Careful Not To Break Reality

The entire battle plan of Valerie's is rather simple, and played on the known limit of Lock Down. When her father was still the user of Lock Down, the wolf sisters have seen him practicing with that power. Combining the wielding of the artifact with that of his powerful guns proved to take quite a strain on his concentration, and he maxed out at only being able to lock down three separate regions of space at the same time before losing his focus.

He had obtained the artifact from yet another challenge way before the times of the establishment of the four tests. This was part of his lineage, and he earned the power.

This incredible power had not only saved his lives time and time again when he faced down his rivals and allowed him to rise up in the ranks of the Grey Wolf. The name of the Black Wolf was known and respected across the region.

Before the birth of the sisters, the Black Wolf possessed immense power. Then, Valerie Surtnouf was born alongside her twin sister. The family name Surtnouf was taken from the old earth Norse language, with Surt meaning Black and Nouf meaning Wolf. It is a family name seldomly used by Valerie after her father's death. After the sisters were born, he treated them as the top priority in his life, and loved and cared for them in his own way. Valerie and her sister took his methods differently. Her little sister hated him for it, but Valerie, from an young age, had understood why her father is the way he is. Hence, no matter what training he threw at him, she is ready.

Now, she realized that he was training for her to take over the artifact, despite that never being explicitedly talked about within the house hold. Before she was ever ready, Absolute Being has established themselves as an ally of the Grey Wolf, and they brought an entirely new perspective, understanding and approach to the artifact. Hence, they clashed.

This goes back to the lineage of Lock Down, and it would be worth taking about the history of this particular artifact.

As what Zero had explained to Rydel, the artifact were placed around the galaxy for the purpose of safe keeping and hiding it from the greater universe. Due to the location and placements of the artifacts, most of them were put in uninhabited star systems and regions so that they remain undiscovered until the intelligent races are far into the age of space exploration. The dawn of intergalactic travel was at the late modern age, and many years later in the post modern age, artifacts have finally been discovered and activated across the galaxy.

This is the case for most artifacts we have seen so far, and yet Lock Down is different. The Black Wolf were a clan of its own ever since the ancient times on old earth. The advent of this clan hinged in the discovery of the artifact Lock Down and its possession by the earliest Clan leader. With the power of an artifact too powerful even in the post modern age, he was undefeated and lead his clan to ultimate glory, dominating all other clans within the terrains of the icy permafrost. Nearing his life's end, he set up the following rule:

Those who are the worthy brothers, sisters, sons and daughters of the clan of the Black Wolf, shall possess it through the trial of combat.

This is a simple one liner, and yet includes so much information and detail, that it was taught to all younglings of the clan of the Black Wolf each generation. Anyone with the blood of the Black Wolf may challenge for the possession of the artifact. That was the height of the clan. Lock Down represents strength of the Clan leader, and by extension that of the clan itself. As ages have past and technology of killing and fighting evolved, the traditions remained.

The clan splintered many times throughout its age, but the challenge for the artifact without fail. Some within the clan believed the true spirit of the Black Wolf to be that of exploration and freedom, while others interpreted the land upon which the Black Wolf were born were the lands that they have to protect. When wars, natural disasters and ages come and go, some of the Black Wolfs left, while the others remain. During the age of the great Expansion, the current Black Wolf were one of the first few waves of human that left earth. Then, hundreds of years later, the Black Wolf left once again from settled regions and ventured into the unknown regions, with another man, ironically nick-named the Grey Wolf.

That was where the father of Valerie obtained his artifact. He issued a challenge to the previous Black Wolf after they have settled on Wolfana, and then earned Lock Down after his victory. By this time, the blood of the original Black Wolf has been spread so thin and wide that he simply planned to pass on the artifact down to his daughters, when they are ready. The artifact has been through many hands across the ages, and is now the legacy of a mostly forgotten past.

That was the history of Lock Down, and that's what the Black Wolf believed. Then, Zero, the leader of the organization Absolute Being met with him, and he brought with him his ideals of galaxies in grave danger, the artifacts being the only power that can stop all of the civilizations as every being knows it from being obliterated by threats in the greater universe. To the Black Wolf's surprise, Zero did not intend to take Lock Down away from the Black Wolf by force, but instead revealed how he planned to weed out and select those who are worthy of the possessing the artifacts.

