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Chapter 25: Who We Are – Part Two

Late Age 794

The weather was always terrible in this city. The great city of Ameya on the planet of Kumodak was always that way. A lot of small, two-to-four-seater ships were flying in normal flight paths through the sky, but not above the tall, skyscrapers. The city was full of huge billboards with over-the-top advertisements. Down on the ground, the city was bustling, but… just as miserable. The rain was falling hard.

Vehicles similar to the ones in the sky were also on the ground, and they made for a more comfortable mode of transport with this rain. The people around on the streets didn't look very trustworthy and were quite suspicious. There were some homeless aliens on the ground, holding their hands (or other limbs) out for any money or food. They were pretty much ignored.

A gang of aliens were walking down one of the pathways, and were seeming very suspicious, and loud. The others around on the streets were wary of this group and tried to avoid being in their way. But about fifteen feet back behind this group, a man was walking along, following them. The man had a long coat on, keeping him covered and he had a hood to make sure his face was covered.

The gang hadn't noticed this man, but he had been following their every move. Before long, the gang turned down a back-alley and the unknown man stopped, hiding just around the corner. The gang started to bring out some weapons and were preparing for something. Whatever it was, the strange man was here to do something about it. He turned down the alley and walked right up to them, he managed to go unnoticed for most of it, until he accidently kicked a can on the ground.

The gang all turned around and held their guns up, aimed at the strange man.

"Who are you?" One of the aliens shouted. The man didn't answer. Another of the gang stepped forward. There were six of them all together and this man had his work cut out for him. He didn't feel the need to let them know who he was.

One of the gang members fired his weapon, but the man dodged it and once again kicked the can on the ground. The can hit that same gang member in the face and distracted the others. They clearly weren't very smart. The strange man moved forward, and kicked one of the larger Gang members in the head, knocking him into the wall. He then dropped down and punched the first one that fired at him. That was two, already down. The other four began to open fire and the man had to defend. He jumped back, threw off his big coat, revealing the outfit he was wearing underneath. It was an armour kind out similar to that of a Saiyans/Cold Empire, but without shoulder pads, and the design was a little different on the front. That, and it had the Galactic Patrol logo on it.

After throwing off his coat, the man no longer had his hood up and we could see what he looked like. It was Guida, he was a member of the Galactic Patrol. The four gang members appeared to be pretty shocked, that this guy was actually in the patrol, this means they weren't being as secretive as they thought.

Guida pulled out two pistols and started firing them forward, managing to take down the four gang members, but not killing them. The gun was only set to stun. Guida then sent out a call for more Galactic Patrol members to come and apprehend these criminals. Guida has the gang bound and kept in the alleyway. A large GP ship lands at the end of the alley and Guida walks up to meet with the patrolman that came with it.

A small patrolman walks forward, wearing a simpler armour. (Let's just say it's Jaco). "Well, looks like you did a good job with these fools," Jaco said, standing proudly. "Thanks for letting me be the one to take these guys in."

Guida nodded down at Jaco. "It's ok, Jaco. I know that you really need to get on the King's good side," Guida said with a smirk. Jaco chuckled nervously as Guida walked up to his ship, "Plus I need to get back to my family and there's too much paperwork involved with these guys."

Guida gave a small wave back to Jaco as he hopped in his one-man ship and took off, blasting into space. He punched in the controls for his home planet and shot off. It didn't take him too long to arrive back home. He flew across lots of fields. Lots of green grass, huge lakes and farms. The small GP ship lands down in a large town full of friendly looking people. It was located around a lot of farmland and appeared to be very quaint and peaceful.

The ship landed at a small port where all the ships appeared to be gathered and Guida jumped out of his ship. He walked up to a man, sleeping in a chair, who appeared to be the person who kept an eye on these ships. He was also part of the same race as Guida. Actually, all the people in this town, perhaps this planet, were the same species as Guida. It was his species' planet of origin as well.

Guida didn't bother to wake the man and chuckled to himself as he walked out into the town, to make his way home. Many of the people greeted Guida and asked how his work was going. Guida was nice to them all, as they were to him, and everyone seemed happy. Guida finally made it home and as soon as his door slid open two small children came running up to him and leapt up to give him a hug. Guida was knocked to the floor, laughing along with his children.

"I guess you're both happy to see me?" Guida said as he slowly got back up, giving his children hugs and patting them on the head. "I've only been gone a couple of weeks."

