by Rocco Ryg
Chillingworth shrugged his shoulders. “You are one tough chick. Okay, I’ll warp my own gravity only. En guard!” Chikara ran to him, her weapon raised high and aimed straight for the head. Her enemy ducked, parried and counterattacked faster than she could comprehend, but she held her stance and kept swinging.
From the ground, the students gasped, shouted or stared blank-eyed. Clover, Quinn and Josephine looked disturbed, like their practical joke had gone too far. Miguel, on the other hand, grinned and nodded his head like he was watching a lucha libre wrestling match. The horrified Renka knew she had to stop this, even without her powers. Seeing his cross and realizing his identity, she ran to the young man guarding the door. “Mr. Neuhaus, please stop him!”
Neuhaus looked puzzled. “How do you know my name?”
“I know about your father. He’s a good man and he’s healed a lot of people. Please, don’t let that guy kill my friend!”
“I’m sorry, but this has to be done.” He spoke in a regretful yet duty-bound tone.
“Why?”
“It is God’s will. Thy will be done.”
She continued to beg for his help, but he ignored her and concentrated on the fight. Now in a panic, she ran to the Irish girl. “Your mother was Shannon O’Malley! She was friends with Akasha Mika in Africa!”
Clover asked, “What? How do you know that?”
“That girl up there is Mika’s daughter! Please, you have to do something!”
“Really? Wow, she’s hot. Tight dress, too.” She kept watching, unconcerned with this new information. Renka couldn’t believe it. All of these people were as crazy as their boss.
Chillingworth pointed up (actually down) and let Chikara fall to the ground. She landed on her feet in a crouch, thankful that he at least cushioned her fall. She saw him falling onto her with his rapier stretched out, so she rolled away and dodged the attack. They continued to fight in front of the fascinated audience, the ultimate battle between fencing and kendo with neither combatant giving up.
With the other Female Kendo Club members too injured to fight, Renka took matters into her own hands. She ran to the snack table, grabbed an apple and threw it at Chillingworth as he fought Chikara. Sensing the small gravitational field of the incoming object, he swatted it away with barely a thought and went back to fighting. Renka realized she needed something gravity could not affect.
Chikara didn’t know much about European fencing, but she knew that it involved thrusting and defending. Chillingworth’s style was to thrust constantly and allow his telekinesis to defend him from attack. His sloppy, disjointed technique didn’t seem to match his nearly-flawless skill. It was as if he knew everything about the discipline but hadn’t practiced as long as most professionals, much like his Japanese language skills. She wondered how he could learn so much without practice and suspected one of his accomplices.
Chillingworth floated away and caught his breath. They shared gazes, one threatening and confrontational, and the other amused and entertained. Both knew who had the upper hand. Without powers, she didn’t stand a chance. As Chillingworth stalked around and intimidated her, Renka ran past his back and looked to Chikara while covering her ears. See her heading for the speakers, Chikara charged her opponent to provide the right distraction. Chillingworth held his defensive stance and hoped to aggravate her some more.
Renka grabbed the microphone from the stage and covered her ears with her upper arms. She remembered how loud the heavy metal music had been turned up and knew that this would not be pleasant. She dashed to one of the speakers and held the microphone against it, creating a cacophonous feedback that screeched into everyone’s ears.
Clover O’Shaughnessey used her control over sound to mute the reverberating vibrations from the speakers, but it came too late to help her boss. Stunned for a split second, Chillingworth couldn’t react to the sharp kick to his stomach from Chikara’s heel. She followed by uncovering her ears and whacking him across the head with her bokken as hard as she could. Shocked from the impact, he quickly moved himself into the back wall and watched as she charged him one last time, intending to knock him unconscious and win the battle.
Chikara raised her weapon high and prepared to strike the top of her enemy’s head with all the force she could gather. This was it. She would defeat the villain, save the world and fulfill her mother’s wishes, and she didn’t even need a gift. With Chillingworth struggling to remain conscious, nothing would stop her devastating attack.
