“So why’s someone after the kid, ya think?” Nachi asked as she clutched onto Tize’s back. They had a minute to talk, because even at these breakneck speeds, the drone was still too far ahead of them. Given its specs, it probably had a crazy range, though it was safe to assume the pilot still wasn’t too far away.
“No idea,” he had no better inclination than she did. “But what I can tell you is that this was in no way a coincidence. They must have been watching for a while—waiting for Feyj to be vulnerable and out of the compound.”
“Maybe they were waiting for his next life,” Nachi suggested. “Since it happened before their expectations, maybe they got careless and sprung their trap early. I get the feeling that we’re dealing with a lot more than these two.”
“Could be, guess we’ll have to find—”
“WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Tize’s speculation was cut off by wailing at his chest. It was the first time Feyj had cried since his reincarnation. Maybe this version’s personality was just far more relaxed. Or even though it was a new personality, it was possible that the cumulation of all his various life experiences was letting him stay calm even if he didn’t currently remember them.
“I think he’s hungry, can you grab the bottle from the bag?” Feyj had never actually gotten his bottle in the bar, but Tize had stuffed it away when they’d dragged out the body.
Nachi dug through the pouch in front of her and pulled out the still warm bottle. She handed it up to Feyj, expecting to have to hold it for him, but he grabbed it firmly with both hands before sipping wildly.
But then the bottle slipped out of his small hands—the high speed, combined with the drone suddenly firing a shot back at them, caused the bottle to wrench out of the baby’s grip when Tize swerved to dodge.
Not thinking of her own safety—rather risking her life than having to deal with a crying baby—Nachi flung herself back after the bottle, grabbing it just in time but she slipped off the bike. Tize thankfully noticed and grabbed her by the ankle, able to pull her back to her seat in one smooth motion.
“Alright, we’re close enough. Time to take out that drone. Shield up!” Nachi ordered as she slid her feet up onto the seat so that she was crouched.
Tize brought out his shield and held it flat horizontally above his head. It provided a platform for Nachi to stand on with the added benefit of protecting himself and the kid from any more shots.
She hoisted herself onto the shield, grabbing the front edge with one hand to keep herself from flying off. The drone hovered ahead, doing its best to slither back and forth in the air, the operator probably assuming they were going to try something. But it wasn’t random. It had a rhythm, just like everything else in the world.
Nachi whipped out her phone, holding on tight so it didn’t fly out of her hand, and began scrolling through her music list. This thing was acting wily, like a bug flying through the air, so she’d need something noisy and erratic to match it. It took her four tries, but she finally found a good fit.
After plugging in some headphones and stuffing the phone back in her pocket, she took aim with her polearm. The drone operator seemed to notice and began taking more shots directly at the insane woman trying to stab a flying machine out of the sky with a stick.
You idiot, that just makes this easier for me. The repeated shots made it that much simpler to sync up with the track. Nachi deflected them all with the flat edge of her polearm’s blade, confident now that she’d seen it fire before.
It didn’t matter too much if she missed, because she could just summon the weapon back, but she still didn’t want to miss anyways. The operator could change up their tactics, but more importantly, it’d wound her pride.
She was waiting for a specific note and the drone’s path to line up. Once the two intersected, she flung her polearm ahead of her with all her might, almost dislocating her shoulder from overexertion. She wouldn’t normally have to throw it that hard, especially since they were matching speed with it, but the added wind resistance had to be pierced through.
Nachi hit exactly where she was aiming, puncturing both of the drone’s rotors on one side. She didn’t want to damage the base of the drone itself, in case anything useful could be recovered from it—not that she could do anything to stop it from being further damaged as it spiraled to the ground.
Once they touched down, Tize monitored the area while Nachi hooked her phone up to an open port on the drone. Thankfully, all of their phones included a bunch of handy tools that turned them into some of the world’s best hackers even with minimal technological knowhow.
“Traced the source, not far from here.” Nachi held up her phone and showed the location.
“Let’s go find the bastard before they can escape,” Tize stowed his gun and hopped back on the bike. They flew straight to the town where the operator signal originated. Fortunately, it came from an apartment on the outskirts in a room several floors up, so they could get away with the crazy stunt they were about to pull without too many people seeing.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The front of the bike crashed through the apartment window as they busted inside. Well technically, Tize’s shield had done the breaking, completely blocking them from any shards of glass. Both Lessers jumped off the bike before it sped into the wall on the other side of the room.
The man inside, who had been at his desk clearly trying to pack things in a hurry, leapt up from his chair with an armful of electronics. Before he’d even been able to lay eyes on them, though, Tize had already hit him with a paralyzing shot. The second assassin, or accomplice, or whatever he was, kept spinning back towards them, doing a few good spirals before he collapsed on the floor.
“Damn it, Tize,” Nachi went over and kicked the collapsed man ‘gently’ in the thigh. “We can’t interrogate him if he’s locked up like this.”
