Chapter 147: Mindbender
Coop seriously considered resuming the slaughter. His frustration had settled on Subcommander Jackson Hobbs, and he barely held back from pummeling him. The end result would inevitably be a battle with the rebels as well. Coop would win, there was little doubt, especially after Presence of Mind revealed their most powerful individual was weaker than the phantoms back home and already firmly within his grip.
[Human (Level 70)]
[Wild Mage (Intelligence)]
[Red (Challenger)]
Coop was breathing through his teeth as he considered exactly why the situation frustrated him so thoroughly. It wasn’t that he fundamentally didn’t want to kill, because, while true, he had already been forced to accept the horror of taking lives. During an apocalyptic situation, it seemed inevitable if he wanted to maintain his own agency. It also wasn’t that people were dying, generally, because people were dying somewhere, constantly. It was far beyond the scope of his existence to take responsibility for everyone else’s actions, so he wasn’t taking that burden on his shoulders either.
There wasn’t even a good reason to blame himself for the chain of events that had led to the conflict specifically in Empress City. The one at the root of the problem was their distrustful Champion, and by proxy, the alien factions that were treating Earth as a planet-wide territory grab.
“That’s the Nomad?” The rebels whispered to each other. “What’s going on?”
The rebels shifted nervously as they looked at each other, trying to figure out what to do. They were torn between the duty to protect their leader and the hopes they had put on the Nomad. The revolution’s leader had derived his original credibility through his connection with the mythical Nomad, declared that Coop was their savior, the very mythological figure he had built up, and now found himself desperately tapping at Coop’s forearm, begging for release.
Coop glared at Jackson’s watering, fear-filled eyes, and came to his conclusion for what was so difficult to accept. People were essentially dying in his name, seemingly on his behalf, and they had done so at Jackson’s behest. It all felt unnecessarily manipulative. Coop narrowed his eyes and Jackson’s grew wider.
They had been fighting to the death when they could have walked away. Ghost Reef would have taken them in, just like the last minute refugees they had sent on the cruise ship, who proved that it had been an option the whole time. Coop would have happily protected them, and done what he could to enable them to progress themselves. There must have been a better way.
He didn’t like that this Jackson Hobbs guy then had the gall to summon Coop, like he was in his personal army, or a trump card he could play after he had made a mess. The enthusiastic prisoner had provided a distraction when they escaped the Empire’s jail, but Coop would hardly even count that as a favor, self-serving as it was, and considering Coop had done much more in breaking the soul tethers and opening the cells.
“I warned you to not do anything that made me come back.” Coop raised his other arm and gestured behind him, to the highway full of death and destruction, still crowded with surrendered, and terrified people. “I warned you. Didn’t I?” Jackson did his best to nod, obviously remembering Coop’s words even better than Coop did, having used them to send a message that forced Coop to come and deal with his problems.