Ch.11
Today had been a good day. Maybe not a great day, but work went well, training at the dojo went well, and Banner was super playful when I got home! Like I said, a good day.
It had been nearly a month since I’d gotten into the fight with those guys supposedly from the Russian mob, and life had gotten back to normal. Aside from having gotten hard-core back into my daily workout routine, getting up at 4:30 am to run and workout, then hitting the dojo after work for a couple hours, life had pretty much gone back to normal.
Sensei had told me that his buddy in the U.S. Marshal’s Service had made his presence and interest known to the Federov’s, and Kai had told me not to worry about things too much. Not even the Federov’s would try anything when the Feds were all over them like that.
I should have been more suspicious. My life never goes that long without serving me up SOME kind of a giant turd sandwich.
That aside, my current workout routine was definitely not typical of what it had been like in recent years. I had only been this gung-ho about training my junior and senior years of high school, when I was going after my 2nd and then starting towards my 3rd Dan black belt rankings as hard as I could.
I think part of why I’d suddenly gone so crazy with the exercise and training was that it left me too tired to do much other than go straight to bed when I got home. I knew if I spent too long thinking about the fight with Dimi and Co., and the possible fallout from it, I’d probably make myself crazy.
Being too tired to think about your problems is a decent way to ignore them... especially when there wasn’t a whole lot I could do it about it!
After all, what was I gonna do, go all grimdark, strap on a flak vest and a black trench coat with a white skull painted on them, grab a bunch of guns and do a Punisher cosplay to frighten them off?
The exercise and training felt good, though I was honest enough to realize that it was also a great stress reliever... and I needed the stress relief. Sensei Kai had been emphatic about the fact that his buddy in the Marshal’s Service was doing something, but of course, I had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t like the FBI or the U.S. Marshals were going to keep me up to date on an ongoing investigation.
Staying busy by filling up my day with a rigid schedule was another of the ways Kai had taught me to keep my anger and stress under control.
It had worked when I was a pissed off teenager, and it had worked ever since, too.
So, that’s what I did.
I was generally happy with how my day had gone, right up until I’d received a text message from Jojo.
Jojo: Come alone. Don’t inform anyone or contact the pigs if you want to see the little shit again. We’re watching.
Along with the message were 2 photos.
The first was Jojo, badly beaten, lots of blood on his face and clothes. His arms and legs were zip-tied to a metal chair. The only other details I could see was the floor was concrete and a wall in the distance looked like it was made from metal, maybe? It might have been a warehouse?
The second was a photo of a piece of paper with an address written on it.
A quick search online told me it was a warehouse near the docks in NE Portland, by the Columbia River.
Well, crap. This is obviously a big ol’ trap. Do I tell Kai? Do I call the cops? Do I go full ninja/Batman and try to sneak in?
It was an ugly situation, anyway I looked at it. Sensei would be pissed if I didn’t tell him, but what if I AM being watched? I’m no dime novel private investigator, who knows how to keep people from following me or how to spot a tail. Plus, it could be drones, or they could even be tracking my cell phone, somehow.
Calling the cops feels like it was straight out, even if it's probably the right thing to do. What do I do about this? They might be able to track my phone, but what about using one of the internet phone services to call them? There are a lot of things they could do to track even that, but nothing about Dimi Federov or any of the guys I ran into that day exactly screamed that they were computer-savvy.
Another thought came to me then. The only problem with that is that they might be keeping an eye on Jojo’s family’s phones, too.
Right about then, Banner went nuts, the way he only does when someone’s walking up to the door. A second later, I heard a knock.
I sighed, still trying to figure out what to do. I needed more time and more information about what was going on. The Federovs will never give me that kind of time. Shit! What do I do?
I knew Chris had gone out to get a few beers with some of his friends from work, so I was home alone, right now. Except for Banner, of course. Somebody delivering a package, maybe? I thought briefly as I went to answer the door.
I opened the door, completely distracted by the implications of the text from Jojo’s cell. There's really no other excuse for me being so dumb; I didn’t even check through the Ring’s camera to see who was at the door!
When I opened the door, still looking at my smart phone and trying to figure out what to do, standing there was the Blond Ex-Pretty Boy and Other Guy, the first two guys I’d fought at the dojo. Both of them were carrying pump action shotguns.
“Surprise, mother fucker!” Blond Ex-Pretty Boy told me.
Both of them opened fire immediately. I had only just barely even registered who it was, still worried about Jojo.
