That Which is Unexpected

by A.L. Bridges

  Chapter 19: The birth of a weapon

  We get home and I rush to my room to quickly hide my presents before Cheza gets home. I see that I barely made it as Sara and Cheza walk through the front door just after I exit my room.

  “Hey! Welcome home Cheza! How was your day?” I ask, going for nonchalance.

  “Umm… fine? Are you feeling alright Cole?” Cheza asks, making me realize that I fail at nonchalance.

  “Yeah! I’m great!” I say, realizing that I sound like I’ve been in the bathroom snorting coke or some other sort of suspicious activity.

  “Anyway, I have to go down to the armory. Bye!” I add and rush down the steps. I find Tia standing at the gun bench, disassembling the new Glock 20.

  “Here, replicate the slide first,” Tia says, handing me the top part of the gun.

  I pull out my knife and slice open my left arm from elbow to wrist. I grab the slide and look at it from every angle, and then I close my eyes and feel it thoroughly until I have a solid picture in my mind. I slide my right hand over the cut and will my blood to take the shape of the image in my mind. I feel the slide solidify in my right hand and realize that I’ve never made something this dense before.

  (5.0 Liters) Airi says.

  “Holy hell! It took nearly a liter of blood to make this thing!” I say to Tia.

  “Did that voice whisper to you again?” Tia asks. I nod solemnly as she sighs. “Well, how much do you have left? Can you do it?”

  “I have roughly two liters to use up before I feel anemic, another half and I’ll pass out if I drain it all quickly. If spread over the next five minutes, I should be able to use up 3.2 Liters from what the voice said the other night,” I tell her.

  “SARA! PREP A SALINE DRIP AND BRING DOWN SOME JUICE!” Tia shouts.

  “Alright, all you will have to make is the outer casing. The innards, like the barrel, we should leave as they are or it may affect ballistics. Now make the grip like this,” Tia says and shows me a sketched blue print.

  It’s a Glock 20 grip, but a block-shaped hand guard flows from the trigger guard and connects into the butt, just above the base of the clip. That should adequately protect my fist when I’m wielding it. There’s a space between the base of the magazine and the butt on the Glock 20, but this modified version includes a six inch blade jutting down from that space, which is a dangerous idea unless you consider the fact that the blade can never cut me. Finally, sticking out of the bottom of the trigger guard and running parallel with the barrel is a half inch thick bar.

  “What’s this bar here for?” I ask Tia.

  “Ah! That is for catching your opponent’s blade and disarming them. When an opponent swings a sword at you, just catch it in the space, wrench the gun counterclockwise, and it will twist the hilt of the sword towards their fingers, removing the blade from their grasp. It will only work if the sword is in their right hand however. Make sure to thicken the trigger guard to ensure its integrity against hard blows,” Tia explains.

  That actually sounds like a pretty good idea. I don’t bother to correct Tia that I should be able to disarm swords that are in left hands if I turn the gun clockwise. I pick up the separated grip and run through the same procedure as I did with the slide. Once I have the inside of the grip firmly pictured in my mind, I move on to add the modifications to the grip. When I’m ready, I slice open my left palm and hold out my hand like the grip is already in it, allowing the blood to form inside my palm.

  I start with the basic grip making sure to identically replicate the original. (3.5 Liters)

  Next is the hand guard. (3.0 Liters)

  Now for the blade. (2.8 Liters. Warning, rapid draws will lead to shock and premature unconsciousness)

  At least she reminded me earlier this time. My head feels fuzzy as I start to feel the strain, but I keep my mind locked on the image. Next is to thicken the trigger guard. (2.7 Liters. Warning, rapid draws will lead to shock and premature unconsciousness)

  My legs start to feel weak. I have to finish this quickly. Finally, the disarming bar. (2.1 Liters. Stop now, you idiot, or death will be imminent)

  I feel the grip solidify in my hand as I fall to my knees. Tia supports me while gently pulling the grip from my hand.

  “You did well Cole,” Tia says while patting my shoulder and gently lowers me onto my side. “When you wake up, I’ll have this finished.”

  “SARA, FORGET THE JUICE AND GET THE SALINE DOWN HERE NOW!” Tia yells.

  “COLE!” I hear Cheza scream from the basement. I feel her roll me onto my back and then she tenderly caresses my cheek. “Oh, Cole…”

  I’m sorry that I made you scream my name again, Cheza.

