Mage Hunters Box Set

by Andrew C Piazza

  “Yeah, or fried by one of those guys,” she said, gesturing toward the dead Striker mage. “Or ripped up by one of those dead…”

  “Mickey! Focus!” Dread said. “Follow me!”

  He led her along the wall to the end of the cell block, peeking around it quickly to make sure they weren’t going to come under fire again, and then led her at a run along the massive wall that marked the outer boundary of the prison.

  Inmates ran past them in all directions, ignoring them, running off to find trouble somewhere else in the prison. They could hear the low roar of scattered shouts and cries all around them, punctuated by gunfire and the occasional tell-tale hum given off by the energy of a magespear as it flew through the air.

  A User flew close by overhead, arcing through the air like a shark through the water. He angled upwards, flying in a twisting arc to avoid the gunfire from the guards, and then up towards the top of the wall.

  It looked like there was nothing but air above the wall, but the User hit hard against something, coming instantly to a complete stop and then falling out of the air, unconscious. A reddish aura of energy radiated outward from where he had impacted, spreading in a vaguely dome-like shape above them.

  The User landed with a thump in front of them. He wasn’t moving.

  “I guess that’s the shield that the warden was talking about,” Mickey said.

  Dread brought them to a halt. The outer wall of the closest cell block in front of them was marked in huge painted letters on the side identifying it as Cell Block Six.

  There was a hole torn through the wall, much like the one they’d escaped through, leading into what looked to be a shower room. Dread pointed toward it.

  “This one. Inside, quick!”

  “We’re going in there?” Mickey asked. “Why this one?”

  Dread hesitated a moment before answering. “There’s somebody that I need to see.”

  Cass

  They had no idea who they were fucking with.

  To say I’d been on a hair trigger would be an understatement. For months, I’d been cooped up in a cell in this moldy old museum of a prison, and every day I got angrier. The only thing that had allowed me to keep a lid on it this long was the constant training with the roommate that they assigned me a few weeks in.

  As you might imagine, things can get complicated really quickly for a former cop tossed into a prison. And as badly as that overcrowded shithole was mismanaged, it didn’t really come as a shock that they didn’t have any special accommodations to keep a police officer separate from the criminals who might be looking for payback.

  So, no big surprise that it took all of a couple of days for some dirtbag with a grudge to come looking for me.

  Cell Block Six was the only all-female ward, and because of that, they mixed the Users in with the rest of us Regulars. Dumb idea, really, but the prison was already bursting at the seams with too many inmates, so much so that they started sticking two prisoners into cells that were clearly designed for one; so again, it was no big surprise that the prison administration didn’t use the common sense that God gave a tree squirrel and maintain the populations in separate cell blocks.

  The mages’ cells were warded with magic, some sort of hoo-doo voo-doo that prevented any magic use inside of that particular cell. And we were told that at least some of the cell block’s walls were warded, at least enough to keep any enterprising Striker mage from blowing a hole in the wall and making a run for it.

  But those wards didn’t prevent magic use inside of the cell block itself, so once the mages were outside of their cells, they could potentially try to pull some sort of Trick. It was rare that they tried, though… the guards treated them like nitroglycerine, and they did take the precaution of separating the Users from the Regulars for meals or showers.

  In any case, it wasn’t a User who ended up making a play for me. Just your standard fat bitch with a grudge and poor impulse control.

  I saw her coming from a mile away. I suppose she thought she was being slick; I mean, here on the inside, if someone decides they’re going to kill you, they don’t exactly advertise the fact. They plot and wait and plan, and once they think that they can make their move, they ambush you out of the blue and shank you before you know what’s happening.

  That’s the idea, at least. But the truth is, it takes a lot for someone to work up the nerve to kill somebody else, especially if you have to get extra dirty and do the job hand to hand. Think about it. Most people are conditioned to avoid violence at almost all costs… which is sensible. Violence is stupid.

  There was a never ending supply of stupid in that prison.

  Even amongst the violent, though, the social conditioning to not attack another person is still there, along with the natural survival motive to avoid a fight to the death. Fights are unpredictable; it’s the nature of the beast. You might think you have all the odds in your favor, but if something weird or unexpected pops up… do you really want to die on that hill?

  The point is, people work themselves up to murder. They stare at their prey. They fantasize and then plot about how they’re going to do it. They shout their hate and rage into their internal echo chamber over and over until it’s loud enough to drown out any fear, or sense of self-preservation, or anything else that might make them second guess their stupidity. Only then do they make their move.

  I spotted Chubbs… I never did find out her real name… and her bad intentions while sitting in the dining hall, choking down the slop that passes for food in this place. She was sitting with a couple of other inmates, huddled close and talking low.

  At that point, I always sat alone. Everybody knew I’d been a cop, and nobody was eager to get lumped in with someone who had a bullseye painted on them. Not to mention that since I’d been all over the news after Dread and I got caught trying to blow up Revival Tech, everybody knew that I was a Vive Job and was bound to go batshit crazy at some point.

  Anyway, it wasn’t hard to spot her dirty looks. I mean, everybody in that place shot me dirty looks, but hers were lingering. She would nudge her friends while she stared, and they would talk in their low voices, and frankly, it didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out that they were going to try something sooner or later.

