“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, there’s no such place as Bearlower.”
Malo isn’t intimidated, “That’s ok. I’m actually looking for the Wildlife Allied Rangers.”
The second woman adds, “What grievance do you have with the rangers?”
“No grievance, I want to learn how to be one.”
His sincere declaration of intent is met with silence. Thirty heartbeats later the two women explode with laughter.
The first woman to speak asks “Oh, you can’t be serious!”
Followed by the second, “You? Want to be a ranger? I’m afraid that can’t happen.”
Malo patiently waits for them to laugh themselves out, which takes an uncomfortably long time.
Direct, and confrontational, these are warriors he can’t be meek, “Why can’t that happen? Are you afraid I’ll show you up?”
The first woman challenges, “Show us up? You couldn’t keep up.”
“I accept.”
“You accept what?”
“Your challenge of endurance. If I can keep up, you’ll train me to be a ranger.”
The second women interrupts, “That’s not what she...”
“He has a point. I did issue a challenge though no terms were specified.
“I will agree to your terms. We have three more days before our route is complete. Keep up and we will see what we can do to train you. I’ll give you one minute to clean your campsite before we leave.”
He hasn’t much time.
Running back to his makeshift shelter he shouts, “Chloe, follow.”
His fire goes out and the area is covered in a layer of frost the moment he passes it by.
When the knots he tied for his shelter won’t come undone easily, he snaps the quarter inch cordage by hand and bundles it up and stuffs it into his pack. The tarp is mashed on top, a hasty tug on the pack’s drawstring sinches it closed.
His wet sleeping bag takes 30-seconds to roll and tie off.
Time is up, the two rangers turn and dart into the woods with twin smirks breaking their normally somber expressions.
Backpack under one arm, his sleeping bag under the other Malo takes off after the two War Born intent on losing him.
He closes the distance with them in under a minute, Chloe darts ahead, stopping occasionally to look back and see if they change directions.
They veer south up a steep incline. Chloe adjusts and retakes her point position.
It doesn’t take long for Malo to realize they are trying to exhaust him by sprinting up the steep incline.
“So, where are we going?”
The second woman snaps, “Our route!”
“Okay, it feels more like we’re sprinting through the woods than following a path. This is a steep hill shouldn’t you slow your pace a bit?”
“Wouldn’t you like that,” sneers the first.
“Suite yourselves. My name’s Malo, my inu is Chloe. Will we be doing this for more than three hours. She needs to rest every three hours if we’re going to sprint the whole way. If we slow it down a little, we can rest her every five hours. But I don’t like running her more than twelve hours in a given day. She’s not like us, she doesn’t know her limits.”
Exasperated, “We’ll stop when we stop.”
“I guess that’s ok. She can probably track us if she falls behind. Do you think she’ll have trouble tracking us up here?”
Not getting an answer he changes tact’s, “I didn’t catch your names. What should I call you for the next three days?”
Both of them are sounding a little short of breath now, “Do you ever… stop talking?”
The two women are War Born, they could run on level ground for hours, they could walk briskly up a slope like this without tiring, the all-out uphill sprint they attempted, inflicted a devastating toll to their stamina.
Malo sees his challengers are tiring, “Not when I have questions. Are you getting short of breath? We really shouldn’t be running this hard. The air is thinner here than I’m used to but you know that… and we’re still sprinting up an incline.
“Look, Chloe is getting tired too. She may not be ‘wildlife’ for you to protect but I can’t let you hurt her when I’m the one you’re supposed to be challenging.”
The first woman knows she’s beat, “How long will she need to rest?”
“I don’t have any food or water to give her. I’ll check her pads, if there’s no damage, she’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Melia, find us a level area. 20-minute break.”
Malo appreciatively asks, “I’m Malo. Thank you…umm?”
“Sandy… Ranger Sandy, you may address us as… Ranger Sandy and Ranger Melia.”
“It’s a pleasure to know you.”
After locating a mostly level space that can accommodate the four of them, the two rangers put their heads together to confer.
