Akari, The Praeteritum I



...

Ben stepped outside of his house and dusted his hands off. The movers were still lifting the last sofa into his new house. Some of them still couldn’t believe a 23 year old was moving into such a fine house. Ben chuckled, shook his head, and crossed his arms. He looked around. Nice residential neighborhood, lots of trees and shrubs around. The air smelled nice and there were birds chirping. Lots and lots of birds chirping, he thought.

“Where do you want us to set it?” One of the men asked breaking the quiet and serene moment.

“Just over there will be fine. Thanks.” Ben said turning back around and looking at his new neighborhood. His phone started to vibrate in his pocket and then began to ring. He fished around for it in his pocket then answered it. “Hello?”

“Pelley?” A voice said.

“Who is this?” Ben said alarmingly, nodding towards the movers who got into their movers truck and began to back out of the drive way.

“Chief Gabriel Calvin, from the fifth precinct. I believe you’ve met my son, Tommy. Oh, heh, excuse me, Thomas Calvin.”

“Oh yeah, I know Tom. Not to be rude or anything, but why did you call me Chief?” Ben asked.

“Well there’s a situation.” The Chief answered.

…

Tom turned to his father, “Did you call him in?” He said exasperatedly.

“Yep, but he’s thirty minutes away. By then this superhuman maniac is going to turn us into controlled dark…clouds or whatever the hell he’s done with, God bless their souls, the other six officers.” Chief Calvin said. Tom looked up at the massive swirling dark cloud around the Alkazine Tower. The top ten floor’s windows and been shattered. The swirling mass of clouds were pitch black and was slowly expanding which was exactly what Tom was afraid of. What would was the superhuman planning? He started looking around frantically. There were over forty officers simply milling about. The superhuman had made plenty of threats. He had hostages and he had already killed seven, unmercifully. But he still had four kids and seven adults. The adults being the remaining kids parents. There were over forty officers simply milling about. Tom couldn’t take it anymore. Tom sighed and threw his hat on the ground in frustration.

“We need to get up there, now!” Tom said. The officers began turning their heads towards Tom. “Who are we? Huh? What are we supposed to be?” He yelled.

“Tommy.” The Chief said, but Tom shook his head. He jumped on top of the police truck and waved his arms trying to get the crowd’s attention.

“Those hostages are counting on us to save their lives! They’ve already seen ten other people die and then dropped a hundred and thirty stories! I don’t care anymore we have to go in there or it’ll be too late anyway!” Tom screamed, the veins in his neck becoming more visible than ever.

The cops just stared at him. Tom looked around to all the familiar faces and not one showed they were ready for a revolution. “…Are you serious? Is there not one person out there who can assist me! You…you people make me-”

The ground shuttered and Tom fell over and off the car. He rolled when he hit the ground and looked up to Vigor standing in three foot deep impression on the concrete. He looked at the chief. “You called?”

The chief smiled, “I think you just got your wish son.”

…

“They’ve got the top ten floors locked down. Goons everywhere, but they’re expendable.” Tom said walking over to a car and dropping the folder on the hood of a police car. He opened the folder and began flipping through the papers.

“How do you know?” Vigor asked.

“Heh, well, this guy is so crazy his first demonstration that he wasn’t messing around was to kill ten of his own people. Scary when someone’s that crazy right? When they can just kill like that and not even think twice about it? But anyway, he made it obvious their lives are expendable to him.” Tom said.

“Yeah.” Vigor said, visibly uneasy at the answer he was given.

“Alright you ready?” Tom said, grabbing two guns and strapping them into his holster. He looked up at Vigor who was wearing B.D.U.’s stuffed into black boots. A large V was on his chest and Tom could tell it was cheaply made. It almost looked stitched in. He almost laughed.

“Let’s go.” Vigor said, almost with an angry tone. As they ran off Chief Gabriel chuckled.

“Chief,” A cop said staring at Tom and Vigor sprinting towards a helicopter.

“Mhmm?” The Chief said, looking over his shoulder at the officer behind him.

“Do you think it’s going to work? I mean honestly?” The man said.

“…I can’t answer that question. Not now. But I can tell you this I do have faith. Not just in my son, but in both of them. They are going to turn to the tide. But when they do, we have to make sure we’re ready.”

…

“Fly right up into that cloud up there!” Vigor screamed at the pilot.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not flying into that thing!” The pilot said unbuckling his seatbelt.

