Dan was shaking. His mind was as frozen as his body. He needed to run, but his feet wouldn't move. Cid had killed them. Dan watched as drops of blood fell off of Cid's hands to the ground. Cid had turned six men into mulch. As Cid turned Dan had to fight not to shrink back. He still couldn't move. Cid stepped towards Dan. Dan watched motionless as Cid loaded two more shells into his sawed-off double barrel shotgun. Dan flinched when Cid snap the breach shut.
Cid stopped about ten feet from Dan. "You want to finish this, now?" he asked, and the speaker in his helm reverberated slightly.
Dan's mind had caught itself in a loop. Rather than work towards a goal, in the here and now, it just kept playing back the last four hours.
/
This wasn't fair. He was too young. He didn't deserve this. He just had to…
"If you try to run Daniel, I will stop you." Marin said. He was a tall thin man. His face was wrought with frown lines and wrinkles of age. His bald head was covered with a combat helmet that had been patch once with a metal plate. Under his tattered and dirt coated duster he wore well used military armor.
"I'm sorry!" he said. "I just wanted them to stop." He rubbed his shoulder subconsciously. His right arm was in a sling, and the left side of his was a bruised, and cut. He looked at the crowd around him. It would be so easy to just get lost in it.
"That is why you get a chance to explain yourself," Marin said. "You tell Cid your side of this, and he will decide what happens to you."
"Has Cid ever let anyone live?" Dan asked. He pondered over the rumors he had heard about Cid. Most of the stories came from the Far Away War. Cid had a higher kill count than Voodoo gurus, White Swans, and the Wendigo squads combined. They also say that no one survived more than three mission with him. Then there is the claim that he killed Skinnies, nigh unstoppable monsters on Banshee. They said when he got back to earth and saw the nuclear ruin it had become that he shook his head and said, "Called it." The stories get weird after that. They boil down to that he and Kowalski and a revolving door of other people proceeded to butcher every mutant, abomination, black hat, and demon that so much as looked at them wrong.
Kowalski was a legend in his own right. He survived the Far Away War and was a mech pilot. Hell he was able to run with the syker legion. And he was old. Now people keep talking about a magic sword.
They also have started traveling with a doomsayer. He really didn't know anything about them. Some said they were evil, but everyone agreed that they were powerful. They were like sykers, except all of them were muties.
"No," Marin said, "But he never has let anyone suffer."
Dan looked up at the sky. The city of Junkyard was one of the few cities that Hellstrome had fitted with a rad shield, of course he didn't tell any that he did that. The shield had absorbed the radiation and deflected the blast. Only two buildings were damaged. So junkyard had started off pretty good as far as the end of the world goes.
"Couldn't… couldn't you just let me go?" Dan pleaded. "I swear I'll-I'll never use my powers again. Marin, I'm just a kid. What are the odds of me surviving out here alone."
"You've done wrong," Marin said. He turned down an alley. They were heading towards a bar called the Rad Rat Saloon. "Now you have to face the consequences. It's something everyone has to deal with. No one just does whatever they want."
Just as Marin reached for the door, three people crashed through the second story window. Glass showered down on Marin and Daniel. The first guy landed on the ground with a thud. He was a mountain of a man. He was clearly one of the convoy mercenaries. The second person was almost a carbon copy of the first, except he had a Fu Manchu.
The third was a thinner guy. Rather than muscular he appeared to be wiry. The guy was tall too. That was all that Dan could really tell about the third guy. He was clad in jet black military armor. Over the armor was a tattered, mud red duster. The duster was meant to hide the bandoleers. The one across the chest was holding knives. The one wrapped around the waist held several hatchets.
The third guy landed knee first on the second guys leg. A sickening crack was followed by a scream of agony. Five more leather clad men charged out of the bar.
One of the goons charged the guy in the armor. The armored guy ducked a haymaker, and responded with two lightning fast jabs to the man's throat. The man crumpled to the ground. The armored man gave him kick to the head with his metal clad boot. Two more of the bikers came at him. The armored man dove in between them. He rolled and swept their ankles. The armored guy rolled to his feet and with his hands, he gave the fourth man a jaw breaking right hook, and a tooth rattling left hook.
