Tjao Chronicles: Chapter Four

Assessment

Ahiga spat blood out of his mouth as he stood up while Ricky picked up Ae-Cha and the others pulled themselves off the ground. "We need to get the hell out of here." Ahiga said despite the sharp pain in his lungs. "If Veronica finds us weak like this, we're all fucking dead."

"Except Ricky apparently." Yekaterina said with a grimace. "By the way we never did get an explanation for that."

"Oh yeah!" Ricky said as he walked towards the exit with Ae-Cha. "I can't die."

"That's not an explanation!" Yekaterina protested.

"We got bigger problems Kat," Liban interrupted, "Ae-Cha needs medical attention and…Blades is still breathing."

"Want me to kill him?" Ricky asked as he looked down at the unconscious man.

"No. I want to bring him back for questioning." Liban said before suddenly stopping in his tracks. "Ahiga where's the reptilian you were fighting?"

Ahiga blanched. "He appears to have gotten away."

"Next time make sure your enemy is dead, you got that?" Liban repeated with steel in his voice.

Ahiga was speechless for a moment; he never thought of Liban as bloodthirsty, but in that moment, he felt fear about what the man was capable of.

He's just under stress. Ahiga told himself as he shoved the feeling down.

They hiked up the stairs. The entire place had an air of abandonment and hasty evacuation. As they reached the doorway to the outside he and Yekaterina had entered from, Ricky motioned for them to stop and handed Ae-Cha over to Liban before Kobold reached over and tapped the concrete slab doorway causing it to crumble.

Men in black body armor pointed guns at their faces.

"Put your hands in the air and do not move! You are under arrest by the Bureau of Extraterrestrial and Supernatural Affairs!"

Everyone put their hands up except for Liban who sighed and yelled, "Cade! Are you here Cade? We need medical help for Ae-Cha right now!"

BETSA agents started being shoved aside and Cade muscled his way to the front while shouting at the other men, "put your guns down you dumb motherfuckers they're the missing Mag squad!"

The men lowered their rifles and one lowered what looked like a flashlight on an assault rifle stock as Cade stood before them.

"Well shit, looks like you guys got the piss knocked out of you. Seeing as how you're alive; I'd hate to see the other guy."

Yekaterina held up Blades's limp, bloody hand she'd been dragging him by, "this is the other guy. There was also a reptilian that got away and Veronica the Vivisector."

"Fuck." Cade said breathlessly. "Well, I already called in a medical team so they should be here any moment now for Ae-Cha. Of course, if we run into Veronica, we'll probably all die so then it'd be a moot point."

Liban sighed. "Just get her help. She was hit with a paralytic and I'm not sure how long it will last, she's telekinetically pumping her lungs and heart right now and I'm not sure how long she can last."

"Well come out of that tunnel then." Cade said as he turned around and motioned the BETSA agents to disperse. "Keep an eye out for Veronica. Blast her with the UV lights and switch to silver bullets on your UT guns if you see her. And pray. It will probably help just as much as anything else you do."

The group moved out to the aqueduct and a more people came rushing forwards. One of them was a shaman in a buckskin frock who spoke to Cade in words Ahiga couldn't hear before heading to Ae-Cha and waving a pouch of herbs above her face while chanting in a language Ahiga didn't recognize. He thought it sounded Cherokee but was too tired to listen in closely.

Ahiga sat down in exhaustion on the concrete riverbed trying to gather his energy. But as soon as he sat down medics in white jumpsuits ran to him and began examining his wounds, poking and prodding with abandon as his anger built.

"I heal damnit! Go help the others!" He yelled while waving them off, fighting down the urge to hit them.

They sulked off while Cade walked towards him. "You alright Ahiga? I heard from Ricky and Liban that you gave that Blades fucker a run for his money. That's impressive you know, Blades is a dangerous mercenary, one of the most dangerous freelance Mags in the entire world in fact. We've been tracking him for a while but he never worked with the Guild before."

Ahiga shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I wasn't strong enough to beat him. We only got him using surprise. What use am I if some guy whose whole thing is blades can beat me down after all the others softened him up?"

"Heh," Cade said, "you're a pessimistic type. The use is that you learned, you'll be stronger next time. And you'll be stronger still if you train even harder going forward. I see great potential in you Ahiga, and we need people with potential. I'm not sure how much you pay attention to the news, but things are getting worse out there and we need people willing to fight to keep the world safe."

Ahiga was surprised at Cade's sincerity, at the passion in his voice. He looked up at the man and nodded while suppressing tears.

Cade managed a smile that looked almost normal. "See you back at base Ahiga. I've got to go fill out a report about all this shit. You guys never did learn what the Guild was doing down there."

