"Vulgar creatures," Connor muttered in disgust as he looked through the window at the secluded cottage. Victor had to agree. The aliens inside were eating what appeared to be their dinner, although the mere sight of the pink, toothpaste-like mash dotted with what Victor could only recognize as cockroach shells made him sick. To make matters worse, the creatures ate like dogs, face down in the platter, neither fork nor spoon to be seen.
Victor could feel Connor was ready to act. He had been with the knight for nigh on four years now, and the man had become predictable. Connor tensed his hand around the impossibly large gun he carried and began giving orders.
"You two circle around back. Leave them no quarter. Squire, you will come with me," the commanding knight ordered. Victor wished he would use his name, but that was unrealistic. Squire was his title and Squire he answered to.
The two nameless suits gave a soft, "Yes, Sir," and ran off quietly to their positions. Victor had long since given up finding out the names of all the grunts. They came and went far too quickly to matter.
After he gave them a minute to get into position, Connor quietly rose, a lion hunting its prey, and stalked over to the door. Victor followed in his wake. Even after all these years, the man still frightened him. They steadily approached the average door of the small house. In fact, everything about the cottage was average, from the worn car out front to the smoke from the chimney. The only reason they had been alerted to the presence of these intruders was from an anonymous tip, but now they had to be made an example of. No one hides from the Forever Knights.
Connor reached the door and imperiously kicked it in with one armor clad foot. Victor was aware of the sudden lack of noise in the house as the beasts froze in shock. Connor strode through the small living room, his weapon charging with a high pitched hum, Victor close behind.
Before they reached the entrance to the kitchen, a loud crash could be heard. They entered the room to find the four creatures scrambling toward the back door, but it would not open for them. Victor guessed it was the work of the two grunts. The terror and surprise on the intruders' faces created a twisted feeling in Victor's gut. Their features were so similar…
Connor shot once, a direct hit into the largest one's head. He dropped like a stone.
One of the creatures shouted, his face twisted in such grief it gave Victor pause. The word was unrecognizable, but it sounded as if, as if, the creature was calling it… father.
"You filthy, despicable beasts think you may go wherever you please? Allow me to educate you," Connor snarled as he charged his weapon again. Victor was still frozen, listening to the frightened cries and screams from two of the creatures. The one who had called out was still gone, too grief stricken to pay attention to the situation.
"What are you waiting for?" Connor shouted at Victor. The noise galvanized everyone into action. Connor shot the smallest of the remaining three, a solid hit, and it too fell. The effect of that dropped the largest surviving one to its knees while it stared at the most recent life taken.
The one who had called out wildly whipped its head back and forth, searching for an escape route. Victor finally acted and offed a shot at the thing. At the noise, the creature turned and shot him a look so poisoness it frightened Victor. The being jumped on the table, provoking another shot from Victor. The creature didn't pause but jumped parallel to the ground and punched through the window, shattering the glass easily.
"Squire! After him!" Connor ordered while picking up the remaining alien with one gloved hand around its neck. The last he saw of them was Connor taking aim at the creatures head as he jumped through the window after the escapee. A gunshot bid him farewell as he took off through the forest.
Luminescent green blood forged a path through the woods, betraying the trail of the fugitive. Victor ran after the beast, all sorts of unwelcome thoughts pounding through his head. Why do they have to be so emotional? They acted like a family… It was so much easier when the targets were truly abominations, but these were so, so nearly human it terrified him. He followed the wounded alien through the forest and finally found it, hanging onto a branch for support as it wheezed and clutched its side.
"Come to finish me?" The alien wheezed as its eyes narrowed in hate at the boy hunting him.
Victor's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You can talk!" he exclaimed, forgetting at the moment to shoot.
"Yes, I can talk," the creature mocked him, "so hear me now. You, your people, your group, YOU have the gall to call us abominations? You hunt us like animals and we are in the wrong? You just slaughtered my family, you foul murdering swine. If anyone should die today, if anyone be the true beasts, it is you." The last word was hissed with such loathing it chilled Victor. "So do it! Shoot!" the alien shouted at Victor, straightening out.
