Dark Hunter's resolution.
Chapter 56: Bittersweet endings, service for a soul.
29th June 2902
Alpha Centuari, Pandora, Omaticaya clan.
News of the war trickled in more slowly here, but the war's end had been very quick to spread here.
Now, nearly 2 months after the war's end, and a month after the war trials, was it that a message arrived for Firi'sry.
Messages delivered to clan members that had children offworld, out in the more technological societies, wasn't uncommon. But for Firi'sry, this message held great meaning, and would be a painful yet reassuring reminder of what had been lost and saved in the war.
Firi'sry had been helping with a Hexapede carcass, brought in by a group of successful hunters of the clan. While she had Tsa'hik assistant duties from time to time, it was a time of relative peace. And the Hexapedes were timely kills, as some clan members were wearing out what little clothing they had.
Firi'sry had been peeling back the Hexapede's leathery hide for cloth material when she heard the loud children.
Looking up, from beneath one of Hometrees's large overhanging roots, a small ship, recognised as a general shuttle, was landing in a clearing 400 metres away. These shuttles were rare, but usually they brought survey teams, or acted as message ships, or delivered passengers such as returning or outgoing clan members, an even greater rarity.
A pair of Na'vi males disembarked, bearing clothing more in line with the spacefaring members of their race, including full covering garments and display visors over one of their eyes each.
Up and around Hometree, clan members eyed the 2 visiting Na'vi curiously, but to their disappointment, no offworld Omaticaya were returning today.
As the dozen or so children that had spotted them swarmed the 2 visitors, Firi'sry noticed one of them asking a question to the children. A few children pointed towards the lower section of hometree, to which the single Na'vi thanked them.
He proceeded to tell his companion to return to the ship.
Bending down to her Hexapede skinning again, Firi'sry would be surprised to find that, 4 minutes later, the colonist Male Na'vi had approached her.
"Hello? I'm looking for a female Omaticaya member, first name Firi'sry? Mother of Sru'sky?"
Standing up, and leaving her 2 fellow Hexapede skinners to their work, Firi'sry walked up to the visitor.
"I am Firi'sry. What has brought you here?"
"Myself and my friend here were coming here for a simple survey, so the planet colonies know what the populations of the clans are. Routine surveys."
He then reached into his pocket:
"But, I was given a second task. This data pad here has a message from an unknown sender, high priority. I wasn't told who the sender was, but your daughter passed it on. There's a DNA scanning code in the message, so only you can open the message."
He passed the data pad, and said with a smile: "You can keep this. Its powered by solar rays, and the non closed message said its yours to keep anyway."
Looking back, the male then saw his companion approaching with the survey data pads in hand, ready to begin registering the current Omaticaya population.
"I need to go. I hope that message is a good one."
As the male left, Firi'sry eyed the data pad in hand, and then looked to her 2 skinning companions. They simply nodded their heads to say to go ahead and leave, and read the message.
10 minutes later
Finding herself up in a more secluded part of Hometree, Firi'sry activated the datapad. Immediately, she saw it was presented in Na'vi written language:
DNA BIOMETRICS POSITIVE.
FILES READY FOR ACCESS.
BEGINNING ROUTINE SECURITY SCAN.
OPENING MESSAGE 1.
On a projected, enlarged screen about 2 feet in front of her face, a figure in a prison cell stood in the centre, facing the device recording this.
She didn't recognize the human male, as the patchy brown hair and red blotched area of skin around the mouth were lost on her.
But within seconds, she saw familiar traits emerging. A deep scar on his left cheek, running from his chin to below his ear. And noticeably red eyes.
Speaking in fluent Na'vi, surprising for a human, he began his long address:
"Hello Firi'sry. I'm sorry I couldn't be here in person to say this, but what I did to help end the war, and how it affected my behaviour, means we likely won't meet in the foreseeable future."
"If you're still confused as to who I am, I can tell you that we've met. But honestly, I don't know who I really am myself."
The voice was faint, a whisper almost, as if forming words was harder for him.
"Firi'sry, to you, I am Alex Damien. You're adopted son. But.."
Her eyes were in disbelief, as she saw evidence of her stepson alive before her eyes. But immediately, she remembered how this was a recording. And his uncertainty was like a series of daggers hovering over her.
"I'm certain Sru'sky has told you about the crisis in the Alliance Kro'nogri capital, and how I was directly involved. I was part of a group that exposed the one that caused the war, but at the same time we got into conflict with some of our allies that sought to separate Cybertronians from organics through more war. During the conflict, I was keeping the Kro'nogri prince safe from the rogues, and he managed to survive unharmed. For that, negotiating the war's end was easier for both sides."
"But I need to be honest with you, as I wasn't when we met again, and when I killed your mate. When I was brought back for the first time, I received Alex's memories just as Xale and Lexa, his clones, did. The only difference was that I was a fully identical copy of him at his death. Thinking back over his memories, how he would have behaved in my position in either this or his first clone, I can't see any reason to believe Alex returned. He is too different from how I, and his first clone, turned out."
