Arson had many things on his mind. All of which fueled his mind splitting training to new heights.
He couldn’t yet hold seven of anything in his mind quite yet, but he could easily hold three. The feat was astounding in the world of cultivation, especially at his age, but it would never be acknowledged, as things of a grand magnitude were quickly becoming the new normal for Arson.
“How long are we going to keep this up for boss?” Arson and Khalif tore around an alleyway corner at reckless speeds on a hover bike.
Arson forced Khalif to dress up in a disguise, and had also dressed down and muddied his features to present himself differently.
Khalif had only laughed at Arson’s appearance, but his boss’ plan had worked, and now they were being chased by not only a gang of drug dealing teenagers, but Mr. Kim’s street runners as well.
Arson had claimed that there wasn’t a better drug dealer in the city to a handful of people, only to pocket any opposition that approached him with animosity over his claim.
Khalif shook his head with every unconscious drug dealer he dropped into Arson’s pocket building. Until they found themselves surrounded by a few dozen Cultivators. One of which had made even Khalif want to run.
“Where is all my product, kid?” Arson sneered back at the drug lord known as Cyrus.
“Keep your dirt off my streets, Cyrus!” Arson yelled as he threw an orb of conductive waters at the young man that chased them on foot. Cyrus was also followed by groups on hover bikes, but didn’t seem to care about friend or foe as he knocked Arson’s attacks to the side.
A few of the hover bikes were flipped after being struck sidelong by the orbs. While cars veered off the road to dodge the group as they paraded through the streets.
“I’m going to get rid of all of you BHC sparkers one by one, then I’m going to end your runt of a leader, then…!” Arson sprayed the street with almost 100 condensed orbs that rained down like bullets on the large group behind them. Cyrus was cut off as a parked car exploded next to him and collided with a hover bike he’d just hurdled in a single leap.
Arson cursed under his breath as the wild haired young man didn’t miss a single step when debris collided with his back, which only seemed to push Cyrus even faster toward them.
“What the sparks is this guy made out of?” yelled Arson.
“Steel, dynamite, and your mother’s—” started Cyrus, Only for Arson to glare back at him while he shot a half dozen orbs at the drug lord. Projectiles begun to rain around Khalif and Arson as their enemies fired back. Some used guns, others used skills, and even more used various types of elemental magics.
“We’ve got a problem!” Arson turned around to see what Khalif was worried about. Only to realize they were going to collide with either a speed trap or an entire intersection of perpendicular traffic.
The speed trap would steal momentum from their hover bike immediately, and entirely, which they couldn’t let happen, nor could they weave through traffic as the hover vehicles in front of them traveled at double or triple their own speed, and being t-boned by anything moving faster than they were didn’t sound like a good plan to Arson.
“Don’t slow down!” Arson’s words stretched as he slowed his perception as much as he could and focused. He stood on the back of the hover bike and raised both his hands to fire. Condensed orbs of conductive waters sped out like rifle rounds. Arson mangled the front and back of two vehicles to either side of the street they traveled down.
The smashed ends of the two vehicles would be useless if his next action failed.
He only had two chances, and fired a handful of full sized orbs behind the cars to push them both into the street. Luckily for him Khalif trusted him and pushed their own hover bike as fast as it could go.
Khalif screamed as they rocketed into the air. The smashed vehicles served as a perfect ramp temporarily, and Arson smiled until he turned around in his seat.
They flew through the air above hover cars as the vehicles roared passed underneath their own hover bike. Arson made eye contact with Cyrus the moment the young man jumped into the air behind them.
Cyrus was obviously going to clear both lanes of traffic, which Arson had hoped for.
Arson fired conductive orbs behind Cyrus, and the explosions caused the entryway to become entirely clogged by battered and broken cars.
None of the other gang members or street runners were able to follow. A fact Arson assumed Cyrus wouldn’t think about until after they’d successfully separated him from any help. Which proved to be exactly what occurred.
Khalif snickered as he landed the hover-bike with a spray of sparks caused by the bikes frame making contact with the street below. He hooted in excitement, and Arson couldn’t help but smile.
