We were at an Air Force base in northern Ontario, back in 2018. I had just had my eighth birthday, and I was wearing the silver Yin/Yang necklace that my brother Kyle had given me for my birthday. I was running all along the wide and bright hanger, gasping at the sheer amount of planes and the size of the open hanger door, all while begging my father to let me fly one; while Kyle trailed behind, yawning and being a grump about the fact that he had to get up at 6am to go to an Air Force base more than 2 hours away, all because it was the eighth birthday of a little girl.
Kyle was going to turn fifteen in a month. He had a tall and lean build, with cropped, ruffled dark brown hair, blue, almost black, eyes and a cocky/mischievous smile that said Yes, I did put shaving cream in your yogurt, and yes, I am going to get away with it, and in fact, he did do that to me once when I was four and badly in need of a laugh. Everyone from back then said we looked alike, but the difference was that instead of dark blue eyes, I had even darker green eyes, also I had darker hair. Oddly enough, even though he bugged me constantly, Kyle was actually the person who I was closest to in our family. Our parents were often away, working for the military, and my aunt Skye, my father’s younger sister lived on the other side of the country, so he was the one person who I could talk to any day, and who also could understand my fears.
My mother was talking with one of the engineers about the latest upgrades to some of the planes, while my father was chasing after me, laughing along with my giggling as I tried to get one of the ceremonial swords off of the wall and poke him with it.
He grabbed me by the waist and swung me towards the nearest plane and said sneakily, “So do you want to try flying that one, my little pilot?”
My answer was immediate, “YES! Thank you Daddy!” and I hugged him with all my might.
“Hey, squirt!” Kyle came sauntering over with a playful smile on his face, “You really think you’re qualified to fly one of those things?”
He laughed as I stuck my tongue out at him and said, “As if you could do any better! Daddy says I’m already at a pro’s level!”
“Well, I’ll believe that when I see it, shrimp. And by the way, those video games you’re constantly playing don’t count.” Kyle poked me in the belly, but then looked up as the sound of a plane passed overhead.
“Odd,” my mother walked up to us and looked up to where the plane was coming around to make another pass over the base, “there weren’t supposed to be any training fli—”

That’s when the bomb hit.

It was a small bomb, designed mainly to spread panic and chaos, in order for the people who dropped the bomb to do whatever they dropped the bomb for in the confusion, but it was still capable of killing more than a few people while at it.
Lucky for me, my father was quick enough to grab me and Kyle and throw us free. We crashed to the floor as the base exploded behind us, earning a few scrapes, and then Kyle shielded me from the flying rubble. I looked back and saw my father, outlined in a ferocious fire, which was burning me even from a hundred meters away, supporting my badly injured and unconscious mother.
He saw me and my brother looking back and yelled, “Kyle, take Dakota and get as far away from here as possible! We’ll be fine! Run as far as you can! Run!”
They never stood a chance.
The plane passed overhead again, and as me and my family were looking up, it let loose a spray of bullets and buried them in my parent’s backs.
“MOMMY! DADDY!” I screamed as they collapsed on the ground, covered in blood. My brother grabbed me and took off. I fought, clawing and kicking, trying to get back to my dead parents.
“Stop fighting!” Kyle yelled at me, “They’re gone, there’s nothing we can do!” I looked up and saw that he had tears in his eyes. But that was what ended any chance of me and the person who I loved most in the world to ever be together again. He didn’t see the man, hazy from the heat, in front of us; he just kept running, kept running until it was too late.
Crack! and my brother crashed to the ground, sending me flying.
I crawled over to him, crying and wincing from the scrapes, “Kyle, you’re hurt.” He looked at me and grabbed my hand, “Dakota, run.” That was when the second bullet hit him. He coughed up blood and said one last thing, “Run,” and collapsed.
The man who shot Kyle kicked him out of the way, and looked at me with contempt, “So you’re the last survivor. Not much.”
He had short, black hair in a military cut, a long nose, and cruel blue eyes. He was tall with pale skin and a lean, yet muscular, build, and he was wearing a black flight suit with a pistol in a holster on his waist. Girls my age now would’ve called Him hot, but not me. All I could see was the person who killed my family, and even now, I can only see Him as that.
I didn’t think. I kicked Him, I kicked the man that had killed my brother, and seized one of the ceremonial swords from the wall next to me. I don’t know how it got there, it must’ve been thrown free of the wall when the bomb struck. I grabbed the sword and struck at Him. He easily blocked it, and forced me to let go of the sword.
“Well, look what we have here. A fighter. And from the peace-loving country no less. Well, what do you know?” He laughed condescendingly, “You might just be useful, that is if you’re looking for work.”
He didn’t give me a chance to answer. He threw me over his shoulder, and walked over to his plane, “Believe me, you’re going to be thanking me later. The NM is the best place for fighters. Even little girls from Canada.” He then tossed me in the back of the plane, tied me down and put his helmet on, closing the hatch.
“Wait…” I was going into shock, completely helpless and fragile, just like the little girl I was supposed to be, “Wh-who are you?”
He turned around and gave a little laugh, like, this was the “fighter” who just tried to gut me with a sword? and said “Noir. Ethan Noir. Pilot number 29 from the New Millennium.” And then He took off, leaving the bodies of my family to burn in the flames.

