Mania and the Executioner (37 page)

I walk up the steps and into The Cage. I am greeted with a sea of negative comments as I see my opponents, all twenty-five of them. At the front of the pack is Akhlut
, wearing a smug smile and holding an elaborate, mother-of-pearl and chrome, Colt M1911 .45 caliber pistol, the same gun that I fired on one occasion during training with Tia before she moved me to the 10mm Auto. My other opponents are holding a medley of swords, spears, clubs, and three are holding composite bows.

“Okay Cole, you can do this. Promise that you won’t lose yourself. Focus on the fight, not the screams of agony, or the feel of limbs being sliced off of bodies, or the showering of blood, or the screams,
or the blood, or the screams.”

“HAHA LOOK AT THAT! THE PANSY IS SO SCARED HE’S SHAKING!” Akhlut yells and the majority of his gang and the stadium laugh; I suppose he does have
the home field advantage.

I feel the smile on my face increase as I twist my rings, slice open both my wrists
, and twist my rings closed.

“SORRY BUDDY, BUT SLITTING YOUR WRISTS
ISN’T GOING TO KILL YOU QUICKLY ENOUGH!” Akhlut shouts with a cocky smile on his face.

I start to chuckle as the helmet wraps around my head and Akhlut’s smile falters. Akhlut panics and starts firing his .45 caliber pistol; at thirty feet away, a .45 does about as much good as throwing the bullets at a normal person with
my increased speed. I would have had some trouble had he been using a 10mm auto or something with a higher velocity, but since I’ve been training with Dagda, I could even dodge a 10mm auto bullet at thirty feet without too much problem. The stadium cheers and then falls silent when I start laughing loudly, sounding slightly demonic with the helmet.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU
PEOPLE DOING!? GO GET HIM!” Akhlut screams in panic.

I continue laughing as I
slowly advance. Five soldiers (that aren’t still in shock) rush towards me relatively quickly; I’d say that they are nearly as fast as vampires, but slow compared to my speed. One with a sword takes the lead and makes a quick thrust at me as second sword moves in with a downward slash from my right. I shuffle to my left to avoid the thrust as I snap the first guy’s shin with a swift, downward kick. I grab the wrist of the extended arm in front of me and yank it to the right as I turn, and then I shift back about a foot. The downward slash of the second opponent severs the forearm that I put in its path, simultaneously arming me and disarming his comrade…ha ha, dis-arm…

I sever the sword a
rm of the second opponent and snatch his sword as he falls to the ground. I see a spear being thrust in at the Cage’s 10 o’clock by a short elf woman. I scissor the spear’s head between both of my swords. I’m about to cut off her leg when I realize that disfiguring a woman who isn’t a vampire or werewolf, and one that may just be following orders, will probably leave a bad taste in my mouth. I spin around behind her and knock her out with a palm strike to the base of her skull instead. Now I just have to finish this in under five minutes so Pinga can help her quickly enough in case she has a brain hemorrhage.

The remaining two have a sword and a club, both of which are being swung at me. I duck underneath their attacks as I attempt to sever both of their l
egs. I get through one leg each but both swords get stuck in their second legs.

(Incoming: arena’s 12)

I look and see nine arrows flying at me…well, in my general direction because even though firing three arrows at once is cool, you can’t aim all three. So I dive to the right and throw three darts from my arm as the two arrows that I dive in the path of, fly high. None of the darts hit their target: the pressure point in between the knuckles of their middle and ring fingers on their bow hands, which would cause them extreme pain to keep a grip on their bows. Instead, one dart hits a guy in the throat and the second dart hits the bow of the other archer. The last dart misses because I threw it as my shoulder hit the ground. I hear the bow snap when the second archer tries to draw the string back without noticing the dart that penetrated the frame. I throw another dart to take out the last archer as I stand up.
(5.76 Liters)

I quickly form a full-sized diamond Sic blade in preparation for the sixteen armed opponents
advancing towards me.
(5.26 Liters)

“Any advice on this one Airi?”