Cade walked off and Ahiga managed to stand up despite the pain in his knees and the straining on the scabbed-over wound on his back. He walked past Liban who was having the stump of his lost pinky finger analyzed and kept on walking to Ricky who leaned against a support beam under the overpass smoking a cigarette.

"I'm not going to ask you how you did what you did, by why'd you never tell us what you did?"

Ricky shrugged. "Wanted to maintain the mystery. Wanted to avoid questions. Look how much they pestered you for being a freak like me. Someone whose hard to categorize."

Ahiga shook his head, "don't use the "woe is me" act on me. Your file was redacted when we were briefed on who was in our team. BETSA hid it from us. This is about trust Ricky. I need to know that we can trust you."

Ricky sighed and dropped his cigarette to the ground. "You wanna know the truth? I'll tell you the truth but it's going to blow your puny little mind. You ready?"

Ahiga nodded.

Ricky breathed out, closed his eyes, and clenched his fists. "The truth is…I gave such good head that I achieved immortality!"

"God damnit Ricky!" Ahiga yelled before storming off with a storm of curses while Ricky chuckled like a madman.

He stopped in his tracks when he saw Ae-Cha sitting up as the shaman walked off as his herb pouch was carried off in a plastic bag by a BETSA agent in a hazmat suit.

"Ae-Cha are you alright?" Ahiga asked running to her side.

She shook her head. "No. I'm exhausted." She said as the others ran beside her and Yekaterina kneeled to give her a hug.

"I thought we lost you and Ricky! Oh god I was scared!" She said through sobs.

Ae-Cha patted her on the back. "There there. I am…not fine. No, definitely not fine, but the paralytic is gone from my body."

Liban shook his head. "This can't happen again. We were unprepared to face someone as experienced as that asshole," he nodded towards Blades's comatose form which had been handcuffed and wrapped in self-tightening ropes, "we need to train to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Everyone nodded.

"Aye." Kobold said. "I have read Sebastian Blades's file before and he isn't strong enough to take down a whole squad on paper, but he has skill. And that's what we need to hone. Skill and unit cohesion."

"And we will." Liban finished looking once more to Blades whose eyes seemed to be twitching under their lids. "Oh, we will."

2 Weeks Later

Liban dodged Ahiga's punched, ducked below his arm, grabbed him at the elbow, and threw him over his shoulder onto the concrete floor of the training gym.

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"No fair," Ahiga said with a cough, "you're taller than me."

"So? You need to recognize your enemy's strength and fight against it." Liban said looking down on him.

"Hm," Ahiga grunted before picking himself up off the ground with his hands and swinging his legs through the air to knock Liban's knees to the side.

Liban caught himself with his hands as he fell, but by that point Ahiga had gotten to his feet and launched himself to tackle Liban. Liban tried to grapple with him and Ahiga's superior strength brought him dominance and he soon straddled Liban and pinned his arms against the ground. Liban took a deep breath and breathed out a bolt of fire from his mouth forcing Ahiga to leap off him to avoid having his face singed.

Ahiga got to his feet as Liban stood up and surrounded both of his fists in balls of flame while he took a boxing stance. His fists flew at Ahiga who deftly dodged each strike and attempted to hit Liban in the abdomen only to strike an emergent panel of flame and reel his fist back in pain. Liban moved to sweep Ahiga's legs only for Ahiga to leap above his feet, land, and launch another strike at Liban's abdomen which Liban attempted to thwart using the same move as earlier. Ahiga reached his fist through the flame this time and knocked Liban across the room.

Liban was thrown against a hanging punching bag hard enough to send it flying into the air at a 90-degree angle and fell to the floor wheezing for breath. Ahiga struggled to ignore the pain in his knuckles and walked towards him.

"Fuck," Liban wheezed, "I yield."

"Thank the gods." Ahiga said with a sigh as he examined his burned knuckles, "I probably shouldn't try that move again."

Liban nodded. "Only hurt yourself in battle if you can hurt the enemy more."

Ahiga reached to help Liban up with his good hand and they began to exit the gym as Ae-Cha and Yekaterina entered.

"You boys look like shit." Yekaterina said. "Which I suppose means you did good. I think Ricky and Kobold just use training time to jerk off.

"Kobold would never do that." Liban said firmly. "Now Ricky…"

"Ricky saved our lives." Ae-Cha said with equal firmness.

"And he's still a horny monster." Ahiga added.

"Truly a man of many layers." Liban finished before exiting the gym with Ahiga in tow.

"We should probably get showers." Liban said casually.

Ahiga blushed at the thought. "Yes. Separately."

Liban shot him a glance. "I mean…yes?"

As the stairs down to the gym emptied back into the main living quarters Ahiga went down the opposite hallway from Liban, eager to escape. He rushed to his room and closed the door behind him with a sigh.

He heard his bathroom door swing open. In shock he took a fighting stance and leaped at the intruder, pining them to the wall before he could even register who they were.

