Chapter 37
Despite my effective systems and strict diet of mundane fluid which tastes very much like pee petrol, I feel aches all over my body after the vigorous training sessions with Jesse. Jesse must be feeling the same kind of muscle tension and discomfort in his body, but he doesn't even winches when doing those amazing somersaults and acrobatics over our visual opponents' heads. Day by day he drills me in what he calls the Seven Blades. I can't describe them to you because Jesse cautioned me to keep it a secret; these techniques can turn any newbie in martial arts to a ferocious beast. Basically they are seven simple techniques which can be incorporated into bare hands techniques and melee weapons. The complicated part comes when a few or even all of the Seven Blades are combined together. It's like mixing cereal in a bowl, but you have to know which cereal to mix to counter opponents appropriately.
One day, he has me take off my training armour, and without warning, he throws a knife point blank at me. I smash the knife away in shock, assuming that he must have gone traitor. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that we plucked him from the enemy's side. He could be an undercover agent, a time bomb that could put lives in jeopardy. I swing a punch at him, but he blocks it and his left leg shoots out, catching me below and I feel the world about me turn on its axis before the rough barren floor welcomes me roughly. Angel shoots through me and I make a comeback by pushing myself up into the air with my two hands. My right foot flies at him, but he grabs my legs. The moment his gloved hands get me, I pull my right foot back, drawing him to me unexpectedly. I swing my arm at him and knock him off his feet.
"Not bad." he drawls but he's smiling. My intercom crackles and I know that we have to get into action again.
"Large swarms of Terrorcons have been sighted near District Eight. How they breached the defense perimeters, we still do not know." says General Summers. "Meanwhile, there's been a report from our recon teams that there is a kind of portal being constructed in District One. You two are splitting up. The Mockingjay's going to District Eight and Jesse to One. Good luck!" With that, Jesse picks up his knives and katana before disappearing into a hovercraft while I spread my wings and take off.
When I arrive upon orders, accompanied by reinforcements of hovercrafts and Peacekeeper paratroopers armed with heavy weaponry, I come upon Ironhide blowing up a Terrorcon into smithereens with a blast of his combined mega-bazooka. Then another Terrorcon pounces on him from behind and slices off a good chunk of his armour and right arm. I squeeze a shot from my crossbow rifle that burns out its left eye and cranial circuits. Ironhide grabs the corpse and tears it apart before throwing them with a clatter at the other Terrorcons. "We'll never make it before bedtime." he grouses. "Or breakfast, for that matter." I smirk. "Are you fine?"
"Believe me, that vile Sentinel Prime fired a rust gun directly at my Spark and I got turned into a pile of scrap metal. But that's history and I wouldn't be here if I was reset in a new body." he grumbles. "It could have been worse. Anyway, we need to move on and kick out these vagrants such as this!" He slams his ready fist into a charging Terrorcon so hard that it vomits energon all over Ironhide's arm. Then Ironhide tosses it onto a sharp stump of a tree, where it is impaled gruesomely. "Let's get shooting!" he roars as he opens fire, just in time when the next wave of Terrorcons swoop in like locusts during a famine. I launch much of my rockets and open fire as well, targeting eyes, spark cavities left vulnerable by missiles and mouths. A huge Terrorcon bound on me and attempts to trample on me. But I slice his right leg off which is as big as an aged redwood tree. The Decepticon giant collapses, sending dust into the air and as soon as its head touches the ground, I stick a detonation charge on its forehead and flee. The resulting fireworks are brilliant.
Ironhide is performing wonders on the battlefield. He grabs a redwood tree, roots and all, and uses it like an enormous baseball bat, swatting Terrorcons here and there like flies. I can't help but grin when he smashes a Terrorcon's head smashing into the spark core of another Terrorcon like a cannon ball. Then a Decepticon gunship spots the Autobot and moves in, its plasma cannons blazing. Ironhide aims carefully and sends the entire trunk flying at the gunship like a javelin in the annual sports carnival. The Decepticon pilot can only gape with amazement as the trunk knocks the gunship off balance, causing it to plummet to the battered vicinity. The craft groans with dismay as it makes contact with the ground, its engines still sputtering. The downed gunship bounces up and down, forcing Peacekeepers to scamper out of the way and flattening the odd Terrorcon now and then. After reducing ten Terrorcons to metal pancakes, the battered and horribly scrunched smouldering ruin of a gunship comes to rest near Optimus himself who is battling five Terrorcons. Nearing exhaustion, he musters enough strength to lift the entire gunship and bring it smashing on his opponents like a housekeeper exterminating a cockroach with a flyswatter.
As I am feeling that this day couldn't get any more difficult, it does. Optimus Prime is suddenly frozen by a thick layer of ice. Peacekeepers spot something and open fire, only to be skewered by icicles as long as lamp posts. A bitter cold blizzard suddenly chills the area, and I regret not checking the weather forecast. Then I remember that Pascal had just received chocolate Easter eggs as a gift from Bagel a week ago. Damn, it's not even Christmas yet. This frost isn't natural.
