Citywide Trouble in Seaside Tokyo

The kid’s shriek was the last thing Pisha remembered. She heard it just before the windshield came flying at her. Or, she might’ve come flying at it instead.

She peeled her eyes open. The street was blurred behind a film of dripping red that glued her lashes together. Blood dribbled down her muzzle and onto her lips, tasting equal parts ash and loose change.

The blast had destroyed everything. A smoking crater gaped where she’d just stood. Flaming cars and motorcycles laid strewn upside-down, wheels still spinning.

No, it was worse than that. The blast had destroyed everyone, too. A bloodied hand was pinned under a chunk of debris, their cardboard sign still attached. Mangled bodies, protestors and police alike, littered the street like busted action figures on a bedroom carpet. Bats sat wedged in a dent on the brick wall, cracked cinder blocks scattered at his feet.

Pisha had seen her fair share of corpses in the loading bay, but those protestors had been alive and kicking just minutes ago. It was a whole different kind of morbid.

Jagged glass shards stabbed at her spine. She wrenched her arm out of the windshield, scraping it against the shattered edge. The crowd’s panicked shouts faded back in over the ringing in her ears.

Anma stood in front of her. Blood and dust smeared her uniform.

“Move!” she shouted, waving at the remaining civilians.

Her fingers were clutched around her bloodied side, and her pistol levelled past the crowd and towards the crater. There, the young boy cowered in the rubble, hands clasped over his ears.

“Anma!” Pisha half-shouted, half-wheezed.

She dragged herself forwards, rolling off the dented hood of the van and onto the asphalt. Glass shards dug into her skin as she landed.

“Nngh—Wait.” She gritted her teeth and flung a dislocated arm around Anma’s ankle. “You… You can’t shoot him.”

The glass popped out of her flesh as her skin braided itself back together.

“Are you insane?” Anma’s pistol whipped towards her.

“He’s just a kid!”

“Look around you, Pisha. He’s an Othered!” Anma swung an arm towards the rubble.

Othered. She said the word like it was some sort of slur.

Her cracked glasses slid down her muzzle. She was always so professional and so put-together. The sight of her in that ragged state made Pisha’s throat run dry. Or, that might’ve been the dust and debris in the air instead.

Pisha gritted her teeth and hauled herself up, using her teammate as leverage.

“Who cares!? Just… Let me try talking to him,” she said.

Anma’s eyes flicked between the child and Pisha, before finally lowering her weapon.

“…Go. You’ve got one minute.”

Pisha nodded. She let go of Anma and limped forwards, her left leg dragging against the road behind her.

It sucked. It all sucked.

After dying repeatedly, she should’ve been used to the ache of a broken limb. But the pain was just as intense as the first time she’d died.

“They don’t pay me enough for this.”

She cursed her shitty moral code as she reached a bleeding hand out towards the boy.

He sat curled up in a ball and shivering in his sweater. She’d seen scarier things in PG-rated movies. How could anybody look at him and see a monster?

“Look. You don’t want to hurt people, right? We can help—”

…Huh?

The words disappeared from her throat. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. The air pressure around her dropped, lurching like a rickety elevator speeding towards the bottom floor, pushing at her ears.

She took another step forward, but her sneakers hit the cement without even a scuff. It was just like a couple of minutes ago

A bullet plunked quietly into the ground beside her.

She whipped back. Dozens of police officers crouched behind a wrecked police car, their guns trembling at the ready. One of them raised his hand without a sound and their barrels lit up with silent flashes.

At the same time, the child opened his mouth.

Instantly, the boy’s screeching and a volley of gunfire pierced the intersection. The air rippled and distorted, and an invisible sledgehammer of wind slammed into Pisha. It sent her and the speeding bullets hurtling into the air, her outstretched arm twisting ninety degrees with a boney crunch.

Her stomach lurched as the city flipped one hundred eighty degrees. Just as gravity pulled her down towards the concrete, a rough set of hands caught her waist.

“Got’cha.” Bats smiled.

He clamped his arms around her.

They thudded down onto the intersection, Pisha cradled between his arms like a dollar-store princess. Blood streamed down his grinning face, evaporating as it beaded to the ground.

