Oppression from the Oppressed: Chapter 2 – Dealing with False Neighbors

Chapter 2 – Dealing with False Neighbors

The forces of Aushalten gather outside the last refuge of the allies of Earth, a shieled, walled city made in their image, unlike anything else on our planet and a testament to their vanity. It’s a colorful place that hides dark and perverted crimes beneath its surface, and its barriers will soon fall. My brother, Shaeffer, gets on the open radio so that our opposition and allies hear and focus on him, so our infiltrators can better do their work.

“Behold, men of Earth, traitors to the human race, the Holy Church, and our Lord in Heaven! We have taken back our world in a single day, and only you remain. The destruction of your chains over us, the deaths of your allies and co-conspirators, and the burning of all your ill-gotten possessions are the cost of your sins. Today is your final hour and the time of your judgment, you, whom God and many saints once blessed. Before, you had honor and faith.

You had many superhumans with many unique powers in your ranks, and now, you have few, and those who have powers are easily killed by our weapons. You have lost the grace of Heaven and exchanged it for being whores of Hell. Do not mistake my words for prideful boasting. These are all true and a warning, not just to you, but to your allies on humanity’s homeworld. We know that they will not listen to reason and, like a spoiled child, will lash out at others for being punished for their mistakes.

I also say it to those who are willing to repent. Stay in your shelters and lay down your weapons, or openly fight against the scum you call your neighbors. Otherwise, prepare for a just execution.”

Explosions suddenly appear in various sectors of the city, and its shields come down shortly after. Peering further down, I see our ground forces push their way through the doors of the wall that now open to them as they flood their way in. The Aushalten ships start to fly over the city and bombard areas where we know the worst of humanity is, unabated by the air defense turrets, which are powered down thanks to our infiltrators.

Shaeffer turns to me and rhetorically asks, “Well, Adalwolf. Shall we join them?”

“Yes, brother,” I answer.

For this final assault to fully take back Aushalten, we are pulling out all the stops, more than usual. Boarding the ship with Shaeffer and me are specialized units: an infiltrator, dressed in a knightly set of white armor with the martyr’s cross on his helmet, and dual machine pistols at his side; a sniper with a black cloak, crow’s helmet, and gray martyr’s cross on his chest; and a heavy soldier with a red cloak, red armor, armed with a laser minigun that can also fire rockets, and a helmet with four connected red eyes on it. With all of us armed and ready, our drop ship descends upon the city and heads for a white mansion that once acted as the seat of power for the Earth government of the Dominion, but will soon be nothing but fiery ash and dust. We pass by other drop ships, which spread out to different areas of the city and start blowing up monuments to the greed of our enemy. From a distance, this must appear to be a tide of black, white, and red, like a dark hand of God grasping and crushing the city.

Shaeffer, our support units, and I land some ways away from the white mansion due to the heavy fire and superhumans using their powers to prevent us from coming any closer. On the ground, my brother runs ahead. Following behind him, I can’t help but see our father in him and remember how our father died. Our parents were defending innocent people from law-enforcing men of Earth who were trying to steal from them. The argument got violent, and the law enforcers started shooting people. Our father charged the officers, taking several shots, but not going down, while our mother shielded us and got shot several times herself.

Neither of our parents, the people they were protecting, nor neighbors of Aushalten gave up fighting against the false authorities, no matter how many times they were shot due to their natural resistance common to our people and the willingness to sacrifice ourselves and endure pain for others. When backup came, our mother told us to run, while she ran to help our father and neighbors. As the bullets and explosions rained down on us, Shaeffer fought me as I dragged him away from the fighting, and it was only after a stray shot went through his throat that he stopped. Thankfully, I was able to get him to a doctor, and they put a breathing apparatus in his neck to help him breathe and speak. Our kind on Aushalten are truly a resilient sort.

After that day, I decided to join Aushalten’s military, and Shaeffer joined the politicians. To this day, I relive that day in every battle, and I’m sure Shaeffer does, especially when he protects others as if envisioning them as our parents and neighbors. Just like him and my mother, I refuse to be found wanting when it comes to sacrificing myself for others and using my body as a shield. I throw myself in front of my brother and others to ensure their safety and to fulfill my mother’s final wish, all the while firing every shot I have from every ammunition type at my disposal. The infiltrator we are with has gone ahead of us to sneak up on the enemy and kill them from behind their own lines; the sniper jumps from one vantage point to another, acting more like a fast-moving berserker than anything, and our heavy soldier runs faster than all of us, letting his minigun fire without end and taking most of the enemy’s gunfire.