Ricky looked up at him in surprise. "Why Ahiga, I always suspected there was some chemistry between us, but this is all so sudden!"

"Ricky!? What the fuck are you doing in my bathroom!?"

Ricky shrugged. "My john is clogged, I had to take a dump, and it would be weird to use on of the girl's rooms so I thought I'd just take a shit in yours. If you don't believe me, go in there and take a sniff around."

Ahiga tried to suppress his sense of smell as he suddenly registered the scent emanating from the bathroom and let Ricky go. "Don't use my toilet without my permission! And for the record, you will never get my permission!"

Ricky jumped on his bed to sit down and leaned forward. "Alright I get you! Message received you toilet Stratocrat!"

Ahiga quirked a brow. "Why are you sitting on my bed? Get out!"

Ricky looked pained. "I intend to after the welcome you gave me, the guy who saved your life by the way! Just uh, I need to sit down for like a minute."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ahiga protested.

Ricky raised his hands in a consoling gesture. "Alright I'm leaving! Just uh…autonomic responses and you know what's funny? Walking like a monkey."

Ricky leaped off his bed and scrambled away on all fours. Ahiga sighed in confusion.

"Ricky, you weirdo, I will never understand you." He felt the slightest twinge of a smile on his lips, when Ricky was distracting him with his antics, he didn't have to think about any of his anxieties.

Ahiga moved to pick his phone off the charger before deciding to vacate the room over the lingering odor. He walked down the hallway to the living room where he saw Kobold on the couch watching the news on the tv.

"What's going on?" Ahiga asked.

"The bloody president is giving a stupid speech on dealing with the demonic possession outbreak in Plymouth State. The man has no idea what he's talking about! He's blaming witches for it! Witches! The ladies who sort herbs! They're just alchemists with pretensions and they're summoning enough demons to possess people all around the state!? What a load of bull! Feh!" Kobold sputtered.

"Not a fan of President McGuffin I take it?" Ahiga ventured.

"Absolutely not! The whole National Liberal Party is a bunch of hooting reactionaries!"

"I was never much into politics myself." Ahiga said as he moved to walk into the kitchen.

"Well, you better hope the Nat Libs and the Heartland Party don't win the next election because they'd put BETSA on a much tighter leash! The Nat Libs would cut our funding and the Heartlanders would make us all swear an oath to Jesus and get inspected for demons every Friday and twice on full moons!"

Ahiga couldn't help but laugh at that. "Yeah, and the Progressives and the Freedom Party are much better."

Kobold scoffed. "You youngsters can't tell the difference between bad and worse! No wisdom!"

"You aren't much older than the rest of us Kobold." Ahiga said as he pulled a glass of rum from the fridge.

"Aye ladie, but I have experience!"

A sound of static came from the tv, and the screen turned red before shifting back to an image of the newsroom where a disheveled blond man stared out at the audience with a pained look in his eye.

"We interrupt this program to inform you of breaking news. There has been a demonic incursion in Hesse near the edge of the Black Zone. We have been informed by European Federation authorities that the incursion is sizeable and there is at least one demon lord spotted on the ground believed to be roughly a Class Z based on engagements with the European Rapid Demonic Reaction Task Force on the scene. The United Commonwealths of America have pledged assistance to the Europeans amidst this crisis as demonic forces pour towards the city of Frankfurt. European Forces have accepted UCA assistance although they have clarified that they are well within their capabilities to handle the problem on their-"

Kobold turned off the tv. "Well shit." He said. "Think we'll be called in?"

Ahiga shook his head while his stomach felt like it had been turned to lead and his chest felt tight as a drum. "No way of knowing who they'll call in to Europe, but we're pretty far away so I kind of doubt it."

"Yeah," Kobold responded, "Sharkville is a long way from the Atlantic. It's awful regardless."

"You'll struggle to find conflicting opinions." Ahiga retorted.

Kobold's gaze narrowed as he stared forward. "Struggle yes. But you can find them. We're a messed-up species all right."

Ahiga couldn't think of anything to say, and the room was bathed in silence.

Liban ran into the room on the phone. "Is that right? Really? Why!? No I do think we deserve to know! Damnit Cade!" He yelled before shoving his phone into his pocket.

He turned towards Kobold and sighed. "Get everyone in here. Now."

Kobold left the room and Ahiga ran up to Liban.

"Holy fuck are we going to Hesse?" He asked as his stomach felt ever heavier with anxiety.

Liban sighed. "I don't know why they're doing this. We got our asses laid out by a guy who controls blades, and they want us to help fight a demon incursion? Allah help us Ahiga, because we will need it." Liban shook his head.

Ricky, Yekaterina, Ae-Cha, and Kobold came into the room. Liban turned towards them and sighed once more before breaking the news, "gang, we're going demon hunting."