I would just like to say first off thanks for the pointers you guys gave me in the previous chapter and i would like to reassure you, the fight isnt over yet.
I get that I may have made the mc seem a bit weak before, but that was necessary to get to this point (at least for me as Im not the best writer by far) so you know... more character development etc. So things like why he didnt just wipe the floor with the others will be explained here briefly, as well as more insight into his motivation.
Also for the more bloodthirsty of you guys hopefully this will have more action so fear not.
So enjoy and if you think it can be improved or something just give some feedback as it really helps (I cant read minds you know ;)).
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With a low groan I slowly open my eye and take in the room around me. Doesn’t look like a normal cell or anything… huh. It’s kind of large, though a bit plain, as though there should be more in here alongside the large bed and small table next to it.
I’m currently sitting against the wall opposite said bed and to my left I see a large window, like floor to ceiling large, though the blinds are closed. To my right there is a short hallway with a door at the far end and an open one leading off to the left. As far as most cells go it’s not too bad. At least the carpeted floor is soft. At this point I’m guessing it is a cell, I mean, that’s where you normally put people you capture isn’t it?
With a sigh, I lift my hand to rub my face when I feel a weight shift on my left wrist. I look in curiosity, which quickly turns to amusement as I snicker to myself. It seems to be some kind of limiter bracelet that has been locked onto my arm. It’s about four inches long and made of a dull black metal with a small box attached to the back.
Is this really all they have? I know I didn’t really have a chance to get started on them properly when we fought last night, but please just one limiter? Bloody fools the lot of them. I’m hoping it was last night anyway because I really need some alcohol in my system right about now. I’m almost feeling lucid.
I lower my hand and stare into the distance. Why? When did I become so soft? I don’t understand it. I would never let people get away with trying to fight me back in the day, I would have killed them without a second thought. But now… now I’m too worried about hiding, attracting unwanted attention. It’s not the way I used to work.
No. This has to change. I don’t know when I went wrong but I am sure as hell not going to stay like this. Going to some Academy? Fuck off. Those places are the biggest wastes of space you will ever find. It’s probably not even an academy, just some prison for the Unlocked. Definitely not for me. I done with that shit.
I do another once over of the room before turning to myself. Don’t tell they didn’t even search me. Come on… there are limits to stupidity. Sure they took my coat, but I still have my hoodie and boots.
I twist and reach down to my left boot and feel around the top of it before pulling out a shortish knife. It’s the classic military commando blade, straight with a tapered point and serrated on the back, perfect for pretty much anything.
I rock up onto my knees and press my left forearm along the ground and place the knife on my wrist above the limiter. Did they seriously learn nothing from our fight before? I take a quick glance at the far door, specifically under it to check for the shadows of feet. There’s nothing, though that doesn’t mean someone isn’t hiding next to it.
Whatever though. Better get started. Clenching my teeth, I press the knife into the flesh across my wrist and begin sawing back and forth. Luckily I keep the knife sharp, but it is still hard going, especially the tendons which take forever to cut through, not to mention the huge amounts of blood leaving my body. It’s like a little fountain in some places as the blood spurts out rather than oozes from the cut.
When I hear the knife grinding against the bone I stop. It’s hard to do, but I am able to slow my healing a little with focus, enough to allow me to finish the job. Ignoring the sweat trickling into my eyes, I flip the knife over and press the serrated edge against the exposed bone.
The noise of the sawing is shockingly loud. I’m almost worried someone will come and check on me, but I’m too bus right now to care. The crunching and tearing noise fills the room as the teeth of the blade bite away at the bone, sending shards flying. The pain is bad, but not terrible. More of a dull reminder than incapacitating agony.
It funny that. It’s not even part of my ability, this lack of pain. You know when people say ‘pain is an illusion of the mind’? Well they’re right. Pain is just a warning system to alert you that something is wrong right? As in ‘get your hand away from the stove, you’ll burn yourself!’ So, what happens if it doesn’t matter, like if your body learns that any injury will heal almost immediately, why bother with a warning? Why bother with pain?
