“Whatever!” Kila interjected. “It makes you mad enough, too, when you’re not crushing on them.”
Connor’s eyes went wide, and he blushed.
Spooky didn’t even blush. She just gave Connor that big grin. “Hey, you’re a good lookin’ guy: tall, dark, and made of steel. But as it happens I know two things about you. One: your skin is impenetrable and two: there’s no point in me asking you out on a date.”
Connor sputtered, “What? Are you saying I’m–”
Spooky laughed again, throwing her head back and guffawing.
“Of course not. Just that she’s a lucky girl, and I’m saying not one word more so don’t bother asking.”
Connor stammered out some apologies, left behind the prized pizza, and retreated back to Linc’s room.
That girl’s got the right name!
His mind processed a number of other useless, worried thoughts as he closed Linc’s door and paced the room. He went through every girl he could remember meeting recently. The girl at the convenience store, the teleporting girl, Heaps, the healer, Spooky, and Kila… although Spooky’s revelation about it being a bad idea for her to ask him out seemed to rule her out. Who else could she be talking about? He didn’t have a steady girl back at school; it was hard enough to get a date, let alone get someone to go out with him regularly.
All of which, he forced himself to admit, was completely irrelevant to the real problem. Kila sure didn’t like him much and if that was because she knew he was going to try to escape, then he had a serious problem. In the grand scheme of things, whatever woman was supposed to be in his future mattered relatively little next to whether he could escape from a group of people bent on ruling the world with super-human abilities.
He couldn’t stop worrying over all the things they might know about him. To get his mind off it, he went out walking, exploring the Legion’s base. The rich decor never ceased to amaze him. If he hadn’t known better, he would have assumed he was in some old east coast university rather than a cave in the desert.
When he heard the sound of many ‘kiais’ in unison, the black belt in him would not let him ignore it. Kiai was Japanese for the karate battle cry that Westerners usually interpret as “hiyah!” Connor followed his ears until he found his way back to the gymnasium that he and Linc had found last night.
There, he saw what looked like two or three dozen men and women in their late teens or early twenties practicing the martial arts. Instead of the traditional martial arts uniform, called a gi, they all wore the black fatigues of the Legion but with just a tank top instead of the uniform shirt.
They were busy at some very serious, very hard sparring. They weren’t wearing gloves and armor and appeared to be hitting somewhere near full force. Connor was taken aback.
Practice in his uncle’s dojo wasn’t like that.
Connor saw one woman dodge her male sparring partner’s punch and get hold of the wrist. Experience told Connor what was coming, and he was wincing even before it happened. The girl shifted her stance, pulled on the arm, and the man fell face down on the hard wooden floor, screaming in pain. The shoulder was probably dislocated.
Connor was just about to run out and offer to help when he saw the guy from the previous night with the long black hair get up from a bench against the wall and walk over. Connor remembered the nickname: Wings.
Wings knelt down by the injured man and twisted his shoulder back into something like a normal position. He ignored the man’s screams of pain, which got far more intense as soon as he touched the injured joint. Then he gripped the shoulder tightly with both hands.
At that instant, the screams of pain stopped. The man got gingerly back to his feet, testing how much weight his shoulder would bear as he used it to push himself off the ground.
He stared at his shoulder in amazement, thanked Wings, and then returned to practice.
Only then did Connor notice that Sebastian himself was leading the sparring practice. As the students got back to fighting, the leader of the Legion saw Connor and walked over.
“Welcome to Enforcer training. This may very well be where you wind up in the Legion – you and your friend Linc. Enforcers are the police and soldiers of the Legion. They’re the people who specialize in physical combat.”
“Pretty brutal sparring,” Connor said. “In my dojo, we never had a guy’s shoulder get dislocated.”
Sebastian shrugged and replied, “We aren’t training to put on a pretty show here. Remember that if the government had their way, they would throw every one of us into a testing facility to face their practical application tests. This is war. We intend to take that war straight to the government. When that happens, Enforcers will be fighting for our lives. We train that way.”
He added, “Besides, Wings or one of the other Healers is always here. Most injuries are no big deal.”
Connor shrugged. He didn’t want to have an argument. Instead, he changed the subject.
“What style are you teaching them?” he asked. “It’s definitely not Shotokan or anything like that or TKD. It looks kind of Krav Maga-ish, but I’ve seen that before and this doesn’t look the same.”
Sebastian replied, “I call it Chojin Ken. It’s our own style. It starts with elements of all those and a few others, but it’s adapted to the fact that most of the practitioners have some kind of superhuman ability they can bring to bear on the fight. Telekinesis, for example, radically affects how you fight. So does knowing the future. It’s unbelievably hard to fight someone who knows exactly where you’re going to step.”
“That’s why Chojin Ken incorporates a lot of elements of Prisoner Control. We may need to not just fight our opponent but deny them the ability to use any superhuman powers they have.”
“Chojin Ken?” Connor asked.
Sebastian grinned and said, “Most martial arts have names derived from Asian languages, so I plugged ‘Superhuman Fist’ into Google translate and got that.”
