--donation bonus (day #29, post 1/5)--
Fire engulfed Hanjir, along with a shock wave that knocked him and his still-connected reaper higher into the air. Roman flew up after them, giving the opponent no chance to regain his balance, and juggling him even higher with each successive blast of soul-empowered vibrations. The flames continued burning all the while, fighting with Hanjir’s rapid regeneration, but ultimately doing more damage to the reaper, who then chose to abandon Hanjir and fly away. And once Roman had achieved great enough height, he let the Abolisher drop again.
Hanjir was in freefall for only a few seconds, but that was plenty of time to reach terminal velocity. As he grew close to the ground, he shot it with his power, which made a crater and was perhaps the only thing the man could think to do in the last moments of panic. His body splattered on impact, bones shattering, organs liquefying.
Roman was already busy chasing the reaper down.
‘No!’ The soul-empowered fire had taken its toll, leaving the black crow smoldering, ethereal feathers in tatters. ‘You fuckers! How dare you!’ The reaper tried to flee underground.
Roman did not allow it. He caught the bird with a pressurized, soul-empowered cage. And crushed it.
The reaper’s body evaporated and vanished entirely.
‘Fucking idiot,’ said Voreese. ‘Good riddance.’
He flew back to Hanjir’s crater to set the dead body ablaze and crush the head with a focused shock wave. “That’s one down,” he said as he landed again.
‘Check on the soldiers real quick,’ said Voreese.
He made his way over to the plane. Only a few of the men had left the cabin, the rest watching from window seats. The first soldier he approached shied away from him, but the second stood his ground.
“Are you guys okay?” Roman asked.
For a moment, the uniformed man merely returned a hard look. He was black and quite young. “You... saved us?”
Roman decided not to smile, figuring it might come across as more insane than comforting, especially after all these men had been through. “Yeah.”
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Those poor soldiers. Hope nothing tragic happens in the next couple of pages! *crosses fingers* XD
ReplyDelete"fighting with his Hanjir’s rapid"
ReplyDeleteTypo alert!
"doing more damage to reaper"
THE reaper, presumably?
Fixed, thanks.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who feels kinda sorta bad about this?
ReplyDeleteI know Hanjir was with Abolish and did terrible things and would have done even more, but... the fight was really one-sided, Hanjir never even stood a chance... killing him just seems... unnecessary...
Roman should have at least given him the chance to surrender. Given that Hanjir was with Abolish, he probably would have insulted Roman instead of surrendering, but it's the thought that counts here...
I might be mistaken, but after Geoffrey and Stoker, this is the only killing done by one of the heroes. Geoffrey's death felt justified since... well, he was an aberration and probably couldn't stop killing even if he tried. Additionally, the fight between him and Hector was evenly matched and Hector HAD to kill him in order to survive. The arguments are basically the same for Stoker: After going full-on zombie, he couldn't be restrained otherwise.
But this fight... Roman was, apparently, not in any kind of danger from Hanjir. Killing someone in battle might be considered necessary, but Hanjir didn't stand a chance... Why not try talking to him? And from Stoker and Nize, we KNOW that Abolishers can be reformed...
And yes, Roman isn't as clear-cut a hero as Hector. He's very probably killed before. I wonder how Hector's going to cope with such a situation.
Well they won't appreciate you condemning them like that.
ReplyDeleteHanjir was a tool of the reaper. Hanjir could have surrendered as much as he wanted, if his reaper disagreed then he/she could've just released him to true death.
ReplyDeleteIt was kill or be killed. The only other option would've been if Roman could have subdued him and taken his head, which would have probably resulted in Hanjir being released.
Plus if Roman had stopped for a second or been any slower dodging, Hanjir could have seriously injured him and possibly even Voreese. It looks a little bad that Roman so outclassed Hanjir, but I don't think that killing him was so unnecessary. And he really only killed Hanjir because he killed his reaper, otherwise he could have been regenerated and killing an Abolish reaper who took a company of soldiers hostage to themselves is okay in my book.
Haaaa, true. Oh well!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on an intellectual level, but I can't help feeling bad about this.
ReplyDeleteI guess what bothers me most is that in this conflict, there is no
possibility of non-lethal punishment. It's basically impossible to
incarcerate a servant, so you can't build a jail for them. Taking their
head isn't really the same.
Taking this idea further, there isn't even any kind of law that regulates punishment. I suppose killing another servant in combat in what amounts to self-defense is justified. But if you could subdue them, they should be put on trial and punished for their crimes.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I still feel that Abolish must have a point somehow even though we don't know about it yet. They can't be just a bunch of homicidal maniacs who love killing. There has to be more, otherwise they'd be pretty shallow, one-dimensional villains. So in my interpretation, Abolish does have a justification for everything. Maybe insane, maybe twisted, but still a belief that goes beyond "we just like killing". Maybe they just truly believe that humanity isn't worth saving and war is the natural state of things.
I'm probably overthinking this again.
The thing is, in real life, there are lots of evil folks who just plain like killing. Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gracy, for example. Looking at political movements, Nazism and Communism piled up huge body counts (Communism more than Nazism, and still ongoing) on the flimsiest of excuses.
ReplyDeleteSo while some kind of well-thought out justification might be nice dramatically, that might actually derogate from a certain element of realism.
Score one for the good guys. Lol when Roman launched Hanjir into the air, I screamed "Air Juggle!!!"
ReplyDelete"So in my interpretation, Abolish does have a justification for everything. Maybe insane, maybe twisted, but still a belief that goes beyond 'we just like killing'."
ReplyDeleteThat's not "your interpretation", that's canon. The introduction of Abolish was Garovel telling us they want to genocide all humans to be free of their existence as reapers. We've also gotten some religious stuff about the Void. Sure, there are probably sadistic monsters in there who do it for the kicks, but mostly it's a war of faith and ideology.
You have to remember that the people who created Abolish? They're reapers. The psychos we see are servants that were specifically chosen BECAUSE they're psychos, and thus it's easier to convince them that spreading death and misery is a good idea.