Arson looked back and saw Cyrus’s very impressive landing, and the young man began to run again as if he hadn’t just jumped over multiple lanes of traffic.
“Just me and you now Cyrus,” yelled Arson as he rolled his neck to stretch, and cracked his knuckles.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Arson gave Khalif the signal to slow the hover-bike. He then stepped off the vehicle before it even managed to stop and faced off with the much taller Cyrus.
“I’m gonna make you wish you died before you met me!” Cyrus didn’t slow down. He picked up a car and put it in front of himself like a shield as he charged toward Arson.
Arson tried to fire both at the car like shield and the uncovered feet of the drug lord. The explosions barely moved the titan-like cultivator, and Arson was forced to dive out of the way.
“You want some help buddy,” yelled Khalif in question.
“No,” grunted Arson as he landed back first into a toppled bus. Arson barely managed to dodge the first attempted swing Cyrus made with the car he held as easily as a bat. Only to be swatted away like a bug in the next second. The back half of the car landed flush against Arson’s body in the same instant he managed to come to his feet.
Khalif winced when Arson flew through the shop window nearby, but couldn’t help but laugh at his young leader’s curses at the shopkeeper’s hollered complaints.
“I pay my destruction taxes like everyone else, lady! Push off!” Arson knew that he had racked up quite the bill every time his face was seen amidst destruction on the cameras in Maelstrom, but since he paid, no one bothered him. Regardless of how many buildings he knocked over or damaged.
Arson realized he had no chance of a win in this situation if he only used his orbs as he had been. Cyrus was seemingly beyond resilient, and Arson couldn’t help but grow angrier with every failed attack.
So Arson charged up two orbs, and held them in his hands as he charged at Cyrus. The older young man, merely laughed at the diminutive Arson’s charge… at first.
What Arson didn’t know about conductive waters, was that the orbs were charged by literally any manna source they touched physically. He of course overcharged them in the past, but had never held the orbs as the SunStorm Sovereign had in the vision he witnessed to learn the skill originally.
Arson had never thought of the skill as a melee based attack, but in his desperation, he acted on pure instinct rather than calculation or plan.
Cyrus laughed at Arson, until the first orb struck him in the center of his stomach. The orb didn’t explode as Arson still held onto it, but a pulse of explosive water and sparks of lightning surged out in a halo of energy centered around the orb. To Arson’s surprise Cyrus was flung backward at an incredible speed, and smashed headfirst into yet another innocently parked car.
Cyrus climbed out of the rubble of the nearly flattened vehicle, and shook his head vigorously to shake off the daze brought on by his impact.
Khalif laughed when Cyrus frowned at Arson, and began to throw large car parts at him. Arson sneered back at his foe and dodged the full sized terrain vehicles with every movement. Cyrus grew agitated while Arson closed the distance and before the young drug lord knew it, Arson was on him.
Arson ran up the body of the seven foot man, and threw a flurry of conductive water enhanced punches after he managed to wrap his legs around Cyrus’s chest.
Cyrus held it together at first but after the seventh punch, he looked confused. After the eleventh, fear filled the young man’s eyes, and Arson recognized the defeat his opponent felt by his facial features alone. He looked like a child woken up by a disgruntled parent.
Arson tied the young man up and hung him by his feet from a telephone pole and left him to swing there as his fellow gang members approached the scene slowly. Lane flew in followed by a group of drone cameras, and began to record.
“Welcome back folks, to this special episode of BHC News,” said Lane as she landed in front of the crouched Arson.
The camera angle showed a crouched Arson, as well as Lane and Khalif, who stood to either side of the dangling Cyrus. The drug lord thrashed and tried to yell through his gag, only to look like a fish out of water, with his entire gang in the background like curious onlookers.
“Today our gracious leader has a message,” said Lane. Khalif nodded with his eyes closed after she spoke and Arson rested his chin on his hand while he wiped his face clean.
“Lord Sovereign, you have come here today to discuss the problems you see in your neighborhood, primarily, drug use, comments?” Khalif nodded again and Arson answered.
“Drugs are bad,” said Arson. Lane nodded and so did Khalif.
