Compassion

.5

Compassion

“Poppa, poppa”

The young girl giggled as she nudged her sleeping father.

“I know you are fake sleeping I can tell the difference.”

She continued to nudge, her blue eyes filled with youth and excitement.

Mathis smiled as Cici let out another childish laugh.

“See I told you; I knew you were fake sleeping.”

“Settle down Cici you got me, I don’t want you messing up your hair after your mother spent all that time doing it.”

he said, calming down his over-excited daughter.

“You remember what today is right, Poppa?”

“Umm Roothal?”

“No! Stop being silly poppa.”

“Ah, I know grandpa has a dentist appointment.”

“No! What's a dentist?”

He couldn’t help but laugh and smile as he watched his daughter get visibly upset, thinking he forgot what day it was.

“It’s your birthday Cici.”

The expression on her face instantly changed and that beautiful smile he had fallen in love with showed itself once again.

“Yes! I knew you wouldn’t forget.”

The child grew excited again bouncing on the bed and giggling her childish laugh.

***

Her laughter echoing faded to the back of his mind, returning from his daydream, Mathis watched on through his HUD as Alpha was getting double teamed by the two targets. The mech, who was being pressed, dodged as the tamer swung a sturdy branch at it. The branch splintered and broke apart upon contact with a nearby tree. Sending vibrations running up her left arm and through the rest of her body. chucking the remains at the mech, she stepped back creating some spacing between the two. Alpha was caught off guard by Taima who came flying in with a shoulder thrust. Forcing the mech’s attention back to the wildcat. It wrapped one of its arms around the head of its attacker and the other grabbed hold of the wildcat’s front leg. Even with the amount of force Taima applied with his tackle the Mech countered it with a quick burst from its thrusters. Repositioning its feet, Alpha slowly absorbed Taima’s attack and tightened its hold around the wild beast’s head. Autumn interfered, conserving the essence she had, she channeled and focused Taima’s essence to increase his power. Using the already established connection between the two she used Taima’s essence like her own.

This was something new, and to her surprise it seemed to be working. The muscles on Taima’s hind legs became bigger. Pushing against the ground driving the mech back. The sudden rush took the mech off its feet. finding itself pinned between a tree and Taima before long. Under pressure it attempted to push off Taima, but its hydraulic systems started to fail. Hot oil began to punctuate through its hosing. Taima let out a fierce roar as hot oil burned away at his flush. He was relentless, ignoring the burning sensation and held the mech in position. Long enough for Autumn, who was sprinting at full speed toward her partner a giant rock in her hand. Jumping into the air and landing on Taima’s shoulders she drove down full force with the giant rock into Alpha’s lens repeatedly. After several strikes Alpha’s inner wiring started to become exposed. With yet another vicious blow, she planted the rock firmly in the mechs head. Standing up straight and with one swift and powerful stomp from her sandal Autumn delivered the final blow. Pressing the rock firmly in the mech’s skull destroying its CPU.

There was no time to take in their victory, the sound of gunfire echoed through the surrounding trees. Autumn lost her footing on top of Taima as the wildcat fell over. Landing on her feet, she rushed to Taima’s side to aid her friend and partner. But suppression fire from Mathis stopped her in her tracks. Removing herself from the line of fire, she ducked in and out the cover of the trees. As random bursts of gunfire continued to sound off, she slid down a slope to another level of the jungle. Stopping at the edge of the slope the man looked down for a moment before he himself slid down the rough terrain. The landing was not a soft one, with Autumn making her move as he landed. She swung at her target with a left hook. Landing a strike across his face as he tried to regain his footing. Cracking his visor and disrupting his helmet’s feed she sent the man crashing to the ground. Her face contorted into a grimace as she snatched Mathis’ rifle with both hands tossing it in a random direction. She took off running into the thick of the jungle, not turning back once.

