Chapter 10 - The Arrival

Andrew kept looking at his legs and narrowed his eyes, a murderous glint more present now.

'This bastard...'

"Hahahahahaha! Even if you are weak and have already lost, I have to thank you. You allowed me to upgrade my ability! Hahahahah! I feel the power surge within my veins!Hahahahaha!" The man laughed at Andrew, moving around him and belittling him, though he was still careful as to not get too close.

"This fight is over. Once I kill you and make the call, I can leave this shithole. Maybe go into the city and get a job, a house, a fami- As if! Who cares about all that? Who cares about family, or friends? They're all useless anyway, so who would care?" He suddenly turned to Look Andrew straight into the eyes. "I remember: you do. You care about your family. Well, they're dead now, so who cares. And you'll be meeting them, soon. I just want to say how annoying you 2 were. I needed to run away and lay a trap, just to get you. You should feel happy you got that honour from me."

The man then turned so that his left side was facing Andrew. "Thank you for the money!" The man then turned and began to throw the shuriken when something suddenly hit his head, which made it go above Andrew and flying into the foliage. Something else hit him in the stomach, making the man curl up before another hit straightened him out again. He then swiftly backed away into a tree. He looked down at Andrew.

"You! You got me with your dirty aura punches. I planned to kill you quickly but that is not the case, not anymore." He said as blood rolled down from his burst lip. He took a step forward before realising something. 'Those aura punches... they were yellow, gold. But this kid's aura is grey-black...' The man quickly blocked his left and felt a crack as his arm was snapped in 2. He stepped backwards from the impact before he saw something quickly move under his sight. Before he could look at it something crashed into his jaw, making him bite a bit off his tongue. It hit so hard, his teeth cracked and his gums bled as a piece of his tongue went flying out. The man was lifted into the air by the force.

Andrew looked on, breathing hard from his lack of blood. "Fise!" he exclaimed.

Fise had a serious glint in his eyes, which were dark and gloomy. His face was serious. He pushed harder and the man flew through the air before falling backwards, hitting a tree and stopping himself with the top of his back. Fise kept looking gloomily at him, even while falling to the left because of a lack of balance. Fise hit the ground and the man seemed to snap out of a daze. He quickly began running away from them, trying to deeper into the foliage. Fise looked on from the ground.

'I thought the kid died. I should've finished him off instead of going for the other one. I might lose more money now! Fixing these injuries will cost a while. I need to set up another-' his vision started slanting '-trap?! The man fell on the side of his head.

Fise pushed himself off the ground, ready to throw another aura punch. The man turned to look at him and bit his teeth together in anger.

"I will kill you! For what you did!"

Fise looked on, straight into the man's eyes.

"What did you just say?"

"Huh?" A shiver went down the man's spine.

"What you just said. That bullshit you have been spouting."

"You fu-"

"I asked a question."

'Heavy... I feel heavy.' the man thought to himself. "Tsk." he clenched his jaw harder and stood quickly, throwing 2 shurikens with both his hands before jumping back into the foliage behind himself.

'That kid is strong, somehow I know. I don't know his ability, so he's dangerous, but it's good I already injured him heavily.' A smile appeared on his face.

The 2 shurikens missed both Fise and Andrew as they erase holes in the around them. Fise pushed himself closer to a tree and stood, leaning his hand on it for support. He pushed himself a little forward before Andrew told him something. "He improved his ability!" a heavy breath came out."He can make it so that it'll take 2 impacts for the shurikens to go off." Fise nods and moves forwards as Andrew breathes heavily and holds his head, the blood he is losing making him feel lightheaded. Fise got his other hand on a tree in front of him and used it to pull himself forward before his other hand held it again.Fise repeated this. Moving forward, the foliage slowly decreased and Fise saw it. 'Another... street?' The houses were old and rotten, falling apart like the other ones, and the road was cracked, even the manhole cover was only rust. Fise stayed alert, liking left and right for the enemy.

Fise then felt something brush past with the wind and quickly moves backwards but he falls again on the ground. He looks upwards and immediately rolls back as the tree he was supporting against falls to the ground. He looks upwards and sees something out of the corner of his eye. 'Something on the house.' He looks up at the house next to him and sees the man up on its roof, his right hand behind his back before he throws a shuriken and quickly moves his hands behind him again and throws another one at Fise, who has crawled next to another tree and stood up. He stood still as the 2 shurikens whizzed by his face. He then moves forwards but then he turns to the sound of creaking. 2 trees behind him slowly sink towards him, ready to fall. He moves away from the tree but then the trees suddenly fall quickly into the holes created by the shurikens, making their trunks crack. As this happens the top parts of the trunks get erased and fly toward Fise, making him block.

