by Skyler Grant
The real question was, what could Van do?
Not trying to do anything wasn't an option. Kana had been civil to him, more than he'd expected, but it was also already clear that she viewed him as something of a possession. He was now her apprentice, because in her mind she'd somehow inherited him from Alexa. Even if he had been tempted by her offer, that was a poor start to things.
Alexa didn't view him fully as a partner, not truly, and it was fair. In a fight he couldn't pull his share. Still, the fact was that they were partners, and he wasn't going to leave her behind while he could still draw breath.
All those who underwent a ritual and survived gained abilities of some kind, and Van believed he'd found two of his. He'd call them storm flash and storm fist just for ease of use. He could move incredibly rapidly over a short distance by channeling the powers of wind and flame, so quickly that he would appear to be teleporting. In addition Van had learned to channel the power of metal into his fist and lash out with the speed of the wind behind him.
Those were two of his three elements. Did he have a third ability combining metal and fire? It seemed likely to Van, but he didn't know what it might be.
Kana would be watching him. Once Van made a move he'd have to make it fast. On the plus side, he might be faster than Kana. Their affinity with water would make her fluid, graceful, but not exactly speedy. Ice also wasn't known for being quick. If he could effectively use storm gust then he was likely the fastest person on this ship.
That advantage would go away once he got to Alexa. At best, she was being held captive like the last time. Submerged in a bath of power-dampening goo. Getting her out of it would take time, and he didn't have a suit of proper armor to protect him.
Even if he could get to her, pull Alexa out of the tub and restore her powers, that meant the pair of them escaping together—at normal, human speed.
Subterfuge and misdirection. That is what it would have to be. Van's senses weren't strong enough to map the ship's corridors in his mind, for all that he could get a general read on Alexa's location.
If he could pull off what he was now pondering, the first part of this would drain him dry. There wasn't any other plan.
Van stopped meditating and began to pull apart his robe. It was the only clothing he had, tearing away the sleeves and wrapping them around one of his arms.
Then he storm flashed. The first took him out of his room and into Kana's quarters—her eyes were closed as she meditated. A flash again and he was in the hall. It was six more until he was, like before, standing outside a room sealed with a green gem.
Van punched the gem with a storm fist. Green light flashed as it shattered and the door collapsed inward.
Alexa was fully submerged in a vat, a tube from her mouth extending out of the gel, unconscious. Van wasn't ready for the rescue yet anyways. Dipping the hand protected by the wrapped material into the goo he coated it as best he could.
Then flash by flash, a mad return. By the time he got back to Kana's quarters she was on her feet, buckling a sword about her waist. Every remaining scrap of Van's essence went into a combined flash and storm fist as he slammed the goo-covered hand at her face.
Fluid and graceful was almost enough. Kana started to turn away. The fist still caught her across the cheek coating her flesh in goo.
Kana's skin started to frost over and Van stepped in close, covering her mouth and nose with goo. Kana's eyes were cold, furious, and fading. With a few weak blows she tried to fight him off and then she was out of it.
Van carefully disentangled his hand and wrapped the strips around Kana's face. Hopefully that would keep her out. Surface area obviously mattered, or they wouldn't have Alexa so covered up. Van tucked an arm around Kana's shoulders, and half-dragging her, headed for the door.
The halls of the ship hadn't been busy during his flashes. Hopefully they still weren't.
33
Clonecorps, when you don't need the best army, just a disposable and cheap one.
It was a long trip back to Alexa. The halls were vacant, and if they were seen Van wasn't sure what story he'd tell. A drunken binge gone wrong? Did Kana even drink?
At any hint of voices he pulled Kana into the darkest corner possible and waited for them to move on.
When they finally got back to Alexa it was time for the next part of his plan. Using another segment of torn robe he grabbed hold of one of Alexa's wrists, careful for that to be his only point of contact, and he dragged her out of the goop to sprawl on the floor.
After wiping clean her face, hopefully enough for her to wake up, he went to stripping Kana. They weren't quite identical. Kana had a few more scars although these were only visible once the clothing was off. Van sincerely hoped that nobody was that intimately familiar with Kana. Naked, he slipped her into the vat of goo, replacing the breathing tube.
"Huh," Alexa said, dazed and confused. At least her eyes were open, staring at the tank.
"I really recommend you do your little vibration thing. We could get discovered at any moment and we need to get you dressed," Van said.
"You killed Kana?"
"Slugged in the face with the goo. I'm hoping the tank will keep her down and that nobody checks the contents until Yui gets hungry," Van said.
Alexa blinked, still confused, and groaned. "No power. Essence crystal, she may have had some."
Van checked through Kana's clothes and armor. In a pouch he found a frost-covered crystal and he carefully upended the pouch so it dropped onto Alexa's stomach. Her flesh frosted over for a moment at the contact.
Alexa drew in a deep breath and the goo began to ooze, sliding away from her and crawling across the floor to return to the tank.
"You didn't do that last time," Van said.
"We weren't trying to be sneaky last time. You have some sort of plan in mind?" Alexa asked.