Recalling her time soaring above the trees, Autumn escaped in the direction of the southern shore of the island. Retaining her sense of direction after her fall, Autumn was confident that she was moving in the right direction. Tears streamed down her face, not because of the pain from her injuries but for the pain she felt leaving Taima and the giant bird for dead as she evaded the man pursuing her. By this time Mathis regained his footing, tapping at the screen on his wrist and within moments his helmet disappeared. He wasted no time, looking for his rifle and drew his sidearm. He went to take the safety off, but he hesitated. He didn’t know what he was feeling, all his years of training, he knew he was holding back. Everything he ever wanted was right before him, all the lost time with his family and friends. Everything was going to be worth it once he got promoted and out of field work for good. So why now, he had killed men and watched men die, Why now was the hardened soldier questioning his motivations? Holding back when he had options to end the situation quickly despite losing his mech and drone.

“Does the end justify the means?”

He questioned himself as he surveyed his surroundings. Without his visor he had to track her down the old way and started looking for footprints from the girl's sandals or any other disruptions in the ground. Following a possible lead, he went off in search of the high value target. Autumn was beginning to experience fatigue due to a combination of low stamina, and her injuries. plotting her next course of action, she planned to lose him in the jungle leaving him to fend for himself. This was her best option in her current condition. Copying her chaser’s action Autumn slid behind a tree and remained still.

Easing her breathing, Autumn peeked out from her cover and watch as the man, sidearm at the ready looked around for traces of her trail. Observing his behavior closely from the cover of the tree she could tell he was trying to track her. She had to navigate differently and cover her tracks since the soldier seemed to know what he was doing. She waited patiently as Mathis passed by her location a distance away before picking up a rock and throwing it through some bushes to draw his attention and misdirect him. Taking the bait, he quickly pointed his sidearm in the direction of the sound. Was it the girl? Or another beast at her disposal? He had to take that into consideration as he moved forward toward the sound, finally clicking off the safety on his weapon.

Using the opening she created; Autumn left him behind and continued toward the southern shore. She only got a couple of paces away from her spot behind the tree before a Stick was thrown hitting the back of Autumn’s leg buckling it and sending her tumbling toward the ground. Mathis wasn’t fooled by the child’s little trick and found her attempts amusing. She scrambled to her feet and started to run off looking back once at the man. His face showing a demeanor of pure focus as he too started to run and chase after her. This man had to be strong, she thought to herself as the tingling sensation in her leg disappeared and it regained stability. To be able to throw that stick that far and with that much force to take her leg from under her was something to behold. Mathis pressed onward after his target, his expression empty.

***

“How can they order you to attend something like that? Come on Cyrus you know how much this means to her.”

“It won’t take long I promise we just have to push lunch with your parents back to dinner. We can take her to that place she been asking about for some time now.”

“Thats beside the point, you are on leave you put this time in months ago for this week.”

“Honey, you know that it doesn’t work like that I'm in the military. If they give me an order, I need to do what I’m told simple as that.”

He grew silent for a moment before he spoke again.

“They are trying to make an example of him. Everyone that ever served for or with him must be there for it. Anne...”

Another moment of silence as he thought of the words to say to his wife to help explain the gravity of the situation, Cici listening to the conversation from beyond the walls of the master bedroom. Even when he had the words, it was hard for him to utter them. His eyes watering up at what he was about to say.

“Even...even his family, they are saying he even killed his own family.”

Her face dropped at the revelation she said no words; there were none she could possibly say to comfort this man. She understood what that man meant to him and the impact he had on his life.

“I want to be here with you and Cici, your parents too. But this is something that I must do, I hope you can understand. It all doesn’t make any sense to me how such a good man could do something so evil and for what.”

exhaling a deep breath and smiling at her husband she placed her soft hands on his face wiping away his cascading tears

“Just promise me that you will be there for dinner. Not for me, but for your daughter. How many more times will I have to cover your ass when you put work before her.”

He tried to interject, but she had this way of looking at him when she wanted, needed him to listen.

“She is getting older Mathis she won’t be your little girl for long. Soon she will be too busy with school and making friends to spend time with either of us. So, it's important you take that into consideration. Times like these are not given and shouldn’t be taken for granted. I love you; your daughter loves you and I don’t know about my parents, but we can work on that.”