“Fine, just tell me how to fly this thing then.” Vigor said.

“No,” Tom said making the halt sign with his hand, “you have a duty to do sir!”

“The duty doesn’t involve death it involves flying!” The pilot said glaring at Tom, he quickly grabbed a parachute then hurriedly leaped out of the helicopter.

“No need for him, coward. I know how to fly this thing.” Tom said as he sat down.

“You sure?” Vigor asked.

Tom nodded with dead set eyes. He buckled himself in and took ahold of the throttle. He looked out the windshield at the massive swirling cloud and shook his head. "Christ." He murmered.

“Chief, the pilot is…is he parachuting down?" An officer asked, back on the ground.

“Let me see those.” The chief said, looking through the binoculars. “What in the world?”

The helicopter hovered in the air slowly but then started to spiral. It leveled out quickly and started gaining altitude. Soon the helicopter was only thirty floors away from the dark cloud. The Chief let go a deep sigh of relief. "Thank God, thank God." Suddenly the helicopter smashed through the windows of a floor twenty floors off from the target.

“Oh Jesus Tom!” The chief exclaimed.

…

Vigor groaned and shoved a slab of metal off of him. “Tom? ...Tom!” Ben lifted a huge piece of wall off of Tom and gasped.

Tom was looking confusedly at himself; surprised he was still breathing. "I'm alright. I'm...alright."

“Good you’re not hurt. …I thought you said you knew how to fly one of these things?” Vigor started to cough as he stood. There were in some kind of office. Wires were exposed and the light sources were flickering on and off.

“Yeah, well,” Tom said groaning as he stood. “I lied. But hey, be careful. The wires could kill us both.”

…

“Sir! A helicopter just smashed into the fortieth floor, plan of action?”

The man turned around and laughed. “Smashed? Their probably dead but send twenty men down there to check."

“Twenty sir? I’m not sure that’s exactly…well how can I say this…smart.”

“Do you dare oppose me the great Akari? Lord of darkness!” A dark steaming and hissing hand composed of what resembled thick black clouds appeared as an extension of Akari’s own hand and slammed the man against the wall. The man’s neck jerked to the right and he fell down dead.

One of the little girls’s started to cry. “Does anyone want to not shut that hole in their face? Thought so. Send everyone down there!” Akari said. He walked over to the crying little girl and kneeled down in front of her. “Ooh what’s the matter? Scared of a little death?”

“You did just throw her father out the window!” The girl’s mother said with a trembling voice. Akari smirked turning his attention to the mother and gripped her neck. The other parents shielded their own kids from yet another death. The little girl stopped crying.

Suddenly Akari felt ice traveling up the side of his face. He backed away and released the mother from his chokehold. He shook the ice off and smiled at the little girl, “Well what do you know? Another one just like me!” He started to laugh and walked over to where there once was a wall sized glass window. He looked down and saw the swirling mass of dark energy spreading out. He outstretched both of his arms and suddenly spinning cyclones began to descend from the cloud and came down like massive tornadoes. “This is very good! Capitis will be mine before the day ends.”

“Go! Go! Get out of here!” The chief screamed back on ground level. He turned towards the tower as he slung a zipped up police bag over his shoulder. He made his sure his handgun was secured safely in his holster before running towards the tower.

As soon as the black “tornadoes” touched the ground police cars began to be thrown up into the air. The chief kicked the door to the main entrance of the tower open and dived inside before a flying police car smashed into the door. The chief stood and dusted himself off. He cracked his knuckles then ran towards the elevator. “Wait…on second thought.” He opened the door to the stairwell and looked all the way up. He shook his head as he began to run up the stairs.

…

Tom and Vigor stopped. “Here they come.” Vigor said. Tom unlatched his handgun and assumed a stance.

“Wait, we should get off the stairwell. It’s not a good place to fight.” Tom said.

“Right, good idea.” Vigor said just as the door one floor above then was forcibly smashed off its hinges. Vigor turned and ran down a flight to get back to the level with a door. Tom raised his gun while slowly backing away. The goons laughed like maniacs as they ran towards the duo.

Vigor looked up and saw Tom still standing relatively close to where they were while his gun was raised. “Tom! Come on!”

Tom fired once then twice before he abandoned his resolve and turned to run down the stairs with the goons right on his heels.