Authors: Alicia Howell
The knife slid through his flesh, and even from this distance I could tell that my aim had been good. I was quick going over the wooden plank that connected the buildings to go examine the body. He wasn’t even breathing by the time I got there. The knife had buried itself directly in his heart, all the way to the hilt.
It took skill to get a throwing knife between the ribs. The endless insomniac nights I had spent practicing weaponry with Waterstar were starting to pay off.
I left his body there; it wasn’t like there was much I could do with it. I found the roof access door fairly quickly, but continued to check the entire roof nonetheless.
Once I was done with that, I stood at the edge closest to the building Darkstar had been taken into. It didn’t seem to be directly connected to this one, and I weighed the pros and cons of entering the access here and hoping that there would be an underground passage that connected all of them.
I decided to continue roof hopping. It wasn’t worth the possible delay.
The gaps between buildings weren’t that large, something I could easy jump. As I went north, I came across another guy. He had been smarter.
Emphasis on the past tense.
I laid his body onto the roof, soundless as usual. The knife had already been removed from his chest and I meticulously wiped it clean on the guy’s shirt. Blood rusts blades. Waterstar would kill me if she knew I let that happen to one of her precious weapons. I wouldn’t tell her about the one still stuck in the first guy’s chest though. I didn’t even want to think of how many laps she would make me run.
I continued onward. Nothing would stop me. When my loyalty comes into question, nothing gets in my way.
I would manage to get Darkstar and Erik out.
The next roof was more heavily guarded. Figures, since it seemed to be the main building, the building where they had taken my comrade. The building I would utterly destroy if I had the time.
I looked up from where I was kneeling by the man I had just killed. There were seven men on the other roof. I could probably take one, maybe two out with throwing knives before being seen. That would leave five, all armed with guns.
I smiled.
My feet were already moving. I wasn’t going to bother with throwing anything at them. It would take too much time, something I didn’t have. Straight ahead of me I could see that the sun was rapidly declining in the sky. Time was definitely not an asset anymore.
I vaulted off of the edge of the roof and someone finally shouted an alarm. It had taken them long enough.
I landed on their side and crouched down. No one was moving. No one had even reached for their guns.
“Kto ty?” one of them finally said. I looked over at him without any humor. I didn’t feel like dealing with language barriers at the moment.
I took a step forward and they all shifted their grip on their guns. Why weren’t they getting into an offensive, or even defensive, position?
“I am Firestar. Where is Darkstar.” I’d give them approximately four seconds before attacking.
That had gotten their attention though.
The guy who had spoken said something else in Russian, and everyone started moving. They were charging me. Why the freaking hell were they charging me
when they had guns
!?
I darted to the side, nimbly staying out of reach. Rocks clacked together as all seven of them skidded to a halt and turned to face me. What I assumed was the captain of this group started calling out more orders, cornering me to the side I was on. I looked over my shoulder and slightly cursed. There wasn’t a building there, just a drop off.
I looked back at them and noticed that only six people were there now. One of them must have been sent down to tell someone about my appearance.
Their four seconds were more than over now.
I calmly undid the strap that had held my sword onto my back and set it on the ground at my feet. I didn’t have to look up to know that they were all warily watching me, needing to know what the crap I would do next.
I’m sure they could have easily guessed.
One of my hands brushed against a pocket, inconspicuously checking to see if what I was planning was where I had believed it would be. Yup, definitely there.
I undid the zipper that closed that pocket within my cargo pants. I could literally see the sweat beading on their foreheads. Damn they had heard a lot about me, but what could that possibly entail? No one here knew of my Calsh activities except for Darkstar, and I knew he wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone.
I wrapped my right hand around the hilt and pulled the gun out. I could see all of their chests deflate as they saw what looked to be an ordinary pistol.
I’m sure you have all heard the saying ‘never judge a book by its cover.’ It’s one of Waterstar’s favorites, in case you were wondering.
I turned the gun on its side, the barrel facing the man on the far left. With one fluid movement of my elbow, I swept the gun in an arc, firing all along the way.
Some of the bullets missed, and by the time that I was pointing it toward my right, the bullets had run out. I tossed the gun over the edge of the roof behind me. When Arctic had said they had managed to make a machine gun inside of a pistol, I had been expecting something a bit more dramatic.
This was disappointing.
I looked out in front of me. Three of the men had gone down, none killed. Well wasn’t that just fantastic. I had wasted a machine gun pistol on pretty much nothing. Those terrorists grunts would still be operating within a week, plus I still had three guys to fight.
“Well that’s just great,” I muttered before picking up the bastard blade on the ground in front of me, letting its sheath drop back onto the rocks. If these guys weren’t going to use their guns then I wouldn’t bother to either. I didn’t like how noisy they were and my ears were already ringing from that useless gun.
I ran forward with the tip of my blade dragging on the ground behind me. I imagined I looked like one of those badass Samurai from the Earth movies.
The first guy I attacked didn’t have a chance. He was trying to backpedal when I pulled the blade up with both of my hands, cutting him diagonally across the chest. I pivoted around and saw that the other two standing men were actually pointing their guns at me. Looks like someone had grown up.