“I’ve been working on that since the day I first met them.”

He joked, playing into her attempts to lighten the mood.

“Your hard work and sacrifice don’t go unnoticed; I know what you give up making sure we both have everything we need and could possibly want.”

***

Memories kept flashing through his mind as he psyched himself up. He had lost sight of the girl once again while closing the distance between the two. Keeping his wits about him the soldier jumped over tree growth and cut around trees following the general direction that Autumn was moving. Mathis finally got a line of sight on the girl, He tried to calm himself down and ease his breathing. Raising his sidearm up and he readied himself to take a shot.

Out of nowhere the wounded Taima returned to the fight and leaped at Mathis and lashed out with a furious swipe. The soldier wasn’t caught off guard this time, instead out maneuvered the relentless beast and fired off three shots. The wildcat barely dodged the three shots, swiftly dashing into the cover of the foliage. Mathis regaining his posture, looked at the ground and could tell that the wildcat was losing a good amount of blood and was pushing itself past its limits. But he couldn’t figure why it was so protective of this child. keeping his sidearm at the ready he stepped back from the bushes that Taima disappeared into wanting to keep the beast in front of him. In the background Autumn rejoiced in seeing Taima was still alive. When suddenly, a cold chill ran down her spine. Looking down at her shoulder, she witnessed the long arm of a beast transform and camouflaged itself with Autumn’s skin tones. Recognizing the beast, Autumn came up with a brilliant plan to put down the soldier for good.

Now Mathis was starting to panic. Was hesitation going to get him killed, second guessing himself got him nowhere at this stage in the battle. The wildcat was the main issue, even wounded like it was he couldn’t take his attention away from it. But he also couldn’t let the girl escape. He had no choice but to take action to take down the wildcat first, his biggest threat at this time. With a quick burst of speed he took off in the direction he originally saw Autumn dart off into and waited for the wildcat to strike again. It wasn't long Taima jumped with all its might from a tree down toward the man bearing its fangs. The rustling of leaves and the snapping of branches clued Mathis in on the location of the cat above him. As it pounced, he Readied his firearm to fire off the remaining bullets into Taima. When out of nowhere Autumn, using the powerful tongue of the Beast chameleon, launched herself out of the giant reptile's mouth at Mathis. Focusing essence into her legs she delivered a devastating blow to the side of Mathis’ leg. breaking it with ease. Screaming in pain, Mathis dropped his gun and collapsed under the weight of Taima landing on him, pinning him to the ground. Getting to her feet she kicked Mathis’ gun far outside his reach. Mathis turned his head away from the snarling wildcat on top of him to look in Autumn’s direction.

Autumn looking in his direction as their eyes met for the first time. He looked away in shame while she looked away unsure of what she should do next.

“Why doesn’t this beast rip me apart already? This giant cat, the bird I shot down earlier how are you controlling these beasts?”

He looked at the wildcat dead in its eyes as he waited for her answer. Taking deep breaths, she paused for a moment before speaking

“it's something that can’t be easily explained.”

She gave him a short answer; he laughed and looked back at her seemingly accepting his fate at the hands of this mere child.

“The girl you're looking for was taken to a ship off the coast of the island. Good luck getting on the ship though, maybe one of your friends can help you with that.”

He joked disregarding the intense pain shooting up his leg. Taima unpinned the man from the ground and moved himself next to Autumn. Who grabbed hold of the man and helped reposition him against a nearby tree. He couldn’t explain it but, at that moment, he had been overcome by an overwhelming sense of comfort.

“Why are you helping me now, after everything?”
She looked down at the defeated man as she stood up. Mathis grinned slightly, he didn’t know why so he gave her the first thing that came to mind.

“Your eyes, they remind me of my daughter’s. as well it’s important that you protect the people that you cherish. Now I have a question for you. Why am I still alive?”

“Because it’s important to show compassion even to the ones that do us harm.”