Run From That Gun Smoke

At the original scene of the explosion, the Correctional Advisor and Officer 1060 stood on the opposite side of the cafeteria to a sobbing Bloom and a comforting Alex. They paid no notice to the two who, moments later, would threaten their lives.

“Where is he?” The Advisor turned to 1060.

“Where is who-”

“WHERE IS THE PINK HAIRED BOY?!” The Advisor screamed with the utmost frustration.

1060 looked around the room before turning back to the Advisor.

“It appears he’s escaped with the general crowd.”
“Then go find him!” The Advisor’s eyes widened with anger through his mask. 1060 took a step back before collecting himself.

“Y-yes sir.” The Officer darted off into the crowd, looking for Hendrix with a furious desperation.

“To make my sister’s killer stutter over his words… How strong is this Advisor?!” Alex thought to herself as she tried to calm Bloom down.

“MILO!” Bloom continued to sob over and over again, her fingers clutching a piece of Alex’s jacket as her head hung lower and lower.

The Advisor looked around the room to see if anyone else was left at the scene.

As he looked towards one of the corners of the cafeteria, he saw Hendrix, frozen in shock, eyes locked on Milo’s mutilated corpse.

“Oh… Haha! You poor sinner.” The Advisor wagged his finger as he began to walk towards the pink haired boy.

While the Advisor advanced on Hendrix, 1060’s pursuit tore through the panicked crowd, creating a storm of steel and screams that drove the rebels toward the courtyard.

Officer 1060 ran through the crowd of rebels, trying to get a sight on Hendrix.

In anger he slashed at running residents, bloody wounds splashing at random as he kept his stride.

“TARO WAKE UP!” A familiar voice echoed down the hallway. Kai looked around the panicked crowd, trying to find the source of the scream.

The crowd had now made it to the middle of the compound, running around the circular path that surrounded the doors to the courtyard.

“Taro?!” Kai yelled down the hallway.

“Kai!” Chase called back to him from only a few feet away. It wasn’t his brother, but he was still relieved to see his friend.

They got to each other in front of one of the windows of the courtyard, with their attention immediately shifting to a still figure in a window on the other side of the courtyard.

Like a wolf in a herd of sheep, Officer 1060 stared at the two from across the courtyard. Kai’s eyes widened as he recognized the Officer from that day in the shopping district.

“C’mon Chase, we have to go-” Kai’s hand was grabbed by Chase, who kept eye contact with 1060.

“No… We can take him.” Chase’s words shocked Kai to his core. At the same time, it gave him a surge of confidence that he hadn’t felt in a while.

“I’ll be your hero.” Chase took a deep breath as he whispered to himself.

The two boys stepped through the glass doors and into the courtyard as Officer 1060 did the same.

“Where is your friend? The one with the pink hair?” Officer 1060 wiped the blood off of the dagger in his right hand with his left.

“Like I’d tell you.” Chase put his hands into his hoodie’s pocket as Kai took a big breath to prepare himself for what might be going down.

“Sigh. I’ll get the information out of you, even if it costs your life.” Officer 1060 took one step forward, leaning into his step as he manifested another dagger in his once free hand.

“You’ll pay for what you did to Mr. and Mrs. Frewin.” Chase spoke calmly.

Officer 1060 lunged forward, forcing both boys back.

1060 grinned in silent victory as he swung both of his arms back, ready to close them in order to decapitate one of the boys.

Chase, who had kept his hands in his hoodie’s front pocket this entire time, pulled two pistols out, beginning a blitz of bullets heading straight for the Correctional Officer.

1060’s eyes widened as he reflexively blocked each bullet, having to manifest a constant stream of daggers to replace the ones that were being shot out of his grip.

To both of the boys' surprise, those small blades seemed strong enough to ricochet the bullets away from the Officer.

“Shit. This won’t be as easy as I thought.” The Officer thought to himself as he jumped off of the nearest wall, resetting his position away from the two boys.

“Chase, that was amazing! We could actually win this!” Kai felt like the weight of impending death had been lifted off of his chest.

“I know.” Chase’s already confident demeanor became stronger. His posture straightened as his head hung high.

“Just hold on, guys. I’ll be there in a minute.” Chase spoke to his friends in his head as he tossed both pistols into the air, conjured fresh magazines in his palms, snapping them home as the guns fell back into his grip. A trick he had learned from watching Milo’s VHS tapes while he trained his manifesting techniques.

Kai, who had once seen his friend as someone to protect in a fight, was now beginning to idolize him.

“Don’t get cocky, rebel scum.” Officer 1060 grit his teeth at the calm and collected demeanor the boy with the guns gave off. He remembered how he cowered in the van the last time he had encountered him, and now this?!

Chase began to empty his magazine once again, raining bullets onto the Officer.

1060 once again went on the defensive, manifesting daggers only for them to be shot out of his hand by bullets.

Kai began to rock up and down in victorious excitement.

“I… I want to help!” Kai thought to himself. He couldn’t just sit back and make Chase do all of the work.

Without warning, Kai dashed forward, closing the distance between him and the Officer.

1060’s peripheral vision followed the black blur of Kai’s clothes.

“Kai!” Chase already knew the danger his friend had put himself in, but he didn’t have time to react.

1060 moved in the opposite direction of the side Kai was coming from. Without thinking, Kai followed the Officer.

Unbeknownst to Kai, 1060 had baited him into walking directly into the stream of bullets from Chase’s pistols.

“AH!” Kai tumbled onto the floor, only a few feet away from the Officer.

“FUCK!” Chase’s face twisted in frustration and fear.

