Arc 2 Chapter 7

I enter the tent, silence follows me. In the all encompassing silence I take a seat. Minutes pass, nobody dares to break the silence. Is their fear so deep? My conviction to not spread my teachings further grows with every second. If they can't even accept their ally, how should they accept a part of their own population with powers such as mine, how could I know that those with power won't misuse it and cause the distrust to grow. If we could simply teach everyone at the same time it wouldn't be such a huge problem. But that is physically impossible. We are to few, to do that. Should we wait? Wait for a more accepting and stable time?

Or should we deny them the knowledge? And just create our own nation. Either way we will have to end this conflict first. We need to either redeem or eliminate the fanatics. I hope that dealing with their leaders will make it possible to reintegrate them into the existing communities.

I break the silence. “How many died?” This question of mine awakens them from their trance and dumbfounds most of them. The monster they saw in me spoke its first words. And all it was interested in was how many of its allies died. They excepted anything but that gloomy question. They excepted an arrogant speech or a claim for land fuelled by the greed for might, even a invitation for celebration over this bloodbath would be easier to understand. But all his thoughts and curiosity were dedicated on their dead. The being they saw ripping people to shreds and showering the surroundings in blood, the demon of war they unleashed on the battlefield only wants to mourn their dead. Could it really be that they don't want to fight? Even though they have almost godlike powers?

“Not one.” David finally replied. “At least we have protected some lives.” I say while releasing the tension that has build in me in the battle, “What should be our next steps?”. Another sentence that alienates him from the other councilmen. At least they saved some lives? Didn't they loose nobody? Who could he want to save beyond that? How could it be more perfect than defeating ones enemy without loosing a single man to them? The longer they know Oliver the farther away from them he seems to be. Not only power wise, even his nature becomes more and more incomprehensible for them.

“We should chase them. Following their current course they most likely flee towards the old and their new capital. As far as we know they won't get too many reinforcements there, but their fortifications are rather troubling. Yet we can't simply try to catch them before they arrive there. We aren't faster than them and we will have to look out for traps and ambushes.” David replies. “Then we should prepare to march in an appropriate distance behind them. We still have some siege weapons and if push comes to shove I will find a way to break their defences.” I say, “I will take most of my people with me, only those who wish to stay will march with your group, the rest will be in my group, with their family.” With these words I leave the tent. Not one wants to stay with them, the gazes they get from the normal soldiers make them uncomfortable.

We don't need to walk for long until our family is partially reunited, only those that stay in the mountains aren't here. The group that stayed behind the enemy's lines had decided to catch up to us after they saw them flee. We leave the stench and the battlefield behind us and walk towards a forest. In a clearance that is large enough for our needs we set up our camp and begin to talk. We talk about the idiotic bloodshed, home, the people we left behind and so much more.

The following day we begin our march. Our group keeps itself separated from the main army, they don't understand our ways and we won't force them to understand them. Actually there are more and more persons that voice the opinion that maybe we shouldn't share them with the wide mass at all. More and more wonder what this power could do in the hands of those, that don't have our training, that strengthens the character and the moral of our people. We don't see our power as a burden, nor do we see just as a convenient thing to have, something that gives us opportunities we never had before. We learn to see it as a responsibility. They were entrusted with it by me and their other teachers. They were chosen by the community and weren't chased away and they learned of the value of life. We never take them lightly, but sometimes it is the only way.

Our newest addition Charlie, the man I possessed and whose name I had to learn from himself, its strange how sometimes one doesn't uses names at all, is finally fit enough to walk around. We won't teach him yet, he still has some things to learn and he has to reassess his values. Something most of us had to do before they were taught. Once I freely shared my knowledge, but when our might grew more and more, we changed this, we deemed it too dangerous for ourselves to teach possible troublemakers. It seems likely that we will come to a similar conclusion regarding humanity. We deny the masses our teachings to protect them from themselves. Maybe we could find a way to deal with the only reason they could force us to share our knowledge. The soulless. A global solution to get rid of them. That isn't an easy task.

