1 Earth's Strongest Soldier
Sitting in the VIP booth of such luxury that even the richest men in the world could only dream about, the leaders of the world sat side by side as they sipped on their vintage wines and took a puff from the tobacco delivery device of their choice.
The smoke filled the room, a choice that was made by them for they liked the smell, but for two figures sitting in the back it was stifling to say the least.
"So? Are you going to continue with your foolish plans, or will you accept our recommendations" said the smaller of the two figures, whose voice and figure was obscured through physical and perhaps mystical means.
The figures who sat in the front, looking down on a vast arena where a fight to the death would soon take place, laughed so hard that tears were brought to their eyes.
A fat caucasian man who had a pin of red white and blue was the first to speak,
"I don't know what the big guy was thinking when they chose you lot as part of humanities representatives, but we are the ones who really run the world. At our disposal we have the finest technology, the finest men to use them, and the finest techniques honed by us trying to kill one another for hundreds.
"Why would we let you decide the first batch of representatives, to embarrass us with your voodoo or whatever. Our guns are the best, tremendous, ask anyone, they will tell ya'."
Next to the man who spoke was another, who was of clear eastern descent but was far leaner as a result. He also had a flag pin, except his was mostly red with yellow stars in the top left corner.
"I hate to agree with the westerner, but he is right. Before this end of the universe nonsense, we were at one another's throats constantly fighting through proxy while endlessly building our own militaries.
"Just ask yourselves this, who owned the world? We did. Not whatever you are."
The first who talked took a whiff from his cigar and the second one took a puff from a long thin pipe, both of them chuckling to themselves.
"The reason why you owned the world was because we were busy fighting the true threats, the real dangers and evils. Not weak humans, anyone can kill a human with the right amount of force. Bu-"
The first robed speaker was silenced by their larger companion who said,
"Forget it. They will not listen to us. Let reality wake them from their stupidity."
The two men in the front just shook their heads, taking a sip from their respective wine glasses.
---
Materializing on two opposite sides of the arena below were two figures. On one side was clearly a veteran soldier of some nation with greying hair, wearing spider silk tactical armor and a single glass visor over his right eye.
On the other side was a robed young man, who could not have been above the age of 30. He wore a dark black robe with a single tower stitched onto it, that appeared to move in place depending on how you looked at it.
"Fighters, welcome to the arena..." rang out an androgynous voice that came from neither here nor there.
"Preliminary fight to determine starting advantage...Earth v Mundus...Hailing from earth we have John Barry with the title "The Strongest Soldier", aged 52. From Mundus we have Dusk Mors, with the title "Adept" who is aged 29.
"For the preliminaries you will be restricted to two weapons, please choose."
A screen appeared in front of the eyes of both fighters, showing all the weapons that each was familiar with and knew how to use.
In John's hands appeared a standard assault rifle with spare magazines and a tactical knife. With clearly practiced movements he checked both weapons until he was satisfied, then placed the knife onto his belt and held the rifle in his hands.
'My favorite weapon, portable and reliable. Followed me through dozens of wars, scoring me over a thousand confirmed kills' thought the old soldier warmly as he felt the contours of the weapon.
In his opponents hands, however...nothing appeared.
"A severe imbalance has been detected between the strengths of the two sides, offering a handicap in exchange for a higher point consumption...handicap denied by Earth. The fight will proceed until one side is eliminated.
"The fight will begin in 10...9..."
John looked at the kid across from him with a stone cold face, his entire body tensed and ready to fight despite that he was fighting a kid.
"I am sorry young'n, but too much is at stake for me to go easy on you."
The kid just laughed, his messy brown hair bouncing about all the while.
"6...5.."
"I think you should worry about yourself. Show me your planet's strength, "Strongest Soldier"
"3...2...1...FIGHT"
John immediately readied his weapon, both his brain and his weapon augment interfacing to make all the necessary aiming calculations within a tenth of a second.
Pulling the trigger he fired with perfect accuracy and recoil control, letting loose a torrent of bullets from the gun that had no end.
'For my home, my planet...I must commit this sin..' thought John as he lit the poor kid up.
He fired an entire magazine into the boy, even automatically reloading his weapon in two seconds flat out of sheer habit.
'Not that I need to. These bullets fire at twice the speed of sound with enough force to punch through solid steel, nothing could survive that. At least not flesh and bones.'
Except in the next moment he would nearly jump in shock, something that he had long thought to be impossible.
"Interesting weapon you have there, it honestly took me by surprise!"
The soldier watched in horror as all the bullet wounds that the boy had sustained healed in real time, the bullets being pushed out of his body and onto the ground he stood upon.
"It's like a crossbow that is powered by...explosions? What a unique idea, I will have to experiment with it when I get back home.... though the whole end of time thing somewhat puts a damper on that idea. The weapon is a bit weak though, it only caused internal bleeding and partially destroyed several organs."
The shock left the soldier as he did what he was trained to do, fight, and he opened up fire once more.
"Tsk, tsk" said Dusk, "the exact same attack, how would it work twice?"
In the same instant that John aimed his weapon once again and fired, his opponent had flashed in place and appeared directly in front of John...a range in which ranged weapons were all but useless.
Fast as he could, John's hands let go of the gun and shot for his combat knife...but it was too, too late.
The world turned upside down as he saw his body falling to the ground as everything spun, not even having the time to process how he died as his head hit the floor and his corpse dematerialized at the atomic level.
"What? That's it? How is that the strongest soldier of an entire planet? Oh I see...the title was a joke because of how weak he is. Tsk, tsk. Looks like this Earth or whatever refuses to show their true hand....how dull"
The boy heaved a sigh and turned around, walking into a cosmic gate that had appeared behind him.
"Preliminary fight ended. Victor: Dusk Mors, representing Mundus."
----
In the VIP room high up above, floating in between time and space itself, the two self assured men had dropped their wine glasses onto the floor. The pant legs of their fine suits stained red with the liquid, with one of them even burning a hole in the arm of their chair with the cigarette they had been holding.
"Impossible. How could a snot nosed brat like that be so powerful?"
"Unbelievable. Those moves...was that Qinggong?"
From behind the two men, the larger hooded figure stood up and walked over. It placed two gloved hands onto each of their shoulders and said,
"Now do you believe us? Your lack of foresight has just cost us the first round, now our opponent will have an advantage. Drop your pride, drop your arrogance. The lives of 12 billion people rest on our shoulders, we CANNOT make any more mistakes."
The two men were silent, looking at one another for a moment before both of them sighed.
"I did not take control of half the world and remain a fool for very long, I wised up long ago, believe it. I can see the writing on the wall."
"Likewise, I too did not take control of the other half of the world because I was lucky. 'No man is a perfect man; no gold is sufficiently bare', I admit that I made an err in judgement."
The two stood up, one fat one lean, and turned around with a renewed ferocity in their eyes.
"But, do you have a better solution? Knowing the strength of our enemy, I can still come up with a few measures to deal with that but if you have something better... I will hear it."
"I too can do the same, but we would be most foolish to believe that the enemy has shown its true depths. What solution do you offer, one that is better than the fighters and weapons we have used for so long?"
The two hooded figures were now standing side by side, one tall one small, and looked at one another before they both nodded.
The heavy hooded black cloaks the two were wearing fell from their bodies, revealing what was underneath for the two world leaders to see.
