“Okay, it’s a plan I guess. Well, let me show you the silencer.” I say and then I fire ten rounds down range.
“I have one problem with it, however: it isn’t silent enough. I need a ranged weapon that is truly silent to the point that I can kill an enemy with his friends directly in front of him, without said friends knowing what happened.” I tell her.
“What about a thrown weapon? Like knives…or spikes would probably be better.” Tia says.
“Throwing spikes?” I ask.
“Yeah, you could make Sic spikes and throw them. I think we may actually have some throwing spikes.” Tia says as she walks over to the melee weapon side of the armory. She opens a drawer and pulls out three objects that are reminiscent of six-inch metal pencils.
“With a strengthened throw, and a bit of accuracy, you can make a kill shot from relatively far away.” Tia says as she grips one of the spikes in between her thumb and index/middle fingers.
Tia throws it into the front wall, roughly one hundred feet away. I run over to it and I find that it is halfway buried into the concrete, all while done silently. This is something I could work with.
“You could make Sic spikes and use those. If you get accurate enough, you could use something more like needles and by hitting the right spots, you could non-lethally immobilize your opponent. Sara has a book on acupuncture or chi-flows or…something, that you should read and then you should practice using the rubber dummy over there.” Tia says while pointing to the rubber figure of a male torso on a stand.
“You can practice throwing the spikes while I allow Cheza to try and use her power without having to force her into the drive. I was thinking of giving her like half of an hour before I resort to throwing a knife through your neck.” Tia says with a slightly sadistic smile.
I go upstairs and ask Sara for that book. I read about different nerve points and, with the help of Google, I learn that I can hypothetically use a needle to pinch a nerve to cause temporary paralysis. I could also use a needle to cause incredible but non-lethal amounts of pain. This information could be really dangerous for me to have…especially for any enemies that I feel the need to ‘play’ with. Wait, do gods even have nerves? I now know that they don’t have hearts or internal organs in their torsos. Once I get accurate enough, maybe I’ll try them out on Tia; after all, she will be throwing a knife through my neck tomorrow.
…
Chapter 12: Hellraiser + Sonic
[May 25th]
I wake up at 7am the next morning, take a shower, and dress in black shorts, a black tank top, and even black boxers because there is no sense in ruining my clothes that actually show blood stains. I walk down the stairs and into the basement an hour before Cheza’s training so I can practice with the spikes a little before I become incapacitated. I try to make some pencil-like spikes, the kind Tia showed me last night, but they aren’t heavy enough to fly correctly when made of silicon carbide.
A memory flashes through my mind, of Lucy Liu throwing a spike through a Shoji paper door and into a wooden support beam, and stops on the image of the spike imbedded into the beam. It’s a scene from Kill Bill Vol. 1 and the spike looks like it would be the perfect model; it is an X-shape in the back that narrows into a point. There is also some red embellishment on the back, but I don’t think it is necessary.
“Thanks for the assist Airi!”
(You are welcome, Master)
I create five of these spikes and try throwing them. They have the mass to fly straight, but I keep making them spin; I guess the Adroit part of my Drive either doesn’t consider the spikes to be weapons, or doesn’t work on weapons that I’ve made. After about half of an hour, I finally get the hang of it, after discovering that I was just releasing the spikes at the wrong point.
The magnetism of the plates in my jacket works entirely based on the individual discs. My Sic blades and gun will not stick to my skin because they have too much mass. The spikes, which have the same mass as the discs, stick to my skin; so instead of holding onto the spikes to throw them, I can just stick them to my index finger and then whip my hand forward. At the exact moment that my hand cracks backward, the forward kinetic energy breaks the magnetism and propels the dart forward. I find that it works the same way if I stick a dart to each of my fingers as well.
I am going to have some serious fun with this! I start making four inch long needles (that I can make five of for the cost of one dart), when Tia and Cheza walk down the stairs.
“See! I told you he would be down here!” Tia says while Cheza glares at me.
