“So he waltzes in, arts the place all up, puts everyone to work doin' the same thing, punishes useless or weak people by sendin' them to the barren frozen plate above this one, and shuts all the women and children in the houses? Sounds solid I guess, still don't really know the point though. It seems way too troublesome for a limp dick like him. Someone's gotta be pullin' the strings,” Crelyos retorted, looking to the old man for his thoughts.
“Hm, I have no idea. Why don't you ask him yourself? His mansion is about a mile from the city off in a mountain stronghold which he made us build for him.” The old man shook like a quaking buggy engine when he stood. The popping of his bones echoed like a tap dancer having a seizure as he hobbled to a curtain at the back of his house.
With a slow, purposeful sweep of his decrepit wrist, he drew the curtain back to reveal a window. Crelyos and I walked over, peering out into the distance. An exotic mansion sat embedded in the distant mountain top. It looked eerily similar to Doctor Oswald's manor back in Junction City, only several times more garish.
“Sir, may I ask why you're sharing all this with us? You didn't ask anything about us, and we only convinced Raze's men that we were looking for work. They likely intended to have us searching for those hyped as well,” I asked as I knelt down in front of him.
“Come now, dear. You don't suspect me to be as stupid as his cronies. I knew from the minute you both walked in you weren't from around here and you weren't helpless. If you're here to put a stop to Raze's nefarious hold over my city and its folk, you have my support.” The old man chuckled softly, at least I thought it was a chuckle as the sound of stale air wheezing into the night in set intervals from his crinkled lungs was either laughter or he was about to collapse.
“Oh we'll stop him. And while we're at it, we'll make him pay reparations for what he's done to all of you.” I assured the old man, who waggled his finger at me slowly with a look of genuine concern molded into his aged face.
“Be careful young lady. Our surgeon, Eugene, had similar notions. Unfortunately things did not go so well for him. Raze doesn't tolerate resistance or rebellion. Poor Eugene…” Mayor Trumark trailed off in sad recollection.
“Eugene?! What did the bastard do to Eugene? Is there anything I can do to save him? He's an old friend of mine!” Crelyos clenched his right fist and placed his left hand on the old man's shoulder, rattling him far more violently than a man in his state should have been shaken. After a few seconds, Trumark placed a crinkled hand tenderly upon Crelyos', and the old man lifted that same single brow just enough to expose a tear-filled, vacant green eye that resembled something like a cross between seaweed and algae.
“What, you didn't recognize him in the city square?”
File 09: Analytical Fighter
“Did you know him long?” I stood behind Crelyos in the town square while he gazed up at the charred skeleton of his late companion. The chilly breeze whistling through the slit between plates feathered back my hair and whipped about the pieces of my outfit loose enough to billow. The only parts of Crelyos that moved in the wind were the lining of his olive tank-top, the tips of his messily spiked hair, and the heaving, infuriated swell and deflation of his muscular chest.
“Not really. He did a little work on me, and we had a few drinks. But it was long enough. Good surgeon, nice fella. Didn't deserve to end up like this.” Crelyos grunted his words through his grinding teeth. His feelings bled from him like an open wound, but the frightening part to me was that the emotions he exhibited, rather than grief and pain, were fury and rage.
“I see, well I hate to interrupt your moment, but I'm not sure how much longer our audience is going to remain patient,” I laced my words with cold sarcasm. Surrounding us and the unfortunate body of Doctor Eugene, most of the guards stationed in Loftsborough from Raze's outfit stood with spears, blades, and firearm muzzles aimed angrily in our direction. Why did they seem so angry? They had caught Crelyos with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. A random minion with a semi-disintegrated chest cavity spurting blood and suffering from postmortem spasms was the cookie jar. Crelyos' right hand was, well, the hand.
Shortly after Mayor Trumark informed the former soldier of his old drinking buddy's fate, Crelyos' rage exploded into an unstoppable frenzy. With an animalistic scream of vengeance, Crelyos rushed from Trumark's abode and turned his unbridled feelings on the two guards standing watch outside the door. The man to the right of the entrance heard Crelyos' shout and poked his head around the corner at entirely the wrong time.
