Ragnarok: The Fate of Gods

by Jake La Jeunesse

  “A girl I met. Last year. We were stationed near the Berlin plate.”

  Micah looked shocked, but pleased. “And here I thought I knew everything about you. She broke your heart, didn’t she?”

  Zeke jumped back in surprise. Embarassed. “Hey, how did you . . .”

  “Like I said, it’s always a woman’s name.” He became very serene. “I’ve seen countless men name their weapons after girls. Wives, girlfriends, former lovers, childhood friends. I think it’s because we equate them with pain. Women are weapons. They inflict damage. We want weapons to be strong, so we give them the names of the people who hurt us.”

  Zeke’s curiosity was piqued. “So what did you name your sword?” He wanted to know more about whatever vixen had broken his indestructible captain.

  “I didn’t.”

  “What?” It seemed a lot of buildup for nothing.

  “I didn’t name the sword,” he repeated. “Ever since I met Ariel, I’ve been at peace. The world is still at war, but I’m no longer a victim. I feel strong with her. Invincible. Almost god-like.”

  Zeke laughed to himself. The idea that Micah had ever been weak was absurd.

  “She’s been good to me. Both of you have. But she’s calmed me. I no longer feel brooding and angry all the time. I just don’t feel like fighting anymore.”

  “So you didn’t name your sword?”

  “Right.”

  Now Zeke adopted the brotherly tone. “Come on, you have to call it something. Everyone else does.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Everyone. It’s the rule.”

  “Well, far be it from me to disrupt the status quo. I guess . . .” his voice trailed off as he thought. Zeke imagined the gears clicking in his head.

  “Deanna,” he said at long last.

  Aha! He thought. I’ve got something! “Who was she?”

  “No one at all.”

  His enthusiasm drained instantly. “No one? Then why . . .”

  “I just like the name.”

  “Micah!” called a high voice. They turned to see Ariel running towards them from the army camp. When she was close, her hands effortlessly found Micah’s. “The general wants to see you. Something big is going on.”

  “Only me? What about the platoon?”

  “He said it was a private briefing. Top secret details.”

  “Then I guess I had better go.” He turned and ran off. Ariel’s hands reached out to him long after he was out of range.

  Two hours later, they began marching to Rome.

  It was dusk. Micah stood with Zeke, Ariel, and the rest of their platoon on a hill just outside of Rome.

  Watching the battle start.

  The sky was red. It cast a frightening aura on the city. The gunshots. The explosions. The occasional screams. All highlighted by a bleeding sky.

  It would be dark soon, though.

  “It’s started,” said Micah, quietly. His gaze was fixed on the plate.

  “Then why are we waiting here?” asked Zeke.

  The captain turned to address the platoon. “Listen up. The sixth platoon has been given a special task. The Roman operation is merely a front. It is the cover necessary so that we can obtain control of a very important artifact. Our objective is simple. We must make our way to a place called The Tower of Atonement. It is located directly above St. Peter’s Basilica in the former Vatican City. Once there, we must find a book.”

  “A book?” shouted a soldier. “They’re sending us to get a book?”

  It seemed like a waste of their skills. Micah’s sixth platoon had become a living legend in the recent years of the war. In the last six months, they had been called out on fifteen missions. Each one succeeded with minimal casualties. Entire towns and villages had been liberated just by their efforts alone. They had successfully freed thousands of rebel prisoners from heavily-guarded Theocratic strongholds. Their power and near-invincibility had earned them the nickname “The Dragons.”

  And now their mission was to rescue a book.

  “The Book of Razael. It is believed to be a holy artifact. Intelligence reports that it may have the power to eradicate the malak from our world.”

  A few of the men laughed. “What is this? A book of magic?”

  The captain’s face was stern. “Exactly.”

  The laughter faded. They all placed their trust in their leader. Even if what he said sounded crazy, they knew it must be true.

  As long as Micah believed it.

  A thought occurred to Ariel. “You mean the Theocrat . . .”