Eventually I saw all the way through with a dull snap and quickly carve through the other side. Finally, man, why does the body have to be so tough. It’s like a bloody sapling. Discarding my knife, I slip the limiter off my wrist. Big mistake.
Immediately pain, true pain, shoots through my head. Whispers suddenly spring up around me and the shadows in the room lengthen and distort. Faces, hands, all looking at me and whispering. A dull noise, like static which is too low to make out. With a grunt I raise my surviving hand to my head and scrunch my eye shut.
Fuck’s sake. It’s clearly been longer than a day then.
Why bother fighting us?
My breath catches in my throat. That voice. I thought she said she would leave me alone. Why her? I slowly open my eye and look up. Yep, she’s here.
Sitting on my bed I see a small girl sitting on the bed swinging her legs back and forth. Well, she seems to be a small girl but it’s hard to tell as she looks more like the silhouette of one. Pure black and giving off black mist like a slow moving flame, her pure white eyes, devoid of any irises, bore into me.
I speak quietly in a hoarse voice, “W-why are you here? I thought you left?” I shudder and lower my head, almost bowing. “I’ve already said I’m sorry. I wish… I wish…” I trail off as guilt churns inside me.
She merely giggles in her echoing way. I never left. You’ve just been hiding from me.
I flinch. That is like her I suppose. Of all the people I have ever met, she is the only one I ever respected. The only one I kind of cared for. And that terrifies me, especially since I owe her greatly.
So… why didn’t you fight? She tilts her head and narrows her eyes. Why didn’t you give in like before? You know I would have been able to handle it.
“Heh, I don’t know. I guess I just wasn’t myself.” I look back to her, “But I do know that I won’t go with them.” I can feel the heat rising in me as I grab my hand and hold it to the stump and stand up before grabbing my knife, but this time I welcome it. The rage and fear. Old friends.
The shadows thicken and swirl around her as she hops off the bed. Oh? And how will you manage that?
I merely grin at her. “No more bullshit, that’s how.” I begin to unwrap the bandages around my hands and slip off my hoodie. I needed new ones anyway. These have too much blood in them.
The girl just giggles. Wow, so intense. I don’t see much improvement though.
I snicker again and reach up to my left eye as the girl steps back. What are you doing?
“I’m done with this city anyway. Time to move on.” With that I rip the eyepatch from my face, tearing chunks out with the screws. Instantly my vision floods with an overlay, similar to heat images but I see the glow of life. The whispers grow in intensity and I can feel the skin around my eye begin to crack. I look at the girl and see her, with a void of pure darkness superimposed on her figure as she smiles.
So you really are going to give in? Again?
I return the smile, “No. I will stay in control this time. This time will be different, Alice.”
Alice’s smile fades as she once again stares into me.
We will see. What makes this time so special?
I sigh as I begin walking towards the door. “I have no idea. I’m just shooting blind right about now.” As I reach the door, I stop. Last time was a mistake, I gave them too much of an opening, I didn’t try. Not this time. I am done with people controlling me. My life is my own, no matter how shit it is and if someone thinks they can take that from me, I’ll be glad to dig their grave.
As I stew away, I feel the darkness rising in me, but contained, directed. I am in control now. I see the mist oozing from my left eye as the cracks widen on my face and I surround myself in a black cloud. I form another blade in my hand; longer and wider, it spreads from my forearm and curves forward to a wicked point about four feet long.
I grin as I raise the blade. It’s time to go hunting.
That door never stood a chance.
--Katie POV—
“What are we going to do with him?” growls Dave as he hovers protectively over Ashely. “The guy’s a fucking monster and has no control.”
Allan just clicks his tongue and retorts, “What do you suggest? We could kill him maybe? I will literally give you a medal if you can kill that guy.”
They’re currently all gathered in one room to discuss what is going to happen next. Katie’s already called the committee in charge and given her report over the phone, as well as recommending that they have a containment team set up for when they move him back to the academy.
Of course, all that takes time so they are merely waiting for Stepper to arrive once everything has been set up at their end, though all of the extraction team would rather the target was taken off their hands as soon as possible.
Stolen story; please report.
