105 An Old Friend

"What the fuck did you do?" I ask Steve, who looks like he has seen a ghost.

He quickly blinks, his gaze alternates between the Legionaries and me until it stops on me.

"J-John? Is that really you?" he stutters and almost fall on his ass.

I can't help but grin as I nod, "Indeed!" I say as I raise my thumb and retract my helmet.

"Holy shit..." Steve mutters. "Where have you been? And what is all of-" he waves his hand towards the stationed Legionaries. "What is all of this?"

"I have been busy, to say the least," I reply.

It's kind of an understatement, telling the whole story to Steve might take a few hours, so I don't even bother.

"But you haven't answered my question. What happened to you? Who are these people, and where's Riley?" I ask, but I immediately notice that Steve's expression becomes somber when I mention his brother.

"Don't tell me-" Steve raises his hand.

"No, as far as I know, he isn't dead." The Werewolf answers.

"What do you mean!" I shout as my armor covers my face, "What have you done! I heard that you destroyed your Family, and-"

"SHUT UP!" Steve growls, and I take a step back before raising my hand to stop the Legionaries from turning the members of Steve's group into Swiss cheese.

I crack my neck and take a single step towards the Werewolf, who is glaring at me, "Tell.Me.What.Happened.NOW!"

We both glare at each other. I knew that the furry bastard was always a hothead, but it seems that his time in the Freedom Movement made it even worse.

Of course, I might have put him on edge with my excessive show of force.

But I refuse to even think that I am the one responsible for his shitty attitude.

"You have no idea, right?" Steve says after calming down.

"No idea about what?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Remember your little stunt after you killed Beelzebub?" he asks, and I nod. How could I forget? My declaration of war is what brought the Order to me.

"Well, it had more effects than you anticipated. In fact, it had more effect than any of us would have expected." The Werewolf continues. "To be honest, it was one of the reasons why we started the Freedom Movement in the first place. The way you voiced what a lot of us felt really changed something, and we finally decided to change things."

My jaw drops at the revelation. So my call to arms was heard? And it actually did splinter a Family like I hoped it would?

"Then why didn't you come to me? We could have done so much together." I say. Having a group of ex-Enforcers with me would have been invaluable in the early days. If we played our cards right, we could have prevented the rise of the Stonecrusher Empire.

I click my tongue; there's no point in crying over spilled milk.

"You weren't available. There were no traces of you, not to mention that any information about you was plucked out of the HiddenNet." Steve declares, and I sigh.

"You know I have a barrier that protects against any attempts at spying, right? That's why nobody was able to track me, or those guys, down." I say as I point towards the Legionaries.

"How were we supposed to-"

I interrupt the Werewolf, "It doesn't matter, you weren't really looking for me in the first place, were you? You just needed an excuse to do your own thing. I find it commendable, but tell me what happened to your Family."

Steve grits his teeth, a sign that I told the truth. I then realized how non-scared I am about the whole situation. A couple of months ago the mere sight of a transformed Werewolf almost made me piss my pants. Now I know I can stand to their level, and even whoop their asses.

How times have changed.

The loss of my self-preservation instinct might also be responsible, but that's not the point. I'm no longer the fish out of water that can't do shit; I'm no longer a spectator.

Right now, I'm pretending to be a reincarnated god. This massive bluff gave me the control of the Order Of The First Flame and gave me access to an amount of firepower that I couldn't even imagine.

So no, I'm not going to let the overgrown dog boss me around.

"Now, could you answer my question? Where's Riley and the rest of your Family?" I ask again and add a quick burst of golden aura for good measure. The resulting explosion of energy is laughably weak compared to Phase 2 or Phase 3, but it's enough to make Steve take a few steps back.

"W-What is this power?!" Steve mutters.

"People change. Now tell me what happened to Riley!" I ask with gritted teeth. If I learn that Steve or one of his goons killed him, then I don't know what I'll do.

But I'm sure of one thing; it isn't going to be pretty.

I knew Riley for a longer period, and we had more of a connection compared to Steve. We fought terrible threats together, so I thought it counted for something but apparently not. Riley was the one who warned me of the purge, who explained his mother's plan to me. Steve, on the other hand, didn't do shit.

"So, what happened?" I ask again.

The Werewolf sighs, "What do you think? Isn't it obvious? The ideas of the Freedom Movement quickly spread in the Families, and we got together to strike at the heart of the Wolfheart Family to seize their assets. But things didn't go peacefully." Steve says with clenched fists.

"They resisted, even after I gave them plenty of time to surrender. Things could have gone so much better, so much better..." Steve's voice trails off, and his eyes become empty for a moment. He gets back to reality and cough, "As I was saying, things didn't go well. Alice and the ones still loyal to the Enforcer system fought back, and Riley was one of them."

I clench my fists, "so what happened?"

Steve takes a deep breath. Then another one. His breath soon becomes ragged, and he falls to his knees before looking at his hands. "I fucking killed her, that's what happened! I killed my own mother!"

Holy shit.

I freeze the timeline to process the information; I didn't expect this at all. It's true that I hated Alice for her incompetence and irrationality, but she was still Steve's mother. What could have pushed him to do something of the sort?

"For fuck's sake..." I mutter after regaining my composure, "How?"

"It was the only solution; My mother wouldn't surrender no matter what. It was just like her, prideful to the end..." Steve sighs and gets back up. He seems shaken by the memories that are replaying in front of his eyes.

I can't blame him; it's a burden we all share.

"We stormed the residence and encountered more resistance than we thought, so we fought a bloody battle. Alice came around, and we dueled. I somehow got the upper hand, then Riley intervened. We duked it out, and I won. My mother intervened and saved Riley along with her remaining men, and you can guess the rest." The Werewolf explains.