The phrase “curiosity killed the cat” took on far too literal a meaning when Crelyos smashed his right fist into the thug's face. The resulting reverberation from Crelyos' mysterious implant saturated the area with a gratuitous amount of liquid as chunks of cranium and brain matter exploded into the freezing wind. The guard's body careened through the air several feet before skidding to a halt in a pool of his own vitae.
Because the first guard's blood misted in such random directions, Crelyos emerged from the doorway with a mosaic of the crimson fluid painting his entire right arm and blotching the right side of his face and chest. The darkness surrounding him added to the dreadful aura he exuded, and as he hissed a cold, foggy exhale through the slender space between his lips, his gaze turned slowly to the remaining guard on the left.
From my position pursuing the behemoth of a warrior, I was unable to behold the expression of the remaining sentry. I imagined a gawking, trembling face frozen in horror at the sight of Crelyos, the demonic personification of rage. While I failed to witness the sight of Raze's minion ruining a perfectly good pair of pants, I certainly heard the quivering whimpers building up to a deafening cry of desperation when Crelyos drew his right hand back and plunged it mercilessly into the man's chest.
The squish of flesh and crunch of bone, along with grotesque gurgling sounds, replaced the guard's pathetic cry. When Crelyos next spun around, his fist was lodged within the partially disintegrated rib cage of the goon. The deceased's involuntary twitches made me cringe even as the fuming blond beast trudged to the center of the town square to pay his final respects to Doctor Eugene. Consequently, that was where our trouble began when the rest of Raze's minions, having heard the final cries of their comrades, rushed to investigate the situation. Apparently, they were not pleased with their discovery.
“Well, the assholes came here for a show. So… let's give 'em a show.” Crelyos growled. I responded with a furtive grin.
My Cognitive Accelerator stopped time's machinations while I quickly assessed our situation and the course of action necessary to overcome it. I counted a total of ten enemies in front of us and within the scope of my peripheral vision. Though I was unable to see directly behind me, my enhanced auditory sense detected the heartbeats of three more at our rear. The grimy gentlemen sported an assortment of red and white rags they undoubtedly considered fashionable clothing.
Though some wore face masks or scarves to conceal portions of their displeasing countenances, the flame tattoo nestled beneath their right eyes remained unanimously exposed. Of the thirteen assailants, one to our right flank and one in front and slightly to the right of Crelyos belonged to the female gender. The woman ahead of Crelyos wielded a double barrel shotgun which, much to our advantage, was far too large for her petite frame. The other young lady carried a pair of short swords similar in length and design to the long daggers nestled within my sheathes.
Aside from the tiny girl's shotgun, I noted three other firearms among the pack of brigands. Next to the shotgun lass, and directly in front of Crelyos, a man with beady eyes and an angry expression held a fully automatic Uzi. To my right, a gargantuan, muscular brute held a six-shot revolver far too small for his enormous hand; he gripped it so tightly that I envisioned the steel grip molding to his clutches like a crushed aluminum can. Finally, a slouched thug with a shaved head and a torn bandana wrapped around his mouth clu
tched an assault rifle. His firing stance and grip on the weapon screamed “novice.”
As though on cue from Crelyos' reckless comment, the expressions of our assailants began sluggishly morphing from intent gazes of a high stakes stand-off to snarling war cries of snapped tension. The hasty lot intended to make the first move and clean house before we had the chance to even properly greet them. I felt a prickling sense of anticipation well up within my chest. My nerves remained steadfastly calm in the wake of that sensation; rather, the cold weight pressing heavily atop my heart served only to heighten my awareness of the stakes and to remind me of the consequences for underestimating death's impartial affection. I knew what needed to be done.
Though the speed at which I perceived time lent me the sensation of moving while completely submerged in water, I sliced my hands through the air like the fangs of a predator through a jugular. I criss-crossed my right and left arms at the elbows; my right hand found the dagger's hilt sheathed on my left hip, and my left hand crossed over my right arm to the dagger's hilt sheathed on my right hip.
