Psi Another Day (Psi Fighter Academy) (6 page)

Chapter Five

The Mental Arts

“Tonight,” the Kilodan said, after we had finished an unusually brutal warm-up, “we return to basics. Before you can strike effectively with your body, you must learn to unleash the power of your mind. Without your mental strength, a kick is just a kick, a punch merely a punch…ordinary martial arts. But we practice the discipline that is forerunner to all martial arts. Anyone with a black belt can do this.” He stood over the concrete slabs, raised his open hand to his masked cheek, and dropped it lazily, almost soundlessly, through the entire stack.

Anyone. Right. Most black belts have to put a bit more effort into it.

The Kilodan dusted off his glove and faced the class. “The ability to break inanimate objects is irrelevant. It requires nothing more than a bit of brawn. But, breaking an opponent who is physically superior to you requires quite another talent. Lynn and Andor, if you please…Andor, simple, brute strength.”

The Kilodan was the only person who called me “Lynn.” It made me feel sort of…I don’t know, professional. I faced Andy.

Normally, Andy was just a big goof. But during demonstrations and actual missions, he could be very intimidating. He moved like a lion when he walked, and when he stood, he looked like he wanted to kill something. He smiled cruelly at me and flexed his massive chest. His armor stretched and groaned.

“I’m going to crush you, little girl,” he whispered.

“Of course, you are,” I said.

Suddenly, he dove at me. Andy was fast, but I was faster. I slammed my strongest side kick into his armored gut. That kick would have knocked anyone else through a wall, but kicking Andy was like kicking a mountain. He crashed into me and slammed me to the floor, laughing. I pushed both hands against his chest armor with all my strength, but I couldn’t budge him. So I concentrated.

I knew I was being mean, but I couldn’t think of any other way to escape. My hair poofed as I pounded images of my own lifeless body into Andy’s mind. Andy’s eyes grew wide. Horror filled his suddenly pale face, and he gaped down at me. He raised himself to his knees, shaking in horror, covering his mouth with his forearm.

“Noooo!” he screamed, his face a mask of anguish. I pulled my hands away, and Andy’s expression changed immediately. Color came back to his cheeks, and he started to laugh.

“You love me,” I said, grinning, feeling a bit ashamed of myself.

“Yes, I do, you little brat!” He picked me off the ground, crushing me with a hug. “But if you
ever
do that to me again, I
will
kill you!”

“Put her down, please, Andor,” the Kilodan mumbled. “Students, listen carefully…this ought to be good. Lynn.”

“Well,” I said, smiling at Andy, “sometimes I get a little too overconfident about my speed. I’m faster than Andy, and my plan was to knock him on his butt. But he’s just too strong. When he had me down, I was completely helpless. So I did a Heart Piercer. I made him think he had killed me.”

“That was just nasty,” Andy said. “Next time I try to annihilate you, be civil.”

“You can see,” the Kilodan talked over us, “how useless a punch or kick is against so powerful an opponent. But the mind has no such limitations. If you channel your thoughts and emotions into weapons, your abilities will be most impressive. But if you can turn your
opponent’s
thoughts and emotions into weapons, you will be invincible. Andor, please explain.”

Andy folded his hands, closed his eyes, and began to speak as if reciting a passage he’d memorized for a school play. “Each Psi Weapon is unique. Some disrupt your opponent’s perception. Others affect their memory or distort their reasoning. All tug at emotion in one form or another. The Heart Piercing Dagger, as demonstrated by my heartless partner, causes the victim, in this case me, to believe he has done something terrible to a person he cares deeply about, in this case the selfish brat. If I didn’t love the thankless creature as though she were my own annoying little sister, the technique would have had no effect on me at all. As it stands, my heart has been shattered and my soul left bitter and empty by her thoughtless attempt at—”

“A bit less embellishment, perhaps?” the Kilodan muttered.

Andy nodded, clearing his throat. “Yes, let’s move on to the Thought Saber. Cool technique. Usually takes the form of a sword, although it can be anything that comes to mind. Use this weapon and you
hear
the emotions—screams of anguish, shouts of joy. It can slice through steel, but won’t cause physical harm to a person. However, the Thought Saber does have the interesting side effect of temporarily severing the connection between mind and body. Variations of the technique include War Hammers, which, of course, only Knights and other low IQ brutes use. Dark Emotions feed that sort of barbaric weapon. As you know, Dark Emotions…jealousy, guile, greed…are the realm of the Knights. Psi Fighters use the Pure Emotions.

