but to take a life, you should always do so with regret." "Have you killed?" he asked. She looked down at the floor and nodded. "Once." she said. "I still have nightmares, but I’m glad to have them because it means the Prozium no longer numbs my soul." "Will I have nightmares?" "Yes." she said with gentle honesty. "I’ve killed so many times, and I can remember each one." he whispered. "I was trained to remember combat engagements with crystal clarity. When the nightmares come, how do I deal with them?" "Bear them with pride." Her hands slipped to his arm, gripped it with conviction "They are a symbol of your freedom." He looked at her and nodded. And then he remembered the words of Father, heard echoing across Libria's gray Spartan courtyards, a statement regarding the sacrifice of emotional sensation. At the cost of the dizzying highs of human emotion, we have suppressed its abysmal lows. Abysmal lows. He felt them now, every time his mind recalled a skull sheared in half by a bullet that had leapt from his own hand. Dizzying highs. Did he feel those? "We must go." said Mary. "We don’t have much time." She squeezed his arm, then set off over the deserted, run down streets. Dizzying highs… He looked up at the sky for a second, drank in its cloudy-blue radience, then set off after the woman he’d once been intending to incinerate. The admin building was a long, drab rectangle of concrete that sat in a courtyard filled with rubble and decay. Four stories high, still mostly intact. Two guards on the doorway. Armed with old AK-74 assault rifles. Obsolete and out-of-date weapons from a nation long gone. But still deadly in the right hands. Within the building lay Jurgen and the future of the resistance. Within lay twenty armed men who were going to try and sell that future for riches. What happened next could sway the future of Libria, and Partridge knew it. Crouched behind a ruined wall, he and Mary over looked the situation. "Do you have a plan?" she asked. "I know the way that my training dictates I proceed." said Partridge. "But a great number of lives would be lost in the process." He turned his head to face her. "I want to be better than my training. If I can be." "You think you can sneak them out?" "No. But I think I can talk them out." The guards saw him approaching early on, raising their rifles nervously at the figure who wore the long, buttoned tunic-coat of a Grammaton Cleric. He didn’t flinch, just kept walking until he was six feet away. He made sure his face was cold, ice-like. The face of the TetraGrammaton. "I am here to speak with Largo." he said, fixing the guard on his left his a stare that could cut steel. The guard glanced nervously at his partner, obviously wondering if he could hit the Cleric with his first few shots, or if the trigger pull would be the last thing he ever did. "About what?" snarled the other guard, edgy but with an ego to defend. "You have several key members of the resistance with you. They are to be taken into the custody of the TetraGrammaton effective immediately." The guards exchanged glances. "I’ll go." said one "No, I’ll go." said the other. Partridge felt a wave of smugness. They’re terrified of me. And then he felt shame. Terrified because I represent death that has no compassion, or remorse. Because I stand here as a killer, not a man. "I said I’ll go!" said the first and bolted for the door, leaving the other to stare at Partridge with obvious apprehension. Four minuets later, the guard returned "Largo’ll see you." he said. Partridge nodded. "Of course he will." He walked up the stairs to the front door, gave each of the guards a look calculated to put off any thoughts of resistance, and stepped through the doors. The lobby of the building was unimpressive when compared to the monoliths of Libria, but it still loomed large around the Cleric. A sparse shell that may have once held furniture or decorative art. At the far end, a staircase climbed steeply to a second floor that stretched off into the far reaches of the building. But the lobby was far from empty. Partridge was surrounded by people. Dressed in the same style as those he’d wiped out in the Nethers. Their eyes had the same look as their ill-fated comrades, and Partridge realized now what it was. Self-Obsession. The Cleric were without empathy, without hate or ego. These people around him were also without empathy, but were consumed by self. Pleasure taking, they would squeezing gratification out of life until life itself bled. In Mary’s eyes he saw a love of life and it‘s joys, but also a love of other people. She felt their pain, she’d sensed his own emotional turmoil as if she’d been a trained Cleric. Others mattered to her. Others were just resources to the people stood around him. He found them repellent, yet he still he didn’t want them to die. There were indeed twenty in total. Most of them stood with him on the ground floor of the lobby. Three stood midway up the stairs, tougher and more muscular than the rest. One stood at the top, behind the three. He was tall, well built, with a short, roughly trimmed goatee and an aquiline nose. Black hair was tied back in ponytail. "Welcome Cleric." he said. His voice was smooth, perfectly modulated. "I, as you no doubt have guessed, am Largo." Partridge walked to the center of the lobby, mid-way between the stairs and the exit. He didn’t want this to turn into bloodshed, but was strategically moving himself to an optimal Gun-Kata location. Just in case. "I am Grammaton Errol Partridge." he replied, tone that of the detached, cool Cleric. Everything in his manner warned that he was the highest hunter on the food chain, and that people ignored that at their peril. It again brought the twin waves of satisfaction and shame. "And what do you want of me?" "I encountered a squad of your men in the Nethers. Before they died, they informed me that you have in your custody individuals wanted for Sedition and Sense-offence. You will turn them over to me." Largo grinned, crossed his arms over his chest. "And what incentive do you have to offer me, Cleric Partridge?" "The TetraGrammaton have agreed to allow you and your followers to remain in the Nethers, unharmed for now, if the prisoners are released without incident." "And if we should refuse?" "Then I am authorized to perform a summery execution on you all for Sense-Offence." Largo nodded and stroked his beard for