  So, I did what I do best and starting thinking tactically. How would I go about killing me? When was I the most vulnerable? Given that there were three of them conspiring at that table, I was dealing with up to three assailants, probably armed with improvised weapons, so… two of them pinning my arms somehow while the third stabbed me to death with a shank? That seemed about right.

  But they’d need enough time to do it, and a communal place so that all three of them could come at me at once, so it would have to be the showers or the dining hall or maybe the yard. The showers would give them the most seclusion and time, but I’d be the most distracted in the yard, since I would be exercising.

  I made it a point to train hard during my limited time in the yard. Not only to stay in shape; I wanted to show the other inmates that I was a tough customer without having to beat the shit out of somebody to prove it and end up making an enemy in the process. Nobody had bothered to heart check me yet… that was when an inmate fucked with you to see if you would fight back or if you would just bitch up and be an easy mark… but I knew all those eyes on me were constantly assessing me for any sign of weakness.

  Which meant that I exercised hard, which also meant that I would be at my most distracted while out on the yard. That’s what I put my money on… that they would make their play for me while I was working out. I’d be tired, I’d be distracted, they’d jump me and pin my arms down before I knew what was happening, and stab me to death while I was defenseless.

  Turns out I was wrong.

  I sometimes forget how I’m dealing with stupid people a lot of the time, who don’t think things through as tactically as I do, or aren’t as experienced as I am with killing folks. In any case, they didn’t come for me in the yard. />
  It was in the dining hall. Of all the choices, the worst one.

  Once again, they thought they were being slick. Chubbs’s two little buddies split away from her, making a show of sitting somewhere else in the dining hall, but even though I didn’t show it, I had them marked the whole time.

  Chubbs never stopped staring at me. She was working herself up, probably fingering whatever weapon she had stowed away, already picturing herself sticking that shank in me over and over again. And then, in my peripheral vision, I could see her two conspirators start to subtly try to circle around to either side of me.

  Here? I remember thinking, shaking my head as I stared down at my dining tray. All right then, Fatso. Let’s do this.

  Here’s a handy tip. When you’re faced with multiple opponents, do anything you can to trip them up and use their numbers against them. Make them get in each other’s way. I first picked this up from an old book on marital arts called The Book Of Five Rings written by a legendary samurai in the 1600s. It’s a good one. You should check it out.

  What that samurai said about fighting a group of people boils down to this: charge the right side of their ranks and chase them into each other. That way, you’re on the attack and dictating how things were going to go rather than trying to defend from a bunch of angles at once, which is impossible.

  And, once you charge the far right flank, that person on the far right will naturally draw away from you as they try to defend… and they’ll stumble right into their friends, tripping them up and making them useless. Hopefully, their numbers end up being a liability.

  Hopefully. But even if that doesn’t work, at least you’re only fighting one person at a time, since that person on the far right is now standing in the way of their friends trying to join in on the fun.

  So that’s what I did. I waited until they got close, locked eyes with Chubbs, let her think that her little trick had worked and that I didn’t see her friends on either side of me, and once I saw their bodies move in such a way that I knew they’d committed physically and were making their move, I sprang up and swung the edge of my metal dining tray right into the teeth of the bitch on my right.

  There was a satisfying clang of the aluminum tray and crunch of her teeth, but I didn’t stop to smell the roses. I followed up instantly by charging into her, grabbing her hard by the tits, and spinning her around so that she was between me and my other two attackers.

  Chubbs was practically on top of us, with Buddy #2 close behind. I shoved the bloody-mouthed inmate into Chubbs, hoping it would bring her to a stop long enough for me to counter attack, but it didn’t work out that way. Chubbs’s weight and bulk let her keep her feet and the bitch I’d just given a little emergency dental work to bounced off of her and to the side.

  Still, it slowed Chubbs down and stumbled her attack, long enough for me to spot the shiv in her right hand and to be ready for the stab when it came. God, she was slow. I almost felt embarrassed for her. I mean, I trained to counter stabs from Dread, the man who was half mountain… what the hell did this tub of guts think she was going to do?

  I twisted out of the way of the stab, grabbing her wrist and side-stepping to the outside of her arm. Using the motion of my twist, I brought my other forearm around and smashed it into her elbow, locking the joint straight and then snapping it audibly.

  Her eyes got wide and she dropped the shiv from nerveless fingers. I could see the instant panic in her eyes; this was not going the way she’d thought it would. I could’ve ended the fight right there. Her right arm was useless and she was already going pale with shock. One of her allies was writhing on the ground with broken teeth and blood everywhere, and the third would-be attacker really wasn’t looking too keen to play this all out. So I could’ve just stopped there and let the guards… who were already rushing towards us… break it all up.

  I could have. Except fuck all that. It was time to make an example out of Chubbs and send a message to the rest of this prison that there was one person you did not fuck with and her name was Cass Wheeler.

  So I gave Chubbs a quick uppercut palm strike under the chin to knock her back on her heels and stumble her into Buddy #2. More importantly, her stumbling backwards gave me enough space for me to do what I wanted to do next.