The guy who was thrown out of the window and the other two clambered to their feet. The armored man turned. Dan felt a surge of energy. The three men were flung backwards like they were struck by a truck.
The armored man spun to face the last man and held out his arm like he was signaling him to stop. With his other hand he was flipping him the bird.
"Fuck you! you mutie lovin' cock sucker!" the last man roared. He charged. The convoy man jumped in the air and with impressive for a guy his size kicked at the man in armor. His foot connected with the armored man's hand. A crack like a gunshot coursed through the air. The man's ankle snapped as his foot bounce off the hand. He crashed to the ground and curled up in pain.
The armored guy stepped on the man's face. His armor must have been one with environment filters. The voice had to be projected over the speaker in the helm. "When the cops show up and ask you what happened what do you say?"
"Go to hell asshole!" the man spat.
The armored man pressed his metal cleats into the man's face, "That's exactly what you are going to say to them. When the police get here you will tell them to go to hell. If you mention me," he pressed harder on the man's head, "or my friends I'll kill you in a way that hurts longer than you can imagine." The man nodded as he bled. "Good."
The guy in the armor turned, "Marin?"
"Cid!" Marin said. He laughed. The armored guy walked up to him and gave him a hug. Marin was a nice guy, but Dan had never seen him hug anyone, ever.
Dan thought about running for the briefest of moments, but two hands grabbed him on each shoulder. He was yanked off his feet and pulled toward the bar.
"How are things at Jericho?" Cid asked.
"Standard problems, Plus this one here," Marin said. He seemed happy despite the situation. If Dan didn't know better he would have said this was a meeting of two brothers. "How about yourself?"
"The Grimme twins are dead, they turned harrowed. Gave Echo and me quite the tussle. Kolwalski got stuck in hole with some red zombies. He couldn't climb out."
"Is he alright?" Marin asked.
"He's fine, but he's being pissy. One telekinetic wedge-y and suddenly he can't take a joke. Also ran into the Fire-Walker guy."
He's dead too then huh?" Marin asked. They pushed through the saloon doors.
"Nah, he wasn't a syker." Cid said. "Get this true blue shaman. The fires were from a Radiation spirit trying to kill him. Locked it in a lead vault. It's stuck at the bottom of Lake Superior now."
Dan was stuffed in a chair next to a person in a purple, hooded robe, and a large man in military fatigues. "Stay here, and don't think about running" Marin said.
"Why couldn't I beat six shades of stupid out of them?" the woman in the purple robe demanded.
"You lost the coin toss fair an' square," Cid said. He patted her on the shoulder. "You can fight the Junkyard security if it comes to it."
"Cid," the robed figure said.
"Yeah?" Cid asked. His voice was metallic from the damaged speakers.
"I hope you get brain burn." She said in a menacing sing-song.
"Love you too," he said turning away.
Dan sat there and tried not to shake. He was going to die. He knew this, but at the same time he couldn't accept it. His executioner had savagely beaten a crowd of people, and acted like it was nothing. Dan had known the Grimme twins. They were pretty, and kind, and opportunistic. What's more they were powerful. They had left Jericho to join the Convoys and fight evil. He had killed them. He could see them in his minds eyes. They were short and thin, they had angels' smiles, and big beautiful green eyes.
The Big guy put a pint of beer in front of him. "Have a drink. It stops you from shaking like a Chihuahua." Dan looked at the guy. He was a good six-foot-four, and at least two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and bone. His blond hair and pale skin were surprisingly clean. He also had a strong jaw, and pleasant smile.
The person in the robe was watching Cid and Marin at a far table. They had stopped laughing and Cid had taken off the helmet. His back was to them, but his head was bald just like Marin's. Dan took a sip of the beer. It was bitter and the alcohol burned his throat. He coughed. He sat there for what felt like an eternity. He looked at the clock. It had been five seconds. This kept going for twenty-five minutes.