“You scared me…” Cheza says quietly while pouting.
“You know that you can always figure out where I am by using the connection right?” I ask.
“…It’s early and I’m not thinking clearly so leave me alone!” Cheza says, becoming angry at me to hide her embarrassment.
“Anyway, look what I can do!” I exclaim as I stick four spikes to my fingers and whip my hand forward. All four spikes stitch up the dummy that is about forty feet away, with only about eight inches separating each spike. I’m sure that there is an equation there somewhere about the distance that separates each of my fingers correlating with the vector path of the darts. That’s definitely something I should figure out later; maybe I’ll be able to get up to four kills at the same time.
“Well that is pretty fucking impressive! When I showed you the spikes, I thought that figuring out how to throw them correctly would keep you preoccupied for at least a couple of days!” Tia exclaims.
“That issue was fixed when I figured out that Sic objects of low mass stick to my skin. I’m going to see how needles work now.” I inform her.
“Alright, Chezarei and I will be over here working on the use of her powers.” Tia says in a way that blatantly sounds like she is up to something, but I don’t think Cheza notices. They walk to the center of the mat and get to work.
After about twenty minutes of getting the hang of throwing the five needles, I know that the end is coming soon. The training dummy is in the back left corner, so I walk forward until I am standing directly in front of it and completely parallel with Tia.
“So explain to me again, what happened before you entered your Drive state?” Tia asks, meaning I’ve got about thirty seconds to try this out.
I’m twenty-five feet from the dummy when I slice my wrist open and quickly drag my fingertips across the incision before flinging my hand out towards the dummy. I do this rapid fire for twenty seconds and then I admire my work. The dummy (and a fairly large portion of the wall behind it) looks like the nine month byproduct of Hellraiser and one very pissed off hedgehog.
“So the shotgun blast severed Cole’s arteries?” Tia inquires. Oh boy…
“Yeah.” Cheza explains in a haggard fashion. Here it comes…
“Do you mean like this?” Tia rhetorically asks with an uninflected tone as she whips out her combat knife, which I still have no idea where she keeps, and flings it into my neck.
‘Well, this is unpleasant.’ I think as I fall on to my back with blood running down the sides of my neck; I knew wearing black today was a good idea!
I start choking on my blood as I hear Cheza cry out my name while screaming it in my head; I respond to neither. One: because there is a fucking knife through my larynx and two: because it would defeat the purpose of getting a fucking knife through my larynx!
‘Damn this hurts!’ I think as I reach up to pull the blade out of my neck, only to find that it is slightly stuck in one of my vertebrae. So here I am, tugging on this knife that is refusing to come out while it hurts like a son of a bitch with every pull. I feel my left arm losing the strength needed to yank the knife out.
‘Well this is a stupid way to die! Of the three gods I’ve killed and critical injuries I’ve sustained in battle, I die from a staged fight.’ I think as my vision fades.
(What if that was her goal all along?)
“No, Tia wouldn’t do something like this…she wouldn’t ki
ll me in a staged fight on purpose…right?”
(Wouldn’t she?)
“Tia is my friend…my teacher…my sister! I trust Tia! She wouldn’t betray me like this!”
(But is she truly trustworthy?)
Resisting the compulsion to view Tia as an enemy is becoming difficult.
“SHUT THE HELL UP YOU BITCH! YOU ARE NOT GOING TO TURN ME AGAINST TIA!”
I feel something cold burning my forehead and the blade freezes in my neck as it is pulled free.
…
Chapter 13: Uninflected Tones
I wake up to find that my head is in Cheza’s lap with one of Cheza’s hands resting on my chest and the other entangled in my hair. I open my mouth to ask what time it is, but no words escape me so I open the connection between our minds.
“Hey beautiful, what time is it?” I think. Cheza blushes slightly and smiles while she plays with my hair.
“It’s almost noon. No more of this nearly dying stuff for training, okay?” Cheza thinks and I smile at her.