A shield forms around the white house as we get close to it, forcing us to take cover in nearby bombed-out buildings and holes formed by bombs, and call in for air support. Meanwhile, our enemy continues to fire and sends their best superhumans at us as they do their best to push us back, but we don’t give an inch; even many of our neighbors die around us, and we continue to get shot.

“Yes, danger close! When have we ever cared about danger close?” Shaeffer says over the radio.

Soon, our ships encircle the white house and unleash their payloads on it, destroying the shield.

Shaeffer is the first to exit cover and charge out from it. With one fist raised in the air and the other hand firing his pistol, he says, “Forward, martyrs!”

Our people cheer behind as they follow us.

“Defend your home and family!”

Another round of cheers.

“Death to the hypocrites and oppressors!”

Our people cheer even louder and run faster. We meet the enemy face to face and rush over them in a deadly tide that leaves none alive. They’re starting to falter as many try to run away or pitifully surrender, but are only met with a swift death. Now, at the front doors of the white house, our heavy soldier busts open the door. We flood into the den of sin and are met with an eerily quiet estate. Still, our people run in different directions to punish the last of our enemies, but my brother and I sense something is off.

“You feel that too, Adalwolf?” Shaeffer asks me.

“I do, brother. Something truly evil resides here,” I say.

Our accompanying heavy soldier looks like he’s about to say something, until his body suddenly falls to pieces. The entire house is enveloped in a dark shadow, leaving my brother and me by ourselves.

A dark voice says, “So, you’re the one whose annoying voice I hear prattle on the radio and internet. Do you have some kind of latent power that allows you to not be separate from your brother?”

“It is a bond that God has formed, and what God has created, none can break,” Shaeffer says.

“God has created the human body, and given it the capacity to mutate like yours, but that doesn’t mean I can’t break it in the ways I wish. Observe.”

Our sniper is taken out of the darkness, suspended in midair, and broken into pieces similar to our heavy.

“Your demonic power does not scare us,” I say.

“It is not demonic,” the dark voice says. “It was handed down to me by my saintly family. You, ignorant cretins, stand in the house of a Severe.”

“We killed a member of the Elio family yesterday. What makes you think a Severe won’t die the same way when we have God at our side? Your power means nothing to us,” Shaeffer says.

The infiltrator we were with bursts out of the darkness from the ground, screaming, until he is crushed by a dark hand. A figure cloaked in shadow with a large hat and scarf manifests itself.

“You will bow down before your master,” the dark figure says.

As an answer, Shaeffer and I shoot at the dark figure. It dodges around our shots, then creates copies of itself to confuse us, and then makes copies of us.

“You failed your parents,” the copies of ourselves say.

“You failed your people.”

“You put them on a doomed quest that will kill them all.”

“They will be punished severely for their foolishness.”

The more we dispel the copies, the more appear.

Getting an idea, I say, “We can’t fight this foe with conventional weaponry. We ought to let our fighting become a prayer, a supernatural weapon against another.”

“It’s the only other idea we have, so let’s do it,” Shaeffer agrees.

We do as I plan, even as the enemy starts to overwhelm us. Our copies all turn into copies of the dark figure who is now wielding a scythe. I shield Shaeffer from the incoming blows, and he cries out and shields me from them. I offer up the suffering as a prayer as blood begins to pour out of my body. This seems to be the end, until I see my body and brother’s blood form together and form into spears that impale the copies.

I hear the figure grunt in pain before saying, “How? You, people, have no power like mine!”

“You forget that God is the source of all power in the world, and even the simplest of men can access it when He wills it,” I say.

There’s only one copy of the dark figure left, so I pull up my rifle and shoot him, releasing my brother and me from the dark realm we were in. With our vision clear, we see our people around us, some dead, others thankful to finally be out of the same dark realm. One of the dead among the bodies is indeed a Severe, a member of one of the ruling families of the Dominion. He lies dead with a laser burn through his head, the one that I shot at him.

“I told you that if the soldier doesn’t win the battle, my words are for naught,” Shaeffer says as he pats my back.

“It was just a spur-of-the-moment idea I had. I didn’t really do anything. It was a miracle more than anything,” I admit.

“If anything, we know now more than ever that God is on our side and victory is assured.” Turning to everyone else in the room, Shaeffer says, “Victory is ours, people of Aushalten!”

Everyone cheers out with their hands in the air.

“Next, we conquer Earth! For the glory of God, for the glory of His Holy Church, and for the glory of Aushalten!”

People cheer out even louder, giving praise to God. With another battle passed and my brother and I alive, I once again fulfill my mother’s final wish and pray for my parents’ intercession to continue to do so until my dying day.