Melia quietly whispers, “At least he seems to care about his steed. I didn’t realize exactly how big he was until he stood next to it. He can’t possibly ride that inu.”
Sandy responds in an equally quiet tone, “Why would he? Did you not hear him?”
“How could I not he never shut up. We sprinted uphill for 200-yards and he jabbered the whole way.”
“And he’s the only one not showing signs of fatigue. My hands are shaking, you’re still catching your breath. The inu is panting non-stop and he’s over there making baby talk to the animal.”
Ranger Melia is stumped on how to proceed, “If we can’t outrun the interloper how do we get rid of him?
“Sneak off in the night?”
Ranger Sandy likes that idea, “That wouldn’t be very fair of us. Let’s see how deep he sleeps.”
Malo hearing every whispered word no longer feels bad for violating their privacy.
Whispering to Chloe, “Did you hear that? Of course you did, you have better hearing than all of us. These two are going to play dirty. I guess that means we can too.”
Chloe grunts in agreement, then lays down to make it easier for Malo to adjust his harness and redistribute their load, which is mostly empty feed bags.
The group continues along the route, at a reasonable pace. Stopping three hours prior to sunset on the shore of a mountain top lake, the Rangers produce some string with hooks and pull two fish out of the water.
Malo was not surprised when they did not offer to share.
Chloe foraged for only ten minutes before returning with two freshly killed cavi.
“This is your camp too. I could use some advice on preparing these cavi to cook. I know I need to remove the guts but I usually have a trash can at my disposal, what should I do with the guts?”
Melia and Sandy exchange looks, shrug, and ignore his request.
Malo skins and guts the two cavi and leaves the waste on the shore near the rangers cookfire.
Sticking the cavi on a spit, Malo doesn’t bother with a fire and levels a steady stream of thermal energy over them.
After ten minutes, “What do you think Chloe, are these ready to eat?”
Chloe whines and shakes her head as if to say no.
“I don’t know if it’s my imagination or you’re getting smarter but I don’t think they are done either.”
Another five minutes and Malo decides he can’t wait any longer. Tossing a cavi to Chloe he walks over to the rangers still sitting at their fire.
Taking a bite of meat, he asks while chewing, “What’s the plan tonight? Tie me up in my sleep? Will you sneak away in the middle of the night? You know what would be funny? If you trick me into following two other rangers. Are you trying to find some decoy rangers?”
“Are you calling us cheaters?”
“You may call yourselves Wildlife Allied Rangers, but that’s an acronym for WAR. You War Born pride yourselves at winning at any price. None of the things I mentioned were forbidden in the agreed challenge.
“Owe!” Malo swats himself on the back of the neck. He looks at his palm and finds a small spot of blood.
“How big are the mosquitoes up here?”
“There are none, you’re imagining things.”
“If you say so…”
Getting back to his point, “I felt it was only right to let you know that I too will do anything to achieve my goal.”
Judy snidely chirps, “Sure Malo, everyone sleeps eventually.”
“Three days of extreme running up and down mountains; I won’t need sleep. I will need food, if you’re looking for my biggest weakness, it’s food.
“But you two on the other hand will need to sleep. I recommend shifts, who knows what could happen if you were both to go to sleep at the same time.”
Melia abruptly stands, “Excuse me, while I take my leave of you.”
Ranger Sandy is making a face at her partner as she watches her take her leave.
Malo isn’t ready to turn in for the night and is glad to have a one on one conversation, “You said this morning that there is no Bearlower. Is that true?”
Ranger Sandy can’t see the harm in answering, “There’s a place that could be called Bearlower. It’s not recognized by any authority besides our own. If it were, we could participate in trade agreements and do better by our people. Instead, the nearby municipalities force us to purchase as individuals, negating our ability to buy at wholesale.”
“All of them? You’d think greed would find someone willing to lock you in with better pricing.”
“Your people hate us more than they covet gold.”
“Covet gold? I don’t know anyone that covets it. Sure, some see it as a challenge to build personal wealth, they want the things the gold buys, not the gold itself.”
“How is that different? Besides if your people do not value gold highly what does that say about their feelings towards us, when we are ranked below it?”