He flew me to their base in Italy. The hanger bay was huge, metal and bright. It smelled of well-oiled machines and, if it was possible, satisfaction, the smell that you knew that you just accomplished what you had been working for. There were planes everywhere and people in black flight suits like His running around checking them. He all but dragged me out of the plane, and took me to His quarters. His quarters were small, bare, cold, completely scentless, and consisted of a bunk, a desk and a wall of weapons. The wall of weapons had almost everything. Swords, spears, guns … everything that had been used to pulverize others in the last few millennia.
He turned to me, “This is where you’ll be staying. You are not to see or talk to anyone without my express permission. You are not to leave this room unless you are with me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go report mission success to my superiors.” And He left the room, leaving me alone, for the first of many times.
I shivered. The shock was getting to me. I went over to the bed and fell asleep. Images swirled around in my dreams of my parents and Kyle dying, so much I couldn’t take it anymore. And the next morning when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything, save that my name was Dakota.

When He discovered my amnesia, He was pleased. He told me a story of how he valiantly rescued me from the flames of a burning down orphanage, which was where I had lived. How He brought me to his organization, which took me in as a new recruit, but only on the condition that I would completely obey Him until my training was complete. How when I was training my agility by leaping across platforms, I fell off and severely hit my head. How the doctor said that I would make a full recovery, but it was possible I would never remember the times before that. He knew that I would never betray the person who saved my life, and gave me a new chance.

For seven years after that, I was trained. Trained day and night, never stopping. He had me cut my hair into a man’s cut, so that the formerly down-the-back cut wouldn’t get in my way. He taught me how to fly all manners of planes, like the Canadian F-18 Hornet and even carrier class planes like the Boeing, although my training was focused mainly on fighter aircraft. He taught me how to use all of his weapons, from guns to spears, and trained me until I mastered every single one. He kept telling me that I would be the NM’s secret weapon, for all of the terrorism they would commit in the future, though instead of using the word “terrorism”, he used the word “greatness”. Although from what I learned from one of the times some of His colleagues came to see my training, enough terror was already in the world.
The attacks on all of Canada’s army bases had sent the country now without a military into a panic spree. The United States of America and Britain immediately started to blame every country that was even on the slightest disagreement with Canada, for good reason though. Canada was always known as the peaceful country, and to be attacked in such cold blood is an act of war, enough to send the world into a complete war zone. And within two years, the 3rd World War broke out. Canada became a war zone, along with plenty of other developed nations. The people of Canada are terrified and are all in hiding. So basically to sum this entire situation up: the NM got what it wanted.
Even now, I don’t know why the NM wanted WW3. Could be because they just like to hurt people, could be they want the world to be terrified. But, it’s a complete mystery.