He saw her just before she struck. With a wave of his hand, the bokken snapped in half with a perfect cut. He dodged her shortened attack, willed the detached stick into his hand by the pointed end and slashed upwards across the face.
***
“CHIKARA!” cried Renka as she saw her friend fall. Blood gushed from the deep, vertical gash over her left eye, and the audience could hear the girl’s agonizing scream. Chillingworth’s henchmen looked on in horror. They had never wanted this… nobody was supposed to get hurt. Michiko held her mouth along with the students and teachers, still in shock that this could happen.
Chillingworth discarded the broken sword and grabbed Chikara by the neck. He slammed her into the nearby wall while chuckling at her misfortune. The faucet of blood leaked down her face and stained her dress purple. He had mutilated her left eye beyond recognition. He could see the disgusting vitreous jelly through the torn socket. He shook his head and said, “Wow. I... uh... I guess I went a little overboard.”
A small surge of blue electricity emerged from Chikara’s damaged eye and intensified. Just as Chillingworth’s grin turned to alarm, a massive electric surge exploded from Chikara’s body. All of the power she had been storing for years came out in a single blast, burning her enemy’s body and forcing him to push away. The students gazed in terror as the fighter watched her lightning-charged hands emit hundreds of thousands of volts.
Chillingworth moved himself further from the electrified girl. His body burned everywhere, especially his unprotected face. His chest went into convulsions as he struggled to keep his heart going. His cohorts ran to his aide, with Josephine crying in panic and Clover clutching the equally terrified Michiko. Thanks to his father’s background in medicine, Quinn knew to give the victim mouth-to-mouth and then start CPR. Damian was still breathing, but his pulse was very thin and his skin damaged beyond repair. His bones had fractured due to the stress of the contracting muscles. “Theatrics, huh?” said Quinn. “You wanted a big show?”
Chillingworth tried to speak, but his body wouldn’t move. Only his split-second, instinctual push away from Chikara had saved his life. He looked back at the living Tesla coil that had mutilated him. Mika Akasha’s kid. So that’s who you are.
Miguel Soto-Morales reached into his suit and pulled a six-shot revolver, thankful to have packed it just in case. He aimed it at her and said, “Puta loca!”
Still in shock and unaware of her surroundings, Chikara barely noticed the gun. Miguel felt the firearm flip downward as small metal objects in the gym flew backwards from electromagnetic repulsion. The gun turned around and fired, putting a bullet into his heart. He fell and dropped the gun, which moved back with everything else.
“MIGUEL!” cried Clover, who ran to his side and tried to help. Unlike the gang’s leader, the young Hispanic was beyond help. He breathed just a few more times before his pulse stopped.
Clover looked to Chikara, who held out her hand and seemed to prepare an electric blast. The redhead inhaled deeply and released a devastating supersonic scream that pushed Chikara backwards into the corner of the gym, almost liquefying her eardrums.
Quinn took out his cell phone and found it working properly. The distortion field had vanished without Miguel’s mind controlling the machines, allowing the hundreds of witnesses to call for help and take pictures. “Damian,” he cried. “The cell phones are active! You have to get us out of here now!”
Chillingworth wanted to end Chikara right then and there, but he knew that Quinn
was right. With communications restored and him needing urgent medical attention, he had no choice but to retreat. He shattered the skylight, spreading the glass all over the outside roof. He then levitated himself and his five cohorts, including Miguel’s lifeless body, up towards their unconventional exit. Michiko panicked and waved her limbs across the air, hoping desperately to fly away, but her captor wouldn’t let go. Renka watched them hover towards the skylight and felt Michiko’s absolute terror, for she was now a prisoner of a madman with sinister plans for her special gift.
With her remaining eye, Chikara shared one last hateful look with Damian Chillingworth. She raised her arm and tried to fire another electric bolt, but her body gave out from blood loss and exhaustion. She collapsed onto the floor, blue lightning still sparking in her damaged eye, and watched them fly out of sight.
