by Jace Kang
“What if we’re stationary?”
“For a minute, inconsequential. But it takes exponentially more the longer I maintain it.”
Ken pointed back the way they’d come. “There’s another two tactical teams coming up behind us. Make us invisible, and they’ll walk right past.”
Hopefully.
She gave a nod, and he pressed his back to the wall. She joined him, her body right against his. When the footsteps came closer, he gave a signal, and she whispered a word.
Fifteen Peacekeepers in enhanced tactical suits crept past with guns in hand. Usually, the sound suppressors in their boots would muffle their footsteps, but time and time again, Ken’s new ears had heard them. All a result of his Advancement to First Rank in Water.
After a minute, they had all passed.
Siena motioned for Ken to stay quiet until they’d gone farther down the hall. He motioned her back up the hall toward the maglift. She moved without a sound in her bare feet, and at first he tip-toed before remembering he was wearing sound-suppressing boots just like the Peacekeeper tactical teams.
In the maglift bay, the flashing numbers revealed the maglifts were in use. Those higher up were coming down, while those lower were rising up.
Converging on them.
All except one, on level five, where the landing pad was located. Had Master Ryu arrived? Was Aya holding the maglift for him there?
Ken went to the central stairwell landing and listened.
Some footsteps echoed up from below, but they sounded at least two or three levels down. Up above, two men whispered among each other. A quick glance revealed they were manning the Vulcan gun tripod…but at the moment, they weren’t paying attention.
Ken darted up the steps.
Their eyes widened, and they fumbled with the Vulcan gun. Right when they’d taken control and shifted it to face him, he was inside its arc. A Xingyi Fire Metal punch sent the first careening back into the second.
Siena came up to his side.
“Level eleven,” he said. He pointed up. “One more to go.”
The voices in his ear resumed. “Teams 9, 12, 21, and 27 have met up with Teams 17 and 23. There is no sign of the targets.”
“Search the floor,” came the response. “Team 9, double back.”
“We need to hurry,” Ken said. “They might come back to the stairwell.”
With a nod, they climbed up to the twelfth-floor landing, where nobody was waiting.
Ken chuckled. “Aya said it would be harder the higher we went, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
Siena held up her jewels. “Since we can bypass the force fields, it makes it eas—”
The doors slid open, revealing a single man with a visor Ken had never seen before.
Though he wore a tactical suit, it had a different design in its fabric.
A prototype?
The Peacekeeper punched, his fist a blur. It landed in Ken’s chest and sent him back into the wall of the stairwell. If not for his Iron Shirt, he might’ve died; or at least had the wind knocked out of him.
Siena pointed her guns, but the Peacekeeper knocked one off-line, sending its shot twanging into the wall; and then in the same motion, caught her other arm and pulled it so that the weapon pointed at Ken.
Ken had the presence of mind to roll over and avoid the pulse, but the Peacekeeper had Siena’s arms tied up like the Wing Chun trapping Master Ryu had taught. He head-butted Siena, knocking the Elestrae back through the open doors. In the same motion, he plucked her guns out of her hands.
“How were you able to use these?” he asked her, staring at the firearms.
Her head wobbled back and forth, and she had to blink several times. She started to climb back to her feet, but then stumbled.
“Go to the lab!” Ken yelled. “I’ll take care of this one.”
Could he?
With a nod, Siena redoubled her efforts, regained her feet, and disappeared out of Ken’s line of sight.
The Peacekeeper started after her, but Ken leaped up and seized his wrist. The officer turned around and swung. It was fast, but this time Ken was ready and deflected it with the Xingyi Fire Form. The parry was combined with a simultaneous punch, one which had felled several Peacekeepers already.
Not this one. Moving like a blur, he slipped back out of range. When Ken followed up with the same technique, the man countered…with something akin to the Xingyi Water Form! The Peacekeeper’s hands swept Ken’s punch to the side, and then countered with his own punch. Water Dousing Fire.
