The Golden Shadow - Hallowed Ground

The day what little beauty that earth had left disappeared. The Golden Shadow side story

Tyler Peterson stared through the blazing inferno of his magical essence. It surrounded his body in a swirling mass, illuminating the land around him. This was the last remaining patch of earth that hadn't been tainted or destroyed by magic. Tall and vast grassland covered this three mile span of living earth, but Tyler had a feeling that was about to change. Brad stood in front of him with that same grin he always wore when he felt superior. Which was always.

The Grand General of the Golden Legion stared at the... boy ... that stood before him, with all that hatred and evil in his eyes. Like father, like son, and all this seemed to have stemmed from the fact that Brad had wanted to be something other than a nobody who wandered the Legion's halls.

This, of course, gave him an unfair advantage, given that he had been born and raised within and under the protection of the Golden Legion, he knew exactly the way things went in Tyler's world.

Now, the way it appeared through Tyler's ACA Helmet visor, the boy had grown calm in battle, comfortable with his own demeanor. Tyler had seen it coming, really. When Brad had wandered away from the Legion and into his destiny as the new leader of the Shadow Walkers, he had taken his new responsibility with vigor and determination. Tyler wasn't sure if this was going to be an easy fight, and he'd never had the opportunity to face Brad one-on-one. Brad's father had been the leader of the Shadow Walkers for just over a century, and he had been the strongest enemy Tyler had ever faced. Even though Brad produced more fierce creations for battle than Kyle had, he was different in the fact that he was never on the battlefield with his soldiers. Kyle, at least, had a very dominating presence on the field after the war broke out into the open a little over a hundred years ago.

In the back of his mind, Tyler doubted that Brad could live up to the prestige of his father, and he had a feeling that today would decide that. As Brad bared his teeth at Tyler, the leader of the Golden Legion made a split second decision.

He sprinted forward. He would not use his blade for this battle, but his fists. Brad had made the opposite decision and slashed out with his blade as Tyler reached him, but he should have known that such a simple strike would never work on Tyler. It was as simple as Tyler moving his right arm to parry the blade away, the steel clanging off the artificial metal of Tyler's combat suit. In less than a second Tyler's left fist followed the parry with a bone-breaking punch to Brad's helmet, making it fly off of his head. One more clean hook from the right shattered Brad's cheekbone and sent him to the ground.

It wasn't over. Brad wasn't going to go down with just that simple attack. He was on his feet in no time and striking out with armored fists which were blocked with little effort by Tyler. The readings of Brad's heart rate fluxed on the screen within Tyler's visor, and it was spiking as the attacks became more and more frantic. Brad was starting to lose his mind, completely taken back by the fact that even though he was on the defensive, Tyler was controlling this fight.

Brad struck out again with another punch, but this time Tyler caught his arm and stepped around him placing a punch in Brad's kidney, then throwing an elbow into the side of his head, dazing him. Brad wobbled on his feet, but couldn't manage to do anything before Tyler had him by the shoulders and was putting a knee in his stomach. The Shadow Walker doubled over allowing another knee strike to contact his nose, crushing it into his face.

Brad went to his back, almost flipping completely over as crimson splashed from his face and splattered onto Tyler's armor. Suddenly, Tyler felt ruthless, felt like he shouldn't even give Brad the chance to recover, shouldn't even give him the benefit of fighting back. The time it took to contemplate this, however, was all Brad needed. The Shadow Walker let out magical energy in the form of a blast that launched Tyler into the air and into one of the four standing trees in the whole area. The power behind the blast decimated the ground around them, cratering and killing the ground in a mile wide diameter.

Tyler managed to get to his feet in time for Brad to come storming up, hurling magical bolts of energy at him. Quickly, Tyler went to a kneeling position, slamming his fist into the ground and sending out a burst of energy that also cratered the ground, though not in such a wide area. The blast pushed outward in all directions, destroying the bolts coming in, then sucked itself back in toward Tyler. He absorbed it back into his body and then let it out again, increasing its diameter twofold, surpassing Brad's burst by two miles.

The Legionnaire stood and looked around for Brad, scanning the area with his suit's systems. Finally he got a faint read on Brad's magic signature, he had been blown half a mile north. It didn't take long to reach him, or to spot him.

Brad lay in a pool of blood that was quickly being absorbed by the now barren land. Tyler knew that the little bit of life that remained in this area of Earth was now gone. There was nothing green here anymore, nothing living except the two factions that warred and the populace that was diminished in in protective custody of the Golden Legion. They would have to leave the planet, this much Tyler knew. Thankfully they'd been planning for this, and one of the neighboring solar systems had been terraformed and prepared for the move.

The battered and broken Shadow Walker leader coughed and slowly started to get to his feet, blood covering most of his body. There were pieces of his armor missing, and his arm had been blown clean off by the blast.

"You haven't won by beating me..." he began, finally on his feet.

Tyler frowned underneath his visor. "You're right, but without you, mopping up the rest of your forces will be easy. We've already engaged your fleet in the high atmosphere, and we'll be ready to evacuate the Earth's population as soon as they're taken care of."

Brad started to laugh, though it sounded more like he was gargling blood. "You fool. You really think that you're about to win this war, don't you? Well, what happens when you fail?"

As his enemy spoke, Tyler slowly removed his blade from its sheath and held it at his side. "We won't," he replied and with a backhanded swing, severed Brad's head from his body, watching a fountain of crimson erupt to life. Brad toppled to the ground dead.

Tyler let out a sigh and sheathed his blade, opening up a communications link to his ship that was hovering somewhere above him. "Isaac, come and get me. We will begin the evacuation as soon as possible."

"And Brad?" came the response from Isaac.

"Dead." Tyler replied.

"Roger that, we're on our way."

Author's Note

This was half-assed... that's just my opinion though. Constructive criticism is extremely encouraged.