3 Decisiveness: Part 1

"Damn, I didn't expect such a heavy guard. Rather, I didn't expect a single soldier to be in this part of the ship. They're really careful regarding things like these. Nevertheless, I didn't expect things to go my way from the start either." Leonid muttered to himself, sitting behind a couple of barrels. He was pinned down by an unexpected patrol strolling around the stairs that led down to the lower deck.

Leonid was brainstorming ways to get around this situation when an irritating stench hit his nose. He quickly looked over inside the barrels to find them filled with a greenish black liquid. He was taken aback by the sudden smell and hit his head on the wall. A hollow sound followed which alerted one of the guards, who began pointing out the same to the others deep in conversation.

"Probably came from the prison wards. Those idiots have been pretty riled up these days when one of ours let it slip that we have the Templar Commander on board with us. Anyway, check this mark 3! One of the engineer had a couple of these prototypes distributed today. Let me demonstrate."

The soldiers walked over to the side of a wall and clenched his fists which lit up the gauntlet and smacked the wall with it. Instead of cracking the wall, the gauntlet lit up parts of the wall which then cracked.

"This one was harvested from a particularly interesting native. You see, if you strike someone fully clad in armor, they might not sustain much damage. This gauntlet doesn't directly deal damage; instead its energy spreads over the entity it struck and damages at the weak points. The gift was particularly difficult to deal with but the screams of that lady when we harvested her gift made up for it. Once these are in the production phase, the war will be catalyzed in our favor much further. I'm already sick of this world."

Leonid heard the entire thing and clenched his fists. This war was taking lives they weren't even aware of on the battlefield and they can't even avenge those. All of a sudden, the familiar stench, the hollow sound coalesced in his mind into a way out of this mess. The plan wasn't foolproof and required a gamble to be made. Leonid looked up at the walls and found what he was hoping to see, the fire suppression systems.

"Alright, the timing's going to be tricky. And if the gamble fails, the entire plan is probably jeopardized. But this is the only way I can think of!" He turned his left hand towards the nozzle and rested his right on the wall next to him. He conjured up some energy in his palm, the smoke from which rose to the suppressor, activating the familiar loud noise. In the same instant he blasted a hole in the wall, rolled through the hole and blasted a second hole in the ground. Now Leonid hung from the hole in the ground as one of the guards came up to the fire suppressor system to check for potential fires.

"I keep telling these fools to change the volume on that stupid thing. It's like our ship is telling the entire planet that there's a fire here. Tch .Seems like a faulty trip. "

He then clicked a few buttons on his Cestus.

"Hey we have a faulty alarm system in Grid 4-B. Send someone to turn this shit off or Imma silence it myself. Wha-"

The soldier had just noticed the giant hole in the wall and the ground and a couple of fingers sticking out from the latter. He brought out his blade and carefully trudged towards it but let his guard down at the last moment, hoping it to be one of his own.

Leonid pulled himself up from the hole and grabbed his face.

"Din själ är min."

Blue wisps flew from Leonid's wrist into his eyes, turning them blue. With his soul corrupted, he soldier simply walked back out of the hole and stood in front of the barrels, unmoving.

"Hey what's wrong? You suddenly went silent. Something up? I'm gonna call for additional security just in case."

As he was about to do the same, the soldier snapped out of his stupor,his eyes returning to their original color.

"Wha-What? No need for that. Instead, I have something fascinating to show you. Come here for a sec."

The grid chief paused for a moment but followed the others. As soon as they reached him, he started laughing out loud, holding up a timed bomb in his hand. Realizing too late whose gift it was, they tried to jump away from him, completely ignoring the barrels of fuel in front of him.

"Erbjud dina liv till herren."

As the dust settled, Leonid climbed out of his hole that he had jumped into once again. Looking around at the fallout from his strategy, he nodded to himself, satisfied. As much as he hated using domination, his gift did serve its purpose when needed.

"Damn. Had the metal been difficult to break, I would've missed my opportunity to match the sound of the alarm with the explosion and they would've realized something was up, thus calling additional security immediately. Not to forget that nobody was present in the room below us, so nobody saw legs sticking out from the ceiling. The barrels of fuel this close to the engine room was to be expected but that wasn't the reason you lot lost."

Leonid trudged over to the nearly dead grid chief who, despite his fatal injuries, was still trying to call for reinforcements. He looked up at Leonid, who was as calm as can be, with eyes full of hatred. He picked up the cestus from a hand (that's all that remained, unfortunately), which had fortunately survived the explosion. Putting it on, he looked directly into the seething eyes of the soldier.

"You had neither the resolve nor the decisiveness of the moment that we have, who fight for our home. Take this to the grave you'll come to loath just as much. "

"Now to hope that they'll take the bait. I got to get to the engine room fast." Leonid ran past the wreckage and down the stairs to the lower levels.

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"Alright people, I'm at the armory. Took a while to get here; had to sneak around a lot. Give me the signal to raise hell when everyone's in position." Ava told everyone through her headset. Having a couple of minutes to kill, she started to play with her emitter when she heard heavy breathing over the headset.

"Damn! I got spotted before I could even reach the upper levels. Fortunately, I had an EMP in hand which shorted their communication gauntlets. They've started running towards others in hopes to relay the intrusion. Ava! They're going to be right above you in a few moments! Have something ready! ETA 2 minutes."

Ava started panicking a little since she had no idea how to assist Haru in such a situation.

"What to do now? I can't take them out with guns blazing; that'll raise an alarm. There's no guarantee I can take all of them even with my gift at the same time."

"Come in, Ava. Where are you? I'm almost at the prison wards; had to deal with a little detour but now I'm back on track. ETA 5 minutes tops."

"Tch. I'm already at the armory but we've run into a problem. Haru was spotted and is now chasing a few soldiers across the damn ship like an idiot. It's only a matter of time before they spot someone else and the entire ship goes into high alert without Leonid is in position. What do I do?"

"Handle the situation. That's what you do best."

Ava simply smiled at the compliment and started walking towards the armory. Suddenly an idea struck her. She sneaked into the room and started to look for company but it would seem that nobody was around at the time. Now relaxed, she began to look around the place quickly. Among weapons, gauntlets and medical supplies, she also found armor and jackets that belonged to the Kridora. She quickly put them on and grabbed a few grenades as she left the room.

"Alright Leonid, raise your energy level. I need to be able to sense you as clearly as sight for this to work."

On cue, she felt not only Leonid's energy but also something else flying in front of him. The Kridora were never careful of the heat their equipment produced. As far as she could tell, there were three paths that branched out from the section they were in. One of them was directly above her while the other two had security guards posted along the way. She had to make sure they fly in this direction. Ava placed her hands on the floor, feeling for the subtle warmth of the fire suppression systems for the floor below her. Then she blasted a hole through the sensor, triggering an alarm and jumped through the same.

"Now to hope they take this bait. Gotta put on my best investigation face."

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--10 MINTUES EARLIER--

"Crap. This is not what I expected I'd have to deal with when I came here. But, when it's come to this, I guess it's time to show you all why I am the commander of the most powerful team on this planet."

Alexio calmly removed his overcoat and touched the actuator on his back, activating the device. Turning his face towards the dozens of Kridora scum who had foolishly decided they could take care of him alone and reap the profits of the kill from the captain.

"Rejoice, you one-trick soldiers. For you'll have the pleasure to be skewered by the commander of the Templar Knights and a Warrior by heart!"