“Not much, I’m sorry your people are treated that way.”
Malo thinks through what he’s about to propose before advancing such a wild idea. After weighing and measuring the idea from every angle he decides to make a proposition, “I may be able to help your people. Of course, you’ll have to help me first.”
Ranger Sandy is always interested in helping her people, “What could you possibly do and what do you want as your price?”
“My price is the same as this morning, I want to be trained as a ranger. Let me be more specific; I want to learn your survival and hunting skills; I have no interest in joining your cause.”
“That’s something I could deliver. What do you offer in trade?”
“I offer trade. A recognized trade agreement with the Kingdom of Brusk.”
“I’ve heard the name, it’s a tiny Kingdom on the western edge of these very mountains. How can you guarantee a trade agreement?”
“My name is Malo Brusk, adopted brother of Lord Tomas Brusk, that tiny kingdoms ruler.”
Luscin is circling 100-yards above a carnival trying to keep her eyes on the covered carriage containing Horatio Nguyen. The carnival is nothing special, there are a dozen rows of booths vending food, interspersed with booths hosting games of skill and chance. The center piece is an 80-yard-tall Ferris Wheel illuminated with colored electric lights. Bulbs of red, blue, green, and yellow decorate every strut and beam, flashing in concert with playful music blasted from a steam powered pipe organ. There’s a steady stream of people leaving as the hour is getting late.
A public place makes sense for a hostage exchange but something is bothering her about the whole process. The children were taken and the note appeared quickly, no time was given for her to consider all the angles of this situation. Alone with her thoughts watching from a distance is giving her perspective. This feels more and more like another trap. Realizing the children were a distraction, Horatio is the bait, making her and Teum the prey.
Luscin fought and survived a 500-year-old Devastator at age five, she isn’t scared of one maybe two cut-rate Defenders.
She needs to formulate a plan. Her concerns are for the safety of Horatio and everyone below who could be caught in the crossfire. She’ll be fighting a known Defender; she should conceal her identity. Lastly, there could be two opponents waiting for her, and one is purported to be as deadly as her mentor Master Terius.
A plan comes together, she decides to move.
First, she masks herself in two layers of illusion, the first blurs her features making her impossible to identify. The second layer is a nullification cloak, to be as impossible to detect as she knows. Not only making herself invisible, silent, and with no heat signature, she also fills the void she occupies with an illusion of air that matches the temperature and movement of the surrounding atmosphere.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
She drops into the seat next to the carriage driver with a feathers touch. Whispering, “You’ve done excellent, return your passenger to the station to complete your task.”
The startled driver jumps and blurts, “Is that it, you’ll release her?”
Harshly Luscin responds, “No questions!”
She can only hope she isn’t getting someone else killed to save Horatio.
Returning to her previous spot in the sky she drops the nullification cloak. Not wasting a beat, she lands next to the Ferris Wheel boiler that powers the wheel, the lights, and the pipe organ and takes all its thermal energy.
Turning to the ride operator, “Can you get people down without power?”
“Yeah, what’s going on? Why don’t you have a face?”
“No time to explain get those people off the wheel and flee!”
The last honking notes die off and are followed by the thousands of colored bulbs fluttering into darkness.
The remaining crowd is quiet for a moment before everyone decides it best to rapidly flee the vicinity. Not knowing why the Ferris Wheel went dead, they can only assume the worst about the giant boiler that was powering everything.
Luscin adds another level of urgency to the carnival exodus by producing a series of bright flashes of light accompanied by thunderous bangs, directly overhead.
Satisfied that the carnival attendees and staff will be gone in minutes, Luscin opens her senses to see if anyone is coming for her. She feels nothing.
Walking to an open space she peers through her surroundings trying to sense anything that could register as danger.
There. Something is coming from the east, where a rapidly building source of potential energy is directed towards her.
Planting her right foot slightly forward she takes up a defensive stance, knees slightly bent, shoulders relaxed, body facing east, both arms up, elbows in tight, hands are open and relaxed. Perceptions kept wide open to watch her own flank.
