The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
-Thomas Paine
Conflict seems to only increase over the years. With old problems being solved, new ones occur more rapidly. Within the city of Seattle, more conflicts rise up. Some being life threatening, while others… more or a simple nuisance.
"Stop the spread of drugs! Stop the spread of bio-terrorists!" a woman shouted as she waved a sign.
This woman acts as part of a group of people who've sought out ways to combat the rise in conduit activities through protest. Be it peaceful or violent. Though portrayed by media as a help to communities, there are some who see them as "human purists". With their views on conduits, there are often counter protests that occur as well.
As the woman and her group continued shouting and waving signs, a young man ran to stand in front of them. He held up a sign that said, "FETCH DID NOTHING WRONG!".
"Hey! Bio-terrorists are awesome. I say let 'em spread!" the young man said.
A man from the group of protesters walked up to him and said, "Quit spewing bull over here! We're trying to get people to take things seriously!".
"Yeah, I can tell. You have signs, petition sheets, and a bunch of morons to follow you." the young man replied.
"Oh yeah. And you think you could do it better?" the male protester said.
"Tell me. Do you have allergies?" the man asked.
The slightly older man squinted behind his glasses as he muttered, "Huh?".
"Cause I think mine are acting up." the man said.
He started sniffling, and made a loud *a-choo* sound as he stuffed his mouth into his hand. Following that, what looked like bits of yellow dust came from the hand he sneezed in, and into the male protester's face. This caused an allergic reaction in the man, making him sneeze uncontrollably.
"Jesus! Are you alright, Cameron?" a female protester asked.
"Ah, crap. Why'd you do that man?" a slightly taller young man asked.
"Whoops. Had a bunch of pollen in hand from the flower shop." the other young man said.
The two young men started laughing at the sneezing man as he started tearing up. A young woman came up from behind the pair of immature individuals, who then proceeded to grab them both by the hair to knock their heads together. The two young men turned around after rubbing their heads in pain to see a woman near her twenties in a white sundress. Peering at her face from below her straw sun hat, they could tell she was irritated.
The young woman told them, "Let's get this encounter dealt with already, before…".
As she tried to finish her sentence, the slightly taller young man grabbed both her and the other young man before forcing them on to him. He then dropped himself backwards on to the pavement, narrowly avoiding a cluster of glass shards that flew over them. After that sight, they witnessed a tall, blonde teenager hop over them. As he passed the trio of trouble makers, they also noticed that a woman of about five and a half was chasing after him.
"Get your ass back here!" the woman yelled at him.
The blonde teen ran down the sidewalk, dodging random shards of glass being shot at him. People were running all over the place, trying not to be part of the mess that the two were making.
"Caramel macchiato." A woman wearing shades announced inside a coffee shop.
"Ah, thanks." A young man said as he grabbed the coffee. "Man I love 'Cafe con'..."
"Duck!" the woman said.
"What?" the young man asked.
"DUCK!" the woman yelled as she forced him to the ground.
Right after what almost looked like assault, these two heard glass shards go through the windows. As that happened, a bunch of shards were pulled from the windows, and into the arms of the woman chasing a teenager.
"Look. Can't we just talk?" the teen asked as glass shards got closer and closer to tearing up his gray shirt and black vest.
"Once I shove a shard up your ass!" the woman said.
After a brief moment of fear, the teen appeared to have turned invisible. The woman lost track of him for a moment or two before hearing the sounds of someone running up a fire escape. She followed after the noise, and fired a burst of glass from her hands that launched her on to the roof of a building nearby the fire escape. The teenager had become visible again as the woman chased after.
"Aw. Nice. That's definitely one for the album." a young woman watching said after taking a picture of the chase with her camera.
After a bit of building hopping and climbing, the teen then ended up cornered on the roof of a rather tall structure.
As the woman approached him, the two of them heard a strange buzzing noise. They looked over at a corner of the building, and saw a figure jump onto the roof, radiating with a purple and blue glow. After a second or two, the light from the figure faded away, revealing it to be a young man with an overall hipster delinquent look. He had a smile on his face like he was about to make more friends, and started to approach the other conduits.
"Wow. Awesome. I get to meet with two conduits today. So anyway, I just wanna talk to you guys, and maybe come up with a way to take out the D.U.P. or something. But first, I kinda need to shake your hands." he told them.
In response, both the teenager and the woman shot a blast of energy with shards of either glass or a mix of material from mirrors. The young man dodged the two blasts, and fired a shot of glowing energy at the teenager. As the shot was about to make contact with him, he put his hands together to form a reflective surface. This made the energy bounce back at the attacker, and threw him over the edge of the building. Succeeding in getting the delinquent out of the way, the teen turned to the young woman who was chasing after him with an irritated look.
