One year before the events of chapter 1

Angola, the Mopane Woodlands

“Get down!” Kiochi ordered and soon after a large explosion went off nearby. His team bad been under heavy fire for two straight days within the Mopane Woodlands and they were running out of bullets.

“Where the hell did the rebels get this many explosives?” Jackie asked no one in particular.

Kiochi and his men were held up in a small cottage in the forest. It wasn’t well fortified but they had the high ground.

Thier mission this time was to rescue a politician the local rebels had kidnapped. This would have been textbook hostage situation but the rebels demanded that the Angolan government give them various scientific equipment. This piqued the councils interest.

Why did simple rebels want scientific equipment? Kiochi didn’t know.

That is the question the council wanted answered.

Kiochi, and pretty much everyone else, deduced that there was a third party pulling the strings.

The council had sent Kiochi and his men a week earlier but they were still stuck in the forest. Kiochi could have called for backup but he didn’t think that would be necessary, because none of his men had died yet, or was even injured or fatigued.

This mission was proving to be more annoying than dangerous, much to Kiochi's distaste.

Kiochi walked into the cottage's dining room where Alice awaited him. There was also a rather small man in the corner of the room, who was shivering even though it was summer. Kiochi had found him in a terrible state where even Kiochi himself wasn’t sure how the man was still alive.

Before all this Antonio Dala was your typical corrupt African politician. He fed himself with money from the people’s pockets and his once fat body was a testament of that, but that was from before, the Antonio who hid in the corner before Kiochi was bone thin and his eyes were piss yellow. The once arrogant and selfish man was reduced to such a pitiable state a mere week after his capture.

According to the intel Kiochi received, Mr. Dala’s convoy was ambushed on it’s way to the capital.

“We can’t stay here for any longer. The rebels are getting bolder and their moving their launchers closer and closer to the house.” Alice reported.

It wasn’t as though Kiochi didn’t know this. It’s just that he had to get Mr. Dala out of Mopane Woodlands in one piece and alive, which made the job that much harder.

“I see... I was originally planning on a quick and clean mission-” Kiochi paused, then walked over to Mr. Dala.

“Getting you out of here is becoming more trouble than I ever imagined.” He said with a deep sigh as more explosions came and went, luckily none of them hit their mark.

‘That’s what happens when you give untrained men complicated equipment.’ Kiochi thought.

'If my men were missing this badly, I'd ask for their hands as payment for such... defectivenss.'

“Ok, I have a way to both save this good sir here and get him home, while investigating the secondary issue the council took interest in.” Kiochi spoke into his earpiece.

“Everyone, except Ivan, assemble in the dining room.” Kiochi ordered and a few minutes later, Rachael and Jackie were present.

“Rachael and Jackie, tonight we go on the offensive and kill whoever is trying to blow us to bits. Our primary objective is to keep Mr. Dala over there safe, however the council gave me a secondary order and that is to investigate the strange request the rebels made and find out If there’s a third party interfering with the locals.” Kiochi explained.

“From the Intel Ivan gathered, there three groups using weapons we assume to be mortars. I can’t imagine that they’re going to be very mobile so we’ll use the night to kill them swiftly, understood?”

“ “ Yes, captain!”” Kiochi’s men all said.

The sun slowly sank into the horizon, covering the forest in a deep blue blackness.

Kiochi and his men geared up and left the little cottage under the cover of night. Alice and Ivan were to protect Mr. Dala at all costs and any developments were to be reported to Kiochi immediately.

Kiochi, Jackie and Rachael had split up to deal with several groups of enemies at once. Their opponents were untrained poorly armed rebel militia, so one Kynigoi would most like suffice.

Kiochi moved through the forest as silent as a ghost. His eye’s were augmented to see even in pitch black conditions, which gave him the upper hand over his enemies who were humans whose vision came nowhere close to his.

After walking for a couple of minutes, Kiochi finally came across a large hole dug into the ground. Inside it was a canon which was responsible for giving Kiochi the massive figurative headache he had.

Surrounding the canon was a small group of men dressed in flimsy clothes and sleeping carelessly in the hole.

'There must be a lookout somewhere nearby, otherwise this is just too careless.' Kiochi thought.

'I better move fast, just in case there really is a lookout.' He told himself as he jumped into the hole, took out his combat knife and crouched over the nearest man. He left his Nodachi sheathed, it was actually quite cumbersome in modern warfare, but Kiochi couldn’t bring himself to leave it behind when he traveled.

