My Super Secret life…Villain-16.

Chapter 16

*Before…

She leads me inside I look around and it’s stalls and some shops like a mini-mall upside but in the middle is more like a flea market and most of its tools and combat styled gear ranging from ganger looking stuff to old military surplus and even some new stuff.

“Welcome to Sassy’s market mate!” She puts on a horrible accent but she’s smiling.

“Sassy’s?”

“Aye like a play off the S.A.S. from the commonwealth colonies luv.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay let shop for some toys.”

“Oi luvy those kinds of things are sold somewhere’s else.”

“Ha-ha-ha very funny Link…oooh are those grenades!”

*And Now…

Link actually smiles at me and there’s a semi questioning look there too. “Did you just make a joke?”

“Well sort of, I am really interested in accessorizing y’know.”

“Oh well if that’s what you’re calling it.”

She does this after you gesture and I step on ahead and up to the table where the grenades are. There’s a lot of different kinds and sizes and shapes and the fellow there looks at me with this odd look or it could be that it just looks odd with his grey skin and four eyes one set over top of another.

“Whatcha looking for?”

“Small, round and non-lethal.”

“Non-lethal that’s mostly what I carry hon the bigger boomin stuff is all fer the guardians.”

“Mostly?”

“Well I got some semi-lethal exotics.”

“Oh like?”

“IPC mist grenades.”

I shrug. “Honestly that’s Greek to me so what are they?”

“Ipecac.”

“Okay…wait like the medical stuff?”

“Yup, but it’s been altered into an inhalable mist.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred each.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Too high how about you quote me a better price when I see what else you have.”

“Oh…looking t’arm up then?”

“Something like that.”

“I think we can work something out.”

He goes over the wares that he has and there’s an impressive assortment including the kind I really am looking for. Small mini grenades with a slide top that protects the detonator button. I want them like that because they are like I said small and two they roll which is perfect for what I’m thinking of in terms of my powers.

I get a dozen of smoke and a few tear gas and a dozen stun balls…those are frags but instead of metal beads or ceramics they’re filled with small rubber balls that hit and bounce around and cause a lot of pain. Once I have all of those I get a supply of small flash bangs and I get two of those IPC’s.

Puke grenades.

Yeah that’s what they are someone weaponized syrup of ipecac.

It’s nasty sounding stuff and that’s fine by me it’s a nasty world and well…I’m nasty too. I’m a Villain.

From the grenades we travel around and while I’m not looking at guns I am looking at gun rounds and I get a few of boxes of really cheap .32 pistol rounds they’re some soviet or someplace like that maker and likely not really rated too high but I’m not looking for stuff that might jam. Again more of a powers thing since I can trigger off the primers and fire them without a weapon I just need to be better at it. Shotgun shells while I’m at it too both shot and some slugs. “The Bricklands" are a really rough place and there’s even rougher out there too.

I’m actually buying a lot of stuff…there’s all these para military things like knives and survival kits and mini first aid kits and I’m getting a few of each and little incidentals like magnesium bars for starting fires and the biggest part right now I’m looking for and is illegal to buy is armor-cloth.

There’s Kevlar the old standard and then there’s Shine-cloth which is tougher and usually used for linings since it’s made from woven crystalline carbon strands and can’t be colored or dyed and that doesn’t matter to me since it’s kind of the color I want…this sort of off white and shimmery looking kind of stuff.

Link looks at me as I’m shelling out money for it and some other of the armor cloth samples. “White? Kinda hard to sneak around like that isn’t it?”

“No, I have a trick.”

“Oh of course you do. Do you have a plan for everything?”

“No but I want the shock value and besides there’s far too many people out there running around in black.”

“Black’s slimming.”

“Do I look like I need to lose weight?”

I gesture at myself and she grins and gestures at herself.

“No-fair elf.”

She dimples and we head off leaving this merc market and heading through this bizarre town or rather city made up of the stuff that the surface has left behind.

We’re carrying our things or rather mine and we’ve bundled them up tight and I slip my TK barrier around myself so that I’ll feel someone trying something like picking my pocket or trying to lift some of my new gear and stuff.

There’s a few places that catch my eye with some fabric and some leathers and stuff but there’s some stuff that I see Link looking over too. She likes little figurines and I buy her some of the ones she was looking over when she put the back and some books she’s looking at I just get a basket and I put them in it and I’m getting some for me and there’s some that are on airplanes that I get for Jeff…airplanes nowadays are strictly a hobby thing even jets are sort of rare when compared to stuff like shuttles and space ships and even the military fighters are all like some kind of drive types with like serious generators and stuff. I saw he had a few pictures and stuff of planes and a couple of models too and some books but not these ones.