Katie is troubled though. Paul’s premonitions are never wrong, so why was the fight so easy? He barely even fought back and was down after just a few minutes.
Though he almost lost it… Katie thinks as she remembers how the mist moved on its own, the target’s face devoid of all emotion as the grass around him died. She dreads to think what would happen if it had touched anyone, but again, it was moving slowly. As though through treacle.
She shakes her head as she interrupts the bickering of the team, “Look. It doesn’t really matter. We’ve done our jobs now and fortunately no one is injured.” She looks Dave in the eye and attempts to reassure him, “I hit him with three darts. That’s enough to put an elephant under for several days and even if he does wake up, we put the limiter on him. He can do anything.”
Dave grumbles but backs down as Callum speaks up, “So what’ happening back home? When are they gonna pick us up?”
“Soon,” replies Katie, “Like the next few hours.”
At her words the tension lessens slightly in the room as several sighs of relief are given out and a silence descends over them.
It is suddenly broken by Connor who laughs quietly, “He looked so damn pissed though when Paul cut him in half.” Katie just sighs at his poor attempt at making conversation, but Paul seems to perk up.
“Yeah,” he chuckles, “it was kind of scary at the time though with all that mist and shit floating around, but damn, his face. You could frame it and out it on the wall to scare the shit out of people.” His laughter stops as his faces becomes serious again, “Though I’m glad we had those darts.”
Connor nods, “Yeah, but what about you man? What was that with the portals? They were like cleavers.” A good question. Katie has never seen him use the portals that way before, only to trap things and objects somewhere else.
“Oh that,” the boy in question grins sheepishly, “I only found that out recently. Turns out the edge of my portals are really damn sharp. I haven’t found anything I can’t cut with them yet and I wanted to try it out in combat.”
Their casual banter and bickering continues for another twenty minutes before Katie stands up. “I’m going to go check on him. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Allan nods to her and Dave gives her a glance before turning back to Ashley. The others don’t even react.
Katie opens the door to the room and enters the long hallway while thinking to herself. It kind of pays to be part of the Academy. They had everyone on their floor vacated after they captured the target in case something went wrong, all of whom were compensated by the Academy. Yeah, definitely pays.
She closes the door behind her and turns towards the door to the temporary ‘holding cell’. It’s not much of a cell to be fair. They just stripped the room of everything other than the bed and table and locked the door. It’s better than nothing though. Especially since the target isn’t waking up any time soon.
Just as she thinks this the door ahead of her explodes outwards in a shower of splinters.
“Wha-,” she manages before she sees a dark cloud swirl out of the bottom of the doorway as he steps round the corner. Katie is dimly aware of the rest of her team piling out of the room behind her at the sudden noise but she doesn’t look away. She can’t.
He’s straightened up, not slouching anymore, revealing a height just under Allan’s and has taken off the hoodie and bandages over his hands, revealing lean muscles bordering on skinny. She glances at his left wrist and feels her heart falter. The limiter is gone, instead there are just smudges of blood.
In his left hand he is holding a knife, about 6 inches long and his right arm is gone. In its place is a thick, black blade which trails along the ground. The worst though are his eyes. The eyepatch is gone and his left eye is like a hole. A window into the abyss. Pure black it fitfully spits out mist as cracks of pure darkness spider web outwards from his eye and into his hairline.
Both parties freeze as they see each other and Katie feels Dave and Paul pushing to the front of the group. Paul’s hands begin to glow and Dave slips his gloves on as they prepare to fight when he smiles.
Katie feels herself shudder as his faces twists into an approximation of happiness and he takes a step towards them. There is something so wrong about the expression, some underlying tone of… something. It’s not right.
Paul immediately opens a portal where his neck is but he ducks underneath the blue flash and leaps forwards, swinging his blade in a wide arc. The sword on his arm carves through the wall to his side like butter as he brings it around on Paul, but he opens another portal, slicing his arm at the elbow. The sword carries on and flies through the air to stick in the wall.
There is something different about him now. Some kind of ferocity that he didn’t have in the park. It is as though he is a different person it seemed to Katie, as though he is no longer afraid of anything. Someone with nothing to lose.