“Can’t interrogate him if he’s dead, either,” Tize huffed as he pulled out a round of his paralyzing ammo and opened a compartment at the bottom. “Got some antidote so we can speed up his recovery.”
“You fools!” the man muttered and then opened his mouth wide once he could move again. They had restrained him, so this was all he could do. Before he could bite back down, Tize hit him with another paralysis shot.
“Poison in the tooth, didn’t think assassins did this classic anymore,” Nachi reached in, quickly found the false molar, and ripped it out.
“Met a lot of assassins then?” Tize asked rhetorically, not expecting an answer.
But Nachi answered with a straight face, “Not everyone at the CP was as understanding about my departure as others. Now keep the gun trained on him in case he has any other tricks.”
“Why are you trying to kill Feyjrusa?” was of course the first question from Tize, but he got no answer. They tried a bunch of other questions such as if someone had hired them, what their group was, if they were after any other Fiends For Hire members, and so on and so forth. But they never got any answers.
“Light torture it is then,” Nachi pulled out a knife and got to work. She didn’t do anything too brutish, but it would get weaker individuals to break within moments. Sadly, this bastard must have been trained despite his bookish appearance since he didn’t budge.
“Guess we’ll have to resort to more drastic measures,” Tize grumbled a little. He wasn’t really a fan of torture but understood its necessity in certain situations.
“And I think I just figured out a good one,” Nachi suddenly sniffed the air. Tize did the same to see what she was on about and was quickly drawn to the baby on his chest that had a huge look of shame. How could a baby even process shame? Must have been a quirk exclusive to Feyj.
They set the kid down on the now vacant desk and got to changing. But instead of disposing of the dirty diaper, Nachi saw its potential as a biological weapon. She tucked her nose into her shirt, hoping for any sort of reprieve, as she held the mess from underneath with the contents inside completely exposed.
“So you’re going to tell me what I want to know, aren’t you?” She began moving the diaper closer to the man’s face, inch by inch. If he wasn’t going to succumb, then he was going to watch his fate in slow motion.
“Fine, fine, I’ll tell you something!” the man cried when the fecal matter was just about to graze his nose. Nachi closed the diaper for now to help cease the smell, but still held onto it in case he remained noncompliant.
The man took a few deep breaths to recompose himself, and then his face turned serious. He glared over at Feyj for a few moments, then his eyes drifted back to Nachi. “Understand this. The citizens of Archlave will never accept this monster as their ruler.” He then suddenly slammed his head against the wall he was resting against—probably trying to kill himself, but he just managed to knock himself out.
“So what do we do with him now?” Nachi asked after checking his condition.
“Well, I don’t suggest that we take him back to the compound,” Tize argued. “Even if there’s an almost-zero-percent chance that they could escape, keeping an assassin in the same place as their target is pure negligence.”
“Should we leave him with the police, then?” She was now picking him up as if he was a package to be delivered.
“No, they probably couldn’t do much,” he shot down the idea. “This person isn’t in any database, and they probably wouldn’t take some wanted criminals’ word for it. I’m going to suggest reaching out to one of the safehouse managers to watch them for a while. Pretty sure there’s one of them nearby. Maybe they can pick up the other one at the bar too, since they should still be paralyzed, unless someone else retrieved them already.”
The Fiends For Hire had begun the process of establishing safehouses all over the world. There weren’t too many yet, and they were still working out the logistics of who would maintain them, but they served as a nice bit of security and peace of mind for their members when they were out on long jobs.
“And in regards to moving forward,” Tize got a bit more serious now that they had to make plans. “I’m going to suggest that we keep this on the down low for now, at least until Feyj grows up enough to understand this. It’s their life on the line, so they should have a say on what happens. Plus, they’re probably the best chance we have at finding any leads.”
“Sounds fine to me,” Nachi agreed. “Tell you what, though. I’ll wait here for pickup. You go ahead and take Feyj back to the compound. We probably shouldn’t have risked the baby being out and exposed for this long to begin with, but we probably would have lost the drone otherwise, so hopefully no one will be too upset.”
“And tell you what, since he probably shouldn’t leave again, and since you can’t pawn off your caretaking duties, I’ll meet up with you at home tomorrow and bring the drinks. It’ll be a nice stay-in break, and I’ll help you watch the little zjik for a bit.”
“Careful,” Tize smirked at her. “You’ll start sounding like you care about him if—”
Tize didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence. Feyj suddenly burst out of the baby carrier on Tize’s chest and flew up in the air. The clock must have struck [000], and the child aged forward a year, greatly increasing their size comparatively.
Both Lessers rushed forward to catch him, resulting in an awkward hug with Feyj caught in the middle. The two tried pathetically to untangle themselves, attempting to make sure that one of them was supporting the kid. But before they could break away, Feyj suddenly put his small arms on each of their shoulders. “Papa, Mama, I love you!” He hugged them with all of his strength and the biggest smile on his face.
Meanwhile, his two ‘parents’ stared at each other, their eyes screaming in panic.