When someone who's worthy rose through the ranks of Absolute Being and is ready to challenge the Black Wolf, they will do so. And the Black Wolf, held onto his honor, agreed to the arrangement. However, when physiological enhancement procedures and nanotechnology enhancement technologies were devised and used extensively within the academy, Zero did reach out to the Black Wolf for the possibility of him going through the procedure himself. To his shock, the Black Wolf refused.

'This will be your undoing.' Zero warned, 'there are clinically significant benefits from the enhancements, and without them, you cannot compete with us!'

'Just watch.' The Black Wolf offered a simple response.

Over the next few years, the Black Wolf was challenged many time by various foes and graduates from the Absolute Academy. With the added on bonus of the enhancements, they began to give him more and more of a hard time, but he always prevailed with his skills and tactics. But the challengers were human, despite their superhuman abilities.

Then, the dangerous Aquarian arrived.

'I will finish you here, and reclaim the glory of the black wolf!' Valerie flew back, pressing the button for his killing device and pointing her wrist at Gold, the infared signal emitting from her wrist and rebounding off Gold's armor. A pair of tiny machine gun turrets she assembled rose from the building tops and rained down fire on Gold. The stream of bullets ripped through the remaining shields of the Aquarian and started to eat away at his armor while pinning him on the ground with each collision between the bullets and his armor.

Gold screamed out in pain, and reached out with his hands towards one of the machine gun, and then the other. The space where the machine guns are located were locked down, and the firing halted abruptly. The immediate danger was averted, but when he returned his attention to the enemy in front of him, he saw Valerie charging towards him. He raised his blades, and Valerie knocked it out with a clean swing of her whip. The next swing was caught by Gold and he met the tip of the whip with his blades, causing it to tangle and loop around it.

Gold yanked the whip by using one of his spare arms to grab onto the handle and lunged backwards. Valerie immediately released the whip from her hands, allowing the weapon she carefully crafted to fall into Gold's hands.

What can you do without the weapon you have been practicing using for the past months? Gold shivered out of excitement, and then prepared for the next strike. Immediately before Valerie stepped into the range of his attack, the corner of his eye caught a glimpse of flames through his mask, and then the whip exploded right in front of his body!

The explosive power tore through what remained of his armor plating near his c.h.e.s.t and exposed his exoskeleton suit underneath. Gold was completely shaken by this and before he could regain his senses, Valerie had already appeared in front of him with her dagger in hand. With surgical precision, Valerie found the main artery for the Aquarian near the c.h.e.s.t area, and she sent the blades deep inside him, piercing through the exoskeleton suit, ripping through the physiological enhancements underlying the skin and scattering what little shielding Gold was able to muster in a hurry.

Gold screamed out in pain and horror as bodily fluids poured out of him. He may have underestimated to power of the measly human, but she also underestimated him! Now that she is within his reach, with his swords techniques,he is going to rip her to pieces! Tensing all of his body and override the pain he was experiencing from the crippling injury delivered by Valerie, he began his counter attack. The arm holding the blade entangled with the whip and a good chunk of Valerie's explosive pastes were completely blown off, but Gold still had four hands he could use. Dropping everything he held on with Lock Down in the background and opening up all the spaces, Gold focused on the space in front of him and locked down all of the spaces around Valerie and sending his blades in the only region of space that she could move in.

When Gold activated all of Lock Down's power, Valerie could feel the hairs on the back of her neck tingling as the uncomfortable sensation of entire regions of three dimensional space being located up propagates throughout her body. She could still move freely, but the dangling backside of her trench coat was cut off. So it seems like Gold has locked down all of the region of space near her expect for the very place she is standing on. Instead, he wanted to end her, the harbinger of his pain and humiliation, his way.

With blades held tightly within her grip, Aquarian bodily fluids still dripping down the metal, Valerie prepared for the final clash, a battle between swords. Despite his severe injuries, Gold had unleashed a storm of attack one after another. Valerie initially was able to react and parry the blades to the side simply thanks to her practice with the combat training droids, but soon she became more and more overwhelmed, narrowly dodging the attacks at her vitals within the tight confines of space she had.

Gold roared as blood drips through his masks and raised two blades overhead before gathering all of his strength and striking it down. Valerie dropped into a narrow split stance, blocking that attack with all her might. Then, Gold's lower arms spun the blades in a flurry and stabbed it towards the sides of her torso.

This, is my killing blow! Now fatigued and injured beyond the point of speaking, Gold simply mouthed the shapes and put the blades through Valerie's body. Except they didn't.