The mounting energy is building to a level Luscin has never experienced, she can’t afford to have this hit her. She could clear her entire hold and not be able absorb so much kinetic energy at once.
Luscin feels fear for her life. The possibility that this will kill her is becoming crystal clear. She needs more time, she’s not ready for this fight, she’s not ready to die. She’s afraid…”
Speeding up her thoughts Luscin processes her true feelings and comes to the conclusion that these are not her natural thoughts, she’s been manipulated before, and this is all too familiar. Her old nemesis Dorson or Wheller or whatever name he used was able to stoke emotions. That’s the sort of ability one would expect from a Master known to be a trickster. Master Finner is hiding, that means the oncoming deadly force is Master Ta Raha.
Boxing off the outside influence is simple once identified. She simply pulls a swarm of positive particles from the ground into the air around her. The electrostatic energy that was tickling her mental state can no longer reach her.
Facing and assessing the impending collision she realizes the facts have not changed. A direct hit will certainly end her.
She has less than three ponderously slow heartbeats before impact. A distant boom signals the oncoming projectile has broken the sound barrier.
Two heartbeats to go, Luscin pushes with her left foot while slamming into time with every shred of spirit to her 9 o’clock position.
One heartbeat left; she raises both arms to absorb the impact of the man hurtling at more than 900-miles an hour.
She feels the life ending potential fade to almost to nothing as she moves out of the way.
Master Ta Raha can also feel the potential impact fade as his feet will no longer make contact. His arms were bent and held tight to his body as he hurled feet first down the wide carnival walkway. Throwing out his right elbow creates a satisfying impact on the girls left arm and face.
Luscin is struck, her left wrist breaks cleanly. When her wrist impacts her skull’s zygomatic bone it peels the flesh of her cheek down to her upper lip and knocks her head backwards.
Training had her hardening herself for impact, allowing the energy to transfer along her entire body instead of isolating it to her head and neck. The force was enough to damage every organ in her body, her arm, face, and left shoulder are swelling before her listless body stops sliding across the trampled grass of the carnival throughfare.
Her attacker is gone in a blink, Luscin left a trail of destruction through two rows of wooden carnival stands before rolling to a stop just outside the confines of the carnival.
She can distantly feel the artificial message to stay down, her positive particles having followed her while she spun like a busted windmill bouncing to an undignified stop. Face up she recognizes that her right leg won’t move. Her face is on fire and the numb feeling in her wrist tells her it’s in the same shape as her leg.
Luscin struggles into an upright position. Her spirit busily patches organs to keep her stable.
Another distant boom tells her that Master Ta Raha is lining up for another pass.
Master Robles breathing exercises help her focus her ability to heal efficiently. She needs legs to move, she visualizes her leg straight and whole. A fierce itching explodes down her right leg as bone and flesh align and knit.
This is the first serious injury she’s had since receiving a true-spirit. It’s no wonder everyone is impressed by Malo’s healing. Her leg is almost healed in under a minute, a process that used to take a full day.
Potential energy as much as the first is building again.
A direct hit will still kill her, of that she is certain. Continuing her breathing exercises she next focuses on her wrist and forearm. Another intense moment of itching and she can wiggle her fingers. She uses her freshly healed hand to lift the flap of dangling flesh and press it in place, while her spirit finishes by reattaching it to her face.
Mostly healed, she finds herself in the same position as before. Except this time, she knows what to expect and has a sizable store of kinetic of her own.
Turning west, the carnival at her rear, she takes up the same defensive stance. Sensing movement from her right she mentally prepares for a secondary attack.
A pair of bangs that she recognizes as shots fired from a pistol create dual points of potential energy that will strike her moments before Master Ta Raha arrives.
Speeding up her thoughts again, she feels the spinning bullets closing ahead of the boots of flying foe.
The bullets impact, one on her hip, the other grazes her stomach. Instead of absorbing the kinetic force and having the bullets fall harmlessly to the ground; they instead tear through her flesh.
The meta-obsidian projectiles impart unexpected physical damage moments before a pair of boots moving at the speed of sound and aimed at her head make contact.