The man tossed and turned, making himself more comfortable. Kiochi then firmly gripped the mans mouth and shoved his knife into the mans right temple.

The man’s eyes shot open and he briefly struggled before his body went limp and he stopped moving. After yanking the knife out of the mans head, Kiochi let go and stood up, preparing for his next kill.

That’s when he heard the resulting of leaves. Kiochi turned to look and found a man staring at him with eyes so wide you’d think that they’d pop out.

The man didn’t move and neither did Kiochi. The situation was getting more complicated by the second. The man slowly raised his assault rifle and fired a single bullet.

Kiochi dove down into the hole and hid under the man he had just killed. The man who was shooting Kiochi shouted something in Portuguese and his comrades all woke up.

“What’s happening?” one of the mans comrades asked as he climbed from the hole only to get shot by the trigger happy man above. More men were gunned down by the man who was clearly spooked by the sight of Kiochi.

Who wouldn’t be?

The man had just witnessed Kiochi silently kill his comrade andnfortunately for the man, he had used up all his bullets.

“Demon! They’re demons in these woods.” The man’s voice shook violently as he spoke.

Kiochi emerged from the hole and approached the man slowly, but the man took out a machete and swung it violently at Kiochi.

“Stay back! I don’t want to die! You sent the Ghosts of my comrades to kill me, didn’t you?” The man screamed some nonsense as Kiochi got closer.

Then in a flash, Kiochi grabbed the mans wrist and broke the mans arm as he twisted it backwards at an awkward angle. He then flipped the man over, shoved him onto the ground as he held the man's hand over his mouth, silencing the man’s screams.

“I have no idea what you’re saying but what the hell did you kill your friends for?” Kiochi asked even though knew that trying to converse with the man was almost completely pointless. However, they needed intel and Rachael could speak some Portuguese, so keeping the man alive was important.

The man struggled and shook beneath Kiochi desperately but Kiochi kept a firm hold on him.

Jackie and Rachael emerged from the shadows. Jackie was covered in blood and Rachael’s mask was off, indicating that they'd been in a gruesome battle.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about interrogating him. Jackie already helped me with that.” Rachael reported. That explained why Jackie was covered in blood. He was a brutal sadist who could pluck information out of the toughest of soldiers.

“Ok, then we won’t be needing this guy.” Kiochi placed his knife on the man’s throat and gently slid it across.

The Angolan’s expression was one of true fear, but Kiochi didn’t understand it.

Was the man afraid of death?

Kiochi had always assumed that soldiers enter the battlefield well aware that they might die and thus they should be mentally prepared.

Tears trickled down the Angolan’s face as he choked on his own blood. Kiochi gave up on trying to figure out the source of the mans fear as It was neither the time nor the place for those thoughts.

The man let out a gurgled scream that didn’t teach anyone and he died soon after.

“What did you learn?” Kiochi asked as he rose.

“Apparently, the enemy is hiding in a small camp north from here. But what’s curious is that they are taking orders from someone whose not even Angolan.” Racheal reported.

Kiochi already came to that conclusion earlier, but who was using the Angolan’s?

“Who did they say was in charge?” Kiochi asked.

“They said that a foreign man is telling them what do and they said that he has requested that children from local villages be delivered to the camp.” Racheal reported.

This didn’t make any sense to Kiochi.

Why on earth was he doing with those children? He wondered.

“Ok, let’s go see for ourselves what’s really going on" Kiochi said and they made their way to the rebel camp.

.

..

After several minutes of sneaking through the forest, Kiochi and his men finally arrived at the rebel camp. It had a rather basic layout. There was a large building to the north that must have been the barracks where the rebel soldiers slept. A large tent to the east must have been the mess area, where the soldier ate.

The only thing that was suspicious was the warehouse to the east. It was rather out of place. It had walls that looked like they had been freshly painted and it was surrounded by several guards.

“I’ll go to the warehouse. You two eliminate every hostile on site, understood?” Kiochi ordered and his men gave him quick nods as they headed west in the direction of the barracks.

Jackie was an expert at dealing with large numbers of people. His was extremely efficient at long range and his augmented body allowed him to take on more than one person at a time. He was like a predator and slowly made his prey feel terror before dealing the killing blow.

His body was also augmented to be highly damage resistant, couple that with his gear and he was a walking tank.