"Can we ta…?" he said as something wrapped around him.
Someone then pushed him over onto his belly. As looked down on himself, the teen realized that he was tied up by what looked like barb wire. The woman then walked up to him with a smile on her face, and set her hand on his head.
She told him, "Now… we can talk.".
While it was growing elsewhere, Nicky had quite a bit of chaos to deal with right in front of her.
"You really have a death wish. Huh, kid?" the man in the fur lined coat said as he forced bones in his arm back into place.
"Maybe I do." the young bone girl told him.
The man put a smile back on his face as he pulled out another. With now two knives in hand, he got ready to strike at Nicky.
"Guess I'll make it come true, little girl." he said before running towards her.
"Logan!" Riley shouted at the tall teen near him.
"Huh?" the man muttered as he heard Riley.
The tall teen Riley shouted at then used his powers to create a dark hole near one of the other "Wisps". That member then quickly got out her gun, and opened fire through the hole. The man in the fur lined coat then felt five blistering stings in his back. He did not need to look back to realize that the teenager opened a portal of some sort behind. To get back at her, the man threw a knife at the gun blazing female. As it came close to hitting her, Riley took the knife in the shoulder.
"Stupid boy." the man muttered.
"Stupid man!" Nicky shouted at him.
Right after the little girl said that, both of his feet were swept from underneath by a force invisible to him. The force sent his feet upward, flipping him backwards in the air. Riley ran towards the man as he gathered energy in both of his hands. With his powers, he sent a shockwave at the man. While airborne, the man threw a knife, then was carried away by the shockwave. The power from Riley threw him about twenty-five feet away.
"God damn." Riley said as he took the knife out of his shoulder.
"NO! Nicky!" Michael shouted as he ran to the little girl.
Riley turned to the child to see her on the ground in pain. The knife that was thrown was thrown into her stomach area. Even with ruff training from Rebecca, this was too much for young Nicole.
"Nicky, let me help you out." Michael said as he grabbed her shoulder and the handle of knife. "Ready?"
"Yes." Nicky said in a pained voice.
"Okay. One. Two. Three." Michael said to her as he quickly pulled out the knife from the child's belly.
The child healed quickly, but still felt the pain. Sebastian saw the situation, and left the tall woman unattended after tying a tight rope around her. He ran to see how the girl was doing, feeling a lot of worry for her. Rick started getting furious after seeing what both of the children just dealt with, and decided while no one was looking, to choke the individual he apprehended. He filled their lungs with some smelly gases, which caused the quick individual to pass out. With that person out of the way, Rick ran over to grab his brother, and get close to the others.
"Come on Wisps, let's deal with this guy!" Riley called out to his crew.
He, Logan, Raven, and the rest of his crew ran over to attack the man who attacked the children. Meanwhile, the rest of the group of conduits gathered together, with Rebecca still tied up. Nicole was barely able to get up, still feeling weak from the stabbing. Bruce was being held in Rick's arms, about ready to pass out from shock of the moment. Marie walked up to Rick to feel Bruce's forehead.
"He's burning up a bit. Let me get together a cold cloth for his forehead." she told him.
"Thanks." Rick said with a nod.
"We have to make sure to end this." Michael said as she got up from Nicole's side.
"What?" Sebastian asked.
"I doubt these little 'Wisps' can take him on. He doesn't have powers, but something about him reminds of that 'Jack the Ripper' story. We all have to stop him." Michael told the group.
"Damn right. That son of a bitch tried to kill kids. This bastard should die!" Rick said as he set down his brother.
Marie attended to Bruce's aid as she said to Rick, "Don't kill him just like that.".
"She's right. We'll interrogate first. Find out where he's from." Michael told Rick.
"And after that?" Rick asked.
"Let's deal with him first." Michael said as he popped his bone armored knuckles.
The 'Bone Man' ran towards the psycho, being followed by Rick. With the two largest members running off, it was just Bruce and Nicky being tended to by Emily, Marie, Felix and Sebastian.
"Well, hopefully they can put an end to it." Felix told them.
"Yeah. Hopefully." Sebastian said. "Hey, Nicky. You feelin' okay? You lookin' a little bit brain dead."
Nicky seemed to be stuck in a state of unconsciousness. She was standing up straight, but had her eyes closed.