I never had a shred of a chance.
Both of them emptied their shotguns into me, eight rounds each at point blank range. They then dropped the shotguns on the floor next to where I was lying on the ground, bleeding.
I had felt each pellet hitting me, felt all of that pain. Despite that, it didn’t feel real, somehow. In fact, everything about the situation felt incredibly surreal.
Two roaring shotguns.
Multiple impacts.
Banner howling in fear and pain from the noise and concussion in an enclosed space.
I felt like I was trapped inside of a nightmare, trying to wake up; but I also knew I wasn’t!
Which only made it worse.
Yet, I was somehow still alive, still conscious, still able to move around? That made it feel even more impossible. My mind was telling me this was all impossible, trying its hardest to reject the reality of the situation!
I tried to get up, but it was really hard to move, like my body didn’t want to listen to me? I felt like everything I did was in slow motion, while they were moving at normal speed.
In a way it felt like a bad Noir film, or maybe like that old game Max Payne that first introduced bullet time, except the pain and the first-person point of view was telling me that it wasn’t a game at all!
The two of them looked at each other, shrugged, and each pulled out a nine millimeter pistol and proceeded to empty them into me, too. Then, once the slides locked back indicating they were empty, they also dropped them on the floor next to me.
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I’d quit moving at that point. Blond Ex-Pretty Boy horked up a big old loogie, looking like he was about to spit on me, and Other Guy slapped him on the back of the head.
He’s telling him not to leave obvious DNA evidence. I told myself dispassionately, looking around at the colorless world surrounding me. I was surprised that I could be so calm, but the pain was a distant memory wherever I was now. Everything that had just happened, including Jojo being kidnapped, seemed a lot less important.
Everything, the whole world, was greyscale, now. It felt WRONG.
I felt odd, like I was floating over my body, looking down at it, like a real-life third person camera view. I could see bloody, gaping wounds covering my torso, neck, and upper legs. Banner, who somehow, almost miraculously, hadn’t been hit. I guess not even those assholes would shoot a dog. He was whining at me, and nudging me with his nose and paws, licking my face and whining in distress.
It finally dawned on me. I was dead.
Blond Ex-Pretty Boy and Other Guy walked out to their car, got in and drove away.
Suddenly, I was furious. I can’t believe this is ACTUALLY happening!
Then something even more unbelievable happened.
You are dead.
You have 4 Hero Points available. You may spend 2 of them to Cheat Death.
Do you wish to Cheat Death? (Yes/No)
For some reason, there was no confusion at seeing a video game pop-up in real life. In fact, I had zero hesitation. I chose ‘Yes’!
Of course, I don’t want to die, what kind of damned dumb... oh, HOLY SHIT!
Suddenly, over a month’s worth of memories from my time as a Dreamer became available to me. I knew, instantly, that I’d been going to another world every night in my dreams and leveling as a Legends & Labyrinths character, what I'd been calling The Game in my dream, in a Black Spirits-style dungeon!
I remembered the Bride of Virtue, I remembered the half-ogre ghast/werewolf, the spiders, the Skraven ratty boys, I remembered it all.
All of those memories were suddenly just there, the wall of pillows and memory foam that had been obstructing my access to them was simply gone!
It was like a magician had been using stage magic to hide it from me. I knew that they had always been there, I just hadn’t been able to see them!
I also knew that I now had a Qi pool and I could feel its power bubbling up inside of me, alongside my Pneuma! All those Feats and Masteries I had spent weeks grinding away at were suddenly there, too!
Congratulations, Raymond Ramirez!
You are now among Earth’s first wave of Awakeners!
Across most of Earth, your planet’s average levels of supernatural energy are not yet at a level to support the use of external supernatural power, but any Class abilities, Talents, Feats, or Masteries that work purely on and in your body, or merely count as Extraordinary instead of Supernatural will still work!
Remember, there will likely be heavy consequences from your fellow native sapients for misuse of your abilities.
Use your new Status with care!
I felt some of my wounds close. Spending the Hero Points had kept me from dying but hadn’t healed most of the damage I’d taken. I was sitting at –18/81, as I’d taken the Advanced Constitution Talent at 3rd level, raising my Con to a 19. That meant that –19 was dead for me.
First, I used Pneumatic Healing, a Feat specific to someone with Pneuma. That mostly meant Disciples of Pneuma, but it was possible to get a Pneuma reserve with just a Feat, mostly for people who used Fist of Four Elements who weren’t Disciples, since Fo4E was a lot weaker if you didn’t have Pneuma.
