Tribble 612: The Spirit of the Kerensky's
"Sir, this step, the razing of another village, it is not necessary. We have already destroyed the guerilla operation. What merit can there be in this new action?"
"It is not your place to tell me what has merit and what does not," Moon said, crossing his arms in what Trent now recognized as a typical gesture of his authority. "We shall level one of these villages and transmit a holovid of the deed to the other cities of this world so that all on Hyner will know the price of standing in the Jaguars path."
Trent drew a deep breath. he could no longer stand silently. he must make a stand, even if the price was his own life. The time for waiting had passed. "I challenge you to a Trial of Grievance, Star colonel."
"Indeed" Moon returned coldly.
"Aff. This command violates our code of honor, as set down by Nicholas Kerneksy, the founder of the Clans."
Moon chuckled slightly. "Must I remind you, Star Captain, that this is a military command? Your opinions do not interest me and meeting you in combat offers no more challenge than crushing a bug under my heel. But you are a blight on our Clan. For you to call yourself a Jaguar warrior brings only shame to the rest. There is no honor in combat with you, but I promise that I shall find honor in erasing you you like a stain."
"Very well," Trent said, the blood rushing in his ears as his body prepared. "I assume you wish to fight unaugmented, Quiaff?"
Moon smiked. "Aff. And these warriors will form our circle of equals." He nodded to Jez and the others, who immediately moved to surround the two men. Moon unbuttoned his uniform collar and shirt, and flexed his muscles in preparation for the fight.
"Do do you that I will kill you, Trent," Paul Moon said, his voice barely a whisper as he lowered his body to a fighting stance.
"I know you will try" Trent returned, lowered his own center of gravity, the boast sounding odd on his lips as ... something ... changed. The oddest feeling, like electricity running through his body. Energizing him in a way he had never felt before. Curious. So very ... curious.
"No more talk" Moon spat and then with his arms wide he leaped like a Jaguar straight at him, 'The Jaguar's spring that brings the enemy down' as the remembrance quoted and so many of his peers tried to replicate on the battlefield...
Except that he was moving so ... so slowly! Why, it was all he had to do to-
And even as he thought that thought, he was leaning to the side into a roll that casually took him out of the path of the snarling Star Colonel who continued to glide through the air, the wind oddly whistling in his ears as he lashed out with his myomyer enhanced arm as he passed under, slicing across his opponents knee-
CRACK
Paul Moon screamed in an oddly low tone as Trent felt the joint of the massive tree-size trunk legs of the Elemental shudder, continuing his roll and coming back to his feet-
Bizarrely, Moon was only now plowing into the ground where he had just been standing. And he could see past the Elemental now plowing into the ground to the face of Jez whose expression was changing from smug delight to shock and confusion as he watched ... but beyond her on the horizon, as Hyners primary slowly set, in its glow...
Trent was no Nova Cat mystic. No Goliath Scorpion drug user. He was not someone to believe in the supernatural and yet ... in this time, at this place, he would have taken an oath to the Jaguar itself that even as he stood there in stunned confusion, not understanding how he was somehow moving so FAST ... that in the glow of the sun he could see the ghostly figures of both Nicholas Kerensky and Franklin Osis side by side.
Staring at him.
And then the Father of the Clans nodding once sharply at him, in what Trent could only think of as firm approval before he blinked - and they were gone.
A little stunned he missed for a moment seeing the Star Colonel, though nothing but his formidable and sheer rage, pull himself back to his feet, favoring his left leg as he started to half run and half stagger with a look of pure hatered on his face straight at him. Again so incredibly slow that as he reached him and swung all he had to do was-
His arms came up and he casually deflected the pile driver swing - a child in the Sibko could move faster! And then the follow up punch - and the next. The feeling of electricity running through his veins was like nothing he had ever felt and unable to help himself he turned casually side on to the Star Colonel, placed one of his arms behind his back and started to deflect and blow every one of the increasingly rapid punches being thrown at him which still moved so slow...
As much as Trent was inclined to dismiss it ... it was almost as if the Great Father and the Great Khan both were strengthening his arm. Standing with his righteousness
The way Moons face went purple in a rage level so great that Trent did not know if Star League Standard English had a word to encompass it at his one handed defense, was rather glorious and amusing if he was being honest. But then he suddenly grabbed the tree trunk sized right arm of the Elemetnal and wrenched it back, causing a scream of pain as he felt tendons snap and muscles spasam-
And then their eyes met for but a second ... and beyond the rage and pain and hate ... Trent saw that Paul Moon was just starting to realize this was a fight he could not win. And in that moment, Trent pivoted and kicked-
The Star Colonels rib-cage collapsed partially as his foot lifted the 280 kilogram monster off the ground and sent him flying through the air again, this time to land on his back and spray shale everywhere that sliced his back up in a way that would have been rather painful, if not for the agony from the other things running through his body right now.
