Chapter Five

The lights were dimmed in the great, lavished bed room. Dressed in a light, flowing nightgown, Mugino Shizuri's mood wasn't especially bright either. She was seated before a large vanity, located near a vast, mahogany armoire. The white carpet beneath her feet was thick and of the highest quality. Her canopied bed. The glass-paned jewelry box. The cleaning robot. The state-of-the-art alarm clock that only woke her when she completed a sleep cycle, and did so with exquisite, comforting smells and soft, natural sounds.

This life style was becoming difficult to maintain.

ITEM's mercenary business had been going downhill. Fortunately, it wasn't enough to break Mugino, but it was nearing the danger zone. Being defeated by the third strongest esper hadn't hurt the flow of jobs that much; fighting high level espers generally wasn't a worry for her clients. Even being defeated by a Level 0 was only a temporary setback. The greatest blow had been the loss of her arm and eye. Out of the thousands of espers in the entire city she was still the 4th strongest. Being a Level 5 she was even able to circumvent her missing arm in combat. Yet the fact that she was damaged led clients to doubt her abilities.

She gritted her teeth and hugged her left side with her remaining arm.

It was ridiculous. She could have suffered so many other injuries, but the lack of a real limb was something people couldn't ignore.

Those people were obnoxiously stupid.

Mugino slammed her fist onto the vanity's table and let loose a frustrated scream.

As she did so she felt something at her back.

"Ooh! I think you scared it!" came a taunting voice.

Shizuri was instantly on her feet, spinning. Her energy-shaped arm materialized and lashed out as she turned, disintegrating the seatback without causing the rest of the chair to as much as shake. There was nobody there.

"You know, the last esper I fought enhanced their body like that-"

Shizuri turned towards her bed, tense and ready to fight.

"-and then surprised me by using a second power."

"Who are you?" Mugino demanded.

The young man stood on the other side of the bed, his features masked by the light curtains that hung around it. He ignored her question. "So how about we find another power to use?"

Shizuri launched a scorching ray across the room. It seared through the veils on the canopy and then through the wall. Seeing him disappear before her eyes, she understood.

"A teleporter," she ground her teeth. "This is going to be a problem."

"That one's a bit too dangerous to keep around. What else you got?"

A stool flew towards Mugino from her opposite side. She brought her right arm up and generated a shield. The stool dissolved harmlessly, without as much as putting pressure on her arm.

"There we go," the man chirped, "I like that one."

The young lady, who was certainly not dressed for combat, leveled her energy-arm at the trespasser. Not only did he not flinch, but he started stalking towards her.

"Arrogant bastard," Mugino muttered.

The young man, who was certainly not dressed for summer, grinned.

Shizuri continued to stand there.

Her eyes went wide as she realized that she couldn't fire her beam of energy. After being momentarily surprised, she leapt away from the advancing menace and recomposed herself.

It's alright. Even if I can't blast him, I'm still a Level 5, she thought, I have a wide repertoire of attacks still available.

Then the attacker was gone.

She turned to her right and swung her arm of plasma.

"Oops!" the young man tumbled sideways, narrowly avoiding the blow. The arm easily burned a foot-wide line through the wall. "That was close!" And then the teleporter was gone again.

Mugino continued spinning, summoned her shield to her right arm and made a backhanded attack with it. Once again surprised, the teleporter dove backwards just in time to avoid losing his head.

"Hey, hey now. That's no fun," he complained from the floor. "How are you doing that?"
"If you were a Level 5 you would know!" she told him. She then attempted to channel a chain explosion through the floor. Not particularly surprised, she found that she couldn't bring herself to do it. Clicking her tongue in frustration she thought to herself, At least I can follow his teleportation within my AIM field. It's times like these that I wish it was more than a few feet, though.

"I'll tell you why you can only use your shield if you tell me how you can keep track of me!" he offered from the floor with a smile.

"Just die, bastard!" Mugino roared as she charged at him.

He once again disappeared and Mugino turned to where she felt him moving. But he wasn't there.

"Huh?"

"Excuse me for this." Looking down in shock, Mugino saw him lying on the ground at her feet. He reached under her gown and grabbed her leg as she swung a haymaker towards his face.

The momentum from the punch had her tumbling as she fell through the air. The moon, stars, and lights around the house forced back the darkness and it barely registered that she was outside her home. As she flailed about she saw the teleporter, lighted by the moon, standing on the roof of her two story house. He had his hand held out in offering. With no powers other than her arm and her shield available to her, she had no way of stopping herself from continuing to fall. She wanted to take a shot at him out of spite as she fell past, yet she knew she wouldn't survive the landing. And so she reached out her hand and grabbed his.

It was dark again. Even though she still felt his hand in hers, Mugino continued to rotate in the air and move at the same speed. The teleporter tightened his grip on her arm and pressed in the opposite direction as the moment flung her forward. The result was a sickening crunch of bones as her arm was violently forced backwards and the ball joint in her shoulder broke. The action added a lateral movement to her fall, spinning her to her back as she hit the ground. Her skull bounced off the hardwood floor and the air left her lungs. She held onto consciousness, heaving for air, long enough for her to realize she was in the foyer of her house. At the very last moment she heard the teleporter address her. It wasn't until right before she woke up, a few days later in the hospital, that she understood what he had said.

"Sorry. I can't really do anything about direction or velocity."