"This is weird?" the robed figure said. Her hands were covered in smooth black fur. She also smelled really nice. "Cid is talking to someone like a normal person. I think he is using Marin's actual name. You've know Cid longer, Kolwalski, is this good or bad?"
"Well Cid is happy, but nobody is dying so, it is kind of hard to call," Kolwalski said. "Back on Banshee Marin and Cid were only ever sent on search and destroy mission, so they aren't going to fight each other. So that means this is like the last time Marin brought somebody to us."
"What does that mean?" the hooded figure asked.
"He's going to kill me," Dan said. "I broke the oath. Everyone at the school swears to not fight each other kind of like the oath of the unity. I burnt out a guy's brain on accident."
"So what does Cid have to do with this?" she asked.
"Cid didn't swear anything to anyone at the school. He can kill us and not break any oath." Dan said. "That is his job for the school."
"That sounds like Cid's kind of work," she said. She patted Dan on the back. "Sorry, best drink faster."
Cid loomed over him, "Let's go kid." He pulled him out of his seat. "We are going to go talk outside of the town." It was strange. He wasn't scared anymore. He was still going to try and fry Cid's brain the instant they got out of town. And if it came down to it he was going to kick and bite.
They walked to the city walls and into the burnt out wasteland outside. The ground was red and dried and cracked. Dust devils danced across the horizon. The sun was slowly descending to the horizon. They just kept walking. Dan looked around. It was just him and Cid.
Cid stopped. "What's your side of this?"
"It was an accident," Dan said. "The guy was going to kill me. I was sleeping with the girl he liked. I just reached into his mind and poked something."
"You're a greenie aren't you," Cid said. His voice cracked and reverberated slightly over the speaker. "Had your powers less than ten months?"
"Nine months," Dan said. "I didn't know what I was doing? Hell I only know two powers now. How did you now I haven't had my powers long?"
"Mostly because it is common knowledge in our circles that it takes about seven days of careful contemplation to conceive a power, and another two to six to figure out how to use it right. So there is no way in hell that you rewrite someone's memories on accident. Let me guess. You were writing a few sweet nothings into this girls head, and the guy you lobotomized found out what you were doing and tried to stop you." his hand drifted slowly to one of the knives.
"No," Dan said. "He found out, and demanded I teach him how. When I said no he tried to kill me."
"Who did you mind whammy?" Cid asked. The hand came out of the coat sans knife. "It was the girl wasn't it?"
"No," Dan said.
"You ever have someone feel around in your mind, kid?" Cid asked. He took a step towards Dan. Dan took a step back.
With inhuman speed Cid surged forward. A fist slammed into Dan stomach. A elbow slammed into his jaw. His right arm was ripped from the sling as he crashed face first into the dirt. The pain was like fire. He screamed. Cid wrenched his arm still further.
"Let me tell you a story." Cid growled. "On Banshee, I was one of the first in the legion to encounter the Skinnies. I've seen them rip mechs apart, slag hover tanks, and walk off just about anything we could throw at them, but that isn't what made them scary. What made them scary was how they could reach into your head. It almost feels like someone takes you and bends you in a way you're not meant to bend." Cid twisted his arm further the pain doubled. "It dug is hooks into my mind, and twisted my body while sweetly whispering 'kill yourself'. Can you even imagine something like that?"
Dan tried to talk, but his teeth were gritted too tightly. "Yes!" he shrieked. His arm twisted still tighter, and the pain shocked through his entire body.
"So you understand what it feels like to have an unfeeling presence break everything you are?" Cid asked.
"No," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" he just kept repeating that. It took him awhile to realize that Cid wasn't twisting his arm anymore. He looked up Cid was sitting there watching him.
"Who did you mind rape, kid," Cid asked. "It was the girl, wasn't it?"
"No it was her dad," Dan said. "He was the town drunk, and he would beat on his wife and kids like they owed him money. I just made it so he stopped drinking. Then I made him less prone to anger. Then I made him opposed to violence. That fixed everything for her." He was going to die. Dan just didn't see the point in lying.
"How'd it feel?" Cid asked.
"What?" Dan asked.
