Sons of War

Adrian: the Order of War
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This is Adrian's short account of an event in his recent life. He's a mean sumbitch, so be fairly warned. His story is not for the faint of heart. 

The Order of War

 

Life as the son of a Chaos is not as easy as it may sound, especially when your father is the Chaos of War and you are the Order of War and therefore destined to take over in areas he finds too easy (e.g. WWII).  Kedan is by far the toughest of the Chaoses, which number three; War, Death, and Evil.  All the things that bring chaos into our lives, wouldn’t you agree?  Now these Chaoses, as you might expect, are considered supreme beings, veritable gods, and are in fact the closest things to the actual God that everybody worships (except atheists and agnostics of course) but no one can agree on.

Now you may assume that since I am the Order of War and my father is the Chaos of War, that the other two Chaoses have sons of their own who are in turn the Orders of Death and Evil, but that is not the case.  What you should assume is that the Chaoses are about as atypical as their namesake implies.  They never do things the way you might expect them too.  Everything they do is, of course, chaotic.  So as it turns out, the three Orders are actually triplets, though not identical, and are ironically (or maybe not) the offspring of Kedan and the original Queen of Demons, Lylith.

The oldest of the three of us is of course Evil, whose real name is actually Luke but goes by many job titles, such as Satan or Lucifer or Beelzebub, to name a few.  I am the second oldest of our trio, and my name is Adrian, though some may know me as Ares, Mars, even Abaddon, the biblical term for destruction.  Death is the most unusual of us, for he actually makes number three and four, being the split personality that he is.  Normally Spike is in control because Headhunter (yes these are real names) is too dangerous to let loose.  But you will have to learn about that from Spike, because this is my story, or at least part of it.

I am half demon, and it is a part of me that I show proudly.  As a demon, I have the limited ability to change my appearance.  I prefer to take on the form of anything even remotely demonic, mostly vampires and the like, but I also like to take on the form of feared or otherwise mysterious animals that are commonly mistaken for being possessed.  Such animals include the wolf, the lion, the crow or raven, and my personal favorite, the black panther.

As you can see, I am a very powerful being in my own right, but that’s not even the end of it.  I can, when need be, effect the outcome of certain wars by pulling strings behind the scenes or even by directly intervening.  So why do I say it is hard being the son of a Chaos when I have so much power?  I say it because they like to play games with their children.  At times they make us lose our memory so we think we’re mortal and we have to learn the hard way that we’re not, then other times they actually do take our powers and our immortality, but more often just our powers.  And the worst thing about it is you never know when it’s going to happen to you.  Not only that, but even if they let you have your powers, your immortality, and your memory, there are some places, such as here on Earth, where we are only permitted to use our powers to a certain degree, if at all, and if we do, the masses must not know about it.

I am now going to explain how this has made my life difficult recently, but first let me tell you what kind of person I am now that you know what I can do.  I am an erratic person.  I go from one extreme to another, and by that I mean I go from being extremely good to being extremely evil.  In the not too distant past, I was extremely good, but I didn’t know what I was.  I thought I was the offspring of a human and a very powerful vampire.  So I could walk during the day and mingle with humans who thought I was human, but I could also be killed, or so I thought.

My human mother was killed, burned at the stake because of her dealings with vampires.  I blamed my vampire father for his evil ways and became a protector of humans.  But when the humans found out what I was, they shunned me and even wanted to kill me.  People I saved would turn on me the next second and try to kill me.  Some gratitude, huh?  Anyway, this routine became tiresome and soon I ended up becoming bitter and killing one of the people I had originally intended to save, and that was the moment I decided to take the evil route in hatred of humans and their discriminatory ways.  You can save me, but not if you’re a vampire.  You can work for me, but you can’t get paid as much as the rest because you’re not White or Male.  You can rap, but only if you’re Black.  You can’t fight because you’re not Asian.  This is the way I saw the world and I saw humans as this petty race that deserved to die.

At the point when Chaos struck recently, I was extremely evil.  I was in New York City doing a hit for my brother Luke, kind of a hobby of mine when I’m not doing wars.  It was a typical hit, or so I thought.  I went into this Italian restaurant all dressed in my leather biker outfit, which actually covers an advanced bullet proof armor designed on my real father’s planet for his army, and my bullet proof customized biker helmet.  I wear this stuff not because I’m afraid of getting shot, but because if people see me walking with blood coming out of a dozen holes then it’ll be all over the news that there are supernatural creatures running around New York City, and the rule says don’t alert the masses or game over.