The shock of the bullet’s registers after the expected impact of boots. Luscin allowed the impact knowing she could absorb half and offset another quarter by emptying her current kinetic store directly into Ta Raha on impact.
None of those factors allowed her to keep her feet, except this time her attacker went hurtling with her.
Luscin once again looked like a spinning ragdoll, strings of blood thrown in every direction. This time he put all her strength into her hands and attempted to grab his feet while falling backwards.
It seemed plausible in the four seconds she was afforded. This time both hands slammed into her skull’s frontal bone or cranium as she tumbled backwards.
Her spirit sensed the danger as she did and poured itself into her skull to reinforce the molecules. At the moment of impact, her frontal bone was as dense as tungsten.
Master Ta Raha expected to tumble and was already controlling his spin to land on his feet. He wasn’t expecting an impact that would impart enough energy to numb both legs.
After a dozen carnival stall destroying spins, he steadies himself and intends to regain his feet after he smashes through one more of these flimsy structures.
Pain explodes up both his legs as his broken ankles give out, forcing him to fall on his butt.
Luscin for her part is wondering why her hip hurts so bad as she also tumbles into yet another carnival stall. Her forward momentum wasn’t enough to break through the gaming stalls front counter, a shelf full of pink fluffy stuffed inu toys tumble and buries her from sight.
The ache in her hip can only partially heal, she must have been shot with meta-obsidian bullets and one is embedded in her tensor fasciae latae or hip. The gash on her stomach is superficial and can be ignored, she focuses on her wrists.
Master Ta Raha takes to the air again, not daring to put any weight on his feet again.
Master Fenner invisibly stalks his prey, having hit her twice she must be slowing down. Disappointedly as now he’ll not find out who she’s working for. The members of his cell have debated the possibility of infighting between the disciples; her defection seems to confirm that there is. Knowing the plans of two of their kind would make her a powerful ally but just the same a danger to be around. Killing her will gain him more than not. He has four more bullets to finish the job.
Luscin flops her away out of the fluffy pink mess and regains her feet. Master Fenner is out there and is apparently good at hiding and he has ammunition for his pistole that is more dangerous than she expected.
She redeploys her nullification cloak before hoping over the counter to search out Master Fenner. Master Ta Raha will have to wait until she takes out Fenner.
Exiting the theater, Teum hears the first sonic boom, launching himself onto the roof gives him a view of something speeding off to the west before turning back eastward. The carnival grounds are less than a mile south and a little east of his current position.
Clumsily he backflips into the air and shoots skyward, feet first. By the time he’s oriented himself and established where he’s going a second sonic boom signals the speeding person’s return.
Normally he doesn’t have the confidence to fly that fast, knowing his wife is facing two trained killers alone he finds it.
With only a mile between him and the carnival he doesn’t reach the speed of sound before arriving, he does see his wife and Master Ta Raha crash and tumble through the cheaply constructed structures. He resists his first instinct to go to her side and instead bears down on the rising defender.
Teum doesn’t want to paly chase with a professional flyer, “Hey, Loser. Looking for me?”
Master Gideon Ta Raha with two broken ankles, can’t afford to fight on the ground, launches skyward.
Teum smashes into the ground a yard from where Ta Raha had been laying. Teum scans the sky tracking the defender’s flight. He can’t help but notice that he’s not moving nearly as fast as before. He’s also changed posture and is flying headfirst.
Teum’s at a loss, to what possible tactical advantage this would give the master and doesn’t care. If he wants to fight, he’ll have to come to Teum.
Not having the raw ability to see everything at once like Luscin, Teum must choose a spectrum or sense to extend. Figuring anyone who could trick that nanny into wandering off from the crowd is probably adept at illusions. Noting that the only night sounds are the distant murmur of Thuma and the occasional venting of the train’s steam engine, he attunes his hearing to pick up the most minute of sounds.
He hears the muffled voices of carnival workers that opted to hide instead of run. Best to stay clear of them to keep them safe. The sound of something cutting through the air from the north caught his attention.