Pneumatic Healing – once per encounter, as a move action spend 1 Pneuma to heal 2d6 hp’s. At 4th and every 4 additional levels, spend another Pneuma to heal +2d6.
My basic regeneration would fix me up, but at a rate of five hp an hour, it would take almost a day.
Luckily, I had gotten a second trick over the days since becoming a 3rd level Monk. A Ki Feat named Qi Regeneration.
Qi Regeneration – as a swift action, spend 1 Qi to heal your Wisdom modifier in hit points. At level 10 this increases to Wis mod x2. Adds +1 Qi.
Two Qi, out of the seventeen I had available to me, was spent on Qi Regeneration got me out of negative hp’s. With a cough filled with blood, I sat up. Being back above zero hp was a big deal, it meant that I could function normally again.
Banner went crazy, licking my face like I was a popsicle or something! I was incredibly happy that I’d spent the last week after reaching 3rd level completely focused on buying the Qi Feats I’d wanted!
Qi Cloak – gain +2 to Stealth rolls as long as you have 1 point of Qi, +4 at lvl. 10. As a move action spend 1 point of Qi to gain Concealment until the end of your next turn, allowing you to make a Stealth check to hide. Adds +1 Qi.
Qi Resilience – as a full round action, spend 1 Qi to gain Temporary h.p.’s equal to 1d6 plus current number of Qi points in your pool for 1 hour. This doubles at lvl 10. Adds +1 Qi.
Qi Sprint - +10 move speed as long as you have 1 Qi in pool. When you use the charge or run action, spend 1 Qi for +30 enhancement bonus to move until end of turn. Adds +1 Qi.
Harness Qi – add your Con mod in Ki to your Ki pool. Adds +1 Qi.
Swift Recovery – as long as you have 1 point of Qi in your pool, double all Qi recovery, hp, and ability score healing. Adds +1 Qi.
In the next minute and a half, I blew through twelve more Qi, getting me three-quarters of the way to being completely healed. To say that it felt weird as bullets and shotgun pellets pushed their way out of my body was a massive understatement! Weird and painful!
There is just no way to properly describe how it feels to have your organs, your muscles, and even your skin repairing themselves.
Pain is absolutely a part of it, but on top of that it just feels weird! Itchy, scratchy, flashes of hot and cold, sensations of nausea and vertigo, then the nothingness of normality and a healed body!
Paranoid me, I hereby take back all the times I complained how you were being crazy making me grind out all these Qi Feats! That thought made me groan, loudly, less from the pain I was still experiencing than from the realization that I was in for even MORE grinding!
It was one thing to think about taking short cuts and leaving out less important things when I could convince myself to think of my time as a Dreamer in terms of it being a game. It was damned obvious to me now that this was no game!
I have to face up to the obvious facts here. I was dead, or at least mostly dead, and I used the Hero Point system to stop myself from dying! In less than a minute, I went from death’s door to almost completely fine and fully functional again!
I can almost hear Miracle Max saying, ‘It’d take a miracle!’ Hah!
Hell, I could completely heal myself right now if I wanted to use the last of my Qi! The only reason I'm not doing that is that’s the whole reason behind having Swift Recovery, basic Regen, and basic Qi Recovery!
Banner was acting like he was about to lose his shit, but I really had no time to waste comforting him as much as I wanted to. Not if I wanted to save Jojo!
If these mooks thought I was dead, then I’d be shocked if they stayed at that warehouse for any time at all... which meant that Jojo’s life was on a timer. A short one, too, and it was at least a half hour drive to get to the address they’d sent me!
I’ll have to hurry if I want to get there in time to save him! If these guys are, essentially, 1st or 2nd level mooks, without all the extra Feats or an additional Class, I should be able to handle at least half a dozen of them, even if I’m unarmed and they have guns!
Hell, can they even hit me with a 27 AC? The odds are pretty low they’ll have a chance unless they roll a Nat 20. Which should make crits, the only real chance they have to hurt me, almost impossible. The only reason those jerks got me before is that two 12-gauges at point blank range is rough even with DR 4/-! Hell, it took sixteen rounds from shotguns and, what, over thirty from pistols to put me down before!
I laughed out loud. “How the hell are they gonna manage that when I’m able to fight back?” It felt like I was almost gloating. I was looking forward to Round Two quite a bit!
