“Sasheen, keep an eye on him while I deal with this,” he commanded. “And Benny, you keep your cool. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir,” Sasheen said in compliance just before putting a reassuring hand on Centurion’s shoulder.
“Please stay at ease, Benny,” the tough albeit good-hearted soldier said. “You need to understand that Gail didn’t mean that. She was just good friends with Eddie, and…”
“Sasheen, I’ve had enough people hate me to realize that she totally meant it,” Benny replied. “I know what I did was wrong, and I’m trying to make up for it. I plan to earn my respect here. But she is never going to let this go, never going to abandon this reason to hate me; and sooner or later she is going to make a serious move against me. When that happens, I’m not going to have any choice but to…”
“Now it’s my turn to tell you ‘whoa there!’” the thin but strong soldier of Middle Eastern descent interjected. “Donovan is going to handle this. I’m a friend of Gail too. Neither of us are going to let it come to that. You and Gail are on the same team, and in time, she will realize that.
“And by the way, Eddie is going to be all right. You didn’t seriously injure him thanks to his body armor and you holding back like you did. He’s just under medical observation right now.”
“I appreciate your telling me this, Sasheen. And I have no doubt that you and Donovan will do all you can to keep Gail from going postal over this. But it’s not going to matter, I can tell you that right now. No one who has ever hated me has ever ‘gotten over it.’”
“Stifle the cynicism due to the past, my friend,” Sasheen advised. “Your life is completely different now. I believe in you, and Donovan believes in you. You have a lot to look forward to in the future.”
“But not all of it good, I’m guessing.”
Centurion’s voice had a solemn and ominous pretension when he said that.
***
Behind the closed door of the conveniently chosen office, Donovan was making his displeasure with the scene Gail had just caused in the outside corridor quite clear.
“What in the hell was that all about, girl? You should have known better than to provoke Benny like that, after all the time I’ve spent trying to rehabilitate him!”
“Oh, come on now, Donovan!” Gail rejoined. “That little punk is a menace, and you know it! He should never be trusted on a mission, let alone one as important as this! He’s already proven what a dangerous and unstable psycho he is, and he already made an unauthorized departure from this facility! Even putting Eddie aside, does it make no difference to you what he did to those fellow students he attacked?”
“Of course, it does, Gail. Which is why he’s under my confinement and rehabilitation! What he did was very wrong, but those kids and others like them pushed him relentlessly, over and over again, until he snapped; and his home life wasn’t so great either. He had virtually no support from anywhere. And the thing is, he never attacked an innocent. It’s obvious he actually held back while attacking those idiotic bullies.”
Gail’s voice increased in fevered volume as her eyes began producing tears. “No innocents? What about Eddie! Eddie! Who was injured while trying to stop that little maniac! Did you forget Eddie?”
“Eddie was a soldier who attacked Benny first, even if it was the right thing to do. The kid was in a terrible state of mind, and he simply defended himself. Yes, Eddie was in the right, and he’s a good soldier and a true hero. And because of that, he knew the risks of the job. But he was not an innocent! He was a combatant who fully realized his target would likely return fire.”
“And it doesn’t matter what Lonero did to Eddie while he was under your command? He hurt Eddie and could have killed him!”
“What happened to Eddie affected me strongly, Gail. But as I said, he’s a soldier who knew the risks, and on top of that, Benny held back while attacking him too. He could have blown Eddie in half, but he didn’t. And Eddie received no injury he won’t fully heal from in time. You need to deal with this and stop letting your personal feelings for Eddie cause you to provoke Benny every time you see him!”
“Dammit, Donovan, you’re acting more like a social worker with that kid than a jail warden! As far as you seem concerned, he’s not getting punished, but he’s become your newest recruit and prize student! You even let him go back to school as if nothing happened! And after what he did there!”
“He’s being monitored at the school at all times. A few Institute agents have been assigned there posing as staff. Nothing will happen that they cannot nip in the bud, or that I won’t know about.”
“And are these agents sufficient to take Lonero down if he does go crazy again? How many innocents might he take with him to get at the next kid who says a few harsh words to him?”
Donovan had finally had enough, and he was determined to make this clear.
“Alright, I’m ordering you to stop this, Gail. Now! You’re beginning to head down the same road that you’re condemning Benny for going; and for the same reason he did. Yes, he is my newest recruit, because he’s not a bad kid! He’s deeply emotionally scarred, and he did an awful thing as a result. But he didn’t go so far that he can’t be redeemed. I’ve seen worse than him turn out okay when the proper degrees of training, respect, purpose, and responsibility were given to them.”
“You know that’s a load of bull, Donovan! You just feel sorry for him because he’s a stupid kid…!”
“No, it’s not a load of bull, Gail! I’m a prime example of the point I’m trying to make here! I was once more messed up inside than him, even if not for the same reasons. My life would have turned into a serious tragedy if I hadn’t met Sgt. Miller at exactly the time that I did. He believed in me and saw the spark of good I had buried within; something that I, and practically no one else in my life, knew was there. So, don’t you go telling me that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about!”
Gail tried very hard to remember the respect that her commanding officer had legitimately earned, not to mention that which was due to him based on chain of command protocol. She thus struggled to control her growing ire.