“Alright, I promise. Did it work though?” I think. Cheza responds by cooling down her left hand, and then it starts freezing my chest.
“Ouch! Cold cold cold!” I think.
“Sorry! I guess I don’t have total control over it yet…” Cheza thinks.
“No worries; I’d be more surprised if you did.” I reply.
Tia comes in the room, which I just now realize is Cheza’s room. The thing that throws me off is that Tia has a large gash on her arm.
“Umm…what the hell happened?” I try to say, but my larynx is still on its lunch break.
“Cheza, could you translate for me please?” I think.
“Sure, I’ll translate.” Cheza says aloud. “…Okay, Cole is saying that you are a bitch and he doesn’t want to see you right now.”
“Hey! I didn’t say that!” I think.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that Cole. I didn’t even consider the possibility that knife might get lodged in your vertebrae.” Tia says.
“…Cole says that he doesn’t care and that you should just leave.” Cheza says.
“CHEZA!” I think.
“Oh fine…always have to ruin my fun…” Cheza grumbles. “Cole was really asking what happened.”
“Well, let’s just say that I’m never going to try and force out someone’s powers again; and I discovered that frozen skin does not heal quickly, even for gods.” Tia says.
“Alright, just give me the play-by-play.” I think and Cheza repeats.
“Well the knife goes into your neck, Chezarei sprints over and yanks it out, which freezes while she is touching it, and then she flings it at me. I could have easily dodged it, but I was curious so I turned it into this glancing shot. It did this much damage but it also shattered on impact with the wall. She ran over and grabbed one of the Sic blades while I grabbed a kukri. I’m still much faster than her so I dodge and block to avoid any more damage. However, the kukri blade freezes and chips a little with each parry. Finally I just take a hard swing at her attack and when the swords hit each other, they both shatter: the kukri, down to the handle and the Sic blade, completely. This experiment has gone on long enough so I try thinking of ways to snap her out of it. I’m about to resort to rope when I reveal our plan and remind Chezarei that we need to help you. Thankfully this snapped her out of it, and here we are.” Tia explains.
I think for several moments. I can understand how changes in temperature could weaken the steel blades, but how could it affect the silicon carbide? Silicon carbide has a really wide temperature threshold so the cold shouldn’t make it any less durable…but it could make the iron that is in the silicon carbide less durable. However, I can’t make pure silicon carbide of that size. Hmm…I’ll have to experiment a little later.
“Hey Airi, what’s the status on my throat? I’m kind of thirsty.”
(You are able to drink now, but your larynx is still damaged)
“What’s the ETA on that?”
(Two hours)
“Cheza, it looks like I’ll need you to translate for the next two hours. Could you ask Tia to bring me something to drink?” I think.
“Tia, can you bring Cole something to drink?” Cheza asks for me.
“Sure, I’ll be right back.” Tia says. She comes back a minute later with a glass of juice.
“Thank you. Now go get ten paper cups and boil a teapot.” I think. Cheza looks at me with a perplexed expression, but relays what I said. Tia looks confused for a moment, but nods anyway and leaves the room. Ten minutes later, she comes back and hands me the teapot as I sit up.
“Okay Cheza, we need you to work on control. So I want you to cool the water, but don’t freeze it.” I think to her while setting a paper cup on her bedside table. I pour water from the kettle into the cup as Cheza nods in response.
An hour later, Cheza manages to freeze all ten cups in each of the three rounds we do.
“We’ll just keep working on it until you can maintain control over it.” I say with a raspy voice.
“How much longer until my voice is completely healed Airi?”
(About twenty minutes)
Sara walks into the room looking slightly perturbed.
“Hey Cole; the director of The Agency has asked to borrow you to help Natasha with an investigation into some strange events at a frat house over at ASU. They’re having some big annual party tonight and you two will be going under the guise of a guy and his girlfriend from the university.” Sara says as if she is waiting for a bomb to go off any second, as am I.