In that moment, I admitted it to myself. I’m not a very nice person, am I? I thought with a little grin, even as merry visions of vengeance were dancing through my head. I was absolutely going to murder the crap out of Ex-Pretty Boy, Dimi, and the rest of those backstabbing rat bastards!
Some tiny part of me felt bad about my glee in what was coming, but it was rapidly voted down. I resolved, then and there, that would be absolutely zero thoughts of mercy in my head after them coming to my house to kill me... not to mention that they’d kidnapped Jojo!
Fuck everything about these guys!
I’d changed into all black clothing, from head to toe, including black sweat pants, black shorts, a black t-shirt and hoodie, a pair of black leather work gloves and a black ski mask. I was even wearing black socks and shoes.
As I headed out, I paused to pick up the shotguns and pistols to throw them in the back of my old Chevy Blazer. Banner did NOT like being left behind, but there was just no way I’d bring him with me. I couldn’t even put him in the backyard as agitated as he was, he’d probably hurt himself trying to jump the fence to catch up to me!
I ended up locking him in my room. I hated doing it, but I didn’t want him in the front room covered in my blood. I was sure the cops were on their way. With over 40 shots fired, there was no way one of my neighbors didn’t call the local PD.
I left my phone behind... it would be proof I had been in the area, and my old ‘99 Chevy Blazer didn’t have anything like a LoJack that would let them track where it was at any particular time. Maybe I could somehow manage to do this without giving myself away, or at least without making it completely obvious that I’d gone there?
My shiny, new 18 Intelligence was working overtime, in conjunction with all my Lore skills, trying to figure out how I could pull this off. My 20 Wisdom was also hard at work, vetoing the bad ideas, and giving me intuitive leaps as to what actually might do the trick.
Together, they were telling me that lying to the cops was fine, as long as no one could PROVE that I was lying, and with a shooting at my home and all the blood, it would be hard to come up with a good story, but I was confident I could pull something off.
If worse came to worst, I’d just Bluff and Diplomacy them into submission. No normal person would have a chance against my skill checks! I just had to be careful not to lie obviously!
That was probably damned cocky of me, but I was too frantic to help Jojo and, yeah, to put my fist through Ex-Pretty Boy’s ribcage and pull out his still beating heart to plan ahead too much!
Yeah, I was pissed!
The warehouse was almost a thirty-minute drive from my place in Hillsboro, which would give me back a few more hit points and a couple points of Qi. That was the whole point of taking the basic health and Qi regen Talents coupled with the Swift Recovery Feat.
No matter how badly beaten up I was, a few hours of those two Talents combined with Swift Recovery, Qi Regeneration, and Pneumatic Healing and I’d be ready to go again!
I definitely wasn’t thinking straight, and the half hour of drive time seemed to pass in seconds.
It felt like I jerked out of a trance when I realized that I was maybe a half mile away from the warehouse, the Columbia River less than a quarter mile north from where I was. I’d been in a rage fueled fugue, I think, yet somehow felt completely clearheaded now.
In fact, my mind had never felt clearer as it seemed to snap back into focus when I realized I was close to where they had Jojo, so I pulled my car into the parking lot of a broken-down warehouse about 2 blocks from the one I’d been given the address for.
Then I killed the lights and the engine.
Time to do this, Ray. Go and find Jojo first, then get him the heck out of there. Dimi, Ex-Pretty Boy, and the mooks are secondary to getting him out!
While I was telling myself that, the rage boiling in my heart wanted nothing less than ALL of their heads on a STAKE!
As I approached the warehouse, I saw the car with the two mooks who’d shot me just pulling into the parking lot in front of the warehouse.
The whole place was a shithole. The warehouse looked like it had been abandoned for years. The fence around it was still standing, the lot outside was littered in old shipping containers, the big ones used on cargo ships, and empty wooden pallets rotting from too much exposure to the elements. There were four cars already parked there in such a way that they couldn’t be seen by anyone driving by.
How the hell did I beat them here? What, did they stop for a burger and a shake after murdering me?
Incredibly, as they were getting out of the car with multiple fast-food bags full of food and a pair of drink carriers, it looked as if that was EXACTLY what they’d done!
I’m not sure why, but somehow, that was the final straw. I went completely cold inside, like my heart had just frozen over. Them treating my murder so casually answered any last doubts I’d had about what I was about to do.
I watched them go into the warehouse and then crept around back, looking for another way in.