"Yeah, but you missed the town festival!" Guida's son said, seeming very excitable and jumping up and down. Guida smirked down and listened to his two children tell him about the festival as they walked into the main living area of the house. Guida's wife was standing there waiting for him, with a smile on her face. Guida smiled to her and mouthed a 'hello' but tried to keep attention on his children as they told him all about what had happened. Guida sat down and gave them a lot of attention.

It took a few hours, but the kids finally tired out and had to go to bed. This gave time for Guida and his wife to have some time together to catch up. Guida was finally able to have a bit of a rest. He would sleep well that night.

However, early the next morning, Guida is woken up by the beeping from his Galactic Patrol communicator. Guida sits up slowly and answers the communicator.

"Patrolman Guida here," He said, groggily into his communicator as he stood up out of the bed and moved to the next room. "What is it?"

"Sorry, Guida, but you're nearest," The man on the other end said.

"Nearest to what?" Guida asked, not sure what was going on right now.

"We've heard of a couple of strong warriors on Planet Setruvio, we know that's not too far away from where you are right now," The man explained. Guida sighed and wanted to hang-up the communicator. He carried on listening though. "They're causing quite a lot of problems to some city folk. The local authorities need our help."

"You don't give me much of a choice if I'm the closest. Fine, I'll do it, but send some back-up," Guida said, putting down the communicator and going to get ready. He gets his outfit on and grabs his coat and weapons. He plants a quick kiss on his wife's head, but she wakes up.

"What's going on?" She asked. Guida cursed to himself.

"Sorry, I didn't want to wake you. I've been called to Setruvio for a quick arrest. I'll be gone two days max," Guida explained. His wife seemed unhappy, but she accepted it. He said his quick goodbye and went off. He didn't want to bother his children, knowing that if they woke up now it wouldn't be good.

Guida walked through the town at night. It was peaceful, quiet and empty. The patrolman made it to his ship and got on-board. He set the coordinates and flew off, quickly. He eventually made it to Planet Setruvio, to the city that he had been tasked with checking out and now he had to find these criminals. The city was fairly standard. Big buildings, but this city was located on a water planet. Guida landed his ship and began to look around. He hid his Galactic Patrol outfit under his coat so that nobody questioned him.

Guida wasn't sure what he was actually meant to be looking for, but he was still good at his job and would be able to track them down. He just needed to focus on the information he had been given by his boss. These men had simply been killing people. The only strange thing, they were killing criminals. They were basically vigilantes, but the killings were far too violent. The bodies were found basically hacked to bits, chopped up. Big blades were definitely being used.

Guida just had to look for similarities in those scenarios, and then hope they had left some clues at any of the previous crime scenes. He made his way to one of the original crime scenes, but on the outside, there was nothing that immediately jumped out to him. It seemed like any ordinary restaurant. Guida stepped inside. The place had been left abandoned since the killings, this was the scene of the first murders. Three people had been killed. Two of them had been members of a local gang, while one was presumably someone who had just got in the way. Guida pressed on.

He looked around the main restaurant area to see if anything jumped out and grabbed his attention. He looked at some of the pictures and paintings on the walls, but couldn't make anything out yet. He still took out his camera and took photos of anything that could possibly be of some help. He made sure to list down the identities of any of the people that had been killed and anything he knew about their personal lives.

Guida moved to the next place. Just a normal shop. Two people were killed here. Nothing specific stood out about them, nor the location. He still took some photos. At this place, there was a symbol on a painting that seemed familiar, but it was from something Guida had seen a long time ago. He got to the next place and started to realise some sort of trend. A lot of the people that were killed had been members of gangs or mobs, or some sort of organisation that was involved in crime. He knew criminals were the ones being killed, but these must be linked somehow.

All the gangs had seemed to be rivals and against each other, but that still didn't tell Guida who was doing the killing. He wasn't getting to this as quickly as he hoped. He had been to a few different places now. He had seen over half the crime scenes, but not a lot of progress had been made. He decided to go to the most recent place and then compare that with the first few places. Maybe he could spot something in the evidence and carry on looking at the places the next day.

The last place was a little different to the others. While the others were still in public places, they were interior like restaurants and clubs, or shops, but typically when the places were empty otherwise. This place was a park. Sure, it had been night, but the bodies were found the next morning… by a family with children. Someone was trying to make some sort of message with this murder. Four gang members were killed. They were all from different gangs as well, but that didn't help Guida get closer to a conclusion. He looked around the park for some signs, but there wasn't anything. After walking around for about an hour, or even more, Guida took a seat near the edge of the park and looked around. His eyes eventually fall upon a large tree just outside the park… something caught his eye.

