War is Inevitable

Pantheras heard the door to his office be pushed open. He lifted his head slightly from the book that he was trying to decipher, trying to make it seem like he was still working as he saw who the intruder was. The light from the lamp flickered over the emaciated face of his tired, youngest sibling.. Fever bright blue eyes looked through the dimly lit room and landed on him. The penetrating gaze was far too old to belong to the eyes of a ten year old.

It’s cold.” The voice cut through the shadows. It was devoid of emotion, there was nothing in his tone to indicate that there was any hope left for them. The men knew what they were fighting for, they were able to remember a better time, but Pantheras was unable to make his brother understand that things had been better, that there had been a time when food was plentiful and when the sky could be seen instead of the black haze of smoke and the red dawn of blood and explosions. The boy’s words were a small statement of fact, there was nothing that could be done, no magical warmth that could be granted and he knew it. Yet he needed to go to the General and tell him that they were short on supplies. No one else could order a raid that would be listened to.

It was to the General that he went to. No one else can be the leader. No one else can make everyone listen and stop fighting. He speaks and we forget that our stomachs are rumbling. He looks at us and we see a time that is better. Everyone suffers for a cause…I don’t understand much but I know that there is nothing that can be done without the permission of the General.

He was the leader of their rag tag group of rebels. He knew the inner workings of the Lux, he knew how far the quarantine stretched, and he knew the Vaitash Cure in the most intimate fashion. He knew how to be a leader in their time of war. It was a war that they knew that they could not lose. They weren’t fighting for the general good, but for an idea, for the right to be wrong, for the right to learn from their mistakes instead of recycled as soon as they showed signs of dissention.

The small child slid up to the man that was sitting at the desk. The General cast a formidable shadow in the dying light and the child did his best to step around it, afraid to disturb even that. He stood next to him, his hands clasping together and he waited. Minutes past and there were no sign of recognition, no sign that the General would ever stop his work to look at him. Slowly, he gained enough courage and reached up, lacing his cold hand around a few of the older man’s fingers tugging gently to get his attention. “Brother…it’s very cold.”

The man was the General but he was also a Brother and an uncle. He was leading men into their deaths, or into their potential deaths, yet he was also a family man. One bound by honor and sacrifice. He was scarred from his own capture by the Lux, discarding even his own true last name and developing one that his siblings had taken as well: Lladimieriav.

The man looked down finally when he felt the hand tugging at him. His tired golden eyes took in the child that was holding onto him. He registered the fear and the hopelessness and for once, the normally eloquent man was struck silent. Something inside of him seemed to melt and he twisted his chair around, drawing the child into his arms, pillowing him against the warmth that all Phoenixes of maturity held.“Ah… I’m sorry Constintin.” He whispered.

Many of his men considered him cold, detached from everything but the war, even most of his brothers considered him the same way. There were only four that were able to see him as anything but the General. . He reached out, running his hands through Constintin’s snared hair. “Did the fire go out?” He asked gently, before his hands fell down to his shoulders, feeling the tremors that racked his body and the heat that radiated from him due to his sickness. They had no choice but to speak quietly just in case there was a passing patrol. It’d be nearly impossible for a patrol to wonder so far out into the wilderness and away from the safety of the city but he’d never believe that they were truly safe till the war was won.

“I’m sorry Constintin; this was the last thing that I wanted to draw you into.” He whispered into his ear. They called him heartless when he had saved his last sibling from the Facility yet he could so no other alternative. The child was of Lladimieriav blood, a son of Kirill and one of his many conquests. He had made a promise to himself when he was young that he’d never allow any of his family to be left alone in the world and that was a promise that he was working hard to keep.

Yet, even though he had planned for every alternative as he had rose in rank, he had never foreseen that the Lux would usurp him and through him from the title of Prince, taking over his Sphere. He thought that he would be able to win the war in two years, The Elite and Delta Squads would be sent in to aid him but the help never came for either side. The war was never-ending. One side would gain a foothold and the other side would surge, knocking them back.