"How did it feel messing with someone's head?" Cid asked.
"Just kill me already," Dan said. He didn't know why he said that. He immediately wanted to take it back, but knew more words would lead to trouble.
"Answer the question or we go back to arm wrestlin'," Cid said.
"It-it didn't feel right or wrong. It's just a thing I can do." Dan said.
"If I didn't kill you, would you do it again?" Cid asked.
"Yeah," Dan said. "I would. What's more I would rewrite the mind of the racist asshole, the one won't sell food to brown people, and I would probably rewrite your mind." He tried it. He tapped into his power. His brain sang with fiery pain. He reached into Cid's mind, and hit an iron wall. It actually hurt worse than when Cid twisted his arm. His vision blurred with pain. A flash of light brought him back to the real world.
Cid had cracked him on the head with a rock, "Good try kid, but no. I got a mind like a steel trap."
"Why don't you just kill me?" Dan shouted. "Quit dragging it out!" again he didn't know why he said that.
"Just out of curiosity, do you have any combat powers" Cid asked pulling a sawed off double barreled shotgun out of his coat.
"No," Dan said. "Wh-?" before he had finished he was face first into the dirt.
Cid fired the shotgun twice in short succession. That was followed by several guns fired in full auto. Cid pulled Dan to his feet. Six black hats were firing at them. Black hats were Thockmorton's troops. They claimed to be mankind's last hope, but they were really just well-armed marauders and bandits collecting 'tribute'. Cid lobbed Dan into a ditch, and dove in after him. "Okay first rule, never break the oath. These fuckers didn't swear shit to me. So…"
The gunfire stopped. Cid jumped to his feet, with a wave of his hand came a disgusting ripping and splattering sound. A human skull landed in Cid's hand. Blood and loose chunks of skin dripped from it. Dan's stomach turned but he didn't wretch. He peaked over the side of the ditch, as Cid hurled the skull back at a second black hat. The skull collided with the man's face and it and the man's head split like pumpkins.
Cid charged with speed that was completely inhuman, he drew two hatchets. They looked to be made out of yellow stone. Cid cleaved one of the men's head in half, and took a second man's head off. The remaining two black hats fired at him. There bullets hit a field just in front of Cid and bounced in random directions. Cid buried one hatchet in the third man's torso, and the other in the fourth man's neck.
This brought Dan back to the present. Cid stared at him for a long moment.
"Do you want to die?" Cid asked. His voice rattled through the speaker, but Dan could hear the amusement in his voice.
"Of course I don't!" Dan said to Cid's feet. He turned to look at Cid's helmeted face, and found himself staring down the barrel of a double barrel shotgun.
"You say that, but what are you willing to sacrifice to live?" Cid asked.
"What?" Dan asked.
"I'm a simple kind of guy," Cid said. "You give me something and I'll give you your life. So what would you give? You're right arm," Cid aimed at Dan's right shoulder, "Your left foot?" pointed it at his left foot, "How about your eyes?" Dan stared down the barrels.
"What can I give that won't make me deformed?" Dan asked.
"That's the thing, kid. You want to live, you have to learn to love the pain," Cid said. He pointed the gun at the Dan's chest and pulled the trigger. Both barrels roared with fire. Dan rolled around on the ground it burned his shirt had caught fire. He shouted. Cid stamped him out. "Now that we have established that I can and will shoot you let's talk turkey. You want to live you're giving me five years. You are my errand boy, my dog to kick, my squire, basically my bitch."
Dan was shaking in pain, "Five years and I get to just walk away?"
"You're gonna to be traveling with me, kid," Cid said. "In the last ten months, I have fought a bloodwolf, a Hanging Judge, a Mohave rattler, and more blackhats than I can count. Plus of the ten people dumb enough to travel with me seven are dead. What do you think your odd of surviving really are?"
"Why are you even offering to not kill me?" Dan demanded.
"I have killed more anouk, people, and monsters that any faction in the Great Rail Wars" Cid said. He sat down next to Dan and loaded two shells. "I have done the math I'm gonna go to hell, and the only way any of this is ever gonna balance out is if I can drag the biggest meanest monster to hell with me." Dan had never heard anyone sound that tired.