Guida stood up and walk right over to the tree. Someone had carved something into this tree. It was a symbol and Guida had certainly seen this before. It was the same one he had seen earlier in the restaurant. The symbol was like a curved blade, facing downwards with one big blade going up through the middle. Guida placed his hand on the tree and felt over the carving. He took a picture of it and made a quick note that this could be something to help him later on.

Once Guida had gathered his evidence he decided to go to a local library in the city. He needed to do some research into this symbol that had appeared more than once in his evidence. It was the main thing he had to go on and this could solve the killings. He sat down at one of the computers and began to search the archives. The symbol started to show up more and more, but it only led to information about ancient cults that used to unite all around the Galaxy. Some people appeared to use the symbol in modern day to try and strike some sort of fear. Was that what this was?

Guida wasn't sure what to believe when he stumbled upon some surprising information. Apparenlty some of the older cults used to believe they could open a portal to the underworld and summon an army of demons. Some believed that there was a time when this army once ruled over the Galaxy and that this time would return some time in the future. Guida believed he had seen enough. His research had told him why these killings were happening. The gangs that were being killed had once evolved from these cults, but according to what the cults were once like, the gangs had lost their way.

Guida would need to keep following these crimes if he was to find out who was doing the killing. If he was given a chance to do so. As he left the library and made his way back to his ship Guida got the impression he was being followed. He made sure to pretend he was unaware, but something was telling him someone was near. His senses were reacting. These people were strong. They weren't any ordinary criminals and there were two of them. Guida got to his ship and could feel a power rising as it got closer to him, someone was about to attack him. Guida swung around and dodged back, managing to avoid a large blade from slicing his face.

He kicked as he dropped, hoping to hit this opponent's legs, but they managed to jump over and attempted to redirect their blade towards Guida's legs. He managed to pull back quick enough and jump up to kick them away. Guida dropped back and put his arms up, ready to carry on a fight. The opponent composed himself and looked towards Guida. He was wearing a black outfit with a hood and a kind of cloak that went down to just above the back of his knees. It was kind of torn as well. The being wore a mask as well, with some sort of demonic design.

Guida took a step towards the enemy, but felt another energy coming. He turned to the right and flipped back as another body dropped in. Dressed similar, and armed with a very familiar blade. Guida repositioned himself and looked up at the two of them. These were the guys. They were the ones behind it all. Guida stood up straight, took off his coat and clenched his fists. He was definitely going to need to fight these guys if he wanted any chance to apprehend them.

He let them make the first move and they began to run towards him, planning to come in from different sides of him. They were bouncing around, showing they were fast, but Guida felt he was equal to it. He closed his eyes and let his power rise. He opened them at the last minute and managed to avoid both blades from hitting him and punched the one on his left in the gut and kicked him in the ribs, knocking him away. The other one tried to stab Guida in the back, but the Patrolman swung around and knocked the blade to the side with his right arm and grabbed the swordsman around the throat with his left hand.

The other one darted towards him from behind and Guida quickly acted to throw the one he held onto into the approaching one and they clattered into each other, falling to the ground and dropping their blades. Guida whipped out his pistols and held them towards the two murderers. They slowly got up, Guida kept his weapons trained on them. They took a second to notice this and froze upon realising the position they were in. Guida still wore a serious expression.

"I would stand down if I were you," Guida suggested, "I have back-up on the way. They'll be able to deal with you." The two swordsmen looked to one another and nodded. They began to walk forward. Guida didn't know why they did this and wasn't sure what to do right away. He gripped his guns and swallowed hard. "I will shoot you if you continue to move!" Guida yelled at them, but they persisted, getting closer to the swords. Guida didn't have a choice.

He opened fire, but as soon as he did the swordsmen seemed to spring to life and moved fast to grab their swords and dive to the sides. Guida continued to fire, but none of his blasts hit their targets. The two of them were difficult to keep track on. Guida had to pull out all stops and go for it with all he had. He holstered his guns and powered up his energy. The two swordsmen darted in for him and the Patrolman let out an explosive wave and knocked them back to a safe distance. Guida then darted for the one on his left and knocked the sword from his hand and started to fight him, hand-to-hand.