“So what is your plan to deal with the drugs in the city?” Khalif still kept his eyes closed, and put on a frown until Arson spoke up again to lane’s question.
“This…,” said Arson with a jabbed thumb over his shoulder toward Cyrus. Khalif then smiled and once again nodded at the response given.
“Is that all?” said Lane excited. Arson shook his head and Khalif continued to nod before his boss answered.
“Don’t do drugs…,” said Arson simply.
“There you have it, folks, from the mouth of our beloved leader, right to your ears, don’t do drugs, and this…,” said Lane with an open palm gesture toward Cyrus.
“Won’t happen to you!”
The stream ended and Arson rose to his feet. They had a lot more gang leaders to handle before the end of the day, and Arson refused to be late for his training session with Troy at the dump later that evening.
He’d noticed that Troy was the only one of his team members able to push his limits, and didn’t want to miss the opportunity, regardless of how much he hated drugs being on the streets.
He’d made it mandatory to be sober on the job, but that didn’t stop many from doing as the young did outside of work. So in an attempt to limit how drugs affected his business, he’d decided to attack the problem at the source.
They ended up able to dismantle almost seven drug rings in the area closest to BHC before Arson quit for the day, but he couldn’t help but be annoyed.
“Just because you can’t completely purge Maelstrom of drugs in a day, doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing well enough, Arson,” said Troy. A hard-light clone vanished and reappeared before a copy of Troy kicked Arson several times. The last kick more severe than the rest, which sent him through the air almost as quickly as the hard light clone itself had moved.
Arson slowly crawled out of the trash heap he’d landed in, and made it to his feet. Troy seemed distracted, and that only pushed Arson to bring her further into the present moment. So instead of continuing to babble about his own issues, he asked her about her own.
“Says you, Miss I-can’t-be-beaten-in-the-ring, how long is your win streak now?”
“11, but this next fight,” started Troy, but she didn’t manage to finish her sentence.
“Still not going to give you as much exhilaration as fighting the olympian armors,” asked Arson. Feeling that he knew the reason why Troy had been so distracted lately.
“Just because you wanted to be a fighter your whole life doesn’t mean that you are meant to be one, I see how you get when you teach the younger kids how to fight and defend themselves, I mean come on, do you think I expected to be anything but a broke hoodlum?” He hadn’t given her time to answer his first question, but she nodded regardless.
“What am I supposed to think about myself at this point, I’ve become semi pro as a fighter, I’m not homeless, nor am I broke as I thought I would be, but none of it feels like enough, my best friend is seven, I am truly only challenged by you or Jade, which almost makes me want to join a fight school with you this summer, I only feel alive when my instincts are pushed harder than my own thoughts, and now I feel like I’m having a mid life crisis far too early in life,” said Troy.
Arson didn’t know what to say. He hated being so young sometimes, but knew that age wasn’t always going to hold him back from what he wanted in life.
He didn’t think that words of patience would work, as he was never patient himself. Nor did he want to be hypocritical. His friend was truly in need of guidance, and Arson felt ashamed to not be able to offer anything of substance or value. Until…
“Hey, do you want to go on vacation with me and the others, we all work a lot, and none of us really get to relax unless we are at a celebratory work event, I don’t know about you, but I need some time to clear my head, and maybe you need to get away to get a broader picture of your path. I don’t know, I feel like I heard Almarine say that once,” said Arson with a chuckle.
“Vacation, seriously?”
“Yeah, why not, with the grand opening of the BHC coming up, we probably won’t have time to do it afterward, especially if you plan to go pro after the summer, right.” Troy nodded, and Arson summoned his new and unfinished skill. Troy smiled back at Arson as he grinned at her. Six full body clones of light were manifested by Troy in the next instant, while the sun like orb grew above Arson’s head.
“Now can we get back to training, I actually want to make a break through before I have to get poisoned again,” said Arson with a sigh.
“Yeah, thanks, buddy. I’m excited, do you have an idea of where you want to go?” The sun above Arson’s head begun to rotate slowly, more and more tendrils lashed out while the speed of its rotation increased threefold.
“Where else can a Cultivator truly relax other than a dungeon?”