A blonde haired girl clad in a white jumpsuit slides in. Yes, slide in. She is somehow using some kind of advanced gizmo to create ice bridges and slides to enable faster transport. I know who she is. Like her grandpa's name sake, President Snow, she is really living up to her grandfather's legacy even by customizing her weaponry to terrorize the Districts with the power of snow.
"Grandpa's girl." I tease her as she advances towards me. "I didn't know that you like snow so much that you are willing to use it as a weapon." "I do as a matter of fact," Athena Snow says scornfully as her ski mask disintegrates with precision. "I like to chill birds in my free time. Birds that are supposed to be dead and gone." "This bird isn't." I say firmly. "And you're not going to give me frostbite today." "Try me!" Athena Snow challenges, her voice filled with arrogance.
"No, try this!" Optimus's right arm smashes out of the imprisonment of ice and grabs his fallen plasma cannon. He pulls the trigger and blasts Athena Snow flying into some branches. She has a rude landing on the snow-drenched earth and gets up while cursing her carelessness. Athena's ski mask reintegrates and she raises her hands. A howling snow storm tears through the woods and I yell, "Take cover!" I know it is useless to attempt to flee. The problem is that when you try to flee from nature, it usually catches up if you don't get a headstart. It happened to my mother, her clash with the jabberjays in the arena. My entire world then goes extremely crazy.
But instead of clinging to a tree or covering under a shade of some kind, I activate my jet boots and fly into the unknown. I switch on my heat sensors, hoping to find some hint of heat in order to get Athena. And spot her I do. I ram into her and smash her into branches and brambles as much as I can go. Then my jet boots give out from fighting against the blizzard and we find ourselves sprawling into a clearing littered with Terrorcon electronics and a few fallen Peacekeepers. She raises her gloved hand and freezes me all over with a paralysing layer of ice but before it can reach my right hand, my missile gauntlet opens up and I fire a spread rocket which breaks up into smaller mini-shells. Athena impressively causes an armour of solid ice to integrate all over her body, but the shells punch her flying. I break out of the ice and rain fury on her with my duel crossbows. But immense ice crystals burst out from the ground and Athena's hands turn shiny and clear as glass, dripping with water. My heart leaps as I narrowly dodge the ice shards that she fires from behind her cover. I switch on my mini-flamethrower and barbecue her like a hog on a grill. But the jet of fire is miserably extinguished by the rude blast of snow that sends me knocking into a tree. I glance about to find that Athena's blizzard has brought the entire vicinity to a winter wonderland. Overnight, icicles have formed on branches, the roads and grass are carpeted white and a nearby pond is frozen solid. I guess the clean up effort will certainly be a challenge.
I draw my swords and lunge in for the kill. Athena ducks and punches me into the stomach. I double over, and she kicks me over. As I roll over, I fling an ice shard that had somehow got caught in my wings earlier on at her. It cuts into her leg and she cries out. I recover so quickly that I leap back to attack her relentlessly. Her arms become glistening ice-blades, and she slashes back at me. I turn on the fire of my blades and cut her ice blades clean off. But her arms regenerate back, courtesy of her ice powers. A look of dismay washes over her face, but she raises her hand. "You better start running now." she warns. I look up to see hell descend upon me in the form of a hail of ice blocks the size of Peacekeeper APCs. One block nearly crushes my toes and another lands so near me that my hair shivers. I leap over blocks and somersault to another, trying to survive in this cascade of dominoes. Athena merely looks on, a wicked smile of satisfaction on her face. As I propel myself in mid-air, an icy meteorite approaches me. Instead of escaping from it, I kick it with all my might at Athena's direction. Now it is her turn to shriek and leap away for her life as the ice block smashes to the earth with a thud.
Athena darts over ice block after ice block, firing ice shards at me. I slice them off with my swords, but one shard somehow escapes through my singing blades and pierces my battle visor, scratching it terribly. In indignation I combine my swords together to form one deadly propeller and sent it flying at Athena. She sprays snow at it, reducing its speed and momentum that it arrives at her waiting hand without doing her any harm. "This isn't mine. I should return it." she declares. But before she can throw it back at me, the blades suddenly catch fire, handle and our. She squeals and lets the blades go. Her shriek is louder when I blow her flying to heavens be with a well-timed shot from my sniper rifle. Or from Ironhide's gun.
"Just a mili-second faster, Mockingjay." Ironhide grunts as Athena retreats, her army in total disarray.
"Now how in the hell are we supposed to clean this s$%t up?" I complain, my hands stretching out towards the endless white around us.
One rude second later, everything turns to slush and we are both drenched with mud and melted snow. The grass have been liberated from their snowy prison of white and the ponds defrosted, but so much snow has melted that the water is up to my knees. A mini-flood, I guess.
"Well, I'll be damned." Ironhide sighs heavily.