  “May be controlling the malak. That’s right.” The group fell quiet. After a long pause, he spoke again. “If that is true, this mission could end the war. Be strong. They chose the sixth platoon because we’ve made a name for ourselves. We are the Dragons! And we aren’t easily defeated. But don’t expect this to be a cakewalk. This is the Theocracy’s capital city, so defenses will be tight, especially in the upper city. Our forces are trying to secure a route for us, but once we’re up on the plate, it’s entirely on our shoulders.”

  A searchlight caught their eye. It flashed in a distinct pattern.

  “There’s our signal,” said Micah. He headed toward the city. The others followed without being ordered.

  A fifty-meter climb up a makeshift rope ladder is no laughing matter, but Micah doesn’t even break a sweat.

  He reaches the top first. Zeke and Ariel are close behind.

  Hitting the top, he launches himself over the guard wall around the upper city and hits the ground with blood already on his sword. It looks black in the moonlight. His enemy falls dead before he even knows he’s been hurt. Other Theocratic soldiers raise their guns, but he reaches them too quickly. Those he can’t reach with his sword are taken out by Zeke and Ariel.

  Micah seems oblivious to all else. He runs furiously toward his mark.

  His friends run after him, struggling to keep up. Other members of the Sixth Platoon pull themselves over the wall.

  They fight their way through the city. Micah slashes madly at any Theocratic soldier near him. The other Dragons fire at distant enemies.

  The whole platoon working for the same goal: clear a path for their leader.

  Micah. It’s always Micah. He makes them strong. He is their brain. Without his guiding hand, they would not be the Dragons. Just soldiers. They fight for his protection, though he doesn’t need much.

  His short white hair dances as he runs. His speed is incredible. He fights like a ghost. Vanishing and reappearing. Slashing his enemies tirelessly. A murderous ghost of white and red.

  Casualties seem nonexistent. Bullets graze by, stinging skin and tearing clothes, but causing little damage.

  At least, damage that they can see.

  Those who lead tend to forget the ones who follow.

  Behind Micah and his lieutenants, something explodes. Ariel and Zeke are thrown forward. Micah barely breaks stride. He flips in the air and lands on his feet, still running.

  A handful of dying Dragons lay in the street. Their comrades call for a medic, but they understand the mission. They let the others run ahead, praying for success.

  Ahead in the street, Micah spies a soldier reloading a rocket launcher. With a vengeful spirit, he launches himself at the enemy.

  The man is felled in a single stroke, cut clean in half mid-torso.

  Micah keeps running.

  Zeke and Ariel cover his back, but struggle to keep up. One by one, the Theocratic army picks off the straggling Dragons.

  They press on, oblivious to the loss.

  As they run through the city, the fighting around them seems to grow quiet. Eerily quiet. Micah slows when the tower is in sight.

  He stops just out of sight of the gate.

  They hide in an alley for a brief rest and check their ranks. Only Micah, Zeke, Ariel, and three of their comrades have made it this far.

  “Why did we stop?” asks one Dragon, panting furiously. “It’s quiet. We’re home free.�
�

  “No,” says Micah. “We broke through their outer defenses, but they’ll soon catch up with us.” He creeps to the edge of the alley and waves at them to follow. “Look.”

  They peer around the corner. Not too far away, they see guards around the tower’s gate. Frightfully stoic, they stand like statues.

  “Nataraja’s Arms. They’re the Theocrat’s personal guard. They live and breathe training. They won’t be easy to get by, but you can be sure the Theocrat’s on the other side of that door.”

  “How are we going to get past them?” Zeke asks.

  “We don’t have to. I do.”

  Ariel protests. “You’re going in alone? You don’t know what’s inside!”

  “No, but I need this door secured, and there are only five of you. I think I can handle the old man.” He looks smug, but they can’t be sure if he’s joking or not.

  “It’s too dangerous.”

  Micah shrugs her off. “I know. So cover me.”

  With astounding speed, he dashes at the guards. He ignores the two in front, skips by the next two.

  He’s making straight for the tower, Zeke realizes.