CHAPTER 14
DESTINY
Chikara could barely see the paramedics as they wheeled her into the ambulance, but she could hear the sounds of the vehicle’s sirens and Renka’s voice calming her down. After passing out again, she heard the conversations of the men in white coats and felt the needles poking her arms. She didn’t feel much after that.
When she regained full consciousness, she laid in a gurney in a dimly-lit room. She felt hungry, thirsty, fatigued, angry and useless all at once. Her mother wanted her to stop that psychopath and she failed.
The agonizing sting across her face had dulled to an aggravating throb. She touched the left side of her face and felt the fresh bandages that the doctors had applied. She closed her right eye and saw nothing from the left, not even the thin light that peeked through the gauze. It had not been a dream after all. That bastard had broken her sword and brutally slashed open her face.
Renka showed up at the door with a candy bar in her hand and a growling stomach. Seeing her friend awake, she ran to her side and embraced her, making sure not to touch her face. “Chikara! I was so scared!”
Chikara hugged her back. Tears flowed from one eye and blood flowed from the other. “What happened?”
“They operated on you... I was in the waiting room and... they told me... they said...”
Chikara already knew what Renka tried to say. The cut damaged her eye beyond repair and they could never fix it. She had been blinded and deformed. “That freak! That goddamn sick son of a bitch!” Her whole body erupted into a surge of electricity, forcing Renka to back away. Renka knew if she hadn’t been sedated when they pulled out her eye, the whole world would have known.
Chikara cried into her hands, forgetting that only the right side could sob. She was a one-eyed, scar-faced freak that electrocuted everything she touched. No man would ever marry her now. Nobody would want to talk to her. Society would turn their backs and fear her. She would be an outcast in a collectivist culture, the only kind she knew. All she had left were her friends and hatred for the man who did this to her.
She heard a familiar voice yelling at a nurse from the other room. Renka looked out into the hall and shouted, “Mr. Kaminari! Over here!” Kaminari Masakazu ran to the hospital room and took in the horrible sight of his daughter with a cast over her face discharging electricity from every pore. He went to comfort her, but Chikara pushed him away. “Don’t, Dad! I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me.” He reached over to embrace her. The electric field settled and faded away. He hugged his daughter and cried for the first time since his wife’s death. He had been taught to never let his emotions betray him, but he couldn’t hold back. “Who did this to you?”
“It was...” Chikara struggled to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t let her. Her lips turned to jelly, her tongue slurred and her voice wouldn’t activate. Renka tried to talk, but her body went through the same effect. It seemed that Michiko’s earlier command had worked all too well.
Chikara wiped the tears from her remaining eye and told her father, “Dad, I want to see Mom’s will right now. Could you please bring it over?”
Masakazu didn’t understand why she wanted to see that DVD again, but he didn’t question the request. “I’ll be right back.”
Chikara then looked to Renka. “Can Gen get out of bed?”
“I can make it happen.”
“Get him.”
Chikara turned on the news while she waited for Renka to return and saw the reports on the prom. The reporters revealed all of the bizarre details, including the door that had melted into the wall, the shattered skylight, the fired gun and the hundreds of witnesses who wouldn’t speak a word of what had happened. They then discussed the reports of an injured female who had lost an eye in the incident. Chikara switched the channels, only to find the same report on each network.
She heard what sounded like a helicopter circling around outside. She then found a news channel showing a view of the hospital from said chopper and a crowd standing outside. Many had been there the week before to see the pyromaniac who crashed into the car and didn’t want to miss anything else that could’ve happened. Disgusted, she turned off the TV.
Renka returned with Gen draped over her shoulders. His face burst into surprise when he saw Chikara’s bandages. “Chikara! I... I saw the news, but... I didn’t know it was you. What happened?”
She tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. Rather than explain the events of the evening, she said, “Nobody can tell.”
“What do you mean? It was Michiko, wasn’t it? Did she make everybody quiet?” The girls couldn’t even nod. “The news said the gym doors melted into the wall and someone broke the skylight. Nobody got anything on video either. You guys can’t do that, so... there must be others, right?”