"I'm sorry Firi'sry. But you are welcome to believe that Alex returned the first time, corrupted, and returned a second time to this body. But I myself, am far too different from either him, or his first clone. I believe I was never your son, and I'm sorry for giving you false hope of his return. I'm sorry for causing you to think your son did the things his first clone did, and anything wrong I've done."
Firi'sry was stunned, but slowly, things began to move in her mind. When he was in Eywa with her at the Kahtra'ya clan willow tree, Firi'sry would swear on her mate's resting place that she thought he was her stepson.
"I know what you're thinking, and I understand. During the Eru'lindi city crisis, I encountered Kal'sik. And my fear of him, he served as a gateway for all my fears, stresses, questions and repressed emotions to come forth. I ran away from my duty, and hid. I broke down, and I had to quickly work to get my mind in order. But in that moment of lowliness, trying to remember who I was, what I needed to do, and what I was working towards, I had a realization."
"The reason I seemed so like Alex, even a corrupted or scarred version of him, was because I only had my being told that I was Alex to go by. Other than being told I was Alex, I have no way to prove to myself that I really am him."
"I know you son better than anyone besides Xale and Lexa ever will, but I have no basis to be convinced that I really am him. I became a different person the moment I woke up in this body. The first clone of Alex was different from both me and the original. But in knowing your son so well, I wanted to do what he would do in my situation."
"If I truly am him, which I don't know, then all the better. If not, then I need to find my own path. But I don't want you to grieve again, so please, let me be the envoy of your son, a final message to you if he truly is dead, and I am my own person."
Firi'sry was silently crying now, but she saw the sympathy in the human's eyes. He continued:
"Your son was always striving to be stronger, as he saw himself as always second rate in your tribe due to physical status. He became greatly skilled in many things, but he always had that drive to be better, and it was a weakness he knew he had. An inferiority complex."
"But, among the tribe people, while he competed with his sister, strived to meet your mate's standards in spite of his slight resentment towards H'nuptec, he always saw a safe haven in you."
"From what he heard, after his parents and sister were killed in the pirate attack, you were the first being to find him in the escape pod. The first to truly care for him. He would want to say, with all sincerity, that he's grateful for everything, and that whatever he did that hurt you, whether he truly lived in all 3 clones including me or just once, that he only did what he thought was right. He never meant to hurt you, and if he did, he will regret it for all his eternal afterlife."
The human now stood silent, eyeing the floor as if searching inside for what next to say. Firi'sry's chest was constricted now, but her tears were stopping, as she realized that despite the uncertainty of whether it had been Alex all along, or not, this was a message from him. Perhaps the last in a while.
"I want you to know that, again, whether I'm Alex or not, that I won't be in contact for a long time. I've been sentenced to 15 years of helping hunt down people who need to be brought to justice for terrible war crimes, some beyond what I've done, and haven't redeemed themselves. All war criminals, who committed acts beyond their orders either for sick pleasure, or for their own agendas. Some of my deeds in the war, mostly after this body awakened, gave me some redemption from crimes Alex and his first clone did, but other things I've done in this body have limited such repayment.
"Annoyingly, UIP will always view me with suspicion. I suppose they are more certain that I and the first clone were Alex more than I am. I'd much rather it be the other way round honestly, but I'm not up for execution anymore at least."
A simple cracked joke at the irony of his situation brought levity to the message, as Firi'sry lightly laughed at Alex's comment.
"I am sentenced to the Alliance's war criminal cleanup, and as I see it, its unlikely that my services will involve me help in hunting UIP war criminals. They probably are getting on that with their own agents or more redeemable war criminals, similar to me."
"I was allowed to send one message, a last thing in my sentence. As part of my sentence, during my sentence I'm not allowed to purposefully make contact outside of my 'masters'." Alex spat the last word harshly.
"If we or anyone else I've known meet in the next 15 years, it will be by chance. But because I am in the Alliance, I wanted to send the message to someone who I will most likely not meet for those 15 years. You can easily pass this message to anyone that might wish to know of my fate in the UIP. Your daughter likely tried to access this datapad, but all she would get was a warning to pass it to you, the only one this opens for."
"You were the first one who is still alive to care for me, love me, and support me. Those things are a rarity for me now, but if anyone was to be the last to hear from me, until I'm done paying off my debt to society, it was to be you."
"But personally, I'm always open to chance encounters. You were the furthest away person I care about, whereas people in the Alliance I may well run into during my 15 years. And in the UIP, Sru'sky and her friends live in the spacefaring worlds. But you live more off grid, and I know that you can tell Sru'sky this when she next visits."
"Fell free to show this to anyone who may be interested in knowing my fate. 15 years is a long time, as long as I was your son before that day the gladiators kidnapped me and Sru'sky, and a whole series of events accelerated my life along."
Turning around in the hologram, Alex spoke as he showed off his repaired body:
"My body has been, well, repaired. The grafted scar of the burn I received on the new Earth has been removed, partly to disguise me. But the patches of missing hair, and the reddened skin? They were gifts from an aggressive, acid spitting plant when I was escaping the prison I was thrown into after the New Cybertron Battle. That same plant sent some acid down my throat by chance, and I didn't manage to get it out quickly enough, so my voicebox isn't so good anymore. I either speak angrily, or I speak in whispers."