War is never glamorous, it is never something that should be portrayed as every person’s dream. I’m not fighting for my country this time. There is no country left to fight for. I’m fighting for an idea, to make sure that my family survives. I don’t care if the world burns, I’ll allow it to burn around me, , I’ll light the match and start the fire but no one is going to kill my family in order to further their own political gains. No one will fight with us, but no one will fight with them either. We are like a poisonous blight on the landscape, an entire sphere under quarantine. Whoever is victorious will claim dominance. I know that if I lose this fight my entire family… He lowered his head and kissed the sandy mop of hair on the youngest of his sibling’s head, afraid to even think the words of what would happen if they lost.

The Lladimieriav branch of the Phoenixes was famous for being the best bodyguards that could ever be raised and trained. They were strong fighters in one area of expertise, but learned the art of each of the other brothers enough to where they could handle themselves. When he had been Alecuian, he had built up the family as one of the strongest. He had found his half brothers scattered around the world, each denoted with the golden eyes and tall frame of the warrior branch.

“Pantheras, we ran out of firewood…” Came the quiet voice again pulling him out of his thoughts. It was just another soft reminder of all that they were lacking. Warm clothes, food, firewood, the list continued. There wasn’t a night when he was able to sleep fully without thinking of something that he had to do for the next day, if they’d be allowed to have a next day.. There were too many worries laid on his shoulders; too many things to do. He was awake at a cough or a sneeze, praying to the Gods that abandoned him that he didn’t have a sick brother, or if that that they were sick that their fever would break, that they would survive. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing a brother. They should have never been pulled into this war, they could have lived lives that were better, not one that is spent looking down the barrel of a weapon that is held by a man that wants them dead.
“They sent you to tell me?” He asked, finally breaking the silence before he tilted his head back, an errant moonbeam crossing his face and exposing the black brand that crossed the right side of his face. The moon showed the tattoos that lined his throat, which dipped down and crossed every inch of his body. They were his sins listed out on flesh, marked in black ink by the hands of the ultimate Sinner. They covered his scars, made him seem like he was a monster, it gave the opposing side horror stories that they could build off of. He would do anything to weaken the morale of the side that was well fed, and healthy.

He felt Constintin as he nodded. “They said that you’d get mad at anyone that wasn’t me.” He breathed out quietly before he reached up and tugged on a long brown lock of his brother’s hair, pulling it from his messy ponytail , allowing it to fall over his chiseled and scarred face. “You’re not mad at me are you?” He breathed out, the fluid in his lungs causing his every breath to rattle in way that worried the older man. “Because…because it’s not too cold… you don’t have to worry.” He tried to soothe, burying his face into the man’s chest and holding onto him tightly.

He’s trying to make me feel better… Gods damn me again… Pantheras thought before he stood up, holding up the too-thin child to him. He closed his eyes, a flicker of grief passing over his face as he felt the slender rib-bones of the child against his hands. War shouldn’t tear away innocence. He was the one that I promised would grow up in a warm and loving home… out of all of us that was never able to have it, I wanted to be able to give it to him. I just wanted him to know that he was safe. I didn’t want to have him worry about how to stay warm or how to ration food. War…my foolish pride and ambition. I didn’t think as far ahead as I should have. My family doesn’t deserve this. I should have never allowed this to escalate.

There couldn’t be a peace treaty, he knew that, it was too late, blood had been spilt on both sides, injustices have been done and the only thing that would help would be an end to the war. “I’m not worrying. I can’t afford to worry about how the war is going to end. I can only worry about tonight. I can only control now.” He muttered. He moved through the house, he stepped over chairs that were missing legs, that were missing seats. He stepped over priceless books that only had their covers left, that were gutted and discared, another distressing causality to the war. Whatever could be burned was being burned, and even though they were surrounded by the forest, all it would take were for a fly over to notice that the woods were being thinned for their entire base to be found. It was why the wallpaper was stripped from the wall and discarded in an attempt to get to the wood paneling underneath. The cupboards were stripped of their doors, shelves were torn off and as the war pressed on, the family was moved to a central room, to one heat source in order to save as much as the fuel as they could. Slowly, their ancestral home that was big enough to comfortably support fifty men if they should need it was being torn apart around them. “I never bother worrying about the inevitable. It all ends the same.” He explained, speaking to his youngest as if he were an adult, yet he never clarified in what he considered the inevitable.