a few moments, as if considering the proposal. But Partridge knew it was a sham. Something else was going on. "Do you know I used to be a Sweeper?" said Largo at length? "Before I came off the Prozium. I worked in one of the elite teams attached to the Clerics. You boys are very impressive with guns. Unbeatable I’d say. Of course, that’s the point, isn’t it? Now, we’ve always known we might have Cleric’s calling here, and that if they did it would be foolish for men like us to take you on in a straight, full-on gunfight. So I thought long and hard, and I dug through our weapons cache and, well, look around the walls Cleric." Partridge did so. They were small but he saw them. Decibel sensitive explosives. So that’s it. "Yes, you see them, don’t you Cleric. You fire a gun in here, and the building comes down. I know you don’t fear death, but Prozium doesn’t dull survival instincts. No Gun-Kata, my friend. Those autopistols will have to stay inside your sleeves if you want to stay in one piece. You’ve lost your edge, Cleric. Oh, I know you’ve trained in unarmed combat as well but there are twenty of us and one of you. And you’re effectively unarmed. So why don’t you turn around and go back they way you came? By the time you come back with more men, we’ll be long gone, along with our weapons, EC-10 and prisoners." "Unacceptable." Said Partridge. Largo grinned and waved a goodbye at him. Partridge heard the rasp of steel as blades were drawn around him, lengths of chain clinked, clubs and poles clicked against the concrete floor. His heard sank. He’d never known such disappointment before. Why? Why must it be this way? "Last chance Cleric. Leave or we’ll cut you apart piece by piece." And Partridge felt his mind clear as his body and his brain relaxed into the mindset of the Gun-Kata. This mental state of mind permeated all Cleric combat styles, even the unarmed forms. His bitter disappointment faded away, his sadness dissolved in a tide of calm focus. Every detail was now being taken in, processed and analyzed to give him a maximum tactical advantage. He mind was now just a guidance system for a weapon. And the weapon was a Cleric. His right hand brushed inside his coat, brought out the short metal bar he’d taken from the trunk of his car, his body flowing into a fighting stance, legs slightly bent, the mini-pole in one hand, arm stretched out in front, the other arm pulled back behind, palm open. A wave of laugher echoed off the walls. "Call that a weapon?" sneered someone. And they charged. And Partridge pressed in just the right place, and with a brutal hiss-clank the bar shot open, telescoping out to a full 1.25 meters of fighting short-staff known as a Jo. Some of the charging men slowed down with a double-take. Most didn’t, and the swept up against Partridge like waves against a cliff. They’d thought they were safe in numbers, but they had overlooked one vital fact. Twenty men cannot attack one man all at once. There just isn’t room. The physical space around one person is only really enough for three or four other attackers. And three against one were odds that Partridge was trained to beat. All he had to do to beat the twenty was concentrate on fighting three or four at a time. They had thought they would have a swift victory. But they met a curtain of spinning metal that brought nothing but pain and death. Partridge twisted and spun, slammed the tip of his Jo into the throat of one man, crushing it. Ducked under a length of chain that scythed overhead, whipped the staff around and shattered the knee of the chainman, spun back, cracked a skull then returned to the chainman and smashed his vertebrae with a blow to the neck. The air rang thick with an autofire rhythm of metal-to-metal and metal-to-flesh contact. Partridge was a blur of motion, defending a circle around his body, the Jo whirling through the air like a rotor blade, sweeping away all who got within range, bodies thumping to the floor like rain. His mind tracked the fact some of the men attacking him now had a weapon in each hand, doubling the threats he had to track and neutralize. He needed to tip the odds. Partway through a move, he brought the Jo up over his head, hands in the center. Twisted. And with a click, the staff came apart in the middle. And he brought each section down onto separate opponents with a crack. Now he was fighting with twin sticks, doubling his ability to attack and defend. He spun like a vortex, arms pumping, smashing bones and pulping flesh. More bodies fell. Move lives ended, And the waves no longer crashed against the cliff. They were still. Calm. Partridge stood alone, surrounded by the fallen, body in a finish position, one stick in the air horizontal above his head, the other straight down parallel with his leg He looked up at the three men on the stairs. Locked the Jo sections back together, collapsed it and put it back in his coat. Started to walk up the stairs towards them. "Go if you want too." he said. The three men pulled long serrated knives from their belts and charged. Seconds later, three bodies bounced down the stairs, broken and limp. None of them were Partridge. At the top of the stairs, Largo regarded him with a cold stare. "It's over." said Partridge. "Walk away." Largo just raised his eyebrows, then turned his head slowly to one side to show Partridge the left side of his neck. Attached to it was a small square of plastic, held in place by a contact adhesive. "See this?" he said. "It's a biorhythm transmitter, and it's linked to the explosives on those walls." he jerked a finger at the decibel sensitive explosive. "Call it an insurance policy. If my biorhythms stop transmitting, then we all get to find out if there's a God." He grinned. "In other words, you can't touch me Cleric. I, on the other hand, can most certainly touch you." He drew an ugly looking combat knife from behind his back. "So if I kill you, we all die." said Partridge. "Got it in one." hissed Largo and lunged, arm carving a brutal arc intended to rip out the Cleric’s throat. Partridge blocked and grabbed the arm, snapped it like a twig, slammed a couple of kneecap shattering kicks into both legs then grabbed his other arm and exploded the elbow joint across his knee. "You didn’t think that one through very well." he said as he stepped over the still alive but immobile and howling Largo. Next >>> more Equilibrium Fan Fiction