The Turn: Chapter Twelve

The Turn

Chapter Twelve

~The Driver~

Three Years before the Turn

Naru shifted slightly. He opened his eyes. His vision was blurry and all he saw the basic shapes of people and he heard nothing but an annoying ringing in his ear that dominated any other sound that he would hear. He worked his way up to his hands and knees. His vision was improving but not by much. He saw an old man sitting a few seats from where he was located. The man looked like he hadn’t moved at all.

“Kid,” he said, his voice was distorted.

Naru squinted as if it would help his hearing. He gripped his head; he had the worst splitting head ache. When he withdrew his hand, his hand was covered in blood. He looked around not quite understanding the situation he was in. He looked toward the old man again.

“Hey kid,” the man stated grumpily, “your window is closing.”

“What?” Naru asked groggily.

“Your window,” he replied, “It’s closing. I’d get a move on if I were you. Kids nowadays.”

He looked to where the man was pointing and suddenly it all came back to him. Naru got to his feet. He knew he had to get through the wall in order to…to…okay, he hadn’t exactly figured out what he was supposed to do after that but he knew getting through the wall was a good start. His entry was getting smaller and smaller by the second. He staggered down the steps clumsily. Something inside of him knew he couldn’t make it in time but another part wasn’t about to give up. He made his way slowly down the steps. The whole stadium was calling his name but there was one in particular that seemed to stand out.

Deontay shifted uneasily as he watched Naru stumble down the stairs. The hole in the wall was getting smaller and smaller. He called out Naru’s name again.

Naru was about halfway but the wall was small enough that running wouldn’t have made a difference.  He needed more time, he needed a way to stall the closing or even just make a new hole. An idea seemed to be niggling its way through Naru’s foggy brain. He reached for something on his arm, a sai he remembered it being called. Holding the sharp point, Naru prepared to throw it toward the closing window. For a moment, he tried thinking about the rate at which the window was closing and the trajectory but his brain hurt too much. He decided to go with instinct and a ‘this feels right’ plan of action.

He threw the sai and it spun end over end. The crowd all seemed to hold their breath. Suddenly the sai stopped halfway through the window with the handled end on the inside of the fighting arena. There was a pause as people tried to figure out what had happened. Technically, the wall hadn’t closed because there was a something preventing it to but on the other hand was that kind of ingenuity allowed? There were murmurs of confusion in the crowd and Naru merely walked up to the edge and tapped on the wall. In exhaustion, he laid his head down on the small ledge.

Deontay looked up at the sai. He stomped his foot and a tall pillar of rock rose to the height of the sai with him standing on top. He risked a look down, turned out that wasn’t such a great idea, and then looked ahead at his target. The wall, it seemed, realized that it wasn’t a human limb that was preventing it from closing fully but a weapon and was doing its best to cut through the sai. Deontay took a step back before talking a running jump of his rock toward the sai. He gripped the handle. His weight was enough to drag it down through the wall creating a rip large enough for Naru to get though. Deontay landed on the ground just as the sai snapped in half. He gripped Naru by the shoulder and dragged him back in to the arena.

“Hey, you alright man?” Deontay leaned his friend against the inner wall.

“I’ve never felt better,” Naru said slowly, “Who are you again?”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” he held up four fingers.

Naru squinted, “I don’t know, a billion? No, its 42 isn’t it. 196? 73, it’s got to be 73.”

Deontay raised an eyebrow, “Sure, Naru.”

“Who’s Naru?”

Deontay patted him on the shoulder, “You’ll be fine. Just hang in there.”

“Okay,” Naru muttered.

Zara smiled, a wave of relief washed over her. It looked like Naru was going to be fine other than a hit in the head. Suddenly, she was overcome with the feeling to duck. Zara bent her knees as a sword sailed above her head. She turned quickly and saw that Simon had gotten a hold of one of her katana. Zara stepped back avoiding another attack.

She heard something slid toward her feet. Zara looked down from the corner of her eye to see one of Chaud’s swords within arm’s reach. Simon thrust the tip of the blade at her. Zara bent back into a back flip. Her hand fell on the hilt of Chaud’s blade and then flipped to her feet. She blocked Simon’s next attack. He attacked her repeatedly so that Zara had to take several paces back. Zara tripped over a rock and fell on her back.

Simon smiled, “Told you, you were going down.”

Zara felt for the button she knew was there on the sword. She felt the weapon transform and the look on Simon’s face changed. Zara raised the gun and placed Simon in the line of sight.

“You care to do the math again?” she stated before firing.

Simon vanished and so did the remaining members of his team. The volcano collapsed in a wall of dust and smoke. Zara lay on the hard ground. She sighed and placed the gun to one side. Chaud filled her vision just as she did so. He looked down at her and offered her a hand. She grabbed his arm and pulled herself to her feet. Chaud looked up into the stands.