Slowly, deliberately, Trent started to walk forward, the feeling of everything moving so much slower fading to nothing as he seemed to 'rejoin' time, yet knowing somehow that should be need it, that ... that gift from his founder would return once more if needed to defend the innocent. He kept his pace slow but steady as he closed the distance with his Commanding Officer, Jez and the others watching with expressions that ranged from fear in the former case to a mixture of awe and numb shock on the later. In the distance he could even see Judith sulking behind a building and watching - and the smile of delight and awe on her face warmed him in a way nothing had for a long time.
Yet he decided the moment needed one more thing. To make clear his ... objection to the madness of the course his Clan was on. He had tried it with Jez before, she had ignored it.
The gasping, stunned figure of their Elemental Star Colonel on the ground, pummeled by a 'failure' of a Mechwarrior in unaugmented combat who had snapped and had enough, seemed to be a much better backdrop to make his point clear however.
"And Nicholas stood with the first gathering of Khans to draw up the tenets of what made a warrior" he quoted in a calm voice as he approached Moon, gazing dispassionately at the man and admitting that, if nothing else, the fact that his face showed not one ounce of fear, merely rage, hate and pain, was an impressive thing in its own way. "Wars have often killed the innocent, ruined entire societies. Not within the Clans. Wars were for warriors to wage and that innocence not suffer at the hands of Trueborns."
"You have won the Trial Star Captain" Jez tried to step in, his voice seeming to break her out of her shock - but she promptly shut up as he turned his gaze on her and speared her with the sheer loathing that promised if she didn't shut up, she would be the next one to face him.
And unlike their last trial, his eyes told her that she would not survive this one.
That done, he gazed down again at Moon as he came up short before him, the man seeming to recover his senses - a thought belayed by the fact that he pushed off from the ground in a clumsy attempt to tackle him.
Against any other Mechwarrior, even as injured as he was, the move would have probably caught them by surprise and let the Elemental rip their head off.
But again, Trent felt the wind in his hair, the approving gazes of both the founder of His Clan and all the Clans on him as he met the tackle head on and grabbed both of the mans arms and stopped his momentum cold.
Now, for the first time, matching his strength against Moons directly - and simply holding him without any strain at all as the Elemental gasped for air through his shattered ribs he could see for the first time, hints of fear in the eyes of the Elemental now face to face with him.
He would be lying if he said that having this man fear him wasn't appealing, but somehow he knew he hadn't been given this gift for his own personal satisfaction, but a much higher cause.
"What ... are ... you" Moon gasped, fury and confusion warring in his tone as he pushed and squeezed and thrust ... and he might as well have been wrestling with a Ninety-Five toner for how little Trent moved.
"I am the Founders correction Star Colonel. The Smoke Jaguars have lost their way on the honor road" he said, not knowing where the words came from, but feeling their sheer 'rightness' in his heart that had been so torn of late seeing what his Clan had become. Impossible as it sounded, he knew that the Founders had tapped him on the shoulder to drag the Smoke Jaguars back to their true path. And it was a burden he gladly took up. "Ask for Heriga and I will grant it to you, provided you ask for Surkai from the Galaxy Commander, for your actions against our innocent civilians."
He took the scream the Star Colonel generated, with every vein on his face seeming to bulge out with his eyes as he put everything he had into one final attempt to crush the impudent impossible man in front of him, as a 'no'.
And so with a deep breath, he leaned back and then threw his head forward and crashed the metallic bands around his artificial eye into the forehead of Moon and sent him flying backwards through the air to crash onto his back.
That hurt Trent winced slightly, chuckling lowely for a moment at the revelation that Paul Moon had a thick skull, before shaking it off and walking forward to the stunned Star Colonel who was barely moving before kneeling down, reaching down and with steady pressure while ignoring the feeble clawing from the others hands, he took a grip on the neck ... and with a loud SNAP, it was done.
He stood then in the sunset with the now dead man unmoving under him, his face frozen in a mixture of fear and rage, feeling oddly saddened that the man had to die ... yet feeling that he had done nothing more than killing a wild animal.
For that was what the Star Colonel had become.
"Clan Smoke Jaguar has forgotten. Forgotten that our purpose as humans is to draw strength from the Jaguar, not become an animal like it" he suddenly said clearly and firmly into the utterly silent moment, all the Warriors in the circle of equals staring at him still, unable to speak and barely able to process what they had just seen. "We are humans. Trueborns. Forget it, attempt to order innocents slaughtered and I will stand ready to perform the same service to you as I did for the late Star Colonel Paul Moon" he finished before with a bare glance at Jez, he started walking away.
"Seyla" more than one of the Warriors standing around whispered and Trent continued, stepping across the circle as the last of the sun vanished under the horizon.
--
So this came out of watching the 'He is the One' sequence from The Matrix, with Neo casually no-selling Smiths attempts to kill him with contempt. Plus having just re-read Trents bio to check something and wondering what the hell might have happened if he had actually won that Trial of Grievance against his Star Colonel by being one of the very VERY few genuinely okay Smoke Jaguars in history. And wanting to stand up for the innocent civilians Smoke Jaguars prefer to use as calibration aids for their machine gun arrays....
Just say that some random omnipotent being gave him Neo crazy powers and a massive dose of 'WTF have the Clans become' and he feels he is totally on a mission to singlehandedly 'fix' them :)