The expressions of our opponents finished transforming, and their jaws hung open ready to conjure forth a mighty shout. I ripped my arms wide across my chest as though ready to return death's cruel embrace. The action also loosed my lengthy daggers from their respective restraints, and with the momentum gained from the vicious whip of my shoulders fortified by my Supersoldier nanite, the silver instruments of death shot like bullets from the tips of my fingers and turned pommel over blade toward their respective marks.
In perfect synchronization with the swishing blades sailing through the air, I shot my right hand up to the stock of the rifle loosely slung across my back. I used the feminine curve of my right shoulder as leverage and yanked the stock down; the barrel of the rifle flipped up and over the hill formed by my collar bone and descended into my waiting left hand. By the time the business end of my rifle settled onto my target, the shotgun toting damsel to Crelyos' right, our enemies with firearms started applying pressure to their triggers, and those carrying more up close and personal tools of life-rending began drawing back their chosen weapons in time with their battle charge.
I took a second, in my time's perspective, to aim at the unfortunate female. My naturally sharp reflexes, the Supersoldier nanite stimulating my every muscle fiber, and the speed and agility training I received in Bradich's mercenary unit propelled my physical and mental quickness into a league all its own. While it was true that my own motions, within the prison of my Cognitive Accelerator, felt to me as though I moved through some sticky gelatinous substance, the minions' movements were as slugs straining to creep across a blade of grass. To my enemies, I may as well have been lightning incarnate.
I squeezed the trigger at the lowest valley of my foggy exhale. The resounding crack exploded like a bolt of lightning tearing asunder a thundering cloud. A symphony of sounds flooded the air in unison with enough force to tear the concentration fueling my Cognitive Accelerator. Mixed with the battle shouts of Raze's guards, the satisfying squelch of my blades traveled across the battlefield when the daggers found new sheathes within the mouths of their targets.
I had refrained from aiming for the thugs' hearts or lungs since such blows would not have guaranteed a secure kill. The threat of Panacea keeping them alive posed too great a risk to chance aiming for their torsos. However, with their maws agape to join their comrades in a vicious shout, they ignorantly removed the only barricade which may have skewed an attack to their medulla oblongata: their teeth.
When Raze's minions parted their enamel defenses, they may as well have painted proverbial reticules on the backs of their throats. Though the target allowed for no margin of error, my confidence in my aim applied to all things, including tossing the long daggers with which Bradich ceaselessly trained me during my days as a Bald Eagle. Ironic, since I intended to use that training to end him. But thanks to that training, my daggers became talons used to snatch the life from my targets without fail, and as a result, the two gurgling and sputtering men were dead before they hit the ground.
Almost simultaneously, the head of the woman brandishing the shotgun burst like an exploding melon as Oswald's custom, high caliber rifle round collided with the lady's skull. When attempting to head butt a bullet, the exchange was brief but relatively messy. Given her diminutive stature and the effort she expended to even hold the weapon erect, I determined that the danger she posed was less eminent than her male counterparts if only by a microsecond. Such a small nuance determined the order in which I exterminated the ranged combatants.
The only remaining thug in possession of a firearm stood directly in front of Crelyos. I only hoped my blonde comrade would follow my lead and control his rage long enough to dispose of the immediate threat before succumbing to his rampage. I possessed little time to process that thought, however, as the cacophony of noises that tore me from the advantages of my Cognitive Accelerator meant our enemies moved swiftly once again. I knew that because the twin blades of one of the remaining females flashed in a blinding arch straight toward my face.
The recoil of my single shot along with my own decision to lift the rifle skyward granted me an advantage; I allowed momentum to do its work and pulled my rifle in front of my face. Her swords collided with its steel underbelly. The metal clang of steel against steel sent vibrations along my palms. I shoved her blades away and leapt straight up in the air, for my peripherals caught sight of one of the men to the left thrusting a sharpened metal spike, shaped to resemble a spear, toward my knees. The leap allowed me to avoid the low blow, and I heard the dull thud of the steel spear colliding with the iron ground.