And I almost can’t believe that they sell books here used ones by the kilogram here. It’s also kind of a comment on just how screwed up and disposable things are. A lot of these are just bought and dumped. I mean if you have money most books are available online and stuff like that but print has never really gone away.

It actually did for a while but what saved books or from what I’ve read.

Star travel.

Even with the advent of FTL technology and stuff a ship from what I know has a lot of computing needs and stuff so unless you were going to do all your reading on a tablet or your personal computer you brought a couple of books for the long journey top wherever.

Then there’s the romantic side of things and as jaded as I am I love books. I love the thought of owning books.

I mean who doesn’t want a library?

We make our way around and take a sort of roundabout route?

“Link?”

“We’re being followed.”

“Okay so what do we do?”

“We can try to lose them but.”

I have that sort of feeling again. “But one of them’s a psionic.”

She looks at me with a questioning look.

“I can feel them touching my TK field.”

“You have a field up for how long?’

I shrug. “Since we left your place.”

She’s staring at me a little shocked then she smiles and shakes her head. “I saw you move a busted up bus I mean I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Yeah, I like Link but I’m not going to tell her all my tricks.

“So now what do we do?”

“Move to a public open spot and face them if they want your stuff or cash then they’ll have to openly come at us and there’ll be witnesses.”

“Witnesses work down here?”

“We do have attempts at law but this is mostly to claim self-defense.”

“Gotcha, c’mon!”

“Huh!”

I start leading her towards what is a street intersection down here and the crowds are thick so I use my Tk to pinch people and goose them and make them move or jump or turn to see who did what to them while I use the way they move to get us through the crowd.

Once we get to the intersection I drop our things and turn and so does Link and our followers part through the crowd and they’re a motley crew but they look tough.

Mostly anthros and three of them are these large muscled heavy and scary looking black rats and they have some pretty large knives pulled and there’s some other’s there too but still rodents and all armed and one has white fur and is covered in scars and has a cyber-eye.

He pulls a revolver.

Aims it our way.

I see a young Arabic looking pre-teen with them and he’s wearing a hoody that looks like its rat-fur but like regular rat fur I can feel him touching me with his psi.

He says something I don’t get and I understand a little Arabic from being on the streets and the cabbies and vendors and stuff this wasn’t it.

Cyber rat points the gun at me. “Drop the swag and the cash you got and walk away girl.”

“I really don’t think so. You five had best go for another walk before I do something in self-defense that’d make the marshals down here reconsider their laws.”

“Pyske’s stun her!”

Just like that he goes to fire at me and I can feel a buildup of something coming from the Arab kid and Link’s doing something and I concentrate on the Cyber-rat’s gun and fill the barrel with Tk force and it blows in his hand wrecking his gun and he curses. Link flares her psi-bow into existence and the Arab kid is distracted by it enough that he’s not focused on me long enough to get the drop on me now and I take advantage.

I look at his face as I throw energy at it and once I see what I want I use my powers and reach out and I grab…all his street piercings and his eyelashes and rip.

It doesn’t take a whole lot of force to rip out things that are that small. But it’s really, really painful.

Cyber-rat’s not that slow even with his gun gone he jumps up in a fast spring through the air and he kicks me in the chest with both of his feet and sends me flying down to the ground while he actually flips backwards from it and lands on his feet and draws two knives with this hissing snarl.

Link shoots the psi-kid while he’s clutching his face and he drops with a scream as an energy arrow goes into him and he’s doing the funky chicken. I’m not sure what kind of attack that is…I’ll ask later but the three heavies go for her and she puts three more arrows into one before they’re on her with their knives and she’s.

Well she’s actually Elf fast. She dodges and weaves and she makes the bow flicker out as she brings up this shield made of the same looking golden energy and then with a flick of her other wrist her sword.

Okay…that’s kind of handy for sure.

Cyber rat comes at me and I open my pockets in my sleeves. “You were warned.” I say as I release my marbles and spin them around me and my arms in tight and fast orbits.

He still comes and I’m dodging and trying to avoid getting cut and slashed and it’s not easy. It’s actually kind of scary because he’s good. Like he’s earned all the scars he has for a reason. I get a cut to my right forearm through my coat and it hurts…a lot it’s deep I think and I slap a Tk patch over it and he cuts my clothes a few more times.

I see red.

Time for this shit to stop. I focus and the thing is I take all that orbiting speed and the rotation and I stop it with each one and all that inertia and force has to go someplace and since I have such a grip on them with my Tk I feed the kinetic energy into them, into speed and pounds per square inch.

When I do this I have more force than a paint ball gun per marble.

And he dodges some and blocks one but I have lots and they’re marbles.

I aim for joints and because he’s an anthros and one with a head like a giant rat I send a couple at stuff like teeth, ears, his snout.

