February 23rd: Weapon - 100 words - The enemy deploys their secret weapon.
Chiaotzu turned, ready to leave. His heart was thudding and skipping in his chest. A furious drum. Behind him, he could hear blood spurt onto the ground in a splatter as Shen's grip loosened again.
And then his blood ran cold. Terror freezing him in place. The lift of a smile in Shen's voice as he called, "Tao!"
No, that was impossible. Tao Pai Pai was dead. Chiaotzu had watched him die, choking to death, drowning in the blood of his own slit throat on a long forgotten beach.
But when he spun around, horrified and disbelieving, Tao emerged from the back room. His eyes were obscured with gleaming red lenses, metal plates replacing large swathes of his skin. His arms were bare, gleaming metal, wires with hydraulic fluid surrounding his joints. That same familiar smirk slanted on his face.
"Surprised to see me?" he asked.
"You're dead," Chiaotzu said, insisted.
Shen straightened inside the cage of Chiaotzu's energy. "My brother told me about your betrayal. Since we brought him back, we have been waiting to find you so we can exact the revenge we are due."
Swallowing down his fear, Chiaotzu shook his head. When Tao lifted one hand, Chiaotzu had a momentary fear—dear Kami, does he know telepathy?—before the metal plates shifted and retracted, a gleaming blade springing out and catching the flickering light from the lamps.
"You took my brother's hand," Tao said. "I will extract my own pound of flesh in repayment."
A quick moment of calculation. He had the shield up around the cave. The cage around Shen. Could he manage another barrier? Another to maintain without directly channelling it? He wasn't sure. Two was his limit, he thought. Any more and the barriers would thin to the point of transparency. Not only would that release Shen, but Tien would be exposed too. They would find him. And, knowing what he knew now, he knew they would kill him.
Tao, clearly enjoying the fear and complex emotions flowing through Chiaotzu's heart and mirroring on his face, was also giving him time to think. Considering the power he had left at his disposal, he could manage a channeled shield or attack, the power being recycled and optimised. Not like when he set a barrier in place, that power was off limits to him until he reclaimed it back. Pain jabbed into his side as he took a breath and he winced. He couldn't manage this. He wasn't going to be able to fight, not this way.
"I took your brother's hand," he said finally. "And you took my brother's. I would say the pound of flesh is paid." He wondered if there was any changes in Tao's power. If there was any ki control that his cybernetics allowed him to channel. IfChiaotzu could get into the air, he would be able to get away, he thought. Tao had never mastered flight, instead relying on strength to move through the air balanced on a thrown log.
He wasn't sure how he would get outside though. If there would be the ability to run without being caught. So he decided to take a chance. Flinging his hand up, he blasted a hole in the ceiling and leapt into the air. Concentrated his power and soared from the room. He caught the briefest glimpse of Tao's furious snarl. Something caught, for a moment, on his leg, and then he was out in the cool night air. Once he was free of town, he dropped low to the ground, skating between rock formations and racing towards the cave. With each step up in the landscape, he glanced behind him to ensure that he wasn't being followed. Just visible ahead, he saw the shining gleam of the barrier he had set up before leaving. The door was boarded up with stones still, invisible, so he ducked down and squeezed through the cracks on the top step, through the shield into the cave below.