  …

  [May 14th]

  I wake up in my bed with Cheza curled up beside me like an adorable little guard dog. Her knees are digging into my side and her arm is draped over my chest. I look over at the clock and see that it is 1:12am. I’m hungry, but it can wait until morning; the bathroom however, cannot. I try to unhook Cheza’s arm from my chest, but that doesn’t work out.

  “No… Mine,” Cheza mumbles in her sleep as she squeezes my chest tighter and puts one of her knees on top of my thigh.

  “I guess the bathroom is waiting until morning too,” I whisper as I drift back to sleep.

  …

  I wake up and find sunlight streaming in through my window. I look over at the clock and find that it is 7:05am.

  “Cheza… Cheza, wake up. You have to get ready for school,” I say while gently shaking her.

  “No, I’m staying home with Cole and Jason,” Cheza mumbles. Those eight little words just about kill me. I lie there frozen, unsure of what to do, when Tia barges into my room.

  “Chezarei, get up. It is time for school. Stop rubbing yourself against Cole. I need to borrow him,” Tia says.

  “No. Every time you borrow him, he ends up hurt,” Cheza says clearly with her eyes still closed.

  “Come on, Cheza. I’ve needed to use the bathroom for the past six hours and I want to get something to eat,” I say to her.

  “Fine,” she grumbles and gets out of my bed. I unhook myself from the saline drip, stand up, and walk to the bathroom, only to find that Cheza is following me.

  “What are you doing?” I ask Cheza.

  “I’m going to stand guard,” She replies.

  “No, you are going to get ready for school. Yesterday was something that needed to happen and it wasn’t Tia’s fault,” I tell her.

  “Why do you always take her side…” Cheza quietly pouts and leaves the room.

  “Is she angry?” I ask Tia.

  “She’ll be over it by tomorrow,” Tia replies.

  “Now get ready and meet me in the armory. It’s alive, Cole,” Tia says with a maniacal grin.

  What’s alive!?

  I quickly shower, remove my IV, and run to the kitchen for a quick bite before meeting Tia downstairs in the armory. She leads me over to the gun bench that has a cloth covered gun shape on the top. Tia makes a big flourish before removing the cloth and displaying my gun.

  “I wanted to do a Frankenstein reference with the lightning and everything, but I decided it would be inappropriate to use your weakness to introduce your new weapon… that and waiting for a thunderstorm seemed a bit impractical. You did a great job getting all the holes and fittings perfectly. I was able to assemble it without any problems. I am glad that I considered the extra length of the custom magazines when telling you how long to make the blade. See? Even with the 25 round magazines, you still have three inches of blade. However, I forgot to consider what the decreased weight would do to the recoil. Look,” Tia says.

  Tia fires the gun thrice at a silhouette target thirty feet down range. I watch as her hand flies upward with each shot. She hits dead center with the first round, but shots two and three are way too high.

  “This is a big problem… Let me see,” I reply.

  Tia hands me the gun and I find that it fits into my left hand perfectl
y. I fire at the same target. Shots one and two hit, but number three swings high. I frown and then I get one of those ‘It’s stupid, but also possibly brilliant’ ideas.

  “Tia, can I see your knife?” I ask.

  Tia whips out her combat knife and hands the hilt to me. I use it to make a small, one inch incision in the palm of my left hand, and I pick up the gun again. This time, it feels different. The gun feels like an extension of my arm, which is what I was hoping for. I use my arm like a stock, take aim at the target, and unload the remaining nineteen rounds into the target without a single miss.

  “Yeah, I think this will work,” I smirk at Tia as she smiles back.

  “Alright, let’s get some practice in. Once you’re comfortable using the gun in close quarters, I’ll start going full speed,” Tia replies.

  I spend the next six hours adjusting to fighting with a gun as my companion weapon. I love this gun. The disarming bar works just as Tia described and I was able to disarm her right kukri blade multiple times while blocking her left with my Sic blade, ending the match with two rounds to her stomach.

  “Good job, Cole!” Tia says while slightly out of breath.

  “Thanks, but will this actually do any good against a god? I mean, when I shot you three times, you were still able to throw a blade into my arm and get back up in a matter of milliseconds,” I say remembering the time when I lost it and tried to kill her two weeks ago.

  Tia thinks about it for a moment, motions for my gun, then walks into the armory. She comes back and hands me my gun.

  “Cole, we are going to have a real match next. I will be going all out and you will be using live ammo. We are only going to do this once because while the bullets won’t kill me, they do still hurt,” Tia says with a serious tone.

  “What!? Tia, I can’t shoot you!” I exclaim.

