I'm back! It's been 10 years since I got into Killzone, and Colonel Radec remains a compelling and fascinating character to me. This is a long overdue character study. The games give very little about Radec's background, so of course my imagination had a field day. This was going to be a oneshot composed of many scenes, but as I worked on it I realized it'd go over 10k (too long for a oneshot), so I broke it up into chapters.
About Flight of the Phoenix: I haven't forgotten it. I'll do my best to pick up where I had left off.
Content warning: child abuse, animal cruelty
The Hounds of Helghan (1)
Eight year-old Mael ducked through the door, just out of reach from what could have been another blow to the head from his father. His cheeks puffed out from all the blood welling in his mouth. He wrenched off his respirator to spit blood into the sand. And with it, yet another baby tooth. He yanked up the hem of his tanktop to press it to his mouth, adding his blood to the dirt soiling the offwhite fabric. When he stopped bleeding, he fit the respirator back over his face and gulped in good air. As with anyone living in his village, if he kept his respirator off for too long outside, lung-burn would set in.
To Mael's relief, his father didn't thunder out the door after him. Instead, from the window he crouched under, Mael heard the clink of empty beer bottles and slurred swearing. Sounded like his father would take a nap soon.
The boy's skinny knees shook as he got up to retrieve his baby tooth from the ground. He stuffed it into the pocket of his pants, which were too big for him and handed down from his brother. Another tooth to add to his collection.
None of the other kids had their baby teeth knocked out by their parents. His brother took joy in reminding him of that often, which Mael would much rather go without.
He groaned as an unseen hammer pounded into his skull and his lips, from where his father's fist had been. The pounding went away when he thought of the stray puppy he had found. He'd been caring for it over the past two months, sneaking in food, water, and belly rubs on a near daily basis. He couldn't resist a smile, even as the pain from it shot up his cheeks.
Mael ran to the back of the house, and with hard wiry legs, he climbed over stacks of crates and other junk his father had tossed into the yard. He was nimble as a petrusite spider, but not at first. He had taken a few scrapes from a clumsy misstep before. Not anymore. There was a secret spot that he dug out for himself on the rooftop. It was his, and his alone.
Mael pushed himself up onto the roof, expecting the puppy to bound up to him with its tongue sticking out and tail wagging. Instead he stumbled upon what remained of his furry friend: a mess of naked pink flesh, stripped of skin except at the head. Gripping the head in one hand, and a knife in the other, was his thirteen year-old brother.
Coran looked up from his kill, the respirator hiding a smile that must be ear-to-ear on his face. "Oh, hello, Mael. Didn't think I'd know about your little secret, huh?"
Mael trembled from head to toe. Tears blurred his eyes and smeared the red lenses of his mask. "You b-bastard. You motherf-fucker." He stumbled on vulgar words he'd often hear their father use.
Coran's big shoulders shook as he laughed. "Aw, you're so cute." He straightened up and let the dead little dog's head drop to the floor. "What are you going to do about it? Tell Dad? He says no pets in the house, you know. He'd knock out another one of your baby teeth for it."
Coran's growth spurt hit him last week. Now he was much bigger and taller, almost at the height of a full-grown man, and worst of all, he held a knife. Mael was outmatched in every possible way. But in the heat of the moment, he was too angry to care. With a hoarse cry ripping from his throat, the eight year-old boy charged. Coran ducked both fists and with a savage swipe of his arm, slammed it across his younger brother's torso. Mael felt the breath knocked out of his lungs. His back hit the rooftop with a metallic thud as he fell. Coran bore down on him the next second, with all his weight focused into one knee pressed on Mael's chest, and with the knife poised over his throat.
"Scream for help, I dare you," Coran hissed. "No one will come for you, anyway."
The blade was still warm and slick with the puppy's blood. Mael bit down on his bottom lip, frozen and terrified beyond making even the slightest peep.
Coran's voice lowered to a menacing hiss through the respirator. "I wonder if Dad will let me get away with skinning you alive."
Mael squeezed his eyes shut. A warm wetness seeped in between his legs.
Coran removed his knee and knife with a laugh. "Just kidding. I'm keeping you around because it's fun. I'd get bored if you die off too quick." He smirked. "Also, I really just wanted to see you piss in your pants again."
Humiliation burned like the noon sun across Mael's cheeks.
Coran jerked his head to the puppy's skinned body. "Clean that or it'll stink up the roof. It's your dog, right?" He turned away and jumped down the rooftop, leaving Mael to bite back sobs as he stumbled to his feet.
The rooftop allowed him a generous view of Suljeva, the dusty, crumbling wasteland of a mining village where he was born and raised. No, not raised—more like left to fend for himself. His father was either away working at the mines, or at home drowning in booze and knocking him around the house. His brother—half-brother, to be exact—went out of his way to make Mael's life a living hell.
The hot winds here were good for one thing: his pants would dry out quickly.
Powerlessness. Mael had been acquainted with it before, but today dealt him the harshest lesson on it. He saw it in the skinned puppy, felt it through the warmth lingering in his pants, heard it through the sobs he could no longer contain. There was no place for kindness here. Trying to find it would only get him punished. All of that seared deep into the wells of his memory, so he would never forget for the rest of his life what it meant to be powerless, what it meant to pay the price for showing softness.