Inside her head, images were flying through of many different people. Some that the child recognized, and some that seemed hardly familiar. Then, she appeared to be in a dark room. seeing only a chair underneath some light. All around the room, a strange tar-like substance flowed over to the chair. The material started combining together, and began materializing into a person.
"Not you again." Nicky said.
The substance formed in a woman, wearing a red hoodie covered in skulls, and black pants that looked like part of her skin. Nicky felt chills go up and down her spine at the sight of this woman.
"Yes. It's me again. And I told you child, I'm the only real friend you have in this. I could even be like a mother to you." the woman told her in a strange, echoing voice.
"Stop it." Nicky told her.
"Either way, you should know that that man who is fighting you was employed by one of my people." the woman said.
"Big surprise. You sent him to kill us." Nicky said.
"No. He's not my ideal individual for a task even as basic as dealing with lowlife prime conduits. Unlike most of those who work for me directly, he actually has attachments outside of work." the woman said.
"You're saying that monster actually has loved ones waiting for him?" the child asked while hesitant of the woman's statement.
"Yes. Even better is that the loved 'one' of his happens to be completely unaware of his activities. A man who lives a double life is not worth my time. If anything, that makes him a liability in my book. At the same time though, it can be used to one's advantage." the tar person said as she curled her right index finger, and put it up by her sadistic smile.
"What are you getting at? You crazy hallucination of mine." Nicky said.
"If we can move past the sarcasm my little pre-teen powerhouse, then I'll have this for you. To get him to stop, tell him this."
The woman went on telling her a few lines she would need to say in order to stop the attack, or at least put the individuals involved off balance. After telling her that, the psychotic female let the child regain control of her body. Now, the child felt stronger than just a moment ago. She saw in the distance a fight breaking out. Michael, Rick and the 'Wisps' were all trying to fight the murderous man.
Logan tried to use his "black holes" to allow his human allies to fire at the man, but the each attempt proved worthless. Even as the man was dodging attacks from the large conduits.
"Stay still, you sick bastard. So I can rip you a new asshole." Rick yelled at the man.
"Vulgar words coming from a man who smells as vulgar. I bet that stench killed your last girlfriend." the man said.
Those last words brought back some painful memories for Rick, sending him into a raging fit. He quickly gathered his energy, and threw out a large breeze of acidic gases. The man easily dodged it, and ran up to Rick to give him a few slices with his knife. The man quickly backed away to make a focus on the "Gas Giant".
"You think a few itchy scratches are gonna… ARGH!" Rick said as he felt sharp pains on his torso.
It appeared that all the minor cuts on Rick had increased five times in size and length. The pain forced Rick to the ground, rendering him unable to fight for the moment. As the man with knives focused on Rick, Michael grabbed a hold of him from behind. The man tried to cut him, but then saw that his attempts were futile as the one who held him up had covered himself in spiky bone armor.
"Riley! Send as much force on him as you can! And don't worry about me!" Michael told the scarf wearing teen.
"Ya got it, boss." Riley responded.
As the near adult gathered energy in his hand, he heard strange sounds like liquid splashing around. To his surprise, yet another conduit came into the battle. He saw a teenager jump high into the air, and fire a sphere of red fluid at him. The scarfed teen barely dodged the attack, but Michael received two long blades into his back. He groaned in pain as he fell to the ground. The blades that penetrates his armor were attached to the new teen's wrists. As she pulled out her scythe like wrist knives, Riley looked at her and noticed she had pure white hair that was about chin length. Along with that, she wore red-tinted black pants and a jacket.
"NOOOOO!" Nicky screamed at her.
The human members of Riley's crew started opening fire alongside Raven, who threw napalm like blasts. Their target however, turned into a puddle of red fluid, and slid along the ground. Riley was a bit curious as to what that liquid was, rubbing a little bit of it from the pavement between his fingers.
"Oh god. START RUNNING, GUYS!" the scarfed teen yelled at his crew.
Before they could react, the teen in red and black grabbed a hold of Logan. She swung him around and tossed him into Raven. Riley ran over to stop her from attacking the rest of his crew, but was stabbed in the gut by the psychotic man.
"How about you sit and watch the show." the man told him as he grabbed Riley by the hair and forced him down. "And why don't you take this off. I want to see your whole face when your friends die."
With the knife in his gut, and the cut seeming to grow bigger and bigger, the teenager was helpless as the man took off his scarf, and the girl attacked his human allies. Nicky couldn't stand by any more. With so much rage bottled up inside, she charged right into the conflict.
"Nicky! Wait! Damn it!" Sebastian said before turning to Emily and Marie. "You two watch Bruce. I gotta deal with this shit."
