CHAPTER
04 - Sniper's Story
"Now is
not the time, Skyva. We have to save the villagers." Jotan told Skyva, who
turned to look into the village.
Jotan was
experienced with such ambush attacks. He had done this before in the past. But
here he was with Skyva, a greenhorn at this kind of thing. Sure Skyva could fight, and he
could use a Flash Bomb well, but that's not going to be enough. Jotan knew Skyva
well, having been friends with him for the past five years. He knew that Skyva was
attracted to one of the girls in the village. And he knew that Skyva
was concerned for her right now.
"It's that
girl you're thinking about, right? I don't know what you like about her,
she's so tomboyish. Don't worry, she'll put up a good fight." Jotan
reassured Skyva.
"That's
what I'm afraid of..." was Skyva's reply. Skyva was right. Knowing Phili,
who was often defiant of authority and can at times be quite fierce, that was
likely to get her killed in this situation. Jotan thought back to the first time
he met Phili...
********
Jotan was a lot
younger and had enjoyed scaling the trees on the hillside. One day, while he was
hidden in the leaves of a large shady tree, he spied a sporty young girl
carrying a ball walk by and sit under the tree. Jotan, ever so mischievous,
decided to drop a rotten fruit onto her head. Big mistake.
Phili shrieked
and yelled in Jotan's direction, "Who the hell did that? You better show
yourself now or you're going to regret it!"
Jotan chuckled.
Feisty girl, she was. But what could she possibly do if she was down there and
he was up here? He pulled back some leaves to see what she was up to. Before
Jotan could react, Phili had tossed her ball into the air and smacked it in his
direction, catching him right in the middle of his forehead. The hit so stunned
Jotan that he fell right out of the tree, landing heavily on the ground. As
her ball fell back to earth, she leapt into the air and spiked it at Jotan,
blasting him right in the groin.
*********
Jotan smirked,
thinking about that day, while he searched the bodies of the soldiers for
magazines. That was one girl he would not forget for a long time to come. He
never did cross her path again, though he often watched her from a distance.
That was how he came to learn that Skyva had feelings for her as well. He never
told Skyva that, and Skyva never found out, because he was always too busy
looking at Phili to notice him.
Stuffing the
retrieved magazines into his pockets, Jotan looked up as he heard a gunshot.
Tim, Phili's husband-to-be was falling to the ground with blood spurting out of
his back.
"Serves
the punk right..." muttered Jotan, "Come on, we gotta go. They're
going to torch the place." Jotan had seen several soldiers setting fire to
various parts of the village. They intended to make sure the entire
community was razed to the ground. It would not be good to get caught in a
firefight in the middle of a raging fire. He turned to leave, but Skyva grabbed
hold of his arm.
"NO! We're
not going to leave like this. We must rescue the villagers."
"Rescue the
villagers? More like rescue Phili," thought Jotan, but he could not say
that to Skyva's face. Instead, he told him, "There's just too many of
them soldiers, Skyva. If we head in there, we're going to end up just like that
kid."
"Even so,
I cannot leave them like this. We must try," Skyva pleaded.
Jotan looked back at the village, watching Phili weep over her loss. Now that Tim was out of the picture, maybe he would stand a chance with her. It would only be him and Skyva in the picture and she sure wasn't betrothed to Skyva. But first she had to be rescued and he was certainly not going into that village. It was a deathtrap, no matter how well he could fight.
"You
try," Jotan said to Skyva as he gripped his weapon, "I'll cover
you."
As Skyva
examined the area, Jotan lay prone on the ground and cocked his weapon. The
soldiers in the village did not know that the two of them were a threat. The
element of surprise was on their side, and Jotan intended to keep it that way.
To do that, he had to time his shots with the other noises in the village, so as
to drown out the sounds of his own shots.
As Jotan
pressed his face to his weapon, lining up his eye with the target-finder. He wondered
how accurate the gun was and decided to test it out. Out of the corner of his
eye, Jotan saw the village haystack collapse and he fired a shot at the guard
next to it. The weapon was dead accurate. Jotan watched as the bullet burrowed
a hole into the brain of the unfortunate soldier. He watched the blood splatter on the ground. He watched the body fall, lifeless
before it hit the ground.
It brought back
so many memories. But now was not the time to recall those thoughts. There would
be plenty of time for that later. Shaking his head to clear his mind, Jotan
concentrated on taking out the soldiers in the outskirts first. That would
reduce the chance of Skyva's presence being detected.
After a while,
Jotan had cleared as many of the soldiers as he dared, without alerting those in
the centre of the village. Where had Skyva gone to now? Jotan scanned the
village and spotted Skyva walking towards five armed soldiers. What the hell was
he thinking? Jotan brought his weapon up and took aim. He had to make this shot
count, or Skyva's life would most likely be forfeited. He watched patiently as
Skyva knocked out two of the guards. But he stared as he saw a blast of ice
erupt from his open palm. How the hell did he do that?
Jotan had
always known from the start that Skyva was not a simple man. Ever since he
imparted some of his martial arts skills to him, he had known that Skyva had
received prior training or was otherwise a natural at it, for he took to combat
so easily. Skyva didn't know, but Jotan had seen him perform some impossible
feats before. Like the time when Phili had her ball stuck in the tree, Skyva had
scaled it with only his feet. He literally ran up the tree to retrieve the toy,
which was something Phili did not see. Then there was the time where he was
eating an apple and he first heard about Phili's betrothal. Jotan had watched in
astonishment as the apple suddenly caught fire and burnt to a crisp in Skyva's
hand.
Jotan saw his
moment had arrived as the last two soldiers put their weapons to Skyva's head.
They were lined up one behind the other. Jotan squeezed the trigger and the
bullet zoomed out of his barrel, burying itself into the cranium of the first
soldier. But because of the short distance between him and the target, the
bullet continued its path out of the head of the first soldier and embedded
itself into the head of the second. Jotan's gamble worked! He had counted on the
power of the weapon and was not disappointed. But that also scared him a little.
What kind of soldiers would use such high-powered weapons to destroy a
small village like this?
Jotan sighed in
relief and put down his weapon. Skyva could easily take care of the last
soldier. But it was not over. Jotan had seen a large machine marching into
the village. Its flamethrowers were spraying a fiery liquid all over and it was
heading right for Phili. Guns would not be able to stop it. Jotan had to be there to save
her.
But there was
no time. Neither Jotan nor Skyva could reach Phili in time to save her. It was
not humanly possible. And what Jotan witnessed was something totally out of this
world. With lightning speed, he saw Skyva rush over to Phili and push her out of
harm's way. This was something that Jotan had to talk to Skyva about if they
survived this.
The machine
crawled over to the two of them and picked them up in its claws. They were
helpless, unless of course Skyva did another superhuman feat, but Jotan could
see that he was not about to do so. It was up to him now. Jotan dashed over as
fast as he could and ambushed the soldier striding over to the machine.
Locking his arms around his head, Jotan ordered the soldier, "If you do not obey me, I will snap your neck! Call it off NOW!" And Jotan shouted to the his friends, "Skyva! Phili! Just hang on!"
(to be continued...)