《Super Sekken (An Action Shonen Story)》Vol. 11, Ch. 24: Light Speed
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"Huh...?" was the first question I asked once I landed inside the school. I was looking for where the supposed 'sniper' was, only to find a camera placed on a tripod with a light built into it. That was what I thought it was at least, until I leaned over and looked over at the knob that was on the side of the camera. Its setting was on 'Low'... that was odd, shouldn't it be on its highest setting?
That question would be answered when that knob then turned itself to 'Max', while turning to face me directly!
"It's remote controlled?!" I shouted in shock, then trying to evade its coming blast of light. Oh man, me trying to dodge light? Anyone who paid some attention to science class knew that was impossible, so that silly effort only ended up with me getting hit by the laser regardless. It was laughable how I thought that was a good idea, why didn't I just try to push the camera out of the window? It was too late to try that idea now, so I was forced to deal with my consequences, and those consequences being... a minor burn? It wasn't even minor, rather just the hairs on my weeks-unshaved arm getting singed!
There clearly had to be a lapse in my judgement. There was no way this could possibly have taken down Sora! It couldn't even harm me, so if that was all it could do, I thought it would be the best idea to just ignore it and try to find the real source.
I moved down the halls and away from the camera. The rest of Maguro High was left for me and the SAT to explore. This school was so massive that it would take at least an hour to search it from top to foundation for these criminals, and unlike the SAT, I wasn't very skilled at searching, so I could only lurk around and hope to catch signs of life.
"There! Hey!" I then shouted when I turned the corner, only to find one of the very people I was looking for: The tall masculine figure, the decorated pins, there was no doubt about who it was! Stronzo! "Stop right there you murderous scum!"
My name calling, to my surprise, didn't turn out to be very effective in stopping him, and so another chase was underway. By now I was used to both chasing and running away, but what I wasn't used to was the layout of the school. I had only been to the school a total of three times while Stronzo was here for easily longer than I have.
I managed to keep some pace with him through the first few hallways. The third floor was pretty simply constructed to make it easier for new students to navigate. This was the same case with the second and first floors, but I would never get to see those floors in time to catch Stronzo.
Just when I was about to grab a hold of his robes, I felt a sudden force keep me frozen where I was! I was stuck in place while Stronzo fled into an elevator just at the end of the hall. Once the elevator door had closed, I was freed from the constraint, though not-so-much 'freed' entirely.
The neighboring elevator's door would open, revealing the two from earlier! Jen and Steve stepped through the door and into the hallway. "Ayyy, if it ain't that annoying bottom feeder of the rejects!" Jen would say, placing her foot in the middle of where the elevator doors close so it would be kept open. Meanwhile, Steve walked forward to greet me
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"I don't believe it, you actually followed us, Slippy! That's some crazy guts for someone like you to pull off."
"You're right.. I was actually pretty scared to follow." I said while clenching a fist. "I would have probably done the same thing I always do, but you guys crossed the line of what turns a coward like me into your worst enemy. You made the mistake of killing what were the only people that made me feel like a human... but you guys neglect to see that and instead treat me as a monster.
"So if it's a monster you want..." I then lit my body back up to its full strength. "...then let's start this monster cage match!"
"Oh my god you are so acting like a stereotypical anime protagonist, I am cringing my ass off right now!" Jen rolled her eyes with a nonchalant laugh. While Jen seemed to not be taking my power seriously, Steve was quite the opposite.
"I never recalled you being this strong. Maybe that is how you beat Tetsu... then again, he was less strong than he was impossibly fast.
"Alright then, if you insist on fighting, then let's see how well Sora's pet goldfish can dance." Steve then raised his hand, then singularly waved it towards him. It was the camera from earlier! It had trailed behind me this entire time with a transparent ball attached to the camera.
Before I could even adjust my guard, my white sports bra would suddenly get singed by the laser. My body jumped at the smell of scorched cloth. This, however, wasn't the only one I had to worry about...
Steve then waved his other hand, camera after camera piling out of the elevator. There were not two, not three, not four, but ten cameras with lasers attached to them! I could only back up slowly in intimidation while I counted the sheer number of them.
"We were preparing for you rejects well in advance. Perhaps you recall that note they gave you? A note from The Boss themselves, what a high honor! It was a note that promised you your inevitable demise by our hands. This entire evening was planned days, no, weeks in advance! It was planned the day you first went to that run down homeless shelter that traitor stayed in!
"One of our colleagues tasked with finding the escaped Sora had his cameras out near the homeless shelter on the day he went there to hide. While he was assembling his rag-tag group of rejects so he could try and take The Boss' throne, we were plotting this whole set up so we could watch them grow, before showing you all the exact reason why we are the strongest beings in the world!"
"Everything, you planned everything?!"
"Yep! Fifteen weeks allowed us plenty of time to make more of these neato laser cameras Mr. Taro's son has been making. Stronzo was nice enough to extend our training time too. Truth is, Jen and I were letting ourselves get beat so we could take advantage of Sora's ego, then let our beloved sniper take care of him.