Victor raised the gun, aimed, and shot. It was true.
The alien fell, crumpled. The gun dangled from Victor's grasp as he trudged back to the house, confused beyond belief. That alien… that alien was as good as human. But Connor, Connor would not accept such views. Connor was too set in his belief to ever even consider something of that magnitude. A branch slid along Victor's arm, cutting him, but the feeling was far away and Victor didn't care. The house was in sight.
"Squire!" Connor commanded from the back of the imposing black Hummer they had chosen for this mission. Victor hauled himself in, being too short for easy entrance, and sat silent and still for the entire ride home. Connor too was quiet.
They passed into the residential area they had slowly taken over over the past few months. Large cream-colored apartment complexes sitting in green lawns looked completely harmless in the fast approaching dawn. It provided a good base for their operations, appearing neither conspicuous nor strange. No one guessed that the apartment complexes held battalions of knights ready and armed, nor that underneath was one of the most important labs in the organization.
The driver came to a stop outside one of the houses, number 114, and Connor got out and walked in the front door opened by one of the lesser grunts, Victor trailing. Both members got into an elevator and began their descent, light flashing in through the small window alternately as they flew past floor after floor. Finally, the elevator came to a halt and Victor and Connor exited and began walking through the maze of hallways. Victor was hit by the suffocating smell of piped, sterile air. Breathing through his mouth, he followed Connor to a room where Connor ordered him to wait outside.
As Connor walked in the room to report on the success of his mission, Victor leaned against a wall in the dimly lit corridor and concentrated on controlling his features. The face of the alien he had shot still burned behind his eyes, mocking him, testing everything he believed in. To ruthlessly kill such an obviously intelligent being, it nearly sickened him. And really, what were they doing that warranted their complete removal?
Victor fearfully looked down both sides of the corridor, as if somewhere a knight might pop out and scream, "Traitor!" But that was ridiculous. His thoughts were his own, but they were frightening all the same. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself and resolved to consider the matter at a more suitable time.
No sooner had he decided on this than Morton rounded the corner of the hall and easily made his way over. Morton was one of Victor's favorite commanding knights, easy going and with a quick sense of humor, two traits rarely found among knights. The heavyset man stopped his walk when he reached Victor.
"Morning, Squire," he greeted Victor. Not even he bothered with Victor's name, but Victor didn't mind too terribly with Morton.
"Hello, Sir," Victor greeted softly.
"Have a good run?" Morton inquired.
"Oh, yes. Terrific," Victor replied, a little too fast.
"Mmmhmmm," Morton replied, unconvinced. Before he could inquire farther, Connor strode out of the communications room. He turned and began walking away, barely motioning for Victor to follow, when a suit of armor ran up to the trio.
"Sir Connor, Sir Morton, Doctor Chadwick request you in Lab 3," the knight gasped out between pants. Victor wasn't sure what floor they were on, but labs were on the very lowest levels, and from the sound of it the messenger had run the stairs clear from there to here. Victor pitied him.
"On our way," Morton cheerfully answered as he and Connor began walking toward the elevator. Behind them, Victor followed, hiding his dread at meeting with Chadwick. Ever since the Ship incident, the doctor had taken an unhealthy interest in Ben Tennyson and the omnitrix, even though the omnitrix was now gone, the ultimatrix in its stead. Victor had heard rumors about the man's experiments on aliens, some particularly vicious ones about him experimenting on humans even, and he was still chilled by the memory of a scream once while in the lower levels. At least the two Sirs would be there with him.
All three went in the elevator and Morton pushed the button at the bottom of the column. A keypad appeared above the set of buttons and Morton quickly typed in a complicated sequence of numbers. The button pressed turned green and with a ding, the elevator closed and began its descent. No one spoke for the long thirty seconds it took to get to their destination.