The two young women gave him a nod, and he ran off after the bone child. They were too far away to stop the liquid conduit from attacking the three remaining human members of Riley's "Wisps" crew. She changed the sharp shapes on his wrists to look like the blades of dacian scythes. The red bladed girl then proceeded to slice through the human individuals, leaving them dead and bleeding on the ground. Riley couldn't help but weep at the sight of his fallen comrades.
"Don't worry. You'll get to join them soon enough. It must suck having a face like yours as well. Having a face like that, and being a conduit, it's no wonder your group is quickly dying one by one." the man continued to tell Riley.
As the man's words started to really mess with his thoughts, Riley noticed Nicky charging at the bladed girl. The teen in red and black saw her, and quickly put her hand on the ground, and absorbed the blood coming from the bodies of the human "Wisps" members. After finishing, she ran towards Nicky, getting ready to stab her.
"You asked for this, kid." she told Nicole.
As she got close to the child, the little bone girl took on her giant skeleton form. Catching her off guard, she grabbed the bladed girl by her head and slammed it on the ground before grabbing her right arm.
"No! You asked for this! Bitch!" the boney child told her.
"Nicky?" Sebastian said as he looked at what she did.
He then looked at the man holding Riley, who looked right backed into Sebastian's eyes. The man threw Riley off to the side, and got ready to attack the rope conduit. With their fight about to begin, Nicky began to somehow drain energy out of the blood conduit.
"What are you doing to me?!" the girl tried to say as the giant bone hand on her face muffled her voice.
Nicole looked at her face, noticing quite a strange detail on her. The right eye was purple, with the left being crimson red. Even stranger the eyes both had slit pupils.
"Well I'm taking some of your power away." the giant skeleton said. "It'll make it easier for me to do this!"
The bone girl then twisted the blood girl's arm, making her scream in pain. Following that, she made all the bones in her arm twist and break into pieces. Not far from Nicky's torture, Sebastian was struggling to fight back against the cut-throat conduit in front of him.
"Why do you persist on fighting? Wouldn't just running away be easier for someone in your shoes?" the man asked as he attempted to cut Sebastian's arm.
"Not if people like you are free to bring harm to others! What kind of man throws a knife at a child?!" Sebastian yelled at him as he wrapped his arms in rope.
"Kids, women, children. Doesn't matter to me as long as I get paid." the man responded.
"Another bullshit hit man!" Sebastian said as he swung for the chest and stomach.
"Well, unlike you little assholes, I have a name for myself." the man told him as he tripped the rope conduit to the ground. He then put a knife up to his neck before continuing with, "You're not the first bunch I've dealt with, and definitely won't be the last.".
As he kept his focus on Sebastian, the man heard a small explosion go off where Nicole and the blood conduit were. Nicky was forced away by some even stranger power from her opponent, sending her nearby Felix. The little girl had changed back into her human form, and the one she was fighting got up. The blood conduit's left eye was glowing red as she walked towards the child. As she popped the bones in her arm back to their correct positions, the teen in red and black looked down to see a backpack with purple light radiating from inside it.
"Ooh. You actually found one of these little rocks." the bloody girl said while reaching inside the bag.
She grabbed the contents of the backpack, and took it out. The teen revealed a blast core, and held it up to see it's glow in the light fog around them. As she admired her find, Emily shot a bunch of rather long nails in her direction. The girl simply moved to the side, and gave the nail shooting female a disapproving look.
"Good job distracting her, 'Nail-Gun'." Bruce said in a sickly voice.
"What?" the blood said to herself.
The blood conduit looked to where Nicky was, and found that she was right there. It took only seconds for the little bone girl to have a hold on the blast core, and send a current of energy through it. Nicky desperately tried to hang onto it and absorb the energy, but the blood conduit had the same idea. The energy traveled between the two individuals as they both hung on the purple rock.
In the distance, Michael slowly got back up to his feet. He looked at the aftermath of what the blood conduit's slaughter, and began to have a slight flashback of when he was younger. Remembering the bodies of innocent people, and lunatics rampaging the streets. The bone man then looked at the scene between the teen and Nicky, feeling anger flow quickly through him. He charged straight towards the scene, attracting the attention of the psycho who was now choking sebastian with his own rope.
"Oh, I don't think so." the man said as he tossed the rope conduit to the side.
He tried to chase after the big bone conduit, but lost his footing and tripped. As he looked at his legs, he found that a rope was tied to his leg, leading to the guard rail on the side of the road. It didn't take long for him to realize that even the young conduit he was choking had a trump card. The crazy man got out another one of his knives to cut the rope, and then felt a force throw him back where he was running from. After flying through the air for a few seconds, he was hit against something large, fleshy, and smelly.