“Bold,” Connor replied. “I want a few more stripes on my belt before I start inventing my own style.”
Sebastian smiled. “I don’t care about any Sensei’s approval. I’m only doing this to win. Tradition means nothing. Domination is everything.”
As if he could read the doubt in Connor’s mind, Sebastian waved at the ranks of training students. Connor’s eyes followed where he pointed until he saw Linc sparring with them.
Sebastian said, “Your friend’s taking to it well so far. Pitch is an Enforcer, too. You’ll like being one.”
Connor just shrugged, so Sebastian gave him a grin. “Why not spar with us? I saw you strip the weapon from that officer you ran into at Area 51. You can probably keep up with some of the Enforcers.”
Connor said, “I don’t know…”
He barely had the sentence started when Sebastian gave him a feral grin, turned around, and shouted, “Linc! Front and center!”
CHAPTER NINE
Fight his roommate in front of the Legion’s entire army? Connor immediately said, “Oh wait–”
But Linc was already running up. To his oldest friend, the young man’s eyes told a clear story. Linc desperately wanted to impress Sebastian, which accounted for how quickly he answered the call, but knew that he had never won a sparring match with Connor. He didn’t know how he could possibly pull this off in any way that didn’t end in humiliation.
Connor was determined not to let that happen. He wasn’t going to humiliate Linc in front of all these people – not for anything. But at the same time, he felt a strong desire to compete with Sebastian welling up in him. Connor’s approach to martial arts was that you respected your teachers and always sought no violence at all as the best solution.
Sebastian, on the other hand, wanted a fight, and he was teaching his Enforcers the same attitude.
It was important to Connor that he fight in such a way as to prove that his philosophy was the one worth following.
All the other Legion Enforcers wore tank tops. Connor kne
w at once that the heavy utility shirt he wore was obviously going to be uncomfortable to fight in. He quickly unlaced his boots, and then took off his shirt.
A few of the young women among the Enforcers whistled or giggled, and at once he regretted his decision. He was about to ask for a tank top like everyone else wore, when Linc came at him.
No ceremony, no fist bump, no bow. His old friend just rushed at him, throwing a punch.
Connor grabbed Linc’s punch with one hand and his tank top with the other. He swung his left foot wide around for leverage, and used his weight and Linc’s momentum to throw his old roommate to the ground.
While Linc was in the process of getting back to his feet, Connor gave the bow that he had expected to be given before the fighting started. Then he dropped into a guard stance.
Linc stood up and raised his fists to cover his face, partially hiding the angry look there.
Connor knew what was coming even before it happened. Linc’s left hand drove in for his middle. Connor stopped it with a downward block. The pain of his forearm hitting Linc’s told him his friend wasn’t throwing gentle punches. If it had connected, that blow would have hurt.
He felt anger rising in him at how thoroughly his friend had given himself over to Sebastian’s teachings. At the same time, he redoubled his determination not to humiliate Linc. The Legion was already straining their friendship; making him look weak in front of all the Enforcers might break it.
Linc kicked, he punched again, he tried a double kick at the knee and then at the head. Connor shifted aside and dodged them all or blocked them. All Linc’s strikes came with the same weakness. He was left-handed and had never learned to hit very well on his weak side. Connor’s old roommate almost never struck with his right, and it made fighting him easy.
Connor threw a light front hand jab at Linc’s jaw. The punch moved fast enough to be real but still just a step too slow, making sure his friend had time to block it.
Make him look good.
Again Connor struck a little slower than he could, with a high crescent kick aimed at his friend’s head. Exactly as Connor hoped, Linc shot both hands up above his head, crossed at the forearm, to catch the kick in the corner. Then he grabbed Connor’s ankle and shoved back, tipping him over.
I taught him that!
Connor fell backward on his rear, slapped the ground with both palms open, and rolled over to come up six feet away and at guard. He smiled at Linc.
“Good block, Linc,” he said. “But one of these days you have to learn to deliver a serious hit with your right hand.”
Linc’s eyes nearly popped out, and he charged Connor, fists flying.
Connor shifted to the side and threw a hard straight punch at his friend’s jaw as his rush carried him past. At the last minute, Connor unclenched his fist and stuck out his index finger to poke instead of punch Lincoln in the jaw.
Game over, friend. If this were real I’d have laid you out just then, and you know it.
Instead of graciously admitting defeat, Linc spun backward and threw his elbow at Connor’s head. He missed, but the strike came so close that Connor’s fighting instinct took over before he could remind himself that he was trying to be gentle.
Before he really even knew what he was doing, a left uppercut drove right into Linc’s short ribs. Then a right. Then another left.
Linc groaned and toppled over to the floor.
Connor said, “Crap, sorry man, I didn’t…”
Before he could finish, the Healer Wings was off the bench and heading for the downed fighter.
Sebastian stepped in front of Connor.
“This might go better if you have to fight someone you don’t know so well,” he said and then added, “We can start it your way if you want.”
With that he bowed, then held out clenched fists in front of him.
Connor stared at Sebastian for a moment, gritting his teeth and snorting like a Clydesdale through his nose, trying to catch his breath.