If not for Master Ryu’s Xingyi drilling that first night, it would have slammed into Ken’s flank. Instead, he countered with Xingyi’s Earth technique, again a deflection and a strike. But when he followed up with another Earth attack, the Peacekeeper countered with snaking motions that resembled the Wood Form. Wood Rooting Earth.
How was this possible? While not exactly the same as the Xingyi forms, the movements were similar enough to be efficient. It was just like how Aya picked up techniques so fast, and was able to come up with counters.
It’d been part of the AI she used!
This man’s tactical suit was the same.
Inserting unpredictability, Ken engaged with the Metal attack of Xingyi. As he’d planned, the Peacekeeper countered with the rising defense of Fire—and this time, it was an exact copy of Ken’s earlier Fire technique. Fire Tempering Metal.
However, Ken stopped his technique halfway, and dove at the man’s knees. He took him to the ground, scrambled up his body and achieved the mount. He launched two punches, both of which the man deflected, but Ken caught up his wrist and transitioned into a choke.
Four seconds, and the man fell limp.
Ken gained his feet and looked down. The tactical suit made this man too dangerous, and it was undoubtedly tied to his biometrics.
A hero didn’t kill helpless opponents, but maybe it was time for an exception.
No, it was wrong. Ken started towards the lab, when the man scrambled up and tackled him from behind.
Chapter 35:
The Cultivator
S till keeping Keiko hostage with a Peacekeeper knife, Ryu guided her across the landing pad. The other Peacekeepers gave them a wide berth as the doors swished open.
As soon as they entered, the doors closed behind them. The Peacekeepers on the other side pounded, trying to get in.
“Aya!” Keiko said. “What are you doing here?”
Ryu turned to see Aya waiting there. Instead of Siena’s dress, she now wore a kimono.
A pang of nostalgia yanked at him. It’d been eight hundred years since he’d seen a woman in a kimono, and he’d forgotten how beautiful it made her…them.
He shook the idea out of his head. “Aya, you’re all right.”
“How do you even know each other?” Keiko asked.
Aya ignored her, instead turning to Ryu. “Ryusuke, follow me.”
“Wait, Aya!” Keiko said in an authoritative voice that sounded less like Peacekeeper captain and more like Big Sister.
Aya turned to her. “What?”
“Why are you helping Ishihara?” Keiko thumbed over her shoulder at him.
“I haven’t coughed once in the last six hours,” Aya said.
She hadn’t. With the lack of water vapor, it was harder to connect to her Core; when he did, there was nothing there. Unsurprisingly, this was a holoprojection of Aya. Keiko didn’t seem to realize.
“And? What does you not coughing have to do with him?”
“He’s teaching me to cure myself.”
Keiko looked over her shoulder at him, scowling. “Impossible.”
“Check his genetic scans. He has the same defect as I do.”
Keiko snarled. “And you’ll murder for that?”
“He hasn’t murdered anyone!” Aya shouted. “He saved at least two people!”
“All those dead people…”
As beautiful as Keiko was, especially the way her tactical suit clung to
her, Ryu didn’t have time to waste. “If we don’t hurry, more people will die. That creature you saw? It comes from a parallel dimension. More will come. Lead on, Aya.”
With a nod, Aya turned around and guided them into the halls.
Keiko grumbled. “Parallel dimension. You are insane. And you’re corrupting my sister.”
Ryu chuckled. If Keiko only knew what Aya did behind closed doors. “Then where did you think it comes from?”
“Clearly a Ministry of Defense creation gone awry.”
Ryu chuckled. Of course, a Nue was beyond anyone in this world’s comprehension. “What about Teppin?”
“That green thing? That…that…”
Maybe she could be convinced with a little more evidence. Too bad he’d told Teppin to return to a portal, lest he get caught in this world when the barriers went up.
As they continued through the halls, groups of Peacekeepers aimed weapons, but didn’t approach.
“Don’t worry about them,” Aya said. “I’ve set up force fields to clear our way to the maglifts.”
“What?” Keiko demanded. “How did you do that?”
“You know nothing about me.” Aya’s tone carried more ice than Ryu could melt with his meager Fire Path skills.
