Colony General Malthus considered himself neither a tall man, nor a short man. In his appetites during life, he considered himself a man of moderation. While he never consider himself handsome, he had a way about him that some considered attractive, and in that he had always considered himself lucky.
His uniform was immaculate, but he had a companion to thank for that. His hair cut professionally, neither long nor military short, with a salt and pepper maintained by a strict dye regiment. Even during life Malthus hadn’t allowed himself a whit of facial hair, and continued the practice in his erstwhile immortality.
Malthus never considered himself blessed with immortality as some vampires did. When he was a human he always felt his transition into cursed vampyr had been a direct correlation to the crimes both he, the EEF, and the entirety of humanity had done against the relatively innocent Olgog peoples. And his transtion from cursed vampyr into undead vampire had also been a direct result of his failure to fix the flaws that had sprung from the Goblin Genocide, and the years before and after it.
Leading into the Goblin Genocide, he had been but an Interrogator in the EEF. A respected position, where he extracted information from EEF soldiers that had committed crimes. But then during the Genocide years, he was brought in more and more by the EEF to torture Olgog captives for information. As a good interrogator, Malthus had known that information extracted by torture was useless, misleading and often concocked on the spot to make the pain end. The information he had extracted had been through mental intimidation, a tongue well versed in fast talking and hustling, and above all understanding his subject.
But during the Genocide years, more and more Church of One Zealots were allowed to take part in and oversee the criminal proceedings. Less and less had Malthus felt he had a choice in implementing brutal tactics. And as the first Mag Der’al outbreak had occurred, Malthus may have been more zealous than even he would like to admit. But when he learned the truth, and really got to understand the Olgog peoples, he felt a great guilt.
It had been during that time that he had met a man who simply called himself VLAD. A Cloner who operated on the fringe of the Colonial blackmarket, Malthus didn’t know how far the fingers of the Old Vlad really went at the time. Only that the EEFers all said he spoke with the authority of the Colony General. Interrogator Malthus became one of Old Vlad’s favorites.
Malthus couldn’t remember how many Olgogs he tortured under those piercing blue eyes. Often the blond haired man would just order Malthus to apply electric shock after electric shock without asking a single question to the victim.
At the time he didn’t know the old man was grooming him as a perfect figurehead to keep the EEF under his thumb. That would take over one thousand years, and more than enough bloodshed and pain to sate even the hungriest vampyr, for Colony General Malthus to learn the truth and oust the old Vlad and outlaw his entire spy network. Not that this stopped the Old Vlad from having him assassinated…twice. Well twice that actually succeeded.
So it was with great surprise and disbelief that he got a call this morning from the old man after all these years. Stranger still the old man had allowed his location to be traced. It seemed the old Vlad had a dire warning about the Mirror Crystal fleet and the Mirror Crystal artifact they carried.
With the final death of the Rapi’og of this world, and the final death of the Lalder of that world, and the mirror crystal being pulled through its pair in this timeline, a catastrophic set of events was about to unfold. Old Vlad’s contacts within the court of the Djinni who fashioned the Mirror Crystals warned it would slam both timelines together killing off countless people from across Refuge.
What could Malthus do but agree to send a team to aid Old Vlad in stopping the mirror crystal menace above RhugTor. He could only hope they weren’t causing more harm to the olgogs. He had always steered the Colonies to leave the Olgogs alone in the south lands. Let them recover from the Genocide, and find their new path.
Old Vlad had asked him to send Shinefox Shrellfox, head of the new VLAD agency, and good personal friend of Malthus, to lead the squad. Malthus didn’t trust him as far as he could throw the old man, and demanded Shinefox take every precaution necessary.
When Shinefox’s Air Assault Vehicle left, to take him to the meeting, Colony General Malthus waited, watching the live orbital video feed from their spy satellites. Nothing happened all day, except the Mirror Crystal fleet continuing to fortify their defenses around RhugTor and Port Unen. But as night settled explosions ringed the main zepplin dockyards above RhugTor. The main tower that housed the docks was light up as a battle raged across it.
Mathus’ desk had a holographic display on it, and it activated created a two foot tall image of a woman in a smart military uniform.
“What do you have to report Anise?” asked Malthus nervous to hear her answer.
The artificial intelligence replied, “Sir, Shinefox and his team of joint VLAD and OVC agents will be breaching the city shortly. Their target is Glog, Master of the Teardrop Hammer and current leader of the Mirror Crystal Fleet. He is carrying the Crystal itself.”
“As long as they recover the crystal we can send a team to put it through the one in Brez and we can all breath easy,” said Malthus with a shockingly positive attitude, “If anyone can get through it will be Shinefox.”
“Report back once Shinefox returns from the mission,” Malthus ordered, “Oh and please have Zel sent up, I’m a bit hungry.”
“Sir yes sir,” said Anise before winking out.
.