We march for over a month, there aren't enough vehicles for everyone and we don't want to split our forces, the supply line has most of the bigger vehicles and thankfully they never got raided. All the forces of New Eden and even the inhabitants of the settlements seem to flee towards the capital. What a crowded mess it must be right now. The reason for the lack of vehicles is simply the lack of people that know how to repair or build them. And even if we had the plans for them, we lack the knowledge to produce the parts for it. We lack a lot of specialized people. In our community before the apocalypse it was common that one only learned a single field in depth and the others were taught in a superficial way. This concept hurts us greatly now. We will need hundreds of years to regain the lost knowledge and the hastened decomposing of dead wood and other organic materials makes it even worse. Sure with our abilities we can copy a lot of things, but that doesn't mean we understand them.

Finally we see the capital in the distance. The whole place is swarming with refugees and soldiers. Most of them aren't behind the fortifications, they just don't fit into them. I hope they don't plan to swarm us once again and only use those that they can actually arm. They lost a lot of equipment in the last fight though. It even surprised me that they managed to not starve on their way back. I guess they got supplies in the settlements they passed. Our forces once again look puny compared to theirs. Some might think now “Then why did you let them flee at all?”. Well there exist multiple reasons, for one a sudden turn around and ambush would have been devastating, we only did so good in the prior battle because we carefully planned it and choose the location. They had only one direction to attack us, which made our shields or manipulators insuperable. Of course an undying demon that broke their tides played a big role too. Overall we won flawlessly because they were fools, fools that anticipated an easy and quick victory.

What should we do now? Bombard the city and slaughter civilians? Attack and meaninglessly shed the blood of the innocent? No. We came here to end the conflict. There must be another way than extermination. To start on this way we will have to pull out the root of the problem. The elites and of course their leader. Foremost we need more information. Is it possible to convince the masses? How deep is their belief? David was easily convinced. Can we be successfully convert others in a similar way? I hope so. Too much blood is on my hands already, I do not wish for more.

We discuss what we should do now, the opinions differ greatly, but we all come to one conclusion, a battle on their grounds, or even in their city is something we have to avoid at all costs. We would be annihilated. The empty sky scrapers and ruins are perfect for the defending side. We would pay a heavy toll for each step we take into the city. We can't besiege them effectively. We are too few to cover the area around the city, to interrupt the delivery of food, although we can diminish them by patrolling. But that is risky, since we would have to split our forces. At least we can deny them their fields around the city.

We begin to fortify our camp. If they attack again they will have to overcome multiple pits and slopes, manipulators are great in moving big masses of dirt, although I would like to see their talents used for agriculture instead of warfare. In just one day our five thousand people create a huge fort. The walls are build out of the materials we collected from the houses of the suburb and lots of dirt. To block bullets mass is the most important factor. Although a steel plate can block a bullet, it will bend with every hit. A hill of dirt just absorbs them and it doesn't need as much repair. On the contrary with every bullet its density rises. We have a lot of room to spare, so we don't need compact solutions.

Strangely there weren't any aggressive movements from our enemies. They remain in their city. No scouts. No tries to surround us or to interrupt our building operations. They don't seem to care that we are here. Do they plan to play for time? Do they have a trump card? Once again we lack informations. We need to change that. I will change it. My appearance has to change for that though. Too many know my face, the face of the person that personalizes their every fear. The bringer of death and insanity bathed in blood. A living storm of death. It would be strange if they couldn't recognize me.

I prepare my allies for my leave and discuss some scenarios and how I would react to them. Then I return to my tent and begin to eat and change. I deform my face and give it a feminine hunch, my body too has to change, Although I will still be male per definition I will look like a woman for everybody. It is the most efficient and hardest to uncover disguise. The demon they know is male. Now even if they check my whole body I will appear female, Although my innards aren't. The adjustments to my voice are rather difficult but with some help and references from my people I get it to a natural level.

After one day I finished and change my clothes, leaving my armour behind. All that is left is to sneak in. That shouldn't be too hard, since they still accept refugees. Although they check them completely. But as far as I and David know is their only way to 'identify' a demon through 'the disfigurements they have as marks from the devil'. They won't find them, because there aren't any, at none of us.