(Use the walls like you did in Hawaii)

I start jogging away from the group of opponents and towards the nearest
wall. I jump onto the wall and hang there from my left hand with both feet planted against the wall. When the group gets close, I spring forward, slicing the legs off a large chunk of them as I pass by. I land, turn, and sprint forward into a slide, using the blood as grease so I don’t get the ice equivalent of road rash…ice rash?

I slice through four more legs
before sliding straight into the chain-link fence, getting my leg stuck in the process. The remaining five opponents all swing at me and I’m miraculously able to block all five. However, now I’ve got a problem because I can’t counterattack and they are eventually going to get smart enough for one to stop their current attack and make a follow-up attack when they realize I can’t block it.

“Airi, I’m in a little bit of trouble here!”

(Working on it…Okay left hand, 4.76 Liters)

I look over and find another Sic blade in my left hand. I quickly slash through the ten ankles around me before I get myself unstuck from the fence. The screams finally catch up to me and I start getting lost in them until I can make out
the screaming of two females; then my high just fades away. I seem to enjoy making women scream, just not in that way; gods forbid that Cheza ever turns into a masochist.

I stand and
walk slowly over to Akhlut, who is ten feet away and looks like he is about to piss himself. Akhlut’s eyes flick from mine and a smile starts to cross his face. He lifts his gun and turns it away from me; I immediately know what he is about to do and I’ll be damned if I am about to watch her get shot two separate times in the same week.

I flash forward and I take the round right into my stomach. Akhlut’s
eyes widen in surprise, and then his smile widens as he unloads the rest of the magazine into me. His smile fades when he sees that I’m not falling down.

“COLE!” Cheza screams in her mind, but I neglect to respond.

“You know, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to lose myself this time; that I wasn’t going to brutally kill anyone today.” I say in a demonic tone as Akhlut keeps pulling the trigger, causing the gun to continue clicking to notify him that he’s fucked.

“However, I am going to forgive myself for breaking that promise because you just tried to shoot Cheza and/or Natasha. Do you want to know what happened to the last person that shot Cheza? I ripped off his fucking arm and beat him to death with it. And Cheza had just killed one of his friends! What do you think I am going to do to the person who just tried to shoot Cheza when she had only been sitting in the stands?” Akhlut starts blubbering in horror.

“HEY NATASHA! HOW MANY PIECES DOES A LIMB HAVE TO BE IN BEFORE PINGA CAN’T REATTACH IT?” I shout.

“I don’t know
I’ve never had to reattach a limb that was in pieces before.” A woman who is not Natasha replies.

“What’s your best guess?” I ask at just a slightly elevated volume because I’m sure she’ll hear me.

“Approximately seven.” Pinga replies.

“Slices or dice cut?” I inquire.

“Slices.” She says.

“Arm or leg?”
I ask.

“Let’s go with the right arm!” Pinga exclaims as I look down and I see that is his gun hand so it’s most likely his predominant hand as well.

“Oohoo! That is cruel! I like your style Pinga!” I shout.

“Alright then, let’s hope you can learn to jack it with your left hand.
Ahem…FOR SCIENCE!” I shout as I bring the blade down on Akhlut’s right hand. His scream causes a shiver to run through me.

“Just remember that this is for the good of all of Pinga’s future patients!” I remind Akhlut over his screaming.
I go through his arm two more times and part of me knows I’m getting lost in it, but the other part really doesn’t care.

As I cut off another slice, I notice that this pansy has actually been
rendered unconscious! What’s up with that? I should just eviscerate him and see if that shocks him awake…no, I have an even better idea. It’s about time I experimented with some of those unstable chemical compounds, a certain one with a chemical formula of C3H5N3O9. I allow some of my blood to drip into his mouth where I move it down his throat and into his stomach.

“Hey Akhlut!
I need you to wake up!” I say as I smack his face back and forth repeatedly.