“That kid is nothing like you, Donovan. Nothing whatsoever!”
“You only think that because you didn’t know me back then, Gail. I’m thankful you didn’t, otherwise you would probably have had a similar hissy fit with Sgt. Miller.”
“You’re making a big mistake here, Donovan. I’m not going to just ignore what he did to Eddie and all the rest because of this misguided soft spot of yours for punks like Lonero.”
“Okay, let me end this waste of time argument by saying this.
“You are under strict orders to leave Benny alone. That means you stay the hell away from him, in case you need that spelled out for you. You will not approach him under any circumstances without my authorization. You will not speak to him under any circumstances without my prior authorization. You will not be assigned to any detail that is connected to him in any way, save possibly for certain extenuating circumstances that I, and only I, may authorize.
“If you have any problem with this then I order you to come clean with me about it right now, and I will reassign you to a facility in another warp-affected city that is outside of New York State. Or maybe it would be best to remove you from ‘defense’ and place you in an administrative position instead, if you can’t emotionally handle the rigors of this station. Speak now or forever hold your peace on this subject!”
The tough as nails young woman gritted her teeth with such force that she thought their enamel might crack. But after a few seconds of silence, she reined in her fearsome temper, and the reddish pallor that stained her lovely facial features promptly dissipated.
“No… sir. I have no problem with these orders.”
“Good. Because that is the end of this.” Donovan went silent for a moment, then spoke again in a gentler tone.
“Listen, Gail… I respect you and trust you a lot, because you’ve earned it.
There are few soldiers I’d rather have at my side than you. So, do not make me and everyone else concerned regret my not re-assigning you to another facility right here and now. You’re dismissed, Agent Parker.”
Donovan then turned and walked out the door, leaving it partially open. Gail remained inside with a heated expression marring her attractive visage. She was determined not to leave the room until Centurion was completely out of her line of sight.
This isn’t over, you little bastard, the formidable femme ruminated to herself as she struggled to maintain her silence.
***
Virginia Street was known to be one of the most dangerous and crime-ridden boulevards of Buffalo’s Lower West Side, but this evening Centurion traipsed across its dark thoroughfare with no fear of any human opposition. He was quite anxious, however, about the imminent prospect of knocking heads with some serious metahuman opposition that was outside the controlled circumstances of The Stadium. This was serious stuff, the veritable real deal, and he pushed himself to show courage in the face of it.
Centurion had actually come to respect Donovan Jakes, and wanted to prove that the soldier’s faith in him was justified and not a miscalculation on his part. The hero-in-training couldn’t stomach the thought of embarrassing both himself and Donovan by proving Gail Parker and other detractors correct.
Centurion scanned the decrepit houses and darkened driveways with eyesight superior to that of a normal human. The sorry condition of the surrounding infrastructure and rows of cheap cars in poor condition gave the area a grimy look that made him cringe. His own neighborhood was nothing to be impressed about, but it didn’t compare to this degree of decrepitude.
Donovan is insane if he ever expects me to be loyal to a system that forces people in today’s day and age to live like this. But as he would tell me if I commented aloud about it right now, “Keep your damned idealistic politics to yourself and focus on the task at hand, kid!”
Centurion called upon his recent training and endeavored to keep to the shadows as much as possible while he commenced his search for whatever awaited him here. At the same time, he attempted to focus his “cosmic awareness” to alert him to anything dangerous that may be lurking beside him in the grungy darkness.
“Are you okay out there, Centurion?” Donovan asked over the mini-communicator embedded within the youth’s right ear.
The fledgling teen hero put his finger to his outer canal and voiced a response. “Yes, Mother, I’m fine. I even made sure to look both ways when I crossed the street.”
“Don’t be your usual wise ass self, kid. Agent Kahn and I are in the van two blocks down, but right now, you’re on your own. This is your first time in the field against…”
“… a metahuman threat,” Centurion finished for his mentor and commanding officer. “Yes, I understood that by the fifth time you explained it to me. But so far, all is quiet, and… wait.”
A strange, intense sensation began permeating the interior of his skull, as if some sort of warning beacon was triggered. A nightmare-inducing image suddenly filled his mind.
“What is it, Agent Centurion? Do you see something?”
“No, not exactly. But I seem to be sensing…”
The young champion’s sentence was abruptly cut off as a powerful hirsute form leapt out from under a concealing pile of refuse and slammed into him with sufficient force to knock him clear off his feet.
He landed in front of a nearby driveway to find himself under the savage assault of a bestial creature the likes of which he never imagined existing outside of the horror films he frequently streamed online. The adolescent hero could feel this entity’s extended claws raking gashes through the super-durable skin on his facial area. The suddenness of the brutal attack and the pain he felt as a result caused him to panic.
“Ahhhhh shit!” he shouted, while he struggled to shove the fiendish attacker off him.
Niña Gata’s only reply was a wicked and savage hissing growl that mirrored the maniacal fury of her attack.
“Centurion, what is it?” Donovan queried frantically over the communicator. “Do you need assistance? You better not have just stepped in dog shit!”