I didn’t drop my blade, didn’t reach for another weapon. The fact that they weren’t firing already showed that they weren’t planning to. They had probably gotten orders to apprehend me at all costs besides injury.
Well, whoever wanted me alive would just have to wait. I liked to take my own damn time about things.
“Come on, guys. We don’t have to add more blood to this,” I dryly said, shifting in the rocks. I’m sure the bottoms of my boots were stained.
One of the men shook his head. Nope, no English. Oh well, didn’t have time to waste on playing charades.
I literally threw my sword at the guy who had shaken his head, expecting it to do a cool whirling in the air and stick him dead center in the chest.
After one revolution though, the blade fell to the ground and landed on its hilt, clattering onto the ground. The guys and I looked at each other for a moment, then they shouted and charged at me again.
Well that hadn’t gone as I had hoped. Maybe I should go back to pretend Samurai school.
I dodged around them once more and flung an arm out, catching one of them by the neck and flipping him down. His gun went flying toward the edge of the roof and I punched in his throat. Before I had looked away, I could see the blood rushing from his crushed jugular. That wouldn’t be a quick death, and I felt a little bad about it.
I had other things to deal with though.
It was just me and one last gunman now. I could hear the groans of the five men who were still alive around me. This is why it is a good thing to kill people within a deadly fight such as this. Then they aren’t living through the pain.
I faced the guy, shaking out my hands. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he dropped his gun and kept his hands raised in the universal sign for mercy.
I nodded to him. I wasn’t going to be coldhearted. He surrendered, I would consent.
“Rope,” I said, finally resorting to charades.
The guy watched my motions for a second then nodded his head, complying immediately and pulling out a length of rope from his bag. I also motioned for him to throw his bag far from him before I came anywhere near. I didn’t need for him to suddenly produce a grenade and manage to kill me.
I took the rope from the man and bound his hands behind his back before I placed him in the corner furthest away from anyone else. I faced him so that he was looking over the edge toward the sun, unable to see anything really that would be of importance.
I retrieved both blade and sheath and buckled it back onto my back. I wasn’t even sure why I was still carrying it around besides the fact that it made me look tougher. I think.
I went through the roof access on this building, already wary of what would be at the bottom of the metal ladder. On the first building with Markus, someone had been waiting on the floor below. I sure as hell hoped that wasn’t the case here because I really didn’t feel like fighting any more idiots. It was becoming tedious.
Maybe if someone was capable enough to fight me I would have fun with this. It’s just that gunfights cannot get that intense.
DARKSTAR
Something that really was starting to bother me was that once I was unconscious, everyone reverted back to speaking in Russian. Erik was doing a good job at pretending he didn’t understand. Well, as far as I know. I was just going off of the fact that I couldn’t hear his voice among all of the other ones, though I guess he could have been nodding or shaking his head.
I also hadn’t heard the sounds of a fight starting yet either. They were taking their time about this, which kind of surprised me. Then again, they weren’t pressed to be somewhere by ten o’clock that night. Which reminds me, I wonder what time it was. It had to be getting late, we had been in there for a while. Plus the drive here wasn’t short or anything. I would guess five o’clock. That sounded about right.
I focused my attention more inward to where I was. It definitely was the same cavern as before, though this time I had been able to locate the walls. Last time had just been a vast empty space.
I could still hear everything that was going on outside, too.
But pressure in the place still made it seem like I was inside
something
, and like last time, I was unable to see anything in the darkness, which was highly unusual for me. Darkness was normally my friend. But then again, this wasn’t a normal circumstance.
I sat down to ponder some things, since it is pretty obvious that I wouldn’t be able to do much else besides run around and bang on the walls, yelling to be released. I don’t know who would be able to release me, because I am pretty sure that I was actually within the reaches of my mind.
Not one hundred percent sure though. Where else could I be? Well, if I was only in a spirit or essence type form, then I guess I could be anywhere. How would I still be able to hear what was happening outside where my body was then? Simple, I would still have a connection to my body because if I didn’t then I would be dead. Detached from my body. That was not a pleasant thought.
This was all assumption of course. I had to ask my fellow comrades if they had ever been in a similar place. All I know is that this place didn’t feel normal, didn’t feel like something that belonged to Earth or Calsh.
Or I could just be going crazy. Who knows? Waterstar could be contagious.
I let myself focus back on what I was hearing from the outside. It sounded like the fight had started.
I felt bad for Erik. He was screwed.
FIRESTAR
I had yet to come across anyone else here. I guess they thought seven men on the roof would be enough to keep anyone from intruding. Plus there was that one guy who had run down here. Hadn’t he found someone to tell about the notorious Firestar yet?
Well if so, they better hurry up and get up here. I was starting to get bored.
I sighed and put my hands behind my head. Now I remember why I had convinced Ice, Forest, and Sun to go with me last time. Solitary missions were boring as crap, and I turned into an even more boring person. I just couldn’t get as heated up as usual.