“There he is!” I exclaim
as his eyes open. “Okay, I need you to tell me if you can feel this!”

I snap my fingers and Akhlut starts screaming so loud that I can barely contain myself. His blood splatters my face as his stomach explodes outward like he’s giving birth to fucking Alien. Looks like I figured out how my Drive blew up that vampire’s head. It seems I can make a quick and dirty form of nitroglycerine using atoms from my blood’s carbon dioxide, water, and blood
urea nitrogen that is then rapidly heated by the body’s temperature, which destabilizes the nitroglycerine causing an explosion. That was totally awesome!

“COLE! Stop it! I’m freaking out because you have five bullets in your fucking stomach and you’re just over there having all of the
fun!” Cheza screams in my mind.

It’s at this point that I stop laughing, even though I
wasn’t aware that I had been laughing in the first place. Cheza calling what I’ve been doing ‘fun’ is a huge red flag for me; is this because of that werewolf she killed?

“I’m sorry Cheza…” I think as I turn towards her while whipping my Sic blade through Akhlut’s neck.

“JESUS CHRIST COLE!” Cheza screams in my mind as she sits wide-eyed in the stands.

“What?” I ask.

“YOU HAVE AN ERECTION!” she screams. I look down and see that she is correct.

“Just half of one!
And I believe that this is what is called a vengeance boner.” I reply.

(Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Hard at Work’)

I start chuckling at Airi’s joke and realize that I can’t look any more like a psychopath than I do at the moment. Let’s take stock of my situation, shall we? I currently am covered in blood while nearly naked, laughing, and have an erection that I achieved by setting off an explosive in a man’s stomach. Oh and I forgot the part where I’m in the middle of a bunch of people screaming in agony and that there are about one thousand people silently staring at me.

“Cheza, I swear that this is the only instance where a man will be able to give me an erection.” I thi
nk to her as I make it go away.

I silently walk back into the chamber; I really want to raise my arms above my head and shout to the crowd ‘ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?’ with a British accent, despite the fact that
I’m pretty sure the movie/show that that is from is about gladiators in Rome…I think Russell Crowe says that. I walk over to the showers and hose the blood off of me so I can see what I’m doing with the bullets.

“Alright Airi, what can I do about the bullets?”

(Only one bullet is in your actual stomach so the method from Hawaii isn’t going to work here. Short of eviscerating yourself, there is nothing that you can do)

“Well how urgent is it for me to remove them?”

(It isn’t essential)

I start getting dressed when the door opens.

“That was rather impressive young man; I’d expect no less from The Executioner of The Faction.” I hear Pinga say behind me.

“How do you know who I am?” I ask
, slightly on edge.

“I’m the Inuit pantheon’s representative in The Faction and my granddaughter has mentioned you a few time
s.” Pinga replies.

I turn around and get my first real look at her. Pinga is a fit Inuit woman with sharp features and stunning green
, almond-shaped eyes who appears to be in her early forties. Instead of wearing a traditional Inuit parka, she is wearing a tight fitting white ski jacket with a fur lined hood and matching tight white pants.

“Granddaughter?”
I ask.

“Hey Cole!
How’s your stom…oh, hi grandma!” Natasha says while barging in with Cheza behind her.

“Why am I not surprised?” I ask rhetorically as Pinga starts to speak.

“Oh, hello dear, we were just speaking of you. I came down to see if I couldn’t get those bullets out of your fiancé, whom I approve of much more than that butt stallion your asshole of a grandfather decided you were marrying.” Pinga says. I take it that she and Jorgen are no longer together.

“Pinga, there seems to be a misund
erstanding. I’m already engaged. I was fighting because Natasha is my friend and I didn’t want her to be forced to marry that asshole.” I explain.

“Well you can marry her too, if you wish; you did just win the right to after all. The Inuit
people have always been rather open towards polygamy. I would love to have you as my grandson, and not just because it would seriously piss off my ex haha!” Pinga informs me.