I fired off a few rounds then ducked under a table after they cowered behind the plastic guards they had strapped to one arm. I had seen police officers use things like that in some Earth movies a while back. Damn inventions, making it hard for me to kill some Russian terrorist goons.
Oh well, tough luck I suppose. It could be worse.
I heard muttering in the heavy Russian accent as my disappearance was noted. Really, how hard is it to see me under the table, or at least guess where I was. I’m sure a five year old could find me in a game of hide and seek.
They finally decided whose life to risk by sending forward into the dust, which was actually starting to settle by now. I could hear sirens finally, but I don’t think that they would be much help for Fire and I.
Speaking of Firestar, I believe he was in hand to hand combat, from the sounds of all the grunting going on the other side of the room.
The chosen terrorists shooter stepped forward cautiously, glass crunching under his heavy boots with every step. I kept my breathing still, only inhaling enough that I would have the oxygen to handle a sudden movement. I knew what I was going to do, though I would have to rely on Firestar not to use his special while here, and trust Erik to get us somewhere where I could recover. I would go with something that I had been taught back in my training days, a way to make myself practically a darting shadow.
It didn’t take much of my power, but there were seven of these idiots that I had to kill. Or at least disarmed for the duration of the next half hour or so.
The guy was close to me now, and I tugged on my power. I could feel it flowing through my body, ready to be unleashed. I had to restrain it from sending the entire building into a black out. I could feel it wanting to take what little light there was.
I let it surround me, making me into an indistinguishable, dark orb. I switched out the gun for a knife, something Waterstar had forced me to take. Close combat was never my friend, though I think Waterstar had a love-affair with it.
The guy was even with my table, the flashlight poised on top of his gun sweeping the area, lighting up piffs of dust floating on the air. From this close I could see his knees shaking. This man was a rookie, or they had heard some scary stories about Fire and I. Then again, Firestar’s excellent aim might have been enough to put the quiver there. It’s not every day you see something like that, not even with the terrorists.
I waited until his muscles bunched to take another step. It would work best when his muscles were tight in one area. More damage over a smaller amount of space. I darted forward, letting the darkness surround my knife. I had learned that I could wield the actual shadows. They were poisonous inside of any person’s blood circuit. They could paralyze someone’s spinal nerves without me even touching him.
I sliced at the man’s calves, aiming to sever the tendons. Sometimes, even I didn’t feel like having a couple more deaths on my hands, so making this dude unable to walk was as good as death to me.
He shouted out in pain, and for a second, the grunts on Fire’s side of the battle ceased, but only for a moment. They renewed with a refreshing vigor.
I darted to the shadows on the other side of the walkway, staying under a table still. I wouldn’t have the side protections, like when I was under the booth, but it was still a better hiding place than the open. I could hear the outbursts of Russian from the men who were still standing, but none of them were going over to help their comrade, who I’m assuming was crying for help. Begging, even.
I slinked through the tables and moved closer to the group, using what little was left of the dust to mask my movement. One down, six to go.
Finally, one of the others moved forward, but still not the guy who seemed to be in charge of the group. If anything, that man was further behind the others. I would have to take care of that. I let the new guinea pig move past me, almost in line with the fallen terrorists dude, before stepping out from under the tables.
And charged toward the group of five men.
I could see their eyes widen in horror behind their masks. Apparently they hadn’t been expecting that, and it gave me the upper hand. I sliced the throat of the first guy, though my blade got stuck between the plastic protection that had been over his arteries. That sucked.
I ducked under one of their arms that was reaching for me, threw my right leg out and turned, knocking two of them to the ground. I kicked at one of their throats and winced at the crushing noise while saying a silent apology. I briefly saw that guinea pig number two was still with guinea pig number one. Wise idea, that was.
That left the boss dude and two guards in front of him. The guards were more so a shield, if you asked for my opinion. I had to take these guys out of commission before the one I had knocked down decided to stop playing hurt and stand the hell up. He sucked at playing dead.
I feinted forward but kept my defensive position and the shield-guard jumped in fright. Wow, I thought terrorists had courage and were the toughest stuff of the underworld gangs. If this was the legendary Russian terrorists… well, I was disappointed. I mean, he was scared of a nineteen year old spy.
“Oh come on,” the boss man said, shoving the guard of the way. “Why the hell was I left with the newbies to deal with these foreigners?”
It took me a second for the surprise to register. He knew English. Well, that would make the insults fun now since he could actually hear me.
“Newbs, you call them?” I started teasing. “More like guinea pigs.”
“Yea, pathetic bunch aren’t they.” Oh, so he was going to play tough block of ice?
“And what does that make you?” I asked. “Apparently you are so unimportant, that your boss isn’t scared if you mess this up. Which, in case you hadn’t notice, you really are screwing this up. I don’t even have a scratch, and you’re the last terroristians to fight me.” I doubted terroristians was a word, but Waterstar had worn off on me in the course of the years we had been a team. Making up words was fun.
“Learn your English, punk. terroristians isn’t a word.”
“Says who? English is my native language, what about you, foreigner?”