“That was work,” he stated.

Zara looked at him, “What did you think this was? A walk in the park?”

Chaud shrugged, “Just saying, that was a lot of work. Imagine how real missions will be like.”

Zara stared at him for a moment, “Chaud.”

He looked at her and smiled, “Yeah? Ow!”

Chaud rubbed the back of his head where Zara had just slapped him. Zara, arm still raised above her head, stood there for a moment as if deciding something. Slowly, she nodded to herself.

“That felt unbelievably good,” she concluded, “I should do that more often.”

Chaud looked at her with shock, “No, you shouldn’t do that more often! That hurts!”

“I think I should,” Zara said with finality, “Either that or a punch in the face every time you get on my nerves.”

“Fine,” Chaud muttered.

Zara put her arm down and walked to where Naru and Deontay were sitting, “I can’t believe I didn’t do that before. It’s a great stress reliever.”

Chaud followed after her, “No, no, no! It isn’t. Because that are what stress balls are for. Stress! Hitting people is anger management! I know a great counselor. Great guy! He can help you with that anger issue in two weeks flat! Hey! Are you listening to me?”

“I know I’m not,” Hina stated as she walked toward her brother as well.

“Is she ignoring me?” Chaud asked in dismay. He ran up to her, “Are you ignoring me? As the one receiving the hitting and the second in this group, I think I deserve a say—”

Up came the hand as fast as lightning to the back of Chaud’s head. He sighed, crossed his arms and closed his mouth. Zara on the other hand couldn’t help but smile. She wished she had given into the temptation to hit him sooner. It would have saved a lot of stress on her part.

IOIOIOIOI

Somewhere Else

The engines of a private jet shut down as it stopped on the runway. A limo sat not too far away, the driver and a guard; both dressed in a black suit and sunglasses, stood waiting near the vehicle. The surrounding area was bleak and rainy by the ocean. The airport terminal was merely a small building to store the plane after its flight. It looked like the location was on a small private island.

The plane door opened and the retractable stairs extended to the ground. A man walked down the stairs briskly and with a slight skip in his step. He held a pink umbrella in one hand as he walked toward the limo and the two people waiting.

His blond hair was to his chest in the front and to his lower back in the back. He smiled easily as it was his job, that and to lie. His blue eyes spotted the limo. He walked, almost skipped, toward the two serious men.

“Hullo!” he greeted the taller of the two, the driver. The man only came up to the drivers chin.

The driver bowed his head slightly, “Greetings, Master Scar. Shall we be on our way?”

The man smiled, “Yes, lets! It’s so good to be back home!”

The driver bowed again and opened the back seat. When Scar was seated comfortably, the driver walked around the limo to the driver’s side. The driver had short black hair and red eyes. Some of his hair fell over his right eye. His pale skin seemed even paler with his black appearance and attire. He opened the door and sat down. The guard sat in the passenger seat beside him. The driver glanced in his rear view mirror before starting the limo and driving off.

“How are things in the New Order?” Scar asked.

“There seems to be a bit of a snag, Master Scar,” the driver said as he drove.

Scar looked at him with interest, “Is that so? Why?”

“In order to make the Maiden we need a certain metal that is currently under close guard at a military facility in the United States.”

Scar rolled his eyes, “Then have someone barge their way in.”

“It isn’t quite that easy,” the driver continued, “No one seems to want to accomplish such a feat.”

“Then bribe them,” Scar said sarcastically.

The driver’s shoulders rose and fell but he controlled his temper. When he spoke next his words were smooth and sweet like honey, “There have been rumors that if we attempted such a thing that we might be placed on someone else’s radar. And as I remember, we agreed that it was better for our operation to remain unknown until such a time that we choose to reveal it.”

“Alright then, whose radar will we be on other than the United States government?”

“As far as I was able to obtain, there is this unknown organization called the Tower. Apparently, no one knows where this origination is located but it seems to have a lot of influence in the world.”

“Boring!”

“We don’t think it’s boring,” the driver seemed a little forceful, “The information could be valid or it could be a rumor. Either way I think we should look—”

“Exactly driver! They could be useless rumors! Send a team out in tomorrow morning,” Scar said in a way that ended the conversation.

“As you wish, Master Scar,” the driver nodded.

Scar looked out the window, “I can’t believe I came up with the New Order! Everything is coming along nicely! What do you think, driver, about the New Order?”

The driver smiled, a hidden addenda hidden in his red eyes, “It will usher in a new form of humanity. What isn’t there to love?”

Scar smiled in response to the answer, “Yes, what isn’t there to love indeed.”