Rachael on the other hand was fast, very fast. He meticulous nature of cleanly killing her victims and her gentle personality made her quite formidable. She was extremely efficiant at close range and had a sub machine with her, but Kiochi knew that she wasn’t going to use it, because she preferred using her combat knives to cleanly dismember her victims. Her augmented body allowed her muscles to consume twice as much oxygen and nutrients as a normal human being, the result was that she had twice the muscle strength of a normal human being. This plus her elite training meant that despite her petite figure, Rachael was a death reaper.

Kiochi on the other hand was different. Although he had the same augments as any other Kynigoi, his ability to efficiently use them to their fullest was what set him apart from any other soldier. He took pride in having worked with and thrived while working with a diverse cast of people.

Kiochi made his way to the ware house. He heard the voices of the guards who where guarding the warehouses entrance as they engaged in casual banter. This meant that thier alerr levels were pretty low.

Kiochi hid behind a few barrels and surveyed his surroundings. After confirming that no one else was around, he dashed towards the guards and before they could even sense his presence, Kiochi dug his knife through one of the guards neck. The other guard hurriedly tried raising his gun, but Kiochi also had enhanced muscles and so he cleanly cut of the second mans hand, stopping him from firing. Kiochi quickly grabbed the mans mouth and dug his knife into the mans throat. The man convulsed in pain for a moment before becoming still.

Kiochi searched the guards in search of the warehouse key but found none.

Is the door not locked? Kiochi wondered as he walked to the door, pulled the handle and to his surprise, the door opened. It’s unoiled hinges squeaked loudly as he entered the warehouse.

The first thing he noticed was the thick smell of blood.

How had it not leaked outside?

Weren’t the children supposed to be here? Kiochi wondered.

He closed the door behind him and walked deeper into the warehouse.It was dimly lit and the floor was covered with a black sticky substance along with bits and pieces of what looked like meat and bone.

Kiochi also walked by several containers filled with what he assumed was blood.

Then he heard the sound of something metallic being dropped onto the floor.

“Dammit! Extraction will be impossible with this shitty equipment!” A rather high pitched male voice exclaimed.

“You there, I can hear you. Has the government responded?” The voice asked from behind some plastic flaps.

Kiochi entered and what he saw made his face cringe intensely.

Luckily he was wearing a black mask so his expression wasn’t seen.

The mans face, however changed almost instantly into one of panic as his eyes met Kiochi’s.

The man before Kiochi was a brunette of average height, but the deep wrinkles on his face indicated that he was far older than his hair colour indicated.

Had he dyed it?

Kiochi glanced to his right where a most gruesome scene was on full display in the well lit room.

On a table like the type you find in butcher’s sat the naked body of a child.

Its body was so badly disfigured that Kiochi couldn’t identify its gender.

Its face looked like it was beaten inward and its crotch region was torn to pieces.

Various opening of various length and width covered the surface of the body.

Rage filled in Kiochi’s eyes and his whipped out his sidearm and pointed it square at the mans head without turning away from the child’s corpse.

“You have thirty seconds to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.” Kiochi growled deeply.

His breath felt hot under the mask and the climate controlled room made it seem as though he was releasing steam with every word he spoke.

“Wait! I can explain. You’re a Kynigoi right? The council sent you right?” The man asked as he frantically raised his hands above his head.

“Twenty seconds.” Kiochi said.

His eyes had become a firestorm of pure unrelenting anger.

Yes, the council experimented on him as a child but this was many degrees worse than that.

The man in front of him deserved a painful death, but even that seemed like it would be a mercy to Kiochi.

“My name is Gregory Velasquez and I’m biologists. The council sent me here to do some research.” The man who called himself Gregory explained.

Kiochi would have believed him if It wasn’t the council itself that had sent him there.

“How did the child end up like that? It wasn’t you was it?” Kiochi asked.

Gregory waved his hands frantically.

“No, of course it wasn’t me. It’s just- some of the men here…” Gregory’s words faded as Kiochi’s anger flared up intensely.

Kiochi was about to beat the living hell out of the scientist when he heard a woman’s voice come from his earpiece.

[Is this A-3? I am Natasha Lebedev.]

Kiochi stood upright and calmed himself down after the soft voice identified itself.

“Yes ma’am, this is A-3. Awaiting orders.” Kiochi said.

Gregory seemed to panic and walked slightly close to Kiochi, but Kiochi shot at the ground in front on Gregory’s foot, prompting the scientist to stand still.