Feigning unaware of the rapidly approaching defender, he continues to look around at the ground, all the while girding himself for throwing the hardest punch of his life.
Master Ta Raha not wanting to expose his injured ankles to more damage is now flying headfirst and planning on delivering a punch with both fists.
Pushing himself at three times freefall flying headfirst his speed is cut in half, he’ll make up the difference with his store of kinetic energy that he’s been hording up to now.
Teum is relaxed, all he needs to do is wait until the right moment.
Gideon can’t believe the boy is unaware of his approach, he caught out Elora on several occasions and one of these two killed her. The girl is surprisingly durable and heals like a devastator.
That thought galvanizes in his brain and he can’t help himself, he panics.
What if they’re not what they seem. He came here to kill students, not fight devastators with unknown abilities. Changing course at the last second, he pulls up short of his target to pass above.
Teum senses his target is in range and spins to deliver a roundhouse into whatever he can reach.
Infuriating the master defender is pulling up out of range.
Reflexively Teum blindly snatches at a trailing foot. He grips it for a moment jerking the man’s boot hard before it slips from his grasp.
The unexpected explosion of pain catches Gideon by surprise, “AAArrhhh!”
Teum is no War Born but he can still do rapid opponent assessments. The cry of pain from minimal contact and the dramatic change and degraded attack posture tells him he’s facing an opponent with one or more injured feet, possibly legs.
Teum flips into the air and gives chase to the upward swooping defender.
Luscin tried not to watch her husband. The oaf is pretending to not know Ta Raha is coming at him, nobody could possibly be buying that act. She’s proven right when Ta Raha pulls up at the last second, but her man still gets a hand on the flying nuisance, generating a satisfying grunt of pain.
She needs to find the gun wielding Finner before he finds her. He’s going to be as undetectable as she is, she’ll need to lure him out. He’ll not be fooled by a projection. She’ll have to be less subtle than that. Across the grassy walkway is another booth, this one was vending fried food. The oil vat is fueled and hot.
It will be slow at this distance but she has time. The air and ceiling above the vat are hot, siphoning off that heat creates a cold surface directly above the hot vat of oil. Water immediately begins to condense on the cold surface. She keeps it cold enough for that water to turn to ice. After five minutes there’s a solid sheet of ice stuck to the ceiling. A smack of kinetic shatters the sheet and has the ice shards splashing into the hot oil, the too quiet night is violated by a rolling boil of popping oil and angry steam.
Now she waits to see if Finner is the curious or cautious type.
He’s cautious and close enough to siphon off the oil’s heat, returning the night to silence.
He could be anywhere in the line of sight of that vat. Maybe she’s giving him too much credit and should look harder.
There aren’t a lot of them but some hyper fast particles do occasionally collide with matter and produce tiny bursts of light. She dials back her sight to her eyes natural range plus those hyper fast particles. It looks like it’s raining in every direction. A few even come from the ground.
The woosh of air overhead reminds her that there’s another battle going on.
A flash from her left catches her eye, it was an impact with an iron nail. She doesn’t have the patience that Teum has, she decides to reheat the oil vat. It shouldn’t take long since the gas is still on. She repeats the previous operation but this time she feeds the heat from the ceiling into the oil. There’s a hefty chunk of ice now hanging precariously above the hot oil.
She leaves the rest to thermodynamics.
The oil goes cold again and she hears the distinctive squeak of the gas valve being turned off.
She smacks the ice hard with a wave of kinetic. It falls into the cold oil, splashing it in every direction. Every direction but straight towards her.
I’ve got him, Luscin thinks while sending a rolling wave of thermal energy, hot enough to combust the tiny wooden structure she’s been playing with.
There’s an obvious cold spot the shape and size of a man in front of the vat. She watches as it hops over the counter and rolls to her right. She gathers back her thermal energy, knowing it will indicate where she is as well but she doesn’t want to burn down the whole carnival if she can help it.
The metallic click as the pistol’s hammer falls, followed by the rapid expulsion of another deadly bullet shows her where he’s standing.
