"All right, worms, from this day forward, you will have no name. No family. No life. You will only be referred to by your Unit Identification Numbers. Do I make myself clear?!"
The soldiers shouted in unison. "Sir, yes, sir!"
The Sargeant glared at the young cadets, resting his eyes on one in particular. His face gave a certain emotion of confidence or power, probably both.
"You! What are you looking at?!"
"Sir! Nothing, sir!"
"Then you must be looking in a mirror, maggot, because you are nothing! You no longer bear this name-" the Sargeant ripped off the tag and tossed it into the mud, leaving only the number below it. "- but instead, you will be referred to by you ID number! What is your name, boy?!"
"Sir! I have none, sir!"
"What are you going to be called now?!"
"SDF Unit 303, sir!"
"Excuse me?!"
"SIR, SDF Unit 303, SIR!"
"You have a problem with authority, runt. I'll make sure to rectify that problem by the end of the night! Give me fifty push ups, NOW!! The rest of you worms, listen carefully. In the course of action, you will be required to resort to melee combat instead of gunplay..........."
Sometimes unwanted memories surface as the soldier tries to remember his training. His posture is only good for the first blow in a self defense match. He will have to go on the offensive immediately after. He shifts his left foot so that it braces against the wall.
The Green Coin rushes forward, throwing his left fist against the soldier's out-stretched arm and bouncing off aimlessly, while his right hand is parried when the soldier kicks up his right foot and catches the Token square in the stomache. Staggered, the Token steps back, then whips around in a round-hosue kick. The soldier wraps his arms around the Token's leg, and spins him onto the floor. He stands over the Token, poised to kick in his head, when the Green Coin suddenly kicks up his legs again, straight into the soldier's chin and nose, in a spiral that puts him in a handstand. Spinning around, he whips his feet into the soldier's face over and over, until he falls back.
They both stand and face each other. The soldier kicks out his left foot, and the Token parries with his right foot, and strikes out his left arm, sweeping it across the soldier's chest. Trying to catch his balance, he throws his right arm at the Token's face. The Green Coin catches it with his free hand, and effortlessly spins it about. The bones in the wrist make a loud popping sound as it breaks, and the soldier flips through the air.
He falls on an old table, breaking it in a cloud of dust and falling further onto the floor. Blood gushes from his nose and into his mouth. It's warm.....and yet so cold.....so.........cold....
"What are you doing?! Get off of him!"
"I'm doing what I shoulda done a long time ago, Marien! This brat is the reason we're unhappy! This is the only way!"
"Killing him won't solve anything! Please, Charlie, your'e drunk! Put the gun down!"
"I want a happy life, Marien! This kid is sapping our lives away, can't ya feel it? We're broke as hell! He's a demon, he is, and I'll d*** well make sure he goes back to whence he came!"
The six year old boy sat frozen in the corner by the great statue of his father with a shot gun pointed at his heart. The man reeked of alcohol, his normally rugged facial hair a tangle of spindly hairs. His eyes were blood-red from heavy drinking, and his hands could both easily crush a mastiff's neck.
His mother had soft, auburn hair. Her face was narrow, and her ribs would show when she breathed too deeply, a sign of lack of eating. She gave what little food she had to her little boy.
She jumped on the mountainous man's back and scratched at his eyes. The two parents fell in a mass of flailing punches and kicks aimed at nothing. The boy couldn't stop watching, fear freezing him in place, preventing him from speaking.
A shot pierced the sky.
The lumbering hulk rolls away from the bloody corpse of his one true love. Cursing, the man turned and headed out the back door, as police sirens grew in the distance. Transfixed by the sight of his mother's life just draining away in the middle of the floor, the boy stared at the spot in absolute horror. The earliest memories he would ever have are of his father's cruel face and the death of his mother, caused by a simple drunken dispute. The husband was never apprehended, and the child sent away to a military orphanage, without even a thought about a psychiatric hospital trip.
Sometimes, late at night, the boy would have a nightmarish flashback of that fated night, even as he endured his stay at a military academy, in the cold, cold rain. The cold....yet warm.....so.....warm.....
The soldier coughs up blood onto the floor. He can't move his legs. He's paralyzed temporarily from the black-out. Reaching out blindly, he grabs a handful of dust, and turns to fling it at the Token. He stops, and stares at the face of familiar man. The world blackens out, leaving just him and the lumbering hulk poised with a sniper rifle at his heart.
He throws the dust in the Token's eyes. It rubs furiously at its eyes, dropping the rifle. The soldier hollers in rage and rushes the token.
Block. Parry. Parry. Block. Attack. Military training a simple reflex action. The Token, still blinded by dust, kicks out his left foot. The soldier blocks it with his right leg, and brings up his left knee into the Token's stomache. As it doubles over in pain, he brings up his right hand, balled tightly into a fist, and smashes into its nose. The sound of bones breaking is lost in the bellow of rage as the man begins pulverising the Token's face. Punch after punch after punch, he continues until after its face is nothing but a bloody mask of splintered bones...and keeps punching. Blow, after blow, after blow. The left eye explodes under pressure, and a mass of bloody eye-gore splashes about. Snot flows as freely as blood from the remains of the nose. He tears his hands on the few remaining teeth in its mouth as he punches into the back of the throat.
Ellalira pops her head out of the hole in the floor.
"Ice Man, come on, we don't have time for....this...."
"He killed her. He killed her and they wouldn't arrest him. Blamed it on me. All on me. You know you killed her, you b******!! **** you, and burn in hell!"
"Ice Man!!!"
He snaps out of his trance. Looking down, he spies his bloody knuckles. The bones in his hands are also broken, on the face of the now-dead Exile. Before the woman in the exit tunnel opening can say anything, he picks up his rifle and dashes down into the hole. He pauses and turns back to stare at the scene he leaves behind. A group of Tokens with bullets in them, and one Green Coin without a face. This would not go under the list of successful operations. He turns back and starts climbing down the steep decline into the vast exit tunnels for emergency maneuvers.
A pair of black crows hop into the room through the open door, and begin picking at the remainder of the Green Coin's left eye.