The guy growled. At least he was from Earth, I was probably the biggest foreigner possible at this point, but I did manage to anger him finally. People fight worse when pissed.
He lunged forward and I stepped back, nimbly crossing over the limbs of the “injured” man I had tripped. I was dimly surprised that he didn’t even attempt to grab at my ankles. Maybe he wasn't faking injury to try and trick me but out of fear.
I then dodged around the pool of blood that was spreading around the guy I had killed. That’s another reason to avoid killing, it makes my job harder.
The boss kept following me around, and I kept dodging. After one particularly complex chase through some tables, I said, “You’re pretty fit, for an old man,” and smirked.
“You’re pretty clever, for a dumb kid.” That’s what I wanted him to do, say something in return. His breath was gruff, a sign that he was starting to lose stamina where I still felt like I could go run a marathon. The Rebellion keeps us pretty damn fit.
I guess I should probably end this soon; we had a flight to catch after all.
FIRESTAR
I ducked once more under the guy and continued to think how lousy they were at fighting. I was dancing around the other three bodies that I had taken care of, letting my opponents trip over their fallen comrades' limbs. It was funny, in a grisly manner. If you've got a problem with my humor, well, I'm surprised you've stayed around this long.
I was starting to wonder if this was really the terrorists Erik had mentioned before, because they really didn’t seem like it. Waterstar probably wouldn’t even honor them with a fight.
I slammed my fist into one of their guts and he knelt over, one hand to his stomach the other clenching his mouth. I really hoped that if he puked, I didn’t step in it. I already had my own puked on me from my terrible aiming earlier. Splash zones sucked duck butt.
I jumped atop one of the tables and let the two remaining guys regroup behind a different table. The civilians had already fled the building, leaving Dark, me, and the terrorists group behind. I glanced over to Dark and saw him running around with some old guy following him. Two black clad men were sneaking out the front door, and I considered shooting them but decided that if Dark was going to let them live, then I would too.
I looked back over to the two men I was still fighting. This was starting to become bothersome, I had really been hoping to get in a nice fight on Earth against a top terrorists group, but this. This was nothing. I really was disappointed. Well, guess I should be finishing this up.
I jumped down from my table took up a stealth position while walking over to their table, gun in one hand and a dagger in the other. I kept below the sight of the top of the table, waiting right on the other side. The men were whispering in Russian to each other, and damn did they sound scared, even if I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying.
Time to break up their little party.
I swiftly stood up straight and said, “Boo.”
One of the guys jumped backward, sliding across the ground on his butt. I shot him, dropped the gun and placed the hand that had been holding it on the table’s edge and vaulted over it, then pivoted to face the remaining man.
“Lights out, pretty boy,” I whispered before stabbing him in the heart. I left the dagger there because I could tell that it would take some time to un-wedge it; I hadn’t properly done the kill and it would be stuck in the ribs. Water would be mad at my mistake.
I wiped my hands off on a table cloth and picked up my gun again. I checked the cartridge to see that I still had a few bullets left and went to go find Dark. The restaurant was fairly big, and he had disappeared, though all of the dust had settled by now.
The man Dark had been fighting was spinning around in circles in the middle of the area where Erik, Dark, and I would have been eating. Darkstar was still nowhere to be seen, but from the panic on the terrorists-man’s face, that didn’t concern me. He was probably fine.
The man finally caught sight of me and stopped spinning. I could see he actually had a knife out. Surprise, surprise, one of these idiots was actually using a weapon. “You, you aren’t the shadow! You’re the other kid, the other kid my men where… WHERE ARE MY MEN!?”
Yup, he was having a panic attack. I rolled my eyes and spit to the side, not surprised to see that some blood came out with it. One of the men had gotten a pretty nasty punch in before I had finished fighting him. I should probably get some water soon, between the spitting up blood and puking from visions earlier, I was pretty damn thirsty.
“No, I’m not… did you call him a shadow?” What the hell had Darkstar done?
The man ignored me and was scratching at his belt. Finally, he produced a gun and aimed it at me. Oh, now someone finally decides that they’re going to use a gun. This was just dandy.
I raised my own gun. “Don’t be stupid.” Not that I thought that would stop him, but hey, a guy could try, couldn’t he?
Suddenly a figure darted from my peripheral and crossed right in front of the terrorists man. I switched my aim onto the shadow and waited until it stopped moving. I vaguely was aware of the other man’s body falling.
“Who-”
“Calm the hell down, Firestar,” I heard Dark say. The shadows around the figure slowly melted and my friend was standing there. I lowered the gun.
“And now I can see why he called you a shadow. Why the hell did you use your special? And what took you so long to get back in the fight?” I walked over to him, not seeing anything amiss right away.
“I used my special because it was the easiest way to take them out. I had started doing so before I realized what a bunch of weaklings they were, though I underestimated him. He caught me with the knife when I was taunting him.” Darkstar turned so that I could see his left side where there was a vertical cut.
“That’s got to hurt.” I whistled between my teeth. I offered out an arm but Darkstar shook his head; he would be able to walk by himself, which was good enough to say he’d be fine.