"You get into her armor. We walk off this ship, I as your new apprentice. Then Song tragically murders us both for a disappearing act?" Van asked.
"While my family sometime passes around people, I doubt you're her type," Alexa said, getting dressed.
"Three elements bound and I killed three first evolutions. I impressed her," Van said.
Alexa arched a brow at that. "I imagine so. Did she take you to her bed?"
"It didn't come up, but I got some weird vibes."
"Good, that would have made things awkward, considering. In time she would have. It is in her nature." The armor fit her perfectly, of course. Once it was on Alexa studied the door and the broken crystal. Collecting the pieces in one hand she focused, a green flash of light coming from them.
"Then isn't it in your nature too? I know this is no time for this and I'm not pushing, just curious," Van said.
Alexa gave him a weak smile. "I don't have Yui's full set of memories, but I have enough of them. I want you to understand this and understand it well. At my core I am a terrible, predatory monster. I'd use you until there was nothing left and throw away the husk. I'm trying to be better than that."
Van said, "I've been thinking. We don't take any more bounties not knowing the target—at least, not knowing what they did. If we kill people, we know they have it coming."
Alexa tilted her head to consider and nodded. "Fine. You did a number on this door. I've got the gem back working on a basic level, but if anyone looks too close they'll see the repairs."
"They'll figure it out eventually anyways, unless Yui was planning on eating you without having a conversation."
"She'd gloat, rub it in, and make a spectacle of things. The powerful are terrible, even when they're versions of you."
"But we're going to do better," Van said firmly.
Alexa put a hand on his arm. "All joking aside, this is twice now that you've come for me. Both times it would have been easier to walk away."
"You're not the only one trying to figure out who they are. Deciding who they want to be. I don't know who that other me was, but this me knows that you're my partner, and
I don't run out on my partner."
"To the end, then," Alexa said, tugging her armor straight. "Your robe is a mess. It will have to do. Let's make our exit."
They made their way through the corridors, not taking any care to avoid being seen. Kana wouldn't be skulking through the shadows.
Alexa wasn't stopped until at the exit hatch where a man in a robe was standing guard.
"Commander. I thought you wanted the ship sealed until launch."
Alexa frowned. "I did, until my prize here told me what the Peasants were really up to. Now I have a few bugs to go squash. Keep the ship sealed until our return."
"Do you require any backup?"
"We are not going to risk taking any damage to our vessel. Keep our forces here while I'm away in case they're needed."
The man bowed low and Alexa flicked her hand to wave him out of the way.
Nobody stopped them from leaving the ship. Still, Alexa didn't seem to breathe easy until they were away from the starport and in the city proper.
"We'll get to the Peasants and see if we can get Song to create a proper crime scene. We'll leave the armor there," Alexa said.
"You sure you want to give it up?" Van asked.
"Armor unique to Yui's personal guard? You have no idea how much I want to be rid of this."
They had no money, but they had their freedom. Things were looking up.
34
The Path of Twelve Fires branched off into the Flaming Triple Fist Path and the Path of the Hellfire. In the centuries to come, the original was to prove stronger than either.
Song proved surprisingly willing to help them stage a murder. Sticking one to the nobles of the Dynasty was something that she was more than happy to help with. Ultimately the armor would be found in the bottom of a smashed volcanic crater, along with a few scraps of Van's white robe and two appropriately sized skeletons that the Peasants disturbingly had available. Song was disturbed and angry to be told someone in the Peasants had passed information to Kana, and she vowed to find and kill whoever had leaked Van and Alexa's locations, allowing them to be captured.
The Peasants were even willing to provide them some accommodation, although it was a half-collapsed hovel in the poor part of town.
Alexa had stashed Van's guns in a safe deposit box at the bank and she was able to retrieve them. Meanwhile, his armor had been fully repaired and was ready for pickup from Doxy.
Alexa didn't keep Kana's armor. However, she'd kept the sword.
It was time to sit down and figure their next steps.
"We need to get you through your next two rituals and along an evolution path. Then we need to get off-world with as much money as we can manage," Alexa said.
"That means we need to follow up with Mortimer. Anything the Guild had didn't pay that well. And we want to avoid the Guild for the moment anyways," Van said.
"If the Guild sold information to my family about us, they might have sold it to the people hunting you as well. We want to stay underground as much as possible," Alexa said.
"Should I ditch my armor then?"
"Armored men aren't that uncommon. You could be one of many. On its own it isn't a cause for concern. We need to change my look though. I need to become someone else for a time. I've done it before."
"We'll need money for that. We should be able to find Mortimer through the mine," Van said.
"So, I missed what happened with your ritual. You are obviously alive. Tell me about it. You said you killed people as well?" Alexa asked.
Van detailed exactly what had happened and when he was done Alexa looked pensive.
"I didn't think you'd do it, you know. I thought you were asking to die. I was going to let you, it is your choice, and less than one in a thousand survive a ritual like you attempted. The odds are so terrible these days few even try, if given a choice," Alexa said.
"Is it not worth it?"
