Soldier of Time

XI: One Simple Soldier (2)

Whatever he was, now he had to face it. Slevin released time and instantly rolled on his back. Several shots rang out, but his quick reaction prevented them from hitting him. When he stabilized again, he pointed in the direction where the shooter was and stopped time once more.

Someone had undoubtedly fired, and it had been at close range. But where he thought the shooter should be, there was no one.

Slevin was looking all over the place, and there was no sign of the shooter. Suddenly the Deer looked at the ground and saw how the weight of the shooter revealed it on the stones on which he was standing. The subject was invisible.

The Deer calculated where that subject might be, freeing the time he raised the rifle as he landed on his feet and fired as he walked towards cover.

Only one of his shots hit the target, and out of nowhere, Karen appeared in front of his eyes, her right arm was red from the paint that hit the target, and the girl was shot in the direction of the Deer, but his movement led him to stand behind a cover.

“What the hell!! Where did this chick come from, Deer!” Simon yelled in surprised as he tried to target her. However, the girl ran in the direction of the building, and to his further astonishment, she disappeared again.

“Simon!” Slevin yelled, tone reprimanded, to get Simon back on the task. However, he was also surprised as well.

“I know! I know! She is just like us!” Simon replied with a grin.

The Deer lowered his intensity by controlling his breathing and calming his heart rate while Simon activated his power and changed his eye prism to search for body heat and thus follow Karen’s movements.

He looked in the direction as if he could see Simon and asked, “You got her?”

“Yes,” Simón replied calmly, “She is very fast. Her men did not notice her. You have three approaching your position.”

“Simon, cover me upfront.”

The blond man in the top of one of the trees with his eye on his rifle scope smiled.

The Deer left his cover and began to advance without covering himself. For all those who tried to get out of their cover, he analyzed and paralyzed time to evaluate where they would appear and undoubtedly shot in that direction, causing each of those soldiers to be eliminated.

All those who were not in his field of vision were eliminated by Simon, and with speed, Slevin reached the entrance door of the first floor of the building. Slevin quickly showed his head and hid it again.

“Impossible to see something like that,” a voice said inside the room. It sounded anxious and unsure.

Slevin smiled when he heard that. It was not really impossible for any experienced soldier or fighter. What more for him who already had all the information he needed from within that place.

Without thinking too much about it, he took out one of his three paint grenades and threw them inside.

When it exploded, the Deer entered, knowing where each target was and shot finishing with the two soldiers who had not yet been hit by the paint.

“Simon, scan the building and tell me how many there are!” Slevin commanded.

“Go up the stairs. That room is empty,” Simon responded swiftly.

Slevin went up the stairs. In that room, there was no one, as Simon reported. He frowned but continued to look around. The door to the central room was closed, and Slevin stood to one side.

“Simon?” He called out again.

Simon responded, “Four soldiers, one of them is the target. They are mobilizing her. Karen is there.”

“Get her out of here.”

Karen’s voice was heard calmly. Slevin showed his face for a moment, much less than a second. But that was the moment he needed to freeze time and look inside the room.

What he saw left him stunned. There was no one in that place, he tried to look for shadows or something that would reveal Karen’s position, but it was as if she was not there. The only certainty he had of her presence is that Simon could see her.

Slevin, releasing time, hid once again, surprised to find a person with gifts in that place.

“Simon, she’s invisible again,” Slevin commented when he realized what was going on.

“I assure you that she is there in the middle of the room, pointing in your direction.”

Inside the room, Karen was pointing invisibly towards the door, and she hoped that the Deer would trust that there was no one inside that room and enter. For when he did, she would have his entire chest painted in color.

She did not know well how he had managed to discover her the first time, but it would not happen again. She knew perfectly well that this man had abilities. However, she would be the winner. But the only thing she saw enter the room were two paint grenades.

They both exploded, and she received the full impact on the body, losing her concentration and appearing in the middle of the room.

When she opened her eyes, the only thing she could see was Slevin passing by her without paying the slightest attention.

She was invisible. He saw it. She had the ability to be invisible, and yet he defeated her. He did not know that she could do that, he had no idea what was happening, but even so, he defeated her and passed by her without laying his eyes on her. She was a Royal guard. The leader of that team was nothing more for him than a soldier eliminated.

Slevin continued to pursue the remaining ones who tried to take the target away from him, only to be encircled by Simon and eliminated. All that regiment was eliminated just by those two young men. The Deer and Simon were the winners.

Karen emerged from the paint-drenched building as the soldiers whispered about the extraordinary performance of the mercenaries. She looked at Slevin in his eyes with a complicated expression.

“You are well-trained and very competent soldiers, but Hanibal is a much worse challenge than me. There are not many ways to survive, but we can do it if we accept the fact that he cannot be beaten in a conventional way,” he said sternly.

Karen seemed to have tears in her eyes, her hands were tight, and her voice cut off, her anger did not allow her to speak, but she nevertheless managed to respond, “I am a Royal Guard, I know what an invincible man is and you... You are not!!”

With those words, she turned around and headed out of the courtyard. It was too much for her to accept loss successively, especially from someone who was way younger than her.

“Hanibal is like you. He is special,” Slevin said suddenly.

They all looked at Slevin without understanding what he was referring to. Karen turned on her heel, her eyes were on his, she inflated her chest to say something, but she changed her mind, instead continued on her way.

Simon placed his hand on the Deer’s shoulder and said, “This will be more difficult than I thought...”

Slevin nodded and looking at Karen’s back, and he thought that perhaps it was impossible for him to understand that kind of frustration. And if that frustration didn’t change to fear, maybe she couldn’t feel it again.

That night in the Deer’s room, he sat looking at his briefcase on the desk, thinking about exercise and all the times he did the worse by wielding those knives. He took his phone and wrote a message.

Perhaps the only way to survive is to return to the old me.

And after that message, he placed his phone on the briefcase. His head fell on his hands as his long hair covered his expression.

He remembered explosions and gunshots and the sound that the flesh made when it was lacerated, he remembered six years of infinite violence, and he remembered what that had snatched from him.

The young man breathed as he touched the scar on his eyebrow with his index finger when a message on his phone disturbed the silence.

Whatever it takes for you to survive.

He smiled, picked up the phone, and kissed it before writing. The indulgence of a better person than me always makes me feel better.

But before leaving the phone behind, another message arrived.

The only fool who thinks I’m better than him is you, don’t forget where I came from, Slevin, and your knives never took more lives than me.

Slevin read the message and snorted, got up from the chair, lay down on the bed, and thought about everyone’s weight.

Sometimes the child soldier was very selfish.