He falls on the ground but quickly rolls as a shuriken erases the ground and another gets stuck in it. Then another shuriken thuds into another tree on his right. A hole appears at the bottom of the tree causing it to fall towards Fise, who then crawls backwards and as the tree lands, he falls backwards, falling into a hole in the ground and blood spurts out his other leg as the tree activated the shuriken there, causing a chunk of it to be erased.

'This trap! He'll keep making me dodge and run, slowly whittling away parts of me till I die. I have to do something.'

Fise takes his chance as the man aims up another shot.

'The tree behind him seems a good target, I remember I placed another root trap there.' The man took the shot and waited for it to hit, looking at the kid knowing he'll dodge. But Fise stood still and seemed to flinch to the side.

"Tch." the man frowned.

'Wanted him to dodge, but oh well. Isn't it taking my shurikens little long to-'

Something stabbed into his leg making him flinch backwards into the roof, causing dust to explode as the old tiles cracked. The impact caused the shuriken to activate and created a hole in the side of the house. The man, not prepared, tried to grab the tiles around him but they slid along with him. He fell to the ground.

'How? How did he throw a shuriken back at me, he didn't even move, could that have been his ability? Shit, if I had more time, I could have made my hideout better.'

The man got up slowly before something smashed him into the wall, making a hole in it. Another hit came and the man ducked to the left before quickly going around the corner and running into the street. However, before he could make it too far, something hits the back of his knee, making him kneel, he turns to block a punch and this time reinforces it with his aura, only causing a small scratch to appear on him. Fise throws a right hook, but the man ducks under it and follows up with an uppercut, which misses as Fise tilts backwards and bring his punch back to backhand the man across the face, followed by another punch with his left towards the man's stomach which is blocked by the man's knee.

This is followed up by the man stretching and kicking Fise, getting away and quickly stopping himself from falling by bringing his leg back. 'How's this kid able to stand?' he looked down and saw that Fise was holding himself up by using his aura like a prosthetic. The man immediately stepped away as another fist came flying from his right, dodging it, but something still hit him as Fise threw an aura punch at the same time. The hit made the man turn his head. He spits out some blood and a tooth before turning, ready to kill when a powerful punch that suddenly appeared hit him square in the face. Fise put all his aura behind it, even taking some from his prosthetic leg, making the man's nose be broken into pieces, and then penetrating into his head. The man quickly moves most his aura to protect that area and Fise took the chance to deliver a kick with the remaining aura of his prosthetic leg straight into the man's knee, shattering his kneecap and with a crack, bending it the wrong way. The man stepped and stumbled backwards leaning to the side before one last strong punch to his chest sent him flying to the floor before tumbling and rolling, ending up on his front.

Fise fell in the middle of the road, before slowly standing on his knee, forming another prosthetic quickly. '9.' he thought. The prosthetic formed and Fise walked forwards.'8.' He stood in front of the man, whose blood pooled out his face and fell into the sewers through the rusty manhole in front of him.

"I'll..." Fise said.'7.'

"Give you a chance."

'6.'

"You can rethink what you said, and turn to become better, a better person."

'5.'

The man was silent. Then he quickly looked up as he pushed his arm forwards ready to throw something, but something hit him and made him miss the shot, causing a hole in the road a bit away. The man fell face down into the fumes of the old sewer, the manhole up in the sky, thrown by Fise's aura.

'4.'

"One chance." Fise turned away and began walking away.

'3.'

The man looked into the sewer, trying to breathe only through his mouth. 'Shit... I lost to this kid in a hand fight! If only those damn bastards gave more of a shit and actually trained us properly.'

'2.'

'I'm angry... This dumb child won against me and now he is spitting in my face by showing me mercy. No! Just kill him!' The man couldn't move his legs. 'When he punched me, my spine must have been injured! Now I won't settle for anything! HE MUST DIE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!'

"Haha, KID I DONT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR PITY, ABOUT HOW YOU WANT ME TO BE BETTER! WHO GIVES A SHIT!?" The man took out a shuriken and Fise turned his head only a bit to look at him through only one eye.

'1.'

'My shurikens are like metal, and therefore I can set this place alight, that sewer must be flammable in some way!' The manhole cover neared the ground, about to land near the sidewalk. "FUCKING DIE!" The man brought down the shuriken and was ready to cause a spark by hitting the side of the manhole. '0.'

Fise twitched and blood splattered onto his face and around the street. The man's head was gone along with a bit of his arm, what was left of it falling to the ground and something metallic hitting the ground before it seemed to break. Fise turned and began walking back to Andrew as the manhole cover lay completely free of blood on the top of the manhole. '10.'

Andrew was breathing hard. He had tried to cover his wounds but the lightheadedness was challenging to work with, managing to sloppily bandage on of his leg wounds as blood oozed out the other leg and dripped out of his makeshift bandaged on his missing arm. He had heard a shout and then a clang followed by complete silence. 'Did Fise win?'

