There came a point where he had to stop telling himself it was all aimless wandering. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he was back. Back in the area that marked the heart of the Blueflower District, in more ways than one.
Here was the furthest physical point away from the city’s more functional infrastructure. Here was where the blocks had been really rushed to meet demand, and where a couple of generations had grown up in static poverty. And here was where the unseen energies the mentor had taught him to detect came together in a nexus of sorts.
A place of power.
The mentor had claimed it as his own and set about moulding it, shaping its forces to serve his needs, and as a learning tool for his disciples.
Kio took in the few people he passed. He hadn’t allowed the thought to breathe at the time, but looking back he felt that he’d detected a change in the residents as things progressed with the place of power. It was like, somehow, their worries and pains rested on them just a bit heavier, as the unseen energies were altered. Looking at them now… ‘happy’ wasn’t the right word, not in a place like the Blueflower District. But they were the types he’d known throughout his childhood. Not something even worse.
All that vanished from his mind as he passed a particular wall. It was from that spot that he’d first seen the Kalero Warden, although he hadn’t known it at the time. In fact, he was walking almost perfectly in her footsteps.
He didn’t know how to feel. He knew he was feeling something, with great, painful intensity, but he didn’t know what it was. And he was breathing hard again.
Kio walked into a mess of particularly large blocks; so high and tightly packed that most of the apartments never saw direct sunlight. And at night, hardly any light at all. With no straight road he had to weave around each building to reach the heart of it all
It held a stretch of much smaller, and older buildings. It had been left undeveloped by the order of some culture council, and then completely forgotten about. Well… by the city authorities, anyway.
The mentor had remembered. And somehow, so had the Warden.
Kio stood before the ruins that the woman had made of the place of power. The rubble was from a house that had been merely old, and now completely blocked access to the truly ancient cellar down below.
His good hand travelled up to his throat. It felt tight, even as he couldn’t calm his breathing down.
Here was where the mentor had carried out his blood rituals. Observing them had not been optional. And to look away… to cover one’s ears… to so much as cringe… would have invited his wrath.
The memories assaulted him, and for a moment he thought his legs just might give in and drop him on the ground. Instead they carried him away. It took him a few moments to realise it, but he found himself facing in the other direction, a few steps away from the site. It was the spot of his second encounter with the Warden, where they’d actually crossed blades.
What if you’d managed to kill her then and there? Then what?
“Light it.”
The voice was followed by a low whine, and up in the air a simple little light drone shone down, casting a stark light over a radius of about twenty metres.
There were four of them. All around Kio’s age, give or take, and very much local boys. One had the kind of unconvincing cybereyes one got from an underworld cutter, but Kio would have bet the half-bun in his pocket that they came with night vision.
“Hello, Kio,” the boy said, and extended a baton. Another one brought out a knife. The other two didn’t bring brandish weapons, but one wore a big, yellow coat that could hide anything, and the other one seemed the type to rely on the slabs he had for fists.
“Hello, Dunn,” Kio said back darkly. This felt familiar, and did a remarkable job of quelling that queasy feeling.
The four spread out into a row, just far enough away for a second’s warning in case of a charge. Dunn tapped the baton on the palm of his hand.
“Some said you died when that old house did. Some say you died in the riots, killed and buried by Tanga warriors. But here you are.”
Kio positioned his feet for fighting, and ducked his head a little, but left his hands by his sides for now.
“And you beat up two of our boys.”
He tapped the baton again, harder. His comrades were excited.
“You know the rules about stuff like that. You know them.”
“You know I’m not soft, Dunn,” Kio said. “Go away.”
“Hah. You also know about telling people to get out of their own territory. Because this is ours now. All of Blueflower belongs to the Rock Dogs!”
“Rock Dogs!” the others shouted in unison, with intense passion. Kio pegged two of them as tweakers.
“So you, Kio, can leave your teeth here as payment, or you can come explain yourself to Boss Grim. Heh.”