1060 jumped into action, heading straight for Kai, who still lay on the grass.

Chase was able to catch the Officer, shooting a couple shots to keep 1060’s attention on him.

“You’re all pests. If you want to play the long game, let’s see what you can do up close.” Officer 1060 began to close the distance between him and Chase, snaking back and forth to throw off the boy’s aim.

“Shit.” Chase mumbled. He reloaded his pistols again, immediately shooting at the sprinting Officer.

He wasn’t able to threaten 1060 with a single shot. It proved nearly impossible for a shooter at Chase’s level to keep his aim steady on a snaking target. Chase’s eyes began to widen as Officer 1060 got within only a few feet of Chase.

“Shit. Damn it. What am I going to do once he gets in melee range?” Chase panicked inside his mind.

“Gotcha.” 1060 whispered to Chase. He manifested a sword in his right hand as he swung it backwards, ready to bring it down on Chase’s neck.

“I’ll have your head hung up on my wall.” 1060 grinned a sadistic smile.

Suddenly, 1060 felt a sharp blow to his side, sending him rolling away from Chase.

Chase looked to where the force came from, to find Kai holding his shoulder.

“Kai! Are you alright, dude?!” Chase examined Kai, trying to find any other gunshot wounds outside of his shoulder, which was only bleeding a superficial amount.

“Yeah. It just hurt bad.” Kai’s words could almost make Chase laugh. He sounded like a little kid who had just fallen off the slide at recess.

“Let’s handle this.” Kai nodded towards Officer 1060, who had gotten onto his knees.

The Officer slammed his fist against the grass-covered dirt.

“Damn it! To think I would have so much trouble with dissenter brats.” The Officer cursed himself repeatedly.

“Are you done pouting?” Chase called out to the Officer, which only made him more furious.

“For real, though. We need to come up with a plan. Neither of us can afford to get hurt again.” Kai whispered to Chase.

“Shit. Me? Planning? We might as well surrender.” Chase grew frustrated at the thought. Kai noticed his reaction.

“We can think of something. We already have the upper hand.” Kai reassured Chase, who nodded and retreated into his thoughts.

“Think, Chase. If Akilah was here, what would she do?” Chase tried to remember every detail of the last time they trained together.

“Something… Something with guns… What has Akilah said about guns?!” Chase scanned through his memories until he remembered something.

About a month ago:

Chase, Akilah, Amora, and Vida had just learned how to channel and localize Spirit with Bloom in the gymnasium while Kai, Taro, and Hendrix sparred with Alex in the courtyard.

Akilah had just unlocked the key to activating her mode by channeling her Spirit into her brain.

Chase raised his hand after he had tested the maximum reach of her Mode.

“Yes, Chase.” Bloom turned her attention to him.

“If Alex just moved her Spirit into her arms to block that guy’s bullets, how the hell did she block them? Bullets don’t get through Spirit? How doesn’t Spirit block bullets in a regular person-” Chase’s barrage of questions were interrupted by Bloom, who chuckled at his inquiries.

“Alright, alright, Chase. I get where you’re coming from.” Bloom continued to chuckle at Chase’s confusion.

“I feel like Jessica could explain it better.” Bloom looked to Jessica, who then looked up from her clipboard for the first time in a while.

“Oh! Well, when Spirit is inside your body, it moves through your veins like blood. A person who hasn’t trained in Spirit at all has a very low Spirit signature, which means that their Spirit is already dispersed very thinly through their body. So when a weapon that has no Spirit at all stabs them, their Spirit is not strong enough to do anything about it.” Jessica scratched her head as she tried to put it in simpler terms for Chase.

“But, you kids have been training your Spirit for a while now. Just by practicing channeling your Spirit into your hands, you’ve already increased your levels. But, that doesn’t mean that you’re just immune to regular weapons now. All Spirit users still have to localize their Spirit to the area they are getting attacked from. I don’t know of anyone who is alive today that has high enough Spirit signatures to be immune to regular weapons in a base flow.” Jessica adjusted her glasses as she tried to confirm her answer in her head.

“Localized Spirit beats every non-Spirited weapon. According to Alex, you guys saw it first hand when Hendrix fought the Correctional Officer in the shopping district. When the Officer’s knife clashed with Hendrix’s wooden guitar, instead of just cutting it, the guitar exploded into pieces. The only thing that can beat Spirited weapons and Spirit users is other Spirited weapons and Spirit users.” Jessica sighed as she finished.

Present day:

“So that means… Um… That… Spirit beats Spirit…” Chase tried to connect the pieces in his head, completing the puzzle at ten percent the speed that Akilah would have done it.

“So? What’s the plan, dude? He’s getting up now!” Kai tried to rush the answer out of Chase, which actually worked. Chase’s eyes widened in an “Aha!” moment that he had never felt before.

“Spirit beats Spirit!” He repeated in his head as the pieces of the puzzle connected.

“Could you keep him busy for just a minute? I swear it won’t be longer than a minute, just don’t let him find out what I’m doing.” Chase put his hands on Kai’s shoulders as Kai nodded back in confirmation.

They both nodded to each other, then shifting their focus to the now standing Officer 1060.

“You’ll both bleed under my boots by the time I’m done with you.” 1060’s menacing grin was replaced by an even more menacing scowl.

Kai took a deep breath as he assumed a running position, still keeping the pressure on his shoulder.

“I’m your opponent right now!” Kai exclaimed as he sprinted towards 1060 at full speed. Kai went for a lightning fast kick, which was blocked by the Officer’s forearm.

“Alright. Let’s see if this’ll work.” Chase whispered to himself.

He knelt down to the grass as he began to manifest something.