Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 23 - Ethan

“Stop, get down,” I whisper to Leon as we reach another corner.

We had been traversing a maze of corners to work our way to the armory for nearly an hour due to the patrols of Sekrid on the ship.

“I’ll take him this time dad,” Leon whispers to me in confidence. I look at him somewhat concerned, but then nod my head in approval.

“You need to learn some time,” I whisper again.

He gives me a smirk then creeps around the corner, a metal shard, taped and fashioned in a make-shift knife in his hand. He gets about a foot from the Sekrid before taking his weapon and plunging it into the muscular area of the Sekrid’s neck, in between the shoulder and the side of the neck itself.

The metal shard must have severed the Sekrid’s trachea as blood floods out of its mouth as he falls backward into Leon’s arms. I help Leon drag the body behind the corner and we continue our slow expedition through my disheveled ship. Leon takes point and creeps up to the next corner and peers around it.

“Dad, look, there’s someone there, he’s still alive, but he’s hurt,” Leon says in a low tone.

“Leave him Leon, it’s a trap, we can’t afford to risk it,” I respond coldly. Leon turns around with a shocked look on his face.

“Are you serious dad? The man is hurt, we have to help him.”

“No Leon, you don’t know how these things work, I do. Not every damn Sekrid class in the world could show you how they work in full. You need to be in battle with them to figure that out. I have, and I’m telling you, this is a trap.”

“I don’t care dad, I’m going to help, with or without you,” Leon says as he turns the corner, walking towards the injured man.

I grit my teeth and clench my fist.

“Son of a bitch, why does he have to be as stubborn as me?” I say as I turn the corner myself. I stop Leon as he attempts to examine the man.

“Wait, let me, if there’s something bad that’s gonna happen, then it’s going to happen to me,” I say stepping in front of Leon.

He steps back and I begin to examine the man myself. His arms are crossed for some reason and I attempt to unfold them. As I do so I see an object start to drop. I hold my breath and turn around.

Grenade!” I scream, diving at Leon, tackling him through a window to one of the labs next door to the man.

A jet of green flames burst through the window, searing the walls black, and incinerating the edges of them, charring them a brilliant shade of lime green. The small section of wall below the window that Leon and I are against is deformed and dented in from the concussion of the blast.

The wall opposite of the window is completely shredded by shrapnel and destroyed from the concussion of the explosion that forced its way through the window. Leon lays there holding his ears, shell-shocked from the blast and wincing from the pain the sound brought.

I stand up slowly, my ears ringing from the grenade blast. It takes around two minutes for the ringing to subside and for my hearing to be normal again. Leon slowly stands up, shaking his head, trying to regain his surroundings.

“See, what the fuck did I tell you Leon? You almost got us killed,” I say grunting and gritting my teeth to control my voice.

“I’m...sorry, dad...I should’ve listened...to you,” Leon says still dazed. I sigh and shake my head.

“Well I’d say stealth is out the fucking window so we may as well punch it to the armory now,” I say.

I hear the faint sounds of the Sekrid language in the distance and grab Leon’s arm before he can fully regain his composure. Leon snaps out of his confusion soon after we start to sprint and he begins running on his own.

We’re running so fast that as we turn the corners, we nearly run into the walls. My heart is pounding against my chest so hard that I feel as if it’s going to burst out of it.

“There!” I yell behind me to Leon. I slow down and take out my TAPs and quickly scan the pad on the door. It turns green and we enter, closing it behind us, hiding on each side of the door, breathing heavily, waiting for a Sekrid commando to walk in.

We stay that way for a few minutes, then Leon uses his TAPs as a light to illuminate the many armaments layering the walls of the armory.

“Holy shit dad, I’ve never seen so many guns before.”

“Well, I like to keep my men well-armed. Take your pick, I sure hope your firearms training paid off.”

“Oh, it did, trust me on that dad. Top in my class,” Leon says with a cocky tone.

I scan the walls of many guns, finding my own personal preference of weapon.

“Ah, there you are,” I say to myself. I made sure to have my own ‘MR-62 Personal Assault Rifle’ put in the armory for times like these.

I examine it and admire it for the instrument of war it is. Tracing my hand across the many chips in the black paint, and small gashes placed into the metal for various reasons during the war, reliving every memory of the war. I use my finger to spell out the custom engraving in the weapon, saying ‘Jaeger’, my call-sign during the war.

I allow myself a smile, anticipating the gun’s use at hand. Taking a few mags from the racks, I load them with my own custom ammunition. Your standard 7.62mm ion rounds with an increased amount of ignition compound in the shell, allowing for more stopping power and penetration. The bullet itself is also coated with an incendiary chemical, causing the bullet to ignite on exiting the chamber, allowing the round to super heat, and melt within the target body, dealing further pain and a higher percentage of death.

I grab my optics sight from the rack as well and snap it on to the railing on top of the rifle. I look over at Leon and see him choosing his own weapons carefully himself. I can’t help but to smile at watching him doing this.

“What?” he asks, a puzzled look on his face.

“Nothin’ you just remind me of myself, son, that’s all. You make sure the weapon fits in your hands perfectly, just like me,” Leon smiles, taking it at as a compliment, and feeling proud as he continues to load his weapons.

“Make sure you click on your silencer, stealth is still key with this,” I say, reminding him.

“Got it,” he replies clicking the silencer button.

Before leaving the armory, I glance up and catch eye of one thing I almost forgot. I pull a pair of dog-tags off a small hook where my gun was placed and look at them. On the chain is one tag from Dante’s pair, and one tag from Jake’s pair. I smile and close my eyes, running over a few memories with them, then look at them one more time, kiss them as if asking for their protection and then place them around my neck.

“Alright Leon...ready?”

“Ready...”