The other swordsman moved in, hoping that Guida would be too distracted. Guida kicked his opponent away and leapt up and over the other enemy, but part of the blade slice across his left arm and he felt slight injury. Guida dropped down and instantly grabbed his arm, feeling the pain. He looked and saw the blood running down, but ignored it. He shook it off and prepared to move in for another attack. Then he spotted the sword left on the ground. He looked up at the two opponents whom had also noticed the weapon on the floor. The one still with his sword tried to move in, but Guida took the sword and threw it towards him with power.

The swordsman wasn't expecting this and was hit in the left arm by the blade. It pierced his skin and the man fell to the ground in pain. Guida took his guns out again and aimed them forward, making sure to set them to stun first.

"The Galactic Patrol places you two under arrest for the murders of over twenty different people," Guida said as he fired his guns at the two of them. They were knocked out by the stun guns just as back-up arrived on the scene. Guida relaxed and moved back to his ship. Five Galactic Patrolmen left the bigger ship, four of them took the men back to the ship while the last one came over to Guida. He appeared to be a superior. Guida looked up and acknowledged his arrival with a nod.

"I guess you could say you owe me, eh?" The alien said with a chuckled, nudging Guida in the arm. Guida just sighed and got his coat off of the ground.

"I need to get home…" Guida said as he wandered back to his ship, but the patrolman followed him.

"I need you to turn over all your paperwork and evidence first, and you should get that wound checked out, then get some rest," The patrolman called out. Guida stopped, looked down at his left arm and back at his superior officer. He nodded.

"Fine, I'll head back to my hotel," Guida replied, "I'll get the paperwork to you tomorrow, sir."

Guida boarded his little ship and flew back to his hotel. He got in there, cleaned up his wounds, gathered up his paperwork and dropped onto his bed, falling asleep very quickly. That had been the toughest fight for him in a while.

Guida handed in his paperwork and made sure to head straight back home the next morning. It had taken some time to process the criminals, but they were unmasked and shown to have been sympathisers for an old cult referred to only as the Dark Blades. That's where the symbol had come from. Guida said he would address it more once he had a chance to see his family a little more. His Commander let him off and said Jaco would be in charge of the paperwork for this.

On his journey back, Guida did receive a message from his Commander, but it only came through as text. He didn't get a chance to actually communicate directly with the Commander. The message wasn't very clear.

Guida, get back to Mothership XIV immediately.

That was it. The message wasn't clear on why Guida was needed, but communications had been severed. It hadn't even been long. This worried Guida, but he was already too close to home and decided he may as well go back there first. He entered the atmosphere of his planet and headed straight for the village, but that smoke in the distance wasn't a good sign. As Guida got closer he could see immense flames. All the local farmland had been torched and nobody was fighting it. Guida sped up and landed as close to his home as he could. He jumped out of his ship and started to move through his town.

The whole place was on fire… and there were dead bodies everywhere. His friends. His people. Guida moved on quicker. He started to notice that the people had been sliced and cut by similar blades to the ones of those Dark Blades. What had Guida got himself into? He broke into a sprint and made it to his home rapidly, only to see the place was in flames too, but his family… they were outside… dead. His wife… his two children. They had been murdered… and not in a nice way. They were slaughtered. Guida let out a guttural scream as he dropped to his knees and broke into tears. He was broken. He clenched his fists and placed them over his eyes as he shouted into the ground.

He stood up and turned around, not able to look upon them right now. He was seething with rage and that's when he saw it. On the ground… made with blood. It was that same symbol. The Dark Blades. They were responsible for this. That much was clear. He walked over to his family and began to dig holes for them. He had to bury them here. They were gone and Guida would get his revenge. He could feel his power. He knew there was so much more he could be doing with it.

Guida made it back to his ship and took off, taking a quick glance back down at his town before blasting off into space and heading to Mothership XIV. It didn't take him that long to get there, but once he arrived he could see that something had gone wrong there. He docked his ship and made his way towards the prison cells where those Swordsmen had been kept and saw they too had been killed. Guida stopped in the doorway and looked at their bodies on the ground. He was sure they had broken out and murdered everyone in his town, but no… it must have been more of them getting revenge or something.

Guida was finally brought back to reality and started to notice more blood around… and bodies… fellow Patrolmen. Even… his commander. Guida dropped down next to him and tried to see if there was any sign of life.

"Who's there?" A voice yelled from the next room. Guida didn't recognise it right away, "I have weapons and I'm highly skilled in combat!"

Guida knew this had to be another Patrolman, "It's Guida…" he said, trying to get this Patrolman to reveal himself. Eventually, Jaco stepped out and he seemed to be terrified. "What happened here?"