Finally, he made up his mind. He bowed, touched his fists to Sebastian’s, and then slid back into a guard stance.
They faced each other for a moment, bouncing on the balls of their feet. Connor tossed a light front hand jab at his opponent, just to start things off.
Sebastian dealt with it with an upward block. That told Connor he was the kind of fighter who would block rather than dodge. Valuable information.
Sebastian threw a feint at Connor’s gut, trying to get him to open up his guard for a block. Connor just slipped to the side to dodge. He put a very gentle punch into Sebastian’s side, where the Legion Leader’s punch had left him exposed.
Sebastian backed up, his guard in place, and said, “We don’t train for fake hits here. We train for war.”
Connor threw another front hand jab at the head.
Instead of blocking, Sebastian simply disappeared.
He was completely gone, vanished from sight.
Connor had had a plan. The front hand jab would make Sebastian block, the block would leave his solar plexus unguarded, and the follow up punch would hit that like a meteor. Sebastian would double over, and a left hook would put him on the ground, unconscious.
He was so committed to that plan that his follow up punch was already moving before his mind even adapted to the fact that Sebastian was no longer visible. It hit thin air.
He can turn invisible!
The memory was barely seated when Connor felt someone grab his right hand and roll it over into a cop grab, with the wrist bent backwards. It put a lot of pain on the wrist and elbow joints. It was a good way to control someone. Connor bent over to keep his arm from being dislocated and out the corner of his eye he saw Sebastian reappear.
“This isn’t about tradition and honor. This is Chojin Ken. We don’t show mercy. We’re starting a war, and we train to dominate that.”
Connor gritted his teeth. He wanted to punch Sebastian. He regretted tapping his ribs so gently when he had the chance. He was angry and wanted a real fight, but it was too late. The only ways out of this hold were a serious injury to his arm or a loss.
“You win,” he said.
Sebastian said, “I wondered if that hold would work. With impenetrable skin, a normal punch isn’t going to make that much of an impression on you. But holds that affect the joints and such seem to work. You told me earlier the soldiers in Area 51 were able to use immobilizing holds on you to great effect. I think I just found the explanation. Those aren’t penetrating trauma.”
Sebastian let him out of the hold and grinned as Connor stood back up, rubbing his wrist.
The leader of the Legion said, “Interesting fact. I’ll file that away for future use.”
With that, he turned around and strode to the front of the gymnasium. He gave a kiai and clapped, and at once all the sparring partners stopped and turned to face front. They bowed to Sebastian, and the class broke up.
Connor recovered his shirt and waited at the door until his old roommate came out. Together, the two of them walked back to Linc’s room. They walked in silence for a while. Their sparring match had gotten a little more real than ever before. Neither seemed certain of how to start the conversation.
Finally, Linc said, “I should have backed off when you tapped me.”
Connor replied, “I should never have lost control and went after your side like I did. Sifu would discipline me for losing control like that.”
Linc said, “It’s cool. Having healers around makes everything better. That is an amazing sensation man. You’re sitting there clutching your side and wanting to scream from the pain, and then all of a sudden, boom! Everything’s fine.”
“I still feel bad about hitting you that hard,” Connor answered.
“I know. I would probably feel the same way. But it’s cool, man. Nothing’s going to come between us.”
He paused for a moment, and then said, “Tell you what, though. I sure wish I could move faster. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you were slowing y
our punches down so I could block them. I really don’t like losing fights. I’d give anything to be faster.”
Once they arrived in his room, Lincoln said, “Hey Con, I’ve been meaning to ask you this. The girls said you took off in a big hurry from lunch. What’s up with you and Spooky and Kila? You have a date with one of them?”
Connor shivered and shook his head. “No, like the total opposite. Kila hates me, and Spooky’s ability is that she knows things about people, so she was dropping all these hints about some other girl I’m supposed to be with. It freaked me out. It was like the battle of the truth tellers in there, with both of them spitting out all these facts about my life.”
He didn’t mention the fact that what really scared him was what they might know about his plans for the evening.
Lincoln laughed at him. “So let me get this straight. A girl with the supernatural ability to know the truth about people says you’re going to finally get a girlfriend, and your response is to run away? I would think you’d ask her for a roadmap. It’s about time you finally got a date man!”
Connor blushed. “Well, with her giggling at me and Kila giving me that stinkeye…”
“Meh, I wouldn’t worry about Kila,” Linc said. “I don’t think she likes anyone. She certainly gave me nothing but dirty looks. Let’s talk about more important stuff. Any progress on your power?”
Connor shook his head and said, “I wish I had the same confidence as you and Spooky. She’s convinced of the same thing. My skin is impenetrable, she says. ‘Made of steel’ were her exact words.”
“See?” Linc replied. “You know she knows the truth about people. See?”
Connor shrugged.
Linc gave an exasperated groan. “Come on man! I saw you get shot and not be hurt. A girl who knows truths about people tells you your skin is impenetrable. The government says you have the same test results as every other person with abnormal abilities. Connor, listen to me. This. Is. Real. You have special powers. Your skin is immune to bullets. Do you not get what that means?”
Sons of Thunder Page 7