She looked him over. “You’re in worse shape than me.”

Suddenly, a taxicab barrelled through the air, aimed straight for them. A glimmering chain whipped around its chassis, and the taxicab warped out of existence, replaced by a small pebble.

The rock pelted Bats square in the forehead.

“Grkh,” he gasped.

Across the street, a chunk of debris hurtled towards a policeman. He flinched, arms raised, only to open his eyes to nothing but air.

Anma’s voice buzzed into her earpiece. “See anything up there, Pisha?”

Her voice was breathless as she sprinted behind cover a block ahead. She wiped the sweat from her brow with a forearm, keeping both hands glued to her pistol.

“Fuck. Maybe,” Pisha muttered. “Shut up and let me think.”

She winced as her mangled arm whipped back into place.

Think, dumbass. The swordsman’s ability had rules. The kid’s had to have them, too. All she had to do was figure out what they were. Easy enough, right?

Bats set her down surprisingly gently. Then, he unhooked a machete from his back.

“Fuck it.” He lunged forwards. “I’m goin’ in!”

Idiot!

She leaped, grabbing his wrist and sending the two of them toppling to the asphalt.

Right on cue, a third shriek pierced the air, blasting the pair dozens of meters backwards. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around Bats, and they rolled and skidded across the concrete.

Her uniform scraped against the ground. The jacket tore and shredded off until exposing the vertebrae of her bare spine. Bats’s machetes clattered down the road.

She groaned, rolling over face-up. Skin crawled across her spine until her muscles were sealed up again. The ordinary afternoon sky had become thick with enough smoke, dust, and debris to hide the sun.

So that’s it. She spat a tooth onto the asphalt.

When the kid shouted, everything got blasted. But right before he shouted, the space around him went quiet. It only took three painful-ass blasts for her to get it.

Bats fumbled for his machetes. “The fuck was that?—“

Pisha tried clamping a hand over his mouth, but for some reason, he bit into her fingers.

“Ouch, moron,” she whispered. “It’s sound! He absorbs sound!”

The kid was absorbing the sound, then blasting it out.

She punched Bats’s chest as quietly as she could manage.

“Oh.” He frowned. “My bad.”

No wonder the kid was so strong, though. A noisy protest, smack-dab in the middle of Tokyo? It was a match made in heaven.

She tapped her earpiece. “You got that?”

Static warbled through the speaker.

“…Got it,” Anma buzzed back.

Bats helped Pisha to her feet. She’d taken the brunt of the last blast, but Bats had still caught nasty bruises all over his body.

“Focus. I’ve got to get to him.” She grabbed his shoulders. “For real this time.”

The pair set their sights on the Othered just ahead. For all they knew, he could already be charging another attack.

“You sure?” For once, Bats sounded serious.

She bit her lips. “As sure as I’ll ever be.”

Bats slowly nodded. He scooped her up, slinging her waist over his shoulder. A red mist swirled beside him and coiled around his arm.

“Batter up.” He pressed one of the metal braces into her hand.

“Wait, what’re you—“

“By the way, you taste like blood.”

Before she could finish her question, Bats planted a foot in front of him and launched her with the professional strength of a pitcher seven runs down and eight innings in.

DUMBASS!

The city smeared into streaks of grey as she turned into a human cannonball. The breath rushed out her lungs. Dust and fumes surged in. She couldn’t scream even if she wanted to. And she definitely wanted to.

The child’s eyes widened as she came barreling towards him. He turned to scramble out of the way, but it was too late.

She slammed into him. Her arms snaked around the back of his sweater, her fingers still clenched around the brace.

From the corner of her eye, Anma ducked out from her cover.

The kid’s jaw twitched. He opened his mouth to scream, until…

“Caw!”

Suddenly, the ground disappeared from beneath her. Fresh wind rushed at her face.

The pair was somehow hovering twenty meters in the sky, Pisha’s arms still looped around the boy. A flock of swallows beside them squawked and flitted their wings in panic. Their feathers brushed against her muzzle. Violet particles glittered and fluttered in the air around them.

“Head’s up,” Anma buzzed.