"Two of them came… Dark Blades… they did this," Jaco explained. Guida was surprised about one thing that Jaco had said. 'Two.' Only two of them did this. Could it have been the same two that went to Guida's town? The Patrolman was already in a confused place, but now he was sent over the edge. If it was truly just two men then Guida could find them… and kill them.

Guida turned around and rushed off to the armoury. Jaco followed after him, trying to get him to slow down and explain what was going to happen next. Jaco caught up in time to see Guida taking a lot of the bigger weapons, and some of the strongest armour and training gear. He even took the keys to one of the larger and faster ships. Jaco continued to follow him.

"Where are you going, Guida?!" Jaco asked, feeling very scared now. Guida stopped and turned to face the small Patrolman.

"Jaco… get back to the main headquarters. Tell them what happened here, who did it, and what happened back on my planet," Guida requested. Jaco was a bit confused, but Guida was ready to clarify. "Everyone in my town is dead, Jaco… everyone."

"Where are you going now?" Jaco asked. Guida stepped back and prepared to board the ship. Jaco rushed forward. "Please… I won't stop you, just tell me."

"I'm going to find them, Jaco. The ones that did this… all of this," Guida opened the ship and walked up the ramp. "And I'm going to kill them."

Guida looked back to Jaco one more time and nodded. Jaco nodded too and rushed off to his own ship. Guida got on the ship, set everything up and flew off. He had no idea where he was going, but give it some time and he would find his way very soon.

Guida searched for about 4 months. It was already Age 795. He scoured some of the biggest cities in the closest systems to his home. During this time, he also made sure to train and focus more on his energy use. He had neglected it quite a bit in his time with the Patrol, but now he needed to rely on these powers and do his absolute best if he came face-to-face with the one that murdered his family.

Once Guida finally started to make some progress he came across some Dark Blades and decided he would need to fight them with his all. He needed to show them just how strong he was. He would kill them if it was truly necessary. He needed these warriors and criminals to know that he was to be feared. Guida was powerful and he would show them this. Either way, this had to be his best method to try and find this murderer.

Unfortunately, Guida came up against five or six warriors with their weapons. He did his absolute best to fight them, but wasn't good enough to fight all of them. They ended up defeating and Guida and taking him as their prisoner.

Guida eventually woke up in a cell, it was somewhere dark and he had no idea what was going on. As soon as Guida awoke he ran to the bars and gripped them. He was unaware that these bars were electrified and it set him back just a little. Guida wasn't going to just sit there and be quiet.

"Hey, why am I here? Who killed my family?" Guida screamed to some of the guards walking by. One of the turned to him and jabbed Guida in the stomach, knocking him back down. Guida grunted and looked up at this guard.

"It was probably the traitor… not one of ours," The guard said. He didn't sound evil, in fact, it seemed like there was a little bit of remorse in his tone. Guida was up on his feet again and wanted to know more.

"Who… tell me who? I need to know!" Guida shouted as they walked on. Guida was frustrated and turned to see someone else in his cell, sitting at the end of one of the beds. He was rather large, yellow skinned and bald with a black goatee. He looked over to Guida and back to the ground.

"It was Yamo Niha… he's the traitor… and probably the one that killed your family," This prisoner said, still looking down. "Sorry, but he killed my allies too."

Guida stepped towards this man and sat on the bed, opposite him. "What's your name?"

The prisoner looked up and held a hand out, to shake Guida's. "I'm Niku, and you?"

Guida took then hand and shook. He told this prisoner his name and then lay back on the bed. There wasn't much that could be done now. Guida was already trying to think of a possible way to break out, but he had nothing he actually wanted to say to this Niku. He hardly knew him and it wouldn't be safe to just start talking about breaking out. But at least he had a name… Yamo Niha… and by the sounds of it, there were others that would want him dead.

Guida hadn't done his best in finding his enemies, but he learned one thing… and he may possibly have an ally. Either way, he would need to find a way to break out of this situation. But before that… we have one last story to tell and for that… we must go back a further 6 years…

So, there's Guida's backstory and after this we only have one more! Sorry if this one seems very short and glossed over again, but that was my intention. I know that I don't linger on the family much, but I didn't really want to write too much. These could all be a couple of chapter long stories themselves, but that's not what I wanted them to be.

Either way, thanks for reading again. Leave a review please!

Next Time... Chapter 26: Who We Are - Part Three