Vindicator

Chapter One

What good is a weapon without the courage to kill or defend? It becomes nothing but a useless clump of steel begging to be sheathed, but instead is doomed to waste away for all eternity as a statement of power.

***

The grey walls of Base Camp seem to bring forth a sense of bitterness. I am encased inside a cement prison, even when I am outside on a mission it is a leashed freedom. The hallways seem to trail on forever, curving in a timeless fashion to the point where they are almost maze like.

I had often spent hours wondering the halls, searching every nook and cranny for something more, for something to give meaning to this life I'm living. Behind me lay the hunters quarters, row beyond row of bunks line the walls in a systematic form of self-placed hierarchy, popular hunters placed top bunk, ordinary and loner hunters placed bottom bunk. And then there was me. My bed is left standing by itself at the doorway, tucked away in a deliberate whole in the wall. I am hidden away from everyone in plain sight, but then again aren't all killers?

The heavy beating in my heart seems to be ever present as I near the main gate way, it wasn't the fact that its constant throbbing was distracting that nerved me, it was the fact it was still beating. To put it simply people call me heartless, they say my emotions are dead.

So why shouldn't I be?

I guess I am what people like to call 'dead on the inside'. Through my years of living it has always become apparent to me that people, no matter the age, race, species or background feel the insistent nerve to place me into a category. They need to know that I fit in somewhere, that if I belong to a group of people I am no longer dangerous. But oh, how wrong were they.

My category is what makes me dangerous; I am a Dreptate Vânătoare. People think of us as the predators of the night, but instead of hunting the weak we hunt the mighty.

Though my fellow hunters would place me in the category of outcast. They loath me for the soul fact that out of our class of twenty-eight I am the only activated hunter, the only one permitted to leave Base camp and complete missions. I am the only one able to use the title of Dreptate Vânătoare as I am the only graduate.

My surroundings gradually transition from a dull grey to a slightly more vibrant shade of grey, years of use have left the main portion of Base Camp dull as dust covers all most everything in a thick coat as though preparing for a harsh winter. This current part of Base Camp is just one narrow hallway leading towards the outdoors, nothing standing in its way of the oncoming nature and constant nurture of the wind. It has always been left helpless to the mighty elements and allowed to flourish as much as it can within an inclosed place.

Padding feet seemed to echo loudly off the sensitive walls, it wasn't often you heard a sound such as this in a building of trained assassins, footsteps were for the prey or highly confident.

"Athena." A gruff voice thunders, the very hairs on my arms rise to the occasion greeting the newcomer in a fit of fright.

"Commander." Without looking behind I pause in my tracks, the outdoors was within vision now, I can not help but stare longingly ahead at the world I almost made it to.

"Do you have warrant to be here."

"Lieutenant Greg gave me permission to leave the compound on a solitary scouting mission, to see if that pack of rogues have travelled further south, sir." It was not a whole truth, nor was it a whole lie. I had been given the permission to leave for that exact course, but technically I wasn't supposed to head off until tomorrow.

"Pack of rogues? Yes, I did hear of that. Odd thing them rogues forming a pack like that, defeats the very purpose of them being rogues. Well, you know what to do Athena, kill and then ask the questions later, huh?" He gently tugs at what appears to be the start of a possibly regrettable beard, a single laugh manages to burl its way through the thick man and out into the open. His jokes always tended to land on the risky side, often preferring to be about death or the multitude of apparent pleasures in life.