But Centurion was in no position to tap the mini-device with his index finger and reply. Rather, he was in the desperate position of trying to prevent his eyes from being clawed out of their sockets.
Clearly not expecting the levels of strength, speed, and sheer ferocity wielded by the cat-girl, the inexperienced young hero was becoming overwhelmed with sheer terror and physical pain as the she-beast continued ripping into his facial skin. Within several seconds, though, that feeling was replaced with anger and a determined resolve to get that creature the hell off him.
By forcing himself to act Centurion finally managed to grab the creature’s wrists and pull them away from him with a towering strength that surpassed her own. He then buckled his legs underneath the female manimal until the soles of his boots were pressed against her lower abdomen.
“Get… off!” he hollered as he pushed his legs forward with all his superhuman might.
The resulting double kick flung Niña Gata through the air for over a hundred feet, until she made a painful crash into several large plastic garbage containers that were issued to all residents of the city. Her agility proved astounding, however, and she quickly leaped into a quadrupedal stance.
Though taken aback by the atypical power of this seemingly human transgressor of her territory, the bestial femme fatale’s animalistic rage allowed her to ignore the sharp pain cutting through her rib cage like several hot needles.
“Graahh!” Centurion bellowed in fury as he jumped back to his feet and released a beam of incandescent bluish energy in his adversary’s general direction.
The cat-girl managed to leap out of the way at just the right second, causing the searing ray to instead strike the downed garbage dispensers. The thick blue plastic sizzled away as the refuse contained within was blown across the driveway by the force of the blast.
“Agent Centurion, you had best tell us what the hell is going on, or we’re coming out there now!” Donovan demanded.
“I have contact with the enemy, for crying out loud!” the teen responded as quickly as he could. “She’s a nasty little number, but I’m going to bust her ass!”
“Her?”
“She… it… whatever! It sort of looked like a girl, okay? I have to sign off, I’m on this!”
So, Claire was right then, Donovan thought to himself. “Hold it! What type of damage did you do with that energy beam we just heard you discharge?”
But Centurion didn’t respond. He took on radio silence to focus his full attention on rushing into the driveway and looking in every direction for his quarry, determined to strike her before she struck him again. Though he wasn’t yet fully aware of this, the vicious cuts permeating his face were rapidly healing.
As he ran into the section of the expansive yard that led towards a garage capable of holding the cars of four residents, the buzzing sensation in the front section of his skull suddenly “went off” at full intensity again. This time the youthful hero reacted to it just quickly enough to turn as Niña Gata leapt at him from atop the roof of a nearby tool shack.
The ferocious cat-creature again struck Centurion with enough force to send him back against the wall of the home covering the eastern section of the driveway. And once again, she attacked her monochrome-clad opponent with an incredible degree of inhuman fury, hissing and howling with sounds akin to an enraged bobcat combined with a woman’s shriek.
The beast girl tore at her opponent’s face a few times before his superhumanly keen reflexes and recent training combined to enable him to block her furious fusillade of blows. Nevertheless, her powerful talons cut through the sleeves of his costume and ripped into the uber-tough flesh below the bio-mimetic material. The material immediately began resealing along with his skin, but the amount of damage his adversary was inflicting began taxing his Odic-charged healin
g ability.
This time, though, Centurion’s feeling of desperation and fear quickly escalated into a primordial wrath of his own. His inner resolve now refused to allow him to tremble helplessly while he was brutalized by another, no matter how vicious or strong they may be.
Shouting once more in defiance, the young hero grabbed one of the cat-girl’s flaying arms along with her throat in his steely grip. Niña Gata struggled with relentless fury to get loose, but Centurion’s grip prevailed for the moment.
Despite being rapidly choked into submission with one arm held fast and the other unable to find a position to strike, the cat-girl’s cunning would quickly prove as formidable as her strength and ferocity.
She lifted both of her legs, extended the claws that were once human toenails, and used them to slice Centurion’s stomach area. Both his bio-memetic uniform and skin beneath received two sets of five deep tears. Blood flowed out of the hero’s gut in concert with a sharp pain exploding across his abdomen.
“Aaarrggh!” Centurion screamed. “Oh, you bitch!”
Even though the sudden painful injury caused him to release Niña Gata, he was angry enough to push past the pain and get into a practiced fighting stance. The cat-girl rushed her adversary, hissing and growling with an unbridled ferociousness. She slashed maniacally with her hand claws, forcing Centurion to the defensive and he instinctively placed his forearms in front of his face and eyes to protect them.
More tears in his uniform and skin were received even as the cruel wounds on his abdomen began sealing, with the bleeding already having almost completely ceased.
The she-beast then jumped forward and closed her jaws on her opponent’s left arm, sinking her small but razor-sharp teeth deep into his skin. Centurion yelped in pain and found himself driven back against the tenement wall behind him. Niña Gata then leapt on the costumed teen and her needle-like teeth went for his face.
However, Centurion’s reflexes proved even faster than her feline-like speed. Before her teeth could bite into his forehead region the hero grasped her throat in both of his hands, holding her in a choking grip and spoiling the move. She struggled furiously but was again held fast.
Centurion- Dark Genesis Page 18