“Which brings us to the Mental Blast, technique of choice for unleashing Pure Emotion. If you use joy or anger, the Mental Blast will knock an opponent off his feet. If you use something as powerful as fear, you must be careful not to kill him. That’s a no-no, considered bad form by those in power at the Academy. Unchain sheer fury, and you will completely blow away your opponent’s mind.”

Then Andy got very serious and looked straight at me. “And our most powerful weapon, the only one that can actually change a person’s heart. The Memory Lash. An emotional whip. Crack the whip, and you’ll raise memories like welts. Your opponent becomes his own victim. He remembers the most heartless things he ever did. He feels everything his victims felt: the agony, the terror, the sorrow. If he is capable of remorse, he will change in ways you can’t imagine. This is not a technique to take lightly. You will
see
everything he sees,
feel
everything he feels. It can be ugly. Be sure you’re up to it before you use it.

“And now, a happier topic.” Andy pulled his Amplifier from his belt. “The beautiful little piece of modern technology that makes all this possible.”

Like everything that was Andy’s, his Amplifier reflected his personality. Mine resembled a slim midnight blue fountain pen with silver bands and a really cool cap, crystal with a white rose embedded inside. However, Andy’s was a miniature light saber, burnished gold with intricate symbols and precious stones along the barrel. He held his Amplifier in the air, and a monstrous cutlass burst from it. Andy twirled the cutlass, and it became a whip, then a spear, then a shield. He spun the shield, and it transformed into a guitar. The whole class started to applaud.

“Thank ya,” he said, dropping to one knee. “Thank ya very much.” He leapt into the air, strummed the guitar, and it imploded back into the Amplifier’s tip.

“You were saying,” the Kilodan murmured, the slightest hint of emotion coming through.

Andy’s face turned red. “Most Amplifiers,” he explained, “look like a fountain pen or some other ordinary, everyday object. Easy to carry, easy to hide, completely undetectable. For a long time, only those who had mastered the Mental Arts could turn their thoughts into physical weapons. The rest of us had to touch our opponent to transfer mental attacks, the way my cold and uncaring partner just demonstrated. However, thanks to a technological genius, a master of psitronics—in fact, dare I say it? A babe magnet, the standard to which all women compare their men—”

The Kilodan sighed. “The point, Andor…”

Andy raised an eyebrow. “I personally find the history of the Amplifier fascinating. But for those of you who are less concerned with our glorious past, let me just say that the Amplifier gives the fledgling black belt the ability to channel thoughts and emotions into physical weapons. The technology behind it is very intricate, from the silver and gold encephalographic electrodes to the resonating core, which amplifies your thoughts the way a toilet bowl amplifies the sound you make when you—”

“Thank you, Andor.” The Kilodan shook his head and turned to the class. “To understand a technique, you must experience it. Pair up. We will begin with the Memory Lash.”

Yuck. I drew my Amplifier and faced Andy. “So,” I said sweetly and innocently, trying not to make it too obvious that I desperately did not want to do a Memory Lash. “Might I inquire as to your knowledge of the connection between Mason, the stalker, and the drugs in my school?”

Andy pursed his lips. “You might.”

“I just did.”

“Don’t want to do a Memory Lash, huh?”

“Nope. And your answer would be?”

“The Knights are back.”

“As in Walpurgis?”

“
Si
.”

“And you know this how?”

“I am all-knowing. I am all-seeing.”

“Enlighten me.”

Andy frowned. “Ten years ago it was drugs and kidnapping. This time, it’s drugs and kidnapping. Consider yourself enlightened.”

I just stared at him. “‘Splain.”

“The Walpurgis Knights kidnap children and train them to be Knights.”

“‘Kay.” I knew that.

“They use mutated hallucinogens to change their personalities. Nice people can’t be Knights.”

“‘Kay.” I didn’t know that.

“What do you know about Draudimon?” Andy asked.

“Mr. Munificent insinuated that someone at school is involved with a man in a skull mask. I think it’s Mason. Mr. Smelly had a skull mask. If Mason knows who he is, I’ll get it out of him. Preferably, by force.”

“Mr. Smelly doesn’t wear the skull mask,” Andy said.

“Well, he did in the memory I saw.”

“That wasn’t his mask. I believe that was a memory of someone he met. The man in the Elmo mask and the man in the skull mask are two different people.”

I was confused. “Why do you think that?”

“This isn’t the first time a man in a skull mask caused us a lot of trouble.”