"They were however, gracious enough to finally remove the Varya enslavement implants from my spine."
Indeed, as he turned around, his back and neck were free of the implants, but now had faint, quickly disappearing surgical scars running in a line down his spine.
Then, a hologram of a still figure appeared:
"One last thing. I lesson I've learned, and am still learning. This figure is Kal'sik, the one who attacked the Kahtra'ya clan so viciously. He was decieved, taking information leaked by Zoran to track the NKI leaders, down. If it weren't for Zoran, Kal'sik wouldn't have attacked. He was deceived, as was the Alliance, and all of us."
"Please Firi'sry. I know you have teaching influence in the clan, so please spread this. I may not like Kal'sik personally for what he did during the war, but I at least can understand why he and others did terrible things. Like me and many other UIP, he wanted to loyally serve the Alliance, his clan so to speak. We all do terrible things in war, so please teach clan members that war is never the right answer, but only the last answer when all else has failed. War is never black and white, its the leaders waging the war that are to be judged, not those that serve their leaders under false belief and support of those leaders."
"I'll have to get used to Kal'sik though. The new Queen, Sha'krii, has decreed we are to frequently serve together on the same mission. She says that out mutual distrust and hatred need to be ironed out by, cooperation. Also, if we try to kill each other, then we are charged with execution, so she expects us to behave. At least we can both hold out own in a fight."
Shuffling his feet a bit, the human shut down the static Kal'sik hologram, then flashed his head towards what could likely be a door, and an off-camera movement.
"Firi'sry. 15 years, that is what I have to do now. I'm sorry for what wrongs I've done. But sometimes wrong methods are the best for getting a better future, even if not for myself. Thank you, for everything you've ever done. My greatest regret is if I ever disappointed you. I love you, mother."
"End message, Alex Damien out."
Without another word, the datapad retracted the displayed 2D holoscreen in front of her face.
2 hours later
Gazing up towards the hovering twilight sight of Polyphemus overhead, and Kele'tari in the distance, Firi'sry knew that inside the Tsa'hik's storage sacks for artefacts, and personal belngings, the datapad would remain safe.
With solar batteries and robust systems, it would be able to come online again with about 6 hours of intense light, and have power for the whole day.
But as she gazed up at the night sky, with her Ik'ran Su'krala roosting nearby as it too surveyed the jungle and Pandora night skies, she idly wondered which star was the one where Alex was, about to enter the next stage of his life?
Or which star his successor and legacy was acting on behalf of Alex.
For many years, Firi'sry would ponder with anything Eywa had to offer on the subject, using her time in Eywa with Alex to determine whether her son truly died and had 2 different people masquerading as him, or whether her son was corrupted enough to simply seem like another person.
It was a question that would never be fully answered. But seeking those answers gave Firi'sry hope.
30th June 2902
Tarihhis, Eru'lindi city, Kro'nogri intelligence centre.
On hologram, Sha'krii finished the briefing:
"They'll be hiding in the Skelek system, on the 2nd moon of Ranal. A prefabricated mining base, abandoned 12 years ago. Their leaders knows the location of many other officers, most of whom are war criminals we're searching for."
Looking over scans of the prefab mining base, on a mid gravity moon, Alex saw Kal'sik nod and reply:
"We can leave as soon as we have transport. We'll send in a stealth agent first, then move in. I'll lead one half of the attackers, Alex shall lead the other."
Looking to Alex, who had been motionless as he observed the 3D map, Sha'krii asked the final question.
The human had been very quiet, and much more reserved than he'd ever been.
"Alex? Have you anything else to add?"
He was silent, before he fixed Sha'krii, then Kal'sik, a hard look. His hoarse voice conveyed his determination to get his sentence over and done with, starting by hitting the ground running:
"Nothing to add, your highness. When can we attack?"
He was ready to take his anger out on the galaxy in a beneficial way. Perhaps then, after these next 15 years, he'd finally be able to have a life of his own.
But for now, he could enjoy something he had always been good at. Doing the dirty jobs, revelling in them, and he now no longer lied to himself.
He wasn't Alex Damien, at least not during these 15 years.
He was a weapon, and as he had been a clone bred as a weapon in his prior body, he had never been more assured of his identity in his life.
He had truly become a Hunter. And until his time was done, he'd be nothing else.
DONE.
FIN.
This marks the end of the big 4 stories of my series.
I will now be moving onto a different intellectual property, one which I've already planned a story around.
As usual, I would sincerely appreciate reviews/feedback/recommendations to other readers.
If anyone reading these stories wishes me to address anything in this crossover universe, I am certainly open to:
Character oneshots.
Prequels to the war times
Sequels to the war times/Alex and Kal'sik's 15 year period.
Intra war stories not covered at all in the main stories.
I have ideas I can use, but until a later date, I want to take a break from this time consuming crossover universe.
Stay alert, but don't expect the first chapter of my new story for at least 2 weeks. Earlier if I really get it moving, I've been looking forwards to getting this next idea out of my head and onto Word.
And now for something completely different. No really, you'll never guess what the next story is in terms of what series its set in.