They arrived at the bank of maglifts, and one waited with doors open.
When they stepped in and the doors closed, Ryu released Keiko.
She spun on him. “Why are you letting me go?”
“I just needed to get past your comrades. Holding you hostage kept me from having to hurt them.”
Her expression contorted. “Even without a weapon, I could—”
“—not even defeat Aya right now. Her fighting skills far surpass yours in just a few days.”
Crying out, Keiko lunged into a flurry of attacks. With her enhanced tactical suit, she moved decently fast, and with admirable grace.
Still, Ryu stood in place, using one hand to deflect all of her punches and kicks. When an opening presented itself, he pressed her into a corner. “You are skilled, but only on the surface. You would never survive without help in the land from which that monster you saw tonight came. Now that they are coming into this world, all of humanity is at risk.”
“You are insane,” she said. She reached for Aya’s holoprojection. “He’s insane. If you continue to aid and abet him, there’s nothing I can do to keep you out of trouble.”
With so little space, Aya couldn’t back her holoprojection out of reach. Keiko’s hand passed through her arm. She gasped. “What is this? Is this one of your tricks, Ishihara?”
“Not mine.” He shrugged.
“We’re here.” Aya said.
Already? Ryu hadn’t felt the maglift press on him as it rose. He turned and seized Keiko. “Come on.”
The doors opened, and shouts—along with the energy of a Cultivator—poured into the maglift in waves. Metal, Fire, and Water… It had to be Ken, and he’d Advanced in three Paths!
Ryu guided Keiko out, and immediately saw Ken locked in a hand-to-hand battle with a very fast Peacekeeper. The man apparently knew Xingyi Fist very well.
“Smith!” Keiko yelled.
The man paused and looked. “Oyama!”
“And Kentaro?” Keiko said in disbelief.
Kentaro’s gaze barely registered Keiko before falling on Ryu. “Master, I beat him, but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him after he was down.”
Ryu nodded. “That is the Code of the World of Rivers and Lakes.”
“Kentaro beat Smith? In a tactical suit?” Keiko was just shaking her head.
“Be careful,” Aya said. “The Peacekeeper is wearing a prototype tactical suit. It’s not as invasive as the MoD assassin’s wiring, but its AI can learn attack patterns and formulate responses.”
As if to prove the point, Kentaro reengaged with a flurry of Wing Chun punches. Smith transitioned to Xingyi First’s Water Form, and enveloped Kentaro’s movements.
Kentaro snarled. “He’s figured out a solution to everything you taught me!”
Luckily, the boy had much more to learn. “Come here, Ken-kun, and guard Miss Keiko.”
Doing as he was told, Ken disengaged and hurried over. Ryu handed him the knife, then strode over to Smith, who now faced off in a Xingyi Earth stance.
“Not bad,” Ryu said. “You have form, but sadly, no substance beneath it.”
Expression twisting into anger, Smith launched himself at Ryu. His rapid execution of modern techniques was almost cute. Ryu caught him in the chest with a Fire Fist, and allowed the energy to transfer into the skinsuit. Smith hurtled back into the opposite wall before tumbling down to the floor.
Keiko gasped.
“Are you all right?” Ken asked her.
In response, Keiko launched her own series of punches and kicks. Using the Xingyi Water Form, Ken brushed all her attacks aside before catching hold of her wrist and twisting her to the ground.
Keiko looked up at him in shock.
“Very good, Ken-kun.” Ryu was equally impressed with how he held back so as not to hurt the captain. He turned to her. “As I said, your skills are admirable for what you are. However, now even Kentaro can defeat you with ease.”
“What I am?” Keiko asked.
“XHuman. Your kind has apparently edited the genes for these martial abilities out of their genome,” Aya said.
“But not you?”
“Because of my genetic defect.”
Ryu looked around. “Where’s Siena?”
“She went ahead.” Kentaro pointed out of the maglift bay.
“You can let Keiko go.” Ryu started heading out.
“Wait,” Aya said. “The Peacekeepers’ internal communications have been restored. They’re saying…”
“Yes.” Kentaro touched the dot on his ear. “Get down!”