“Okay, I mean I do owe Carla for keeping me hidden from authorities and the media; and Natasha is my friend so I want to help her.” I say, my voice sounding a bit less raspy. I can almost hear the whistling of the silver bombshell as it comes crashing down on top of us.
“Okay, you two have a nice time!” Cheza says with a smile. Cheza is being reasonable…
IT’S A TRAP!
“No Cole, this isn’t a trap.” Cheza says with a smile.
“I just want you to help Natasha and I know that you won’t do anything foolish with her…right?” Cheza asks, her smile morphing into a look that is slightly homicidal.
“Of course not!” I say.
“Then I have nothing to worry about!” Cheza exclaims with her broad smile back on. “Go. Help her and watch her back…her upper back.”
“Oh, and Cole? You are going to have to go in without your holster. I still haven’t finished the new one and a sword hilt peeking over your shoulder is far from inconspicuous.” Sara tells me.
“That’s fine; I can make new swords on the fly if I need to. When do we leave?” I inquire.
“In about an hour; Natasha is getting ready now.” Sara replies.
“I guess I will too.” I reply.
I go to my room, take a shower, and dress in cargo shorts, white t-shirt, and my leather jacket. I walk out into the kitchen and have lunch while waiting for Natasha. She comes out fifteen minutes later, wearing denim shorts, a magenta polo shirt, and matching Vans as she looks at me expectantly. I grab the keys to the Mercedes SUV and we head out.
“Hey Natasha, if this party isn’t until tonight, why are we going now?” I inquire as I take the ramp onto I-10.
“Surveillance mostly; we are kind of flying blind into this one. All we know is that several of the fraternity members may be involved in the summoning of something to our world.” Natasha replies.
“Summoning to our world?” I ask.
“I’m not entirely sure where that kind of stuff comes from, but a friend tried to explain it to me as pocket worlds or dimensions that can be connected to where we are. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” Natasha says.
‘However it makes quite a bit of sense to me.’ I think as I remember the secret door behind the bookcase in Uncle Eric’s office that led to the sandstone platforms and the jungle; explaining it as a pocket dimension makes quite a bit of sense…for my fucked up reality at least.
“What kind of strange events have been happening at this house?” I inquire.
“Strange online purchases, local blackouts on just one street, and a neighbor swore he saw a penguin in the backyard, one night.” She answers.
“Strange online purchases? What constitutes strange?” I ask.
“Several pounds of colored sand, shit-tons of chalk, and five gallons of pigs blood; all of which are indicative of attempts at summoning. Plus, there’s the penguin…” Natasha tells me.
We reach the house about an hour later. I drive past it and park in front of a nearby house that is on the opposite side of the street. Several crews of people are setting up a stage, wheeling in crates of alcohol, or bringing in food. At 5pm, Natasha suddenly tenses up with her eyes tightly closed, and starts to shake slightly. About ten seconds later, it stops and leaves Natasha breathing heavily.
“There’s someone being held captive in the house.” Natasha says after she calms down.
“What do you mean, being held captive?” I inquire.
“What I saw wasn’t very clear, but a barred cage definitely stood out and I could see a huddled mass inside of it.” She replies.
“…do you think it could be the penguin?” I ask while trying to think of a reasonable explanation.
“No, it was definitely a hominoid figure.” Natasha says, shivering slightly.
I can only imagine what these sick bastards are doing to that orangutan!
(Probably not an animal…what she is referring to)
“Thanks Yoda.”
“Well, I guess we will just have to rescue them.” I say calmly and pat her left shoulder, causing her to wince.
“What happened to your shoulder?” I inquire, thinking back to that night in Hawaii.
“It’s an old injury that I sustained while training with my grandfather when I was ten years old.” Natasha says.
“What were you training for when you were ten, if you don’t mind my asking?” I ask, knowing that normal people don’t start training for anything combat related at the age of ten, unlike myself.
Mania and the Executioner Page 11