  Nataraja’s Arms have raised their guns, but the Dragons distract them with a rain of bullets. Micah slams into the door. The guard directly in front of the door has already fallen. The sixth platoon continues to fire.

  One of the guards falls. The rest return fire.

  Micah disappears inside. Two of the Theocrat’s guards move to follow, but Zeke takes them out with two well-placed shots.

  Nataraja’s Arms handle their weapons well. Two of the Dragons are neatly disposed of. Zeke and Ariel try to move around behind their cover, dashing randomly between buildings, behind dumpsters, and anywhere they can find to hide for a moment. Predictability is their enemy. If the Theocrat’s guards guess their moves, a bullet could be waiting for them when they pop out.

  The fight lasts only minutes. The Dragons eliminate the guards quickly. However, Nataraja’s Arms don’t go down easily. The final guard lands a shot on the final Dragon before Zeke takes him out. In the soldier’s death throes, he lands a shot on Ariel’s shoulder.

  Unhindered by the pain, she runs to the door of the tower. “We have to help him!”

  Zeke stops her. “We can’t. He needs us to guard this door.” Distant gunfire grows nearer. Staying put isn’t a pleasant idea.

  “You guard the door!” She breaks free of his grasp. “I’m going to guard him!”

  “We’d only get in the way. You know he can’t be bothered with protecting anyone right now, and if we were there that’s exactly what he’d be doing. Whether we needed it or not.” He manages a weak smile.

  Ariel doesn’t notice. “Damn it. You’re right.” She collapses, defeated, against the tower. Her shoulder bleeds.

  The gunfire grows louder. “They’re coming. Let’s not let him down. We’ve made enough noise that . . .”

  His voice trails off. The night sky began to glow with a soft yellow light. Zeke looks up. A symbol appears above the city. It’s strange. A pattern of circles, the centers connected by a series of lines.

  “A Metatron’s Cube,” came a mysterious voice, cutting through his dream.

  “What? Metatron?” answered his unconscious mind.

  “Not Metatron. The holy glyph you saw in the sky is called a Metatron’s cube.”

  “It is? Does that mean that . . .”

  “Shhh,” interrupted the voice. “Just watch.”

  Ariel and Zeke glue their eyes to the sky. The distant gunfire ceases. The nodes at the centers of the circles seem to swell.

  Then a thick beam of light shoots down from the glyph.

  The plate shakes and cracks.

  The city explodes.

  The two fighters are thrown into the air and lose each other in the chaos.

  Chapter Twelve: Jail

  Tich. Tich. Tich.

  Zeke woke up to the sound of scratching. Below him, Joel held a spring that had broken off of his bed. It must be morning because he was adding a new slash to his tally on the wall. “You can hear about this all your life, but it’s so rare that you actually get a chance to keep a tally in a jail cell,” he said.

  Zeke groaned softly. During their time as cellmates, he had gotten to know the pirate better than he really wanted. Joel was ever cheerful, even after . . .

  “How many days is this?”

  “Twelve by my count.”

  . . . even after spending the better part of two weeks in jail. Zeke had observed a subtle, bizarre sense of humor. One that he didn’t understand. Given the choice, he never would have spent so much time around the man.

  Not that he had a choice.

  Still, given his options of either Joel or Jae-Hoon, he would have picked the pirate any day. He may seem bizarre, but at least he spoke. Across the hall, the priest hadn’t done much more than cower in a corner since they arrived. Zeke glanced at his cell. His eyes were open. That meant he was awake. Maybe. Last night’s dinner still rested on a tray on the floor, untouched. Dry and cold. Not very appetizing. He wondered how the Slayer could live on virtually no food.

  Calling him alive, however, was a loose term. His mind may not be dead, but it was definitely on a leave of absence.

  “Father Personality is still chipper, as usual,” Zeke noted sarcastically.

  “Give him time. He’ll come around.”

  “He’s got a few things to deal with, I guess.” He took silent pleasure in the priest’s condition. It was proof that some people in the government were still capable of guilt and remorse. He wondered if Jae-Hoon was strong enough to deal with it.