He’s either sloppy or no longer cares because he did nothing to suppress the muzzle flash or sound.
Luscin can tell the hastily aimed bullet will miss because she feels no potential coming towards her.
“Missed me again,” she calls out. “By the way is that one of those six shooters?
“You’re going to have to go toe-to-toe with me eventually. Your friend, what was her name? Elora, I think. She went head-to-head with me; you saw how that turned out right?”
She’s been fighting in the ring too much; she shouldn’t be bantering in a fight to the death.
Finner has so many questions, “Who is it you work for? It’s no longer him, is it? Is it another disciple? Tell me and maybe we can work something out.”
Luscin wasn’t expecting serious questions and didn’t know how to answer. Instead, she asks, “What is it you offer?”
Master Damien Finner stands up and decloaks, Luscin hops over the counter and does the same.
“I can only offer my services as an informant to you, nobody else. In return, I ask you to do the same. Knowing the plans of two disciples could expose unseen opportunities we’d otherwise miss.”
“That sounds really nice, but I can’t do that. You see I don’t work for anyone.”
“Then what happened to your handler, Dorson?”
“I had no more use for him so I put him down.”
Damien unbelieving, “Nobody strikes down his agents and gets away with it!”
“Really, because I’m two for two so far and I’m about to go for number three.”
Drawing her belt knife she shoots across the trampled grassy walkway.
Damien Finner was ready for such a move and tried to raise his pistol but before it was halfway up Luscin plunged the knife into his stomach.
Master Finner tried to collect all the kinetic energy behind the narrow point. Luscin used her physical strength, her momentum, and all the kinetic energy she had left. Damien Finner couldn’t quite get it all, permitting the tip of the blade to pierce his skin. Pushing past the invisible barrier guarded by his spirit allowing the knife to slip inside, buried to the handle.
Luscin twisted the blade, turned it upward and pushed deeper guiding the blade to his heart. Her hand is pressed into hi stomach and forces itself behind his ribcage.
Damien Finner’s spirit desperately repaired shredded tissue but could do nothing about the physical presence of a blade.
A final shove slices through the pericardium and punctures the myocardium sending Damien Finner into cardiac arrest. She holds the blade in place and keeps working it with a twist of her wrist to ensure he can’t heal himself.
Damien tries to grapple with the hand holding the knife in his gut but doesn’t have the strength. His eyes are wide in disbelief that this small student was able to overwhelm him with a knife. His spirit shakes his body in frustration. Red froth fills his mouth and dribbles down his chin as he tries to plead for his life.
Looking into each other’s eyes, Damien blacks out and exhales his last bloody breath. Without a living host Damien Finner’s spirit moves on.
Luscin allows his corps to crumple to the ground. She looks at the blood covered knife in her hand, drops it, and starts to retch.
The effort to fight down the involuntary reaction blurs her eyes with tears.
Killing Master Remon was practically an accident, it seemed distant, unreal, she felt almost nothing over the woman’s death. She made jokes about it. This was personal, intimate, she didn’t like it at all.
Is this who she is now, a killer? Her feelings of worthlessness and insecurities about her future resurface sending her mind to dark places. She absently picks up the pistol and is saddened that she instantly knows how to use it. Removing the remaining three bullets she tucks it into her waist band.
Up in the sky Teum is doing his best to catch the adept flyer, Master Gideon Ta Raha with no success. The wayward Defender has no luck either at landing a blow on Teum and decides he’s had enough. Straightening out in a foot first flying form he goes all out at two times the speed of sound back to El Hat.
Teum tries to pursue until he hears the second sonic boom and knows he isn’t ready to attempt those speeds. Slowing his westward direction to a stop, he backtracks east.
Spotting Thuma was easy enough, the glow of ten thousand lights is hard to miss. The train station, surrounded by housing and farmland, will not be as easy. Then he hears the off-tune song played by the Ferris Wheel as it comes to life behind him. Reversing course again he’s able to spot the carnival grounds and sets down as gently as he can in the area with the most damage.
Master Finner is dead at the feet of a sobbing woman, his wife, his love.
He goes to her.