“Well, I only care about the stalker. If Mr. Smelly doesn’t wear the skull…crud. Mason can’t help me there.”

“Oh, contrariwise. If Munificent is right, and he always is, our best clue is in your school. And if you’re right, which has happened on occasion—”

“Hey!”

“Elmo and Skullface are definitely linked, but for some reason, they’re targeting different victims. The Knights always kidnapped young children, like when they took you. But the drug ring seems to be targeting teens. May be part of the same scheme, may not be. I don’t know, but if it is, the Knights have changed their M.O.”

“M-what?”

“Modus operandi.” Andy slapped my forehead. “Do you not watch crime dramas? As I was saying, if you’re right, you’d better become good buddies with Mason. He may be our best connection to the man with the death’s head for a face. And I can settle an old score.”

Hot anxiety suddenly burned in my chest. “What do you mean?”

“I fought a man in a skull mask the night your parents died. I suspect that you saw your parents’ killer in the stalker’s mind.”

This was news I hadn’t seen coming.

Chapter Six

Odd Connections

Learning that the stalker was connected to my parents’ killer left me unusually energized the next day. I was ready to take on the world. Whether or not I was ready to take on an algebra test was another question.

Even with my nose buried deep in my algebra book, I heard the light tap of shoes crossing the floor as I sat in the library waiting for Kathryn to do some last-minute studying. As usual, the silly girl was trying to sneak up on me just to prove she could do it. Unfortunately for her, I had trained for ten years to be aware of everything in my surroundings. Unless I was badly distracted, I was very hard to sneak up on. Suddenly the footsteps stopped and I had an overwhelming feeling that I was being watched. I peeked up from my algebra book and stared directly at—
not
Kathryn.

“Hey,” Egon said.

“Oh! Hello.” I pretended I hadn’t heard him coming. I also pretended I wasn’t in total shock that he was speaking to me.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” He pulled out the chair across from me and quietly sat down. Then he simply stared at me, not the expressionless way he had stared at Mason when he rescued me, but with a very subtle sparkle in his green eyes and the hint of a smile on his lips. Not an actual smile or sparkle…I had the impression that the real thing was being reined in, waiting for just the right moment to explode all over me. I played with the pages of my book, wondering what to say. Egon never blinked. If I’d been holding a dictionary instead of a math book, it would have been opened to a dissertation on the word
awkward
.

“Come here often?” he finally said.

“Umm, yeah. Every day.” It’s a library. We’re in school.

Oh,
moron
, he was making a joke. Little Miss Ingénue, yep, that’s me.

Egon leaned forward in his chair and unleashed a very charming smile at me. “I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you at the assembly, and I was wondering, you know…”

“Wondering?”

“I kind of offered to be your bodyguard, and I was hoping you didn’t take it the wrong way. I mean, you don’t even know me, and that could have come off as being very rude. It’s just that I tend to say stupid things in a crowd because I’m not really comfortable around people. You know what I mean?”

“No.” I honestly didn’t. “I mean, you’re famous.” According to Kathryn—I had never heard of him before. “You have to be used to crowds.”

Egon giggled. It was a hysterically girlish giggle, but I didn’t say anything.

“I guess when I’m the center of attention, my tough guy side comes out. I’ve been trained to act that way for the media. That’s not the real me, Rinnie. I was hoping to get to know you a little better. After all, every bodyguard has to know who he’s protecting.”

“I know, right?” I had no idea where this was going, but I must say, I was enjoying it.

Egon rested his chin on both hands. “So, tell me all about yourself.”

Oh, crud.
That’s
where it was going.

“Not much to tell,” I said. Technically, not much I
could
tell. “I go to school, I have practice after school. I hang out with Kathryn. We study together. I don’t know, my life isn’t all that exciting.”

“What do you practice?” Egon’s smile was so sweet.

“Kung fu. There’s a little school in town.”

Egon folded his hands. “Kung fu, huh? I know some kung fu people on the MMA circuit.”

“MMA?” I said, pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Mixed martial arts. Cage fighters. Hey, maybe you’d like to get into the competition. I’ll bet you’re pretty good!”

“I’m not
that
good!” I laughed.

“Just pretty, then?”

Heat rose in my face, and hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop my lips from pulling into a stupid grin.

“Well, you are,” Egon whispered.

I covered my face with my hands, embarrassingly flazzled. I totally had to change the subject. “Let’s talk about
you
. Where did you live before you moved here?”