He heard rustling and turned, ready to throw a flame but not strong enough to cause more than a little flame. Fise emerged out the foliage and Andrew immediately noticed the aura prosthetic. 'Why didn't I think of that?'

"Fise did you...?" Andrew took a breath not realising how hard it was to talk.

Fise nodded.

"Good. Let me make a prosthetic like yours and... we can go." Andrew tried congealing his aura into something he could use as a foot but he realised that he didn't have enough. 'All of it went into healing.'

"I don't have enough..." he breathed out, mentioning with his hand to Fise, who came closer and ripped about of his shirt and began trying to bandage Andrew's wound. Now that Andrew was closer, he could see that Fise also bandaged his own wound, though it seemed to not be good enough as blood still trickled through.

Fise finished bandaging up Andrew and Andrew spoke.

"Fise, carry me, we need to keep going."Fise picked up Andrew and carried him on piggyback as they began ascending the hill up to the road, where they began walking alongside of after licking up the bags they threw on the side.

"We need to find a stream. We barely have any water left."

"How much left?"

"Well, I packed 3 bottles, we lost one when we fought against the guy at the bridge, drank most of the other one before we used it against the lady and then you drank around half of this one, and since I also drank a bit, I say we have only around half a day's water left."

"We really need a stream then."

"Yeah."

"By the way, why did you want a map and a compass?"

"I told you, we cant use GPS or they could track us down, so I had to use the old map."

"But what about the compass?"

"Well, it's an old map, things have changed so landmarks might not be there, the compass is to make sure we are going in the right direction."

"Oh... Makes sense."

"Fise?"

"Yes?"

"Are you using your ability while we're walking?"

"Yes actually, how did you know?"

"We seem to keep stopping for a split second, it's like you are teleporting where you are again and again."

'Oh yeah, Andrew doesn't know my true ability, I should probably tell him.'

"Andrew?"

"You hear that too?"

"Uhh, no?"

"Be quiet." Fise stopped walking and listened.

'Is that?'

"Water?"

"Bingo! Go towards it."

Fise went down the now much smaller incline as the hill the road was on the side on seemed to end. They reached the bottom of the hill and the sound got louder. Fise ran forwards and Andrew caught a tree just in time before both of them fell into a small river.

"Watch where you're going!"

"Sorry!"

They swung back on land and looked left and right down the river seeing husks of 2 bridges.

"What was this place?" Fise asked.

"Maybe a park?"

They travelled down the river and reached one of the husks, which had ivy growing on it and all its wood rotted off, only leaving rusted metal.

"There seems to be a trail on the other side, should we cross?" asked Fise.

"Yeah, sure."

Fise carefully traversed, holding the railing and carefully stepping on the rusted metal, stopping every time creaking sounded out. They were near the middle when the loudest creak sounded out and then the bridge edges fell off and the bridge, along with the duo fell into the waist-deep water. The sound startled the local birds and they scattered into the tree. Fise picked himself and Andrew up before climbing up to the trail. They chose to keep heading right and Fise began walking again. They went up a small incline and were met with a rusty old playground on the left claimed by nature. They went on past it.

After walking for another few minutes they found an old building, probably a shop, built from concrete, which was now cracked and had plants growing through.

"This'll do, let's rest here."

"I'll go get water."

Andrew sat in the corner, breathing in and out trying to focus on healing as Fise descended into the river and filled the bottle, drinking half of it and then filling it up again before returning to Andrew. As he entered he stumbled and realised his prosthetic was getting weak and he has used most of his aura.

"Filled the bottle up, here." Fise started next to Andrew and handed him the bottle.

"Thanks." Andrew drank 3 quarters of it and handed it back.

"How long would it take for you to be healed?"

"Well, for my feet, I'll say around a day."

"So shorter than me."

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, I'm running low on aura." as he said that, he undid his prosthetic leg. They sat in the old building as the sunbathed in through what were once windows but are now just holes.

"How long till we reach Incip?"

"I say only around... 20 minutes?"

"What do we do when we do get there? How are we gonna get in?"

"Yes, going through security would be a problem because they can scan our faces. But it's fine, I have a pretty simple plan. However, we cant get there now, because of our injuries."

"How long would it take to fully heal?"

"I'll say around 4 days max?"

"What are we gonna do for 4 days?"

"Well, what other thing to do than train your aura?"

Fise let out a small sigh.

...

It was dark out, the curtains were drawn and only a small lamp kept the room from sinking into darkness. A man was sitting on a couch, looking at the curtains, thinking. He wore a red suit and a white tie on top of his black shirt, topping off the appearance with black sunglasses and brown hair. Suddenly, someone knocked on the door.

"Enter!" said the man. A man dressed in a suit entered, looking like his butler.

"Sir, we have some bad news."

"Oh? What are they?"