When I walked in it was about ten o’clock at night, the time my mark usually showed up with his gangster friends to eat and talk about territorial disputes, so usually no one else was there.  But this time there was a family of tourists sitting in the corner; a mother, father, and their beautiful four-year-old daughter.  That’s when Chaos hit.  I grew a conscience and suddenly had a newfound hope for mankind.  So I decided to walk out.  But I was too late; the mobsters had already seen me.

“It’s the Headhunter!” shouted one of the gangsters before letting loose a hail of bullets in my direction. 

They don’t call me the Headhunter because they mistake me for my brother’s other half.  Headhunter himself hasn’t been released on Earth or everyone would already know about the existence of immortals.  No, they call me the Headhunter because I cut off the heads of my victims as proof that the job is done.

My first reaction was to unsheathe my sword and run at them, but belatedly I realized that running at the gangsters would put the family right behind me and in the line of stray bullets.  When I realized this, I turned around, only to see that the parents were already killed.  Luckily the little girl was low enough in her chair that the bullets missed her, as they were aiming for my chest and head.  I ran to protect her before she could be hit.  I grabbed her frightened, trembling little body and ran to the nearest corner, where I put her behind me and faced the gangsters.

Now that I was sure they could not hit her through me, I drew my custom-made sawed-off shotgun, which is about ten times more destructive than a regular shotgun, and started laying waste to the restaurant.  In a matter of seconds every gangster was killed and the other side of the restaurant was in ruins.  Satisfied that the danger to the little girl was over, I turned around to see if she was all right.

“Thank you!” she cried, and then she buried her head in my shoulder and wailed at the death of her parents.  I put the gun down and put my arms around her to comfort her.

“It’ll be okay,” I said in a soothing tone.  “Your parents are in a better place now.”  And I knew they were, because I’ve been to Heaven before on business and I know that’s where they went.

“But who’s going to take care of me?” she sobbed.

I couldn’t resist.  “I’ll take care of you,” I said.

“You will?” she said with hope, her tears ebbing for a moment.  “Really?”

“Yes,” I said sincerely, “I will.”

She threw her arms around me and burst into tears again.  When she backed away she said with a sniffle, “My name’s Betty.  What’s yours?”

“I’m Adrian.”

“Pleased to meet you, Adrian,” she said with her hand out.  “Can I call you daddy?”

I smiled and shook her hand, “Yes, Betty, if that’s what you want to call me.”

She looked back at her parents and the destruction I had caused and the tears welled up anew.  I put my shotgun back in its holster and took her into my arms, and I walked out of the restaurant with her balling on my expensive leather, but I didn’t mind.  After all, it was already riddled with bullet holes.

When I got out the cops were already there.  They were getting wary of my ways so hadn’t come with their sirens on.  They were ready for me too.  M16s were cocked and ready to fire.  Not only that, but they had a rocket launcher pointed right at my head.  It didn’t bother me, the rocket would just fry my leather and I’d walk right through them.  But then I remembered what I was holding.

“Hold your fire!” I heard one of the officers shout.  “He has a hostage!”

“We were told to kill him at all costs,” said the man with the launcher.  I could tell he had a personal vendetta just by the look in his eyes.  I must have killed someone in his family or his best friend.

“But that’s a little girl!” another policeman yelled.

“At all costs,” the man with the launcher repeated.

“Stay that weapon, Sergeant,” warned his superior officer.

The man began to lower the launcher slowly, and my demonic senses picked up the twitch in his forearm before anyone else could stop him.  He pulled the trigger.

Immediately I ducked and curled myself around Betty.  The blast hit me and knocked the wind out of me, but I stayed in place with all my strength.  The flames from the explosion licked my body and I couldn’t tell how hot it was because of the armor.  But when it was over and I stood back up, I knew exactly how hot it was.  Betty’s skin was scorched and melted in some places to my leather jacket, but that wasn’t what killed her.  She could have survived third degree burns, but her lungs had been seared by the white hot heat of the explosion and she had suffocated to death.

None of the fifty or so NYPD officers who came to stop me that day survived.  Now I see that the human race is worthless.  Anyone that could sacrifice an innocent life just out of a personal vendetta or for any reason deserves to die.  Yes, I’m a cynic, so sue me.  Actually, don’t sue me, because I’ll kill you if you do.  Hell, I’ll kill you if you so much as look at me in the wrong way.

So, a word of advice to anyone and everyone: stay away from the Order of War, because I am not in a very good mood right now.