"Time for you to eat shit, cut throat." the large, smelly thing said as it grabbed the man by the neck.
As the psycho was being dealt with, Michael ran over to the blood conduit. He reached his arms over her shoulders, grabbing a hold on her forearms. Right after, Maria did the same to Nicky. With her grip, she passed energy into the young girls arms, making her stronger. As the child got stronger, she was able to force more energy to flow into the blood conduit and back into her. This force caused something to trigger inside of the teen in black and red, making her skin start to turn into the same colors of her outfit. The effects not only caused that, but even gave changes to the bone girl's form. She changed into her big skeletal state, with her bones becoming black, and surrounding herself with a red energy that really popped in her eye sockets. The pain of this change made young Nicole scream. At first she sounded like a child, and then her pained cries turned into a deathly, monstrous roar. The energy left in the blast core went off, and caused an explosion that sent the blood conduit and Nicky flying. Michael and Maria on the other hand were only knocked down from the two girls soaring over them.
The blood conduit was able to rise to her feet, and returned to her original state. As for the little bone conduit, she took a slight bit longer to return to her humanoid form, and was unable to stand. Nicky got up onto her hands and knees looking as if she was about to barf. It was there that she started hearing voices again.
"You feel that energy flowing through you? That's not simply another conduit's energy. Part of that energy in you was once part of a dead man. His power lives on, however. In Cole MacGrath, in Lilith Kūdō, and now Nicole Fisher. Now that you have this power, why don't you deal with Lilith. The blood conduit that attacked your friends." the strange woman's voice said in Nicky's head.
After those words, young Nicole felt the energy flow through rapidly. She not just only got back on her feet, but was able to run straight for the blood conduit. The bloody teen easily noticed her coming her way, so she quickly liquified herself to flow underneath Nicky. This allowed for her to jump up from behind the child and stab her. Before a blow could strike her, Nicky sense of energy went off on its own. She felt all the bones inside Lilith as they came together. It was as if she was touching each of them with her bare hand. As she faced away from Lilith, Nicole lifted her right hand as if holding a small sphere in her palm. This action caused to the blood conduit to levitate about two feet above the bone girl. It took all of a few seconds for the child to realize that she could not only break and fix bones through some form of telekinesis, she could lift them up now.
"What the hell? How are you…? Oww!" Lilith said as some of her bones were twisted.
Nicole broke the blood conduit's legs, causing her to scream in agony, right before the child tossed her to the side of the RV. Nicky figured she was now out of the way, so she ran over towards the psychotic man was being held by the neck. The bone girl saw a huge green figure holding the man up. From the smell though, it was easy for her to distinguish this individual as Rick.
"What are you doing, pissy green giant?" the child asked as stopped some ten feet from him.
"Getting ready to choke the hell out of this bastard for what he did. What does it look like?" Rick answered.
Both Sebastian and Riley got up and ran over to see what was going on.
"Hey Rick. Put that crazy fool down on the ground." Sebastian said.
"Yeah. Put that 'crazy fool' on the ground so I can kill him myself." Riley said as he held a knife in his hand.
Sebastian held him back as he told the teen, "What the hell, man! We need him to spill the beans. He obviously was sent by someone. We need to find out who so we can be ready for something like this again.".
"I don't care what he knows. Zach, Abby and Kirb are dead because of this asshole!" Riley shouted at the rope conduit.
Noticing what those two were fighting about, Nicole thought to herself as to what her next move would be. The man in question did throw a knife at her, and held one up to her friend, Bruce. Along with that, he associate killed the remaining humans in Riley's gang. At the same time though, he could reveal something to the group that none of them may ever have another chance to find out.
L2 Interrogation:
Force the man tell everything.
R2 Execution:
Have the man killed.
Author's note:
Hey everyone, CAJ here. Hope you're all enjoyin' this story. Gonna have a whole lot more happen soon in this little tale right after you all make this decision, so just you wait until I tally all the votes. Nicky is still at a point where she can go Heroic, Evil, or Something else. And if anyone's curious, yes, still accepting (certain) OCs if you wanna submit one or more. Please make sure when you submit an OC that you follow the info required for characters near the top of my Profile page. Also, I will answer questions left in the reviews publicly in the very bottom of my Profile page. Don't worry, I won't see anything as a stupid question, (until I actually get one). As for me, I'd like you cats out there to answers me this: Was this chapter a little too graphic for a "T" rating? Anyway, PEACE!