Chikara held up her hand and ignited a ball of blue lightning from her palm. “There’s one less now.”
Chikara’s father walked in with the DVD. “I have it.”
“Thank you, Dad. May I watch it with my friends?”
When Masakazu left the hospital room, Renka put the disc in the hospital’s TV and pressed play. They fast-forwarded to Kaminari Mika’s final message. “Chikara, listen to me. Throughout your life, I’ve taught you to be a good person. I’ve taught you to be fair, honest, reliable and strong. So far, you’ve turned out just as I wanted you too. I’m so proud of you. However, things are about to change. Events outside of your control will soon require you to do things no one has done before.”
“There are extremists in this world, Chikara. Fanatical men and women who seek power, and with this power, they will attempt to mold the world to their radical ideas. I have seen what they are capable of, and the results will lead only to terrible destruction.”
“Yes, mother. I see that now.” Renka felt Chikara’s indescribable surge of anger. Why hadn’t her mother just told her about Chillingworth and his desire to kidnap Michiko?
“Your duty…” Chikara watched as Mika drooped her head and made a regretful face. She then covered her left eye with her hand, as if feeling a tinge of pain.
The trio froze. Chikara’s body went numb as she finally understood the meaning of that random act.
“I never wanted to drag you into this. I’ve looked at every possible outcome, and nothing ends happily except this one. I’m so sorry. I wanted to save you from this but…”
Chikara held both hands forward and expelled a violent lightning bolt that destroyed the television. Gen and Renka backed off as her whole body exploded in a field of electricity. She screamed into her hands, “You knew! You knew, you evil bitch!” The sudden surge of power made the whole hospital experience a short blackout. The backup generators saved everyone on life support. The crowd outside saw the blast through a window and the hospital’s loss of power, leading to cheering and gasps of shock from outside.
After crying into her hands for a few moments, her friends approached her. Chikara’s body let down its defenses and let them hold her. The surge had burned off the bandages covering the left side of her face, revealing the deep gash sealed with stitches and her empty eye socket. She s
topped crying and looked at the broken TV. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Gen said.
Just then, Chikara’s cell phone rung from inside her purse. Renka pulled it out and saw that it came from a secret number. Gen grabbed the phone and put it on speaker before holding it up to Chikara. He didn’t want to risk her shocking it to death. “Hello?” she asked.
“Hello, Chikara. How’s the hospital’s ice cream? I like strawberry... that’s my favorite.” Chillingworth’s hoarse voice sent another chill down her spine. Her empty eye socket surged with electric power brought on by anger.
Chillingworth coughed and moaned in pain. He was in no condition to chat for long. “You really did a number on me. I can barely move. That’s the only reason you’re still alive. Seeing as how we’re both incapacitated, I propose a truce. Let’s cut our losses and call it even. Deal?”
Chikara wanted to curse and threaten the maniac that had cut out her eye and kidnapped her friend, but she calmed herself. If she hoped to defeat him, she would need stealth, surprise and enough time for preparation. She gritted her teeth and replied, “Okay.”
“Great. OW! Watch it!”
Chikara heard Clover O’Shaughnessey on the other end. “You want the gauze or not, you big baby?”
“Fine. Say goodbye to your friend, little sister.”
“Chikara?” Michiko’s trembling voice answered.
“I’ll find you,” she replied before the phone hung up.
Gen solved the mystery. “Little sister? So he’s...”
“The man I’m going to kill.” Chikara ignited a ball of lightning in her hand and snuffed it out.
***
The next day, Renka found Chikara already out of bed and doing her morning workout against the doctors’ orders. She had fresh bandages on the left side of her face and a determined expression on the other. Renka reported on her visit to the Peaceful Tranquility massage parlor. Nagasado Nyoko told her that her daughter had left on a trip and wasn’t coming back for a long time. Renka felt the fear radiating from the mother’s thoughts and knew that Chillingworth and his crew had gotten to her. They probably grabbed all of Michiko’s essentials the night before and made her brainwash her mother into staying silent.