  I was mostly known around SWAT for being a gunfighter and a tactical squad leader, but my secret pride was in my turning side kick. Even though I’m not a big girl, that kick… when it’s done right… hits with the impact of a sledgehammer.

  I loved to practice it. I used to make Dread stand there with one of those big padded shields held in front of him and I would launch kicks into that pad that made even that big son of a bitch take a step back.

  As soon as I saw that enough space had opened up between me and Chubbs, I planted my left leg, pivoted exactly like I’d done countless times before, and put just shy of thousand foot-pounds of force into her ribcage with my right foot.

  She flew backwards into Buddy #2, crumpling them both into a heap on the floor. I’d hit her in the liver. She wasn’t simply out of the fight; she’d be lucky to live. An impact like that had definitely ruptured her liver, caused internal bleeding, and put her in so much pain she couldn’t even scream.

  Then the guards were on us, and I surprised myself by letting them take me without a struggle. Sometimes, when your blood is up, it’s hard to turn it all off, but as soon as I felt my kick smash into Chubbs’s liver, I knew it was all over and my point was made, loud and clear.

  At that point, it was all over but the shouting. They had me cuffed and on my knees, and the warden made a big show of rushing in and roaring “Two weeks in Solitary!” as he pointed at me like he thought he was a preacher calling hellfire from the pulpit.

  “I’m already in solitary, you stupid shitheel,” I snapped back, which was technically true; most of the cells on this ward, including mine, were designed to be single occupancy.

  My comment drew some snickers and laughs from the peanut gallery, which enraged the warden even more. “Throw her in the Hole!” he shouted.

  Me and my big mouth. Solitary confinement is supposed to be torture all by itself; but in the Hole, they stripped you naked, left you in the dark, and made you piss in a bucket. Good times.

  Of course, that asshole of a warden probably did it just so he had an excuse to see me without any clothes on, because it was all of two hours before the door to the Hole opened up and he stood in the doorway.

  “What am I going to do with you, Cass?” he said, shaking his head as if he were a disapproving high school guidance counselor.

  “It looks like you’re going to stand there and stare at me like a pervert,” I said. I didn’t even give him the satisfaction of trying to cover up my nudity.

  He turned his head slightly so that he wasn’t looking straight at me any longer. “Do you even care that two women are in the infirmary, one of whom is only alive because we happen to have an inmate who is a Healer mage?”

  I shrugged. “Should I? They came at me three on one with a prison shank. As far as I’m concerned, they got off easy.”

  He sighed heavily. God, I couldn’t stand him. All this pretense, all this bullshit. This asshole was just like every other half-useless douchebag I’d had to work for over the years. Playing at the role of a leader, pretending at real authority, when they had zero clue about the true nature of leadership and authority.

  Authority and leadership can’t be bestowed with a title and a wave of the hand by corporate headquarters. Authority and leadership come from competence and a willingness to lead from the front. Anything else is false pretense.

  I never did learn the trick of suffering fools. That’s why my mouth keeps getting me into trouble. But at this point, my naked ass was getting numb from sitting on cold concrete, so I let him run his mouth and play Daddy.

  “New population guidelines dictate that I assign you a roommate,” he said, which was code talk for, this prison is ridiculously over-crowded and yet we keep t
aking in more inmates so that we can boost our profit margins. “The way I see it, there’s only one person I can put in with you. She’s ex-military, you’re ex-SWAT, maybe there will be some sort of common ground or connection you can find. In any case, she’s probably the only prisoner I can put next to you that you won’t be able to beat to death. She’s an Adept.”

  The skin on my scalp drew back in alarm. “An Adept? Users aren’t allowed to mix with Regulars. My cell isn’t warded, not even you are stupid enough to…”

  “Nervous?” he said. “How about that… someone actually makes you nervous.”

  Yeah, no kidding. Of course I was nervous. An Adept is no joke.

  Physical Adepts are a particularly rare form of User. Most Users are trained to project their magical energies outward; like a Striker mage, who would throw a magespear or blast someone with a lightning bolt or whatever other destructive nonsense they wanted to do. Or a Defense mage, projecting a force field outward. Or even a Healer, projecting energy into another person to repair whatever was damaged.

  Physical Adepts focused their energies inward, in order to enhance the capabilities of their bodies. Stronger, faster, more agile… you get the idea.

  They were rare for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it was difficult to learn, not to mention dangerous. You could literally tear yourself apart trying to learn how to do Physical Magic.

  I’m not kidding about that. There’s something called an avulsion fracture; that’s when your muscle contracts so hard that it actually pulls the tendon off the bone, taking a little chunk of the bone along with it. That’s how strong a regular person’s muscle is, without any enhancement. Normally, your body has a lot of safeguards in place to limit how hard you can contract any given muscle so that an avulsion fracture doesn’t occur, but with adrenaline and stress, sometimes those neurological safeguards get overridden and something gets ripped.

  That’s a normal person. Now imagine someone with extraordinary strength; I’m talking, crazy strength. If they don’t learn how to enhance their bones and tendons along with the muscles, in just the right way, they will snap their own bodies into pieces.