Every few nights, I would have strange dreams. A building in flames, with a man holding up a badly hurt woman yelling “Run!” Me, running along a wide hanger, with the man chasing after me laughing. But mostly, a tall and lean teenager, with laughing dark blue eyes, and a constant smile. The teen holding me and speaking to me in a soothing voice as I cried after skinning my knee. Laughing with me after I found shaving cream in my yogurt. Carrying me while running away from a ferocious fire with tears in his eyes while I fought to escape his grasp. And the most frequent of all, the teen grabbing my hand while lying on the ground, saying “Dakota, run,” and then coughing blood as He shot the teen with a cruel look in his cold blue eyes…
I would always wake up crying after these dreams, but I never told Him. I wanted to be exactly what He wanted me to be, the perfect soldier. But those dreams always stuck in my head, haunting me every time I smiled at Him, every time I wanted to be like him. So I threw myself into my training.
I soaked up all that He taught me, making Him even more “proud” of me. And then, six years after my own personal Doomsday, when I had learned all He could teach me about weapons and aircraft, he started to work on my mind. Day after day after day, He’d teach me how to drill my emotions out of my mind, to make me the perfect soldier and weapon. But that all backfired a few days after my mind training started.
I had exhausted myself with target practice after the mind training, all in order to get away from the images in my head. I didn’t want to fall asleep, I was terrified of seeing those images, but I was so tired I had to. And that was the night I got my memories back.
In my dream, I was in a dining room, sitting at a large dining table, giggling in a little eight-year-old voice as the man and the woman from the fire, and the teen sang Happy Birthday. I blew out the candles and they all cheered. The man said, “As a special treat, we’re taking you to an Air Force base in northern Ontario! And we may even let you fly one,” The man and the woman laughed as I squealed and threw my arms around both of them, “THANK YOU MOMMY! THANK YOU DADDY!” The teen gave me a small wrapped parcel. I opened it up and shrieked in delight when I saw a silver necklace in the shape of a Ying/Yang sign. The teen laughed and said, “Happy birthday little Dakota.” and I tackled him in a massive hug, “Thank you Kyle! Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!”
I woke with a gasp. In one instant, all of the things I had forgotten came back to me. I started sobbing while holding tightly onto my silver necklace, the only thing that I owned that survived the “orphanage fire” and I hadn’t outgrown. He had tricked me. He told me He rescued me, all to make sure that I wouldn’t betray Him. Well, I wasn’t going to let that go. I would pretend to be the same person who I was for the past six years. I would find a chance to escape, and then I would pay Him back for what He did to me and Kyle and my parents. So with those thoughts of revenge and hate in mind, I devoted myself entirely to my training, and pretended that I was that girl from the orphanage.
After a year of mind training and reviewing all of the techniques He taught me, He pronounced my training completed, and proclaimed me Canada’s last fighter. He brought me to His superiors to show them what I could do. They were delighted in the fact that a fifteen-year-old girl could pilot a plane and handle a gun flawlessly, so of course they sent me off on a mission straight away. The mission was to blow up a French supply ship and execute any remaining personnel on board. Of course, I didn’t complete it. Instead, I did what I should’ve done seven years before that, and escaped.
A few minutes after I took off from their base, I hotwired the ship to stop giving off a tracking signal, and to instead hack into their mainframe and track all of the planes there (another thing included in my NM training, for various reasons like if I needed to steal an enemy plane and track the others that might come after me).
And when they contacted me to say that my tracking beacon was malfunctioning, I answered, with all of the anger I had been holding back for a year, “That’s what it’s supposed to do. You idiots.” And then I disconnected the com-link and turned my ship towards the home I hadn’t been to in seven years.

It took me quite a few hours of fast flying and some skilled hacking, but it was worth it, to fly into the bunker the Prime Minister of Canada was in and pronounce that I was the only survivor of the attack on the military’s bases. They were shocked to hear that I was receiving training from a terrorist organization of all places and even more astounded to know that I was under the tutelage of Him no less. It turns out that He was a wanted man in quite a few (former) countries, who performed plenty of assassinations and attacks before WW3.
I told them all that I knew about the NM and their future plans. When the Prime Minister attempted to give me orders, I fingered my gun and said, “Yes I am on your side, but no, I will not take orders. He and the NM have killed too many of those I cared about for me to blindly take orders. I will defend you when I am close, and when it enables me to get back at the organization, but I will not fly from a battlefield across the world with NMs in it to aid you when a few gunshots are heard within a hundred kilometres of here.” I could see that I was angering them, angering them very much, so I added one last thing in a softer voice, “Yes, I am Canadian, and yes I hold loyalty to my country, but cleaning this world of Him and the NM will only benefit it. So don’t try to stop me. It will only hurt Canada’s future.” They didn’t like it that much, but they agreed anyway. And that was the day I had dreamed of for so long, the future that kept me going. That was the day I finally, after seven years, started to avenge the deaths of Kyle and my parents.

And now, a year later, WW3 still rages. I outfitted the plane I stole from the NM with all of the weapons I had trained with, and made it as high-tech as possible. Whenever the NM takes a new fighter jet, I sneak into their base to hack into it and track it. I now fly around to every battle field that any of the planes that I was tracking turned up at, fighting and fighting while searching. Searching for Him, Ethan Noir. I swore to myself after I got my memories back that until I escaped, I would not call Him Ethan Noir, because I knew it would let all of my feelings of hatred and vengefulness loose, and I wouldn’t have been able to restrain myself from trying to kill him. But none of that matters anymore, nothing can stop me from achieving my goal.
And now, Ethan Noir, I’m talking to you. You, who destroyed my life, pretended you were my saviour, and left me with nothing but hate, and showed no remorse at all. You, who said I was the secret weapon, the last fighter from Canada. I will kill you, even if it costs me everything, even if I have to drop a nuclear bomb.
I am Canada’s Last Fighter, and no matter where you hide, no matter what you do, you will not be able to stop me. And I am coming for you, even as you read this.
Never forget that.