With a loud clank, the tips of the blades snapped off and the rest followed as it it hit a rock solid wall of concrete, refusing to budge. He looked through his blood, and saw the torn trench coats and tactical armor Valerie wearing. The blades easily broke through, but it simply is not strong enough to break through the nanotechnology shielding Valerie created at the very last moment. Gold stubbornly pressed the blade inwards even harder, and they snapped underneath the pressure.

'This is it, Gold.' Valerie knocked the overhead blades away,and reached her left arm forward. The remaining bits of explosive paste was ejected onto the b.a.r.e c.h.e.s.t of gold, and she flicked her wrist right after, sending a rain of sparks onto it.

The Aquarian was blown up into pieces, and Valerie shielding herself from the worst of it. The impact from the explosion lifted her off her feet and threw her backwards into the previously locked up region of space. However, Gold was no longer able to control that space once his upper body is missing, and Valerie simply landed on her back meters away with a dizzying view of surroundings and a headache that kills.

She did it. She had killed Gold!

Turning her aching body to the side, she crawled towards the remains of Gold, and grapped onto the stripped arm. The ink slowly retracted from his shoulder and started travelling down his arm and latched itself onto Valerie. A burst of energy rushed into her body and was happily taken up by the nanosized drones. Then, the stripe traveled up her right arm before intermingling into a spiralling pattern and finishing in the middle of her palm.

She had avenged father! The artifact Lock Down has now once again returned to the hands of the Black Wolf!

She looked down at her hand, and saw the symbol of a broken Aquarian blade being imprinted into her hand. She knew what that meant, her father had told her about the stories of the pattern within one's hand after obtaining the artifact. It appear differently for each individual, and represented a deep part of oneself that they would have been able to lock away after the possession of Lock down. For Gold, it was his past as the prodigy of Steady of the Unyielding Ice, and for Valerie, it was the vengeance against the Aquarian that killed her father.

The shuttles that brought her down to the planet's surface initially returned once more, this time with multiple medical droids and doctors. The shuttle touches down gently near the final battlefield, and the droids exited and divided up in between themselves to both tend to the wounded and take away the remains of Gold. Valerie soon lost consciousness from the strains of the battle, and was taken away for treatment.

There was an endless stream of pitch black, and Valerie found herself floating in space.

Then, the pitch black was no more, with stars and galaxies shining in the distance and decorating the sheet of darkness, Valerie saw an asteroid floating across view, and this is when she realized that she was kneeling atop an eating table within a space ship. It is not any ordinary space ship. It was one that the Black Wolf always took when he is taking the sisters to the realms of the Black Pegasus for flying and fighting practice.

'You have done it.' A gentle voice and unmistakable voice came from behind her, and Valerie turned around to see her father sitting by the table.

'Father...f...dad.' Valerie felt her lips twitching, 'I have avenged your death. Lock down is now in the hands of the clan of Black Wolf once again.'

The Black Wolf simply smiled and didn't say anything else.

'I wanted to just say...thank you...thank you for all the skills you have taught me, thank you for all that you have given me...I...'

'You don't have to say any more.' The Black Wolf shook his head and placed his hand on Valerie's head, the stripes of the artifact still so vivid on his arms, 'a parent always understands.'

Valerie wanted to say that despite her cold nature towards her father, despite the protests and fights she and her little sister had with him, deep down, she knew how important the artifact is to him, and how much he wanted Valerie to be able to have it. But he already knew. He had always known. To outsiders, the Black Wolf was one hungry with power, and yet all that power was just so that the sisters can live a safe and secure life down the road. With him losing respect within the region as time goes on, he had to accept the challenge no matter what, regardless of whether there had been an agreement with Zero.

Perhaps, in one way or another, he knew that Valerie would rise up, and take his place and the artifact back away from the outsiders that laid their hands on it.

'You are the Black Wolf now, the leader of our clan.' He continued, 'go out there, and show them what we can do, Valerie.'

'Valerie?'

'Valerie!'

'Valerie!'

Valerie opened up her eyes, and saw the white ceilings of her own room. She blinked a few times as to make sure that what she is seeing is reality, and not the vision of a dying women. Then, she felt something squeezing her right hand. Turning her stiffened neck over, she saw Rydel sitting by the bed next to her.

'You have done it!' Rydel said with a grin from cheek to cheek while squeezing her hand, 'you have really done it!'

It's true. She has really done it.

Letting herself be bathed within the joy of her success, Valerie smiled too.