I feel some tension leave my body, at least Riley is still alive. I don't know where he is, but I hope he's alright.

A heavy silence falls. I want to say something, to reprimand him for committing such an act, but I can't give any lessons.

Who used deception to condemn a bunch of people to a lifetime of war? Who is actively pulling even more people into such a life? Who is killing other species because they are an obstacle to his plans?

That person is me.

On the other hand, Steve 'just' killed his own mother. We are no better than each other, both warped by our ideals to the point where we become able to do anything for our goal.

Fuck, that's depressing.

We DiD nOtHiNg WrOnG.

The voice washes my guilt away. It feels all too comfortable to let it take a tiny amount of control and remove all the unpleasantness from my mind.

I nod, "Anyway, what are you supposed to be doing here? And what's the goal of your Freedom Movement?" I ask. I dread his answers since it could condemn us to fight in the future, and I don't want to do that.

"We were here to attack this base of the Stonecrushers, but our operation fucked up and you saved us just in time." Steve eyes me with suspicion, "The timing is a bit too good if you ask me, but I know that there's no point in asking for your secrets. Especially considering the power you have at your disposal." He makes a wry smile and turns towards his men, who are glaring at the Legionaries.

Steve then turns towards me, "As for the Freedom Movement, our goal is pretty simple. We want to tear down and reform the Enforcer system, to turn it into a single organization with checks and balance to prevent any corruption and avoid the bullshit of the Families. We want to avoid all those useless wars and-"

Images of Krognar's planet come to mind. A world entirely dominated by Enforcers where corruption and bribery is the norm. A world where they have a monopoly on everything and hoard all the wealth and the population is no more than cattle to be used as they see fit.

This hellish vision is what Steve wants. They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and I have a living example in front of me. His vision of a fairer world is just a different version of the tyranny we currently have in place.

"Are you sure about this?" I ask the Werewolf.

"Of course! Do you remember the Scalebound assault? It was motivated by greed and hatred between the Families. In the end, nobody gained anything, and a lot of good men died." Steve says with conviction.

I can only sigh; this is what I wanted to avoid at all cost, to be at odds with my friends.

It is a hard decision, but I will not trade the future of humanity for my friendship.

I take a step back. "Nowadays, I'm known as Prometheus. I'm the leader of the Order Of The First Flame, and our goal is to save humanity from the tyranny of the Enforcers. We want to destroy their monopolies, to spread knowledge to the masses and usher a new golden age of freedom and prosperity."

Steve narrows his eyes, "What are you saying? We can't simply-"

I activate my robes, "Oh YeS, wE cAn!" I raise my hand in the air and shout, "FIRE!"

The thunderous roars of the rifles of the Legionaries cover every other noise. The members of the Freedom Movement are unable to react in time, and they are torn to shreds. A dozen of barriers suddenly appear over Steve, and it protects him from most of the projectiles.

A BirdFolk followed by a group of armored creatures appear just behind the stunned Werewolf. He cast a quick spell that puts my wounded ex-friend to sleep and glares at me before teleporting away.

I Rewind and repeat my order, but this time I raise my pistol towards the Werewolf. However, I can't pull the trigger. Something stops me from doing it, no matter how much the voice shouts.

I can't help but be amused at the irony of the situation. I can kill hundreds of Goblins in a second without batting an eye, but shooting a single Werewolf is beyond my capabilities.

Rewinding doesn't make things easier; it makes it worse.

No matter how hard I try, it's like my finger won't respond to my commands.

I spend twenty minutes in Rewound time before I finally give up, even the voice in my head stopped screaming after a while.

A sigh escapes my mouth, and I Rewind to before I asked Steve about his objectives. There's no point in antagonizing Steve and his group. Even if I could kill them all, the mysterious BirdFolk would have seen us and relayed the information to the Freedom Movement.

"You should go," I say to the Werewolf. "Your mission here is done."

Steve nods, "Okay... We'll be leaving soon. It was good to see you." He says before Shadow Walking away. The rest of his men soon follows the Werewolf, and it doesn't take long before it's only the members of the Order left. I can't help but look at the aftermath of our attack.

In the end, I couldn't kill Steve. I want to think that it was a pragmatic decision to not alienate a guerrilla group that would make our future operations even more difficult, but I would be lying to myself.

The truth is that I couldn't pull the trigger, and I couldn't order the death of someone who was once my friend.

Maybe it would have been easier if I was in a command room where I just had to say one word. But something tells me that I would face the same problems. If only I wasn't aware that Steve would be there.

I take a deep breath; the Freedom Movement isn't a threat. And, from the look of things, their complete lack of organization makes them a non-player in the local power struggle. Instead, my priorities should be the Empire and the Oracle.

Finding Riley would have been nice, but I can't spare the resources for now.

"Who was it?" Mary, who was standing a few feet behind me, approaches me. "It looked like you knew each other."

I nod, "Yes, we did. He once was one of my friends, and we went through many hardships together. But I'm afraid that he's no longer the same person, and his objectives put him at odds with ours."

"I see..." the hybrid looks at me, but I try to ignore her compassion-filled gaze.

My decision is already taken, and I can't go back on my word. I have no time to focus on some wannabe rebels when a god-like existence threatens our entire planet.

"Come on; let's go back to the Shard," I say as I pull out my Portal Gun. The Legionaries all nod in unison and disappear in an instant, Mary's eyes linger on me for longer than necessary, and she finally sinks into a portal.

I turn my head towards the still smoldering crater that once was a Stonecrusher base.

"I'm coming for you," I mutter before teleporting away.

Now, I need to have a chat with Alan and Terrence.

We need to find a way to deal with the Oracle.