The Beeper got Triggered (part II)

"I don't think we're gonna get any information out of each other until something happens, hmm?" I said. "How about, uh... We get started with this?"

Before she jumped towards one of us and started fighting like a paranormal mercenary, Gary drew his gun as fast as he could and fired three shots, each of which echoed loudly in the vicinity of that dark room. It was Gary who fired so he wouldn't have missed the bullets unless the girl had dodged them.

yet she didn't dodge.

He must have thought at the time that three was enough, but the girl just extended her right hand forward - the hand that was previously in her pocket - and dropped the three bullets without the capsule. The girl's hand was bleeding.

"Hey... That hurts!" She said it in the same ironic tone as before, as she slowly began to advance to the side of the room where the three of us were. She must have caught the bullets in the air. And that was really fast. I couldn't even visualize her moving her arm between the time Gary drew his gun and the third shot being fired.

Using indarra to make your arm move quickly and accurately that way required a lot of training, and judging by the little amount of blood draining from her hands the shots should not have done much damage. The girl wasn't just a normal mercenary. This way we witnessed shooting was useless. And not wanting to underestimate them, but... I don't think either of the other two would beat her in a fight.

I came up with a plan: 'I'm gonna stay here and wait for her to come and finish me off in a hand-to-hand fight.' This way I will transform my body to the normal state and perforate it, just like I did with the secretary. That's all I could do. But before that I concentrated on analyzing the fight between her and Gary.

My friend Gary was beside the shelf and the girl was on the other side, walking towards him. He didn't take long to get angry and jumped in her direction to get the edge. Gary was physically the strongest of us so if the quick move caught her by surprise we could immobilize her, but if she noticed in time, Gary could suffer a counterattack at some vital point. Either way his initiative would reveal how much the girl knew how to fight.

But Gary stumbled before he got close to her, letting his body lean too far and just when he was close enough to receive an attack from her. Did he stumble because it was dark? It was real bad luck...

This way, without taking her left hand out of her pocket, the girl just knocked Gary down on his knee at the same time, reaching his chest.

My friend Boe still had his 9mm, so he pointed it to the girl, taking himself in a frenzy while assuring with both hands.

"Shit...! I won't let you do whatever you want!"

But the girl took advantage that Gary's missing body was near her, so before it fell completely, she held him in front of her in order to block the space between her and Boe.

"Hey! Let's not get ahead of ourselves... You don't want to shoot the wrong person..."

"Tsc... What do you want?"

"Originally I wanted an invitation to a certain party... But now I think I want to end all the three of you..."

"Boe, she is provok..."

Boe got ahead of himself.

Angry as he was, he jumped in the direction of the girl, just like Gary had done before. It looked like it was the only way out, as she was holding Gary in her arms, preventing us from getting an angle to shoot. We should have taken a second to think of something, though. If he ran into her, he'd only get a beating bag like Gary.

And all I could think about was my final card... "Damn! I should've been the one to fake a rage and went for it in his place..." I thought.

It was almost too late, but by that time I started getting up from the chair and go towards her, it would be better to surround her than to fight one at a time. I had hesitated because I thought Boe would take a blow and fall just like Gary, but as soon as he got to a short distance the two of them each grabbed each other's limbs and were fighting just with the strength to unravel.

Boe was surprisingly holding out, he was groaning hard and neither of them were leaving the place.

They were blocking my passage, which was narrow. My idea was to go around and grab her from behind, that way Boe could hit her freely or I could go back to normal as soon as I grabbed her, both alternatives guaranteeing victory. But the girl was experienced. She used Gary as a shield to prevent Boe from using the weapon and positioned herself exactly in the middle of the passage so that we needed to fight hand to hand one at a time.

I looked with my eyes for a way to get around quickly. There wasn't. I'd have to jump with the indarra to the other side of the room and then come back. That would take more than three seconds and demanded a lot of moving, which would draw her attention.

I found myself pathetically standing behind the two of them struggling vigorously as I sought an opening.

Then I remembered Boe's trap. He had a control that activated it: it was a device that always hung from the ceiling, tied by a wire that came loose with the pressure of an electric lock. All I had to do was press a button and the trap would come down, cutting everything in the middle of the room. The thing came from the door to the middle of the room, so the girl was right in front of it.

"Boe!" I shouted. I wanted to say "prepare the trap" but that'd draw certain suspicion..

He must also have forgotten it, because as soon as I called him he seemed to know what I was talking about and still holding the girl's arms, he leaned his right arm against his body slightly tapping his elbow into the right pocket of his blouse, pushing the button.

The trap came exactly in their direction, as expected, getting a strike straight to the head.

Unfortunately it was the wrong head. It hit Boe.