The snout is what gets him. I bloody it and he reacts naturally and holds it and he’s semi stunned and my marble attacks become a storm. I get stand there and I point at him and I hit him and hit him over and over and over until he’s reeling and bleeding and there’s those bones close to the surface breaking or hit hard enough to bruise or fracture.

You might be able to take a few hits like that but I’m sending a message.

Don’t mess with me.

Link’s defending herself and she’s on the defensive fighting two on one but doing okay because her sword seems to stun then a little. Its likely drop a normal human baseline but most Meta and Anthros are tougher than human and these black rat breeds look like they’re a combat type of mutant.

The kid’s getting up and I pelt him next and yes, I’m being an evil bitch and the first marble is sent to his crotch and he screams and the next one’s to his mouth shattering a bunch of teeth. He goes down sobbing and he’s not that old really but he was with them and he was going to rob me.

Don’t do crime when you can handle the punishment.

The one Link shot gets up sort of and comes at me.

The marbles won’t stop him so I pull some of the 9 mm rubber bullets from a pocket with my power and point them at him and anchor them in my powers dropping all the marbles and everything else except my bandage I run the cycle.

Fire the primers off with a Tk hit and take all of that kinetic shock from the round being fired that the gun would absorb to create a steady anchor for the rounds and sorta like fire like a sort of Tk barrel.

I hit him with a Gatling like rotary burst of ten rounds.

He goes down and he stays down and the weapon fire had everyone around us scream and drop and some ran. I bring out more rounds and orbit them around my wrist and look at the two black rats that are on Link.

Were on Link they’re staring at me now.

“We done?” I say it pretty loudly.

They’re looking at me and they look scared.

Well I am floating and spinning sixty odd rounds now around my wrists like an invisible mini-gun.

They nod.

“Good, get your boss and your friends and get out of here. You try it with me again and like I said they’ll need new laws to deal with what I’ll do.”

They grab their three fallen allies and they hustle out of there and I guide my rounds back into my pockets.

Link’s looking at me as she’s powering out here sword and shield. She looks oddly good like that with those and her odd little get up. “Rook…what the hell was that?”

“Rook-Rail-gun.”

“The rubber bullets?”

“This time.”

“Shit…that’s dangerous.”

I look at her and raise an eyebrow. “And you can do more than stuff with your weapon trick?”

She nods.

“Then you’re dangerous too and so were they.” I use a Tk wire and set of wheels in my head to winch the bags up to my hands from the ground. I actually can’t lift that much raw weight but I can do things with it…it’s force and it’s tactile at the same time so in a very odd way I can make it do things or be things.

I winch and drop the bags as my arm really, reminds me that I’m hurt.

She comes over. “Healer or my place?”

“Your place.”

People are moving again and their giving us a wide berth and I’m looking around. “The marshals aren’t showing up?”

Link shakes her head. “They were watching there’s lots of eyes here both tech and powered they don’t get involved for stuff like this. It’s handled and without too much blood so…” she shrugs.

I look at her. “That’s very loose.”

She shakes her head. “There enough laws on the surface we try and keep it simple down here. Too many people with too much power down here to enforce the laws like up there without a serious conflict so it’s more like a sort of honor system down here and they go after the really crazy or really reckless and leave the rest of us alone.”

I nod. “I now get why there’s a lot of baselines down here now. It’s progressive anarchy or something.”

Link takes some of the things and slings them over her shoulder. She shakes her head though at my comment.

“Down here you’re equal. You can make what you have out of what you can do or not do. No one’s going to stop you unless you’re a danger to the public at large. That’s it freedom and personal responsibility just exactly that. We believe in that a lot especially us in The Guard.”

“And the Marshalls and all of that?”

“We have an elected government to take care of the minutia, a place needs to run but it’s not a paid thing here and we change it every year with an election. We need some law down here but just some…the rest is on us as a people we don’t like to think for the population down here…they don’t like that.”

“And The Guardians?”

“Most countries have a standing army Rook, we have our militia to keep us safe from the surface government that would put us under regulations and boot heels.”

“Wow that’s kind of…” I don’t really have the words. I mean it’s kind of cool and it’s sort of scary when you think what people could do here unrestricted. But they are sort of self-restricted. I look at her. “This, this is where I wish I had actually gone to school and stuff. It’s cool but I don’t know any of the right terms for this.”

Link looks at me and she smiles. “Liberty, Freedom.”

I nod. “Live free or die right?”

The look she gives me it feels like I just nailed it.

So much to do yet, so much to learn.

She switches arms with the stuff she’s carrying and she takes my hand and she holds it as we walk. I’m holding hands with someone after everything that happened and it’s not that strange…not here it’s.

It’s scary but it fits.