Dave meanwhile starts shouts at the rest of the team to move back as Paul starts opening bigger portals around him.
While moving back, Katie watches the now one armed target dodges another portal before rushing Paul and lashing at his head with a whip of inky blackness. He ducks but doesn’t see his follow up attack, and he doesn’t have time to react to Katie’s shout of alarm before the normal knife in the target’s other hand is plunged into his chest.
He staggers back as the knife is withdrawn with a loud sucking noise and a spurt of blood before he stabs it into Paul's gut.
The portals surrounding the two of them flicker and warp before disappering altogether.
This is bad. If Paul is down they don't have someone who can get close enough to damage the target. Dave can't get close without touching that damn mist and none of the others are able to fight.
Dave obviously knows he can't do anything so stands back and prepares to try to block any attacks which come their way, while the two twins run back into the room.
Katie braces herself and prepares to use her power 'Management' to at least slow down the monster in front of her.
She draws in a deep breath as she allows her power to well up inside her but before she speaks, and as the knife begins to fall for the third time, two darts whiz past her head towards the exposed shoulder of the target.
They don't reach him.
Reacting impossibly fast he spins and brings his left arm up to cover his torso. The two darts hit the arm and deliver their dosage but to Katie's horror he merely grins before forming another blade where his right arm should be and slicing his left off at the shoulder.
The wound oozes mist rather than blood and slowly takes on the appearance of the arm of a demon as spines form and the fingers curl into claws.
Two more darts whistle by but he leans back and casually dodges them before whipping his while body forward and snatching up the knife with an elongated arm before hurling it over Katie's shoulder.
At the sound of a scream and swearing behind her, Katie turns and sees Callum clutching his shoulder, a tranquilliser gun lying next to him where he dropped it. Connor has also dropped his and is desperately trying to help his brother.
Katie sees Allan looking on with a grim expression. Time to use it then, she thinks as she draws in another breath and looks back to see the target stepping over Paul lying in a pool of blood.
She feels the power well up, forcing aside the fear and anger she feels for letting the others down, infusing her throat and lungs as she speaks, "Stop."
He hesitates and looks at her, taking his eyes from the twins being dragged away by Dave as he desperately tries to get some distance. A flash of annoyance flashes across the target's face before he draws back his arm.
Well looks like this is it then, Katie thinks as she watches the arm whip forward and extend over the distance between them, the hand forming a spike.
Fear floods her system as it nears her chest. She doesn't want to die, but would rather she dies than her team. Clinging to this idea Katie forces herself to not flinch as the spike draws ever closer.
Suddenly a blur crosses her vision as a figure leaps in front of her, allowing the spike to pierce his back. It enters without a wound, no ripping of clothes or flesh, as it enters his body.
"Allan," Katie whispers as she struggles to process what she it seeing. The boy is standing in front of her, his back to the target as he smiles at her, his glasses askew.
He opens his mouth to speak but no sound comes out, only a wave of darkness which flows back towards the target. With a snarl of annoyance the target jerks the arm back, out of Allan's back as it shrinks back to normal.
As the thread of blackness retreats, Allan's eyes glaze over and he collapses, like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Allan!" Katie screams. This isn't happening. It can't be. It's her place to die for the team, not his. Falling to her knees next to his body, she clutches it to her chest, tears falling down her face. "Allan, please..."
A dry chuckle draws her eyes upwards as she stares into the eyes of a killer. Devoid of emotion they pierce into her, weighing her up. Judging her.
Then he speaks, his voice eerily echoing with others, like a vast number of peole repeating his words, "This is all your fault."
Reaching down as he speaks, his hand wreathed in mist, he almost reaches her before someone appears behind him. His eyes widen as he whirls around, his arm already outstretched and reaching for the figure when Katie recognises the newcomer.
Stepper.
Then she feels the familiar tumbling sensation as he uses his ability, sucking everyone into a vortex as her surrounds warp and fade to be replaced by flashing lights.
Though this time the sensation doesn't affect her as much, as she hugs Allan to herself and cries.
Help has arrived. But too late.