As soon as the trap was set and she started to let go of the lock, the girl made the most sudden and unexpected movement with her body to the side: an exaggerated diagonal, leaving Boe in the line of the apparatus.

Boe took the full blow unprepared, releasing his arms slightly. He must have used the indarra at the time to withstand the impact, but the girl ended up knocking him down with a high kick that caught on his chin while his body was leaning back.

Indarra might be able to resist the trap damage, but if the girl uses the indarra in her attacks it will be like taking them normally. And a flying kick spot on at the weak point of the chin would bring anyone out of their condition.

It all happened too fast. The girl hung her body to the side, the trap hit him and she already completed the combo with the kick.

"Bastard! You knew it!"

"The device tied to the ceiling? Yes... I'd seen it hanging before I walked into the room with my hawkeye, you know... It's my finesse..."

I was now standing in front of her, right in front of the chair and between her and me was Gary and Boe falling to the ground. If we stepped on them it would count as a free space, and I knew she would certainly do that.

I was trying to think of a way out, so I started trying to buy some time using frivolous talk as an excuse:

"So blocking my passage wasn't the only reason you stayed in the middle."

"Yeah. I stayed in the line's trajectory on purpose."

"Hawkeye, huh?" I spoke in a tone as if I knew what I was planning to do next. It seemed to be working. The girl seemed eager to expose her genius, having already stopped moving slowly in my direction as she was doing before."

"Yeah... It's hard to explain. It's like I have a panoramic view of the room, like I'm seeing it from above. I can see the trap even if it's out of my field of vision."

"Oh? Sounds formidble."

"I can also see the knife that's behind you too, the one you kept to ambush me."

"Shit... How?"

"You wanna know how? You know how the light reflects on little drops of... Hey, wait... Why am I telling you all this?"

"Ha-ha. That's right, why? Come on, let's get this over with" I made a provocative pose, as of a mere sub mercenary who had no plan in mind but total confidence in his ability.

"Get this over with? I don't know... I was thinking... You guys are three... Three is the number of bad guys who stole Cooper's invitation from the SAD building..."

I stood still and remained silent. Waiting for her to come for a hand-to-hand fight. She proceeded:

"From the information I got, one of you had thorns in your body. And I realized before I came in that two voices were calling the other one Spikey, you know... I was listening behind the door for a while, you didn't even notice."

I mantained in the way I was.

"The voices they called Spikey were the other two's. You're the only one I haven't heard... What if you, Spikey, have thorns in your body and you're waiting for me to fight body to body so you can pierce me with your thorns like you did with that secretary?"

That girl...

"Rá rá!" She mimed a laugh, "With so many aliases to choose from and you get exact the one which delivers your one trick up your sleeve?"

"Shut up! I didn't choose my alias!"

Now there was no point in hiding it anymore. She knew everything. I began to prepare to attack her abruptly when there was an opening. Even if it was the exact same plan Boe and Gary had executed seconds ago, it would be different for me because I didn't have to beat her by force, I just had to lean on her and my original form would do the rest.

But she made the unbelievablest of quick moves, bending her body so that her right arm reached the ground, taking the gun that was with Boe - who I remind: was just below her - and then raising her arm again, pointing the gun in my direction.

I was considering using the indarra in the joints to ensure a momentum by making a quick move to take her by surprise, I believed that with this strategy I would be quick enough. But nothing had prepared me for the speed I had witnessed. All the movement, from the curvature of the arm to the final movement, where she points the gun at me, was executed as one movement, as if I had been trained thousands and thousands of times.

One minute she was unarmed. I didn't even blink... And suddenly she was pointing the gun at me.

That exposed until that time she wasn't even using all her speed against us!

Boe and Gary were knocked out, I was cornered, and she was pointing the gun at me. And even if she wasn't... I believe it would be hard to beat her.

"Now that we've met... Tell me what I want to know: who do you work for?"

I hesitated to answer. But I had to. I needed to buy some time so I could get some leverage... I needed to find a way out. And there was no point in lying to her. Those kind of people are trained to know the lies. It could be that she'd ask things that her group already knew just to see if I was telling the truth or not.

"To Verde! We're hired by Verde. The whole restaurant is... And if you mess with us, there's gonna be a lot of people after you!"

"Hmm... Sounds risky... Now tell me: where is Verde now?"

"This... I cannot tell."

The girl unlocked the safety lever, making the threatening noise that humans fear so much.

"It's true... I, ... I don't know."

"You know..." She gave a smile, "I have a friend of mine who's good at this whole thing of torturing and ripping information out, too bad he's not here. I don't have much patience for that kind of thing anymore."