He walked into the room where his other eight brothers and his Tenebrae sat in misery in front of a fire that had died out, the embers had cooled rapidly with the severe winter that they were used to living through. “Stop sending a child in to do your job.” Pantheras ordered, straightening and his countenance changing. Gone was the man that was plagued by indecision, in his place was the man that was the leader of the Tenebrae, the sort of man that showed little emotion.. He glared down at the Tenebrae, the men that he had assembled and who had volunteered to serve him.. “The fire went out and you sent in a child to tell me? It’s no wonder that the war has dragged on for so long. None of you have the courage to brave the outside without me. You’d send Constintin outside if it meant that you would save your own skins.” He said, his words pitched low, disgusted with the twenty-five men that he had left.

Pantheras lowered the child to the floor and gently pushed him towards the red haired doctor. One of the few that he trusted, the man who had been given the name of the Ultimate Sinner.“Go to Brice.” He ordered harshly before he looked back to his men. “The rest of you, we have a raid tonight. So, Rotation’s up. Curse, Maelstrom, Rameses, Anastas, Calum. Dress warm, we’re going out. Brice-“

“I don’t take orders from you.” Came the instant reply.

“Quiet and get ready to take in shipment. Be ready to take in and deal with any wounded.” He dismissed his friend with a dark look, one that Brice could look through. He knew that the winter had only just begun and the food that they had stolen weeks ago had been mean to last longer but food never lasted long when they were all trying to stay healthy enough to fight.He regarded the men whose name he had uttered. “We’re after fuel, food, warmer clothes, and guns, if you find guns; you’d better bring back ammunition. You leave behind any luxury, that’s not what we are going into the city for. I want blankets; I want things that will make this wretched place something that we can survive in. I want clothing, warmer coats. If you have to pull them off of the men that you kill, do it. Leave nothing behind that can help us. We’ll break into teams. Rameses, you’re with Calum, Curse and Maelstrom, Anastas, you’re with me.”

From the shadows stepped a man whose name Pantheras never had to say. He was the quiet force that kept him standing. That reminded him that while they lives were five hundred years in duration, that he could die, and that he was dying.
“Grym…” James. “You’re with me.”

There came a brief nod from the emerald haired man that held almost as many scars as Pantheras. He spoke rarely, and only when there was something important for him to say.

War I hope that we’re all able to survive this.

“Move out!” He ordered, his golden eyes snapping, “Take no times to say goodbye, you’ll see each other again in a few hours.” He promised, grabbing his gun and his knives, strapping them into place. He opened the door, the bitter winter wind stinging his face, trying to shove him inside where he’d be cold but safe. Pushing his shoulder into the wind, he walked out, forging the path, always the leader, always the initial target.

“Let’s see if we can find the Gods that has forsaken us.” He whispered to himself, his lungs protesting as they walked. The hint of pollution that got worse as they neared the city was almost enough to drive him to his knees. The Vaitash Cure started to reactivate and as he stared at the dead city with militants patrolling, paranoid by the shadows, he slipped his black face mask over his mouth and motioned with one leather clad hand for his men to break into the teams.

With Grym at his back, and his team ready for another night, they slunk through the shadows.

War is inevitable, but it is like chess. Any side can win as long as they keep on the defensive. People always found it odd that my Knight was my first move, that my queen was never my wild. They never realized that my pawns were my true strength, it is just like now. The Lux will never realize that my family is the reason why I am able to combat whatever is thrown at me, they are the reason why this war will be won.