He let me take the lead though, and we went back out to the kitchens. The area back here had been hit a lot less severely, though there were still places where the bullets had managed to crack the brick and make their way through. On second thought, when I inspected one of the bullet holes, there definitely was not any real brick in that wall. Why would people make it look real when it's fake? That's so stupid, and you wouldn't see anything that stupid on Calsh. The kitchen was covered in flour, but it didn’t look like there had been a fight anywhere, so hopefully there wouldn’t be an ambush. Dark and I kept our guards up, and didn’t call out Erik’s name. We would find him by sight before possibly alerting anyone that we were here, if they didn’t know yet.
I moved around another counter and almost fired off a shot. Erik had suddenly stood up, holding a butcher’s knife in front of him. I was relatively surprised to see that he was actually holding it as if he personally could kill someone with it. Most drivers weren’t that capable or skilled.
I held my hands up in peace and he nodded his head, setting the knife on the counter. So he was reluctant to use it, and now that Dark and I were here, he wouldn’t. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Darkstar processing all of this information. The man held the knife as if he had killed before, but wasn’t wanting to actually use it to fight. I could see the concern behind his eyes, and I agreed. Something just wasn’t adding up here.
“Exit?” I whispered to the Russian. He nodded his head and took the lead. Darkstar and I shared a look before hesitantly following him. If anything, my guard was even higher than before and I flexed my fingers around the hilt of my gun. I unconsciously loosened the blade across my back from its sheath, ready to grab it at a moment’s notice.
Erik led us through the employee door of the kitchen and out into a back alley where the dumpsters were. I was second out and took in a quick survey, including the Russian driver’s face. For a second, he looked puzzled, as if something he had been expecting wasn’t there anymore.
Darkstar followed me out and the door slammed closed behind him. All three of us jumped in surprise from the loud noise. Damn did I want to get out of here; this was really putting me on edge. I kept thinking back to how the guns had completely decimated the restaurant building, then to the two guys who had run out. What if those guns just weren’t mobile, and needed to be fired from a car.
Our car was still in the parking lot. On the other side of the building. As Waterstar would say, fudge nuggets.
Chapter 20: Knight in Shining Ice
ICESTAR
I was patting the spikes in my hair down, a nervous tendency of mine. Between that and the humidity of China, the spikes were starting to droop. Waterstar was taking a long time, though that would be expected. By my calculation, she was perfectly on time with the estimated length of rope I could see, but there was so much that could happen between there and here. Innumerable and incalculable disasters. However, the odds of something bad happening were greater than Waterstar escaping unscathed from this. It was a wonder that I had arrived in the helicopter perfectly normal. I did not enjoy being unaware of the outcome to a problem. Machines were never this unsure.
I was about to lean over to look below the helicopter again, when I saw Huang glance over at me. He had said that it would only make me more nervous, seeing Waterstar hanging suspended in air like that, but I couldn’t help it. I used to never work with her, but ever since Firestar enlisted Forest, Sun, and me to help bring her and Darkstar back… she’d started growing on me. I wasn’t going to watch her die now. Not after what happened to Sunstar.
I ignored Huang’s look and checked over the side of the helicopter. She was getting close to the top, only a few more stories. I was starting to feel relieved, but I knew that normally when I felt that while I was trying to fix some electrical issue, things would blow up, literally.
Moments later, and I was glancing over the side again. As predicted, things started exploding. Not literally.
A semi-furred arm was reaching out of the window of one of the floors, groping for the rope. The fur was a dirty tan color and patches were missing all over the arm. A demon had finally decided to make an appearance. Oh for Calsh’s sake, why?
I flipped on the headset and started shouting at Waterstar, my head practically hanging out of the open compartment door that I had climbed through earlier. Waterstar wasn’t responding though, and I cursed that somewhere with her movements, she had messed up the very delicate tuning of the headsets. They were as fickle as old circuits, which was reasonable considering their last minute construction. I spun around to look at Huang. “Move the helicopter, now.” I kept my voice even, but it was as chilled as my name.
The Chinese man didn’t budge though. “If I do that without knowing if she is secure, I could very well dislodge her and Waterstar will fall.”
“There’s a very good chance of that happening either way,” I said coolly, but turned my attention back to the rope where Waterstar was dangling. I continued shouting, hoping that she could hear me over the helicopter, if not through the headset.
Finally, finally she turned the damn thing on and shouted back at me.
“What?!”
“Demons! THEY’RE PULLING THE GODDAMN ROPE! Huang won’t move until you give an all clear that you’re secured on the rope!” My voice was getting hoarse, but at this point, I didn’t care.
“Damn it, MOVE THEN!”
But it had been too late by that point.
I watched as Waterstar looked up at last. She saw me first, I could see it in her dark blue eyes. Then the gaze shifted to the demon that was hanging out of the window. It had already gotten a hold of the rope and was cutting it. The claws were sharp enough. Waterstar had been so close to safety for it to be severed so quickly. My calculations were coming together now.
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