Dunn swung the baton through the air with a whoosh.
“I’d recommend the former, really. You know Grim. He hasn’t gotten any smaller. You know what else hasn’t gotten smaller?”
“Out of my way, Dunn.”
Kio pushed the words up from the deepest depths of his throat, and out through bared teeth. His hands were fists, his blood was fire, and his body was a trigger waiting to be pulled.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Oh, spot,” Dunn said, in a condescending sing-song voice. “Spot, spot, spot. Your new outfit is gone, isn’t it? It’s just you, like in the old days. Where’s your boss? Where’s that stupid girl who haunted that house like a-”
Kio charged.
Dunn had his second’s warning, but it wasn’t enough for him. Kio blocked a half-assed swing with his arm and sent his other fist up into Dunn’s chin. It connected with a solid bang and the boy turned around and staggered drunkenly, like a poorly-managed string puppet.
The others reacted quickly, like the street devils they were. The knifeman came in for a stab, the yellow coat flung the garment open to draw something, and the fourth guy went with his bare hands.
They knew to work together, and sought to encircle him. But Kio knew this routine too, and he caught one of the knifeman’s thrusts by the wrist and yanked. He swung the lighter man around like an inept dancer, and sent him into the big fellow. The man stumbled, but the knifeman was still on his feet and desperately trying to stay that way. Kio kept swinging, keeping a bit of space around himself, before bringing the man to a sharp stop and twisting his grip. The arm broke, the knife hit the ground, and Kio let him go and left him to his screaming.
The yellow coat had a shock prod. The power of those ranged from merely painful, like the police issues, to potentially lethal, and the man came in with sweeping swings. The big boy tried to hem Kio in, as he moved to avoid the prod, but some clever footwork let the two of them get in each other’s way, and the yellow coat had to mind his weapon.
Kio went at the big one with a kick to the shin. It struck home, and Kio then pushed the man hard. He fell into his yellow comrade, who raised the prod up to avoid shocking him. Kio hoped to nail him before he recovered, but the guy was quick, and Kio found himself facing the prod once more.
The guy started sweeping again, and Kio retreated for a couple of steps, before he shrugged out of his coat and threw it. It went over the crackling prod. Only for a couple of seconds, but Kio made them count. He caught the guy’s weapon arm, forced it aside, and smashed his elbow into the man’s face. It was a staggering blow, and he immediately followed with a disabling one that sent the man to the ground.
The big one was up, although limping a bit, and Dunn had somewhat recovered his wits. Kio went straight for the big guy. With a moment of just the two of them, there was no need for anything fancy. Not after growing up on the streets, followed by all that merciless sparring under the mentor. He just blocked and struck, then did a quick combo, and down the man went.
Dunn had his baton back, but not his full balance. His strike was clumsy, and Kio caught him in a grip. Then he roared with effort, lifted Dunn off his feet, and drove him down into the ground, onto his upper back. Dunn rolled in a reverse somersault, and landed in a gasping, breathless heap.
Kio looked at the one with the broken arm, but that one was just retreating, with the arm held up against his torso. It was the big boy who was still trying, going for the dropped knife.
Kio went for him, but couldn’t close the distance before the man got the weapon. He thrust out with the blade as Kio tried for a kick, and scored a slash on the lower leg. Kio grunted a little, and the man got enough breathing room to get up. He kept the knife out and between them, as Kio circled. Kio tried a jab, but got a slash on the arm for his troubles. The man got more aggressive, but the bruised leg and rattled brain slowed him down, and it didn’t take long before he overbalanced.
Kio nailed him in the face again, caught the arm, forced the knife up into the man’s shoulder, then gave him a one-two-three to the jaw. He went down, again, the yellow coat was out of commission, and the one with the busted arm was gone. But Kio wasn’t finished.
Dunn was somewhat getting his breathing under control. Kio seized his shirt collar with his right hand, then drove his left first into his face. The numbness spared him much of the blowback as he struck again, and again, and again.