The boy leaped and took Keiko to the ground.
An explosion rang out from the side of the building, and the shockwave would’ve flattened Ryu if he hadn’t rooted. Oranges and reds lit up the lab.
Ryu dashed in to find Siena using the edge of a table to pick herself off the floor. On the right side of her head, all that was left of her beautiful golden hair were singed strands. Her face, too, was red and blistered, with several small cuts.
He tracked the shards of glass back to the source. A gaping, smoldering hole had opened up at the far end of the lab. A gunship hovered outside, and its miniguns began to spin.
“Are you all right?” He hurried toward her.
Her trembling hand left a blood stain on the table.
Right by his pills. Six in all, including the blue one he needed to close the Portals. The Kappa’s splintered walking stick lay on another table to the right, beside his staff.
His staff! If he could get ahold of it, he could make quick work of the gunship, retrieve his pills, and be off.
The gunship’s miniguns unleashed a barrage of red bolts, and Ryu slid feet-first beneath the spray. He darted over beside Siena and kicked the table over, the pills with it. Two blasts jolted into the metal in quick succession, superheating it to red. Ryu huddled over Siena.
Though she didn’t speak, he made a quick scan of her Qi.
She’d advanced to First Rank in Water! If her Core had been impossibly dense before, it had now solidified and its Essence concentration increased by an order of magnitude.
Still, it hadn’t filled with Qi. If he could get ahold of one of the three green pills, it would replenish her immediately.
He looked back to the maglift bay. Given the angle, Ken and Keiko were out of the line of fire.
Aya’s voice filled the room. “It’s the Ministry of Defense! They’ve attacked Peacekeeper headquarters!”
The shooting ceased, but was followed by several thumps. Ryu hazarded a glance over the melting table. His pills had rolled in several different directions, the all-important blue one off to the left beneath another table. The sparking violet pill had ended up to the right.
Beyond
them, eight shocktroopers in power armor and two of the wiry assassins were fanning out from the hole in the building. He’d have to fight through several of them just to reach his staff.
And outside, the gunship had turned so that its side door faced the opening. A sniper knelt there, rifle pointed in.
“I’ve done a scan,” Aya said. “The shocktroopers are wearing prototype power armor. My hacker friends speculate it’s similar to the new Peacekeeper tactical suits.”
Well, Smith hadn’t presented much of a challenge, and neither had the shocktroopers before. Ryu leaped over the overturned table, eyes on his staff, only to find a holoprojection of himself landing beside him.
He ducked under a shot from the sniper, rolled, and picked up one of his green Core-fortifying pills. “Siena, swallow this!”
When the Elestrae’s head popped up, he tossed it; though she had to dodge another shot from the sniper, she still caught it and ducked back down behind cover.
Ryu angled toward his staff, only to be cut off by another sniper shot.
That damn sniper. Transitioning into a Fireshaping form, he raised his hands and stoked flames out of the remnants of the explosion. It created a thin curtain of fire between them and the hole. With a pull of his hands, Ryu drew the fire inward.
The sprinkler system activated. Water sprayed.
Shifting to Watershaping, Ryu coalesced the droplets into a rope, which he launched outward. Two shocktroopers moved out of the way with commendable speed, but as he intended, the rope shot past them and wrapped around the sniper’s ankle. With a yank, Ryu sent him tumbling down. His scream was cut short by a thump.
In doing this, though, he’d revealed himself. The weapons that had been aimed at the holoprojector now trained on him. All eight shocktroopers advanced in his direction, their whirring miniguns firing, while the two assassins moved to flank, squeezing off shots with their sidearms.
Though he dodged all the incoming pulses, they were moving him farther away from his staff, farther away from the blue pill. The constant need to contort kept him from rooting and Watershaping.
Siena popped up, grunted a word, and pointed. Fire darted from her fingertip and struck one of the shocktroopers. The flames fizzled around the armor, and didn’t stop him from claiming the ground between them. An assassin broke off his attack on Ryu to focus on the Elestrae.