Egon sat back and took a deep breath. “Oh, here and there. I actually grew up in Greensburg, but we moved away. My dad wanted me to follow the MMA circuit. He got me into it when I was younger, and I guess I was pretty good. But I went through trainers like water.”

“Why? Were they too hard on you?” I giggled, knowing firsthand what hard training looks like.

“No, I was a quick learner. I kept getting better than them. Within six months they couldn’t last thirty seconds in the ring with me, and I had to find a new trainer.”

“Impressive,” I said.

“Not really. I found out that most of my trainers were ex-fighters who couldn’t make it in the ring. They weren’t that great to begin with. But they taught me one thing that a great fighter probably couldn’t have—how to act like you deserve the reputation.”

“And how is that helpful?” I asked.

“Comes in handy when you’re facing a tougher fighter,” he said softly. “Like when I stopped Mason from picking on you. He’s a pretty intimidating dude. He’s a lot stronger than me, so I knew I had to play mind games.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mason knows I have a reputation for being tough.”

“You have a reputation for being unstoppable. That’s what Kathryn told me.”

“See, that’s the thing. Nobody at this school has ever seen me in the ring. They don’t know whether I’m a champion or just mediocre. So I use that to my advantage. I act like a tough guy, and people actually believe I am. If you want to know, I was shaking in my boots when I saved you from Mason. I had seen him knock people around before. I knew what he was capable of. He probably could have kicked my butt all over the school, but he didn’t know that.”

Wow. To Egon’s credit, he was showing real humility for a pro fighter. “I don’t know whether I believe you’re afraid of Mason. You had a pretty convincing tough guy act. You stayed very cool.”

“That’s what I’m telling you, Rinnie. That’s the media act. I’m totally not at all cool. This”—he flourished his hands at himself—“is the real me. Give me a pair of thick glasses and an ascot and I can be a dweeb with the best of them.”

“Egon, nobody wears ascots anymore. Not even dweebs.”

“See, I’m not even qualified to be a dweeb.”

I smiled, staring at the tabletop. I quickly glanced up and Egon caught me. He smiled and looked away.

“Rinnie, I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”

The smile began tugging at my face again. “You have?”

He reached across the table and touched my arm. “I was just wondering if you’d like to hang out some time. I mean, it’s okay if you don’t—if you’re busy. I understand.”

I hoped that he didn’t feel my arm shaking. “That would be nice.”

Egon’s eyes lit up like stars. “Cool. Hey, I gotta get to class.”

Yeah. Cool. In a very hot way. I melted into blissful oblivion as Egon walked away from my table and disappeared through the library doors.

“You can come out now,” I said quietly.

Kathryn stepped out from behind the shelves. “How did you know I was there?”

I gave her a double palms up. “It’s my job.”

…

The algebra classroom sat on the sunny side of the school. Soft yellow light filtered in, reflecting warmly off the walls, casting a primrose hue across the linoleum floor. Old books stacked by the window, heated by the sun, gave off a pleasant musty scent that reminded me of the Greensburg Library. Under any other circumstance, the classroom would have been very calming. Unfortunately, it belonged to Dr. Captious, an annoying little man with the ego of a dragon and the temperament of a toy poodle.

“Books on the floor, eyes straight ahead,” he yipped, bouncing on his toes, hands behind his back, gazing at the ceiling. “This is your first algebra test this term, students. The required material is extremely difficult, beyond the ability of the average student. But fear not.”

“Here it comes,” Kathryn whispered.

I choked back a laugh.

“You are in my class,” Dr. Captious continued, “because you are qualified to receive exceptional instruction. Which you have. If you do well on my test, it is because
I
am an excellent teacher. If you do poorly, it is because
you
…are a poor student.”

I tried to imagine the type of animal Kathryn would use to describe Dr. Captious. He stood just over five and a half feet tall, and nearly as wide, with a pasty complexion, flat black eyes, and embarrassing hair. Hard as I tried, all I could picture was a cue ball with a bad comb-over.

As Dr. Captious reverently lifted a stack of tests from his desk, the classroom door burst open, and an animal I recognized strolled in. He glanced in my direction and a slight smile tugged at his lips. My first instinct was to stick my finger down my throat to show him how much I welcomed his charming face, but I controlled myself. If Andy was right, I might have to get close to Mason, which meant, nauseating as the thought was, I needed to play nice.

“Do you have a late pass, Mr. Draudimon?”

“Sorry, Dr. Captious,” Mason said. “Won’t happen again.”