" 'Teamwork makes the dream work', as they say. I-35's dreams are coming true, are yours?"
"Hopefully..."
"Ay Stevie, quit it with the monolog! Now both of 'ya are sounding like cringe-ass anime characters!" Jen cut in. It was one of the only times I appreciated something from an I-35 member. With the monologing over, I now focused on the ten laser cameras that were getting ready to chase after me.
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"Speaking of anime characters..." I slowly started to say, looking at each of the cameras and counting the amount in my head.
"What?" Both impatiently asked while I paused to count the cameras.
"... your shoes are untied!"
Humorously enough, both had fallen for it! Both looked down at their shoes while I made a sprint for it, giving me a slim time frame to get a head start on the hovering cameras.
Steve jerked his head up in a mix of fury and confusion, shouting: "HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? WHAT DO MY SHOES HAVE TO DO WITH ANIME?"
"Probably because they're trash" Jen snorted with a small chuckle.
"... you know what? Fuck you, Jen!"
Meanwhile, I was already at the end of the hallway and moving around the corner to the next. Once I got around the corner, I threw my back against the wall so I could get a good look behind me. As I expected, the cameras were shortly trailing behind. These cameras traveled in a group, huddled next to each other in one big body. This was so when they fired their lasers of highly concentrated light, their beams would combine into a laser ten times stronger than just one of theirs.
I had to think of something fast to weaken that great beam of death. My eyes then darted down towards the ground. An idea! I proceeded to shove my foot into the floor, then kicking up one of the floor's tiles, and then booting it at the huddled cameras. It wasn't particularly effective in dealing with all them, but it stalled time so they would let me get another head start.
Luckily I was able to take one out with that tactic, but there were no promises about the rest. If these somehow managed to pierce through Sora at his highest strength, then I was still dealing with a death machine!
I was also lucky enough to have charged my Ki already, so my extra power let me begin to pull away from the chasing cameras when I got to the longer hallways. Though I was capable of increasing our gap, no matter how many winding hallways there were, the cameras were still within firing range. I had to shake them off someway, or else my inevitable fate would be turning into swiss cheese! That idea of losing them was becoming increasingly difficult when my body began fatiguing from prolonged usage of Ki. Not only did I have to find a place to go, but I had to find one quickly.
"Where are you... where are you..." I muttered while I looked left and right down each hall. Something to hide inside... ("Oh... crap.") After running through three hallways, it soon hit me that there were no things to hide inside. The classroom doors were locked and the hallways were emptied way ahead of time. Wait... that was it!
I was able to find a vent on the ceiling, then bursting my way inside with my remaining strength! The vent was cramped, I had to hug my arms to my side while I squirmed my way around. If I was able to fit, that surely meant the cameras could. If they tried to group together though, it wouldn't be very effective without cameras trailing behind their fellow cameras and risk blowing each other up with their own lasers.
This at least meant that I could breathe! Metaphorically at least, but physically I was beginning to feel the effects of the claustrophobia I never knew I had. I hated being in this tight and cramped space, but it was the only place I could go where the cameras wouldn't, and since those cameras couldn't follow me, they had their own plan of finding me:
Destroying. Literally. Everything.
From the vent I could begin to smell the foul odor of burning plastic, scorched paper, and hot metal. All nine of the cameras were grouping together to burn large holes through the brick walls. Their one big laser split the classrooms of an entire hallway in half, the outside being visible from the hole!
After terrorizing empty classrooms, they moved down another hallway and repeated the same tactic, splitting entire walls in half and leaving large holes exposed. Meanwhile, I was still a sitting duck inside the vents and on the verge of another panic attack. My squirming increased, my body trying to move through the vent so I could locate somewhere where the cameras wouldn't be... the bathroom!
In reality, I knew they would have to look in the bathroom some time or another. These guys were nothing like Light Guy who valued privacy and pride over fighting. These held no values nor morale, these were fully fledged hunter-killer drones! They might even have been in the bathroom already, I had no way of knowing until I looked. Until then, I was pleading for it to be untouched.
"Please be empty, please be empty, please be empty, please be empty, pleeeaaaaaase–" I then looked down at where I expected the ladies bathroom to be... lucky me! "YES!" I exclaimed.
I had stopped using my Ki whilst I was in the vents so it could recharge, which meant I spent a lot more time inside than I wished. If I used Ki anyways, I would have risked accidentally using too much power and end up tearing apart the vents. Now that I was at the location I was aiming for, that didn't matter anymore!
I tried to move my hands so I could bust open the vent door below me. "Come onnn..." I tried pulling a little harder, my force instead just causing a dent on the wall, which wasn't the spot I wanted to damage at all. "Well crap, my arms aren't gonna move!... goddamnit, Miyuki, you're gonna have to use your head for this one." I said before proceeding to headbutt the vent door open.
The cameras hadn't noticed me slipping inside the bathroom, despite them being just across the hall from me. If I made any more noise though, their attention was guaranteed, thus why I did the most obvious solution to this dilemma:
"Alright, come here, you!" I would yell while gripping the sides of a toilet, before tearing it right out of the floor! ("That had to have gotten their attention...")