Then, they fell. Wispy clouds raced past their faces as they pitched towards the rippling blue surface below. They were right above the river.

You’re supposed to say ‘heads up’ beforehand, bitch.

Ice-cold water slammed into them, swallowing the pair whole. The chill stung at Pisha’s skin, rushing into her ears, plastering her clothes to her body. The rushing stream drowned out the sound of birds and the wind above.

The kid opened his mouth, only to choke out bubbles that rushed towards the surface. He thrashed back and forth in her grip.

Can’t scream in here, huh?

He pounded his fists against her chest.

She wrenched a hand free and snapped the metal brace around his throat. The clasp clicked shut and he gradually went limp between her arms, his limbs drifting in the current.

Her blood cascaded out behind them as they plunged towards the riverbed. The waving red ribbon dyed the current as it spiraled upwards.

When the kid was unconscious, he wasn’t so bad.

She cradled him with her right arm as she tried paddling up with her left, but the boy was just too heavy. Her legs kicked uselessly underneath her.

Lungs beginning to burn, she gripped him tighter.

I wonder…

Her fingers rustled his soaked hair as the pair sank. Above them, white rays of sunlight streamed through the river’s roof. They danced and shifted, like staring straight through the jumbled lens of a kaleidoscope.

At least down there she didn’t have to deal with the Director. No more of Anma’s orders or Bats’s weird questions, either. And no more bigoted protesters, samurai abductors, or even school bullies.

How unfair was that? That the only place people like her and the kid could find peace was on the ocean floor.

I wonder… If I can still drown.

Right as her vision began to dim, a figure tore through the rippling water’s surface. Bats.

The rays vanished behind bubbling waves as he dove towards them. He tried shouting something, only to hack up foam. His fingers hooked around Pisha’s collar, and he pulled upwards, his arms straining against the current. The three of them soon shot up to the surface, the afternoon sun momentarily blinding her.

“Blegh!” Bats spat out water.

Still clutching her jacket, he paddled towards the riverbank. He tossed the boy and her onto the muddy grass before collapsing onto his back next to them with a sigh.

Pisha’s eyes drifted shut as the three laid there for a moment. The air was freezing against her damp clothes, blades of grass tickling at her skin. At her side, the kid snored peacefully. The water lapped gently at the shore.

It usually took a minute for her brain to switch from dying to realising she was still alive, but at least she was still alive. And the kid was, too. That had to count for something, right?

Do I always have to be the bait, though?

She finally spoke up.

“I don’t taste like blood,” she said. “Your mouth probably tasted like blood. Idiot.”

Bats thought for a second.

“Ah. Makes sense.”

She cracked an eye open. Just like last time, a figure stood above her, blotting out the sunlight.

Anma adjusted her glasses.

“Not bad,” she said.

Pisha let out a short huff. “Thanks, Glasses.”

“…I'm not responding to that.”

Pisha smirked. “You just did.” She paused and glanced at the unconscious boy beside her. “What happens to the kid, now?”

Anma’s lips twitched into a frown. She turned away, her face shadowed by the glaring sun.

A faint siren approached the riverbank, building until it blared over the current below. Tires screeched and car doors slammed shut as a red light flashed over the shore.

“Anma?” Pisha sat up.

Shouted orders trailed in from above. She turned and spotted white hazmat suits swarming the intersection. A staffer stuffed a woman into a plastic body bag and zipped it shut. They tossed the bag aside, and it landed in a pile of zipped-up bodies that looked more like a landfill than a crime scene.

It wasn’t long before one of the black vans swerved down the riverbank. Four staffers hopped out of the backdoor and onto the shore with a muddy squelch. They marched towards the kid beside her.

“It’s better you don’t know,” Anma said quietly.

* * *

Intercity Excursion Force, Case File #06

Ability: Silence.

Description:

Ambient sound waves within a 5-metre radius are absorbed, transformed, and released as omnidirectional, concussive bursts.

Limitations:

Output strength is directly proportional to the decibel levels of the surrounding environment.

Charging period is significantly extended in quieter environments.

Effectiveness is compromised in high-density mediums or vacuum-like environments.