“I’m counting on it,” Dr. Captious said. “Take your seat.”

Mason calmly gave me a noogie (the swine) on his way to his desk in the last row. As soon as he was seated, Dr. Captious began his ordeal of passing out tests. Normal teachers just hand them out. Captious makes a ceremony of it. He walked up and down each row, stopping in front of every student, handing over the test like he was awarding a trophy. Then he came to an empty desk and his expression turned smug. Erica Jasmine’s desk. Probably afraid of another run-in with the Red Team, so she took the day off. Happened all the time. Dr. Captious apparently thought she’d ditched because of the test.

“Family crisis,” Mason said without looking up. He was doodling on his desk. Mason always doodled in class.

Captious’s face showed a hint of color as he turned toward Mason. “And you know this how, Mr. Draudimon?”

“I like to keep up on social events in our community. You know what a community-minded fellow I am.”

“May I assume that was the cause of your tardiness? Let’s you and I have a social event after class.” Captious turned and pattered to the front of the room. “Now students, when I count to three, you may begin. Three!”

And he wondered why people failed his class. I picked up my pencil, read the first test question, and got to work.

Forty-two minutes later, the bell rang.

“Pencils down,” Dr. Captious yapped from the back of the room. “Hand me your papers on the way out the door.”

As the other students filed out, I sat at my desk, watching Kathryn touch up her makeup. Mason gave me another noogie on his way past and pressed a folded piece of paper into my hand. I gave him a nasty look as he walked away, and opened the paper.

Oh. Wow. I turned to Kathryn. “A smiley face. What is he up to?”

Kathryn rolled her blue eyes. “It’s probably poisoned. Rin, every time we’re in this class, I rub all my makeup off. Cappy gives me anxiety. I think I need to transfer.”

“I know, it’s like he emits caffeine rays or something. Okay, we’re out of here!”

We turned to leave the empty classroom when the sound of hushed voices in the hall stopped us.

“This is not common knowledge, Mason. How did you know about Erica?”

“Angel knows the family. She stopped me on the way to class.”

“Who else knows?”

“Probably the whole school. She’s been out of control lately. Don’t know what she’s into.”

“Wonderful. I would like you to find out. Fill me in tonight.”

Footsteps clopped down the hall. Then the late bell rang and Kathryn said, “Oh, crap!” Late is one thing we never were. We rushed toward the classroom door.

“Dr. Captious,” I said, handing him my test. “May we please have a late pass?”

Captious’s gaze went to me, then to Kathryn. He smiled a poodley little smile.

“Of course, ladies. I trust you did well on the test? I believe you’ll both be extremely successful in my class.” He pulled a pad from his pocket, scribbled on it, and handed it to me. “In fact, I’m certain of it.”

“Thank you,” we both chimed as we headed down the hall. I crammed the late slip and Mason’s smiley face into my pocket, wondering what was up with Captious. Suddenly, my head went wacky. Pictures flashed through my mind like a choppy old movie.

A fat man in a dark office.

His hair matted with sweat.

Reminded me of the stalker. Then I realized…it was
Munificent
.

His bloodshot eyes moved in quick jerks.

He crammed something into a drawer.

“How could I let it happen again?” he said. He turned when the door opened.

An unseen man’s voice echoed through the room. “You couldn’t stop it the first time.”

“Didn’t know who you were back then,” Munificent whispered. He drew his gun. “I do now.”

“Timing is perfect.” A hand stretched out unnaturally far and disappeared into Munificent’s chest.

Munificent dropped the gun, clutched his heart and struggled for breath. His eyes rolled into his head. He dropped to his knees.

The room spun slowly and stopped on a man’s reflection in a mirror. He was dressed in black, and in place of his face was a skull.

“Earth to Rin. Earth to Rin.”

Kathryn’s voice snapped me back. My heart was racing. I didn’t know where it came from or why, but I was pretty sure I had just had a vision of the same person I saw in the stalker’s mind. If Andy was right, that was my parents’ killer. Memories of the night they died began to surface, but I forced them down. I realized I was shaking.

“You okay?” Kathryn touched my shoulder.

“Yeah, just daydreaming.”

“About earthquakes?”

I changed the subject. “Hey, what’s up with Mason and Captious?”

“They’ve been buds for a while. They both hang out at the Shadow Passage.”

“Not possible,” I said. The Shadow Passage was a video-arcade-slash-gym. “Captious wouldn’t know a video game from a dump truck, and his idea of a workout is reaching for his next Twinkie.”