“Listen, I lied about the council sending me here, but I wasn’t lying about me doing their research. If that is the council, please tell them that I’m still working on It.” Gregory begged.

[Is that Dr. Gregory Velasquez? If so, I order you to eliminate him.]

Kiochi frowned.

“Eliminate him? But I haven’t even interrogated him. Wouldn’t it be more practical if I did that first?”

“Eliminate? Who? Me? Did Natasha tell you that? Don’t listen to her! I’m still working. Tell her I’m still working." Gregory yelled and walked over to Kiochi.

Kiochi really didn’t appreciate that, so he shot him in the foot.

Luckily his pistol was silenced so the chances of anyone outside hearing it were low.

“Arrg! Why did you do that?” Gregory fell to the ground in pain and rolled around as blood poured out of his foot.

[Do not question me soldier. I order you to kill Dr. Gregory Velasquez, now!]

Mrs. Lebedev raised her voice.

This was one of the few times he got to speak to the third seat on the council directly, let alone with her voice so loud.

Kiochi hesitated.

What was Gregory researching?

Why was he torturing children?

Kiochi walked over to Gregory and placed his guns barrel on Gregory’s face.

The scientist whimpered and tears ran down his eye’s.

“What are you researching here anyway?” Kiochi asked.

Gregory looked up to see Kiochi’s pitch black eyes boring into his soul.

“I… I… “ Gregory hesitated.

[A-3, what are you doing? Do not question him, just kill him!]

Mrs. Lebedev was basically screaming at this point.

Kiochi was running out of options.

The price for disobeying the council was death.

But still, he needed to know what Gregory was killing children for.

“Please don’t kill me. Please. Please.” Gregory begged.

Kiochi closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

The bullet shot out of the other side of Gregory’s head and his limp body fell to the ground.

[Good work soldier. Clean up the mess over there and destroy the facility.]

Mrs. Lebedev’s calm soft voice had returned.

“Yes… ma’am.” Kiochi sighed.

He looked at the corpse on the table and wondered what had become of the other children.

He looked around and found some files near the bloody table.

He picked up the file and saw a title on the top.

“Super… stem cell research… “ Kiochi muttered, but before he could open the file, he heard footsteps approaching.

“Sir, you have to see this.” It was Jackie.

Kiochi gave a quick nod and followed him outside.

They walked eastwards and further in the camp Kiochi saw Rachael moving around barrels of what Kiochi assumed was fuel.

“Sir, remember that tent that you said looked like the food area?” Jackie asked.

Kiochi narrowed his eye’s.

“Yes.” He answered straightforwardly.

Once in front of the tent, Jackie let out a sigh and stopped.

“Well sir, that’s not the case.” Jackie said and opened the tent flap.

Kiochi’s senses were overwhelmed as the thick putrid smell of rot assaulted his nose.

He walked into the tent and saw a large hole in the ground.

In that hole was a mound of small dead bodies.

Kiochi clenched his fists so hard that it strained the pistols metal grip.

Just what on earth was going on here? Kiochi wandered.

And why did Mrs. Lebedev personally contact Kiochi and give him direct orders?

Kiochi walked out and took a deep breath to collect his thoughts.

“Where there any other scientist’s?” Kiochi asked.

“Yes, sir. We interrogated them and they said that they were researching something called super stem cell technology and how it would help save mankind, but other than that, they didn’t know anything else. I think the head scientist was keeping them in the dark. They even thought that the children were dying because of malnourishment and disease. But it’s clear that they were drained dry.” Jackie reported.

Kiochi pondered deeply on what any of that meant.

But we have up shortly after.

He was a soldier and he had his orders, that was all.

“What do we do?” Jackie asked.

“Light it up.” Kiochi said as he walked away from the campsite.

“Even the scientists, sir?” Jackie asked.

“All of it.” Kiochi responded.

His steps were slow and his mind was a mess but at least he killed the bad guys while keeping Mr. Dala safe.

Later that night, Jackie and Rachael set the whole base on fire and returned to the cottage, where Alice, Ivan and Mr. Dala awaited them.

After getting some rest, they headed for the nearest extraction point and safely returned Mr. Dala home.

Kiochi’s team had a perfect record for most missions done without sustaining casualties, but Kiochi felt that mission had far more casuals than was necessary. But he was a soldier.

He had followed his orders completely. That was all he needed to know.