As the thug failed to embed the spear's tip into the metal ground as someone with a Supersoldier nanite like Crelyos certainly would have, I quickly noted the man wielding it lacked any form of strength augmentation. While still hanging in the air, I twisted my hips and spun, bringing the backside of my right heel to bear against the side of the assailing woman's head. The force behind my leaping spin kick, empowered by my Supersolider implant, shattered her skull and snapped her neck with a loud crunch. She flew through the air several yards before slamming into the hard ground and bouncing twice. Her lifeless corpse rolled to a contorted heap, and her blades careened off in two different directions.
I followed through with the kick, and as I descended I slammed a single foot onto the man's spear, pinning it to the ground. Without any form of strength augmentation, its wielder unsuccessfully struggled to wrestle it from beneath my foot. While he pulled and grunted in vain, I calmly tugged back the bolt-action chamber of my rifle to eject the shell and load another shot. I watched him with a morbid smile, admiring his persistence even as I prepared to blow his head off his shoulders.
The sound of gunfire somewhere to the right drew my attention. The red sparks flying from the tip of an Uzi lit up the night and blended into the bright glow cast by Loftsborough's imitation sun. Crelyos dashed headlong into the hail of gunfire, and he roared a sound resembling a cross between maniacal laughter and a furious howl. The hot lead spitting from the tip of the Uzi thudded into soft flesh with such tenacity that the squishes satisfied the beady eyed thug, his high pitched guffaws drenched with sadistic insanity testified to that fact.
Unfortunately, in his intoxicated madness, the fool failed to realize the vast majority of his volley penetrated the wrong flesh. Crelyos kept his right hand embedded in the gaping chest cavity of the guard he arbitrarily slaughtered at Trumark's abode, and he used the cadaver as a giant shield to protect his vitals. With that trusty shield, he charged toward the crazed gunman with the invariable stubbornness of a bull. I was uncertain whether Crelyos predicted he would need a shield with the foresight of a tactical genius and thus had held fast to the limp, mutilated body or if the corpse's presence merely slipped his mind until that moment. Either way, if time had allowed me the luxury, I might have marveled at Crelyos' cruel ing
enuity, but I possessed my own plethora of problems.
The theater of emotions on the face of the man struggling to free his metal spear from the underside of my foot intensified with each transpiring second. At first, the expression resembled frustration laced with the determination to prove his manhood. Phrases such as, “You're so dead, bitch,” and “Just you wait,” dappled his strenuous grunts as he tugged and twisted the metallic bar in vain. As the resounding clicks of my rifle returning to a readied state drifted through the air, however, the tight wrinkles of aggravation warped into sagging lines of fear, and beads of perspiration soon complimented his horror. By the time the emotional transition ran its course, it was far too late for him.
I nonchalantly shouldered the weapon with the barrel situated mere inches from the thug's face. As I curled my finger around my trigger, I could not discern, for the life of me, why he refused to simply relinquish his hold on the metal bar and take cover. By the time the realization of impending doom dawned on the ignorant sap, his body shivered with notable discomposure. My smile widened.
However, the smile vanished when I caught a gleam from the corner of my eye. I drew my rifle flat to my chest and ensured its metallic underbelly faced upward when I arched my back. And I did arch my back. In fact, the velocity with which I curved into a gymnast's backbend may have snapped a weaker person's spine. The reason for my evasive maneuver passed overhead in a broad horizontal sweep.
A giant steel blade swung within inches of my hips and threatened to shave the flesh from my torso like a razor peeling the skin off an orange. Thankfully, the silver edge of the makeshift great sword collided with the metal underside of my rifle; the improvised parry forced the slashing motion upward along the length of the firearm and away from my midsection and breasts during the apex of my backbend. The screeching grind of steel against iron birthed a myriad of sparks, and I used the momentum of the exchange to turn a back flip. I planted the soles of my feet firmly against the ground to regain balance and lifted my gaze to my new assailant. I cautiously repositioned my rifle across my back.
NANO Archive 01: The City of Fire Page 11