  Zeke found himself hoping he was.

  Tich, tich.

  Joel continued to scratch away at the wall. “How about you? Sounds like you were having some major flashback up there. Do you always make that much noise when you sleep?”

  “Flashback? Couldn’t be. I’ve never had one.”

  “Well you must have been having one hell of a dream.”

  “Yeah,” said Zeke, sitting up. “It was the strangest . . .”

  “Oh no!” he interrupted. “I’m not believing that. Every time someone has a dream they remember even remotely, they go around telling their friends ‘I had the strangest dream,’ but that’s just what a dream is. It’s strange!”

  “That’s just it. It wasn’t strange. It was completely normal. As if I were watching the past.” He usually didn’t talk so much. Of course, he usually wasn’t stuck in jail, either. Talking with Joel was the only thing he could do to keep occupied.

  “Sounds an awful lot like a flashback to me.”

  “Well, it wasn’t.” He thought of the mysterious voice. “It was more like I was watching . . .” His voice trailed off as he remembered something. “Micah!”

  “Micah?”

  “Ariel said she had a dream too . . .”

  “Who’s Micah?”

  Zeke remembered the pirate. “Micah? Oh . . . Micah Frostbane. Our friend—captian. Captian. From the war. Ariel seemed to think her dream meant he was coming back.”

  “Makes sense. You’ve been betrayed by Daniel, so your mind wanders to your more faithful comrades.”

  “Hold on,” said Zeke, affronted. “I was not betrayed. I never trusted him completely.”

  Joel wasn’t convinced. “Doesn’t mean you didn’t want to. I know he followed you into that lab to help you. Otherwise he’d never have transferred that data. I’d be willing to guess you secretly wanted a loony fan boy of your own.”

  “Hah. Not a chance. I am not dreaming about Micah because I need a friend. And he wasn’t all that faithful either. I haven’t seen him since the Roman conflict.” He regretted saying so much. As if giving up his secrets meant giving up his identity.

  “So you think he’s coming back?”

  Zeke thought. “I don’t know.”

  Silence.

  “No,” he decided. “Dreams can’t tell the future.” Dreams are very po
werful tools for telling the present. It only meant he was thinking about Micah.

  But why?

  Footsteps echoed down the hall. The jail was quiet, except for that. The two prisoners stood up, ready to face the source of the sound. The footsteps drew near. A man stepped into view.

  Daniel.

  Without thinking, Zeke hurled himself toward the bars and grabbed the boy before he had a chance to jump back. Joel rushed forward to pull him back. “If I were a centimeter closer, I would kill you with my bare hands!” he struggled to pull Daniel closer, through the bars. “The deepest level of Hell is reserved for traitors.”

  The Raven reached into his coat and pulled out a small remote control. “And just by pressing this button I could turn your whole cell into a giant bug zapper.” He dropped it. It fell to the floor, into the cell. “But I won’t. I’m no traitor, and I’ve come here considering your best interests.”

  Joel broke Zeke’s grip on the boy and pulled him back. “That’s not going to help our position. Don’t kill him while we’re still in jail. Wait until we get out.”

  Daniel continued. “I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. It’s true. I am the Karellan’s Raven, but . . .”

  Zeke flew into a rage again. He threw himself into the bars and reached for the boy, who had enough sense to stand back. “You supported that bastard who turned all those people into monsters! You’re no better than a monster yourself!”

  Daniel felt a twinge of shame. “I know you’re upset, but this is the only way to fight him.”

  “Wonderful way of fighting you have. Working for the villain and then locking us up in here.”

  “If you’d just listen, I’m trying to help you,” he shouted over Zeke’s rampage. His voice resounded through the empty halls, startling them. He quieted immediately.

  “How the hell can we trust you?” asked Joel.

  “If you can’t trust me, what makes you think the Karellan can?”

  Zeke strained against the bars, as if he could force himself through by sheer will. “What kind of backwards logic is that? Come here so I can rip your throat out!”