"Is that supposed to be a joke? I know you're crazy to use what you have in your left pocket!" She's had her hand in her pocket since she walked into the room. I assumed it was some sort of instrument of torture she'd brought for the occasion.

"Oh, you noticed?" She looked into her left pocket, while taking her hand out of it, carrying with it a common mobile phone, "I have this game called Cinder Clash installed... It's online and I can't pause it... I was going to wait to be somewhere where I could log off, but you noticed me behind the door before it, so I had to improvise..."

What!? Does it mean that while she was fighting with the three of us she was also playing the game without looking at the display and with only one hand all that time?

Impossible! That must've been a bluff to intimidate me!

The moment before, when she looked away from me for a moment in her pocket, I paid attention to Boe's body underneath her. He had awoken. He was going to try something. I couldn't do anything in my position while she was paying attention to me. So I realized I needed to buy some time so that Boe could make a surprise attack.

I started explaining our situation to her, to arouse some interest.

"We are in charge of the invitation. It's that one that was with us."

If she was listening behind the door before, she had heard us speak about the invitation anyway, it was okay to say. But maybe mentioning it would make her lose focus.

"Ah, yes! The one on the shelf there, right? I'll get it later. But that's not what I want to know. Hmm... Where's Craig at a time like this? What do I do? Well, um... I'm gonna ask you one more time: Where's Verde?"

"I already told you... I don't know."

"In this case where is he normally? Or where was the last time you found him?"

"Boe was going to try something, but he let a bit of ductu escape. The little girl must have noticed, because more than abruptly she knocked him down with a stomp, which scared me to death.

"You guys think I'm joking or something!? Tell me what I want to kno!. After all, I already have the invitation. If you have no further use for me then..." She held her hand out with her pistol a little more precisely in my direction.

"Hold on! I'll say! We didn't meet much with Verde personally... But he's usually in the..."

'Bang!'

The girl fired the gun. She had deflected her arm towards Gary who was lying on the ground. She made the move with the same speed as the other time. She pointed the gun in his direction, shot, and then she aimed at me again, without even looking at where she was pointing.

It was so fast that it looked like the gunshot appeared up on Gary's body and she never stopped pointing the gun in my direction.

"Gary!" I screamed as I saw him bleeding from the wound. My heart began to palpitate harder, while sweat began to flow through my head. Even if it wasn't going to do any good, part of me wanted to crouch down and check on Gary's wound. But the part of me that was still rational knew that I couldn't move from there at all.

If I was waiting for any chance to fool the girl when she was unaware, now the whole plan had gone down the hole. Any reasoning on my part was locked away. I didn't know how to act. I kept alternating my gaze stunnedly between her and Gary.

"It is going to be hard coming up with an escape plan now with your head in those conditions hmm? I was thinking you were acting... Suspiciously."

She extended the gun towards me again.

"Don't even think about getting out of there! Just tell me: where's the place you were gonna say earlier?"

I opened my mouth to answer, and in my head I had answered, but through the situation probably only an inaudible moan must have come out.

Gary was dead! And the girl kept asking me things.

"How? I didn't hear." She put the gun to Boe's head, which this time was lying on the floor in front of her.

"Wait!!" I made a sudden move, and this time I screamed so it could be heard from outside. I was really willing to tell her everything.

Unfortunately, 'everything' was almost nothing. All I could her is where Verde was meeting with us and what little he had told us about his plans.

"Yes... Yes! Wait for you and reveal false information to me, hmm? It's written on your face you were just trying to buy me some time to corner me."

'Bang!'

This time it was Boe. And the blood flowing from him indicated it was ended for him, too.

Tears came to my eyes. My limbs fell beside my body and I lost any hope of maintaining a vigilant position. Or even to even focus on the whole situation that was before me.

In the little bit of reason left I noticed the girl extend her hand in my direction and fire the gun a third time, but the gun clicked and it didn't have any result. It was unloaded.

She threw the pistol away.

"Like I said... I don't have much patience for these things... I came here to get a piece of stupid paper, so there's no reason... Now come on, stud. Let's get this over with once and for all, shall we?"

Until moments ago this would have been the ideal situation, the one I was waiting for. The girl was unarmed and was walking slowly and confidently towards me for a hand-to-hand fight. But now I was in a state of shock. I couldn't revert to my original form anymore. I couldn't use any sudden movement to try an escape. I couldn't even get my head in place.

I couldn't do anything at all.

She pushed me and I fell to the ground. And then she ended it all with a stomp to the face.

And an indarra stomp does carry what is necessary to end a life, if one does not react with a similar force in its defense.

The sight of the little girl's tennis shoes coming up against my face, first small and then becoming bigger and bigger until it completely darkened the view I had of the environment... Was the last thing I saw.