“Didn’t shut your mouth,” Kio said in a growl. “I’ll shut it for you.”
The man’s nose was thoroughly broken, and his mouth was headed the same way. This was the reward for winning one of these: An outlet. Some damned justice. A lesson in not messing with him! Not having to feel weak!
Dunn’s face was vanishing into blood, and this was normally where he’d stopped in the old days. Now… now…
Something hit him in the upper back, hard enough to knock his breath out, and his body tumbling forward. He rolled over Dunn in a graceless somersault, and had only just stopped when another impact game. It was a leg, attached to a new arrival to the scene. And there was another one just behind him.
Neither had a weapon out. Kio was being kicked. But it wasn’t any more new than the rest of all this. He got up on one knee and caught the third kick in a two-handed grip. He pushed, and the man stumbled backwards. The other one hesitated as Kio rose up into a fighting position.
Kio then stumbled, a bit woozy. The new arrivals squared off against him, and that was their mistake, because it let him recover. It passed in a blur of anger and adrenaline, impacts and yells and growls. Kio just attacked, attacked, and attacked, and ignored anything they sent back at him. He didn’t know how long it took. He just knew that soon enough they were on the ground before him, battered and bloodied.
The footsteps were impossibly loud and thumping. Like a soldier in full powered armour, except the stride was longer. The effect was as eerie and strange-sounding as ever, and Kio braced his body for what was to come.
Boss Grim stepped into the stark light, and he sure hadn’t gotten any smaller. Grim was a Nihunian. The two men who flanked him came up to his chest, and weighed less combined.
“Now, what the hell is this?”
His vocal cords were to scale, giving his voice quite the boom.
Kio just sneered at him and stayed in his fighting pose.
“Stupid, Kio. Stupid. Where have you been? I guess you didn’t hear. The Rock Dogs are serious these days. All that chaos during the riots? It opened opportunities. Those Purist idiots carved out niches and then got kicked out of them. And guess who was there to jump in?”
“Eat shit, Grim.”
He didn’t like that.
“You don’t talk to me that way.”
He pointed a giant sausage finger at Kio.
“You really haven’t been listening, have you? We’ve absorbed the Greens and the Steel Dogs. It’s all one big outfit now, greater than the sum of its parts. Three territories and growing influence beyond that. And you stroll back onto the scene and pull this?”
Kio had been circling, slowly, cautiously, putting more distance between himself and the underlings while keeping Grim in his crosshairs.
“Are you just all out of words, Kio? Was that the extent of your imagination?”
Kio just kept his eyes fixed and his fists up.
“Hm,” Grim vocalised. “Kio, Kio. Went from solo to spooky. All the crazy stories about that new outfit of yours. Wasn’t it a cult, or something?”
Kio heard a couple of the others getting up, although shakily and painfully. The two who had come with Grim stayed behind their boss, moving as the giant turned to keep his eyes on Kio.
“Strange, strange stuff, about what you creeps got up to,” the Nihunian continued. “About what you could do. And then, just like that… nothing.”
Grim held his gaze for a few seconds. Staring people down was an old skill of his, helped immeasurably by his size.
“You’re going to work for me now, Kio.”
“I’m done working for, Grim.”
“You’re going to work for me now, Kio. Or I’m going to remove you from the table altogether. No wild cards in my new game. No getting into fights with my boys and walking away from it. I don’t have agents on every street. Not yet. But the way things are shaping up, there’s not going to be a place in the whole damn city where you can hide from me.”
Grim smiled, in that way that had earned him his street name, and clenched those huge fists. The skin creaked a bit. He enjoyed breaking people.
“So you better start showing me some damn respect, spot.”
“King Grim…” Kio mused. “And the Ten-Ten is your palace?”
“Yes, it is. And this is your last chance to change your tone.”
Kio took a breath.
“Come at me, you bloated meat pile.”