Alexa shrugged. "More power is something you can never strive for again. And having some means you constantly struggle against others who had it. You've built yourself a strong foundation. For most, the chance at future strength isn't worth the risk of immediate death."
"Well I got two abilities out of it, at least," Van said.
"The one isn't much good to you as a gunfighter, but the other should see a lot use," Alexa said.
"I'm not sure I won't see use out of storm fist. When someone expects you to fire a gun at them, sometimes the best thing to do is punch them."
"There is a lot to be said for never hitting your enemy quite how they expect. So, next up for you is mind and spirit. These tend to be different than the body rituals. Usually we're working more to enhance some specific aspect of your combat form. I honed my mind to intimately grasp movement, how I could flow," Alexa said.
"What about your spirit?"
"I can create ice out of thin air. You've seen me do it. My essence alone might allow me to freeze it, but to create something like that is a pure manifestation of my own spirit."
"So I should think of how I want to define my abilities," Van said.
"Actually, here is an area where both are very common for bow-users that I think you should duplicate. We'll want to give you a particularly extreme version of these powers. We'll again want to push you into nearly dying. Still, I think they are the directions you should take," Alexa said.
"I'm listening," Van said.
"For mind, that is going to be aiming. Especially since you will be firing bullets, I'd say even ricocheting. We need to hone your mind to make you an inhumanely good marksman."
"Isn't that the sort of thing I could master without a ritual?"
"To some degree, but never with the accuracy or precision you could with it. I suppose it is a question of just how good a shot do you want to be?"
The best, obviously.
"What about spirit?" Van asked.
"This is, I am certain, what your Prime intended, based on the pistols he gave you. Forming your essence into ammunition. At low levels of power it might let you shoot a few shots even when empty. Eventually it could grant you almost infinite ammunition as well as your bullets growing in power as you do," Alexa said.
"We'll do it," Van said.
"I'll figure out how to set those up, even with our limited funds. Going along a well-established path will help us out quite a bit here, even if I do up the difficult level."
Van had barely healed from his last near-death experience. He hoped whatever she planned would leave him in better shape this time.
35
"We don't want your life, just everything else." Unknown Pirate, Western Rim
It hasn't been hard to track down Silibah through the mine. It turned out she was the oldest daughter of the LaPlace family that owned it. Getting directions led to a cafe where she and Mortimer were having lunch.
Mortimer caught sight of Van and Alexa and immediately waved them over. "My good friends— loyal employees? Faithful and true companions."
"You ran off on us and left us facing a large armed force," Alexa said, grabbing a chair and pulling it up to the table.
"Hi," Silibah said brightly.
Van got his own chair.
"Dear lady, I am not a fighter. I am a lover, a man of business, a man of ideas. I left you, the specialists, to do what you are best at and you excelled. You saved the mine and made quite the impression."
"It was very kind of you," Silibah said.
"We can't linger on this world. You made us an offer. If we're going to keep to that deal, we need to do it soon," Alexa said.
"Order something and we can talk. On me, of course. Well, on her, but it is really the same thing," Mortimer said.
Silibah said, "The lizard is quite good."
"Lizard, then," Alexa said.
"Two," Van said.
Mortimer gestured the waiter over and returned his attention to them once the man was gone. "If you want to get matters out of the way quickly, I've no objection. If you want to be paid that quickly we m
ay have a small problem."
"We need money. Fast. I can still get a thousand for hauling you in," Alexa said.
"Dear lady, this is no intent to cheat you or to steer you wrong. It will take time even after these problems are resolved for me to get the funds I've promised," Mortimer said.
Silibah said, "Morty, you are one of the smartest men I've ever met. Don't rush so hard to say no to them. Find a way to work together."
Mortimer beamed her a smile. "Just so, love. Just so. Give me a few moments to think."
"I also need anything you can give us in advance. I need a change of outfit. We need a place to stay," Alexa said.
"I have an account at the tailors. We can go shopping," Silibah said happily.
"A fine idea," Mortimer said. "And perhaps there is something we can do to get you more operating capital. It isn't quite the plan I had in mind, but it may work. Really what we want to do is to strike the CMC a lethal blow."
"Morty says if we are the heroes who take them down, the other families will rally behind us. We'll be able to found an all-new consortium," Silibah said.
The waiter brought them their plates. The lizard was charred and thinly sliced with green beans on the side.
Silibah hadn't been wrong. It was delicious.
"I'd appreciate that. If you're sure it is no trouble," Alexa said to Silibah.
"I love going shopping. I love going shopping with friends. And we'll be the best friends. Do you know I've never met a single mercenary?" Silibah said.
Alexa managed a smile.
Mortimer said, "What I had in mind, you see, was something of the brute force approach. I was going to have you take out another of their teams that attacks mines. This time someone else's. And then go after the head of the whole outfit."
"Might have worked," Van said.
"Oh, it would have, it would have. They operate on fear, intimidation, on everybody believing that they are untouchable. But they are businessmen above all and if they start turning a loss with nothing to show for it, then they'll pull out leaving a void in their wake."
