Chapter 5: Discord awakens

'Target in sight. Proceeding with operation "Discord Awake".' I signals my operatives. They descend from trees. I myself am dressed as a pedestrian walking on the opposite side of the street to the target, codenamed "K-OS".

'Target within range of tranquilizer. On your mark Vampire.'

'Mark. Weapons hot.'

A dart whizzes from my DMR stationed on a roof. It hits K-OS in the neck and he topples over.

'Confirmed hit. Preparing injection site.'

'Good work, 3. 2, what is the witness situation?'

'Negative Vampire. No witnesses in sight.' I nod to myself and smile. I cross the street and stand over K-OS as Shadow 1 injects a needle into the target's neck. He jerks around for a second then lies still. Shadow 1 looks up and nods.

'Objective cleared. Head to extraction point Charlie. Stand by for further instructions.'

'Sir.' The Shadow Quadrant disappears into the night. I kneel down next to K-OS and take a long hard look at his face.

He hardly looks older than 17. I brush the boy's long hair from his face. Before my eyes the boy's features begin to harden and morph. His eyes change from emerald green to a deep orange.

His teeth become sharp and pointy and his hair goes midnight black. His fingernails sharpen and elongate into short claws. He grows easily a foot and a half, and what little baby fat was still left in his face and body disappears.

He gains a load of muscle mass and, not visibly, a load more brains. He was already intelligent enough before, but now he'd be even smarter. Also, he'd become a cold-hearted killer. Maybe not immediately, but in due time.

And when that time comes, I will shape him into the perfect killing machine. I myself am already as close to that as I can become.

Already 30 years into my life, I'm too old to receive the pure essence of chaos. Also, I'm too easily distracted in a fight. That, and I was raised without a soul.

In a literal sense, I do have a soul. But it was like that firetruck you got as a boy for christmas, then you suddenly grow 10 years older in an instant and forget about it. In order to be the perfect machine, I'd need some compassion for allies, which I do not.

My father is the Rida of the Shadow Quadrant. I myself, Sasaki Xao, just another commander for the Rida to manipulate to his will.

I had failed my father when I was this boy's age. I received the injection, but my body reacted to it terribly. It had some negative side-effects, but it also had some positive ones as well.

I now have super-human speed and strength, along with in-human stealth, but cannot take direct sunlight to my skin. I'd essentially become a modern-day vampire, without the need for blood to survive.

Being unable to attend regular day school, I attended night school, and as I couldn't go outside, my skin became pale, earning me the name 'The Vampire'.

My father, the Rida, extremely disappointed in the fact I couldn't take the injection, gave me the tedious task of selecting the next test subject.

Mockingly, he had assigned me the codename Vampire. Fitting seeing as I when I punish insubordinates, I decapitate them and hang them upside down, letting their blood drain out.

I see the boy's beginning to come around so I turn flee into the night. I hook up with my operatives and we're evacuated back to HQ.

I look down over the houses to the spot where the boy was just beginning to figure out what had happened to him and why he wasn't himself.

I smile.