  Tia responds with a full speed, full strength kick to my stomach. When she started moving quickly, my senses automatically sped up to respond, but she is still moving at a speed that is slightly faster than my senses can adjust for. I am able to see the kick coming with just enough time to reinforce my abs. So, instead of knocking me out, crushing my ribs, and making a mess of my organs, the kick just sends me flying back about ten feet. I land on my back and recover just in time to see Tia flying down towards me with her left kukri blade pointing down while the right is in a guard position across her torso. I roll to my right, narrowly avoiding the attack that would have punctured my right lung. She lands with her blade sticking into the mat as I strengthen my left leg and kick her across her face while spinning to my feet.

  I always thought that that move was too flashy and had no real application, but I suppose it does have its uses. My kick sends Tia flying into the side wall, fifteen feet away. I guess she didn’t see that one coming. She recovers quickly and charges at me. I block her first hit with the Sic blade and feel the vibrations in my hand. The second hit I try to get in the disarm bar, but she sees it coming so I end up having to block with the hand guard. The blow feels like it could have broken my wrist. I feel a subtle knock on the door in my head that leads to my Drive as I feel my eyes start to turn silver.

  “Tia, we need to stop this!” I tell her, but she presses her attacks. I continue to block, but I’m having a hard time keeping up. Every few slashes, I’m unable to block so I have no choice but to divert them into glancing blows. My arms start getting sliced open.

  (Just give me control and we can end her) my Drive says in Airi’s voice, as it warps to a lower pitch.

  “But I don’t want to end her!” I reply to it.

  “What if she kills us? Do you really want to make Cheza sad?” my Drive says, sounding quite similar me.

  My resolve falters for a moment at the mention of Cheza and that’s all it takes for my Drive to take the controls. The next thing I hear is a gunshot that misses Tia.

  “Good Cole! Now we are gett—” Tia starts to say.

  As Tia looks into my eyes, her face reveals that she is frightened. Tia steps it up and starts going for shots that will incapacitate me. As I block both blades at once, I start to rotate gun barrel towards her torso. Tia does a front flip over me, kicking me in the back of the head with her heel and knocking me to the ground in the process. Okay, that one hurt. While I am on my hands and knees, Tia runs up behind me.

  My Drive anticipated something like this so when she gets close, I kick back and sweep her left leg. Tia goes down on her right knee as I spin around. Trying to recover, Tia gets her left knee parallel with the floor, but she isn’t fast enough. I take my gun, jam the knife into her left knee, and fire six rounds into her abdomen. Tia is stunned as I pull the gun from her knee and slowly get to my feet. She looks up at me and the fear in her eyes is palpable as I bring my Sic blade across my body and begin to strengthen my right arm.

  “Gods may be hard to kill, but I bet she will die if we cut the bitch’s head off!” my Drive viciously exclaims.

  Time slows down as my Sic blade travels toward her neck with all the strength I can summon.

  She’s going to end up just like Jason.

  “NO!” I scream, stopping the Sic blade an inch from Tia’s neck.

  I collapse to my knees, dropping both my Sic blade and gun. My nose feels clogged as tears run down my face. I bring a hand up to the trail and pull it away to find that it isn’t tears, but blood. The same goes for my nose, but they stop after I’m consciously aware that they’re bleeding. Note to self: your brain doesn’t like it when you make it fight itself. Tia crawls over and hugs me to her chest.

  “I’m sorry, Cole. I’m so sorry,” Tia whispers as I feel her tears hit my hair.

  I hear the car door slam shut and I pull away from her.

  “Tia! Cheza is home. We have to change, now!” I urgently say.

  Tia’s eyes widen, fully comprehending the danger that we are both in. She nods and we both race up the stairs at an enhanced speed. I thought Tia might be unable to because of her injury, but she isn’t even limping—her knee is already fully healed. I run into my room whilst stripping, and jump into the glass shower as I hear the front door open. I hear Tia’s shower turn on shortly before mine.

  Water cold. I can’t help thinking that I forgot something. I realize what that something is when I look at the mirror across from the shower and see Cheza standing in my bedroom doorway, staring at my reflection. Ah, that’s right. I forgot to close my door… both of them.

  Why did she have to see me while the water was still cold!? …Wait, that’s not the issue here. My little sister seeing me naked at all is not good. The water temperature is irrelevant.

  When Cheza sees that I have noticed her, her face becomes red and she looks down as she grabs my bedroom door and slowly closes it. I’m trying to decide if this situation is better than the situation I would have been in had Cheza seen my body cut up, and blood running from my eyes and nose… Well, at least she isn’t worrying.

  …