"How do you know that?" Dan asked. The faint hope of survival had crept into his mind.
"When the archangel Michael tells you you're going to hell, you sort of take his word for it," Cid said. He snapped the shotgun into place. Cid looked around at the dead black hats, "I need an answer. Now."
"Yes, yes," Dan said. "I'll go with you."
Cid looked at the dead black hats closely. "Scouting party," Cid said walking back towards Dan, blood dripped off of his hands and hatchets. His feet were covered in red blood that left footprints in the dry dirt. Cid grabbed Dan by the arm and dragged him along. "That means either they are a group of stupid assholes that nobody would miss, or Thockmorton is ready to launch another offensive. Either way we should get back inside the walls."
Dan could feel the blood on Cid's hands soaking through his shirt. It was warm, but it chilled him. He had never seen someone die before, and all of them had died horribly. Cid was acting like nothing had happened. Truth be told it looked like it had cost him nothing.
They reached the gate. Cid showed them some papers, and told them more black hats had been found. They nodded and let him past without taking his gun. No one was allowed to keep guns in Junkyard. Cid headed straight for the Rad Rat Saloon.
The big guy, and the hooded figure were waiting for them. The big guy was holding a large duffle bag in his left hand. "So, you got a pupil?"
"The technical term is bitch," Cid said. "We got a job?"
"Judge Toliver just left." The hooded figure said. "We need to go to Boise and talk to Simon." Her voice was pleasant and engaging, but she had a large black tail with a white stripe down the middle.
"Kid, take the bags," Cid said pushing him. The hooded figure gave Daniel a backpack. It was heavy. From the feel of it, it was full of canned food. The big guy held out the duffle bag. Dan took it and was immediately pulled off balance.
The big guy pulled him back to his feet, "Name's Kowalski," he said. "What's yours?"
Cid shoved Dan along, "He hasn't earned one yet. They don't get one until at least a week."
Cid marched on in the angriest fashion, Dan had ever seen.
Kowalski put a hand on his shoulder, "Don't worry. Cid may seem angry and hate filled, but most of it is aimed at the enemy."
He followed after Cid.
"Have you heard the good news?" the robed figure asked falling into step with him.
"There's good news?" Dave asked.
"You and all of humanity are going to die," she said. "Don't worry though. It isn't going to happen for a long time, and we mutants will be here to keep the legacy going. The Glows blessing are for everyone. Do you believe in anything?"
"No!" David said. He honestly didn't buy into any of the religious bullshit. If they were real they would have done something to stop this. If they were real and didn't stop this, then they were assholes. "And I don't want to hear a mutie babble about some half-assed , rotten-brained religion."
A fist collided with his mouth and he staggered, and just barely stopped himself from falling. A fur covered hand seized him by the nose. The robed figure pulled him face to face with her. "I'll give you one free pass this time. You don't want to hear about the glow, fair enough. You spout any racist shit in front of me, and I will kick the shit out of you. My name is Echo, you call me anything other than that…" she let go of his face, and just walked away.
"Keep up, kid." Cid called.
Kowalski slowed his pace, "You really have a way with people."
"So why are we going to Boise?" Dan asked.
"Troubles on the way," Kowalski said. "The Templars are trying to save the world, and if we lose Junkyard we lose all of America, and from what I hear that is kind of it."
"So we are going to go and ask them for help?" Dave asked.
"We also have to cross the Rockies and a full moon is coming up," Kowalski said. They walked past the check point and into the storage garage. Each unit was large enough to store a Mac truck. They unlocked the doors and reveal a Mac truck with a boatload of guns and armor on it. Kowalski climbed in and started the engine. It roared to life and pulled forward. Echo climbed in and Cid stuffed David in after her.
He sat there between an angry mutant and Cid. They drove in silence. Cid was watching the right side of the road. Kowalski was watching the front, and Echo seemed to be watch the left past him.
As they drove a thought constantly danced through his head, "I'm gonna die!"