To my fortunate discovery, the laser cameras had begun to move towards my general direction. I stood at the edge of the bathroom, my back still pressed against the wall while I awkwardly carried this toilet in my two hands.
My feet along with the rest of the floor were getting soaked with the spewing gross toilet water, it was hard to both not gag and stay hidden. All I needed was to stay for a few moments longer and then I would be able to attack...
Just a minute more...
("What are they doing?") I then turned my head around the corner to get a glimpse of where the cameras were. ("Oh no") they were looking right at me!
All nine of them were floating in front of the bathroom and with their lenses pointed right at my location. They were there the entire time when I was expecting them to search the area.
Well crap... I was left with no other choice.
"IIIIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!" I suddenly screamed. I bolted right out of the bathroom, carrying the toilet above my head while I proceeded to scream like a madman! Then... I threw it! "EAT SHIT, CAMERA MAN!"
BULLSEYE! I TOOK THEM OUT! Or, some of them at least. Their numbers were reduced from nine to seven. How I revealed myself kinda gave away what I was going to do, so they adjusted before the toilet could take all of them out. Seven was surely better than nine. If this were a test and all ten were a perfect score, their group now would only be 'average'. Average or not, seven was still a lot and I was about to get fried if I didn't move! I continued to try and bolt down the hallway to flee from them once more, not exactly wanting to test the strength of seven laser cameras to see if I could survive it or not. I would have ended up figuring that out anyways when the cameras caught me just at the end of the hallway, blasting their lasers right for my back!
("GAGH!") I said in between clenched teeth. The heat from these lasers were insane, I could smell the scarring scent of my own burning flesh coming from my back. To my pleasant discovery, that was only the worst it could do with my level of strength. To save my back any further damage, I stopped in my tracks and spun around, holding my arms up in an "X" formation to block the laser from hitting any vitals. It didn't seem to care about hitting vitals anyway, the lasers choosing to not adjust their aim. Their lenses were solely focused on just piercing through me...
Their lenses...
My arms felt like they were on fire. The light made a slow yet painful progress of impaling through my arms. They couldn't cause any instantly vital damage, so I had time to act against them. I just needed to know what to do.
"Ngh... this really hurts, you know!" I would say while my arms were slowly tiring from holding up the X form, which could be further noted by how they were slowly dropping. My energy was getting increasingly lower despite giving myself a few moments to recharge. Truth be told, it would probably take an hour before I regained my full strength if I were to give a rough estimate. If I were lucky enough to have a snack, it could be even shorter. I had neither time nor food here though, so I was forced to stick with this misery and fatigue. At last the inevitable came: my arms gave out, which would hang limply to my sides.
"Dodging light... yeah, not really a smart decision. I don't know what I was expecting there by doing that... but..." I would start with mutter, then smirking confidently. I suddenly raised my hands before bringing them far apart from each other, then slamming them together at full force with all of my Ki put into the blast. "I DON'T THINK YOU KNEW WHAT YOU WERE EXPECTING EITHER, DID YA?!". The clap was far stronger than I expected it to be! Their lenses would have instantly shattered from the sound wave! It would be highly unlikely that no one but me heard that sonic clap. Jen and Steve were likely to be the first to react, so I had immediately left to chase after them before they could escape. I was free to chase them anyways, because now the cameras had no way of seeing me, which meant they couldn't chase me!
"WHAT ON EARTH WAS THAT?!" Steve shakenly shouted.
"I DUNNO, BUT IT AIN'T GOOD!" Jen responded before making a sprint for the stairs.
"WAIT, WHERE ARE YOU GOING, JEN?!" Steve would shout before running after her.
"NO WHERE!" I yelled from behind them. They weren't escaping this time, I was promising myself that. I would have rather died than let them live another day as free criminals. "WE ARE NOT DONE YET!"
"THERE'S NO WAY SHE SHOOK OFF THOSE CAMERAS!"
"AND THERE IS NO WAY YOU'LL SHAKE ME OFF EITHER!"
We all blitzed down the halls with every amount of energy we could muster. I was barely keeping pace with Steve and Jen, but that was all I really needed anyway because I had the help of some 'old friends' that would be waiting for Jen and Steve.
There in their suited glory, the SAT troop stood in the middle of the stairway in their formation, rifles pointed directly at Jen and Steve and blocking their access to the second floor.
"OH YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!" Jen yelped before suddenly getting pinned by two SAT squad members. Just one of the Ki users was far stronger than every SAT member combined. Despite that being the case, it seemed like Jen had just given up. If they were going to give up, then I felt pretty good about the police being able to handle them.
"Have fuuuun!~" I teased while giving my last goodbyes to the duo. Now that, to my knowledge, they were taken care of, I turned around and walked back into the third floor. I didn't want to watch very long when I knew very well at least two, no, three people were still left in this building. "Come out! Stronzo?! Other guy?! I know there are more than one of you left!"
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