The elevator gave another soft ding and deposited the three at the entrance to Chadwick's lab. Connor took the lead, stabbing the keypad with his thick fingers until the light above the door turned green and the automatic doors whooshed open. Victor followed the two inside, trying not to stare at the surrounding lab tables and alien tech strewn about. The soft clack of Chadwick's shoes alerted them to his presence before he appeared from behind a large machine, the use of which Victor didn't know.
"Thank you for coming so quickly," the doctor greeted. Victor hated the feeling Chadwick's eyes gave, one pale and dead, one glittering and dissecting. Nothing escaped those eyes. "I believe you'll like this," he taunted before heading off in the direction of the large machine he had just been behind. Connor looked unimpressed, but nevertheless he followed the doctor, Morton behind.
Victor suspiciously examined the machine they were circling. Large, chrome, and boxy, it dominated one whole corner of the lab. When they finally got to the front, Victor saw a rather large metal chair in a recess in the machine. Just looking at it reminded him how tired he was. He hadn't slept in over thirty hours, due to the mission. Chadwick walked a bit further, to the control box in the panel located on the corner of the machine.
"You may be wondering why I brought you here," Chadwick started. He didn't wait for a reply. "Before you is what I believe to be the key to winning this war against the aliens. Why are we afraid of such creatures? Why must we rely on technology to defeat them?" No one answered his rhetorical questions. "Because we are weaker than them. Because we do not possess the natural abilities to defeat them. "
Chadwick waved a hand grandly at the machine. "This is the answer to our problem." Everyone looked at the machine closely, their interest sparked. Sensing their newfound curiosity, Chadwick continued. "This machine has the ability to grant humans the ability of any alien, the ability to finally stand on level ground with our opponents."
"How does that work?" Morton asked. Victor was curious too.
"After a sample of DNA is gathered from a contributing alien, it is inserted into the machine. Analysis is then completed, and we take the power we would like to duplicate, replicate it, and graft it. The process is quick and nearly painless." Chadwick was puffed up like a strutting cat as he went into detail about the process.
Victor quickly tired of listening to him and wandered over to where he had seen the chair earlier. It was rather uncomfortable, but Victor was too tired to really care and sank into it, savoring the moment of privacy the wall blocking his view of the knights afforded. He half listened to the scientist go on about his machine for a few minutes, mind wandering.
"So this button here does it?" Morton asked.
"Yes, it starts the process," Chadwick affirmed. There was silence following the statement. Then Connor spoke.
"Have you forgotten the reason we exist?" Connor said dangerously.
Chadwick answered slowly but confidently. "To rid the planet of any and all aliens and keep it as such."
"And this machine blends the DNA of scum with ours?" Connor made his point, his voice low.
"Yes," Chadwick stated, hesitant now.
"How dare you! To even dream of melding our DNA with anything else!" Victor knew the hand was raised, ready to slap. He had seen it far too often. The only light in this bleak situation was that it was not aimed at him.
"Steady there, mate," Morton tried to calm him, but failed.
"Do not touch me!" Connor ordered loudly. Victor heard Morton take a step back, but what he could not see was when Morton's elbow brushed the start button, activating the machine.
"NO!" Chadwick yelled. Victor was startled by the terror in the scientist's voice, but when he tried to leap up, he found himself strapped in by metal bands that wound themselves around his wrists, ankles, and torso like snakes. "There's no DNA!"
Victor heard the machine start to hum, a noise that grew shriller with each passing millisecond. Suddenly, a helmet descended from the roof of the machine and came around the boy's head. Victor thought his heart was about to burst with fright, but didn't call out. He heard the footsteps of the knights and knew they were running away, leaving him.
Suddenly the helmet sparked, once, twice, and them was still. Victor let out a heavy sigh, thinking the machine was done.
Then a blinding white light filled Victor's ears and eyes and brain and he felt his spirit being propelled from his body.