"Your nephew... his chip stopped. He's dead." the butler said emotionlessly. The man reached up and took off his sunglasses, holding them with both his hands. He sighed.

"I see... did you get the chip?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, wouldn't want to lose that. Was it damaged?

"Only a little sir. We are getting it fixed."

"Good, very good. The boss wouldn't be happy if we lost another one. You may leave."

The butler nodded and left the room, the door clicking shut. The man looked at his sunglasses, what remained of them as the lenses and bridge were gone, only a little left on the side as small curves, the lenses not cracked. He set them down on the table. With his half-open eyes, he looked back at the curtains, who now had a small hole in them.

'I didn't expect this. He had the 2nd strongest ability physically out of the group, behind the leader, and I went through a bit of trouble to get him into the team to earn something for once, but he died. Was it to their target? Are they that strong? Well, not too surprising considering that the boss wants them dead. But why only send a small team? I guess he doesn't care. Not my problem anyway. I should go down and see some of the ladies.' he smirked. 'I need to enjoy London to the fullest, after all, I might have to leave for the states.' The man got up and left, before closing and locking the door. On the table in front of the couch was a laptop showing "TOP SECR-" with the "R" cut off halfway by a hole in the top right of the laptop. An image was at the top left with a name next to it followed by the words "deceased" and paragraphs of information. The name read "Alan Pennel-" before it also got cut off.

...

The guard stood quietly in his room wearing a blue uniform, protected by the thick, explosion and bulletproof glass and walls. He was reading on his interface about the news and "stuff" when something detected movement. He peaked over and saw a man in a suit walk past the gate and towards the control point. The man closed his tabs and went to the microphone.

"Sir, please move to the person tunnel to be check-" The man stopped as he saw the man already in front of the glass. 'How did he get in through the doors? I haven't opened them! That's solid Jaxon metal, not even a Wraith can get through!' The security man looked on as the intruder raised his hand and brought it down as a chop into the glass. It didn't even make a sound. 'Did he really think this glass is so we-' the security man widened his eyes as the man's hand slipped through and kept going down, cutting into the glass and making no cutting sound at all. The man slipped in his other hand and cut horizontally where he started his first cut, then began making one at the bottom and met his 2 hands as he brought his second one down, cutting the glass into a square. The glass then softened and weaved, getting squishy and then suddenly it looked like it got sucked into something quickly.

"It- It disappeared?!" The security man shakily said.

"No, you just can't see it." The security man's mouth then suddenly got opened by a force he couldn't see. 'What?! How?! It's him! He's doing this! No! I don't want to know how anymore, I want to leave!'

"Wai-" The security man was cut off as the intruder flicked something invisible into his mouth and blocked his throat.

"I don't like to let people choose their last words." he said slowly, emphasising the word "choose".

The thing in the man's throat then let out pink lightning he couldn't see and then brightened up in the same colour. The intruder moved to the side and blood splattered as explosion and bulletproof glass appeared, making the man's death quick but gory.

"For holding such valuable information, this place has very weak security." The man then started walking further in.

...

The 2 guards kept watch at the Jaxon gate. They looked through the cameras and the glass. One guard's eyes widened for a second

"Hey, Carter, got 2 people at 12 o'clock."

"Got it."The second guard moved the camera to face outward from the city and zoomed on to 2 figures.

"One blonde, one brunette. Blonde around 160 cm and brunette around 150 cm."

"Rank?"

"Black clothing, maybe Triples?"

"Any weapons?"

"Both wearing backpacks, none visible from the outside."

Fise and Andrew closed in on the entry gate. They acted slow and exhausted, sweating hard. They got 3 metres away when they got stopped by a microphone telling them: "Please move to the person tunnel to be checked. The moved towards the smaller door on the side and it opened. They walked in, immediately through a scanner and on the ground there were lines with numbers next to them. "Move up in line to the last available spots. 1 at a time we'll tell you to get into the room after you've put your belongings in the tube on your right."

They took off their backpacks and put them in the tube, which took them into an x-ray machine. "Number 1 go through."

Andrew walked in and was scanned. Staying in there for a minute as the guards checked everything, he was then let through into the waiting area. The same was done with Fise and they waited for their backpacks. They arrived out of another tube and they took them. Next to the exit, they were given 2 cards that indicated they were visitors and not permanent residents as they couldn't pay for it. They had to have it to legally fo anything in Incip. Finally, the door opened and they were in the city, met by a long road leading to the more populated areas. The door closed behind them and they looked at each other.

"It worked."

"It did."

"I thought they'll check our faces?"

"Well, they weren't paid to look out for 2 children."

"Hehe."

Andrew smiled proudly. His plan to go through the south entrance instead of the North one worked.

"We arrived."

FOREST PANTHER SCOUT 2:

GUARDED,

DEAD,

KILLED BY FISE (FALLING MANHOLE COVER)