Birecic, Turkey. A quarter before midnight, Christmas Eve, 2004.
The sky is black, thick clouds obscuring the full moon. Sparse drops of rain begin to fall.
Edulcore Ciccioto looks at the school across the valley, from the top of a mountain dominating the city.
Every Avant-Guardist have been made to retreat to a bigger distance. The augmentation of Yussuf’s power is a guess for everyone. How much far could he read minds? There is no way to create a coordinate effort. No way to tell anyone, from the powerful meta to the least soldier, any part of a plan. Youssuf can hear it.
Now Euro is alone. His mind-shield, heritage of his hybrid alien ancestry, the only power at his disposal, is THE power needed for this mission. If only he could have also his wings. But Da Vinci’s flying machine wouldn’t work on this world. On this world, those bat-like mechanical wings never went past the drawing stage. Therefore, Ed has to rely over a common glider.
Exactly three years before, on a Christmas Eve as dark as this one, he was about to run into a suicide mission like this one, dressed as Santa Claus. However, there were a few elves as powerful as him, working with him.
This time, he is alone.
He runs down the grassy slope, and then the glider takes air.
It takes just minutes to get above the school roof. Euro leaves the glider, landing on the pebbles cover with a soft thud. There are six men on the edge of the roof, green shadows in his night goggles. They are staring down, to the parking lot, where a pack of dogs has been released just minutes earlier. The dogs are barking and fighting in the dim lights coming from the windows of the school; the guards are betting on the winner.
Euro aims his crossbow. One dart flies in the air and hits one man across his chest. The man, without a word, falls down the roof. The other men shouts, believing he just fell on imprudence. Two runs down the stairs, three relocates to the other sides of the roof. Down, the dogs begin feasting on the fallen man.
Euro raises the crossbow again, and shoots another. Then he casts away the crossbow, takes a long knife from a leg holster and silent as a howl, moving in complete darkness, he slice through the neck of the third man. The fourth guard sees Ed, but the flinging knife pierces the brain of the man passing through his left eye.
Out of a pocket Ed takes a small explosive device, and put it in the jacket of one of the just killed men. The, one after the other, he push them over the rim of the roof.
Ed looks down. The dogs scavenge like mad over the bodies. Guards are running there.
The explosion!
It was not powerful enough to kill many. Most of the guards and the dogs are just injured. Human screams and dog barks pierces the silent night.
Euro smiles, running to the stairs after having retrieved the crossbow.
Yussuf is not feeling anyone, he doesn’t feel any attack. He is blind for the first time. Drops of sweat run down his face as he observes the slaughterhouse below. No one is attacking, but his men are dying! How can it be possible? He searches, jumping from mind to mind, but he feels just fear, terror, and pain. The pain! The pain of dying people seizes his mind, leaving no space to think. Fight, fight, orders himself Youssuf. Fuck! We must blow up everything! Those bastards will not win.
“Where’s the radio?” says the terrorist chief, opening his eyes. The room is dark; they should have cut the power. Where’s the fucking radio, where the hell are his henchmen, yells Youssouf.
“Are you looking for this?” asks a voice in English.
Youssouf turns around, unable to see anything in the total darkness.
“Where are you?” he shouts.
“I’m here, Youssuf.” The voice comes from behind.
“You can’t exist. You have no toughs. You can’t be alive” hisses Youssouf.
“I died three year ago. I am Edulcore Cicciotto”.
Silence. There is no word coming form the terrorist.
“It can’t be”, finally he says.
“Sure it could. I came to avenge my comrades you just killed.”
“IT CAN’T BE!” yells the terrorist.
“It can, Youssouf. How can else you wouldn’t feel me, just as you feel all the people dying out there? Just like you feels the fear of all the people you keep prisoner?”
“I... I don’t... know...”
“Do you feel the fear? Do you feel the anguish of people meeting death? I am the Ghost of Edulcore Cicciotto, Youssouf. I am coming for you. It’s Christmas night, Youssuf, and a crime like your can’t pass unpunished, in the eye of our Lord.”
“I...I...”
The face of Youssouf distorts in panic, in the greenish image in the night goggles of Euro.
“Hell is awaiting you, Youssouf.”
The right hand of the man goes to the other arm.
“I... I....”
And then the man falls to the ground.
Euro walks there, and places his hand over his throat. He waits a few seconds, and then closes his eyes.
He then takes his communicator, and speaks. “Danny, send the ambulances. The place is cleared.”
Ed looks at this wristwatch. Midnight. “Happy Christmas, folks” he whispers, as he walks away across the carnage.
